2981: How to Lift Weights With Bad Joints (5 Things That Actually Help)

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You want to get stronger. But here's the problem. Your knees hurt. Your shoulders hurt. Your hips hurt. You got bad joints. What do you do? We're going to talk about that today. Five things to do. One thing to not do. To lift with bad joints. Looks like this is shots across the bow right here. Shots fired, guys. I would say- A little lift being an old man. Catching strays over here. So this came up for me because I have a friend that just reached out. Actually, not a friend of mine. A friend of my wife's reached out because she has quote unquote bad knees. And she wants to exercise, but she's avoiding strength training because she has bad knees. And this is still something that circulates where people are afraid to do certain forms of exercise, in particular strength training, because their joints hurt. Now, I do want to say this before we get into it. Of all forms of exercise, strength training is actually the best for joint health when done properly. It's very modifiable. It's modifiable. You can adjust the motion, all those things to consider, but that's really what's going to help absolve the pain of the knees. Yes. Yes. 100%. Also, through proper strength training, you know that you build muscle. You also build tendon and ligament strength, and you also build your joints. So what you find with people who do proper strength training, proper meaning good technique, good form, they're not pushing to absolute extremes with crazy amounts of weight or whatever. You actually find healthier joints as a result. So it's very good for you, but there are things to pay attention to, and there are factors that can help you if this is you. If you're listening, like, yeah, that's great, but right now my knees hurt, and I can't do lower body exercises, then these things will help you. Well, what percentage of clients would you say are due to weakness and instability, like lack of muscle? Like most of my clients that had, quote unquote, bad joints, what was exactly that was we had poor movement patterns. We were weak and unstable. And so then the joints, they're not good for you. They're not good for you. The joints end up taking over the stress. And so, I mean, what percentage do you think that's, like, when you hear this, how often is it related? I mean, obviously, if you have something like rheumatoid arthritis or, you know, an autoimmune disease like that, that is directly impacting it, or like my psoriasis one that we were talking about earlier, you and I off air, like there's some things that, like, you could be, that you could have that's like- Or acute injury of some sort. Right, or an acute injury. But other than that, it's like almost always, uh, lack of muscle stability and strength that's causing these bad joints. So this gets confusing because people will get imaging done and they'll say, I have no cartilage in my knee, uh, or it's bone on bone. How many times you heard that, right? Yep, yep, yep. So this is oftentimes a result. Now you can have an acute injury, but that's different, right? That's like you hurt yourself. You fell or got hit by a car. Something got fully torn. But when, when your, your joint starts to degrade over time, because the muscles that operate around the joint, the muscles that move that joint are moving around the joint. Moving that joint in a way that is, uh, not good. Okay. So, and I've used this analogy before and I like it because I think it illustrates it well. It's like you have a sliding glass door and it's on a track. If it fits on the track perfectly and the track is lubricated and you move it back and forth, there's not going to be any damage on that track. Especially if the track, if the track can, can regenerate, like your joints can't, this is what your joints can do. But if I, if I push the door as I slide it, or it's off the track just a little bit over time, the track starts to get degraded. This is what happens to like your knee. Like if your quadriceps, hamstrings, if you've got ankle, you know, mobility issues, hip mobility issues, the knee starts to support, uh, itself and its movement in ways that it, it, it really is suboptimal. Instead of the, instead of the muscles, like they're supposed to. That's usually a bad recruitment process. If moving properly, the, the muscles support this. And so, uh, you know, when you, in other words, weakness and instability. And so to avoid it because you have, is like the worst thing you could do. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, it doesn't mean you don't modify exercises. That's it. Doesn't mean I don't take a, a, a client who's just has, you know, like you said, their, their knees are like completely bone on bone. And I'm like, Hey, let's go do heavy squats today or jump first day or do explosive jobs. It's like, no, we're gonna regress the movements, but absolutely. We wanna build the quads and hamstrings and the calves and all the muscles that are around the knee that support that joint. So now that they now could, I mean, one of the biggest lessons I had in this personally was tearing my ACL and my MCL. Mm-hmm. And, you know, and, but still being able to walk and, and the, and, and be kind of stable. Like, uh, I mean, I, I told you, I almost went back in the basketball game. Like that's how I, now there was something like missing, there was obviously something wrong, but I mean, I felt okay enough that I thought I could go play. Now the next day when it was swollen and in pain and all the things kicked in, but I remember the doctor explaining that to me. It's like, oh, it's because of all the muscle that you've developed around the knee. They were, they are holding it into place and it's not putting so much stress on the ligaments. Mm-hmm. If you didn't have that, he goes, my clients that don't are like your knees all over the place. You, someone can't even walk right away after having something like that. It's like, okay, that really explains that. One of the clearest examples when I had a client where I was like, okay, this is really, this is a movement pattern issue. This is a strengthening issue because they got knee replacement, uh, surgery. And this was like, you know, they, they had, uh, you know, dysfunction and, and, uh, you know, they had a long time where their knees were, were definitely affected and needed, uh, you know, needed support. They needed some attention, but then went right, right for the knee replacement surgery, came back and, you know, we worked through that, but, um, you know, getting to the core of it, they were already starting to get wear and tear again. Yes. And, and so this is just something that like, you know, to get to the, to the root of it was everything. Now we have to like, uh, focus on, you know, getting it to track properly. I've had several clients that didn't get the replacement surgery that they were going to get because they hired me, they had pain in the joint, the procedure was all but scheduled and the idea was to strengthen it. before getting the surgery, and then they didn't need to get the surgery anymore. Not saying that there aren't, see that that's always the case. I have that experience. So, all right. So here's some things you can do in your workout to be able to strength train right now while your joints hurt. So number one is use isometrics. So isometrics, uh, actually in the moment, reduce pain significantly. It's an, it has an analgesic property. Now there's a couple of things that it does, uh, that are, that are outside of that, which is helps activate the muscles you're trying to activate. And there's no movement. So an isometric is just a, a stable muscle contraction, a muscle contraction where I'm not extending or flexing my knee. I'm pushing against something that's not moving, or I'm just squeezing my quadricep. Now the data also shows a dramatic reduction in pain right out the gates. In fact, I could show somebody oftentimes I got knee pain. I'll put them on a leg extension, have them hold the thing up at the top, almost immediate. And then they'll come down and be like, my knee feels a lot better. Yeah. It's, I like to look at it as like, it's a really, really loud signal of stability. And you're just, you're providing that feedback, uh, immediately back and you're not actually going through any range of motion. Yes. So an isometric would be like, uh, we use the knee as an example. I could get on a leg extension machine, bring the weight all the way up and then just hold it and really squeeze my quads or set so much weight on the stack that I can't lift it and push into the pad. And that's an isometric. You could do this with your shoulders where you push up against the wall, or I hold something heavy above my head and just hold it there for a second. You could do this with every joint where you're doing that. So that's an isometric. And what you'll see is, is, and the data will support this between the 30 to 60% reduction in pain right away. Yep. And an increase in stability and you're strengthening the joint and the muscle, and there's no movement. So the, the risk of injury, uh, is really, really low. Yeah, very low. I, this is, uh, I've always known this as a trainer, but feeling it for myself has been, has been a wild experience. Like, you know, my, my knees and my hips before, uh, I go into the lift and I'm like, I'm going to do this. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. Pretty consistent with when I train lower body, my go-to move now is that isometric lunge position. Yeah. And it like, it totally, any sort of like knee kind of pain or hip pain I was dealing with, like pre going into the lift gone, gone, like immediately. I have to do probably two or three sets of it, some good hard isometrics for like 30 seconds on each side. But boy, after I do that and I get up and kind of move around and walk around getting right into squats feels amazing, which is what in replace of that, I used to do my combat stretch and my 90 nineties. And I do a McGill planes. I do some things like that to like really tube walking. I do like quite a few things to like really kind of prime my hips and quads and cat and my ankles and everything to get myself ready where man, I can get down in that, that isometric lunge and just drive into the floor and hold that position 30 seconds on each side, do two to three sets of that. And man, it just, any sort of that I have gone. This was a secret weapon for me when I was a trainer, because when somebody would come inquire about personal training, I knew if I could show them pain relief right away, because I can't show you weight loss right away. I can't show you muscle gain right away, but I can show you pain relief right away. And I knew if I could do that, they would automatically see my value and get their attention. And it was, it was always like a, like, Oh, what? You're my knee doesn't hurt anymore. I'm hiring you. It was my secret weapon. Here's the next thing. Use a slow tempo. So a slow tempo allows you to move through the motion. So I'm going to show you a slow tempo. So a slow tempo allows you to move through the motion or the exercise in a way that reduces any potential risk of injury because you're not moving quickly. It's also similar to an isometric because the movement is very slow. And I'm focusing on stabilizing the entire time. Slow is good for joint pain. Fast is bad for joint pain. Well, then you can really pay attention to where you waver and where you lose that stability. So it's like these little micro adjustments, especially in your big compound lifts, to do that with a really slow tempo is very beneficial. So this is what my first set to two sets of bench press, dumbbell bench press looks like right now, especially with the pec tear and the stuff I've dealt with in my shoulders is I, I will actually go really slow tempo and then I'll do an isometric hold with the dumbbells at the bottom. And that's like my first set or two is like that. And man, after doing that, I feel so warmed up in the shoulders, chest, everything that then I could be pressing right afterwards. And so, yeah, I think the combination of the two of them, and then back to the bench press, I feel so warmed up in the shoulders, chest, everything that, then I could be pressing right afterwards. And so, yeah, I think the combination of the two of them, and then back to the bench press, I feel so warmed up in the shoulders, and then back to the bench press, I feel so warmed up in the shoulders, knees, hips, things I was talking about. I'll do those isometrics to start squats. And then my first set of squats is that, is a very slow tempo pause at the bottom of my back cup. And then by that second set, man, I'm, I'm good to go. Yeah, I remember when I had my shoulder surgeries a long time ago, I had my AC joint resected and I rehabbed it so quick. I remember the doctor and the nurses were like tripping out, but I knew what I was doing, especially with the shoulder. And one thing I would do is when I would do an overhead movement and I'd use weights, because remember I just like post-surgery, I'd move my arm up real slow, but the slowness allowed me to adjust. So I didn't feel pain. So I'd feel like, Ooh, that hurts a little bit. And I'd retract my scapula, move a little bit. Oh, there it is. And I moved this really slow range of motion, full extension, full contraction. Then I added a little bit of weight and it rehabbed my shoulder so quick. And I tried to move quickly. It would have been a bad idea. So slow tempo, when you have knee pain or joint pain or back pain or hip pain is the way to go with your strength. Uh, next is shorten your range of motion, but challenge your range of motion. What does that mean? What does that mean? Shortened, but challenged. So this is what you do move within the range of motion that you don't have pain, but go to the edge, go to the edge. So that's right. So if I'm doing a squat and I'm like, okay, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Oh, right there. I start to feel knee pain. That's the end of your range of motion and play with that edge off just a little bit and hold and squeeze. That's it. And you play with that edge within the range of motion. You're training. Here's what you'll find as the workout progresses within the workout itself, your range of motion will actually grow. So you'll actually be able to get deeper and deeper in your squat, for example. And over time, your range of motion grows and it grows in a way that is sustainable. This is like, uh, you know, strength training for bad joints. One-on-one right here. Yeah. Play with the range of motion, uh, and challenge the range. I mean, it's all three of these combined. Right. And just to use my analogy of the squatting and the bench pressing, cause I do all these things we're talking about in that one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, warm-up set of what I said I'd slow the tempo down I'm doing that right so I slow it down and it's like okay there's working and then I'm going to hold that kind of isometric then I press that when I come back down again I'm going to try and see if I can get a little bit more right same thing and so you're just kind of doing that through the whole warming up process is I'm using that slow tempo I'm using the isometrics trying to gain a little bit more range of motion and then again once you go to that next set that's more of a working set man you feel good and prime ready to go totally and I just want to add this I mean all of us train people for a long time a lot of our clients I'd say a majority of my clients came in with some form of joint pain like the things that we're talking about here you combine it with correctional exercise my success rate was like 90 so I just want people to know like there are like most people listening right now if you have chronic pain and you do this right you're probably going to come out a lot better oftentimes with no pain many times with far less pain so there's definitely light at the end of the time well this is I also this is what I coach to so many of my trainers that you get good at the these and you'll be a very successful trainer you're rarely going to get to train somebody who wants to be a d1 college athlete or the guy who wants to get ready for a bodybuilding show like that's like yeah that's so just get shred so rare like straightforward almost everybody wants to lose body fat get healthier and what that and most those people are middle age and have been sedentary and or have injuries injuries and joint joint stuff going on if you can relieve that person of chronic pain uh on on the journey of their whatever their big goal is you will have a client for life and that and it's so much easier to do the things that we're talking about right now and and in a workout show them a different one workout the the guy who's tried to kind of do it on his he's been trying to lose weight for a while and he struggled and he's over and he's got shoulder shit and he's got hip stuff and he's like god fucking I'm finally gonna hire a trainer and he and the trainer's like okay it's gonna take us at least six months to a year to lose that 30 40 pounds you need like that but then within the first session or two his shoulder feels better than it's ever felt when he bench pressed his hips feel better than they were life-changing like he's like I'm locked in he hasn't lost a pound yet but I'm sold on you as a trainer because he's already tried this on his own and he knows what it feels like and I want people to understand this if you if it is indeed a chronic pain that it comes from dysfunction uh a green flag and this is I wouldn't say expect this but I would say a lot of people experience this a green flag is by the end of your workout your joint feels better and you're like oh my god I'm gonna lose weight and I'm gonna lose better yes within the first time you'll feel better oftentimes not always but oftentimes so that's something you can look forward to on I this so I had a client uh she was a general surgeon brilliant surgeon she ended up becoming uh somebody who referred me so many clients and one of the reasons for it was she when she first hired me she goes uh I can't squat uh to 90 degrees I have bad knees I can't do lunges I have bad knees we have to store weight stay away from lower body exercises my orthopedic surgeon told me this and she's also a doctor herself I said okay well we'll try some things and you let me know if it hurts or whatever and two months later we're doing lunges and squats her knees are fine and she sent me so many so many clients uh as a result so all right here's the next thing um this is where machines have a tremendous amount of value machines are very valuable when you're working with joint pain because machines require so much less skill than free weight exercises and there's so much less to focus on like if I'm doing an overhead press with a dumbbell which is a great exercise and I have shoulder pain you know I got to worry about balancing the dumbbell I got to worry about when I'm pushing against the machine especially if the machine that fits my body well I just got to worry about pushing it up the track takes it where I need to yeah if I'm doing a leg press it's very easy for me I the the the plate is set the track is set i don't have to balance and worry about all these different things and i could just push and move through a leg extension very easy to do in comparison to a free weight exercise so for joint pain machines are beautiful and this is when i would use them yeah it's nice because you can eliminate a lot of those lateral and rotational forces that you have to stabilize against so your muscle has to contract just to you know fight those forces and then perform the movement now it's like we're just performing the movement we're on this one track and so you can get a good muscle contraction and and kind of squeeze and pump out of it and and get the benefit of it without the pain well bodybuilding really popularized machines but the origin of it was rehab yeah the first ones were for that yeah the first machines like this were designed for rehabilitation uh and needing to hold clients in positions and just focus on an area and so it's we got mainstream because of bodybuilding and focusing on muscles and development all that stuff like that but before that that's that was why they were created totally so i mean it's that's still that was the main reason why they were created so i mean it's still that was the main reason why they were created so i mean it's still that was the main reason why they were used until and yet we've kind of gone away from that it ended up becoming this default of people who are scared to do any free weights they just go go to that or bodybuilders do it to focus on an area but it's like really it's for these types of clients in these type of situations perfect for that and then lastly you want to minimize your use of nsaid so non-steroidal anti-inflammatories now they do reduce pain but they do shut off the healing signal as well so one of the ways that they work is they block production of uh prostaglandins which which contribute to inflammation but you need those also to signal healing so here's what we find in the data when people regularly use an nsaid like ibuprofen or naproxen for example when they regularly use them when they work out you see less muscular strength gains and you also see joint uh degeneration over time joints actually get worse over time because you need those inflammatory signals to send healing recruit recovery and adaptation so minimize their use now i'm not saying don't use them because you're if you're in pain you're probably going to need them but don't do the thing where you're like i'm gonna go have a hard workout let me pop uh to ibuprofen so i could go do this crazy workout and this is my my routine you're better off going in with a little bit of pain judging the movements based on how you feel and doing it that way versus taking these on a regular basis because they will reduce your body's ability to heal and again the data on this is now pretty clear any idea i mean you would be the person that might know this uh how that compares to uh ice baths like as far as the dampening of the the signal because we we know that's the negative thing that people always talk about with ice passes right it it brings down that inflammatory signal right after a workout which is great if you're an athlete who has to go right back to practice but if you're in the pursuit of building muscle and strength right not necessarily the best situation do you know if is it a similar percentage is it so i don't know as negative more negative i don't think there's any studies on joint uh health post repeated use of ice baths we do know that it reduces the muscle building and strength building signal it's used right away after a workout but with nseds you find increased risks of tendon ruptures and worse joint health with chronic use we just have the studies though i don't think we have studies on ice baths so it'd be hard to speculate yeah no i'm interesting about the uh the muscle building side so we uh if because you're saying the nseds also do that so do ice baths which one's worse oh oh i mean i would i would bet that the nseds are worse just because of the uh it's a lining ice baths are just yeah i'm just curious if you have an idea what the like i would guess that yeah you know yeah i don't know anyway uh i have some really great studies on probiotics for you guys to talk about cool so i so i don't know have you guys heard this before that when you take a probiotic um it doesn't really populate your gut that the bacteria just kind of goes through um and it doesn't really change your microbiome and so you know that's just they work because you're not really absorbing it this is i've heard this before i've heard people explain this before and say you're not changing your microbiome by taking them but they do have some benefits or whatever uh well so seed so we work with seed they funded uh two double blind placebo controlled studies and they're they're gold standard studies so uh double blind meaning the people administering the the probiotic or the placebo doesn't know which is which and the people receiving it doesn't know which is which nobody knows who's getting the real the and who's getting the placebo nobody knows there's also a control group this is people who are not doing anything and they're just we're going to see what's going on um and it's a large trial uh they had one with 103 adults they paid for this here's what they found at the start of the study participants gut microbiomes were analyzed using fecal testing they also looked for immune response biomarkers throughout the 12-week double blind trial one one group of participants took a serving of their probiotic daily while the other group took the placebo both groups were invited to track their day-to-day gastrointestinal comfort using a smartphone app at the end of the study those using the probiotic using seed saw significant improvements in abdominal discomfort and measures of occasional constipation including bowel movement frequency and stool consistency here's what's cool follow-up testing also showed that there that seeds probiotic promoted 400 population growth of bifidobacterium and lactobacillus in the gut both very beneficial bacteria both anti-inflammatory both good for immune health both good for production of serotonin like those are we know those bacteria really good 400 percent increase so not only did it help with their gut health with you know constipation but they also tested and saw a 400 percent increase so it actually populated their gut then they did another study with 32 adult participants and they gave they did the same thing and here's what they found it uh it enhanced the population of beneficial lactobacillus microbes 90 higher than placebo and the other one 76 percent higher with bifidobacterium in the gut they also saw an improvement in gut health or barrier integrity so the barrier of your gut needs to remain healthy otherwise things get through and this is how you develop food intolerance issues and inflammatory issues so like the mucosal lining of your gut and their seeds probiotic improved all of that wow in a short period of time so okay explain more to me this is interesting because like it's really good i've been really consistent lately um and it's really tough for me to tease out some things because i'm on a diet i'm super dialed and clean and so of course like there's all these factors yeah so it's like i'm i know better than to be like oh the probiotics doing all this stuff it's like no i know that you know like i talked about this when i when i started microdosing the triseptide like how good my psoriasis is like my psoriasis has just continued to get better and better right now it's just been awesome it's been an awesome journey um i've also been really consistent with the product but you just said something that i haven't been able to pinpoint in my routine that like i don't think the triseptide or that is but uh it because i'm imagining that over time because i've been consistent that it improves the gut and it improves all these things and it gets like the first week it's not like i'm gonna know it's huge difference second week third week as it continues to populate yes i see these benefits you bring up serotonin the tell me the relationship with serotonin and melatonin and improving my sleep because my sleep is getting better and better and better and better on this journey right now and not a lot is changing as far as because i've been working at it forever the only thing that's really changed is the consistency of the seed is it possible that the relationship with that could be impacting of course look up probiotics and sleep quality um so there's already studies that show that that good uh healthy bacteria will impact your sleep in a positive way bad bacteria will impact your sleep in a bad way so i have a bad tummy so a lot of people like oh yeah it helps you sleep better because you go to sleep and yes yeah i'm not and that's what i mean by i can't i i have a regular stool i don't have constipation issues so i i i wouldn't be a good example of the group that was in there where i'd be like oh man i noticed all these things from that i can't say that but i can say psoriasis has been continuing to get better don't know if that is related to it or or if it's more the triseptide the low diet things like that um but then i have my sleep is continued like when i can go back i track everything right so i can see and and people were asking me in my questions the other day like you know what are you doing is there something in your routine i'm like i've i've kind of done the same things always about the only thing i'm doing that is new or different if you compare back to say three four months or whatever ago would be the the seed yeah so what we find consistently i haven't been consistent a long time you find is reduced cortisol you also have the gut brain axis right so we know that there's a direct connection like a direct highway now between the gut uh and the brain and so healthy gut healthy brain you're going to get better neurotransmitter production i'm sure it affects or impacts melatonin because melatonin is in that uh in that whole cycle so yeah dude of course absolutely so this new population of uh bacteria was it helped you with the permeability of your gut lining yeah it's like helps to kind of heal 100 dude that's awesome 100 so i mean i so i i you've been religious on it i am super you've all you've never been but i went off for uh it was like a 30 days or 35 days because they didn't send us any i actually actually went and ended up bought it myself i'm sponsored i had to buy it myself and i noticed some difference going off for 30 days and that's what i always can tell is when i do that i wanted to ask you if you saw i uh and i know doug is not the biggest fan when i do this when i if i have to pull it up and get you guys to listen to it did you see the um study that brett concheris went over that somebody else shared and then he was basically commenting on about cutting and bulking no and uh basically building in a cut? - Oh no. - Oh, damn it, I wish you-- - Were they showing that you can build in a cut? experienced or beginner uh i don't know if he breaks down the difference of that dougie i know you're not a fan of this but i really want to just put it into the mic yeah i will but this is it's just such a this is such a good car and it's really uh top of mind for me with everything i got going on right now do you need a surplus to gain muscle here's jordan fagenbaum md with a 12 swipe carousel post let's roll through it and then i'm going to give my opinion all right every lifter learns the same rule to build muscle you have to eat a calorie surplus bulk first cut later unless your body fat is high then it's cut first bulk later those have been the rules for decades but for most people this is all wrong and the math doesn't math muscle hypertrophy is the increase in existing muscle fibers there are three general constraints or limiters to growing muscle one training how much can you stimulate the muscle and recover from two genetics how much muscle can you carry and how do you respond to training three energy how much fuel do you have access to in order to pay for the muscle training and the rest focusing on the energy constraint let's start off with the cost of building a pound of muscle muscle is about 75 percent model with the remaining portion being primarily protein 22 to 25 percent and a little bit of protein and a little bit of protein and a little bit of protein and a little bit of glycogen and fat 0.5 to 2 building a pound of muscle takes about 1588 extra calories for someone who's new to training or very responsive they might be able to add two pounds of muscle in a month which requires just over 100 calories per day extra for more experienced training who might be able to add a pound of muscle in three months it's right around 20 that's not very much obviously and so the question is where can that energy come from energy for building muscle fueling training and every other metabolic process the body has to or can run comes from two principal sources the body's own stores and the diet the body stores energy in many places example glycogen in the liver and protein in the muscle but the primary store for muscle function is its body fat consider an 80 kilogram guy with 20 body fat he has over a hundred thousand calories worth of stored energy in his body fat which can offset his energy needs through the diet including the energy needed to build muscle while you can't turn fat in a muscle your body doesn't discriminate between the energy from your last meal or from your belly what muscle costs to build the energy to build it versus the energy you store to build one pound of muscle around 1600 calories stored as body fat 80 kgs 20 that's 120 000 plus calories a pound of muscle is about three quarters water the dry tissue you actually add costs almost nothing to build roughly 20 hundred calories a day spread out over a month anyone with real body fat is already carrying far more energy than building muscle will ever require the simultaneously loss of body fat and gain of muscle mass is called body recomposition which regularly occurs in individuals who are carrying sufficient body fat that's not new what is new is the rate of muscle gain doesn't appear to be any faster if those people ate more because there's plenty of energy on board already based on available research my view is that for above 20 body fat energy is not the constraint for men at 8 for women for these individuals a modest deficit around 400 calories per day or less maintenance all produce the same amount of muscle growth since energy availability is not the limiter eating in a surplus only adds additional body fat these individuals can gain muscle at the maximum rate and lose fat at the same time conversely a man below about 12 or someone eating a large deficit is likely to hit the energy bottleneck here the body stops treating its fat as expendable and starts eyeing the muscle as fuel when in a deficit in addition to altering anabolic signaling overall as a result these individuals would benefit from a small surplus and likely a slightly higher protein intake that is the lean power lifter who finally has to move up a weight class to keep progressing because he needs more muscle to get stronger most people reading this are in the middle where there's ample energy available to fund muscle growth and body fat levels are typically within the healthy range for most if a person here wants to lose some body fat they'll still be able to gain muscle mass just as if they were maintaining their weight there's no reason to eat in a big surplus from a muscle perspective instead of focusing on micromanaging nutrition apply that same attention to training since that is the real constraint stepping back for a moment doesn't this seem like the personal fat threshold all over again think about it you've got a level of body fat that your physiology treats as sufficient and as long as you're above it energy isn't what's limiting your muscle gain if you get below that level or attempt to eat the deficits it's going to cause you to lose a lot of muscle and that's when you're going to then energy does become the constraint it's the mirror image of the personal fat threshold on the high end where carrying too much fat starts driving disease both thresholds vary from person to person but now that you understand the relationship between energy and take body fat and hypertrophy you'll know what to do if you want to gain some muscle all i have to say here is hell yeah i'm so glad more people are talking about fully agrees with this no i find this really interesting to bring up because in practice i have not felt this at all no nobody has so here's the deal so they're assuming a lot uh and what he's saying i'll give you an example if if you have a car with an engine that produces 100 horsepower and it cranks the uh the axle the axle hit attaches the tire tires the ground what actually hits the ground is not 100 horsepower because there's energy loss this is physics yep you can calculate all the calories of energy yeah you can calculate all the calories you think oh there's only this many calories to build this much muscle that's not how it works you don't eat a hundred calories that'll build exactly there's all kinds of things that have to happen with the energy in the body yeah that we haven't really accounted for um and also lots of signals that are happening and from a surplus not just the fact that i have extra extra calories or extra energy but rather it may actually stimulate muscle growth on its own so that's why in practice like good luck now if you're a beginner you see beginners build muscle all the time in a deficit yeah but past a certain point yeah good luck well that's so that's where i i do agree some with this so if i if i have a client who um is even though again i still would make the argument to actually increase calories or at least reverse diet or at least focus on bulking and building first before cutting but i have seen where you have somebody who is uh you know male um 30 body fat need to lose you know 60 70 pounds and we do do a cut and they also build muscle like i've seen that and that and that that would make this argument part of this true that being said i've seen far better success that same client not trying to put them on a cut keeping them on a maintenance or even a slight surplus focusing on building more aggressively build for a while maybe we don't lose much weight on the scale whatsoever but now their metabolic rate ends up going up and then cutting them back down and in practice that seems to be now and and that only works for the kind of newbie person if i get somebody who's been already consistent and training and lifting and doing their things after six genetic factors and all that yeah this is like okay have you ever heard of perpetual movement machines have you ever heard of these before they don't exist so perpetual movement machine that could probably google it uh is where uh this you know people have done this forever where they're trying to come up with a machine that will always move because it captures energy perfectly so it creates energy here the energy moves the wheel and it could yeah there you go so like these are these are is it the balls that go back all you gotta do is start you start it and then the perpetual movement machine supposed to utilize that energy that's what that's what the balls are it continues forever in an unperturbed system but the reason and it's hypothetical but the reason why it doesn't work is because it's it doesn't work is because there's energy loss it doesn't capture you can't capture energy perfectly and so this is human metabolism is way more way more complex way more complex than creating a machine that's running off of steam and sunlight or whatever uh it's way more complex so i could i could we could figure out how many grams of protein or calories is in a pound of muscle all that was assuming so much that doesn't mean i eat it and that's exact number like there's all kinds of things that happen like my my mitochondria can uncouple and turn some of the energy into heat it could it could divert it move in different directions hormones change this all the time so it's not he's doing all this math and his calculation it should only be this much and that's all that doesn't it doesn't work in real life that way yeah that's why i thought it was such an interesting uh study and it wasn't a study it was him just saying his opinion oh the the md interpreting it yeah interpreting the science so he's interpreting studies yes you know that that's so it wasn't him quoting a study no but actually interpreting lots of different studies that's that talk about the metabolic rate and building muscle and everything like that i thought it was also interesting coming from brett who i as a coach who has coached a lot of people and trained a lot of people i bet if i sat with brett and asked some questions around it then he would start i will have to definitely it'll be a great discussion the next time because he'll be a return guest he's a friend of ours and so um and and and of course he is i know he's responding uh you know on instagram where he only gets three minutes to talk and so i never i mean how many times have you taken somebody let's you know you asked me i that's why i knew i wanted to bring it up because it's like in practice this is not true for me i don't care what i this is i'm always this person right on the show like you're the science guy i'm like i don't care what the science says i've trained enough people that it doesn't science or it doesn't it doesn't add up to what the study says and so it's like you can beat me over the head all day long with a study that says this is but i've applied it enough times in my career that's like for some reason when i do this instead of that here's a deal that's not a study so when you're in a deficit yes you have stored energy but it also tells your body to preserve it also tells your body to stop burning as many calories we know this so it's it's not just this perfect energy system you know just immediately use your fat where we could capture everything yeah we have a replacement so think about it too in order for us to actually really prove this argument well we would need a a very controlled type of a study right you need a study with enough people and enough people you make their food for them you would need you would need beginners you would need advanced people you would need people uh that have been consistent you need people inconsistent you need people that have uh gut issues and health issues you have people that have hormonal stuff and then they don't you need you know 20 of each and then you put them through this oh let's put them all in a deficit and let's see if they all cut and then let's see what what plays out and i'm willing to bet to your point that there's some scenarios where that that it masks out where that the guy like he responded in a cut he built some of those like say those five avatars that i just laid out but then there's three or four that it didn't work so well with you know so i we we would need a really good study like that there's so many okay from from the when you put something in your mouth the process of that being turned into energy and what happens with that energy there's so much that goes on in metabolism so much there's so many directions it could go there's so many ways that now we know the basics but there's also a lot of mystery. why you could take a kid look you can take a kid who's trying to build muscle and you know he's a 17 year old uh football player track everything eat perfectly we're gonna bump you 100 calories that'll give us a pound of muscle it doesn't i gotta bump him 600 calories oftentimes because we don't know look we don't know if your brain needs more energy that day well well here's another example to just continue down all these scenarios that we all have done many many times is uh i've got a lady who is tracking all her food she's dining well we're in a quote-unquote deficit she severe gut issues and we she's been stalled can't lose fat won't just stay in the same all of a sudden she gets to the root cause of whether it be a parasite or be some sort of you know leaky gut whatever we heal that nothing else changes all of a sudden body fat starts to come down yeah what happened it wasn't it wasn't a calorie issue up or down it was that or another situation uh client dialed doing everything perfect right just not building muscle all of a sudden gets on hormone therapy because their testosterone was everything changed all of a sudden now it's been packing on muscle it's like okay so didn't have to change anything on the from a calorie standpoint and or programming standpoint but change something hormonally bam all of a sudden changes muscle building or fat loss changes something gut all of a sudden change muscle loss or or fat loss or muscle gain i mean so i you know logically listening to that i'm like wait a second i know i know so many scenarios where this case isn't true you know make explain this to me so yeah i i figured you would say it's not perfect no the the the science on it's not perfect we so we have to base it off experience at some point i also think it's the reason why i want to bring it up too because again definitely a friend of ours respect and i think brett's great um but i think in my opinion generally speaking i think it's worse advice than good advice right like i know that was like his his argue the guys the doctor's argument the md's argument was that you know most of you this is not a good idea and i think it's not a good idea and i think it's not a good practical advice i don't agree with that i actually think more people when i got somebody who struggles with building muscle this seemed to be the i almost always have to push calories further than what the science supports like somebody who's like come to me and they're like adam i cannot i can't i can't build i also i normally have to push them higher than and the reverse is true yeah like when i have somebody who's just not been able to it's like man it's i also want to you know uh brett's a phenomenal coach he's been training people for a long time so specializes yeah competitors and yeah so he has a he has a bias a self-selection bias of the types of people that genetic responders and they're really high responders lots of them compete lots of them dedicated hardcore most people are not in that category and i'm gonna tell you look you genetics play a huge role in how somebody responds when i've trained clients who have those kind of genetics it's a whole different ball game than when i trained johnson well we're 45 years old and it's and maybe and maybe maybe that's because again we're even though we've trained competitors i've trained a lot of competitors too not the bulk of my training but a good percentage um maybe what the perspective that we're coming from because again we always speak to behavioral which i think is the masses which is also why i think this is not great advice for the general people is 50 of people under report under report calories and whether that be and they tend to under report the whatever direction they're supposed to be going right for example the guy who can't bulk you know thinks he's eating way more than what he's really down i was like no and so i gotta give him a target like eat a thousand more calories even though i know the study doesn't need a thousand more i know it needs i only know you need 150 more calorie over your surplus to build muscle i'm aware right but it's like it seems that i gotta tell that guy a thousand but it probably what i'm i've learned to do is factor in behavioral is that like if i tell him a thousand he's probably gonna get 500 some days some days 200 some days he might even be under and miss and so it ends up being a few hundred over because i've pushed him in that direction and the reverse is true the client who's like i can't lose weight and i only eat 2 000 calories and i can't lose weight and i can't lose weight and i can't lose calories and then we track and it's like you're eating more like 3 500 calories uh let's you know what i'm saying and so maybe that's also our our experience is you know we're factoring so much of the behavioral stuff too that happens on and so like generally speaking and again why i wanted to bring this up because you know his page our stuff is followed by a lot of people and i think well i don't know if telling somebody who's struggling to build that you only need 100 more calories is always the best advice and not for the general and also be perfect with your like you're perfect with your tracking i mean you gotta be perfect with your tracking yeah to go 100 above well and that's what made me think of like why why for brett that's like that makes sense because his clients do they do yeah yeah i mean your clients were perfect with their weighing yeah yeah yeah none yeah none of them yeah yeah so anyway i got uh i want to tell you guys about this i went to this um event at my church where they had these two authors uh i'm gonna actually pull it up um and the the whole event was about raising resilient children it was so good you guys it was so good his name i'm gonna look up his name what was do you remember um in our our course it was david thomas and sissy goffman i think was her name uh and they they have this podcast called raising boys and girls it was really really good information on raising uh resilient kids but they had this one uh like slide up there that i saved i want to tell you guys about it was so cool so you want your kids to be capable more than anything you want them to be capable so they're talking about how this these younger generations are less capable more anxious they're more likely to kind of freak out uh you know you hear from teachers how kids are waiting for instructions on like well tell me exactly what to do whereas with our generation we kind of had to try to figure things out and so they have this this great uh slide and it says you know so i'll read them to you capable parents value resilience over relief or rescue so anytime your kid needs help is this going to build resilience now that doesn't mean you don't ever help them but you got to ask yourself and you value resilience over relief or rescue capable parents value sturdiness over success so oftentimes what makes you more sturdy is that you fail and so how many times parents jump in and do the the you know the report for their kid because they don't want them to you know get a bad grade or whatever it's a temptation capable parents value health over happiness i thought that was a good one because you think happiness is health but it's not health means you can run the world over confidence and they talked about how confidence real confidence comes from realizing you're capable it is not the other way around they talked about false confidence where kids are like yeah i could totally i'm you know whatever but they don't try because they know yeah they're about to fail type of deal it was such a good uh such a good course i love when i hear stuff like this because it just it's a it reminds me of uh how valuable the school is that i put max into because it's crazy right now he's in first grade and they meet with the parents and like they're like we get told like stuff that we need to make sure that we do with kids one of the things this year was a big focus was like uh we are setting them up on things that are going to challenge them and they're going to have to work through and it's important that you guys do not jump in don't jump in in fact the thing that we're teaching is not the answer but that how they work through the process to get to the answer and they have like these steps before you're supposed to even get involved to like helping them like keep working through the process and it's just a great example of like you know that's again uh i wouldn't have thought to make sure that we do that you know you think oh your kid asked for help and so you sit down and you want to help them out and it's like no we've been coached on what does that look like exactly like you don't just come in and like oh this is the answer or this is how you do it it's like help them through the process of did you do this or have you tried to think of these things or did you look this up first and like so i just i mean it's first grade yeah and teaching them to do that already is like dude i love that i think it's so valuable it was such a great unbelievable it was such a great class i'm so glad i did that's cool all right i want to ask you just an off-air you're bringing this up i'm like save it for the show what is happening with football helmets in the pros like what are they doing well there's a few things i've i don't know i just i i get annoyed because um i don't know there just seems to be this big i understand it because science comes in and then they expose the fact that like we have this brain injuries and you know there's all this like downstream effect which is terrible whatever uh we all forget that this is a really dangerous sport it's always been yeah right and it's something that like you know a lot of the guys they know the rest going into it um and now it's like we it's almost like we have it's the paralysis by analysis kind of thing where we're getting to the point where we have these stupid helmets that have like these huge like pads all over it makes them look like it's big mushroom cloud on their head bobblehead yeah it looks stupid and ridiculous and it's like i understand like the guys are trying to extend their longevity in the game and all this kind of stuff but like dude we're just what do you call that we're we're putting bubble wrapping so much on on all this like risk uh which really takes away from the game you know for people like me like it was like so the other example is like cam scadabo he's on uh the new york giants he's like an old school like hard-nosed player like he will come at you dude and he ran right into uh one of the linebackers i think and just knocked him over and just it was an amazing run and they they gave him a penalty for roughing and it's like an offensive player offensive player you never like that's i've never even heard of that like that's insane to me like that's something you'd give for like a defensive player hitting the the quarterback a little late this is so expected because it's weak it's expected because if you look at all contact sports they've all got they've all evolved can we just put the care in there out of football i feel like i could just so like picture justin like in the 50s you know like with this i feel like a straw hanging out of his mouth and oh these pussies i mean there was a time bro they wore leather they just wore leather on their head and i there had to be a guy who saw these big metal ones with air air compression oh my god i wore leather remember when the face mask was one bar well in the 70s honestly i would prefer that if in two there was a good argument for that because there's an argument that it'd be safer because yeah because you're not going to come in and use it like a battering ram yeah yeah so the thing about the helmet it becomes a weapon it's not a safety tool this is a weapon and so like everybody else is hitting your head you know yeah of course we're going to do more damage because now you have like all this added weight and metal wasn't original football you played both uh offense and defense oh sure back in the days a lot of guys yeah you had to run both sides oh my god well i mean that's why rugby was so rough for me because it was like just this ongoing sprint and uh like high uh impact dude i i uh my favorite sport to learn about from back in the day is boxing bro oh yeah there was no rounds there were no rounds no there were until you die no there was no limit there was no round that's what i said there's no rounds it was just you just keep going until the guy until the guy submits until tomorrow when you read when you read about a fight in like 1925 and oh the referee stopped the fight do you know what it took for a ref to stop the fight oh yeah yeah he basically he's basically like okay hold on he's about to die let's stop the fight i know crazy yeah we've come a long way from that it's just a sign i mean i think it's going to keep but i mean the argument to stay along the lines of justin's argument and and and fighting since you brought that up it's like this was why ufc has gotten away with what it's like it's actually safer with the almost bare knuckles than it is with these big cushy gloves the big cushy gloves because now yeah the person that's enforcing and inflicting that contact yeah it gets you know feels it yeah they have to you know monitor and manage it the best comparison isn't mma because mma has so much grappling so people have argued well they also grapple so they're punching less bare knuckle fighting is now you can watch bare knuckle yeah and it definitely messes your face up more oh yeah yeah looks wise but as far as your brain yeah your brain's not rattling around like fiber because of all the blood but yeah like you ain't gonna punch someone directly in their head in fact back in the day you guys know this old school boxing before gloves when they would do bare knuckle one of the ways you would block somebody's hit is you put your head down have them hit the top of your head and you break their hand and so like i go to jab you and you put your head down and break my hand i'm like uh-oh i'm not gonna hit you anymore yeah now when they're with boxing gloves it doesn't matter i know that's crazy yeah all the sports are just moving that direction i sound like such an old curmudgeon yeah you know dude it's just a noise grandpa just well what did you wear when you played football i'm the asshole too that used my helmet as a weapon bro like i i i was like that guy that would tackle and then i would hit you like extra hard who was that one game who was that one full i want to say he was uh romanowski no no no no no this is from the 70s he did this famous he had this famous way of tackling his he had this famous way of tackling they made illegal where he would he would literally grab the guy by the neck and swing him around oh yeah and i don't remember what they called it it was a horse a horse collar became illegal but that became illegal in our time that was later it was uh no this was in the 1970s line it was something he looked like he literally grabbed him by the head and he closed line him yeah bring him down and they made it good at it i mean there's always one guy who did who's like famous for yeah for doing he just keeps repeating it yeah is he are you looking it up doug what's his name the face mask tackle oh well that's obvious that's a face maybe that's where the face mask came from right because there wasn't oh oh twisting bagels oh there it is that's the clothesline clothesline yeah yeah grabbing a player around the neck or head with an extended arm to throw them it was it was banned in 1979 i got i definitely got one of those in the game and it was mainly because like they did a really good juke move but i stepped to the right and then he cut in and i just stuck my arm out got him right there oh justin i just you know i know you gotta do what you gotta do well i mean that's like one of the things about high level sports is that you and this is why the game will always evolve and change is that the players will find a way to exploit the rules i mean you you play every day and you find the little cheat codes i mean the example that in this game is that you're playing with the players and you're playing with the players and you're playing with the players and you're playing with the players and you're playing with the players luca donkish was playing uh with our rookie yaxal he's a rookie but he's gonna be a stud rookie for us and he was rookies really good defensive player and stuff like that and you could just see luca toying with him now luca is a pro been playing for a long time knows all the tricks on like how to get the ref's attention to call the foul and it's just and you can see the kid getting so frustrated because he's setting him up and he's like this it's not a foul but it is because he's out to manipulate the game and use it and so and then eventually what happens is they change the rules of like okay you can't do that anymore because guys are doing there's guys that learn to use their body to push you without using their hands to get create space so they can get a shot and it's like man that's dirty and some guys master it so well and there's guys that learn to do the swoop they actually take the ball underneath when your your hands are out defensively and they throw their hands against your hands so you you foul them but they really hit they actually they initiated it and then they shoot it sometimes they make it and then they get the foul too and so there's like this is the game a master of a flop yes again for football like you said they learn like okay i could use my helmet like a spear and this will knock a guy out and it's like i mean it's kind of the just evolution of all pro sports right all right i got some more cool studies for you guys these studies are an essential amino acid so i pulled up a few of them which is pretty cool this is a great one this is a randomized trial uh and this was on uh older adults so this uh was looking at the value of essential amino acid supplements they compared it to whey protein this is what's really cool essential amino acids so you're taking just the essential amino acids capsule form powder form versus a scoop of whey protein which theoretically has a lot of essential amino acids as well he's argued like what's the difference dude a specially formulated essential amino acid supplement especially formulated because of really high in leucine improved six minute walk distance more than an equivalent amount of whey protein in older adults distance yep so these were low physical function adults so these are these are like decondition older adults huh half of them took whey the other half of them took essential amino acids what is going on there uh i think it's it's stimulating muscle protein synthesis better in fact another one shows that uh that and this is another one in older adults uh essential amino acid mixtures it has to be 40 percent leucine or higher by the way keon has it so keon essential amino acids has 40 or more leucine yeah okay it can stimulate muscle protein synthesis in older adults at low doses comparable to much larger whey protein boluses so two grams of essential amino acids versus 30 grams of protein and it stimulates muscle protein synthesis just as much when you talk about this stuff how cool is that i mean this i mean this is one of the few i believe he brought that up on the when we the first one when we i remember that study yep um looking back on our all of our training careers and knowing what and how one we've changed our opinion on you know yes right i drink i drink would you not i mean i have me too especially when i'm in a cut no it's like a no-brainer for me that i between meals three times a day i'm doing the seven pills um but i think back to like again also understanding behavior and clients my elderly clients i probably would have made all of my clients that are 50 and above this is just a mandatory supplement you should take it's like a multivitamin if you're strength training with me uh i know how hard it is for everybody to get protein already and then we know what now the studies say even in comparison to it it's like i would think that this would raise their floor a bit yeah would you would you guys not would this not become like so there already are so they think it's leucine uh although the essential amino acids uh you want all of them you just want a high leucine content but the studies have already changed how um uh formulas are for like meal replacement formulas for like uh what do they call one of those places where people when they're older they go live and assistant like care homes like yeah so they will they'll when when they get their prescription meal replacements they infuse them now with leucine because they're showing uh how much it preserves muscle and strength so we're seeing this uh already but even with guys like us like who just like to live for whatever essential amino acids uh in comparison to whey protein seems to have a stronger especially in a gram per gram basis a stronger effect on muscle protein synthesis yeah so how would you use this interesting does this mean you don't have your protein shake post-workout no but what you do is during your workout or before your workout take essential amino acids that's what i've been doing i just do it between the meals so i'm doing it three times it's like if i'm not eating or drinking a shake or something like that it's just which i'm i'm eating a good five to six times a day right now so it's just when i have a window of you know two hours before the next one i just will and i keep them everywhere are you doing the key on capsules mostly or yeah just because they're convenient easy i don't have to mix them with what i like i think i told the last time we had a key on commercial i brought up the the flavored ones i really actually like the way they taste but it's just easy for me to keep this in my duffel bag keep it next to here by the way tomorrow we're giving them uh six tubs away right doug that's correct yeah six different people are going to win a tub okay so this is on our mind pump uh ig live instagram live 4 p.m pacific standard time tomorrow we're picking six people now how the people enter is when they buy a map program whatever they get entries yeah so we're going to call your name out on the i on the ig live and six people are going to win one tub of the essential amino acid uh supplement from Keon just so people know too though every day we're giving away something on IG live and even if you let's say like let's say you bought a maps program yesterday and you're entering to win for tomorrow's thing interesting to everything yeah it enters into everything so you have a chance once you once you have an entry you have a chance to win every single day so make sure you're tuning in 4 p.m pacific standard time on IG uh the next one we have coming up is Keon's which we're giving away the tubs which is really cool but yeah no it's something that um I'm such a fan of especially when I'm in a cut especially all right you guys I'm going to share with you something called c15 from fatty 15 so c15 is an essential fatty acid uh that we have seen now in studies to have tremendous potential long-term health and wellness benefits fatty 15 is a company that sells c15 and their goal is to improve your health and wellness so when you age or as you age your body's age and fatty 15 is a science-backed award-winning patented 100 pure c15 supplement that helps give you this essential fatty acid that helps with cellular integrity with mitochondrial health helps reduce inflammation I've been using fatty 15 now for a while and I notice my joints feel better and I sleep better when I use it add it to your fish oil it's an essential fatty acid but it is not one that is found in fish it is found in dairy and again it's got some incredible health benefits go check them out go to fatty 15 dot com slash mind pump that's fatty 15.com slash mind pump that you get that link will get you a discount but you have to use the code mind pump back to the show our first caller is jennifer from nevada hi jennifer hi oh my god I'm so excited to be here hi how you doing I'm doing good how can we help you all right so please stop me if I ramble too long but I think you need to know my history so thank you so much by the way for having me um and a little something fun to share my daughter calls you my podcast husbands because I'm always listening so I've been listening for like a year but more than once a week so I'm getting caught up on all of your back podcasts as well but I've been focusing on progressive overload and protein and you walked me off the cliff many times from going back to old habits so thank you for that I tried to condense my email a bit but again stop me if this is too long so a little background I'm 55 I'm almost 55 about 147 according to my home scale I'm about 35 body fat sometimes higher I know those scales are inaccurate so I grew up very chubby kid bullied at school I went on my first formal diet at about 12 and I've been on and off diet since then extreme exercise programs always focused on being thinner and number on the scale just like a lot of women my age I would assume so I've gotten I got heavy again in high school but then in my 20s I maintained what I thought was a good weight through my early 40s not in the healthiest way very low calories sometimes 900 only to gain it back and then go on another diet never learning maintenance then in my early 40s I went into menopause without realizing it and all the crazy boot camp style classes cycling cardio random weight training eating 1100 calories it all stopped working and I went from 128 to 140 and I couldn't figure it out so I went to an app I don't know if you want me to say the name but very popular app for macro counting and I went I tried to lose weight it wasn't working so they advised me to do a reverse diet it took me eight months to get to 1800 calories and I gained another 10 pounds so now up 20 from prior to menopause and then I after eight months I couldn't take it any longer I was back up to my post uh partum weight after having a baby so I went back to 1350 calories they advised me to try that um I continued weight training and I only lost about five pounds in three months and then I just stopped doing it so I went back to 1350 calories and I gained another 10 pounds so then I just stopped trying because it was just getting to be too much so since the reverse I've only been on like two diets in the past probably eight years like two strict diets currently I lift um I use the Stacey Sims Haley Happens app I lift five days a week four to five I do sprints twice a week based on her program and then there's a HIIT session once a week sometimes I skip that I currently walk about 12 to 13,000 steps um and I'm finally doing pull-ups for the first time in my life and I'm doing a lot of push-ups and I'm doing a lot of push-ups and I'm doing a lot of push-ups and I'm doing a lot of push-ups and I'm doing a lot of push-ups and I'm doing a lot of 55 years old so last July I finally decided to do another diet because I had a family wedding coming up in September I made my own macros I did about 120 to 25 grams of protein I let the carbs and fats fall where they may I increased my scale to 13 to 16,000 and although these calories weren't much lower than what I was already loosely tracking I started weighing everything again scale measuring cup spoons I lost only like half a pound to 0.8 pounds a week and some weeks nothing at all for like three weeks I took some diet breaks and by the wedding I had lost like eight pounds and then by December I lost about 12 13 slowly but I felt good and I was ready to take your advice and go into maintenance for the first time in my life but then January came and my dad got ill and eventually passed away in February so I flew to Florida I spent four months there taking care of him he passed in February but then I took care of my mom till April I lost more weight for the first time in my life without trying so I was probably down like 17 pounds and then as soon as I got home in April it all started to come back on quickly despite I was sticking to my 1350 calories walking 10 to 12,000 steps a day this I went back to repeat the same workout program that I mentioned earlier so I need your advice because right now I don't know where to go the weight is slowly coming back on I'm still at those 1350 calories I know probably what your advice is going to be but I'm terrified to increase calories but I am ready to make the shift I want to focus on being stronger and fit and just for the record I've done RMR testing supposedly I burned 1800 that was a couple years ago but I was gaining at that weight I have a high body fat I've had disordered eating I probably have body dysmorphia according to my friends but my body fat is pretty high and I just don't know is it too late at 55 is it too late no no no no should I just deal with what I have now and try to just stay in shape and can somebody with my history actually succeed on a reverse diet yes what do you recommend yes and one more thing I'm sorry I'm thinking of doing maps up or lower because I need a new workout plan so there's thank you for listening no no you got it hon and listen the end what we're going to tell you simple but it's not going to be easy for you I know so there's a combination of things that's happening you are eating too little but you're also over training you're still over training 100 oh yeah five days a week strength training hit sprints way too much well the sprints are only like nope too much I don't care two times a week I don't care too much that's what she recommends I don't care what she recommends I know her I know her programs yeah yeah and her programs her programs are written for 20-something year old uh you know women who uh don't have responsibilities and issues I know her programs and they're not bad they're just not appropriate for I feel like it might be too much but I did put on muscle and like I said I was able to finally get a pull-up you you got stronger in the fact that you're doing too much and that's just because it's less than what you're used to doing right because I was a lot they're doing a lot of metcom workouts before that like never breaking just like going from squats to squat jumps to this to that like no no Jennifer have you had uh have you had hormones checked too do you know okay so I forgot to mention I yes my my blood work is fabulous a friend of mine is a nurse practitioner she says I'm the healthiest female for my age that she's seen my labs are great and my hormones I've been on HRT for probably eight years now okay I've been on HRT for probably eight years now I've been on HRT for probably eight years now okay I thought that would help the fat loss but that doesn't so for those women out there that think HRT is the answer it's great I'm sorry I'm talking so fast it's great because I do I don't feel 55 and I think it helps in some areas but it's not helping with the fat loss no you can beat the crap out of yourself on hormones too yeah and it's not going to fix that you have to dramatically decrease your workouts uh and you and you have to increase your by the way if you weren't taking HRT your body would really be feeling that oh you'd so that's that's why the you'd think that's why the reverse didn't work for me because when I started it I didn't realize I was in going into menopause the reverse didn't work for you because you were beating the crap out of yourself so also the 1350 calories uh if you're hitting your protein intake I'm guessing based off that number you probably eat very lean low fat too uh no so like I last night I had a bison burger um I made ground turkey I'll do lean lean lean yeah I do lean well I do chicken and chicken thighs chicken thighs I'm still lean so that's all white meat all white meat bison's the leanest meat you're so I do try tip okay once a week once a week yeah salmon um ground beef the 80 no 90 10 or 85 how many grams of fat are you having a day sometimes 50 55 super low yeah too low hun yeah super low and when I do avocado olive oil I believe me compared to how I used to eat in my 20s and 30s well that's your your the good news is you're you're we're getting better you're moving in the right you're moving in the right direction getting rid of a lot of the met cons and the circuit training and the running but we still we still got to keep going in that direction sleep recovery higher fat all those things become the big priority uh right now you're working you're fighting your body still that's why it's revolting and it's not giving you the response that you should you should be able to do half the effort of lifting and movement and training uh for twice the results and not not having to eat as low, but we have to get there. - Well, that's my biggest thing. I know, like for my age, everybody says, oh, you look good for your age. Okay, I look okay, but for the work that I put in, I feel like I should look ripped. You know, if I was in my backyard trying to dig a hole for a pool, and I was using a spoon, I'd be working my ass off, but you'd see barely any work done every week. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to dig a hole in your backyard for a pool, and you're using a teaspoon, and you're working your butt off. And that's why what you feel like is you're not getting the result for the effort you're putting in. You're spinning your tires in the dirt because you're beating the crap out of yourself. Right. But how long would something like this take to recover from after like so many years of bad habits? So what would happen is this. If you did what we tell you, initially, you're just going to start to feel stronger, and you'll start to feel more energy, and you'll start to feel more vibrant. It'll probably take, I don't know, six months before we get to a place where we can start to cut. Maybe nine months. And then it's going to feel like your body's working for you. And it's going to feel like, here's what it's going to feel like, Jennifer. This is what people tell us. I can't believe I'm getting leaner. What the hell is going on? How is this even working? I feel like I'm barely doing anything. And I'm eating more than I've ever ate. Yeah, like I'm eating all this food. I'm barely doing anything compared to what I used to do. And I know if you've listened to the show long enough and you've listened to callers, you've heard this. You hear these stories all day long. And this is very, very common. It's not uncommon. I would say at least six to nine months. I would say at least that. But some of the advice, like if I was coaching you, it would be like, we're throwing the scale away that we're not worried about right now. That'll mess you up. Yeah. I just want to hear about energy. I want to hear about strength, about new PRs inside the gym that we're setting. And then slowly inching up for sure calories and most of those calories coming from fat. I got to get you above that 50 grams. Yeah, you got to get at least 70 grams of fat. Yes. It would be the minimum. I can do that. Yes. It's wild. Off air, Sal and I are going through our kick right now where I'm dialing back in and playing with macros. And I was telling him that my body had stalled and I was messing with things and I bumped my fat. I was around 80, 90 grams and I'm like, that's fine. 80, 90 grams isn't bad, but I know it's on the lower end for me. So I shot it all the way up to 150, 160 grams of fat, which also bumped my calories by 300 calories. And the very next week, four pounds came off. And so with higher calorie and higher fat. Yeah. So, but what that tells me is that my body needed those healthy fats. I noticed an improvement in my sleep and my readiness score also. So all of a sudden my sleep got better. My body was more vibrant and ready to train harder. So it's just compounding effect. Low fat like that will affect you that way. And a lot of times it'll be disguised because you're taking HRT. If you weren't taking HRT, you would feel it. You would really feel it. That's the benefits of HRT is that it's like, oh, wow, you have this artificial signal that's being sent to your body that you're okay. When really the things that you're doing to it are not okay. So, okay. So last night I had, well, yesterday I'm just looking at my fitness pal. I had 50 grams of fat yesterday. Yes. Low. That's the low, that's the, that's the lowest I would ever let you get to. Absolutely. 60. You'd be at, you'd be at 65 with me, uh, 70. Um, okay. I should have added avocado, I guess, to that burger. So here's what you're, here's what you would do. Okay. Uh, Matt. So MAPS Anabolic is your program. If you go to a gym and you like to spend your time in the gym, ideally MAPS 15 would be the better program. Really? Yeah. And what that's going to look like is two lifts a day. So you'll be doing a little bit most days, but you're only doing two exercises. So I have a treadmill at home and I have weights up to, I have two 35 pound dumbbells, a pull-up bar, but I go to the gym. Okay. So you could do MAPS 15. You could do some of it at home, some of it at the gym. Basically you're doing two exercises a day and that's it. I don't want you sprinting right now. No. Walking's fine. Keep your steps up. Yeah. Walking is totally fine. So if you, if you want to be busy and you want something to do, walking is okay, but I don't need you doing any sort of running, sprinting, any of that stuff right now. Save that for later. Yeah. And you're at 1350. I'd bring you up immediately to 1550 to start. I was going to ask, do I slowly go up? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Slowly. Yep. 1550 is where I jump out of. If we bump your calories, we get it from fat because you're already hitting protein. So that's taken care of. So I'm not concerned about this as long as you're consistent with that. So consistently hitting your protein. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been, I mean, like yesterday I only got a hundred, but I try to get one 20 to one 30. Okay. Yeah. Stay consistent. Stay consistent with that. Hitting your protein. That's priority one. Priority two is getting the fats up. If you bump the fats up, the calories will come up to 300 calories naturally. So bump it through the fats, get the extra two, 300 calories, follow maps, anabolic. We should feel strength gains and feel stronger within a couple of weeks right away. Yeah. And that's our first indicator. We're heading the right up. I don't care about the scale because if I bump you to 300 calories, you're going to feel fuller. You'll probably hold a little more water. So the scale could go up two or three pounds. It's water. It's not fat. Don't worry about it. So that's why I don't want you on the scale right now. Cause I know that will get in your head. Well, I haven't been on a month because it kept creeping back up. Yeah. Okay. Since Florida, I guess my body was under stress and all that. And I do take creatine. Um, that's good. And I don't feel like I'm lacking energy to be honest with you, but maybe I don't know what that feels like. Yeah. You're a pretty resilient person, uh, but you'll know the difference when you start to get that energy. Jennifer, would you want to be coached through this whole process? You know, I would love it, but so another stressor, my husband was out of work for four years, so he's, he's got a great job now. Thank God. But we're still getting our bills and getting out of some debt. I think I could eventually figure that out depending on the price. Yeah, no problem. Our coaching is not cheap, but we have the best in the world. We also have the, what's called a concierge program that a lot of people do that until they can. So at least you check in once a month with a coach who's overseeing your diet. So it's not, yeah. So what we can do is set you up on something like that. That's very inexpensive to get going. So you get consistent check-ins and then when you're ready to really ramp it up, then we can get into like full blown coaching. And so that would be my suggestion if we're on a budget, because I think the value of having somebody check in with you every month and make minor adjustments to what's going on. I think that'll be huge. Um, it would, I think at least for nutrition because I'll probably be a failure. I'll probably be afraid of. That's a hundred percent. That's the main thing they focus on. So I am a rule follower. So the workouts, I think I could do without a coach for now. And I spent thousands of dollars on coach. Well, all of it, all of it is included. So they'll, they'll, they'll actually adjust the program, customize it to something you don't have access to or, uh, exercises hurting you or you don't feel right. They'll coach to that. So they'll, they'll adjust the program to you and then also adjust the diet. And so, and you'll check in with one of our coaches every month. Awesome. Yeah. So I'll have, I'll have someone call you and they'll set you up on that. But the hardest part is gonna be the psychological part. And that's what lean on, lean on them for that. That's what they're there for. Okay. In the meantime, I think, would you prefer to do a little bit every day or like longer workouts three days a week? Uh, well, I'm used to 40, like an hour total workouts, um, because I do walking on my own. So when I get to the gym, I'm usually just doing a box, probably a 40 minute workout. Well, I think. If you did maps, 15, the strength training part would take about 20 minutes. The rest could be walking. I'm, I'm open to whatever you think would be best. So you mentioned maps, anabolic or maps 15. Those are two different things, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two different programs. We're, we're gonna set you up with it. So don't worry about it. Yeah, I'll send, I'll send you one of those, uh, and then we'll have a coach call you. And then you can ask them about concierge coaching. That's the one that Adam's recommending. Yep. They'll take care of you, Jennifer. One last question. Yep. Uh, have you worked with somebody my age with this type of history and have school results? It's like a majority of the people we work with, like, uh, like 90% of my clients. Well, that's why I took so long to find you guys. Cause when I would, if it was fed in my, like the algorithm works, it feeds me some like podcasts, but I thought it was like mostly like guy talk. No, no. Love you guys. No, no. The guy talk is when we're talking the irony of that, even the guy talk I like, so that's okay. The irony of that, whenever like people ask or they say like having a woman, it's like, I'm more comfortable training a woman than I am a man, 80% of my clients were middle-aged women going through everything you're going through. So that was like what all of us did most of our careers. So I think communicating to women is what we focus more on. It's what we did. Yeah. 20 years ago when I was, we were figuring it out, we were figuring this out that we're old and wise. So it's good. You got us now. We got you though. We got you. Thank you so much. You got it, Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She's going to get her mind blown. Yeah. Yeah. When she does the right stuff. Yeah. Just like everybody else who does it. What is going? I used to love. It was like clockwork. Uh, my client would come to me and it was usually like month three or four, sometimes five or six. And they would always, they would always say it would always be like exactly like this. I don't know. Like, this is weird. Like, how am I getting leaner? What is going on? I'm barely doing anything. What's happening? Well, for someone. I told you. For someone like that who, who doesn't lack the discipline and effort, uh, part it's so life changing. I mean, it's life changing for everybody, but it's, it's life changing in my mind. Yeah. It's different taking somebody who. Well, she thinks her body's broken. Yeah. Or like, like she said, I totally get that what she's cause she does look good. She looks, she looks way younger than what she is. Uh, so she looks great, but I know what that, what that's like when you have the client who's like, man, I, I, I know I, I shouldn't be so hung up on the way I look in this. But the amount of work and the effort that I put into, I, you would think I would look And it's true. It's like she's going to be able to do half the effort and see more results, but it's getting past that psychological hurdle. Our next caller is Derek from Massachusetts. What's up, Derek? How you doing, Derek? Hey, how you doing, guys? Good, man. How can we help you? Well, so this past, first of all, thanks for everything you guys do. Love listening to you guys while I work out. 50-year-old from the Boston area. Broke my wrist playing hockey back in July, July 14th. Pretty bad break, just kind of landed wrong on it. Required surgery, ended up with a plate and about 10 screws in there. That was on July 22nd I had the surgery, so I'm about 11 weeks out from there. And kind of, you know, still doing – I met with the surgeon yesterday. He says I'm good to go if I want to start playing hockey again. My OT is kind of pumping the brakes a little bit. I'm still just strengthening it. Obviously haven't bared much weight with that wrist in three months now almost. So just kind of right now working with, like, a TheraVan flex bar and doing – still trying to get the mobility back in the wrist, right? So, you know, I'm obviously going to progress back to hockey. But more importantly, I want to be able to kind of lift weights again. I have a little gym in my basement that I love. I love listening to you guys while I'm in there working out. So looking for a way to ease into it. I feel like I have an opportunity here to kind of start from scratch, right, and kind of maybe work on some weaknesses that I've had. And in my skating alone, I know I'm always kind of weaker going to one side. So I started doing some squats and some lateral squats recently, and that's kind of where I'm at. So kind of just looking for any advice or guidance you guys may have as I'm recovering from this. How many days a week will we be playing hockey, just out of curiosity? I usually play two. So I'm in a league on one night, then play, like, a pickup thing on Friday night. And you're going to be doing that also at this time, or are you going to strengthen first? No, I'm going to strengthen first. I don't want to get back on the ice until I get a little strength back. So I'm targeting the January timeframe. Oh, okay, cool. All right, and how long has it been since you've worked out? 11 weeks. So with weights or anything, since July. And then I've been doing squats for a couple weeks now, just like body weight squats and lateral squats and stuff like that. So some Bulgarian split squats. I got the perfect program for you. Go MAPS 15 performance. That's how you're going to start. Okay, all right. MAPS 15. Do you have that one? I have one of the 15. I think I might have powerlifting. Yeah, yeah. No, let's go. Let's go MAPS 15 performance just because we're going to get you ready to play hockey again. We'll send that to you. So it's a little bit more functional, and it's going to be perfect for ramp. And you'll see strength gains every single week on that, especially because you're just getting back into it. Yeah, any particular exercises to avoid as I'm kind of progressing? Not avoid as much as I would say to continue to focus on the wrist mobility stuff that you're doing already. Just because you feel healed or get better, don't stop doing that. You'll want to continue. Yeah, you'll want to continue. To continue to do that. I think that's a mistake a lot of people do. They go through their rehab, they get better, they heal, and then they just kind of leave it. And it's like that, you know, you'll want to continue to challenge the range of motion and mobility in the wrist. And isometric stuff, you know, so when you're doing that, get it into the end ranges and create an isometric in that. That'll help gain some strength and mobility and continue that. That'll really help bolster. You ever use a rice bucket for hand and wrist mobility? Have you heard of that before? No. Oh, that's amazing. Oh, it's awesome, dude. So you get a bucket, you fill it up with rice. Five-gallon bucket full of rice. And you stick your hand in it, so all the way in. And then you open your fingers and move your wrist around and squeeze your hand and just move into different ranges of motion. And the rice just provides some resistance. It's beautiful. And it's wonderful for strengthening essentially every direction you move in there. Yeah. In the rice bucket, there's resistance. Oh, that's cool. I haven't heard that one yet. But she gave me some putty recently, and I'm kind of just gripping it and squeezing that. That's a little difficult right now. So I'm still kind of early getting back into it. No, the rice bucket's cool because you can squeeze in it, but you can also work with opening the fingers, wrist extension, lateral. So it's every direction. And you would do that like twice a day. So twice a day, you go in there, play with it for five minutes, get out, do it again later in the day. That'll make a big difference. And it's super inexpensive. Easy way to do it. Yeah. It's like a more, like when I go like this way, I'm less flexible than going back actually. Right. It's more functional anyway, but there's like scar tissue there where the incision was and everything. You know what I mean? That's why this would be important to continue to do this because what will happen, like I said, people will let it heal. And then you'll have this limited range of motion because it'll be all scar tissueed up and you'll kind of be locked. And then people are like, oh, that's all I get now. It's like, no, you can get that all back, but we got to work through it consistently. And the rice bucket is perfect for this because you can do all directions and you get resistance. We're like squeezing like a, you know, one of those flex grips or like a putty. Yeah. All you're doing is just flexing. You're just getting flexion. You're not getting extinction. You're not getting rotation, any sort of dynamic movement in the wrist. You want to really challenge every direction, every direction. I want to take it to its end range, create like an isometric inside the rice, open up, go the other direction, roll the wrist, spread the fingers, close the finger. Like you're doing that for a good five minutes while you're watching TV or something. Don't go crazy with it. Yeah. Just have been like five minutes in it. Yeah. Okay. They also ordered me this jazz machine. That's like you put on your arm and then it kind of cranks your wrist down or up. Does it pull your hand down or up or do you push it down? Yeah. Yeah. I think when you turn the knob, it kind of slowly brings it up or down and I'm kind of trying to, I just got a call. It took like three weeks for it to come in. Now I just got the call whether or not I want it. I'm trying to figure out if I want it. My surgeon's like, well, it's another tool. You know, if it's not going to work. It's not going to cost you too much. I'd go ahead and get it. But have you guys any experience with that at all? Yeah. So not specifically with that, but that, so that's, that's passive. Okay. So what it sounds like is it brings your wrist down for you. Yeah. Which is okay. But what we're saying with resistance in the rice bucket is it's not passive. You're actively bringing your hand into these different positions. Now there is a benefit to passive flexibility, but without being able to activate stability in that range of motion, it doesn't do much. So you always have to strengthen no matter what. So I would, I would get it. If it's not too expensive. If you, if you get it and use it, this is what it would look like. I would crank it to that in range to where it's uncomfortable to where I can get to. And then I create an isometric in that position. What you don't want to do is just crank it there and relax. You want to crank it there and then create maybe oppose it and press it and squeeze foot. Yes. Work against it. That is where you'll get the real benefit from that. If you just allow it to passively bring you there. And back, like you're not, you're not learning to fire the neurons in that position. And so as soon as you take the machine off, you'll, you won't be able to go there. But if you connect by doing isometrics in that position, you're training those neurons to fire into that, that new range of motion. And that is, that can be good for it, but it's got to be used properly. And when you say the isometric, are you saying to kind of bring it down or bring it up? I would, I would, I would oppose it. Oppose it. So it's bringing you down. And when you get there, push up against it, push up against it and then relax. What's cool. If you've ever heard. Let's talk about isometrics is you get 15 degrees, both directions. In other words, you bring it to there and you're opposing it like Sal's saying, but you still get the benefits going 15 degree both ways. Okay, cool. Cool. Awesome. You got it, dude. So we'll send you a match 15 performance. Awesome. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Good stuff, man. Yeah. Take it easy. All right. Take care guys. Thanks for everything. You got it. It's 15 degrees, right? It's 15 degrees in the direction you're pushing. Oh, I thought it was both directions. No, you'd have to activate. You can push in that direction. Otherwise, it's just the direction you're going. 15 degrees for the muscle that you're activating. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the rice bucket, in my opinion, is one of the best wrist strengthening, finger strengthening, wrist mobility devices ever because it provides resistance in every direction you move. You know? Most wrist machines, hand machines, it's like one direction. You got to do another direction. You know, one can close the fingers. One, you open the fingers. One flexes the wrist. One extends the wrist. One works laterally. But in the rice bucket, you're like moving all over the place. Well, it's like, it's like rehabbing your hip or knee in the pool. Yeah. Which is, that's what makes the pool so special for that is it's, you get this dynamic resistance in any direction and it's low enough that- If you go slow, it's hard. You go harder, faster, it's hard. Right, right. And so you can really control that. And harder to overdo it. You can still overdo it, but harder to overdo it. Yeah, no, I think it's a great tool, especially for what he's got going on. Our next caller is Brock from Utah. What's up, Brock? How you doing, Brock? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good, dude. How can we help you? Hey, so I called in a while ago and I got the advice that you recommended me when I was working on the night shift. And I enjoyed it. You gave me MAPS 15 symmetry and I enjoyed the program. My wife and I were both doing it. We were really enjoying it. And then we recently started IVF and because of that, she was told, hey, we don't want you to do this and this and this when you're going through this procedure. So we decided to- Change. change it up once we got done with that and we're able the lift again and now I'm just kind of struggling getting back into um fitness and like lifting I don't know whether it's like the novelty of something new or I feel like I'm not doing enough and so I was just kind of wondering what I should transition to um we are trying to focus on her health for um the embryo transfer that we have coming up but also we both like to lift heavy and yeah if you don't work out with your wife do you still work out um occasionally I do more um mobility I'm using prime pro um if I am getting up by myself and working out I like to work out in the morning and so does she okay so I generally use prime pro or if I I am feeling up to it I will work out by myself on occasion but generally it's just prime pro so home gym you have a home gym um we have dumbbells and then I ordered a doormount pull-up bar for prime deals just that way I can use um more of you guys programs so explain what is consistency versus inconsistency look like is it like consistency as I work out inconsistency as I'm doing nothing yeah are you all or nothing or what are you um so I wouldn't say I'm all or nothing um I have a very active job um I'm averaging 15,000 steps a week um a high day is looking 20 to 22,000 steps um and so I'm really active that way um but I just listen to the podcast a lot I know that it's important to have strength training and have that balanced in and so I feel like I need to do more in that sense and it's with strength training it is either I am or I'm not and I don't know I just I kind of go through these phases of oh I can do more I want to do more and so if I decide oh I don't feel like maps 15 feels enough I don't know like what to change because I feel like I'm already getting a lot of steps in for each day and this the workout just isn't feeling like enough I know you you own a lot of our programs have you yeah have you considered um having someone kind of coach you so you have accountability and you have somebody who's kind of put yourself that's what I'm kind of hearing from you like you feel that way about yourself that maybe something like that would be good yeah I have looked into it and I've talked with my wife and just right now we don't feel like we're financially in a good spot to do uh training um I did just listen to another caller where you actually recommended the constant service yeah so I was wondering if maybe something like that could help it'd be I think it'd be great for you very inexpensive uh but still enough and you're you're obviously not like a beginner or don't know what to do at all you you have several of our programs what they would do is they would they would modify it for your current lifestyle what you have going on and what you're doing change it up as needed to keep it interesting and fun for you also dive into your diet and it's just a once a month check-in and so because of that because you have that accountability piece um so long as you're good about following the directions for the next you know three to four weeks uh I think you'd be really beneficial for someone like you okay yeah for sure yeah I like that dude that's a good option I can have someone call you you know here's the thing with consistency so what you're saying is you you're you're not strength training right now you're just doing your work yeah okay so here's the deal the all or nothing approach looks like this either I I do all these workouts or I don't do these smaller workouts because I feel like it's a waste of time is that what you're thinking not that it's like a waste of time I just feel like I'm not getting like the best bang for my butt kind of situation so that's a fallacy because a little bit is better than nothing a lot better than nothing and and here's a deal they're uh creating habits uh there's neural pathways that build in the brain and they're creating habits that build in the brain and they're creating and they tell you that it don't do anything and the way you change those neural pathways is by doing something and doing something's better than doing nothing yeah and so you just start like that that's it because right now you're doing nothing even even if it was and I know you've been probably listening for a long time too so you've probably heard me talk about this one of the biggest like pivotal moments in my own personal journey of becoming more consistent is like giving myself that permission but I might not do the full workout I might just go in there and just do three sets of squats and then I'm like okay I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna squats or three sets of overhead press and that might be all i do because that's all i'm motivated to do right now i don't feel like and it's not a waste of time if there's a lot of value not just from the actual exercise but to sal's point the psychological piece of i did something in the right direction of what i was trying to do and you build momentum and i can't tell you how many times i gave myself that permission of i'm only gonna go in and do three sets of squats and three sets squats turned into a good workout right yeah and even if it doesn't that's okay i don't it's like all right at least i did that right on and it makes a bit it actually makes a big difference you know look at it this way too look at it it's just a part of your day i wake up i do one or two exercises i go to work like if you did that if you did that five days a week oh wow that's huge that's huge yeah yeah five days a week if you did one or two exercises a day you did 10 you did two exercises that's 10 lifts a week that you did you know that'd be like doing two workouts five lifts see what i'm saying yeah i see so if you just make it a part of your day you wake up 30 minutes early you do you know one dumbbell exercise one pull-up exercise or whatever like bro you're fire by the way you know that's how adam's working out right now yeah that's 100 adam's workout right now i actually don't even get all five days all the time so it's a lot of times it's four days so you'd be surprised how far you make here's the thing too from uh like even more we all know that we have good days of eating and we have good days of eating and we have good days of eating and we have other days that are not as good eating when you have a day that was not great at eating you overate on some calories but you least got those squat those three sets of squats in earlier that day goes the muscle those extra calories get partitioned over helping you build muscle if you just skip those three sets of squats and you overeat it's all going to brock maps 15 is how i hit my 605 pound deadlift at the age of 44 and i had no idea that was going to happen i literally was just experimenting with the program we had just released it i was just testing it out and i was just trying to figure out how to do it and i was just trying to figure out how to do it and i was just hitting prs left and right couldn't believe it wow yeah so so it's so it's not nothing dude and it's actually pretty damn good and to be honest with you a guy who's trying to have a baby who works sounds like you got a pretty you know active job it's probably the right kind of program for you anyway yeah okay yeah all right look i want to see you in the concierge though i think i think that you'll get a lot of benefit bro you get on a coach you get with a coach once a month they'll modify this kind of workout they'll walk you through with diet bro it'll be fire yeah so uh what it's such a fallacy that a little bit is like well i should probably be doing more and then what happens is it becomes the enemy of you doing anything yeah and so you do nothing and i'm listen i'm telling people right now uh i hit a pr in deadlifts that i thought i wouldn't be able to touch i did that my first pr was 600 pounds in my early 30s 44 years old they did 605 on accident following something like that you're doing it right now getting shredded and looking great better than you have in a long time like people listen it works well we've all shared stories of like big pivotal moments in our own training journey and i was very much so even as a trainer okay i was very much so an all or nothing trainer i was training like crazy dying like crazy or i was off and i then what it looked like is this back and forth pendulum where you know i let my body fat creep up i ate out i did all the things and it was like oh then i wheel it back in and then i just kept doing this and then i did all the things and then i did all the things and then i did all the things and a lot of that had to do with exactly what he's describing right now is i had this attitude of what's the what's such a waste if i'm not eating perfect and i and i don't do a full workout like i'm not really moving the needle i could be why waste my time so why waste my time and that was such a fallacy and giving myself the permission to you know what i don't feel like working out i'm not in the mood but i can go get three sets of squats in what a huge difference and like you said half the time you end up doing more anyway yes it's so it's such a it and it's so freeing it's so much easier uh but you have to you have to be able to give yourself that permission that it's okay that you just do that but boy it does move the needle a lot more than people realize our next caller is jesse from north carolina hi jesse hi jesse hey how you doing good how are you good bear with my background i'm on my lunch break i work for the post office no worries how can we help you okay so i'm trying to summarize this this i'm a g l p one um about three years ago i was 364 pounds and i'm currently a 161 to 165 um back in march i had a tummy tuck lipo brachialplasty um and since recovering i've switched my focus to try to start toning and um and lifting i lift every day i've built a pretty nice home gym um and i recently purchased uh max anabolic anesthetic for me and i've been using it for a long time and i've been using it for a long time and i've been way later. I can see some definitions and muscles in certain places coming through um but my biggest struggle is i i will probably forever count calories and i've heard you guys talk about that um mentally if that scale goes over 165 i don't like it um so my biggest question to you guys is with 165 being my my top uh my psychological ceiling um can i noticeably build a more muscular physique while maintaining that 161 to 165 range you know how do i go about setting these calories because um when i was really losing before i got surgery i would say i ate 15 150 calories a day um i eat around 1700 a day now and i'm full i get my protein in between 160 to 200 grams of protein a day but um psychologically i cannot if i go over 165 it's just i'm like three times a day to see if i drop underneath yeah yeah of course of course that's the case by the way excellent job yeah incredible what a journey yeah it's uh you're a whole different person huh what a journey yeah most definitely i definitely feel a lot better that's for sure that's so that's so phenomenal so you're at this you're at another hurdle so you overcame the biggest hurdle yep right biggest hurdle was just getting that getting the weight down changing eating habits changing activity levels the next hurdle now is the fear of going back and and that one could that one can last a lifetime sometimes people just never get over that i don't think that's going to happen with you because you're calling us uh and you seem to be pretty aware of it so here's what the next stage looks like for you when you're ready okay when you're ready you are going to track but you're going to track less things you're going to track protein intake you're going to stick to whole natural foods okay so don't go off whole natural foods eat when we do that a lot my wife and i we cook every day i figured i figured so whole natural foods eat when you're hungry okay so you're not going to be tracking carbs and fats so hit your protein i track your protein whole natural foods eat until you're satisfied don't eat until your stuff but eat until you're satisfied and then the third thing you track is strength okay am i getting stronger in my lifts if your strength plateaus it's either the program or you're not eating enough it's one of the two right so i'll send you a program how many days a week you're working out right now um i do anabolic and i do the i'm i'm in phase one now i did pre-phase for probably six weeks um just to extend a little bit i'm in phase one now and i do it i'm supposed to do it too but i do the main lifts three days a week um and i do the trigger days two days good for you and how's your strength how's your strength it's definitely increased um i can tell you after my surgery uh my doctor harped big on the protein um when i started the shots i started on semi-glutide and i really didn't listen to that i was just so excited to be losing weight that i i didn't count protein you know i just i wasn't hungry i didn't eat well my body become immune to that and i introduced a microdose of triazepatide one of the few people i know to take both um and so basically when i started taking triazepatide that's when i started counting um i got really strict with my eating and you know it it totally was a game changer so you know that that was really and i still take a microdose um every other week like a very small you know i take five to ten units every other week so it's just like a middle thing so just something just to be aware of so there's there's two there's two kinds of slavery when it comes to uh our bodies one kind of slavery is i eat whatever i want i don't pay attention and i'm a slave to my cravings i'm a slave to the things i want to eat inactivity there's another side of slavery we see this in the fitness space a lot which is i'm a slavery to my macros i'm a slavery to my calories i'm a slavery to i need to exercise yeah and both of those can be dysfunctional and both of those can cause a lot of problem i'm very familiar with this one over here because this is where i've i've been many times yeah and so i like uh i like maps 15 for you for your workout i like you tracking your weight and i like you tracking your weight and i like you tracking your steps trying to get you know eight to ten thousand steps a day and then yeah he got it and then with your food intake hit protein stick to whole natural foods and try to learn how to eat until you're satisfied but there's a difference between satisfied and full satisfied is 80 percent of full so you eat and you're like i'm still a little hungry a little more you're like i think i'm good and then just kind of do that and then watch your strength go up and you should get stronger with maps 15 you're going to get stronger pretty much week over week for a little while if you if you're getting stronger you're you're you're moving in the right direction like strength goes up muscle goes up that's how it works gotcha and that's it and then the step away from the tracking of everything down to the tracking of protein and then just being strict with whole natural foods is the next progression eventually the progression looks like you're not tracking anything but that's a while from now you're probably a year a year or so away from that jesse run me down run me down yesterday's meats that you ate and you're your sources of protein i can probably pull it well okay pull them up on my phone um i usually take uh two eggs mixed with egg whites um either ground beef or chicken that's my breakfast or i make like i call it protein bombs you know the greek yogurt protein powder fruit protein cereal mixed together um then for lunch i usually have either some type of lunch meat or like the buffalo chicken or tuna packets i put on like a keto bun um then for dinner it's usually kava with double double protein the steak because it's the lowest calorie of course um and then usually nine nine o'clock because i don't go to bed till probably 11 11 12 um usually i eat some type of high protein like tuna and lettuce um some type of bowl like that before bed but usually i hit between 160 to 200 grams a day i love i love uh your your protein your consistency in your meals the uh without getting into the tracking the calories allow yourself to be okay with the four whole eggs instead of the egg whites allow yourself sometimes instead of just tuna you can have red meat like allow the extra fats in there the healthy fats are fine it is not it'll only positively uh you'll feel better you know and who cares that it pushes the calories two or three hundred more calories those healthy fats will serve you in your journey and so that little micro adjustment is something that i would make in your choice is like if you're hungry eat don't feel like you have to eat the tuna because the tuna is 300 calories less than the the ribeye or the ground beef or whatever other choice you would have made like don't eat two eggs and egg whites because you're trying to keep the calories down have four eggs totally fine that stuff is okay like that is good for you and we want those healthy fats and it'll serve you and it's an easy way that will naturally start to bring the calories up a little bit in this reverse diet which will build muscle which will help you build muscle so yeah so that yeah i've reached switched to more seafood i used to be if we would not eat um a steak connoisseur we was you know we would eat steak um now i find the seafood i like and i order it so yeah i should probably add some of that back in yeah absolutely one more thing this is gonna be the most difficult thing jesse is uh and i'm and you got to be honest with me because if if this doesn't work then we'll scale it back but i'd like for you to not weigh yourself for the next 60 days i broke myself from every day once a week and that was really tough and like i said if i go over 165 when i come home from work i'm gonna weigh again to see if i'm under 165 yeah be careful be careful though yeah i could um probably i could probably make a deal with you and do 30 days let's do 30 probably get 30 because here's i can do 30 here's why here's why jesse if i can get you to eat a little bit more fat through your then that's by higher fat meats that's you're going to get a little more calories we got a reverse diet if you want to build muscle you want to continue to build your body uh we've got it we've got a reverse diet and so try to get a little bit more fat and then you're going to get a little bit more calories the way i'm saying is one of the easiest ways to do it that doesn't change a lot of what you got going on just eat some fattier meats that's it or eat all eggs now what will happen is you're now eating higher calorie and and and you're gonna see a little bit of water weight people mistake that water weight for fat they freak out and they go the other direction and that's why i'd want you to stay away from the scale because i don't care if it goes up two pounds because what will happen is it'll go up like two two or three pounds and then it'll plateau and it'll stay there and all that is water all i'd have to do is pull that water out of you and you drop right back down and you'll be like oh this is good and then you might look at the scale and you're like oh shit it says i'm four pounds heavier but you already told yourself i like i could tell i look better and so maybe right and that that's where you start to look at the scale and you're like oh this is good and then you might look at the scale and you're like oh shit it says i'm four pounds heavier but you already told yourself i like i could tell i look better and so maybe right and that that's where you start to look at the scale and you're like oh this is good and then you might look at the scale and you're like oh shit it says i'm four pounds heavier but you already told make peace with the scale a little bit more as you realize because you're not a slave to it every day or every week where you're constantly over managing it you allow yourself some time to build some strength let your body change a little bit be happy with what you feel and see and then oh wow maybe the scale doesn't match with what you think who gives a shit because you know you feel better you know you look better who cares that it says four or five pounds you know otherwise the scale right now is tyrannizing and i know what that feels like it definitely is i did set myself up um i I have a really good integrative doctor that I've been going to this whole time and I'm dexascan so maybe that will help me balance like you said like okay i can see that i'm gaining muscle here and there losing fat i mean i really don't have much much more fat to lose i mean that i could think of um you know no no you're physically looking at me you're you're you're 5'8 you're you're tall you're you're you're you're tall and your weight is good um my ex walked around at 175 180 and she was a figure competitor okay so you're talking about getting on state so you are plenty low enough lean enough it's muscle that we need to put on and that's why your your scale weight doesn't matter to me you could easily you could easily love the way you look and feel and be 15 pounds heavier i guarantee it you'll so that's why we break away from it as long as we can add the calories i can give you a 30-day break all right and just get strong just just fall in love with the strength gains that'll make it fun okay and then and then and then jesse i mean promise me this uh because i know that this can be challenging like sal said this can be a lifelong if you if you find yourself still struggling reach back out and then allow us to coach you through this process we have trainers that take people through this all the time and so if you find yourself having a real hard time with it uh it's very normal we have we have a fact i'd say a good percentage of our people are on glp ones that we help out because they because it can be so tough so reach back out and we'll take care of you oh i will for sure for sure all right good job all right you're doing great all right doing great thank you so much thank you bye bye she'll do good yeah especially if she has fun getting strong yeah especially if she has fun getting strong yeah in a in a decent place we're not uh deathly scary low calorie wise i mean it's low especially some air carrier so she walks a lot oh yeah it's lower than it needs to be but it's not so low that she's like and i had a feeling so i wanted to have her walk through her diet for her calories to be that low and her hit her protein i had a feeling she was doing a lot of like tuna yeah yeah yeah making a lot of low calories and she was doing a lot of low calories uh lean low fat let me tell you being too low fat feels like crap regardless of where your calories are it just feels horrible yeah look if you like the show come check us out on instagram it's mind pump media thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this 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