2969: Is TRT Right for You | The Real Conversation Nobody Is Having About Hormone Therapy

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. That's right. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we had people call in. We got to coach them about their health and fitness live on air. But this was after our intro. Today's intro was 62 minutes long. Now, in the intro, we talk about fitness and current events. We talked about hormone replacement therapy. Is it right for you? It's always a fun question time, fun time of conversation, I should say. 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 MPHormones.com. So, if you want to know if hormone replacement therapy is for you, and or you have questions about peptides like GLP-1s, these are medical professionals. You can get on the phone with them and talk with them, and they'll help advise you on whether or not this is right for you. Go to MPHormones.com. Use the code MP249. Here's what you'll get for that, by the way, if you sign up with them. A 45-minute medical consultation, testosterone replacement, or in clomiphene or vitamin B12 for your first month for only $249. So, all of that for only $249. That's your first month. This episode is also brought to you by Seed. This is the world's best probiotic. So, probiotics have tremendous proven benefits, especially for gut health, but also for skin health and brain health, and even for muscle building and fat loss. Seed is the best one. They're the only probiotic company we work with, and that's for a reason. Go check them out. Go to Seed.com/mindpump. Use the code 25mindpump. Get 25% off your first month's order of their daily symbiotic. Also, get your own customized MAPS workout program. That's right. We will design for you a workout program for your body, and it's a three-month program. Go to mindmapsprogram.com. Fill out the questionnaire. One of my trainers will call you, deliver to you an individualized workout program. It's mindmapsprogram.com. 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. All right, we're going to talk about testosterone replacement therapy. Who's it for? Who is it not for? And what are the best ways to use it? We're going to get into this right now. Let's go. Remember how this used to be so controversial? Yeah. So, okay, so this is a big thing now, right? Testosterone replacement therapy has now become mainstream for a long time. It was a taboo. It was a taboo subject because testosterone is also a performance-enhancing drug, and because of this, it's a controlled substance. For a long time, getting testosterone from your doctor, if you were hypogonadal, meaning you just didn't produce a lot of testosterone, was actually quite difficult. And if your testosterone was within range, even if it was in the low, low end of range, and you had all these symptoms of low testosterone, it was very difficult to get. Well, that's changed. It's actually changed quite a bit now. Now, testosterone replacement therapy is extremely accessible, in many cases very inexpensive, and the taboo around it has – there's still a bit of taboo, but it's not nearly like it was – definitely not like it was 15 or 20 years ago. So, it's a good subject because – I don't know about you, Adam, but I'm getting more questions from family members and friends around this topic. I'm getting more questions from family members and friends around this topic than I ever did in my entire training career. Yeah, I think that's like we said. I think it's not as taboo. There's far more people more open to it. There's hormone clinics popping up everywhere, every day. I was going to ask you if you think that we're going to see a change in the education system for like your general practitioner because of it. So, what you still do see – and I do still get this because I'll have – Friends of mine that are mid to late 40s, they're describing to me all the signs of like low testosterone, and I'll advise them like, you know, go see your doctor, go get your blood work, find out where your testosterone is, and then more than likely get yourself, you know, on HRT. If that's the case, right? Yeah. Mid to late 40s, kids, stressful job, this day and age. Pleasible. Very pleasurable. Most likely not optimal for sure. And then very high chances of it being pretty low. And I've had – I still have some of their – some of them come back because I've had this with multiple friends that have suggested this where the general practitioner will be like, oh, we're okay. Yeah. Because they're say like 300 or 350 and they're not in a range that is like of danger of something like really happening. Yeah. But the problem with that, and if you go see a hormone specialist, right, somebody who specializes in hormone therapy and a doctor that works with a hormone clinic, they'll tell you that, you know, that person, if most of their life, young life, said averaged around 900 and now they're 300 or 350, that's less than half of what they're used to. Yeah. And absolutely can result in these common symptoms of, you know, poor sleep, lack of motivation. Low libido. Low libido. Muscle loss. Yeah. Hard to build muscle, lose muscle. They lose muscle. All these potential side effects, you can absolutely see all those things. And so, therefore, are a great client for hormone replacement therapy. Yeah. And potentially because it's starting to actually swing in the other direction where it's going a little too far in the other direction. So, when you speak to experts on the subject, we have, and by the way, we have good data, decent data on the benefits/risks of being on testosterone or being on testosterone replacement therapy. We actually have pretty good data. But it is starting to swing in the other direction where going on testosterone becomes a cure-all, which it's not. And so, we need to talk about that a little bit. Right. Because it's starting to get clouded by the fact that since the 1950s, okay, since we've measured, since we've been measuring testosterone levels in men, there has been a consistent general decline in testosterone in men. There's also been a general decline in fertility in men. So, you know, the average 30-year-old today has less testosterone than the average 65-year-old did in, let's say, 1970, for example. Which is crazy. It might not be exact on the numbers, but it's something like that. And you can look this up. This is well-documented. And without getting into the weeds, they're not quite sure what's going on. Could be the difference, you know, between lack of activity, diet, obesity now plays a big role, right? Obesity exploded in modern societies right around the '70s and just continued to climb up until recently. Could be exposure to new chemicals that might help. New chemicals that might have hormone-like activity in the body, especially in combinations. Xenoestrogens, things like that. Yeah. We're just not sure. We just don't know what's going on. I mean, most likely, wouldn't you say it's a combination of all of that? Could be, right? Yeah. So, we are seeing this as just general decline. And so, that's kind of clouding the whole thing. But also, it's not a miracle cure-all because a lot of the symptoms you get from low testosterone are also symptoms you can get from poor diet, poor sleep, too much stress in your life, just essentially not taking care of yourself, right? So, hey, I got low motivation and low energy. Hey, my libido is low. I have low drive. I'm not as strong as I used to be. Like, could that be a result of low testosterone? Yes. Those are all classic symptoms of low testosterone. Could they also be symptoms of the fact that you are not getting good sleep? You're not exercising? You're eating like crap. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely, 100%. So, it gets a bit murky. I think what we should start is the data that shows whether or not testosterone replacement therapy improves or takes away from longevity. So, the fear used to be that if you went on testosterone, you would have an increase in cardiovascular events. Well, we now know that's not true. We look at the data on replacement therapy, and it does not increase the risk of cardiovascular events. It also doesn't decrease them. It seems to be somewhat neutral, okay? So, it seems to be somewhat neutral. But we got to look at who's in the study, and the study is looking at hypogonadal men, men outside of the range of testosterone. And depending on the lab, it's typically the low end is around 200. And depending on the lab, it's typically the low end is around 250 or 300 in total testosterone. The upper end is between 850 to 950 or something like that, okay? So, that's the range. Which, by the way, it's a whole other subject. That's a huge range. Like, you're telling me I could be between 300 and triple? and that's considered normal um so but but nonetheless the study looked at men whose range was below what is considered the range and then who were brought up to around 600 so they weren't even brought up to 900 or what happens many times in hormone therapy clinics is they'll let you go above 900 so long as the drop falls within range when it's time to do your your next uh dose of testosterone so uh just a little bit of uh you know kind of medical information around how testosterone tends to be administered there's a few ways it can be administered one of them is a cream um it's pretty common another one is injection which is also very common and the an injectable when you inject testosterone it's typically attached to what's known as a long-acting ester which releases the testosterone over time but what happens when you do an injection of testosterone is you get a peak at about 24 hours then it slowly drops until your next injection and so what a lot of clinics will do is they'll allow the peak to be above range so long as the the drop is well within range um and so which by the way just to not to interrupt you on your on this because i think it's important that people the people that are considering going this direction know this is there's also a range of how people respond to that that's right so for example i went through this in my early journey of hormone therapy when they were trying to figure out the right dose for me and uh what they what they found was i i actually respond really well so like a a moderate to low dose i shoot up pretty good but i also crash pretty fast and so what we were finding was at you know and they slowly worked my way up so they started me i think it was the the original like 100 milligrams a week and then it went 110 120 they basically 10 milligrams a time went up on me um and i think it was like a hundred milligrams a week and then it went 110 120 and they basically all the way up to 200 milligrams now 200 milligrams would shoot me to like 1300 levels so above the normal range but then by day seven i would come all the way back down to 400 right and so i had this really and that that was abnormal roller coaster yeah to the average person which is why today my dosing looks like half the dose done twice a week yeah so i have that's one way to do it yeah less of it and less of a spot you know others are different other people can take their so you don't go out of range and you don't go too low yes this is what it looks like yeah yeah i know so that's some of the techniques that they'll use when administering nonetheless when we're looking at longevity and by the way we'll get into this uh because it's also more nuanced and complex than what i'm about to say but when we look at the literature and the data if your testosterone is below normal and you go on replacement therapy to bring you up to an average of 600 or so it's there's no risk of cardiovascular events there's just an increase in quality of life that's what you see so the in this big study in these big studies men feel better their their libido is up uh better moods less depressed less anxious uh etc etc now i always make this argument with quality of life if you have more energy you're in a better mood higher libido more drive you're probably more likely to do things like workout right you're probably less likely to to medicate self-medicate with food right this is what we tend to see and by the way i don't just see this with testosterone replacement therapy i see this with other medications when i would train clients like i've trained clients that were really depressed and when they went on antidepressant type medications they became more consistent with their workouts because the medication got them out of the depression enough so that they had enough of a motivation to come to the gym and so i saw this kind of like oh this is helping you do the thing that is really going to help you the most which is exercise right um so and so i could see why that would be the case same thing with glps people using glps lose weight a lot of people in the fitness space were like uh-oh nobody's going to work out or hire a trainer the opposite is actually turning out to be true people on glp medications are more likely to spend money on fitness which means they're more likely to work out more likely to be involved in fitness because the glp is giving them a little bit of motivation motivation because you're kind of losing weight. So it's a little bit more nuanced and cloudy than just, you know, the specifics of what we're talking about. So, uh, so that there's that, okay. Here's who testosterone replacement therapy is not for. Um, and this was a conversation I had with a friend of mine earlier. So earlier today I was texting with the, with a buddy of mine. Um, and, um, you know, he's, he, he was, he was commenting on how I've been looking lately or whatever. And he's like, it's gotta be, you know, the testosterone and stuff that you're on. And I'm like, dude, getting lean is like mostly diet. Like that's a fact, by the way, everybody knows this. Even bodybuilders who take crazy amounts of steroids know this, that you could take all kinds of testosterone. You'll just get bigger and more bloated, but you're not going to get lean. The diet is the lean part. And that's what he was commenting on was, uh, on my leanness. And I said, you know, if you knowing him, knowing his diet, knowing his lack of activity, eats that garbage, it doesn't work out. Like, I'm like, bro, if you went on testosterone, right now, you would just gain 12 pounds of water, bloat, and inflammation. And it would actually make your health worse because you eat like garbage and you don't exercise. So testosterone replacement therapy, and by the way, the best clinics, the best hormone replacement therapy experts, people who really specialize in this field, they make their patients sign a form saying, I agree to exercise and watch my diet. Yeah. If I don't, you can kick me out of the program. Well, and they'll know because I mean, they'll see it just like ours, like every three months, we have these check-ins with our blood work. And so if you're, if you're eating like crap and just taking testosterone, like you're just gaining a little bit of weight. Yeah. You'll see, you'll see negative markers, right? So you'll see, you'll see an impact negatively and then they'll 100% comment and reduce or take away from you if you're doing that versus if you are on the appropriate dose and you are making lifestyle changes. I eat diet and exercise. Uh, you'll see also radical, but positive changes in the blood work. Yeah. Otherwise it's like Dr. Tina said this really well. It's like you're throwing a gasoline on a dumpster fire. If you throw hormones at someone who's unhealthy, unfit, inflamed, and just doesn't want to change any of their lifestyle, adding hormones to that hormones can be a great, they can be drivers of aesthetic changes, drivers of, uh, helping your body adapt better to stress. Uh, like exercise, they can help with things like fat loss. They can help with cognitive function, but they can also drive a lot of other things like, uh, you know, growth hormone, which they would call, let's say a youth hormone in a pro-cancer pro-inflammatory state can just give you higher risk of cancer testosterone with a guy who's drinking beer and eating donuts and not working out. You just increase your risk of heart disease and cardiovascular events. Well, not to mention that that same person, since we're talking about people who this is not for that, that same person that may have gotten blood work and shown that they have lower testosterone levels would see a positive swing in testosterone levels simply by lifestyle. I mean, we've, we've had, we've had callers like this before. This is where I think another example of who this is not for is somebody who gets their blood work, their testosterone's low, but they also get four nights or four hours of sleep a night. Yeah. And they're over-trained and underfed. Yeah. And they, and they, and they don't eat good. And it's just like, there's a lot of opportunity for us to improve that naturally, uh, first. And if you don't, the dangerous part of that is it masks those natural signals. So you have to talk about how, why that's also important. It's like, so, cause maybe that guy does go and get on to start without, you know, taking heed to this advice. He goes, it's like, oh, my levels are this low. Who cares? I'm getting four hours sleep. I need testosterone therapy. He gets it feels much better. He's got a little bit more energy. Yeah. So a synthetic hormone, but the problem is he's still neglecting his sleep, which is so detrimental to his health. That's right. And so a lot of times we've seen these examples of people that are doing, taking a TRT, but it's masking other issues that they could have naturally fixed. And so always the recommendation is to try and address that. So I had this conversation, uh, with a family member of mine about, it was probably about nine, maybe, maybe a year ago, this conversation. Cause he, uh, he works out. So he does Brazilian jujitsu, his black belt, and he trains on average two to three days a week of Brazilian jujitsu. And then he'll lift weights maybe one day a week, depending on how much, uh, jujitsu he's doing. He also has a, uh, you know, it's a very successful guy, but it's a somewhat stressful, uh, job. He's a financial advisor. And so, you know, you work in that space, there's a level of stress you're dealing with when you're managing people's, you know, uh, retirements and their fortunes or whatever. Right. So he's also a father, he's got kids, the whole deal, right? Great guys, very close to him. Uh, great integrity, great guy. And he's always very cautious when adding any kind of a medical intervention. He's, he's extremely cautious. And so we had this conversation about 10 months ago. So he went and got blood work done and his number came back. His, his total testosterone was below 400. So it wasn't out of range, which would have been under 300, but he was like, you know, like, I think it was like, three 90 or 400 or something like that. And he's like, ah, he's like, that's not at a range. He goes, but that's kind of low. and I'm definitely noticing he's my age he's 47 he's like I'm definitely noticing that I just I can't do jiu-jitsu like I used to and I've got kind of lower energy and he's like like what do you think about this and so him and I talked about this a little bit and so he said let me see if I can raise it uh naturally again he's a very conscious guy about this kind of stuff and so he did he did a few things changed his diet changed a few things and his testosterone essentially went to four it barely changed it went to 450 and so he's like oh man all right he's like um let me try in clomiphene first so in clomiphene is a selective estrogen receptor modulator so this is a a drug that you take it blocks the estrogen receptor and it sends a signal to the body that says you need more estrogen and trust me this makes sense in the male body because a man makes estrogen from testosterone so what it does actually spikes your testosterone and he just wanted to see how he'd feel on this it wasn't that in clomiphene was his long-term uh solution but he's I just want to see what it feels like to have higher testosterone it shot his testosterone up to like 800 he's like dude I feel so much better I feel so much energy he's like I could go to jiu-jitsu I feel like I'm recovering uh he's like I feel kind of more motivated and he's like god he was like I don't know though man should I do this and I told him I said look I said bro I said you work out you work out all the time you're always consistent you do jiu-jitsu you lift weights you watch your diet because he does he doesn't eat garbage no I said you're not going to waste uh going on testosterone replacement therapy here's what's going to happen by you going on testosterone replacement therapy it's just going to improve your quality of life the things you like doing you'll be able to do more of you're probably going to work out a little harder as a result you're going to feel more recovered you'll have more energy and more drive you're the guy that I would say is it's you know it's probably good it's a good thing for you it's not that you were low that you were so low you need to go on it but rather uh it's just going to improve your quality of life is what's going to happen and you're and you're not a lazy dude you work out so he did he went on replacement therapy and he's very conservative he's like super conservative in fact I'm always telling him like try getting more see what happens but he stays real conservative with it and he's like this is he's like this is great he's like I go to jiu-jitsu I feel good my body isn't hurt all the time I have more energy I'm able to work out a little more uh he's actually more motivated with diet yeah than he was before because he's you know because of the way it feels to work out and stuff so that's an example of somebody that I would say uh is for it um and then I had my other buddy who does nothing and eat garbage uh and he's he's really overweight and he's like hey maybe what do you think would happen if I went on I'm like your health would get worse you would gain probably 12 pounds on the same day and you're on a scale uh a lot of it being bloat I know you you're not going to change your diet you're not working out unless you think it's going to be the motivation you need to do those things waste your time your testosterone's in the 450s you're fine don't do it it's not going to improve your quality of life and it actually might decrease your longevity so don't play for play with it so I have a great story since you went this direction today um my best friend so who is a year older than me um so he's 46 and he I've been I've been telling him the same stuff forever and he's got a very stressful job uh doesn't get the most sleep uh his his wife is a nurse who works double the time he takes care of both kids a lot of times getting him to all their soccer games waking him up getting ready for school like he's like super dad and works and does all the stuff and I've been telling him for any and he's been really he hasn't lifted since we we live together and stuff and I've he he stays in in relatively good shape for a guy our age who doesn't lift weights and doesn't really have a strong diet so he's he's he keep because he's so damn active can you watch this diet sounds like yeah yeah and he's and he doesn't like over over over he also doesn't like try and eat really clean right now either but he also is not like a like he's not the guy to binge right and that's kept him in in moderately healthy you know he's not by any means I would say super fit and he wouldn't say that about himself so I've been I've been harping him for the longest time and he'd always push back to me be like I feel fine I said well just go get your blood work you haven't done that in forever and just go get a test and go see and he came back in those numbers 350 to 400 I can't remember it was right under that so he's low but not out of yeah yeah and of course his GP tells him he's fine so and and so I continue to harp on him I'm like just you know consider doing this and I even offered to take care of it for him and stuff like that and anyways he had turned me down so many times well I hadn't seen him in like a month and a half or whatever he shows up to my house this was just like two weeks ago and he walks in and he looks good I can see his skin his face so bro you look really good he goes oh man I've been I've been working out he's like I've been I've been back on you know uh his wife and him back on their kick and they're and they're doing their thing and I said man you're you look like you're five five years younger I can just see it in your face he's like really and I'm like yeah yeah whatever whatever you're doing I can tell and he's oh well um I started the testosterone like a month ago I go oh how do you feel he's like well I don't really I don't really notice anything right and I'm like really and he's like yeah I mean he goes I feel good um but I never I never felt bad is what he says to me I've I've never felt like I had all these bells going off that I was way out of whack or off with that but um no I just I feel good I mean I'm consistent with my workouts I'm doing this I said you know what's funny is we don't realize how much um how amazing our bodies are at adapting yeah and so you don't even realize that you weren't feeling good that you weren't feeling good because that happened over 20 years 20 years of your life becoming more stressful and more on your plate slowly boiling the frog in the pot yeah and so you you don't but yet you're telling me right now you've been super consistent with your lifting it's also motivated you to eat better I can see it in your skin as you want you I didn't know he was doing any of that and so I could see it on you you obviously and this is only a month in I'm like you're obviously feeling and doing so much better but you don't realize it because of how much you had just adapted to what quote-unquote normal felt like I said and that's I said this is what uh true HRT should feel like it should not feel like and like this great like the steroid monster and you shouldn't feel like that like it you should feel good like you're describing and it's not this crazy over the top and he's working out and stuff too oh yeah that's so great yeah no he's he's doing great and but but it's funny because he doesn't even know he he can't even point it to the test. Postural replacement like he just how long has he been on it a month oh yeah give him give him two three more months well that's like dude this is I feel way that's what I said too I said it just keeps getting it'll just keep getting better because you're going to build more muscle you continue to get stronger and and that consistency of the diet I said but I think you just don't even realize uh how much you weren't feeling great because you'd I said and I gave him the example I'm all bro I bet if you asked your dad how he feels he would say he feels fine you and I both know your dad ain't fine. He's a mess right he's a walking mess but because he's allowed that to happen over 65 years of his life he thinks he's quote-unquote fine see that's that's so that's an example of how this there's a lot of nuance in here because for some people getting your hormones uh quote-unquote fixed could be the impetus to get you to start exercising to start watching your dad especially if it's low like if you're at a range. Here's the thing by the way if your hormone levels are below range oh yeah there are health risk factors with that yeah that's so so you know if the labs range it's let's say 250 and it comes back at 70 I've seen that before uh you actually have health risks associated uh with that with that and you need to get on testosterone no matter what and they'll get you up to a low normal type of deal but sometimes it's just that motivation that people need but again you know going on hormones and changing your body you're not going to be able to change your body you're not going to be able to change your body you're not going to be able to change your body you're not going to nothing about your lifestyle uh is actually not a good idea you're just adding fuel to an inflammatory state um and that's probably worse for you uh than what you're currently I'll give you another one that I think is important to talk about that is a bit taboo or people don't want to talk about but in my experience of being a trainer and having the opportunity to talk to so many clients that I've seen this before and after and I know you will have too but it's just like we don't talk about it but a lot of people don't talk about it they don't talk about it they don't talk couples at our age um their sex life after a kid or two is just it went from a thing that they all talked about their honeymoon stage where they had sex every single day and now it's a once a month thing or once every other week i can't tell you how many clients and friends that i have that i've watched that happen to and then how much uh hrt has radically changed that yeah and so forget the aesthetics the health and it's a thing about just the health of a of a marriage in a relationship how much i i've seen that radically yeah which by the way could go you could go the other direction too like uh you could have a husband and wife who aren't really aligned with their libido let's say he's a little higher than hers but they're kind of okay with it and then he goes on testosterone and she doesn't do hormone therapy yeah can cause problems oh yeah yeah so so it's an important thing to discuss with your partner because if you're if if your testosterone is low and you bring it up you will especially in the first few months have a dramatic increase in libido yeah a lot yeah you're right i think that's a good point um the perspective i think because i'm thinking of a couple people in in mind where uh the men had very high stress jobs and in poor diets they didn't train consistently had all those things and because of that they had low to no drive and because of that their partner suffered and i feel like this uh this happens more in the dark because it's less common that uh men are that way and i think the guy and i feel like women are are better at kind of taking that and handling that dudes are a mess when they if they're there they they want sex they can't have sex it's a it's a big thing they where i feel like a lot of women just kind of take it on the chin i have at least a lot of my female clients they would have they would have marriages like this and they can do it almost seems like they can just okay it's okay we can wait two weeks or three weeks but deep down inside it's not what they want and it's affecting their marriage and so i've had a lot of cases like that where men um their their libidos were just trashed because speaking of which you know in viagra first hit the market there was a spike in divorce rates in older couples which which typically you don't see divorce in couples who've been married for 35 years 40 years and then they saw the spike and they equated it to viagra because the the husband suddenly can function and wife's like excuse me we haven't been doing this for a while and i'm okay with that and he was demanding and it was this like thing that you would read about how funny is that isn't that interesting so make the same page so all right so here's we have a place that you can go to for this that's responsible also works with peptides by the way so peptides are you probably heard about peptides glps are peptides there's lots of peptides and and if you go to mphormones.com this is what they'll do they'll set you up with a lab a 45 minute medical consult plus you'll get your first month of testosterone or in clomiphene or vitamin b12 uh and it's going to be two and a half days 249 bucks that covers all of that so if this is something you're interested in these are medical professionals this is not you're you're not going gray market you're not doing weird is that with labs too everything oh wow 249 for the first month oh wow and then you're all set oh that's really yeah which is really cool yeah so anyway i wanted to i want to talk to you adam about uh something which i just did this morning so uh i i love i love the fact that we have a big staff now i really do for a long time for most of mine pump history we had like a small staff for a lot of it was just us just me no staff yeah justin and doug doug did everything and katrina but she was always not here so it was like the four of us and her silently at home and then we brought on some editors it was still small staff uh but now we've like all these trainers and we have a leadership team and it's just growing like crazy what's the last count what do we have 30 trainers now yeah 30 yeah well it's gonna be 32 right 47 employees yeah so it's cool it's really cool because uh like you adam you talk about leadership and leading teams it's just i i enjoy it it's fun yeah um it's super great to be around people um that are like-minded and uh i just enjoy it i really enjoy it um so much more than it was just when it was just us it was fun but it's even more fun now anyway we have and this is i love learning about stuff like this like where our employees will do things on their own together that's helping them grow into better people yeah i just think it's so cool yeah uh i think it's cool because it's like it's like team building uh i like to see if they have relationships with each other outside of work it's also a great solid example of um and i think every leader founder of a company is uh thriving is to create a culture and it's another example of a a definition of a good culture uh or or what you would call your leadership shadow exists when you're not around and you don't know in the shadows it's like uh does that does that culture permeate even areas where you're unaware of and stuff like that and if if if you have a good one stuff like you're alluding to right now that you're not even like oh my god i had no idea it's not like we didn't tell you to do this exactly it's another thing to be like instructed do these things it's like oh cool they're doing that it's another thing where they've made decisions to do and create and i love it i just it's the best feeling i was a part of this as a kid when i was a 18 year old kid 19 year old working in the gym industry i got to experience uh what it was to be in a culture that was kind of like that it was so impactful uh to my development it made me just i just loved it i just loved it i still even thinking about it now it was such a good time but anyway so we have some trainers that work for us that are dads so we have a lot of trainers again and there's a group of them that are that are fought their parents and they on their own have set up a zoom call every week they call it mind pump dads i just found out about this like a cool right and so on one of them i actually hopped on on one of them um i didn't really hop on i made a video that they got to watch together and i'm trying to make time to hop on it because they're they want me on there to talk about you know you know being a dad how do you how do you combine that with work and the responsibilities and all that stuff so anyway this morning uh i got a message from rob who's in the group and uh he's like hey sal he's like can you make this you know this time i know it's short notice for the mind pump dad's uh meeting i'm like oh i can't do it i gotta i'm actually doing something at that time so what he did in the morning he was like instead he sent me a video uh telling me what the topic was and he's like if you could have if you could add anything to this uh i think it would be awesome and so the topic was and i'll pull it up i think this is so freaking rad dude that they did this the topic was what is a mind pump dad it's like what is it what does it mean to be a mind pump dad like what are the qualities of a mind pump dad so here's some of the ones i wrote down and uh i didn't show them to you on uh or you doug i respect you guys both as his fathers so i'd love your your input on this so i mean i guess before you say it or you want to just say i'll just say it let me know if you want to add anything here so we've done seven things like what does it mean to be a mind pump dad i said number one leads his family by example so i thought that was number one i think uh uh i think back to the the best leaders that i ever worked under and they were the ones that led by example you know i imagine you're like you're in a war you got your general on his horse and he says charge but he's gone before you even take off like that makes you just want to follow so family follows uh when when dad leads by example number two i said works hard but not necessarily more or longer just no wasted time and i think you have to do that when you're dead yeah you don't got time to mess around you can't just hang out and do nothing you got to take that time and make it count number three plays with his kids i said that and that's just because when we had i forgot who it was we had on the show talked about the value of fathers and rough house and play with their kids i said number four loves his wife in an understanding way i said not that he necessarily understands her because he may never fully understand his wife we just love them in this way and i got that from uh biblical wisdom because that helped me a lot uh in my marriage um number five is disciplined and tempered a man who can't control his anger or desires is a boy number six serves others with a joyful heart and then number seven is humble he knows he is human infallible and gives the glory to others so those are the ones i listed yeah can you think of others what do you guys think of those yeah yeah i can think of a couple things um knows how to mentor and coach well um i think that the natural thing as a father sometimes to fall in this role of a disciplinary um where you're the one who just you you lay the law or you just go and you provide where i think uh giving your kid uh the mentorship and the coaching um is is a really important uh role for us uh i think nothing is i think uh kind of our our buddy michael smoke said something that's that's stuck with me um he said his dad used to say to him that you spell love t-i-m-e and so i think uh time you know that you just give them present um i think it's so important i think it's really easy as a dad uh again to fall in that um provider role which i think is so important um especially when you're a young dad like many of our dads are um and so there's a lot of a grind and hard hours and so it's hard to make time but i think that falls into one of the categories that you said that i think is so important which is like you can't you can't f around like it's like you don't have you don't because you have all this time you're gonna just throw away that's right you don't you can't uh video games and bs like scrolling yeah scrolling on social media um you can't be you don't have that kind of time anymore you're a dad you know and you and possibly a young man while also trying to possibly build a career and so if you made that choice to do that the one of that one of those things comes with sacrifices of the the bs time that you must because that time now is very valuable to your children and so i think uh that's so funny that you this that'll happen did you see what i sent to you that patrick bett david said i wasn't having a chance to watch it oh you should watch it okay oh yeah so it's really good i know i know doug hates when i try and play stuff but i'll play it into the microphone okay i'll play i'll play it in the microphone but i literally just did i sent you the patrick bett david one that he he read i thought that you would really like it and then uh especially since you have a you know a teenage son and a young one so you have the kind of generations he talks about and then i also posted literally today uh and uh in my story um uh our our good buddy who mentor family talking about uh he literally was what are the four things that make a successful father so i'll play the one uh i sent you for the audience and then we can watch the other one but here's at five years old your dad your superhero he's the strongest and cleverest man on the planet nothing is scary next to him not the dark not monsters not thunder you want to grow up to be exactly like at 10 years old dad is the defender he's the one you run to when someone hurts you outside when the bike breaks or when you need a yes for something that matters he's still a hero but he is no longer a magician you start to notice that he gets tired and that sometimes he does not know either but behind him it's still safe at 15 years old dad understands nothing his advice is old his rules drive you mad and his jokes are not funny you tell him you don't get me and leave me alone you are sure you are smarter than him and would do fine without him and you never notice how much your silence hurts him at 20 that is somewhere in the background you're busy building your own life with study friends first love first money he calls you and you decline with i'll ring you back later he texts and you answer in one word and every single day he waits for a simple hey dad how are you and he doesn't get that text at 25 it turns out he was right the advice that annoyed you works and the warnings came true what sounded like nagging was experienced all along you start calling him yourself asking and listening he was never behind the times he had just walked the road before you and he was trying to save you from the potholes at 30 dad becomes a person he's not a superhero or god he's a man who was scared who got things wrong who did not know the right way either he worked the job he hated so you could have a childhood and he kept his own pain quiet so you would never carry it you finally see him as he is and you love him more for it at 40 time is running out you notice the gray hair the slower walks he's been walking for a long time that's why you have to look at him from a different angle you have to look at him from a different angle you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different point of view you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective you have to look at him from a different perspective cleaning or doing one with that like dad dad come on let's do our lessons and so it's he's now i've trained him so much to do it and he looks forward to it now whether he looks for it because it delays going to bed an extra 10 minutes or not whatever whatever it's it's it's working and it's and what i do is every it's a short lesson it's always a very short lesson and they're near they're 10 categories that i actually use chat gbt to uh well i pick the categories and then i use chat gbt to help simplify it for a seven-year-old to understand and so i did you know lessons on family self-awareness confidence love discipline failure like so i picked 10 lessons 10 things so 100 total lessons and then every night i add one and then uh before i add the new one i start at the beginning and read through all all the other ones and it's now gotten to a point where he like before i finished the sentence that he he said so he knows what it is um interesting this is since we brought this up like uh made me think of something that is also really uh i thought was really fascinating so whenever you have these moments uh it's it's it's always neat where you see like yourself and your kid a little bit and there's been very few things he's only seven so and i can barely remember back to seven years old and so there's you know not there's not a lot of things that i go like oh that's me or i totally had that but he sparked something uh because of these lessons that i'm like oh my god like i've always wondered where that was in me and the fact that my son has that same characteristic is so wild to me because i figured it was some some learned behavior or something that i i did but the fact that he's got it and i know he didn't learn that from me he just has it an example that i've talked about it a little bit a long time ago on the show probably or people that have been listening to enough is like as a kid uh i liked being different which is not normal for a kid most kids want to fit in blend in yeah they want to blend in they want to fit in and i and i what i always attributed that to was i wish what i thought was we didn't have a lot of what everybody else had so like the idea that i was going to have the latest shoes or shirt or the thing that the other kids had was just like that ain't happening so lean into being so embrace it yeah so embrace it so that that's my how i think that's where that came from i'm not even sure i just that's what i've figured it was but my son is not doesn't have that example he's that's not him he's he could have whatever yeah right and so as i all of all the lessons and we're on like i think we're on like 60 something right now somewhere around there there's one that every time i uh i read he makes a big stink about i never do that dad and and it's it's literally like uh trying to act cool to fit in with others oh and i'm like right off the gate and and he's and it's the only one i told katrina this is the weirdest thing i'm like out of all these lessons that we read that he he listens to uh it's the only one that he makes a comment on every single time i said dad i never do that i would never that's not like and i'm like where does that come from oh wow yeah and i'm like how weird is that because i thought mine was because of my circumstances that i'm weird but i but now i don't believe that anymore but now i'm like maybe it was just in me yeah maybe it was because my son is not does not have any sort of the same similar upbringing as me yet has this strong and strong enough that he feels the need to tell me every time yeah i know i know son you don't do that that's so weird isn't that weird yeah it's all so uh i we just had something like this with my five-year-old because uh so it's not me it's jessica i see my wife in in him so my wife for fun she did this for fun when she used to travel with cirque de soleil so she used to work she was married before she was married to me and her husband was a performer for cirque de soleil so something for something like three or four years she traveled with the circus but she also worked uh for them so she had a job with them and and so you know part of that's how she learned how to do the silks she got trained by the best in the world and got to do all that stuff nonetheless for fun you know what she did for fun learned russian she learned how to speak russian and she did it just because she wanted to now a lot of the acrobats and the people who did the circus they did it because they wanted to do it and stuff uh who you know were part of the circus yeah spoke russian but they also all spoke french and english uh and but she just on her own she's like yeah i just i just decided i want to learn by the way i figured this out because when her and i before we started dating i had a massage therapist who spoke russian and i you know this is when i barely knew jessica jessica comes out and they start speaking russian to each other and i'm like and you guys know what jessica looks like yeah she doesn't look like she doesn't look like she'd speak russian no she just did it for fun and she also has a knack for language like um she's around my family who speaks sicilian yeah which is a dialect and my wife will understand oh wow and we'll and she'll say the words in sicilian with a decent accent oh interesting yeah like a really decent accent and she'll pick it so she's got a knack for language she's really good at it so anyway uh jessica uh it's been had this little program to learn spanish yeah for for my son aurelius and it's like his favorite thing to do he just wants he just loves it and i'm like it's you that's from you like he's got a knack for it he just wants to learn it's like his favorite thing he's like mom can we learn spanish like what kid wants to learn another language just for fun that's so cool it's got to be genetics right there no it has to be i mean that that it's blowing me away i've like told like remember i came in the room after he had done it like i waited until it was like the first time the second time i was like whatever it's like every time i'm like this is weird yeah i'm like of all and it was like of all i keep adding lessons and there ain't no other one that's the one that's the one when he gets bristled yeah when he hears you get so like i don't i'm like yeah i got it buddy i know what that feels like yeah and i'm like that is so weird because i was so adamant that way that like man which i'm it's i still haven't grown out of that i'm 100 that guy like who actually you me you and uh justin uh kind of have that in common we do yeah it's a shared trait i just assumed it was for different reasons and and to be totally honest i never really fully understood what he was saying it was like he was like you know i don't know what he's talking about but i'm like yeah i don't know what he's talking about but i'm like yeah i don't know what he's So I think it was a month ago you said you were going to start being really consistent with taking seed. I am. Okay. So every night you take it? Every night. So what do you notice so far? I mean, God, my gut and everything is – and again, it's hard to tease this out because I'm so dialed nutritionally. But my gut, my psoriasis, everything feels amazing right now. Yeah. I'm interested if it's impacting my sleep positively because it's now – because we're about a month in. I mean, I was literally leaning over when you were talking earlier just to – I hadn't checked my sleep score. I'm like, I'm on a nasty good kick. Doug, look up, do probiotics impact sleep quality? They probably do. I take supplements all the time. The most consistent supplement is my seed. And there was a three-week period where I didn't take it because they hadn't sent us some. Yeah. In fact, I was getting – I was getting frustrated, so I actually bought my own. For everybody listening right now, they send us free product. They sponsor us. I bought some. That's how much I like their product. Yeah, yeah. And I can always tell. Look at that. Probiotics can modestly improve sleep quality. So I'm trying to get to the bottom of some of the things. I thought healthy fats are probably playing some of a role. But I'm on a really good – I just came off of complaining about what was going on with my sleep a few weeks ago. And I'm on a really nice streak right now of not only a high sleep score, but also a high readiness score for me, which is really interesting. And I've already – like, check all the normal boxes, right? Shutting the TV off. I do my chamomile tea. I do all – I mean, I do all the other stuff. My magnesium. Like, I've been very consistent with everything. And this is always fun for me when I get like this because I do track a lot of things when I'm at this level. So it's really – it is. It is fun to try and figure out like, oh, wow, is that really making that big of an impact as I think it may be. So – but I've been 30 days or give or take a couple days very, very consistent with it. I wanted to ask you since you brought up seed because I have had a few moments though where I'm like, oh, crap. I forgot to take that. And I just ate something. Is it okay? I know I'm supposed to. Yeah, you're okay. So I know I'm supposed to. It's better on an empty stomach because the capsule is designed to go through the digestive tract and deliver the probiotic. To where it needs to go. Yeah. So eating slows that down. But you're fine. Okay. Yeah, you're fine. It's not going to make a huge difference. What I contemplated is like, oh, if I just ate something and I'm about to go to bed and I forgot to take the seed. It's not a waste. Is it a waste? Or should I wait in the morning and have it in the morning when I'm on an empty stomach? No, take it before bed. Okay. Yeah, you're fine. Okay. So it's better to do that. I asked them the same question. So I got a topic I wanted to bring up because I was thinking about this the other day. I was driving. I was driving early in the morning. Once a week, I'm going to this church thing. It starts at 6.15. So I'm up early driving and I see these dudes, blue-collar workers. And they're out and they're working. And I have so much respect for blue-collar workers. I just grew up in that with my dad, you know, doing that or whatever. And I'm looking. I'm like, man, these guys work so hard, right? They bust their butt or whatever. And then I remember having a conversation with my son where he was asking me how – how do you make more money than other people? Is it because a job is harder? And so I said, no, that's actually not what makes somebody make more money. It's how many people can do the job and how much people want that job to be done determines the pay. And so he's like, what do you mean? So I'll give you a good example. I said, a doctor is a very important job. And not very many people are willing to go to school. To be a doctor. So they actually make a lot of money. I said, but a professional football player makes way more money than a doctor because way more people like to watch professional football than go see a doctor. And there's way less people that could play at that level. So even though a doctor is a really valuable job and it's really hard, they make a lot less money than somebody who's playing a sport on camera. And so I think he got it. But I also like to communicate that to people because I think the average person still gets confused with that. They look at a job like, why does a school teacher make less than this person? Or why does that person make less than that person? Their job is, here's why. Although it may be a valuable job, there's a lot of people that can do it. And when you have a lot of people that can do a job, you're going to get paid less. This is my public speaking, by the way. If you're a really good public speaker, I don't care what field you work in. You make your pay. I don't care what field. You could be a plumber. You could be anything. If you're a really good public speaker, you'll make the most in your field because nobody wants to speak publicly. That's like the number one fear people have. That's a really good point. Even if it's a field like that. I don't care what field you're in. If you were the best public speaker on plumbing, I bet whoever that guy is or girl is making a bunch of money. They're making more money than the other plumbers. Yeah. Or the other, you know, whatever, shoemakers. I don't care what the field is. It doesn't matter. It's because we value public speaking, and nobody wants to do it. Market determines that. And so this is the thing that I think people need to understand when it comes to pay. This is a really good thing to communicate to your kids as they're growing up because it can be really hard. Because I'm looking at these dudes. It was like 5.30 in the morning. There's no doubt he works hard. And let me tell you something. Those guys work way harder than I do. Way harder than I do. But the difference is, you know, I'm doing something like this. It's not a lot of people can do, and it's got a high demand for it. So I make more money than the guy breaking rocks out there. And that's just the way the market works. Yeah, there's – I'm trying to think of how else I would articulate that, too. Because there's also, you know, to credit you, to be good at what you do, right? Because like you said, physically, you definitely do not work harder than them. Sure. But the mental work and discipline that you've had to put into – Sure. And practicing speaking. And you can't discount that. No. You know, it's not this back-breaking, laborious thing. 100% not. Sure. But the hours that you have sacrificed outside of getting paid. Right. Okay? Outside of someone paying you to do this, to get good at the craft that you have gotten good at, pales into comparison to probably – that guy that you're talking about, is – definitely works his ass off. How many hours outside of getting paid has he continued to improve or be better at that skill? Sure. But you can't quantify it that way. There's no doubt. Like, you can't quantify it that way. The way you quantify it is how high is the demand for that job and how few people can actually do it or are willing to do it. That's what determines your pay. Period. End of story. So when you look at CEOs – Yeah, but don't you think that even at the – like, using a blue-collar job example – Well, like blue-collar, you know how much money electricians are making right now? A lot. A ton. Yeah, because of the demand for it. Because we need a lot of electricians with these data centers, and we don't have enough. So I know electricians right now who are making half a million dollars a year. Did you know that? Half a million dollars a year. So the point that I was going towards, because it is a hard comparison, but if we were to play this game of, like, how – even that blue-collar worker, within that trade, that exact skill that he has, that he's doing, there is almost always an exception to the rule, too. Sure. Meaning, like, there is someone who is the greatest at that thing, and there's someone probably willing to pay, whether that be in the private sector or to teach others now how to do that. And to get to that level, there's a lot of work and effort outside of the 6 a.m. to 8, whatever time schedule you work, that you also have to work on these skills in order to garner – to garner that attention or demand for that. And so there's a lesson in that also. Yeah, there's always a skill, but there's – you can be highly skilled. You can be so highly skilled at something that there's no demand, and you'll make no money. No, I know. I mean, I'll – You can be the most skilled whatever. One of the biggest lessons, or fastest early lessons I learned in that, especially relative to, like, education degree and all sorts of that. So my high school girlfriend, she went on to Cal Poly, and she ended up getting her master's. And she got it in rec administration. She got a job with the Staple Center, with Los Angeles Lakers. This was during prime Kobe, Shaq era and stuff like that. So – and I'm a basketball fan, so, of course, like, I was, like, so fascinated to always talk to her. She's like, oh, yeah, I was having dinner with Kobe and Shaq. And I'm like, oh, my God. So – and – but, boy, did she work her ass off. She was there at the arena many times from 6 a.m., shutting it down until midnight, worked many weekends because events are on weekends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dog shit money. Yeah. Dog shit money. Yeah, why? And I remember being like, I don't understand. And she's – there is a line of people – Want to do – they'll do that for free. That will do it for free. That's right. That would literally – they're retired, they already made their money, and they're like, I'll do that job for 30 grand. Yeah, I just want to hang out with these celebrities. I just want to hang out with these celebrities and be around this atmosphere. This is why trainers, like celebrity personal trainers, oftentimes make not that much money. Because, you know, The Rock could ask the average trainer, train them for free, and a lot of them are like, okay, I'll do that for free. No problem. And a lot of celebrities and pro athletes – expect that because that that is the culture around that so i remember getting that i was like whoa i and in my mind you're around all these millionaires you're you worked you went you got this high education she you got to be making great no horrible money that's why i'd say when if you think this way and uh this isn't the only thing you consider with your career obviously something you love you got a passion for it's not just money but if you're smart and you have a knack for this and this kind of something you enjoy doing there's a huge demand right now for people who know how to maximize ai and can implement in companies do you know how many companies there are right now how many small to medium-sized companies there are out there that are like they don't have the time or the energy or the know-how to utilize ai to its max capacity and if you're some kid listening and you're like you know how to use ai to its capacity you could go to a company that's a moderate-sized company you know with like 10 employees and go in there and say hey you pay me for 60 days and i will blow your i will change i will make this so efficient so effective i know exactly how to use i i'll create agents and bots and things and they'll pay you big money to do this stuff because there's a demand for it a lot a lot of people that can do it so yes but also let me play devil's advocate with this because i find this really interesting topic one that i listen to and pay attention to i i'm deeply connected to within our own business we use ai in lots of different ways and i'm recently fascinated with uh this conversation i wish i could remember who the interviewer was that was interviewing hermosy now hermosy has acquisition.com a big part of their business is acquiring companies that are in the two to five million dollar range they've i don't know how many they have in their portfolio but they have a lot they they hunt after these companies because they have found uh that they could take someone who's in the two to five million you take into the 10 and then the the money they make off of that kind of selling is exponentially higher and there's a lot of common commonality the people that are stuck there so you're getting somebody who has not only been a very successful entrepreneur itself but it also gets an opportunity to dive into lots of different businesses called lots of different platforms and of course ai is the big talk everywhere everybody is either one attempting to use it are using it or feel like they're missing out on using it and like where and so and he goes one of the number one things that he sees within these companies is actually a waste of ai yeah and in other words they they they have found an area where they can implement it but it's not an area of focus that moves the needle in the business and so now they're building this ai thing out just because it's like oh we can build and so there's a lot of ai slop there's a lot of ai that is just becoming time wasting for a business even though the whole idea of it is to save time and to speed the business and that's exactly why somebody who is an expert at this could be so valuable for them because they could go in and be like no no don't use ai for that that's so stupid yes here's a couple ways right now we could you know you could do 30 hours of work in one hour work which is going to save you that on your payroll here's something we could do here that's going to increase your your ink your i mean i had this is really important that the the people that understand the ai side either also have a strong business brain or work very closely to a ceo or somebody who does have a high business acumen because i mean listen within our own business i had this conversation with one of our leaders who's building a bunch of ai's and they're like that is fascinating sophisticated and so cool and so helpful but the same person has a way that it could actually that individual impacts our business by thirty thousand dollars a month yeah now they now they're spending their time doing this now they're spending their time doing that and because that person on our leadership team has the luxury to do that that his pay relatively doesn't change that much whether he's focused on the driving the thirty thousand dollars for the business or he's doing it for the business or he's doing it for the business or he's doing it for the business or he's over here building an ai thing and this ai thing is so cool and so fun and is doing all these things it's really easy for someone to get distracted and move over there and i had had this talk of like listen i love what you're doing i love i mean i think it's so cool and so this but from from understanding from a business perspective you you are you are walking away or you're leaving thirty thousand dollars a month on the table to go build this thing and so that thing needs to be worth a quarter million dollars a year or more for it to be worth your time instead of doing this thing that you've already proven and so there's a lot of that happening in businesses right now where everyone's doing ai and everyone's selling you on how ai is so important and our businesses we're putting out all this stuff and it's like yeah but if it's if it's if you're focusing on the wrong things in the business it ain't gonna do shit for you so knowing that is important hiya is a kid's multivitamin it's not a gummy candy it's not a sugary thing it also has the nutrients that kids actually need this is why i love hiya it's the only multivitamin i give to my kids it's the only multivitamin for kids that we recommend here on the podcast and my kids love the taste it's got 15 essential vitamins and minerals there's 12 organic fruits and vegetables all in a clean formula that's non-gmo it's vegan it's allergy free and it's nsf so it's not a sugary thing it's not a sugary thing it's not a sugary thing certified so what the multivitamin says is in there is actually in there it's great a kid's diet needs those nutrients and kids diets aren't that great these days fill in those gaps with hiya go to hiya health.com slash mind pump that'll get you 50 off sorry 50 off your first order on any of their products back to the show our first caller is ben from california what's up ben how you guys hey thank you for having me on the show i've been uh watching you guys and listening to you guys for a few years now um i had a couple questions um i know on the show you guys have talked about shift work and how to manage uh your just personal wellness and fitness regarding that so i i work in the security industry here in los angeles and um i had my fair share of night shifts and going through all that now i work in corporate security so i don't have to deal with that as much um but i have a lot of friends that are still doing a lot of shift work and security and um my main question is how do you structure your workouts and set time aside for the workouts for your nutrition timing of all that while managing like a family like say like for me i had a newborn when i got into security work and it was hard to you know take care of the kid uh but also squeeze in my workouts in the mornings and uh just properly structure that do you guys have a solution for that there there are some strategies i do want to say one thing though because you look like you're a pretty healthy guy and thank you and uh there's certain things that become a higher priority in life when they happen and i'd say a newborn would be one of those and this is i think one of the reasons why you keep yourself a healthy fit guy for as long as you have is that you can afford to let that be a higher priority and hey man if i can get to the gym that's great if i can prep the meals that's great but you know so long as i make pretty good healthy food choices maybe get some good walks in be active as much as i possibly can at this season of my life i'm i'm winning the overall game of of health and fitness i think we're some young guys mistake it when when they get hit with fatherhood at this time is like they want to try and keep what they've been doing for the last you know say three to five years and be like i don't want to lose my gains or i want to keep gaining or they're so focused on that when i think we'd all agree that you know fatherhood is probably far more important than you know my six-pack abs or adding 10 pounds of muscle right now and especially coming from a guy you'd be different conversation if i was looking at you and i thought you're really unhealthy because then i think there's a responsibility as a father to be a healthy fit father to take care of his family but that's first i would say that now that being said um there's there's some some good strategies that i think we we all would agree and we talk about which is one reducing the amount of volume and training like a maps 15 protocol for a new dad and a new mom i just think is one of the best protocols to to follow and then you know if you can find a day during the week uh that you spend you know a few hours in the kitchen and that's your your meal prep so you got a good a good hand you don't have every meal prepped but if you have a solid meal or two a day that's already prepped for you really sets at least as really set me up for maintaining or being successful through these times when i'm kind of slammed with my schedule meal prepping uh actually helps with the schedule because um everything's ready to go so when you have that ability to prep your meal or make a larger dinner and save some of it uh it makes things a lot more consistent so that's really really when when time crunches happen things get busy meal prepping becomes more valuable when it comes to fitness um the i guess the the the way you want to look at it is can i do this in a way that improves the quality of my life so it's got to be that right so if it's making you more tired uh or if it's taking away from your ability to do the things that are important because you're sore you're exhausted you're fatigued you feel burnt out or you gotta leave yeah then it's not then you're not doing it right so it needs to improve the quality of life and there's a few things that you manage around that uh two of the main ones are uh well three of them are intensity volume and frequency so intensity is how hard you work out volume is the total amount of work that you do and then frequency is how how often you work out the first thing that you manage when things are getting difficult is intensity. That's the one that you want to manage the most. So you can get away with workouts when they're easy. It's actually quite hard to get away with workouts, even if they're infrequent and they're really intense when you're under a lot of stress. So intensity is one, volume is second, and then frequency is last. And so what it looks like sometimes when things get really crazy is every day you do 20 minutes of something, but it's short and it's easy. And then the way you judge it is, do I have more energy for work? And do I have more energy for my family? And if it's giving you more energy, you're on the right track. If it's taking away from those things, then you need to adjust what you're doing. And so that's the game that you play with the added stress of exercise, essentially. Yeah. It's a season of life. So, you know, as you get through this, it's really about preserving, you know, what you're doing. Muscle mass you do have, you know, maintaining a healthy physique and just, you know, being there for your family and creating opportunities where you all move together. And, you know, that would be my focus. And that's where my head would be like all the time. How can I be energetic and how can I be helpful? And so, you know, with that, you know, you can support that with your training. You can support that with your nutrition. You can do a lot of the prep to really help your family. So, you know, working in that direction is going to be the best focus. I see in your question too, you bring up optimizing like hormones and stuff. Have you had blood work done to see kind of where your hormone levels are? Yeah. Yeah. I've had blood work done even recently. And it's just been with a typical doctor. My everything, testosterone was normal in the high 600s. My sleep was doing okay. And then recently kind of took a tank where I did some sleep. I did some sleep apnea tests and stuff, multiple. And they said I didn't have any sleep apnea, but I've just been chronically exhausted throughout the day. But my levels of testosterone are still high. So something's just off because there was a time where I wasn't sleeping well and I've, you know, it got dangerous in the freeway and I have gotten in a car accident before. So that's one of my concerns right now is trying to figure out what that culprit is and what I should look into. You know, it's, it could be something specific, but it could be something more general. Like you, you're, you know, you're a 27 year old father, husband with a kid and a job. Yeah. And so you just got all this new responsibility, uh, placed on your shoulder. Um, and so that's a lot. And so that can affect, uh, our sleep and, and stuff like that. So not abnormal. Uh, but in those situations when you're exhausted, the last thing you should do is work out hard. And that is something you can control. Yeah. Uh, for sure. Right. Right. Um, and then I have a question. So I have friends that are still in the security industry that were in previous positions that I was in. So the security company I work for has, they have a fitness qualification test that you have to take, I believe twice a year. And it's pretty intense. Um, for those people that are going through that, that are going to similar things as me, the night shift work and kind of easing off of the workouts, what would, uh, would I just, would someone in that position just have to set aside their wife and their kids saying, Hey, I need to set more time to sleep and recover for this test, uh, fitness test. And then once it's over, I can kind of come back. Well, if it means you lose your job. Yeah. What's the test entail? Yeah. What's the test like? What are the, what are the parameters? So it's based off of your age. So I had to run a half mile and three 30 or less, uh, do 60 pushups and then I think it was, um, either a three minute plank or a 65 sit-ups and a go and then five pull-ups. Yeah. And this is, this is like back to back. Yeah. You would train specifically for the test, but look, here's the deal. It's funny. I had this conversation with, uh, I made this joke the other night. Uh, my wife, my, my wife and the kids were talking and she's, you know, and the kids are like, mom, you make our house, you know, so wonderful and this and that. And then they're like, you know, what do you do, dad? And I said, well, if it wasn't for me, we wouldn't have a house. So everybody started laughing. So the bottom line is you have a responsibility. So if you fail your test and you lose your job, well, yeah, that's got to take priority, dude. Like say, how do you, how else are you gonna take care of your family? Yeah. So then the conversation is like, honey, for the next 30 days, I'm going to train so I can pass this test. Cause you could tell, by the way, those, those parameters right there, you could move that needle pretty quick on those. I mean, unless you're like, unless you're like super out of shape, like 30 days for a guy like you, you know, uh, you, you should be able to get that. Honestly, just like really focusing on rest leading up to that would do you wonders. So yeah. Right. Right. Cool. Yeah. That's it, dude. Are you Ben? Are you, are you training in a maps program right now? I'm not. No, no. I'm, I'm slowly transitioning to a home home workout situation right now. So, uh, cause I have, I have a newborn actually coming in the next two weeks. Yeah. Another one. So another one. Yeah. Second one. Oh, good for you, man. We'll send you a maps 15. That's what you need to be on. Yeah. Maps 15. You can run it at home or the gym. Uh, and, uh, that's a good, that's a good protocol for where you're at, man. I appreciate it guys. Thank you. I appreciate that. You got it, dude. All right, man. Congrats, dude. All right. Thank you guys. Take it easy. He's got a good head on his shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. He looks healthy. Young guy, young dad. He's 27. He's got two, he's got two kids here soon. I mean, look, your workouts have to make your life better. Otherwise what the heck are you doing? Well, any speculation on the, why he feels so tired, exhausted, all those things. Yeah. He, he's working his butt off. He's got one kid. He's got one on the way. I mean, I think, I think, uh, I think some people underestimate, um, you think just that, you know, it's cause it's a major shift. Well, I, I think too. Um, like I remember, I remember you guys talking a lot about it, uh, to me beforehand. And like, I remember thinking like, I was so worried that I would, my performance would decline. I knew how important fatherhood was for me. I knew how much I wanted to be a present father, but then I also had such ambitious goals, business. And so that, and so, and you, you guys always kept reaffirming that, like you find this new gear, you're like, and it's not like a thing. You even have to have a conversation with yourself. It's just kind of built in most of us. And you don't realize that like he, he, he may be running at a different gear that he has no idea that added pressure or constantly thinking about it, you know, which will also keep you up at night or give you poor sleep. And so, you know, sometimes it's one of those things where it's subconscious. You don't even realize that you just get this built in added pressure, but you may not think you have pressure because like, I got a good job. I'm doing these things, but it's just like, no, there's this, this internal thing that you have. Yeah. I have a whole new level of, I gotta, I gotta succeed or make it. Our next caller is Zahira from Vancouver. Hi Zahira. How are you doing? Hi, great meeting all of you. Same. How can I help you? It's surreal actually talking to all of you, but I just want to for everything you do. You've changed how I view fitness. You got me out of orange theory. So I have to thank you. You've also saved me money. So I appreciate it. So I'll just go ahead and read my question. It's just easier. I'm writing in for some advice on programming maps, routines around a structural imbalance and while on a pre-wedding cut. So my stats and goals, my body composition, I started at 31% body fat and I steadily worked down to 28% over the last four to five months on a mild cut, taking breaks for vacations, things like that. And then I'm looking to continue it over the next couple of weeks, kind of lock in before my wedding, reach a target of about 25% body fat. And my lifestyle is pretty active. I do a lot of multi-day hiking. I, my last one was five days in Northern BC. I dance once a week. I ski a ton in the summer or in the winter. And my physical issue is one of the questions I have. So I have a mild scoliosis, which causes me to pull noticeably more on one side, fairly recent but explains a hip injury from a back country hike 10 years ago, which has led to a lot of hip discomfort, pelvic torque, and a unilateral SI joint compression. It worsened really badly after my last hike, and it's become difficult to release without physiotherapy support. And whenever I attempt heavy bilateral loading, so even trap bar deadlifts, back squats, my lower back and SI joint area are killing me for days afterwards. So my main questions, which changed a little bit because I wrote the question, a month ago, is programming. I'm, I was currently running map symmetry. I just recently changed to maps 15 because I got a surfboard to the face and I'm healing from that, which is why I have the black eye. But how should I tailor during my calorie deficit so I don't compromise recovery or worsen my SI joint when I go back to map symmetry? And then my long-term program planning after symmetry, what should I go to next for someone with this problem? And then I have to think about how I'm going to do this type of issue with the pelvic twisting and SI compression. And can I ever realistically do full body barbell compound lifts, or should I permanently be doing unilateral or more tailored or specific movements? And then wedding prep. My wedding is in early November in Fiji. So I have to fly there. Is cutting until two weeks before the best way to lean out? I'm doing a pretty minimal cut at 300 calories a day. My protein is pretty high. It's like 1.5. My protein is pretty minimal cut at 300 calories a day. My protein is pretty minimal. I'm not really as strict as I could be. That's why the first cut took such a long time. And so how do I do i look peak for the wedding week while maintaining my sanity my maintenance is about 23 to 2400 and yeah that's that's it you're doing a great job you are doing a great job is that this november yes like in six weeks okay yeah i mean i like a small cut like a small deficit i should say stopped about two weeks before i think that's perfect as far as workouts are concerned you know conventional wisdom says just you know unilateral work but here's uh where i disagree with that because the real world involves a lot of bilateral work as well now you what you said is it hurts it hurts when i go heavy when i do squats or deadlifts so i wouldn't stop the bilateral work but i would go light enough to where it doesn't hurt in other words i don't want you to lose the skill of doing those movements you just go light and you just practice the movement and when you go heavier you do it on your unilateral work or your split stance work does that make sense yeah that makes sense because you're going to lift things you're going to push things you're going to do things in real life that involve both arms and both legs uh and with scoliosis here's the deal the compensation is not a bad thing you have to have compensation because of the mild scoliosis so i would keep those exercises but go so light and you have to play with this but you go so light we're like okay this is really light i'm doing it and then the next day you're like i feel good that's about where uh i'm going to stay for a little while and what you'll find is you'll actually get stronger it'll take a and avoid hurting yourself symmetry is a great program for you uh so you could stay there as long as you want that's one of those programs that's so well balanced uh that i don't see it being one of those issues where you got to come out of it um i think it's great i agree the only thing i'd add is like uh as you're going through those reps to really emphasize you know the hardest part of the rep and and hold there so do do some pause reps like really like increase tension so we're just trying to build up the ability to recruit more muscle fibers and to you know summon that when you need it the most uh so you're just you're really training your body and your neuromuscular system to really like you know come through and and apply that force when you need it the most so yeah keep it light but like really increase that tension that muscular tension as far as calories and cutting and stuff like that just curious you seem really active do you know like how many steps you're taking a day um i mean if i'm not hiking it's normal it's like eight to ten thousand like ten is a good day eight is a normal day okay yeah one of the things that you can do as you're like leading up to wedding time is just try and increase those regular days and then i mean if you already kind of do these hikes keep that don't change any of that but then like okay if a normal day is like eight try and make that 10 for a while and then try and make that 12 so slowly increase like just daily activity through walking and movement um and even if you have to get on a treadmill or elliptical for a half hour hour uh since we're cutting for a wedding like i would do that to you uh as you're also in this kind of like two three hundred calorie deficit that should lean you out nicely as you as you come into the wedding time yeah and just you know i think you're doing good uh there's there's this huge risk with getting ready for weddings uh that a lot of people fall into both men and women it's a big hustle where they they go real hard to look their best for their wedding and the rebound is unbelievable not only that but also you know as you probably know planning a wedding can be very stressful and you know exercise is stress and so learning to manage like how much you know intensity you go inside the gym when like it's been a rough week of figuring out who's sitting with who in the tables and you know i'm saying like understanding that about yourself like if it was now maybe it isn't maybe it's been super easy and light and awesome for you and that's like awesome then you can get after the gym but just being mindful of that of like when there's a lot of pressure pressures and stress that are not physical maybe more mental family stuff like that uh be mindful of that when you're in the gym that's not the time to be ramping it up and trying to push extra hard in the gym yeah i don't recommend planning a wedding in fiji it's incredibly stressful but i took your advice and i did start um back in august of last year i was on a bulk so that i could go on to a very like easy cut um so i appreciate that advice and i'll just i'll continue maintain increase my steps uh one last question i have then just around the adding in some barbell movement if i'm doing symmetry would you say to then sprinkle it into the phases of symmetry or just continue with that last phase where it's all barbell but keep it light that's right yeah you just exactly run it the way it is and by the way too still with someone like you i you know when we're in that last phase of four weeks of bilateral work if you're not feeling good i would kick you back uh to some of those there's nothing wrong with yeah there's nothing wrong with going right back to you like if like but if we're feeling good and we're we're doing appropriate weight and and i'm like awesome let's keep it going but if you if you i was training you and you showed up on week three uh or week two of our final phase of symmetry and you're like oh man out of my si joints talking to me i'm like hey we're we're doing bulgarians or lunges today we're not doing squats you know so that i would i would adjust so feel free to pivot back to some of the unilateral work and replace of the bilateral work when you you don't feel good when you feel good run it run it the way it's laid out and then start it over again awesome well thank you i really appreciate the advice and the help and once again thanks for everything the advice you've given me so far we're listening to your podcast has gotten me to this point so i'm very appreciative awesome congratulations congratulations thank you you got it bye the the there's this power lifter uh who's one of the strongest pound for pound deadlifters ever small dude with such scoliosis his body's crooked oh really and he pulls off the ground he pulls weights that you're just insane oh i didn't know yeah yeah you have to i don't know what his name is i don't know what his name is the the post-wedding rebound is the worst rebound i've ever seen ever well yeah they put the horse blinders on and it's like all 100 nobody cares it was like these are the pictures i'm gonna look at for the rest of my life i don't care what happens afterwards and then spite of oh and i think part of it is what i was alluding to is that you know you you do everything you can at all cost to get that low yeah so you you know and we've been talking about this lately about you know when you're when you're stressed and your body's not responding the way you want and so it's just like oh i need to do more cardio i need to cut more calories and you just you keep doing doing more and more just to get smaller smaller smaller for this wedding and it's just like man you show up wedding day and you've been starving for the last few weeks over stress like crazy then you're like and you eat the whole wedding cake yeah lamar gant i think is his name let's see look up a picture of this guy i think that's who it is yeah there he is oh wow and he's got really incredible scoliosis but he's a strong one of the strongest pound for pound deadlifters in history 525 pounds at a body weight of 123 pounds and he's got a really incredible scoliosis but he's a strong one of the wow so impressive our next caller is hayden from canada what's up hayden how you doing hey fellas how we doing good man how can we help you yeah thanks so much for having me on uh really appreciate your time i'll i'll just get right into the email like a lot of the callers do so uh my name is hayden i am 32 years old i'm just under 5 foot 11 i'm currently weighing in between 230 and 242 pounds i'm a former competitive hockey player who played competitively until 20 years old following my playing career i shifted focus to getting my finance degree and then a law degree during this time i also became a u18 triple a assistant coach in hockey which led me to what i am now which is the head coach of a u18 triple a team and a lawyer working in-house for my municipality coaching is my true passion but it brings me great stress and anxiety as well i've also been through the identity shift of being a private law lawyer and shifting to an in-house job to ensure that i could coach hockey uh the past seven years i've been a private law lawyer seven or so years have been incredibly taxing on my mind and body since i stopped playing competitive hockey at age 20 i have really struggled to find purpose in the gym and i've let negativity get the best of me but i've finally found a genuine enjoyment and going now i've been diligent all summer with my strength training and now i would really like to cut body fat and this excess weight my goal is to get to 210 pounds and engage if striving for 200 pounds is an appropriate goal in the future i'm still built like a hockey player with very muscular quads my chest and shoulders are muscular and my stomach is my greatest aesthetic hurdle my biggest overall hurdle is eating i grew up in an italian family where the mentality was if you are not stuffed keep eating i would say it's the one dynamic in my life that i haven't been satisfied in my performance i use food to deal with the stress of my professional career and my coaching career over for the past two weeks i've challenged myself to make mindful decisions such as grilled food over fried food amongst other adjustments i'm also on an alcohol cleanse until christmas time for the reasons i don't fully understand i find calorie counting to be hard on my psyche which is why i've shifted to mindful eating during the hockey season i'm on the road for two for games two weekends out of the month on average which makes eating properly difficult i'm making proactive adjustments to get mindful meal orders in early so that i know what to expect i've been going to the gym three to four days a week so i've been on the road for two to four days a week so i've been on the road for two to four days uh lately our routine is legs push and pull days we do incline treadmill for 20 minutes to start and then we shift into two compound lifts before heading back to the office uh rec hockey season is also back recently so i play for fun and i would say i play on average once every week and a half depending on my coaching and travel schedule i'm looking for guidance on how i can attack my weight loss goal in a healthy way for a long-term benefit and hayden when are you gonna start doing something with your life you gotta get busy you're uh so i'm not worried about your workouts at all right this is all diet uh so there's a couple things we want to i mean kind of i could say something about them i mean he's got a lot on his plate well let's let's we'll get to that but let's talk about diet first okay let's start there okay so and i come from a thai family i totally get it and there's this look there's this i there's this idea in the fitness space that you gotta eat perfect food is fuel but that's not real life uh real life we enjoy company when we eat and we celebrate things when we eat so i'm gonna ask you what are the important meals during your week where you're doing those things or do you have like a sunday dinner with the family do you like tell me about those meals where you want to enjoy yourself with your friends and family so sal i'm like i bought a house in my neighborhood uh my childhood neighborhood um and my um my my parents godson bought the house next to them like we're creating little italy over here that's so cool so so i would say like i'm i'm probably eating at my parents house at least once a week sometimes up to three depending on uh me and my brother's availability um so it is very important my parents are very supportive though they know i'm trying to make these mindful adjustments and my mom's great at kind of shifting some of the recipes to to accommodate that um but then i also do have a 91 year old nona who you know calls me and guilts me in the coming over and there's a lot of butter and oil in those meals um but also too that time is very precious and important um so i'm not punishing myself by cutting back on those those family times i'm just really trying to shift into mindfully taking what i need and not more trying to eat to 70 percent of maybe what my max would be um but again i would love your input i got it for you dude so this is that hard okay so so you're obviously a disciplined person uh i'm obviously because of your competitive background the work that you do you have discipline so here's what you do uh you go on a meal prep and eat uh what you make all the time except for when you go eat with your parents and then you just eat whatever mom makes that's it honestly and even then i just say just like we still recommend still try and eat the meat the heavy meat first before the pasta and all the extra stuff and you know don't eat until you can't breathe uh i know that we were we were brought up that way so you just eat and then you're satisfied you stop but honestly if it's the one to three days a week when you're eating with your family if those are the only times where you just kind of eat for enjoyment and connection and every other meal you're going to eat until you can't breathe is whole natural foods protein first uh you're not eating anything out or whatever you're not eating garbage you're fine bro you'll see yourself get leaner no problem yeah and so that's the way you got to look at it the problem becomes when you have the meals with your family and then when you're on your own and you go eat the garbage or you go eat out or you eat the other stuff or you eat the dessert that's when it becomes an issue but if it's like you're with your family and that's the time when mom makes your food you come out you enjoy yourself have a good time again don't eat until you can't breathe but you eat and you enjoy yourself if that's the only time you do that and the rest of the time it's meal prep it's protein first whole natural foods you're gonna lose weight you'll get leaner dude so the the other thing that i'd want to peer into that this is where i chimed in because i i know somebody like you who is a high performer ex-athlete and i'm assuming you don't have little wussy workouts either and so learning to modify that like it's not like you eat like a horse one day and then you come back and you're like i'm gonna kill it in the gym all the time when you got all this stuff going on with work and uh the hockey and you got a lot so like a maps 15 type of protocol to me is a better type of protocol for him it sounds like that's what kind of you're doing though right just two compound lifts yeah so i i honestly i credit you guys with a lot of my approach i've just been trying to self-educate by listening to the podcast and and try to find the the similarities and the connections to other people that you've talked to um to your point i i made a very conscious effort to get out of punishing myself hit workouts and you know during covid for example i was one of the few people that lost a ton of weight because i was doing six hits a week because we were stuck inside and it was just it was the only thing i could be competitive with um but now that you know life's normal again um i am just trying to work with you know my my gym partner who again very lucky he's a lawyer as well he's also a hockey coach there's a lot of relatability and connection there on a personal level but just doing the the 20 minute incline walk to get warm to start that warm up and then just really prioritizing quality over quantity and doing you know the two compound lifts for the the squat and then the push day and then the whole day has yielded um it's it's been great because i find i'm getting a very comfortable amount of sore but not so sore that i can't get back the next day and then even on weekends i find i'm more excited to go for hikes like i live in northern british columbia there's beautiful uh trees and trails everywhere here so my girlfriend and i do that um so it's i have kind of taken like i don't have maps 15 but i have taken that you know less is more approach so that i can consistently get there awesome well let us give it to you so you got it so you got one we'll send it to you yeah let's send that to you but it does sound like you're doing a great job dude and it sounds like you are like a recovering uh athlete athletic training guy where you're getting after it yeah so but i like what you do it's everything for you dude so if you meal prep if here's your rules okay whole natural foods so nothing that is not whole natural uh except for when you're with your parents and your grandma and you're doing the family stuff then you can do whatever whole natural foods 50 grams of protein per meal eat it first that's it just follow those two rules if you're really strict with that which you can do because you're disciplined and then when you go to mom's house or nonna makes you something you enjoy yourself a little bit don't eat until you can't breathe but you just enjoy yourself you're gonna lose weight you'll lose weight it'll happen one last thing to peer into hey just because uh you know i know you got the hikes i know you're in hockey on a day let's say like a normal lawyer day work day how sedentary are you compared to the other days like our is is there big drastic swings and movement and activity and steps like do you know how much you swing um yeah so like it is a sedentary job obviously working in-house in the office i mean i would say uh you know it's there's not a lot of movement in the office um i do get i found that the lunch hour workout's been the best thing to make sure that i'm actually do it mornings were okay after work was just a hard no-go um but also too now that you know the hockey season's back and i'm playing i'm also coaching so there's a lot of movement around the and you know skating around and talking to my players and and doing that so i'm getting good movement and also too in in the summer i was golfing quite a bit i was probably playing one and a half to two rounds a week um which i don't cart i specifically chose a course that was really good and could get me like seven day ten thousand steps depending on how badly i was playing yeah um and and that that paid dividends as well i mean this summer for me the goal was really just work out and find that base and find the love and enjoyment for for being healthy and in this type of environment and do it in a way that's going to be sustainable and now that i feel like i've achieved that and i've got a good support system it's just like like sal said i think it's just time to shift into uh the food part um i think the rules or the standards that you've uh stated with whole natural foods uh was one and 50 grams of protein a meal i think is something i can definitely attack without it feeling like a punishment i don't know what it is about calorie counting that's always been demoralizing for me um and and i i can't explain it so what you suggested sal is is a totally reasonable uh alternative well you manage already so many different things now you're just going to manage every calorie and i mean that's that's why it feels that way dude yeah and also you grew up you know like i did uh food is uh is connection it's enjoyment it's an you know we suddenly turn it into this like homework and well then it feels like punishment yeah so that's it just those two rules and then when you go to mom's house do your thing and i you'll you'll see your body fat will drop naturally you just got to stay strict with those two rules when you're not uh with your family and remember that remind yourself of that like what's the what's the value of really enjoying my myself of food it's when i'm with my family when you're by yourself it's not the same that's hedonistic that's gluttony when you're with mom and dad and family it's connection it's a good time it's totally different yeah and that just builds off of what i've done like i'm not doing drive-thrus anymore unless it's just to get a coffee like a black coffee that's it like it's it's a hard rule and it hasn't been punishing it's been great um so yeah no i'm very excited uh to look at that maps 15 program i was kind of wondering if we would be going down this path based on some of the other discussions you've had with other callers uh my only question um if you don't mind is just do you guys have a source um that i can go to just to peer into the different whole natural foods and which ones are better to prioritize than others like just to kind of get a real good gauge of what the hard hitters are is it an intuitive intuitive eating guide has that i think we have a whole natural food guide do we have that too yeah we do we got so much shit yeah we have so go to uh i think it's mindpumpfree.com and there's a whole there's all of our guides are there and we have a whole uh food guide that's on there so you can check it out but off the top of my head uh all your meats are good uh cooked vegetables are good and i think it's a good rice potato um those are good sources of carbohydrates you probably want to i think we've done some good episodes that are just too yeah we have a guide see dylan just pulled it up yeah a whole food guide so go to mindpumpfree.com and go ahead and download it's totally free and then just steel steel cut oats are those okay or yeah yeah yeah it's totally i mean the only the only foods out like sometimes people say bread that's not really a whole natural food it's a bit processed so i'd stay away from bread um you know cook like Nuts can be an issue because you can eat the hell out of those. So maybe stay away from that. but otherwise it's like, it's pretty open, dude. Hayden, just, I don't know if you've ever used it, but askmindpump.com is our AI tool. And if you actually input like any questions that you have, it'll not only answer it like it's one of us, but then it'll also link episodes where we've talked at length that stuff too. So use that as a resource whenever you don't have access to us personally with that, like askmindpump.com is a really good resource. Honestly, don't overthink it with the whole foods, you know, hit your protein. So you're going to have some kind of meat in there. I mean, just real quick. Sweet potato, yams, rice, quinoa, oats. Those are like five. I would rotate through those five, all my meals right there. And then meats, I mean, go bananas. Beef, chicken, lamb, fish. Beef, chicken, lamb, tri-tip. I mean, if you're eating whole foods and you're eating those types of carbohydrates, you can still enjoy a tri-tip, a ribeye every now and then. You can enjoy ground beef. You can enjoy meats that you love and go for those 50 grams of protein from that and with those carbohydrates and then throw in whatever greens, things you like. If you're a broccoli guy, a green bean, whatever, just as a filler and fiber, like that's, that you stick to those, you'll be good. No, it sounds totally reasonable. I really appreciate the insight. I was kind of felt like this is the way we were going to go before I jumped on. So it's nice to have that clarification and then the green light from you guys. So I genuinely appreciate it. And, you know, just from one coach to another fellas, like I've had the privilege of speaking with, you know, Canadian college coaches, NCAA hockey coaches, AHL, professional European, all the way up to NHL to seek guidance on things to do with my coaching career, hockey mentality structure. And I, it's just, just genuinely grateful to be able to meet the top of the fitness world when it comes to, to coaching and for you guys having me on it, it means a lot. So I thank you. - Appreciate it Hayden. Thank you. You're doing great brother. - Take it easy brother. - Keep it up man. - Take care guys. Thank you. - Yep. - Doing good. - It's just like you said, you nailed it. - Yeah, dude. - How cool is that, bro? - Yeah, dude. - Yeah, dude. - I know. - That's so cool. - That's so great. - That's so cool. - That's so great. - Brother living right there. - Now the only thing is, so he's not married, right? So the challenge is gonna be, 'cause he had a girlfriend. - Oh yeah. - When he gets married, then you know, mom's gonna wanna come over. - Oh bro, I mean, I know. - No one knows, got the business. - I'm married into that family. - It's a hard sell. - You know what though? Like he doesn't have a kid yet, right? So, you know, and so maybe if he listens to this, that was life changing for me, right? - Yeah, 'cause you got all the help. - He had the help. - Yeah, so be patient with the woman you choose when she's like, this is crazy. We have to be with your mom three days a week. So maybe pump the brakes a little bit on that for her. And then when the kid comes around, she'll appreciate like she never did. Like that was for sure me. - Our next caller is Sydney from Tennessee. - Hey Sydney. - How you doing Sydney? - Hello. - Hey. - How's it going? - Hey, good. First, I just wanted to say thank you guys for all that you do. I found your podcast at the end of 2020, right after I got my period back for like, it'd been gone for like 10 years. So yeah, everything you said just reinforced, you know, everything that I needed to hear at that point. So, yeah. - Awesome, how can we help you? - I'm just gonna read my email. So I am a 34 year old female, five feet, four inches, 150 pounds. And I've been strength training with a barbell since 2021. I've been lifting since 2018, but just dumbbells before then. So I have four kids. Most of them are 10, six, three, eight and 18 months. So I really wanna get stronger, possibly leaner, but it seems impossible right now, just with how busy things are. I have several of your programs and typically run the 15 style workouts because I have maybe 20 to 30 minutes in the morning before, you know, I have to do something. So my PRs are deadlift is 235, bench press 125. I think it's like 130 now. Squat is 200, overhead press is 90. I eat around 2,000 to 2,200 calories a day. I'm a big weightlifter. to like a match 15 power lift and watch how much stronger you are in your lifts and so that's a good way versus just staying so myopically focused on the getting heavier on the squat or deadlift that's how you get hurt you know with everything yes right do you think it's okay to like only do the 15 style workouts like yeah a hundred percent that's why we made so many of them a hundred percent yeah it's the most appropriate like for the average person who's got stuff going on like you it's it's you know 90 percent of your workouts are probably going to look like that and they'll be the best yeah yeah there's that 10 of the time where you might be able to sprint but the rest like most of the time but that's what it looks like and it's gonna be like that for a while it's all about the right dose i mean if it's working then that's the that's the plan and so yeah that's why we kept uh different variations just to keep it interesting so you can keep going that yeah that like that path okay that's helpful last question um i really like wine but not like a lot you know like it's like a half a cup four days a week do you think is that like hurting no no what's it hurting no no no i mean yeah it tastes really good yeah i'm sure you're enjoying it with your husband you're hanging out yeah no like what are you gonna trade for that so you have a glass of water yeah okay yeah yeah cool go for it okay yep all right awesome that's that's it doing great yeah good job you're kicking ass well thank you i appreciate it you got it all right bye yeah good for her i mean talk about winning bro you know the whole comparison game it is oh that's what's happening and i i hate to you know what happens my my temptation with the comparison game is to play the comparison game like oh cool you did a three and about well do you have four kids that love you but that's still playing the comparison game it's like who cares yeah you got your family you're doing your you're doing great you're fit you're healthy you're strong um enjoy it yeah now you gotta own it i don't mind playing that game for on our from our perspective of of communicating it it's it's hard for the average person to not do it even if it's subconsciously right you can't help you're hanging out with your your three girlfriends two of them are crossfitters and they're talking about their prs they hit this week and you can't help but go damn i'm lifting too why am i not why am i not doing those things that's why it's so important to hang out with people that are in the same life stages well yeah exactly there's also aside from the kid thing that we brought to there's also the genetic part there's some people that were built uh i mean i i don't care how much i train obviously i've proven my discipline and training and dieting so that like justin would just wipe the floor of me in crossfit like he's built to to beat me at something like that uh get in the pool with me and i'm gonna get him you know i'm saying but it's like that's what i was built for so like you have to also keep that into you have to keep that in perspective that it is true right i'll be like sinking yeah just like i get just like i get buried on a 300 pound snatch over my head i can't tell you how many dms i get of like overhead pressing where these guys are like oh my god i'm gonna get a four or five hundred pounds like thanks guys yeah it's like like yeah there's always gonna be somebody that's that's killing it yeah and there's but there's body types and that are are made to do those things better than than others and so it's just like yeah you can't that's why i only ever work out people weaker than me yeah that's a good strategy if i don't work out with you that's why we fire all our staff i told my staff yeah we warned them you're fired we start seeing 400 pound squats go up over here i'm like hey you know you're getting close right you're about to get served yeah good look if you like the show come find us on instagram it's mind pump media thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to dramatically 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