Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2641: Five Ways Your Emotions Are Making You Fat and Unhealthy and How to Fix Them & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: 5 Ways Your Emotions Are Making You Fat and Unhealthy and How to Fix Them. (2:30) Is there zero need for billionaires? (26:23) Dead internet theory. (34:00) Stop it with the Epstein nonsense. (37:15) Fake vs. real creatine gummies. (38:57) Shock and awe. (43:53) The BEST home gym you can have. (52:40) Technique vs. strength. (54:25) #ListenerLive question #1 – If I were to switch my training over to a functional bodybuilding style approach, how would I go about trying to maintain as much muscle mass as I can that I’ve built over the past 8 years? (59:10) #ListenerLive question #2 – Any insight you all can provide on why I continuously pull/strain my calf muscles? (1:09:48) #ListenerLive question #3 – How can I get my efforts to match my results? (1:21:57) #ListenerLive question #4 – What did I do wrong when running MAPS Anabolic, and how did I manage to screw it up so badly? (1:32:20) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** 7/14 - 7/15: Creatine Gummies Free with any 2 products! You can stack our 20% off! Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout. ** Visit PRx Performance for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** No code for 5% discount gets automatically applied at checkout. ** July Special: MAPS Split or Anabolic Metabolism Bundle 50% off! ** Code JULY50 at checkout ** Obesity and cortisol: New perspectives on an old theme Stress and Eating Behaviors - PMC Mindfulness, depression, and emotional eating: The moderating role of nonjudging of inner experience Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat - PMC Sleep Deprivation: Effects on Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance Efficacy of exercise combined with standard treatment for depression compared to standard treatment alone: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials James Smith Fake Creatine Gummy - IG 28 Years Later | Rotten Tomatoes Watch The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch Full Episodes Visit MASSZYMES by biOptimizers for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP10 at checkout for 10% off any order. ** Strengthen Your Shins: Master the Tibialis Raise Today! Mind Pump #2560: How to Break Free from Destructive Body Image Issues Mind Pump #1297: 3 Ways to Know If Your Workout Is Not Right for You Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram James Smith (@jamessmith) Instagram Brian Shaw (@shawstrength) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in the history of podcasting. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, live callers called in and we got to coach them and help them on air, but this was after the intro portion of the episodes today's intro was 55 minutes long in the intro We talked about fitness fat loss muscle gain family life

It's a good time by the way if you want to be on an episode like this email us your question at live at mind pump Media calm this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organifi. Today we talked about their Crateen Cherry Chews. They're delicious candies with a full serving of Crateen. By the way, the Crateen is provided by CreaPure, which is a great company. Go check them out. And by the way, between the 14th and 15th of this month, you'll get some free cherry chews with any two products

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By the way, you can get their home gym equipment and make monthly payments. So it's like a gym membership except it's your gym. Now they're famous for their squat racks that fold into the wall so they only come off the wall six inches. Then when you want to use it you want to fold it and boom you have one of those stable strong squat racks you can find. But they sell all kinds of gym home gym equipment. Go check them out. Go to prxperformance.com forward slash mind pump on that link you'll get 5% off. We also have some sales on some workout programs this month. MAPS split in the anabolic metabolism bundle of programs

those are all 50% off. Head over to MAPSfitnessproducts.com and then use the code July 50 for that discount. Here comes the show. T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time! Ah shit Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the week. Three winners this week, two for Apple podcast, one for Facebook. The Apple podcast winners are True Blue Kug and Shiva Malia 999. And for Facebook we have Danny Allen sub Gross. All three of you are winners. Send the name I just

read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right to you. Are you being secretly sabotaged by your emotions? Stress, anxiety, fear? Does this making you fat? Yes, there are five surprising ways your emotions are getting in the way. Let's get into it. I just read a thing. It's funny you went this direction. I just read a thing that said that 90, it was in the 90, 90 something percent of all the fears and thoughts that we have that are like negative

or bad in our head don't even happen. Oh yeah, that's what I've seen. It was a crazy step. It was like 90%. Yeah, it's like stop me in my tracks, like come on, that's gotta be exaggerated. So I didn't have a chance to like go down the rabbit hole of like trying to really get to the bottom

of the research on that to see how accurate it was. But it just, and since you brought this up, it just now landed, I was like, oh, that's interesting. You went this way because I just read that. Here's why I'm going here. I saw some study, I've talked about this on the show before where they've done studies where they'll take obese individuals, so they'll divide them up into groups, they'll take this group and they'll say, you're going to work on cognitive behavioral

therapy or you're going to work with a therapist over the emotional roots of your obesity. Then they'll take this other group and say, you're going to work out and eat right, so we're going to tell you what to eat, we're going to have you exercise. Yeah, who's more? The group with the therapist tends to do better. Yeah. And then there's other studies that combine it all and they succeed at far higher rates than people that don't tackle those reasons. Now, I've talked about this on the podcast before because I've trained people for over two decades, so have you guys, and probably 10 years of my career

I realized this is where the success is. It's talking and getting to the root cause of these behaviors, not the behaviors themselves, but rather why they occur in the first place, and doing that made a huge difference in my success with my clients. I mean, it makes sense. I feel like emotion can really rule

over your decision making process if you don't have a good handle over it. And I know that that's, you know, it's a big influence on like what I'm gonna set myself up for for the day and like how I'm gonna be able to get through these type of disciplines that I need to do. Yeah, a big mistake that health and fitness people will make, because they're fitness fanatics,

so they're not like the average person, they're fanatical about it. And what they do, they make two assumptions. One, they assume that everybody else can become a fitness fanatic, which is, it's not the case. And two, they assume that the message that they've communicated to themselves is the one that most people will subscribe to,

or subscribe to. And what they end up saying is something like, food is fuel, food is energy, food is nutrients. But that's not how it works in the real world. Food is so complicated, our relationship to food is so complicated that entire cultures are created, that revolve around food. There are different foods for different celebrations and we rarely ever eat because food is fuel

in modern societies. So this topic we're gonna talk about is probably one of the most important ones for people who struggle with this, with any degree of challenge. Now I'll start with the first one, which is stress-induced hormone changes. So chronic stress, chronic long-term stress,

not the, because stress is normal. Your body requires stress to adapt. Exercise is stress on the body. It's why you become more fit and stronger. And you can't live a stress-free life, that's impossible. Life is challenging, we get older, things happen. But the kind of stress that sticks around and lingers causes some pretty nasty changes in the body. Now there's some theories as to why that affects us so poorly and one of them is that we weren't supposed to

be under that kind of stress all the time. It was supposed to be, oh I can't find food, I found it. Uh oh, I don't have shelter, now I have it. Uh oh, there's a lion, now he's gone. So stress gone, stress gone, safe. But we tend to live in a world now where I'm getting texts and emails from people, I'm being informed

of the entire world. So although right now my life seems pretty safe, if I wanted to I could read endless articles on why it's not safe and why it's so scary and what is going on in the world. You can find it really easy. Right, and so what this creates is a hormone profile that promotes fat storage, in particular cortisol dysfunction.

And I brought up some studies here. There was a 2017 study in obesity that found that high cortisol levels, or I think more accurately inverted cortisol, where it's low in the morning, high for the rest of the day, it's strongly correlated with greater abdominal fat, especially in women. Stressed individuals also tend to consume

about 20% more calories from comfort foods. So one way that we tend to make ourselves feel better when we're moderately stressed all the time is to eat things that are hyper-palatable because while you're eating a donut or a cookie or something that you really enjoy, in that moment you notice temporary relief. And so you're eating a donut or a cookie or something that you really enjoy, in that moment you notice temporary relief.

And so you're medicating yourself essentially. There's social elements to that where it's like an association and it kind of brings you into that thought process and it helps to kind of cope with whatever stress you're going through. So yeah, emotional eating has always been one of those things that is a really hard thing to battle when that is sort of your go-to comfort totally bringing back to the point that I brought up

I I find it interesting that it's like how much of this is Real like yeah real stress and how much of it is just perceived Yeah, how much of this is that? You are you just believe all these things are so bad, so this and how much of it, I mean you bring up the, we're not being chased by lines, it's like how much of the stuff that we make into stress and big problems is even necessary. Yeah, a majority of it I think is self-created

because to just piggyback off this, when you take these same individuals and they follow a spiritual practice or they do therapy or meditative practice or mindfulness, you see a dramatic reduction. You get rid of it. You see a dramatic reduction. And in many of those cases, they didn't change necessarily the circumstances. They still had the same job.

They still had the stress of their kids, they still have the... They reframed and they offload it too. Right. There's a lot of people who don't know how to offload this stress and keep it. And a lot of, and some of this is even a gratitude practice, like I brought up spiritual practices which involve lots of prayer and praise. I've experienced this recently.

Every other hour, what I try to do is reflect on what I'm grateful for that happened the previous couple hours, just so it's very specific. And what I'm finding is, I miss a lot. There's so much stuff that I miss that I can be grateful for because I take it for granted. Like, this is a sunny day, or I went for a walk, and oh my god, you know... Or you're anticipating problems to earlier point that don't exist. So your thoughts are there and you're not right now like what's happening. We're not wired to think about the good stuff. We're wired to focus on the negative.

So you have to consciously make that choice. And here's the cool thing about neurobiology with that. When you're being grateful, the brain shifts from the part of the brain that processes stress and anxiety to the part of the brain that can't, that doesn't process that. So being grateful is actually- It can't coexist at the same time.

Yeah, you gotta be working. You can't be super grateful and feel super anxious at the same time. I mean, it's arguably one of the more brilliant things that you've set in the park. I've actually adopted it personally since you've brought it up, and I've shared it with several people as just a,

hey, what a hack is, because I know a lot of people have done the gratitude thing before and have run into the same thing. I feel like you're in one camp or the other. Either you swear by it and you're like, yeah, I'm all about my gratitude practice and it's changed my life, or you're the other person who might have tried it and been like, I did it. And the people that say, that's because they, I feel like they all come to the same conclusion.

You started, it was the same repeated stuff. I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for my job. You're grateful for like the top five things that you're always grateful for. And just simply, and I've been doing the same thing, I haven't put like an alarm or anything like that, but I'm just like, I'm consciously trying to, try and do it at 11 a.m. and then at one, you know?

Just random parts of the day. And then the things that you're grateful for are so different, so different. Isn't it weird? Yeah, and then it really, it just changes that day. That day just gets exponentially better even if there was anything great going on per se because of how much it shifts your perspective.

So what's the bottom line with this? I'm gonna sell it real hard to the people listening because most people listening wanna improve their health and fitness. If you do this and lower your overall stress, the data shows you'll get leaner. Yeah. That your behaviors will start to change,

and you'll actually get leaner. Physiologically, it changes you. That's right. The next one is emotional eating. Depression and anxiety in particular. There's a 2020 International Journal of eating disorder study that reported that 60% individuals with depression engaged in emotional eating consuming an average of 500 extra calories a day

During depressive episodes anxiety increases snacking frequency by 30% Again when you feel chronically You know kind of low moderate levels, so we're not talking about the crippling depression, anxiety, like you need that treated, right? We're talking about the kind of moderate level, low level depression, kind of feeling blue, that anxiety that kind of lingers in the background.

You just want to break from it. If you guys have ever felt this, I have. When you kind of have that all day long, 20 minute break is amazing. An easy way to do that is to self-medicate with food or snacking. In that moment, oh, I love these. Or alcohol. Or alcohol or anything else. Yeah, this is a big one. Yeah. Yeah. And so it contributes to this increase in caloric intake. So solving that makes a huge difference.

So what I do with my clients who struggled with this is when they felt blue or like anxious and they started reaching for snacks, I didn't tell them not to do the behavior. I didn't say like, no, don't do it. I said before you do, write down what you're feeling and then go ahead and do it. I said, before you do, write down what you're feeling. And then go ahead and do it. It made a difference.

Now hearing, I mean, I never did this with clients, but now kind of putting together the whole gratitude throughout the day thing, this is something if I was a trainer still training clients and I had a client that was struggling with the snacking or emotional eating, I would actually say, I'm not gonna tell you you can't, I just want you to write three things you're grateful for

before you do that. That's another great one. I mean, what a hack that would be. It's like telling the client that, not that they can't do it, just hey, before you do it, do this for me, right before that, sit down, write out the five things you're grateful for in that moment,

and then go ahead and have the thing and see what happens. It'd be interesting to see how many people will pursue it. It would be interesting. It'd be really interesting to see how many people will pursue it. It would be interesting. It'd be really interesting to see how many people would either one, adhere and actually do the step or else they'd be like, no, I didn't even do it and then of course you ate or how many people did the thing and then like, you know what, I'm okay.

I remember, we had dinner years ago with Paul Chek and this was before I even had a faith or anything like that. I was at this point, pretty atheist, but what he did before dinner was he did this strange prayer. And I say strange because he doesn't follow any specific religion. But I remember him, he put his head down

and it looked like he paused. I said, hey, I didn't know you were religious. He's like, well, I'm not. I said, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm asking my body if this is what it wants. I'm asking, I'm considering the food and this is what it wants. I'm asking, you know, I'm considering the food and what's in the food.

Basically, all he did was pause and essentially do what would be, I think, equivalent or similar to like a prayer. And then I realized like, oh yeah, if you're spiritual, if you make a conscious effort to do a short prayer, it probably does bring awareness and a little bit of gratitude and kind of do something similar. Just that pause, because that's what he did.

He just paused and said, he's like, I talked to my body, is this what you want? Is this good for you? Do you think you should? And I'm like, you know, imagine doing that before eating like a Pop-Tart. You know, you might be like, nah, I don't think I want Pop-Tart anymore.

You know what I'm saying? I think it helps, I think it might help quite a bit. Next we have mindless eating or boredom eating. Here's what's interesting about this one. If you eat while on your phone, because this is what we tend to do when we're quote unquote mindless these days, we're on our phones.

We distract it. Yeah, so you're scrolling. It's mindless, right? You're not really intentionally just kind of going through. People who are eating while on their phone scrolling eat about 15% more calories, like everything else being the same. Now why? Because you're distracted from your body's signals of satiety, so it takes a bit longer for you to process I'm done. So like imagine you're like I want some

chips, okay, and you're about to watch a movie. So imagine you're like, I want some chips, okay, and you're about to watch a movie. Now imagine you're like, you know what, I'm gonna eat some chips, I'm just gonna sit at the table, I'm not gonna be on my phone, I'm just gonna eat some potato chips. You're gonna eat way less than if you ate the chips in front of the movie or on your phone.

That mindless eating one is an easy way to cut 10 to 15% of calories. It was fun driving home from Truckee and we had to stop at I-5 and there was just, there's fun driving home from a truckie, and we had to stop like an I-5, and there was just, you know, there's no options, like a gas station in the middle of nowhere, you know? And I'm just like, I'm just gonna get some chips, and I was just talking to Leigh, I'm like,

yep, chip stop, and she was like, you'd be so surprised, like, I cannot keep my racks filled enough with chips. Like, people are obsessed with chips, and like, of course, it's just like that, enough with chips. People are obsessed with chips. Of course. It's just like that. And think about how many calories you just cram in there so easily.

They're just loaded with calories and it's the easiest thing ever to just consume. I think the part of not being distracted too is you, because I think a lot of us have, because I'm guilty of this, very much so, of just some of my eating behaviors from always eating distracted, that even when I'm not distracted, you start to become aware of some things that you've talked about this before where you're

eating a bite and you're already shoveling the next, you're still chewing the food and you're already like- You're not thinking about what's in your mouth. Yeah, you're already getting the next one ready and you're like, and then you're swallowing it. It's like, if you just notice that and realize like, again, don't tell yourself you can't, sure, enjoy the thing, but like, actually eat it and swallow it

before the next bite is cut, you know what I'm saying? Like, watch what happens. Yeah, there's some techniques to this, because the opposite of mindless eating is mindful eating. So what you do is you sit, so don't stand, you sit, you eat with your food, there's no distractions, and you put your fork down in between. Don't drink any water, because that'll encourage you

to chew, and just do that. That, okay, here's what the data shows on this, everybody. Let's say you wanna cut your calories by 15 to 20%. But you don't wanna try to cut your calories. You just want it to happen after. You wanna eat the same. Just do that. Yeah, just do that. Don't even change what you're eating, you'll eat less.

Just by sitting at a table with your food by yourself that. Don't even change what you're eating. You'll eat less. Just by sitting at a table with your food by yourself and just paying attention to what you're doing. Like watch it. It slows it. It's crazy. I did the mindless eating a lot too, Adam, because I trained so many clients during the day.

We're all the same with that. That I had a client. You had five minutes. So you shoveled down. It became a terrible habit. Yeah, 500 calories. And it was actually a competitive thing. It was like, how can I get this 50 gram, 500 calorie meal

down before the next client's done warming up? Yeah, I had actually had a client who worked in functional medicine who pointed it out, because I was talking about my gut health. And he goes. He's not healthy. And he saw me eat. He saw me eat once.

I didn't train for very long, but he actually taught me something. He watched me eat, and he goes, you take your food like supplements. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, you put it in your mouth, you wash it down like they're pills. I'm like, does that hurt my digestion? He goes, yeah, damn it.

I've been doing that forever and it's like definitely backfire. Now I'm like, all the repercussions, I have to eat so slowly, it pisses me off. It would be a really fun experiment to take a group of people through a no diet diet, meaning we take all the tips that we give that has nothing to do with food choice.

That's how I coach people at the end, Adam. I know, and really combine all of them. It's just like, hey listen, we're not even gonna talk about the food you're supposed to eat, but we're just gonna give all the advice of mindful eating, the chewing so many times, the not-why distracted,racting, it's just like, let's just see what happens if you just set those parameters and not told someone.

And I wonder just how successful a lot of people are. I know you would miss on some things, right? Like I'm aware that even if I do all those things, that I tend to gravitate towards more carb-heavy foods and so I under eat protein. So that one piece. Yeah, it's not gonna fix everything. Right, right. But I bet it would keep at least, it would keep you from putting on a bunch of body fat.

So the clients that I did what you're saying to are the ones that were so apprehensive to any kind of control. Structure, yeah. That I did that and it turned into, it was usually about eight to 10 pounds in three months of weight loss. It's a good momentum to build.

Eight to 10 pounds of fat loss in three months without really watching and changing anything, just doing those, that's actually remarkable. By the way, it's not as easy as it sounds, so someone listening, I had a client, I'll give you an example, I had a client who did this and because she was super apprehensive, so I said, okay, here's what I want you to do.

When you eat, sit at a table, just you and your food, don't drink any water, if you feel like you're gonna go to the cupboard to snack, just write down a few thoughts, so I had a journal. Here's what she did, this is how difficult it is. She would find herself at the grocery store grabbing snacks from the little snack bins as she grocery shopped, because she so badly wanted to mindless eat.

To the point where she came to me and we talked about it, she's like, I didn't even realize, I just realized it the other day, I still do that. She's like, oh my God, it's such a pattern. It's hard to break. Next up is sleep disruption. So there was a 2019 sleep journal study that showed that less than or on average six hours

or less of sleep per night increased hunger by 24% and fat gain by 26% over time. So poor sleep is a very difficult environment for fat loss. It's a pro fat gain environment. It's also an anti-muscle. Survival. Just knowing that was a big help for me.

Just knowing the role it played in your cravings helped me out. Just because I would. Because you knew you'd have cravings tomorrow. And I think that's just, I think I can't stress enough to the audience that's never just tried to pay attention to this. Like when you, it's like anything else.

Like if you know, Katrina jokes about this all the time, maybe this is just my personality, I don't know. Because she's like, if I take you somewhere that I know you're going to get irritated because there's lines or whatever the thing is, if she gives me the prep before, I'm fine. You know what I'm saying?

Like, hey, we're going to go here. There's going to be a line. We'll probably have to sit. That's so true, bro. It is. And I'm like, because I know I'm like, I'm mentally prepared. It's not unexpected. bro. It is. And I'm like, because I know I'm like, I'm mentally prepared. It's not unexpected.

Exactly. So same thing goes with this. If I have a poor night's sleep and I know, oh boy, sometime today I'm going to crave that weird greasy food that I never crave, and it's going to feel so strong. And just telling myself that ahead of time, so that would hit, it's like, oh, here it is. I knew it was going to come today. And it's like, oh, here it is, I knew it was gonna come today,

and it's like, okay, don't do it. You cannot understate what you just said, Adam. I'll paint the scenario. You're driving somewhere and you know that the place you're going to has traffic on the way there. It's not that annoying. Now, imagine driving somewhere you drive to all the time, no traffic, you hit traffic.

Super. You're stuck in it. Yes, so what you're saying is so important is if you feel like, oh I had bad sleep, I'm probably gonna have cravings tomorrow. Makes it huge. And again, not putting on these crazy prams, but just the awareness around it really helps navigate that situation significantly better.

And even if you have a hard time resisting, at least you're kind of aware of it so you don't go over the top. It definitely will mitigate some of the damage. Yes. For sure. Big time. So with this one, it's just this Create a sleep routine You know an hour before bed prepare yourself for sleep turn the lights down blue light blocking glasses don't eat food You go to bed at the same time every night wake up at the same time every morning

Even if you have trouble sleeping so that you're not jet-lagged every Monday because you went to bed late and slept in over the weekend. Like those two things right there make a big difference with sleep alone. And then lastly, low motivation. This comes from low levels of depression and anxiety. It actually makes you feel frozen. You actually feel stuck. This is what it feels like.

When you're kind of struggling with this like kind of low to moderate depression or anxiety You don't want to do the very thing that may lift you out of it Which is move and I remember Arthur Brooks communicating this he said the thing that you do is a thing You don't want to do the first or first couple steps You need to force yourself and then watch the magic. Start small is what I would say. So there was a 2021 Journal of Effective Disorders study that found that depressed individuals are 40% less likely to meet physical activity guidelines. So here's what you do.

If this is you, give yourself a tiny goal and say, I'm going to walk outside for five minutes and then come back and sit down. That's it. What tends to happen, not always, but what tends to happen is one, you get the five minutes because you forced yourself, but two, the five-minute walk, suddenly you feel like going another five minutes where you want to do it again. This is also a recipe for anxiety. If you have like general anxiety where you don't want to be around people, start small and say, okay, I'm gonna go to the grocery store

or I'm gonna invite one person over that I feel comfortable being anxious around and then what happens is it starts to kind of work through the problem. So this one is more of a like force yourself to take one small step, then the next steps are easier to take. It's a behavior thing and it's,

this was a big one for me too, big one I had to learn myself. I think of it a lot like saving and investing a lot of people sometimes will be like well I don't make that much extra money to to save or I can't invest I can't get ahead it's like you start even with the smallest commitment it's five dollars and you and what you do is you have that you play this game in your head going like well what I'm never going to retire off of five dollars I'm never going to get like this but it's, it's that attitude that keeps you from the next level of that.

But just starting that, you'll see, oh, wow, I actually had 10 I could save this month. Or, oh, same concept. It's like, I'm going to go say to myself, you know what? I'm just going to go to the gym and do a set of squats, or go to my garage and do a set of squats. I'm not going to overcommit to a big workout. But then what happens, and maybe that day that's all you do,

but then you're like, oh I did that, that wasn't that bad, and then tomorrow I'm like, I could do that again, and then it's like, oh I'll do two more things, and before you know it, those behaviors start to compound and you have more anxiety. Now here's some good news, exercise is one of the most powerful anti-anxiety, anti-depression interventions based on all the data.

It's more effective than anything. And unlike medications, it creates what's called a positive feedback loop. So positive feedback loop is a loop that continues to accelerate in a positive way because what you do impacts the next thing which gets better, which makes the next thing better. In other words, starting an exercise routine because what you do impacts the next thing, which gets better, which makes the next thing better.

In other words, starting an exercise routine makes you want to feel, makes you exercise more, makes you feel better, which makes you want to exercise more. Be stronger, more energy. Yes, so starting this process as hard as it may be actually gets easier as you continue because of the positive feedback loop.

It's funny you brought up a vest thing, Adam. There's this trending topic on X right now that is a little frustrating to see because people just don't have any idea and it's easy to paint certain people as villains. So here's the, this is what's trending, okay, because it's all over right now, that there's zero need for billionaires.

Billionaires shouldn't exist. Someone should not have that much money. So they're typing this in their smartphones. Yeah, so this is why it's frustrating, is because there's a few different reasons. One, in market-based societies, a billionaire became a billionaire because they did something so impactful to society

that we gave them billions of dollars. So that's number one. Number two, and people are like, oh, they got government subsidies and this and that. Maybe that's true, but I'll tell you what. If I gave 100 million, 100 million dollars to any of those people, to be gone, anybody out there, nobody would be able to turn it into a billion dollars.

Nobody would be able to turn it into a billion dollars. Nobody could take a hundred million dollars, unless you purely put it away in an interest account, they compound it and then didn't spend it. They could have doubled it, that's for sure. Oh, they could have. Let alone a billion. I don't think they could go a hundred and one.

I don't think you could, I don't think you without. It's like giving someone a million to turn it, by by the way taking a million and turning it into 10 million is exponentially easier However difficult it is then it is take a hundred million turn it into a billion So when I hear people say and then here's the third part You're assuming that if we tax the Huck is what they're making the case is that let's tax the hell out of them Mm-hmm, because why who needs all that money? That's not gonna have a down. You're just yeah You're assuming the government's gonna do a better job with that Yeah, exactly. I think we've all learned that they're thinking I know

I know it's so frustrating. What's so well, I think what's really frustrating for me, too Is that I mean and I and you love I love talking to like somebody that is, you know first or second generation immigrant that's come over here so why they came over here was for the American a dream because we We we have a country where, did you guys see Arnold on The View not that long ago? Oh, that blew up in their face. They brought Arnold on The View to talk about immigration and stuff and everything going on.

I think they intended for him to kind of go his way and he was just talking about just, you know, how lucky we are to be here. Just that in America, you could really come from nothing and say, I'm gonna go be, I'm gonna go do, I'm gonna go make, and there's literally nothing getting in your way of possibly doing it, but you're, and it's, you are capable of doing that.

There's not a lot of places in the world that you can do that, and part of it is the way it's structured, is that competitiveness that if you find a way to help others and serve others so good that millions of people give you millions of dollars, you can become a millionaire or a billionaire and that's really what it is, is can you figure out to serve people in a way that people will continuously give you money so it stacks up to be millions, hundreds of millions, maybe if you're lucky, billions of dollars.

And you just can't do that anywhere else. The thing I like to, I guess the picture I like to paint is who would I rather have, because by the way. There's dysfunction, there's cronyism, there's problems, and that gets highlighted all the time, but we're not focused on all the benefits. It's the same thing, it's the steroid argument. I hate this argument too.

It's like, you were an asshole before the billion dollars. You're just a rich asshole now. You know what I'm saying? You were an asshole before the steroids. You're just a buff asshole now. It's like, no one's saying, no one's saying, I'm nowhere am I defending all billionaires and say they're good people No, like they're good at they're good at making money They're they're very good at providing services that a lot of people and products that a lot of people want

but but the big picture I like to paint is You have somebody who figured out how to do something that made them a billion dollars Which means they they served a lot of people in some pretty remarkable ways or in ways that people want to be served I'm not even saying that what they're doing is good because they could have created Pornhub or something like that yeah my point is they serve like we gave them that money yes but do they voted for that with our dollars which is more effective than the other vote who would I prefer to have that money? Them or the government?

And then have the government figure out what, not the government, that's for sure, because we know what they do with money. So yeah, so I see that going all over the place. I'm like, oh man, I can't, that's what I was commenting. I could give you $100 million. Do you think you could turn it into a billion? Because I guarantee you wouldn't.

I guarantee you wouldn't even make 10 more million with $100 million. People have no idea how challenging it is to do something like that. You know, I get it. You know, I had some family that went through like a layoff recently in their company. And you know, I'd overheard them talking

about their frustration, like because this company lost a massive, their largest account. And so they had to lay off all these people. And from their perspective, working in this like assistant manager type of role within the company, they were just like infuriated the company laid off all these people. And it's like, well, they lost their biggest account

that pays this company that then in turn pays, but people don't see from that perspective. They see it as like, oh my God, there's these people that have been working for this company for 13 years, and just like that, they laid them off and they let them go. But it's like if they don't, they're gonna have to let go of everybody

because they're not gonna have a business at all because they lost this massive account. The responsibility of building something that supplies an income for people at all, meaning multiples, or some of these companies, hundreds or thousands of employees. That's a massive responsibility. Responsibilities continue to make profits. That's the main thing. That's the main thing. And you are serving a ton of people and indirectly, tens of thousands,

not only is your product, your thing, whatever it is, I'm not arguing whether it's good or bad, is helping or serving a ton of people, but also the amount of jobs you've created, not only are helping those people, those families, and all the people that they can impact indirectly, it's like, it's crazy. And it's crazy to think that those people shouldn't get rewarded based off the size

or the amount of those people they serve and help. By the way, you know what I like to, when people really debate this or argue this, I like to tell them, do you think that LeBron James deserved the money that he made in the NBA? Yeah, of course. And they all say, well yeah, have you seen him play? He's incredible. It's like, that's not really different than what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah.

They deserved it, he performed really well. Yeah, and that's the irony, Sal, is that argument, it's like, you know, how many, and I'm sure LeBron has a team of people he's supplying, but I guarantee it as much as Facebook or Google. You know what I'm saying? I guarantee he's not providing as much jobs and service for as many people as the people that are running these massive companies are. And then back to the, it's like, just, you know,

the best thing, because we decide, by the way, the market decides where things go, and the market is us. So we don't like something to stop. We have the most say in that direction. Don't give them money. It's your government versus free markets. A lot of people say, by the way, that they want something, but their actions don't support it.

I want local farmers, but they won't buy the more expensive local products. Yeah, you have to keep them in business. This is all part of it. That's right. It's all about the local products. I don't know, all business. This is all part of it. That's right. It's all about some. I mean, I don't know. All this is going to get shaken up, man.

All this pointing the finger that this person makes that much does all this, has all this. Like, I feel like the whole dead internet theory and AI thing is so much closer. It's happening. Have you guys noticed just your Instagram feed? Have you like kind of viral All the viral stuff is AI. Yes.

Like I felt like literally just a month ago. The influencer market is going to collapse. It felt like a month, it already is. Felt like a month ago. I know. Thank God. Yeah, yeah. Thank God we were never good at it.

I know, right? So awkward. So it was just sour old guys gonna say like, I'm so glad that shit's happening. Ugh, that was horrible. Yeah, fuck it. It know right. So it's a sour old guys you say like I'm so glad that she's horrible. That's it. I mean it's not going to change. I mean I don't know if the information will get better but it's going to be AI personalities that are going to crush because they can produce better content faster put it out. It's more entertaining and you're the whole influence from the debate. My buddies and I were having it was like I guess the debate is discussion that we were having, it was like, I guess the debate was a discussion

that we were having, like he was asking me, what do you think? And we were kind of going back and forth. So when this dead internet theory plays out, which I feel pretty confident it's going to, I don't know if there's debate on that, we can debate that too if you want, but let's play that out.

Do, and my buddy's like, I'll just lose interest in the internet. I'll, I won't care anymore because it'll be like that. I'm like, will you? I said, do you really think so? Because all the people you follow, you follow because of what I think they're funny, they're entertaining. You ain't like, that's my friend. Exactly. They teach you about cards. They like, what are the things like, I know he's in a different stuff, right? So name all the things that you follow and you're into. What if I made all that even better? You're not gonna follow it?

Like, I don't know, bro. I said, I think we're gonna have a lot of zombies. You wanna talk about, I do too, you wanna talk about blessings. I feel so blessed that the media of media that we chose was podcasting. We did that on purpose because you can't really communicate.

Because we're not handsome. Yeah, no, we can't. We look in the mirror. Let's do the one where they just hear us. Yeah, can't we have a face for radio? No, it was because you can't communicate health and fitness effectively. You have to have conversations.

This is what it's like when you train people. But thank God because the last media to get taken over by AI is gonna be podcasting because it's long form. That'll be the one that I think, and that's gonna happen too. That's gonna happen too. At some point it's gonna be a bunch of AI personalities. My cousin showed me a couple podcasts that was all

AI and I was cracking out like wow this sucks. Yeah it sucks right now but it's gonna get good. No not that it sucked. It sucks to hear that it was actually pretty good. I was gonna say it's getting good already. It's not that far. My buddies were, we got on this top and there's all these cool already apps. He's because okay, so there's three of us. One of my buddies is like almost oblivious to it. My other buddy by who was a teacher. So that is like very privy to a lot of it. And he's in many areas further along, even though I'm in this space, because he's in high school, a bunch of kids. So he's like, so we're sitting right there. And he's talking about how good don't think you do and why we were talking. He, he, I see him on his phone kind of mess from like literally two minutes. And then all of a sudden he had drafted this like custom video from Donald Trump to him talking like all this personal stuff about him. Yeah, it was done. I mean, it looked like him and sounded like him. It was a video. It was talking to you, Justin Preston with a small penis, I just want you.

My buddy did that while we were talking and then had that and he was like, what? He's like, yeah, that's how easy and fast it is, bro. He's like, it's only a matter of time before all the talking is over. Which makes me 100%, although I didn't need this, but 100%, do not believe the new surveillance tape from the Epstein.

No. They're like, oh, oh, we have the surveillance tape, guys. We didn't lose it after all. Oh, I didn't. Look, nothing happened. Oh, and then all of a sudden, Shut your face. Yeah, they don't have a list.

He never had a log or a list. Like, just come on, dude. Baloney, he killed himself. We're not idiots. He didn't kill himself. Oh, God. Yeah, we know you can't, just say you can't release it. They're releasing the video.

They're like, oh, look. So you can't release the real stuff. Yeah, the FBI came out, like, oh, we did an can't release the real stuff. Yeah, the FBI came out like, oh we've been investigated. I mean, this has to, I mean, don't you guys think, because obviously now between having Biden and Trump in there, this is not a left or right thing. This is- No, this is a power thing.

This is world power. They got everybody. Everybody, yeah. Everybody, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, everybody wants to point a finger and be like, oh, I bet so and so is like, everybody. And to be honest with you,

what this makes, all these fuckers are on this. And on and what makes me like the fear that I would have is Would we want to know could you imagine if the truth came out and it was and it implicated all the biggest leaders? And celebrities and people and you I think people would just not believe it. I mean, that's crazy. It can't be I can't be all those people that's impossible. That's a world cabal, there's no way. I think it would just shake things up so hard that people would. That's a good question. If that came out, would we believe it?

Probably not. There were just leaders on both sides of the aisle, other countries, religious leaders, all this. Even if it is true, nobody's gonna do anything about it. That's just the bottom line. Or it would turn into like, anarchy. Yeah, it would turn into executions. Well the power structure.

Yeah, it's, they hold all the keys, they hold all the buttons, like, what are we supposed to do about it? You know, on the topic of like, shadiness and so on. Did you guys ever get a chance to watch James Smith's video that he did on all the fake creating ideas? Did you watch it? That's good, bro. He bought appreciate what he did. So I know he took a bunch of creating gummies and he tested a bunch of them Third party testing and a significant percentage of them had nothing

Nothing, they're just candy They buy a $70 bag of candy with nothing in it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And for a premium price, you can get this. We work with companies that make, like Organifi has the cherry juice. Legit.

By the way, I've had. I feel like you could taste it. You can. This is what I'm gonna say. This is what I'm gonna say to everybody right now. When you eat a cretin gummy, like the cherry chews, or you know, you find one, you eat it, you can tell creatine's in it,

cause it's a little bit of the grittiness is in there. A little bit of it's in there. It's not like a smooth, perfect gummy. It's like taking your medicine in gummies. Your vitamin C gummies, it's good for vitamin C, it's good for some medicine, but it ain't like Sour Patch Kid good. If you're creatine gummies like Sour Patch good,

you got something going on. Yeah, because the cherry juice tastes good, and they've got good ingredients. For creatine. And I know they're legit, because I trust them very much. They work with CreaPure, which is a company that like, that's legit creatine.

But when you eat it, you could tell there's creatine in it. Yeah. You could tell. A little bit of graininess there, there's creatine. Yeah, no, it, you could tell there's creatine in it. You could tell. It's a little bit grainy in there. There's some creatine. And now too good to be true. You know what it reminds me of? Do you guys remember that one time we were up in Truckee

and I don't remember, it was probably Adam that convinced us to go get some ice cream. Just two. And I was eating. Oh, he takes me down first. I know. But I was eating ice cream. We were watching a movie.

And I was eating out of a small pint. And I was eating and I was like, oh my God, this is the best dairy- eating ice cream, we were watching a movie, and I was eating out of a small pint. And I was eating and I was like, oh my God, this is the best dairy-free ice cream I've ever had in my entire life. And remember this, I ate like half of it, I don't know who pointed it out, I think it was you, Justin. You're like, I don't think that's dairy-free, bro.

And I looked at it and it was regular. I was like, ah! Just a slip of panic. Bro, I had the worst stomach after that. But while I was eating, it reminds me of this cretin gummy thing. While I was eating, it was too good to be true. This is like, they have really nailed this.

This is the best. Dairy free. Candy, just lift the weights. Now what's interesting to me, and I have to ask James, I don't know if James is following those companies that he called out. Do they stay in business? Do people still keep buying them anyways? Just.

Yeah, after it's been called out. Yeah. Because they would come back with nothing, almost nothing in them. Yeah, that's true. It wasn't like a little off. Yeah, it's one thing if it was a little off or it had added sugar, added things like that.

Well, the two scenarios he painted, he said, I don't know what's worse, and I agree with him. Either they didn't know and they were fooled, in which case you're the worst CEO ever, or you knew when you were fooling people, in which case you're the worst CEO. So either way you're embarrassed. Terribly embarrassed.

Yeah, I think that's a, I think you know. I think you know, I think you know, you know how unregulated the supplement industry is, and it's like a race to market. And you also know that what sells better than the best supplements is the best tasting supplements. That's all the categories of supplements are the best tasting.

So if you know those things, and you're not the highest of integrity person, then it's literally a race to market. Can I get the best tasting? How many times has this happened, by the way? What bar was it? Was it Detour? Yeah, Detour.

They were like, oh my God, 30 grams of protein. It was a candy bar. I remember that too, because I remember that was when that bar hit. There used to be a little- Because it wasn't candy bars. There was a liquor store right next to Capital McKee that had them.

And I would- Just crush them had them and I was crushing those. I was like, man, this is the best ever. I get to eat candy and get jacked. It tastes like leather at all. And when they got caught and they changed their formulation, oh, the taste changed so much. It was like, oh, this is no longer good. It went from like a Snickers bar to a terrible bar.

Those assholes. I was eating those like crazy. Oh, I was eating them like crazy. Tried to gain muscle. I was too. How much protein was actually in there? It said 30. It was like 30 something. It was like 32. That's what it said. Yeah.

But it was like 10. Oh, it was like 8. Yeah. That was like the peanuts that were in their head. What was that website that you could go on to see whether or not they had clinical studies? Exam? StudiesExam.com? Exam.Exam.com. Do they bring this up with like a... Not specific companies. Okay. that you could go on and just to see whether or not they had clinical exam and he's exam exam. Yeah.

Do they, do they bring this up? Not specific companies. Okay. No, it's more about the actual general, the actual ingredient. Yeah. That's who it's, you know, speaking of good companies, right? You talk about organify Legion, like those, those guys, you go through places like that.

Yeah. That's a, it's always interesting is that they're like, yeah, let's go ahead and regulate, you know, cause they're already already ready for that and they're doing all the due diligence Yeah, all these studies on their own and paying for it But yeah, it's it's just that's kind of the environment. Yeah, dude. I got to tell you guys I went to watch Are you guys you might like this movie? I know you won't cuz too scary for you But did you were you? Yeah, it's true.'s only true. Did you like the movie 28 days later? Yeah, it was crazy. That was like an actual zombie one

So back when that came out rob zombie make that or someone knows a different no his movies are he's his or I don't understand. Yeah, I don't get them Doug Can you look up 20 days later the original one when that first came out that changed at that time? Let people know this, especially if you're younger than we are, zombie movies had become like, stupid. Like zombies were not the scare, of all the monster, yeah, they were the ones that we made fun of.

Like of all the monsters, of all the scary stuff, like zombies were like, don't use zombies, nobody's scared of zombies. That one came out when? Oh boy, 2002. Okay. Wow, good rating. So, oh yeah, bro. zombies nobody's scared of zombies yeah that one came out when oh boy 2002 okay good rating so oh yeah bro so before 28 days later nobody made zombie movies because they were stupid nobody's scared of zombies then they come out with 28 days later and they change the formula to where

they are fast like so I think and psychotic and it was brilliant and I remember watching that was terrifying loved it so then they had the second one was 28 months later, I think it was, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if I saw that one. And then the third installment, I just watched with my older kids, 28 years later. Okay. Really?

I didn't even know there was a series. I didn't know there was more than one. I thought it was just one. No, so the original, amazing. Second, it's okay. The third one, so my two older kids, my oldest is, she's about to turn 20, and then my daughter, she's 15.

They're both like me in the sense that they like, you know, stuff that, like scary stuff. I loved it as a kid. So my daughter sends me a text, she's like, you know, Papa, can we watch 28 years later? I'm like, yes, let's do this. Like nobody wants to watch this stuff with me. Jessica will never watch this stuff with me. I'm like, let's go.

So yesterday, I take them both, we sit down and we watch, and it was, bro, it was horrible. They went way too far with everything. Just too far. It was just. The shock and awe kind of. It was not good, and now what I predict is it's still gonna turn into a cult classic because I

Could see how some people are gonna like some of the weirdness in it and stuff then and turn it into one of those Yeah, rotten tomatoes gave it 88% Well, do you see it was it was shot completely on an iPhone? Yeah. Oh, yeah Oh really because it gives you that I think parts of it were not the entire thing The first one has that vibe where it's kind of like So it's kind of rod. It feels like you're there. Yes Yeah, that's the first one was like not a lot of special effects and you know like but they went too hard, bro It was like the gore was excessive and then there were parts of it that were just like like why I like the Walking Dead And all that and then they lost me because it became just like let's kill all the human beings and like slaughter human beings, the innocent people. I'm like what the fuck am I watching?

And then like The Hills Have Eyes was the last real like scary movie I watched because it was just psychologically wrong for me to like put that in my brain. That's Rob Zombie. Dude, whoever made that one needs to get their head examined. No, Rob Zombie I watched, what did I watch of his? I actually turned it off halfway through. So I was like, this is too far. This is like a thousand, a thousand something.

Oh, how so? A thousand corpses. That's his. It was just, like there were like murder rape scenes that were just like excessive. Too like, oh. I think that's what it is. I think they just keep pushing the shock and awe part,

right, of pushing the boundaries. How so? A thousand corpses, I think that was it. Oh yeah. I like scary movies that. Yeah, I think that was it. Oh yeah. I watch parts of that. I like scary movies that- Yeah, so that's why I'm a zombie. Yeah, I like scary movies that are twisted,

that make you think they're, you know, kind of- There's still lots of a story line. Yeah, it's like you can't just be all like shocking on everything, like the worst things you can visually see. You know what the story line was for 28 Days Later, right? It's a rage virus. And if you catch it, you become violent and you wanna murder and kill people.

Oh my God. Okay. And you're fast, you're still fast and you're aggressive. So they're like not sales on this. Kind of like bath salts. But. Well isn't that what made the Florida bath salt thing such a big deal was because that had already came out and so people were acting like,

they're acting like the 28 yeah some pranksters would be out there like acting all there was some truth to that what was it called Flakka was that the name of it I think they would do one of the bath salts and enter psychosis and they jump through a windshield one guy ate his friend like jumped through a windshield. One guy ate his friend's face. Oh my God. Cops had to pull him off, yeah. Yeah, the cops had to pull him off. This one's Florida.

Yeah. I hope I'm correct, that was a urban legend. I know, right? Yeah, I did hear a lot of stories. I don't know if I fact checked it. Doug, put Florida man eats his friend's face on bath salts. Oh my God.

Yeah. I know people were, there was psychosis for sure happening. Eats his friends, see, there it is. I think that's it. Head, flesh, oh my God. Bath salts. Cause also too, wasn't it the artificial weed too was a big problem.

Yeah. People were going crazy with that. Oh yeah, see, Miami face eating attack. Oh my God. Why is it always Florida by the way? Oh yeah, there's some characters out there. I saw, I've seen some newly released videos. Do you guys remember, I think it was in Florida again,

that mall in Florida where they're like, oh my God, these aliens or apparitions showed up. Oh yeah. Dude, that was like later in the pandemic. Yes. And what happened? That just kind of went away. I saw a recent video that came out

that showed someone had their phone. And like, okay, what was that movie? Is it Doctor Strange? Is that his name? Doctor Strange? I was gonna say Doctor Weird. And Doctor Weirdo. That's another guy.

He, you know how he does that thing with his hand and it makes like a portal? Yeah. It looks like a portal like that. Was, and then everybody's freaking out. I'm so glad we're talking about this. A little bit of like knowledge to kind of drop here. Um, so I've been watching and this is kind of my genre.

I'll watch like skinwalker ranch or I'll watch blind frog ranch and like this is all in the history channel, which I love that. I love that. It's like history. It's like, there's nothing to do. It's old like paranormal crazy stuff, but so There's actually like this astrophysicist guy He's legit like I I mean in the terms of like his pedigree whatever like they actually bring all these scientists And this guy that owns the ranch now skinwalker ranch because of the phenomena. He like bought it He's like this billionaire and he's in aerospace

I think so they keep like buying all this crazy fancy equipment and now they have LIDAR scanning abilities and like all this like crazy stuff for like time-lapse and like you can... So they've been finding some crazy shit there dude. They found like... They keep shooting rockets up and there's a spot up in in the atmosphere where it literally will just stop and it just frozen and suspended. The rocket?

The rocket. And then they've showed, and they mapped it out, and they started mapping out all these different points of... This was on Skinwalker Ranch? Skinwalker Ranch. This is the latest season, and oh my God, I'm going crazy with it. Did you know this was a show?

No. And they're trying to prove that it's this weird like energy magnetic sort of like force field thing that goes all the way up into like a couple miles up and then in a mile below the earth's surface as well. And it affects all of the electronics and all the equipment and like fire gets extinguished and like all the stuff.

It's weird, dude. And they actually found... It's over the ranch though. Yeah, over the ranch. And you guys remember the dire wolf thing? Yeah. Where they started to try and bring him back. Yeah, that company Colossus. Yeah. So they sent this like it was a like a bones of this this like it was a bones of this, they thought it was like a bear, but it was really, it was a wolf.

And they sent it to get tested. And turns out it had some genetic ties to somewhat of the characteristics of a dire wolf. And they found it on that property. And so they're studying that right now. And it did, I just, I recommend it. And I know a lot of people think it's all bullshit Go ahead. It's fun

But it's like they're actually fun It's one of those shows where they're actually like finding things and you're like, wait a minute There was a chart that that tracked how many people Started to believe this stuff and you started it in 2019 to now that's got gotta be a fast growing, it has to be so, with all the stuff that's happened. There's been so many sightings and UFO stuff, but it looks like, I don't know, man,

it's like when you fly over it, things get affected. It's weird. Could be, yeah. Like the Bermuda Triangle. Just, I wanna ask you about the new PRX weight storage pegs. Yeah So about those I I've been looking at weight storage. Yes So there's a way you can actually like screw on these pegs to add extra storage in your rack Oh, so the rag on the wall you can actually do it like onto the sides of the rack. That's awesome

So you can actually add there so it would be a lot easier with that weight transfer PRX home gyms are the best. That's like a, that is the best home gym you can have unless you have so much space that you just put commercial equipment in there. I still think that's crazy. I think it's the best across the board. Well the racks are the most stable racks of every period.

So that's my point is I've had friends that were building, oh they're talking about all these other brands and I'm just like and site dude PRX Even if you have the space and you don't want to fold you don't have to the fact that you could is makes it So and it's and it's as good or better better and they have freestanding ones that still test the walls So you fold it but also it has the same structure and instability as any of the I love our new one the new The four-pole what do you call? Yeah, the four- what do you call it?

Yeah, the four pointer, full cage one that folds all the way together and stuff like that. I just, no, I mean, I think it's the way, I remember before we started working with them, being hesitant because I thought, okay, it's gonna be kind of like, it's all gonna be about storage and not about the quality of the equipment

and that that's where they'll sacrifice. And then when we got it and I went oh this is like top of the line freaking equipment and the fact that it's oh yeah they seem to be constantly innovating too. And you can pay monthly so people can use it. I have to keep telling people you know they're partners of ours because like this is always a common thing I want to set up my home gym and you know and I just don't think people know it's like that's your best option, hands down. Have you guys seen that video circulating of,

do you guys know what Brian Shaw is, the strong man? Yeah, of course. Of course, yeah, yeah. They did a bone density test on him. He has the bone density of one, it's so rare. I would love a bone density test by the way, I've never done one before, I just want to see where I'm at. His bone density was so rare,

only one in 500 million people would have it. Obviously, because he's such a freaking. He's a huge giant. And then it made me think of something like, I've wrestled with my kids, sometimes I'll tease my wife. I had this conversation in fact with my daughter. I've had it many times with her.

She made a comment like, oh if a man tries to do something, I'll just kick him in the balls, or I'll just, you know, this. And I tell her, many times with her. She made a comment like, oh if a man tries to do something, I'll just kick him in the balls, or I'll just, you know, this. And I tell her, honey, you run. Like a man, I don't care how badass you think you are, you can even have a knife on you, and a man is, is probably gonna have,

you need to run. Yeah, whatever you do is to get, open you up to free you to leave. Get away, like I'll joke with my wife, my wife's strong, but I've had, I've played with her before, where Iell, she's a lay oner. Like, all right, now let's pretend like I died or something. Can you get out from under me?

And it's a struggle. And so the reason why I'm going in this direction is there's always, especially with martial arts, the whole technique versus strength. I think sometimes people get misled to think that, because technique makes a big difference. Definitely. So the strength though. Like if Brian Shaw wanted to- Plus controlled environments, like you know,

we have rules versus no rules. They're completely different things. Like if Brian Shaw wanted to, you know, if he was wrestling a 150 pound top wrestler, that guy would have a very, he would be able to smother him. He's just so big and strong. Especially with no rules. Yeah, no rules, he would be able to smother him he's just so big and strong especially with no rules no yeah no rules yeah yeah kill him yeah no there's a reason why they have weight classes all that stuff there's no reason

because if it was if it was even slightly interesting to not have weight classes they wouldn't and the weight classes are so close that should tell you what a difference I mean it's not like it's like, oh you're either 150 180 300 Six to eight pounds or whatever Did you see I was at Sean Strickland, I think the UFC yeah, he was He had NFL linemen. Oh, I saw that and they were like going to wrestle and just getting manhandled It's like come on, dude. That's like all they do all day long Yeah, they're just he was trying to stop them is what they were doing Yeah, he was they were like linemen and they were just driving around

They were like 50% They were trying to get after they were just kind of coming off the line Oh, man, it's and that's that's it. So somebody wrote this somebody said this and I believe this they said Being big and strong as a martial art and I agree now I'm not saying it's as good as a martial art for defending yourself, you wanna really defend yourself while learning martial art, but if you get someone who's fit and strong and big,

that's like they know a martial art. Have you guys seen that? There's a viral clip from a podcast, I think it's Amanda Nunes, or it was one of the ex-female UFC champions. And she's telling a story and they're talking about this is the conversation, they're really talking about weight class and men versus women and stuff like that.

And she tells a story of like, yeah, I remember when I learned my lesson and she was already a pro fighter at the time and working at like some restaurant or what that basically called the dude out behind the alley and to fight him, you know, and they got into it. It was like a six foot dude. And she, she, she tells that she actually tells it like blow by blow. Like she's like, and then I rushed him, came back and he

knocked me out. And then I got back up and knocked me over. Yeah. Just, she talked about how, how bad she got pummeled. And the guy has no fighting experience. Why would you do that as a man? You have no, there's no, you're in as a man? You're in a lose-lose. It sounded like from her, from the way she told the story, that she kind of antagonized. She was kind of bullying him a bit. Still, lose-lose for a guy. You're going to win, you still lose. Yeah, you don't...

You're not going to tell anybody about that. Yeah, get up that girl. What do you mean? Oh, she's a pro fighter though. Your buddies are still gonna razzle you. No, you're right. Tough guy, huh? Look, I know you've heard you are what you eat, but it's actually you are what you digest. Look, if you eat a high protein diet, sometimes you're not digesting it well. You gotta use digestive enzymes. Mass-zymes.

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forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump 10, get 10% off. Here comes the show. Our first caller is Colton from Ohio. What's up Colton? What up? Hey, how you guys doing? We're good.

We're okay, man. How can we help you? Uh, I just want to start off by saying I've been watching you guys for about five years and I love the content and I love the information you guys put out. My question is, is lately for the past eight years I've been training in kind of a bodybuilding style approach. I got two kids and I was just on some light hack spots about a month ago and I don't know how but I got hurt. So I've been kind of pampering

that and I've noticed since I've started training in a bodybuilding style of training, I'm starting to notice my body getting a little stiff. I'm not able to move like I used to. So I was wondering if I was to switch my training over to a functional bodybuilding style approach, how would I go about that with trying to maintain as much muscle mass as I can that I've built over the last eight years? Yeah, good question. It's a mass performance.

Have you been, so you've been really focused on bodybuilding style training for the last eight years? Yeah. Okay. You gotta understand that the tightness and the mobility issues that come from that style of training is not the style of training, but rather the lack of exercises that strengthen you in the different planes of motion.

For example, lateral movements are typically devoid in bodybuilding training. You typically don't see a lot of rotation involvement. It's slow and controlled, which is fine, but you'd also don't get some dynamic movement. And so what happens is you get really strong in the areas that you're training and the discrepancy between that and the other ways that your body can move becomes so large that your body, your central nervous system begins to limit your movement because it senses instability. Okay, so yeah, it's like a dragster a dragster has very poor lateral stability and If you wanted to take a turn you'd have to really strengthen it laterally and probably reduce some of its power

Because the the power going straight is so out matches its ability to stabilize, right? So what am I where am I going with this? If you've been hyper focused on hypertrophy for eight years and now you're gonna focus on mobility, you might lose a little bit of muscle. It just might happen. Now, is it 100% guaranteed that that'll happen? No, but you might because your focus

is gonna move to something else. But I will say this, in the long run, you'll have a better physique because what you lose, you'll gain tenfold. I don't think you would though, Colton. And the reason why is it'd be different if you were eight years and you were Ronnie Coleman-esque, right? Like that much of a bodybuilder you've put on that much muscle and then you switch completely over to this kind of functional mobility, I think you'll not only maintain, I think there's a chance that you might see increase because you start to increase your capabilities, you introduce movements you haven't done.

I think you're going to reap the benefits of that and be just as muscular, but also now more functional because you're doing that. And somebody who's been listening for as long as you've been listening, because you're doing that. And somebody who's been listening for as long as you've been listening, that you're a great example of somebody who I love to like, take you through a program, like let's say, math performance with running it just exactly how it is. And then you take from that what you learn that,

oh, wow, when I do these movements, it really serves my body. And so even though I love training like a bodybuilder, I make sure I incorporate, which is this, this, like, this speaks a lot to myself personally, is that I recognize, uh, I tend to train like a bodybuilder is that's my default. And if I do that, I do tend to get injured because I, I, I neglect rotational movements, I neglect some unilateral stuff, but I also found, oh, if I make sure I incorporate a few of those things like from mass performance within my bodybuilding type routine, it's enough to give me everything that I want. And so that would be my advice is to go there. But I think you, I don't think you're going to lose. Do you really think you won't think he's going to lose muscle?

I know you should, I know you're what you telling him, that he should make peace with that. So he's bought in. Here's what's gonna happen, if you don't, is you may perceive it, maybe you're not as pumped, or I don't know, and then you're gonna back out. But here's where I'm going with this, right? So where I'm going with this is at the end, the end result is a more muscular physique. Because what's starting to happen

is you're starting to get limited. Your muscle building potential is becoming limited by your lack of mobility. Okay, so even if you did take a couple steps back with hypertrophy, which it wouldn't be a lot, it's not like you're gonna lose 15 pounds of muscle. You might lose a little bit that only you can tell. I don't think anybody else will notice.

Your wife will probably say, I don't see a difference, or anybody else would. You might feel a little bit, you know, like maybe your biceps don't feel as full or whatever. But the end result will be more muscle later because right now you're hitting a wall and you're limited by your mobility. Maps performance is great. If you want something that's different and you like to challenge yourself, old time strength would be great as well. Performance is more of a tradition athletic style of training. Old time is like, this is the way strong men would train in the bronze era, late 1800s, early 1900s.

Map strong would even give you more functional ability. So which one do you think you'll have more fun doing? What are you more into? Are you more into the athletic style of training? Do you think you'll have more fun doing? Like, what are you more into? Do you, are you more into like the athletic style of training? Do you think training like a strong man from, you know, 1890 would be more fun for you? Um, I think it would be more the performance route. Um, cause I've been kind of watching a lot of like high rocks training along that route. Um, and I, the, the, the only challenge I've been running into is the gym that I go to.

It's not the best gym. It's Planet Fitness. They don't have the best equipment. So I'm kind of having trouble with some of the programs that I have looked at. And that's why I'm kind of shocked that I got on your guys' show because I wanted to ask you which one I should go with with you guys. Because there's no alternatives with most other programs of, uh, okay, well, if you don't have this equipment and you can also use this, it's just this, you can only do this, this

machine and that's it. So it's like, I mean, kind of struggling to, he should be able to do almost everything in performance and planet fitness. Well, there's landmine exercise. Do they have landmine equipment there? No, and no, no, no, we just got hack squads and, um, the bench press and performance in Planet Fitness. Well, there's landmine exercise. Do they have landmine equipment there? No. And no cages? No, we just got hack squats and the bench press machine. I think you'd probably be better off than you could do everything in old time,

because they at least have barbells. Yeah, just barbell and dumbbells. You'd be able to do everything in old time. Performance, there's going to be a lot of extra. You can replace them. Yeah, just barbells and dumbbells. You'd be able to do everything in old time. Performance, there's going to be a lot of extra, you can replace them. Yeah, but part of what makes performance, performance, is some of the movements are free-based. So I think if you're going to stay at Planet Fitness. I'm surprised they don't have a landmine attached right there. Because I mean there's kettlebell, but you could replace kettlebell easy with dumbbells and that's that's basically it and it's most of it Would be in the the latter phases when we're talking about endurance because the first two phases It's gonna be pretty much barbell setup bench and squat rack

With some dumbbell inclusion so not nothing too crazy to with the the landmine you can always Place it. I know this is kind of janky Put it yes shove it up against the corner I do all the time but yeah Don't like it. Yeah, the point I'll get the Lunk alarm. Yeah, I'm just surprised that they don't have that They have kettlebells. They have kettlebells there. No kettlebells Yeah, they have kettlebells. I think it's 50 pounds. So literally it's only the landmine we have to replace. We can use some cable movements instead.

Yeah. Sure. All right. We'll send you performance and then try to modify the exercise. Hit me up too and I can always give you some options with that. Yeah. You should be able to do 95% of it. Anything you run into that you don't know, reach out to one of us or a team and then we'll call or call Colton. Are you in the private forum yet? No, not yet. I have Doug put you in there. So I'm Doug put you in the private forum. Anything you run into

performance wise? You have a question that you can't do it there. Just message us on there and then we'll help you out whatever exercise you need. Okay, I really appreciate it guys. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. for putting the content out there you guys put out a little bit. We appreciate the support man You know, it's crazy to me about There's a lot of things about Planet Fitness that are crazy It's crazy to me that they refuse to put like squat racks in there. It's I know what I know why I know what they're Yeah, it's just Smith Machine. It's also part of this, it's like,

you've already dug your heels in. Yeah. To be like, to try and differentiate yourself. Here's what's crazy to me about this, Adam, is it promotes the idea that cages are only for the meathead stereotype. Yeah, but you. The cages are valuable for old people, they're valuable for beginners. It's one of the mosthead stereotype. The meathead, seriously. The cages are valuable for old people,

they're valuable for beginners. It's one of the most valuable pieces of equipment. The most brilliant thing that Planet Fitness has done, and it's- What, from a business perspective? Yes, is they knew what customers would pay a low bill and probably never show up, and that's who they're trying to attract.

You're trying to attract other people. You're trying to attract other people that want to get better. They want to use the gym. They want to get good. They're in the business and they know some guys like Colton who are serious. They're going to get a few of those guys but that's not their customer. Exactly. Their customer is somebody who goes, wait for only nine bucks and I get pizza twice a month. That already cancels out the fee. Like I'm basically getting a free membership if as long as I show up for pizza twice a month. The truth is, it's not that, I'll say this, I know you'll agree, it's not that we're trying

to attract people that want results, we're trying to get people results. So, and what they're doing is they're promoting this idea that is detrimental to people's health. And this is the fact, I was in meetings by the way. I was in meetings with a large fitness company, one of the reasons why I left, is I saw the writing on the wall

and I remember them saying this. I remember them saying, these are the members we lose money on. And they literally talked about the members that worked out the most. And I remember thinking, uh oh, this business model's backwards. Like those are the people we should value the most.

We should highlight and encourage. Not the ones we should look at as money loss. Our next caller is Chris from Wisconsin. What's up, man? How you doing, Chris? What's happening? How's it going, fellas? How are you today?

We're good, dude. How can we help you? All right. So first, I want to start off with the obligatory thank you. I'm 34. I've been living in Wisconsin. I have three boys, five, three, and one, and actually another kid on the way in February. So statistics are saying that it's going to be another boy. So please pray for me.

Is that true? Is that what the stats say? If you have three, you're more likely to have another one? That's what our OB said. So wow. You got an army. That's a lot, bro. So wow. Wow. You got an army. That's a lot bro. You almost got a basketball team. Do you at least have a female dog or something for her? No dogs. I say I have three puppies, so I don't need another animal.

But I've been a listener since 2017. I found you guys at a time when I was coaching high school power lifting and lifting in the morning with my kids and then cross fitting after work. I was over training and just, just a little, just a little, so like listening to you guys, I'm like listening to the people that were calling in. It was hilarious. Cause I'm like, you'd listen to them back.

Oh, they're definitely over training. And then literally I'm sitting there being like, Oh, my back hurts. My legs hurt. And it's like, yeah, of course that's me. So I just want to thank you guys for all the advice that you give. Um, I've enjoyed kind of the growth that I've seen throughout the podcast for you guys through the eight years, as well as just kind of going along fatherhood with me.

So, um, appreciate that. And then also just sharing your faith. It's awesome that you guys, um, I've been speaking up more in time than when we really needed. So thank you. Appreciate it right on. All right. So my question is I've been struggling over the last

year, year and a half with continuously pulling and straining my calf muscle. So I noticed this starts to occur when I'm training my calves more, I'm going heavier, and then I go to do something explosive, like go to play racquetball, or even just chase after my kids. And I just tweak it. It's like right underneath the calf muscle right above the Achilles so over the last month um I've tweaked my right calf then my left then my right and now literally last week right before I shut off the email I tweaked my right one again so I was just super

annoyed um I'm at the point of not wanting to train my calves anymore I'm afraid to do anything super explosive knowing that I have good chances of tweaking one of my legs again. So I have a month long challenge coming up in September for the great cycle challenge. It's a 500 mile or I chose 500 miles, but it's for childhood cancer research. So it's on a bike. I do it throughout the month and I'm just scared that if I keep doing this to my calf muscles, I'm not going to be able to get on my bike and ride. Um, shout out to queen there, but, um, I've been trying to do more mobility with my ankles, my hips from guys like Vernon Griffith, um, maps performance, the mobility there, and then your YouTube videos.

I know there's a video of Sal, a little bit darker hair in that video, but, um, seems to, it seems to help some, but, um, I go back to square one as soon as I re-enter one, it just, it's deflating. So with that, I recently finished map symmetry back in like mid May, before starting to get out on the bike more and it has felt awesome. Can definitely tell that my legs have been more even. I've been great on the climbs. It's been going awesome. So I'm really looking forward to how September is going to go. And I'm actually

going to rerun symmetry just for a little less volume while I start to put on more miles. But what can I do? I'm like calf muscles. Like I'm sick of doing this and I'm, I'm kind of at my wet side with it. Yeah. Good question. You could do it.

Adam and I do just don't train your calves. Overrated bro. Yeah. Overrated. No, you know, okay. So where, where tall socks.rated. No, you know, okay. Wear tall socks. Yeah, no, all right, so okay, whenever you see cramping, the most common offenders is electrolyte imbalance, right?

In an athlete like you, or someone like you, well trained, sodium would be the first thing. Magnesium's another one. Magnesium is oftentimes something that people lack, especially people who train. I don't know if you supplement, do you supplement with magnesium? I do, yeah.

Typically take that and zinc at night. Okay, and what is it, ZMA? No, it's just like the little dropper full. So I forget what it's called. But it's not ZMA, it's actually magnesium and then zinc. Got it, got it. Kind of like separately. Okay, so make sure you're taking enough. Make sure it's the ZMA, it's actually magnesium and then zinc, kind of like separately. Okay, so make sure you're taking enough, make sure it's the kind that gets absorbed well,

like glycinate is a good type. Yeah, it's the glycinate. Okay, that's okay, good. And then here's the other thing, okay, is instability tends to cause muscle cramps or tightness, especially in somebody who's strong. So when you're strong, and by the way, the muscle that you're pulling is your soleus. If you're talking about below the calf, it's the soleus muscle. So it could be instability.

And what this might come from is an imbalance between your gastroc, your soleus, and your tibialis, and some of the muscles that laterally strengthen your ankle. When's the last time you did tibialis and some of the muscles that are that are that laterally strengthen your ankle. When's the last time you did tibialis raises? Long time ago. To be honest. Yeah so I would so you might want to lay off the calf training a little bit and do tibialis raises and if you do calf training you know do the seated kind get that soleus kind of work but but start strengthening the tibialis muscle on the shin and some of the in some of the

lateral muscles which I can't they for some reason I can't recall them Peroneal? Yeah peroneal is of the of the ankle and see if that makes a difference because what that tells me right now unless it's again needing more magnesium or sodium which could be the case but typically it's like there's an instability there. I think it's one of two things or both things which is it's almost always there's some sort of weakness or instability that causes an injury which we mean we need to be more stable and stronger within the ankles to the points that Sal's making. And then the other thing is potentially over training still. So, you know, and coming from a guy who admitted that he was already that guy

who wasn't, you know, it was like, no, I'm fine. It's I'm not over training. I mean, three boys, uh, sounds like you do a lot of challenging things that are intense and long, and you're probably the guy who doesn't miss a lot of workouts. And so, and what you might have felt from symmetry was, I mean, the unilateral stuff was probably good for you, but maybe what you really felt was a reduction in volume or intensity or both.

And that's part of why you feel so good. And maybe that is your body trying to tell you a lower dose of volume is more appropriate for you, even though it's not maybe what you want to hear. But for sure, it's one or the other or both.. Um, even though it's not maybe what you want to hear, uh, but for sure, it's one of the other or both, like in my opinion, it's either 100%. We need to put more emphasis on instability and weakness in the ankle, doing all the things that Sal and Justin were just saying and it all, and, or also, uh, we still are probably doing too much. And that's our bot why our body's getting injured.

So here's what the prescription would look like You would you would add some exercises, but you also take some away You're not just gonna throw extra volume at yourself, but it would look like this. It would look like You know tibialis raises lateral exercise strengthening, and then you would use a lacrosse ball on a regular basis to press on the soleus and gastrocs at night. And what that does is it just tells the CNS to chill a little bit. So every night, you know, before you get injured, and maybe every morning or whatever, you roll

them out and you get something in there that kind of presses on them while simultaneously strengthening all the other muscles of the ankle. Chris, break down. Break down. I'm sorry, Justin. I just before you even answer them, I just would like to, could you break down like a typical, not a week when you're recovering from an injury, but like a normal week? Cause I know you got racquetball up there, you're riding a bike, you're in strength training. Tell me like what you would consider a typical week of training for you. like what you would consider a typical week of training for you? Yeah so prior to biking it was BAP symmetry three days a week, racquetball on Tuesdays and then core training on Thursdays and then Saturday would be like just run around um hanging out with the kids not and Sunday kind of

rest. Now it's Monday and Wednesday weight training. I went back to anabolic so I have the RGB bundle bundle plus symmetry but I went back to anabolic but I've been going a little bit lighter in terms of like squatting and other things stuff like that so that's Monday Wednesday Tuesday is racquetball Thursday is still core training and then Friday Saturday is out on the bike mm-hmm yeah I think I think what you're feeling is you're getting closer to a more appropriate amount of volume and intensity that your body should be handling I think I think what you're feeling is you're getting closer to a more appropriate amount of Volume and intensity that your body should be handling. I think that's what's what's what's happening is even though you're not all the way Depending on how much great sleep you get with three boys

In relation to that amount of training could be tipping you over sometimes Paired with the the weakness in the ankle tibialis raises and then ankle mobility. But I think too, if you replace a lot of the leg volume with more lateral movements in terms of like Cossack squats, lateral lunges, lateral sled drags, you just do a phase completely of just focusing more heavily on lateral movement and strength. I think, uh, you know, you're going to build up that, that support system again. So in, plus you're going to give a break, uh, to Adam's point of, of, of, of,

you know, allowing that to actually recover fully, uh, while also strengthening a lot of, uh, you know, the, the support system. I love that advice. So would that be, so if I'm focused more on the lateral stuff, so let's say I'm going to run symmetry again, when I just get rid of like the Bulgarian split squats and you do that. trade that out. Exactly. Yep. Yep. Okay. And symmetry good to run again or like, yeah, 15 or like,

yeah, I like symmetry. If you don't have maps 15, though, I would love to give it to you performance would have all that I would love to give you maps 15 performance and at some point I think you should do it just to see because I think that. We've got a baby coming. Perfect. Yeah, it'd be perfect when the baby comes. Yeah, so when the baby comes, I definitely think by then you should run 15 at least for

a full cycle because you might get some insight on what like us. I think we've shared this on the show. You're 34. You've probably been training for a long time. Uh, you'd be surprised at what grade of results you can still get with that low of volume. Um, and you might be, and that might be something you need is that enlightenment. Like, holy shit. Like I used to be the guy who did CrossFit, did all these things and train. Here I am, map 15 and I'm feeling the healthiest I've ever felt before. So definitely worth going that route

But what Justin's saying I think is the go-to move right now is you know switch out? Bulgarians or any leg major leg thing for doing more stuff that is going to support the ankles Awesome yeah, and I know just from doing a symmetry like if you know it sucks because like being the old powerlifter It's like I want to throw up the weight. I want to Be able to have like stuff on my back, but at the same time it's like as Much as I think it's like a mind fuck that like I'm doing single leg stuff and struggling it's like okay, I know I need to do this, but so this was a little bit of a Some medicine that I need to take in order to be able to do like more lateral stuff as well

I'm just kind of calm it down. So I appreciate it. Yeah, you got it, man. Well, Doug's gonna send that over to you, man. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Yeah, you know, the other thing too is you can get really strong with controlled movements. Then when you ask for

that strength to be fast, you start to develop problems. So that was only made me I didn't realize to he cuz he didn't say anything About racquetball and I read it up there and I went I'll dude and this dudes doing racquetball I'm like training kind of like a bodybuilder getting really strong in these The same planes and then all sudden on two days of the week you decide you're gonna go with your buddy and that's a serious Lateral moving type of sport right so velocity and it's like you don't maybe have that like deceleration ability and the strength stability there so I pulled my hamstring I went to sprint and my hamstrings are strong as hell I could pull 600 pounds off the floor yeah but when I went to go fast pop you know it's totally different thing our next color

is Mike from North Carolina Mike what's happening? Good Mike. What's up? Hello. How are you guys? Good. Good man. What you got for us? So overall, I feel like my efforts just don't match my results. I think that for my lifestyle, my level of consistency, how long I've been training, that I should be a lot further ahead, a lot leaner, stronger than I actually am. I've only been really paying attention to my diet the last three or four years and I've made a lot of progress doing so.

I've overdeveloped, over obsession with tracking or over-dorexia. But I also feel that when I'm not tracking that I just take major steps back. So kind of spinning my wheels, not really sure where I'm going right, where I'm going wrong. I just feel like I have to be hyper on point with everything I do diet training, lifestyle, just to even maintain. So really just looking for any kind of guidance of starting to see results that I think that would match my lifestyle level of commitment. Mike when you fall off the tracking and you go the other direction that you're now aware of like you lose your gains or whatever with that, what are your big offenders? I know

for me I grossly under eat protein when I'm not tracking and paying attention to. And I know how detrimental that is to me. Are you like somebody who overeats a bunch of calories or are you somebody who you miss protein or are you the person who does both? You miss protein and in addition that you eat a bunch of extra calories. No, I never miss protein.

If anything, it might be a slight calorie surplus and more fat I really don't have cravings of anything if anything it would really be like peanut butter and just more of what I already eat so it's never like you know bingeing on ice cream anything like that it's just I'm still hungry I'm gonna have more chicken I'm gonna have more chicken. I'm gonna have more fruit. I just go over in that direction. That's not about it.

I'm gonna read some of your question that you sent us. Is that okay? Yeah, go for it. Because it's gonna help me with my answer. It says, I'm pretty hard on myself and it's partially comparison syndrome, but I drift away from my normal meals and macros for even one day.

I get noticeably softer almost instantly and will take a week to get back to normal. You need to relax. Yeah, you need to relax, Mike. This is in your head. I think you know that too. I think you know that it's hyper-focus and your subjective opinion

is not objective. In fact, I bet, we don't have a picture of you, but I bet most people would say you look like you work out a lot and you look really fit and you're pretty lean. Is that what your friends tell you? Other people would say that. I wouldn't say that about myself. I don't care what you say about you because you're wrong. Yeah, you're distorted.

So we need to get you out of that right now. Because what's happened right now, and I'm speaking from personal experience, is you have a filter on that's lying to you. So you're looking at yourself through a filter that is totally distorted. You have reverse beer goggles. And it's totally messing you up.

It's really messing you up right now. I mean, I know this because a couple things you said in your email, but also in the question you said, I've only really been looking at my diet for three to four years, or taking it seriously. That's a long time, dude. Three to four years is a lot of success when it comes to consistency.

I mean, if you said three or four months, I'd be like, that's not bad. Three to four years, you're crushing it. You're doing great. So what you need to do is take your eyes off of the mirror, the scale, and judging yourself, but we need to put them somewhere else because that's not gonna work.

In other words, I can't tell you to not do something. I gotta tell you to do something else. So what I'm gonna tell you to do is focus on performance and stop looking in the mirror. You need to focus on strength, don't look in in the mirror. You focus on strength don't look in the mirror. Focus on mobility don't look at the mirror and you'll be surprised at what happens. Let's dive a little bit into what your programming looks like. Are you following any maps programs or you've been kind of throwing your own thing together? I'm not mostly because I've been kind of in the air of which one would be most appropriate for

me. Yeah. I've been following full but for the majority of the last couple years Full body three to four days a week. Okay That's pretty solid so long as it's appropriate as far as the amount of volume and stuff Would you be interested in following like a powerlifting program for a while just just to focus on strength? Absolutely powerlifting is a pretty big focus of mine. I compete a couple times a year. Oh, bro. So it does. It absolutely interests me. Yeah, I just have to folk get that balance of you know, my physique in my versus my performance to

is that's something I'm constantly going back and forth with where my dead where I lean out and I want to hear the numbers and then also have you so I want to hear your powerlifting numbers does it kind of get in a gauge of where you're at strength wise and then to have you even tested your body fat percentage and if so where is that? The last to me, I totaled just over a thousand pounds. And my body fat, if I had to guess, I'm probably in that 13 to 15 percent range. You're doing great, bro. You're doing good, man.

Yeah. Okay, so there's another layer to this, right? I agree with everything we've said so far. But to get into single digit body fat, which is it sounding like you want to look like or whatever, there is another level of sacrifice and discipline. And I think the thing that Instagram people do is they normalize or downplay the sacrifice it takes to walk around like that all the time.

I'll say it differently. They normalize the dysfunction that's required to get to single digit. That would be nice. There's a level of dysfunction In the context of a normal life or a normal healthy life that's required as a man Especially if you're natural to get the single-digit body fat Consistently stay there forever. It's easy to do it for a small period of time and say look I did it

I didn't cheat on my diet for three months straight. Look at me. I did it. But to say, I'm going to maintain this single digit body fat. And of course there's somebody listening who's like, Oh, that's not true. I enjoy this. There's anomalies. There's genetic freaks and people that just naturally carry there. But that's not most of us. Most of us, most of us that lift weights hover around probably 12 to 15% body fat with a good diet. Yeah. With a good diet, not crazy, not like weighing, tracking everything, but that's, that's where I fall. hover around probably 12 to 15% body fat. With a good diet. Yeah, with a good diet. Not crazy, not like weighing, tracking, everything, but that's where I fall. I fall between 12 and 15% when I'm eating my protein,

training occasionally, doing my thing. It takes another level of sacrifice to say I'm gonna walk around in single digits. It just does. You know what I'm gonna do, Mike? Here's what I'm gonna do for you. I'm gonna have somebody call you and I'm gonna have somebody call you, and I'm gonna have somebody work with you

to get down to single digit body fat, just so you can see how less happy you are at that. No, honestly, God, you're gonna get there and you'll be like, ah, this is not what I thought it was. Or maybe you're gonna be like, it's awesome. It'll be, it's not. You talk to anybody who's done it, and then have them look back and be like,

eh, it wasn't worth it. It really wasn't that big of a deal. But I'll have somebody call you because it shows here that you're in a coaching group and it says here that it lacks the one-on-one that you're looking for. Is that correct? I was, yeah.

Okay, all right. I'm gonna have someone call you and the goal's gonna be let's get you to single digit. And then I want you to get to single digit so that you can have a little bit of a point of reference But I'm gonna tell you something right now The that's the solution is gonna come from the filter that you have when you're viewing yourself And I get it man. This is a struggle for me I'm older than you are been doing this longer than you and it's still a struggle for me

So I get it But this way I can speak to it because the the other end of this isn't what you're looking for the other end of it is just more oh there's more that I want and I'm not happy enough and it turns into a lot of a lot of bad things so but I'll have somebody work with you so at least I know the person working with you is gonna do it healthy you got it all right Mike you got it Mike and then from there we can decide what program and all that stuff yeah they'll tell you which one gotcha all right thanks guys you got it Mike and then from there we can decide what program and all that stuff. Yeah, they'll tell you which one Gotcha all right, thanks guys. You got it, man

Yeah, he had to read reading his email If somebody says I miss one day and I instantly feel soft look different. Yeah, no No, yeah, no, by the way, I know what that feels like Yeah, I don't want people to watch this and think I'm like judging from this like high period like high I know what that feels like. Oh, yeah. I know exactly what you talk about every day occurrence. We talk about all time Yeah, I mean we were how obsessed we were with not missing a meal every three hours I could swear to you muscle just that muscle fell off my body if I took a day or two off of it like 100% So effective. Yeah It's a tough, listen, it is a tough place to be in

because, and I love the word dysfunction because, because we all know this, we've all had this experience where we've had a friend, somebody close to us, who's in a dysfunctional relationship and they can't see it until they get out. They just can't see it and you try to tell them, like, listen, that is not normal. It is not normal that your girlfriend's like that,

your boyfriend's like that, your husband or wife, like that's dysfunctional I'm sure it just doesn't resonate. They don't see it until they get out of it long enough to go Oh, no, that was dysfunctional things should be different and it's hard when you're in it, man It's so hard but coming out of it is a gift Yeah, it as an exercise Mike when you listen to this when you go back and listen to this I think it would be worth unfollowing all the fitness influencer dudes. Anybody you can post. Yeah, that posts shirtless pictures all the time. It's just not good. It's just not like, it completely distorts reality.

Totally. If you open up- That's not even reality for them. Yeah, exactly. If you open up Instagram and you see 26% body fat dudes every day. You're like, that's what everybody looks like. Yeah, that's what everybody looks like. And I've been training for 15 years like him, why don't I look like that? And it's like, no, dude, get out of that,

stop that for a while. That alone will probably start to help us move in the right direction. Our next caller is Andrew from Florida. What's up, man? How can we help you? Hey so I

Earlier this year. I ran well, I guess so I just finished running maps anabolic and I Got to the point at the end of phase three where I wasn't Seeing any strength gains and I was actually seeing like my lifts decrease pretty significantly and just like fatigue was on the setting pretty heavily. And I'm kind of just trying to figure out what exactly I did wrong with it. Because I didn't add any like additional cardio, I didn't add any additional like volume to it or anything.

It just seems like everything sort of tapered off. And then just to preface it, I did do a reverse diet from about 1,900 calories to now I'm looking at 28, but it seems like I've added body fat instead of actually adding muscle to it. And so that's kind of why I'm getting confused as to what happened there. Yeah, you got it.

All right, so typically, here's the order of issues or challenges that we can look at as to why somebody's not getting results with a good program, or what would be considered generally a good program. Okay, and it goes like this. It's either diet or sleep lifestyle, the program itself, and then maybe hormone issues, which is typically last, okay?

Now, I'm gonna start with the programming. As good as MAPS Anabolic is, it's not perfect for everybody. It's just a fact. Like, there's no general program that we can create that's gonna be great for everybody. It's impossible. This is why the best, this is why personal trainers are so valuable, is they could individualize programming

to the individual, and there's such a wide variance that it's shocking how different people can be with how they respond to even really good programming. Diet-wise, it sounds like you did okay by bumping your calories, although the bump might be a little too fast if you gained body fat. Did your weight change on the scale? So for the first, about through phase one and phase two,

it stayed relatively the same with about.2 pounds being gained every week. I added about 50 to 100 calories each week, and then towards the end, that's when it really started to increase, when I added about 50 to 100 calories each week and then towards the end that's when it really started to increase when I hit about that 26 to 2800 mark. I just wanted to see it through. I was like, alright, let's just see what happens. Well there's the before and after. Well, Andrew, you're doing pretty good, bro.

Yeah, well that's the before, that's the after. Okay, so look, now when you say you got... Oh, he's got him flip-flopped. Yeah, okay. When you say you got weaker, are you comparing the weight in phase three to the weight in phase one? You're not doing that right because that's low No, so I know that I dropped the weight for phase three because the volume increased. Yeah But so afterwards I was like, all right, let me So like I was feeling pretty tired at the end of phase three where I was like, I'm extremely tired Like I don't even like I still went still lifted.

Um, but it was definitely, I could feel it. And I was like, I don't, my body does not want to do this. Yeah. Um, and then, so then I, I took a week where I just did active recovery. Like after I, after I finished it up, I just took that week, did some like lighter lifts, um, just to like maintain everything and then went back and I was like, okay I'm gonna test everything and see kind of where the numbers are.

And my bench had decreased like significantly. At the end of phase one I think it was like 175. That's gonna happen. When you, did you get stronger in phase one? In phase one, yeah, it seemed like I was getting pretty, a lot stronger. And in phase two, how did you feel? That was more consistent,

but you could see through the tracking that the weight had started to taper downward. That's supposed to happen. So yeah, so if you go from phase three back to phase one, after a couple weeks of phase one, then you'll see a strength jump. Yeah. Quite a bit.

I was gonna say, I would love to see you run it again with the calories where they're at now. Right. So I think you needed more calories in the first place. So you did the right thing, reverse dieting. I'd like to see what a round, what phase one would be like. And I'd like to see you cut phase three to one week. So phase three, the supersets and the high reps is, can be very taxing for some people. I'm one of those people. Phase three for me kills me to the point where I cut it short, either by sets or by length.

But if you felt great in phase one and phase two, I would go one week of phase three and that's it. And you can even lengthen phase one and two by a week. Yeah, phase three is, for people who aren't familiar with anabolic is high reps and supersets. It's a monster. Yeah you look like someone who's pretty detailed. I'd love for you to go through this again and then tell us your experience from that with the higher calories. How are other things like sleep and lifestyle? So sleep wise I'm pretty good and then I

mean admittedly I'm not I don't have a super stressful lifestyle at the moment but I mean so I think everything is good that's why it was very confusing for me. I feel like I'm pretty dialed with everything. Yeah phase three could be a monster for some people especially if at the end of it you don't notice more stamina and you started to feel fatigued at the end Yeah, so I would go back through go one two lengthen each phase by one week keep calories and go and keep the calories up I don't bump them up anymore. Just kind of keep them where they're at and then phase three to a week And see how everything feels

Okay, Andrew. Are you are you in our private form yet? I'm not okay. I'm gonna have Doug put you in there too, because I just would, you're a great person I love to talk to as you go through this. So I'd love to hear your responses you get through each phase. So if you could just, you know, message us and keep us posted. And progress photos after each phase would be cool. Yeah. Okay.

To notice. And so here's what happens to me, because, and this is just maybe because of my years of training or because of my genetics, I'm not quite sure, but I respond really well to low reps. High reps is really tough for me. Really, really difficult. You typically just use it to interrupt your... I use it to interrupt and to give me some stamina. And what I'll notice between the first week and second week is I get really good pumps, but then they fade and they start to get fatigued and I got to back out and that's just how my body

Especially lower body and I've gone through long phases of high reps and stamina from my lower body and it's a brute It's just brutal on me But the you know fast twitch stuff I tend to do really well with So like I said, I go so go for instead of three weeks of one and two, go four weeks phase one, four weeks phase two, one week of phase three. That'll give you about the same total time. And then do some progress photos and let's see what happens. Yeah.

Do you think running a power lifting would be beneficial then, if you're saying cut volume down pretty heavily? Power lift has got a decent amount of volume and you'd be surprised because power lift starts with high reps. Now it's not supersets, but it starts at high reps and it peaks you at the end with the low reps.

And I mean, that's another great program. Let's, yeah, but let's run anabolic again, the way we're saying, because we're trying to figure out a variable right now. Instead of like changing too many variables, let's keep the calories up. Let's run maps anabolic the way Sal's saying, and then just stay in touch with us. And then, you know, depending on that, because I do think Power Lift would be a great program for you to do.

Did you notice changes in libido and stuff like that? How old are you? I'm 31. So when I cut down to the 1900 calories and I reached a certain level of body fat percentage, that was when I noticed I was gonna reverse diet back out of it. Okay, good. All right, good. Let's, yeah, do what we say, and I wanna follow up with you. In fact, why don't we have you back on the show at the end of this and see if we can't figure this out?

Okay. All right. Awesome. Thanks, man. All right, Andrew. Thank you. You got it. You know, what's cool about this is

it's a lot of weight loss, and it's a lot of weight loss, and it's a lot of weight loss, and it's a lot of weight loss, and it's a lot of weight loss, and it's a lot of weight loss, and it's a lot of weight loss, and it right. Awesome. Thanks man. All right, Andrew. Thank you. You got it. You know what's cool about this is, and trainers know this, that this is not the norm, but I know people that you keep their reps around 15 and they build muscle and

they get amazing results. I know people that you keep their reps around four and they build muscle and they're amazing and you flip them and they just, you have to flip them at some point because you don't wanna stay the same all the time but when you flip them it's almost like, oh okay, I'm going backwards. Well this is where we become creatures of habit

because you do kind of figure out what works and you fall in love and you don't wanna venture out of that but yeah, so he might just need to limit that amount of exposure. Right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano.

Adam, Mind Pump battle. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes Maps Anabolic,

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