Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1605: How to Get Jacked on a Budget

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss getting jacked on a budget. The assumption that you need a lot of money to eat healthily and get shredded. (1:30) What it takes to get lean and build muscle. (5:28) Why the appropriate dose of diet and exercise will get you to your goal the fastest. (8:45) The order of essential macronutrients to get lean and build muscle. (13:50) Busting the myth that you can’t eat healthy on a budget. (16:43) The hierarchy of priorities when it comes to organic, grass-fed, pasture, and humanely raised. (20:04) The importance of quality when it comes to the food you buy. (26:16) The Mind Pump Grocery List to get jacked on a budget. (31:32) Sources of Protein. Ground Beef. (33:28) Tuna Fish in a can. (38:00) Eggs. (39:01) Cottage Cheese/Whole Milk. (40:33) Chicken Thighs. (43:40) Sources of Fats Butter. (45:44) Olive Oil. (46:29) Peanut Butter/Nuts. (48:12) Sources of Carbohydrates. White Rice. (50:32) Potatoes. (52:03) Oatmeal. (54:37) Vegetables. (56:15) Related Links/Products Mentioned July Promotion: MAPS HIIT and the No BS 6-Pack Formula 50% off!  **Promo code “JULYSPECIAL” at checkout** Visit Felix Gray for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump #1220: The 4 Best Sources Of Protein The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food How the Trillion-Dollar Processed Food Industry Manipulates Our Instinctual Desires Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer! Arsenic, Lead Found in Popular Protein Supplements Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pumper. In today's episode, we talk about how to eat to get your body fit, lean, buffed, awesome looking on a budget. A lot of people believe the myth that eating healthy or eating to get their body to look good is super expensive. This is not true. In fact, you'll actually save money if you follow the tips in this episode.

Now, this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Felix Gray. Felix Gray makes blue light blocking glasses that are amazing to look at. And also, don't change the color of everything around you. The lenses are clear, but they effectively block blue light. This is a unique aspect of Felix Gray glasses. Other blue light blocking glasses are either orange or red. Not these ones. Go check them out. Head over to Felix Gray Glasses.com. That's F-E-L-I- out. Head over to FelixGrayGlasses.com.

That's F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y glasses.com forward slash Mind Pump. Also, we're running a big promotion on two very popular workout programs. Maps hit is 50% off, and the No BS 6 pack formula is also 50% off. Go check them out or just go sign up at maps, fitnessproducts.com. Just use the code July Special with no space for that discount. One of the number one questions that I get, and it's probably more common from young men,

although I do get young women and older men and women that do this, but it's more common with like young college men, I get this question on, I wanna get jacked, I wanna get shredded, I wanna look this way, but I don't, I wanna college budget, or I don't have a job, or I don't have a lot of money, and there's this assumption that you need to have this really expensive high quality food

in order to get an incredible. Look, there's a million supplements to go with it. Right, and honestly, that's such a good point that I think the mistake that at least what I made when I was that young kid who thought that same exact way, I was spending $200, $300 on supplements a month than probably missing my protein intake because I wasn't dialing my diet in.

Totally, totally. And you know, a big thing with this is for a long time, actually, up until recently, I did not understand just how much people wanted to know this information until we did one of our long Q&A episodes. And what we do now on YouTube for people listening on podcast is we'll post a whole episode and then we break up the questions as separate clips. And over the last week, we were just

happening to be hanging out in the studio, looking at performance of which questions are people most interested in, which helps us address the things that people want to know the most. And one of the questions was similar to this and that particular clip far eclipsed all the other ones in terms of views and questions and comments.

And so we were left saying, you know what, we need to address this, because a lot of people have this question, because there's a huge belief in its largely a myth that eating healthy or eating to get lean or eating to look good is somehow so much more expensive than eating garbage junk food. So it's like, oh my gosh, I wanna do that,

but how am I gonna do that when I only have X amount of dollars to invest in food every single month? And I get where it comes from, but the truth is when you really break it down, it's not true, it's actually not more expensive to eat in a way to get your body to look lean and look good and muscular. You just have to know how to do it. Well, is it completely not true or is it like, because here where I understand and I get it is, you could get a lot of calories from the 99 set menu at McDonald's.

So, you know, I think that's where this stems from. Is it, I know that I can go to Jack in the box and get six tacos and spend less than $5? Yeah, well, that's just it. If you're comparing, help quote unquote, healthy process food to quote unquote, unhealthy process food, yes. Like if you go to the store and you're like, I'm gonna get, you know, super healthy tacos, you know,

or whatever, yes, that's gonna be much more than the Taco Bell tacos. But when you look at buying things, and we'll get into this right in the episode, buying certain foods in bulk, understanding good sources of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, and then you do the per serving value or the cost, you find that it's actually very inexpensive. So yes, if you want to compare healthy,

I don't know, fast food, unhealthy fast food, yes, you're probably gonna save money eating the garbage that comes from. Yeah, and I also think that a lot of people will look at something like Whole Foods where they've actually found the cornered the market in terms of their version of high quality means they just charge more money for a lot

of these food items because yes, if it's labeled organic or it's labeled natural or they have all these marketing terms attached to it, they can charge premiums for certain things. But there's a lot of other stores and other options out there where it's pretty reasonable. You just have to know where to look. Yeah, and I think first we need to talk about what it takes to get lean and what it takes diet wise to build muscle and look a particular way.

So let's define that first, right? Before we get into the foods and had to save money. Now number one, obviously, if you want to get lean, you have to eat in a calorie deficit. This is just the fact. So I don't care if you like to eat keto or vegan or carnivore or count your macros, doesn't matter. One rule you have to follow is you have to eat

less calories in your body burns. This way your body can burn body fat for energy. So that's number one. And then number two, although there's a variance here with how people respond to this, generally speaking, a diet that's relatively high in protein is beneficial for muscle fat loss. And when I say satiety, I mean, be able to kind of feel fuller on less calories. Now when I say relatively high protein, I'm not referring to

you know, bro science high protein, which says that you need to eat, you know, 1 and a half grams per pound of body weight or something like that. I mean about 0.6 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight in relatively lean individual. So if you're obese, you want to use a lean body mass, but if you're you know in this body fat range where you're're obese, you want to use a lean body mass, but if you're, you know, in this body fat range where you're not obese You could use your body weight. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you want to aim for anywhere between a hundred to 150 grams of protein Essentially, right? That's those two things are probably are the most important I would say in that Well, this is also assuming that this saying that to you. Well, this is also assuming that this conversation is going

to appeal to people that are wanting to get shredded. I would think that this debate is coming more from somebody who wants to get big, right? Somebody who wants to add or get... Because they're needing more food, right? Yeah, exactly. So I don't think it's as expensive to get shredded. Or at least when I, at least the young man that I was,

when I was in my early teens, or early 20s and late teens, I wanted to build muscle. I wanted to build muscle and get bigger. And that seemed expensive because it meant I had to eat in a chloric surplus. And it mean I needed to get enough protein and protein seemed to be expensive. If I went to these expensive places or did exactly like you said, I cheap jack in the box tacos to healthier version tacos. If I did things like that then it just looked so out of reach. But I also didn't have a Costco membership back then. I don't think I'd ever bought 20 to 40 chicken thighs and a five pound bag of rice or a bag of potatoes for myself at that time

in my life. So I just assumed that it was so out of reach. And I'm glad you said that too. So what I said about getting lean reverse for gaining, you have to eat in a calorie surplus. So those are kind of the rules. And then we can't miss the exercise component. Good effective appropriate exercise programming, which refers to how the workout looks and the structure of the workout makes a huge difference.

If you eat very well, but your workout programming sucks, you're not gonna build nearly as much strength muscle, you're not gonna nearly affect your metabolism as positively as you could, it'll be harder to get lean. So good exercise programming is a very important problem. I wanna elaborate on that a little bit, because you and I had it just happen to have a really good conversation off air this morning when you were working out

and we were sharing kind of what we are currently doing ourselves. And I'd like to think that my programming doesn't suck, but just so the listener, the audience knows that sometimes even my programming sucks. And that doesn't necessarily mean I'm, like people think sucks and they go, oh bad exercises, terrible technique. No, nothing about resistance.

No, nothing about resistance training or, no, what bad programming could look like is this is what was happening with me was I was in this rhythm. I'm training five, six, maybe even seven days, seven days a week sometimes in this past like a couple months. And I noticed that I wasn't really moving much, or my body changing, what I mean, my body composition wasn't changing much. Yet I was being very consistent, I was making good food choices. Then all of a sudden I had this thing, I think Max went through a regression,

we got busy, and then I naturally fell back to about two or three days a week for a couple of weeks. And what I noticed was my body responded. I actually ended up building a little bit, even leaning. I looked better after those two weeks of less volume. Now unpacking all that and trying to figure out, okay, well, what happened right there? It's very obvious to me because I know my own tendencies. I have a tendency to under-consume protein intake

and under-consume calories sometimes because I'm getting so busy. So I was training too high of volume and intensity for the amount of nutrition that I was giving, simply backing off the training for the amount of calories and nutrition that I was providing my body, my body thanked me and it responded. So I wanna be clear that bad programming,

because a lot of people think, oh, I bought a sandable, I bought a mind pump program or I have a trainer who's teaching me who's really smart or I am a trainer myself. And so I can't have bad programming. It means bad programming for the goal and what's going on nutritionally. So even somebody has experienced as one of us in this room,

can fall prey to this, thinking that, oh, I'm doing good programming, because I'm choosing good exercises, and I'm lifting well, we're also creatures of habit. That's at the end of the day, too. Even if you do know what you're doing, inevitably you're gonna fall into certain patterns,

because it's comfortable, or it's something that you've always kind of gone towards to try and recreate this version of yourself that you may have seen somewhere a while back. But to be able to seek out something that your body actually will get a new stimulation from and respond differently towards, that requires a bit of work to kind of go outside of your comfort. Well, the reason why I wanted to bring this point up was because this was also one of the main things

that kept me from building and gaining when I was younger was first the argument that it's so expensive. Well, part of the reason why it was so expensive was I was a seven-day week training, wakeboarding, snowboarding, basketball playing kid. And run like... 5,000 calories a day.

I was asking, I was burning so much. And then I'm also telling myself, oh, I want to build. And so then I'm burning even more calories by training seven days a week. So the amount of calories that I need to consume, just simply backing off the activity, cutting back on the amount of basketball is playing or reducing the amount of calories that I need to consume, just simply backing off the activity, cutting back on the amount of basketball that's playing, or reducing the amount

of snowboarding or wakeboarding, or reducing the seven day a week split training routine that I was doing at one point, and cutting back to two to three day a week kind of program made it a lot easier and a lot less expensive for me to get the amount of calories that I needed in order to build muscle. Yeah, now I want to be very clear,

Adam isn't necessarily making the case that you need to train in the way that he said. What the case that he's trying to make is the right dose is what's gonna get you there. And that's very individual. And this is true for nutrition as well. What may be a perfect surplus for muscle building, for one person, may be just maintenance or a deficit for someone else,

or it may be too much of a surplus for someone else where they gain lots of body fat. This can be true for deficits as well. The right dose for diet and the right dose for exercise, in other words, appropriate for your body and your goals, is gonna get you there the fastest. And anything more than that gets you there slower. Anything less than that also gets you there slower,

but I like to emphasize the more than that, because here's the trap that I fall into. I will hit that right dose. I'll be on all cylinders, everything seems to be dialed in. Oh my gosh, my body's responding, and I get so excited. You throttle down more. You inevitably I'm like, well I can make this happen faster.

I can do more, I can handle more, or maybe if I feed myself more, and then a few weeks later, I'm in the same situation, Adam is in, where I'm looking back and going, oh man, I was rushing something and I was already doing everything right. So very important point that the right dose,

the right dose is what's gonna get you there the fastest. So, you know, back to nutrition, you gotta have adequate calories, meaning the calories have to match your goal and your body. Protein intake, generally speaking for most people, has to be relatively high. It's just, it seems to work best for most people. There's always individual variants.

There are some people that a high protein diet can negatively reflect on digestion and whatnot. But for most people, a high protein diet works best. Fat, you need to consume at least enough fat to meet your essential needs because there's fatty acids that our body can't make on its own. And if you don't consume essential amounts of fat, then it doesn't

matter what you're doing, your body is lacking what it needs and you can actually cause yourself lots of problems. And then carbohydrates are quite flexible. Some people do much better on higher carbohydrates within their calories. Other people do a lot better with lower carbohydrates within their calorie goals. That's the one where I give people lots of flexibility because carbohydrates are not essential. In other words, you could never eat a carb for the rest of your life and you won't miss anything that's essential. It doesn't mean it's optimal. It just means you're not lacking an essential nutrient that's going to end up hurting your body. But this again can vary. But I will say this, generally speaking, for building muscle, higher carbohydrates as a percentage of your calories tends to work better and forgetting

leaner generally speaking again, there's there's lots of variance here, but generally speaking lower carbohydrates tends to work better forgetting leaner for muscle. Well part of why I think that the I mean, we know that the carbohydrates lends itself for more energy and performance in the gym So I think that has a lot to do with why it lends itself for more energy and performance in the gym. So I think that has a lot to do with why it lends itself well for billing. But I also think it lends itself well to building on a budget because carbs can be cheap,

getting baked potatoes and rice is- inexpensive. Very inexpensive. Fat sometimes is a little bit more expensive. Protein for sure can be, yeah. And protein for sure is more expensive. So it's a great, and you ordered that. By the way, you just,

and Sal just listed those in the order of operation, right? As far as like number one priority calories, second one is protein, third is essential fats, and then fourth would be carbs. So if I were to order, you know, what is most important if I'm trying to build, it would be getting my calorie intake, because you could eat all the right protein,

but if you're under 500 calories, you're in a deficit and you're trying to build, you're gonna have a hell of a time building that way. So, and carbohydrates also have a bit of a protein sparing effect. So, for some people, they've shown this in studies, that lower protein but higher carbohydrates, so long as calories are appropriate, does very well.

So, the carbohydrates in other words, and the reason why it's a bit protein-sparing is, if your calories are low and carbohydrates are low and protein-as-high, your body can actually take proteins and convert them into the type of energy that you would normally get from carbohydrates. Now, I do want to touch again on the fact that eating healthy is more expensive as a myth. This is largely due to the fact that people compare, processed or fast foods in this category.

And so they say, oh, if I eat at that healthy restaurant versus that unhealthy restaurant, boy, is that more expensive? Or here's that restaurant that serves that high quality steak versus, you know, chiles or, you know, outback that serve steak, but that's less, you know, that's not as good quality. Wow, look at the price difference, right?

Don't look at processed foods. Don't look at restaurants. Don't look at boxed, you know, packaged type foods or fast foods. That, if you make that your gauge, definitely. And mainly it's this, this is the reason why. Number one, there's a huge, huge market for fast, cheap, palatable food,

because there's such a large market, there's a much, much more production around it. And number two, because people who wanna eat out but also really prioritize their health, they tend to be more willing to spend more money, and it's a smaller market. But when you look at food that you could buy and prepare very quickly on your own,

you'll see that that cost disparity actually becomes, there's no more disparity. I wanna make a point about processed foods too, because this was a big mistake that I made in my early years of training. I definitely am guilty of the frozen burritos, hot pockets, you know, canned ravioli. That was all my food. I know I'm listing things. I know you guys can relate here, right?

And those are cheaper foods, right? What you'll find though, in heavily processed foods, protein is one of the most expensive nutrients to put in any food, processed or found hole. And so what you'll see is they give you more calories, but a lot of them don't give you that much more protein. I eat this, I get eat four of those frozen burritos, but then I still only get like 30 grams of protein in there. Where if, and if I were to break down exactly what each one of those brews, and then I would just go out and get a piece of chicken or a piece of steak. I'd actually probably get more protein in it.

And since protein is one of the hardest things for someone trying to build to get enough of on a budget, that's the stuff you got to watch for. So a lot of times as a young kid who's trying to build and eat on a budget, I would make these choices towards foods like that because the calories were high and the price was low. But then I still would miss my protein towards foods like that because the calories were high and the price was low, but then I still would miss my protein intake

because of that. I would do the same thing. I would look at a can of processed garbage and I would look at the protein. But like, wow, if I eat this family of five serving to myself, I'll get at least 40 grams of protein. Of course, I'm eating also 2500 calories, and it's like tons of carbohydrates and other stuff.

I would do the exact same thing. But really, if you break it down, it's a trick. It's a trick you plan your mind, and again, it's a big, widely believed myth. If you really break it down as we're gonna do for you in this episode, you'll find, you can save money. This is the thing, too. If you do this right, you actually would spend less money on your food

and get excellent phenomenal results. In fact, the foods that we're gonna talk about today that provide everything that we're talking about and save you money are not just great foods on a budget. They're the best foods, period, that you can eat to accomplish some of your goals. So one more thing I wanna do, by the way, is I wanna touch on organic,

I wanna touch on grass fed, pasture raised, humanely raised, those buzz words that definitely have some meaning, but I do think that we've placed them too high on the hierarchy of priorities for healthy food. Yes. Organic doesn't have some potential value for health. Yes, I mean, we can make some arguments. Is it more important than eating the right amount of calories

and the right macros? No, it's not. In fact, this is quite true. Even if you look at foods that we know have inflammatory damaging effects in the body, like processed sugars or fats that are inflammatory, right? If you're in a calorie deficit, they're still not good for you, but boy, does that negative effect get blunted significantly?

In fact, there's been lots of situations. There's been people who've done this on YouTube, professors, nutritionists, and studies where, I remember one in particular, where this professor was trying to make a point and he said I'm gonna eat nothing but big Macs and Twinkies, I think it was and I'm going to improve my cholesterol I'm gonna improve my triglycerides and my blood pressure and he did and what he did was he just ate locala He ate garbage food now. I'm not recommending this but the point I'm trying to make is there's a hierarchy

Organic pastorase grass fed, you know, cage free, like all these things that have some value. And all things are not important. All things by the way that we promote. Yes. I mean, in a perfect world, that's, I mean, that's how I eat, right? But I'm also in a very different position at almost 40 years old than I was at 19 years old.

Correct. Or you can get away with a bit more, I think, too. And again, cost is one of the biggest priorities when you're in that sort of situation where you're a college student and you're on a budget. But one thing to also consider is how you assimilate your food and how digestible. That's important. And if you have any sort of inflammation as a result of processed foods or things like that that you're incorporating. So, you know, and the thing about the whole organic types of foods is that there's even

places like Walmart that offer organic foods and it's everywhere. So it's not like it's super inaccessible, unattainable to even like seek that out. Oh, you're so right. It wasn't that long ago. Obviously, I've been in this industry for a long time. It wasn't that long ago that I had to go specifically to Whole Foods to find organic foods. Well, and now you have direct consumer brands,

like butcher box. Even more convenient. If you go, actually save you money. That's what I'm saying. If you go pound for pound, what you're getting as far as protein in a box from butcher box and do the math on it, you'll save money in comparison to, and that's eating grass-fed

and organic versus going somewhere and buying processed food all the time or, you know, buying it like, safe way of the other brands. But I do want to make this point that even with us, these are things that we promote. We don't promote these above calories, macros. That kind of, those factors. Those are hierarchy. Yeah, like if I'm not hitting my calories and my macros and I'm not hitting those big rocks,

I mean, it really doesn't make sense to prioritize. It's like buying organic gummy worms. Like, oh yeah, I'm gonna be healthy. I'm gonna eat these organic gummy worms. I'm gonna eat these, you know, this potato chips that are grown in a particular way and they're healthy. That's, you're kind of missing the point.

So it's important because marketing has made those things, although there is value in them, they've made them appear to be more important than the things that are actually the most important. So let's talk about the hierarchy, right? So most important, number one, calories, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, especially proteins and fats because they're essential, that's the most important thing up there. And carbohydrates are pretty close. The next thing I would say, and you mentioned it, is digestibility. How well does this food digest in your body? Poor digestion, bloating, constipation, diarrhea,

or other digestive related issues, forget the fact that you're eating the healthiest foods in the world, that causes inflammation, that causes damage, that can cause lots of problems. And it really doesn't matter what you're eating. And a good example of that is that, you know, dairy products are something that you can get

relatively cheap. You can get milk and cheese and products like that for a pretty good price. And that's a good source of proteins and fats. And if that bothers you and upset your stomach, just because it is on the cheaper side, it is not. So it now, that now takes precedent of your ability digest it and then do assimilate it,

becomes more important. That's me. I like dairy, if you have no intolerance to it and you digest it very well. He's literally one of the healthiest most nutrient-dense foods that you can find on the planet. If you can't digest it, it's poison. Like if I had a lot of dairy, it would cause severe health effects on me over a short period of time. Like initially I'd have terrible digestive issues, over time I'd have terrible inflammation, probably caused myself some big problem.

So what a good point. Another thing I want to touch on when it comes to investing in food, and I don't want to spend too much time on this point because I think sometimes people push this point in order to encourage people to just spend more money on food, but I do like this, and I think it's definitely valid. The money that you may invest in time that you may invest in your health

actually saves you money over time and it saves you money because of improved productivity. It's just like exercise. Like, oh, I spent an hour a day exercising. I could be doing all these other things with that hour. Studies show that when people take an hour away for exercise, they're more productive at work. They're more innovative.

So in reality, it's like you're turning in an hour and getting two or three hours of productivity back, right? So eating healthy will do this as well. Look at your healthcare costs. The vast majority of the money that we spend on saving ourselves from dying happens towards the last 10, 20 years of our life. And let me tell you, it's expensive, right?

Eating a little healthier and investing in that over time will save you tremendous amounts of money over, you know, over the distance. So it's an important point. I don't want to spend too much time on that, but it's definitely an important point. Now, down that list at the bottom, there's some value, but this is the bottom is quality, pasture raised, organic, that kind of stuff. So if you've hit those other things, and you've got money to spare, and you're like, man, I wanna really go an extra mile,

then I'd say focus on those things. But if you don't have those other things, stop wasting your time and money on organic pasture. And that still is one step above like going into the supplement. I was just gonna say, what what I was going to say was that notice that supplements didn't even make the list. Exactly. So it's not even on our list of things that you need to do in order for you to get in

the best shape of your life on a budget. So that supplements are one of the most grossly overrated things. And again, this is also something else. Just because we talk about organic and grass fed and the benefit, just because we talk about the benefits of supplementation does not mean that we would put it above this order here. So I want to make that clear, because I know there's people that are like, wait a second, how much you guys talked about the benefits of this and the, yeah, there are benefits, just like there's benefits to grass fed and organic. There are benefits to supplementation. But when you look at it like a pie chart,

at what, what sliver of that pie is taken up by supplementation or by organic and grass fed, boy is it a tiny little sliver comparison to everything else you just mentioned. It is, and by the way, the reason why we think those things are so important is because the vast majority of marketing, so it gets the most money to market it to you. Yeah, you're not gonna see marketing that says, you know, eat, you know, ground beef by an embalc. Or, you know, rice, put a great source to car ride. You're not gonna see that, right? What you're gonna see is eat our ground beef.

It's all these other things. Or take our supplements that are proprietary, that nobody could copy. This is what's gonna take you to the next level. Since you went to supplements, I wanna bring this up, I wasn't planning on going here, but you just reminded me of something that happens a lot to me when my sister just recently got on her kick

of working out and her husband. And one of the top things I always get is, they ride away, want me to recommend what protein powder to give them. And there's this idea that eating a protein powder or having a protein shake a day is healthy for you or good for you. The only time that I see value in that is if and only if you can't get that through whole foods. So I want to make that clear, because I think for me, and that's just my trainer brain,

I think that's an obvious statement, but it's not because the way it's been marketed. It's been marketed to you that it's part of getting in shape or part of getting ripped or looking at all these buff guys, and they always promote protein shakes. Listen, if you can get all of your calories and all of your protein through chicken breast and beef and whole foods,

there's no reason to do a protein shake. No, and here's the value of protein shakes. 100% is convenience and shelf life. That's it. It's got a long shelf life. By the way, protein powders are great for your emergency home kits or whatever, so like if you have like your earthquake box or, you know, hurricane, you know, survival kit, protein powders great because it lasts a long time.

Super convenient. But that's it. Is it better than eating protein in the whole foods? No, it's not. It's also relatively inexpensive for what you're getting protein water. Sure. Because that's the thing you got to think about. And by the way, too, when again, talking about supplements and protein powders, I get

this a lot of time like, I tell a client or somebody, hey, go get this protein powder, and then they come back and they show me, oh, I went and got this one because it was half the price. When you're shopping for protein powders, you're really paying for the protein and the quality of the protein. So if you think that your protein powder is so cheap in comparison to the other one

that someone's that recommended to you, you gotta learn to flip it around. One, read the serving amount inside it. That's the first thing you read. And then second, how much protein you get per serving. And then third, like, is it something that is actually tested and made sure that's all in there or it will buy a third party?

Buy or beware. I don't know how many times they've gone independently and studied supplement companies, supplements randomly. And it's frightening what they find. Very rarely is what you're looking for actually in the product. Oh dude, it's crazy. There was that one, I remember when this happened, it wasn't that long ago,

where there was a popular protein company, powder company, I can't remember who the company was. What's Garden, are you talking about that one? No, that was what that one with heavy metals. Yeah. That were toxic levels of heavy metals in their protein powder. So that was one. Then there was another one where a protein powder was amino spiking, amino acid spiking.

Super popular. Their protein. What they do is when you go into test protein, a very inexpensive way to test how many potential grams of protein there are preserving, it's the test for specific amino acids. So if there's this much loose scene, for example, then we can estimate that there's this many grams of protein. Well, what this company did is they put less protein

and then just added the amino acid. So it was incomplete protein. And they got in big trouble for it, you know, by consumers, they stopped buying the products. It happens a lot. So, well, yeah, you're comparing to a study to one protein better. This happens all the time. it happens a lot. Well, yeah, you're comparing to a study to one protein better. This happens all the time.

It was a very popular thing when people hacked into this and figured this out. Oh, yeah. All right. So let's get into the foods that you can buy. That'll save you money that meet all these requirements. Yeah, I just want to say one more thing. Like when I was bringing up all the,

like I had a nutrition talk with this team, I'm trying to help in, you know know that was always the first question was okay well what protein powder yeah that's why I wanted to bring that up coach yeah and so I mean it's a very common thought is if I'm getting back into you know like really focusing on fitness and focusing on muscle building like that's the first thought on everybody's brain and so again to what we're gonna get into in terms of foods is immediately where I went because there wasn't quite as big a response

from kids coming up to kind of ask me versus the parents are really like, well, what do I actually feed them? What do I feed them for dinner? What do I feed them for lunch? Like, so you know, these options, like you're mentioned, like ground beef and where you can get a lot of protein

that you know, reasonably priced, you don't have to get steak every night as sort of the way that I was trying to make. There's also a little bit of a cycle or a feedback loop that happens with this too, because I know there's somebody who's also listening. It's like, I don't know, every time I do that, and I start eating my protein shake,

I do build muscle or I look better, and that's because a lot of people grossly under consume protein. Yeah, they're hitting the protein target. Right, so now, son, you're starting to hit it or get closer to it, and so you see results from it. So they can be, I'm not saying they're not effective. They can be, if you're somebody who averages

50 grams of protein every day, you're a 180 pound male, young male, and you are eating 50 grams of protein every single day, and then you add 40 more grams from a protein shake, and now you get 90, you're gonna see a significant difference. You would also notice if you got 40 grams of protein from whole protein. That's right.

That's my point. Just keep that in mind. The goal is for us to hit that, then that was one of the most important things is protein intake. Make sure you hit that. The goal is to do it through whole foods. If you don't, then it makes sense

to utilize a protein powder. Now easily, easily my favorite source of protein that is also one of the most inexpensive sources when bought in bulk is ground beef. Are we going to list everything right now? Yeah, I mean, I think we should give a grocery list because especially to the point you just made Justin, that's what I get all the time is, can you just make it simple and by the way when we go through this I'm sure we're going to miss something that's well what about this or what this isn't like a this is the only thing we just I remember when we were sitting down talking about this episode we were going okay let's put together the most basic you know small grocery list that

will pretty much the most actionable plan right you know, it's not going to be too much. Easy to find, you know, relatively cheap, relatively inexpensive. And I was saying for my favorite for protein is ground beef. You can buy bulk ground beef. There's almost always a sale for buying in, you know, four pound, and you can buy three pounds or four pounds. I mean, you can go to Costco.

You can even go to your local grocery store. They almost always have this value pack of ground beef, and depending on if you want to eat more lean, lower calorie, higher calorie, you could go as lean as 95% lean, or as high in fat as 80% lean, and you just buy it in bulk, and then here's what you do.

You take what you're gonna want for that week out and freeze the rest. It lasts forever, frozen. You put in a ziplock bag, get the air out, throw in the freezer, boom, you got all this ground beef that you could defrost and then cook, later on. And I'm just gonna throw in ground meat in general there, right, because it'd be, ground turkey is probably one of my,

and it depends, right, if I was trying to build and add muscle and gain, I lean more towards the red meat and ground beef because the higher calorie, higher amount of fat that's inside of it, and I need more calories in case, when I go to leaning out, I'd probably lean more towards turkey or chicken,

things like that. And so I just ground meat in general, and it can be very, very inexpensive. You can get more expensive with other things that I love, like, Ville and Bison, and those have tremendous value and stuff. But again, it's not on the top of the list. You can easily do ground beef and turkey all day

and be fine. Plus, I found one of the benefits to that too, is you can eat a pound of ground beef versus a pound of steak, and it's a little bit more, a little bit less of a chore, let's just say. Because I know that can be part of it when you're in a surplus. Sometimes it just feels like, oh my God,

it's just a chore to consume all this food. And so that's where some people then immediately go to a protein shake to kind of solve that, but something like ground beef is much easier to do. Dude, I first put this together with food when I was, I want to say 17 or 18, and this is the first time I got my body over 200 pounds. And as a kid, I hadn't started working yet

as a personal trainer, so it must have been before I was 18. And so I didn't have a ton of money. I did work, but I worked, I was a dishwasher at this restaurant, and then later on, I was photocopying files at this lending place, or whatever, so I didn't make a ton of money. I did work, but I worked, I was a dishwasher at this restaurant, and then later on I was, you know, photocopying files at this, you know, this lending place or whatever.

So I didn't make a ton of money. I think back then minimum wage was $6.25 or something like that. But I went to the grocery store. I bought bulk ground beef, and then here's what I would do. I would take it. I had a gas grill in the back. You could do this on a George Foreman grill or a pan on your stove.

And I would just make patties. I weighed them out, or I even just looked at them to be quite honest with you. And I just grilled up a ton of them. That's all I did. I just grilled up a whole bunch of them that would last me for the whole week, put them in the fridge, boom, totally done.

And cooking them and getting them prepared took me very little time. And if you spread out the amount of time I spent doing it, the amount of money that it took to cost, and then all the meals that I had, it was, I couldn't think of a cheaper, more effective way to get your protein. Oh, all on those, I literally just sent a text message

to Katrina so I don't forget to remind her to do this episode as making me think of a dish or things I used to do that I haven't done in a long time. And, I mean, I used to get, I had a big old iron skillet, and I would just ground beef and mix the rice and slice some onions and pepper. And there, I mean, and just, and I would do it in bulk.

And then, and then put that free, either freeze it. If I go so much bulk that I got enough for two or three weeks, freeze half of it, put the rest in the refrigerator. So, so inexpensive, so easy, high protein, good source of carbohydrate, easy to store. Like, that that was a go to meal for me for a long time. It's funny. I swear to God you do this. You're going to say it's so funny. I got bet you if there's kids listening to us right now or people who are on a budget, if they follow us advised at the end of the month, they're going to be like, I saved 50 bucks, I saved a hundred bucks. Right. Here's another one, tuna fish in a can, extremely inexpensive source of protein. What's funny is this kind of fell out of favor for a while because of the worrisome mercury or whatever.

Super overblown, by the way, you look at some of the healthiest countries in the world, look at the Japanese culture. They tremendously more amounts of fish. You don't see these radical levels of mercury poisoning. Actually, in fact, they're levels that they allow or that they say are safe are much higher than ours. And then there are other compounds in fish that kind of offset the mercury by the way,

but tuna fish in a can, super cheap, super, you don't even have to cook it. You literally open the can and you've got your source of protein right there. Oh, I'm sure, did you got, I mean, I used to do open it, squirt some mustard on it and eat it straight out. Just like that. That was a trainer move. Oh, I would bring it with me I'd bring a couple cans of you to work and there was my love for the pouched ones. They used to start all the time But yeah, I couldn't stomach it It's not you're not a fish guy for sure. No, you would do the canned chicken nuggets

Where's that at? Another another really easy one that gets one of the most complete foods is eggs. Oh, one of the most nutrient-dense, best muscle-building foods that exists on the planet. Whole eggs, by the way, don't take the yolk out unless calories are a big deal for you. But you got your protein, you got great amounts of branching, amino acids. You have coline in the yolk, which is great for brain function, great for immune system function. You have the dietary cholesterol, which is perfectly fine. It's not unhealthy, if all since change stands on that,

but also has muscle building effects. I consume on average six to 10 whole legs a day, and I notice a huge difference. And they're inexpensive, you could buy in bulk. And here's a hack for you that I mean, I love that. All the foods were listing and we both just gave some ways that we would cook our meat and rice type of dishes. Eggs as a base in the morning,

with also your dinner or lunch mixed in there is amazing. Yeah. This became so why it makes everything breakfast. That's right. And this was one of the way it totally does, right? This, I mean, I just talked about ground beef and rice. That same exact leftover dish or one of the, you know, 15 pre-made meals

that I have in the refrigerator. First thing in the morning, I would crack three to four eggs and then take the serving of that meat and rice and throw it in with my eggs and make it like a scramble. And now I've got this amazing high calorie, high protein, good source of food, first thing in the morning for me, and super fast and easy. So.

Here's another one, I can't do this because I can't have dairy. But when I was younger in my teens, I could tolerate dairy. And this was a staple for me because, and I remember, I had no idea about cottage cheese, right? By the way, in the 80s and 90s, this was a staple for me because, and I remember I had no idea about cottage cheese, right? By the way, in the 80s and 90s, this was a bodybuilding staple,

and for some reason nobody talks about it anymore, but I remember going to the grocery store as a teenager and being like, oh, what can I get? That's easy, that's cheap, that's got good protein, and I remember reading an article about cottage cheese, and I'm like, let me go look at this, and then I got the container, and it was cheap. It's so inexpensive.

I pulled it out, I looked at the back and the macros, and I'm like, this literally somebody invented the perfect bodybuilding food in terms of macros. Cottage cheese, by the way, you could get it so that it's low in calorie and just protein. Or what I recommend, the healthiest way to eat it is whole. Whole milk, cottage cheese, you've got your fats, which by the way, the fats in derried are milk, cottage cheese, you've got your fats, which by the way the fats in dairy

are fine for your body, excellent for your body, and then high quality protein, by the way, way protein comes from dairy. So if you're eating cottage cheese or drinking milk, you're getting a good source of way in that particular protein. My favorite was the whole milk one with the pineapple slices.

Yeah. Because cottage cheese got a weird... So I didn't... And I never had cottage cheese growing up. And I don't... I wish I remember where I read it or I'm sure it was in some muscle building. It was such... It was like a bodybuilding staple.

Yeah, well it became one for me. But up into that point, up until 20 years old, I had never even tasted it before. It wasn't something that my parents kept in our house. And so it wasn't something I had or ever thought to have. It looked like moldy cheese to me, as I'm saying. So it was not something I was going after. Until I read some article that talked about what a great source of protein it was,

and then I went out trying it, and it's so convenient, it's so easy. If you throw slices of fruit in there, because if you're a texture person, or if it has to taste good for you, it's got a different taste than the texture to it is different. It's almost like yogurt-ish,

a little bit like plain yogurt-ish. It's chunky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chunky moldy yogurt. It's what I like it. I mean, I learned to love it. It became a staple, but it was different when I first had it,

and that's why I liked the sweet flavor from the pineapple, kind of offset the weird texture taste. Totally. We'll go back to the whole milk too, like something that was interesting. Remember that big campaign with milk or even with like even chocolate milk about basically having all the same amounts of benefits

is like doing a protein shake? Totally. The studies show that, 100%. So if you consider that and you can handle milk in general, especially whole milk, that's something that you can add for very, very much cheaper than you would go in out and buying an expensive jug of protein.

This is what I used to tell my young clients. Well, Sal, what about protein shake post workout? I read it does the sense, drink a glass of milk. What about pro, I'm like, that's literally a protein shake. Just drink. A glass of milk and you've got everything that you need. You've got a little bit of carbohydrates, especially if it's chocolate milk, but even if it's not regular milk,

it's got some carbohydrates in there. You've got your proteins that are high quality, easy to down, it's inexpensive, there you go. Now the next one is one of my favorite sources of protein as well, and it's a little bit more like I'm gonna kinda splurge a little bit in terms of enjoying my meal, chicken thighs. You know, it's funny too, by the way.

As a kid growing up in the 90s working out, it was all about chicken breast, chicken breast, chicken breast, you got to eat chicken breast, because it's lean, right? And I never even thought about chicken thighs. Later on, I ate chicken thighs. I'm like, what the hell was I eating before? Chicken thighs, the real guys.

Yeah, the breasts are dry, boring thighs. Yeah, they definitely have some more fat in them, but it's not like they're super fatty. You get the skinless thighs. They're inexpensive, they're very cheap, especially if you buy them both. They taste way better. They're in Christ to this day.

It's one of my favorite food. Do you know that light bulb did not go off for me till I was 30, until I started competing? This is why, because the exact same reason, there was this myth or idea that chicken breast were so superior to any other source of chicken. And so I always ate chicken breast as dry as they were, I would stomach them, put them down. And then for the first time in my life, I was like, you know, diligently weighing, measuring,

tracking my macros, like I never have in my life when I decided to get into competing. And when I started looking at the calories and the proteins and the fats that were in the thighs, it was like, it wasn't that far off. And normally for me, I needed more calories. So the extra fat in there would help me out. When you eat chicken thighs the second day, all the juicy fat gets all kind of hardened around it. So when then you reheat it back up, it tastes delicious. It tastes delicious. Yeah, and it's not dried out. So when I saw the difference in it,

and by the way, too, it's actually cheaper to buy in bulk. So I was cheaper for me to buy it more, taste better, same day, and next day. And when you look at the macro profile, when you add it in the entire day, it's not that far off. I was like, I to this day, now I never eat chicken breasts. You will never see me at eat chicken breasts today because I just think it's why when chicken thighs taste way better. And you're talking about a few more grams of fat per ounce

that's going on there, not even a big of a that big of a deal and the whole grand scheme of things. And it's a good source of fat. Totally. Now speaking of fat, unless you're keto, you don't need to necessarily typically search out sources of fat. If you just eat ground beef and chicken thighs and have whole milk, you're gonna get plenty of fat. If you're keto, if you're keto, you may need to go out and seek out fat to hit those calories.

But here's some excellent sources of fat, butter. Butter's great. Butter goes on everything, by the way. Throw some butter on your ground beef. Throw some butter on your rice. Throw some butter on your vegetables. Boom, you've got your extra fats right there. And contrary to common popular belief, butter is not unhealthy for you.

If you're otherwise healthy, those fats are perfectly fine. It's a minimally processed source of fats and butter is quite inexpensive. Here's another one. This one of course is near and dear to my heart. Olive oil. I love olive oil. Again, you can throw this on anything.

If I need extra calories, if I'm like, oh, I'm 200 calories short of my fats, I guess I'll put two tablespoons of olive oil in my ground beef and rice dish and guess what, it tastes even better, and olive oil, very healthy also, when you buy a big jug of it, doesn't cost very much. One of my favorite sources of fat.

Well, you were the one that really changed this for me, because here's another weird thing that, you know, I don't know where it started, like the chicken breast thing, but it was something that I bought into, was this idea that I had to eat my vegetables steamed in plain. Right.

Oh, good. I don't know why. You know, I used to think that like, oh my god, adding some. I'm sorry, I used to hate them so much growing up. Yes, me too. They were so terrible. Or the other extreme, which my mom would do

where kids is, you know, drop, drown, you know, velvita cheese all over. Oh, wow. Which that, so as the fitness guy, when I got it, I was like, okay, well, I obviously am not gonna do that. So that defeats the purpose of it.

But I'm not, I never thought to just adding a little bit of butter or oil and what a difference that makes to taking down the vegetables. I mean, it turns something that a dish that I have charred within all of oil and salt. I shredded eating vegetables growing up. And even in my early 20s, because that's when I was, but I'd force it down. I'd force it down I'd steam broccoli I'd steam I'd steam everything and have nothing on it and eat it dry

And it was maybe a little bit of salt as all I got and I was like God This is so hard the minute I started and I'm ever seeing you one time come in and you're like big as bull Yeah, you're a penny was like drowston judd doused in butter and oil I was like oh my God, bro. Yeah, that's just a couple tablespoons of olive oil and taste 10 times better. I started doing that and it's like, and now I actually love and enjoy eating vegetables. Totally. Great hack.

Now here's another couple that I'll caution people because they are quite palatable and it's quite easy to go over on calories. If you're trying to bulk not a problem, if you're trying to be very careful, peanut butter and nuts in general are almonds. You can find quite inexpensive, but especially peanut butter. Peanut butter, great source general are all men's you can find quite inexpensive, but especially peanut butter.

Peanut butter, great source of fat. This is where I caution people if you're trying to cut. It's very easy when you're in a deficit to have a jar of peanut butter. So I'm going to eat a tablespoon of this and then you're in a frenzy and you want to eat way more than just a tablespoon. If you use peanut butter and your protein shakes or you eat peanut butter on celery or you use peanut butter and anything or you use peanut butter in anything? Because peanut butter is one of my, I think everybody builder can relate to this.

Like peanut butter is like a huge treat, right? You got at least a couple times table spooned out with actually a measuring tablespoon, not like, oh, that's a tablespoon spoon. Just cause you use a tablespoon. Yeah, just cause you use a tablespoon and it's got, you know, Mount Everest of peanut butter on top of it is not what a true tablespoon is.

That's what I used to do. Well, everybody did. I was guilty of the same thing too. And then again, I remember when I started competing and it became so important that I measured all this stuff, what I was calling one tablespoon was more like four tablespoons. Right.

So you got to do that at least one time to check that because like you said, although peanut butter and almonds, totally fine for you to have, real quick, the calories will start to come. Yeah, and to a lot of clients that I had, I mean, there was multiple clients that we found. This was a major contributor to bumping their calories,

up past into a surplus, didn't even realize it. And then once we just adjusted that, it was like all of a sudden these results came, like I'm so mean. Oh dude, I had a client same thing, and she's like, I put, you know, a little bit of peanut butter on a rice cake in the morning. I'm like, would you mind bringing it in and showing me

what it looks like? A little. Yeah, and I'm like, you do realize this is three tablespoons. It is? Yeah, let's measure out a tablespoon, just to look and see, you know what that looks like. So what we just addressed right now, we just listed off a little grocery list

that is the essential things, right? So this is all, this is your proteins and fats, these are essential, here's a great list, you could literally live by this to get you to where you wanna be as far as body composition. Now let's talk about some what are our go-to carbohydrates, so even though we didn't list that as essential, but it's something that is valuable.

And it can be optimal, right? Just because it's not essential, doesn't mean it's not optimal. I think carbohydrates for a lot of people are optimized as their performance, their muscle building, and how they feel. The best source, first of all, this is one of the best sources of carbohydrates period

because if it's ease of digestability, it's one of the easiest to digest foods. It's one of the most widely consumed foods in the world, which also makes it one of the most inexpensive foods you could buy rice. You could buy a bag of rice, a big ol' bag of rice for nothing, and then you can cook yourself a pot of rice that'll last you the entire week, and it's a wonderful source of pure, star-cheek carbohydrate. And it goes with everything. Everything. Everything. And I don't know a lot of people

that have intolerances towards it as well. That's what I'm saying. Isn't it more common to have an intolerance to brown rice than white rice? That's why I said white rice. Yes, white rice is easier to digest. Believe it or not, brown rice for a long time, people were told it's healthier

because there's more fiber. There are anti-nutrients in brown rice. Believe it or not, when you look at third world countries, they consume white rice because when you see them consume lots of brown rice believe or not, when you look at third world countries, they consume white rice because when you see them consume lots of brown rice, they start to become deficient in certain nutrients. It's harder to digest because they haven't removed the whole that is hard to digest.

White rice, perfectly fine, easy to digest, very inexpensive, it's a staple in my diet, even if I'm spending a lot of money on food. If you flip the bags around, the macro profile is almost identical. It's like one in my diet, even if I'm spending a lot of money on food. Why do you flip the bags around? The macro profile is almost identical. It's like one more gram of fiber and it's like, I think, literally three less calories per serving or what. It's like negligible as far as the difference between white and brown rice as far as the macro

profile of what you're looking for for building. Totally. Now, here's another one. Very inexpensive, wonderful source of starchic carbohydrates, natural source potatoes. You buy a bag of potatoes for almost nothing. It's one of the most inexpensive foods on the planet, and they're very easy to prepare.

I mean, here's what I used to do, is I would take literally a raw potato to work, and then when it was time to eat it, I'd wash it, and I'd wrap it in a wet paper towel, put it in the microwave, three or four minutes, flip it, three or four minutes, boom, baked potato, very easily cut it open, take the skin off. And then I had a nice source of, you know, 50 grams of carbohydrates from, again, a healthy,

relatively easy to digest, source of protein, maybe not as easy as white rice, but still quite easy gluten free and all that. I know when we kind of put the list together, we weren't planning this, but so far, I don't think we've said anything that doesn't mix all well together in a pile. 100%. Like really? That's what it's put all in. Yeah, one of the things that you'll notice about all of oil, all of oil, ground beef,

rice, or potato. Yeah, there you go. Like, seriously, I mean, it, it makes for a really good, you know, oh, I just add some eggs. If I want to make a breakfast in the morning, take the eggs out. If I want to call it lunch or dinner, I mean, this is, a really good, you know, oh, I just add some eggs if I want to make it breakfast in the morning, take the eggs out if I want to call it lunch or dinner. I mean, this is, and that was the idea of putting this episode together was to make it as as simple as practical, practical, and as affordable as we possibly can. Yeah, by the way, so here's some easy ways to improve the palatability of all these foods.

Seasoning, seasoning is inexpensive, makes a big difference when it comes to meat. Olive oil, we talked about that, butter, we talked about that, but seasoning is a very big one. Here's another one, salsa. You can buy very inexpensive salsa, almost no calories in it. And let's say I'm eating a lean bowl of ground beef

and rice and maybe some side of vegetables, and I don't have a lot of calories, but I want to add something to it to make it a little bit more palatable. Throw a little bit of salsa on it. Super inexpensive and so much. Yeah, and to that point too, once you really start seeking out all this whole foods, you know, in your diet too, to be able to season, add salt to make sure sodium is still a part of that because it does contribute to performance. You know that you're going for those gains in the gym, like that's another vital component.

Actually it's a great point. If you sweat a lot, work out a lot, and you're eating all these foods, none of these foods have a lot of sodium in them. You have to add sodium. In fact, in fact, you may eat too little sodium if you don't concentrate on adding sodium to your diet. Most of the sodium in our diet comes from heavily processed foods. Very, very good point.

This is why I benefited so much from element T because I don't eat lots of whole, excuse me, lots of processed foods. And without realizing it, my sodium wasn't really meat-meeting my performance standards. So here's another one that's really inexpensive. You can buy them bulk. And this was a staple back in the day. It was oatmeal. Oatmeal, you buy a big ol' thing at oatmeal and have it in the morning.

Take it with you to work, take it with you post workout. Microwave it with some water, or if you want with some milk, and boom, you got yourself a bowl of nice, you know, starchy carbohydrates. This is how I broke up the monotony of always eating this egg scrambled. So if I wasn't eating egg scrambled, I would end up doing something like oatmeal for breakfast instead.

So it's a nice way to break up or change up your breakfast choice. And I know that fruits a little further down the list, but that's obviously a great combo. If something like you want to really get a lot, the majority of your carbohydrates, like in the morning, let's say like, you know, a combo, obviously of like a, you know, fruit with oatmeal is amazing. Oh, bananas and apples, inexpensive. The one knock I will have on oatmeal is it's obviously it's, I mean, you can eat it whenever you know, fruit with oatmeal is amazing. Oh, bananas and apples, inexpensive. Great sources. The one knock I will have on oatmeal is it's obviously, it's, I mean, you can eat it whenever you want, but it's used as a breakfast food most of the time

and it's not high in protein. So the my staple oatmeal, this is the type, this is another time where I would use way. I used to love to put a scoop of vanilla way. And so my exact oatmeal like recipe every morning would be, it would have it, right? Is the way vanilla so my exact oatmeal, like recipe every morning would be, it when I have it, right, is the Wave vanilla protein powder inside oatmeal. I would slice up strawberries and

And blueberries and then a walnuts and that was like my go-to oatmeal in the morning. I have a little peanut butter And you have yourself or that bulking meal if I went the peanut butter would be like just a vanilla and peanut butter Right, so because that's all you need for that, you don't want to add fruit with peanut butter. That's not very good. I did. I did. I did.

I'm good. Banana. Banana, I don't want to worry. Oh, that's true. Yeah, banana, peanut butter, and that would be good. All right, so now let's talk about vegetables, right? Oh, what about vegetables? Okay.

Frozen vegetables are so valuable. By the way, there's a myth that fresh vegetables are more nutritious for you than frozen. The truth is, and this is actually quite remarkable, oftentimes frozen vegetables are higher in nutrients than fresh vegetables. Is that true? Yes.

Now, people are like, well, why? Why is that the case? Well, here's why. When they freeze vegetables, they tend to freeze them at a piece. Right, right. When it's right. Especially if you don't live in a state like California, right, where we have year-round fresh vegetables growing

all around us. But if you live in a state like Nebraska, and you, by the way, I've done this, I've traveled to other states and seen their vegetables in the winter, and I'm like, oh my God, these are terrible. Why? They're shipping them from Mexico,

or flying them from across the country, or driving them from across the country. And what they do is they can't pick them when they're ripe and then ship them over, they'll go bad. So they have to allow them to rip in somewhat in the store, which actually makes them less, in terms of nutrients less nutritious. Frozen vegetables, not the case,

they're frozen at peak nutritional value. So you can buy frozen spinach, frozen broccoli, frozen Brussels sprouts, and they're perfectly fine, perfectly healthy. They last forever. One of the problems with buying vegetables that I know a lot of people run into is they'll buy a bunch of them, and then they end up throwing up way half of them because they go bad. That's what I would say. That's what I would say. When I think about the probably the higher percentage of people

that are listening to this episode or this episode will appeal to it's I think of the younger, younger person going through college on a budget, cooking for themselves probably or maybe just them and a boyfriend or a girlfriend. So if you're that person, frozen makes a lot of sense. I mean, that's one of the hardest things even with just Katrina, me and Max is, you know, you get fresh, we get fresh vegetables all time and a lot of times we don't cook all of it in time and it ends up going bad and you end up wasting so much of it. So getting frozen I think makes a lot of sense. Still to this day, I eat a lot of frozen vegetables.

It's super easy. But I wanna make it clear though too, that cause what I don't wanna do is change this conversation into another stupid debate cause it tends to what happens on like YouTube. Somebody will take one thing that you say and you guys are trying to say that frozen vegetables are better than organic, you know, organic farmers market.

No, I'm not saying that whatsoever. We're talking about for keeping it simple and easy and affordable for somebody. Yes. Yes. That's the priority here with this particular. So there you have it. There's all your stuff that you can do, and I promise, if you follow what we're saying,

you buy these things in bulk, you'll probably end up saving money. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com. We have so much free content that we've put together for you guys on all kinds of topics that revolve around working out, nutrition and health. Again, it's MindPumpFree.com.

You can also find all of us on Instagram, so you can find Justin at MindPump Justin, me at MindPumpSal and Adam at MindPumpAdmin. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle

at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and an adjustment as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com.

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