Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1090: Laurie King

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin talk with Laurie King, blogger, nutrition coach and soon to be podcaster. The MASSIVE responsibility of being a parent, how your words become a child's inner voice, the coddling of the human mind & MORE. (3:48) What drove her into fitness? (13:37) How CrossFit was a natural replacement for her addictive personality. (16:00) Her journey coming off hormonal birth control and what came from it. (19:21) Her coaching style and why she may not be everyone’s cup of tea. (29:25) The importance of finding the RIGHT doctor for you. (35:00) What are some common signs that you may be doing too much? (37:49) Her take on supplementing with bioidentical hormones to make yourself feel better? (40:19) Practices she implements to reduce stress. (42:54) What percentage of her clientele does CrossFit? Why most of us aren’t doing what we SHOULD be doing. (46:44) How putting her body in a ‘dumpster bucket’ has made her a better coach. (53:27) The important conversation of naturally balancing your hormones vs. going the medical route to achieve your best quality of life. (1:00:40) Why women and men should NOT eat and train the same. (1:13:57) What are some strategies and techniques to modify ‘unhealthy’ behaviors? (1:22:30) The concept of acceptance. (1:30:57) How everything is interconnected and education always wins. (1:39:50) Understanding when to leave things in professional's hands: Test, don’t guess. (1:45:00) What is in the future for LCK? (1:52:09) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Laurie Christine King (LCK) (@lauriechristineking)  Instagram Paragon Training Methods | The pursuit of excellence Website Dr. Becky Campbell (@drbeckycampbell)  Instagram Dr. Shawn Tassone Dr. Jolene Brighten (@drjolenebrighten)  Instagram Medical Medium® (@medicalmedium)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Prime/Prime Pro ½ off!! **Code “PRIME50” at checkout** Mind Pump 1045: Dr. Jolene Brighten- Beyond the Pill The Badass Guide to Fat Loss, Gaining, & Maintaining Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal - Book by Anthony William

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. LCK into house. This is actually someone that was, I was connected to through my uncle. My uncle, who's a big fan of the show, listens to every episode. And every once in a while, he'll send me over somebody. Sometimes they're not very good, but every once in a while he sends me over somebody who I'm like,

Hey, that's a really good find right there. And he had been following Lori for a while. And she's connected to Jolene Brighton. She's connected to Becky Campbell. She's got to connect to a lot of people. No, she's got a good message, she's a fit, strong, smart, young lady, who is promoting the right message. And so we look at her page and we were impressed.

It's a really good thing. Yeah, so we had her on the show to talk all about her approach, her experience, what got her to do what she did. We think you're really going to enjoy this episode. We really liked it. We hit it off. So this looks like it's going to be a long term friendship. I know she's going to be starting her own podcast at some point. So we hope to help her and support her in that as well. Hormone Swarth. Crossfit. Yeah. I mean, you know, she's got that,

you know, if you like our message, that balanced approach, then you'll definitely like her. I highly recommend you follow her on Instagram. She's got one of the better, more educational and entertaining Instagram pages. Her company's called Paragon Training Methods. That page is at Paragon Training Methods on Instagram. Her website is Lori Christine King.com. She has a great blog. She's a great writer. She has good information. Her own personal Instagram page is at Lori Christine King. Lori has spelled L-A-U-R-I-E,

by the way, by the way, excuse me. So it's Laurie Christine King. And then, yeah, that's pretty much it. And really enjoyed talking to her. And I think you're going to enjoy this episode before it gets started though. I want to let everybody know we have a new promotion in August. This is the first time these programs have ever been on sale. Maps prime and maps prime pro. So both prime programs, 50% off, and I can tell you this much right now, we are probably not gonna bring this promotion back anytime soon.

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It's PRIME50 no space for the discount. And that's it with the only further ado. Here we are talking to the lovely Lori King. So by sister's one year younger than me, right? So she's 37, she's no kid. No, yeah, she had no desire to have any kids. So we both kind of went to that same thing. You know, her and I being close in age and seeing all that.

I mean, exactly. It's like my whole life, I didn't want to recreate anything close to what my parents had. And for us, a lot of what I saw, the turmoil was financial. It seemed that, you know, as soon as a holiday, a birthday came around and we didn't have money or we couldn't pay the PG&E bill or whatever bullshit, caused all kinds of crazy drama, which led to like verbal and physical abuse in the house. And it was like, so of course, that's forever ingrained in me that like,

I have to be in this place where money's not an issue for me. I don't have to think about it. I don't want to stress about it. Like, let me just work on my partner and my kid and things like that. So that's why I waited so long. I waited because I wanted to be in a place where I knew that I had the flexibility to leave work when I wanted to

and go see my son when I need to. I don't have to worry about money, things like that. So, you know, and I didn't know if that was going to happen before I turned fucking 50 or not. So, it's a massive responsibility. Yep. The funny thing is people who are afraid, who then later on do have kids, tend to be very good at it, because they considered all the challenges and the responses. Oh, I think I when people would ask me,

it was funny, it used to actually bother me that people would think that I had commitment issues. And I was like, that used to be like a pet peeve of mine. Oh, you just have commitment issues. It's like, no, it's just that I've really fucking thought through all this shit. And I'm gonna be responsible. I'm not gonna fucking another humans life up

and put them through anything that I went through. And it's not a commitment issue at all. So I have things in my head that where I want to be in life before I have take on the responsibility of bringing another life into this world. So. But like, parents would scary though. So like, I actually have a post generate for this week because like with a lot of my clients, we're kind of getting away.

It's like, I always talk about anyway, like nutrition is like five to 10% you know, macros and nutrition. It's really a lot of just like getting deep down into like why people behave a certain way, why they have certain feelings about, you know, their body or certain relationships towards food and you know, exercise and stuff like that. And it's like parenting is so scary because like children are little sponges, right?

So it's like having people journal through things like, well, cool. You're like, what does your parents' relationship with food look like? What food tendencies do they have? What does their relationship with exercise look like? Are they super active or kind of again? How do your parents talk about their bodies?

Is their mom standing in the mirror every day just ripping herself to shreds and commenting about, oh, you know, like, you know, I think for my mom, like I was kind of talking about this recently, but it's like, my mom's been on a diet her whole fucking life. And so, you know, she deflected a lot of her personal issues onto me, and so it's like, I turned 30 in September,

but it's like, there's so many things I've had to work through because it's like, even like, so I competed at Reginald's on a team in Craftsvin 2016 and I remember that like we went through like a big scuffle like mid 2015 because it was like, I was the heaviest I'd ever been because I'm five three like you have to, you know, if you want to be strong and grow with people that are big,

like I had to put on size and it was like, I wasn't the most aesthetic I'd ever look but it was like I was also submitting scores where I was very, very competitive at the way it was. But it's like I remember my mom making comments where it was like, oh, you're too big, you're too manly, what happened to my little girl? And it's like, whoa, talk about shit,

you can't say to somebody like me. Right, right, right. And I took that my whole life where it was like she was always just kind of nitpicking. The way I looked or like I was never, you know, skinny enough and disclaimer when I started CrossFit at 5'3", I weighed 92 pounds. Wow. I was fucking tiny. I was marathon training at the time. But same thing, it was like there were so many things that came from that because it was like, oh well, I'm just never tiny enough. So, you know, whether it's for, you know, I'm just never tiny enough. So whether it's for a significant other,

like that's where it led over to, right? It's like, well, my mom never thinks I have a good enough body. So anybody out there that I'm trying to date or you expect to date, I probably doesn't think I have a good enough body for them either, right? It's like, why not exercise more? Why not eat less food?

And it ends up the spiral, but same thing, it was like, that's not uncommon. I talked to a client recently, and so like she was talking about literally when she was a kid, her mom's been overweight her whole life. So when she was a kid growing up before dinner, her mom would say, hey, lift up your shirt, so she could look at their stomach

and see, you know, how I'll put air quotes throughout how skinny or not they work. Wow. But so like her spiral is like, she, present day, she's such a rock star. You know, has such great food quality, all this good stuff, but she still has the mental struggle

because it's like for her, like just being able to travel and I don't wanna say eat off plan, but just like not have to worry about it, right? Like she could just eat food, not stress, intuitive eating, aka eating, just putting food in your mouth, right? But like, being able to do that for her was a big step. And so she was doing super well, you know, had three or four trips where she was just

crushing it and, you know, doing a really good job with her food. And then she had one trip in particular where like, she was just human. Like, she enjoyed herself and you know, she had one too many slices of pizza, you she wasn't super comfortable you know afterwards kind of with what happened with the week and so we talked about that and that was the thing she talked about going through was like my mom's been overweight my whole life and when I do things that align with how she acts right eating more food you know all that stuff like she was in a mental spiral because it was like I don't want to be like my mom.

I've spent my entire life trying not to be here. And yet here, I just went on a trip, I fuckin' blew it out on pizza and alcohol and all the foods. But again, it's like telling somebody, hey, you're okay. It's okay to be human. Not everybody eats a certain way of certain.

It's like at the end of the day, time on earth is really short, like fucking enjoy yourself. Well, it's crazy because you, I remember the first time that I read, like when we were at that ages of like five to seven years old as when we solidify so many of these patterns and habits and that the brain is just like this crazy sponge at that age.

And I think back to what you were doing at five, six, seven years old. You know, and I see it now played out in because there's a big gap between my youngest siblings and me and my sister. So me and my sister are a good 13 years above. And it's funny to see the two older ones. So with me and my sister is one year apart. We saw all the dysfunction and we were already teenagers. So we are kind of like, why is enough to go like, I don't want it to be anything like already teenagers. So we are kind of like, why is it enough to go like, I don't want it to be anything like this. And so we are completely opposite our whole life mission is to do everything opposite of what we saw our parents do because we don't want to fall down and stay better.

Then I see the two younger ones who don't recall any of your bad times at all because they were so little, they don't remember the fighting, they don't remember the craziness mom and dad were divorced by the time they were young preteens, so they don't and then they've kind of fallen in the exact same pattern So to be the oldest and kind of look back and see it's like holy shit And they have no clue. They have no clue that they are like I'm watching my my younger siblings live out a lot of the exact same Behaviors I watched my parents go through and it's like, well, that's so crazy how when you're that young, and that's what's, I guess it makes me almost angry when I see it with parents that are just so irresponsible because you think

they're a child, like, and they don't understand. It's like, it doesn't even matter if they understand or not, that becomes their inner voices. And that stuff gets cemented in them forever, and they'll spend, if they're lucky, they'll spend the rest of their life unpacking that and fixing it, if they're lucky. But what happens to most people is they fall right back in the fucking cycle. I think here's the thing though.

So it's fun having a family of all ages because it's like, I was like a mistake baby, for sure. So my dad is 71, my mom is 63, and I guess my oldest brother is 41. And so it's interesting because if you kind of look present day at the people that are kind of in the 40 to 50 sector, it falls under the category of like nothing's wrong, everything's perfect, right? So it's like if you were to suggest, hey, you know, like it seems like you have some poor

relationships, you know, with food, with exercise, with your personal, your body and appearance and image, you know, just with yourself, maybe traumatic things that you went through, whether it was, again, you know, a suicide in the family or a family dysfunction, a poor relationship, you know, maybe you should seek a therapist or a professional counseling. And every single one of those people from that age gap is going to clam up and be like,

oh no, like, I'm fine, like, there's no problems. I don't need to see somebody. But that's like, you kind of peel it back to people again. Like, I'm about to be 30 and it, like, I wanna say like, therapy's trendy, but like, you talked everybody, it's like, yeah, see my therapist today, like,

this is what we talked about, like, fuck yeah. And I think that really, honestly, the people that are like 20 to 25 right now, like, they're gonna be the people that, I always said they figured it out, but it's like again, it's just so much more common and accepted. So, hey, that's the reason why so much... Well, talking about your feelings is okay now. People that are 40 and 50, talking about your feelings, was...

Well, I think there's a balance, because there's studies that now, several studies now have shown things like trigger warnings, several studies now have shown things like trigger warnings, who want to actually make things a lot worse. So there's also the over-therapising of, like in the coddling that can happen, which you see with the younger generations, where maybe it is okay to say you're fine,

and they're like, no, I'm gonna talk about this and it's a bigger problem and it bakes it a bigger problem. So I think that there's, you might be right, it might be the younger, younger generation. What do they call that, generation, not millennials? Generation Z. Is it Z? They're the ones that are a little bit more cynical

and a little bit more kind of in the middle, if you will. So did you or what drove you into fitness? Was it the body image stuff? Was that what really motivated you to get into working on? So I was a competitive gymnast my whole life. Literary, I started at five years old and it was like kind of like free-c accident, found out like, oh this is what you're good at.

And like even present day, like I tell people, I can't play sports with balls. Like it's not, it's just not my jam. Like I tried really hard to make it. But I'm really good with body weight stuff. And even you know, it's like a barbell and some dumbbells. It was about the only thing I've ever fluidly been able to move my whole life. Stopped relate to this. Yeah. Just not not an athlete unfortunately. But yeah, so I got basically when I stopped competing in gymnastics, it was like I was kind of searching for that

replacement thing, right? And so towards the tail end of high school is when I stopped competing in gymnastics, it was like I was kind of searching for that replacement thing, right? And so, towards the tail end of high school, is when I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which is basically the gland and your neck that controls things like metabolism, your sleep, your mood, just about everything in the body. But so long story short, I went through a phase where I was really, really struggling

with body composition, body weight, and just not feeling well. I was actually the reason why I went to see a doctor was, again, I was 17 or 18 years old, but I was sleeping upwards of 14, 15, 16 hours a day. My parents were like, this seems weird. You keep missing school. Maybe you should check it out. I'm sure enough, you got some blood worked on, end up getting prescribed thyroid medication

and you're kind of cruising on. But so the thing was, I wasn't feeling much better even though I started taking medication. So it kind of spun this idea of like, okay, I wanna help someone in my position, never be in my position. So maybe I should go to school for this, kind of learn, selfishly learn a little bit more for myself

and my personal needs. But then again, you'll be able to give it back to people too. And so I ended up going to school, I got my degree in nutrition diatetics. And then I also found CrossFit in college. And so it was like CrossFit was that thing where it was like, oh, this is competitive, it's fun, but it's also new. Like I had never in my life touched barbels.

I had never touched dumbbells, heavy weights. And so it's fun, but it's also new. I had never in my life touched barbells. I'd never touched dumbbells heavy weights. And so it's amazing because CrossFit and lifting and all that stuff, you know, kind of shipped in my perspective of rather than just being obsessed about, you know, what my body looked like, shifting it to, oh my gosh, like what my body can do for me. And yeah, it's just this amazing thing. Did you go into CrossFit with a good relationship with exercise at this point?

Or are you going in with not so good of a relationship? Absolutely not. So I guess that I was 92 pounds. I had signed up for I lived in Illinois my whole life and from a small college town. So I had run the Chicago Marathon in 2012 and that was like while I was training for that is when I found CrossFit. So I think it was, you know, we'll say three or four months before. My sister-in-law lived in Seattle, I was visiting,

and then they're like, oh hey, you know, try a single love it and sure enough, like I was that freak person that again, it was like, oh hey, here's a muscle up. Oh cool, you did a muscle up, or oh hey, this is a kipping pull up and you know, I'd be over there, t-t-t-t-t-t, you know.

Doing them, so like I've always been very good spatially and with gravity where it's like if you show me how to do something like I can do it, you know I can do it. So so yeah. So now was it was a body obsession then move to performance and did it become performance obsession? Now I've worked with clients and one of my strategies with people who have body obsession issues is to move them to performance, but then you have to move out of that as well because that can become its own issue. Did you fall into that, that saying?

Oh, yeah, for sure. So the way I've always kind of referred to it too is I have a very addictive personality and not in the form of drugs and that sort of thing, but it's like with coaching, for example, it's like, well, somebody's coming to you in a very poor place, you know, nobody hires a nutrition coach

when you feel good. So that whole idea of like, oh, well, I can help. I can make you feel better. You know, that's an addictive cycle. On the same thing, I think with exercise, it's like honestly, part of it came from lack of hobbies because the only life I had ever known was get up, go to school, do gymnastics,

you know, for hours and hours on end. And so I think it was just a natural replacement. It was replacement there, but you know, it was like, well, I don't have gymnastics anymore. You know, obviously when training for a marathon, same thing, you're running, you know, it's like you would go out and be running for two to and a half hours or whatever it is. And so same thing, CrossFit was that natural, you know, replacement where it's like, oh, well, like an hour of CrossFit, that's great, but more is better. Like, I wanna get stronger, I wanna hit PRs

on the same thing, it's suddenly like you spiral and you're like two, three hours in the gym later. And I don't think that's different for many people. You know, it's like CrossFit attracts the type A high performing, competitive people. And that's why I don't wanna say it's a very dysfunctional community because CrossFit's done so many great things.

But again, it's like the more is better, you need to leave yourself on the floor. You have to destroy yourself. If you don't walk out, rolling around in the floor in pain, and so it took me a really long time to get out of that mindset because again, it's so deeply ingrained. And same thing, when you realize,

oh, I'm happily good at something. And disclaimer, again, I was on a team. So it's not like I was like, oh, hey, I made it to Regalism as an individual. But again, you was like, I kind of found something. I was like, oh, I'm pretty good at this thing. So again, you're more is better. Yeah, the environment, the CrossFit environment

is like, God, it's, the crossfit environment is like, God, it's like gasoline on the fire for some people. Like if you're that type A obsessive type of person, that environment just, it's like a bar for alcoholics. I was like, you know, like, you know, you know, you doesn't mean you're gonna be in alcoholic, but if you are, this is like not necessarily the best environment.

Where's there a point where you were like, oh, I'm overdoing everything, like this needs to calm down. Or did your body end up telling you what it up happening? My body ended up telling me. So immediately after we competed at Regionals, I remember it took me six months to pick my body, back up off the floor, because I knew I just felt

total docks. It's like I would go to the gym. And if you've ever been working out and you're like I need to go I shouldn't be here like that scenario But same thing you know like being in the middle of a workout or you know, maybe you're lifting and you're like Yeah, and I could like black out a little or yeah, so Got blood worked on and you know it was definitely it was like cortisol levels were super fucked And I remember at the time specifically,

it's like, it would, I was traveling a lot for work. And so it's like, we would be out at team dinners at eight or nine p.m. And it's like, my cortisol curve was super opposite because it'd be like nine p.m. and then you said, like, you know, like everything, you know, it's like, wow, Lori, you're getting really loud.

But same thing, it would just be like tired, but wired. I'd go back to a hotel room and after dinner and just like, shit man, I know I need to go to bed. I know I have an early flight, but I just can't line down. And so it was like cortisol level sucked. I've struggled again with thyroid issues in my whole life. So obviously after competing, they were absolute dog shit. Did you have to adjust your thyroid medication

through this process? Yeah. Is it more or less? Did you have to end up taking more of it? So I'll kind of sidestep your question for a second. And I'll say that I took thyroid meds from the time I was in, again, light high school up until the time I was 28.

And they never once saw optimal thyroid values. And so later I learned, because again, I worked for a really big company that was full of very intelligent people. And so, as I was kind of struggling with thyroid stuff, with competitive exercise, it was like I had a coworker that was like, hey man, just food for thought, like I know you're always struggling with your thyroid medicine. Know you're always struggling to feel well.

No doubt, like you need to fucking eat more food, stop training as much, and have a better relationship with the frequency of when you exercise and take it down a notch, give your body a break. Have you considered the fact that you've been taking hormonal birth control since you were a teenager, and here you are at 28 years old, still struggling to find good values? Understand that hormonal birth control can impact thyroid levels. And so same thing, it was like through my early 20s, through my late 20s, was constantly, it was like every three months, I would go get my levels tested. And, you know, it was like even as I hedge closer to 27, 20, 29, it was like I'm doing everything, you know, all air quotes,

everything, right? It was like, hey, like, you know, I'm eating, you know, ample calories, I'm eating ample fats, I'm eating really high quality food. You know, it's like, I, at a point, you know, this past, I would say the past two years, I've really just been cranking on just like, getting my shit together, but it was like, I'm not training hard anymore, you know,

I'm prioritizing it to 10 hours of sleep, I'm eating cruciferous vegetables and worrying about gut health, liver health, all this bullshit. I still wasn't seeing optimal thyroid values. Then when I finally did transition off of formal and a birth control three months later, first time in my fucking life. Wow. So then you went off the birth control. Now your thyroid is normalized. Yep. So that happened when I was 28, like I said, I'm almost 30. But this past two years is, you know,

kind of when the wheel started turning where it was like, shit man, this isn't an uncommon narrative that's like, you see icy women all the time as clients where it's like, hey, what medications do you take? Where monobrath control thyroid meds, spear lactone or some similar, you know similar, some sort of medication for acne. Oh yeah, I'm also taking antidepressants

or some sort of anti-incidimates. It's like the full plotter up. And then it's like, when you really look at that, it's like, huh, the interesting thing is that we know hormonal birth control can impact gut health, can impact nutrient deficiencies, it can impact mood and all of these things. So it's like, how many clients I've had where it was at some point, they got off

hormone on a birth control. And then, we'll say it's a long process. One simply does not work with their doctor. The doctor says, hey, get off your entire anxiety matter, whatever. But the number of clients I've worked with where maybe over the course of three years together, they went from five cagillion medications down to, oh wow, we don't take any. And again, it's like, we don't live in a fucking bubble. So this doesn't paint the picture of like, yep, poor mental birth control, did it.

It's a double. But it's a big factor that has to be considered. Everymerzada called Turkey decision. What did that look like getting off first control? So here was kind of my thoughts. It's not personally one that I would normally do with clients. And we kind of talked about this off show, but like my personal coaching relationship present day that I really strive for is, hey, it's me.

We have our bad off client, and then we have a functional or integrative doctor. And so I'll expand real quickly because I get this question on social media all the time. So I think it's a really great point to him. But like a functional doctor looks at the body as a whole rather than sometimes we get doctors where it's like, oh, you've got problems. Go see a gastroenterologist. Oh, you've got, you know, this, you know, it's like functional doctors look at everything as a whole. And so same thing, you know, they tend to be a little bit more holistic

or a little bit more natural in the process as well, where it's rather than just reaching for 5 million medications or prescriptions or whatever it is. It's like they're trying to look at the bigger picture of like, hey man, if we have signs of insulin resistance, why don't we eat 10 degrees less like an asshole? Like why don't we try changing our food? And you'll stuff like that rather than again being like,

oh, here's a prescription for metformin like, oh, here's a prescription for Metformin or, oh, here's a prescription for this. And so that's kind of the coaching relationship that I tend to strive with. But when I got off hormonal breast control at the time, I had shoulder surgery. And so I had torn my shoulder at regionals on during the snap slaughter.

And so long so short, it was like, had surgery. And then it was like my entire life just kind of went to shit for the second time. So it was like the first time was like when I actually competed at Regal's and then it was like, you know, turn around. I think there was like a year difference between when I actually figured out, oh, hey, like your shoulder pain, the scronic thing you're dealing with isn't just like you need to see a car

remore. I think it was like, yo, like there's something wrong. And so I had shoulder surgery about a year and a half ago. And so that was like when everything just went to shit would be a good good descriptor there. So it was like, hey, I'm in a shoulder. I'm in a shoulder thing that was like B, I think two months later, like I just tipped super estrogen dominant. So that was like, be, I think, two months later. Like, I just tipped Super Estrine dominant. So it was like, I was carrying tons of weight in my midsection, rapidly gaining weight, which again, part of that comes with, you can't train as hard if you're bouncing back

from surgery and stuff like that. But just dealing with a lot of mood stuff, just a lot of symptoms overall. And so it was like, I just had this weird thing where it was like, hey man, like, let's just freaking handle our shit. And so it was like, I just had this weird thing where it was like, hey man, like let's just freaking handle our shit. And so it was like, had shoulders, or do you also transition off a form on a birth control and then trying to just bounce back from all that.

And so it was like, everything that I was doing, it was kind of like, hey, I'm just going to throw every possible dart that exists. And if it sticks, like, I don't care what works. So you just completely slowed down then and isolate yourself? Yeah, so I actually, at the time I was living in Houston, I was at a gym full of games athletes and we trained seven days a week. And again, back to what we said earlier,

where it's like, that's an alcoholic being at the bar, like there's no way it was like, I was an asshole to my body, like I didn't slow down, I didn't try to, I didn't give my body the time it needed to properly rehab it. And so present day, it's like I didn't slow down, I didn't try to, I didn't give my body the time it needed to properly rehab it. And so, present day, it's like I'm still dealing with shoulder issues ironically from all of that. But, you know, it's like I was I a gem.

And so, I paid six grand to break my lease and like get out of there. So, I moved to Austin. I happened to my brother, Libson Austin. And I had two friends that I knew. And like that was it, but it was just like, well, I'm just gonna move to a new city, like then I can kinda get my shirt together. But ironically, going through all of these hormone

was going through all of bouncing back from your competitive exercise, overtraining and the shoulder stuff, like that was where gym programming was born because it was like, when you're dealing with hormone issues, when you're dealing with cortisol issues, when you're dealing with just all this bullshit, it's like, you have to train differently. It's not as simple as, you know, it's like,

oh, hey, I'm just gonna do a sing at the gym. It's like, we would test stuff where it was like, I couldn't do, I'll say cardio loosely, but it's like, I couldn't hop on a salt bike. If I would hop on a salt bike, it's the same thing. I'd be like, cool, I feel like I'm gonna black out. And, you know, so it's like, we problem solved through a lot of the things, it's the same thing. I'd be like, cool, I feel like I'm gonna black out. So it's like, we problem solved

through a lot of the things where it's like, finding a way that people can still train while in a compromised state. And like, how do you help your body bounce back from all of that? So it's kind of this bittersweet thing where it's like, I went through a couple of years of just, you know, deep in the weeds, but so many great things came from it

because it's like, now we have this awesome community where it's like, hey man, ultimately at the end of the day, like, do you just want to look good, feel good, and if I can have fun in the gym, cool, like, we have a program for that, you know, and so I think like, I love questions because I'm sure, you know, it seems like you guys deal with this a lot too, where it's like, oh, how do you feel about Orange Theory, or how do you feel about Svinclaster? I'm like, you guys did a great episode about beach body stuff. But people want you a defendant,

black or white, since I get again. At the end of the day, I'm so grateful that CrossFit got me into all this because everything I'm doing present day with my job, my business, our two companies, it all started because of CrossFit. But I learned so many things the hard way, and I think there's so many people still out there,

you know, learning things the hard way. Because it's like so many people ultimately work out because they just want to look good and feel good. And yet, you know, they're smashing their face with spin classes, you know, six times a week. And then maybe later they go to hot yoga afterwards. And then that night they go to orange theory, they go to CrossFit.

It's like, fuck, man. So you feel like CrossFit, like, people in the community are drawn to you and what you're doing now, and are you helping them? Or you're gonna see the law? Or rubbing people the wrong way. Yeah. So, like, I'm always, like, I'm not everyone's cup of tea

and I'm okay with that, because I think, like, authenticity guaranteed is something that I really strive for. So it's like, I don't ever try purposely to be a dick, but I think at some point it was like, I'm a very sarcastic person, and so if people don't quite wrap their minds around that, it's like you might get offended,

but it's like, I do try to have fun with it. It's like, if you're gonna talk about things like hormones, or again, like we talked about it off air, like, if you're gonna talk about low testosterone, like you better believe there's gonna be dick jokes that come, stuff like that, but it's like trying to, talk about low test faster and like you better believe there's gonna be dick jokes that come or stuff like that. But it's like trying to, I would say equal parts is like, how do you talk about all this in a way that's well received

and not uncomfortable because again, you know, it's like, if you talk to people, it's like, well, people don't want to talk about their issues. People, it's like, no, like let's talk about your issues. But I think yeah, you yeah, especially with our community, that's the biggest feedback that we get from people is like, holy shit, man, I used to have really poor relationships with myself.

I used to look in the mirror and just tear myself apart. And I used to train you to me days a week or I used to be under eating. We effectively are teaching people how to eat well and fuel enough for their body. How to just understand what your goals are, right? If you're fucking, if you're competing, you have to worry about performance. You shouldn't be worrying about your abs or your aesthetics.

So helping people just own their shit, but also again, I think one thing that I've done really well in the coaching spaces is like, a few years ago, I didn't use to immediately promote people, like, hey, go see a therapist to work through this, or, hey, go get testing, go get these things checked out, that's like literally on the daily, we have people posting in our Facebook community group, where it's like, yo, I'm so, you know, like, thank you for repeatedly reminding us

to just handle our own stuff, because I finally went to the doctor, and it turns out, man, you know, been struggling for years and oh well like a like my hormone levels are in the floor you know I'm struggling with thyroid issues my cortisol levels sucking so all this stuff so I think I cross the board like I'm just really proud of kind of what we've done because again it's like I'm just trying to help people not go through what I went so how often are you having to people not go through what I went. So how often are you having to turn people away from CrossFit? Ooh, I wouldn't say turning people from CrossFit,

but I would just say helping people get really clear on their goals. And so again, just as an example, it's like, if your end all be all goal is aesthetics, well, like nobody's doing CrossFit and then showing up at Mr. Olympia, right? So it's like helping people understand like, okay, like I hear you that you really love CrossFit, but if your community came to me like you just really want to look good. Cool. Well like kind of,

hey, let's get you lifting more, let's get you, you know, bodybuilding more. And again, if they want to CrossFit, it's fine, but like helping them understand, well, okay, you know, those two or three days that you're Cross-fitting might not be as conducive to your goals as if you were just bodybuilding five days a week. And that's fine. Because again, the biggest thing is just like, there's no right or wrong way to do this. It's like, hey, do you enjoy what you're doing? Because if you don't, you're not going to do it regardless. But be, you know, just the idea of education even you can only lead a horse to water. But getting them to understand, you know, what is conducive to their goals,

what aligns with their goals. And then, you know, it's up to them to decide what the rest of that shakes out. Well, wouldn't you say that that's in my experience, I feel like most people that are attending a CrossFit box are there just like the same people that show up to a 24-hour fitness or a normal gym? They wanna lose body fat, they wanna be healthier, they wanna look better, and in reality, it's probably not the best approach for 90% of them. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Because again, it's just very hard to moderate between like, if you're best friends in the room, you're gonna try to compete with them, You're gonna go faster than you should. Whereas like, if you're, you know, say you didn't sleep a ton, like, well, if you're at the gym, maybe you should take it easy, but in a CrossFit class, it's just harder to dial that down. Or if you're at Orange Theory where they say, hey, you know, keep your heart rate between this and this, like, it's really hard to like sandbag it. You'll listen to what you should be doing. So I think it's just again, you can only lead a horse to water, but the CrossFit thing

is hard because the biggest rubbubble is like, oh, but the community, it's like, we'll do like, if you have strong relationships outside the gym, like, don't get me wrong, it's fucking fun to live with your friends. But like, if the CrossFit gym is your only space that you are social and you have friends, that kind of speaks a bigger issue, right? It's the same thing with like you should have hobbies. Like, yes, it's great to go to the gym, but what do you do when you're not outside? And when you're not in the gym and it's still okay if those hobbies are like,

oh yeah, I love going to stand up paddle boarding or I love going hiking. Oh, there's still physical things and that's fine, but it's like, people don't have hobbies. Oh, they have a zero the gym it's like people don't have hobbies. They have is you with the gym, but then people don't have friends. Like if you ask me in any other sector of my life, like I actually go to a golds gym in downtown Austin, present day, and I fucking love it, I don't know anybody there. And it's totally fine because again, it's like now I have relationships outside of the gym and I go spend time with people rather than just spending four hours at the gym on a daily basis. So I think part of this is just like helping people assess that issue as well.

Well, Laurie, two things. First, I do want to make sure I give a disclaimer. If you're going to reduce your medication, you always should go through a doctor. It can always be dangerous. It's just kind of medication. You said you cut a birth control off three months ago. Are you getting used to now natural cycle since you haven't had them for a long time and how does that change how you feel and how you train? Yeah, so disclaimer, when we were kind of talking about my history, right now at this point in time,

I think I've been off hormonal birth control for probably about a year and a half or so. Okay. But yeah, like the people, it's, we're in such a weird time because it's yes, be the CEO of your own health. Understand, you know, the food that you're putting in your body,

understand the things that you're doing. But like people have to have doctors. I don't understand why there's, like people struggle with that idea so much because it's like, oh no, I'd rather go on Instagram and play Instagram doctor Oh, I'd rather you go on the Google and play Google doctor But it's like for every medication whether it's thyroid stuff, you know

Whether it's hormonal birth control it's like you need to be consulting a doctor for that And so like the irony is like if you're struggling to find a doctor like literally go on Google type in functional doctor Austin, Texas and you can find some a near you. So, even present day, I actually have two doctors. I work with a functional doctor virtually. She's on Florida, named Stockie, Dr. Becky Campbell. And she actually specializes in thyroid stuff.

And then I also work with a doctor, named Sean Tassone, and same thing. He actually, his big thing is he's done a lot of work with the assure coils that are basically a form of birth control that go up your fallopian tubes. And so those have been causing a lot of problems with women where it's like they would migrate to places. They shouldn't be your electric. I read about that. And so he's actually like the doctor that I want to say is well known for that thing. That's like he, if you're struggling with issues with those, he would be the guy to

Hollerack because, you know, he's very good, if you're struggling with issues with those, he would be the guy to Hollerack, because he's very good at the removal of those, but same thing. It's not hard to find doctors. You just have to do the research, and you also have to understand like, hey, this might not be covered by insurance, because again, functional doctors do things a little bit

differently. You're gonna be looking at full hormone panels. Specifically, when I hired Dr. Becky Campbell, it was like, I think in a week's time, I spent $3,500 just like, you know, out the gate, but it was like, we pulled a GI map test, and so I basically pooped in a cop, you know, we sent it off to get all of that evaluated.

We did a test for SIBO, and then we did Dutch tests is basically the most comprehensive panel you can do for hormone stuff. But same thing, you know, it's like all of those, all that extensive testing, it's not covered by insurance. And so it's just like getting people to kind of reframe a little bit where it's like, Hey, you know, like if you want standard treatment, you can use insurance and you know, you might not get doctors there the greatest, but it's like if you want to feel better than

the average person and you want a better form of care, you know, A, it's gonna be a little expensive. What are some signs that, you know, you have female clients that come to you that are doing too much? Like, what are some signs, aside from testing, like going and getting hormone tests? What are some signs that they can identify themselves

that they're maybe doing too much, or not eating enough? Oh man, the over-trying. Like a common one, yeah. I would just say like, A a kind of feeling like a zombie when you leave the gym. So like for me, that was the biggest thing I noticed when switching to bodybuilding was that at whatever point in the day, I would go to the gym to work out.

Like that's when my work day ended. So it was like if somebody needed to schedule a client call if I needed to try to answer emails like might as well hit it tomorrow, like it's not happening. So I would just say kind of the concept of like brain fog or fatigue, whatever you want to call that, chronically feeling tired all the time, disrupted sleep. So it may be common to wake up, you know, two to three times during the night or people say, oh yeah, you know, wake up during the night to be, your body has systems that should

down regulate that situation. So it's like, you should lay down at night, you know, sleep through the night and then wake up the morning. There shouldn't be anything like that. Again, like inability to gain muscle, inability to hip-hairs, you're not seeing progress in the gym, inability to lose weight. Because again, like if your body, your body has to feel safe to get leaned into stay lean.

So if you're chronically just exercising your face off, well, guess what? Like it might be really, really difficult to change your body composition or to lose weight or whatever that kind of body composition change you're seeking is. With overtraining you, you can see in females, it might be a lack of a menstrual cycle. Because again, like the female body, whether or not you wanna carry a kid, you exist on planet Earth, you're the only human species that can reproduce, right?

So it's like, if your body doesn't feel safe, well, it's gonna cut off the mechanism to say, oh, hey, you can carry a second child. Like, if it perceives it's not a safe space, you're not gonna have a menstrual cycle. I'm for men, it's like you might see lack of morning wood or some sort of sexual dysfunction. You might see low hormone levels because again,

it's like if your body is just running on empty, it would be the equivalent of like if you just drink coffee all day long, right? You're just going to burn yourself out. Well, same thing. If you're just training, training, training. Well, yeah, like your hormone levels are going to go to absolute shit. Same thing, you know, your thyroid.

You might see low thyroid levels. So it's like across the board like your body is just so overstressed that Everything starts shutting down because your body's like well Yeah, I can't I can't do anything here. I still just start shut enough mechanisms I'm seeing a lot of people and women in particular who are supplementing with what they'll call bio-identical hormones to kind of try to balance the, what is your thought process on that, on supplementing with these hormones to feel better? So, fun fact, I am 29 years old, and I'm actually on where I'm in replacement therapy.

And I talked about this big time on social media recently because it's like I thought it really fucking hard. It was like I was trying so hard to do everything right. Like again, I was working with two of the best doctors who arguably out there. And it's like at this point in time, it's like I took down training. I'm eating tons of food like I'm 5'3",

right now I'm actually eating a surplus to try and gain muscle. But it's like usually my maintenance calories are right around 24, 25, 100. So it's like I'm eating super good quality food. I'm eating enough calories. I was working on reducing stress, supplementing to reduce any sort of deficiencies, doing all this stuff.

And it was like, fuck man, like at some point, maybe if you treat your body like a trash can, which I did, competitive gymnastics, my whole life, marathon training. You know, that was probably like a two-year stand. Competitive exercise for so many years. At some point, it seems like your body's just like, hey man, like, it came over, you know?

So it was like, even when in the state of like, it was like, I looked at both of my doctors and they were like, we're out of stuff to suggest, we're out of stuff to change. So it's been about, I think we're on like two and a half months. And so I would say probably three weeks ago is when I finally noticed a difference. And basically on lab work, I had like, estrogen levels of a postmenopausal woman.

Same thing, testosterone levels were non-existent. And so I'm taking a sublingual, so it's a little flavored capsule type dude that you put underneath your tongue. So I think I try to frame everything with me is like, what is this trying to teach me? And so in a performer life, I'd always said like, oh well, you know, if nutrition is good

and exercise is good and lifestyle is good, you know, hopefully there doesn't have to be medication. And so it was a big slap on the face when it was like, cool. Well, here we are, 29 years old, or a memory placement therapy, again, still taking thyroid meds as well. So it's a very fascinating time for me because it really opened the window to, okay, this is, for some people, this is, you know,

for some people this does become a necessary thing and who would have thought that somebody of that try so fucking hard would end up being one of them. What are some of those practices that you apply now to reduce stress in your life? Ooh. So I think the biggest thing is just coming to terms with my life and what it is, which is I currently present day, I have about 20 or 25 nutrition clients. We have a gym program with hundreds and hundreds of people. And then social media wise, I'm traveling two to three times a month, writing, I think

at this point, there's over 300 blogs on my website. So you know, I'm chronically researching writing articles and stuff like that. And so it's just like I live a stressful life in my choice. Yeah, doesn't sound like you're just a scratch. And so it's just kind of understanding like this is also the way I enjoy, you know, running my life. And so it's just optimizing. And so I would just say it's more just having non-negotiables where it's like, you know, sleep has to be a big priority. And I'm really big. I'm like-negotiables where it's like, you know, sleep has to be a big priority

And I'm really big on like, hey, if I didn't sleep, you know, seven, seven, half hours like you don't get to go to the gym today, Laurie Another big one is like if I I know that like when I travel I get really stressed and so I Have a big thing where it's like hey if you know if I fly home on a Monday I don't get to train that next day. It's like just come home, get back into routine. And that's been a really big thing for me because it's like if I track my HRB, like I said, like a fashion was super, super bad. But then it's just like present day, I'm trying to just scale my business as much as possible

to depend on other people and kind of distribute all All the things I'm doing in a day, because it's a lot, and I'm certainly, I'm a relentless little motherfucker, but we're bringing people onto the team where it's like, how many different things can I get off my schedule, depend on people and sort of how training-wise, I'm only training about four days a week at 60 minutes, and that's it.

I kind of just said a timer, and once it hits, you know that hour marks, like, hey, you gotta get out of the gym,. I kinda just said a timer and once it hits, you know, about hour marks, like, hey, you gotta get out of the gym. But I'm also just a lot better. Like, I used to be that person that when I traveled, you know, I would freak out about like, oh, how do I find a gym? Oh, I'm in a hotel.

I better figure out some crazy workout to do and I'll just do body weight. It's like, no, dude, like, even here. Like, I've been in San Jose. I flew in yesterday. I'll be here until end of day tomorrow but it's like three days off, just chilling and enjoying it. So it's just a lot of things where it's like looking,

you know, just regularly checking in with myself but then little things too, that sound very woo-woo but it's like regular practices of journaling and meditation and just maybe like this, this sounds like such a simple one but I think it's a big one, but it's like when you're constantly scrolling through social media, which disclaimer, both of my businesses are on social media, it's like having hard boundaries on how much you're on your phone, having hard boundaries on like, you know, there's a lot of times I'll drive in my car and I don't

listen to music or I'm trying to like not blow up my ear drums. Because again, it's all just different forms of stress and stuff like that. So it's a lot of little things. But present day, just really trying to slow down, be present. And again, be mindful that if I'm feeling stressed out, what are the different things I can do to kind of might do? I feel like that's the hardest thing for you. Oh, for sure. Because even the best part is when you see it via lab work. And so I remember specifically when Dr. Becky Campbell had me pull my lab work and it was like, you know, she looks and she's like, this is what launching your own business looks like, because it is like the past year was just crazy because it's like, I went from being in a,

you know, a very important position in a company and stepping down and being like cool like let's do our own thing and It's just like when you launch your own stuff like there's nobody there to do the work except you, you know So it's like it was very humbling to see like oh cool This is this is what it looks like on on lab work to run you know to start men your own businesses What what percentage of your clientele would you say does CrossFit? Ah, present day. I think the cool thing is that when you consistently

put out messages, you attract a certain type of client. And so when I worked for the nutrition coaching company, it's fascinating to me because it's like, I wanna say I never connected super well with those clients, but they weren't clients that were necessary interest in working with me because of what I had to offer. It was like they were applying initially

because of the company and that whole sector. So now that I run my own business, people, it seems like it was like the people that want to do nutrition coaching or people that have been following me. It's like they bought all my ebooks. They've been, you know, there are already members of our programming. They, I want to say they already drink the LCK Kool-Aid, but it's like,

they're already doing all the things that I, I try to promote. And then suddenly it's like, it's still not enough. It's like, okay, he'll sign me up for coaching. But I think you know, back in the day, I've kind of gone through shifts where it was like you, as a coach, you specialize in certain things. So, when I first got into coaching, all of my clients were like, client struggling with type of thyroidism because it got me.

It was what I talked about a lot, and they knew that I was struggling with it, and they knew that it was something that was well-educated and well-stept. And then over time, it was like when I was going through the competing phase, same thing. It was like I was attracting all the competitive athletes. And then when I started, you know, went was like, Hey, you know, I transitioned off of formal and birth control. And you know, we're kind of merking through the shit. You know, those were the types of clients I was getting was like, Hey, like either I'm on hormone or birth control. And I'm interested in transitioning off of it. or I transitioned off of it and things aren't going well.

Like help me get above it. So I think even present day now it's like my following on social media is like 82% women. So it's like I actually missed the days of working with guys because those used to be my favorite clients. Just again, you know, having two older brothers growing up

and like I've always been like kind of the loud outspoken. Like I just tend to job better with dudes for that reason. So I kind of miss those days. But even present day, you know, like my I don't take on clients very much present day, but they do tend to be females that are still going through some sort of hormonal issue, whether it's you know lack of a menstrual cycle, some sort of situation with PCS or you know something with hormonal issue, whether it's lack of a menstrual cycle, some sort of situation with PCOS, or something with hormonal birth control, whether they're on or you wanna get off of it. But as far as the actual exercise question,

I would just say it depends, but I'm definitely still very much like, I don't have people from the body building space reaching out to me. Like that crossfit flowing still kinda. That's why I'm watching so is it, you think it's less than 10% of the people that you're helping are in cross in the crossfit community or more than that like how what percentage would you guess?

I would say still honestly more. I would say a majority of. I would love to actually do a poll and ask people because it's like when I started my social media you know so long ago I feel like my the people and stuff like that has very much shifted. But I think for sure, it's like, I would say probably closer to like 75 or 80% for sure. Oh, do. Okay, so that's what made me why I ask that is because when you were talking earlier,

you kind of made a comment like you didn't, you don't really discourage people from doing that. I would think from your history and what you've gone through, and also knowing your awareness, that you would probably discourage of most people that you help from even being involved and crossed it all, even if it is something they love to do and exercise that way.

Yeah, I think again, it just comes back to like, I'm more concerned with just helping people find what's right for them and like, I don't regret cross fitting in any way. And I still, even I used to be on seminar staff for the gymnastic sector and stuff like that. Like I fucking loved CrossFit. CrossFit just didn't love me.

It was kind of the coming to Jesus. And so I think the same thing, it's helping people just recognize, what are you doing and then asking, does it work for you or how's that working for you? Yeah, but isn't that it though? I mean, that's in my experience, I've found that most of us are not doing the things

that we should be doing. You know, and like we said earlier in the show, the people that tend to be, that gravitate towards CrossFit are the worst people that should be doing it. So that's where I'm heading with this is like I get where as a coach and as a trainer, you know, we want to encourage people to exercise because, you know, and doing something is better than nothing, but sometimes I don't know if that statement

rains true, especially when you talk about the way we train in CrossFit and then the type of person that tends to be attracted to that, more often than not, unless you're somebody who's training for the games or to be an athlete, because that's where I see a separation, because that's just no different than a football player who wants to be a pro football player or a basketball player that wants to be a basketball player,

I would never tell him, stop playing your sport because you want to do that sport. So unless you're coaching athletes that are actually trying to go to the games, everybody else, I would think that you would discourage from even doing CrossFit. Yeah, I would say this, because again, most of my content is either talking about

just how to improve quality of life, how to improve your body composition or work towards the body that you want, or just how to bounce back from hormonal issues, adrenal issues and stuff like that. I would say across the board, I'm always just promoting people like, do stuff that isn't high intensity. I feel like for a while, the whole IT sector was so popular and so booming. It's just like, guys, I get it.

Spin class is fun. I get it. Spin class is fun. I get it. Orange theory is fun. I get it. CrossFit is fun. But it's just not conducive. Like, you can't fucking slam your body into the floor and then question why you're having issues and stuff.

And so I think it's just the whole lifestyle of, again, it's like, I remember when I used to train where it was like, I didn't take rest days. And like, I had literal anxiety because it's like, you have training partners that you get very attached to, right? And you'd be like, hey, see you tomorrow at 6am. Well, what the fuck happens when it's time to go to the gym? And you're like, man, I feel like dog shit.

But I gotta show up for these people. And again, it's just such a slippery slope. And so it's fucking hard, dude. It's so hard because you can't make blanket statements. But I think you guys are in the same boat where it's like, CrossFit can do some good. And it gets people into lifting, it gets people into a certain world. But there's so many better ways. There's so much more efficient ways and there's so many more better ways to do things.

Laurie, when you started to reduce your training and you were trying to balance your hormones out naturally, was that also when you then started your own business? So there was probably, I would say there was a six month six or seven month gap. So you went six months off the hard training, but then you started your own business. And do you think that that's the stress from starting your own business might have been a similar stress to the training too much? Yeah, we just picked up where we left off in my opinion. I think that even work wise, because when I left the company that I was

working for at the time that was like, there were 15 or 16 coaches that I was overseeing, we are traveling one to two times a month teaching nutrition certification courses, and then I had upwards of like 125 or 130 clients. So it's like, my job stuff was already very stressful. And then you added in the fact of like, okay, shoulder surgery, okay, trying to transition off a formal number of control. Okay, you're traveling all the time. Oh, hey, you're trying to figure out this new thing of like,

hey, I know my body's really over stress, but I think I want to train less. It was just like the past two years of my life where I'd dumpster fire if I really, really dial back and look at it. But I think again, like that's why I'm such a good coach is it's like, I get people that come to me. It's like, I don't know, been there, done that.

Yeah, it's like the body, you have like this bucket that you can fill with stress. And it's really any stress, right? It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be emotional. And, you know, do you ever encounter this with clients? Where, you know, I've worked with people and they'll be like, but I'm not,

I'm not working out that much and I'm getting good sleep. And it's like, yes, but your other stress is so high. And do you think that it's addictive? In other words, do you think that being under stress can be addictive to some individuals? Oh, yeah. It's a series of like, what do I do with my hands?

Cause it's like, it curves all drips. Yeah. Yeah. Course all drips. Um, I think like what I where I instantly went with your previous question was like shift workers are a really good example of this where it's like trying to explain to a shift worker that maybe it's not super conducive to still train the way that somebody would train if they were just you know, air quotes regular person. So it's like, there's a lot of shift workers where it'll be like, yeah, you know, I'm training five to six days a week and three days a week. You know, I do this thing and work overnight. And it's like, if you're a shift worker, you might actually feel really optimal.

Only training two to three days a week because your stress that three days when you're working those 12 hours are in the emergency room. Or, um, again, you as a par 12 hours or in the emergency room or, again, as a paramedic or a firefighter, whatever, it's like stress is still stressed to the body and your body can't differentiate it. And so it's like, that's a really hard thing because again, for a lot of people, it's like,

oh, but I love exercise because it's really stressed really being, it's like, motherfucker, you have to learn other ways to moderate yourself that aren't just beating your body into the floor with more stress. And that was a lesson I learned really hard when I had shoulders earlier, because it was like, oh, I can't do anything.

I'm really stressed out about work with the fuck do I do. And so it was like, I had to learn that life's go when I had shoulders. Where you were in the position of, because you said a couple months ago, or a few months ago, I think, or when you had to go and hormone replacement, where you said it was a slap in a face to you, right? Because you're talking about getting the body naturally to, to, you know, where you

should get it or where it could get or whatever, were you confronted with the question of like, okay, I'm in this situation, quality of life isn't good. I need to either do hormone replacement therapy or I need to still reduce more stress, which may be the business or whatever. Were you in that position instead, okay, now I'm gonna do the hormones because I can't. I think the biggest thing is like I said, when I really looked at it,

I'm always down the country rabbit holes where it's like, if you look in my bathroom, it's all like paraben free, it's so free. So it's like, all you look in my bathroom, it's all like paraben-free, sulfate-free. It's like, so it's like, all of my environmental exposures, like I use, you know, the little stasher bags rather than plastic bags and you're rather than drinking out of plastic. Like, I've got this day in this too.

You know, it's like I was doing all the crunchy stuff. I was also doing all the sexy stuff of eating cruciferous vegetables and eating sprouts. And, oh, my doctor has me on this liver detoxification support supplement. And I'm doing all this gut health stuff. So it was just like, what's the alternative? Like, I think the biggest tipping point for me was when you look at lab work. So in my case, again, I had low estrogen, low testosterone.

The irony was my progesterone levels were great. So like, I still, obviously every single month single month like I would say on the super fertile, but it's like technically if I wanted to get pregnant, I probably wouldn't have a problem because most people don't ovulate, most people have an ovulatory cycles. But so what was happening specifically was during the first half of my cycle, during my follicular phase, it'd feel fine. But then during the second half, it was like my mood was really struggling. And it was like being super down in the dumps,

just experiencing like severe mood swings up and down. But again, just like severe depression, severe anxiety to the point that like it was getting crippling. And so it was like I was seeing every single month, it was like, fuck man, like this is getting worse and worse and worse. And so like I remember, I texted my doctor and I was asking her, I was like, okay, are there any natural supplements that support estrogen levels?

I understand, part of this is just again, I've got such a severe difference between my estrogen and progesterone ratios and she was like, no, dude, everything that we think of, we could do, like you're already doing it. And so I think it was probably like a week later, like I kind of marinated on the idea of just like, okay, we're out of options.

So it's either continue to feel super fucking shitty or hopefully feel better. How many hours a day were you working at this time? Is this is why you were running your business or starting it? Yeah, so I've been running my own business for a little over a year, you're in a couple of months now. But I would say in general, I'm a workhorse, so if I have both a blessing and a curse,

it's like, I don't know how to not work hard. So if I decide I want to do something, like, shit's going to happen. But I would say in general, I'm definitely I probably log, you know It's like I'll start my work day at 8 or 9 p.m. And probably shut it down your 7 or 8 at night So it's like I've got very long work days But I think it was more just again. It's like It kind of looking and you're like okay like when mood stuff starting to get a little bit scary, if like, you just have to address that. And so same thing, it was like, I reached out to my doctor.

And again, like, that's the other part of his practice is, for me, I'm replacing my therapy. And it was like, what is the smallest dose we can get to just hopefully get back up to normal? And then the goal is like, again, we'll be probably in the next month. We'll retest again. You see what levels are looking like. And then see, okay, now that we're kind of up back towards a happy range, can we transition off or at this point again, it's like when you feel so bad,

like everybody needs the permission to just feel good. Like every. That's why this is such an important conversation because you could be in a situation where, in my opinion, I think starting your business on the stress of that, and obviously you are, I mean, I know you now for, you know, 45 minutes and I can tell you 100% your workhorse, I can tell. How you do anything is how you do everything.

And that's probably contributed to all of that, that attitude, that mentality, probably contributed to your body, you know, having hormone issues. But at some point, it's a quality of life thing. I know when Adam went off to Stasper on it. I was just going to go here. I was just going to ask, I got to, and not to cut you off, but I got to ask you this, because I'm listening to you tell your story, and I'm wondering, when was the last time in your life that you trained two days a week or less, and for how long of a period of

time did you do that? It would be a very short term thing. I think that present day I could handle it. I think I have a very good perception on how I'm personally feeling. I do a really good job of just checking where it's like, you know, like we feel like shit in the gym, you know, like let's take a D load or let's take you four or five days off. But I think the biggest thing with hormone replacement therapy in general is just making sure it's not the first step, right?

Like people want the magic pill, people want the easy answer, but it's like, I would hope that everyone would do the same thing I did, which is like, you hire a doctor and you have very talented professionals in your corner, but it's like, you look at your nutrition, you look at your exercise, your lifestyle, your gut health, your liver health, your adrenal health. You prioritize things like sleep and you prioritize resting and relaxing more than you're stressing your body with things like exercise and prioritizing food quality.

You're starting with all of the core foundations to that before you go on testosterone or before you start you know taking things. I think the hardest thing is like again a lot of people from what I from just what I've personally seen it's like when people go on bioidentical progesterone people go on some sort of testosterone replacement therapy a lot of times the doctors are starting at such a drastic dose so that they immediately feel better, but that might not necessarily be the best case. So I think it's just like starting small. So like even with thyroid meds,

it's like you wanna give the person the least amount, see how they respond and wait. Okay, thyroid meds, or your thyroid levels didn't really drastically improve this six weeks. Cool. Let's take it up a little bit more retest. I think it's just again, test, test, test, retest, but really having somebody that's willing to listen rather than just...

Absolutely. In my opinion, it's a quality of life thing and people need to realize that if they've done something or damage to their body for a long period of time, it could take a very long period of time to come back to normal. You have to either be willing to do that and is that trade off worth the loss of quality of life during that period or is supplementing with hormone or whatever, going to be better for you and your quality of life. This is a very individual thing.

I mean, and I was gonna use Adam as an example. He was on testosterone for years. Maintenance levels and incompeditive levels as a competitive physique competitor. He went off testosterone. He tried a couple times, was terrible. Then he weaned it down slowly. Then went completely off.

And I think it took him, how long did it take for you to get back to normal? Oh, it's almost two years now. Two years, and now the testosterone levels are in that normal range, but there was like, months of depression that the guy was going through. And not only that, and that's why I was kind of alluding to the training thing,

because this was a very difficult thing for me. Being a competitive athlete, loving training, loving exercise, but also realizing that the training was not conducive to me getting my hormone levels back. And sure a very small dose. And my training for probably a six months close to a year was two, three days a week tops. It was weak as fuck in the gym.

It was terrible. It was depressing. It took everything in me to just get in there and to move. I couldn't train with the competitive mindset that I had because I would I'd find is if I do that, I would backslide. And man, we were testing on me every,

I don't know, three months or so and I was not moving. I have my cycle ready to go. It's been ready to go for seven months now. I remember you said something like, okay, if it's not normal in this next test, yeah, I'm gonna go on because his quality of life was the poor guy was,

and he's one of the strongest, mentally strong person people I've ever met, and he was at that point, and that's, it's a very important conversation because you can go on the natural side, which I think is the right side. However, we can get very judgy with ourselves and other people. You have to weigh things out.

Sure, could you go back and say, okay, I still have too much stress. Starting my business was part of it. Maybe that's part of the reason. Or you could say, no, this is important to me. I'm at the point now where I want the quality of my life to improve. And that's why modern medicine exists. And I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but I do think that it shouldn't be the first option

for people, because oftentimes the root cause, solving that you end up with the best quality of life. So the equivalent right is like, let's say somebody is like, this isn't quite as deep in the weeds as like, low testosterone issues, right? But it's like, there's so many things where it's like root cause just always wins. So it's like, how many people will be like, yeah, you know, I'm struggling with really bad acne. Like, I think I need to go on the pill. It's like, did you try removing dairy? Like, have you tried removing gluten? Do you wash your fucking bed sheets? You know, once a week, are you using natural detergents? You know, how, like, what quality of cosmetics and skincare

and hair care products, like, are we using safer products? It's like getting people to look at that root causes really, really important too, but it's like even... It takes more work. Yeah, it's the difference. It's like, go to the doctor, get acutane, or gotta fix my gut health, gotta look at all my cosmetics, gotta pay attention to how things affect me.

Like, it's a lot of work. But I think the bigger thing to understand, though, too, is it's like medication to agree, like still can't get ahead of your shitty habits, right? So it's like, if somebody, for example, like with thyroid stuff, it's like, again, if your thyroid levels are operating so far down below, it's like medication needs to, you know, you need.

Because it can get dangerous. Yeah, like it can get dangerous. Like you need the medication to get you up, but it's a two-part transaction because for so many people, they go to the doctor, you know, they have certain symptoms where it's like, oh, having weight gain, I'm having hair loss, my fingers are cold, you know, all this bullshit,

but it's like, they're not, they take medication, but then they don't see things get better because again, they're not addressing the root of like, hey man, well like if you're in a clorked deficit, that can also cause. Yeah, subclinical thyroid levels like that. At the very least too, that it'll mask signals. So if you're, let's say you're a female

and you're just not training appropriately for your body, your stress levels too high, you're not eating enough, not getting it, whatever, it's just not training appropriately for your body. Your stress levels too high. You're not eating enough, not getting it. Whatever, it's just, it's not working for you. Your hormones will send you that signal. You'll feel like shit, maybe have, be real fatigued, have difficulty losing weight or building muscle. You go to the doctor, they'll test your hormones.

Those hormone levels are a symptom of something else. And if you replace those hormones, you've now eliminated the, or masked the signals. And so, and it is a can that you continue to kick down the road. I see this with male athletes too, where these guys who, they're like, oh, I'm on just testosterone replacement therapy. So I'm not, it's not the same as being, you know, pharmaceutical enhanced or whatever. Actually, it is. It's very similar because for a normal man, if I do things that are wrong for my body, my testosterone levels drop. Yours always stay consistent. You don't get that same feedback. And hormone levels, this is another thing we might want to consider, is hormone levels in normal ranges when all these root issues

aren't solved may not be a good thing. For example, estrogen in the wrong type of environment can be pro-cancer, testosterone levels, high testosterone levels in a man who isn't taking care of himself properly, can actually fuel cancers and be inflammatory or cause heart issues. Now, high testosterone a healthy man because his body's producing that testosterone is healthy, perfectly healthy. So there's a lot of things that we, high testosterone, a healthy man, because his body's producing that testosterone is healthy,

perfectly healthy. So, there's a lot of things that we, you know, a lot of things that we need to consider, but at the end of the day, and I want to make this point, because we're going between, you know, solving the root cause and being natural about things, and then, you know, using modern medicine, it's your quality life.

So, you have to decide that for yourself, at the end of the day, like, how is my quality, and it can take a long, there's some theories that the central nervous system has a memory. And so if you beat the shit out of yourself for years and years and years, and then you're like,

but I've been perfect for six months, I gotta get it longer time, man. It might take much longer than you might think, it might take like an Adam's case two years. And I'm only, I was only abused, abuse, I'm gonna say abuse, but I was only taking higher levels of testosterone for four years. So this isn't like, I don't, I don't fall. And I don't fall.

Yeah, I don't fall in the category of. And that's what I was gonna, that was insane where my brain went, is like, at the end of the day for women, it's like your menstrual cycle is your fifth vital sign, right? It's like, and that's part of the issue is like, people aren't conditioned to care about women's health and people don't understand the impacts that it can have. And so for me, it was like,

I went on hormone or birth control at 16. I had really, really bad acne and I really, really bad menstrual cycle. So same thing, it was like, I was that person that like I'd see it school. Or like I'd be curled up on the couch and it's like, well well the doctor never said like, hey man, like maybe it's the fact

that you're slaithering your face. So you know, maybe you have acne because you're eating tons of sugar, you're a traditional teenager that fucking spams, you know, red bull and pizza and, you know, all this dairy and gluten, you know, maybe it's the fact that you're using drugstore makeup and skincare,

like you haven't licked a vegetable in six months, you're not getting a fiber, you're not drinking a water. Like, there's never that conversation in the doctor. It's just like, oh, yeah, back to you, just take this and cool. And so again, it's like, what a crazy spiral that, you know, that might have contributed to thyroid issues later. But it's like, for 12 years, I didn't have a menstrual cycle. So I didn't know that I was overtraining these again.

It's like, your body tells you so many things, right? So again, it's like, if you're getting back to like, if your chief symptom is like, yeah, I know it's weird. Like, I wake up multiple times a night. Like where my head instantly goes, there's a lot of different questions where it's like, well, okay, you know, like what do your blood sugar levels look like? You know, what, like how are we eating? Are you over training?

You know, is your CNS just getting fried by deadlifts and high-intensity exercise? your blood sugar levels look like, how are we eating? Are you overtraining? Is your CNS just getting fried by deadlifts and high-intensity exercise? But with hormonal birth control, it's like so many women don't understand all the things that comes around, but again, it's like a women's menstrual cycle and your hormone level should vary

throughout the month and go up and down. And yet with hormonal birth control, it's almost just like the spot line across where it's like you're in this controlled environment, 24-sat-a. Changes, changes how we perceive things very subtly. We had Dr. Jolene Brighton on the show. I know you know who she is.

And she talks about changes your, you know, how you choose mates. The people, the way you think and stuff. So it's, and there's a lot of these effects that are downstream. It reminds me of, I used to train a lot of clients in an advanced age and Sometimes they would bring me their old well oftentimes they would bring me their medication list Because I'd have to talk to the doctor and I'd look at their medications

And I'd realize that half of them were to counteract the side effects of the other half So it's like why are you taking this laxative? Oh because this one makes me constipated Why are you taking this for you know for for fatigue? Oh because this one makes me constipated. Why are you taking this for fatigue? Oh, because this one causes me to get drowsy. And I'm like, oh, wow, we're plugging holes this whole time. And that kind of stuff happens downstrain. And I think the crazy thing, right? If you talk about the concept of how to naturally balance your hormones, it isn't a lot of

times taking super sexy supplements or anything. It isn't a lot of times like taking super sexy supplements or anything, it's like. It's mostly never that. It's literally a basics of like, young man, you get enough sleep at night. Like cool. Training, are you training enough, but not too much? What does your food look like?

Are you eating tons of processed foods? Are you getting enough carbohydrates for your activity? Are you eating tons of sugar and bullshit? you getting enough carbohydrates for your activity? Are you eating tons of sugar and bullshit? I call it food. Here's one for you that blows people away. It's not just the activity, but it's how you do the activity. I could easily sit here and stress myself the fuck out,

not move, and I could exercise and relax the hell out of myself all because of where my mental state is. A lot of people need to understand that, because I think you get the type A individuals where like, I'm doing all the things, and I'm doing them perfect, and I'm fucking trying to make you understand. You're my heart to shit out of this.

Yeah, and, but it's like, that's like, when I first learned how to meditate, I had an, I used to have this side facility to my wellness studio that had group classes and I had a meditation expert come in, and he was trying to teach me how to meditate, and he goes, Sal, he goes, you can't meditate by trying harder. It doesn't work that way.

That's the opposite of meditation. I remember being like, oh shit, that makes perfect sense. One of the things too, Laurie, I think would be important that we make a point on is that because women's naturally have hormonal fluctuations, and because the female body is the one that carries a baby, they're also more sensitive to stressors, activity,

and exercise, whereas a man tends to be a little bit more resilient, doesn't mean we're all way more resilient, but a woman's body, like if you do prolonged fasting and a hard activity, a man's body tends to be more resilient, but a woman's body, like if you do prolonged fasting and a hard activity, a man's body tends to be more resilient with that kind of stuff. Whereas a woman immediately switches and changes faster because they're responsible for reproducing. Right, right. So, maybe we could talk about some of those differences because I know a lot of women

would be like, but my boyfriend works out that way. And the guys do that way. And I'm like, well, you know, the female body's a little bit different. Actually, in my opinion, there's benefits and detriment. You can't beat yourself up as much, but your body's way more sensitive to signals around you and within you. And if you pay attention to those,

you can become like a psychic of what's happening. Yeah, like a total wizard. So I think the biggest thing exactly is he says, like, okay, females exist to bear babies. There's just more stopgaps in play to keep us safe, right? And so I think the biggest thing worth mentioning is when we look at studies on diets, whether, you know, if we do a study on keto, if we do a study on carnivore, very rarely are they done on women.

Oh, right point. And so part of that is just again, like we can't even get studies on women started because we have to go back to basic questions of, well, do you have a menstrual cycle? Are you taking hormonal birth control? Oh, well, if you're taking hormonal birth control, what?

You can't go on a study. Like, there's like, and that's where it stops. And so it's like understanding that simply that, yo, like, there's not tons of studies simply done on women. But exactly as you said, it's like understanding that simply that, yo, like there's not tons of studies simply done on women. But exactly as you said, it's like, we end up with a lot of this empirical data. Like I love when people ask you,

how do you feel about keto with, yo keto for women? And I'm like, I fucking hate it. More times than that. How do you feel about intermittent fasting for women? More times than that, I fucking hate it. And so it's like again, like every single type of diet works, every single type of diet can have application. The question is, you know, is it right

for you? But it took me like I recently just published my second ebook and it was titled, you know, the fat loss, the baddest guy to fat loss gaining and maintaining. But so what I did with each particular diet was just mapping through okay, like,, what is it? B, what are my personal experiences or thoughts or what have I seen with clients? Talking about how to implement it, but then talking about a lot of big things to walk child for. And so it's like for women, it's like, I don't like seeing low fat diets over time. Like cholesterol is a precursor for hormones. The fucking end. So like, can you know, in a diet phase, could you cut fat as your source of calories and could you see fat loss? Sure. But we also see a huge sector of women where it's like, you know, maybe you're falling template nutrition

or you're working with a coach that has you on you 30 to 50 grams of fat a day. Those are your people that you look like a fucking wizard coach because they say, hey, I haven't seen a menstrual cycle in two years, can you help me? And you look at the food logs and you're like, oh, well, this will be easy. You slam them up to, you know, say 70 to 80 grams of fat, you give it a month and it's like,

oh, I got my period. My first menstrual cycle, like, it's so bad, but same thing on the carbohydrate side, it's like, I kind of work off of minimum. So it's like when I'm looking at women, again, your caloric need is going to vary based off of so many things. But it's like, I don't like to see women,

my minimums for fat intake would be a minimum of 60 to 75 grams of fat, a minimum of 150, 250 grams of carbs. And maybe even more, if you do competitively, exercise, you're doing tons of training. It's like you might need 300 grams of carbs if you're an active mother fucker. And you can also cycle them. I mean, you can also go through some days

or lower carbs and much higher fat and other days are, because that's probably how we ate naturally. But I love that you brought this up because you're absolutely right. Most studies are done on a population that does not reflect the average woman. Most of them, most of them are done on men, and if the women that are in the studies are many of them are on hormonal birth control, just because most women are on hormonal birth control.

That's a very, very important thing to point out. Here's a good example, especially recently, I'd say over the last five years, we've been inundated with studies showing the benefits of coffee. It's healthy, it's full of antioxidants. Caffeines great for dopamine, great for the brain. In my experience, and this isn't specifically with women,

caffeine can be terrible. Now not for always, but when I'm dealing with a woman who has too much stress working out too much, this is most women who would hire me. Lowering their caffeine or limiting their caffeine had tremendous benefits, but the studies would show that, and they'd bring these studies to me. Like this study says coffee's so good for me.

I could keep, I should keep, you know, taking it. It's like, no, that's not gonna, that doesn't apply to you. These studies were done on totally different people. I'm so glad you brought that up. I think the hardest thing about studies too is also understanding that they're always going to be a little behind.

So it's like, we're going to see these things, if it's doctors working with clients, or if it's coaches working with people, we see this shit long before somebody has the idea of like, yo, let's slam this in a research. And I think that's the hard part, is a lot like yo, let's land this in a research. And I think like that's the hard part is you know a lot of times you know it's always like oh show me the researcher show show me this and it's like fuck man like I can tell you that you know in the past you know I went to school graduated. So I started all this

you know almost 12 years ago it's like I can tell you a lot of things that I've seen observations from from working with thousands of people that again, you know, are you gonna see research studies on this? No, but it's again, you know, it's like, for women, it's like, okay, well, if you're struggling with thyroid issues or hormone issues, being low carb probably isn't gonna help, like it seems like again, you know,

it's like, carbs are very necessary to that situation. Again, it's like, ironically, if I was gonna ping, you know, ping. Again, it's like, ironically, if I was gonna ping three things where it's like, if you have hormone issues, don't be low carb, don't be low fat, and don't be low calorie, well, what is there, right? That's like just being kind of more, it's like the longer that I coach,

the more unbiased I get, where it's just like, hey man, let's have ample amounts of fucking everything over here. Yeah, you don't want the body to think that you're in a state of, you know, partial starvation, right? Using that term, but when you're going low fat or really low carb or really low protein, the body starts to think that, okay, we're not around a lot of stuff.

And again, men are far more resilient to this. The women are, and of course, as an individual variance, depends on the person, but 100%, you see women go keto long, long term, and you start to notice more so on women issues with thyroid, or even with antibodies, where the body's not utilizing the thyroid, like it's supposed to. Kind of like a fun note to kind of explain to listeners, too, is just like, for women, your menstrual cycle

is always gonna be about three months behind. So with guys, it's like you kinda get a quicker feedback report of like what you're doing on life right? It's like, well, if I'm a guy and I suddenly stop waking up with a morning load, like, okay, like something I'm doing isn't working for me, you know what? It's probably a little bit easier.

It's a pretty fast signal. But for women, it's like I just got a DM the other day where it was like, dude, it's so weird. Right now, I'm reverse-diting. I wasn't eating any food. I was at the bottom of a Chloric Dupse. And now that I am dialing up my food, my menstrual cycle didn't come this month.

And it's like, well, again, your body's still so far behind. Your follicles take about a hundred days to develop. Oh, so you got to look that way back. Yeah, so I had a client who she got married and so something very, very similar happened where it was like, she obviously weddings are super stressful. You know, went on a honeymoon and was traveling all over the place.

And so it was like a few months later, same thing, she was going through a lot of menstrual issues. She had never had before and it was like, well, dude, we have to look back at what you were doing. And so I think that's the most important thing to kind of reiterate to people is like, you could be doing everything right present day because you realize there were situations

that we need to improve, but you have to look in retrospect to and see, okay, well, three months ago, sure enough, I was cutting for a weightlifting meet. I wasn't eating, or the any calories. Well, okay, that makes sense. Give it some time. You know, menstrual cycles can be left. Something you had said earlier in the episode, a few times was working on people's behaviors and changing, helping them change behaviors. And we say this all the time on the show, that's really the only way to

help someone long-term. It's the behaviors you have to work with, not necessarily count calories, count macros, whatever. What are some strategies and techniques and ways you've been able to help people modify their behaviors when they have, let's say, restrictive binge type behaviors, or when they have bad relationships to food or exercise, like, what are some of the things you help

coach them through to help them with those behaviors? I think it's gonna be super individual, and I'm gonna put the giant asterisk again that like if somebody has eating disorder tendencies as a coach, they are out of scope for you, right? And it's super heartbreaking, it's hard to have that conversation, but it's like, you know, at the end of the day,

you're filling out a client application or whatever, and it's like, oh yeah, by the way, the day, you're filling out a client application or whatever. And it's like, oh yeah, by the way, I binge yikes, like you're out of school, right? Yeah, if it's clinical bingeing, yeah, that's fine. So I think that's just important to mention. But it's so individual because I think for a lot of people, like the topic of bingeing is so fascinating to me because more times than that,

things just get disordered. And so what I mean by that is like for some people, they might define their binging as every Saturday I fly off the rails. You know I end up having pizza and ice cream and all that stuff. And so sometimes it's just looking at, well, is it actually a binge? Like, chlorically, what are we putting down? And so simply telling somebody like, hey, if this is going down, like, can you just somehow document

what you're actually eating, right? Because it's like, people will say they're binging, but if you look to caloricly, maybe they're really only eating, you know, 300, 400 extra calories. And so, in their mind, it's more just they're eating foods that they've defined as, you know, air quotes bad.

Like, it's like, oh, pizza's bad. And ice cream's bad. And it's like, it's actually's bad and ice cream's bad. And it's like, it's actually again. They're just judging it afterwards. Yeah, it's just like a state of like, dude, do you overate 300, 400 calories? For some people, you know, you see this interesting tendency

where it's like, maybe they're in, you know, they hold it down Monday through Friday. They're super restrictive, you know, they're couldn't, quote, eating clean and you're doing all the right things. And then it's like on same thing on Saturday, they fly off the rails. They can't stop putting food in their mouth.

They're so hungry, you know, they just blow it out. And so a lot of times it's just looking, well, are you eating enough calories on the regular Monday through Friday? Because if your body is in this restricted state, right? Where it's like, well, now you have five days of exercise under your belt, you have five days of not eating enough calories for how much you're exercising,

and then your body forces you to kind of blow it out on Saturday, because it's just like, fuck me, and I need food. For a lot of people, it's just like chronic under-eating can be a really, really big nudge towards that whole, you know, again, air quotes on binging tendency. So just looking for people, you know, it's like, well, fuck dude, if you're a six-foot male and you're eating 1600 calories

and you should be eating 3000 calories on the daily, like she's gonna have a 5,000 calorie day. Like shit's gonna get fucking weird because your body just doesn't know what else to do. So I think just kind of looking again at the bigger picture of like, A, art, like how much food are you currently eating? Because so many people have,

you know, people are resistant to tracking their food. People are resistant to, oh, I don't want to weigh a measure. Oh, that's so OCD or oh, that's so obsessive. It brings awareness. It brings awareness. Like you wouldn't fucking do a science experiment and just not measure anything.

And so it's like when you have actual metrics, like you can't, are you? I think some people don't, they don't want that awareness. So they want to be unaware of what's actually happening. Something that I found that was very common, that I think when it comes to binging, it's more of the mentality and behavior around it, not so much the fact that you're eating more food. Like you said, I think judging it comes to binging, it's more of the mentality and behavior around it, not so much the fact that you're eating more food.

Like you said, I think judging it afterwards, you're probably just eating a little more because you need to. But what I found is that when people are in that unaware, that state of unawareness and just eating, it's not about the food that they have, it's about the food that they want. And so, I think we've all experienced this to some degree,

especially if you've ever dieted down and got super shredded and then come out of that, you'll notice that while you're chewing, whatever you're chewing, you can't wait to get the next one. And it's really has nothing to do about what's in your mouth. You're not even enjoying the taste. It's all about wanting, wanting, wanting. And if that's the behavior that you find yourself having,

then yeah, you may have some, some binging tendencies. That might be the the situation. Do you do advocate for like journaling and you know, writing down how you feel, are you eating and whatnot? Does that help? Yeah. So that's journaling is a big practice. I'm having a lot of my clients do.

And so I think for a lot of people, it seems overwhelming at first because it's like, well, where do I start? And you know, so again,, sometimes I give them very specific prompts so you know, for like, hey, well, we don't love our body when we look in the mirror, right? Or like you're communicating to me, like you're super uncomfortable with your body right now, you don't like particular things. And so like, almost just going back to like, why is that?

Because for a lot of people, it comes from interesting places where it's like, they just like their body and their body appearance because it actually comes from a place of just simply wanting to be more loved in life. Or it's just, they don't have the skill of just acceptance, right? So like, I think that you guys have been putting out some interesting, like, Sal,

I know you made a post the other day, just talking about like, you don't train quite as hard as you used to and you're okay with it, right? But it's like, I have a pregnant mom right now and I say pregnant loosely because she's postpartum. But so she just had her second kid and so she's really struggling this time because it was like, man, you know,

my first child, this was so much easier and you know, I made the mistake of looking back at pictures you know, where it was three months ago after the first baby and I'm just not there anymore. And so it's like, right now journaling is such a good practice for her because it's like, hey man, like when you looked like this previously,

you were also feeling like shit. You were training double the amount of time. You're doing so much more stuff. And so it's like just getting people to kind of unpack these heavy rucksacks of emotion. And. Well, our bodies and ourselves crave love most from one person and that's ourselves.

And if you don't care for yourself, and this is the thing about love, love doesn't mean, like you can have a child, this might be easier for people to understand. You can have a kid and you can objectively say your kids not perfect. I don't think any, I mean real good parents will know that their kids aren't perfect. Like, yeah, my kid's not perfect. He doesn't do this or she doesn't do that or whatever. Do you still love your kid? Oh, absolutely. So that's what I mean by love. Not looking at yourself and being be like, I'm perfect. That's not love. That doesn't exist.

It's looking at yourself or thinking about yourself. Like I care about myself. If you can't do that, you're gonna necessarily always be seeking for it. And the way you're gonna be seeking for it is by trying to achieve this ideal that's impossible. And it's a never ending cycle of chasing that ideal. It's a never ending cycle of looking more perfect,

being better, being a different person, and you're just gonna. It's a never ending cycle of looking more perfect, being better, being a different person, and you're just going to, it's a spiral that'll never end, and eventually turns into, you know, can turn into devastating, travesty. I think the thing is, body positivity isn't, my body is so great. You know, I look amazing 24, 7, 365. Body positivity and body awareness is like, my body is great regardless of what it looks like. My body is my body, I care about it, and I love myself.

That's all it is. You can objectively look at yourself and say, oh, I have more body fat on my body than it's probably healthy. But that doesn't mean I don't love myself or care about myself, because I'm not perfect just like I'm a winner. And again, if you don't care about yourself truly, you will necessarily always be seeking for it. And sometimes you seek for it in the wrong places

and it may even be from other people, it may affect your relationships of other people. And I just wanna make this point because there's this body acceptance movement. I think people confuse it. And they think that it means that love, like I'm gonna take my objectivity out. No, I love my body no matter what. I'm perfect. Like okay, I get what

you're trying to say, but that's not how it works. Because if you go down that path, it's not going to work either. It's totally totally different. These must be conversations you have with clients. I so that the body positivity sector is very fascinating to me, but I think the biggest thing is just again like you You can accept your body while also working towards the best you know the best body for you And so I think the biggest thing is just like your best body weight is the one that allows you to show up and do the things You want to do and live the life you want to live. And so we can't go out and party 24-7 and eat fast food and bullshit, but then also be like, but I really, really want to look like a CrossFit Games athlete and have a trade

six pack. It's like things have to line up. And so I think that's just again, like the concept of acceptance is a really hard one because it's something that you're going to be working on the rest of your life and the rest of your time you're on planet earth. But just also reframing too, the people that love you don't love you for the way that you look. It's like we all at the end of the day, we're going to get buried in the ground and eaten

by worms. I promise that nobody is going to be, you know, you're not gonna be on your deathbed and people are gonna be like, man, you know, I wish Susan was so fat, you know, it's like people remember you for why you're great and you know, the things that you do for them and all of that stuff. And so we, I think from a very young age,

we associate so much value with how we look. And you know, especially I would say the women sector, it's like, we are valued for what we look like. And oh, she's pretty. You're told that you're marketed to fucking hell like that. I mean, you look at all marketing, and it's going to show you what the marketing values, which is getting people's attention, the easiest way to get people's attention is with attractive, sexy, young people. And so you're constantly being told that that's very, very valuable.

And the problem happens or the issue is when you confuse body image for self image, they're totally different. Your self image is not your body. I can have a body image. I can look in the mirror and say, my feet don't look funny or I'm losing my hair. That's okay. Self image, totally different.

Do you remember when you were able to separate the two? Because confusing the two, it sounds like that's what you did for a long time. I was saying. Yeah, well, I would just say this, when all of my social media stuff started taking off, I remember having a specific conversation with my business partner,

because we were cracking jokes about something. And I just remember reinforcing the idea that if I'm going to end up with a big social media following, I don't want it to be because, you know, like, I'm showing that ass off on Instagram or because I'm pretty, it's like, I'm gonna be known as somebody that's a smart mother fucker, you know, just bringing intelligence to the table and able to have, you know, really, really good conversations and stuff like that. And so I think for me personally, it was just the past couple of years I really had to work through different narratives

because it's like I spent six and a half years in my life and a super abusive relationship. And the same thing, it was like the one thing I always heard over and over again was how ugly I was and how various things about my body were horrific and all this stuff. And so it took a really long time to, again, just like work. I think from like 20 to 30 now,

it's like I've really worked through a lot of things and kind of come out on the other side. But it's like even when I look back at interesting tendencies I had, it's like I was ashamed of my body and so the way that manifested in real life was like, I always wore head to toe all black clothing. Even though I've never been overweight in my life,

you know, it's like I've always been very fit, very athletic. And so just kind of understanding that, like, regardless of your size, you like everybody still struggles with body images, right? Or there's just so many interesting tendencies that I had where it was like, you know, if I knew that I was going to the pool, or even like if I I was going to have sex with somebody later, I would start myself all day so that I, you know, again, air quotes looked better in the moment. And I think that there's a lot of tendencies like that that people actually do carry. And so when you kind of start getting into the mental health and getting into the body image and self image, like things get so messy.

And so when you start working through these things of clients again, because it's like the like women, it'll be fascinating where it's like, I've, I've had several clients where it was like because they didn't have a good relationship with herself and you know, didn't say nice things in the mirror, it would manifest in interesting ways where it was like they would date down or they would go for guys that it was like, dude, like you're gorgeous.

Like what, you're gorgeous, you're smart, you're funny, you're intelligent, you're successful and you can do so much better or you know, they would go hook up relentlessly with guys and just like that. You can't separate, you cannot separate health and just say just fitness or just it's all health and that's why I think it's important that as fitness professionals we

you don't have to be an expert in all of them. In fact, you won't be, it's impossible or highly unlikely but acknowledge and understand that that's part of it because if I'm not acknowledging and taking that into account I would oftentimes refer clients to therapists and then I'd work with the therapist and I would handle the exercise portion, the therapist would handle the other stuff, and then we would meet and talk. And they would say things to me like, you know, Sal, I know you're talking to her right now about reducing her sugar intake, but here's some of the tendencies I'm noticing right now. Maybe it's not a good time to restrict that.

And I'll be like, no problem, let's take that off the noticing right now, maybe it's not a good time to restrict that. And I'll be like, no problem. Let's take that off the table right now. And I would work with you because I acknowledged it. And boy, my success with these clients was through the roof. And I think we do most fitness professionals do a terrible job of that. And mainly because, let's be honest, most fitness professionals enter into the field

because we're pretty fucked up. I don't, I think most of us are those obsessive personalities that get into it, so. Well, and I think part of it too is just like, you know, again, like if you're coaching somebody or for you guys, you guys are kind of more just like personal training, whereas like I started off straight just like, you know, nutrition coaching.

And then you're kind of leaned into all the, you know, the actual exercise coaching, but it's like the conversations I have now with people versus even if I look two years ago, it's like the questions I was asking was like, oh, well, okay, was your exercise look like? Was your, what do your existing macros look like? What do your prescriptions look like? Where's like, now present day, like the things I'm asking is like, what's your menstrual

cycle look like? Or, hey, like, again, I don't work with male clients at home. They would be like asking questions about, you know, just sexual function. And again, the concept of, you know, do happen-winning wood and use stuff like that. But it's like, I'm looking at all these sexy things present day where it's like, okay, menstrual health, hormone health, adrenal health, gut health, liver health, mental health, and checking in on those tendencies because again it's like a few years ago it was just the basics and it's like the longer you get in the space you realize like, oh, like it's even like I've been thinking a lot about continuing education and I'm struggling

because it's like I want to get, you know, I wanna get my foot in the door, I'm more of these things, but it's like, I almost don't know where to start because I feel like things are a little behind. But it's like, again, you just wanna be a really good coach, but how do you continue to gain more tools? And I don't necessarily know that certification courses are the way to go.

You know, people always ask, oh, I wanna get a new nutrition coaching, like should I go to school for it? And I'm like, the reality of going to school for diatetics is that I interned under 14 diatitions that were all either overweight or obese. Everything I learned was outdated shit from the 90s. We literally had food pyramid in our textbooks. It's like, yes, I'm glad that I had that backing. like everything that I learned about nutrition, I learned once I got into coaching

and physically, you know, going through it and working with people, the same thing. It's like when I look at certification courses and like I look at the content covered, it's like, I mean, yeah, I could add that to my quote unquote resume, but I, you know, I already know how to do all this stuff. And so I think like that's the hard part

is like finding ways to, you know, continue elevating yourself as a coach. But it's like, I think that's the hard part is finding ways to continue elevating yourself as a coach. But I think that you're going to start seeing school go into a TED Talk style of things. And I think that you're going to see traditional college kind of go away. And then again, you're going to see more certification, more TED Talks tile. Hey, I can sit on my couch, but still continue my education stuff, because it's like in school. I agree.

I think one thing that we try to do is we try to surround ourselves with people that we respect as experts in their fields. And so we try to become more mavens. So it's like, okay, that's not my expertise, but I got the guy for you, all right, I got the lady for you. And then everybody works together.

I think that's what the future honestly is going to look like. But it sounds like you're tapping into a massive market demand within the fitness industry. Are you finding more and more people who are like, oh shit, this is stuff I needed to do. Like all I ever thought about was my macros and my workouts, this is crazy. Oh, dude, every single day,

because I mean, what I do on social media is I'll pick a topic and then I talk about it, right? So it's like, again, like, what is it? What are symptoms of it? Or what do I need to know about it? And then, you know, kind of getting people to, again, like, okay, well, if you want more resources about this, you know, check out these books or consider leaning into testing for this.

So, you know, so just getting those wheels spinning because, again, like, with, whether it's hormones, whether it's thyroid, everything is all interconnected. So it's like, if you have thyroid issues, you don't just have a thyroid issue. You probably have hormone imbalances. You probably have adrenal issues. You might have insulin and blood glucose dysregulation issues. It's like, it's all, everything is so interconnected. And so I just feel like education wins because when you empower people to truly understand, you know, how to look at the bigger picture. Like, again, there's a lot of people out there struggling thing.

Oh, I just need to, I need more motivation. I need more willpower. It's like, well, no, dude, like if you're dieting and you're thyroid sucks, like it might be really, really hard to successfully lose weight. Or I think the conversation that I drive home a lot is just the idea of like getting people to go the other route

because again, there's a lot of people that spend their whole time on planet Earth, they know trying to lose that last five pounds. And it's like, when this is the last time you ate at maintenance calories, which is well over, you know, 1800, 2000 calories for majority of women. Like when was the last time your body just felt safe and you weren't trying to work towards something, you know, 1800, 2000 calories for a majority of women. Like when was the last time your body just felt safe and you weren't trying to work towards something, you know?

Because it's like, again, whatever you tend to fixate on is also what you tend to see more of. So like, if you're gonna buy a new car, well guess what, you're gonna see that car, you know, everywhere you're driving around town. Very similar with our bodies. It's like, if you have a specific body concern, or it's, you know, oh, God, I really hate my midsection.

Well, if every single day you also wake up, you walk in the bathroom, you lift up your shirt to, you know, ab check yourself, or every single time you put on a piece of clothing, you know, you're grabbing your stomach or complaining, but it's like, that's gonna man a fast and you keep getting worse and worse because you're fixated on it.

It's all you're gonna see. So I think just like the nutrition industry, it's, there's such an issue of it. It's like, we have more information available at our fingertips, but God is so much of it also garbage. Medical medium is one that I love. Like I'm not usually somebody to just like slam on people, but it's like,

homeboy literally in his books talks about he listens to spirits, and that's where half of this information is coming like. What was this? I believe I forget his last name, but it's the dude that wrote medical medium, so there's like medical medium. So medium is in psychic. Yeah, so like it's like, it's fucking spirit.

Awesome. So when you're like, hey man, like I appreciate this, but like can we go back to like research? And I think that's why I also appreciate people, like I knew you guys love like, hey man, I appreciate this, but can we go back to research? And I think that's why I also appreciate people. I knew you guys love Lane Norton, but just trying to bring the science and information to people, but it is. It's like on Instagram, there's so much bullshit out there

because it's like you can make money from it. So people are gonna spam poor ideas or maybe it's they really latch onto an idea. Oh, he's the celery juice guy? Wow, I suppose we pulled up heck yeah. Oh, that's hilarious. Of course he's the celery juice guy too. The spirits told him.

The spirits told. Which again, I love doing Q&A is on Instagram with the questions box because same thing, I'll be like, how do you feel about celery juice? I mean, on a basic level, it probably tastes like shit. That's like, are there maybe some benefits? Maybe? Like, are there more potent ways to move the fucking needle?

Like, you're gonna make changes, go for cannonballs, like don't go for frickin' bullets. You know that this- Cellar is like the closest thing on Earth that's to water. Yeah, yeah, and lettuce. Lettuce, celery and water. I swear, glass. Yeah, people, I feel let us celery and water. I swear to God. Yeah.

Yeah, people, I feel amazing. I'm drinking five glasses of celery juice. How much water did you drink before that? Maybe half a glass. I think I know why. It feels this formula right here that he's following is so predictable. If I didn't have the integrity that I had,

this would be very easy to make a million dollars. And I could very easily pick something and just spin it and sell the fuck out of it and promise it would be a- But I mean, that's a hard part, right? It's like you're gonna see, like I think both of our platforms do a really great job of just like trying to fight through the bullshit

and just trying to again, like help lead people the right direction that's unfortunately, like the stuff that works is the stuff that's not sexy and it's really hard to sell. Yeah, it takes long, and it's really fucking hard to sell. Right, and it takes longer, that's unfortunately like the stuff that works is the stuff that's not sexy. And it takes long and it takes long and it takes long. It takes a long time. It's like anything else, man. You want to learn a martial art. You can have this train for a couple of years. We don't have the thing that plugs in your head like on the matrix and you automatically download Kung Fu. It takes time. And if you want to get your body to normalize, consider how long. You are not normalizing your body.

It's probably going to take a while. And so it's going to require some patience. And that's okay. If your quality of life is so terrible that you can't wait, then that's okay too, because quality of life is extremely important. So. But I think one interesting point I would love to bring up, because this is something I'm starting to see on my end, and I just want to put my head through the walls.

A lot of influencers and a lot of popular, very, very large companies are starting to put out these hormone improving supplements. Right? And so you're seeing supplements that contain ingredients like DIN, like calcium deglugrate, like bi-tux, and it's, I don't want to say it's scary to me, but it's like people, when we're looking at the industry, right? It's like we see marketing, it's like, hey, are you struggling with PMS, bad acne, irregular periods, and you know and bad gas and blood.

Cool. Well, that probably just described 99% of people. Everybody just raise your hand. So you put out a supplement that says, oh, hey, well, this thing is going to fix it. And everybody's like, fuck yeah. But it's like when you, like all three of those ingredients I list, dim calcium deglucrate and bi-tex. So like, for example, if we take a supplement like dim or calcium deglucrate and we don't need it, well, dim can cost low estrogen levels. Like if we don't have proper liberty taxification,

you can cause some gnarly damage by just taking a supplement that contains it. Very similarly, bi-tex basically acts as jumper cables and helps promote the connection between the ovaries and your brain. And so same thing, it's like Vitex can have really great application, can really help symptoms like PMS, lack of a menstrual cycle,

and you know, various things. But if, let's say somebody has PCOS or somebody has PCOS and they don't know it, they also probably don't know that Vitex is the worst thing they could have because people with PCOS or some of you as PCOS and they don't know it. Terrible. They also probably don't know that bi-tex is the worst thing they could have because people with PCOS tend to already have elevated luteinizing hormone, which is what bi-tex helps boost, so shake it's weird. And so like I cringe because there's two supplements that like constantly people are sliding in the 90s.

I mean, how do you feel about this balance? How do you feel? And it's like, here's why it annoys me because like those products, like Vitex for example, you know, the things like it or itself have been used for a long time in Chinese medicine, for example, aerovetic medicine. But here's a deal,

you go see a Chinese medicine practitioner, they never just prescribe you, or at least they shouldn't, just prescribe you herbs, it's also a part of a protocol. And oftentimes those herbs are the short and the small part of it. So if like you're on this protocol and they'll say sleep, diet, stress, meditate, whatever, they'll say also we're going to use these supplements for this period of time to get you through the transition phase or whatever. And they also probably did

testing. That's my and that's the other point. You don't just take them and think it's going to fix it. It doesn't work that way. And oftentimes it makes things worse. Yeah. And so that's the other point. Like, you don't just take them and think it's gonna fix it. It doesn't work that way and oftentimes it makes things worse. Yeah, and so that's what kind of was getting out earlier where it's like that weird balance of like, yes, it's good to be the CEO of your own health. And like, that's something I really try to empower clients and it's something like that.

But at the same time, like, understanding when things should be left in professional hands. And it's like, you know, with clients, it's like, you can't just take these things because, you know, your favorite influencer with code, you know, Ashley Tens had, hey, take it. Or because, you know, your favorite company, you love, you know, their protein powder,

their greens powdering, they just came out with, you know, this fancy new thing. And oh, I think I'll take that too. And it's like, oh, we also live in a very scary time. Because it's kind of like the doctor has, you know, if he says, hey, buy this supplement, everybody's fucking runs the store. And it's like, oh, like it's so good.

Because again, we're starting to have conversations, information's getting out there. But it's like always, always, always forever. And ever, amen, Test and don't guess. But B, it's like, please just ask your doctor, find a good doctor. Like it's, you can spend all this money on shit you don't need and also make it worse.

Whereas maybe, yeah, you might spend $400, $500 on hormone testing. And yeah, like that's fucking expensive. But it's like, it's an investment in yourself. And then you don't waste more money on shit that doesn't work for you, right? Because it's like, it's an investment in yourself. And then you don't waste more money on shit that doesn't work for you, right? Because it's like, again, all these hormonal and bound symptoms can overlap so much.

And then sometimes it also just comes back to like, they're super basic. So it's like, well, if you're suffering with like symptoms that might seem like thyroid issues, it's like, let's say the symptom of like, oh, I have really cold fingers. That could also be as simple as like, oh, I have really cold fingers. That could also be as simple as like, oh, I have a B12 deficiency.

Oh, I have an iron deficiency. Oh, I have a vitamin D deficiency. Yet you're over there like also, you know, being like, oh, Google says I have for sure a couple of these symptoms, I probably got thyroid issues. And so it's just like, we've got to get people. Maybe it's cold. Or maybe it's my cold.

Maybe it's, you know, again, blood glucose dysregulation, but it's like getting people to get on the more preventative side or if you're already deep in the shit, getting people to be like, okay, like let's invest, let's immediately try to pull the break on stuff and let's actually get a full picture of what we're going on. But even with testing stuff, stuff gets so hard because doctors don't pull the right things. Like if we talk about thyroid, it's like traditionally in the 90s, people just used to pull TSH levels. Well, TSH just tells you you're messing your hormone. It's kind of the equivalent of if somebody walked up, they knocked on your door and they said, hey, I need you to do the same. Like, that's all it does. And so when you're looking at thyroid,

you need to double check your doctor because nine times out of ten, your doctor isn't going to order all the tests we need to fully get like a heck yes or a heck no on a diagnosis. So you need TSH, you need free T3, you need free T4, you need antibodies which is TPO and TGAB. I also usually if people can do it, reverse T3 is really good as well, it's just expensive to order. But it's like, how many people go and they get testing and they say, oh, yeah, doctors, doctors say there's definitely no thyroid issues and you look at it back and say, well, cool.

You're doctor ordered TSH and total T4, awesome, rad. But same thing, you know, with hormone testing, it's like, well, maybe if we're testing for testosterone, they pull free testosterone, but they don't pull total testosterone. Or maybe for women. Usually the way around. Yeah, usually, and I think like Jolym Brighton does a really great job of hammering this home,

but it's like, you know, women will go get the hormones testing, and they spend you at $300, $400, and you know, they tried to do the thing. And they pull their hormones on a Tuesday at 3 p.m. and it's like, well, what day in your cycle were you and they're like, I have no idea. You're like, that matters. Well, there's three days you typically test.

It's day like 19 to 21 of your cycle so that you can capture a read on your producer and levels. There's also some testing you can do depending on what you have going on. It might be day three of your cycle, but then we get back to two bigger issues is that, A, people don't even know what day of their cycle they're on, people don't know if they ovulate. So there's an issue.

But again, you know, it's like the doctor is willing to pull the lab work, but they don't have better instructions on how to do it. So it's just again, like all of this is like, how do you help people go out there? And if you're like, it's cool to step up to the plate and do testing, but let's make sure you're also testing the right things. Excellent. So moving forward, what's in the future for you? Ooh.

So one of them I can't talk about because I've never seen some made do this in the space. Well, that's not fun. I know. Maybe we'll start with the other things and then if I leak it. So basically, once I get back, we're gonna be launching my own podcast. So, been doing tons of getting on other people's mics and it's finally time, I'm in a position to scale. So, we will be starting my own podcast.

The next thing we're gonna be doing is I haven't seen many people in this space promoting women to eat more food. And so, personally right now, I've had stem cell injections and both of my shoulders happened about two weeks ago and so basically my doctor orders are like, hey, you can do lower body because you just need to let your shoulders, you know, heal, no upper body. So currently I'm eating a Chloric Serplus and so I kind of put out some feelers and I was like, man, it would be really cool to start some sort of support group and put out education for women. I'm just like, hey,

I'm at a bulk. Yeah, like yes. And I think what I'm struggling with is like all of the words, whether it's like bulking, massing, lean bulking, lean mat, you know, it's like all of those words don't sound super great.

So I'd like to find some way, but just getting women to open the door, I think that the nutrition industry, like at least we're getting away from people just living in a deficit and like cutting their whole life, like now women are starting to understand, okay, there's this maintenance thing, like I need to bounce back and forth between like me, their at maintenance or you know, I'm cutting, but getting people to recognize that third part of the transaction, which would be eating a surplus intentionally gaining muscle.

Cause, hey, I'm sick of when they'd be in like, hey man, I can't get bigger legs or I want a juicier booty, like how do I do? And it's like, well, you can't grow a muscle by fucking eating a dac- Yeah, 800 calories. That's probably the most common thing

I used to get as a trainer. It's like wanting to build your butt on like 800 calories. I'm eating 1200 calories. I'm doing hip thrust. I don't understand why nothing's happening. Fucking evil. Yeah. I like that juice your booty.

Juice your booty. That's true. But yeah, it's like I would like to, you know, at this point it's like I've written several very comprehensive ebooks that are very helpful. But it's like I would like to kind of create a support group for people, it's like I've written several very comprehensive ebooks that are very helpful. But I would like to kind of create a support group for people where it's like, hey, you know, it's scary to be like, hey, I have abs. And you know, for the next three months, I'm going to let go of them a little. Or it's just scary, you know, when you're closed up fitting as well or stuff like that.

So I think creating some sort of support group and kind of safe space to just help women work through that and really support each other would be really cool. So that's something I've got in my radar. And I, fuck it, we'll talk about it. But the next thing I wanna do is I really love getting out in front of people. I really love talking, I love connecting,

face-to-face with people and social media is so great. I think that podcasts and just YouTube, whatever it is, all those are so great. But there's just something to be said for really connecting with people one-on-one. So I wanted to get back kind of like I used to do where I traveled and just helped teach nutrition certifications. But I've already done that. And that didn't really sound like scary or like I wanted to do something a little bit bigger beyond that. And so I had this idea where it was like, fuck man, what if we started

doing weekend retreats? And so we get together, you know, they would have to be a little bit smaller groups, we'll say like 12 to 15 people. But it's like, you know, maybe in the morning from 8 to 12, you know, we talk nutrition, we talk birth control, thyroid stuff, exercise stuff, how to help people maximize whatever they're doing in the gym, or just simply asking, hey, you showed up to be here selfishly what about nutrition or exercise or mindset or whatever, what do you want to take away from this weekend? So having a short nutrition and some sort of lecture each of the days of the retreat, but then working out together. It's like again, we have this giant gym program

full of hundreds of people. Let's give them a taste of what we do. Let's give them a taste of you don't have to kill yourself in the gym to look good and feel good. But then let's go fucking send it. I live in one of the greatest places in Plain Earth. Like Austin, Texas has so much to offer in terms of you could rent a boat on like Travis. You could go to the Green Belt and go hiking and swimming. We could go sunset, stand up paddle boarding, watch the bats.

And so I want to just kind of help people to connect because I think it's so hard to find people that are on your same level and in the same headspace. And so getting people to just walk away from the weekend, really building connections with people, you know, making friends and stuff like that. And so the third thing we're going to start basically doing is kind of this retreat idea where we not only give you education and you just really help give you the tools to move the needle forward wherever you're trying to go, but also have the freaking time of your life while also walking away with friends. And so kind of those are the big three, but definitely

super excited about the next couple. They sound great. Yeah, they sound really great. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And we appreciate your support. You share our stories and stuff sometimes. So we really appreciate it. We think you're doing the right things. It's good to meet people doing the right things in the industry. So thanks for coming. Awesome.

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