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2968: Why Eating Six Times a Day Works (Even Though Studies Say It Shouldn't)

from Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth ·

77m 12s

2968: Why Eating Six Times a Day Works (Even Though Studies Say It Shouldn't)

The podcast explores the effectiveness of small, frequent meals for fat loss, challenging the scientific consensus that they boost metabolism. While studies show no significant metabolic advantage—larger meals produce similar thermic effects—practical results remain strong due to behavioral benefits. These include reduced cravings, improved discipline, better meal planning, and easier protein intake. Frequent meals also ease digestion, especially for high-protein diets, and prevent overeating during extended fasting. The hosts emphasize that hunger during a calorie deficit is normal and worsens with longer waits between meals. A key insight is that bodybuilders and athletes use this strategy not for physiological gains, but for behavioral control. The episode also highlights the availability of a personalized MAPS workout program and endorses health products like Caldera Lab’s eye serum and 8Sleep for superior sleep quality. The hosts conclude that while science may debunk the theory, real-world results show small meals are effective for sustaining consistency, managing hunger, and supporting long-term health. This behavioral approach, combined with planning and meal prep, makes it a practical and accessible strategy for most people, regardless of fitness level.

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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MindPump. MindPump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. We're approaching over half a billion total downloads. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we answered listeners' questions. So we went to Instagram, MindPump Media. We picked four questions from our listeners, and we answered them at the end of the episode. But the beginning of this episode is the intro. This was 60 minutes long. Now, in the intro, we talk about how eating small meals can help with fat loss. We talk about other fitness topics, strength training, creatine studies. We talk about current events, family life. It's always fun. Again, if you want to post a question that we can pick from, go to Instagram, post it at MindPump Media. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Caldera Lab. Today, we talked about their eye serum in a clinical trial. 75% of patients. It's a pretty amazing product. Go check it out. Go to calderalab.com forward slash MindPump. The code MindPump will get you 20% off. This episode is also brought to you by 8Sleep. This is a device that maximizes the quality of your sleep. It's the most advanced sleep system in the world. It sits on your bed. It cools or warms your bed. And it monitors your sleep. And uses AI technology to adjust the temperature to give you the best night of sleep of your life. Go check them out. Get $350 off their Pod 5 Ultra. Go to 8sleep.com forward slash MindPump. We also have a new MAPS program. You ready for this? You can get an individualized MAPS program. You can get a MAPS workout program designed specifically for you. This is the first time we've ever done this. Here's what you do. Go to MyMAPSProgram.com. Fill out the questionnaire. And in a week, a MindPump trainer will get on the phone with you and deliver to you your very own individualized MAPS workout program. Once again, it's MyMAPSProgram.com. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, everybody. The science got it wrong. Small, frequent meals, they work for fat loss. We're going to break it down right now. Let's go. Let's get to it. I've been wanting to go on this rant. So, okay. So, we need to give a little context. So, the bodybuilding world promoted this for a long time. And what they would say is that if you eat small, frequent meals, okay? So, bodybuilders became known for eating six meals a day versus your typical three, that by doing so, it burned more body fat, that you got leaner. And this is what bodybuilders are often guilty of, is they notice a result from a practice, and then they try to explain the science. Then the science gets debunked, and so the whole thing gets debunked, even though in practice, it seems to still work. Well, then we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Exactly. This is one of those things, by the way, I have an even better way of selling it that's wrong. But what do you mean? Well, what I used to say, okay, is that your metabolism is like a fire. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And we want to stoke that fire, and we want to sprinkle kindling. Like, if you threw kindling on that versus a big log, what happens to that fire? Yeah. Right? Like, if you took a log, and you cut it up in all kinds of little pieces of kindling, and then you-- Fed it all day long. And fed it all day long, that fire is roaring. It's going to burn up that wood way faster. If you throw this big, giant log on it, it's going to take forever to light that and burn that log down. So that's like your metabolism. That's a nice visual. Yeah. So what body-- It's wrong, by the way. Very weird. So here's what bodybuilders would say. And by the way, I said this because we didn't have the science to support this or debunk this back in the late '90s, okay? So in the late '90s, we would tell people to eat small meals throughout the day. And in practice, when people would do it, it would actually work. And the way we would explain it is we would say that it's stoking your metabolism. And then a little bit of science came out, and we learned that there's a thermic effect when you eat food, meaning when you eat food, your metabolic rate does go up a little bit, okay? And so the idea was, "Wow, let's keep your metabolic rate, let's stoke it throughout the day. Let's get that thermic effect happening six times a day." Instead of two or three, because the average American only eats two times a day. Right, right. And then the studies came out and showed that the thermic effect is-- it correlates to the amount of food that you eat. In other words, large meal, large thermic effect, small meal, small thermic effect at the end of the day. Doesn't make a difference when it comes to thermic effect. And so then we took that and we threw it out. And then you also had this, Adam, you had the popularity of fasting. That became a thing, intermittent fasting and skipping meals. And here's what the data shows. When you skip meals, you have more cell autophagy, right? Programmed cell death, reduced inflammation. You have all these potential health benefits. And so then it really seemed to put the last nail in the coffin for small meals, because it's like, first off, there is no additional metabolic benefit, so that's false. Second, we have all this data showing that fasting seems to be super good for your body. Now, we had further studies that now show that the calorie deficit is what-- a calorie deficit is equivalent to the fasting. In other words, when people fast, when they don't eat all day and they eat once or twice in a day, they typically are in a calorie deficit because they skip meals. When I was-- by the way, when we were trainers in the early days, we didn't call it fasting, we called it skipping meals. Yeah. And so when they compare calorie deficit to fasting, what we find is, overall, the net effect is the same when it comes to things like cell autophagy, inflammation, that kind of stuff. And Walter Longo did all kinds of great stuff on this. Basically, what he did was studied a low-calorie diet, a 500-calorie diet. Fasting mimicking diet, he called it. Yeah, that's right, for a week versus one day or two days of no food whatsoever and the net benefits, right? It's the same, yeah, well, something like that, right? So, okay, so that seemed to-- so now we know fasting doesn't really have any additional-- now, there may be some additional-- some benefits to fasting for people with specific bowel inflammatory issues or whatever. Blood glucose levels. Yeah, maybe, but for most people, there's no additional benefit. It's a black and white way of eating less calories, so that might be why people like it, but no real additional benefit. But let's go back to the small meals throughout the day. Why is it that, you know, bodybuilders and stage presentation athletes and people who don't even compete in bodybuilding who did this were like, "Man, this really works. This seems to work. I get leaner easier when I do it this way." What is going on? And so, I think we can explain this from a trainer perspective, which trainers and coaches, when you train people for a long time, what you start to really notice are behavioral effects, more than physiological, you know, effects or, you know, what's happening with your body and calorie burn. It's like we see things from a behavioral standpoint because that's the most important thing, especially when it comes to consistency, and small meals throughout the day has a really interesting effect on behavior. So, I think that's-- And that's probably why it works so well for so many people. Yeah, no, huge. I think-- So, this has been on my mind since you and I have been dieting. You know, I went on a rant on Instagram a few weeks back on the fasted cardio thing, which was another one that I feel like we did a disservice to people by basically throwing that also out because I think there's huge behavioral things that happen with that. And I noticed that as soon as I got on my diet, one of the-- Many things that changed in my routine and habits was the frequency of my meals. And it wasn't like I went in like, oh, I need to eat six meals because there's any extra benefit of it. It's like I found that as like a go-to strategy to keep cravings at bay because when I only, and, you know, again, here's where, if in the studies, we're controlling these things. If someone eats two meals and they equate to 3,000 calories and you have someone who eats six meals and it equates to 3,000 calories. Yeah. It's the same. It's the same. And neither one of them benefits the other one more in the journey of fat loss. Now, the difference between the two of those, behavioral speaking. Yeah, how they feel. Yeah, cravings wise. When I don't eat for six hours, I not only am I, and I'm in a calorie deficit. Being in a calorie deficit causes me to be hungry already. You're going to be hungry anyway. Right. So I'm hungry no matter what. And now I prolong how long that is. Boy, do all the cravings start kicking up. That's right. And then the discipline to make a healthy, low calorie choice becomes extremely difficult versus I'm hungry all day anyways, but every two hours or so I get to eat something. Yeah. It's easier to be hungry because, okay, this is a reality. Now, I know you hear us talk on the podcast about how to manage things like hunger and a calorie deficit. High protein is one of the ways that you do this, right? There's more satiety, high protein fiber. Also does this whole natural foods produce more satiety than heavily processed foods. So you can definitely feel hungrier than you should because you're eating a low protein diet. And that's also a heavily processed food diet. That'll make you want to eat more. Okay. But even if you do all the things right, when you're in a deficit, you're going to feel hungrier than when you're not. That's just a fact. Okay. Your body is having to tap into its stored energy. So it's going to kick up hunger. to prevent itself from having having to, you know, it's like you don't want to go into your savings account. You don't want to go into your savings account because that's your savings. And so your desire is going to be like, I got to go make more money or spend less money to make up the difference. This is what your body does when you're in a deficit. So it tries to, it does kick up hunger. So even with all the strategies. And that signal gets louder the longer you wait. That's right. So, you know, when it's a two-hour window, it's there still because you're in a deficit, like you said. When that two-hour window turns into a three, a four, a five hour, the signal seems to get louder. Like it's your body going, hey, I've been trying to tell you we need to eat something. We haven't ate in two hours and we're hungry and we're in a deficit. You still haven't fed me. And so I feel like the discipline to make the whole food choice to eat something that is low calorie is really difficult. It's easier to be hungry and eat a little bit all day long than it is to be hungry and eat two meals. It's just easier. It just is because you satiate yourself a little bit. So this is probably from a behavioral standpoint, here's what it looks like. When you eat small meals throughout the day, you're less likely to overeat because the cravings and the hunger don't get as strong. Yes. And this is why people saw success doing this. It also does this. Here's another thing, Adam, that I realized as I do this, like if you're going into your day or into your diet or into your whatever, you're going to a cut and you're like, okay, I'm going to eat five meals, let's say a day, you're probably going to do more meal prep. It's more planning. Yeah. And you have more. So more planning always helps when it comes to getting better results. It always helps with consistency. Planning helps with consistency. Trying to be in a calorie deficit without planning is really difficult. Yeah. Weaning it and going like, oh, I'm just going to make good, healthy. Okay. What am I going to eat for lunch now? And now you're really hungry and you got DoorDash. You got all these restaurants around you. It's very difficult. And nothing ready to go. Versus you've got, you know, you're four or five or let's, you know, you're a bigger guy like you or I, six meals. It's all planned out. So it tends to encourage meal plan. And I'll tell you what, when I had clients that were good about eating, most of my clients wouldn't go six meals, but they would go five. Six meals would be like the bigger, you know, more heavily muscled clients. But my clients that had five meals, they prepped. And you know what it typically looked like, Adam? Four prep meals in one shake is almost always, kind of what it looked like. Although I had some clients that were just meals, most of my clients were like, okay, here's my shake and here's my four meals. And this is what I'm taking. And I have my breakfast. So I have three more and my shake and I take it to work and I'm good. I mean, that's actually even, even being a bigger guy, that's what mine looks like. It looks like four prep meals with either cottage cheese or Greek yogurt and, or a shake in addition to that. And so it's like, those, those are the other two supplements and having that all stored and ready. I mean, this is the same argument that I made for the fasted cardio. You're that you're making right now, which is the planning aspect. If I'm going to get up and I'm going to walk on the treadmill for an hour before, uh, you know, work or before my day starts, I, that's not a, like, I make that decision when the alarm goes off. Like I had to set the alarm an hour earlier. You went to bed earlier. I had to go to bed earlier. So the planning aspect of I'm going to do this thing has this trickle down in the behavior effect that it helps me towards my goals too. And so again, this is another one of those things where, you know, we, we, when we measure control, everything in the studies, the studies show that, oh, that doesn't make a difference. All the calories burned on the fasted cardio thing is the same. If you did cardio fed or later in the day, it doesn't really matter. But the reality is if somebody chooses to get up and do it fasted before their day starts, like 80% of those people are having to get up an hour earlier than we're in their start. And then, and then that also sets the tone for the day. Same thing goes for the meal planning and prepping. I'm more likely to make good choices. And if, when I've got four good, healthy meals already ready to go for the day, it's much, much easier to discipline myself to go throw that in the microwave than it is when I'm just kind of winging it and going like, like you said, oh, I don't have anything to eat. What should I eat? Uh, I could door dash this, or I could do this, or I could try and make, oh, wait, I'm in a hurry. I can't. And so then all the excuses come and then here comes the choice. By the way, side benefit, you save money. Meal prep does save a lot of money. It really does. Uh, so people, you know, eating healthy is expensive. It's not, uh, especially when you meal prep, you save a ton of money. And then you mentioned this, Adam, like you don't have to wait very long. So it's inevitably, if you're in a deficit, you're getting leaner. Uh, you're going to have some hunger kick up no matter what. That's just physiologically normal, by the way, not feeling hungry in a ever a low calorie is actually a red flag. So I just want people to know that like feeling some hunger, not ravenous, but feeling some hunger is a normal physiological response, uh, to being in a calorie deficit and the longer your deficit, the more this starts to happen. So, uh, so that's, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it is like, if I'm not eating for six hours, like I'm kind of dealing with this background hunger for six hours, whereas I could eat two meals in that period of time. So all I really need to do is wait an hour or two. And this actually happens. This is actually psychologically. What tends to happen is you're in this deficit, you're losing weight. You're already down 10 pounds, already down 15 pounds, whatever. You've got your prep meals like, Oh man, I'm hungry. And then you look at the clock. You're like, Oh, I just got to wait an hour versus I look at the clock and go, man, four hours. Oh God, what am I going to do for four? I'm going to chew a bunch of gum and drink a bunch of water. And I got to think about this the whole time and distract myself. And so you just don't have to wait very long before you eat something, which by the way, here's, here's what happens when you wait a long time while feeling hungry. When you get to eat your meal, when you finally get to eat your meal, uh, this, the studies will show this, you eat it faster. Okay. So people slow down. In fact, there's, there's, this is actually a diet strategy. You can act. If you eat in between bites, if you put your fork down and you chew your food thoroughly, you'll actually eat less calories. This there's really interesting studies on this. There's really nothing magical about it other than the fact that you're slowing the process down, allowing satiety to kick in and you'll pay attention. If you ever binge or eat something hyper palatable, you eat it much faster. Okay. This is what tends to happen when you wait a long time to eat. So for people listening who like to fast, you know what I'm talking about? You fast all day, you get to your meal and you're shoveling it in as fast as you can or faster than you normally would. So you tend to eat it slower. Uh, you tend, it's easier to make a better food choice and you don't get so full. Okay. That's the other side of it. Like when I wait a long time and I stuff myself and maybe I overeat and I feel kind of, uh, not so good. And I start to do that up and down process, uh, with my diet. So, uh, not having to wait very long for many people is beneficial. And in practice, this makes a lot of sense. Um, and in some cases it helps digestion. Well, I was just going to say that was the next thing is that you, I feel like when I would, and I really noticed this because it's been, I don't know how many months now that I've been micro dosing the triseptide and it's slowed down my motility. And so I've already had a handful of times where I was hungry. Um, I remember the first time we were all together. What event was that? Oh, was it the peptide Congress? And, uh, we hadn't eaten. It was, we, we went like four or five hours and I was really hungry. And, uh, I, you know, ordered room service and I ate and it wasn't even for me, it wasn't even that big, but it was big in comparison to what I had been eating. And because my motility has slowed down, uh, on that boy, it just, it sat in me like a rock and I was uncomfortable. Couldn't sleep. I was in the middle of the night. I'm getting up doing air squats, trying to move the food through. Like, I mean, it was just so awful. And so you gotta think that when you wait those longer periods of time like that, you're more likely to overeat. Like that. I gotta think that has a negative impact on the digestive system, just stressing it more than it needs to be stressed. And then of course, like what I did, it could potentially impact sleep, which also has its negative impact. So, uh, there are, uh, times. So if you have really, really bad gut health, SIBO, um, you know, you're, you're working with a functional medicine practitioner. They may advise you to go longer periods, uh, without food, but then you get diagnosed with it, whatever issue, and you're not treating something with a functional medicine practitioner, smaller meals tend to be easier to digest. It's just less load on the gut. You don't get so full. Uh, and, and it also, uh, especially if you're in high protein diet, like protein can, for most people, it's not that hard to digest, but when you start to eat a lot of protein in a meal, it can be a bit difficult. I've had a lot of female clients, uh, talk to me about this when they're like, you know, I got it, my protein targets. And so then they tell me what they ate and let's say they're trying to hit 130 grams of protein. And they only had two meals. It was like 65 grams of protein in a meal. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you know, why don't, if we broke that up into two or three meals, you probably wouldn't have an issue digesting. They just had all of it all at once. And then it kind of sits there for a while. Now your body doesn't have an issue absorbing it. There's, there's, you know, bad information out there about absorbing protein or how much your body's going to use or whatever. That's not really an issue, but the digestive issues can be real. And I don't, you know, eat, I aim for about 200 grams of protein a day. If I eat that in four meals, it's so much easier to digest. And if I eat it in two meals and I've done it in two meals, that's a hundred grams of protein. Each meal doesn't feel as good. Really hard for, and so this is the other part that I noticed, uh, the protein. Um, I talked many times on this podcast about, um, I'm notorious for when I fall off the diet or I'm not tracking, I'm not being consistent. Um, I always tend to go back to higher carbohydrate diet and I don't hit my protein intake. It's hard for me to hit over 200 grams of protein consistently. And so one of the first obvious focuses, and we teach everybody this is to focus on getting your protein well one of the ways that uh i have success with this is just plainly moving up my frequency of meals because if i allow myself to only have two or three meals it's really tough for all three of those meals to have this massive 70 gram serving like maybe one maybe i could have a you know 16 ounce steak at night i could handle that but having a breakfast and a lunch with 70 grams of protein really tough to do that and really tough to do that consistently and so right away increasing my meal frequency also makes it much easier to hit those protein targets by the way this is one of the reasons why bodybuilders did this when they're not cutting so bodybuilders notoriously small meals throughout the day when they're getting ready for a show they also tend to eat frequent meals off season and it's for that reason right there adam a bodybuilder's extreme case right they're eating a big muscular people they're eating they're eating a lot of fat they're eating a lot of fat and they're eating a lot of fat and they're eating a lot of fat and they're eating a lot of fat and they're eating a lot of fat and you know decently fit and you're trying to hit 140 grams of protein in three meals you know that's almost 50 grams of protein uh each meal that's a lot that's a lot for a woman to eat that's a lot for a guy to eat but if you eat that in five meals it's a lot more doable it's not as big of an issue it also makes it easier to hit protein everybody like hitting protein targets with small prep meals it's like you never miss you never tend to miss doing it with two or three meals tends to be an issue you know we tend to dismiss uh what bodybuilders and competitors do because the average person doesn't relate to them yep um but the truth is they are the best example of the people that are the best at body composition change period period nobody is better at body composition change than bodybuilders or stage competitors nobody that's their game that's the name of the game and they're extreme but that doesn't mean we can't take some of their strategies scale it down make it realistic and apply it to ourselves i mean because they're the extreme they have to be the best at it right they have to be the best at putting on as much muscle as fast as possible and losing body fat as fast as possible we have no better examples than that and so this idea that where we've come in all the science nerds that have debunked things like the six meals a day and debunked the facet yet when you peer into that space still all of that still happens yep all of them still use that as a tray so if the science says it doesn't work or it doesn't help or it's not beneficial then why the hell does everybody still do it and have tremendous success well it's not because the the the bodybuilders are right from a science perspective and then they're wrong it's they've hacked into something on a behavioral standpoint that is effective that it works and consistently works that it continues to get passed down and utilize as a strategy where they got it wrong was how we tried to explain it from a scientific perspective the fact that it's not a scientific perspective it's not a scientific perspective it works it doesn't work it's already been proven we we know it works that's why we keep doing it it's why as soon as i get i get on my kick i fall right back into some of these things because i know it works i know the carb cycling works really well for me i know that the fasted cardio works really well for me i know that's bringing up the meals in five to six meals a day works really well for me i also understand what the studies say about an uncontrolled environment of all those things it doesn't make a difference but what i also know is that we don't live in a perfectly controlled study no that there there is behaviors that it is hard to get up uh extra early it is takes a sunday for me to plan my meals out but then there's lots of benefits that come with that yeah the two things that make this effective is if you're listening and you're like okay i'm going to try this the two things that you'll notice out of this is that you you're going to have to meal prep and that is always a good idea uh and the cravings part and you'll notice that big time like as you do this throughout the day i remember when my clients would do this like you know what i don't really feel nearly as hungry because i'm kind of eating all day long and that's really the the that's the key right there so give it a shot see for yourself most people it's looking about it looks like about five meals four to five meals instead of six uh but give it a shot see how it works for you so anyway i want to talk about caldera labs eye serum because we talked about this last time doug's been using it i started using it within 30 minutes i can see a difference it's crazy within 30 minutes it's wild so this morning so last night well i should say this morning 2 30 in the morning my three-year-old starts crying and we have a monitor normally we try to convince her to go back to sleep and she's pretty good at about it but i don't know if i told you this but we have like a mouse problem at my house and see i so i'll tell you that i'll tell you the backstory she was complaining to jessica that she was hearing noises and she's really scared and so jessica was kind of like you know what are you hearing and she's like i don't know and i'm really scared so she's kind of dismissing her well anyway one night we heard on the monitor scratching and so jessica i'm in the shower she come i hear noise i like ran down half naked and we have an attic above her room and you could hear like the distinct sound of you know a rat or a mouse so we had an exterminator come they put traps up there so last night 2 30 she starts crying and rather than try and talk her down i'm gonna go get her because number one she's scared number two i'm like maybe one of the mice got caught in the trap and is making noise it wasn't but i'll still down there so i grabbed her brought her up and then i just couldn't go back to sleep very well it's 2 30 for the rest of the night it was three or four times i just terrible sleep i woke up this morning looked in the mirror and bags bags under your eyes the worst the worst bags dude and so i had the the caldera lab eye serum and i put it on and then you know did some stuff with the kids and whatever and then looked in the mirror like 20 minutes later and it's like shrink so that's how i've used it i know doug is like pretty consistent with all his skin routine like daily um i've used it like that i've had when i have a rough night of sleep it's very obvious to me i've got bags under my eyes i see that uh more now at my age than ever before and so i'll use it and i like i said this is why i think it's it's another one of those products that sell so well because you can you'll notice it's not like one of those you got to do it for a month and then you'll see improvements no it's like you have a bad night's sleep you have puffy eyes you put it under there it's like you'll see it they look better you'll see it yeah and four they did a four-week clinical study on the eye serum and the vast majority 78 of people saw improvements less visible dark circles uh less puffiness their under eyes appeared smoother so their stuff it legit it really works dude speaking of eyes man this i'm having a real i'm having a real hard time with this it's uh i don't even say i just it's been going on now for a little over six months i never thought i'd be a guy that's gonna possibly need glasses i always had like i had like i think at one time i had like 2015 vision right that's the way you get like crazy good vision yeah i had like really good vision i could always read like the bottom line of the thing like yeah so uh to accept that my eyesight is getting bad is like boy is it really messy but it's the stuff up close right yeah it's just that like everything here normal doesn't even bother me it's uh reading uh small print i saw you earlier what were you reading earlier what was that oh the label i was reading the label of david nurse's thing yeah yeah yeah and i'm like trying to do this right and so face and yeah it's yeah i'm and so you know what i also noticed that's happening is like i'm being very irritable and old man about it like i'm angry you know that why aren't you working yeah so this morning and i had justin was complaining about his eyesight too and i i was before you guys i'm a little older than you guys so i think that's why it was hitting me too so i i can't i i i had to apologize to katrina this morning and so she's like you know her she's she's so positive about everything so even when i'm like i'm like nagged out oh honey it's just because you probably were looking at your screen and she keeps trying i'm like no like i like stop like stop placating me like i know for sure what's going on and so and she's been so she tries to be all positive about all the time well this morning and and and in the morning and nights are the worst when i first wake up yeah oh god trying to read like anything is just like so hard uh and i was reading my bible this morning yeah i know my lights up hella bright oh i couldn't even read my my devotional i have to go like put it under the bright light yeah this is like this is ridiculous you know so uh so mornings and night are really bad so this morning i just got up i just climbed in the shower and i was like oh my god i'm so and uh you know katrina's in the bathroom and she's like hey nancy send sent over a rendering of the we're building our backyard gym right now right and um i've decided i want which by the way it looks cool you showed me the picture it looks sick i know i hope it looks like that looks so sick i know i hope it looks as good or better it's like open air gym yeah yeah so uh and so what what we were you know adding to this thing is that uh the the back wall so it originally was going to have this back wall it was going to be opened up like a like a normal pergola and uh she convinced me to to build a wall and so she was katrina was trying to show me the difference of with that black wall or no black wall and i'm in the shower and i'm like and she's like oh look at nancy's sitting over and she's like trying and i'm like i can't see it i can't see the difference it's black you know what i'm saying and it's like and it's like against the fence and so i can't see that they look the same picture exactly she's like she's trying to what do you which one you like more and i'm like i can't see what it is i think i got so irritated and i'm like it's early like a grouch until i get my coffee and all my stuff i mean so that but it's like i i'm like i'm sorry i'm just i could tell that like i'm more mad than my side is going that like i can't look at a a simple picture and it instantly distinguished the difference between the two of them especially on something like that it was like this uh black wall with a dark background and so the contrast of no wall or wall you know you know what it is so the muscles maybe correct me if i'm wrong dog maybe you can look this up i think the muscles that can that constrict your pupil or help focus become less elastic as you get older and so that's why near sightedness starts to get affected because your eyes have to adjust from from seeing things far to seeing things close yeah and those muscles are what get affected as you get older and that makes sense because i would imagine after waking up you've had your eyes closed and so it's like it's like i need i need i need the day to go to like of that happening before i can do it so mornings are just well i used to bro i used to see so i got laser uh i as we age our eyes lose our ability to focus uh what does it say there a natural uh early to mid 40s and what is it happening it's the internal mechanism loss of flexibility there it is the natural lens in your eye is soft gel like oh so it's not the muscles it's the lens that starts to get stiff do you think that also can be exacerbated because of the iphone use or is that just i'm i'm that can cause eye fatigue and then that's the muscles that i think i'm that i'm referring to or the ability to yeah because i also think i also notice that so like let's say if you're looking at something for a long time and then you switch yeah you know what else i noticed for myself what adjusting to dark rooms is it takes longer now like i walk into a dark room and it's like pitch black for like bro i used to see so i got laser eye surgery a long time ago my eyesight i needed glasses to drive long time ago so i was probably 22 uh and i would wear eyeglasses wow that young yeah yeah i saw my eyesight for things far away was was for a long time wasn't that great so when i was in class i'd have to sit at the front of the classroom and then eventually i got glasses for when i would drive because when i would drive i'd see a sign i'd have to get close to it to see it but then it would affect my driving so i started wearing glasses and then i started doing jujitsu in my early to mid-20s and i don't want to wear glasses anymore and so uh for whatever reason um and i went and paid for laser eye surgery and they gave me 2015 vision which i still have so i still have 2015 vision but they told me when i did that your near-sighted vision will get as you get older that's going to go bad and there's nothing no matter what no that has nothing to do with uh with laser eye surgery yeah that's why this was so weird for me to wrap my brain around was i don't i feel fine right like looking at everything in here nothing feels like it's changed really but as soon as i try and read something that's close it's like sucks yeah it sucks yeah it was you know it was the first the first was when you you you told me to get that bottle uh from um for my uh for the uh gut uh for uh the parasite yeah that was the very first time it was on the bottle it was on a black bottle with small writing and i thought it was you know what i started doing i thought it was the bottle's fault you know this is the bottle yeah i was like man whoever this is the dumbest thing who ever made this you know what i started doing i started using my iphone as a as a magnifying glass i'd use the camera put it on something like oh my god yeah you have to get reading glasses dude yeah and now is there any benefit i thought i read somewhere that i should try and prolong that as long as i can i don't know if that's true like because then then i'll adapt and i'll have to have them type of deal versus i don't know if that's true dude like is it better for me to do this for a while i don't because that's i know that's the face i make yeah what's the face dude is it i don't know i don't know why i do anything with my cheeks in my mouth to try and get my eyes to focus more what that is but it's annoying it's a natural reaction but yeah that's one of the things that you i notice as i get older my hearing scene is still great but at some point i think hearing gets affected that's gonna be weird can you get uh can i get stylish reading glasses of course oh i can what do you mean can you well i know they make like like for eyesight you can do like well you can get whatever you know designer brand i bought cheapo reading glasses from amazon that just magnify things that's so you oh bro i got dizzy oh if i'm getting glass i'm getting some badass yeah so get a monocle so yeah you can just with one eye you just you read a lot doesn't just wear glasses he does sometimes but i don't i don't know why um we could totally make fun of him because he's not here by the way it's not the same though if he's not here no it's not as feels mean yeah i do i called him fat the other day when he wasn't here i'm like it's not as fun that's mean it's just yeah it's just mean yeah he'll hear the show he'll be able to no i'll send it to him for sure hey in case you didn't hear this yeah dude i yeah i noticed my eyesight uh i also i've talked about this this has been happening for a little while just growing hair weird places you know i mean like what's going on why do i have hair in my ears i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know why does that even exist i don't think there's any evolutionary reason for having hair in your ears you would think there would be or on my traps why do why do our ears keep growing oh that's they do do you know that why is that what everything else stops collagen nose will grow too yeah nose and ears continue to grow bro i used to have the smallest ears they're not that big still but you know what happened the other day what i did there was a post uh that we did on instagram did somebody say something listen comments never on instagram did somebody say something almost never bother me unless they catch me we just had big ears listen somebody said somebody said why are his ears like that what that was the comment that was so nobody's ever said anything about my ears and i'm like looking at the video and i'm like what's wrong my ears dude your ears are fine they're all right yeah i guess they stand out a little bit i don't know i'm like self-conscious i don't know what does it say it's the result of gravity cartilage breakdown and the oh so it's a myth your ears don't you stop growing they do stop growing but i think what happened is you just get less elasticity so they kind of droop more no i according to this anyway always have big ears always have big ears i feel like my ears have been growing which is which is not good because they were never small yeah you always had what about a nose look up the nose okay does the nose keep on growing i thought the nose i have a perfect nose i don't want this that's the perfect you'll be a full-on toucan by the time you're 80 i don't have a big nose dude i just don't you guys talk about my face shape you know i asked my wife about that she's like you have a perfect nose i don't have a big nose dude i just don't you guys talk about my face no i told i said i've had plastic surgeons tell me i have a perfect nose whoa i told you that they use they use use an example and people come in we could make i told you we could make a distefano nose for you no no i told you i had a guy come up to me in the gym and he goes this is gonna sound real weird but can i ask you a real personal question he goes i'm a plastic surgeon he goes where did you get your nose your nose done shut i it's happened more than once plastic surgeons approached me more than once wow so i feel very confident yeah that's almost as that's that in you can see yeah what's going on so maybe it's just the rest of your face is beak face see there you go i asked jessica i asked jessica i said hey the guys always call me beak face so do i look like do i have a beak face she's like no i might take a picture from the side our wives will never say anything it's like my wife thinks i'm not going blind you know oh you're fine she still says you're not bald you got hair yeah you can grow it if you want hey dude i'm coming bro i'm coming for you you are i am dude you are accelerated in the last year or two yeah it's happening dude but i'm cutting it shorter and shorter for kids dog that'll do that just slowly well i'm getting closer to 50 right i'm gonna turn uh i'm 47 so but i'm i what i must the strategy is just gonna let everybody know i'm gonna go shorter and shorter and shorter so it's not like a dramatic change it's a good strategy actually jessica's suggestion it's actually a really good strategy yeah because i mean it will feel like i didn't really notice it just kind of slowly went i think i like the clean shave without the without with the short hair too or maybe it's just because i'm in lower calorie i think my jawline was i don't know it could be that because that's how i get yeah i'll grow a beard when my face gets round yeah that's i have to do that yeah i have to do that when does your face get chiseled takes a long time huh yeah am i not there you're not damn bro i thought i was kind of there right i was like i feel like i'm yeah it really takes uh i was i was going back and looking at old like uh competing like when you're competing yeah you can oh yeah when i get down when i get down to probably like six percent yeah yeah i know it does suck it's like first place to put body fat goes right to my face it goes right to my face low back and then abs like that and that's the order it falls off right so see my abs first then the low back and then the face yeah like that's like the order we still have to go do a dexascan because i'm still really interested uh i'm my yesterday my calories were really low um i was just busy and actually wasn't super hungry and i'm trying to just honestly at this point i'm just trying to eat when i kind of feel hungry which is kind of weird this you know let's talk about this this is really weird for me because i haven't listened to my body in that way for a long time and listen calm down i so and so here's what happens uh here's what tends to happen i'll not eat because i'm not hungry yeah and then the hunger signal will get really loud and then i'll eat and then i tend to go a little overboard or whatever so okay i'm like okay i need a little bit of structure i think um but anyway so yesterday i just was feeling okay didn't eat much and i got busy came home had to rush off to the church because i'm serving there by the time i got home went to bed and then uh so i feel i'm super depleted this morning and what happens when you get depleted we talked about this you look flat but you also look like you're not as lean yeah because my muscles don't look it's such a um it's such an interesting i think so many people uh go through this and it's why um it's why it's hard to make it all the way to the to the goal yeah like or all the way to that such a mind game it is because you don't like it's uh i feel like there's always that um you know we were talking about haircuts there's like an awkward phase of the haircut yeah you know what i'm saying like where it's like it looks good and then you gotta yeah then you gotta wait a couple weeks yeah yeah like there's it's like a similar thing or awkward beard that's the best you were saying do you grow his beard yeah yeah at first you're like yeah awkward beard awkward haircut awkward body fat like you uh you you go through a phase of you don't uh even though you're technically getting leaner which is the goal, right? Like you're trying to get leaned out. that you you you almost feel like you look worse well you definitely do i mean i just went through a a refeed right where i three days of high calorie to kind of fill myself back out and uh you know i put eight pounds on the scale shot right up right obviously not fat we know water glycogen i just i filled up but looked so much better look leaner yeah look leaner look better all the way around uh but i know that if i want to keep going to where i want to go i could go back to that depleted kind of look and so uh and i remember this i remember when i was competing and i thank god i had a show that i had to show up for that i backed out because i would have because the old that's that's what got me always in the past is like in my 20s when i try to get quote unquote really really lean i would bail on it because i'd be like i don't like this i look whatever and not understanding the science of what's happening of what's how my muscle bellies are filling up and why you look that way so i think a lot of people even if you're not trying to get six percent body fat just trying to get leaner you you will go through a phase of you don't look better you and and you're right like you don't your muscle bell your muscle bellies look good when they're hydrated and they're full of glycogen because it it stretches the skin out skin out and muscles muscles look rounder and more shaped to them and so you know clients as you're that are listening you know even if you don't have this crazy goal that we're talking about even if you just want to lose body fat you'll go through a phase where you don't feel like you're seeing good progress and that's just that's part of the you know it's interesting about what you're saying too it goes in the other uh the opposite direction you get someone who's so afraid of gaining weight and you reverse diet them and then they fill out with the water and like they feel like they're getting fatter yeah and they're afraid and like oh my god i feel bigger i feel fluffier what's going on or they like the depleted feeling yeah because they feel like they're smaller yeah oh boy any direction you go i wanted you uh and i'm and i'm this is a bit speculation it's early i'll wait until i have more data around this because i did something interesting not intentional either just kind of happened so you know how i talked about um you know i i've really noticed that like my my body and the readiness of like if i over if i overreach training or i play you play the two and a half hours of pickleball and did a bunch of stuff and it was like even though i got a good night's rest my body still was recovering and not ready so something i did i didn't talk about during that week that i now realize i did because i did the opposite this this previous last like four or five six days now almost a week um was i uh when i meal prepped i unintentionally uh did all white meat like it was like i had ground turkey chicken um and we did uh fish like it was a lot of stuff like that it was just oh we were trying to mix it up we i was eating a lot of ground beef i was doing a lot so i knew that it'd be lower calorie and i'm trying to be low calorie so like oh why not so i leaned into it um but i was really low calorie uh for me to be down like in the 2000 2300 calorie super low and still be able to hit protein intake is like that's really low and it was just kind of landing that way because it was all white meat was all really lean cuts and uh so i came out of that now during that time was i had a a lot of this like i said my body wasn't feeling the best as far as readiness and things like that so i went back and refed and everything and i was like and now i'm like this week i'm all red meat like uh and again not really intentionally trying to was trying to do this just kind of fell that way oh so today's meals ribeye ground beef like i'm getting all this so calories are higher fat's a lot higher too right that's where the calories are coming from because i'm a higher fat last like three nights in a row some of the greatest sleep and readiness of course and so i'm wondering if and i know that women are more sensitive than men are to lower fat diets but i'm wondering if my body was also in addition to being low calorie also deprived a bit on the fat side and the the more fats um and what's interesting is that my weight is right back to where it was too now so even though i'm higher calorie um and higher fat uh weight is now because i came back down in calories uh has now stabilized um at the same weight i was previous uh the previous week in all the even lower calorie um but my body feeling potentially better yeah it's both because you know fat is essential uh you need so there's essential fatty acids which means you have to consume a certain amount of fat or you'll die so you could literally eat 10 000 calories but if your fat is too low your body starves uh because there's essential fat but you also had a combination of low calorie and lower fat and that will impact sleep like calories get too low um and fat gets too low you'll you'll have worse sleep so you know when i would have female i know you've you have this as well when i would have female clients especially when i was training in the late 90s early 2000s that was right out of the like low fat era yeah i would have female clients eating 35 grams of fat a day 25 grams of fat a day you know 40 grams of fat a day and i double their fat intake and the first thing they notice is their sleep got better that's the first thing they come so i have numbers right so i wanted to share with you like the difference because i thought i mean i was like 80 grams was this was low yeah so that was my low week was like was like 80 so i'm not like in my head super low i'm not like in my head super low yeah it wasn't like i don't think you were below essential but that's low with low calorie that's a combination right all the way to 150 180 now yeah see so i doubled where i was and that's where all the extra calories come from so now instead of like uh 21 to 2300 calories i'm landing more like 25 2800 calories same weight much better sleep and and recover readiness totally and so i'm wondering if that there was a correlation there that it wasn't just because i was attributing it all to like man i really i must be that deconditioned i can't play pickleball for two hours and and and training hard and recover where maybe i was actually depriving my body too much calorie wise and and fat wise totally and bumping it up resulted in the first thing i saw right away was my readiness and my now that you say that i wonder if one of the reasons why i had so much trouble sleeping yesterday was that my calories are too low that might have been it because i it was the only thing that i could do for the rest of the night so i went to bed and i woke up the next morning and i woke up the next morning and i woke up the next morning and i woke up the next morning and i woke up the next morning and i woke up the next morning and i woke up the next morning and couldn't go back to sleep for a while finally did and i'd wake up go to sleep wake up go to sleep and i wonder if it's because yesterday they were so low yeah because i came home and uh i ate such a small dinner because i was going to go uh you know i'm i'm the mc at this like event that our church does it's not a huge group but i don't like to overeat and then do that because it can tends to bog me down especially at the end of the day so i had like seven ounces of tri-tip and and in some vegetables that's all i had and then i expected to eat when i got there because they'll bring food yeah but it was chick-fil-a and i can't really eat chick-fil-a yeah because there's dairy and they're breading and stuff so i'd like three little nuggets and salad so my calories are really low and must that must have been why i wouldn't be surprised because i was dealing with some of the similar stuff uh the previous i remember you were saying your sleep was yeah yeah yeah and and i've gotten some of the best sleep in the last like this last week speaking of which i gotta say this uh when people often ask us like what are the what are the best investments for health and fitness fat loss muscle gain at the top is hiring a good coach because a coach can work with everything underneath that there are devices that can help with recovery there's things that can help with you know skin health all that stuff but if something helps your sleep that's the best investment oh so eight sleep is the thing that i recommend the most because eight sleep is so effective at helping you sleep better that if you get better sleep everything else is easier if you get better sleep muscle gain is easier if you get better sleep fat loss is easier if you get better sleep you adapt better you recover better you think better you perform better and so you know eight sleep for people listening this it sits on your bed and it warms or cools your bed but what it really does that's remarkable because that's amazing by itself is it monitors your sleep and gives you the best night of sleep so it literally changes the temperatures throughout the night as it learns your patterns to give you and there's there's nothing like it there's nothing like that that'll that'll impact your sleep as effectively i don't know how uh i mean it's it's it's been so long now that we've had this uh and i've gotten so used to it like i it's hard for me to think like what it was like before especially since uh i feel like i'm like i've never met a couple too so the ability that they have to split the bed in half and katrina can have her warm bed 80 degrees on one side i can have mine at 50 degrees is like just life-changing yeah i mean i i know couple we have we have uh some couples that they don't they don't sleep in the same bed together because of that yeah wow and so you know they they stay in bed for a little while and then they go to their separate rooms and beds at night to sleep so they can get a good night's rest because they value sleep so much but i'm like dude if you just had a if you had an eight sleep it would make that big of a difference if she runs cold and you run hot you can control that you know doug and i were talking about the eight sleep uh off air and um he's been using it he said to to track like snoring patterns and you said you like it even better than the auras tracking i do because what it does is it measures vibration so it senses vibration and it will track both uh heavy snoring and light snoring so you'll see throughout the sometimes one minute sometimes have you connected 10 minutes i've connected it to two main things gluten gluten and The number two? Alcohol. You got it. Those two things. Do you know why? Both affect the central nervous system. Yeah. So alcohol, we know that. Gluten, you can look this up in the data. There's a connection to gluten and how it affects the CNS and snoring. If I eat gluten, it doesn't mess my gut up like it used to, but I will have, I will snore for sure if I have gluten. How crazy is that? Yeah, I've been tracking very carefully my snoring patterns because, you know, you shouldn't be snoring or very little. And like I say, some nights I have almost no snoring, other nights it's 10 minutes. But if I had, like one day I had some pizza and that night I snored over an hour. Wow. And if you have wine with it, forget about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I'm looking at my report right now. Last night was 16 minutes of snoring. That's not bad, really. No, no, it's pretty good. Because I've looked at other, there's been times where I've snored for an hour. There's been times I've snored for 52 minutes. So it looks like 16 to none. It's like what a really good night is, which is interesting too, because I told you I had, so I'm using both my eight sleep and then my aura ring to tell me these data points. You know, my snoring was at 3% for me, which is very, very low in comparison. And it was also, I had one of the best nights of sleep and readiness score on my aura ring. So I had a great night's sleep. And I wonder too, higher, I'm not eating, I'm probably avoiding gluten right now. So it'd be interesting if I noticed the same things if I eat something. I definitely know alcohol for sure. Oh yeah. Alcohol is like a guaranteed, you know, the other one that is negative with snoring, even though it knocks me out was when I would take like a Xanax. Yeah. If I take a Xanax. CNS depressant. Yeah. So if I would take that to knock me out. And so I would think I'm getting it, but then Katrina would be like, you snored last night. And I'm like, oh, that's so crazy. I said, I took a Xanax. That's so wild that you notice. And she's so, it makes me snore really bad if I do that. All right. I got to study for you guys. That, so it's funny. My cousins will often send me studies and I almost always, uh, I almost always debunk the studies that they send because it's a, it's some kind of like post that some guy wrote about and whatever. And I'm like, all right, you got to look at the study. And then, so I annoy them. Well, anyway, I think my, I think my cousin sent a study that he thought that I would support. So he sends it. He's all excited. And here's what the, the person wrote about the study. So it's a creatine study, people who never trained took 10 grams of creatine. A day and gained more lean tissue than people who were lifting three times a week with no creatine. It was like, this is crazy. This is wild. Right? So, all right, here's what's happening. Yeah. Here's what's happening. Everybody. You're not going to build muscle and by, by just taking creatine, that's not what's happening. But what creatine does is it draws in water into your muscles. Okay. It increases intracellular fluid, which measures his lean body mass. So whenever you get a body fat test or whatever, lean body mass is all the mass that is not body fat. Yeah. So what they saw, which was 2.43 on average pounds of lean body mass gain, that's right along the lines of what you can expect to gain by taking creatine on its own. So there you have it. It's not going to build muscle. Now it'll help build muscle when you're strength training. How do they explain it? Even comparing though, to somebody strength training three times a week. Well, the person, the people in the group who strength train three days a week gained a little bit of lean body mass, whereas they gained a little bit of more lean body mass, but the group that strength trained plus creatine gained the most, of course, lean body mass. Yeah. But here, there's some more stuff on this, uh, on this, which is pretty cool. The people that did the, uh, took the creatine had great, uh, had better results with their brain health, um, which is pretty cool. So creatine is good for you, by the way, they also got leaner by taking creatine. But again, I'm going to help everybody. You don't lose fat. It increased the lean body mass, right? If you gain three pounds of lean body mass. And gain zero pounds of fat, your body fat percentage, your body fat percentage goes down because now your total body fat's a smaller percentage of your body weight. So they got so pissed because I debunked it and they're like, well, I thought you would like this study. I'm like, no, no, no. Creatine isn't just build muscle. You'll get stronger. I will say this, taking creatine, not working out, you're still going to gain strength because you have more ATP. So you are stronger, more ATP and then more hydration, I would think in the muscle, but just the ATP, you've got more muscle energy. You've got more energy overall for yourselves. Yeah. No, you got to lift weights, everybody, to build because it's making its rounds. It's like going viral. Oh my God. Creatine builds muscle without lifting weights. Like, no, no, no. You're going to gain a little bit of water weight, not bloat, but intracellular water weight, which is not bad. And you will get stronger, which, you know, maybe, you know, which is actually not bad. It's actually as good as having a little bit more lean body mass. Strength is more strongly correlated with longevity than muscle is, believe it or not. So it's a good thing to take. So I even recommend family members who don't work out, I tell them to take creatine because it's still good for them. Have you watched the market at all? What's the on creatine? Like how much I, it's blown up the first time ever. I've heard, uh, people that aren't even like big fitness people taking creatine. It's everywhere. Yeah. It's definitely become, do you remember 11 years ago on this podcast when I said, I said, I predicted that creatine would be the next big longevity supplement. I also remember when you said that we would demonize protein, which people are starting to do now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, the global creatine market is valued at 1.4 to 1.7 billion and is expanding rapidly at an annual growth rate. Between 11 to 20 and 26%. That's a huge growth. Uh-huh. The largest growth rate I would imagine, or the, the segment of the population is that's, that's taking creatine at higher rates, you know, where we're seeing women, women used to stay away from creating because it was for bodybuilders. And then when they heard that it makes you hold more water, like forget that. I don't want to be bloated, but now they're learning. It's not the same thing as bloat. They're also learning it's good for bone density and all that stuff. So women. And, uh, people in advanced age, those two groups of people are like taking creating now that didn't touch creating, uh, before. I feel like it's the GLP one market is boosting it up too. So GL people that take GLPs, uh, do more of everything in the fitness space. Yeah, that's true. I just read that stat earlier, which is four times as much. Yeah. Four times as much money on fitness. The GLP, uh, use is creating, uh, and we're starting to see it now, but we're going to see it accelerate. It's creating a fitness, uh, boom. We're going to see it. We're going to see, uh, the fitness market in general grow faster because of GLP one use. So for trainers and coaches that were all afraid about GLPs, and we said, don't be afraid, uh, we were right. It's actually going to cause, uh, no, definitely. I mean, I sent you over that real estate and, uh, all the, all the fitness real estate, that's all exploding wellness, real estate. They call it. Yeah. That's what it's called. Wellness. Real estate is just everywhere. Yeah. So interesting to see them pop up. I, I, you know, I know that I don't know if it's my algorithm or what, because I feel like that. And then these private. I actually, I, and I think. You should see our private race car tracks grow. Oh yeah. They're popping up every, they're popping up everywhere. And I think it's really smart people that predict this continued EV push. And there's a lot of belief in the space that. At some point you will not be able to drive your own car. Yeah. Like it'll be like horses. Yeah. People still have. You can't ride your horse around. Yeah. People still have those cars, but you'll have to take it to private tracks and only certain areas. And then everything else will be self-driving and EV. That are on the roads. Wow. Look at this. They are increasing significantly. See. Yeah. And it says that they're calling them racetrack country clubs. Yep. Exclusive facilities are the fastest growing sub segment of the broader motorsport. Uh, industry. That's why I want to invest in one. I want to buy one. They're just so, they're so expensive and I don't feel like I would get my money's worth now, but it's one of those things I know in 30 years, I'm going to kick myself and be like, we could have had. Just buy a track. Yeah. Well, you know, you can, you can buy a home on the track. So they build these, they're country clubs. So it's a thing about houses on the golf course. That's what it says. Okay. Yeah. So like a, like a houses on the golf course, the only thing that's not a golf course, it's a racetrack. And so all these people have these homes that are like, you can sit on your loud though. Don't you? Oh yeah. It's not, it's not a place you want to live. It's a place that you go to race your cars. And of course the racetrack is not going when you go to bed, right? They'd have normal hours that you're racing in the middle of the day. Right. I'm sure it doesn't start till probably nine or 10 AM and it probably goes all the way till five or six, but then that shuts down. That's weird. Look at that. Oh, they're sick, dude. They're sick. That is weird. And they have these giant garages. So it's all featured around cars. Oh, so the garages are like these sick. See how you can view them with the windows. Oh, so people are like, I'm going to go buy a house here. Park my super cool. Yes. Fast cars. And then I got a racetrack. I could just drive. Yes. Which is, and some of these, the amenities are dope. So like one of these, they're called thermal clubs. So that's it. That's actual spot. Thermal is one of the names of one of them. That's weird. So that one looking at them, of course, of course, how much does it cost to buy a house on there? It's like two, two mil. Well, that's not bad. We live in the Bay area. Everything's open. Yeah. Yeah. And that's California. Thermal is California. And what it includes in the, in the, in the, um, in the membership. So let's say we had, so do you buy a house and pay a membership? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Probably. It's probably got an annual fee that you pay just like a golf course or whatever. But what it comes in comes with that. Okay. So let's say you and I have some cars there. We have, we have one of these houses and we're rolling down for the weekend. Like there's like real pit guys that prep your car, check, make sure everything oils are on. All good. Tires are all good. We race around, rip on it and they keep all the maintenance and keep it up for you and check all that stuff. And so you literally just go down there, hang out for the weekend and all your, your toys are all maintained. This is just what the internet says. The initiation fees, $85,000 for family memberships. So that's your, that's your startup cost on top of the price of the house. Yeah. And then $20,000 per year, uh, is to maintain for annual dues. Now I imagine it's like. I'm sure there's more on top of that. So I imagine it's like a golf course too so you'll have these dues but then you're you're a lot of your stuff could go so they have restaurants on there too so there'll be like a big rest nice steakhouse that's like on the property and so a lot of times part of your fees goes towards you you're basically buying x amount of food a month from the restaurant and you can use it or not use it but it normally includes that wow and so that's like how like the like the country clubs would work so i imagine it's very similar to that but they're cool the houses are sick the tracks are amazing like the it's a and i think it's obviously the future and if you get a hold of these i like the wellness builds because i'm not into cars like you are but i like that like these new ideas where they're building like housing but it's it's all wellness focused no i i like those two where they have gyms and they have i think both i think both are going to be the future yeah i think that uh a hundred percent people want these wellness type places and then i think the you know uber wealthy that have these expensive cars and toys that want to be able to go you know just like race horses you know horses are not cheap horse a way way more i would imagine a horse track would be even more a house on a horse track i don't know it's probably even more expensive i don't even know if they do that that's old money dude yeah i don't know yeah i don't know exactly and that's what this is going to be like old money for car like in the future when everything's ev and self-driving you know old money will be the guys that still have these gas guzzling muscle cars and things that they can drive and you can't drive them on the roads but you can take them out to your little private track and and honestly uh you know i don't know what the comparison for horse people because i was never really a big horse person but driving on the track is more fun anyways safer and a horse no then uh oh on the road yeah yeah and so like maybe that's why i'm saying for although horses are dangerous i heard people like they people get killed all the time they fall off a horse didn't what's his name people die do everything dude there's nothing that people don't die if you've ever stood in front of a cabinet packed with mismatched pots and pans wondering why you still don't have the right one our place is the fix their best seller the always pan listen it replaces eight different pieces of cookware with one non-stick pan that can fry steam saute boil you can even bake with it they've also got the perfect pot for soups and pasta the wonder oven for countertop roasting and air frying and beautiful tableware and bakeware that actually makes your kitchen feel like a place people want to gather in but here's why we like our place everything is a place where you can have it's designed to be durable and non-toxic and good looking there are no forever chemicals in all of their products this is healthy stuff that looks good and it lasts a long time don't cook your food with chemicals that linger in your body forever go to our place by the way it's backed by a 100 day trial with free shipping and free return so there's zero risk try them out go to fromourplace.com here comes the show go to fromourplace.com and use the code mind pump at checkout to get 10% off back to the show first question is for cortez matthew how do you strengthen ligaments tendons joints in your knees okay good question so we know how to strengthen muscle it's the same way uh and yeah it is uh strengthening muscle will also strengthen and thicken ligaments and tendons and your joints will also strengthen as well um the issue the reason why sometimes people run into joint issues when the exercise is their technique and form and biomechanics are off and they ignore that in pursuit of harder workouts or heavier workouts now that being said i of all the different forms of strength training that will strengthen your your tendons the most isometrics uh shine with the least uh risk too oh yeah isometrics for strengthening and stiffening tendons is remarkably and because of that the way that i would suggest to somebody who's like well i am i've been trying to do my squats but then my knees and ligaments still are talking like i'm not going to be able to do my squats so lighten the load way down and do like isometric holds yeah pause near the bottom yeah so instead of halfway up yes yes because you'll build muscle doing that and you will strengthen the joints and you're less risk and so that would be kind of the prescription for somebody who is already trying and but i mean when we're trying to protect the knees and the ligaments all around them it's the the muscles that support that right so the quads the hamstrings the calves all these these muscles that are around the muscles that support that right so the quads the hamstrings the calves all the knees what's going to build strengthen and support that area but if you're already doing that and you notice oh but i i do do squats and my knees hurt more and they bother me it's like oh well that's form technique and load uh is is the problem and so lighten the low work on technique slow it way down do isometric holds and you'll reap all those yeah you know here's a little i used to do this all the time so uh i'm not a big fan of knee of leg extension machines i just think there's more valuable exercises not saying they're not valuable there's some value uh but i i didn't really use them a lot uh as a trainer except for this one exception so isometrics strengthen tendons we know this and one of the tendons that sometimes people have issues with or pain is the patellar tendon so this is the tendon that attaches to your kneecap also isometrics uh reduce pain in the immediate okay so if you have a joint if your elbow bothers you a little bit flexing your tricep let's say in in a in a shortened position in a plank isometric many times will reduce pain right then and there so i would do this with clients sometimes sometimes clients who had kind of knee issues one of the ways i would help them essentially warm up is that have them get in the leg extension they'd push up and then just hold and squeeze as hard as they could and we would often see a like 50 reduction from like a 20 you know 20 second isometric hold uh at the top so if you're listening and it takes you a while to warm up your knees you could try this you could go to a leg extension machine get in there do like one rep come up hold and just squeeze the quads as hard as you can hold for 20 seconds bring it back down walk around and you'll notice uh a reduction well i've been if you've been listening to the podcast for the last few months i've been talking about this a lot because it's become the way i get ready to squat or deadlift is i just do a split stance lunge isometric yeah man it wakes my my knees and my hips up yep so good i feel so warmed up um before i get into a big movement like that and it's just i literally do a 30 second hold on each side a little bit of rest in between i do it again and then i'm ready to go and i got to say this too like tendon strength is so important for overall strength it's so like really strong tendons will increase your strength significantly even though they're not the prime movers they're not contracting like muscles when you have really strong tendons your body is less fearful to produce force uh and so really strong tendons are a big play a big role and just your ability to just be really strong next question is from pollito loco how many reps does it take before you know when to go up in dumbbell or barbell weight i worked my way up to 35 pound dumbbells and i'm wondering if i should go up to 45 and then 55 i do have good control when using 35 i mean you you go up and wait when you're when you're going above the rep range that is your target so if your target rep range is 12 and you're using the 35s uh and you're getting to 16 reps i mean add some weight now i will say this uh you know you don't have to go from 35 to 45 right go up from 35 to 40 you know incremental weight increases are still weight especially on dumbbells that's a good jump yeah yeah yeah going 10 pounds in a dumbbell is big that's 20 pounds overall yeah that's 10 pounds per yeah that's a lot but go up slowly and i for me it's all based on the rep range so if i'm trying to do 15 reps it's going to be a much lighter weight than if i'm trying to do five reps and also uh when you're getting really experienced and you're starting to handle pretty heavy weight um you can try rather than adding weight try making the weight feel heavier uh with your technique and your tempo and i do that a lot more these days these days i'm less likely to add weight to the bar and more likely to actually take weight off the bar get underneath it and see if i can make it feel heavier well just to add nuance to what you suggested because i do agree obviously if you're the rep range is 12 that you're getting 35 pounds and you could easily do 14 then that's the easiest signal that let's let's move up also um let's say we really are trying to push strength you're a client of mine i really i'm trying to encourage you to lift heavier weight because i know you can do it and you've got strong strength control and we're not in a unsafe place you know talking about 45 55 i might push you up and wait and also it's okay if the goal was 12 reps and you only got 10 yeah so you're pushing yourself yeah yeah you could give yourself that like the rep range is that's where their range is um they're not these like hard numbers like oh if you if the program said get to 12 reps and you got to 10 you don't get results right it's like you know it's it's okay to tell yours especially like uh and the way i judge this for myself as i'm going through a workout or even a client it's how we're feeling you know my client's well rested they're well fed i feel good today they feel strong as they are doing our first set how do you how do you feel i'm talking to them they're like oh man i feel really good out i'm like hey let's uh let's try and do those 40s today and even though the goal is to do it 12 times i'll let them know like hey i'm gonna i'm gonna watch you let's let's get let's go for 12 of these but if you can't get 12 and you stop at 8 or 9 or 10 totally okay that's awesome and we and we move to weight that you haven't moved yet lots of value to that so you don't have to be land perfect on the rep range what you don't want is the the program calls for 12 and you're so obsessed with going up in weight that you choose a way that you can't get four you know or five like too much yeah now now we're really Yeah, that's too much, but give yourself a little bit of freedom for reps up or down. down when you're talking about 12 15 reps it's okay to go up and and push the weight a little bit next question is from some more cowbell does it matter if you go close to failure with lighter weights and more reps versus heavier weights and fewer reps yes yes it does matter so okay now here's what the data what you'll often see people repeat uh based off the data so when it comes to building hypertrophy when it comes to building muscle what the data shows is it doesn't matter so long as you're close to failure with uh high reps versus low reps so if you're doing six reps and you're within one or two reps of failure versus 12 reps or 15 reps within one or two reps of failure it doesn't matter they both grow the same amount of muscle but but it does still matter because they're both different types of strength number one so that's number one in other words you get really good at building muscle but you don't get good at building muscle at lifting for low reps that's what you're really good at most of the strength gains are going to be in that kind of rep range once you start to raise up into the higher reps you'll find that there's less carryover and vice versa right you get really good at the 12 rep range 15 rep range getting to the lower rep ranges there's less of a carryover so it matters for strength performance and the question is well does that matter in real life of course it does because real life requires both here's the other reason why it matters high reps close to failure is fatigue plays a bigger role okay and depending on the exercise this can play a really big role like getting close to failure at 15 reps for barbell squats very few people can do multiple sets of that most people will do a set close to failure 15 reps and they're wasted yeah if they did a set of five reps close to failure they could typically repeat that for another couple sets so although the data says it doesn't matter for hypertrophy in practice higher reps close to failure just fatigue people more and more so so if you're doing a set of 15 reps close to failure you're more often and then that tends to play a bigger role in whether or not they're actually training with the right intensity and i always you always hear me bring up the novelty thing so there's always going to be added benefits to the one that you never do so if you uh always are the person who trains uh low reps uh to failure and you never challenge yourself in the other way well then there's there's great benefit to to running a a cycle or a period of time uh where you you do the opposite and so keep that in mind also i think we all have a habit of gravitating towards one way of doing things more than the other and so i'm always trying to factor that in when i'm trying to see more gains i'm trying to build more muscle i'm trying to make body composition change you know and i'm like hey you know i've been training to failure this way in high reps uh when was the last time i did that in low reps or vice versa and so that you always keep the novelty perspective next question is from berget metz how long is it until i hit a plateau around week seven or eight then i do a deload week and then start increasing weight again i usually end up doing the same routine for 12 to 13 weeks yeah so here's what you need to consider yeah here's what you need to consider with uh programs because people will say oh you want to consider it because it helps prevent plateaus and all stuff and that's there's there's some truth to that but the big thing you want to consider especially if you're doing this long term like if it's six months you know if it's your first couple years of training this doesn't play as big of a role but if you're staying consistent for a while um you can start to create uh deficiencies in movement patterns because you're always training the same movement pattern so here's a good example um if i always do uh you know sagittal plane you know bilateral uh you know lower body exercises so sagittal plane is like i'm up and down straight ahead i'm training barbell squats all the time leg presses all the time and i'm getting stronger and bigger i'm not really training lateral stability very well the ability to stabilize my body if i'm moving sideways and so over the course of three years four years five i get really strong now i'm squatting 300 pounds but my lateral stability doesn't match that kind of strength i can increase my risk of injury right or you're always doing certain exercises but you never strengthen rotation can that increase your risk of injury like uh speaking from personal experience i've gotten really strong at the deadlift but my lateral stability didn't focus on and so i actually actually kind of tweaked my back because as i'm deadlifting the weight shifts a little bit and my ability to stabilize laterally just doesn't match the weight that i can lift um and that can cause issues so it's more important even more important than avoiding plateaus although injuries will make you hit a plateau faster than anything even more important is just avoiding this this kind of strength imbalance that can be created from doing the same things all the time yeah the reason why i asked uh it depends on the program is because we have specific programs that you could probably stay in indefinitely an example that would be like a map symmetry or a map performance where all those things that sal's talking about are being addressed there's unilateral work there's multi-planar work so you're doing these things that are going to make sure you address lateral stability and also doing bilateral training and so you're getting the benefits of still strength training but still addressing all that which is also why if you're not following one of those two programs we always recommend to somebody at least once a year uh especially if you're not following one of those two programs you're beyond your first two years of training because i agree if you're in the first year or two of training uh you're you typically are in early stages of building a strength and so you're not at higher as high of risk but after you've been training for three four or five years for sure and you're pretty strong uh you this risk becomes higher if you don't address uh these things and so you know including a a cycle of mass performance or symmetry takes care of it yeah program is that you're running and stick to that but that those two could almost be ran indefinitely look if you like mind pump if you like the show you can find us on instagram it's mind pump media we'll see you there thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is mind pump

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Small, frequent meals do not provide additional metabolic benefits according to scientific studies, but they are effective behaviorally due to reduced cravings and better meal planning.
  2. The perceived success of small meals stems from behavioral advantages, such as consistent eating patterns, easier discipline, and reduced hunger spikes compared to long fasting periods.
  3. Meal frequency improves protein intake consistency, as splitting meals makes it easier to meet daily protein targets without overwhelming digestion.
  4. Frequent meals reduce the risk of overeating and digestive discomfort, especially for individuals with sensitive guts or high protein needs.
  5. The body’s hunger response intensifies during calorie deficits, making it harder to resist food when meals are spaced far apart.
  6. Small meals promote better sleep and recovery by reducing nighttime hunger and preventing excessive overeating.
  7. A new individualized MAPS workout program is available through MyMAPSProgram.com, offering personalized fitness plans from MindPump trainers.
  8. Sponsors like Caldera Lab and 8Sleep are highlighted for their health benefits, with 8Sleep noted as a top investment for improving sleep quality and overall performance.

Summary:

The podcast explores the effectiveness of small, frequent meals for fat loss, challenging the scientific consensus that they boost metabolism. While studies show no significant metabolic advantage—larger meals produce similar thermic effects—practical results remain strong due to behavioral benefits. These include reduced cravings, improved discipline, better meal planning, and easier protein intake.

Frequent meals also ease digestion, especially for high-protein diets, and prevent overeating during extended fasting. The hosts emphasize that hunger during a calorie deficit is normal and worsens with longer waits between meals. A key insight is that bodybuilders and athletes use this strategy not for physiological gains, but for behavioral control.

The episode also highlights the availability of a personalized MAPS workout program and endorses health products like Caldera Lab’s eye serum and 8Sleep for superior sleep quality. The hosts conclude that while science may debunk the theory, real-world results show small meals are effective for sustaining consistency, managing hunger, and supporting long-term health. This behavioral approach, combined with planning and meal prep, makes it a practical and accessible strategy for most people, regardless of fitness level.

FAQs

Scientific studies show no additional metabolic benefit from small meals. However, they work effectively in practice due to behavioral effects like reduced cravings, better meal planning, and improved consistency.

Bodybuilders use frequent meals to manage hunger, maintain energy levels, and improve discipline. This strategy helps with consistency and reduces overeating, even if it doesn't provide a direct metabolic benefit.

Eating smaller, more frequent meals reduces the intensity of hunger signals. This makes it easier to stay on track with healthy food choices and prevents the intense cravings that occur during long fasting periods.

Yes, meal prepping improves consistency, reduces impulsive eating, and saves money. It makes it easier to stick to healthy eating habits, especially when dealing with a calorie deficit or specific dietary goals.

Splitting protein intake across more meals makes it easier to meet daily protein goals. Large protein meals can be hard to digest, especially for those with sensitive stomachs or high protein needs.

Fasting may promote autophagy and reduce inflammation, but research shows these benefits are similar to those from a calorie deficit. The key is not skipping meals, but managing calories effectively.

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