Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2266: Ways to Overcome a Lifelong Weight Challenge, How to Avoid Weekend Binges, Choosing Between Bulking or Cutting & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Email [e-mail] if you want to be considered to ask your question on the show. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Consider this when programming exercises for muscle building: Middle, stretch, and squeeze. (2:49) When Mind Pump gets surprised by a guest. (13:46) Do supplements really make a difference? (20:43) Mind Pump is going to Arnold! (29:39) Scary News with Sal: Double brooding cicadas. (30:47) Mind Pump proposals. (32:07) Mind Pump Recommends, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships book. (41:10) Parent hacks with Adam. (42:46) How Ned has replaced cannabis use for Sal. (51:44) Organifi photoshoots on brand. (55:57) Shout out to The Leapfrog book series. (1:00:04) #ListenerLive question #1 - I stopped dieting, and now I can't lose any body fat. I need advice. (1:00:51) #ListenerLive question #2 - Can you share some tips and tricks so I can have a more balanced lifestyle around food? (1:22:58) #ListenerLive question #3 - Should I cut, build, or reverse? What should my next few steps for this year look like? I have ‘yo-yo’ dieted my whole life due to an eating disorder, body image issues, and an all-or-nothing mindset. (1:34:11) #ListenerLive question #4 - When meeting with female clients for the first time who have had children and discussing their goals, their response is usually “I’d just love to have the body back that I had before having kids.” How do you set realistic expectations? (1:49:54) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit NED for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP at checkout for 15% off ** Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 20% off ** February Promotion: MAPS Performance | Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code FEB50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1897: Why Phasing Your Workouts Is So Important & How To Properly Switch It Up TRANSCEND your goals! Telehealth Provider • Physician Directed GET YOUR PERSONALIZED TREATMENT PLAN!  Hormone Replacement Therapy, Cognitive Function, Sleep & Fatigue, Athletic Performance and MORE. Their online process and medical experts make it simple to find out what’s right for you. A trillion cicadas will descend on the US this spring in rare event that could leave unforgettable stench Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships LeapFrog LeapReader Learn to Read 10-Book Mega Pack hand2mind Numberblocks Friends One to Five Figures, Toy Figures Collectibles, Small Cartoon Figurines for Kids, Mini Action Figures, Character Figures, Play Figure Playsets, Imaginative Play Toys STEVE AND MAGGIE - YouTube Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code 25MINDPUMP at checkout for 25% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic** Mind Pump #2250: How Eating More Can Make You Leaner (& How Eating Less Can Make You Fatter) Mind Pump Fitness Coaching Course MAPS Starter   Mind Pump #1375: How To Train Before, During & After Pregnancy Luna Physical Therapy Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Dave Asprey (@dave.asprey) Instagram Coyote Peterson (@coyotepeterson) Instagram Dr. William Seeds (@williamseedsmd) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pupp, right? In today's episode, we answered live callers questions.

People called in, we got to help them out. But that was after an intro portion. In the intro portion, the guys and I get together and have a lot of fun. We talk about current events and fitness and family life and studies and much more. If you want to fast forward to your favorite part, check the show notes.

There's timestamps there. Also, email us your questions at liveatmindpumpmedia.com if you want to be on an episode like this one. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The one is Ned they make full spectrum hemp oil extracts that are high in CBD That can help you with things like inflammation sleep Anxiety they provide euphoria by the way, this is the only CBD product you feel okay, so I take this 45 minutes later. I feel it. Other CBD products do nothing. Go

check them out. Go to helloned.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com forward slash mind pump use the code mind pump, get 15% off. This episode's also brought you by Organifi. They make organic supplements for health, fitness and performance. Right now they have chelageete gummies that are flying off the shelves. Shillijit has study after study after study, supporting its use to balance out the body, raise testosterone in men, help with inflammation, boost cognitive function and speed up recovery.

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If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code FEB50, so FEB50 for the discount. All right, back to the show. T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time! Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. Two winners this week. One for Apple Podcast, one for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winner is

Dr. Shortstack. And for Facebook, we have Zanna Anderson. Both of you are winners. In the name I just read, to iTunes at MindPumpMedia.com Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, look, if you're gonna do three or more exercises

for a body part and a workout, and you're wondering how to pick the exercises, consider this, middle, stretch, and squeeze. All right, what does that mean? Pick an exercise that's heavy in the middle portion of the rep. Also pick an exercise an exercise that's heavy in the middle portion of the rep. Also pick an exercise where the weight is heavy in the stretch portion of the rep. And then pick an exercise where it's heavy in the squeeze portion.

This will guide you in the right way. Typically this points people towards better muscle building, programming, middle stretch and squeeze. Don't forget that. That's called full range of motion, baby. I bet there's very few people that can take that information and then apply that to an exercise. Yeah, well, I'll give some examples. I'll give some easy examples.

Well, the easiest ones are with arms, I feel that. Yes, totally. I feel like that's the best way to, and before you give the examples, I always thought it was interesting because, I would count that as one of the biggest programming hacks that I remember figuring out as a kid and pie piecing together like programming like that was a big that was a big one for me right figuring that out and then I always wondered why

those machines didn't get more popular that you could change you loaded it yeah so you could like do a preacher curl and you could actually manipulate to all three of those machines I know I always thought they were so cool and I, and I too complicated. You think that's what it was. I think people get in and they're just too, you know, complicated like not recognizing what really the difference is or just doing what they like best.

You know, it's funny about what I'm about to, what I'm talking about is if you look at like classic body building programming, accepted programming, they, they account for this. This is bodybuilders figure this out. Yeah, they do a long time ago. So here's an example. Okay. We use biceps. This is a very easy example. A barbell curl would be a good example of middle because when I'm curling the

weight, it's not as heavy on the bottom. It's heaviest here in the middle when I'm finding gravity directly. And then at the top, it's also lighter. So the heaviest portion of the rep is in the middle. Now a good stretch exercise would be a preacher curl with the barbell. At the bottom is it feels the heaviest. As I get past that point, then it gets easier

and it's easiest at the top. And then a squeeze exercise for biceps would be like a concentration curl where it's heaviest at the top. Or like a spider curl. Or like a spider curl. So now why is this something that you want to consider? Well, if you think of how muscle fibers, the sliding filament theory,

which is mostly accepted about how muscle fibers attached to each other and, you know, we're, tensions created, they slide along each other and they grip on each other hardest when the, the tension is heaviest. So I'm going to work muscle fibers differently when the tension is highest at the bottom versus the middle versus the top. Now, we also have studies that show that the stretch portion is actually the most muscle building portion of a rep. So in head to head comparison, if you load heavy in the stretch portion versus the other ones, you're going to build more muscle. Now, of course, this is not the complete story. You want to work all of the ranges of motion, but this is important for people when they're

trying to program their workout. They look at exercise. Okay, what should I do for chest today? Here's a good middle, uh, you know, exercise bench press. You're not getting a stretch. You're not getting a hard squeeze, but in the middle is where you're getting most the tension. What would be a stretch dumbbell fly?

What would be a squeeze cable crossover, right? You could do this for most body parts. And when you invite, this isn't the only thing to consider with programming, but it's a hack. Just like you said, Adam, yeah, it's one of those ones that if you didn't understand it and then all of a sudden you just started to pay attention to that, and you didn't change any other variables in your program. You just said, Oh, I'm going to make this conscious effort to make sure,

which is what I did. Like at that point, I kind of somewhat understood what I was doing. That was a big epiphany. I started to change just that and like huge growth right away from that. So there's, there's a couple of things too here. Um, we won, you started off with mentioning that, you know, if you train, if you do three exercises in a workout, how do you do this? But this still applies for somebody who doesn't do three exercises in a workout.

And let's say maybe you do like more like a full body routine, like maps, anabolic, one of the problems or one of the things that people do is they might one stick with the same exercise all the time, right? They only do that middle like bench press, right? They only do that all the time, or they're constantly changing it up and they're not being able to measure like, Oh wow, I've trained this way for a little bit and then I switched to the next. So one of the best things to do is like, even if you're not doing three times a week is

pay attention to that and go, oh, wow, you know what? It helps you alternate. Yeah. The last few weeks, like the exercises I chose were all like exercises where it was stressing the muscle mid in the middle. I didn't do anything stretched or at the end in range. Like, oh, that's a good, and that, that, and that should drive your, a good way to drive your, it's not the only variable, like you said, but it's a good way to drive your exercise selection on any muscle group that, Oh, wow, I seem, I

seem to always gravitate to these types of exercises where it's stressing the muscle at the end range or the middle range or whatever it may be. One of the best things you can do to see growth is to switch that up. Which by the way, this is also what a noise mean about arguments about certain exercises. Because if you have somebody who like, let's just take an example of like the bench press,

like you said, and you're like, they're like, of course bench press is far better than a chest fly because you know, bench press, you could load way more and you're gonna build more muscle. Okay, yeah, that's a fair, fair fact. But if I had a client, and this is why I always ask before I give an answer is if I had a client that has never done chest flies or rarely ever does chest flies and they always do bench press, guess what? Me putting them in a stretch position exercise, they're going to see their chest explode because they're so adapted to training and

stressing that muscle the same way all the time. That, and this is why all the shit on the internet is bullshit because these variables matter more. It matters more what the client has been doing consistently on what is the best exercise. So all these people on the internet that, that are coaches and trainers that love to talk shit and make videos about someone who said something like, oh, this is the best exercise for this. And go like, no, the research says this and this is what the science says on

the tension. The most only in the squeeze portion of the rap. But I imagine that a lot of these like single joint exercises and I see a lot of, uh, you know, bodybuilders do it too. But like in terms of like creating a bit of a dysfunction, like they stick too much to one particular portion of that. Uh, and then you start to see it in their posture and the way they walk and, you know, their rigidity in terms of like how they can move.

So, you know, this also helps to kind of counter that a bit. So it's like we're addressing full range of motion with like our end range, but also to that shortened and at the peak. The reason why this is such a major hack is because we're all, and we've admitted this too. And even today with all of our experience and knowledge, still guilty of this. Still, if I'm not consciously thinking about my programming,

my exercise selection, you do, you stick to where you're strong. And if you train a muscle in a certain range of motion all the time, you're going to be stronger in that range of motion. And so subconsciously, you don't even realize it. You're choosing exercises that benefit you strengthwise, not that challenge you to adapt and grow. And so learning that about yourself and recognizing the exercises that you always, and you go, Oh, shit, like, I tend to always do those moves. Why not strong? To give you an example for myself, I tend to always do those moves. Why not strong? To give you an example for myself, uh, because I for years trained mostly,

almost entirely with free weights. It was very hard for me to achieve, uh, just speaking with chest, for example, that squeeze portion of the rep because almost all free weight exercise for chest will load mid or stretch, right? A fly, there's almost no resistance at the top. And so then when I went to use machines and I would use a cable crossover or a peck deck, I found that I was really strong back here. And then I got to here and I wasn't that strong. So what did I focus on? I focused on the squeeze and I saw new growth. By the way, just a little tangent off this, you know, you brought

up single joint exercises. You'll often hear advanced lifters with lots of experience, especially bodybuilders who have a lot of muscle hypertrophy. Talk about how isolation exercises are so great for hypertrophy and I can make my, my delts grow so much with these isolation exercises and my chest and all stuff. We have to consider also to get inside and out is the more advanced you become, the more muscle fibers you can activate with a single joint exercise than you could before. So, and here's why. When the central nervous system is activating more muscles,

it tends to activate more muscle fibers even in the target muscles. So if I'm trying to activate my chest and I get my delts and my triceps involved and my core and my legs and a bench press, and I'm a beginner, I'm gonna get more chest involvement. Now, a advanced bodybuilder can probably get very similar involvement with like a,

a fly because they've trained their body so well to be able to activate those muscle fibers. This is why compound lifts are so imperative for beginners and intermediate lifters, but then as people become more advanced, they start to come sometimes change their mind a little bit and forget where they came from. And so you'll see these advanced lifters go, Oh no, machines, isolation is so great. It's like, okay, how did you work out for the first three years of your life?

Probably wasn't like that. You're able to really summon like a, like a good high level bodybuilder can really activate an isolation exercise way more than someone who's been working out for just a year. A lot of that has to do with their ability to flex. That's all resistance training is. Resistance training is flexing the muscle with some sort of resistance, whether that be weights, bands, body weight, whatever.

But that's all it is, is the ability to flex a muscle while resisting. Right. So they have this ability to do that. That's why I mean, this is the value. I know everybody probably makes fun of the bodybuilder who's standing in front of the mirror and he's flexing and he's posing and he's doing all this. There's value to it. There's massive value to it because they to your point That's I used to be able to I used to love to teach this to my trainers is that I can get under an exercise Or a machine or whatever that is for a different muscle and make another muscle work more

That's right And that's just and that's and that's that's why all this stuff is so nuanced because it's not as simple as just like, do this exercise for that. You can create exercises and make that, recruit other muscle fibers by you thinking about it, by being able to flex that muscle more through that movement. I can do, I can make a barbell row, a lat exercise,

a rhomboid or mid-back exercise or a bicep exercise. I could do all three of those, right? I can make a bench press, a rhomboid or mid-back exercise or a bicep exercise. I could do all three of those, right? I can make a bench press, a chest or a tricep or a shoulder exercise, just by changing the focus. Right. And it's a trip because I could probably watch you do that movement and not know which one you are doing. Like you could literally make it look exactly the same, but then you activate,

which is by the way too, this is also why I don't like the, um, you know, trying to make the argument for what exercises better because the muscle activation. All right. The, right. The mat testing. Yeah. Yeah.

So you see a lot of that, the, the, the muscle to the activation and it's like, okay, well, that, that's great, but that's doesn't tell the whole story just because that person was, has this ability to activate that muscle more in that movement. Yeah. All right. I got a comment on something. So this episode isn't going to air till after we talk about this. So people will get to hear us interview Dave Asprey. But I tell you what, one of my favorite things that has happened since we've had this podcast is the just that has happened since we've had this podcast is the just underestimating or misjudging people to the point where my mind gets so blown, right?

So Dave Asprey comes in, he's gonna be on the show. And I had a completely different concept of what it was gonna be like and how he was gonna be. And we get on and he just surprised me to the point where I just love the guy. I mean, he's so hilarious. And I mean, I opened the podcast. Well, before the podcast started, I poked at him and he fired back at me.

And I was like, what? I think the best part is talking to this last night. She said, Hey, what'd you think of him? I said, Oh man, I said, we really enjoyed it. She's like, Oh really? And cause obviously her and Courtney, they're responsible for setting up a lot of our interviews and they were like all nervous because the, the three of us were like, resisting, like, oh, we got to do this interview.

Okay. Like, and you know, just being honest, right? And then he comes in and, and Sal has this thing about him too. Like when he's like already not in the mood to do somebody or interview somebody that he'll do little things to test them and see if they like, how they respond like it's so funny to watch, right? And I think we all kind of do it in our own way, right? And you guys always pull this move where you go to the bathroom and leave me.

Bro, I didn't notice that every time. Justin's in here trying to entertain. Yeah, I'm like, okay, I guess it's on me. No problem. Anyways. So yeah, yeah, we did. We left Justin all by himself at first and then we come back in and we're getting ready to get started.

And Sal throws like a jab at him about the blue blockers, like just real subtle, like just to see. And it was so great because he totally took it on the chin and then he fires back and doesn't mama joke to Sal. And I about fell out of my chair. I'm just like, bro, we haven't met. We haven't been with each other more in about two minutes right now. Sal was totally feeling out.

It's the perfect comeback. It was just so great. Oh wow. Yeah. So I mean, at that point, I instantly knew like, okay, this is going to be all right. Like the fact that he could take a jab like that and then fire back a mama joke on Sal. I was like, okay, this is cool. He's, he's, he's obviously he's quirky, but he's smart. Um, and he could take a joke

and fire back and, uh, fiery. I didn't expect him to be so, so fiery. You know what I mean? Yeah. He'll just, he'll just say something and with no regard, you know, like he wasn't careful about what he was talking about, which I loved it. It was just like, oh, great. It's kind of refreshing. And then of course I call Adam afterwards because, and I have this thing where he's always like, you know, he always say to me like, you know, we always get surprised.

We always get surprised. So I call him up. I'm like, bro, I fucking love the guy. And he goes, how many times are we going to learn this lesson? I said, apparently a lot. It happens all the time. It happens in the reverse too. You think you're going to like it when you meet.

It's when I saw other people. And I've gotten a lot better now, right? Like if somebody asked me, like if we have someone coming or that's coming in and they're like, yeah, when I think of someone and I'm like, you know what, I reserve judgment because I've been wrong more times than I've been right. More times I don't wanna talk to someone

or I'm not interested in them and I meet them and I end up really liking them more times I think I'm gonna love this person because they're so amazing and I follow them in this that and then I meet them I'm like so lame so it's like at this point. I'm like whatever It just goes to show you first off. It's like a what a wonder this why I like it so much What a representation of life because we do this all the time in life. You, you, you, you hear of someone or you look at someone and without realizing you create a kind of a judgment on that person. It's just amplified on what we do because we tend to interview people who have a

social media or a media presence, which more strongly creates this kind of persona that you think, right? So it just gets blown out the water, like you said Adam, more often than not. And it makes me think about like life. Like I wonder how many times I do that in regular life, you know, where you just, you see somebody, without realizing it's subconscious. Well, that's why too, it's also so important

that we have these in-person interviews. Yes, you wouldn't get that out. No, in a thing, cause it turns into like a, they're on promotion. They're on like this sort of like canned response, you know, like when they're elsewhere and they're kind of doing their thing and this is just like everybody's guilty of that because they have something they're trying to pitch. But like in person, it's like you can actually like get a feel for who they are and their mannerisms and like, so it's just a completely different.

I love him. I love him. In fact, after we were done, if I didn't have to go home, I had to go home because we had appointments. I would have gone to dinner with him because he's like, hey, you want to go eat some steaks or whatever.

I was like, oh, I wish I could. I would have had a blast with him. Oh, I didn't know he did that. Yeah. I thought he had to get on a flight and go. No, no, he went to go eat. I remember what the place was called. Berks, it's called.

Yeah, Berks. Oh, he went to Berks over there, huh? Yeah. Oh, wow. Have you eaten there yet? I've never eaten there. It's good. Yeah, he says there's some type of history with the place,

because he used to work in Silicon Valley. Yeah, they've been around forever. Actually, Berks was like my first nice steakhouse that I used to go to dinner all the time. Really? Yeah, it was before Maastros out. All those steakhouses over here, Berks has been around for a long time.

I'll try it out. Yeah, yeah, try it out. Is that the one where the owner got murdered or whatever? Yeah. Oh. I'll try it out. Yeah, yeah. Try it over there. Is that the one where the owner got... Try a bike. ...or whatever? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Bro, he's telling us all about...

Yeah, he has a very interesting story. What? What happened? Oh, dude, he was telling us all about, like, his history with the place and the owner was awesome, this great guy. And so he's taking on the story where you're like, oh, that sounds nice. And he goes, yeah. And then his girlfriend just took a knife and stabbed him to death, like, caught me off guard.

I'm like, what happened, bro? Whoa, bro. Holy shit. No way. Yeah, I guess that's. Whoa. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, no, I see it's over by Great America. So right, you can't miss it.

It's like, all right. Great America is still there. Yes, it even exists. Yes, still. Oh, it's it's going downhill, man. It was the last time you've been there. Bro, my so I haven't gone there. Everywhere.

Is it really? Yeah, etched in like gang stuff. It's just like nobody's cleaned it. You know, like that was the last time I went. That's terrible. I'm not going in. I used to go when I was 15, we used to take the light rail to it. My cousin and I, and we'd go every day in the summer. Yeah, we had season passes in the summertime.

I'd be there all the time. I think of when you guys tell stories like that. And I was like, how funny would that be if like we like, I, we went all the time in the summertime. We had season passes and we be there all the time. I think of when you guys tell stories like that. And I'm like, how funny would that be if like we, like, I, we went all the time in the summertime. We had season passes and we go all the time. We are just enough difference in age that we probably wouldn't have run into each other. You know, because it makes a difference when you're kids. Oh yeah.

No, when I was 15, you were what 12? I know, but I was going there from, I mean, literally from eight years, eight, nine years old all the way up till I was probably 16 when you're going alone. He's all I never, I never went alone. Never. No, it was my cup. My, so my cousins lived up here. You know, my cousin Stephanie and who's been in here before lives up in Seattle.

Right. It was a big family. She, her family. So all the girls and then me and my sister would go. So it was just like a, I was at the boardwalk just in case he made his one. Yeah. Course you were. I dude, I gotta tell you guys that something happened this morning at the gym that I in case he was wondering. Yeah, of course you were. I, dude, I gotta tell you guys that something happened

this morning at the gym that I was a bit embarrassed over. So I go work out at the, you know, the country club looking place over there and I'm working out and I come in to the locker room afterwards, had a great workout and I have a bag with me and I take some supplements post workout. And it's just, they're useless. I know this, but I take supplements and I have a, whatever, I have an addiction to

them. So I'm taking them and the guy next to me goes, Hey, he goes, uh, so do those really make a big difference? And I'm like, no, I said, and he goes, yeah, and he looked confused, you know, and I said, look, I'm going to be honest with you. I said, I'm a fanatic, probably excessive. I said, uh, and I said, of all the things I'm taking here, creatine will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

But even that is like 1% compared to like diet and sleep and all that stuff. And he goes, really? And I said, yeah, I said, I'm just kind of a fanatic. And he goes, well, well, how long have you been working out? And I'm like 30 years. And he goes, oh, okay. But I'm embarrassed because, you know, I'm actually setting an example.

How did he not ask me? I know how do you not ask me? He would have just assumed this buff guy who's taking all these stuff and it's like, Oh, that's what I'm not doing. That's the formula. Yeah, cause he was probably like in his mid 30s. And, you know, he's been working out,

been seeing them in the morning. Looks like he's been consistent later on. And like how many people don't even ask? Oh my God. And they see me taking bullshit stuff. They just say what are you taking? It's gotta be the MO, you know for most jingoers to see you know You observe you just like from afar you watch like what's the buffest guy do for everything?

That's why the the culture just perpetuates it right the bodybuilding like you what's the bodybuilder guy look like carries around his big bag And he's got all the stuff self reflection. You know what I mean? Cuz he asked me and I immediately was like Nothing bro. They did nothing. Yeah like, why are you taking this? Cause I got a problem. He's just gonna be straight. I was not expecting that. Now I wonder if the guy thinks I'm full of shit or from, you know what I mean?

Like, no, I don't think so. I think that's, I think that's an honor. I think when you told it, like the fact that he asked how long, I mean, He did refer him to the podcast so that way he could hear more. Yeah, well, and had you not said that, then maybe he does, maybe he thinks,

oh, he just doesn't wanna give me his insight. That's the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because when I was a kid, there was a guy that- This whole now. Family friend who was the bodybuilder and he was a buffedest dude I knew.

And I asked him when I was 15, I'll never forget, I asked him specifically, his name was Joe. And I said, Joe, what do I gotta do to get buff, man? And I literally took him aside from the family. Joe, what do I gotta do to get buff, man? And I literally took him aside from the family. Joe, what do I gotta do to get buff? He goes, all right, so what you gotta do, he goes, work your whole body three days a week.

And he goes, you need a lot of protein. Like, and I'm like, protein powder? He goes, no, no, no. Chicken, eggs, tuna fish, and milk. And he goes, and go to bed early and get good sleep. And I remember thinking like this fucking guy. Doesn't want to share his secrets. What did my dad tell you to tell me this crap?

All right, Ned, whatever, bro. Yeah, he was telling me the truth. I'm so bad. That's so hard. That's the hard part. I don't know if I don't know if young if young you listens, you know what I'm saying, because I don't know why I don't think you could have told me. I even as a trainer, I'm guilty of this in my, you know, early 20s.

I was convinced because I had, I had nutritional knowledge. I had exercise knowledge. I had been working out already for at that point, five, six years, something like that. Um, I was still convinced that it was steroids that kept the difference between me and the guys that were in the magazines. I mean, I just, and that's not to say that not a lot of them do that. Like, of course, a lot of guys take steroids that are on magazines, but that,

that was so far from the truth though. Like, but I literally thought that I, and there's nothing else you could tell me because I knew I trained hard. I knew until you took them and then you stopped for yourself. Yeah. Then I took them and then I was just like, oh, this didn't work out the way I thought it was going to work out. Like it didn't didn't get me to look like that at all.

So yeah. So I think that and there was nothing you could tell me though. I think that if someone else were to tell me like, sleep, train this way, do that, I'd be like, no, no, no, no. Cause in your head, what you would probably, at least what I would have thought is, I'm doing way more than that already. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Full body, I train six days. That's what I thought. Six days. When he told me that, I'm like, bro, I'm working out every day. And I'm taking supplements. I take protein powder all That's what I thought. Six days. When he told me that, I'm like, bro, I'm working out every day. And I'm taking supplements. Yeah. I take protein powder all the time. Yeah.

What are you talking about? Exactly. So it's kind of, which is such a good reminder for us. We can, when we talk on this thing and we're talking to all these people all the time, because you know that there's, there's kids that are out there. It's also why I think, I mean, I always have a, a greater appreciation for the young kids that listen to this.

I get the, the 30, 35, 40, 45. Yeah, that's growth minded, right? Yes. I did the 30, 35, 40 plus people. Like, yeah, they already been on that journey. They kind of figured some shit out themselves and they're like, okay, I, I, they, right away they connect to, but when we have like a 18 year old or a 21 year old that's listening to us, I'm always impressed because the vast majority of that age group is not following us.

They're following all the cool influencer kids that are like showing off the cars and doing all whatever entertainment shit to get their attention. And I think we're just a bunch of old fuddy dutties that are talking about fitness. I got trolled as a trainer like that. My cousin and I went to the first, our first certification was the 24 fitness personal training certification. So back in the day when you worked there, they would certify you through their own course or whatever.

So I'm 18 years old, I'm in this course with my cousin and there was this dude that was sitting next to us and he was like, he was Jack. And my cousin and I were like, dude, you know, cause we're all like, we wanted to, you know, build muscle. So we asked him, we're like, what do you do? Like my cousin and I were like, dude, you know, cause we're all like, we wanted to build muscle. So we asked him, we're like, what do you do? Like, how do you get so jacked? And he gave a super basic advice, eat a lot of protein,

lift weights, get stronger. So we kept bothering him cause my cousin and I were like, he's not telling us like to see. So he trolled us. He trolled us the third day we were there, swore to God, I wish I remember his name cause I'd call him out right now. He came up to us and we bothered him again.

Bro tells the secret. So bullshit. He did. He goes, all right. And he looks like this. He goes, let's look to the left, looks to the right. And he goes, Smilax. It's a supplement called Smilax. Now back in the 90s, there was this bullshit supplement called Smilax. I was supposed to whatever. Is that the rub on one?

No, you take it like it's it's Doug, you can look it up. It's like, you remember the rub on one? What was the, uh, what was happy X lax? Yeah. My lax. No. So I, so I went and bought it. I went and bought it and I was like, this is good. My cousin bought it.

We were like, so pumped. Did shit. Did nothing for us. He totally trolled us. What was in my life? Do you remember? That's the name of the, that's the name of the herb or the, oh, wow. It's like a total bullshit.

It's actually, they make root beer out of it. It's sasperilla root, I believe is the name of the herb or the, oh wow. It's like a total bullshit. It's actually, they make root beer out of it. It's sasperilla root, I believe is the root of the corvette and smilex has some, maybe some health properties. I don't know. I wouldn't be obscure enough to where like you're, you're kind of believing them. Listen, I would not be surprised now that I just said that. In fact, Doug, look up smilex examine because they have a great

website for our studies. Now that I said this on the podcast, I, I, I'm going to predict the companies that come out and they're going to, they're going to just resurface this. They're going to resurrect. Out of you saying that, cause that's like the new thing, right? Yep. Yep. Because it's got like, I don't know, some benefits.

Does it say anything there? Hold on. I'm going to look it up here. Yeah. So S M I L A X. What was the other it say anything there? Hold on, I'm gonna look it up here. Yeah, so S-M-I-L-A-X. What was the other one that used to- No search results. Okay, look up Saspirilla root.

And then- What was the other one that used to rub on the muscles? Remember that one? The cream that you said? Oh, was that like niacin or it would make it all red? Yeah. For better pumps, you were supposed to rub it on your arms. I remember thinking too, like, how does it get to the muscle?

All right, whatever. Yeah. It just made your arm red. I mean, I was rubbing tiger balm. Did you go with tiger balm? I was a tiger balm because my dad would do it like before we even played basketball. You know, he had to. He just smelled like medicine and burning. You know, that actually works just smelled like, you know, medicine and, and burning.

You know, that's actually works. You know how it works, right? It works. So Jessica has this, well, here's what it's so, so Jessica, she suffers from migraines. It's related to CNS stuff. Yeah. Right.

So she suffers from really bad migraines and there's like almost nothing she could do when she gets them, except for maybe preventative stuff. Right. She got this really strong, uh, like this really small bottle of this green oil that she got in, I want to say Thailand, when she used to travel with Cirque du Soleil. And she's like, this is like a miracle for, for migraines. And what she did, she put a little bit on her hands and would rub it on her temples

in her head and you smell it's really strong, like, uh, like menthol or something like that. Yeah. So I remember when she first did them like that doesn't work. And she's like, no, it doesn't work. So I looked at it and what it does, it just confuses your pain receptors. So that because it's on the surface of where the pain is, and if your, your, your receptors pick up the, the menthol or whatever, it confuses the signal so you no longer perceive the pain. That's like a like a mild version of like self-mild fashion release.

Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tricks the CNS to think, yeah, relax. So nothing. Nothing there. I'll end up, I'll look it up.

But anyway, you guys know that there's like this crazy event that's coming up. That hasn't happened in like, let me look this up. Why are you looking that up? You know, it's being of events. You know, we're going to Arnold. It's on the calendar. It's on the calendar. It's on the calendar. We're coming.

We're back. Yes. Actually, yeah, we have been before, but it wasn't. We went, but it was closed down. Oh, yeah. 2020. 2020. That was our largest live event we ever did.

We're going to be there with transcend at the whole thing, right? Yeah, we haven't, they haven't determined. So the, right now they're working on getting a local gym. Oh, and we're gonna do a meet and greet. Yeah, we're gonna do a meet and greet at a local gym somewhere, and then of course we'll be floating around the Arnold with Trent's in and them, but yeah.

Stay tuned, stay tuned, because we'll let you guys know how to meet with us. It's March 1st and 2nd, is that right? Yeah. Oh yeah, that's gonna be a good time. I like the Arnold Festival better than the Olympia. It's supposed to be better. I've heard things.

I like it a lot. Yeah. The first time I went, I remember there was this skinny dude who had an arm wrestling booth. He was an arm wrestling champion and he was skinny. He was like 140 pounds and he had a line of people and nobody could beat him and he was just, everybody but he was just crushing him. I remember I was like, wow, this

is amazing. Oh, that's skinny black dude. All right. So here's what's coming up in this year. The last time this happened was in 1803. So this is going to be a, this is a big deal. So cicadas, am I saying them right? So you notice cicadas? No, bro. I mean, when I was in Illinois, they were everywhere. Okay. What is every tree like everything just hummed at night. Okay. What?

So cicadas live on a 13 year cycle. So like they'll, they'll, they'll pop out every 13 years and you'll get a whole new, you know, brood or whatever of cicadas. There's another breed of cicadas that's on a 17 year cycle. So they never correspond, right? Cause it's 13 years, 17 years, 13 until they finally match. They finally match 17 times like a plague of them. This is going to be like, is that right?

17 times 13 is the, the however many years it takes before they overlap. Yes. So look what that says right there. Billions of cicadas are expected. This is called a double brooding. They're not like, I've never, I've never heard of this. Yeah. This is called the double brooding. They're not like- I've never heard of this. Yeah. This is fascinating. Big ass like flies, you know, for the most part.

So we don't really have many here, right? Around here. We got some. I'm pretty sure we have some here. So what? So but in the like the Midwest, I think it's gonna be like an apocalypse. Huge out there.

Like they're gonna be all over your car, everywhere. Wow. Billions. That's funny. Yeah. Where did you see that? OK. So all over the, it's been popping up. I actually like when I was in Chicago and I was like at my

friend's wedding and this is like opportunity. I was like dating Courtney at the time and I was deciding like, OK, I'm going to propose when I was out there. It was cicada season and I had this whole thing orchestrated where I was going to go to this like beach that was near the lake and like Dude, and I get walking down the trail. She's like, no. I never told this story.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. There was three failed attempts. So you try to propose. Whoa, bro. How do you never share that you try to get married or propose three times and failed?

Yeah. I thought I told the story. I do not. You remember that story? Never. I do not remember this story. So then there was another attempt where I was like, OK, well, I know this bar that was like really cool,

really swanky, like it, you know, had jazz and blues. And like, I kind of knew the owner back in the day. And I'm like all excited because it's a really like cool place. And I'm like, this will probably be the spot, you know, and then I'll, you know, I'll do some asshole move. I'll get the mic and be like, hey, you know, like something, you know, like, yeah, put, yeah, put it on the spot. Turns out they, they redid it.

Now it's a sports bar, you know, and the whole thing was just like totally, like all these like, you know, dudes and they're yelling at the TVs. And I'm just like, Oh, this is not the vibe I'm going for. Yeah, this is totally not. And I have like the ring and everything. And I'm just like, just sweat. And I'm like, Oh my Oh, that was the second attempt. Yeah, this is totally not. And I have like the ring and everything in the socket. Oh my God, bro. And I'm just like just sweating. I'm like, oh my God, it didn't work.

Like, you know, what's, I'm like, oh my God. I'm going to be like the typical dude that does, you know, the, the tower and, you know, downtown, like I'm going to do like a watershed tower. I'm going to do like all the cliche places. Yeah, the cliche, like, and so we did do that. Man, why can't I think of the main building there? But it's Sears Tower. So it's the Sears Tower, so I go this tour, right?

And this is like, you know, my last attempt for the day. And I go up, I go up there. First of all, the vibe was really weird. There was a guy that was like yelling shit on the street and somebody was like, ah, fuck you. And I was like, ooh, this isn't good. And there was literally somebody like stole somebody's purse and was like running across the street.

And I was like, hey. And I'm like, oh, well, let's just forget about that. And then I'm like trying to push her into the building and we get into the tour and we get up there. And it was like, you know, just stuffy up there. And this kid was just crying and like some lady was like sneezing and I was like, you know, just stuffy up there. And this kid was just crying and like some lady was like, like, sneezing. And I was like, it's just, no, like this is not good.

Oh my God. I am not gonna do this. She's like, I don't like, she was like uncomfortable, like in wanting to leave. And I was like, oh no. I was like, is this like a sign? Like I just, I don't think we're gonna start off on the right foot, you know, if I'm gonna do it here.

So I had to like literally just, like, you know what? Forget it. I'm done. Like that was the end of the night. Like that was it. And then, so you carried it around all day and attempted three different times and didn't do it at all.

Oh my God. You got a big ass ring box in your pocket. Big old ring box. Puck it or like this, you know, like trying not to like expose the point, but she didn't even see it. It was so obvious. Oh my God. And so I had to wait.

So it was like literally the next day. And I'm just like, you know, let's just go to the park and chill and do whatever. And so I was like walking down to this park. It was a beautiful park. Had like the view, the skyline of the city and the background. And so I was just kind of walking back slow. And I was like, you know what?

I was like, hold on a second. And I went and I like I grabbed my phone. I gave it to the slave. I'm like, can you take a picture of us? You know, and like it was like all framed. And then I kind of started posing. And then then I dropped down and just did it randomly. And the lady was just like, oh my God.

I almost dropped the phone. I'm like, lady, you're killing me. But yeah, she took it and then I did it there. But it was like, it was so not what I had planned. That was like the spontaneous thing. But that's how it's sabotaged. What were you super nervous? Oh yeah, I was sweating.

Yeah, yeah. I could only imagine like three fails all day. Just knowing you, I bet you were like anxiety crazy. All night, I don't think I slept, dude. You know? How did you, okay, how did you do your two proposals? Well, the first one I took her to, I don't know, half moon bay, we got a hotel room, the whole thing.

Okay. Yeah, just classic. Did you do it like in the hotel or like walking by the ocean? No, we didn't. We didn't. Okay, okay. And then with Jessica, because of my, I was a lot of back and forth because I had just, I would gotten divorced, but I, she had said to me, and this is, this is, I mean,

I don't think I ever shared this on the show. No, you haven't. She said to me at one point, listen, I'll be with you. I'll be with you no matter what. And, you know, accept the fact that, you know, maybe you never want to get married again. And when she said that, I let go of all the fear. I had let go of all the fear.

And then it was real fast. It was like, let's do this. So it wasn't even like this formal thing. It was like, hey, I want to be with you. I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you. So then that was it. Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah. So the best proposal I ever saw was my friend of mine, Bav. He took his wife to the beach just to hang out. And while they were walking, there was like a circular table with two chairs and candles. And they're walking up and she's like, that's weird, what's this for? And he goes, oh, this is for us.

And they sit down and then a waiter shows up, brings them a meal, and then a diver walks out of the ocean. Oh, that's sick. Yeah, with scuba gear and everything, walks out of the ocean. Oh, that's sick. Yeah, with Scoobie Gear and everything, walks out with the little diving bag, pulls out the ring, gives it to him, and then he proposes. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, he killed, I mean, he just crushed everybody I've ever heard of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard of the table on the beach type of deal and stuff like that, and having that all set up, but I haven't seen a diver come out. That's probably the old treasure hunt thing, like that on the beach, and like had it, like all these different beaches they hit, and then like had to open things. I'm like, that's way too creative. Like calm down, dude.

Too far. Oh, it's funny. I didn't know that story about her because that's a very similar. So Katrina and I, although I didn't propose right afterwards, it was actually still years later, but we had it like a year. God, we were around five or six years and we weren't, we weren't married yet and we obviously don't have max or anything like that. And we're, we're not at where I wanted to be before, like I settled down and get married and that has to do with like financial security and all that

bullshit. And that was a big deal for me. And when we first got together, it was never a big deal. Like she was like single girl, wasn't talking about marriage, kids, none of that stuff. Obviously been together five, six years. Now the family's all, okay, what's up? You know, you guys been together forever. And so that pressure started to happen.

Then all of a sudden, like all her friends were having that. And it really caused a lot of issues with her and I of like, I could feel this like pressure on her. And then the pressure came on me that we needed to do something. And I'm like, we're not, we're not where I wanted to be before that all happened. And we almost had this, that was probably the one time in our relationship where we almost broke and went different directions. And I remember I even like packed my stuff up to leave and stuff like that.

And I came back one time and she was sitting on the bed waiting for me. And what she said to me, very similar to what Jessica, I didn't know that said to you, which was, which was all I needed to hear, which was, she goes, you know, I really don't care. Um, if we get married and have kids, like it's like, I want to be with you. And she's like, I thought about it, like, would I rather be with you for the rest of my life and never be married and never have kids? Or do I want to run out and get married to some guy and have kids? Yeah, Jessica said something very similar.

And she goes, I would rather be kidless and not married and be with you for the rest of my life than to be. And I was like, after that was like this massive weight. And then it was like, you know, I don't know how much longer we did. It's so wide. It totally, I mean, and that wasn't the intention, you know, I don't, it wasn't, I could, I mean, yeah, you know, she didn't do it like, because I didn't even, it wasn't like she said it. I didn't even propose to her for years still later, but it was, it was such an important

moment in our relationship that I needed to hear that from her because it was this pressure from everybody else. It didn't allow you to, to really be in touch with your own internal, you know, driver, right? Cause otherwise it's external. I'm doing this as a, oh, she's going to leave me or pressure versus like, this is what I, yeah, for me it was just my own fears and insecurities. I mean, I had, you know, getting divorced

and doing the whole, you know, dual custody thing. I was terrified, terrified of having more kids and getting married. I was like, never not going to do it, no way in hell, not going to happen. And, you know, and of course I meet Jessica and just such an incredible connection. She's an amazing woman, but there was still that fear there.

So when she said that to me, then my real inner self came out. My fear was gone because now I didn't have that pressure. My fear dissipated. And then my real, who I am at my core is I like to be a dedicated person. And I love children. I love children. I love big families. And so that came out. And I just overwhelmingly like, Yeah, you know what, I want to do this, you know? And she wasn't like mad or anything.

She was like, okay, cool. So that was the deal. It's so weird, I'm reading a book right now, I sent you a screenshot. I'm like, call nonviolent communication. It's been around for a long time. It is, so far is very profound. And one of the things it talks about

is how we get people to, we try to get people to do what we want or not do what we don't like by either through fear, shame or guilt. And, you know, and I thought about raising kids with this, which is like, you know, is your desired outcome that your kid just does what you want? Or do you want them to do what you want? Because they want to do it themselves. Very different, very, very different. So it's like either like, don't do that or you'll be punished versus finding a way

to communicate to them to where they want, they choose it themselves. And I was like, oh my God, I was not raised that way. This is gonna be a pattern for you if you don't figure this out. Yeah, and it's building a relationship. Jessica's really good with this. And it takes longer by the way than the old fashioned way,

but it's really good. Like my son it takes longer, by the way, than the old fashioned way. But it's really good. Like my son, my three year old, like last night, he was really anxious to go to bed. And so she was with him this morning real early. And he's three years old, keep in mind. And he says to where he goes, mama, I get really nervous. He goes, I feel it in my tummy.

And he goes, and I feel lonely when you leave. So that's why I want you in here. It's three years old. I can't even describe my feelings in my body. You know, I've done it before, you know, work with a therapist and be like, what is your, you're telling me where what it feels like? I don't know. Where do you feel it? What color is it? I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. I can't feel it. You know, like my three year old can do it. It's pretty, yeah, pretty amazing stuff.

That's crazy. You know that we I told you guys how I've been doing this thing with Max with the, with the books and everything at time. Yeah. So I don't make this our shout out today too, because I know we're not there, but I mean, I'll just don't want to forget it. I thought this was so cool. So you guys are familiar with LeapFrog, the company that makes all the like learning toys like learning toys and so that.

Have you seen their book one? No, it's fucking so sick, dude. So, obviously Max is four. He's not reading yet, right? He's not read actually little like reading words yet. We're barely like sounding out and counting and things like that. Right. He can do his alphabet, but he's not reading at all.

So they're, they're books for learning teaching. And it comes with this, uh this mechanical pen about this big, and it has like this magnetic tip on it and it has a speaker in it. And the book, it's so sick, like he, he pushes the words and it reads for him. So it prompts him to look at the word. He knows that the word is this. Yeah. And it says it to him.

And so he literally is reading, reading the book one word at a time, hitting, hitting the words and you go with it. And it takes him like a while. Oh, here it is right here. So see the book. Oh, leap reader. Yeah. So cool.

Oh, great. So, and I, you know, considering he can't read yet, I thought, oh, is he really going to do this or is he going to like it or like that? Like took right to it. Loves doing it. And it takes him like a good like 15, 20 minutes to get through a book because he's reading every word he's got to put it, do it. And he's into it.

And he's into it. Right. Oh, that's great. So this is like now the like, so it used to remember, I told you it was originally me, like, so it would be like, Hey, 10 books to get those Legos. And then I had to read the books, right? But I was like, I was trying to train him that eventually it'll be this. So this is like the next step to that process that we've moved from me reading the books to now, like he just, I had,

I just ordered him this thing, this scientist kit, because he's all into that stuff. And it's, you know, 11 books. Like that's what he knows you have to read. And he could probably only knock out like one or two at night. So once you get the pen, you could just buy a bunch of these books that go along with that. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that cool? Yeah. That's really cool.

I'd never seen that, But my dad actually got that for They've got such good stuff nowadays that you can find. I mean, that is just it's brilliant. I told you guys about the what was it? It was like, like, like physics for kids. There was if they're like science books, like deep stuff, but it's for children and I'm reading them to my three year old. Like it's explaining black holes, mass, gravity. Now it's not like breaking it down, but it's introducing the concepts. Yeah. I would, these books are amazing. Yeah. I can't remember the name of them. Yeah, I can't remember the name of them, but they're really cool.

They have someone economics that you can teach. The other hack, so then this one, this gift came from my mom, is number blocks. So if you haven't got him number blocks, like we only opened them up like two weeks ago, exploding his ability, he's doing math now. He's like, and it's brilliant. So they're little blocks, we got number blocks Doug. They're little blocks and they just want one to two,

well they go all the way up higher, but the first kit is like one through 10 and they just like click them on to each other and they put little faces on them and stuff like that. And they represent, see those little, those ones right there, you, yeah, those ones. Oh, okay. And they have cartoons on Netflix and stuff that go, that go with it. And they sing and they do all this stuff.

And it's like, it's teaching them math the whole time. And so his, this is all he wants to watch for cartoons now. So now he's not even watching any traditional cartoons. It's all math cards. So I love it. Cause it's like all he wants to watch for cartoons now. So now he's only watching any traditional cartoons. It's all math cards. So I love it because it's like, he's like, can I watch cartoons? We're like, yeah, can I watch number blocks? And so he just wants to watch.

And there's. That looks exactly like that one show. I forget. Like there's a party in my tummy. So yeah, me. You remember that song? No, I don't. Yeah, I'm all alone here.

Yeah. I was hoping somebody knew because I know the name of it. I remember it all just for the songs and it was like super entertaining, but it looks they have like a one-eyed monster. They have like story, story, uh, story, some things. Whatever. Oh, I mean, I'm telling you, we just introduced this two weeks ago and I've, I have watched him leap

massively in math and counting from he's counting to 100 now, right? Like we yeah, he was like 20 was like kind of where he would get like kind of start to get lost So that counts to 100 now no problem now We're doing math like adding because that's how they do it the whole thing is like you'll gabba gabba. Oh gabba Oh, you know what it was Doug? Oh, yeah Awesome, it's not bro. Yeah, I was only like no gabba. Yeah, I know what it was Doug? Oh, you can yeah, yeah, awesome. No, it's not bro So I do remember that yeah, I remember that for my older kids they would watch it yo Drugs were they on a lot of drugs and it was great

It's like peewee's playhouse and stuff did grown up. Hey, do you know who bites off of peewee? You know who totally bites off of them? The whole like his persona and everything. Blippi. You're watching Blippi. No, I don't watch. You watch Blippi. It's annoying.

What do you mean? Of course you do. Yeah, I was, I was, I was in for Halloween. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. So the way Blippi talks and dances, I'm like, that's Pee Wee. I mean, I'm so, I'm so, I mean, that's a whole other conversation. I'm so fascinated with that market. Like, you know, there's two blippies. You have to be, you know, the whole story behind all that. They sold for so much. Oh yeah.

No, he's like, he's worth millions and millions of dollars. They sold for a billion. Yeah. Well, yeah, he sold the, I don't, him himself, like then he signed a contract with a network and he's making, he's getting paid a bunch of ways. So he, obviously he scaled this thing to this massive thing. He's pumping all this content out. He's making millions of dollars from YouTube and all the other stuff that he's

got going on that's attached to it, like all his product and stuff like that. And then of course, and then he starts doing tours where he does live like concerts where he, all these kids come and everything like that. And so what happened was he's doing all this stuff. He finds a double who he's splitting the work with. And then the kids would show up to the, to the thing. That's not the real blipping. Oh my God.

Yes. And they get so like, there was like, oh yeah, there was moms that tried to sue him over it. He turned into a big old ordeal because he, yeah, because he did that. So now I think what he does is he does the other guy does a lot of the YouTube. Yeah. So the other is, is, is double does he does the live does and then he does the live stuff like that. But I don't, Katrina didn't even know there was a double.

I'm like, huh, that's not the same guy. She's like, yes, it is. I'm like, no, it's not. I'm all paid to look closer. And because he found a really good double and it is a total like ripped off persona. It's not like he's like super original. Did he ever get into into Coyote Peterson? No, no guy was the best dude.

Like I was actually sad that it moved on past. But he was the guy that would like was really into nature and he'd get like some of the deadliest insects and he'd like let them sting them and he'd rate the pain of getting. Oh, I've seen him before. Yeah. No, I've never seen. Oh, that's crazy. He's awesome, dude. And like he tries to describe what he's feeling as he just got bit by like a bullet ant.

And you're like, oh my god, this guy's psycho. He's like, who's the alligator guy? He's kind of like, yeah. Oh, the guy that died. Yeah, he was just like that. Yeah, he was like the new version of, for like kids and bugs and insects. What is the alligator guy?

What was his name? Steve. Steven Ruin. Steven Ruin. Have you seen his daughter? Do you know what's up? She's all into it. She's all into it now. Yeah, yeah. He's a son. Son and incenses. What is the alligator guy? What was his name? Steve Irwin. Irwin. Have you seen his daughter? Do you show us that? She's all into it.

Yeah. He's a son and a daughter. Oh, man. Let me tell you something. As a father, it's great she's carrying the torch. Because he took his kids with him. Remember he would take his kids to do things with him? Oh, breaks my heart.

Yeah, I know. That's totally. The one that Max likes, so it's funny if you come across this, is Steve and Maggie, which is like a, he's like an English guy, but it's like the English version of Blippi is named Steven Maggie. And he has like, it's just, he, man, he barely just grew out of that. There's something unnerving about these adults acting in ways that appeal to kids. Like when I watched Blippi, I'm like, man,

if I met someone like that in real life, I'd be like, I know you don't know. I'm torn, I'm torn because I'm gonna have to I have, I have a mother, I have a best friend. I have several teachers in my family and my network and some of them have the genuine just love for that. Like I tell Katrina all the time, I'm like, the one sad thing about my mom being far away and not being close to, being close to us is that nobody interacts with my son the same way she does because she's a teacher.

And I took it for granted, right? Because I was around it all time. My mom's like that. Oh man, like there's everything Max does. You're animated. Everything he does is a teaching lesson. Yeah. She doesn't just play with like most people play with him. I mean, it's play for him. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like everybody else just plays with him. Like whatever he wants to do, they're playing and they're acting and they're having fun,

which is great. I love that. But my mom, it's always a lesson while she's playing. She finds ways to teach him colors and math and sounding things out in words. It's like, and that's that teacher vibe, you know what I'm saying? So she, like that's, people are like that. There's people that just have this desire to get, and that's what it is,

is they're effective communicators to kids. They know- It's a different type of communication. It is a different type of communication. Some, and some adults haven't, don't do this very well with their kids is, and there's a lot of parents that have this disconnect that, like they don't know how to get the kid to want to learn.

And there's a skill to that of like learning how to interact, play and learning. And I think those people do that really well. All right, I'm gonna take a left here, give you a little update. I've been getting messages on people asking me about my, you know, how I've been with the cannabis and if I've been able to kind of not use it where I haven't used in a while. And I will say that the Ned completely replaced cannabis for me 100%.

So all the enziolytic effects that I liked or whatever, obviously it's not cannabis, but I use the hemp oil in the evening and it totally takes care of you that so you do like at the same time you would normally Yeah, so like I used to do it at night and I want the enziolytic effects and they're relaxing or whatever and the Ned Totally does that although I'm not inebriated. I'm not high or whatever It's so it's so great for that. So and and I mean, I've never talked about that on the show as a great replacement. There's a lot of people who, because cannabis has gone through this kind of journey

of like illegal to legal, it doesn't do any harm to now people like, eh, probably somewhere in the middle. And there's a lot of people who messaged me and said, you know, I got an issue with cannabis. And I'm like, dude, the Ned totally solved that problem for me. It's really interesting how it's gone through that. I went through that cannabis and I'm like, dude, I'm the Ned totally solved that problem for me. It's really interesting how it's gone through that. I went through that same journey too of like, I was so funny, like, uh, when I got into the space, I was anti weed. I was like, so, you know, athlete, good kid, like growing up, like, you know, losers did weed, like it was like, I had that.

I went through that spell. Yeah. So I would, and then, then I accept it. Then I went the other extreme, the other way where I'm like getting high, like freaking crazy. And it's like, you know, I think there's somewhere this, this middle ground of like, okay, so we understand that it's not innocuous, but it's not heroin. That's right. And so, and it can be used as a tool, but like any other tool can be dangerous. If you, if you abuse it like anything else, and just because it's dangerous,

doesn't necessarily mean it's going to, it's not going to kill you, but dangerous in the simple fact that it can become a serious habit that keeps you from doing other productive things in your life. That's the dangerous part to me about that. And that is totally, it's solved that 100%. Love it. Absolutely. Love it.

Even more now. Now, would you take, I don't know, this is kind of silly, but would you take that with any other like adaptogen or any other things like with that? Like so if I if I I like Ned brain blend the best Because that's the morning. Yeah, that is very yeah, I feel great I feel good like mentally sharp if I use anything at night Then it's just regular hemp oil and if I need sleep it's the sleep but you wouldn't like do like the the Ned Hemp oil and combine it with like things like theanine or the

shilajit or the brain blends already got some stuff in there. That it doesn't just have the cannabinoids that help with productivity. It also has a plant extracts that are non hemp derived that help with that, but, but I'll combine that with pre-workout caffeine or something like that. And it's, it's, it's amazing. Oh wow. It's yeah. So if I'm gonna do like a big podcast, now I don't use it daily, but if we're gonna do like a big podcast

and I want to feel like on fire, then oh yeah, I'll do that with some caffeine. And it's incredible. I've been going kind of crazy with the brain stuff. Ever since like, I forget who brought it up, but they were talking about like, when you lower the inflammation of your brain, and how it affects your behaviors,

how it affects your cognitive ability, like so many things. And I'm just like, I'm on a mission, I guess, to really kind of figure out what the best combo is for me and to see how far I can go in terms of getting back to remembering things. You know what you might do well with? A GLP one agonistist like some aglutide.

I know that people use it for weight loss. You trying to tell me something? No, I'm not trying to sideways get you. I know people use it for weight loss. But all the reports, and now we have studies that are showing that this is actually the case, all the reports are coming back that when people use it, they reduce their, anything that they have

habits of using and Dr. Seeds thinks it has to do with that it literally heals the brain. Yeah. And so, and so he thinks that it's going to be used for things like depression for, you know, for cognitive function. I think someone like you should try because you're always looking to reduce inflammation in the brain. Yeah, well, I mean, at this point, like, so, CELANQ, CMAX, DHECSA, like that's like sort of my combo right now. But like, I would totally be open to the trend. I would talk to the MP Hormones people and ask them what they think about that.

You know, talking about our partners, we're going to share this with the audience I thought was so funny. So, one of the things that we get asked to do a lot with a lot of our partners is to do like product shots. And it's like, Katrina's job is to manage the partners and she negotiates the deals every year. And every year when we renegotiate deals for the next year, everybody has their things that they want.

I wish the guys would do this and can we get them to do that? And this that, and for the most part, we're pretty resistant of everything, right? We're pretty stubborn, like, listen, we've agreed to a deal. We'll talk about the product on the show when we use it, stuff like that. It is what it is.

And then, but, you know, of course, their job is to want more and do that stuff. And Katrina, of course, is trying to close contracts and do those deals. And so she's always frustrated with us because she's like, listen, I could get this deal if you guys would just be willing to do this or that. And so, so anyways, uh, we had, we had did this deal with OrganiFi.

OrganiFi is one of, we are more flexible with them because they've been with us for like seven years, right? That's one of our first big partners, one of our biggest contract. And we love them. We love Drew. Like so, and so Drew goes, Hey, you know, the she legit's killing it. So at that, can I get some product photos with you guys? And we love, we love Drew like so. And so Drew goes, Hey, you know, the shellage eats, killing it, so like that. Can I get some product photos with you guys?

And then Katrina get Katrina agrees without even talking to us because she knows how we feel about organify. And then, you know, we come in last week and we get this like, Hey, you guys got to do some like, yeah, these photos. And it's so funny. By the way, we're getting paid to do this. And then we still have this like, fuck it attitude. Like we're going to do do this and then we still have this like fucking attitude like we're gonna do stupid stuff

What yeah, so so we do this obnoxious. She's just did photo shoot. Yeah, Justin climbs in a fucking tree Yeah, I'm posing in front of Beat up Honda like you know Sal's doing weird stuff in the year So, you know and and so then I then we do them? And then Doug sends over Katrina Katrina is like so mad. She's just like, what are these? We can't use this as a, send them. And we're like, fuck it, send it over there. I bet they say, I bet they loved it.

They do. So they send it over and I had to have this talk with Katrina because remember Katrina's not on social media. So some of this stuff, she's not completely aware. So sometimes like this, like this is where there's a little bit of a disconnect. She's like, I don't understand why you guys are so fucking resistant that she's all mad at me and stuff. I said, you have to understand that this is something that

we've talked about at the beginning, since the beginning of the show that we cannot stand, like these influencers that they're showing, I said, honey, they do like things where they have like product placement, like ridiculous pre-workout in their Lamborghini. Like never do that. If you shake your face, you're an idiot. You just get punched in the face. You have a $150,000, $300,000 whip that has no business with powder inside of it. Like you just get punched in the face for that, right? Or leaning on it or posing in front of it. Like it has nothing to do with working out. So you have to understand that when people ask for that, uh, a lot of times the guys and I, we look at it like, this is what people want.

They want more of this social media bullshit. I'm like, we don't want to do it. So then we go the other extreme. So she's like, okay. So I kind of get it. So then she's like explaining like, Hey, just want to apologize. The guys did, this is what they gave you. And they're just really,

they like, she's all crap. And we said the one where Justin's feeding you and I they gave you. They're just really. They like the, she's all crap. Of course they do. We said the one where Justin's feeding you and I'm behind you. Yeah. So, so. That one made me really uncomfortable. But now that she knows, Kay, now that she knows,

and she's, so now she's like communicated to the partners and they're like, hey, love it. Let them do whatever they want. They can do whatever they want. Like that's what we love about the guys. Like they're their own. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, yeah.

So, so, but now there's like, I thought we love them. There's better understanding, Katrina wasn't understanding that like this can actually, thought we were just being stubborn assholes about like, like you have to know though, like this is like so cringe for us. It's also on brand. I mean, it would look fake if our audience saw

these fake photos of us acting, trying to act differently. People are like, what is that? Yeah, they gotta mock ourselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make photos. So look for, It's really clowning on ourselves. Keep an eye out for the Sheila Jeet for... Oh, it's fire, guys. It's fire.

Dude, did you see my arms after that? I had just like scratches everywhere. You're so blue. What happened to you? Oh, God, this guy. No regard for a savior. So the shout-out will be the leapfrog books for all the parents out there. So shout out for the parents.

Like check out the leapfrog books. All right, look, by now you know that probiotics, if used properly, can improve your health, improve your digestion, reduce inflammation. They may even help with anxiety and depression. At least that's what the studies show. Anyway, there's a company called Seed that makes the world's best probiotic,

all other probiotics, pale in comparison. This is the latest and greatest when it comes to cutting edge science and technology for probiotics, beneficial bacteria that improve your health. Go check them out. Go to seed.com forward slash mind pump, use the code 25mindpump with no space for 25% off your first month's order of seeds daily symbiotic. Alright, back to the show. Our first caller is Caitlin from California.

Hi, Caitlin. How can we help you? Hello, how are you guys doing? We're doing good. How are you? Good morning. Doing good. First off, just want to say thank you guys for talking to me today My friend Katie introduced me to you guys a couple years ago And I've been a fan and a listener ever since and really appreciate all your guys's advice. Thank you so much How can we help? so um I

And like that client you guys have talked about that I Seem to have been on a diet like my whole life And now that I've tried to actually do things the right way I haven't seen any movement in that loss or weight loss So to give a little background I Started my first diet in sixth grade doing weight watchers. It was successful, lost weight super easily and that cycle kind of continued on for years, just slowly gaining the weight back and then cutting calories and the whole thing. And then led up until, you know,

I knew my 20s doing the same thing. And then when, was somewhere in my 20s, I did like, you know, this six week, 20 pound weight loss boot camp, couldn't lose 20 pounds, but did pretty, pretty okay. But immediately, you know, it wasn't long-term. Like it was such a short-term process. And so finally, leading up to my wedding, immediately, you know, it wasn't long-term like it was such a short-term process and So finally

leading up to my wedding Cook calories again and then after that it seemed like once I got settled back from the honeymoon I finally like weighed myself after like a few months or whatever I wasn't trying to stress about that and And my weight had gone up like 10 pounds. And I was like, okay, like maybe I'm just, you know, fluctuating, um, getting back from honeymoon and things like that, but it seemed like a lot. And so from there, I was just so sick of cutting calories and not eating enough.

And so I was like, I just want to do this right. So starting last January, I bought a walking pad for my desk at work so I could get in, you know, at least 10,000 steps while I was at work that day. And then I set myself water goals. I was drinking like 80 to 100 ounces of water a day. I've always done strength training ever since I stopped going to the boot camp, which has obviously hit workouts, but my work is a gym.

So since 2021, I've worked in the gym, worked out in the gym Mondays, Monday through Thursday, and then we even have a trainer in the gym, worked out in the gym, Mondays, money through Thursday. And then we even have a trainer in the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And last January, I hired a virtual health coach that she created me food plans. And so I was like, okay, that's probably just

the missing piece, it's just the diet. So I went, I did that with her until like August, almost September, and I couldn't lose more than like two to three pounds. And so with her, my calories, I think she started me on like 1900 calories. And after like a month or so, I was like, hey, can we drop the calories? Like just not seeing any difference. So she wanted to just slowly drop it to 17. And I was getting about 124 grams of protein, 187 grams of carbs and 48 grams of fat a day.

And still just was not seeing any results. On top of that, I get good sleep. I sleep like seven, eight hours a night. Not very stressed. The only thing that honestly stresses me out is not losing weight. And I even like tested all my hormones and got off birth control, the whole thing,

and kind of waited. It's almost been a year off of that and didn't really see any change from that either. So I was just seeing if you guys had any advice, if you can tell, you know, from your outside opinion, if there's something I'm doing wrong, if something else I should be doing, or I would just love some advice. Yeah. Well, first I want to tell you, I'm sorry you had to go through that since

sixth grade and this kind of up and down. That's a really challenging thing to deal with at, you know, sixth grade, you're probably 11 years old. And that set a lot of things kind of, kind of cemented certain behaviors or feelings you maybe had about yourself. I can tell you what's happening physiologically, but it's not gonna fix the problem.

This is coming from something else. And I think it's a place that you're probably either resistant to look at or haven't tackled 100% yet. Physiologically, your body's resistant to losing weight because you've played this game so many times where you've cut your calories and lost some weight and then kind of came out of it a little bit and tried to live a normal life or what felt normal and the weight comes back.

And so your body now is physiologically is afraid of losing weight unless you drop your calories to an unsustainable level. That can be reversed physiologically. It'll take a little bit of time. Okay. But that can be reversed physiologically. Now the root issue here, which we could start to touch on right now.

Let me ask you, what's the main goal for you through this? And you're going to say weight loss, but what's the feeling you're looking for? I mean, I feel like since I gained the weight, my self confidence has gone down a lot. So obviously some more confidence, just feeling better overall. So you want to feel good? Yeah.

Good about yourself? Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you think you're worthy of feeling like that? Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, congratulations.'re, you're worthy of feeling like that? Okay. Well, congratulations. You, you, you can feel that way. You can feel that way right now.

And I'm telling you this because if we don't, if we don't get there, this battle, the struggle is always going to be a battle. It's going to, it's always going to elude you this, this goal, this focus. Here's the other side of it that I want you to think about because you're telling us a lot of like you've been working with the trainer and you're working with a nutrition coach. And by the way, at the end of this, I'll tell you what I think you should do. Uh, when it comes to your approach.

Um, but, but like I said, I don't think that's, that's really the root issue. Okay. Um, during that process of strength training and you're doing traditional strength training, right? Like you do a set, rest, do a set. Okay. Besides the scale, besides the weight loss and the disappointment around that,

are there any other changes or things that you've noticed in yourself that you can think of that are positive or good? Consistency, never given up. Um, what about physically? Do you feel stronger? Yeah. I mean, I, I broke my wrist in September and was literally

already back in the gym. Two days later, like I didn't let it stop me. Um, I feel really strong. I don't feel like weak at all. Um, how's your energy? I keep getting stronger, you know, but just no changes. There's no but here. This is independent of the, of the other goal that you have.

Okay. Do you feel more energy? Yeah. I'm great energy. Good. So I want you to start to focus on, because there's a whole basket of benefits that can come from starting to take care of yourself in a good way. And one of those things, and it's a very small thing, is that your body fat percentage or

your weight starts to reflect it. But what happens is we focus so heavily on that one thing and we ignore the other stuff that we create this distorted view of our progress. So you may look at the last year and see that the weight hasn't changed and you may say to yourself, that's a complete failure. But that's not correct. That's not accurate. You might have gotten stronger. Your energy might be better. You might have achieved a new consistency. You might have gotten stronger your energy might be better. You might have achieved a new consistency You might start to change your attitude towards exercise and maybe yourself So there's all those amazing things now

Why am I talking about that? Because if you don't place your focus there no matter what I'm about to tell you will not work Okay, it's just not gonna work I can give you the perfect answer right now and I promise you it won't work if you don't do that first because you're not going to get what you think you want from the scale going down. So you may actually get to that goal and then you're going to find yourself with this like,

I hit my goal but it's not what I thought and I don't feel the same and what's going on and I'm going to go back again. And I'm going, you might never be a conscious, might not even be a conscious thing. Now, all right, what would the approach be? Probably what you've heard us say many times, a slow reverse diet, focusing on building strength, focusing on athletic performance in the gym, throwing the scale away, not weighing

yourself and giving your body a chance to speed up its metabolism, giving your body a chance to get into a place where then you can lose weight and keep it off sustainably. I have a question. You mentioned that you had a trainer who put you at 1,900 calories and you guys weren't really moving weight loss and then you had her cut you down to 17.

When was the last time you would say you had, you were eating 2400 calories or more consistently? Um, I don't know if I've ever put it that high. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's it. We just need to, we need to reverse diet and focus on strength and not, not worry about being at 2300300, 2,400 calories. It's not going to put on, if you're lifting weights, you're walking like you are, you're getting good sleep and we're eating 2,300, 2,400 calories. Uh, even if you see weight on the scale, stay the same or go up, you're, you're not putting fat on. I promise that you're not getting fatter from that. So getting rid of the scale, which you've probably heard us say a million times on

this podcast is definitely something that I would suggest that you do. And then Sal's right, the advice is, you know, and I don't know if you're following a maps program. I know you're, you're following, have you followed any of our programs yet? Okay. That's the other thing we're going to solve. Because sometimes you, you know, and I don't know this trainer or who's got your program. I mean, it may be simply changing your workout more appropriate to what you need, really focusing on getting strong, getting your calories up to where they need to be, and keeping them there consistent and not allowing, oh my God, the scale hasn't gone down in a month. I must have to lower my calories.

It doesn't work that way. I mean, and this is, it's interesting that, uh, uh, that we've met you right now. You actually remind me of my very last client that I ever chose to take on when I was in the, we were still training clients and I took her on because she had almost identical story as you did. And in addition to that, she had a kinesiology degree and was a nurse. So she knew her shit, right?

So I was like, okay. I have a master's in public health too. Oh, okay. So this is like, you guys literally would be just best of friends. You guys actually kind of look alike too. It's kind of great. So you guys, this girl Tracy,

and I actually took her on because she told her story just like, you know, I'm like, oh, this will be a challenge for me. This will be a good, good client for me now. And it took us a while to, to get, to get this mindset. And, and just the advice I gave is exactly what I had to do is just, I just want you to keep walking. We're going to get strong.

I, I, I wait her, but I made her turn around so I could just see. And the only reason why I wanted to see the scale way is just because I wanted to monitor as I was increasing calories, but I wouldn't let her see it. And I had to just, and it did take us about a good six months of staying in this kind of reverse diet before she started to feel like she was moving in the right direction. Now I knew we were building muscle,

and I knew she was getting better, but she didn't feel that way. She just felt like, oh, I just have this layer of fat on me. I can't, I don't see like I'm getting any progress, but I knew we were because we were seeing strength gains in the gym. She was getting stronger. I was feeding her more than she'd ever eaten before. And that was the goal. We were just, and I got her all the way up to about 2,600 calories before I let her reverse back the other way. Then we came back down to 21 and she actually started to see like her first like weight loss that felt easy to her for the first time ever. I put her

at a calorie place that she had never been high. it was high, that would be considered high for her. And she saw the weight coming off. And that was all I needed to do to get her to believe in me that this is the process. And then we actually went back to reversing and adding more calories and no more weight loss. But I gave her that little diet break. So she could see, look at what you've accomplished already, we got you to 2600 calories. You didn't feel like you've really done anything, but I'm telling you, you put some muscle on, you sped your metabolism up. Then I brought her down to 2100 and she just started to drop. I mean, she dropped way better than she'd ever done before.

And it was really just for me to say, look at this is what we're doing. Okay. We're building this metabolism up from years and decades of you eating in this kind of yo-yo diet pattern. I've got to break that from you and we got to break those habits. And so long story short, she ended up losing like 100 pounds with me. But it took, it did take, it did take us a long time. It really did. Now, luckily I had the wherewithal to know, to show her what we were doing and she was smart

and she understood like, okay, I get it. I trust you now. And once I had that trust, then it was just a matter of chipping away. Because she, like you she understood like, okay, I get it. I trust you now. And once I had that trust, then it was just a matter of chipping away because she, like you, was disciplined, consistent, smart, and exactly same story. This happened from sixth grade. You know, her parents put her on a weight loss program and then ever since then she's battled, she battled and she has an athletic background. She played softball, she was, she was active. So it was a, it was a major challenge for us, but a lot of it was the, the mental hurdle of getting past that I'm putting this work in and I need to see this consistent weight loss. So I mean, I'm thinking anabolic, are you thinking?

Yeah, maps, anabolic would be a great, absolutely. The perfect routine for you. You can maintain your walking. I think that's perfectly fine. It's good for you. It's a, you know, trying to move to burn calories lose weight is not It's not a very successful approach, but from a health perspective, which is what we want I think that's that's gonna be I also heard you say that you like you have this kind of Monday through Thursday routine in the gym

I I'm gonna encourage you to you've probably heard me say this when the weekends is I'm going to encourage you to, you've probably heard me say this, win the weekends is make a real conscious effort that, um, you know, just cause you do great Monday through Thursday or Monday through Friday to not kind of let yourself be like, Oh, I won't worry about, you know, exactly tracking on the weekend or maybe that'll be when I take off. I actually want you to shift your focus on those weekend days as the priority. And if you take a day off in the gym or you don't do something,

make it in the weekday. That'll help. That'll help also with consistency and head in the right direction is have the attitude of when the weekend fall the maps and a ball of program. And I'd like you to increase your calories and not wait, not, uh, not get on the scale. And I'd like to see like 2100, like right now. Yeah.

Okay. Caitlin, are you in our forum? No. Okay. I'm going gonna put you in there for support and then is it feasible for you to work with someone that can help coach you with your relationship to yourself because this is a very important piece of the puzzle. Most trainers and diet coaches aren't well versed in this. Some are, but very rarely, it's pretty rare to find someone that can do this as well. I think it would be very beneficial for you to meet with someone once a week. Typically, it's a therapist. And you approach them with this specific issue and say, look, here's a deal.

I've struggled with dieting on and off and body image issues or just a relationship with myself. This is really hard for me. They're not gonna give you a diet, they're not gonna give you a workout, but they're gonna work on the piece that's leading to all of these challenges. And then just to kind of back up with what Adam's saying,

our bodies are incredible adaptation machines. And if you've dieted on and off since you were 11, your body expects it to keep happening. And what it's learned to do is become very resistant to weight loss from dropping calories. This is not permanent. This is not permanent, but it's resistant, which means it's going to take a little while. So if you really, if you want to solve this forever, if you're like, look, I'm done with this, like you look very young, but you've probably been dealing with this for a little while since you were in sixth grade. So you look like you're in your early twenties. If it's 30. Okay. So, all right, there you go. You look great. So, okay. So you've been dealing with this for almost 20

years. It's like, if you're done with this, you're like, look, I don't want to live my life dealing with this shit anymore. I want it to be done. I want to be fixed. I want this to be over. You have to do this differently. That does, that means it's not the diet and the workout. The diet and the workout are the small part of it. The big part of it is what is the root? What is the reason why your relationship with yourself is causing you so much challenge and struggle around this? And why is it so hard for you to accept

yourself through these different stages? Why is it that you only feel good when the scale is going down and you feel bad when the scale is going up? And why is your happiness so tied to this arbitrary number that is reflected when you stand on this, you know, digital machine or whatever. So if you could find somebody, I really, really recommend this. I have worked with clients who have also simultaneously worked with therapists who've done this. And it was the most successful approach I ever had is when there was a combination of me, trainer, diet, therapist, and the clients that did this were like, it was, I mean, it was like,

I knew we were gonna succeed, I knew it. So if you can do that, that's gonna be the most powerful thing. That'll be the most powerful thing that you do. It's gonna be tough because you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to go through it, whatever it is that you're avoiding, you gotta go through it, But that's the only way.

That's the only way. And if you're ready for it, then that's, that's what I highly recommend. Awesome. I can definitely do that. Okay. I think that would help. Yes. And then check in, check in with us in the forum.

Please. I'd love to hear little updates every couple of weeks from you letting us know how, how the strength, and what I care about is how you feel, your strength, how the workouts are going. That's amazing. And go in there with your challenges. There's a lot of people in there that will post stuff like this.

So be like, oh my God guys, I've been doing this for two months. I know I'm moving in the right direction. I'm so frustrated though. I still feel like, oh, I got a loot. And then you'll get people who will get on there who are like, oh, I did the same thing two years ago. Here's who I am now.

It's totally worth it type of deal. It's very supportive. So please post in there. Please get in there. Awesome. Definitely. Thank you guys so much. All right. You got it.

Caitlin, thank you so much for the time. Look forward to it, Caitlin. Thank you. Thank you. It's close like that. That made me want to train people. She, well, she's a hundred percent. I mean, damn near like spot on even age, age ever.

Looks like her, this girl Tracy, good, who's become a good friend of mine. Um, who I was done training clients, was just doing management stuff like that. And I had already had in my handful of people that I took care of that I had for years, you know, that is when you get that. And I hadn't taken a client in a while. And I was, you know, she came, she was at the end, I heard her story just like this, except the only difference was Tracy was also playing softball, rec ball ball and was a nurse moving all day. So figured out and just couldn't figure it out and just smart.

And it's same thing. She's told me that since she was in sixth grade, she had battle and her parents put her on a weight watchers thing. Same thing. But you know, I just want to remind her it did take us a long time man. It really did. It was one of the longer like success stories that I ever had.

And a lot of that was getting her to trust the process and allow me to build a metabolism, to break through these, you know, as soon as I get frustrated, I don't fucking go anywhere. I want to cut calories. That's why I wanted her to work with someone because she could take our advice,

but not having someone there. It's to help bring her back to like, here's what you need to do. It's going to be very hard to do. She's so stuck in this pattern, you know, it's been a lot of times addressing that negative self-talk and that self-sabotaging kind of behavior. Like you're not going to, you're going to keep spinning your tires until you really face that. And I think that this is a conversation I've had with a lot of my friends who've

gone through this process where it's like you Do everything and you're you're really on track and you're still not breaking through I do I do want to let her know though something because I you guys are your advice is spot-on But I do something that was really interesting about Tracy also was when she kind of reminds me of this she didn't come off like She didn't have this trauma. She didn't really beat herself up. She has a great fucking attitude and personality. She used to joke about like us, like her weight. No, I don't give a shit.

She had a great attitude and had great spirit and- Just the wrong formula. Yeah, exactly. Wrong formula for so long. And probably also- That's the case, right? And often- Now you just change it up.

Yeah, and often you disconnect from the bad feelings Because on top of everything else you're like, I'm right, right And then that could have easily been true, right? Like just I don't think I she doesn't realize it would like that But I mean because I don't want her to get hung up on thinking like oh There's this trauma that I have to have buried or there's a mission the trauma is first of all maybe there is but if there isn't This is the trauma. Yeah, the trauma is I went on a diet when I was 11, I tied myself worth to it, I keep failing,

it's been 20 years of the struggle. Well, and it was reinforced from parents telling her there was a problem, right? So that's gonna stick with you. Totally, totally. Our next caller is Brian from New Jersey. Brian, what's up man? How can we help you?

Hey, how you guys doing? Good man. What's going on? So Hey, how you guys doing? Good, man. What's going on? So I just wanted to start off by saying, I'm 38 years old now. I've been working out and dieting on and off for a long time. And before the listening to your guys show, I was never really sure if what I was doing was correct or not. So that always led to me giving up just due to the uncertainty.

But with the knowledge that I've gained from listening to you guys, I just feel so confident in what I'm doing. I just trust to the uncertainty. But with the nods that I've gained from listening to you guys, I just feel so confident in what I'm doing. I just trust the process now because of that. I'm the most fit and healthy that I've ever been in my whole life. So I just wanted to thank you. Awesome. Hell yeah. Oh yeah.

So I'll read my question. So during the work week for me, it's very easy to stay on track with Macroos. Going into every weekend, I have every intention of eating clean, but with all the variables that the weekend brings, I almost never succeed. I'm also the type of person that once I make one bad decision food-wise, that just makes me spiral the rest of the weekend. I still have a pretty fast metabolism, so I'm able to justify it to myself every weekend that I'll just make up for it in the following week. And I've able to have some success this way, but I've definitely hit a plateau now.

My ultimate goal is just to be mobile, fit, and healthy for myself and to set an example for my kids. So I don't necessarily want to follow a strict diet seven days a week. But at the same time, I am aware that the relationship I have with food isn't the best and this also isn't the healthiest approach. So I'm hoping you guys can share some tips or tricks to help me get out of this cycle and have a more balanced lifestyle. Oh, I love this and I have the answer for you, bro. So one, if you haven't heard me say it already, the win the weekend thing was a big, was a big thing for me.

It was a massive, uh, shift in my fitness journey was saying, not telling myself, I can't have the pizza or the beer every once in a while or not saying I can't have a thing of ice cream, just saying it's not going to happen on the weekends. On the weekends, I'm going to win. I'm going to win the weekends. And then if I still have these cravings or things I want to enjoy every once in a while, I would, so that's the psychological piece. First of all, right? So it's not me saying I can't have these foods. It's just me saying,

I got to win the weekend, when the weekend, why weekends are going to be my best fitness days. So, and then because it's only two days, it should be, you're just don't focus on the rest of the week. It's also the least structured days of the week, which is what makes it, uh, that's the hardest to stay good is because the weekends, you know, you got time to do whatever type of deal. That's right.

So, and, and you're going to be more active, moving with work and everything like that throughout the week. So it's better, it's better served to put that food on there. And what you end up finding out is, Oh shit, like, you know, that pizza, I thought I wanted, I don't really want it. I had a great day today. I moved around, I worked and then you pass on it a lot of times. And then occasionally you do enjoy it, which is okay.

It's okay to have that balance like that. Another tip too, is make sure the shit's not in your house, right? So get the foods out of your house. And then the last, the third one, which is, and by the way, a lot of what this is, is like, I feel so connected to this question because this is how I have thought about my relationship with food. It's also what has worked for me was the motivation on the kid's part. So, and that's what keeps me eating. I don't want, because I don't, I mean, I don't know, you, I don't know if you know this, but I didn't let Max have

sugar for like the first three years of his life. Like I was really, really disciplined on his food that he got to eat. And so then my attitude was, I'm not going to tell my kid, he can't have all these things and then I'm going to go eat all this binge on this stuff on the weekend. So the thing that motivates me to stay dialed nutritionally in my house is that, is that my son's always watching me and kids are kids rarely do what you tell them to do. They do what they see from you. And so the motivation is to let him see dad making these whole foods

and eating good around him and stuff like that all the time, especially on the weekend when you're probably with him more or her more. You're spending more time with your kids during that time than probably the work week. So allow them to see you making all these good. You don't have to tell them to eat good. They just see dad eating this way. That's how Max's learned. Like he eats what mom and dad eats.

It's not weird that he doesn't eat what a lot of these other kids eat because he eats what his family eats all the time. So that's how I've reframed the discipline around my relationship with food is that I know he is always watching me. He's always watching what I'm doing. And so I want to give him the best example around nutritional habits. So those have been the big ones for me. The when the weekend, he's always watching me,

and I'm not telling myself I can't have those things. I'm just shifting it over. Like if I really want to have those things, I'll enjoy it on the weekdays, and I know what happens as I end up passing on it more often than not. Yeah. I'll restate it exactly what Adam said, but differently. Okay.

Just kind of hit it home. Oh, and I'm going to kind of paint the context here. You're fit. You're 38, you're six, one, it says here between nine to 12% body fat. You're doing a great job. So you don't have any specific goals. The specific question is balance. Well, the balance is actually in your question or the

imbalance is in your question. I do well, let me change the word well with perfect during the week and in the weekend, they go off. The lack of balance is not the weekend. The weekend is a symptom of the lack of balance during the week. So it's the week that you don't have the balance. During the week, you're, you're restricting or so regimented that the weekend comes and you rebel against yourself. So it's not the weekend that's at a balance. The weekend is a symptom of the, the cause, which is the week. 100%. So if the week becomes a little looser, the weekend will no longer be that symptom of rebellion.

So, and this is all a psychological game that you're playing with yourself. It's so funny how this works because Sal's right on. You're so dialed during the week and then you let off on the weekends and be, and it's this, uh, you rebel against yourself. And just by giving you the freedom that go ahead and have that piece of pizza or have that beer during the week, just mentally giving you that freedom, you'll be blown away by how often you don't choose to do it because you already got great momentum, you had a great week. And but because you're telling yourself

you could, you don't feel that need to rebel on the weekend. It's wild how this works. But I promise you, if you go into it with that mindset, he said, it's very common. Yes. It's very, very common, Brian. Are you, yeah, it makes sense. Are you the kind of person, Brian, where if somebody sell, tells you, don't do that, there's a PC that wants to do it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

So I can identify with that. So this is why this is why it's going to work so well for you, brother. So you, so now, now the person telling you not to do something is you. So you're the one telling yourself, don't, don't, don't, don't, and then you're like, okay, okay, okay, okay. And then the weekend comes, you're like, fuck you. And then you go off.

So you got it. The lack of balance is Monday through Friday. How old are the kids? How old are the kids? I have three girls, seven, five and two. Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh God bless you, three girls, huh?

Yeah, yeah. And there definitely Oh wow. Oh God bless you. Three girls. Yeah. Yeah. And there definitely is something to what you were saying. Um, I mean, they've definitely picked up on, you know, how we, we try and have, you know, you know, organic, clean foods in the house. And, um, now they used to say that they, you know, um, we were eating weird, but now their mentality has changed and now they're all about being healthy. And yeah, so there is something, something we don't push it on them. We just do what we do and they watch.

Brian, you must have been a playboy in your twenties. All my friends, all my friends that had three girls were like playboys in their twenties. God has this weird way of teaching us. Let me, let me, let me give you one more. Let me just, let me again rephrase what I said in a different way because I find that when I, when we can do this, it starts to click more and more. Okay, so you heard Adam, you heard what I said.

Okay, now take the food that you have on the weekend. Okay, think of the last weekend where you kind of did this. Now imagine if you took that food and you spread it out throughout the week and you took all the clean food that you had and you replaced some of the stuff on the weekend so it no longer looked like perfect off, it looked balanced all week. Do you feel the difference? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. You're lean, you're healthy, you're fit. What you're struggling with is on-off. So imagine if that weekend was sprinkled

through the week and the week was sprinkled through the weekend, now it feels balanced. Yeah, I've never really tried that. I've always just tried to compensate during the week for the mistakes I made during the weekend and just puts me in the same cycle over and over. That's right, you're punishing yourself. By the way, you're doing a great job identifying that.

Yeah. There's a lot of people who don't even identify that feeling. 100%. 100%. Especially not somebody fit like you. Are you following any of our math programs right now? Not right now. I've done a couple of them before.

Anabolic. I've done anywhere. I've done a couple of them, but not right now. I'm just doing like a body part split right now. What are your goals? I mean, just to be strong and lean as I can, you know, mobile, healthy, I don't really have anything specific. Do you like fun? Do you like fun, different kind of exercises?

I was like, yeah, strong. Oh, that's what, what about old time? All right. That's way different. I feel that's strong first. He's running split. That's like, which one you want, map strong or old time? Which, which one's the more fun one you were saying?

The different, well, yeah, that's going to be really different. Yeah. That'll make your, that'll give you a crazy strong core grip shoulders. Yeah. It's like the way that it's the way that strength athletes worked out during the very challenging, but super fun. Oh, it's, it's a rad workout. Oh yeah. That sounds interesting to me. I like that. Sounds of that.

We'll send it over to you. I appreciate it. All right, brother. interesting to me. I like that sounds of that. You got it, man. We'll send it over to you. I appreciate it. All right, brother. Good luck. God bless you when they're teenagers. Thank you guys. You got it.

Too easy, man. Yeah, it's not funny. So common, right? But the reason why I wanted to say it in so many different ways is people listening. Some people got the first one. Some people got the second time. By the time you get to the third explanation,

like, Oh, okay, that is balanced. Yeah. Balanced is not, you know, all I mean, even influencers will, will account for the fact that you can be like super regimented during the week, but they allow this cheat day or they allow this like sort of symptom eruption to occur. And it's just like a repeatable pattern. And so I could see how like, you know, this is something that like, you, at least he noticed that and he identified that because a lot of people don't even see that.

Let me say it again. I'll say it in a different way. Imagine if you had a person who had no alcohol Monday through Friday, Saturday had seven glasses of wine every Saturday, every Saturday, seven glasses of wine. Now imagine if that same person had a glass of wine every night for dinner. Very, very different behavior, very, very different attachment. Yeah. That's what that's not to mention what organically happens when you give yourself the freedom to do that. You decide not to have a glass every night. It goes less. I don't feel like it

tonight. That's what that's the crazy part about this is once you once you get a hold of the reverse psychology, I guess you could say you're having with this, you end up having better habits and better relationship with the food anyways. Our next caller is Viviana from Peru. Hi Viviana, how can we help you? Hi! Hello. Oh my god. All right. Hello. We're here. We're here. Yeah, we got you. Hello Yeah, we got we got you I'm too far away. All right, um Guys, thank you so much. I'm glad you guys are actually real Super excited super excited

Okay, so I'll get to my question and then some context My question is should I? Cut build reverse like what do I do right now? What I would like to know like what my first and probably next few steps for this next year should look like First of all, I love I absolutely love fitness. I love lifting. I love all that. I think it's not a matter of Dreading working out, but I have been over the last 20 or so years very inconsistent with training very inconsistent with my nutrition. I just turned 41.

And I've always been, I know I would always train like three, six, maybe nine months, stop for like that same amount of time, and then do it again and just go in cycles like that. And I know it's really, I have this issue with all or nothing mindset. I have had some with all or nothing mindset. I have had some destructive behaviors in the past. I did overcome a eating disorder. Thank God I overcame it.

So, but that led me to like lose and gain the same, I don't know, maybe 25 to 30 pounds, like maybe five or six times in the last 20 years. So in March of last year, so March 2023, I got a mommy makeover, I got tummy tuck and all that jazz. My core looks amazing, but I am still at around like 33% body fat, which is very high, I know. I started anabolic glate October of last year. I got up to starting phase three, but I had to start, had to stop because I got surgery like mid December

and that wasn't allowed to lift. So I just got the okay to start lifting again. And so in the last couple of weeks, I've been really working on my sleep. I started taking magnesium and ashwagandha and I started working on my mindset a lot, working with a coach and a therapist. But my body fat is still high.

And I just wanna look like I work out. And I wanna look lean and strong and fit. I don't wanna be skinny, cause I'm not my body type, I guess. I'd love to be like around low 20s, 20, 22% body fat and especially like have structure around, around fitness and nutrition. So, and I'm ready and I'm willing and I'm able. So whatever you say, I'll do. Dr. Justin Marchegiani A couple, couple more things in here too. I want to know where you're at calorie wise right now. I see you also are dealing with potentially IBS and then also are you becoming a trainer too?

Yeah, you're, you're a, you're a nutrition coach. It said. I know. And I feel a little ashamed about that because. No, don't be. No, all of, 90% of trainers. Okay. Or just, just like you, or that's what drove us to this.

So don't feel ashamed at all. Yeah. Parolegial, I'm sure. Yeah, I know that's definitely what drove me to it. Like I used to read and read and read and just consume so much information that I decided to get certified, both in nutrition and in training.

I have trained clients and have gotten great results with them and it's kind of like, I see them and like, ooh, you need this, this, and that. And they do it and that's great. But I can't do it, like I can't do it on myself. I'm having such a hard time with that. My IBS issues were diagnosed like around, I guess, November or so last year

and it's gotten a lot better. I kind of find out what foods are triggering it. So it's kind of under control, not a big deal. So, but yeah. What would you, if you trained yourself, what would you have you do? Can you do that? Can you separate yourself and give yourself advice?

Have you tried that? So yes. I usually, what I do is I kind of plan out the year, let's say, and I say, okay, this is going to be my cut phase and my build phase and this is the program I'm going to follow and I kind of lay it all out on paper. It looks beautiful, wonderful. I would have it framed, but then I end up not doing it because I second guess myself. It's a lot of self doubt.

Is this the right thing? I also think I suffer from a very severe syndrome called shiny object syndrome. Like a new thing comes out like, ooh, what I should do, you know what I mean? Viviana, the only time I ever plan out a year of training for someone is when I'm trying to sell them a year's worth of personal training

so that I can get them to kind of commit, get an idea of what it looks, what it may look like. Ask me how many times I've ever stuck to the plan with a client. Never because things happen. Yeah, that doesn't work that way. So, um, so you can't do that for yourself. So, so that's, I want you to answer my question again. If you were your own client and your client came to you and asked you that question, should I cut? Should I reverse? What should I do right now? What do you what would you tell yourself? So right now knowing that

Their maintenance calories are around 21 or 2200 If I were not emotionally attached to this person I would tell them To kind of work on getting their calories or their maintenance calories a little bit higher So that a cut would be less or or there's more possibility of adherence to a cut, you know That's the right answer sounds like you're pretty good trainer already my, that's the right answer. Sounds like you're a pretty good trainer already. That's, that's the right answer. Okay. So what's the emotional component? What's the part that's stopping you from doing? You said, if I wasn't emotionally connected, what's stopping you? I think, um, I don't know. I guess I'm, I'm very impatient or I just want to, I just, I,

since I've been doing this for 20 years, but very inconsistently, I guess in my mind, I'm like, I should be, you know, I should look fit. Like I should look like I actually train. But if I think about it, I haven't been consistent long enough to look like I fucking train. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Before, before salve gives you the advice and cause he's going to give you the advice to handle this It's not that hard of a challenge for us to fix where you're at right now It's more the psychological piece and then you're going to be fine Do you have a pen in front of you? Of course, okay, right down mine pump trainer calm and you should be in there already Okay, this is for all the aspiring trainers and trainers that you need to be going through our course. Okay. That's and you're all you're going to be in a community of 700, 700 other trainers, it just

like you that's going through and also struggle with the same stuff where they feel that they feel like imposter syndrome because they're not super rip and they're supposed to be training clients. So we're going to work on that too, because that's a big piece of being a good trainer is having that self confidence. We talk about that in our course. We're going to be talking about it inside there. So make sure when we hang up, and by the way, today is the last day to get the enrollment where it's at right now.

Everything's going up after that. Okay. And there's payment options if you need to. So we're going to, we're going to do that. And then we're going to solve you nutritionally and program wise right now. also. So here's the irony of what you just said about being impatient. Your impatience, right, has led to this being a 20-year struggle. So the irony is, the impatience is making this never end. The wanting it to happen tomorrow is meaning it's never gonna happen. That's making it so that it never happens.

So I'm going to give you an exercise that I want you to do that I think is going to be quite effective. Here's what I want you to do. When you start to have those negative self-talk feelings and thoughts, I want you to write them down in a journal and write it out. Now that here's why this is so effective and there's another part to it, but here's why writing thoughts is so effective. Writing is a, is a form of thinking and it tends to slow us down. And it takes the thought out of the automatic part of the brain, which causes feeling.

So a lot of these thoughts actually are, are, are coming from feelings or causing feelings. So the impatience is like, gosh, why isn't this happening? And then you're having this negative thought. When you write things down, it's gonna move things from the part of the brain that's reactive to the part of the brain that has that executive function, that control, okay?

So you're gonna write out what you're thinking. Why isn't this happening fast enough? I'm so damn impatient. I want this to happen tomorrow. I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't wanna do it. What's wrong with me, blah, blah, I don't care what it is, write it all out and then give yourself 24 hours. That's all you got to do 24 hours. The next day, read what you wrote like a trainer. Read it and say, all right, now on this piece of paper, here's my advice. Yeah. Okay. Now here's, it sounds hokey.

It sounds silly, but here's why this, this works because you're, the negative thought process that you have is automatic. You have to practice and train the other side. It does not come natural. So what I just said is going to feel so awkward and so weird. You're going to sit down and be like, okay, I got to write this out. Okay. Well, okay. Well, I know what I would tell myself. feel so awkward and so weird. You're gonna sit down and be like, okay, I gotta write this out. Okay, well, okay, well, I know what I would tell myself. So let me write that out.

And this is so weird and I don't wanna do it. And I feel like I'm like those people who say, look in the mirror and say nice things to yourself and whatever. But just like the first time you tried to do a new, it's like when you first tried to do a new exercise and you suck at it and it's weird and awkward, the more you do it, then what'll suck at it and it's weird and awkward,

the more you do it, then what'll happen is it'll start to become automatic as well. But in the beginning, you gotta force yourself. Just do that. Just do that for now. Write out those thoughts. And then the next day, write out what the trainer would say, what the coach would say.

And little by little, it'll start to be more automatic. Because right now, what you're doing, this impatience, this, I don't know if I, this is not working fast, I don't want to take my own advice. It's keeping you here and you'll never get out. So logically, ill logically, the impatience, you think it's gonna make it happen, the impatience, that feeling is making it not happen.

That's the enemy, the enemy is that. Righting it out, you're gonna create that distance now, impatience, that feeling is making it not happen. That's the enemy. The enemy is out. You're going to create that distance now, instead of internalizing it and repeating that pattern. We need to put it out. Right. When you get out of your head onto paper and then you have solutions, cause you know exactly what to do.

It's just a matter of like getting that thought out. And you're going to be with a community of other coaches and trainers now that we're all going to encourage you through this process too. So between that and just because you do, you have the answers already. Now it's just a matter of consistently sticking to it. The further away you get from that with this writing piece, the easier it'll start to get, but at first it's going to feel weird, awkward. I'm forcing myself.

Oh, I don't want to do this. This is stupid. Just do it. Just do it Even if it's a sentence like we could be one sentence like Reverse diet you need to do this. That's it or whatever, but just practice it practice it every single day. Watch what happens Yeah, because I think I Also kind of follow into like the self-doubt of the advice that I get up for the coaching that I give myself because I think, well, uh, write that down too. Maybe I should be doing something else.

Maybe, you know, and then I'm on where I am. Write that down negative self-talk, write it down the next day, write down what the coach would say. So write that down. You know, I don't know. Is this the right thing to do? I don't want to listen to you. This makes me feel like... This exercise is only going to make you an even better coach too. Oh my God. You'll be the best coach.

Yes. If you can get through this. You'll be able to connect to a lot of people that go through the exact same thing. I didn't read one more thing that we didn't address. I just want to make sure that you're not running anymore. Get rid of the running right now. You can just replace that with walking. Yeah, yeah.

I had to stop everything because of the surgery I had. You can just replace that with walking. Yeah. Yeah. I had to, I had to stop everything. Okay. So I had, oh, that was before. And I want to start fresh. Like I want to, like what program do I start with? Um, like what, what should my. Anabolic, anabolic's perfect. Yeah.

You're on maps, anabolic. That's totally fine. After that, you could do a map strong, um, would probably be a good, good follow up to. I wouldn't go with super high volume, um, at this point, not until maybe three, four months into it, like, uh, you know, like an aesthetic or something like that. But, um, but I think, yeah, you're on the right workout. Yeah.

I like, I like you doing that, then symmetry and then, uh, and then strong. So go maps, anabolic, map symmetry, map strong. Um, you already have anabolic map symmetry, map strong. Okay. You already have anabolic, right? Yeah. I have anabolic and symmetry. All right. Oh, let's send a strong.

We'll send you strong. Yay. Thanks. You got it. Okay. And then in calorie wise, should I reverse diet? You should take your own advice. Yep.

Reverse diet. And the goal right now, okay, is to not get hung up on the body fat percentage and scale right now. The goal right now is to see how high we can get these calories without putting on tons of weight, right? Just get stronger, add calories. And again, I'm going to see you inside the community. So just keep me up to date every couple of weeks where you're at calorie wise, what you're feeling, and then we'll adjust along the way. Doug, send her the discount code, by the way, because she's in there still, right?

For the Maps Fitness Trainer. Oh, yeah. So he'll email you a code for the discount for that. Thank you. You got it. All right. I know you wanted some magic answer, but there is no magic answer, okay?

So I want you to trust yourself a little bit more. You have the answers within you. Yeah. And can I ask you another question? Yes. So what would be like a realistic time frame to truly get rid of these 25 or 30 pounds? To to truly get rid of these 25 or 30 or 30 pounds Something that you know doing following your guys advice and programs in this what's realistic What should I expect if there is an answer to that if if you if you if you if you if you work on the psychological piece

It can happen. It could happen very quickly If you don't work on the psychological piece, then you'll gain and lose it and gain and lose it and gain and lose it you don't work on the psychological piece, then you'll gain and lose it and gain and lose it and gain and lose it. So the, what you should not do right now is give yourself a timeframe connected to weight loss. Focus on what's in front of you right now. Don't do that. That's going to take you away from what you need to look at in the moment.

I'll tell you what though. Okay. We have the, we have the ability to put you in the best shape of your life this year. Okay. Oh yes. Oh, I like that answer. I like it.

There you go. All right. We'll see you on the inside. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you. There you go. Sounds like we're in a prison.

I'll see you on the inside. That's it's such a, it's, um, it's, it's wild, right? I've been in the same situation. It's wild because she's calling, she knows, she knows what she needs to do. And it's like, can you please help me do what I know I need to do is really what they're asking. You know, that's why too, I think the community

will be great for her. Totally. You know, just having, she already knows what to do. Just sometimes it's how it takes, I don't know how many times I've had people say that, like, hey, I know what they need to do. I just need, I mean, how many times we had those calls. I know what I know.

What you guys are going to say. I just need to hear it again. You know what I'm saying? So it's like one of those situations. She's going to be, she can be all right. She will be. Our next caller is Charlie from Pennsylvania. Charlie, what's going on?

What up, Charlie? How can we help you? No, too much. How are you doing gentlemen? Good, good. Great. Uh, long time listener guys, really excited to be on the on the podcast here. I got turned on to you guys years ago by a good friend of mine, Ben Price.

I just want to shout him out real quick and thank you guys for years of great information. I just got my certification a little over a year ago and I really want to thank you guys for the three-day online training coaching that you did a little while ago I found that information Worth its weight in gold. I was going back and rewatching them writing stuff down Anybody who gets a chance to check that stuff out. I mean that was great stuff. Thank you so much for doing that for us Did you did you join the forum in the in the course now too? I? so much for doing that for us. Did you, uh, did you join the forum in the, in the course now too? Uh, I didn't, I actually, since I just started up, uh, I just got on Facebook.

I'm not a social media person. So I'm going to, I'm going to check out the forum. I know there's a Facebook forum and I did check out the, uh, course. Definitely do that. Today's the last day for all the bonuses and the sales and like that. So it'd be worth getting in there. And by the time this airs, it'll be over.

Yeah. Everybody else is listening screwed, but you're not screwed. You're not screwed.. You still have a chance. You still got a chance. All right, what you got for us? So I'm just going to read my question and I'm going to let you guys take it from there. I'm a 49 year old trainer. I just got my certification a little over a year ago. I'm comfortable with working with many types of clients. I believe that setting realistic expectations is essential for both trainer and client. With that said, my question is, when meeting with female clients for the first time who have had children and discussing their goals, the response is something

along the lines of, I would just love to have the body back that I had before having kids. Like I said, I'm a long time listener so I'm very familiar with the exercises that develop the transverse adominus. My question is more is directed more towards the trauma that the body experiences physically and hormonally. For example, I've heard that the pelvis separates during childbirth and doesn't always go back together completely. Obviously, this would change the body physically and have different effects. Also wondering if women who have had cesarean section experience more difficult, more difficulties when getting back into shape than those who have had natural childbirth. Hormonally, since a woman has

to provide nutrition for a baby, is fat considered more valuable to the body therefore hard to lose? Is any of this accurate? And if so, how do you have a conversation and set realistic expectations with that client? Okay. Are these things reversible or is this something we have to live with? All right, let's address the first part. I'd just like to have the body that I had before having kids. Okay, so now imagine if I came to you and I'm like, dude, I played competitive,

I was a high level football player in high school. I just want the body that I had back when I was in high school. You'd be like, okay, no, I mean, so you have the body you have now. Now, can we get you stronger and more fit? Can maybe even get you more fit than you've ever been in your life?

Yes, but the body you had before was the body you had before. Now you had a baby. We don't want to make that comparison because we don't want to set a strange expectation that causes us to ignore any of the potential positives that we're going to experience through this workout process. That's more of a, you know, as a trainer and a coach, one of the most important things you do is under promise.

When trainers over promise, they screw themselves and the client all day long. So if a client, see comes to you and says, can I have the body I had before I had a baby? Yeah, you totally can. Like what you're doing, you're, you're, you're, you're setting them up for failure. Not because they can't because now that's all they're going to focus on. They're not going to think about anything else. Okay. You talked about the trans. Go ahead. Great. That's why I find that conversation so tricky is because I don't want to

discourage somebody, but you know, that that that's thanks for clearing that up. Yeah. There's also though, there, listen, my wife is hotter post kid than she was before by far. That's not even close. Like she was good looking when she was, when we first met, she's way hotter post kids. So it's not like it's not possible also.

No, yeah. That my point is the, the, the way you have the conversations be very straightforward and honest, and it's not about discouraging anybody. And this is what a lot of trainers run into. They run into the, oh God, I don't want to discourage this person. Like, let me rephrase it. Hey, I want to lose 30 pounds in 60 days. I'd love to hire you.

Oh, you know, I don't want to tell them that that's probably unrealistic. And you, I mean, you could do it, but is it going to be sustainable? So I don't want to discourage them. You just be straightforward and honest. And just like I said it going to be sustainable so I don't want to discourage them you just be straightforward and honest and just like I said it and I so I didn't say no I also didn't say yes but I painted I changed the context I painted a different picture so that the person isn't set up to fail okay but it is possible of course it's possible all right uh transverse abdominis is like the absolute base level of understanding of what we need to train when somebody just had a baby.

It's far more complex than that. So as a trainer and a coach, I suggest you either seek out, uh, courses in education on pelvic floor exercises. This is the type of stuff though that we're going to cover in the coaching program though, by the way. That's right. This is the type of stuff though that we're going to cover in the coaching program though, by the way, this question is something like we are going to go after people that are professionals in and specific to a question like this and talk to them and ask all the trainer questions. So you guys get the answers. So that's, there are specific things that, you know, the body does change during pregnancy and then post pregnancy, uh, there are exercises, movements and

considerations that you want to take into account when you're working with someone, Pelt the pelvic floor muscles can change radically. There could be damage to some muscles. There could just be atrophy. And if you don't know how to target them specifically, then you may, not always, and often you don't, but sometimes you do start to run into some issues. So I, I suggest some education there. And like Adam said, in our course, when you go on the course, in our forum,

every month we'll bring an expert and that we'll discuss this. And for sure we're going to have a postpartum exercise specialist get on there. First one on the board is menopause. Right. To talk specifically about, you know, things like this. The other thing you asked about was during breastfeeding, The hormonal profile of a woman changes during breastfeeding that and it some people even call it like a menopause type hormone profile While a woman's breastfeeding does that change her ability to build muscle and burn body fat? It does It does it changes things from a hormonal level the focus during breastfeeding

it changes things from a hormonal level. The focus during breastfeeding, and I always hated trainers that would take a woman that was breastfeeding and put them on a calorie deficit and try and get them to lose weight. That just, it's a terrible approach. The body's trying to provide sustenance to another human being. And what you're telling the body is,

we don't have enough calories. And that can cause a lot of different kinds of problems. So the focus for me, if a woman's breastfeeding is, I'm going to feed you adequately and make you more fit and strong. And then when you stop breastfeeding, if we want to go into deficit, we can't. Now what typically happens is to get leaner during that process of just trying to get more fit and strong. But I never purposely put a woman on a calorie deficit while they were breastfeeding. That's just so counterproductive to what the body is trying to do.

So it's like, okay, we're not going to try to lose anyway right now. I'm just going to try and get you strong and fit. And oftentimes the side effect of that is a person gets leaner. But when you stop the breastfeeding process, then we can be a little bit more purposeful with the fat loss. And now here's why I'm not going to strongly target fat loss while you're breastfeeding your body's providing nutrition to another human being. And the last thing I want to do is tell your body, we don't have enough food

to, to sustain you, therefore, possibly your child. Cause that can definitely put your body in a defensive position, which will make weight loss impossible or far more challenging later on. One of the most important things with something like this is actually just communicating the client that you understand all these potential challenges that we're probably going to have. And my job as a coach and trainers to guide you through those. Now we might get lucky and you might not have any issues with some of the things

we just talked about, but you may, you may, it's very common. And when we see it and it presents itself, don't worry, we're going to work through that. And so my job is to guide you through this process. It's not as clear cut as like all women that get pregnant, this happens or this will be difficult. It's some have more challenges than others with some of these things. And as we go through that process together, you and I are going to work through it.

It's just Charlie, do you have kids? Who? Okay. Do you remember what it was like in the first year of life for your wife? If she was breastfeeding, the blur, I can't remember anything. Of course not. That's called a, that's, that's a call PTSD. No. So, okay. So look, so here's the deal. Like you're going to take somebody who's breastfeeding. She's probably waking up during the night to feed this baby a few times a night. So she's got lack of sleep.

She just had a baby hormones are different because she's breastfeeding. So the body starts to kind of gear itself in a different way. And then we're going to add the stress of a calorie deficit and add the stress of intense workout and expect counterproductive to get great results. It's not, it's not going to happen. It's all about health and To get great results, it's not gonna happen. It's all about health and strength during that period of time. By the way, the best, the most success that women have with this process are the ones that go into pregnancy

being strong and having a good amount of muscle. They recover, quote unquote, recover so much faster because of that. But this is a totally different approach. Like I, I, when, if a woman came to me and said, I just had a baby two months ago and I want to lose weight and I'd say, are you breastfeeding? And she'd say, yes. And I'd say, we're not going to focus on weight loss.

Not until you stop breastfeeding, but I am going to make you strong. I am going to make you fit. Strength and stability is the biggest focus, you know, after that, that whole process. That's why a lot of times we'll kind of recommend our map starter program regardless, just because it's like your body went through this like massive event that you could say is pretty traumatic for the person that went through that.

And so to be able to kind of build yourself back up, depending on what they put in going into the pregnancy is really like the speed of the turnover of being able to bounce back. Totally. And so if I'm picking up what you guys are putting down, we're just going to follow what we would always recommend, strength training, and just deal with the small problems as they arise and not make a before it presents itself. That's right.

I like map starter is one of the best, most appropriate postpartum workout programs that we have. Do you have that one? I don't. All right, we'll send that to you. Yeah, we gotta get you that. Thank you very much. You got it, man.

Doug, send him the Lincoln Code too, please. Yeah. All right, Charlie, we'll see you on the inside. See you in the coaching program. All right. Appreciate it, thank you. Take care. You got it, man. He better be in there.

I'm going to get mad. You hear this, Charlie, you better be in that forum when you hear this go live. I mean, this is what this we have your email. I mean, this is what this is. This is why we built this. This is exactly the type of great question for a trainer and one of the more challenging. And by the way, the first one we're addressing is menopause.

Cause that was another one that I remember having clients like that and being stumped. What do I say? What do I do? What do I go through? Oh my God, I'm a man. Other coaches are going through the same exact dilemma, right? And it's going to keep presenting. These other avatars of people are like, oh my God, this is a difficult one.

Anybody else have experience with this? Look, for women listening right now, there's a company called GetLuna.com where they will send a physical therapist who specializes in postpartum therapy to your door. It's covered by insurance, just like any other physical therapist, and you don't need to go through your primary care to get a referral. I think it's a complete travesty that postpartum physical therapy is not like standard. It should be, yeah. It should be.

Yeah. Standard because this is why women have, you know, urinary and continence post pregnancy is why they start to get all these weirds because they don't rehab what just, just what happened. So in a physical therapist who's training, this is the best. And, or there's a lot of fear around that. So they don't do anything because they're afraid they can't do anything. But they come to your house, because you got a baby.

You're not gonna go drive to some physical therapist office with a two month old. This person comes to your house and they don't need equipment for this. Look, if you like the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our free fitness guides. They can help you with almost any health or fitness goal.

You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano and Adam is at Mind Pump Adam. 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 MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPS, Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert, exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

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