Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2237: From Fat to Fit to Fortune With Mari Llewellyn

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Mari Llewellyn, co-founder of Bloom Supplements. Mari’s origin story from being the problem to feeling good from the inside/out. (1:41) From going viral to kick-starting a successful business. (7:41) Her journey into weightlifting and healthy eating. (11:46) Her experience going ‘cold turkey’ off all her medications. (16:50) Reaching her full potential through exercise. (21:25) Meeting her partner and becoming the perfect team. (24:27) The idea behind the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. (29:05) In her baby-making era. (36:39) The process of scaling Bloom Nutrition Supplements. (38:56) The problems with the health & wellness space for women. (41:56) How Bloom made it into Target, its future exit strategy, and surviving COVID. (47:58) The mistakes made along the way. (57:34) The difference between feeling bloated and being well hydrated. (1:04:56) The evolution of social media, marketing for her business, and the podcast. (1:08:20) Her favorite, most memorable podcast guests. (1:14:39) Life-changing things done on her health journey. (1:23:28) Related Links/Products Mentioned Exclusively for Mind Pump Listeners, NCI is offering HOLIDAY SEASON SPECIAL for aspiring nutrition coaches. Click here for an unbelievable 78% OFF on their Exclusive Level 1 Certification Bundle! December Promotion: MAPS Old Time Strength | MAPS OCR 50% off! ** Code DECEMBER50 at checkout ** pursuitofwellness Bloom Nutrition Creatine benefits, dosage, and side effects - Examine Mind Pump #1565: Why Women Should Bulk Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Mari Llewellyn (@marillewellyn) Instagram Alex Hormozi (@hormozi) Instagram Paul Saladino (@paulsaladinomd) Twitter Thomas DeLauer (@thomasdelauer) Instagram Liver King (@liverking) Instagram  Jessie Inchauspé (@glucosegoddess) Instagram Dr. Mindy Pelz (@dr.mindypelz) Instagram

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on the same points bet app, the platform that gives you everything you need. You know what to do. Bed on it. Point Spets Sportsbook and Casino. definitely know Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health entertainment podcast ever. This is Mind Pumper in today's episode. We had Mari Luellin on the show. She's incredible, right? I was on her podcast, went down to LA, visited her, met her team, her staff, incredible business.

Her podcast is called the pursuit of wellness. This young woman on her own fitness journey, going from unhealthy to healthy, turned that into an incredibly successful business. In fact, she was on Forbes's list, 30 under 30. She's also the founder of Bloom Supplements. We know you're going to love this episode. We know you're going to love her. She's pretty amazing. She's real. She does a great job. So check her out and check out her podcast. Now this particular episode is brought to you by our sponsor, NCI, they do certification courses for trainers and coaches, teaching them how to help people through nutrition,

but in effective ways, actually one of the best certification courses we've ever found. That's why it's only the ones we've ever worked with. Anyway, right now, they're offering their level one certification at 78% off. That's right now. That's through this link. Go to nciminepump.com forward slash XMIS to get that discount. We're also going to sale this month. Maps, old time strength is 50% off and maps, obstacle course racing or OCRs, also 50% off. If you're interested, go to maps, fitnessproducts.com

and then use the code December 50 for that discount. All right, here comes a show. Listen, I came to your office, so you know, I was, came on your show, walked in your office, was immediately impressed with just the way it looked. You were sending up, you were sending up some friends giving thing.

You walked in so confused, I heard your voice and You were like, I'm here for a podcast. Long ass table, all set up. But then I met your staff and you just a great energy, great vibe. And that's why I wanted you to come on our show. I had such a great experience. I want to tell us about your business and you're so young and you've created this like, weren't you on the Forbes list of like 3030? Yeah, or something like that. Wasn't that you? I was last year. What's the deal?

So how did you start this? Let's talk about this. Okay. Well, do you want the long version or the short version? The long one. Let's start with the long one and then we'll speed you up if it's enough for the boring one. Okay, if it gets bored, speed me up. Yeah.

Basically, in 2017, I lost 90 pounds. That was kind of the catalyst of everything I've done and prior to that I wouldn't say I was someone who was an overachiever. I was kind of coasting through life being okay with being average is what I would say. I wasn't really a goal setter. I didn't have big dreams for myself. I'm not quite sure why I think I had a lot of struggles with mental health in college. I was diagnosed with BPD, which is borderline personality disorder, which is a trauma disorder that I found out later on. Don't something refer to it now CPTSD. Yes. And I've learned a lot over the years

because I did group therapy, I did DBT therapy. Back then my mental health really ran my life, I would say. I was using alcohol, partying, food, anything that sort of filled the void was something I gravitated towards. And inevitably I gained a lot of weight because I was drinking so much alcohol, eating really bad, not taking care of myself. Self-harm was a big problem for me. So that was kind of my world during college. I dropped out of college a semester before graduating

and moved back home with my dad, which to me was like so humiliating, so embarrassing, didn't have a job, didn't have a degree sort of lost, and moving home was a reality check for me. And I kind of realized I'm the problem. You know, I think I went many years sort of blaming my situation, my family situation, other people, I'm moving home was like, okay, this is my fault. I'm unhealthy, physically, mentally. I don't have much going for me right now. I was dating my now husband, Greg, who has been bodybuilding since the womb is what he says. Says he came out with dumbbells, which I can't really imagine him any other way, but. By the way, he's like a real glita.

Like I met him, I was on your show, and you're like, oh, you were talking, and I think we were finished the episode, and I said something like, oh, my parents are meddling. And you're like, oh, my... Shree is in the winter. Yeah, he's a tie, my husband's a tie, or whatever, and then he, in walks in like,

you didn't have to say that. Gold chain. I think he had the white wife beater on that I always wear, he had the gold chain on him, I'm like, oh, I like him right away. Good company. When I interviewed you, I was like, he's gonna love my husband. Because you guys are so similar.

And yeah, he wears a wife beater like in the office. Yeah. And I have to remind him, like, you're about to take a meeting with someone really important. Let's put a shirt on. But yeah, he's hilarious. He's such a character. He walked around the office like this. And he taught me how to wait lift.

So I pretty much learned fitness from a body builder, which I kind of. Which is lucky because you could have gone the the shit route and just ran and started yourself in the whole deal. Now I realize that and a lot of women start the shit route and just ran and start yourself in the whole deal. Now I realize that and a lot of women start the shit route and do cardio for an hour a day and try and get smaller and smaller. And I always felt like bodybuilding was the coolest thing ever, especially female bodybuilders.

Because I guess when I started my fitness journey, I really wanted to feel stronger inside. Like I wanted to have the discipline that these female bodybuilders had. I thought it was really cool. And I felt like I wanted to develop a work ethic that was pretty much just like non-existent beforehand. So I really looked up to Miss Bikini Olympia at the time. I think it was Angelica, it was her name, she was Brazilian, she was crushing it, learned weightlifting from Greg or the basics, like, you know, like press, overhead press, just like compound movements, and weightlifting completely changed my life, truly. I never became a cardio bunny, thank God. I just wait lifted for nine months straight and became more and more obsessed with it, taught myself how to eat properly, listen to podcasts, became

obsessed with nutrition. I did keto for a long time, I loved keto, learned the importance of protein, whole foods, and kind of played around with my diet until I ended up with something that I really liked and could lose weight on. And I pretty much just focused on fitness that entire year. I ended up going back to school, getting my degree, started working at Orange Theory Fitness at the front desk, making minimum wage. I was supposed to make commission on sales, but I couldn't sell the program for some reason. I wouldn't do it. That was the issue. I wasn't like, the manager would be like, why don't you take a class? And I was like, I was on my fitness journey.

I was like obsessed with weightlifting. You're like, I'm into results. I don't want to do that. Yeah, I was like, I'm good. And I had like my top-aware of chicken and rice. So yeah, weightlifting basically taught me work ethic, I say. I really feel like everything I learned in the gym,

I applied to my real life. And that was how I started my business. I mean, the first... Yeah, how does that go from there to starting a business? So I never posted on social media while I was losing weight. It was very much like a personal journey for me. And then November of 2017, I had this before and after photo that I was really proud of.

I had 900 followers and I was like, okay, I'm really nervous, but I wanna show my hard work. So I put this before and after photo up. And this was the time on social media where things kind of could go viral organically. And this photo went popped off way more than I expected. Everyone who followed me was excited about it. Other fitness pages were reposting it, much larger pages, and it kind of

just blew up. And I remember my phone just like exploding with DMs and comments and follows. And I'd never experienced anything like that. I wasn't an avid social media user. And that post was the start of my community building. So I started gaining a lot of followers, had a lot of DMs asking for workout programs, products, what did I use, what did I do? So it quite organically became my career because I was obsessed with it.

I loved it. I felt like I had this secret that I wanted to share with other women. And I felt like there wasn't many people out there speaking candidly about mental health and fitness. I think it was sort of an airbrush time on Instagram. It was a lot of like, abs. And I've kind of always looked this way and everything was sort of perfect and I was sharing The ups the downs everything I was going through

My first ever product was a workout guide I went to Barnes and Noble and wrote up everything I did you know every day shoulders legs whatever Sold it for five dollars, so people would DM me. Hey, I want your workout plan I would email it to them and they would pay pound me $5. That's how you did it. A manual system, and my husband was helping me. So we'd be on our phones all day,

just manually emailing people. Were you selling a lot right after gates? Yes. Wow. I still think the PDF business is genius. Because you have no overhead. It's just your knowledge on a PDF. And that's it. It exists forever. It's never no overhead. Yeah. It's just your knowledge on a PDF. And you do that's it. It exists forever.

Yeah. So figure out how to have a website and automate the whole thing. Sold a lot of guides. We had workout guides, one, two, three, and four nutrition plans. And that was how we started saving up capital to be able to invest in our first physical product, which was a resistance band, which were all the rage back then, but they were all plastic

and they would roll up on your legs, whatever. So we created a fabric resistance band. We worked with a manufacturer in Pakistan very closely. We ended up having a Maori wing in the manufacturer because we were basically funding this guy to have a machine to create these bands Anyway, the first 900 we ever ordered we unpacked and shipped out of my dad's house Wow, and I wrote a note in every single one So it was very labor intensive. I was at the mail office every day sending out these bands, but it was the start of everything. We did everything ourselves, customer service, website,

photography, and ultimately figured out that we needed a warehouse and from there kept saving up the money and started sampling for Bloom Nutrition in 2018. Wow, that's awesome. So you can feel it, by the way. So we've met a lot of very successful people. And I don't know, there's a different feeling when you can tell someone's driven by something that's authentic.

You had that when I came in. I could tell through your staff. This is usually how you could tell by the people that they're surrounded by. And so this makes perfect sense. You were driven by your own. I mean, you had like a, I mean, you had a personal experience that was life-changing. So it felt very personal. I have lots of questions about the business and fascinated by that part. But before I even get to that, I want to ask about your journey into weightlifting, it seems like you pretty much adopted it right away.

There was no resistance to it. You weren't attracted to the cardio side. Is that all from the influence of your husband or did you kind of do your own research and were there times during that process where you wanted to quit and didn't believe in it or was it all just man. As soon as I started hitting the weights, the results came on. I never looked back. I mean, what was it like? It's a good question. I mean, I will say I was pretty intimidated to get in the gym because although I wanted to, I felt insecure in the way I looked, I felt like I didn't know what to do. So I will say I had that gym intimidation factor, but I definitely admired my husband.

I mean, I thought he was really cool. He was at the gym twice a day, meal prepping. I'd never seen someone with that amount of discipline and passion for thinness. So I was definitely inspired by that. And I always wanted muscle from the beginning. I felt like it was the best way of physically showing that you're a hard worker, if that makes sense. Because I knew, I guess, from listening to podcasts and talking to you about the music, I was like, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able it was the best way of physically showing that you're a hard worker. If that makes sense.

Yeah. Because I knew, I guess from listening to podcasts and talking to Greg, I had an understanding of how difficult it is to build muscle. So I felt like any woman who had muscle on their body was clearly disciplined. And I kind of wanted that work ethic to show on the outside. So yeah, I think I did have a pretty healthy introduction to weightlifting and I feel really lucky in that way. Yeah, and then what about the results?

Did you feel like they came on pretty fast? Were you noticing change right away? Or did you feel like, okay, I gotta trust the process? It's gonna take some time. What did that look like? Up and down. I feel like at the very beginning, I pretty much had never stepped

in a gym, so I had the newbie gains that everyone talks about. I'd never really moved my body in that way before, and when you go from hardly moving to lifting a 50 pound dumbbell or whatever it is, it's pretty hard. Everything was pretty hard for me at the beginning. So I felt like the results were pretty quick within the first month. And I was losing weight. I'd say pretty quickly because I was so focused. And I was lucky that I got to go live with my dad

and really focus on this one thing. And I think it was fitness that made me feel like I had control again, but I also coupled it with the food. I think diet was really, really important as well. And did you, when you did that, did you just cut a bunch of calories or do you feel like you just shifted from, I was eating a lot of this kind of processed garbage and now I'm going to feed, nourish my body. And did you feel like you were, like restricting a lot or did you feel satisfied as far as

how much you were eating? So I always give this example. My breakfast before my fitness journey was a muffin that was like that big. I haven't had a muffin in, I want to say five years at this point, this big pumpkin or blueberry and an ice coffee this big with milk and sugar, and that was like my go-to. So the first switch I made was from that to basically imitating Greg's breakfast, which was like a bowl of oatmeal, blueberries, four or five eggs, bacon, it was massive. Like it was like a body builder.

Breakfast was so proud of it. And I remember FaceTiming him and showing him. Was it Hartfield Eat all that? Yeah, it was, but I was like, this is what I have to do. And I remember FaceTiming him and him being like, love it, love the effort, maybe not as much. Because he's like a 250 pound body builder. And I was like, you know, but I had good intentions.

And I think what I learned from that was the swapping of a highly processed food to a whole nutrient density. I love that you did that because that's not normal. That is not normal. That is not normal. That is what somebody would do is they'd look at this big muffin, iced coffee and they go, oh, I'll just go, now I'm going to have like, you know, three egg whites. Or I'll skip it.

Yeah, or skip it. Or I'll just eat some now I'm gonna have like, you know, three egg whites. Or I'll skip it. Yeah, or skip it. Or I'll eat some berries and that's it. And I go from this high calorie process. You know, very good. Doesn't even seem like calories was something you're factoring at this point. You know, not really. And it never has been for me.

I've always been really ingredient focused. I really love nutrition. I've, I think because of my mental health, that was a big factor for me. So it was driving you more than the way you looked was the mental part and how you felt. Yeah, I would say so. Because I had this mood disorder and I felt like I was very up and down, I came off of their SSRIs. I was on. I sort of started to realize that the muffin and the coffee were an initial spike of sugar

and caffeine in the morning was really not helping me with this mood control. And right away when I switched to whole nutrient dense foods, I felt like my blood sugar was more even, I felt like I was more in control and happier day today. So did you come off of the medication before you started the fitness journey? Sort of like in conjunction. Same time. I mean, I'm not recommending this. I'm not a doctor, but I clean like cold turkey came off everything.

Oh, wow. Was that hard? It was really hard and really bizarre symptoms. So you were on a SSRI? I was on a lot. Okay. I was on anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, anti-psychotic. Looking back, I mean, they definitely put me on way too much. Oh my gosh. And you went off all of them at the same time,

which no doctor would ever recommend. No. So tell me about the symptoms and what that was like. You, when you're on that much medication, you kind of live life numb. I didn't really have any grip on reality. No highs, no lows, everything was sort of middle ground. And the problem with that for me was I never really got a grasp on how bad everything was. You know, like I was failing every class in college, I was self-harming, I'm drinking, and nothing really hits you. Like you don't really have this sense of, oh shit, I need to fix this.

So when I moved home, I kind of was like, something's wrong. I don't have my personality, I don't have a grip on reality, I need to come off of this stuff. So I have a little bit of an extreme personality, so I just came off all of it. And coming off of it, I developed some weird habits, or like bad habits that I'd never had before. So the one that I talk about that I honestly hate

talking about because it's not who I am, but I randomly had an urge to shoplift. I've never shoplifted in my life. I know. No, I'm serious. I'm sorry, Blah, that's just kind of funny. It is serious. I'm sorry, but that's just kind of funny. It is crazy. I'm sorry. I want to steal some shit now. Just randomly be a bandit. Yeah. Were you successful? Did you do a good job or did you? No, I was so bad at it. I was so bad at it.

And I've been such a rule follower as a child. Like I was a shy kind child would never consider shoplifting. Now I like shudder at the thought of it, but all of a sudden, like I was a shy kind child would never consider shoplifting. Now I like shudder at the thought of it, but all of a sudden, I like had the urge to shop lift. So I was going places and try things on and leave them on and leave. And then one day I got caught actually. Yeah. Yeah, it's really weird for me to think about because it feels like a different reality.

Like I was in a bubble kind of. And then after the fact, like a year later, I was like, let me look think about because it feels like a different reality. Like, I was in a bubble kind of. And then after the fact, like a year later, I was like, let me look into that because that was like the weirdest thing that I've ever done. And it turns out, apparently that happens sometimes when you come off of this medication that you'll have urges like that, yeah. Is that, you think that is it like just in general, like a rebellious urge? It could be manifest in different ways, shot. It wasn't even that I really wanted the stuff.

Yeah, the theory, the theory behind what you're talking about, because I've read about it could be manifest in different ways. It wasn't even that I really wanted the stuff. Yeah, the theory behind what you're talking about, because I've read about this, is that your brain is seeking out, the way that they'll explain it, dopamine, it's seeking out novelty. And so typically it'll go to a place where you wouldn't necessarily go,

so creates that feeling within you. So it's not like you, like if you always shop lifted, that's not where you would have gone. You would have done something else that would have been extreme for you. And so it produced that feeling in your brain and then that creates that loop. And so people can develop other addictions.

How busted did you get? So you got caught. That was just... Somebody told me downstairs in a room and I was supposed to pick up my dad from the train caught. I was just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, I mean, was it just, was it just, I mean, was it then, I was very low on money. No gambling. I wouldn't even know where to begin with that. What were you taking? It was just close. And so they pull you in the office and you're like, oh shit. I kind of actually was honest with them and explain what was going on. And I was like, I have BPD, I was on all this medication. I'm no longer on it.

I'm so sorry. This is never going to happen again again And that just like kind of snapped me out of it. It was like a two-month thing But I like to reference that because it was One of the crazier symptoms of coming off of that medication It took a long time to get it out of my system now when you're starting to feel these Simp these by the way, I really appreciate your your your candor what's talking about this. There's a lot of people who, don't talk about, definitely would've told that story. Yeah, yeah, you know? But that's great.

I appreciate your candor, it helps a lot of people. So when you're feeling these symptoms and you're starting to work out, are you starting to use, like, okay, I'm feeling kind of crappy, I'm gonna exercise. Or so it became like, okay, this is feeling kind of crappy? I'm going to exercise. So it became, like, okay, this is a better way of handling some of these symptoms. Is that, did that help with that, I guess that relationship with exercise?

100%. I felt like my main motivator for exercise and eating well was, I'm going to feel so much better after this. So even if the workout wasn't perfect, I just kind of had these like rules for myself every day. I drink a gallon of water a day, I'd hit, so I was using fitness pedal back then, actually. I wasn't calorie obsessed necessarily, but I just wanted to like know how much I was consuming.

And it taught me about food because before my fitness journey, I didn't know what a protein phytochob were. Honestly, I didn't know what macros were, so that really taught me a lot about what is in food. And then the exercise for me was, I just felt so different afterwards. It was such an endorphin rush for me. And I think it was the first time finding something healthy that made me feel better. Because I was so reliant before on relationships, alcohol, food, you know, like I pretty much spent

my college career like finding things to numb the pain. And I felt like I was finally facing it head on. You know, it's really interesting about your story is that you came from an incredibly challenging place. Well, physically it's going's really interesting about your story is that you came from an incredibly challenging place, both physically what's going on with you, mentally what's going on with you, but your introduction into your pursuit of becoming healthier was a very smart, healthy, right approach that most people don't do. That does happen in my very own way. Usually they come to that, what you could have to after they've gone. You really don't. Spon your wheels.

I mean, just a bag with exercise that you were that over a way. Yet the things that really kept you coming back was what it did for you mentally is something that we as coaches. I mean, God, that was you were always trying to everyone almost everyone comes to the gym and it's I got to get this 90 pounds off. I just I hate the way I look. I don't want to look like this or my doctor said something and they're obsessed with the scale and the way they look so much that they miss all the other great benefits of what's going on there with their

their. In fact, they sacrifice and compromise their mental health for the mirror. No, you guys are right. I never thought about it that way. And I do credit Greg a lot for that. I think he was a good coach for me if you wanna call him that back then. And I definitely was aware of the scale, but I think my life was just in such shambles that I, I think- You like, it just wanna feel better. I just wanted to feel better

and I wanted to be a better person. Like I really wanted to be, I wanted to reach my full potential. And I didn't really know what this journey was going to end up being. But I was like, if I dedicate myself to something every single day and keep my own promises every single day, something good is going to happen from this. And it like changed my whole life. So Greg is dating you even before you start this journey. Yeah, he's seen me through. Okay, what it tell me what is it? What is it that you think he saw in you early on? Hmm. I wonder this sometimes. I mean, I mean, amazing, right? That he

that he's been there from before and afterwards, hence probably why you married the man like you know, saying he speaks probably volumes about his character. I'm just curious of if you were basically harming yourself this much, you're probably in what you would consider, you know, the worst part of your life, right? That this man saw something in you and was attracted to that and then stuck with you all the way through it. Have you ever talked about it?

We have. I mean, we went to high school together technically, but we didn't know each other and ended up at the same college and when we met He was really nervous of me. I don't know why he's such a like big Bold guy, but when you get to know him. He's actually a little bit shy He was kind of scared of me and then we ended up at the same Halloween party. He like fell through a table That's a whole other story

He was dancing on a table. You know, and he broke the table and fell through it and a piece of wood stabbed him in the peck. Oh, wow. They used to call him one peck, Levec. Bro, you're so good about, we always talk about how guys do. I love when it works perfectly. I know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't like this guy anymore. It's gonna stick forever. Yeah, this is a one of all that.

No, he was, he was such a character. And I remember he like, a Mamie pancake that night. And I was like, okay, he wasn't even really my type at the time. Like all the girls at the sorority were like, wow, is it with Greg? Like he's so jacked. And I was like, I don't know, it's kind of weird. Like he's at the gym twice a day.

I don't know what he's doing. I don't know, it's kind of weird, like he's at the gym twice a day. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know, I feel like I still was me back then. I didn't have the work ethic necessarily. And I wouldn't say he did either. He was very committed to fitness, but both of us were horrible at school. Both of us were a mess when it came to school. He was fired from multiple internships.

Like the guy cannot work for anyone except himself. I cannot imagine him doing anything except what we do now. So he really struggled in regular jobs. I struggled with school, but I think we both, we are both kind of crazy. Like if you know us as a couple, we're both very spontaneous, but very type A at the same time, like very routine focused. I can't imagine either of us doing anything else and we're together, the perfect team, because he's really strong as a leader, loves marketing,

loves numbers. I'm really strong with branding and community. So together we kind of had the perfect skill sets. And I don't know, we stuck it out. So together we kind of had the perfect skill sets. And I don't know, we stuck it out. I mean, we definitely had our ups and downs. We have moments where we were apart for like six months at a time, but ultimately came back together. And I think my fitness journey and having him guide me through that was such a good, important part of our relationship. You know, shared experience, shared experience.

We went through it together. and then the business starting that together Was insane like it's it's insane that I get to work with him every single day. Yeah, wow So because people would all I mean it's commonly said don't Don't work with your spouse or don't work with your boyfriend or girlfriend. It's like it's recipe for disaster Do you guys work well together? We work very well together. It has its challenges. I'm not going to lie. Like, this business is our whole life. It's like our child. It's all we talk about. And we have to be very intentional to not go down a rabbit hole of talking about every detail of our business at dinner. I mean, you know, it's all consuming. And we definitely have had

disagreements on certain things, but at the end of the day, I respect and admire him so much. And I feel like he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. And I feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And as the business has grown, I mean at the beginning, it was just us two doing everything together. We were in the house all day working on this business, like switching off doing customer service, which is the worst part about having a business. If you do it yourself, oh my god. I mean, you don't want to see like mean things coming in.

About your own, you know what I mean? So what do you mean you don't like it? Yeah, I do get a bunch of them. We filtered ourselves from that really early. Oh my god. It's been like, well, how many years of my sister's been running this service side? Like eight, seven, eight years. So my sister's been running for her service side?

Like eight, seven, eight years. So almost as soon as we started to get any sort of customer service of us, like, yeah, I don't want to read that stuff every day. Yeah, it's a meal. Filter that. So, so now you just, now your podcast is new. You just started that recently.

Whose idea was that? Was that yours? Mine. Okay. And I started it January of this year. What was the idea behind it? Because you have a large female audience. I mean, I think I'm accurately assuming they connect with you because of your authenticity

and you talk about your own journey. It sounds very genuine. You come across very genuinely wanting to help people. And there's not a lot of young women in the space that come across that way. It's typically, you know, look, I'm hot, that's pretty much it. And it's fake and it's like, you know, and it's so annoying, you know, from our perspective, we're obviously a lot older, so it's easy for us to see,

but I have a teenage daughter and I see some of these influencers. And I think they connect you differently because of your... Not interested. It's very gimmicky usually. Yeah, and it's this crazy and terrible information. But why the podcast, what made you want to do a podcast?

So I felt like I kind of exhausted Instagram and I was getting frustrated with the short form content. And it was getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter from 2017 to 2022. It was like, there's not much you can say in a 30 second story or a real and people don't want to watch it anyway. And I felt like I always had a lot more to say and share. And I also love connecting with people and I just kind of felt like I was hitting a brick wall with social media. And TikTok, I mean, I don't know. I'm 29. It's like it's a lot for me. I was like I could go down there. I mean, it's a whole other world.

Yeah, yeah. It's a lot. And I did a couple gassing opportunities on other podcasts and had these amazing conversations and felt like I had this long form opportunity to tell my story and hear from other people and hear other perspectives. And I was like, this is cool. This feels like a value ad to social media or the world of content. And I love listening to podcasts myself. And I'm definitely still, I think what I love about wellness and fitness is there's always

more to learn. I'm never done evolving, you know, and even after losing 90 pounds, I then became obsessed even further with wellness. Well, how can I improve my longevity? There's always more. So I really wanted an opportunity to bring on amazing people. Yeah. So is it very, so do you pick gas based off of like, well, I want to know about this.

And this is a great, great way to get them to talk to me. 100%. Yeah. I go into it. Having my own questions, I want answered and hoping that that will apply to the audience. And it seems to work really well. I find that the best interviews I do are the ones that I genuinely would want to talk to the person anyway.

Totally. 100%. And you're in the growth of your show has been crazy, right? Because you started in January. Yeah. And I think you posted some Spotify stats that you were like, you were like, you probably like in the top something.

I was like, number four for 42 weeks, I think it was. No, insane. I never anticipated that. I think going into it, I knew it would be a hustle. Just hearing from other people who have podcasts, it's a lot of work. I mean, you guys upload what, five days a week. I would, I'm not sure how you do that because we do two sometimes a week. And I feel like I'm drowning.

So I went into it being like, okay, I'm committing to this. I'm doing at least one a week. This into higher year. I think Alex Hormozzi has this stat that he talks about that 90% of people drop off after one episode. Have you guys seen that? Yeah, then the rest don't make it to past eight. Exactly. So I was like, if I can just stick to this the whole year, then I'm already doing better than most people. So that was my mindset going into it. And then also not being afraid of controversy.

I think a lot of people now online are really scared to say how they feel about anything, not that I should be giving opinions on politics or, you know, I'm not giving my opinion on absolutely everything, but I do have thoughts about diet and exercise and from my own personal experience. So I haven't been afraid to say what I think and also bring on people who I don't agree with 100% of the time. I had, Paul Saladino on, Leverking, I've had some really opinionated people on, and I think as a female, that was new as well. I don't see a lot of women talking to those characters. You know, there's a, I don't know if there's truth to this, but it's widely believed that

so female consumers or audience or followers are great because they're the best consumers. So we know this. If you look at most markets, the women or their consumers and men are second. Okay, so everybody knows this. But then there's also this kind of understanding that you have to be very careful because if you say the wrong thing and you have a large female audience, they'll turn on you and you're getting canceled. And oh my god, you offended me. I can't believe you said that. And so that's, it seems that way what you're saying is true. Like it seems like the more controversial shit is said by guys and that women tend to, now have you found that your audience sticks to like have you said anything that piss people off but they stick around

or like what's how's that battle within yourself? I've had to just come to terms with the fact that I'm always going to be upsetting someone, and I find that when an episode is really well, that's when I get feedback. That's when I know a lot of people are listening when I start seeing people getting mad, because if I do an hour and 30 minute episode, something in there is going to upset someone. So especially on Instagram, when I post a real, like a compilation of the whole conversation, people will pull parts out and get really upset. Like I just have my integrative health practitioner, I've got to say that title correctly, on my show, creative health practitioner, I've got to say that title correctly, on my show, and she's of the belief that you should not be heating up olive oil, avocado oil, you should only

use butter, tallow and ghee. And that was something that I pulled from the episode. And certain people get really, really upset about things like that because they feel like you're coming for the way they live their lives. I'm pretty much unaffected by it at this point. I've gotten really used to people getting upset, especially about food. People got weird. Is that weird? So upset about food.

It's like religion. Yeah, people get so upset. And then the whole vegan carnivore debate, really sensitive. I just think everyone has their own experience. And, you know, I think the food part, but I've just gotten used to it. We're the worst vegans. Yeah, vegans don't have me.

Yeah, they get really good. They're really clipped right there. They're really, really good. That's a clip of the end. That's a real, really great vegans. You should. Whenever I do a Q&A, it's like, do you hate vegans? Really?

Hate vegans. Like, if I met, I've sat down with many vegan people and listened to their perspective. It's not how I live my life. But they can be the most, like just crazy when it comes to like attacking. Yeah. I mean, they all could be.

I think every subset has it, because it is, it's very, very dogmatic. You know, it gets very much like religion where people are about their foot. So having for bid, you tell me that this is not good or good for me. So you said that this, so this business is, we have friends like this in the space where husband and wife or partners work together and it's, it's all consuming. And you can see it, you can see that that's their whole life, that's all they do. And business is good, especially if there's meaning

and purpose behind it, but we're of the belief that it's no substitute for things like family and relationships. And off air, we're talking about how you and your husband are talking about having a baby. So what's that discussion like? Because you're so busy with work. You're both working hard crazy. First off, do you have any idea of how busy having a baby is or how much work is involved? Like, what's that discussion like?

Is that going to change everything? I know. I mean, you guys tell me, I think I'm more aware than he is. Like, I try and tell him him like, just so you know, it's gonna be really crazy. He's like, I don't know. I think we can make it work. I mean, I watch a lot of family content.

Okay. When I watch YouTube, I watch parents, because I want to learn. And I think we're just of the mindset that there's never a perfect time. You know, like for years and years, we're like, well, we'll wait until we're at a good point. And I'm like, when is a good point?

And also, I know some people don't like the idea that women have pressure when they're, you know, at a certain age to have a baby. But like, I do want to have a baby when I'm primed to. I'm 29. I would rather not get into my late 30s and to have a baby when I'm primed to. I'm 29. I would rather not get into my late 30s and then have a baby. Like I would like to have one now where I feel like I'm healthy and I'm ready.

So I think I'm actually in a good place now to do that. Obviously I have the podcast that's not going anywhere. We have a very large team for Bloom now. So we're not, I'm not as in the weeds every single day. So I think I would be able to manage it. And I've also been putting it out there for so long that I feel like when I finally do get pregnant and have a baby, everyone will just be like, okay, of course. She's been talking about this. So yeah, we're in our baby making error right now. Oh, wow. That's awesome.

Talk to me about scaling Bloom, that process for you. When it started to get traction, you said you have a large staff. So when did you start hiring, delegating? Have you relieved yourself from it? Are you still considered the CEO or have you hired someone else to run it? Like, what's that all been like? Greg is the CEO, so he pretty much manages the whole team. The very first hire we ever made was 2019,

we hired a GAL for customer service, hired her in the parking lot of the target, which is crazy, because now we're in target. It was always my goal to be in target, now we are. She's waiting in the parking lot, you just met someone. Yeah, no, no, we knew her, we knew her, we knew her, but we like had it. She's like, parking lot, you just met someone. Yeah, no, no, we knew her, we knew her. Okay, okay.

We knew of her, but we like had it. She's like, we're excited. She's just. Looking for work, no, we knew her. Perfect. And she is still with us. She's an angel. Perfect for customer service, like so nice, so friendly.

Then from there, we kind of just kept seeing, okay, where, what do we need? Graphic designer. Maybe we need a creative director. Maybe we need a head of growth and kind of just kept slowly adding for the first two, three years, we literally had less than five people. And now we have close to 100.

Wow. Which is wild. I would say a majority of our team, so I'd say 95% of our team is female. Pretty much all of them are under the age of 30 with the exception of like two to three people. We're definitely like Now is that because you don't like guys? Get giant choreo. It's funny in our office all the men sit upstairs in the back

Three of them. It's so sexist. It's so sexist. When I do tours, I'm like, you know, I really don't know what they're doing up there honestly. I'm assuming because a lot of them were probably followers. Just high-fifies. Or they stink. We stink, men tend to stink. No, no, I don't mean that. I mean, the women you hire, probably because they follow.

A lot of them. Yeah. A lot of them. So we have a very Gen Z millennial audience, and it just makes sense for the people who work for us to be thinking like the customer. And a lot of them are creative. So we kind of think of ourselves as a media company

because we're so influencer and content focused. So I mean, it's been really cool to hire young people and see them blossom. I always give the example. We have our influencer manager, Jillian, came to us as an intern from college and now she manages about 30 girls under her and she has like, I think the most extensive influencer program in the entire supplement industry. Wow. It's wild. We have a very intense TikTok program. And that's partially organic, partially,

because we have a great marketing team. We just found out that we are officially the number one selling greens of 2023. Wow. Yes. Yes. That's congratulations. Greg told me that this morning. Congratulations. Competing was a big hitter space of space. That's a very big space. Yeah. So as a young woman, entrepreneur, also a consumer initially, when you look at the health and fitness space, what do you see that you think is wrong with it

for people like you? Because the people that are most, in my opinion, most negatively, a lot of people get negatively affected by the crap that's in Fitness and health social media. Okay. There's a lot of bad information that's out there But the people who tend to who are getting the worst of it are young women in our opinion Because they're told they need to look a particular way They're not good enough. They tend to be the ones that get hit with the most bullshit ads and

Extreme diets when we talk to people Typically is the young women where we're like oh my god like we got to really help this person out And you're that's you not in the sense that you did those things but you're in that demographic You're in the space or obviously leading in the space When you look at it what what do you think is what are they doing wrong like yeah? How do you talk to your audience or how do you help bolster these girls so that they don't get messed up? I know. And it shifted a lot since 2017. I feel like now the main problem is TikTok. And I know you have young girls.

I mean, it's crazy seeing teenagers, like posting their bodies, and they're so tiny, and grown women are like comparing themselves to these girls, and there's these like what I eat in a day videos, and it's so, there's just so much information, and rather than having like, you know, magazines that we would compare ourselves to, I feel like with TikTok, it's just showing you person after person after person after person who shredded or lean or whatever it may be.

And a lot of times they haven't even gone through puberty yet. Which is so misleading and confusing. And I think you're right, it's like an emotional cell. You know, for a lot of these companies they're going for girls who don't feel good about themselves. I mean, I've even seen my own photo used to sell fat loss products. I have no association with.

Obviously, keto pills and crazy things. It's an easy sell. I think that goes for makeup and anything that makes you feel better about yourself. I like talking about food in a way where we're ingredient focused. That's a big thing for me and not calorie focused. And I always say on my podcast, if anything, I probably more calories than a normal person

because I'm using talo, I'm using very calorie dense. You also lift weights from a talisman's fast and you talk about this. Exactly. And I think just having honesty in that way and being really upfront too is very helpful. I think there's a lot of smoke and mirrors online. Yeah. How do you, do you have to go through algorithm yourself and make sure that you don't get

that crap in there or? It's in there. It's definitely in there. I mean, I just don't think I'm as affected by it. I think when I've been through a weight loss journey, and I'm very aware of how things work, you know, and if I wanted to lose weight tomorrow, I could start and I know exactly what to do. So less about that for me. And I feel like I'm lucky that I have that knowledge. I think the big problem is that so many people online and in America in general just don't have the knowledge.

And they don't understand how fat loss works if that makes sense. If they've been sold the totally the wrong way. Yes. And it's caused a lot of problems, a lot of confusion. And you have a lot of young girls who lose their period because they're eating too little, they're afraid of lifting weights because it's gonna make them bigger, they think. And they'll follow anything that causes some kind of instant, you know, a few pound weight loss,

whether it's a cleanse or a detox or whatever you wanna label it. So it's kind of a scary, I mean, I have, like I said, I have a teenage daughter and then I have a one-year-old who, you know, will be a teenager one day and so like, it's personal for me. I could see a lot of this. Do you think about that for your future? Oh my gosh, 100%. I mean, when I was growing up, I didn't have TikTok or Instagram and I'm so grateful that I didn't because it looks, I mean, from what I could see, I would be terrified for my kid to be on TikTok. And I would like try to manage what they were looking at, but I don't even know how you would go about that.

It's terrifying for sure. But I feel like you're in a good position because you can educate them the right way and you can kind of control their knowledge on that. Yeah, do you and your staff talk about this when you guys put out content? Like look, we want to do it like this, not like this. And is that ever a struggle?

Because doing it the wrong way sells. I mean is that ever a struggle because doing it the wrong way sells? I mean, let's be honest, doing it the wrong way is how you get the algorithm to pick you up and get viral. It's easy way to sell products. We've definitely had a conversation about that. And it's tough because there's only so much control

with the internet, like the world worse. So if this product gets in someone's hands and they decide to promote it the way they want to, I don't love that. You know, I remember like a year ago seeing a video that I was like, that does not represent our brand. Like that's not what we're about. And it's funny because when we first launched Bloom,

it was kind of like Mari Supplement Company. Like people only knew of the product if they knew of me and they knew of my story. And I felt like I was the best representation of the brand because it came from me. The reason I called it Bloom was because I wanted it to be about becoming the best version of you. But now the brand has grown so much

that people often don't even know who I am. They just know the brand itself, which is really cool. That was the goal. But inevitably, I saw content a year ago where I was like, that is not what I want this to be about. That's not what the brand's about. Was it content you guys produced? No, it was like someone who had the product and we're doing it their own way. Yeah. So when we go about finding creators and talking about the type of content, we want, we always go back to the core values of the brand and what

we want, you know, the way for it to come across, because I'd never want to be a part of that of the fitness industry in that way. What was the process of working with like Target and getting in on that? Did they contact you? Did you contact them? No, we like knocked their door down. The first call we had with them was probably two, three years ago, and I remember we were in a wee work, because we didn't even have our own office then. And a got on the call with the buyer for that department. So there's a buyer for each department in target. So you've got like supplements and vitamins. You've got ready to drink, you know, I didn't realize it was that way.

So each buyer of the department is looking for the best new products to bring in. And the guy got on and he was like, I've tried greens and superfoods in my department before it never works. Like, I have no interest. And it basically laughed at us and laughed. We were like, okay, good start. Good start. Let's try this again. Did another call kept sending the numbers because our numbers were what got people to pay attention to us because on the outside Greg and I are both young

I Think a lot of people doubted us at the beginning and that was a thing we kept running into like you know We're in our 20s A lot of the other people in this industry are older. They're always men in suits You know, they're not often, they don't look like me and Greg. So we had a lot of doubt at the beginning, kept getting on the phone, kept showing our numbers and they said, okay, we'll let you have the bottom shelf, five products, and we'll try it in, you know, 200 stores and see how it

goes. And we were like, perfect. And it was the numbers that got you that. Because you look at our conversions, look what we're, okay. Yeah, and they hadn't seen that before. So they're like, okay, we'll try it. Sold out everywhere. And we, yeah, and we really used our social media and marketing to send people. We were like, go look for us.

So you told them specifically, hey guys, we're in target. We need your support so that they continue to carry our product goal over there. Wow. And we put money behind our marketing. So Greg, you know, does all the Facebook ads and Google marketing. And he put money behind the fact that we were in target because for us, it was very validating to be put in a store like that. You know, this was our first retail store. And it worked. People were running there like crazy to get the product. So now we've got like a proper end cap display. So it's not there right now, it will be for new years. But a couple

months ago, when you walked in target and you were in the supplement section, it was the first thing you saw was a big end cap display with the product all over it, which is so crazy for me to see. But it hasn't been easy because I think for a lot of retailers this concept of a new D to C online product is quite new, you know, we're an influencer product because they're kind of used to especially in the supplement section Their best selling products were like flow nays So I think we actually beat them You beat flow nays. Yeah, wow for one. were, okay, I'm going to mess this up. This is like Greg's sentence,

but the top selling skew for that department in history for one month, Wow. Which was crazy. Wow, that's awesome. I just think the supplement section of Target hasn't had a lot of innovation in a very long time. I don't think of supplements in Target.

Exactly. I think of like generic, like vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, but I don't think of supplements in Target. Exactly. I think of generic vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, but I don't think of supplements. Yeah, it's not somewhere you'd go for a health supplement. So I think for them, it was very new and scary. And then we were like, okay, we got a full send on this to show them that we can do it. Now, did that create a negotiating opportunity for you guys

to negotiate the profits, margins, things like that, or it is what it is with Target. It's like, we give you this. This is how it works and you don't have a choice. It kind of is what it is, but it gave us leverage to ask for end-cap displays, for example, and more marketing, which is so funny because as a consumer, you never think about that. You're like, oh, yeah, they've just decided that that product's on the end cap. There's like so much that goes into it.

Yeah, and I'm very involved in the design of the end cap, which I really enjoy. That's cool. Which is really cool. But yeah, we've been to Minneapolis a couple times to talk to the target team. It's an operation. But then I like target.

I feel like they are at the forefront of trying new things. A lot of retailers are really stuck in their ways because they've been doing it for so long. I feel like Target's really pushing the envelope in that way. Now, you, I know you say Greg is more than numbers guy, but I'm so curious to the, and you know, if you don't know the exact number, is it just an idea of how this is? Because I know that in the supplement space, the margins are already very slim, right? I mean, a really

good supplement company is making 10 to 20% tops on the profit margins, right? Now, how much less is that for you when it runs through target and comparison, say they buy straight from your Instagram or straight from your website, like how different is it for you? That's a good question. And I have no idea what the answer is. I would like to know that as well. But I do think, so Amazon is a big channel for us. Amazon is a big thing. There are another one that cuts into the profits

quite a bit too. A bit. And I think that scared us at the beginning, but then you realize how much you can scale when you go via Amazon and retailers. And you just become far more widely known. So it ends up being worth it. I mean, our shopper's used to be our main channel.

That was the only thing that anyone ever really went to and now it's probably our least used. Are you looking to eventually sell Bloom to build it, to sell it to another company? Is there an exit plan? Possibly. Okay. Yeah, we've dabbled with it.

I mean, at the beginning, we, a lot of people get into business now with the plan to sell, which I think is really odd, because- That's an actual business strategy. People say, I know. And I find that weird, I guess my experience of starting a business was it's like my child and even when I even have a hard time like handing it off You know in terms of our team when they started taking over

I had a hard time with it. I had like a grieving period where I wasn't in the weeds every day because I was like this is my baby So I never we never thought about that as a plan But now I think it would make sense to partner up with someone else and potentially we've actually never even taken an investment. So you guys are 100% on it. 100% on is 100% self-funded from the beginning, which is not common. No, it's not, and it's really difficult to go from, okay, we're selling this on social media and our direct website and then all of a sudden leap to We can actually fulfill enough to like target so by that was that like Just to take all your savings and just yeah, what was that jump from there?

Because that's that's a lot of times we get somebody who has this like someone has a big dream one day I want to be in target to and supplements and they think I'm gonna just start selling this product and then hopefully target We'll pick it up. It's like, then there's the other part of target won't even mess with you unless you can fulfill their stores which fulfillment from a small startup in the supplement space which has small margins already is a massive leap. So tell me how that... No investors.

Yeah, and yeah, no capital from somebody else. How did that happen? I wish I had Greg and Emily, with me, because they were really in the weeds with that, but that you're right. That is the biggest hurdle. And that's targets. Number one question is, what is your manufacturing capability look like? So by the time we were ready for it, we already had three different manufacturers. Like at the beginning, we just had one. To be honest, when we first called them, we probably weren't ready to be in there. So it's perfect that it happened when it did

because now we do have the capability to do that. Yeah. You also did this through COVID. Which, COVID was actually very helpful for us. Oh, interesting. We launched greens right before COVID. And I launched greens because I just wanted the product. Like this wasn't planned in any way.

I just simply wanted a greens powder that was good for my gut health and bloating. And then the pandemic hit. And we were, I would have considered us more of a gym brand before COVID. We had protein pre-workout. That was like our main thing, EAAs, which is funny to think about now. And we promoted

it mostly with like gym content, me and the gym. I always kind of envisioned it that way, because I was such a gym rat back then. And then COVID hit and I was like, okay, I think we need to pivot and really focus on this greens powder because it does have immunity benefits. So I started doing more home workouts and showing recipes and basically pivoted the whole business towards wellness, rather than fitness. Wow. And that resonated with people.

We sold out of our first like five orders of greens, mostly because we couldn't afford to keep enough in stock because it's so expensive. All of our money was in this product. And it's been, all of our money has been in this business from the beginning, which is obviously like stressful. Yeah. Which is,

Yeah, because people are like, Oh, you're rolling in money, you're like, we put everything back in the business. Yeah, no, we're asset, asset, rich. Yeah. Not actually rich. No, but it, I think it honestly was helpful because it's sort of like a you need to survive situation. Like we had to put everything into this business and make it work because we didn't have another option.

So yeah, no, that COVID really helped because people really started focusing on that in a health and greens just took off around that time. Oh wow. That's so awesome. What have been your biggest challenges with, yeah, I wanna know all the mistakes that you made. Like where did you screw up? Cause obviously right now the audience is listening and they're like, man, she just home run, home run, home run. But I know that's never how it is.

Like there's always, like when you look back, what are some of the either the dumbest things you did or the things that you made a big mess on, you think? Definitely some dumb things were done. Um, I, sorry, I'm sick. so if I sound crazy, that's why. I launched a hoodie, like a Mari fitness hoodie before bloom. And I was so excited about it, we launched it right before Christmas. I sold like a thousand units of a size that I didn't even have.

Like I listed like extra small, small, medium, I had all these sizes and somehow sold a thousand of a size I didn't have. And it was just me and Greg at the time. So we had no idea how to handle that. So we literally emailed every single person. We didn't celebrate Christmas. We were just on our laptops all the time.

Had to figure out what to do with those a thousand orders. So that's one mistake. Did you refund everybody? Or you're, of course, of course, all we were like, all we could send you this size. So we let people decide, which obviously created like weeks of customers. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, I have your side down to do another size.

Maybe motivate you to get into it. I don't know. This one. I couldn't get away with that. Maybe you guys could. We printed a label for a protein. Like we had these big tubs of protein that came, and it was done.

Like these were ready to ship. And it came, and there was like a milkshake on the front, like a product image, a flavor image. And it had a straw coming out of the glass that wasn't actually there. It was just gloss. So it was an invisible straw coming out of the cup. So it was a label mishap. That's one that sticks out to me because I was like, oh my god, that's my fault for sure. Like a Photoshop era. Then with the greens, I mean, I feel like our biggest mistake was just not having them in stock. People were so mad at me, we kept selling out constantly, but that also added to the hype.

I'd say, okay, probably to me, one of the biggest mistakes was developing protein bars. That was about a year ago now, and we've been working on the protein bars for a long time. Protein bars take a really long time to develop for whatever reason. It's hard to make 20 or 30 or 40 grams of protein palatable, period into story, and have shelf life and not turn, get weird in the wrapper and like people have no idea, like making a tasty candy bar, a piece of cake, making a tasty protein bar. It's like make a cake. Making a tasty protein bar. It's like magic.

That's really hard. Exactly. And when we started formulating them, who we were as a brand was completely different than who we are now. And I've learned a lot since then. So what we established about our customer back then was they care about taste, they care about the look of it, they want a lot of protein.

It was less about the ingredients. So And we also trusted the manufacturer and food scientists that we were working with, probably too much. So we developed this protein bar that looked gorgeous, it had like this icing on it and it was all colorful and and it took so long to develop and by the time we were ready to launch, we were like, I don't know, this feels kind of like off brand for us, we're now this wellness company, we're not so much Germany more, but people were asking for it, they really, really wanted it and they tasted good. So we launched it and it did really well. But one of the ingredients was titanium dioxide, which I learned later on isn't the best,

and not something that I want to consume either. So we immediately were like, okay, I don't think we should sell this. This is an on-brand for us. Were you're consuming this? Or were you looking at this going, okay, this is a problem. Both. Okay.

I started seeing it in the feedback, and I went into my own research and I actually talked to Thomas DeLauer about it. Yeah. Yeah. And that was kind of what made me realize, okay, like I really think that this bar was a mistake and we immediately like pulled it off the website. So sometimes you try things. Now what's titanium dioxide for? Is that a preservative or is it? I think so. Okay. And I think it was something that the manufacturers put in there because

they were like, oh, this is necessary to keep it on the shelf or whatever it may be. And when you're doing things like that, it was a learning lesson for me for sure to be way more diligent because the manufacturers goals are not necessarily your goals. No. And that was a big learning process for me. So did you have a bunch of stock that you had to dump? I think we may have donated it. We sold a lot of it, which was good.

But yeah, I think going out there and trying something like that and kind of realizing this is it who we are, to me, that stands out as a mistake, but kind of cool, though, because of your personality, the way you've approached everything so far, I would imagine it actually just in bold in the brand, too, though, because you come off as someone who's, I'm not, I'm not professing that I'm the the scientist, the doctor, the nutritionist, like I'm just sharing, and I didn't know. Now I know. That's why I'm not sellingists, like I'm just sharing, and I didn't know. Now I know. That's why I'm not selling. And now I'm not selling anymore.

And there's something for a lot of people that want to get into the social media business or be an influencer to learn from that like that. It's okay to make mistakes. You don't have to be perfect. I think where people make a mistake more often is trying to act like they're an expert or trying to act like they know everything.

And or always pursuing the money thing. Forget about integrity that don't give a shit. So I think, or I would imagine your audience probably forgave you and moved on from it. If anything, probably just strengthen the brand. I hope so. Yeah. I think I hope that they know that that was something I took really seriously and the team took really seriously and the team took really seriously and also that we read the feedback. I really do pay attention to what the customers want and what they're feeling, even flavors

that we launch. Every time we launch a new greens flavor, we ask them what they are looking for. Now with a new product development, we're asking them what they want. What are they saying? People are really into clostrum. Right now, which is interesting. They're also really into glutamine. Yeah, for gut health.

You know what's funny about glutamine? What? So it's amino acid. It's here's what's funny about the supplement industry. And you're too young to see this, but you will eventually is that there, there'll be a product that'll get popular, lose popularity. And then every, for whatever reason, 10 to 15 year, yeah, every, like, like branch came into assets, glutamine, argonine, you're going to see, okay, G is going to do it again.

Chromium is going to come back again. Like these are all things that'll like pop up. Like fashion. Yeah, so funny. Yeah, glutamines and amino acids got some gut health benefits, but if you have bad gut health, taking glutamine might make it worse, depending on what's going on with your gut. You talk to a functional medicine practitioner,

though, they'll break that down for you. It's big in the bodybuilding space, right? It's the most abundant amino acid in skeletal muscle. Oh, and creatine. Crateeans big. Yeah, creatine's different. That's a whole nother ballgame. Do you take creatine?

I used to when I was keto. What do you guys think of it? Should, for sure. Oh, because there's actually more benefits that are coming out for overall health and wellness too. It's the most studied supplement there is. It's extremely safe and it's extremely healthy. People think, oh, it just builds muscle.

Yeah, it does that, but it's also good for your brain, good for your heart, good for your liver. It's got anti-aging benefits. It's great for the mitochondria, it helps with insulin sensitivity. They're finding benefits with dementia. You're probably gonna see it in those care facilities where people go to retire.

They'll probably start putting it in there. I mean, they're probably gonna start putting it in formula for babies. It's like legit. Everybody should take it. Skeds women about creatine. It's that. The way the water.

I hear women say that. Okay, so here's what's funny about that. If I were to dehydrate you. Hold it in the muscle, that's what I really understand. So there's difference between bloat and being well hydrated. Well hydrated looks like healthy skin. Your muscles feel nice and firm. And you just look healthy, okay?

That's hydrated. Bloat is water under the skin. It's inflammation, it looks totally different. So if I were to dehydrate you right now, even if you lost five pounds on the scale, unless you were just tied to the scale and you didn't, you ignored everything else, you wouldn't think you look better,

you wouldn't feel better, you'd be like, you'd have what we call in the body building where the flat look is all the muscles of the... I building world, the flat look. There's all the muscles. I used to have the flat look. Yeah, because most people that are dieting are, right? You're carb depleted, you're low calorie. So we get this kind of flat look, which is also what kind of messes with people psychologically when they have that first big, huge meal

afterwards and they're like, oh my god, I look better. Yeah. And then they go, maybe I can't eat McDonald's every day. It really does. It fucks with a lot of clients because they've been on this diet for a while and they're flat. The muscle bellies are not filled up and the same thing, this is the same vein as the

whole more water and so it holds more into the muscle. And so actually, in fact, when I was bodybuilding, I used to love to take creatine only really when I was cutting and dieting psychologically because it would fill my muscle bellies up. And so I wouldn't feel so small. Yeah. And I felt like I looked better with the fuller muscle bellies because I was dieting.

I was inevitable. I was going to look small while I was doing that. So I feel like I should take it again. Absolutely. I'm going to tell you right now because these guys, well, let me start a supplement company. If you can, we've tossed around. If you could really market, create team to young women, you'll crush because if they can get around the, oh, I gained two pounds of water on the scale thing

Which will happen, but it's hydration. It's not the same as blow. I'd like to see a mind pump creating I tell you what you could you could still our idea along those lines because I don't let's see us doing it anytime soon Is that we predicted that you would start to see Creatine included in just basic health supplements and wellness supplements Well, it's so instead of just selling it as a standalone product is putting it in like a greens juice or putting it in that you would start to see creatine included in just basic health supplements and wellness supplements. So instead of just selling it as a standalone product, is putting it in like a greens juice or putting it in some sort of a health product and watch what it does. We talked about doing greens with added benefits, you know, like a glutamine, a creatine, things like that. Yeah. I think you guys should do a creatine though. I would buy it. No, it's not.

Is that why you brought her up? Yeah, yeah. This is it. I think you can make my money. You can make my money. So what about a lot of the stuff that you talked about that were kind of mistakes, which is really interesting for me to listen to because it's so different than all of our mistakes. I feel like we made a lot of mistakes.

Like, you know, we thought email marketing was dead. You thought that social media taking that over so there's no reason to capture emails early on. With the podcast. You just know what was thought in general. Just in general, when we were building the business. Literally the most profitable thing we thought was. Yeah. I just started my newsletter.

Yeah, so there was five. So we weren't even capturing emails for the first two years of the business. And then to South Point, it's one of the most profitable things that we do is our email marketing. We were late to the party on the YouTube channel. We thought that the way you communicate on the YouTube channel would be the same way that we communicate on the part. I mean, we made so many mistakes. But you have to.

Yeah, so what about those, like those types of mistakes, do you, like, I mean, do you just feel like you guys hit everything social media wise and website wise and email set like, how has that evolution been and has that been challenging for you or do you feel like you and Greg just knew what to do in that area? Like what are some of the mistakes you made in that direction? I feel like social media did come pretty naturally to us, especially me. I feel like I really love connecting with people and I had a good, for some reason I was always pretty comfortable, probably over sharing on camera.

I'm not sure why and I'm still that way. Like I probably have said 10 things I shouldn't have said on this microphone. I think I just don't think about who's on the other end necessarily. And I feel like my purpose is to share my pain and connect with other people. And I feel like I've had a good way of doing that. I would say, hmm, I mean, we're always learning. I think we were a little bit late to TikTok for Bloom and a large portion of our customers are Gen Z. But you can catch up.

Like you can always make up for lost time. I feel like there's never, never a wrong moment to start doing something. Are most of your podcasts episodes, you interview people, right? You don't, where do you episodes by yourself or? I do solo's every now and again, but I don't, I don't love it.

Have you had an encounter yet? I mean, you just, maybe you haven't yet, because you just started, have you had a guest yet where you're like, oh, I don't, I don't like them at this sucks. Yes. And, do you not err at? As you're like, oh, I don't like them at this sucks. Yes. And do you not err at? As you not err at it.

I won't post it. So have you had some that you didn't post? Yes. Wow. I have. Now did you stop the podcast halfway through or did you let it finish? No, that's so rude. Imagine.

I'm just like, oh, you're not, you're not it. Sorry. We've done that a couple times. Oh. Yeah. Would I know? I know if you it? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We would have let you know. We have like hand signals. You know, no, you know, code words. One of them Adam literally stood up. Yeah. And he's like, okay, we can't hear this. This isn't gonna work. Yeah. I mean, someone could be lovely in person and amazing get them on the microphone horrible Yeah, I actually find is this will be interesting for your journey since you're one year in right now

We're normally wrong Like rarely ever do I feel like the the guests that we have coming in that they're gonna be anything like I assume I feel like it's almost always the opposite. There's been times where I'm like, I do not want any of this person and I'm like, whatever. They're awesome. And they're awesome. And they're like, oh my God, they're amazing.

I love them. Or somebody on my silk side, they're like, oh my God, I can't wait to meet them. And they're like, oh, what a letdown. Don't you guys find that it's the people who are more famous that are less interesting? Yes. I feel bad saying that, but I feel like maybe

their media trained or something. Correct. And they just don't They don't get candid with you. They don't share as much as you'd like It's not a good episode. Yeah, they've learned their great actors. Yeah, they've learned to present themselves on the camera Really well, and that's what's made them famous on social media or television whichever whichever medium they use what I always Found in person and they're lame. Totally, yes. What I found as interesting is you'll turn on the cameras and this persona comes out. You turn them off and they're weird or awkward

or what happened to that person that was, you know, it's really, like you said, media trained, it feels. Yeah, and that doesn't work for podcasts because people know. It's too long. Yeah, and people are listening and they're smart and they know when someone's being fake. So I yeah, I've run into that issue. Do you guys find that even when it's like a really good conversation in person or in the room,

you don't know how it's going to perform to the audience? Yeah, yeah. There's conversations that we love that just did all right on the podcast. Same. Yeah, same. Yeah. And it's interesting to me the topics that they love. Yeah. And the ones that I love, but they're not as into. Well, that was a learning, you know, talk about huge lessons for us. And I don't know where this could potentially help you. But we early on ignored the most basic dumb episodes, right? So we used to say like, I'm not, we're not gonna do an episode on

how to get big biceps or these, most of these like super like basic, like, I don't know what to talk about that. Yeah, I feel like those are your best episodes. That's what people, that's what we found was they performed the best before. That's what got that brought the bigger audience and that's what actually got shared.

And that was the transition that we made to what we call our single topic episodes. We should never do those. They were all kind of the same. We had this kind of free flowing dynamic where we would just talk about stuff and then eventually it evolved to the quaw where we answer questions, but we didn't never do these like dedicated days that were just these under an hour, very specific, very basic conversation, and we found that those bring the biggest amount of people over. We're sort of chumming the water with that. And then over here is kind of a little bit more where we like to talk and, you know, great detail.

Well, we've been talking about fitness for 25 years. I was gonna say I run into that issue too, because I think when you've been doing fitness for a while and talking about it for a while, you don't want to talk about the basics anymore or you don't think it's important. But most people tuning in, that's all they want to hear. Correct. Like your glute episode you did recently. Yeah. Yeah. For your glute video. Yes. Yes. Great thumbnail. Oh, yeah. Appreciate it. I was like, that's going to do well. I was like, that's gonna do well. Those Justin's glutes. Shining, smooth, they're really nice.

So any surprises, where you had a guest come on and you're like, oh my God, any favorites. Ooh, I mean, liver king was an experience. I got him on right after the scandal. Oh wow. And I was the first ever woman to interview him. And it was like one of my first episodes. Like I'd interview him. Does he smell?

Cause he looks like he smells. Yeah. He apologized right away. He swear to God. Wow. He walked in. He was like, so sorry for the smell. Are you serious?

I couldn't really tell. Like I wasn't that affected by it. And liver queen came up. She came to. She came up to me and she was like, do you wear deodorant? And I was like, yeah, natural one, do you? And she was like, no. So other people, no, I don't know.

I don't know. Wait, first of all, first of all. Okay, I have questions. And they walked in with a 10 person crew. Two security guys, like massive security guys. His chef arrived first, chef Lionel. I thought he'd see everything raw. The health of chef dude. Preparing the raw platter for me. Oh, I know. He

arrived in a headdress, like massive headdress. No shoes. I saw the car they he arrived in. It was black van. The level of darsness is oh my god. So he's like celebrity status, 10 person crew, liver queens there. They have their entourage I don't even know who all these people are. This is like probably my second interview ever I Didn't sleep like I was shissing myself. I was so scared and Also, I'm addressing the fact that he's been on steroids. Yeah, so which just happened Yeah, let's just came out. Oh, I have to talk about it.

And I'm like, I'm not gonna skip over that. So, I get in the room with him. He's quite short, by the way. Yeah. I mean, I'm 5'10", but he's quite short. And I had to pull Greg into the interview. I was like, I'm not doing this by myself. There's no way.

So Greg co-interviewed with me. And I'm sat with him. And I had to, first of all of all eat raw liver testicle. Um, what else did I eat? Raw liver testicle. Maybe there was kidney on there. There was some gross stuff on the podcast on the podcast. Was that part of the deal?

Was that like you come on when you have to you have to try? I knew I probably would have to because I obviously watched previous interviews. He makes everyone do it. Yeah. I just blacked out. Oh, bone marrow, raw bone marrow. Oh, raw. Oh, fuck. I just blacked out. Oh, bone marrow, raw bone marrow. Oh, raw? Oh, fuck.

That was the most disgusting, because it was like waxy. That's gross. Yeah, it was gross. So you just ate it on air. I had to. I'm not going to be like, no, I did it. I just blacked out. What, whoop.

And just I feel like I'm going to have to let him on the show now, just like a watch the circus. I feel like we do like he's as we denied him way back when it. Yeah, yeah, because it's a. He's a character of he represents. He represents. He and I and I if you I should reserve judgment because I'm big on like until I meet the person I'm not going to so, but his let's just say his character is that he presents online. Is it an exact representation of what inspired us to create a podcast to counter that bullshit. To basically be like, this is...

Yeah, so what would it be like on the podcast with us? Just us telling him, like, we hate what you do. You do kind of feel like you're talking to the character version. Of course. When you're recording, it's sort of like, is this really you off the mic? He's really nice.

He invited us to his ranch. He clearly has something good in there, some good attention. Did you get any of that in the interview or was it all just his character? I'm the liberty. He shared his story with bullying and his relationship with his father and things like that. So he did get kind of in the weeds with me and a bit more raw and vulnerable, no pun intended on the raw. But you know who I feel like was more a bit more genuine and a bit more like lives like practices what they preach was poor Saladina. Yeah. Yeah. I felt like he... We like Paul.

Yeah. I like Paul a lot. Yeah, yeah. Even though we don't obviously agree with eating the way he eats all the time, we really like him. Agreed. Like, I don't necessarily agree with everything that he says, but he came in, really prepared, really nice.

I feel like he's good at his job and he's good at delivering information, but he actually believes it too. Yeah. He was like showing me his house in Costa Rica. He lives in like the middle of the forest. Yeah. Pretty amazing. And then he was even following up with me

because at the time I was really struggling with acne and he was giving me some advice on how to use Rauderi to help my acne. Did it work? No. OK. But he was like. She's like, give butter on her face.

She's gonna make you go away. No, he suggested Talo on my face, actually. And he followed up with me on text. And was like, how's like, you have better on her face, so you can go away. No, he suggested Tallow on my face actually. And he followed up with me on text and was like, how's your skin doing? No, super sweet guy. I really liked it. We like Paul Autis. I feel like if you rub, Tallow, or grease on your skin,

you'll get more pimples. That's what I feel like. I'm never gonna do that. Like, that is my worst nightmare. Honestly, like I get paranoid if I even get anything in my face. Little on. But that tallow skincare is becoming a thing.

Wow. Yeah, people are developing that. Interesting. It must have some pro, you know, microbiome effects or something for it to... Do you guys use tallow? Have you used coconut oil before for your skin before? So I think the fats in the oil have some properties in it. Maybe, you guys, have you used coconut oil before for your skin before? So I think the fats in the oil have some properties

in that. You know, here's a, I've done coconut oil on my psoriasis, so at that, it actually tamps it down. So here's the deal. So coconut oil's got a. Stay dry. Yeah.

Yeah. Just a new skin. Yeah. Oh, I'm oily. So if I put any more oil on my skin, I'll slide right out of this chair so I can't, I don't do anything like that. So it doesn't work for me, but I've used it on my son, my three year old because you'll have a little bit of exama, and we've put coconut oil.

It helps. Yeah, so I would think it's in the same category as that, that's what I would assume. I love cooking in it. It's great to cook with. How nice that would be. Yeah. So any other notable guests, a Paul Saladino liver king, that's liver king's interesting thing.

People loved glucose goddess, Jesse. Who's that? I don't know that is. No, no idea. Oh, you guys, she's huge. Oh, really? Glucos goddess. No.

What's some of these names? Liver king, glucose goddess. I don't know, yeah. I'm assuming she's into the like a neutral sense, right? The gutter. Blood sugar balancing. Yeah, yeah. She's all about the order in which you eat your food.

So she's of the league. Protein, fiber. Am I right? Am I hitting right? I think she's green's protein. Okay, so fiber then protein. And then carbs. And she's like, have your slice of cake,

but have it after fats and proteins. So she'll like eat olives. We actually teach this. We actually, I mean, we tell that's actually one of the easiest tips that you can give a client who's trying to start their diet is simply just go eat your protein in greens first before you indulge in the calories. It's way more. It's way more simple than yeah, I guess it does help with a glucose control that stuff really just makes you just eat less Yeah, it's always Math sheet by how we don't know we are in the house of in a space and we've been here for a long time And I don't know who to imagine this for this three million followers

It's women in a house. She's massive in the women space and her episode did really really well for me And she does these like simple infographics and then also me. And she does these like simple infographics and then also Dr. Mindy Pels. Okay. That is familiar. Yes. She actually went through my personal hormone test, my Dutch test and was giving me suggestions on how to improve my hormones. Yeah. I've done that a couple of times where I bring my own results and we talk about it. She was awesome. Are you what did your hormone test say, by the way? That's just your dominant. So I used to make no hormones. Like I used to have horrible,

I had high testosterone and no progesterone. So I used to be like a mess. Now they're good. I went on a whole healing journey. But I always had high testosterone and I had really bad acne like on the jawline area. PCOS, any polycystic? I don't love that diagnosis because I feel like PCOS is just like a term there.

How are you when you have a cluster of symptoms? Yeah, you're right. You know what I mean? I'm like, why do we need to put in... You know what? It's like your little bowel syndrome. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Like your gut's just messed up. Yeah, yeah. That's all. And I basically, yeah. What do I do with this? That thing, that helps me none. I also had like a mycotoxin overload. And I had heavy metals in my system. So I went on a full,

were you living mold? Those are mold, remember? I must have been at some point in my life. And then it's so sauna. Lots of sauna, castor oil packs on the liver. I have a whole supplement regime hot water and lemon in the morning like all these All these things started cooking in talo and butter. I ate I kind of went carnivore for a little bit there. Wow So what what's been some of the most life-changing things that you've done on your health and journey like

I'm sure there's been things that you're like, well, that was game changer for me or that radically changed things for me. So, good question. For me, diet always moves the needle the most. And for me, my most recent journey was the acne journey and my blood work. Because I was living a really healthy lifestyle. But in reality, I was doing things every day that probably weren't helping. Like I was definitely overworking myself. Like I was in the gym for an hour and a half. Too much.

Hit every day. Like crazy. I've gotten like, I got way too lean at one point. Yeah. Mari, are you, what, you need to follow one of our programs? Should I? Yeah, 100%. What's gonna happen? What's gonna to happen? You're going to feel incredible.

I mean, you're the perfect person. You're the perfect person. Greg, let you do hit. Yeah. She wants him. I'm going to talk to him. He's like a slow mover. Yeah. So he's doing it all right and he's letting you go around, run, run, run, do it hit. It's as a woman, especially when you represent your brand, it's like really easy to cross the line. Of course. You know what I mean?

And I had a really healthy start in the industry I did. But especially living in L.A. everyone's so good looking. And you represent your own brand. I definitely, I teed it on the line of over-restricting. Of course. And I wanted the six pack all the time. And I went there and I came out of it quite quickly. Of course. And I wanted to pack all the time. Of course. And I went there and I came out of it quite quickly,

thank goodness, but like it was tough for me. You know what you were saying? We were talking about you guys are trying for a baby and off air you said, oh, your house looks like a, would you call it say a baby factory? My house is a baby factory. Yeah, which I'm like, what does that mean? Yeah, like I can explain.

Yeah, so please tell us. Yeah, so like like like nice music playing in the background. Or is it more about hacks and shit? So Greg and I are obsessed with health and fitness. So it's more hacks. Definitely like having a lot of sex as well. You have to do that part. That part's important.

But on my end, I went on this hormone healing journey, cleaned that up, I take progesterone now, bioidentical progesterone. So pill. Yes. Slow release, because I basically was making no progesterone. Did that make you feel way more relaxed and calm? Oh my god, I'm a different person. Oh, okay.

The lady was like, do you ever feel uptight? I was like, oh, that's my whole personality. And now I feel like I'm humming. You know, like I'm like chilling humming. Like I would never used to do that. I'm happy now. And it is crazy. It makes such a big difference. Greg is, so he loves saunaing and co plundering and it's like many of us do nowadays. Uh, fully has like an ice pack on his balls, right in the underwear in the sauna. Wow. Because it like it gets it burns up the semen.

Oh gosh. Yeah, lower just burn counts. It's all there. And then just bone count. So if he's called like the reddy cody gets a lot. So he's a shit of all percentage. Yeah. Okay.

He keeps him cold. And then I also, he's sitting like this all the time, like super wide leg and I'm like, what are you doing? Because I'm like, letting my air out. What? He's like, you guys are checking all the boxes here. Checking all the boxes. No alcohol.

Are you red light? There would be the balls here. Okay, so every time I walk in my bedroom now for bed, he's laying on a PMF map, right? Red light glasses on. The red light is here and his whole legs open and completely naked. Red lighting the balls, the butt hole. Yeah, no, we're in a mood, babe. You're in the mood now, huh? We're a fully in baby making mode. I'm red lighting my face. The other day I was red lighting my face in front of any goes

Oh, you got you got room for two. Lo is in front of me. I was like, you know what? Take it. Who cares about my skin? My time's up here. So yeah, everything we're doing is for fertility at this point. I'm tracking my ovulation. I'm doing the LH strip tests. We're trying to have, it's a whole thing. Sex twice a day. Okay. So, go on a bulk. Yeah. And stop exercising so much. Yeah. That's it. Literally. Okay. When you say stop exercising so much. How about you just follow a map and give her a program? Okay. Let me

ask you a question. How many days a week are you working out, structured? Let's say right now four or five. Okay, so bring it down to three, maybe two of strength training and then walk, just kind of make sure you're walking like you normally do, because you already lead a high stress, even though you enjoy what you do and there's a purpose behind it, you're busy.

You're obviously very busy. You have over, you have close to 100 employees. So strength train twice a week. Okay. Make sure you're moving, which you probably already are. Twice a week, I feel like I'm gonna shrink. No, you'll get, this is how you'll know it's working. You're gonna get stronger.

Go into calorie surplus, and that'll be the best possible thing you can do for fertility. Period-and-a-story. This is like so difficult for some reason. Because I wouldn't take you from your four or five all the way down the two. I would go to the three, because the program's written to follow either two

or three days a week. I would pull you to three first and then show you something that fits the art. Because I knew she would go three. Now that you said three, she can go four. No, there's no four. If she falls to program, she's only got three to go. She can go have an option of three, two or one.

So you start with three, and then at that, I would convince you to just already start to see and feel differences, and then I'd be like, hey, let's try to and see if you're still okay. There's a right dose. Moving on. I'm always trying to convey. But just follow in a ball, and then throw yourself

in a little bit of a ball. Yeah, because you're probably walking around low 20s body fat percentage, maybe less. Get your body fat up to mid 20s, go on a bowl, get stronger. Your body's gonna be like, hell yeah, we can have a baby. But if you're working hard, you've got kind of this low level of background stress, you're also working out hard. And you're in a calorie deficit.

And you're in a calorie deficit. And you're in a calorie deficit or maintenance. Because your body needs to have extra, either number one to support the baby, but you're also sending a signal to your body that says, I have enough food to support this baby when it's out of, environment has to be right. Not just in me, but out of me, okay? Because your body, even if you eat in a calorie surplus,

but you're so stressed that your body's like, we don't wanna bring a baby into this world because it's already so stressful that there's no way this baby will survive. So your body, and you might not survive. You're baking a cake with your trying to bake a cake without the ingredients. So clean it up.

And a cold oven. Yeah, yeah, go on a bulk. Yeah, do you know how many calories are you eating today? No, I don't know right now. I'd say maybe 2000. Yeah, literally seriously go up by 500 above where you're at three to 500 Lift three days a week don't do any cardio just like your normal one. I choose it from healthy fats Yeah, yeah, it sounds really fun. No, I don't have a cato in there or add some, you know

Oh my god, I'm out of your beef. Yeah, that does stuff. Yeah, I wouldn't have sex twice a day Well, I guess you know you're for till the expert will tell youper will tell you, oh, that was Katrina and I's problem. They said we were having too much sex. Correct. Did they? Yeah, they said we had to shoot one of the hardest things that we had to do was actually refrain for three to four days. You know, it's on her own, it's on our part.

So it's like on our part that they said, like, yeah, she went in there. She went in there thinking that we were a champion because we were twice a day type of deal all the time. Right. And the lady's like, oh, it'd be more ideal if he waited like three or four days. She was like three or four days. Like we'll break up over some shit like that.

And so she's like, no, I mean, it would be more ideal at least trying to stretch it to the rear. Yeah. Oh, it's been. Yeah, we were having the frequency was too much. So, but you know what's crazy when you actually try to have a baby? It's like, why is this so hard? People get pregnant accidentally all the time.

And they're drinking on on drugs. We're red lighting our freaking genitalia. You know, something that also helps you to get a center timing, right? So it's your time in a perfect world. When you're at peak ovulation, he's, he's, he's refrained from sex from you for two or three days before that.

So if you, so if you know you're getting ready to hit peak time to get pregnant by your strips and stuff, ideally you guys wouldn't have had sex for two or three days before that. So then when you do, you get the full time. Yeah, you're at prime, he's at prime, and then you're then you're get versus if you guys just had it yesterday, and then now you're prime to do it. And that was our issue. We were actually, because we were tracking all that stuff, and like what we were seeing was we would have this amazing sex, and then all of a sudden gonna do it. And that was our issue. We were actually, because we were tracking all that stuff and like what we were seeing was we would have this amazing

sex and then all of a sudden it would be the next day, it would be our deal. And of course we would again, but you're not maximizing the potential. I didn't expect to get fertility advice. I didn't expect to give it. No, but the bulk is a big one. We've all experienced this with our female clients

that would struggle with fertility, but they wouldn't come to us for for fertility. It was more like, I don't feel good or whatever, and eight at a 10 times, you have the mean creester calories because they've been eating too little, they've been over training, and then it's like, I can't tell you how many times it would happen, I'd finally convince them to do it,

they'd be like, oh my God, I feel so good, and then a month later, I'm pregnant, and then you start piecing it together. You know what's annoying? Like Greg gets to stay jacked. Six pack doing his thing. And I have to get overweight. You know what I mean? You're going to get pregnant. Where do you think it's going to have to be? Yeah. Yeah.

He looks the best he's ever looked. He's really into rucking right now. Okay. Oh my God. He's a psycho. Yeah. He'll go r rucking right now. Oh my God, he's a psycho. Yeah. He'll go rucking for like miles. Yeah, yeah. He's insane. Well, this has been really fun, Mari, and I really wish you guys all the luck in the world. And I do hope you follow in our programs,

because I think it'll help you a lot. Can you send it to me? Yeah, I'll give you any program, but I think Maps and Abolk will be the one that you'll get the best results out of, for sure. Okay. And then if you guys have a baby, you can name it so.

You don't have to. I'll leave it. I'll leave it. Mine, that's it. Yeah, mine, mine, mine, mine,

mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine,

mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, Thank you guys. I'll look out for the crew team. Yeah. Thank you, man. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. 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 MindPump Media dot com.

The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac Maths Performance and Maths Esthetic. 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 Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer trainers but 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. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindP Pump to your friends and family.

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