How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle (The Exact Strategy) | Mind Pump 2954

Key Takeaway

Before starting a fat-loss phase, make sure you have enough calories to cut from—then let food, not punishing workouts, create the deficit. Keep strength training heavy but lower in volume, increase low-stress movement such as walking, and build meals around whole foods and protein. Today, replace one processed snack with a protein-rich whole-food option and take a 20-30 minute walk; it improves satiety and supports fat loss without sending a strong muscle-losing signal.

Episode Overview

The Mind Pump hosts outline a muscle-preserving approach to fat loss: begin from a sustainable calorie baseline, use diet to create the deficit, maintain low-volume strength training, and prioritize walking over excessive cardio. They also discuss the satiety advantages of whole foods and protein, the evolving use of GLP-1 medications, and coach callers on progressive training, recovery, sleep disruption, and health-first body composition goals.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle (The Exact Strategy) | Mind Pump 2954 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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Today's episode, we had callers call in, and we got to coach them on it, or four people called in. We helped them out with their health and fitness. But this was after the intro, so today's intro was 60 minutes long. We talked about how to burn body fat without losing muscle. We talked about GLPs and their benefits and some of the weird effects that they have. We talked about strength training. We also told some personal stories. Look, if you want to be on an episode like this where you can call in and get helped out by us, send an email to MPLiveCaller.com.

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All for free. Go to MAPSabsandbutt.com. Use the code LAUNCH for the discount and the free stuff. All right, real quick. 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. All right, you want to get lean, but you don't want to lose muscle? Of course not. We're going to talk about how you can cut the fat and keep the muscle.

We're going to break it down. This works. Let's go. Maybe one of the hardest things to do. It is. It's very difficult to do. The reason why it's difficult to do, besides the fact that people don't do what we're about to discuss, because the things that we're going to cover here greatly reduce the odds that you'll lose muscle. But the reason why your body wants to lose muscle when you're losing weight is because your body is trying to adapt to the new caloric intake. When you're eating less, your body wants to learn how to adjust to that lower intake.

It's no different than you making less money and trying to figure out how to fit your lifestyle with your new paycheck, and you have to cut expenses and stuff like that. Muscle is very adaptable. Your body can pare it down quite easily. If you've ever had a cast on or a sling on for a week, you know how fast you can lose muscle and how it can adapt in that direction. Your body will pare muscle down to slow things down to meet the new metabolic demands with the caloric intake.

It's much more complex than that, but that's basically where it starts. It's also trying to adapt to the stimulus that you're doing also, which I feel like we get wrong many times in this. I can't tell you how many times I see somebody who decides they want to reduce body fat, go in a cut, and they ramp up intensity, activity, more calories. We'll get there for sure. Yeah, so the body's also trying to adapt to the stimulus that you're doing. What type of body is most conducive for this thing that you're going to do?

You pare that with your point of it's trying to adapt to the calories that you're giving into it, so it needs to get more efficient. It's also trying to adapt to what kind of stimulus are you doing? Here's a good question. Are there forms of exercise or performance adaptations that don't lend themselves well to more muscle? In other words, is it beneficial for certain physical endeavors to not have big muscles? The answer to that is of course. Absolutely. A good example is this really long distance running or endurance.

You can see the top, top athletes in the world who already have a propensity to maintain muscle, by the way. Even endurance athletes at that level have a propensity to keep muscle. If you look at the way they look, I'm not saying this is the perfect way to measure things, but if you look at the way they look, they don't have a lot of muscle on their body. Certain forms of exercise promote at the very least not keeping muscle, at the very, very least. Let's start with the first thing, which is this.

This is, in my opinion, one of the most important. Are you in a place to cut calories from? Yeah, it's all in the setup. That's 100%. If your metabolic rate is only burning 1,700 calories a day, if you've adapted to eating 1,700 calories a day, where do you go from there? 1,200 calories? 1,200 calories? Okay, so now you're in a 500-calorie deficit. That'll result in some weight loss, which, by the way, once you get down that low, it's very hard to get essential nutrients or enough intake to give you what you need for exercise.

But let's just say you're fine. Now what? Now you're stuck at 1,200. You've plateaued. Where do you go now? 1,000? 900? Obviously not a good place to be. So a good place to cut calories from is a place where your resting metabolic rate, the amount of calories you're burning on a regular basis normally, is high enough to cut from. It's more in a comfortable place, yeah. And you really do have to put the work in there to sometimes build it up. So you've got to build your way up to a point where it might even feel like a bit of a chore, but to then cut from there makes it so much more enjoyable.

This is maybe the number one problem in the bikini competitor space. For sure. And it became really obvious to me after I competed and got a little bit of attention on social media and at the shows, and I would start to get these competitors to ask me if I would coach them. And I started taking on clients, and I took on quite a few bikini clients. And many of them, though, I had to turn down or tell them that they had to work with me for a year leading up to the show because where they were metabolically was just not safe or ideal for them to compete.

In other words, I would get these female competitors that they needed to lose, say, 5% to 10% body fat to get on stage, but they were already eating only 1,700 calories or 1,800 calories. And this is out of prep. This is not in prep. And they'd be like, hey, I want you to prep me for a show in, say, two or three months. And I'd be like, I can't. I mean, I can't in good will and good faith because I know that the only way I could get you to keep losing is I'm going to sacrifice a ton of muscle, and I'm going to just destroy the metabolism.

You're going to feel awful to get there, and you won't look good because we're so low calorie already. And so I would need you to be willing to either, one, work with me for a year or so leading up to a show so I could reverse diet you, or I couldn't work with you. You'd have to go back and do it on your own and then come back to me when you had to hire me. 100%. If I had a female client who wanted to lose 5 to 8 pounds and she was at maintenance at 2,000 calories, maybe I would cut her for a little bit.

That's it, 5 to 8 pounds. Somebody comes to me and says, I want to lose 15 pounds of body fat, 20 pounds of body fat, and you're eating 2,000 calories a day right now, I don't have much room. By the way, the lower the calories get, the greater the odds that you'll lose muscle. The stronger the signal is to get rid of this expensive metabolic tissue. If I have a man that comes to me and he's eating 2,400 calories, 2,300 calories, and he has maybe 5 to 8 pounds to lose, okay, I might cut you.

More than that, I'm sorry. You don't have a lot of runway, so you've got to be in a good place to cut from before you even decide to cut. Otherwise, you're going to lose tons of muscle. Also consider the room for error when you're dealing with that small of a number because the calorie deficit is a greater percentage now of the total calories taken. In other words, if I had somebody who had a resting metabolic rate, ridiculous just for hypothetical reasons, 4,000 calories, and I had them on a 500-calorie deficit to lose body fat, and they overate by 250 calories in a day, they're still in a deficit and still fine.

We're still heading the right pace. Take somebody who's at 2,000 calories, and we're at a 250-calorie deficit, and they overeat by 250 calories. Their backup to maintenance may be surplus because of how small of a percentage. That matters, too. The lower you go, the more difficult it becomes. The harder it gets because you have to be absolutely perfect. Precise, yeah. When we give yourself this higher metabolic rate, we have a lot more room for error and a buffer of, as long as we're about this down, we'll be fine.

We'll keep leaning out versus we have to be precise when you're that low calorie. Yeah, and to use your example, again, an extreme example of 4,000 calorie. You're burning 4,000 calories, and you want to go on a cut. I could cut you 1,000 calories, no problem. You still have 3,000 calories. Right. I don't have much room to go when it's really low. Let's say this is you. Let's say you're in a good place to cut from. Here's the second thing. Let the food make the deficit, not the calories burned with exercise.

Stop worrying about how many calories you can burn with your workouts. Look at your workouts like this. What are the adaptations that the workout induces, and are those beneficial for my goal? So if your goal is to get lean and keep every pound of muscle, then the adaptation I'm looking for is strength, right? So I'm strength training. What I'm not doing is looking at my workouts and going, what burns the most calories? There's two reasons why this is a problem. Number one, the body is remarkable at adapting to calories burned while you exercise.

I'll give you a great example. You get really good at cycling. Your body actually learns how to burn less calories while cycling, and it does this because it gets better at it. I mean, the studies show as quickly as two to three weeks. Two to three weeks, the body starts to adapt and become more efficient at that. Because you get better at it. Hypothetical numbers for a person who understands what that means. It's like the first time you cycle for an hour, your body burnt 500 calories.

The next time it was 450. So it's just getting lower and lower, and what it is, it's becoming more efficient at whatever adaptation you're doing. And this is a good thing, by the way. If our bodies didn't do this, we wouldn't have survived. We'd disappear. Yeah, we wouldn't have survived. We'd all disappear. For most of human history before food became so plentiful. So when you're looking at your deficit, not that activity doesn't matter. It does matter. But you're not trying to create the deficit or lean on the activity for the deficit.

It's the diet that creates the deficit. And, too, people with that kind of mentality will try to avoid true strength training because it doesn't burn. That's right. Which, in fact, the true strength training is what's preserving the muscles. So you have to consider that as well. 100%, because if I did 45 minutes of crazy intense circuit training, I'm going to burn twice as many calories than if I did 45 minutes of traditional strength training. Yet the traditional strength training is what's going to keep the muscle.

The circuit training is not what's going to keep the muscle. And, also, it's not that many calories, you guys. The amount of calories you burn during exercise, you could easily eat those calories. I've always thought this was so interesting when I would see my competitors do this. And I'm like, if you did a really good job in the off-season building your metabolism up to where you have lots of runway with the calories, I always found it far easier for me to take one less bite in every meal I ate for the day than it would be to get on a treadmill for an hour of high-intensity cardio.

Way more manageable. It's way easier to go like, oh, there's one less bite I take of that meal. I mean six meals a day. One less bite on every single one of those meals ends up equating to more calories than the entire hour they would get up and do cardio. That's right. It's a way easier discipline for me to just go, okay, I'm going to stop right there and eat less calories than it is I'm going to go spend an hour doing this. All this time.

Where I'm also potentially, especially depending on the intensity and where my calories are, risking that my body's going to want to pare down muscle because it's like, oh, you're going to push us like this and not feed us? Which takes us to the next thing. So, okay, you're listening to this right now. Maybe you've listened to the podcast for a while or you've read the data and you're like, okay, lifting weights, that's the best way to exercise to keep muscle while I'm in a deficit. Okay, here's a mistake everybody makes.

They're in a normal phase of strength training. They're eating at maintenance or surplus. Everything looks good. They're ready to go on a cut. They cut their calories and they simultaneously dramatically increase the volume of their training because they're thinking to themselves, and I get the rationale, burn more calories. I got to do more work. I'm trying to get lean. This is the opposite of what you should do. One of the factors, one of the things that factors into your ability to recover and adapt to exercise is your nutrient intake.

So when you've cut your nutrient intake, what you've done is you've reduced your ability to recover and adapt to exercise. There's an old saying in bodybuilding and in powerlifting, and it's not 100% true, but there's some truth to it. And this is what they would say. The old timers would say this, right? There's no such thing as overtraining, only under eating. And why did they say this? There's some truth to it. There's definitely some truth to it. When you're taking in more nutrients, you recover better.

You adapt better. You can handle more exercise volume. When you cut your calories, it's the opposite. What you're doing when you increase the volume of training while cutting calories, you're setting yourself up for terrible failure, overtraining, and your body's inability to recover from a lesson. Which is counterintuitive and doesn't come natural, because the average person that has been strength training and getting used to kind of lifting for a while and eating better and building momentum, they tend to ramp up as time goes on. And so, and again, I would see this even at the competitive level, is they're heading into showtime six weeks out.

They're doing more training than ever. They increased cardiovascular activity. There's doing supersets in their training. They're adding, it's like, man, it's like, no wonder you're not hanging onto muscle during this process. You are just overstressing the body while you're underfeeding it. Of course, it's gonna pare down muscle in that situation. Of course, there's factors that can change this, okay? But generally speaking, for me, the best success I've ever seen for myself and for people I've worked with in a deficit is low-volume strength training, low-rep strength training.

And it's, why? Because it's less volume. So we're doing sets of, you know, three sets of five reps, not three sets of 15 reps. We're doing less sets. We're doing less exercises. This is the best strategy I've ever seen for muscle preservation. Now, on the opposite end of the scale, when I've seen, and I did this in the past, because this is what I thought I was supposed to do, ramp up volume, ramp up intensity with the deficit. And all that happened with my clients is they burnt out and lost more muscle.

Same thing with myself. The goal is, when we are in a cut, the goal is no longer to build muscle. The goal is to preserve muscle while we lose body fat. And we know what the studies say. It's like, I know there's several, and it ranges from like 1 5th to 1 7th to 1 9th and some of them. It's like 1 7th the volume is needed in order to keep the muscle. And that's the goal. The goal is just to keep it. And most people don't even come close to cut, which means you can easily cut your volume in half and still be able to maintain that muscle, even more than that.

But most people don't come anywhere near cutting it in half when they do this. That's right. All right. So what about activity? Daily activity is good for you. It's healthy, improves longevity. But the game that we're playing with activity and a calorie deficit is stress management. So strength training is always stressful. It's supposed to be. We're trying to keep muscle or build muscle, especially when we're in a surplus. So I want to keep the intensity for those important workouts. But what about my daily activity? It's good to be more active and here's what you do.

Increase low stress activity. Increase steps and walking. Walking, unless you're doing extreme crazy things with walking, you're taking 20,000 steps. By the way, we've seen people on the show call in with 20,000, 25,000 steps a day. Unless you're super adapted to that, like you're a mail carrier or something like that. Low stress activity, increasing that tends to not increase the stress. But in fact, in many cases, it helps reduce stress. Yeah, it's restorative. There's a way to move that's restorative and really you want the blood to flow.

You want that to carry all the nutrients, to be able to help you in the healing process and the recovery process in general. So it's a good practice to have, but it's really about managing the intensity of it. I mean, I think this is the secret sauce to getting shredded, I really do, is the low level walking, neat type of movement, increased over time as you're in a cut and let the food do most of it with the increase of activity. Because to your point, Justin, more blood flow, more oxygen, more nutrients means faster recovery.

It facilitates recovery. That's right. It facilitates recovery, so we're going to recover faster and better and it's not a loud enough signal. Because then somebody would be like, well, isn't that what cardio is doing too? It's like, well, cardio is moving the blood and oxygen and nutrients and stuff like that, but then it's also so intense that it sends a louder signal to the body. The body needs to adapt to this modality of training. Where simply just walking and moving is not doing that. It's purely recuperative.

And so if I can find a way to just increase my activity through walking and steps and movement, I'm going to create a larger calorie deficit and just shred down that body fat. Now finally, obviously, obviously the big challenge with eating in a deficit is things like cravings and appetite. And here's the deal. This is a fact. I'm not going to be one of those people that says being in a deficit never feel hungrier. The odds are if you're losing body fat, you're doing it consistently, your body is going to send a hunger signal.

Why? Well, because your body doesn't want to lose body fat. It loves that stored energy. It loves the security of having extra body fat. So what you want to do with your diet is you want to eat in ways that produce more satiety. Can you do that? Are there things you can eat or things you can avoid that dramatically increase satiety? And the answer is yes. Number one, and the first thing is what not to eat, which are foods that tend to make us overeat. Heavily processed foods are phenomenal at doing this, everybody.

They're designed to do this. Now when food manufacturers and food scientists, and by the way, the science that goes into this is some of the most well-studied science in the world. It is so, if you look into it, it's remarkable the science that goes into this kind of stuff. What they're not doing is saying necessarily we want people to overeat. What they're trying to do is make something hyper palatable. In other words, make it so enjoyable, so tasty that the people come back to buy more.

Well, here's the side effect of that is you go well beyond what you would do with normal foods in terms of satiety. Some of the best studies ever done on food ever were done on processed foods versus whole natural foods. And the reason why they're so well done is because when you look at food studies, so many of these studies are what are known as observational studies. So we take a group of people, we have them fill out a survey, and those are not, I mean they can give us some insight, but it's like how many tomatoes did you eat last week type of stuff.

So we got to rely on people's memory and all that stuff. Well here's what they do with processed food studies. They took groups of people and they put them in rooms and they matched the macro. So proteins, fats, and carbs are similar in each room. And then they left the people to eat and they observed them. And then even better, they took the same group of people and they switched them into the different rooms. Because you never know, you might have a group over here that eats more than this other group.

But they switched them. Here's what they found. On average, people eat about 500 to 600 more calories a day with the processed foods. In other words, the same level of satiety is reached with 600 less calories when it's whole natural foods. It's a huge number. Huge. That's a deficit. Most people in a deficit are trying to cut 600 calories. So if you're eating heavily processed foods, like if you want to play this game on super incredible hard mode, go ahead and do it with heavily processed foods.

You want to make it easier on yourself, avoid them like the plague, stick to whole natural foods. The other thing, which is a banger because it gives you two benefits, is eat high protein. So protein produces more satiety than carbohydrates and fats, significantly more. Eat high protein and here's this other side of it that's so awesome, it also is muscle preserving. In fact, there are studies without strength training, which I love this, where they put people in a deficit, they have a high protein group and a normal protein group.

They don't even have them lift weights. The high protein group still keeps more muscle. So whole natural foods and high protein, that's the part of the diet that makes it far easier to stick to. If you do these things, you'll be blown away by how much body fat you lose and how much muscle. It's amazing how well this works. The hardest part is the psychological part. When the cravings kick up and your desires and habits of, oh, I used to eat this snack or this sounds really good right now, if you can just resist that and go to the food that you hopefully prepped in the refrigerator or the beef jerky, the high protein or the Greek yogurt, high protein Greek yogurt, and make that choice, it's amazing how satisfying.

Because when you're hungry and you're low calorie, food tastes good. But your cravings and the psychological part of like, oh, that popcorn sounds really good or that cereal or that candy, all these foods sound so good. And if you could just resist the urge, go like, I'm going to go have the Greek yogurt even though that doesn't sound the best. Once you actually eat it, it's actually really satisfying. It's wild. My favorite example of this, and we had Chris Kresser on the show years ago. He gave this example.

I thought it was so awesome. He said, if I put four or five plain boiled potatoes in front of you, plain, just boiled white potatoes, and I told you to eat them all, you probably would fail. It'd be very difficult. You'd choke down one of them and then you'd be like, I don't want to eat anymore. But if I placed a family-sized bag of potato chips in front of you, how much do you think you can eat? Now, I know myself, and I can get pretty far.

I might even be able to finish the bag. Well, guess what? Same amount of potatoes. One of them hyper-palatable, one of them whole natural. One of them, my satiety kicks in real fast. The other one, it takes until the end of the bag before I start to get that satiety signal. It's wild. So it's funny you brought up the baked potato thing that Chris Kresser talked about. Yesterday's prepped meal and today's prepped meal I have today is Katrina's meatloaf and just a straight baked potato. And I'll even allow myself to salt it, which adds a little palatability and easier.

And yesterday, I didn't. I got through like three quarters of the baked potato. So I won't, I mean, I eat it until I'm satisfied and I'm good. I really am eating it just to compliment the- You want to know what's funny? They just came out with these studies on diet and everybody's blown away, but those of us who've trained people for a long time are like, obviously, people who eat the same foods every single day, so they took a group of people and they said, here, eat the same kind of foods every single day.

They all lost weight. Now, the reason why they lost weight is one of the factors that plays into palatability is novelty. And so if you eat the same foods every day, yeah, they just don't eat as much because it's boring. That's the point. So when I read the study, I'm like, well, of course, everybody's blown away. Eat the same foods. It's the new diet. Just eat chicken breast, broccoli. Just swapping any like sweet to salt or like fat and you kind of mix around those combos.

It's like, it's a lot easier to all of a sudden re-stoke it. That's why when you're full, you can always eat dessert. Yeah. Hey, talk about blown away. So whenever my friends reach out to me with like blood work stuff, cholesterol, anything medical related, I always defer to Sal. So I called Sal up because this was like, I don't know, a few months ago, probably three months ago or so. Somewhere around there. Your buddy's lipids were off. Yeah, yeah. And it puzzles me when it's like a buddy of mine that I would consider pretty healthy.

He looks in relatively good shape. He's an active guy. Does a lot of like mountain biking stuff and no, I don't follow him around and see exactly what he eats, but he doesn't carry a bunch of body fat and he's active. And he was asking me because he showed me like his cholesterol was really high. I have the numbers here. Yeah. And I sent it to you. So you got them. Yeah. And I was like, what are the things that you would have them do? And then you had to make a few modifications nutritionally and then include dose.

And his improvement was crazy. So Dose is a company that makes these products. One of them lowers cholesterol. It's proven in studies. It's all natural. It's got natural compounds. It's actually liquid, by the way. It tastes like juice. So you take like a shot of it every single day. And they have studies to show that it works. And I like studies because so many supplements out there that say this, that, and the other. And if I don't see the studies, I'm always very skeptical because 90% of supplements don't do anything.

So he tried dose and here's the numbers. His total cholesterol went from 293 to 201. His LDL went from 200 to 124. Remarkable change. It's like he took a statin. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. It's great. And that's what he was trying to do. And without the side effects of a statin. So by the way, that's why he reached out was he's like, they wanted to put him on a statin. I'm like, whoa, before you do that, hold on, let me talk to Sal and see what he would advise you to do.

And he said, I'll get back to you. And so you, I talked to you and then sent it. Oh, I mean, that was you, bro. To him. Yeah. No, yeah, no. He, that's exactly what he did. He really just cleaned up. Did Sal say good job to you? Yeah. Good job for telling me, dude. Thanks. Thanks, bro. Thanks, Adam. You did a good job. You pat yourself on the back there. You know what I'm saying? You know that he, he, I know he, he cut out the, he knows he was like a snacker and processed food and stuff like that.

And so he stuck to the, the whole foods, tried to, he didn't cut out red meat, but he, he, he limited it. He wasn't just going, you know, buck wild on it and then added the, the dose in every day. And I bet his doctors trip him. Oh, you know what? I meant to ask him what his, what his doctors would do. I know his wife originally was like, Hey, why don't you just do all these things first before you take the supplement or that? And I'm like, I'm so glad you still did it anyways, cause it's an all natural supplement.

Yeah. It's something you could take forever. Everything in itself. It's not a, it's not a pill or it's not like this, uh, it's not a drug, this is like, it's all it is, is all these all natural fruits and things that are combined in a little liquid You know, what's crazy with cholesterol is I'm going to get flame for this, but when you look at the data on statins in there and how they actually, now they, they for sure reliably change your blood lipids. That's a fact.

You take a statin, your numbers will change. That's a fact. But when you look at the data on what does that actually mean in the sense of, does it actually extend life? Does it actually reduce, uh, you know, heart attacks and heart disease and all that stuff? It gets a little bit murky because you also have side effects in there. So there's all this controversy around statins. When should you take them? Should you take them? It seems like the data points to, if you've already had a heart attack, it's more beneficial than if you've never had a heart attack.

And so, and you can look through the data, everybody can look it up and, and see for yourself. But here's the deal. When people change their blood lipids through exercise, diet, natural ways, uh, like some, like the compounds that are in dose, you see, you definitely see an improvement in longevity. So what we tend to do. to do with medicine is we look at a number that connects to an outcome, and we try to control the number, and then we hope to see, or we think we're going to see, an outcome, when sometimes that's not the case.

Sometimes the number itself is saying something else, and it's what's causing that or other things. And that's why when you change those numbers, even if, look, by the way, even if your blood lipids didn't change much, but you exercise and change your diet, you see great outcomes. So pretty cool. Speaking of which, dude, I got a processed food study for you guys that's interesting. And years ago, I trained this woman that she conducted studies. I forgot what university she worked for, but she helped run studies, and she really helped me a lot understand how to read studies and how to look at maybe possible causes or whatever.

So I'm going to read to you guys a study, and then I'm going to show you guys what I came out with. So here's a study. This is the Radiological Society of North America. So this is the title of the study. It's in Science News on ScienceDaily.com. Ultra-processed foods linked to hidden muscle fat that may threaten your knees. So here's what's wild about the study. Eating more ultra-processed foods, which we just talked about earlier, was linked to greater fat buildup inside thigh muscles, according to MRI scans of 615 adults at risk for knee osteoarthritis.

Surprisingly, the association remained even after researchers accounted for caloric intake, physical activity, and other factors. In other words, what they think they found is that ultra-processed foods, independent of the increased caloric intake, would cause more intramuscular fat. So I'm thinking about this, and I'm like, hmm, are there obesogenic compounds in processed foods that can cause these things? There's some data that suggests maybe, but there's actually way more data that shows that it's really about the calories. That's the big thing. So how is this possible that it's independent, that they tried to control for calories?

And I'll tell you why. What they did is they took 615 people and they compared them against each other. What they didn't do is take these people and compare them to themselves. So what I mean by that is, everybody has a different resting metabolic rate. If you're eating a lot of ultra-processed foods, you're eating way more than you should. So if I control your calories against another guy's, and I'm like, oh, they're eating the same calories, but you have more intramuscular fat, what I don't know is that your body burns less calories.

So you're just eating more than you would if it was whole natural foods. So what it's not saying, I know the title says it's independent of calories. The only way to know that is if you took the same person, put them on the same caloric intake, ultra-processed foods versus not, and then look and see what the answer is. I'd also be really curious to how accurately are they measuring calories, because we know what FDA allows with processed foods. So there's a 20 plus percent room for error, and if this study is conducted and we're like, oh, well, we took these, this is 3,000 calories in processed foods, according to what, the label on the back of it?

Yeah, it could be 3,600 calories. Or did you actually independently take each and every one of those foods and measure what it is? Or did you just take the label for it? And I would imagine in a study that are expensive to do anyways, that you just said, oh, this is good enough, we'll just follow that. When we know that there's room for 20 to 25 percent error, which that alone could make a difference. Yeah. Well, here's what I know. If somebody's eating a lot of ultra-processed foods, they're eating way more than they would if they didn't.

For sure. Bottom line. Okay, so that makes sense. So did anybody speculate on obesogenic type compounds? So that, not in this study, but there are studies that suggest, and I think they're decent, that there are certain compounds that promote fat storage, things like xenoestrogens. So I'm not saying that that's not playing a role, but I don't think that's the case here. I think what the case here is, is that Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Smith and Mrs. whatever, we're looking at their caloric intake, we're controlling it.

But what we are not considering is that Mrs. Smith is eating 80 percent of her calories from ultra-processed, is eating way more than she would for herself. And that's going to cause more fat storage as a result. But yeah, I really appreciate that client, because now I can look at studies and I'm not- Yeah, you can kind of read between the lines. I'm not the best at it, but it helps a lot, because so many studies with the headlines- Oh, I know. You just read the headlines.

I always wonder, yeah, what they're actually hoping the outcome's going to be, and what the purpose of the study is to begin with. You know my favorite example? I think a large percentage of all studies have a desired outcome in it. Yeah, there's a bias going in. I mean, it has to be. They're being funded normally by the ... which I know that- Well, here's what happens with that. Our friends like Lane and stuff have talked about, you have to have a bias. You have to have a bias to pay for it.

No one's going to fund it. Right. Well, so here's what happens with that. It's less that you have this nefarious company that is tweaking the study to try to make it look the way it wants, or they're lying. That may play a role. It's less of that. It's more of this. If you're a pharma company, or you're a food company, and a study comes out with a result that you don't like, you're not publishing it. Right. Yeah. I'm not sending this out. So you just disregard that.

Yeah. We're not going to put this out. Unless it benefits your product. Yeah. One of my favorite examples of the ... I have a few examples. One of my favorites is the old studies that showed that ... so when I was a kid, they were still saying this. Like, oh, don't drink too much coffee. Oh, yeah. It causes cancer. They actually used to say that. I know. Oh, too much coffee. I know that's associated with cancer. Well, it was because in the 80s, 70s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, people who drank the most coffee also smoked the most cigarettes.

So they just weren't controlling it. That was a definite thing. Yeah. That was coffee and cigarettes. Coffee and cigarettes. I thought I saw ... Now we know coffee's anti-cancer. I thought I saw somebody actually recently ... wow, was it Izritel, or one of the ... I can't remember who it was that was talking about some recent studies on caffeine. In fact, they were saying, and Justin would love this, saying that the health benefits all the way up to like 600, 800 milligrams a day. Like that healthy for you.

Yeah. That's a high dose. Just keep watching all these studies backing caffeine and cheese, dude. I'm like ... Yeah. Hitting it out. Here's the thing with caffeine. It's so individual. So when you look at a group of people that drink 600 milligrams of caffeine regularly, you're looking at a group of people that tolerate caffeine. There's such a difference. Yeah. There's such a difference with how you ... I'm sure there's going to be something about adrenals later. But whatever. Well, I just know that ... I know this for a fact, like in this room alone.

You have probably the highest tolerance for caffeine in the room. Yeah. Adam would be second. Sure. And I'm third. Doug's last. Yeah. So if I had 600 milligrams of caffeine in a day, I would feel horrible. I would feel ... 400 is my max. Doug sticks at like 50 to 100 at the most, right? Which is interesting. On average, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it took me until college to even start drinking any kind of caffeine. The first time I even had it was like black coffee I drank when I was working at a restaurant and I was working a double.

And I was just so incredibly exhausted. And I tried it and then it was like, whoa, all of a sudden it was this energy rush. Because before that, it's like the sugar drinks. You thought like Jolt had a lot of caffeine, it had like barely any in it in comparison to the drinks. Dude, I think Jolt had 81 milligrams of caffeine. Yeah, yeah. About half of them. I think it's all sugar. Half of them. My first introduction was my junior year in high school when I started the dairy in the morning before work.

Oh, you had to have that. Yeah. And so I'd swing by 7-Eleven and I was drinking those ... I mean, it's like chocolate mocha coffees. You know? There's like a lot of ... I wish my introduction to caffeine was what you guys have to do. And so like I ... And it was literally like out of necessity. It was like four o'clock in the morning before school. I've never been a morning person as it is, and then getting up to work, I needed something. And this was really before ...

Energy drinks weren't as popular as they are today. Like there wasn't ... I mean, now there's like a plethora of them. The only energy ... I'm trying to remember when Red Bull was first coming on the market. Do you remember? Much later, dude. Yeah. It was much later. This is like the 90s, right? So ... There were no energy drinks. There was Jolt Cola, and then there were bodybuilders. Mountain Dew is like one, I think, that they increased the caffeine a little bit, but ... I mean, Red Bull might have been coming on the scene, although I didn't like Red Bull.

I never liked the taste of Red Bull. Never been a fan. But they were probably the first ... Oh, look at ... No, no, no, no. I'm kidding. That's not true. 1987 in Austria, but in the US it was like probably the late 90s, early 2000s. Yeah, the 90s. Yeah, the United States. 97. 97. And I don't remember seeing Red Bull. So that's literally ... 97? Yeah. So this is exactly ... So 1997 is the year I'm referring to right now. So I'm like, I don't even know about Red Bull at this point.

So coffee ... And it was 81 milligrams of caffeine. And it was really ... Oh, yeah, and low. So your way of getting energy back then was only coffee, and so that's why. And kids didn't drink coffee. Yeah. No. Oh, yeah, no. I remember doing it. It wasn't like a ... It tastes gross. I thought it would just stain my teeth. I had to drink the sugar bomb version of it to get it down, and it was like I needed this to get it down. My association with coffee was either espresso, because obviously my family's Italian, but my main association were my teachers, whose breath would be terrible.

Breath, ugh. Yes. Because they would have coffee breath. That's a thing. Yes. Yes. The combo of both was horrible. It was horrible. My ... Dude, you guys, I wish my ... It was my grandma. I wish my introduction to caffeine was coffee. My introduction to caffeine, bro, I went hard right out the gates, because remember, I was into lifting weights at 14. I super nerded out on supplements right out the gates. So I learned real early ephedra, and caffeine, and yohimbe, and siniferin, and I learned it right out the gates, and I didn't know what I was doing.

Just making your own cocktails. I did, dude. And I mixed them together, because at first I did caffeine and ephedra, and of course I went to the gym and was like, Superman. I'm taking meth. You know what I mean? I'm working out. Yeah, yeah. This is the greatest thing ever. Homemade meth. And then I did this combination of them, and I'll never forget, dude. I went to the 24-hour fitness on Hillsdale. So I was a kid. I was like 15. My dad dropped me off, and I was like two and a half hours.

I was getting after it. It was crazy. Then he brings me home. I come home, eat dinner, barely had an appetite, laid in bed, and I was like, my mom's going to find me dead, because my heart was beating out of me, and I was just like, please don't let me die, dude. I really don't want my mom to find me this way. And then I had Ultimate Orange and Riptule. I think my first pre-workout was Phosphagen. I think their EAS. I don't think they had.

There was no caffeine in that. There was. I think their EAS had a... No, Phosphagen was creatine, and then there was Phosphagane, which was... What was their... What was EAS's pre-workout? Did they have a pre-workout? That's a good question. Maybe they didn't then. So then maybe it was the BPN, the red one. Because those are the two... No Explode or something? I have the furthest memory back is the red BPN or the Phosphagen EAS stuff. So EAS didn't have a pre-workout. I don't think they did.

Did they? What was it called at the time? Myoplex? No, that's now. No, that's way later. Yeah. I don't think they really had one back in the day. It says caffeine in there. Yeah, but that's later. Well, that's back in 2016, yeah. That's later. Do you know what EAS had? Talk about brilliant marketing. So Bill Phillips came out with a supplement guide. You guys remember that? Yeah. It was actually pretty informational, but it was really just a big commercial for his product. It was brilliant. Oh, they sold so much.

Bro, he had a three-capsule stack, three-supplement stack. He had Crateen, Vanadil Sulfate, okay, I don't know if you guys know what that is, and Glutamine, okay? And you take them all three. And this is how brilliant he was. He said in his magazine, Muscle Media 2000, he said, Crateen, that's like D-ball. He said, you gain big muscles real fast. Wow. Vanadil Sulfate and Glutamine, those are more like Deca, like more of the quality. This is literally what he said. We're selling Crateen all wrong. Bro. I know.

So I bought all three of them, and I took them, and it worked because it was Crateen. The other stuff didn't. It's so funny that, because I so can connect to that, because I remember how old I was, and you wanted the supplements that looked the most great, great market. Yeah. Like if it had- Bro, the more illegal- Yeah, it was made in some crazy mad science lab. This was banned in 50-something states. It was like, what? I'm taking that. Or it had like a syringe on the back.

Yeah, or like a cheetah or a dragon on it or something. Bro, I bought a supplement from the back of the Muscle magazine. It was called Muscle Mix, and the picture of it was a vial. So it was a vial. Yeah. So I ordered it, and what it was, it was a dropper, and it was Smilax was what was in it. This is like a, it's supposed to raise, it did nothing, right? But when I bought it, I was like, oh, this is going to be- Oh, this is straight from the lab.

Dude, this is going to- This is great. I can't believe, and it's in the back of the magazine. They don't know I'm 15. I'm going to buy this again. You should still sell stuff in beakers. I know. Hey, did you guys, you guys didn't see this data. Dude, trip off this. We've been talking about GLP-1s and what they're doing or whatever. You guys want to hear the, this is the first time we've seen this in decades. Adult obesity stopped and reversed. It is now- What? Right now?

Right now. It is on the down. Oh. It is now reversed. That's a big deal. It peaked at 45%. Right now, it's at 43. It's been on this uphill climb for decades. Year over year over year for decades. Decades. It's just been climb, climb, climb, climb, climb. Nothing's really touched it. We saw it start to stop right around 2022 or so, and everybody's like, what's going on? Maybe we reached peak obesity or whatever. Now, it's going down and 100%, 100%, it's a GLP-1. Oh, yeah. Well, what was the number?

Was it with Dr. Tina, where we talked about the number of people that were on a diet? It was the number of people that were on a diet. Yeah, but what's even crazier is how many people per week are onboarding to it. It's like in the, I want to say, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands- Oh, it's crazy. ... weekly are coming on board of starting it every week. I think conservatively, and maybe I'll be wrong, but I think half of America is going to be on GLP, half of them, especially when you consider ...

I'm looking at these studies that they're doing right now, guys. They're not out yet. In other words, they haven't published what's going on, but they're showing some of the stuff. GLPs obviously help with weight loss. We know that. They're showing effects on, what does that say, tens of- Tens of thousands to over 100,000 people start a GLP-1 medication each week in the US alone. Yeah. Wow. So trip off this. Works great for weight loss. We know this now. There's caveats there. You got to lift weights, eat enough protein.

Doesn't work for everybody. Some people get bad side effects, okay? But as far as medical interventions are concerned, there's nothing we've ever had that comes close. Nothing. Nothing. Not even close. Heard this from practitioners who use GLPs on how people are less likely to drink, to smoke, to gamble, how autoimmune conditions seem to be getting better, what's going on. The speculation was it's affecting the hedonistic pathways of the brain, that's with all the other addictions. The autoimmune issues, well it must be the reduced calories, because we know this, when people start to eat less, oftentimes autoimmune issues get better.

I just saw this study that's coming out that showed that psoriasis got better before the weight loss even started happening. Independent of weight loss. And they're studying GLPs for all kinds of stuff. So we may, I mean we might be tapping into something that is gonna reach more than just. So are you ready for me to switch teams again? So I came out originally and argued with you that I believed it would be a net positive, you were skeptical early on. Then I jumped ship, came over to your side and said, I think you're right.

And now I'm jumping back on the other side. And I'll tell you why, I think a lot of it has to do with my personal experience. Proper usage. So and maybe that's what was what, and I don't think you were per se wrong, but I think that we had to swing so hard the other direction where it became alarming. And then course correct, and more people are becoming privy to how much muscle you can lose, how important the protein intake is. Doctors now are probably prescribing lower doses than what they were early on, because we've seen enough of this alarming stuff come back.

And maybe that's enough, because obviously there's still gonna be people that abuse it, don't do it right, neglect. And I see that, I definitely still see that. But I also do see some people, I've had people in my circle who, that I kind of like shook and woke up. Okay, you were like, you're losing a ton of muscle, you're taking too much of this, have gone back, modified their medication, and then now, better, much better. Like got muscle, look healthy, eating an adequate amount of calories.

And so maybe this does end up being a net positive once more education around how to properly dose it and pairing it with making sure that you strengthen in protein. Now I kind of feel like I'm jumping back on the other side again, where I think this could be, especially when you start seeing this stuff, like why I got back on it with this, like psoriasis and autoimmune stuff, these other benefits aside, just people who need to lose weight. I do think the lack of education was resulting in a lot of those alarming stats that were coming back.

And I think too, because it's been out long enough, and yeah, like doctors are a little more, like accepting some of these alternative ways of prescribing, and I think it does, has made a positive. There was another study that showed that people with COPD and asthma had less attacks when they were on a GLP. Now I know that obesity is connected to that, but I think there is an autoimmune connection, just because of what I'm hearing from experts in the field who we know, that we trust, and what some of the data seems to be suggesting, that this may affect in a positive way, and maybe not all, but many autoimmune issues.

I know for me, personally, part of my gut health issues had to do with treating myself for SIBO, maybe parasites, that made a big difference. There's another part that is probably autoimmune-related a little bit, and taking a very tiny, I'm talking about drops, of a GLP for me seems to help my gut. Now there's two reasons for that. One, it slows down motility, which I think helps me, because my motility's really fast. But it may be the autoimmune aspect of it. Yeah, I'm interested too, because originally it was addressing diabetes, right?

I wonder what those numbers look like now, in comparison, because I know some of these dialysis clinics, and a lot of them have shut down. Really? Yeah. Oh, that number has to be crazy good, because they don't give a shit about even muscle, in that case. It's just like, let's get the weight down to get the diabetes, right? So the desired outcome is even different there, where I'd imagine that they're hitting it out the park. Oh yeah, it's interesting to me to think, of all the treatments and things, because this is big business, in the medical world too.

So if you look at trends, I don't know, maybe Dougie can look this up, are we seeing a trend in smaller clothing sizes being sold? Maybe set that up. So I read that that's happening, that snack food companies are seeing losses. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Well, you know, there's a, so they're already back to the drawing board, right? I mean, they're on the drawing board of finding ways to put stuff in here that counter the GLP-1. So that, yeah, that actually signal. Whoa, the fashion industry is experiencing a measurable trend towards smaller clothing sizes.

Wow. Wow. The ozympic effect. Wow, they even have a name for it already. Yeah, dude. This is like, there's a few times, and this is why we gotta be careful. Crazy. This is why we have to be really careful. There's a few times in history when a medical intervention drastically shifts culture. The last one I can think of is birth control. Birth control pill changed culture dramatically, and I think there was some good, I also think there was some bad, for sure. We could all, we could talk about that.

But the GLPs are shifting culture, literally. It'll be the same. Yep. There'll be some good and there'll be some bad. Yeah, probably. I wanna speculate a little bit with you on something I think I asked you, and I think you were like, man, I'm not sure about that. With my experience with it, and you brought up motility. And the way I described it to you is I feel like my appetite is very similar to what it was like when I was a kid. I'm sure you can relate to this.

For much of my teenage years, early 20s, I had to force myself to eat bigger meals, more meals frequently, to put on the size of, and over decades of eating and training that way. You've trained yourself. I've trained myself to look at even portion sizes differently and eat differently. And what I feel like this low dose has done has knocked me all the way back down to where I would struggle to try and eat, like 4,000 calories would be really, really tough. I don't think I could do that right now.

I'm landing around 3,000, low 3,000 calories, and even sometimes high 2,000s, which that reminds me of what it was like growing up forever. And so, could I have impacted both my motility and my ability to, like, can I have changed that? Like, over decades of pushing it and training it? And could this just kind of be reversing me back to like? Bro, how much does psychology play a role in the amount of food you eat or don't eat? I guess that's the question. Well, I mean, I definitely, there's an obvious psychological.

Oh, yeah. There's a distortion of even the way I visualize. Oh, like you and I, bro. You and I, very similar, right? Skinny, tried to always gain muscle, always trying to overfeed ourselves, all that stuff. What you and I would register as eating enough has been skewed by decades of just eating, like crazy. Yeah, so I already know there's, for sure, a psychological part of that. I'm more curious on, like, mechanistically, like, is there something going on? Well, it does lower your appetite, for sure, and it does slow down motility, which probably changes the kind of foods you wanna eat, because a slower motility will make things sit in your stomach and break.

This is something that it's been really good for me, because I've had to, like, where I would keep eating, because I know I need to, to be big, I go, I have that natural signal, I'm full, and I've pushed that a few times, where I'm like, oh, no, I have more on my plate, I'm gonna keep eating, versus I'm done. Just like I told you, my potato, right? I would never leave part of my meal. What's wrong with that? Especially if it's a healthy food, and it's carbs, I need that, it's extra calories.

I'm gonna shrink. Do you have the extra digestion? So I've just, I've learned now, I've learned my lesson, if I don't, like, it'll really mess up my digestion, because how much my motility is slowed down, and so I've learned now to, once I eat my meatloaf, I'm eating my baked potato, and oh, I get about halfway to three quarters of the way through, and like, oh, I'm good, and I'm like, okay, I can put this away. You're not ignoring that signal. Exactly, I'm not ignoring that, where I've ignored it for so long.

By the way, for people listening, so if your issue is slow motility, GLPs can make that really bad. So if you're somebody that has issues with constipation, you gotta be very careful when you're on one. Now, I know you eat less, so that helps, but you gotta pay attention to what you're eating. Don't eat things that constipate you when you're on GLP-1, if that's your issue, and make sure you increase your fiber. Otherwise, because I've talked to enough of our listeners. Oh, it makes total sense why that does it, because I see how much it's- I've had people call and get- They're just sitting there, man.

They got SIBO, they got SIBO from it, it slowed down- They're already slow motility. It slowed it down so much, they developed gut issues as a result, so now for someone like me, where it's fast motility, it's actually a welcome thing. No, it's been a nice thing. It's been something that my wife's teased me about forever. It's just like, she always would make fun of me, because I'll eat dinner, and then like 10 minutes later, I'm already in the bathroom. Already? Yeah, it's ready to go, you know what I'm saying?

And so it's like, it's a nice thing that I feel a little normal now that it's not like that, you know what I'm saying? I have a normal schedule where it's like, I've always been really, really fast like that. Dude, I gotta share with you guys, so I have not done MAPS anabolic, or phase one MAPS anabolic in a long time. Yeah, that's your bread and butter, dude. It's been a long time since I've done that. Now, one of the reasons why I'm doing it is, my strength training's only three days a week right now, which is the lowest it's been in a long time.

Yeah. And so typically, leading up into this, it's three or four days a week. We're all strength trained, been working to three. Now I've made like a concentrated effort, like I'm only gonna lift three days a week. And it has more to do with my attachment to working out and all that stuff. And on one of the other days, I'm gonna do something else that's more beneficial. So I'm kind of using that for that. But so I'm only three days a week, and I've done bodybuilding style training for a while.

Haven't done anything heavy, low rep, low volume, like phase one anabolic in a very long time. I've avoided deadlifts for a little while, barbell squats for a little while, just because I just want to work on other things. And this is now week two, maybe two and a half of MAPS anabolic. And I know why people like it so much. It's addicting to see the strength gains. It's crazy. Yeah, it's really fun. Bro, I mean, that's like 15, 20 pounds. In fact, you know what I'm doing, and this was inspired by you, Adam, is, because I remember when you were regaining all that muscle, how you kept hurting yourself.

And it was like, it was kind of perplexing at first until we figured out, like, well, yeah, you added 50 pounds to your lift in like a week. Like, of course, that's a. So what I'm doing is I'm not allowing myself to go add more than like five pounds. Like if I can add 15, I'm only adding five. Because I'm like, you know what, if. It takes a lot of discipline to do that. Bro, you kidding me? I'm like pulling off the floor, and I'm like, dude, I could add another 50 pounds, but I'm not.

Because I don't want to hurt myself. But I see why people love, I mean, because when you listen to all of our listeners, all of our MAPS program customers, MAPS anabolic, especially phase one, is the one that people tend to talk about the most. It's addicting. It's just the strain gains. I can't help but laugh, because like, we talk about the psychology of eating, the psychology of lifting around what you're saying right now, especially with dead lifting and squatting. And I do the same thing right now, because I learned that lesson.

In fact, I was just squatting the other day, and I felt really good and strong. And it reminded me, I literally, like my old power lifting workout partner from years ago, one of my early 20s, was in my head of like, 10 pounds doesn't count on squats and deadlifts. We only move up in quarters or 45 plates. It's like, I swear to God, I'd trade for decades without 10s and fives on squats. Yeah, never use 10s and fives. Jump up. Like, if I can't go up a quarter, I ain't going up.

Bro. And so, like, I, I'm adding two and a half sometimes. I felt really strong. And I'm like, my natural instinct is to go over, go grab the 25s, and I'm like, I can put a 10 on. You know what I'm saying? I can put a 10 on. Be reasonable. Yeah. But, bro, if you had a 10 on each side, it's 20 pounds. Yeah, it's 20. That's a big jump. It is, but in my, like, I have trained myself for so many years that 10s don't count.

Bro, you should. I know, I was like, I'm gonna get there. I just wanna get there to the point where it's like, okay, here's the real weight. You should see me right now, dude. I'm working out in the gym, and it's like, you know, week two or week three, and I go, I get the two and a half, and I put the little tiny two and a halfs on, and I'm like, this is stupid. Yeah, that's even better than me. This is dumb. I was proud I went down to 10.

I haven't done that forever, yeah. That actually, it's a cool strategy when you get in that mindset, and you're just adding the two and a halves, and you're just like, really, like, gently progressing. Well, the hard part is I know what I've lifted before. So I'm adding five pounds, and I'm still 200 pounds away. No, that's exactly what's hard for me, too, is like, I'm like, this still isn't even that impressive of a weight for me. Like, what I'm talking about right now is I was doing 275, and I would normally go right up to 315, and I'm like, well, you know, let me just add another.

Dude, I'm just battling all this stress, so I'm like, I've literally reduced it down to a few functional movements, and then, like, maybe two, three functional movements a day, because, dude, like, my forearm flexor and, like, my grip and everything is, dude, I must have done something, but it's just so achy, and it's pissing me off. I love how Justin says I must have done something. You moved two tons of rock, didn't you? Was it, how many tons? Four tons. No, four tons. Yeah. I wonder what happened.

Yeah. Why's your arm hurt? I put my finger on it. Yes. I must have slept wrong. Yeah. Yeah, well, you're working out, and you're like, ah, God, like, oh, it hurts my grip. The only person I believe, when they're confused why they got hurt, is Adam, because he literally will be like, I did nothing. He has no idea what I did. Why am I hurting? Well, I'll be like that. I'll be that guy that I'm, like, sleeping, and I'm also doing, like, wrist and shoulder cars and all that, and I'm, like, really trying to, like, you know, work and spiral my way out of it.

It's not working. Speaking of, like, knowledge and stuff like that, yesterday we had my buddy Ryan. I was just gonna shout Ryan out. Yeah. I was just gonna shout him out, because you brought up my injury, and I'm like, can't tell you how nice that was. So, Ryan DeVita, good friend of mine, I go way back. Him and I worked at 24 Hour Fitness way back in the day when I started, him and I started the personal training studio that I owned for so many years, and we split up after a few years, but he's one of the most, I learned a lot from him when it comes to correctional exercises.

He's one of the most knowledgeable. I didn't know that, either. Yeah. I just never knew, like, I didn't know him well enough, obviously, as you did. I just assumed that like he was a like his bit I just thought he was more the business acumen of the two of you in the business Yeah, I didn't realize he was that brilliant on the correctional when it comes to like exercise correctional exercise Biomechanics correctional massage like the guys like he's one of the best I mean he he he literally unpacked me in like two minutes, and it was that I've been troubleshooting with you guys For you, but you didn't buy him dinner.

Do you know dude? Oh, he put you put his finger Adam was talking about is some of his issues with like certain exercises and Ryan literally put his finger right where the origin of the pain was yeah Adams like whoa yeah That's right where it's at and then I'm like we gotta explain to me. Why is it just because for me? What was what was perplexing me was why is it when I when I actually put myself in a? Proper form and what we consider optimal position for bicep curls I have pain whereas if I put myself in this weird Hunched over hunched over rounded position.

It's I don't I have minimal pain doing that which is counterintuitive to me Yeah, cuz you shorten yeah, and he broke it down and this whole time. I thought it was my pec minor major He's like oh, it's pec major He goes you you tore your your pec major, and it's just a matter of how much you tore it It's like you obviously I mean it does suck, but it also feels like Katrina was because I was so excited when I came home And she's like I don't understand why you're so excited like you knew you tore this and I'm like yeah, but to be like More sure appointed yeah, because like they otherwise you're like what's going on.

What's wrong with me? Yeah, yeah like that's and I don't know it has to be like top Top two or three pet peeves to be a personal trainer. Yeah, and to not be able to solve I feel you with that Oh god now like that just it's like I've helped so many people in so many ways and then to be you know for you to Be perplexed on your own body who you you know everything that's going in it What you're doing in is I can't get to the bottom of What's going on exactly and why I can't the last time that happened was when Justin and I figured out that we needed to strengthen Our hip flexors.

Oh, yeah, those which is like an epiphany Yeah, you almost never have to do with a client like really target their hip flexors And so and you and I were getting similar issues, and I don't remember what it was we saw something Yeah, and I'm like I wonder if it's that hip pain. Yeah, I started doing a specific hip flexor actually went away Yeah of all things like that crazy anyway, I got I got to tell you guys so One of the interesting things about some supplements well some supplements you take and you feel right out the gates and others you feel But then you get used to how they feel and you forget that they're really doing a lot Until you stop using you guys have you ever have that experience where you that's the only way I decide if a supplement works Really well for me.

I'm the one who's I'm you know me whenever we talk about supplements. I'm like Even when I first are taking it and you're like how do you feel this time? I feel pretty good. I'm still skeptical It's not until I've been doing it for a while I take take it off Then come and then at the discrepancy of that is where I feel like I can really difference I can really hone in on like okay That's how impact so seed so seeds a probiotic company and for people listening and so seed hasn't sent us a shipment in a little while and I actually got I Asked mice our assistant to make sure that they send some she's like it's on its way I haven't taken seed for a couple weeks.

I know it's a big. I know it's a huge difference in my digestion Difference and I take it religiously every single night out the multivitamin like every day every night empty stomach I take seed every single night. We hadn't been getting a shipment I've kind of been not thinking about it and kind of forgot. Otherwise, I would just buy it and And and I'm like today I'm like, you know, I keep I gotta remember to get some seed and then I'm like, oh, yeah We don't have any but I can tell yeah, I could tell my digestion makes it makes a big difference such a big difference Yeah, it does it makes a huge difference for me mainly like the whole day like well as my digestion and everything else like yeah I feel like way I Way more symptoms from you know, my gut look throughout the day if I haven't done it So I'm more inspired now than ever to to get consistent with it Because of what I'm noticing with the psoriasis and glp-1 and it's like I feel like Adding that into this and trying to repopulate my gut with healthy bacteria Well, this is probably combo best times I should try and do this and so I was actually waiting for the shipment to come back in to for the exact same reason Is because it's one of the things I haven't been good.

I've been really good since we met with Cabral last time I've been dialed with my my vitamin D and my fish oil. I've been really consistent with that I haven't been consistent with my seed and that's I've been waiting for it to come in so we could do that Especially with it's going on because I'd love to report like, okay, let's see if I can make a difference with that Let me introduce you to butcher box. Who are they? What are they? So this is a company that delivers healthy meats to your door and more So look think grass-fed meat Pastor raised chicken crate free chicken.

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You can get free ribeyes, New York strip steaks filet mignons in every order included for free for a year plus $20 off your first box again. It's butcher box comm slash mind pump. Here comes the show Our first caller is Kyle from British Columbia. Welcome back, dude Hey guys, thanks for taking me back you got it. I got it up Perfect. I got an update for you guys. Let's go, dude. All right, so The last time we had spoken I just finished my first round of anabolic and I just switched to free weights during that time and Because of that I got much stronger During my first round because I was getting used to the bar and getting used to the free weights So you guys suggested that I repeat anabolic now that I'm adjusted to see how much strength I can actually gain now that I'm all leveled out Excuse me, so I've still been working on how to properly fuel myself during this time as well.

I Taken your advice in our last conversation to up my protein Currently, I'm hitting about 160 to 170 grams per day Some days a little more my low days which happened mostly on weekends Just because I'm out with the family. Most of the time would be about 150 But I'm trying to fix that at the moment Not sure how much of a detriment that would be a couple of days on the weekend like that But overall my digestion is feeling better as last time I'd spoken.

I was kind of getting used to eating more so That seems to be working out. Well now so in terms of my training I've continued to split the anabolic workouts into upper and lower like the first time I personally just enjoyed that style and it was working for my schedule there However, please don't hate me because on this round I didn't follow anabolic exactly Mostly due to another inspiring failure that I had experienced so essentially The part where you're supposed to lower the weight and up the reps.

I ended up keeping the weight heavier because I was very motivated to lift more and the main reason why was I Had my brother-in-law over and he was doing some bench press and I was spotting him he's much stronger than I am and I wasn't working out at the time, but I was just hanging out and then he eventually got Up to 230 and then I was like, I just want to feel what this feels like I was feeling stronger a bit confidence. Like I just want to see if I can do like one rep Just just let me go.

So I tried I got it about halfway down and I needed his help to get it back up But after that just one like half lift I felt really sore for about two days after that and I was just super motivated to Just keep going keep going. I don't know if that soreness was a slight injury or if it was just muscle soreness, but Throughout my training of anabolic I kept it as heavy as I could Just adding like two more pounds to the bar Try to do that on the last set and I did still get stronger, but I don't know if my approach was wrong or How much of a detriment that was?

But personally I just got really into just trying to lift more and more throughout this round I really just found it super motivating super fun. I don't know what it is It's just like adding two more weights just makes my date or two more pounds makes my day feel so much better I don't know why but it's just a Personal Fulfillment throughout the day. So that was my training but overall throughout this round I'm overall very happy with my results and I really truly appreciate all the help you guys have Given me I feel the strongest I've ever been I've learned a ton about strength training and keep improving my eating with your guys advice To sum up my results after this round.

I certainly did get stronger. I'll share my numbers in a second here I improved my digestion I hit some new tough goals. I set for myself just for fun like pull-ups and doing some rope climb stuff I really have never been able to do those very well, but I'm actually able to do 10 pull-ups now I can do some rope climb which is a fun little thing And I've just overall increased my main lift so my numbers went from my bench before was 155 but now it's up to 165 My deadlift went from 165 to 200 Overhead press I managed to do one rep of a hundred pounds Which was a big achievement for myself because I've always kind of struggled with that one particularly My pull-ups got up to 10, which has been a lifetime goal for me.

So very happy with that My body weight I've increased I'm up to 73.5 kilograms from 70 kilograms before so I've put on another 3 kilograms and Yeah, so those are my overall results I got a couple questions in terms of Nutrition and training So I can start with whatever you guys prefer. Well first, I just want to say you killed it. Yeah. Yeah, so 90 days you gained Well six pounds. Well about a little over six pounds of Muscle you actually look a little leaner in your picture.

So it's probably more than that I think you might have lost a little body fat in the process your strength went through the roof This was all in the course of 90 days Which is phenomenal I want to get clarity to on that on the strength because I think you got stronger than you think you got because if I Heard you correctly as you progress through maps anabolic which starts in a low rep phase then goes to moderate reps Then goes to high reps you increased weight all the way through that you lowered weight or reps, right?

No, he can't he let he lifted his weight. He increased weight because he's doing said that he didn't know He didn't the protocol of the reps. No, he didn't follow protocol the program of lowering the weight and increasing the reps Yeah, but so so you kept the weight the same and you kept the reps low reps Yes, that's right. Like I kept adding weight progressively, but I kept the reps like on my main looks like bench press Especially I was around like the five five to seven reps So I was like, I thought you you increased the reps and the weight.

No, so you yeah So you're like phase one your whole thing. Yeah, I used your strength went through the roof and you gained I would guess based off your pictures Closer to seven to eight pounds of lean body mass through the whole period of time. We could have ate a lot more calories Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it still crushed it eat more eat more watch what happens. Yeah Okay Power rate. Yeah, it sounds like he would do well. Yeah, you do it You would do really well with power lift or PPL or upper lower?

Yeah, I think any of those programs would crush for you with with higher calories. You're gonna keep building dude You'll probably gain another If you bump your calories effectively follow some good programming, I think within 90 days You could probably gain another five to eight pounds of lean body mass Wow, yeah, that's awesome. Like I'm hearing your guys initial response here in terms of eating more calories I feel like that's probably my biggest that was actually my main question because I've started to notice like I'm eating the same But however now which has never happened before like in the evening after dinner I'm getting hungry again, and I'm just like so it's like I think I just need to overall eat more throughout the day And that's that'll only got a list.

You got to listen to that Kyle. Yeah, you're but you're Gonna listen to that when you when you when you feel that way, especially when you're eating good you're eating clean, right? We're not eating foods that increase appetite So you're eating good food whole foods and you're lifting weights like you are And you feel that appetite increase that's a that's a good signal I mean your body's trying to grow more and build more muscle You not feeding it depriving it is gonna slow your progress down you feed it you're gonna build more muscle.

Yep Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll do great though. You did great. I mean really good. That's the only critique is like we could have Ate more. Yeah, that's it. Okay, so literally go back do it again But do it follow maybe up or lower follow maps power lift and this time feed more Yeah, listen to that feel it go up another I would go up another 400 calories at least. Yeah Okay, excellent, that's actually how much I've been kind of Kind of calculating my snacking to overcompensate that hunger.

So yeah, I'll just add that throughout the day. Yep. Excellent. Yeah, dude Yeah one question Just in terms of I've sometimes noticed though. I wanted to start adding a little bit of mobility to either the beginning or the end of my workouts because The one thing I noticed was like sometimes when I'm in like a plank position or even when curling I noticed I had like a Tight. Yeah pain here in my shoulder so I started doing just like against the wall like the shoulder up and down deal ease and that actually Alleviated it for quite a while, but then I kind of stopped doing that and then I notice it coming back So so here's why that happened Kyle.

Okay, so the mobility helps but you didn't listen to us and you stayed a little rep Yeah There's always a consequence for not doing the right though, I'm serious. I'm not all joking aside Yeah, staying a low rep heavy for too long. That'll start happening Yeah So that and also the lesson is you should do that before every bench day like so before you do a pressing movement You should prime with that always always Especially if you were gonna not add here, and you're gonna lift heavy longer So you should do that no matter what?

But to Sal's point if you would have followed the program you probably wouldn't have noticed that as much because you probably would have phased out of the really heavy lifting Doesn't mean that we don't all in here in this room do the same thing to some time I'm feeling hey, I want to stay lifting heavy for longer That's right, but you bet your ass when I'm doing that I'm putting in the work on the mobility stuff or else Yeah, and this is why too we end up like recommending sometimes to bridge, you know and take a break and do symmetry So we can You know address a lot of these joint Issues for stability and control there, so you know it might be something to consider after you get through You know your next phase your block Kyle how many of our programs you have is it just anabolic that you got I?

Got anabolic suspension. I got prime and prime Pro And I got maps 15, okay good So I'm gonna have Doug put together a package for you of the programs that we think would be best for you And we're gonna discount that the crap out of them So if you want to get the next year of programming set up We'll send that to you And then if you want to sign up you'll save a ton to Justin's point having symmetry or performance or both in a power lift those three programs and what you already have you could you're set for life on those and Should just make it a habit of when you notice things like you notice like that.

That's a good time follow symmetry the next program I'm gonna do symmetry or performance something that's more mobility focused unilateral focused that'll help dress it Then you can get back to the heavy lifting and power lifting and just kind of toggle back and forth we typically recommend once a year somebody does either symmetry or performance that typically Addresses all those issues and then feed more okay eat more Supplement tip for you if you if you see that you're challenged a lot on the weekends to push those proteins You're somebody who would do well with like key on the Central amino acids knowing that you're not hitting your optimal protein on those days You could take some of those that would help just put it in your water.

Yep. Just just take just drink having some right now Mm-hmm So that's something that I would recommend as somebody who knows they have a hard time always consistently any protein Adding that while we're trying to build what is only gonna help the process totally and then yeah, dude, stay the course That's it dude. Feed that appetite job, man. Yep Perfect. Well, thank you guys so much. Like honestly the last like through you guys's advice on these calls I've made more progress than my whole life. So it's been very helpful.

I really appreciate more Do you have more good results coming to you? Yeah, keep it keep us posted. I love seeing the updates. You're killing it Awesome we'll do thanks guys. Take it easy. I think we'll be a good program package for him would be symmetry upper lower and power lift Would be a good good three. He's already got a friend bro to switch through. Yeah, I mean predictable And you know, it's this is good for people to watch because he said it He's had better results less than 90 days and he had in his whole life and it wasn't for lack of trying This is the this is the thing.

It's not for lack of trying you just You're doing this on hard mode you're trying to dig a massive hole with a spoon and we're offering you a backhoe by doing things the right way and and you'll notice again and not to point out his folly, but just He went his own way in a small way by not phasing his programs and kind of paid the price He felt some pain, right? And so, you know our programming is written specifically the way it's written because avoid it This is ideal and this will get me the best kind of long-term success and results Also got another seven pounds of muscle He'll gain also big thing to point out for the audience that could see that actually can see the video and see the pictures It's really clear that He gained weight, but he looks like he's leaner which always tells me that we could have ate more.

That's right, right? It was like he was he needed to lose weight. He was already lean Yeah, exactly. So he and then and then on top that was before I so just seen his pictures I would have said that and then he goes man. I noticed at night. I was hungry. So that's a clear sign The body's trying to grow trying to build muscle you Ignoring that signal because you're afraid you're gonna get fat or put body fat on will only hinder your progress Feeding that signal especially if you make good choices Like that's my kind of rule for myself is even and this is how I don't count calories on a regular basis It's just man if I'm if I'm lifting consistently, I'm eating whole foods and you're hungry.

I'm hungry tonight I did it last night last night. I got up at 10 o'clock at night. She's like, what are you doing? I went downstairs. I'm like, I'm hungry went down and I literally had to what was prepped meal for me to eat today for lunch which is my ground beef mushroom and onion and rice meal and had a full meal and So and so my rule is as long as it's a healthy balanced choice like that and I'm hungry. I'm lifting I'm eating whole foods feed feed.

That's my body telling me it needs to build muscle. Our next caller is Justin from California What's up, Justin? It's happening. What's up guys? Are you good man? How can I help you? How are you guys doing good dude, uh, yeah, so I'm So I'm kind of looking for some guidance. So for back story like in my email that I preface with I'm in law enforcement And I feel like this is kind of unique for a lot of people that are in law enforcement that are looking at health and nutrition wise Because I know how important sleep is to gaining and losing weight gaining and losing muscle mass So kind of looking for some guidance on that because you know when I work my night shifts I'm working three or four nights a week 12-hour shifts So I'm getting maybe four or five hours on a good night of sleep And I know that's completely detrimental to trying to gain lean muscle mass and lose weight so looking for some guidance on that and just how to minimize my Habit of overtraining because I don't do that all the time.

Yeah, great question, dude. We've definitely worked We've worked a lot with law enforcement and first responders and people with these kinds of kind of schedules The main thing you need to understand around this Justin because it's a big deal. Okay, so having a sleep schedule like yours where you're not getting Optimal sleep or you're getting way below optimal sleep or a schedule that constantly shifts your circadian rhythm. Sometimes people Will work nights and then try to make up for it You know on the days that they're not working type of deal The main thing to understand is your body's tolerance for stress which includes exercise Is far lower than what it would be if you had ideal sleep.

That's the main thing to understand Over training is a lot easier For someone like you ways like way that can significantly easier. And so if you apply too much exercise stress You're just gonna burn out at best. You'll just spin your tires in the dirt really not move anywhere So the workouts for someone like you are are absolute minimal now, that doesn't mean you're not active So some people sometimes confuse it to it's good to be active every day, you know walking and moving You don't sit down all day long, but workouts themselves For someone like you is typically looks like a maps 15 protocol And that's it You're not doing anything more than like a couple lifts a day and even on some days you're skipping because you're tired To tailor it even more for you, and I love with my clients that have shifts like you do I would invest if you don't already have one like an aura ring or a Fitbit that tracks sleep for you And we're using that a boy.

Yes. I'm doubled up. Okay, okay So like and that's in that is what's I'm using that and how I feel right to help me gauge What that workout if I even have a workout looks like that day So, you know, let's say it's one of those days where you got Horrible you score a 50 or a 60 on your your night of sleep. That might be the day I don't know. I don't get a lift in that day I just walk do something more recuperative, you know And then the next day I get more optimal 70 75.

I'm gonna go do my math 15 workout Then I have a day later where I didn't have work. I actually get a full day off. Got a great night's rest I score a 75 85 90. I'm like, oh, you know I'm gonna do I'm gonna put the two maps 15 day The maps 15 day I missed in today's messaging together and work out so I'll do four exercises. That's it that day So that's how I would modify for someone like you a map 15 would be the protocol I'm never doing more than everything in that in that week on days where I get incredible sleep I might do a two-day stack on days that I get less than optimal I'm either doing nothing or I'm doing just the two exercises.

That's it moderate intensity now I want to add something just think so, you know, I see your email. So there's a lot of information in your email. Yeah Yeah, and so I touch on any of that. Well, I mean I could go through it and so you are a classic Kind of overtrainer which you kind of mentioned so absolutely. Yeah, so you crossed it competitively you taught it for 10 years That alone tells me quite a bit one more rap on your hat You're also I'm a walking stereo Maybe maybe I wouldn't let you do a double day actually Like My thing that I try to gauge it off of because I try to track You know what my HRV is my sleep score and all that and I could get a sleep score of like, you know 70 percent off of four and a half hours sleep and my HRV is 180 So I feel good to go But I know realistically like for some reason I feel like that's skewed because I know I should be getting it Six to eight hours every night.

Sure. Yeah, so that's why I like let me touch hard for me to gauge personally No, let me touch on that So you're also you run three to four days a week about 20 to 35 miles a week And you're also training for a marathon. So oh my god So here's over. That's all Okay, so here's what I still run but that parts over so here's what happens and in some people just are more resilient than others You're probably one of those people. Yeah, but how you feel now is Not how you potentially could feel right?

Okay. Also, how old are you Justin? 31. Okay. Here's the other thing cumulative stress is a thing and so so either We start to shift in a direction that's more appropriate and better and you'll know because you'll get stronger and you'll feel better and you have more energy or You you hit a wall that hits so hard that you're forced and it typically looks like injury and hormones crashing One or the other or both by the way, have you had your hormones tested a While back maybe like six months ago.

Everything seemed to be in the normal range. So it wasn't too crazy. He's resilient Yeah, so do you know what normal was because I know what the normal range is between two hundred to a thousand on testosterone I think my testosterone is right around 700 good. Yeah good. So I would scale everything way down Yeah, and then what you'll notice is better performance this the gauge that you should use is your performance not your tolerance So I know HRV all that stuff. Some people are more resilient So those measurements are gonna look better on you than they will someone else But that doesn't mean you can be much better, but I can tell you this with that little sleep and this much Exercise if we cut our exercise down What you'll notice almost immediately is an improvement in performance almost immediately.

You'll feel stronger and faster And that's how you know, you're going the right direction Massive teen is all you need no more. That's it for your for your life. That's it. That is it No matter how and so we so hard for somebody like you because you're gonna feel like it's not enough It is more than I was gonna get out Yes, it's going to feel you're gonna do it And by the way, just so you know Like literally I was having this conversation with two of my best friends this weekend who do not have a job like you You're just that we're all the same age We're in our 40s and I see how they're training and I'm like, dude And I said my thing that I started with them this week is I'm texting them what I'm doing Which is two exercises when I go lift because they're always asking me man.

How do you what do you do? I'm like I do way less than what you guys do you guys have been lifting for our whole lives You've been lifting for a long time You don't need to do nearly that much to hang on to your muscle And if you want to build with all the stuff you got going on You definitely need to reduce your volume intensity and it's going to feel like you're not doing much But like Sal said what you'll see if you just stick to that you trust the process in two weeks You'll see strength go up.

You'll see your strength. You'll get you'll get stronger and that's your indication of you're doing the appropriate amount now Yeah, you'll see you'll see in a week So because you're a police because you're in law enforcement you want to maintain some certain amount of athletic ability So maps 15 with a couple days a week of running is here's what you'll notice. Okay, I'm gonna I'll tell you right now What will happen you'll get faster and you're running and stronger and you're lifting Yeah, and you'll and you'll you'll know this within one or two weeks.

And if that's what happens you're in the right You're going the right direction Okay And you got nothing to learn by the way So you could try it for two weeks and then go back to the crazy stuff that you're doing But it will you'll see you like I said, I was so different when you recover fully. Yeah, I Was gonna say for me it's gonna be the mental battle of yes not feeling like I'm doing I'm not doing enough That's that's how it is for me.

Like I know it's not diagnosed. It's self-diagnosed of by dysmorphia So I feel like I have to put in extra work and do all this extra stuff because if I don't I'm gonna you know I grew up as an overweight kid. So yeah, I feel like I'm gonna go back that route if I don't do more so that's the hardest part if you Justin if this is really important and you and you and you're at a place now where you're like I'm committed to making this change, you know that about yourself It may be a worthwhile investment for you to do like our concierge or just you meet with the coach once a month That's it.

Once a month they check in and they're basically going over your nutrition going over your training Just accountability piece not like you need someone to tell you what to do workout wise But it's more of like I need to have somebody who's reminding me that this I'm on the right path Very minimal investment to do that and someone like you who's as advanced as you are. I think it's like perfect It's not full-blown training where you're with a coach all time It's just once a month you're checking in and they're kind of modifying your program and you guys are going back and forth Do they also work with you on nutrition and programming or just checking in all both?

No mostly Yeah, they're gonna they're gonna so for example, like if I if we were working with one of our coaches They're gonna set you up on mass 15 and they're gonna be like This is kind of what it should look like through the week. You get your first call your first check-in call Hey, how are things going? You're gonna feedback. I feel this I notice this and then they're gonna go Okay, this is what I want you to do. You're gonna drop this day add this here Let's bump your calories to this.

Yeah, they're gonna modify like that and then send you on your way again They're gonna come back report again. Oh, man. I know the strength is going up this. Okay, great Let's hold the line stay the course This is what you're they're gonna keep tweaking it for you and you just follow it and then you let them know how you're feeling And they're gonna just nutrition and adjust workouts Okay. Yeah One last thing I thought on this is more just for you know, the one that might be a shift work kind of Perspective is to help with sleep when you are working those crazy long shifts or overnight I mean, you know, I take magnesium, you know, have blackout curtains, sleep masks, all these other stuff.

Do you guys have any other tips to help improve sleep for people? Switching your circadian rhythm so often is where melatonin actually has benefit. Okay. So it creates a shift. Your circadian rhythm will adjust faster by taking melatonin. Legion has my favorite product for that, just so you know. So they have, it's a chewable, which I like, so I don't have to drink water with it, so I can just chew it. It's a chewable tablet. It's called Lunar. It's called Lunar, and it has magnesium and just a small dose of melatonin.

So it's not a mega dose, so it's just a little bit, because you don't want to take a ton of that shit, but a little bit of melatonin with the magnesium, and you can take that at night. I take it every night, religiously. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, look them up. Legion, Lunar. And then as far as the mental part is concerned, Justin, focus on the objective measures of strength, speed, and performance. That'll get you over the mental part right out, because you'll start to see it.

You're like, man, I'm faster, I'm stronger, and that typically gets people out of their head with the, like, I'm not doing enough, because you see the results. Energy increase, yeah. That's where you want to go. Possibly. It depends on how well you know yourself. If you know that you really struggle with body dysmorphia, and you know your challenge with this, sometimes this is where you outsource it. Well, the challenge is you'll get stronger and feel better, and then that'll make you think you should do more.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's the challenge. Yes. But like I said, within a week or two, dude, you'll see it. You'll see improvements in those things. Stick to the programming, though. Trust us. You don't need more than that. That's more than enough for a guy your experience, and that what you do with your sleep, you've got to stay there, and you'll see way better results. Way better results. Okay. Cool? All right, Justin. Thanks for calling in, man. All right, dude. Sweet. Thanks, guys. You got it. I appreciate it.

Have a good rest of your day, guys. All right, man. You got it. Hopefully, he heeds this, because he's 31, so he's still young. Obviously, his body has a lot of resilience. Some people are really resilient. Yeah. Bro, the fact that he can score a 75 on four-hour sleep is beyond me. He's somewhat resilient. He's aimed testosterone, too. Yeah, but it's what'll happen if he stays down that path. Oh, you're right. He's 31. Major injury or- He's barely out of his 20s. You do that. You're at 40.

Yeah, I did crazy things in my 20s and early 30s, too. Now, I would've gotten way better results had I not. That's the thing to understand, is that you can get away with it, but it doesn't mean it's ideal. I'm nowhere near that. Our next caller is Casey from North Carolina. Hey, welcome back. How you doing, Casey? Hello. Hey, guys. Good to see you again. Yeah. What's happening? Yeah. I'll jump right into it. I've got just some updates, what's happened, questions I've had along the way, and maybe some questions for what do I do next.

Sure. Okay. I just want to give you guys a huge thank you. I think just you guys doing podcast calls and callers is a fantastic aspect to your show, but I resonate with a lot of people, but this, you guys taking the time to really dive in with me, helped me a ton. I've had a lot of people give me missed messages, if you will, and so it was nice to have a solid way to go. Just some background, I was with you guys a little while ago regarding lifestyle changes in living with Hashimoto's.

So again, goal was to simply just feel healthy, feel strong with the added bonus of looking like I work out. Over the years, I received a lot of mixed messages around diet, workout, all of it just being not working, if you will. So during our call, I was incredibly grateful that you guys recommended MAP15 and I've really enjoyed it. Honestly, not only the program itself, I felt strong with it, but it just helped me relax a little bit. It was a quick workout, whether it was something I could do down in my gym, at my home, or get over to the gym.

But it's like it relieved a little bit of stress, which was nice, especially as I went into the summer months. Summer Casey is a little bit able to do more of that, to get there every day. Even now that I've gotten back to school, we've been back two weeks, that it's just been easy to do. So that's been great. I really, really appreciated you guys giving me that program. So I went back and listened to our episode and I took what you said to heart, Adam.

I really appreciated you being like, I love you say not winning the weekends. So I zoned in, I did that, it was probably right after 4th of July. I listened to our episode and was like, okay, I can do this. And I think maybe 4th of July, maybe a few days after, I was back home with family and really didn't have any of the dairy, any of the gluten, but I know your advice was lock in on the gluten, kind of cut that out, act almost as if you're allergic.

But took what you guys just had to say to heart. I really appreciated that, because I think it gave me this pathway of like, no, cheats are going to kind of off-rail you. What else? So since then, I have been gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free, alcohol-free. And it sounds absolutely terrible, but it's really not been bad, honestly. I've had less cravings. I've noticed just mental clarity. And yeah, overall, those kinds of improvements have been nice. Getting to it, though, I think with the programming, doing the diet aspects, I just haven't seen any of the scale change.

And I just want kind of your input. I didn't expect to go in losing 30, 40 pounds in the last 90 days, but I was hoping to maybe get on the scale here recently, just knowing I was going to talk to you guys and be like, okay, I'm down some weight and haven't seen anything. So I haven't seen any on the scale. And just overall, how my clothes fit, what I usually go off of, how I feel in the mirror, it's just not exactly where I would like to be still.

So just questions throughout what I've had, throughout what I'm going to go through, hopefully after this call, is MAPS 15, run it again? Where would you have me go next? Ideally, I'd love to see what you say for like the next nine months, like to put a calendar year together, like what that would look like. Um, yeah, I wondered about sauna sessions. I wondered if that was too much, if that is just going to override some of the things that I'm doing just as I'm in recovery mode, is that too much?

And then something that has popped up recently with my functional health practitioner, she mentioned the GLP-1. I know you guys just did a podcast on it. And so I've got just kind of curiosity if like working on inflammation, which I feel like that's what kind of I'm working on, would that be something you guys would suggest? Okay, so I want to back you up real quick though on the frustrating part with the scale. Just curious, because I know you've listened to the show for a while.

Do you think that we would have asked you, what did the scale say? No, not at all. We would have asked, how's your digestion feel? How does inflammation feel? How is strength in the gym? Those are the things that we would have asked you. And it sounds like a lot of that stuff has been doing pretty damn good. Yeah, it's true. And so you've made incredible progress, but we get so attached to this scale and mirror and then allow that to dictate, oh, I did good or didn't do good.

You did phenomenal. You've made some major changes. You've seen the benefits of it, and you're starting to make a major lifestyle change. We are heading in the right direction. Yeah, 90 days is a short period of time, but I just want to remind you that aesthetic changes are downstream from improvements in things like energy, health, inflammation, and strength. So as those improve over time, the aesthetic changes follow. It has to. Yeah. Okay. And the cool thing about that is something like strength is objective. So it's like I can look at it and be like, well, I'm lifting more.

I'm definitely moving in the right directions. The scale, I mean, it's objective number, but it doesn't tell us body composition, and the mirror is very subjective. So all that stuff, so aesthetics follows those other things, okay? So keep focusing on those, and the aesthetic changes tend to follow. As far as programming is concerned, I like the Mass 15 Protocol for you. I remember you saying you were a teacher. You're in the school year now. So I don't care which ones you follow, but what I'll do is I'll put together a 15 package for you if you don't have any more, and we'll discount the crap out of it for you, and we'll set you up for the next year.

So you can just follow one after another, and you'll be set up. What was the last question? GLP. Oh, GLP. Yeah. So off-label, a lot of functional medicine practitioners are using GLPs at a really, really low dose, what they'll call a microdose, because, again, this is off-label, and this is a lot of anecdote. Now, there is research going in this direction, but I can't point to any yet because it's not established. But I do know a lot of practitioners who are having positive results with autoimmune and inflammatory issues by microdosing things like trizepatide.

I've personally seen it. So that's all I can tell you. So now, they're your functional medicine practitioner. They're the ones working with you on this stuff. So I would talk to them about that. The only thing I would caution you on is going on too high of a dose, which will crush your appetite and could throw things, which would show you movement on the scale, but would also move us backwards with what we're trying to accomplish. Because here's what it looks like, okay? We keep doing the right things, and I think you're doing phenomenal.

You keep getting stronger, health's getting better, energy's getting better. The fat loss is more of a snowball effect. It starts to happen after, okay? If we just start to cut calories now, we'll see some movement on the scale, but then we'll have this real hard plateau, and then you'll have to go back to what you're doing now and reverse and do all that stuff. So I don't know, have you heard me talk a little bit about me using trizepatide right now? Well, to be honest, it's kind of, you guys, it was a couple weeks ago maybe now, and it was something you said, Adam, that you had used it in just microdosing sense and felt like the inflammation had decreased.

And what was interesting is probably the week prior, the functional health practitioner was like, well, we're not seeing any ... I don't know, it was kind of disheartening. But hers was like, we're going to put you on a GLP-1 if we don't see any progress. I'm like, that's not really what I want to do at all. But then I heard you guys mentioning in the microdose sense of like, hey, it could find some benefits. But that was kind of it. I didn't really do any of my own research or anything after that.

So let me share the way I've approached it myself personally. Again, this is my own personal story, so this is not me giving you medical advice or telling you what to do. It's just like how I'm using it. So I found for my dosage, I'm like about 0.5 to one unit, which is like, it's not quite a microdose. It's not even a half of what a starting dose would be, it's like in between that number. And what makes me decide whether I take 0.5 or one unit for myself is I need to be eating enough.

And so I know that if I take ... I remember I tried 10 units, a little over 10 units, and it crushed my appetite too much to where it was really hard for me to hit my protein intake. And so I backed off. So what we don't want to happen. So your dose is going to look different than mine, we're different completely. Whatever she decides ... if you do decide to do this, whatever she sets you off on, if you notice you can't even hit your protein intake because it's crushing your appetite, it's too much.

And you need to talk to her. So that's how I'm ... because I'm noticing the anti-inflammatory benefits big time. I can see it in my face, I can see it on my psoriasis, and so that's what I'm really enjoying. But I don't want it to crush my appetite to where I can't get my whole food meals because then I'll just lose weight on the scale and I'll lose muscle. So that's how I've landed on my dosage. And so if you are going to use it, that's how I would want you to also use it if you were a client of mine.

I'd say, listen, I'm okay with you because of the autoimmune stuff, I have definitely noticed that benefit. And if you get similar benefits from it, I'm pro it. So long as you can hit those adequate protein numbers every day consistently, and you have the energy to lift weights, then I'm okay with it. But if you notice it suppress that appetite and you're like, I'm having a really hard time hitting my protein intake, I don't like it. Yep. Okay. Cool. Because I think that's where I was kind of at.

I was like, I don't really want to use it at all, but I've heard enough where you guys have talked about it. A couple other people in my life, they've mentioned it of like how it can kind of help with that inflammation. And sometimes that's all I need is that to come off and then even the bigger snowball effect of feeling better happens. Go with the functional medicine practitioner. So that's the person who's managing all that. That's why I would turn to for that. But again, off-label, people are using it in that way with their practitioners and some of the people we've had on the show talked about it who are experts in the field.

Just pay attention to the main thing I said, and let her know. So whatever, I have no idea what she's going to start your dosage at, but whatever she starts it at, if you struggle with that protein intake, that's a big red flag and tell her and say, hey, I'd like to try a lower dose. Are you okay with that? And then most likely probably cut whatever she gave it to you in half and it'll probably land you at a better place. Okay. Yeah. That works perfect because I think that was kind of where she was headed next.

And knowing that, I wanted a little more information maybe. I think the only other thing was just as I'm in kind of this recovery mode, I feel like I will be for maybe a little while. Is there any other things you guys would recommend? I know I've kind of asked about the sauna sessions, is that something to do? I know red light therapy you've kind of talked about, but that was kind of the other thing. As I went through the past three months, I'm like, is there any other recovery?

I love sauna for you. Sauna is great. Don't go in there to be a hero. You just kind of sweat and don't go crazy with pushing it. Sometimes people with thyroid issues have issues with temperature regulation. Make sure you drink a lot of water, throw some electrolytes in there, but otherwise you'll improve. It's good for endothelial health. It's good for VO2 max. Good for inflammation. Red light. Therapy is totally different. It's not a stress on the body. It accelerates healing a lot of different ways. Um, and aesthetically speaking, red light therapy is very obvious, so you'll see the difference with red light therapy, but you won't get the performance benefits or the health benefits like you would have a sauna, so, but both of them would be great to add.

I love that. And that's your routine. Yes. Yes. Love it. Okay. I've done, yeah, I've done the sauna for a while and something in me. I was like, I hope this is okay. I think I've just gotten to a point where now I question everything. Yeah, no, you're fine. Yeah. What you don't want to do is go in there. Like you're trying to beat your best time. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a workout. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Cool. That's it. Um, yeah, that's really all I have. I really appreciate you guys sending me maps 15.

I think that was just. Yeah. What I needed and you guys advice and what you guys do. I just really appreciate it. In case you're doing good. You're about 30, you're about, uh, 60 to 90 days from seeing a big turnaround. With how your body responds. So that's what I would guess. Yeah. I would guess about 60 to 90 days. So just keep staying consistent. Keep focused on getting stronger. That's the main thing we're looking at. Cool. I really appreciate it. Gives me a lot to go with.

So thank you again. You got it. Thanks Casey. All right. Bye guys. Bye-bye. She, by the way, do you guys remember what she looked like on the last call? Yeah. She looked trying to remember way different healthier, healthier energy. Yes, yes. A hundred percent. I mean, again, I want to remind people like. Aesthetic changes are downstream from improvements in health and energy. They don't show up right away. Although aesthetic changes do show up right away. They're just not the kind that people tend to pay attention to where the guy's digging for gold and it's a great, but it's like, I know this is a, in fact, we talked about this off air last, uh, last week I can just through experience, I can look at someone's face and I can tell like this person's.

Over-stressed and overdoing it totally. And those aesthetic changes are visible. Everybody. You can see it on her from the last time we met. She just doesn't see them. The scale. Not to, not to mention that. I mean, if it sounded like all other markers were positive, right. And doing great. Uh, I actually don't want the scale to have moved because what, what I don't care about this because probably what actually did happen was she probably actually lost a couple pounds of fat and gains a couple pounds of muscle.

And it's not a big enough number for her to go like, whoa, radical change, like everybody notices. But it's enough to be like, we are heading the right path. She had to get healthy. Okay. She had to get healthy first and she's doing it and she cut out gluten, which was all I asked, but she did all that other stuff, all of them. Let's go. She's going to kill it. Look, if you like mind pump, you got to 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 mind pump media.com. The RGB super bundle includes math, 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.

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