2979: What Pilates, Yoga, Running and Swimming Do That Strength Training Can't

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 history approaching over half a billion downloads. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we had callers call in and we got to coach them with their health and fitness live on air. But this was after the intro. Today's intro was 55 minutes long. Now in the intro, today we talked about Pilates, yoga, running, swimming. We talked about strength training, nutrition. We also talked about current events and family life. Look, if you want to be on an episode like this and get coached by us live on air, send your question to MPLiveCaller.com. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is MPHormones.com. 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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 Pilates, yoga, running and swimming. We're going to talk about their unique benefits. What's special about each of these practices and how can they benefit you? If you need them, let's get to it. Yeah, let's go. So, um, so these are specifically picked because each one of these does offer a unique value and it's unique value that you might not be able to get in other forms of exercise. So this is not a, we're not going to talk about like which one builds the most muscle, which one burns the most body fat, you know, which one is the best for overall, you know, athletic performance. We've already talked about that ad nauseum. Uh, you know, we've talked about the studies and our experience about aesthetic changes and all that and the best forms of exercise for that. It was not the best for that. No. Or if, you know, if you enjoy it, do it because that means you'll be consistent, you know, type of deal. I want to talk about the specific benefits of each of these and I'll start with, uh, Pilates. And so I was having a conversation, uh, with my wife the other day and it became, I became painfully aware of a muscular, of a region of the body, a musculature region of the body. And I was like, I'm going to region of the body where I am just, I'm the least knowledgeable about this particular area. Like I know general musculature. I understand, uh, dysfunction. I know how to train and do correctional exercise. I'm not a correctional exercise specialist, but I'm, I'd say I'm pretty good. I'm okay. Better than the average trainer. Yeah. And I can identify certain things, but when it came to pelvic floor dysfunction, I lost in comparison to someone who's an expert. I am lost. In fact, I don't even know how to identify certain types of pain. I can maybe point to the pelvic floor, but I couldn't necessarily point to what we would do necessarily or how to train it. I'll have to defer to an expert. So I was having this conversation with my wife because we were talking about somebody that we know. Uh, and it turns out this was, this was the area that this particular person was in. And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what this particular woman needed to strengthen and work on. And there were specific things that she was doing and it was helping. And my wife said to me, she goes, you know, it's really good for a core function and pelvic floor strengthening. I said, what? She goes Pilates. And I'm like, what? So she starts explaining to me, cause you know, my wife at one point, uh, she did a lot of yoga. She did some Pilates. She was, uh, she did, you know, she, uh, trained in the silks. And so she was with all these kinds of artists that did these different forms of exercise. And she said, it's not necessary. It's not necessarily the movements that's part of it, but rather the way that they have you hold your body and your position, the way you have, they have you, uh, connect to your core and to your deep core musculature while doing certain movements is really good for pelvic floor strengthening. This is why a lot of women find value in Pilates and why they say, Oh, it makes my back feel good. It makes my core look good. Uh, is because this is an area that oftentimes needs to be addressed, especially if you've had kids, especially if you've had babies. I think really, yeah, it's the connection. It's, it's really to one of those techniques that like you can feel your way through. Um, and yeah, for everything I've heard, uh, is along those same lines is like, you know, a lot of times there's a big disconnect there, uh, and you're not getting them to respond and your core really isn't, um, you know, as, as optimal as it could be. And so, you know, I've had clients that have gone and kind of supplemented Pilates in between our sessions, which has actually kind of helped supplement, uh, you know, the weight training as well. I would, I would make the case and argument also for just overall connectivity and mobility. Um, you know, there's a lot of good, uh, stuff that you can do as far as like stretching that people do. But one thing that's nice about Pilates is that you stay connected to these in ranges of motion. And so you're, you know, supporting your body weight or somewhat on the sled and with the cables. And so, you know, you are not only you working on these kinds of dynamic movements, uh, through full range of motion, you are working on connectivity through that also, which there's lots of value to that. I mean, we, uh, you know, we talk about it all the time, like, you know, flexibility without strength is instability, right? So you, that you want to be flexible, but you also want to be strong and connected through that. And Pilates does a good job of that. It's not like you're just resting on the muscle and just, or on the joints. Yeah. You're adding resistance to it. And so, um, it may not be the best form for building muscle, but as far as somebody who is looking to connection, flexibility, mobility, um, I think it's great for that. Yeah. So, and she was telling me specifically, she goes, it's not these big Pilates classes. She goes, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about real traditional. There's like four or five people in a class with an instructor that's walking over to you and they're instructing you on how you breathe, how you hold your core while you're moving. And so the focus is very different. Like when I train someone, I'm looking at skill and technique, or I'm looking at them concentrating on particular muscles we're trying to develop. And Pilates is like, no, hold this here, breathe here, move this in this position, hold your breath, breathe shallow. And she's like, it really engages. Well, this is where it's the determiner, whether or not it's valuable for me, because yeah, it's all the instructor being able to communicate and translate that to the, to the client. So they actually understand how to manipulate and hold position and activate and tighten and tense where they need to. Well, we talk about this all the time, which is class settings in general, right? I mean, class settings could bastardize. Strength training, which we talk about as the ultimate form of exercise, right? The ultimate form of exercise is strength training, but you can quickly bastardize it by throwing it in a classroom of 20 people doing circuit training and body pump shit. Pilates is no different. You know, this, you're talking about the technique. You can't get coached when there's 30 people in a class. Yeah. Yeah. You can't coach to very specific. And that's not to say that somebody who just like with, you know, weight training in a class, I could take a class in weight training and modify it to myself, like, and no, and slow down the tempo and rest intentionally and get some value out of it. The average person, not so much. So you can make a case for a person experienced in Pilates, like say your wife, for example, could take a Pilates class, probably gain a lot of value from it, even in a class setting, because she understands what she needs to do through that. And so I, just like with strength training, I would highly recommend somebody take a more intimate setting. I mean, the, the ladies that worked above us, I know they received a lot of training. I mean, they, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, but that's how they were structured. Yeah. It was one, it was one-on-one. Yeah. One-on-one is the best. Yeah. One-on-one Pilates. It was one-on-one. So it was designed that way. It was not designed to have five, six people going at a time. It was one person. No, people are doing 30, you know, 20 or 30 or 15. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. No, no. And I, I mean, I, and that, and that, and just so that people understand now you're closer to just a cardio class. You're just moving. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no, you're losing a lot of the value. I mean, I was thinking back, I was, I was having this conversation with her. I was, I was like, you know what I had, I remember specifically certain clients I had where we couldn't figure out why they kept getting, why they kept hurting. And I would strengthen their core and we would do core movements and, you know, they would get a little better and we would work on other stability movements and they would get a little better. This was all postpartum. And it wasn't until I sent them, to a specialist in pelvic floor. Like what did I know about pelvic floors? Oh, Kegels. Cool. Let's do Kegels. And then let's do proper core exercises, which, which by the way, proper core exercises, just to defend myself, does a lot of strengthening when you're doing it right for the pelvic floor. There's a lot of that's engaged. Just like if I did squats, my hamstrings are involved. And, but if I have dysfunction, if I have a recruitment pattern issue right i you could do all the squats you want if you've got a really bad recruitment pattern issue unless the coach really knows how to make you move in the right way you're just going to strengthen follow you and you're going to strengthen the bad pattern that's right and so this i had a couple clients they went to a specialist and they came back and then the back pain got much better and i'm like you know what this is an area i know very little yeah i know i remember you brought this up as like it would be great if you know that was sort of a mandatory thing they promoted uh after you know postpartum if physical therapy physical therapy it's very valuable address that because it really is a such a common uh issue going then then on out in terms of like being able to have access and activate and connect to the core no hundred percent all right yoga um now yoga is now this big umbrella term that means like so many different you know forms of yoga but i'm going to talk about the uh traditional forms of yoga and then i'll talk a little bit about yin yoga so traditional forms of yoga you're doing your sun salutations you're doing the classic poses but you're very active in these poses what i mean by that is you're not just relaxing in the pose when you go to a good yoga instructor they're telling you like make sure your energy is going out in this direction and push out and press out here and point in this direction really what they're doing is they're giving you cues to stay active to have those muscles be active in these particular poses this way it's more of an isometric than it is actually like a resting again on the joint that's right it's isometric stretching and and that's great for uh mobility it's way better than just holding a stretch that's for sure yeah it's really good i mean it's again frc kind of took that to the next level with kin stretch but yeah that really is the main concept if people uh you know used it in that fashion and didn't uh just try to get in positions passively yes uh they would get a lot more benefit and then yin yoga is holding long stretches now i could see the value of this for someone uh who is just chronically tight and needs to feel better needs to get that parasympathetic system to kick in but here's the real value of yoga no form of exercise uh trains breathing like yoga 100 yeah with the with the focus on we're all so guilty of shallow shallow breathing or just not look i'll tell you what as a trainer i never focused on bright i'm breathing except for when i'd get my clients to do like heavy lifts and was more of a just had a brace yeah i didn't focus on breathing till i did yoga i took some yoga classes like i think i'm missing out on something here that's when i learned how to belly breathe and how to like fully diaphragmatic breath and all that stuff and it was because i took some yoga classes you could literally attribute like any anxiety yeah escalation to like for me it's really it's the shallow breathing you don't realize like throughout the day you're just kind of you know really like hunched over and just barely even breathing and that's a client i think who benefits from this tremendously is somebody who has a ton of stress and bless you did you see i was like i was trying to i didn't pass though uh you know a client that carries a lot of uh stressful job um and like i've had many clients like this i've trained a lot of type a personalities um and high achievers and it was like many times i had to reduce volume and intensity prescribe something like yoga and it did wonders for this client i mean this client uh got so much and it made sure the tight the obvious things like someone who's really tight and these deep stretches but i really think that there's just in today there's not a lot of times where we take an hour out of our day to detach from phones from technology focus on breathing i mean that in itself i mean just just the the the meditation aspect of that you get from kind of yoga i think has tremendous value it allows that meditation because you're focusing on yeah the rhythms of your breathing but also to the position and so it's like it's directing something completely uh with all your focus which totally alleviates a lot of that they'll teach you how to breathe uh out the back of your throat how to breathe uh with shallow breaths uh how to breathe at a different parts of your diaphragm which sounds kind of weird but um and that's because none of us really ever practice that we all kind of just breathe which of course you just breathe but uh your breathing tells your body a lot um your breathing can tell you to tense it could also tell you to relax i remember the first time i learned how to teach someone how to belly breathe i've told this story before i had this woman lay on the floor it's very stressed uh you know high stress job type of deal she came in she had some back pain that was kind of hard to figure out and i'm like i wonder if it's her breathing because that'll affect that'll affect like mid thoracic tightness and neck tightness that'll affect all those things and so i'm like you know i'm like running down the list of things i'm like let's try this so i had her lay on the floor and we did like four or five minutes of breathing and i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like five minutes of belly it actually took me a while to get her to figure out how to belly breathe once she did she started crying i'll never forget i'm sitting there she's doing this and then she just starts to cry at least she starts to cry and she rolls over on her side like she turned away from me and i'm like i don't know what to do you know i'm like sitting like oh my god what what is going on and and thankfully thankfully i had a trainer that was very experienced she was a yoga instructor and she looks at me and she mouths to me it's like essentially that's normal i'm like okay it's not me i didn't do anything wrong so i'm like i think you're having a release yeah you know what's common in yoga classes you know what's common crying is a very common thing that people will let out emotion why because they're breathing yeah they're fine tongue their body you know back to to talking about my type a clients another thing is i'm reminded of is why i really like this too is i remember like um because i wasn't like this big like i wasn't like a huge yoga fan at first uh with recommending it with clients i remember these type of clients that they need i needed them to take a break in the day is really what it was yeah and focus on breathing and kind of meditate and i was like and telling a type a personality person to go meditate is actually really difficult every once in a while you can find they'll do yoga they won't last they they need they need instruction they need things i mean i think justin's talked about this before with his personality right that's one of the reasons why you like cold plunging it's like a it's like this outside force that forces you yeah to do this thing to breathe carly like sit justin or a client like this and i'm talking about in a dark room and say sit indian style and meditate it's just like get the f out of here in five minutes i got empty your mind yeah yeah just not happening but they they give them instruction and they have something to follow and they're focused on it and they're breathing and then they get that relief and so i did start to realize that like oh okay this is kind of a hack for a trainer like okay i need this client to really decompress i need them to stop doing things that is like so stressful in their life i can't get them to meditate because they just they fail at it they're like adam i can't sit steel for five minutes it's ridiculous okay if i put them in this class where that gives them things to do that are instructing them they can follow instructions and do that and then that seemed to work really well totally all right let's talk about running so what's the special value of running well it's not stamina it's not endurance yes you get those things but you can get those things in other ways as well running has a unique value because running is one of the most fundamental things that humans can do we're actually made to run well equipped for it i know it sounds crazy coming from you know a meathead on the podcast i'd love to talk about strength training its value for aesthetics and all that stuff but it's true if you're a strength trainer you're going to be able to do a lot of things if you look at our anatomy we have these huge knee joints we've got these huge glute muscles we're on two legs we've got this really big achilles tendon we've got this muscular foot and humans really fit humans who've been running for a long time we've got good skill and good technique they can actually outrun almost any animal a lot of people don't know this but there's a race and i think it still goes on where it's a horse versus a man it's a distance race and about 50 of time a guy wins against a horse now we're not faster than horse but we can outrun in terms of distance almost any animal we're made to run and here's what happens when you don't run when you stop running you lose a skill yeah you totally lose a skill so like me i stopped running when i was like 15 i stopped playing games and stuff asked me to run now and it feels very awkward and now if i want to get that skill back it's going to take me a year or two of practicing so the value of running is just retaining the skill of running this one's uh close to home top of mind for me right now as i've been on this kick and journey now for i don't know how what i'm coming up with on right now i think i'm coming up on a couple months now of like uh slowly scaling my activity level and my steps and as i do anytime i do like a body recomp like this and uh i've i think i brought this up on the podcast how how fascinated i was with uh how slow of a speed i had to walk even like that like because i i can recall back to days when i was competing like how how fast how fast i was walking on the treadmill that i would consider still a leisurely walk but i remember the speed at which i was doing it and then i remember getting back on it i remember kind of go like first time i got on i went to go right to it i'm like i couldn't do it i mean like literally i could but i was like all over the place and like i feel my hips talking to me and i'm like oh my god like i gotta i gotta regress and i just and i think that's walking and so and this is this journey for the last two months and it literally was this it was three 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 four and i'm at four two now pretty soon you have to jog so yes and so but it's like it's been this process of getting there and you know the the skill of keeping up the the jogging and the running and this is why this is top of mind for me of like okay after i kind of do this recomp why i want to make sure that i maintain that skill is i also see the carry over in just the rest of my life i move faster to yeah like you know me i i track diligently like crazy right so you can see this very clear line of just my total calorie burning activity and nothing's changing in my patterns other than i'm just just kidding i'm moving faster and more frequently and then that carries over in how i move the way i get up out of this chair and go the rest room is different today spring yes yeah you have more i can i and i can i can measure it and see it and it's fascinating to me to see and because it creeps on you like i like i don't feel like a i'm like way out of shape or deconditioned but it's just like that's over over time of not running and not doing that not only have i kind of lost the skill but then i also notice how i've slowed down everywhere else in my life and just regaining that back i'm already noticing what acute and then let's forget about the skill of the running and the benefits of that just like just being a normal person in today's society like giving me some more metabolic flexibility it's like man i my calories would be so low because even with a walk and a workout my steps and activity was so low burn was so low i'm just now getting a place where i'm like i can and eat a sufficient amount of calories and stay in a kind of a deficit but it's because i had to get my movement my activity my speed at which i move all just happened kind of naturally yes it's funny yeah i don't talk about a lot but it is something i'm always like reintroducing like incorporating because of some of the things you guys have already mentioned but you know obviously the skill of i want to be able to move fast and have the ability uh and to keep up with my kids you know that's a big thing with me uh and also you know bits of the the uh you know conditioning endurance and that kind of component but uh really it's like the strength training on the feet and for me it's like i noticed a huge difference of how flat-footed i am uh if i'm not really training and being on my forefoot and being springy on the pad uh you know of my feet and therefore that definitely translates to then being a little more effective in my workouts totally yeah after this recomp i've already decided like i'm gonna keep in and eventually progress to a jog which will eventually progress to sprints yeah and then it'll just be something that i want to keep in there on a on a regular basis and it gets me outside and i still and i just want to make it clear on this because sometimes it sounds like you know obviously we do these tips and we're talking very specific about this um you know in the pursuit of body recomp losing by the strategy at which i did is is the correct strategy still it still is this like no we're speaking about the skill of running right right and then there's great side effects for stamina endurance right when it comes to like body comp change aesthetics and there's a there's faster and the reason why i say that is because i think a mistake that most people would make that were are in a similar journey as say what i was in falling out of like say you're not in your best shape you want to get in better shape is to go right to running and it was like there was no high skill thing yeah it is it's a high skill thing it it's not going to get me to my goal any faster i'm on the fastest path to getting to where i'm trying to go right now by just manipulating diet picking up activity getting a little walking walking a little bit faster walking a little strength training yep and strength training being the core diet being the the main mover and then slowly increasing activity and then and then now speed endurance and stamina and stuff will come on later but then at that point i'll have the physique that i wanted to build i'm gonna go build that physique and then i'll start to add that's what now which would be awesome is when i go to add that stuff on i'll also get to increase my calories even more to support that extra stamina running because i want to maintain the muscle that i built so that still is the correct path and me just getting right into trying to run would not have been a smarter strategy yeah all right last we have swimming now one of the unique values of swimming is of all forms of cardiovascular exercise of all the forms of exercise that are great for cardiovascular exercise and that's what i'm talking about right now for cardiovascular fitness endurance and stamina swimming has the best longevity it just does you could do it forever i mean it is low impact easy on the joints it's easy on the body this is not true for any other form of cardiovascular activity now some are worse than others or should i say some are better than others but none is better than swimming i had clients who were in their 70s who were super fit they did strength training with me obviously that's tailored to them strength training is very good for longevity it's just technical you need to know what you're doing but if you want something for stamina the pool or a lake like swim it's easy on the body easy on the joints very low risk of injury in comparison to other forms of cardiovascular activity and it was always one of the number one forms of cardio activity that i would recommend to a client who liked to swim had access to a pool i'm like just do that you won't hurt yourself and you'll get great stamina oh i i love just the attention to the posterior chain that you get inside there too oh yeah with your your yeah what form of i mean rowing would give you some yeah rowing would give you some of that um but man the swimming is so dynamic swimming is so dynamic uh and and the fact that it does hit the posterior chain like that and like you said at any age you could do that i mean i'm like so envious of somebody who has access to like a good olympic size pool i really enjoyed the kick that i was on when i was doing that it was like if that had something close to me that was convenient it would be something that i would pick back up i had a lot of fun um learning the mechanics i never actually really tried to practice that what that looked like uh picking the mechanics it's one of those things too here's what's awesome about swimming it's very technical like the difference between someone's fast and not fast is this technique but with bad technique in the pool the risk of injury is still relatively low oh totally like bad technique with running is injury you're going to hurt yourself yeah bad technique in a swimming pool you're just slower that's right you're just floundering like and you splash a lot that's it so you might make a mess and you are slower but the the i i don't think i actually i can't recall a client ever getting hurt yeah i'm sure somebody has no but there's always there's always exceptions of rule there's there i can think of an obvious reason where somebody has got something impinged or they have an a previous injury and then they take them i could see where it could happen but i've never had i've never had a way lower never had a client that i recommended swimming to and they got hurt too i had plenty of clients who wanted to run or took up running or did something like that that instantly got hurt yeah totally or or even even forget being hurt just chronic pain came up like almost everybody i know that takes off running eventually feels chronic hip pain ankle shin splints like get all the longevity like i never heard that from any of my clients that swam never came back with chronic pain problems or injury stuff that's right that's right all right i gotta tell you guys a story about um our partners at mphormones.com vita bella okay so uh and this is just a testament to the founder uh and this is one of the reasons why we work with them just for people listening so this is a company that does hormone therapy and peptide therapy and i was so impressed with what phil vella did so phil is the founder so he's running this company he's running this big company he's got employees super busy guy uh and he did something that i'm just like so impressed with so uh they they service i think almost every state in the u.s if i'm not mistaken i think 46 i think i think like alaska they don't ship to alaska there's like a couple but every pretty much every state they ship to super fast service all great california can be very difficult california has its own regulations very difficult and there was this like there was this hiccup with certain peptides like bpc 157 was one of them and suddenly uh they weren't able to ship to california so they're kind of hustling to figure it out and they're you know they're taking care of it it's going to happen pretty quick but phil gets on the phone this is the founder calls every single vita bella customer in california personally personally himself that's all right i don't know how many calls he made but that's got to be a lot of people yeah personally gets on the phone and calls every single one himself and takes care of them then i recommended somebody to him and he said hey i'm gonna send you to them and she gets on with their medical professional she's like oh they're great service i love the prices blah blah blah she's like uh but i was trying to call the guy back he didn't answer after a couple times and no big deal i was waiting phil calls her back she's like i got a call from the founder i'm like phil she's like yeah i'm like what is this guy like not sleep yeah you know but the service is just through the roof i mean it makes me feel so good to hear stories like that like uh i mean we hadn't talked about it in a long time we talked about it when we were going through it um i don't remember what the total uh interviews i did uh to get down to vita bella but there was a lot um i know it was north of 20 somewhere probably around 30 different companies uh that i had you know hour-long zoom calls some lunches multiple meetings with people i mean it came down to like two or three towards the end and so it was it was quite a bit of a work to get down to who we went away and we were very skeptical we almost walked away from even doing the in the peptide space um and hormones but we know there's so many of our clients uh that need the service and so it was like we got to find somebody and um i don't know if i shared this on air when we did it or not but you know we we uh actually did not uh we wasn't even the uh third largest offer that we had so it was no we turned down money yeah we turned down a lot of money for companies because the main focus was if this whoever we partner with they've as a the founder the leader of the company has to align with us they've got to be somebody who cares about the service side first because that we just can't afford to have a company like that i don't care what the dollar amount of the money is and so you know i felt really good about it when uh we initially did it it's been really cool to see the stories and then he's like uh his business model is incredible like they the the prices that they're able to charge are so low in comparison to i mean yeah everything else that's out there i mean and he's he's put it he's pieced it together the business model so that it works but the guy is doing a phenomenal except exceptional job again the fact that he called everybody well it's it's huge because a lot of people don't understand too uh the the peptide space and you know you get customers that get really frustrated they they they expect a a service like a normal company yeah and it's not a normal industry it's much like what i always talk about like an amazon delivery it was very similar to the marijuana industry and what i mean by that is uh that state by state laws and regulations are different and they're ever changing right now and so you've got you've got government people lobbying one you know lobbying one direction you have states that agree to this and disagree you've got pharma companies that can't service certain things run out of their regulate like i mean it's just there's all kinds of red tape it's it's it's still this is growing new industry and so what comes with that when you're trying to build a business in that and you and you want to pride yourself on service and getting it as quick as possible to people the inevitable is going to happen and so and some people just get so irate and pissed off as soon as like something doesn't work out and it's like the fact that he's been able to manage that with all i mean part of why he didn't want to come into california like he only came into california because of mindpump yeah because we said if we work with you you got to service california we're in california yeah a lot of customers and we we know we have we have i mean we have an audience worldwide but we have a huge audience in california for sure probably i think that's our number one state is that our number one state yes yeah it's our number one state and so you'd be doing a massive disservice to not service our number one state and so you know telling him that that and so and he was just like man i don't want to mess with california that he was willing to do that for us which is also part of what closed the door for us and so i think that's the deal was just like okay he's willing to do that i know how much money he had to put up to make that happen and all the loopholes he had to go through just to make that happen so it's been cool it's been a good ride we're getting ready to renew for our our second year with them and so i'm excited to continue the relationship with them have you guys uh tried using creatine the way you're supposed to when you're sleep deprived have you guys tried it yet is there the right way i assume is yeah after after i have like a poor night's sleep you take like 20 minutes like 20 grams yeah 20 grams or grams yeah right so and that's what the data shows it it uh and i'm sure cumulatively it will stop working but if it's like one really bad night of sleep it'll erase the cognitive uh you know the fog yeah so we can measure sleep deprivation with cognitive tests it'll erase them with great team i felt that i know i did experiment with it because i come back yeah from uh flying out to alabama and i was just like oh dude it works does it it works like i had horrible sleep last night i needed all the help i could get and i'm like i know i'm tired i know my body by the way it doesn't erase everything so i'm not telling people you can't like just sleep little and take creatine but i'm telling you guys like i've taken 20 grams today and i noticed like a big difference doesn't the uh doesn't the infrared sauna play a role in this it also helps it resets your circadian rhythm right i think i remember talking to ben greenfield years ago about that and him saying like that's like a hack is like so i i wonder doing the combination of that when you have like a really poor night of sleep get in this get in the sauna and then and then make a dose of creatine i didn't have time today because i yeah you know woke up and i guess i woke up we ever have these nights where you wake up at like one then you wake up at three two then you wake up at four then you wake up at 4 45 and i'm just like dude what is i had all a string of those like for the last like two months i'm just finally out of it but yeah it was bad it's so frustrating constant so frustrating that's i i mean i know my thing is that i'm just like i'm just if we if i talk katrina and i know that if we talk business before bed that's that's me every night yeah i just can't there's nothing i can do to get it out of my head i have to get up i have to write it down i have to put stuff on and even then it still haunts me because i'm still replaying it in my head thinking are you able to fall asleep and then wake up or you can't fall asleep no just like you described it's like a every hour yeah yeah and then and then and then as soon as you wake up it's normally because i have to go i'll go to the bathroom or whatever that and then that the business thought or the conversation i need to have or whatever and then i'm like oh whatever it is is like just replaying in my head and it's just there's nothing i can do to like get rid of it it's the worst oh but it helped the creatine helped big time yeah i feel way better yeah i think i want to what i want to do is is to try the two of them together like that is to do the the sauna and the and then the the mega dose like that and see if i can feel and i have to divide my dose up so i can't do 20 grams at once if i do it's diarrhea like yeah yeah i can't do that so you got so i'll do five grams gastro i'll do five grams every hour so it takes me like four hours before i feel so i haven't formally measured this so i am like that if i do the gummies if i do the row one oh yeah i can i've taken a big giant shot now i haven't i gotta measure it to see exactly how many milligrams i'm doing because i've been just pouring it in those little i think it's those little dixie cups but it seems to like settle on me yeah we have people say that yeah it helps yeah because i the the if i'm taking gummy or the traditional like powder form powder will give me the runs yeah i i can't i have to do it in the like five milligrams at a time and then i just do it multiple but the the the row i've been able to just i know yeah so i wonder if that has something to do with that i think it does yeah so i just learned a stat the other day that's kind of wild uh do you okay so if i tell you guys you'll know the answer to this if i tell if i ask you guys what's the number one selling book of all time bible yeah by far right yeah did you guys know it's the best selling book every week every week period end of story you know they don't even put it in the charts because it it crushes every week it's just every week forever still every week it's the top selling book in the world no yes every week it is not consistently consistently you can't tell me that it's it outbeats like when i launch of like some yes really worldwide it is the number one selling book weekend week out they don't put it on list they don't put it because it just they just they put it out because that book it just crushes when you look at worldwide oh yeah top selling book always i just learned this the other day yeah that's kind of that's fascinating isn't that crazy i mean because it's i obviously i know that it's the number one selling book always and i'm sure that there's many many times where it sells more than any other book does but i would think like when a harry potter release comes out and it breaks all these crazy records that for that week harry potter wins i would think but maybe no we're talking worldwide too so remember consider this like other places in the world where they're just yeah consuming them and coming in churches are buying them and giving them out oh yeah i guess that's like that it's kind of unfair then because then it's like it's probably the only book that's translated in that many languages too not to mention all different versions of it right what do you got over there doug well according to this ai the bible is not the best selling book every single week it is on an annual basis the best selling book okay but weekly you can have like a harry potter okay so okay fine every year for 2 000 years it's the top selling book thanks of all time thanks devil yeah i don't think the devil is just as facts yeah yeah i mean that's what i figured that made more sense to me that it's just like come on there's gonna be times i think alex horbozzi had to win for a day you know what i'm saying yeah this is a goal i gotta beat the boy bro he he his goal was to beat so like you had i think the i think you can look this up the top top uh you know 10 selling authors we were like president's books i think like seven of the 10 were like presidents when they released their books he has like the craziest launches huh bro he did he did they did a hundred million dollars in a day what yeah that's it he broke like every he broke like all those records on on book sales in it now he did some things i think that like incentivize that well yeah he did like these like um we bought one of them we bought his whole master it was like a six thousand dollar thing was it done i don't know what we paid yeah it was like six grand it was like six grand we got this like master coaching book for you know ad ads and all these things like that and then with that we got 52 books or something oh okay okay so here's the deal yeah yeah uh these are the top books ever for a single day yeah okay harry potter and the deathly hollows 100 million dollar money models for alex hormosy's number two number two wow 2.91 million copies sold in 24 hours yeah it's a guinness world record for non-fiction dude i you gotta i gotta ask you speaking of which adam yeah do you want to talk about your the situation you have with that guy that wanted you on his podcast but it turned into a big oh my god i forgot we haven't brought this up can we can we are we gonna are we gonna roll some people in the bus can we yeah we can we can it's annoying yeah no okay so uh i think what's annoying about it is that it's not just about when i when i this and this seems to happen in this space so much so much dude i follow this guy's content uh so rich summers has this podcast and it's like you know i i follow a lot of financial and real estate stuff and so those type of podcasts intrigue me uh so i followed his content for quite some time uh a few months back this was probably like i don't know four four or five months back they reached out to have sal on the podcast so it was like hey we'd love you on the show yeah blah blah and i'm like i looked at the podcast and i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like finance business i said you should talk to adam he's the guy to talk to right and so katrina uh reaches out to me and she's like hey sal doesn't really want to do this podcast he thinks that you're better for this podcast and i'm like who is it what is it and she's like and then she tells me the name i'm like oh yeah i follow him i know it is i'm like cool yeah i'm down i'll do that sounds i like his content i'll i'll i got no problem doing the show so i agree to the show and they i get it and they want they want to do a you know like a like a formal call which is uh can be standard we do that sometimes with guests you know we want to make sure that it aligns with the stuff that we're going to talk about or they're okay talking about the things we want to talk about so you know uh that's total normal thing for me to do i'm like yeah yeah i'll take the call so i take the call with like one of their assistants or whatever or his assistants and they're going through like you know uh you tell tell me about the business and all this stuff and so i'm kind of like rattling off you know everything mind pumps done which all kind of a bell goes off for me a little bit i'm like this is interesting and It's like, they want us to come on the podcast and they want us to to talk about the business or whatever like that or it was kind of ironic already they asked you because you're kind of the face of the health and fitness side of us and it's like someone who really knows the show knows to ask adam yeah probably knows that so that was already asking me hey can you talk about football but yeah so that was already a better host for yeah that was just kind of but i'm like but that can happen sometimes uh yeah i mean it does still happen to us like that so i'm like okay whatever and then like the the like just it was obvious that she knew nothing you know like in a month that's you know you want me on your show and you know nothing really about the business or anything so i'm still whatever uh answering all the stuff and then and then at the end of it she's like oh by the way the weekend that you're coming is also when we have this yacht thing and it's like a yacht mastermind thing right which we all know how i feel about those things or all of us feel about those things and at this point our red are you getting like red flag not yet okay not yet because i actually it was actually well so to to give credit to the girl who's doing this uh you know she's she's wooed me enough to to kind of rock me asleep you know even though i had some bells going off of like well that's strange and you don't know anything this i'm still kind of like she's she's doing a good job um and then the way she dropped it was so uh like oh by the way not like it didn't feel like it was a part of anything and so and i'm like uh and i actually i think even she didn't say like yacht mastermind she's like oh rich loves to take everybody out on his yacht the next uh on you know this these things every once in a while and it so happens to be when you guys will be interviewing if you wanted to stay an extra day and come and i'm like oh sure yeah and i'm like i'm all about cool networking and stuff like that and i'm so i'm like oh all right well talk to my team uh they handle my schedule and everything like that if i'm available that sounds great this and that and then here comes the the like oh by the way you know the pitch on what it what it costs to do the thing and then like um now i don't i don't lead on to her that like now i'm like okay now i'm a little annoyed already i'm like oh okay so now i see this whole thing and i'm a little annoyed but i'm like whatever still that's fair it's a business they're running and it's like sure pitch me on it with that the part that pissed me off or the part that annoyed me was when i i get i get off with her and like oh yeah i totally talked to my assistant they'll let you know if you know and they'll set it all up sounds awesome see you guys and they're booking it for like january or whatever and so then i i talked to katrina give her a heads up i'm like hey uh you know they got me flying in this day i'm gonna do this stuff like that uh the second day they wanted to do like this yacht thing charges this much you know me i'm not interested in doing some mastermind thing like that and so uh katrina gets on there basically tells him like yeah you know i've got him flying in he's got to do this you know normally something like that too you know adam spoke at things like that that's not something that he would probably you know pay to attend and so if you're ever interested in having him speak or this not let us know otherwise yeah he's not gonna be able to make it in well then all of a sudden uh the interview follow-up and stuff doesn't yeah crickets happens and so i'm like and then again i'm benefit of the doubt you know maybe it's just chance it's not and then i talked to some other people that have been on the show and it's like the same thing so he's using the show as a lead magnet yes or yeah because they come be on the show but then spend x amount of thousands of dollars oh yeah because the yacht thing was like it was a few thousand dollars and he had and i want to say there was like there was some because that was the pitch was like there's you know 15 other eight-figure business owners on there you know whatever uh on there if you're a real baller you'd cover all that well it doesn't matter it's like you invite me to be on your podcast no it's first yeah and then you ask me for this i say no it's a big ass we still do the pod cast yes yeah that that's the right the right thing to do would be to do that and that's how you would get into my good graces and maybe i would show up to something like that eventually you know because maybe we hit it off at the podcast but then what it was was it was a total bait and switch and it was all and it's complete so he's using his podcast literally to upsell to his his mastermind group which i know people that have been on it like multiple people have been on it and it's a joke you know it's just again putting together a bunch of people organizing a conversation and it's like so tacky how many people are doing things like this it's like on the front they look like they're this you know successful podcast they're really not that successful of a podcast what they do is they go target other successful people who want to talk about themselves you know and that have made good money which is we're easy fish right oh yeah come talk about your business and how you scaled it from zero to millions or whatever and then you know easily like you know make you feel like well you know i'm not going to well everyone's doing it they're spending three grand and they're other this and it's a network oh yeah and i'm like oh they did tell me that they would just have me on the podcast we just want to hear your voice well when you said just that i'm like well that's what really pissed me off i'm like sal didn't have to get pitched no thing like that was is he the one talking with that hey that would be the best you show up i show up i can try i can charge i can charge four grand to go listen to you talk oh yeah this is riveting that would be the that would be the ultimate talk about everything that it does oh my god anyway i would just and i would just annoy adam on purpose i'm gonna tell you guys about the business yeah all the numbers are wrong numbers are wrong are you sitting back there just fuming oh bro would that not be the most hilarious thing that would be amazing if you got that would be a good practical joke that would be a good joke to play on you you have you show up yeah and then have me so i was just holding court yeah yeah oh god there's my partner back there but man just and i've been supportive with everything another another instagram person that i just lose respect for right away dude like hey tighten your game up bro i mean that's that's just not that's tacky it's tacky and you know what you're going around you also run the risk of of annoying somebody who has a big podcast we'll talk about it this happens yeah now people are going to know yeah yeah i well you know i know somebody else too who he actually used as the person to speak there's nothing to these guys do is they then they leverage the people to do the work yeah so it's like so maybe you didn't pay but then like i have another friend who didn't pay to go do it but he used him as the keynote speaker to talk and so it's like you're hustling the money you you haven't even built the real successful business doing do and then you have somebody else speak it's just like man you've got grifters bro so many so it's like it's gross it is gross dude it's so gross and tacky you'll be here for a minute dog enough people get around and find out about that stuff and then it's like and then it's like this is this is the game this is the hustle so justin i want to ask you because you've been using the new dog food oh you're the new sponsor unconditional yeah yes so tell us about a great name for what i'm going through yeah i unconditionally love my dog yeah especially the old one yeah no i've been i think i've told you a while back like i was really trying to get ahead of all this in terms of their behavior and like you know i was definitely taking them out a lot more on walks getting exercise and like switching up their diet um and so yeah this was an opportunity this got presented to us and i started to kind of mix it in with their food um and what was good about it is like my dogs don't do real well with like the you know the can the wet food um and i know that's where if you're gonna get like regular like whole foods a lot of times you have to get like the ones you put in the refrigerator and it's all like you know raw um but this one is still like it's like i think they call it air dried so it's like out and it becomes kind of like is it is it grain free it's like there's like real meat in it grain free and it's air dried yeah uh based right is that true i do believe that's true okay is it is it our uh isn't our boy the founder yes uh who doug yeah so let me yeah you're asking me questions i don't have answers anyway uh so i i think he's involved you know uh our you know that he's a founder well this avram is the guy that who started the company so maybe investor yeah maybe an investor so i want to hear about your experience though yeah no it was great um i was uh so there's been a few i've tried before that haven't really done well with their uh gut and they're like you know they had some uh you know side effects as a result but this was like they digested it well and i was able to then kind of move them out of like mixing it first and then to do it like on a zone my my little wiener dog it's it's funny because like prefers because would actually eat all these kernels like away from the other uh dog food i was feeding them at the same time and he would just eat those uh but yeah their energy has been great their coats look great um so so far so good it's been um you know pretty good in terms of like me like having decently behaved dogs well you know that so the audience knows this is uh there's a third company that uh dog food that we uh we we were trying to get a dog food company way back when even when i had my dogs um and the problem was we there was never a time where all of us that so you have marcello you have kyle and you have justin who still have uh dogs and um but this goes all the way back to bella and when and when doug had bella and i had uh bentley and mozzie we were trying to the dog and you never heard it on the show because we never no but none of us all had found a dog food where i was just like oh the dog yeah all the dogs loved it and it was it was just like well that's going to be tough just kind of kept passing passing passing so finally uh you know after three different uh dog food companies that we've tried to work with this is the first one that like everybody has reported back so dog loves it so here's some stats on it it's premium air dried dog food so it's real meat dried slowly at low heat so the nutrients stay in uh the it starts at 40 bucks it's not no subscription required and it's shelf stable yeah so there's no freezer space no thawing no delivery windows um it's cool it's cool they do that for the subscription too it's not like mandatory it's like yeah but it's so convenient like i remember doing that first kind of going back and forth because you gotta first of all see if it works with your dog you know and so to to then know like this is going to be a hit it's like well i just want to make sure i get this it's called unconditional right so it's at like all the major places pet smart petco all the big places too so and then you can it does have a subscription but you can cancel any time it's not like any of these like long term you can also pause it yeah pause yeah yeah so dude i got a story to read you guys that is crazy about this dad this idaho dad and what he went through to protect his family you want to hear it yeah is this the one you told me but not justin yeah justin hasn't heard it yeah so you i told adam the story it's crazy so i'll read the story too an idaho father fought a black bear with his bare hands after it burst into his home at 3 30 a.m with his wife and daughters just feet away so his name is brian heidman he tackled the bear through the doorway and wrestled in the backyard the bear bit the back of his head and shoulder left deep scratches and wounds across his arms and torso and his wife kim was also attacked suffering injuries to her back then their dog lulu jumped into the fight helping distract the bear and protect her family brian makes it back inside but he's bleeding heavily and he tells kim he loves her and he's like i don't know if i'm gonna make it as the family tried to get him help two more bears attempted to break into the house what a neighbor finally rushed over with a gun and drove the bears away he was taken to the hospital uh and he underwent surgery and he had staples and wounds staples for his wounds and stuff and he survived crazy crazy dude what's up with the two extra bears yeah yeah they're just waiting for their opportunity so what is going on such weird behavior for black bears too so yeah for black bears are already not like that normally and then to after one game still two more well imagine you just thought first off okay put yourself in you're a dad right you got your kids in there to black at 3 30 a.m breaks in and you're fighting it and you're getting chomped you're getting scratched you're getting chomped but then the dog comes and it finally gets away and you're barely making it and you're going inside and party is like i hope i make it and party's like i'm a hero so you're in there you're like we did it we did it two more bears well it's so crazy it's like holy crap just him making a lot of noise and like shouting all like it didn't scare him nothing and so yeah like to then now wrestle him outside and throw him out there get bit in the head like what the hell was he was he sleeping in his meat is this his beef jerky pajamas like what's going on why was he coming out so weird why was he so angry with you what did you do this bear so crazy oh man black bear is usually scared no they're very very much seriously yeah they're not normally if they you they try to break in like that you make some noise they normally go running and so you know what i mean by the way or if it's like a mom you know and then the cubs but that's about it do you guys know why black bears are so fearful do you know why they're fearful because you got grizzlies they'll kill you yeah polar bear will eat you yeah they'll just eat you yeah they don't mess around black bears will get scared and the reason why they're scared is because they are prey they when when they they're used to black bears were almost always around grizzly bears now around here it's hard to find grizzlies so you see a lot of black bears but they were prey to bigger bears so they they they assume a bunch of them and they're scared of them and that's like another they evolved to run yeah yeah whereas a grizzly bear has no predator yeah polar bear definitely has no predator yeah so they don't run they just come uh that makes sense that makes sense did you guys hear about did you guys hear what happened on 101 no yeah just today oh my god two days ago uh or yeah three days ago uh i was and i was driving with kyle kyle took me home last night and uh i was telling him because we were on 101 and we're driving i'm like oh did you hear about the the the lady who got uh killed on 101 like this he's like bro i drove by but i was there before the cops got there i'm like no way i did i did sort of hear about so okay i was heading so this was on saturday or sunday i can't remember what it was but i was heading north and the traffic was crazy out of nowhere uh on heading north but i could tell that something happened south because there was no cars coming on like a weekend and i'm like oh there must have and everybody on my side it's probably looky-loo right so we finally get up there and there's 15 to 20 cop cars i'm like that's a lot of cop cars for like a normal act that's not normal i thought it was like a uh some sort of like a chase or a cop got shot or something like that because it just locked off yeah so i didn't know what happened and then my mother-in-law tells me that oh did you hear about the lady who got who died on on the on the road and i was like oh okay so that and so someone must have died so they still thought that's a lot of cop cars for someone just that that got that died then kyle tells me the whole story what happened so this lady she has a knife yes yeah was uh on the like walking on the 101 or something and then got on top of this car and was like stabbing herself herself her own self hey stabbing her stabbing herself and kyle said like at one point he while she's doing this he's five feet away he sees it his windows he said it was a worn day he's driving when he saw her stabbing herself yes oh and he didn't tell anybody bro he just comes to work oh yeah come on kyle it's been messing me up for the longest time he's a he was like you know uh what did i what was i supposed to do like he didn't he was like i just he saw it and he goes he couldn't even believe what he had seen yeah it wasn't until he saw like the news yeah he said it was it was it was so surreal process it yeah that like it wasn't until he watched the news later on where they told the whole story where he's like i did see that like that's crazy but he tells me that he's like i was just it was beautiful day windows are down i'm kind of cruising home and he's telling me my windows are down and i'm from he's like i'm from here to doug from her and she's stabbing what do you do like hey no no no that's what he said he's like he's like you know then i started thinking like you know uh what do i do in a situation would i jump out and and stop that on the freeway and like what like he's like he's like man it's been messing with me for like the last couple days that's a total mental breakdown yeah it's a horror movie wild right it is that is a horror movie yeah yeah so i don't know all the details of who the lady was and uh the what all how how it started or anything like that i saw the end of it he saw it happen before the cops even got there oh gosh i know i know wow that's crazy z biotics is the world's first and only genetically modified probiotic drink that you drink before you drink alcohol so when you drink alcohol your body converts some of it to an unwanted byproduct in the gut that byproduct is what's responsible for the rough mornings after drinking z biotics is made specifically to produce an enzyme that breaks down that unwanted byproduct down before it becomes a problem we swear by this we have ordered it for events our listeners love it make your first drink of the night so drink it before you drink drink responsibly and you're ready to wake up and train the next day you guys this stuff works it's wild by the way they also have a sugar to fiber probiotic you take this and it converts a significant percentage of the sugar you consume into fiber prebiotic fiber it really works you guys it's wild go to zbiotics.com slash mind pump 26 that's zbiotics.com slash mind pump 26 use the code mind pump 26 and get 15 off if you're a first-time purchaser here comes the show our first caller is mj from south carolina what's up dude how you doing man what's going on guys good man how can we help you uh so um i'll sum up my my email um my left knee i tore my acl mcl and both my meniscus i got that one surgically repaired but uh in my right knee i tore my lcl acl mcl and both meniscuses and i haven't got it repaired um and we're going on probably about seven years of just walking around on it and uh i've been neglecting like my lower body um the most i do with my lower body is just like body weight squats and uh i do a lot of rucking um i was just wondering what you guys would recommend on on how to do that um i've been neglecting my lower body um i've been neglecting how to build my lower half so uh i don't you know i can get some gains on them yeah you don't mind you mind if i ask why you haven't gotten those they're fully torn right acl that's gone you mind if i ask why you haven't why you don't get them repaired uh so i got my left knee repaired but uh on my right knee i just can't miss that much time off of work and um i don't have health insurance so even the first time i didn't have health insurance so i had to spend 20 grand like just to get it okay i see okay i feel that yeah so i mean what you do because those obviously provide stability uh in the knee joint muscles that that surround the knee or work on the knee will also provide some stability and so you you you want to strengthen them essentially but you're but i would limit you to machines yeah this is where machines really play a big you know uh like um you know like a leg press real slow uh leg you know curve you know like a leg press real slow uh leg you know curve you know like a leg press real slow real slow uh hack squat real slow leg curl real so be careful with the leg extension and leg curl machines um and so you're going to put very low weight and just kind of really squeeze the muscle and move it through a full range of motion isometric holds at the ends isometric holds yeah and a leg press would probably be one of the better exercises uh single leg leg press with no weight just the sled and just slowly move through the range of full range of motion while you're doing that do you have a need for a leg press brace that you wear? I do. I have like a soft knee brace. It has like those little, uh, metal bendable bars on the side. So it's got the hinges on the side. Yes. Yes. I would wear that, uh, while doing strength training. Uh, and I also, you might even want to wrap your knee underneath that. And so you get like a, like a power lifter wrap, wrap your knee, put the knee sleeve on, and then do very slow controlled machine strength training exercises. Uh, when you go to the gym just to build the strength around them and that'll give you some stability. It's not going to give you all the stability that you need. Okay. But it should help give you some stability around the knee joint. Yeah. Um, it's, it's tough too, because, uh, when I was younger, I used to have these massive legs and I just don't want to get chicken legs. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I got it. You're just limited. You're just limited because of, uh, the, the ligament. How are you, how are you walking and moving? Um, so I actually get a lot of walking in, um, this whole year I'm, averaging about 14,000 steps a day. Uh, I would say about 7,000 of that would be, um, like rucking, but, um, as far as regular day moving, I have no, no pain or anything. Um, every now and then it's like a little tight, but not nothing like crazy. Okay. Do you ever feel the knee joint come out? Yeah. So, yeah. So that's like, um, when I'm doing more, like, I guess like jumping or when I'm landing. So yeah. You need to avoid anything with, uh, anything ballistic or fast. Uh, everything's gonna have to be real slow and controlled. Yeah. I'd probably even try and limit the rucking and replace more of that with strength training. Uh, that's going to benefit you from a muscle standpoint a lot more than, than the rucking. I mean, it depends where you're rucking too. Like, are you climbing on rocks and stuff or are you just on a flat surface? No. Yeah. I live in, uh, Charleston, South Carolina. So everything's pretty flat. Okay. That would be it, dude. But I would avoid any kind of, um, dynamic movement just cause you don't have those ligaments there holding the knee together. Um, and the muscles only can only do so much. What were you doing? How'd you tear them? So, um, the first time I was playing pickup basketball and then a couple of years ago, when I was still in my, my thirties, probably like late twenties, I was playing like contact flag football and, uh, exactly. And it, it, it popped, um, one week and I was like, all right, it feels pretty good after like a day or two. It was just a little bit swollen. And then I tried to play again the next week. And then the whole thing just collapsed on the field. Yeah. That sucks too. Yeah, it does. Slow controlled, uh, you know, uh, strength training with machines. I wouldn't do any free weights, anything that requires too much stability and that should help. That should help. Yeah. Thank you guys. That's where I was just like, um, like I can do body weight squats, but I was, uh, a little nervous to put any weight on, on the bar or even, uh, sometimes I get nervous, even dead lifting because just the constant up and down, up and down. Yeah. Too much risk with that too. I mean, this is, we rarely ever hear us talk about telling people to go do machines, but this is, this is why machines were invented. That's why I wanted to talk to you guys. And, uh, I have the maps 15, but a lot of that is still like, um, I would say it got free weights. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're, you're going to be all machine stuff for sure. For your lower body, for the lower body. Yeah. Yeah. And then just take it slow. And then as you, as you get, cause you'll get stronger still, uh, you know, really slow down the tempo, do an isometric hold at the full contraction. And, and when you're, when, then when you feel really safe and good there, then you add just a little bit of weight. So it's just real slow on don't, don't get it carried away. Um, biggest mistake you can make is feeling good and slapping on more weight. Cause you feel like just take your time, stay, stay in that weight for a while and just slow the tempo down and add isometrics to it. And when you've been doing that for a while, then you can add just a little bit of weight and just keep doing stair, stepping your way up. And you will, I mean, you'll, you'll definitely build a lot more stability. I mean, I remember when I tore mine, I was like full on, you know, muscled all out and the doctor was like, so blown away that how I could walk and be all. And like, I mean, those muscles will do, do you a huge favor than the average person who gets a torn ACL, ACL. Right. I appreciate that. What about like bands and stuff like that? As far as like lateral movement, would you even risk that? Uh, I wouldn't do any stepping lateral movement or walking. You just don't have that lateral stability. Uh, so I would keep it very linear. Yep. Gotcha. I appreciate that guys. You got it, man. Yeah. Good luck, dude. Thank you, man. Take care guys. Take it easy. Well, that sucks. Yeah. That's a big, uh, that's a big deal. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Um, I mean, and by the way, people listening, like you can get away, although he has his LCL torn too, uh, you can get away with it back in the day, long time ago before these surgeries existed. That's what you did. You just, you just walked around and you can't get it. You can't get away with a full torn ACL though. Can you, you can, I mean, you just can't like run and stop or do anything like that. That's why I think the rucking is crazy. Yeah. I think the rucking is a bad idea. I just think that's that, uh, even the, even just that impact too. And like you said, running and stopping, I mean, I have to get it repaired. That's a ligament that goes through. And that's, that's the big one. I mean, that holds everything in place. So no, a partial tear maybe, but a full ACL. That's a, but you know, you strengthen your hamstrings and your claws. No, I mean, I remember, I remember the doctor telling me that I had, you know, part of why mine tour was just, I was not in basketball condition trying to play basketball. I was in a meathead condition, but the positive thing was when it did go, I had all that supporting muscle and he's like, man, you have a lot of great stability for somebody who doesn't have one anymore. So crazy. Yeah, that is our next caller is Sergio from Quebec. Hey Sergio. Hey Sergio. Hey, how's it going guys? Good, man. How can we help you? Uh, good. First off, I just want to, um, say, I've been listening to you guys for the last six months. Really enjoy the podcast. What would you guys have to say? I want to shout out my boy Reno. We watch every single episode, talk about you guys every day. So just to give you a little quick version, I guess, uh, I always grew up overweight when I was close to 300 pounds. Uh, when I was 20, I eventually got myself down to about two 20, but for most of my adult life, I was the classic all in, all out kind of guy. Uh, at the end of 2024, I was back to around two 60. Uh, I decided to make another change this time. I started taking strength training a little more seriously, but then I got really into running train for a half marathon, got down to about one 90. About a month after I completed the half marathon, I tore my ACL. We treated it non-surgically. I rehabbed it, got back to work. And eventually I even did a 75 day hard challenge with a friend of mine to kind of get the consistency back, uh, during that challenge, I was lifting three days a week, running three days a week. And I went from about 205 to 185. That's also when I started listening to you guys and I bought maps aesthetic program, which I ran while training for another half marathon in hindsight, probably not the best combination. Um, I'm actually running the half marathon this weekend. And after that, I'm basically done prioritizing running. The other important piece is that I am a letter carrier. So I'm also, I'm already getting 25 plus steps, 25,000 plus steps, most days going up and downstairs, carrying weight. I also play hockey once a week. So that brings me to where I am now. I'm around 186 pounds and basically my entire life has been always about deficits, losing weight. Um, listening to you guys really changed the way I look at that. So for the first time, I actually liked the frame I have about my current body weight. I don't think seeing anything less is going to make me any happier. What I really want now is to add muscle. To this frame and get stronger. I don't necessarily care if that means I stay around one 86, go up a bit, go down. I just want to stop approaching fitness. Like I'm constantly trying to lose weight and actually spend time building. So if you guys were in my position, how would you approach it? What maps program do you think I should run calories? Uh, should I continue running? If so, how much? Let's go. This is going to be, uh, a lot of fun. You're in a really cool spot. The hardest part is going to be you getting in your own way and doing too much shit. Yeah. So believe it or believe it or not. Uh, it's, and it's great where we're at. Like the fact that you've came all the way down to one 85, you, you're going to build muscle. Let me tell you, as soon as we, we bump calories a little bit and reduce the amount of training and stuff that you're doing, you're going to build muscle. You're going to build muscle like a beast. I mean, it's crazy how much you do. You do a lot, bro. That's a lot. That's a lot of steps. That's a lot of training. That's a lot of running. And that's a high volume program, uh, which has got you down weight wise. Now, when we come the other direction, you should be able to pack muscle on. Yeah. So let's get more specific with your goal. So are you, are you looking at your, so you want body composition change. So you want more muscle, less body fat. You want it. What about how you feel? What about, uh, like total time dedicated? Like, let's talk about that. Yeah. How's energy. How's libido. How do you feel right now? Like, cause that's a lot. You've been, you've been hammering the body. Yeah. Um, the energy I thought was good. I'm realizing it's probably not the greatest, uh, libido. Not good to be honest. Uh, so yeah, like I, cause I, when I started it, um, the whole running with the aesthetics program, I was doing like 1800 calories. I knew that was not smart at all. So I kind of jumped it up. I was feeling it in my workout, you know, for two weeks, three weeks, you could kind of get by. Uh, then I started upping it right now. I'm at about 23, 2400 calories. I feel like maybe that's still not enough. No, not even close. Yeah. Yeah. You got, so you gotta have to, you're gonna have to eat a lot more. This is exciting though. And you're gonna have to do a lot less. You're gonna, yeah. You're gonna feel a huge difference when we do this. But it's not going to be easy, dude. Cause. will be hard yeah it's not gonna be easy because you've created this um this habit uh this relationship for lack of a better term with exercise where you just get after it uh and you're you're probably afraid to eat as much as you need to uh and to reduce the amount of activity yeah because you used to be um overweight and so that's why you do the on off again well that's why you've had that before in the past right now you're on um yeah this is probably the most consistent i've been for the longest period of time yeah but this will turn into off if you keep i'm gonna say i'll let you know if you keep going this direction yeah yeah it's gonna turn you're gonna fry yourself uh and then you're gonna go in the other direction so it's gonna be a lot less exercise and a lot more food so what you need to do is a a reverse diet focus on strength training and unless you want to keep running you like the endurance uh you're walking way more than enough for activity so it would literally be strength training strength training you just do your walking 25 000 steps a day is a lot and eat more and you're gonna build muscle yep but that means you're gonna be able to do more and you're gonna be able to do more and you're gonna do a lot less exercise dude you're gonna be in the gym maybe three four days a week max that's it okay and so you're saying don't really need to do the running because the walking from work is plenty plenty plenty unless you like running look if you want to keep running because you like running and you like that kind of endurance uh then then we would change how we apply strength training let's let's just say this though it's not going to support your body composition goal at all no so you just get that out of your head like if you you running is not helping you body composition goal at all no so you just get that out of your head like if you you running is not helping you body composition goal at all no so you just get that out of your head like if you fat or building muscle wise it's giving you endurance it gives you endurance and if you like it because you put in your favorite song or podcast and it's kind of a zen place for you that's cool and if you told me that i'd be like yeah we could run a couple times a week i'm okay with that but if you're doing it because to keep your own shape or to get in like i would say no it's we don't need it we don't need it you move plenty enough at work and a maps anabolic type of program jumping your calories at least to 2800 calories and we're going to put muscle on yeah you'll notice energy go up sleep will be better you know beat oh start to get better all those things will start to come right again weight on the scale straight up and you're gonna get leaner at the same time yeah because what it'll look like how's your relationship running can you give it up or do you want to keep it um you know it's like a love hate kind of thing um adam said something a few episodes uh back where he was like he had clients where they thought they liked it and then they were kind of like yeah maybe not and i feel like that's where i'm at like at first it was to prove that like you know my knee no surgery i can do this and now as we get closer i'm like there's a lot going on my kids have hockey on the weekends like i can't even give that much time for all this oh yeah and you play hockey once a week anyway yeah dude you've got your athleticism there you got plenty of activity dog if you're listen surgery if you're open so if you want to hire a coach they'll walk you through this whole process it'll probably take you know a good six nine months of a coach you'll pack on a good like a good amount of muscle 10 15 pounds yeah uh and they'll be there coaching you and they'll be there coaching you and they'll be you through the reverse diet uh and the strength training is that the question i have with this 10 like 10 to 15 pounds not that i want to say i'm scared or nervous about it but is it something that's going to completely change the like my body frame or it's something that it just kind of builds into what i already have uh you can't completely change your body frame yeah you just have more muscle what will happen right now okay because you're you're pretty lean right now i mean like you could still you could see your abs right so you're you're pretty lean lean right now you will notice your shoulders your chest and back get broader and your waist stay the same and go in that's what's going to happen okay it's you're going to look you'll look badass now in that process it's a bit of a mind fuck for somebody who's come down from a lot of weight though because when you when you eat more calories okay you're going to fill up more glycogen you're going to hold more water and so there'll be this phase that you'll go through that it'll mess with your you'll feel oh god i feel fluffier or i feel like i'm putting on fat but we're just filled up you're you're right now you're when you're at 2300 when you were at 1800 calories you're so depleted you have what like in the bodybuilding world we call the flat term you're just your muscle bellies are sucked out sucked out of glycogen sucked out of water so you have a flat look and now you have a flat lean look as soon as i reverse diet you and i start bumping your calories the first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna fill out and that filling out process for somebody who came from being very overweight most their life freaks them out and they think right away they're getting fat and it's like no you're not fat you're just you have water in your muscles now and we're filling up your muscle bellies and this is part of the get building muscle we got to be in order for us to build muscle we got to first fill them babies up and then we can and then on top of that eat more calories and lift weights and then it takes a little bit of time for that muscle to really start to show up and then you start to feel the energy you feel the strength you feel the libido and then you start to see the waste kind of come in like but it's that it's that period of time of from where you're at now to getting to that feeling that where most people over correct freak out they start running they cut the calories back down because they think they're getting fat and it's like no no you're not you're doing great and that's why sal suggesting like having a coach that process is because we've done this for so long and helping somebody just through it's not an x is a no thing it's not like i can't tell you what to do and you can just go do it it's it's more so you getting in your own way in that process because and it's just it's normal and we coach you through the process so there's two ways that people will mess this up one is what adam said which is they just get they freak out over correct strain the other way is they start to veer towards going off so oh i'm eating more food now i'm going to let more garbage into the diet and then you kind of go in that direction uh and you start to overeat things that aren't really good for you uh if that was a tendency in the past so those are the two kind of you know bumpers and what a coach is going to do is do what's called a controlled reverse diet and it's going to be based on whole foods and they'll work with you through the process uh and then the strength training if you're going to keep doing hockey once a week your strength training will be three days a week and that's what you're doing that's it that'll be all you're working out yeah maps anabolic maps anabolic mass ppl both of those will work okay okay so you're saying maybe a three-day-a-week program bump the calories up what are we talking about 2800 yeah probably 2800 right out the gates okay and it's nothing that i should keep going higher or it's like i mean that's the starting point that's the starting point so 2800 like again and these are generic numbers because if i was coaching you it could change but let's just say it's probably going to be around 2800 a lot and then we would hold there and i what i'm looking to hear back from you is i'm feeling stronger libido is doing better it's like and and and weight is sustaining i expect initial bump up because we're going to be holding more water glycogen all the things i told you about so i i expect a little initial bump then i want to see a leveling out so like let's say you bump up five pounds and then you kind of level there and you're we're still eating 2800 and we're staying there and i like to stay there for like a week or two and then and and holding that way and then i'm going to bump you another 250 250 300 calories and same process again we'll just keep doing with your activity your size uh three days a week lifting hockey 25 000 steps that you'll probably end up around 33 at least 33 3500 calories yeah yeah yeah and you'll still be lean uh and then if you ever want to cut you would end up cutting at 2800 calories and that'll be a cut for you yeah yeah so and it'll be way way less work like you'll you last work bro you'll have the physique you want you'll you'll be lifting less you won't have to run and it'll be easier to manage it's again it's just this this first phase of getting there is uh it's it's difficult psychologically not physically like you've already it's more sorry it's more because like i'm like on the off days just do nothing yeah well you know you still go you go for a walk hang out with your kids hang out with the kids and do stuff like that i mean you can stretch you can do i mean there's lots of things you could do you're just not working out you could also plan your workout on that day if it's an off day like i so if you so if i if i could right like control this for you it's be you already move a lot at work and you then you also have your hockey day so those days are those are taken care of my off days instead of just laying around that would be a training day for sure i at least one or two of my training days would be my off days because that's you you're good and rested you're not doing much activity your one activity is you get a good lift in so i try and get at least one of your lifts on one of your days off and then the other two during the week yeah that would serve you better okay yeah awesome yeah you got it dude do you have maps anabolic i don't i'll send that to you and then sergio if you want if you're interested in talking with a coach i can have somebody call you and see what that looks like you're probably looking at about six to nine months of coaching uh through this process but then good for six and nine months okay but yeah i mean i don't know if it's something financially i'm ready for it no worries very honest no worries we'll send you maps anabolic bump your calories yep cut everything else out dude watch what happens yeah keep us posted though i'd love to hear an email send me an email let me know how it's going okay i'll actually i'm gonna do this too i'm gonna have doug put you in the private forum for free so that as you go through this process okay you have questions send it send a question in the forum okay and we'll help guide you through this process awesome perfect cool you got it man all right dude thanks guys all right dude yeah it's the it's you know there's disbelief uh on the other end because like i'm doing all this stuff i'm eating so little and you're telling me to do way less and eat more yeah i'm gonna gain so much body fat yeah especially coming from 300 pounds and the key uh you know as a coach is working with someone they got to get them through that period once they start to see it and feel it then it becomes less about blind faith and it becomes more about the evidence and you're like oh yeah this is actually working like this is amazing then the tendency is to continue to scale up the exercise because you feel so good but boy you don't need to do that much he's all the stuff he's doing is actually countering what he's trying to accomplish. I wouldn't be surprised if his hormones are depressed uh because of all the work and low calories i can tell by the way he's holding body fat it is you see where he's holding it yeah he's got he's got he's got visible abs and he's leaning his arms and everything like that and then he's holding a little bit of extra body fat right around the love handle area and for as lean as he should be he shouldn't be i guarantee that's i guarantee that's hormonal stuff once that balances out he's gonna see his he'll he'll put on 10 pounds but it'll go to his chest his shoulders and his waist will taper in but it's the time from now to there that's hard always because he'll go through an uncomfortable phase he'll go through a i don't like the way i look phase this isn't working five pounds in a week yeah water yes yes and so if he can just make it through that process the the positive things are he's worked off a ton of the the body fat already and so he's out of and he's got incredible discipline and works hard those are working in our favor but if you can but steering it in the right direction is key to the success of this our next caller you is megan from north carolina hi megan how you doing megan hi i'm good how can we help you um i'll read my email sorry there's a child at my door uh good morning i started listening to you guys a few months ago after a friend who loves y'all recommended it to me i've worked out and eaten pretty well all of my life literally grew up in the gym so much as me my sister's picture was hanging up in the gym where my parents work it was an old racquetball kind of place i started having joint issues at a young age i'm currently 40 years old and i've been working since i was 46 i never played sports started cheering in seventh grade through high school um did play some basketball but i've always gone to the gym about five days a week um through high school college everything i've never been somebody that can eat whatever i want but of course that got worse as i got older appearance and health has always been important to me through the influence of my parents um my mom put me on my first diet at nine years old and i wasn't fat just gained some weight anyway as i've aged i started having frequent injuries which have led to surgeries after my first son was born in 2010 i got an amazing shape doing insanity but i also broke my left sesamoid bone and had surgery to have that removed um i then had an experimental procedure done on my hip for bursitis and tendinitis after struggling for years with pain that was a huge help then a few late years later my right sesamoid bone broke so i had surgery on my right foot to remove that which led to breaking my fifth metatarsal which led to a jones fracture repair then a year later had to the screw removed in a different type put in as well as some tendon repair in between this i've had a hysterectomy two c-sections a breast reduction um removal of a teratoma and sinus surgery so i healed from all these things and in the process gained a lot of weight and i really just kind of stopped caring and also dealing with a lot of work at stress and stress at work and home moved to a new state through all this and life was just so i finally had enough and started looking into losing weight i was at 190 pounds um five two and a half so we say five three because that sounds better so i started going to a cross-fittish kind of functional training gym that honestly is owned by someone that's not the best trainer gives a lot of bad advice i was having shoulder issues already but again this trainer just made you feel kind of like you were weak if you complained so i continued with injections and medicine and pushed through i lost about 30 pounds during my year there but then it just stopped and i started gaining some back well a year ago i had my shoulder surgery actually almost exactly a year ago and i was like oh my god i'm gonna lose weight i'm gonna lose weight i'm gonna lose weight i'm gonna um the pain had become debilitating and physical therapy nor meds were helping um i had surgery last october they repaired a bicep tear a labrum tear impingement and a frayed rotator as i was healing i started going to planet fitness and slowly got back into lifting i still wasn't budging so i did do teres epitide in the middle of december and i was on that for about three or four months and lost 30 more pounds at that time i was working out seven days a week i was doing weights for over an hour six days a week and long cardio once a week i scaled back this summer to five and i was doing some uh sporadic redditrutide but then stopped because i was losing too much weight um well the time i wrote this i was 119 pounds i'm currently at 123 pounds um 31.9 body fat 64.3 muscle mass and 3.8 bone mass i'm trying to get my body fat down to about 24 is what i'd like uh currently i'm doing four days a week two days glutes and legs and i do abs on those two days and i do two days of upper body um i usually go on a long walk at least once a week i average probably 9 000 steps a day um some days i get like 12 to 14 000 some days i only get seven um i do 20 minutes on the elliptical on my upper body days um i really only track protein because tracking gives me anxiety um i'm a sixth grade teacher i'm a chair coach i have two boys 15 and 11 a bunch of animals i'm a chair coach i'm a chair coach i'm a chair coach um my husband's in the restaurant business so he's our schedules are crazy i'm a very social person as well um i work out before work so i don't get a ton of sleep i probably get during the week about four to six hours um because i try to get to the gym by 4 a.m so i'm kind of looking at what kind of program i can do um to increase my muscle mass i know i'm from listening to you guys that trying to reduce body fat and increase muscle at the same time doesn't necessarily um so i don't know yeah my issues right now are mainly my stomach um and you know i've seen a difference in my where i've toned up but not like not so much my stomach but like my arms and legs they're not where i want them to be especially my butt but um yeah yeah that's where i'm thanks for calling thanks for calling in i appreciate it um can i be direct with you yeah uh why are you beating yourself up so much i don't know i always have been that way yeah you're fighting your body your body's fighting back so the fractures and the bone breaks that you um experienced those are all uh very indicative of what we call let's say stress fractures or too much stress on the body um and i mean just to be quiet just to be direct um you're doing you're just beating the crap out of yourself and you're under eating and it sounds like you've been doing this for a very very long time and the rebellion that you're having is you're just beating the crap out of yourself you've experienced from your body is going to continue to happen and it's going to get worse and worse and worse unless we change directions but that means you're going to have to break up with this abusive relationship that you've had for so long and it's going to be really hard uh because it's what you know and so it's it's it's going to look you have a good year of healing is what we would have to do and it's going to look generally speaking megan it's going to look a lot like way less exercise it's going to look like nourishing your body with more food it's going to look like prioritizing sleep and it's also going to look like trusting the process because in that period of time you're going to feel like you're in the middle of the ocean and you're you're you don't know where what's happening where am i uh but you're going to have to kind of trust the process but you've got a good year of healing uh that you need to go through otherwise what's going to keep happening megan is your body's going to keep rebelling and you can throw whatever peptides you want at it um it's just going to keep rebelling and it's going to look like more injuries more hormone issues more stress it'll look eventually like hair loss uh it'll look like bone density loss i have lost a lot of hair which i just had to cut my hair off because i mean it was i've always had really thick hair and it's like and i couldn't believe how thin it was you are in the middle you are really really in deep uh with this uh relationship uh with your i could tell you what it's going to look like i have very little confidence you'll be able to do it on your own though uh i think um i think you need a coach you gotta have a good coach you gotta have somebody coaching not a crappy coach like the one you worked with before who's just trying to kick you in the butt which you don't need i don't you don't need somebody to kick you kicking yourself you don't need that what you need is somebody to pull you back somebody that you could trust that you can listen to that you can bounce off of because what's going to happen is you know every other week you're going to be like i want to go back i feel like i'm not doing it enough i feel like i'm getting fatter i feel like this is gonna whatever uh but it's gonna it'll be about a year of healing um within that period of time probably by month seven or eight you'll start to see the evidence of your work and then it'll be less blind faith and more like oh i think this is starting to work oh you'll love it by then at the end of this your body will your body will start working the way it's supposed to it'll work for you you're not going to feel like it's your enemy that you're constantly have to battle uh and having to fight okay i mean and i i know a lot of my problem is psychological you know it's like i know i need to eat more but i'm so afraid to eat more yep yeah it's you're not but listen you're so megan you're not this anomaly it's way common it's very very it's very very common it's why we have a profession it's why the podcast is what it is is because so many people struggle with this yep and the the fact that you admit it is huge and that you're aware of it is huge because most people are in denial or don't think they have that so the fact that you recognize it you see it you want to make change already we're we got a huge head start because a lot of times i have to convince somebody or explain and they don't they don't trust they don't believe they don't know so the fact that you're there already is already a massive thing now now it's really just diving in and committing and trusting the process letting go of the control so the coat it says i trust you you you're the one that's going to guide me through this and tell me this i i feel this way i don't like the way i look i don't all the things are going to come up and you're going to feel that way that's It's part of the process and normal. And then you just commit to yourself that I'm going to stick the way through and on the other side of it is incredible yeah it's way less work better sleep better hormones hair better the body fat percentage you want easy yeah it'll easy it'll happen 24 easy will be and you'll be able to maintain it eating more food doing less work all the things but we got to heal first and you'll have more energy for everything else you're obviously very energy sucks yeah well i mean of course it does hon you're you're you're burning the candle at both ends you have been for a long time yeah you're obviously uh look you obviously have a big heart you've got two kids you're a sixth grade teacher you know if you had one of your students come up to you doing all the stuff that you're doing who can they come to you and tell you about their injuries and stuff you would be very caring and you give them good advice you're just not doing that to yourself yeah working with a coach looks like this but except i'm telling you okay you're gonna do less and you're gonna eat more okay that's very general right here's what it looks like with a coach they're gonna work with you because it's gonna be really scary so they're gonna work with you a lot and you're gonna work with them and they're gonna work with you a lot you're gonna message them and you'll be like okay here's what i feel i want to do this i don't want to do that you know i'm trying to sleep more but i'm actually waking up early why don't i go work out or i feel like i could do more and then my energy is coming back you know what let me go do a workout and the coach is going to coach you through that process and work through you but you got but the thing you got to you got you know you got to sign up for is this is literally what it looks like and i could tell you and i gotta be very careful with how i sell this because i don't know how many people i'm going to be able to tell you that i'm going to be able to tell you that i'm going to be able to tell you that i'm going to be able to tell you that i'm going to be able to but when you need to go into it with the mentality is i don't care about anything except i want to feel better and heal that's my goal for the next year i don't care what else happens i need to feel better and i need to heal then i'll worry about the other stuff later okay is this going to mean like am i going to gain weight i mean i'm just trying to mentally prepare myself oh you probably won't maybe you probably won't be doing a lot of scale weighing it's not necessary we're not going to let you weigh yourself yeah it's not that you're okay you're not going to be doing a lot of scale your coach is not going to be wanting to see that there's not going to be a lot of talk around that right now it's it's it's checking the other boxes first here's the other thing too so because uh we tend to take the scale uh and we put it so high on a pedestal uh you're going to focus more on things like because these are the things we tend to ignore uh energy you know your mental state your libido your sleep like how like much more patient you feel your strength strength like these are the metrics that you're going to really be paying attention to our coaches are probably not going to let you weigh yourself because that really messes with people's heads uh through this process because it could throw you off and it can make your day good or bad regardless of how you feel type of deal gotcha yeah for sure and the exciting part when we do this right even though sal's telling you you you commit to a year of just being healthy these are the markers we should see improvement if we do a good job you should feel energy start to go up you should feel the strength go up in the gym like you you'll notice libido you'll notice things like this start to get better and better and better um and then and and then the tendency when you do this on your own is like you feel that you're like okay let's ramp this up let's keep you know and then and then we reverse back and then an injury happens or then we haven't made that's been my whole life i'm like as soon as i get in the rhythm and i get going something happens yeah yeah so and that's because what i i it's like i'm a 200 instead of yeah well it's good you're aware it's good you're aware because then the coach will have to do less convincing when they tell you yeah because you're going to have to do less convincing when they tell you yeah because you because you'll know you've which is awesome that makes our job easier when that client is aware that they have that pattern so when i say hey megan you're slipping into that pattern again right now trust me this is what we need to do you'd be like all right you're right you're right i know i could be that way and so it's a lot easier first as someone who because this could happen with clients too as you tell them and they go yeah yeah um they they hear me but then they go do what they want to do anyways and then of course what happens right so which is i mean you know i'm pretty stubborn yeah it's like i try to tell people i'm pretty stubborn i'm pretty stubborn when they tell me i'm allergic to tree nuts i'm like but i think i can have almonds like i think i went to medical school you know like you do you but well you know uh healthy megan in the true sense right healthy physically mentally uh looks the best yeah it's a myth that healthy megan is going to be like way overweight like that's the fear oh if i get healthy i'm gonna get real fat no yeah that's not what healthy megan looks like but right now what you're doing is you're you've got your you're like you're clawing on to this thing and in the meantime you're you're beating your body up and your body keeps screaming at you with injuries and fatigue and whatever hormone issues whatever and those it'll just get louder uh and become more pronounced as you continue and when we when we were 25 and had no kids it wasn't the body could handle a little bit but as we get a little bit older and life and stress and age all your body goes oh hell no i can't take this shit no more i can't take this anymore so yeah let me have one of my coaches call you uh and talk with them and the way it's gonna look uh you know you end up working with us first off uh we we hand pick them so we these are coaches that we we know we like we we trust um i'll probably hop on a call here or there so you might see me on there every once in a while um and the process is going to be trusting your coach and working with them through this process and then we're going to do a follow-up on this later on and have a great story to tell okay i hope so we will we will okay we will make it i'm going to have i'm i trust you guys thank you we got you good megan i won't have to ask you for that trust again i promise okay all right i appreciate it thank you you got it megan all right see ya that's tough yeah so real good though self-aware yeah and look just for people listening you know we've worked with enough people to know like i could give her i could write things out i could give her all the advice right now and maybe she even tries to do it wouldn't last longer than a what she was doing yeah uh and i just know that the fail rate's 100 when someone's in this kind of place working with a coach it gives you someone to let go of with that trust and if you have a good coat the problem is she's worked with crappy coaches too that really pisses me off when she told me about the coach that she worked with that really makes me angry yeah you work with a good coach uh it's life-changing and i was being honest with her you know you know we'll fix this in two months that's gonna take a year yeah this is a year of healing and the first four months five it's gonna start getting easier by the end of the year she's gonna start to see her body start to work the way it's supposed to our next caller is diane from idaho diane how you doing how you do it diane good good nice to see you yeah same how can we help you well i my email is long but i feel like that's what everybody starts with so go for it yeah okay um i started that i had just received some advice from a trainer from the gym that i go to that it doesn't match my mindset especially since i found you guys um a little history on me in my late 20s i found two books in my mom's cupboard one was called lean and free 2000 plus and the other one was eat more weigh less and i was really intrigued by the idea of eating more and weighing less the idea of eating 2000 calories plus sounded like a great idea to me um i wanted to make it work so bad but i never had a good way or tracking my food i just had a pad of paper and a pencil back in the day um i was very inconsistent also low fat was the trend and when i got married at 21 i found the book stop the insanity and i learned how to figure out fat content and food and i wouldn't touch the food if it had over 30 fat i lost a lot of weight that year then i had a baby and my metabolism just went wild i dropped to 125 pounds my average weight through high school and college was like 155 165 i've never been a tiny girl so at 125 everybody everybody thought i was sick or had an eating disorder um baby number two came 19 months later and the weight melted off with a combination of postpartum depression sorry um this time i wasn't eating much and um at my son's two-week appointment i was so thin and wasn't in a very good place um fast forward after babies three four and five my weight crept up and now my last baby he's 20 years old now and i've gone from 150s to the 160s and now i bounce back and forth between 170 190 for the past years i just yo-yo back and forth six years ago i switched from being an all cardio girl to strength training and it's taken some time to figure out lifting but it's been an incredible experience and i love the gym atmosphere until i found you guys about 10 months ago i was working out four to six days a week for about an hour getting the minimum of 8 000 steps a day and i loved when i heard you guys say that five to six days wasn't necessary because i was getting a little burnt out um so i backed off to like three and four days a week i am intrigued with reverse dieting it made so much sense especially after having my hands on the two books i mentioned above my weight loss and my weight loss and my weight loss and my weight loss my youngest son was coming home from a two-year mission in may and so in january i planned to go into a cut but i was now listening to you guys and devouring as many podcasts as i could each day i knew i needed to reverse diet instead of cutting so i spent the next few weeks building up to 2400 calories i think i probably can kind of been bouncing around between 19 18 1900 calories so In 2025, I had been maintaining around around 182 to 185 pounds can't believe I'm saying that on air but a couple um weeks at 2400 calories I spiked I spiked up to 189 I was a bit freaked out but decided to stay the course I had also started anabolic and hoped that maybe some of that was some muscle then in May and June I'd have to say I was eating a bit messy not not I was kind of eating bad um celebrating summer treats and celebrating my son coming home and I hit 199 pounds freaked out I decided I would stay off the scale and that as soon as I got home from a girls camp I was helping with at the end of June that I would then that's when I would start my cut I decided not to go into a deep cut I cut 300 calories to start with and I started that on July 20th on week five of my cut I was down four and a half pounds and I was feeling good about that and um that week at the gym a woman who was being trained by one of the two trainers at our small gym complimented me I struck up a conversation with her and the trainer I asked his opinion on a 300 calorie cut and the conversation turned into him offering me for one month for free he told me to come next day and he would do my measurements and by the information he gathered he would be able to give me exact numbers to work with I was pretty excited and hopeful to see if what he came up with would confirm that I was on the right track that I could cut at these higher calories he gathered my info we talked about my goals and he said he'd get back to me I had gone the week before this and got my first DEXA scan and his information had me 33 percent body fat and the DEXA said 32 percent so that matched up pretty good and I don't know if I understand the BMI and total body percent fat but the BMI says 31.4 um now this is where my 9-1-1 title of my email comes he told me that to lose one pound a week I need to do two high calorie days of 15 to 1900 calories four lower calorie days around 13 to 1400 calories and then one isolation day a week at a thousand calories um I have no doubt that I would lose weight eating that way but I also knew I would never stick with it and I'd lose muscle and the weight wouldn't stay off I went in the next day to go over the information I tried to explain to him that from the middle of January until July I had intentionally been eating 2400 calories so that I could cut high cut at higher calories he told me that his numbers don't lie that he's trained women for competitions and then first work that he would give me an eating plan and an exercise plan and to think about it the next day I told him I wouldn't follow a meal plan yet but I really don't want to follow the plan that he had at all it has been a little awkward seeing him now at the gym but I know my decision was right I am almost 54 years old I am 5'6 I would love to see the 160s again but I'm trying not to get hung up on the number on the scale I'd really love to see what I would look like at 22 body percent body fat and I know that my feet my knees my joints would feel better and I would love to see what I would look like at 22 body percent body fat and I would love to see what I would look like at 22 body percent body fat at a lower weight I've been working hard at the gym and want to uncover the muscle I know that I've been building I'm my second round of anabolic I do three days a week I get at least 10,000 steps a day I am working hard at eating whole foods in my cut I have been at 2100 calories 160 grams of protein 208 carbs 70 fat and for the first time ever I don't have crazy cravings and rarely binge I have moments weaknesses. Um, this week would have been 11 weeks since we started that part in July, but around eight weeks, I guess I was just kind of confused, not knowing where to go next. Um, so kind of lost momentum and, um, the last three, three weeks I haven't been very consistent. So I guess that's where I'm at is I kind of feel like, Oh, do I need to start over and build back up and then do a cut or do I keep cutting? Do I cut deeper? Um, and also just what workouts to keep. I think I always second guess my workouts. Like, am I doing the right thing? Am I doing enough? Was phase three of anabolic too much in a cut? So I'd kind of cut out a couple of those. I'd cut out one set of the bicep curls and, um, lowered the ab and calf workout part at the end for phase three. That's where I'm at. Just where do I go from here? I, your intuition was right about your trainer. So that was good. Yeah. I could tell. Yeah. I could tell he's worked with competitors. So yeah. So there's like, there's a button that they hit and it's like low calorie and then the fancy it up will buy cycling calories, which really doesn't make much of a difference. It just means 1300 calories a day. Yeah. So, I mean, you, you could cut at 1800 calories and that would be a decent cut for some, for what you've been running. Um, and your intuition was right. What you're, what you're considering is, is your ability to maintain something. And that's the most important thing to maintain, to, to consider. Uh, because yeah, you could eat barely anything, see weight loss, lose muscle, do the whole thing and then get right back on that cycle of going up and down, uh, that you can't maintain. So your intuition was a hundred percent correct. You could cut at about 1800 calories and just keep it training you probably feel really strong right now how do you feel in the gym i i do feel strong i work out with a few friends and i mean upper body wise they're always like you're so much stronger than us lower body has always been my struggle i kind of baby my knees and have my right hip kind of hurts i tend to baby it but i have pushed i've um let's see i wrote it down somewhere for deadlift i can't i did hurt my back a few years ago doing a deadlift so i'm very careful when i deadlift i didn't know if i'd ever do it again but i can do it a hundred pounds i don't know where you know how that compares to anything i did get up on my bench press to a hundred pounds which i put on the little two and a half on the end to get to a hundred pounds that's awesome that's awesome now you're doing a deadlift you're doing really good i think you're very coachable yep uh i think you if you're interested in working with a coach i think one of our coaches would do a really good job working with you there's some opportunity i hear right away the fact that uh because your your lower your lower body is where your big muscles are so when you think about things that are going to move the needle metabolically uh put us in a place where we can lean out easier being able to get stronger in our legs what that might look like is i might have you do a trap bar deadlift instead of a deadlift and i could push the weight a little more um it might look like walking lunges uh and progressing that way so you know we're obviously we're big fans of the barbell back squat and the barbell deadlift but it doesn't mean that there are not alternatives that i feel safer you feel safer that we could really start to push the weight and get a lot stronger in our legs i think there's opportunity for you there and staying where you're at calorie wise and be fed because i think you're going to continue to build muscle and get stronger or going the route that sal's saying dropping down to 1800 and you see yourself kind of slowly lean out but i like that you feel good you feel strong i also don't like cutting somebody when you tell me things like you're pretty good but then you have those occasional binges so that tells me that your appetite is kind of going i want more calories i want more food probably because it's trying to build muscle and then you know i'd rather be in a place calorie wise where you feel fed and satisfied we just make good choices consistently um and we're not restricting and we focus more on continuing to and just so you know back on the way back where you made the you know uh you saw the scale jump like what was it like eight pounds or something like that and kind of freaked out went the other direction yeah man one one week of you know eating like a quote-unquote asshole you know for a week uh a lot of that is just water weight you're just you're you're it's not you didn't put eight pounds of fat on from a week of i mean you'd really have you'd really have to eat like an asshole to get yeah yeah you'd have to so a lot of that is just uh inflammation and water and you honestly didn't need to over you probably could have just went back to where you were eating but good food and stayed the course and been okay but that's the tendency what happens people freak out they see that then they over and they they play this that's what the whole term yo-yo dieting comes from it's like doing real good then i i have a bad day or a bad week i freak out i see the scale so then i go the other extreme when it's like oh we really didn't need to go the extreme we just need to get rein it back in and that's what the the coaching point is part why i think sal's even going that direction this is what a coach kind of helps you work through is when we have those moments the reality is in real life you're going to have a bad day even a bad week sometimes and i'm there as a coach to be like hey you're doing just fine we're going to go right back where we were we don't need to go on some extreme cut you don't need to ramp up cardio right now let's get back to where we were let's get refocused on our training let's and and actually let's put all those extra calories work let's get let's have a good lift let's go get strong today you know i'm saying and and then keep leaning into the building muscle and trusting the process but uh you overall doing really good you are and you're up and down you know suggestion is is kind of like a good idea um you know you would cut for a little while and once you start to plateau then you would bump a little while and then you would attempt uh another cut and that's that kind of up and down helps maintain consistency It's a slower process, but it's a more permanent process, dare I use the word. And you don't lose, you don't feel like you're starving. You're not, you know, feeling weak in the gym, you know, type of deal. You know, an aggressive cut will cause greater scale weight loss, but it's going to set you up in a bad place and it'll set you up for a rebound almost always. So it's a slower process. 1800 could be your cut, then you could bring it back up to 22, you know, after five weeks or so at it and then kind of play that stair step approach. And when you bump the calories, you don't have to keep them up that high. You can keep them up for a week or two, going back down to the cut, you know, type of deal. If you want a coach to walk you through this, I mean, I think, you know, to get, I think a good body fat percentage for a woman like you, by the way, five kids, good job raising those five kids, especially after you talked about how difficult it was with the second one. That's such a. Such a commendable thing. You know, getting your body fat, I think 25% is a good number to aim for. Low 20s is fine as well. But as we get into our, you know, once you start to get into your 40s and above, mid 20s is a healthier body fat percentage. And you'll look better. You'll look better. You'll look radically different. Yeah, you look better. You're healthier. You're more resilient. You're less prone for illness. Bone density tends to be better. Low 20s, you know, it's like. A lot of women in their 20s and 30s, as they get up a little higher, once you get to 40s, 50s, 60s and above, I like 25, 26% body fat with good muscle. And it looks better anyway. Yeah. So. What will make the difference. I didn't have any idea what to even look for. Well, honestly, what will make the difference, and I don't know how often or the episodes you've been listening to, but I've been talking about with a lot of our female clients and listeners, like, we want to build into the body you want instead of this mentality that we've been saying for so long of trying to cut, cut, cut in the body. It's like, you'd be amazed. If we didn't even move that much in weight, but I focus on building the body you want, you'll have the shape you want. You'll have the curves. You'll have the shoulders. You'll have the butt. You'll have the things that everybody wants. You can build into it instead of always trying to cut into it like everybody wants. It's far more sustainable. You'll feel better. You'll even look better. And the body fat percentage becomes irrelevant. It really does. So, but you're doing a really good job. And I would love to see you work with one of our coaches, though, to take you through this for a while. And then I think you'd be set after that. Okay. Yeah. I have loved when I've heard you say that, build, build into the body. I try to keep that to my mind when I'm at the gym and stuff. Good. Well, good. It's funny because I, when I'm at the gym, the girls I work out with, they're all like size small, extra small. And I'm, I'm those size large, you know, like it's hard to wrap your head around that. Just that comparison. And yeah. Yeah. Get out of that. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of that place. That's really tough. But Diane, if you want, I can have a coach. Call you. And you're probably maybe nine months of coaching is, is what it would look like. Uh, and I think in nine months we could probably get you down to that, you know, 25 to 27% body fat with a higher metabolic rate. So yeah, I check it out. All right. I'll have somebody give you a call, but look, you're doing a good job and I'm really proud of you for sticking to your guns because to have a trainer tell you that, and they say I train women and my numbers work. And for you, cause I know what that pressure feels like also the desire to want to shrink down. I had, he had, you not said he trained competitors. I would have guessed. Cause that's a typical, that's a typical, I'm going to just, just cut you real hard, have you over, you know, over-trained. And then if you make it, you make it. And if you don't, well, that's your fault. Great intuition on your part. Yeah. Great intuition. Yeah. And you'll, and you'll information that you guys feed. Cause yeah, when I hear, like when I hear you talking to other women and they've worked up to like 27, 28, 30, 3000 calories, I'm like, my mind is blown. It gives me that. Like, you don't have to starve. That's right. I just, most people starving themselves to be thin. And I'm like, and honestly, that is a better goal than some arbitrary number on a scale or body fat percentage is like, Hey, I would, could we get up to 2,800, 3000 calories? And I love the body I'm in and be strong. Yes. A hundred percent. You can a hundred percent. And that's a good goal to have. And you'll see when you're working with our coaches, how different the conversation sounds compared to like what you experienced with this other coach. So very, very different. Okay. We got you. We got you. You guys are amazing. I tell all my kids, I tell my boys, listen to them. Thank you, Diane. You're doing great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You know, back to the body fat percentage thing. I know we always say low twenties, women are really happy, but I do got to say as women get older, they tend to be happier in the mid twenties. And it's mainly because they look younger with a higher body fat percentage, their faces look younger. And so you'll hear this from them. They'll gain a little body fat. They're like, I look better and I feel better. Um, so it's a little different, uh, as you go through this process. And so the aiming for the low twenties, I get that, but mid twenties seems to be better as women get, uh, in higher in age. She's doing really good. I'm actually, I'm super proud that her intuition and I go with the trainer, you know, uh, what I hear right away is the, the fear around the legs. Sounds like she's, I bet she's shoulder pressing and curling and doing some really good weight worried about her knees. Yeah. But worried and nervous. And so good. Coaching, you know, find movements that she feels confident in. We really push the weight, get strong in her lower body. She'll see a metabolic bounce right there and start to notice a difference. Uh, but over and then slowly bumping those calories. And then every once in a while, put her in a cut for a couple of weeks so she can see, um, no, good place. She's in a good place. So I hope she sticks with it. 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 health. Check out our discounted RGB super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB super bundle includes maps, anabolic maps, performance, and maps, aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB super bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin. As your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price, the RGB super bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee, and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. 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