Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2614: The Top 5 Fitness Tips from Soviet-Era Scientists & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: The Top 5 Fitness Tips from Soviet-Era Scientists. (1:50) Thymosin Alpha is wild for the immune system. (25:31) This is yet another example of why grass-fed meat is superior to conventional meat. (32:30) Radical non-monogamy. (38:54) Perception drift. (47:35) The best way to use Brain.fm. (54:15) #ListenerLive question #1 – How can you tell the difference between a healthy and normal hunger, and your body trying to tell you it is time to up your calories? (56:22) #ListenerLive question #2 – How can you develop a thick skin as a trainer? (1:09:23) #ListenerLive question #3 – Why can I gain weight relatively easily but not lose it, even with what should be a deficit? (1:28:42) #ListenerLive question #4 – What’s your advice on how to know when to go all-in on one thing or another? (1:38:49) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!  ** For a limited time, new Butcher Box members who sign up through Mind Pump will receive: $20 OFF their first box, free chicken breast, ground beef, OR salmon in every box for a whole year! A curated box pre-filled with Mind Pump’s favorite cuts — no guesswork, just great meat. ** Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** June Special: Shredded Summer Bundle or Bikini Bundle 50% off! ** Code JUNE50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1897: Why Phasing Your Workouts Is So Important & How to Properly Switch It Up Justin’s Road to 315 Push Press Mind Pump Group Coaching What is Thymosin Alpha 1 and How Does it Work? - Jay Campbell Visit Transcend for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer! Consumer Reports’ Tests: Conventional Ground Beef Twice As Likely To Contain Superbugs as Sustainable Beef Aubrey Marcus, "Radical Monogamy" and Spiritual Narcissism Excuse Me, What's This "Trap Botox" Trend on TikTok? Visit MASSZYMES by biOptimizers for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP10 at checkout for 10% off any order. ** Mind Pump #2312: Five Steps to Bounce Back From Overtraining Trainer Bonus Series Episode 1: The Successful Trainer Mindset Trainer Bonus Series Episode 2: Diet & Exercise Strategies That Work AND Clients Love Trainer Bonus Series Episode 3: Assessments That Sell Training Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Aubrey Marcus (@aubreymarcus) Instagram Dan Bilzerian (@danbilzerian) Instagram Dr. John Delony (@johndelony) Instagram  

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This is mind pump. Right, today's episode, people called in, we got to coach them on air, we get to help them with their fitness on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro is 54 minutes long. Now in the intro, we talk about studies on fat loss, muscle building, health, talk about current events, family life, being dads, it's a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this one, where you can call in, email

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and sign up for free for 30 days. Try it out, see what I'm talking about. We also have a program sale this month. The Shredded Summer Bundle of workout programs is half off and the Bikini Bundle of workout programs is also half off. Get ready for summer, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code June 50 for the discount. Here comes the show. Some of the best science you'll ever find on strength training came out of the Soviet Union. It's true. We're

going to talk about the top five fitness tips you can apply that the Soviets figured out they were ahead of everyone else. Let's go. I like this topic. We gotta work on your clickbait titles. It could've been more like the Communists have it right. Why didn't you do something like that? That's a lie. I mean, they had this part right.

The one thing the Communists got right. Yeah, I mean, you gotta get something that's more edgy, dude. It's actually really fascinating because during that time, this of course was when the Soviet Union existed, they were just killing it in strength sports. Absolutely killing it. And they really took this approach towards Olympic medals

as a way to glorify that their system was best, right? And so they took their concentrated efforts and they took their best scientists and they said we're gonna figure out strength training we're gonna figure out progressing we're gonna figure out supplements we're gonna figure out nutrition of course performance enhancing drugs which we also use by the way but we're gonna take this all and take a very scientific approach and we're gonna spend money on it and let's see what we end up producing. And what they did was they actually came up with many things we take for granted now.

And when the Iron Curtain came down, right, when the Soviet Union kind of fell apart, a lot of the strength secrets came over and we figured them out as well. Now, you've talked about this before many times on the podcast. Were we not doing that at all? Like I know that part of this was, this was government funded, right? So it was the opportunity for them to show that there's superiority, right, over us in the Olympics. And so they poured a lot of money into all this research. And obviously we are on the other side saying that you know free markets better and let your people do whatever and we didn't have anybody that was doing this nobody had kind of figured that out on their own

there they were the only ones that were controlling studies and and figuring out the steroids and I mean I understand like there had been so we had we had our own pharmaceuticals and steroids. So Diana Ball came out of the US. But when it came to training methodologies, although now of course the best comes out of the US. But when you go back then, it's like there's no market for funding the types of studies that are

needed for this kind of stuff. There really was no market. They didn't have as much of a concerted effort. No. Yeah, it wasn't funded. So yeah, I think that there was a lot of training. Obviously, there's a lot of training going into the Olympics and weightlifting.

But to the degree where they took scientists and took them through testing and everything, I think that they were ahead of everybody. So it really was them who started to figure a lot of this stuff out first. There was no pioneers over here. Right. Now when I always assumed that it was just because they because it was government funded, they had they had all the athletes on board with the same philosophy and the same like

regimen that they were studying and maybe over here we had a couple guys that had figured it out. We're kind of doing it, but not collectively everybody. so as a whole. We're getting consultants and whatnot. What you have here, now what you have here, is professional sports make a lot of money. And so this is now where you get a lot of the studies and funding, it'll come out of there. But the Soviets, they took a scientific approach and broke everything down.

I'll give you an example, okay? They understood progressive overload better than we did. So what I mean by that is, so progressive overload, very important, like add weight to the bar, like get stronger. Our athletes knew that as well, but the way our athletes did it back then, uh, in, in weightlifting was that they would push what they could do. And then when they could do it, they would push again. The Soviets looked at it and it was very systematic and what they found was you progressively

overload a little bit and even if they could do more, you leave it there because what it allows for is more progression later. In other words, if you're going to go out and do a deadlift and your previous weight that you used for let's say eight reps at that same intensity, let's say it was 500 pounds and you go and you add five pounds to it, 505 and you do eight and you're like, whoa, I could go up to 515. A lot of people go up to 515.

So if it's like, nope, you're going to stay at 505 and we're going to stay there for two weeks and then we'll go up to 510. They added in increments of two and a half to five pounds and they did this in this very systematic approach. Another thing they did with progressive overload is they would allow an athlete to stay at a weight, even though the intensity continued to drop,

as the athlete got stronger, and then waited 30 days before they would then jump and do an overload. So their approach to progressive overload was scientific. It wasn't just, oh, you feel like you could do more, let's do more. It was very much like, feel like you could do more, let's do more. It was very much like, okay, here's the number, let's do it.

That seems, and maybe just because we've been doing this for so long, it almost seems like common sense to me. Do you feel like it's the other way? I mean, do you think that I'm biased because I've just been around it for so long? Yeah, I think common sense would say, everybody still falls for this, is, oh, I did more than last week, but I feel like you could do more,

let's add more. Let's push it. Let's keep pushing it. Yeah. Whereas they were like, we've already exceeded. Let's stay here. So that we draw it out much further along. That's right.

And so they just have, you have this kind of long-term approach, uh, with progressive overload, which takes us to the next point. This was a big one that they did that other people just didn't really figure out as well, uh, which was periodization. They periodized their athletes and the way they trained in a very systematic way. It was like, you are going to train for this block with this intensity, regardless of how you feel, we're going to bring you down to this intensity.

Then they had meso cycles, Matt, you know, micro cycles, meso cycles. So this this week this is what the cycle looks like, this month this is what it looks like, here's what it looks like over three months. It was very systematic and scientific. So as you explain this for the audience that's obviously familiar with us and familiar with MAPS programs, you need to translate that into MAPS language for everybody else because we chose to, because some of these terms are popular and people have heard them throw around We tend to use, you know our own lexicon with a lot of stuff. And so as you explain What they did explain how we use a lot of that within our own maps philosophy

Yeah, so to give an example of like a very basic Periodization type schedule that that the Soviets would have used. It would be like you have a heavy week, a medium week, and a light week. Now here's the difference between what I'm talking about and what a lot of people tend to do. It doesn't matter how you feel. You're going to do a heavy week, you're going to do a medium week, or you're going to do a light week.

So going to the light week, a lot of people are like, I can keep going. I can keep pushing. They said no, this is your light week. So you're going to the light week. A lot of people are like, I can keep going. I can keep pushing. They said, no, this is your light week. And when they applied the scientific method, they saw that long-term this resulted in tremendous progress. So what does this look like for a MAPS program? You have phases. You know, MAPS Anabolic is the flagship program.

That's a good example. Phase one is low reps. Phase two is moderate reps. Phase three is higher reps. You have a little bit of a change of exercise, a little bit of a change in rest periods. And the number one, I'll put in quotations, complaint we'll get from people with MAPS anabolic is because they'll finish phase one and they'll be like, but I could keep going. I'm so strong right now. Yeah. Let me stretch out phase one. Can I do that? And we're like, no, no, no.

You get better results switching before you hit where you stop progressing. This is why I wanted you to communicate this because it's very, in the internet world, we have an incredibly low return rate, right? Like anything under 4% is incredible. We trend under 2% as a business for as long as we've been doing this in the Maps programs.

And the only time our team gets something as a business for as long as we've been doing this in the MAPS programs. And the only time our team gets something as a refund, it's because people think that they need more. Because they're not sore enough, and this is, oh, this must be remedial. This is for a beginner, I'm too advanced for this. And so I just wanted you to point that out, as this is a perfect opportunity, since we're talking about how much they changed the game

in training and how wrong we had it for so long, thinking that, oh, this is a perfect opportunity since we're talking about how much they changed the game and training and how wrong we had it for so long thinking that, oh, this is a better way because I can because I can do more, I should do more. And it's that no, that's not true. There's a better way to do that. And we figured that out. And so I just wanted, and we obviously use different terms in our programming than periodization and undulating and things like that you might have also heard. So I want you to continue to communicate that so people understand that because it is the if we ever get a return, that's what it's for right there. That's right. I mean, you know, lifters in America at that time, let's say the 60s and 70s, for example, they would kind of base it off of feel. And so they had schedules, but you know, if they felt like they could go harder, they would.

they had schedules but you know if they felt like they could go harder they would and and you know this systematic approach what it shows is we often often I'll speak personally completely would tend to be wrong my personal belief is I could do more or I'm gonna stretch out this phase let me keep going ooh I just added 20 pounds of the bar you know what I could go 30 pounds let me keep going, ooh I just added 20 pounds to the bar, you know what, I could go 30 pounds, let me do that. And really what we're doing is we're missing long term progress and we're not maximizing the body system of adaptation. They were really good at sticking.

Yeah, it's almost like they removed like feel and momentum and just stuck with discipline. Like complete discipline and just regardless of what your bias community is. And to be clear, these were athletes that were owned by the communist. You had to do, yeah. Oh, you had to follow this?

You had to stick with it. Yeah, you're gonna throw in the gulag. So they dissed, they followed it and it worked. And again, it shows that periodization makes a big difference precisely because you're not just trusting you know you want to get after how I feel type of deal because that oftentimes will just will lie to you. The next thing they did is they did focus a lot on compound movements. I don't think we need to focus a lot of

time and energy on this point but compound movements just give you so much more bang for your buck. Now was that unique to them or do we at least figure that out though, right? We did that as well Yeah, we did that as well. So this one we had but let's let's highlight Doing these the previous to become even more important totally because how taxing those types of lifts can be on on the body So I think even though the US might have been doing this, understood this part, if you understand this part, but you neglect the previous two points that they had figured out,

boy do you really set yourself up for over training and injuries. That's right, that's right. So what we tend to do is we tend to add in all these other exercises, which will sometimes have value, but we tend to do it while sacrificing our ability to adapt to the big compound lifts. So it's like we set the ball in motion,

and it's rolling, and we're going great, and then we put little roadblocks in front of that ball because we're like, oh, I'm gonna do some of these. A lot of times it's a big distraction. A big distraction. For your body to adapt efficiently. That's right. You're just compromising your-

Well, you even shared this in your recent journey. Yeah. I mean, you were going after, obviously, a compound lift as the primary PR goal, and your first admitting your first even mistake was like, I was still doing too much, other shit. Yeah. When it's like the goal here is to hit a PR on this lift right here and you felt you were overdoing it even the beginning of your-

I wasn't specializing. I was looking too broadly at my goal. And once I started to get into it, I was like, wow, this isn't benefiting me. I can't recover at the same rate that I want by adding all this excess amount of exercising. It's like we got to narrow it down to to what's gonna move the needle the most. And it was very eye-opening. Yeah, you got huge gains just from that change. They also really placed an emphasis on recovery and they really figured out active rest.

The Soviets really figured this out. So I think instinctually we think that the best way to recover is to not move. we think that the best way to recover is to not move. Like we think of like rest for recovery, like rest when we need to like sit down and sleep or just sit down and do nothing. The truth is your body recovers faster except in extreme, extreme, extreme situations, your body recovers faster through light movement.

Your legs are really sore from a workout and you just want to sit down and not move them. They'll get they'll actually recover faster if you do some light walking. Just that light movement stretching. You know hearing you say that makes me feel like I think a great example of how we didn't have this part right. I think of the old what was a pumping iron where Arnold and them would lift and then they would just go lay. And I feel like knowing what we know now that they would probably more likely be walking on the park barefoot or the beach or doing even like mobility or lunges would be something that they would do to promote even more muscle growth than they were doing versus just laying out just trying to sleep.

Because that was the, even, even when I first came into the space, I remember that was the theory, like bodybuild you would to get big lift and then go, I remember doing this on my lunch breaks because I had these huge gaps in between training clients is I would train really hard around 11 or noon. And then I had like a good four or five and I just go, I literally would just, I didn't try not to say, yeah, and I just go, I literally just, I tried not to move. Same. Yeah, didn't want to burn any calories,

wanted to rest as much as I could, like that was what I, and I thought this is giving my body the most optimal amount of recovery to build muscle, and just totally had that wrong. In fact, it would have been better off doing some mobility stuff or walking and moving. I mean, even when I was going through sports and I still had, I carried that same mentality.

It was like, I just need to not do anything. I, you know, overexerted myself and I just want to like rest all day. And then the next day until I started reading actually, and it was from the super training book that was like Soviet related. They were talking about stretching and active recovery with walking and getting blood circulation

and all that too. Yeah, no, in fact, you just brought up the bodybuilders of the 70s. That's a big myth. The myth was that they did nothing in between their workouts. Really what they did is they tanned for like 20 minutes. And then they were swimming. Oh, really? Yeah, they would all hang out at the beach and they were moving.

But there's a myth that they would just lay there. Yeah, yeah, because that's what they were... Pumping out and showed that. Yeah, they highlight that at the show. Like they make it seem like they wouldn't train hard and they just laid on the lawn, you know, laid out, laid on the grass and slept, you know. You know what's interesting about this, again, unless there's an extreme,

like you have rhabdo, like severe muscle damage, yeah, you just need to sit there because your body's fighting. You need to heal. But for 99% of people, here's what happens, right? You just did this stress signal to the body through exercise and if you did it right, the stress signal sets the gears of motion for

recovery and adaptation, which are separate, but they happen kind of the same time. So I'm okay, I'm going to start building muscle. Here's what the signal of being sedentary sends to your body, pair muscle down. You actually are sending a competing signal when you don't move that says, uh, let's get rid of some of this muscle.

We don't need it. That's why it's, it's better to actually move. It actually speeds up the, and enhances the adaptation process. I figured this out, uh, as a kid, I've told this story, uh, I had a BMX bike at one point. My cousin and I bought one. We saved our money. And I remember I would hit my arms like super hard.

Biceps would get all sore. And I remember, I'll never forget the summer that we bought our bikes. I was learning how to bunny hop and I was pulling the handleball so hard. And I remember thinking to myself like, Oh man, my biceps are sore and I'm pulling these handlebars, I'm totally ruining my gains. And I got like, I was surprised to see that I recovered faster and had better gains. And that's when I kind of started piecing it together.

I didn't really fully apply it until I was much, much older. But yeah, if you're sore, you just had a hard workout. Move, move is going to help you recover the fastest. And lastly, the Soviets did really, really well as they tracked and analyze their progress, um, because they took a very scientific approach. Every rep, every, the weight, every hour of sleep, like, you know, everything they did, they were able to track, um, and, and, and put into their formulas to figure out what's actually working. Now, why is this valuable? They were able to track and put into their formulas

to figure out what's actually working. Now why is this valuable? Because we think we're so self-aware, but we're actually not. The most, even the best fitness experts, you're talking like, you know, we got three guys on this podcast who've been training people for two and a half decades. It's what we do for a living.

Like, I miss things all the time and I'm about a billion times more aware of the, you know, what fitness exercise does and diet does than the average person. So tracking just lets you kind of see what's going on. I know, I love the story you tell Adam of when you were competing, uh, as a pro and looking at your total volume for the first time you tracked it and you realize like my volume never really

changes because sometimes I go more sometimes I go less. Yep. And you know what's the deal here? I mean and that's you and to your point you're talking about people that have been doing this for a long time and think you're and I like to think that we're more self-aware in the gym than the average person but you do seem to fool yourself. You know, I'm going to take this opportunity for a shameless plug since we happen to be in, I think, the final couple of days of our group training. And, you know, you want to talk about an incredibly valuable experience for anybody who's never had this before, which is having somebody take you through something that's

been expertly programmed. Then also coaches guide you through that and have conversations with you on a weekly basis to help you understand how to modify and back off or increase and know what that's like and feel what it's like to go through that, even in a group setting where, you know, everybody's focused on fat loss, everybody's focused on muscle building, but hearing a coach, one of our trainers, take you through that process and teach you how to do that, I just think it's so invaluable. I mean, and that was the feedback that we've gotten for this group is that so many, even some of these people that are advanced have

been lifting for a really long time going through this and going like, man, having them lead that and coach you through that, because I can't tell you how many times I always hear these people that buy the program our programs and then they add stuff to it and they think that because they can do more that it's better and it's like no it's not. And then you get fooled because you see it's still it's still good enough you see some results and so then we get in this head of like probably how just like the US used to like well we're obviously doing some right because our guys are getting stronger. So it's like, yeah, but there's even a better way

if you just trust the process. And then actually having someone lead you through that process for a three month cycle to go through all those phases and then go, oh wow, this is what it's supposed to feel like. It'll blow your mind. It's unbelievably valuable. So.

It is, we have two groups that we're gonna be running soon. One for fat loss and one for muscle building. It's at mindpumpgroupcoaching.com, just if anybody's interested. Yeah, no, the tracking part of this is important because it also does this. When I had clients track, and actually this is what I used to do just because I tried to prove to my clients the value of this. because sometimes you could tell people Like right now you're listening to this. Maybe it's going in one ear out the other. So here's what I used to do as a trainer

I would track for my clients when we would have these conversations and I knew they wouldn't I would start tracking and I'd write Things down in their in their chart and then they come to me 30 days, you know into it 60 days into it Sal I feel like you know, I don't know if I'm, am I doing everything right? And it's just not, I don't know, I'm frustrated. And I go, well, let's go look at your chart. And I'd show them, be like, wow, look at that.

Your squat went up 15 pounds. You added five reps to this. You used to often come in and tell me about how bad your energy was, and I'm marking here that your energy levels were actually consistently higher. And then they'd go, oh yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. Why, because they just weren't paying attention

to everything, what they were paying attention to was like one thing, like the scale maybe. Or maybe the mirror, which is subjective oftentimes. So this is something you can do for yourself too, this tracking allows you to see like, oh my God, like this is working, or wow, when I eat that, this is what's happening to me, and my god, like this is working or wow, when I eat that, this is what's happening to me and I wouldn't have known had I not written

it down. Or what you tend to perceive or think that you're always busy or always doing so much and what I found which was like you have a month and I'd be like, what the hell, I didn't progress. You didn't move at all. But then when I pull back out, I, oh well shit when I look at total volume I actually went down this month So the fact that I didn't go any further backwards and I at least held on to my strength is actually I didn't progressively overload

at all yet I thought I did because I was just as busy or I felt like I had those hard sessions in there and so I find that really valuable too, especially for coaches and trainers to do what you're saying for their clients because really valuable too, especially for coaches and trainers to do what you're saying for their clients because there's been many times where a client might come or has came to me after say month three or four in the middle of a training cycle had been training with me for a long time and been frustrated because that month they didn't see the progress they wanted to and I bet many times if you pull back and were to compare that to the previous month or

something else you might realize like oh shit well even though you thought you worked just as hard or doing as much you actually didn like, oh shit, well even though you thought you worked just as hard or were doing as much, you actually didn't, we did this much, we did 10% less volume this month than we did previous month. It is an absolute fact that you only see what you focus on. That is a psychological fact.

There are studies that show this, improve this time and time again. If you think you perceive every bit of information that your brain receives, you're crazy. You actually perceive a tiny fraction of it. And so the question is, how do I allow myself If you think you perceive every bit of information that your brain receives, you're crazy. You actually perceive a tiny fraction of it. The question is, how do I allow myself to get a much fuller, accurate picture? Well, you start writing things down and you start tracking certain things.

Then you'll start to notice things and you'll get a much more accurate picture of not just where you've come from but where you're going. Then you'll know when you need to from, but where you're going, and then you'll know when you need to change gears and when you shouldn't. Because otherwise, it's based off of this limited information that's probably based off fear and anxiety or past issues, and that's all you see. That's all you're gonna see.

Especially if you go into it with these high expectations or you're trying to get the most results in the shortest period of time, because the other option is this, is just understand this is a journey, understand that consistency trumps everything and just be patient. But a lot of people aren't patient. They want the results now, they want this, they want it to look like this, they have these high expectations and goals, but then they're not doing all the work to track and

to be able to double check their work. And it's like, if you really want it that bad, then do these things because then you'll know for sure. Or the other side of that is, hey, you don't have to get that crazy. You can just enjoy the process. And understand you're gonna have these peaks and valleys and you're gonna have these times where you hit plateaus

and just continue to be consistent, enjoy the journey. And the other conversation I feel like we always have, which is trying to get people to enjoy the process, because it is a long process, it is a journey. You're gonna have some setbacks. It's for the rest of your life if you do it right. Yeah, so I really feel like that, those are the two ways to have success in this.

You either approach it meticulously like that, really dive in to try to learn all about this, or you accept that it's gonna be a slow process, you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna have some setbacks, but just keep plugging away. I think the best approach is probably in the middle. Yeah. You know I gotta ask you Adam, you do not appear to be sick at all and I know you were getting hit by the flu. Well my son had the flu and pneumonia. So actually tested positive for the flu. Oh yeah, yeah, no, he had he went to the hot we had to take it to the hospital

I take him to the doctor and because it was it was a fever wasn't going away for five days and And then he got pneumonia and so and Katrina and I were like Super paranoid. I know I call you right away anytime that stuff's happening. All right, what do I take? You know, so, you know this the stack of you know, you know, vitamin C, vitamin D, uh, glutathione and thymus and alpha. Alpha. Yeah. Alpha thymus and alpha. Thymus and alpha is crazy. I feel like, okay, so this, this is the second time now I've been good, get on it right away. Yeah. I do notice a difference when I get on it right away. Like if I'm, if I'm not sick yet, but I think

there's a good chance that's when you use it. Yeah. And so I, this is the second time I was early on it and I still got sick, but it's just more like, I want to say annoying sick than it is. Like I was down. I didn't, I didn't, I mean, I still had to, you know, cook for a party of 60 people and still was taking care of my son. And we had, we had company at the house. And so I didn't stop, I didn't take a day off. And you could probably tell a little bit, I have a little bit of congestion,

you could probably hear it still. I'd say. Yeah, but knowing you, because you and I are someone who sense. I'm a big bro. Like once you get sick, you're sick for a week and this stuff. Yeah. Bro, thymus in alpha is wild.

I've now used it several times. So this is a peptide made by the thymus. Essentially tells your immune system to ramp up. It gets those killer cells to come out more readily and more of them to it. So it doesn't stop an infection, but what it does is it gets you. It mitigates it, big time.

Oh, your immune system's like, let's go. It also reduces inflammation. Did you guys know this about thymus and alpha by the way? We can say this now because now we're at the point now where people are saying this stuff. Thymus and alpha was being used by doctors and researchers during the COVID explosion and they were getting success with it. The study showed like, oh, we're really preventing people from getting severely ill. The government made it impossible to get thymus and alpha for a little while. They actually made it so you could not get it

during that period of time, which is crazy. That's like, why? Why are they doing that? That worked. Yeah, dude. No competition, please. I remember when NAC, NAC, it gets your liver to produce more glutathione.

And low glutathione levels is very strongly connected or correlated to severe COVID or influenza, right? So all the bad symptoms. NAC has been a supplement for two decades, three decades. You can buy it anywhere, it's like nothing. And suddenly the government was like, put out letters, you cannot sell this anymore. We're gonna ban this.

And I remember you couldn't get it on Amazon for a little bit. Yeah, that and any dewormer or anymore. Yeah. We're going to ban this. And I remember you couldn't get it on, on Amazon, you know, Amazon for a little bit. Yeah, that and any dewormer or anything. Yeah. I mean, I know it's, I know it's only two times, but, uh, for me it's, I've noticed a significant difference. Like you said, it doesn't keep me from getting sick. All it does is it makes whatever probably would have been significantly worse for

me. Way milder. Super mild. It becomes just annoying. I've been annoyed for the last four days. It's not like I haven't stopped doing my normal stuff. I just have a little bit of congestion. I had a little bit of an itchy throat,

and at night I feel it the most in the morning. But it's like normally I'm laid up. I'm that much of a baby that when I get sick I'm pretty much down for a couple days, and I didn't have that at all. No, I tell our partners at mphormones.com, I tell them to send me, I have bottles just on reserve. Yeah, so I mean, you got me to do that now

is to just have it, that's why I hit you up right away. I mean, I don't know if you're supposed to or not, but you have me do like a mega dose the first night and then kind of taper down after that. No, let's not talk doses. Yeah. Yeah. So I take a little extra.

Use it for scribe, please. Yeah, use it the first night. Well, I stocked up on BPC, and I was glad I did. For a minute there, they were trying to get rid of it. They were, dude. I know, man. It's a weird time with peptides.

I don't know what they're trying to do or what the deal is, but yeah. I don't know. Ever since they... I like to keep them around. Ever since the, whatchamacallit, the terzepotide and the semaglutide, GLP-1. Oh yeah, they started going after the compound pharmacies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because those, bro, those, you guys, those are blowing up so... Especially the rest of the world is now catching up to the hype, and so it's still like the sales are still like the I stand by what I said I think you're probably gonna see 50 to 70 percent of everybody's you know, you you should use it since you're bringing up, you know the whole Our partnership with transcend and everything like that like it's important

I think to the audience knows so I mean I I remember telling you guys when this first this I think too, to the audience. So I mean, I remember telling you guys when this first, this market first started to explode, that it reminds me so much of the medical marijuana industry and what people need to understand is- Cat and mouse game. Yeah. So there's a lot of things that, you know, and I feel really bad for these, some of these companies because, you know, you have people that are listeners of the show and they hear about it and they trust your knowledge around the science and everything like, cool, I'm going

to try this thing out or I'm going to do this thing or Sal says great things about this. And so they want to do it. And then you may be one of those people that go through this process. And it's when they're in the middle of this political games that are going on. And what I mean by that is it's it's this cat and mouse of like, oh, we're gonna ban this, and oh, we're gonna make it difficult for you to resource this, and oh, we're gonna shut these down,

or oh, we're gonna threaten you with this. And so because it's still considered in that gray market, you are at the whims of whatever each state laws are, and by the way, that's the thing too, it's not like this blanket law for everybody, it's like each state is different. and so what happens is we get some people that get really upset and impatient sometimes and I feel like poor transcend takes the heat from it like they're doing something wrong or their customer service It's like it's not even gray market. It's it's legal. Yeah laws keep getting changed. Just like just like and they tried

It was just like that it was legal getting changed. And they tried to put me in a blush. It was just like that. It was legal. But again, because each state law was different and they were always playing these shell games that it was like we were, and then we're the people that were providing it.

Man, we always took the heat. Like it was our fault because I couldn't get this. Or now, wait a second, you had this last week. Now you're saying I can't get it. And it's like, yeah, it's, I wish I could, I could just have it and run it like a normal business, but it's not quite like a normal business. So then you get people that expect the process to feel like

what it's like when you just go down to your doctor and get a normal prescription. And it's like, man, it's unfortunately, it's not like that. And so being patient with that, I get the frustration as I've been on the side, I've been on both sides of this and it's tough, but you need to understand it's not the same thing as like going anywhere else. That's right, that's right. All right, I'm going to talk about something interesting I just realized or I just learned about with grain-fed beef. Did you guys know that they've done studies

and found that the bacterial contamination with antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria is something like four or five times higher in grain fed beef than grass fed. Say that again. So I'll read it to you. I'll read this particular study. So they did a study on bacterial contamination in ground beef. This was in WebMD, this is Consumer Reports 2015. A study of 300 ground beef samples found that 18% of grain fed samples contained antibiotic resistant super bugs. Compared to 6% of grass fed samples.

What does that even mean? These are bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. So now this is a big future problem. This is like when you hear scientists talk about like what could potentially kill humanity? It's like oh we could have another black plague with bacteria that's antibiotic resistant. Now why you see a higher percentage of this

in grain fed meat is because we're shooting them up with hormones and everything else too. They're giving the antibiotics to the resistant. Yeah and they're putting them in these pens, and they're feeding them grain, and they have to give them antibiotics, otherwise they get sick because of the way they're living. And so it-

So they're still getting sick in a sense because of the super bugs. Yep, yep, yep. Okay. Now we cook the meat and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, we burn it off, so it's not like that scary. However, this just goes to show you, grass-fed meat

is better on that standpoint. And as far as nutrients are concerned, I don't realize this as well. You know that it's, I've talked about CLA, better fatty acid profile, leaner cuts for the same size, so you get like lower calorie, six ounces of grass-fed versus whatever. It's also three times higher in vitamin E precursors,

one and a half times higher in vitamin C, two to three times higher in B vitamins. So they're just nutrient-dense in comparison. So grass-fed meat. Way more. Yeah, it's just. Higher in protein, higher in nutrients, lower in fat. I mean, it's such a win all the way around.

Yeah, dude. Which also though, again, I think it's just bringing up points, defending all these things, I feel like, today. Grass-fed beef is not going to taste like a grain-fed cow. Well, no. It's lean. It's lean.

Yeah. It's leaner. It's so much leaner. So you have to go in knowing that. I remember that's why I liked ButcherBox so much, because I particularly didn't care for grass-fed beef for the most part. I wanted to prefer it.

Because I felt like it just didn't taste good at all. I felt like ButcherBox was the first grass-fed, grass-finished beef that I actually really liked. I thought, okay, they've done a really good job because I know that's a hard problem to solve is because obviously most of us that buy a ribeye or one of those types of cuts want a really good taste in steak You know regardless of like how much healthier you think it is or not and they did a good job of being able to provide Grass-fed grass finish and also tastes really good. That was the best and I eat so much meat It makes a big difference for me. I eat red meat every day probably pound a day

60 pounds this weekend, dude 60 pounds 60. Yeah, it's the most I've ever how many people do you have over 60 people how many everybody had a pound of meat? How many did you grow? 2 15 pound brisket or 2 excuse me 2 30 did I say that right? no it's 30 pounds of 30 pounds of brisket and then we had well but then we had other meat yeah then we had chicken and then we had tri tip and we had what else do we have I mean we had, I was responsible for the 30 pounds of brisket, I had two 15 pound cuts. That's a monster, is it 24 hours of smoking?

Yeah, so this is the first time I did a full 24 hour cook. First time I'd ever done two briskets at once. Did they come out all right? They did, I- Because brisket is like, it was like a skill to it. Yeah, this is definitely a skill. You know, I got a ton of compliments. And from people, two ex-chefs that said something to me,

a sister who came from Texas that was like, oh my, yeah, yeah. So I got really, I didn't feel that way. Doug was asking me off air, he was just like, what were you thinking? I mean, you know, I felt like this could have been a little better, that could have been this. I felt there.

Well, you can't compare it to Texas. Why? Why can't I not? I have that. I would have. They're obviously. I want to get to that level. You want it like how Kendrick likes slice it.

Yeah, it's wrong. Just, I got him in my back pocket too. So, you know, I'm calling him and I'm talking to him as I go through the process, you know, so I'm, I'm trying. The hardest part is, is to, there was definitely parts of it that was some of the best brisket ever, but that's the hard part is that the way it's shaped. And so, and when you're cooking something that long and you have a cut or a part of the cut that's this

thick and then another part that's this thick. Oh yeah, so there's definitely a part where, oh man, just perfect, but then there was other parts I think I guess a little dryer. Yeah, a little dry side. Oh that felt like that fell apart too much But I mean at the end of the day you sauces for No, oh my god, if someone pulled barbecue sauce I would have cried somebody Somebody pulled barbecue sauce on a brisket that I made, I would have literally went in the room and cried.

I would have just been so embarrassed. And that's all I did. Well, I was like, I just don't want to screw up. You know, my brother paid like $400 or $500 for all that meat. I'm like, and I'm responsible for it. And yeah, if I saw people pour barbecue sauce on it, I would have definitely cried.

Yeah, I used to go out with this guy who'd he put ketchup on his stage. I was like This is I just almost got up and walked away Go into like a sizzler or some shitty ass steakhouse, you know say but if you cook good good meat should not Not maybe Denny's or something. Yes, that's about is that's why me like you did some even But good good meat shouldn't need anything. I feel like ketchup is like... At least you like the steak sauce, not like ketchup. Yeah, you're like, if you use ketchup on your meat, you're a child. That's how I feel. You know what I mean?

You're like a kid. You know what I mean? I can't. Yeah, I can't. I don't know if I've seen a grown man use ketchup before. I see people use A1 in barbecue sauce. I'll use A1 if it's... That's more acceptable.

Yeah, but ketchup? But if you do that when I cook a piece of meat, to me that's a fail. You deserve to get... That's a fail on my part. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup.

I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ketchup. I I'll use A1. That's more acceptable. Yeah, but ketchup? But if you do that when I cook a piece of meat, to me, that's a fail. You deserve to get bullied by Justin. That's a fail on my part. Yeah, yeah, you will. You felt like you needed to do that. It's definitely on.

You shouldn't have to do that. Hey, so I want to bring up a topic that I think is an important topic to talk about. Why you say that? Radical non-monogamy. Oh, god. Yes. What does that even mean? Yes.

Gosh, geez, so stupid. Oh, Aubrey Marcus has entered the chat. Oh, brother. Oh my goodness. I just, so last we knew he was married, right? Cause it went from kind of a... I don't care, do your own, whatever, I don't care. But stop labeling, stop calling this something that sounds so like evolved, like oh, it's radical,

non-monogamy. You know what we used to call that? You can't commit, you don't have any discipline, you want to just screw everybody, but now we're going to label it. That's a made up term right? Of course it is. Radical, non-monogamy. How can we rebrand this? You know what's annoying about this? Here's what's frustrating because this is for young men watching right now, okay? Because young women get lied to as well, but young men get lied to in a particular way. Here's what young men hear from media and the world and advertisers and all that.

Here's what it says. And this is what you believe. This is what I believed. That the happiest guys, they aren't committed, they're not tied down, no ball and chain, they just make a lot of money, they get to bang whoever they want, what a fun existence they can do, they can hang out with their buddies, they got as many hot chicks lined up and all that stuff. Here's what the data shows.

So many benefits for the woman. Yeah, right. That's the relationship, right? Here's what the data shows. I don't care if you're religious or not, this is what the data shows. That guy is miserable. That guy is really not happy. The happiest people are in committed relationships. The best sex reported are by married couples who are in their 60s who've been together forever. They're the

healthiest. They're the least likely to need to take medications for mental illness. They die without lots of regrets. That's what the data shows. But the world will have you believe otherwise. So we have all these young men who are looking at people like that and they're like, oh, that's what I want to be like. That's a tormented person, just straight up.

I'm just calling it out, I don't know them personally. But to promote that in that way, what it seems to me is like you're trying so hard to justify this empty, you know, life that you have. And so you're like, this is called radical non-monogamy. It's so cool. Look how hot we are. I don't even know. I mean, I'm guilty. You know, I was a naive young man that believed that. And I guess if you've never experienced the other side, it's hard, I mean, I would have never believed. If me went back in time and told me, you'd be with the same woman for 15 years,

and at year 15, your intimacy, your sex, your attraction to her will be better. After she's had a kid, she's in her mid-40s, and you've been with her 15 years, I would probably slap me. I would just, you're full of shit. There's no way that's possible. I wouldn't believe it. So that's why it's easy as a young man to hear someone talk like that and go like, totally. I mean, he's got all the cool stuff and the cars, and he gets a different hot chick every year. He changes what he calls it like this sounds way cool like that's more believable so spiritually well i mean it seems it seems more believable than what i would be saying which is like no bro i'm telling

you right now i'm more attracted to her at 45 than when i had her at 30 and i'm i we have better sex and more of it today than we did our because you hear the honeymoon phase honeymoon phase i mean yeah our first year was great but it's way better today than it was in the in the first year or even the first five years now if i were to have to explain it to me what i would what i would say is this the ability to uh grow with another person together is the ultimate. Intimacy, yeah. Serious.

I was gonna say the best way to work on intimacy is obviously to go find somebody else to get intimacy with. Yeah, yeah, right. It makes a lot of sense. Well, I just, I think what happens in some of these marriages where this isn't true, because maybe there's a guy who's been married 15 years and I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

My wife and I never have sex with and and so yeah if I could totally see where if you stick in a relationship where the two of you aren't on a mission to grow together that that could totally happen and then that looks attractive but the answer to that is not no no the other direction I mean forget yeah but I mean I'm not even claiming to say I have the answer I'm just saying that I think that I can understand why that looks attractive. I can also understand why there are some married people that wish they had that maybe that relationship is because, and I think that the hack is you have to make sure that you

find a partnership where each partner does want to do that. And if you want to do that, then it's the most beautiful thing ever. The best sex reported in the data is couples who've been together for a long time who are older and if you wanted to look in the subset data of that the most happy of those couples are religious couples which the world will tell you is not true. Oh religious people they have terrible sex. They actually report the best intimacy. And then if you look even deeper to that,

it's the couples that was the only person they've ever been with. Again, counters. Yeah, but you know the flaw in that, and I'm just playing devil's advocate with you because I know there's at least half the audience that's doing it right now, not to you, is that that's self-reported, bro.

It's all self-reported. Okay, so. All of it is self-reported. So somebody who has only had saltine crackers thinks it's the best thing in the world. Really? That's such a terrible... Listen, somebody needs to have that with you though, because if it's self-reported like that, that's going to be where someone pokes a hole in it. Let me ask you a question. If you have a pie chart of sexual intimacy,

the physical part, how much of a percentage would you say is that your partner looks a particular way and the actual physical acts and tricks and things that you do, how much of it do you think makes up that pie chart versus all the other stuff that you're talking about? Is this a cherry pie? Yeah. So fair, but younger me wouldn't know the answer to that.

That's right. So here's the answer to that. That's right. So here's the answer. Now I understand that pie chart, but I didn't understand it before. That's why we're talking about it. Here's what I mean. But I have to point that out to you

because I know that someone's gonna, someone's thinking that. Of course. Well, here's the answer to this. The answer is young men need older guys that they admire and respect to communicate this to them. Otherwise, the guys that they look up to are all... By the way, Dan Bilzerian, who was the poster child of this, has now come out and said himself, it's empty. He's like,

this was not what I thought it was. You think Hugh Hefner was a happy man? No. And you should read about some of the stories from... Moments of it. Yeah, some of the stories that were reported by the women that were around them. So I think what they need is they need these... I mean, it wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was a while ago, but it wasn't that long ago where a man's pride was how many children you had. Yeah.

And you can support your family. I mean, I'm right with you. It's just why I'm with you that... It doesn't get out of hand. I mean, I'm right with you. It's just wild. I'm with you that, I mean, I know that somehow, I don't know if we even ever intended this podcast to go in this kind of fatherhood direction and conversation around that, but I agree there's not enough,

there's not enough men that young men can look up to and admire that are telling them that. Yeah. And so I'm with you, you know, I'm with you on that. I don't know if I would have been able to. And so I'm with you, you know, I'm with you on that. I don't know if I would have been able to, I hope I could, I could have got through to me, but I didn't realize that pie chart. I didn't realize, there's no way I would, I probably at 17 would have believed that

though. I think I would have been the other one, the, the, the other one looks more attractive on the outside. You're right. Let me give you an analogy that I think people understand. So this, this might help. attractive on the outside. You're right. Let me give you an analogy that I think people understand.

So this might help. You have somebody who's never experienced the benefits of good health and fitness and they'll look at you and say, but I am so free to eat whatever I want and not exercise. I enjoy eating cookies and garbage all the time. It's way more enjoyable. I feel like what you're doing is restrictive and I feel like that's unhappy. The truth is the freedom comes from health, not poor health. Freedom does not come from sleeping around with a bunch of people. Freedom comes from being dedicated to one person. Both

of you are dedicated to each other and you grow together. That's where the freedom comes from. So for people who are listening, you're a young man, you're listening, you understand fitness and your friends that don't understand fitness try to tell you, that looks like it's restrictive, that looks like I just wanna enjoy eating what I want. That's the same thing that you may be thinking about what we're talking about right now. Okay, so there's another stupid idea

I wanna discuss with you guys. Okay. And I wanna just get some feedback. So I guess, I don't know if it's a growing trend or if it's just something that somebody sent me this in the DM where women were starting to do Botox to their traps. What? To not develop the traps? To basically not develop the traps while the rest of their-

Oh, to kill all the muscle there. Yeah. While the rest of their body is building developing muscle. There can increase the size of their traps. Is that, is this really a thing? I saw the video for it and I saw that there's like doctors that are actually the only forming these of all the people we've ever been around, all the women we've trained, all the women we've been in the gym. So trainers, female fitness enthusiasts.

Uh, it's, it's not common for women to develop traps that look too big. I think women worry about this, but this is not a common thing. Trap botox, also known as trap tox. Oh my gosh, or Barbie Botox. Wow. I just thought it was absurd. Oh, that's terrible. I mean, right there alongside the squeam and oh, well, there you go It's it this is so I knew this was there's a medical this is there's a medical application Which could be fixed through proper exercise by the way It can also be used to alleviate neck and shoulder pain and stiffness

If you're trapped or started like over because they're overactive they just basically kill it because your mid back needs strengthening Yeah, but now what you're gonna make your whole shoulder girdle unstable Yeah, but they were promoting it like it was an aesthetic reason because that'll sell too. Yeah Well that I mean I get where you're bolstering I know I bet I bet it probably was tested for sales. Yes in first right and then somebody goes, oh I like that Oh, let's just keep going, you know Don't talk, you know talk about you You know, talk about, man, I have close family and friends that, you know, we talked a while back

about that whole perception drift. Oh yeah. And man, it's such a real thing, dude. Oh bro. It's so, it pains me when it's someone who's- By the way, generally speaking, there's perception drift in society, as certain looks are becoming more like, oh,

that's what people look like. Promoted, highlighted, accepted, like, oh, this is the new model. Yeah. No, it's crazy. It's, I guess, I really don't care to each their own, right? I'm not the type of person to judge anybody for doing whatever, but it's, I guess when I have someone who's close to me who I've always, I thought, oh man, she's so beautiful, naturally beautiful. And then

you watch them do this and you're like, you're so far from where you were. And you were so yeah, goddamn beautiful before. And like now you just that's frustrating. You not only do you look like all these other same people, but it's doesn't look good either. Like somebody needs to like shake these people and be and it These big weird lips do not look good. That's the one. That's the big one. It's the big big lips. That's the crazy one that I see. Who's asking for that? I think it's a weird thing. We know, we look, I mean I understand it from my perspective, you know, wanting to look a particular way and not being aligned with kind of reality. It's a thing, man. It's a thing. It's one.

Well, and I think too, again, the perception drift, I think, at least, I'm not sure though. I mean, somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, like I feel like it just, it gets, it doesn't start there. It starts with just like a little bit, Justin. Like it's like, oh, that looks good, you know? And it's like, and it isn't that bad. Maybe you or I don't even notice it.

You don't get like a compliment about how full they look. Yeah. Maybe you don't even, maybe it's so subtle, you don't notice it. It's more and more and more. Yeah. I mean, you know, hey, just, just to, uh, you know, just to, to throw ourselves in the fire here a bit. I mean, it's a little bit of like, we have, we've kind of made health and fitness look like this in a sense too. I mean, jacked ass muscular looking dudes, okay? As much as I like that and we all like that, isn't like really, it's not like- It's gone to weird places.

Well yeah, I mean, it's actually really weird when you think about it. Like as crazy buff and muscular and stuff like that, that we all try to chase after, like- It's the same thing. It's really, yeah exactly. It really is the same. The only difference is you have to work out that you organically do it. Like I guess maybe if you could do like lip exercises to make them look like

that, then it would be more acceptable. It's like synthol is like the comparison. I would say, no, I see it. Okay. So that's the, that's the extreme version, but you have to understand that even Training enough volume and consistency to get your muscles to look that overly muscular Here's how there's a bit of that here. I'll back you up. I'll back you up because there's okay There's a difference between strength. I keep going because For you because you don't really you don't really fucking really I can you're not really this guy, right?

Yeah, but I can more me and Sal talking here about like our own insecurities and what, like let's be honest. There's a point where that muscular and leanness look is no more healthy or functional than what you were say 20 pounds less of it. I'll back it up, I'll back you up Adam. What would, you know, back in the day,

maybe even now, right, if you're really training hard, a compliment, this is what I would take as a compliment now, if you're really trying hard, a compliment, this is what I would take as a compliment. Oh, you're too big now. I'm like, oh cool. I'm onto something. That's what I was looking for. I'm onto something.

Exactly what I was looking for. You look a little too extreme. Or my mom would be like, you know, you need to calm down. Yeah, you look too veiny. I'd leave but yeah. So when someone tells me I look like I got stung by a bee, yes. Exactly what I was looking for. It doesn't look right. Oh, that I mean? I leave by, yeah. So when someone tells me I look like I got stung by a bee. Yes.

Exactly what I was going to do. It doesn't look right. Oh, that's right. It doesn't look right. Yeah. So I mean, I just- 100%. I mean, I don't want to come off like the, like, Kettle calling it black or whatever

like that. We are absolutely the same way when you think about it. The only difference though is that you can do that yourself, right? So there's a, to me, there's a little bit different than when you start injecting, killing muscles, shooting stuff, putting tissue in, doing weird shit. Like that's- Get better friends. That is a little more, but still in a very similar vein.

Have you, no, who's the judge on American Idol? Simon what? Simon Cowell. Have you seen the recent pictures of him? Oh, he's got a lot of work done. Where people are like, oh no, you need to slow down and stop. Oh, it doesn't look like that.

Oh, I haven't seen him. Oh yeah, let's see if Doug, look at, look need to slow down and stop. Oh, it doesn't look like I haven't seen him Oh, yeah, let's see if Doug look at look at it's a cotton it's a lot of controversy around it because He's obviously he looks even weirder when men do it for me. Oh, who was it that did a really bad job Who's that country singer from back in the day that his face change Brooks? No No, what's his name? Kenny Loggins? No, I'm a Cyrus Rogers No, no, what's his name? Kenny Loggins? No, Kenny Rogers.

Oh yeah, it was Kenny Rogers that looked. Remember? He went, he like, what happened to your face, dude? You look way different. He went a little too far. A little too far, like way too far. Yeah, I'll change directions here. I wanna talk about Brain FM, and I want to,

cause people, I've seen people write in and comment on the best ways to use it. The best ways to use, by the way, oh there he is, look at his face right there. Is he trying to look all weird in that one? No, it's just if you watch the whole video of him playing, it doesn't look like him at all. It's pretty crazy how much his face has changed. So brain FM, for people who don't know, you listen to music, but the music's been engineered

and there are sounds embedded that induce brain wave states. So these are brain wave states that we've identified that are focused, or when you're meditating or sleeping. In other words, if you're in a focused state, they can look at your brain waves, and a scientist can tell you what's going on. So it's gonna be like, oh, this person's focused, this person's sleeping, whatever.

So what BrainFM does is you listen to it and through the sound it induces these brainwave states. Now the best way to use this is to also focus or concentrate on accomplishing what you're trying to accomplish through the sound. In other words, if you want to focus, listen to focus and then try to focus. And what happens, you get this double whammy of you also trying to focus

while the music's also inducing this brainwave state and then watch what happens. Same thing with meditate. Put it on, actually try to meditate. It is wild how quickly you get into the states of mind when you do that kind of combination. It's awesome. Yeah, it's really cool.

If you eat a high protein diet, you will probably benefit from taking the right digestive enzymes. They'll break down the protein, get them to your muscles. By the way, some companies don't make the best digestive enzymes. We work with one that makes the best, masizimes.

They are digestive enzymes for fitness enthusiasts that will help with digestive issues and break down those foods for better digestion and absorption. Go to masszymes.com, that's M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com forward slash mind pump, use the code mindpump10, get 10% off. Back to the show.

Our first caller is Sarah from Virginia. Hi Sarah. How you doing, Sarah? Hello. How can we help you? Hello. Um, well, I, well, thank you guys first off because y'all really have, I know you hear it all the time, but y'all really have changed my life between you and

Dr. Deloney have made like just a whole turnaround. Um, so thank you for that. That's awesome. All right. turn around. So thank you for that. That's awesome. All right. My question is how do you tell the difference between just a normal regular hunger that's just what you feel versus your body's trying to tell you it's time to up your calories? What a great question. And I think that this is one of the most important things to learn and figure out as you get on a health

and fitness journey that's gonna last you a lifetime. This is also how we recommend people utilize tools like fasting to help connect those. Yeah, so this is important precisely because we really haven't learned this in modern societies. Like, you know, if you live in a modern society, you've always had access to food, not only food, but you've had access to

whatever food you want for the most part. I mean, you go to the grocery store and it's this cornucopia of whatever the heck you desire. And so it's really hard to discern between, and I'll use a different word, because I think this helps, cravings and hunger. Hunger is the real desire for nutrients that your body needs. Cravings is a desire to indulge in, I don't know, to feel better, to experience flavor,

taste, pleasure that we can get from food. That's a very important thing, very important, I should say, question that you're asking. So there's a couple of ways that I would teach people this, So that's a very important thing, a very important, I should say, question that you're asking. So there's a couple ways that I would teach people this and it's a little more complicated than what I'm about to say because it takes some time. But a craving is typically specific.

So it's like I'm sitting here and I'm like, oh my God, I'm so hungry for ice cream or I'm so hungry for pizza. Like I could really use, I could really eat some Chinese food right now. Hunger is I'll eat some chicken breast and broccoli and some rice or I'll have some steak. Like really put anything in front of me right now

and I think that I could definitely eat that. So that's the difference, that's one of the main differences between cravings and hunger. So like cravings is like you're with your friends, hey it's lunchtime what do you guys want to eat? Then you have a debate over, well maybe we can have this, no I don't feel like eating that and I feel like eating this type of thing. Hunger is like I feel like eating anything especially or typically things that will nourish my body. When you're sitting there thinking

I'm hungry and you think of a healthy dish and you're like, nah, I don't really want to eat that right now, you're probably not hungry. Sarah, tell me a little bit about your goals and your journey so far. How long you've been lifting weights for and have you ever really tried to dial in your nutrition? Tell me a bit about that. Well, to add a layer onto the nonsense, my like growing up, we were very unhealthy.

Um, we've always had me and my sister, just a bad relationship with food because my mom didn't really like grocery shopping or cooking or doing anything. So we were either like hungry, hungry hungry all day and then we would get home to have dinner and it was either just eat as much as you can before it's gone or like my mom would take half of it put on my dad's plate and then the rest of us would split what was left so even after eating like just still hungry. So I've had honestly eating disorders from both sides of the spectrum. From just binge eating because I finally have food till I'd make myself sick.

And that was just normal growing up. I didn't ever realize that after eating you're not supposed to feel like that until one day I was just like man. I'm so tired of feeling like this and so growing up again My mom was very overweight herself and all the all we heard was if you want to lose weight You just have to starve yourself and this and that so once I got tired of the binge feeling I was like, alright I need to get healthy and feeling I was like alright I need

to get healthy and so I just wasn't eating very much I got really skinny and I still like I've struggled with body dysmorphia so even when I was like looking back now I can see I looked like my arms look like toilet paper tubes like I was very tiny and very unhealthy. So I've done that side of it. And then I've done the exercise side of it the wrong way. Just like, I guess it's kind of like ego lifting. Like I feel like I should be able to do this.

And if I can't, then I just need to try harder. So after I got through all of that, and none of that was working, I was actually listening to Dr. Deloney and I think either he was interviewing you guys or he was a guest on your podcast and so that led me to y'all. And so now it's been about, I think I started in January, so it hasn't been that long that I've been lifting properly with proper form and Eating and I've gotten the I guess the still have the feeling sometimes

The mental side of it with the anxiety towards like the scale Or eating too much and things like that But I have a much healthier relationship with the scale and with food and with weightlifting now, honestly and I think honestly from when I started I did Anabolic and I did pre-phase phase one and I think half of phase two and then I got really sick And I took I've had to take about a month off just for my health I couldn't hardly breathe have had asthma and so when I get sick sometimes it puts my breathing just really messed up for a while So after that I started muscle mommy and I'm actually

Today was day two of phase three me and I'm actually today was day two of phase three. So since then I've actually only had a two pound difference, but my whole entire body looks completely different. So I'm finally starting to see the results, but I, well before I started from processed foods, I went totally whole foods and I wasn't tracking. And then I noticed I was like really hungry all the time and feeling so tired.

So I finally started tracking and it turns out I was actually only eating like 800 to a thousand calories. So I immediately jumped up to 1500 and I didn't have any weight gain from that. And I was still feeling very hungry. So I went to 1800 Uh, and that's when I sent y'all the message because I was still just like all day Just like I could eat anything so I could just let myself do it

um, so I wasn't sure if it was because of my past i'm like Not really trust myself to know is this actual hunger or is this just my body? Like this isn't the norm. We're trying to go back to normal. Um, but since I sent the question in, I've actually jumped to 2100 with still no weight gain, still getting results, um, and thinking about jumping up again, but still have that feeling of, Ooh, I don't know if I should or if it's the mistake or if it's the right choice.

So, it's been a roller coaster since January. That helps so much. Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad I asked because now I definitely wouldn't recommend fasting as a tool for you. Never, no, no. That would be a bad idea. And it actually sounds like your intuition is on point. You're doing the right

things. And I like the idea of going up another 200 calories. I think that what you are feeling, especially since you've already noticed body composition change, especially you've noticed increasing calories and no weight gain, your body is wanting more and your sounds like you're lifting weights properly and you're probably, it's trying to build muscle and it wants the nutrients it needs to do that. And so I would totally do that. I'd love to, if you're not already, Sarah, in our private forum, I'd love to give you access to that.

That way, yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to have Doug give you access to that. I love the program you're on. That's totally fine. I think that's great. That way, as you go through this process, if you start to question yourself again, whether you should or shouldn't be doing that, we can kind of be there

to help support you along. But I actually think you're doing a really good job. I think you're doing a great job and what you're feeling is normal. But what you're probably feeling because of all the things you told us is your body wanting to build muscle and it wanting more calories. And so I would give it another couple hundred calories and see how you feel and what your performance looks like and body composition. So I think you're doing great. Yeah, you're doing such a great job, Sarah. So here's what this is going to look like for you more specifically.

This is going to be a process of awareness and it's going to start with some structure. It's not going to end this way, but it's going to start with a little bit of structure. It's not going to end this way but it's going to start with a little bit of structure. So you're going to up your calories and then you're going to eat at regular intervals. So you're going to build this kind of practice. So you're going to eat three or four meals a day. You're going to eat them regularly. You're going to make sure you have your protein. It's not going to end this way but this is just to help you bring awareness. What I want you to do when you eat is don't eat while you're distracted and I want you to really focus on how you feel. How is this making me feel? Do I feel satisfied or full?

Do I still feel hunger? Do I get more energy from this? Then I want you to really pay attention to your performance. I think your strength gains in the gym are going to direct you better than anything right now. If you're getting stronger, you're moving in the right direction. I don't think the scale is a good idea and I also don't think studying your body in the mirror is a good idea at this moment. So you're on the you're at this kind of beginning

stage of really starting to understand what your body's signals are telling you and then discerning between you know good signals and maybe bad relationship type stuff. But you are moving in the right direction. So. Doing good. Thank you. And where, right now, depending on the day, I do track, so it is an accurate number,

but I'm between like 158 and 175 grams of protein. So where should the calories come from? Should I add more protein, or should I be more concerned with fat or carbs? How low is your fat? That also might be why you're hungry too. How low is your fat? It's usually between 50 and 58. Bump your fat.

Yeah, definitely. And that actually might help a lot. Yeah, it's gonna help. Yeah. Most women I've trained. I appreciate it that way. Most women I've trained need more than that. Yeah. Uh, if that's essential. So I would bump it. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. And then just one last question. If you have time, um, it's probably always been there and I just haven't noticed because I've never been able to see my muscles, but I'm noticing a difference in size between right and left and I'm wondering how much is like a normal difference for, you know, a dominant side versus when I should be like focusing on trying to catch the other side up. Right now, I would tell you not to study your body to look for discrepancies.

I think that's going to move you in the wrong direction. However, after muscle mommy, follow symmetry. Yep. Yes. That's the perfect program. You can follow up to that. That's it. We'll address that completely. Let me send that to you, Sarah.

We'll send you symmetry too. Thank you. You got it. All right, I appreciate you guys. Again, thank you for this call and for guiding me and kind of breaking me free from a generational cycle of just nonsense. I appreciate it.

Good for you, Sarah. You're doing awesome. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Y'all have a good day. You too. You too. Hey man, I am so glad you asked that

because I just went into, yeah, give me advice. And that context is so important in how we guide people. I mean, it changed the complete advice. It totally did. I mean, when we first started talking I thought oh man this is a great example of someone who should do some fasting and then figure it out. But then when you hear real hunger, you're like no it's not you don't do that. But doing a great job. I mean as far as someone who is what only been listening

to us for a half a year is trying to use the information she's learning and her own intuition. I mean, she's on the right track and I bet you, once she bumps that fat goes up another 200 calories, she's going to feel better. She'll know the strength go up. Probably the appetite won't be as bad. Yeah. I think she's, uh, she's doing really good, but yeah, that, that context really makes a difference on, uh, yeah, how you advise that person. Our next caller is Colin from Tennessee.

Colin, what's going on, guy? I know this guy. Hey, I know you. Hey guys, good seeing y'all again. What's up, homie? How you doing, dude? Doing well, yeah. Just living the dream one day at a time.

How's the baby? Baby's good. She has a stomach bug right now and she's teething. So. Oh, good times. No sleep for us. Yeah. And so we also own a dance studio and we just did our show So there was no sleep there either. So I'm just I'm kind of giving up on sleep for a little bit

Well when we get off fake background, maybe we'll show you maybe we'll have you show some dances later No, I do the props and special effects. I don't do the dancing. All right. All right So I don't know that I said this last time I was on this when we did this a year and a half ago, but I just want to say I appreciate you guys all that you do all the information you put out. Super helpful, you know, over the past 10 years listening from the beginning. So just wanted to say that. Awesome.

So my question is, how do you develop thick skin as a trainer? And for those listening that stick with a CK and not two C's just to clarify. So, and I'll read a little bit of my message, but I take a lot of personal interest in my, all my clients, right? Like if I, if I meet with someone and just feel like the connection's not really that great, like I'll, I'll kind of like shut that down. So all my clients, I really care about every aspect of their life, home, family, kids, if they're a Christian like me, I'm asking you about their faith and their walk and what they're reading, what they're, you know, all those things, because I really care about

all the intricate details there. And so I'll share one client in particular that, you know, I typically tell clients like you have to give training at least a year to, you know, you can't come in and expect 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and to see this massive stuff. So I typically tell everyone like give it a year and then kind of gauge how you feel. And so for this client in particular, she, um, in the first six months, she, uh, her shoulder pain that she had for four years was gone. Her pelvic floor issues that she had had for several years was gone. Um, she was, when we started, she was eating 1200 calories and then six months later, she's eating about 1600

calories. Um, her weight stayed the same and, um, there was something that, oh, and we did it all virtually, right, which is my least favorite way of training, but it went really, really well, right? Gave her all, I mean, the same thing. I'm like giving her prime exercises and assessments and we did the whole thing. And so, and I definitely remember from the beginning forecasting for her and walking her through like, Hey, this is what's going to happen. This is kind of what we're going to see, right? You're going to get three months into this and go, I don't know about it, but then you're going to get another three minutes to see the other three months and see some progress. But then you're going to be like, I don't know about it. And it's like, this, these cycles are going to

happen anyways. We got six months into it and I wake up to the text one day and she's like, I'm done, right? This isn't for me. Um, and so as someone who just, I really take a personal interest in my clients to the nth degree and trying to make sure I over communicate things. It's really hard for me to pick myself back up from those things because I know I have to take ownership of them calling it quits and them not succeeding. But when I look back at some of those, I don't know what to do different in particular. And I also say this, that even before you guys had a mind pump trainers, the benchmark

I've always used over the past eight years as a trainer is would I be good enough to be a mind pump trainer or really it was to work for you guys. And that's my that's kind of like how I gauge like, am I growing? Am I moving towards that? And when I typed this message out, it was like April 28. And I was like, I don't know that I really want to send it. Later that day, I saw on Facebook where Sal had posted like two weeks earlier about what it takes to be a mind pump trainer. And so I'm reading through it. And one of his snippets was about having thick skin. And honestly, I read that and I was like, I don't want to send this message because I don't want to look weak as a trainer. Like I've been doing this for eight years. I've listened to you guys for 10

years, but I still feel like I suck. And so it's really hard to figure out how do I give myself grace and pick myself up and keep going when like, I mean, this is the, this is what I love doing. Like if I would not be, I work, I own a dance studio with my wife. I own a personal training studio and I work a full-time job. That's it's way too much, but I love the training so much. I can't let it go. It's where I want to get. And so it's really hard to not, when I have

those interactions with clients that I feel like I gave 110% to, that they like, no, this is, it's not working. To not take it personally and be like, I'm eight years into this and I'm nowhere near I'm, I'm eight years into this and I'm nowhere near where I should be or good enough to be even a decent trainer. So, uh, no, the long winded, but the question is, how do I, how do I develop thicker skin as a trainer? And ultimately the reason I decided to send the message anyways was because my skin's not going to get thick by ignoring it. Right.

So I want to get better at it. So that's ultimately why I'm here yeah good Colin I there is the possibility that you do suck on yeah hey we like you that's why we tease you by the way they don't tease everybody it's me helping you out your thick skin skin. Look, look, look, look. All right, listen. I'm gonna just straight up, okay? We don't hire trainers because of their skills.

We hire trainers because of their character. Thick skin is not, you know, oh, I'm just not gonna complain. I'm not gonna talk about the struggle. Thick skin is actually being vulnerable. Because when your skin isn't thick, you don't wanna to show your weakness You're afraid of showing your weakness. So you kind of got some thick skin

Yeah by getting on here and talking about this and you have good character call I'm gonna tell you that right now now. I'm gonna stop pumping your tires come and tell you the truth about being a trainer There's two truths here Everything is your fault and you will never have all the answers So you're in a position where? Here's the good part. You're like man. I did something wrong or I couldn't figure this out. That's true But here's the other truth. You'll never figure it all out. You'll never be able to figure it out There's always gonna be people that are going to not

Move in the right direction or that you're not gonna be able to impact in the ways that you think are gonna help them. And that's just the way it is. That's just what it means to be a trainer. But on the other end of it, your pursuit of trying to figure that out is what's gonna make you better. Here's what's not gonna make you better,

thinking I'm terrible, I'm crap, I'm whatever. No, here's what you say. I don't have all the answers, I'm gonna keep going. I don't have all the answers, I'm gonna, I'm crap, I'm whatever. No, here's what you say. I don't have all the answers, I'm gonna keep going. I don't have all the answers, I'm gonna keep going. So when that would happen to me, and I hated it, I hated it because, oh, okay, why couldn't I get to this client, why couldn't I figure this out, why did they stop?

Like, that's gonna make me better. So let me just keep, let me try to figure this out. But also understand, I will never figure everything out. It's impossible. That's what's gonna make, that's what's gonna continue, because I think you're already a great trainer. It's gonna continue to make you a better and better trainer. And the longer you do this, the better you're gonna get. And I don't think it's ever gonna stop. It's a lot like, it's a lot like baseball, bro. The greatest batters ever to live missed 70% of the time. It's just, there's a variable in this

that you can't control. Now you take responsibility as what could I have done better? How can I get better? I mean, that's how you stay growth-minded. That's how you continue to get better. But the reality is that you're still going to fail, at least 50 to 70% of the time. And that's because the other variable is-

And that's if you're good. Yeah, that person still has to follow through. They still have to want it. And sometimes, no matter how great you are, they're just not ready for that step yet in their life. And maybe you played, and maybe you played a much bigger role than you think. Maybe she leaves and a year or two from now, she realizes, oh man, that was the best I ever felt when I was working with Colin. And like I got, you know, he really would tell me this and I need to get back to that. And you know, you don't know, but at this time she's, she may not be ready for that. Now to add to that,

I also like to, with situations like that, investigate as much as I can from the client. Like I would like someone, if someone sent me that text, I'd be like client. Like I would, like someone, if someone sent me that text. Exit interview. I'd be like, oh man, what, you know, I totally let you down and failed you. What are some of the things that I could have done better or what makes you feel that way? Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull out,

I wanna get to the bottom. It's cause sometimes what happens too, is these people don't wanna admit or tell you that something's going on financially with them or that there's another reason, real reason, but I'm gonna give you the surface answer of, oh, it's just not working out for me. And so your immediate default is, oh, there's something wrong with me. But really what might be is as you start to pull that thread, you find out that, oh, shit, my husband

just lost his job and we don't know how we're gonna take care of the bills next month. I certainly can't be paying for this personal trainer, but I don't want to tell my personal trainer that that's my that's my husband and eyes is you know I'm saying so I'm just gonna tell him it's not working out so you so I want to investigate to get to the real root cause of what is it was it she not seen the results enough was it was where I was I overbearing and messaging her to like what was it so I can? Step my game up the next time and improve yeah find out really what her expectations were and that's the thing like being able to

Ask those questions. I think that's that's super important and even if it's going well like just continually kind of have that kind of dialogue between your clients of You know, how are we feeling about how things are going? And then you can go back and really reevaluate that beginning process of how you can refine it and what you could put in front of them to do a better job of kind of outlining this whole thing. And maybe it is a bombardment of information.

Maybe it's something like that that we need to reevaluate and pull back a little bit. And so yeah, there's just a lot of data there that I'm always going back and over analyzing these things because in two, you got to let it go. You got to let them go. And a lot of times, like Adam said, they'll come back if you're really your hearts into it and they know that you had their best interest in mind They'll go seek somebody else because they have this weird expectation that they should have had this within like a month Yeah, and you know, they're gonna come back and be like, oh my god That's not what I needed and calling, you know outlined exactly what was gonna happen and I didn't listen

Yeah, you know, it's funny you guys are saying that I distinctly remember a couple times where I had a client telling me they wanted to stop and I asked them why and you know what they said to me? They said, it's because I keep messing up, man. I just keep messing up. And I said, of course, this is hard. You're gonna mess up, this is very challenging, but we're moving in the right direction.

And they stayed with me. They stayed with me because of it. The other side of this is, let me ask you this, Colin. In all honesty, to the best of your knowledge, with the time that she was with you, do you think she had a good experience? Yeah, up until she quit. Okay.

She was excited, I mean she made posts and tagged me and like about her shoulder pain and muscle definition and all that stuff. Colin, you did a good job. Yeah. This is a journey. So, this is what you've done now. You've given her a good experience

with a healthier lifestyle. Do you think that's gonna benefit her moving forward? Yes. Okay. Do you know how many times a trainer gives somebody a bad experience and they never try again happens all the time. So on this side it sounds like you did a good job. It just it sounds like you did a great job. I would I would investigate more.

You could ask questions like if we were to be continuing on for another year what what or how did you need to feel at this moment? Like obviously you were doing good, you did your pose, you're happy, everything's been fine. What could I have done to keep you? And all of a sudden you don't feel that way. So what was the feeling you were expecting to have at this moment, like in order for us to continue on?

What was it that you don't feel or have? Right? Well, okay, I'll share something else that she said. This was actually a while ago. But this is the whole point of asking the question because it takes me so long to process. She, I told her from the beginning that we will be using maps based programs. And later she came comes back and goes, I don't think these are appropriate for me. Right.

I'm like, okay. And I didn't really clarify, but she was like, yeah, I just, I think it's too much. It's overkill, right? It's overkill, but you're seeing more muscle definition in your shoulder pain and pelvic floor pain. Wait a second, wait a second. Let's pause there for a second.

Okay, so here, this is, there's something we can, I can help you with right now. So if a client tells me that this is where you hear us talk about meeting people where they're at, maybe it is too much for her. Maybe MapStarter was better, it would have been better for her. Maybe half the exercises MapStarter is better for her. And then you, but here's what you don't ever want to do, okay, so what you just did right

there, and I don't know if you did it that way, is she expressed of how she feels about something like that. And instead of accepting it, receiving it, and trying to meet her somewhere, you defended your case on why you have her on that program. Where I would have said something more like, oh really, what is it about that? Is it, do you feel like it's too many exercises? Are you too sore?

What is it about the program that feels like it's too much? Because sometimes it can be for people. And get more information. And maybe what she says is just like, yeah, I'm not ready to have three days a week or these exercises are too difficult like oh I totally get it so my clients aren't ready for some of these movements. Let's do this Let's go back and we'll start on this. I told you know I'm saying like Yeah, this is chess not checkers. Yeah, so she says this is too much for me

You know, okay, is this an argument? You try to jump her right away. Is this an argument that I need to win? I do you know, I just want to do well. All right, let's do less Yeah Yeah, I didn't I didn't actually I didn't say that to her whenever she sent me that that message so But but what's funny is she's also the type of person who would ask me if she was doing enough. Yeah Yeah, that's that's common. I'm like, I'm getting some bipolar signals here, okay? Yep. Right, like this, you know, so that it's, I will say this, and I don't know if this is progress or not,

but it's setting me certain ways of communicating things in the beginning to make it maybe change how I communicated, how the journey works. And so, some in particular are one, I tell people before we start, I say, I, as your coach and trainer and not a shortcut to fast results. I'm a shortcut to long-term results. And then I say that your journey is like building a puzzle and it's going to take time and we have to build the perimeter first and then we fill it in. And so we have to do the foundational truths, right? It's lifting weights, it's protein, it's, you know, water, it's sleep, it's all these things, right? And so that way people kind of have this visual of like, we're putting your pieces in. It's not just like you dump it out and like, oh, look, there's a puzzle.

It's beautiful, right? And you have to sift through which pieces fit and where they fit for you. So I will say that that may be a positive that has come out of those situations is trying to change how I communicate and take the picture. I love that analogy. I love that analogy. You know what's the most important thing that a trainer does above everything else because it makes everything else possible is do they enjoy spending time with you. That's literally the most important thing and I used to get caught in this, probably the first half of my career, where I just would get caught in teaching.

I would get caught, it was more important to me that I taught them something than they were happy to be there. It's actually less important because I can't teach you anything unless you want to be here. So there were clients I trained, I'm not making this up, Colin,

I had clients I trained for three years and all they would do is show up to the workouts, and they made no other changes in their lives, because it just wasn't happening. And that's okay, as long as you show up, and you're having a good time, then that's fine for now, because I'm gonna keep working this. Colin, do you still make the time to listen to us

talk to live callers, all the live callers? Yes. Yeah, that's really good for you because this is an example and hopefully you get to see this live with us when we do this all the time. How many times have you heard us ask questions, a bunch of questions? We only got, remember, we only got like five minutes

with these people. We ask a bunch of questions and then we already can like pinpoint that personality or what that person, so maybe looking back, the growth part for me, if I'm you, is like, damn it, I could have asked better questions when we first met to get a better idea of the type of personality she is, that she was going to be somebody who expected this or wanted that or thought that. That way I could have forecasted better. So there's the growth opportunity there. And this takes years, bro. I mean, it probably was 10 years before I

felt I was really good at this, where I could talk to somebody for 5 to 10 minutes. Now, you have more than 5 to 10 minutes than we do. But I could talk to you in one sit down and really get a good idea of, oh, OK, this is going to be the type of client that wants this and thinks that. And so I can already kind of see the hurdles. So right now, it sounds like you have this kind of general forecasting for everybody where your forecasting becomes very specific to that person like I you and you've heard me talk about this before.

I love to talk to people about a client that I had when I'm talking about them right like I had this client but it's really me honing in on like okay having that social awareness of oh she's gonna be like this she's gonna think my programming is too weak and not enough or or whatever and so I will talk about that client but I'm really tired so maybe getting better at your forecasting instead of having this because that is a great little spiel you have but it's very generic in general where my forecasting is always I'm trying to forecast what I think this person is going to be challenged with not what everybody is challenged with. Like what is unique to her or him? I have taken that play out of your book several times. You're better than most trainers.

You're already definitely better than most people already and you're eight years in and this is like when things get, this is when you start to really become a black belt. So keep it up. You're doing good, bro. I appreciate that because I feel like I'm eight years in but I feel like compared Comparatively, I'm like two years in right? So I don't feel like I'm two years away from ten years You're good, dude. You're doing good. You are calling you're doing good. You're doing good, bro. I appreciate you guys Thank you so much. You got it, man. Thanks for calling him

You know what he's going through. I can't remember the name of this, but there's like this. Dunbar, god I love you Justin. Number. It's like our brains are connected. I don't know if that's what it is, but I know you're thinking the same thing. Yes, the more you know, the less you realize you know. Yeah, because when you first become a trainer, I know everything.

Then the longer you become a trainer, you're like, I know nothing. And it's like this process. That's where he's at right now. Our next caller is Nicholas from Massachusetts. Sup Nicholas. What's happening man? What's going on, man? What's going on guys? How you doing bro? How can we help you? Good, good. Uh, appreciate you taking my question. It's awesome. What you got for us question is, um,

so I'm going to take it back four years, right? Uh, when I really started getting into fitness and health and wellness, everything, I started training jiu-jitsu four years ago and since that time I was getting ready for a competition. This is four years ago. I was getting ready for a competition. Wanted to cut to 205 my weight class. I was 215 training jiu-jitsu and lifting cardio every day and I cut down to 1,700 calories. In hindsight, I know

way too low. May 205, easy, no problem. After the competition, still training Jiu-Jitsu, still lift. Didn't really focus on the diet, but everything was still clean, clean eating. on the diet, but everything was still clean, clean eating. My weight maintained from 205 to 210 ish for a couple years. Last year, I wanted to do a legit cut. So I cut my calories down to 2400 calories, kept protein as my priority, continue to train, continue to lift. and I didn't lose a single pound Which is about was odd The summer hit so I kind of cruise through the summer didn't really focus on my diet But again continue to lift to continue to change it to When the holidays hit same thing didn't really focus on the diet

after that I was like, you know what? Let me try and do a bulk. So I increased my calories to 3400 calories Continue to lift can train a change of did to by train. I changed the way I lifted I did three days a week full body focused on higher reps Training to almost failure gained ten pounds and was noticeably stronger I was noticeably bigger in the mirror my physique

And I was all right cool. Let me try and cut so I was 220 when this happened. I was like, all right Cool. Let me try and cut now cut down to 2800 calories Still did three days a week full body did but I increased my weight lowered my reps and Didn't lose a single pound for four months. Cut down to 2700 calories added in zone two cardio once a week and same thing. Didn't lose a single pound, which I thought was odd.

And looking at it now, I think my, I jacked up my potassium metabolism and I messed it up So I'm just looking to get your insight on it. Yeah, I'm gonna assume you're tracking accurately, correct? Yeah. Oh, yeah Yeah, so I also saw in your question your firefighter in a busy city. Yeah. Yeah, okay, and you're doing okay And you're doing jujitsu how many days a week? On average for I try and train five Four days a week jujitsu, it's probably our two-hour classes that what they are Yeah, yeah, give it a and then you're doing lifting three days a week. Yeah, and then you're eating and then you're doing cardio Yeah, yeah, okay Yeah. And then you're eating and then you're doing cardio? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And you have a high stressful job. Yeah, and you have a stressful job and you get crappy sleep all the time because I know firefighters. Yeah. Where do you think I'm going here? Obstranic.

Yeah. Listen. Buy a lot, bro. Your metabolism is actually healthy. Yeah, that's right. It's really healthy, bro. It is protecting you. You're overtrained to hell. You're under-'re under slept and you're trying to go into calorie deficit

But thank God that your metabolism is doing what it's doing because it's keeping you going is what's happening store an energy That's right. And you're you seem like you're a young man. I'm gonna tell you right now you keep on this path You're gonna crash hard if your testosterone isn't already in the floor. It will be so so so so so You're overdoing it, like crazy. Like crazy, and you're trying to cut. That's crazy. What's your priority with fitness? Is it Jiu Jitsu or is it strength training?

It's so tough to answer, both, but realistically I know that's not an answer. So you love Jiu Jitsu. You love Jiu Jitsu. I love it. Okay, you're a one day a week. Max. Max. One day a week, that's it of lifting. Max, you're going to J Okay, you're a one day a week. Max, Max.

One day a week that's it of lifting. Max, you're going to jujitsu four to five days a week. You're gonna lift once a week. And moderate intensity. And you're not trained to failure. Yeah. That's it. And you're not doing cardio.

You're already doing plenty of cardio. No additional anything. Focus on your sleep and then start feeding yourself properly and stay there for a little while before you decide to cut. Yeah, don't think about cutting or bulking. Think about eating for maintenance right now. That's it. Eat to take care of your body, okay, which maybe for you is going to be somewhere around 26 to 2800 calories if I had to guess. Maybe more.

Probably around 3000. Yeah, I mean, but where he's currently at now because I'm sure it's slowed down because of all the overtraining. So I would work your way, you would be in like a reverse diet, right? I'd probably start you somewhere around 26 to 2800, and the goal is to keep moving that up to where, until you get somewhere around 3,300, 3,400 calories. And then what should happen is without any more additional anything, you just slowly lean out. You build a little bit of muscle. Your body's going to change on its own. Yeah. And you don't need anymore,

and doing more is not going to speed it up. It's only gonna set you back again. Yeah, here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna go down to one day a week of strength training, four to five exercises max, moderate intensity, and you're gonna keep your calories around what Adam said, and what's gonna happen is you're gonna get stronger, your jiu-jitsu game's gonna get better,

you're gonna start feeling better, and then your body's slowly gonna get leaner without having to do lots of cuts. So I figured you guys are gonna say that. With that, so I have a competition coming up in September. I'm 220 now, and I wanna compete at 205 because I'm a small 220. No, that's not the priority right now. That's dumb. That would be a big mistake.

Yeah. Why are you trying to cut weight for Jiu-Jitsu dude? You're a firefighter. What are you doing? Oh, because so to compete at 220, I'm gonna like I said, I'm a small 220. I'm gonna go in there and get destroyed. Okay. I think 205 is where I'm at. What is, what do you, do you get, how much, what's the prize money if you win by the way? You get a million dollars? Oh no. You get a stupid trophy. What is, what do you, do you get, how much, what's the prize money if you win, by the way? You get a million dollars? Oh, no, I won't, no. You get a stupid trophy. Yeah, listen, you're gonna crash yourself if you try to cut 15 pounds for a tournament,

so you can, whatever. You're better off. It's the All Valley Tournament. Yeah, you're better off going into it healthy and feeling good and then doing the best job you can. And you know, how long you been in Jiu Jitsu? Oh, yes, four and a half. So what are you, blue or purple?

Blue. Okay, you just modify your game and play the best game that you can and that's it. And if you lose, so what? But don't destroy your metabolism in pursuit of this or destroy your body in pursuit of this trophy. Go into it healthy. And Nicholas, maybe later on,

after we prioritize your health and getting back, we can talk about cutting down to that weight class. But right now is not the right time to do it. You're in a position right now where your body's trying to scream at you to get healthy and take care of it, right? Get rested, get fed, exercise properly.

That's what it's trying to tell you. And then you want to push it to another extreme level right now. It's just not the timing. No. Doesn't mean that I couldn't take you, say, a year or two from now and go, hey, you want to get in that 205 class now that we got a healthy metabolism, you've got a better balance with sleep and food and exercise, now we can do this together.

Let's do it. But right now in this moment, that's not a good focus. It's an opposite focus. And I'll tell you right now, the odds that you'll do well in the Jiu Jitsu tournament at a healthy, lots of energy, feeling good, 220 is better than you going in at 205, cutting your calories way down and over trained. Yeah. Okay. And you also, is this gi or no gi?

What are you competing in? Gi. Oh God, with the gi too? 15 pounds? It's not gonna make that big of a difference. You know this, I bet you go against guys that are 160 that kick your butt because their technique is so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no, no. No, no, no, go in there healthy. Jiu-jitsu, keep it up, one day a week strength training, like we said, keep your calories up, and then watch what happens. All right. That's it. All right, cool.

You got it, man. Appreciate it. You got it, brother. Yes. Thanks for calling in, man. I didn it. You got it, brother. Yes. Thanks for calling in, man. I didn't know I was gonna get yelled at like this. All right. All right.

Yeah. That's how it goes sometimes. Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate you, man. Hey, thanks for the work you do, bro. Yeah, just listen, though, okay? Don't just get off the phone and be like, fuck those guys and go do your thing. Nah, I will, I will.

We're the angry uncles, watching you. Yeah, if you trust us, I promise you. Yeah, my angry uncles killed me. Yeah. All right, bro. Hey, by the way, let me send you a program, I promise you. My angry uncle's a little bit. Yeah. All right. Hey, by the way, let me send you a program that I think you'll like. MAPS 15 Performance. Let's send that to him.

Yeah. That's a good program for guys like you who like doing jujitsu and stuff like that. Cool. I appreciate it. You got it, man. All right, man. Thanks. Thanks.

All right. See you, dude. Have one of our trainers call him. Yeah. I like his Boston accent. I almost asked him if he liked his apples. Yeah. Can you say wicked real quick? Yeah, dude.

Aw, wicked, awesome. I've listened to it all like, bro, jujitsu, I did jujitsu. I did it in my 20s. Four days of jujitsu, period. Or five. Yeah, that's a lot. It's two hours of, bro.

He said two hours, yeah. You're wrestling hard, dude. That beats you up. You ain't doing a bunch of lifting with him. No, you're not doing hardly. Even the lifting he does should be moderate. That's right. And he said he was training to failure and three days a week and cardio. And he's a firefighter too.

Probably a fucked up schedule too. The four on, five off thing they do where they're like 24 hour. Yeah, we didn't even get into that. I'm like, sure. He walked into a buzzsaw. Yeah. Well, I mean as he was listing all of it all and here's the thing You know what? He's 29 years old young so he's resilient as fuck And so that's where you get in your head because you can yeah, cuz I can I told me keep going It's your body. Yeah, I mean, I love that you hinted to the testosterone to I bet them about now if he's been doing that for a long

Enough time he's oh, I think I said that that on purpose because I guarantee he's already feeling the effects of low testosterone. Yeah, for sure. Our next caller is gauge from Hawaii. What's up gauge? How you doing gauge? Yo, Hey guys. How's it going?

Good. Good, man. Chillin. The studio looks so cool. I just wanted to say that. I'd rather be where you're at, dude. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's trade places for sure. Awesome. Okay guys, I'll, yeah. Let's trade places for sure. Awesome. Okay guys, I'll just jump straight into my question. I guess I had a multi-part question. You guys can just answer kind of whatever parts you wanna pick out of it. Based off of time, I know I'm a few minutes late, it's my bad.

But little background about me. Got super into health and fitness after kind of my own health problems, complications, multiple doctors visits, things like that. Unfortunately never got specific answers from anybody in the past, kind of took my health into my own hands and kind of changed how I was exercising, changed what I was eating, changed how I was exercising, changed what I was eating, changed how I was living. And so, um, ended up starting to feel a lot better after some time. Um, after, uh, listening to your guys' podcast for the last couple of years and listening to some other

people's experiences and things, I feel like it was probably a mold toxicity issue or like a mold, uh, issue. Um, because I started feeling better right after I moved out of the place that I was living before. I feel like that was kind of the timeline. I have a lot of background in sports, weight training. I did a little bout of running, ran a marathon. One and done with that one. Did not fully enjoy that process. I'm glad to

say I've done it though. And just trying to look for like balance with work, life, stress and training. My main question is being that I have a new opportunity to do personal training at a gym that I'm working at here. I also teach group classes and I'm a health coach remotely online. I have two kind of side business ventures that I have also my feet in that are taking up a lot of my time. So my main question is, I know that you guys have some entrepreneur background. What are your, what's your advice on how to know when to kind of go all in on one thing or the other?

I know that I'm spread too thin. I hear it all the time of like, kind of pick one thing. If you, you know, do too many things, you're not going to progress very much in any of them basically. That's, that's my first main question. Which one are you good at your head? Which one are you more passionate about or which one's got the best ROI? Currently or like they the same?

No, they're not the same. I would say that the coaching opportunity is I'm way more passionate about. I enjoy doing that a lot more. Um, I do feel like the other, uh, I, the other options potentially could have more ROI, but currently don't. So how old are you? Do you have, do you have, Do you have kids, wife, or are you just on your own? I'm 25, I'm on my own, so I don't have any of that overhead or anything like that. Oh dude. Push the chips in.

Yeah, go, yeah bro, this is the time. Do the one you're most passionate in. Go for it. You got lots of energy, you're young, you don't have kids or a wife to support. Pick the one you're passionate in and go for it. That's the one that will haunt you if you don't. I'm gonna tell you that right now. So go for it. Worst case scenario, and give yourself some time by the way, whenever we tell

people like you, go all in on the one you're passionate on. Don't just do it for three months. I'm like, I did it, I'm done. No, no, give yourself a year or I think a year minimum and say, okay I'm gonna give myself to this date and I'm gonna go as hard as I can and I'm gonna see if it can work. And usually what happens is you get your answer and oftentimes the answer is I made the right decision. Yeah, pick the thing that you see right in front of you that you would be willing to do for the next 10 years

to get good at it and it wouldn't bother you. You're like, it doesn't feel like work. You can just keep working on it continuously and it's okay, because you enjoy it. That's the hack, bro. When you do something that you're passionate about and you're staying up at 11, midnight at night, reading, you're not counting those hours

because you'd be doing it anyways and you love it, that you lean into that. That's the thing. Otherwise you're looking at the clock. That's the biggest hack for really successful entrepreneurs is they've found something that they don't count the hours of all the time and effort they put into it. It's not an easier path. People think it's like, oh, it's all this flexibility and freedom bullshit.

You're going to work more than anybody who does a nine to five because, but you won't look at it like work because you love doing it. You're excited about it. You're passionate about it. So as soon as you got a break, you're actually kind of working because you're reading up or researching or educating yourself or watching others doing that craft or getting mentored and you love it

because it's what you want to do. It feeds you. The best quote I ever heard on entrepreneurship is that an entrepreneur is somebody who's willing to work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week. Yep. If that makes, if that's like, and I saw you laugh

and kind of smirk a little bit when I said that, if that resonates, that's you, then go for it. Because I tell you what, working 40 hours a week for me with something that I'm not passionate about feels like a million. Like, oh, I can't stand this. But doing something that I'm passionate about, I'll do this all day long for free and I love it.

So it's totally different. No, that, thank you for that. I feel like that really resonated with me when you shared that. Also just knowing that it's something that I could put a lot of time into and I don't feel like it's a lot of time passing doing it. Yeah.

No, go for it. That's the key, bro. Are you in our course? Are you in any of our courses or anything for trainers? I'm not currently but I've been looking into them as you've kind of been sharing on the podcast. Did you listen to the three three episodes that we just did for trainers? No, but I just saw that you dropped them. Yeah. Like last few days. Yeah, just a couple days ago. Yeah, go through those. Get in the free webinar where I do sales training and we're doing it.

We're going to do a lot more content for trainers and coaches like you. Um, uh, so it'll help you. It'll help you a lot. Yeah. That's our big focus right now. Our big, and that's a big passion of ours. And guess what? It's not the great ROI for us right now, but it's a, it's a passion we all believe

in. And so we're all in on that right now. So it's same concept. So go all in if you're passionate about it, dude. This is the time to do it. Always make peace with the worst outcome. What is the absolute worst thing that could happen? You know, you got to eat peanut butter, jelly sandwiches for a while or downsize your apartment or get a roommate or whatever. Like that's like deal. You're 25. Oh, I'm 26 now. And I guess it didn't work. So right. Right. Oh, that's, that's like deal your 25. Oh, I'm 26 now and I guess it didn't work. So right, right. Oh That's that's super helpful. You got these guys do it this doing when you hang up go run towards it. Let's go

Awesome. I have one other question about training if we have time. Yeah, let's go. Yeah so so because I got this this opportunity to start personal training I kind of had to Because I got this this opportunity to start personal training. I kind of had to Start with group classes to get my foot indoor at the gym so I had to get you know CrossFit L1 certified and So I went through that whole process and started taking classes to learn how they worked and started doing it on my own So I wouldn't say I'm fully Addicted but you know, I'm, I'm enjoying the different style of training for myself.

Just cause it's very new, very novel for myself. I'm seeing a lot of gains in areas that I've never seen before. Cause I've never really done Olympic lifting or gymnastics movements, things like that. Um, so my question to you guys is like, how do I balance, I balance the training right now with kind of like the stress I try to like taper my training with if I get a bad night's sleep but you know listening to you guys like I'll bring back the volume or I'll bring back the intensity but my main question is like what do you recommend I do to continue progressing?

Cause I know that I feel like I'm at an age where I can get away with a lot of bull crap programming and training right now. Like I'm still seeing a lot of progress, but I know that it's not structured in a good way. Or it's not like the best way to do it. Cause I do a couple of Metcons a week. I still do some hypertrophy, like lifting maybe once or twice a week.

I'll do some strength focus stuff, like some endurance, like it's kind of all over the place. You know, this is good because of your age, because you're also a trainer and a coach. You can get away with a lot right now. So I think the most you'll get out of this is by having fun with it and treating it like a skill. So instead of thinking of gains and whatever,

like oh I'm gonna learn, you know, I'm gonna learn how to do this, you know, use the rings really well, or I'm gonna continue to perfect my snatch, just treat it like you're learning a skill and you're having fun, that's it. That'll serve you best. Hunter, especially considering what your first question

is all about and following your passion, your business to be a coach. It'll make you a better coach. It's gonna make you great. coach. It'll direct you. Yeah. Don't go into this as like my gains or how I need to look. It's like, I want to learn about, I want to get so good at learning these techniques that I can teach it to others.

And let me tell you, that's a skill I didn't have. Like I could not, if somebody came to me and wanted to learn how to do a snatch, I couldn't do it. I couldn't teach them how to do it. I didn't have that skill. You will have that skill. And that's very, especially today with how popular CrossFit and those movements have become, that's a very valuable thing for you

to just put in and add another tool in your tool belt. So look at it like that. Don't think about gains as much as it is education. And when you're going into one of these things and you're like, man, I'm too tired to have fun, then that means take the day off. Okay. No, that's super helpful.

Yeah, I feel like there is some movements where I'm like not actively like chasing a big PR goal. Like I'll just do them just to get better. And so I feel like that kind of point of, yeah, just learn it. And then I can teach you better. You're probably the biggest mistake someone young like you will make is, is doing too much when you don't need to, if you're already doing three metcons a week, that's enough to build a great physique. So don't overdo it. You don't need to add in hypertrophy training and strain training on top of that. Those things already got built into it. So I would be, I would caution you on adding stuff and I would go like, man, if you, if you get three good workouts in a week with everything else you got going on,

then the rest of it is learning. Yeah, just get as educated as possible. That's your entire focus right now. The most important thing you can modify with what we're telling you is intensity. So you're like, oh man, I had three hard workouts this week but I wanna go practice more. Go with low intensity, practice. Like literally have fun. Think of it that way.

Like how can I have fun right now and is this still fun for me? That's gonna give you the most returns for all the stuff that you just said. Thank you. No that's super helpful. I feel like I am having fun so that's helpful to know that like okay just going and have fun keep going into it don't don't try to look at it for PRs or exactly gains go have fun have fun at the gym the community the competitions are fun for sure. That's right dude. Yep cool. That's. That's all I had guys. Thank you so much for your time.

We'll see you on the webinar dude. Right on. Yeah good good. I love those questions. I love it. But yeah I mean when you're young like that you don't have dependence because that will haunt you. Let me just paint the picture. 25 year old you, oh my god I love training people but I got this job that kind of pays the bills. You know what I'm gonna do the you know quote-unquote responsible thing. Then you're 30, you got married, you got a baby on the way. You don't have a mortgage. Yeah and you're like oh this sucks I hate this job. I wish I wonder if I could have become a trainer. It's like well now you probably could still but it was way more on the line. It's way different versus back when you didn't have those things. So look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump DeStefano. Adam's at Mind

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