Harder Is Not Better — The Fitness Advice That Is Destroying Your Progress | Mind Pump 2966

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You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we had people call in who needed help with their health and fitness. We get to coach them live on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 55 minutes long. Now, in this intro, we talk about the biggest lies in fitness that are holding you back. We talk about nutrition, of course, exercise. We also talk about current events in family life. If you want to be on an episode like this where we can coach you on air, send your question to MPLifeCaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Keon. Today, we talked about their essential amino acid supplement. Both Adam and I have been trying to get leaner, so we're in a calorie deficit. We're both using their essential amino acids, and both of us are noticing we're holding on to more muscle than we normally would. Now, here's the deal with essential amino acids. 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If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. You're trying to get in shape. You're trying to get lean or build muscle. You're trying to improve your fitness. Unfortunately, there are lies that are so prevalent in our space that they're probably holding you back. These are widely believed lies. Don't trust them. And if you're falling for these, you're losing gains, and you're not progressing. Here we go. Did you see the team? I don't know whose idea that was or not, Dylan. There's like five clips of you on the same kind of rant or discussion we had the other day. No. I didn't see it. Yeah, yeah. It was over the weekend. That's why. Oh, I didn't even check. And they did like five in a row of you. I think they probably did it because several of them are getting shared like crazy, and one of them is along these lines. I know you have walking up here, but it was one of the topics around that. Oh, I got to check it. By the way, for people watching, listening right now, Justin's not here because he's sick. So this will be just Adam and I, which means we're going to talk a lot of physique stuff. He quit. No, we fired him. He got a job at Planet Fitness. Now he's not feeling good. All right. So these are, you know, I picked lies that are so, um, they're so prevalent or so destructive because they feel true and there's some truth to them. I think the worst lies in any space, uh, in any area are the ones that have some truth in them. Right. Um, and so, and these are, and that's these ones right here that we're discussing. And these ones right here are some of the ones that hold people back the most. And I'm referring mostly to people who are consistent. So if you're being held back from your fitness, cause you're not working out because you're eating terribly. Uh, and you're just not consistent. Well, you know what the problem is, but if you're really consistent and you're frustrated and you're plateauing, or you feel like you're going backwards, that is a really difficult place to be because you're putting the work in. You seem to be doing everything differently than you were before. And maybe you saw some initial progress, but now nothing's happening. And that's the most frustrating place in the world to be. There's nothing more frustrating in fitness than putting in hard work and seeing nothing in return. Um, and oftentimes it's because one of these here, and I'll, I'll give you the first one, which is harder is better. Like when it comes to fitness, the harder you work out, the better results are going to be. This one's really difficult to combat because there's some truth with this, right? When you work out, when you train your body, there has to be a certain level of intensity that gets your body to adapt and change. Otherwise it does nothing. Uh, or should I say it doesn't do much because activity does something always, but it doesn't do much, right? If, if my body's going to build muscle and get stronger, if it's going to improve its endurance and stamina, if it's going to become more mobile or improve its flexibility, it's because it's been challenged to do so there's a stress and it needs to adapt to that stress. So intensity is definitely an important factor, but harder is not always better. And sometimes harder is worse. Sometimes this is exactly what keeps you back. I think one of the hardest parts about this is, uh, how each of us perceive hard because when you first start, um, everything is kind of hard. Yeah. I mean, if you were on the couch and you weren't doing anything, uh, exercise wise, uh, and you first start picking up the weights, I don't care how light they are. It's so foreign. Your body's trembling and shaking. You feel the burn. You probably get a little, uh, exhausted heart rate gets elevated. You haven't done like, and so that's hard and it, and it feels hard. And so telling that person like, oh, you know, harder is better. Well, you know, it's like you, you haven't even perceived hard that hard yet. And everything you do is hard. And then you have other people who have been training pretty hard or relatively hard, uh, consistently for a hard time would say, that's not that hard. I always go this hard or I push this or I feel just saying, you know what I'm saying? So it's really, I think that's part of why also why I like having this discussion on a platform like this, where we can talk about the nuances of that. Because I think that a lot of people just don't understand what that looks like. I think there's a lot of clients. I mean, shoot, Corinne and I were talking this, this weekend. Um, her perception of a hard or a lot of volume or too much volume or too much intensity is really off. She's an incredibly, uh, consistent lifter and competitor at a high level and has been for many, many years to readjust her game. Yeah. So even, and she's a very knowledgeable, experienced trainer, but even her and even myself, the way the conversation started was I was sharing with her how wild it was, how much I was having to pull off, uh, the amount of volume and intensity I currently do just because the other stressors that I had, that I had introduced into my life, it was impacting, uh, my readiness to be able to lift again. And, and I'm also, you know, there's other factors. I'm in a calorie deficit. I'm, I'm, I'm training relatively hard comparison to where I was six months ago, even though it feels, uh, insignificant compared to where I've been before. So there's, you know what I'm saying? There's, this is a hard kind of target for a lot of people. It is. I remember when I first pieced this together, cause I've been doing this for a long time as a kid, right. I started working out at 14. And when you first get started, especially when you're a kid, um, as long as you don't hurt yourself, you kind of progress no matter what. So just the fact that you'll get stronger no matter what and progress no matter what. But I started plateauing pretty hard right around 16 years old. Um, and so it's like two years into it. Right. And it just kind of plateaued real hard. My body wasn't changing anymore. I'm still a kid, uh, you know, still changing, but it's just not changed like it was before. And, um, I, somebody convinced me and I had gone through at that point, the gamut of different training styles, high volume, going to failure, crazy intensity. I thought you always had to go super hard. Otherwise I'm wasting my time. That was my attitude. Yeah. Um, and then I had a group of power lifters, uh, work with me and they rarely ever trained to failure. They practiced lifts often. Uh, and it was a totally different strategy. Now that's not saying that power lifters don't train hard, but power lifting programming tends to be smarter than just going up and going out to the gym and beating yourself up because power lifters have to compete. They have to lift more weight. So they're, they're, they're much more objective. I would say then let's say bodybuilders who are judging themselves by how they look, which is much more subjective. You can be, um, over-trained in week and still win on a bodybuilding show. You can't be over-trained and we can go win a power lift. And so I started practicing certain lifts, uh, like they taught me. So don't go, don't lift a failure, you know, stop a few reps short, practice the lift, you know, just do, you know, uh, you know, five sets of three reps and it's kind of heavy, but you know, you could do something, maybe six reps with that. And I just started getting much stronger. And that's when I started to kind of realize that maybe the intensity I was applying before it was just too much too often. It didn't really sink in though, until I got into my mid twenties, because what would still happen is I'd still progress and it's still push the intensity eventually, uh, plateau. And I would play that game back and forth. It wasn't until my mid to late twenties where I started training kind of full body. So instead of doing a body part split where I'm doing no chest, you know, back shoulders and just blitzing each body part, I started, I read this book called dinosaur training. And then I started researching, uh, what, you know, lifters did at the turn of the century before steroids, before protein powders, before creating, and they were so strong and they all worked out full body. Now you can't beat the crap out of yourself, full body three days a week. You just can't. It's impossible. In fact, the first that's what I first did. I said, Oh, I'm going to do full body, beat the crap out of myself. Monday come Wednesday. I'm so sore. This isn't working. I had to naturally back off. The intensity made some of the best progress of my entire life, uh, by the way, which is, this is funny. This is in trainers experiences. Meanwhile, I'm training clients and I'd already figured out for my clients. I saw all my clients. I can't just blast you all the time because you're not going to progress. So I knew this for clients, for whatever reason, I thought my butt didn't apply to me. Well, you know why part of that is because you and I at that time are in our twenties. Yeah. At least that's what I think we probably thought we got away with, right? Like I'm training, I'm training a mid forties, 50 year old, maybe for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not for me. I didn't think that. I mean, I had two situations. Uh, one was, uh, I played a lot of basketball while I was also lifting and I was lifting seven days a week, sometimes double days on top of playing basketball. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I just cut my training like in half and it was really more because I was more focused on basketball at the time. I think I was getting ready to join a league and I'm like, Oh, I want to be more focused on this and lifting. So when I get more games in and I got stronger, I was like, well, this is weird. Cause I pull back. But then I still wasn't, I didn't, the light bulb didn't fully go off. It wasn't until I had this annual trip that I always did. And it wasn't until probably a couple of times in a row that it happened that I really was like, Oh, this is strange is I would be in a rhythm because I'm getting ready to go on this vacation where we go to a lake, you know? So, uh, I always wanted to be in shape. So I trained really hard leading up to that, that time. And then for 10 days I did nothing but eat crap and camp and no workouts whatsoever. And I would come back and your first workout strong. Oh, just so strong. Like, and I mean, like, this is so, how could I have like, I didn't eat good. I didn't train at all. And I'm, I came back stronger than what I was. And again, it had to happen a few times before I realized like something's going on here. And then over the, and I, and by the way, I still feel like I learned this lesson. So even though we're talking about our twenties, like when the light bulb kind of went off, I still feel like I have to, I'm reminded of this, you know? And this is why my, one of my favorite, uh, studies that you've ever quoted on here is the study where it talks about how, how minimal volume is required to keep the muscle that you've built. Because I have to tell myself this, like, so I'm on a kick right now. The signs are there that, oh man, my body may be a little over-trained. I didn't get good night's sleep. I decided to pay two hour and a half, two and a half hours of pickleball. Like maybe I should take the next couple of days off. Oh God, I don't want to though. I'm doing so good. And then I, I literally like, dude, Adam, I could take the next four days off and be fine. You can take a week off. Yeah. Be a week off and I'm not going to lose my gains. So what do I have to lose by taking tomorrow and the next day off? Like I have to have that conversation still today about that. And every time I listen, I, it pays off. That's right. And every time I don't, I pay for it. That's right. And by the way, that first one is like the second one, which is more is better. So harder is better. People also believe more is better. If some working out is good, more working out is even better. Um, and remember working out is not the same as activity, which we're going to get to here in just a second. It is good to be active. So, and this is where people get confused. You'll see lots of studies and data that comes around that says, you know, people who move more often are healthier. They live longer, they have better quality of life than people who move less. And so what people will equate that to is working out, oh, this means I need to work out all the time. Not the same. Activity isn't a stress like a workout is a workout is a workout activities. I'm just moving It's the opposite of not moving. So you have an office job a desk job where you're sitting all day long Well, yeah, your health is worse than somebody who gets up and walks every half hour or let's say a mail carrier Who walks all day long, right, but that's different than working out and the more is better and the harder is better crowd You know that a lot of that gets promoted on fitness media because well, there's a couple reasons one The people who get who tend to get the most attention in on social media are these kind of fitness fanatic Genetic freak obsessive people. Okay, the reason why they're getting the attention a lot of it has to do with how they look and they look Crazy part of the reason why they look so crazy is number one They've got really good genetics and that's 100% true you guys genetics play a huge role just like supermodels if you ever look at the Dimensions of a supermodel height their hip waist ratio the length of their limbs It's like they're aliens compared to average people. This is true for every extreme sport by the way basketball players football players genetics play a huge role That's not saying that these fitness fanatics don't work hard, but their genetics play who's a huge role Also, they're also fanatics meaning they've taken fitness outside of healthy into obsession Okay, so they're walking around at 7% body fat if they're a man or you know 15% body fat if they're a woman This is their life By the way That doesn't mean they're happier than you are The data actually clearly shows they're less happy than a healthy person who has a balanced life So but they get all the attention. Yeah, and number three when you're gonna post a workout I'm look I work in fitness. We have a podcast a little different, but we've been in fitness media for you know over a decade if I post a workout I'm Probably gonna post the workout that I want to post that you did good. Yeah, like oh cool PR You know deadlift or check out this crazy, whatever. I'm not gonna post 95% of my workouts where I'm kind of cruising. Yeah, because why would I post that? That's just this is human nature Yeah, so when they post their workouts, they talk about fitness. They display whatever you're looking at a genetic freak Who's also obsessed? Who's also gonna promote or post the workouts that they're doing that they want people to see and so the image is I? Got to be like that if I want to be fit and healthy if I'm gonna look good Nothing is further from the truth you guys what it typically looks like If you're consistent you're doing this for life is about 80% of your workouts are gonna feel more like cruising That's not saying they're not hard, but they're more like cruising hard and about 20% You're challenging yourself what tends to happen with people is 80% They're going as hard as they can and then they're forced to cruise 20% of time because they finally burn out That's the reverse of what needs to happen Well, I mean this is where the whole you know the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most change come from it's just Mike my goal obviously I want to progress everybody who's on this journey or this path of body composition change building muscle or losing body fat or getting in better shape or longevity is In in pursuit of progressing and getting better And so so long as I'm getting better Incrementally every single week like that's such a huge win And if I can do that with as little effort as possible I'm winning totally and and so and it's and it's hard to do because you want the there's a part of you when you're motivated and Everything's in the the time is right the day all the things are lined up You feel like oh, this is my chance to push harder, but pushing harder or doing more Doesn't result necessarily more results and you know, you talked about walking in comparison to training. Well, one of those is Restorative and the other one is another stress. That's right. Now exercise is a good stress It's a good stress because of the adaptation we get from it and if you can recover and adapt to it's a good stress That's right. It can become a bad stress. That's right. And that's the part I think that's important because we just assume that all exercise is this good stress It's like not necessarily like if your body is beat up wore down. You're under calored You're under slept. Then a workout is not a great stress It's a bad stress because your bucket is already over spilling and you're just stressing it out more You're gonna get little to the but the only benefits you could argue that you can still get from that workout or the mental beneficiary the fortitude right of When I'm really down and out and it's like that makes sense If you're going to war makes sense if you're a professional athlete who like that I mean, there's a there's a advantage to that the average person. No, you get up to go to work, bro You're not gonna have that. You're not gonna go kill somebody on on the battlefield You're not gonna have to go face Michael Jordan on the court Like you literally just got to show up to work that you do not need the mental fortitude To like when your body is dying to push through that to put a risk is too high Yeah, and then to put it differently your workouts should serve your life. Your life shouldn't serve your workouts So if you're a fitness fanatic obsessed, what ends up happening is your life? Orders itself around your workouts and all the stress in your life is saved for your workout So again, when you're looking at a fitness fanatic Everything they do is so they could stress themselves in the workouts Most people most people listening right now like you're like look. I want to work out. So I have a better life I don't want it to be my life. I'm not trying to work in this industry I'm not trying to and so it has to serve your life But if your workouts are taken away from your life if you're more tired at work If you're if you if you're not feeling good because you beat yourself up in your workouts You can't show up for your family. Then you're doing it wrong. The next one is walking doesn't count This was a this this one right here, man This one changed for me so big as a young trainer when I would ask people You know, what do you do for exercise and they'd say walking in my head. I'd chalk it off as nothing you do nothing Here's what's here. Here's the truth. Like walking is a wonderful form of activity for a few reasons one Everybody can walk with good technique still thankfully in other words It's something you can do often and you're probably not gonna hurt yourself. We can't say that for a lot of different forms of activity We're not in Wally world yet. Remember the movie Wally where everybody's cruising around on those Scooters so people can still walk and do so and it'd be restorative. It's a great. It's great for your health It doesn't stress you out. You have to walk a lot to create a lot of stress on your body So it feels good you don't need to change in a workout clothes And the data on it is coming out and it's pretty clear. You're taking eight to ten thousand steps a day Just that by itself dramatically improves longevity and reduces risk of chronic health issues And you can break it up throughout the day. You don't have to schedule it. So walking does count everybody walk In fact, if if if nobody worked out Okay, and if nobody in modern society's worked out but everybody took ten to fifteen thousand steps a day Oh, we would have huge health improvement that thing that they don't need to work out We're gonna be better to add to it. But if that's all people did by the way when you look at like You look at neighborhoods where walking is necessary because it's an old, you know design of a town where people have to walk everywhere Naturally and look at the data on it. They're healthier. They're less ill why I mean when I would go visit Family in Sicily and my family's from Sicily some old towns are some of the towns are so old They were made for horses and donkeys You can't even drive cars through some of these streets. And so I had this I've told this story before but we had this aunt Who lived in this really old town? We went to visit to go say hi to her and we had to park the car Down at the bottom of this hill and we had to walk up These like cobblestone roads to get to her place then we got there She buzzed us in we had to go up two flights of stairs to see her and she was at the time I want to say late 70s early 80s and she was like vibrant and spry and she's cooking us dinner She's got all this energy and man, but I'm now at the time I was a teenage boy and I'm walking up this thing I'm kind of getting tired out of breath, especially when you get up the stairs and I remember my dad saying in the car On the way home. He's like she's so Energetic he goes every day She walks down those stairs walks down the cobblestone road and goes to the shop to get her You know the her food and then she walks on every day. That's all she did. She don't work out and And that's the walking part So walking everybody it does count if you're inactive right now and you're you can't get wrapped around your head that you need to work Out and schedule work on it. Just start walking. Just start walking every single day. It makes a big difference Walking is one of my favorite for us to talk about and mainly because how wrong I was Anytime that we have an opportunity I think on the show to share paradigm shattering moments in our career or times where We thought we knew it all or thought we had it right and then I completely have 180 on that The same thing. I mean, I literally I could remember how crazy and ignorant I literally scoffed at people when they'd say no. No, I mean work out, you know Like when they fill out that part and it'd be like, what do you do for exercise and they'd say walking? Like no. No, I mean what it means is what exercise are you playing any sports? Do you lift weight like it was like how ridiculous and naive? Of me at that time and then I then I fast-forward say probably 10 10 12 years later The very first thing and I don't care who you are How young how old what your goals are? The first thing I prescribe is walking up Same is it is the the perfect place to start? Everybody no matter what the goal is. Is it getting getting them back into it because it is it's the most sustainable It's the easiest place you can you can you can stack it on other habits like with meals Yeah, or things that you do with your spouse meeting. Yes, you know, you're in a zoom call you can you could do it It's connecting. It's just go outside. It makes makes you go outside many times Oh, you know you touched on so many of the benefits and reasons to do it So I won't I won't just repeat all of them. But one of the things that I noticed A lot. This is also my personal Experience with just focusing on walking more and getting more steps You're and I use this a lot During the time that I was competing because I was hungry a lot And so when I get hungry, I'll be like, you know, I just I'm gonna go for a walk and just moving you're not eating Yep, so instead of actually not eat instead of consuming calories. I'm actually burning calories now It's not a ton of calories in comparison to hill sprints or lifting heavy weights and stuff like that But it is a moderate moderate burn and it's it's more than being sedentary We're more than sitting and if I'm doing really well on the diet and I'm eating in a deficit Then my body is just burning that much more body fat while I'm walking And so one of the things I did this is I had a treadmill in my house when during that time and Man, I'd be sitting there and I'd be like, oh man, I'm getting hungry But you know, I just go I now would put even on slows just move just keep my feet moving and keep walking It's just it's so good. It's so restorative recuperative for people it spurs creativity People, you know, I've heard a writer's block Again, it puts you outside connects me walking is the number one thing that I recommend now Which is so funny because I didn't ever recommend it before. All right, here's another one soreness Means you had an effective workout. This is actually here's here's the funny thing This is one of those ones where the opposite is true Yeah, when I would train clients early on I was always looking to make them sore It wasn't until later where I tried to avoid getting them sore and they got better results Yeah, so when I would train a client and I'd say hey, how do you feel today? You know, I'd text them. How do you feel today the day after we worked out or whatever? Oh my god, I could barely get up off the toilet. I oh I went I know I messed up I went too hard when they would say, uh, I kind of I think I feel something but I feel kind of good boom Right intensity. We did the right workout. That's what I'm looking for You should you you should or shouldn't I hate saying should about soreness, but you definitely shouldn't be super sore If you're super sore where it's affecting your movement and you're sort of the touch you went too hard You went too long period end of story. That's what that tells you Yeah, a little bit of soreness is okay. North. No soreness is also fine these days They barely ever get sore at all and I'm having some of the best workouts ever No This is an the way that the lifter who's been lifting for a while because this can be very different It's difficult for anybody to gauge but really difficult for someone who's brand new who is just learning but again back to the Advice that I always repeat which is goals to do as little as possible as to change you've done nothing Then one set of squats is probably gonna get you pretty sore one set of a movement, especially a compound movement It's gonna be enough it really is and and guess what next week go do two or wait two more weeks and then do two then like You're gonna get change change from that. But the the people that have been doing this for a really long time That's when I train and I'm like in there's always this moment in my workout where I'm like, oh, I'm feeling good It's like I should do another set and I'm I'm always it just just happened in the day with squatting and I felt so good Refed I had more calories been in a good rhythm got had taken two days off hitting squats And I'm like, oh man, I could just I could tell at 275 where that's right now I'd consider that a heavier weight for me. The bars just moving smooth and I'm like, oh man I want to just I want to go 315 now and keep going and pushing the weight and it's like I'm in it I know I'm in a I've been in a calorie deficit for weeks I know that that this would this would that would be a PR right now It's not necessary for me to do it if I can just accomplish what I did in the previous That's a huge win right now. I'm trying to just hold muscle and I know I'm not in it I'm in a devil. So the the conversation I'm sitting there having it's like and I didn't I didn't do it I didn't go and it's so difficult to do that. And the next day my legs felt really good. They didn't feel crazy sore I could feel that I worked him out and it's like that was the right amount for yeah Yet if I know for a fact that I put that 315 on I would have felt great in the workout because guess what? Oh that I haven't seen that on the bar in a while and that would have mentally felt good in the moment But then I definitely would have paid for it the next day and for what for that moment in the gym I'm not gonna get any better results from that I'm gonna get better results from now because then guess what I was able to do two days later I was able to deadlift. That's right. And I was a deadlift good weight Had I done that with this it would have hindered that and that's what people don't realize that 100% All right. Here's the last one that cardio is for fat loss Let me that's just not true cardio is for endurance if you want endurance do cardio fat loss comes from a calorie deficit Okay, and that comes from diet now when we're talking about exercise. What's the best form of exercise when you're in a calorie deficit? Well, you want to pick the form of exercise that preserves muscle because that's the negative That's the number one negative effect of being in a calorie deficit when you're in a deficit your body tries to Reduce muscle mass to meet the new caloric intake with a slower metabolic rate And so you want to do a form of exercise that preserves muscle, which is strength training, but cardio is for endurance strength Training is for strength diet is for fat loss everybody So don't aim for cardio for this magic fat loss effect If anything combining too much cardio with the calorie deficit is a recipe for more muscle loss Because endurance requires many cases less muscle and more efficiency So don't go running for fat loss run for endurance if that's what you want. That's crazy Controversy we still get over this and how many people want to argue this this point because of the calorie burn that you get It's so wild you're so far better off creating a caloric deficit By not consuming an extra 250 calories Then you are by trying to ramp up the intensity on the treadmill opposed to walking because if you took a one-hour walk Walk on the treadmill Versus a one-hour run on the treadmill the calorie difference in difference is maybe 250 calories, okay? Maybe yeah, maybe 300 if you're like. Oh really push it right. Yeah, we're 250 300 It is so much easier For me to not to dip the chicken nuggets and barbecue sauce at dinner It's so much easier for me to not throw the tablespoon of butter on my sweet potato It's so much easier to not go downstairs and have you know one of the ice cream sandwiches It's just so much easier to not do that than it is to try and burn that off and To your point with the when you would do something at high intensity like cardio like that You weren't it is not a signal for the body to keep muscle And if I'm in a quote-unquote diet, and I'm trying to lean out I'm in the game of trying to preserve as much muscle as I possibly can Walking doesn't do that walking does not go. Oh, I don't need this walking will not do that It's not intense enough for your body to go. Oh god. We don't need this muscle It'll keep it with that you do something like running or endurance type of training anything like that That's high intensity elevates the heart the heart rate over into that cardio threshold the body does not want to keep muscle It's going to go. Oh, this is not efficient for us to have this so why risk that why doing that when you're far better? Unless your goal is to have lots of endurance in which case different story totally But it's never it's always the fat loss people that we have to have this right now I mean none of us would argue that if you were if you came to me and said you wanted endurance Yeah, we're doing cardio. Yeah, you play a sport you play a sport, and you want to be good at that pure fat loss I'm like we're gonna do everything we can to keep muscle while we put you in a cow which is 80% of the people you Talk to you, and that doesn't mean to that Once I get you to your fat loss goal and aesthetic goal that I don't encourage us to do bouts of cardio Of course week it's good for you because I want some stamina Yeah Because that's gonna be and and by the way after I get you leaned out and the body fat percentage through walking and diet Right I get you to where you want to be and you're happy we're lean and then we go hey now I want to introduce. I'm gonna do it in a calorie surplus Yeah, where I'm less likely to get more endurance yes, you get more and endurance from it You're less likely to pare down muscle in that situation, and you get the benefit benefit to the cardio So there there is a time to do it, and there's a right way to do it Doing it for fat loss while you're in a calorie deficit is a dumb idea Yeah, all right speaking of fat loss and stuff do these the the essential amino acids game-changer clutch from keep from Keone So I've so for people listening so you and I have been in kind of a calorie deficit mode here for a little while I started mine off with the intent of just trying to eat when I was hungry and not like being so you know Scheduled my diet, then it turned into like let me get lean because I tend to be a little dysfunctional now. I'm like okay I'm trying to just like not chase it But I know I'm in a deficit because I know what it feels like to be in a deficit And and I think my body weight still coming down, but I've been using the key on essential amino acids consistently. Yeah It's bro the amount of muscle. I'm keeping With how little I'm eating And I know that I know my body. I've been doing this for long enough I know how much you know what it feels like to eat as little as I am right now It's keeping muscle on me like crazy I mean I tested it with the dexascan last year or the year before whatever it was and it blew it blew me away You know you bring those up. I I think I've ever I've always used the pills I actually started introducing the liquid to the powder tastes so good. Yeah, so you just put in your water. Yeah, yeah I I prefer the pills because I I keep one by my bed. I keep one in my training bag I've got one right here next to the pod when I'm podcasting so how many sermons you're doing today two three Okay, three at seven seven pills so and I try and do it in between meals Or first thing in the morning when I'm because I'm coming off being fasted I normally prolong my first meal So I'll do one or pretty early and then I'll do one probably mid, and then I'll do one later on Um and I and I keep the pills all there because it's so convenient easy if I just have that I don't have to mix I don't do anything. I just take the pills But because I've been so consistent with it and using it the other day I was in here working out, and it was between mills. Yeah, we got it back there anyway Yeah, and so I can I was like oh shit. This is good. Yeah, it tastes really good Yeah, so I'm messing with that now too, so which is which I hadn't done that yet, dude I gotta tell you bro. I had this I Had this hilarious up and down experience over the weekend, so It was on I want to say Saturday though Saturday morning We all get up, and we're doing our thing Jessica goes downstairs I go take a shower I come out and I grab like a pair of underwear from my underwear drawer right and I put them on and I kind of made a mental note because they were kind of snug It's like one of these a little tight okay like this feel whatever And I'm doing my thing and I'm in the mirror brushing my teeth And I look down and they looked like my underwear except they said Haynes on them Who's that hold on a second exactly said Haynes? So I'm like Haynes. I'm like I don't wear Haynes. I go. I'm like I work Calvin Klein So I go in my underwear drawer, and I'm like yeah, I do wear Calvin Klein None of these are like Haynes, and I'm like did I ever buy my I'm like no I haven't bought Haynes underwear, and I'm like did my wife, but I know there's only one pair so So that so you just start to get those little voices in your head like why is there another man's Why is it Only you could potentially mix up your underwear with The only person I know that could possibly put on his wives and be like no no no I don't wear this it could be mine. I haven't worn. I haven't worn this is like the Sicilian you know they're like I've been wearing the like the breeze so long so hold on a second, okay? So I'm like and I'm looking at them And you know there's like a little like a little stir inside of me like why is there a man's? Like is there another man's and I'm like you can't be it can't be away She's home with the kids all so I got this like going through my head like But part of me is like there's a party that kind of gets a little like what the hell's going on So I go downstairs, and I've changed out of them right they go downstairs, and I hold them up like what are these? She's like those are yours. I'm like no. They're not she's like yeah They are I said no, and I show her mine like I wear chemical these are so she's like that's weird What is that and so we're like going back and forth? I'm like honey. I gotta be honest with you. I'm like. I'm feeling like a little bad about this She's like what what do you mean? I'm like if you ever had a guy. She's like I can't believe you're asking So we're going back and forth and so now I have my niece that lives with us Which that could also be bad? I'm like did she have a guy over here without telling us? Like but she does her own laundry, and I'm like wait a minute Maybe it was our nanny. We told her our nanny that she could do her laundry with ours So she's texting her while she's texting her and I still have that little voice in my head right That's like another man in your house like what you know there's a part of me. I'm like holding it back Yeah, so I'm holding up the underwear and then the nanny text back and she goes wait What size are they so I look at the size, and I'm like medium, and I start laughing I'm like there's no way in hell my wife be hooking up with the Immediately Like I'm not tripping anymore say well like it's a medium Must be lead even get those on dog Put them on like oh Oh, it was so funny cuz in my head, I was like yeah, right Not even believable it was her it was the nanny's teenage son that she did her laundry and mixed it with our Bro You just brought it. It was so funny She's I'm like I'm trying to read the size you know cuz the nanny's like what size with I'm looking at my immediate immediate Well, yeah, right yeah You can be some little oh That's how I know my wife. That's better type. You know off-air We were talking about like we were trying to guesstimate because we had neither one of us has gone and done Dexter scan no I want to try and do one so we don't know where our body fat by the way I'm most interested in the bone density that I'll tell me I've never had a bone density test now Yeah, but I mean most interested just cuz you want to see how much you're winning. No I Let's be honest. I'm just interested. I'm gonna have crazy good probably I don't remember what I know mine was in the upper percentile It was really good, but I don't remember how how good it was yeah, Paris I'm just very curious, but like someone like you or I is gonna be I would imagine Because especially since we've we've always been in a surplus, and we lifted heavy weights like you're gonna have really really strong bones Yeah, I think most people that are our age that that that would suffer from that would be people that were Calorie-deprived calorie-deprived and super sedentary yeah, yeah the two of those that typically nutrient efficiency. It's not as common with men Yeah, yeah, but I just want to see because I'm just curious. Yeah Yeah, I'll have to look and see mine because I imagine you're gonna be as good or better than what mine is But I it's hard It's a little bit difficult for me to tell on the body because my physique is really different right now Due to all the injuries and stuff that I'm having to work around So like muscle groups that I normally would be a lot bigger and have more weight to them and so it's uh I hate to try and guess because I'm like I'm gonna be I don't want to play that game where I like go into it going Like oh, I think I'm this and then I don't and then that I happen That's happened to me too many times where that really I don't mess with me like I does for me, too Yeah, it's a I can you know it's great. I did an underwater way once that threw me way off, dude I thought I was leaner than I was when I did the under and I'm like my breathing out enough air and the guys like It doesn't make that big. Yeah, he's like it's point. He's like point five. Yeah, dude. I was like really Disappointed part of the reason is now there's areas. I know now myself. I think I'm better at it where I could tell the areas The way that they'll look when I'm a certain body fat or in a range of a body fat percentage But my body's a little interesting because I have and this is a genetic thing Some people's and you'll see this with bodybuilders some bodybuilders when they're on stage are all shredded all of them Some bodybuilders muscles look I get the term they'll use is clean and other bodybuilders have really straighted Kind of like looking muscles. Yeah, it mine always mine will look straight at a higher body fat percentages, which throws me off Yeah, it's like delts triceps biceps always have that straighted. Look. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know dude. I mean, I think that's years of You building a lot of really could be really good muscle. I mean, that's what I would I would attribute that to you I think when you when you've built a lot of really good muscle you can see a lot more Definition even at a higher you have any guesses for yourself what you think? I Mean, I hate to do it because I don't want to be mad when it's not right. And so I think Conservatively, I want to say in the nines Yeah is where I'm at and you know, you brought up the funny underwear story One of the things that will tell me that is like I get the elastic on my underwear gets loose Oh, and that's I normally the smallest waist. I gotta be have you seen this guy's waist? Look, I have yeah pretty lean to get the get that and then also what we did the other day with the weight belt When I the fact that I could even I didn't try to put it on if I could get it on to the second hole I was like, oh that's like I don't I've never gotten lower that now What I have working against me right now is my back and my chest are really small compared to what it normally is I haven't I mean, I haven't been able to push chest I mean be able to do a barbell bench press in a year and a half. What about back you can pull? Yeah, but I'm not pulling real heavy because of the hamstring injury that I got the last time. Oh, yeah I deadlifted 315 315 is the heaviest I've gone. Okay, so 315 is the heaviest I've gone on on deadlift and I've only gone to 285 on the squat. Have you ever have you ever done deadlifts like Who did him that way flex wheeler bodybuilder style So it looks like a powerlift deadlift, but the difference is you're pick it up No, you're when you come up you're squeezing the lats and when you come down It's like you're trying to activate the lats the whole time I mean, I kind of do that anyways because I might be I have that kind of background already Yeah, cuz I'm thinking about my my lats a lot. You're making it feel heavier. Yeah. Yeah, I've definitely I've definitely done with both, right? so my squats are so I mean that the positive side of both of kind of The I guess the the positive spin on these injuries that I've been nursing I mean I had the combination of the injuries, right? And then part of that is less about that. I can't do because I can lift I've been able to lift and they're not injured still But more so the lesson that I learned from those injuries of like I got to be really careful how fast I ramp up So I'm just key. Yeah, I stay out of weight for a really long time It gets really until gets really really easy before and as it gets even higher like I I Mean I'm right now. I'm I'm doing 90-pound dumbbells, but I can easily rep them for 15 But I'm a I won't touch a hundred So I just I key I just keep it so I so now now that 15s gotten easy at 90 I just kind of slow them down and do kind of an isometric at the bottom and instead of like now the temptation when I'm Repping 90s is like let's see. I mean normally if I'm repping 90s, that's like 110s 120s I can press for five But I don't want to mess with that with the the chest injury that I've had and I'm so I'm doing a lot of stuff Like that And I think where it's hurt me the most is I mean, you know about chest and back. Those are big muscles. Yeah, so That part is gonna throw me off and I can tell when I I look at my back that I'm missing some of that back thickness and so the combination of that with a My small waist would normally result in me being probably seven to nine percent right now But I don't think I'm I definitely don't think I'm seven if I had to guess I would say nine We have we have calipers here. We could we could do calipers just To see what those look like to get an idea, to get an idea. Also, you know, here's the thing too, is this just, again, uh, I've learned this before with clients. Body fat tests can be valuable, but also don't get hung up on them, dude. No, I've had so many people get hung up on the, what the numbers say on the body fat tests and oh my God, it's not in the right direction, whatever. And it ruins their whole day. It's like, man, 10 seconds ago, you were so happy with your progress. Yeah. And by the way, that would mess with me. Like I could go do a Dexa right now and I'm feeling pretty lean. The Dex is like, you're 12%. I'd be like, Oh, I'd be crapped out. That's part of why I'm, I'm delaying how long, cause I know I'd rather, I'd rather wait really long and be more certain than to be, do it too early. And then it messed with my, cause I'm in a good rhythm right now. I do know how I feel when I get below. Like eight. It, and I'm not there yet, but when I get below eight, uh, I am really, I'm food becomes obsessed. I start to think, Oh, so you, you think we're both pretty close then? I, I'm not that obsessive yet about food because it'll get there. I'm starting to dream about it. That's what I had a dream that I forgot what I was dreaming. What it was, but it was like, why is food? If it was like tacos, but still like food doesn't make its way to my dreams until something like that happens, which is where, Hey, but since we're talking about all this dieting and stuff like that, I did have some stuff. Uh, again, I'm trying to. Share on this journey as much as possible because, um, and I don't know how to explain the science. And so maybe you can help me articulate what I'm feeling. And, uh, and I'm reminded of that might be of help for others that are trying to do this. I notice that, um, first of all, I need to be low calorie for at least a few days. And, and, and, and again, my calories don't matter to anybody who's listening cause it's my body, so with that, but let's just say it's probably an 800 to a thousand calorie deficit per day. So it takes about three days of a thousand calorie deficit. Let's say before I can see I'm depleted all the way out. And at first, the listener that doesn't understand what that means. It's like our muscle bellies store, glycogen store, water, store, glycogen and water, right? Mostly fluid. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's mostly water and then basically carbohydrate glycogen that is stored in our muscle bellies. And so I've got to wait a couple of days before I can kind of like see it all deflate out. And then after that, it feels like every consistent day I stay in that deficit. Um, I get a tiny bit leaner and it takes a week of that to, to maybe even notice a difference and sometimes even see something on the scale. So the scale will hold, hold the line like it did for a while there. And then I'll, I'll slowly see myself, uh, lean out now from, from a scientific level, like, am I, am I burning body fat the entire time, even when the first calorie, the first thousand calories are down or do, do our stores need to be completely depleted before my body really starts to utilize fat as its primary source of fuel? Yeah. So technically, so, so we're going to really simplify the hell it is because, uh, human metabolism or a million, uh, metabolism is really complex. Okay. So this is like a super oversimplification, but yeah, you have to be, you have to have no more stored energy essentially before your, uh, uh, you have to be eating so low enough that your body taps into stored energy, and then it has to run out of stored energy in the form of glycogen before it starts to burn body fat, essentially. Okay. That's not entirely true. Uh, it's far more complex than that, but your stored glycogen, uh, your body's going to go into before it tries to go to its bank vault of body fat. Right. Like, so in other words, if you've got, uh, you know, you, we have our food that we're eating that converts over into glucose and we utilize as fuel, then we also have the fuel that are basically our reserve tanks, our muscles are holding and when we use up that food fuel, it then would rather use that reserve fuel in store and your liver and in your muscles, right? First, before it decides, oh, we got none of that. Now we have to use fat. Now that now this is again, an oversimplification because, uh, you'll see in studies, you'll see fat oxidation while you, while glycogen is being utilized type of deal. So it's definitely an oversimplification far more complex than that. But what you're saying from an experience, uh, level is totally true because here's the deal. Uh, and by the way, the reason why I'm saying this, why it's so important to understand is because this is why people then say low carb and no carb diets are superior because you have no glycogen. Yeah. If you have no glycogen, then you're going to burn body fat all the time. That's not true because you'll have excessive calories. You can still have excessive calories from a no carb diet, still gain body fat or not get leaner. Um, so the, but through the process, what you're experiencing is look, here's the deal, like when your calories are low enough to where you feel flat, they're probably low enough to where you're tapping into fat stores. Um, and so that's probably, and I experienced the same thing. Well, and the other reason why I bring this up, and again, um, this is a part of me that I, I get annoyed by the, the, the science side that wants to pick apart the way you or I are explaining this because I feel like you do a disservice to the person who's trying to figure this out and can't figure this out, especially somebody who's afraid of losing muscle because the person who's really overweight could care less if they feel flat or full or whatever, like whatever, but like a guy or like you or I who grew up, you know, feeling like we need to build muscle all the time and we're afraid to be skinny when you get flat, it sucks. You feel like you're losing all this muscle, but if you're trying to get really lean, you got to go through the process of feeling flat and feeling like you're smaller. Right. Uh, and you're, and because I used to fight that feeling, dude, and I would fight that feeling, not get leaner. Well, and me too. And here's, and here's the other thing. And even, even someone maybe not like us, who's afraid of losing muscle, even as somebody who, uh, is using like the mirror as a judge, then what happens is after I've been, so I, I was, I was down and depleted for weeks straight. So my body has this real kind of flat. Look, I don't look good. Um, but I know I'm burning body fat. I'm getting leaner. It takes a week before I even see one pound come off the scale, but I know, I know I'm leaning out, I'm leaning out. And then, uh, you know, a couple of weeks of that psychologically, I, I will always do what it's called a refeed, right? Intentionally load my body back up. And part of this is, you know, there's your calories go up and you're eating more as well. Yes. Yeah. So I'll go from like, I was at like, let's say 23, 2,500 calories is really low for me. Uh, and then I'll jump all the way up to say 3,500 calories. Uh, and I'll do that for a day or two. And that will normally fill all that back up again. And why I like to do this, uh, aside from some of the potential benefits of giving the diet break and then coming back and, and everything is that I get to see like, oh, okay, this is what I look like when I'm all filled up. And it looks better than I'm. I didn't lose all that muscle. And I know I didn't, you can see the fat loss more muscles get filled up. It's right. And then the exact skin tightens up, but even my abs are it. So I look better and then it's like, okay, cool. Then I'm back down. Now, here's where, why I wanted to bring this up is because in the past, what that would signal to me was that I was underfed so much I can't, and I need to feed the body more. And so I would stay at those high calories and I would, and then eventually those high calories is not only enough to fill me all the way up, but I'm probably getting a little bit of overspill and that overspill ends up getting stored. And then I go back the other direction. And so never getting super lean. I was, I was always afraid. The leanest I could get before, when I was afraid of being flat or, you know, that feeling and I hated it would be like 11%. I'd never get below 11%, but I finally was able to get down to like the single when I was like, I was like, okay, I'm flat. This is what it feels like. It feels like I'm smaller. This sucks. Stay with it. And then I would get even leaner before that was like 11%. I get scared. I that's scary. Not the right word. I just, I was losing too much muscle and I'd go on and eat like crazy. I do it for two reasons. I, one is the psychological effect. Uh, by the way, I will purposely bump my calories and bump my carbs and sodium for the exact reason you're saying, I want my muscles to be filled up with water. So I'll have a higher calorie, higher sodium, higher carbohydrate meal. Typically it looks like French fries for me or something like that. The second reason is the workout the day after feels amazing from us, from the pump. And so then I'm like, yes, this is great. I love this. And so I'll do the same thing. And it's typically two days, maybe three at most. And then I'll go back to, you know, that's the, the real art to it is being able to do that and then go right back. Yeah. Right. Is that, and that's taken years of discipline of understanding what's, what's going on in the body and not to be fooled by what you see and stuff like that. Is that, so I just did that. The, I had to, I, it took me three days though, this time to fill up, which is so rare and I think that has to do with my motility being slowed down and I just can't eat a lot. And so even though I was eating a lot relative to what I was eating the week before, it still wasn't what I used to be able to do back in bodybuilding days, bodybuilding days, uh, when I could, I could eat five, 6,000 calories in a day. No problem. Yeah, no problem. So within a day I'd be filled back up. I could see it. I get to work out the next day where I was like, I kept eating and I'm like, God, I'm still, I could feel it within hours. So this happened to me, uh, over the weekend. So I was, you know, we're using bodybuilding terminology, but I was depleted, right? Felt flat. Uh, and my wife, uh, is like, Hey, let's, let's order some, you know, some food from door dash or whatever. So I'm like, let's go with a five guys, burger and fries. I love their fries and they're hella salty. I ate them within an hour or two. I could feel, I felt different. I could see my veins coming out. Everything started to fill out. Like, this is so funny. Well, that's why I think you're, I think you're leaner than you think, because I feel like when I'm really lean, I have made this comment years ago. If you listened to the podcast long ago, when I was like really, really low, man, I, I could, I could eat anything and I would notice when you're that lean. Yeah. Yeah. You can just like, you can like, it feels like you could see it go through your body, which is such a, such a tribute. I was going to ask you, have you tried, uh, the victory super patch, uh, patches? Which one is that? It says victory on it for athletic performance. Oh, no. I know Justin has, I haven't tried that one for, yeah, dude. So now it's supposed to get better, better performance. So 10% increase in performance. They, they study from a stamina energy or from like a stability, like which, um, so from, uh, overall performance. So strength, um, endurance mostly. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So mostly endurance and stamina. So in the studies they did some pretty well, by the way, this is why, how we got convinced to work with super patch. Cause it sounds like magic, the most placebo crap ever. I'm going to be straight up. Like when they approached us and I saw these things and it said, you put this patch on and it helps produce this, whatever I immediately thought, oh, it's transdermal. There's some kind of supplement in this that gets absorbed in the skin. And then I read it and then there's nothing in it. There's no medicine. There's no herbs. There's no supplements. It's just the patch. I'm like, oh, placebo. Cool. We're not going to work with them. And they kept contacting us. And, uh, Katrina, who, who helps manage that department essentially manages it. I, she said, Sal, they're really interested. I said, if they show me really well done studies, then I'll consider it. And sure enough, they sent like a dozen peer reviewed, uh, placebo controlled studies and they showed an effect. Uh, the pain one was as effective as an NSAID. The performance one had a 10% increase in performance with division one college athletes. The sleep one had a dramatic improvement in REM stage sleep and people fell asleep fast. Which by the way, rivals all of your best supplements that are on the market for all those better, better than most of them, especially pain. There's no supplement that's as effective as an NSAID, but there's still their pain patch is as effective. So I read the studies and I was really blown away. Obviously talk to the owner and I was convinced to try it. And, uh, anyway, the victory patch, the, they studied them on, on D one athletes and they saw in 10%, by the way, for people listening to improve a D one athletes and performance by over 5% is pretty remarkable. Like to give people an idea of what would do that. Caffeine might do that. Creatine might do that. So if you take an athlete that takes no caffeine and you give them an efficacious dose of caffeine, so it's fresh, you'll see close to 10% improvement, uh, in important in performance, creatine is close and we didn't, we know how much those work, but he uses them, their victory patch does this. And so again, how, how does it work? Uh, it's, uh, it's a, it's this they're tactile and basically they communicate through the skin, through the ridges and it changes how the brain perceives certain things or how it operates. Um, and there's this whole story behind how the, the, the founder came to this and the, he was an engineer is actually a British engineer and the science that went into it and just the trial and error, but the victory patch is interesting. I've been using it. And so 10% is hard for me to tell, but to buy just by subjective. Uh, but I'm, I'm paying attention to how I'm, you know, like my actual numbers. And, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll get back to you. I'll have to try that one. I haven't tried that. I mean, I, I, the pain one is my go-to. I think you could tell. Yeah. My sister couldn't believe it. Yeah. She, she took the whole thing from me because she heard her. I mean, the reason that's why that's my favorite is because, I mean, again, you asked me, I didn't know you read all the studies. I don't read the studies. Uh, and you asked me, I was the first one to try it. And I felt like the way I described it to you. And then you were like, you literally gave the numbers of exactly what the studies say that it will take your pain. If it's, I had no idea, by the way, I had no idea what that, what, what, what they had said, you have a nine or a 10, it'll take you down to a six or seven. This is what you take. Ibuprofen you take aspirin. Everybody knows that it doesn't make it go away, but it makes it better. Yeah. That's what the pain patch does. Exactly how that felt. All right. So for the first time in mind pump history, we can now customize a workout program specifically for you. Look, we have well over 20 maps, workout programs, and they're awesome. They're some of the best we've sold hundreds of thousands of these programs, but they're not individualized to the individual rewrite them for an avatar. And hopefully it fits mostly the person who buys it, but here's the problem. They're just not as effective as a program designed specifically for you. We'll check it out. We now have the software and we have the training staff to be able to individualize a maps program for you. So John, if you're watching, you get maps, John, Susan, you get maps, Susan, you get the idea. So check this out. This is what you do. Go to my maps, program.com, fill out the questionnaire. And within a week, a trainer will get on the phone with you and deliver to you your own individualized workout program based on your goals, your fitness history, your injury history, the workout equipment you have access to. How many days a week? If you wanna work out, you get the picture. It's an individualized maps program for you. Go to mymapsprogram.com. Here comes the show. Our first caller is Anne from Massachusetts. Hi, Anne. How you doing, Anne? Hey, you guys, cheers from Cape Cod. How's it going? Good, how are you? Great, great. Hey, I just wanna echo all the sentiments on the live callers on what they say about you. I do particularly like the fashion tips that Adam shared with you, Sal, and you really received it well. So more content about that. And Justin, you look really good with glasses, so just some feedback from me. Oh, I haven't heard that. Nice, thank you. How can we help you? Nerd out. Yeah, so I don't really remember what I wrote, but I'm 65, and I just started strength training recently, but I've always been in the fitness world. I've taught aerobics and spinning, and I'm a yoga instructor. I used to windsurf, I snowboard and ski, so I'm pretty active, but I'm a cardio girl, and so strength training's really not something I love, but I've been doing it for a year now. I started a year ago with a group of women doing three days a week full body with some progressive overload. I should probably let you know my partner is a bodybuilder, non-competitive. He's got six to 8% body fat on any given day, and he's pretty intense about it, so I have that, but he's no pressure with me. He's really supportive, but I don't really listen to him, so I'm gonna listen to you guys, and he knows that. So you know how that goes, right? Yeah, yeah. So I've had some significant dysmorphia since I was really little. I grew up with the cosmopolitan culture of airbrush models and diets every week. Every Monday I would diet, even when I was 112 pounds. Now I'm 5'2", about 133 to 138. I'm very attached to a pair of surf shorts that I've had for 26 years, and if I can't wear them, I'm very upset. That's sort of my weight gauge, so there's a lot of mental connections to where I'm at. I decided that I really want to focus in on the next part of my life, being really healthy, fit, build my muscle, deal with some sleep issues, try to get my osteoporosis up to osteopenia. It's kind of gone back and forth, and I'm committed to strength training. So whatever you tell me to do today, I'm gonna do, even though I think you're gonna tell me to do reverse dieting, Adam. Justin, thanks for shaking your head, yeah. I agree, I agree. I'll tell you that I track my macros. I will be honest, I used to hover around 90 for my protein, but I'm consistently in the 130 range, so that's where I need to be. I don't eat red meat, so I do a lot of fish and protein drinks and yogurts and things like that. But I do take HRT, testosterone injections, six milligrams every 10 days, estrogen, progesterone. I take RETA, three milligrams every week for food noise, and it also helps me make choices around food. And I eat really well, like my nighttime snack is a Siggy's yogurt with some blueberries. You know, I eat pizza once in a while, but I make really good, healthy choices. So there's no binge eating, or I don't eat fried food and things like that, typically. I guess what I'm trying to say is my calories have always been around 1200 to 1400, and my partner Seth wanted me to do reverse dieting, get up to 22, and I said no, because I just don't wanna not fit into my shorts again. Last but not least, to give you a little bit more perspective, I did a DEXA a year ago, and the last time I had my calipers done was many years ago, and it was in the mid-20s. And the DEXA a year ago came up 37% body fat, so I freaked out. And I had it done again after doing, I would say like six months of strength training, and it was only down 36. So I didn't talk to my partner for a week, I was really mad. And so that dysmorphic kind of attitude is really prevalent. I guess my goal is to have a healthy relationship with my body. I'm sick of talking about my weight and my body. I want to understand a program that's sustainable. I also wanna hear what you want me to do about a diet. So I think that's enough for now. Yeah, well, thanks for calling in, man. Doug, if you could go back to her email, because I have your email in front of me. Is it okay if I go through it a little bit? Yeah, for sure. So it says, obviously, you've been in the fitness world for a long time, and you've done a lot of activity, a lot of cardio based activity. And then you added strength training to the mix. Did you take anything away? Well, I don't windsurf anymore, and that's not ski season, but I power walk every day, and I used to run marathons, half marathons and 5Ks. So I'll start that up again a little bit, but not as much as I used to. So I'm still walking and strength training, and I do yoga. When you added the strength training, did you take anything away? No. Okay, so that's part of the problem. The other part of the problem is you're eating way too little. And so the osteoporosis, osteopenia, the fact that you eat so little, work out so much, and it's really hard for you to get leaner is precisely because you're underfed and overtrained. And you can keep pushing that button. You could try exercising more and eating less, but you won't get any leaner by doing that. You'll lose more muscle mass and bone density by doing that. So if we want to, if you really wanna get out of this place, you're gonna have to do the scary thing, which is eat more and do less exercise. Okay. So right now you're doing the, it says power walking and sprinting two miles every day. We gotta cut that way back. Walking is okay, no sprints, no training for marathons. No. And then even at walking, do you track your steps? Like how much are you doing? It's not that much. It's between eight and 14,000. Okay. Okay, so that's a big range. Yeah, yeah, I'd say eight to 10 is good. Yep. Eight to 10 is good with strength training and reverse dieting. And we need to boost your metabolic rate and your metabolic health. We need lean muscle mass to give us some room to help with the fat loss, because we have no room. Someone as active as you are eating 1,600 calories a day, like where do we go? If we go any lower, right now you're surviving is what's happening with your caloric intake and your activity. And you're resilient because you've been doing it for so long, but what you're experiencing is nothing's happening. And the bone density issues, even though you've been so active, because here's what typically would happen with somebody like yourself, who's been in the fitness industry for years and years and years. You would not see bone density issues. You would actually see phenomenal bone density. But the reason why your bone density is a problem is because you've underate for so long. And there's no amount of strength training that'll fix that if we don't feed you enough. That's right. So my question for you is, I'm gonna tell you something, man. What I just said, you've probably heard before, maybe your partner's told you, you've heard us talk about this. Easier said than done. For someone like yourself who's done this for so long, my hope in your success is significantly higher if you work with a coach. Because the reverse diet process, the reduction of activity process is gonna be the scariest thing you've ever done in fitness. Yep. Period. And you may gain some weight to get right off the gates. You will, but let me tell you what's positive about this is that you can gain weight on the scale and your body fat percentage go down. And you're in a position right now where that should be the main focus. So if I was coaching you and the scale did go up three or four pounds, I really don't give a shit. As long as we're building muscle, that's the main focus for us because I can bring you back down, but I gotta build you up first. And we can't cut down from where you're at currently right now. And just to give you just the brass tacks, this is not a three-month process. So this is not like 90 days, fix my metabolism, go back to what I was doing before. You're looking at about a year. So you're looking at a year of a reverse diet cut, reverse diet cut, coaching process, build muscle. But at the end of that year, you'll have a body that responds like you've never seen before. Where you're like, wow, I'm eating all this food, I'm exercising way less and I'm leaner and this feels crazy. It just doesn't make any, that's what it's gonna feel like to you. It's gonna feel like it doesn't make any sense. Like how is this happening? Why is this happening? How is this working? But it's about a year process. And I think with your background and what you've done and as long as you've done it, if you really wanna be like, okay, I'm gonna do this and I want it to work, having a coach work with you and change it along the way is your best bet. So, okay, I have a lot of questions about this. I'm in and I, again, I came forward here today, being vulnerable and wanting to talk about this. And I don't wanna get emotional, but I'm tired of talking about my body. I wanna love my body. I have my breasts, I have my liver, my kidney. I really have gratitude. I do red light therapy and I meditate. I'm really grateful, but this mental mindset, like, are my clothes gonna still fit or I'm gonna go up a size in clothes? You may initially, but at the end of this, though, is the best feeling, the best looking, the strongest body you've ever had. Eating more than you ever have. So you cannot, and that's why the coach, this is where the coaching piece is so paramount to it, is it will be hard, Anne. There's gonna be a week when you lean out to your coach and you're like, oh my God, I'm so frustrated or I feel this way or I noticed this. And they're gonna talk you off the ledge and say, we're doing great. This is exactly what is supposed to happen. And it's a process and I got you, don't worry. I expect, so expect that. Expect it to be more challenging before it gets easier and better. That's part of the, and this is why it's not as easy as us going, do X, Y, and Z and then sending you off and being like, go do it. Because we know the challenges that are ahead and having somebody step you through that is crucial. There's two parts of this that are gonna feel freeing to you. The first part's the hardest. Because what it sounds like you're saying is I wanna break free from these shackles. Yeah. Okay. So the first part's the hardest is to give it away. And so with a coach, you just go, you're in control. Tell me what to do and I'll just do it. I don't care what happens. That's literally the attitude you're gonna have to have in the beginning. I don't care what happens. You do it, I'm gonna let go. If you can do that, you're gonna feel very free from doing it. Now the second part is much easier. Once you start to see your body work, which will take a little while, once you start to see things work, then you're gonna feel very free because now it's confirmation. Wow, this is working. This feels amazing. This is so different. So it's a two-step process, but it's probably gonna take between nine months to a year. How long am I on a reverse diet and then when do I start a cut? So that's the part that's so hard to map out for you because this is where the coach and you will have to determine that. So if I'm coaching you through a process like this, I may say, okay, the next four weeks, I'm gonna slowly, incrementally move your calories up. Now my goal is to take you all the way through that four weeks, watch strength, watch how we feel, watch all these things. Now you may get to a point on week two or three where you're like, you break down, I can't handle, and I have to give you a diet break. And I go, okay, let's pull back for a week and then I'll push again. So that's what the process looks like. There's not like this perfect formula of this many weeks you're gonna do this and this many weeks. It's like, our goal, my goal is to get you up to eating 2,600 calories one day. What? Yes. No problem. Yes, no problem. And with your activities. That's like Thanksgiving for me. You are an active woman. Yeah, no problem. You are an athletic, active woman. 26 on the low end, girl. That's right. 26 on the low end. If you told me you were stepping 2,000 to 4,000 steps, you're walking 8,000 to 14,000 steps and you're an athletic person that does sports. You probably never miss a workout. Are you kidding me? Like, yeah, 26 bare minimum. We're gonna get to, but that takes time. And what it might look like is we go up to. It's like a step up and down. 1,900 for a while, then we come back a little bit. Then we go up to 2,100 for a while, then we come back for a little bit. And so it's this stair-step process. And that's why Sal says to expect it to take a year because during that time, we're gonna have these times where I push you forward, pull you back, push you forward, pull you back. And then at the end of the year, we look back and we went, holy shit. I'm eating more food than I've ever in my life. My body is tighter than it's ever been. I'm stronger than what I was in my 20s. Like, that's what starts to happen. And then you're bought in. Then you're like, I'm all in, but it takes that time. Yeah, we ask you to trust us, but then we won't have to ask you again once you see it. So, all right, that's the diet part. So I've been listening to you for a year now and there's the push and pull and Adam, I'm really into this every day, 15 minutes. I have a home gym and I have up to 50 pounds of dumbbells, but I also belong to a really crappy chain gym. But where my partner is, I love his gym and I go once a week with him. So I have my home gym once a week and I can go to my crappy gym and I can go to his. So that's three days, but is it full body? It depends on what the coach says. Right out the gates, I think we, you know, MAPS anabolic might be good. MAPS 15 might be good. They're gonna customize it to you. It'll be much more customized if you work with a coach. Just make sure you really emphasize the rest periods. And I know that tendencies for a lot of people that do a lot of cardio is to kind of, you know, blaze through the workouts just like they would to get like that calorie burn and to really emphasize the fact that we're building strength. We're taking the rest of the time to build up, you know, that muscle mass. Okay. I love that you have a partner that's a bodybuilder and cause I have a feeling he's, he probably pushes you a lot in this direction. He's gonna see what you're doing and be encouraging because if he's a bodybuilder, he knows what it looks like. What's going on to go through that process and in the different phases of what I've seen him go through in fact You know our relationship suffered when he was on cuts Need to talk about that talk about an intimacy killer So I don't know how far back you've gone, but I sure I win when I went Competed and went pro we documented it on the podcast so I would know oh yeah Yes, you can go far enough back And you can see Adams journey to pro and I talk about on the podcast and one of the things I talk about my sex Drive going down and just I'm a crab and yeah, I know it's very it's a very selfish sport for sure They're very it is it really is. I'm glad you're talking about it because you know there needs to be a support group for us It takes a very special woman to stay by a guy who competes at that level He appreciates me, and he's really supportive, but I don't listen to him You know he tried to teach me how to win Snowboard, and I'm like no, I'm gonna go to somebody else don't talk to me about it But I'm gonna listen to you guys. I swear. I am I just I still feel confused, but I understand that the underlying concept That's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna have one of our coaches call you and they'll talk to you a little more in-depth of what that looks like worst case Scenario will send you a program so at the worst case scenario. We'll send you one of our workout programs But they'll customize all this for you, and they'll customize everything and they'll take you don't hold your hand through this whole process Yeah, and I'm not attached to my scale. I'm gonna take those shorts and put them somewhere You're already you are ready yeah good, and I'll see you if you end up working with our coaches I'll see you in there. I like to pop in here in there and talk to our client so all right great Thank you so much She's gonna have she she sounds like she's gonna do it. She's gonna have such a crazy experience Yeah, because she's been doing this for so long. Oh, yeah, it's my favorite now They're the most challenging too because it's really scary. Yeah, completely different than what they normally I love that she's got all the hormone stuff taking care of first Yeah, that would be a big step. Yeah, we'd have to probably because especially coming from you take someone like Anne Who's been doing this for that long? Because we're doing it that way for that long yeah, and you completely shatter their old paradigm It's a life-changing experience. It's like what is you can get over that hump. It's it's huge. It's magic transformative Yeah, no, I'm excited. I'm excited to see I mean she she sounds ready I mean she came on admitting that I came here to be vulnerable I said, I'm gonna take the advice and do the things and so if she commits to the the coaching and stuff like that I think that she'll be incredibly successful our next caller is Aaron from Tennessee. What's up, Aaron? Hey, buddy? Hey, how's it going guys? Yeah So a little bit of backstory. I'm just gonna read from the email that I sent to keep me on track I need some direction and how to balance my training load as a high-level athlete So my current state is I'm six foot two probably 183 under 84 pounds I Am a high-level athlete playing ultimate frisbee at the elite level Going to different national tournaments, and that's only I've been doing for about Ten years now I get really good sleep, you know seven and a half hours of sleep I eat about 30 or 3,000 3200 calories with about 230 grams of protein and then filling out the rest with mostly carbs and about 75 grams of fat I'm really active. I get about 12 to 14 thousand steps a day Not including, you know me playing in practice or pickup or anything like that I track my HRV and my resting heart rate. I have a whoops. I'm pretty dialed into that But some more backstory is Over most of my life. I was overweight just kind of was always the chubby kid Got up to about like 235 pounds in high school And then I was still pretty active in like college walking biking skateboarding and stuff like that But around kovat I had the realization that like I just didn't like how I felt I didn't like how I looked and it was just having a real impact on my mental health So I somehow found out about calorie deficits and tracking and that was my saving grace at the time I stuck to a pretty major deficit Eating around 1,600 calories Ended up going down to a really low body fat percentage. I mean, it was probably 5% or maybe a little bit lower And then strength training about five times a week. I felt terrible as you could probably guess And just did not perform well on the field Over the next couple of years I had increased my calories to about 2,500 to 2,700 after some gentle encouragement from teammates who were you know I would complain to that sore all the time and they're like, hey You probably need to eat a little bit more and so I tried that out, but still wasn't a ton I was extremely lean constantly thought about food. My hormones were trashed I'm actually on TRT as of March of last year but Leading into that I had one of my best seasons as a player just like performed at a really high level But I just started to have a few nagging injuries or two that made me stop playing for a few months After that, I hired a personal trainer Just because I was interested in putting on more muscle and you know applying that to the field and everything And with her training guidance She reversed dieted me from about 2,500 calories up to 3,600 And with her programming everything I Think what I suspect was like hidden gains from not having an adequate nutrition over The past few years even though I was strength training like I wasn't building a muscle or anything I ended up gaining a lot of muscle like probably 15 pounds within like three or four months Which was really crazy And we didn't do DEXA scans or anything But we had an in body scan and at the beginning of it It had me at 3% body fat, which I was like, I kind of take that with a grain of salt But that percentage didn't change over the next Nine months or so, even though I was going up in weight And then During that time I was having some nagging hamstring pain and irritation But I was just kind of ignoring it or using, you know Inflammation AIDS and medicine until I finally tore it in May So after that, I mostly just stuck to upper body and low impact cardio for whatever I could do Whether that was like fartlek intervals on a stationary bike or, you know, like an hour of zone two on the elliptical or something About after a year of this, I was starting to gain some body fat But at this time I had stopped seeing my personal trainer just due to financial reasons and Didn't have access to an in body machine. So I don't know for sure but I could just feel that I wasn't as lean Finally got to the point where I started working back into sport strength training my legs But then shortly after that, I went to a tryout and laid out Landed kind of on my armpit my left shoulder and my shoulder popped out so then after that, I Let it be for about three months to just see if I could do it Let it be for about three months to just see if it would go away on its own even doing physical therapy and stuff Ended up seeing a surgeon and he said that I had torn my labrum and rotator cuff So I had surgery in April to repair both of it So that brings me to now where I'm five months post-surgery and it's still getting better I had like one of my last PT appointments this morning I started running about three months ago and playing ultimate about two months ago with some Limitations, obviously trying not to land outstretched on the ground or anything Staying with the program has been pretty difficult for me since my shoulder has been limited. So I had thought about doing like Like mass performance or mass 15 performance or something like that But it's it was in my head It's just kind of difficult to figure out what I should how I should program it since I'm limited with How much I could do with my shoulders and you know upper body So I just tried substituting what I could for example instead of Barbell back squats doing Bulgarian split squats with dumbbells V squat good mornings instead of barbell RDLs things like that I'd run map symmetry before I tore my hamstring, but that was also when I just I was eating like 2,500 calories a day So I didn't really see any changes for the most part but my first question is my calories since after the surgery, I've just kind of gone down to 30 about 3,000 for maintenance And as an act as an athlete that's actively returning sport and is five months after surgery Is that okay? I Had gone on the small cut last month actually before I sent this question in Just so I could feel a little bit lighter on my feet and see if that affected my field performance at all So I lost about six pounds in four weeks or so But I feel like I don't look as muscular So I I guess yeah starting there, okay, so the first question is about cutting calories, right? yeah, yeah, it's like a yeah cutting calories and Ultimate is like a weird balance of like strength and endurance where you have to like One of the biggest mistakes athletes will make with diet is they'll eat for aesthetics and not for performance So listen forget the mirror and focus on how you feel while you play If you start to focus on aesthetics with diet Then what tends to happen is performance is compromised and you don't feel like you're doing a good job and you don't feel like you're doing a good job So, you know this this in the sport of in the in the world of athletics its performance that matters Really doesn't matter what you look like. So don't worry so much about that Now that being said you're obviously gonna look pretty good because you're an athlete But don't chase the look. Yeah, so listen to your body And eat to fuel performance not to mention weight loss Calories to fully recover repair and get back to your normal form We don't want to be doing that in a maintenance or deficit. That's right So typically with sports when an athlete is trying to cut weight It's typically for a weight class Okay, other other than that sports are typically for a weight class The only time where it's like I got to lose weight is for weight class style sports in which case It's typically a combination of diet and activity, but it's usually activity Not so much like cut the calories because that'll mess you up, right? But it's typically a combination of diet and activity So you're not going to lose weight You're not going to lose weight You're not going to lose weight You're not going to lose weight You're not going to lose weight Not so much like cut the calories because that'll mess you up right because who cares how much you weigh if you suck and You can't perform, you know type of deal So just focus on that and don't worry about body fat percentage and how ripped you look or whatever just like oh, man I'm playing better. This is the direction. I need to go by the way overeating too much would make you play worse, too So there isn't there is a limit to how much you can feed yourself to perform more, but I would play with that Yeah, and see how you feel eating higher amounts. Are you as an athlete your energy? Yeah, as an as an athlete there shouldn't be times where you are Not eating and you're hungry. I mean that just if you're if you're hungry feel that body But you shouldn't be restricting cuz you're like, oh, I'm at thirty two hundred calories, but I'm still hungry It's like if you're still hungry feed just good choices. That's right. It's the good choices part. Yeah Yeah, I see Aaron and your other question is about your injuries. Do you mind if I read that or go over that with you? Yeah, so your question is like you're you're getting more more kind of nagging non-can non-contact injuries and irritations And you're wondering if it has to do with the weight gain or the muscle gain And the answer is maybe So just to just to kind of and you'll totally get this. Okay, you gained 15 pounds of lean body mass in three months Okay, so here's the deal when a recruitment patterns totally bro, so here's the deal if I wanted to make you play Terribly, I would just change your body. Yeah right now, even if I gave you a bunch more muscle now, you're a different body Like the way you throw the Frisbee the way you move the way you block It's very technical. I don't need to tell you that but it's very very technical if I change your Your weight if I change this the length of your arms the width of your shoulders if I give you more muscle less much Yes, suddenly your technique now has to adjust and so quite possibly the rapid gain of muscle Played a role quite possibly. Although one of the injuries was falling. So that's kind of hard to hard to judge So the question then becomes well, how do I temper that and the way you temper it is you focus on performance on the field? So strength in the gym is great, but if it doesn't translate to better performance, I don't care So what I would do with an athlete and it's very rare by the way to see someone gain that much muscle so fast Yeah, which is kind of cool, but also kind of rare Is what I would do with you as a coach is I would slow down on the progressive overload and we focus on balance or stability Control, I'm like, let me get you used to the five pounds. You just gained before we go for another five pounds Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, definitely and that's something that I think I'm focusing more on now at least within the past few months has been I'm working with a more Sports specific like focus physical therapist over the past. Yeah a few months and a lot of it has been I mean, it's like a lot of like really lightweight stuff, but it's all exactly Like recruitment patterns and making sure that I'm activating certain things good like that's that's helped a lot with nagging injuries Exactly continue with that. Yeah, 100% dude. So you're moving in the right direction dude for sure. Yeah I'm Kind of going back to what you're saying about adequately fueling So like I mentioned before I had worked up to about like 3,600 calories And that was while I was playing and also lifting and stuff in the gym I noticed that even when I try to eat to support my activity level Especially like during the season. I just get I don't really have a good gut health and it's a decent amount of gastric distress I've tried supplementing with like digestive enzymes to help a little bit But it's usually difficult to get in enough calories that I feel like I should be getting and not feeling like Really bloated. I do like what you guys say I eat mainly whole foods a variety of vegetables each day So, yeah, I was worrying like do I still try to like Like I feel like I get full before I get the calories I should be Getting if that makes so the types of foods you eat can make a difference with that. So generally speaking Gluten and dairy and legumes can be an issue Vegetables can also be an issue If they're not very well cooked so like raw vegetables can cause issues when you start to push calories But if you boil the hell out of them, it typically helps with digestion So like white rice is typically really good beef is typically good fish is really good You know dairy can sometimes be problematic gluten is almost always problematic when pushing calories in my experience How many times per day are you eating right now? Uh usually four times so once like breakfast lunch dinner and then I'll have like a snack in the evening. Yeah, my suggestion would also be to Increase the amount of meals and smaller portions. That's another way So so instead of like so don't worry about if you're like, okay, I'm full but I'm still low calories I'm gonna push the calories. No, just shut it down. But then eat again in an hour and a half You know just just a small there's a small portion that'll help are there foods that you've identified that you really digest well Um, I mean there are certain foods that I noticed like I don't Yeah, like I don't get super like full with like potatoes white rice. Definitely Your staple right there ground beef is probably good. Yeah ground beef is pretty good as well So that one of the yeah, one of the One of the games you have to play when you push calories is it becomes much more important consistency on on digestibility Yeah, so like, you know, you're eating 2,500 calories. It's not as much of it can always be an issue, right? It's not as much when you start to push calories Ease of digestion plays a much bigger role. And so I hate to tell you this but you're at a high level of athlete of Athletics so you're gonna eat at a high level You got to eat at a high level. And so what that might look like is the same kind of foods all the time Yep, it might be boring But if that's the recipe where it's like, you know, this isn't gonna create gastral distress like you want to repeat that I mean, I think you should be eating five six times a day That's why five six times a day and whatever that portion size to hit your calorie It's like potato sweet potato white rice ground beef chicken. That's right You know prep it and then just you know, and if you throw vegetables in there, they're really really well cooked Not raw that tends to bother no gluten maybe no dairy some people are okay with dairy some people are not Legumes some people are not good Some people are okay with when they're pushing calories in my experience pushing calories with beans tends to cause gastric distress And then and then the meals will look very similar because you know Like these are the five things I can eat that don't bother my gut. I'm eating 3,600 calories or whatever Let's go Okay, definitely and then going to your point about Or my other question was just like as an athlete preparing for like different points during the season like I'm trying to Manage my like chronic stress load and also my acute stress load Especially as I mean, I'm still like two months in returning to sport so I was just wondering like how I Think I'm increasing my chronic load at a good pace but like I mentioned like different injuries or irritations would pop up that I probably wouldn't have if like you know, I kept playing like if my Chronic workload like matched what I was doing It's just difficult to manage like figuring out what I need to train for in terms of like speed and endurance you know, I just finished a tournament this past weekend and I mean the amount of like distance I cover is close to like marathon or so But yeah, I was just wondering Like during different points of the season whether it's in season Off-season preseason like what should my programming look like in season a lot of your program looks like injury prevention Off-season is when you're trying to increase Performance rates and explosivity. Yeah, you sound like you've got a lot of it down though, dude I mean I don't feel like And it's always a game when you're at that level of kind of teetering over like doing too much and not enough or you know What's adequate you sound pretty smart the way that you're communicating. I think you're you're on track You got your eyes on it If you want to improve your resilience the the thing you could do that'll have the biggest impact With the least effort is to add a half hour to your sleep. It sounds stupid But like another 30 minutes Would make a huge more of a difference than any role that that and the calories Yeah, that the calories will be there's no like you biggest Covery thing I could tell you that would even come close that so it could look like this It could look like a nap in the middle of the day or it could look like an extra 30 minutes at night Hmm. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's something I've been trying to like increase lately It's just like how much like like you said like literally trying to add on half an hour of sleep or so and I think Adams advice about the frequency of meal times would Help out a lot Those are the two biggest levers talking to you I mean you've like Sal said like we listened to your whole breakdown like you you're you're doing really good, dude You're doing you're recovering, you know You're getting back You're not like we got to give it some time to be get back to normal self and and the one thing that athletes tend To do in this situation is try and rush it do too much trying to get back too fast It's like give your body some time to Get back to how it used to be and take care of it feed it rest and that will probably be the fastest path Don't get caught in the aesthetics game Yeah, because really rapid muscle gain while playing high level sports can definitely increase risk of injury So and then trying to get lean. Yeah, we're looking while you're playing your sport can also increase risk of injury So basically it's like what's making me better And then however, I look is how I look that might mean less muscle and more body fat, by the way Definitely A couple of other questions I had was When I worked with the personal trainer last year She corrected a lot of like form with exercises that I you know been doing for a while But then she was just teaching me how to like connect to certain muscles like mentally better and things like that like I mentioned before I Don't really have the luxury of having a trainer right now The sports focus PT is kind of like my pseudo trainer, but that's more for you know physical therapy But I just like want to know if my form is correct while I'm doing something And I know that working with the trainers really exposed different like form cues that helped a lot But I you know, I it's hard to do that like on my own Yeah, how often were you working with your trainer before Before it was just once a week. Okay, there's nothing wrong with working with a trainer once a month Yeah, yeah check-in. You just go in do some exercises watch my form video literally just for the technical stuff Like here's the here's the three four movements that I want to really perfect and like that's all and like you know That's what I want you here for. That's it. Yeah, okay And then another question I had was With sport obviously, it's there's definitely like some like Hypertrophy training if like I'm lacking muscle in certain areas or whatnot, but most of it is just like power and speed You Know trying not to like get really like technical devices that measure like speed or like our speed or whatever How should I measure like progressive overload in terms of like power? Just because it's not as linear as like hypertrophy where it's like, oh, I'm moving up on this weight each time But it's it's hard to tell like in the moment if I'm moving away That's a really really great question That's a once a month trainer who has experience with training athletes could help with that There are apps out there. I don't know one off the top of my head that can measure bar speed and they're pretty good And then your your height like how high you could jump. It's always a test of you know I really want to send you mass performance advanced just because your offseason training sounds like the It's not quite as much volume as you would think it's more like centered around the skill training, which I think for you Specifically if you can build up your explosivity your power your strength You know the endurance part I think a lot of times to with like your type of a sport You know, it gets convoluted a lot because a lot of athletes like they focus too much on that in the offseason You know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's Too much on that in the offseason Versus you know you doing these intervals of sprints, you know, really doing the field work that's specific to you know Multidirectional multi-planar type movement, but with the explosive power Is gonna serve you the best and then you can kind of work your way in towards You know that that endurance training towards, you know, the final end up into your season So that's something that I would suggest that would really match you Also keep this in mind to Aaron like it let's say we don't have an app or tool or can have a coach or a trainer with this It's like the real measure for me is like how how do you feel in the field after you've been training like this way? So like I'm applying I'm applying the speed or power type training for you know X amount of weeks and it's like do when I? Get on the field. Do I feel more explosive? Do I am I am you know my more responsive like that like that at the end of day like that's that's the real measure Translate right a lot of times too Yeah, you got to just pay attention to that fatigue and every time you perform, you know, one of these drills these movements You know these exercises. Can you get composed? Can you recover? quickly and you know That's that's something I'm always gauging where that fatigue lies Because it's gonna it's gonna interrupt your progress in terms of strength and power output Yeah, definitely yeah, it's I Wish I had like the the financial means to just like outsource this to to somebody But to your point, I'm like like yeah I I'm an athlete and like I've been doing this for a long enough to where like I I Know my body like pretty well, like I know what it's like to like be at a hundred percent and it's just like You know Difficult kind of like managing to see like where I'm at day-to-day and how that should influence what I'm doing each day and stuff Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is dude. It's like, you know when you're at that level, you know, we're measuring Improvements in seconds, you know not in minutes So it's a little bit more difficult but kind of trust the process Aaron I'm gonna have Doug put you in our private forum If you're not in there already in our mind pump private forum on Facebook or school. Yeah. No. Oh, no Yeah, and and then I'll just set you know, keep us updated let us know check in with us Whether you have a coach or not and let us know what you're seeing what you're noticing what you're feeling and the boys and I'll Try and help guide you through Yeah, that would be awesome. I really appreciate that. You got it man. Thanks for calling in dude. Appreciate you. Yeah Yeah, I also want to say like really appreciate everything you guys are doing When I first started games like fitness and stuff I was listening in different fitness podcasts and stuff and then I came upon mind pump and I'm not gonna lie Like I didn't realize the first part was you guys just talking about your lives and stuff and I was like I don't really want to listen to this Gets of information But I stuck with it and honestly, it's probably my favorite part about the show and everything It's just hearing you guys talk about your lives and what you're going through Laughing it up talking about your families and being dads. It's it's really awesome to see so Appreciate that feedback Aaron. Appreciate that Thank you, brother. Well, see you the forum man Already, thank you. You got it. That was a fun question answer. Actually. Yeah I have to have kind of the nuance of yeah all the different ways because you know, you talk to the average person It's totally different only did I this is it's actually I'm glad he asked those questions because You see this with that we have them call in all the time and they're like, hey I play the sport and I want to get leaner or want to look this way and it's like you got to choose Yeah, because you can get leaner and perform worse Yeah in the further up you go, you know in the professional world the more Specific you have to be it's totally nature of the beast and his question about his injuries Yeah, can I can building muscle increase my risk of injury? Yeah when you gain 15 pounds in three months Yeah that affected and you're playing at a high level for a guy who's been doing it for 10 years 10 years of being of your body a certain way and then 15 three months of Radically address the changes. Oh, yeah, our next caller is Christina from Missouri. Hey, welcome back. Thank you. See now. He's gone See you guys you too. How you doing? Oh, I'm doing good. Um the last time we talked well, I'm 51 and and I was pre osteoporosis broke some bones in the past and since listening to you guys I started increasing my Calories and you guys sent me the maps 15 back in May Okay, I ran that and I will admit that I did not think it was enough But after I finished it I couldn't wait to get more and so then I bought strong 15 I bought muscle mommy 15 and I bought symmetry 15 and so I'm on phase 2 I believe of Strong 15 and I tell you what, my calories are at 2,300 I'm not sure if that's where I should be I just had another scan done this morning and I Think last time I told you the name of it and you you guys I don't know if you were familiar with it It's called the stye q s t y k u. Okay, and I I'm extremely disappointed. I went from 32 and a half percent body fat to thirty three point eight. I lost a pound and my lean Muscle and said went from sixty four to sixty two point seven. I don't know I Was not expecting those numbers because I'll tell you what my energy has skyrocketed Skyrocketed I'm lifting weights. I've never lifted before I feel great I'm so I'm I don't I don't look the way I feel inside. I feel like I'm You know, I feel like I'm about 20 years younger. And I mean, I Don't know what's the problem? Yeah, exactly. Well, this is uh, I mean, this is exactly what happened with Corinne Did you hear have you heard the journey? I have I have Exact same thing happened to us body fat. Yep, and all and that she's she's talking just like you I'm I'm hitting PRS. Yeah, I feel my energy all the all the family marker You can hear all those murders, but body fat percentage went up We didn't build any muscle coordinate But every other marker is been amazing when you've been so low calorie and been training hard for so long The it takes a while before the body says, okay We're gonna reward you With this and start packing on the muscle and losing the body fat and doing all you got it It takes a while to do that. Thank you. There's two things here to number one You're well within the margin of error By saying it's like a 1% difference like well within the margin here. So that's number one. I would take that with a grain of salt Yep number two You what you're saying is I feel amazing and I'm pissed off Because I got a report because I got a piece of paper that says what yeah, yeah It's like it's very deflating well here let me put it this way let me let me tell you this, okay When we look at I can feel it. I can feel my legs. I can feel my arms. Yeah, that's feels Harder than it ever has I'm like, I don't understand you're gonna let that scan tell you that you're a liar. Yeah, you can burn that paper Cuz you know, I I I understand and I feel you because I've been working with with Corinne for a year now we've been together for a year and I it was discouraging for me because I we have been celebrating the PRS and I thought she looked amazing And as a coach, I failed her by letting her go take that test She went took that test and it spun her out the same way She got so discouraged and so frustrated and I was like man. Why did I do that? Why did I let her go take that test when all the other signs were great? I should have just delayed that shit. We didn't need it because just like you're saying right now her body looks better It feels better. We're hitting PRS energies like You shouldn't you shouldn't and that's why I haven't that's why I didn't allow her to answer for it So you need to just I did want to go over a few of what you think my barbell squats I Used to only do the bar. Yeah bar was 45 pounds and I was doing like 15 reps with just the bar and so Saturday I I did I Have now put 20 pounds on the bar at five reps. Yeah Yes It's not a lot, you know, but It's the most I've ever done. Yeah, that's a 50% increase That's a lot. That's a lot in my barbell deadlift um, I started off at doing I had 30 to 35 pounds on the bar and This morning. I was that I had 50 pounds on the bar and Shoulder press I only used to do shoulder press with dumbbell You know 10 pound dumbbells. Well now I do have a 25 pound bell Barbell also and I'm putting 10 pounds on the 25 pound bar incredible ending and then With this these programs of yours. I'm doing things. I've never done before like a Z press You know, which is new to me Um, what else there's a Front squats never done that before So that that's something new that I'm doing and I had to start off with just you know a dumbbell That's a lot tougher it is tough a lot tougher yeah, and then there's another coach that squat. Yeah. Yeah That right cost ex-wife doing that in this phase two I believe of strong 15 and I'm just doing body weight on that because just learning that Yeah, it's very tough. But uh, Christina, you're killing it. You're doing so good Christina. I'm doing so good You're killing for us. I I was doing I had 45 pounds on the bar now I have six no I'm looking at the wrong thing. I think I got 70 pounds on the bar for hip thrust now I've got our next goal for us. Okay, we're right We're we're we're definitely not testing in any in the next six months at all So the next six months that which means two more of these maps 15 programs you follow straight through I'd actually like you because you asked early when you first started the conversation about calories keep pushing the calories So I'm at 23, yeah, I would I would love to see 25 now 25 get up to 25 Run it run another run another program through and keep pushing strength the extra calories. I got it. This was a question I wanted to ask you I make these Homemade peanut butter. I love peanut butter. Yeah, and the peanut butter that's only nuts and salt it comes In a glass jar, yeah, no, I had a little honey some oats some Pistachios almonds I mix them up and I flatten them in a pan. I cut them up into like two ounce little snacks Oh, I I just love them. Well each one has like 400 calories in it. Yeah It's hard not to eat them. Yeah, but if I need a little extra calories, can I eat more of those? So I I do that almost that exact same recipe only I mix that with whey protein, yeah, there you go Oh, so you can take like a vanilla whey protein and mix it in and then now those those become Protein balls, so they're not just right now. They're kind of like high calorie a lot of calories And it's coming from fat and sugar only not a lot of protein And so that's the only drawback of that. That'll be the only drawback I'd say I want you to make sure if we're bumping our calories. You're still hitting adequate protein We want to make sure you know, you're you're pushing that 120 to 130 grams of protein every day Today, yeah, I'm more. Hey, if you're doing that then I don't give a shit if you have some more peanut butter balls That's where yeah, if that's where your extra 200 calories come from go for it Do I still need to take calcium supplements if I'm hitting calories and protein and listen? I Don't think so. I think you're okay, especially if you take a multivitamin. Do you take a multivitamin? Well, that's something else because you guys I started taking legion protein powder and now I'm taking their multivitamin and The creatine good and I bought their magnesium, so I've been switching everything to your all's Yeah, I think you're okay. If you take the multivitamin Yeah, calcium deficiency is not as common as people think and for a long time We were telling people just up their calcium for bone density. Yeah, really the issue was that they needed to do weight-bearing exercise Yeah, plus I think I wouldn't I was dead at my smallest I'm 5 10 5 11 and I was a hundred and twelve pounds and I was eating like a Thousand to twelve hundred calories a day and then I start breaking bones. Yeah I Also been taking your I've been trying to paleo Valley beef sticks, okay, that's great good Are they good? They're very good. And then the latest thing I started buying was their They have these snack bars. They're called I don't want to Apple cinnamon. Yeah. Yeah You're talking about awesome So do you after I finish the strong 15 Do I go to muscle mommy or yes keep rotating through the 15 program you you have enough right now to just rotate through the Rotate through those just keep rotating through those bump the calories. Like we said, don't don't be testing You're doing super good. You're doing so good. So good Yep, all right, just just Christina be patient. Okay, be patient. It takes time. It takes time I mean for a long time you probably Under eight and over trained and so it's gonna take a minute to reset but but you're you are kicking ass right now 100% Yep. All right. Well, thank you guys. I really I watch all your episodes Thank you, and I've learned so much and I tell you what, I I wish I would have learned this years ago I'd probably be in a much different spot right now. But well, I appreciate we got you now. We'll look at you now Yeah, I got you now You're doing it. Thank you, Christina. Thank you so much, I Remember when I first experienced that with a client where they're like, man, I feel great. I can't believe it My friends are saying I lost weight. I look so good that step on the scale went up a pound ruin their day Just slated. Yeah, like whoa, you just told me how awesome you felt and then I seen the reverse where I had a client who? Was just was just would not change their diet would not eat more was overtraining on top of my training felt like crap I could see their energy was low. They'd weigh themselves. I lost three pounds. I feel great. It's like oh, no I get it though because it's her and Corinne they have a very specific goal because they need to build muscle they need to build bone and You see all these you feel great. Your butt feels tight. Your legs feel great your PR and stuff exactly So you're like I've got to be building muscle and bone and you just your body's not yeah And so it's a little bit different than just the average person who just wants to look good or feel better or wants to lose Body fat percentage for aesthetic reasons because then it's like the body gives a fuck You said you like the way you look but they have very specific goals because they know they need to for health reasons They need to build bone. They need to build muscle and they have all these other markers that are telling them They're kicking ass, but then they get this test back that says oh you haven't built that much yet And then that just just that get it so but she's doing great man and it just it's gonna follow later and it's just a testament of When you have eaten that low of calorie and you've over trained for such a long time the body doesn't trust you yet It's the best way I've been able to describe that it's like with with Corinne and when so now it's like listen Your body is going like I don't I don't trust this bitch. She's gonna core She's gonna course correct again and start cutting calories and over training before I start to show her what she wants It just takes time before it says, okay. This is what I needed. Our next caller is Kaylene from New York. Thank you Hello Hi, welcome to see you again. How we doing? I'm doing really well. Oh, that's good. That's good to hear. Let's hear it. Let us know um So as I don't know if you guys remember or not But I was the one on the on the show a few months ago that had the cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome Mm-hmm, and I'm happy to report that I'm fully healed from that. All right Wow Yeah, it was quite the ride I had a lot of setbacks from it. I had to really scale back on my fitness I'm still working with my trainer Nico who has been nothing short of incredible and We we scaled back on the workouts quite a bit. Um We switched from doing like three full body workouts to more like Four or five like mini workouts and that's really been proven to be beneficial for me So, I guess now my questions are Still kind of in regards to bulking. Um, the bulking has been going well I went from when I talked to you guys I was probably only eating about like 13 to 1400 calories a day now, I'm up to probably Anywhere from like 1600 and 1900 per day. All right But I'm Realizing that my mind and body are very connected when I when I'm stressed. I don't eat Um, so my question is like, at what point does inconsistent eating actually become like a detriment to, uh, muscle growth versus something I shouldn't overthink. That's a great question because what we don't want to do is overthink and create more stress. But at the other end, uh, you know, we want to eat more to fuel and feed, uh, our body. And so really it's going to be around how you frame, uh, the whole situation. Okay. So with stress and anxiety and some of the things that you had discussed last time, there are things you're going to have to do that you don't want to do because the way that anxiety can affect us, so like one of the best things to do, for example, when you're anxious and depressed is to go outside, be with people and work out the last thing you want to do when you're stressed and anxious is go outside, be with people and work out. You just want to stay frozen in place. So you literally have to do the thing that you don't want to do to get rid of the thing that you don't want to have. And so what can help is you writing down on a list, uh, the things that help when I feel stressed and anxious and you make a list. And then when you feel stressed and anxious, you can look at the list and go, I don't want to do that, but I know that'll help. So I'm going to do it. So I'm going to force myself to do it. And so part of that might be eating. Part of that might be like, okay, I know I need to eat. I don't want to eat. Uh, but I know how it makes me feel after I know it's going to help me. Yeah. So I'm going to go eat. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be much. It could, it could just be something by the way, this, uh, you strengthen this like a muscle. So over time you get better at doing the thing you don't want to do when you feel that way. That's right. But at the beginning, it literally feels like force. It's like, yeah, like I don't want to get out of bed or I don't want to go be with people. Like that's the last thing I want to do right now, or I don't want to work out or I don't want to whatever. And that's the last thing I want to do. I just want to sit here and just. Like, wait till this goes away or hide or distract myself. Don't distract yourself. That's the worst thing you could do. Uh, so you just make that list. I've actually done this with people where they look at the list and they go, all right, do this, I'm going to go do this. All right, do that. I'm going to go do that. I'm going to go do that. And then once you practice it and it starts to work, then it's like, you know what to do. Which by the way, the there's a, there's a good reason why that the maps 15 type of protocol, which is pretty much what you're doing. These mini workouts is, is really suits you better for that exact reason of if you had a day where you weren't as consistent or you didn't eat and you were a little bit lower calories, that it's less stress, you're dividing that stress up over five days and in these micro stress workouts versus a big, long, hard one is a big, long, hard one that was following a day that you were under fed is just ends up overstressing the body instead of a nice moderate balance, getting the same amount of volume in, but you're just now dispersing it over five, six days, so much better for someone that's working on what you're working on right now. So great strategy where that was your call or the trainer's call. That was, that was a brilliant move. Thank you. And yeah, it was something we kind of worked on together because the, the CHS really was such a detriment to my body. Um, and I, I had to like work within my limitations, but I, obviously I didn't want to stop working out. Yeah. Um, but I just also wanted to let you guys know that I really took your advice very seriously. The, the last episode you said, um, Um, in regards to stress and anxiety, that it's, it's really, uh, helpful if you bring it to light and bring it to other people. Um, so this past summer I did 30 days of, uh, residential mental health treatment, and then now I'm on phase two of the program, which is intensive outpatient, um, and I'm really just grinding on this phenomenal job. Phenomenal. You could see it on YouTube, by the way. Yeah. You looked at, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. It's good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Kayleen, this is great. Thank you. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, another question I have would be, was, um, that, uh, discipline is not my problem. Uh, I, as you know, like if I want something, I go and get it. Um, but what I struggle with is routine. Um, doing like the same things over and over again can feel like really boring to me. Um, so what advice would you have for someone like me to build routines without feeling, uh, trapped by them or feeling like I'm on autopilot? Uh, are you in, is this in regards to workout routines? Uh, yes. Yeah. Workout and just, I guess, life in general. Okay. So you can, so with workout routines, you could leave room for any random fun thing you want to do with your workout. Yeah. Adding some creative stuff. So you'd have your workout and let's say, uh, you know, there's, let's, let's just say, for example, six exercises. Let's just say I'm going to let you do four. And I'm going to leave room at the end for whatever I want to do in the gym. Whatever sounds fun. Okay. So it gives you a little bit of that freedom to just go and do whatever. Uh, you could do this with diet as well. So you could have your meals planned. And then one of the meals is I'm going to go and make something, uh, and have whatever I want. You could do this for your day where you're like every day, I'm going to do one spontaneous thing. And it could be anything. It'd be a read a book. It could be, you know, watch a show. It could be draw a picture. I don't care what it is, but it's something that like, okay, it's five o'clock it's time for my spontaneous thing. What am I going to do? And what that does is inject a little bit of that spontaneity and that freedom. We, we express in the podcast, the value of like, you know, sticking with the squat and progressive overload and getting better at this applies when I have a client who's very focused on getting stronger and building muscle and losing. But when we have goals, very specific, like you do, I don't give a shit what the exercises say. You show up and we can do something. You don't feel like doing that. Let's do this exercise instead. Like you come into the gym and doing movements. Uh, it goes out the window of like needing to be this every week. And then let's make sure we add Tim. It's like, I want you to enjoy the workout. And so if that means, uh, you want to do a different movement today, we're doing it a hundred percent. So don't, uh, like the, if you need like some creative new stuff to do and you want to insert that and have fun with it, absolutely have fun with it. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's really good advice. Yeah. Yeah. Kayleen, this is great. I feel really good about where you're at. This is awesome. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, me too. I'd love for you to check back in with us. Just send us an email. Let us know an update as you go through. I love hearing it. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much. I, um, you guys continue to inspire me every single day and I just, I love everything about your podcast and your social media. I think all three of you guys are absolutely hysterical. Thank you. Um, and it just, it really keeps me going. I appreciate that so much. Thank you so much, Kayleen. Appreciate you. Thank you. What a great call. Yeah. Yeah. What a man. You can see it on her. Oh yeah. You can see it on his radio. Oh yeah. I mean, it's just wonderful. Huge. I mean, I remember the first call, uh, she almost had this look of defeat and total opposite look right now. Total opposite. I never heard of that condition either. It was crazy. It's nasty. Yeah. If you look it up, but you know, what's it, what's crazy. This was at 60 days later, I think she's at the tip of the iceberg for how good she's going to feel. I think, I think she knows that. I think she can, you can, that's what you can see on her. Like she has, she went from being totally discouraged to like, you could just see the optimism on an excitement that she has on her face because of what she's accomplished in such a short period of time that it's just going to keep getting better. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's mind pump media. Thank you for listening to mind pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the RGB super bundle includes maps, anabolic math, performance, and maps, aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB super bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price, the RGB super bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee, and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is mind pump.