Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2501: 3 Big Dietary Lies the Government Has Told You (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go Mind pump with your hosts Sal DeStefano Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump today's episode We had live callers call in we got to help them out on air But that was after our intro today's intro is 58 minutes long. Now in the intro we talk about fitness and studies and science and current events. It's a good time. Then we got to answering the questions. By the way, if you want to call in and have us coach you on air, email us at live at mindpumpmedia.com. Now this episode is brought to you by some

sponsors. The first one is Element. Element is electrolyte powder you add to your water. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar. With the right amount of sodium to fuel you through your workouts. And if you go through our link, drinkelementt.com forward slash mind pump, you'll get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase.

This episode's also brought to you by Organifi today. We talked about their Gold Juice. Drink it before you go to bed for relaxation and anti-inflammatory effects. And get a discount. Go to Organifi.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump and get 20% off. Also these are the final hours for the December special. Maps aesthetic and map symmetry 50% off.

Take advantage now before the sale ends. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code December50 for the 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. Two winners this week, one for Apple Podcast, one for Facebook.

The Apple Podcast winner is Nate Bigg and for Facebook, Pinch Liz. Both of you are winners, send a name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com includes your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to ya. When it comes to health, nutrition in particular, the government lies to you.

Here are the three biggest lies the government told us that probably made people sick, fat, and unhealthy. By the way, they lie about a lot more. I was gonna say, you wanna tie in like aliens. Where do we begin? You wanna tie in like aliens and some other stuff and say tie in? No, no, no, no, no, no.

That would've been better right there. Well, I picked the ones that I think now are pretty well established. They were total lies. Do you think we're entering a time in our lives real soon here where we like authority, what we read in the news, what we see on television, what we hear from the government, we're just not going to believe. Probably.

I feel like we're already there. I mean, I feel, do you guys, do you personally feel this shift? Like I've just, and this is like in the last, literally just the last year, because I've already made enough mistakes where somebody sends me something and I send It to friends and we're like, oh my god, and I get all and it's like the center It's AI or it was like yeah, or I'm getting troll, right? So I now have shifted when someone sends something to me. Yeah, right. That's not real. That's yeah, that's your default Yeah, exactly. My default is now it's not real which is kind of a scary thing

That's like the story the boy that cried wolf, right? It is, and when it comes to diet in particular, our agencies that are supposed to make us healthy or promote healthy practices, this is well established now. We're strongly infiltrated or influenced by special interests. Big food, that's it. Yeah, and so, and a lot of this information that we adopted was based off of shoddy science at best. The first one that is clearly, in fact they've reversed what they said on this and we all grew up with this following

message which was that you needed to watch your dietary cholesterol intake. Dietary cholesterol was bad. If food was high in cholesterol, you need to avoid it. Eat, eat eggs whites. Heart disease and heart attacks. Yeah. Don't eat whole eggs because oh my God, the yolk is so high in concentrated cholesterol. And a lot of people moved away from cholesterol rich foods, which are very healthy. Whole eggs being one of them,

shellfish being another one, and many others. And what ended up happening, which is always what happens, when we tell people to avoid one thing and we create fear around that thing, they end up supplementing it or replacing it, I should say, with something that actually is bad for us. And so what happened was people moved away from dietary cholesterol and they increased their intake

of heavily processed foods, which caused a lot of problems. But dietary cholesterol... We've done this with salt, we've done this with fat, we've done this with milk, we've done this with... like what else have we done this with? I mean those are the big ones. Right? The big ones right now. Do you think we've now reached a point where the general population doesn't believe all that and that do most people understand that if it's got one ingredient, it's whole food, that there is no such thing as bad for you. I think the tide is starting to turn.

I think people are starting to listen to people that understand health better. I think that when the government comes out with something, dietarily speaking, the people that respond to it by saying, oh yeah, I believe that, are older generations who kind of grew up believing everything in that sense. But people, I would say our generation and younger, were going, I don't know if I believe that.

Again, dietary cholesterol. You gotta do your own research if I believe that. Like again, dietary cholesterol. Going back to this first one, dietary cholesterol, they've had to reverse everything they said. By the way, for people who don't remember this, or you weren't alive during this time, or you were too young, they hammered this. They absolutely hammered this. Your doctors told you, food manufacturers made sure to put no

cholesterol on packages of food like candy. You could buy candy in the 90s. I remember this distinctly. It was like red vines and gummy, you know, something I remember. It would say a low cholesterol food. There's nobody listening right now. There's nobody listening right now that had didn't or shouldn't be aware of that because it was not that, it was during this, when we started this podcast, when the American Heart Association recanted what they said. Yeah, the FDA said, hey, dietary cholesterol

is not a nutrient concern. It hasn't even been that long prior to that, so as long as you're not 10 years old, you're younger, you probably should know this. Now here's what makes it so damaging, is that dietary cholesterol has more evidence that it's probably good for you than it's bad for you. Right, protective. In fact, there's no evidence that dietary cholesterol has more evidence that it's probably good for you than it's bad for you. In fact, there's no evidence that dietary cholesterol is bad for you, but eating it or foods that are higher

in cholesterol, natural foods, are probably better for things like strength, brain function, nervous system function, and overall health. So again, not only was it wrong, it was the opposite of what is correct. And yeah, they did have to recant it. They said dietary cholesterol is no longer a nutrient of concern, but what they need to do is come out and say something even better, which is, hey, all those foods we said were bad. Is it one of the building blocks for testosterone? Like a molecule that...

Cholesterol is a steroid molecule. It's a building block of all your hormones. Absolutely. And our bodies synthesize cholesterol. Here's why dietary cholesterol doesn't affect your total cholesterol in any meaningful way. Your body makes more or less cholesterol based off of what you eat. So you eat a lot of cholesterol, your body makes less. You eat no cholesterol, your body makes more. Because cholesterol is so important for humans to have,

our bodies synthesize it. By the way, the early studies on cholesterol that said cholesterol was bad, dietary cholesterol was bad, were based off of rabbits. Vegan rabbits who don't make their own cholesterol. So if they ate more cholesterol, they would get crazy cholesterol levels. Wow.

It's amazing how you can cherry pick things. Crazy. The next one is, and you said this Adam, was that dietary fat was bad for you. Avoid it. Avoid, everything has to be low fat. In the 90s. Margarine, man.

Oh boy. 80s and 90s was like this anti-fat campaign, and what you saw was people moving away from traditional foods, which tended to be higher in fat, like dairy, eggs, meats, people moving away from fatty fish, and moved more towards, again, processed, heavily processed foods, or foods that were higher in things like sugar.

Because remember, if you're a food manufacturer, if you make processed foods, there's three things, there's three main ingredients, there's much more than this, but there's three main ingredients that make something palatable. Salt, fat, and sugar. So now you've got this huge message that's like fat's bad for you,

so food manufacturers like, well. Double down on the salt and sugar. Add more, and sugar. So now you've got this huge message that's like fat's bad for you, so food manufacturers like well. Double down on the salt and sugar. Add more, especially sugar. Add way more sugar, because we gotta make this palatable, otherwise people won't buy it. Fat is essential, it's an essential nutrient. If you don't eat enough fat, you'll die.

Even if your calories are high. You can actually starve, high calorie diet if you don't have enough fat. Yeah, the show that we've talked about before before Alone is a great example of that, right? There's been examples in the season where, because like in the movie alone or the show alone, you want to see it's like they drop 10 guests out in the middle of the wilderness and it's like figure it out, right? How to survive. And the guy or the girl that always wins the show is the one that gets the big game kill that kills the animal animal But there's been examples of with somebody who's got a big game

But it's been like a really lean meat or they're just a bunch of rabbits like crazy and they end up having to Leave the leave the island or wherever they're at because that still is not me And the and the biggest reward is getting something fatty if you get if you get an animal that's got high and fat reward is getting something fatty. If you get an animal that's got high in fat or the fat from a big animal, it's like game on. So you see the Inuits and they collect all that whale fat and it's so valuable because it is. It's a vital nutrient. Well don't we see this in nature too? It's like the first thing that like an insect kill and animal kills goes to the organs and all the really fatty part.

Fat and nutrients. Prote protein and fats are essential. You can go without carbohydrates for the rest of your life and not die, that doesn't mean it's ideal, you don't need them, but you need fat. Without fat, your body can't operate. It will literally see, even if you eat a high calorie diet, they used to call that rabbit starvation. There was a term for that, yeah.

Hunters who could only catch super lean game would starve even though they would eat They could eat as many rabbits as they wanted they would they would starve. Do you guys think that? Okay, so we've talked about this openly on the show of that, you know every client that we ever trained especially female clients that we had under-consumed protein do you think a lot of our experience of seeing that within our clientele is directly connected to also the fat message because a lot of our experience of seeing that within our clientele is directly connected to also the fat message because a lot of healthy fats is paired together with, and so maybe like if we were trainers like in the 60s and 70s before that message was as popular that maybe we would have seen a higher, I wonder if there's any research on women in the 60s and 70s and their fat content

compared to in the 80s or 90s and 2000s. That's a great question. I'm sure it's affected it. Well, I mean, also- Because remember, we're always speaking from our experience. And it seems like we have a bit of a confirmation bias because we grew up in a certain generation. We grew up in a generation where the government

was telling you fat is bad for you. And so if you're a female and you're looking at your your typical diet, you're like, oh my god, well there's bacon. I gotta stop eating the steak. Butter, full fat milk, butter, yeah. So they start cutting out these foods that many times are paired with protein. And so maybe that's why we saw such a huge... You might be right because think of a high protein, super low fat food and it's not very tasty. It's like chicken breast. Yeah, chicken breast, fish.

Yeah, you don't get a lot of, not even all fish. Egg whites, skim milk. By the way, again, this is one of those pieces of advice that was not only wrong, it was opposite. In other words, it caused more problems. We use milk as an example. Skim milk causes nutrient deficiencies. advice that was not only wrong, it was opposite. In other words, it caused more problems. We use milk as an example. Skim milk causes nutrient deficiencies. You need the fats in milk to absorb the fat soluble vitamins. In fact, if you look at the studies on dairy and things

like osteoporosis, people were doing skim milk thinking the calcium was going to help them. There was no fat in it and you actually had some problems. Versus whole fat milk which is very, very healthy. So we avoided some of the most nutrient dense healthy foods because of this fear and then replaced it all with processed foods and in particular sugars. And then lastly, and you name this one as well, Adam, salt, sodium, avoid sodium, don't have any sodium, sodium's really bad for you.

And then they'll bring up studies that show that people who eat a lot of sodium have more heart disease and more strokes. High blood pressure. And people who eat low sodium tend to be healthier. The problem with those studies is nobody's controlling for heavily processed foods. So people, if you took a thousand typical Americans

and took out the 20% that had the most sodium, you're also showing are the 20% that eat the most processed foods. Because processed foods tend to be higher in sodium. Remember, they're trying to make them palatable. Is it the sodium or is it the fact that they're eating lots of calories from heavily processed foods?

Sodium is also essential and if you work out, if you're trying to keep a low sodium diet and you work out, you're killing yourself, absolutely destroying yourself. And there's many times I had clients who would have things like lethargy, brain fog, low performance, and all I would do was add salt to their water. They would come in, I'd add Himalayan pink salt, I'd add it to their water, and then within 10 minutes,

they're like, whoa, I feel so much better. It's like, you need more sodium. Do you think this is why we've seen the explosion of brands like our partners, like Element, is because people have been lacking? They're deficient. They're coming off of it. You think about how brilliant, and of course,

there's so many other companies that have followed suit after Element. I think Element was one of the leaders of doing it the right way too. Because by the way, electrolytes have been around forever. But electrolytes before was just a bunch of water down sugar. They sprinkled a little bit of sugar water. Not even efficacious dust.

For the longest time, I mean, Gatorade's dominated that space for most of our generation. You know Gatorade changed their formula. Oh yeah, no, Gatorade, no. Because of companies like Element doing it the right way, they were forced to pivot and change it. I'm sure they took a decent piece of their market share. The companies that have now started are doing that.

Like he said, yeah, they started out really highly concentrated. Original Gatorade. It was powder, it was rough to drink. I don't know if you remember it. I don't remember it. Yeah, they would actually, so on the sidelines, they would pour in this powder, it was like orange or green powder, and it was very, very salt rich.

It was University of Florida, right? Interesting. University of Florida. My first experience with Gatorade as a kid was in the bottles and sugar. I mean, it was like it tasted like a good drink. That's when it all changed. But when it first got invented.

I didn't know that. It got used at University of Florida. I do know that that's where it started. And they were giving their athletes high sodium electrolyte powder. It was much more intense when you go to these other states that are like, they have humidity and they have a lot more,

I mean, there's a lot more sort of intensity around that with athletes because they were dropping, people were passing out. So yeah, they're handing those out in conjunction with the water and it was very salt. So they went, when do you guys know when they went away from that? I think when it started mass market, because this, the

anti-sodium message started in the, I want to say the early to mid eighties. How crazy is that? Like a product like that, that came out doing it the right way changed just because of the narrative, right? Even though they had a superior product, they changed to an inferior product. Well, they tried to make it more palatable to marketable. I didn't know that.

Because the consumer. I thought they were always low. No, the consumer came out and demanded a lower sodium version, because they keep getting this message that sodium's bad for them, then they're looking at the bottle. Oh my god It's got imagine imagine if you're the scientist that's behind the formulation of creating the first one You're gotta be pulling your hair out when they're coming you say hey, we need you to go back and rip this all you're like

No, that was the point of this But that was the crazy part because we get weighed in before we go to especially these games that were like 90 degrees and like 80% humidity, crazy, right? And so you have to weigh in first to make sure you're hydrated, but like you're not going to retain the water if you're not like, you don't have a good electrolyte balance. You know, you don't have that ability to retain the water. So it's like, you know, you lose all this weight and then you get dehydrated and pass

out. There was another brand that had to kind of change their strategy. Mr. Salty, you guys remember Mr. Salty? What was that? Was it like peanuts or it was something brand that had to kind of change their strategy. Mr. Salty. You guys remember Mr. Salty? What was that like peanuts or it was something like that like peanuts or was pretzels and then this anti sodium campaign happened Oops, we gotta change your name. Mr. Salty Do you remember mr. Salty Doug you gotta remember that's it was it peanut pretzels pretzels Yeah, I thought it was peanuts. Yeah. Yeah, so there and I remember people would laugh about it, like, oh my God, why would you name your company Mr. Salty?

Go to that, go to that. Didn't Planters peanuts put pants on the? Short history of sports drinks and the science behind them. Curious guy? This is going great. So Element came out, electrolytes have been around for a long time, Element comes out, and they're like, screw the myth.

We're gonna do this the right way, we're gonna put a thousand milligrams of sodium, which nobody would have done until Element proved that they could get people to understand, right? Because that was like murder, like you're gonna put a thousand milligrams? You know what helps about that? They started in advertising and podcast space first,

where we could long form communicate, educate and explain to the audience. They're now on television, you can see their commercials on TV and stuff like that. And now they have a bunch of copycats. Right, yeah. Lots of copycats. Now there's four or five brands that are doing similar stuff,

but they started small and they started in podcast space. By the way, so just for people, little history with us in Element, they sent us a box of electrolytes way before we ever tried it because I saw them. I typically- And you dismissed it before ever looking at it. Right, so I'm typically the gatekeeper for supplements

because that's my favorite thing. So I'll look at it and I'll be like, oh, electrolyte powder, like, I'm not interested, right? Yeah. And we went months and months and months. It was uninteresting. I remember they reached out to us like, hey, did you try it? And then I found out Rob Wolf was behind it, I love him.

So I'm like, huh, let me look at it. I looked at the box and I was like, oh my God. This has. A thousand milligrams. This has enough sodium in it to make a difference. And then I thought, it's also gonna taste good because sodium is palatable and they're gonna explode, it's gonna make people feel better.

We need to work with them when we do. And of course, they're the leaders now in the space. Everybody's gonna come in. It is funny that it sat in our studio for as long as it's. Right back there. There's literally a box right back there. Just sat there the whole time. You know why?

Because everything before that, electrolytes were a joke. A joke. They weren't even doing what they were supposed to do and we knew that and so it was just like whatever. And then I still remember the day you looked at it and you're like, holy shit, this has got a thousand milliliters. Nobody does that. Nobody puts that in there.

No, no. All right, speaking of exercise and fitness and stuff, I read this cool study on exercise and how it affects your nerves. So let me pull up the study. By the way, if you ever want to find really good studies, I've quoted them before, sciencedaily.com. They post- Great articles there. New studies constantly. Are you reading them on their website or are you on a forum? No, no, no. On their forum, I'm sorry, on their website, and they have like a menu area where you could select, like I'll click on the menu just before I get into it. You could go health studies,

and then there's subcategories in health, like fitness, Alzheimer's, you know, aging, whatever. There's tech, environment, society, there's quirky studies. Is it set up to where you have to read like the full abstract, and that was a summary so you can kind of like get it? It's all summary. Okay. Yeah, it's very easy for the average person. That's why I that was a summary so you can kind of like. It's all summary.

Okay. Yeah, it's very easy for the average person. That's what I was wondering. And then you can pull up. The studies can get a little, for the average person. Yeah. You gotta know how to read them. Yeah.

You do and they're a pain in the butt. So what I do is I'll pull up, I'll go on Science Daily, like I'm gonna read this one right now. I'll read to you what they write. And then if I want more information, then I'll pull up the actual stuff. And then you'll dive into it, right? So this was a study done at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They published this on the 19th of November of this year. The summary says, exercise can have benefits at the level of neurons. Through chemical and mechanical effects, researchers find the discovery could inform exercise-related therapies for repairing damaged and deteriorating nerves.

So this is great. Now this is something that we kind of know, but now we are kind of seeing now how it works. And basically the cellular level experiments that suggest that exercise has a significant biochemical effect on nerve growth. So exercise is pro-health, pro- growth. It's, if you do it right, it's anabolic in the sense that it's causing the proliferation of

these of tissues or growth of tissues that are beneficial because exercise is a stress so it encourages that and one of the things that helps grow are your nerves which is you want. You healthy? Nerves and you want neurons that grow and connect with so would this be the science that helps Support like things like kin stretch and like when we do these like isometric holds and we're trying to gain Actually a guy that was his entire training focus was on this aspect alone. It was very isometric and focus driven and like holding positions and Yeah, apparently there was wouldn't that go hand-in-hand? Yeah. I mean it seems like that that study would help support improve why this is why that's so

beneficial. What they're saying here is this goes even further. I'll read a quote from one of the researchers. Now that we know that muscle nerve cross talk exists, which is what they've identified in the study, it can be useful for treating things like nerve injury where communication between nerve and muscle is cut off. So maybe if we stimulate the muscle, we could encourage the nerve to heal and restore mobility to those who have lost it

due to traumatic injury or neurodegenerative diseases. Now I have experience, not personal, not myself, but with clients, of training people who have suffered from neurodegenerative diseases or injury. Yeah, I've heard of slight paralysis even, like recoveries. I've seen some miraculous thing with clients. I had this one woman who had nerve damage down her arm, and luckily, now I surmise that the sooner you get therapy

or you do exercise. Well, the more likely. The more likely you are to regain function. Like if you wait too long, it might be an issue. But I worked with this woman, I'll never forget. She was in a boating accident and had nerve damage. And so she came to me when she was able to exercise. Her friend recommended her. And you could see atrophy on her right side.

So she had atrophy on her, I'm trying to remember, her rhomboid, some in her delt. You could see atrophy on her right side. So she had atrophy on her, I'm trying to remember, her rhomboid, some on her delt. You could see it. And you could see the function. Like we would do an exercise and you'd see one scapula move differently. Now I, as a trainer, I didn't have any of these studies,

but I thought we're gonna strengthen these movement patterns anyway. Worst case scenario, and this is how I communicated it to her, said worst case scenario, because she said, for communicated it to her, said worst case scenario, because she said for sure had nerve damage, the neurologist said that it's not connecting. I said look, worst case scenario, we're gonna strengthen these movement patterns

and help create situations where your body's gonna help compensate. So at the very least, I can help you build compensation so you can function. Okay. And so that's what we did. And I did exercises like rows, were shrugs, you know, isometric exercises, lots of where I would, I would get her to connect a little bit and then we'd stop and I'd have her just intensify and this woman miraculously, we gained like 70% of

function back with something like that. And I remember her coming to me and saying, my doctor has no idea what's happening. Now as a trainer, it's like, look, we're just, we're just strengthening these movement patterns, but they have ways of testing the connection between. And find that connection. And she, that was one person in particular that I remember. And we were able to get some hypertrophy back. How old was she?

In those attributes areas. She was in her fifties. Wow. She was in her fifties She was in her 50s. So it's cool, you know? Exercises like this pro growth, not just muscle growth, but everything kind of growth, you know? Any tissue or, yeah.

Which is really, really cool. Anyway, I wanna read something to you guys. Justin heard me earlier and he got all emotional, so. I don't even wanna stop it, dude. It's good, dude, it's good stuff Yeah, I do it actually makes me sad. I know it So okay, so you guys notice our audience is notice We have a bunch of kids that we that we support through an organization called world vision the audience

No, they don't know that do they know they don't know I was gonna say you even said that no no You know this so our our world vision by the way, I did I did my research It's that's like one of the best charities I see, you haven't said that. No, no, no, you know this. So our World Vision, by the way, I did my research, that's like one of the best charities. They have some of the, they get heavily scrutinized, they score super, super high. Most of the money that goes to them goes, we have no affiliation, by the way,

it's just my own research, because I was trying to find something for us to work with. Something legit that we could help, yeah. But anyway, there's these kids that we support, and then they'll write letters to us. So one of our kids, this from Senegal, she sends in this little, she draws an outline of her hand so you can see her little hand right here.

And then it says, and it's like little boxes where they fill out, and you can tell someone else is writing for them, but it says, someone special to me is, and then what she wrote and they translated it was her mom, because she gives me food. And it said, a few things that make me happy are apples. Apples make me happy.

Right there. Right in the, you know, here's a little kid, and the thing that they want to write to us to tell us that makes him happy is an apple. Oh, just unbelievably makes you realize just how blessed we are and how, you know, like the context, right? It changes perception.

Yeah, you know, this is interesting you bring this up right now too, because last night one of the things that Katrina and I were discussing was I just, I have, I feel all this conviction around the amount of toys and things that my son has and I'm just and like I'm wrestling with how to handle this With her and I'm telling her I'm like, you know We and we do a really good job too of like explaining to him like the value of things and and things that are like It's not like he just gets whatever he wants But he just he's got a lot of family,

a lot of family that are close by, and a lot of people that wanna do things for him. And so it's like, I'm in this weird predicament of, what do I do, tell my brother-in-law, I'm like, you can't give my son, so he can't, it's like, so and it just is. I totally get it. And so it's just piling up, right?

And I'm like, I know this is, and I was trying to explain it to Katrina, she's like, well, we teach him all these things, I'm like, yeah, but it can't be a healthy relationship for him to have this much abundance this much early. Because then it becomes, there becomes an expectation of that. And it's like, I want him.

It's a perception issue. Yeah, like how many of our kids, if you ask them, yeah, imagine our kids, what makes you happy? I don't think anyone would say apple. No. No, I know. And they wouldn't even say toy,

because they have so many. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But maybe if he only had two or three, he would. Well, so. So it's like, I know. And they wouldn't even say toy, because they have so many. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But maybe if he only had two or three, he would. Well, so. So it's like, I struggle with this a lot. You know what I did recently?

What? That, so you guys remember previous podcasts, I talked about the study, the data on the value of charity. So, little recap, right? When you've covered your basic needs, if you want to use extra money to improve your happiness, the data shows very clearly that the most cost effective way to do it, the most effective way to make yourself happier

with money is to use it in a way that helps others, to give either to charity or to somebody in need. It has to come from your own heart, can't be forced. Otherwise the effect is lost. And then there's no novelty effect that wears off like there is with other ways of using money Like if I bought a new car or did this cool experience if I repeated it the effect wears off I don't get happy anymore, but charity never get never goes away. There is no novelty effect

It always makes you happy and if you did it once every time you think about it you improve your happiness Yeah, so you did it one time ten years from now You could talk about the time you helped somebody and you'll get this happiness, which by the way, just side note, this counters evolutionary theory quite effectively, because there's zero evolutionary basis. Yeah, there's zero. Evolution.

Survival, there's no benefit to us. No, evolution would say selfish, like keep it for myself. That would make me happy. Well, until we learn the value of community. And where do you get that from? You're right. That point to me, that points to like a higher power. Like why is it that we derive more happiness

from helping others than we do from keeping to ourselves? You see that clear contrast, you know, once you're in the community. It's amazing. How much more you thrive. Yep, so what I did was again through same organization world vision You can you go and there's kids you can sponsor and they show you the kid, right? You communicate with them here. So I had a really us pick the kids

Okay, and then they write us letters and then we get the letters. Yeah, and I show him Yeah, and then I'm happy we're writing back. Yeah, and so I'm hoping that does a little bit of what you're saying Yeah, I feel like I told you what I wanted to do and we still haven't done it yet And I guess that's my own fault for not prioritizing it in Katrina's Argument back with me is that he's barely understanding right now Like she's like don't worry when he gets that point we will and I just I don't know again. This is maybe me I'm just being Paranoid early like that. It's you know, okay

well At what point do we start to cut back on that and what point, because I wanna use this move that we'll have, so her and I will be- To get rid of stuff? Yeah, so what I want, this is what I proposed, and you guys can tell me if I'm off balance here

or it's a good idea, but I'm like, I want us to, and by the way, there's twofold here. One, it's the abundance of that, and then three also just, it's a mess. I'm the one who cleans up all his toys every single day. It's like so much. It's like, this is ridiculous. You know what I'm saying?

So anyway, so when we move, what I want to do is he has a toy chest and like what fits in there, those are his toys. And once that's full, the only way we get anything new from anybody is something's got to go out of there And so it's like okay when we so and the best way to do that in my opinion is when we make this move I can like okay Let's here's where your toys gonna be pick your all your favorites that will go in here And then we've now narrowed down to this toy box and then as because it's I can't stop

It and it literally is almost every week. Yeah people want to get him. Yeah people getting him. He's the baby of the family. Yeah exactly he's the baby of the family too so everybody wants to to do stuff for him all the time and so and I know it's unfair of me to try to rob that from them right because I know what that feels like there's part of me where I want to get him something it's like I don't want to do it because he's been getting all this stuff but then I want to I want to have him something that's like, I don't want to do it because he's been getting all this stuff. But then I want to, I want to have that too. Right. So, but I know that's selfish. So I refrain from that. So my goal is that when we move, let's get this thing narrowed down to like

what fits in it. And then as he wants things or as people get things from him, I want, and then what I want to do is go give that to somebody in need. Right. So it's like, you got to get rid of one toy and we're going to give it to a kid who needs it or give it to a fan., right? So it's like, you gotta get rid of one toy and we're gonna give it to a kid who needs it or give it to a fan, right? And so that- So he gets to see-

That's right, so he gets to see someone else getting that fulfillment joy. He also has this appreciation for that. He also recognizes he has an abundance and other kids don't. What a great thing to develop too as a young age because he'll start to feel the, like what I talked about earlier,

that happiness that comes from it, the joy. And he'll identify it at a young age and that should pair with him for the rest of his life. I guess what I talked about earlier, that happiness that comes from it, the joy, and he'll identify it at a young age, and that should pair with him for wrestling. I guess when I'm wrestling with her, Katrina and I are going back and forth, because she tends to defend it and be like, honey, we're fine, we're aware of it, we pay attention to it, we talked about it,

he's just barely understanding it right now. She goes, once he fully understands, well then I'm like, all right, but I keep expressing it that when, when, when, when are we gonna do this? Because at some point, he's gonna grow up to be the kid who expects all those things, and I don't want that. And that's my biggest fear, right?

No, I mean, this is like a constant conversation. We have the same thing where it's like, we don't, we see tendencies, and then we communicate it, we address it, and it's like a constant thing we're trying to think Outside of yourself and like this is not all like everything is so self-driven because especially right now in the teen years like it They have like horse blinders like everything revolves around them And so it's like how do we how do we break them out of this? How do they give them another perspective and I think we're trying to do now because he's old enough.

It's like, especially Ethan, it's like we got to get him out and working amongst other people and like doing some kind of mission trips and kind of charitable work, some, something that shows like, look, people struggle, man. You know, like this is a totally unique situation you're in, man. And like, you got to appreciate that appreciate that. And it's, yeah, it's tough, because you really do have to place them there. You know what's crazy about all this is that we are, I mean, it's just, you can't argue this or debate this. We live in a time with more entertainment

and material goods and food than we've ever had ever. And anxiety and depression and loneliness this is why I like higher than ever this is why I like this conversation Sal because this isn't just a thing of the elite class even people that are middle-class or don't have a lot of money even the kids have a kid that is considered poor today has more shit and more toys than the rich kid 40 years ago. That's how crazy society is coming in this direction. So I think this is a relevant conversation anywhere you land financially. Well, it's a narcissistic world we live in,

man. Like look at social media, look at like all the pursuits, the heist. What do kids want to become? They want to become an influence. They want to become somebody that's like everybody showers with attention and all that stuff. It's such an off perspective. It's crazy too when you talk to people too that are in need, it's just like that letter, Apple. Like Jessica, there was this man that she ran into who was, she doesn't know if he was homeless or not.

He looked like he was. He was in a wheelchair. It was outside, it was raining, it was cold. And she walked up to him and asked him, do you need anything? Is there anything I could do for you? And he said, I just need a blanket. A blanket!

He could ask for anything. I'm cold, I need a blanket. So it's just, it's crazy, man. Perspective, it's perspective. Yeah, I know. I just, and I don't wanna screw up as a dad who isn't on top of it and aware of it and teaching that at an early age.

I mean, that's how you end up with a little shit for a teenager or an adult because I failed. So it won't be his fault, it'll be my fault as a dad of not being aware of that and making sure I, and I feel like if I'm aware of it and I'm on top of it early, then it makes it easier. At least that's what it's been so far for the first five years of his life. The things that I was on top of early and aware of and just slowly building a good

relationship with is now made raising him very easy in those areas. And so I look at when I try and look at the things I need to work on with him right now, this is the biggest one that jumps out at me, that could bite me in the ass in 10 years if I'm not on top of it. Or even in three years that I didn't start it early, that now it's like pulling teeth to do those things. You know what's crazy about all this too is that we have to also consider is that in the

data that I cite, if you feel in any way forced or like you're supposed to or you have to, you lose that effect. So if like, let's say you're in this organization of, you know, whatever and everybody's like, oh, we got to give, everybody's got to give. And you feel pressured. You're like, okay, you lose the effect. It has to be something you do out of your own, your own heart. Heart driven. Otherwise, it can do the complete opposite, which it could harbor resentment. This is what happened to me as a kid when, so when we were younger, you know, some of,

I have the, like of course, and it's unfortunate that, I'm aware of this, that you, you know, you tend to as a kid, I had, I probably had plenty of really good moments and times in my life, but unfortunately the things that stick out are all the things that affected me emotionally at that. And one of the things that I struggled so much with was,

you know, there was times where like, if a grandmother or aunt or uncle sent like birthday money to us, like my parents would take it for food or bills, because we needed it. And then even like guilt me if I didn't right away turn it over because- So you didn't feel like you were helping. You felt like it was yours.

Exactly, and so then what did that cause later on in life? Like I don't want to do that because I feel like I had to do that my whole life. So it took me a long time. What a great, what a great thing to understand. Oh dude, it was very, and so it took a long time for me to come all the way around to, to want to do that. And it's a huge difference. Like you said, when you, you know, when you give under the, you need to, you have to versus I want to, it's not the same thing. It's very, very different.

They find this too in societies where taxation goes up, or there's more and more of these kind of government programs, charity goes down, down, down, down, down. And people feel less of that, like I'm helping. They don't get that same value because it's forced. Isn't that interesting? Human psychology is so interesting. And yet we still apply force, force, force.

That's like the common standard. Yeah. That's like so frustrating. I feel like it's like if people could feel the joy, what it actually feels like to go and help, boy, would that, because then more people would want to do it and you'd find like, oh my God, this feels so good. You're drawn to doing it. Yeah.

Bishop Barron called it spiritual physics. The more you empty yourself, the more you fill up. And I think that my desired outcome of this whole thing is like the dance of not making my son feel resented because I take his stuff away. Then I say, well, you have to give your toy to some kid. I don't want that to come from it. What I want to come from it is he

gets to see the other side of someone who doesn't have as much and then he gets to feel that reward of the kid who gets really excited because he does it. So how do I as a dad implement that into his life without tipping the other side? So that's the dance, right? And that's Katrina's in her defense, she's like, he's still not understanding. What he sees is you're taking his toys, you know what I'm saying? And so when he understands more on what he's doing, then we will. And so this is where I'm like kind of being patient of like, okay, like I, that's a fair argument. So I'm like, okay. And I guess as long as we're paying attention, I just, I said, I just feel like, you know, it's, it's five years now before

You know, he's 10, you know say that he's 15. It's like and when did we start it, right? It's never gonna be completely easy. So it's definitely one of the big conversations right now speaking of kids I just had this crazy thought not crazy It's like this awareness thought this morning every morning when I leave for work My two little ones will sit on the counter. There's a window facing out and they'll sit on the counter. I'll pull out and then I'll honk and they wave and I drive off. And if they don't hear me honk, or if I forget,

then I gotta turn back around to do it. Sometimes I'm in a hurry and I'm like, ah, I gotta do it and the kids aren't up there yet and I gotta wait type of deal. And this morning I had one of those moments and then I thought I had this realization, like one day I'm just gonna drive off and there's gonna be no They're not gonna want to wave at me and hear me honk. So I like just relished in that moment

Oh, yeah, that's what happens. They grow up and then you want to hang out with them. They're like I mean, I think that's a the thing that for every parent right if it's great to be aware of it I mean, this is probably one of the things that's probably I would imagine has served you so well is having the gap. Yes, tremendously. Because I know you probably feel that all the time with the oldest, like, oh my god, where did it go? And then you have this reminder, and these young ones, it's like, okay, I have this opportunity to slow it down

as much as I possibly can. I'm sure you constantly have that conversation. Yeah, I've been working on all kinds of projects because this is always like, you know, it's the last minute procrastination, working on all kinds of projects, because this is always like, you know, it's the last minute procrastination and it's finals and all this stuff with the kids. And it's always like, you know, some creative project,

and Courtney's like, you know, stressing, ah! I'm like, oh, let me figure this out. I've made more projects in the last couple of weeks than I've made in a long time. One of them was like a crossbow out of cardboard. And then another one was all these posters and all that. And I was like, dude, not knowing that as an adult, I would do more school projects than I do as a kid.

I swear to God. And it's cool because school really promotes that. It's a lot of hands-on type of learning and also to visuals in conjunction with just memorizing everything. So I love it, but at the same time, they have ideas and I'm making sure they're doing the majority of it,

but it's like just getting all of that set up. Like I ended up just, I'm just like in it. And again, to your point. I'm trying to like Instead of getting stressed or frustrated. This is like late at night. Yeah, I'm like we're working We had to do a couple till like midnight. You know, I'm like do my god. We're still doing this You know, these rubber bands are snapping You know, but it's like he was so thankful and like like ever it was just like so sweet about it like thanking me like you Really saved me dad

Hey, I keep forgetting to ask you about your cuz you you've transferred the kids to a school that my buddy just rants rants and Raves about they absolutely love it. So what is the experience been with the new school? Like are there are there clarity? I'm okay. So there's like big obvious. Huge difference. Really, like what? Like what do you? Just their buy-in, their challenge. Oh, from them a complete 180?

Yeah, from my kids. Oh, interesting. In terms of them being challenged and stimulated. Really? Talking about school and like, oh my God, I gotta figure this out. And it's just like, like I hate to say it, like my old school. And I loved my old school because I had a good experience

going through it. But it just, the quality of the education went way down. And I just saw that. And I saw just, when kids aren't stimulated, when they're not challenged, they're not like, there is this weird idea that like, let's give them less homework and let's give them less, like, let's give them all these like parachutes

and fail safe so if they mess up on this, they can just make it up. And what does that teach them? It teaches them that they're always gonna have an option later to clean up their shitty work, you know? And I'm like, no, that is not a good message. Listen, it's tough for kids who struggle to catch up their shitty work, you know? And I'm like, no, that is not a good message. Listen, it's tough for kids who struggle to catch up, but it's also very tough for some kids

who feel bored and unstimulated. If your kid is not in the bottom middle, they suffer oftentimes in school because they're just sitting there bored. I hated school, I love learning. I love learning. I hate it. I was so bored in school, so unstable.

It sucks. I can't wait to get out of here. I couldn't imagine having a stimulating environment like the one your kids are, the ones that my kids, you know, my older ones. I know. So was the first one public and this one was private? Yeah, yeah, it was public. I mean, it was one of the top schools, though, like public schools in California for a a while I mean it they had a really good education system and just it's gone and

it yeah, so this school is it too like I was I'm a little jealous cuz like I was like Oh my god, if I would have been in this environment, like how cool I would have been like excited You know like cuz there's just all these electives and cool things that like I would have never had the opportunity to go through so Yeah, it's you know, and that's the thing like you got to make a commitment a sacrifice It's not just of the financial sacrifice. Obviously we're making with it with both of them in there But also it's now it's the commute. It's the drive. It's it's literally been really tough because It's some days It's two hours like we get stuck in all this crazy traffic because of the construction is the redoing the whole highway Just to get there and this is why we're motivated to move close because it's just like a nightmare dude

And Courtney's been like like sometimes it's four hours because two hours there two hours back God wait two hours should only take like 40 minutes to get there from where we live. Wow. And some days it's just like that. And so the kids are like, ah, like running, stressed, trying to get to school. And we're having to communicate and email the teacher, sorry,

you know, like this is what happened. But they know. They have to know you're in the middle of a transition with the house and stuff like that. They know it. But yeah, it's like weekend things. And they have friends now that are like further away. So we're sacrificing a lot of our time to do things personally to shuttle them to their friends and get them involved so they have community to do these like sports and extracurricular

things and so that's just sort of our life right now. And we're just like, you know what, We're doing this to make sure that they get embedded in this whole thing. Well, it's crazy that in this short period of time, you already feel a 180, which is that has to be motivating to make it worth it, right? Because it would suck you did all that work, and it's just like the kids are nothing.

Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because one of the things I noticed with Max's school that it just blew me away, and I didn't realize it, like how unique that, how it was compared to previous schools I'd seen, is the ratio of adults or teachers to the kids. I mean, he, every day, he's got, yeah,

he's got three different teachers every day, like three main teachers that he has. And he's got two that are, that they co-teach for the first half of the day, and then the back half of the day, he's got an extra co-teach for the first half of the day and then the back half Of the day. He's got an extra one that goes in the back half of the day is more is more Play-centric, although they still teach and stuff like that But it's like more like the extended of school or daycare type stuff And then the first the first half is like the very structured school part

But it's like there's only like 17 kids in the class and you get two teachers I mean the amount of attention attention that the kids are getting just from that- The teachers, I'm sure, energized and they're, you know, bringing in these new ideas. And just so in tune. Like, he's so, I mean, Katrina, more so than I am, because she's the one who picks him up most of the time.

Like, I just was talking to her yesterday on the way home, I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, oh, I was hanging out talking to the teachers before I left. But she'll spend 30, 40 minutes some days after school just talking about our son and the behaviors you're noticing and the things he's doing well and what we can work on as parents

and just that conversation. And I don't know if that is more us because what we're actually doing or is that more the teacher who's trying to do that or a combination of both. Yeah, like is it, you know, would that still happen if he was at a different school? Like, I don't know, like, but I definitely,

I really, really appreciate that. And we've always had to make some hard decisions. Last year we kept him back, right? And hard to do that when he's smart and he's getting, but knowing that socially, he needs a little more time to mature. And I'm glad that we listened to the advice of that because he's thriving now as far as where he is

leadership in the class. Speaking of education and stuff, I know you did a webinar yesterday for our trainers and coaches, how'd that go? Yeah, good. I love that stuff, dude. I know, all of us are so passionate, it's so fun, right? It's like running gyms again.

Well, what's really funny too is that you know, I love Kyle and Anne There's they've been such an incredible asset to our team like I just I love Kyle like a son and Having someone like Anne is so opposite of us like having this Detailed as a massive need for us. She's like a rock star teacher, right? So like it's so we needed for our business Like we're all very visionary go, you know jump out of the plane organize it put on. Oh man She's I mean figure it out. And so so I come into these talks and it's like this is awesome

Like I mean she's got she's got my bullet like everything laid out for me of like what I need to cover now The funny part is and I always end up like apologizing afterwards, it's like I go off script. You know, I get on a tangent on something and then I, especially when I'm talking to trainers, because a trainer, all a trainer has to do is to say something that will trigger a memory or like, oh, okay, I know what you're thinking or what you're feeling and then I'll go off. And so I did definitely, and I don't know if you guys watched it or not but I hadn't been on a heater like that in a while and but then get right afterwards 30 mile maybe 45 minutes an hour later and created like a off of what I did yeah which was off script from what I was supposed to do basically a work handouts oh yeah fill out for the trainers to go use what I'm like now

that's so rad. What were you covering in that? What were you trying to say? So it was supposed to be email marketing and closing out Q4 and getting ready for January. And so because getting ready for the new year for your business was the main focus and somebody said something, and this is what set me off

was you know that time I don't know if there was like a hundred people in there or not or about without whatever but I'm like I know that if I put you guys on the spot right now less than half of you would be able to answer this question and I said what is your show close and average per sale on your business no matter how big or small you are, you should know that. And if you don't know that, how can you actually go into the new year and plan, right? I said, most of my career, what I had to do was,

I always had a staff of 15 to 20 trainers. At the beginning of every single month, I sat down with a Justin, with a Sal, and said, okay, Sal, what do you plan to make this month? And you would say, eight grand, Adam. And then I'd say, okay, how do you plan to get there? And you'd be like, well, and you name a couple clients that are gonna re-sign this and that,

and then I'd be like, okay, well, what about the other six grand? I'll work hard, I'll try and be like, no. That's not how you run a business. There is a way for you to actually methodically attack that number and guarantee you're gonna go get it. And people, I'm like, but you first have to know these things, you first have to know how many people

do you have to talk to in order to get a percentage of them to show up and meet you? And then of those people that show up and meet you, how many of those do you have to meet with to that translate into a sale or a client? And then are the ones that actually buy something from you and become a client, what is the average dollar that they spend? Mm-hmm, and it doesn't need to be you don't need to have thousands to figure this out

You just need to have some you just need to have some consistent and then You can reverse engineer that and you and then instead of you know exactly what that's right and instead of instead of like in the why this is so powerful for trainers is because Trainers don't become trainers to talk about sales and money and so a lot of them are so resistant and I'm like so let's not talk about that let's talk about helping people and how many people you have to help and talk to in order for that to happen and you can figure and that should be you shouldn't be thinking about a dollar amount you should be thinking about I need to meet ten people today because I know if every day I meet ten people that will result

in 50 appointments. And if I have 50 appointments, I know that 20 people will enroll with me. And if 20 people enroll with me, that should be a dollar amount of this. If every trainer and coach understood that alone and continue with their passion, which is helping people, we would be able to make a dent in these chronic health

issues. We would be able to really start to shift. We'd be reaching so many more people. We would be able to make a dent in these chronic health issues. We would be able to really start to shift. We would be reaching so many more people. We would be able to help so many people, rather than navigating in the dark without a flashlight and just being like, oh, I think I'll just try this or try that, you don't know, you have no idea because you don't know.

It's like not tracking your food and then you come to me and say, I wanna gain or lose weight. Well, do you know how much protein you're eating? Do you know how much, well, I have no idea. Okay, well, I don't know where to go yet. Let's start by gathering. Just guesstimating.

Let's start by gathering some information and then based off of that, then we can start to move in the right direction. And what's epic about this is, with what we're doing right now, which is so cool and fun for me, is I get to go be me, do what I love to do, help trainers build their business.

I'm far better at that than I was even a trainer. And so, and I can just go. And then I have Anne to come up behind me and actually create this. So now they're- Organize. So yeah, so all the trainers that hopefully that little fire under,

they've got a worksheet that they can refer to that she's created to how to do that. How to do what Adam is saying. This is how you take that as a reminder. Hopefully if some of that went over your head, here it is. Like here it is as a blueprint for you to go do that and then that you know she gives it to us. We're doing another one you and I are doing one on the seventh but this is for trainers that aren't in our course this

is just any trainer I have to be in our course and we're gonna teach them basically how to maximize the new year how to maximize that to become more effective and there's problems with this that you need to solve and as a trainer how to maximize the new year, how to maximize that to become more effective. And there's problems with this that you need to solve. And as a trainer, one of the problems you need to solve with the new year is how do I get all these hyper-motivated people to be able to do this for the rest of their life?

Because a lot of people are gonna come to you and they're gonna be interested. This is what happens every January. You're gonna lose them all, come March or April, because you're just capitalizing on motivation You're not figuring out how to solve that problem. That's what we're gonna teach. It's trainerwebinar.com We'll be doing these for free for the year until we I don't know for as long as we can Yeah, this would be a really really fun

And we continue to just I mean because it's an area that we all love doing it's like I know that's what we're committed to but I mean there's so much more. I mean you were on there This morning doing a video. I was there two days ago. I love it. I know it's uh we're committed to, but I mean, there's so much more. I mean, you were on there this morning doing a video. I was there two days ago. I love it. I know, I'm super fired up for us in the business because it's a fun pivot or transition for us in the business because it's something that,

I mean, I really like doing. I really love helping coaches and trainers. To your point that you always make is that they're the ones that are going out and impacting. And if I can radically change or help one trainer. That's at least five to 10 other people. That's minimum, right? Especially if I make them good.

If I make them really good, and I think that's the motivation of like, there's a whole point of why we're opening and then we close enrollment. It's like, okay, so we shut it down. We can focus on the ones, the trainers that are in there, help them, develop them, bring them up. Then we can let more come in and that's kind of the thought process of that versus just us

trying to hustle and sell our course. It's like, let's bring this entire community up and I'm really trying to encourage all of them to communicate and share what you're doing well, what's working for you. I just set out a challenge for all of them, how to use our guides. And I'm like, Hey, I want you guys to tag me. I want to see them and allow me to come in and help you do that. And it just makes me realize like how, how many of these trainers, even if they're good trainers are still trying to figure out the, uh, the, the part of scaling an online digital business and how difficult and where to start. And so I'm excited to help

and teach a lot. Hey you guys, it's the season by the way of the gold juice for Organified. Is it the, you mean the pumpkin spice latte stuff? No, I don't know if they have that one yet. Christmas tree blend? I don't know if they have that one. I love, listen, this is the time of year when it's cold,

you do the warm gold juice before you go to bed. Ah yeah. You sleep, so nice. You wake up, no inflammation. What flavors, Doug? Pull it up right now. What are they? Chocolate, then the traditional,

actually I like the original. The original's my favorite one. It's got that nice warm flavor with the, and I do it with macadamia nut milk. It's smooth, yeah. I don't ever do it with that. I've gotta try it with that. I'm normally, almond milk is what's normally in our mouth.

Macadamia nut milk has got a like a better mouthfeel really It's got a nice dog does that too right? That's the one that introduced me to it. Oh really? Yeah, I never knew I didn't even know it's macadamia nut milk until he he's the one that showed me It's got a nice mouthfeel. It's got that nice, you know kind of creaminess to it. Yeah Having a version speaking. Oh, what is it? What's the flavor there? So this is just the gold Yeah, so the traditional gold has got like a cinnamony, it's like a warm. It says gold chocolate, that's what it is.

Yeah, it's like a warm flavor to it, but really like a nice, sweet, mild flavor to it. It's got anti-inflammatory compounds in there. It's like turmeric in there, right? And it's got relaxing compounds like reishi mushroom and lemon balm in there. No, it's balm. Tastes so good.

Speaking of Doug introducing stuff to you, you know, the audience, if they don't know yet, that's who you want to listen to on this podcast when it comes to watching movies or TV. It's not the two other assholes, but it's Doug. If Doug has a recommendation for a movie or show, you should go watch it. I cannot vouch for these guys on the things that they recommend on here, but Doug found another one. We get plenty of DMs that approve our recommendations.

You guys are weirdos. There's weirdos out there too, man. Don't just... There's a little complexity. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's too hard to stay focused. The newest one that Doug just turned me on to, that's really good incredible cast too in it. It's on

Prime or I mean Apple or Paramount if you have Paramount plus you you can get it or you can get it through Apple if You have Apple TV, but it land man. Is that what it was? Yeah land man Billy Bob Thornton's in there The guy from I saw a clip of that madden the guy from Mad Men is in so I saw a clip of it And it's it's so that does look cool the messaging in it is so counter to what like mainstream has been promoted for so long there was a clip where he was like talking to this like look like he was talking to this environmental girl and he's like we're talking about wind and all it like all the myths around it yeah that clip isn't gonna get replaced anytime soon that's that's the same show dude I'm

telling you right yeah showing what goes into the wind I don't know if I have this weird bias right now or what but I was just talking to Doug when we were walking Yesterday and I think I mentioned to you the other day. It's like I Totally feel this shift in the narrative in the media or even in movies only in movies or have been Trump just win some some legal lawsuit with the ABC win some legal lawsuit with the ABC. Oh yeah, they gotta pay him 15 million. 15 million, and he has to do like a public apology. Listen, media doesn't give it. They're so inauthentic and fake.

It's just hilarious. They're just gonna go where the wind blows. It makes it so frustrating. So yeah, we are noticing a shift. Why? Because people are shifting, that's why. Yeah, yeah. Anywhere people go, they're gonna go.

It's interesting to see that. But I really like, another thing that I saw on that show, and I want to, it's too early because I just started it, so I'm curious to like why they showed that, but this, again, I always like the messaging, right? So what do we know with RFK talking about peptides and stuff like that, right? So the show starts off, such a weird thing

that they put this in, and I don't know how far you are if you figured out why they did that or not, but do you know that they opened the show and there's just a scene of him injecting himself with testosterone, B12, and NAD? No way. No way. And it's a very subtle, like you see him jabbing himself

and the screen barely tells, like I caught it, Katrina had no idea what it was. I was like, oh no. What are they trying to do? I just saw B12, I saw NAD and I saw testosterone and I'm like How is that gonna be relevant to the story? Because it's not like that because they know who they're attracting well So that's what I thought how interesting is that that we that that's gonna be here was a cowboy hat

We know we know that's coming down the pipe with RFK, right? And more and more people are being are gonna be aware of what peptides and stuff are I gotta tell you about the pets Only you guys my so my I forgot to bring you some, darn it. So my wife woke up the other morning, swollen glands, sore throat, I gave her thymus and alpha, nice bolus of thymus alpha, I gave her two days in a row. Gone, she's fine. I started having a little bit of sore,

and usually if I feel it, I'm gonna get sick. Thymus and alpha, gone. Wow. That stuff is remarkable. If you start to get sick. You just reminded me, I wanna make sure that it keeps up. And you're, that's pretty crazy stuff.

It's thymus and alpha, Sal. Cause there's thymus and beta. I have that. Beta is for the, to speed up recovery of like muscle fibers and stuff like that. Alpha is immune system. It matures killer T cells. It gets your immune system to be ready to attack

pathogens and viruses and stuff like that. Fact, for people who love conspiracy theory, not a conspiracy theory, it's true. When COVID was happening, researchers and scientists and doctors were showing that thymus and alpha was helping people from going into severe effects. And then the, I don't know what agency made it so you couldn't get thymus and Alpha was helping people from going into like severe effects and then the I don't know what agency made it

So you couldn't get thymus and alpha anymore for that little short period of time. Sure weird. Yeah weird Anyway, any helpful treatment was like off-limits. Yep Butcher box delivers grass-fed meat Crate-free pork wild caught fish to your door for incredible prices if you like protein and you like your health You got to go with butcherBox. Go check them out. Go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump. By the way, new users will get your choice between chicken breast, ground beef, or salmon included in every box for free for an entire year plus $20 off. Again, it's butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump.

Alright, back to the show. Alright, these callers are brought to you by our webinar series. This is for trainers and coaches where we help you out on how to build your business. The next one is January 7th. It's Training the Trainers on How to Leverage the New Year. All you got to do is sign up at TrainorWebinar.com. All right, take it away Doug. Our first caller is Elaine from Nebraska. Elaine! Hi, Elaine. How are you? Hi. Good morning. How are you guys? Good. Good. Thank you so much for having me on.

You got it. How can we help you? I'm just gonna read straight from my question. So I'm 26 years old and have been lifting consistently for about five years, but only started following BAPS programs roughly two years ago. My goal is to build an aesthetically pleasing physique while getting stronger.

However, I've noticed a frustrating trend in my training. While I seem to get stronger during the individual phases of a program, my long-term progress feels stagnant and I'm not lifting any heavier than I was a few years ago. To give you some examples, in 2021 I could squat 135 pounds for 5 reps. In 2023 it was 110 pounds and now it's about 105 pounds. My deadlift has also seen a similar regression from 135 pounds in 2023 to 115 pounds here at the end of 2024. I know that one contributing factor to this is that over the years I've gotten a lot more

diligent with my form, which resulted in taking some weight off the bar. Another contributing factor is that I've had several setbacks due to experiencing lower back pain from squatting. Thankfully, I found an amazing trainer who helped me address my squat form and my lower back pain, completely went away and hasn't come back since. However, just a few weeks ago, after squatting pain-free for many months, my left knee started hurting during squats. This really disappointed me because I've been focusing on mobility and form and thought I was doing everything right. I was also just about to start the 5x5 phase in muscle mommy and was super excited to start pushing the weight on my squat again to see if I'm making any progress, but now I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board.

I am taking steps to address my knee pain. I went back to my trainer and she gave me several exercises and mobility moves to replace squats with for the next couple of weeks. She also recommended that I go see a pelvic floor physio based on what she was seeing with my mobility and some other symptoms we discussed. That sort of surprised me because I've never had children, but I decided to give it a shot. The appointment with the pelvic floor physio went well. I learned about some tightness I have in muscles internally that I'll spare your listeners the details of as well as externally

She thinks my left adductor is tight which might explain some other pain and tightness I have in sort of like my left upper groin and hip flexor area and She also gave me some mobility exercises and I have a follow-up appointment this week Despite these setbacks. I have had some great pain-free bouts of lifting over the last couple of years, which is why I can't shake the feeling that I should be much stronger than I am now. I'm consistent and dedicated in the gym, so it's disheartening to feel like I'm spinning my wheels. What could I be doing wrong? Is this just part of the process or are there changes I should make to

finally see real progress in my strength and physique? Yeah, great question. I know how challenging it could be when you're really consistent to see yourself plateauing and definitely going backward, especially on strength. When I hear someone your age, consistent with training consistently, typically the issues are over training, not eating enough, and maybe sleep issues. with training consistently, typically the issues are overtraining, not eating enough, and maybe sleep issues. One of those three or all three combined.

So now overtraining, let's talk about that for a second. Overtraining can happen acutely or it can take time to build cumulatively to where you're responding really well but because you're pushing the volume for so long, so consistently, not taking really breaks in volume that are substantial, then what ends up happening is you start spinning your wheels in the dirt. So, if your maps programming is like maps aesthetic, maps split, you're going to strong, you're going to all these kind of higher volume style programs back to back to back without doing a big back off where you take time off or you do something like

maybe symmetry or especially something like maps 15 then what can happen over time is you start to kind of hit that wall and if you're real consistent you just keep bouncing off that wall. So that might be the issue and then calories is the other one. A lot of times when I see young women like you, you obviously fit and consistent. How often do you go into bulk versus a cut? And is that something you're trying to do consistently or is it more like, okay, I don't want to gain body fat. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get stronger type of deal. Does any of this resonate with you? To be honest, not really. I've tried to be really cognizant of overtraining, and I do feel like I have enough

like natural deload weeks just with like vacations. I followed up the first time I ran anabolic, I did symmetry. And then after like earlier this year, I wasn't really following a maths program because I was just following some like regressional exercise kind of programming with my trainer to fix the lower back

pain. But I've never really lifted more than like three days a week for the last couple of years. So that's been good. Last year or yeah, like I feel like every winter I try to do a bulk. I'm kind of pushing the calories right now. So I'm eating around 2200 but the scale hasn't been moving so I was thinking about bumping that up too. Yeah I saw that ahead on the I think Doug's scroll down a little bit and I saw that you were in a bulk but you haven't seen any movement on the scale probably means that you can afford to push the calories and I definitely would go that direction.

If you don't think it's an over-training thing, then there's a good chance that it's an under-eating thing. What about strength in the other areas? So you've had some back pain, so I'm assuming, squat, deadlift, you'll probably see some issues. Are you seeing any changes in other exercises, overhead presses, bench presses, rows, that kind of stuff? Upper body strength, I mean, like, I'm in,

I've just finished phase two of Muscle Mommy and throughout the individual two phases that I've just done, I was getting stronger every single week with all the upper body lifts. Yeah, and then the lower body, I've just kind of had some. Well, that speaks more to what's going on with your hip flexors. That's right, that's right.

And the fact that you went to see, I'm so glad you brought up pelvic floor specialists because a lot of times women think that only can happen when you have children. No, that happens. That kind of dysfunction can happen for lots of different reasons, sometimes mysterious, especially if you're getting kind of these repeated back type pain. So it sounds to me like there's this muscle dysfunction then. Because if you're getting stronger in other lifts, but you're stagnant or going backwards in specific types of lifts, especially like deadlift and squat,

and it's kind of pointing to that lumbopelvic hip area, then yeah, that's probably the issue. There's a mechanical thing. Strength loss area, for sure. It's actually very clear now. If you would have told us that you're not seeing any gains anywhere else, then we're still trying to kind of get to the bottom of this. It could be still some of the

things we're talking about. But if you're seeing gains in everywhere else, then you're eating enough. Then you're doing what you need to do nutritionally, rest recovery-wise, because if you weren't in those areas, you wouldn't be seeing it there at all. It highlights that there's something going on mechanically with the squat and the deadlift area, in this case your hip flexor. I was gonna ask if you thought it was worth it for me to keep seeing the pelvic floor, but it sounds like okay. No for sure. The big, like for most people, I'd say most, the majority, like symmetry, prime pro would solve the issue. But when you get these kind of mysterious,

like I'm doing unilateral work, I've done correctional exercise, traditional correction, and I still, something's not right. I'm not getting stronger. I keep kind of getting the same kind of pain, either in the SI joint, which is kind of lower back to the side, or sometimes it travels down the leg, like you said, to the knee.

It could very well be- Deep core stability. Yes. Deep core stability, which refers to the pelvic floor area. There's a lot of reasons why that can happen, one of which being pregnant and having a child, but that's not the only reason. There's lots of different reasons why you could have some dysfunction there. Okay.

So while I continue doing these exercises and mobility drills that the pelvic floor physio gives me, should I continue on to the five by five phase of muscle mommy but just do what she's telling me for squats and deadlifts instead? Or should I kind of put a hold on following that program for now? If you're working with a correctional exercise specialist who's working with you individually, do what they tell you. I would do, yeah, what she's having you go through. Yeah, just put it all, you can come back to it, but I wouldn't wanna like overdo anything

that she's kinda teaching you. Well, most likely she's gonna pull out all the lower body stuff and you're gonna be doing mostly stuff that she has you doing, which that's what you don't wanna do is run muscle memory the way it's laid out and then also be piling that on. Assuming she knows what has you doing, which that's what you don't want to do is run muscle mommy the way it's laid out and then also be piling that on. Assuming she knows what you're doing,

she'll probably tell you, eliminate squats and deadlifts out of there, this is what we're gonna be working on. But all the rest of this stuff is fine because if you're fine nutritionally, recovery wise, upper body wise, then I would stay the course with muscle mommy, just pull out the lower body movements.

And don't worry about losing gains because you won't, you'll maintain them come back fear It's very easy to maintain them Now here by the way, here's why Elaine if they recommend because a lot of correctional exercise specialists will do this not always But most of the time they'll say okay stop doing these other movements while we work on changing movement patterns The reason being is when you go back to your deadlifts and squat Your your body is so good at moving a particular way, which in this particular way it's not ideal, that you'll continue to strengthen the bad

pattern which will override the correctional exercise. So it's like trying to learn how to swing a golf club differently, but you're practicing your old way more than the new way. So it's like, you know, good luck, right? So if they recommend stopping certain exercises, just go ahead and follow along and you'll get, you'll see tremendous improvements in a relatively short period of time. You get it much further if you do it this way. Is it worth it to continue trying to be in a caloric surplus or not really?

Oh no, a hundred percent. That'll make all, so remember correctional exercise is still strength building and muscle building. It's just targeted to change recruitment patterns and to make you move better. But the reason why a correctional exercise gets you to move better is you're getting stronger in a specific way, and a surplus will only help that. Okay, I think that answers my question. Thank you guys. Yeah, you got it. We'd love a follow up, let us know Elaine, in a surpluse will only help that. Okay.

I think that answers my question. Thank you guys. Yeah, you got it. We'd love a follow up. Let us know, Elaine, how gross. Please, please. Yeah, absolutely. Have a good rest of your day.

Thank you, you too. You too, bye. Yeah, that's, I'm so glad she said that. So you could get pelvic floor issues from trauma, either injury or other types of trauma. It could also be emotional trauma because that area is a vulnerable area for us, especially for women. And if they go through a stressful period as a kid,

you can change recruitment patterns there just from something like that. I worked with a woman like that and she didn't have kids and she had to go see a specialist. And when she did, it helped, but it did bring up a lot of emotional't have kids and she had to go see a specialist and when she did, it helped but it did bring up a lot of emotional stuff. Great awareness for her. I know, totally.

And her age too. Seek that out was pretty. Her trainer recommended it. And yeah, good trainer. Good trainer. Good trainer for sure. Definitely worth the investment too for something like this.

And the most important part of the conversation was when she was able to tell us that she was getting stronger everywhere else. That's right. Because had she not been getting stronger there... No, then it was going to be over training. Then it could have been some of the most common areas that you said, but you're not going to get stronger in all those other areas. And also, you know, be under eating calories or over training. You're going to see that across the board.

So obviously something mechanically is happening in the lower body. And and so definitely good investment. Our next caller is Lindsay from Canada. Hi Lindsay. Hi Lindsay. Hi Lindsay. Hi guys. How are you doing? How are you? Good. Good. So what's happening? So I'm a 37 year old woman that's been on a health journey for over a decade. I'm 5'5 currently 140 pounds. I have been consistently weight training for six years, but have been active most of my life. I used to do a lot of yoga, fitness classes, cardio. And then about seven years ago, I started listening to you guys and I started doing my weight training journey.

And I've been consistently in the gym, lifting weights for about the past six, seven years. Now recently, my question is, now recently I have noticed that my sleep has been really off. I go to bed around nine or 10 every night, consistently even on the weekends, and ideally I would get up around 6 a.m. However, I've been waking up at 4 a.m. With the inability to fall back to sleep My mind will start going and as hard as I try to shut it off with either deep breathing meditation I just can't seem to quiet it down A little more background. I lift I was saying three to four days per week about an hour Each each of those days. I walk every day averaging 10,000 steps.

I would say my stress level is low to moderate and my diet is pretty dialed in. I eat 90% whole natural and processed foods, get close to 120 grams of protein daily from meat sources. And I think I average around 2000 calories per day. I have tried tracking. I don't track consistently, but that's the average that I believe I get. I work a nine-to-five desk job and also have a side gig as a certified holistic nutritionist,

which I do on the evenings and weekends, but only a couple hours per week, so I'm not overwhelmed. I've recently been working with a naturopathic doctor and have had blood work done with hormones included and she doesn't see any issues. She thinks that everything is super healthy, looks really good. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening to me and I was hoping that I could hear your thoughts. Great, great question. Okay, so typically when you see, first off let me ask you this before I go on. Do you fall asleep quickly in bed when you go to bed? I do now. I used to have problems years ago but lately I feel like within 20 minutes. Okay and you feel rested when you wake up or are

you feeling the effects of waking up before? Like I feel tired. I can jump out of bed like usually no problem. What I mean is for the rest of the day, are you noticing low energy from lack of sleep or is this affecting you in any way? You're probably good. On the days that I've been waking up at four, yes, I have been feeling affected. I don't nap. I've never been able to nap, but I do feel kind of like that brain fog, that

lethargy, that sort of like burning in the eyes when I do have those days that I wake up at 4 a.m. And yeah. Are you also, are you noticing any increases in, or changes in anxiety? You said racing thoughts. Are you noticing a little, a little anxiety? Um, I guess so.

It's funny when I wrote this question, I didn't really think about this until today, but recently there's been some financial issues going on, so maybe that's got something to do with it. But besides that, not really any changes. Here's why I'm asking, because you gave us a great detailed email. Because typically sleep issues,

when they first start, they can be too much stress, and it can be too much exercise, over training, lifestyle factors, too much caffeine, could be the thing. But if you're like, nothing's really changed, I've kind of doing what I've always done, I don't feel over trained, I don't feel burnt out. But now I'm kind of waking up. I'm also noticing more anxiety than normal type of deal.

And because of your age, now I know you did your hormone panel, but recently we've had more hormone specialists come on which tend to be on the cutting edge. And there are specialists that work with women. And they all point to perimenopause starting earlier than a lot of people realize. And it's typically later 30s with women and they all point to perimenopause starting earlier than a lot of people realize and it's typically later 30s with women. And the symptom that women tend to get, this is based off what they say.

So this is not my area expertise, but these are the doctors that we've had on the show. We just recently interviewed Dr. Lauren, that episode hasn't even aired yet. But they say some of the first symptoms that they'll notice is that they'll they're sleep and it's from a drop in progesterone. So that may be something I would look at aside from all of the that would tend to be the first things I would look at which are are you over trained? Are you having caffeine too late in the day or more caffeine than normal? You know those are the things I look at. Now supplement wise you could try ashwagandha before bed sometimes that helps with with what you're noticing,

which is waking up suddenly earlier in the morning. But you could ask your doctor and say, you know, could I try a sublingual progesterone at night and see if that helps? And sometimes it does. And I'm starting to become convinced that this is more often or more common than I had realized before just from having the experts on the show. And you're right. Yeah. So unless again, you're over trained. So let's get to that for a

second. Let's talk about your workouts. What do your workouts look like right now? It says three to four days a week, but what kind of workouts are there? Um, so right now I'm actually cycling through my second cycle of muscle mommy, um, and then my husband just bought, um, maps anabolic. So I was looking at starting that soon too. Um, I know that the program tells you, you know, three days a week and it's kind of split up Monday, Wednesday, Friday or whatnot. I do have a bit of a problem with not being at the gym constantly. I do like to be there Monday through Friday, so I will go. I'll try not to overdo it, but on the days that I'm supposed to be doing my trigger sessions, I'll usually do like

a walk or do like some sprints or something like that for 20-30 minutes and then I'll do my trigger session, maybe do some abs, things like that. So I feel like I know what you're going to say, but yeah. I feel like I'm not overdoing it. It doesn't seem that bad, but here's an easy way to test it. Do you have MAPS 15? No. Okay.

Here's an easy way to test it and this will give you, this will let you know right away if that's the problem. Yes, use your barometer. I'll send you MAPS 15. Do the, in MAPS 15 there's a free weight version of it. Do that one. Advanced. You'll be at the gym five or six days a week with it, okay? But it's a short workout, it's like 20 minutes. If you follow that program and by the second or third week, your sleep has improved, you were overdoing it. Now that doesn't mean you're always gonna overdo it following Maps Mommy.

It just means you probably need to go through a couple cycles of something like Math 15 before going back to Muscle Mommy. Also keep in mind, because you mentioned the potential stress that just of recent stuff financially, that counts, right? So maybe in the context of everything running smooth for you

and it's not over training, but with that going on and the sleep thing and then that all of that is resulting in the bit of over training cycle. So, and that's the great part about the Maps 15 thing is this is something you could literally test in two weeks, two weeks, but the key is when you do it, you follow it to a T. Don't go do a bunch of other stuff. You can walk.

So if you need to be at the gym for an hour, I'm okay with that. So you can walk you on the treadmill is fine. Mobility stuff is fine. But not workout walking. Yeah, but yeah, not hill sprints. You mentioned sprinting. Not stair master. It's walking on the treadmill.

It leisurely should be able to check emails at the same time. Okay that type of walking With Maps 15 laid out the way it is just follow it for two weeks You should know if it was over training you'll notice a difference Yeah, and again just to back up with what Adam's saying Here's what fitness fanatics or people who are really consistent tend to do we tend to train ourselves Not with the ideal amount of volume, but what we can tolerate. And so we're always kind of pushing it.

We're always pushing it, always pushing it. And then a life event comes up, and because we're always pushing it, that life event pushes us over. And so now what we've always done is too much. So it could be, and it could be, this is so true for me, Lindsey, I'm always pushing it. So if I have a little true for me, Lindsay, like I'm always pushing it.

So if I have a little extra stress in my life, suddenly I'm over training. Whereas before I wasn't. So, and you'll, but again, you'll know within two or three weeks of following Mass 15, if that was a problem. Literally by week two or three, if you're sleeping all the way through,

like, okay, that's what it was. But if it doesn't go away, then I would look to other areas. Okay, got it Okay got it got it yeah I really appreciate that I totally you guys have changed my way of thinking when it comes to like I used to think you know I have to be sore to feel like I did enough and I've had to change my way of thinking for sure it's such a such a mind shift. All right we'll send send that to you Okay, if you don't have it, we'll send you message. I

Really appreciate that. You got it. Thank you. Awesome Yeah, good point to bring up Adam 100% because it's like this way tend to do right we're good It's so long as everything's cool over. Yeah, and I think we just we don't we don't Look at them like the same. They are different stresses, but we don't count them like they're the same. Same bucket though. Yeah, it is. It's the same bucket.

And in the context of everything going smooth, maybe that's not over training, which is why I know too, like some people are like, I don't understand. That's one of your guys' programs. How could you have them over training? Well, I mean, if she's got other stuff going on, that could even be over training for somebody. If she's never taking time off.

Yes, yeah. Especially when she starts to hit too, she has these tendencies's got other stuff going on, then that could even be over training for somebody. She's never taking time off. Yes. Yeah. Especially when she starts to hit too, she has these tendencies of doing other stuff on top of it too. So it's just like, and you hear her background of like the group classes, the sprints, the things like that. It's like, she's going to tell us her best day. Yeah. Yeah. But no back to the hormone stuff. You know, I'm more and more convinced that not,

I don't think that's the majority of people in their late thirties, but if you're like, you know, woman and you're 38, seven, 38, 39, and you're just, you just can't figure this out and you're doing everything right. And you're dropping volume and you're, and it's like, okay, this is very strange. I'm anxious for no reason.

I feel like I, then you, progesterone sometimes seems to be a solution. And I'm more and more convinced that that's more common than I thought before. Our next caller is Chuck from Illinois. What's up, Chuck? What's going on, Chuck? What's up, Chuck?

Hey guys. Thanks for doing this. Happy holidays. You too. Same. So I'll just read my question and then listen to what you guys have to say. I'm a 41 year old male. About 10, 15 years ago, I started to get kind of out of shape and I did P90X and I

got in a decent shape and maintained it for a while until I herniated my L1S5 disc doing insanity. Then I started, I found a yoga by a former professional wrestler that I kind of started doing that. Um, and then I was pretty good for a couple of years until, um, August of 2019. I started to really put on weight and get heavy again. Uh, I found your podcast at the beginning of COVID in 2020. Um, after listening to you guys, I decided to get my testosterone checked and it was about one 50. I tried eating better and like weightlifting and stuff like that. But when I got retested a couple months later, it was about 150. I tried eating better and like weightlifting and stuff like that, but when I got retested

a couple months later, it was 120. My doctors found that my pituitary gland was not secreting LH, which wasn't stimulating the testicles to produce testosterone. So since then, I tried the cream for a little bit, but it didn't really do anything. So I've been injecting with TRT since 2022. And I have a little update from my question

since I talked to my doctor yesterday. But since then, I've been working out pretty regularly. I also have IBSD, which I was diagnosed with about 15, 20 years ago. And then through listening to you guys and listening to some of the stuff Sal went through, I saw a functional doctor and I had SIBO. So I took some medication and I did elimination diets and stuff like that. They thought I had celiac, but I don't.

They think I just have a gluten intolerance. So since around this time last year, I'm like 80% gluten-free. I try to be gluten-free during the week and on the weekends, I just kind of live my life, but I try not to go overboard. Since being on TRT about two years ago, I've run anabolic performance, anabolic, and then I just finished performance

maybe three or four weeks ago. Since then, I've just been doing anabolic style workouts with the exception of, I got the flu last week, so I apologize if I start coughing and stuff. I just finished a cough drop. I don't want to, so I'm feeling a little better. But as of now being on TRT for two years, I'm 41 years old. I weigh 280.

I think I've gained 10 pounds. There was a point in the last year where my strengths definitely went up in like bench squatting and deadlifting. And that's when I went from eating 190 to 210 grams of protein a day. I noticed that strength gain. But since then, I feel like I've kind of slacked a little and it's gone down and I'm not able to do the same on bench or deadlifting. I bought Symmetry. I haven't tried it yet because I was waiting until January.

Went to avoid all of the rush at the gym and all the New Year's people. So I know you guys say this is like a long game, but I'm at two years and I just feel like I'm getting a little frustrated because I'm not seeing the results I should. I feel like during that time while I have seen strength gains, my gut has not gone down. I feel like for being on TRT, I'm not getting the gains maybe I should be. And like I said, I feel like in the last couple months, my strength has gone down. Now, I did just have my levels checked. And this is the update that wasn't in the original question is that my high was only about 438. So my doctor told me as of tomorrow to start injecting. So he upped my testosterone a little. So I'm hoping that might help a little. The other thing is my doctors have talked to me

about GLP-1s, but because of my history with IBS, and I mean, the going gluten-free and the SIBO has helped, I still go to the bathroom quite a number of times a day. It's just I don't have diarrhea as much, but my main concern about GLP1s is taking a step back with the stomach issues and like diarrhea getting worse and stuff like that again. So I'm a little hesitant about going down that road unless I, you know, absolutely have to. That's like my last, you know, last thing I would try. So I'm just curious, like, should I maybe up my protein? Yes, that's right. With the... Chuck, the thing that jumps out at me right away is, one, you notice the difference when you went from 190 to 210. You notice you started to get a little bit stronger just from consciously going after

a little bit more protein. And for you, that's on the lower okay. It's not bad, but it's on the lower end. The other thing that jumps out at me, you know, you make the comment that on the weekends you kind of live your life. I'm guessing you also probably don't diligently track your protein on the weekends too,

if you just kind of let loose. And so- No, I usually try to on the weekends. Okay, okay. So, and protein is one of those things that needs to be consistent daily. Like if it's not an average of the week, it's if you missed your protein target for that day, you missed it. There's no making up the next day. It's you're behind.

You're behind the eight ball. And so again, you saw a benefit by going from 190 to 10. You say it's kind of hard to hit that. I think you targeting 240 in protein would be a good target for you. And I bet if you did that consistently, never didn't miss for three weeks in a row, you'd see a significant change in the strength, especially pairing that with the increase in testosterone. I would go that direction first before I hopped on the GLP one.

Okay, so first get the testosterone fixed. That's still low. Looks like they're moving you up slowly. I'm assuming you're working with kind of an old school doc. So you probably want to get it higher. 410 is still in the low end for most people. Fix that. Yeah, my neurologist told me I was injecting.5 and he told me as of tomorrow to inject.75 of my bio.

Yeah, that's like the second, he's moving you up super slow, but that's fine. Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna count your doctor, but if you don't feel a difference, you know, after a month or whatever, you get tested again, they'll probably move you up even higher. So I would get that looked at first. Addressing the GLP-1 with IBD, IBSD,

GLP-1's slow gastric emptying. They don't speed gastric emptying up. So with somebody like you, it might actually help. It might actually help slow down the emptying process, which may help your symptom. There's also anecdotally, and they're doing studies right now on GLP-1's, but anecdotally may help with autoimmune type issues. Now I'm

going to give you my anecdote with GLP-1. I microdosed GLP-1 and it made a tremendous benefit to my gut health. And I think it's because I have some autoimmune stuff that maybe isn't bad enough to measure, but it definitely affects my gut. And the GLP-1 has been instrumental in helping that. I would also continue to get tested, so maybe test for parasites next. That can cause SIBO, so you could have reoccurring SIBO because there's an untreated parasite. So I would look at that. And then finally, this is the best, this is the biggest piece of advice I'm going to give you.

There's a few things you've said in this conversation that lead me to strongly believe that you would work, it would be very beneficial for you to hire a coach. What you said about what you do on the weekends, the way you're talking about your progress and you're referring to yourself and those types of things. I think a coach would benefit you tremendously because of the, the way that you're looking at, I'm 80% gluten free for example, I like to live my life on the weekends. I know this is a short call but my question to you is how's your life going?

Living your life on the weekends? Does it sound so good? So what we need to do is work on the relationship with food because the 20% on the weekend isn't actually serving you. But there is something else underlying there where you feel restricted during the week. So now the weekend is like living my life. That will never resolve itself if the way you're viewing eating in a way

that's not causing issues for you. And again, if I was coaching you, this wouldn't be a conversation that we'd have just one time. I'd work through this process I think working with a coach to be very beneficial. I do think this is dietary I think a lot of what you're talking about has to do with your diet And I think working with a coach is gonna help that tremendously if you have the expendable income That's gonna be massive benefit to even an online coach have someone work with you on a regular basis

With diet with tracking and go through that process. The workouts are fine. I think you're doing okay with the workouts I wouldn't want you to go higher volume than what you're doing. I think that's okay but I think working with a coach is going to be the your best bet for sure and Sorry, I should I when I say like live my life, I don't mean like I go out and go crazy on the weekends. It's like if I'm out with friends and they want to have pizza, you know, sometimes I'll ask for gluten free. Sometimes I'll just be like, yeah, whatever. I'm also an actor and stuff like that. So I don't like to eat a lot before I perform because it could cause me to get a little gassy.

So on like times like that is when I might miss some of my protein. Yeah. You know, when you go back, if you can go back to your functional medicine practitioner, I would get retested for SIBO and then get tested for parasites. Parasites are harder to find sometimes, but if you're getting reoccurring gut issues, so you could solve SIBO, get rid of the bacterial overgrowth, but the parasite will cause it to come back. And so you're like, oh, I'm better, and then it starts to come back again.

And then I'm better, and then it starts to come back again. This is quite common with an untreated parasite, which is relatively common. I mean, a good 15, 20% of people have an untreated parasite, especially if you eat a lot of sushi. You'll see this in individuals. This is also why,

Which I do, yeah. This is also why I think, to Sal's point about the coach being such a valuable investment, is there's a lot of different possibilities that could be going on here. A lot of troubleshooting. And so if you were a client of mine, I'd be like, all right, let's go test the protein theory

that I have right now. This is what I want you to do. I'd make you diligently do it for three weeks and even on the weekends, everything. I just want you to just for three weeks, give me this and then let's measure, let's track, let's see what happens. And then, okay, that didn't do anything. Let's go to the next, you know,

so we would tease out one at a time and together we would attack these things and get to the root cause of what's going on. That's why I think this would be so valuable. It could be a handful of things, or it could be the combination of all of them. Now you're based in the US, you could also try working with our people at nphormones.com. They're more aggressive with hormone therapy, they're not so, I guess, I don't know, for lack of a better term, afraid or conservative.

They'll typically start a guy off once you had 200 milligrams of testosterone a week I think you probably started it close to a hundred or less So I think originally my levels jump up to like 1100 my doctor thought that I shouldn't maintain that for too long It was too high. Yeah, that's that's the difference. Yeah Yeah they'll base it off of symptoms and not just your labs but again you can talk with them, send them your current blood work, see what their opinion is. They also work with GLP-1s and they also do micro dosing of GLP-1s. Some doctors don't. They'll start you right out the gates on kind of an aggressive dose which some people don't feel so good on. You know you know, again, just another route to look at, but a coach I think would

be very helpful for you, um, through this process and they're just each step of the way they'll be able to coach you even with your workouts. I think that'll be very beneficial just based off this conversation. Okay. Sounds good. Um, you know what we'll do, Doug, maybe we'll recommend some people that he can work with, email him some of our people and he can get on the phone. Yeah, have Kyle, have Kyle reach out.

Okay, we have some coaches that we really like, Chuck. Yeah, get someone to give you a call. Oh, awesome, thank you guys. Yeah, yeah. You got it, Chuck. And then your programming is anabolic and it looked like you did symmetry, performance. Let me just- I just bought symmetry.

I was gonna wait until January to start that. Okay. Yeah, I like your rotation. I like your rotation. I like your rotation of programs. Since we're having one of our coaches call you, I'll let them make a recommendation. We'll take care of you.

Yeah. Okay, sounds good. All right, Chuck. You got it, Chuck. You got this, dude. All right, appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Thank you.

The way he was talking about it. I know, I know where you're I know I know you're going you know, well, this is such an example We've talked about this off-air Share this on air like one of the most difficult things about taking live callers is that It's narrow window. Yeah We have a very small window to like try and get to what possibly and it's, and you just would not do that in person. Like I would sense the energy from the person that's responding to the way I'm saying things and go like, Ooh, that's a little sensitive.

I'm not going to go that hard right now. I need to, I need to ease my way into that conversation. We don't have the fucking time to ease our way in here. So it's just like, it's probably this kind of that. And a lot of times that puts a wall up on a client. And so it's a, it's a 50 50 shot. he'll take what we say, and then actually. There were a lot of, for people listening

who aren't trainers, who haven't trained for people for a long time, because I know you guys heard it, there were like three or four red flags. Sure, yeah. For the way. Defense mechanisms. The way he was talking about diet and exercise and my results and this, I don't know what's happening.

And there were a lot of red flags, and really the only way to go through those would be to work with somebody through this process. I said what I said because he wrote it. He wrote up on his thing that it's very hard for him to hit his protein. No, you're right, and that's a huge thing to achieve. And then admitting to me that you also have missed

on your 80% accurate on your weekends or whatever like that. So there's another like just gonna feel that. And then two, you've also noticed when you went from, normally when a client does a little subtle bump on their protein, it's a glaring sign that they consistently under eat protein. That's right.

Because this is, by the way, anybody who followed the journey that I did the three months, I wasn't even worried about my total protein at first because I knew I was so low. Just going up. Just by going up, I would see positive benefits. That is why I did that is because I'm like,

I don't even need to hit my 220 yet because I know I'm so low that if I bump 30 grams of protein a day, I'm gonna see positive benefits. And that's when naturally the calories amount is gonna go down because it's satiating effect. Yeah, and he didn't go from a consistent 190 to 210, which is what he said. He went from what he thinks,

he's always at 190 to 210, which means he just bumped his protein. Because you wouldn't see, oh my gosh, huge strength gains from 20 grams of protein. Probably not, it's probably, you were so low. Yeah, somebody needs to work with him to get in there. 100%. Well, and the GLP-1 thing, to Sal's point,

I think is awesome and potential for him. Problem is, would be a great option. If you already struggle hitting protein intake right now and then you get on a GLP-1, he might lose 30 pounds but he'll do it in a way where he ends up losing as much muscle as he does fat and then he'll be in this situation where he's like, shit I need to reverse diet out and then he'll be right back to the same situation of I've got to hit that protein intake. Without not a good option. Our next caller is Amelia from Colorado. Amelia. How you doing? How can we help you? Hello? Hello? So I started lifting three years ago after gaining about 25 pounds from trash college food I did an aggressive cut lifting three hours a day 30 minutes of cardio a day, and then on top

of dancing five days a week. I began tracking and restricting food, but I didn't really know portion sizes. So my tracking was off, but I ended up building muscle and leaning out. Over the summer of 2023, I began to measure my food and get more detailed and tracking and I leaned out even more. And I was eating around 2000 calories, sometimes less if I ate over the day before, and getting 200 grams of protein. And then when school started back up, I kept the same training along with adding dancing

back in and restricting my calories. I got to 120 pounds and 9 to 10 percent body fat according to this in-body testing thing, which I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I developed hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, loss of period, I ran booty by Brett maps, muscle mommy map symmetry. I'm currently running an upper lower split just cause I have more time right now. And the program I'm running is more glute focused, which that is one of my goals, like every girl and their mom. And I still do like low intensity cardio,

like walking on the treadmill twice a week for stamina cause dance, that's important. Um, so I'm 21, five, seven, 125 pounds. And according to a scale, 23% body fat, I'm eating around 3000 calories and 300 grams of protein. Um, currently sometimes less just because I'm on break, so I'm not dancing every day. During the school year, though, I dance five days a week,

varying intensities and varying times. So it could be anywhere from one to six hours a day. For example, we had a guest artist come in recently and I went from dancing two hours five days a week to eight hours six days a week. So that'll fluctuate and same with intensity like we'll go from two hours nonstop dancing or sometimes it'll be two hours like rolling around on the floor kind of. Barriers, obviously my hormones, there are issues there. I had a one-on-one with Dr. Cabral about that.

High cortisol, the root cause, if you didn't guess it. And then physically, one of my goals is to build my glutes and I don't connect to them. And hip thrusts, I feel my hamstrings cramp, deadlifts, low back pain, squats, front hip pain and low back pain. Yeah, and then my questions. So what would you have me do right now in my period of recovery? Later after I've recovered during the school year, and then during summer break, so like a longer period of break, and then shorter breaks when I'm not dancing.

So like in season versus off season. Second question is how to modulate workouts depending on how hard I'm pushing in dance while still progressing stimulus or load to make progress. And then tailoring your guys's programs to fit my life schedule and glute goals without messing up volume markers per week or like still having them be effective. I'm sorry if that made no sense. No, that's great. That's great, Mass 15 is the program.

That's it. So dancers. How recent, that's a, that picture. The pictures you sent us, how recent are those by the way? Those are a while back. So the one in the dress was from about two years ago, the second one was a year ago.

No, the shred, when you're shredded, that's when you were like 9%, right? I'm looking, we're looking at this. You have like a pink sports bra on? Pink sports bra is most recent. The brown sports bra is a year ago. Oh, you're that shredded. That's shredded.

So here's the thing. I'll just be honest with you. Like training dancers is always very challenging. Yeah, it is difficult. Because you guys practice a lot. Constant signal. A constant practice, you're used to over training, you're used to just beating yourself up.

It's part of the game, if you will, or the sport of dance. Your feet hurt, your knees hurt, your back hurts, you just keep going. And you love what you do, so you get this relationship with pain that is kind of like... You've hardwired these patterns completely. Yeah, glute development's hard with dancers too. You typically, sprinters get big glutes, dancers don't.

Well, I'll tell you right now, it's especially hard too, you're in a deficit. I mean, you're that lean, that shredded, you're in a deficit. So, what we need to do with you is, you need to back way off, way off on everything. On your breaks and when you're doing your dance. Work on a lot of just glute connection.

Don't try to progress with your strength training when you're dancing, it's not gonna happen. What you're doing while you're dancing is you're trying to do injury prevention, okay? The time to progress with strength is when you're not dancing or when you're dancing minimally. But when you're doing the two, three, four, six hours a day of dance, if you go with the mentality of I'm gonna get stronger in the gym you're gonna overdo

it 100% because you're already doing so much. So the best thing you could do is the kind of strength training you do while you're dancing is just to maintain, to not injure yourself, correctional exercise, that kind of stuff. But someone like you, until you're done with dance, which will probably be a while, because you're young, you should live in a MAPS 15 style of training. Always. Like off season, on season, always.

The difference is off season you'll get stronger, in season you won't. Off season you're just gonna do those workouts, and then just kind of stay active, but don't push it, and you'll get stronger because of the less volume. So that's what you'll notice, is off season, oh my string's going up, I'm building muscle. Then when you get back into in season,

everything's gonna kind of slow down because of the amount of dance you're doing. But while you're doing all this, MAPS 15, and we have two programs now, we have traditional MAPS 15, then we have MAPS 15 performance, which I think you will love. Someone like you will totally love.

Oh, I got MAPS 15 performance, cause think you will love. Someone like you will totally love. Oh, I got MAPS 15 performance because I saw the launch and I was like, I have a feeling this is gonna be recommended. Perfect, yes. Do you have our original? Yeah, we appreciate the support since you knew we were gonna probably give it to you. Do you have the original one too?

Because we'll send it to you. I don't have the original one. Yeah, no. We'll send it to you. So don't have the original one. Yeah, no. We'll send it to you. So here's what I want you to do. Follow Mass 15, do the barbell free weight version, follow Mass 15 performance, then go back to 15, then go back to 15 performance.

Those are your programs that you're gonna live on. Toggle, yeah, toggle with 15. I'd like to see a bump in calories. Oh, also, for sure. I would like to see- I haven't even got there. I would like to see a bump in calories. Whatever test is telling you you're 23%,

I call bullshit on the test. You're leaner than that. You're lean. Yeah, you got abs. Yeah, you're lean. You're ripped right now. So I would believe more closer to the single digit that you were before. I mean, you're- How's your hormones now? Do you have a regular period or has it come back? No, there's still- We got a bump. There's still down there. I think it's cause I'm, I'm scared to do the bump just cause like in dance, like even now, right now you're calling me shredded. I had a teacher tell me that I need to shave down the thighs of it.

So it's definitely a mental game. Like cognitively, I know I'm just like everyone else. I know what you're going to say and I know what's right, but it's just like yeah Pushing through it especially because like you said I am a you only have so much This is the this what makes you an athlete Yeah, you're an athlete this is the athlete side of it where it's not healthy for you, but you know it you recognize it It's part of the sport. I get it If you can bump your calories and be okay with it

I think it's eating 3,000 calories a day is fine, but you're doing so much activity But I think I think you might be able to get away with not bumping your calories if you keep the volume way down So what about like EAAs and some supplements you would recommend to there's what kind of supplement stack are you on? You're just say you're an example of somebody that I would put on some supplements for sure. I mean, right now I'm finishing up the limited CBO protocol, so all those supplements, but outside of that I do creatine. I'll use like a protein powder, bone broth. Oh good.

Do you do omega-3s? I would get her on EAAs. I do that with fish. I eat two Kansas sardines a day. I don't know if that's the same, but. No, that's great. That's even better. That's amazing.

Yeah, I like essential amino acids. You could take a couple servings of that a day. You could probably get away without bumping your calories if you're consistently eating around 3,000 with the reduced volume. And your period is gonna be a good guide, by the way. If you start to get really regular with your period, then things are moving in the right direction.

You're hitting 3,000 calories right now? Yeah. Damn, you're burning a lot. Her movements, you are crazy. Holy shit, you're burning a lot. Well bro, she's just said eight hours of dance she was doing with the guests. I think if you keep your calories where you're at,

if you're afraid of getting too much muscle or your dance instructor, your coaches are telling you whatever. I'd rather have too much muscle honestly. I'm just scared of body fat. Like I, I'm all in on the muscle. You're fine. You're not gonna put body fat.

As long as you don't go eat a bunch of garbage, you're gonna be fine. No, you're fine. Amelia too, here let me tell you this too, because you're 21, okay? You're gonna live most of your life outside of this time. And dancers have been really, they get really challenged with the body image stuff.

Some of the most challenging clients I've worked with with this were dancers because for some reason, the space feels very comfortable telling girls that they're too big, you don't look good, whatever. So you're just told by these people constantly and reminded and it's a challenge anyway. So just remember that, okay? So remember like, you know,

and it'll help you to remember that, to remember like, okay, you know, I'm thinking this way because this is the world I live in, this is not the real world, and I'm gonna be outside of this at some point, living a normal life, and so, because what'll happen is when you get out of dance, it's gonna stick with you, this mentality.

So just consider that, keep listening to us, because we talk about this all the time. But the programs, live in MAPS 15 and MAPS 15 Performance. Live in those two programs right there. And don't serve you much better. And don't do any more working out. And even be okay with sometimes taking off Math 15. Because you are such high volume of work,

that workload you're doing. It's like, it's Math 15 or less for you. Any more is not going to serve you. And I do think you could eat a little more calories. I think you'll just build muscle. And I think a way, too, I think that will help that, and definitely without the calories, is the EAAs. So Keyon has some really good EAAs both in pill or powder form. I think sipping on those throughout the day or

taking the pills, whichever easier for you. You're a type of client with the amount of volume of movement you're doing. Here's the two positive signs I want you to pay attention to because you're gonna get some lies are gonna come to you because if you, because you're gonna get, some lies are gonna come to you. Because if you gain muscle, you're gonna feel, oh my god, I'm getting bigger, it might mess with your head a little bit. Here's the two things you should notice that are positive.

You're getting stronger, which you should start to see pretty quickly, if you follow what we're saying, and then period regularity. That's what I wanna see. When those things start to, together, you're on the right track. Yeah. Okay. All track. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Yeah. So even on the days when I'm like not really dancing that much, like it's more like rolling around on the floor. Correct. You do so much, you do so much anywhere, anyways. Yes, 100%. Listen, if I was training you Amelia,

there's only one reason why I'm not giving you the following advice, because I can't train you. If I was training you, Amelia, there's only one reason why I'm not giving you the following advice, because I can't train you. If I was training you, I would tell you to take days off. But I know you're not gonna listen to me if I say that, and I know that'll probably drive you crazy. So I'm saying 15, math 15. Okay. I want you to check in with those two.

So math 15, calorie bump. So, going, what was that? Sorry, I completely. Amelia, are you in our forum? Oh, are you in our forum? I am. Okay, good. Because I want you to keep us updated.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to wrap my head around it and see if I have any immediate questions. What about, I know this sounds so bad, but I'm like, is there no hope for the glute growth? Like, yeah, what I said, like I can, here's the thing though. You can't get it through volume down. It's going to help more volume. More intensity is not going to get it. What's more likely to get it is the reduction of volume, the increase in calories. You can't,

you can't build without the, you cannot build an ass without the material and you're burning all the material. You're burning it up. The more you do, the more stuff you keep piling on, whether it's lifting weights or movement with dance, you're burning up all your material. So the only way the ass comes is by scaling back some of the volume and or potentially increasing calories. That's the only way.

Literally the advice we gave you is your best bet for building your butt. Yes. Okay, yeah, thank you guys your best bet for building your butt. Yes. Okay, yeah, thank you guys. I'm gonna address the process. Amelia, can we follow up? Can we have you back on the podcast in like 30 to 45 days? Sure, that'd be great.

Okay. Yep. All right, we're gonna reach out to you again. A little accountability here. We'll get you back on, okay? So if you don't do we say we're gonna do it. Yeah, thank you for the accountability and the advice and the program and everything you guys do honestly like we got you yeah we got it up cuz you you saved me for lack of a better word

thank you for I appreciate that we got you know we're on you by the way nice picture of that but is that a painting of a dog right next to you it's adorable oh yeah thank you I. He's 14 now. That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, Amelia. We'll see you again in about 45 days. And in the meantime, as you're going through this

and you're trying to apply this stuff, if you have any questions, just tag us in the forum, OK? Message us in the forum, and then we'll stay in touch. OK, yeah. Thank you. Also, I wanted to make sure Mr. Doug knew that my email that I sent this question in is different than the email that I used for like purchasing programs. I don't know if that matters, but

already figured it out. You're done. You're already got the program. Yeah. We got you. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Sweet girl. Total sweetheart. Bro. Jesus Christ. She was so six hours of Dave. Yeah. Well, No, fuck that. I said 23%. That's such dance culture too, what she's highlighting. Bro, the hardest, like some of the hardest clients I'd ever have to train were dancers. You know how hard that would be if that was my daughter and a coach was telling her about her thighs? Of course. Oh my God, dude.

Oh, that's brutal like that. Like I said, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, We're dancers, you know how hard that would be if that was my daughter And a coach was telling her about her thighs and of course, oh my god, dude Oh, that's it. It's like that. Like I said, it's she at least seems acceptable. She seems to have a good head though That's right considering all that she seems pretty self-aware Like if there's a chance that of a dancer coming out of that culture and it not fucking traumatizing them Yeah, she has she has her she has hope because she's doing all the smart things

on top of this rigorous schedule of dance and it's like, unfortunately it doesn't work. It's also not talked about enough with dancers whereas these girls are told to ignore injuries and pain. They are literally told to ignore injuries and pain and you think dancer, oh no, they're terrible about it. Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump.

Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano. Adam's at Mind Pump. Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB 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, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

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