Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2701: Lifting Heavy vs. Lifting Light, Which Is better?

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: What are the big differences between lifting heavy vs lighter? (2:35) Training your CNS for change. (21:46) The unliftable man. (28:24) Leverage. (29:47) Kids say the darndest things. (32:42) Coaching your son. (33:52) Learning how to lose. (35:45) The science behind Brain.fm. (37:34) Subliminal messaging. (42:58) Social media platforms as weapons. (45:07) The locus of control. (47:40) Correlation of eating grass-fed meat and inflammation. (49:56) #ListenerLive question #1 – How do I maintain a healthy relationship with food and fitness while dealing with SIBO? (55:13) #ListenerLive question #2 – Do you think the root issue here is overtraining, compromising recovery, or more likely a neurological/sensory driver of these asymmetries? (1:05:11) #ListenerLive question #3 – Should I increase calories even though I’ve been doing this for a year now and continue to bulk, or should I concentrate on cutting still to lose fat? (1:21:16) #ListenerLive question #4 – How much of an impact could HRT (specifically estrogen and testosterone) have on my life, especially body composition and training/lifting goals? (1:30:54) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** 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! ** October Special: MAPS GLP-1 50% off! ** Code GLP50 at checkout. ** Bret Contreras Tempo Hypertrophy IG Video Sal Di Stefano’s Journey in Faith & Fitness – Mind Pump TV Johnny Coulon - Wikipedia Attentional modulation of neural entrainment to sound streams in children with and without ADHD The brain in flow: A systematic review on the neural basis of the flow state Resting state fMRI-based brain information flow mapping Mind Pump #912: How to Change Your Mental State with Music Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX will be main investors in TikTok U.S., sources say Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code 25MINDPUMP at checkout for 25% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic** MP Holistic Health Mind Pump #2690: The NEW DIET Everyone Is Using For Fat Loss Visit Transcend for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer! ** Telehealth Provider • Physician Directed GET YOUR PERSONALIZED TREATMENT PLAN!  Hormone Replacement Therapy, Cognitive Function, Sleep & Fatigue, Athletic Performance and MORE! ** Muscle Mommy Movement Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources   People Mentioned Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram Denis Roberts (@denis_kokushi) Instagram Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc) Instagram Justin Brink DC (@dr.justinbrink) Instagram LAUREN FITZ, M.D. (@drlaurenfitz) Instagram

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out to you. If you want to build muscle and become more fit, there's a couple ways you could do it. Some people say use lighter weight. Lighter weight is a better way to train. Other people say go heavy. Lifting heavy is the way. The truth is there's some truth in both of those. We're going to talk about the hows to do each, what the benefits and the cons are,

what they should feel like, and why you should either lift heavy or light. Let's go. Is this a bit of the debate that's going online and extension of that, the tempo, debate that's going around right now that you commented on? No, no. Because I feel like that you could make the case. But that kind of plays into this, right? Yeah, well, that's why I thought maybe why you were going that direction, because we haven't had that conversation

on the podcast. Brack & Cheris brought that up, right? Yeah, and Sal did a reaction video to it, which I thought was really good. And then, of course, you know, there was a couple people on there that that's not what he's talking about, but I think it was a really good point. And I do think that's a good discussion because I think that

oversimplified that, and I'm sure it aligns with the point you're about to make right now with lifting heavy and versus lighter too. Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start with this. There's value in both. There's definitely value in trying to get stronger with the weight on the bar or focusing on what's called lifting heavy.

There's also value in trying to make the weight feel heavy by going lighter, right? And you'll hear bodybuilders promote one or the other strength athletes obviously typically promote going heavy because they have to, they compete and the weight on the bar matters in the competition. Athletes, they will use both, depending on what they're looking for. So I'll start with one of the first things, which is the feel of the workout or the intention, right? So there's a very different intention when I'm training, let's say, a barbell squat and I'm going heavy versus when I'm doing a barbell squat and I'm going light, when I'm going heavy, I'm not trying to feel muscles working. Now, I know that sounds funny or weird because

obviously muscles are working, but my goal isn't to feel the target muscles. I'm benching heavy. I'm not thinking, let's make the pecs really squeeze and stretch. Let me feel that. It's an overall movement. It's just, it's the movement. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to perfect the movement. I'm trying to fire everything.

I'm trying to move smoothly. And I'm trying to lift as much as possible. This is a very different mindset than when I go lighter. When I go lighter, I'm trying to feel the muscles that I want to work. I'm trying to feel the quads or the hands. hamstrings or the glutes or the delts with lighter weight. Now, the reason why this is so important is because your mindset going into your workout is extremely important and having the right expectation will make the workout more effective.

And so some people like to go heavy and light in the same workout and they have the wrong mentality for one, maybe the right for the other. But I found for myself for clients that I trained, it's like, oh, we're lifting heavy now. I don't want you to, don't worry about what you're going to feel. Let's perfect the movement and the technique. Let's get everything fire. Let's just move the weight with good technique. And then when they're going light, it's like, okay, let's see if we can feel this particular area.

Now, how would you talk about the benefits in regards to, say, hypertrophy? What does each one play a role? Is it the same role? Is it a different role? Does it matter if my ultimate goal is to build the optimal or the most amount of muscle possible? Does one make more sense to the other? Or is it make more sense to incorporate both for sure? Really good question.

And the data shows they both build muscle. But in our experience, I'll tell you guys this, right? Yeah. When you're training someone for the first few years, the main goal is- Very infrequently go heavy. Yeah, well, not only infrequently go heavy, but the goal is to get stronger, right? The goal is to get stronger. Past a certain point, getting stronger doesn't make a lot of sense because the risk versus

reward isn't so great. You've been lifting for 10 years, adding 10 pounds to your deadlift. it might be a little bit more risky. In the very beginning, it's all about technique and form. Probably after a year of training, it's like, let's just get you strong. That's what's going to give you the most paying for your buck. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and is your opinion cycling that through that process or just purely focusing on one,

which to me, form technique is lighter. So, and I remember this with clients, which this was pre, everyone talking about PRs. I always wanted to slow down the tempo. work as work on form because when it's that when it's so new and novel to them moving any sort of weight ended up resulting in hypertrophy and i always thought of it too like no different than teaching a baseball player or a golfer how to swing it's like you would never in their first you know sessions come on harder hit it as hard you can it's just like no let's keep doing this and and focus on technique and don't worry the ball's going to go further you know what i'm saying you're going to build muscle by doing it this way and then when you really hone that in now we can now we can leverage that exactly well even like the russian training protocol it's like for olympic lifters it's very much like centered around lifting lighter weight and really mastering the the form of that skill and then performing it in frequently and see kind of like you know where we're at in terms of your strength capacity but it's just

just constant refining movement wise so that way you just kind of get into the pocket real quick. Well, what's interesting about this, too, is, so you'll hear people say this, right? Like, the muscle doesn't know how much weight you're lifting. It just knows tension. You'll hear people argue this. However, there is a truth that trying to create as much tension with lightweight as you can produce with heavy weight is actually very difficult. It's actually quite difficult. In fact, you'll get people who are experienced who've never really pushed strength, then challenge themselves with strength, and suddenly they'll start to see new gains. because actually forcing yourself to, you know, push or pull something heavy does challenge your body in ways that are hard to do in intrinsic.

And that's that you can't do it intrinsically, but it is very difficult. And then again, back to the client, you know, when I would train a client, it was like, first off, it's always about technique. So I want to be clear. Lifting heavy doesn't mean you throw a technique out the window. If anything, lifting heavy, you better be even more careful about your technique. Yeah, better be on point. But when I would try to climb after a year, when I feel like their technique is solid, there was a nice period there where we're like, let's see if we just get you stronger.

Because I knew if I could add 20 pounds of this lift, like, you're going to see, because you're going to see phenomenal gains because strength is so strongly correlated to muscle growth. Now, I do find certain exercises, you have to load it a little more in order to even make the tape. Okay, when you take, when you guys get ready to do a barbell back squat, The difference when you do 135 versus 225 is night and day difference for me. In fact, my form and technique is better at 225. Yeah. Isn't that funny? It is funny. It's a little bit different.

Now, I know what that is is because once I feel about 200 pounds on there, I'm like, okay, this is a serious enough weight I can hurt. 135, I'm almost lazy the way I'm lifting. It's like, oh, this is so light. I'm just going through the motions. You used to it really pressing you down. Yeah, it's just kind of, I'm just letting the weight take me for a ride. Once I get to 225, there's enough weight on that they go, oh, okay. Yeah.

And then now I'm thinking about it, shoulders are peeled back, chest is high, really bracing the core before I go down, you know, dropping into the hole slowly, like, then also in my form gets much better. Do you find that for any other lifts, or is that really the only lift that's like that? I think there's certain, certain lift. Squat's a great example, Adam, because for me, a heavy squat puts me in better form because my, let's say, ankle mobility is no longer an issue because it's kind of forcing my body into that position. Whereas with a lightweight, it's not enough weight to keep. my heels down, let's say, just to use a crappy example. But also off what you're saying,

like, if I'm deadlifting, like, no weight, it's like, you know, I'm just kind of loose. Yeah. You put some heavy weight on the bar. Something I can handle, but that's heavy. Yeah. I'm tight. I'm very intentional with how I'm moving the way. I think the big thing, too, with this is that they're both valuable. I think they're both very important

for people to train in. The one that can really get carried away that can cause problems for people over time is the heavy lifting, though. I'll say that. You might miss some gains if you'd never lift heavy, but the con of pushing the weight,

especially once you get past a certain strength, your injury risk goes up. Because if you're off by one or two degrees with lightweight, if I'm squatting, the weight shifts a little bit with a 135, it's not going to hurt me. 500 pounds in the bar, the weight shifts two degrees to the right. I'm probably going to pull something or hurt something. So that's another thing that you want to, you know,

kind of consider. Can you tie this conversation into or extend the conversation that we had on Instagram in regards to the Brett Concheris clip? I just feel like in a short Instagram reel like that, you can only articulate your point so far or not a lot of people understand. And I think it's worth having discussion, especially if there's people out there thinking that manipulating tempo is irrelevant. And I just, I strongly disagree with that. Well, so Brett's a great trainer. I want to say that first. He's a really good trainer. So if I pose the question differently to him, I'm sure he would agree. Yes. So the question was, you know, does tempo make a difference with hypertrophy? Well, when you refer to the data, doesn't seem to make that big of a difference.

However, he did say in his reply, one of the biggest things about tempo is when you're more controlled, your risk of injury goes down, which is true. Every trainer knows it. Sure. What's the number one thing that will prevent progress if you've been trained? for years and years and years. Injury. Besides not being consistent, it's injury. Yeah. So in these studies on hypertrophy are like, what are they, you know, 16 weeks long,

follow somebody for five years, follow the person with controlled tempo and the person who's got a faster tempo and see what the difference of muscle gain is. And if everything's being equal, I would bet the slower tempo would build more muscle, mainly because they didn't get injured as easily. Whereas the other person I'd take, you know, weeks off because they hurt something. Yeah, I would argue, too, that especially with compound lifts, is slowing down the tempo helps you start to orchestrate the correct muscle firing sequence, too. I mean, you brought up, like, bench press.

For years, bench pressing, I just, I looked at it. I didn't understand the biomechanics of it. This is well before being a trainer. And I'm just, you know, just thinking push the weight. And if you weren't telling me to slow it down and work on my tempo and think about how I should feel I was going through it, and I just went through those motions. Because at that age, my ultimate goal is just build muscle. So if someone walked out to me,

and that's why I like to have these discussions, because even though I think we all think the world of Brett, it's that some kid comes across that and goes, oh, why am I slowing this tempo down? If it doesn't build me any more muscle, and then they just kind of throw it out, and it's just like, you're missing something that I think is incredibly valuable for getting good at lifting.

Now, take the experienced lifters, put them in a study for 16 weeks. I get the point. I get the point of it. I just think that it's going to get. It's oversimplified. Yeah, oversimpl there's a lot more nuance there that I think just gets like totally just overlooked by making a statement like that, especially when you look at over-emphasizing

the eccentric portion. Let's just say you're doing like straight negatives for that 16 week. You're trying to tell me that's not going to be something different as a result in comparison to like control. Also, too, just having that one-one sort of fast twitch response and what that would build. significantly different with muscle tissue. So I just, to me, I, like, I can't really see his angle with this. Well, it, it, when it communicates inadvertently is that tempo doesn't matter.

That's silly. It's, tempo matters. I disagree. First off, if you want to move fast, you have to learn how to lift fast. Yeah. Okay. Also, if your form and technique isn't perfect when you're going slow, don't even think about moving fast. However, off your technique is going slow, you can multiply times a hundred going

fast. If you got bad technique with a squat with a really controlled tempo, try and squat fast. Let's see how long it takes you before you hurt yourself. So all of it's totally relevant. Yeah, what about the benefits of novelty? So what if for 16 weeks, you always train to one-one-one tempo? Yeah. And then, and, or say even longer, years. That's right. You're always training like that. and we change nothing else, no order of operation, just tempo. And I take that person

who's been training 1-1-1-1-1, and I make them go four-second negative, they're not going to build muscle? Yeah, come on. Of course. And they're not going to build more muscle than that guy or girl

still continuing to do 1-1-1. No other variable to change, but the tempo, I'm going to make the case all day long that that same person will also see growth. More growth than if they just continue doing the one-1-1.

Yeah, and the problem with that, Adam, is that it's hard to do a study like that, right? So we're going to follow people for nine months, and for nine months, they're doing the same tempo. And then this group over here, four and a half months in is going to switch tempos. That's just such a generalized statement, but I can't get behind. I don't either. That's why I want to discuss this, because, again, if I'm young, 16-year-old me who just cares about building muscle, and I hear that, I'm going to messing with tempo anymore. I'm just going to keep doing this one tempo that I like to do and keep just trying to get stronger.

And not saying that I won't still get stronger, and that won't work. but that same kid who does that for two years straight of lifting with a tempo like that I used to do this with clients one of my favorite things to give an advanced lifter who'd been lifting the

tempo change yeah because they never most guys don't do that most guys do not do a four second and so I would take this guy who was a very advanced lifter and he's been stuck at a plateau

for a long time I'd look at his program this is all I'm going to change is I'm going to throw this guy on a four or five second negative and all of a sudden he would build muscle. So you can't tell me. But your point of it being like,

if I was to pick the actual type of tempo that would reduce the risk for injury and extend the amount of potentially you have to build muscle, yeah, sure. Then the controlled slow tempo. But to interrupt that, to your point, would have a dramatic effect in terms of like now building on top of that.

By the way, here's where the nuance comes in. So I love these conversations. and good coaches know this. Again, if Brett were here, it would be a great conversation. I think he would agree too. Well, because he's trained so many people. Yeah. I'll just go to what Justin said.

Yes, in your lifting, if you want to have the longest lifting career without injury, it's controlled. That being said, if all you ever do is lift controlled, you start to lose the ability to move fast or to react quickly in real life. So this is what it looks like. I lift. I've been lifting for 10 years. Everything's controlled. All I do is lift in one. walk. That's all I do. Which is great for health. Not a problem. It's great for health. But then I go

outside and playing with my kids and I need to take off and sprint or I need to jump off a curb or jump up onto something. Suddenly I pull a muscle. What's going on? How did I hurt myself? Well, you've lost the ability to move quickly. Therefore, you injured, maybe you didn't injure yourself in your workout, but did you increase your potential risk of injury in real life? Yes. Yeah. How do I know this? It's personal. I've experienced this myself, but it's also very true. True. I experienced this. Yeah, I went to go, when I was in Hawaii with my family and my daughter asked me

for a foot race and I took a, I mean, I could pull, you know, over five. I pulled 600 pounds off the floor. I'm very strong. I'm very strong hamstrings. I go to sprint, which I never do, boom, pull a hamstring. Why? I never train with explosiveness. So my body doesn't know how to move.

Well, sticking to also the muscle building angle, the, you know, I used to do this also. Again, advanced lifters, but bodybuilder guys that all they used to talk about is time and attention and go real slow they were the only ones that did do the real five second you know negative take that guy and go hey have you ever trained like an olympic lifter you ever done anything explosive you ever done so one-one-one two no why would i do that time and attention rules you don't say oh great switch him over to that builds muscle i mean so to both work both are important to say uh one of them doesn't matter i think sends the wrong message and i understand the context of the real and what they're talking about.

But then you get a bunch of kids now that this reminds me of when we had this conversation about the guys that were shitting on the squat. Right. And it's like, they're promoting hack squats instead of the, you know, oh, in the studies shows that the hack squat produces just as much about it's like,

okay, well, that doesn't tell the whole thing. And now you're just telling this whole generation of kids that don't worry about squatting. You don't need to just leg press away and hack squat away. And you'll be just fine. It's like, whoa,

don't do that. It's also also the other thing, too. We tend to discuss. fitness or let's say strength training with one parameter, hypertrophy. What only builds muscle. Like that's like as if that's the only thing that matters. It's not the only thing that matters.

There's function. There's mobility. There's longevity. All of which also contribute and play a role with hypertrophy, especially if you plan on doing this for more than a few months. Yeah. So, and it's again, like usable muscle. Yeah, dude.

So it's like that, it's like that dumb. God, made me so mad. I think it was Jeff Nipper that was sharing studies on, you know, resistance in the stretch position. So he's like, well, you just need to focus on the stretch position. Because it's only about building muscle

and you're missing this other huge picture here with the whole thing. You're moving people in the wrong direction. So it's not just about that when you're training. You got to think about all the other things, again, especially if you plan on doing this for longer than just a few months. And moving quickly is also important.

for the real world, just like the control is. Especially as you age, too. People just don't consider that. No, man, you lose your ability to jump, which is great. Which is wild. I remember that. Yeah. You don't train it.

It's gone. I'll never forget that day. That's like so the day I jumped out of the back of my truck and I just hadn't jumped in probably a couple of years and thought my knees were going to explode. I just thought, oh my God. That's weird. Yeah. That's weird.

Never been an issue before. It's never happened. But, I mean, it was so good for that to happen to me because, It just highlighted like, oh, this is how this happens. You know, I went from being in my 20s doing a lot of these explosive sports recreationally all the time, all the time. And so I never really had to program it into my programming because it was naturally built into my lifestyle and then just go on a two-year run

where wakeboarding, snowboarding, basketball doesn't happen. And now all of a sudden my body forgets how to do that. It was wild. And yet I was fit. You know, I looked good. But I couldn't do it, you know? And so, yeah. What's the whole point of being fit, right?

Improve the quality of your life. Right. You know, it's funny, I trained to my buddy over the weekend. And he's, you know, he hasn't been consistent with working out. He was an athlete when he was younger, but nice, great guy. I love him, Tim. And we're working out. And he's never had, and I could tell as I'm taking him through this,

he's never had the experience of being coached or trained by someone who knows what they're doing. He's always tried to work out with his buddy. or he tried to follow routine. So as I'm taking him through and I'm walking him through and kind of explaining what's going on, you know, he has that like, you know, it's funny,

I go to work out with my buddies and it would be like, I'd go hammer myself. I'd go just to just sweat and get sore. Meanwhile, I'm taking him through exercises. I'm having him go light, lighter than he's used to. We're stopping the reps

when I noticed a slight deviation as technique. He could have done 10 more reps, but we stopped. And I'm explaining to him. I'm like, look, I'm trying to train a movement pattern in you right now. This is in the beginning. You're just getting started.

If I see your shoulder blade drop a little bit or hike up just a bit, we're done. Yeah. Otherwise, I'm going to start training the... You're going to reinforce bad patterns. Reinforcing the wrong pattern. We've got to get strong in this pattern before we really start to push the intensity. Plus, you haven't worked out, and just what we did is enough to get your body to improve. And you can see him just like, this is way different than what I ever...

It's funny because I feel like anybody, and I guess not like... there's, I mean, I don't even know if you, have you actually, like, try to go, have you done a round of 18 rounds of golf? No. I just did what you guys went. I was going to say, so anybody who's, anybody who's ever thought they'd pick up playing golf, I think, has learned this lesson. Yeah. Is that, unless you actually did it right, which is probably a very small percentage of people that go get the lessons before they actually even get out there. Most people get, you know, hey, you should come with me. All right, all right.

And so you rent some clubs or you just do the thing. And then you go out there and you play and you're like, oh, that was kind of fun. I'll do it again. And then before you know it, you've done it 20 times with no real lessons. and then you actually go, you know what, I'm starting to like this. I'm going to get someone to come give me lessons. And then the guy's like, oh, yeah, we've got to start all over. Your hands are wrong, your shoulders are wrong, your heads are wrong.

I mean, everything is probably harder for that person than the person is never tried. And they'll tell you that. Just like for you. I mean, take a guy who's been lifting with terrible technique for a long time and then unlearn that pattern. And so, yeah, I mean, I think all of us would agree we'd prefer a blank slate to teach good mechanics. I have the best example for this. It's so funny we're going this direction. So this is true.

true, by the way, for everybody watching, listening. This is true for movement patterns with your muscles. This is true for behaviors, because it's all controlled by the central nervous system. Of course, your brain is the hub of this, right? So if you have a trigger or a behavior around eating, like I eat when I'm stressed, I eat when I'm bored, these are the foods I reach for here. I hate myself into getting into shape. This is how I've done in the past, even though obviously it doesn't work because you can't hate yourself in a better health. So I end dropping off like these are all behaviors and patterns and you have to relearn and train them and so i have a great example of just how powerfully the central nervous system can be trained

uh and the example is this and this was you sent me a clip adam of the old school alarm clocks yeah so remember the alarm clock everybody owned in the 90s makes your skin crawl as as you hear it okay the brown one with the red it's brown it looks like wood you get it a wall green for like $4 probably. If I were to play the sound of that alarm right now in any room with anybody over the age of 35. Shockwaves. Immediately, even if you're awake, you feel like, oh, that's the training of the CNS. That wiring exists in your mind because, very powerful, by the way, to be woken up that way to the point where if you hear that sound, it gives you this really strange feeling. No thanks. It takes everyone back to middle school and having to get

up to go to school. You didn't want to go to school. So I remember taking one of those just smashing it. And it's that specific sound. Everybody knows that. Dylan should insert it in this episode. Because my roommate could hit and snooze all the time. And so I just yanked it out and then broke it. Doug, did they have those back then with you?

They sure did. It was like a little bird that actually did something. Doug woke up to a rooster. Yeah. Did you have that alarm clock? Oh, absolutely. Okay, everybody had that one. It was brown, right?

A little brown square thing. Do you know what an old alarm clock was, by the way? Like ancient before that? Yeah, way, way before that. people would have a candle like a steam whistle like the candle

melted all the way down to a certain amount there was a nail there'd be a metal plate they'd put a big candle on it and they'd stick a nail in it at a particular point and when the candle would burn

past a certain point the nail would fall and hit the metal plate and wake them up brilliant yeah that's so cool and they knew just how long it took to

that's brilliant that's actually kind of cool I know probably a much better way to get looking up too but what I was going to say is if you wanted to change your reaction to the sound of that alarm clock,

you'd have to retrain your central nervous system. What would that look like? Well, you'd have to listen to that sound and then something else would have to happen. So you have to listen to the sound and then something cool would happen and eventually you would change your behavior. So this is what happens

when you're trying to change your behaviors around food. And this starts with awareness. Oh my gosh, okay, I'm eating right now. It's because I'm stressed out. I've got to become aware of it. Maybe I should eat differently. Still not easy. Still eating the wrong way.

But you're bringing awareness and eventually start to develop different behaviors. This is, again, a conversation out with my buddy, Tim. I'm like, listen, dude, I said, over the next year, if you and I keep working together, because I'm going to try working with him, what you're going to find, because you're going to stumble the whole time,

just how it works, but over time, you'll find that eating right or healthy in a balanced way is going to feel less and less stressful and more and more natural. And that's really the key to longevity with this. How's his eating? Is he a good eater, bad eater?

What's his deal? He struggles. He struggles with, like anybody. He's not like super overweight or anything like that, but he struggles because of the shame associated. So he'll try going on a diet and then he'll fall off the diet. And he's like, what's wrong with me? Why am I in this garbage?

You know the whole cycle. It's very common. You guys know how many people we worked with were the same thing over and over again. How did this happen? You guys just linked up recently and you're like, I'm going to start training. So he's one of my good friends from the church we go to.

We have a group of friends that we're all doing life together. and really great guy and my wife suggested that he'd be in my series so I actually recorded it oh yeah yeah so he came in and uh I trained him and then also he's like really really good uh with theology super smart guy like so we talked oh cool and worked out in the series and after that i'm like you know I think I'm gonna train him I think I'm gonna have him come in once a week and just help the guy out you know that's nice you dude really cool that's super nice dude I was reading something um and I'm pretty sure you've read the same thing about this old boxer uh that they call the unliftable man.

I read that. Yeah. Johnny, what's it? The unliftable man? Yeah, he weighed like 180 pounds. Yeah, he's not even that, yeah, he's definitely not that heavy. But what he could do was really like, reorganize, yeah, the weight distribution of his body.

He would also place his arm on someone in a particular point, so that the leverage was really hard. The leverage, he was like a master of leverage. I mean, I feel like some wrestlers have this gift. Oh, yeah. You see some guys just, they just know how to put. their stance and where to put their hips to where it's just like...

Muhammad Ali was like twice as size and they couldn't lift them up. He had all these celebrities would try and lift them. Oh, and he'd do this thing with his arm so he would kind of change the leverage and anchor himself.

Put like a pressure point on them or something and kind of diffuse their strength. Yeah, I don't know. Was he any good at boxing too? He'd just get famous because of this. Yeah, he's an old boxer. Old time, yeah. Oh, yeah, I've never heard of those.

It's really cool. Do you look up his name, Doug? Who is it? Yeah. You'll see some pictures. Oh, right there. Johnny Kuhon, is that is? Yeah.

That's the stuff that fascinates me, though, because it's like, some people just really have a mastery over their body in a way that, like, it's not obvious to everybody watching, but then when you're actually facing somebody like that, you know, to have those kind of techniques. See, there's pictures of Muhammad Ali trying to pick them up and stuff like that. They couldn't do it. It's so wild. I was talking with Dennis. You guys know Dennis. Yeah. Roberts.

He was a world-class grappler. This guy competed at the highest levels. Wrestled the Russian bear at one point. Well, he didn't wrestle and wrestle. in wrestling, he actually went and took a seminar by him. Yeah. But so we were having this conversation. Yeah. And I was telling him, I was like, what's the difference between, because he's world class?

And I felt this in Jiu Jitza. I remember thinking I was awesome and I could hold my own and I could beat a lot of guys and then world class guys came in and I was just, I felt like I was just. Like I felt like I was a child. Yeah. I felt like they could have ate a sandwich and beat me up at the same time. It was so embarrassing. But anyway, I asked

him about that and he goes, oh yeah, he goes, when I was a purple belt, Purple Bell is a pretty high level already, right? And he was already at that point, like, kind of world class. He went and trained with Hodger Gracie. Hodger Gracie was a world champion. And he said, when you watch Hodger Gracie compete, he won these, like, world class tournaments,

like the world championship tournaments, and he would do a mount and a front choke, which is the most basic jujitsu move ever. Okay? It's like you're a jab cross. Bro, it's like you're in, it's like an NBA game and someone's just doing a, you know, a layup and just, nobody could stop him.

You're like, why can't you stop this guy, right? And so he would watch these matches and he'd say, I'd see him mount these, these like world champions and they just wouldn't move. And he's like, why aren't you trying to get out? He goes, I went to train with him. He would mount me, and he's like,

I can't move. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, the way he was so precise where how he positioned his body weight and where he placed himself, he's like, I felt like I was glued to the floor. And Dennis is a big dude. He's a giant guy.

How frustrating that I had to be. Oh, yeah. So you talk about, like, you know leverage and movement stuff like that you know that reminds you this is total weird but you just were reminded me of something that I remember the first time this is to the point of like leverage and understanding how to use your body and leverage I mean I remember the first time I tried to massage my wife the same amount of time that she massages me you got exhausted oh yeah like 10 minutes in like 10 minutes in I'm done like I'm significantly stronger than this woman is yet she can

press on me for two hours while also having a sandwich or doing something else, multitasking. And it just blow, and with every bit as much pressure or more pressure than I could apply. But yeah, it's like she would always talk about that. It's all how you leverage your body and do that. And obviously, they probably learn that as they go through their schooling and stuff. But I remember the first time. Yeah, I remember the first time, like, realizing that, like, why can I not? And I understand adaptation, right?

So I understand that, like, okay, there's going to be a little bit of that there that I have never, I don't really do this. So maybe I'll adapt and get better. but it's not just that. There's a huge thing. Oh, no. Massage therapists that don't understand that, don't have longevity.

They end up having injuries. Yes, and that's what she'd say. She said, those are the ones that get hurt all the time, have a hard, or they have to quit after so long because they can't handle it because they haven't learned

how to properly leverage their body. Dude, I took my kids to the Happy Hallow again. I've been going there every week. So he's so close. I can't do what my wife. You found like a dad hack. That's what I was. There's so many dad hacks.

In fact, I was at a playground with my kids and my son's like, chase me. So I'm like, okay. And I do the dad hack chase Where it's like you don't run You just cut them off You just walk but you cut them off

You just go to walk slow You understand angle Yeah so he's like running And I'm like just you know I'm still strolling right Because I don't want to run It's exhausting So anyway

We go to Happy Hallow Which is just Again I can't do what my wife does She can hang out with them at home And have a great time I have to get out of the house If I'm at home with them I lose my mind

So I take him out So we're at Happy Hallow And they have these lemur Exhibits or whatever A lemur? You know lemurs are No no what's that A lemur is like

a, I don't know if, is it a monkey? A striped tail, like a little furry. Oh, okay, an animal. I thought it was like a thing. I was like, what's a leaf? No, no, no, no. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They have like the circular eyes and their stripes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're going through and my two-year-old, she starts going, I like to move it, move it. I like to move it. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's from the movie, Madagascar, dude. Accurate. She was singing it because she recognized the levers. I know, kids are, kids are the best.

It's so funny. So I. was overseen Everett's, like he was doing this test for PE, which was interesting. It's like they make them do like a at home test, not just like physical stuff while they're there. So like it was interesting. He's like having to come up with 10 different stretches and then say which like muscle groups like were part of this stretch. And I'm like, oh, wow. I'm like, oh, excited.

I can finally help you. I'm like, I actually know this. But I'm like, I'm trying really hard not to like give him all the answers. And, like, you know, so I'm kind of, like, coaching him through it. And I'm like, why don't you do something real simple, like, in the doorway and, like, you know, focus on, you know, your pecs and this and that. And so I'm just kind of, like, loosely saying for him what to look up and on his, like, iPad and all this stuff. And this is getting towards, like, late at night. And so I'm thinking he's supposed to, like, take a picture of himself doing the stretch and then kind of, like, highlight what muscle group, whatever.

So I leave him alone. And then I'm kind of getting ready for bed. I'm like, how's it going? and we're almost done with this. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm done. I figured out a hack. I'm like, a hack. What do you mean, a hack?

He's just like, well, so, and then I was like, I guessed exactly what he did too. I don't know why I guess, but I was like, you just took a picture of your face, didn't you? What? He took a picture his face and drew his arms and his legs. And like every one of the stretches, like, you can't turn this in.

This is a test. Like, you can't just hack your way through this. I was so mad He's gonna be an entrepreneur I know I'm like okay cool skill dude Yeah you did like two seconds I'm like no you gotta actually do the movements

I love it when there's an opportunity for me to be able to help my My daughter at school because 99% of time I can't help her She's like I'm just doing like math It's crazy with you I look at it like you're on your own dude Chad GBT that because I don't know what's going on You asked me a while back Sal which This happened this weekend for us You asked me if Max was playing Uno yet

And so he learned Uno this weekend. And so he's like, and he's really, he's good. He's like into it and stuff. And we had a really interesting moment. So we're all playing with the family and stuff. And he's playing with Katrina and came down like the last two cards. And he should have played the reverse card first and then played his final card. And he would have won.

And he didn't play that card first. Katrina won. And like, he started crying. And the whole family was like, oh, they feel bad. And Katrina's like, yes. She was like all excited. And everyone's looking at her all kind of sideways. She's like, this is the first time he showed any emotion about losing.

Because up into this point, you beat him. And he's just like, oh, he's cool with it. Good job, Daddy. And then he's like, ready to go do something else. He doesn't want to play anymore. So everybody, no one of the family understood, you know, because they're like, Katrina. And Katrina is so, you know, empathetic and sensitive and stuff with that. So to see her like, yes.

Yeah. I like that. He's like crying. And so that everyone's like, easy, huh? In your face. Like, yeah, you know, no, no. You don't understand. Like I said, our son has not shown a little, any sort of competitiveness up into this

point, he finally cried over losing for the first time. My wife is all excited. She thinks he's like, thank God there's some competitiveness in there. Aurelius, he can't lose. He's terrible at it. He just gets so mad. He can't handle it. So when I play with him, if I beat him, I have to make sure he wins like two or three

other times. Otherwise, the whole game's over. He's pissed off the whole time. So funny, how different that can be. You know what I mean, he's also younger, so I think as they get older, but your kid's always been pretty good. No, Max has always been like that. Dude.

We're trying to get him talking. to taunt and talk trash and, like, care about doing it. But normally he gets excited when a tie happens. Oh, we both win. That's so cool. No, dude. You're supposed to want to win. So it was pretty funny.

I got some really good studies on Brain FM, by the way, you guys, like really, really good. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. So I pulled up some studies on how it works and what it does. And it's really interesting. So they use, there's the scientific foundation behind Brain FM. So people don't know it's, you listen to music and it's engineered to induce different brain wave states. So it can induce a brainwave state that would match or mirror focus or meditation or sleep or whatever.

So in other words, you can get your brain to behave in a way as if it were focused by listening to certain things called neural entrainment. and the studies on it are really interesting. So there were several studies. Neuroentrainment. Neuroentrainment. So they found that in some of these studies, first off, fMRI studies found that the tracks enhanced sustained attention

in participants with ADHD and the brain imaging revealed targeted activation in the areas you would expect. So not only do the people self-report, wow, I'm way more focused. By the way, the reporting was 20 to 30 percent above placebo, which is significant. Like, there's very few things. Because there's already the placebo effect that's built into everything.

That's right. There's very few things that can give you that big of a, for focusing, that can give you that big. Aside from drugs, right, you take a medication, you can start to get those perceived effects of focus. This is non-drug. It's just music. I wonder how it does, not to get you sidetracked here, but I wonder how it does compare to like an Adderall or... That's a great question. Be interesting to see those compared.

You know, the length of the effect. I wouldn't guess it to be as strong as a pharmaceutical, but boy, if it even, if it even somewhat rivals, it would be really interesting. Well, the test that they were using showed 30% gains in focus metrics. And then the EEG and FMRI provided objective correlates. So it is definitely not just the subjective thing. They're like, they take the test, 30% more focused. Then they look at the FMRI or the EEG, and they're like, yep, the brain is showing more focus. This is crazy stuff.

I remember when Justin was the one that turned me on to the focus side of it. I used it like from day one on the sleep and meditation. And I thought that was great. And I had seen him always using the focus. I thought, you know what? This would be interesting because I've always talked about how I'm not a very good reader. When I sit down and I read. I'm so distracted.

Oh, I get so distracted so easily. And you wouldn't think it's a bit counterintuitive to think play some of this sound. So play noise while you're reading. You would think that would be. But when I saw how well you said it worked for you. for focus. It's like, I wonder if I play that in the background, why I read a book? Huge difference. Yeah. Huge difference. So the FMRI research,

so when you're in a flow state, so people aren't familiar, flow state's like you're in the zone, right? That's what that is, right? And there's lots of studies on this, by the way, on flow state. The military has been heavily invested in figuring this out because... The book, Rise of Superman covers all that stuff. Yeah, so it's like, this is like, top athletes are like this, like, whereas the average person, oh my God, you know, the clock says 10 seconds left.

If I make the winning touchdown, we win. Like, top performing athletes, they become calmer, and their brain goes into a flow state, whereas other athletes tend to have more anxiety and less of that. And they can actually show this. They know what a flow state looks like in FMRI studies. And again, the military is heavily invested in this because they want, like, fighter pilots, or astronauts or whatever. Navy SEALs to be able to, like, can we train this in people, or is it just whatever?

Anyway, the FMRI research shows that they get. a flow state from listening to Brain FM. So it can induce, yeah. That's wild. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. You would think that we would start to use things like that at like schools. Like you would think like it would make sense like.

Well, last time it doesn't like broadcasting it through the speaker. And then I know that wasn't like part of their advertisement of it because they want it in ear. But it really does have an. No, it does. I remember when we first had the, the guy the scientists on the show and he talked about that they, they advocate for the, over. are like set up but i i've played it on my bow speakers in the same room and it i can still if i was a teacher i would 100% have yeah like just playing in the background like just real

lightly while your kids are reading and studying and doing so that you would think that we we know this much there's enough research and support to support it it's like okay why why why are we not do you know why because there are cc stuff yeah dude there are it's like too strong it's too powerful no there are some laws it's an actual effect or there's yes there's either some or some regulations or there's fears that this could become a problem where when you're broadcasting people with it so when you're broadcasting something that shows in an effect on someone's behaviors I believe there's regulations that uh you mean kind of like how we make movies and the news on TV television all time and we influence everybody also like that

well I mean the fear is you're watching a commercial yeah yeah and it's playing a sound yeah yeah that's making you more likely to buy I mean they do that already in grocery stores. They figure that out. They know that that that music that you hear playing when you're strolling through the grocery store is not by chance. Right, but it's not engineered music. Yeah. It's just the kind of music that. Yeah, they find that. Yeah. So I wonder if like a grocery store would get in trouble for playing engineered music. Yes. I'm, I'm almost positive. Really? You can't do that. Oh, interesting. Yes. Because, you know, there's, you know where these laws first started. Somebody, somebody could probably totally get away with that, though,

for a long time. Like, there's no way going around auditing. Imagine if you hacked that and then he had just like random scents You know how like you're Hacked into that Now you're hitting from all these different angles Well didn't you you guys You guys know that the movie

The entertainment industry They were messing around with subliminal messaging Yeah within and that became illegal Remember that movie? Thank you for smoking He talked about it that movie Did they? Yeah yeah you ever see that

That was the guy who lobbied for It was he was the lobbyist for What's the what's the big three the drug alcohol you've seen you've seen thank you for smoking you haven't you i think so yeah yeah yeah and they they were they were pushing yeah well he talked about how they used to do that they show like he'd freeze the screen and there would be like a a cigarette but you don't see it in real time so why the movie's going you can't get a cigarette yeah you can't see it flashes it's just flashes in there and but our brain picks it up yeah they made that but the average person who like

when you're watching it in real time you don't see it until they they slow mo it and then you see Oh, my God, a cigarette came up on the screen. Do you know what movie? They don't do it to sell anything, so not doing it subliminally. But there is a movie. It's a cult classic, great movie. One of my favorite movies.

That's a great movie. They live? No. No, no, no, no. That's it. Anytime I say Colt Classic, that's where we go, huh? That's a great one. No, this is a good movie that has things flash in the,

and people who love this movie have gone back and found them. But there are flashes of... Oh, wait. Tyler Dirton. You're talking about Fight Club. Fight Club. Oh, I was going to say, Fight Club did it, too. Fight Club does that.

Yeah, yeah. So you can actually find that. You'll be able to find where, when he's talking or whatever, Tyler Gordon flashes on the screen. I've done that. I've watched it again. And, like, you could see a lot of cool, like, subliminal stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they made that illegal.

So I think that's why Brain FM can't say, play this on your speakers. Meanwhile, we can get propagandized everywhere else. Yeah, that's what my point was. We do it just fine with everything. Get assaulted by everything. Oh, my God. Speaking of Pr, I don't know we're going to go here, but I don't know what this means, but I love the conspiracies around it. Yeah.

So, remember, TikTok was owned by Chinese companies. Yeah. And they're like, you know what? Someone else has to own this. Otherwise, we're going to ban this. Yeah. So now Israel bought it. And... The next best thing? Well, I know that... How did they buy it, though? Like, who owned it at that point?

Yeah, I don't know. Look it up, Doug. This is so mysterious to me. But I know the president of Israel came on and he basically, I mean, he said in his words, like, this is one of the most powerful weapons. Now we own it. Yeah, literally called it a weapon. Like, this is like, we're going to weaponize... You should pretend. This fight. It's like, wow, dude. Okay.

Well, he's right. He's 100% right. Not that is nefarious or anything, but he's right. Like, social media platforms are the most powerful weapons for changing or altering or influencing public opinion that we've ever seen. Well, it seems like they actually didn't buy it according to this. Oh, really? Yeah, so that might be... Doug just fact-check you.

Yeah. Misinformation. Who bought it, then? I don't know. Let me see. Wait a minute. Who owns Google, Doug? No, I mean, there you go.

It's out there. I mean, I'm pretty sure that a company. I saw it. But who knows TikTok and we believe it now? It could be completely false. It's complex. That's funny. TikTok's ownership is complex.

Is that what it said? Really? Yeah, but I still want to know, like, who absorbed TikTok after they banned it from China. But why did you come out and say that then? Why did the President of Israel come out and say, like, hey, this is one of the most powerful weapons? I don't know. So it's a quick consortium of investors. So they may be one of them.

I don't know. Like they're a big investor now. Would you say consortium? Yeah. What is that? It's like a group. Just a group. It's a nice way of saying a group.

It's a fancy way to say. We're a consortium in here. Yeah. We're a consortium. Well, I mean, look, it doesn't matter who owns these things. There's always special interest. It doesn't matter. You're right.

It doesn't matter. There's still going to be money that's manipulating it one way or the other. You know what I'm saying? Someone else has a best picture. And you are more easily manipulated. This is a fact. This is a psychological fact. if you're scared. If you're scared, you're easier to sell, too, you're easier to manipulate,

move around. So it's in the best interest to keep you scared. Just all social media is like this. That's just human psychology. What are you reading there, Doug? So Israel is not a direct investor. However, the purchasing group includes American billionaires known to be staunched supporters of Israel. Oh, that's why. That's why they said that. Okay. It's less, less conspiratorial. but yeah you brought up psychology i actually just had listened to this really good conversation you know that roughly 40% of our happiness is determined by our intentional activities that are direct correlations between the ratio of which things happen to us so things you do intentionally

versus there's actually a ratio so if you if you go about your life believing that everything happens to you and you don't control anything one of the and and therefore you're miserable life sucks you're once you get to the place where more things in your life happens and because of you because you did something and it can be small actions that you take place when that ratio becomes higher than the other way around happiness occurs so they actually have a direct correlation to that

which is why we've had such great success when somebody's depressed or something like that with working out why it's a controllable action they do I can go to the gym and go lift weights on top of all the other benefits yeah on top of all the that exactly and it's it's one of those steps and you can and the goal is to make a bunch of these

incremental things so that a person that is going through this depression because they feel like everything happens to them. They can start to say, well, actually, I got up and did this thing. I controlled that. And then I went to this other thing. That's another thing.

And then I did this, even though there was these two really bad things that happened to me, I actually have four things. There's a locus of control. Yeah. And they find that there is a direct correlation to the ratio. So once that ratio, like, exceeds like 50% of the things, you are controlling or happening to you that the happiness curve flipped.

Wasn't there a study on, it was like a prison study where they gave the students, more autonomy versus less. So they felt like either they were being controlled or they had some autonomy. And the difference between the students and how they felt. Yeah, I don't remember the study.

So they were showing that because they had more autonomy that they were happier? They felt like they had more autonomy. Because they had more control. More choice. I mean, that kind of highlights that point. Which, by the way, one of my favorite quotes

is none are more hopelessly... The illusion of choice. Yes. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. this is the argument for free will versus Yeah like we have a like two party system And so like I get to choose which party

And then people on you know People on the outside are like It doesn't matter who you choose Because they all kind of do the same thing But you feel like you're more in control Because you feel like you picked One side or the other That's funny

I have now noticed a clear difference Because I've gone now for a long period of time Without eating grass fed meat Versus eating grass fed meat For sure for me me, there's a higher rate of inflammation when it's not grass-fit. Did you-all- So are you coming off a run right now of not getting a lot of grasswood? Oh, okay.

For sure. You did look fatter this last couple of weeks. I think I made a point to tell you that today. I see you eat a pound like just before even breakfast. It's like second breakfast. Yeah. No, I probably eat about a pound and a half of red meat a day, maybe two. But do we really think that's why you didn't, that's why you didn't, that's why you

didn't win the hanging from the bar competition was that there's all that inflammation. That's what I blame for. Your fingers were all... Full of water. Your face is full of water. Oh, come on, dude. I know you see Justin out there practicing all kinds of other challenges now. Are you doing that?

He sent it to the editing team. He's like, hey, what are we doing? Let's do a real, let's do a real manly challenge. This is bullshit hanging. Yeah. Oh, you can hang me. It's so bad. You know why he's mapping?

Who can read the longest? Because so many people were let down because everybody had Justin as the, the, like, clear-cut litter. And so now he feels like he led everybody. I think that's what it was. It's totally that. Everybody was, like, banning on me. And I was like,

nobody thought I was going to win. I never said I was good at hanging. I don't know. Yeah. It's not my thing. You let a lot of people down, dude. We're adding salt on it, dude.

First of all, there's, there is leverage, there's body types. Justin's, yeah, he's got a heavy bottom. He's got a big old heavy bottom. It's not, it's hard. I didn't weigh myself until, I hadn't weighed my. And I'm heavy. You did your heavy cakes. bro I did not

I did the same weight I went home again and I'm like that can't be right are you are you I was in my I didn't pull my bathroom scale out

in over a year and just I didn't care to get on the scale and I didn't feel like I was that heavy but then Justin got on I got on right behind him and then the thing

didn't move I'm like wait a second here because typically when I when I'm not my training volume isn't high and I'm not hitting calories and protein so with that

I have like what I think the worst case is I put on a little bit of body fat and worse I lose a bunch of muscle and so but I typically go down and wait.

What did you think you were going to wear? 220? No, I would have thought 2.15. Oh, my, you were 15 pounds off. Yes. Yes. And then, you know, at once I knew, then it started to add up, like, oh, that's why the shirt feels like that.

It's wild, though, like, what a difference it makes knowing versus not knowing. Just not knowing. I was totally oblivious to it. And then I was like, that's, are you going to go out of time now? Are you going to do you know, I definitely laid off the ice cream. You know what I'm saying? I was just like, I got to least a way. Maybe that's what ice cream every night will do for a couple of weeks.

No, hold a second. I know, this is what happened. That's why you were in your getting effort in the gym. You had your headphones on. You were doing full session? No, last week was the first time I trained four times in a week. Yeah. I've trained four times in a week.

And I don't even know. I trained a bunch of last week. Yeah, I trained four times last week. I got under my skin. Definitely. Yeah, he got me too. I was like, okay, I can't. I can't lose the hanging thing and be overweight.

It's like, you got to get some shit together. Damn, that week. It's just one movement, Justin. I don't like it. Listen, just so everybody knows, you know, everybody has different personality. If I really want to mess with Justin, which I'm kind of doing a little bit right now. If I talk crap to Justin, it's better than if I try to empathize. That makes him feel worse.

Like right now, I'm like, man, you're strong, bro. You're doing okay. He's so bad right now. Shut up. Well, it makes you feel better. I think Sal and I lost the other competition, which was the scream one, who would die first. Oh. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you and I were a close one of two. Oh, why would I die first? I know, I was one. I thought you for sure would be... Why would I die first? You're scared of everything. Yeah, but you're not capable. You don't even know how to wash your laundry or do anything like that.

Is he going to murder you? Yeah, but that's being capable. He was not capable. You wouldn't do it, you know what I'm saying? I don't know. I don't know. Didn't you have, like, a samurai sword for an intruder? I did, bro.

A little time ago. Yeah. Yeah. It was me and you, though, like neck and head. You would die first because, not because you're not capable. You're deadly, but it's a guy with a scary mask, bro. You be, ah! Dead.

Yeah. That's fair. Or I would be so, you know, you guys wouldn't see it coming. I would be like, I hurt something. I know something. Or see that mask and I'm out of here. I'm not even going to wait to see. You guys might wait around.

For sure, Doug would be last. He would survive. That's what I think. Because he could hide? Yeah, because he's scurry. He said he could hide it. Scurry real. He's like a rat.

Yeah. He'd run between his legs. Sneak attack. I mean, if he had to hang from somewhere, he'd be good. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Yeah, just it would be second because in that position where you're laying in your stomach, he ended up stabbing Justin in the glutes.

There's so, so much hide there. The knife would be embedded. Like, ow, turn your own. It's done. But anyway, yeah. But definitely, you, Adam. Seed is the world's best probiotic. If you know about the benefits of probiotics, like better digestion, less inflammation, better skin.

fat loss. It's true. Studies show probiotics can enhance fat loss. Go with seed. Again, the world's best probiotic. Go to seed.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code 25 mind pump. Get 25% off your first month's order. Back to the show. Our first caller is Lexi from Canada. Hi, Lexi. Hey, Lexi. Hello, hello. Hey, how's it going? Thank you guys so much for taking my question. You got it. How can we help you? Okay, so I'm Lexi. I'm a full-time trainer. I take client in person and online, and I specialize in newly postpartum and breastfeeding moms. My business has really taken off in the past year or so, and I credit a lot of that to you guys. The way you guys educate is really inform my perspective and the way I train people,

the way you talk about the importance of strength training, fat loss versus weight loss, overtraining. These concepts are so relevant to my work with postpartum moms and really my ability to communicate and articulate these concepts. I feel like a lot of that has come from you guys. So I just wanted to thank you for that because I feel like I owe you a lot of my success and it's really had such a big impact on my business, my life, and ultimately my family's life. So thank you for that.

Oh, thank you. That's great. Okay. So my question is actually about me and it's how do I maintain a healthy relationship with food and fitness while dealing with SIBO. Obviously, I'm a trainer and nutritionist and I'm finding this really difficult as almost everything triggers me. I've been able to maintain a good relationship with food through years.

of bulking and cutting and building my physique, but this is really throwing me. So I'm just wondering if you have any advice. Okay, great, good question. Are you, did you get diagnosed with SIBO or is this a self-diagnosis? No, I did. I'm working with a natural path and I did the lactilose breath test. Okay. And so now you're on antimicrobials or using a prescription antibiotic?

So she suggested, because I've been dealing this for about 10 years, she suggested doing a hybrid approach of both the microbials and the antibiotics. So I'm doing both. Oh, great. How long have you been taking those? I'm just starting, like right now. I just came from the gastro, actually. Oh, awesome. And then did you get tested for parasites? I didn't. No. Okay. I would also suggest getting tested for parasites. It's relatively, it's way more common than people think, especially if you've never treated yourself for parasites. So I know we live in, you know, Western societies, everything's clean. So it's like, you know, well, parasites are not that common.

But, you know, if you've been on Earth for a while and you've been eating, and you've eaten things like sushi or raw foods or vegetables, at some point in your life, it's common enough that you may get a parasite that it probably makes sense to test for it at the very least. And parasites can cause conditions that promote SIBO. Okay, so they can change things like gastric emptying and all of that. And so, and what that would look like is you would treat SIBO and you would get a little better, but then it would get a little worse. So I would just talk to them and say, hey, does it make sense for me to also test for parasites? I think if you test positive for one, then you should probably test for the other just to be sure.

That being said, you just started the SIBO protocol. And if all you have is CBO, which is also, it's probably, it's probably just CBO. So I don't want to freak you out by the parasite thing. Yeah. It probably is just Cbo. When you treat for CBO, the success rate's pretty good. So it's pretty good. Now, while you're treating it, you may get a little bit of a Herczheimer effect.

Are you familiar with that? Is that like the die off? Yeah. So when you start, you kind of get worse before you get better. This is when you get this massive release of toxins from the die-off. And so you start to kind of feel crappy. So be in communication with your practitioner because sometimes what they'll do is they'll lower the dose or whatever. But if you're just starting to treatment now, the light is at the end of the tunnel for sure.

Yeah. Just keep in mind that once you finish the treatment, then there's a healing protocol. So it's like, because sometimes what happens is like, oh, my God, I'm better. Yeah, you're like, oh, I feel great now, you know, because I've did the treatment and I think sometimes like 45 days, 60 days or whatever. And then you're like, cool, I'm going to go back to doing this other thing and the gut hasn't fully healed yet. And you can kind of throw yourself a back. And sometimes you need to treat SIBO two times or three times in a row. But super common, very treatable. Very treatable. What are the must, must do or don't do during this time as

far as, like, training, diet, those things. Is there any, like, must don't do these things during this process? Yeah, I mean, you're, you treat yourself with your exercise and diet like you would if you're getting over an illness. So this is not the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the time to push and hammer yourself.

Yeah, I did end up. I just started doing, just because, like, I found the only thing that was really helping with my symptoms was, like, either fasting for long periods, which is not something I recommend for my clients, but I was just kind of desperate. It was the only thing that helped my symptoms. So I noticed that I had to, like, adjust my training anyway. So I switched to MAP Strong, which I've loved. I feel like I just went really low weight and just focused on, like, the skill of learning the exercises.

And it's been amazing. So would you suggest, like, just continuing with that? If you feel great, go for it. Yeah. If you feel good and you're progressing, it sounds like you're adjusting the intensity appropriately. I'd say go for it. Okay. Yeah.

But yeah, light is at the end of the time. tunnel. Sebo super treatable. Yeah. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. The success rate's pretty high. So, and again, I would contact them and say, hey, I'd like to also do a parasite test just to be, you know, sure. Because if you get rid of your sebo, the parasite will cause it to come back just because of the way the body gets affected. But again, at the end of this, once it's all solved, you're going to feel like a completely new person.

But personal experience, Lexi, I treated myself for SIBO. so many times and we get better and worse, better and worse, until I finally, you know, treated myself for parasite. And that solves everything. Yeah. And it's like, it's like I'm normal now. Yeah, that's good to know. I'll keep that in mind. For me, it was all triggered. Like, I got diagnosed with celiac after the birth of my first child, like 10 years ago. And so that triggered celiac. And then I got diagnosed for that. And then I removed the gluten. And it's still, it's just been 10 years of issues. So I'm assuming it's linked to that. But I'll definitely keep that in mind.

Could be. And, you know, CBO causes this kind of low-level immune reaction. So you're very susceptible to developing food intolerances. So if you eat something too often, oh, this food is good. Chicken is good. It doesn't bother me. Suddenly chicken bothers me. And then your list of foods get, this is what happened to me.

Like, here was my list of foods. And then it got smaller and smaller and smaller. And I'm like, okay, I guess I'm just supposed to- Everly became an enemy at that point. Yeah, dude. I was like, I can't eat anything. And my triggers were carbohydrates. at one point, like all carbs, fasting felt great.

Of course it feels good because you're not feeding the bad bacteria. So. Yeah, but then I struggle because, like, I'm not fueling my training. And that's what I love to do. And I feel like I'm stuck. Like, I can't really go after body composition goals or, like, performance really anything, you know? Yeah. And here's some other good news on it.

By the way, I love the population that you're serving. Yeah. I think that's such a great population. I think they benefit so much from working with a coach. you're going to deal with a lot of clients who have gut issues, especially in that population. Women, especially postpartum, gut issues are super common. And so this experience with you is going to make you better at empathizing and working

with your clients. Because you can learn all this stuff, but once you experience it, like, it makes you so much more effective. So there's definitely a silver lining. Yeah, it's actually crazy. and I just feel like after being through so many years of being dismissed by like Western doctors and my symptoms dismiss and my pain dismissed, like being able to empathize with people on that and like expose them to the world of functional practitioners and stuff has been already

really healing for me in a sense. Awesome. Awesome. Three antimicrobial supplements that have been shown in studies to be as effective as pharmaceuticals and you may already been using them. And I like them because they're also antifungal because antibiotic can kill bacteria but cause fungus to come back, which is probably why your practitioners having combined two. One is called F.C. Cidal. The other one is called disbiocide. And then there's another one called Atrantle.

Those are the ones that have the best data. Okay. Sorry, could you say those again so I can remember them? Yeah, no problem. F. Cidal is the first one. Disbiocide is the second one. And then atrantle. And in fact, I can have Doug message you. Okay. That'll be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And you could buy those on Amazon. Do you have any thoughts on BPC 517? Love it. Oral. Oral for sure, yeah. Oral BPC 157 with KPV is great during treatment and post treatment for healing the gut. Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate that. You got it. Thanks for calling in. Doing great. Thank you, guys. See you. Did she say 10 years ago? I know. I'm like, when did you have a kid when you were 10? I'll say she looks like she's early 20.

I'll say, damn. I know. You know, it's wild. Just to the parasite thing, you know, we totally dismiss it because we live in clean societies, right? And you don't get a parasite every year like people do in third world countries and stuff. But, you know, if you're 20s or 30s. We're exposed them all the time, man. They're everywhere.

You can get them from any place. You can even get them through intimacy. see with a partner. So if your partner has it, you may, you may likely have it. So it wasn't until I treated myself for that, that things didn't 100% get better. Our next caller is Matthew from Massachusetts. What's up, dude? What's up, Matthew? Hello, guys. This is a bit of a surreal experience. I guess I could hop right into it. You ready? Yeah, let's do it. Awesome. So my question revolves around finding the root cause

of my persistent movement asymmetries. First of all, I'm 26 years old. I've been listening to you guys for about seven years, lifting for about 13 years, and over the last six years, I've dealt with these asymmetry issues. My right foot is pronated and externally rotated. My left foot supinated. I have restricted left hip internal rotation. We've got scapular winging, mostly on, believe, the left side. And then my rib cage is also asymmetric, the right side compressed and the left side rotated. I've experienced a lot of overactivity of my right SCM.

in my upper trap. Over the last four years, I've seen about four physical therapists, two chiropractics, and I'm a personal trainer myself, and I've looked into pastoral restoration to look at their intervention since they're a little bit more specific. I haven't really made any progress, and I was wondering if you guys have worked with any clients like this in the past or could help me get to the root cause of this. Okay, so there's two directions we could go with this. first off tell me about the pain it's a so there's mostly pain in the left hip and it feels like a

pinchy bony stretch kind of and that's when it goes into an internally rotated state uh i also get pain around my right neck right underneath the ear where it comes and then into the SCM itself In fact, you can almost see that the right SCMS, I perj or feet over time. Okay. By pulling my face forward. When did you get, when were you aware of these things? Probably four years ago, I started being more aware. And it's consistently gotten slowly more worse over time.

I think that some of these were present when I was younger as well. I just wasn't aware. Any prior injuries from us? No. I had one injury when I was training for a, a marathon a couple of years ago. It was along the, uh, uh, one of the tendons that goes underneath the bottom of the foot out to the, uh, uh, the fifth metatarsal. Okay. And that had me not walking for about a week. Okay. So I never fully let that recover, but I don't know if that's

still a problem. Okay. Uh, everyone been diagnosed with neurodivergence, ADD, uh, high functioning autism, anything like that? Nope. Okay. So any, have you been a neurologist? I have not been to a neurologist. Okay. There's two directions I would go with this. And I'll tell you why. So the first direction, and sometimes you see this, actually, you often see this with exercise specialists, is this hyper focus on balance. Now, here's what, and this may or may not be the case.

So I'm going to give you the two directions, okay? So direction one, it could be a hyper focus. So if you have a tendency to be where you can be lack of a better term, so don't take this personally, but neurotic about things, like hyper-focusing on things. If you've ever been told you're a hypochondrake or, hey, man, you focus too much or you count your macros too often or you pay attention to close or you have a lot of anxiety, what you can do is you can hyper-focus on things that are real, but then through that process, they get worse. okay so pain and dysfunction are both physiological and emotional great episode with jordan shallow coming out where we talk about this yeah you can't separate the two you can't separate the physiological stuff that's happening from pain and the emotional connection uh or emotional experience of pain you can't separate the two or dysfunction so so one route can be hyper hyper focus which then

causes things to be worse and i'll give you an example uh most of us walk or breathe with even thinking about it. It's automatic. But if you're always thinking about how you walk, your gate changes and everything changes, especially if you're hyper-focused on either real or perceived imbalance. So I could take anybody, I can take a normal person who has no issues, and I can tell them, I want you to think about every step you take while you're walking. And what you'll see is their gate will start to change as they become hyper-focused. You're not supposed to think about these things. It's supposed to be natural. I can do that with anything that's automatic. If I, right now, everybody watching this podcast, and if I told

everybody, this is funny, you can actually do this with your friends. You are now blinking your eyes manually. Right now everybody just became hyper aware of how often they're blinking their eyes and that starts to change as well. So that's one route. The other route would be sensory or how your body is perceiving sensory. So you can either be hyper aware and this could be a neurological thing or it could be underaware or not receiving enough sensory. So you'll see this sometimes in kids who are toe walkers. So sometimes kids who do a lot of toe walking, there's some sensory input stuff. That's why I ask you about the neurodivergence.

It's a higher, there's a higher prevalence of this in people that way. And it could be a combination of both. So is any of what I'm saying, does any of what I'm saying resonate? So I've definitely become somewhat obsessive about the movement stuff over the course of the years. I wouldn't say I am neurotic, but I have been a fitness enthusiast and somewhat obsessed for a very long time. To go to the second point for sensory input, a lot of the people that I'm talking to now are talking about visual input and balance-based input for how your jaw aligns the rest of your body. So I've actually worked with a optometrist and we'll be seeing

a dentist in a couple of weeks, I believe, to try and figure out if there is a missing sensory input issue. Okay. And then I'm going to just caution you, okay? You may be chasing a boogeyman. And if you keep looking, I've worked with people like this, where they went to physical therapists, acupuncturist, chiropractor, and every one of these people will find something. Then I'm going to a ear, nose, and throat specialists.

Now I'm going to a neurologist, and there's all these possible. possibilities and they're chasing, chasing, and they're chasing variables now that, yeah. Yeah, so, and it's impossible to separate your experience from all of this. So it's impossible to separate the emotional because it sounds like it's caused you a lot of distress. So one of the questions you can ask yourself is, would a good personal trainer watching me work out, notice all kinds of crazy asymmetries?

If the answer is no, then it might not be as bad as you think. If it's like, I have to go to this specific specialist who measures things and then says, Oh, yeah, there's a three degree difference here, five degree difference there. Or you go to a specialist, like, yeah, you're a misaline on this joint here. Like, I could take anybody to... We all have asymmetry. Yeah, well, is this affecting the way you lift? Like, are you hyper aware of this and, like, be a...

Are you able to self-correct as you feel compensations happen? Or is this something that, like, you know, can you sort of, like, ignore and relax and just get into the mechanics of the lift? Um, I can, but then I feel like the soreness in my body to be very, uh, asymmetric the next next day. Okay. Maybe that just means I'm going too hard. Right. But for example, like if I were to bench press, I would feel that my, uh, my right upper peck works very well. But then I don't really have any chest activation on my left side that I can feel and it's mostly dealt.

If you use dumbbells, there's like a huge strength imbalance. Yeah. Um, Uh, kind of. What do you mean? It's not, it doesn't feel like a huge strength and balance. It just feels like I'm using different muscles. Right, but if you're, if you're doing a one arm dumbbell chest press on one side,

is how big of a difference is it with the weight that you use of the reps? Um, I haven't really gone heavy in a long time since I've been dropping off the weight as I try to, to fix this problem. I would say that the, the, the right side can probably move 10 pounds more than the left side. Okay. That's within the realm of, of normal, I would say. maybe kind of borderline.

I would almost have you stick with just barbell training and remove this like focus. Yeah, this unilateral obsession and work through, like I said, pause. If you have any kind of compensation is happening and self-correct, but like just try to systematically establish that uniformity in your movement. Yeah, the other thing you could do also from an activity standpoint is limit your strength training to once a week and then do some other activity that doesn't have you focusing so much on biomechanics like Brazilian jiu-jitsu or cycling or something where you're just doing a movement and see how that if that helps.

But again, it's really hard to separate the two of those things. If this has been a – just they put it to you this way, if this is a real neurological issue, it's like a big deal, and you've noticed it for five years, what you would see are glaring – you would typically see glaring differences in muscle in muscle development. You're going to love the episode that we just did with Jordan Shallow. I know it's coming out in the next week or two. And a lot of what we talked about

was exactly this stuff. I mean, so that'll be a really interesting. Yeah, that sounds that sounds great. I mean, there is a glaring asymmetry that I can see just in my neck and where my right SCM inserts versus the left. So,

I don't know, it's confusing to me. I would almost like it if it was just a mental game that I need to just get over to return back to normal. But it does seem like there's part of this that's real. Well, I'm going to tell you this, Matthew, a mental, if it was just mental, it would be harder to deal with and fix than if it was physiological. That's just truth. That's the hardest thing to do.

So I wouldn't wish that on anybody. But if that's the case, the answer literally is to stop thinking about it, which is like, so how do you do that? How do you do that? you can't not think about something like if I told you right now don't think of a zebra you're thinking of a zebra yeah so you have to think of something you have to focus on something else go play sports for a while that's right go play basketball go you know go swimming go try to get good at something else yeah yeah go do something else that you're not hyper focused that's right

and in the mean that's what I would do in the meantime if I was you is I'd say oh I'm going to go try and get good at this other thing and then in the meantime a neurologist would be the direction I would go because if there is a neurological issue, they'll identify. And if they're like, no, there's no neurological issue, then you might be chasing a boogeyman. So they would be able to identify some type of sensory input difference as well? That's right. They would test and see if there's some kind of neurological issue that's going on. And if there's nothing glaring there, then I'd say, all right, I'm going to just, I'm going to go somewhere else.

Did you play sports at all? Are you into sports? Yeah, I played a pretty high-level soccer growing up. Okay. And I haven't played in a while since I went to college. Okay. Oh, bro. Pick that out.

Yeah, string, train once a week with barbells, go play soccer, and then just go have fun playing soccer and see if that meet while you go, you know, to these other professionals. Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you guys have any people that are more in your network, do you think, that talk more about this type of stuff? Or will the podcast coming out be the best resource for that?

I'm assuming you, did you already reach out to Brink in the forum yet? No, I'm not in the form. Oh, let's put you in there. We'll put you in the private forum where Dr. Brink is at and Jordan Shallow. They're both in there. Yeah, they'll both. Yeah, do a good job. That's right.

Yep. Yep. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, you got it, man. Keep us posted. I'd like to hear how this unfolds as you as you continue to dig deeper on this. Yeah, thank you. I certainly will.

All right, man. Before I go, I just want to say thank you for everything that you guys do. You've been a pretty consistent and positive force in my life and many other people's. Thanks, man. Thank you, I appreciate it, brother. Thank you very much. Have a good one. You see that.

Yeah, that's a, I've had a great timing for the episode we just did. I mean, like, that was like, I mean, that was the whole two hours or whatever it was with shallow, you know, it was just a deep rabbit hole around pain. There are things that we're supposed to be aware of that we're doing and there's supposed to be, there are things that are supposed to be in the background. I mean, you could literally, like you said, addressing the autonomic system. Well, I don't think it's supposed to be autonomic. Well, I want to point out something, too, like, I don't know if I ever barbell back swat, especially when I moved decent way, and I don't feel a difference on left to right.

I've always got a little more sore on one side or the other, you know, there's a little bit of discrepancy always. You have to have, especially when you're moving heavy weight, perfect mechanics to not feel an imbalance and soreness. I mean, I don't know about you guys. body corrects these imbalances too and you have to allow a lot of times for that to occur uh by removing like like you said like sometimes you could hyper focus on something and it'll it'll create this this uh distance between where you started from and so it's yeah i just i think it's just to the point of like yeah like i think it's important that we address like imbalances and corrections but um now we have to like integrate and so if you're not going to integrate uh in

and allow, like, the rest of your body to, you know, work simultaneously together. And, you know, it just has a way of, like, self-correcting if you let it. And look, the last thing anybody wants to hear when they're dealing with the chronic issue is it's all in your head. Yeah. That's the last thing anybody wants to hear. And the reality is oftentimes it's both. Yeah. Oftentimes there is a something that's happening that's physiological.

But then the mental part of it, either the struggle around it, the challenge, the focus. causes much, much, much bigger problems and makes it, look, I'll give you an example, people watching this right now, if you were to just close your eyes and for the next five minutes, hyper focus on the feelings in your right foot. I promise you, you'll notice things about your right foot like it's itchy, it feels weird, it's kind of tilt, it's kind of turned wrong. You become hyper aware of something that you shouldn't be hyper, and you can do this with almost anything. Now imagine you notice something, and for five years you're trying to fix it and focus on it and you go to

so that's why I'm like look go rule out the major things like PT neurology once the major things are ruled out like okay this I may be making something that's not necessarily there or there but not nearly as big and the only way to get away from it is to

think about something else and focus on some target yeah what your guys just take about him going to see like the orthodontist and stuff like that over this because couldn't that also be because of all that like he's he's going to clinch down on one side more. And so then they're going to see some sort of a discrepancy potentially there. Well, he has seen, it's not the, he has seen physical therapist, chiropractor says up here,

he's done some interventions. He also sounds like a very educated trainer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the last place, the next place would be a neurologist, rule out the major stuff. He's trying to rule out almost every angle he can think of. Yeah, dude. And yeah, it's, like he said, it's kind of like chasing the movie. And it could be. And the reason why I went that direction is because it's always a possibility, but also because he's a trainer, the way he's talking about this stuff, and he was a high-performing athlete for a while. Yeah. And there was no major injury.

So I'm like, okay, this might be something that you're hyper-focused on. Our next caller is Kelly from South Carolina. Hi, Kelly. Hey, Kelly. Hey, guys. How are you guys? Good. How good?

How is going? Good. I'm just going to read my email because I'm super nervous, but so grateful to be here. I love the show. You guys have taught me so much and completely changed how I train. I just can't say enough good things about what you guys do. I love how you talk about your families and glorify the Lord. So just everything's great.

Thank you. I've been strength training consistently for a year now and I've made some good strides as far as strength. I hired an online coach last year and I've been with her close to a year. I'm a 48-year-old woman and Perry Menopause recently started with Transcend. I've been with them a couple months now and they've helped with a lot of symptoms I was having. I know you get tired of hearing this, but I really want to lose fat. I started at about 210. I'm 5'8.

I've lost about 10 pounds over this year while eating in a slight deficit, about 18 to 1900 calories, training three days a week and getting an average of about 8 to 10,000 steps. I know my shape has changed some, and I know I've lost some fat and gained some muscle, no dexas scan date or anything, just like an electrical impedance scale. But my question is, how should I approach my nutrition? Should I change anything? Do I need to just continue to stay in this depth, slight deficit? Or should I increase calories and do a reverse?

Yeah, good question. And great job, by the way. So I'm going to ask you some more questions for better context, okay? Okay. So this is over the last year that you've been really kind of doing this? Yeah. And like the first 10 pounds came off within the first couple months, and then I've just pretty much been stalled.

Okay. As far as the weight goes. Tell me about any changes in, let's say, strength. What have you seen over the last year? Definitely gone up in strength. So, like, I know there are good things. I just, you know, want it to be faster. I thought I'll be farther along as far as how my clothes fit and things like that by now.

Yeah. So strength has been a huge increase? Yeah, I would say so. Any changes in energy? Not that I can recognize. Okay. And how do you feel about your workouts and all that stuff? You're feeling like, oh, man, I kind of liking this. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I did hurt myself deadlifting at the very beginning because I had no clue what I was doing. But got over that and I love it now. Okay, good. And so you've definitely built some muscle while losing 10 pounds on the scale.

So it's probably more than 10 pounds of body fat if you've gotten stronger. Okay. That's why I was asking you that. So do you have an idea of how much stronger? Do you have an example of an exercise, what you used to do and what you could do now? Let's see. I mean, like when I started squatting, I, you know, could do the bar. And I'm up to maybe like 150, 155. Whoa. Yeah, that's good. Wait, you went from a 45 pound bar to 150? Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

There's a really good chance you have actually lost a lot more fat than you think you do. Oh, yeah. You've gained like 7, 8 pounds of muscle at minimum if you're doing that. Yeah. That's a very big. You're moving in the right direction. Yeah, I think you've done a lot better than you think you've done. Yeah.

So I would say... I get how it feels, though. I do. I do. So this is like, this is now when the snowball starts to take shape, that snowball effect. That's what I keep hearing. I just, I wanted to get going now. I mean, I would prefer.

personally reverse diet her right now, 18, 1900 calories, getting strong like that. I would lean into the getting strong and really try and put, especially if you're enjoying. If you're enjoying, like, seeing the strength go up and you like what you see and feel from that, I'd actually encourage going up in calories just a little bit and continue to do that until I get to a place like, say, 2,500 and then come back down and then I think you're going to see a big drop from that. Yeah. I just, at 18, 1900 calories, I think her body's just kind of slowed and adapted so she's not seeing big swings. Yeah, it's kind of low to cut from, you know, because we would end up around 1,400 calories.

And then you would plateau. It's hard to live there, yeah. And that'd be very difficult. But I wouldn't be surprised, Kelly, if you went up, you know, 200 calories a day and saw a little bit of fat loss. I wouldn't be surprised at all, especially with the strain gain.

So you say you're training three days a week, as your trainer have you on one of our programs, is she doing her own thing or he doing his own thing? no um so i was doing like um you know push pull legs but i had bought anabolic back in like august of last year and that's when i hurt my back and you know just it was my own fault um but then i switched to her but i've recently went back to anabolic and i'm on phase two now and i like the two days a week but it just works better for me so good and then and then here's the like the other part that we're not having got into you started with transcend a couple months ago

are you on hormone therapy with them? Yeah, so it's to take progesterone and testosterone and the DAQA. Oh, yeah. And I like that fear. You're only two months. You're only two months into it. Kicking in here. Yeah, about six months into hormone therapy, like things really start to take off.

I would love to see a two to three hundred calorie bump. And then what you can do since you're around 8,000 steps, kick your steps up to nine, 10,000 steps a day consistently. That way you don't see anything major weight gain on the scale. But those extra calories, I think, are going to fuel you building muscle, which will speed the metabolism up, which will do what I think salads. Especially with the hormones. Yes, yes. Yeah, the hormone therapy, the changes start to, like really start to happen.

The aesthetic ones, like month four to six is when things really start to kick up. So that's another part that we need to consider. Yeah, I like the reverse diet. And I wouldn't be surprised if you got leaner within the first few weeks doing that. So just 200 calories all at once and just kind of stay there? Yeah, stay there for a little while. I mean, a perfect world is you stay there for, say, two weeks and you see no weight gain. And if that happens, do it again.

Yeah. So that would be, now, there absolutely could be a couple pounds on the scale. I'm not worried about that. Like, that's impossible. But I'm not worried about it. I also think if you kick up your steps to 9,000 to 10,000 steps, you won't see that. And if we can get away with bumping two, 300 calories and no weight gain, I want to do it again. And really pay attention to how you feel in the gym strength-wise, really push that.

So these weeks coming up as you're doing your training, you know, stretch yourself to, you know, add a rep or add five pounds, like really think like that through the workouts. And I think it's going to really serve you. Yeah. Okay. I love you. I love you in our muscle mommy group, too. You'd be great in there. You would.

Have you seen us talking about that yet? I have, yeah. Oh, yeah. You got to come inside. I did the quiz and it said I was a strength novice. So, I mean, I guess I agree with that. Go to musclemommie movement. Go to musclemommie movement.

dot com and check out the group. Yeah, yeah. Get inside the group so you can hang out. Another thing, too, Kelly, is that I've had clients who on the scale lost 10 pounds, but they keep hearing from people around them that they trust that they look like they lost a lot more. And that's always a sign that it was a lot more body fat than just the 10 pounds. And we've built some muscle.

So consider that as well. But I'd like to have you back on in about 60 days. Can we follow back up with you in 60 days during this kind of reverse diet? All right. Not a bad idea, too, if you have access to one of those Dexon's, scam places where you can get kind of where you're at. I see that you hadn't done that right. A little more definitive. Yeah. I mean, yeah, worthwhile doing that because that, man, that's what can be really encouraging when you go three, four months. You don't really see the

scale go down very much or very little. But then you give the deck scan, you go, oh my God, I built 10 pounds of muscle and I've lost five pounds of fat. You know, that's your squat with 300% increase in strength. Yeah. That's a that's a really good. That's a really good. By the way, that your number is also good anyway. 150 pounds squad for a woman is really good. Yeah. So you're also, you're not just didn't get just stronger.

You're actually pretty strong. Yeah, yeah. It's exciting. That's really exciting. Yeah. We want to lead into that. Thank you,

guys. Let's see you in 60 days. Yeah. All right. Sounds good. All right. All right. All right.

Thanks, Mike. Bye. Bye. Yeah, you know, when we, you know, when we are judging ourselves,

it's really, really, really difficult. But somebody put on that much strength. You know, she down to 18, 900, 19, 900, 90, calories. That's not a lot. Yeah, yeah. I think that's what she needs to be fed more. She needs to eat more with, especially strength numbers like that. She's, if she's really consistently hitting 8,000 steps, that's pretty active. It's not like crazy. You know, I don't even

ask her this. It's just such a tough position to be in because oftentimes what people have experienced, and I should have asked her this, because maybe this is her, is they've lost and gained weight so many times in the past. And so they're used to being able to drop you, well, I can lose it by cutting hard. I've lost 20 pounds before and cut it real hard. So now they're doing it the right way. Yeah. And they're like, okay,

it's taking forever. It doesn't happen as fast. But the right way, it's not like you're going, oh, one's a fast way, a one's a slower way. It's like, this just doesn't work.

The reason why you gain the back many times. Yeah. This is the way. And the right way is faster. It's just harder to tell. That's right. Because of the scale. Because we use the scale

as the way to measuring ourselves so much that the faster, better, right way doesn't seem like it's faster and better. It's like it feels like it's slower because you're wanting to see a number on a scale. It's like, no you can't you can't go off of that but and this is a great example where a client like this i'd love to have like a dex so because i know the psychological part of training for a whole

year and feeling like i've only man tangible yeah she threw the hormones out of too man you do the hormone replacement therapy this is why i really wanted her that she said that i'm like you got to feed you got to feed her because she's going to get strong in the gym build some muscle our next caller is amelia from new zealand hi amelia hello hello yeah first off i'd just like to say huge thank you. I just love how simple everything you guys make, including your amazing programming, as well as just the content that you put out.

So it's, you know, you guys reaching millions of people, both directly and indirectly, so thank you very much. And, yeah, I'd like to talk to you about the impact of HRT, specifically estrogen and testosterone, and what they could have on my life, particularly around body composition and training slash lifting goals. And also, what should I expect as I progress through the HRT journey?

So for context, I'm a 34-year-old mom of three kids for Aninda, as in I had them within three years. While also doing my PhD in health sciences and, yeah, supporting my husband on our 500-kowd dairy farm. Wow. I have had severe endometriosis. I was confirmed at age 19, along with stage 1 ovarian cancer, and most recently I had confirmation of edymiosis as well.

And due to poor life quality, so chronic pain and other symptoms associated with the gynecological history above, I had a hysterectomy in March this year, best thing I did in terms of life quality. I was, you know, I was in pain, on pain medication all day, every day, pretty much, and couch for it in for often, you know, a week to 10 days every cycle, essentially. I also stopped breastfeeding my third the day before surgery. So obviously that has an impact on hormones. In early August of this year, I started getting some random pains and numbness,

which I then saw my physiophore and she, in conjunction with knowing my lifestyle and also my body, wondered if it was hormone-related and which sort of finalised pushed me to go and see a menopause specialist who confirmed my suspicion that I was in early menopause as a result of having the history to me before the age of 35, just reduced the health of the ovaries.

So I started estrogen replacement therapy late August and there's no need for progesterone given I don't have a uterus. We also got my testosterone checked which was 0.4 nanomoles per litre so I don't know what that is in your guys speak but essentially it's very low, well below the range so I'm going to start HRT late November

because it's not recommended that you start testosterone until after you've sort of got estrogen all sorted in terms of ideal replacement numbers in that regard. And in May, early May, I did a dexar and I was 42% body fat. I was actually, I'm going to go and get another one today because I've just finished symmetry. So I want to see if there's the imbalances can sort of sort of themselves out. And I have a good fine density score. in terms of general lifestyle I strength train

frequently I have previously competed in powerlifting competition so my squat got up to 160 kilos deadlift 200 kilos and bench press 97.5 at my previous

or my most recent competition you're strong yeah yeah that's definitely my strength yeah but then pain and kids sort of stopped me from lifting but I definitely want to get back into lifting so yeah I've strength trained essentially on and off to some degree for the last two decades like I used it as dry land training for competitive swimming growing up obviously powerlifting

competitions and then during and post pregnancies as it like you know just to whatever degree I needed to and yeah as I said just finishing up symmetry and I'm going to head into muscle mummy on Monday and I'm just doing a delode week at the moment in terms of nutrition I eat balanced diet with minimum 100, I've said 160 but it's actually close to 180 grams of protein per day

I do have a smoothie or a shake in there just because three young kids morning absolutely chaotic it's just easier for my life so I'm not currently trying to tracking, but I have previously, hence why I'm able to sort of judge around that grams of protein. So it estimated between 26, 2,800 calories a day, drank 3 litres of water, influding electrolytes.

Unfortunately, we don't have LMN tea here, but it's something similar with the amount of sodium and that sort of thing. Sleep, getting better, but obviously still inconsistent with young kids. Case in point, my middle literally just woke up a little while ago. So then I had my oldest awake at quarter past 11 last night. In fact, he's just awake now. So yeah, so this is my current focus at the moment, getting good in terms of my routine before bed and that sort of thing. So yeah, so just want your advice on how I can sort of optimize body composition and that sort of thing, given that I'll be, yeah, getting better at my ERT.

and then obviously starting TRT late November. Good. Doing a lot of the right things, right? You are. And the HRT, this is all doctor prescribed doctor monitors. I just want to confirm that. Yeah, yeah. You're good.

You proceed the same. There is no difference. If anything, the HRT will help your body respond better with recovery. A mistake people often make with HRT is they are like, oh, good, I'm on, my hormones are balanced. I'm going to ramp things up. I'm going to push things. but just pretend like you're not on it train yourself accordingly and then that'll just help the process

I've seen people overtrained because they went on testosterone or because they went on are you check thyroid how's thyroid by the way yeah healthy um all good and vitamin d's good okay um the only thing with my most recent blood test was that my gg t so liver function was slightly elevated but um I had a look back in my history just yesterday um and it's actually decreased um like sort of treading more towards the healthier range so what are the what are your biggest offenders in your diet um well probably like that protein shake like i mean i know that it's better to eat whole foods um and my snacking so at the moment i'm actually because i'm in a delode week um i am doing sort of like a low carb higher fat just to try and sort of you know do a bit of a kickstart um literally just for this week uh and then i'll get you know back up to my maintenance calories because i i'm definitely in a deficit at the moment um this week because you know i'm feeling that hunger um so yeah i'll be ramping that back up to um yeah to to my maintenance next next week

um when i start or actually i'll probably do it on saturday yeah so so i you're doing a lot of things right you need to track and get an accurate number of what you're averaging before we can start to move forward and then put you in a deficit. If you are indeed averaging around 2,700 calories, you're in a good place to go in a deficit. Being in a consistent 2,000 calories, you'll see some body composition changes for sure. I like lower carb for someone like you because oftentimes what you see with women that have endometriosis or any issues like that, they tend to have issues with how they respond to, like, glucose or sugar, and they tend to respond, and this is in my experience, okay?

That's why I ask you about thyroid, too, because if your thyroid was off, then I wouldn't necessarily go lower, lower carb. But in my experience, with people like you, have had those kind of issues, lower carbs seems to work better. But we don't know where to go unless we get an accurate number. And what you need to do with your tracking is count everything, including snacks. and get a real number and be like, okay, I'm averaging this every single week. And if it is indeed around 2,700 or higher, you're in a great place to go in a cut.

Yeah. Great place. You drop that 600 calories below, stay consistent. You will see the needle move for sure, especially with your strong. And I'd actually only run those cuts for like two or three weeks and then go back to maintenance. Two or three weeks, go back to maintenance. Kind of toggle back and forth of like a good cut, a good aggressive cut like Sal saying for just a couple weeks and then go back. So you're considering how strong you are.

You like strength training. Like, I definitely want to fuel that, you know. And I think going back to maintenance, well, those weeks you'll fuel that and then go back the other way, just kind of toggle back and forth. And, Amelia, historically, when I've worked with people who do some snacking and they give me an average of what they think, nine, I'd say nine out of ten times, they're actually, they actually higher than they think. I've never actually had somebody go, well, I think I'm eating this much. And then we start to calculate. and it's like 300 calories higher, but we don't know. So I would track for two weeks, and I wouldn't try to go on a diet while doing this.

No. I would just try to eat normal because you want an accurate number of kind of where you're at. And then from there, like I said, if you're above 2,600 calories, you could cut and you'll be okay. Cool. Thank you very much. You know, tonight, sorry, I was just going to tell you that I don't know if you saw we launched the Muscle Mommy group. And tonight, Dr. Lauren is in there speaking. and she's a hormone specialist.

And so she's incredible. So if you haven't hopped in that, yeah, if you haven't hopped in that group, it's such a great group. It's an incredible community of women that are all strength training and trying to build muscle. So it would be a great group if we're not in there.

I did forget to mention, I'm on your guys concierge coaching. Oh, good. Okay, good. Oh, you're wonderful. I prefer that than the muscle muscle muscle. That's even better. That's even better.

That's individualized for you. So that's even better. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. I had no idea. So I most recently spoke to Will last week, I think it was, and we sort of had a plan to sort of do essentially maintenance for muscle mummy and do almost sort of like a condensed muscle mummy.

So not the full programism, probably cut out the last phase of 5 by 5s to sort of align starting power lift in a bulk at the end of November when I start my TRD. T to try and get the optimist. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you're in good hands. Yeah, I love that. Oh, it's going to be great then.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I also forgot to mention, I'm also on metformin as well to help with the insulin. Insulin management, if you guys met formin. Yeah, I'm familiar. Yeah. Yeah, very familiar. Yeah, on the low dose of that with my doctor as well.

So, so, yeah, lower carb. I think lower carb, that just confirms what I thought. Yeah, lower carb, probably we worked back. Not zero carb, but just lower carb would probably work better for you. Perfect. No, that sounds amazing. Yeah. Thanks.

Yeah, I just wanted to sort of, I thought the question, you know, was quite good to sort of reduce the stigma of, you know, like taking any replacement therapy during hormone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. Great steps. You're doing all the right thing.

And you're really strong. Yeah. I love it. Excited to see this. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Little, little plug. for the in phase three of symmetry with the trip bar deadlift started at literally just the bar for eight and then by the end of the three weeks I was up to 100 kilos for eight yeah 200 pounds or whatever so pretty pretty stoked with that good job solid amazing so good thanks Amelia yeah no thank you very much really appreciate your time and continue doing what you're doing good and hopefully I'll see you on some of these calls sometimes you see our trainers working with people so if I do I'll say hi Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. Thanks about you. Yeah, if she's indeed around those calories, which I don't know about you guys, but have you ever had anybody estimate and be? Oh, yeah. It's always always snacking is a good point. Yeah. But if she's there, she can cut.

She'll be fine, especially with the strength that she has. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. I like the idea, too, of toggling back and forth because she likes to build muscle, be strong. Absolutely. I'm going to lean into that. Yeah, like a 2-1 or something like that, 2-2.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you at Mind Pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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