Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2276: The Relationship Between Poor Sleep & Low Testosterone, How to Lose Body Fat After Age 50, Ways to Avoid Gaining Body Fat When Reverse Dieting & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: February 21, 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: Getting stronger often makes you MORE resilient to injury. There is a proper BALANCE that needs to be maintained. (2:36) How it goes to show how much blood pressure issues are due to physiological poor health. (14:50) Finding opportunities to peer into your child's world. (18:40) The propaganda wars against Semaglutide. (27:28) The value in cycling the Brain Blend from Ned. (33:45) How dumb cannabis laws are. (36:14) The best band from the ‘90s. (44:12) Mind Pump’s favorite zombie movies. (45:38) Mind Pump Recommends: Lover, Stalker, Killer on Netflix. (48:17) If you eat a lot of red meat the quality makes a difference! (50:05) When you see your traits in your kids. (52:41) Shout out to the Mind Pump x Pre-Script L1 Live Event! (58:03) #ListenerLive question #1 - Any advice on starting TRT and using it as a life-long solution to improve my hormone levels? (1:00:15) #ListenerLive question #2 - How do I know if my muscles are adapting or just recovering? (1:10:53) #ListenerLive question #3 - I know you guys get frustrated when the “science crowd” knocks reverse dieting, so I’m curious what you’d advise people when it doesn’t seem to be working. Are there limits to reverse dieting? (1:20:55) #ListenerLive question #4 - How do I adjust my workouts and/or diet to burst through a plateau? How realistic is it to see a genetically lean/skinny guy see significant growth in strength? (1:37:13) 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 Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer! ** New users will receive their choice of 2 lbs. of Ground Beef, 3 lbs. of Chicken Thighs, or 1 lb. of premium Steak Tips for a Year! + Use code MINDPUMP and get $20 off your first box! ** February Promotion: MAPS Performance | Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code FEB50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1790: The Secret To An Attractive & Functional Body Slow Moving Tai Chi is 'More Effective Than Aerobic Exercise’ For Reducing High Blood Pressure Ask Me Anything Ice Bath Challenge | MIND PUMP - YouTube Mind Pump #1822: Wim Hof On How To Control Your Immune System With Breathwork Mind Pump #2110: Ozempic The Miracle Fat Loss Peptide: The Truth With Dr. William Seeds Biden expands pardons for marijuana possession and grants clemency to 11 Pearl Jam - New Album "Dark Matter" Out April 19, 2024 Watch Lover, Stalker, Killer | Netflix Official Site How One Lonely Man’s Online Date Turned Into a Bloody Nightmare MP x Pre-Script: Join us March 15-17 for an unprecedented collaborative education event hosted by Mind Pump Media and Pre-Script® 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 Hormones Facebook Private Forum Mind Pump #2160: Macro Counting Master Class Reverse Dieting: What Is It and Should YOU Try It?? | MIND PUMP Reverse Dieting 101 | MAPS Fitness Products Mind Pump #1630: Ten Ways To Break Through A Plateau Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Wim Hof (@iceman_hof) Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram Dr. William Seeds (@williamseedsmd) Instagram Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc) Instagram  

You don't have to struggle alone. Get free confidential mental health and substance use support at Canada.ca slash mental health. If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call or text 988. A message from the Government of Canada. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in history.

This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we answered live caller's questions. So people called in and we got to help them out on air, but this was after an intro portion. Today it was 56 minutes long. That's where we talk about current events and scientific studies and family life and a lot of fun stuff. By the way, you can check the show notes for timestamps if you want to fast forward to your favorite part. Also, if you want to be on an episode like this one, if you want to call in and have us help you out with your health and fitness, email us at live at mindpumpmedia.com. Now this episode was brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Ned. These are hemp oil extract products designed to reduce inflammation,

improve a sense of euphoria and creative processes. The stuff is amazing. Today, I talk about their brain blend. This is something I'll use before a creative endeavor, and I feel amazing when I take it. Anyway, check them out. Get yourself a discount. Go to helloned.com forward slash mindpump., use the code mind pump, get yourself 15% off. This episode is also brought to you by butcher box. They deliver grass fed meats, wild caught fish, heritage pork to your door for incredible prices. So if you like to eat meat, you also like to be healthy and you also like to save money. Go check out butcher box. In fact, if you go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump, new users will get their choice of either two pounds of ground beef,

three pounds of chicken thighs, or one pound of premium steak tips for a year included for free. You got to use the code mind pump. By the way, that also gives you $20 off your first box. We also have a sale on some workout programs this month. MAPS Performance is half off and our Extreme Fitness bundle of programs is also half off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code FEB50 for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show. T-shirt time. And it's T-shirt time. Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. Only one winner this week. It's for Apple Podcasts.

The name is Corbzome. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address. We'll get that shirt right out to you. And for the rest of you, you have a very good chance of winning if you actually leave a review on either Apple Podcasts or on Facebook. So leave your review and maybe you'll hear your name next week. The typical strength training fanatic increases the risk of injury. It's true. Getting stronger often makes you more resilient to injury, but not if you do it wrong. A lot of people lift weights

daily actually increase their risk of injury. They make themselves literally more fragile. There's more to that, though. A lot more. Yeah. A lot more. It really has to do with – so a lot of people don't realize that injury plainly is due to weakness. But really what it has to do is being unstable.

And what happens if you always strengthen your body in the same planes of motion right and this with the same exercises the ratio of strength that you have in that plane that you always train in proportionate to other planes is disproportionate it's no different than putting a engine in a car that's too powerful for the frame and you hit the gas and it twists the frame so you have all these people that lift weights and they do the same you know the best exercise squat deadlift bench press overhead press but then they never train laterally they never rotate they never strengthen their body to accomplish balance then they go to the park they throw a frisbee oh this is where you see people yeah fall in the shower and they get hurt or like reach back abruptly to grab something and

they they throw uh you know their muscle out and so it's it's just one of those things that people don't really consider that uh getting really strong too also uh if you're not balancing that with uh stability and and mobility you're you're leaving yourself open for injury it took me a long time to realize this because you you get a client who's advanced age they've've been lifting for 15, 20 years. And you would think that client is less likely to get injured doing silly stuff. But they always got hurt doing that. It was never when we were deadlifting 300 or 400 pounds.

It was never when we were squatting a bunch of weight or doing exercises in the gym. It was always like this weird movement out. So pulling a weed, reaching back to feed your kid in the in the car it was always picking up a shampoo bottle down in the shower it was like this makes no sense i don't understand it took me a long time to figure that out as a trainer i didn't realize that it was uh it was my fault of neglecting all the different planes of motion and always getting them so strong in like the sagittal plane there's an there's an ideal ratio of strength with muscles and supporting muscles and agonists which are the prime movers antagonists which are the ones that are

um that you're opposing like there's this there's this proper balance that needs to be maintained and if you get really strong in some and the other ones lag behind that balance is thrown off and then you know look i experienced Like, I'll go in the backyard and throw rocks with my kid, and then my shoulder's sore. Yeah, and I could go overhead press 200 pounds and, you know, whatever. And it's because I lack the stability. My prime movers are generating more force than my body can maintain because I don't train those stabilizers.

You know what's funny about this? The average person listening is like, I don't care. I just want to look good. You can tell by the way somebody moves and the way they look whether or not they're balanced often. In fact, the whole meathead stereotype of the guy walking around looking stiff or whatever,

the reason why they look and move stiff is their body is trying to keep them in a particular range of motion. It's literally trying to make them move a particular way because it's trying to protect them from injury. So you're like, wow, that guy looks muscle guy looks yeah don't let him turn and rotate yeah it looks stiff and this is your rotation and it's usually the body and it's the body saying we will only keep you in this range of motion so you know in terms of aesthetics pictures are different than

real life in real life aesthetics can also be displayed through movement. Like somebody who moves well, I mean, you can see someone looks all fit, but then they move awkward. They don't look so good. And the reason why I'm saying this, I'm selling this to the average person, right? The average person who could care, they're mainly focused on aesthetics. It's like, you will actually look better if you do this. Not to mention there is a limiter in terms of how much strength you can build that when your body feels like it's too unstable that's it you're bench pressing going up you're deadlifting going up well it's it's funny because like i hate using the word functional strength just because it's been bastardized bastardized but it's just one of those things you got to

consider what you're facing with challenges every single day and just like you know uneven surfaces that you're walking up or like something that he has to like something happens you have to move really fast all of a sudden that's a big one is like when people have to move fast and then and then slow down really fast like both of those things if you're not training that at all uh your body's gonna overreact your muscles gonna overreact you're gonna pull something you know uh and it's it's just one of those things. If you're not practicing it and you're not training it, you're going to get hurt. Well, this is why we say that there's, it would not be ideal to follow any of the programs that we've written indefinitely, except for maybe MAPS performance and maybe symmetry

now, right? And it's because we don't address that specifically. Performance has to be the most complete one in that sense, right? That's what I mean, right? So it's the only program that you could probably run that indefinitely and feel like. Never run into this problem. Yeah, and we've covered those bases.

You're going to get strong. You're going to look good. You're going to be able to move in different planes, protect yourself, the anti-rotation stuff that's in there. Have balance. Yeah. You're not hitting any huge plateaus or sticking points. Yeah, everybody wants to keep doing MAPS Anabolic over and over again because it builds a lot of strength come on hard

yeah but if you follow maps anabolic over and over again you will start to have problems because there's no lateral movement it wasn't designed it wasn't supposed to be that right there's no lateral movement there's barely any rotation um i did this with uh myself with the deadlift that's one of my favorite exercises. And I pushed it for a bit there to see if I could hit a new PR. And I did. But I noticed I kept getting like this low back pain on the side. Couldn't figure out what was going on.

I'd slow down my lift. I'd do all kinds of – and then, you know, of course, you're always training other people better than yourself when you're a trainer. I said, what would I do for a client? I'm like, oh, I don't do anything laterally at all. Did some QL work, some lateral sled drags and poof, you know. I feel like a lot of times people feel it coming on. Like they've been training in just that one plane for too long, where even for me, when I was bench pressing too long, I just inevitably started to feel like, you know, my shoulders were sort of just forming into that position and then I was getting rigid. And then, you know, even then bench pressing started to work against me and I'd felt a pain and impingement there starting to form. So it's just like, you got to listen to your body and you got to actually, uh, train. So you feel good, not just look good well speaking of the training did you guys have like specific movements or a

movement that you liked for clients like to like address this like obviously there's there's not one movement that you just have them do forever but are like were there exercises that were like oh this was like a go-to movement to address this with my all my clients yeah when i was for shoulder stuff uh stick dislocates um and then just good old basic external rotation, right? The good old rotator cuff exercise was always good. These were, of course, general clients, right? Not the super strong. I'd probably have to do something else for them.

Then for hips, it would be some kind of a lateral strength training move. This was before I really learned about priming like we do with MAPS prime pro type of stuff. And then the knee, the knee was also lateral. It's funny because we used to foam roll all the time. And then I realized that foam rolling is kind of like a bandaid. Yeah. And I had people do like a leg swing, like a stupid leg swing and it would help, it would help with their knee pain. Yeah. I mean, I try, I try to, to be sneaky about it and add rotation with pressing or add, you know, rotation wherever I feel like there's an opportunity. Um, one of them, I can, a lot of people give me grief about the matrix lunges, but I, I would do this all the time with my clients just to add that in. So it kind of covered the basis of lateral movement and then,

uh, you know, the transverse plane uh but and also step up sometimes i would like add that in with different ways to um do that with a lateral you know it's funny i bet you you know how many times i did that kind of stuff not because i understood the benefit of training different planes because i was trying to razzle dazzle my plane magic man it was like it was like on accident you know i did something good for them mine was that so i used to have so if you had like the boxes in front of me right here and instead of facing the box i would face sidestep to the side and i would open the hip you know step up to stabilize to touch my toe and i used to tell my clients that if after i'm long gone and we don't train

anymore if you could just maintain that skill, like keep that skill of everything I've taught you, like, and that's not discounting the value of getting strong in the squad and deadlifting and overhead, probably like all those obviously are incredible movements, but I think it addresses so much in, in one movement that the ability to be able to perform that movement with

good form and technique as you get it into advanced age, I think is such a powerful exercise. Here's a telltale clue. I don't even think it's a clue. This is like literally what's happening if this happens to you. Okay. Because sometimes people hurt themselves and it's, you know, quote unquote freak accident or, you know, something happens. Fine. but if you have a repeated issue, which 90% of people watching this who hurt themselves know what I'm talking

about, where it's like, yeah, it's always my left shoulder or yeah, it's always my upper back on the right, or it's always my low back on the left. It's always my whatever. If you have a repeated injury that pops up every once in a while,

and then you got to kind of take it, Tim time off or relax and let it go away. And then you start training and then it pops up again. That is a clear sign of an imbalance. And it's a clear sign that you could fix it if you have that repeated thing. I have those. I think everybody does.

I think it's a matter of being aware or self-aware and knowing that. And then also having the tools or the knowledge to know how you go about it. Because that's the challenge. You get something where somebody has an aching knee and they think it's their knee you go oh i have i have bad how many times have you heard i have bad knees when actually has nothing to do that with that at all it's actually weakness and instability in the ankle or the hip that's causing your knee but

you you interpret that as i have bad knees right whatever when in reality strength yeah it has nothing to do with that at all there's weakness and instability somewhere else i just think yeah we're creatures of habit and it's like we just form into the same routine and uh a lot of people just don't realize the value a lot of times of challenging themselves with you know the stuff that they're like oh this is i don't like this because i suck at it or it's like it's you know it's not uh as sexy and it's not like you know purely just driven to build muscle it's like you know, it's not as sexy and it's not like, you know, purely just driven to build muscle. It's like, you know, it's movement-based. Do you know how many exercises I avoided forever

because I wasn't strong at them? Yeah. So stupid. I mean, same. Everybody's guilty. Like Bulgarian split stand squats, I didn't do for years because I'm like, I'm going to grab 20s. Yeah, my girlfriend at the time would like kill,

like smash me with the weight she could do versus like you know bulgarians i was like super embarrassed you know i want to go back to the one that you pointed out justin because i think there's there's like magic in in in this uh understanding right like you would take an exercise like a shoulder press which is a pretty staple movement that everybody would agree that should be in pretty much every routine and you would do it with like a dumbbell or a kettlebell and do it in a spiral motion, right? And so finding ways that you can do traditional movements or like the matric lungs, you brought that one up, right? Or like I said, the opening up with a step up with like, if you can find ways to just slightly

modify a very traditional movement to add tremendous benefits to it like that i think that's the key is teaching people how to be able to do that how to assess in a movement go like oh i've been doing it this way for so long how do i adjust this to protect myself and in other points an easy way to do is just do it unilaterally you know do it with one side because the other side has to stabilize that's like that's like a basic like a basic, easy hack for some of that. Yeah, I think that's probably the easiest. It requires the least amount of programming understanding. Right, right.

I would say that. Because you still, I think you'd want to do something. No, what you're saying is better. Right. But I'm listening. I'm thinking like, oh, the average person is going to do a deadlift with a twist or something weird, which you don't want to do. Deadlift with a twist. You know what I mean?

I heard Adam say this. Don't get that creative speaking of interesting around fitness a study just came out that compared tai chi to cardio for blood pressure okay do you guys know what you guys have seen tai chi oh yeah tai chi is not like ink if like in the standard context of what you consider a workout right cardio you're sweating you're working tai chi is like it's slow you're moving it looks very it's very uh it's like zen yeah and it's a like breath work is part of that yes and so that's such a huge key to heart rate blood pressure and the ability to control that totally it beat it beat cardio oh yeah for blood pressure which just goes to show how much of blood pressure issues is due to physiologically you know physiological poor health sympathetic

state and sympathetic yeah yes dude yeah that's it right there like so i love to see that in also compared to like uh cold dipping right so that i had my cousin over over the weekend and or my buddy was over and he was asking me about the cold dip. He's like, Oh man, I really want to do that. I've never, I've never done it before. And I was explaining to him cause he like, again, I think what happens is it gets, it's gone viral. So everybody like looks at it as a challenge. Like, can I go and do it? And I remember the first time, the very first time we ever did it when Justin had been the only one that had gone through the Wim Hof training.

And this is an old, old video on our YouTube channel where we did the ice bath challenge. Oh, that's right. And you and I had no experience yet, but yet we're competitive, right? So my thought process of going into that is like, I can bear it. Just deal with it. I can tough it out. And there was no chance. Like Justin was in there drinking a beer five minutes later.

And I remember a minute, minute and a half in, and it was like, it was, it literally felt physically impossible to keep going. It was, there was no, no amount of grit that I could summon to get through. It was a paradox. You had to relax to make it. Exactly.

And so it didn't dawn on me that like, oh my God, like this, the key to this is actually to completely try and calm yourself, which is also the real, the real benefits lie, right? Yep. The ability to calm the heart rate. Yes, calm the heart rate down, breathe through it, and then all of a sudden it actually gets way easier. But if you try and grit through it, and so when I think of things like the Tai Chi,

it's similar in that fashion of you're being able to regulate and control your breathing, and that has tremendous benefits. I used to be able to get my clients to significantly lower their blood pressure from one reading to the next simply by having them visualize and relax. Like literally, we do a reading, then we do some visualization, relax, deep breathing, do another test. You know, people oftentimes will get high blood pressure tests simply because they're at the doctor.

Yeah. Simply because they're at the doctor. What's it called? White coat syndrome. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, where people go in and their blood pressure goes up. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm at the doctor. White coat syndrome. Yeah, yeah. Simply because they're at the doctor. What's it called? White coat syndrome. Oh, I didn't know that's what it is. Yeah, where people go in and their blood pressure goes up. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm at the doctor.

I mean, just think about, too, like how important that is if, like, obviously that's a focused moment, right, in time of the day, but, like, how often that's happening all day long. Yeah. That you're in this, like, heightened state always, and you don't even realize it because that's become your norm yeah yeah some people they have a really hard time with calming down like even like getting into that parasympathetic state it's like it's just it's it's always like dry that's been a

practice for me lately because my so my three-year-old is just all of a sudden he decided kids go through this right all of a sudden he decided in order to go to, he has to have mom and dad in there with him until he falls asleep. So this is like a nightly thing every night. And I'm just so frustrated because we put him down at seven and he tells us, I don't want to sleep. So we're going to lay here, buddy. So last night we're in there laying with him. He's climbing around doing a thing and I could feel myself get frustrated.

So I have to kind of bring myself. And I'm like, you know, I thought about it. I put a pain in context. I'm like, you's not gonna want this like one day he's gonna not want me in his room at all so that brought everything down but it's still frustrating i can feel my blood pressure do this and this and this and this is completely unrelated but in terms of like trying to to flip the script a bit like i was uh i don't know i caught myself like hammering the boys a lot about video games and stuff like just constantly okay you can only have this amount of time and um you know then you take it away and it's a fight and blah blah so uh and plus two

like i'm i'm kind of trying to find what opportunities that i can have conversation and like peer into their world a little bit so So, you know, they're really in the fortnight right now. And I'm like, dude, this is stupid. Like what? Like I was just like sitting there, like watching him play. I just kind of like walked around the corner and I was like peering in to see like, well, what's all the fuss about it. So I was like, here, let me play.

So I just started playing with them. And then I was like, I totally suck. You know, I think I told you one time I tried this with like call of duty and i was getting my ass kicked and my son was like talking trash to me and i almost choked him out because i just was like yeah like i'm so competitive uh i just like abandoned the idea did you throw the controller no so i was just like okay i was just like trying to like calm down. I'm like, I suck. And he's trying to like teach me all these things and I'm going through it.

And they got so excited that I was playing this stupid game. And they're like texting their friends and calling. They're like, we're going to – they're trying to teach me now. I'm like, I'm going to try and see if I can like carve a window where I'm like, okay, I'm going to focus on trying to actually play and like, you know, find my way in their world just for that minute. You know,

I feel like there'll come a time and you guys obviously are either have gone through it or go through it. Now is like when I'll feel challenged with that, like that balance, right? Like obviously there's examples. I mean, I brought it up the other day,

like the kid who taught himself how to drive race cars on, you cars on his video game and is now a pro race car driver. Now, we know that's an anomaly, right? It's like one in a million or even crazier number than that. But yet there's these opportunities for kids to be able to do stuff like that. And so if my son likes it, he's good at it. How do I balance that? Like wanting him to be able to enjoy that pursue that potentially go after that if that's something he wants but at the same time too I don't want you to be socially awkward locked

in your room and that's all you do it's like such a such a challenging like well we tackle we just went extreme and now we've told our the little my three-year-old that the tv is broken so he can't watch it anymore and it's his it's way it's more work you know but he's his behavior is way better but what you said justin is interesting because it's so funny so i have teenagers right and trying to connect with teenagers sometimes feels impossible because yeah you're like the you know you're like the dad and uh uh you know what is that american pie or whatever where dad's like hey you know and the son's like get out of my room you know I said the cringiest thing, and they totally both stopped what they were doing, and they laughed at me.

This person has happened a long time. Because they were, like, saying something, and I was like, you know, to be cool, you got to zig when everybody zags. And then they were just like. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm like, oh, man, that did sound good. i thought that was gonna land yeah i'm like oh that sounded better my head no no so i'm trying to connect with them so jessica sent me this this uh clip there's this uh this preacher and he's a really interesting uh instagram page and he said um he said he told

a story about his kid and how he was trying to get his kid to come out of the room. Come out of your room. You're in there all the time, whatever. And then they'd sit there awkwardly, whatever. So then he said, what I did, what I tried was I knocked on my kid's door and I said, Hey, can I come in? Sure. And then I just sat on their bed and hung out.

And then they just started talking. And I tried that with my daughter. It totally worked. I knocked on the door. She was, you know, whatever, hanging out. And I said, Hey, can I just sit here for a bit? Sure. And I sat down and like seven minutes later, we're talking about all kinds of different things. So meeting them where they're at basically, right? Your kids are playing video games. You're like, let me do this with you. And then you got bonding.

Well, yeah. And it's just like, I don't know. I just, you get caught in patterns of like, I always felt like I'm just coming down. I'm hammer i'm hammering i'm hammering and uh of course i'm still trying to create opportunity to do things outside and be more active and like have like healthy habits established but too like you got to understand like they're having a lot of fun doing this thing yeah and like i'm just like i don't want to be such a uh tyrant you know so just to try and like i don't know show them a little bit of like interest in their world uh you know it was going pretty far so i was like i'm gonna try really hard to to keep it up for a bit but did you like the game or was it as dumb as you thought it was fine it's you know it's not as cool isn't

it the one that they can actually build like in, in it, right? Within it? Is Fortnite like that? No, that's Minecraft. I thought you could build your own levels and things like that. I think Fortnite's the one with characters that they try to shoot each other. They're killing each other. Yeah, they try and shoot each other. But they're, like, weird-looking characters. Apparently, like, Disney just created this whole, like, map where they just spent, like,

I don't know, it was, like, a couple billion or something to, yeah, to create this whole, like, immersive world where they have Star Wars. They have all these different kind of maps that they use. But in skins, this is a big thing. Dances. They have very specific outfits and characters that you can get only in that season. And so you collect them. And so they're real big on that tell me how you guys you have to be able to see how this connects over to the apple google

conversation apple conversation totally the goggles yeah imagine remember we talked about i remember a long time ago when i brought up there was people that were like paying for like the the skins like digital skins to put like outfits and that was like the future is like gucci will not only sell a you know a thousand dollar garment but you could also get a digital version for X amount of dollars. My son got ripped off once for that. He had collected a skin. Somebody offered to buy. No,

no. He had offered to buy a skin. He ended up paying the guy money, not getting it in return. It was his first lesson in, in fraud. So, so think about that.

Like, you know how we talked the other day, like how you could like digitally put somebody else's face with the Apple goggles. Imagine when you're going to be able to dress them or yourself, like you'll have skins like that. Like a purple dragon. Yes.

I mean, and you'll, you'll, and you'll pay that to be able to do that and that'll be like a thing, like a guarantee that's going to be a thing. That's weird. Yeah. No, it's, I mean, that's the part that I think I worry the most about with my son is that, you know,

some of these ones that are so immersive that the things that he does in it is more the social interacting than like, yeah, like, I guess I care less about like Call of Duty race car games, things that it's just like that. It's like, but if like, this is the way you substituting real human. Yeah, like this is like, oh, I'm going to meet my friends and we all meet in Fortnite. And that's the only way that we play and stuff like that. Like, I don't know. And I don't think that the move is, as a dad, just, no, you can't do those things. It's more like trying to fill it with other things, or there's other things we do first before we do that.

So I think some sort of outdoor physical activity, chores, homework, schooling stuff, like checking all those boxes sports still and still or sports are played physically yeah right like or like if we're going to play this in the virtual world we're going to do this in the real world and so it's like you know i think finding ways to i mean it's kind of like the diet thing like we always talked about right like the we know this with adults why would it be any different with children like instead of telling them they can't have this thing it's like trying to add things into their life that you know are going to be beneficial for them socially mentally and physically and i think uh you know for me it was like i saw a lot of good habits and

patterns that like ethan especially was like establishing and he he just got his first job like uh coaching these these young kids in his gymnastics so great uh play so i So I was like, you know, this is really, I like what he's doing. He's spending extra time. He goes right after school to go coach, and then he trains right after that. And it was all in his own accord. And so I was like, you know,

I'm going to try and like do something fun with him. No, you guys are doing great with that. Arthur Brooks, he said that there was some data on connecting virtually versus in person. So like FaceTime and great with that. Arthur Brooks, he said that there was some data on connecting virtually versus in person. So like FaceTime and stuff like that. And they found that you get the dopamine. Yeah, you miss the oxytocin. You don't get the oxytocin.

Yeah. Which is the love hormone, right? That's how you develop- Connection and love. Yes, yes. Bonding, right? But the dopamine without the oxytocin is how you develop. It's like drinking seawater.

Like, oh, it's- Never quit your thirst's oh yes and it gets worse and worse and worse and then you can't figure out why you're anxious and depressed right because you think you're drinking all this water but it's yeah i think that's i think that is the the area where these kids are missing is they think that they're being social because they're like what are you talking about i'm playing with my friends yeah but they're not speaking to diet you brought up. I want to talk about some of Glutide and the GLP-1 agonist. Didn't you say Rogan was going to – tell me what happened. I haven't listened to that episode. I mean, I've been listening to a few of his episodes lately where it keeps getting – they keep pointing attention to Ozempic specifically

and some people they know that have had gastrointestinal side effects from it uh and and we've heard about the paralysis and that kind of stuff but uh yeah there was there was a really weird one uh actually that this lady who um she claimed that like she had like skin burns uh like intergenitals and things like yeah after using a similar semi-glutide and so they they researched that and it was like of course not yeah yeah no but it was like really weird yeah some weird what is this weird articles out there people yeah like reporting feedback that they're kind of they're trying to trace it back to i mean remember we called the propaganda war is only going to ramp up.

It's a medical intervention, okay? So it has, there's always going to be potential side effects. The data is pretty good, though. It's actually pretty, compared to any other weight loss intervention that's ever existed, it crushes them in terms of potential side effects, risks, and effectiveness. Here's the important thing, though, I think, because there is some truth to something else that's being said, but people don't understand the context. If you lost weight on your own and all you did was eat less, that's all you did. You just ate less.

What your body would do is it would lose fat and it would lose muscle. This is across the board. So the reason why you lose muscle along with the body fat is your body is trying to meet the new energy intake. So it's trying to create balance. It'd be no different than you making less money and figuring out how to spend less money to balance it out. So if you just diet, you end up losing body fat and you end up losing muscle. This is why we always say keep your protein intake high. That helps offset it and lift weights.

That definitely offsets it. Okay, so when people go on some agglutide or another GLP-1 agonist, because there's more that are coming out, they'll lose 10%, 15% of body weight pretty consistently. Okay? In the studies where people just do that, they also lose muscle. Well, it's because they're eating less. If they lift weights and make sure they hit their protein intake,

they're going to lose body fat and not lose muscle. So that's the muscle loss thing that people are talking about. It's that people just go on it and do nothing else. It's no different than going on a diet. So I think I'm personally, I'm, I'm less pro it than I am anti it. Meaning like, I don't, I definitely am not like a huge fan of it, but if I had a client that wanted to use it, utilize it, I think that I would communicate exactly that so they understood it because I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of it for these reasons. And the reason why that is is because take that out of the equation. That's already one of the biggest challenges I ever had as a trainer and coach.

We talk about it on the show at Nauseam is that clients don't hit enough protein intake. Why is it always the number one thing that we say? Like, hey, if you're not going to do anything, change anything change anything right now just go hit your protein intake watch what that does for your your overall diet watch what it does for your metabolism which what it does for building muscle if you add in lifting weights and and hitting your protein intake the then that grows even exponentially more you get leaner you build muscle yeah but the problem is that hurdle right there in itself is less than half the people even accomplish that. So, and my, my thought is that the same people that are challenged with doing that consistently are the ones that are most likely

to want to buy this. So that's the problem I have. Now, if you're the person who checks those boxes and you're like, Adam, I eat protein very consistently and I lift weights, then I see tremendous value in utilizing a tool like that. But that's just not most people. So buyer beware. Yeah. If I was a trainer now training people and this was, is available, I would use it as a potential coaching tool. Okay. So in other words, semaglutide, it makes you eat less. Now it doesn't do so like the other medical interventions that existed before where it raises catecholamines, norepinephrine, you know, raises your heart rate. So like stimulant-based appetite suppressant,

like Adderall, right? Or something like that will do that. It works through a completely different mechanism in the brain, but it does make you eat less. Now, the way I would work with a client is they would use this and then we would learn how to work with the reduced appetite to develop new habits that we can then keep while going off. I wouldn't do it without a coach because what'll happen is, and I guarantee this is what'll happen, you'll go off and the behaviors will go back to where you were before because appetite goes back up. You've built no behaviors around how to deal with, you know, what's going on. That's how I look at it. I mean, if people are just getting prescribed these medications, but they don't have an actual plan with a coach attached

work with a coach, work with a coach. Uh, yeah, because too, like you have to apply better behaviors. Like this all has to lead towards healthy behaviors in order for anything good to happen out of it. Uh, it's not like a miracle drug. It's just, what I do like about is what Dr. Seed's kind of brought up when he was on the show about, you know, lowering brain inflammation and providing that ability

to make better cognitive decisions. Like it's, a lot of times it's cloudy and it's interrupted. You know why we're not talking about that? We're not talking about that because the selling point is weight loss. Yeah, I don't even care about the weight loss.

Like I'm all about that. The most exciting thing about the glp-1s is its potential to help rewire the brain with uh habits that people use as coping mechanism so they find in data studies that people drink that's the most interesting thing to me yeah they'll stop smoking cigarettes they're less likely to gamble so that's interesting that's where i think fascinating yes but because people lose weight So that's interesting. That's where I think fascinating. Yes. But because people lose weight, cause that's where a lot of people use, you know, that's how people cope mostly is they eat more food or whatever. That's the selling point, you know, even though in my opinion, but if you're going to use it, work with a coach, it's no different in my opinion. Well,

it's a little different, but it's similar to like hiring a trainer and you show up because, you know, the trainer's waiting for you there. If, if you always rely on that, the second you're not working with a trainer, you're going to stop working out. But if you work with a trainer and you show up because you know the trainer's waiting for you there if if you always rely on that the second you're not working with the trainer you're going to stop working out but if you work with the trainer and then that allows you to take that next step to build that that behavior that habit to to get things moving then a trainer can be extremely valuable that's how i think of something like like some you know speaking of like inflammation in the brain so with that did i hear you say that the, the, the NEDS brain blend does that? Is it have, is it got anti-inflammatory properties to it?

Like how does that? Cannabinoids in general, um, can, can reduce, uh, inflammation in general to many cannabinoids. Like if you,

like if you smoke a lot of weed, um, then we'll have some kind of negative. Cause I thought that I thought obviously smoking weeds inflammatory, but that's also cause you're ingesting this hot smoke, right? And then, Oh, the actual smoke, yes.

But if you consume it, it's all anti-inflammatory across the board. But it does cause some pruning of some parts of the brain, which is why you get the memory loss with it. But the brain blend from Ned is pretty amazing. So it's got cannabinoids that don't have an effect on the body like THC. It's got higher amounts of cannabinoids that have been shown to be pro-neuronal health, so the health of the brain. And then there's other compounds in there like lion's mane that have been shown to be good for the brain as well. And I can really – so I haven't had cannabis. Yeah, you can feel the effects of it.

I haven't had cannabis in like months now, right? Because I've been off completely. The brain blend, like I feel that big time now. I'll take that and within 40 minutes it's like – I remember what a difference it was when I stopped smoking. now right because i've been off completely the brain blend like i feel that big time now i'll take that and within 40 minutes i remember what a difference it was when i stopped when i stopped smoking and then you using this because i noticed it before but not like like no because i'm like more sensitized now yeah it wasn't so do you feel like there's a um like that it peaks or is it one of those things where the more you take it it starts to compound like other like adaptogens

that we've talked about before where it's like do you feel like the consistency of using it the effects are compounding or do you feel like you feel the most the beginning because it's novel and then your body kind of plateaus off it i think the second one yeah i think your body adapts the cannabinoid uh like like like continual chronic cannabinoid use so i think so there might even be value in like cycling that or only intermittently yeah or only using it for... Yeah, use it intermittently. Yeah, or only using it for specific things, right? I'm trying to get this out of it for this event or speaking engagement. Yeah, so it's got Bacopa in there.

It's for blood flow to the brain. It's got Lion's Mane in there, which is great for, again, for growing new neuronal connections. Siberian Ginseng, which is an adaptogen along with all the other cannabinoids. So that's what makes it work so damn well. It's my favorite one.

That's the one I use before we podcast, typically. Love it. But I wouldn't use it every single day. I think on a daily basis, I wouldn't use it. I would use it more like three days a week type of deal. Or like I said, just cycle on and off or use it intermittently for specific things. I always found when we would go do live events, like the calming use it intermittently for specific things. Right. Like I always found like using, like when we would go do live events,

like the calming stuff for the sleep blend and things like that. Speaking of, speaking of which, did you know that there, they did a huge pardon of people in federal prisons for cannabis related. I know they talked about that. Can you look that up, Doug?

I think you have to, it has to be like, there's like a certain threshold, but I think they're like pardoning everybody and getting them out of you know of course it's election season they need more voters right so yeah conveniently wait till now yeah i want to know how i want to know how many and then what are the stipulations like if you went into prison for i think you can't have other violent any violent crime or anything like that i think it's just like just the cannabis that's a lot of people though bro there's a lot of people in jail for just moving weed.

Oh, yeah. So I'm curious. There had to have been, if it was under a certain amount. Because if you just let go of everybody who's in jail just for- When you were in the- What does it say, Doug? It's for use and simple possession. Yeah, so not distribution.

So if you're a dealer- Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, because that would clear lot of people you know there's a lot of people in there for what was the law when you were in the space medically legal in california yeah but the federal law was like not was what was it like if there was x amount if you had x amount then it was like 10 years well you well what the federal law could do is they could come after you for what every individual state would do. So, like, say, for example, you knew somebody who was sending a pound of weed from California to Florida.

Every single. Oh, they fly over? They fly over. You could be held to the maximum penalty of that state. And then they get added up? Yes. No way. Yes.

Yes. This is how stupid our laws are. I'm not saying that that should be fully legal, but you got child molesters and you got people breaking into houses and shit. They don't get 35, 50, 100 years. I've heard of people getting hundreds of years in jail. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

No, it was crazy how, and for marijuana of all the things too. That's so stupid. And so there's a lot of people in prison for stuff like that. That or they cross state lines with a bunch of it inside their car or something like that so that there's there's a lot of people that's why i was like there's no way they're letting go of people that no it's just simple possession and stuff like that which that's

even more crazy right can you imagine like getting caught and you got a couple joints on you or something like that and then going to prison states are still like schedule one with it uh not a ton but there are definitely some no i think texas now is medical yeah i think it's medical now if i'm not mistaken i think florida is even medical okay but there's some i think there's a couple states in the south where you're like oh yeah it's still there's still places there i don't know anymore there's a lot on there's some countries i don't i think singapore might even be i'm not sure but there's some countries that if they test your blood and they find thc in there it's considered possession and you get either executed or life executed yes what yes that's crazy there are countries like

that is it isn't dubai like super strictly that out there if dubai finds it in your blood i think you go to jail for a long ass time what yeah what Are you pulling up, Doug? What do you got for me? Well, 27 states and the District of Columbia have decriminalized small amounts of marijuana. It doesn't give me any specifics on the other ones. So half, basically. But I think Dubai is one of those, where if they catch you,

then you're... Somebody got caught in Dubai and ended up in jail. Some of them will actually still do public caning. I do feel like, too, it's at the discretion of the cop all all the time and stuff too right so there's there's a lot of it is how it's written up right so they can the reason why i always felt safe doing what we were doing was that i it was me and my my partner uh business partner like we we had clean records we we you we did everything that we could it was we were operating in the gray obviously but like i did things like i went and got my cultivating license to where i could have up to 99 plants i got that

to where i could be carrying up to 10 pounds on me and so and i would i had that laminated i would put it like in a diver's bag i'd have it on there somebody wanted to mess with you right right so like if you wanted to come get me like you had the ability you absolutely i could have been in huge trouble for a lot of things, but I was leaning on, okay, I'm trying to operate as legitimately as possible. And so if I get nailed, I'm hoping that.

What's the sketchiest, like most scared besides the, I can't say that on air. Oh, okay. Yeah. I can't say that. I've heard the story.

I can tell you people. I know stories of people. There's a lot of sketchy, sketchy stuff for sure that i had to do what's the what is the statute of limitations on that yeah i don't know one day we can do an episode we talk about when i can't go to jail for all that stuff i don't know what is that what like what are what are the laws on on that and then i know for taxes it's seven years right huh i think for taxes it's seven years, right? Huh? I think for taxes, it's seven years, if I'm not mistaken.

I believe so. They can go back and check your taxes up to seven years. So if it's like eight years ago, you could- You know what would be so interesting, too? It's like how much, like who's to say that this is a show, right? So I'm telling a story, right? So what if I- Don't give away your secret, right? If you need to use that.

This guy named Shmadam. How much could you- I know a guy once. Yeah, yeah, right? I know a guy who did this. but I mean,

there's still, there's still lots of shady business going on like that. So for drug offenses, the prosecution must commence within three years of the offense being committed according to the law. Oh, good. The statute of limitations is in effect as long as you are in the state of California. This is California specific.

Oh, that doesn't count. We're talking federal. Well, federal, yeah. Explain that again. So you might say, I heard two things there. I heard like in California, I'm fucked no matter what forever. I think the statute of limitations is three years in California. They have to prosecute you within three years. Oh, that's good. This is all

a long time ago, so we can talk about that. Yeah, federally, it looks like it's five years. Oh, so you're still good? Yeah. The scariest thing is getting your money back. That's always the scariest. Because when you do stuff, no one thinks about that, right? In a transaction like that is getting the money.

Like, money is always the hardest part. It was actually never the marijuana. It was never the cannabis. It was always getting your money. Like, if you send somebody 10 pounds or 20 pounds of marijuana imagine how much money you're talking about 60 to 100 000 in cash well that's a big pile of money and nobody by the way has bank stacks of hundreds so it's like 20s yeah it's like whatever it's like anything whatever they can put together and so how do you how do you get that how put together. And so how do you get that?

How do you pick that up? How do you carry that? Like you're not putting it in a bank anywhere. And so if this person is not in the same state as you are, like imagine having to move that. That was always the scariest part. And then in the space, we called that tax, right? Because you lose. You lose a lot.

And it's just part of the... Oh, people lose money. Yeah, so even though you're running a business that's cash in black market or gray market... You still got to pay somebody. You still got to pay your taxes. And that's kind of how you would talk about it, is just that, like, I paid my tax.

I lost $30,000 this week because somebody stole it or got nabbed or whatever the case may be. Oh, that makes sense. But you don't think about that stuff. You don't think about the... People are so eager to make the money and you're so focused on that but then it's like oh shit like how do i actually get that money to me and then once it finally gets to me what can i actually do with that you can't do much yeah you if you go buy something over 10 you know nine grand nine grand so anything over nine grand will trigger an

automatic flag so you can't walk in anywhere and buy anything over nine grand will trigger an automatic flag. So you can't walk in anywhere and buy anything over nine grand. You can't put more than nine grand into your bank account at one time without it triggering all these things. So it's like, what do you do? Well, then it sounds like a good problem to have, but you'll never starve. But then it's like, you can't really make any real moves. And we structure society in a way that it does not benefit the cash rich person at all. Like we're about credit. It's all about having good credit. And if you're not in the system and you're not paying all these high taxes, you can have all the cash in the world, but you can't even go buy a suburban home because you don't have any way to prove you can pay for that loan

and you certainly can't go take all that cash. That's interesting. Speaking of marijuana, you guys see Pearl Jam's coming out with a new album? What? For real? A real one? Or is it like a remake of the greatest hits?

No, brand new. Brand new. And they're releasing like in a, I don't know, a week or two, like a single off of it. They're the greatest band. I'm excited. They're the greatest band. Are they all still together too? No one one's broken up from it i think so i think i

think i don't know if anybody's died interesting play have you like dove into like why now and what did what the deal that i mean i mean they've still been touring and the thing is like i've i've been trying so hard to get tickets to go to a show i've never been and they came here to the bay area and it was like you had to be on a waiting list and follow them to even get a time period to like try and get a ticket and like we we just never made it they're for they're the best in my opinion the best they're awesome they're the best band of the 90s yeah that's my that's my 100 it is sad because it's like they're like one of the remaining oh my god i didn't even know they didn't i didn't know they did a new album in 2020 so eddie vetter still still in it too yeah yeah yeah i didn't know they did a new album in 2020 did you know that really no i didn't

yeah i didn't even know they did yeah they did another one yeah oh my god i can't wait i mean every other band it's like their their front man died you know like they were like one of the few grunge you know what the name is gonna be what uh dark matter yeah okay all right it's on april 19th so april 19th it's supposed it's supposed to drop speaking of things that are coming out did you guys like the movie i am legend back when it came out one of the better zombie movies all right you don't like it that much are you a zombie genre do you like yeah yeah okay yeah was it 48 days later that was freaky that's the one that that changed the the course of zombie movies is that a rob zombie movie is that rob zombie who did that no which one did he do he did oh

you don't want to watch his shit that's too much that's what i thought it was which one did he do he did the thousand corpses yeah oh right that was of a thousand corpses yeah something like that his movies i was like too much like you're watching like this is i feel like i don't feel good this is not good but is it 48 days later or 28 days later what's it called 28 days it must have been a follow-up yeah because zombie movies got super campy for a while well no because you know zombie movies were remember when we were kids they were stupid because zombies were slow and everybody made fun of them yeah then they came out with i think it's 28 days later and they were fast and aggressive and scary and it totally changed so i am legend was so anyway i am legend 2 was coming out oh really yeah dude

but like will smith was in the last one is he gonna be in this he is i don't even remember uh how that one ended do we forgive will smith yet at the very end it looks like he commits suicide to take out a bunch of them so obviously he survived or whatever i think right am i is that the ending of it never saw it i think oh so good good good films that's right it was a good movie what are you guys talking about i mean it was all right. I'm not into that stuff at all. Oh, yeah, you get scared. Yeah. What was that? I forgot. The one series that it was a video game series that they had,

Fungus was the cause of everybody becoming zombies. It was a Cordyceps thing. Cordyceps. I take that every day. Oh, yeah. You guys were all excited about. I liked the idea of that. Last year, there was like a zombie thing like that.

You guys were all... It was actually really smart. It was really smart. So what happened? You guys talked about it one time. I talked about it. You talked about how amazing it was. It was good.

It wasn't like something I'm like jumping up and down. Oh, so you went through the whole season. Yeah, I saw the whole thing. I watched like half the season and then I didn't finish it. Yeah. How can you talk about something, about how you like it so much and then you can't even finish the season?. I watched like half the season and then I didn't finish it. Yeah. How can you talk about something, about how you like it so much and then you can't even finish the season?

It was a great half season. That should be a rule from now on. I don't want to hear shit from you guys until you've watched a full season of something. Why? Yeah, but what about the concept? It's a reputation. We're going to get known as a terrible podcast

for recommending shows because of you guys. No, we're not. Because you're like, one episode, you're like, this is amazing, go watch this, guys. It's like, oh, I didn't even finish this season. It was good. It got good ratings.

Everybody liked the creator I was promoting. I got good feedback on that. I liked the premise. I thought it was a smart. I got some good feedback. Watch a Netflix. It's called Lover, Stalker, Killer. Okay.

Based on a true story. It's really good. I know Courtney will like it because I know she likes thriller, murder, mystery. And it was like one of those. Was it a true story? Yeah. Oh. Yeah, that's it.

And what do they call that when they reenact it or whatever? Docudrama? Yeah, something like that, right? So it's like they hire actors, but then the- So they tell the story, but then they watch it.

Yeah, exactly. They're interviewing the real people, right? So you're getting to see them and then they narrate the story, but then there's people acting out like the the whatever happened but it was one that uh i can't remember the last time i saw a true story where a true crime story where i'm watching it and i can't figure it out as i'm going through it like it was that good was that good where like until the end you're like get the fuck really yeah yeah and then you hear right they open

it up with the cops and the agents of that saying, like, this was the most twisted, like, story we've ever had, case we've ever had to solve. So it's really interesting. And what's even more interesting about it is that it may never have gotten solved had another group of agents picked it up years later.

Really? Yes. How, God, can you imagine being a woman trying to date online nowadays like what what how do you know you have no idea let's meet up for lunch this is a dude this is a dude getting stalked what yes this makes it even more interesting to get killed i'm not gonna say i'm not gonna say how it goes now watch it you guys will like it it's oh yeah just as like another dude stalked him because that happens no as a girl no yeah it's a girl that's not spoiling anything well that's like fatal attraction remember fatal attraction it's rare though you gotta watch it you gotta watch it and it also too it's like it it's intertwined with the you know the online you know plenty of fish and dating online type of

stuff too so it makes you kind of your wheels spin a little bit so weird so i want i wanted to mention something because i just experienced this again. We've talked about this before. You're out of mentions today. Okay. I'm sorry. You want to go ahead and say it? So for a while there, I was eating store-bought beef and red meat.

And I didn't piece it together. All this has happened a couple times. And I was getting more inflamed because I eat so much red meat. And then I went back to the grass fed from ButcherBox. Big difference. It makes a big difference if you eat a lot of meat. It makes a huge difference. And I can feel it in my body and my joints

and everything that I- Well, I think especially somebody like you, because out of all of us, you probably eat the most red meat. You're every day, wouldn't you say? I'm probably a pound a day. That's a lot. Every day.

I'd probably match that. Justin's up there. I'm probably a pound a day. That's a lot. Every day. I'd probably match that. Justin's up there. I'm a big beef eater. That sounds weird. Maybe that's why you're so puffy. You think you're just inflamed all the time? Who's talking about that? I eat high-grade butcher box meat.

This is a body fat. Just some swelling. Actually, I've had a lot of people tell me. Itovation. No, bro. You look way better. I ovation looks like a puff in the face. I told you that's always when I feel insecure about myself. Adam always comes to you when he's feeling bad about himself. Every time we pass an ice cream shop, he's like, hey.

I bring him in. Our faces look hella fat lately. You notice that? Our? Yeah. I feel like we're losing muscle can you tell hey i still get messages from that interview we did with where i look like bro it's because we were in london i was eating hella gluten and whatever it is i looked at that i think that was gorgeous why

is my face looks it's a camera it was a camera no it wasn't my face was that big it was oh no i looked like charlie brown it was like a planet what's that one cartoon that kids watch i just made ryan hate it looks like the uh is it uh the kid's bald it looks like it doesn't look like he's well caillou yes what is that caillou no i'm not the most annoying cartoon ever made this most annoying cartoon of all oh really yeah and it's like this big bald kid like you know when you think about it something's wrong with that kid why is he yeah why is he maybe there was something and so now we're assholes i tell you i i've probably been the most lenient on the ipad and tv lately because max has fallen in love with

this numbers oh well he's just learning like crazy yes let him learn he doesn't even know he's doing multiplication he's like he does because he's just singing like crazy. Let him learn. He doesn't even know he's doing multiplication. Like he does because he's just singing the songs that are in the show and stuff. And I'm like, okay. Yeah. I was like, it's not often like I'm dad's super pro watching cartoons,

but this cartoon is like teaching him math and it's brilliant. So I told you, we told that my son, the TV is broken, right? So like the TV is broken, but he still tries and he's like, well,

let's do this. Let's do the iPad. Yeah. So I just, you know, every once in a while you see a trait of yourself and your kid and your ego just puffs up a little bit right so he goes up to he goes up to jessica and he goes and he does this with his hands he goes so mom what are those videos called where you learn from them she's

like educational because yeah can i watch an educational video? I'm in the kitchen. I'm dying. Like, he's trying to sell his mom on watching something by salesman in action. Oh, yeah. I think it was pride, you know? I told her, I said, let him have this one. Let him have it. Let him win sometimes. Let him win a little bit, because that was a good, for a three-year-old?

That was good. Educational? Right, right, right. On the way here, Katrina texted me. She said Max caught her off guard because she was telling him i guess the last couple days at school he hasn't been eating his lunch and so uh she's telling him before that she's dropping him off hey today you need to make sure you eat your lunch i saw you didn't eat your lunch he goes why what will happen and she's like

oops yeah she had to like think about like what am i gonna do if you don't do that right i was so caught off guard so the best thing i come up with like well you won't be able to have any of your snacks and it was like okay that made sense that was logical but she's like yeah he's now at that age where we're starting to challenge things like that and you better be on your toes to be able to explain it i that was something a commitment uh i've made myself is that i don't ever want to default to because daddy told you so. Like I always want, and it's hard because they catch you off guard. Like that's just that you just want them to do what you want. Right. You know, but really you want them to do it because they

understand that's right. Not because of you. That's right. And I, I think that as parents, it's, it's really easy to default because I'm dad and I said, so yeah. And it's like, so I challenged myself to like in those moments, like, you know, and it can be obviously a pain in the ass because it goes deeper and deeper, right? Why, why, why, why, why? And it's like, yeah, but I want to be able to explain the logic of why I'm telling you or making you do these things, not simply because dad told you so. And so it's always funny though, when they, he catches you off guard because you're not always ready for the why or what will happen or whatever it's like this this is how i heard it

communicate because i grew up like that i grew up like you just this is what i think all of us do that was like our generation was most people yeah and it gets the job done is what it does but the way i was it was explained to me where it made sense it's like do you not rob a bank because you're afraid to go into jail or because it's wrong right there's a big difference i was like oh okay i can see that yeah and i also i mean i want my son to be able to challenge authority intelligently yes right yes and so just he's gonna be told to do a lot of so i don't want i don't want because i'm the authority in the house and i told you so you have to just listen to authority i'm pretty sure with your genetics he's gonna question

i'm pretty sure he's gonna to do whatever. He's already doing that. The hardest thing for me right now is he's a very sensitive kid. So that's the challenge right now. He will default to crying. Someone takes something from him.

Right now, we're having to work with that when other kids either bully or take stuff like that. It's teaching him how to stand up for himself and not just come cry. No, no, no. having to work with that. When other kids either bully or take stuff like that, it's teaching him how to stand up for himself and not just come cry. No, no, no, no, no. Punch him in the face. That's right. Yes.

Push him down when he's in the sandbox. Push him down. It feels better than crying. No, don't do that. Just kidding. But that, I can tell already, that'll be our challenge is he'll default. He's such a sweet kid that he defaults to the crying over something like that. It's like I'm trying to get him to, no, no, no, we don't cry over that. Let's use our words.

My son and my brother's son, they'll get together, and they'll fight with each other 60% of the time, and then 40% of the time they'll play with each other. But when they fight, it is hilarious. So we've got to separate them. Then they'll play with each other but when they fight it is hilarious so we gotta separate them then they'll take one toy and then but they were together a few weeks ago and my my son took something from him my brother's son took it back so aurelius hits him right so he holds his face we separate them okay 40 minutes later okay 40 minutes later they're leaving to say

goodbye say goodbye to each other they walk up to each other and you know my my nephew angelo looks at my and he remembered he looked at him boom hit him back and no right before he left oh my brother and i were like oh okay so in this situation do the wives freak out no they're really good okay everybody yeah they're really good about it and you know like you know if he hits the other kid you go and take care of the other kid first to show them like hey this isn't are you okay and then hey if you do that i'm not gonna let you do that you can't do that anymore type of deal but they're gonna do i mean when i was a kid my oh my god my cousins and i used to fight all the time. Oh, yeah. All the time. It was Royal Rumble.

You have what we just explained, the extreme opposites of the spectrum. You have your son who's quick to defend himself. Take my shit. You know what I'm saying? And you have my son who's going to default and go to crying. And you want something in the middle, right? You want him to be able to- They have to learn.

Right. You want him to be able to stand up for himself, but then also not just resort to violence or- They learn to- It's what's called self-regulation. Right. That's what they're learning, is how to self-regulate type of deal.

But anyway, watching it's kind of funny, especially my brother and I, because we're just cracking up. What are we shouting out? Are we going to shout out the certification that's happening here? I would say so. What are the dates on that?

Are you talking about Shallows? Yeah.cript he'll be doing he'll be hosting it here at mind pump and uh jordan shallow one of the smartest people in our space period and historic now and he also is like he walks the walk the dude isn't just a a scholar he's also a powerlifter and trains athletes no he's brilliant yeah he amazing. Okay, what are we doing though for our audience? I know that if the first, is it 10? So the first 10 can actually come into the studio and watch a recording. Okay.

And then everybody else will have a Q&A session with us. Okay. I can meet and greet as well. This is the day before. Swag bag. So on Friday. So what we're doing is- So March 15th is the Q&A, it says here.

And then it says 16th and 17th? Which I think is Saturday and Sunday. So if this is correct, is that right? So everybody, if you sign up for this and you come to the thing with Jordan, you have the option to come a day early, hang out with us here.

We'll do a live Q&A for I don't know how many hours that Katrina's blocked off for us. The first 10 people to sign up for this right now will have the opportunity to watch a live recording also. Awesome. And you go to it's pre-script.com forward slash mind-pump-ps, is that L? L1. One. PSL1.

They need a better. Up, down, down, left, right, select A, B, start. It'll be in the show notes. Yeah, it's in the show notes, so check it out. Yeah, refer to that. At this point, you've probably heard that probiotics can greatly improve your health. It's true. The right probiotics can make a difference with gut health, brain health, and some studies

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Anyway, go to seed.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code 25mindpump and get 25 25 off your first month's order of seeds daily symbiotic all right back to the show our first caller is daniel from switzerland daniel what's up what's going on hey guys how you doing oh my god that's this is the surreal moment that's crazy how can we help you nice to see you you. Thank you. Right. So I'm just going to jump in my, uh, on my question, the email I wrote. So I love the podcast and really appreciate what you guys do. Uh, so I'm 38 years old. I live in Switzerland. I've been training on and off for the past few years, but now I'm very consistent since December, 2021. And I'm going to the gym five times a week, Monday to Friday. After work,

I follow a body split, body part split program. And visually, I sent in some pictures, I think I may be at 17 or 18% body fat, could be more. I look and feel great compared to what I was in my 20s. I'm 38 now, as I said, and I feel that maybe I should start TRT. I do have low energy levels, but I haven't tested. Well, when I sent this email, I didn't get tested because it's a bit difficult to get tested here in Switzerland,

but I finally convinced my doctor to test and I came back at 377. I'm really in it if I want to go into TRT for losing body fat, mainly aesthetics. I can finally see my abs, so I really like that. But I would like to look more into, you know, getting shredded and more ripped. like to look more into you know getting shredded and more ripped i'm leaning towards uh your uh either maps anabolic or aesthetics but when i sent him this question i i was thinking about that about that but um i ended up buying aesthetics in your um black friday sale so i'm at phase three right now. But yeah, I just would love to hear about TRT. And I also think that seems like a lifelong solution.

And also, very quickly, I'm a short guy. I'm five feet, four inches. So I have small wrists. I do dumbbell bench press um uh with 34 kilograms uh each dumbbell but getting the dumbbell from the rack to the bench is a struggle how do i improve my uh grip strength okay all right let's start with the testosterone so what would be clinically labeled as low testosterone would be below 300 uh nano i think it's what is 300 nanograms per deciliter. You're on the cusp. If you're suffering from symptoms of low testosterone and you're on the line, then you would want to talk to a hormone specialist that does this and see if they'll, if they'll work with you. The typical, uh, general practitioner will go right off of the, what their, what, what their numbers say, which is they typically won't give a man testosterone, especially if he's in child,

uh, you know, like infertility years, right? Years where you're going to want to have a child. If you don't have kids, they'd be very reluctant to put you on testosterone because it can make it so that you can't have kids unless your testosterone is like below 300, right? But you're on the line. You've got symptoms of low testosterone. There's lots of things that people can do with their lifestyle to raise their testosterone. I've seen some quite successful changes with people, but you'd want to work with a hormone specialist who does this. And typically what they'll do is they'll base it off of the number and symptoms. So it's a combination of both. So like someone who's 400 but they have symptoms of low testosterone, they'll get put on TRT.

Or somebody who's at 400 and feels perfectly fine, they won't be put on TRT. So it's a combination of things when you speak to the actual specialist. As far as grip strength is concerned, you would want to do maybe one or two sets of specific grip strengthening exercises when you work out maybe your back or your biceps. It's typically a good combination. So like a set of a dumbbell hold or a farmer walk, um, is usually enough to speed up the process of strengthening the grip. And then using chalk typically helps. And if you work out in a gym that doesn't allow using chalk, then you can use liquid chalk, which most gyms are totally fine with.

What is, what is the rest of your, your day slash life look like? All right. What do you do for work? And you know, what's your sleep routine like? And do you have like normal hours? Like, tell me a little bit about like your, like your routine and your, your daily life. So, uh, I'm, I'm, um, an accountant, so I have a very, uh, sad, no, I'm just joking. Very desk job. I sit on the desk eight hours. My sleep is really bad. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and I have the CPAP machine, which is just a nightmare to be on the whole night. I have a six-year-old who comes at about three o'clock at night in our bed. And then one of us, which is really me, have to go into the guest room and I'm not going to, you know, take my machine with me at three o'clock at night. So after that sleep is just, is really bad. And,

and I, and I believe that that may be one of the causes of my low T. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Probably the major one. Yeah. You could, I mean, fixing your sleep could,

could raise your testosterone by 50, 60%. I want to put you well in a nice range. I want to send you a different program of ours too, because I don't think maps aesthetic is the most appropriate for what you got going on right now. So I would do maps anabolic. So we're going to, I'll send, I'll send maps. would do maps anabolic so we're gonna i'll

send i'll send maps 15 15 yeah maps anabolic or maps 15 either one are fine i'm gonna send you maps anabolic just because that's our foundational program and i think that between that and really solving the the bad thing is is going to like sleep is going to be uh huge and i don't know if that means uh before getting it interrupted, you move your stuff into the other room and you actually start the night out sleeping in the, in the guest room. I know obviously for marriage, that's not always the most ideal situation, but you know, maybe, maybe you guys hang out and then right before she falls asleep, that's when you kind of cut out and then go to the other room just because you know,

that's going to happen to you because getting your sleep disrupted every night like that and then not being able to have your machine that helps you get into deep sleep is 100 affecting your hormone levels i mean that's probably the main reason why you feel tired or weak and that your tr and your testosterone levels are low and so solving that while simultaneously scaling back on the volume in your training, those two things alone, you should see positive benefits in the building muscle, leaning out direction for sure. Totally, yeah. You got to train appropriately and fix your sleep. I've seen a person's testosterone double just from fixing their sleep.

I've had clients, especially when it's low. I like my routine of going to the gym five times a week, like work week so that I have a routine. And I, and if I miss one day, I just feel so bad. Is there a version of anabolic in which maybe I can split something? So I'm going every day. You can, or you could go to the gym and do and walk and do some mobility. I mean, you can still take that time for yourself, but just too much volume, especially with crappy sleep is going to, I mean, you can still take that time for yourself, but just too much volume, especially with crappy sleep, is going to... I mean, you're not helping yourself.

You're going to hurt yourself. There's two ways you could do that. You could cut anabolic in half and literally make it into a six-day routine. Okay? So that's what... You could cut the workout in half like that and make it a six-day routine.

Or you can do what Sal's alluding to, which is you still train the three full days, but then on the other days you go to the gym, you're walking, you're stretching, maybe doing some sauna, meditating. You're doing things that are more recuperative for your body on the other day. So either one of those ways would be better. Either one of those options is a better option than MAPS Aesthetic for where you're currently at right now. MAPS Aesthetic is one of our highest volume training programs. for where you're currently at right now.

MAPS Aesthetic is one of our highest volume training programs. And I know obviously a lot of people are drawn to it because it is the program to get you shredded and lean in aesthetics. And so people are drawn. But we got to first fix your sleep and your hormone levels because nothing is going to make a bigger difference on you getting ripped more than that. That will show you the progress that you're looking for in your training more than anything else will.

So addressing that I think is the top priority. I think, I think maps in a box, a great program for you. However, I do think the maps 15 has that structure already built in. So if you wanted to just follow off of that as the, the main sort of blueprint,

you know, that would be my recommendation. I don't know if he's still there or not yeah daniel we've lost your video you might have lost him all together yeah boy kids are paying the ass i swear my kids uh it's just it's almost like if four or five days a week there's some kind of disrupted sleep oh yeah from one of them i'm still dealing with that and he's 11 i mean he'll come in and uh it'll be like different times of the night because something scared him and so we actually have this like huge bean bag now it's like you don't okay you know here's here's the option or or i go put him back to bed it's one or the other yeah i i

think that you know i obviously i know it's not the most ideal situation for a married couple to sleep in different beds. But there comes a point here where even your hormone levels are like this. You're tired. So I think the move I would do is I'd spend my quality time with my wife, you know, i.e. that we'd have sex, whatever it is. And then when it's time for her to go to bed or us go to sleep, I would break off and go head to the other room and sleep in the other room. bed or us go to sleep i would break off and go ahead to the other room and sleep in the other room because the fact that he's got sleep apnea and on top of that it's getting disrupted it's like that's like a double whammy for him and getting up in the middle of night not moving his machine and then thinking he's going to fall back and have good good sleep he's just he's

missing out on that spoon in and take off yeah that's just and it's so important to recovery and if you're and then the the program aesthetic is not the right program for him for what he's going through right now. Way too much, yes. You've got to solve that. So I think that sometimes that's not what people want to hear because it's not like that they think is going to get them the most shredded, but that is what's going to get you the most shredded

is by solving the sleep issue. And that's probably what I would do, which is I would just, I'd sleep in the other room. Yep. Our next caller is Adrian from Maryland. Adrian, how can we help you? Hi. Sorry.

I'm a little nervous. I just wanted to apologize to Doug. My grammar and my email was awful. No worries. So just a little background and then I'll do the question. I'm 54. I was in the army for almost 21 years. So that meant about four to five days a week of running and two days of body weight or calisthenics. I've been retired now for 15 years. And during that time I've run sporadically. I've done 5Ks,

a couple of 15Ks, and some weightlifting videos at home. I gained the retirement 25 pounds, the college 15 pounds, and the divorce 20 pounds. So recently, I've also recovered from plantar fasciitis in both of my feet and a pulled muscle behind one of my knees. I started lifting consistently about two years ago to help with the knee pain. And so now I feel really good. I don't have any pain. And I've also been working on building muscle and cleaning up my diet. So now I'm ready to start cutting.

I'm at that point where you're always saying gain some weight, you know, don't worry about losing the weight, work on building muscle and bulking a little bit. And so now I'm at that part. So I worry about retaining muscle as I lose weight. I really like feeling stronger and being mobile. I feel really solid. I stretch and I do the mobility at least once a week. I'm currently doing anabolic advance for the second time and I've done anabolic, but I prefer the upper and lower body split. I keep my cardio to less than 20 minutes most days when I do them, mostly walking with intervals, incline or spin bike. And I started running intervals just a couple of times a month for a little bit of change. And plus I enjoy the effects of running. So to lose weight, I know I have to lower my calories. Should I concentrate

on lifting the same amount of weight that I am now. How do I know that my muscles are still adapting and I'm not in the recovery trap? And what are some signs that my metabolism is getting better or at least I'm not getting worse? Do you know how many calories you're currently consuming, Adrienne? About 2,100, 2,200. Okay. And you're tracking on a regular basis or is this an estimate? I'm trying to, I do really good most days up until, you know, dinner time. And then, um, you know, I might snack a little bit after. Okay. So we don't know, we don't know how many

calories you're consuming. Okay. Have you worked with a trainer? Is it, is that feasible for you to hire a trainer or work with somebody? Not right now. Not right now. I can't. Just the cost and I don't even know where I would get one right now. Got it. Yeah. No problem. Okay. So a couple of things based off of your past and what you're currently doing. I think you're working out too much and too hard for yourself just based off of the information that you're giving me and some of the struggles you're working out too much and too hard for yourself. Just based off of the information that you're giving me and some of the struggles you're having, the plantar fasciitis, your history in the military, how you're talking about your workouts. I don't think anabolic advance is appropriate for you. And I don't think that the intervals are a good idea for you. I

think we need to keep you with much lower volume of training, but then with the diet, we need to know specifically where you're at. If you know the, the guessing and then kind of cutting it off at dinner, it could be all over the place and people are notoriously, I couldn't give you anything within, I'm going to be off by 20% of my calories and I know what I'm doing. Just if I try to guess where I'm at and I've had I mean I've done this many many times to know that you're just not going to know where you're at so we need to know where your calories are at on a consistent basis before we can even attempt to cut as far as a workout is concerned anabolic is fine mass 15 would probably be even better you could do the

advanced version and then I would track steps and I wouldn't do anything that's interval based. I would love, I'll do this for you if you do something for me. So I would love for you to use either fat secret or my fitness pal to track for a week consistently, not missing anything. I'm going to have Doug put you in the forum for free. And then if you try, and then I would also like you to track your steps. If you give me that, a week of tracking your food and a week of tracking your steps. And don't change anything. Yeah, don't change anything. Don't try to impress me.

Do what you do so I know what's a normal week for you. So just do what you normally do, but track it diligently for a week, both steps and what you eat. And then I want you to post it and tag me in the forum so I can assess it. And then from there, I'll give you even better advice as far as what to do with the calories, what to do with movement. I agree with Sal, uh, anabolic or symmetry would probably be the program. One of those two programs would be the program I would have pushed you towards. So I think that's the right choice. But what I'll do is I will give you specific step advice and calorie advice when I get an idea of what a

consistent week looks like on what we should do. Because what I don't know, and it'd be interesting to see is how much your movement in relation to where your calories is, if I really want to cut that much right now, or do I want to continue to focus on reverse dieting? And then I also want to be able to see how consistent you are with hitting those protein targets every day, because for sure, if we cut calories and you're missing your protein intake significantly, we're going to lose muscle. And that would be my main, my number one focus was to make sure that we hang on to any bit of a muscle that you've built over the last year or two of training. Do you, in tracking the macros are going to be really important because if we don't, if we're not sure what your calories are, you're probably not also sure what your protein intake is. Is that correct? Um, I, I've been shooting for at least

120, 150 a day, but I, I'm probably missing it. Okay. Yeah. We need to know. You give me that for a week and I'm going to be able to give you really good advice. Totally. Do you drink alcohol? Do you have, how many drinks a week do you have or do you not? Maybe two drinks a year. Okay, good. Okay. And I asked that because sometimes people don't add that in their tracking and I've had clients where they were tracking, they didn't add that. And then I'm like, oh, we got to add that. That's another 150, 200 calories a day type of deal. So you want to track everything, including fluids. Don't change anything.

Be very accurate. And then Adam will be able to give you much better specifics. Because we could try to give you advice right now, but it's going to be based off of guessing. And it would be like trying to assess how to fix a car without doing an assessment. And I don't want to tell you to cut calories right now if that's not the best advice. And I won't know that until I kind of get a better idea of what you're doing in a regular week. And then from there, I'll give you much better advice on the direction. Because we might just hang out where you are calorie-wise and just make a better effort towards protein intake

and give you a better workout routine. That might right there send us in the right direction. Or maybe you are eating 23 to 2,500 calories and you're hitting plenty of protein and you could easily cut 200 or 300 calories, increase our steps by a couple thousand and see great fat loss. So let me see that. You give that for me. You do that for me.

I'll get Doug to put you in there for free. We'll also send over anabolic to you so you've got everything you need. And then you do that for me. You do that for me. I'll get Doug to put you in there for free. We'll also send over anabolic to you so you've got everything you need. And then you do that for me, tag me, and then I'll tell you what to go from there. Okay. Yeah, I already have anabolic. Oh, okay. Oh, beautiful. Great, great.

We'll put you in the forum then. Okay. Make sure you tag all of us, okay, Adrienne? Okay. A little bit different than I was expecting, but I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. That's what I need. Yeah.

Yeah. We want to give you the right answer. We don't want to just, yeah, give you an answer that's because we give you the wrong answer. Even if it sounds right on air, we don't want you to go down the wrong path. We got you.

You're at your, you're, you're in the forum. You're in the family. We'll take care of you from here. Well, thank you. All right,

Andrew. Thank you. Thank you. Sweet. Yeah. Sweetly. Most people think she was an alcoholic or something why do you say no no no no just because of her age that was so random you know no no you know why because my the the clients that i typically would mess up with that and it just occurred to me were all typically people in their in their 50s and for some reason they'd have a glass of wine or something they wouldn't track it so because you're telling her to track i'm like make sure she wasn't tracking any of the rest of her food so it's like yeah and there's a lot of those things that sneak in totally totally yeah i have

a feeling what we're gonna see is uh this is my guess let's see if i'm right i'm thinking she's gonna be uh low calorie so she's gonna be in the 2000 range at the highest probably in that range i think she's gonna be missing protein on most days and i don't think the advice would be to cut calories quite yet i think the advice is going to be probably keep her calories around the same but hit protein intake yeah and then move to a better program and then i don't i'm really curious to see what her steps are so i hope she and remind her in the email doug for me please to track her step i know i told her that but i want to make sure she does that too because that will give me an idea of her activity level because she's retired,

right? Is that what I got from her? Yeah. So she's retired and if her only activity is the, you know, a little bit of Then it's not much. Yes, exactly. Steady state cardio and lifting, then she might not be burning very much and simply putting her on a walk for, you know, an hour

a day too could be like game changing. I mean, and the other, just the one other thing is that it's, it's, it's almost like clockwork where we have someone call in or even send an email and they'll pick a program that one of our programs, and it's typically one that's too much volume.

They almost never go with the appropriate program. And based off which the anabolic advanced, I, you know, I'll be surprised if that's the appropriate place for her to start. I think anabolic would be good two days a week, the two day a week version. Our next caller is Holly from Minnesota. Hi, Holly. How can we help you? Hi, hi guys. It is so exciting to talk to you. I can't even believe I'm doing this today. So thank you so much for taking my question.

And like everyone says, I just want to pass on my gratitude to you guys for all that you do in this space. As you know, the health and fitness space can have some really interesting and toxic perspectives. And I just want to thank you guys for all the positive stuff you put out there. It's been transformative in my life. And I just want you to know guys for all the positive stuff you put out there. It's been transformative in my life. And I just want you to know how much of a difference you make. Thank you. So, yeah, I'll just get right into my question.

I'm going to read it so I don't get sidetracked. I do that sometimes. So my overarching question to you guys is I know you guys get frustrated when the science crowd knocks reverse dieting. So I'm curious what you'd advise people when they try it and it doesn't seem like it works for them. Are there limits to reverse dieting and what are they? Are some people just not good candidates for it? I hear people talk about reverse dieting like it's as simple as eating slightly more over time and training to build muscle. But when I

tried it, something just didn't really seem to click for me. So just a little bit of background. For most of my fitness journey, I was an intuitive eater and I had a lot of success with that. I dropped 12% body fat and gained lots of muscle over the course of a couple of years, cycling through as many MAPS programs as I could, and just eating whole natural foods about 90% of the time. And the reason I decided to try a reverse diet was not really because I was unhappy with how things were going, but really because I've never done a true bulk before. I was wondering what I might have been leaving on the table and wondering if a higher metabolism was possible. And I think there was part of me

that just wanted to chase a goal again. I also really love food. So anything that gets me to eat more food, I'm all about it. I didn't know my exact maintenance calories since I was intuitively eating. But when I got the idea to try this reverse dieting thing, I prepared for it in advance by signing up for a macro coaching app that has an algorithm to estimate my calorie expenditure based on my nutrition info that I input and a graph of my weight trend. I used that app for several months before starting and I found my maintenance range to be about 2200 to 2300 calories. So with that info in September, I started the process with anabolic advanced. I started weighing 130 pounds.

I'm 5'2 and about 20% body fat. I added an extra 60 to 80 calories a day to start. And the first two to three weeks actually went pretty well. I didn't gain anything and maybe even dropped a pound. So I was feeling pretty excited. So then I added another 60 calories or so, but this time the weight seemed to come on really fast and almost make up for what I didn't gain for in the first few weeks. I tried to give it some time to level out, but I was watching my weight trend graph in

the app and it was just still steadily climbing up and not really leveling out. It just seemed like I was kind of in a full- on bulk, not a reverse diet. And I noticed my appetite spiked like crazy too. I was just super hungry all the time during that time. So I was hoping maybe it was a good sign. I was putting on some muscle, but when I did my circumference measurements, I did put on about an inch on my waist as well. So I'm just kind of interested in your thoughts on what maybe I did wrong or what I'm not understanding about the process. Let's get more specific. You said your weight was coming on fast. I'm not sure you did anything wrong. With an extra 60 calories a day. How much weight are we talking? So when it started coming back up, it was probably about a pound a week.

Okay. So a pound a week a week yeah i think you were probably doing great yeah you're doing good also a pound a week um at 60 pounds surplus something was off there and we'd want to get more of an accurate measurement okay because water fluctuations can more than make up for that especially especially with a woman. Okay, women will see water fluctuations much more than men typically will because of hormonal changes. Body fat testing and trending with body fat tests is a better gauge than even circumference measurements. Even circumference measurements around the waist can be misleading,

especially, again, with women with water gain, water drop, or it could be digestive stuff. You can see a swing in the waist by two inches sometimes. So it's really tough to say. I think it's also important to note something that you commented on that is normally a sign that we're doing things really well, which is that's the increase in appetite. That's a- Typically means a good thing. That's normally a good sign. That's normally meaning that your metabolism is starting to speed up and your body's trying to tell you we need to feed it even more calories.

What was going on with your strength in the gym? Were you saying the same? Were you getting stronger? How were your lifts? Oh, it was really good. I was doing anabolic advanced. And since I had been doing mostly intuitive eating, I was used to getting stronger. But then when I started actually intentionally trying to eat more, I was amazed at how much faster the needle moved that way.

So that was exciting. You were going in the right direction. I think you were doing great. If you were my client and we were going through this, I would just be kind of coaching you on just be patient. Let's just stay the course right now. on just be patient. Let's just stay the course right now. Even if you think that a pound a week is, I mean, a pound a week every week for, you know, 10 weeks straight, maybe we were to back off, but a pound a week just for a few weeks in a row, I'm not really worried about that at all. I mean, especially if you were giving me feedback that I'm getting stronger and my appetite is up.

If you didn't give me those cues. And muscle gain is almost always in short spurts. It's never like I gain this consistent amount of muscle over time. It's almost like I get stronger, I get stronger, I get stronger, I get stronger. And then boom, three pounds of muscle. And then I get stronger. So you grow in spurts with muscle. It's not this like consistent kind of gain. And because your strength went up, your energy, was it good?

Did you feel good?, was it good? Did you feel good? Was your sleep good? How did you feel otherwise? Yeah, I actually like I was having a lot of fun with it at first. But then, you know, I don't really care so much about the number on the scale. But I will admit when I saw my waist measurements going up that I that really kind of disturbed me a little bit. And that kind of took some of the fun out of it. The biggest hurdle for reverse dieting is always mental, always mental. And it's always something like that. Like I feel good, I'm stronger. Oh my God, I got good energy. And then they'll do some kind of a measurement or something like that, or they'll put something on and then it'll freak them out. And it's, oh, I got to, I mean, look, a 60 calorie surplus.

You wouldn't even be able to gain a pound of body fat in a week with a 60 calorie surplus. It would almost be impossible. Do you have any food intolerances or any kind of gut issues by any chance? No, I don't have any gut issues and, um, no food intolerances that have that,

you know, I've ever really noticed or anything. Yeah. I mean, do you you and here's the thing with circumference measurement measure it first time in the morning and be consistent with it also um a waist measurement can change and fluctuate pretty huge from morning to evening but i like body fat testing but even body fat testing can be off from test to test you want to look at the general trend, but really pay attention

more to how you feel than anything. Like, how do I feel? How's my performance in the gym? Am I stiff? Do I have more energy? Am I stronger? I mean, I've had female clients

gain seven pounds on the scale, not know it because I don't let them see it, and then have comments from family members that they look like they lost weight. Holly, I think you were doing great. I think you did a perfect amount of adding back in, all the signs. When I'm looking at the scale, the circumference, even body fat percentage, the only real reason why I want to know that is I just want those numbers

in addition to hearing what you have to say to me. If you told me, Adam, I'm not feeling any better. I'm not stronger. It's hard for me to eat this food. I don't feel stronger. And then on top of that, I'm seeing the numbers aren't moving in the direction positively for us. Okay, I might readjust our plan.

But if you're telling me, my god i don't feel good i mean i'm hungry and you're like the strength gains are coming on i don't even give a shit about it i don't even care about those other numbers right now i'm like stay the course we're gonna keep listening to this body until i start to see something that either jumps out at me that i need a reverse course but what i'm hearing from you is like this is working this is heading the right direction and that's such a small surplus, quote unquote surplus. Your metabolism can fluctuate more than that on its own. Like 60 calorie surplus. I wouldn't even necessarily count it as a surplus because your measurement could be off by 5% with your food. You could

weigh your food a lot and that'll be over 60 calories. Even if you look at how much, how many excess calories are required to turn into a pound of body fat, that would not turn into a pound of body fat. I would think it would take something like three weeks at an actual surplus of 60 calories to turn into one pound of body fat. So I think you kind of got in your head a little bit and you're already strong. Now, the first question was, is there a limit to reverse? Well, of course, like you're not going to get your metabolism to burn, you know, 10,000 calories a day, but I don't think you're anywhere near, you know, I don't think you're near that. I think you're perfectly fine. Your calories are in the low two thousands. You're five, two, it says your body

fat's around 20%. You're, you're, you're saying you're pretty muscular already. So are you identifying that you've got good muscle development? Um, I mean, how much strength did you, did you see go up during that period? Would you mind giving me some numbers or some kind of context? Um, yeah, I, so after I finished anabolic advance, I was actually going to do a power lifting meet at my gym, just like a local, um, low key one. I actually ended up being sick and couldn't participate, but I was for a few weeks leading up to it. I worked with a trainer to kind of test what I should aim for, for when I go into that powerlifting meet. And I was able to squat about 215. I was about 255 for deadlift and for bench I was about 140. What did you start? Where did, where did those numbers start? How much did that improve when you, when you started this? Well, the last time I tried to do a squat,

like a peak squat, I was about 200, I think. So 15 pound increase in your squat. That's phenomenal. Yeah. I mean, and what about your deadlift and your, and your bench press? Deadlift has always been a tricky one. I've injured myself a few times. Now I think I have my form down really well on that. But prior to this, I think the last time I tried to get close to top on deadlift was probably about 240. And then bench I think was about 135. Yeah, so like 15-pound gains on everything. That's phenomenal.

Your numbers were good to begin with. I think you're doing good, Holly. Yeah, you're doing good. How long have you been working out for? So I started lifting about three, like lifting consistently three years ago before that on and off. I started with just like a strength class at the gym, but then after like four or five months I started maps anabolic. And once I did that,

I was just kind of hooked on MAPS programs because I saw so much faster progress than I did in the classes. And, um, yeah, so I just, I went anabolic performance, aesthetic and symmetry. And I, I've gone through so many at this point, it's been so much fun to see what sort of things I learned in each one. You're kicking ass. Those are great lifts. The five, two to be able to lift that much. You're doing great. And do you do cardio? Do you do track your steps?

Do you do anything else? So I was tracking the steps. I haven't worn my tracker in a while, but I'm typically between seven and 10,000. I don't really, I don't do a lot of cardio. I just do some walking. And then occasionally I'll do like 15 to 20 minutes of zone two, like on the elliptical or something when I'm done lifting. You're doing great.

Holly, I want to put you in the forum just so I can remind you how awesome you are. So that's how you just need to, you just need someone to, you just need someone to tell you that every couple of weeks. You're 130 pound girl, 20% body fat, which is good. Squatting 215, 15 pound gain from before consistent for three years. Your calories are 22 to 2300 calories. I mean, you're doing really good. I think you just got in your head. And that was a small reverse diet.

I wouldn't have reverse dieted you at 60 to 80 calories. I would have had you go up to 100 at least at the very minimum. So you're doing good. Okay. I had a feeling you were going to tell me I was just impatient, but I wanted to hear it from you, I guess. No, that was good. Yeah. No, you're doing good. We're going to put you in the forum. And then if you feel like this again, I want you to message us in there and just tell us what's

been going on. And then we could talk to you off the ledge again. By the way, side note, if you feel good at the calories you're eating and you feel healthy and you're satisfied, small bulks are great to build strength, but don't feel obligated to have to go and reverse diet to try and get that up. I mean, the idea is to put you in a position that feels good and sustainable. And then from there you can move up or down into these kinds of short periods of two months, if you want to get a little leaner or build a little muscle. But if you feel good at those calories, you feel healthy, you feel satisfied, you're going to the gym, you feel good.

There's no reason to fret over trying to push it in any direction. That being said, you also already said to me that you felt the appetite increase. That's your body telling you it wants more and it wants to build more. So I say feed that. Feed that. Trust the process. If you make good choices, right? So when you get those appetite cravings and you don't go out and you go eat like an asshole,

you're going to be okay. If you make good whole food choices, keep that high-protein diet, I promise you those calories are going to get partitioned over to building muscle. The way you're training, the way consistent you are, you're in a really good place. If your body's telling you to eat more, eat more. Feed it more calories. That's what I'd be telling you as your coach. And I'm going to get you in the forum. And then I want you when you have moments like this during this process to just message us, tag us, and then we'll keep you on this. And I'd love to see where you're at in like two,

three months of actually training like this. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Like a little follow-up question. So I've been tracking now with this whole thing for a while, and I kind of miss intuitive eating. Do you think it's possible to like do a reverse diet in like an intuitive eating framework, or is that just a little too loosey-goosey? I do. And you know what it looks like?

What I just said is if you're hungry, eat. If you're hungry, make good food choices. If you're hungry, eat. Just make good choices. That's it. Where people fuck up is they make bad choices. They get cravings and then they're like oh then they pile on the other stuff if you eat and whenever you get hungry you make a balance you make a high protein good choice of carbohydrate diet or or meal i've never seen a client go wrong that way

and if you're lifting and you're strength training and you listen to the body like that you will build muscle yep okay yep okay well thank you so much thank you for taking the time to answer my question it was so fun talking to you guys thanks holly appreciate it bye bye bye how often we get our own head yeah i mean listen a 60 pound surplus you're not going to gain a pound of body fat in a week physi Bro, no. It's physiologically impossible. No, it would take almost six weeks. Yeah, yeah. I was like trying to do the math. Yeah. Trying to figure out what it was we're missing.

And you know what 60, by the way, for people listening, do you know what 60 calories looks like? Yeah, nothing. What is that, five almonds or seven almonds? That fluctuates so easily. Yeah, it's like, yeah. And you can be, most people are off when they track their calories by at least that much, even when they weigh and measure. She's getting stronger. She's hungry to a point. And most people are off when they track their calories by at least that much, even when they weigh and measure.

She's getting stronger. She's hungry to a point. I mean, yeah, her body's signaling her, like, let's feed the body. Yeah, different conversation if she's not cuing me with that. If she's like, I'm weaker. I don't feel strong in the gym. I feel like I'm stuffing myself. Okay, different conversation.

But if you're telling me, man, I'm getting strong, Adam. I feel good. I'm hungry. My body's hungry all the time. I'm like strong, Adam, I feel good. I'm hungry. My body's going well. I'm like, yeah, we're doing the right thing. Our next caller is Caleb from Utah. Hey, Caleb, what's happening? Hey, how's it going, guys?

Good, man. Happy to help you. Hey, so I just want to say, first off, appreciate everything you guys do. I know you guys hear it all day, every day, but I listen to a handful of podcasts, and this is like the only one I listen to religiously. So I appreciate everything you guys put out, but yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll read it just pretty much straight off my email. So a little bit of background. So I've always been pretty lean, never been able to put on a ton of muscle. I've listed, I've lifted weights fairly consistently since I was about 14. I'm six one1", longest time I was stuck at about 175. About a

year ago, started trying to eat a little bit more, didn't really track anything, got a little bit stronger, gained like three or four pounds. So I guess at the time I wrote this, the past three to four months, I started tracking macros a little bit more, mostly like protein and just calories. Target is about 4,000 calories trying to eat between about like 225 to 250 grams of protein. Um, I was working out about five to six days a week doing a push pull lower body split, uh, first month of doing that. Um, so the first couple of months, I guess, uh, I gained about, you know, another five ish pounds. Um, I lifts went up fairly noticeably, but then I kind of hit a plateau. And I feel like I, since then, haven't really been able to, you know, burst through that

plateau of like my newbie gain bulk, I guess. I don't know if that's a thing. But so I guess questions, I mean, how do I adjust my workouts or diet to kind of burst through the plateau? how do I adjust my workouts or diet to kind of burst through the plateau? Um, and how realistically is it to like somebody who's pretty genetically skinnier lean to see some pretty significant like growth and strength. And I guess I'll throw in a couple of things.

That's okay. Just like as an update. So I think I wrote this the end of October. Uh, so until about Christmas time, I actually got up to about one 91 at about 11% body fat, which before I was sitting about like seven, 8%. Uh, we just had a second kid about two months ago. So that's kind of like throwing my schedule off quite a bit. So most of January has been

pretty inconsistent as far as eating and working out. And since then, I just did an in-body this morning. I'm actually down to 182 at the same 11% body fat, which is kind of confusing. I really had to deal with losing weight but staying up in body fat. So really just trying to figure out how to navigate going forward with my goals. Well, going forward, you lost some muscle,

but going forward, you'll gain some of that back real quickly because you had it in the first place. Who's also programming? Yeah, and I was going to ask you, if you're eating 4,000 calories, if that's where you were at, I don't think it's a diet thing. I think it's a workout thing for sure. By the way, how's your sleep right now with the second kid? It's gotten a little bit better.

It's been super inconsistent. We actually, this past week, switched from working out like five to six days a week to doing three days, three, maybe four, just because my sleep has been awful and I'm just like exhausted all the time. And so trying to make a little bit adjustments to get more sleep. So right now I'm probably like, I was probably between five and a half to six and a half. Now I'm pushing more like six and a half to seven on a nightly basis. Yeah, I think the adjustment is the workout. I think you were working out too much before.

Do you write your own program? How do you train? Where did that come from? Yeah, I guess it's just small variations from what I grew up doing. I grew up just kind of working out with football, basketball teams, working out with my dad. We always just kind of did push-pull, lower split. So I've tried to vary rep ranges, but other than that,

or maybe a couple new workouts. We're going to put you on maps on a ball. We're going to hook you up, dude. We're going to put you on maps on a ball. Watch, you're going to cheat. Follow the three-day-a-week version. Follow it exactly how it's laid out. Resist the temptation to want to add or do other things follow the program to a t i guarantee that in three months time it'll blow your mind promise you sweet promise

so like a like a overarching goal i guess is i love to hit like the thousand pound club with like my three main lifts just because i've never been like super strong i feel like that's kind of a benchmark i'd love to hit um i mean is that do you feel like that's realistic as far as where i'm at with maps anabolic all that stuff yeah yeah start anabolic and then maybe move on to power lift or something like that so you get more specifically focused on those big lifts because yeah i mean if you put that kind of attention and detail with your mechanics and the way that, you know, you, you can perfect that whole process, like you're going to see a lot of awesome gains. Yeah. But MAPS anabolic. And then after that,

if your sleep continues to get a little better, switch to MAPS power lift, stay, keep the cal, keep the protein intake high. That would be the most important thing right now. So if your body weight's around 180, you said 181 or 182, I would hit at least 180 grams of protein a day. Closer to 200, probably better. Keep that consistent. You don't need to necessarily track anything else. Just don't eat garbage. You're going to be totally fine.

Yeah, you were working out too much, and that was the plateau. The plateau was just too much volume. You've got to recover. Yeah, dude, like three full-body workouts a week programmed properly. There's way more to it than just that, but most people build the most muscle and strength following something like that, not a five- or six-day-a-week routine. It's going to change your life, I promise you.

If you do that, if you do what he said protein-wise and eating correctly, and you follow anabolic to a T, I guarantee it's going to blow your mind. Especially somebody who's been lifting pretty much on and off his whole life and has a routine that you do, push-pull-split, and then you go do the full body three days a week, watch what it's going to do.

You're a perfect candidate for this. How old is the second one, by the way? How old is your baby? Two months. We we got a two and a half year old and a two month old so we're uh got it well you might not be i don't know man you might not be getting good sleep here for a couple years you know we thought we thought the baby was going to be the tough one it turns out that was not the case and yeah it's been crazy but um so it's been because there's a lot more of like helping out

with kids. It's not just super simple. It's a lot harder to like meal prep and make sure like my diet's down to a T like it was before. So I've been pretty consistent as far as hitting those protein marks, but the calorie hasn't always been consistently, you know, pushing 4,000. Is that going to hurt me if, you know occasional day where I'm maybe like 3,000, not quite hitting 4,000? It's a big mark. No, you're eating adequate calories. Really, it was your programming. I mean, if your calories get down to like 2,000, 1,500 consistently, but you would be, listen, when the body wants to build muscle and you're not going to gain 15 pounds of muscle a month. That doesn't

work that way. It's a slow process. Even when everything's being is done, right. You don't need that many calories to build a pound of muscle. So if you gained a pound, you know, if you gain two pounds of lean body mass a month consistently, which is just kick ass, that's like 20 pounds a year, right? That'd be like, you're crushing, you're flying. That's not that many calories where people start to get caught up is is the programming was something like that now if you're too low and you know then that makes a big difference especially if 3 000 you know a guy your size like you're fine yeah you're you're gonna be good bro just hey just trust the trust us trust the process and

i promise we won't let you down and i know with i I've listened to some people who are on MAPS anabolic and there's like, some people do trigger sessions, some people don't. I don't really know what those are just from like totally by listening. So would you guys say- Do them.

Include those or okay, do them. Do them, yeah. And they're easy. So if you have resistance bands, that's all you need. It'll take you about six to seven minutes, two to three times a day on the days in between your workouts.

So literally while you're at home in the morning, seven minutes at lunch, you know, seven minutes or before bed, seven minutes. Do not make the mistake that what people do is they over-intensify those. It's not a workout. It is not designed to be a workout. You should not be sweating.

You're just getting a pump. You should not be struggling. It's literally like a little pump. It's a little tiny pump a couple times a day. And inside the program, there's a little tiny pump a couple of times a day and on, and just, and there's inside the program, there's a tutorial and blueprints and everything. So it, it, it coaches you through everything on what to do. So open up the program, go through all of it, watch the videos, follow it to a T we won't let you down. Sweet. Yeah. I think this will be pretty solid. So I appreciate it guys. You got it, brother. Thanks for calling in man. Congratulations

on the baby. That's right. Yeah. Thanks. Hang right yeah thanks hang in there hang in there yeah we'll say we'll send you that maps anabolic program i appreciate it guys you got it man all right bye you know most people most young men especially you take them from a five-day split to a three-day well-programmed full-body workout that alone no change in diet so long as you know it's adequate yeah shocking the difference the first time i did it the first time i'd already been strength training for over a decade the first time i did it i gained seven pounds of lean body mass like it's just no change in anything it was just the programming it makes a huge difference too if you're also coming from a place of potentially kind of overdoing it right so he

if he's overdoing the amount of volume and intensity in his training, he's also hurting a little bit on sleep. And then in addition to that, he has some days where he misses calories and the programming is pretty similar to what he's kind of been doing his whole life. You shake that up with a three day a week, full body recovery. Yeah.

Better programming. We did forget to tell him. I didn't ask him if he trains a failure. You, you, you gotta stop the sets about two or three reps before you fail. Don't go to failure, especially on a full body type routine. That would just be too much. Great part is we have before pictures, right?

He sent over a photo where he's at now. Watch after he's going through anabolic. Awesome. Look, if you like the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our free fitness guides. We have fitness guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at mindpumpjustin.

I'm at mindpumpdestefano. And Adam is at mindpumpadam. 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 Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, 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. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, Transcription by CastingWords can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.