Mark Bell's Power Project - Improve Your Cold Weather Training Performance || MBPP Ep. 1022

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

In episode 1022, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how to set yourself up to still make progress and exercise when it's cold outside.   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! The Athletic/Casual Clothes we're wearing! 🕺 ➢ https://vuori.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   💤 The Best Cooling Mattress in the GAME! 🛌 ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Best STYLISH Barefoot Casual/Training Shoes! 👟 ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      You Need Greens in your Life 🥦 ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

It can get to be like 20, 30 degrees. I know that's not zero. I understand, like there's people listening, like you don't know what it's like when it's zero. And just that little bit of discomfort can be the thing that kind of knocks you off your normal pattern. I take for granted what the warmth was doing for me when it comes to exercise. With the cold season comes the, quote, flu season. Trying to build resilience, I think, can really help with your immune system. The more explosive something is, the longer the warmup you need. Because it only takes just like one bad rep because you're cold

on one day. And that one step literally only takes you maybe 60 minutes, 60 seconds to two minutes. It's all it takes. Power Project family, we've had some amazing guests on this podcast, like Kurt Engel, Tom Segura, Andrew Hooperman, and we want to be able to have more amazing guests on this podcast and you can help it grow by leaving us a quick rating and review on Spotify and iTunes. If you're listening to the podcast, just go ahead and give us a review. Let us know how you dig it and help the podcast grow so we can keep growing with y'all and bring you amazing information. Enjoy the show. I don't think, I don't think you need to be wealthy in this world, but it's helpful that whenever you go to like put on your heat when it's cold out, it's helpful that it fucking works. Yes.

And it sucks when you don't have money because you're like, oh, the heater, something's wrong. And it seems like every year you go through that for some reason. It's like just because I didn't use it for like a couple of months, like now broken like what a piece of or the ac in the summertime so when when my wife was pregnant with my son and like the hottest like heat wave of that year our ac went out and i'm like i do like i'm like unplugging stuff like that's not gonna like i don't know how to do anything and then um one of our cousins came over and he's like oh you blew a fuse but like your whole not gonna like i don't know how to do anything and then um one of our cousins came over and he's like oh you blew a fuse but like your whole system's like kind of garbage so we got through like a couple of days but now that that was really that was tough

like it was so hot that like the eight sleep wouldn't get cold either like it got cooler but it didn't get cold enough to like not sweat it out so that was tough you want me to just make y'all sad real quick you're gonna tell us about your wiener coming out of the cold plunge again no actually i saw this post on tiktok which just like made me like why you got to do that but also it was like a dose of real it's like while you're sitting in your heated room wondering why you aren't where you want to be in life there are thousands of child laborers doing mining in congo for your cell phone battery and like it's actually real like the right now the mining business in congo uses like hundreds of thousands of child laborers who are literally just digging through dirt trying to find cobalt i think i'm so glad

for that because i invested in apples fantastic no no actually for the right kind of humor it's a decent joke but it's just like fuck man like even the fact that those kids can't fathom the existence of anybody here sorry to start the podcast on a downer just came to mind as we were talking about cold. I'm like, fuck. No, we have a lot of comfort, man. So much. We have so much comfort that now it's getting quote unquote cold here in California. For people that think we're real pussies, we are.

It's okay. We can admit it. I'm from New York. I grew up in the cold and I hated it. I'm not your Vermont AT. I moved somewhere where it's a little warmer. A lot warmer, actually. But it does get cold here I hated it. So I moved somewhere where it's a little warmer, a lot warmer actually, but it does get cold here in Northern California. Um, it can get to be like 20, 30 degrees. I know that's not zero. I understand. Like there's people listening, like, you don't know what it's like when it's zero. We, we know, we know it's not zero and we're thankful for that, but it does get cold

and just that little bit of discomfort can be the thing that kind of knocks you off your your normal pattern you know your normal pattern of things like one extra thing you got to think about the heat there's really not a lot to think about you're just like like it's a million degrees outside it's 100 degrees outside you know you might have to if you're going to be in the sun for a really long period of time or something you might be mindful of that. But other than that, there's not really much to think about. Maybe bring some extra hydration with you if you're going to go on a walk or a run when it's super hot out. But when it's cold out, it can be tough.

And you got to figure out how much you want to bundle up, how many layers you want to put on and all that stuff. much you want to bundle up how many layers you want to put on and all that stuff have there been workouts this year where like you got up you went outside and you're like yeah you just walk have you done that or have you like just walk right back inside well i haven't even really tried to run in the morning like in the early morning i haven't even messed with it and i was just thinking about that the other day i was like you know I need to kind of get up at like five and go run just because it just because it's kind of neat sometimes to do that. But you know what? It's interesting because you can look at it at a bunch of different angles. Some days I do wake up and some reason I'm uncomfortable and I'm cold and then I'll cold plunge and I'm even colder and

like my just for whatever reason like my temperature never seems to get back to where it needs to be and I'm kind of uncomfortable all day but the way that I look at it when running especially because I usually try to run in the middle of the day I'm like I'm gonna use this as like a little cold therapy so I'll still run with either really light clothes or shirtless, just to try to make it uncomfortable. And I've even done that in the rain before because all your shit gets all wet anyway. And so I'm like, I'm just going to, I'm going to run in the rain. I'm going to run when it's cold and it can be fun. It's not great to do it all the time. And again, we live in California, so you're not dealing with that weather that much, that often.

And so it's easier to kind of pick and choose when you decide to do that. But I can treat it as like a cold therapy session. Yeah. You have to be super mindful too, I think. And it's good that you're not like going out and sprinting off rip in the morning. And it's good that you're not like going out and sprinting off rip in the morning. But I think we kind of – and I definitely underestimate. Whenever the cold season comes, I kind of – I take for granted what the warmth was doing for me when it comes to exercise.

You know, like going into jujitsu or something and you're already kind of sweaty and your body is already kind of warm. It doesn't take you much to get warm and ready. But if you're going to grapple and your body's cold and you start doing stuff, I've tweaked things here and there just because I was still cold and I was moving a little bit too. I didn't take the time to warm my body and get my body sweating before doing more dynamic things. And just something that you got to be so mindful of in this season, like don't underestimate it. What you guys do is just so different. You know, you're, you have to react to what somebody else does. I guess if the person is horrible, maybe you don't have to react that much.

But for the most part, you've got to react to what the other person does. So that might mean you have to move quite a bit and maybe move in a way that you weren't even thinking of. Because if you're just thinking of your own offense um that is much more manageable like if i'm just thinking of running a particular pattern uh for football to like get open uh it's easier for me because i can i have it all set up in my head where i'm going to go as opposed if i'm the defender and i'm trying to cover the guy i have to react to the other person and that is like a little more jarring a a little more jolting. So what you guys do, I think it's, uh, it's gotta be tough. You gotta figure out a way to get yourself warm. What do you guys do? What do you mean to get warm? Yeah. What do you do?

You just move around a lot or don't skip warmups. That's the first thing. Um, get there on time, get there on time. Don't like, and, and for all you purple belts, brown belts, yeah. Don't skip warmups this time of season. Seem is going to make an insulated uh gi so he doesn't have to get there on time no but you know you know um seriously it's before you start doing a lot of dynamic stuff it's a good idea to try to get all the tissues of the body moving and try to get a bit of a sweat before you really start sparring and warm up the areas that you need. Like I'm very, I'm typically super diligent about getting like hip movement and warming up my groin before grappling because like back in the past, I had a lot of groin injuries, especially four or five

years ago. So I've like made it a point to strengthen that area. But recently this is actually kind of funny. I went to a, I went to an open mat and I met this guy and we were talking. He was like, you know, I just injured my groin. Like I've had this groin injury for a while. I haven't been able to heal it. I was like, dude, you know, I haven't injured myself in four or five years. I know what you can do. Like this is, you know, I'll send you some exercises.

That day I told myself, like I was rolling. I was like, you know, you should do some hip stuff before you keep sparring. Like you should really warm it up. Anyway, I didn't. And then get to the last round against that guy that I told to warm up the groin. He goes for a knee slice and I feel three pops in my groin. Oh, shit. And I'm just like, this is a little bit of funny karma of you talking too much about the groin and then you tweak it.

But the thing is, is it's good because it was a small tweak. Wasn't a big injury. It's a week later. I can now do full extended Copenhagen's. But literally right after that, I just started doing some banded adductions. I came to the gym, drove blood towards it. I did some stuff in the pool. I did some horse stance squats.

I did movements into a pain-free range of motion. And a week later, it's going to be almost 100%. And these are typically things that take athletes, especially within grappling, a long time to recover from because groin injuries are just – every grappler knows they're just fucking annoying. But you can warm up, obviously, but you can obviously do things to deal with that. You got anything specific, Andrew, that you try to make sure you're warmed up for? Yeah. I don't know how well it carries over to the actual like mats itself, but yeah, it's really cold. It's California cold for us. Like the other day I got in my car and it gave me a frozen road warning. So what the hell is that? So, you know, it's just telling me that like, Hey, it's below 35 right now right now so like be careful so when you go from inside the house to outside into the car especially

if you're wearing you know sandals and stuff like it's fucking cold and it sucks um everybody knows like getting out of bed is tough because you're all nice and snuggled and warm and then you go out to the cold it's it's not fun so i try to ease all of that by taking a really really hot shower and then getting extremely hot before i go outside so that way like my my body internally is just like extra warm and then when i get in the car i like black even though like by the time i get to the spot like it's barely getting hot but i blast the the heater as hot as i can and i have the seat warmers so that way i'm kind of like almost sweating by time i get to the to the spot and then when i get on the mats

it's kind of like all over again because the mat's cold and stuff but uh that's what i do to try to just be warm so that way i'm just not physically cold to like have to quote warm up like to get warm uh but the body itself yeah i do my go to stretches every time um now that my groin's kind of jacked up i do like some uh like side leg lift type things and stuff like that but um not enough i need to do more of that stuff for sure but yeah i think trying to find something you can do like a lot of high reps with and maybe even like almost like some sort of rapid movement, which sounds like – it sounds kind of counterintuitive. You're like rapid movement when I'm cold. I don't know about that.

But if you just take a band and you put the band around your back and you do like little bench presses, that's a great way to warm up. The best way to warm up is through your – in my opinion, the best way to warm up is through your arms. Your legs are secondary because like they're just going to be stiffer. Your lower back is going to be stiffer. You warming up with like walking lunges just means that you're probably 20 years old. So warm up your upper body. You can do arm circles.

You can do little mini bench presses with a band behind your back or something like that. And for me in the gym, my favorite thing to warm up is just doing a lat pulldown, easiest exercise ever. And it gives you like a nice stretch with a tricep pushdown. Those are two exercises that are so simple. Anyone can do them. Just set a timer on your phone and do it for four minutes, do it for three minutes, go back and forth. You're not really trying to do anything. You're not necessarily trying to like get a pump. You're not trying to like lift heavy. You're just, you're just moving. You're just moving around.

And what I like to think in my head is I got to give myself a decent chance. I got to give myself a decent shot at being able to kick ass today because the things that you can start to say to yourself in your head can be negative. You can say, oh, man, no one's here yet. I'm the first one here. No one else is exercising. The music isn't on already. You can make up tons of excuses or you go to a commercial gym and you had a plan to squat and someone's using your squat rack. Those are all things that you can very easily have that negative thought in your head of, man, it's cold. It's this.

It's that. But just why even talk that way when you haven't really tried it yet? Because I'm cold. You haven't tried it yet for the day. I know it can be discouraging. But I think on the flip side of that, a huge advantage of the cold is that it can be something that kind of makes you more resilient. It can be something that toughens you up. can be something that kind of makes you more resilient. It can be something that toughens you up. Like just because the wind blows and it's kind of cold, do you have to like, do you have to

shiver? You know, it just because it's raining, do you have to like walk like guarded? My nuts will involuntarily go into my stomach. Or can you let the raindrops kind of hit you on the back of the neck? You know, you can kind of treat it a little bit like some stoicism or a way of like toughening up. I'm not talking about like being a crazy person and it's, you know, negative six degrees out and getting frostbite or anything wild like that. But just, just asking yourself, like, is it really that cold? Is this really bothering me that much?

You know? And, and if it is really that cold and it's windy and shit, then fucking go back inside probably. But there's one question, guys. Who's windy and shit then fucking go back inside probably but there's one question guys who's gonna carry the fucking bones i was waiting for that and the logs and the logs i know i saw i was gonna be like but but but somebody was oh that video he got his uh the video he sent in the chat uh it was a guy doing all the morning stuff. It was like a man morning routine.

Remember? Yeah. Andrew, do you have it? It's in the chat. Who's going to carry the boats and the logs? It was like the guy just like thrusting himself into personal development hell. Yeah. It's the one right above Derek's eyes.

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's got the ABC pants and all that stuff. This guy's definitely sponsored by Lulu Levin. There's the Casey Neistat one. No, no, no. It's lower. Hey, shout out Casey Neistat for, what did he do? Under four hours?

Under three. Under three hours. Under three hours. Oh, dude. Under three hours in a marathon. That's fucking awesome. He said he ran 24 marathons to get that. That's so crazy.

Good for him. That's so crazy. Incredible. It's bloating. Hold on. He looks so unassuming. But the funny thing is actually, who's going to carry the boat? I never knew about that until Andrew mentioned it.

And then I searched it up. I never knew what it was. I just heard you guys say it. We'll play the original clip, but we'll try to find that too. But's basically just david goggins just he just went nuts on like an incline bench but what's even like i the internet is fucking awesome for so many different reasons but what's even like funnier about all that is i think he's got like 95 pounds on the bar not that it matters that much because i know he did like 9 000 reps or whatever but it's easy to talk and press when Not that it matters that much because I know he did like 9,000 reps or whatever.

But it's easy to talk and press when like there's not that much weight on it. It's a quick sneak dis, huh? Yeah. There's a little back. Exactly. Morning routine of a random bloke on your explore page. Every day I wake up at 4.44 exactly one minute before my alarm goes off because I like to start the day on a wish. I sleep with mouth tape to avoid accidentally eating a spider in the night. Calories I can't keep track of.

As soon as I'm up, I make a beeline for sunlight. I heard on an influencer's podcast that drinking coffee first thing in the morning is a lot like taking a jazz flute on a deer hunt. Useless. How you do anything is how you do everything, and rule one of being an AM king. Always wipe your feet at the door. To hydrate, salty water filtered through some cheese

cloth that still smells like a malbec from my parents wedding greetings winter cheerio cankles it's 2023. no longer must men compromise on comfort for fashion abc joggers the leg cuddle you didn't know you needed and exhale whenever i read i listen to a different audiobook at the same time work harder smart uno expresso mercy be coop today is a rest day so a gentle run to the gym listening Work harder, not smarter. What's up? carrying the boat there are multiple benefits of eating raw little but i can confirm it is disgusting i'm a big fan of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable so i brush my teeth with hot water before diving into a cold salty plunge it's frosty 20 degrees celsius and now for the most important outfit of the day nothing guarantees a comfortable confident day ahead more than a fabulous abc shino g-leg who play and in the office before my boss at 7 45 a.m what's your excuse yeah that is a more that's great that's incredible yo the fucking i heard this on some random podcast not no coffee that hey you must have heard it from

here hey smack the coffee away said it was useless that's what it feels like sometimes though listening to a listening to a uh a book on or listening to a podcast while he's reading a book. Yeah. That's cool. What about, I mean, because with the cold season comes the, quote, flu season, and that's the one thing that will just kind of stop me dead in my tracks. And then when it comes to, like, the people that I roll with, if somebody coughs, I'm like, oh, man, I hope this dude's not sick. Hopefully it's something else.

But I feel like everybody's in denial when it comes to that point. I think trying to build resilience, I think, can really help with your immune system. I also just think that a more robust immune system just takes a long time to build. I used to get sick here and there when I was young, but I don't get sick. I mean, it's really rare that I get sick anymore. to get sick here and there when I was young, but I don't get, I mean, it's really rare that I get sick anymore. I think it's just, you get exposed to like so many different people and so much different disgusting stuff over time that your, your body can build up a little bit of immunity

to it. But I also think it's important, like build resilience. So you think, you think the cold is something that is like causing people to get sick. But it's not necessarily the cold. There's a lot of other factors in there. But it's probably people's inability to have resilience towards the cold. It's kind of like the sun. We blame the sun for a lot of things.

But people get skin cancer because they don't have any – they don't have a callus built up of being used to the sun. The sun is really beneficial. We know that now. And same thing with the cold. I think the cold is really, to a certain extent, to a certain point, the cold is really beneficial. And I think it's something that we should build a little bit of resilience for. And each person is going to be different.

Some people, like they just hate the cold. They just get cold easier than other people and that's normal but you should build up a little bit more resilience towards uh what you think is cold not what somebody else determines is cold yeah don't always avoid it the funny thing is like i don't know i had some sniffles recently you know like i have some sniffles currently so if you guys get a little something, it was me. Sorry. Appreciate it. But I haven't touched you guys.

You're fine. Not yet today. Fuck. That was like a condescending, like, not today. Oh, my God. Let me show you this new hold. Do you want to see any? No.

Seema's never done that to me, and I'm thankful. Actually, you did do one thing to me one time. What did I do? It made me cry, so I'd rather not talk about it. That's fair. That's fair. Pat Project family, we love beef on this podcast. We talk about it a lot.

All right? We love our meat. But sometimes eating the same meat all the time can get a little bit boring. That's why we partner with Good Life Proteins, which also has certified Piedmontese on their website. But sometimes you might just want to eat some chicken or fish or duck. Duck. Who eats duck? But you can eat duck. That's why if you go to goodlifeproteins.com, you can select their Build-A-Box options and input all the proteins you want.

Then you'll select subscribe and save to save money on all of your meat. If you enter code powerproject at checkout, you can save up to 25% on your subscription. That means you're going to be saving 25% on all of that different meat that's going to be heading to your door. Once again, head to goodlifeproteins.com. You can enter code powerproject and save up to 25%. Links are in the description box below as well as the podcast show notes. But I mean, I think one thing is too, like I think when seasons change,

sometimes your sleep pattern kind of changes because it gets darker earlier. So I noticed this with myself and sometimes some other people mention it, but you might end up sleeping a little bit later. Your cycle changes. So it might be a good idea just to try to make sure that you're getting to bed at the same time because we know how that can affect how you recover and your immunity. And even what happened when I tweaked

myself is I just made sure that I ate a lot of food to help with recovery and I got to sleep super early each night, you know? And that's one thing that I think has helped me to recover faster because I was pretty diligent about those things. The extra calories is going to help me build tissue and recover. And the sleep is going to help me help my, those, uh, those areas recover well. So just if you are on top of those things too, that can help. And if you get sick, that's even a better reason to be even more on top of that, you know, not get lazy with it. Yeah. It's really interesting. So I went the opposite route. So Thursday I kind of felt like, oh, man, this is – my throat's a little scratchy.

No big deal. The end of – or like Friday I was like, shit, dude, I think I'm getting sick. Like I got to go see my mom, like stay positive, don't get sick, don't get sick. By that night I was like, fuck, I'm definitely sick. Like I could feel my throat and everything. I was sneezing. I had get sick. By that night, I was like, fuck, I'm definitely sick. Like I like I could feel my throat and everything was all sneezing. It's not like shit. So for Saturday and Sunday, I just did one meal a day. I was trying to fast for at least 24 hours. Dude, by Monday morning, I felt fantastic. I went from for sure being sick to trying to fast and not like eat and then see if that would help to like now feeling really, really good.

So I don't know if it was just like a week something that I got or if that actually helped. I don't know. I just tried it and I'm going to do it the next time I start feeling sick. But it was really cool because I thought for sure I'm like, oh, man, like training next week is going to suck. Like I'm going to be the guy coughing on the microphone or whatever it may be and i was like oh i feel pretty good and this morning like my throat's still a little like kind of like raspy i guess i'll say but i was like i think there's something here so i don't know maybe give that a shot if you start feeling a little tickle in the throat

yeah it can be difficult if you're sick to try to train especially with all the like phlegm and snot and stuff. I'm just thinking when I run, it's just gross. So much crap builds up. It kind of builds up anyway. I don't know why. It's maybe just me. But even when it's not cold out, I'm still doing the farmer blast everywhere.

It's kind of a gross habit I have. But I do think that you have to be careful like how sick you are because sometimes – like I've worked out before where I'm like, oh, man, I should not have done that. I kind of like overdid it and then you're really screwed. But if anything, I mean maybe it just speeds the process up a little bit if you work out too – quote, unquote, too hard while you're sick. Sometimes it's good just to view some of those things as just like a day off, but I would still try to get outside, try to get sunlight. Obviously, like if you're throwing up and stuff, different, like there's some times where you're like, you're just seriously like kind of bedridden for a little while. But if you can, I still think

it's important to see the sun. It's important to get your sleep. It's important to try to figure out a way to stay on track the best way you can. When it comes to getting yourself warm for workouts, it can be a huge deterrent when it's cold out. But just something to keep in mind in general is the more explosive something is and the more strength that it takes to do something, the longer the warm warmup you need. So you can kind of use that whatever way you'd like. Like if you're going and you're going to do a walk jog,

it doesn't really require a warmup. Like the warmup is walking. Just walk and jog and go back and forth. And if something kind of hurts or doesn't feel right, maybe you stretch a little bit or move around a little differently but that doesn't require much if you're going to go sprint now you might have to commit to like 20 30 minutes of warming up but again i would just warm up just the way i said i would just do a walk jog try to make sure you're you're getting close to sweating or you're you're you're sweating a little bit you worked up a little bit of a sweat it's probably a good way of doing it and then um you know when it comes to like weight training

again if you're lifting light for the day and you're doing machines doesn't really require much of a warm-up maybe there's a set where you just put the pin at like 30 pounds and then the next set you go to 60 or 70 and you feel comfortable and you can kind of start your workout but if you're supposed to do like a max effort squat for the day and you're in like a power lifting gym or a lot of times they don't have a whole lot of heat going on you got a little maybe a little space heater if you're lucky you got to really take your time you got to be really diligent there's no you're not you're just not allowed to skip the warm-up you're going you're most likely going to find yourself in a compromised position straight up not allowed to skip the warm-up. You're going – you're most likely going to find yourself in a compromised position. Straight up, just don't skip the warm-up.

Don't. Like I find like there's always this battle. Like I'll walk into the gym and I'll be like, okay, I'm going to hop on and do this. I'm just like, just go drive blood towards that area first because like I'll want to like maybe do a horse dance squat or something like that. I'll be like, just warm up the groin first because you're going to be stretching those muscles out. So drive blood to that area first. Because it only takes just like one bad rep because you're cold on one day, right? And it's just like if you just drove blood to that area and got a bit of a pump before you started,

you could have avoided all that and literally just takes one minute, right? It's always like we can be diligent on this and we should be, but it's always on those days where you're feeling the best and you're feeling super confident that like just some stupid shit happens because you didn't take that one step to ensure that you had a great workout. And that one step literally only takes you maybe 60 minutes, 60 seconds to two minutes. It's all it takes, right? So do your best because we're human and sometimes we want to hurry up and get in and get the fuck out. But that little bit will save you weeks of potential rehab because you

didn't do it. You could do assistance exercises to start your workout. And again, you would still need a warmup for those exercises, but you need less of a warmup. Again, if you're, you know, supposed to do a pretty heavy deadlift for the day, you could start out, like I suggested earlier, with something like some lat pulldowns, some rows, and then, you know, get into doing some, maybe some squats or something like that, bodyweight squats, get yourself warming up to where you're ready to do your deadlifting for the day. I've always found that that's been pretty beneficial is to kind of work out backwards, take the main event and stick the main event a little bit more towards the end of the workout. and you know try not to like totally fatigue yourself for those sets but getting in a lot of the stuff that a lot of that stuff the smaller exercises and stuff are things that you're not that pumped about sometimes after you put so much into that heavy deadlifter squat and so sometimes it's

a good idea just to get them done first and when it's cold out it's even better warms you up yeah when it is cold do you guys find that you sweat less yeah i definitely feel like i sweat a lot less um especially you know here in sacramento it gets be 100 degrees and luckily we don't have a lot of humidity here but yeah you can just sweat like crazy i feel like i go through so much hydration uh the packets that we sell i feel like i go through so much of that in the summertime. And in the wintertime, I'm not as diligent about it. But when I was young, playing football, I got really bad cramps in my calves during a game. And it was in the wintertime, it was when it was cold. And I was like, I have not drank hardly any water at all today. And my coach was

like, yeah, you guys need to, you know, pay attention to your water more now because you're not even really thinking about it because you don't think that you need water. But I definitely sweat a lot less, but it's still important to pay attention to your hydration. Yeah. It takes a lot. It takes more to get me to sweat. Once I start sweating, though, it just, it just comes thankfully, but like it takes more energy to pull a sweat out. Just why I also like, if you guys are able to, you know, there's California family fitnesses if you're in California, but a bunch of gym chains around the country do have saunas. This is the time of the year and try it against the saunas more, right? Um, it'll just, it's just

a good habit. It's inexpensive inside of a sauna to, to, to sweat. And that's like, I take advantage of saunas to stretch, to move into different ranges of motion that maybe I haven't been getting into. And like part of like helping my groin get better was getting into a sauna because it takes nothing for me to sweat since it's really hot. Then I can just start using it to move the ranges of motion. Like I see a lot of people, they go into saunas and they're just, they're sitting there and I get it.

But the use that time to really move your body, because since all your tissues are now warm, you're going to be able to really move into different ranges of motion that you might not have had access to or thought you had access to. It's a great tool if you can find one somewhere. So try to get into sauna. Greatest thing I ever purchased is called a hot tub oh fuck yeah it's the greatest thing ever a hot tub is incredible if you can figure out some access to that or if you can ever get yourself in a position where you make uh a little extra money and have money for something that you uh think that you might enjoy that you might use, you'll use it a lot. You'll use it a lot.

And for those of you that have kids and for those of you that have just, you know, you have people over the house here and there, it's just like a communal thing a little bit in a way. Like people want to kind of get in there. It's a lot of cool. It's cool. I found it to be really helpful. I don't know why it's never talked about. Like no one ever really talks about a hot tub. It's either like the sauna and you're in there and it's 400 degrees and you're suffering or you're in the cold plunge and you're freezing your ass off and you're suffering. But the hot tub is kind of this middle ground. Yes, it can be pretty hot in there, but it's like kind of like a middle ground between the two and uh just insanely relaxing and then plus like mine's uh outside at

my house and just i get to go in my backyard and i just see the stars and the moon and it's awesome i love it would you rather have a hot tub over a sauna yeah yeah sauna a sauna just like to me isn't like yeah it's just not nearly the same experience. I know a sauna has more research behind it. And it just seems like a sauna might be something that might promote health more, but a hot tub is just, it's fucking great. I mean,

you go in a hot tub, you're kind of moving kind of stiff. Your lower back might be tight or whatever. Go in a hot tub and it's gone. I mean, it's not gone, like gone, gone forever.

It's gone for the moment. It's kind of almost like drinking like a glass or two of wine. That feeling that your body has, not so much of like the, of your brain, but sort of the feeling of your body. Like your legs might be sore from training. If you had just a little bit of alcohol, I'm encouraging you all to drink alcohol. If you had a little bit of alcohol, I'm encouraging you all to drink alcohol. If you had a little bit of alcohol, it can kind of make you feel a little bit like that hot tub feel. I always want like one of those like, I don't know, like a ring around my neck to float.

So I can just pass out in the sauna. I mean in the hot tub. But obviously it would end really, really bad. Yeah, you need a pillow. I don't have like a neck pillow thing, but I do have a pillow thing for your head that floats. And I position myself, like I wedge myself into this corner and I sit there perfectly. It's amazing. Sorry, go ahead.

No, I was going to say, I know none of us really drink, but I've heard people say that, like, oh, you drink a little bit to warm up. Have you guys ever tried any of that? Oh, yeah. Really? Well, if you drink a lot, I mean if you get drunk, you can be desensitized to like the weather outside. I mean it's unfortunate, but people have died that way. Hypothermia.

Yeah, they don't fucking feel the cold because they're hammered pretty much natural selection at work dark humor not true not true okay keep on what kind of dark humor

like the kind that Segura uses or what was that Wikipedia thing the pores what was that thing you said

no yeah when we had him on the show when you were saying dark comedy or oh yeah black humor something had him on the show, when you were saying – Dark comedy or black comedy? Oh, yeah, black humor. Yeah, black humor.

Something like that on his Wikipedia or something. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, and he tried to deflect it. What did he say? Yeah, he said something. I think you've mentioned something about black humor, and he's like, yeah, this humor can be pretty dark. And then you called like bullshit on it, I think. You're like, no, no, no, there's a difference.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. But yeah, alcohol, I think alcohol does speed up no, no, no, there's a difference. Yeah, I think so. I think so. But yeah, alcohol, I think alcohol does speed up your heart rate a little bit. But yeah, whenever I drink a little bit, it gets a little warm. But you guys have never used it for like working out though, right? I said this Duffin. Yeah, with Chris Duffin, whiskey and deadlifts back in the day. Oh, that's right.

I forgot all about that. Yeah. Okay. I'm stupid. Okay. Yeah, that lowers like inhibition. I don't think I noticed anything necessarily in terms of like being more warm. But I would just imagine if you did like two shots and we sat there and we're like, let's squat.

Like we probably wouldn't warm up. I mean maybe we'd get hurt, but like the inhibition in your body would be like that would be really bad for jujitsu probably so bad so yeah hey i don't need a tap so bad i bet you can't do this to me like like just killing each other stop tapping you pussy um for those of you that want to drink uh check out – there's a video recently done by Chris Masterjohn and he talks about hormesis, the kind of benefits that you can get from drinking some alcohol. It was really interesting. controlled trials yet to support a lot of what he was saying, but there is a lot of, there appears to be like a lot of evidence that there's a bunch of,

anyway, just think about it this way. This is the easiest way to think about it. Someone that like can't have a drink. I mean, there's a category of people that abstain from it because they had previous bad history. But someone that kind of can't have a drink, they might be a little less relaxed than somebody else. And so there are some indications that people that don't mind having a drink or two seem to have a better all-cause mortality. Like they can live a little longer. And I don't necessarily think it's because of the alcohol.

I think it's probably a little bit more because of the mindset. They don't mind just letting it go a little bit. So my morning glass of wine isn't that bad. You bringing it back? No, I have been. Not every morning. Every few mornings, I'll have a glass of wine. Just one glass.

That's great. Because it won't fuck with my sleep later and because it loosens me up a little bit yeah i know it's a weird thing but i just if i have it at night my sleep is fucked i love alcohol i think it i think it can be great when used responsibly oh i want to say about the hot tub um if you guys could find a hot tub whether it's again it's at like a your local gym or just whatever if you're can find a hot tub, whether it's, again, it's at like your local gym or just whatever. If you're trying to like rehab something, it's such a good tool because gravity is no longer an option for whatever area you're trying to work, right? So again, back to the groin thing that I tweaked. That night, like I went to a pool because like during that day, I couldn't really move it much.

Went to a hot tub because it's actually connected to a sauna. And I was just able to move my leg through just the long ranges of motion while I was in the pool. And I could feel it. And then when I got out, it just felt so much better. I went into the sauna, moved it more. But if you can get into a hot tub, such an amazing tool for rehab because you can move fast. And there's no gravity. So you're not going to really be stressing the joints.

But you can really feel things out so much better. How about localized heat? Like getting like a, I don't know, sock full of rice or something and throw that in the microwave and just getting it right on your problem area. Does it have to be full on sauna? Well, I mean, that's not a bad idea if you can just make the heat last because the hot tub is great because you can sit in there for, what, 30, 40 minutes and you don't have to worry about anything. Sauna is good because you can just sit in there and focus on it. But if you don't have access to anything, you could probably – I know that they probably sell heating pads on Amazon or there's probably heating tools where you can heat the localized area. It's a great idea if you don't have other options.

I think, like you said earlier, the shower is great. don't have other options. I think, uh, like you said earlier, the shower, it's great. You know, just, I think, uh, we, uh, tend to sell like our intuition, like super short, you know, I don't know why, but like if, uh, if you've had, you know, issues with like tightness in your body, you don't feel good and you use the shower every morning to feel better. It's like, that's awesome. I think it's great. And then anytime that you, you uh want to just feel a little bit better you just go in the shower it's like we don't really need like a lot of science and research all the time to like prove these things i do think that there's sometimes there are times to use heat on things and other times there's times to use cold uh the idea that like icing something is bad i think is i think it's a

little overblown i understand like some of the science and some of the research that they have behind it um but it's it's like i don't know when my kids were little if they fell or something even though i still you know knew some of the information from kelly stirret and stuff like that uh i'd put ice on the bump that they had on their head and the bump would dwindle down. So I think some of our intuition on certain things, I think you should

trust it. I don't drink anything hot really, but I know in the summertime ice with my protein shake and coffee is incredible. When I get cold, it's like, oh, shit. So I don't know if you guys do any kind of like warm drinks before you work out to try to warm up.

When Andre Milanochev was here, he just couldn't understand why we put ice in everything. And then through his girlfriend, I had to basically explain, well, it's like hot here. It's like not – our country isn't cold. All the time. But yeah, he just – I guess in Russia – Why make cold drink where you put drink outside? Yeah, right. Well, he's like the drink is already – he had a good point.

The drink is already cold and then you're putting more ice in there. It's like Americans love ice. Yeah. I think it's in paris right like they get weird at you for if you ask for more ice or something like that i heard because like they barely put any ice in your drinks that's what i've heard i've never been anywhere but yeah probably yeah probably i would yeah wouldn't surprise me but in russia i think they also believe um they believe the cold air can actually like stiffen your body and so – and or make you sick. Wait, they do?

Well, it's like a – it's like a wives' tale or something like that. I don't think it's like any sort of like factual thing. I think they just – it's a thing in Russia like – well, again, it's fucking freezing there. If you leave your window open at night, you're going to wake up with a really bad sore neck or back. Because your room will be full of snow. Yeah. And they're probably not wrong. Or you might not wake up.

Yeah. It's a little different out there. Yeah, you're an icicle. But yeah, I remember he just thought that was so odd. He's like, what the hell? And they think the cold water with the ice can make you like sick too. I remember the end of The Shining.

I don't remember that movie. I haven't seen that in so long. I just know like the part where the kid loses the guy in the fort, like the little maze and then yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, and the morning comes and he's frozen. Oh! Okay, alright. that just came to mind yeah he's like he he dies out and

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That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash PowerProject. And you guys receive 20% automatically when you go to that. Links down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Drinking hot stuff, I I think can be great. Like drinking a tea or a coffee. Last night I made a hot chocolate. I have some Bubz. They have a Halo Creamer.

I used – oh, shit. That's a good one. I've seen that. Preached me out as a kid. Now I remember that. I used Bubz Halo Creamer and some chocolate hydration. Halo Creamer. And gave it a little blend.

The Halo Creamer is kind of similar to their MCT oil powder. It just has like something else in it. But, dude, that tasted incredible. I drank one and I was like, oh, that was really good. So I drank another one. Yeah. incredible. I drank one and I was like, oh, that was really good. So I drank another one. Yeah. The other day, so my 15-year-old, she had a hot steak shake. Well, steak shake. It was mixed with a little bit of like instant hot chocolate, but she had no idea that it was

like, you know, whatever, like the 30 grams of protein. And she just thought it was delicious. She didn't care at all. Oh, that's great. As somebody who, you know, is like, if I say like, hey, this is good for you, she's like, what's the catch? It's going to taste weird. Kids are great with that. Is that keto? That's what my kids always say. Is this keto? Some keto bullshit you're trying to push on me?

Yeah. So no, I was stoked because she drank the whole thing before she even walked out of the door. We're going to try to have these for you guys soon. We're trying to contact you because it says Power Project on it. But this Rambler, I don't know what it's called, but it's their thing. Tumbler or something? Tumbler, yeah. I have tea in this every single day, but literally it stays hot all day.

It's pretty wild how piping fucking hot it is four or five hours later if I just close it, right? So one of those things where you want to have a hot drink around, get yourself one of those. What do you guys do about a lot of family gatherings and parties and travel?

Do you guys have to do much of that? Do you have to pop around to different places around the holidays? Or how does it work for you guys? It's where I feel happy that I have a girlfriend that goes to sleep at seven to 30 because like, I think it was Thanksgiving. Right. And it was taking place in my aunt's house. I love my family. Don't get me wrong, but I also go to sleep kind of early.

So I give him a call early. I'm like, you know, guys, we, we sleep early, you know, so we're going to get there early. We got there like four and then we left at like seven it's like we got to go home and go to sleep because truly we have to go home and go to sleep but uh you know some people don't get it but like i think that if you're doing stuff to take care of yourself and your family like people around you aren't getting it, it's okay. It's like it's not your responsibility to negatively impact your health so that other people can be happy. Like we're still spending time with them.

You're still able to converse and do all the things that you need to do. And then, you know, you go do what you got to do. Yeah, I think like what are you really doing? Like is it that meaningful? Of course it's meaningful to gather. It's meaningful to have family. It's meaningful to have community. But then like really what's going on with that time and how much time is like – how much time is like way too much time to spend with people that you kind of only see here and there anyway.

You only see them like once a year, maybe twice a year. And I don't know, it's just interesting. Like you just kind of like, oh, we're all just like gathered around the TV watching like a football game or you're not really doing it. You're not really engaging and doing a whole lot. And then a lot is centered around food. You know, it's like eating is like this giant distraction. So we don't actually have to talk to each other. Like imagine if you just invited everybody over for Christmas and you said, yeah.

And there's like, yeah, you just sit down and you just say, we're going to open up presents at the end. But we're going to sit here for three hours and just, hey, why doesn't everybody try to talk to each other? It'd be like the most awkward thing ever. Like, I'm out of here. I could just see a lot of my uncles just like falling asleep. Yeah, exactly. ever be like i'm out of here i could just see a lot of my uncles just like falling asleep yeah exactly yeah uh yeah this year uh for thanksgiving was the first year since like before lockdown and stuff where we were like jumping house to house to house um i for me personally i just i i made it a point to say like all right when i see this one item i'm gonna just say fuck it and i'm gonna

have that and it's my sister-in-law's peanut butter balls those are just homemade peanut butter cups they're so damn good and it's like well those are like my favorite thing ever i'm gonna go ahead and eat that those are amazing i've had them dude they're so good but um no like i try to like yeah most of the people in my family know like oh like he's not gonna well everybody knows for sure i'm not gonna. Like so the offers don't really come around anymore. And then when it comes to like, oh, do you want a piece of pie or do you want this or that? And when I say no, it's usually – now it's not met with as much resistance whereas before it definitely was. And I just try not to go into those situations hungry. Now let's say like I'm hungry and it's around i

will just try to load up on more of the foods that i know aren't going to really mess with me so i i do that and then the urge to uh reach for something else kind of starts to dwindle away yeah here's something that okay i'm just curious do you guys uh notice you eat differently at gatherings now i've noticed that about myself. But I think I can't speak. Has that changed for you over the years? It's changed a lot. It's changed a lot. I don't care that much about – like I don't care about pie and cake and stuff.

I still – like if I was going to eat it, I would still really, really enjoy it. And that's actually a little bit of uh of the problem is like it just it just takes my brain and fucking like just rockets it right to the moon and i'm like i just i want more of it so i'm like why did i even why did i even engage in this because like i'm not satisfied like i ate i ate this amount and now i want to eat that amount and when i'm done with that amount i want to eat this you know And when I'm done with that amount, I want to eat this. You know, it's just never ending. Do you know the funny thing about that? It's like because you look at the food and you're like, that's so good.

The thing is, is like you know you're going to have five. But if you just took the time to enjoy one or two, like you actually took the time and chewed it and enjoyed it. But after you've eaten one. You're already thinking about the third one you're exactly you're now thinking of like okay let me oh this this next one's good and then you have another one to try to recreate what you had when you ate the first one and then by the time you're on the fifth one you're now regretful that you've now eaten five and you feel bad and you also feel kind of full and un like uncomfortably full whereas if you were just present with the first two and you just took your time with them you might have not had five you can't like recreate that even like first or second bite you know no it's like it's so good and then it's a weird thing

it really is a weird thing because it's like just a little moment of pleasure but the weird thing is is i've heard other people talk about this before is it it actually does work like it's giving you the the positive the positive impact of eating junk food is through the fucking roof which is shocking because you're like thinking, oh, it's all negative. Like it's all these negative health outcomes. But the negative health outcomes don't come till later. What's going on on the first couple bites is just amazing. Like I'm thinking right now of cookie dough.

It's like my favorite thing ever. Just that like crunchiness of the cookie dough and like how you get like little tiny crunchy things. Little crystals. Yeah, little crystals to chew on. It's like – it's amazing and it's like you want to get like another one of those, another one of those. Chase that. Yeah, you chase it.

You can't seem to stop. And I do think it's like pinging your dopamine and serotonin and all that shit is going bonkers just like a drug probably. But then your blood sugar shoots to the roof and your insulin shoots to the roof and then who the hell knows what happens. You probably overrate your calories for the day and for the week. And then also a lot of times it can just,

you just don't feel great. Yeah, it's the law of diminishing returns, right? That first one's incredible. Like I want that again. That wasn't as good as the first one. So let me try a third one. Oh shit, I've had three. I might as well have four. Um, but one thing I've noticed that like, uh, because it is an event, uh, there's like, Oh, I'm going to make this whatever for Thanksgiving for Christmas. And then I'm going to have this with that too.

And so-and-so is going to bring X, Y this one night this is it this is the night this is the one big night that we're all going to do this so there's a little bit of a scarcity factor because it's like wait this is the one holiday that we're all going to eat all this food like oh my gosh like yeah i have to indulge like it's okay or not indulge i have to participate i have to enjoy some of this right i gotta live but the very next day all that food is probably still there and then if you just happen to eat this way you're gonna eat this weekend next week so you don't have to put all this like emphasis and pressure to oh but it's thanksgiving it's christmas i need to enjoy this food because it's for this one night.

But it's like, no, like this food is available every freaking day. Like you can go to the grocery store and have like an amazing like homemade tasting cookie. Like it's everywhere. So I think a lot of people get lost in the fact of like, oh, no, this is the one event that I'm going to eat all this food. And then they kind of go nuts. But it's like, I don't know, it's kind of always available. You don't have to worry about it just for this one night. Yeah, it is a really important point too that we point out like you can eat these foods.

We're just kind of sharing our experience with like the decisions that we make now are different. I would say like if I was to eat a small amount of junk food, it would have like zero impact on the way that I felt. Like I'm not sensitive to food in that way. I could even eat like a lot of pizza and it just wouldn't – my stomach might be a little upset for that night. It might fart a little bit here and there. A little drip, drip. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe a little extra like wipe or two when I take a dump. But like in terms of like running or in terms of like lifting or something, nothing will be like really that I can notice is negatively impact. And my joints and stuff don't hurt. Sometimes you'll hear people talk about it that way. I've never noticed that. I've never really experienced that. But you can eat these foods. It's just a matter of can you control it and is it really worth it? Like is it something that you

really enjoy? If it's something you really enjoy and you really look forward to it and you're able to show some sort of control with it, I think go for it. I don't think there's anything, there's nothing wrong with that. It's actually probably very healthy that you let your guard down and that you, uh, you do that occasionally. And if you're somebody that tracks calories, I'm sure that there's a way you can probably figure out a way, uh, for it to fit in and for it to make sense into your, uh, particular diet. But right now where I'm at, even just even drinking, I I'm just like I don't – it just doesn't – if it's going to enhance a moment, which is usually just me and my wife hanging out because just – which it's a weird thing. But it's like easier for me to engage in like real conversation with her with just a small amount of alcohol. You need alcohol to talk to your wife.

I know. Isn't that wild? Yeah, otherwise. Yeah, otherwise we can't say nothing handle yeah no just uh again it kind of enhances like particular moments and it's not often and so i think it has utility there but like otherwise it's just it's not something i ever got that into and i'm I'm fortunate. And the thing that I have for food, I love to eat food, and I love to eat more food when I clearly don't need any more food. But I don't do that with alcohol. I know a lot of people do. A lot of people have like a drink or two, and then there they are, five, six, seven drinks.

And they're there with another drink in their hand, and you're like, man, that's the last thing that person needs right now. They're not doing so good. But luckily for me, I don't, I don't have that, but we're all different. So you have to kind of really, when you go to these gatherings and these parties, you shouldn't have to have a lot of anxiety over any of this, but just kind of know who you are. Like, like, where do you sit with all this? Is it going to be easy for you to have a little bit of cake or have a little bit of celebration with some people and eat some of those foods? Or is your version of celebration different? That's the way I'm looking at stuff now. The way that I like to celebrate and the way I like to do things is just different than it used to be.

I don't need to celebrate with junk food. I actually would be happier to celebrate with stuff that I feel is healthy. I've noticed the same thing for myself. I'd always be the one who would like eat the most at every single event. And that's actually – that's changed. I'm surprised. But I think the biggest thing that's changed for me is like just being more present with the food that I'm currently eating. Slowing down because I can eat very fast. And because I can eat very fast,

that means that by the time I'm done with one bowl, you've only finished a third of yours and I'm already at my second plate and I'm enjoying my second plate once you finished your first bowl. And then I'm at my third plate. So like, that's what I have the ability to do. But if I just slowing down and being present with the food, like not, you know, not paying attention to anything, but being present and enjoying that's allowed me to slow down and not feel the need because it wasn't that i was just getting more plates to be selfish i was just like i'm hungry and i'm big right but being present with it slows you the fuck down and you can actually be like i'm good after one plate i love the idea of like that we need it for like the exercise we're going to do the next day.

You know what I mean? Because like really how much do you need? You know, like what do you need in addition? Like if you're going to like – if you're going to put out a really tough workout the next day, you're going to go do jujitsu and you're going to go and lift. It's like probably you might quote- need you know an extra 300 calories or something probably or 500 calories you know probably be like plenty sufficient but the way that we look at it when we have seconds and thirds and so on it's like you probably ate like an

additional 1800 calories yeah what is the one thing that you guys would like like especially over eat on pussy at family well that's true it doesn't matter i was gonna say at family dinner yes why has the bathroom been locked for the past hour meat like truly meat like in that not even a joke like i would i would gladly just like over eat on meat because he can't go wrong. Like I can't go wrong. Yeah, but like in the past though, like when you would go like overboard. There's something called jollof rice that you guys don't know about. Jllof rice is this – there's like different countries in Africa have their own jollof. In Nigeria, jollof rice is obviously the best.

So jollof rice, I could have five fucking plates of jollof rice. That's meat. It's so good. But it's, yeah, yeah. And it's just like straight carbs, fried rice with a little bit of meat in it. It's, it's amazing. So yeah, I could go crazy with that. That sounds amazing. It is.

I like sweets a lot. So I'd probably, or, you know, I do like, um, I love like bread and shit. So like when I was a kid, you know, I would just like I love like bread and shit. Yes, that's what I was going to say. When I was a kid, you know, I would just like, just such a fat kid style, just pile on butter on like those little dinner rolls, you know? Yes, dude, that's exactly what I was going to say. I didn't even need like, fuck eating a meal, you know? You're going to try to give me turkey after this? Yeah, fuck off.

Are you kidding me? I'll take a slice of ham though. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe stick the ham on the buttered thing and maybe get a little stuffing on there too, make a little sandwich. Stuffing and then gravy. Dude, April used to – well, she still does. She'll fry – she just hasn't done it in a little while. She'll fry like a leftover turkey sandwich.

And it's like the most ridiculous thing ever. It's like, it's just like a regular turkey sandwich. You know, you have like a little dinner roll and then you have butter on there and you throw some turkey on there or ham and like some stuffing, maybe like a mashed potato. And you just like fry the whole thing. And it's fucking unbelievable.

Yeah. I was going to say like the fresh baked, fresh baked like i mean they're not like super fresh they're like store-bought but you pull them out of the oven and it's those dinner rolls yeah i would fucking go nuts what is this i sent that to you because it's this uh nigerians call it puff puff congolese call it quinta bolas like yeah we do uh i do just do do mexicans oh yeah you just mexicans have something it's literally like fried dough with sugar and um some people put other stuff in it but like those bro oh my god i'd eat like 30 or 40 of them and the next day i'd be destroyed but like they're so good you know that's called in france what are they called a A beignet. A beignet? A beignet. Really? Yeah, or in Louisiana. Oh, God.

Okay. Those are at every African gathering. I remember. They're warm and soft. It looks delicious. What do you dip it in usually? No, you just eat it, bro. Oh.

You can dip it in stuff, but I've never dipped it in anything. Wasting much time. When I was in, we're in New Orleans and we went to like some place that's – I fucking forgot what the hell that place is called. People are roasting me right now. They're like, how can you not remember the name of it? But it's some famous place and you basically just get these beignets and I didn't know what they were. And so I got one. I'm like, oh, this is – in Poughkeepsie. This is called fried dough.

It's basically like a fucking donut. Why didn't somebody tell me? They're like, no, it's a beignet. You said this was New Orleans? Yeah, I'm trying to Google search. Bakery bar, Café Beignet, Café Du Monde. There you go. That's it.

Café Du Monde. Café Du Monde. Glad you found out. I wouldn't have been able to pronounce it. Who knows if that's how you say it, bro. There's just a fucking ton of people there all the time. Powerbox Family on the podcast, we talk all the time about feeling good, good habits to make sure that your health is in check. And one of the things that's super important is getting your blood work done because you could be getting great sleep. You could be having great nutrition.

But under the hood, there could be things going on that you don't realize. So it's always good to get your blood work checked so you can totally could be things going on that you don't realize. So it's always good to get your blood work checked so you can totally understand what's going on. Now, the thing is also when you get your blood work checked, there's so many different things in so many different numbers that it's hard to tell what's good, what's bad, and how do I optimize things. And that's where Merrick Health comes in because they have patient care coordinators on staff that can help you interpret your blood work and then give you the necessary recommendations as far as supplementation, nutrition, and if you need it, hormone optimization that'll start moving you in the right direction. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it?

Yes, that's over at merrickhealth.com slash powerproject. That's M-A-R-R-E-K health.com slash powerproject. At checkout, enter promo code powerproject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the PowerProject checkup panel, or any individual lab you select. Again, that's at merrickhealth.com slash powerproject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I gained like 15 pounds in New Orleans, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That's cool. 250 to 265 or some shit? Well, it was a long time ago. Oh, so like 300 to 350, it was a long time ago. Oh, so like 300 to 350? It was a longer time ago. Yeah, I went from like 220 to like 235 or something like that. That's dope. Yeah, it was like, I don't know if it was like honeymoon-ish time or somewhere around there.

What do you guys think? time or somewhere around there. What do you guys think? Because I've had actually multiple conversations with friends where it's like literally the next few months from Thanksgiving to Christmas, it's like there's just this expectation of I'm going to get out of shape. And the thing is, is like you should be able to enjoy the food at these things. We're not telling you that you can't eat any of it. You should be able to enjoy it, but you should be able to enjoy the food at these things no we're not telling you that you can't eat any of it you should be able to enjoy it but you should be able to enjoy it without going overboard because again

like there's i was having i was having a conversation with a friend from jujitsu and he was like yeah you know i've been gaining this weight and i every single time it's like january comes around and then i i get back in shape by the time March comes around. And I'm just like, whoa, you're telling me this right now, super aware of what's about to happen, which means that if you are aware of it, you can just make the decisions not to let it happen. Yeah, I think there's some easy ways. I mean, if you're just thinking from an energy perspective, you know, number one, I think it's the most important thing for people to stay connected to some form of exercise. I've heard Andrew Huberman say he likes to just pick one tough thing to do every day. He doesn't pick more than that. He just picks one.

And it's usually like either lifting or going on a run. You can pick whatever thing that you want to be challenging for you. I think that is probably easier for most people to stick to, whereas the diet seems to be difficult for a lot of people to really adhere to, to get the right protein in and all that stuff. But if you're just thinking about it from like an energy perspective, why not have, you know, maybe, you know, Christmas is coming up. And so on the 20th, you just have a day where you don't eat as much calories. You just don't eat as much food.

And maybe the next day you do the same thing. And maybe you kind of like almost save up for it and then you eat whatever the hell you want on that day, on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, whenever it is that your family gets together. And you can do that before the event or you can do it after the event or you can do it the day of the event. We've talked about fasting into stuff. You can fast into things. So Christmas Day, you know that you're going to eat whatever with family members at 3 o'clock or something.

Fast until 3, eat the stuff that you want maybe uh cut off have a certain cut off time seven eight p.m something like that and then fast your way back out of it it's just it's really just a mathematical equation when we're talking about um when we're talking about like one day or one event it's it's not going to matter that much. But to mitigate the damage, you have to try to figure out some way of doing that. I think that's probably the easiest way. And you don't have to – I don't think you have to obsess over it. I don't think you have to make yourself crazy over it. But I think another thing you can do when you go to these events and when you go to these family gatherings without being a pain in the ass, you can get in conversation with people about some of the stuff.

You can get in conversation with people about 10-minute walks and red light therapy or sunlight if they're asking questions. If there's somebody that's – you don't want to just go around and start trying to communicate with everybody on stuff that they don't want to fucking hear from you about. You don't want to be the fitness freak in the bunch. But if someone does start to bring it up, and I think you can just help build awareness, and then maybe the next Thanksgiving and maybe the next Christmas, people just don't bring as much junk food. That's what's happened to my family. There's still stuff that's, like, family. There's still stuff that's amazing.

There's still stuff that's delicious. There's still stuff that's not healthy. But the healthier options are like it's like 50-50. So you could customize your food at these gatherings that we have whatever way you'd like. If you want to get the mashed potatoes, you want to dump the gravy on it, and you want to have stuffing and bread and, like, all that's still there. But there's also a lot of turkey. There's a lot of steak.

There's a lot of vegetables. Like, there's a lot of other options. And one thing to realize is, like, if Shirley comes up to you at the christmas party while you're you know not eating something she's like oh are you uh you want to die are you trying to eat healthier just say hey shirley you look like you should be on a diet too that's all you got to say i mean if we're being honest you've got a good 50 to 100 pounds to lose maybe you should join with me be inviting right surely you should go on this walk with me but but in all seriousness because

like again this this always does happen like i still get it at certain whatever you know some people are you still bodybuilding whatever i'm gonna kill you but but the thing is is like you know don't i guess don't don't don't worry too much about it like i know some people do get annoyed at other people's input on, on like your nutritional protocol or what you're choosing to do. But you know, you could use that as a opportunity to tell them what you're trying to do. Maybe they'll respect it. Maybe they'll ask you more questions about it. Or you can roast them since they're their family. Sometimes you can just roast the fuck out of family and they won't give a fuck or they actually will, but then

they'll laugh uncomfortably at the joke you just made about their weight and how they should probably lose it yeah you see them once or twice a year anyways so burn them give them a quick burn yeah take that back to missouri and some of the uh some of the get-togethers that we have we sometimes will have kind of a lot of people and uh it kind of depends on what uh if it's christmas or thanksgiving but normally for thanksgiving we always do something together we do some sort of like exercise together oh wow some sort of movement sometimes it's just a walk uh this year it was just a walk um but we just we walked up to this summit we were in tahoe and we walked this trail probably takes like 10 minutes um and it's it's not easy you know but everyone everyone did it and everybody when they got to the top they were super pumped uh after you know six seven minutes in everyone's like

how far are we going here you know because it is quite a climb and it is at like 8 000 feet so the air is thin and a couple people even had to like rest and stuff and i just said you know we're we'll just take our time like we're not in any sort of rush i'm trying to break some sort of record um if anybody like feels really horrible i mean just turn around it's like not a big deal but let's all just like give it a go go. And everyone got up there and everyone, we took some pictures and it was awesome. And, uh, we've been doing that for the last, uh, maybe five or six years. We've, uh, done stuff before where we would like, uh, I've, I've brought sleds to some of these things and we'll drag a sled or we, uh, go to a beach and do some different exercises depending on like if it's windy or not.

Might just throw around a football. It doesn't always have to be some total workout thing. But it kind of just depends on who we're having Thanksgiving with or Christmas with or something like that in terms of exactly what we're going to do. Like the more fitness-y some of the people are, the more likely we are to actually do like a real workout. Yeah. How do you like present that though? Like you just like stop everybody and be like, hey guys, we're all going or like, yeah.

Like how do you get everybody up and moving? Yeah. I think, you know, at this point, people kind of know about it. But in the beginning, I would just tell people so i would say hey i'm gonna go i'm gonna go and work out like if anybody wants to work out with me i can design a workout so that we can all do it together otherwise i'm just gonna kind of like do my own thing my own way and uh in bodega i have like uh some of those grip bells and i got a weighted vest and stuff like that so i can can just kind of, you know, throw together a workout.

Usually everybody's like pretty cool about it. Usually they want to try it or they want to do it or at least do some version of it. Some of the people that don't really want to do it, they'll still like watch, which is cool because then they're getting outside and then we'll all go on a walk afterwards. So at least there's like, you know, there's some activity. There's some participation even for people that aren't necessarily doing it. But everyone there is in total agreement.

Like this makes a ton of sense. Like we're all about to eat the fuck out of this food that we're cooking and we know how pumped and excited we are this time of year to get together and to eat this food. So let's all like get a little exercise in before we start. Yeah. And I know like, especially like in my family, everybody wants to help out, you know, everybody's doing something, but like, if I can make the excuse of going outside with my nephews to throw the ball around, uh, I'll definitely take it because I'm hungry just like

everybody else. I'm going to want to pick at foods here and there just like everybody else. But if I keep my mind busy on other things, then I can stay away from some of that, like the little slip ups. Now with my son, he takes all my attention so I don't get to go outside right now. But even with that, that's a huge help. So just getting outside so you can get your mind off of all the damn food for a second. Really nice. No, that's a great move because there's all that food like there's a lot of times there's food out when you first get there right there's chips or whatever i mean i i don't know how you guys treat any of

that stuff but i just i see it i know like my previous self really liked it, but I just don't give a fuck about it anymore. I'm not going to eat a bunch of chips, especially before we're going to have an awesome dinner. It actually doesn't make any sense. I'm going to add a bunch of calories that are kind of useless to food that I'm going to really enjoy. All I've got to do is wait. I know for some people that's really difficult but how do you guys treat that how do you guys treat those kind of snacky foods that are put out yeah i guess how i just like explained it but yeah i try to i try to stay away and then it actually like i get a little bit upset and like

i guess yeah like pissed off when i like if i see like one of the younger members of the family getting some of those chips or something because i'm just like man like like like that chips are so much better than that bullshit turkey like you know you wouldn't have a a spoonful of sugar right before you have a a spoonful of ice cream right you know like you'd be like oh wow that sugar was really good and this ice cream is flavorless right it's this almost the same thing so yeah no i like sometimes want to to flip the fucking chips over. But yeah, I just try to blow right past it. My son's not going to indulge in that stuff. And my daughter has a pretty good grasp on understanding. Like, if I eat that now, I'm not going to be hungry later. At least in that moment, she gets it right. So, yeah, we just try to stay away all right roger family it's time to step up your barefoot shoe game now we talk about foot health all the time on the podcast but the winter months are coming and vivo's come out with some slick boots these are their gobi boots and they have different colors on their website now these have a wide toe box they are flat and they are flexible and they are stylish and sexy as boots. But obviously, Vivo is awesome because they not only have boots and casual shoes like their Novus right here,

which again, wide, flat, flexible, so that your foot can do what it needs to do within the shoe, and you're getting the benefit of having your feet improve while you're walking around in shoes, but they also have shoes for the gym, like their Motus. Again, flat, flexible, wide wide toe box along with their primus light threes and all the classics that you know they also have shoes for running and running on their website so again for all barefoot type shoes vivo is your one-stop shop for pretty much all the types of kicks you need andrew how can they get it yes that's over at vivo barefoot.com slash power project or for the entire month of December, but December only,

you guys will receive 20% off your very own Vivo Barefoot shoes. Again, vivobarefoot.com slash powerproject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I don't even trip about my young cousins anymore because they're all in sports.

Nice. So it's like, I think... Nothing to worry about. Yeah, it's nothing to worry about because the family does have stuff like that every now and then. But kids are active. So since the kids are active, they're all like, again, culturally it's different.

But they're not eaten to get that big because we're all going to call them out. And the parents of these young kids will call them out too. It's like within the culture. But you guys got any, you guys getting some glizzies for this Thanksgiving? What's that? The Piedmontese glizzies. Ooh. Some of the hot dogs?

Hot dogs. All beef hot dogs? Yeah. I just went on their website right now because I think I'm going to order some. And I see that these motherfuckers are on sale. Christmas hot dogs? Yeah. Dude, yeah, they're hella good. I love them'm going to order some. And I see that these motherfuckers are on sale. Christmas hot dogs? Dude, yeah, they're hella good. Tis the season. I love those hot dogs.

They're amazing. If you guys, I don't know when this episode comes out. It might still be, but obviously we have a code. But if you go to Piedmontese right now, there's a bunch of stuff that's like 25% off. Oh, I'm cooking up some Piedmontese for Christmas. Filets. Tons of filets. Sick. I'm really pumped for that. Filets, tons of filets. Sick.

I'm really pumped for that. And then recently I got reconnected with the ribeye cap. We're back. Your old friend. Yeah, you know how like you go through cycles of like trying different ones? And then you go back to the classics. Yeah, sometimes you guys mention one and I'm like, oh, I got to get those. Yeah, the skirt steak right now is hot in the charts right now.

It's topping. You want to write up the skirt? Yeah. Oh, write up them skirts. Skeet skirt. Yeah, that shit's so good. And you get a lot for it too. You get a lot of meat. That thing just kind of unfolds and it keeps going.

Yeah. I just asked to see if I can get some ribeye caps in my next Piedmontese order. Yeah, do you guys like the, this is a legit question, the thicker Piedmontese hot dogs or the thinner ones? Thickies. Yeah, the girthy ones. Yeah, the thinner ones are actually like the ones I think they sell at the grocery store for some reason. They have different stuff at the grocery store.

Have you guys ever seen that before? They have like, yeah, they got like specialty stuff over there. Yeah. I remember it was that nugget I seen for the first time. That was a Piedmontese picanha. Or I think that's picanha. I don't know how to pronounce that. Picanha.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't ever know. And then now I see it on the website. But yeah. Anyway, don't let your fat family fucking influence you. Seriously. Do your best.

Do your best during the holidays and enjoy the holidays whatever way you can. But I think it's good for people to understand that over a period of time, you're going to become more resilient to kind of falling into like the pitfalls of some of this stuff. There really isn't much of a problem at all with eating whatever the hell you want at a party yeah there's nothing wrong with taking a day off a couple days off of training the problem is sometimes the aftermath and the problem is sometimes like the next day and the day after andrew pointed it out there's leftovers you know are you going to actually throw away all the cookies and chocolate or and like, what are you going to do with it? Like, do you give it away?

I don't know. Giving it away. Is that great? Like you're giving it to other family members like here, here's a plate of diabetes for you. Like, do you really want to do that? Or you just, you know, chuck it out and you don't want to throw away food but it's kind of just junk at that point i take i take stuff like the next day and i just throw shit out everyone's like hey where'd that go i'm like i don't know oh yeah that does hurt when you're looking forward oh i chuck shit out you know dude i love how like fucking um

straightforward my family is because at thanks, right, I brought these sweets from like a Russian European market, right? So they were good. They were like these, I think they're called bird milk cakes, right? So my aunt had one. My mom had one. This other lady had one. They're like, oh, this is so good. My uncle with diabetes asks, oh, can I try a bite?

My aunt is like, what do you need to try a bite for you have diabetes like you know what it's sugar tastes like you don't need it and my mom's like what do you need to try a bite of this for huh we're not gonna give you a bite everybody just started fucking roasting this man he's trying to be slick about it like it's good it's okay for me right like what the he quietly just turned and kept watching tv as these women were roasting the fuck out of him for having diabetes oh man that's how you know family cares bro like they call they call you out of your shit man they care they care that's rough that is tough there there. You guys have any family traditions, anything cool?

We don't have a lot going on in terms of that. I guess we do like always for Thanksgiving, we always like – we're always somewhere. We're either like in Tahoe or Bodega, and that's kind of fun. But yeah. No, none that I can think of. None that are like worth a damn. Like nothing that's like actual tradition is the shit that like is kind of always there like yeah the football game is always going

to be on at thanksgiving um man i feel bad if i'm forgetting anything but no i can't think of anything about gifts you do like white elephant and i kind of oh yeah yeah yeah stuff like that yeah on my wife's side we do like a a little bit of like a silly white elephant where it's like it could look like something and it's like a gag but then it's like oh wait under that is like an actual gift and it's always like everybody gets a kick out of it uh sometimes it'll be like sex toys with like a gift card to like amazon or something like that you said sex toys yeah Amazon yeah so it's like okay so the person that opens it right they have to open this thing and they're like beet red right because like oh my god because they know what it is and everyone's like, hey, you have to show what you got in case someone else wants to take it from you.

And they pull out a vibrator or something and it's like, oh my gosh, and everyone goes crazy. Yeah, I guess that's a good one there. One of our traditions is usually like on my birthday or close to my birthday, we get a Christmas tree. And then we unpack all the crap that we put on the Christmas tree. And every year, it's just hilarious pulling out different ornaments and stuff. Because we have regular Christmas ornaments, but we also just have weird stuff. Stuff the kids made and all these different kinds of things. I actually have

to take a picture of this thing though for you guys uh i think april baked some ornaments with my kids like they're kind of like these cookie ornament things that she uh baked with them years ago and jake made a candy cane the only problem is it didn't doesn't look like a candy cane. The only problem is it doesn't look like a candy cane. It flat out and completely 100% looks like a cock and balls. And it's just random little cock and balls on the freaking Christmas tree every year. That's so good. Says Jake Bell on the back. That's amazing. The word cock. Yeah, right? That's so good. Says Jake Bell on the back. That's amazing.

The word cock. Yeah, right? It's so aggressive. Yeah, it's got some oomph behind it. Really? Yeah. Really? It's like when you think of like all the ways to say it, it's just like cock.

We should have a cock episode. You can't say it quietly. You can't. No, like even if you try to whisper it, it's still cock. What do you like to call it uh I don't know do you like to use the word dick

do you like to say yeah dick or my uh wee wee no my junk maybe junk

yeah you like to call it junk yeah I don't know where I got that from but it's like the you know one man's junk is another man's

treasure yeah something like that I remember my nephew uh he said oh hit me right in my batteries batteries is actually nice and positive it was so funny though if you think about that batteries are used to charge something up junk is waste yeah no i'm not no argument there yeah you can use batteries to make stuff. Mine's no longer a weapon. There's also, it's kind of disturbing, but in our ornaments,

it's like a picture of one of Quinn's friends. We don't know how it got there, but it's random to have some other child, and we always put it on our tree. That's amazing. Always, every year. Yeah, we always put it on our tree. Do you know this friend's name or she's i can't yeah i can't even really remember it's just some little girl that she was friends with when you know they were little kids or whatever and i'm like who every year i'm like

who and i'm like oh yeah it's the mystery yeah we put up we put our tree up and um if it's not a dog it's now my son that's like fucking with it so he just gets the ornaments he thinks they're balls that he can throw so like as high as he can reach like there's just like nothing left and they're just kind of everywhere because you know i'm like we're gonna just randomly find ornaments like throughout the year now because he just grabs them and throws them kids got an arm though do you mess with a tree in sema my tree's up year round seriously like it's like they're all the time it's a decorate like it's like You just have it there all the time? It's a decoration. We literally have it in the living room

by the TV. That's great. We put it up, and we were like, when Christmas ended, we were like, it's so nice. It looks nice. So we keep it up all year long. We never take it down. Mark, do you do a real tree? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I think it's a dumb

tradition, though. Taking a tree from outside and putting it in your house is kind of stupid. Ours is a large, fake, pink tree. Yeah, I don't remember when we switched over. I mean, it's fun, but it's weird. Yeah. I remember as a kid always going, like, basically Black Friday and going and getting a tree. Yeah. And then, I don't know, I think we got an apartment.

So it was like, yeah yeah we can't get a real tree so we had this you know switched over to the fake you gotta get a real tree now because you're because you're a little boy yeah but his hands will be all full of sap maybe next year next year because he does dig it like if we go to costco we can't we can't go by like the christmas aisle without him freaking out because he wants to go look at all the lights so yeah maybe hopefully next year it'll be a little bit more under control yeah he'll be all look at all the lights so yeah maybe hopefully next year it'll be a little bit more under control yeah he'll be all pumped about all that shit yeah all that bullshit all that bullshit all right guys i think that's it i think so buy yourself a fucking hot tub

and a tree strength is never weak this week this never strength catch you guys later bye