Should You Bulk or Cut First | The Answer That Actually Leads to Long Term Results | Mind Pump 2906

Key Takeaway

Stop cutting first. If you're 60 pounds overweight, the counterintuitive move is to build muscle and reverse diet before attempting weight loss. Why? Because cutting first slows your metabolism—teaching your body to burn fewer calories, lose muscle, and making maintenance nearly impossible. Instead, spend 3 months building muscle and boosting your metabolic rate by 700-800 calories per day. Then cut from a position of metabolic strength. This is the sustainable path to keeping weight off forever.

Episode Overview

This episode tackles the controversial question of whether to build muscle or cut fat first when starting a fitness journey. The hosts argue that even if you're significantly overweight, prioritizing muscle building and metabolic rate improvement before cutting creates long-term sustainable results, despite going against conventional wisdom and medical advice.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Should You Bulk or Cut First | The Answer That Actually Leads to Long Term Results | Mind Pump 2906 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

When it comes to exercise, there's two main goals that people typically have. Either they're trying to build or they're trying to cut. So, it makes sense if your goal is to cut, you cut. If you're trying to build, you go for building. But, is this always true? What should you do first? Regardless of your goal, does it make sense to do one versus the other first? Build or cut first? We're going to break it down. Let's go. I I love this this conversation just because I feel like we've talked about it so many times on the podcast, but it it I still get tons of DMs and questions around uh cuz I feel like nobody thinks it should be them.

And I know where you're going with this, right? Like everyone's just like, "Yeah, but I need to lose this. I have a lot of weight to lose." Yeah. So, what do you think about this? You know, and it's just like we just talked about that and this is what everybody should do. I don't care how much weight it is. Um, and so I I I still think it's not very popular and I still think that you're getting advice like you go to a doctor, right, and you're 50 to 100 pounds overweight and cholesterol is high, blood pressure is high.

Doctor says to you right away, you need to lose some weight right now. Yeah. Right now, cut your calories. Alarmist approach for sure. Yeah. And so, and it's coming from medical advice, too. So, I think we're we're having to to counter that a little bit. Uh, which makes it more challenging. So you have you have that factor and I I I still think it's unpopular. I don't think it's the most popular way to get in shape. It's very unpopular. So So uh let's let's just kind of explain what each one is first before we get more into it.

Right. So building is the attempt to try to gain usually lean body mass. Rarely do people try to gain uh body fat. That's sometimes very rarely sometimes the case. But usually it's like okay I'm trying to build or gain. It's muscle you're trying to gain. And then cutting. Uh, this obviously is the attempt to lose weight or to be more specific, lose body fat. Here's what's involved with both. Sometimes people think building and cutting has to do uh mostly or all with the exercise. Oh, you want to build, you lift weights, you want to cut, you do cardio.

That's actually not the case. Uh, in all uh cases, strength training um or lifting weights has a great effect. So whether you want to build or cut, you want to strength train. We've talked about that in previous episodes. But there's more that goes into each of these, right? Building isn't just strength training. It's also strength training plus eating in a way that fuels more active tissue uh being uh built, right? So, I have to feed myself sufficient calories and protein in order to build. Cutting also involves strength training.

Again, I'll just real real quick. The data show strength training is one of the best forms of exercise for fat loss, mainly because it preserves muscle. But cutting involves the uh where you cut your calories below what you're burning at the attempt to burn body fat. So that's really the big difference. And so it sounds obvious, right? Well, if I'm trying to lose a lot of weight, why would I even attempt to build? Like why would I eat in in a way to fuel more tissue when I'm trying to get rid of body fat, which is also a tissue?

Why would I do that? That makes no sense. And so I'm going to just uh speak to that just for a second. The most important thing we need to consider with any goal, whether it's building or losing, even though losing is the or cutting is the the more popular goal, the number one thing we need to consider is uh is this approach going to last forever. forever. forever. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Okay. We have to consider that because that's the biggest thing to consider. A small percentage of people actually accomplish what is considered a significant amount of weight loss when they're trying to lose weight.

And the way they identify that is about 5 to 10% of your body weight. those people, a lot of people want to lose more than that. But that's just how they identify that. So there's a small percentage of people that even accomplish that, but of those people that accomplish that, over 90% of them gain the weight back. So what you're looking at is you're going to fail if you do this uh the way that you've done it before, the way that everybody tries to to do this.

So the number one thing to consider is how can I do this in a way that sets me up to be able to maintain this forever. So that's the context that we need to start with before we get into the conversation. Otherwise, it makes no sense because if I tell somebody who wants to lose 60 pounds, which we're going to get to, uh, cool. You want to lose 60 pounds, you're overweight, we're going to focus on building. You're going to think I'm crazy. Like, that's not what I told you.

I told you I need to lose weight. Why are you telling me I need to gain? That makes no sense. But when you understand this from the perspective of we need to figure out how to do this in a way to where that weight stays off, then it starts to make a lot of sense. of sense. of sense. Yeah. I think the urgency really pushes you to um like you can take on um you know a lot more stress and a lot more uh work in terms of trying to push through and just you know white knuckle it but I don't think a lot of people look at when you get to this place that you want to get to this this desired uh weight uh once you get there like what is your lifestyle look like?

What does that what does that entail? Like how you know how good is your energy going to be? How good is your sleep? How strong are you going to be? Like are you you're just happy because now you're this number on the scale. And that's really like the desired outcome is to get this number on the scale. But how do you live in that? That's right. That's right. That's right. And that's just like something that I just don't think people think that that like through uh to that to that degree.

Was this inspired by the response you had to the the girl that I think she's like a she was partially okay. partially okay. partially okay. Kimberly. Yeah. And we'll talk to that later. Actually I have I actually want to make sure I bring that up but yes it is uh um inspired by so and the reason why I asked that because there's a there's another layer to this too that I think has has to be considered is that the the context at which most people that are attempting this you know cut that they want to go on to because they want to lose weight.

Rarely ever is it their first time and they've done this multiple times and you know maybe maybe what they thought was uh success because they had temporary success where they lost 30 pounds pounds pounds you know you know you know so they it's like oh that worked. Yeah, that worked cuz when I when I just ate the salads and I ran on the treadmill and I did that thing, I lost 30 lbs before or I went on that diet where I only ate meat or whatever the thing is, right?

Um, and they've done that maybe multiple times. Uh, and over multiple times of doing that, what has happened is their body has adapted to this. And and so part of the reason why it's such a bad strategy to go right into just cutting calories and increasing activity is a lot of people uh where their where their metabolic rate is at currently is just not a great place to to start cutting from. Rarely ever did I get somebody who uh needed to lose over 50 pounds and that had not gained and lost it many times before they they had come to me.

And why they had finally come to me is because they were just pleading, Adam, I don't feel like I eat that much. I only eat this much calories and yet I can't seem to lose any weight. And that's because over time they've done this yo-yo dieting that is just all it's done is continued to lose muscle, slow their metabolism down, and they're at this place now where they still have all this weight on, but they don't feel like they eat very much. And it's like this is a terrible place to start a cut from because it's it's almost guaranteed you're going to fail because to Justin's point considering lifestyle and where you're going to end up energy and strength and you know c can you maintain that diet and that way of eating forever.

No. No. You can't take you from 2,800 calories down to say, you know, 1,300 calories to lose your 100 lb and maintain that forever. You even if you have the ability to white knuckle that and get there, the likelihood that you're going to maintain that maintain that maintain that feel like [ __ ] once you get Yeah. You're going to feel terrible. You're going to have lost a ton of muscle. You're going to be hardly eating hardly anything. You'll have no me no uh flexibility in your diet ever again.

you and if you done it like a lot of these people like like you we referring to this girl Kimberly these workouts where you're just punishing yourself or you're you know pushing so hard it's like that's not sustainable. No, I'll use a money analogy. Um let's say you have a job you get paid x amount of dollars per hour and so you say to yourself I want to make twice as much money so what I'm going to do is work twice as many hours. Okay so instead of working 40 hours a week you're now working 80 hours a week.

And sure enough, 80 hours a week makes you twice as much money. But eventually, uh, what'll probably happen is you'll be like, "This is way too much work, right? right? right? My my quality of life isn't great. Uh, I'm working twice as many hours. I got to go back to my old schedule." And then what happens is you start earning half as much as you were because now you're working 40 hours a week versus another approach, which is like, "Hey, I want to make twice as much money.

I'm going to figure out how to get my money to make more money for me." Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm going to figure out how to invest it and and uh place it in areas where by itself or with very little work for me, it starts to generate more revenue and more income. So then 10 years down the line, I'm still working 40 hours a week, but I'm making twice as much money. Far more sustainable. So uh I I'll make a statement. If I could dramatically speed up everybody's metabolism, uh who was listening to this podcast, uh weight loss would be much easier.

I think that's a true statement, right? If your metabolism could suddenly burn a thousand more calories a day, uh it would be a lot easier to maintain your body weight. It would be a lot easier to lose body fat because you're just burning more calories. If I could improve insulin sensitivity in your hormone profile, that would make it a lot easier as well. I mean, that's a fact and I don't think anybody would ever uh argue uh or debate that. And so, that's the thing we need to understand is how can I set myself up for something that is sustainable?

Uh, and the way that you do that is you point to and you aim for a better metabolic rate or a to put it in different terms, maybe too simplified, but a faster metabolism. Let me get a faster metabolism so I can just burn more calories all the time. Is that even possible? Can I do that? Yes, reliably you could do that. And the way you do that is uh all the things that you would do to build muscle uh in a a serious way. uh feed the body, build the muscle, and what that does is that sets you up later.

Here's why this is difficult. It's difficult for a couple reasons. One, I'm not I'm not telling you to lose weight right now, people. When and here's the problem. When you make the decision to lose weight, if you're 60 lb overweight, first of all, at one point, you were 20 pounds overweight. At another point, you were 30 lbs and 40 lbs and 50 lbs. And what you've probably done is you've you see it, you know it's happening, but you you maybe avoid it or you don't think about it or you just kind of keep going.

and every once in a while like, "Oh my god, I'm gaining so much weight." But then you kind of put it in the back of your mind. Then you finally make the decision like, "I can't handle this anymore. I need to lose weight." The last thing you want to do is wait longer. When you finally made that decision, the last thing you want to do is be like, I'm going to not lose weight for three more months while I'm working out to try to build. No, I want to lose weight right now.

So, that's number one uh reason why that's difficult. Number two reason is because it looks different. If I took somebody who wanted to lose weight and I had them run like crazy every single day and I cut their calories significantly, they will see fast weight loss on the scale initially. scale initially. scale initially. If I take that same person and say, "We're going to boost your metabolic rate. I'm going to build muscle on you. I'm going to reverse diet you." In other words, I'm going to bump your food intake.

We're going to have quality food, high quality food, hit protein targets. I want you to get strong. We're going to build muscle. You're not going to see weight loss on the scale uh for a little while. Not for a little while. You'll have some body comp, you'll get leaner and build some muscle. The scale is probably not going to move much. And it's going to take us a few months or so to get your metabolic rate where I want before we even attempt the weight loss or the fat loss.

Uh, and so that takes some patience and trusting the process. But here's where I'll just encourage people. Did your approach work before? In other words, did it work long term? Did you keep it off? No. Stop trying the old way. This is how you lose weight. uh and you get those results consistently and how it becomes sustainable. We need to prime your body to be able to live in a world where you're surrounded by food. We need to boost your metabolic rate. We got to make you strong.

Let's start there, then start the cut. Let's set you up for some long-term success. It's also really difficult when you're when you're carrying that much excess body fat on too, and you're going about it the correct way, like you're saying, where we start to reverse diet and and build muscle. And even though there's body comp change happening where they they might have lost 3 lbs of fat and added 3 lbs of muscle and which will show no change on the scale, but that's a significant change in their body.

It it's not significant enough that person can see it. Yep. You know, they're not going to see it. And in fact, all it takes is one day of kind of eating out of bounds a little bit and you know, high sodium or maybe you ate something that inflamed you a little bit or maybe you had some stress or you didn't get very good sleep the next day and all a sudden your body's holding a little extra water. So, it really can be mentally [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] challenging for the person who is going about it the right way um and just had a poor night of sleep.

Mhm. and they'll wake up and they'll look at themselves in the mirror and get on the scale and might possibly see one pound go up. And I look in the mirror and I look fatter. I don't look like I'm getting better. And it's really this is why I think personal training and coaching is uh so paramount to this person who is who's who's been challenged with this for so many years who they've tried to do this on their own and they logically know this is right the right approach but then every time they go about doing it everything tells them this is wrong it's not working for me though yes yes yes it's cuz the success is not recognizable in the beginning this is what good coaches uh do a good job of first off this is one of the reasons why I used I would tell people and why we encourage the clients we work with now to not weigh themselves during this period of time.

Don't weigh yourself. It's just going to mess you up. You're just going to look at the scale and even though you feel better and you're stronger and you might even have people commenting that you look like you're getting leaner, you're going to step on that scale and god forbid it hasn't moved or went up a couple pounds, it's going to throw us off. So, don't weigh yourself because the success isn't evident uh in the old ways that you used to pay attention. Number two, a good coach helps highlight the ways that the success is evident during this period of time because although the scale isn't changing in the first 90 days, you're way stronger.

Oh my god, you feel better, your energy is better, you're sleeping better, you're moving better, like and and you you have to bring This is so crazy to say this. Uh and people listening might be like, "What? This is not This is true all the time. time. time. You have to point this out to people because they don't even pay attention to it." Yeah. it." Yeah. it." Yeah. Like I'll bring this up with clients like, "Well, how do you feel right now?" Well, man, I'm having one less coffee a day.

I feel actually really good now that you say it. I feel really good. You know, you ever hear that? Now that you My shoulder isn't even bothering me anymore. anymore. anymore. I have no pain. Yeah, my libido's up. Like, yeah, right. You're right. I feel way better. And it's like it's like almost surprising to them that uh that these things are happening. They weren't really paying attention. But success is just not evident when what you're paying attention to are the old ways that you measure success.

Y and when you first start by building the foundation, you can't even tell a house is being built yet. It just looks like a bunch of demo. Uh and so this makes this so difficult. But again, I'm going to just encourage people. The old way that you've done this before didn't work. Why are you going to do it again? What do you what's different about this time? You think you have suddenly this new sense of discipline? Because uh I'm going to tell you right now, it's probably not true.

And I know this because of the data. Um you're going to fail if you do it the old way. Why not try it the the right way? Let's boost the metabolic rate, build muscle, get you strong, get you to perform better. Then later on, we're going to attempt the cut. Because here here's what happens when you cut first. You walk into a gym and you want to lose 60 lbs and right out the gates, you go to a cut. So what do you do? You go low calories, lots of activity.

Here's what your body does every time. Every time you do, you approach weight loss in that way. Your body tries to slow down its metabolic rate to meet the new uh energy intake that it's receiving. So, in other words, if I'm eating 1500 calories a day and that's a cut for me and I'm moving a lot, my body is trying really hard. It is using all of its adaptive abilities to try to learn how to burn 1500 calories a day. That's what it's trying to do.

Because if it doesn't do that, you're going to die eventually. If 1500 calories remains a deficit for forever, at some point you'll die because you're not 1500 calories is not meeting your energy demands. So, your body doesn't do that, right? It doesn't just sit there with, you know, 3,000 calorie energy demands and and 1500 calorie intake. It learns how to burn 1500 calories. One of the ways it does this is it pairs muscle down. So, what you do when you go into a cut first is you're literally saying this to your body.

Hey, can you get a slower metabolism? I know you got a slow metabolism right now, but I'd like a slower metab. Let's make this way harder. Here's how we're Let's make this way harder. And that's I'm going to lose some weight, but I'm going to make it impossible to maintain later on because I'd like a metabolism that's so slow that if I eat anything other than salad, salad, salad, use any energy. Yeah. Or I take a day off of doing cardio, I end up gaining body fat.

So, I'd love that frustration. Could you please slow my metabolism down? That's what you're doing when you're going to the gym that way versus I'm going to set this up the right way. I'm going to get my metabolic to uh, you know, rate to hum so that later on when I do the cut, oo, I got some room. And I'm going to again I'm going just to encourage people again we you know we we worked with people for decades and now here at Mind Pump we have clients that work with our trainers routinely.

So okay so I'm not like this is not pie in the sky routinely we see we see people boosting their metabolic rates by 7 800 calories a day. a day. a day. Okay that's routinely in some cases it's extreme in in the other direction. Some cases it's a little less but routinely 7 to 800 calories a day through this process. Do you know how much cardio you have to do to burn 700 to 800 calories plus every day? You got you got to go for it You got you got to go for it for an hour or more and then your body learns how to burn less calories on that as well and it stops working.

How would you like to have a metabolic rate that allows you to burn 800 more calories without a bunch of extra work? Yeah. And that's why you go into it and you build first 100%. The crazy part going back to doing it the right way, right? reverse dieting, building muscle is the psychological challenge because logically it's so obvious to your point about all the other things that we're so unaware of. Like if if you you blindfold someone or you gave the example of oh this person's libido got better, their sleep got better, their strength got better, their energy got better, their skin got better, their hair got better, like their mood got better, like all these things they had to drink less caffeine, like all these things that are like what what you tend to see when somebody starts to fuel their body properly, okay, give the give them the protein they need, the healthy fats, adequate amount of calories for the exercise that they're doing, you typically see almost all those all those all those All those markers move in the positive direction.

None of them go down right out the gates. Yes. Like almost right away. But like because we're so hyperfocused on the mirror and the scale, if those don't give me back the feedback I want, I just totally disregard or don't even pay attention to that. Which is crazy because there that there's so many other markers that signal to you. You're going about this the right way. Like this is you're you're do you're doing good. Yes. the mirror isn't showing what you want yet. Yes, the scale hasn't shown what you want, but all these other things are pointing that we're moving in the right direction.

Yet, people will course correct. correct. correct. They'll go, but these two aren't showing me what I want. So, I'm going to cut the calories now or this isn't working for me. me. me. They ignore it so much that their energy is crap, their strength is crap, they feel like crap, the scale is going down, so I must be doing the right stuff, which is wild. You know, you know, again, this is connected because it was inspired by that post. There was an Instagram post uh with a young woman named Kimberly which you had encouraged uh me to kind of respond to and um I you know when I watched it I thought the same thing you did which is you're going to get a bunch of fitness p so so for people listening this woman gets on uh she has a lot of weight to lose uh and she talks about how difficult it is and how she's working out and it's so hard and it sucks and she's like in this it's tough it's really hard but I saw this clip and I'm like oh I guarantee a bunch of, you know, fitness people are going to get on and just communicate the wrong stuff.

wrong stuff. wrong stuff. They're just going to talk to the wrong. You got to have discipline. You got to do this. And, you know, you know, just communicating the wrong stuff to people who are they're in that position. I I can always tell by the way somebody talks when if a fitness person speaks to something like that, I can always tell if they have experience training a lot of people or they don't. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Cuz if you have no experience shows right away. right away.

right away. Yeah. You're going to talk. You're going to talk like you're talking to and you could be super knowledgeable in science base which is what you we we have in Instagram world, right? We have a lot of uh smart people that are fresh out of their degrees or they have multiple national certifications or they follow the other influencers that are very science-based and so they understand the science, they understand the math of losing 200 lb and uh they understand how important discipline is and so this is what they communicate and yeah the the difference between that that person and that's I sent it over because I knew that it was going to attract a lot of that and I knew that you would communicate it so much better and I wanted to be ahead of it before.

Well, what I saw on that video was yeah, her workout methods weren't the best. Okay. I I She was doing kind of like what looked like maybe like group class type fitness. type fitness. type fitness. Uh it's activity, so it's not bad. High intensity, High intensity, High intensity, but I'm not going to speak to that right out the gates. Let's talk about the big thing that was more important, which is this poor woman hates it. hates it. hates it. Yeah, she hates it. She hates it.

That's her perception. She's miserable working out. So, so that's the thing I'm going to speak to you because I know this as a as a as a trainer. Um, we can't we're not even going to talk about what you're doing yet. We need to talk about how much you hate this because I don't care what you do. I don't care how effective it is. Even though her workout was not the best. If I gave her the most effective workout of all time and she hated it, you're still going to fail.

Yeah. At that point, that's right. That's right. And we got to speak to that. So, um, and a good coach would would, uh, and if Kimberly's listening, you work with a good coach, your your success rate will go through the roof. You don't work with a good coach, if you work with like a boot camp instructor or somebody's going to throw exercise at you or just yell motivation at you, it's or somebody who success will be temporary. Or even if you have someone good in your corner who understands the science and spitting all the most knowledgeable stuff out at you, it's it's more complicated uh than that.

It's not just that. There's other factors to consider. Uh and number one being your relationship with that exercise. Totally. You know the that we have to fix that first and and build that before we which is before we even attempt the best whatever you know the best diet, the best fill in the blank. Um we have to first work on that and that becomes a priority over what is the best uh workout or diet for you. And so and like to your point a good coach understands this.

understands this. understands this. That's what a good coach does. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Anyway, I want to talk about probiotics because I've been making this uh prediction now probably for the last year year year is a sports performance. It's gonna be Yeah. Good probiotics like high quality probiot like seed. We work with seed. They're they're easily the world's best. Like not even close. They're they're cutting edge their technology with how they deliver the probiotic. Like it's the best, right? I believe probiotics in the next 5 years are going to be the performance-enhancing supplement that's recommended.

Like it's going to be like the way you know uh creatine was talked about for athletic performance. Like you want to lose fat, take a probiotic. You want to burn build muscle, take a probiotic. You want to recover faster, take a probiotic. Do you think this has to do more with what we're learning about the gut and the cutting edge science brain relationship brain relationship brain relationship or more to do with how terrible the American diet is and how bad we all are that everybody is going to positively benefit for something like that?

Which one do you think is the greater factor? So, let me re I think let me see what you're saying because you get where I'm going. going. going. Yeah, I do. Let's use creatine as example, right? Like, do we get benefits from creatine because we should be eating 5 pounds of meat [snorts] or do we get benefits from creatine because uh nobody's eating 5 pounds of meat, but supplementing extra seems to provide benefits. In other words, are we getting benefits from the probiotics because we have low uh quality food?

quality food? quality food? Like, we're deficient in nutrients. We we're deficient of fermented foods. Everybody has some sort of an intolerance to something or or would you no matter what benefit from the probiotic? That's a good question. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is to that. But the the the data is compelling, bro. Like Like Like like there's meta analysis on cuz they've been around for a long time s right. I mean I mean I don't I don't know when probiotics first came in the market.

They've been around for a long time. time. time. They have they've been pretty bad in the past but they were better than nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just wild cuz I pulled up like bro there's a lot of data. like it's greater weight loss, reduce waist circumference, decrease visceral fat, uh benefits to exercise performance like V2 max. Um it's people gain less fat and a and a high calorie diet when they take probiotics. Then you have strength gains. Uh you you have uh more muscle uh lose more fat than a placebo from probiotics.

probiotics. probiotics. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah, dude. So I think people I think that the the everything just works better. It seems like like like it's this I I think it's going to be the supplement that athletes uh talk about the most over the next 5 years is like taking a probiotic. I mean, you you still not just for gut health, but just for all all all you you talked you still talk to some of our our pro bodybuilder buddies and stuff like that. Do do you know if if it's made its way into that space where it's become part of the they're they're they're regiment as hell with supplementing and and stuff like that.

I wonder if that's become I'm so disconnected from that like all all the coaches and coaches and coaches and so I know pro bodybuilders take probiotics for digestive health because of the way that they they feed themselves, right? themselves, right? themselves, right? So I know that's popular but I don't know if they're taking it for like muscle gain and fat loss. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I'm not sure. It'll be interesting in the in the arsenal of things bodybuilders use. I don't think probiotics really count as you know.

I mean listen though that it doesn't matter those you know those guys will even if they'll take Yeah. I don't care if it moves the needle the the smallest amount. They're they're they're taking it all, doing it all. So, it' be interesting to see. I'll have to I'll have to make some calls and ask around. It's been so long since I talked to some of those guys. But, I think it's going to be like next 5 years they're going to just they're going to push it for just for fitness.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Forget health, forget skin health, for it's like no, build muscle, burn body fat, probiotic, let's go. Well, speaking of like uh performance stuff like that, uh did you guys watch the fights this uh did you get a chance to? So, we got to see uh Gable Stevenson in his fight. That was great, dude. He's going to be a beast. He is a monster in the making. He is going to be a beast, bro. To see a excited for him. A world class wrestler uh go in and throw hands throw hands throw hands and win like that makes you and and him being that big.

Jon Jones's corner, dude. Yeah. I mean, I I I want I actually want to see him wrestle somebody. It's like like I feel like that's like was in his bag. He had that all if he wanted it. It was just like, but I'm going to go out there and go throw hands. He I that one guy that's like a YouTuber that's like he will just wrestle anybody and he's really good at it. Like he wrestled him recently and Gable like like like Yeah. did one of those I don't know what you call that like hip hip toss basically.

Yeah. Like pinned him. Justin sent it over. You didn't see it? No, I don't watch. Oh yeah, he got him good. And it's like and I've seen him on a string of just dude dude dude taking everybody out. People don't realize the level uh of athlete and performance a world class wrestler is. wrestler is. wrestler is. Gold medal. Gold medal. Gold medal. I mean, you're talking about like uh you could you could have three regular dudes go against him in wrestling. All three of them he would throw.

It's a it's crazy to teach him how to punch. It wouldn't be, you know, wouldn't be that hard, I guess. I mean, we we had we had an opportunity to go to that, right? We had a Oh, is that the fight that we Yeah, that was the fight that we had a ticket for. Yeah. So, so Ketone IQ is sponsored by Yeah, they invited us to go to that. And so, but I tell you what, I would have been so pissed if I was there and and the Connor fight went down like that.

Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. Cuz you're waiting all night long. The biggest The biggest The biggest as much as all the other fights were great. They were good fights, but you're waiting for Connor's return. And I that has that had to been one of the the biggest excited for it let down uh main events I've ever seen. Yeah. I don't I can't remember a main event where I was. Can you imagine if that would have happened? Uh the White House card. Oh god. Oh god.

Oh god. Everybody watching. Yeah. So I guess they at least had the most epic card with that and then follow up. It's kind of hard to follow up something that was like like like I wonder. It's funny you say that. Uh cuz there there was a lot of uh I remember when I I was watching Sha do some commentary back uh this was like earlier the year about when that first got released at the White House and there was a lot of talk of like you got to have Connor on that car.

He's the man that they didn't and they were mad. I I wonder how much Dana knew that that could this could happen and didn't want to risk that like that cuz I mean there was a lot of controversy. Five years of him there was a lot of Yeah. Five years since he fought. long time. There was a lot of controversy around the way the White House card was built that it was it was going to be whack and it it turned out to be one of the greatest cards ever.

How old was Connor and uh who do you fight? fight? fight? Holy Holy Holy 37 or 38, I think. Are their late 30s? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I was talking to my wife about this. People don't realize Well, it's at at that level, right? Hollow is like 32 or something. When you're at that level, he's late. He's late 32. Is he 35 and 38? When you're at that level, you've been fighting for a while already. Uh there's a big difference when you get to the late 30s and start to get to 40.

Big difference in your resilience. And so when they bring back old fighters who were popular, it's almost always disappointing. I'm trying to think of a time it wasn't. So 37 Oh, 34 Holloway. But Holloway's been fighting for so long. So 34 years old, he had to get a 5year break either. Yeah. I mean, that's the other part, too, is and and Connor was admitted partying and living up the life and plus the damage you get from fighting like somebody somebody who is who is who is playing at that high like obviously a wild fighter.

wild fighter. wild fighter. Obviously, uh MMA is up there with the most elite sports like physically what you need to be at, right? Football and basketball, fighting, all those are all elite elite elite sports physically you need to be at to be in your late 30s. the amount of of discipline when you look at the people that have done this like the Tom Bradies, the LeBron James, the Steph Curry, like the amount of of money and dedication and discipline those athletes have put around recovery and taking care of their bodies consistently all through their 20s and 30s to be able to say, "I've played into my evolved a bit too." Yeah.

Yeah. You also you also are looking at look football is a good example. So Brady was a quarterback. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. the amount of uh head blows he got uh is significantly less than other positions, right? As a quarterback, you're not getting blasted like you are a lineman or linebacker. Yeah. Unless you're Steve Young, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, my point with that is as a fighter, your your your time span is if you get if you're a guy that goes in the ring and just throws punches and gets hit.

hit. hit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's that's really taken away your ability to fight long term. Like I don't necessarily do you see fighter do you see football players that last a long time that are like linemen or you don't right because I think they probably have the shortest lineman yeah not really have to it's like it's like it's like it's too much too much too much that's that's an interesting question I don't know what uh what poor linemen don't get a lot of love as it is uh I wonder too though but I bet there's a wide disparity there's also well again it's it's uh it's beneficial for a lineman to carry himself at 350 lbs and that that generally speaking is not ideal for overall health I I bet you if you looked up Okay, so the average career for NFL lineman is three to four years.

Doug, can you look up uh average career for each NFL position? I bet you bet you bet you Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I bet you quarterback is is Yeah, but I my my argument kicker my argument Oh, yeah, for sure. Come on. My argument for that is that they're already in a a not optimal healthy body to last that long already. Yeah. Where where a quarterback, a wide receiver, a running back will will keep themselves in in a more optimal shape just for their their position.

So that's kind of not fair to compare to alignment. alignment. alignment. Well, my point with that is like, okay, we'll use two fighting sports, boxing and Olympic wrestling, which both at a super high level, especially like pro boxing and Olympic level wrestling, is I you will see Olympic wrestlers uh still compete at what I would call older ages. You're talking about late 30s. You often don't see this in boxing because unless it's a style thing like Mayweather or like where his whole he doesn't get hit.

That's right. Yeah. Or like I forget his name that there was one like boxer that was like uh he had like the longest career ever and it was really because of the amount of hits he took. What does it say there? Limited. Limited. Limited. Yeah. So the longest is long snapper 7.5, punter 6.4, kickers 5.5, quarterbacks 5.4. quarterbacks 5.4. quarterbacks 5.4. All I guarantee it's ranked by how often they get hit. Uh the wide receivers are at the lowest it looks like at 3.5 line wide receivers get hit way more than well 3.5 versus 3.9 is pretty close.

No but I mean when you compare a long snapper to a wide receiver you like I think well I'm going to do a lot of like middle. like middle. like middle. I'm going to speculate you guys you guys help me cuz especially you Justin you play football. play football. play football. Uh linemen they they connect. They're real close to each other. Still brutal but they're pretty close. Receivers when they get blasted it's typically high speed and you're getting hammered. Yeah. And it's a lot of hands uh you know to break out in their patterns.

But you know but again if they do get the ball and then they're going to get like crashed by you know th those blows definitely definitely definitely I think it's I think that that stat there's way too many factors. I think the your body type going into it makes a big difference. I think the way you take care of your body. I think what you're arguing the hits make I think all those are such factors. I think those are all such huge factors that it's not like a a positional practice too like they'll be like running.

My argument to this is that when we see these examples, Tom Brady's, LeBron's Curry, you you see these these these all the energy and time they spend is on cover and they and I mean they are unbelievably unbelievably unbelievably meticulous about I mean LeBron James has has laid out his million dollar plus uh budget that he puts towards recovery. And there's a I mean they have it down to a science of like he plays a game, then he does this, then he does this and and it's like consistent.

consistent. consistent. Yeah. And like Steph Curry, same thing. Like Tom Brady, same thing. like they they had they had a regimen. What a what a wonderful lesson for the average person listening right now. Obviously, none of us here or Tom Brady or whatever, but all of us uh if you're listening and you're into fitness, like I want to be able to do this forever. Like my goal is to be able to do this forever and to do it well for as long as I can. It makes sense that most of my time and energy or much of it is should be spent towards recovery and adaptation.

adaptation. adaptation. Dude, I 100% have adopted this philosophy in the last 5 years of my own training. It's just like I I like if people spent more time on that than on the beat myself up and the work everybody would everybody would everybody would even even though I I don't even would because I'm the the do as little as possible the list the most changed guy like I've been so focused for my most of my lifting career on building muscle you know or getting shredded. It's like it's been or chasing a PR like it's like where I've I've done all that right I've hit good enough PRs in all my lifts.

I've accomplished the low body fat percentage. I've got you know what I'm saying? like I've built a ton of muscle in my body, my frame. Uh like chasing any of those anymore is actually not a good idea. Like I end up getting hurt and the the the juice is not worth the squeeze. And so so much of the way I train now is more longevity, recovery, take care of the body, like how do I feel today? Like oh, I'm going to now switch and do this instead.

I was having this conversation with uh with a friend of mine that I've been training because we were talking about this and I said, you know, even high level athletes, even pro athletes have an inseason and offseason. Uh the average person needs the same thing. And for most people, what this probably looks like is 90% of the time you're cruising. Literally 90% of your year if you live a normal life, you got kids, you got a house, you got responsibilities, right? You're not like, you know, independently wealthy, don't have to work and just live in the gym, right?

most people have lives. 90% of your workouts uh are probably going to look like cruising. Then you get the 10% where you where you're you're sprinting. This is when everything's perfect, everything's going great. You know what? For the next four weeks, I'm going to go after, you know, really That's right. But most of the time, and I think if you took that approach and you were consistent with it, obviously it doesn't mean you're not working out. You're still consistent. I think you'd have a wonderful, you know, training uh career.

I I was talking to somebody in my in my DM yesterday because I posted my story of my consistent boring same meal that I eat or that I prep with every single week and they were asking like, "Oh, what's the the macro breakdown on that?" I'm like, "I have no idea." And they're like, "What do you mean you have no idea?" I was just I said, "I haven't tracked a macro like that in a very long time." And they're asking, "So, is that because you've you've like figured out your are you happy with where your body is?" They said, "Well, I probably fluctuate between 12 and 15%." Throughout the whole year now, and I hit the edges occasionally.

I may allow myself to push up to 17, 18. That's normally my like, "Oh, I need to get my [ __ ] together." You know what I'm saying? I've been enjoying the whiskey and the ice cream or something too much or missing the gym too many times in a row. Like, that's that edge, right? And then I have the other edge of like you said, like, you know what? I got four or five weeks. Katrina and I are getting ready for Cabo. I'm going to dial it in.

I'm actually going to cut back on some things that I know right away. I'm not counting. I'm just like, I know that ice cream, a big bowl of ice cream. Yeah. Yeah. 900 extra calories. I could easily just say I'm not going to do that for a while. while. while. Are you really doing 900 calories ice cream? cream? cream? Oh, bro. Way more than that. Way more than that. Come on. Come on. That was me being like conservative right there. Yeah. I'm not eating any ice cream right now.

But when I was uh that I mean I I'm down 15 pounds in the last uh I was I in my Yeah. Yeah. In my opinion, I was on the edge of that. I was probably 15 to 17% on the upper edge. edge. edge. So, I cut out those things really quick. I limit minimize. Still will have a drink here and there that I still allow it in there, but it's not as much as it was before. And that'll bring me right right back to that range.

But I to your point, [snorts] point, [snorts] point, [snorts] that's what it kind of looks like is this eb and flow. I'm not really focused that hard on it. Um, and getting in the gym at least between two and four. Four is a great week. Two is a slow week of training. and kind of hovers in in that range. It keeps me there and I can easily manage that and then have the opportunity to sprint to do that. And what sprinting looks like is just not missing the gym, not having those things.

And it pulls me right back down to that like 11% range for a while. That's great. That's great. Uh I'm going to change subject because I saw this there's this interesting dating app that is uh exploding in popularity and I'd love your guys' opinions on what you think is happening. I thought those were I thought those were dying like dying like dying like So let me tell you about this new one. So, there's this new dating app that's getting really popular. And here's the difference. So, typical dating app uh is, you know, you you swipe right, swipe left, and the person tells you they're interested.

You decide if you're interested or not, right? There's a new app called Ditto that is now like exploding all over college campuses. Here's how it works. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Here's how it works. Students complete a survey that allows the platform's AI to determine their matches. New pairings are generated every Wednesday and it gives match students the chance to choose a time that works for both. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. So, here's why I think this is working. I think the dating apps gave people way too many choices.

And I think we just want people to I think my wife speculated. He thinks that what's going to get real popular moving forward is what we used to do back in the day, which is friends would try to connect you with people. Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. I think I think that's a really good u trying to find a TV show. Dude, it's impossible. impossible. impossible. It's crazy. When we were I was telling my kids this, dude, it's frustrating. I was talking with them in the car and and we were watching the World Cup and uh commercials come on.

First off, my kids love commercials. I'm like, this is weird. is weird. is weird. Your kids love commercials. It's like a new treat for like a streaming kid. It's so weird. And I'm like, you know, you know what commercials are? It was the original reels. It was like little short, you know, reels or whatever. So my kids, so I was talking to him about like, why are we watching commercials now? I'm like, we have to. What do you mean we have to? I'm like, so I was telling him about how TV was when I was a kid.

And I was like, you know, when I was a kid, if I didn't pay for the premium, well, no, World Cup, but I was telling him I was like, if you have YouTube premium, you'd have to watch commercials. Really? World Cup. Is that what's happening? I paid for something. What I paid for something. What happened? Was there tears? Yeah. Yeah. There's tears, dog. So, I was talking to them and I'm like, when I was really little, before we had satellite TV, cuz that was the next or cable, right?

That was the next that was a big thing. I'm like, I had three channels to choose from. And I said, and they like, well, when what would you watch? I said, cartoons. When would you watch? Said Saturday morning. I had to wake up. And so, I was explaining to them and they're like, well, were you bored? Cuz there was nothing to watch. I'm like, you know what's funny? No. I said the choices were kind of made for me. for me. for me. Yeah. And if I'm scrolling through the 10 channels that I have and a movie's on halfway through, cool.

We're gonna we're gonna watch Predator halfway through or whatever. whatever. whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that so many choices it just recall, recall, recall, dude. So it paralyzes us. Do you remember when you guys first started buying video cassettes? I do. Like my buddies and I got into having buying our own video cassettes when we were in high school. So you don't we don't have a lot of disposal income. So being able to afford a $20 video cassette, which is about what they were back then, was a lot of money.

Especially the dollar back then, right? That's like $1,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a full days of work. It was a full days of work. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember I I mean over my senior year I think I collected 13 video cassettes, you know, and I must have watched those same all the time 13 movies and I could I could picture it up. I had it up on this like bookshelf thing all of them and it was like what am I watching tonight? You know what I'm saying?

It's just like it was I rotated between 13 for like probably four years. Yeah, dude. So, I think these dating app is popular because kids are so sick and tired of like having to you just you know what you just I have another theory on I have another theory on that. I think uh and you know this because I know we've all we've all watched the show uh blind dates been like become like super [clears throat] popular and there is something about it that I I I mean of all the the bad parts of it.

The the good part about it is it forces these people to really get to know them each other. Probably more than the average kid gets to know the person they're about to date. Like up until I don't know a few years ago, it's just swipe look at a picture. Oh, I like So I mean maybe you look at a little bit of their profile, but it's like you're it's all visual. all visual. all visual. It's all visual. Or you put in super unrealistic like filters like he's got to be over six foot, he's got to make over six figure.

you just narrowed it down to like 5% of every guy, you know. It's so funny. so funny. so funny. Yeah. So, I think that uh allowing filling out a survey, which is I'm sure you're answering a bunch of questions about things you like, things you're into. Using AI to match that has probably nothing to do much if or very little with the visual side. And it's like these are the things that your core values values values and it's giving it to you. I mean, it's doing the work for you.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I I I do think that there that's better than what that was out there. Well, when you get challenged, it's real. It's like we're just so spoonfed our own bias for everything. And so that's it. Like I'll just look and see, oh, you know, I like this because of these traits and all these things. But like you don't The thing is like people don't take a chance anymore to find out what they don't like. Like they didn't think they'd like that, but now they like it because it's like go hang out with people.

Nobody's challenging any of their ideas, their thoughts, like uh their experiences cuz it's like you can pretty much pre-prescribe everything now. Go make friends. This is why that that's why this app will also fail to your point and why we have to just get back to going and old school and figuring that out because there's so much value in working through that conversation. Oh, you Oh, you bro, I just read a Oh, you're you're Republican. I'm Democrat. Oh, like you know what I'm saying? There's so much value in how that plays out.

I got a study that just came out and I think this is the accurate number. A 6ft man who makes $60,000 a year, a guy who's 5'8 would have to make $174 grand to be as attractive to a woman. You saw this? Yes. So the So he he would have a guy who's 5'8 who's either 5'7 or 5'8 would have to make $174,000 to be considered as attractive as a dude that's 6 foot who makes 60 grand. Now here's the thing. I get that on paper.

I get that. Fine. That's fine. Men have their preferences. Women have their pre I get it. But here's the thing. A woman could meet a guy who's 5'8 who's making 60 grand. But she meets him and he's got all the characteristics of somebody that's like, "Man, he's hardworking. He's a go-getter. He's got purpose. I see his potential. You're [clears throat] not going to know that because you're just swiping because he doesn't make the amount of money that you think he needs to make right out the gates." And so, you miss out on this potential potential potential relationship cuz we're not meeting up with each other.

You know where people are meeting up? By the way, where the big social area is now is gyms. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Have you guys seen that? Bar like all I've seen those stats. It's pretty crazy. crazy. crazy. All the traditional places that people used to meet up and hang out are declining in uh attendance and but gyms are going up. That makes me think of this uh this shoe brand this guy was coming over and it's like totally like platform gives you like 3 in or something and it like blends it.

Yeah, dude. They try and make it look like athletic shoes. They give you like this much lift for these little short dudes. It's like push-up bra dude. I'm saying look looking out for them them shorts. Oh man, dude. You don't want to get caught in those. You know what I'm saying? Just like the the stuff in the bra, you don't want to get caught with it. It's like I guess it kind of works for a one and done. Maybe by then it's too late. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Shoes are off. She's like, "Why are you keeping your shoes on?" Yeah. It's like the last thing you take off. off. off. Shorts. I shoes are on still. No, they stay on. What is it? I'm I'm going to get you, sucker. What the movie is that where that like uh the the hooker starts taking her like wig off and then her earrings. Oh, what's that from? What movie is that? that? that? The guy's like, "What? I don't remember that." I'm going to get you suck.

I think it's I'm going to get you suck. It was so funny though. What an old movie, dude. Like literally like looks normal like all done up and then takes like all the makeup and everything off. It's a gremlin. gremlin. gremlin. I I I've found somebody I think who recommends movies worse than some of you guys. I feel like uh I was I was talking. talking. talking. How do you tell a story and insult us? Yeah, I like that. I like that. that. that. I got a story sandwich always eating [ __ ] sandwich.

Listen, there's somebody there's somebody who gives worse movie recommendations. Our buddy Jason. Dude, the last couple times we've hung out, he's like recommended some movies and I've been like, "No, I haven't seen that one. Now I haven't seen that." And then the last time we were we were hanging out, he tells me to watch uh a a citizen um oh vigilante. Citizen vigilante. And did you see the preview for this? No, I did not. Okay. Yeah. So, I The name alone gives it away. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I'm like and I'm watching. watching. watching. Is he one of those guys that just likes action? action? action? Yes. Yes. Yes. Like my dad. My dad always recommend brother-in-law and him. It like there's tons of tons of tons of action. Tom Clancy. Yeah. My dad's and it like it doesn't have to have any sort of depth or anything. That's my dad. Oh, just if it's action-packed guns, this guns, this guns, this he's My dad's always recommending movies to Sovato. It's a good movie. It's a lot of action.

Okay. Yeah. And I haven't I hadn't I hadn't taken any of uh that was actually at least good. I did like I haven't watched the second one. You good too. too. too. Was it I've been cuz you know Katrina wouldn't watch it cuz it's a little too graphic. But I like the first one. I was late to the party. Yeah. Yeah. And uh but back to this one and I'm going to ruin it cuz it's a terrible movie. What's What's the Rottweed tomatoes on it, Doug?

it, Doug? it, Doug? Oh, let me see. Uh 6%. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. That sucks. That sucks. That sucks. Hey dude, it was so I'm going to ruin it. I don't care because it's a bad movie. You shouldn't go watch it. So, and my buddy's telling me how great it is. Like, I have to watch it. And I can tell by the way it's even opening up and the acting that. And I'm looking at Katrina. I'm just like, "This is going to suck." Yeah.

Is this is this going to get better or what's this going to be like? And where I couldn't finish it. I turned it off. Is there's a scene and it's playing up to it. So, it's like building up to the scene and they're giving you like hints that this scene is coming and it's literally this, you know, citizen vigilante guy who's like, you know, killing all the bad guys by himself and, you know, the government is, you know, coming after him and they send in like two tanks to his house, right?

So, he's and he's bunkering down in his house. Very dangerous. They had to send tanks, bro. Tanks with I think 40 or 50 soldiers, right? soldiers, right? soldiers, right? For one dude. Yeah. For one dude to his to his house. Right. And he he bunkers down in a bedroom bedroom bedroom that has a bulletproof steel that he's in with like two AK-47s in his house. In his house. And he allows them all to come in and then and they they all and by the way, it's a like a bedroom, right?

And so like one soldier doesn't just walk in like 10 of them all walk in and there's just this big box with two guns pointing out of it. And then and he and he and he he before he shoots them he he he you know is polite and hey I just you should leave or all I don't want to kill you. Yes. And he literally kills the first 10 that are in there and they just keep sending the soldiers in and he's just and it's all graphic you know heads are exploding exploding exploding just throw a bomb in there.

Bro, it was I or roll because the guns are on these things and so he's only he's like mowing everybody down from chest up. You know what I'm saying? Like not one of the not one of these 40 soldiers thought they could crawl crawl or going through the back or something or stop coming in. You know what I'm saying? Like saying? Like saying? Like just smoke bombing. I thought I haven't talked to Jason yet. I'm like I can't wait. I'll never take a ' 80s action movies a lot like that, right?

Like one dude is walking Commando walking Commando walking Commando where Arnold's walking. Everybody's missing. But you know they're not trying to be serious. You can tell. [clears throat] But there was one movie where one guy took out a lot of people and it was in my opinion some somewhat realistic. Uh, First Blood. You guys remember First Blood? Rambo got stupid. Let's be honest. Rambo got really crazy. But First Blood was pretty good. That's the very first one, right? The very first one. I mean, it was pretty good, dude.

It was a good movie. It's also what Okay, to take to give the 80s crazy action some credit, too. was like, first of all, Sylvester Stallone back then was just like to see a body that looked like that and he plays the character of a ranger. So, he's like the ultimate badass. Green beret or green beret. Ultimate badass. Yeah, sorry. You got to get it right. How dare you? Like the ultimate like military badass, right? You know what I'm saying? And so, and then and he does take out guys one at a time.

He does. And if you remember First Blood, he's he's a Vietnam vet, PTSD. Horrible stuff happened. He's just trying to live his life, dude. Yeah. And he gets harassed by It's a bunch of It's like small town cops. cops. cops. And they they go after him in the woods, which he could he could live in. That's where he had like like arrows that explode. that explode. that explode. No, that's Rambo. Rambo. No, this is the one where he's like he's like he's like in a cave.

He's like eating wild boar. With knives. He's like hiding in the mud and he like Yeah. And he sets up booby tra like it's realistic, you know, in that sense. I agree with you. Yeah. No, I I ended up watching like it was just for nostalgia sake. I thought like, oh, maybe maybe this movie holds up, you know, like Never Ending Story, those kind of like you like, oh, I have some childhood memories. Like, so if you guys ever watched like Little Monsters, oh, is it is it bad now?

Do you remember that? Oh, [clears throat] dude, it's terrible. Didn't we just talk about that? So, no. Oh, we talked about uh different ones. I I didn't even put this together, but I realize what it is. Like, so me and Cardi start watching it. Fred Savage is in it. in it. in it. Oh, yes. I remember. And then uh so the guy to the Bobby's World and he's on um h what's what's that like America's Got Talent like he's one of the main hosts for that.

Anyways comes out from under his bed. his bed. his bed. He's a monster. Yeah, he's a monster. He comes out from the bed and the whole premise is basically like you know he pulls him in, he traps him and he's first guy to trap him and then like ends up going to see this underground world. I really remember that movie. The whole thing I realized what it was. The whole thing is like it it I'm like this had to be right after Beetlejuice and I'm like yes and I look it up and of course they tried to make it just like Beetlejuice but like for like kids and more like family kind of oriented.

I totally remember this now. But dude he was so obnoxious like the the most like overacting crazy like like it wasn't even like funny. Uh and the whole thing was like ruined dude. I swear like it was like he was trying so hard to be Beetlejuice and didn't work. I remember that. We used to watch that all the time. We're all We're all 8 n years old right here. Yeah. No, this is Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, it didn't hold up. I was I was kind of I thought it was good.

I was like, we watched Max and I watched I introduced him to the original uh u u Willy Wonka and so that was really good. There's this terrifying scene in there for little kids. What scene? What scene? What scene? When they're going through the tunnel. Oh, it's it's not as terrifying as you think it is. Yeah. Where it's all like all the Yeah. Weird stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's so uh uh uh they always had those psychic tunnels. It's so lowbudget that it's not that scary. Yeah.

Yeah. It's it's designed to be like the scariest part of that. Did I tell you guys years ago my older kids when they were younger, I thought, "Oh, Gremlins. I remember that being a fun family movie." That is not a fun family movie. That is a violent scary ass. Oh, no. I I remember being a little scared watching that. That is a scary ass movie. You know, they throw them in the microwave. microwave. microwave. Did you watch that with your kids when they were younger? My older ones.

This I made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes as a as a as a young dad. Yeah, I got to ease Max. Like that's where we're at. Will walk out. Like I can't get him to watch it. One time I watched a movie with my oldest when he was little. I thought it would be cool and a scene comes up and the poor kid froze and looked away and I knew I traumatized him. I knew it right away. I was like, "Oh no, I just traumatized my kid." A movie that was not Max is so cute when we're So we we had the the fight.

We were outside and and barbecuing and we had the fights and stuff and all the TV's going stuff and uh and during one of the uh ads there was like a a ad for like a a movie and it was like a scary movie and he's like so trained to not do that that he's like and he was walking towards the TV and the barbecue and stuff like that and then he just he put his head down and Jason and Daniel were like what's wrong with Max and Katrina's just like oh he's he's looking away I he's looking away I like yeah and they're like oh my god she goes like I couldn't figure out what he was doing cuz all out of nowhere he's like he's like walking and doing at the same time, but he's like trained himself.

If he sees something, he knows right away. Like he You guys remember as kids, cuz we watched VHS, right? So when when our [snorts] parents rented a movie, it was on VHS. So [clears throat] if a if a quote unquote dirty part came up where you see boobies, they wouldn't like, "Okay, guys, leave the room. the room. the room. Fast forward. Fast forward. Fast forward. We're just You just watch the boobies two lines. two lines. two lines. That's it. You just watch the boobs in three times." three times." three times." I've tried that move a few times.

Yeah. You can't you can't do that. You're always late. Oh, I used to Oh, every time Cory gets so mad at me and I'm like, I'm sorry. Forgot about this part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I got to tell you, you know what I've been drinking a lot of uh lately is the Keon essential aminos cuz the jiu-jitsu, man, it makes a difference. It really And I eat a lot of protein. Makes a difference. Are you doing it uh while do you mix it with the water and while you're while you're while you're So while but also throughout the day because here's what I'm noticing and I was just I was I was speaking to this um on the series that I record uh with Dylan.

Dylan. Dylan. Um one thing that I I I hurt in areas where the muscle attachments are Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. because you know I'm strong but my my body is not used to being to to having to exert strength in those positions or at that speed. And so what's happening is like my elbows hurt because my forearm flexors are tight at the insertions. So it hurts like like I couldn't even lift the other day because bench pressing hurts so bad because of that. Yeah, you require a lot more force now.

It's just uh my hip although that feels a little better. And it's not that it's injured. It's just I'm not my body is not used to being pulled and strained in this way. So the but the essential aminos by the way I have the check this out. So they put the Here's the thing guys. You buy essential amino acids nine out of 10en times it's not going to tell you how much leucine uh isolucine it's not going to tell you the amino acids that are in there.

It's just going to say yes they can save money. We looked this up one time like how much money they save money. save money. save money. It's just going to say three grams of essential amino acids. You want a you want a high amount of leucine in your essential amino acids. That's what does the recovery and build muscle. Otherwise it doesn't do very much. The leucine in one packet of their aminos 2,000 milligrams. 2,000 milligrams. Isolucine 550, veene 500. Uh, but lucine's at 2,000. And that's what you want.

You want really, really high leucine content in your essential amino acids. And they list it. They break it down. So, that's how you know the best the best the best when you got the best one. Healthy meats. Uh, delicious. Tastes like the soda you grew up sipping. Lollipop has the added benefit, by the way, of gut health support. I really recommend these to all the clients that we have here at Mind Pump. Here's why. First of all, it's delicious. Uh, but this can right here, this is cream soda.

50 calories. 50 calories. 3 g of sugar. And there's fiber. This has nine nine or eight grams of fiber in these cans. Super low calorie. They taste delicious. Again, it tastes like soda. This tastes like the cream soda I had as a kid. I have another one over here. Classic root beer. It tastes like root beer. This one's 35 calories. If your goal is fitness and health, you want to burn body fat, you like the taste of soda, you don't want a bunch of calories, a bunch of sugar, and you want stuff that's good for your gut because there's gut health uh compounds in here as well, you got to go with lollipop.

And check it out. You can get a free can of Lollipop. Here's what you do. Go to drink lollipop.com/mpump. drink lollipop.com/mpump. drink lollipop.com/mpump. Buy any two cans of Lollipop in the store and they'll pay you back for one. It works on any single cans of any flavor at any retailer. So again, it's drinkollipop.com/mindpump. drinkollipop.com/mindpump. drinkollipop.com/mindpump. Buy any two cans of Lollipop in the store and they'll pay you back for one of them. Go check it out. Our first caller is Riley from Mississippi. Mississippi. Mississippi. Hi Riley.

How you doing Riley? Morning. I'm Morning. I'm Morning. I'm great. How are you guys? Good. How can we help you? Um well, first of all, thank you guys for so much that you do. Um I've been listening since I was back in high school [clears throat] and I started lifting in 2016. I had no idea what I was doing. So, you guys have helped a lot. Um, it's really cool to finally talk to you. But little background for my question. Um, promise I won't take too long.

I am a personal trainer. I went and got my degree in exercise science and I'm currently back in school to do a nursing degree. So, I'm really interested in lifestyle medicine changing the way we look at chronic disease. Um, I've been athletic my whole life and I recently in January ruptured my Achilles playing basketball. Um, going through that rehab made me look at the way I train patients and clients differently. So, it made me really want to dive into like evidence-based practice and focus on how I can help people who may have multiple coorbidities or maybe postpartum.

Um, maybe going through an injury like me and returning back to exercise when I've never had an athletic injury like that. It was a big change for me. Um, so my question for you guys is, what resources do you rely on to stay current with evidence-based practices when working with complex clients, maybe those with multiple coorbidities or just a chronic disease such as, you know, um, COPD or just anything assuming they've been cleared with the doctor to train with you? And how do you balance that in your coaching experience?

coaching experience? coaching experience? Are you are you still working in the gym right now? Um, right now because of my lifestyle, so we're military, we move all the time. I just provide private training. So I do a lot of virtual training and then a little bit of in person with more so friends. Um, but I'm currently working just as a barista to pay for nursing school. So I do a little bit of everything. Um, but multi the training online is my main platform right now. Yeah.

So your question, I love your question. It's funny. I just had this conversation uh similar conversation yesterday with a friend of mine who's a psychiatrist [snorts] psychiatrist [snorts] psychiatrist [snorts] um and uh we were talking about um you know quote unquote experts on social media and how they communicate and how you know when we're listening to like a let's say a fitness or health influencer uh we can pretty quickly tell if that person has a lot of experience working with people or if they don't. And it's not necessarily because uh they do or don't have the right information.

There's a lot of really good science-based uh people on media who communicate fitness and communicate the data, but they've never trained anybody or they haven't for a long period of time. And you can hear it in how they communicate. So, the example I actually used last night was Brett Contrarus. Um, you know, he's he's known for building glutes. Uh, he's also a science guy. He can quote the data, understand studies, has conducted some himself. But when he communicates, you could tell he's trained a lot of people.

Thousands. You can tell you could tell he's done this for decades. Okay? And so the reason why I'm communicating this to you is there's tons of resources for information uh medical journals, studies, um you can even go on in, uh forums, medical forums where you you're going to run into a lot of medical students where they're discussing the latest studies and and uh the latest science on how to treat uh you know, core morbidities or or different chronic conditions. But the best thing that I think or the the the best way you could get yourself good honestly is to work as an apprentice in some way, shape or form with somebody who's very experienced.

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Because the difference between somebody who does a phenomenal job um and everybody else isn't necessarily that they have uh better data or better information. It's that they know how to work with people, right? right? right? And they do a better job of that. And so for someone like you, uh, and I'm just making a judgment based off of what you told me, sounds like you like to learn. I don't think learning is an issue for you. Uh, I don't think seeking information is an issue for you.

It sounds like something you really enjoy doing. I don't think you're ever going to be short on knowledge, but uh, experience is where you're going to notice um, where you're gonna, uh, you're going to have some deficits. And so the fastest way to get that besides going out there and doing it is you work for somebody or under somebody who has and even if you do it for free for a while uh and consider it the most valuable education you'll ever get that you're not paying for.

So you can literally find somebody in a field you're interested in. You can approach them and literally say, "I'm a student. I want to get really good. I [clears throat] want to learn from you and I'll work for free. I just want to be around you." uh to watch how you engage with patients, how you work with patients, and if I can ask the occasional question, that's a plus. And what you what you what you'll get out of that, like 6 months to a year of that, oh my gosh, you'll come out uh so much better.

So, that's the absolute best thing you could possibly do in in my very strong opinion. Another hack. Um although I don't think anything's better than what S said, uh nothing nothing will trump that. I think that's the best. But since you're online and virtual most of the time and you're not in like a place and that may be difficult to go intern with somebody, you know, 20 30 hours a week with everything else you have on your plate, the very bare minimum, I would definitely join a community like our school group, like with our trainers, where you have other like-minded professionals that are out there doing the work and coaching people where you're sharing stuff like, "Hey, has anyone trained someone who's diabetic?

Oh, has someone trained anybody who just blew their Achilles?" Like and so you have the other like-minded coaches that you know are under our umbrella. So their philosophy is probably going to be very aligned or learning from a lot of us and what we teach and gone through our certification. Uh and then sharing their knowledge and what they're so a lot of our school group is that is trainers. Hey, I've got this build yourself a big network. Yeah, I got I got a client. I've never trained someone who's got gout.

What what do you guys do in this situation? And then you'll see three, four, you know, more experienced trainers chime in and be like, "Oh, do this, do." And so, um, definitely be a part of a community like that. I mean, that's something that you can virtually do at home and be learning as you go. I think that that's far better than than just going deep on the the the science-based studies and know because although that stuff is important to understand and know uh you can have uh all the answers but then you can have five clients with the same problem and you're going to approach it five different ways because of the individual.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, to echo both of them, like I think what's helped me kind of accelerate my knowledge base is to surround myself with people of other different professions that are, you know, similar and synergistic in a sense. So like physical therapists, chiropractors, like just really solid uh individuals in the area that I knew I could, you know, send clients to, but also I would meet with and we discuss uh and I would get a lot of like really important feedback and application to then kind of work into what I was doing.

So just, you know, surrounding yourself with like really good professionals. good professionals. good professionals. And and Riley, just again, just to kind of hammer this home because you're getting into the medical field [snorts] and medicine does a phenomenal job. uh western medicine does a phenomenal job of diving very deep in a very narrow scope. Okay. But they don't do a good job of uh connecting the dots with other parts of the body or the mind. And that's just because you only have so much time. Like we are going to go to school for 50 years.

Like it's impossible impossible impossible [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] uh to do all of that. But what what happens is we treat the mind as if it's separate from the body. Uh and we treat the the person as if they're different from their physiology. In other words, um there's people with chronic pain and their chronic pain goes away from talk therapy, uh or from an SSRI, like what's going on here? Uh you know, or you'll get somebody who um you know, I've had clients where we would do belly breathing and they'd have an emotional release.

release. release. Uh so you can't separate all that. And so the reason why I said work with someone who's experienced is because what you figure out after years of working with people is you start to learn how that all works together. human psychology human psychology human psychology and how you work with the individual uh based off of how they present themselves and the directions uh that you can go. And so nothing I'm going to tell you right now, if you could find yourself somebody that is really experienced that you could just work under for free for a while, that'll that'll trump all the education uh that you can get from books and and and from data by far.

You'll come out of that and you'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I learned so much." Yeah, I have definitely felt like it's hard to plug into those types of networks. Um, my college town, I worked at a gym and unfortunately our the owner kind of chased off every personal trainer that came. Um, yeah, I won't go too much into what he was he was a whole mess. Um but so we would often the trainers who had that experience or were maybe going to physical therapy school after their degree and would have much more knowledge and experience with these patients that may have special considerations, they would be gone and chased off and then moving every 2 to four years doesn't really help either.

So I think definitely plugging into the schoolhouse and just learning that knowledge. Um, and I I've learned a little bit more in my clinical rotation too of nursing school just to see the way that western medicine kind of deals with things versus the way that exercise science teaches us to deal with things. And the gap that I would like to bridge having my knowledge like going forward cuz I hate that everybody's just prescribed a drug and then we just don't do anything physically or nutritionally to make them better.

Um, but yeah, definitely plugging into those sources would help. Yeah, but again just the attitude around it is like um you you've invest a lot of time and money in education and so the energy that you put into that uh when you're ready you would put into uh apprenticeship and so you would say okay for the next year this is what my education is going to look like and then you would search uh and you would court them and you would court them you would call them you'd show up at their office and you would say I'm here I'll do this for free I just want to learn and I bet you uh somebody will bite and you'll get that experience experience from working with someone.

And again, I can't stress this enough. It will make you better faster than any any other thing you could possibly do. Yeah, I love that. Cool. On, Riley. Yeah. Thanks for calling in. Yeah. Hopefully we see you in this cool group. group. group. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You got it. I was literally just having this conversation uh with a friend a friend of mine. So, she's a psychiatrist and she's very very smart. Uh she went to Harvard Medical School. Brilliant uh woman. And we were talking about this and how and how and how [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] uh you know they in psychiatry it's the mind and they don't consider the body.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she's like it's crazy disconnected. She's like it's crazy. Now we have data that shows that exercise is such a powerful anti-depressant. And she's just like you know if you could figure out how to combine the two and work with them. Um and we had this whole conversation. It's like she can't possibly learn everything that a really good coach would learn because she spends so much time in school or nutrition or whatever, right? However, could she work with other people information? That's right.

Uh and develop and build a network, but uh nothing will teach. This is we tell our trainers all the time like you want to get really good, work under a good trainer. Watch what happens. Well, I mean Justin's shared his story many times where when he went to that studio, uh after he left and went and got to be around Oh, yeah. 20 other great trainers that had all these uh you know, different backgrounds. It's just a it's just a a an incredible fast track to get good, especially if you you're hanging out talking.

talking. talking. It's the most I ever learned by far. Now granted, this is 15 years ago or more, right, when when that was a thing. Like we do kn now have cool communities online that's similar to that. And that's why I think in her situation that makes the the most sense as far as easy. Like that's the bare minimum. Now, I would be still searching because I don't think anything will would will trump what you said. I think that's the best. Well, I I have no idea what I didn't see what town she's in or if you know because she could be out in the middle of nowhere and if she's moving every two years that could be kind of difficult to do, but she absolutely can join a community where there's other like-minded, you know, successful veteran trainers where they're sharing ideas and that's a quick way to do that for sure.

Our next caller is Jay from Texas. Texas. Texas. What's up, Jay? How you doing, Jay? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? Hey guys, y'all looking good there? Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Thanks, man. Thanks, man. How can we help you? The filters. I try. Well, man, I uh I've been listening to you guys for about a year and a half now. And uh it's it's awesome what you guys do, man. I I tune in seriously every single day and like Monday um I'm kind of feing from Sunday not getting to hear anything.

So, um I listen to you guys when I'm working out actually even. So, it's pretty cool. pretty cool. pretty cool. Thank you. But um I I'm reading through my email that I sent you guys and uh I wrote a book. So I'm not going to read the email, the email, the email, but um I'm going to give you the cliff notes. Basically, I'm 55 years old. I've had um two times in my life where I've lost quite a bit of weight. Uh the first time was my early 30s when I lost 140 lbs.

I had gotten to 385 and [snorts] um was you know really out of shape obviously. And then the second time um well at that at that time when I lost the weight I actually I ended up becoming a personal trainer um because I really got into um the fitness aspect and [clears throat] uh so I became a trainer. I was a trainer for just a few years and um but during that time uh I met my wife so that was a a big plus from it and um so she married a guy that was in shape and then a few years later I decided I was just kind of done with the whole thing.

So I I was tired of um measuring food and um I had a lot of injuries. My Achilles were pretty jacked up. Uh, so I was, you know, dealing with pain all the time and, you know, at that time I think I turned about 46, 47 years old and I was just like, screw it, I'm done. I'm going to be old and fat. And, uh, so um, obviously my wife uh, wasn't super excited about that, but she was pretty good. She kind of rolled with it for for a few years.

Uh, she would encourage me, but she'd never like nagged me about it. Thank God. um she probably figured if she did I'd never bounce back. So um but anyways um a couple years ago back in uh 2024 2024 2024 um we had gone to New York City, my wife and I. She's from New York and I couldn't go up to Statue of Liberty cuz I was too out of shape and uh it really it really got to me. And so then uh fast forward to end of July that year uh we went on a trip to Mexico and uh it was pretty cool.

We got to go uh snorkeling. But uh when I went to get off the boat at this time I was about 360 lb and uh I wasn't thinking that uh I I typically don't think. I just kind of jump and and so that's what I did. I jumped in the ocean and um I panicked. Uh, I got a mouthful of water and it really freaked me out and uh, so much so that I wanted to get back on the catamaran and uh, my wife was, you know, kind of like, shake, come on, you know, we're we're here to see this reef, you know, you can do this.

And so, um, she kind of helped me get my wits about me and ended up uh, being able to swim out, see the reef, all that kind of good stuff. But that moment stuck with me. And the next day we were back on the beach and I I told my wife, I'm like, "Look, I'm I'm looking like a beach whale out here and um I'm just sick of it. So, I'm tired of holding this back." So, uh when we get back, I'm going to get in shape.

And so, I had a doctor's appointment scheduled. I went to the doctor's appointment, got my blood test. It all came back uh super positively negative. Uh so I was high blood pressure, high cholesterol, um fat off the charts and um [clears throat] uh type type 2 diabetes. So um I had read a book, a buddy of mine gave me this book uh about fasting and I had fasted before for uh personal spiritual reasons, but I never fasted really to like lose weight. And so I read the book and uh I started doing like 24-hour and 18 hour intermittent fasting uh combined with keto.

So from August to December, I lost about 50 lbs. And uh and December rolled around, I decided, you know what? I want to I want to start working out again. Um I I missed it. Well, so I started working out at home and I couldn't even do 15 push-ups from my knees without struggling. I mean, it was pathetic. It was I was in such bad shape. And um January, I I joined the rec center and started working out. Anyway, so fast forward um I've kind of done a couple different things over the last uh year and um I had lost I got down to 265, which was my goal.

That was what was in my mind. So I got down to 265 uh November of last year, 25. And then uh I decided, you know what? I want to um I had been listening to you guys and all your talk about um the um reverse dieting. And at the time, you know, I've been fasting and I'm like and you guys are talking about how how much protein I should be getting. And I'm thinking, good God, man, how am I going to eat all this, you know?

And so, um I thought, you know, the holidays are coming. It's kind of a good time to uh do a bulk. So, so I flipped everything and I thought, you know what? I'm going to reverse diet. And uh and it was a very dirty very dirty uh reverse diet. Uh but it got me up and uh and then so when January rolled around, I was like, "Okay, you know, I'm going to I'm going to get back." So I still maintain my workouts 5 days a week.

Um but [clears throat] my work my eating totally changed. So January comes around and I say, "Okay, I'm going to start eating more like whole foods and um not so much focus on uh trying to trim lose weight, but just get my calories around 3,400 is what I wanted to be." And this was just based around stuff I keep hearing from you guys, you know. Um but coming off of intermittent fasting, it's hard to get from like 1,700 calories to 3,400 calories, you know. So it took time and thankfully, you know, I had the holidays that helped.

But uh anyway, so for [clears throat] the last uh several months, that's what I've been doing. And [snorts] uh my strength's just been going up. My my um bench now I have to use Smith machine cuz at the rec center that's all they got. But um I you know I've worked up to doing um a workout with 315 um you know three sets of 12 and then I'll do a set of usually like 365. See how many I can get you know at the end of that.

Um, so going from, you know, 15 push-ups on my knees to that, you know, I feel pretty good at 55. But, um, but now I really just want to trim down cuz I I was able to get my Dixon scan. Um, and it came back at 29% body fat, which I'm not too excited about. Uh, I want to be I knew I wasn't 15% anywhere close, but I just feel like, man, that's a lot, 30%. So, I'm trying to get down to 15. My question you guys, the whole reason I emailed you guys is uh and I didn't have this information before the DEXA scan, but where should I be calories a day?

My my resting metabolic rate is 2200 calories according to the DEX scan. Um and yeah, [clears throat] so there we go. That's what I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to cut. How tall are you, Jay? I'm 6'4. I'm 6'4. I'm 6'4. Okay. I just say you I figured you were tall. Yeah, you're a big dude. I I definitely wouldn't. I think you're where you're at and what you're doing is right. I think you just need to stay the course. You finally course corrected the right way and you're building strength and you're feeding you're feeding your body what you need to.

If are you hovering around 3,400 calories right now? Is that about where you're at? Uh that's where I was at. Um actually two weeks ago uh after well actually a week and a half ago after July 4th I thought you know what I'm going to cut. Uh cuz I I didn't think I'd be talking to you guys for another like 3 weeks. So, I was like, "Man, I just can't wait." So, so anyways, I'm down to like 2,800 calories a day right now. Yeah, I'd prefer you up.

I'd prefer you up and just stay in the course that way. And you're you'll body you your you'll body comp change. You will lean out. Okay. Okay. Okay. You you'll you amount of muscle. I What's your benching? I know you're you're a strong dude, so you probably got some good muscle on you. Eating less than 3,000 calories. Unless you're really sedentary, do you sit all day or do you do you move? What are your steps at? Man, I'm in my truck a lot. So, um I mean not not like a trucker, like just a I go to jobs.

So, um I'm only getting maybe 6,000 steps a day. day. day. That's not terrible. That's [snorts] not terrible. That's better than S. Jay. Yeah. Jay, you mind you mind if I get a little deeper if I ask you some more questions? Yeah, go for it, man. So, so there's a there's a root issue here that u I think is important that we address uh because it's going to be hard to get out of this cycle that you're kind of in which looks like this. It looks like you're either all on allin or you're all out 100%.

100%. 100%. Yeah. And so, and the challenge with that is uh it's at some point you're going to be all out again. It's just what's going to happen. So, we got to figure out a way to make this uh sustainable and consistent. Now, I would s I surmise that someone like you probably pretty disciplined the rest of your life. And so, what you probably do is just try to over you just try to discipline the hell out of yourself and give yourself a ton of structure when you're on.

And then at some point, you're like, "This sucks. So, [clears throat] I just want a break." Okay. So, we got to do we got to figure out a way to get you to enjoy the process and not enjoy it because you're doing what you think is right, but rather you love it so much you want to do it and you don't want to stop. Now, what does that look like? It might look like a little less structure uh and it might look like uh very basic give yourself some very basic rules.

Now, tracking everything, that's a lot to do all the time. There's nothing wrong with it, but if you have a history of on and off, I don't know if that's necessarily the best approach. You're consistent with your workouts. I think that's great. Five days a week is a lot. I don't think you need to do that much, but if you want to keep going five days a week, go for it. Do what you enjoy. And with the diet, I think if you just stick to whole natural foods and stop worrying about how much you got to eat, how much I think you're you're going to be okay.

Where it tends to go off is is probably when you go away from whole natural foods. natural foods. natural foods. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I can, you know, you guys talk about this and it's ridiculous how true it is, but I can pound a bag of chips in 5 minutes. minutes. minutes. Everybody, you know, and not feel it like it's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It it is so much different eating real food. food. food. Yeah. So, so what it would look like, Jay, is something like this is when you start to add all these rules, all this structure, it starts to feel a bit tyrannical and a bit controlled and and at some point, especially if you're a guy that doesn't like to be controlled all the time, which I can relate.

relate. relate. At some point, you want to give it the middle finger and be like, I'm going to do what I want. And so, it doesn't look like you go off a little bit. Looks like you just go way off, like you run in the other direction. I'm stopping my workouts. I'm eating whatever hell I want type of deal. So, what might be easier, Jay, is without instead of tracking everything and getting crazy with all that would be to meal prep because this is going to set you up, okay?

Because one of the challenges with eating whole natural foods sometimes is if you don't have them around and you're hungry, well, the fastest thing becomes, you know, really hard to resist. So, I would just your structure might might just look like this. Meal prep, eat when I'm hungry, eat whole natural foods, and if I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm not, I don't. And that's it. Only thing I track is my protein. Yeah. And a guy your size, if you're eating four meals a day, which you probably should.

You probably should have at least four meals a day, you have a nice a good amount of protein in each one, 55, 60 grams, you're good, dude. dude. dude. Okay, let me tell you this cuz um what you just said, I've been lately, and this is just the last like 3 weeks, um I I'll have my breakfast and I'm trying to get, you know, 65 70 grams of protein for my breakfast. Um, I don't because I'm usually out and kind of on the road. I don't have a lunch because I don't prepare that kind of like a sandwich type of meal and I'm refuse to eat out.

So, um, what I've been doing is I take this going to sound ridiculous probably, but I mean it's literally like my snacks. It's my It's a banana. It's my protein bar. It's protein shake. It's um I make sometimes some protein muffins. like that's what I'm having for lunch and then I have like a real dinner so that I'm still getting about 250 260 grams of protein a day. Um, is that okay even though it's not like I I I think that's okay. That's probably a better approach.

Like can you have dairy? dairy? dairy? Yeah. Yeah, I have tons of yogurt lately. lately. lately. Well, I was just say you could have a cooler with uh cottage cheese, high protein yogurts, uh some nuts, some fruit. That could be lunch. Or you can make a meal, put it in the cooler that you don't mind eating cold, and that's your meal. And I think you should eat two meals before you get to dinner. dinner. dinner. So you got a meal and then you got another meal.

And you're going to have to discipline. That's the discipline. The discipline comes, this is how you're going to apply it. I'm going to eat it this time. I'm going to eat it this time. And then I'm going to have dinner. And what that's going to do, it's going to prevent uh those moments when you're without food for a while. You're out and the cravings hit and you're like, you know what? I'm just going to go for that, whatever. So it's very basic rules. Whole natural food.

eat when I'm hungry. But you got to set yourself up for it by by preference. The re and the reason why what S's saying I think is is really important especially with if you know this about yourself, you're on or off is when you and the thing I don't like about like the fasting windows like that of not eating for that long is you get really hungry. You go from I'm not that hungry to I'm really hungry. And then when you start feeling that way, it makes it even more difficult to make the healthy choice versus I'm not even that crazy hungry, but I know it's about that time I need to eat another another meal.

I'm going to eat that meal. And it keeps you always kind of satisfied where if you allow that 6 8 hour window, sometimes you're just like ravenous. Oh my god, I'm so hungry. And then you're like, and I got to go eat that boring ass meal or I could drive through that place and go get that thing. And so it's just makes it Yeah. So if you took like a cooler with two meals in it, so you got your breakfast at home, you got two meals you eat at work, [clears throat] uh, that are that you don't mind eating cold, uh, and then dinner.

And if you're just consistent with that, and you're like, "Oh, I'm still hungry. All right, I'll have another little bit of what I had for dinner. I'm just going to stick to the whole natural. I think if you just followed that and you kept working out, Jay, you're going to get body comp change over time. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, you're going to get there over time. If you do the aggressive cut, the aggressive bulk, the you're just going to fall into the old pattern of the off.

No, you're already for your size, you're already plenty low enough. Like the hovering around the 3,00 3,400 for 6'4 250 dude is that's that's plenty low enough calorie. And 6,000 steps is not a lot, but it's not low. Okay. So, let me ask this. I mean, I'd like to be in my Okay, this sounds I don't know. This is just me being um I guess the ego or whatever. I don't know. I've never seen my abs, right? I grew up kind of a pudgy kid, played sports, all that, but I never, you know, had abs.

So, I'd like to see some abs. And, uh, I've been lifting them, you know, doing weights with them based on your guys' recommendations. Um recommendations. Um recommendations. Um but I think probably 15% maybe I could see something see something see something you might but let me I'll tell you two things about this. Okay. The first one is the most important. Okay. It's very important that you understand this and I need you to trust me. Abs are so overrated. Seeing your abs is so nothing changes. It doesn't change your life in any meaningful way at all.

It makes it be able to live in that. It does. It doesn't do anything for you get abs and you're like what's going to happen? Nothing. No nothing happens. So but you've seen your abs before, right? Yeah. right? Yeah. right? Yeah. See, like I've never seen my ass. Well, well, so another way to say this, too, though, is uh and you absolutely can, but focusing on that is going to it's going to shift you into the wrong mindset and make bad choices nutritionally. That's right, dude.

And and right now, if we're trying to build them so you can see them at high because I know you listen to the show, we talk about how you build your abs, you can see them at higher body fat percentage. You need to feed your body. You're not going to build abs with low calorie. If you're low calorie and you're in a huge deficit, you can do all the ab work you want. They're not going to build. So, you need to be fueling you need to be fueling the body enough nutrients that you can actually build muscle.

Abs are included in that. And so, I'll tell you what, focus on getting them that way. I'll tell you what, if you just ate whole natural foods, ate when you were hungry, meal prepped, kept lifting, and that's it. That's all you did, and you did that for the next year, you would drop, you would be in the teens of body fat percentage, and it wouldn't feel like you were chasing it. That's just where your body would fall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it would it would be cons would be something you want you would sustain.

You would be able and I think that's a first good goal is just to get down in the teens of body fat percentage through that method before we start talking about looking like washboard ab [ __ ] Okay. That's like that's the next conversation. conversation. conversation. I mean and it's not I don't know and like I said it's a silly thought but it's just it's just it's just there's nothing wrong. It's just one that's out there. You know just there's nothing wrong with that but that's that's the big long-term goal right now.

It's like let's let's get down to the teens body fat percentage wise the right way and healthy and that's the advice that S's giving. I would like to add a little more. I would want I want to change your programming. I would I would like to put you on maps anabolic and then the other two days that you go to the gym I want you to walk for an hour. Go get those steps. So I literally want you to follow MAPS anabolic the way it's laid out.

We'll send that to you and then I and then still go to the gym five days cuz I like the fact that you're in a rhythm and your routine and you like doing that. But the other two days, I want you to walk on a treadmill for an hour or an elliptical. Just low like steady state cardio, not pushing. I don't want you trying to get crazy. Just cruising. Just move. Listen to the podcast. podcast. podcast. Just you should be able to talk. You should be able to have a conversation while you're doing the cardio.

So, whatever whatever you what modality you choose, you should be able to talk, not like huffing and puffing while you do it, just cruising for an hour. That on the other two days, those follow that with the advice S's given nutritionally and let's let's talk again. in like 3 4 months and see where you're at. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, man. Thanks, guys. That's Man, that's awesome. awesome. awesome. Yes, Yes, Yes, that's awesome. that's awesome. that's awesome. You got it, dude. Yeah.

Do you One one last question. I know and I know I shouldn't focus on a scale number, but I am curious cuz I've never really, you know, I've been at different weights. I've been 245, but I wasn't as muscular as I am now. So, I just look skinny, fat. skinny, fat. skinny, fat. Is there a scale number that No, a 6'4 guy, bro. you I I don't what I don't want to see you lower than probably 250. Yeah. Let's see what happens. 250 is is a is a good weight for 64 dude who could bench press 315.

Yeah. Let's see where it falls. You're a big guy. So I I would if you were my client, I wouldn't even weigh you and we would just see where a year from now being consistent. All right, where's your weight at? And like, oh, that's cool. It seems like this is the way you should be. be. be. Honestly, strong get defined in all kinds of places. If honestly, if we do this right, where it's at right now, it should kind of just hover there for a long time.

Hover up or down 5 lbs right around where you're at. You don't want to see major swings north or south right now. If I see big swings north, that means you're probably going o over and above above the calories, you know, or eating out of bounds too much. If you go down way too low, you're not feeding yourself enough. We should kind of h if we do what Sal's trying to get you to do, which is this beautiful exchange of you add 5 lbs of muscle, you lose 5 lbs of fat, which means zero movement on the scale.

you add five more pounds of muscle, you lose five more pounds of fat, zero movement on the scale still, but you're going to see the day-to-day fluctuation of like, you know, five pounds north or south. I'm not worried about that, but you should kind of hover around the same when we're talking 2 months later from now. I don't want to see a huge difference in weight on the scale. Shouldn't shouldn't see that. Okay. Okay, Okay. Okay, Okay. Okay, cool. cool. cool. All right. Yeah, you guys are awesome.

All right, J. Thank you, man. We'll see you back. Take it easy, bro. Thank you so much. Record. Record. Record. Yeah, it's um I I got to say this again, man. abs are so overrated. Everybody aims for them. I'm going to say this right now. If you're if you're a natural dude and you chase single-digit body fat, you are going to 100% you are going to compromise hormone health and athletic [snorts] performance, strength, all that stuff. Now, there are genetic anomalies and this is what we tend to do.

We tend to look at the crazy freaks out there, but that's not how it works for most time. It's funny. We just watched UFC uh just just happened, right? And you see all these fighters who have crazy fitness and stamina. you take their shirts off, you're like, I think you train. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't got crazy abs. You're all jacked and ripped, but they can they can fight. Yeah, fight. Yeah, fight. Yeah, it's so overrated uh across the board. Um and chasing it often times leads uh to failure.

But if you if you kind of follow the process, especially a process that you enjoy or learn to enjoy it, your body gets to a place where you you the result is you look great, but you feel great. you keep getting strong and keep focused on that specifically and I swear your your body changes and morphs and you get defined and lines where you didn't have it before. You have to just keep, you know, trusting the system like it's going to work its way out. Our next caller is Linda from Massachusetts.

Welcome back. Hey, how you doing, Linda? Hey guys, thanks thanks for having me back. First, I just want to say um your advice is so important especially for women and I am like the living after of everything that you say. So, just a quick history. I started um lifting weights when I was 17, running when I was 22, and since I've had a balance of both. I'm still exercising to this day. Back then, everything I learned about nutrition was from bodybuilding magazines. Um, and I've so protein with every meal.

Still do that. And I've kept my muscle mass. I worked out through both my pregnancies in 93 and 96. And as you guys know, as soon as you have a kid, you have less time to work out. And I got in better shape. But I got a little too lean and um I end up having trouble getting pregnant. When I gained weight, I got pregnant right away. So being too lean does affect your hormones. About 10 years ago, I went through menopause and knew I wanted to be on HRT.

And I was lucky. I found a local doctor who would prescribe it. She tested everything including vitamin D. And back then, they wouldn't even test vitamin D. But took me about a year to get my body back, and I felt great. But then I started to read after a few years how important having hormones is for your brain, your heart, and your muscle, your joints. So, like you guys, I found Karen Martell um through a podcast. She got me back on hormones and peptides, and that really helped me um with my running, and that was great.

About 3 years ago, I got a DEXA scan. My muscle mass is good, my fat is good, but the big big surprise was I have the bones of a 30-year-old. So, all the stuff that you say is true. So, I I'm definitely the living uh proof of that. But, it's been a long time since I was back on. It was in 2023. I just uh qualified for the Boston Marathon and asked you guys for an offseason program. I ended up doing anabolic, which I liked. Um, but as I upped my uh running, I found that 40 plus was awesome.

I love that program. It was a great compliment to my running. And I just want to make a plug for live coaches. I've had the same running coach for over 20 years. And you can imagine when I went to him and said, "I lift weights." He was like, "What?" But he just went with me. And I said, "I only run three days a week." And we had a really successful year because I had a a gap year, but but until I could do Boston because it was so late in the year that I qualified.

Um, but as you um kind of pegged me, the first time I was on, I'm type A. My last race was in November, and then Boston training started in December. I'm in the Boston area. Freezing cold winter, running in the dark, getting up at 4 in the morning, driving to Boston. Um, but great coach and the day was awesome and I had a great day and actually qualified again for the next Boston Marathon. But the stress was starting to catch up with me and um I did I wasn't I wasn't recovering like I normally did.

took time off, went to Italy, had a great trip, came back, still everything. I had a lot of aches and pains when I started running again. So, my husband threw a curveball at me and he said, "I think you should do a powerlifting competition with me in December." And at this point, it was uh June. And I had done some uh uh bench press competitions and had success. This was 20 years ago, but I was like, I needed something different mentally because the running just wasn't coming back.

Um so, he got us a coach because he said, "If I try to coach you, you would get a divorce." us and we didn't want that to happen. He found a great coach but he threw me right into the deep bend four days too upper too lower. Um I had my hips were still bothering me so was having trouble squatting but he was really really good but then he told me you need to gain weight and I was like I'm a runner. Like I never heard that before gain weight.

So I got a nutrition coach and she reverse dieted me and just like all you guys say three weeks I couldn't gain a pound and I just felt better. I looked better. I performed better. Um, I still had pain, but I was also had I still had pain, but I was also adding to the stress bucket. I was selling my house. I decided to do my church Christmas musical and my daughter's getting married, but I got through it. Um, I had an injury right before the competition, but got through it.

And I have to tell you guys, it was an awesome experience. As you always say, the the community was great. It was fantastic and I really liked it. But I shut everything down after that. I had stopped running in September just to train for the powerlifting competition. I opted out of Boston. I knew there's no way I could do it. And the coach put me on a a very good offseason program getting my hips strong, everything strong. Um and then right before my daughter's wedding in in March, I went back to my nutrition coach to go on a cut for the dress.

And um I started adding some running back in. She wanted me to add some cardio and I felt great, of course, because I was healing. Um, so I went back to my running coach and said, "Let me sneak in a few 5ks before I do the powerlifting competition again in December." And um, I I did a race and as you guys probably could predict, no running from September. In May, I I barely lost any speed. I felt great, placed in my age group. So all those years of running was still in me.

Um, but I got an injury on a training run and I just stopped running. I said, I got to focus on one thing. Um, I did my one rep max testing to start the program, but my a PT kind of reagravated this calf injury that I had and so I decided to just focus on healing and everything is always in God's timing. I was supposed to be on your show at least a couple of months ago and I would have just asked, oh, what should I do after the powerlifting competition in December?

Um, but I want to tell you the biggest lesson that I learned from this experience. experience. experience. One was the the reverse dieting was awesome, right? And it was very logical for me. I could see the success and the progress. I had no problem with that. But I think you guys have some version of this lesson in every single podcast you do. Your body responds to the signals you send it. And my body was not going to get stronger unless I stopped running, unless I fed it better.

And now I'm looking for you to help me with a program that will tell my body it's safe to work out again so that I can heal because I still do want to get better at the three lifts and I still want to be able to throw in a 5K. But bottom line is I should be retiring at the end of the year and I want to be strong enough to do anything me and my husband want to do on our adventures. So um I listen to you guys all the time and you know this is what you're telling you less is less is more.

Um listen to your body. Um, so now I'm ready to hear the advice. I'm ready to receive it, I think, at this point. point. point. Let's go. All right. So, you're you're going to be okay with less. Yes. Yes. And I'm already there. So, I just want to get better. I mean, I'm I'm just doing PT exercises with I found a new PT and that's all I'm doing. And walking. That's it. That's all. Okay, good. Let's go. Maps 15 performance. performance. performance. I like Maps 15 performance.

I'll send you that program. I think it'll be perfect for you. It's symmetry. symmetry. symmetry. It's athletically minded. Uh, so you'll get that movement. Uh, symmetry would be another good program to follow that up with. with. with. You follow that up because then it leads her right into a 5x5 at the end of the program. That's right. It's a perfect and that would be absolutely perfect for you. you. you. And I think what's what you what you just to kind of recap on what you said about nutrition, there's really three three important things when it comes to nutrition and athletic performance.

Uh, one is am I eating enough? Two is am I eating the right things? And three is when do I eat the these foods? And it's kind of in that order. And a lot of us ignore the first one. Especially uh athletes who are afraid of gaining weight. And so they look at what I'm eating and the timing, but they don't they ignore or they they they misunderstand how much. And so what hap we just increase their calories and there's people are blown away. I can't even believe I feel so good.

I'm not gaining all this body fat. I had no idea this was the issue because I was eating the right foods. I was eating at the right times. I just wasn't eating enough. And so I'm so glad you went through that to kind of get that. Uh it's uh it's such a it's a simple button to hit as a coach whenever I work with someone like you. It's it's almost it's almost uh like clockwork. I'll work with someone like you and I look at their food.

I'm like just to see increase your calories. Yeah. Watch what happens. Yeah. And and I think um you know you keep hitting home about um there was somebody that just was on a gentleman that said he had all these injuries. cuz he thought he was going to be out and he followed it's symmetry and he's like a brand new person and because I started to feel that way like is this it you know like everybody always said to me you're getting old you know this is going to happen and I and I said you know if you do the right thing I don't think that's the case and I really have you know this whole retirement I'm in my 60s and I want to be able to hike or or or do whatever you know kayak and all the things that I haven't really had time for time for time for and I and being in pain like itffects ffected my sleep and as you you know we all know all know all know that that was an issue and I think there was different sleep issues which I'm working on.

I actually just got my eight ate sleep it just got delivered before so so that's awesome. I actually even have the Oslo sleep um buds those are great but I just know fundamentally and I am working with um I I don't know if you had Dr. Urus on your show but um she is very forward thinking about peptides and all that. So I always find a group that I can have a communication with and say here are my issues. So so they've been really good and again the hormones are making all the difference in the world.

But everything is with testing. Um and I think part of the what I'm a little nervous about is um in my notes I'm living in an RV right now and um we are in we're in Maine and we're going to South Carolina and Florida and we already know what gyms that have powerlifting equipment, you know. So, we already checked that, but um and I'm still going back and forth about doing a competition. Um but we might just pick a date and say, "Okay, let's start maybe start the maps powerlift and say, okay, let's just do the one rep max on this day." And plus, if I join a powerlifting gym, they may have like many things that they do themselves themselves themselves or just even somebody and I do want to work with a coach because I really had a lot of trouble with my squats cuz my adductors were a mess and my hips were a mess and I I almost was afraid I wouldn't get low enough.

So, when I got my first white light, I was I was like good. You know, um um um I'm just concerned that when I don't have access to equipment, am I going to get weaker? I mean, I I that's definitely a little bit concern for me, but you you keep stressing that how little volume and then even hearing someone like Adam who did bodybuilding competitions going, I don't work out like that right now. And you know, so it it almost gives me permission to say, I'm not going to turn into this weak violet if I don't have no.

you're you're the when we train someone like you, you're more likely to push and do too much and hurt yourself and set yourself back yourself back yourself back than you are to do too little that you you're going to lose something. So, I would never worry about that with someone like you. I'd be constantly probably pulling you back going like, "All right, Linda, that's enough. We're good. That's per that's plenty." And so, just be thinking like, but those programs, I think, are perfect. Follow that the way that's laid out, and that's going to set you up really nice.

really nice. really nice. Yeah, I it's um it's been quite the journey. And I know that after I hung up last time, S was like, uh, you know, what was it like being in the gyms back then? And, um, definitely seeing the progression of women lifting weights, uh, and the gym that I belong to here in Maine. It's it's fast. I mean, these people are I don't know where they grow these butts. They're unbelievable. You know, I got my little skin of running running butt. Um, but it's very very inspiring because um, my contemporaries, it's hard to get guys my age to lift weights.

My husband just did a powerlifting competition and he like he squatted 400. So I mean Wow. Wow. Wow. Oh, he's really strong. Wow. And uh so that's the he did very well in in in his he got his trophy and he's in his 60s also. He is 59. Yeah, we're three years apart. And he you know what he said is I've always we met in the gym uh 40 years ago. Crazy. We met in the gym. Um so that's why we've continued to do it and like we still eat.

We bring our food everywhere we go, you know, uh, and it really makes a difference, especially living in an RV. Little bit different lifestyle, you know, people are drink. I'm like, okay, got you got to eat the food that, you know, it's all good. It's all good. Um, but being around other people who do this, obviously being married, as you have wonderful spouses, it makes a huge difference to to continue on because like I said, a lot of my friends, even we have a lot of my husband's also done Iron Man's and I've done triathlons.

done everything, but because they didn't do the weight training, they're all crippled. They all they a lot of them can't run anymore. They, you know, they've had knee replacements. So, I don't want to go there. And that's why it was so like shocking that it finally was my turn. But, I mean, when I, you know, all the stress that I had in my life, it was cumulative. And it was a big life change, especially selling a house, getting a daughter married, it was all that. Um, and I'm not about doing too much.

I want to do this forever. So, so again, you guys listening to you always continue to talk about um listening to your body. Don't do too much. And you know, S, I'm an engineer, so I always love that um the studies show. I mean, not that I need it, but I do I I do like Dr. U. Stacy Sims and Dr. Gabrielle Lion. I've been listening to them. Um a lot of people uh Bill Campbell, they're all doing a lot of research in post-menopausal women. The research is there and it's always about not too much cardio, do hit, um, heavy lifting, but recovery is huge.

And I rather do other things, too. It's not like a I don't I don't have to run. I don't have to be in the gym all the time. I want to be outside now that I have the time. Um, and I just want to be healthy enough to do it. So, you guys, I listen to you all the time. It's such an inspiration. I I always think, okay, I'm not going to listen to this because I've heard it before. And you put a spin on something and I'm like, okay.

And it it sticks on my head. So, I really really appreciate that. appreciate that. appreciate that. Well, thank you, Linda. You're the inspiration and uh yeah, we appreciate you and uh follow the programs. You're going to you're going to have a good time. time. time. Have a fun trip. If you make it down to the Tampa area, make sure you swim by uh Ben Pakolski's gym. So, I don't know if you'll be in if you guys will make it to Tampa, Florida, but if you make it to Tampa, Florida, you got to go see Ben Pakulski's gym.

Pakulski's gym. Pakulski's gym. Gyms out there. Yeah. Um we we're going to be in the Vero Beach area. That's what I mean. But obviously, we're pulling our house all the way down. We have a fifth wheel, which is which is really cool. Um yeah, this and it is it's fun. That's the other thing about when you go to different places, you meet other fun people. Powerlifting competition was very inspiring. Met a lot of women there, too. So, yes, keep doing what you're doing. You guys are amazing.

Um, send anybody my way. Any woman who doesn't believe what you say, I'll tell them. It's all true. Appreciate. We appreciate you. All right. Thank you guys. Be good. Be good. Be good. Record. Record. Record. It's funny. She said, "We're inspiring." Nothing inspires me more than somebody who's been doing this for a long time. I know. I know. I know. And you just see their energy. You them. It's just so incredible. And she is the classic example of a client that you you don't have to worry about her not doing enough.

It's the other way around. It's pulling her back a little bit. She was She looks great, though. Incredible. though. Incredible. though. Incredible. Our next caller is Noah from Montana. What's up, Noah? How you doing, Noah? What's up, buddy? Hey, guys. How are we doing? Good. Good. Good. Good. How can we help you? Good. Uh, excited to be back on. I was on about three years ago and super happy to be chosen again. Uh my question for you guys today is just all about uh feeling old when I'm should be feeling young.

I'm 21. I'm an electrician. Uh and over the last I'd say probably 3 months I've just been on kind of not downward spirals. Um it's a big term to use, but just a lot of little aches and pains everywhere. It started when I was working on doing some heavier deadlifting. And I was going to try and work work my way towards the one rep max and uh I think I might have strained my hamstring or something just like a minor strain or something lower down behind the knee and just kind of took it easy.

But then from there on it was uh uh low back pain um when like squatting really high reps and then at work as an electrician u just low back pain when uh like sitting cross-legged and doing stuff. And then just like from here on out, it's just been, you know, um just kind of almost feeling just fragile and weak, like making little jumps down, like a little 16inch jump. I'm having to be extra cautious. I'm getting pains just moving boxes and stuff in my back. Um just a lot of like little weird stuff.

Uh and I've tried to fix some of it watching YouTube videos and different things, but eventually it's just been constant little things I'm like, I need to call into the experts. to I need to call into the experts. Yeah. No. Um, from a training perspective, I've been running you guys' programs for about three years now. Uh, last six months, did Map Symmetry currently in MAPS performance. Um, but life's been really busy, so only getting to the gym about two times a week, uh, for shorter periods, probably an average of like 45 minutes.

Um, during those two times, I don't I don't get to the gym to do those mobility sessions. So, you might just kick me in the pants and be like, get on the mobility work. But I prime before every workout. Uh cool down everything afterwards. Been trying to work on the low back pain and whatnot uh during priming and um yeah, just trying to trying to figure out what where to go from here training wise and and what to do about all these kind of nagging little issues.

little issues. little issues. Yeah. So are um first place I would look and I have it I have a suspicion but first place that is is your sleep really crappy? crappy? crappy? It depends. Um it's a little off and on. Uh, I tried to get about 8 hours of sleep. Um, the last week it's probably been a little closer to seven, but it is something that I try to be consistently getting about 8 hours of sleep. That's not too bad. You drink? You party? party? party?

Yes. Yes. Yes. How often? How often? How often? Oh, no. No, sir. I drink a ton of water. That's where my mind's going. Big drinker. Big drinker. Big drinker. I'm a big drinker. I have a big gallon jug I take to work and I try to try to get through a lot of that. I'm taking the LMT every day. So, I'm trying to stay hydrated. Noah, it sounds like you have a nutrient deficiency and that's why you're always hurting. hurting. hurting. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, uh you can go get tested uh for vitamin D deficiency would be the first place I would look and I'd look at your hormones, but it sounds like you have a nutrient deficiency and you live in Montana.

in Montana. in Montana. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, you're probably not getting much sun. sun. sun. Not in the winter. In the summer, we get more sun. I'm outside more. Uh I am taking vitamin D and a whole bunch of other vitamins. But how much vitamin D do you take? I think about 2,000 units. So, I would go get tested. Go get your nutrients tested. Uh, zinc, magnesium, vitamin D would be the first places I would look. 2,000 IUs of vitamin D is low. is low. is low.

Often doesn't do the trick. Doesn't move the needle. You What about calories? Where you I'm curious just where you are nutritionally. You look pretty lean. Um, I haven't been tracking. I'm I would like this is poor guesstimate but probably probably around 2500 on average. So maybe on the odd day pushing up a little bit but often just in the throws of work and everything I I'm sorry guys I don't do the best job of getting a getting a big breakfast that I'm probably you know pushing around 2500 I would guess.

Well they're it's all connected. That's why it's it's I mean you're trying to get to the bottom of why all this is happening. It's probably because of what S's saying. Uh, and if if you're eating in a calorie deficit or barely at maintenance most of the time and you're not hitting your protein intake consistently and then you're pushing the weights, uh, all of this is a recipe for aches, pains, injuries happening. So, that could easily be our problem here. And this the solve is is is probably putting you in a calorie surplus, making sure you hit your protein intake, going getting all your stuff checked to see what vitamins you may be lacking, and then getting on top of that.

And so, uh, this could be the the solve. Normally, when someone as young as you are and then you're getting decent sleep, the sleep isn't, uh, amazing, but it's not horrible, horrible, horrible, right? right? right? Uh, that would have been where I thought it was, you know, the problem was it's most likely nutrient deficient. Yeah. And you you got to do an easy test. You can go get a blood test from your doctor. Um, have them test your nutrients, your nutrient levels, um, and just see where you're at.

But it feels like that to me. Have you tried to run a bulk? Have you ran a bulk? I have run a bulk before. Um, I haven't done anything super purposely like as guys like we always say, we're always on the bulk and so I'm always like thinking about it, but um, that [clears throat] doesn't mean that's actually always happening. So happening. So happening. So yeah, I'd be curious to see just how you felt from that from intentionally eating in a surplus consistently and hitting your protein intake while lifting to see how much better you feel just from that alone.

Mhm. alone. Mhm. alone. Mhm. Mhm. Would there be some uh like a small like hack hack or two that would make it kind of easy way to get get the extra protein in? Um I know you guys harp on harp on having like, you know, full breakfast, take the leftovers from the night before type of thing. Would there be other little things that be easy ways to get, you know, extra 15 grams here, 20 grams there? I mean, a better way to answer that would be to kind of ask you where do you fall short?

What's the most difficult for you? Are you missing breakfast? Is that where you miss all time? Do you miss? Oh yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. Eat breakfast. Eat breakfast. Eat breakfast. So that's that's I mean instead of like trying to think of all these little hacks telling you go buy this, you know, 20 g protein thing that you can insert. It's like make an effort to really consciously have that breakfast, have it ready to go the night before to where all you do is got microwave it in the morning and go um and and start your and be consistent with that with that with that instead of trying to think of the whole day and all these other things.

Like if you know that's your area where you That's why we we talk about that so much cuz it's common common in young men to just skip that. Grab your energy drink, go start your day, and then you don't eat till your first meal is lunchtime and then it's like a sandwich or something that's low protein. protein. protein. But I got to say, no, when if you're when I see a young man who's exercising pretty appropriately, working out twice a week, you should be recovery. your sleep's okay and you're like, "Man, I hurt if I jump down, you know, 16 in or I'm constantly feeling kind of aches and pains everywhere." That sounds like a nutrient deficiency.

It sounds like a vitamin D deficiency, but it could also be a zinc deficiency, uh, or magnesium, which is going to be exacerbated if you're in a calorie deficit. Yeah. And so, you just go, you just get it tested, dude, and see where you're at. And if it's vitamin D, if I'm right, first of all, it's an easy test. It's also an easy fix. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. It's not hard. You know, they put you on 10,000 IUs of vitamin D or something like that. And within a a week, you'd notice a big difference.

Yeah, we'll put you on Map Senior real soon here. soon here. soon here. Stop. Stop. Stop. Okay. Yeah. No, I'll go get those tested. Like, I do supplement with magnesium and zinc, but without knowing, you know, the correct amounts of all that stuff. Again, you're just it's better than nothing, but it's, you know, it's a shot in the dark really. So, I've had many clients who took uh, you know, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 IUs of vitamin D daily who were also came back and it was too low.

Okay. I think Adam, your levels were low. You took 2,000 IU. I was taking 5,000 IU and I still tested low. low. low. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I was taking 5,000 5,000 IUs a day. Tested and came back still low, taking that. Yeah. So, that's why I do 10. 10. 10. Yeah. Would there be anything on the training uh from a training standpoint that I should make sure to be doing? If you're following maps and you've got symmetry and performance and you're doing it two days a week, that's not our problem.

problem. problem. I don't think that's back to Sal's point like this is probably nutrient deficiency and if you're not eating enough protein and calories that's going to exacerbate that. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's where I'm I don't think it's a lack of mobility. I don't think it's a overtraining. I mean, it's not going to hurt, but yeah, that's not the issue. I it probably not. Okay. Well, we will do that and uh yeah, we'll go from there. Follow up with us. I'd like to hear us.

I'd like to hear. So, make sure we get to the bottom of this. Okay. I'll make sure to send you guys an email. let you know what we figure out. So, So, So, you got it. All right. No. Thanks, dude. Awesome. Appreciate it. Love listening to you guys. I know every listener talks about it, but hearing you guys talk about everything from fatherhood to faith to just your your family life and whatnot. It's super interesting. I love having, you know, really four guys including Doug here to have as great role models and whatnot.

And yeah, keep up the good work and, you know, standing up for what you believe. I love that no one can can buy you guys off. I can tr trust whoever you guys send sponsor-wise. I've never had uh any of you guys' sponsors go wrong and uh yeah, it's just awesome to have great role models. So, models. So, models. So, thanks, man. Appreciate you, dude. Thank you, buddy. you, buddy. you, buddy. Awesome. Thanks, guys. God bless. We had him on when he was how old how old was he first?

He was uh three three years ago, he said. 18 years old. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I kind of remember him. I I kind of do, too. And so, okay, that's why I went the calorie wise cuz I think he under, bro. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I think he under ate back I think he under ate back then. You're then. You're then. You're on to something with that. Yes. I and I can't I can't to we have to dig through and see if we can find it or not not not but which which is in line with what you're saying because if he's got a nutrient deficiency and then you you're also under buttons for recovery you know so that so that so that there's there's a significant percentage of people who are uh suboptimal vitamin D it's a significant percentage and deficient it's still significant% and the darker your skin is the the the higher the likelihood and then where you live right Montana is not yeah in the summer but in the winter not getting much at all and if he's indoors he's not getting much sun and you need more sun than you think.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To get that up. And so, and it's an easy test. I I recommend people, by the way, some people have a lot of pain from vitamin D deficiency. Other people get anxiety and depression. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And um you know, it's kind of hard to pinpoint, but a simple test will show it. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. Shredded, ripped, defined, singledigit body fat. Yes. You want to get there? Let's talk about it. it.

it. Difficult. Difficult. Difficult. And is it worth it? That's a follow-up question. question. question. Yeah. First off, we got to say that, okay, so singledigit body fat, obviously body fat percentages, uh, that could be represented by one digit, like 3%, 5%, 6%, 9%. That's, uh, ripped for men. For women, add 10%. add 10%. add 10%. Yeah. Don't Yeah, exactly. Go you go up about