2926: 5 Fitness Secrets That Guarantee Long Term Success

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One for Apple Podcast. One for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winner is Epic Go. And for Facebook, we have Kevin Bell. Both of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address. And we'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. 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. Long-term fitness success. Getting the body you want. Moving the way you want. Getting the health that you want. Consistently over the course of your entire life is very difficult. I'm going to be quite honest. I can't guarantee it. I just can't. However, I can get pretty close. We're going to cover five things that all but guarantee fitness. Fitness success. This was learned through decades of training and coaching regular people. You want to get in shape. You want to stay in shape. Pay attention. We're going to give you the hacks. Let's go. These first two will be, I don't know if it's controversial, but I think that it will be difficult for people to shift their mindset. Yes. 100%. All of these are going to be difficult. But the key to what we're about to talk about is what we're going to talk about is going to get you where? Where you think you want to go better than focusing on what you think you want. I know that sounds confusing, but I'll start with the first one, okay? Most people start working out, or to put it differently, the number one fitness goal that people have when they start exercising is to get leaner or to lose weight. Yeah. Whatever driving them there is like typically it's an aesthetic focus. Yeah. And losing weight, if we had to go boil it down, it's losing weight. I would say of all the clients that I trained in all the gyms, that I managed, I mean, easily 80%, at least, of the people walking in there, this would be one of their top goals, if not the number one goal. So lose weight. Sure. And I get that. Being overweight is associated with lots of different health issues. But most, I would say importantly, it affects how we look, and it doesn't make us feel good. And I say importantly, not because that's more important, but rather this is really what people focus on. Now, here's a challenge with that. If you focus hard on what you're doing, losing weight and getting leaner, it actually makes it more difficult. I know that sounds crazy because you need a target, but I'll give you a better target. This is a better target. Focus on performance. Go to the gym to become fit. Go to the gym to get stronger and to build stamina and endurance and mobility. Go to the gym to become a more fit version of yourself. This almost always, almost always leads to a leaner physique. It also is a goal that is easier to maintain. It's way more sustainable. More sustainable. And it's harder to treat yourself poorly when you're focusing on performance because your performance will suffer when you start to do things that aren't so good for you. Versus, I mean, I can do a lot of things that aren't good for me that'll make my scale weight go down. And I can ignore how crappy I feel. And I can ignore the way that I starve myself or treat myself because the scale is going down. But if you try to treat yourself poorly with all these other things, what you'll find is your performance will drop. You're just not going to be as fit. You can't do those things to yourself and expect to get stronger and improve endurance. A lot of things have to be done right to improve performance. And I'll say this. This is mostly true. As your performance improves, so does your quality of life. Whereas as the scale weight goes down, the quality of life doesn't always improve. Well, that's why I always like strength as a focus. I know performance. I know performance in general, obviously. But to your point of everything has to be correct. Like you have to feed yourself the correct amount for you to be able to grow muscle. And you have to get adequate amount of recovery for you to be able to adapt and actually build. And all these factors have to play in for you to progress and to see that progression in strength and in performance. Whereas you could make decisions, tempting decisions to temporarily, you know, really drastically cut calories, really kind of put yourself in a place where, you know, you're going against kind of what your body needs. Now, a little pushback on this point because it's been about a year, maybe two years now, when it's been two years, when the big health at any size movement was being pushed. And I forget the young lady's name that was kind of the face of that and was on the magazine covers doing headstands. And, you know, yoga moves and doing, you know, working out, lifting weights and doing her thing. You know, this was pushed, I would say, to the extreme of like, you know, you can be any size and you can be really overweight. You could be obese. She was obese and still, you know, be chasing performance and all these things. So what do you say to that? Because there's obviously people that still have, you know, a major issue with eating and a bad relationship with food and could be training, lifting weights, doing yoga, practicing headstands, but then obviously grossly overconsuming to maintain a weight like that. Yeah, there's the most dangerous lies are the ones that have their foundations in a truth, right? So if you were, let's say you're 50 pounds overweight, but fit, meaning you've got good VO2 max, good strength, good mobility. You do have better health than if you were the right body weight, but not fit. That's actually true. That's actually a fact. The lie is that being 50 pounds overweight has no impact on your health, that it doesn't make a difference. And that's what they sold, which is an actual lie. That being said, I will say this. Some of the most consistent members I ever had in any of the gyms that I ever managed were people that were, you know, purely there to improve their athletic performance and their fitness. By the way, they did not fall in the category of the healthy at any size, you know, that lie. These people didn't buy that lie. They just were in the gym because they like to be fit. They like to be athletic. They like to have stamina and they like to have strength. And I'm going to tell you this right now. Very few of them were overweight. The side effect of their fitness was that they looked pretty fit. They looked relatively fit. But yeah, there is an impact on your health when it comes to excessive body fat. There's also an impact on your health when you're underweight as well. So there's a lie there. But if your goal is genuine and you're going to the gym and you're sincerely like, look, here's the deal. I know I need to lose weight, but for now, here's what I'm going to focus on, man. I want to be able to run. I want to be able to lift. I want to be able to move. I want to be able to swim. I want my body to move well. It's going to be really hard. I want to be 70 pounds overweight and do all of those things. And so what you'll find if you genuinely pursue performance in a genuine way, that the leanness or the weight loss or the fat loss tends to follow. Now, here's what doesn't happen. You typically don't get shredded. And shredded does not lend itself to performance. Even though we see in social media, you'll see people who are 5% body fat. For most people, a body fat percentage that, is associated with good athletic performance. And the man is in the mid teens and in the women. it's in the low 20s uh so uh by the way that this performance will perfect will help protect you from going in that direction as well there's a lot of fitness enthusiasts or say fitness fanatics who are so obsessed with the mirror and body fat percentage they completely sacrifice health and performance in pursuit of being shredded uh and so for them focusing on performance would do the opposite will help them gain body fat which would be better for them yeah so performance is well i i think that that what your point and where you're going feeds right into your second point which is health over aesthetics yes and so if your foundation is focus on performance over trying to get lean typically you get in a pretty good healthy range there i brought up an exception to the rule of what happens in some case but then if that exception of the rule were to focus on the health over aesthetics portion um because you have to be honest with yourself that you're not eating healthy if you are training for performance in the gym and you're still morbidly obese yeah you're you're definitely not you're not eating you're still a high risk factor yeah and you're not eating in a way you're not you're not chasing being health truly healthy you might be chasing uh being stronger or more mobile or uh from that perspective performance uh but you're missing the other side as far as nourishment and and taking care of yourself yeah but i mean again just to be um just to encourage those people because the diet part not to go off too off uh on a on a side tangent here but the the diet part is uh you guys would agree is way harder than the workout part of course yeah if you're going to a gym and you're like man i am struggling with the diet part that is the hardest part first off that's 100 true for everybody but you're like i'm making the gym three days a week and i'm consistent and you know what i'm working hard and you know what i love it but the diet part is the hardest part and i'm just gonna focus on that later i'm not even gonna worry about that right now because it's too hard for me to focus on i'm just gonna go to the gym three days a week and i'm just gonna try and get fit keep going you're doing great keep going don't worry about it for now that second part will come i had a lot of clients like that uh and the nutrition part did come later on uh but they were consistent uh with their workouts yeah now the health over aesthetics this is a this is important because uh placing aesthetics over health uh can can actually look uh or actually match the health of the person who's doing it and i'm just gonna focus on that later i'm not gonna escalate his health quite a bit when i think of people that place aesthetics over health what comes to mind for me this is mainly because i work in this space and i have for decades are the people that are the uh fitness obsessed the fitness obsessed that sacrifice health in pursuit of aesthetics and what it looks like is they eat perfect they never eat outside of their diet they never skip a workout and the way they look is just too high of a priority on their list and they're not going to be able to do that they're not going to be able to do that they're and they sacrifice the health of their relationships and their mental health in pursuit of this particular look so health over aesthetics looks like balance it naturally looks like balance to the fitness fanatic and to the non-fitness fanatic to the couch potato just trying to be healthy i'm going to let the couch potato understand this here um if you're just trying to be healthy and that's your goal your aesthetics will follow they will always follow getting healthier always looks better getting healthier it looks better can you change how you look in pursuit of what say what the world says is aesthetic and actually sacrifice your health you better believe it there's a lot of terrible things you do yourself to try to look better that'll sacrifice your health here's the irony of that your health gets bad enough your aesthetics is gone really bad health looks like really bad aesthetics and then again to the fitness fanatic you got to ask yourself uh what you're placing on top because if aesthetics is on the top the sacrifice will be health and you will sacrifice it on the alternative and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about and that's what i'm talking about of aesthetics and uh it will be um a miserable life you will uh reduce your quality life as a result so health needs to be over aesthetics but if you do that what'll turn what this will can turn into if you're consistent with this is this wonderful consistent relationship with fitness that feels really good i do find that uh having that healthy balance um nutritionally is so uh can be so challenging um this is top of mind for me right now because i i had a a weekend where um katrina and i ate out i had some dessert one day i had a couple glasses of wine at dinner uh with doug and we just i had an it was this was one of those times where it's like this is what we're having that balance right i've been dialed in with our meal prepping and training and being all real good and then we have that what i find is so tough is not that moment but the what follows the next moment day how those create because the way food um has been engineered uh that when you kind of open that can of worms that wild like how do you go momentum man it does it really it really does because so sundays are my days for for prep right and getting ready for the week and i find myself and that this was saturday that we were all we went up to the the event with the team stayed in a nice hotel had some nice drinks had a nice dinner had dessert had a great time was incredible didn't work out right that wasn't on the agenda um and great and i've actually felt my body needed it i've been managing managed maintenance or lower calories so being well fed and overeating felt actually good felt healthy filled out felt awesome but then the next day on sunday just get back on my thing and meal prep the cravings are are there now i resisted and ate well and did good but i think that's where a lot of people struggle is that you know what makes it the hardest struggle is when it hits you and it catches you off guard yeah because you know like with with clients how often do we tell them hey just prepare you know you're going on vacation it's gonna be much harder when you come back to stay consistent than it is right now i think anticipating that makes a big difference but for sure they could do brain imaging and they'll show that your brain the the neural connections will start to adjust to this hyper palatable experience then you go back to your normal food you're like this is boring so it's definitely more difficult and i think that's where the the health fanatics um borderline you know orthorexic people right um justify this is they know that right they they know how much they can go off the rails and so it's this like control like i gotta i gotta bring my meals i gotta do all those things because they don't trust themselves to maybe have a healthy night of eating and drinking and enjoying family and and your people around you to and then go right back to where you need to be you know what the irony is is when i was most in that place uh if i did like go on a vacation and go quote unquote off my diet it was like because i've gone off now i'm gonna go way yeah yeah versus uh now that it's more balanced that doesn't really happen to be as much yeah you know i remember that specifically i go on a vacation and i'd be like okay well i guess i'm going off and then it became about that yeah the vacation became about eating all this that's why that's right yeah you're like oh let's get it in i mean this is why i brought it up i mean uh this because this is literally yesterday the day before and i experienced that i and i and i feel like as i've gotten older um i think i've mentioned this on the podcast before that that pendulum swing is is much smaller now it used to be real it was dialed hardcore weighing measuring tracking everything and then it was like oh well so that that swing is very subtle now yeah but i still remember it and i and i can feel uh that that temptation on the day back of because the cravings are kicked up because you open that can of worms the day before now i don't feel like i have to white knuckle through it it's just like oh i know like i'm aware of it i think to your point awareness is such a big piece of is like i know why i feel like that way it's like we got one of the things that we katrina wanted popcorn and the only way you could get popcorn uh in room service was this i forget what they called it was like um it came with candy and stuff about yeah yeah it was a movie kit yes yeah it was a movie kit or something like that right so yeah i just want the popcorn dude yeah that's all she wanted they're like they don't sell it individually to get this like we need to get this movie kit thing about that which came with sneakers bar kit kat thing and then all the stuff you can't let it go and so of course right so i bring it home with us and i know it's in the freezer i'm like i couldn't tell you the last time i had a kit kat you know but knowing knowing i had that a day before knowing it's in there and it's just like that i'll just go eat that it's like that's how it is so difficult uh i think for a lot of people to to do that um especially right after you kind of open that can of worms now i know what i also know too is that if i could just tough it out and this is i guess the mental game that i play is like if i still really want that you know this week i'll have it you know or i'll do it after i work out on tuesday or whatever and so i play that game of like i'm not gonna tell myself i can't have it i brought it back i am gonna add it you know at one point but what i'll do is i know after today when i get back on my training when i eat my my regular meals i won't even i won't even you know the illustration that comes to mind with this uh because that's gonna happen so i'm glad you said that adam um it's not like you do this and they're like it's fixed like this is a this is a this is just a constant journey but it's like you know it's like shooting an arrow at a target that's really far away and when you fire the arrow imagine if you could follow the arrow along its path and make slight adjustments to keep it on target okay the only way you'd be able to do that is if you kept your you can move it to the left. Oh, we're going too far to the left, move it to the right. And you can keep moving it to maintain that target. The target needs to be health. If the target's health, then you, then you're, yes, you're going to move side to side, but you're keeping your eyes on the target. If the target is aesthetics, you're going way off. You're going to go in the wrong direction and it's going to lead to a lot of things. Uh, they're gonna make it very difficult for this to be, um, consistent and real for you. Um, here's the next one. Discipline over motivation. This is a big one because motivation feels so good. It's one of my favorite states of mind. Also addicting. Addict. Are you kidding me? So hyped. Motivation is so addicting. We will structure things to create motivation. We'll take substances that make us feel motivated just to get that juice. We love fitness influencers that have the worst advice ever, but yell into the screen and tell you whatever badass to pump you up and to motivate you. We love motivation because when you're motivated, there is no, you don't need discipline. You don't need struggle. There is no struggle when you're motivated. I never had a client skip a workout who was motivated. I never had a client eat, you know, you know, quote unquote unhealthy when they were motivated. It was when they were unmotivated, this became a challenge. It was never the motivated state of mind. The problem is, is that we love motivation so much. We fall in love with it, that this is the state of mind that we work in. And when we're out of motivation, we have no tools. We have no ways to deal with what it's like to not feel motivated. So you look up and down. That's what it looks like for you. It's either on or off. It's either great or off or not great because motivation is what I'm aiming at versus discipline. Discipline is there all the time. Now, discipline when you're motivated is great. When you're not motivated, it's still there. So focus on discipline. How do I build the skill of discipline? One small step at a time. One little step at a time. You build upon previous discipline. And over time, this builds. This is a long process of building. Make that the target. The target is discipline. So how do I start with this? Well, I'm not working out right now, but I feel super motivated and I haven't worked out in five years. I'm gonna go to the gym five days a week. Let me stop for a second. Hold on a second. Five days a week. Can I maintain that when this feeling goes away? No way. There's no way I'll go five days a week, 30 days from now or 60 days from now when the inevitable happens where I become unmotivated. Let me pick a schedule that I think I can stick to when this feeling goes away. What does that look like? And if I'm being quite honest, it's one day a week. One day a week is more than zero days, which is what I'm doing now. I'm going to go one day a week to the gym because I know what's going to happen. 60 days from now, I'm going to lose my motivation, but I think I can maintain the discipline of one day a week. And you stick with that. And over time, this turns into two days or three days or whatever, but you build upon previous discipline. This is the target. Be careful with falling in love with or worshiping or focusing solely on motivation. It's a great thing. Nothing wrong with it. I love it, but it will not serve you. Now, here's the catch. Here's the part that's really cool. The more discipline you develop, the more motivation peaks its head in. So the more consistent you are with little bouts of discipline, the more experiences you're going to have with that feeling of motivation. So if you actually want to do that, you're going to actually like being motivated, you still want to be disciplined. It gives you more of that. Yeah. What do you think the secret to becoming disciplined is? Because I feel like it's real easy to say that. I don't think that's what we're saying. It requires reps. Small reps. Small reps. That's it. It's a skill. So it's like learning how to play the piano or how to squat. It's interesting because it very much parallels, to me, integrity and building your character. It's hard to do the right thing when nobody's looking. It's hard to go to work out when you don't feel like you want to do it. But then again, to be consistent, you have to really kind of introduce these immovable patterns one step at a time. And so this is my one immovable thing that I know I can stick with and then just start with that. You're going to build on that. It naturally is going to build momentum, but for you to do that, that first step is integral. I had a client. So when I figured this out, it was a game changer for me as a trainer. My success rate with my clients, or actually to be more accurate, their success rate went through the roof in comparison to my previous clients or the previous ways that I would try to work with people. And I have one person in particular I'm thinking about. This woman came to me. She was referred to me by one of my doctor clients who had been in her ear about coming to train with me for a while. And this woman was like, I hate working out. I hate gyms. It's not my thing. But for me, it was a game changer for me as a trainer. Finally, you know, she had a good relationship with this doctor and she said, just go see this guy, Sal. He's really good. You'll like him, whatever. So she comes in to meet with me. First words out of her mouth. This is not an exaggeration. I shake her hand, introduce myself. I'm not working out more than once a week. I'm not changing my diet. I'm not doing anything extra. Can you help me? Yes, I can help you. You're just going to come meet with me once a week and that's all we're going to do. Really? Is that really going to do enough to change anything about my health and my fitness? So, well, how much are you working out now? She said, I'm not working out at all. So it's more than what you're doing. It's more. I will show you that you're going to have improvements once a week. Do I need to do more than that? Nope. We'll stay there as long as you want. So I trained this woman once a week and I don't remember how long it was. It was a decent amount of time. It might have been a year, but she came to me and I made that experience good. I trained her appropriately, didn't over train her, didn't beat her up. We trained properly. She got stronger over the course of a year. She came to me and she said, Hey, are there some exercises I could do on my own? And that was the second step. Little by little, she became a very consistent person with her two to three days a week of working out. She started working on her diet, but we had to build it over time. Like any skill, you just don't sit at a piano and play a symphony right out the gates. You got to learn one little thing and it builds upon itself. And that's what discipline looks like. There's two huge things that I hear when I hear that story. One of them is starting really, really, uh, setting the bar really low as far as their, uh, expectations of what they can do. Right. So it's like commit to something so easy. You're like, I know for sure I can always do this. And then I'm sure what happened with her during that process is that she started to connect to the dots, to how it felt. Obviously strength went up. So there was an obvious indicator, but I think the part of the secret to this, I mean, this is what keeps me going the way I go. Cause I don't have any serious fitness goals that I'm trying to both performance or aesthetic. Neither one of those are a focus. So mine right now, yet I show up and do the thing. And I think what it is is that, uh, I mean, I have connected the dots to all the other things that doing some sort of lifting weights does for me. Like I, my energy in that day is always so much better. I sleep way better. I'm a much better husband and father. I do more house chores around the house and help my wife out when I work. Like that have nothing to do with performance or aesthetics or leanness or body fat or anything like that, that I have connected the dots to. And it's like, and what's cool about all of those things is the program design, the progressive overload, exactly what like actually doesn't matter that much. It's literally, I just got to go in there, show up, show up, challenge my body a little bit with weights and, and, and get, go home. And I'll reap a good bit, a good portion of all those benefits. Now, yes, if I program correctly and I progressively overload, I'll see some extra added aesthetic benefits. I'll see some extra performance benefits, but it's like, I've reached a level of those things that it's just like, man, I, I care so much more about the other things that, that takes very minimal effort going in there to do that, to maintain and keep all that going. A hundred percent. Uh, you know, the next thing is, uh, you really have to, this shame will never serve you when it comes to fitness. It'll never now shame is different than guilt. So guilt says, you know, I did this bad thing. Shame says, I am this bad thing, or I am bad. Shame is one of the biggest enemies to fitness success. Why? Because you will stumble guaranteed. You will stumble. It's going to happen. If you shame yourself now again, guilt is different. Guilt is yeah. I made a mistake. Okay. That's admitting I made a mistake. Some people take being anti-shame to being no guilt. Guilt. That's not true. Yes. You did this thing. It was off your program. You missed a week of working out. You ate a whole pizza when you could have had just two slices. Oh man, I shouldn't have done that. That's fine. But when you turn that into beating the crap out of yourself, shaming yourself, using your workouts as a way to punish yourself, restricting yourself because I don't deserve anything better. And I deserve to, to, to feel this way. First off, you can't hate yourself into better health. It just doesn't work. Hating yourself is unhealthy. That's like smoking yourself for lung health. It just doesn't, it just doesn't work. You give yourself grace. What does grace look like? You messed up. We'll start over and done. We're done with it. It's gone. Let's start again. This is what prevents the, I'm going to stop, uh, my diet and stop my workout for the next six months to five years. That's what stops us as grace shame. Cause here's what happens enough. Shame will eventually get you to run and you'll never want to do this again, or you won't do this until the shame wears off, which sometimes can take years. And, uh, that's That's definitely not good. - You know what's crazy that comes to mind is everybody's heard of placebo. I don't know if many people have heard of the nocebo effect, which also, too, it's just that sort of negative feedback that actually deteriorates your health. Like, it's a part of that entire process. But, yeah, I mean, hating yourself to show up, I mean, how long are you going to stick with that? I mean, the sustainability to that alone is rough. You'll run. This tip reminds me of the advice we give a lot to live callers at Call-In. It's a common one that I go back to when it comes to reframing the you missed a day or you didn't have a good day eating or whatever it is. Instead of, like, looking at it as, like, oh, I effed up. I screwed up this. And then falling off the rails like everybody does and spiraling out of control. It's, oh, how many days in a row did I get of doing really well? Oh, it was three days. Cool. I'm back to zero. Let's tomorrow. Let's get back on it. Let's see if I can get to four days. And then, oh, you hit four or five days in a row. Something happened. Instead of, again, beating yourself up, it's, oh, man, I made five days. I got two more than I did before. Start over again. Let's see if I can get to six days. And reframing those inevitable setbacks and, you know, not perfect days, which are going to happen in this process, as an opportunity for you to get better the next time, that's having grace. That's having grace with yourself and reframing. This is not a negative, oh, my God, I'm such a terrible, I'm such a fat ass. I can't do it. Like, instead of beating yourself up, it's, hey, I did, I got a few days in a row and had no mistakes. Let's see if I can get one more of those days in a row and just keep playing that game. And before you know it, you become the person who can string, you know, 60, 90 days. This is the key to being a good personal trainer coach, by the way, is understanding how to communicate this. Because when your clients, this is how we train our trainers, why they're so successful. When you look at the success rate of the clients. The clients that work with our trainers, as defined by getting results, sticking around, being consistent, and wanting to stick around. So, it's a big, these are big parameters for what success is. Some people think success is just losing weight or just getting in shape. That's part of it. The other part of it is can they maintain it? Do they want to maintain it? Do they love the experience? Are we making real, lasting behavioral changes? This is why our trainers are so successful. I remember as a trainer, when early days, my clients. Would hide things from me. This is common with clients and trainers. When your client's like, oh, I'm doing so well, but I had that cake or I missed that workout. And they won't tell their trainer. They won't tell their trainer because they're afraid of letting their trainer down. This makes it very difficult to train and coach people. Actually makes it impossible. If I don't know everything, how can I possibly coach you? I remember when I got good at this, I was the first person my clients would tell when they made a mistake. Because they knew they would get grace from me and we would get back on and go again. And it became so much more successful as a coach and trainer. Here's the last one. This piece right here is completely missing in the fitness space, which is just have fun. Enjoy. How do we get so far away from this? Try to enjoy the process. Look, there's a category of people that will always be fit and healthy because they just have fun doing. They enjoy the hell out of it. Yeah. They just have so much fun doing active things. Yeah. You probably know someone like this in your life. They're like. They're like an older person. They're always fit. Not like they have a structured workout, but they're always doing something active. They're gardening. They're hiking. Swimming. Yeah, whatever. They're doing it with friends. They're just having a blast. They're with their grandkids. It's like, dude, have fun. If you're having fun, you'll always want to do it. You know, the only time that I see this doesn't work well or this conflicts is when somebody is chasing aesthetics and leanness and wants to have fun. So that's like have fun works. You fall in line with health, discipline, grace, performance that way. It's a great way to chase all those things. But when you are focused on an aesthetic and a look, but then you also want to get it from playing basketball or you want to get it from running marathons. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. And then you have this inner struggle. Which is always a conversation I have with somebody who tells me, I love to run marathons or I love playing basketball. And I'm like, cool, keep doing that. That's going to keep you healthy. And fit. How many of those people would keep doing it if they could snap their fingers and look the way they wanted? Yeah. Stop. Right. Yeah. So like having fun means you do it no matter what. That's right. And that's my point is that, you know, some people, I'm having fun. I like to do these marathons. So I thought, yeah, but you're doing it because you want the leanness part out of it. And so that's why you do it. You're doing it for the wrong reasons. You should do it regardless of how you look or not look and not connect those two things. That's when it tends to fall. Okay. All right. I'm going to change. I'm going to change directions here because I just got to comment again on every once in a while we'll be introduced to a product or a method or something. This is rare, by the way. This rarely happens, but it's a product or something that all of us, especially me, is not just skeptical of, but immediately I dismiss it. I'm like, this is crap. This is not going to work. This is whatever. Hocus pocus. Get this out of my face. Well, I did that a while ago with Superpatch because they sent us these. These patches that were non-transdermal, no medicine, no supplements in the patch. It was literally the patch itself that was purported to cause all these changes. And I'm like, that sounds. Triggers some response magically. That sounds a lot like a placebo and I'm not interested. And they're like, dude, just look at the studies. So I'm like, oh, you got studies. Let me see these studies. They're like 15 studies, controlled, peer-reviewed, randomized, like high quality studies. The one that really. Like peaked my interest was the one on pain and the one on sleep because the, the, they worked as effectively like the pain one worked as effectively as like ibuprofen. Well, anyway, I just, they just keep blowing me away. I was on a, and I'll tell you a little bit more about this later, but I was on a camping trip and I didn't bring the sleep patches from Superpatch. And you know, sleep is always not that great camping anyway, but I got home, put the sleep patch on and boy, does it make a difference? I also have friends that measure their sleep. They're like, you know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what to do with like aura rings and stuff. And they've had the patch on, have the patch off. I'm like, no, I can tell the difference. So we just feel more of a deeper sleep, like refreshing. Yeah. Wake up. It doesn't put me to sleep. It's not like a sleepy. They have a sleep one and a REM one, don't they? They have both. No, that is the same one. Same one. Oh, so there's a calm and a REM one. Calm is different. So you wear it overnight. They have a calm and a REM one. Yeah. You just put it on, go to bed. Yeah. And your REM score will go up. Well, yeah. Or actually measures your REM. That's right. So you can see your, your REM. And so that's what I did when we first did it. I mean, that, that and the pain were the two that like it sold me. Yeah. Yeah. Once I saw that, cause one, I had, I track aura consistently. And so I saw a measurable difference. And then the pain one, I, like I said, and I, I didn't know the studies. I remember describing it to you. I said, well, I gave you the, this, my scoring. Right. Yeah. Which was. The pain goes from a nine to a five. Yeah. Which you're like, that's mathematical. That's what I did. Yeah. I didn't know the studies. I said, well, I gave you the, this, my scoring, right. Yeah. Which was. Yeah. Which you're like, that's mathematically exactly what the, the study says. Yup. Yeah. It compares it right to like what, and it feels the best example I have is anyone who's ever had any sort of like pain and they take an Advil, it's like Advil doesn't like. Doesn't erase the pain. Yeah. It doesn't erase it. You know, it doesn't numb you like a hydrocodone or something like that. It literally just, it, it dulls the pain. Yeah. It dulls the pain and makes it more bearable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. your codeine or something like that it literally just it dulls the pain it dulls the pain and makes it more bearable and make can make a significant difference for somebody who's in pain and that's what this is a whole new field of research oh yeah haptic technology which is wow it's funny because like you know i got the pleasure of going to um the atlanta falcons training camp and so i got to go behind the scenes and like talk to a lot of the coaches there and the trainers and you know obviously i can get into all the you know crazy sophisticated like systems and everything they have but like i was they're asking me because they were like curious like all these partnerships we have and all the stuff like well what's you know what's like kind of the latest cool thing i'm like you know we do get like opportunities to meet like cool companies and owners of companies and i was like you know this super patch is something to really you know pay attention to it's like i wouldn't have ever you know thought it had any validity because you know it's just like like you described but uh you know like all these studies coming out for performance and it's something to look into and they were like all geeking out about it so we'll see yeah how was that by the way going out there it was so fun it was it was so were you in their like training camp you were like there we were there yeah so um beth you know the our caller that um you know invited us and whatnot like um it was so great she's such a great host and and showed me like pretty much every behind the scenes part of the facility possible uh got to see like uh you know like just man they really baby these guys like to be honest like everything you think even we have like our our haircut kind of set up with a barber shop they have like such a sick barber shop in there to like get their haircuts like you know they have like this whole like leather seat almost like a first class um you know when you sit first class get these like really cool leather seat like they had that for each locker is basically that have their own screen and then they have like you know like so i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh stuff to like literally dry their clothes like in there so it like has like fans in there so everything you know uh doesn't smell bad and uh that's cool dude it looks like a lounge like like some vegas lounge you know and you're just like what dude these guys but uh i mean i spent most of the time in the actual gym of course because i was geeking out on what was the equipment how they train everybody uh everything you can think of that was cool like they had um you know really nice squat racks they had um it was surprising me actually they had a ton of the the stick mobility sticks and they were all warming up with them they had this big screen that um it was cool because they had it had examples of like specific warm-ups that they could kind of choose from but i mean to the level of degree of like individualization they all have their own ipads so when you sign on and they bring you on they give you an ipad and it basically you know has all your biomarkers like it like uploads you you get an assessment from like a physical therapist they kind of do all the background checks of like any discrepancies what was cool was like for me geeking out uh back when i created axon and tried to do this whole thing with like um you know like measuring people's uh abilities their output for uh force output so they had they actually have a machine um that they were like checking their soleus uh output and so that way too they could like prescribe you know a better warm-up a better workout based off the soleus based off the soleus and then they would do this on um specifics for somebody who had you know like some discrepancies already and like again this is all part of the screening process and it like uploads it and then they can adjust so they have like a a template for like a block training um that everybody has uh for that specific week uh but then like they go in first of all the physical therapists can go on and modify it then the trainer can go on and modify it to individualize it and then they just even if you're a new player they'll just take all that you know like get you through the screen process put the ipad on the rack you're going to work out and then they just step up you know what's my workout boom and then they they do it oh that's so cool this is next level dude that is so crazy i wonder how much is being monitored on there like you remember how when we uh interviewed cory in the the volume of steps and movement yes okay so they also have a a whole system uh i think it's called zebra uh but they it's these chips that they put on um in their the pads and everything else to measure uh their acceleration and output and so like they call it like speed reps so like the amount of volume of speed reps is what and if you don't exceed or if you don't match your goal so they set goals already for each person um you know but they don't set goals for each person um you know based on what they want them to exert and so it's like if you don't hit that then you're running sprints no shit to hit your yeah to hit your target wow that is okay so now they have the technology now how crazy is that it's crazy to measure the effort that they are giving yeah i mean that oh back in the days the coach would just catch you like yeah yeah look at you and be like shave or move your ass it would be like that you know what i'm saying but then they get competitive like every day they have like a uh uh sort of leaderboard of like who's had the fastest reps you know and all that so you can kind of see it that's cool give feedback and i was blown away but then i wonder how much so i wonder too if they're using like uh aura rings or they're using stuff to monitor sleep quality and see how good they're because we know that that's one of the highest risk for injury so that would be cool if they're inputting data like that too or it's just like oh it looks like justin got a 55 score last night we're going to tell him to back off his intensity today and his lifting yeah it didn't look like they followed it um for sleep like outside of the train but they also had like a secondary system with like these polar heart rate monitors and so they could also measure a lot of their cardio output with that a little more specifically doug pulled up the they're called zebra performance monitoring is what i think it's called doug scroll down i want to see what the system collects this is the data that it collects how fast a player runs how far a player runs how fast the football travels when thrown how much the football spins dude and where players are on the field at all times isn't that crazy bro they're breaking it down to the most insane detail like and they're using the the thing is they're using the data like these coaches like it's it's a bit overwhelming because they have to like take all of this information and then like the complicated it's complicated but they want to simplify so each player is like oh i just do this let's see if adam picks up on what i'm going right here so check this out the public also gets to see these numbers during game broadcast yeah for betting reasons i wonder i wonder i was just thinking that i wonder if if this is like tightly kept like that like how they're practicing because if somebody got their hands on practicing data you could you could yeah you can literally be like oh no i'm betting against the broncos all the stuff that's going on right now um what's the you've brought it up before what's the betting the huge betting platform that everyone's doing now that bets on everything what's it called i don't know you know what it's called it's like presidential rod you get bet on i don't know any of them oh no i know what you're talking about what's not the insurance of it it's called come on you guys just some one of you guys has to know the name of it polymarket polymarket all this all the shit that's going on because they bet on on uh elections to everything there's everything there's nothing that you can't not bet on it's like it polymarkets but there's so much uh there's a lot there's like there's a lot going on right now with lawsuits and and people that have inside tracks to things like really oh yeah yeah that's i just saw i just saw a threat on this and i went down the rabbit hole watching some of the stuff that's going on but look at all the things you can do on bet you can bet on bitcoin where it's going to go you can bet on i mean you can bet on anything literally everything you could possibly think of you can you can bet on speaking of tech did you guys see what happened this just happened in australia and this is just so wild that this actually happened so i'll pull up i got to read to you guys what happened because um you know how many i don't know how many warnings are we going to get about ai and what it could potentially do and how many how many warnings are we going to get before people do anything trip off this australia this is australia's first known autonomous ai cyber attack you ready for this this guy used this ai agent and said hey can you book me a time uh like a very innocuous like innocent things like hey to his agent get me get me a time uh at the 9 30 spin class so the ai agent went to the gym's website and saw that the spin class was full so what do you think the ai agent did cancel somebody else it hacked the gym and hacked their schedule canceled took someone off the roster and put them on do you guys know why this is crazy that's that is he didn't tell his agent to do that no he didn't say anything the initiative it went on its own and hacked the gym because it's a good little worker yes so what's crazy about this is like our systems are our security systems are basically designed around like like what are the probabilities someone's going to try and hack your gym to try to get us like nobody cares so it's like dude everything is gonna have to be crazy secure oh yeah yeah over a simple thing i mean it's like it's like it's like it's like it's like i mean that's a that's a pretty good bet right there on like uh you're trying to bet on companies or things that are gonna it's gonna be a lot of these security uh company internet security companies will have to go through dude it literally went on and hacked by itself i got your time sir 9 a.m oh cool thanks a little bump yeah dude it's crazy are you guys are uh and you guys are you guys what you know uh uh show lioness is out again you guys watching it no i haven't started i've been hating to get it i love it so i watched the uh the first episode but it's good did you want the first episode of this the first season oh yeah i'm just getting into it oh you're just now getting into that's really good oh it's really good so season two just started about all this kind of stuff so uh well so what i like about it is they they they do kind of current stuff so like season two is like ukraine war stuff oh it's like what's happening yeah and what and i'm it makes me actually really curious of like how accurate it is because uh something just didn't cross my mind like how that war is being fought and everything you showed me some stuff of like the the drone footage dude you can find this online okay so so it's crazy so that's what they say the show is depicting and the way they describe it so there's a scene in it that opens up this isn't ruining the show it's not like a big surprise um there's a scene where the cia agents uh uh cia fbi agents are meeting up with like the like navy seal guys or whatever that are like on the ground doing the stuff and of course you got this battle of power of like who has to listen to and the the seals that have been that have been working or delta i don't know which one what team it is is has been already on the ground fighting this war is basically talking shit to the cia people like you have no authority here because you have you've never you've never trained for a war like this it's like world war one meets star wars so it's like trench wars with drone shit and so they like there's scene there's scenes in there where they're fighting in trenches and they're like literally fight like that close combat but then also using like like thousands of drones that are coming in and just dive bombing on on i saw one video because people they post them the soldiers post them where there's like a soldier hiding in the bush and a drone will fly over him and then see him so you're seeing it from the drone's camera and it captures him and then he he looks up and sees it and then it just flies towards him and of course the screen cuts out because it probably explodes yeah basically they show that these are just like you know hundred dollar amazon drones with c4 on it and they're just designed and they're they just come flying so literally they're in hand-to-hand combat type stuff and then all of a sudden thousands of drones swarm of them coming over and they're just dive bombing on on on people that are it's like so like just wild to think that that's crazy and i don't know how accurate again it it is i imagine it's probably somewhat accurate or that was what it's like but tripped me out watching that that's crazy this season's good though so i'm on it's only got two episodes out but it's uh they came out the gates pretty good what's it say done yeah uh one drone often acts as the leader it flies ahead to find and pick the target then the other drones in the group follow the leader and carry explosives they dive into the target to blow it up many of these drones use artificial intelligence so they can make choices on their own without a human flying them yeah yeah that's not not good and they're cheap whatever cool i think shooting nets up right am i just thinking crazy yeah yeah just like fire a bunch of nets up there yeah i don't know yeah i don't yeah i don't even know how well i mean it's like there's like thousands you know yeah yeah it looked like i couldn't tell uh but look like they even had special new guns that to shoot them yeah to shoot them like almost like they're like shotgun so they birdshot yeah birdshot type stuff so it's not yeah trying to a single bullet like widespread yeah you want something that's gonna hit probably four or five of them at once or like that and so they were shooting different guns i was like oh that must be yeah it must be like a new gun that's designed for that um i'm gonna again i'm gonna take another left here they um i was reading some studies on oil uh on oils that are used in foods but also in the same article they talked about fish oil because that's a popular supplement that people take i'm taking mine consistently right now yeah yeah me too um especially because you know we met with dr cabral such an easy way to change your inflammatory you know profile such an easy way to do it is to supplement with fish oil um well doug scored the best and he's the only one that's been super consistent with it yep and you can it's very predictable you take high epa fish oil for a month you do a blood test and you take a blood test and you see a difference but i went online and i'm like how many fish oils uh out there are rancid or not um you know 100 fish oil a lot i'm sure is it a lot yeah i'm sure a lot a lot of it's garbage because fish oil is such a popular supplement now you can go to the grocery store and buy grocery store brand fish oil it's super cheap you can buy it anywhere and a lot of them are either not fish oil or they're bad it's rancid just because it's a food it's fish oil oil i remember somebody i used to work with nutrition lady and and she would poke a hole in it and then you'd smell it and it was like man quite a few brands yes rancid smell yep so keon uh people are like which was which a good fish well keon is like super super high quality super high quality i used to have that's the one i'm yeah we have them here so it's easy for me to take yes and i don't get the like fish burps from them that's right yeah i've had ones before i'm like oh the oh dude so so along those are pleasant along those lines do you guys so they did a test on on processed foods that say that they're made i'll pull it up with like um avocado oil or olive oil you guys want to hear the fail rate 48 out of 54 tested avocado oil products didn't have avocado oil 48 out of 54 way too many i saw that clip i saw that instagram clip somebody posted dude you know just stay away from processed foods i think that's just what we're gonna do yeah because it's all processed foods right it's like hey potato chips made in yeah avocado oil or you know just kidding yeah it's all it's all it's all crap it's all crap that sucks that sucks it does anyway i gotta tell you guys about this this potential purchase that i'm considering uh which you guys know me i'm not a big like buy things kind of person yeah but i went camping uh over the last four days and we used an rv uh and so i'm not a big camping guy obviously so i did it in the least camping way possible i've actually so i think it was so cool i went and like looked it all up after you did it and i was like oh my god i'm not a big camping guy because i have never heard of what you did so here's what i did so if when you know if you know me personally you know this about me but like one of my big challenges is like um i place comfort and convenience way too high on the priority list so if something's not comfortable to me i don't want to do it which prevents me from doing a lot of things unfortunately camping being one of them like you go camp in a tent you're not comfortable there's you don't have all your conveniences camping yeah and so i just don't do it and and it sucks because i know how valuable it is for like for kids this is like it's a good time i love camping as a kid but that's because mom and dad handled everything right so my cousin uh he has an rv and he's like dude let's go camping whatever so i'm like nah i'm not gonna do that and he goes you know you can have them drop an rv off you know like a big trailer off for you so i'm like really what do those things have like it has everything so that's what i did so they dropped off a trailer which is cool i was aware of for forever you've been able to rent these yes you've been able to rent an rv oh dude i went overboard i got like a 40 foot like this thing's like a monster yeah you had like i saw you had like four anything that has like four pop outs or more is it a land yacht or what it was a monster uh didn't have hookups the place doesn't have hookups so you still have to have a generator and you'll run out of water uh but you know for me it was a step towards you know and i was not comfortable i still wasn't comfortable it was still a little bit of anxiety around it but my kids man had so much fun i bet they loved it oh so much that my son cried when we left really oh wow he cried for 30 minutes on the way home i want to go back i want to live there i don't want to go home because it just the whole time so there was uh it was me my cousin gabriel alex my cousins uh sep and my brother so it's five of us and we took this kind of campground the circular campground and we all have little kids yeah so for the kids for us it's like total safety like my kids could run off just run and as long as i see that they're near you know my cousin or whatever i'm like ah over here doing my thing so the kids experience this great freedom they the whole time they're running riding their bikes climbing playing they're coming together it's just such a wonderful time for the kids and so uh you know and it took me like a couple days to like not be so anxious about the you know they don't have all the things that i'm used to type of deal so we get home and my wife and i were talking about this i'm like you know i need to challenge my comfort level and i need to gradually do it so i think if i bought like a motor home that i could that would probably be the next level because i could do like because we're in california there's a lot of places nearby you could park a little motor home and it goes like this boat yeah motor home race simulator yeah three worst investments that you can buy and never use that's the order just so you know okay so motor home is right up the only thing worse is a boat yeah but the thing is it takes a lot of space yeah and it's way more than the other ones well what i would do what i'm gonna do because that 100 i know that i know the stats on that is uh we're gonna do like two or three trips where we rent a motor home first yeah and then if it's like we could do this if you consistently yeah like if we could do this and we're gonna do this thing like often that's smart then i'll do it but we're gonna do that i mean so i've been around a lot of them uh and the people that i have seen that actually get their money's worth are almost retired and older yeah like that like that that is they and they have decided that this i'm going to travel the united states and this is what we're going to do and so my cousin uses his quite a bit but he's got a couple things going for him first off he's self-employed so he's got some flexibility there and then his kids are homeschooled oh that's those are the two big blocks yeah yeah right is your job and your kid's school sure so they could take off and yeah yeah i mean you kind of have that exactly yeah you can yeah i thought of that because our schedule here yeah you know it's fixed yeah yeah number so that's number one my kids are homeschooled and then number three where we live i looked up places that are within an hour that even have full hookups or partial tons tons everywhere they're all over everywhere so i'm like okay i'll try it out there's cool beach there's beach ones all over the place go big were you guys were you guys when you're felton that's where you guys went at bodega bay where you guys were all those uh big shaded trees are and then the beach is like walking right down in front of you was right there yeah yeah so we just had to cross the road yeah i know right where you guys were out yeah that's a great spot that's a really cool that's a really cool place it was awesome yeah it was great anyhow you get you know everything's dirty and you know i know people are laughing when i actually camp because they're making fun of me right now like that's not camping i know it's not camping yeah but i gotta i gotta start where i'm at and i'm over here now what we did like mr what we did growing up was the the parents got that and then us kids had a camp in tents now obviously your kids are so little that you don't do that but at one point you would do my parents had a tent trailer we had like yeah the tents outside yeah that's that's eventually what you do is that mom and dad have that and then the kids get which the kids actually normally like that once they get to a certain age they can rough it yeah yeah once you get just you they want their own little little thing and so you get them their own tents and they camp right outside the rv and you you're inside the rv once you have like an apnea mask and you have like bro that was the other thing too you have all these things you know as an adult that you're like oh man like yeah it becomes less appealing it's yeah but it was it was you know the kids is what's motivated me because if it was just me like i don't know if i would ever do it but to see the value that i brought my they did yeah they didn't sit down at all well i would go the whole time i mean you'd love this just watch them right dude they were having so did you guys done did you guys because this is something i could totally get in with you i would love to do this is uh and i would do the same thing i would just rent i would just rent one um because what makes the more and more fun is like you guys book that for next year and we take on another two more sites that's right and then And then before you know it, we dominate the whole camp area. all family and friends into the competitive yosemite places where everybody does it like you know oh my god it's impossible to get a good spot there this is this is a whole world it is and i think to cove it probably accelerated a lot of that where it's hard to get like passes ahead of time now you have to like book it like a year oh yeah that's why i said that you like if you guys like doing that and that was a good spot what we do is you you book now for next year yeah that's every year we would do this because we would go we roll like 50 something deep so we take a whole entire camp area like that over and it was so fun because it was every you knew everybody you know everybody and so your kids can just go everywhere yeah so they're running all over to all the campsites and different things and the adults are having like we we had theme nights every night where there was like a you know it was greek night and then this was like hawaiian night it was like and then and different keep different families were in charge of putting on the theme night and so that sounds like see yeah see for me it's like for the for two things it's the for the kids i saw how much value it brought them and i'm like man i got to do this for them and then for me i got to do it because it'll challenge this thing that i have with comfort like i have to be able to get over this whole issue with like i got to have all the stuff that i'm used to type of deal well you know they say i i wish i remember the exact stat on it i remember seeing it was actually really surprising on like your your kid will forget birthday presents they'll forget all okay but they that camping trip they'll remember that camping trip it's like forever and that i mean i and i know that firsthand from like i've i've forgotten so much of my childhood but i could i could recall every every camp here i can remember every camping trip that we went to it was it was so great to see all the kids play and my brother was there with his boys and they're just those kids run on nuclear reactors but his oldest his five-year-old is so uh um kinesthetically gifted it's wild so he's first of all he's five not only does he ride a two-wheel bike like a like like he's been riding for his whole life my brother bought him a mini bmx uh bike for five-year-olds so my brother went and got him like a good one because he's like he loves it yeah bro this kid flies on that thing on his nobody teaches him anything i'm like did you teach him today he's like no he's constantly doing tricks on his own yeah he'll ride take his legs off the pedals he'll take his hands off the pedals he'll kick the back out he'll skid he'll try to jump things so he fell like three or four times while we were there so you'd hear him crying he'd run over there you know put a band-aid on him i'm like oh he's probably done my brother's like no sure enough he jumps on the bike and just at one point my brother is like it's like okay he's like he's going too dangerous because he was doing stuff that you're like this kid's we gotta be careful it's so wild the kids are different dude my brother tells him he goes uh that's it you're not gonna ride the bike for an hour oh my god dude he like they devastated him meltdown please he's crying i'm like oh my god take it away from me but i have never seen a five-year-old so like kinesthetically gifted like that he was doing things on that bike that's my my godson and my goddaughter like that dude my son my best friends i mean he's the give and take is that they're also they're terrors if they're not moving they're not doing something they're getting into something you know you have to keep them busy and doing that stuff but boy they are just they're they're talented he's got him now he sent videos yesterday of uh you're out there doing foot drills with my godson yeah dude backpedaling and shipping karaoke drills and everything like that and it's like oh my god dude so such a i mean and him and max are only one year apart they're not like five years apart they're barely apart i'm like getting max to go do foot drills would be hilarious he'd be like i'm doing this what are you doing what are we doing dad you know my hope right now is the swimming thing because he's taking to the pool like a fish right now so that's that's where i'm like okay we this could be the thing because he's all about it right now he'll swim he'll swim all day and dive in the bottom and picking all the coins off and holding his breath forever and so it's like okay well maybe maybe this will be our thing that's good joy mode was created because the products on the market are terrible and they knew they could do better prescriptions come with all sorts of side effects well joy mode makes natural and science backed wellness products for men their sexual performance booster well it's like a pre-workout for sex it does improve erection quality and firmness and even sex drive now it contains clinically supported doses of l-citrulline arginine yohimbi and vitamin c it was created with best in class scientists and biochemistry phds look it will give you a better pump if you know what i mean you can also take it as a pre-workout with your normal pre-workout for better athletic performance or you can take it daily for better endothelial health that's the health of your blood vessels it really does work go check it out go to try joy mode dot com slash mind pump use the code mind pump and checkout for 20 off your first order back to the show our first caller is thais from california hi thais hi thais hey guys hello how you doing oh my gosh i'm here made it how can we help you um okay well i will certainly ramble if i don't read the email so i'm gonna do that um and remind myself that um i did want to say thank you guys so much um you've definitely made a huge impact on my life and um i feel super privileged to be able to be here with you and have this opportunity um so uh my name is thais i'm 48 years old a single mom massage therapist and an avid mind pump listener um before anything else i want to thank you for the life-changing impact you've had on me your content has brought a much more grounded and wholesome understanding of what it means to be a healthy human i also want to mention that i recently finished three months of coaching with sack from your mind pump team and while i expected to be supported through reverse dieting and appropriate training um what i actually received was much more impactful and healing for me um i really started learning how to listen to my body's cues nourish myself respect the needs and timeline of my unique situation um zach was insightful compassionate and wise beyond his years and it was one of the most valuable investments that i've made wow i love hearing wonderful thank you love hearing that yeah um so now that our coaching has ended i would love your advice on how to structure my training um i'm experiencing ongoing pain and tightness that does not seem to match the minimal amount of training that i'm doing um and i hope that you can help me understand how you might approach this um i'm going to give you a little background on me and my my story because i think that um it adds to the whole situation um as a teenager i weighed 275 pounds um i struggled with compulsive overeating and binge eating um after losing 100 pounds when i was 16 i spent years chasing health um and aesthetics through a lot of um different types of restrictive diets not so much exercise but i did start dancing back then and i just started walking everywhere i went but it was more i associated food you know with um my body uh at 24 i entered an emotionally abusive relationship it lasted over 20 years um after my son was born 16 years ago i developed chronic insomnia um that has followed me ever since uh it was you know really bad when he was first born like i was sleeping two hours a night um up the entire night just freaking out and then finally falling asleep around 6 a.m and then he'd wake up two hours later that lasted about eight months and um my sleep is a lot better than that now but it's still i still struggle um okay so uh yeah so i learned to survive on very little sleep i showed up for my kid you know i did what i had to do to push through exhaustion and ignore what my body was telling me so i really learned how to hit override and live from that place um two and a half years ago i finally left that relationship um and have been rebuilding my life ever since a year after living leaving that i rediscovered my love of dance and i've been living my life ever since uh movement was a really important part in my weight loss journey and became a passion until um i got lost in this abusive relationship um and so let's see yeah after about a year and a half ago uh i was dancing i also discovered strength training at that time i fell in love with it um and i also fell into the trap of under eating overtraining and i also fell in love with it um and i also fell into the trap of overtraining um i did you know i i guess i lost another um not that the weight on the scale matters so much but i did lose another like 45 pounds in that year i had gotten quite heavy again um and let's see by the end of 2025 i had gone from 180 to 135 i was eating around 1600 calories a day lifting almost daily and was constantly sore and exhausted i was sleeping only four to five fragmented hours each night but kept pushing because i was terrified of losing my progress um I want to add in there that like a big piece for me that drove my desire to like start moving my body again was that ever since I had lost the initial weight um when I was a kid uh you know I was left with all the baggy skin you know the stretch marks and the loose skin and I just felt even though I had gotten small I always felt gross you know I felt kind of hideous when I look at myself um and that never changed and it was about two years ago where I was seeing my body again and feeling those same old feelings and was finally like you know I've done all the food stuff I've gotten really small I went on a candida cleanse at one point got down to 116 pounds but I still saw the same thing it was a bunch of flesh and bone and so it was two years ago that I was like you know screw this I'm uh I'm gonna see what I can do um to fix my body finally you know and that's when I started dancing again and swimming and then I learned about strength training so that's what pushed that and I did get really strong in a year but I was over training under eating and losing some momentum although I would keep going to the gym but I was getting to that place where you know I um I didn't have the same kind of drive and excitement that I had in the beginning um so finding you guys changed my perspective and um that was my sister actually introduced me to you she's been listening to you guys for years but I think that I first listened to your podcast um a year ago December or something like that and I've been listening to you daily ever since um so by March of this year I'd increased my calories to about 1900 um I was still frightened to reduce training um and was still in a significant pain cycle I started working with Zach and May I knew what you guys would tell me I heard other people on your show um with similar kind of experiences and I heard what you guys were telling them but I knew I couldn't do it on my own so I did end up working with Zach um we increased my intake to around 2400 calories a day and dramatically reduced my training volume um so we were landed in like a muscle mommy 15 thai style um protocol prioritizing mobility and shifted the goal away from the aesthetics towards restoring my sleep and recovery so really I feel like my work with him was really all about uh recovery and I was able to do a lot of things with him and I was able to do a lot of great and sleep and that's good the main thing that I gained is that that's the number one goal and that it's not about beating myself up and chasing some aesthetic thing you know even though I'm not sleeping even though like realizing that I've been living in this place of survival and override and not listening to myself so what a gift you know what a blessing that was um and I could not have done it on my own I was still weighing myself daily um my scale has been away for three months now I haven't stepped on it yeah I know I've gained weight but um and both you know I know I've gained muscle and I've gained some fat back but I'm my my focus now is on this um restoring my health you know from the inside out becoming a vigorous enlivened um restored version of myself and um so anyhow uh yeah I say I realized at this time for years what I thought was self-care was really self-bullying disguised as self-improvement and that is true um today my priorities are very different um I still care about building the muscle becoming stronger fixing the skin like that's the one thing when I did get down when I got really lean and had built a significant amount of muscle the skin that like if I were to have it surgically removed would be forty thousand dollars that I don't have um but for the first time in my life it didn't really matter because the muscle was showing through and the skin just seemed to firm up and a little bit of like it just didn't show up as much it felt really good um so I I do still struggle with that a bit but I'm letting it go because I know that's not the priority and I could potentially get back there um so okay doing my best not to ramble um so for so much of my life I've lived in survival um I honestly don't know what it feels like to live from a balanced mental emotional and physical place um and that's really what I'm working on right now but here's where I'm hoping for your guidance um even with eating more which has been so much fun I like I'm not afraid of food right now and that feels so amazing that's like one of the most healing experiences uh Zach even pushed me to eat more carbs he was like you know I'm and I've been frightened of carbs so like having a big old plate of potatoes with eggs for breakfast has been like just just deeply nourishing it feels so good um but even with eating more training much less and sleeping a little bit better still very much a work in progress but I am I'm doing better um I wake up with sore muscles tight tissues stiff joints I often feel physically depleted which I know that makes sense with the lack of sleep but like the pain um I'm sore every day and every night despite the reduced workload um and I feel more physically uncomfortable now than I did when I was over training the other important piece of this puzzle is my profession so I'm a massage therapist in private practice my business has grown from one client a week three years ago to averaging about 22 clients each week and that's 22 clients some of those are hour sessions some of those are 90 minute sessions um on my busiest days I could perform up to about six six hours um of hands-on work I'm still on my feet in between that because I'm you know cleaning up the space preparing for the next client um I I love what I do uh my clients love the work I provide I I help people um I also do uh put focus on good body mechanics um but it's still hours of physically demanding work I'm requiring strength stability endurance and sustained focus um I also want to add that from being overweight like when I was you know my body was still growing my arches are falling my knees are not need like I've been working on these things um but I think that the structure of my body might also have to do with where I experience uh discomfort so I say here my current stats I'm 48 I'm 5'8 I'm probably around 150 pounds at this point about 2400 calories a day I do get eight to ten thousand steps a day um I work four and a half days a week which is four to six hours of massage um two days off one of those days I'm still doing stuff because I'm like washing 22 sets of sheets and you know running errands and stuff but not working in the office so given everything I've done I'm still doing stuff I'm still doing stuff I'm still doing stuff I'm still doing everything I've shared I'm wondering how to structure my training um I will say that last week I took the week off I did like a deload week you know hoping that that might help to give me some relief and I think that it did um and I did not think I was going to get on a call with you guys so I was like all right you're just gonna have to like figure out what to do and um so basically I've been doing mobility work every day I'm planning for the next couple of weeks and I'm planning to keep that up even the days that I do go to the gym and then I decided to try only lifting on my days off so instead of breaking it up into small uh workouts every day to do two days of full body and um so I'm wondering what you guys think would be my best course of action um restoring my sleep is still my highest priority um maintaining my strength is really important for me um and also you know working on just mobility functionality being able to move how I want to move um I do enjoy dancing and and there's so much I'd like to be able to do and contribute and you know I just want to be the strong healthy clear version of myself and it's been um feeling really challenging like I'm I'm in a kind of catch 22 between recovery sleep and um staying you know on top of my fitness yeah I feel you and I really appreciate you calling in this is going to really help a lot of people who are watching this um so I have a few questions for you if that's okay first off you're kicking ass you're doing really well I just want to point that out you're doing really good just want to point out like how far you've come and what you've accomplished and where you're at you're doing incredible okay thank you so much the pain that you feel is general it's kind of stiffness and soreness kind of all over um yeah lately lately it has been um and and there can be specifics too it's different like there are specific pain points that I think are more about my, uh, my structure. Like I do get, um, intermittent pain in my shoulders with pushing. Like I feel like I cannot do pushups right now because it's painful. Um, and doing any overhead pressing, I really have to adjust my scapula before I do that and make sure they're in their right position. Um, I can get up there, but getting there can hurt until I get to this point. And then when I press, um, I can get more comfortable with that. Uh, and then, you know, I go in and out of having very specific knee pain that does come along with inflammation. Um, so, and yeah, yeah, there's a couple of things that we'll point to. And, um, first we got to get this out of the way. You've had things like nutrient levels tested to make sure your vitamin D levels are normal and anything and all that. Have you checked that? Yeah. Um, I did. I don't know if you guys have heard of the whole functional, I can't remember the name of it, but I had a whole mess of labs done and I do believe D was in there. And I think that I'm pretty much in normal ranges. I also take D, I take 10,000 a day right now. Okay. We're fine there. Okay. So a couple of things I just want to point out. Um, and it was something you said earlier, uh, that I want to kind of go back to, you said now with the reduced volume, uh, and the, you know, kind of better sleep, you feel like you're almost like feeling more pain than you did when you were over training and, and, and just running yourself ragged. You said that, right? So here's what kind of happens in those situations, right? Um, sometimes we train the heck out of ourselves cause we're, uh, running, we're running from something and we don't give our chance, our bodies or ourselves a chance to feel. You probably know this better than anybody in the profession that, that with the profession that you do, I'm sure you've had people on your table, finally get a chance to relax. You work on them and, and then they cry and they're like, what's going on? Why am I tearful? It's like, well, you slowed down just long enough for yourself, for you to allow yourself to feel. And so it's not, uh, shocking to me that now that you're allowing your body to heal, that you're treating yourself better, that you feel more, there's a little bit of safety there. There's some safety there that now you're, you're, you're, you're kind of safe to, to perceive the pain differently. Whereas before you had to shut it off. So you could survive. Does that make sense? That does make sense. Yeah. Okay. Here's the other thing you're massaging a lot. I just, that's the direction I'm going. Massage therapy is very physical and the injury rate with massage therapists is through the roof. You know this better than anybody. Uh, but I've employed massage therapists and the injury rate is, it's, it's very active. You are in there, you're moving. And if you have to have good biomechanics and body positioning, but even with that, it's a very demanding physical job. It's also very emotionally demanding because you're not just putting your, your, you're not just using your body, but you're also feeling the person's emotions. That's what makes you probably what makes you a good massage therapist. So that's a lot of volume. So you've got a lot of movement volume there. You've also got, you got out of a long-term abusive relationship. It's only a couple of years out. You've also got your sleep still, although better as something you're kind of working on, but I'm going to point out, it's been a few months and you've gone so far already, but I'm also going to point out something that might make you, uh, might be a little bit more encouraging and a little bit more revealing to you. How many years, how long did you bully yourself? How many years was that? Would you say, uh, let's say 32 and you are, you are three months into, uh, taking care of yourself. It's going to take, it's going to take some more time. So you've been in this dark tunnel. You kind of see some light, but it's a bit confusing. Keep moving towards the light. Like you're doing the right stuff. You're doing the right stuff. Keep moving in that direction. You're going to have to take care of yourself for a while, actually for the rest of your life. And it's going to change what that looks like. Is it going to change? But right now, what it looks like is being gentle, giving yourself grace, taking care of yourself for the rest of your life. And here's the places that I think you should lean. I don't think you should lean into workout and diet. Those are actually secondary, maybe even third. I think what you should lean in to is community and joy. You mentioned dancing several times. I think that's, I think you should lean into that. Do you have a good community around you of people that really know you and do life with you? Or do you, are you a little bit isolated because of life and stress and all that stuff? Yeah. I mean, the truth is, I think you should lean into that. I think you should lean into that. The truth is, is that I'm pretty, I am locked into a wonderful little community, but it's all online right now. But it's been really fun. And I've been with them for a year. So it's really great like to have that consistency. And however, and I, you know, exactly what you're saying, I've intuited and there've been a number of areas where I have sought out simple joy in my life. Um, because I've always been, you know, just pushing myself to become do better. Like everything has been about self-improvement. So I have been getting into, um, Ikebana, which is like Japanese flower arranging. That brings me a lot of joy. Bonsai going to the volunteering at the bonsai gardens, um, dance. Um, however, yes, all that being said, I'm a single mother of a 16 year old child who has, you know, a lot of, uh, he, he really needs me. Um, and I've been, I've been very much alone in that. And, um, I don't get any financial support. So, you know, it doesn't leave me a lot of time and there are beautiful people in my life, but you know, most of them are busy with their families because of the time we're all in. So I don't get together with people often. And I do often feel quite alone. Um, and you know, I just, uh, I have found certain things. I've found some things and I I've been reaching out a little bit more. So, so what I'm going to say is going to be difficult, uh, but you can't take care of yourself by yourself. We, and I'm, I'm going to be preaching to the choir right now. Cause you know this, but you need, uh, people, physical people in your life that you do life with. You need that. Uh, it's going to help so much with healing. Um, if, if the touch that you experience most weeks is you helping other people, but it's there and there's a few places I can, there's a few things I can recommend that I think might help. Um, I don't know how open you are to some of them. The easiest one that typically has built in communities and they value community is local churches. Uh, they, this is what really good churches do is you go in, you don't even have to be a part of the faith. You could just say, I want to be a part of the community and I need people around me. And you would be surprised and shocked at how many times these people are just, this is what they want to do. So that's one example. Another example is volunteering, uh, or try to find a group. I think this will do so much for you. It will do so much for you in pain. It's going to help you with sleep, with recovery. Cause right now you're doing it all by yourself. And it sounds like for 30 years, you've bullied yourself and then taking care of everybody else and not really done it for yourself, nor allowed anybody else or had anybody else that's really done that for you. I just want to add to that. I just want to echo what Sal was saying that I, I think he's on the right track of the thing. I, cause one of the things for right away, what I said to you is what a great job you're doing such a good job on the exercise nutrition piece. You really are. And the mobility exercise, like you're really checking a lot of that. It's, it's just a matter of time. Now the, if I were to get a little more, uh, technical on the like exercise selection thing, one of the things I know about a massage therapist is it's very anterior driven. So you're doing a lot of pushing, which is, you already noticed that. It's very anterior driven. You're doing a lot of pushing, which is, you already noticed that when you do pressing movements. And so I could modify the workout a little bit to be more posterior driven. So it, you know, just because we have a program laid out and we it's designed to be balanced kind of for everybody, you're a unique situation. And so I might do less shoulder press, chest press stuff, and I'd be doing more rows. Yeah. More rows, more hamstring, more, more posterior. And I think that would, would help a little bit maybe with some of the aches and pains and stuff like that. So that's, that's probably the most technical thing. If I were to address any sort of nutrition exercise that you're doing, but I really think you're doing a really good job there. It's more, it's more leaning into Sal's direction that I think is going to serve you the most and time and just simply just more, more time of taking care of yourself. We're, we're, we're just now, we're just now heading into this stage of our life. I have a really strong, um, you know, you know, feeling that you understand some of the stuff I've saying, cause you probably, um, recommended it to a lot of your clients. Uh, massage therapists tend to be very in tune with this, with other people. You know how important that is. Um, and oftentimes people come to you, not just for the massage, but for the connection and the touch, uh, that if you look at the data, I don't know how, how important data is for you, Tice, but for me, data tends to convince me. If you look at the data on loneliness and its contribution to pain, insomnia, hormone imbalance, and any chronic, it's, it's remarkable. It is remarkable. And you're coming out of a part of your life where, uh, like, like you need this. Well, you needed it before, but now you're like, I really need the, here's the challenge. Okay. We live in a society now where it used to be more automatic. You, you, you were out around people just because that's what you had to do. And you walked to the store, you went, now it's so easy to not be around people and be isolated and everything has to be scheduled that you have to go out of your way to kind of do this. But I think the dance, I think finding a way, even if it's outside your comfort zone, I mentioned a church, you might think yourself, like I have nothing to do with that faith. That doesn't make any sense to me, but they do such a good job with community because it's a part of what they do that you could go to one and you could literally say, look, I, I'm not, you know, maybe this is you. I'm not a part of this faith, but I want to be around people and I need community. And I just got out of a bad relationship and I'm not really doing life with anyone except for people online. Do you guys have any groups like that? And I guarantee you. They're going to say we do. And you go and you just love on people and have them love on you. And I think that'll make such a difference for you. Everything else you're doing, stay the course. You're not doing anything wrong. Stay the course. It's going to take some time though. You're, you're only three months in, you're looking at a year or two or three years of this kind of building up process. And it's going to feel better and better as you go through it. But the challenge is this though. Okay. When you, when you break out of an abusive relationship, and right now I'm not referring to the one you were talking about. I'm talking about the abusive relationship you had with exercise and nutrition. When you break out of it, it feels insecure because that's what you knew for so long. So that's all, you know, as bad as it was, as abusive as it was towards you, that's what you knew. So now you're moving into something else. And it feels like you're floating with no tether. Like, okay, I starting to feel better. What am I supposed to do? Do I go more? Do I go harder? I don't know. What I'm supposed to feel right now. And so it's going to be a process of getting used to what it feels like to do it right. It's just going to take some time and you're doing really well. What you said over the last few months with bumping your calories and what I think you're, I mean, perfect. I wouldn't change it. Yeah. Doing good. So here's what I want to do, Tice. I don't, I don't feel comfortable letting you just disappear back into the ether. I'd like to have you come back on in 30 days so we could do a little bit of this coaching. I would love that. Okay. Let's have you come back on in 30 days. Okay. How does what I say, does any of it resonate to you? Is there any resistance? Does it feel like? You know, there's resistance with like going to a church. So I'm Jewish and I have been a part, I was very much a part of the local Jewish community, a couple of them here. Uh, but that's like my husband's, my ex-husband's like, Okay. Uh, it's just been, no, like, it's just been so uncomfortable. So it's not really my space anymore. I love those people, you know, um, not to mention that I'm just holding my life a little bit differently. I can say that, um, I mean, spirituality in general is an important part of my life, but, um, you know, finding the right place where I feel I don't have anything against churches, you know, whatsoever, but it doesn't feel like, I don't know, something doesn't feel like it's not my, it just doesn't feel like my, my place. Um, I do feel, you know, community when I go to the gym, uh, that feels funny to say, but like, um, I do, I, I go there even for my mobility every day. I go there at like 6 AM and I just like work on the green and I know people and I see the same people and like, we check in and we talk and, you know, so I do get some of that human interaction there. Um, but I feel you, like, I do feel, you know, tears start welling up inside when you start talking about doing life with people, like having, you know, that my suggestion, my suggestion for church was just cause that one's the first thing that popped up. Well, the thing that's nice about that is because it's, it's built in, but you, you said something right now. I mean, if you're open to, I mean, grab a cup of coffee with those people that you're seeing in the gym. I mean, instead of, instead of it just ending right there in the gym, if you're connecting with some of those people, then if, and you don't want to go to a place like a church to do it, then. The other option is that is to lean into, Hey, what are you doing later on? Or let's get a cup of coffee and making that effort and doing that. Cause there's a difference between, uh, you know, what we typically have. Many of us have now we're called duty-free relationships. So it's like, Hey, how you doing? I'm doing great. Good to see you. I'll see you tomorrow. Type of deal. Yeah. Versus the, like doing life with people, they get in, they know what's going on. They know the struggle. It's like, they see all of you, you see all of them type of deal. And I mean, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I mean, the, the truth is, is that there are people around here that I've known for years and years that I love that love me that know my story. Um, we just don't get together, you know, so prioritize it. It's going to make, it'll make such a big difference on there's another aspect here with pain that, you know, I need to touch on part of it is your body starting to feel safe. So you're starting to feel it. There's also this, this thing with pain where when you start to feel more joy, the, you start to feel less pain. Yeah, man. The truth is, is that I've like gone through a lot of courses on, you know, the kind of neuroscience around pain and I'm well aware of the, you know, kind of danger signal that, that pain is, uh, uh, you know, trying to convey. And that's not always about a physical injury. A lot of times it's because, uh, there's something you're perceiving that is unsafe about life in general. And I've recognized that I have, uh, kind of an underlying anxiety that has, um, you know, been me feeling like life is kind of a dangerous place. So I'm, I'm, I'm working, I'm definitely working on that as well. And I've been, um, I, I work with a therapist as well, uh, like for a few months now, and that's also been really helpful. Um, so yeah, I think what you're saying is really, really important. Um, and I have thought a lot about that with this, you know, with, with the increase in pain, like, okay, well, I know, you know, that pain is a danger signal. Inflammation is too, you know, even the puffiness in the joints, like that is something that our brain, um, has a role in creating in our bodies. Um, and, and it does not necessarily mean that there's something wrong with my body. No. And, and just again, just to illustrate this, uh, you know, um, I've had experiences where I was in an emergency situation. I had to exert my physicality and didn't notice I injured myself until much later when I calmed down. Right. And so when you're in a like real, like consistent fight or flight, you, you, you just don't feel it because you got to keep going. And I think part of this might be, you're starting to feel safe to feel that pain. So what I want to do, I want to have you back on in 30 days and try and turn this into an actionable thing. Like, okay, cool. I need to hang out with somebody. What maybe that looks like, you know, that person that you love, you know, that person that's there for you. And maybe that looks like this. You call them up and you say, I need to be around. I need a friend right now. Can we meet up once a week? Can we just hang out once a week? Maybe that's what it looks like. Uh, but try something actionable with that. Keep the dancing, keep doing the dancing because you love it. Stay the course with your workouts, stay the course of nutrition, modify if you need, but you're doing everything right there. I wouldn't change anything. So the, um, full body two days a week, like that piece, I, you know, I've been wearing this whoop app and I heard your guys's, uh, podcast on like, you know, the tracking and all of that. It's actually been so helpful for me because, um, I can look at, you know, my recoveries in the red, or in the yellow or in the green, and then look back at the day before and be like, Oh, this is what you did consistently. And my recovery is often really low when I have like big work days and I work out. So that's why I've been like, okay, is my work day coming across? Like that's enough. And I'm not going to be pushing the weights on those days. And then, you know, full body two days a week. Is that, does that seem reasonable? That's fine. Uh, I even like maps 15, when your work days are light, you do it when they're heavy. You don't, and you just pick up where you left off. Yeah. So it might look like maps 15, three days a week. That's right. Yeah. So it doesn't, it doesn't, you don't need it. You don't need a lot of volume. You've done, you've done a really good job of lifting weights very consistently for a while. And you've built good muscle. Like you, you'll get better results. You don't need to do a lot to maintain that. And then I would add to that, that even give yourself the permission that if it's a pushing exercise and you've been pushing a lot massaging, do a row instead, do a row, do a lap, pull down, do more posterior chain stuff. So you'll, you'll be okay with that. So we can, we can modify it like that also, but you mass 15 when you feel good. That's right. I feel you know and I think that I mean not think I definitely deal with the whole body dysmorphia thing um so I never know if I'm just like playing games with my brain but I I feel like I'm not like I'll feel like I'm losing muscle you know and gaining I mean my clothes have been tight on me I know you guys are like oh if you gain a couple pounds on the scale no biggie and I'm just like okay whatever maybe I've gained a couple more than a couple pounds on the scale maybe my body just needs that right now and so just let it go let it go trust trust first of all I'm still like I get nervous no no first of all you look at your delts and your arms look amazing okay not to invalidate you but you look great there what does taking care of Thais look like when Thais says that to herself yeah I mean that's like just returning to love you know just being like and so what you know so what if you've gained some weight so what if you're you're not having the muscles right now like even if that is what's happening it might not be what's happening but but what does that matter love yourself like take care of yourself do what you need to do to be healthy to get your sleep to get your recovery and that's right you know the rest of it will come along in its own time ironic trusting the timeline ironically it looks like this you're gonna let go of the muscle and the body you're just gonna let go of it you're just gonna exercise to feel good yeah you're just gonna eat right to feel good and you're gonna let go of the aesthetic stuff ironically that's what's gonna lead to the aesthetic stuff I know I feel this like inside like yeah this is a hard breakup yeah it is yeah yeah yeah so you gotta let go of the aesthetic stuff right the exercise is to make you feel better if it doesn't make you feel better don't do it the nutrition is to make you feel better that's it right now okay can we do that for 30 days and have you back on yeah I mean definitely uh-huh yeah all right I gotta say that the day that I went in and did the full body workout I felt so good because it was the first time in months that I had done that because I've been doing the 15 you know I've been doing the shorter ones going into lifts but there was something about going in there and just like pushing hard and like being there for an hour and like I just felt it does something in my brain you know I feel like there's this chemical something that happens and all of a sudden like it's empowering just looks brighter and beautiful and so I kind of you know like I don't know there's a part of me that really likes that too but you're saying not to kind of go there there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that it feels like you accomplish something like oh my god I feel feeling okay again um there's a empowerment that comes from it there's nothing wrong with that until it becomes yeah we just got detrimental we are getting isn't a feeling of normalcy or old patterns because sometimes that feels really good too it's like oh this yes this feels good I know what this feels like and so so I like the idea that you had the whoop and you're measuring your recovery and you're seeing that because you know maybe you're on to something maybe that is going to give you a better balance better sleep and we see the metrics and you feel it and that's a good sign so this isn't like uh go do this this is exactly the right answer for you it's like sure we can play with that way of thinking let's see how it improves sleep let's see how it improves those things if we see all those things go up then we're on to something if we don't then maybe that feeling that you have is less of like it's actually serving you and it's more of going back to other patterns that you had in the past so I don't know that yet but when we check in 30 days with you we'll talk more about it I think the main focus between now and 30 days though more than the workout we'll get to the workout stuff I think I'm less worried about that it's what Sal's saying is go do a date or two with friends or go go join a community or go learn a new dance so you're in a community of people learning a new dance and you're meeting new people and I mean do something like do something actionable that way right now that's to me that's the prescription for now you know what yeah I just had a big like moment when you said that because I haven't been to a live in-person dance class and that is a really nice way to connect yes oh there you go another kind of community heck yes you love dance that that was the first thing came to my mind uh I know Sal with the church way I would right thing that came to my mind she loves dance she said it like eight times we've been on this call love it like I would be like pick a dance you've never learned like have you ever done swing I don't know whatever the dance you haven't done and go join a new community and learn in a group of you know and mess up and have fun and laugh and get to know somebody else who's also learning and I bet you meet somebody at a similar place and then go catch have some coffee later and I mean lean into that no yeah that's that's good I like that I like that yeah thank you thank you all right good that's your homework we're gonna see you in 30 days we'll see you in 30 days you know what I'll see you guys in like two days oh you're coming are you coming here oh great oh great good oh awesome now I can give you a hug and realize oh god if I would have known that we would have done less talking right now I just talked to you in person yeah we'll do a follow-up yeah oh good oh good we'll see you on Saturday awesome yeah I'll see you guys on Saturday thank you so much I really appreciate it okay awesome bye see ya I assumed she was taking a class with dance no I that's what I thought what I envisioned because the way she was saying is like she goes out dancing oh yeah right she just loves to go out no that's perfect but that was the first thing came to my mind it's like go learn it because if you know you see like when you go learn like that like everybody's kind of messing up and there's a lot and it's like that's perfect like perfect yeah meet somebody like no it's crazy you guys look at the data on loneliness and its effect on this blood lipids cancer heart disease you name it it is a major risk factor for everything bad yeah and when you don't have that especially when you come out of what she did uh I mean you could do all the stuff on your own all you want um and it'll help but having those people around you man makes a big difference our next caller is Andrew from Ontario Andrew what's up man what's up dude not too much how you guys doing good good man how can we help you yeah so uh you know I've I'll read off the email here like everybody else but uh been a listener for a short time now uh started my fitness journey as of February 2026 30 years old uh six foot 280 pounds um heavy equipment operator at a mine um doing a rotation 14 14 days in 14 days out um doing a push pull leg split with active recovery on rest days so I've been doing 20 minute incline walks and mixing onas with that um my workout has been was uh provided by chat gbt um being mindful of keeping my protein intake high uh 200 220 grams is what I've been shooting for um so being a camp job for two weeks I'm uh you know I'm eating camp food so I'm pretty limited on trying to keep whole foods coming in but you know do the best I can with that um when I was 13 years old I also had my gallbladder removed uh for gallstones um my question is uh you know how do how do I uh keep continuing to gain strength while losing fat and uh you know maybe a fitness program uh accommodate my two weeks in two weeks out schedule while I have access to a gym and you know at home I don't quite have everything and then uh some nutrition guidance for uh having my gallbladder removed oh good okay so real quick um the routine that you're doing how do you do you are you able to follow that when you're at your remote location usually at home that's why I'm limited access to uh equipment so winter time I have access to a full gym when I'm at home summertime I'm out of my uh summer camp so I picked up a couple kettlebells this uh this summer I got 35 and a 45 pound kettlebell that I've been working out with but uh that's all I have throughout the summertime okay okay so and then how's the workout been working for you since you've been doing it oh it's been good I mean I've noticed improvements on my fitness clothes is looser now um day-to-day activities is much better okay good and so this has been happening since February so you're already seeing some great progress then yeah yeah absolutely and how consistent are you with the protein intake uh every day I make sure I hit it are you eating mostly whole foods you stick into like meal prepping and stuff um mostly whole foods but when I'm at work that's when I'm limited to uh what I get right so they're feeding us while we're up there got it okay so okay wait I want to be clear here because I think this is important um it sounds like the the you're better you're better on diet and consistency when you're when you're home and you have you can you can prep and so that but you're better on consistency on the workouts when you're on your on camp is that right am I getting that right yeah you got her okay so the the part that I and and if you're getting that protein intake consistently while you're lifting and camp we're probably doing pretty good but that would be my big concern is that are are we are we still hitting our protein intake consistently at camp where you don't have as much control of the food um yeah I know I am I'm hitting my protein shakes if I feel like I'm low I'll hit my protein shakes and stuff like that um creatine I'm getting 10 milligrams of creatine in a day okay bro you're doing good so what what you need really is I mean fix your program yeah I think what it needs what you need is um I think a suspension trainer workout for your home would be perfect and so you'd be you'd be strength training at home with a suspension trainer and then when you're on location then you go back to the weights i love that okay uh i have a program called map suspension i can send that to you he could also do maps 15 the suspension version when he's when he's at home and then the uh the advanced one when he's at work actually be a good well tell me about this the workout that you got from chat gpt that push pull legs it's three days a week and and how long is each workout taking it what does that look like uh my my workouts are averaging about 45 minutes an hour it's hard because i'm working 12 hour shifts while i'm at work so i'm trying to fit gym in trying to get my eight hours of sleep while getting food and showering so it's you know it's pretty it's it's tight would it be a would would it be plausible does this work for you instead of doing three days a week you're doing more like five or six days a week but you're only doing two lifts a day yeah uh yeah i could do that okay i mean i'm so like while i've been while i've been doing this i've been trying to build the consistency of going to the gym every day so whether it's just going in there to hit the treadmill if i'm not lifting or doing something but oh we're good yeah we're good dude we're gonna send you maps 15 when you're at the gym you do the the you do the gym version when you're at home you do the suspension version yep yep that's it you just follow okay yep you're set dude and that's perfect and and with diet stay the course because here's the deal with diet you're gonna want to like do all kinds of crazy stuff cut and you hit your protein stick to whole natural foods consistency is everything over time you're gonna get body comp change you're gonna lean out you're gonna lean out you're gonna build muscle and lose body fat the scale i'm not even worried about the scale that much you you shouldn't see big swings on the scale if you're eating properly and you're strength training not initially yeah you're gonna especially the first six months to six months to a year he's at where he's at right now yep yeah just you're gonna and so and you feel it you kind of already feel it you just need someone to tell you dude you're you're you're on pace and a better workout for you will be map 15 protocol because that'll be every day you're gonna be able to do it's just two lifts when you got the gym equipment you're hitting the barbell movements which is gonna be great for you when you're at home and you have limited equipment you're gonna do the suspension trainer and follow it as it's laid out that's it and if you do anything more it's walking that's it so if you got extra time or you are at the gym and it's a technically walk i'm already pretty active like i'll when i'm at home i'm hitting 10 12 000 steps a day usually pretty easy when i'm at work that's when it's different because i'm in machines all day and stuff like that so that's when it probably drops like five to seven thousand but yeah but that's also when you're getting the good lifting in so it's great it's a good balance well with yeah yeah yeah you're you're it's a perfect program for you bro you just keep following it you just switch from suspension trainer to barbells okay and i'm wishing my calorie intake i'm not shooting out because i've been just kind of eating while i'm hungry i'm not really worried about cutting that's exactly what we tell you we would tell you eat when you're hungry eat whole foods hit your protein as long as your calories will land whether your calories land if you're if you're trying to stick mostly to whole foods then where's gonna go where they need to if you start eating lots of processed foods fast food junk food that's when things get crazy yeah okay yeah like my lunches it's like basically all fruit then i got my protein rice or potatoes or something for my carb and then that's bro you're going too crazy so no you're doing good bro just stay consistent yeah do not get caught in the like i got to make this happen faster mentality that's what you'll mess up yeah we don't need okay yeah that's it man okay yeah okay right on you got it bro i appreciate it guys follow 15 all the way to the way through the way we're telling you and then i'd love to hear back from you what you saw i think you get great results for this yep yep all right yeah i can do that all right andrew we'll send that we'll send that over to you we're gonna beat out the robots awesome thanks guys appreciate it why'd you he's changing with t i'm just saying we're coming for those robots yeah i mean i mean it's perfect it's perfect for what he was no it's absolutely because that's a lot maybe people don't know that maps 15 has two options in there or barbell you know dumbbell work and so such a unique flip though right uh yep i have better access to the gym when i'm at work at work when i'm home i don't have as much i'm limited you know so but that but perfect you know our next caller is joseph from australia what's up man how you doing joseph hey what's up how you guys doing good how can we help you um so i've kind of reached out because i i'm six two and i've never dunked basketball in my life so i had an mpfl reconstruction when i was 19 um so it's about six years ago and i've kind of had on and off pain for the last six years um and that means i have to pretty much warm up for 30 minutes before i play basketball like before i do legs at the gym or anything so i pretty much keep getting in um so i'm kind of trying to sort that out while also being able to dunk a basketball and i'm not sure how to structure my training so that i'm not overloading my legs yeah good question so easy by the way i'm looking at your email it says you play basketball on mondays yeah at the moment yeah and you're playing for how long uh it's just a full game okay yeah and then i also see here that you have a 20 imbalance in your hamstrings and 40 imbalance in your quads based on a physio session you had two weeks ago uh yes i was on a road yeah and i've been back since and that's gotten a lot better okay uh the maps 15 symmetry would be perfect for you yeah i was just gonna say it's all unilateral living there for a while it's the right amount of volume for you while you're playing basketball um and i think that it's a perfect routine for you and i would stay there for a while two two things to to because they're kind of addressing i feel like the the pain and making sure we balance ourselves out and everything like that's for sure the vertical thing uh one i don't know how much strength you've gained in like just your regular old squat uh i remember going from not being able to dunk to being able to dunk uh was just once i increased once i got my squat you know over like 250 pounds i could throw down the basketball so easy and my whole life up into that which was you know playing basketball and as a kid doing all the vertical jump things and trying to figure that like nothing nothing worked i couldn't dunk all of a sudden i stopped worrying about playing basketball as much i started strength training like crazy trying to be a bodybuilder put on 20 pounds which makes it even more difficult but i put a you know weight up on a squat bar and then all of a sudden i could dunk the basketball it was like overnight so that that's a big one is like if you just get big strong powerful legs from squatting a lot of times that'll that'll shoot somebody right up there the other thing is technique and if you if you don't follow paul fabrics already you got to follow paul do you follow uh paul fabrics oh bro yeah pull up your instagram right now and go to cory schlesinger yeah yeah pull up here pull up and look up paul fabrics uh pgaf performance this is he is the goat when it comes to vertical jump and he talks one of the things we've interviewed him on here so you can listen to his interview that we've done with him and i've talked to him about he'd have athletes and in the same session increase their vertical as much as six inches in in the and just by teaching better technique so learning better you have to be healthy your joints have to be you know a lot more force uh and really so that the process with that and this is why like symmetry makes a lot of sense even the regular symmetry because in the beginning we're really focusing on isometric you know stabilizing these positions uh and increasing force in those positions so you know you're you're able to reinforce your joints uh so that way too you're allowed to produce more force so to be able to get more explosive um and not necessarily i mean obviously like building strength but you know you're able to build more strength and you're going to strengthen your legs is going to improve that you know substantially uh but when we to be able to build upon that and get to the point where you're going to peak and do a lot more plyometric work and you know a lot more explosive movement you know we're we're really going to need to reinforce that so going through that process of reinforcement um you know the first phase of symmetry especially i would almost repeat that maybe um you know one cycle and then you know go go through that you know work your way all the way until we do the five by five see where you're at uh i guarantee you'll see quite a bit of it so justin you think regular symmetry i do yeah all right let's send them regular symmetry and then uh i see here in your cal your your food intake it says you're you're averaging between 2250 to 2500 i've changed that what is it um between 26 and 2900 okay and you're hitting protein so i know sorry you're hitting your protein targets yeah i'm getting about i probably get more i'm getting about 200 every day good that's good that's good i wasn't sure if i needed more or not but no no stay consistent with that and your calories should should keep going up before you try to cut yeah okay yeah i'm getting married in just over two months i was trying to just like lose a little bit well just know that all three of those are like different go right right like yeah rehabbing for injury uh getting vertical jump and get ready shredded for a wedding or all three like rehabbing we need to feed or or yeah i'm pretty happy with it right now okay good okay good worst worst thing you could do is try to create like rush something for within two months so yeah don't don't worry about your wedding you look great she's already gonna marry you you won uh yeah and just lots of weights will help slowly bumping your calories uh you're probably going to be around 32 3 300 at some point yeah at least um and uh map symmetry that's your program yeah and that'll help balance things out and it'll improve your strength in a way that should contribute to your vertical you uh do you follow the nba yes very much so so uh mac mcclung okay that's his trainer paul fabrics so that's oh yeah yeah okay so that's i mean definitely go through his stuff he's got incredible stuff around vertical so uh he's definitely the goat when it comes to that stuff easy that's good you got it brother congratulations too by the way thank you very much yeah thank you thank you all right thanks see ya yeah yeah i like that basketball player you know authentic yeah um you know when i saw his email and the physio uh saw that in balance 40 in balancing quads uh that's a big deal it's a big one yeah i mean just balancing that out make should make a big difference for sure but like what you said adam like um there's a skill involved there's you know how quickly you fire but then the strength strength is the base oh dude i i so i was this kid right who i'm six two and a half six three right uh wanted a vertical couldn't dunk the basketball in high school uh worked on it did the strength shoes did calves like crazy did all this stuff right back then they had no idea what we're doing uh got into my 20s uh moved to the bay area became a personal trainer cared about my body the way it looked put on like 20 pounds uh got into squatting all of a sudden go out to the basketball court oh bro two-handed jam like what like out of nowhere and i went i haven't picked up a basketball and and i'm heavier this makes it but it was that's how much strength that's a lot oh that's how much just fundamental strength in your in your legs can make a huge difference and so that would be i mean a guy that kind of hiked already that would be the end direction i would go look if you like the show come find us on instagram mind pump media we'll see you 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 for performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus a discount at mindpumpmedia.com other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is mind pump