Habits and Hustle - Episode 117: Sal Di Stefano – Mind Pump Host, Top Fitness Podcast in the World

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Sal Di Stefano is the Mind Pump Host, Top Fitness Podcast in the World. Here to discuss the basis for his new book “The Resistance Training Revolution” Sal takes us through every facet, pro, con, and myth about resistance training. Taking his decades of personal training experience and time managing gyms, he approaches health and the body with scientific and personal attention. Listen as he takes on cardio, walking, weight loss, heart health, diabetes, and body structure explaining how resistance training is the exercise to beat in every category. Tired of wasting time on boring cardio, but don’t know where to start with weights? Looking for the best way to lose weight? Concerned about “bulking up” too much if you do start? Sal’s got your answers. I mean, really. He wrote the book on it. Youtube Link to This Episode  Mind Pump Website Sal’s Instagram ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I have it my friend on today. How do I even say Sal? Dostephina. You did it. Dostephina. I was going to screw it up. He's one of the hosts of Mind Pump, which is one of the best health podcasts out there. Thank you. You guys are all hilarious.

I love you and Adam. Justin and Doug, I don't know as well, but you guys are just great together. Thank you. Sal, you guys have a book out. We do. Yeah, so I wrote a book called The Resistance Training Revolution and it's about resistance training, but really the goal is to change the current common fitness

paradigm, which is wrong. And it's been causing, hasn't been solving our chronic health issues. And the fitness industry really is the place where we should be able to solve a lot of our chronic health issues, And the fitness industry really is the place where we should be able to solve a lot of our chronic health issues including obesity and diabetes and dementia and cognitive decline osteopenia. We have the solutions and unfortunately we haven't been providing them the right way. Well, you know, this this book I mean I I said when you when you walked in it totally hit nerve with me because you talk all about how cardio is bad.

And I'm like a cardio, I am one of those people that you talk about in the book, which is a cardio junkie. And it's one of those things for me anyway. And I think a lot of people would maybe agree that cardio for them is a way, it's more of a mental thing, even not just a physical thing, but talk about why you think cardio is bad.

So it's not bad. Cardio has its benefits, All exercise done properly and appropriately provides value. Now you're a fitness fanatic. So I wouldn't be worried about someone like you because you're going to be consistent no matter what. You're always going to be you value your health. It's a priority.

And you've been doing it for a long time. And you're very consistent with it. I'm trying to talk to the average person with the book. And when we're talking the average person, I have to understand the context that we're dealing with. Number one, consistent with it. I'm trying to talk to the average person with the book and when we're talking the average person, I have to understand the context that we're dealing with. Number one, modern life is very sedentary, right? So we don't move much at all. The consequence of that is we have very weak bodies. Our muscle

mass is very low. We're not very strong. And there are lots of consequences that come from that, right? so low muscle mass causes insulin resistance We have immobility issues and because that our metabolism aren't very fast and so we it's very easy for us to become Overweight we're also simultaneously very busy So although we're sedentary we don't move Excuse me. We're we're very busy meaning I don't they don't have a lot of time or at least don't want to make a lot of time exercising all the time. Right. And remember, I trained people for over two decades and I trained, I definitely trained some

athletes and I definitely trained some fitness fanatics, but the vast majority of my clients were everyday average people. Just your regular person who wants to improve their health. And to be quite honest, the mo, and this is again, space on my experience, training hundreds of people within thousands by proxics. I manage gyms and I train trainers for a long time. The most we can hope for with the average person in terms of exercise consistency on a long-term basis is about two or three days a week.

It's not, we're not going to get people to work out every single day, not the average person forever. It's just not going to happen. But we can, and I've done this very successfully, is get people to be to exercise two or three days a week long term. So we're sedentary, but busy. We don't, we typically can't work out all the time very consistently. And also, we're surrounded by hyper palatable, easy to access inexpensive food. So high calorie environment, weak bodies, slow metallisms, don't have a lot of time to dedicate

exercise. All right, what's the exercise solution? How can I work out in a way that's going to be as impactful as possible? Right. And when you understand that context, it's clearly resistance training. Resistance training provides that.

Now to give you a little more information before I go into that. For a long time now, actually for decades now, we've been kind of sold this fitness paradigm, that's just wrong. And it kind of goes like this, right? So obesity is the main issue. We're in obesity epidemic.

And obesity is kind of like this umbrella condition that contributes to all kinds of chronic health issues. And we know that in order to prevent obesity or to reverse it, we have to create a beneficial energy imbalance. So that's a fancy way of saying we need to take in less calories than we burn or to put it differently, burn more calories than we take in. Right. So if you burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight. If you burn less calories than you take in, you gain weight. Now, that's very true.

That's a true statement. It's a law of thermodynamics. The problem is we viewed exercise as a way to burn calories. We have not viewed exercise as a way to get the body to adapt to burn more calories on its own. So we think, okay, exercise is a great way to burn calories. Let me pick the form of exercise that burns the most calories. And that makes sense when you think of it from that standpoint.

And so you're going to pick cardio. If you do 45 minutes of any exercise and your goal is just to burn the most calories, running is going to burn more calories than pilates, yoga, or resistance training, lifting weights, or using machines, right? It's gonna burn the most calories. But the problem is cardiovascular activity, number one, you don't burn as many calories as you think.

So an hour of hard cardio, by the way, your cardio machines, your treadmills are lying to you. You know, they'll say they burn 800 calories or whatever. That's not true. 100% it's such a lie. Even these watches by the way are not. your treadmill are lying to you. You know, they'll say they burn 800 calories or whatever. That's not true. 100%. It's such a lie. Even these watches by the way are not.

Yeah, you're going to burn maybe 300 or 400 calories in an hour, really intense exercise, probably less if you're like most people. So it doesn't burn as many calories as you think. But not only that, but it also sends this signal to the body to adapt to get better at that activity. So that's what exercise ultimately does, right? So when you're working out, you're challenging your body,

your body perceives this as a stress, that's why it's hard. And what your body does is it tries to adapt so that next time, it's not stressed with the same insult. So if you just start running, maybe a quarter of a mile is real hard for you, but if you practice long enough, quarter of a mile becomes very easy, and then if you want your body to adapt any further, you have to keep increasing the distance or same thing with resistance strain,

or add weight to the bar, lift more weight, whatever. So that stress is what gets the body to change. Well, what does cardio, what kind of signal does cardio send the body? Well, you need stamina and endurance for it, but you don't need much strength at all. In fact, you need very little strength to do cardiovascular activity. And so your evidence is, look at long distance runners, very skinny, very little muscle. Okay. And flabby. Typically, right? You don't need strength. You need stamina. And because you're burning calories while you're doing it, your body tries to become better at the cardio, which means becoming a more efficient calorie burning machine. Okay, so more efficient means burn less calories.

So over time, what your body does and studies are clear on this now, and I witness this as a trainer for years, but we have the studies that back this up. If your exercise solution for your weight loss problem is cardio, so let's say you do cardio and diet. So you cut your calories and you do cardio. That's what you're doing. And you lose 10 pounds. It's very clear now. Studies will show that you'll lose half of that as muscle. Now you might think to yourself, oh, at least I burned half of it as body

fat. Not really, because you're the same body fat percentage. You have just made yourself a smaller same Flabbiness version of yourself, but there's consequences to that because that reduced muscle mass now you now have a slower Metabolism meaning it makes it harder for you to maintain and definitely harder to continue to get leaner So what is cardio weight loss typically look like? Well, it typically looks like you start here, you start doing your cardio, you lose some real fast plateau real hard, right? So oh, 10 pounds is gone. That's it. I'm stuck. Now if I want to go anymore, I have to do more cardio or cut my calories even more. So you end up in this really terrible situation. Typically people stop because it's unsustainable. Then they gain the way back,

they don't gain back the muscle that they lost. It all comes back as body fat. So now the weight that they were at when they first started, but more body fat, less muscle, slower metabolism, now it's even harder. With resistance training, the signal is very different. Now resistance training, granted, doesn't burn a ton of calories while you do it at least not traditional resistance training where you do a set and then you rest and But this signal that it's sense of the body is we need strength We need strength in order to perform this movement What provides strength muscle muscle is a very metabolic Metabolically active tissue burns a ton of calories. So through that muscle building process

Your body learns to burn more and more calories on its own naturally. And so that's the beauty of it, right? So you build a little bit of muscle, you're sitting at your desk all day long, you're just burning more calories versus with cardio. I gotta do it manually, this way, it's kind of automatic. So what is the...

That's the way of putting it by the way, the manual versus automatic. Absolutely. And so what does the fat loss look like with resistance training when that's part of your solution? Well, it starts off a little slower. The cardio person lost a little faster initially, but the fat loss from resistance training,

first off, it's pure fat. You don't lose any muscle. In fact, you often gain muscle. Right, you're doing it. So my goal, by the way, when I would get a client is zero weight loss on the scale for the first couple months. I don't want to see the scale move at all, but I like to see a composition change. So, you know, if I'm training Mrs. Johnson and two months later, I'm weighing her, body

weights the same, tester body fat, it looks like we lost four pounds of body fat and gained four pounds of muscle. By the way, muscle is very dense, doesn't take up much space. So if you lost, if somebody lost 10 pounds of body fat but gained 10 pounds of muscle, they'd be smaller. Right. Because muscle is very dense, it's tight, it's sculpted, it gives people shape, it doesn't take up much space.

But the weight loss is a snowball effect. You start to see this happen. Over time, it starts to accelerate where you get more and more fat loss as the metabolism starts to kick in. And you don't need to do a lot of it. Really, for most people, a couple days a week of traditional, appropriate resistance training will provide all of those, those benefits. And there's so much more. When you say that, I mean, like you say to this, so basically a couple of things to what

you said. Number one, because the cardio becomes a psychological thing, right? Where you have, that's the problem. Like how do you break that psychological, you know, vicious cycle? Because, you know, to your point, because it becomes like an endorphin thing, you kind of feel those endorphins. Have as someone who does cardio, how do they switch and pivot from doing that amount of cardio and pivot to the strength and give up because what will happen initially is you may end up gaining weight initially because your body's not used to it. That's right. And you talk about that.

Absolutely. So, so that's a different person than I'm talking to. So if I'm talking to somebody, because I think there are people who listen to this are people who work out on the right. Yes. So if I'm talking to somebody and they're like, oh my gosh, I do five days a week of an hour cardio, I like what you're saying, how do I transition? Well, it's actually much more easy to think. If you're doing five days a week of cardio, bring that down to three days a week and add two days a week of resistance strength.

So just replace the resistance strength for cardio. And then slowly your goal is, best psychologically, it's hard to do that. Of course, it totally is, we tend to become attached to the hard to do that. Of course. It totally is. We tend to become attached to the forms of activity that we engage in. By the way, if you do cardio because you enjoy it,

I don't want you to stop to try into the form of exercise that you don't like. So at the end of the day, and I would always say this to clients, when someone would ask me, hey, what's the best form of exercise? I would always say the one that you like the most. Yeah, that's the same thing. Yeah, consistency is the most important thing.

So if you just love cardio and you really don't like resistance training, honestly, one day a week of resistance training will give you some great benefit. And then you could do all the other exercise you want. Like I said earlier in this podcast, all forms of exercise do provide value. So I don't want to, I'm not trying to tell people that summer bad, all I'm trying to say is that for the average person whose goal typically is, I want to lose weight, I want to be fit, I want to be mobile, I want to be healthy,

I don't have a lot of time to exercise, what should I focus my time on? Well then in that case, you pick resistance training. But there's so much more and there's a whole there's a lot of reasons is to why by the way we're in this position because here we are right so you know we're 2021 and resistance training still has this kind of stigma. It still has a stereotype. Now I remember when I first Started working in gyms in the I started working out in gyms in the mid 90s and I managed my first club in, I believe it was 1998 when I managed my first gym. And I saw no women in the, in the weight area.

Ever. In fact, the gyms that I managed, they had a separate area for women to work out and, in their area that had like five pound dumbbells and a few machines. They just didn't go in the weight training area. And the only people that lifted weights or used resistance training were people who were interested in building lots of muscle. Everybody else was doing classes or treadmill or swimming, but nobody really was doing resistance training.

And today we've moved quite a bit, but it's still stigmatized. I talk to the average person, and if I talk to a fitness fanatic, I think they're more on the now, right? But if I talk to your neighbor who they don't really work out, but the doctor said, hey, your blood lipids are off, you need to start exercising. If I said, hey, you should start lifting weights. Oh, no, I don't want to get big. I'm not trying to get bulky.

Like, I just want to be healthy. So it still carries that stigma. One of the reasons for that was many reasons. One of the reasons is the studies that were done on exercise for health, we're almost never done with resistance training. So although now we see studies, if you go back, you know, two decades, three decades, four decades,

when they were studying exercise to see its benefits for overall health and longevity, they never picked resistance training. It was always cardiovascular. Always. So we had no idea. All the studies that were done on resistance training were focused on athletic performance and strength. It was never health. So we never knew that resistance training was an amazing form of exercise for your heart, for example. For example, by the way, we now have studies that show that in head-to-head competition with cardiovascular activity resistance training is actually better for heart longevity. No job. Absolutely. I saw a study also that said that you can have other detrimental health effects by doing too much of a cardio, right?

You can cause premature aging of the heart and build up of calcium plaques in the arteries. I never knew that. Well, this is why you see some of these extreme endurance athletes that they die early and you're like, what the heck happened? I thought this person. Yeah. And it just went too far. It went too hard and it definitely damages the heart.

But resistance training in these studies is actually better for longevity and for heart health, for cognitive benefits, and especially to prevent Alzheimer's and dementia. And that's, this is a big deal by the way. Alzheimer's is just becoming a big problem. Only one, there was a study done out of Sydney, Australia, and they found that resistance trying strength training today is the only form of exercise that's been shown to halt the progression. Really?

Yes, halt the progression of things that happen that cause Alzheimer's. The only form of exercise, now you may be wondering, how, why is this possible? Researchers sometimes will call Alzheimer's or dementia type three diabetes. So we have type one diabetes, type two diabetes, and they'll sometimes refer to it. In fact, if you Google type three diabetes, you'll see Alzheimer's and dementia. I've never heard that before.

It's an official term, but the reason why they'll use that sometimes is because they believe it's our brain and body's inability to utilize glucose properly. So it's almost like diabetes. Like my brain can, this is why when you take people who are on a lab Alzheimer's and you put them on a ketogenic diet, no sugar, and all of a sudden they have cognitive improvements.

It's because it's as if their brain isn't able to use glucose like it used to. And this leads to these problems. Okay. One of the best protections you could do, you could possibly do for yourself to improve insulin sensitivity is to build muscle. Yeah. In fact, building muscle will improve your insulin sensitivity and protect you from diabetes regardless of your body fat percentage. You can take some of these obese, have them build muscle and you see a great protective effect in terms of insulin. That's probably why resistance training has such a beneficial effect on the brain is because

it's building muscle. The person can remember muscle stores glycogen, so it can burn up sugar. It's also insulin sensitive. So your body's gonna utilize that insulin a little bit better. And so it's just an amazing protective mechanism. Is it better than walking?

Cause everyone upstairs walking is the number one exercise. So here's why I like walking, right? I like walking cause it's easy. And you can inject it into your everyday life. Yeah. Everyone could do it. Right. So for example, if a client says, Hey, I want to be more active. I've never worked out before and I hate exercise. What's a great way to become more active? I'll say, Okay, why don't we attach activity to your normal daily routine? So, UE Breakfast Lunch and Dinner and they'll say, Yes, it's okay. Here's what I want you to do. 10 minute walk after breakfast lunch and dinner. That's 30 minutes a day and it's attached to something

that they already do and it just keeps them consistent. It's easy, I don't have to change, and it work out close. Get on equipment, I can go do it. So walking's great for that, but if you compare it head to head to structured resistance, trying it, it pales in comparison. It doesn't even come close. And it doesn't matter what parameters you use, whether it's fat loss, joint mobility. Did you know that resistance training is a phenomenal way to improve flexibility? This is another myth around resistance training. It makes you tired. Yeah, I was going to say, I've never heard that before because look the size of you. I would never think that you're very flexible. Okay, so let me explain. No, let me explain. But let me explain. So you have flexibility, which is range of motion. Okay, so that's just like how far can I take my foot to my head? Right.

Then you have what's called functional flexibility, which means I have this range of motion, but do I have strength and control within that range of motion? So to give you an example. Like a squat? Right, but let me, I'll give you an example. So like I have a baby We have a five and a half month old at home, right? He's very flexible. I could take his legs and put him by his head He can do the splits, but he's unstable If I put load on him or how to try to do some of those positions He'd probably dislocate one of his joints. In fact, it's called hyper mobility some people have that

So you have to have strength with your flexibility So although resistance training isn't gonna make you super flexible, what it will do is, especially when you do a properly full range of motion with control, for most people, they'll gain flexibility because most people have very little flexibility. So again, you're not gonna become a yogi, a yoga expert doing it, but you'll gain flexibility,

but whatever you gain, you'll have strength and control. And so it's the difference between sitting in a squat and sitting in a squat and with load. So like, now I'm in this stretch, like imagine going into a deep static stretch and then your kid jumps on your chair or something. Now imagine you have control and strength in that. That's where stability comes from.

That's where the protection comes from. So for like older people, when they lose mobility, loss of mobility in the injury themselves, they'll trip and fall, that's from strength, that's from loss of strength. So, they're no longer strong. So, you make them stronger, they improve their mobility and their functional flexibility.

Now, the extreme cases of flexibility, no, resistance strength is not gonna compete with hardcore stretching, but for functional flexibility, being able to move, be able to have load, maybe get into a stretch, but come out of it, resistance training is superior. Right, because I also, I mean, I know we said this right, but having more of the muscle mass on you has such benefits in terms of the metabolism and in terms of everything else. Would you say, if you did a walking or resistance training as you get, as you age,

right, aging, would you say resistant training for bone density? Oh my gosh. It's, um, think about all the things that happen to us when we age, right? So we start to lose bone mass, right? Right. So for bone density. Nothing has been, nothing directly combats osteopenia, like resistance training. It builds muscle, muscle anchors on bone. That bone is going to build as well. And because your buildings, you're trying to build strength so much with resistance training the bone building that comes from it Is significant. It's also resistance training is also extremely individualizable, right? So If I just do walking or running, it's the same movement the the same body parts, whatever. So like, when you look at studies of people who run, who have osteophenia,

they'll see some bone mass increases in the lower extremities, not much anywhere else, right? And that makes sense, they're running on their legs. And it's not a ton, but a little bit. If you do resistance training, well, I see they see bone mass increases everywhere and it's significantly higher. Yeah.

So you have that, right? So I got hormones for a second. Hormones change as we get older. It's a big one. No form of exercise reliably raises testosterone. In men, like resistance training and women. In women, it's a great balancer of estrogen and progesterone. So when those get out of balance, you start to get issues, especially when women are under a lot of stress. Resistance training is one of the best forms to balance

that out done appropriately. And it's probably because it's a pro tissue form of exercise versus other forms of exercise, which tend to be what's called anti-tissue. So to give you an example, if I'm doing, again, lots of cardio, the direct result of that is anti-tissue. My body is trying to reduce its muscle mass to make me more efficient at the cardio. I may also burn some body fat, but the direct result is getting rid of tissue. Okay, when I'm doing resistance training,

and by the way, I wanna be very clear, there's many ways to do resistance training, but you could, of course, you could lift weights, you could also use machines, you could use bands, you could use body weight. In fact, in the book, I give three versions, three different types of workouts. One of them requires bands. One of them requires just dumbbells, and I have one that we're using a barbell with it. So with resistance training, this signal that I'm sending to my body is ad muscle, build muscle, it's pro tissue. Now why is this important? Okay.

Think of the hormones involved with anti tissue, cortisol, right? It's definitely not gonna be growth hormone. It's definitely not gonna be testosterone. Estrogen, progesterone, not really important. I'm trying to get rid of things. Pro tissue, I want to build muscle. What do I need for that?

Grow hormone, testosterone, I need a good insulin sensitivity. My estrogen progesterone need to balance out an order for that to happen. So when you're sending this signal to your body to add this very metabolically active, healthy tissue, you're also simultaneously telling your body, we need all these great hormones. Okay, yeah. That's right.

In fact, if someone's thinking like, is that really true? Oh yeah, if you took anybody, and I wouldn't recommend this, but if you injected them with these pro tissue hormones, give someone growth hormone and testosterone, see how they feel. They would feel incredible.

Energize younger. I mean, they've got a million different. Oh my God, you could go to really call them rejuvenation clinics. And the last thing to prescribe these things to you. It's huge. I mean, I think I asked you that last time you were on all about the different types of, like, maybe I didn't, I don't remember. But like, even those peptides that are going or like they're doing those testosterone bullets

in your butt. Yeah. Yeah. Those little things in like for people who are aging or you know, people are taking HGH. Yeah. But like this is the only way resistance training is the only way to really change the shape of your body. Yeah. And to elevate these natural hormones in your body. Yes, and I'm glad you said change the shape of your body. You know, and I, you know, I'm careful when I talk in this direction because I do, You know, and I, you know, I'm careful when I talk in this direction because I do, I tried to communicate fitness through a very positive body acceptance standpoint.

Right. No, I understand. And mainly because I've seen that be much more effective long term. Right. That being said, look, the reality is we look in the mirror, we see parts of our body that we want to change the shape and whatever. Okay, and by the way, I think it would be remiss to not be honest, and people are working out

a lot of times for vanity reasons. Oh yeah, that's the number one reason. 100%, they wanna look good. I mean, of course it's great for health reasons, everything else, but we'd be living in Lala lands, but I am anyway in LA, but if you didn't think that people are doing it also for Vanity. Yeah, that's the number one reason.

Number one reason why anybody starts exercises because they want to change the way they look. And I do talk a lot about starting that way and then transitioning it to do this because I want to take care of myself. I do this because that's really the only long-term way to do it, because at some point you're going to turn 70, 80, 90, and if you're so attached to your image or your looks,

you're going to be really rude awakening at that point. Absolutely. Nonetheless, okay, we, and if you're so attached to your image or your looks, you're gonna be really rude awakening at that point. Absolutely. Nonetheless, okay, we wanna change the way we look and we tend to have specific parts of our body that we wanna change, right? So if you ask somebody, you know, what are your goals? I wanna get in shape, yeah, but what do you want?

How do you wanna look? Oh, I want more shape here, more shape there, more on, whatever, right? The only form of exercise that allows you to sculpt your body like a sculptor specifically is resistance strength. You can't do that. So you can't spot reduce body fat, right?

Right. I can't say, I want to lose body fat from here, train this area. Your body burns body fat kind of systemically in your genetics to train, right? But I can build muscle. I can build muscle in a very targeted way. And muscle creates shape, sculpt, tone, and firmness, right? So I can look in the mirror and say, I want, you know, okay, my, my, my, my, or hey, my waist isn't, isn't that tight.

How do I give myself the illusion of a smaller waist? I know I'll develop my back a little bit or, you know, a woman may say, you know, I want my, my butt to look better. Build your butt. You don't even have to get leaner, just building the muscle underneath will make your butt look better. Or I want my calves to look at whatever. It's the one form of exercise that I can look at,

and I can literally like a sculptor, pick exercises and movements to shape and change my body the way that I want. And along those lines, it's a form of exercise that's so moldable. It's the only form of exercise that I could do with anybody. I don't care who you are. You could be young, old, you could be in a wheelchair,

you could be injured. I mean, when you go to physical therapists, when they're rehabbing people, they use resistance training. Yeah. Why? Because it's just training with resistance in a way that builds muscle, which means,

I mean, I used to train people in advanced age, quite a bit, actually towards the backhand of my... In advanced age? Yeah, I had a favorite, right? That's such a nice way of saying that, Sal, you're such a PC, so cute. Well, it was the back end of my career, I really enjoyed training people, you know, 65 and older. And I loved it because they were so wise, and I used to love having conversations, but

really, the big reason why was man, it was amazing to see their bodies change and they were so grateful or whatever. But when I would train them, I mean, sometimes the exercise was stand up and sit down. That's our exercise or just reach up as high as you can with your arm, let's see if we can straighten it out and you're creating tension there. So I could totally mold it around anybody and still provide those benefits. So as you, okay, so also with, I guess with resistance training,

you're not gonna easily plateau, right? As much as you go with cardio because you can always increase the weight and you can always do different variations more. You can, but even if you do start to plateau, your metabolism's always in this get faster mode. That's where you're pushing, right? Whereas with other forms of exercise at cardio,

you're kind of pushing it to become more efficient. By the way, this isn't just my observation, studies confirm this. There was one study that I quote this in the book, there's a tribe in Tanzania called the Huds Hut tribe, and their modern hunter-gatherers. Scientists went down there to study and see how many calories they were burning every single day. They predicted that these people would be burning tons of calories, because they hunt their food, they forage, and they don't sit down, they're moving all the time. Well, what they found was that they burned almost as many calories as the average Westerner

in modern societies. They couldn't believe it. But then they thought about it and they said, well, this makes sense. It makes no sense that as hunter-gatherers, our bodies would allow us to burn 6,000 calories for movement every day because we couldn't possibly find 6,000 calories with the food. So our bodies learned to adapt and become more efficient. There's another study in the Amazon where they studied children in rural areas and then children in the city. And they know that the rural areas, the kids are way more active than in the city. And they want to see what the calorie burn difference was.

They also found there. The calorie burn was extremely similar. So just moving more, although movement has its own health benefits, don't get me wrong. If you can move every day, then move every day. That's great. But from a fat burning perspective, from a fat loss perspective, it's not gonna impact you that much. What you wanna do is you wanna figure out a way to get your metabolism to want to burn

more calories. So when you're doing resistance training and you're doing that consistently, that's what you're constantly pushing in that direction. I've had clients where I've gotten their metabolism to burn 500, 800 more calories a day, in some extreme cases, even more than that. Just imagine, what if you could burn 800 more calories every single day without doing anything extra? No, I... Blazing deals, balance options.

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Get grilling at Whole Foods Market Terms Apply. market terms apply. I know. I was going to say something also, this right now we're in a craze with the peloton. Everyone's like, on the peloton burning, going for an hour of these classes. And I never really seen a ton of my friends do it daily. They're like a obsessed. I'm a big runner. And I'm going to use myself to as an example through the pandemic, right? Because you couldn't go to the gym. And so I was doing a lot of cardio as a lot of my friends are doing a lot of the pelatine, but all of us still gained weight, right?

Because we were burning too much of our muscle as you were to your point, we're eating more than we normally would, and our bodies were not changing for the better. I feel like there's such a myth out there because of all this stuff. Like they're like, oh, I was like, I'm gonna go my palatine for an hour

and I'm gonna sweat more. People think sweat is like the, that means if they sweat, they're working out harder. No, that's such a myth. That's a great point. That's a great point. And that's another point I make in the book is that if you want long-term success with exercise,

stop treating it like a workout and treat it more like a practice. And what I mean by that is, if I treat it like a workout, and this came to me years ago. So years ago I was up in the hills by where I lived, and I was hiking, and then I would have runners pass me up every once in a while.

And as a personal trainer, it's almost impossible for me not to notice biomechanics, right? So people are running by, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this feet are pronating. Oh, that's an anterior, I'm like, oh my God, that's a knee injury. Oh, you know, and then this one runner came by and just looked like a gazelle. And I thought, God, you know what the problem is?

The problem is that we have this misconception that running is easy. Just go and run. Just get up and run. The truth is it's a skill. And if you stop running when you were 10, like most of us, you lose that skill. So just putting your shoes on and running

for a workout is a terrible idea because when you're doing a workout what are you training towards fatigue? I'm gonna run until I can't run anymore. I'm a run until and your form goes anything you do to fatigue your form goes downhill. Well the way you should treat exercises like a skill. This will give you long-term success. So rather than going to the gym and saying I'm gonna work out my legs today and I'm gonna get them real sore and hurt. Think to yourself I'm gonna going to the gym and saying, I'm gonna work out my legs today, and I'm gonna get that real sore and hurt. Think to yourself, I'm gonna go to the gym,

I'm gonna practice lunges, and I'm gonna practice squats. I'm gonna get good at this skill. Now doing that tends to make people train much more appropriately. It's not about the sweat, it's not about the soreness. Again, it's about sending the right signals so that your body, because remember that the results happen not while you're working out. Right. The workouts the signal, the result happened afterwards. What did that signal per month? Well, if I trained too

hard for my body, by the way, this is individual, right? But if I trained too hard, all my body is concerned with his healing. And so what does that look like? Well, I go to the gym, I get really sore, then I heal, I go back to the gym, I get really sore, and I heal. And meanwhile, I never improve. It's always the same way. It's like, yeah, always the same exercise. My body doesn't really change. I'm just healing, recovering, healing, recovering. What you want to do is you want to send the signal, such a body heals, but then has room to adapt. Like super compensate, right? So little bit of healing, but mostly adapting. So the way you should feel after your workouts,

and there's nothing wrong with sweating, but really the way you should feel after your workouts is energized. You should never leave a workout feeling like you beat the crap at yourself. You should always feel like you have more energy coming out of it than you've been going into. Soreness, maybe a little bit or none.

Well, my clients would come to me and say, oh man, I was really sore, I feel like it than going into. Soreness, maybe a little bit or none. Well, my clients would come to me and say, oh man, I was really sore, I had to last workout. Oh, that was great. In my head I'd say, no, we went too hard. We're gonna go much easier. I liked it when my clients would say, I kind of sore or I didn't really feel it. Then I knew we hit the right dose

and we would stay on that right dose and of course as their fitness improved sort of the intensity of the workouts and so forth and their bodies would just progress. Well this is the problem with weights though I feel like I mean because you know again it's all psychological you know like that you feel like you're wasting your time. Yeah I feel like because it doesn't give you the same indoor I mean maybe for you adults but most people don't get the same indoor in rush and because if they're not sweating like an animal or like super sore,

then they're like, it's a waste of time. They really believe that, and I'm one of, even though I know intellectually what the real answer is, that's a whole other story that you think the right, if you run like a dog for 30 minutes, it's gonna be better.

But really, like, what I was saying too earlier, but all my joints are sore. I can't even, you know, my ankle sore, my B gets this and my hip is this, and it's actually really, that is actually aging you. Like doing all that cardio, like a girlfriend's in mind who are going for these 10 mile walks.

I mean, and then they limp the rest of the day, you know? Yeah, well, you have to, you know, also, people like us, right? Fitzpinatics, exercise, and I know the average person who's listening or watching to this is going to roll our eyes. But to us, exercise is very much can be used like a drug. Yeah. It is for me. It is. It be too. And that's what I'm saying. And so it can be attached to the feeling. I can be attached to the the action of it. So we have to check ourselves a little bit and be careful with how we do that. Like give us a practical way because to tell me, because I haven't yet figured

it out, because even though I know this to be true, tomorrow morning, I'm going to get back up that treadmill with all my injuries, and I'll still do my little run, even though I know if I only have 30 minutes. The best approach that I've ever had is to take your laser-like focus and move it into a new direction, because it's not going to, if I tell you, hey, just do it this way and you know, trust the process, that's going to be very difficult. But if I say to you, here's what I want you to do, Jen, for the next three months. For the next three months, I want you to, I want you to, I want to see how strong you can get.

I want you to focus purely on performance. Let's see what you can do with your strength. And then if you can get your mind to shift in that direction with your, you know, your laser-like focus, where you want to goal and you want to hit it, and your focusing only on performance, probably it would take you off of how you look and all that other stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Then you might go in the right direction. More from our guest, but first a few words from our sponsor. Everyone's career is different,

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LinkedIn Learning, try free for one month at LinkedInLearning.com slash free month. That's LinkedInLearning.com slash free month. Well, I like what you said earlier because I don't think people think about it as a skill, right? They don't think working out is a skill. They think basketball could be a skill, tennis is a skill, but working out is a skill. If you treat it like that, your approach will be very good. Yeah, in fact, look, this is what I would say to you personally, right?

I would say, look, you love running. I don't want you to stop running. I don't want you to stop doing the stuff that you love. You obviously love it. No, I don't love it. I hate it, actually. Oh, okay. I feel like an obligation to it.

Well, if you've got an attachment to it, I would say this. Next thing you run, try to run run perfectly not hard. Oh, yeah So instead slow down work on your skill of running and then I would say swap out a couple of your of your cardio workouts force for Pick two or three resistance trend. That's it two or three resistance training exercise. Yeah, no I do and I would recommend that you do compound lifts and focus on strength go slow rest a minute or two in between sets. And if you're one of those people that has a tough time resting in between sets, which I have it, yeah, I feel like you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because you need to be doing

something, I would say in between read or in between read something. Well, yeah, something that will something that will stimulate you. Okay. I can't imagine, you know what it is, I can't picture you just sitting there for two minutes waiting for you. That's what I mean. Well, yeah, something that will, something that'll stimulate you. I can't imagine, you know what it is, I can't picture you just sitting there. For two minutes waiting for you. I'll answer your text. That's what I mean. Oh yeah, it is, I'm not gonna stand there like, you know. Yeah, so when I, I would say like,

like maybe there's some work you need to do. Well, I think, not to interrupt you, but I was gonna say I do both. I do strength training and I do weights, but I think, I mean, and I do the cardio. The problem is I know,

I'm doing too much cardio, so I'm breaking down my muscle when I'm doing every, I think that's a lot of people. They do a lot of people do combinations, but they're heavier on the one. And if I'm breaking down that muscle, then when I eat, because we haven't even talked about diet, it's uplifting and all that,

then I can't eat as much because of the, I'm not able to burn as much with the cup. Now, and here's the other beauty with resistance training. If you bump your calories a little bit while sending that build signal with resistance training, what do you think happens? You gain, you might gain some weight, but it isn't body fat. You're gaining muscle. You do that part.

You do that if you bump. So tell me, give me an example. So, let's say the cornerstone of my workout is resistance training. What do you do? Do you mean what you do? Well, so for my routine is much more advanced. I've been working out for a long time. So I trained about six days a week and it's mostly resistance training. I also throw in some functional training and then some cardio style hit workouts.

Yeah, that's an old vector. So like Saturday I'll do like I'll push the sled and drag the sled and do that kind of stuff on my channel. How long would you work out a day? You. Oh, typically about an hour or two an hour and 20 minutes. You will. Every six days a week. Six days a week. Now I've been doing this a day? You. Oh, typically about an hour to an hour and 20 minutes. You will. Every six days a week. Six days a week.

Now I've been doing this for a long time, I've been training since I was 14. Yeah. And I love the performance of it or whatever. It's not necessary to work out that much for health and longevity at all, but I push myself on my own. But for vanity.

That's like, okay, health, I got you for two hours a week for people who want to be healthy. Now, if someone wants to look like that, like look like a specimen, like with muscles and all that stuff, what do you think is, be realistic. You would still have to start with the two days a week, but then eventually progress yourself and you can go really far with a four day a week workout,

with resistance strength. So four days a week. Yes, you can go really far with that. And talk about over exercise, because then you can have the, just in cardio, the same thing. If you could do too much and they have the reverse up. Absolutely, remember, you're trying to send the signal,

and it has to be an appropriate signal. The right dose is perfect, right? So with exercise, doing too little will give you less results. Yeah. Doing too much will give you less results. And if you go too, too much, you can actually cause damage

and cause yourself a lot of problems. So it's too, too much. Give us, like the, It depends on the person, right? So here's a good gauge. The one what I said earlier, how do you feel after your workout? Right.

Do you feel energized? That's a good thing. How do you feel the day after? Do you feel better? That's a good thing. Are you sore? If you are, are you sore to the touch then you went too hard?

Right. Is your sleep better or is your sleep worse? Is your sleep better or is your sleep worse? Is your skin better or is your skin worse? Essentially, if all your health parameters are improving, not just I beat myself up but rather I just feel better, I feel more calm, you should have less anxiety, you should just feel, it should feel right. Now the problem with that is if you're mentally stuck on, I want my body to change, sometimes we ignore those signals. I don't care if I'm beat up if it gets

me there faster. To which case I'll tell you, you won't get there faster by going too fat, too hard, or too long. The right dose is the dose that'll get you there the fastest. Right, I agree with that. This episode is brought to you by FX is the Bear. The hit series returns with Jeremy Allen White and the Golden Globe-winning role of Karmie. He and the team will transform their family's sandwich shop into a next-level spot, all while being forced to come together in new ways as they confront their past and reckon with who they want to be in the future.

FX is the Bear, all episodes now streaming, only on Hulu. Vitamin water zero sugar nourish every you vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass. Oh So then you're saying start off for people who are beginning at least two days a week and then you can move up to four or five Don't you have to give yourself like you know two days of like you do six days. Yeah, isn't that what and you're I know you're a whole different story, but two days of rest like usually is what nor like regular people say. You know, here's the thing about resistance training that's really good is that the- Body parts can change.

And not only that, but the results are pretty long last thing. So what I mean by that is, if you just do tons and tons of cardio and then you stop, you'll see things change real fast. Yes. With resistance training, you don't. In fact, they just did a study where they compared groups of people. And one group they had them do, it was four days a week of resistance training and they did it 16 weeks straight, not missing a single week. The other group did three

weeks on one week off. So they actually worked out for three weeks and then took one week off every single, every, every three weeks, they took a whole week off. And they wanted to compare the results. Now, you would think the group that worked out more got better results. The truth is, at the end of the six week team week study, they were almost exactly the same. So although when they took the week off, they lost a little bit of strength.

When they went back to it, it came back very quickly. This is because of something called muscle memory. Yeah. And muscle memory is a very real thing. And is because of something called muscle memory. Yeah. And muscle memory is a very real thing. And resistance training is what builds muscle memory. So when you build muscle just to make it so it's not super complicated, you increase the amount of satellite cells in your muscles. Super complicated, it's good.

And these satellite cells are responsible for many things, but some of them can turn into new muscle tissue or they can promote muscle growth. When your muscles grow, you get more of them, but when they shrink, they don't go away. So this is to give you an example, let's say it took you four years to build, you know, 15 pounds of lean muscle. So for four years, you worked out hard, you trained hard, you're a guy, and you gained 15 pounds of muscle. And then for whatever reason, you stop for six months, and you lose it all, 15 pounds gone.

And then you say, you know what, I wanna get back into working out. You'll gain that 15 pounds back in about two or three months. So it took you four years before, but the second time around, it comes back much faster. That's fast, Danny. So resistance training kind of provides that safety, which is good because, again, think about

the average person, Jen, average person usually doesn't work out consistently week in and week out. They'll miss a week here, miss a couple of weeks there. Well, you know, why not do the form of exercise? It's going to give you some kind of longer, and I know nothing's permanent, but at least results that stick around a little bit and make it easier for you to deal with the fact that you maybe stopped working out for a couple weeks. Absolutely. So let's talk about a couple other things.

I want to talk about the nutrition aspect and the supplement. And there's a bunch of different things here. You're a big intuitive eating guy. Yes. Okay. I don't know. To me, it doesn't make any, how is that even, that doesn't even sound possible.

It sounds silly. It sounds like, I mean, yeah, it's in theory again, it sounds great, but how do people just say? I'll make it make sense for you. Okay, so I'll use an example. There's now several studies that show. Right. That if, so great studies, by the way,

they'll take groups of people and they'll divide them up and they're controlled, they're really controlled, so they'll keep them in laboratories. And they'll say, okay, this group over here has unlimited access to heavily processed food. This group over here has unlimited access to whole natural foods. And they control the macros and everything. It's okay, they're very similar macros breakdown. The only difference is processed foods,

processed foods are in wrappers, bags, boxes, unprocessed foods, whole foods are like, you know, chicken, bananas, nuts, whatever. And they say, okay, eat until, eat until you're full or whatever and we're gonna track. And then what they do after certain pair of times, they switch them. They take these people, they put them over there,

they take these people, put them over there. So it's a crossover study. And there's several of these now. And they find that when people eat heavily processed foods, on average, they eat five to 600 more calories a day. So 500 to 600 more calories a day, eating heavily processed foods. Now, why is that?

Heavily processed foods are engineered to make you eat more. And there's a lot of money that goes into doing this. A bag of lace potato chips has about four potatoes in it. And I could eat that, no problem once in a while. I saw it when you booked a potato thing. Yeah, but if you give me four, or five playing potatoes to eat, it would be very difficult, right?

So, okay, so what does that have to do with intuitive eating? Well, if we're in a situation where we learn, we know how to read our body's signals. We have a good relationship with food. By the way, it's easier said than done. We can talk about what this looks like. I literally have in my nose. This seems easier said than done.

Right. So, do I have a good relationship with food and how do I build that? Do I understand my body's signals and what it's telling them? A lot of people are, they don't even know what their body's sending them signals. They just accept that they have heartburn every day or whatever, right? So body signals, good relationship of food,

do I understand food for all of its value other than its palatability? So we're in a society where we value food for palatability. How good does it taste and how pleasurable is it to eat. I mean, if you ask your friends, hey, where do you want to go to lunch,

that's what you consider, right? Okay, so if you understand those three things, then you will naturally eat in a way that promotes health. Now, you're not gonna get shredded, you're not gonna look like you're a bikini model or whatever, but you're not gonna be obese, you're probably not even going to be over overweight. Yes. You're going to eat in a way that is naturally healthy Now, how do we get there? It's a bit of a process. Okay, so let's start with a

relationship with food Okay, oftentimes we grab food and we eat food in ways that are impulsive That resemble almost binge-like behavior. So giving example would be like, if I'm eating like, I use potato chips a lot because that's my favorite thing, right? So let's say I'm eating potato chips, and I'm chewing on a chip,

I'm not even enjoying this one, I'm just thinking about the one that's in my hand, right? Okay, so. Does it happen to you, even? Everybody. I have to see me constantly. That's what these foods are designed to do. And I grew up in this same society you did

where as kids, this is how we value food, is what all of it is. It's also social now, the social element. So, okay, so how do I develop a better relationship food with that kind of stuff? Well, first we need to create barriers between me and those behaviors so that I can become more aware.

So potato chips for me is a trigger food. I'm not gonna have them in the house. I'm not gonna say I can't eat them though. If I want some, I have to drive to the store. What does that do? At least create some space for me to maybe bring some awareness. What's another thing I can do? Not eat when I'm distracted.

Okay, so don't eat while I'm looking at my phone. Don't eat while I'm watching TV. Don't eat while I'm listening to something. Just eat. Studies will show people eat 15% less calories just Naturally just from doing that naturally I thought even let more actually. Oh, I would I would bet it's more

Yeah, but the studies will show about 15. But just I mean that's significant if you're eating 2,000 calories hundreds of calories a day. Yeah, I guess that's right Well, I mean I can eat forever when I'm watching a movie or a popcorn, if you go to a movie and you have like, you can have like three tubs of those. That's, I'm glad you brought that up. Think about how the associations that we have with food, right? So how can I change or develop good associations with food?

That's a big one, I think. Right, so right now, you know, most of us only associations we have with food is pleasure or social, right? Let's create other associations. How do we do that by bringing awareness? Okay? Broccoli. Most people would say broccoli is not one of the most pleasurable fun food. No, it's definitely not fun. But what if when you eat broccoli, you're really paying attention. You notice this makes my skin look good or my digestion Is so much better every time I eat a nice serving of broccoli. Yeah.

Okay. If you continue to bring awareness to that over time, what you'll naturally find is you might actually start wanting the broccoli. In fact, this happens to me. When I travel and I eat out a lot, when I come home, you know what food I reach for? Like cooked vegetables and fish.

That's so true. Is that happening, you too? Yeah, absolutely. And actually crave them. Yeah. Actually want those things. Is it the palatability of them? No, but I've made a different association.

And by the way, food manufacturers know this. This is how they advertise to you. You see a beer commercial. It's not just beer, it's beer and girls in the beach. Yeah. It's not just food, it's food and the party and whatever, right? They've done studies on this. What they've served people ice cream in, you know, in toilet bowls and they find people eat less of them. Lists of the actual ivy. That's so true. Right. So, so you so it's just really bringing

awareness, developing your own intuition. So you could start to read this signal and you're in really okay. So just to take it back, and this will help illustrate a little bit, there's four stages of learning, no matter what we learn. The first stage is unconscious incompetence. So somewhere we start out, we just, we don't know what we don't know. And a lot of people are kind of here with nutrition.

We don't know what we don't know. The second stage is really easy. We realize now that we don't know. So don't know what we don't know. The second stage is really easy. We realize now that we don't know. So now we know that we don't know like, oh man, I heard Sal talking on this podcast. I had no idea. This is a lot of stuff that I don't know. The third stage is conscious competence. Conscious competence is I have to consciously be competent with what I'm doing.

So I have to consciously pay attention to my food, I have to consciously be competent with what I'm doing. So I have to consciously pay attention to my food, I have to consciously am I getting enough protein? What are my calories at? Okay, South said become more aware. Like I'm noticing that the vegetables are making me feel better. So maybe I'll try eating more of those. I notice when I eat this food that I get more inflamed

or I don't feel as good. So maybe I'll avoid some of that stuff. But eventually you move from there to unconscious competence where now it becomes that's intuitive, now it becomes very natural. To give you an example when you're right now you're breathing intuitively. Maybe not, now that I said it. Exactly. That's it. It's your competent but unconsciously so, right? Yeah. You can get there with nutrition. It is a process, I'm sorry, it does take a little while,

but it's the only permanent way to do it. There is no permanent way to do it. Now, what does it look like when you get there? You eat in a way that takes care of your body, takes care of your mind, takes care of your soul, in a very balanced, natural way. By the way, this works for eating sweets and eating and having alcohol too. Because let's say I'm in this state

where I'm, you know, I've worked on the awareness, I have this good relationship with food, you invite me out to lunch or you have us come over for dinner and you know, you make some drinks and, you know, we're watching the games, so we have pizza. You know, why wouldn't I have a few drinks and pizza? At the moment, what's important to me is to my health is the social aspect. Yeah, yeah. It's connecting with these people. So you develop this natural balance

because you can also go in the extreme and the other direction. You can become like this fitness, fanatic, orthorexic, where you carry your food everywhere. That's not healthy either. Right. So I do talk a lot about, and really as a trainer,

I learned this because the counting calories, counting macros, giving people meal plans just failed. I know you talk a lot about the fact that you hate you think that meal plan suck. Yes. Okay, why do you think that meal plan suck? Because does it keep people on points? Yeah, they eat like that forever. Well, that's so great. So because there's no longevity to it, right? It doesn't it keep people on on yeah they like that forever. Well that

so great. So because there's no longevity to it. And it doesn't work on. Yeah. It's not real life. Yeah. Real life doesn't the navigate real life. So you get a kick start though. What do you think about meal plans to get a kick start? I think becoming aware require structure. So yes, you should probably look at macros, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, no bits in food, learn about calories. Very important, don't get stuck there. Either you'll A, fall off, or B, you'll be the small percentage that is determined to stick to it, and then you become a zealot and those people are not healthy either.

Believe me, I know these people in the fitness space who they have no friends, they have no nothing. They have nothing. All it is is workout and eating the same thing. It's a very sad existence because you, it basically controls everything you do in your life or you have no life basically. Correct, correct.

So no, balance is very important and you can get to that place by pushing the right behaviors, not the mechanisms of diet. But I think where it could be good, right, is that if you're always on the go and you're going to grab a burger, I can be, you know, McDonald's or like just like crap around you. If you have like a meal, whatever, like a meal service, that you have good food to grab instead of the alternative.

Sure. But you're right, long term because eventually you get off that and then what happens, and you gain the right fat. I think you develop the skills to navigate your own like normal life. You know what happens if people are super strict on meal plans, something happens. They go on a vacation or, oh, I'm up, whatever. And then you've developed this on the wagon off the wagon type mentality. Because here's what is this psychological what happens.

If everything is so rigid in this box box the second I step outside of that box Now I'm not in that box anymore, and I don't care now I already went off my diet. Let's go crazy This is why somebody when they you know go off their diet. They don't eat one cookie They a whole sleeve that's me again of Oreo cookies 100 I think that's what could your if you're so regimented when you see something that you get or you like have that taste in your mouth, you'll go crazy That's right. I also talk about just the the motivation that that brings us to these places, right? If we go into Exercise and eating right from a positive place

We're much more likely to be to keep it long-term than from a negative place Most people don't realize that their initial motivation is very negative. It's a, I hate my body, I'm fat, I don't look good, I want to change this. And although that can be a powerful initial motivator, it's never long-term because nobody wants to hate themselves forever. Right. At some point, by the way, when you hate yourself, exercises a punishment and diet is restriction. When you're doing it because you want to care for yourself, why am I exercising? Because I love myself. I want to take care

of myself. Why are you eating right? Because I want to take care of myself. I deserve to be taking care of. Well, now it's exercise is a treat. Eating right is care, a self-care. Very, very different attitude. Also, the choices you make are much more appropriate. If I went out with my friends and ate a bunch of pizza and drank a bunch of beer, and I hate, and I'm motivated by self, hey,

well, I might go to the gym and be like, oh my God, I'm so disgusting. What did I do that? I'm gonna go beat the crap out of myself. Even though I probably feel terrible, and maybe I didn't sleep well, I'm gonna go beat the crap out of myself. Even though I probably feel terrible, and maybe I didn't sleep well, I'm gonna go beat the crap out of myself. I'm gonna go run as hard as I can,

sweat this off, or whatever. Interpreterate training, not as effective. If it's self-care, I may be like, oh man, I really didn't take care of myself very well yesterday. I kind of went off a little too far. I think I'm gonna go to the gym and do things that feel good. And because I'm tired and inflamed, that feels like yoga, maybe some walking,

maybe some light resistance training. Which actually is how I would train you if I was your trainer. If I was your trainer and you told me that yesterday, you didn't get good sleep. I would train you that way. I wouldn't beat the crap out of you. Right, so it's like reframing these messages you tell yourself.

Absolutely. If it comes from there, you enjoy it. How many times have you heard this from people? You see someone and you're like, hey, did you still doing that diet or you still do that workout? Oh, no, I just, I stopped because I just want to enjoy my life. So many times I hear that, right? Right, right, right. You do. Right, and exercising improves your quality of life. Is it strange that people say that they have to stop doing that in order to enjoy their life?

It's because it was coming from a place of self-hate. Yeah. Of course you're punishing yourself. The workout to you is punishment. Of course you wanted to stop. But the thing is like it's again, this is all like it's a process, right? Like people can. So there's such a behavioral change in all of this that people I don't think sometimes understand. The physical parts, the easy part is the mental change. And that's everything. Yeah. It's as and it's the hardest part. It is. And I want people to and I want people to feel hopeful because, you know, because people are like, oh my gosh, that sounds like so much. Yes, it is. And you go one step at a time, very slow. Right. You start with one change that is challenging

because it has to have meaning. If it's not challenging, it's got no meaning, right? So something that's challenging, but also realistic for you, be honest, right? Right. When someone would ask me, you know, how many days a week should I work out? I wanna start working out.

I always ask them, how many days a week do you think you could work out forever? Right. Because I want a real answer. Okay, so realistic yet challenging start there. Once that change becomes a regular part of your life and it becomes not easy, but something you do routine, then you add one more thing. And you might be thinking, well, that's going to take forever.

It's not as long as you think. In fact, over time, it starts to accelerate. If I took two parallel lines and I moved one just one degree, you wouldn't be able to tell here, but follow them along for a mile or two and the distance becomes much greater. Tremendous. And again, this is the only way that I've seen, besides the rare epiphany, which is extremely rare, and epiphany is usually come from something bad. Like, you had a heart attack or something like that. Aside from that, this is the only way I've ever seen everyday average people

develop a lifelong relationship with exercise and nutrition, that's positive. It's the only way. Everything else has been what we always see, which is lose weight, gain weight, lose weight, gain weight, on, off, on, off, and nobody ever goes anywhere. Although, also there's a piece to this, that's a habitual, right? Like, I think once people do it long enough where they feel the good effects, like their

energy, their focus, the alert, that is usually the motivation, in my opinion, to continue, right? Jan, I'll tell you something. 100, you hit the knee on the head. Look, if who's going to walk farther? motivation in my opinion to continue, right? Jan, I'll tell you something. You hit the knee on the head, look. If who's gonna walk farther, the man who's obsessed with the destination or the man who likes to walk?

Right, right, right, right. If you love, if you start to develop that relate, and you will, if you do this the right way, you will. Is the able to do it long? The hardest is like the stop is in the start or is that what it's supposed to do? Yeah, if you do this the right way, like I stop is in the start. Yeah. Was that what it is? Yeah. If you do this the right way, like I'm talking about, you will start to develop a positive

relationship with exercise. And when that happens, you're not going to stop. Right. Now I work out in the morning, not because I'm trying to get buffed or look good. We are buffed, but that's the whole other story. I do it because I like it. I would do it no matter what. Right. I would go because I enjoy the process of it

Me too. You know what that means. I'll never stop. No, I agree But you're gonna get to that point. Yes, I feel it and people don't realize that there it can be agony at the beginning But then you kind of go over that hurdle But there's also that let me I want to ask you about plateauing again. Yes people who exercise I mean who do this stuff, and they still plateau because they've been eating properly for a long time, they've been exercising properly for a long time. How do you like, re-jig the system a little bit?

Like, how do you kind of mix it up for people like that, so they don't continue to plateau? That's a great question. So, a few different things. Change your workout, that's a very easy common one, right? So, with resistance training, change the rep ranges, it's a very easy common one, right? So with resistance training, change the rep ranges is a very easy thing to do. So maybe for three or four weeks, I focus on six to eight reps. Now I'm going to go 15 to 20 reps. So that's one way to do it.

Changing exercises will do it as well. You're diet. Here's a big one. Yeah. Most people are interested in fat loss, right? And then they may plateau what their fat loss. Believe it or not, going through a short period of eating more food will typically boost your metabolism back up to trigger more fat loss down the road. So what does that look like? And they've done studies on this, by the way, where they'll take people who they're on this like 12 week

or 16 week calorie deficit, but they'll inject like three or four days every couple weeks where the person eats higher calories and they find that they lose more fat as a result bodybuilders have done this for a long time they call them cheat meals which I don't like that name. Is it a cycle? Is that called cycling kind of your calories? Yeah, or days you can do carb days. Yeah and this bodybuilders have known this for a long time. So what I would say is if you start to plateau, if you're getting leaner, leaner, leaner, and a new plateau, try doing a couple weeks where your calories are higher and you're just focused on building strength.

Then try cutting a little bit again and then see what happens. And usually that gets things moving. Really? And it's also in your book, you talk about a different thing. There's two different ways. You were saying an irreference to if you're somebody who's starved yourself and you've carved, and then you don't wanna gain a body of bikini models when they do the cardio thing and the eating,

and then to kind of reverse diet. Reverse diet. That's it. But what's reverse diet? So reverse diet is. And if I've heard that before. That's actually quite, it's a common phrase in now that in the kind of hardcore fitness space. My friend Lane Norton was really the first one to talk about

reverse diet, but we'd all kind of seen it and experienced it ourselves. A reverse diet is when you take somebody who through years of dieting and maybe overexercise or over cardio has really gotten their metabolism to get really, really slow. So I've experienced this myself. So I'll use the example of, you know, I had a client who was a bikini competitor and she would die it for these shows and get really shredded. But by the time she came to see me, she was eating like, I don't remember, it was like 1500 calories a day. She was doing cardio every single day on top of it. She was doing weight training. And she was like, I can't work out more

and I can't eat less. And my body's not getting leaner, like what's going on? So well, your metabolism has become hyper efficient, right? Slow down, we need to speed it back up. So what we did is we slowly reduced her cardio exercise. I had her slowly increase her calories over time in which she did, she started putting on some lean tissue And it started speeding up her metabolism

Sometimes I see this with obese people. I actually had this where I'll have someone that sees me hire as me They want to lose 70 pounds and we'll track their food Because I want to see what their calorie intake is and I'll be like wow This person needs to lose 70 pounds and they're averaging about 1800 calories a day Like how am I gonna get them to lose 70 pounds having me 800 calories a day? Yeah, how am I going to get them to lose 70 pounds? Having me 800 calories a day? Yeah. And then once they lose the weight, where are they going to go?

They're totally screwed, right? You see those are the biggest losers. A lot. Yeah. Where they lose the weight and they gain it right back. So what I'll do with that person is also OK. I'm going to have you continue to 18 her calories, and we're going to start resistance training

and make you stronger. And then slowly actually bump their calories. I'll go 50 calories a week here and there. Till I get to the point, and they either won't gain any weight, or they may gain a little bit of weight doing this, but we're going, getting to the point where I'm comfortable cutting their calories.

So typically, I'm getting them up to 24, 25 hundred calories. Their weight really hasn't changed much at all. Now I have a place to start from. Now I can cut calories and there's a beauty of it. I'll cut 500 calories from there and they're still eating more than they came to me with. Now they're losing weight. Right. Right. That reverse diet is scary to a lot of people. I'm sure this thing because because once you gain a lot of weight, you would gain. If you do it right, you might gain a little bit of weight, mostly water, you'll gain some muscle, not much though. You actually don't gain much.

Now when you cut, you're like, you got this ramped up metabolism. I love doing this with women the most, because they're the most scared. Yes. Guys, if I tell them to reverse diet, sometimes they're like, cool. I know, exactly. But with women, I'm like, okay,

we're gonna bump your calories. Why? Why do you want me to bone out? But after about three or four months of doing this and they're feeling really strong and their shape is looking good, and then they're like, okay Should we start cutting and I'll say well? How do you feel about your diet? Like well, I'm eating a lot. I feel like I can't eat anymore like okay now. That's a good time

Then we'll cut the calories and the fat just work comes off their body I like that and then also one more thing and then we can I will wrap this up But you know you were talking about how do you like you eat something very small in the morning and you eat nothing during the day and then you eat a big meal. I mean, is it like kind of a, it sounds like it would be like intermittent fasting with a snack kind of or like- Kind of, and you know, here's a thing with meal frequency. You believe in intermittent fasting? For some people, for other people I don't. For you, do you call, what do you call that for yourself? Um, I mean, sometimes I do that, sometimes I don't. I guess you could call that intermittent fasting. Um, sometimes I don't do that. It just sounds like eating very little calories until

until later. Yeah. So I definitely wouldn't recommend any kind of fasting for someone who wants to lose weight. We used to call that starving yourself. It does develop a bad relationship of food. But really? That's what people are using it for. You know that, right? People are saying, oh, but I'm fasting. No, you're just not eating. Exactly. It's called, it's I don't know the guys of doing like, coming for like healthy and good for you. But really, if you really kind of like peel back the layers, because I think they're going to be like, they're going to lose weight. 100% yeah, 100% on with you. No, meal frequency,

there's definitely cases where you might want to eat more or less frequently. So like, less frequently, sometimes people with gut inflammation issue, yeah, eating less frequently, sometimes people have got inflammation issue. Yeah. Eating less frequently sometimes is better for them. More frequently, sometimes people with hormone issues, women, sometimes with like HPTA access, dysfunction. Sometimes you'd want them to eat like a fat protein meal in the morning to stabilize their cortisol

and their blood sugar and whatever But that all you know that all being said Meal frequencies up to personal preference If you like to eat five small meals a day because that makes you feel best Although some meals that also of course it doesn't burn more body fat and like that But it's never come from that everyone thinks that like they got a Bodybuilder. Yeah, it came from bodybuilders because bodybuilders were eating five or 6,000 calories a day, which you're not going to do with two or three meals.

And the supplement companies where they saw that and they said, oh, what a great way to sell people protein bars and shakes. If we tell people eat six meals a day, they're probably not going to eat six real meals a day. So we'll sell them protein powders and bars. It was very smart. Very smart strategy.

That's very smart. It's very exactly. But it makes Very smart. It's very exactly. But it makes no difference. It really does make no difference. Except for certain cases, it makes no difference. Personal preference. If you like eating twice a day, you twice a day. If you want to eat five times a day, it's fine.

So long as the calories and macros are everything is good, you're fine. So you don't really care what time people eat, how often they eat as long as they're eating the amount calories they should be and the macros are on. Now, the times, you know, here's a deal. If you eat really late at night, it tends to not be healthy, that's just behavior. You know, remember that old thing, like don't eat past six PM? Yeah. One of the reasons why that works is A,

people eat less and B, when we tend to eat the wrong foods, it tends to be late at night. Yeah. But other than that, I would say, look, you probably don't want to eat within two hours before bed because it does influence your sleep. Other than that, doesn't make difference.

So why do you only eat like an apple in the morning then? I tend to feel best when I am light, when I don't have a lot of food. I have the most energy. Obviously, I'm on a podcast. I like to talk to people. I just feel sharpest doing that. When I eat a meal, I like to sleep, relax.

Right. So I tend to eat that way. Although these days now, I have a little more in the morning. I tend to eat something like, I'll make like a shake with eight to 10 egg yolks. There's some protein powder in there and good to go. Is there any supplements that you take? Like on the right, if you take a pre workout

to look like this? Oh, it's a, I'll take caffeine before I work on it. The whole green is. You know what's a good supplement for most people? What? Crateean. For women too. Everybody.

Really? Crateean is, oh, okay. Crateean is the most studied, erygenic supplement you'll find in your words. Hundreds and hundreds of studies done on Crateean. It is now being shown to improve heart health, cognitive function, anti-inflammatory. It definitely helps promote muscleatory. It definitely helps promote muscle strength. It definitely helps build muscle and indirectly it does help speed up the metabolism and burn body fat. If you take creatin, you will gain a little bit away. It's water weight. It's not

below. It's not below. It's not below. Glow is outside the muscle. This water gain comes inside the muscle. So what you'll notice is your muscles look tighter and fuller and more sculpted. So it's not the same. So although the scale might go up a pound or two, you'll feel tighter. Almost like you have a little bit of a pump like when you work out. Really? Yes. And then you just put that in a shake or just trick about itself. Just take it once a day. Yeah. That's such a good. Someone like you, someone like you two, three grams. That's a two, three grams today. Really? Because yeah, it's such a guy thing.

When it first came out, that's how it was marketed. No, creatine is tremendous. In fact, you're gonna see, you're just starting to see it wellness supplements with creatine. They're starting to create into care homes for the elderly because it improves cognitive function and strength and makes them feel better. Like I said earlier, it's good for heart health.

Cratein is a great supplement for everybody. I don't care what you're goals. That last muscle gain doesn't matter. Really? How about collagen? What do you think of the collagen craze? Collagen, it's high in certain amino acids that are beneficial for joint health and skin. Ultimately though, if your protein is really high, it really doesn't matter because you get those amino acids no matter what. But if your protein isn't in

the upper limits of what, you know, so for for maximum results from protein, maximum results being appetite, suppression because protein is very, very satiating and muscle building, you're looking at eating about 0.8 to about 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body mass. So if you weigh a hundred pounds, 60 to 80 grams, right? So do the math unless you're really overweight in which case you use lean body mass. But for most people, 0.6 to 0.8. If you're eating that much protein, then it doesn't make a big difference. If your proteins under that, then collagen makes a big difference because now you're supplementing with those amino acids that your body is

looking for. So people with lower protein diets and you don't need to necessarily eat tons of protein. It definitely has its benefits, but it's not necessary. If you're eating lower than that, then supplementing with collagen, you should notice improvements in skin health and your hair. Really? Wait, did you say you take a pre-workup then besides the creatinine? Sometimes I take a pre-workout, which is essentially caffeine and maybe some beta-align and some

citrally amino acid. I hear a lot about beta. What does that do? Beta-align is a, think of it this way, right? So the burn you get when you work out, beta-align increases what's called karnasine in the muscle, which buffers it against that. So you get better performance. So you add like a rep or two to your workout.

So it's more of a performance supplement. It's minor. By the way, supplements, they're not in the same category as food, sleep and exercise. But if you're like at that high level, then you might know, beta-align does have a little bit of a side effect if you're ever taking it. No, but everyone's telling me about it.

Renate it. If you take beta-align, you'll probably feel kind of tingly under your skin. Some people can't handle that. Really? No, I like that. I'm very on the workout supplements. I've never touched anything. I mean, like I take trunyajim for NAD. That's the only thing I take, and I take vitamin D. Yeah, vitamin D is good. And then what else do I take? I think that's all I take. Oh, visual. I take omega-3. Yeah, I take that too. Yeah, how did you know? Huh? It that's all I take. official oil. I take omega three. Yeah, I take that. Yeah, how did you know?

Huh? How did you know what you had? It's a very good supplement. I can tell you that great scale. Oh my god. Well, thank you. No, I don't, but thank you. So I've never, yeah, that's why I'm not very familiar.

Crazy. Try, try maybe two grams a day. Okay. And beta Allen, you think or the... You could try a bit on it if you like it, but just, just creating two grams a day. So they tell you to take five grams a day. That's a lot lot for most people unless you have a lot of muscle mass two or three grams So it's like half of a scoop that'll come with a little what have a glue glue to mean or glue just an amino acid

Do you take that to no? I mean my protein so high. I don't supplement with amino acids. Yeah Wow, where's your book out by the way? It's out now. Oh, it's out already. It's out right now Then what comes I only got like a PDF. No, we're mailing you a book with an I'm going to sign it over. So you got a book coming. I have a real book coming over. Okay, so your book is actually out. When did it come out? Yeah, 27th.

So what's today? 28th? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Oh my gosh. Amazing.

Yeah, thank you. Where do people find you, my impromptu, you know? Okay, so the book is the resistance training revolution. You can go to the resistancetrainingrevolution.com or you could buy it on Amazon, Bards and Noble Target. Anywhere they sell books. Of course, the podcast is mind pump and then if you want to find me personally, you can find me on Instagram at mind pump sell. And it's a very funny Instagram. I love your story all the time. Not always appropriate. That's 100% true. So if you're a parental guidance for sure. Therefore, thank you so much YAP Media Podcast Network.

I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week, we dive into a new topic like the Art of Side Hustles, how to level up your influence and persuasion and goal setting.

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