Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 379 - Strong Sistas Sara & Ashley Armstrong

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

Sarah and Ashley Armstrong are the STrong Sistas! Sarah and Ashley are powerlifters, nutritional coaches, and YouTubers who both suffer from autoimmune diseases. Through adopting an animal based lifestyle, and utilizing the Carnivore Diet and the Ketogenic Diet, they have been able to make significant positive changes to their health. They currently work to help their coaching clients live happier, healthier lives through animal based nutrition principles. STrong Sistas on IG: https://www.instagram.com/strong.sistas/ STrong Sistas on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/strongsistas Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support us by visiting our sponsors! ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/power25 Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 25% off and free shipping on orders of $99! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Power Project crew, welcome to today's show. This episode was recorded on April 28th and it is with the Strong Sisters. Yes, Ashley and Sarah Armstrong. It was really cool to finally make this connection because we've actually been getting their names recommended to us for a little while now. So it was, like I said, it's cool to make this connection

and that connection initially started because of the sisters were doing a strict carnivore diet. They did it for about a year. And although they're still animal based, they have since decided to move away from it for health reasons. And it's really, I love that because, you know, so many people talk about how the carnivore diet fixes literally everything. And yet here are two sisters that are going through some disorders right now that they realized, hey, we can't just keep kind of circling around this issue. We need to hit the nail on the head and actually like target what's really going on here.

And that is their hormones. They need to get their hormones in line. So what you guys will see is that these two are extremely self-aware. They're really humble and they're not, you know, they're very open about the disorders that they've had in the past and the struggles that they face today. And I think both, especially females, but both men and women will be able to take a ton of value out of this podcast. Because again, like I said, they're just so open and they're definitely wise beyond their years and know a ton about nutrition and fitness when it comes to what's worked for them and what hasn't worked for them. So like I said, I think you guys are going to really, really, really appreciate this episode. And real quick, we are still having our home workout sale going on right

now at markbellslingshot.com, but that is just till the end of the month. So you guys have just till the end of April to take advantage of that. So if you haven't already, please do so head over to markbellslingshot.com at any hip circle of your choice, any slingshot of your choice. And at checkout, you'll receive 20% off again, that is just till the end of April. So please take advantage of that while you can. And then also markbell.com. Mark Bell is still offering a free 30 day trial of the, uh, for the entire website. All you have to do is register and you'll gain access to the entire website for 30 days for absolutely free. Mark bell.com is where Mark posts his workouts every single day. So if you don't have a coach, you don't have a home gym, you don't have access to your, your, your gym, probably cause it got shut down. Uh, mark bell.com is a great resource to help you out, uh, make sure you maintain or even

make some gains, uh gains during this lockdown. So, and it's absolutely free. So again, please head over to markbell.com register free 30 days, no out of pocket, and you get an awesome sample and you get some help, you know,

again, on your fitness journey right now during this quarantine. Thank you for everybody for checking out this episode. If you guys like what you're hearing, please reach out to the strong sisters, their YouTube and their Instagram will be linked down in the itune show notes or podcast show notes wherever you guys are listening to this and the youtube and facebook description let them know what you guys think and ladies and gentlemen please enjoy this show with

the strong sisters all right mark what you got we need to the Piedmontese people on the show to make sure that our food supply is good. I know we talked with Charles Brooke about it, but I don't know if anybody's seen the video that's been circulating from that rancher down in Texas talking about like his concerns and talking about like how you don't know where your meat's coming from. And it's hard to know where it's sourced from. But we're lucky to be hooked up with Piedmontese cause we know, we know where it's coming from. We're aware of the ranches that it comes from. We've had them on the show before. I get great relationship with those people and the meat tastes really good.

It's tender. It's juicy. It's everything that you're looking for in a steak. But man, that is kind of a crazy thing that like, you know, it could be, you know, several years from now where, you know, you're buying meat at the grocery store, but it's from some other country or something like that. That sounds a little, that sounds kind of scary to me, especially with what's going on.

You know, these viruses and these different things, they come about because we are not, you know, it's things that we're not commonly not in contact with. So for us to eat something that's, you know, from a complete different country, you know how that can result, you know, like the results of that. Like if you travel, you know, sometimes you eat something on a trip to Spain or a trip to here or there. And next thing you know, you're spending all day on the toilet. So it's great that we have meat that we know where it comes from. And on top of that, it can get us jacked and tan. I've never heard somebody that's messaged me about Piedmontese tell me anything negative about it. And that's what makes me so happy about it.

Because literally everyone that's eaten this meat loves it. Everyone loves it, including myself. Yeah, I know. I just got a message today. Actually, somebody was like, man, like don't let anybody tell you guys anything different about doing, uh, you know, ads in front of the podcast. It took me like a hundred episodes before I finally dove into Piedmontese and you guys ruined it. You guys ruined it because now I can't get any beef from anywhere else. And so I was like, well, thank you, but sorry, but thank you. And you're welcome. Awesome, man.

Yeah, those are some jacked cows out there and they provide us some amazing meat. Yeah. And I mean, Nebraska. So I know people will get a little upset sometimes like, oh, support your local butcher, blah, blah, blah. But I mean, if everything kind of, you know, that video. Nebraska ain't that far away from anybody because it's kind of in the middle of the country. Exactly.

So, yeah. I mean, support the United States. That's local-ish. Yeah. Support the Americas. Don't buy meat from Brazil. Nothing against Brazil, but it just doesn't make sense to me to get meat from another country when we can get it right here. And you can get it delivered to your door.

And you can get it for 25% off when you head over to piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e dot com at checkout enter promo code power project for 25% off your order and if your order is $99 or more you get free two-day shipping and on top of that it thaws out real quick too i don't know if you guys noticed that it It cooks fast, but it also thaws even faster than normal. Yeah, it's not usually – usually the meat isn't super thick. And so I think you lay it out on the counter for a little bit, and it's good to go. Also, I mean, all you need to do is throw some salt on there. We've talked about that before.

When you have good quality meat, it's really not any more complicated than whatever spices that you like. But I mean, I usually just put salt on there. Very rarely do I get any fancier than that. Maybe I'll use some of that organic seasoned salt from Redmond's and that's about it. Speaking of spicy, my shoulders got a little spicy during our workouts.

One, because that's a lot of push-ups, but also the sun. I got burnt. I was like, what the heck is that? Yeah. I know. I was like, shoot. But I think that that shows my soreness level is about the same parallel with my burnt level. You guys didn't really get burned, and you didn't really get sore.

I got a little bit of both so i'm like okay i'm i'm further away from being jacked in 10 than these guys obviously but further than i dude i got i got i've been getting really tan out here it's been awesome i'm uh definitely uh just keep changing some different shades i think by the time quarantine's over i'm gonna be looking like in sema that's the goal there we go dude i don't get you people i i've never been sunburned yeah i love it i've never been sunburned in my entire life and i just live outside it's great yeah i normally probably take you a lot to get sunburned huh yeah it will take a lot yeah i normally don't really get burned but just this happened this was like the first time being out in the sun so i guess yeah it would take a lot yeah i normally don't really get burned but just this happened

this was like the first time being out in the sun so i guess yeah it happened there they are hello i don't know if we can hear them not yet they're connecting there we go oh hey guys hey how's it going today hey good we have like 78 degree temperature here in central illinois so we just sat out in the sun excellent for like 30 minutes it felt so good we have like 78 degree temperature here in central illinois so we just sat out in the sun excellent for like 30 minutes it felt so good we were just talking about we're just talking about sunburn and and sema was making fun of us because uh andrew and i can get sunburn you girls look like you could certainly get sunburn if you're out there for too long right uh yeah we're quite pasty right now to say the the least. How have you guys been keeping up with some of your strength training during the lockdown?

So we transitioned to our garage gym, which hasn't been bad. We have like a makeshift rack, squat rack with like boxes on both sides. We're trying the best we can. We've got some bands in there. You can get a good workout in with just like some resistance bands. So we have one set of bumper plates, a Rogue Ohio bar, power bar,

and some other plates. So we can get a decent workout in. But it's good timing because our focus right now is not necessarily strength training. So the quarantine happened at an okay time in terms of our, our strength focus. I find it really embarrassing that you go to do like 30 squats and for some

reason it totally and completely burns your legs. You're like, how am I so unfit? Once you start doing some body weight exercises, you realize how damn difficult they really are. You've been doing like a hundred body weight squats or something. Yeah. I do a hundred body weight squats or something. Yeah. I do a hundred of them every day. I try to do a hundred, 200 of them and pushups just kind of throughout the day.

I try to do them, but yeah, I've done a hundred in a row before and that kills not, not pushups, but squats. It just makes your legs go on fire. Oh yeah. We were doing a lot of BFR training.

I don't know if you've done BFR for quads, but that burns for sure. It's painful. It's really painful. That's the blood flow restriction stuff, right? Yeah. We'll tie it like at the top of our quads and do like 30 reps, 15 reps, 15 reps, 15 reps. I think that would kill you if just body weight. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that sounds like a, that sounds like a real killer. Something I find interesting about, about your story that you guys have. And I think there's a

lot of other people that share the same thing and men as well. It's not just women, but predominantly we see this with a lot of females where they're trying to exercise, they're trying everything they can to, you know, be the ideal female of society. Right. And they're trying to exercise. They're trying everything they can to, you know, be the ideal female of society. Right. And they're trying to be thin or trying to lose weight. And it's really a brutal thing because a lot of females fall into that category where they don't feel comfortable with their body. And so therefore they try to do something about it. They go to the gym and they start exercising and they think, okay, I'm going to go on the elliptical and I'm going to, you know, do a bunch of this. I'm not going to eat because I maybe had a couple of drinks on the weekend and maybe ate whatever I wanted on the weekend. And I'm going to, you know, work off some of these college pounds that maybe I gained or whatever the case may be. whatever the case may be. And they're kind of chasing after this body. That's probably not very realistic for them. But then a lot of girls like, like yourselves find strength training and

you're like, Oh, this is kind of fun. And it's actually, Oh, wow. It's acceptable to have thicker legs. It's okay to have a bigger, a bigger butt. And, and, and the goal is, is about what your body can perform and not so much a hundred percent about what your body can perform and not so much 100% about what your body can look like. Can you guys expand upon that a little bit and kind of elaborate on what that's done for you by getting into strength training? Yeah, honestly, I think the biggest thing that came from it was just this sense of empowerment. So kind of what you said, shift the focus from what your body looks like to instead what your body can achieve and what your body can accomplish. And I think the most powerful thing about it is that it's always you versus you. Whereas this ideal body image is always you versus some unrealistic thin model that's probably been photoshopped to look a certain way. And so

I think that that's the most powerful message about strength training is it's just this like honoring of what your body can accomplish. And you're always working to improve yourself, you're not comparing to anyone else. And that that's just so powerful. And I think that that was a huge part of my like confidence development journey. If I take like a few look like 10 years back, I haven't always been very like confident in my abilities. And then I insert strength training and like that confidence in the gym really transformed how I viewed like the rest of my life. And it gave me such confidence to just tackle other things in life. So like, Hey, I just hit like a three 85 pound deadlift today. I can go accomplish anything

today. It's ironic because we didn't like find the confidence in our bodies until we stopped focusing on them. So when we started to focus on strength and said, you like get into the gym, you get into a good routine, you actually have fun at the gym training. And then the results come with that when you stop focusing on just like fixing your body or what's wrong with it. So it's kind of ironic how that worked for us. Yeah. Like how exactly did you guys get started? And the reason why I asked that, because there are some females who they may be like, they want to be able to run a mile before they join a gym. They want to be able to do X amount of pushups before they actually try a bench press.

So what did actually like, what was the scenario to get you guys into weight training? Yeah, so this is kind of a funny evolution. I have really always been into working out. I was a huge jock in high school and did a bunch of different sports. And so working out was just a part of my routine. And I'm actually three and a half to four years older than her. So being the older sister in the house, I made her work out with me. And we were fortunate to have a little little gym in our house in our basement.

And so we started there. But me forcing her to do it didn't work very well. And so she didn't get into it. I was chubby and I couldn't do like exercise ball sit ups. So I just my, my brothers tried to force me into lifting. And like the first thing they showed me was squatting. because they're like, you know, you're, you're gonna, you're, you're gonna learn the right, the right stuff right off the bat. And like the second I put the bar on my back, I was just crying like a little baby. I was like, that hurts my back.

That hurts my neck. Can I use that pad thing? And they're like, fuck, no, you can't use that pad. So she didn't really find her love for strength training until I peaced out for college. And that gave her like this ability to explore training on her own. And she eventually started with bodybuilding and got into strength training. Yeah. So at the time, this was like back in early high school, I was dealing with an eating disorder.

And so I really needed a therapeutic outlet. And the gym actually became that. And that's how I kind of repaired my relationship with food too and so just a long evolution of um just trying to focus my body like how we were talking about before turned into when I went to college focusing on strength I think what propelled me to go into the weight room and actually go into the squat rack was just feeling this sounds silly but like I was self-conscious at the gym because I didn't so like I I felt too weak to use a squat rack and to like take somebody's place or like be in some man's way if I was going to use the squat rack so I I started to go in at really early unconventional

times so I wouldn't be in anybody's way and I realized like the more and more I squatted I got better at it and it was more and more empowering. You were going at like 4 a.m.? Yeah, it was ridiculous. I started with just strong lifts, 5x5. I had no idea what I was doing. But it's one of those things you literally just start, and you do the research online, you watch form videos, and you will get better at it. There's no reason to ever think you're in somebody's way because you're all in the gym for the same reason.

And so finally engraving that in my mind gave me the confidence to just start, and then I eventually encouraged her to join me well no well you were working out while you were in college but get into power lifting I guess yeah so shifting from just like trying to grow my biceps to like squatting delifting and bunching so she definitely started with building confidence by going on conventional hours I've always kind of had this like you've already said this word so I'm just gonna say I've always had this like fuck it mindset I don't like I would just go into the squat rack but yeah that's just who I am I always made her ask the person if we could work in or something I'm professional I'm professional RBF resting bitch face in the gym no one come talk to me please

whereas everyone will come talk to her because she always has a smile on her face but yeah i'm curious about this because you kind of mentioned it um before that you started with bodybuilding and then got into strength sports and i want to get your point of view on this because i notice i notice this with a lot of men too some guys when they start with bodybuilding and they do their shows etc they they're really focused on their body and they can't get out of, uh, the idea of like trying to get stronger and perform, put on a little bit of body fat to help them in the gym. Um, I like, what do you guys think about that? Like getting into figure before strength sports, what's your thoughts? Yeah. So, so you're saying like, they, they can't break that mindset of like, oh, I may have to gain some fat to actually make progress,

make progress and even feel healthier. Cause some people are just so stuck on being single digit body fat all the time. Yeah. That is so, I've never thought about that. That's so true. Yeah. I think that like, so like I said, I was coming from an eating disorder background and so I was already small to begin with and I was almost insecure that I was small like I was saying like I couldn't get into the squat right because I felt too weak and too small so I almost just like needed to shift my mindset and wanted to get stronger and I knew that was going to come with weight gain because I really did look into things um I can't say that that didn't cause some problems along the way in my mind because I was suddenly would see myself as like chubby or something, but I never would have, you know, deadlifted 400 pounds or bench press 70 if I hadn't put on some weight because

like the person I was in the past, my like frail bones, there was no way in hell I could have done that. And so I understand the mindset. Um, I think that if you just like you do some self-reflection and you look like, I look at my entire high school journey of bodybuilding. Right. And I look the same year after year after year because I just kept doing the same thing. And so it's almost you just have to self-reflect and you have to honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say, one, am I feeling good? Am I healthy? And two, do I look the exact same as last year? And if so, you should probably change some things up. And I will say that me at my smallest was not my healthiest either. And that's something I'm learning right now.

And trying to get our periods back, our hypothalamic amenorrhea journey, I realized that the low body fat I was sitting at is just not healthy long term. And so it's part of that self love journey. And realizing that like, you will be stronger and healthier, even if you're a little more chubby, that doesn't make you any less worth. Okay. But I just a quick reflection on what you were saying, though. Reflecting on like our past training history, because we started with a bodybuilding mindset that has always held us back because we've always been like, I got to hit my accessories today. Like, how are my quads going to

grow without doing leg press after squats? And so I think if you're someone who's come into strength training with a bodybuilding mindset, your obsession of doing higher rep hypertrophy work is going to hold you back because you look at people who started with strength training and they're totally fine with going in benching, squatting piece. Whereas if you look at like what we used to do, it's like squat, bench, leg press, leg extensions, chest press. Like, so just they have probably overdone the hypertrophy work. Whereas if we, like you said, if you would have taken a step back and realize like, Hey, if I just put on more body fat and I do a little bit less volume and focus on my strength, I'm probably going to get stronger. So I agree.

Like there's a reason your brother started you with squats. It's more effective than all the other random things after that. Did both of you struggle with eating disorders? Yeah. So mine was in high school. I was like 14. I had dealt with anorexia, which led to bulimia. And it kind of stemmed from she struggled with orthorexia. Yeah, so I was never like anorexic or bulimia, but I've always been orthorexia. So always like a focus on I have to eat healthy. I have to get my exercise in.

And unfortunately, my mindset was so strong about this during my development period. So during high school and undergrad that that definitely affected my hormones and like, my like, just general growth. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's a negative consequence of like, female body focus, for sure. And you were talking about the low body fat i think that that's something that isn't talked about enough in fitness world is like are your hormones fucked up and i don't even know if we know when to tell that like we just don't really pay attention to it yeah so we honestly have ignored it for a really long time which is not not anymore yeah yeah how did you guys uh discover that you had a disorder eating disorder yeah oh it's obvious

i think you can really tell when somebody like especially me um i think some of this okay so it's hard to say that like going to the gym and wanting to eat healthy is eating disorder but when it becomes obsessive and you won't go do anything else i think that's when you need to take a step back um i don't think there's anything wrong with really caring about like you're getting to the gym five days a week and, you know, eating your meal prep foods. But I like, for example, I didn't go to prom and I didn't go hang out with my friends at a certain point because I had to go to the gym. And so I think that's when the problem arises. Again, this was like 10 years ago. And even now people will say like, if you stick to some sort of eating plan

like for example when we were carnivore all last year they are going to say like hey you have some sort of eating disorder even if you're doing something for your health uh so it's tough to navigate that yeah i think whenever it becomes like a severe restriction and it takes over your mind yeah that's kind of a good indication of maybe this is too focused. Maybe you should take a step back and reflect on your main priorities and your main goals. Yeah. I think maybe the main thing there is just to make sure it doesn't become like a disease, make sure it doesn't become such an addictive habit that it negatively impacts a lot of other parts of your life. If it's adding to your life and you're into bodybuilding and you're pretty

militant about it, I don't really see the, the issue, you know, but I would, my main concern would just be, yeah. Like if it's, is it negatively impacting, negatively impacting your life? The cool thing about powerlifting is, you know, you can get away with throwing in some Doritos here and there. You can get away with throwing in some Doritos here and there. You can get away with eating some ice cream, especially a lot of people in the lighter weight classes, just to try to hold onto their body weight. Because sometimes they, from the exercise, they tend to like lose weight. And so therefore you can kind of have a cheat meal here and there.

Are you guys fans of like having a cheat meal here and there? Or just like, like, how do you guys handle that? Do you just take a couple days off of a diet? Or what works for you guys? Okay, so I agree in terms of like the whole Dorito thing, we take a different approach now. But so after dealing with the orthorexia in high school, and we got into powerlifting, we really adopted that whole like, if it fits your macros thing. And I think that really repaired our relationship with food because we realized like, if you have ice cream, you're not going to die or you're not going to blow up. And so that really helped. Um, we definitely were those like, yeah, powerlifting, I'm going to eat. Like I, I did one squat. I need

gummy bears right now. And it's like, girl, no, you don't. But that really helped me. Right. Like I felt comfortable eating those bunny bears. I was confident. And so I think we overdid it. And that's how we ended up with our autoimmune conditions. We just like stressed our bodies out, weren't paying attention to our nutrition as much as we maybe should have. And so after that, now we do not really do cheat meals.

We went through a full year of strict carnivore, which is probably how we got to on this podcast um and that really helped heal our autoimmune conditions and now we're we're on the flip side and we're trying to find more balance so now we're incorporating other things back in that make us feel good and honestly i feel the best i have in my life um but we definitely needed to go through that stage of like eating everything to realize like you're gonna be okay and i think reflecting on our past we now realize like how good we feel when we focus on quality food whole food sources yeah yeah what was the autoimmune disorder so we both had undifferentiated

connective tissue disease which basically just says like your a and a levels are high and then you kind of look at your symptoms so my blood work was aligning with lupus. Um, so when I went to my rheumatologist, she ended up prescribing me with a few different medications to just like bandage that. And luckily my mom is like really, um, holistic. And she said, no, at the time I was 18 and the doctor basically said like, you just have to do what you can to hold off symptoms and lupus will eventually come. And she was the first person who said you have to do what you can to hold off symptoms and lupus will eventually come and she was no she was the first person who said you have to stop like lifting heavy and so i of course said no i was like that's not happening and she also said stop strength training lifting

heavy oh sorry uh sorry sorry going in the sun she said she said stop strength training and stop going in the sun so of course i said absolutely not. And so, when my symptoms kept getting worse, I realized, like, maybe you should change your lifestyle a little bit. I, of course, kept lifting heavy for a few more years. But I did start paying attention to my diet more than. I'm curious about this, too. Because you guys were talking about currently you were dealing with amenorrhea. Is that current? Now, was that caused because i like i've

worked with women who have to get sholeen and because they get so lean that causes that now with you guys was it because you were so lean was it an aspect of the diet you were eating what was causing that and what's the flip side to that yeah so i have dealt with amenorrhea. So hypothalamic amenorrhea specifically, we don't have PCOS for over 10 years. So yeah, it's like looking back, it's been an incredibly frustrating journey. But like I said, I dealt with orthorexia during my development stages. And so I got one natural period when I was 16. And then it never came back naturally. And I've been through I've been to a series of endocrinologists and the only solution that was ever prescribed to me was, Hey, you need to put

on weight and put you on a birth control pill. So I've been on over like five different birth control pills I've had in high UD and all of them were just leading to like horrible negative consequences. And so I haven't really found a good solution. So I got to this point of like, well, I feel fine because I don't know what it's like to have normal hormones. I've never had normal hormones, so I'm just going to ignore it. I just brushed it under the rug and didn't deal with it for a while. Now I'm dealing with the consequences because we did a bulk last year, and then we planned to do a cut. We started a cut in February of this year.

We cut our calories low and they had to get lower. And eventually we're like 800 calories lower a day than what we were eating before. And we were gaining weight. And so our bodies were like really signaling to us, hey, it is not the time to cut. Something else is wrong. And Sarah and I really reflected and we're like, we should probably finally address this because it's not talked about enough. But like, if your hormones aren't functioning properly, you are living a suboptimal life. And it's funny reflecting on

all my years of strength training, like, I've limited myself because I haven't had normal hormones, like muscle growth, strength growth, like strength. It's so important. And it's incredibly frustrating with how I've dealt with it. But we're finally at this place now. I did have my period like periodically throughout all this time.

And so we're not like the same there, but I definitely lost it after going keto, low carb and then full carnivore. And she, she did a bikini competition. But it, so it never came back. And so it's not that I'm saying that low carb or carnivore and she she did a bikini competition last year but it so it never came back and so it's not that i'm saying that low carb or carnivore is not okay for females

my age but i think that you just have to be careful especially if you're super active i think i think the biggest issue is the um the consistent heavy training over the past few years and um then compiling on that our low carb zero carb diet for a while there I think that that was just kind of it didn't work out that well at the end for hormones it seems pretty rare for you know people to get involved in exercise at such a young age especially when it comes to females so do you guys think there was anything negative there that maybe you got into it too early? Or do you think maybe, maybe just like dove in too hard, maybe at such a young age? Well, you mentioned the eating disorder. So obviously, those those aren't, those aren't going to be productive for anything. But do you guys think that you got into

like exercise and stuff, maybe like too young? I think we got into exercise without proper nutrition too young. I don't think it was, I don't think that's too young for females. And you're going to see trends nowadays. Like if you look up like fitspo on Instagram, there's like, you know, 12, are they 12 year olds? I don't know. Like going in there with like their gym sharp leggings on. So I don't think it was that.

I think it's just like, I cannot stress enough eating enough for like what you're doing, especially during that period. Like nobody tells you how much you're supposed to be eating. I think like the general thing is like 2000 calories. But if you're in your growing stages and you're lifting weights, I mean, I would say it's probably like 1.5 that I would say for me, it was definitely a combination of too much physical work and not eating enough. I played golf in undergrad. And so I was doing both lifting and like the golf requirements. And so just a lot of energy expenditure and certainly was not eating enough.

And I'm also just a really type A personality. And so I think I just had a cortisol overload during my development period that just kind of hasn't gone down. And I think that that was one of the main reasons for my hormone issues. Did your parents know about any of this? Did they try to like intervene or help or anything like that? Yeah, absolutely. I went to like several nutritionists but of course like when you're going through a disorder you don't really listen to anybody it's like you have to eventually come to the solution yourself that's what i found at least in my experience um but yeah they've been supportive and then even though to the outside world carnivore probably seems like an eating

disorder they've been supportive too because that's been for our health um and now they're even more supportive on the other side i definitely went through a little bit of a challenge with my parents in this because they are a little bit older than me, certainly. And they thought that the solution was me just getting on the pill. And I knew too much about the pill, how like, actually, how horrible it is for female hormones. And so I was really butting heads with them on the pill. And I was just getting so frustrated that that was the only solution that was being offered. And so there was definitely some conflicting things there, but where we are now, it's, they've been throughout the whole thing,

they've been supportive. And so I think that they're super proud of where we are now that we have, are finally trying to fix the root cause of it, not just like bandage it. So I want to see if I can understand, I want to just understand a little bit better what you were saying. The root cause was, was, is the root cause for what's going on right now? Is it being too lean and being, being too active? That is just stressed you to like stressed you out too much. And that is that is it that's it or were you not necessarily eating enough when you were doing

carnivore and keto like what what was the what what's it there okay so that's interesting we definitely were eating enough with carnivore um we were we we we haven't besides for my bikini competition we haven't been like super, especially in our carlifting years. I've weighed 50 pounds more than I am now, and I still think I've integrated. I weigh 20 pounds more. It's not really body weight. I think from the research we've looked into it, it's just the accumulation of different stressors. Whether that's from school, not meditating, or not having a healthy relationship with your body.

If suddenly you're insecure, that's a stress on the side. And then the inflammatory foods we were eating and then the lifting a lot of the weights without like taking a break. And so I think it's just a combination of all those things. When we went carnivore last year, like I gained 12 pounds. She gained, I mean like 15. So it's not, it's not that, but I just don't know. We've been looking into a lot of research on like fixing your thyroid and your metabolism.

And there is some indication that possibly females, especially if you're active, like really could benefit from the carbs because they are stress relieving in your body. Whereas like if you're relying on your protein to turn like your glucose, glucagonogenesis, glucagonogenesis, that's another stress. And so we were likely just stressing our bodies out too with our diet, even though we were eating enough.

And so I would also add in there that we were doing time restricted feeding. So some, some are fasting every single day and that's a stress on your body. So we would only eat in like a six to eight hour window because you scroll through your instagram feed and that's what everyone's doing right like you someone's post this depends on your feed someone's post is like hey guys i'm starting another three-day fast or hey i'm i only i'm doing omad today i'm only eating a two-hour window it really takes like stepping back to see like, is that health trend really healthy for you?

It's really caught up in that. Yeah. So we've now removed the fasting. We're eating like a lot throughout the day, increased our calories significantly have added in carbs, um, are still animal based, but it's definitely a change from what we were doing last year.

How'd you guys find the carnivore diet? So I have, in addition to my hormone issues, I've dealt with chronic constipation my whole life. And I really honestly tried a lot of things like laxatives weren't working. Just, I don't know, like psyllium husk, Miralax, like trying all these things that just were not working. And so, yeah, a lot of extra fiber. My friend suggested trying the carnivore diet for my dad, Justin. I was like, sure, why not? I read and listened to a ton of Dr. Paul Saladino's podcast, got really into it last year and just dove right in. And I said, okay, I'll do 30 days, try it out. So I did the full like just beef, salt and water for 30 days. And then I realized how good I felt.

And then a year later, I was still doing it. But we were still ignoring that hormone issue at the end. Yeah. Were you able to poop? My constipation definitely improved. You have less waste when you're on a carnivore diet. That's for sure. But it's funny when I first switched to carnivore diet that's for sure um but it's funny when i first switched to carnivore like in those first 30 days i went 21 days without pooping so that

was like a real test for me like do i actually want to try carnivore um i think my body was just very confused going from like high fiber to zero fiber um but yeah eventually a few months in i was much more regular um So that was really nice. And that was a huge, huge benefit. Yeah, it's like along our health journey, when trying to get our autoimmune conditions under control, we started with a lot of fasting. That got us into keto. And then keto eventually led us to carnivore.

And so throughout this period of time, we kept seeing our inflammation go down, symptoms disappear. And so when coming to carnivore, it's like the ultimate elimination diet. So, of course, our inflammation, ethylose, et cetera, feeling great. But it's all relative. We were feeling great compared to how we were feeling before. And so, now it's like, well, can we feel even better by incorporating non-inflammatory items and seeing what actually works for us and yeah actually fuels our ovaries if that makes sense uh did you two notice any other benefits that like other females would be into like was your hair skin and nails like did they get better on carnivore absolutely so one of the things i would deal with a lot was like rashes or eczema or um if you know

about lupus they have like the butterfly rash on your face which is like the rash over your nose and that all went away i think that um carl is great for skin health my hair has definitely improved and i think that there's a lot to do with the bioavailable nutrients in animal proteins but i would know we have a cup of bone broth pretty much every single day and so i think that that's an important piece of it, but our nails were going super fast. Our hair was going fast. I think like the main reason that I could encourage someone to go carnivore is because you learn so much about animal-based nutrition and it's far superior than plant-based nutrition in terms of the availability of nutrients and then the not getting anti-nutrients. And so your body's just absorbing so much more

health at a certain point. And we felt that right away. And so your body's just absorbing so much more health at a certain point. And we felt that right away. And so then certain bodily processes start happening like they're supposed to. Yeah. So absolutely. Skin gets better. Hair gets better. If you've been in ketosis before, your brain and cognition improves.

I don't know if that's like you should be in it all the time now that we're seeing that, but absolute other improvements as well. Yeah. Either one of you ever have anxiety or depression? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's a great point. Has food influenced that at all or diet or lifting? More like the plant-based.

I was dealing with a lot of panic attacks and kind of severe insomnia going to carnivore that drastically drastically reduced um but since we've added in more plants now i that those haven't come back and i think it's because our carb sources are a lot smarter we aren't um and then we're also like our protein is animal based whereas before we were getting our protein in from i don't even know, like egg whites. And like residual peanut butter. Yeah. Like no, honey.

But now that we're taking like a much better approach at like a whole food diet, those symptoms are not coming back. She definitely dealt with depression. Oh, yeah. Well, I think that's like hand in hand with having some sort of eating disorder at a certain point. And that definitely all improved. And then also just feeling more in control of my health. I've just naturally felt better. I think that that is just a tire weight taken off my shoulders is the fact that I suddenly feel okay. And I don't have to stress about that every day. And I think that you, like I was saying, you learn a lot about food. And so I think educating yourself on like how to, how you can actually manage these things instead of feeling helpless is really empowering. Yeah.

You know, I'm curious about this for you guys, because you're mentioning how you're reincorporating different types of carbohydrates. And I mean, I eat carbs, not an insane amount, like I used to, I used to eat like 400, 500 grams a day. It's much 400. So yeah, I want you to talk, like talk to us about some of the considerations women should take potentially when they're going to enter into a potential keynote keto or carnivore and maybe why carbohydrates might be something they want to incorporate either a small amount of or a larger amount of. Yeah. Okay. So I think it really depends on where you're coming from context is key yeah so if you remember our story we were smaller well when we came to keto we were actually

kind of at our largest but i think if you're somebody who's dealing with like insulin resistance or pcos then uh metabolically dysfunction metabolic dysfunction yeah some form then like you will benefit from the keto or the lower carbs. It's to an extent. And so you've seen a group of individual female individuals who they have PCOS and they go to a keto or carnivore lifestyle and their period comes back. Yes. But we're on the opposite side of the spectrum. And so kind of knowing what your hormonal potential hormonal issues are is super important. Yes. So we've gotten a lot of messages from other women who have gone keto or then went zero carb carnivore who are dealing with a very similar issue.

They lost their cycles. And I think that it's not talked about enough to realize how important it is that you have a regular cycle and that you're ovulating just for your, like literally. So if your goal is to look good, it matters for that too, right? Like you will have a harder time losing fat or putting on muscle if your hormones aren't working and i think we lose sight of that and when you were

talking about like people never take a step back and get out of that like 24 7 lean like you have to get out of that for your hormones too and so just considerations is like doing that self-analysis here like am i actually feeling great do i actually feel good when I'm fasting? Like, how do I, how do I feel when I have like, when I'm zero carb versus keto even. And so for us, the main reason we stayed zero carb is because we were afraid at a certain point that if we added anything back in our autoimmune condition would come back, which is just a flawed way of thinking. What was wrong before was more of the like inflammatory items. So like things like cross cruciferous vegetables, nuts and seeds. So we learned a lot about that. And so now we're not doing that on the other end. And nothing bad is happening. So you just have to really see how

like what your your needs are. And don't just like stick to something because you think it's healthy. A keto may not be the best option for you. but if you really are interested in trying the keto or carnivore diet, I think considering just how much you're fasting. I think that too much fasting can definitely negatively impact your hormones and fasting is just a huge thing in the keto carnivore community. It's almost like ingrained in this, like in the diet rules. So definitely be careful about how much you're fasting. And then there's also some people who had a normal period and came to this diet, and they then lost their period, but they regained it by carb cycling around their period. So you can look into people like Danny Vega's

wife, Maura, Maura Vega, so Fat Field Mom, and Cassie Wild. These are two of our friends who are on a more keto and carnivore diet approach, but they make sure that they include carbs cycled around when they get their period to keep it regular. So I think considering maybe carb cycling and how much you're fasting are two super important things for female hormones with this way of life. how much you're fasting are two super important things for female hormones with this way of life. Let me ask you also, when you mentioned fasting, because when we mentioned fasting earlier in our conversation, you kind of like brought up three-day fast, etc. Are you kind of putting fasting in what would be like maybe time-restricted feeding where we're talking about just like eating 12 hours, not eating 12 hours? Would that be fasting to you?

Or is fasting prolonged 24, 48, 72? I think that it encompasses all of them. So we just have to be super clear on what type you're talking about. Now taking a step back and kind of not following these strict guidelines, I personally think that a better style for female hormones would be not necessarily time-restricted feeding. So eat your breakfast if you want to eat your breakfast. You don't have to eat in a small eating window. And instead, implement prolonged fasts maybe two times a year for health benefits, not for like fat loss or weight loss. So do those two, prolonged fasts for autophagy and all the benefits of it.

But you don't necessarily have to do it every single day with time restrictive feeding. But we were doing every day time restrictive feeding, eating, breaking our fast around like one or 2pm and ending in around like six or seven. And I think that that combined with the amount of activity that we were doing just did not work. But like context matters and your goals matter too. Yeah. Like if you want the health benefits, then do the more like periodic two to three day fast for autophagy. But if you're like struggling to lose weight and it helps you to eat in a window, then like that makes sense. Yeah. If your main focus is losing a hundred pounds, then yeah, that's fine. But if

you're at like a comfortable body weight and you're in your like prime fertility years, that may not be the best idea to fast every single day. Yeah. I think with, when it comes to fasting, it seems like something I've been promoting from the beginning is, you know, maybe you shouldn't fast every day. You know, if you're going to fast, you know, maybe try not to be too aggressive. Cause I've noticed that it, um, it accumulates, you know, just like training, you know, if you're training heavies, great. That's really beneficial. So it was hypertrophy work, but do you go in and do the exact same thing every day? Like, do you try to, you know, have that much accumulation on yourself all the time and maybe for short periods of time, maybe for a week or two, or maybe for, you know, you're,

you're prepping for something, maybe it makes sense, but yeah, people do need to be careful with how much fasting they utilize. People should check out a video that Thomas DeLauer just put out, I think just a couple days ago, but there's a study that just has been done recently talking about the benefits of utilizing intermittent fasting intermittently. And, you know, using it more like every other day rather than, because I've noticed that myself, you know, it's like if you fast 20 hours, you know, Monday through Thursday, by the time Thursday runs, comes around, it's really kind of just weighing very heavy on you. It just doesn't, this doesn't feel great, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. We're, we're following a very, like, not strict, but a very different protocol right now because we have a very specific goal of healing our hypothalamic amenorrhea. We're actually working with a doctor, and she's not letting us fast at any time during the day just because of our specific goal. We are communicating to our ovaries, turn back. You were talking about a 20- hour fast for our eating window. It's interesting because like you see that as like super healthy, but like you said, you did it four days in a row and you weren't feeling that great. You really do have to take a step back and analyze like, Hey, is this actually like, is this actually making me feel good? Cause I think you can just have it in your mind. Like, Oh, this is the best thing to do for my health but like are you actually functioning at your best I don't know so I think in summary

don't get trapped in the dogma yeah there you go and don't evaluate your health based on a certain certain guidelines or like diet rules instead base your health on like actually how you're feeling which is what we're trying to learn which is like hard to do this day and age because you're just bombarded with all of these like what's healthy what you, which is like hard to do this day and age because you're just bombarded with all of these, like what's healthy, what you have to do. You have to fast every day to be healthy rather than like listening to our

body, who is incredibly smart and intelligent and will send signals to you. But for some reason we just all ignore them. I know that I've been ignoring them for the past 10 years. Yeah. Kind of carbs you guys have in the mix nowadays. Yeah. So I've been, we started, so, okay, we were coming from zero.

So we went from zero to 75 real quick. And then we went, I was just like, hey, let's go up. So we went to 150 because I read somewhere along my researching periods that like 150 is a good middle ground. And now we've tried, I don't know if you've heard of like Ray Pete. He has a lot of nutritional information in terms of like metabolism and thyroid. So we've tried um i don't know if you've heard of like ray pete he has a lot of nutritional information in terms of like metabolism and thyroid so we've tried higher carbs some days are 300 yeah i think it's what's so great is that i don't feel attached to a certain like perfect macro split anymore because i've tried everything and i realized like i can always i can always go back you know like nothing bad is going to happen. Everything's okay.

But in terms of types, we've added in a ton of raw dairy, so drinking a ton of raw milk, raw honey, squashes, tubers, and fruit. So that's kind of the five carbs that we've added in. We really think that so far we haven't seen any negative consequences with those, And we really think that those are some of what we call like benign carb sources. So in the keto and carnivore community, in the carnivore community, you hear that like plants have anti-nutrients and toxins. We think that those five are going to be the lowest anti-nutrients and lowest toxins. Ray Pete, by the way, I think he's 147 years old. So he must know something about nutrition that the rest of us don't know. I don't know either. Like I was like, wait,

this dude's still alive because I watched him on YouTube. I'm really intrigued by what he has to say. I think what's so cool is you can just pull pieces of different diets together to form your like ultimate diet. And that's really what I'm trying to do right now. Instead of being like a hundred percent carnivore, it's like, no, I'm some Weston a price rate, P carnivore. It's fun. You know, I really like what you guys said about the, uh,

the dogmatic approach in terms of dieting and fasting, because I mean, I think one of the things that a lot of individuals need is maybe just a little bit of structure. So when they fall into fasting, they're like, okay, I'll eat in these four hours. I'll fast for 20 hours. Right. But if But if you just have like a set time each day where you'll have maybe meal one, meal two, meal three, whether you do have a breakfast and then you have another meal at lunch, then you have another meal at dinner. At least there's some structure there and you're not eating all day long. Now I'm curious about this with you guys.

Cause again, you're coming from a very specific place of not eating, like you didn't eat much in the past and you were just very specific about the things you ate. Do you guys still utilize a structure or do you just eat when you feel like you need to eat? So when we were doing carnivore, we were definitely just doing a structure just because we thought that that's what was best, right? We were getting our fasting in every single day. So therefore check mark healthy. Um, but now that we're in our like healing amenorrhea journey, we definitely have a structure. And I think that that helps with any sort of like healthy eating style that works for you. Um, well, like you said, like it helps people to have that. So we were eating two meals a day before, and now we're at this point where we are not fasting.

So we have like five meals or six meals to fit in our day. And so if I didn't plan that I'm going to eat at this time or around this time, I would probably end up skipping that meal on accident or eating it way later. And that could negatively impact your goal, whatever you're working towards. So I definitely encourage that structure. Yeah. Even if it's just a small snack if you need it, or you do want to fast until lunch. Having that to stick to is beneficial because if you just are snacking all day long, that's

just going to continue to spike your blood sugar. And that's a whole other point. That's a super good point because with carnivore, we had a very specific structure. And then we made this relatively big change, but we switched to another structure because that just helps us stay consistent. Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys tried a bodybuilding style diet? Yeah.

So I would say that was kind of, we were definitely doing like the vertical diet approach. Oh, not really. We were never meat heavy. No, that's true. That's back like when we first started before the whole of Fit Your Macros, which I'd say Fit Your Macros is very bodybuilding too now. We definitely were like, bro.

So I learned everything I knew from bodybuilding.com before I went to StrongList. So I was eating like my green beans and my broccoli on the airplanes, my chicken breast, my oatmeal, my protein oats. So we've pretty much done every single diet but we've never been like animal heavy and i think that's when we finally found

our that was the most powerful thing about yeah because we were like finally getting our nutrients in yeah it sounds to me with the way that your minds are working now that really any approach would work because you have a different stance on it nowadays to where you're not going to, you know, overwork yourself, overtax yourself and under eat. So maybe even a bodybuilding style diet would be a benefit because you still understand the importance of eating salmon and eating steak and eating some fattier foods here and there. And then also just relaxing about the whole damn thing here and there, right? Yes, absolutely. I think that a meat-based or meat-heavy bodybuilding diet

would work without much processed food. Yeah, I think that'd be good. Yeah, I agree with you. I think really any approach can work so long as you pay attention to nutrients and foods at a certain point. Cool. Do you guys do any cardiovascular training of any kind or hip training or anything like that so we were really in to like the power lifting bodybuilding mindset of like if i do any cardio my gains are out the door i can't run my leg muscles are gonna shrink i already suffered from stick legs so there was no way in hell i was getting on the treadmill um then so we didn't do cardio for a long period of time but we like to kind of cycle that in and so two years ago we were like hey let's just improve our mile time and so we focused on our mile time for a few months and then got bored so we cycled it out but we just found a balance and we just do neat. So we just walk every day, 15,000 steps every single day. Light, light, light steps keeps us active, keeps us keeps our dogs active. We have three big dogs. And so I'm a huge proponent of zone two cardio, especially for fat loss. And I think that that's probably one of the most powerful tools for fat loss. But our goal isn't fat loss right now. So therefore I'm not doing zone two, but sometime in the future when I have normal functioning hormones and I actually want to do a

proper cut again, I'll be implementing zone two cardio. Zone two puts your heart rate at approximately what? It'll depend on your cardiovascular abilities. Um, and so for example, like a cyclist who's like really advanced will, it will require a more intense activity level than someone like you and I, but I like to say that if it's the max activity level that you can still hold a conversation at. So if you can still converse with me and like, you're starting to like slightly get heavy breath, that's like the perfect point.

I think like for, I think you can base it off your resting heart rate. Yeah. And so for mine, which is like around 70, I think my zone two was like 120 to 150 or something yeah that's an estimate so for us that was like a light jog and then I'm switching off with a mom walk so we would switch off between those two to keep our uh heart rate in that target that looks like a dance more than a walk yeah that too it's the mom at the concert. Yeah. I was going to ask like,

um, when did you two, I guess I'll use the term like become self-aware. I don't even know if that's like the right way to put it, but like you guys were talking about depression and anxiety and there's other women and there's definitely a lot of dudes that won't like want to come to terms with that. Right. Like they won't admit that admit that like yeah i am a little bit upset today but now i'm such a dude i'm gonna just power through it so like um where do you think like i guess being so humble came from well essentially when did we recognize like so essentially when did we recognize like i'm 23 i'm i'm 21 i think it was at the time i'm 24 i shouldn't feel this way. I need to make a change. Probably 2017. Are you asking how we came to that? That's like a really interesting question

because you're right. A lot of people just live day by day. And you're kind of told that like, at a certain age, you're just aging. So brain fog, you're going to get tired. It's just a part of getting more depressed and anxiety. So I think for me um I went through a really bad relationship and so when I finally got out of that and I was like still self-loathing and still upset I realized like there's something wrong inside of me like I shouldn't feel this way um and correlating it to my diet took a lot of time I think it really helped that I we lived together and so um we like kind of helped each other through recovery if that makes sense I think the most important part is educating yourself

so we got to a point of realizing and we learned which you're not told that your mind and your gut are connected and so once we kind of learned that that made us like dive into reading more about it. And then you realize, hey, my diet is actually probably a cause of this. Yeah. What can I do about it? So I think educating yourself on the matter is super important. We also had a neurotransmitter test done and we showed like just absolutely no happiness. There was nothing happening so that was a big red flag and i haven't gotten it retested

but i do feel a lot better um but that's i wish i had a big all women should get that test i'm kidding minutes too though and i gosh that's so i wish i had a better answer more helpful answer because like that is such a huge problem like people really just go through their day not really why are you laughing still oh no no i think that was great i just really because i just think it's like so powerful like you guys recognize like this isn't how i should be. And so I guess, I guess, yeah. Like how was the start of like being, you know, like, okay, I'm unhappy. How do I get happy? And you guys just said it yourself. So you self-educated. And I think that's very impactful for people to hear. Yeah, I think it also took a diagnosis of an autoimmune condition because it was the same thing. So like a lot of the other symptoms I was dealing with, like one thing that made me unhappy was the fact that I had like red skin or like I had acne. And so finally having a like an understanding of what's going on and realizing that a side effect of this is depression too. And so I feel like a lot of people are actually probably living with auto immune conditions and don't know it yeah and so having that diagnosis finally to realize like a lot of stuff's going wrong and you can actually fix it that was probably the point like the turning

point i'm curious i have a 12 year old daughter and uh i guess question number one would be um do i tell her that she's not allowed to date until she's like 25 or do I just like let it happen naturally? Oh my gosh. That's such a good question. I would let it happen. Kind of more seriously though. Do you guys think you can date too young? Like, you know, what's been your experience, I guess. Okay. So I had a lot of gym boyfriends in my mind when i was 14 but i thought only guys did that the one i learned this one rule on the radio you can't

talk to your gym boyfriend no yeah go go talk to her dude no way no way you can't do that talk about like dependence oh yeah i think um that that's Okay. So I ended up in a four-year relationship from age like 13, 12. I don't know. My freshman year of high school to my freshman year of college, what happened was I lost a lot of my independence. girl needs to go through like some sort of growth period on her own to learn about herself and not feel so tied to somebody else. Um, and so she needs to evolve on her own. And I don't think that there's like necessarily dating too young, but I think like being too obsessed is a thing too young being too, being too dependent.

Yeah. Yeah. So she needs to like get a hobby, get her in the gym. I'm sure she already is, but yeah. Gotcha. You know,

I don't want to, I hate to sidetrack from that but i'm really curious about this with both of you guys and we can come back to this idea again but uh have you guys ever had like when you were younger when you were starting all the the fitness stuff did you ever have like sleep issues did you ever have issues sleeping enough each night was that ever a problem because what i've like found is that a lot of individuals that I started working with, they didn't get enough sleep. Just it's like, generally, they'd be getting five hours on average, six hours on average. And then when that was fixed, kind of a lot of things cascaded down. So was that ever an issue for you? Or was that always

something that you have handled? She's clean sleep so i have an aura ring well i read on bodybuilding.com that i had to sleep to grow okay okay yeah you have to sleep to grow the muscles um so i have an aura ring and we'll wear it on occasion just to keep things in track she is like an expert deep sleeper so i feel like i'll step out of this conversation. In high school, I was fine at sleeping. My sleep schedule, my sleep hygiene went to crap in college. As an undergrad, I was maybe sleeping like 45 hours a night and became very reliant on caffeine. And so that was a negative spiral. But then going to grad school and moving in with my sister, she made me realize how important sleep was. and moving in with my sister, she made me realize how important sleep was.

And so I have significantly improved my sleep hygiene, and sleep has moved much higher up on the priority list. And so we've made a lot of changes to improve our sleep. But I do think that if you're looking to, like, add supplements or change your diet, I think take a step back first and reflect on, like, am I prioritizing sleep? sleep? Because that is like one of the number one priorities and should be your building block, your base. And that needs to be addressed before you add on like supplements or other things like that. I totally agree with you. And I saw a huge improvement just by improving my sleep habits after undergrad. You guys have like a hierarchy in terms of, have you thought of like a hierarchy

in terms of importance, in terms of the things you guys do each day that helps you out? Not just with food, but I guess in terms of this, the things that you do. Yeah. So I would say, um, are walking outside. So that's like combining steps and sun. If there's sun, um, I would say that's two things. So meet walking. Yeah. walking, sun exposure, literally letting the rays hit your eyeballs for circadian rhythm regulation, whole food sources. This isn't an order of importance. This is just like our non-negotiables.

And sleep. Sleep and then some sort of – we still like to get some sort of movement, I guess, if that's some sort of working out or if we're just doing steps that day oh and dogs so you guys you guys end up training together a lot oh we only train together ever since um we moved in together she's my only training buddy well we like kind of switched so i i've always remained strength focused and i'm still strength focused today uh but we kind of switched paths when she started a bikini competition, January of 2019, she started training for it and her focus definitely went away from strength

training. So she was going from like the standard, like deadlift squat bench to just more of like the hypertrophy work. And so I would say since then, our training has been a little bit different. Yeah. So I've had to do that because um before my competition i weighed more and so i always lifted more and then she started lifting more than me and like that's not okay so i had to just like

separate myself i just couldn't deal with it yeah how was the experience uh during the competition oh um okay so it was so i said i got into lifting around like um at the beginning of high school so How was the experience during the competition? Oh, okay. So I said I got into lifting at the beginning of high school. So it's always been something I wanted to do. I was always inspired by the initial 2014 Instagram Fitspo people. Probably not the best thing. And so finally, like, fast forward, what, nine years, I finally felt like at the most stable with my health. And that means my mental health too, that I felt like I could do a bikini competition, where I wouldn't

develop some like bad relationship with food, or hurt my body or anything. And so it was a really, it was really good experience. If not for that experience, I don't think we would have come to carnivore actually. At a certain point, I did the competition keto so i didn't really because i was still trying to manage my autoimmune condition then so i wasn't confident enough to move away from keto i learned a lot about my health um but at the start we got into like a fight because she had a horrible first coach for the first like month yeah so i did um he had me doing 30 minute HIIT sessions on the elliptical or stairs, seven days a week. At the start of my prep. So like, remember when I said I have stick legs, like goodbye, any quads that was ever there.

It was horrible. So for anyone that's doing a competition, do your research and find a good coach. So that did not set me up for success initially. And then I ended up working with Steven from Pro Physique and he was really responsive to me wanting to stay keto. I don't think that keto is necessarily like optimal for competition because I think there is something to be said about carbs filling you out. But that my entire prep,

I didn't deal with any like hangry or brain fog because I was in ketosis. So I think that's one benefit that could have been derived from it. But I live a lot about my body. And I'm very grateful that I went through that experience, although I won't do it again, probably. What, you know, again, with, you know, 12 year old daughter in the house, What, you know, again, with a 12-year-old daughter in the house, I know Andrew's got a young girl at home as well. What are some signs that parents should look for if their child starts to, you know, or like only sticking to healthy options if it's kind of like an uneducated reason, meaning like they're like afraid of fat suddenly. So like they're going for the low fat. That was me having a restrictive mindset and removing a food group. Yeah. Having a restrictive mindset and removing a food group.

Yeah. So for me, I was definitely like the bodybuilding bro, like rice, whole wheat, whole wheat bread, whole grain bread, and I avoided fats. So I was very much carbs and protein. So I think looking to see whether someone is like really restricting a certain food group at such a young age. I don't know if that's the best thing. It's really hard to distinguish between health conscious and problem. Like we've already kind of talked about.

And I guess like red flags that I know that my parents noticed was like no longer going out to any event that would involve eating because I didn't want to eat in public or I don't want to have to like eat what they were eating. And then just like skipping hanging out with friends and stuff because like, again, you don't want to eat with friends or more extreme. I guess they wouldn't know, but like not going and eating in the lunchroom at school. So like eating in private or being afraid to eat out. That's like such a hot topic for me. It's so hard because it's a scary time. It's like your developmental phase and you develop your confidence and your mentality then. Yeah, I've been talking to my kids, you know,

since they've been really young about nutrition and you know what they do. You know, my daughter is 12 and my son is 16, but I've just shared it with them since they were really little. So I could say it to them whatever way I wanted when they were really young. I don't talk about it that way anymore, but I used to say, Hey, if you eat too much of that, you'll get fat. And my entire family's pretty fat. And I'll say, hey, you'll look as fat as I did in these pictures. Or I'll say, you're going to look as fat as your aunt so-and-so or whoever I can reference that was in the family and just say, they're not very healthy. They can't move as well. They're on blood pressure medications.

Like I would say that to them when they're very, very young, not trying to scare them and not trying to make it crazy. But anytime we'd talk about food, because kids have questions about food and stuff. And now it's more like, you know, they'll say, they might ask a question, you know, why do you eat so much protein? And then I can just say, well, protein's the most satiating it helps fill me up and then that way i don't have to be hungry for all the other amazing foods that

there are and i can keep my calories uh you know in check without me going bananas right yeah i think you just hit it like you have to educate so lead by example and educate. I, I would say, be careful about like saying that you will get fat. He doesn't say that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's just like to others, to other fathers, maybe because I heard that growing up sometimes. And I do think that that negatively impacted my mindset. Oh, I got the, you're going to eat all that. And I was already chubby. So like in my mind, I'm like, Oh gosh. So I like, no, no, like I'm not saying anything bad about my dad, but I

think like parents do a really big impact. Yeah. Um, and I definitely think that things he said in the past correlated to how I ended up. So not focusing on like what your body will look like instead focusing on, Hey, if you eat this way, you'll be able to do all this stuff. You'll be healthy for so long. And yeah,

you, yeah, yeah. You won't be restricted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's very well.

That's actually extremely well said. Cause I was going to ask like, yeah, how can we better than like, cause like my daughter, she can tell you like what's gluten free, like what's keto, like what, why protein is so important. But she doesn't really like know exactly why it weighs so, like it has so much weight. But I think what you just said explaining like, hey, if you do have more of this, you'll be able to do more of that.

So, thank you for putting it that way because that was actually what I was going to ask you next. So, that was awesome. Thank you. Yeah. For for her age it might be like she may be able to play more you know go to the park and run more yeah yeah let me ask you guys this um you guys have a lot of knowledge as far as nutrition is concerned now and you understand where a lot of misconceptions may lie do certain things nutritionally still make you uncomfortable to do as in like days where you're trying to eat more carbs? Does that still in the back of your head make you uncomfortable doing it even though you know it's not really a bad thing for you? Oh, absolutely. So we were on

a morning walk this morning and Sarah and I were working with, like I said, we're working with a doctor who's helping us heal our hypothalamic amenorrhea. And she wants us to hit like a target calorie range to make sure that we're consuming enough. And this is the first time that Sarah and I are kind of just doing like YOLO macros. We're not sticking to a specific macro range. So this morning, I literally go to Sarah, hey, tomorrow, I'm going to do a high fat day. I'm like, I feel weird about including all these carbs. I'm going to do a high-fat day. I feel weird about including all these carbs. I'm going to do a high-fat day. And it's ingrained.

It's ingrained after eating this way for so long. She kind of took a step back and was like, okay, that's fine. Okay, it's funny because she's talking about she wants to eat high-fat when most people would be like, okay, I'm eating low-fat because everyone's afraid of fat, right? And so I've been the one doing more of like looking into repeat and looking into like healing your metabolisms and your thyroid problems. And I, so I see the benefits of eating more carbs. So I think the whole educating yourself is so powerful and I know that's going

to look different for different ways. Um, but of course at the start it was really hard, but I think when we realized that nothing bad happened, we started to be okay with it. Yeah. And I think I ate plants and I have survived and keeping your why, like you're at the center of your focus. Like, why are you doing this? Because I want to have babies, right? Like I want to have kids and I, that's so much more important than having a six pack.

And Sarah's does a good job reminding me, like, this isn't necessary. Like this isn't longterm. So there's no way that i can say right now that the way that i'm eating is going to be best for me in a year i think the most powerful thing to have is this ability to allow yourself to evolve to find what best diet works for you at that given point in time and so sarah's always reminding me like okay we have a very specific goal and the longer that we don't stick to it, the longer it's going to take for our ovaries to turn back on. So like, what is your goal? The more you can

stay aligned with that goal, the faster that that goal will come. Yeah. I mean, you guys all coach people and you know that like for yourselves, if you want it to get lean, you know what to do. Right. And so either work with someone who knows what to do or educate yourself to feel confident knowing like, okay, I can gain some weight right now because I know how to lose it. Like everything's going to be okay. I think we've kind of diverged from his original question. I don't even know what you asked.

We just ramble of like, there are still underlying. Oh, it's, it's hard. Dogma diet culture is so strong, regardless of what corner that you're in and it's going to stay with you. But I have a takeaway so we can stop the rambling. I think what we've learned is that the most fundamental thing is just eating like for the most part, high quality, um, high nutrient dense foods, like formulating your diet with that and then like whatever else you add in you're gonna be okay like if you hit those like fundamentals you know and so if somebody's on carnivore to them that would be you know hitting the liver once a week or something or if you're it just it looks different for everybody but i think that is like that's key

yeah speaking of sounds to me go ahead andrew uh like people being dogmatic and this like odd community that we're all part of um were people upset when you guys said that you weren't going to be full carnivore yeah i think so okay i don't mean this in a bad way but when you share things on social media and then you make a change everyone all of a sudden becomes an expert right and we oh so we like to call it um mansplaining there's a lot of man there were men telling me how to get my period back and i'm just like can you tell me about your period so it's been really interesting and i think that um

so like we youtube and we instagram and so we have our YouTube family and our Instagram family. And so coming from like, we've, we've been called like the carnivore sisters and stuff. And so we really put ourselves into a box. Um, but we also have a really supportive community, like who's more so just like our friends instead of like, I only follow you cause you eat meat. And so it's been nice, but of course there's those people who are like, I only follow you because you eat meat. And so it's been nice. But of course, there's those people who are like,

girls, you're eating vegetables, like something bad's going to happen. Overall, there's been a tremendous amount of support. And we've actually received a ton of messages from females who have been dealing with the same thing. Plus, we've also received messages from people who are doing carnivore saying, thank you. I was feeling guilty for adding berries to my plate and now I don't feel bad. Yeah. Like being more human. Yeah. I think, you know, diets are

always going to, it's going to change for people, you know, whatever's working for you at the moment. Not that it won't work for you. Not that it won't work well for a long time, but I think that it's important to evolve and it's important to research and to pay attention to all the different stuff that's out there. Plus, it's fun. It's fun to change it up. It's fun to be on a different plan and stuff like that. What I've noticed with you guys here is that this just seems to be like a massive reinterpretation of all the stuff that you originally thought about nutrition. Have you been able to maybe take a lot of the stuff that you have reinterpreted in nutrition and then been

able to do that in your regular lives? Like just as an example, maybe in the past, maybe you were more triggered by something somebody said, or, you know, are you kind of like almost thinking that you can take a lot of the things that you learned from nutrition, because originally, you thought those things were true. You thought those things, this is the way I got to do it. This is the way I need to act. This is the way I need to train. And have you kind of taken that and taken it into your regular day to day? You're kind of saying, do you, okay, wait, are you saying like question what you used to know?

Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. In general, like you're, you're, you guys have reinterpreted you know, what you once thought was true for nutrition, you know, and then have you been able to do that in kind of your day-to-day with maybe things that you thought previously oh yeah okay for your work and stuff yeah i think like um having more flexibility so realizing like you don't have to be anal about something i think that applies to like every aspect of my life now so like yes this is a fitness related example but if i walk for 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes like like that's okay. You know, or, um, if I didn't finish all my work in one day, like I can move it to the next day. I think absolutely. Like if you're coming from a really, um, type a restrictive, yeah, we're definitely, she's more type A than me, but I mean like, that's very clear now.

Um, it has been really relieving to realize like you can, you can relax in several areas of your life and that'll actually get you further. Cause if you're more wound up all the time, like eventually you're going to snap. Okay. I kind of, I kind of saw your question as like never get like too comfortable or stuck in a certain routine or a certain diet and always question or always

challenge what you thought, you know, because science is always evolving science has a half-life so i thought you were saying like now you it seems like you've kind of questioned and evolved through questioning yourself and questioning whether that's worked best for you yeah okay i think that that is so important because science is evolving. You're evolving. Your environment is evolving. And so like what works right now may not work in the future. So therefore you should always be questioning what you thought, you know,

it's so applicable because we like formed our social media identity around being carnivore. Yeah. And we're not carnivore anymore. So we had to be like, wait, who am I? Yeah. Yeah. I like how it ends up like obviously the context of our whole conversation matters but it seems like you know some people are coming from a place where they don't have enough structure they don't have enough rules what they're eating they eat all the time and they eat too much um and then they need to kind of restrict a little bit and then they end up restricting too much and then they have to come out of that restriction to end up at the middle ground and you guys were

restricting a lot and you had to like it's kind of like you went in one direction and now you're right back at the middle it's like there's so much nuance you know even there's some days where i don't eat any carbs there's some days where i eat extra carbs it's just like, there's, I feel like diet culture can really, it can fuck people up. It can put them into a box way too easily. So I like this conversation a lot. Yeah. Dogma is scary. And especially now that social media is growing, like that's where people learn. They learn from other people. And I think that blindly, it's blindly taking someone else's diet and someone's way of living and just applying it to you is just one of the worst things one can do. I mean, it's, it's, there's no guarantee that it

can work for you and you get narrowed into a box, narrowed into this like strict mindset. And I'm guilty of it for sure. Yeah. As you guys have been going through this, have you, uh, has there been, um, has there been other like realizations maybe with like, like your training? Like I know that you, um, you guys were saying that you were, you know, shifting away from a strength, you know, from, from strength, uh, anyway. So you have any different goals with, with that sort of stuff? Yeah. So I think one thing we realized is like,

you can take quite a few off days and maintain your muscles. Nothing bad's going to happen if you take an extra off day and also taking a step back and realizing like going like hardcore every single day, although it seems like the best option for like maximal gains, it's really not. Like there's so many other things that play a role. We've ignored our hormones, for example, for so long that we could have made so many more gains

had we fixed that way back. And so I think just realizing that and that's allowed us to take a step back and be okay with taking a step back um and be okay with taking a step back because for two people who've gone to the gym five to six days a week for 10 straight years it's been a challenge it should have been very easy for us to lose weight back in february but it was a challenge so realizing like you can take a step back and like um focus on something else in your life and like even so we want to be farmers so like we're going to be farmers next year like we are and realizing like lifting up that bag of

food and putting it somewhere that's a workout so like your way of working out can evolve all those years in the squat rack and deadlifting like that should have trained you for something greater i'll be able to pick up lots of feedbacks yeah lots of feedback so like that's kind of cool to realize because you're not a slave to the gym anymore. And I hope that the quarantine is actually like provided that for so many people have caused them to get more innovative with what they're doing. Like you're doing your body weights, you know, do you guys, um, do you guys, have you learned anything maybe negative about goals? Like in the past where you like setting goals and you're real meticulous about it? And maybe now maybe you don't set goals or what have you maybe learned from that process? So I used to be someone who wrote out like every minute of the day what I

would do. And I've now evolved in how I approach goal setting. And I think it is a lot more realistic. So instead, keeping your long termterm goals always in mind, always written out. So more of like the six months a year, but then allowing yourself to be flexible day to day. Someone else who isn't like me may need more of the structure, but I like, like you brought up, like I'm on the restrictive type A personality side. So therefore giving myself more freedom and flexibility day to day and not getting hard and mad at myself for not accomplishing everything on my to-do list and allowing, like, you can do that manana. It's okay. And having that kind of mindset has definitely helped, I think,

ease my anxiety. Your goals are important. But I think goal setting should never, like, you should always do that. You should always reflect on them every couple of weeks. Yeah, like why is that your goal? Yeah. Reflect on your whys. Yeah.

Cool. So you guys said you're going to be farmers. Please dive more into that. Okay. I need to clarify. I said feedbacks. We are going to be regenerative farmers, but pigs and chicken have to eat feed. So I'll be picking up the chicken and pig feed.

But one of the best things that has come out of our carnivore journey is our appreciation for what ruminants can do to the land and how they can repair the soil. This is something that has literally become a crazy passion for us. And we've developed incredible relationships with our local farmers. Last summer, we went on like what we call tour day local farmers, and we visited a bunch of different local farmers, got to know them, saw how they manage their land, how they treat their animals. And we've developed a really good relationship with white oak pastures. We have visited them multiple times and have learned a

ton from them about regenerative agriculture and the powerful things that animals can do to the land. So what animal impact can do to repair the health of the soil. I think that like we appreciate like animal protein so much and what it's done for our health that like playing a role in the creation of that for our community in the future is something that we're, we really care about. And then also just like the lifestyle that comes with it, I guess. So like kind of detaching from like the standard millennials go work in the city and like you just nine to five i think like no not wanting to be a part of that and wanting something different for like how i raise my kids is like a

huge motivation for us to do that um so those are just a few reasons why we want to farm another another reason is i want to see this upcoming generation just getting more and more plant-based and talking about how farming and animal like beef, for example, beef cattle, and they're so horrible for the environment. Whereas like educating people and showing that, hey, regenerative agriculture is actually one of the best things that we can be doing for the environment. We could ramble for it. Yeah, you should stop us.

I think that's really cool. I've been saying this for a long time. I mean, people care about stuff until it's inconvenient. And I think that, um, I think environment is, is, is so much that way that it's, it's like beyond trying to, trying to think of all the negative environmental impacts uh that we have even just like where i'm at right now i'm kind of in a beach area and just like running and walking uh throughout this area there's always a leaf blower there's always a weed whacker like every single day when i go on my run or go on my walk there's i see at least two or three of them every time.

It's like, what environmental impact does that crap have? You know, and, and no one ever brings it up. No one ever talks about it. They just talk about cars and cows pretty much. Right. And they don't talk about, uh, you know, some of the things that you guys are bringing up here, I think is, is great because, um, those are, those are simple things that folks could do. You could just put your money towards, uh, companies that believe in things like that. It's just, it's a little bit, um, again, if it becomes too hard or too complicated for somebody to do it, they're probably just going to put their hands up and be like, ah, screw it. I don't really care. But if, if they can do so in a convenient way and support uh ranchers that are doing um what you guys are mentioning i think that's great yeah yeah we try to just make it like approachable for people because i think like we've our generation has gotten really out of the habit of like knowing where their food's actually coming from and just relying on the supermarket

so kind of making farming sexy again yeah i guess that's our goal yeah so let me ask this like you guys have built relationships with these uh these i guess also farmers but what is what is your intention are you guys trying to have like a ranch with cattle or like what is it that you guys are trying to do educate people what i'm just trying to figure that out so first generation farmers gonna document the crap out of it and start a farm somebody Somebody wants to start a, um, go find me a reality show. And I'm looking for eight figures. No. Um, so I think both, so start the farm, but then also share and document and educate along the way, because I realized that that's something that I'm really passionate about is like, I think that's why I'm on social media. I really enjoy teaching people and like informing them about like what I learned.

And so it's going to be both both of those things. So, yes, actually starting a farm. I think that it's super important to have a poly species farm because each animal plays a unique role in repairing the soil. And so we'll definitely start with the basics, the chicken, pig and cow. And then I really want sheep and goats. Goats are really good at like whacking down weeds and stuff. So you don't need that weed killer.

Just throw your goats on there. If you guys want a, a reality show, you're going to have to get a lot more tigers. We need to remake this. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. yeah did you guys check out the documentary i i watched like three episodes straight and then i started to question myself i felt really weird about myself and i think it ended when like i found out that like they he didn't the other guy like wasn't actually gay but he was like stuck there for his weed or something i don't know and i was like i gotta go i'm gonna end up like them yeah that's a good time to eject so yeah good on you

girls it was great having you on the show today um where can people find you yeah oh so we're on both instagram and youtube same name strong dot sisters s-i-s-t-a-s and then our website is a little bit more formal armstrongsisters.com and stay tuned for our farm coming out 2021. Hopefully. Absolutely. Yeah. And we're working on a cookbook with Dr. Paul Saladino coming out in 2020.

It'll be like carnivore ish. So it's animal based. Yeah. Basically. So we've been working on that for a while. And we're really excited about that being released. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it.

Have a good rest of your day. Thank you guys for having us on. Thank you guys. much i appreciate it have a good rest of your day appreciate it they're strong sisters that was great that was cool and they really were strong it's like shit they're diving all in on that uh farming huh that's pretty i mean shit that's awesome more people should probably try to do something like that i was impressed with that deadlift because. Cause like, I don't know how big they are. They don't look massive, but she's like, I've deadlifted 400. I'm like, huh? Damn. Okay. Yeah. I think they both are close to 400 pound deadlift. That's pretty awesome. It is. I like the nuance of the conversation though, because, um, like they're coming from a very different place. Um, then a lot of people that are trying to die, I'm not going to say most, but a lot of people conversation though, because like they're coming from a very different place than a lot of

people that are trying to diet. I'm not going to say most, but a lot of people that are, you know, getting on the whole dieting train are trying to lose a lot of body fat. They're a lot bigger and they have the habit of not having structure. They have the habit of eating too much. So when they do input some structure, they can learn from that. Just like when we started fasting, when I started fasting, I was doing like 20 hours every single day. And then I stopped, I started doing 16. And then I have some days where I don't fast. I have some days where I only fast for maybe 12 hours, but it's more nuanced. And it's because I went in one direction, it gave me a little bit more control to come back to the middle. And I really liked that we even saw that with them.

to the middle. And I really liked that we even saw that with them. I also think that, um, people just don't need to be in such a rush. You know, there's really no reason to be in such a rush. So, and then also I would even say like, um, I don't know if you were trying to, if you're 50 pounds overweight and you're really trying to lose weight, you know, fairly quickly, it's, it's still might not be in your best interest. Um, in fact, I know it's not in your best interest to try to lose the weight quick. You're better off having, having something more sustainable because as we talked to, uh, with like guys like Joel green, they say kind of the quicker that you lose the weight, the more likely you are to gain the weight back and gain it back rapidly.

It's going to have, it's going to have like a elastic band. Oh no, I lost you guys. Everybody good to go. We're good to go. Sorry about that. We lost. I lost everybody.

We all, we all lost. Yeah. I think the, yeah, like you were saying, the government's listening now because that batar episode yeah i saw uh i think brian rose had him on his uh podcast yeah too yeah um if he could remember where your train of thought was when you're talking about joel green

yeah i was just talking about losing weight too quick and uh your weight can kind of snap back if you lose weight super fast. I'm not discouraging anyone to lose weight. You know, I'm not saying that you need to lose weight slow. I'm just saying sometimes we're in a rush and we'll fast and we'll exercise and we'll do too much. But really, it's to our detriment because it's not really about where you're going to be six months from now or even a year from now. It's kind of more about what are you going to look like in about two years or three years, you know? Even for any of us, for how long we've trained and all the work we put in, all the time and effort that you put in, if you don't hold on to some of the disciplines, then you're not going to

be able to hold on to a lot of the results. And it could be 10 years from now, if Nsema has just decided like to eat whatever he wants, he's not going to look the same. You know, he's going to have gained body fat. And for me, having previously been a lot heavier, I would even look a lot worse if I, you know, lost contact with some of the things, some of the disciplines that I have. But at the same time, it doesn't mean you need to be a maniac about it. And I think we learned a lot today from listening to the Strong Sisters. I think they had a lot of great input for both male and female because we're like, we're all so eager to get those results, get those gains, get that weight loss.

But it doesn't have to happen tomorrow. You know, it's a, you're in it for the long haul, you know, make sure you're not overdoing it, make sure you're not underdoing it and just have a good, good, healthy perspective on it. Yeah. I really kind of like what you mentioned there in terms of sustainability and in terms of the disciplines, because a lot of people are able to lose a lot of fat,

but then it always comes back. Kind of like, I mean, people talk about Oprah all the times that she lost fat, but you always hear it come back heavier. And it's just like an individual like you or, or, or wealthy individuals,

right? Some people, they get a lot of money and then they want to get more and more and more and more. And it causes a lot of dysfunction. It causes a lot of disciplines that are negatively affecting the rest of their life, even though they're making more and more money. It's not sustainable. I know my friends about it right now. He's like, not happy. He's like, I'm like, he keeps asking me about my goals and stuff. I'm like, I ain't got no goals, dude. He's like, how the fuck do you function? How does that make any sense? I was like,

I just take it day by day. I just try to do a little better, a little bit better than I did yesterday. Exactly. And it's just like dieting where you can take it too far. You can, you can build dysfunctional habits. And I think one of the biggest things that we can take away from them is the ability to self-assess. Like Andrew mentioned, the self-awareness that they were talking about. You're very aware that right now, I'm not feeling good. I dropped my period. This isn't sustainable. I need to figure out a way to back out of this. Rather than trying to brainwash yourself and tell yourself, I'm feeling great. This this 48 hour fast that i've been doing every two days is awesome like just because you feel that you got to do it you got to self-assess and then figure out a way you can pivot to get to a more functional place that you can then maintain for

a long period of time yeah and i mean how big would it i mean people have some like certain uh challenges that they're faced with that they don't want to really own up to, or they don't want to share with somebody, but like how huge for, you know, a young, young woman to have to reach out to somebody and say, Hey, this thing that's supposed to happen every month that happens to everybody, it's not happening to me. So it kind of really makes you like, okay, shit, I can easily reach out and ask for help for my hurdles right now. And I just, I don't know, man, they were extremely like, what's the term, beyond their years? I think that's what it is, you know?

Wise, yeah. Wise beyond their years. There you go. Sorry. See, I'm not, before I can't remember some of these damn terms. Otherwise, you would have found that word, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

I think Greg Glassman's to blame for all this. I think CrossFit's to blame. CrossFit has eradicated women's boobs, and it has eradicated periods from where I sit. But has it helped the rise of plastic surgery in that area? Maybe, maybe. Well, it's definitely helped with the butts. The butts have gotten gotten uh better looking and the the shorts too right the shorts have gotten shorter

although i think those shorts always existed in volleyball because i remember in high school but i mean for both sides though right like guy shorts have gotten way short too and i remember high school bro like all the dudes somehow we just end up in the gym during volleyball practice like oh well what's going on in the gym trying to play it off exactly i remember Exactly. I remember I was coaching Pioneer football and the volleyball coach, she came over to me and she was like, I don't really have time because I started a gym and I'm training these boys and I'd love to help them. She's like, you can't go in there and just show them a couple things. I was just like, that doesn't seem like a good spot for me. Especially

with how I joke all the time with the guys. I probably shouldn't have said half the stuff I said to them. I can't imagine. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble being around these young girls like this. Oh my gosh. Oh man. Yo,

uh, this is a great podcast, man. I, too many laughs. You said something that I just couldn't stop laughing at. I forgot what it was. Oh yeah.

It was just about the happiness test about the happiness test bro that shit and then yo if you guys haven't seen it there's this post that i said to my girlfriend you posted it yesterday about the wine yeah and i was just like yo this actually could really well work hey you look really great and brown yeah that's i know yeah you're looking great in those sweatpants here's a glass of wine oh god um but we love women and we love our ladies too So we just want to make that clear. We're just joking around, having some fun. All right. Oh, God. Yeah, I think it's, you know, on a different note, other than, you know, what we just had on the podcast here today. It just, it seems to be, it seems like things are kind of like,

maybe going to calm down a little bit. It seems like things are going to open up. Things are kind of like maybe going to calm down a little bit. It seems like things are going to open up. Georgia, you know, they had enough balls to finally pull the trigger. But it's kind of weird. Out of the entire world, you got like Sweden. I'm unaware if there's other countries, so somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here.

And Georgia are like the only, you know, two spots. I'm sure there's other places, but those are the only ones I'm aware of that have said, Hey, let's go about our business. I don't think Sweden has ever even shut down. I don't think they even bothered to, to do that. Now they have a different luxury than we do because they don't have people nearly as sick as we do here in the United States. You know, and I think I would say like my would say my frustration has my main point of interest and the main thing that I've been trying to communicate is just like we were unhealthy before. We were very unhealthy before COVID ever started.

We were very unhealthy before. And a lot of what's happening right now reminds me of when you're a little kid and the teacher tells you to pick up the classroom or the teacher tells you you have X amount of time to do a certain amount of work. And they say freeze and everyone like stops dead in their tracks and you're just frozen with whatever amount of work that you got done. And I was always the kid that was like behind, you know, but I think that's exactly what's happened here is this COVID thing hit, you know, coronavirus hit and it's like, okay, pause. Where are you at? Like, where are you at financially? Where are you at in society? Where are you at physically? Where are you at mentally? And I think that a lot of people, when the pause button was hit, weren't too happy about where about the progress that they made or didn't make. as a payment. You don't get away with just eating whatever you want. You don't get away with just doing whatever you want. It's going to cause problems. It's going to cause inflammation.

It's going to wreak havoc on your body. And when it does that, you're going to be in compromised position that is going to eventually, your luck will run out. For some people, they can live to 100 years old that way. For other people people they can live to 100 100 years old that way for other people they might live to 70 for other people they might be they might die you know before they're 45 you know so that's that's just kind of the way i see it you know no i i seriously see which and you kind of hit it on the money there when you said a lot of people when it's when when the freeze button was pressed, they weren't happy with everything that was going on.

And like I had, there were so many people that have messaged me saying, once this like lists, I'm getting myself back into jujitsu. And these are people that haven't done jujitsu in years. And without this pause on everything, and it's kind of like forcing you to us, it,

it literally does really force you to think about where you are right now. Think about the decisions you made. Think about all the things you weren't doing that you've been wanting to do, but you just didn't because life was normal. And now, since you're forced to sit at home, you're forced to reflect and figure out all the things that you've been wanting to do and say, once this ends, I'm going to get right back into it. I'm going to start dieting. I'm going to work out. I'm going to dieting. I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that It's it's done the same thing to me. It's done the same thing to me Yeah, a lot of people are realizing that you know the things that we took for granted

I mean, I think we're all definitely a little guilty of that Like the the the meme I threw up of jordan holding the gym as the trophy Somebody was like dude, I took everything for granted and it's like fuck i'm never doing that again though so yeah i think it's definitely going to wake up a lot of people i saw a lot of people like out on the beach not here where i'm at but i saw you know some pictures and stuff and they showed it on on the news and then i heard like you know gavin newsom basically just talking about like law enforcement how they're going to enforce more strictly and stuff like that.

And you got to do what you got to do. But at the same time, I was just sitting there waiting and hoping that he would give some explanations. I know that they probably feel like the explanations are out there, but I just don't really at this state. So I guess my, my, my question is this is Mr. Gavin Newsom, why in the world are we going to sit around and wait two extra weeks for you to just give us the go ahead? Cause that's more than likely what's going to happen, you know? And so is it him being excited to listen to himself or does he have like is there a medical reason?

Is there a real reason? People are talking about like going outside without a mask on how you can kill other people. So if that's your thinking, which that's fine. You're entitled to your own line of thinking. That's what living in a free country is all about. But if you're of that line of thinking, then that was always the case because viruses, it's not like viruses didn't exist before coronavirus came around. So if you're of the opinion that if you go to a supermarket, which by the way, going to a supermarket is not necessarily

an essential thing. Like these are all things that if they wanted to shut them down, they would have shut down everything. Flights are not, flights are not canceled. Like planes are still flying. Like there's still a lot of stuff going on. So it's hard to make sense of it. You're like, well, why does that make sense? Even if you are to fly right now, you don to make sense of it. You're like, well, why does that make sense? Even if you are to fly right now, you don't even need a mask. You're supposed to wear a mask, I guess, like in the airport. But I guess on the plane, I don't know if they changed that like today or yesterday or something, but I was hearing them talking about a lot of the stuff that's going on. And that's my main thing is just, we should really be questioning a lot of this stuff. I don't think that we just sit around. And if we do sit around, how long you sit around for, you know, I'm a very peaceful

person, but at some point I'm just going to show up to the grocery store without a fucking mask on because I'm going to feel the same way. A lot of other people are, and a lot of other people are going to start to do stuff like that. So hopefully, you know, hopefully some of these things get changed or hopefully, you know, Gavin Newsom can stop talking about personal protective equipment and start talking about how we get back to business, how we get back to living our lives. Yeah, no, it's, it's crazy. Cause it's like, I've been seeing a lot of people like, I didn't have my mask on when we went shopping yesterday i didn't i forgot it and i kind of just forgot about everything we just went we did our thing and my girlfriend was like uh i kind of feel like those those young people that

old people wag their fingers at because we're just walking around here and we don't have our masks on and everybody else not everybody but a lot of people It's, it really is just a little bit overblown. Yeah. But what can you do? Just wait it out. I guess so. Hopefully. I mean, it just, I don't know, man.

I know we've had some, some people on the podcast that raised some eyebrows. I guess we can put it, but I mean, it just, it does make you think, and it makes you question things like Mark was saying, like, yeah, we should be questioning things. Um, again, like I haven't actually dug into whether it's true or not about like, you know, hospitals saying, or hospitals getting paid more money if they have COVID-19 patients and whatnot. But I don't, it just, I don't know. I don't want to say it seems like complete bullshit, but like i just i i carry myself a lot differently now now with the information that i've been received or receiving and um that i have received there you go and yeah do people do look at me

weird when i do go to the store with no mask on um it's just i i don't know like i i definitely feel like where and where i'm at, you're not allowed to even go into the grocery store without a mask on. That's interesting. You know, I think things are going to be getting back to normal sooner than you think, because I was just telling you guys the other day down here in Placer, a gym literally just opened back up, a big gym fitness system. They just opened back up. Um, there is a jujitsu school for the rice bros. They're opening it back up there in grass Valley. They're opened back up. There is a jujitsu school, the Rice Bros. They're opening back up there in Grass Valley. They're opened on Monday, right? There's a lot of places

that are just like, I don't think the government is really enforcing in some places that businesses stay closed. Businesses are just staying or closing because it's suggested, but it's getting to a point where they're like, no, we're not going to survive if we don't open back up. We need to. So we're going to start and we're going to take the precautions that we need to take. But we got to start something. Yeah, it's just it's a weird it's a weird time. And I just out of all the different people that I communicate with, out of all the different people that I talk to, and, you know, this could be like confirmation bias.

It could just happen to be the people that I communicate with. But behind closed doors, everyone's saying the same thing. Like this virus is very similar to the flu. It's very similar to influenza. And it obviously has a different impact and it's, and it's hitting people harder and it's compromising their respiratory system. But in the end, I don't know if we're going to see more deaths from this than, than what we have. And I know that some people are like, we already have, we already have, you know, cause they got these numbers,

but those numbers are in there's no numbers are not conclusive yet. We need to wait. We need to wait and see you know what what we end up uh learning from all this but i think we're just going to look back at this um i think like a year from now or so um and just think to ourselves like you know we we really made a lot of decisions that uh looking having some retrospect and looking back at it, we could have done things differently because like we've said many podcasts ago, or as it's been said on this podcast many podcasts ago, a government cannot prevent or stop a virus. So I don't know if you guys saw the, it's on Netflix.

They have a coronavirus like kind of documentary type thing you guys see that i skimmed across it but i didn't want to watch it because i didn't know who made it yeah no it's very it has its own agenda of course but uh just just explaining viruses in general it's pretty cool and it's very clean like it just it just explains a lot of the science um of viruses but yeah i mean it's it's playing to like, yeah, stay at, stay at home, wash your hands type, type of deal. But I found it interesting that like, you know, the more deadly a virus is,

the harder it is for the virus to be spread around because like if it, so, so that's something to be aware of. Like if, if you're ever watching the news and it's like 75 people fucking drop dead in a 48 hour period, like, you's very unlikely the virus will be able to get anywhere it'd be a lot easier to quarantine or shelter and that's when it would make the most sense is when something like that but i just think everyone's going to get this fucking thing anyway and i think that millions upon millions upon millions of people have already had it yeah no the the infection numbers that like we've been talking about multiple episodes when more people are going to be able to get tested and they add that number to the amount of

like people have been infected people have died the percentage of corona deaths are just going to go down and it's it's going to be crazy but we shall see andrew you get some training in today yeah i hit legs hit both legs this morning oh really yeah uh just the yeah this i'm doing step up to reverse lunge and then bulgarian squats with that and it just it kills me i'm like i can't believe how like lit up my quads are right now it hurts doing a step up to a reverse lunge and bulgarian split squats not at the same time so not like a superset or anything but those two in particular have been crushing me yeah that does sound painful yeah it and my knee i mean you know when we were out uh running all over the place with you mark my. My knee was bugging me. It felt really good the following day. So like Saturday or Sunday, it felt okay. And then again, today I'll just like,

just get reminded like, oh man, my knee's a little messed up. So not messed up. It's just, I don't know what's going on with it. It's been kind of acting weird since the cut at the end of last year, but I'm still able to do all these things. I'm still able to get in a really good workout and it's at home. So feeling, feeling pretty good. Now I just got to get the other diet app back up to 10 out of 10, you know, no more sneaking in. Like what we, you know, even if they are protein bars, like, ah, it's okay. And it's like, yeah, okay. I've been throwing in a little bit of lunges too now. And just cause like,

I think when you guys were here, we were talking about them a lot and I was like, yeah, you know, I need to just, I need to have some lunges in there. And it's, it's amazing because getting myself to do most things when it, when it's related to exercises isn't hard, but for me to be like, yep, I'm going to do some lunges. Like I just, it's like a block in my head. Cause like they kind of bug my knees. I mean, once I do 15 of them or 20 of them, the pain's gone. Like my knees are warmed up. I'm good to go, but I'm really, I'm really a bitch with lunges. So I've been trying to, I've been trying to do a lot better with those. And, um, I got my a hundred squats in today. I got my a hundred, uh, a hundred squats, a hundred pushups.

I mean, I, I don't know. It's, it's easy to think now that I'm going to keep them around forever, but, um, you know, it is, it seems simple enough for me to keep around forever. So I'm digging it. I think it's probably been, you know, 20 days or so, or, you know, approximately three weeks in a straight that I've been doing a hundred of both the pushups. I tried today just to kind of, I was just curious to see how many I can like knock out in a row. And I did 60. But I, I think I can do a little bit better. I'm going to try it again in a couple of days and see if I can see if I can beat that. But what's been keeping me pumped about all these workouts is that I just set goal. I just like each, each time when I finish a workout, I try to, um, whether it's a squat or the pushups or whatever, I just try to do a little bit more, a little bit more reps,

or I try to do a little bit more reps in a row. Like when I've been squatting, I'm like, I'll do 30 reps in a row. And then I did 40 reps in a row. It's just, it's just little, there's little stuff, you know? And when I run to, I time, I was showing you guys like the different hills that I timed and stuff. And, uh, I ran a hill yesterday and just compared it to one that I did, uh, about two weeks ago and I was able to run it faster and I was like, cool. Like there's PR PR city going on over here. Yeah, no, it's going to be a, there's so much that we're going to be able to do, but I was talking to Andrew about this because you mentioned you were timing your runs. I've been using this thing. It's been tracking my sleep. And then when the Apple watch comes back,

I'm going to use that so I can see my heart rate during all my exercises. And then once I get an aura ring, I'm going to use that so I can see my heart rate during all my exercises. And then once I get an aura ring, I'm going to be able to have a better algorithm for my sleep because of what Dr. The dentist said, it's going to be decked out and all this different equipment. You'll be able to track everything. Track absolutely everything.

Because a million, what is it? What's the, is it the $7 million man? $9 million man? I forgot what he's called. I think he's $7 million. Is it $7 million man? I9 million man? I forgot what he's called. I think he's $7 million. Is it $7 million man?

I think so. Give or take a million. Do you know the reference though? Yeah. I know of a name, but I never watched any of it. I've never seen it either. I've just heard people reference it. So, whatever.

We're terrible. We are. All right, peeps. I'm going to get out of here and go enjoy the beach. Ah. Is it open now or is it still closed oh yeah it's still closed those bastards just go sneak on in they won't see you blend in with the sand there are there are some spots where you could go and they can't they can't like get you so maybe i'll go there nice there we go cool all right well thank you everybody for checking out this episode thank you to pete montes for sponsoring uh thank you everybody that's been rating and reviewing the

podcast on itunes that helps us out a ton uh please make sure you're following the podcast at mark bell's power project on instagram at mb power project on tiktok and twitter my ig is at i am andrew z and if my name was in sema where would i be i didn't see my in yang on instagram and youtube i didn't see my yin yang on Tik TOK and Twitter. Mark. I am at Mark Smelly bell on YouTube, Instagram, and all over the damn place. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness never strength.

Catch y'all later.