Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2598: The 5 Best Diets for Any Goal & More (Listener Coaching)

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions drawn from last Sunday’s Quah post on the @mindpumpmedia Instagram page.  Mind Pump Fit Tip: The 5 best diets for ANY goal. (1:38) The MOST common mistake people make with fitness & diet. (19:53) The BEST recovery tool to manage stress. (31:03) Terrible/harming tactics by mainstream media. (35:27) Creatine and depression. (41:27) The history of ginseng. (44:12) The conspiracy theory behind art. (48:36) Kids say the darndest things. (53:12) Mind Pump Recommends You Can’t Ask That on Netflix. (56:21) Train the Trainer 3-Part Bonus Series dropping May 19th! (1:00:47) #Quah question #1 – What do you guys do to keep up strength when resting an injury? (1:01:37) #Quah question #2 – What should you do if you are reverse dieting but see weight gain? (1:04:17) #Quah question #3 – Will taking NSAID’s to treat an acute injury completely negate gains from strength training? (1:06:04) #Quah question #4 – How do you see AI affecting the fitness industry? What are the pros and cons that can come of its involvement for trainers, nutrition coaches and their clients? (1:09:26) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Use the code MINDPUMP to get $350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. The best part is that you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don’t like it - - Shipping to many countries worldwide. ** Visit Joy Mode for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Enter MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first order. ** May Special: MAPS 15 Performance or RGB Bundle 50% off! ** Code MAY50 at checkout ** Labs - Stephen Cabral Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Protein? Blame MAGA Creatine Supplementation in Depression: A Review of Mechanisms, Efficacy, Clinical Outcomes, and Future Directions Mind Pump #2530: Why All Women Should Take Creatine The history of ginseng in the management of erectile dysfunction in ancient China (3500-2600 BCE) Watch You Can't Ask That - Netflix Train the Trainer Webinar Series – 3 Part Bonus Series  Visit Hiya for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Receive 50% off your first order ** Mechanisms and applications of the anti-inflammatory effects of photobiomodulation Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mikhaila Peterson (@mikhailapeterson) Instagram Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram Benjamin Bikman (@benbikmanphd) Instagram  

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All right, in today's episode, we answered listeners' questions. We picked from some questions on Instagram. By the way, you can go to Instagram at Mind Pump Media if you wanna post some questions that we can pick from. But that part was after the intro. Today's intro was 58 minutes long. Now in the intro, we talk about fitness science,

fat loss science, diets, all the fitness stuff you love, plus family stuff and current events. It's a good time. Now this podcast is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is 8 Sleep. This is the most advanced sleep system you'll find anywhere. It will dramatically improve your sleep, which will also have massive impacts on everything else.

You'll eat better because you feel better. You'll recover better from your sleep, which will also have massive impacts on everything else. You'll get, you'll eat better because you feel better. You'll recover better from your workouts, build more muscle, burn more body fat. Go check out 8 Sleep. Go to 8sleep.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump and get $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Joy Mode. This is a pre-sex supplement. It improves blood flow and it's shown by data to actually work. Justin loves it, he uses it every single time. Go check them out, go to tryjoymode.com forward slash

mind pump, enter the code mind pump, get 20% off. We also have a sale this month. Maps 15 Performance and the RGB Bundle, 50% off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code May50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. When most people think about changing their diet or their eating, they think about losing body fat

or building muscle, but did you know diets can have profound impacts on many things related to your health and other aspects of performance? We're gonna talk about the five best diets for almost any goal. In other words, which diet is best for the different goals that we often have in our life? Let's go.

Choose your weapon. I love this conversation because this was something, and it was not until later on in my training career did I start to do with my clients where I took them through all, for the most part, most of the popular diets, regardless if they really wanted to or not, because I found it as incredibly valuable to- Revealing. Yeah, and revealing to them how each of them affected them differently and the pros and cons

and realizing that there's going to be periods in your life where one type of way or one way of eating makes more sense than another way. And so, and when you look at how, I know how we all personally eat, we don't like, and I've been, we've been asked this, well, what kind of diet or how do you guys eat? Well, it changes. There's times in my life when I'm getting after it

and I'm trying to build and I'm focused on gaining and then, and I'm eating a certain way. Then there's other times when I'm not doing a lot. And so I'm trying to build and I'm focused on gaining and then I'm eating a certain way. Then there's other times when I'm not doing a lot and so I'm trying to maintain and not really lose. And then there's other times where I gotta be sharp. And so there's, and every time I've got a different focus or goal, my diet slightly gets modified and changed. It's just being strategic.

I mean, why wouldn't you be strategic with your eating to compliment your training or whatever pursuit you're doing? And to understand these diets and their benefits, I think it's a smart approach. And again, you can work within the foods you're already eating to a certain extent. So it's not like that foreign, you might add or you might subtract some, but for the most part, it's pretty easy to kind of taper that so it fits within these categories.

Yeah, I think one of the best ways to look at exercise and diet, okay? Let's just talk about exercise and diet, and we're gonna get specific with diet, but I think one of the best ways to look at those two things in the context of I wanna be be healthy or I want to know how to use them for the rest of my life. Because throughout your entire life there's going to be times where you're going to be

more focused on athletic performance or muscle gain or fat loss or stress or cognitive performance or I need to perform at work or whatever. There's going to be life changes and one of the best ways to use exercise and diet is to modify them to maximize your effectiveness or in other words to improve the quality of your life regardless of what's happening okay and you can do this with different kinds of diets and some diets are great for some things and they're not so great for other things but that's okay in fact that's great if you're after that one thing that it's good for

and if you're not really caring so much about the other thing. Now, to be clear, all diets, so long as you hit your essentials, can be fat loss diets. Okay, so almost any diet can be a fat loss diet so long as the calories are low enough. That's typically how these are all marketed. That's right.

They're all typically marketed as fat loss, weight loss diets, because that's what's, you know, the best thing to market. Because that's the one common thing that most of them have is that whatever protocol it is, it's designed to have you eat in a caloric deficit. Yeah. But the part, and this is why I used to like to teach my clients, because I would show them that you don't have to necessarily do it like that all the time.

No. You can eat it at a maintenance or even a surplus in some of these diets we're talking about, depending on what your goals and what you're trying to achieve from it. Right, right. But so let's say that you know you have different goals like for example and I'll talk about the first one and I'll use myself as an example. Now by the way we're gonna give recommendations based off of what the data shows that's not it's not gonna be

true for every single person. It's always true for the individual. Yeah like there's always an individual individual variance. I train enough clients to see this all the time. I had clients who completely bucked the data with certain diets, and I just, I couldn't, I could not, you know, it didn't compute. I couldn't argue though with what was happening. And so I just started to realize like people respond differently to different kinds of diets. But generally speaking, the diets that we're going to recommend today for the specific purposes, the data shows these are the best diets for those things.

So I'll talk about the first one, which is cognitive performance. What if your goal, what if your ultimate goal is to maximize cognitive performance? Now when would this be the case? Well you got a big project coming up for work or you're about to go do a speech or in my case I'm going gonna get on podcasts. This is when I know I'm gonna travel or fly to somewhere like LA or Austin or whatever, and I'm gonna be on three or four podcasts,

I eat in a way to optimize cognitive performance because I don't care about anything else at that point. I'm looking for maximum cognitive performance. Same thing if I'm gonna go do a talk in front of 500 to 1,000 people. And the best diet for cognitive performance, according to the data, and I find this to be true for myself, is a ketogenic diet. A very, very low or no carbohydrate, moderate protein, high fat diet has been shown in the

data to maximize memory, cognitive function. It shows this especially with people who have cognitive decline but in many people like myself I don't have cognitive decline but I know when my ketones are high from being in a ketogenic diet I just feel sharper. It's very interesting and to go through that process to feel it yourself and know like you know running off of different fuel source like ketones versus glucose it's it's And for me, it is the sharpness and it's the memory recall is definitely enhanced. Totally. I also think that your added

benefit to that, to the traveling and getting on podcasts and speaking, like you said too, it also tends to suppress my cravings because the carbs are low or non-existent. And so there's this desire to, I need to be eating every two to three hours. Once you get into it, it's easy to follow the appetite. Yeah. I feel like it keeps, so you're sharper, keeps that under control. You know, well, as I do, when you're traveling and doing stuff like that, like, you know, there's periods of time when you're not around, you don't have access to food, you're in an Uber driving from one place to the other, and then you're talking for two hours. and so it's like you have these stretches sometimes

of three, four hours where you can't get to anything food-wise, and what a perfect time for your appetite to be suppressed like that, not have those cravings, and then to also be mentally sharp from it is extra benefit. Now, ketogenic diet is not great for strength and power, and for building muscle. For me, if I'm trying to build muscle,

I'm not gonna go into ketogenic diet. I'm trying to maximize my gains. If I want to hit a PR and a deadlift or whatever, I'm not going to eat ketogenic. But for cognitive performance, this is amazing. So what I do when I'm going to go on these trips, unless these are like easy podcasts, sometimes I won't. But if I'm going to go and I want to really kick ass, I go into that day already ketogenic. And that's how I eat while I'm there. If I'm going to go do a talk, if I'm going to go, last year I did a talk at the Peptide Congress. It's my first time doing a talk to a room full of doctors, at least representing Mind

Pump. I went into it ketogenic. I'm going to be doing it again coming up here and I think it's June or July where I'll be going back and doing that. Ketogenic diet and the data is, I mean, it's one of the best diets for cognitive performance. It just shows it across the board. Yeah, neuroprotective, the brain seems to be sharper, people can think faster.

So if you want to improve or boost cognitive performance, if that's really what's important to you, then a ketogenic, experiment with it, try it for yourself. Within a week or two, you'll probably notice some benefits. It's typically how long it takes to be. And the reason for it being better for the brain, but yet not so good for performance,

is the prevailing theory is just that it, and to oversimplify it, is that the brain tends, it's like a cleaner fuel for the brain. Yeah, ketones operate, the brain operates very well on ketones. It prefers it apparently, yeah. But when it comes to like strength and athletic performance, you want glycogen, right?

So you have low glycogen. Because it's faster, right? It's just faster, you can lift more, you're stronger. For bodybuilders, they get better pumps. But for the brain, you take someone with Alzheimer's or dementia, right, so extreme cognitive decline, you put them on a ketogenic diet and you see improvements in their thinking. Now, someone who's healthy, what you cognitive decline, you put them on a ketogenic diet and you see improvements

in their thinking. Now someone who's healthy, what you'll notice is you're just sharper. You just feel much sharper. And I wanna add something because I think this is another thing that like when I would teach clients they would think that like this needs to be something that you do for months or oh it's gonna ruin,

like let's say you have a goal of building muscle, that's what you've been on, but then you also have the privilege to go speak somewhere, uh, in two days. Yeah. You switching to keto for two days, doesn't ruin your performance goal. It's like, you can do that for a three to five day or just a day or two, and then go right back

to the other diet and you're not going to lose muscle, lose your gains, not be able to get the benefits of keto. That's so you can move in and out, uh, of these diets based off of the even week by week or day to day type of changes. not be able to get the benefits of keto, so you can move in and out of these diets based off of the even week by week or day to day type of changes. That's exactly how I'm, you know,

I'm communicating here how you should use these. Now I think if you've never done keto, do it for a while, a little while, just so you can kind of figure out how it works. By the way, when you're doing it, make sure you bump your sodium. People talk about this keto flu, and they feel like, oh my God, I feel terrible.

It's like, well, you need more sodiums, typically what the case is, because it just pushes water out of your body. You will lose a lot of, you'll lose weight on the scale, but it's water weight initially. But yeah, two, three days of going keto leading into an event is typically all people need. And they'll have, again, more stable levels of

energy and better cognitive performance. So that's the good cognitive performance one, is a ketogenic diet. Next, we'll get to strength and power. You want athletic performance, strength and power. Typically, this is what the data shows, about one gram of protein per pound of body weight and about two grams of carbs per pound of body weight.

So a 200 pound man, 200 grams of protein, 400 grams of carbs, fat makes up the difference for the calories, and the data just shows this kind of diet gives people the best athletic performance, pretty consistent. Now, hasn't some of the data showed that you even see benefits upwards to one and a half grams of protein?

Yeah. So you could push that even. Yeah, this is general. As you say, that's a general protocol, but some people, especially people that do well on high protein, that digest it well, have no problems, could push the protein even to one and a half. We're strictly performance, strength, building muscles, your focus. Pushing that intensity to recover, I'm sure that would benefit you.

By the way, I do want to add this. If you have certain health issues and one of these diets, just makes you the healthiest. Let's say you have gut issues, and for whatever reason, starches and carbohydrates bother you, keto becomes your best strength and power diet as well. And I'm only using keto as an example in this argument, any diet, for example, is people who go carnivore because of extreme autoimmune issues.

Carnivore across the board is a terrible performance, athletic performance. But if you're fighting yourself from within. But for that person, it's the best diet. Well yeah, if you asked Michaela Peterson if she performs better or lives better in the gym on her carnivore diet versus on a paleo or any other diet for that matter,

she would tell you that for sure on the carnivore because of her health issues. That's right. Next, we have gut health. You're looking at improving your gut health. You would do what's called an elimination diet. Whole 30 actually is not a bad place to start with kind of a whole, you know,

kind of that elimination style. But typical elimination diet, you're getting rid of common food intolerances, you're getting rid of a bunch of them all at once. You stay that way for about 30 to 60 days, then you introduce one for two weeks and wait, then another one until you find out what the heck is causing a lot of these problems.

Sugar, grain, gluten, dairy. Typically you're getting rid of grains, you're getting rid of gluten, you're getting rid of dairy, you're getting rid of legumes, nuts, egg whites, like those are the most common ones. And then you start with, so you're getting very basic, and then you reintroduce one slowly at a time, just kind of see how you feel.

And I've had clients do elimination diets many, many times, and sometimes it gets weird. Sometimes we cut out all those things and the issues aren't that much better, and then we start cutting other foods out and you're like, oh, it's bananas. That was your problem. It's good for those. Yeah, it's sort of some vegetable that's healthy for you, but it's like, yeah, it gets from its reaction. Now you can do a test that will test, I believe, IgG antibodies, I believe,

to give you a good starting point because it can get a bit individual. I know Dr. Cabral's team does these tests, and it's a good starting point. And what you're looking at is an immune response, not allergy, so you're not getting anaphylactic shock or anything like that, but just, you know, sometimes your bodyaphylactic shock or anything like that, but just,

sometimes your body develops, and there's lots of reasons why, an immune reaction to a particular food, and you just don't know it. And the- Well, wouldn't you also see that in spikes in insulin or like, you know, with a- Sometimes, yeah.

With a glucose monitor? Yeah, sometimes you do. You can see that. Yep, and so, and what do the symptoms look like? They can be delayed. You can have a gluten intolerance and not notice until the next day. So you eat gluten today and then tomorrow you're just, ah, I just kind of feel off. And it's hard to make the connection. So that's why elimination diet can be good because then when you reintroduce it, then

you're like, oh, there's that weird symptom that I thought, you know, went away, you know. Next up, and here's something that people don't often think about with diets. What's a good diet for spiritual health? Does that a diet that's for spiritual health? There is, fasting. Fasting is present in every major world religion. Obstaining. It's abstaining. And you see this in the Christian faith, you see this in Jewish faith, you see this in Islamic faith, you also see this in Eastern spiritual practices. Fasting is across the board for thousands and thousands of years,

the diet for spiritual health. And so now this is in combination with other things, but if you're feeling a bit lost spiritually, then you would combine this with prayer and practice, and that's just, it's been practiced for thousands. I also think it really brings you back in tune with your body, and so you can really kind of pay attention to those signs and signals that have been masked

by inundating it with a lot of like food and just kind of going through your day-to-day process. I was gonna say, I would, you know, obviously applies for that, but I've even had atheist clients that I would put on this just as a practice of detachment of, Like, because sometimes clients have this pool to food that they think, and especially, you listen to our vocabulary around eating sometimes, oh, I'm starving,

because it's been four hours you haven't eaten. Like, no, you're not. You're nowhere near that. It's the wrong word for that. It is the wrong word for that. But yet, we've all been conditioned that. We're all guilty, probably probably of even saying that I know I've said that before just when I have a craving or I haven't eaten a little bit and

You know, it's very enlightening for somebody who's never really intentionally fasted for a day or two or three To realize like oh wow This body is far more amazing than I thought it is and I don't have to shuttle food in it every three to four hours. It could go for a long time. In fact, you start to notice once you get past that craving part and get comfortable with,

oh, I'm not gonna be eating for the next 12, 24 hours at least, so whatever, you start to realize like, oh man, then you notice like the sharper, sometimes people feel sharper, they feel better. You also feel free because you're like, oh, I'm okay. I remember the first time I practiced fasting,

what was shocking to me, I used to always, you know the term hangry, you know, like oh my god, it's lunch time, it's one o'clock, I haven't eaten lunch, I'm irritable. You used to use that excuse. Yeah, I used to say the same thing. And I realized when I fasted, knowing I wasn't gonna eat, that didn't happen to me. And then I realized, oh, it's not because I didn't have food, it was because I anticipated

eating and I didn't and I had to wait an hour. So I wasn't irritable because my blood sugar's low or because I need to have food in my body. I was irritable because I had this anticipation that didn't happen. Had nothing to do with the fact that I was supposed to eat. So true. So wild. And so that's a very freeing experience because if you're someone like me, used to feed myself every three hours or two hours, I felt free.

I felt suddenly free from this tyrannical thing called food. That's the other client that this is great for. If, and because this was also, this was me. I was afraid if I didn't eat protein every two hours that I was muscles gonna fall off my body. I was certain of it, it was me. I was afraid if I didn't eat protein every two hours that my muscle was gonna fall off my body. I was certain of it. It was too when it happened, right? When I would, but the weight, obviously water comes out,

inflammation comes down, you get smaller, you lose a little bit of weight and scale. So being the insecure skinny kid, oh my God, I lost all that muscle I worked so hard for. And so I had a bit of orthorexia with the eating every two hours. Those are great clients. I used to do it with a lot of competitors since it's common in the competitive world that they think you got to eat every two hours and it's like, no, you'll be totally fine if we don't eat all day

today and we go right back to your routine tomorrow. And so getting those clients comfortable with that I think is very freeing. So those are probably the three biggest cases I see fasting. Yeah. And then lastly, overall health. Now when you look at overall health, this is based off our experience and some data. I think a paleo diet is just generally very healthy. It's fruits, vegetables, some nuts and seeds, and animal meats, and that's it. They don't even include dairy, but I think dairy will be okay if you can have dairy. But with those choices, you're eating a very, very whole food based diet. You're not even eating foods that require too much cooking like grains.

In my experience, when I've had clients go paleo, overall they feel great. They just overall, now it's not the best for performance, not the best for cognitive performance, but overall health, I think you can't go wrong with a paleo style diet. Yeah. It's just seems that it's easier to digest and like, you don't have as much of reactive response to it. And yeah, for long-term, it kind of hits all the, the boxes for you in terms of like overall health.

Well, if you had to put me in a box of how I normally eat most of the time, even though I don't think I fall in any specific area, I would say paleo-esque. I would say I eat pretty paleo. I add a lot more rice in my diet, and I would eat oatmeal, things like that, that wouldn't be a part of the paleo diet. But for the most part, I would say generally speaking that I fall in that category a majority of the time. And then I move to these other extremes based off of very specific goals and times in my life. You know, I want to bring up a really, really common mistake that people make with fitness and diet. And it's so common that I think even some people

are gonna be like, huh? I don't know, you're not supposed to do that. A lot of coaches will coach people to do this as well. It's just a very common combination of tips or pieces of advice that go together that is actually inaccurate and wrong and actually can cause, oftentimes causes people to stop progressing or to go backwards.

And that is to do this right here, cut calories and simultaneously increase activity, especially high intensity activity. They go together. Or volume training. Yeah, they go together. People almost think they're supposed to go together. I wanna lose weight, so I'm gonna dramatically cut my calories.

Cut my calories and I'm gonna keep burning, burning all these calories. And I'm gonna dramatically increase my activity, especially the high intensity stuff. That's the formula. That is a terrible strategy because what you've done, anytime you cut your calories, you dramatically reduce your body's ability to recover and heal and now you're also adding stress on top of it and so you're throwing two signals at your body that

are saying stress, stress, stress and what often happens when you do this is you'll get some initial progress then you'll hit an incredibly frustrating plateau. And oftentimes lose muscle in the process of doing that. The competitive fitness space has perpetuated this. I used to baffle me looking around at my peers that they would do this. And I often got questioned by my methods of getting lean. I just thought, I mean, to me it seemed logical.

I'm reversed outing. So initially before a cut, you are ramping up the metabolism, increasing calories, building muscle, building the metabolism, right? Taking you, say, take any arbitrary number. You started at 2,500 calories, and then now I'm at 3,500 calories. So I've done all this great work.

I've built, say, five pounds of muscle, which would be a great job in a bulk. I put five pounds of muscle on, I'm eating more calories, and now it's time to get shredded from my show. Like, okay, I'm going to start to cut calories. But at that point, if I did a good job of reverse dieting, building my muscle, building metabolism, all I have to do is do that and let the diet do the work. If I've done it correctly and I've built the metabolism up and I reduce calories, I don't need to add anything else. I am now at a deficit. And so allow the body to do its job and it will start to lean out. It will start to tap into fat as its primary source of fuel

because it's lacking in calories. Where we go wrong is where we do that. And then we also increase the volume of training or increase all of a sudden this high intensity cardio. And it's like the body freaks out, go, Oh my God, what is this? All this extra activity and you're going to feed me less like it just serve concern does it sends a loud signal that, Oh my God, not only is he not going to feed me what I was used to eating just a week ago, but he's also going to push me harder. And it does.

And it fools people because it might give at the initial swing, you get a little bit of a change, but then the body plateaus hard and fast because it's conserving energy because of how hard you're, you don't need to do that. What's frustrating about this is that you have people, people in the fitness space that argue against this because they don't acknowledge just how complex the human metabolism is. There's checks and balances all over the place

in the human body. And your metabolism. They also argue itself because how resilient the body is, because it can take it. Just because your body can take it and you can do it, doesn't mean it's the smartest approach for a recon. No, or you're using the example of high level athletes or people with really good genetics

who are relatively young, oftentimes on anabolic steroids or the performance. People adapted to that. But I mean, the human metabolism has this wide range of how many calories you could decide to burn or conserve. It could also, there's lots of other things that could determine where calories go, muscle, body fat, right? With the same lean body mass though. So in other words, the same lean body mass, your body can decide to burn more or less calories. In other words, it could become

more or less efficient. And when you cut your calories, you're sending a signal already to your body that says become more efficient. That's what happens. So think of it this way, you have a job, you earn X amount of dollars per month and you have so many bills. Suddenly your income cuts in half. What are you going to do with your bills? You're going to try and reduce them. So your body immediately when you cut calories, no matter what, no matter what, no matter how good you do it by the way, this always happens, your body's like okay we need to learn how to conserve more because we're taking in less the same thing happens

with dramatic increases of activity especially activity that doesn't build muscle okay activity like high-intensity cardio it's just calorie burning which is fine but when you send that high that high-intensity cardio signal the body also tries to learn how to be more efficient. So when you throw both of them at the person, and I'm not even talking about now the compromised ability to recover from the extra stress, which happens from cut calories,

it's a perfect storm. So it's a huge mistake lots of people make. They cut calories and dramatically increase activity. Terrible mistake that often results in, this is what happens, by the way, I've seen this happen to trainers, is they'll do this, that this pursuit of getting lean, they'll lose weight on the scale,

go get their body fat test, they actually went up. Because they lost muscle. Or nothing happened, like what's going on, I mean so much less. I feel like crap. It's very common because of the urgency once they get in that state to really, they think it's gonna accelerate their results

and that's the misconception. You know what's funny about this is bodybuilders, because bodybuilders do, there's a lot of things they do that's right. There's a lot of things that they do that are sometimes wrong but they progress in spite of what's happening. Totally. Or there's some other factor that's happening

that they're not quite understanding and that's the benefit that they see. But bodybuilders in the off season when they're trying to build this is what's funny to me they will do all the right things to build as much muscle as possible they'll eat more calories and they'll even do less volume of exercise in general strength training everything in general trying to pack on muscle then they go into a cut and the attitude is cut calories and dramatically increased activity what's funny is the thing the training that builds the most muscle in

the offseason is the kind of training and volume that you want to do when you're cutting to keep the muscle. You don't want to do more. Especially with getting less. You're pushing more demand with less fuel. If you were gonna do more or test pressing your volume or pressing your intensity, you do it fed. Yes. To see what you could do with it. So it's like, choose one or the other. It's like, okay, you want to try and lean out by doing some HIIT cardio and so, okay, cool. Stay

fed and do it. Let's see how your body responds to it. Okay, maybe it's not responding. Okay, instead of doing that, let's just try to reduce calories and keep everything the same and see what happens and then watch what happens. It's just this idea, I mean, it kind of reminds me, because I get it, theoretically, it feels like it- Everybody thinks it's just this plain formula. Well, you know what it- In, out. Doug and I had this really cool experience,

we just had to do the driving experience. And one of the things I screwed up on right away was right off the gates I spun out. And his feedback to me was you're throttling way too much out of it. You have to ease into the throttle. And I think, and it's such a weird dynamic because you think how would giving it less gas

get me to the point faster? More gas has got to get me there faster. No, it won't because the other things like your suspension, balance, steering, everything like that, is to your point, it checks and balances, says no, that's too much horsepower, too much right now where you're currently at and doing that, you're just going to lose traction, possibly spin out or spin your wheels and you will not get to point A or point B any faster that way. Actually letting off and letting it do its job. It will get me to that place faster. But yet your, your body wants to do that.

Like I want to more gas. That's what would get me faster. And I think that's what people, they get caught in the same thing with exercise is like, yeah, I want to get to that leaner goal. So more has got to give it to get to me. But you gotta fight that tendency. You have to, you do have to fight that tendency. And I think it is very natural for you to think that that's supposed to work.

And what's even more deceiving about the human body is the resiliency of it. And that's where these coaches get wrong because, and I, you know, it annoys me when I see the coaches and we have some in our own community that hear us tell that message all the time. Oh, you know, the mind pump guys, I think doesn't really apply. Yeah. They're talking to a very specific set of community of people. And it's like, no, bro, no, bro, this is everybody. Everybody has a high performers. Everybody has a stress bucket. Okay. What is unique to everybody is what other outside stresses besides exercise

that they are adding. And so they could fill that bucket up a lot quicker than others, but everybody's got a bucket. And at one point that bucket gets so full that stressing more, which exercise is, dieting less calories is also another one, overspills on that bucket and you're just not going to see the results. And so this is everybody, dude. It ain't unique to a small group of people. Yeah, and when you look at the bodybuilding, a lot of bodybuilding physique, like the competitive physique space, especially the high level,

a lot of the information comes up from there and kind of disseminates and you get coaches that get some of it and then they're fanatical about it and they spread out. A lot of it, you know, they get away with a lot of it for a couple of reasons. One, they have crazy genetics. They just do. When you get to that high level, you're talking about people who build muscle by thinking about it. They keep muscle on super low calories. They're just really good genetics. Then on top of it, they're on performance enhancing substances like anabolic steroids and growth hormone and stuff like that, which helps preserve muscle. So they just get away with it. That's all it is. By the way, they're not doing a great job at it. Speaking from experience of being in that community for years, having hands-on experience

of training them and also training alongside them, most of them aren't doing it right. And just because all of the people on the outside see the end result of the shredded guy or girl, they're like, well, it sure looks right to me. It does not mean that they got there the most effective way. They got there, but most of it, and we had a great conversation recently, Dr. Bickman is about this, it's because they have this crazy ability

to just discipline themselves. That's just so rare. They suffer. Yeah, all the signals that their bodies tell them they can ignore and just stay focused. And that was the biggest takeaway I had from being in that community for as long as I was, was these are some of the most disciplined humans

I've ever met in my life. They're not necessarily the smartest, they're not necessarily really understand training and diet that well. What they are and deserve the respect for, their ability to say I'm gonna eat like this and do this day in, day out without waiting. By all means necessary.

Oh, by any means, no matter what my body tries to tell me, no matter what, like just they, that's what they have, that's the superpower they have, is they have that discipline, and that's what really separates them more than any of the other things from their peers, is they have that ability to ignore that shit and keep going.

You know, speaking of stress, one of the best things you could do to improve your body's ability to adapt to stress or handle stress or build muscle or burn body fat both adaptations right one of the because people ask this all the time what's a recover what's a good recovery tool what's a supplement that will help me recover more what's it nothing nothing nothing comes close to sleep sleep by itself good sleep does more for your body's ability to recover and adapt than all the other hacks and whatever combined times 50.

It's so important that if you get good sleep, your recovery will absolutely explode. But it has to be consistent. This is one of the most important things. And I think people, I know this, I've seen the data, people are chronically under-slept these days. They really are. People under-slept these days. They really are. People just don't sleep well these days. There's a lot of reasons for it.

One of them being the introduction of smartphones, I don't know if you guys have seen this data, on sleep quality, is plummeted. It got bad when electricity got invented. So humans, people used to generally sleep a lot more, nine hours, nine, 10 hours a night. Electricity got invented and So humans, people used to generally sleep a lot more. Nine hours, nine, 10 hours a night. Electricity got invented and sleep went way down because now the lights are on,

we don't have a gas lamp or whatever. So that affected it. Television degraded people's sleep. Cable degraded it even more. And then you added social media and smartphones. But sleep, boy, that right there, that's why I think, so we have partners that focus on sleep, like 8 Sleep.

8 Sleep is... Best investment I've ever made, by far. 8 Sleep, there's nothing as complete as 8 Sleep for getting you to get good sleep. It is literally... Creating the environment for it. Oh, it's crazy. Have you guys seen what they did?

I wrote down some notes with the new. Well, the new Pod 5, they've upgraded some really cool stuff, and even if you don't have a Pod 5, even if you have the older generation, like I have Pod 4, they updated the software. And so the feedback that they're giving now on the UI, like the data, it's crazy. So this is what it is.

So people don't know, right? So it goes over your bed, and the temperature is controlled by the pod five. But that's not even like that's not even the beginning. That's just scratches the surface. By the way that makes a big difference. It will adjust the temperature based off of how you're sleeping and it'll individualize it to maximize the temperature throughout the night to give you the best sleep. But it also measures, I wrote this down, it can detect snoring and adjust the position of the bed

so it can keep you from snoring. Because snoring, by the way, it really degrades your quality of sleep. It detects abnormal heartbeats, disrupted breathing, changes in HRV. I mean, literally all the stuff that, everything, your deep sleep, your different REM stages of sleep, and you don't know this, you just go to bed, and then based off of

all these measurements, your individual measurements, it will adjust itself, and within a day or two, it'll learn how to maximize and give you the best sleep you've ever had. This is the best part about it, because this information isn't like brand new. If you own a Fitbit or these other tools, they measure a lot of those things also. The difference is what does the average person go do with that? And the AI adjusts it for you. So it's taking all that information you're saying and it's scoring you. Oh, I had an 80% here, 70% here.

It's like a sleep coach. And yes, and it's modifying the temperature to improve all that until it hones in on what gets you the best sleep. It's incredible. By far, one of my favorite partners that we work with, obviously, I know we love all of our partners. We wouldn't work with them. But there are certain things that I love.

But it's like, oh, if I go without for a while, it's not a big deal. Then there's other things like, I have to have my eighth. The time that mine went down was like torture for me to not have that. I didn't realize. And it's like that person that you don't know what you have until you don't have it type of deal. You know what I'm saying? And you realize, God damn, I did love her. What happened? It's like, I didn't realize how much until they're gone. That's how I felt like when the eighth seat was down, I was saying? It's like, I didn't realize how much until they're gone. That's how I felt like when the eight sleep was down, I was like, damn man, I didn't realize, I mean I knew I loved it, but I didn't realize

how much I did until I didn't have it. That's how I feel whenever we're not working. Come back to work, oh man. You longed for us. You longed for us. No, just Justin. You guys are on camera. You guys, no, I got, dude, I read an article,

I think Vanity Fair did it, I'm gonna pull it up. You ever read, yes, of course you have. I love reading articles where I start reading it and I'm like, who wrote this and how did this become political? Oh, I think I know what you're gonna bring up. Bro, this is Vanity Fair, okay? By the way, I can't believe food has become political.

It started happening a few years ago and it's just ridiculous, it's silly. Everything's political now. Food is about protein, right? Here's a title. Why are Americans so obsessed with protein? Blame MAGA. What?

Why are they throwing all this nonsense out there? And they're talking about, here's a subtitle. From the liver king to the podcast bros, I like how they call them the podcast bros. This is labeled. All of them. Yeah, the most popular podcast bros, I like how they call them the podcast bros. This is labeled. All of them. Like the most popular podcast or just media in the world. Nothing intelligent could come out of a bro.

From the liver king to the podcast bros to RFK Jr.'s Maha constituents, America's infatuation with protein has reached a fever pitch. Oh my God. And it's ready for this? It gets better. And it's undeniably gendered.

Oh, God. So what are- Proteins are an essential macronutrient. You shut the fuck up. You know what sucks about this? That they call it gendered. What gender do you think, by the way they're pointing to with all that? Yeah, right. Let me ask you guys, this is trainers. Okay? Trained lots of people for 20 years. You have male and female clients. Who is more likely to benefit from bumping the protein? Women, all day. This kind of information is terrible.

It's such a setback. Because it's gonna harm women even more. Totally. A bunch of young girls or women who are not privy to the benefits of protein, who probably are under-eating it anyway, are gonna read this and be like, oh. I don't wanna be associated with MAGA.

Yeah, so I'm gonna eat even less. Women oftentimes, more often than men, under-eat protein, the results of which are less muscle, more body fat, and hormone issues. Hormone issues. And so women benefit more than men often, when I've trained them, from bumping their protein. Articles like this calling it gender.

I don't know man. I'm calling it backfire for sure. This message is too late. It's too late. The fact that muscle mommy is a term and it's popular amongst young women is too late, dude. They're scrambling. It's too late. This tactic might have worked 10, 15 years ago.

In fact, it probably would have worked pretty well 10, 15 years ago, but that shit ain't gonna work no more. I feel like the fact that women are on to, I mean, generally speaking. You're right, because who reads Vanity Fair anymore? Anybody read? And what's healthy prevails always. When was the last time you talked to a woman that said she wanted to look like 80s model skinny?

I mean, you might hear it once in a great while. Once in a great while, you might hear it, but not like we used to. I mean that was common what you would hear as it described what you want to look like, right? Where I don't hear that at all. I hear, and I get it that we have our own bubble that we probably live in. You know what I hear now? I want to lose weight and build muscle. Yeah. I hear both. Whereas before it was just lose weight. Yes. Yeah. I hope you're right dude because as I'm reading this article, and it's comical, you guys, like they're talking, the podcast bros, which is funny.

Are we in that category? I guess we put Joe Rogan in that. Well, they're just looking at something to dig at, yeah, because Joe Rogan's such a loud voice, and I think that they're just trying to find an angle that will divide people from, you know, that's always the case. It's like fear and division. However they can promote it. Yeah, and I mean, it's always the case. It's like fear and division. It's however they can promote it.

Yeah, I mean, it's so funny, it's only men who care about protein. It's like, come on guys, that's not true. Well, here's the other thing, like the whole fat at any size thing is already taking. Being healthy at any size. Well, whatever.

Okay, at any size. That's Justin. You can be fat at any size. Yeah. You can be skinny and fat. That's right. whatever Size Skinny and fat I back that statement back that statement But what I was referring to is actually healthy at any size And I you see like even Lizzo's already losing weight Oh, that was the big face of the whole thing. And so I can't let her get skinny. Right. You can't have that happen because you know now your whole ideology like crumbles in front of you.

So I hate, by the way, I hate some of the quotes that they have that they put in here from certain scientists. Like here's a quote. Is there any evidence I know of that getting your protein from whole food is inadequate or somehow it's better to get it through protein powder. I don't know of any evidence to suggest that. Okay, there's a difference between what is adequate and what is optimal. Okay, it's rare that a man or a woman in a modern society is eating so low a protein that they're not getting enough amino acids and their body's breaking down.

That's rare. That usually doesn't happen. Usually you get enough protein to not die. But that's not optimal. And the data on what is optimal is two or three times higher than that typically for things like muscle gain, fat loss, hormones, longevity, cognitive function, immune system, you name it.

It's just better for you. But the fact that they twist it a little bit and say you're getting adequate protein, you don't need any more protein. No, you don't need any more protein. No, you don't need any more protein. But if you want to optimize your health and your performance on stuff, then you want it. Well, you do if you're sitting across the table from me

and you're saying my goal, Adam, is to build five pounds of muscle. You do. If you just said, Adam, my goal is to just live, say not die, like okay, your protein intake's fine. But if you want to add five pounds of muscle to your body where it's currently at, and you're struggling with that, 99% of all the women that I trained did not eat enough. And it was the first easy

go-to move was that and lift heavy. It was like switch her over from her kind of circuit-based class training to traditional strength training, five-by-five heavy-loaded exercises, and add protein. And it was like magic. Like right away, you would see a huge shift in their physique, and they would feel it and see it. It was life-changing for them. By the way, speaking of like protein powder

and stuff like that, so, creatine is getting a lot of recognition right now in the medical community. I'm seeing it more and more for, as a first line and adjuvant compound for depression. In particular in women. In particular. Five grams, five grams they showed in one study. Other studies showed more.

Now do you think the, I mean a perfect segue from the previous conversation to that is probably because the reason why in women it's showing such great or profound things is because most of them I know where you're going. Yeah, under eat protein. Yep, so because creatine.

It's just like how you used to compare vegans. Why is it so profound in vegans? Why? Because they under eat on protein. So animal meat will contain creatine in it. So the less of that you eat, the less creatine you get. But this is pretty amazing. It improved depressive symptoms significantly with people who are just doing cognitive behavioral

therapy. They weren't on other medications. They just did therapy with the creatine. And now women in particular benefit from creatine for what you said, and they also just store less creatine or less ATP in the body because they have less muscle mass. I also, I mean you predicted this already and I'm just gonna jump on the bandwagon

because I think we're gonna see, well we're gonna see, and I remember this curve, right? So when creatine first got really popular, when we were young trainers, right? There was the loading phase and of course the subliminal companies were pushing you to push the numbers up and then you would go down here and then it was like, you know, 10 to 20 a day for a week and then you drop down to five and you need five a day. And then a lot of the research came up and said, oh, you know, three to five is probably what's best for most people. And what's becoming more popular from

the cognitive side is we're seeing upwards of 10 plus. So I think you're going to see a resurgence you know, three to five is probably what's best for most people, and what's becoming more popular from the cognitive side is we're seeing upwards of 10 plus. So I think you're gonna see a resurgence in that, in the recommendation being, because it's like, well shit, yeah, three to five is probably pretty good for everybody else, but it doesn't hurt to do 10, and we're actually showing all these benefits.

I bet you're gonna hear more and more. You see, it doesn't even really saturate the brain, so you get about 15. So I think you're gonna say- Five grams for muscle. Five grams a day for muscle, 10 grams, 15 for brain. Which, so the general recommendation, I think is just gonna be much higher.

It's gonna be like, why not? It's relatively inexpensive. And it's safe. And it's safe, it's like, why not? Take 10 to 20. Well, you can tolerate, really. So, exactly, I think you're gonna be hearing more and more of that. There was one study

where they took rugby players, they put them on 15 grams a day for a year, saw no changes, no negative changes in any of their organ function, kidneys or anything like that. They're getting a lot of impact. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure that. Well, what I mean is just that there was no negative effects. No digestive issues.

I didn't know, yeah, you're talking about brain function. No, but for that, they're actually showing it's probably, especially if you're in impact sports. Yeah, oh yeah. It's a good idea. Speaking of supplements, I was reading up on the history of ginseng. I brought this up on the podcast before. They'll call it like the master or the king herb

or supplement. Do you guys know how far back we have recorded evidence of use of ginseng for health? How far back? Oh, that's gotta be a long time ago. I don't know, 5,000 years? Yeah. 5,000 years. 5,000?

5,000 years. We have recorded evidence of people. What does that look like? Just pictures on rocks? There was a, I should look, I gotta look it up. How do they translate that? It's back when dragons were flying around, dude. That must be gents thing they're drawing right now.

No, it's just, it's just gotta do it. No, it was, I can't find it now. I had it written down. But it was, I believe in India, there was some recorded, something that they found that showed that people were using ginseng. So it's been used for thousands of years in Asia. Native Americans prized it in the 18th century,

because some people brought it here, and there's also American ginseng. It's funny, it comes in waves. I mean, I I wrote do you guys remember when we first saw his trainers? I was a very popular very very popular. It's been popular But I mean I feel like it makes like it makes the news for a while then you don't hear about it for a while Then it makes the news again Like what is it about it that is it because people are similar to creating they're finding other use cases for it Like forever it's been for energy, right? That's kind of like, Chinese medicines use it forever

for general energy and what, overall health, mental clarity, vitality. Yeah, so libido, energy as an adaptogen, improving the body's ability to. Oh, it's considered an adaptogen. Oh yeah, it's like the original adaptogen. Look at this, the history of ginseng and the management of erectile dysfunction in China 3,500 years ago. No that's 3,500 BCE. Oh my

god. Yeah even more. That is insane. Wow. That's insane. They were having about her problems back then. What does it look like? Just a bunch of pictures. Yeah, so it's good for erectile dysfunction or libido, both men and women, energy. Athletes have used it forever. But it's one of the oldest, the longest used supplement, if you will. Is there, Sal, I know this is, I think it's one of the main ingredients that's in joy mode, right? They put a really, really good extract of ginseng in there, but they have other things in there that improve blood flow.

Any downside? I've never tried to double up on that dosage. Of the joy mode? Yeah. Oh, I've taken two a day. Not two at the same time. At the same time, though. No, no, no.

Any benefits, any drawbacks? I, so I like, so I'll use joy mode for energy. So it's non-stimulant. So there's no caffeine. I know, Doug, you do the same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah, so no caffeine, no stimulant. So if I'm done with the caffeine for the day

or if I'm doing a low caffeine, caffeine gets. Justin and I, I've used it pre-sex. I've used it like that. And it's solid. It's fun. Yeah, it's solid. I mean, that's why I'm curious, like, what would two do? What would two do?

Yeah. And I just wanna make sure there's no adverse effects before you do the end. And you do it as me. Yeah, no adverse effects. And he was trying to. I figured for sure you've already like pressed the upper limits. Like is there, and I guess where I'm getting at with this, with in regards to Vitality, Libido, is there an upper limit? I would imagine Joy Mode is probably already putting that much in there.

Do I get no more benefits after I hit a threshold? Or is it? I don't think you'll feel good with a ton. But I know the, the arginine extract that they use in there, I can't remember what they call it. There are other things in there that improve blood flow. I think too much of it might give you a bad tummy. Yeah.

But ginseng, you can go too high on ginseng. But you don't want that before sex. That's a terrible mood killer right there. Bro, that's, you don't want those sounds. Yeah, nothing like a mood killer right there. You don't want those sounds. Yeah, nothing like a mood killer. When you're laying down, it's like, rrrr. Yeah. It's just, what's the worst?

Yeah, that's the worst. You don't want to do that, Justin. That's why we're trying to do it. Yeah, so, Doug, pull up the ingredient. Oh, arginine nitrate, that's what it is. That's a really, really good form of arginine for blood flow. By the way, as a supplement for getting a pump in the gym. Also very good. You know, this is another company, by the way, as a supplement for getting a pump in the gym. Also very good.

You know, this is another company, by the way, that for the audience that doesn't know the history of our relationship, that we kind of laughed off at first. And then I remember you did a little bit deeper dive on it. You used it. I'm like, oh, they're legit. Yeah, I always liked those.

I think that sounded cool that there's a couple of companies. There are, there's a couple of brands that- We'll keep them around if it actually works. That at first we were very dismissive of it. And then the more you looked into it or researched it, you realized like, oh, actually this has got some legitimacy to it. Speaking of research, Justin, I know you know about this,

I'm sure you do. Have you ever heard of the conspiracy theory around art? How there was a Psy-op? A long time, have you heard of this? I don't know, tell me. So you've heard the term beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yeah.

So that's a BS statement statement because there is objective beauty. Yeah. There is objective beauty. It's a mathematical equation. And if you look at... It's like symmetry. What's the one artist that just does like splatter paint that... I don't know.

Yeah, so they thought that all of his work is just like... Yeah, a Psyop. A Psyop. So if you look at like, you go to a cathedral or look at like, especially old churches, right, thousands of year old, whatever, it's beauty. Everybody knows this. You go see, like I remember when I went to see the Duomo

in, I think that's what it's called in Milan, like you're looking at this, it's just breathtaking, right? They made this solo hundreds of years ago. Like there is objective beauty, and then we started getting into modern art, where people, and I feel like people pretend. I really think they think they're acting. Like you'll see some of this stuff,

and people will stand in front and be like, this is profound. Makes me feel this way. And I'm like, it's a red line. You know, what are you talking about? This is just, my kid could have done this. That's the joke. Well, the value is so made up.

Like it's all like relative to what everybody agrees to and so It's a weird thing. You don't realize how much like black market stuff is happening behind the scenes So it's like, you know, yes could be like a million dollar painting. You're like wait a minute really and you realize like they're paying them Underneath for something else. You know, I'm under laundering. Yeah, like you're selling drugs to Justin. Yeah, yeah, that part I'm familiar with. There was a whole Netflix series on that a long time ago. I don't remember what it was called, but I'm aware of that.

I'm familiar with that. It's a great way to launder money. But the theory was that they went into, just to confuse people and to make us believe as part of a larger project that there is no objective truth. And part of that is by convincing us there's no objective beauty.

That art is whatever you want it to be. And art performances, you ever read articles like these weird performances people do where they're like, this is me expressing myself. Or they sell the invisible art? Yeah, yeah. That one is totally true. You just sold, not that long ago,

I brought it up on the podcast onto there was duct tape banana against Or the guy who did the NFTs so for like million dollars, it was nothing it was like a space he's like Yeah, this is nothing. Yeah, that's just so at that point. What do you think? What are you talking about? What is this? What are we doing? Yeah, I doubt I think it's I think it probably stems from money laundering first. I think it's a creative way for people to do it. I also think people fool themselves or they want to believe it because they go with their friends.

You want to feel special. And yeah, we're so smart. We have the insight track. Yeah, we know art, you don't know art, and then they go and they're like, this is amazing, wow, look at this piece, it's profound. And the guy next to him is like, I don't want to sound like an idiot. Like, oh wow, look at this piece, it's profound. And the guy next to him's like, I don't wanna sound like an idiot,

like oh yeah, I can really see the depth in that, you know, it's like a black square, with some speckles on it or something. There's a lot of pain underneath it. Yeah, that's the title of it, pain, I can feel the pain. Oh my God, this is a dark place. I was reading about this and I'm like, I kind of agree with it,

at what point did we start to believe that beauty wasn't objective, that it was just... Well, there's an argument to that too, even with architecture, and they started to get into brutalism, and that kind of pervaded a lot of... So it's like cement, all like... Show me, Doug. Very fortress-looking type houses.

You know what, all you gotta do is look up Soviet-era buildings, that's what you gotta do is look up Soviet era buildings. That's what you gotta look up. So like- It's called brutalism? I believe so. I'm not familiar with that. So it's like, if you were in the Soviet Union

where they were just trying to build, like they were just building like square brick living places and offices and just look drab and you know, nothing was great, it was all gray. Yeah. And they're trying to argue it's all about function, but it's not. That's brutalism right there?

Yes. That doesn't look terrible. Not too bad. Well that one right there on the left. Yeah, the one on the left looks terrible. Yeah, it's just not. So yeah, some of them look all right. What was the, like what did they try

and make the argument of like that it was? Because the underlying theme is that there is no objective truth, it's all, your truth is your truth, and you can make it whatever you want. There is no objective good, there is no objective beauty, there is no any of that, and it's all construct. So if you really wanna expand your mind. It's all a big sigh out to sell you shit.

Yeah, and they're just trying to break it all down. That's funny. You know, funny Mac story yesterday. Oh my God, this guy's too much right now. This is, if I could probably encapsulate a period of time, I have to say five to seven years old has gotta be one of the coolest. I knew it going into it.

I'm in it now and it's moments like these where Katrina and I just get a good laugh and we pick him up from school and he's in the back seat. Daddy, can you, is it, are broken hearts real? Yeah, yeah. Can you have a broken heart? Is that, his big thing now, he's, he's, he's, he's learning the difference between like things that are made up and then things that are real. Like, so like, I remember I thought a sweet tooth was real. Right, right, exactly. So he's obviously connecting the dots. So this is what I love, I'm watching it unfold.

And it started with things like, are dragons real? Or are they made up? So it's like all the stuff he's seeing on TV and learning and hearing about, he's always questioning, is this made up or is this real? And so can you really have a broken heart? He asked me, he goes, daddy, can you really have a broken heart? And so I'm like, God, and I love what it throws me out. Obviously answering dragons is easy. You know what I'm saying? Answering broken

hearts a little more difficult. And so I'm like, yeah, son, you can have a broken heart. And he's like, well, what's the difference between sad? So if I'm sad, I have a broken heart. I said, well, it's a little bit different. How? Well, let's say it's raining outside and daddy can't go outside and play, so I'm sad. I don't have a broken heart, but I'm sad I can't go outside and play. So it's not the end of the world, it's not that big of a deal, but I'm sad.

So I'm sad, but not a broken heart. And he's like, okay, what's a broken heart? And I go, well, okay, if daddy came home one day and mommy said, I don't love you anymore, that would break daddy's heart. That's terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying. No, I can't say that, don't love you anymore that would break daddy's heart. That's terrible. I said no it's better bro. So I said well it was like the first thing that came to my mind. Oh my god that can happen if your mom died for example.

So we find out the sons not gonna be forever. I thought that was better than saying dead. I thought like you know mommy said she doesn't love me anymore that would break daddy's heart and he goes well, you know how to fix your broken heart? I said, well, how son? He goes, just marry somebody else. Wow. Katrina's in the car. She's died laughing. I started laughing. Too much right now, dude. So I, I just, when he catches me off guard as the most enjoyment I have answering easy ones.

But when I get hit with a heart, well, what do you say to a broken heart, Ryan? That's funny, dude. I would've said, well, it's like being really sad, so it's worse than sad. Well, that's what I did. I said, sad, I can't go outside and play. It's really, yeah, you're paired with love, right? So you love something.

He's gonna ask you, give me an example. Do you like something, or do you love a person? I can't go outside for a month., my heart's broken. I don't know Your mom says she doesn't love me anymore that would be smart kid to love hearing how they think oh I do I guess it's so cool to watch and like I said, I know where it's coming from because in the last couple months There's a lot of like things right away that our mummies like we watched Scooby-Doo and there was a mummy And so he's just like daddy your mummies real and so then I had to kind of away that our mummies, like we watched Scooby Doo and there was a mummy. And so he's just like, daddy, your mummy's real.

And so then I had to kind of explain like, well, mummies are real, but they don't really come alive. They don't come alive and chase you. So that was challenging to explain, yo. I feel like you'd like the show. I got kind of got into it. And I think it's called like, you can't ask that or something like that.

It's on Netflix and it's an Australian show. And you know how like they've had love on the spectrum and they kind of these things like, You Can't Ask That or something like that. It's on Netflix. And it's an Australian show. And you know how, like, they've had Love on the Spectrum and kind of these things? Like, I feel like, I don't know. They figured something out, like, in Australia, where they're just, like, really good at these social kind of experiments, really, like, documentaries about people,

like, interesting people. And so it's like, they take just random groups of people like in people with disabilities and just people that, you know, think completely outside the box, even like polyamorism or like, you know, just like taboo subjects. And then they take like, you know, five or six people and they interview them in all in separate rooms and-

Things you're not supposed to ask that group. Yeah. And then they get these card deck and then they answer and then they read it. And then they answer these crazy questions that are being told of like what you've always wanted to ask somebody, for instance, who's blind or something. And like, you know, you're not supposed to ask or whatever. Yeah. Like you're not, yeah. Or like social awkwardness. Like, do I actually, like, is it good that I asked to help you across the street or do you get offended by that? Or, you know, like, yeah, like, like weird stuff like that. It's just, it's interesting as you learn to like one thing, uh, in terms of like blindness too, that I, that I picked up, but I, I didn't

know. And I actually asked court, cause you're not supposed to grab their hand. You allow them to grab your hand. Yeah. Well, something like that, right? Well, you definitely always ask like coming in. That's, you know, that's because they actually said some people just grab them and they're like, whoa, it's like being assaulted, you know, you don't know, cause they can't see you coming. Yeah. Um, but no, when I, it was about actually how they got blind, like, and it was a, it was a common, it was a common occurrence with at least 80% of them was when they were babies, they were preemie, and they actually gave them too much oxygen. Oh yeah.

But Courtney said now too, as a treatment for that too, they've found out that caffeine actually counters a lot of that effect. Interesting. So, and it also helps with mucosal lining somehow and it has protective qualities to it. But anyway, it's just interesting. I didn't know that like... That was a common reason for blindness is too much oxygen. So when they're being born? When they're preemie. Yeah, they'll give them oxygen. Yeah, they give them oxygen because their lungs aren't fully developed yet. Too much oxygen is

toxic. And then it causes blindness. Interesting, I did not know that. Yeah, they give them oxygen because their lungs aren't fully developed yet. Too much oxygen is toxic. Yeah, and they causes blindness Interesting. I did I know that yeah And there's just like stuff like that and I won't I don't remember off the top of my head But it was a lot eating with with what not to ask on Netflix. Yeah, it's really interesting. You guys would like it That's that's hilarious. My son you remind me of a story my son There's a girl that one of our friends has a daughter that's five years old, and he comes over and he goes, hey, buh-bye, he goes, I like her. She looks like a good wife.

I'm like, what? What, bro? We started targeting that, dude. Max talks about being married and stuff now, too. She looks like a good wife. I'm like, what do you mean by that? I'm afraid to ask him what he means by that. Yeah, yeah, what does that mean?

You know, with deaf people, you know, we have technology now where there's certain kinds of, cochlear implants. No, there's certain kinds of deafness that we could fit. You know what one of the most, when they do these surveys on people who finally get their hearing. Oh, bro, it's hard not to get emotional

when you watch somebody the first time. Oh, like a little kid? Yeah. Oh, God. Either for the first time getting their hearing. Oh, bro, those are so, it's hard not to get emotional when you watch somebody the first time. Oh, like a little kid? Yeah. Oh, God. Either for the first time getting their hearing. What's interesting too is like they describe with blindness and also like, they describe what it actually is. So it's like it's a fuzz or like what they actually can hear.

Yeah. You know, and you're like, it's so interesting because it's like, and they hear clicking and stuff but they don't really hear. So it varies across the board too. One of the most common misconceptions or misunderstandings or beliefs that deaf people have that when they can hear again, they're like,

oh, I didn't know that would be that way. You know what it is? They all think that the sun makes noise. Oh yeah, I've heard that. Now think about that, if you looked at the sun and you never heard anything, it would look like it's making some kind of noise. Like rain, and they're surprised that it doesn't make noise.

Oh, that's kind of wild. Yeah, I read about that. That's interesting. Yeah, some of them, they didn't like, it was too much. It was too much, too much, so they went back to the silence. Because you just have to learn how to, you have to process it.

Yeah, it's a big time, it's a big adjustment. It's wild. Before we wrap up here, I wanted to remind our trainers that we have a three-part series dropping. Oh yeah. On May 19th. May 19th, three-part bonus series for trainers. And then on the ninth, that's,

and then we have a webinar on June 3rd. You can go to trainerwebinar.com, it's free. I'm gonna teach you how to close deals. But go May 19th, listen to all three of those episodes. We're gonna teach you some good stuff. Children's multivitamins are just glorified candy for the most part, except for a company called Haya. This is not candy, it's a real multivitamin,

and yes, your kids will still take it because it still tastes good, but it has adequate nutrients, the ones your kids need. This is the multivitamin we use with our kids. Go check them out, go to hayahealth.com, that's H-I-Y-A, health.com that's H I Y a health.com forward slash mind pump and on that link you'll get 50% off all right back to the show first question is from slow run Meg what you guys do to keep up your

strength when resting an injury it depends on the severity of the injury and where it's at and where it's at isometrics sometimes you can do but I will add this like strength loss and muscle loss comes back so fast. When you get back in exercise. Yeah, yeah, well at times just rest recovery is the best move. Yeah, in fact, I'll make a case for that, Justin, the faster you can get back to training normal, the better,

therefore your number one goal when you have an injury is healing, it is not preventing muscle loss, it's to heal. That's the number one goal that you have an injury is healing. It is not preventing muscle loss. It's to heal. That's the number one goal that you have. I think this has changed for me. Early years as a trainer, this is probably a question that I would ask or be trying to solve. It's like, oh man, I tore my ACL. How do I not lose the chest gains and the shoulders that I built? I'd be trying to do all the things. Totally would not be... I got injured not that long ago. the things, totally would not be like, I mean, I got injured not that long ago. I get injured.

I'm just like, I'm going to take the time off. And I also think there's something to be said about it teaches you that you also need to kind of modify other parts of your life. And there's probably going to be times in your life, right? Unless you're an anomaly or like Sal, or you never miss, that you just fall off of training and you're not doing it consistently. And so long as you learn to modify your eating and maybe your activity level,

i.e. walking, doing physical labor, other things, then there's not this massive swing. Sure, I might lose a little bit of muscle, I might put on a tiny bit of body fat, but it won't be a major swing. And I can take a whole month, two months off, come right back. As soon as you get right back, that muscle comes right back on, you get right back in shape pretty quick. It's the dramatic swings that we go through where we are so consistent, dialed in, do no diet, and then

an injury happens or you fall off the wagon for a month and then you eat like shit, you don't move, you don't, and then you have this crazy weight gain. It's like, actually, if you just tweak a few things, you're injured, you're not training as hard, you're not moving as much. Okay, I better scale back the calories a little bit. Hey, you know what? Now I'll probably just go for some walks since I can't really push the weights right now and do that. And then what you'll see is like, you don't have these crazy swings up or down and the

body is crazy how quickly it gets back to right where you were before. It's hard to reach new PRs and new levels but to get back to where you were is really easy. Yeah, you know what's good by the way with injuries that also simultaneously helps with muscle is red light therapy. So red light therapy helps heal injuries faster, also simultaneously promotes strength gain. So that's actually a really, really good tool for something like that. Next question is from Lindsey Ant 32.

What should you do if you are reverse dieting, but see weight gain? It depends how much weight you're seeing because some weight gain is expected with the reverse diet. It's going to happen. Like I, you know, if you know, four or five pounds, that's fine. You're talking 15 pounds, 10 pounds, go up slower. Stay at a caloric level for longer before you start bumping in or bump up slower.

When I would bump people up on reverse dieting, my calorie bumps would be between 100 to 200 calories, typically, if I saw like big changes, then I could do as little as 50, just very, very little. But about 100 to 200 is good. So if you see a lot of weight gain, slow down. Yeah, I think that's... I'm glad you pointed out that you're going to gain weight. That's part of this process. You're eating more.

You're taking in more carbs. You're probably taking in more sodium. You're probably taking in more water. All those things result in your body having more water, more glycogen inside it, and then it's going to just, it's going to reflect a little bit on the scale. All I'm looking for is massive swings or consistently adding weight, adding weight, adding weight. If I even see, even seeing you adding a pound every week on the scale, I'm still not that worried. A pound, you know, every week, so in four weeks we've only put four pounds on, not a big deal. But if I see four pounds in the first week and then I see another

two pounds and I go, okay, we're probably moving too fast, right? Like we got to scale back. But being comfortable, when you're reverse dieting, you have to learn to be comfortable with putting a little bit of weight on. And the other thing is too, is that also what kind of weight? Because if you do a good job of adding good calories, yeah, it could be muscle. And like, that's not a, that's not a bad thing at all. Even if you went up five pounds, if four of it was muscle, you're kicking ass, you know, so keep that in mind. Also next question is from shall we fitness when taking NSAIDs to

treat an acute injury, sorry, will taking NSAIDs to treat an acute injury, sorry, will taking NSAIDs to treat an acute injury completely negate gains from strength training? No. So NSAIDs are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, ibuprofen, naproxen, aspirin. They reduce the inflammatory process. The inflammatory process is also involved in signaling muscle growth or repair. So it probably will reduce the muscle building signal, but it doesn't completely negate those gains. So it's not like you take ibuprofen, it's like, I wasted my workout.

If you guys had to put a number to it, because I know the study and the research to this that's scared people away from that, it's like it's definitely an ideal, but it's not like what? No, it's minuscule. Yeah, it's tiny, right? The studies are with chronic use. That's the thing, yeah, and I think this is where

people are being misled, it's like it's not like a few occasions where you're actually in pain, you're medicating some pain. Two, what about like, you know, the following proceeding workouts and like, you know, to be able to, you know, recover and bring your inflammation down and be able to move and then also build upon that. I mean, that has to factor in.

The studies that were done on this where you see is either A, they're looking at a signal, which the signal doesn't always like a blunted signal doesn't always, like a blunted signal, doesn't always translate into, you know, significantly less muscle gain. But the ones that show like increased risk of tendon rupture, there's studies on that, right? Lots of NSAID use over time can contribute to that,

or reduce athletic performance. Those were done with people who used them chronically. And what do I mean by that? They would take them every time they trained. Yeah. Because they're like I can't move properly unless I take this, so I take this as a pre-workout essentially to be able to do my workout. And they've done it for years. It's ritual for them. And even then it takes you from 10 being your best potential ability muscle to 8. It's not like it takes a day. But this is like over the course of a year or two. I know, but my point is even that person, right?

I mean this is also similar to the people that stop a good habit, like doing cold plunge because they saw the study that said it blunts, it's like you still can build muscle cold plunging after a workout. Is it ideal? No, but it's like, there's also other benefits to you cold plunging, just like Justin's point of like, you know, if benefits to you cold-body, just like with Justin's point of like,

you know, if that helps you, the pain, numb the pain to get ready to do your workout the next day, like, well, you probably wouldn't have worked out had you not taken it, so then you have to, you know. There's some cases where, I mean, look, heavy, consistent, NSAID use, probably not a good idea. I think long-term use as its risks isn't good for you. But there's cases where, cases where someone's gotta perform.

You're an athlete and you're in season, and it's like, you don't have any options, well okay, you're not in a healthy place to begin with. You're competing at a high level, then you gotta use these types of things. It seems it's totally parallel with icing after a workout with athletes, and I know that was another one that kind of scared people.

Icing, far safer, obviously, far safer. But yeah, I mean, the studies again that show this, these were people who used them chronically for years and years and years. But if you're gonna use this for like a month, couple weeks, I wouldn't worry about it. Nah. Next question is from MFS Wellness.

How do you see AI affecting the fitness industry? What are the pros and cons that can come of its involvement for trainers, nutrition coaches, and their clients? AI is only gonna help. Yeah, you said you see any cons. Trainers and coaches. You know when it's gonna become a potential con?

Is when your online AI coach is indistinguishable from a person. Like they literally, like you can relate to them, you trust them, like you can't tell it's not a human, well then every job is at risk. You can weed out the weak ones. But right now, all it's gonna do is it's gonna take a trainer and it's gonna allow them to scale,

it's gonna allow them to figure out nutrition plans, gonna allow them to manage their business, write copy for social media, know how to put together a post. It's gonna make one person as effective as five people if you know how to use it right. But it doesn't pose a risk, there is no risk. Yeah, I don't think that at all.

I don't see this any different than pre and post step trackers, metabolism things, I mean your Fitbits, your macro counters, all these, they're all tools and tools to make you better at your job. AI is the same way too, I don't think they're going to replace humans in the end. No, and I wanna be clear, like okay, can AI write a better workout than what Google used to do?

Yeah, way better, okay? But if you're a trainer and you think that's your value, you're wrong. Your ability to write a good workout is a part of your value, but it's a small part. The bigger part of your value is how you relate to the person. Do they trust you?

Do you have a good relationship with them? Are they able to follow your guidance a good trainer with with subpar workout programming But but who also gets good trust for their clients and buy in and is under in the in the client feels like they can divulge Information with them they get grace from them They want to follow them is gonna be far more effective than a trainer that writes the best damn workout programs But doesn't have the're a perfect example of this. MAPS Fitness Products is the flagship product

or thing that scaled this business. It doesn't exist without the conversations on the podcast. Right. And it is awesome programming, right? It's the best out there, I stand by that. I'm a little biased, but that's what I think, right? But does not sell what it sells without the podcast. People buy that from us because of this conversation

that's happened for 10 years. That's why, if it was just the program by itself and put out into the ether, it would- Terrible business. Yeah, it wouldn't work. You get free workouts all the time. It wouldn't work. So it's no different, you as a trainer,

just because AI could potentially assist you at writing a program or not. Or write up a meal plan. Right, right, or do whatever it can do. It's not gonna replace the conversations that you have with your clients, and all the variables and the nuances and the personality, all that.

All the things that make the show, is what makes Mass fitness products successful. I think the real risk when this all becomes a big challenge, again, is when AI is indistinguishable from a human, but that's gonna be a weird time and everything's gonna be- And we have a lot of other problems. I mean, that's what I'm saying. My big problem is gonna be,

what am I gonna do as a trainer? It's gonna be like, is that a human? Is that a human? What's happening? Are people gonna get married anymore? What's happening here on earth? Look if you like the show come find us on Instagram Justin is at mind pump Justin I'm at mind pump DeStefano and Adam is at mind pump Adam. Thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB 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. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com.

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