The Lessons From Bodybuilding That Apply to Every Person Who Lifts Weights | Mind Pump 2946

Key Takeaway

Use your workout quality—not just effort—as feedback. Before pushing hard, assess whether you are hydrated, fed, rested, and able to feel the target muscle working. If you cannot get a normal pump or feel run-down after poor sleep, reduce today’s session to easy technique work, walking, or recovery. Train hard on well-recovered days, but remember that muscle is built by a manageable stimulus followed by adequate food, sleep, and rest—not by annihilating yourself every workout.

Episode Overview

The Mind Pump hosts outline five lessons from bodybuilding that benefit anyone who lifts: developing a mind-muscle connection, using the pump as feedback, prioritizing recovery, eating sufficient protein, and sleeping more. They also coach callers on getting stronger with less training volume, reverse dieting patiently, and using strength goals to support a healthier relationship with food.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Lessons From Bodybuilding That Apply to Every Person Who Lifts Weights | Mind Pump 2946 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. If you like to strength train, if you like strength training machines, you can thank bodybuilders. It's true. They were the ones that first used them and kind of popularized them. You probably don't want to look like a bodybuilder. I know some of you do, but most of you probably don't.

But there are things you can learn from bodybuilders that will benefit you. I don't care what your goal is. There are things you can learn that bodybuilders have learned a long time ago that preach all the time. That's what we're going to talk about today. Five lessons from bodybuilders everybody could learn from. Let's go. True pioneers. They for sure were. In fact, no, good and bad, right? So bodybuilders have very specific goals and style of training. They're very extreme. They're very extreme, uh, type of sport.

Although all sports at high levels are extreme. Um, bodybuilders I think are very visually clearly extreme. It's a, it's hard not to look at one and think that. Uh, but when it comes to strength training and all the things that we know by studies and the things that we knew to study, it all started with them. Um, it really was them that kind of, you know, slowly brought this to the mainstream. It was bodybuilders that made gyms. A thing. Um, although gyms have now far surpassed it.

I think we all owe something to them. Um, and this is true for not just for training. It's also true for diet. It's also true for hormone science. They're way ahead of the curve with that kind of stuff. They call them the pharma knots. Cause I mean, you, you, you say good and bad, but can't you, can't you, uh, justify or defend the bad. I feel like in, in everything that we've ever, uh, you know, changed or evolved in, uh, the, the early people that were pushing it.

Yeah. They're, they're all, there's something bad about all of it. Like you need risk takers to move it forward. They were risky. That's what I mean by that. It's like, uh, obviously I get what you're saying by bad. Cause like, you don't want to adopt everything they were doing, but where is that different in any other venture? Every venture where we're pushing new boundaries decades later, we look back and go like, well, that was a dumb idea, you know, or you shouldn't have done that. But it's like, yeah, but you would've never figured that out.

Had not that guy or girl was crazy enough to flirt with those boundaries. And so I would argue that it's all really good. It's just that that's a, it's a necessary evil when we're going somewhere we've never been before. And they were willing to venture and try and do those things. Um, cause yeah, if it wasn't for the, the bodybuilding community that does the health and wellness space really exist, I mean, or would doctors just still be telling everybody to eat less and run more? That's how you get healthy.

And even a lot of the studies that we have that, that show that certain things are good for us and how to train in particular ways. And you know, uh, what hypertrophy is and how to build strength in particular ways. We knew where to go. Cause this is how studies work. Uh, oftentimes we kind of have an idea of what to study or a direction to go. And it often starts with anecdote, right? Like you've got all these people that notice that when they take this particular herb, that it helps this thing.

And then we know, okay, let's study that. Let's see what the studies show. A lot of these studies are because, uh, of bodybuilders, um, um, and what we understand about strength training started. Much of it started with, with bodybuilders. I really don't care what your modality is. Only the only strength modality that I would say that was unique in, in and of itself was Olympic lifting. Uh, and that's because it was funded by nations and competitive arenas like sport out of it, but every other strength sport, um, you know, every athlete that can currently strength trains, it was the bodybuilders that brought it to you initially.

Um, and even though it wasn't an ideal way to strengthen, it was always better. Uh, I remember when strength training, um, and I've seen, uh, you know, documentaries on this one, strength training first came to the NFL. That was really the first sport that adopted strength training. Everybody was afraid to lift weights cause everybody thought it would reduce athleticism. And it was the football players that played with it first. And the only people you could learn from in that day were bodybuilders. So bodybuilders were teaching them how to lift weights.

And yes, there's better ways to lift weights football, but the football players that lifted weights like bodybuilders were better and stronger than the football players that didn't lift weights at all. Um, and so, uh, there's a lot we owe to them and there are certain things that apply to everybody. So whether you want to be a bodybuilder or not, these are things that we can all learn from. And I'll start with the first one. We've all heard the term, or many of us have heard the term mind muscle connection.

So if you've never heard the term. My muscle connection, what this means is your ability to feel and connect to a muscle that you're trying to work. Okay. So when I'm doing a bench press, my target, let's say is my chest. The mind and muscle connection is me being able to feel it more in my chest than in other parts of my body. Really feel what the pecs are doing in that movement. And you saw this as they were on stage where they display that by flexing certain muscles on command.

And so that kind of became a thing. It did. But you know, before that, like, cause strength training existed before, uh, people posed or flexed on stage before we would, what we would identify as bodybuilding, but nobody was trying to feel a muscle. Nobody cared about the muscle that they were using. Uh, it was literally just, let me lift the weight. Let me just lift the weight. I'm doing an overhead press. Let's lift the weight. I'm doing a squat. Let's lift the weight. Bodybuilders because of the way the sport was designed to, uh, you're, you're, you know, judges are visually breaking down the body and looking at individual muscle groups and how developed they are.

Bodybuilders were the first ones to be like, this is a back exercise. This one's for lats. This one's for traps. This one's for the front of the shoulder muscle focus. This one's for the rear of the delts. Uh, this is for this part of the bicep or that part of the biceps or whatever. And they learned or they focused on feeling and connecting to the part of the body that they're trying to work. And this is very valuable for people. It's valuable. If you want to develop a part of your body, cause it makes a difference.

You could do a barbell squat and you can do it in a way where it really develops your quads. You could also do it in a way where it really develops your glutes. And the difference between the two is your technique, but really the root of it is where you feel it and how you move through recruiting, how you recruit, uh, that. Um, and it's also important in another area, uh, correctional exercise. When I'm doing correctional exercise, I need people to feel certain areas. I'm trying to strengthen your mid back.

Mrs. Johnson, you got to feel it right here. Don't just do the movement. We need to feel this part of your back contracting so we can strengthen it. Well, isn't this the definition of weightlifting is just flexion of the muscles with resistance. Yeah. I mean, that's what it is defined. Yeah. It's like, is the ability, that's how I used to explain to clients, uh, why we were doing some of these isolation exercises was, and anybody who's ever experimented with this, uh, it's real easy to kind of connect these dots.

Um, very few people, can you just say, flex your chest or flex your lats and they can do it. Yeah. They, it requires, they have some sort of resistance to even attempt to start to feel that muscle. There's no resistance. They can't do it. Yeah. There's no resistance. It's just like, that sounds so abstract. What do you mean my muscles in my back? You want me to flex them this way? Like you just doesn't seem possible until you understand how to connect that and that, and that ability to do that.

And when you learn to do that very well, you then can apply that to like all movement. And what I find, like what I love about this is, and I know that this can be taken to the extreme and be a little ridiculous sometimes, but I could get under a machine, uh, that was designed for calves and turn it into a shrug machine. Yeah. I can get into a machine that was designed for a completely different muscle. You can make a back machine, a rear delt machine.

That's right. That's right. Like, so when you, when you understand biomechanics and when you understand how to mind muscle connection and flex the muscle you want to flex, I can change a machine that was designed for something completely different to work an area that I wanted to work, which is really, really cool. And that, this is all pioneered by bodybuilders. It is, uh, the next thing, this is very unique to bodybuilding and there is a benefit to this, uh, and I'll explain the benefit, but the pump.

Uh, the pump. So if you lift weights, you know what this is. If you don't lift weights or you haven't a while or haven't done it consistently, the pump is like you train a muscle group and it becomes engorged, uh, with blood. And so it feels tight. Okay. So you work your biceps and they feel tight or you work your legs and they feel tight. Every other strength sport could care less about the pump or actually doesn't want the pump. They actually would prefer not to have a pump because it can get in the way of trying to perform a particular movement.

Like if I'm, uh, running, the last thing I want is pumped quads while I'm running. Uh, because it, it hinders my ability to run the team. The bodybuilders chase the pump. They love the pump. Um, now they, they would say that it contributes to muscle growth. There's a psychological component here where I can look at the muscle, see what it looks like. If it's more developed, this is motivating, but here's the real benefit of the pump. Okay. It's hard to get a pump when you're not drinking enough water, when your diet is poor and we're not sleeping well, or when you're overtrained.

It's a good indicator. It's a great indicator. Yeah. When, and it's also an indicator of being able to connect to a muscle. Uh, I remember as a kid, uh, one of the hardest areas to connect to when you strength train is just your back muscles in general. Most of us feel it in our arms when we're doing back exercises. And I remember the first time I got a back pump, a lap pump, it was that day forward. I could connect to my back muscles every time I trained my back.

Cause I could feel them be pumped. It's great for pictures. I'm just going to say it's awesome. It's just awesome. Period. No person skinny, fat in great shape. Doesn't matter. Doesn't look better with a pump. Yeah, it makes everybody look better. Well, it's so funny. I was, I was training my son and like, he had no idea like that you could take, um, you know, an exercise and like work your way through, get a pump and then go look at the mirror. And it's like visibly bigger.

Oh, he was, he was tripping out and looking at himself. And I'm like, Oh, I remember when that light bulb went off as a kid. Shoot. I remember for years, just always saying, man, if I could just look, yeah, if I could just look like that guy, if I could just look like the guy who just pumped up all those muscles, that's all I ever wanted. Little did I know that that target would just keep moving. Well, I knew this about my clients. So, uh, when I, when they were having trouble connecting to a muscle, uh, like the glutes or the lats or, you know, the rhomboids, whatever, when they told me they felt it get tight and pumped, I knew we're moving in the right direction.

Fact lagging body parts. This is my own experience. When someone had a lagging body part, uh, it was always the ability to get a good pump and it always was preceded the fact that it started to build. Yeah. So the pump in, in my opinion is a signaler, but most importantly, it's this, I know this about the pump when I'm lifting weights and I'm having trouble getting a pump. It's, it's always because I'm either over. trained, underrested, underfed, or underhydrated. Yes. And when I get a great pump, I'm like, Ooh, I put together a few good things.

Usually it's good. Hydration is my issue. Um, but the pump is something that is very unique to body. There's no other strength training sport talks about the pump or even cares about the pump. Here's the next one. This is a, what I'm about to say is a phrase that was uttered by seven time, mr. Olympia Lee Haney. But I think it encompasses, uh, what bodybuilders have talked about and known about more than almost others, uh, almost any other strength training sport. This is what he said.

Stimulate don't annihilate. No, he's famous for saying that, but isn't he also famous for being the one who used to annihilate his workouts? No, no, not at all. In fact, Lee Haney, you know, today's in his sixties. He had no, no joint pain. I thought that was Dexter Jackson. That was known Dexter Jackson trained that way also. Okay. Yeah. I would say he, I know he was ahead of his time. Well, so here's the thing about bodybuilding, bodybuilding, body builders talked about recovery way before anybody else.

Now that doesn't mean that they figured it out. It doesn't mean that they didn't overdo it, but they knew early. You can, you can read a muscle building magazine from the 1940s. And, uh, they talked about resting and recovering the muscle. You could read from the turn of the century, uh, the 1890s, uh, read articles by Eugene Sandow. Yeah. He talked about resting, uh, and building the muscle through the resting process. So the whole, like he had real good advice, don't overtrain. Now there's again, bodybuilders.

And if you look at a bodybuilding routine, you think to yourself, how could this be possible? They obviously do too much. First of all, they're not doing too much. They can just handle way more than most people because they're so genetically gifted and they're on a lot of different anabolic. They also sell what, what I think this is also a big mess for people that look at a bodybuilder routine. Most people that would call themselves a bodybuilder that compete or want to compete, have strong years of consistency to go to.

So they have scaled many times to be able to handle that amount of, in addition to everything that you're saying too, so it's not, then they woke up the first session and built up a tolerance. Yeah. Cause I, I mean, I think back to, uh, I mean, especially right now with the, the, how minimal volume that my training set and man, I was, there was a point where, I mean, I'm spending an hour and a half plus in the gym and I'm able to recover and I'm able to build, but it's just like, that wasn't like I couldn't go do that right now.

You know, I, you just can't, I couldn't, I scaled to that volume. That was three years of not missing a macro nutrient and not missing a workout. Like it took a long time to be able to handle that. And a lot, we, we peer into these guys or these guys sell workouts online of this is what I do. And you're like, you know, it's like, yeah, that dude literally did not just wake up and get to that point. Like he built that over time on top of what you said.

And I gotta say this, and just again, to give them credit, uh, cause again, they were the ones that really talked about this the most, uh, to the point where you have Mr. Olympia is that would train for 30 minutes. I mean, Dorian Yates would do like two sets or three sets in a workout, very intense, uh, but he was Mr. Olympia because they considered recovery a lot more than almost any other strength sport. Um, now the, when it comes to like Olympic lifting, they started to figure this out, but it wasn't the athletes that figure this out.

This is what's unique about bodybuilding. They had no governing body with scientists that were like, you're competing for us, so we're going to study you. And they were like figuring this out on their own and rest became something that they talked about and recovery, uh, is what they talked about quite a bit. The L in the, in Olympic lifting, the Soviets figured this out. Cause they had scientists that were watching the athletes and going, no, you're not going to train anymore. We're going to trade this intent.

That was what was interesting too, to watch is like everybody like kind of had different modalities that they're testing out on themselves and they get benefits and then it's like, they're, they're kind of like communicating with each other, what's working, what's not working. And it's like the best recipe sort of rises at the top. Totally. Uh, here, here's another one. Uh, protein, uh, bodybuilders have been talking about a protein. They were talking about it first. They were talking about it the most. They were promoting it across the board.

They were ridiculed for it for a long time. And guess what? The world is catching up. Yeah. If the bodybuilders were right, you know who benefits from eating high protein, every athlete, everybody. I remember when the endurance community scoffed at this high protein, we need carbs, we need lots of carbs. Like, what are you talking about? Guess what? Everybody. Endurance athletes also benefit from eating more protein than is typically old people, young people, endurance, endurance, athletes, strength, athletes, you name it. Longevity people, everybody benefits from the body breaks, fat loss, people, people that would need to lose a bunch of body fat.

I mean, it's, uh, it's something that, and we, I think we've been screaming from the rooftop, uh, since we started this thing, every client that I ever trained, uh, no matter the goal, the weight, the age, the sex didn't matter. When I assess diet, we're, we're under eating protein. It was either they were under eating by a little bit or grossly under eating protein. And one of the first easiest fixes to show them great results in whatever their endeavor was, was just flipping the way they ate and focusing on protein, why we repeat it so much.

That's right. And I'm going to say this, this is just a little side bar for this particular, uh, point here. The supplement industry is because of bodybuilders, the entire good, bad, and the ugly. Uh, and a lot of us like supplements and I think the supplement industry does do a lot of good. There's a lot of craziness out there as well came from bodybuilders. They were the ones that were, they were the first ones to create supplements. They're the first ones that take supplements, protein powders, uh, were some of the first supplements.

I mean, that were ever created and it was created for muscle building, desiccated liver tablets. That's it. That was for bodybuilders. So, um, and it was because it started with protein and then lastly, sleep bodybuilders sleep a lot. This is funny. People don't know this about pro bodybuilders, pro bodybuilders sleep a lot. They're like big baby. They go to bed, they get nine hours of sleep. They get, they take a nap in the day. They know the value of sleep for building muscle and of all athletes of all athletes, they have known, uh, the value of sleep the most than they continue to athletes in general.

Now these days, I think everybody knows that sleep is something that's really important, but in general, when you're working with high level athletes, this is the one that they tend to go am cool. I'm all right. Like I get enough sleep, uh, bodybuilders really made this a focus. So now that we have all the science and the data supporting, like why you get sleep and the effects of bad sleep and not optimal sleep, you can think bodybuilders, they're the first ones to talk, you know, I actually don't think a lot of, I think that, um, sleep is, is, is said and thrown around so much that we all kind of nod our head like, oh yeah, I know, but I don't think we really know why I say that maybe this is top of mind for me right now.

I've got, uh, two of our good friends, one of our mutual friends, Jason and my other buddy, Justin, that are in a group thread with me right now. And I've been recently inspired to just, um, kind of coach them, but coach them through sharing what I do every day and how I make the decision. Right. So when I started this thread last week and, uh, you know, I, I, I've been telling the thread, huh? What's the title? I haven't named it yet. I will eventually name it.

So, so what it looks like just to give the audience is like, uh, I, I go, I literally, I text after the day because I don't know what, what, what, what's going to entail. Um, yesterday was, um, got a 60 sleep score, toss and turn all night, skipping the workout today, going to do a 30 minute walk, keep the diet tight. That was what I, what I said today. Uh, so Jason chimes in and this is, we've been doing this for days now, right? And one of the things that I noticed about both of them is just the over application of the intensity and volume and pushing it right now.

Uh, and not enough balance of understanding sleep and stress and all these, these other factors. And it was when he told me what he was doing and he like, he, he listed out his work, hour and a half of the gym, 36 sets of stuff. I'm like, what are you doing, bro? What are you doing? You have three girls in school. You're a, you know, you're 45 years old. Like he's doing what he can get away with. Yeah. Yeah. And he's on every peptide and HRT.

So he, and he looks really good, but he's deceived by that. Like he thinks that like, and he's doing a great job, but he can be doing so much better with so much less, and that was the communication. So I'm like over here, like, uh, you know, weighted pull-ups and, uh, four sets of squats that was like the day before. And so he's like, man, I need to, I need to cut my volume way down, at least in half. And so his half now still looks ridiculous.

And he's, and yesterday he tells me. Oh, I got really poor sleep also. So I need to cut back to today. Should I, should I not work at all or come back? I said, well, either reduce it, uh, way down or what you would normally do today, uh, is just go through every, go through the motions remark. And so then he goes, okay. And then he sends me what he does and it still ends up being like 16 sets, which is half of what he was doing before.

So he's thinking it's better than what was before. And he still is, you know, two or three of the movements he was doing, he was still pushing really heavy load on himself with that. I said, way too much. No, there was, today was a day you could have taken off. If you were going to go there, you should just went through the month. There was no reason to push that on those two exercises or, or either, or do that much volume. You could have done way less.

You know why that's so hard, Adam? It's like, you know what it reminds me of? And I won't get too specific, but sometimes they'll pass like some kind of government policy that's obviously anti, you know, classically anti job growth. So they'll pass it. Then they'll come back a report and be like, oh yeah, well, since we passed that report, we've added a thousand new jobs and it's like, well, yeah, but we would have added 3,000, you know, had you not done it, the challenge with, with, with, with what you're talking about, Adam is he's getting some progress because he was doing nothing before and now he's doing something, but what he doesn't know is what he's missing, you know?

So he, you know, he gained five pounds of muscle, like dude, he could have gained 10 and this is what I'm trying to convey right now. And then I'm also trying to convey and understand to my whole, how this conversation started is to bring it full circle that I think, uh, you know, someone like him, if you asked him, if he quizzed him, what are some of the most important things he would definitely put sleep at one of the top three, but it still doesn't register that when you get a really poor night of sleep, like I had the yesterday night, my stress bucket is already really close to tipping over already.

It's, it fills it up really high, especially at my age with all the other things that I have on my plate, having a kid all it's like, like, so, so a day where I have this big wide open bucket to train hard and do all the things and handle work and handle is now already whoop right there. And so the workout, if I'm going to do it, I got to be very mindful that it's just going to take very little to spill that stress bucket over.

And once that stress bucket is spilled over, now I'm wasting a lot of energy and effort because I'm not going to reap the benefits for that added stress. And so that's what I'm trying to communicate to them is like, yeah, there would have been way better off not working out, focusing more on recovery, diet, other things that could improve your health. Or if you're going to go to the gym, cause you like the consistency. I'm not against that, but then it should go way easy. It goes to the motion.

Yeah. You know why it's hard to is because it's doing nothing. Yeah. You're just sleeping, which seems so wild. Wait, you want me to do more of nothing to get better results? What I immediately think about is, and I remember when we interviewed, uh, Ben Mikulski, so Ben Mikulski is a friend of ours, pro bodybuilder, high, high level. Uh, you know, 10 years ago, I was like one of the top bodybuilders and I couldn't wait to talk with them because at that time you had all these pro bodybuilders who were going to the middle East and they were gaining like 10 to 15 pounds of muscle.

Yeah. But we were, we were all speculating off air, right? It's milestone blockers. They have over there. They have some new drug. Here's why that's so crazy. When you're 280 pounds shredded bodybuilder to gain another 10 pounds of muscle is like a miracle, like what it's like getting a car that does a four second quarter mile to go down to three, what we were seeing Sal to, to add to what you're saying is that we were seeing it across the board, like everybody that was, so it raised all these flags that they must be doing.

So it's been three months there and gain like 15 pounds of muscle, everybody would come back huge. And so, and because they're already pros because they're already taking every drug because they already live and have lived for long time to build muscle. I'm like, it must be some special new drug that they have out there. And I remember when Ben came in and I'm like, dude, you got to tell me. Cause he knows he lives in that space. He's very honest. And he's been there. Yeah.

He's like, no, there's nothing special. He's like, do you know why they're all building muscles? Like, what, what are they doing? He goes, they don't do anything but lift weights, eat and sleep. There's nothing to do. Yeah. Yeah. They literally not distract. They literally lift weights, go back to their apartment. They play video games. They take an app, they eat all day. Then they lift weights again and they go to sleep. That's all they're doing. And that's why they're getting all this muscle. And then I'm like, of course, of course, that's what it is.

Cause it'll do that. That rest will do that. Oh, I mean, it made so much sense after this, but I mean, that says shows you how, like your point, like you have somebody who is the, the already checking every box to the highest level. And it's not like those guys were abusing sleep either. They just got a little more optimal rest, recovery and sleep and boom. And that's what I'm trying to convey to my buddies is this psych. And so today I scored an 80 great rest.

So I can't wait to go get a nice lift. But even when I go get a nice lift, it's not, I'm not gonna go crazy either. It's just like, now's the day I'll, I'm going to probably do weighted, weighted pull-ups is something that I'll do. I'll either do loaded, heavy lunges. I'll do something like that because I'm now rested. I'm not recovered. This is the day that I'll push a little bit in the workout. Yeah. Speaking of supplements and stuff, I, I, you know, I got, I want to just, uh, I want to be clear about probiotics right now, because if you had asked me five years ago, what would be like tier one supplements and others, what are supplements that you recommend to everybody that everybody should take?

I would have said multivitamin and creatine. Those are a bit of the two, but I'm now moving probiotics to that level. So we work with a company called seed. Their probiotics are the best in the world. They have a delivery process. That's just their, their light years ahead of everyone else. But the reason why I now put probiotics in that category where I'm like, everybody should take them. The amount of data and studies on their benefits is now overwhelming. In other words, to put it differently, it benefits everything.

They test anything. They test when they give them a probiotic, it's better. Fat loss, better muscle growth, better skin, better mental health, better digestive health, of course, better hormone health, better. It doesn't matter what they test. When they take probiotics, it's better. So it's now, in my opinion, like everybody should take it. Do you think there's something there that's more than just a probiotic? There's something like societal, like there's something that like, today we have so many gut issues in people. Huge. That it's more to do with that we're so messed up there that this is showing this in creative improvement.

Or do you think if you took, you actually teased out some of these studies and gave it to people that were 100% healthy, no gut issues, no nothing, and then you compared it against a group that weren't, that were, so say we have 20 athletes, or we need a bigger group, 100 athletes, 50 of them with incredible health, no gut issues, no nothing, and then 50 of them with gut issues going on, stuff like that. Now obviously, the ones with issues, we already know for sure they're gonna see huge improvement.

Would we still see improvement, you think, in the other ones? In the studies that I'm looking at, many of them are not, they're not picking volunteers with gut health issues. These are people, normal, healthy people. They're just testing it for fat loss, or they're testing it for muscle gain and strength, or they're testing it for anxiety or depression or skin health. So they're not coming in with any reported issues. Interesting. Now, that being said, I think it's probably like this. If you look at the data on walking 8,000 steps a day, you get profound health benefits.

I don't think it's necessarily because walking's magical, but rather because we don't walk at all. We never move. So you get all these benefits because you're moving. I don't know, 5,000 years ago, we were probably, our microbiome probably was way more diverse. This probably wouldn't, I don't know if this would be as essential. Just like multivitamins, I think, are more important today than ever. Although the argument can be made that it would be important a long time ago too because of nutrient deficiency. So I don't know, but what I do know is when I'm looking at the studies on probiotics, it's hard to find one that doesn't show a benefit.

Well, we keep seeing all the, I mean, how the microbiome plays so many roles in the body. And to just add that little bit of extra to benefit the culture there should have a massive difference. Just like mitochondria, we're addressing that, right? The function of the cell. If we improve that, you're gonna see this cascading effect, I would assume just because- Yeah, the bacteria plays such a big role in so many things. Probiotics help mitochondria health. There's another one. There it is, there's another one. It's just one of those things.

Speaking of supplements and stuff, Kate, so GLP drugs, right? So somaglutide, terzepatide, ozempic, right? They just took the world by storm. We've talked about them on the show. Lots of people are using them now, and a huge amount of people are on them now. And I predict it's gonna be like probably two thirds of all of America will be on a GLP at some point because of how effective they are for weight loss and all that stuff. So RETA is still like gray market. It hasn't really come to consumers yet.

RETA is not FDA approved, RETA Trutide, no. Only terzepatide, somaglutide, the two other big ones. So when that first started happening, remember when GLPs really started to hit the market, there was a lot of fear among trainers and people in the fitness industry. Oh my God, no one's gonna hire a trainer. Why would anybody go to a gym? We're gonna take our jobs! Yeah, why would anybody go to a gym when they can just inject this thing and lose weight? And we predicted the opposite would happen.

And you could listen to old episodes. We said, no, I think this will actually increase interest in fitness for two reasons. One, strength training is recommended. And so people are more aware of the thing to lift weights. But two, losing weight is motivating for people to go work out oftentimes. So now that they're seeing themselves lose weight, they're like, cool, now I'm gonna go work out a little bit now that I'm starting to lose weight by using this GLP. For your average person, I really think it's just absolutely necessary to have a coach if you're gonna pursue that at all.

For sure. So we predicted GLPs would increase business for the fitness industry. A lot of people in our space were scared. In fact, many of them were anti it, saying it's gonna hurt business in the industry. Guess who was right? Yeah. We were. Do you wanna see what the data looks like? Oh, yeah, let's see it. They've done it. So they've actually figured out, or they've looked at how much the GLP-1 user spends on fitness versus the average person. The average GLP user spends four times more on fitness.

Wow. Four times, 400% more. Almost, on fitness. So the average GLP user spends, on average, 4.49 per month on fitness, whereas the non-users, about $120 per month in fitness. So like we said, and we have a course that we put together for coaches and trainers. We also have a fitness podcast that our trainers run called the Elite Trainer Podcast. We told all of our trainers, and in this course, which we created a while ago, we told trainers, do not embrace this because you're gonna get more clients who are gonna be on it because it's gonna bring more people to us.

Yeah. And that seems to be the case. I mean, I would argue that GLP-1s make the weight loss part easier, but more complex. So easier because you've got this incredible tool that just cuts out all the food noise. And for somebody who has struggled with weight their whole life, food noise typically is really loud and really challenging. Cravings and food noise is one of the greatest hurdles and habits and behaviors that are attached to that. And so this tool allows, it just completely crushes that. Complex because it does such a good job of that, and we know historically we've always struggled getting our clients to eat enough protein and be consistent with lifting weights.

It makes those two things- More important and harder. Yes, makes it more difficult. You're low energy, to the point that I made when I went through it. So the drive to go to the gym is gonna be even less than what it was when you were probably overweight. And if you were already somebody, like most people, who didn't eat enough protein as it is, it's even harder when you're eating half the calories you were eating. So easy, but more complex. And that is a perfect recipe for trainers and coaches to support and help that person.

Because that person obviously, to your point, is willing to spend four times the money. So it's not a matter of, are they not willing to invest in themselves in that area? So they're willing to invest, and more now than ever, need to invest in someone to help them and support them through the process. 100%, I think, from a business perspective, because I think we gotta do this the right way, because there are risks with GLPs, not the ones that you see, the fear-mongering risks, but if you just go on one and you just eat way less, you're gonna lose muscle, a lot of muscle as well, which can cause other problems.

But I believe, from a business perspective, GLPs are the best thing to happen in the fitness industry in a long time. I think it's gonna bring more people to gyms, it's gonna bring more people to personal trainers, more people to coaches, than almost any other thing that I can think of. And the data's now starting to support that. I think we're going to walk into, and I'm not even talking about the tech boom, which I think is gonna fuel this as well. I think AI and all that stuff is probably gonna fuel this as well, but let's just pretend that doesn't exist.

I think we're walking into one of the largest fitness booms that, if not the largest one that we've ever experienced, in our experience, I mean, we were part of a kind of a fitness boom, because gym, you know, mega gyms or the big box gyms became popular during our time running them, but I think GLPs are gonna take it to the next level, because it's making people want to work out, and it's making people aware that they need to lift weights, that they need to work out.

And their doctors are telling them for the first time, they're literally saying to them, lift weights. They've never said that before. Mainstream doctors never said that, lift weights. Now they're telling them. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see a cool graph. I don't know if we're technically in like a hockey stick moment, or it's just been since we've been a part of this 25 years, it's just been this, and we're feeling it maybe ramp up. That's what I think. You know, like we're going through. You know, like if you graph this out, it probably kind of looks like this over the last 25 years, and we're probably on one of these right now, on a pretty steep climb.

I think trainers are gonna see a big boom. You know what's interesting about, as I think back to the times of fitness where I felt it really grow, one of those times was a period of time where we thought the fitness industry was gonna get hit the hardest, COVID. COVID was interesting. Trainers did very well during COVID. Virtual trainers and coaches. Gyms didn't do well. The ones that were flexible, yeah. But gym equipment did really well. You guys remember what it was like trying to buy home gym equipment from Facebook Marketplace?

Oh yeah. He was selling it. It was crazy. I thought about selling my dumbbells just to make some extra money. I know. They're going for like four times the price. I know. You couldn't get weights. You couldn't get bicycles either. No. You couldn't get anything. Everybody was outside, like biking. It was crazy. Yeah, I also think, you know, there's a lot of different things that are at play here. GLP ones are definitely one of the things that are at play. We're in this crisis, too, of loneliness.

And, you know, we had a live caller just recently that we're talking about community and this and that. And, you know, some people have hobbies, right? Some people are into pickleball or sports or have things that naturally, organically have built-in communities to them. But not a lot, not everybody has that. And I think that the gym, like you pitch church a lot. I think church is another good example of that. I think gym is another one, is that it's just an easy, built-in, I'm going to this place, like a church, to better myself.

So you're surrounded by people who wanna get better. I'm surrounded by other like-minded people. It's a built-in community. So it's such a great place for somebody. And I think that that's also at play here. I think that we have got. No, you're right, because the money that's going into gyms right now, if you look at the way the money's changing, the footprints of gyms are changing, but also the amenities are moving more towards socializing. So gyms now are starting to be, they're seeing that people go, they're going there to socialize and to meet up with people.

So I think we're entering into a great era for fitness. Yeah, we're centering us hanging out around fitness and around like healthy things. It's exciting too, because I like to think that we're a part of this movement and narrative too of like, to kind of full circle, talk about how you brought this all up with like bodybuilding and stuff like that. Like fitness is actually so much different than bodybuilding as far as like what it takes to be healthy, longevity, and fit. Like it's very minimal what you.

It doesn't take a ton. Yeah, and so if these gyms start building to be more like these cool social, like cool social clubs where you can go over and lift a couple weights. You know what I'm saying? Like that's kind of like the vibe that I feel is going. You work out, you eat a little, you hang out. Yeah, I mean, it's really, even what I'm designing right now at my house, it's really the thought that I have. And I can't wait till it's all done at my place because I'm gonna lift different than I've ever lifted before.

I'm gonna really attempt to lift the way I tell the story of the trainer who worked for me a long time ago. The one you do a little bit all day. Yeah, where I like just, I have, there is no routine or format. It's just that I go back, I'm in my backyard multiple times a day, all day, and I'm just gonna walk over there and go do two sets. And then I'm gonna walk away. You know, you're gonna get so strong. I really wanna see what happens.

I've experimented with that and it makes me strong. I really wanna see what happens. I think Justin does that the most. I do that a lot, yeah. Do you? Are you good about that? Yeah, just- He does it all the time. Every now and then, just go, yeah, do an exercise if I'm walking past weights. Yeah, I love doing that. Yeah, I'm gonna really discipline myself to kind of try and embrace that and be that guy and see how that is. And I think that's the, and I just don't think people thought of that before.

In fact, I even, I still have friends to this day that they look at my physique and they think that I, oh, I would never wanna do that. I don't wanna spend six days a week in the gym for hours at a time. Like, I have a life. I have other things I'm into. And it's just like, dude, don't- Six hours a month. Yeah, it ain't gotta be that. You know, it's nothing like that, actually. And so I think as that narrative changes and people realize that when you live, that's the such, so awesome about lifting weights as your main modality towards your pursuit of health and longevity.

It's actually very minimal effort toward that. And if you can go to this place now where they build these gyms that have got pools and live DJs and lounge areas and little restaurants in them. And man, it's actually kind of like this healthy club that you hang out at. And then, oh, maybe I'll make it over there and do a couple of sets while I'm here and I get out of here. And man, I think it really could shift culture and how we do things. So I just, it's funny you said that because I have this saved.

There's this diagram that explains, based off of the data, what we know on the data, on how long it takes to lose strength or endurance or whatever. So let's say you work out and then you stop. How long does it stick around? When do you start to lose it? So they have this picture of a dude. It's this little diagram, whatever. So it's like 48 hours later. Pretty much nothing has changed. Blood volume is down a little bit by about 5%. So this is just 48 hours after working out and he's doing nothing.

Okay, you get a week later, strength is unchanged. Muscles unchanged. Blood volume still kind of going down. Now we start to see mitochondria producing a little bit less energy. That's a week later, okay? Then we get to two weeks later. VO2 max down five to 10%. So this is like stamina and endurance. Motor unit recruitment down 13%. Force output unchanged, strength unchanged. Four weeks later, okay? Blood volume is down by as much as 12%. VO2 max is down by about 10%. Strength unchanged, muscle size unchanged.

Eight weeks later, two months later, muscle size barely has changed. Strength is finally starting to drop. VO2 max down almost 20%. 12 weeks later is when you start to see some measurable size differences in muscle. So what's. Cool about this is muscle and strength stick around. They stick, they're very resilient forms of adaptation. Just to add to that, because it's- Endurance goes quickly. So this is, it's interesting that you have that. It's so cool to actually see, because I'll tell you what I've experienced that I noticed myself, just because I've watched and been super analytical of all the data, the numbers, what I look like, all this stuff, like to probably an obsessive level, right?

Because of what I've done. And there'll be times where, you know, a week or two, more often two is normally about where I would be call, I would say I'd push it, but a week goes by and I haven't lifted weights. And I feel like I can start to see a visible difference. But what that confirms with me, which I feel like this is so true, is that most of that is just blood volume in the muscles. Because as soon as I go get my first workout back from the team, like, oh, there it is.

Like, there I am, like, I still got it, you know? And I'm reminded of that consistently. And it's just like, how minimal you have to do to maintain that. That's what's so cool about, one of the things, that's why strength training is such a wonderful form of exercise for modern life, because you miss workouts. So you get to keep a lot of the gains, you get to keep the metabolic boost, you get to keep the look. The one thing I would say, the one caveat I would say is the more extreme you are with your development and strength, the faster you'll probably notice some declines, because you're already at such a high level.

In other words, someone who is like a top strength athlete, top power lifter, or you're really strong in the gym, you take three weeks off of doing that lift, you might notice a difference, but it's not because your muscles aren't stronger, or weaker, I should say, themselves, but rather the motor recruitment patterns haven't been trained or practiced. Because I know some people listening are like, that's not true, when I take three weeks off, like, my bench goes from 450 to 425. Well, I'm gonna push back on that a little bit, because, and I know, I feel like if Ben Pekulski was here, he would push back also a tiny bit, and what I've experienced, which is, yes, I am not squatting 420, and I'm not dead lifting 550 right now at all.

But there is this kind of, my floor is way higher, and that stays around, like, it feels like I can't lose it. So, yes, you're right, like, if I was, like, at peak, me, you know, hitting PR, like, hovering my numbers, and I take three weeks off, I'm probably not able to be right at peak. Yeah, I'll notice some, and if I continue not doing anything for, say, another week or month, let's say even a month, I might drop down, but then all of a sudden I kind of hit this, like, floor, and that floor is still way stronger than the average person.

It's interesting, it sticks around, especially the longer you keep it. I don't know if you guys have ever seen, like, older people who, obviously, weigh less muscle than they had when they were really muscular, but you can still tell that they used to lift, almost, you know, like an old football player or whatever. Or competitive strongman, I remember, yeah, there was this older guy who was, like, I don't know, 70 years old. So that old man strength comes from that. Yeah, well, you had to have been some kind of athlete back in the day, and he, I haven't even lifted in, you know, over a decade, really.

Like, he just does, like, everyday activity. Oh, you tell your, Jack, you tell your story about your dad, who just walked over and grabbed a kettlebell and pick it up, and. Dude, I remember when, so I used to have, when I used to have my studio, there was a breakfast place next to it, and so people would line up on Sundays, especially Saturdays, Sundays, and I'd work on those days, and this little old guy walked in, and I think he was 80, I believe he was 80 or late 70s, and he was a little guy, he was a little kind of short dude, and he walks in, and he's looking around, and I'm with a client, so I walk over him and introduce myself, and I immediately notice his forearms.

So he's this little dude with these little, like, ball kind of muscle forearms, so right away I noticed, and I kind of looked at him, and he looked at my kettlebells, he goes, can I go look at those? I said, yeah, go ahead, are you familiar with them? Oh, yeah, he goes, I used to use them in Russia, so he had an accent, Russian guy. So he goes over, and he presses one up, I don't remember what it was, it was like 50 or 70 pounds.

Like, he has a lot of weight for an 80-year-old dude, and I'm like, you still got some muscle on you. He goes, I have, I don't work out. I'm like, when's the last time you worked out? He's like, I haven't worked out in a very long time. I was a young man when I used to work out, but you could tell by looking at those arms. Yeah, so that was my point of pushing back, is like, yeah, I mean, there's gonna be, let me tell you, too, the guy who says that, too, I think, because I would have probably said that, some of that is psychological, and a lot of it's the blood thing.

The blood volume, yeah, it's the pump. Yeah, because there's definitely this part of me that goes like, oh, man, I feel like I can tell I haven't worked out in a week or two, and you're right, because all that blood and fluid isn't pumped into those muscles. As soon as I go to the gym and go pump it all back in, it's like, oh, okay, I'm not far off from where I thought I was. You still got something. Yeah, and so, man, that's such a cool, cool thing.

I mean, it's the thing that I've been kind of talking about for the last couple of years on this podcast that not a lot of older guys communicated that to me. At least I don't remember ever hearing that from anybody. Everyone, in fact, the men. What was usually communicated is, oh, if you stop working out, you lose it all, which is true, but what they should have said is, you don't need to do a lot to keep it, dude. No. Yes. It's interesting you talk about that baseline.

I totally feel like, because it gives me that confidence. Even when I was like, I'm going to try to do a PR. I knew that at least I'm starting from a good place. Way higher than you were in your 20s, where you were probably a strong kid. This is crazy, but yeah, it's like, if I could just refine my efforts in one direction for a specific amount of time, be really judicious about how I use my time, recovery-wise, fueling that. I feel like I could get pretty far, but I like to know that my base is still right here.

It took me so long as a kid to deadlift 400 pounds. 400 pounds now, I can not work out for a while, and I'll pull four plates off the floor. That's what I mean. Your floor is- Whatever it takes to get there is not what it takes to keep it. No, not- It's way less. When it comes to strength training. Not even close. The stuff that was communicated to me was like what you said. Oh, when you get older, if you stop, you lose it all.

Or, and people used to say to me when I was a trainer in my 20s, well, what are you gonna do when you get older? You can't possibly be in the gym all the time and do all that. You're an old guy. It's more important when you're older to work out. Well, you know what I get, though, is because the way we all train so radically in our 20s and crazy in the volume and intensity, it's like, so of course, somebody in their 50s looking at me in my 20s going like, you ain't gonna be doing that.

They're right. I ain't doing that stuff anymore. It evolves. But it's like, I don't gotta do nearly, nearly like that to look 10 times better than that kid. That kid, what he had to do to- Do you remember how hard it was to get over 200 pounds? Yes, yes. All the lifting and eating, and now it's like. Yes, and now in order to get under 200, I'd have to lose a bunch of muscle to get under that. You'd have to starve yourself. Yeah, so I mean, that to me is, it's such a, if you're listening to this podcast and you're young, that's one of the most exciting things about getting older that nobody ever said to me.

It's just like, dude, it just gets easier. It gets easier. And that sounds kind of- All the work you're putting in right now matters. Yeah, yes. Long term. Joint pain and stress and all the other things that we talk about that we fearmonger about aging. I'm gonna name it, it's called muscle wisdom. That's what I'm gonna call it. Your muscles become wiser. They've been down this road before. Yeah, I like that. You know what I mean? We'll call it that. All right, I'm gonna change directions because I wanted to talk about our partner Z-Biotics.

So people aren't familiar, Z-Biotics is a pre-alcohol drink and it's a genetically modified probiotic, meaning it's a unique probiotic that breaks down something called acetaldehyde in the gut. And acetaldehyde is this negative byproduct of alcohol. So it's a good idea to break it down. So I did some more reading today on acetaldehyde and what it really does in the body and is there any amount that's okay to have in the body? And the answer is no. No extra- No benefit to it? No, no extra acetaldehyde is considered healthy.

It is a reactive genotoxic compound that the body really works hard to keep at low levels. It is not good for you at all. When people get an extra load of it, it comes from alcohol. Even moderate drinking produces more acetaldehyde than the body normally handles, especially, and here's where Z-Biotics is important, locally in the mouth, saliva, and upper GI tract. So your liver does a good job of detoxifying acetaldehyde, okay? So when the alcohol gets to the liver, unless you drink way too much, your liver does a good job of eliminating it.

But some acetaldehyde's in the gut and that doesn't get filtered by the liver. It goes into your bloodstream. Interesting. What Z-Biotics does is the bacteria that they modified breaks it down. So when you drink Z-Biotics for about 36 hours, you've got this bacteria in your body that breaks down the extra acetaldehyde that doesn't make it to the liver. Breaks it down so you don't get the toxicity from it. And that's why it works so damn well. Is there anything else that we consume that does that?

Negligible from food, smoking. Smoking is the other way you get acetaldehyde. Interesting. I wonder if there's any benefits of that. Taking it like pre-smoking? Yeah. Oh, pre-smoking. I don't know. That's a good question. I'm wondering if the, well, no, maybe not, because the Z-Biotics, some of it in your mouth, but most of it in your gut, when you smoke, it's inhaled. So, I don't know, it's in your lungs. That's funny, because some things that don't benefit your body, you could make an argument that a really small dose has a hormetic effect to it, but there's no benefit to this.

No, nothing. The data shows it's all bad for you. Yeah. It's all bad for you. Okay, interesting. So, no matter how much you drink, the Z-Biotics is a good idea. So interesting. Have it beforehand. So interesting that cigarettes and alcohol would be the thing that does it. Of all the things that we do to our body. The two worst offenders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody wants to have too much. Pretty much. I was like, come on, ah. You know, anyway. Party poopers. Do you guys see the changes that In-N-Out is making?

Yes, yes. Isn't it cool? All kinds of stuff. Did you see it, Justin? All the, I'll get rid of all the dyes, changing the seed oils they're cooking in. They're not gonna have cheese anymore. Right after they left California, it's like, oh, hey. No, no, no. Well, you remember the first move, you announced on the podcast when the founder pushed back on trying to get rid of all the Bible verses and everything like that, and so they stood their ground with that, and then now they're making the move with all the different.

Well, check this out. So yellow number five is gonna be replaced with turmeric. Red number 40 is gonna be replaced with beta carotene or vegetable juice. High fructose corn syrup, sugar. They're now getting rid of high fructose corn syrup. Wow. Cotton seed oil has been removed from the buns. Calcium propionate is now natural enzymes in the buns. No more artificial vanilla in their shakes. Now it's gonna be natural vanilla. And they're also, so they've upgraded their ketchup to have real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, and their fries, they're actually investigating and researching other oil options for better fries.

I don't know what oil they use right now. I don't think it's peanut oil. I think it might be. It's not peanut oil. That's five guys. Can I say that I don't like, and it annoys me, the fitness people that dunk on this, because when the whole Make America Healthy Again made movements towards changing the oils. Yeah, they're attacking seed oil. Like seed oil's the thing that's making everybody fat. They just scoff at it, and that's their answer. Yeah, and I just, I don't, again, this is another area where it's like, okay, listen, I don't disagree that French fries in any oil is not an ideal.

But every little step's good. Exactly, it's moving us in less crap in our food. It encouraged companies to think about these things, really. Yeah, it's like a trainer scoffing at a client because they, you know. They walk. I just walk. Because they walk. No, that's not a workout. That's exactly what comes to mind. Great, dude, thanks. That's exactly what, that's why it bothers me. It comes to mind, it's just like. I know a lot of fitness people. Yes, you're right. If someone just walked, they could still be obese, and they could still not have muscle and all those things, but hey, it's a positive step in a better direction, and so if companies are getting rid of these dyes, and they're changing the oils that they're cooking food in for a better version of that, I don't like fitness people that dunk on that.

It's just not, choose something else to go dunk on. My kids, this is just personal. Stupid algorithm content. Yeah, this is my, so my kids fall in this category. So again, this is my own anecdote, but my kids, when they have red number 40 in particular, it's like I gave them, it's like I gave them a. Like a Phedra or something? It's like I gave them ADHD. Yeah. Literally, like when they have red number 40, they act different, and if it's too close to bed, they can't sleep, and I noticed this, the first time I picked up on this, we were in Arkansas visiting Jessica's mom, and we were all, we had gotten all these trailers, so she had a little bit of land, so we had all these trailers, we're sleeping out there, and my daughter got a fever, and she was real young at the time.

She was like maybe two, maybe one and a half, two, and we gave her Tylenol, and Tylenol, unless you get dye-free, it's got red number 40 in it, because they make it cherry flavor, so it's red. Anyway, we gave her Tylenol, which helps her fever, and all night, she was up all night, and she was weird. She was like giggly, and then cry, and then I'm like, man, is it her fever? Like, what's going on? Second night, same thing happened. Wasn't until I started kind of putting it together, we gave her the dye-free, and she was totally fine, and since then, we've tested it.

If they have like gummy bears, or anything with red number 40, especially if it's in a decent amount, it makes them, like they have ADHD, like really bad. It affects their CNS, and I know other parents that this is the case as well, so I'm glad they're getting rid of it. There's an effect there, yeah. Nonetheless, again, I just think it's a terrible thing to go pick something else to hammer, and stuff like that, because then again, it gets. Not good enough, you know, that's the first one.

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If you're taking essential amino acids and the leucine is too low You're not utilizing all of it. So Keon aminos are the best one Go check them out go to get Keon comm slash mind pump that link will get you 20% off back to the show Our first caller is Patricia from Utah. Hi, Patricia. Hello Hey, ah First of all, I mean the usual. Thank you guys for everything you do. I've been listening for about a year and you guys rock Yeah, I'll go ahead and kind of like summarize my background and then come in with my question, but I'm currently 23 years old female About a hundred and forty five hundred fifty pounds five foot seven I haven't done a full body scan in a while But around like 15% body fat as I think what I'm usually getting I grew up a competitive soccer player and then got into weightlifting in college with my boyfriend And he showed me how to do everything and got really into all the newbie gains.

Those were very exciting Graduated college about a year ago and have since moved to Utah and have been doing all the hiking and skiing and kind of just Random things I've done Spartan races Tough Mudders Marathon triathlon and the past two months. I've kind of taken a break and just done like the free summer yoga classes But I think I'm ready to kind of get into like more of a routine and now that I'm in my adult life kind of Building up to just like a strong foundation, I guess So my question really for you guys is being a young female kind of what should I do next?

Yeah, good question. So How did you tell me about grad school, by the way, what are you going to school for? um sources and Sources engineering. Okay, cool. Okay, so you you're kind of and you correct me if I'm wrong. You're kind of a go-getter So like you make a goal you get after it, which is great But it could also be a challenge Because like just because your past competitive soccer Lots of hard competitions lots of getting after it with your workouts Probably I don't think you're someone that's challenged with being consistent.

You're probably challenged with not Working out Like need to take breaks. How has the last two months felt for you since you've done that? Um, it's been good I've enjoyed yoga, but I definitely miss the gym. I feel like I'm not really doing anything Which I'm not a fan of you're also hiking and skiing. Is that right or is that going on? Give me give me also outside of lifting weights. What else are you also doing? Um The hike we hike in the summer and then skiing in the winter so going to the National Parks road trips on the weekends Um, I think I've done five or six hikes this summer.

It's not every weekend, but Pretty active all the time. I would say okay good You know if you want a goal The the best goal that I could point you in the direction of that I think would help with a lot of other things would be strength. It's not perfect because you go too far with that, too But it might give you kind of what you're looking for in terms of like something to chase But I also think it would it would point you in a kind of healthy direction The only challenge is is going to be all the other stuff you're doing on top of it So and I need to know like more specifics.

So like how many days a week would you say you're doing something very active? um Right now two to three I think I do two yoga classes during the week and then maybe a hike on the weekends if we're not super busy with Yeah, that's okay. And yoga is what is a power yoga. Are you doing like Yin yoga? Um, I think it's one of each. It really depends on the week. It's just the free. Okay, like How do you feel about getting really strong at like the core lifts like power lifting?

I would love to I think it would be Really fun. I would just be kind of worried about Forming stuff since I'm not used to it. I haven't really done it before and I definitely don't want to get hurt Yeah, so be very careful with technique and smart which I think you will be But maps power lift will be a really fun program for someone like you to get like PRS with your deadlift your squat and your bench Now the other side of that is diet and I'm looking at what you wrote and you have some food intolerance issues and stuff like that Is that prevent is that preventing you from eating enough?

um, I Don't think so It's just I know Proteins a big deal and I know you guys talk about it and I hear it and I try very very hard But like the protein shakes, I just can't get it down and Sometimes I struggle to just eat enough chicken or eat enough beef to hit the goals And so I just I don't know any tips or advice on that would be very helpful. Yeah, we have some tips You have a regular menstrual cycle Okay, cool. I'll just carry it 15% And maybe low on some of the healthy fats and and proteins would concern me a little bit But if you have a healthy menstrual cycle, that's a good sign Have you tried different types of protein shakes to like, you know Sometimes like I'm not a big fan of like really thick and like type of shake So things like paleo valleys bone broth is almost like drinking chocolate milk It's so thin and easy to kind of pound and so that's that's a strategy.

I love things like Greek yogurt And they make brands that have like 20 20 grams and like a small cup and so something real quick and easy with berries That I can eat or do You've probably heard if you listen the show long enough Making a whatever you have for dinner Whatever meat that is carrying it over into the morning with like a scrambled like, you know Scramble a couple eggs with it. Those are good strategies Most my clients that struggle with hitting protein and that's hard for them.

It's the breakfast breakfast So I always talk to them about when the morning and it sets the day up And so focusing really on making sure that you start the day with a good 30 to 45 grams of protein really sets you up for success. Otherwise, it's tough. You're playing catch-up the rest of the day Have you ever tracked to see kind of what your average was your calories? I have it in a long time I did probably sophomore year of college just when I was first getting into it and then I kept forgetting to track it Okay, can I ask you more personal questions?

Yeah Do you have any do you ever have a history of like restricting or Maybe a challenging relationship with food So you don't have a problem eating. No, I've always been pretty good. Oh In my plate, it's just getting big enough. I think yeah So so you schedule your meals and you're gonna have to kind of make it like every three hours Yeah more frequency and meal prep and eat and that'll make a big difference You do that with power lift and you're gonna get real strong intimidating.

Yeah. No, you'll love it. Listen, you'll love it The video demos in there are really really good You're I mean you have an analytical brain obviously, so you just watch technique perfect it Technique plays a huge role in power lifting So power lifting is very technique focused like if I want somebody to learn how to squat deadlift and bench press Better than anybody else I'm gonna send them to a power lifting coach because they know how to do those better than anybody else So so it's very very technique heavy.

You might be a great Great candidate to for our concierge program where you just check in with a coach once a month And then you can send videos of your technique and form so like video yourself squatting doing those movements and they'll coat They'll coach you even virtually. Yeah, so and it's a lot more reasonable than I mean hiring a personal trainer One-on-one would be awesome. Sometimes that's out of a lot of people's budget To have a coach one-on-one. That would be ideal when you're trying to get good at this, but at the very least Doing like our concierge with our trainers they can help coach you through that process and get you good at it Yeah, and I mean there's master class in there as well.

So, you know really go through some of those videos It'll it'll you know spell out a lot of detail. Sometimes that helps, you know people It's really dive into a lot of those details and apply them and you know And you don't have to be intimidated by adding a lot of weight in the beginning, you know Keeping it light and just you know, really form and mechanics focused And then yeah having another set of eyes would be you know a really good idea Would power lift be something that I guess once I finish the whole program to just kind of restart and just keep Building off of you could although I like following that up with symmetry.

Yeah, I mean Yes, and I mean I if it's her first time through a lot of times I like to run it twice you could because you're kind of getting used to the little thing Yeah, you're still building it So you could I would run it twice and then go to symmetry like you saying Since it's like cut you're kind of new to those lifts and getting good at those lifts the the practice of going through it twice We typically will tell someone symmetry or performance because you're doing all these like sagittal plane movements And if you get really really strong and just a sagittal plane, you don't address Unilateral worked and that's where they like the joints and stuff starts on you, but somebody who's just getting started in it I'm picturing you going through it the first time more cautiously Really working on technique and not loading it that much the second time around kind of pushing The strength and pushing the technique and pushing the weight a little more and then go to symmetry.

I think would be ideal But again to this is also stuff that if you do the concierge or their coach They'll they'll coach you through that process on what that looks like you Okay, sweet. Yeah, so we're gonna send that to you go get strong. Yeah Yeah, keep it on with it, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, we'd love to hear how it goes. Okay, we'll do all right. Thank you Yeah, thank you guys so much. Bye-bye That'll be fun for her. Mm-hmm. It'll put a pointer in a good direction You know the one thing that and I'm glad she said she would do that because the one thing I'd be worried about for Someone like her just based off her email is that she just do too much too much stuff all the time But you know getting stronger is hard to do when you're doing it for the first time Is hard to do when you're doing too much.

She's got some serious muscle on her 150 pounds and 15% body fat on a chick is like legit very yeah play competitive soccer. Yeah, so Probably has some serious muscle building potential. So if that's she's if she's anywhere even if she's north or south of that I'd be good immediately. Yeah. Yeah, she's gonna she's gonna build some muscle dude 15% body fat 150 Says some serious muscle, you know already our next caller is Vanessa from Colorado. Hi, Vanessa Hey guys, Wow surreal So amazing to get some advice from you guys.

Thanks for just being there like in my journey You've really helped to motivate me. So thank you so much I wrote everything down just because I'll get off track and I added a question. So hopefully that's okay. Yeah I'm 43 years old. I currently weigh like anywhere between 161 165 5-4 and The biggest thing I think that might be impacting me as last year. I found out that I was in post-menopause. So low testosterone and Estrogen, so I think I don't know if that's impacting my journey or not I've yo-yo dieted.

I've done everything in the book Took GLP last year lost like 20 pounds gained it back listen to your advice and kind of weaned myself off that and then this year I started really like doing a four day a week program upper lower body since like February and I'm very consistent So super motivated there Right now though. I've only Lost like 2% body fat on the journey there I've probably put about 8 pounds of muscle on and I've reversed dieted from 1850 calories and then in June I went up to 2400 and I've been right around there and keeping it there.

I step about 8,000 to 12,000 steps a day and I'm just wondering like right now. I have been working with a trainer and The upper lower body I jumped into your guys's upper lower body six weeks ago and That feels great. Just everything's a little bit different. So I feel like I'm really Seeing like just changes in my muscle in different ways So that's good progress there, but I feel like I'm in a plateau when it comes to like fat loss I don't know if I'm eating too much or like like I said, my weight gain is just it kind of stays between that five pound range and let's see, I also don't eat too much on days that I Work well that I don't work out and then I eat more on the days that I do And then also just wondering if maybe peptides is something I should consider Okay.

Well, thanks for calling in. So you're averaging 2,400 calories a day when you average out the high and low days Yep. Okay. Well, no because I guess if you put it that way probably around like 22 to 23 Okay, so what's a low day and what's a high day? Low day, maybe 2,000 high day 24. Okay. I see. Okay, so that's good And then you said your postmenopause this was based off of just hormone profile Do you mind if I ask your age? 43 okay. Oh, wow.

You look a lot younger. Okay. Okay. So, all right. So so I think you're doing everything, right? You're doing a great job Do you really what you came from on? The reverse diet and the amount of muscle you built and body fat percentage changes is phenomenal, especially a postmenopausal. That's phenomenal It's phenomenal. That's you've done a really good job. Just so you know a pound muscle gain is Incredible and 2% body. Yeah an end of reverse diet all the things and being postmenopausal like it's not easy When your hormone profile is off like that, it makes it does make everything exponentially more difficult.

I mean, I've Openly discussed this on the podcast many times my most challenging clients as a young trainer was helping women through menopause Especially back then 20 years ago when we had way less tools I feel or communication around it So I always was I was lost as a young trainer many times trying to help someone it's very very difficult Are you are you taking anything right now? They have you on thyroid or testosterone or anything? Yeah, I'm just doing like a testosterone estrogen cream and it's pretty low And then I'm on like amino acids and stuff like that Just after like a powder that I got a lifetime that I'm that's the gym that I go to so so you're doing great I think you're doing a lot of things, right?

In fact everything I've heard so far I haven't heard anything that I would say you're doing wrong You're on hormones. So that's gonna help with that And you have a past of going up and down the yo-yoing. Okay. Yeah. So what we want to do is stay away from that Yeah, we don't want to yo-yo anymore. And I think that's kind of what you're communicating like like I'm out of that phase I don't want to keep doing that. I want to do that anymore So this what that essentially means is you got to be patient because you're doing all the right stuff Yeah, you know if we push you in in a cut Averaging 2200 calories we will run the risk of doing the yo-yo thing And your calories really aren't that low to do kind of an effective cut.

I mean, we'd have to bring you down to like. You mean high. Yeah, not high enough, sorry. So we'd have to bring you down to like 1,600 calories which wouldn't feel that good. You would see some weight loss on the scale, but then you plateau. And then we'd kind of be in a worse position. Honestly, I mean, you're doing 8,000 to 12,000 steps a day. You're strength training. Hormones are getting balanced. You built eight pounds of muscle. Honestly, you should slowly reverse diet. Keep going on the reverse diet.

Keep trying to get stronger and add calories would be ideal. That's what I was wondering. Like, should I go higher? Yes, absolutely. Keep adding strength. Keep adding calories. Keep going that direction. How do you know when to cut though? That's, you know. So it's different for everybody. Generic answer. Someone your age, height, weight, all the things. I want about 2,800 or above. But if you were at, let's say we're at 2,800 and you are telling me you still have an appetite, I would keep pushing you.

Now, let's say you're at 2,800 and you're like, Adam, this feels like so much food. Okay, then I'll probably start to bring you back down. So I think you can easily support working up to 20, based off your activity level, strength, all the things. You, 2,800 calories or more is where I'd be taking you. And more would be, I would love to get you at 2,800. We haven't seen much movement on the scale. You've probably hovered around the same. Even if we put a couple pounds on the scale, not really worried.

Like I'd want you kind of hovering around within five pounds of where you're at and all the way up to 2,800. And then in a perfect world, you're telling me I could eat more. And then I just, great, let's keep going that way. Until finally you look at me and you go like, okay, this is a lot of food, Adam. Now it's becoming like a lot of work to eat this much. And now we have runway. And yeah, now that's typically a good place because it feels very comfortable to go, you know what, just knock one of those meals off or cut your portion size on these two meals in half.

And like, and you feel comfortable eating that much, you still feel satisfied and it's now putting you in a deficit. And now you're just leaning out nicely and you find this kind of beautiful, comfortable place to stay and you achieve the goal you're looking for. Yeah, Vanessa, are you open to working with a mind pump coach for the nutrition part? I know you're working with a trainer for your workouts, but are you open to working with one of our coaches? Yeah, I've always had an issue with nutrition and what's the right thing to eat.

So yeah, I would consider that. Okay, let me have someone call you because they'll coach you through that process and it'll be very individualized. So you'll meet with them, but then also you'll be able to message them and be like, I feel like this, is this right? Should I, what direction should I go? And then they can modify the whole way through to individualize it. Because a reverse diet is scary. It's a scary process. It's also- I love it. It's been like way too easy. That's the problem.

I'm like, okay. Oh yeah. That on, I don't want that. That's the scary part, right? And so the coach will walk you through that process. They'll guide you through that. That's right. Yeah, it's a weekly type of conversation of like how we feeling, how you doing, talking. That's why too, when you asked me how far, it's hard to answer that because that could change. And I have this sometimes with the client. You'll get this with your coach. You guys are going along, reverse diet, and you're adding calories, adding calories.

And then all of a sudden we get to a place where you don't feel good, you're discouraged, you're frustrated. And then sometimes I have to bring the client back down for a little bit. I'm like, okay, this is what we're gonna do, Vanessa, for the next two weeks. I'm gonna put you down to 23, 2400 calories. Then you see some results, you feel good. And then you're like, okay, let's go back up. And so a lot of that, that's the individual part that the coach will do with you.

And through that process, you'll really learn how to control that yourself going forward. So very, very worthwhile to go through with the coach to give you that. Okay. And then I guess the other question was just, I did the upper lower body for so long that I jumped into your guises. Should I have jumped into something else? Not necessarily. Yeah, that's a good program. PPL is a good program. Symmetry would be a good program. But since you're open to working with a coach, they're gonna give you maps, Vanessa.

They can modify it. They're gonna modify it specifically for you. So, and then that'll be the best thing. That'll be better than any math program that we could, you know, template we can give you. Okay. All right, well then that's positive news. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Tried it for you. And good job. You're doing great. All right, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't catch her age when she was talking. So she said post-menopausal. I'm like, how did you get post-menopausal? You're like in your early years.

I mean, I heard her say it right away because I couldn't believe it. I saw it, I saw 43, she's only 43. But yeah, the, she's doing everything right. No, great job. At this point, and people, I know, I know. I understand how frustrating this is to hear. Like, oh, be patient. Like, you know, it's like, I'm gonna pull your hair out. But that is a big part of this process, is being patient. Yeah, you have to communicate that. And focusing on what's happened so far.

What's happened so far, she's bumped her calories. Her weight hasn't really changed. She's gained eight pounds of lean body mass. Yeah. Phenomenal, phenomenal. Our next caller is Kaylee from Arizona. Hi Kaylee. Hi Kaylee. Hi guys, how are you? Good, how you doing? Good, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. How can we help you? I work full-time. I'm getting ready to go back to school. From a logging perspective, I usually average about 1,800 to 2,200 calories per day. Typically 130 to 160 grams, if I'm doing really well on protein.

I've been working out four to five days a week, but I realize that's probably gonna drop down. And I'm just scared of losing, essentially, the muscle mass that I've gained in this two years impressively, and kind of reverting backwards, either by not feeding myself well enough, or my training frequency going down with all of this high stress and movement that I'm about to go through. So just kind of wanting your guidance on how, one, I can preserve what I've achieved, but also continue to see growth and increase, and factoring in all that stress and change.

Oh, perfect, okay. And I see you're, I'm gonna be looking, I'm looking at your email right now. So you've been working out for about seven years, and the last two years, really good workout programming. You train at home, but you also do Peloton strength classes and some bar classes on the weekend? Yes. And then you work through the week, and on the weekend, it says you also bartend, so you're working a lot. Yeah. A lot of movement. And now tell me about your workout, all of the workouts you do.

So how many days a week are you doing some kind of a workout, whether it's Peloton, bar, or lifting weights? Typically, I've been trying to practice your guys' recommendation on trying an upper and lower. So I've been doing consecutively, like Tuesday through Friday, upper and lower. And then if my energy permits, that's when I'm doing the bar classes on the weekend. So it can be four days a week, it can be six. It kind of just depends. Okay, and then how's your sleep? From the Oura Ring perspective, it's as good.

I'm averaging like 88 as my sleep score, and sometimes I get like 96, but... Kicking my ass. I don't know, sometimes I still feel like I don't fully feel rested, and I know stress plays a role in that too. I think even in my email, I mentioned some digestive stress, obviously, from trying to increase my feeding window, or my protein, but also trying to optimize pre-feed and post-feed, and not eat too close to bedtime, and all of that. So I got... I'll tell you exactly why you feel that way.

And the fact that you're scoring that high on sleep is you do a lot and don't eat a lot for someone who does as much as you do. Yeah. I figured it was under eating. That's why you feel that way, because the fact that you're scoring 80s and 90s on your Oura means you are doing a good job, and you're probably exhausted while you're crashing out like that. And while you probably still feel, even after good, great nights of sleep like that, still feel like, man, I feel like I'm still...

It's because you're low calorie for the amount of training volume and activity. And then that's not even factoring outside stress of just work and all the things, pressures and whatever. You are physically doing a lot for somebody who's only eating 2,000 or so calories. That's really low. Yeah, so the good news is this, Kaylee. Reducing your training volume is not gonna make you lose muscle. You'll probably be better. Okay. You'll probably get stronger. In fact, I would do that right now. I would put her on mass 15.

Yeah, right now, you're gonna get better results by doing that. Okay. So, redlining, or kind of doing what you can tolerate, which it sounds like that's kind of where you live, increases inflammation and contributes to digestive issues. Okay. So, the fact that you're doing so much and eating not enough to support that, you're putting yourself kind of in this place. If you cut your training way down, bumped your calories, you would see a strength gain happen within a week or two. Week one or two. Within the first couple of weeks, you see strength go up.

And that's how you know you're moving in the right direction. Yeah, it's interesting. I think you guys did an episode, I wanna say a couple months ago, where you referred to a study of how one week off from a typical four-week training can actually double-time your muscle retention just because of the recovery. And so, I'm three days into a recovery, and I almost feel like I've been working out harder just because I feel like my body's like, Al, you haven't listened to any of the recovery stuff.

So, now you need a foam roll and redline and all this stuff. So, it's so funny. I could literally hear you guys saying this to me, but it's nice to hear it reinforced. What's your three-day recovery? What are you doing? As of late, it's just been really stretching, just kind of rolling into the motion of where my body will let me go. Kind of just not forcing myself to do anything tense, like even housework, where you can really zone into the stress of the movement. So, kind of just sitting there, breathing exercises.

I do have a foam roller as well. But mostly just stretching, trying to work out some kinks. Okay, good. So, do that for a full week. Okay, so no workouts for a full week. Just kind of make yourself feel better. I'm gonna send you, so if you really wanna blow your mind, I'm gonna send you match 15. Take a week off. So, continue on this. So, you got four more days off. Start match 15. See if you can get your calories up 200 a day. So, from 18 to 22.

Let's aim for 23 to 2,400 calories a day. And by the third, probably by the third workout, you're gonna be stronger. Okay. Okay, and then you know, like, oh, this is working. Yeah, okay. And knowing that with the calorie increase, like I'm kind of averaging like five to six meals a day, like three large and then obviously some snacks. I guess, what is your guys' more formal opinion on how to time that around a workout? Like I know I put in my email, I was kind of concerned with doing evening workouts because it was like, you know, ramping my heart rate up too close to sleep, but then eating obviously also does the same thing.

Are you guys like really strict on that like feeding time pre and post? What you just said matters more than anything else. How is it affecting my sleep? How's it affecting my digestion as far as the protein calories around the workout? That doesn't matter. It's so irrelevant. It's so, so like you need, your body needs what it needs macro wise, as far as protein and so that, so that becomes a priority. But sleep and digestion are one and two. Yeah, are you familiar with the best data on like timing, meal timing?

Not as of the like the best or most recent. It's literally, it's like splitting hairs on splitting hairs. Okay, that's good to know. Here's when it matters. When you have a professional athlete who's gonna train twice a day, what this is all they do, this is their job. And so the meal timing helps with the second workout. Okay. For you, it's not gonna make a difference at all. So don't even worry about it. You just eat, you know, hit your calories, follow math 15 and don't worry about meal time.

Like literally don't even worry about meal time. It doesn't make a difference. Okay. Okay, I'm excited. It's just good to hear validated now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and you know, don't get caught up in the little minutiae of all the little hacks and stuff like that, which, you know, and I can see, you know, that your normal job, it's like you know a lot probably about supplements, you're, you know, into pharmacokinetics, you know, so it's really fun to get into that details, but they really don't make that big of a difference.

Like they just don't. So don't worry too much about it. Yeah, and like I said, you'll know by the second week of following math 15 and bumping your calories, you'll see strength difference. It's gonna trip you out. For sure. Yep. Okay. Lean into that. That's exciting. And is math 15 like more home-friendly or should I have more access to a gym as well? Very home-friendly. It is more home-friendly. Oh, beautiful. Okay. What do you have at home? What do you got? Yeah, I have eight pounds up to 42 pounds and then two barbell with 25 pound plates.

So I just do a lot of like plane of motion, free weight stuff. Oh, you're good. You're good. Yeah, you got plenty. Okay. Awesome. I really appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. You got it. Thank you. Thank you. The irony is she's afraid of losing muscle. She's gonna gain muscle. I know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, right away it was like so glaring when she said her sleep scores were so good she still felt tired. It's like you're crushing, you're definitely hitting, you're doing a good job with sleep but you feel that way because your calories are so low and you could do a lot of low calories.

I mean, can you not sense her in her? She's a go-getter, right? Like she's working, she's getting ready to start school. She's also bartending on the side. She takes bar and Peloton and she hits four workouts a week. And doing all that on 2,000 calories is just not enough. What happens with, she's young, right? And you'll see this sometimes with 20-year-olds, they just push everything. These are the women that end up with really bad HPA axis dysfunction once they get into their mid to late 30s.

And they're like, what is going on? And it's because, yeah, you've been redlining for a long time. But doing what we said, she's gonna blow her mind. Our next caller is Gabby from Australia. Hi, Gabby. Hi, Gabby. Hi. How are you? How can we help you? I'm good, thank you. I've been listening to you guys for about a year now and you've really changed my perspective on fitness and health. I struggled with an eating disorder for 12 years. I've been a fashion model and I've worked from age 17, now I'm 31.

So my story is quite complicated when it comes to food and health. And, yeah, and I have, yeah, I've wanted to get stronger over the last two years. I'm a mom of two kids. And when my daughter was born, I have been completely free of eating disorders. My eating disorder tendencies, which has been wild and I never thought that it would happen. and I'm eating more than ever and lifting weights before I was so afraid to lift weights just to gain any sort of size as a fashion model.

Yeah, so I'm here because I'm wanting a little bit more consistency with food mainly. With food mainly, like obviously my, yeah, obviously my relationship with food has been an interesting turbulent one and I would love to have a little bit more important advice in that. And I've built so much muscle in the last like three years is being wild. I'm so much stronger than I ever have been before and my metabolism feels really like fiery. So I'm almost like, I feel like I'm eating too much, but I will then like have a day where I'm so hungry where I can't stop eating.

Yeah, that's where I'm at now. All right, well thank you so much for calling in, Gabby. So when I read your email and you mentioned this, you, it was after having your child, I think it was your daughter, where you felt this kind of lift. Would you mind, if it's okay, would you mind explaining what that felt like? What was it with that experience that brought that away from you? What was that like for you? Yeah, I don't know. I've probably been in recovery for so many years prior.

I've wanted to change. I've wanted to be different. So I've done all the steps. And then as soon as my daughter was born, there was just this thing in me that was almost like no more. I can't do this anymore. This can't happen anymore. And like, I'm a Christian, I believe in God. And it was like a divine moment of freedom when she was born. That's wonderful. Awesome. Yeah, I'm so glad you shared that. So I've trained clients who've had a similar experience to what you're describing.

I've also had clients that have gone in the opposite direction. So the feeling of, and you know this, because you're a mom, the feeling that your body's not yours. So now suddenly I can't control everything. It can either push people in the direction of trying to control even more, or it can push people in the direction of like, I can't control this. I'm gonna surrender to this. And then you have the added benefit of having a baby that you just fall in love with. And so I've had people have a similar experience.

I do wanna say, and add to this, first off, you're doing a great job, that because you lived in that way for so long, and you did it during formidable years, so your teenage years, that is a default pattern that's gonna rear itself potentially when things get very difficult or stressful. Okay? So the challenge isn't, you know, oh God, I gotta worry about this thing. That's not what I'm saying. But keep in your mind when you start to feel those old feelings back, don't be ashamed and say, I thought I defeated this.

Cause that could also, that can make things feel a lot worse. The best thing you can do around that, and I'll get more detailed with diet and stuff like that, but the best thing you can do around that is always bring it to the light. Yeah. So always, so you're a Christian, I'm assuming you go to a church? Yeah, I do. You wanna share that with the people that you're close to at church as soon as it starts to come up. There's a biblical backing for that.

It's about confession. And then psychologically, when you bring it to the light, it's like putting, you know, it's like taking bacteria and shining light on it. It can't survive. In the dark, it grows. And so you may feel like this thing's coming up, and I told all these people I've defeated it. It's part of my testimony, but now it's coming up. I don't wanna tell them. I don't wanna share that I'm struggling with this thing. I think I can do this on my own. I feel ashamed because I told everybody I got over it.

That's the worst thing you could do. The best thing you could do is bring it to those people, and that right there is gonna help you the most. It's gonna help you the most with this process. As far as diet is concerned, getting stronger is the best possible thing you could do. And I think if you focus on moving in that direction, the nutrition's gonna support that. The nutrition's gonna support that the whole time. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's gonna be eating regularly. So there's a couple things that can trigger dysfunctional eating.

The obvious stuff is like focusing on body all the time. So studying yourself in the mirror, studying pictures of yourself, that could trigger it. Stress, like feeling out of control can kind of trigger it. So be aware with that kind of stuff. But also what can trigger it is going for long periods of time without food, and then following it up with periods of time where you're eating so quickly that it feels like a binge. Okay? So eating regularly, staying on a schedule is one of the things you can do that'll help with that.

So try not to skip meals. Yeah. Yeah, I've been doing that, and it really does definitely help. Yes. So you're probably eating good protein and supporting strength gains because you're talking about all the muscle that you've gained. Yes. Okay, that's good. And then do you coach anybody? No, I don't at the moment. That is very helpful for people. To coach other people can oftentimes be very helpful for the stuff for yourself. So obviously you work out, you look like you work out, you're part of a community, you volunteer and offer to help other people.

That's another great way to kind of keep you in the right place with all of this. Yeah, great. Yeah. But I mean, great success story. Yeah, it's been a wild one. Talk about how different it must feel. How different does it feel for you being strong and healthy versus, because I know I've trained some fashion models and I know that that space really, it's very normal to feel tired, weak, to restrict yourself. So it's gotta be such a drastic difference in how you feel. Yeah, absolutely.

I have energy all day, which is wild. I'm not tired and hungry every afternoon. But just like, and just the food focus is so different. And that's been the biggest thing. Like my husband is like, our life is completely different now. And he's like, I can't even remember what it was like before, but it was really hard. And I'm like, yeah, it was really, really hard. Like I was a very young mom at 23 and I was dealing with all of this when I had my son.

For years and years. And trying in the depth of an eating disorder while trying to parent, while trying to work, while trying to manage all these different things was like, I was drowning. I was completely drowning. And now to be a mom for the second time and actually able to give my child the attention and my family the attention without this heavy thing, all consuming my mind is such an incredible, like such an incredible experience. That's so awesome, so good. So what you just did by talking about the differences between the two is so powerful for future Gabby.

So one thing you can do, and I don't know if you've done this is write a letter or write down the ways I used to feel and how I feel now. And this is, and you write it out. And so the power of this is when you feel like, uh-oh, I'm feeling this old feeling start to creep up, you go back and you read this letter. You go, oh yeah, that's why. That's why I don't wanna go back. That's why I wanna stay in the course.

It's a very, it can be a very powerful tool for future Gabby if those old feelings start to pop up again. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I had a client once do that with some substance abuse and he said that whenever he wanted to go back, he would read this letter that he wrote while he was going through withdrawal. And so he wrote it when he was in withdrawal. So he read it and he's like, man, that kept me away like several times just reading that letter I wrote to myself.

So it's just another idea. Yeah, absolutely. I really like that idea. I do a lot of journaling. So that kind of goes hand in hand with that. That's so awesome. Gabby, are you following one of our programs? I'd like to set you up with one if you're not. I'm not at the moment, no. Okay. How many days a week are you working out? But I would love to. I'm probably around three times a week. Oh, good. But I have like some kettlebells and stuff at home to play around with.

So I can do little bits whenever. Do you want to try to get really strong? That kind of scares me. So I come from a family, my husband's family, they're like all competitive lifters. His sister is ranked number one and holds record holds for like Olympic lifting and stuff like that. So I'm completely surrounded by that all the time and it terrifies me. But yes, I understand the benefits and I do want to be strong forever. Okay. Is it an exciting, scary? Like, okay, I want to do this?

Because if you are- Yeah, like every time I lift heavier, I am excited and I'm like, wow, this is amazing what my body can now do. All right, good. I'm gonna send you a message. So yes, yes. I'm gonna send you a power lift. Let's get you to hit some PRs. Okay, amazing. Yeah, let's do that. And keep us posted. Let us know how it goes. Yeah, thank you so much. You got it. And I really appreciate you calling in. I think your call is gonna help a lot of other people.

Yes. No, thank you. This has been a really cool experience. Awesome. Great job, Gabby. Thank you, Gabby. We'll send that to you. Okay, thank you. Oh, that's a nice story. What a tough world. I don't know if you guys ever trained somebody that works in that space. So restricted. Dude, I, man. I had a client who was like smoking cigarettes so she wouldn't eat. It's extremely rare for someone to go through that, especially anyone you've trained that's been there for four years or more to not come out with an eating disorder.

Are you kidding me? Yeah. That's the standard. It's promoted, yeah. It's all eating disorder. It's all dysfunctional. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

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