2946: 5 Things Bodybuilders Figured Out Before Everyone Else (That Everyone Should Know)

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There are things you can learn that bodybuilders have learned a long time ago that preach all the time. That's what we're going to talk about today. Five lessons from bodybuilders. Five lessons from bodybuilders everybody could learn from. Let's go. True pioneers. For sure. In fact, no, good and bad, right? So bodybuilders have very specific goals and style of training. They're very extreme. They're a very extreme type of sport, although all sports at high levels are extreme. Bodybuilders, I think, are very visually clearly extreme. It's hard not to look at one and think that. But when it comes to strength training and all the things that we know by studies and the things that we knew to study, it all started with them. It really was them that kind of slowly brought this to the mainstream. It was bodybuilders that made gyms a thing, although gyms have now far surpassed it. I think we all owe something to them. And this is true for not just for training. It's also true for diet. It's also true for hormone science. They were way ahead of the curve with that kind of stuff. What do they call them? The pharmonauts? Cosmonauts. I mean, you say good. You say good and bad, but can't you justify or defend the bad? I feel like in everything that we've ever changed or evolved in, the early people that were pushing it, there's something bad about all of it. You need risk takers to move it forward, and they were risk takers. That's what I mean by that. Obviously, I get what you're saying by bad, because you don't want to adopt everything they were doing. But where is that different in any other venture? No, you're right. Every venture where we're pushing new. New boundaries. Decades later, we look back and go like, well, that was a dumb idea. Yeah. Or you shouldn't have done that. But it's like, yeah, but you would have never figured that out had not that guy or girl was crazy enough to flirt with those boundaries. And so I would argue that it's all really good. It's a necessary evil when we're going somewhere we've never been before, and they were willing to venture and try and do those things. Because, yeah, if it wasn't for the bodybuilding community. Yeah. Does the health and wellness space really exist? I mean, or would doctors just still be telling everybody to eat less and run more? That's how you get healthy, right? And even a lot of the studies that we have that show that certain things are good for us and how to train in particular ways and what hypertrophy is and how to build strength in particular ways. We knew where to go, because this is how studies work. Oftentimes, we kind of have an idea of what to study or a direction to go. And it often starts with anecdote, right? Like, you've got all these people. You've got all these people that notice that when they take this particular herb that it helps this thing. And then we know, okay, let's study that. Let's see what the studies show. A lot of these studies are because of bodybuilders. Yep. And what we understand about strength training started, much of it started with bodybuilders. I really don't care what your modality is. The only strength modality that I would say that was unique in and of itself was Olympic lifting. And that's because it was funded by nations and competitive arenas like the Olympics. Yeah, they made a sport out of it. But every other. Every other strength sport, you know, every athlete that currently strength trains, it was the bodybuilders that brought it to you initially. And even though it wasn't an ideal way to strengthen, it was always better. I remember when strength training, and I've seen, you know, documentaries on this one, strength training first came to the NFL. That was really the first sport that adopted strength training. Everybody was afraid to lift weights because everybody thought it would reduce athleticism. And it was the football players that played with it first. And the only. The only people you could learn from in that day were bodybuilders. So bodybuilders were teaching them how to lift weights. And yes, there's better ways to lift weights for football. But the football players that lifted weights like bodybuilders were better and stronger than the football players that didn't lift weights at all. Oh, yeah. And so there's a lot we owe to them. And there are certain things that apply to everybody. So whether you want to be a bodybuilder or not, these are things that we can all learn from. And I'll start with the first one. We've all heard the term, or many of us have heard the term, mind-muscle connection. So if you've never heard the term, mind-muscle connection, what this means. What this means is your ability to feel and connect to a muscle that you're trying to work. Okay? So when I'm doing a bench press, my target, let's say, is my chest. The mind-muscle connection is me being able to feel it more in my chest than in other parts of my body. Really feel what the pecs are doing in that movement. And you saw this as they were on stage where they display that by flexing certain muscles on command. And so that kind of became a thing because of that. It did. But, you know, before that, like. Because strength training. Strength training existed before people posed or flexed on stage, before we would identify as bodybuilding. But nobody was trying to feel a muscle. Nobody cared about the muscle that they were using. It was literally just, let me lift the weight. Let me just lift the weight. I'm doing an overhead press. Let's lift the weight. I'm doing a squat. Bodybuilders, because of the way the sport was designed to. You know, judges are visually breaking down the body and looking at individual muscle groups and how developed they are. Bodybuilders were the first ones to be like, this is a back exercise. This one's for lats. This one's for traps. This one's for the front of the shoulders. Your muscle focus. This one's for the rear of the delts. This is for this part of the bicep or that part of the biceps or whatever. And they learned or they focused on feeling and connecting to the part of the body that they're trying to work. And this is very valuable for people. It's valuable if you want to develop a part of your body because it makes a difference. You could do a barbell squat and you can do it in a way where. You could do it in a way where it really develops your quads. You could also do it in a way where it really develops your glutes. And the difference between the two is your technique, but really the root of it is where you feel it and how you move through. How you're recruiting. How you recruit that. And it's also important in another area, correctional exercise. When I'm doing correctional exercise, I need people to feel certain areas. I'm trying to strengthen your mid-back, Mrs. Johnson. You got to feel it right here. Don't just do the movement. We need to feel this part of your back contracting so we can strengthen it. Well, isn't this the definition of. Weightlifting is just flexion of the muscles with resistance? Yeah. I mean, that's what it is. Define. It's like, is the ability. That's how I used to explain to clients why we were doing some of these isolation exercises was. And anybody who's ever experimented with this, it's real easy to kind of connect these dots. Very few people can you just say, flex your chest or flex your lats and they can do it. Yeah. It requires they have some sort of resistance to even. And attempt to start to feel that muscle. If there's no resistance, they can't do it. Yeah. If there's no resistance, it's just like, that sounds so abstract. What do you mean? My muscles in my back, you want me to flex them this way? Like, it just doesn't seem possible until you understand how to connect that and that ability to do that. And when you learn to do that very well, you then can apply that to like all movement. And what I find, like what I love about this is. Yeah. And I know that this can be taken to the extreme and be a little ridiculous sometimes, I could get under a machine that was designed for calves and turn it into a shrug machine. I can get into a machine that was designed for a completely different muscle. You can make a back machine, a rear delt machine, or vice versa. That's right. So when you understand biomechanics and when you understand how to mind muscle connection and flex the muscle you want to flex, I can change a machine that was designed for something completely different to work an area that I wanted to work, which is really, really cool. And this is all pioneered by bodybuilders. It is. The next thing, this is very unique to bodybuilding, and there is a benefit to this. And I'll explain the benefit, but the pump. The pump, so if you lift weights, you know what this is. If you don't lift weights or you haven't in a while or haven't done it consistently, the pump is like you train a muscle group and it becomes engorged with blood. And so it feels tight, okay? So you work your biceps and they feel tight or you work your legs and they feel tight. Every other strength sport could care less about the pump or actually doesn't want the pump. They actually would prefer not to have a pump because it can get in the way of trying to perform a particular movement. Like if I'm running, the last thing I want is pumped quads while I'm running because it hinders my ability to run. The bodybuilders chase the pump. They love the pump. Now they would say that it contributes to muscle growth. There's a psychological component here where I can look at the muscle, see what it looks like if it's more developed. This is motivating. But here's the real benefit of the pump, okay? It's hard to get a pump when you're not drinking enough water, when your diet is poor and when you're not sleeping well or when you're over-trained. It's a good indicator. It's a great indicator. And it's also an indicator of being able to connect to a muscle. I remember as a kid, one of the hardest areas to connect to when you're strength training is just your back muscles in general. Most of us feel it in our arms when we're doing back exercises. And I remember the first time I got a back pump, a lap pump, it was that hard. That day forward, I could connect to my back muscles every time I trained my back because I could feel them be pumped. It's great for pictures. Hey, I was just going to say, it's absolutely awesome. It's just awesome, period. No person, skinny, fat, in great shape, doesn't matter, doesn't look better with a pump. It makes everybody look better. Well, it's so funny. I was training my son and he had no idea that you could take an exercise and work your way through, get a pump, and then go look at them in the mirror and it's like visibly bigger. He was tripping out and looking at himself and I'm like, yeah. Oh, I remember when that light bulb went off as a kid. Shoot, I remember for years just always saying, man, if I could just look. Keep it. Yeah, if I could just look like that guy. If I could just look like the guy who just pumped up all those muscles, that's all I ever wanted. Little did I know that that target would just keep moving. Well, I knew this about my clients. So when they were having trouble connecting to a muscle, like the glutes or the lats or. You know, the rhomboids, whatever. When they told me they felt it get tight and pumped, I knew we're moving in the right direction. In fact, lagging body parts, this is my own experience. When someone had a lagging body part, it was always the ability to get a good pump and it always was preceded the fact that it started to build. So the pump, in my opinion, is a signaler. But most importantly, it's this. I know this about the pump. When I'm lifting weights and I'm having trouble getting a pump, it's always because I'm either overtraining under-rested, under-fed, or under-hydrated. Yeah, under-hydrated. Yes. And when I get a great pump, I'm like, ooh, I put together a few good things. Usually it's good hydration is my issue. But the pump is something that is very unique to body weight. No other strength training sport talks about the pump or even cares about the pump. Here's the next one. This is a. What I'm about to say is a phrase that was uttered by seven-time Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney. But I think it encompasses. What bodybuilders have talked about and known about more than almost any other strength training sport. This is what he said. Stimulate, don't annihilate. Now, he's famous for saying that, but isn't he also famous for being the one who used to annihilate his workouts? No. No, not at all. In fact, Lee Haney, today he's in his 60s, he had no joint pain. I thought that was Dexter Jackson that was known for. Dexter Jackson trained that way also. Okay. I was going to say, I know he was. He was ahead of his time with that. Well, so here's the thing about bodybuilding. I mean, bodybuilders talked about recovery way before anybody else. Now, that doesn't mean that they figured it out. It doesn't mean that they didn't overdo it. But they knew early. You could read a muscle building magazine from the 1940s. And they talked about resting and recovering the muscle. You could read from the turn of the century, the 1890s, read articles by Eugene Sandow. Yeah. He talked about resting and building the muscle through the resting process. So the whole like. He had real good advice. Don't over-train. Now, again, bodybuilders. And if you look at a bodybuilding routine, you think to yourself, how could this be possible? They obviously do too much. First of all, they're not doing too much. They could just handle way more than most people because they're so genetically gifted and they're on a lot of different anabolic steroids. They also, Sal, I think this is also a big miss for people that look at a bodybuilder routine. Most people that would call themselves a bodybuilder that compete or want to compete have strung years of consistency together too. Yep. So they have scaled many times to be able to handle that amount of. In addition to everything that you're saying too. So it's not. Then they woke up their first session and. You built up a tolerance. Yeah, because I mean, I think back to. I mean, especially right now with how minimal volume that my training looks like. And man, I was. There was a point where. I mean, I'm spending an hour and a half plus in the gym and I'm able to recover and I'm able to build, but it's just like. That wasn't like. I couldn't go do that right now. You know, you just can't. I couldn't. I scaled to that volume. That was three years of not missing a macronutrient and not missing, you know, a workout. Like, it took a long time to be able to handle that. And a lot. We peer into these guys' work or these guys sell workouts online of this is what I do and you're like. You know, it's like, yeah, that dude literally did not just wake up and get to that point. Like, he built that over time on top of what you said. And I got to say this and just, again, to give them credit because, again, they were the ones that really talked about this the most to the point where you have Mr. Olympias that would train for 30 minutes. I mean, Dorian Yates, would do, like, two sets or three sets in a workout. Very intense. But he was Mr. Olympia because they considered recovery a lot, more than almost any other strength sport. Now, when it comes to, like, Olympic lifting, they started to figure this out, but it wasn't the athletes that figured this out. This is what's unique about bodybuilding. They had no governing body with scientists that were like, you're competing for us, so we're going to study you. And they were, like, figuring this out on their own. And rest became something that they talked about. And recovery is what they talked about quite a bit. In Olympic lifting, the Soviets figured this out because they had scientists that were watching the athletes and going, no, you're not going to train anymore. We're going to train at this intensity. Well, that was what was interesting, too, to watch is, like, everybody, like, kind of had different modalities that they were testing out on themselves and they'd get benefits and then it's like they're kind of, like, communicating with each other what's working, what's not working. And it's like the best recipe sort of rises at the top. Totally. Here's another one. Protein. Bodybuilders have been talking about a protein. They were talking about it first. They were talking about it the most. They were promoting it across the board. They were ridiculed for it for a long time. And guess what? The world is catching up. Yeah. The bodybuilders were right. You know who benefits from eating high protein? Every athlete. Everybody. Basically everybody. I remember when the endurance community scoffed at this. High protein. We need carbs. We need lots of carbs. Like, what are you talking about? Guess what, everybody? Endurance athletes also benefit from eating more protein than is typically recommended. Old people, young people, endurance athletes, strength athletes, you name it. Longevity people, everybody benefits from that. But the body breaks down. Fat loss people, people that need to lose a bunch of body fat. I mean, it's something that, and I think we've been screaming from the rooftop since we started this thing. Every client that I ever trained, no matter the goal, the weight, the age, the sex, didn't matter. When I assessed diet were under-eating protein. It was, either they were under-eating by a little bit or grossly under-eating protein. And one of the first, easiest fixes to show them great results in whatever their endeavor was, was just flipping the way they ate and focusing on protein. That's why we repeat it so much. That's right. And I'm going to say this. This is just a little side bar for this particular point here. The supplement industry is because of bodybuilders. The entire, good, bad, and the other side is just ugly. And a lot of us like supplements. And I think the supplement industry does do a lot of good. There's a lot of craziness out there as well. Came from bodybuilders. They were the ones that were, they were the first ones to create supplements. They were the first ones to take supplements. Protein powders were some of the first supplements, I mean, that were ever created. And it was created for muscle building. Desiccated liver tablets. That's it. That was for bodybuilders. So, and it was because it started with protein. And then lastly, sleep. Bodybuilders sleep a lot. This is funny. People don't know this about pro bodybuilders. Pro bodybuilders sleep a lot. They're like big babies. They go to bed. They get nine hours of sleep. They take a nap in the day. They know the value of sleep for building muscle. And of all athletes, of all athletes, they have known the value of sleep the most and they continue to. Athletes in general, now these days, I think everybody knows that sleep is something that's really important. But in general, when you're working with high-level athletes, this is the one that they tend to go, eh, I'm cool i'm right like i get enough sleep uh bodybuilders really made this a focus so now that we have all the science and the data supporting like why you need to get sleep and the effects of bad sleep and not optimal sleep you can think bodybuilders they were the first ones to talk you know i actually don't think a lot of i think that uh sleep is is is said and thrown around so much that we all kind of nod our head like oh yeah i know but i don't think we really know and why i say that maybe this is top of mind for me right now i've got uh two of our good friends one of our mutual friends jason and my other buddy justin that are in a group thread with me right now and i've been recently inspired to just um kind of coach them but coach them through sharing what i do every day and how i make the decision right so what i started this thread last week and uh you know i i've been telling the thread huh what's the title i haven't named it yet i will eventually name it something inappropriate yeah yeah i'll be sure to do that next time i'll be sure to do that next time i'll be sure to do that next time i'll be sure to do that next time i'll be sure to do that next time i'll be sure to do that next something inappropriate yeah yeah i'll be sure to do that next time i'll be sure to do that next so so what it looks like just to give the audience is like uh i i go i literally i text after the day because i don't know what what what's going to entail um yesterday was um got a 60 sleep score toss and turn all night skipping the workout today gonna do a 30 minute walk keep the diet tight that was what i what i said today uh so jason chimes in this is we've been doing this for days now right and one of the things that i noticed about both of them is just the implication of the intensity and volume and pushing it right now uh and not enough balance of understanding sleep and stress and all these other factors and it was when he told me what he was doing like he he listed how his work is hour and a half of the gym 36 sets of stuff i'm like what are you doing bro what are you doing you have three girls in school you're uh you know you're 45 years old like he's doing what he can get away with yeah yeah and he's on every peptide and hrt so he and he looks really good but he's deceived by that like he thinks that like and he's doing a great job but he could be doing so much better with so much less and that was the communication so i'm like over here like uh you know weighted pull-ups and uh four sets of squats that was like the day before and so he's like man i need to i need to cut my volume way down at least in half and so his half now still looks ridiculous and he's and yesterday he tells me oh i got really deep also so i need to cut back to today should i should i not work out at all or come back i said well either reduce it uh way down or what you would normally do today uh is just go through every go through the motions real modern and so then he goes okay and then he sends me what he does you know and it still ends up being like 16 sets which is half of what he was doing before so he's thinking it's better than what was before yeah and he still is you know two or three of the movements he was doing he was still pushing really heavy load on himself with that i said way too much you know there was today was a day you could have taken off if you were going to go there you should just went through the mode there was no reason to push that on those two exercises or or either or do that much volume you could have done way less you know why that's so hard adam it's like you know what it reminds me of and i won't get too specific but sometimes they'll pass like some kind of government policy that's obviously anti you know classically anti-job growth so they'll pass it then they'll come back a report and be like oh yeah well since we passed that report we've added a thousand new jobs and it's like well yeah but we would have added three thousand you know how you've not done it right the challenge with what with with what you're talking about adam is he's getting some progress oh yeah because he was doing nothing before right and now he's doing something but what he doesn't know is what he's missing yes you know so he you know he gained five pounds of muscle like dude he could have gained 10 and this is what i'm trying to convey right now and then i'm also trying to convey and understand let the to my whole how this conversation started just to bring it full circle that i think uh you know someone like him if you asked him if you quizzed him what are some of the most important things he would definitely put sleep at one of the top three but it still doesn't register that when you get a really poor night of sleep like i had the yesterday night my stress bucket is already really close to tipping over already it's it fills it up really high especially at my age with all the other things i have on my plate how many kids all it's like totally like so so a day where i have this big wide open bucket to train hard and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna do all the things and handle work and handle is now already whoop right there right and so the workout if i'm gonna do it i gotta be very mindful that it's just gonna take very little to spill that stress bucket over and once that that stress bucket is spilled over now i'm wasting a lot of energy and effort because i'm not going to reap the benefits for that added stress and so that's what i'm trying to communicate to them is like you either would have been way better off not working out focusing more on recovery diet other things that could improve your health or if you're gonna go to the gym because you like the consistency i'm not against that but then it should go easy go way easy go through the motion yeah you know why it's hard too is because it's doing nothing yeah you're just sleeping which seems so wild wait you want me to do more of nothing yeah to get better results what what i immediately think about is and i remember when we interviewed uh ben pokulski so ben pokulski is a friend of ours pro bodybuilder high high level uh you know 10 years ago i was like one of the top bodybuilders and i couldn't wait to talk with them because at the time i was like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this time you had all these pro bodybuilders who were going to the middle east and they were gaining like 10 to 15 pounds of muscle yeah we were all speculating off air like it's myostatin blockers they have over there they have some new drug here's why that's so crazy okay when you're 280 pounds shredded bodybuilder to gain another 10 pounds of muscle is like a miracle yeah like what it's like getting a car that does a four second quarter mile to go down to three and what we were seeing it across the board like everybody that was everybody that went so so it raised all these flags that they must be doing they spend three months there and gain like 15 pounds of muscle everybody would come back huge and so and because they're already pros because they're already taking every drug because they already live and have lived for a long time to build muscle i'm like it must be some special new drug that they have out there and i remember when ben came in and i'm like dude you got to tell me because he knows he lives in that space he's very honest why he's been there and he's been there yeah he's like no there's nothing special he's like do you know why they're all building muscle it's like what what are they doing he goes they don't do anything but lift weights eat and sleep there's nothing to do yeah yeah they literally not distract they literally lift weights go back to their apartment they play video games they take a nap they eat all day then they lift weights again and they go to sleep that's all they're doing and that's why they're getting all this muscle and then i'm like of course of course that's what it is because it'll do that yeah that rest will do that oh it made so much sense after this but i mean that just shows you how like to your point like you have somebody who is the the already checking every box to the highest level yeah and it's not like those guys were abusing sleep either they just got a little more optimal rest recovery and sleep and boom and that's what i'm trying to convey to my my buddies is this like and and so today i scored an 80 great rest so i can't wait to go get a nice lift but even when i go get a nice lift it's not i'm not gonna go crazy either it's just like now's the day i'll i'm gonna probably do weighted weighted pull-ups is something that i'll do i'll either do loaded heavy lunges i'll do something like that but because i'm now rested i'm not recovered this is the day that i'll push a little bit in the workout yeah speaking of supplements and stuff i i you know i got i want to just uh i want to be clear about probiotics right now because if you had asked me five years ago what would be like tier one supplements in other words what are supplements that you recommend to everybody that everybody should take i would have said multivitamin and creatine those have been the two but i'm now moving probiotics to that level so we work with a company called seed their probiotics are the best in the world they have a delivery process that's just their light years ahead of everyone else but the reason why i now put probiotics in that category where i'm like everybody should take them the amount of data and studies on their benefits is now overwhelming in other words to put it differently it benefits everything they test anything they test when they give them a probiotic it's better fat loss better muscle growth better skin better mental health better digestive health of course better hormone health better doesn't matter what they test when they take probiotics it's better so it's now in my opinion like everybody should take do you think there's something there that's more than just a probiotically there's something like societal like there's something that like today we have so many gut issues in people huge that it's more to do with that that we're we're so messed up there that this is showing this in this in creative improvement or do you think if you took uh you actually teased out some of these studies and gave it to people that were 100 healthy no gut issues no nothing and then you and you paired it against a group that weren't that were so say we have 20 athletes or we need a bigger than 100 athletes 50 of them uh with incredible health no gut issues no nothing and then 50 of them with with with gut issues going on stuff like that now obviously the ones with issues we already know for sure they're going to see huge improvement would we still see improvement you think in the well and all in the studies that i'm looking at uh the so many of them are not uh they're not picking volunteers with gut health issues these are people normal healthy people they're just testing it for fat loss or they're testing it for muscle gain and strength or they're testing it for anxiety or depression or skin you know skin health so they're not coming in with any uh reported issues interesting now that being said i think it's probably like this like if you look at the data on walking 8 000 steps a day profound health benefits i don't think it's necessarily because walking's magical but rather because we don't at all. We never move. So you get all these benefits because you're moving. I don't know, 5,000 years ago, we were probably, our microbiome probably was way more diverse. This probably wouldn't, I don't know if this would be as essential. Just like multivitamins, I think, are more important today than ever. Although the argument can be made that it would be important a long time ago too because of nutrient deficiency. So I don't know. But what I do know is when I'm looking at the studies on probiotics, it's hard to find one that doesn't show a benefit. Well, we keep seeing all the, I mean, how the microbiome plays so many roles in the body. And to just add that little bit of extra to benefit the culture there should have a massive difference. Just like mitochondria, we're addressing that, right? The function of the cell. If we improve that, you're going to see this cascading effect, I would assume, just because the bacteria plays such a big role in so many things. Probiotics help mitochondria. There it is. There's another one. It's just one of those things. So speaking of supplements and stuff, Kate, so GLP drugs, right? So semaglutide, trisepatide, ozempic, right? They just took the world by storm. We've talked about them on the show. Lots of people are using them now. A huge amount of people are on them now. And I predict it's going to be like probably two thirds of all of America will be on a gel. GLP at some point because of how effective they are for weight loss and all that stuff. So RETA is still like gray market. It hasn't really come to consumers yet. RETA is not FDA approved. RETA trutide. Only trisepatide, semaglutide, the two other big ones. So when that first started happening, remember when GLP really started to hit the market, there was a lot of fear among trainers and people in the fitness industry. Oh my God, no one's going to hire a trainer. No one's going to hire a trainer. Why would anybody go to a gym? Why would anybody go to a gym when they can just inject this thing and lose weight? And we predicted the opposite would happen. And you could listen to old episodes. We said, no, I think this will actually increase interest in fitness for two reasons. One, strength training is recommended. And so people are more aware of the thing to lift weights. But two, losing weight is motivating for people to go to work out oftentimes. So now that they're seeing themselves lose weight, they're like, cool, now I'm going to go work out a little bit now that I'm starting to lose weight by using this GLP. For your average person, I really think it's just absolutely necessary to have a coach if you're going to pursue that at all. For sure. Yeah. So we predicted GLPs would increase business for the fitness industry. A lot of people in our space were scared. In fact, many of them were anti it, saying it's going to hurt business in the industry. Guess who was right? Yeah. We were. Yeah. Do you want to see what the data looks like? They've done it. They've figured it out or they've looked at how much the GLP-1 user spends on fitness versus the average person. The average GLP user spends four times more on fitness. Wow. Four times, 400% more almost on fitness. So the average GLP user spends on average $449 per month on fitness, whereas the non-users about $120 per month in fitness. So like we said, and we have a course that we put together for coaches and trainers. We also have a fitness podcast that our trainers run called the Elite Trainer Podcast. We told all of our trainers, and in this course, which we created a while ago, we told trainers, do not embrace this because you're going to get more clients who are going to be on it because it's going to bring more people to us. Yeah. And that seems to be the case. I mean, I would argue that GLP-1s make the weight loss part easier but more complex. So easier because you've got this incredible tool that just cuts out all the food noise. And for somebody who has struggled with weight their whole life, food noise typically is really loud, really challenging. Cravings and food noise is one of the greatest hurdles and habits and behaviors that are attached to that. And so this tool allows, it just completely crushes that. Complex because it does such a good job of that. And we know historically, we've always struggled getting our clients to eat enough protein and be consistent with lifting weights. It makes those two things- More important and harder. Yes. Makes it more difficult. You're low energy to the point that I made when I went through it. So the drive to go to the gym is going to be even less than what it was when you were probably overweight. And if you were already somebody, like most people, who didn't eat enough protein as it is, it's even harder when you're eating more protein. You're eating half the calories you were eating. So easy, but more complex. And that is a perfect recipe for trainers and coaches to support and help that person. Because that person obviously, to your point, is willing to spend four times the money. So it's not a matter of, are they not willing to invest in themselves in that area? So they're willing to invest and more often or more now than ever need to invest in someone to help them and support them. 100%. I think one of the, from a business perspective, because I think we got to do this the right way. Because there's, there's, there are risks with GLPs, not the ones that you see the fear mongering risk, but you know, if you just go on one and usually eat way less, you're going to lose muscle, a lot of muscle as well, which can cause other problems. But I believe from a business perspective, GLPs are the best thing to happen in the fitness industry in a long time. I think it's going to bring more people to gyms. It's going to bring more people to personal trainers, more people to coaches. I'm almost, I'm almost, I'm almost any other thing that I can think of. And the data is now starting to support that. I think we're going to walk into, and I'm not even talking about the tech boom, which I think is going to fuel this as well. I think AI and all that stuff is probably going to fuel this as well, but let's just pretend that doesn't exist. I think we're walking into one of the largest fitness booms that if not the largest one that we've ever experienced in our experience. I mean, we were part of a kind of a became popular during our time running them, but I think GLPs are going to take it to the next level because it's making people want to work out and it's making people aware that they need to lift weights, that they need to work out. And their doctors are telling them for the first time, they're literally saying to them, lift weights. They never said that before. Mainstream doctors never said that. Lift weights. Now they're telling them. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see a cool graph. I don't, I don't know if we're technically in like a hockey stick moment or it's just been since we've been a part of this 25 years, it's just been this and we're feeling it maybe ramp up. That's what I think, you know, like we're going through, you know, like if we, if you graph this out, it probably kind of looks like this over the last 25 years. And we're probably on a, one of these right now on a, on a, on a pretty steep. I think trainers are going to see a big boom. You know, what's interesting about, as I think back to the, like the times, the fitness where I felt it really grow. One of those times was a period of time where we thought the fitness industry was going to get hit the hardest COVID COVID was interesting. Did very well during COVID virtual trainers, coaches, gyms didn't do well, the ones that were flexible, but gym equipment did really well. Do you guys remember what it was like trying to buy home gym equipment from Facebook marketplace? I thought about selling my dumbbells just to make some extra money. They're going for like four times the price. You couldn't get weights. You couldn't get bicycles either. Everybody was outside like biking. It was crazy. Yeah. I also, you know, we, there's, there's a, there's a lot of different things that are at play or GLP one ones are definitely one of the things that are at play. Uh, we're in this crisis too, of loneliness and, you know, we had a live caller just recently that we're, we're talking about community and this and that. And, you know, some people have hobbies, right? Some people are into pickleball or sports or have things that, that, that naturally organically have built in communities to them, but not a lot, not everybody has that. And I think that the gym, uh, like you, you pitch church a lot. I think church is another good example of that. Um, I think gym is another one is that it's just, it's just an easy built in. I'm going to this place like a church to better myself. Uh, surrounded by people want to get better. I'm surrounded by other like-minded people. It's a built in community. So it's such a great place, uh, for somebody. And I think that, that, that's also at play here. I think that we have got, no, you're right. Cause the, the money that's going into gyms right now, if you look at the way the money's changing, uh, the footprints of gyms are changed of gyms are changing. But also the amenities are moving towards more towards socializing. Yeah. So gyms now are starting to be, they're seeing that people go for it. Yeah. They're going there to socialize and to meet up with people. Yeah. So I think we're, I think we're entering into, uh, a great era. Yeah. Yeah. We're centering, um, you know, us hanging out around fitness and around like healthy things. It's exciting too, because, um, you know, and I, I like to think that we're a little bit different. I like to think that we're a little bit different. I like to kind of full circle talk about how you, you brought this all up with like bodybuilding and stuff like that. Like fitness is actually so much different than bodybuilding as far as like what it takes to be healthy, longevity and fit. Like it's very, it's very minimal. What doesn't take a ton. Yeah. And so if these, if these gyms start building to be more like these cool social, like cool social clubs where you can go over and lift a couple of weights, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's kind of like the vibe that I feel it's going to work out. You eat a little, you hang - Yeah, I mean, it's really, It's – even what I'm designing right now at my house, it's really the thought that I have. And I can't wait until it's all done at my place because I'm going to lift different than I've ever lifted before. I'm going to really attempt to lift the way I tell the story of the trainer who worked for me a long time ago. The way you do a little bit all day. Yeah, where I like just – I have – there is no routine or format. It's just that I go back – I'm in my backyard multiple times a day all day. And I'm just going to walk over there and go do two sets. And then I'm going to walk away. You know, dude, you're going to get so strong. I really want to see what happens. I've experimented with that and it makes me strong. I think Justin does that the most. I do that a lot, yeah. Do you? Are you good about that? Yeah. He does it all the time. Every now and then just go, yeah, do an exercise if I'm walking past weights. Yeah, I love doing that. Yeah, I'm going to really discipline myself to kind of try and embrace that and be that guy and see how that is. And I think that's the – and I just don't think people thought of that. In fact, I even – I still have friends to this day that, you know, they look at, like, my physique and they think that I – oh, I would never want to do that. I don't want to spend six days a week in the gym for hours at a time. Like, I have a life. I have other things I'm into. And it's just like, dude, I don't – Six hours a month. Yeah. It ain't got to be that. You know, it's nothing like that actually. And so I think as that narrative changes and people realize that when you – that's so awesome about lifting weights. As your main modality towards your pursuit of health and longevity, it's actually very minimal effort toward that. And if you can go to this place now where they build these gyms that have got pools and live DJs and lounge areas and little restaurants in them. And, man, it's actually kind of like this healthy club that you hang out at. And then, oh, maybe I'll make it over there and do a couple of sets while I'm here and I get out of here. And, man, I think it really could shift culture and how we do things. So, yeah. I just – it's funny you said that because I have this saved. There's this diagram that explains, based off of the data, what we know in the data, on how long it takes to lose, like, strength or endurance or whatever. So let's say you work out and then you stop. How long does it stick around, right, when you start to lose it? So they have this picture of a dude. It's this little diagram, whatever. And so it's like 48 hours later. Pretty much nothing has changed. Blood volume is down a little bit by about 5%. So this is just 48 hours after working out and he's doing nothing. Okay. You get a week later. Strength is unchanged. Muscle is unchanged. Blood volume is still kind of going down. Now we start to see mitochondria producing a little bit less energy. That's a week later. Okay. Then we get to two weeks later. VO2 max down 5% to 10%. So this is like stamina and endurance. Motor unit recruitment down 13%. Force output unchanged. Strength unchanged. Four weeks later. Okay. Blood volume is down by as much as 12%. VO2 max is down by about 10%. Strength unchanged. Muscle size unchanged. Wow, still. Eight weeks later. Two months later. Muscle size barely has changed. Strength is finally starting to drop. VO2 max down almost 20%. 12 weeks later is when you start to see some measurable size differences in muscle. So what's cool. So what's cool about this is muscle and strength stick around. They stick. They're very resilient forms of adaptation. So just to add to that because. Endurance goes quickly. So this is, it's interesting that you have that. It's so cool to actually see it because I'll tell you what I've experienced that I noticed myself. Just because I've watched and been super analytical of all the data, the numbers, what I look like, all this stuff. Like to probably an obsessive level, right? Because of what I've done. There'll be times where, you know, a week or two, more often two is normally about where I would be called. I would say I'd push it, but a week goes by and I haven't lifted weights and I feel like I can start to see a visible difference. But what that confirms with me, which I feel like this is so true, is that most of that is just blood volume in the muscles. Because as soon as I go get my first workout back from the same, like, oh, there it is. Like there I am. Like I still got it, you know, and I'm reminded of that consistently. And it's just like, man, how minimal you have to do to maintain that. That's what's so cool about one of the things. That's why strength training is such a wonderful form of exercise for modern life because you miss workouts. So you get to keep a lot of the gains. You get to keep the metabolic boost. You get to keep the look. The one thing I would say, the one caveat I would say is the more extreme you are with your development and strength, the faster you'll probably notice some declines. Because you're already at such a high level. In other words, someone who is like. A top strength athlete, top power lifter, or you're really strong in the gym, you take three weeks off of doing that lift, you might notice a difference, but it's not because your muscles aren't stronger or weaker, I should say, themselves, but rather the motor recruitment patterns haven't been trained or practiced. Because I know some people listening are like, that's not true. When I take three weeks off, like my bench goes from 450 to 425. Well, I'm going to push back on that a little bit because, and I know, I feel like if Ben Pekulski was here, he would push back also. A tiny bit. And what I've experienced, which is, yes, I am not squatting 420 and I'm not deadlifting 550 right now at all. But there is this kind of, my floor is. Yes. Is way higher. Yes. And that stays around. Like, it feels like I can't lose it. That's right. So, yes, you're right. Like, if I was like at peak me, you know, hitting PR and like hovering my numbers and I take three. Weeks off, I'm probably not able to be right at. You're going to notice some. Yeah, I'll notice some. And I, and if I continue not doing anything for say another week or month, let's say even a month, I might drop down. But then all of a sudden I kind of hit this like floor and that floor is still way stronger than the average person. Muscles, it's interesting. It sticks around, especially the longer you keep it. I don't know if you guys have ever seen like older people who obviously way less muscle than they had when they were really muscular, but that you can still tell that they, they used to lift almost, you know, like an old football player or whatever. Competitive strong man. I remember. Yeah. There was this older guy who's like, I don't know, 70 years old. So that old man strength comes from. Well, you had to have been some kind of athlete back in the day. And he, I haven't even lifted in, you know, over a decade really. Like he just does like everyday activity. You tell your story about your dad who just walked over and grab a kettlebell and pick it up. Dude, I remember when, so I used to have my, when I used to have my studio, there was a breakfast place next to it. And so people would line up on Sundays, especially Saturdays, Sundays, and I'd work on those days. And this little old guy walked in and I think he was 80, I believe he was 80 or late seventies. And he was a little guy. He was a little kind of short dude. And he walks in and he's looking around and I'm with a client. So I walk over him and introduce myself and I immediately noticed his forums. So he's this little dude with these little like ball kind of muscle forum. So right away I noticed, and I kind of looked at him and he looked at my kettlebells. He goes, can I, can I go look at those? I said, yeah. I said, yeah, go ahead. I'm like, are you familiar with them? Oh yeah. He goes, I used to use them in Russia. So he had an accent, Russian guy. So he goes over and he presses one up. I don't remember what it was. It was like 50 or 70 pounds. He has a lot of weight for an 80 year old dude. And I'm like, you still got some muscle on you. He goes, I haven't, I don't work out. I'm like, when's the last time you worked out? He's like, I haven't worked out in a very long time. I was a young man when I still worked out, but he had, you could tell by looking at those. Yeah. So there's a, so that was my point of pushing back is like, yeah, I mean, there's going to be, and let me tell you too, the guy who says that too, I think, cause I would have probably said that, um, some of that is psychological and a lot of it's the blood, the blood volume. Yeah. That's the pump. Yeah. Cause there, there, there's definitely, there's definitely this part of me that goes like, oh man, I, I, I feel like I can tell I haven't worked out in a week or two. And you're right. It was all, all that blood and fluid isn't pumped into those muscles. As soon as I go to the gym and go pump it all back in, it's like, oh, okay. I'm not far off from where I thought I was still got some. Yeah. And so, man, that's such a cool. Cool thing. I mean, it's the thing that I've been kind of talking about for the last couple of years on this podcast that, you know, not, not a lot of older guys communicated that to me. At least I don't remember ever hearing that from anybody. Everyone. In fact, the, what was usually communicated is, oh, if you stop working out, you lose it all, which is true. But what they should have said is you don't need to do a lot to keep it, dude. No. Yes. It's interesting. You talk about, yeah, that baseline. I totally feel like, cause it gives me that confidence. Like even when I was like, you know, I'm going to try to do like a PR, like I just, I knew that like it. At least I'm starting from a good place. Way higher than you were in your twenties. Yeah. Where you were probably a strong kid. This is crazy, but yeah, it's like if I could, you know, just refine my efforts in one direction for a specific amount of time, be really like judicious about like how I use my time, like recovery wise, like, you know, fueling that, like, I feel like I get pretty far, but like I like to, to know that my base is still right here. It took me so long as a kid to deadlift 400 pounds, like 400 pounds. Now I could do, I can not walk. Work out for a while and I'll pull four plates off the floor. That's what I mean. Your, your floor is whatever it takes to get there is not what it takes to keep it. No, not it's way less when it comes to strength training, not even close. The stuff that was communicated to me, it was like what you said, like, Oh, when you get old, you get older. If you stop, you, you lose it all. Um, or, and people used to say to me when I was a trainer in my twenties, like, well, what are you going to do when you get older? Like you can't possibly like be in the gym all the time and do a lot. It's more important when you're older to work out. Well, you know what I, what I get though is like, cause, you know, the way we all train so radically. in our twenties and crazy and the volume and intensity. It's like, so of course, somebody in their fifties looking at me in my twenties going like, you ain't going to be doing that. And they're right. I ain't doing that stuff anymore. It evolves. But it's like, I don't got to do nearly, nearly like that to look 10 times better than that kid. I know. That kid, what he had to do. Do you remember how hard it was to get over 200 pounds? Yes. Yes. All the lifting and eating. And now it's like. Yes. And now in order to get under 200, I'd have to lose a bunch of muscle to get under that. You'd have to starve yourself. Yeah. So, I mean, that to me is, it's such a, if you're listening to this podcast and you're young, that's one of the most exciting things about getting older that nobody ever said to me. It's just like, dude, it just gets easier. I know. It gets easy. And that sounds kind of. All the work you're putting in right now matters. Yeah. Long term. Yes. Joint pain and stress and all the other things that we talk about that like, that we fear monger about aging. I'm going to name it. It's called muscle wisdom. That's what I'm going to call it. Your muscles become wiser. Yeah. They've been down this road before. You know what I mean? Yeah. We'll call it that. All right. I'm going to change directions because I wanted to talk about our partner Z-Biotics. So people aren't familiar. Z-Biotics is a pre-alcohol drink and it's a genetically modified probiotic, meaning it's a unique probiotic that breaks down something called acetaldehyde in the gut. And acetaldehyde is this like negative byproduct of alcohol. So it's a good idea to break it down. So I did some more reading today on acetaldehyde and what it really does in the body. And is there any amount that's okay to have in the body? Mm-hmm. And the answer is no. Yeah. No benefit to it? No. No extra acetaldehyde is considered healthy. It is a reactive genotoxic compound that the body really works hard to keep at low levels. It is not good for you at all. When people get an extra load of it, it comes from alcohol. Even moderate drinking produces more acetaldehyde than the body normally handles, especially, and here's where Z-Biotics is important, locally in the mouth, saliva, and upper GI tract. So your liver does a good job of detoxifying acetaldehyde. Okay? So when the alcohol gets to the liver, unless you drink way too much, your liver does a good job of eliminating it. But some acetaldehyde's in the gut, and that doesn't get filtered by the liver. It goes into your bloodstream. Interesting. What Z-Biotics does is the bacteria that they modified breaks it down. So when you drink Z-Biotics for about 36 hours, you've got this bacteria that's going to break it down. It's this bacteria in your body that breaks down the extra acetaldehyde that doesn't make it to the liver. Breaks it down so you don't get the toxicity from it. And that's why it works so damn well. Is there anything else that we consume that does that? Negligible from food? Smoking. Smoking is the other way you get acetaldehyde. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder if there's any benefits of that. Taking it like pre-smoking? Yeah. Oh, pre-smoking. I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. That's good. I'm wondering if the acetaldehyde, well, no, maybe not, because the Z-Biotics, some of it in your mouth, but most of it in your gut, when you smoke, it's inhaled. So I don't know. It's in your lungs. That's funny, because some things that don't benefit your body, you could make an argument that a really small dose has a hormetic effect to it, but there's no benefit to this. No, no, no. The data shows it's all bad for you. Yeah. It's all bad for you. Okay. Interesting. So no matter how much you drink, the Z-Biotics is a good idea. So interesting that cigarettes and alcohol would be the thing that does it. Like all the things that we do to our body. The two worst offenders. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody wants to have fun. Pretty much. I was like, come on. Anyway. Party poopers. Do you guys see the changes that In-N-Out is making? Yes. Yes. Isn't that cool? All kinds of stuff. Did you see it, Justin? All the, all the, all get rid of all the dyes, changing the seed oils they're cooking in. They're not going to have cheese anymore. Right after they left California. It's like, oh, hey. No, no. Well, you remember, you remember the first move. You announced on the podcast when the founder pushed back on the trying to get rid of all the Bible verses and everything like that. And so they stood their ground with that. And then now they're making the move with all the different. Well, check this out. So yellow number five is going to be replaced with turmeric. Red number 40 is going to be replaced with beta carotene or vegetable juice. High fructose corn syrup. Sugar. They're now getting rid of high fructose corn syrup. Wow. Cotton seed oil has been removed from the buns. Calcium propionate is now natural enzymes in the buns. No more artificial vanilla in their shakes. Now it's going to be natural vanilla. And they're also, so they've upgraded their ketchup to have real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. And their future, their fries, they're actually investigating and researching other oil options for better fries. I don't know what oil they use right now. I don't think it's peanut oil. I think it might be. It's not peanut oil. That's five guys. Can I say that I don't like and it annoys me the fitness people that dunk on me. I don't dunk on this because with that, because like when, when the whole make America healthy again, it made movements towards changing the oils. They're attacking seed oil. Like seed oil is a thing that's making everybody fat. And it's like, they just scoff at it and that's their answer. Yeah. And I just, I don't, again, this is another area where it's like, okay, listen, I don't disagree that, you know, French fries and any oil is not an ideal. Every little step's good. Yeah. Exactly. It's, it's moving us in less crap. Yeah. Encourage companies to think about these things. Really? Yeah. It's like, it's like a trainer options scoffing at a client because they, you know, they walk, I just walk because they walk. That's not a workout. That's exactly what comes to mind. That's exactly what, that's why it bothers me. It comes to mind. It's just like, yes, you're right. If someone just walked, they could still be obese and they could still not have muscle and all those things. But hey, it's a, it's a, it's a positive step in a better direction. Yeah. And so if companies are getting rid of these dyes and they're changing the oils that they're cooking food in for a better version of that, I don't like fitness people that dunk on that. It's just not, choose a, choose something else to go dunk on. Well, my, my kids, this is just personal. Stupid algorithm content. Yeah, this is my, so my kids fall in this category. So again, this is my own anecdote, but my kids, when they have red number 40 in particular, it's like I gave them, it's like I gave them a, like a Fedra. It's like I gave them ADHD. Yeah. Literally. Like when I, when they have red number 40, they act different. And if it's too close to bed, they can't sleep. And I noticed this the first time I picked up on this, we were in Arkansas visiting Jessica's mom and we were all, we had gotten all these trailers. So she had a little bit of land. So we had all these trailers were sleeping out there and my daughter got a fever and she was real young at the time. She was like maybe two, maybe one and a half, two. And we gave her Tylenol and Tylenol, unless you get dye free, it's got red number 40 in it because they make it cherry flavor. So it's red. Anyway, we gave her Tylenol, which helps her fever and all night she was up all night and she was weird. She was like giggly and then cry. And then I'm like, man, is it her fever? Like what's going on? Second night, same thing happened. Wasn't until I started kind of putting it together. We gave her the dye free and she was totally fine. And since then we've tested it. If they have like gummy bears or anything, with red number 40, especially if it's in a decent amount, it makes them like they have ADHD like really bad. It affects their CNS. And I know other parents that this is the case as well. So I'm glad they're getting rid of it. There's an effect there. Yeah. Nonetheless, again, I just think it's a terrible thing to go pick something else to hammer and stuff like that because then again, it gets- Not good enough. Okay, dude. Better than nothing. Keon Aminos, are the part of protein your body uses to build and repair muscle without anything else. No digestion load, no tons of calories, 40% leucine enriched formula like Keon's Aminos is required to stimulate whole body protein synthesis. What's that? It's muscle building. After 30 dieting GLP-1s, your body gets less efficient at using protein for food. Keon Aminos bypassed that problem. They're clinically validated at 40% leucine, leucine threshold. In other words, if you're taking essential amino acids, it needs to be 40% leucine. That's the threshold for muscle building, for protein synthesis. If you're taking essential amino acids and the leucine is too low, you're not utilizing all of it. So Keon Aminos are the best one. Go check them out. Go to getkeon.com slash mindpump. That link will get you 20% off. Back to the show. Our first caller is Patricia from Utah. Hi, Patricia. How you doing, Patricia? Hello. Hi. First of all, I mean, the usual. Thank you guys for everything you do. I've been listening for about a year and you guys rock. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I'll go ahead and kind of like summarize my background and then come in with my question. But I'm currently 23 years old, female, about 145, 150 pounds, five foot seven. I haven't done a full body scan in a while, but around like 15% body fat is I think what I'm usually getting. I grew up a competitive soccer player and then got into the sport. I got into weightlifting in college with my boyfriend and he showed me how to do everything and got really into all the newbie gains. Those were very exciting. I graduated college about a year ago and have since moved to Utah and have been doing all the hiking and skiing and kind of just random things. I've done Spartan races, Tough Mudders, marathon, triathlon. And the past two months, I've kind of taken a break and just done like the free summer yoga classes. But I think I'm ready to kind of get into like, more of a routine. And now that I'm in my adult life, kind of building up to just like a, strong foundation i guess so my question really for you guys is being a young female kind of what should i do next yeah good question so um how did you uh tell me about grad school by the way what are you going to school for um sources and sources engineering okay cool okay so you you're kind of and correct me if i'm wrong you're kind of a go-getter so like you make a goal you get after it which is great uh but it could also be a challenge uh because like just because your past competitive soccer lots of hard competitions lots of getting after it with your workouts probably i don't think you're someone that's challenged with being consistent you're probably challenged with not working out like need to take breaks how has the last two months felt for you since you've done that um it's been good i've enjoyed yoga but i definitely missed the gym i feel like i'm not really doing anything which i'm not the biggest fan of you're also hiking and skiing is that right or is that going on give me give me also outside of lifting weights what else are you also doing um the hike we hike in the summer and then skiing in the winter so going to the national parks road trips on the weekends um i think i've done five or six hikes this summer it's not every weekend but pretty active all the time i would say okay good you know if you want a goal the the best goal that i could point you in uh the direction of that i think would help with a lot of other things would be strength it's not perfect because you go too far with that too uh but it might give you kind of what you're looking for in terms of like something to chase but i also think it would it would point you in a kind of healthy direction the only challenge is uh is going to be all the other stuff you're doing on top of it so and i need to know like more specifics so like how many days a week would you say you're doing something that's going to help you in a healthy direction something very active um right now two to three i think i do two yoga classes during the week and then maybe a hike on the weekends if we're not super busy with oh that's fine yeah that's okay and yoga is what is it power yoga are you doing like yin yoga um i think it's one of each it really depends on the week it's just the free okay like classes or whatever how do you feel about getting really strong at like the core lifts like power lifting i would love to i think it would be really fun i would just be kind of worried about form and stuff since i'm not used to it i haven't really done it before and i definitely don't want to get hurt yeah so be very careful with technique and smart which i think you will be uh but maps power lift will be a really fun program uh for someone like you to get like prs with your deadlift your squat and your bench now the other side of that is diet and i'm looking at what you wrote and you have some food intolerance issues and stuff like that is that prevent is that preventing you from eating enough um i don't think so it's just i'm i know protein is a big deal and i know you guys talk about it and i hear it and i try very very hard but like the protein shakes i just can't get it down and sometimes i struggle to just eat enough chicken or eat enough beef to hit the goals and so i just i don't know any tips or advice on that would be very helpful yeah we have some tips um do you have a regular menstrual cycle okay cool i'll just carry you 15 percent uh and and maybe low on some of the healthy fats and and proteins would concern me a little bit but if you have a healthy menstrual cycle that's a good sign um have you tried different types of protein shakes too like you know sometimes like uh i'm not a big fan of like really thick and like type of shakes so things like paleo valley's bone broth is almost like drinking chocolate milk it's so thin and easy to kind of pound and so that's that's a strategy i love things like greek yogurt uh and they make brands uh that have like 20 20 grams in like a small cup and so i'm not a big fan of that but if you have a healthy menstrual cycle that's a good sign of that so something real quick and easy with berries uh that i can eat or do um you've probably heard if you listen to the show long enough uh making a whatever you have for dinner whatever meat that is carrying it over into the morning with like a scrambled like you know scramble couple eggs with it those are good strategies uh most my clients that struggle with hitting protein and that's hard for them it's the breakfast so i always talk to them about when the morning and it sets the day up um and so focusing really on making sure uh that you start the day with a good 30 to 45 grams of protein really sets you up for success otherwise it's tough you're playing catch up the rest of the day have you ever tracked to see kind of what your average what's your calories i haven't in a long time i did probably sophomore year of college just when i was first getting into it and then i kept forgetting to track it okay can i ask you more personal questions yeah uh do you have any do you ever have a history of like restricting or maybe a challenging relationship with food so you don't have a problem eating no i've always been pretty good good i'll clean my plate it's just getting big enough i think yeah so so you're gonna schedule your meals uh and you're gonna have to kind of make it like every three hours yeah more frequency and meal prep and and eat that'll make a big difference you do that with power lift and you're gonna get real strong intimidating yeah no you'll love it listen you'll love it the video demos in there are really really good um you're i mean you have an analytical brain obviously so you just watch technique perfect it technique plays a huge role in power lifting so power lifting is very technique focused like if i want somebody to learn how to squat deadlift and bench press better than anybody else i'm gonna send them to a power lifting coach because they know how to do those better than anybody else so so it's very very technique heavy you might be a great uh patricia you might be a great candidate too for our concierge program where you just check in with a coach once a month and then you can send videos of your technique and form so like video yourself squatting doing those movements and they'll coach they'll coach you even virtually yeah so and it's a lot more reasonable than i mean hiring a personal trainer one-on-one would be awesome sometimes that's out of a lot of people's budget uh to have a coach one-on-one that would be ideal when you're trying to get good at this but at the very least um doing like our concierge with our trainers uh they can help coach you through that process and and get you good at it yeah and i mean there's master class in there as well so you know really go through some of those videos uh it'll it'll you know spell out a lot of the details sometimes that helps you know people uh to really dive into a lot of those details and apply them and you know and you don't have to be intimidated by adding a lot of weight in the beginning you know keeping it light and just you know really form and mechanics focused uh and then yeah having another set of eyes would be you know a really good idea would power lift be something that i guess once i finish the whole program to just kind of restart and just keep building off of it yeah i think that's a great you could uh although i like following that up with symmetry yeah i mean yes and i mean i i if it's her first time through a lot of times i like to run it twice she could because you're kind of getting used to building it yeah you're still building it so you could i would run it twice and then go to symmetry like you're saying since it's like you're kind of new to those lifts and getting good at those lifts the the practice of going through it twice we typically will tell someone symmetry or performance because you're doing all these like sagittal plane movements and if you get really really strong in just a second you're going to be able to do it in a sagittal plane you don't address unilateral work then that's where like the joints and stuff starts on you but somebody who's just getting started in it i'm i'm picturing you going through it the first time more cautiously really working on technique and not loading it that much the second time around kind of pushing the strength and pushing the technique and pushing the weight a little more and then go to symmetry i think would be ideal but again too this is also stuff that if you do the concierge with their coach they'll they'll coach you through that process on what that looks like too okay sweet yeah so we're going to send that to you go get strong yeah my best yeah keep us you'll have fun with it yeah yeah sure yeah we'd love to hear how it goes okay we'll do all right thank you yeah thank you guys so much bye-bye that'll be fun for her it'll it'll put a pointer in a good direction um you know the one thing that and i'm glad she said she would do that because the one thing i'd be worried about for someone like her just based too much too much stuff all the time uh but you know getting stronger is hard to do when you're doing too much she's got some serious muscle on her 150 pounds and 15 body fat on a chick is like legit very well she played competitive soccer and she yeah she's probably so uh probably has some serious muscle building potential so if that's she's if she's anywhere even if she's north or south of that she'll probably be good immediately yeah yeah she's gonna she's gonna build some muscle dude 15 body fat 150 that's just some serious muscle already our next caller is vanessa from colorado hi vanessa hey guys wow surreal um so amazing to get some advice from you guys thanks for just being there like in my journey you've really helped to motivate me so thank you so much um i wrote everything down just because i'll get off track and i added a question so hopefully that's okay yeah um i'm 43 years old i currently weigh like anywhere between 160 165 54 and the biggest thing i think that might be impacting me is last year i found out that i was in post-menopause so low testosterone and estrogen so i think i don't know if that's impacting my journey or not um i've yo-yo dieted i've done everything in the book um took glp last year lost like 20 pounds gained it back listen to your advice and kind of weaned myself off that and then this year i started really like doing a four-day a week program upper lower body since like february and i'm very consistent so super motivated there Um, right now though, I've only lost like 2% body fat on the journey there. I've probably put about eight pounds of muscle on and I've reversed dieted from 1850 calories. And then in June I went up to 2400 and I've been right around there and keeping it there. Um, I step about 8,000 to 12,000 steps a day. And, um, I'm just wondering, like right now I have been working with a trainer and the upper lower body. I jumped into your guys's upper lower body, um, six weeks ago and, um, that feels great. Just everything's a little bit different. So I feel like I'm really seeing like just changes in my muscle in different ways. So that's good progress there. But I feel like I'm in a plateau when it comes to like fat loss. I don't know if I'm eating too much or like, like I said, my weight gain is just, it kind of stays between that five pound range. And let's see, I also don't eat too much on days that I um, work well that I don't work out. And then I eat more on the days that I do. Um, and then also just wondering if maybe peptides is something I should consider. Okay. Well, thanks for calling in. So you're averaging 2,400 calories a day when you average out the high and low days. Yep. Okay. Well, no, cause I guess if you put it that way, probably around like 22 to 23. Okay. So what's a low day and what's a high day? Low day, maybe 2000 high day 24. Okay. I see. Okay. So that's good. Um, and then you said your post-menopause, this was based off of just hormone profile. How old, do you mind if I ask your age? Shit, 43. Yeah, 43. Okay. Oh, wow. You look a lot younger. Okay. Okay. So, all right. So, so I think you're doing everything right. You're doing a great job. You're doing really good. What you came from on the reverse diet and the amount of muscle you built and body fat percentage changes is phenomenal, especially a post-menopausal. That's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. That's, you've done a really good job just so you know. Eight pound muscle gain is incredible. And 2% body. Yeah. And, and the reverse diet, all the things and being post-menopausal, like it's not easy when your hormone profile is off like that. It makes, it does make everything exponentially more difficult. I mean, I've openly discussed this on the podcast many times. My most challenging clients as a young trainer was helping women through menopause, especially back then, 20 years ago when we had way less tools, I feel, or communication around it. So I always was, I was lost as a young trainer many times trying to help someone. It's very, very difficult. It's very difficult. Are you, are you taking anything right now? They have you on thyroid or testosterone or anything? Yeah, I'm just doing like a testosterone estrogen cream and it's pretty low. And then I'm on like amino acids and stuff like that. Just after like a powder that I got at lifetime that I'm, that's the gym that I go to. So, so you're doing great. I think you're doing a lot of things, right? In fact, everything I've heard so far, I haven't heard anything that I would say you're doing wrong. You're on hormones. So that's going to help. Uh, well, I think you're doing a lot of things right now. Um, and you have a past of going up and down the yo-yoing. Okay. So what we want to do is stay away from that. We don't want to yo-yo anymore. And I think that's kind of what you're communicating. Like, like I'm out of that phase. I don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to do that anymore. Um, so this, what that essentially means is you, you gotta be patient because you're doing all the right stuff. Yeah. And now if we push you in, in a cut, uh, averaging 2,200 calories, we will run the risk of doing the yo-yo thing. Um, and you're going to lose weight. Your calories really aren't that low to do, uh, kind of an effective cut. I mean, we'd have to bring you down to like, you mean high. Yeah. Not high enough. Sorry. So we'd have to bring you down to like 1600 calories with, uh, which wouldn't feel that good. You would see some weight loss on the scale, but then you plateau and then we'd kind of be, you know, uh, in a, in a worse position. Honestly, I mean, you're doing eight to 12,000 steps a day. Your strength training hormones are getting balanced. You built eight pounds of muscle. Uh, you're, you're, I honestly, you should keep going reverse diet. Keep going on the reverse diet. Keep trying to get, keep trying to get stronger and add calories would be ideal. I was wondering, like, should I go higher? Yes, absolutely. Keep, keep adding strength, keep adding calories, keep going that direction. Um, and to cut though, that's, well, I mean, so it's different for everybody. Um, generic answer, uh, someone, your age, height, weight, all the things I want about 2,800 or above. Uh, but if you were at, let's say we're at 2,800 and you, are telling me you still have an appetite, I would keep pushing you. Now let's say you're at 2,800 and you're like, Adam, this feels like so much food. Okay. Then I'll probably start to bring you back down. So I, I think you can easily support working up to 20 based off your activity level, strength, all the things you 2,800 calories or more is where I'd be taking you. And more would be, I would love to get you at 2,800. We haven't seen much movement on the scale. You've probably hovered around the same, even if we put a couple of pounds on the scale, not really worried. Like I'd want you to kind of hovering around within five pounds of where you're at and all the way up to 2,800. And then in a perfect world, you're telling me I could eat more. And then I just, great. Let's keep going that way until finally you look at me and you go like, okay, this is a lot of food out. And this is now it's becoming like a lot of work to eat this much. Uh, and now we have runway and yeah, now that's typically a good place. Cause it feels very comfortable to go, you know what? Just knock one of those meals off or cut your portion size on this, these two meals in half. And like, you know, you feel comfortable eating that much. You still feel satisfied. And it's now putting you in a deficit and now you're just leaning out nicely and you find this kind of beautiful, comfortable place to stay and you achieve the goal you're looking for. Yeah. Vanessa, are you open to working with a mind pump coach for the nutrition part? I know you're working with a trainer for your workouts, but are you open to working with one of our coaches? Um, yeah, I've always had an issue with nutrition and what's the right thing to eat. So yeah, I would consider that. Okay. Let me have someone call you cause, uh, they'll coach you through that process and it'll be very individualized. Yes. So you'll meet with them, but then also you'll be able to message them and be like, I feel like this. Is this right? Should I, what direction should I go? And then they can modify, uh, the whole way through to individualize it because a reverse diet is scary. It's a scary process. It's also, it's been like way too easy. That's the problem. I'm like, Oh yeah, that on, I don't want that. That's the, that's the scary part. Right. And so the coach will walk you through that. They'll guide you through that. That's right. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a weekly type of conversation. Like how we feel and how you doing talking. That's why too, when you asked me how far it's hard to answer that, um, because that could change. And I have this sometimes with it, with the client, this way you'll get this with your coach. You guys are going along reverse diet and you're adding calories, adding calories. And then all of a sudden we get to a place where you don't feel good. You're discouraged, you're frustrated. And then sometimes I have to bring the client back down for a little bit. Okay. This is what we're gonna do, Vanessa, for the next two weeks, I'm going to put you down to 23, 2400 calories. Then you see some results, you feel good. And then you're like, okay, let's go back up. And so a lot of that. That's the individual part, uh, that the coach will do with you. And through that process, you'll really learn how to control that yourself, uh, going forward. So very, very, uh, worthwhile to go through with the coach. Take you to that. Okay. All right. And then I guess the other question was just, um, I did the upper lower body for so long that I jumped into your guys's. Should I have jumped into something else? Not necessarily. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a good program. Uh, PPL is a good program. Symmetry would be a good program, but since you're, you're open to working with a coach, uh, they're going to give you maps. Vanessa, they can modify it. They're going to modify, they're going to modify it specifically for you. So, and then you'll, that'll be the best thing. That'll be better than any mass program that we could, you know, template we can give you. Okay. All right. Well then that's, um, positive news. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Good job. You're doing great. Great job. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah. She, I, I didn't catch her age when she was talking. So she said post-menopause. I'm like, how did you get post-menopause? You're like, I mean, I heard her. I heard her say it right away. Cause I couldn't believe it. I saw it. I saw 43. She's about 43. But yeah, the, um, she's doing everything right at this point. And people, I know, I know, I understand how frustrating this is to hear like, Oh, be patient. Like, you know, just like, I'm going to pull your hair out. But that is a big part of this process is being patient. You have to communicate that. And focusing on what's happened so far. What's happened so far. She's bumped her calories. Her weight hasn't really changed. She's gained eight pounds of lean body mass. Yeah. Phenomenal. That's phenomenal. Our next caller is Kaylee from Arizona. Hi, Kaylee. Hi, Kaylee. Hi guys. How are you? Good. How you doing? Good. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. How can we help you? Um, I work full time. I'm getting ready to go back to school. Um, from a logging perspective, I usually average about 1800 to 2200 calories per day. Typically 130 to 160 grams. If I'm doing really well on protein, um, I've been working out four to five days a week, but I realized that's probably going to drop down. And I'm just scared of losing essentially the muscle mass that I've gained. And this two years impressively and kind of reverting backwards, either by not feeding myself well enough or, um, my training frequency going down with all of this high stress and movement that I'm about to go through. So just kind of wanting your guidance on how, when I can preserve what I've achieved, but also continue to see growth and increase and, um, factoring in all that stress and change. Oh, perfect. Okay. And I see you're, I'm going to be looking, I'm looking at your email right now. So, um, you, you've been working out for about seven years and the last two years, uh, really good workout programming. You train at home, but you also do Peloton strength classes and some bar classes on the weekend. Yes. And then you work through the week and on the weekend, it says you also bartend. So you're working a lot. Yeah. Okay. And now tell me about your, your, uh, workout, all of the workouts you do. So how many days a week are you doing some kind of a workout, whether it's Peloton bar or lifting weights? Um, typically I've been trying to practice your guys's like recommendation on trying like an upper and lower. So I've been doing consecutively like two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, you stay through. friday upper and lower and then if like my energy permits that's when i'm doing the bar classes on the weekend so it can be four days a week it can be six it kind of just depends okay and then how's your sleep um from the aura ring perspective it says good i'm averaging like 88 as my sleep score and sometimes i get like 96 but um i don't know sometimes i feel sometimes i still feel like i don't fully feel rested and i know stress plays a role in that too um i think even in my email i mentioned like some digestive stress obviously from trying to increase my feeding window or my um my protein but also trying to optimize pre-feed and post-feed and not eat too close to bedtime and all of that so i got i'll tell you exactly why you feel that way it's not in that fact that you're scoring that high on sleep is you just you do a lot and don't eat a lot for someone who does as much as you do that's yeah yeah that's why i figured it was that's why you feel that way because like you're getting great the fact that you're scoring 80s and 90s on your aura means you are doing a good job and you're probably exhausted while you're crashing out like that and why you probably still feel even after good great nights of sleep like that still feel like man i feel like i'm still it's because you're you're low calorie for the amount of training volume and activity on and then that's not even factoring like like outside stress of just work and all the things pressures and whatever you are physically doing a lot for somebody who's only eating uh two thousand or so calories that's that's really low yeah so the good news is this kaylee reducing your training volume is not going to make you lose muscle you'll probably be better yeah okay you'll probably get stronger in fact i would do that right now i'll put her on mass okay yeah right now you can get better results by doing that yeah and in training so redlining or kind of doing what you can tolerate which is sounds like that's kind of where you live increases increases inflammation and contributes to digestive issues okay so uh the fact that you're doing so much and eating not enough to support that uh you're putting yourself in a position where you're like oh i'm not going to do this i'm not going to do this i'm going to do this i'm going to do this i'm not going to do this if you cut your training way down bumped your calories you would see a strength gain happen within a week or two what week one or two within a week within the first couple weeks you see strength go up and that's how you know you're moving in the right direction yeah it's interesting like this i think you guys did an episode i want to say a couple months ago where you referred to a study of like how one week off from a typical four-week training can actually like double time your muscle retention just because of the recovery and so i'm like three days into a recovery and like i almost feel like i've been working out for like three days and i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm harder just because i feel like my body's like ow like you haven't listened to any of the recovery stuff so now you need a foam roll and red light and all the stuff um so it's so funny i could literally hear you guys saying this to me and it's but it's nice to hear it reinforced what's your three-day recovery what are you doing um as of late it's just been really like stretching just kind of like rolling into the motion of where my body will let me go um kind of just not like forcing myself to do anything tense like you even housework where you like can like really zone into the stress of the movement um so kind of just like sitting there breathing exercises i do have foam a foam roller as well um but mostly just stretching trying to work out some kinks okay good so do that for the full week okay so no workouts for a full week just kind of make yourself feel better i'm going to send you so if you really want to blow your mind i'm going to send you maps 15 take a week off so continue on this because we got four more days off start maps 15 see if you can do that and then i'm going to get your calories up 200 a day so uh from 18 to 22 let's just let's aim for 23 to 2400 calories a day okay by the third by probably by the third workout you're going to be stronger okay okay okay and then you know like oh this is working yeah okay and knowing that with the uh calorie increase like i'm kind of averaging like five to six meals a day like three large and then obviously some snacks um i guess what is your guys's more formal opinion on how to time that around a workout like i know i put in my email i was kind of concerned with doing evening workouts because it was like you know ramping my heart rate up too close to sleep but then eating all obviously also does the same thing are you guys like really strict on that like feeding time what you just said matters more than anything else how is it affecting my sleep how's it affecting my digestion as far as the protein calories around the workout that weren't that doesn't it's so irrelevant yeah it's so okay so so like you need your body needs what it needs as far as protein and so that so that becomes a priority but sleep and digestion are one and two yeah are you familiar with the the best data on like timing meal timing uh not as if they're like the best or most recent it's it's it's literally it's like splitting hairs on splitting hairs okay it matters here's when it matters when you have a a professional athlete who's going to train twice a day what this is all they do this is their job and so that the meal timing helps with that so that's where it comes in and so that's where it comes in and so that's where it comes in and so that's where it comes in and so that's where it comes in and so that's where it comes in it's not gonna make a difference at all yeah so don't even worry about it you just eat uh you know hit your calories uh follow math 15 and don't worry about meal like literally don't even worry about meal time it doesn't make a difference okay okay i'm excited it's just good to hear validated now yeah for sure yeah and you know don't get caught up in the in the little minutia of all the little hacks and stuff like that which you know uh and i can see uh you know that you your normal job it's it's like you know a lot probably about supplements uh you're you know into pharmacokinetics you know so it's really fun to get into the details but they really don't make that big of a difference like they just don't so don't worry too much about it yeah uh and you'll like i said you'll know by the by the second week of following mass 15 and bumping your calories you you'll see strength difference it's going to trip you out for sure yep okay lean into that that's exciting and is maps 15 like more home friendly or should i have more access to a gym as well very home friendly for any oh beautiful okay what do you have at home yeah awesome do you have a barbell dumbbells bench or what do you got yeah i have um eight pounds up to 42 pounds and then two barbell uh with 25 pound plates so i just do a lot of like plane of motion free weight stuff oh you're good you're good yeah you got plenty okay yeah you'll do great okay awesome i really appreciate you guys thank you so much you got us thank you thank you the irony is she's afraid of losing muscle she's gonna gain i know that's yeah yeah yeah i mean right away was like so glaring when she said her sleep scores were so good she still felt tired it's like you're crushing you're definitely hitting you're doing a good job in sleep but you feel that way because your calories are so low and she you could do it a lot i mean can you not sense her energy she's a go-getter yeah right like she's she powers she's working she's getting ready to start school she's also bartending on the side she takes bar and peloton and she hits four workouts a week and doing all that on two thousand calories is just what happens with she's young right so and you'll see this sometimes with 20 year olds they just push everything yeah these are the women that end up with really bad hpa axis dysfunction once they get into their mid to late 30s yeah um and like what is going on you know and it's because yeah you've been redlining for a long time but doing what we said she's gonna get she's gonna blow her mind our next caller is gabby from australia hi gabby hi how are you how can we help you i'm good thank you um i've been listening to you guys for about a year now and you've really changed my perspective on fitness and health um i struggled with an eating disorder for 12 years i've been a fashion model and i've worked from age 17 now i'm 31 so my story is quite complicated when it comes to food and health and yeah and i have yeah i've wanted to get stronger over the last two years i'm a mom of two kids and when i when my daughter was born i have been completely free of my eating disorder tendencies which has been wild and i never thought that it would be happen and i'm eating more than ever and lifting weights before i was so afraid to lift weights just to gain any sort of size as a fashion model yeah so i'm here because i'm wanting a little bit more consistency with with food mainly like obviously i'm not going to be eating a lot of food but i'm going to be my um yeah obviously my relationship with food has been an interesting turbulent one and i would love to have a little bit more input and advice in that and i've built so much muscle in the last like three years has been wild um i'm so much stronger than i ever have been before and my metabolism feels really like fiery so i'm going to be eating a lot of food and i'm going to be so i'm almost like i feel like i'm eating too much like but i'm i will then like have a day where i'm so hungry where i can't stop eating um yeah that's where i'm at now all right well thank you so much for calling in gabby so when i read your email and you mentioned this um you it was after having your your your child things your daughter where you felt this kind of lift would you mind if i could just talk a little bit about that for a second yeah so i'm going to be eating - Would you mind, if it's okay, would you mind explaining that felt like? What was it with that experience that brought that away from you? What was that like for you? Yeah. I don't know. I've probably been in recovery for so many years prior. I've wanted to change. I've wanted to be different. So I've done all the steps. And then as soon as my daughter was born, there was just this thing in me that was almost like, no more. I can't do this anymore. This can't happen anymore. And like, I'm a Christian. I believe in God. And it was like a divine moment of freedom when she was born. That's wonderful. Awesome. Yeah. I'm so glad you shared that. So I've trained clients who've had a similar experience to what you're doing. Yeah. I've trained clients who've had a similar experience to what you're doing. Yeah. I've also had clients that have gone in the opposite direction. So the feeling of, and you know this because you're a mom, the feeling that your body's not yours. So now suddenly I can't control everything. It can either push people in the direction of trying to control even more, or it can push people in the direction of like, I can't control this. I'm going to surrender to this. And then you have the added benefit of having a baby that you just fall in love with. And so I've had people have a similar experience. I do want to say and add to this. First off, you're doing a great job, uh, that because you lived in that way for so long and you did it, uh, during, uh, formidable years. So your teenage years, that is a default, uh, pattern that's going to rear itself potentially when things get very difficult or stressful. Yeah. So the challenge isn't, uh, you know, Oh God, I got to worry about this thing. That's not what I'm saying. But, uh, keep in your mind when you start to feel those old feelings back, don't be ashamed and say, I thought I defeated this. Cause that could also, that can make things feel a lot worse. The best thing you can do around that, and I'll get more detailed with diet and stuff like that, but the best thing you can do around that is always bring it to the light. Yeah. So always. So, so you're a Christian. I'm sure. I'm assuming you go to a church. Yeah, I do. You want to share that with the people that you're close to at church, as soon as it starts to come up. Uh, there's a biblical backing for that. It's, it's about confession. And then psychologically when you bring it to the light, it's like putting, uh, you know, it's like taking bacteria and shining light on it. It can't survive in the dark. It grows. And so you may feel like this thing's coming up. Uh, and I told all these people I've, I've defeated it. It's part of my testimony, but now it's coming up. I don't want to tell them. I don't want to share that. I'm struggling with this thing. I think I can do this on my own. I feel ashamed because I told everybody I got over it. That's, that's the worst thing you could do. The best thing you could do is, is bring it to those people. And that right there is going to help you the most. It's going to help you the most with, uh, with this process. As far as diet is concerned, uh, getting stronger is the best possible thing you could do. And I think if you focus on moving in that direction, the nutrition is going to support that. The nutrition is going to support that the whole, the whole time. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's going to be, uh, eating regularly. So, um, there's a couple of things that can trigger dysfunctional eating. Uh, the obvious stuff is like focusing on body all the time. So studying yourself in the mirror, studying pictures yourself, like that could trigger it stress, like feeling out of control can kind of trigger it. So be aware, uh, with that kind of stuff. Um, but also what can trigger it is going for long periods of time without food and then following it up with periods of time where you're, you're eating so quickly that it feels like a binge. Okay. So eating regularly, staying on a schedule, is one of the things you can do, uh, that'll help with that. Uh, so try not to skip meals. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I've been, yeah, I've been doing that and it really does definitely help. Yes. Um, and I'm, so you're probably eating good protein and supporting strength gains because you're talking about all the muscle that you've gained. Yes. Okay. That's good. And then do you, uh, do you coach anybody? Um, no, I don't at the moment. That is very, uh, helpful for coach for, for people to coach other people, uh, can oftentimes be very helpful, uh, for the stuff, uh, for yourself. So obviously you work out, you look like you work out, um, you're part of a community, um, you volunteer and offer to help other people. That's another great way to kind of keep you in the right place, uh, with all of this. Yeah. Great. Yeah. I mean, great success story. Yeah. It's been, it's been a wild one. Talk about how different it must feel. How different does it feel for you being strong and healthy versus, cause I know I've trained some fashion models and I know that that space really, um, it's very normal to feel, uh, tired, weak, uh, to, you know, restrict yourself. So it's gotta be such a drastic difference in how you feel. Yeah, absolutely. And I, um, I have energy all day, which is wild. Um, I'm not tired and hungry every afternoon, but just like, and just the food focus is so different. And that's the, being the biggest thing. Like my husband is like, our life is completely different now. And he's like, I can't even remember what it was like before, but it was really hard. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. It was really, really hard. Like I was a very young mom at 23 and, um, I was dealing with all of this when I had my son for, for years and years and trying in the depth of an eating disorder while trying to parent, while trying to work, while trying to manage all these different things was like, I was drowning. I was completely, completely, completely, completely, completely drowning. And now to be a mom for the second time and actually able to give my child the attention and my family, the attention without this heavy thing, all consuming my mind is such an incredible, like such an incredible experience. That's so awesome. So good. So what you just did, uh, by, by talking about the differences between the two is so powerful, um, for future Gabby. So one thing you can do, and I don't know if you've done this is write a letter or write down the ways I used to feel and how I feel now. And this is, and you write it out. And so the power of this is when you feel like, Oh, I'm feeling this old feeling start to creep up. You go back and you read this letter and you go, Oh yeah, that's why, that's why I don't want to go back. That's why I want to stay the course. It's very, it's a very, it can be a very powerful tool for future Gabby. If those old, uh, you know, feelings start to pop up again. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I had a client once do that, uh, with some substance abuse and he said that whenever he wanted to go back, he would read this letter that he wrote, uh, while he was going through withdrawal. And so he wrote it when he was in withdrawal. So he read, he read it and he's like, man, that kept me away, uh, like several times just reading that letter I wrote to myself. So it's just, just another idea. Yeah, absolutely. I really liked that idea. I do a lot of journaling. So that kind of goes hand in hand with that. That's so awesome. Gabby, are you following one of our programs? I'd like to set you up with one if you're not. Um, I'm not at the moment. No. Okay. How many days a week are you working out? But I would love to, I would love to, um, I'm probably around three times a week. Oh, good. But I have like some kettlebells and stuff at home to play around with. So I can do little bits whenever. Do you want, uh, do you want to try to get really strong? That's kind of scares me. So I come from a family, my husband's family, they're like all competitive lifters. Um, his sister isn't ranked number one and holds record holds, but like Olympic lifting and stuff like that. So I'm completely surrounded by that all the time and it terrifies me. But, but yes, I, I, I understand the benefits and I, I do want to be strong forever. Okay. Is it an exciting, scary, like, okay, I want to do this. Cause if you, if you are like every time, every time I, every time I lift heavier, I am excited and I'm like, wow. Like this is amazing. What my body can now do. All right, good. I'm going to send you math. Yes. Yes. I'm going to send you math power lift. Let's get you to hit some PRS. Okay. Amazing. Yeah. Let's do that. And you, and, uh, and keep, keep us posted. Let us know how it goes. Yeah. Thank you so much. You got it. And I really appreciate you calling in. I think your call is going to help a lot of other people. Yes. No, thank you. This has been a really cool experience. Awesome. Great job, Gabby. Thank you, Gabby. We'll send that to you. Okay. Thank you. Bye bye. Oh, that's a nice story. What a tough world. I don't know if you guys ever trained somebody that works in that space. So restrictive. Dude, I had a client who was like smoking cigarettes. It's extremely rare for someone to go through that, especially anyone you've trained that's been there for four years or more to not come out with an eating disorder. Are you kidding me? Yeah. That's the standard. It's promoted, yeah. It's all eating disorders. It's all dysfunctional. Yeah. 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