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2936: If You Love Working Out, You Probably Need to Hear This

from Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth ·

129m 58s

2936: If You Love Working Out, You Probably Need to Hear This

This episode of MindPump addresses a counterintuitive fitness principle: for highly dedicated athletes and fitness fanatics who train consistently and restrict calories, the path to better results often involves eating more and moving less. The hosts highlight key signs of overtraining, including chronic fatigue, poor recovery, and missed personal life events, which signal that the body is in a constant state of breakdown rather than adaptation. They emphasize that extreme leanness—common among long-term fitness enthusiasts—can actually hinder muscle growth and long-term health due to insufficient body fat for metabolic and hormonal support. A core insight is that objective performance metrics like strength and stamina often plateau when calorie intake is too low, and increasing calories can trigger significant gains. The hosts also stress that fitness should enhance life quality, not dominate it, warning against turning workouts into a painful, isolating habit. Real-world examples, such as Corinne’s journey, illustrate how temporary increases in body fat are essential for muscle development and recovery. The episode concludes by promoting wellness products—such as non-toxic cookware from OurPlace and high-leucine supplements from Kion—while encouraging listeners to explore MindPump’s buy-one-get-one-free MAPS programs. Ultimately, the message is clear: sustainability, balance, and joy are more important than relentless training or extreme dieting for long-term health and fitness success.

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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MindPump. MindPump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in the history of the world. This is MindPump. In today's episode, callers called in. We got to coach them live on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 67 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness, current events, our lives, studies, all fun stuff. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this one, submit your question to MPLiveCaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is OurPlace. They make cookware that is amazing. It lasts a long time. It is forever chemical-free. It's also nonstick, so it's nonstick, but without all those crazy chemicals. Go check them out. Go to FromOurPlace.com. Enter the code MindPump at checkout. Get 10% off. This episode is also brought to you by Kion. So, Kion makes incredible supplements. Today, we talked about their very high leucine content essential amino acids. So, essential amino acids can increase muscle protein synthesis. That's muscle building and speed up recovery. Take some capsules between meals to turn up the volume on your results. Go check them out. Go to GetKion.com slash MindPump. That's GetKion.com slash MindPump. On that link, you'll get 20% off. We also have a promotion with our MAPS programs. Buy any one of our top 10 most popular MAPS programs. Get any one of the other ones for free. It's a buy one, get one free happening right now. Go to MAPSbogo.com. Here comes the show. T-shirt time! And it's T-shirt time. Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. Three winners this week. Two for Apple Podcasts, one for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winners are Kaylee Litz and S.J. Valdez. And for Facebook, we have Danette Baldurama. All three of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at MindPumpMedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. You've probably heard people say, eat less and move more. That's the formula if you want to get in shape. Here's what we say. Many of you need to eat more and move less. Here are the signs that this is what's going to actually improve your health and fitness. Do the opposite. Eat more, move less. Let's go. Can't wait for these comments. Yeah, these are great. No, so this is for, and I want to be clear, right? This is not for the person that doesn't work out and who eats kind of, you know, whatever they want. Eats a lot of heavily processed foods and let's just say garbage, right? This is for the fitness fanatics. This is for the person that's super into fitness, that's super consistent. Oftentimes, these are callers, right? Oftentimes, we'll start the show, we'll have callers call in, and they'll tell us about their issues and why they're not progressing or what is it? Why can't I not progress? We're on plateauing. And our advice revolves, I mean, generally around this. Oftentimes, we tell people you got to eat more and you got to move less. And when they listen to us, they come back 30 days, 60 days later, and they're like, I can't believe that worked. I can't believe eating more and moving less, you know, again, generally speaking, really is what got me to a better place in fitness. And so these are the people that we're talking to, and you know who you are if you're listening right now. Yeah, and I mean, we've had different clients that fit that category. And like, I would say it's more of like a permacut. It's almost to the point where, you know, they're just always so conscious about trying to keep their weight at a certain amount. To make sure that their cardio is there, to make sure that they're eating underneath and, you know, playing that like that calorie game for so long. And then to get them to eat is like transformative. Totally. One of the last clips that Josh had me shoot for Instagram, it's going right now. It's performing pretty good. It's similar topic, right? Like if you're in a plateau, you're not getting any stronger. What are some of the things? And basically, my point of that clip was, if you're listening, if you're listening to this clip, that means you're getting served up fitness content, which means you're probably into hardcore into fitness. And there's a good chance reducing your volume, reducing your training will give you more results. And I think this is very true for the fitness fanatic or the person who has been working out for a decade and they're consistent as hell and they love to train. Not so much for the general pop. And so I think that's the clear message here is that, like, OK, yes, when we're talking to general population, most people need to move more, probably eat less. But when you're talking about people that have been consistently working out and they are health conscious and they train very consistently, many of them love to train four or five, six times a week, sometimes seven, some double days. Those people would benefit from moving less and eating more because what has happened is they are just constantly breaking down. And caught in that recovery trap you talk about where they're they're never adapting and growing and building. They're constantly their body is on defense all the time because you're constantly hammering it. Yeah, this is also a word of caution for beginners, because oftentimes what a beginner will do, somebody who is moving from a place of I don't exercise, I eat whatever I want. And suddenly I'm very motivated. I want to get into shape. And then they make the mistake of going too hard, doing too much, eating too much. Eating too little. Right. So they go away. They take the pendulum and they swing it way in the other direction and they run into a wall. They initially get some good results and they find themselves in a place where they feel like they're doing so much work. They're eating so little. Nothing else is happening. And then they eventually fall off because it's like this totally isn't worth it. So there's a few signs that we're going to talk about today. And there's more than the ones that we're going to spell out today. But these are the big ones that this may be you, that if you have one or more of these signs, they resonate with you eating more and moving less may just be the formula that you need. And here's the first one. You're worn out. You're just worn out. You work out all the time. You watch what you eat. And yet the only time you have energy seems to be for your workout. You show up for your workout. You take your pre-workout, your caffeine or whatever. You do your thing. You get that cortisol spike. By the way, cortisol is an essential hormone. You need it. But if you're constantly redlining and under eating. More cortisol in the short-term can feel good because cortisol will initially give you a little boost of energy. So this is the person who's like, I got no energy for the rest of the day. I feel tired. I feel burnt. I'm always sore. Uh, but then I do that hardcore workout class. No, this is the one I love. And suddenly I feel great. Um, and that's why I do. It makes me feel good. But if you were being honest with yourself, you really only have energy for your workouts. You really only have energy for that. And everything else kind of feels like you need more. You're kind of dragging. Uh, you're worn out by the way, as a, uh, experienced coach. I hate to say this. This is very true. And I know Adam and Justin will agree with me. Oftentimes we'll get callers that'll call in. And when they call in, they call in and we can see them. We get, it's like a zoom call. Oftentimes by looking at their face, you tell just by looking at their face, I could tell you're overdoing it. You've got that worn out. Look, you've got that worn out fitness look where your face shows an age older than you actually are, even though you're consistent with your work. Even though you're eating quote unquote in a perfect way, you've got that worn out look now, the average person, uh, can't necessarily pick this up, but as an experienced coach, um, just cause I've worked with so many people, oftentimes I see it. I see the person. What, in fact, I can see this in the gym. I'll go work out. I tell a lot. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, because even two, you're watching your client as they're exerting themselves and you can know right away if they're, they're sort of like tunnel vision or if they're kind of hitting a wall. Or, you know, there's a lot that, that you could, uh, receive information wise from just looking at their eyes. I'm glad you went the worn out direction instead of focusing on the constantly sore one, because that can be a signal to right. When someone's always sore all time, but I actually find it more common that the person who trains, you know, five, six days a week consistently, it has been for a really long time. They don't get sore anymore. They've, they've, they've gotten to a point where their body has adapted to this, just getting beat up. Like that all the time, but it's not changing. It's not growing. It's not, they're not seeing body composition change. Um, and so, and they think because they're not constantly sore that, oh, they're not doing enough and I could have pushed more. And so I liked that you went the worn out because one signal can be like, for sure, especially my beginners. If you're a beginner and you're, you're constantly habitually sore, there's a good chance that you're just, you're overreaching. You need to scale back intensity, but if you're somebody who's been training for years consistently. Many times you're not getting sore hardly at all. And so you think that it's a problem with, I never get sore. Yes. So you think it's like, I need more volume. I need more intensity. I could have pushed further because I didn't even get sore. I'm so glad you said that, dude. Cause I, I totally forgot about that. You know, I had an experience with that years ago where, uh, years ago, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to work out like they did in the seventies. I'm going to do twice a day workouts. This was crazy. It's crazy, right? It's like double split routine, you're doing all this stuff. And I remember by week two or three, getting sore anymore. And I thought, Oh, this is a good thing, but we just worn out. I was just destroyed. And I just had no energy throughout the day, except for those stupid workouts. Like that's all my energy went into those workouts. A hundred percent. Right. I just wasn't, I wasn't sore. And I thought that was a good thing. I thought that would mean, Oh, I actually think that's probably more common. I think the, um, overly sore is more common to a beginner who's overreaching and doing too much. I think the advanced person who's been lifting for a long time, they, they correlate, Oh, I'm never sore. So I I'm definitely not pushing too much. And so they think they're, that they're not, but they're already way beyond, uh, too much. And that's why their body is not seeing change anymore. And actually taking that person and scaling them back to the advice you started this with and, you know, moving less or training less and eating more will result in better results. Totally. Uh, here's the next thing. And this, this, you really have to do, uh, some self-examining. Uh, if you find yourself sacrificing more important things for your workout and your diet, and this is a common thing. Now, sacrifice is important. Like if you, if you live a healthy life, there are things you're going to have, you are going to have to live differently. That's just the fact, right? If you follow the world, uh, the world's default is poor health. So I'm not talking about living differently. What I'm talking about is you miss birthdays, you miss dinners, you skip certain things or certain holidays, or you don't celebrate certain holidays. Maybe you show up, but you don't celebrate the holiday with other people because it's off my diet or no. Oh my gosh. If I miss my word, in fact, I'm going to organize this vacation. That was me around my workouts or this event around my workouts, because God forbid I miss a single workout or God forbid I eat a meal off my meal plan, or I don't track the macros. This may be, in fact, this may be a question you ask the people closest to you. Hey, am I inflexible with my diet and exercise being annoying? I'll say yes. Yeah. Like this is, this, this, this is a problem. By the way, you have made your workouts a stress. You have made your diet a stress. You're not really living your life or should I say your workouts and your diet are not improving the quality of your life. They've become your life. They were never designed to become your life. Exercise and diet were made, or when they're, I say when they're done properly, uh, improve the quality of your life. They don't become your life. Don't you feel like this is one of the really tough ones for people to see? Totally. You know, because becoming this person who has become so consistent and track your food and do all the things they've obviously seen some of the benefits of that, right? You're organized, your meals are prepped. You could argue it saves me money. I'm healthier because of that. I stay in great shape because of that. I stay in good shape because of that. And so this is a tough one, I think, to get somebody to kind of, uh, let the reins go a little bit. Well, it masquerades as discipline. Well, yeah, I think it also, it creates this like me versus everyone else. Totally. You know, like you, you kind of corner yourself as like, well, I'm, you know, I'm doing all the right things and you guys just need to get on board. And then you kind of start isolating yourself, uh, from, you know, instead of, uh, really leading as an example and like, you know, immersing yourself, uh, with your friends and family. And whatnot. But yeah, it's, I see that a lot where people just get really into it and then just kind of push everybody else. I always wonder if like, if I would have experienced the whole competing thing earlier in my life versus later, if it would have had a different like outcome from it, meaning, uh, like I was so ready to be done with that. I mean, I was, there was no, there was no like new, this is my identity. And, and like, I remember you hated it. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. And it could not wait to you flex. Yeah. I'm so over all of it and didn't like it. And yet absolutely saw lots of benefits from it. I mean, obviously I was in the best shape of my life. I was the strongest. I was, I looked the best. I, there was value in it. Oh yeah. I could go down the list of all these things that I could see could become very addictive. Uh, but, and I think, and that's why I'm wondering, I was like, man, maybe if it was like, if I was 25 and I went through that, I would have been like, I would have been like, I would have been like, I would have uh process versus in into my 30s uh would i've experienced that different would i would i become more of a person who identified as that oh is what i'm saying what you're saying yeah because i went into it with a very different you already had a pretty strong identity going into it you knew why you were going to do it do it it wasn't like i'm gonna be this bodybuilder it was more like this is a great way to build the social platform to work in fitness it's a great way to show social proof that i know what i'm doing you kind of already knew who you were but i could see in your 20s i don't know you need a lot of praise you know yeah it becomes yeah something everybody's sort of acknowledging like wow that's so impressive and it really builds up your ego right is there that's what i'm wondering is there a type of avatar that that tends to fall into this force like a person who oh yeah gets all that admiration for the first time in their life like wow i've never they can receive all these compliments now this is who i am they they are the most confident they've ever been because they feel you know they're the most confident they've ever been really good about their body like you know and that's what i mean is like maybe when i was going through more of an impressionable time of my life and then that was formed it would have been a harder pull um because it's hard sometimes i know i can talk about this because i've had so many clients and so i can i can relate to the clients and talk about it but i didn't i didn't experience this personally personally it was uh couldn't wait to not do all the well you know you know what's interesting for me because i've gone through lots of cycles of this process this can still be a struggle for me but it's not like it used to be i'm definitely better much more self-aware around it but it still can become can be a struggle for me but you know one of the ways that i noticed or one of the differences that i noticed for myself with this was when i used to go out with friends and family what people used to point out or or or mention was just how disciplined and strict i was when we would go out or do things they noticed that when we'd order food or we go to the movies or it was a holiday how sal ate specifically a way and didn't miss workouts and i identify with that like it's cool yeah you're gonna point out the fact that i eat candy at the movies you're gonna point out the fact that uh at the celebration i'm not doing these things like yeah that's because i'm disciplined i identified with it here's what's funny here's what's different now now when i do certain things or i celebrate people are shocked that i'm having a piece of cake yeah and they'll say wait i thought you were a fitness guy what are you doing eating a piece of cake i thought you were a fitness i'm like yeah i'm at a birthday i'm at a birthday we're celebrating someone's birthday i'll have a piece of cake or i'll go to the movies which i don't do every week once a month or if we're less over the movies and they'll notice i'm buying some candy to eat and i went with a buddy of mine not that long ago and i remember him looking at i'm having gummy bears and he's looking at me like what's this guy doing and so he thought he said man you work out so much that you could just eat this stuff all the time right i'm like actually i almost never do but i'm at the movies and it's you know kind of hanging out with you and it's organic and it's okay but you know it's okay that it's not a big deal uh but it was uh it was it's a totally different um experience whereas before i was never flexible i i and i sacrificed things that were much more important uh than you know me being perfect with my workouts you know i sacrificed the celebration of the birthday i sacrificed the meal that someone might have made because i got to be on this on the strict regimen you know here's the next one uh you're super lean all the time now yes there are those people out there that this is they've got those genetics that allows them to walk around shredded all the time this is extremely rare everybody okay very rare this is like less than one percent of the population yeah who's been doing this for a long time and they're doing this for a long time and they're who seem to somehow walk around super lean everybody else if you're a woman and you're walking and you're a fitness fanatic and you're walking around in the teens all the time you've never you've been in the 16 body fat range for years or you're that dude that's always at nine percent body fat for years and years and years you got to eat more move less dude here's here's your evidence when you look at maximum fitness performance endurance strength stamina generally speaking body fat percentages are higher women don't aren't 15 percent they're typically 20 percent men are typically 15 percent nine percent why because you need body fat you need some body fat for health and longevity you can't be shredded all the time this is really evident sometimes in our callers well we'll get especially female callers they'll call in asking us why they can't build a butt or why they can't improve their their deadlift and they'll tell us their dexascan and it's 15 say how long you've been 15 oh you know the last eight years okay you need to gain some body fat that's your problem you're not eating enough you know that's remind me i don't want to hijack where you're going right now but we did uh corinne did her next dexascan so i have a lot to share to this point cool um because it's just it's given me even more insight uh in regards to what you're talking about right now and i want to be able to share i hope she doesn't mind um that i share the numbers and some of that because i think they're important to highlight the point uh that you're making right now and how detrimental it can be if you don't get out of that place because then you get stuck in this place where your body won't respond and then your bone density goes down and all the other things that happen with that and so um yeah i have an update uh for the audience that's been asking and waiting for like some of the things that we've been doing and a lot more uh a lot more we have to do to get to where we want to be for sure yeah that's good yeah well i mean too a lot of times people are in that comparison trap where it's like a social media thing it looks like these people are lean year-round and it looks like it's very much a perception thing where you take a lot of pictures and you could go through phases where you're that lean but you want to portray yourself as always this lean person um so i mean it's it's again like that that could also be you know in itself it's very you know alluring and it's something that like people want to like have goals towards but you know to maintain that is you're just not in a healthy place well this sal's point about that's one percent of the population and then i'd say then because right now so many more people see that to your point because uh 15 percent or is bullshit you know 20 percent or whatever like the one percent it actually could like maintain yeah there's a very small percentage that actually do maintain it and it's actually okay you know that that the genetic anomalies right and then there's a whole bunch of people that fake it by taking a bunch of photos at a certain amount of time and then dripping it over the year that make people believe that they're maintained that way so for the average person who's tuning in to uh instagram and youtube and the social media world they have no idea that what's going on there that there's one percent of the population that's maintaining it and then one a very small percentage of people that can and should even be able to maintain that and then there's a this large percentage of these people that act like they're that one percent and they're not even really that one percent they're just staging photos in one month and then dripping it throughout the year well what's funny too is uh you get this really strange perception drift where you think you look best shredded uh whereas gaining four or five percent body fat actually makes you look a lot better this is true for both men and women especially women but uh even true for men like you know i could get down to seven percent and be shredded when i get my body fat up to 11 12 my wife will tell me you look much better you never liked what i look like on stage yeah she hated that like the last like the dead look oh yeah yeah and you'll see this with women that walk around 15 16 and just gaining four or five percent body fat they look good you know what it is they look healthier because they are healthier you know what's funny is that uh the you know that the old saying the the camera adds 10 pounds or whatever it only looks okay or good on a picture that's it in a picture or on camera in a fitness context yes in real life it doesn't look no yeah it looks emaciated which is funny because i think that's the part where people get misled as they look back at this picture and they're like oh that looks so but it's like no in real life it doesn't look that good it actually looks better for you to be a little bit here's another one um you haven't improved objective performance in a long time this is a sign you're working out too much and you're not eating enough it's like has your strength really gone up has your stamina gone up or are you kind of staying the same while you're eating low calorie and making every single workout in fact oftentimes uh with a client all i would do is bump their calories and suddenly they're hitting prs i haven't bumped their calories 700 it's all right fine keep training like you are even though it's too much let's have you eat 700 more calories yeah and they come back like oh my god i added 30 pounds to my squat it's like well yeah oh my god my energy's through the roof what's going i'm sleeping good again what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know what's wrong with you and that's you know your performance isn't a perfect metric but it is an objective metric looking in the mirror and and you know judging how you look there's so much subjective to you know quality that where you could really fool yourself you can even be fooled by other people you could be in a fitness fanatic circle of people that will tell you how awesome you look even though you're unhealthy but you know strength that's objective you either lift more you don't stamina that's objective uh you either are able to lift more you either lift more you either lift more able to do more or not and when those haven't improved in a long time uh you may just need to eat more that'll make the difference uh and then here's the final one it's not joyful this is not a joyful thing for you it's not and i'm going to be clear your life isn't more joyful if your life if your joyful aspects of your life or your workouts and everything else is not joyful then the workout is no longer serving yeah and that and that's a big problem 100 i mean i think that's actually more common than not i think a lot of people uh talk about their workouts as their escape yeah from the rest of their life yeah that's their that's their place where uh yeah i mean then it's good for that but you're using it a lot of times or at least in my experience with clients you've turned your workout into a drug yeah they're running away yeah yeah they're medicating with it 100 100 i want to ask you adam because you mentioned off air and i didn't ask you because i want to save it for the show that you were using uh you were sautéing your mushrooms in the oh yeah our place pan yeah yeah are you using the the the one what's called i don't remember what it's called it's like the multifunctional pan it's the one that you can do all kinds of things ceramic or which one it's so yes i think so because chemical it's the it's the giant tan colored ones and i think it has the ceramic coating it has the coating on the bottom where you literally just run water on it and everything wipes right off of it um yeah no i was actually talking with doug because uh i've i've gotten my sauteing my mushrooms and onions from watching doug and i went down this rabbit hole last weekend and i'm just like you know what like i love mushrooms so much i want to like look up some other recipes and how i can improve i love mushrooms oh dude i'm gonna make you some bomb love i took like another level of like my mushroom game came up yeah i just i you know uh really fun i'm not a cook by any means what'd you say he's a fun guy anyway dad jokes are heavy yeah the ceramic non-stick is the called the always pan yeah that's the one i knew it uh so you know what's interesting so here's what i want to bring up so mushrooms have this unique ability of absorbing anything that they come in contact to both when they grow but also when you cook them this is why they taste so good like you whatever you saute them in they kind of absorb the flavor yeah which also uh to the our place so our place uses um what are they called uh forever chemical free pan so it's non-stick but it doesn't have the forever chemicals in there if you saute onions excuse me mushrooms in a pan with the chemicals i don't even think it'll absorb more chemicals in there it'll absorb more chemicals in there it'll absorb more chemicals in there anything else so what a good point all foods will pick up those forever chemicals but mushrooms are like sponges oh yeah yeah you'll get a really high concentration so especially if you cook something like a mushroom you want a forever chemical free pan what a good point what a good point yeah i didn't realize how i how much i was uh overcooking them before they were because they tasted so good still because to your point if you saute them and garlic and ghee or butter like that it's hard for them to taste bad yeah but my texture was off and i thought it wasn't right and i learned a lot about like at what temperature that i i cook them and then when do i see like season them i thought i can just season them right away you don't do that because then it pulls everything out too early like so i i figured out how to do them a lot better and i've now it's like the third time i've cooked them you guys are two you and doug are like two of the best like male like cooks i would not put me in that category doug could cook i have a few things i like to do you know what it is uh well you're both passionate about it so i i just recently for me in the last i don't know how many years in my life maybe the last five yeah maybe five i like i uh you're really into it i never was into it you know what it is it's um you're old yeah that's definitely something to do with it it's definitely something to do with it you know i've i've really uh and i i i think this kind of harkens back to um when i shared the story about katrina and i um you know me getting frustrated with like the house not being so clean and like then we like had this like it was i had this epiphany of like i care so much about that like why am i getting frustrated with her your epiphany is this all clean house yeah so that's so it was like and because here's the thing i have a wife that's like it's not like she's lazy she's over there doing laundry and taking care of my son she's very good at what she's good at too she organizes everything that's right exactly and she's and she has these incredible strengths it's like so why am i beating her up on the one thing that she just is not as she doesn't care as much as i do so i had that epiphany this was back when we lived in marina so i don't know how many years like seven years ago or whatever and we i just started like that so i do that every single night like clock work while she's getting our our son together and what has happened in the last few year and what what what came of that to how i'm tying this all together is that uh it became enjoyable something that was because now you're not feeling like you're you're you're doing it at a choice yes yeah dude isn't that huge and i'm playing music and it becomes this uh on my alone time and i'm i don't i don't my phone's not because my hands are working so i'm like no phone so it's like an hour an hour hour and a half of just like in my thoughts doing what i'm doing and so it's become this i've that is i've experienced that there first and thought wow something that i considered a chore that i hated or pissed me off we get into fights whatever whatever you want to say uh has now turned into this thing that i really like to do i'm like that's interesting i wonder what other aspects of my life are like that and i'd say cooking was kind of like a chore for me i've always been able to kind of do it but i'm not in the mood to do it i'm pretty i was always really kind of simple like you just forming grill shit whatever just look at things like protein carbs yeah yeah exactly it was like it was it means to an end type of deal and i thought well what if i started to kind of get into it and take my time and like you know do everything slow and so i've actually learned and and i've over the last couple years uh i've started to enjoy that i've enjoyed the walk away and it's me in the kitchen for two hours and i'm doing my thing and that's awesome yeah yeah so it's kind of yeah because you and doug i've had some of the best like steaks and meals around steaks that i've ever had with you guys for sure yeah yeah he's i think he's way more of a cook than i am so doug's been doing it for a while he's been into cooking for a long time probably 50 years or so at least at least maybe 60 almost back when they discovered no my grandma and i used to cook together really really yeah no okay so that's interesting so i'm curious did uh do you think that's where your passion came from and did you pick did you start doing it even in your twenties or like, when did you really start? I really started when I was, I was very interested in food and cooking when I was even 10 years old. Oh, wow. This is a thing for you. It's been a thing for me. Um, I love food to start off. I love food, but I'm also fascinated on how certain flavors are achieved. So I've had like these lifelong pursuits for various types of foods to cook. One include one is pizza. I always wanted to make an incredible pizza and I just could never figure it out. Does he know what you did? Does he know you? Oh yeah. So I ended up hiring a pizza coach, a pizza coach. Yes. Well, no, this guy, his name is Luigi. He's from Positano. Okay. Which right away, you know, he's awesome. So I have pursued the perfect pizza for years and I just could not figure it out. And then I discovered at one point, okay, you have to have the right oven. It has to be hot enough. Right. But even then I just couldn't get the right, um, what do you call it? Gluten structure. You have to have that perfect crust. Right. And I just couldn't figure out why that was. So I was at this pop-up, uh, pizza place in the Campbell farmer's market. Okay. And this guy, Luigi, I, I tried his pizza and I go, this is amazing. So I talked to him and he goes, yeah, I'll come and I'll teach you. So I paid for him to come out. He brought all his dough and then he taught me how to make it. Uh, but one of the things I discovered is I had this mixer. I had a Viking mixer. I figured, oh, this is a good mixer. It's Viking. Yeah. Good brand. But the problem was it's, it goes around, they call it, I think a orbital mixer. It's like the KitchenAid or whatever else, but it just bangs the dough on the side of the, uh, the bowl. So you need an actual true, uh, spiral mixer. It has like a steel bar in the middle and then it wraps the dough. So it's the way it mixes it with the air and everything. The way it needs it, right? Yeah. So you have to have proper gluten development to get the proper crust. And I just could never get that even though I made decent pizzas. Right. And so I, uh, I, so I ended up buying one of these mixers. It's an Italian mixer. It's 88 pounds. Uh, this is massive. This is like a commercial thing. Anyway, I've hired him four times, maybe five. He's come over to my house and we just keep working on my pizza skills. And, uh, I'll, I'll say I'm pretty darn good. Now what about throwing it in the air? Is that a thing? That's, I think that's more of an American thing. If you look at like the Neapolitan style dough, so I make kind of authentic, I would say authentic Neapolitan style. Yeah. So from the South, like Napoli, right. And it's, it's a different, it's different than some of these other, like, uh, like your New York pizzas. That's American. That's American. And so the dough is, yeah, it doesn't really do well by throwing it up. I'm sure you can, but, uh, no, it's more, you stretch it by hand. That's awesome. Yeah. So you're going to have a silver. Yeah. No, when I have the new place, I'm going to have, I mean, you would totally, you're, you're going to build an oven outside eventually. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's helpful. That's fun. Wood fire. But anyway, that was like a lifelong passion, but there's other foods I've been trying to make my entire life and have learned little by little. Well, your Thai dishes are fire. Yeah. So good. That was actually learning how to cook Thai food was because I moved to Japan and I was such a Thai food fanatic and I couldn't find any Thai restaurants, uh, to go to. So I learned how to cook it. Oh, so you had to make it yourself. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. So anyway, I'm definitely not on that guy's level. No, but like I said, you guys are both into it. Well, you know what my favorite thing is though, is that, cause everyone's all into their things and stuff like that is like, that's where Doug will shell out money. Oh yeah. Cause he loves it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where he's all quiet about that stuff like that. And I know I get railed for being the guy. Oh, this is the Ferrari. Yeah, exactly. He's definitely got the Ferrari of mixers and his espresso machine. I remember his espresso machine. I wanted to get Courtney one of those and I was like, yeah, yeah, that's so cool. Yeah. There's definitely, we have a $90 espresso machine at home. We buy it on Amazon. It breaks every once in a while. We just get another one. I swear to God. It's literally 90 bucks all the time. So, wow. That's great. Dude, I got to tell you guys about this, this incredible. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before, before you go, I don't want to go too far from your fitness topic because I think it's. Oh yeah. Okay. Go. Sorry. Bring it back. Yeah. I want to bring it back to that because I think since the audience that is tuning in for that and wants to hear, I think it's an important. So, you know, we've been on a Corinne's journey for quite some time now and she's one of our top trainers. Yes. Yes. And, and she falls in this category. She falls in this category. She falls in this category of somebody who has stayed in that team lean for a very, very long time and it's competed at the high level and, and is, has struggled to add muscle to, to put weight on. And remember we did the first, you know, Texas can, and it came back that we didn't, we put nothing but body fat, which was super discouraging. Although I want to say in that period of time, if you haven't listened, her strength, her strength. She needed to gain body fat. Sometimes that has happened. You have to gain body. So that, so the, and if just to recap for people that didn't catch the, the, the beginning of that story and, and what you're alluding to, uh, the reason why I even had her Dexter scan, typically with a client like that, I wouldn't even a desk yet, but I got anxious because we were hitting crazy PR 30 pounds to live in everything and squatting and hip thrusting and just, and we had been doing that for like months. I'm like, Oh hell yeah. And we, and when the weight on her scale, like we put on like 10, 15 pounds on the scale. So I'm like, hell yeah. So excited. But according to the Dexter, should we get this report back? And it's no muscle, all body fat and still takes her to like the, I want to say we were at 19. She's still shredding. She's still lean, still super, super lean. And, and I remember telling her that, you know, you are at a place where, where your bot, you're going to have to have a higher body fat percentage to put muscle on your body. Doesn't feel safe adding more muscle. Right now, speeding your metabolism up any faster. We're going to have to get, and I am Matt. And what I'm learning even with her is as long as I've been doing this and have had clients like this before, she's probably one of the, the, the clients that I, that I've had that has kept their, their body fat percentage this low for very long and training this hard for as long as have. And so it's been this interesting, you know, even challenge for me to see what was happening. And so we did a Dexter. It's been, it's been a while and she'd been, asking for it. And I said, okay, we'll do it. I said, but I don't care what it says. You can't let it stay on track. Yeah. We got to stay on track and stuff like that. And so we are now a weight wise, a total of, we're about, I think 17 pounds heavier than she's ever been right now. So 15, 17 pounds heavier. And we did the scan and both bone density went up and we added, and we added two and a half pounds of muscle. All right. And so the bone density, one was important. Yeah. We still went up body fat percentage. Okay. So we still went up more body fat than we did muscle. And what it really highlighted for me is that your body is just now entering where it's starting to feel a little safe to do that. And, you know, and by the way, if you guys saw her, she looks amazing. If you saw her, I get compliments all the time. She looks amazing. Yeah. No, she looks, she looks healthy, strong fit. I mean, she looks great. And, and, and I, and I love that she's been, open and talking about her journey and, and sharing as she's gone through, because I think she's helping so many other ladies that have like struggled with this. Cause you know, we're, she needed a break. I want to keep going. Right. And so she's in the whole goal is eventually to get back on stage again. And here we are peak weight for her right now. Right. And I see how her body's responding and she's like, can we cut now? And I said, only if you feel like you need a break. I said, but what I've learned from, from being with you this long now, and now that I see where we're at, this is where I want you to hit stage at. So you feel the biggest you've ever felt and you don't like where you're at. I'm telling you that we've got to go another 15 pounds. So we can cut down to this. So we can cut down to this because this is where your body needs to be. And now granted you'll, we'll put muscle, we'll put body fat on, we'll come back down and you'll have more muscle at this weight. And so you'll be a leaner, but I can tell based off of the results we were getting from this, that this is, we needed to get your body fat percentage higher in order for you to start seeing muscle. And we could, and we could still afford to even go a little bit higher. And we have got to get comfortable with what you consider a fluffy look, even though I think you look incredible. There's three things here that are working in her favor. One, she's a coach and she coaches a lot of people who struggle with this. And so she speaks to it very well. She's an excellent coach because she herself experiences the challenges to, she's working with you. And you're obviously a good coach. You've been doing this for a long time. One of the best, but you're also her boss and somebody that she respects because I don't know. I could imagine. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for her to work with any other coach and have Dexter scans show just gaining body fat and being like, I'm out. This isn't working. But because it's you and she trusts you and she works for you and because she coaches other people. I think that's keeping her on track. Cause that's tough. Oh yeah. That'd be really hard. I mean, I know they're being vulnerable. They're vulnerable too. Totally huge. I mean, I feel for her when you get that because inside everything I want her to see is just, we put on, especially the PRs that are happening, the effort to, to put it, to eat the calories we're eating, to do all the things we're doing. But you know, the reason why I wanted to bring it up today, cause what you brought up today is because it just highlights that when you, if you've been in that place and I guess, and you can communicate this maybe better than me, but the best, the best way I can communicate this is that you have been so lean, borderline unhealthy lean for so long and pushing the body training wise, And so now you start feeding it, and you're starting to train, and you're starting to get strong. So the body wants to get strong because it's been dying to have those extra calories. But it also still doesn't feel safe to add a fast tissue, a tissue that is going to require more calories. And so it's saying, we're going to put body fat on. Let's do the safe thing. Yeah, we're going to continue to put body fat on until we feel that we're in a place that's safe enough to add this higher metabolic tissue onto your body. And so, yes, and that's been a lot of the conversation is like, hey, if you really want to put this muscle on, and by the way, this applies to even someone who's not trying to compete at the competitive level. If you are a female, and you've just kept yourself lean for so long, and you know you want to build a butt, and you want to build your arms, or whatever the body parts that you want to build, but you struggle with the phase that may be necessary for you to go to in order to get that butt to build. Whatever it is, once you build, you have to get comfortable being fluffy for a little bit. Which is funny, because she's not fluffy at all. Right, right. But they will feel it. That's right. That's why I'm using that term, because I think she looks, to me, the best I've ever seen her right now. Incredible. But in her eyes, using her words, fat, fluffy, yeah, filter. But I get it. And so I know that there's a lot of women that can relate to that feeling, but you simultaneously say things like, I want to build my butt. I want to build my arm. And it's just like, you know what? You've got to. And this is for both sexes, but it's extremely important for women. It's much more common in women. Yes. For sure. Very, very much so. 100%. Well, good job, dude. I'm really proud of her for doing that. It's awesome to watch. All right. So this weekend, let me tell you guys about this incredible experience I had this weekend. So I don't know if you guys remember when I—so I go down to L.A. here and there to get on some shows. And there was this podcast down. My buddy Dave has it. It's called Street Gospel. And so he'll have, like, rappers. There's graffiti artists, fighters. But it's also kind of faith-based. He was a fan of the show. Invited me down. I went down there. Great guy. He's the guy that sent that bat with the spiraled, you know, whatever. Because he's, like, also a fan of movies. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So anyway, cool guy. Walking Dead. Walking Dead, right. So anyway, he sends me a clip of this pastor that was on his show. And he's like, hey, check this guy out. And right away, I noticed the guy's cauliflower ear because, you know, I did jujitsu. So I'm like, oh, that guy's a jujitsu guy. I don't know what it was about. I don't know what he said. But I reached out to the guy. The pastor's name is Troy. Troy Fink. And I sent him a DM. I'm like, hey, man, I love your stuff. And he's like, dude, I love your stuff. I've been following Mind Pump for a long time. So we messaged each other a couple times. He goes, hey, dude, I'm doing this, like, this men's retreat in a few weeks. I'd love for you to come. And totally out of character for me. I mean, it's up in the mountains. You're sleeping in a dorm room. It's, like, totally, like, you guys know me. You guys know that. It's nothing. Okay. But for whatever reason. You're not Mr. Adventure. No, dude. Not even close, right? But for whatever reason, I felt kind of convicted. I knew nothing of what was happening there except for I had this feeling, messaged the guy. So I said, yeah, dude, I think I'd love to go. And right out the gates, two people came to mind for me that I'd want to bring. It was Dylan and Josh. So I messaged this guy. Hey, you guys want to come with me? Both of them were like, yeah, let's go. So the three of us go. We drive down to this place called Pinecrest. Pinecrest? Yes. Do you know where that is down by L.A.? Oh, not that at Pinecrest. No, it's like the mountains by L.A. Okay. So it's like a six-hour drive, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's all the way up there or down there, I should say. Near Bear? Is it near Bear? No idea. I have no idea. What's the lake that's up there? No idea, bro. I have no idea. I didn't know this place existed. So anyway, we drive over there, and it's a group. So Troy started a church. He's been a pastor for a while, but he started a church a year ago in his home. He did a Bible study. And the Bible study grew, and he decided to put together this retreat. And so I didn't know any of this stuff. I just found this out while we got there. So we get there, and it's a men's retreat with just all these dudes from different churches. He seems to really attract a lot of guys that have been lost for a while. So we get there, and it was great, dude. It was this incredible experience. Part of it was, for me, was cool that I was in this very uncomfortable situation. Like I said, we slept in these. These, like, dorm-style rooms with, like, no mattress. Yeah, bunk beds. No AC. Yeah, dude. The whole thing. There's no shower or bathroom in there. Oh, yeah, dude. You guys know me, so. But I did it. And we hung out there. Dylan and Josh got baptized, which was really cool, which was actually interesting for me because they both decided to do it, and it got me super emotional. So I'm sitting there crying while these guys are doing their thing. And it was just great experience meeting these guys and hearing some of these testimonies. He had this one guy go up. You know, he's now been sober for a while, but he had gotten so bad, he had lost everything. His house, his family. He was a heroin addict. Tried to kill himself many, many times by overdosing. And, you know, comes to Jesus and ends up, you know, cleaning himself up. And now they're going to start some program for people who need help. And so it was a really great experience the whole time. So tell me, how does this relate to you not being fat? Huh? Oh, I see. He sees it in your face. Wait, wait. You came in. You got to talk about what happened. You came in today, and I'm like, bro, you are, the inflammation is so down. It's very, very obvious to me. And so I don't know what you did, but you did something. You were fasting all weekend. Well, the food, I don't want to say. Okay, so the food was like, you know, it was like, you're eating a kind of buffet food, and it's not much, and you're kind of limited to what they made. Sure. So I just didn't eat a lot. That's all. So that's why when I came in, you said you looked like. I'm like, well, I didn't really eat much, dude. Yeah, it really brought down a lot of inflammation. Yeah. It was very limited. So I had like fruit and meat. Yeah. Because the other options were like macaroni. Yeah, it brought your calories way down. Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. You look healthy. You look really good right now. Oh, I appreciate it. I mean, you know, and I'm sure you've seen it in me, because you've made comments before. It's like, you don't really notice it until you, like, I'm so used to seeing you all the time, and then to see you come in, I'm like, oh, my God, bro, you look like you leaned way out. Yeah, it's a lot of. All chiseled out your face. Oh, wow. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, yeah. I'll stick to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe your face is starting to look like my face for a while. Spiritually healthy, bro. Yeah. I heard that. But it was a really, it was a really interesting. Was that all weekend? Was it? It was all weekend, bro. Oh, wow. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Oh, wow. And. I didn't even know you were doing that. Yeah, yeah. I had no idea. Yeah, I just went up there. Like I said, it was kind of like a. Did you guys shoot any content or no? No, no. I mean, I have clips, and it's up to Josh and Dylan if they're okay with it. We could post their baptisms, which is kind of cool. But it was, no, it was kind of on a whim. I didn't know Troy at all. Didn't know anybody there at all. But I ended up talking with Troy. He's a really, really great dude. He's, he really loves people a lot. And he's got this, it seems like he's got this, because of that, he attracts people who've been lost for a long time. And they feel like they're coming in. They're not getting looked down on. They're not being judged. And it was just one, it's just great environment. Of men coming together and worshiping. It was really, really cool. Really good experience. That's cool. What'd you do this weekend besides fight over door handles? What? Yeah, there's just been like little scuffles. I mean, we were. What door, what? He told me a story. I put him on blast right now. Yeah, I mean, Courtney and I get in fights over the dumbest things, you know. And it's like really, we're both up here. We're just like redlining a lot with like fixing things and constantly trying to prep. Like we just put our house back on the market. And so it's like. Oh. Oh yeah, stressful. Yeah, stressful. Anyways, we, yeah, we got into it a bit, but like I, I, I didn't really do anything crazy. I went to the pool with some of my friends and we, my, my kid actually watched the Odyssey again. I wanted to talk about this. Oh, so who watched it? So Everett watched it. I actually watched it with my boys when I was in Atlanta. I went back and saw it twice. It was so good. So you guys liked it that much? Yes. And I think it's one of the best movies. I thought it was so boring. Bro, so here, here's. I'll watch it again. I'm open to watching it again. Yes, but let me, let me preface this because I think I found somebody that will help you like, oh, okay. Like I could see it from a different perspective because, so Jonathan Pagio, I actually found like he did a really good commentary on this. Love him, love him. And he breaks down a lot of mythology and he gets into the nitty gritty of the detail of the story and everything. And like what, like Christopher Nolan actually changed and kind of altered. And honestly, I think you're a Trojan horse, dude. What do you mean? Meaning the entire packaging and the exterior of the movie was, uh, basically to appease, uh, you know, him being able to get awards, him being able to sell it to that, you know, kind of like Hollywood community. And I got caught up in that. Yeah. And it really like everything he, he, he put in a lot of really good story writing, um, that leads back to, it harkens back to. A lot of like old, uh, stories that they're about like finding yourself and about like, you know, taking that, that journey to get like save, like a lot of the hero's journey kind of like, um, stories out there that are like really compelling. So, uh, a lot of it was like trickster. So the, the whole movie itself is like the theme of it really is like, you know, being able to, to do like a, a, a kind of swap out, like, like a trick with the, and so even in the beginning, like. He's teaching him how to fight by opening himself up a little bit more vulnerable so they come into attack and then he can make his move uh and so that's really the the theme of the whole movie and like how he's trying to kind of portray and he swapped out the transgender character everybody thought he was achilles but it's actually this other like yeah less insignificant and like wrote in this whole but but it's really interesting for him to break down because uh so basically they like he replaced uh the other kid that was supposed to go to war to to troy uh and so like there was this whole like underlying message with that even even using a transgender person like in replacement of an actual man oh and so like anyway if you look at it like from a meta perspective i'm not sophisticated it's dude i'm gonna send you explosions i'm gonna send you i'll send you the breakdown and i won't get into more details to me it was good but um because for literally for me i didn't care about that it was literally boring i was so boring yeah that's crazy too much story i think right well i maybe i don't watch it long enough i we laughed with when with the cyclops part by the time we got there i'm like this is killing me and the cyclops didn't keep you engaged i mean a little bit what yeah i mean now hey now i know why you got blasted on twitter bro sure that is why because all of my i had a lot of people agree with me by all of my all of my well i mean there's been opposite of there's a pool of idiots everywhere you know i'm saying that i was dude so that means nothing on twitter all the real life it was a mess i haven't but all of my friends when you told me they were all they were all they were like we gotta go see this together and i'm like ah south that's terrible they're like what all of everyone i know i can't wait to see what you guys think what you and doug think well yeah i'll go see it um but justin was like this wasn't just a good movie he's like one of the best movies ever seen in the thing i was like i was going to go see it but i was like i was going in like oh he didn't suck you know and i was like we're just we need maybe that's why you liked it because i mean well i did i did say that to him too and i stuck it out and to your to be fair like it was a little slow like building in the beginning and you're just kind of okay where are we going every three and a half hour but yeah it's a three hour movie to the point where i i don't know i was like super engaged and then it it like it's been a long time since i've watched a movie and i felt like every emotion and i felt like i was scared in in that cave were you sober i was sober bro it was just like i didn't see it in like an imax i don't know you got to hear all the sounds and like dude i could go off on it i mean wow that much i'm gonna yeah i'll watch it again i'll try it i'm definitely gonna go watch it though now i'll watch it again yeah it was but i was just like what i was just so confused when i left the theater because i was like so i didn't watch the whole thing i told you i left bro that's the part that i can't wrap my brain around is from i i can count on one hand how many times i've walked out of a theater and it's definitely not five it's like same i almost never two or three in my life bro 45 years three movies i've walked out of yeah that made one of those three i mean that to me is like it has to be a shitty movie to walk the hills have eyes like i walked out of that movie but that was just because it was so grotesque awful well i'm not a movie critic don't take my advice on that but yeah i'll try it again dude we'll see yeah maybe i maybe it got good after i left yeah you know what i mean i think so you haven't seen it yet have you i haven't seen it yet i want to see it but three hours is done boy i know yeah that's why i and i are like tiptoeing because of you guys i know i had i had all this time to kill so that's really the only reason why we went but it was just like so mind-blowing to me i was like i didn't expect that well to be fair when it comes to movies uh opinions on movies justin and i oftentimes agree yeah sometimes disagree yeah but we are probably the most different from both you and don oh yeah that's why because there are movies that that he loves that you guys like what and same with me like i'll stand on this lonely island over here dude i think it was so amazing i think you guys will be the tiebreakers but i'll watch it again i'll give it another shot well my i'm open my i have a couple buddies uh and i definitely and i have my my my suspect like one of my best friends he is very and i don't know which one of you two you would fall in this category but like you know just the blow him up shoot him up whatever like doesn't have to have a good plot to it i don't i don't do that i can't so he i mean so it's like oh him like that's how my my brother-in-law is like he's like he's like he's like that too so like when they recommend movies like i know what i'm going into right like so but then i have my buddy uh my childhood buddy goes all the way back to fourth grade and him and i are we we used to collect movies when we were little so we when we for cassettes back in the day and uh we were really into movies and we used to critique them and talk about them all the time and that was our thing and so we and we loved finding like movies that a lot of people may not know about that were really good hidden gems and so yeah we like stuff like that and he was like it was epic dude i don't know what sal he's like sal is freaking crazy wow so okay yeah so it was enough him and then justin tell me that was enough for okay i need to go watch it yeah yeah yeah okay all right you guys and then i had another ghost experience what what is that what do you mean ghost yeah so i told you the previous remember when like the when i was sitting in the live or the dining room and then like one of the chairs that caught fire yes yeah it was super bro at that house again it's same house yeah wait a minute same house yeah this is your new house that's why that's why i hasn't sold yet yeah oh maybe that's a little disclosure you're gonna be living with somebody else some people might actually want to say that might be a selling point yeah this house is haunted baby dude but i mean i wouldn't have thought anything of it because i thought it was probably because i was just in the house alone with everett and uh this is the middle of the day everybody was gone like i think courtney was taking uh ethan the gymnastics and i was like just tired and decided to lay down and i was like kind of taking a a nap and i was like half awake half asleep and then i just hear this like it it was almost like a a whining but it was like a almost a yodel it was like oh you're like that yeah like and i was and i'm like i'm like everett what do you do like what's going on here and like nothing i get nothing from him it keeps going and then it goes away uh and i get up and i'm like that's really weird it woke me up and so i'm kind of getting myself together and i and i go and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like hey man like what what what was all that and he's like what the yodeling and i'm like yeah what like what was all that and he's like i don't know it wasn't me and then no like no and so i'm like sometimes we catch noises coming up from the school because we're kind of like we're up a bit higher and like down below us is a um a frisbee golf course and so some people like kind of go through there they make noise whatever i'm like ah it must have been something like that but it literally sounded like it was in the house like waiting for it to come out of the house and i'm like what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what like and we're just like dude this is creepy dude and he's still tripping on it isn't that a common thing that people will say that ghosts will make that sound isn't that a like a common thing yeah is it i think well you know when like when you see ghosts in cartoons though isn't that what they yeah look at up dog uh doug sorry dog look it up dog look it up bro doogle that yeah yeah uh look up uh the ghosts what is it what do they do moaning sounds is that common or wailing or wailing yeah because they're like the banshee you know like bro they bring that up a lot so what'd you do you just go back to bed or did you like no i got up and i was walking around was it in the middle of the night how late was no this is right in the middle of the day yeah and it was when i was sleeping oh look this is telling you it was the wind and weather or the house moving so maybe maybe that's what it was dude yeah it sounded like a human yeah that's creepy dude so you just like go back to bed or what no dude i'd gotten up and was active and and uh clean the house whatever i don't know i was like not gonna go back to sleep oh that's creepy dude that's super i'm out of there bro i don't know i'm out of it yeah no thank you had some fun fun stuff i'm gonna change subject and get to talks about supplements here for a second you know there's some data that suggests that the higher higher protein intake so we talk about one gram of protein per pound of body weight even higher amounts may be even more beneficial for uh people who want to build even more muscle i thought i've seen a cut i thought i've seen lane do a breakdown that they're on the studies as high as 1.5 yeah so what i was going to say is this may be why because i always hit one gram of protein per pound of body weight i almost never go over that so i'm eating about 220 grams of protein a day more than that is insane right it's like i'd have to eat a ton but i do notice uh i seem to notice benefits when i'm consistent with uh keon's um essential amino acids so i eat so adding the essential amino acids i still notice some benefit yeah and it might be that well i might be the reason that even more essential amino acids than what i thought was a lot might be beneficial well i did when when we did that was it's been now two years since i documented that whole uh cut that i did on um the youtube channel and one of the things i did was use those uh essential amino acids during that process and i still hit my protein intake i still was hitting over one but i was doing that in addition to that well yeah i had the dexascan come back one of the first dexascans i've ever done and not lost any muscle yeah so to be in a cut you typically expect to lose a little bit always yeah and so you know that obviously obviously the game has always been you know can i cut just the right amount and minimize how little amount of muscle that was first time i did a cut like that and uh didn't lose any muscle so uh that was that was a - I forgot, were you doing it in between meals or with meals? - In between. So I would literally take seven, like three times a day between meals. So I do a meal and then I keep, I had, I had one here. I had them at, in my gym bag and I had them at my, next to my bed. So I had them, so I could just grab them. And then I would literally just between, after I'd had a meal, it'd been an hour or so, I'd reach over, grab, take seven of them, go back to my day, eat, do it again, seven. Like, so between every, between every meal, I'd have seven. Yeah, I'm sold on, on that. I'm sold on it. But remember, if you take, for anybody listening, if you take essential amino acid supplements, they have to be high in leucine, very high in leucine. That's the key. If the leucine is low, then it's like, you got to take twice as much. Oh, don't even mess around. It makes a lot of sense in a cut, you know, to supplement with that too. But like what you're saying with like, even on a high protein, you're going to get benefit. Yeah. One other thing I want to touch on is just how good you guys look with the new lighting. I'm looking at you on TV over there. Yes, dude. Dude, fist bump. This whole time, everybody thought Justin and I were sixes. You guys are solid sevens. We're like a solid seven and a half now, dude. Solid seven and a half now. And that's because of the lighting, right? We got, what is this, movie lighting? Is that what we did? I actually had, it was somebody's client called me a snack. A snack? Whoa, bro. Whoa. I'm a snack. That's a big snack. I'm like a bag of Doritos over there. Still be getting that in your mid-40s? It's not bad, dog. Well, because, yeah, they don't, I guess they don't watch the show or anything, and then it was like. And then they put it on? Yeah, yeah. So. I agree. It's pretty funny. I would agree. You are a snack, for sure. A hundred percent. Thanks. Yeah. Adam's a meal. Yeah, he's a full meal. Steak dinner. Somebody, I did a video. I was doing weighted pull-ups, and I videoed it. That's since I'd never videoed my workouts, right? And I was like, oh, I'm in here. I was working out. And I was like. You need evidence? Yeah. Just want to make sure everybody knows I still train every once in a while. One set, that's it. That's all you get to see. That's it for the day. Yep. But I was doing that. And somebody's comment, like, not bad for a biggish guy. You know? Big. That's it. That's a weird compliment, you know? I mean, biggish, that's good, you know? I'm back to that. I actually really, I hadn't done that in a while. I've now done it. It's been, I think this is the third time or so, trying to get up there. I want to see how heavy. I was doing the 60-pound kettlebell. Wow, dude. How many reps? I got five. And then, of course, the one I recorded. Bro, that's good. The one I recorded got four. That's what made me, I was like, oh, I should record this. I haven't done this weight in a while. Bro, that's good. It was. It was good. Because what do you weigh right now? 220, 230? 218. Wow. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty good, dude. Yeah, yeah. You're lighter than me right now. 218? Yeah, yeah. I'm down. I outweigh you right now? I feel like a big fat frickin' balloon over here. Ever since you- What are you, tipping the scale? 270? Damn, bro. He's not a snack dog. That's a full meal right there, bro. I'm a hearty meal. That's a full meal. If he's a snack, he's keto. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, I've been down- Like a potato soup over here. I mean, ever since you made the comment about my inflammation has been down, remember when I was complaining about all that? Yeah, yeah. It's all better? Yeah, all better. Wow. Yeah, all better. It's been gone. I've been, I mean, just full transparency, I've been utilizing Trizepatide on a microdose. Yeah, that helps. And it's made a big difference for me. It's actually really helped. We really, I know we joke about this, about our cumulative body weight always staying the same. But it does. Like when one person loses, somebody else gains. Yeah. I think it's true. It is. We should just add up our body weight. Somebody needs to do it just to see, I'm willing to bet- Because when I was- We never go within about five pounds north or south. Probably, because when we first started the show, I wasn't very heavy at all. I had a lot of gut issues. But I was super- But you were jacked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And right now, you're lighter. Oh, yeah. Justin's heavy cakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I think- I only went through maybe two times where I even cared. It was like, I was like 215 or something. He's like the- He's defensive right now. He's like- He's like the normal kind of balance. And then you and I- Yeah, I would go up and down. Yeah, fluctuate. Because you- A bunch of flex capacitors. Yeah, you- I mean, I've been as light as 198, 200. While on the show? Yeah. Yeah, I was 195, I think. Yeah, and then as high as like 240. So, I've like- I got up to 230. Yeah, yeah. So, you and I fluctuate the most. And he kind of stays around the same. I don't think he'd ever do that. How light were you when you did your transformation? Yeah, I was like 215. You got down to 215? Yeah. Wow, dude. Well, that's actually not that light. That's not that far off. It's not that light, but it's- Well, for him, I felt real like- I mean, he's heavier at 215. 230 is a heavier weight for you, right? You're 230 or higher than 230? Are you higher than 230? I've been higher, but I'm 230 right now. Yeah. Yeah. But you hold weight well, dude. You're supposed to be- It's just a big box. You're supposed to be thick. It's all your tits and ass. It's just thick. It's your butt and boobs. It's undersized. It's all my tits and ass. It looks so good on you. That's why you put together that new program. I'm not going to tell anybody what it is, but it's kind of similar. There's a part of it. There's a category. It's thick with a couple of skis. Don't give it away. Don't give it away. Don't give it away. That's always been me. It's good stuff. Anyways. MAPS workout programs have been enjoyed by over 100,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of people have followed MAPS programs and gotten incredible results. They've built muscle, burned body fat, and gotten some of the best results of their lives. Remember, these are the workout programs that myself, Justin, and Adam created ourselves. We're the ones that wrote these programs. We have trained and coached people for many, many years. We're also hosts of this podcast. If you like how we communicate fitness, if it resonates with you, follow one of our workout programs. You won't be, in fact, you'll be blown away. You won't be disappointed. They will work better than anything you've ever tried before. And here's what we got going on right now. We took our top 10 most popular MAPS programs, and we did a buy one, get one free. So buy any one of them. Get the other one for free. And it's only for the top 10 most popular ones. It's happening right now. So if you want to take the leap, you want to try a MAPS program, you already have it. You already have MAPS programs. You want to take advantage of this promotion, go to mapsbogo.com. Back to the show. Our first caller is Paul from Ontario. What's up, Paul? How you doing, Paul? What's happening, man? Hey, guys. How you doing? Good, good. Good. How can we help you? Good. First of all, I wanted to say thank you guys for everything you do, the information you share, and the no BS approach. It's very much appreciated. And start this off by saying, Sal, congrats on your whole journey with Christianity and walking in faith. Thank you. That's pretty incredible and really cool that a couple of big badass fellas like yourselves are into that. Thank you so much. Thank you. How can we help you, dude? Questions for you is just to keep it as simple and quick as possible, gentlemen. I'm a 41-year-old career firefighter out of Kingston, Ontario. And for the average guy, just wants to look good for his life, perform for his career, and be healthy for his kids, there's a lot of contradiction between workouts and what would be. What's the best kind of split, whether it be whole body split three days a week, power lifting a few times a week with kind of conditioning on the side? What would be your advice to a fella just trying to perform better, look decent, and limited equipment? What's your schedule like? Are you like 10 on, certain days off? What's it look like right now? So it's 24 hours on, 48 off. But I fill some of my time on my days off with working side jobs as well. And yeah. But obviously, fitness and health is quite a priority in my life for my family and my career. So that's good. Yeah. The biggest consideration with firefighters, and there's other workers that would fall in this category, is stress management. Now, when I say that, people oftentimes think about stressful situations at home. I mean, all the things that your body would deem as a stress and then try to adapt to, which includes exercise. So whenever we're introduced. When you're introducing a form of exercise, something consistent with a firefighter, for example, the biggest consideration is stress. And because of your schedule, your sleep on a semi-regular basis is not great. That's right. Okay. So this does not mean you can't work out. It just means we need to consider that as a top consideration whenever we're introducing an additional stress like exercise. The best consistent form of. Schedule with workout with a firefighter. What we have found, and what I found in the past, is like a MAPS 15 protocol. Now, that doesn't mean you can't add other things when you feel really good, like maybe some cardiovascular conditioning or something outdoor. But when it comes to strength training, the MAPS 15 protocol would be what would give you the best results. You get the most strength and the best results from something like that. Now, we have a lot of MAPS 15 style programs. If I were to. If I were to pick one that would give you the best bang for your buck for your job, for maybe some of the demands that can happen as a firefighter, I would look at something like MAPS 15 performance. Performance, okay. Because it's got an athletic bent to it. And so it's not just about building muscle, although it is. It's also about moving well and having some athleticism. And so that would be your base routine. That would be the routine that you would do consistently. And then what you would do is you would. You could add conditioning and stuff like that when you feel like you're feeling great. Maybe two days a week, right? He doesn't know how much. Two days a week of some sort of conditioning on the days that are most conducive would be more than enough. Yeah. And really, you got to look at it and here's the challenge. The challenge is, is this what I can tolerate or is this ideal? So the tendency for people like yourself, emergency workers and people that work in kind of high stress. Jobs that include high stress situations is that they tend to push exercise to the tolerable like what I can tolerate, what's the most I can tolerate. And that's not going to give you the best results. Do you use Aura or Whoop or anything to kind of track and monitor your sleep at all? No, sir, nothing like that at all. It's probably a worthwhile investment. I've had a lot of success with my clients that have schedules like yours because, you know, guys like you, what we have a tendency to do is probably push it on times when we probably shouldn't. And so I would have you on, like, okay, we run Mass 15, we have two days of the, like, cardiovascular training, and then how I would dictate how intense your workouts look like would be based off of the data we're getting and how you feel from your sleep. So, like, for example, you know, you had the last two days, you scored 80-plus on your Aura ring or whatever just for using hypothetical numbers. And it's like, now I'd be like, all right, Paul, we can get after it today in your workout. Or let's say rough two days in a row, a lot of work stuff. You had two 60s. And I'm like, hey, today you go. Go through the workout, but go through the motions. You're not pushing weight hard. Just lift in moderate weight to easy for you and then get some good rest. Like, so I would use a tool like that. Now, you can go off of how you feel. I think that's most important. But I do like having an extra data point that we can pull from and be like, hey, you feel good. Numbers are saying it's all good. Let's get after the workout today. Or it's like, hey, man, we've had two bad days in a row of sleep. That's when your highest risk for injury is. This is not the most. This is not the most optimal time for you to get after your workout. Today, we just kind of go through the motions. Yeah, here's why what Adam is saying is so important. Because I've trained first responders. And you guys just have a tendency to perceive fatigue or stress very differently. You're supposed to. That's what makes you good at your job. So I would have first responders. And I'd be like, hey, how do you feel? And it's always like, I'm good. I'm fine. I'm good. Yeah, no, I feel great. Let's go. I know. We'd say, listen to your body. You're like, bro, you scored a 50 two days in a row in sleep. You can't be good. So objective data could be really helpful. Because then you're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to listen to the data versus my own perception. Or a ring or whoop or something like that would actually make sense. Because it'll give you a definitive sort of gauge of what that looks like. But that's what the protocol would look like. It would be MAPS 15 performance, two days of cardio. Same thing goes with cardio, too. Let's say it's a day where we had bad sleep. And it's also the day you're supposed to do some of your cardiovascular training. That would be like a low-level cardio. I'd say do an hour of light jog instead of doing intervals or sprints. And then maybe it's a day where you've got cardio. Great rest. Hey, this might be the day that we do some interval sprints and kind of push the cardio. So literally, I'm using that data and how you feel to gauge the intensity. But the protocol looks like a MAPS 15 performance with two days of that. And keep in mind, whatever routine you're doing, if it gives you more energy throughout the day, it's working. Yeah, that's the gauge. If you feel kind of fried or like, oh, man, I'm recovering, you know, I'm kind of whatever, it's too much. No matter what it is. That's perfect. We have two buddies of ours that go to the same gym as us in Cornwall here, Justin and Jesse Coleman. These guys are probably the best shape out of everybody in the gym. And they push your workouts like nobody I've ever met before. They tell everybody about your workouts. They're all rad on. That's cool. That's great. Do you take supplements, Paul? I do. I take a multivitamin, fish oil, magnesium, D3, just basic stuff, protein, creatine. Good. How much creatine do you take? Right now, it's funny. We just picked some up this morning. I was telling my daughter, anywhere more than 10 grams a day. Yeah, so someone like you, you could push 10 to 15 a day. Totally. In divided doses. It's a cognitive benefit. Yeah, it makes a big difference for sleep issues, sleep deprivation issues. Yep. Yeah. We'll send over a MAPS performance though to you. So we'll send over a MAPS 15 performance. Follow that like we're talking. And yeah, I think you're going to love it, dude. I definitely will do. I'll take all the advice. I'll take it. I'll take the workout, and I'll have at it, and I'll reach out to you guys and let you know how everything's going. Awesome. Thanks, man. Say hi to your friends. I think we should say Justin and Jesse. Say hi to them for us. Yeah. Will do. Thank you. Appreciate you guys, guys. Thank you. You guys have trained first responders? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Lots of them. Yep. It's all about- The schedule's rough. It's all about stress management. It's stress. And they are somebody who I would, like if he was my client, I'd make him get an aura ring because of what you said. Yep. Yep. Because- Some people can, you can trust their, hey, I've, but those guys have been trained. This, I would throw them in the category of my military guys, my pro athlete guys. They just have a- We are doctors. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They reframe crazy stress. Yeah, their perception of stress, lack of sleep is just way the hell off. It's different. And so for someone like that, I'd be like, hey, how do you feel? And then also let's look at the data, and it's like, hey, I know you think you feel okay, but data's telling us you've had two, three days in a row of really bad sleep. We're going to do the workout today. But it's going to look real modern. And then other times, it's like, hey, I'm feeling great, and you got great sleep. Let's get after it, you know? Yeah. Our next caller is Ryan from Ohio. Hi, Ryan. Hi, Ryan. Hello. Hi. This is kind of crazy. Thanks for calling in. How can we help you? So if you don't mind, I'll read from my thing so I don't lose focus. Sure. I'm a 36-year-old female, 5'3", currently 197 pounds, and I'm getting married next July. My goal is fat loss. I've only ever used the scale, and I've always wanted a healthier BMI. And honestly, my wedding dress is my main driving factor right now. I'm actually too nervous to even try one on for fear of how it'll fit and how I'll feel in it. I've been listening to you guys. I put a few weeks, but it's been a couple months now. And after a rough stretch that got me thinking more carefully about how I approach this, um, some quick backtracking. I've done CrossFit in the past, 2016 to 2022, cycled through keto, 75 hard, calorie tracking on and off since 2009. And this past year, I went deep into extended fasting, mostly 24-hour OMAD up to 74 hours once, alongside starting then tapering off of an SSRI. The fasting caught up with me, and I had a few fainting and blood sugar crash episodes that scared me and my fiance enough that I stopped. Um, I'm a high school teacher, and I devote most of my summers to a solid routine and schedule. Uh, but once school starts back, the stress takes over and I lose momentum, especially going into the holidays too. Um, I have a garage gym and a new online trainer. He's a family member, newly certified. Uh, I put that he gave me a five-day PPL, but it's actually three days of PPL and two days of movement. So like a bike, rower, just some sweat. And I've now been getting 9,000 plus steps a day. Um, he gave me macro targets, but my fiance thinks that I should be doing more cardio and eating more carbs and less protein because I have since went up a pant size. And that kind of drove me to sending this email to you guys. Um, the macros I've been given is 2000 calories, 150 grams of protein, 205 carbs, 65 grams of fat. Um, just wondering if that's right for my goals. I've generally never approached this any other way than straight caloric deficit. And that's probably been my problem. I don't have any other frame of reference for bulk versus cut versus maintenance phases. I've, I've never really looked into how to apply those or how to think about a new timeline, uh, or pacing toward my wedding. It's going to be in July of next year. So what I'd love your take on is how would you evaluate whether those macros I've been given make sense for someone with my past and my goals? Uh, what's a realistic and sustainable. Timeline for my wedding date a year out and how phases like bulk cut maintenance should factor in for someone like me. Um, my experience has always been eat less, move more and fall off the wagon under stress. So I'd love your perspective on that. Um, and I just want to say thank you for this show. It's generally part of what pushed me to slow down and think about things differently. Um, I have not went the cardio route this summer, which is a first. Yeah. Ryan, uh, congratulations. Yeah. First of all. First of all, congratulations. And, uh, we got plenty of time. Yeah. I was just, that's a good thing. I'm so, I'm so happy you called in and we have a lot of time, which is great. It's very challenging when someone says I'm getting married in two months. Yeah, I know about that. So we're going to do this the right way. Okay. So let me ask you specifically, is it okay if I ask you some more questions? Oh yeah. I wrote down my answers because I just, I knew I'd be so nervous and I wanted to make sure I had a good train of thought. Yeah. No worries. And I, it's yeah, I get you. Being nervous. And just remember we were trainers for a long time and we're trainers. We do the show, but really we're trainers at heart. So this is what we love doing the most. Okay. So what would you say is your specific goal? Let's, let's paint a clear picture. So you're getting married in July. What is it that you want to accomplish by them? I ultimately keep telling people I want to look and feel the best I've ever felt. And I feel like I've always said that. And yet I'm always trying this and trying that. Um, to the point of like, I, I don't know if I give up too soon, if it's my consistency, that's not on point. Um, I know when I was doing CrossFit, I, I could go six days a week, but my diet wasn't dialed in, or I'd have my diet dialed in, but my exercise wasn't or, or strength goals in that matter. But I, I don't mind, um, getting stronger and feeling better. I would love my clothes to fit better, to be honest with you. And I think that's. that's what's holding me back right now is, you know, putting so much time and energy into this and not feeling like I'm seeing results. I've been listening to you guys enough to hear about like body fat percentages. So I scheduled an in-body scan for Friday. So that's coming up. So I think I'm going to try and use that as tracking instead of the bathroom scale. Okay. So let me, so let me try to paraphrase a little bit and you let me know if I, if I'm, if I'm on point or off. Okay. So by July of next year, you want to look healthy. You want to feel healthy. You want to get rid of this kind of confusion around what it was you've done in the past and why it didn't work. Right. And is it a consistency issue or was it the method? Like I want to do this essentially the right way. Would you say that that's okay. Can you give me, can you give me something objective by July, just so I can kind of help plan this out for you. So feel healthy, look healthy. Do you have a weight goal? Do you have a size goal? I would love to, to lose a couple of pants sizes. I would love to, to not be the weight that I'm at. I feel it at five, three, you know, I've heard callers call in and you know, they're 130 pounds and I'm pushing 200. And I just, I fear that like, you know, you say when you're strength training to feed yourself and eat more calories, I'm almost afraid that like, I'm going to be stuck at this like bulkier size, or like, I don't know how to, how to shrink down, I guess. Yeah. That's a, but everything you're feeling is super normal. You, you, you feel like almost every client I ever met, uh, when they first came to me, hire me, I like to have an objective number because this helps me paint a picture a little bit better. Okay. So I heard you say 150 would be great. Okay, cool. Okay. So let's, let's take about 45 pounds. Yeah. Okay. So 45 pounds of loss. Can I throw some things in there? Like get stronger, more energy, more fit. Okay. We got plenty of time. Here's what it would look like. Okay. Now there's, of course, because you're an individual, uh, there's the, you know, I'm going to give you kind of general, but every individual is a little bit different, kind of what this looks like. And the, and the, the big difference between people is how this affects them mentally. Cause it is hard. It is not easy doing this. The right way is very difficult. Let me explain why. Okay. Because you're giving us a great timeline. The focus initially is on giving you a, a, quote unquote, healthy metabolic rate. I want to get your metabolism to burn more calories on its own. That's going to set us up for effective, sustainable fat loss later. Okay. Cause if we do this the old way where you go move as much as you can and you eat as little as you can, here's what ends up happening. The body adapts its metabolic weight downward to match the caloric intake. So you're moving like crazy. And initially you'll see some weight loss on the scale, but then you put in a little bit of weight and you're going to get a lot of weight. So you're plateau real hard. And then you're in this position where you're like, okay, I'm working out five days a week. I'm starving. I really, I kind of don't feel good. I've lost some weight, but I I'm like burnt out cause I'm doing all this stuff. And now I, nothing's happening. What do I do? Work out more? Do I eat less? And so you go down this unsustainable spiral where eventually what it ends up turning into is, uh, I don't want to do this anymore. This sucks. And you give up. Uh, and if that sounds familiar, uh, then you're in a good company, because that's how everybody approaches this. Now on the flip side, when you do this, right, here's what it feels like. And this is, I'm going to tell you what's hard about it. Okay. What it feels like is I'm getting stronger. I'm building muscle. I'm eating a little more. I'm feeding myself. I have more energy. I'm sleeping better. My libido is higher. The scale isn't moving. Okay. What's going on? Why isn't the scale moving? And then a good coach is going to say, Hey, look, we're moving in the right direction. Don't worry. We're going, we're in the build phase. We're going to set you up. We're going to set you up for the cut later. Then when you're ready, when we have, when you have a metabolic rate that gives us runway, meaning I've got your body burning so many calories on its own that I can cut your calories and you're not in this place where you're eating nothing. Okay. I'd like to get you to a place where 2000 calories is a deficit. That's your deficit. That's your diet. Then you see body fat come off your body and you've got sculpt and shape strength. And by the way, that requires less effort in the gym than trying to manually burn calories on your own. Getting your body to burn more calories on its own is a much easier. It's like putting money in a play in a, in an account that earns money on its own versus you having to work every hour for every dollar that you want to earn. So that's the setup. And then the cut now in between that, there are interruptions that tend to happen. So, okay. I'm, I'm, I'm a little, like if you're my client, what'll probably happen through the kind of reverse diet build phase is going to probably, you know, text me and say things like what's going on. I need to see the scale move. I'm gonna say, okay, fine. I'll give you a couple of weeks to cut so I can show you some movement, but then we're going to go back on the reverse. And so it's going to be some coaching through that process, but that's what it kind of looks like. It's more of a snowball effect versus the old way of doing it, where you get this quick drop off in this hard plateau and then it doesn't work. So there's a little bit more patience involved and it feels different. It's also very scary, Ryan, because you're used to restricting yourself to see anything happen. And now you're trying to nourish yourself. And that's going to make you be like, I'm going to gain all this weight. What's going to happen? I'm going to get all this body fat type of deal. The exciting part about this is that the psychological part is difficult. The workouts and the eating part is actually easier than what you've done before. It's not 75 hard. It is not CrossFit. It is not eating once a day. It is not just eating once a day. It is eating once a day. You should feel good. You should feel good energy. You should feel strength. You should sleep well. It'll be all the things Sal was talking about and take way less effort. It should not feel like you went from not doing much cardiovascular work and steps and not really lifting weights to all of a sudden now you're doing five, six days of all these things and every day getting on. It shouldn't look like that. It should look like this beautiful, gradual introduction of we now do this. Okay. We've been doing that for a while, getting stronger. Okay. We're now going to add a little bit of this. It should be this beautiful dance and feel good along the way. Not extreme. It does not for what we need for as much run as time we have and what you're trying to do, which is very realistic. We've got plenty of time to do this. Perfect. And right. Ryan, can I ask you a stupid question? Okay. When you, let's say by July you lose the weight, you feel great. You get married. Do you want to gain the weight back? I honestly, think that family planning would be in our future. So yes, in some regards, aside from gaining healthy body, baby weight and having a baby, do you want to just like, do you want to get married? You're fit and then just stop everything. And it become like, no, I mean, I've invested quite a bit of money in my garage gym and I, I enjoy it. I just always felt like I wasn't doing enough. Kind of like that mentality. Like go hard, go hard. Like it's almost hard, like to take a rest a day. I mean, someone would have to literally tell me you need to not do something today or just go for a walk. I I'm the type of person that's like, I'm in it, but like, I also need to see results or else I start flipping out. And, um, it is mental. It is definitely. That's the coaching part. That's why the coaching part is huge. If you, so here's the thing. So the goal is, and I know it's a stupid question. Cause I know what the answer was going to be is to get you to a place where you, you feel great, you look great and it's sustainable. This is now part of your lifestyle. It's part of your family's lifestyle, but you're not doing five, six days a week. Here's the deal. You're not a fitness fanatic. 99.9% of people are not like fitness fanatics work in fitness. Uh, the average person fitness isn't their life. It makes their life better. And so what you don't want to do is, is, is come up with a routine that's so ineffective, so inefficient that you're devoting all this time in the gym and you're beating the crap out of yourself. Here's the problem. A lot of people equate soreness, pain, and sweat to effectiveness. That's not, those are not markers of an effective workout. I mean, if that was an effective workout, you could just do jumping jacks in place as fast as you could until you couldn't breathe anymore. And then, you know, congratulations, you had a great workout. It's not how it works. There's a science behind it. And when you do it right, your body works for you. Here's what it's going to feel like. And you're one of my favorite people to work with because here's what happens when you're doing it right. You're going to come back to me and go, this is weird. My body's responding and I feel like I'm doing nothing. That's what, that's the response that tends to happen because of the ways that you've done it before, which is like the wrong way, which means you're just busting your butt and starving yourself type of deal. So there's two options I'm going to give you. Okay. One is, is far more guaranteed to provide success than the other. Uh, but I'll give you a couple options. So I'm going to give you a free program. You can follow it, listen to our podcast for nutrition advice and stuff like that. Try to piece it together. I don't think I looked at your macros, nothing necessarily wrong with them, but, uh, it would be like bringing your car to somebody and saying, Hey, what's wrong with it? And the mechanic doesn't even look at the car to tell. So I don't know what you were doing before. I don't know how your body's responding. Um, and so I don't know if that's what your coach did, if they had you track and count and they went off. I don't know any of that. It doesn't look bad on the surface, but I don't know if it's right or wrong for you, but i could send you a workout that i think would be a great place to start second option is i could set you up and for a call with one of my coaches that i know is good because we hire them ourselves and then if it works out you could work with them for nine months to a year have them take you all the way to your wedding and set you up uh and essentially they're going to coach you the whole time the whole time you're with them that's definitely the turnkey they're modifying everything the workout is individualized the nutrition is individualized every time you struggle your challenge you text them you mess you message them and they work with you the entire way through and i'm very proud of our coaches we're very very difficult on who on how we hire people but they're excellent so if you want i can set you up with a call with a coach either way i'm going to send you a free program regardless of what you decide to do just to add you just to add some more clarity to what sal is saying around the diet part right now i'm not sure again what the the trainer's goal is right now but the goal should be to reverse diet right now so i'm not sure if he or she puts you on this thinking that and and added the steps and the activity and everything is like let's let's start getting cut and leaning out if that was their strategy it's the wrong strategy right now so i'm not sure if that's the strategy right now should be to reverse diet we're trying to we're trying to build right now we're trying to build some strength you have plenty of time to cut we're gonna like cutting is way down the road right now we're building and you cannot build in a calorie deficit so you can you're not going to build muscle on a calorie i don't care how much weight you're going to build you're not going to build muscle on a calorie deficit you lift if you don't feed the body what it needs to build muscle it won't build muscle so that should be the focus right now is let's build let's build a muscle let's build muscle let's get strong let's feed your body what it needs to do that and then when we get our calories to a place and let's say somewhere it's going to be like 2800 calories where you're not gaining weight on the scale you feel strong workouts are great then we stare step down and cut then we start adding steps we start adding cardio that's when we start but that's way down the road right now we build the metabolism up we build that engine so it's working for you so that that's that's what sal's not sure about if that's what the trainer was setting you up for right now that you you may have been so low of calories that 2000 calories is a reverse diet for you i don't know but if that feels like a cut that's not where we would put you to start you off just add yeah um i i honestly don't know either i i know that last year um i wasn't eating breakfast or lunches i didn't eat breakfast or lunches i didn't eat breakfast or lunches i didn't it was pretty much i'd get home at three or four and i'd have a pretty big sustainable meal and i i've always used um like real food uh i follow like an online they send a meal prep thing every sunday and i cook and i make stuff at home so it's never been like you know ready make processed food it's been real food but it's just probably not been enough food and so i think that that's what happened is um i fasted for so long and my body started sending flags like yo you're starving us and i think now i'm like in that i keep people keep telling me it's water retention or this and that but really i i think that my body's just holding on to something out of safety um so i'm not really sure it could be that's i think part of the confusion it totally could be uh ryan all you need you're actually all you need is really good guidance through this process that's all you need you're set up nice you got a home gym you got meals being prepped for you you eat whole foods there's no reason we don't crush your goals out the park just so you know and by the way i don't think this is a lack of discipline no it was just unsustainable yeah yeah i don't think it's a lack of discipline i don't think it's too hard right out of the gates in fact you would do really well if you gave the focus to someone else if you outsourced it and you said hey coach let me know what to do and then trust the process and here's what it'll feel like when you do it the right way first off uh probably uh but what it'll feel like is you're just initially going to feel better you're just like man i got good energy okay i got i added 10 pounds to my you know my squat i'm feeling good i got more energy at work my libido's up like okay this is cool my body doesn't look like it's changing yet although your fiancee will probably say something like you look a little firmer or hey are you losing weight i don't know if i am and so that's going to be what it's going to feel like before you start to see the radical changes in the mirror you're just going to start to feel better from doing that but i i really good coaching i think you would do really well with through this process and it would set you up for for the rest of your life just hearing you guys say these things it's kind of reassurance i think i needed to hear it you know um uh i i guess i i've been getting mixed messages from so many different sources and and not sure what was best for me and uh confusion along with you know like like the scale not moving but i hope i hope that uh when i get the in-body scan i can you know check it every quarter or so many months exactly yep no that would be good exactly what a good coach would use that and honestly i would use it and not even let you see it i'd say go get the in-body scan i want to see it i'll be the one to be that will dictate where we go from here just because i don't want none of that stuff to mess with your head uh but it is a good it is a good data point for us but like sal said the things that we're really focused on right now energy strength you will feel like you'll feel like your body's firming up and that's why you stay away from the scale because the scale could easily shoot up five pounds and you actually fell and look better until you got on the scale and you saw that number so like that's why we will tell somebody like you like don't look at that right now because you'll get like this husband will say a compliment you'll feel you'll feel tighter you'll feel stronger you'll be like man i feel good then you're on scale and scale said it went up five pounds and then you go like oh my god you feel like a failure then all of a sudden your attitude changes it's like what and then that's where people course correct then they freak out they start changing when we're in reality they but they got in their own way so so i think maps anabolic would be a good program for you uh i would do pre-phase for about four weeks and then i would move into phase one uh and go from there um i like walking you said 9 000 steps a day that's perfectly fine that's great um and i if you if you're open to just having a call with one of our coaches who i can vouch for i can make sure i set up uh i set something up for you and you can get on the phone and you can have you can get in more detailed conversation with them about some of the stuff sure i'm open to anything really at this point awesome and thanks for listening keep listening we talk about this stuff all the time and listen to the callers you're going to hear a lot of callers who sound similar to you and a lot of similar advice you'll hear yep and i just need to shout out um my best friend amanda she had purchased muscle mommy from you guys and she was the one that told me to give you a listen so awesome thank you guys see you later so uh yeah she's uh very typical very common i'm so glad she's calling us yes right now this is plenty of time doable very doable very doable if she's with one of our i'll say this right now if she works with one of our coaches through that entire process her success rate is all but guaranteed for sure so hard if something crazy happens it's all but guaranteed yeah i hope you know she's already i need guidance though well not just any guidance too though a brand a brand new a brand new trainer to take nearly so i know dude that's the thing the diet i don't know how they set up the calories and macros but what it sounds to me it sounds like that he put her on thinking that's a cut yeah or it's like a standard 2 000 calories like that's what the rda says 2 000 calories i'm guessing but that's what it sounds like uh that they did i mean regardless of whether uh how the goal should be from here is to add calories let's get you strong yeah let's get her strong let's get her feeling good uh which is going to trip her out because she's probably never felt that through working out yeah and let's set this up and we have plenty of time our next caller is melissa from nebraska hi melissa hello hi guys how are you i'm doing great well i uh i uh so i'll do the same thing everyone does is um you know read my question it's changed just a little bit but um started my road back to fitness in september of 2025 um i'm 43 5 foot 4 um i started at well over 300 pounds um everything was difficult um you know everything health was starting to plummet so i was pre-diabetic and sleep apnea and high blood pressure and um you know just everything was going to be okay and i'm doing great and i'm doing great and i'm doing great i decided i was done living that way 100 still feel that way um so to date i've lost 60 pounds um significantly stronger um i started with about 87 pounds of lean muscle mass i still have about 80 pounds of lean muscle mass um body fat has gone down about seven percent um so i'm no longer pre-diabetic and blood pressure is normal and no sleep apnea so out of the woods that's awesome incredible that's incredible incredible and to you know to be down uh that many pounds and only lose that much muscle is incredible the ratio so you did a good job obviously of strength training eating protein like you're supposed to so well well done very good thank you thank you it's been this is by far the best way i've ever tried to get get in shape um you've heard all the stories i tried to do it the wrong way many times this has been awesome um so i worked with a trainer um a fantastic trainer for about six months um and working with him i lost about 14 pounds of lean muscle mass and i've lost about 15 pounds of lean muscle mass um and i've lost about 14 pounds of lean muscle mass and i've lost about 14 pounds of lean muscle mass um and i've lost about 14 pounds um before and i just it was really struggled to get nutrition um under wraps um so i started on a glp1 in january um and my plan all along was you know short term um i didn't want to be on it long term i was just trying to get you know the right habits put in place so i was on two and a half milligrams of that bound for pretty much the whole time i went up to five milligrams for about six weeks um my initial question i was really struggling with you know when do i taper off of the med because i still have about you know 60 pounds left to go i still have a lot of weight left to lose um and so about a week after i submitted my question i just kind of got anxious angry. And I said, I don't want to do it anymore. So I just skipped it. And I thought I'll do two weeks. And then two weeks went by and I kept feeling good. It's been about a month. And I've kept feeling good. I'm down about three pounds since then. And I think the hunger that I have is what you're supposed to feel. It hasn't been, you know, wicked cravings or anything like that. So my question now is, what is your advice to go from here? You know, knowing your background with peptides, like, is there anything that I need to look out for in terms of microdosing or, you know, I don't want to hit a wall and, you know, relapse or anything. And then I guess just a little bit on training. I've fallen in love with strength training. So I do that three or four days a week. I'm on phase three of MAPS anabolic, which I've loved. So my lifts are bench, about 120, deadlift, about 215, and squat 205. Overhead press, I got cocky on this one. I was at, like, 95 pounds, but I could only get up to, like, three or four reps. So that one's tougher. And I'm about 2200, probably, calories a day on average, and about 180 grams of protein. And then on off days, I try to do very, very, very basic Pilates and yoga and then just walking and cool stuff on my off days. So I guess my question is, on the GLP-1 side, what should I watch out for, plan for, or do anything with? And then on the training? Training side, knowing that I still have a lot to go, what are the guardrails I guess I should keep myself in? Melissa, you are doing great. Yeah, you did a great job. Doing great. The way you're handling this. Yeah, doing really good. What, you mind if I ask you some more questions? Sure, yeah. What's the difference now, or let me ask you this differently. Before you started on this journey, what were the things that got you to where you were? Because that's going to help me. Yeah. Well, you know, I tried, keto before and, you know, I'd lose a bunch of pounds and gain it all back and my mood was terrible. And, you know, I, I would try to, you know, do all kinds of cardio, which I hate and I'm really bad at. And, you know, I, I just, I guess I had the same mindset that a lot of people did is that's what you had to do to get in shape. And I'd always been kind of naturally strong when I was afraid of, you know, looking manly or whatever. So I thought that, well, I have to do cardio. And like, just nothing worked. And I got myself to a point where like, I just kept hitting brick wall after brick wall and just kind of gave up. And I poured all of my focus and attention on career. You know, and like I sit at a desk and I stare at a computer and that only works for so long until you just, I just hit a wall. I said, I'm going to kill myself if I keep living like this. It's not good. And like my, I have two little nephews, they're seven and four. And one day they said, Aunt Melissa, will you come on the floor? And play with us. They're playing with cars or whatever. And I had to ask them to move the cars up to the coffee table because it was too hard for me to get up and down off the floor. And I was like, this is not who I am. Not how I want to live. Not how I want to show up for these boys. So yeah, I guess just long story short, I think I have kind of the same trajectory as a lot of people did until I just, I had to wake up or it wasn't going to go well. Yeah. And I'm glad you're starting to, you're, you're, you're kind of on this journey and doing what seems to be a lot of the right things. You're kicking ass right now. I would love to coach. I want to, I want to coach you. I want to take, I want to take you the rest of the way you're doing so good. And you're set up so nice. I would love for you to work with our team. You just, you're, you're set up beautifully right now. You've done such a good job. The fact that you've come off this GLP one for a whole month and you didn't, what happens to a lot of people after about two, two weeks, the appetite starts to kick back up and then people go off the rails and bad habits. So the fact that you've been able to keep that in check is huge. Just so you know, too, though, there's nothing we've had. I've had this with clients where we're off for a while. Then we use it. We, we bring it back in and we microdose it for a little bit. So there's, it's not, that's not a failure to do that. If we find it necessary to do that at one point, but the fact that you've done this already, hell of a job, love that you have leaned into getting strong and that that is your strength. That is going to be the, your, the thing that is your saving grace. The fact that you are naturally strong and I would lean you more into that. It's like, let's keep getting strong and building more muscle right now. And I think you're ready for that. I think we're ready to build for a little bit before we come back down again. That would be the approach. Now in the past, had you lost weight before and gained it back when you had gone? Yeah, I lost about 60 pounds doing keto, but it was really fast loss. And then I gained probably 80 back. It was really rapid. Typical. That typically happens or something like that. If you could put yourself in the mindset of when you had done this in the past, let's say in the beginning when it's going great, did you feel motivated? Did it feel like, yeah, I think I'm doing this right before things started changing? Not, not really. I think I had, you know, the initial excitement of awesome. I'm losing weight. That's really cool. And I'm going to ignore the fact that my breath is bad and I feel miserable and it's awful. But I, you know, and like in high school I was super athletic, but you know, strength training for women was never really a thing. Like you'd go in and use a few machines in the weight room. I'd never ever tried. You know, strength training the way I'm doing it now. And I think that's for me the biggest game changer. Good, good. Yeah. The reason why I'm asking this question is because when you, if we do this the right way, obviously it's more effective, it's more sustainable. You feel better. It doesn't feel like you're, you're, you know, slamming yourself up against the wall. That being said, if we do this right, we're going to be doing this for hopefully the rest of your life, right? So you'll have some kind of exercise the rest of your life and nutrition habits and lifestyle is really changes. But life, life changes through that process. And there are going to be periods of time in life. This is just what happens to everyone where you're not going to feel so happy about it. You're not going to feel so motivated because I don't know, work or life or stress, or now you've been doing it for a while and doesn't seem as exciting. And so that's when things start to get really challenging. It's not challenging when you love it because challenging when you start to not like it so much. And so what a good coach is going to do is going to move you through that process. The goal is to get you to your, your results. But the main goal for the coaches, can I get Melissa to be able to do this for the rest of her life? That's what, that's what a good coach is going to really do. And you're, you're starting to do things the right way. The, the, the way, the things that I'll caution you on is jumping in with this great mood, great attitude and doing everything like, man, I'm active every day. I'm doing maps, anabolic, and I'm doing Pilates and I'm doing yoga. And because, uh, there's nothing wrong with it. Even if it's appropriate, there's nothing wrong with it, except it's a lot, it's a lot more than maybe what you were doing before. Oh yeah. Right. And so what can happen is you go through one of those tough bouts of life that we all do like, Oh my God, I got, I'm going to, you know, five days a week, I got to do this thing. And then you, you skip two or three days, you start to feel like a failure and you're like, you know, I don't want to do this anymore. Uh, I can't maintain this. Uh, and then you stop. And so what we want to do is we want to avoid, uh, that old cycle. So whatever you decide to add or do you got to go into it with the mentality of, is this something I can maintain for the rest of my life? Even in those periods of time when I'm not going to want to, that's more important than let's see how much I can get done, uh, right now. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Now a good coach is going to take you through that process and you're actually in a great place to work. Great place with a really, really good coach. Who's going to work you through this entire process. As far as the GLP is concerned, uh, it, it has profound effects on appetite, but it also changes, uh, neural pathways because old behaviors aren't practiced while you're on it. So although hunger may come back, it may not feel like it used to. Now that doesn't mean you can't go back to where you were before because oftentimes we will, we'll reach out for food because we're hungry, but also because we're stressed or also because we're bored. And then you can rebuild those old neural pathways. And so what Adam said is very common. You get back on the GLP, work through that again, come back off. And it sometimes takes two or three cycles before you're like, uh, I'm totally off. Um, but the, the, the, the question is, the question of where you, cause I read your email and part of your question was, where should I invest my, my finances? The most, uh, effective thing you could do is work with a good coach, more effective than a GLP, more effective than anything else is working with a good coach. Who's going to be able to work you through this entire process and get you there. So that's, that's the most valuable thing you can invest in for sure. And if you do end up having to do GLP one again, we'll save you some money going through a different route than what you're probably going through right now. You're probably paying top dollar. And it's so expensive. Yeah. We'll, we'll help you. We'll help you through that. Yeah. Cause it looks like you were using the brand name, not the compound pharmacy. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Compounded is less. Yeah. Yeah. Weightless and better. So you can, you can adjust it. You can titrate it. Yeah. So better. Yep. Sounds good. Yeah. No questions. Um, like guardrails for calorie. Am I in the right spot? You know, about 2,200. So you are, you are right now. So what, uh, what our coach would do with you though, is reverse diet you from here so that you would actually start to build those calories, especially if you told me to, you already see the appetite is naturally coming up is a good sign. If we make the right choices with food. So I'm just using hypothetical numbers. So you get kind of an idea what the vision looks like. It would look like we start ramping these calories up. We get it closer to 2,800 calories and then bring you back down again. And then we do that. Then you're going to say, and what will happen is weight loss right now. We'll plateau a little bit. If we do this correctly, strength will go up. So you'll start feeling good in the gym, scale weights, kind of staying the same, but you're feeling, you're eating more, you're feeling stronger. we get our calories up there, then I go, okay, take them down we take them down weight starts dropping off the scale again we do that for a while then we're going to reverse we kind of play in that game uh do that for a while weight comes down then we reverse back up again come back down it's just and we should see this beautiful over the next nine months to a year of just you continue to get stronger and better shape and not a lot of crazy like you're already doing plenty of activity so there there this isn't i don't need you to do more of more stuff it's more of the right balance and focus and and consistency and then also being there for you in those moments and times where we don't feel as motivated and coaching you through that process because that's where the curveball and change yeah and i'll give you a few rules with diet that'll help uh besides counting macros calories a few rules whole natural foods if you just avoid heavily processed foods stick to whole natural foods make sure you have it's protein centric so aim for high protein you Eat the protein first uh then that right there is a real nice natural guardrail to go way off the deep end that's it uh and what helps a lot with that melissa is meal prepping yep meal prepping helps a lot yeah it must have been helpful yeah takes the guesswork out of it yeah because it's a lot easier to be like i'm hungry okay i can eat i'm gonna eat this whole natural meal versus i can't eat anything or i'm counting my calories but what's in there is hyper palatable processed foods which make the appetite go even higher yeah this is what i did before my snack would be a whole meal of just junk and it's more so okay all right that's awesome um i just i want to say thank you guys i've been listening to you since i started this whole process and you've reinforced some good decisions and you kept me from making some really foolish ones so uh i tell everybody just you know dial in listen to these guys they know what they're talking about so thank you really appreciate it if you're open i can have one of my coaches call you you could talk to them about what it looks like to work with them and i'm with a mind pump coach there's two options one is a much less uh lower investment than the other um because we created particularly to help make it more affordable so there are a couple options but at the very least you can ask some questions sure love to have a chat with them yeah i hope i hope we add you to the family because it's going to be fun to watch this process for the next year you're doing great yeah awesome all right thanks guys really appreciate it you got it all right thanks bye-bye well i'm glad she's uh great job yeah she's approaching it the right way the challenge is going to be because i can hear it in her voice she's like i feel good i'm motivated let's do this the challenge is always adding throwing way too many things at herself because she feels good about it she wants to do a lot more movement or something else to add and then the inevitable will happen uh you know she's not gonna have that same feeling and then it's like now i'm done or i can't do this anymore and i can't maintain it and so that's really the challenge but if she's working with one of our coaches i am like confident i hope she does i mean i love getting a hold of somebody like this where such a good place she did such a good job already i mean uh i knew it as soon as i saw the 60 pounds down and only seven pounds loss of muscle because it's it's hard to drop that much weight and in the time that she did from september to now and not lose some muscle i mean so the our goal is always to hold on and obviously perfect is lose 60 and you know lose no ones but that is very difficult well i'm just gonna say this on a glp you see across the board it's about a 30 to 40 percent lean body mass loss so 60 pounds would have looked like 20 pounds that's right of lean body mass not to mention of that seven pounds i don't know how she tested her body fat but most uh ways of measuring count uh fluid as lean body mass it's non-fat mass right so that could be she's down water weight that's right that's right so she probably and if she got stronger which she said she did yes uh i'm like i i'm confident she lost sure she has an exit plan and everything oh glp one is perfect great numbers too already on on bench squat overhead prep i mean she's strong and she's doing that on like 2 000 calories or 22 we start to reverse anabolic man we start to reverse diet her and get her really strong that metabolism is going to be roaring and then she's just going to see the weight loss keep coming she'll do great our next caller is meredith from texas meredith meredith hey how are you gotcha oh thank you sorry about that it's all right no i'm glad you called back i was looking forward to talking with you how can we help you well first of all i want to like everybody else just give a big shout out and thank you um because you guys um have just really been such a you know a great um just part of my life that's all thank you thank you okay i'm just gonna read my read my question uh my name is meredith i've been married for 24 years i'm a mom of three teenagers i'm a i've been a personal trainer for over 20 years i've been a listener since 2017 og all right thanks to y'all um i've really built the body in my life and i've been a personal trainer for over 20 years i've been a listener to the body that i've wanted september 29th 2023 when i thought i was in the best shape of my life i was 44 years old and had a grand mal seizure um i was taken to the er when they diagnosed me with metastatic stage 4 metastatic melanoma of the brain um i underwent emergency brain surgery to remove the cancerous tumor that they could operate on but i also had another one that i was sent to mdm to do a surgery on and i was able to do a surgery on my brain and i was able to do a surgery on my brain and i was able to do a surgery on my brain and i was able to do a surgery on my for immunotherapy but the immunotherapy um triggered encephalitis i was hospitalized for 12 days with severe inflammation of my brain praise god i was able to come home but it was the hardest time of my life i didn't know my name i hallucinated i hardly knew who my family was i couldn't be left alone um this also triggered over a dozen seizures um very serious seizures for two over two years i'm so grateful to say now that i am cancer-free seizure-free and i'm working my way back into the gym praise god awesome man so here's my question as experienced coaches how would you program strength muscle and conditioning for someone like me whose biggest limitation is not necessarily my muscles but it's a recovering brain and nervous system what would you prioritize to maximize performance without overwhelming the nervous system i think this could really help not just me but anyone from recovering from brain injuries neurological neurological conditions um and or cancer treatments thank you so much for all that y'all do oh meredith god bless you thanks for calling in tell me about uh not over overwhelming your cns like uh what does that feel like when that starts to get overwhelmed and what are the things that make it feel that tend to push it in that direction um when i get my heart rate up of course um getting my heart rate up really sends my central nervous system into kind of that uh fight or flight um real shaky okay um i've come so far though and i keep trying to give myself grace because i couldn't even lift a bar first got back into the gym i tried to lift a dumbbell couldn't lift a dumbbell so i went down to um bands and uh i started with bands and i've i've uh i've successfully finished um performance and i'm not where i was um of course but i'm just trying to find my new norm okay how thin is the line between like is it very thin between like this is my workout and if i just go just a little too far yeah i'm just trying to find my new norm i'm just trying to find my new norm i'm just trying to get this bad reaction is that what that feels like yes okay exactly okay but you've been progressing this whole time i am yes excellent so my advice is going to sound a little generic but your focus is going to be on range of motion technique you're going to slow breathe through the workout i also think turning the lights down or being in a semi-dark room while doing it so we're trying to minimize stimulus long rest periods okay long rest periods um and i like stability based movements for you yeah where you gotta really focus so like physio ball exercises uh unilateral type exercises and the focus is on the technique more than anything and then when it feels like you've way surpassed the resistance that you're using then you move up the weight in other words typically when we're not dealing with a very sensitive central nervous system if you feel like you can add weight you add weight but what i would do with someone like you is we wouldn't add weight until you're in a very sensitive central nervous system until it's like this is so easy then i'd add weight have you worked have you worked with a suspension trainer much i do okay yeah just boring just being honest well i mean that's fair that's fair i mean there's ways to intensify i just think that uh the stability component to that and the focus on your body um positioning uh would be really helpful uh to build off of that obviously getting to the weights is going to be you know more interesting uh but i i do think a good period that you could really kind of focus down on that and like take your time and you know really pay attention to your breathing and like where you're squeezing where you're feeling uh it's going to make a big difference yes so it's going to feel like while you're doing your sets you're trying to keep your um your your cns down so while you're doing the sets you're yep it's very controlled very keep it calm yes it's not like the traditional strength training and you drive like what we're trying to do is we're trying to keep things relaxed as we add a little bit of stress on the body to set the adaptation in motion for strength the fact that you're getting getting stronger. Great sign. Yeah. Yes. That's an excellent sign. You're moving in the right direction. Are you doing anything that helps, uh, bring the CNS down? Are you doing anything that feels recuperative or rejuvenating for yourself? Um, walking is huge. Um, walking, sleeping a lot more. I've never been a good sleeper, so I've really prioritized my sleep. Um, you know, I have low blood sugar, so I have had to probably eat every couple of, you know, a few hours and I make sure it's protein and fat is my, my main goal. Okay. Do you, I, I was doing a lot of yoga and slow breathing. Um, yeah, I, I kind of got away from that. Um, but I can, I think, you know, incorporating that again would probably be, yes. Treat yourself to some massages. I was just going to say that massage therapy for someone like you calm that central nervous, relax, especially foot massage. So, yeah. So, you know, we went through a period, my wife went through a period, uh, after we had our son, it was a very traumatic, uh, birth process. And she was in this, in a place where her CNS would get, uh, it was like a trip wire. Like once it went off, she was in this kind of fight or flight state and it was like, she couldn't apply intensity. And one thing that we found, uh, that to this day now, uh, I make sure she does this because it increases her resilience for everything else. So that's the way you want to look at it, is because sometimes a little guilt could set in, especially for a mom. It's like, oh, I'm doing this thing when I should be doing these other things that I'm doing. And I'm like, you know, I got to take care of all these other, and I explained to my wife and she now gets it. When you do this thing, it increases your, it improves your resilience for everything else. So here's what she does. She goes to the mall. We have a mall that's not too far from us. And they have foot massages there. And she sits down, she gets her feet rubbed, which for her brings everything down quite a bit. And then for her, she reads her Bible. Which also is a very meditative process for her. And when she does this once a week, and sometimes I make her go more because something stressful happened or, you know, something in the family I'll say, and she comes back and it's like her, her stress bucket grew. It increases her resilience. And so that's something that I would recommend to you as well. If that's something that you enjoy, I'm not a massage person, but if that's something where you could sit down for 30 minutes, it almost recharges your batteries a little bit and you can sit and read. And what it'll do is it'll improve your body's ability to adapt to your exercise and make you more resilient for other things. So, cause when you're looking at health, like a big health sphere, what we tend to do, especially as trainers is we got workouts and diet, and then we don't count anything else. And then sometimes we get smarter and we throw in sleep, but nothing else counts. And it's like, no, no, sometimes massage or meditation is part of the formula because it actually, it helps everything else. So I don't know if that's, that resonates with you, but I do. I love that. So, um, I have been super, um, consistent now that I can, I used to not be able to listen or read. Um, now I've been able to get outside every morning. I put my feet in the grass and I opened up my Bible and I spend a good 20 minutes before anybody's awake and I have my, I have my quiet time and that's how I start my mornings. Oh, that's wonderful. I think you're doing great. I, and I I'd love to send you some, I'd love to send you a program that you could pull from. Uh, but really it's going to be, which it sounds like you kind of figured out you, you, you just kind of go real slow and your body progresses and you got to be very careful pushing too hard. It's such a hard thing to do because it's a, I'm, I'm a recovering, uh, um, hit, you know, addict and CrossFit addict. So, uh, it's been a challenge to get to that place of it's okay not to work out every day to slow down. Yeah. And just so you know, uh, you might already know this, but let's say, okay, moderate intensity, right? We'll say moderate intensity, low reps at moderate intensity is less of a stress on the body than high reps at moderate intensity. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if I'm at a seven, let's say five reps at a seven is less stressful on my CNS than 15 reps at a seven. Yeah. Okay. So, so cause people, when I say low reps to people who are trying to manage stress, uh, they're like, wait a minute, low reps. I'm going real heavy. I'm driving. I'm pushing real hard. It's like, no, no, no, no. We're keeping the intensity moderate. We're just doing low reps at a moderate intensity. So what it might look like for you is a set of five reps for squat, but it's not five reps with something you could barely do six or seven. With it's five reps with something you do 10 reps with. Okay. That's easier on the body. That's easier on the body than doing a set of 10 reps with something you could do 20 with, for example, higher reps, stress the body a little bit more than lower reps to when the intensity is the same. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I don't, I don't think of it that way. So yeah. And then, uh, you probably train your clients on physio balls. I'm sure you've used them before. Yes. Physio balls will be good for you right now. Okay. So like instead of sitting on a bench to do a shoulder it's just going to help you maintain balance and it'll help check the amount of resistance that you're using. Awesome. Awesome. I'm not back to training clients just yet. Um, I will tell y'all though, it has been such a gift because, um, I have a, an elderly couple that I work with just once a week and they have been such a blessing to be able to help them sit and stand. And that's a huge blessing for not, I mean, they, they tell me that I'm, I'm helping them, but honestly, they're helping me so much because of just trying to find that confidence again, to get back to where, um, I can be where I love, where I love to be. Oh, that's so awesome. So good. That's so awesome. That's great. Well, so what, what program would you recommend? Um, like I said, I mean, I love, I love all of y'all's programs. Um, like I said, I, I did finish performance and I went to start strong. Um, just because I'm frustrated. I want to get strong. So those are, those are all probably more volume than I would want. I would want you to do. Okay. I like our maps 15 protocols. I like mass 15 symmetry, you know, mass 15 symmetry would probably be good. I like that protocol. That doesn't mean you can't be active on top of it and do, you know, yoga or walking or hiking, but a little bit every day is probably going to give you better results, uh, than some of our more traditional programs. Okay. All right. Yeah. Do you have any of our mass 15 programs? I don't, I don't send you 15 symmetry. Yeah. Let's let, let me set you up for the next, let's see, these are what three months. Let me set you up for the next nine months. Let's set her two more fifteens. I'll send you the original mass 15, mass 15 symmetry, mass 15 performance, follow them one after another. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, you got it. You're all set, Mary. Yeah. You're good. I, yeah. Thank you. Big shout out to Doug. Thank you for, um, I know we never see him on camera, but I love, uh, hearing about him and his flute collection and big flute guy. If you ever come, if you ever come out to California, come visit us, please. Yes, absolutely. Y'all, y'all mean a lot to me. And I, I, I talked to my husband about y'all all the time. God bless you. Thank you so much for calling. Yes. You have a good day. Yeah. Okay. Y'all too. Bye. I mean, tremendous success considering what you've done. Oh man. Oh yeah. Tremendous success. Yeah. I've, I've trained clients where there's their CNS was, uh, like a, like a trip wire. You know, I had one guy that I trained when I'd have to schedule him when no one else was there. Yeah. We turn off all the lights, music, all lights. Yes. We turn off the music. We'd go train in the corner and it, and eventually we got on the point where he could come in, lights were on, people are working out, but this is all he could, his body could handle because even if I did a light workout, the lights, the music and the people would look like get his body, uh, over amped and it just wasn't well, it didn't work. And so we had to gradually move them up. But the fact that she's already improved so much, it's such a good sign. Look, if you like mind pump, come find us on Instagram. It's mind pump media. Thank you for listening to mind pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy 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 valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support. And until next time, this is mind pump. We'll see you next time.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. For fitness fanatics who train consistently and eat too little, eating more and moving less can improve results by allowing the body to recover and adapt.
  2. Signs of overtraining include constant exhaustion, lack of energy outside workouts, and a worn-out physical appearance despite high workout volume.
  3. People who sacrifice social, celebratory, or personal activities to maintain strict diets and routines often become isolated and lose life balance.
  4. Extremely low body fat for long periods—common in fitness enthusiasts—can hinder muscle growth and lead to health risks due to insufficient body fat for metabolic function.
  5. Objective performance metrics like strength and stamina often plateau when calorie intake is too low, even with high training volume.
  6. A joyful and fulfilling lifestyle is essential—workouts should enhance life, not replace it or become a source of stress or escapism.
  7. Case studies, such as Corinne’s journey, show that increased body fat is a necessary phase for muscle gain in long-term lean individuals.
  8. MindPump’s sponsors (OurPlace, Kion, and MAPS) promote healthy, sustainable habits, including non-toxic cookware, high-leucine supplements, and buy-one-get-one-free fitness programs.

Summary:

This episode of MindPump addresses a counterintuitive fitness principle: for highly dedicated athletes and fitness fanatics who train consistently and restrict calories, the path to better results often involves eating more and moving less. The hosts highlight key signs of overtraining, including chronic fatigue, poor recovery, and missed personal life events, which signal that the body is in a constant state of breakdown rather than adaptation. They emphasize that extreme leanness—common among long-term fitness enthusiasts—can actually hinder muscle growth and long-term health due to insufficient body fat for metabolic and hormonal support.

A core insight is that objective performance metrics like strength and stamina often plateau when calorie intake is too low, and increasing calories can trigger significant gains. The hosts also stress that fitness should enhance life quality, not dominate it, warning against turning workouts into a painful, isolating habit. Real-world examples, such as Corinne’s journey, illustrate how temporary increases in body fat are essential for muscle development and recovery.

The episode concludes by promoting wellness products—such as non-toxic cookware from OurPlace and high-leucine supplements from Kion—while encouraging listeners to explore MindPump’s buy-one-get-one-free MAPS programs. Ultimately, the message is clear: sustainability, balance, and joy are more important than relentless training or extreme dieting for long-term health and fitness success.

FAQs

MindPump is a health, fitness, and entertainment podcast featuring hosts Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. It provides coaching, fitness advice, and discussions on current events, studies, and lifestyle topics.

For people who train consistently and frequently, eating more and moving less may actually improve results, as constant training can lead to overtraining, poor recovery, and a lack of muscle growth.

Signs include feeling constantly worn out, missing important life events for workouts or diet, being extremely lean for years, lacking improvements in strength or stamina, and having a life that feels like a chore rather than a joyous activity.

Long-term low body fat can cause the body to prioritize survival over growth, making it difficult to add muscle. The body may instead store fat to feel 'safe' and protect itself from metabolic stress.

Buy any one of the top 10 MAPS programs and get another one free. This is a 'buy one, get one free' offer available at MAPSbogo.com.

OurPlace cookware is nonstick, durable, and free of harmful forever chemicals. It’s safe for use and easy to clean, making it ideal for healthy cooking routines.

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