Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2664: Why Gaining Body Fat May be the Key to Getting the Results You Want & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Some of You NEED to Gain Body Fat if You Want to See Improvements. (1:47) Comparing the effects of red-light therapy to minoxidil for hair loss. (23:48) Dissecting the Joey Swoll drama, celebrity worship, and staying authentic. (27:15) Being liked and seeking fame. (44:20) Money, honor, power, and pleasure exercise. (48:38) Exercise and sobriety. (56:17) #ListenerLive question #1 – Should I put this cut off until life evens out a bit, or any advice you can offer to help keep the calories down? I want to cut down to around 15% body fat just to see if I can do it and what I’ll look like. (59:07) #ListenerLive question #2 – Are there signs I should be looking for to guide the timing or size of the increases when it comes to reverse dieting? What’s the best way to improve my grip strength so I can keep progressing in my lifts? (1:11:35) #ListenerLive question #3 – What would you prioritize nutritionally and in training to improve metabolic health without furthering my gut issues? (1:21:37) #ListenerLive question #4 – How long would you recommend that it takes to reach muscle growth goals? (1:34:08) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Joovv for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP to get $50 off your first purchase. ** Visit Rock Recovery Center for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Ben and Tom know firsthand the struggles of addiction and alcoholism. With years of experience helping thousands of individuals, they offer a free consultation call to discuss your situation. Whether you’re personally battling addiction or have a loved one in need of help, they’re here to guide you toward the support you need. By filling out the form and scheduling your call, you’ll also be entered for a chance to win a free 60-day scholarship at Rock Recovery Center, their premier treatment center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Don’t wait—take the first step today. ** August Special: MAPS 15 50% off! ** Code MUSCLE50 at checkout ** The relationship between body fatness and physical attractiveness in males A high protein diet (3.4 g/kg/d) combined with a heavy resistance training program improves body composition in healthy trained men and women – a follow-up investigation The performance of body mass component indices in detecting risk of musculoskeletal injuries in physically active young men and women Low-Level Light Therapy and Minoxidil Combination Treatment in Androgenetic Alopecia: A Review of the Literature Fitness Influencer Joey Swoll Quits Social Media Over Hulk Hogan Controversy Watch Untold: The Liver King | Netflix Official Site Aquinas: The Four False Idols Making You Miserable - Medium Can exercise help conquer addiction? Is exercise more effective than medication for depression and anxiety? Effects of exercise of different intensities on withdrawal symptoms among people with substance use disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!  ** Available for a limited time, a curated box pre-filled with Mind Pump’s favorite cuts — no guesswork! Butcher Box members who sign up through Mind Pump will receive: $20 OFF their first box, Free chicken breast, ground beef, OR salmon in every box for a whole year! ** Mind Pump # 2659: Eight Ways to Build a Crushing Grip & Strong Forearms & More (Listener Live Coaching) MP Holistic Health Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Bishop Robert Barron (@bishopbarron)  Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded Fitness Health and Entertainment Podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, callers called in, people called in. We got to coach them and help them with their fitness on air. But this was after the intro.

Today's intro is 56 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fat loss, muscle gain, diet, current events, fun stuff. It's good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this where you can call in, email us your question at live at mindpumpmedia.com. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Juve.

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Use the code mind-pump, get $50 off. This episode is also brought to by Rock Recovery Center. If you or a friend or a loved one is struggling with addiction, we trust these people. If you go to rock recovery center.com forward slash mind pump, everybody will get some help. One of you will get a free scholarship, four months, $60,000 scholarship for rehab. And they're very good at what they do. We also have a sale this month. Maps 15 minutes is 50% off. Go check it out. Go to Maps.15minutes.com. Use the code Muscle 50% off discount. Here comes a show. All right. This is going to sound crazy. But for some of you, if you want to see

improvements, you got to gain body fat. It's true. A lot of you are just positive. you're plateaued. In fact, you may be going backwards because you're refusing. You're fighting tooth and nail with gaining body fat. Yes, body fat needs to be on your body for health and performance and for muscle gains. We're going to talk about how and who those people are. It might be you. Let's go. This is come from the collar that we just recently had that was at low calories and wanting to lean out a couple more percent. And we're talking about where they need to go in order to get even leaner. No, no, but that was perfect because I was already thinking along these lines. I did a post earlier on X because I saw this study that supported other studies, right? So there was this study that came out. It was a poll of everyday average people. And they showed pictures of men and women. And they said, which, who do you, who looks the most attractive? And what they found was women generally find men in the 12 to 16, 17 percent generally. Of course, there's people outliers, right? But generally speaking, that's what they find. find the most attractive, you know, fit within that body fat percentage.

And for women, for men, it was women in the 19 to 27 percent body fat percentage range. Now that corresponds with what we see on the data for athletic performance and health. Health, yeah. So all things being equal. Okay. So in other words, you're fit, you're working out, you're eating healthy, like all things being equal, okay. The ranges that I just said are, and there's a wide range in there, right?

12 to 17 for men, 19 to 27. It's a bigger range for women than it is for men. All things being equal, that's the range where you will see best health and best athletic performance. And of course, there's outliers. But generally speaking, that's where it's at. And when you move outside of that, either above it or below it, then you start to see detrimental effects. And a lot of fitness fanatics are so obsessed with being below that that they're compromising a lot of things. They might even realize they're compromising things like health and performance.

For most part, they're just trying to maintain a look with that and why they want to get down to that low body fat because it doesn't feel good. Right. It's a pretty rough place to be. Plus, you know, hormonally, that's one of the biggest impacts you're probably going to see. Yeah, totally. Adam.

What happened? No, I'm just looking at the two. You guys are right for like, I'm looking at 12 to 17 and 19 and 27. And I'm just like comparing the two. as far as like I was visually trying to picture like the upper end of that what the man looks like, the upper end of that what the woman looks like. I think the 27% of female is going to look thicker and be carrying more body fat than the guy that is at 17%. Yes. And so it's interesting that men tend to like women at a higher percent body fat based off of this. Well, women need and

vice versa. Women prefer the leaner look. And women need more body fat on their bodies. And there's There's lots of explanations why one of the main ones being that they have to carry a child. Do you think these studies are skewed at all, though, by, uh, this is, these are like people reporting in. Like what, like here's a picture. Do you like that? And do you think some people find, um, when either men or women are at these extremely low body fat percentages that it's intimidating to them, therefore they would not choose it?

I think that has to play a role. Because when you look at the, the poll, should you talk about what people find attractive? Yes. specifically. Yes. When you look at that poll, there are people outside of that.

There are going to be people that like people leaner or like people even higher. Yeah, but I'm talking about this is most. But I'm talking about generally. Like, yeah, like, okay, there's,

there's no doubt because I've, I've never really met any, uh, anybody that's saw, let's say a guy at 9% body fat and went, I don't like that. No, but,

but I, I have a feeling. They have associations elsewhere. I think there's associations related to that. What, what does that mean? Because they're like, oh, the piece probably is obsessed with his body.

Or he's so fit. I feel kind of insecure about my body. Therefore, I don't like someone to be that fit. Not so much because I don't like that look, but more so because that's intimidating to me. And so then I lean more towards that. So I'm wondering what.

Here's what they do. They take the same guy. So it's a digital image of a guy at different varying degrees of body fat percentage. Okay. And women prefer, generally speaking, men in that range. now 13% body by the way this is all things being equal so this is a fit and healthy person that

if you're 15% and uh but you don't lift weights that looks very different than 15% and you strength train right so like a fit these are fit healthy people within this body fat percentage range it is not you know here's a 9% guy that's a really good okay so that's a really good point you're making right now too because you know i remember what my my body look like in as a young teenage boy when I hadn't really started lifting weights, and I carried myself always in the same, even the worst was 12, 13, 13, but it looks a lot different than the 35-year-old version of me at 13% body fat. That's right. That's 35-year-old me with 13% body fat has a lot of muscle. That's right. So I have a little bit of a layer of body fat, but you can tell that I lifted weights and I

work out, and that's a very different look. I'll give you the, I'll give you the evolutioner, because here's what happens. Social media sells something completely different, and fitness fanatics are going to be drawn more to the extremes because they're themselves in those extremes, right? So if you yourself are extreme, you're going to think or prefer the more extreme as well. But we're talking about the average person. But here's the evolutionary reason for this.

If you take the same man, okay, again, same man, both fit, all things being equal, eat healthy, everything else, who's going to be tougher, more resilient to illness and more athletic? The 9% body fat version of that person or the 13%. 13%? Yeah.

The guy at 13% is going to be stronger, have more energy, more resilient. Evolutionarily speaking, if a woman sees a man who's fit healthy in a healthy body fat percentage, that's going to be more attractive than the shredded look,

which in nature, that's, by the way, you know, hormone, what is it, performance enhancing drugs have changed this a bit. And when you look at the best of the best in the world,

by the way, the best of the best of the world, tend to walk around in this range as well. But we have those extreme examples. There's some of these athletes that walk around at 8% body fat and eat garbage. Was that one football player that eats like candy all day long

that we talked about, right? So it skewed us a bit. But the reality is this is what is considered attractive and there's evolutionary aren't for it. And then athletic performance-wise, if you want to be in the place where you're the most resilient,

least lower risk of injury, best performance, most energy, most strength, it's in these ranges. Yeah. And these are the ranges. So again, it's all things being equal. This is a fit and healthy person in this body fat percentage, not a deconditioned person.

DJ Medcaf, that's who you're thinking of. You know, it'd be fun for us to do. I would love to do something like this. It would be a fun experiment. Just I'd be curious to see how I would gauge it. If I don't know the percentages, I see the same body four different, you know, like percentages,

what would I end up choosing each of us? Do you think that we would be skewed at all because of our profession? I, um, maybe, I don't know. In our attraction towards a female body? Yeah. I like my... Maybe, I mean, yeah, make me all of our preferences.

I like my wife when she's, you know, working out and fit. I like her body fat percentage in the low 20s. For me, that looks the best. She's got the curves. Yeah. She's feminine. She feels healthy. Uh, she doesn't look drawn out.

Um, you know, getting too lean can cause that in the face. You can get the... And we'll get into all the stuff. Yeah, there's probably associations with that, yeah, because I, I do like softness, you know, Like, I think some bit of a feminine, I tend to be more attracted to the opposite of, like, if I'm too, like, masculine-driven, like, I like the exact opposite of that. So it's like I might like a little more, like even less muscle and more, yeah, more softness. That's right. That's right.

But again, people who are extreme themselves, you take a bodybuilder guy or girl, they may be more attracted to that extreme as well. Totally. But this is a general point. Yeah, yeah. I can see that. And again, the data shows this is the healthiest place. And when you move outside of this, all, again, all things being equal, you start to sacrifice a few things. Here's one of them.

Getting too lean causes hormone issues. This is true for both men and women. And women, it becomes very obvious. You could have a fit and healthy woman doing everything right. Her body fat's too low. She can't get pregnant. Or she doesn't have a period. Very common with female athletes.

This is extremely common with female athletes, college athletes. Like you, if you've ever worked with or trained college athlete, if you're a female college athlete now, you and your peers, many of which probably stop menstruating through that whole process. Very common. And for men, unless you're on testosterone replacement therapy, you start to get below, and of course, there's always a genetic variation, right, or variants. But you start to get below 10, 9%, your testosterone is going to go down. That's just what happens with that.

So you start to call, your hormones start to move in a direction that is not as healthy versus when you're in those ranges. Do you think it's inevitable, almost everybody who ends up pursuing fitness at one point ends up? Because just like we talked about with plastic surgery, that perception drift is a real thing. Totally. Even with that. Oh, yeah. Right?

So you get going and, you know, you start, like many people start, they're way out of shape and they just, I just want to be healthy and they have a number. Let's say it's a man. I'll be happy around 15% body fat. I think it'll be great. And then you start trucking down from 25 to 20. Totally. You get about 16, 17. You quickly realize, like, oh, 15 is now no longer enough.

That's right. I want a little bit lower. Like, do you think that's, like, almost inevitable for everybody who goes down this path? I think so, because, too, like, your friend group kind of changes and, like, what you're looking at as examples of, like, the next level. There's always somebody that you can kind of point to that might be a little less body fat or, like, something that's a more idealistic type of physique that you're, like, trying to. Well, I mean, look at it this way. In my peak dysfunction. when I was just so, and I meant to say

I'm not still in this space, but definitely not like I was when I was a kid. I wanted, I thought looking like a pro bodybuilder was awesome. Like I'd want to walk around and look like that. You find me an average woman that looks at that and says, oh yeah, that looks good. You won't. Most of them will be like, no, that does not look good.

Definitely not what you got to be in the industry. Definitely not what pro bodybuilding site today. And that's the, that's even what it was in the 90s. That's the, that's the perception drift that would happen with me where I'd be like, oh, I wish I could walk around looking like, you know, I didn't met a couple of them. when I was young because I'd go to these fitness conventions. Oh my God, you know, Doreen Yates looks crazy.

I met Nassar El Samaddy, who's now passed away. And I remember he's so giant in person. I remember thinking, like, that would be so awesome. So it looks like that. Aside from the people that really follow bodybuilding, like you get the average woman's, you're like, no, I don't like to. Well, and not only that, but like, if you can right now,

it's been a while probably since you can imagine. Well, actually, you've been there not that long ago again where you were the best. biggest and most jacked you were. When you are there, you still don't think you were there. Oh, yeah. You just chase, you're chasing a moving goalpost constantly. Yeah. It's not until you take like a picture of yourself right now. Then you look at Sal eight years ago in the podcast and you go, oh shit. Whoa. A lot different looking than what I was before. I mean, that's a, it's, it's, it's crazy how insidious it is. Totally. It's, it's, and it and even more so

because it's, it's, it's wrapped in this positive health journey. Right. So it's, it's really easy for it. A good thing, it becomes a bad thing. Yeah. It can definitely happen. Yeah. But with the hormone issues, very, very clear and oftentimes, and this was more common in men in women than a men. So women are more sensitive. Their bodies are more sensitive to what we're talking about versus men. Men have more resilience with this kind of stress that we're talking about. Well, that's also why fasting's a bit dicey. That's right. Fasting can affect women negatively more often than it can for men. A woman is body is. very sensitive to, because if she ends up getting pregnant, she has to support another life. And so her body's hormones will shut down real quick. And so I've had many female clients where, you know, they were working out. The ex-athletes, like, consistent. And they had to get, they wanted to get pregnant.

And it's like, we got to get body fat on you. Yeah. And we did. They get body fat and going to surplus and boom, next thing you know, they're pregnant. So, yeah, causes hormone issues. The next thing is getting to lean causes muscle loss. By the way, this is true for bodybuilders on insane amount of performance-enhancing drugs. I mean, you're talking about bodybuilders who take thousands of times more testosterone and other anabolic steroids and hormones.

So they're like way outside of hormone replacement therapy. They lose muscle getting this lean, even though they have these insane hormone signals trying to fight this. the average person you start to go down to a certain point you're going to lose strength of muscle it's just your body starts to adapt and tries to slow its metabolism down because body fat is a security measure

this is like a bank account and when you get it too low it would be like you running your bank account too thin at some point what you're going to do is you're going to look at your bank account and go well we're going to start cutting expenses because my bank account's a little thin that's what your body does with muscle

it starts paring it down because that's essentially metabolically expensive. And so this will happen to the best of you. You can do this the best you want. If you're a dude trying to get to 7% body fat and do everything perfect, from 13 to 7% body fat, do everything perfect. You're losing some muscle.

You're losing some muscle. And this is going to happen to women as well, even if you're on crazy amounts of drugs. You also get immune function reductions. By the way, like you talked to... This used to happen to me. Like... Yeah, explain that.

Well, I canceled. It was like clockwork. I canceled two shows because of how sick I got. And so I quickly realized that come prep time when I got to my final six weeks of cut because I knew that I was pushing the body to those extreme limits of lower, lower calorie, I literally didn't do anything. I just like hung around my house because if I would go out in public, I was so susceptible to getting sick. And then I would have to like throw away this whole prep. And so that happened to me twice where I was deep into a prep and ready to go hit stage. And then all of a sudden I get like deathly sick.

sick. And I mean, you're throwing up and you feel terrible. Like, that's not a recipe for getting on stage and winning. And so I would just back out of the show and then, okay, I'll do another show later and just, and it dawned on me like, man, I am just, I'm primed to get sick. My immune system's so low because I'm not feeding the body. I'm so low calorie. And I'm low body fat percentage. And so, yeah, I got to a place where I'd have to just like really confine myself to my house and stay out of public places because I would get sick so easy. Wow. You know what's interesting about this. If you look at the data, again, all things being equal and you had to have surgery, you're way better off being overweight than you are

being underweight. Underweight and surgery is bad. That's not good. Overweight in surgery, of course, again, all things being equal, much safer. You have more of that insurance. But yeah, your immune system, they can measure this very consistently. You will see a reduction in your ability to fight off infection as you get leaner, even if you're working out and eating right. So it's got those negative effects.

negative effects. The next one is bone weakness. You know this is far more common in women than men, but you'll see women underfeed themselves for years who also work out, who also strength training or everything. Then they'll get this report from their doctor that says they have osteopenia. Yeah. And they'll say, what? How is this possible? I'm, I'm strength training twice a week. It's like you've been eating a thousand calories a day for the last six years. Yeah. That's how this can happen. Yeah, you're missing nutrients. that's right nutrients and minerals and you know in terms of muscle mass too that's a lot of that's probably why you know men it doesn't quite show up uh you know as frequently but um you know yeah

if you're low calorie you're low muscle and you're not giving yourself all those minerals and nutrients it's it's on you know on the plate yep and then you have uh injury risk uh goes up quite a bit. I actually brought up some studies on this. Extreme leanness. In a 2015 study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that athletes with really lean body fat percentage, these were athletes walking around at 6% body fat, had a 10 to 15% decrease in maximal strength in anaerobic power. And a 2018 study in sports medicine noted that athletes in weight class sports with body fat below 7% ready for this they had a 30% higher incidence of injuries wow so yeah and these are these are these are these were people in weight class sports

so let's say you're a wrestler yeah you're like you know what i'm going to do i'm going to make it in the lower rate class and get shredded yeah i'm going to get shredded so i can be the most muscular guy you're better off being in the higher body fat higher weight class from an injury risk and performance perspective. And I did this with the wrestlers that I trained. I would often encourage them like, no, no, no, don't cut so much. You'll actually perform worse in that weight class, even though you think you're going to be the biggest guy at that, you know, in that low weight class.

Yeah, it's a huge difference. Energy-wise and just like being in your body, yeah, it's totally different. And then last is happiness and life quality decreases. It's funny. This is the big one right. Yeah. Well, there's a few reasons why. One is you become obsessed.

So you take away from your life to try to. to accomplish this look. Then the other one is just your increased risk of depression and anxiety. It actually goes up in some studies 15 to 20%. Well, I imagine it's probably because of all the sacrifice you're making, right?

Depletion of nutrients and all that stuff. So it's like you're chasing this thing to become happier when in reality it's making you less happy. You've got to sacrifice a lot too. It's obsessive. If you're walking around, your guy trying to walk around

at 7% body fat, you're taking food with you everywhere and you're counting things. Oh, it's the most selfish sport or thing I've ever done. And the reason why it is, this is the part where I know, I know this always gets people up in arms

calling it, calling them athletes, right? Oh, they're not athletes. The athletic community hates that. Justin doesn't like anything. I know. But it's, the thing about it is, when you think about, like, even professional, true athletes,

name a sport, you are not thinking about your sport as much as you are in bodybuilding. I don't care. I hung around a lot of pro athletes. Because it's all day. Yeah. You don't have practice.

I've hung around a lot of pro athletes that still go out and have drinks and have a good time and cut loose and aren't talking about football. Like, you are bodybuilding, you are talking about literally food or your workout all day. Because even wrestlers or MMA fires or whoever has to cut, that's a temporary window. Right. Like bodybuilders, it's the entire process. Yeah. And every meal impacts your sport.

And so you are thinking about and everything is connected to it. Nobody's as obsessive as bodybuilding. It's the most obsessive. And to me, that was the part that I always said that you need an athletic or a competitive mindset. And that part of it was very, very competitive and very difficult to do for most people, which is why most people can't do it or fail at it because it's no breaks. Well, what's good. So the thing about this is that some people listening to this right now who've been consistent,

with, like, they're super consistent with things and they're plateaued. What they might just need to do is go in a bulk and try and gain and allow themselves, allow themselves to gain a little body fat. That is exactly what might break you through your plateau. That's exactly why you may be plateaued. Right.

You're keeping yourself so lean all the time that you're not giving your body what it needs to get stronger. Well, and so long as you're putting on more muscle than you are fat, you're winning. Yeah. So you put five pounds on and you add one or two pounds of fat,

you got three pounds or four pounds of muscle. That's a great win. I will say this, though. Have you guys ever had a client? I had a female client like this where the goal was getting body fat. We don't even care. Like, muscles cool. We're going to work out because we want to stay fit.

But she walked around so lean. She had fertility issues. And it was literally like, no, no, no, we need to gain 8% body fat. Like that's the goal. Well, that was Katrina before we had max. The doctor said to her, you need to be a higher body fat percentage. She was fit, healthy. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. She's always carried herself at a lean low body fat. In fact, hers is abnormally low, always. Like Katrina walks around at 16% body fat, but she doesn't look like it to me. She looks like she's like more in the 20% range, but she walks around 16, 17% body fat. And so when she got tested and the doctor's like, yeah, no, you have to gain. And I remember, like, that's all we cared about was gaining body fat, which. What did she do for that?

Just ate more? Cheeseburgers and fries. Nice. Yeah. Layed off. Yeah. I mean, it was like, it was, believe it or not, it was very difficult for her. You know, it's not like something that she, trying to, you know, put body fat on was, uh, it's funny how our bodies tend to find every and everybody's is unique to them this kind of equilibrium

or homeostasis yeah and north or south of that is difficult it's equally difficult whether you're trying to push yeah yeah we we all kind of naturally fall into an area and to to to aggressively go one way or the other tends to be pretty challenging and so you know it's i'd say it was equally as challenging as it was for her to probably get as lean as she's ever been so it's it was funny to watch Yeah, that's interesting. All right, I got a study on comparing the effects of red light therapy to monoxidil for hair regrowth. Monoxidil is the... So you put it on your scalp.

I know, but that's like commonly... Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was like... That would be the brand name for the brand. Yeah. So, by the way, the background of monoxidil, monoxidil was originally researched for lowering blood pressure. But the side effect that they saw was hair regrowth.

So, of course, like, that's a way better market. It kind of lower. blood pressure, but it definitely grows hair back. Yeah, because it's right. That's right. So, but monoxidil will regrow hair to an extent. It's one of the few things that has proven to work, which, by the way, I tried it before. And I didn't realize that it has this blood pressure effect. And I felt so loopy on it. And then I realized it was the monocidil. But anyway, they compared red light therapy to monoxidil. It's as effective, minus any of the side effects. In fact, when you're putting a positive effect. Positive effects. Positive

effects positive scalp effects positive muscle recovery effects mitochondria health positive mitochondrial health whereas monocodil does it have stang power like do you see it in effect and then but if you are you know not as consistent after a while does it kind of like dwindle yeah no no you got to keep using yeah now here's the cool thing when they combine the two you had synergistic effects oh wow yeah so if someone's if a guy's listening right now and or even a woman because some women suffer from uh androgenic alopecia or just alopecia using both red light therapy and monoxidil

is like a one-two punch and he's got dramatically better results together. Oh, interesting. So it's, yeah, that would be one of the best that's one of the things that, you know, I would do if I really cared that much or they don't give it a much. None of us really do, huh?

Doug knows it probably cares the most. Yeah, Doug, you use the red light therapy on your head. Yeah, I do. Yeah, how often are you doing it? About three days a week. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what the data shows. About three days a week

will give you the result that you're looking for. Maybe we'll all finally come around when we're about 10 years older and Doug still looks younger than we do. I see a lot of influencers going, is it like turkey? They have this like procedure where they, they plant the hair follicles. Is it because how good they are over there or how cheap it is over there? I think it's cheap and they have like a whole system where they bring in people internationally and then they set you up at this hotel and then it's like the doctor's there. That's what it is.

Yeah. Just use the Jew of Red Light. you're going to get all these other additional benefits. But I have a, I won't say too much, I have a friend who went somewhere to do the hair transplant. And it's, bro, it is a major deal. Yeah. You know what he has he looked like the day after?

Oh, God. Dude, he, like a mushroom? Yeah, bro, it said it's all. I was like, oh my God, I saw the picture. I was like, no, I will never do that. That's the other part of doing it overseas, I think. It's because like people don't want to see you for a while. No, it's way cheaper.

Yeah, I know. He costs them like a third to go somewhere else to do it here. But no way, dude. No way. Yeah, serious. I have another buddy of mine who's much older than I am who got the hair transplant surgery back in the day when you could kind of tell. So you can see the like the rows of hair.

Like it doesn't look natural bro. He denies it too. Just print it on there. And he still denies it to this day. He's like, bro, I can tell you. No, I never did. Okay, dude. Your hair doesn't grow like that.

Too perfect. Yeah. You got rows of hair grow. Looks like a rug. It doesn't work that way. I saw that you had, didn't Justin bring up Joey Swoll already? Did we talk about it on the podcast?

I didn't. I didn't bring up my old friend. You did or you didn't? No, I didn't. Oh, you didn't? Did you see all the drama going on with him? Yeah, I just, I just, I saw recently that he, um, something about Holt Hogan, he brought up and then he got like,

Yeah, so when Hulk Hogan passed away, he, uh, shared a video. It was an old video that he had done. I guess Hulk Hogan had sent him, like a real Hulk Hogan costume, like, so he knew him. sent him a real costume and so he wore it in the gym and worked out one day and a lot smaller costumes yeah and video videoed the whole thing and when Hulk Hogan

passed away he posted a video and of him working out in that and I guess right now a lot of people I didn't know this until I did a little bit of digging and watched some of the commentary on this a lot of people that have been you know sharing Hulk Hogan positive stories or giving him you know credit rest in peace

for whatever you know there's a lot within the comments is a lot of controversy because of some of the stuff that he had said and how he had done. So when did he, so he said he was racist. When did he make the racist comment? Oh, it was on,

so it was confusing. He was dog to bounty hunter? It was an argument with his wife. I saw it. I remember when I watched his documentary and I remember what happened. This was a huge black guy on him. How long ago was it?

Oh, it was over 15 years ago, I think. Maybe, maybe more, maybe 20-something years ago. And he's having a fight with his wife. And, you know, and I, she has, I think she's hanging out with a black guy or a friend or something like that. And he's like saying racist comments. Oh, I don't want you hanging out with those people.

Like that. Yeah, it's really bad. It's a really, really, it's a really bad thing that he did and said and then got caught, you know. And so just a massive black guy. So because of that and because people have probably seen the documentary in the last five years where they covered that, it's top of mind for these people. And so there's all this vitriol in the in the comment section. How dare you give them a tribute? yes he was racist sexist all the things and like just blasting him and this is the thing i don't like

about joey swall dude and you know some people some people are only familiar with him since he was on his kick with uh you know the you know calling people out at the gym or whatever like that he found a new he found a new stick right because before that he was we were talking about him in shreds yeah if you go back to he was scamming uh everybody with shreds yeah his supplements yeah yes and so when that went under and that got He got blasted for all the shady stuff that they were doing. He pivoted to this guy. This nice guy in the gym.

Yeah. And he's always, he's always catered to his audience like that. So anyways, the audience starts. His own audience turned on it. Oh, they turned on him bad. And then. Uh-oh, did he did the cardinal mess up where you go and apologize? Yes.

But no, gets worse. So he goes and he apologizes, but he's doing it like defensively as he's doing it. And then he refers to colored people. No, he did. No, he didn't say that. Yes. He said exactly that. He said it just like that.

And when he said it, what he said was like, well, if you're going to come after me, and he's apologized, it's an apology video, you need to come after the colored athletes too. And I was like, oh, I saw it. But you know what? Karma, you dumbass. You know what I'm saying? That's what you get for playing into the, trying to make everybody happy, still stepping

all over your shit. And like, so then he got just blasted again for that. And then he went on this like, I'm going off of social media. I'm done. And it's just like, dude, this is what, okay, we talked to not that long ago about, I forgot how we got on this.

Social media audience is not your real fan. Well, remember, we were talking about that. I talked to you guys about that. There was a good documentary, and I forget what it was called on Netflix. And I, you guys didn't watch it, but I was sharing with you, like, and I was just talking about what,

oh, it was liver king. What happens in these people that build these fake personalities on the internet, torture, is, they what and it it's again we talk about like insidious things like it just you don't even realize it but you you begin to form this character and do things online that get the likes and the views and the shares and even if you claim it's your authentic self if you keep pursuing

those likes and views it's really not you're constantly shaping you become influenced that's right absolutely you become influenced on who this person is that you're becoming all for the outcome of this. And so you look at these examples of Liver King, Joey Swoll, and there's tons of them, of these massive characters online that everybody think are so great or wonderful. It's like, these aren't even really them. It's like they have created this persona based off the feedback you guys have all been given.

And they become it. And let me tell you, that's a torturous place to live. I don't care how rich they get from it. Inside, they're absolutely tortured. they are not living their authentic self. And so, and then you see examples of this manifest when, you know, it doesn't work out. You know, you, and then you try and backpedal. Like, like, obviously, the original post, you know, again, wrapped in, oh, I'm doing a tribute

to him, really was done to piggyback off the likes and views that are going around Hulk Hogan because he just died. So, I mean, because if it was really about Hulk Hogan, why wouldn't you have posted that well before or after or talked about, like, it's like, you did that post just because you wanted to get attention because everybody's talking about his death. And then you get lambasted for that. So then you do another post to try and your back pedal from that.

Two fails. Yeah, then you can't get your words right and fall. I mean, it's just like this is the game you play when you're trying to appease everybody and be this person that you really are, man. Yeah. And then these celebrities are all people and they're probably

have more challenges than the average person because of their attention. But like you worship a celebrity. Like you're you're going to be let down, man. Yeah. I do not have the slightest bit of empathy for these people that chase that. Yeah, yeah.

You, you, you made your bed. Yeah. You wanted to, bringing it on. You wanted to be that. Well, I mean, I'll say this. I grew up with Hulk Hogan, a huge fan, right? I don't know who he is, though. I don't know him for real.

No. I grew up with the character. I know the character. Yeah. Hulk Hogan isn't his real name. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna, like, that's who I like. I don't know who his real name is.

I don't know him. I don't know him. Well, it's like, athletes. I mean, we, we, I mean, I love sports, man, and I admire a lot of athletes. But I don't get hung up on their politics. I don't get hung up on who they are at home or what they do in their bedroom. Here's the litmus best. I don't know if this will work for everybody. It will work for me, though. Like, would I let this person babysit my kids? No, I don't know you. I don't know. Okay, awesome you are. How many businesses you built or how, you know, great you are at this thing that

I think is cool. I'm not going to let you watch my kid. Yeah. Well, you're unique with that. That's the, see, because some people are stupid. I mean, remember, remember those people, Michael Jackson. Like, I mean, how many people let their kids go over to Michael Jackson? Sure. People were like, because he's Michael Jackson. All these parents were all the people. You don't even know who this.

You know, you look at that and you see how much of them were paid to say that in that documentary. Did you know about that? No. Yeah. So there's more. There's shenanigans with that. I've heard the counter conspiracy coming out lately with the Michael Jackson thing. Well, because all of them before that, like, they didn't press charges in court.

And then they do this documentary after he's dead. So they were motivated by somebody to put it up there. So I think I've heard a little bit of the other side of this conspiracy, the one that I think you're kind of alluding to, is it didn't have some ties to like what he was doing with Sony or, yeah, and then all of a sudden magically all this stuff. Well, think about it. I mean, he literally bought the rights to the Beatles to even had like Elvis.

He had like a few major, major record like library and catalogs, under his control and you know he's just smart he was smart with his money and made these big investments and then yeah and then got in conflict

with some of the so there's like so there and this is not like Sony's first example of that like I know right now actually I think Drake is going through something that because they because when he tried to get the rights to do something

they try to sabotage his reputation to hurt him before he went and I'm not saying he's like a great guy or anything again till he's Michael Jackson like that's his real name all you know but like he was awesome but like his you know extracurricular activities his life i don't you know i don't want to know about it to the most part but that kind of muddies it up a bit for me like i was pretty convinced he's just a disgusting pito you know but now i'm like hmm this is interesting what happened uh didn't prince do something like that too where he was like

he said some stuff and then suddenly he died wasn't there something about conspiracy around prince as well oh i don't know could be i mean i think the one that is all centered around well i think is more interesting that I see because of all the Pito stuff going on is all the rockers that were doing the you Chester and there's like four of them that were all working

on this Chris Cornell yeah working on this whole documentary yeah documentary and they all magically suicided themselves like I thought and I could have sworn that one of them even came out like in a concert saying like I would not kill myself or something like that like shortly before

it all happened so That's very suspect. And then this is all before Epstein's, right? Before we were all talking about Epstein, I feel like now if that was happening with Epstein, there would have been more eyes on that, but I feel like it got all brushed under the rug too. So, yeah, no, super well.

But I mean, back to like social media and these people that we idolize online. It's just, it's so wild to me. I mean, we talk about. Even for people who are building, trying to build a social media business, The people that like your stuff, they're not really,

they're not really your friends. They're not really your family. You know, it's great. It's great that they find your stuff valuable. It's awesome. But it's not the same thing as real people and real friends.

Kids fall for this all the time because kids want that popularity. And so on social media, they'll see how many likes. It's like, that's not the same as real people. I mean, can I tell you what a struggle that is right now

because my oldest is like kind of like paying attention to that and wants to see if like he can create a video that's going to get attention and this and that. And it's like, I try to check myself because I'm like if I was a kid, what would I be interested in? Like every kid's interested in that. And it's like you're to and I'm just hammering him. No, this is stupid. No.

Like don't even worry about that. Like, you know, do something substantial and like, it's just goes right over the head. But, yeah, it's frustrating, but also I'm just like, I'm trying to, like, calm myself down with that a little bit. Yeah, because you push too hard. He's going to go to the other. Yeah, I love hearing you share about this because I, like, I, obviously, I'm far further away from when this day comes, but it's probably inevitable, especially considering your dad. Your dad is all over. Yeah, they're paying attention to what we're doing a lot more now.

So, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, it's, it, I obviously I wouldn't get mad and I wouldn't say, no, you can't. I think the, the best thing you can do is a lot of explore it. And then as things unfold, those teaching lessons will reveal themselves, you know? Well, think about one of the worst, one of the worst things that, I mean, there's a lot of bad things that can happen to kids. Another bad thing that can happen to a kid is they become famous. Oh, yeah. That's actually a terrible curse for a kid.

Like, if your kid is trying to get famous, you pray that they don't. Because if they do, they have all this false love, all this reinforcing feedback. that they're so awesome and kids are so, it's so, look, we were all teenagers, you try so hard to be someone or something. You're trying to figure that out. We were just talking about like Joey Swoll, liverkey, these are

grown-ass men. Look how much it affects them. Imagine their little, let alone a teenager. Imagine all them little children's brains. I mean, way more susceptible. I know some of them do have kind of children and brains, but you know what I mean. It's very simple. You know, I mean, one of the things I

love that, it's just another thing. thing about the partnership that we all have when we all have together. Like, imagine if one of us actually really seek that. They really wanted to be. That really wanted that. The guy. Yeah. The fact that it's always been this like, no, you be the guy.

You go do the thing. Like, I don't want to. I mean, even when we, I mean, we thought about this well before we had the, the attention that we had, uh, look at all of our social media. It's our brand first and then our names. Where nobody will tell you to do that. There is nobody that is a influencer. I see that a lot.

They would tell you, it is. They would say you brand it to your name, your fame, all your thing like that, and we put the brand before all of our names. And it was all, and we even put all the energy and effort into growing the mind pump brand more than our individual brands. It's just crazy to me because you are going to mess up in life. That's a fact. Okay, there isn't anybody in the world. Everybody messes up in life. One way or another. It's hard enough to mess up. It's hard enough to mess up in front of your wife or your husband or your friends or your siblings or your parents that's already hard enough imagine messing up in front of thousands or millions of people oh my god like and you're not

equipped to deal with that that's not this is why public speaking if you were to when you when they do surveys and they do studies asking people the things that they're most terrified of doing public speaking is always in the top number one it's always at the top now why is public speaking so scary because when you go up on stage to talk, if you mess up, everybody sees it and you are shunned by too many people. Evolutionary speaking, that is death. That's death. So, so why would anybody, it's like you're guaranteed to mess up in life. Guaranteed 100% you're going to mess up. And you want a lot of eyes on you. What? Terrible. And I can understand what people leverage it for business. And I would say my advice to people is to be,

as honest and real as possible so that when you do mess up, people already know like, you're also not even factoring in human psychology of how much we love the rise and fall. Yeah. We love that underdog story or comeback. Yeah. And so people take people down. So even if you, yes. So even if

you like they may be all rooting for you on the way up and then you arrive and then look at how many people flip and turn on that because they want to see the fall. I always knew he's a piece of shit. Yeah. I mean, They're just, and so if you don't, you already have this pressure of the inevitable, I'm going to screw up because we're humans. We all are, we're all, you know, have failures. We're all full of sin. It's going to happen.

Yeah. But then you also now have a ton of people that are looking for it and can't wait for or trying to set you up. And so it's like, you're, you're really playing with fire with seeking that attention and wanting that. I think that's, uh, it's a danger. That's why if you build a business based on that, my advice. would be to be as real as possible and put your failures forward before they get revealed on their own because then people kind of will be like, okay, well, yeah, I know that person is not perfect because they talk about how not perfect. Admit when you mess up too. Because if you put out this facade

that you're like amazing, which is easy to do with cameras and whatever, and then you build this fame, you accomplish this fame that you're looking for based off that. You make one mistake that you are going to get, and people are going to pile on you and pile on you. And it's, I can't imagine being on the other end of that, especially as a kid. You imagine as a kid, I know how hard it would be in school. So psychologically damaging. Imagine, imagine peeing your pants as a kid in front of four of your friends. That sucks. Imagine doing it in front of your school. Oh my God. Like, I'm going to move. Now imagine doing something like that on social media from the world. One incident like in my life where I was in front of my entire class and I didn't know, I wasn't

prepared. I had a whole subject that I was like unfamiliar with and it was like this entire process of being able to bake and create this specific treat. Like this is, I took it from my mom's idea and because I didn't have an idea. I was like, I don't know what to do to present in front of the class. And so I get up there and I just freeze and I didn't know what to do. And like everybody started laughing. Oh, how old were you? I was in fourth grade. And so it just impacted me from then on out. It took me, like, decades to recover from that, dude. So it's just like, that's like one little thing.

That was nothing, you know? And, like, all the kids, they probably just left it off, you know, like, like, oh, look at him. He doesn't know anything or whatever. Yeah. You're not the kid that pooped his pants. I wasn't the kid that pooped my pants. Why do you think it is that we didn't, that there wasn't a part of a, like,

it is a bit unique that, that three of us, this is, and including Doug, because Doug's definitely not someone who seeks for this, that we, got together and we none of us seeked that fame and attention like that because what I also find ironic about that is I know that you guys were popular kids too so it's not like to you and I probably admittedly liked having lots of friends

and being known and all those things like that so then you would think that would translate into somebody who gets a microphone like this and wants more that but none of us do so it's interesting to me that it's unique that it's unique like that wasn't like you we weren't all like lone wolfs in school where we didn't

like it I mean I didn't So mine was a little different. I didn't really care so much in school, but I wanted my parents' approval. I definitely wanted my dad's approval. I wanted him to think that I was great. Yeah. I didn't get the feel of lots of people's approval

until I first became a personal trainer. It was such a natural thing for me. Performing at that level at that young age and then becoming a manager at a young age and a general manager. And then it was I didn't want to let these people down. that's when I felt that, but you asked why all of us don't really care. I think it's, I don't know.

I would have to say that someone else was in control. I mean, I would have thought, my thought is someone else is in control. Because if any one of us was like that, this would have gone south a long time ago. I mean, I would have thought my personal idea that because I, I admitted that I liked the attention as a kid. I liked being popular. I liked being liked by, in fact, one of the things I prided myself on as a kid in high school is that I had friends in every group. Like I was not,

I didn't have just hang out with a click. Like, I was friends with everybody. And so I do have a bit of that. I like that and I like being liked. But I don't seek the fame or the attention thing, though.

So you would think that that would translate into that. And I don't have like a good story like Justin does where something happened to me traumatic where I'm like, I don't want nobody to see me. And admittedly,

am I not the first one who would be like, bow out? I mean, if we found a replacement for me on the podcast, I believe I'd probably be the first one about. Maybe Justin and I would arm wrestle for that. But I would quickly be like, I'm out. Cool.

You guys got somebody who could sit in my chair. I'll do the things behind the scenes, which is where I'd prefer to be. So it's interesting that it somehow happened that way where three of us don't care or seek or want that. I think. I think someone else is control. That's what I think. I do. Could you imagine if one of us sought that out?

The guy behind the guy. That was always my title. What? I mean, not in that, not in that sense. Okay, Justin. You take it to that level, dude. Okay, bro. I'm the guy behind the guy.

Well, I'd rather be the guy behind the guy, not the guy in front of the guy. I'll be the guy over here. You'll be the guy at the side of the guy. That's fair. My bad, too. Doug, did you ever want that as a kid? Or would you ever, would you remember ever, like, seeking popularity or wish? Like, did you, were you like that at all or no?

You know, I think there was a period I thought it'd be. cool to be famous. Okay. I did. And I think a lot of kids think that way, right? Everybody paying attention to you, so on, so forth. But the reality of it, as you start to examine it, isn't so exciting, you know? So if you have a choice between being rich or famous, I'll take rich everything.

Oh, God. Oh, yeah. There's no comparison. Yeah. How can anybody want? No, that's not true. A lot of people would seek fame over money. So weird.

I mean, actually, social media is a great example of that. There's a lot of people that are famous that don't make a lot of money. Yeah. There's a lot of Instagram people that have millions of followers. No money. I remember that being like one of the biggest epiphanies I had when we started doing this. I couldn't wait to meet these people that had millions of followers. I thought, man, the business mind behind these people are going to be so wild.

I'm like, not at all. Like, they have a lot of attention and they're famous online, but they have a, their business acumenes horrible. I wonder the percentage of people that want fame that just didn't get any attention at home, you know, that were sort of home or school or discarded or yeah like their parents were always gone or like they had a big family and they were the youngest or whatever it is that didn't they got over seen well bishop baron uh said i think it was thomas acquaintance that said this that the the things that people make out of that people turn into idols it was uh money fame power yeah pleasure or honor which is which is fame okay so it's like i either i either want power over other

people and I'll chase that or I want money and I'll chase that that becomes my or I want pleasure and I'll chase that or I want fame and those are the four most common ones that people chase it would have been a problem for me if I if I went really far with athletics because I was so identified with it to a point where yeah the honor thing would have been you know like a big deal like if I was in the pros and then I was like Super Bowl or you know whatever I would have been like huge well that also makes sense why fame is probably one of the number once sought after too because as you were listening I was going oh actually that's interesting fame is the only one

that almost guarantees all the other ones too could I mean almost you're exactly it's like very most of them like if you get you can turn into well you get really really famous you can leverage it yeah I mean normally if you're really really famous you're great at something a sport actor a thing which then equates to money which then equates to power like so that one kind of like You could be a very powerful person, not even know who they are, right? Somebody who runs one of the biggest Fortune 500 companies, you don't even know the name of that person. Or a politician.

Right, or a politician. So you can be very powerful. You'd be very honorable, but you have a lot of honor and not have the other ones. And so fame tends to. Well, fame and honor. Honor is fame. That's the one. Okay.

The other ones don't tend to feed into as much as that does. Did I do this with you guys before? The Arthur Brooks exercise with those four. Did I do that with you guys? I don't recall. So to figure out which one is most likely to rule. over you. Oh, okay. So what you do is you take away the one that has the least pull on you. And this is what it looks like. So it's power, pleasure, money or fame, okay, honor fame, right? If you take that

away, that means all you'll ever get is the average amount of that. So if it's money, and that's the one that least has pull on you, then when you take it away, you'll only ever make the average amount. If it's pleasure, you'll only ever get the average amount of pleasure and so on. Okay. And so you've got to work down the list. So think of your, think between them. So let's do, I'll do me. Pleasures would be the first I would drop. Gone. So you're okay with average pleasure for the rest of your life.

Okay. If you had to pick one. Okay. Is that true? Yeah, I would say it. Like, if we would say it again, we go. So it's pleasure, power, money, or fame. Actually, no, fame would be first.

Fame would be first. So just average fame. Yeah. So that's first. What's next between pleasure, money, then pleasure. Then pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure's next.

For sure. Yeah. Okay. So now what are we left with? We're left with money and power. And power. Yeah. Which one?

Would you take now? Next. I would let go of power. Let go of power. Yeah. So money is the most likely. That's the most likely one that's going to. For sure.

Which I'm open. That's right. Yeah. Which is I've had plenty of insecurities around that. Talked about what I've had to work through that. Cool exercise, all right. What about you, Justin? Did you go through those at all?

Yeah. Well, just listening to you, I'd probably reduce it down to, I think power would be, like money would be one that I'd probably end up with. Also. Yeah. So that would be the one for you. What about it for you? Exactly the same. Wow, that's interesting.

Interesting. You are what? The first one I'd give up is power. I could care less about having power or anyone. The next one would be, what were they? There were money, pleasure, pleasure, and fame. And fame. Fame would be next.

Yeah. And then it's really tough between pleasure and money and money. Really, really tough. Probably. I would say you would give up money before pleasure. I think so. Yeah. I think so.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting that money even lasts that long for you because I feel like you have such a good hold of like it does, it means nothing to you to know. Yeah. It doesn't make that big. of a difference for me. But power, I could care less. By the way, the studies show that people who,

who were powers, the one that they struggle with, are the most likely to be okay with being under tyrannical regimes. So people... Does they respect the power or something? Maybe because they think they can move up in it and they can accomplish it. So they don't mind living in a system where there's power over them because they worship that power. Yeah, because you respect the power so much and you want it and you understand.

the lengths or something. Interesting, right? That is, that's a good exercise to go through. Yeah, like, maintaining my autonomy. And, like, I guess I associated that in with power. Yeah. No, power over others. Power over others.

Yeah. Well, it might change. So then the net, I mean, you still would end up with money. You still have enough with money. So we, the three of us all end up there and you end up in. I would follow Sal with money being the main one. Say what? So I, so I think pleasure before money.

So you would, you still, pleasure is the last one for you. No, the second to the last would be pleasure. And then money. So it's a little bit different. But similar in that way. So, okay, then what's the next layer to that exercise? Now you know that. That's the one you got to watch the most.

That doesn't mean you don't watch the other ones. But that's the one you got to pay attention to the most. So an example of that to me, using me as an example, because I've openly talked about my relationship with money and stuff like that. Like, that's why like the exercise of like I so remember this like being in a room like if I didn't know you guys really well but I knew of you you're successful with that I just I would have to like actively go

and going like you do not need to talk about how much money you've made or your success like I'd have to have that talk with myself because it was so ingrained the the insecurity was so deep that it was a natural reaction for that to happen that I would like have to like talk to myself to be like not do it and it took a long time

before that became a habit and behavior so if you know that that's one of your things And there's obviously times in your life where it probably presents itself. And so it takes that much effort, I think, to really work on it is, you know, when you come into those position, those times, like, okay, what would I normally do right here? Okay, I'm aware of it, right? And trying to reverse that. No, for me, with the pleasure one, it's just, can be worshiping good feelings, which can

look like working out all the time, taking supplements or hormones or all the stuff kind of connected. It goes deeper than that, right? Because it's not just those four, but oftentimes your idol is connected to one of those, you know, kind of four. But that, that would be me. By the way, fitness is probably would prevent, what would have saved me from being a drug addict. Because I have that tendency. If I wasn't so into fitness, I could easily see how I would be somebody that would go down that path with, you know, with drugs. Interesting. For sure. Oh, yeah. For sure. Because I wanted to build muscle so bad. I was like, that doesn't help me build I wonder how many, I wonder how many people can do that exercise and admit that that's their thing

or the awareness. That's a hard thing to do is really like acknowledge that and confront it. Well, the biggest realization is this is that your top value based on your actions, not what you say, but what you actually live by. Someone followed you around and looked at your actions and they all lead. Everything leads to a top value. Every decision you make is based off of value. I turn left because it's better than right or I choose this shirt because it's better than that shirt.

Ultimately at the top is your top value, that's your God. That is what you worship right there. So for people who are like, I don't worship God or, you know, well, you worship something. And so you look at your actions and what is it? And is that a good God to worship? No, none of those things are.

They're tyrannical. That's why I went back to saying that how many people do you think would openly admit that, you know? Yeah, that's a tough one. Speaking of some of the stuff, I got to, I brought up some stats on exercise and sobriety. Because our friends over at Rock Recovery Center, exercise is a very important part of their protocol for helping people get off, you know, addiction. And they have studies on this. Do you guys want to hear what the study show that exercise does for people with addiction treatment?

Yeah. People who incorporated exercise into addiction treatment programs. reported a 95% increase in abstinence rates. 95? Increase in abstinence rates because of the exercise. Wow. Isn't that a crazy? That's so high and crazy that it's kind of crazy

that more of these recovery centers don't do what they are doing. Well, go down this. Look, we just saw a huge study with over 100,000 people. Exercise, outperformed therapy, and medicine for depression. For depression, anxiety. Okay. So exercise is the best. And what's often tied to addiction is depression and anxiety, either from the addiction or as part of the reason why you become addicted.

So there's that. It produces a healthier brain, which reduces the craving for certain substances. You get you produce their own natural opiates when you exercise. And then it's the discipline and structure. It's the discipline and structure of doing something. So, I mean, I think this is why they, one of the reason why they're powering. A lot of times, yeah, it's like this. despair, you know, and so to empower somebody in a moment of despair, that's powerful.

There was also a 20 to 30% reduction in withdrawal symptoms from people who exercise. So the withdrawal that happens from going off drugs, you'll get a significant reduction if you also exercise. Do you think there's a physiological part? Of course. Of course. Yeah, you're screting the sweat and getting out. Yes.

Yeah. Yes, dude. Totally. So, yeah, I mean, this is part of what they do is they use, they don't force people, but this is definitely a key part of what they do is they use exercise. along with more traditional methods for sobriety. And, I mean, I think it's great. Aren't the boys coming down here in a couple weeks?

I believe so. They're coming down? I believe so. Hop on, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. I think I saw that like in a week or two. I think they're coming this way. Yeah, it'll be great.

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included in your box for an entire year for free. Again, butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump. Check it out. Our first caller is Michael from Canada. Michael, what's happening? What's up, buddy?

Hey, guys. You go, yo. Thanks for having me on. This is pretty cool. Yeah, you got it. How can we help? you. I guess I'll start off like everyone else and just say, you know, thanks for everything you guys do. Since finding your podcast, it's been a huge help in my life and I kind of fitness

journey. So my question was a bit broad. So I'll give you a bit of background on me, I guess, and then kind of get into it. So I started working out kind of when I was a teenager on and off I'm 41 now, went through about a five-year lull where I really didn't do much training. And then at the beginning of 2020, throughout my lower back pretty badly. So went for some physio. My physio told me I needed to strengthen my core in order to, you know, prevent future injuries and hopefully make, if they do happen again, not so bad. So started doing some core work.

Then COVID happened. started getting into body weight training and got really into kind of calisthenics for about two years, fairly consistent, working out kind of two, three days a week, picked up running during that time, which I really fell in love with as well. And then beginning of, sorry, towards the end of 2023, kind of got back into the gym, went back to my own programming because I thought I knew what I was doing, which was your typical kind of bro split, three days a week, you know, back by chest tries, legs and shoulders, discovered you guys kind of around spring of 2024, started listening to the podcast, realized I don't really know as much as I thought I did. So I bought the anabolic and performance package, ran anabolic, and I got to tell you guys that at the age of 40, I had the kind of best results I've ever had in my life. So it was awesome. I ran performance after that and really enjoyed it. And then just been kind of running a cycle of maps programming up until now. Currently actually doing symmetry, just about to finish phase three.

I'm really into the bodybuilding type of stuff. So looking forward to the five by five in phase four. But back to my question. So I have three kids. My youngest son was born in April. At the time, I was thinking about doing Maps 15 after he was born, just given everything you guys kind of talk about and knowing I'm not going to have that much time or energy.

But getting six days a weekend just I wasn't going to be able to do, even if it was for 15 minutes. So I kind of ran anabolic, just the two days a week, easy light didn't go too crazy um anyways had some really great results over the past you know two years that i've been following you guys and figured i i tried doing a cut this summer which was kind of the first time i've ever really done like a real cut maybe back in my 20s i would kind of cut out carbs for a couple weeks and and i was good to go um so you know it started tracking my my calories and macros and whatnot i'm a finance guy so i like data like you guys so

I have some data points. I can kick off here. So I got up, so prior I would say to really getting into your programming, I was about 168. I got up to about 185 back, let's say, beginning of June of this year. Clothes still fit relatively well, but I could tell I was putting on a bit of fat. So that 185 mark was my like, all right, time to kind of rain in a little bit. Started really watching what I was eating went from 185 to like 182.4. So that's what I'm kind of considering really my starting point. I estimated my maintenance calories are probably around, I think, 2,800 a day. So I didn't want to do anything too extreme given the stress and craziness of having a newborn baby. So I tried to do a 500 calorie deficit as the cut. So I was aiming to get

2,200 calories a day. I was doing that for about three weeks. And it was just really, Really hard. Really hard to hit that number. I was probably averaging more like 24, 2,500 a day. Try to eat mostly whole foods, try to be smart about what I'm eating. But, you know, eating with your kids and not sleeping and the craziness of life, it was just making it really hard. So after about three weeks, I basically saw no movement on the scale. I was using the SPREN app to kind of estimate my body fat percentage and Sprint tagged me about 19.4% at the time at the beginning. And it was 19.4% again after three weeks. So that was kind of the start of my email to you guys just saying, like, am I just kind of nuts for trying to do this at this crazy time of my life? But there has been

some developments, I would say, since I wrote that email. It's only been three weeks, I know. But I've still been averaging about, let's say, 2450 a day. I've been trying to hit about 150 50 to 170 grams protein a day. So call it 160 on average. And as of this past Friday, I actually clocked in at 178.6. So it was about just a four pound kind of loss on the scale. And then my body fat per the app was 17.3%. So it seems to be moving in the right direction. Maybe I wasn't seeing anything. And then I kind of saw this quick thing. I don't know if that's typical to kind of happen. That's 100% typical, bro. Like, you literally, first of all, incredible job as far as, like, your decisions around your programming, even your decision to go down to two days a week on the anabolic when the kid came, even your attempt of like the 500 calorie deficit and then finding out like shit, that was just a lot or hard to do consistently. And the results you got are exactly that. Like, had you probably been really consistent with the 500 calories or more, you would have probably seen a little bit faster movement. But you didn't. But that's okay. because what ended up happening was over the course of six weeks, you saw it happen.

And it's just like how a child grows is the same way that we can we lose body fat. Sometimes you'll just be, you'll do everything right. And it feels like you're just kind of hovering. And then all of a sudden, you didn't change anything. But the next week, you see this nice drop. Same thing like kids. Kids kind of stay the same height. And then all of a sudden, whoop, they hit this gross spread.

The body responds very similar like that. And you're in a really good, healthy, decent place as long as you have the patients. as long as you had the patience of like, hey, I just keep heading this way and I'll slowly lean out over time, probably a better strategy considering where you're at in your life than to aggressively cut or really try and force it to happen any faster. So I think you're doing a great job. Yeah, Michael, the thing to consider as you continue working out and on this fitness journey for the rest of your life, you've got to look at the context of life and what tends to happen

and different seasons. And in a season of having a new child, everybody's fitness declines. Everybody's strength declines. Everybody's stamina and endurance decline. Everybody, because you're just not getting good sleep, you've got more things to worry about, more things to juggle.

That season does end, right? As a child grows up, things get a little easier. So it's like when I'm talking to an athlete, and an athlete is in season, and they're playing hard. Like, Sal, I want to build muscle right now. Wrong time. wrong time.

This is not the season to build muscle. What we're going to try to do is prevent what tends to happen in season, which is injury. And so we're going to look at training to try to prevent injury and try to help you recover from the hard games that you're playing. The season of life that you're in now, all we're going to try to do is keep you from going backwards. Now, if we push too hard and try to push too hard to go forward, you often run the risk of actually overdoing things. because of the lack of sleep and the just kind of lifestyle factors. So consider that as well, right? So right now you're seeing yourself progress,

but be very careful. You don't stay too consistent with the deficit and you push too hard. Yeah. Because it can very easily swing in the other direction. In other words, if someone were to say to me, what's the worst time to try to accomplish all kinds of fitness goals and fat loss? One of the times I would say is right after you have a baby. It's probably one of the worst times to do it.

Basically what I figure. Yeah. So keep that in mind. I mean, that being said, what ended up happening in the way it played out. Actually, it's pretty nice. It's like you kind of naturally felt that. It was really tough to do the 500-callel deficit,

so you had a little bit more, but you still were in somewhat of a deficit because you still leaned out. So you probably did exactly what should have been done for somebody who still wants to lean out, but also is dealing with probably less sleep and a newborn. It's like, you're playing it really well right now.

To Sal's point, I would just caution you to not, okay, keep pushing. Let's go. I saw a couple percent. Let's go lower. us go harder because then like he's saying eventually the bottle will be like you if you're not getting good sleep and you're also low calorie you're just adding more stress to your life and then eventually goes no we're not going to see any more results anymore and so just be be cautious of that

and then and then if and when that time comes I would reverse diet you I'd just say hey you know you're I think you're doing great right now why don't you hang there if it's working well for you and you feel fine and you keep kind of leaning out but then eventually what might happen is you hit a heart plateau and then I say, hey, let's add some calories back. By the way, Michael, as far, I don't know how accurate your body fat percentage app is, but just speaking of body fat percentages, when you look at the data on body fat percentage ranges from fit men that produce the best or that are correlated to the best health and performance, it's between 13 to 17%.

So you're all, you're kind of there. You're in that range. You're at the top of it, but you're in that range of like, if you take a whole group of fit men, the men that tend to be between 13 to 17% tend to be the healthiest. It's also true for athletic performance. About 13 to 17% tends to be when you see good performance. You go outside of that, now depending on the sport, it can be beneficial. But if you start to push beyond 13%, start to go low, low, then you start to see detrimental effects often.

Yeah, I mean, my goal, I mean, it was kind of an arbitrary goal. I just tried, I said 15% was what I wanted to get down to. It was more just seeing what I can do and show off the result, the great results that I've been able to kind of achieve over the past two years. My plan was really just to keep this to the end of August, seeing how low I could kind of go, and then probably go back up to like maintenance and maybe do a ball kind of in the winter.

I like that, too. I like that. I like that too. You know, I want to give you this option, too. I think what you did was great, though. if you don't have math 15 I'd love to send it to you and what you can do is the way we wrote it

you could pair the days up so you know I was actually gonna ask you guys that yeah so and it would add up to a similar volume would you say as two days of anabolic you'd probably be pretty close so what you did is was a great option for someone who if you didn't have mass 15 but what you can do with math 15 is every every day or like day one day two

you could pair as one day day day three day four and you pair as another day yeah that'd be great and so we'll send that over to you and that just to you know change it up a little bit or just so you have that option. And then the week's where you absolutely could go for six days in a row, you can. But for the rest of time, you could pair it up. So we'll send that over to you so you have that as an option. But I think all in all, great job. Yeah, I think what you do is on point. Thanks. Appreciate that, guys. You got it, man. Congratulations a little baby.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I'm looking forward to when I can sleep again. Good stuff, man. Thank you. Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's just the season of life where it's like, I'm playing defense. I'm just playing defense. I don't want to go backwards. Maintain and preserve. And what's funny is that tends to be the season that people try to push harder.

Yeah. And I think, and I see this a lot. Probably because of the cortisol, you think? I think it's, men get real driven too. That's it. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good point.

I felt that too. It happens a lot with men. It's like you feel this responsibility of a new child. I could do it all. So you have this drive for work and fitness and then you just add more on top of stuff. That's a good point.

I mean, I think what he did. did was great though. Even the fact that he was targeting 500 realized how difficult it was didn't do that and then he was rewarded for it. So I think I mean audibles. Yeah yeah. And all the program choices the way he did the two day a week when the kid came. I mean it was all that was all great. Obviously dude listens and pays attention man so smart. Our next caller is Candice from California. Hi Candice. Hi guys. Hello. How are you? So nice to meet you. I'm good. How are you guys? We're great. How can we help you? Um, I can just read my question if that works. Yeah, of course. Okay. First off, I just want to say how much I enjoy

listening to your podcasts. You all have such a great mix of solid information, humor, and honesty. It's been both motivating and educational for me on my fitness journey. A little bit about me. I'm a 35-year-old mom of two boys, and I work full-time as a respiratory therapist, despite a busy schedule. I've been working hard to improve my strength and lose some fat. Your podcast has been a huge help in keeping me on track and making smart training decisions. I have two questions. I'd love your input on. Number one being reverse dieting.

I have been reverse dieting for a little while now and I feel like I need to start increasing my calories, but I'm not for exactly how much, how often, or when to make those calorie increases. Are there signs I should be looking forward to? to guide the timing or size of the increases. And then secondly, grip strength for my dead lifts. My lower body seems to be able to handle more weight, but my grip is giving out before I can finish my set.

What's the best way to improve my grip strength so that I can keep progressing in my lifts? Awesome. Great questions. All right, so reverse dieting, a lot of it is your comfort level. A lot of it's really based on you. It's like, okay, of course you can go too high with the reverse diet, you know, adding 1,000 calories to diet, might be excessive.

But it's going to be, so most of the time when I would reverse diet someone, we would go like 100 calories at a time. Sometimes 150, 200 if they were really low. Sometimes as little as 50 because they're really apprehensive. So it's going to be based. A lot of it is on your comfort. I wanted to say, though, you could go as high sometimes as 200 to 500. Yeah, you could. I mean, it depends how low it is.

And it depends on how, like, here's a thing. you, if you go from, let's just use some, I have no idea where your numbers are, but let's say you are somebody who only ate 1,300 calories, I can, and I bumped you to, you know, 500 calories. You're going to feel that a lot. And doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. It's just that you're going to definitely put some weight on. But we're probably going to build some muscle for our training correctly and you can be okay.

But the comfort level for the average person to add 500 calories when they only eat 1,300 is like, whoa, this is a lot. This feels a lot. I feel full all the time. I'm holding water. and they freak out. So to Sal's point, it's like, depending on how you are with that and okay with that, like if you're embracing it, and then I've had other female clients in mind that it's like,

let's do this. I trust the process. I know what you're talking about. Like, just I'm not going to care about the scale. I'm going to go get strong. And I'm just going to keep adding calories. You can do that. And so it has a lot to do with that, how that is.

Like, where are you at calorie-wise right now? And is this the first time we've ever tried to reverse diet? What's the relationship look like with food? um so like five years ago i would i'm five 10 um i would eat like a thousand to twelve hundred calories and i just didn't know any better and i started seeing a clinical nutritionist at the time and so she was like oh we need to reverse diet you so i was pretty scared because i was going from eating like a thousand to 1,200 calories to eating 1,800. Yep, yep.

And I was thinking, I'm going to get fat. Like, I'm going to gain more weight. And I was trying to lose baby weight for my first son. And I ended up losing 10 pounds in the first month and gaining a lot of muscle. And then I had another boy in 2023. And I've just been struggling since then. but I've been on 1,800 calories for, like, the last few years. And I think I need to increase my calories because I'm just, like, out of plateau.

I feel like I've gained a lot of muscle, like, over the last few years. But since my last son, like, I haven't been able to lose much fat. Candace, do you feel comfortable adding 200 calories? Probably, yeah. Let's do that. Yep. Good place. Yeah, go to 2,000 calories, stay there for a little while.

And then when you feel comfortable again, you can go up another 100 or 200. But I think 200 calories will be a good jump for you. I also would love, if you're not already in our private form, I'd love for Doug to put you in there. That way, as you go through this process, you have us there. So if, like, you have questions, like, you can just hit us up in there and we could kind of guide you through that process. But 200 and go lift some heavy weight and get stronger than what you already are, like, that's going to be the path for sure. Let's talk about your dead lifts now. What kind of a grip are you using double overhand? Are you using alternate, hook grip?

Alternate. I have one forward and one backwards. Does that make sense? Did you do that from the very beginning or do you switch it like once it gets heavy for you? I start like that. And how much are you pulling off the ground when you start to get the fatigue and the grip? I usually do Romanian deadlifts and I do four sets of 10. of 105 pounds. Oh, wow. Do you ever do conventional deadlifting

where you set the bar back down? No. Oh, man. Well, that you're going to less reps. Yeah, holding on. That's hard. I mean, that's hard for me. 10 reps is a lot.

10 reps hold on to, you know, 150, 200 pounds. That's a lot. That's a lot. That'd be hot for me. So you will see a huge difference to do a conventional deadlift where you set the bar down. It kind of lets you reset your grip every rep. And then you'll be able to, oh, yeah, Are you looking for hamstring or glute work with that?

What's the goal? I just want to really develop lower body. Doing lower body is my favorite over anything else. Does that mean you're not? Yeah, I work on my quads, glutes, and hammies all the time. Does that mean you're not following one of our math programs yet? I don't have any of your programs. Oh, wow.

Okay. How many days a week you're working out? What's that? How many days a week are you working out in the gym? Right now I'm three to four I'll do two days of lower body And then one to two of upper body Bro Mass Anabolic

Yeah we're gonna send you MAPS Anabolic That's it's an easy solver That you're okay This is exciting actually Okay because You add the 200 calories With Maps Anabolic You're about to see some serious

And you go to conventional deadlifting And you're gonna see your weight Go way up as far as your strength And then that's gonna pack this muscle on So those extra 200 calories As and Hamsters Phase one's gonna be great for you Yeah

Okay. Thank you so much. Just one more question if I can. When you're adding the 200 calories, how do you know where to add it? Like should I add it to protein, carbs, or fat or a little of each? Do you consistently hit your protein already? Always. Okay. So if you're good there, then you go ahead and divide it up how you like. Whatever you want. Cards or fat. It's up to you. Yep. Okay. Yeah. How many grams of fat are you eating a day? Right now I'm eating about 65 to 70 Yeah you're fine It's up to you yeah whatever you Taylor to your performance I would say Exactly whatever makes you feel best

Some people like a little more fat I asked you your fat I asked you your fat and take Because if it was too low I was gonna have you bump your fat Oh yeah But if you're feeling If you feel better with more fat

Go for that If you're feeling better with more carbs Go for that Try playing with both I love like I have a client like you That we had to bump 200 calories You know for one week I'm gonna do it all through like fats

And then the next week I do it all through carbs and then I do a mix of half and half, and then I ask you, like, how does that, how do you like that, mixing it up in your diet? How do you feel when we work? And ask yourself those questions, because either way, fine. But really what I want to know if I was your coach is, like, how you like it in the diet, consistency, how you feel, all those things. So, play with each of them. I'd say give it a week of each, right? So do a week of, like, just adding fat, and then do a week of just adding carbs, and then do a week of a mix, and then ask yourself what you like the most, and then stick with that.

All right. Perfect. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I'm excited for you. When you get on anabolic, we bump those calories. You're going to see a huge difference. It's going to blow your mind. Yep. Yep. I'm excited. Thank you so much. I got it. You know what I like about? I can't wait to see her results. Oh, she's going to blow everyone away. You know what was cool about what she said is when she would chronically eat, what she said, 1300 calories a day? Yeah. Lost 10 pounds of the first month. Yeah. That happens sometimes. That's why I wanted to make, I know you made the point of like 20, which is the right, is the right, because obviously some people are freaked out, but it's like, man, some people can add 500 and just it's what they needed and their body responds right away. If they can get past the psychological piece. So obviously she had been through that situation. So it was a great conversation for the audience to hear. Let me tell you, and I've had some of my, I'm glad this happened because I've actually had some of my family and friends before. People know that deadlifting is so good for the hamstrings in the butt and so they do it. But a lot of times they do. But a lot of times they do. Romanian all the time, which is a great movement.

Yeah, nothing wrong with that. But you're limited on how... It's basically accessory compared to conventional. Yeah, but it's also the rat. Are you doing 10, 12 reps? Yeah, I don't care. Tinging on your grip. Yeah, you ain't holding on to very much weight. I mean, I'm not holding on to very much weight. Setting it down makes a big difference. When I was doing that many reps for that kind of an exercise, it was good morning. And she was she said, she was at 100 and what was she done? Five pounds.

So if you can do 10 reps holding on the bar for 105 reps, she's going to push over 200 in a conventional deadlift. Yeah, yeah. And her pushing over 200 of conventional deadlift is going to pack on muscle like she's never seen before. So exciting. Our next caller is Daniel from Georgia. What's up, Daniel? What's up, Daniel?

Hey, guys. I appreciate you all taking your time. You've been very instrumental in my sobriety and mental health journey over the last 10 years. So it's cool to kind of be able to talk to you. But I'll get into kind of my question. I've been a firefighter paramedic and a flight medic for 23 years and been in the Army for 20 years. Performance-wise, I'm 42.

Performance-wise, I still do pretty well, like on our ACFT test, stuff like that. About the last two years, I've been struggling with the typical hormone balance, blood work, balance, diet. For some odd reason, I put on about 40 pounds with no major changes. I don't do dairy, no sugar. I don't drink, obviously. Like all the normal stuff. So I had some recent blood work done. My triglycerides were high.

Borderline A1C, HDL was low, and a couple other that were off. It's kind of a two-part question, but what would you prioritize nutritionally and in training to improve metabolic health without furthering my gut issues and tanking energy so I can perform at the level that I've expected? Okay, Dana. Let's break this all down. So you have some, you wrote in some stuff in your question, if you don't mind me going through some of your email. Okay, so you said you're recovering addict. I see where your current body weight is. You're following some of our programs.

So MAPS Antibolic Mass 15 performance. Which one of our programs are you following now? I just restarted MAPS Anabolic last week. And you're doing Jiu-Jitsu two to three days a week? Yes, sir. Okay. And then you're currently on TRT, testosterone? yes sir i'll take about a hundred a week okay the rest of your blood the rest of your hormones how's

your thyroid uh is your thyroid okay they were yeah all the blood work was normal um other than my lipid panel okay and then you you had uh you had mentioned gut health issues tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, I call it Giardia in Yemen back in 2010. I was deployed, and I've just, I've dealt with severe gut issues for 15 years now. So I can't eat any bread, dairy, anything with like vinegar stuff. My body just doesn't digest it real well. Have you been tested currently for parasites in SIBO? Yes, sir. It was all negative.

I've done a few parasite cleanse in the past. But my only diagnosis was just diverticulitis with IBS and a couple other things. Okay. And then current diet, walk me through that right now. Do you track it? Do you have, can you give me some details? I eat anywhere from 22 to 22 to 20. 2,800 calories a day, mainly chicken and ground turkey.

Those are two, like, the proteins that don't mess with me. I try to stay away from pork and red meat, obviously, just because of all the issues. On average, about 50 carbs a day, and I don't, I stay away from sugar. And I try to balance. I've been having issues trying to. balance the proteins and fat. But it's hard with my gut issues to get to why I don't just feel like I'm, you know, dying over 2,200 a day.

Okay. And then with the gut issues, have you worked with a functional medicine practitioner or are these your medical doctors? This is all through the VA, like Western medicine. I'm trying to kind of branch out more just because it's just the same. dog and pony show with the GI world. Yeah, I would like you to work with a, what I would recommend is you work with a functional medicine practitioner to get the root of what's going on.

It sounds very frustrating. And on paper, it looks like you're doing a lot of the right things. That sounds like there's an underlying root cause that hasn't been identified yet. And I like functional medicine practitioners for that very reason. We can invite you into our functional medicine wellness forum. and I believe what's the name of that? MP holistic health. MP holistic health on Facebook.

So I would have you get on there. And I also think you should reduce your training volume. Okay, I'm glad you said that. I was like, that's the other thing with all this gut issues. And then if you're doing jihitsu three times a week and all of anabolic, I mean, I would reduce anabolic down to one day a week or MAPS 15 is probably more appropriate. Yeah. For someone like you, I like MAPS 15 and then you can keep up your Jiu-Gitsu.

Otherwise, I would cut out the Jiu-Jitsu and just stick to MAPS anabolic for a little while, until we start to figure out what the root cause is. Some of the things you mentioned in your email was like swelling. You said swelling in the face, for example. That can be indicative of parasite. Sometimes they're hard to find. They can hide. Functional medicine practice has really good tests that can help identify that.

It could also be autoimmune, which we would also want to take a look at with that. And then your diet sounds fine, but the gut. health stuff is either at the root or is one of the main symptoms of something else that we haven't identified yet. So that's where I would start as functional medicine. And what I want you to do is post that question in that forum and see what answer you get. And then if you end up working with Dr. Cabral's team, I know they're very comprehensive with, you know, trying to try to work with mysterious symptoms. Okay. Yeah, I did that, I did the genetic testing part of just trying to chase this kind of rabbit, but like I said, it's hard, but still being on active duty, you know,

and trying to keep up physically, obviously, and I'm getting older. So you would just drop down to one day a week. Or the Mass 15. Or Mass 15. Mass 15 is probably more appropriate. I like Massifteen even better. Or you're just doing two exercises a day, so you're still getting your strength training. I'd also ask you to do your best on how you feel to try and modify your intensity.

So if you know it's like one of those days where your gut is just off and you're not feeling it, that's also the worst day to go in and kill it in the gym. Like that's where I'm like, all right, back off a little. How do you feel when you fast? Better. I started doing intermittent fasting last week. Like I said, I've just been kind of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. you know, but I started eating around 10 in the morning and then six cut off at six at night

and felt a little different. I don't do caffeine or anything, like any stimulants. And obviously, you know, and I've got a newborn at home. So I feel pretty dead most days anyway. But how would you all, and kind of the second part, how would you balance the macros with you know energy and weight and um you know lipid panels and things of that nature yeah because you've got to figure that out because on paper your diet sounds okay with him being kind of lower carb carbohydrate like he is would he be like you know

something like the ketone IQ like supplements like that would that benefit him energy energy wise because he may but also may hurt his gut yeah we got to figure out what what's causing the gut issues right now. And you're going low-car because low-car probably feels better to your gut, right? It does, and I can't, like, I can't have any gluten. I know I always hear you talking about your issues with dairy. If I eat any dairy or glue, I break out and weird, right?

Like, it's, it's wild. And I was told through the VA that it, when I caught you already overseas, that I may have brought back some other type parasite. And it just kind of. re-tavoc. So, I mean, I feel like I almost starve myself, but if you look at me, I mean, I've got the typical dad bod gut for some reason. I carry most of my weight up around my chest, my gut. Yeah. You know, so it's just super frustrating. You said you did a parasite cleanse. What did you do? I've done all the, you name it, we've done it. Everything from the clays, the charcoal.

No. There's a, there was one cleanse I did last year. I forget the name of it. I took, you know, 10 different pills for a few weeks. And even now, after like the genetic testing, I've got the MTHF. Yeah, MTHR. Okay, so here's a deal. Over the counter often, these parasite cleanses don't really kill the parasites.

To kill a parasite, you need, there's certain drugs that you take that would kill a parasite. So clay, charcoal, those are going to help with the symptoms. But parasites are, they're hearty, and they'll stick around. I'm not a doctor, so I can't recommend medications to you, especially not on camera. But what I'm going to have Doug do is he's going to email you a website, and then it's on you. You can decide if you want to try one of the options. This is what you did, right? Yeah.

So I'm not going to say it on. on the air. I'm not a doctor, so I can't recommend people do something like this. But to kill a parasite, you need an antiparacetic medication. It's not going to happen with, it's not like CBO where I can do antimicrobial herbs. Parasit will stick around. It's not going to go to the functional medicine practitioner will really help you target that most effectively. I remember when you did this, though, you felt so amazing. Are you kidding me? I fixed my gut health. Yeah. It's fine. It makes a big difference. So I'm going to, I'll double email you the website. And it's, you just look on it. It's on you. So we're not recommending it. You can do it. If you

want to or not. The other thing is go on that forum and see about talking with some of those functional medicine practice. But look, it sounds, there's definitely a root. There's definitely something going on. And it has to do with your gut for sure. And if you don't solve that, all the other stuff isn't going to do anything. Yeah, yeah. All right. Awesome. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much, guys. You got it. Hey, no matter what you do, do it, keep us posted. I'd like to hear how it goes, okay? Yeah. Yeah, send us an email back to you, man. All right. Take it easy, bro. Thank you. Thank you. You got it. that's frustrating, huh?

Oh, what sounds like parasite? Yeah, it sounds very much. Getting rashes and hires. So that all the things he was, so elusive. So all the things he was listing off those were, I know for charcoal is just like symptom shit. They're not going to kill them.

That's just an absorb shit. That's not going to, you know, you can do pumpkin seeds will help paralyze them, but then they come back. Like, there's, there is natural anti-parasitic substances. Like, I mean. Well, even if you get them, I remember you tell me, too, they leave their eggs. So it's like a.

comes back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you kill a bunch of parasites. You have to do a treatment again like 30 days because then the eggs hatch, you've got to get them all out. But parasites evolved, there's tough. In fact, sometimes you'll do tests, like a stool sample test, and it's like they hide. And you don't even see, but you still got a parasite. And so, no, that's, that's, that was me. And once I, once I treated it with the medication, that was it. My gut health now is fine, which is crazy. Our next caller is Kelsey from Washington. Hi, Kelsey. Good morning.

Hi. How are you doing? Thanks for having me on. You got it. It's still surreal. I love you guys. So you've helped me a lot. I'll ask my question and I'll give probably too much background.

Sorry. My husband says I'm long-winded. The help and advice or the question I'd like to ask is how long you would recommend that it takes to reach muscle growth goals. So I know the body comp and muscle growth. takes time, how long is a realistic time frame to compare to when you might be close to your genetic limit or what your body is able to reach? And then the other tips are advice after I give my background. So I'm 37 years old. I work full time. I've got two kids, five and seven, and I've lost about 70 pounds naturally over the last four years. So the first two years,

I was doing Weight Watchers, and I was eating 1,200 calories and cycling six to seven times a week. So through listening to your show, I realized that I was accidentally a cardio bunny, which was helpful. I started listening to you guys about halfway through an online coach that I had hired for strength training, which was a great starter program. But after listening to you, I realized that what I was really doing was a hit program with dumbbells and not through strength training and not progressive overload. So I kind of hit my cap and started trying to figure out what to do. I looked at purchasing anabolic or muscle mommy, but I really wanted the one-on-one coaching.

That's something I had kind of from Weight Watchers from day one and just needing that accountability. So I found a new online coach through Instagram that focuses on progressive overload, strength training more of like a bodybuilding style and hired her last September. So for 11 months, I've been lifting four times a week, 60 to 75 minute sessions, two uppers, two lowers. Most weeks, I do a fifth full body workout on Saturdays because I just like to move. And then I do three 20-minute cardio sessions a week. I grew my calories with her up to 2,000 a day through December last year. And then I went into a cut, a calorie deficit from January to April, down to about 1550 calories.

And in the middle of the cut in February, I did a dexter scan. I was around 22% body fat, which I lost about 7 to 8 pounds after that scan. And I've heard Sal mention kind of the 20%, you don't like to dip too far below, screwing with hormones and other things. So I felt like kind of in a good range. Ended the cut in April. And in the last four months, I've been working my calories back up to a maintenance of 1925 right now. And I'm extremely consistent, disciplined.

I've never missed a check-in. I think I've missed two workouts in the last year since I started. I eat 145 grams of protein every day, 80 to 90% whole foods, real light electrolytes, vitamin D, creatine, because I love how much you guys talk about that. I sleep great. I hit my water gold. I average about 12,000 steps a day,

except for Sundays with church and rest. And through listening to you and people I follow, I feel 90% confident I'm doing the right things, and I just need to be more patient. but I am really happy with like the progress I've made. It's been life-changing, but I am competitive. I want to push my limits. So I'm just curious to hear from you all.

I've listened to countless thousands of episodes over last year and a half. And you've given me a lot of really good tips and tricks and changes along my journey. But just curious what advice you would have or how patient I should be to reach. I'll tell you what limit you're reaching right now. So first of all, you've done an incredible job. and where you're at right now, everything you've done and what you came from and where you're going. But at one point,

you're only going to build so much muscle on 2,000 calories. You got to keep going. Like, if you want more, it's up in calories. I mean, I'm looking at your pictures right now. You look incredible. And for someone who's taking 12,000 steps a day, training five to six days a week, you're probably at the limit of how much muscle

you're going to build on that body with that low of calories. So if you want to keep sculpting, keep building, it's going to be north of 2,000 calories. And my recommendation would be actually less training volume, like more of an MAPS antabolic program and bump the calories. And I think you're going to see that. You're going to blow your mind.

Yeah, you'll go up. How tall are you and what's your body weight? 5-8 and it way 141, 141, 142. 5-8, 141, working out as much as you do, 2,000 calories is like, it's low. Yeah, at 12,000. steps of day. Still low.

Yeah. Very, totally. And I know it's scary. It's scary to try to go up more. But if you want, you want to see some progress, bump your calories. Yep. You want to see more progress?

Bump your calories and do less workouts. Yep. Those are your two options. Yeah. You could just bump your calories and you'll see some progress. If you just went up to from 2,000 to 2,400 calories, you see some good strength gains doing nothing else. If you really want to see the gains, I would go three days a week, full body strength training, maps, anabolic style, go up to 2,400 calories.

And you'll get some great. muscle. Yes. You'll get some great muscle. How long do you guys recommend for that like ramp up to 2400? Because I mentally, I know that it works and like hear you talk about it. But like physically it's still kind of hard too. I mean, back in September last year when I started eating 1800 colors, I'm like, this is so much food I feel disgusting. And it was it was hard for me. But Adam shared a little bit about your journey of when you were doing like bars and protein shakes versus going to whole protein. And I made that switch in like February this year and that made a big difference. Oh good.

So I've gotten off of a lot of like processed protein. I didn't even realize I was doing. And that's helped. So I think I'm willing to like bump it. I've been thinking I need to like bump it further. But like do you do you recommend like 100 or 200 calories like in a month or like what kind of? I'll give you the ideal, but then it's going to be based on your comfort level.

Ideally you'd go up 400 calories right now. There is no ramp up. 400 is your ramp up. Yeah. Just because of where you're at, how lean you are. your fitness level, how much your strength training. You go up 400 calories, your muscles are going to soak it up. But if you're scared, you can go up 100 calories every other week and you can really

stretch it out. It depends on how fast you want to see the progress and how fearful it's going to be for you. So that's going to be on you. Now, if I was your coach and I was working with you every week and I could be there for you when you get scared, I would encourage you to go 400, but I'm not going to be there for you. And if you know yourself, you're like, man, if I go, 400 calories, I am going to freak out, then you can go up 100 calories and then wait a week

and then go up another 100, wait a week and get yourself up there. I want you to know, the other side of this is way less training, way even happier with your physique. Like, when you get to this place where I think 26 to 2,800 calories is where I'd want to get you eventually, you'll do, you'll have to do half the work. You'll get so strong. And you'll have, yeah, you'll be stronger. You'll have more of the, even more of the, and, By the way, for the listeners that get an opportunity to see you, like, you're in a great place right now. Like, if you just said, Adam, I want to be healthy. I'm like, well, do you like what you're doing?

Do you like the calories? Like, you can just keep doing what you're doing and you're going to maintain a very healthy, great physique. But if you come to me, you're like, I want more. I'm competitive. I want to keep pushing this. Like, oh, there's more. There's a lot more. But it's in Cal, you can't get it there in 2000 calories.

Like, you just have to, you're going to have to get up. All my female competitors, I don't think I had any female competitors that we weren't pushing over 2,800 to 3,000 calories. Competitors. They get on stage, ripped and lean, I have to get them up to 2,800, 3,000 calories. And then in a cut, they're down to 22, 2,400. That's pre-contest cut. That's cutting to get down on stage is where your bulk is right now.

So that's how much, in order for you to get even more muscular, even more built, you're going to have to bump calories. I wouldn't be surprised if your body fat percentage went down with a 400 calorie bump because of the muscle game. Okay. Yeah. So say I start eating 2400 calories. Tomorrow, like, what would you say to, like, have an end point of judging, like, would you say, like, give it a year? Give it six months.

No, no, no, give it a couple months. Yeah, give it two months. Yeah, two months. Yeah, two months of a 400 calorie, follow the program maps. If you stick to the program, I think by the second phase, you're going to be very happy. Yeah, do you have maps at a ball? Okay. I don't.

I never pulled the trigger on it because I was too scared about doing something, like, without a coach handholding me. No, no, no, we'll send it to you. So if you want to follow it. the three-day-a-week version, and you're going to get strong. Like, you're going to hit PRs. You're, and here's the other thing that's good, because I could tell you like to move because you already made the comment of like you do your training and then you come back and do another full of it.

I don't want you to do that. And if you got to move, go for a walk, listen to more podcasts or an audio book. I'm okay with moving, moving, walking, stretching, yoga, mobility, all good. But you don't need any more than three days of Maps Anabolic to build the physique that you want to build. It's there in that. And more work is actually only making your thing harder because you already have a hard time eating enough calories. So if you already have a hard time eating enough calories and then you're doing all this extra moving, you're making my job that much harder to build that physique that you're trying to build. So trust the process. Stay at three

days a week. Eat the 400 calories. I'm telling you, give it 30 to 60 days and you should already see a difference. Yep. All right. Sweet. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. I'd love to hear back too, Frank. Let's have you back on. I think you'd be really excited. I'll have you back on a few months and just see what happened. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. All right.

Kelsey. Yeah. She just sets her calories and her workouts. I'm just bump her. Oh, yeah. Even if she didn't switch to Maps Anabolic, which is ideal, just bumping 400 calories. She's going to go to the gym in a day or two and be like, whoa, I'm so much stronger. Yeah.

And that's the only extra advice is just try and get hell of strong. Focus on that. I didn't, I didn't investigate enough, although she's got a coach now. So hopefully she's not. She's listening to the show. but the other thing that I would be worried about if she gravitates to that hit style and keep it moving, like she's also the client, I have to say,

sit still, rest, three minutes. You've got to sit and you can't do anything. And so if she knows that about herself and she hears this, you know, while you go through Annabolic, traditional, long rest periods. Long rest periods. And you cannot, don't you dare touch that weight

before two, two and a half minutes. Like you've got to give yourself that rest in between to really reap those benefits. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you at Mind Pump Media. 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 Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps

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