Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2709: Diet Smarter, Not Harder: Mind Pump’s Top Hacks

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Mind Pump Fit Tip: Our Favorite Diet Hacks. (2:11) Highlighting the human pretentiousness. (28:18) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, psyop. (32:48) The dangers of ‘forever chemicals’. (40:21) Going down the 3rd rail with Mind Pump: Politicizing posts, and Tylenol and pregnant women backlash. (47:56) Mind Pump’s go-to alcoholic beverage. (55:35) #ListenerLive question #1 – Can I gain body fat while still eating “clean?” (1:03:04) #ListenerLive question #2 – What kind of split, movement strategies, or training approach would you recommend to maintain leg and scapular strength, minimize atrophy, and stay mentally sharp, all without compromising my shoulder repair? (1:19:30) #ListenerLive question #3 – What other MAPS programs could create an “endorphin rush” like I felt during Aesthetic? (1:32:13) #ListenerLive question #4 – What are some ways I can get my heart rate to stay up long enough so that I can tap into the fat loss benefits? (1:38:27) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Our Place for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. Our Place offers a 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. ** Visit Pre-Alcohol by ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MINDPUMP25 for 15% off first-time purchasers on either one-time purchases, (3, 6, 12-packs) or subscriptions (6, 12-pack) ** October Special: MAPS GLP-1 50% off! ** Code GLP50 at checkout. ** Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2438: The 6 Best High Protein Inexpensive Foods You Can Get Anywhere (Listener Coaching) Mind Pump #2598: The 5 Best Diets for Any Goal & More (Listener Coaching) PFAS Exposure and Risk of Cancer Non-stick pan chemicals 'may raise child cholesterol' @mindpumpmedia IG viral post: Does acetaminophen have a link to ADHD? @mindpumpmedia IG Zbiotics Drinking Game post Here’s How to Break Free From Porn, Restore Intimacy In Your Relationships & Live A Life of Freedom Using the DeepClean™ System. Access to masterclasses on intimacy, purpose, and healthy relationships. A private brotherhood community for daily accountability and support. Visit: https://deepcleancoaching.com/mindpump **Plus, all members who join get MAPS 15 for free. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you’ve got nothing to lose. ** Mind Pump #2652: How Undereating is Making You Fat & Unhealthy Mind Pump #2560: How to Break Free from Destructive Body Image Issues Mind Pump #2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer 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! ** Sal Di Stefano’s Journey in Faith & Fitness – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #2690: The NEW DIET Everyone Is Using For Fat Loss Muscle Mommy Movement Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Terry Wahls MD (@drterrywahls) Instagram Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram Corinne Schmiedhauser (@mindpumpcorinne) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we had people call in and we got to coach them on air. That's a good time. That was after our intro, though.

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All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not? not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstor.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mindpstor.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Easily, the hardest part of the fitness journey is diet. That's not a secret. Now, we trained people for over two decades. Through that process, we learned a lot, including diet hacks. That's right. Tricks that will help you get better results and stay more. consistent, we're going to talk about our favorite hacks that we learned through training clients all that time.

Let's get into it. Now, is this things like focusing on your protein, for example? That would be one. We've talked about that a lot, right? Where you focus on protein, hit your target body weight and protein, and that makes a big difference regardless of whether or not you're cutting or you're bulking. But there's other things too, right? like I'll give you I'll give you one of mine for bulking so and this is a hack because for some people

bulking is difficult now for some people it's not uh the difficult part for some people is just they're afraid of going in a surplus because they don't want to gain body fat but for some people hard gainers bulking can feel hard it's like I feel like I mean a lot like what's going on I can't a real chore yeah I can't seem to eat enough calories uh this seems to be true more often than for teenage boys but sometimes you'll get that that client that super seems like fast metabolism or maybe they have a blue collar job and it's like I just can't eat enough it seems to to build muscle like what do I do so one of my favorite hacks with this uh is if you can tolerate dairy is to have a glass of milk a big glass of whole milk with every meal this is a real easy

way to add a decent amount of calories to your diet or even have a glass of milk in between meals. It's inexpensive. It's good quality protein. There's some good fat in there, some carbohydrates. For me, this was like a really, really effective game changer for myself. And then for those occasional clients I had that. This was a big, when I was coaching the high school kids, Like, that was a big, you know, some hurdle to get over. And I remember mentioning that. And a lot of the kids actually got a lot of benefit from that and, like, gained weight, you know, 10, 15 pounds just by applying that one simple concept. I'll give you a bit of a controversial one that was a major hack and unlock for me.

So like you, I was a hard gainer. And, you know, for all of my teens, early 20s, struggle to put weight on. and because of that, you justified eating the Jack in the Box and Carl's Jr. and milkshakes and just to get calories. And something that rocked my world was when I switched to actually eating cleaner foods,

meaning like whole foods, I could eat more. What I found was I might be able to sit down at Jacklin Box and eat a 1,500 calorie bomb, but one, the 1,500 calories would only get about 50s,000, grams of protein in the 1,500 calories, mostly carbohydrates and saturated fat. And then it would take so long to break down and I wouldn't be hungry for five, six hours later.

And then I'd do it again, another 1,500 calorie bomb, only 50 grams of protein. And then I get, so, and then I get, in my head, I'm going, I'm getting these, these huge meals. But then I didn't want to eat for like six hours. And then on top of that, it also had, I was low protein. So switching over to like chicken thighs and like, you know, any leaner meats, turkey, stuff like ground turkey, ground beef, like, and rice, I could eat. Now, it would only be a 500 calorie meal, but in an hour and a half, two hours, I could eat that 500 calorie meal again. And it would be a dense, high protein meal. And so it really shattered my paradigm when I started eating like that and realized.

oh man this and you it's easy to justify when you're a skinny kid who just wants to put weight on so bad and those foods are tasty right yeah but they're hard to hit the macros you need to to build muscle and also be in a consistent early place it's wild that you your body shuts you down and that's all you want and and i had a hard time that when i switched to both you guys had mentioned before was the bone broth and collagen protein onto the rice i've had my boys both doing that right now and it's making a big impact on boosting up their protein. Yeah, you're making your rice anyway.

Yeah. Make it with bone broth, you just added 20 grams of right away. When I started eating staple meals that look like this, rice, any meat that I wanted, and a vegetable, and then just scheduling it every two hours,

I could actually eat more. So I'll distill that down because I learned the exact same thing at them. And it's this. When you're bulking, by the way, this seems counterproductive. This is why this is a hack, because what you think is I can't get enough calories. I got to eat the big high calorie, hyper palatable, like any kind of food I can to just get these calories in. But what happens is it affects your digestion.

You get bloated, lethargic, you can't eat again. It's uncomfortable versus choosing higher calorie meals that are easy to digest. Big difference. One of my favorite meals for this that I could bulk on this very easy was, 80% ground beef, so it's high fat, ground beef, rice, throw in some vegetables in there, throw in maybe some avocado in a bowl, and if you can have dairy,

throw some cheese on it. And I could eat that six times a day. Yes. And easily get 5,000 calories from doing this. It's, and it's, it's, it's, it's just well, yeah. Digests well versus when I would go with the higher calorie, kind of poor, digesting foods. It crushed me.

It made it very difficult. I couldn't get, I couldn't get past it. Now, I would allow. those type of hyper-palatable foods as my last meal. And so I used to play this kind of psychological game with myself, like, okay, I need to get to these macros by the end day. And then I can allow myself a little bit of the, you know, more pleasurable type foods that weren't high in protein and really doing a lot,

other than just calories, right? So that was it. It was like, okay, go get the good calories through whole natural foods first. And then at dinner time, if I'm still sitting at 3,000 calories and my goal is 4,500. maybe I'll allow myself to have that crazy 1,500 calorie, high saturated fat type of meal. But the four meals before that were protein dense, fast digesting carbohydrates,

and that just, it flipped it for me. Here's another one for me was to get started early. Yes. You get behind the eight ball on trying to eat a lot of calories, and you're screwed. And I want to add, because this was a major hack for me too, Sal, was if you have no appetite,

because I remember what that felt like, You got to eat breakfast and you're like, I have no appetite. So I had to start with these little Greek yogurts. Just like the little cups, 200 calories. Even though it's not a lot, but it would get the digestive system going. It would get that appetite to start. And so that's what it looked like when I had no appetite at 6 o'clock in the morning, but I knew I needed to start the eating.

I was like, okay, well, I can shovel down this little Greek yogurt real quick that has a little bit of protein, has some calories. And then what I found was, oh, by 8 a.m., I was ready for like a real size breakfast. One more for me for bulking. Everybody knows this, right? You eat a meal, you're full, but if something sweet is presented to you, for some reason you feel like you can eat it. This is just, this is working around something called palate fatigue.

Yes. So change up. Sweet and salty. That's right. It tends to make a difference. I always found, no matter what I ate, I could always eat fruit after. No matter how full a big the bowl was with the ground beef and the rice and the avocado, whatever.

It's a dessert effect. I could always have fruit afterwards. And I would choose grapes for some reason. could just always eat, you know, 200, 300 calories with the grapes afterwards to get those extra calories in. And they don't, they're digested so well and so easy. I didn't feel like I was super stuffed and super bloated. All right, cutting. What are some diet hacks with cutting? Here's one. It's a big one. We've talked about this on the show before. But the order at which you eat your food makes a difference. Yeah. So, and this is what I'll tell some of my clients that

were afraid to track and, you know, the macro counting type of deal would cause stress, which you You don't want your clients to have a stressful diet that's counterproductive for cutting because a lot of people tend to eat more when they're stressed or causes dysfunction. So I would just say, hey, let's do this. Hit your protein, eat your vegetables, and then eat your starches. And this always result in lower calories. Always. Why?

Because protein produces satiety. That typically comes along with some fats, which also produce satiety. Vegetables are filling in almost zero calories, especially if you're eating, you know, like broccoli, like well-cooked broccoli or asparagus or spinach. And I'd have a decent, I'd tell them, you'd a decent size cup or whatever or serving of vegetables. And then eat your starches at the end if you're still hungry. And then when I would go through and loosely track their calories,

it was like, boom, cut calories. So I'm going to give another controversial tip here or hack for me. Really, not a lot of my diet changed as far as the types of foods I was eating between the cut and the bulk. The difference looked like this. the meals that we're talking about exactly the same what you're saying

I ate those foods when I was on a bulk it was every two hours I'm eating those foods and it would be like and that would be right at a two hour mark I wasn't hungry but I'm like I could eat again

and so I would just discipline myself to eat that meal again every two hours throughout the entire day when I was on a cut I would just play this game of oh can I resist another two hours before I eat again so instead of every two hour window

it went to an every four hour window same foods but when I was at two hours I wasn't even that hungry really when I was on the bulk, but I could eat. So it was really easy to get the third hour. But by about the third hour, starting to get hungry,

and I'm like, well, I only got one more hour. Can I stretch it one more hour before I get that next meal? And so really what it looked like was I just changed my eating windows, and I would just discipline myself to go a little bit longer before I ate again on the cut, and that throughout the day ends up subtracting a meal or two from your entire diet. But really the same foods. And I could really control a lot of the crazy hunger feelings, everything that, just by playing that game of two-hour or four-hour.

Yeah, one very simple one, it's not even food-related, was just focusing more on hydration and water intake. Yes, that's a good one. And that was just because it just took the tension away and it also kind of pushed off a lot of that, like, intense craving that you would get throughout the day. No, you know, for me, here's a little, I mean, again, this is since we're talking hacks,

it's not a big one, but it actually made a difference. When I would have clients drink seltzer water with a little salt in lime, for whatever reason, There's no calories in that. Well, especially if your alcohol drink, that's a great hack. For whatever reason, it just tends to cut the appetite down. I mean, it sounds silly, but I get like a Topo Chico, I'd put a little salt on the rim, put a little lime inside of it, drink it, and I'd have clients doing this throughout the day.

And it would typically cut their calories by a couple hundred, a hundred, a couple hundred, just because it kind of reduced the snacking. It sounds silly, you know, chewing gum. Some people like to do that. That never really worked for me, but some people find that. That was me. I chew gum and drink water. Chew gum, although I do want, I used to use pickles, too,

because it gives you low calorie and high sodium. And when you're eating as good as clean as we are and you cut your calories, sometimes just being low sodium, you get that kind of appetite kick up. And so literally chewing gum, water, and that, so back to that four hour window, chew gum, water, and maybe a pickle. And that was like, I was good. Always kept me from meal to meal. And by spreading those windows out like that, gave me.

the difference of the calories. Here's another one. This isn't so much of a unknown hack anymore, but people kind of do this the wrong way. So, you know, eating windows, right? I hate to say eating windows. This is how I used it back. First of all, eating windows, people tend to do it like this now. I don't eat till noon. It's way more effective if you cut your eating off in the evening than if you start it late in the afternoon. Most of the time when we eat food that's not great for us is at night. Yeah. And so, you know, if I had clients just say, hey, look, your last meal is at 6 p.m. after that, stop eating. Plus you're not moving

and allocating it towards your movement. It's just you're sitting on the cat. And you're also, also improve sleep too because you're not in the middle of digesting of food. I agree with that too. I think...

It's way better. I think the, you know, intermittent fasting window that, you know, tells you don't eat don't eat till noon or two and then you eat. You tend to pile on a lot of garbage the night and also a lot of times

miss the macros, not hit your protein. That's my biggest pet peeve or struggle with eating windows like intermittent fasting. is depending on how big of a person you are, hitting your protein goals in this small window

is really, really difficult, especially if you're a 180 pound plus human being. If you're 120 or under that, like not so hard getting, you know, 110 grams of protein or 100 grams of protein in a day in a small window, but try getting 200 grams of protein consistently in a six-hour eating window.

I mean, it's just, that's really tough to do. Another one that I used in the past with great, success. We actually have data supporting this was, you know, I remember, you know, years ago learning that, uh, that eating in a state of unawareness, uh, actually increases our caloric intake. Uh, and so the reason why I came up with it, first off, I learned it from somebody else. And then I would find data to support it. And so what the data shows is that if you're eating while you're doing something else, uh, like watching TV, um, your calories go up naturally because they'll have, if they've done studies on this, we'll have groups of people, same meal.

you eat in front of the TV. You guys sit down and do nothing and eat. It's about 10 to 15% more calories when you're eating in a state of what I would label is unawareness. So what I would do is bring is try to improve awareness around the meal with my clients. Now, one way to do that is, and this definitely will do it, is get a journal, write down how you feel before you eat,

write down how you feel after you eat. You can do all that. But I found clients didn't like to do that as much as they would do this. If you're going to eat, and I'll tell my client this, If you're going to eat, here's what we're going to do. You're going to go sit at a table. Sit at on a table.

And you're going to eat a meal and you're not going to do anything else but eat the meal. This cuts calories by itself. Yeah. By itself, do nothing else. If all you ever did was only eat when you're sitting down at a table with no phone, you're not on the go. You're not, you know, multitasking. You're not on a new computer.

You're not working. Don't wolf it down with, you know, some kind of beverage. Or drinking a glass of water before. That's right. You sit down and eat. So that's the first thing is sit down, no distractions. Drink the glass. drink the glass of water and then eat and notice a huge difference that's right now let's get to

longevity and i would refer to this we could point to studies but when i say longevity it's like vitality like what makes you feel the best we're not talking specifically about building or cutting or anything like that but what just gives you that feeling of like man i feel really good the best hack i have for this it begins here uh choose food that affect your digestion the best. When I want to improve my overall well-being, I eat foods that tend to, not foods that I digest well,

but foods that make my digestion better, which is different because I can digest rice and meat and stuff like that very well. But there are specific meals that I know will throw my digestion into a better state. It typically looks like as well-cooked vegetables, olive oil, fish, chicken. For some reason, when I eat this way,

Certain fruits will do this as well. Apples tend to do this with me as well. When I eat this way, I just feel really good on the inside. And so when you're trying to just feel good, if you put digestion at the top, it tends to take care of the rest. I remember when we early on had Dr. Terry Walls on, and then I remember seeing you,

used to come in sometimes with this. I mean, it was a giant bowl of nothing but broccoli. And I'd never eaten like that. I never thought, can I just sit down and eat a huge bowl of just Brussels sprouts that are well-cooked? And, like, there's, when I, when I am good about doing that, I just, I feel good. And it tends to keep the calories in check, too. You eat that much, you eat that big of a serving of vegetables. It's hard to overeat a bunch of food.

It's not, I don't think it's a great tip for bulking. No, but I think it's just feel good. But feel good, longevity, keep calories kind of in balance. I just, I felt really well when I was targeting, like, a large, bowl in one part of the day. That's all I had to do was just one part of the day. I'm going to sit down and have this big serving of just vegetables. Like you're saying, well-cooked, a little bit of olive oil or butter, seasoning on it.

And just, man, it felt so good. Totally. In fact, oftentimes my recommendations to my clients revolved around this right here first. Because once we could get around, once we could figure this out, then the bulking and cutting was actually a little bit easier because a person felt so good. And they started identify the foods that made them feel the best. everybody's a little bit different with this but for me it was

you know what I said well-cooked vegetables fish tends to do this for me chicken tends to do this for me certain fruits tend to do this for me cucumbers or zucchini cooked tends to do this for me so identify those foods for yourself

and that'll help improve that. Now let's get to performance and we can talk about mental and physical performance for physical performance carbohydrates and proteins are essential now you want fats always. You can't go too low of fat. That's just the way the human body works. But

starchy carbohydrates and high protein, all the data supports this to be the best performance kind of based diet. For mental performance, I'm going to say this right now. And I found this, this is very true for me. More keto. Yeah, this is true for a lot of the people, not everybody. This wasn't true for everyone. But for a lot of the people I worked with, low carbohydrates, higher fat, moderate protein. This is how I eat when I'm going to go on a podcast run. When I'm sent off to go travel somewhere for mind pump and I'm going to be on three shows in a row or something like that. And it's like I just want to do a good job on the podcast. I'm not trying to lift weights. You know, I'm not trying to hit a PR. I'm not trying to

look, you know, whatever particular way. I just want to be able to speak well, be sharp. I want to have good memory recall. I want to be able to make good points, not feel like I'm cloudy. I go very low carbohydrate, high fat, moderate protein. And I'll do that for a day or two leading into it, and then the day of, and I just feel. Wouldn't you guys say, too, that, you know, of all the cases, this is the case where actually timing does make a difference of food. Oh, yeah. Like, when

you eat what foods? Like, so if I'm, if you're trying to get, let's say, a good performance of a workout, you eat at a certain time. If you're trying to get good night's rest, you eat at a certain time. If you want you want to have clear focus on the podcast, you eat at a certain. So

of all the things that we talk around muscle building in the anabolic window, a lot of that stuff is hype, bullshit, splitting hair difference. But when we are talking about maximizing performance, whether it be performance in a sport or on a field, or performance, cognitive performance, timing makes a difference. Yes. Yeah, to that point, even I would restrict carbohydrates,

you know, a couple days and then load up, you know, for a big event. And that worked, like, magically for me for performing on the field. Yeah, so to be more specific for me, because I'm glad he said that with timing. If I want the best pump, the best strength, the best performance in the gym, I'm going to have probably around 75 grams of carbohydrates, 50 grams of protein,

maybe 30 grams of fat, about two hours before. If I had that two hours before with good water intake, I have a lot of water, I get great pumps. I'm hitting better lifts. I can perform really well. I feel great.

And now I don't get to do this often because I work out so early in the morning. But if I know I'm going to go try and make something happen, that works for me. for performance for like what I said earlier podcasting leading up to it it's more of a keto style diet and then in the podcast themselves I delay food as long as I can right that fasted state I'm already running on ketones it's like I just I am sharp I feel great in fact if I have

to eat when I do eat sometimes I'll go do three podcasts in a row and the last one will end like 4 p.m and I don't want to fast until then the meal will literally look like vegetables and some protein and water in between those. So if you guys were trying to hit like a max lift, and I think we did this a long time ago, I think we actually put out something or shared. I don't know if we did a white paper or whatever we did. So you're doing a max lift in two days at noon.

Are you going to cut or reduce carbs completely the two days before and then the day of start to load? At what point, how much do you restrict leading up to the day of? And then how much do you kind of try and load before? For max strength, I never found. the restrict and then load to work. I found that to work well for me for the pump. So if I

want the best pump, I'll cut my carbs down maybe four days before. And then the day before is when I start to really bump them up and then the meal before. If I want to be strong, it's high calorie leading up and then highest calorie day before and then two hours before

is what I found for me. Yeah, I like that. How about you saying? Yeah, yeah. That's simple. Well, you know me, I'm not going for athletic performance. So I really, I'm not a big PR chaser either so I don't that's why I was kind of asking because I don't really have a formula for I didn't understand nutrition like I do now when I was playing sports as a kid so all of my application has been towards how I look and look pump and look in the gym and I wasn't and I've never been a PR chasing a bodybuilder I've always been a how I look and so it's always

look similar to you I hadn't done that for the PR left as much as it was like perform an explosive of like aerobic, you know, like movement out on the field. It worked magically for that, restricting like two days before. So what would that look like? So that's a good question for you, Justin, because you competed, I mean, you played football a pretty high level. You got a big game coming up on Saturday.

So tell me what that looks like leading up to it, John. Yeah, it'd be like Thursday I would start slowly kind of restricting, so I wouldn't go like fully restricted. And then Friday I would go a little bit more restriction. and then towards the night, I would start introducing it. And then, like, in the morning, I definitely loaded up quite a bit. What were your, what were the foods that you would choose? Yeah, the rice, potatoes and starchy carbs.

Like, when I did, like, the wrong way and I did pancakes and stuff like that on the reloading, it just, I would, I would have that initial surgeon would balk on the field. That I had the same. It's so funny because in bodybuilding pancakes and syrup and stuff, we're so good. You know what I'm saying? Because it's about a pump. You destroy me. Yeah. You're already bunking anyway on stage.

You're so low and everything. So it doesn't matter. You know what I'm saying? So I'm just, it's just loaded me up. I did. So just, you know,

personal story. I, uh, in, I think it was 2006. I competed, uh, at a big jiu-jitsu tournament.

United Gracie Open in San Francisco. And I was so like nervous and what am I going to do? And of course I'm trying to like do everything with diet to maximize whatever. And I made the mistake that morning of carving up with the bad carbs. I had waffles and pancakes and cereal. I'm like, I'm like, all these calories.

Yeah. And I just messed up my stomach. I went into that competition on Pepto-Bismol. That saved me and the competitors. I went to get three to tell you because I was not looking good. Yeah, that's brutal. And I remember feeling that and just shaking my head at myself, what are you doing, dude?

I mean, obviously, we just threw a lot. But I think the main takeaway that I wanted to make in this point is like when performance is on the table, meaning cognitive PR performance, even muscle pump, and actually all those are very different and all those have different strategies. there is there's worth it's worth your time to investigate how you prep for that

how you set up timing wise nutrition all other things but bulking cutting because there's a lot of people that try to make arguments around you know backloading your carbs when you're on a it's like I've found that's all splitting hair stuff and that really is whatever works best for you it's not gonna be experiment with it previous to that too

to know it works best for you right right because everything that we all just talked about like is kind of a generic formula that we've all done. And I've seen exceptions to all those rules. Yeah. But the main point that I wanted to make was when you are, when you're seeking out performance, cognitive, physical performance, even aesthetic performance, uh, timing makes a difference. Makes a big difference, actually. And so it is worthwhile to investigate how you're going to go about whatever said thing you're going to do, uh, with that. The other ones when you hear, because a lot of people do talk about bulking and cutting and timing of

all that stuff of that. That's to me does not make that big of a difference. It's really what works well for you, do it. One thing, one last thing that I'll add, that adds, uh, makes all of the ones we're talking about easier or, uh, to put it differently, if you don't do this, you're doing it on hard mode, uh, is, uh, food prep. Food prep makes a huge difference with all of this stuff. When you don't have a meal ready and convenient and made, your options become challenging. Uh, when it becomes a compromise.

Yes, when fast and convenient now have to be put into the mix and you don't have something that's available, that's fast and convenient, your options get very difficult. I don't care if you're bulking. I don't care if you're cutting. I don't care about longevity, performance. If you don't have that meal ready, your options are go cook a meal or now go find one that you can buy that happens to be very quick. And those decisions tend to never be the right one.

So meal prepping makes a huge difference with all. Anyway, this guy, I got to tell you about this just changed subject. This guy did something that's so hilarious to me and points. to just the ridiculousness of this particular industry. So I'm going to pull it up and I'll read you guys what this guy did as a prank that kind of fooled everybody. So in New York Fashion Week, so you guys know what Fashion Week is, right?

I'm sure you, I know you guys are big fans. Justin totally wants that. I can't wait. By the way. I record immediately. Let me just ask you guys this. Like, is there a crowd you would want to be around less than the crowd at Fashion Week? Could you imagine sitting in Fashion Week with all these things?

I like that. I like that as a challenge. Can I think of something that I would like less? Because I know that that would be one that I wouldn't like. There's got to be something that would pull my... I would hate. I would hate even. Which is it's because I like, I'm into fashion.

But if you've ever seen Fashion Week and you've seen what they're presenting is like that, it's not like, yeah. It's not, it's different. Or even just the people in there. Like, everybody's in their smile and their own farts and they all, oh, we're so great. and it's like almost like I guess Academy Award would be another one like celebrate me and you know it's turned into It's very pretentious

You know it's turned into one of the biggest like fashion movement statements things than even I would maybe this might be going too far and I'll get checked by somebody who's into this more than me that maybe fashion week is still a really big thing but I would make the case popularity wise and more people aware of the walk-in of an NFL player

and an NBA player they've turned into a fact like How funny is that? Yeah, that's a major highlight. And there's huge brands that, you know, give a lot. Dude, even Mac Jones, you see his, like, two-face suit that you wear. And it's always talked about it. So I would make the argument that is bigger than even, you know, the New York big fashion week type of deal.

Interesting. That most people and most outlets are talking about what the NFL and the NBA players walk in their outfits. So to me, this, this, what I'm going to tell you what this guy did, that kind of highlights just the pretentiousness and silliness of it. So this guy walks in, he somehow sneaks onto the runway, and he's wearing a clear plastic garbage bag, a shower cap, and colorful shorts. And he's walking down and everybody's like, oh, this is a part of the show. Yeah.

Oh, look at this. Of course. Nobody got it. That sounds like something that would pass. Yeah, because here's... Well, this is why Zoolander was so good. Uh-huh. Why that movie was so good was because they depicted that.

the ridiculousness of some of these... We got to with this little tiny phone. Yes. The outfits were so outrageous. It's like you can't... That's what I mean, by it's such a... It's not like anything you wear. Well, here's what's happening.

This is what I picture, right? It's very essential. People are walking down. Something ridiculous like that is happening. But nobody wants to call it out because they don't want to be the one that can't recognize fashion. So they're just all like looking at each other.

Like, yeah, it's cool. Yeah. It's like modern art. I was just going to say, you know where else you could do that? go to an art show where someone's got nothing but million dollar pieces on there, have a five-year-old create something, put in the mix of all of them, and tell me that 99% of everybody there would not be able to pick the five-year-olds art.

You know someone did that? Someone put duct-taped a banana to the wall? Yes, that's a fake. Do you know how much it sold for? Look that up. How much it sold for? He sold an invisible sculpture. Bro, bro, look up what the duct-taped banana sold for.

That sold for a lot of money, and so did the invisible art. Yeah. Somebody sold invisible art. It's a freaking, it's a freaking hustle, dude. Yeah. It's not money laundry. That was during the NFT days. There was an NFT that came with the invisible art.

Look up, look up first. I really like art. 6.2 million. 6.2 million for a duct tape. Shut your whole face off. Is that awesome or what? No, it's not. No, it's like then we encourage dumb art like this exists.

Well, what I mean, again, this is like, this is the, to me, it exemplifies human. Did you know about this, Doug? I'd heard about it. Yeah. Yes. There it is right there. This exemplifies to me human pretentiousness that you're going to look at this and you can't call it out because you don't want to be the person that can't recognize art.

And then you're the guy or girl that wants to show how rich you are because you're so artistic. You just literally make up a narrative to explain this. It's a bunch of people. And it's just stupid. It's just dumb. I'm so good. That's what it turned into. I'm so going to put that at my house and tell people I bought that one.

Oh, yeah. That's the good. And then you see skillful art, you know, or people do realism and you're like, oh, my God. Like, can't we bring that back? So, okay, since we went here, I'm so curious if, Doug, you can find it. If what the story to it is or if there's any, like, if it has some. Those are all news articles. I know.

I remember when this happened. So it was a big, yeah, a big Miami art show. I remember when this happened. It might have been the same place, Justin, where the invisible art sold, too. I probably was, yeah. It's just crazy. Now, Justin brings up a good point. He said earlier, money laundering.

So the other side of this is that they do ridiculous stupid things And nobody questions them because it's supposed to be art Art is you know what do they say a beauty's in the eye of the beholder Okay which I'll get back to that just a second But a lot of these people are laundering money So they want to get it it's it's money that they need to give to someone else And they have to do it in a way that's legal so they could pay taxes on it And so what they'll do is Doug is going to create a baloney piece of art

He's going to put a piece of toilet paper with duct tape or something on it And I would be like, wow, Doug, that's totally worth $5 million. Here you go. And Doug's like, thanks. You know, in reality, he's bought drugs from him or, you know, sex trafficking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the other thing. It would be, it would be.

Not literally, Doug. I believe, I believe that. Legitly. I believe that, um, that Justin's right. I think that's totally. There was a, there was a documentary actually on, on that. I forgot what it was called, but it was on like all the, the, the, the, um, there's a lot of grifters in that space. There's a lot of grifters, too, in the wine space, uh, which they,

been caught too with like really old bottles that they tried to pass off and then they like filled it with um newer wines and then like you know sold it for millions of dollars wow all right so i want to go back to wait wait wait hold on could you look at the invisible one because i think that's so funny too you have to like i'm pretty sure that whole nfti era you i am i just want to say well i hammered that you remember how much i used to post talking shit oh my god i know that during that time you did but i want call you out, you almost got us to buy NFT real estate. No, I did.

You did it, bro? No, I did not? Did he try to talk to some new buying real estate? Did I ever try to explain what people were doing? I don't recall that. There was like a piece. It was somewhere.

No, I did never. Bro, I was, I was talking to shit about NFT since day one. It was the dumbest thing. Where was it that you wanted us to buy? Not that. Definitely not that. I would not have seen. I remember you kind of made the case a little bit.

No, no, no, no, no. Okay, all right. I mean, I might have talked about it like how crazy it is that there's empty real estate being sold and broke it down, but no. Okay, did the thing, did it go invisible? Yeah, so there have been a number of them. One did sell for over a million. So there's been more than one invisible.

What, there's been more of these? There's nothing. Look at the display. There's just, hmm, look at this. Italian artist. That's some talent, you know. That's some real talent. Hey, you know what, though? That's laundering. That's such, that's, Adam, when you were

in the drug business, why didn't you come up with this idea? You could have totally bought a bunch of fake art. and sold a bunch of them. So here's, okay, to that point, because I, my, my wheels are spinning on that. I don't know how, okay, it makes sense. Because they can't audit that, right? Yeah, but at the same time, too, you go and buy a six million dollar invisible or six million dollar duct tape and now I've brought attention to me. You're almost better off not trying to pay taxes for and just giving it to me. Like you, let's say I did a huge drug deal with you and you owe me

$6 million, okay, for all the whatever I gave you. And I'm like, like, can't just put that in my bank account and so you think oh so but i would much rather take it cash and figure out what i'm going to do with that then go sell you a single now everybody's now the whole world is looking at me buying it that's just like what do you get out of it i mean is it for charity if it was for charity or something or it's like you know whatever you're forgetting adam that these are very connected people and so they're this they're encouraged to do this to make it look good and then part of it's going to go to my charity which is another so that so that makes sense like you the only way i would like so obviously i was never at that level

right so if at that level you've got to have some political connections in ties and you got to have people that are like listen they're telling you to do that here's a deal if you want to get that into your bank account this is how you do it then we'll we'll just look we'll turn a blind eye to it because otherwise the average you know black market drug dealer is not going to want to draw attention to himself didn't Joe Biden's son sell a bunch of art or something like that they were looking at did you do that he's a painter yeah he's a bunch of art that he was selling that people were I would actually be curious to see what that looks like. You know, what's his son's name?

What was his son's name? Hunter. Hunter. Hunter. Hunter Biden's art. Because it was such a famous time in history for us, that will actually probably hold a value. Yes, that'll hold out.

That's the only part of it. That's the pretentiousness of it. Now, if you're the one that owns a $6 million duct tape banana, it's famous, and maybe it probably does have value. That's some of his art here. I can't see it. It's not up there. Yeah, connected.

I'm going to see what it's. At least it's something. It's not invisible. Let's see if it's good or not. That'd be cool if it's good. I know, right? I mean, would you know how to tell if it's good? No, that's stupid.

That doesn't look bad. No, it's not. I would rock the one on the right. What? It's just a bunch of scribbles. That's what most of it? Yeah, I mean, a lot of the... The title of it's crack at sunset.

It could look worse, right? It could look worse. Okay, so here... Yeah, it's not, it's not like horrific. Look, he looks so normal right there in that picture. I mean... He's got a lot of energy. He puts some...

So here's... That's crap. Get out of here. So here's, okay, here's, here's, here's the statement. I want to, I'd like to break down for you guys. Okay. We've all heard the statement, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think that that statement has been totally bastardized and distorted to the point where.

You can't look at crap like a bunch of scribbles on a wall or a duct tape panana or something like that and say that's, that's stupid. That's dumb. I think they've taken that so far because I do believe that there is objective beauty. And people know. Well, there is. There is. I mean, there is. There's also objective.

There's in humans. I think that, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's in the Fibonacci sequence. So the theory, okay, from like the art perspective, from the artists and the people that is that. It's a sci-up. It's, I mean, I'm not going to take a hard position against you. Let's put it that way. But I know that the idea is that as an artist that you put this thing on this canvas and it, like, wherever you are in your life, your mindset, was like, that emotion has been put into

this painting and that others can see that and interpret I know that's the story but when you have somebody it's supposed to evoke something make you feel something I know but then you have when you have somebody who gives himself a colorful enema and then squirts it across that's actually an artist that did that just what I'm talking about and put and does it all over a canvas and then sells it and everybody's like you're not allowed to say because it's art you're not allowed to say that's dumb yeah but it's dangerous sell yeah no it's dumb and I think that it's a sciop I really do I look at old, look at old art, renaissance art, look at art before this kind of weird post-mortem. I agree.

Like, anybody would look at and go, wow, that's a beautiful cathedral. Look at those paintings. Like, you actually have to teach it, you know, like all the skill of it. Like, that kind of stuff requires zero skill. It's just like manic ideas. And some people are so mad right now, but I think that we've been side off. Yeah, there's definitely some people who are put off right now. I hope they're mad because it's crap, you know?

Like, it needs to stop. Yeah. Give up on your dream. Don't create that kind of art anymore. I'm over it. Yeah, dude. What are you doing? All right. Sorry. Oh, I'll do that guy. We're done, Doug. That was a fun tan. I forgot all of it. That was a long time ago when that banana. I know. It was a good time.

All right. I'm going to go on a study talking about cookware. So I tried to look up. Great transition. I know. I look up. I looked up. I looked up studies. I'll pull it up here real quick. Studies on just how much of these harmful forever chemicals we get. from different sources. By the way, the highest place that we get it is water. Water and then seafood. This is where we can get a lot

of these forever chemicals that cause things like... Water is one of the highest? Yes, because... Now, if you have like a reverse osmosis machine, you're good, cool. But if you're, it depends where you're getting your water,

how it's stored, like this can cause lots of issues. I know the ones in plastic bottles are some of the worst, especially when it sits out in the sun and things like that and then the plastic leeches in it. Yes, it's right.

So the other one is seafood. Seafood can do this just because especially bottom feeders, you know, like muscles and shrimps, stuff like that. They filter things out to the ocean, so that can be another one. And then, of course, there's cookware. So I'm like, well, how much can this, you know, impact some of your long-term health? If you have high exposure to frequent use of non-stick pans, for example, the risk over your lifetime for increases in cancer can go up 10%

in testicular and kidney cancer up to 50%. Whoa. Okay? Yes. Immune function. If you have high exposure to these non-stick pans with these Forever chemicals, there's a 20 to 30% antibody reduction in children. So it reduces your immune system.

Birth outcomes. This is a crazy one. Your odds of preterm birth go up by about 1.3 to 1.5 times over the norm from nonstick pants. Jeez. So it's like- All that from your breakfast. Yeah, dude. Shout out to our place.

They, that's where I was going. So our partners are placed. They use none of those things. But what's cool about them, because you could go stainless steel, right? You could go cast iron. They can be a pain in the butt to clean. I mean, that's just a fat. They're just difficult to clean.

Our place is real easy to clean But it doesn't have the They have cast iron too They also have yeah because I have their whole Like a whole bunch of stuff there We love all of it Yeah It's super high quality

But I mean isn't that wild Yeah How much of a different By the way if you're if you're The the odds go up If your nonstick has been used For like a couple years So when you use it

And you nick it and scratch it Which is going to happen I mean that's going to happen Yeah Then your odds go through the roof Wow Because of that. Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. I didn't realize autoimmune stuff, obviously then for some, if your kids didn't eat on that, probably not probably that's probably why.

I'm always trying to nail down like where I, where, did you use a lot of nostic as a kid? Well, yeah, I didn't. My mom was one. Right,

right. Yeah, cooking our food and stuff like that, but we didn't. That was like rampant. I mean, that and you were spraying it with Pam. So you get,

here's some plastic and here's some more cancer. Yeah. Top of where everything with the sun just being on it. Enjoy your Mickey Mouse pancakes. Yeah. Put me in the back of the pickup with the gas fumes. You know. I wonder why I got this stuff.

Yeah. I didn't even eat paint chips. Bro. Hey, you know what's crazy too? Some house survived. My dad, I just realized this with my dad, because we were talking. And he was talking about this small town that was near his town. It was an asbestos factory.

This town had an is before they knew. That's not good. Or should I say that before that everybody knew that his bestos was a big cancer risk. and lung cancer risk, particularly, I think it's lung cancer. So before that, asbestos was everywhere. In fact, old houses, you have to go in and check and then you have to have special, like,

procedures to remove the asbestos. It's really bad for you. Anyway, there was this as best... There was this as best... Remember, you know what I used to do popcorn ceilings as a kid? You just scrape them? We'd climb up on the bunk bed

and we'd make it snow. Yeah. I used to... Talk about a weird style. Like, we intentionally... What was it? Just spray it? That's more work to do that.

It's more work to make it look all popcorny like that. Isn't that funny that that was like a style? I think it's because it helped insulate, right? No. Reduced the like, I think it had anti-fire. Oh, yeah, yeah, fire report. Fire, of course. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

No, we used to, literally, my cousin's house, we'd get up on. All houses. All houses in the, every house in the 70s and 80s had popcorn. All of them. That was like, literally, we would make it snow. We know, that was so funny. We just rub it off the whole time. Anyway, this town with this asbestos factory that my dad was talking about in Sicily,

he says that like half the people in the town ended up with cancer. Oh, my God. He's like, that whole town, he's like, and everybody knows it because it's a small town. Everybody had cancer. So we had this whole conversation about these chemicals and this and that. And then I'm like thinking of my dad. Dude. My dad worked in, you know, construction.

He worked as a tile setter. they're exposed to chemicals all the time. Thinset and plastics and adhesives and now you'll see these guys wearing these like really nice gas mask looking ones. My dad never wore masks. Never. When I helped him,

never wore masks. And he was a nine, he was a nine year old kid up there, you know, mixing things and just breathing it in or whatever. And I remember, you know, he'd come home and his nose hairs would be,

you know, coated in like white powder. So we're having this conversation. I'm like, dad, I'm like, you breathe in a lot of crap, dude.

He's like, I know. Dude, this reminds me, I'm pretty sure. I pranked one of these neighbor kids with like cotton candy and just used the

what insulation Wow Justin Bro dude something you're not supposed to share on this podcast You killed someone bro He didn't eat it literally He didn't eat it They're like case salt

He's gonna call us dude Oh I was a kid It's what do they call it Statue limitations I'm fine you guys What happened to him Because that's that sucks

He only got probably one bite One bite in he knew it wasn't Yeah just spit it out right away and you know but I just can't believe I did that you know now I'm so I'm trying to picture right now if you had like a one of those cotton candy bags and you stuffed yes that insulation and it probably wouldn't look like it oh my god wow imagine how itchy his throat was probably the next one that gets on your skin yes no when you touch you with your hands it's like you yeah that's fiber gloves yeah that stays with you

oh my god yeah anyways you talked about that up it reminded me yeah you remind me you remind me to remind me The kid I killed. He's fine. I saw him. Dude, we used to do things, too, with chemicals when I'd help my dad. And I'd just be, and he would just crack the, open the window. If you're, since your coffee and I'd open the, oh. We didn't get all kinds of chemicals.

Yeah, we had no idea as the point of all this, like, all these chemicals. Like, they just, like, we're so frivolous with it. It's so weird, though, is like, okay, here we are our generation. We've, we've figured out a lot of these things, right? And we're all, but yet, we're not like we're extending life. much longer. We just traded, we just traded this cancer for another cancer. And instead of this problem, we know we got this problem.

Well, women used to. Yeah, we just traded it, swap it around. Yeah. Bro, pregnant women used to drink and smoke. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And it was prescribed sometimes by doctors.

Like, oh, I'm anxious. I'm pregnant. You try camels. Those are the ones that we do your best. There's ads. You can find ads for camel cigarettes for pregnant women. Now we got Tylenol. Do we?

Oh. Justin, don't go there, bro. That's my politicized so bad. It's so stupid that it's politicized, dude. That post that you did. You know? The amount of people that were commenting that... I didn't even do a post like I...

I'm against it or for it. I just said, all I said, all I said. I read another... That thing's still going. I was just on my Instagram before... Oh, so it's got Dr. What's his name on there? Cabral.

A Cabral. Sorry, Dr. Brawl's on there. and he's talking about some studies that point to it not being great okay my comment on there was we're we're so naive to think that that we're not going to have other possible effects from taking um medications something that affects you yeah like anything that has an effect on your body is going to have other effects the body's so complex so that's all I said all I said was that and it's like listen we should always be careful and and I think a lot of people are careful when they do And somehow you, the Trump supporter!

Yeah, I'm like, it even says it on the bottle. Like, so I don't understand the backlash. Yeah, it's so crazy. It's just, again, it's like anything else that gets politically charged. It's so weird to me that, that, anyway, there's all, anything you take that has an effect, it has other effects that we're probably not aware of. That's all. I mean, we, we, we have one of the largest health and fitness podcasts.

So every once while we discuss something like that That's related to health And you took a position on it That was not a trying to go viral statement It was literally reacting and explaining your thoughts around it And to politicize that is just Well first of all I'm gonna say this I'm very I'm very sensitive to

The challenges that women go through when they're pregnant And no I'm not white knighting here I'm being serious First off you know, my wife was pregnant with our two kids. My mom, I'm the oldest. So I remember when she was pregnant with my siblings. It's hard.

You feel like crap a lot of the time and you can't take anything. So like if I get a headache right now as a man, like we're on the podcast. If I start getting a headache, I'm grabbing something. I'm not like, I'm going to tough it out. I think I'm just going to just feel this headache, right? If I get stomach issues, I'm going to take something. But as a pregnant woman, I'm very sensitive to the fact that they have to kind of struggle with this. So I get it.

That's all I'm saying. But the other part of it is like anything you take is going to have some other, you know, kind of effect. And we won't know what all of them are because, you know, mammalian metabolism is so complex. The way the body works is so complex. It's impossible. What do you think? Here's a bit controversy. We'll keep going this direction with pregnant women since we're talking about it.

Do you think it would be more important that a, the pregnant woman is eating really? really healthy or versus her occasionally using Tylenol. Which one do you think impacts the baby's health more? What do you mean? Occasionally, like, well, eating healthy would be the best, but what do you mean by that? Well, that's what I mean? Okay. Well, one of the biggest struggles for pregnant women is to eat healthy.

Or just eat? Yeah, because a lot. Oh, yeah, both. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like, so, I mean, I've been around quite a few pregnant women, trained a lot of pregnant women. My wife has been pregnant.

My mom, I'm like you, the oldest. I've seen her pregnant a bunch of times. and, you know, eating a well-balanced good diet is really hard for them, really hard. I mean, so either eating enough, hitting protein intake, even like could, I mean, my, my niece is pregnant right now. And, you know, of course, we sat down before she was and talked all about nutrition and food and all things. And she was like, all gung a whole about it. And she's like, I get repulsed at the side of chicken, you know, and steak and meat. Like, she's like, I can't eat it.

So it's like, my question to you is like, what? What do you think is potentially more detrimental to the baby or position that however you want to say it? Oh. But occasionally I take Tylenol because I've had a handful of headaches during the pregnancy or I haven't been able to eat good at all. I don't know. I don't know, man. Because I would make the case that that not hitting nutritional targets consistently for a whole nine months. Bro.

I'll tell you what. So my wife had the worst nausea, first trimester Naza that I've ever seen in a pregnant woman. She literally, this is not an exaggeration, walked around with a bucket to throw up in for three months. Yeah. For three months. Mentioning almost any food, make her throw up to the point where my son Arralius, because he was, when she was pregnant, he was, how old was he? He was one or whatever. he started mimicking her throwing up

because he saw her do it so much so he'd go ugh and I'm like oh my gosh just because he sees his mom puking all the time I remember one point we're sitting there and my poor wife is on the couch

and she's just like constantly feeling like she has the worst stomach flu ever had the terrible stomach flu you can't even get a drop of water in my mouth right so I'm I remember she's sitting on the couch and I'm like what do I do

so I'm like going through a list of foods that I know are her favorites and every mention she's dry heaving so every single thing I'm saying. I'm like, okay, babe, what about? She loves Lomo. This is like a Peruvian dish. I'm like, babe, what about Lomo? I'm like, oh, okay, let me think. All right. I'm like, pizza. I'm thinking to my head like pizza maybe. I'm like, what about like people? No, she threw up. Oh, crap. All right. And I'm like, is there anything? And she's like, I don't know. What are we going to do right now? Yeah. So I don't know,

man. I don't know. That's a tough one. Yeah, yeah. That's why I say that. And I think that's maybe the backlash and I'm sure, I mean, of course, you got politicized. And of course, we went the extreme route and now people are like chugging bottles of Tylenol to prove a point or whatever. But I do, I do, I do, I do believe that you, you know, when you're, when you're pregnant, you are eating for you and your baby. And if, you know, you took the occasional Tylenol because of the, the migraines or whatever that happened during those nine months, but yet had this beautifully, like, well-disciplined, great diet.

Sure, I mean, I would think that that has more of a positive impact towards the baby's health than those occasional times in the tunnel and then the pharmaceutical industry's got a terrible history with this what was that medication maybe you could look it up duck there was a medication that they prescribed women that resulted in children being born like missing a limb and this became a big this was like a big like deal and and you know why this happened they took the chemical and they didn't realize that if you flipped it because they thought it was the same chemical so So if you make it the reverse, it actually caused children to be born. Oh, my God.

Yeah, what's the name of it, Doug? Thalidomide. Yep, that's it. What was it prescribed for? Let's see here. Morning sickness. Oh, my God. So women were given this, and their doctor was like, perfectly safe.

Perfectly safe. Take this. And then these children will be born missing a limb. Oh, my God. And the pharmaceutical industry is like, oops. It's because the chemical was. Sorry. It was, yeah, on the left side was the hydrogen, not the right side or whatever the chemical is.

Isn't that wild? It was wild. I know, terrible. I didn't hear about that. Anyway, since we're talking about this topic. Let's get us out of here. Speed of drinking with pregnancy. Yeah.

Don't do that. Oh, my God. Don't do that, bro. Don't do that. Okay. No, all joking aside. Z biotics has to be the most talked about, one of the most talked about products that we have amongst our listeners. Well, anybody, I think we have.

a bit of a bias because we tend to have people that are trying to eat healthy, be healthy. I don't think we have a lot of alcoholics, not a lot. We have a few that follow us. And so I think that we have a few. Somebody messaged you. I'm an alcoholic. We have, we have a few that are, no, I think that probably identify a lot with what you and I have said on this podcast for a really long time. Just alcohol has never been a part of my life. It always affects me negatively. Yeah, it always felt me negatively. Even one drink. Yeah. And so, So, you know, most of my adult life, even during the peak times of teenage 20 years, 20 year old, when a lot of us do drink, that was the biggest amount of drinking I had in my life. Once I got older and I could legally do it.

It wasn't a big deal. And so, and I really was like going, I feel like shit. I can't work. I don't like it. So I avoided it for such a long time until we were introduced to antibiotics. And I remember the first time doing it being so shocked. And then I remember we did that whole challenge where we were drinking all day. and everything.

A lot of our fans, a lot of our listeners didn't even know we did that. Yeah. We did a, yeah. We did a drinking game with Zbiotics. We did.

And, um, this is a, this is our, it's not even a study, right? This is just the three of us. No, four of us.

Doug was on this. Doug got destroyed. Yeah. This was just the four of us. So it's not really a study. This was just us. Let's film this. Let's do a drinking game.

We'll take, we'll drink Zibiotics before. And then we'll play this game where you have to take a shot or three shots if this thing happens or whatever. And, of course, we took out some rules to make it more of a, like, happen faster because we thought, oh, it's good to take your long. Let's make it hard. And we got, I get smashed. I haven't, I haven't been that, I haven't been that drunk for a long time and I have not been drunk like that. Oh, I haven't been that drunk since then. That was the, that was definitely, took me back to early days. We were crushed. We were crushed. But the next day felt great. Next day we came to work. I was all right. Came to work the next day. I was like, this is going to suck for a week. I mean,

We keep, we, we, it is, I mean, I don't recommend that. In my drawer at my, my, my, my, first time of my life I ever had a bar at my house. I have a bar at my house. I have a bar at my house. And I actually have the occasional thing. You have them in there, the Zab. Yeah. No, I mean, I just, it's, it's been nice.

What's nice is that I came from never having it. So I never feel like I needed to have it. Yeah. But now I can enjoy it. And the fact that I have a wife that does like drinking, that's more of her things. She, like, enjoys wine. She would enjoy a glass of wine over ice cream or a cheeseburger or something of that. And so on weekends, she tends to occasionally like something like that with her dinner or a nightcap or whatever.

And now I can have it with her. It's a nice thing that we can do. And I always, whether I'm happy. So what's your drink now? What's your favorite drink? Angel Zimbi. Yeah. Yeah.

Justin got me on that. Urban. Yeah, it's bourbon. It's just by itself? Yeah, straight. Yeah, straight. You know, funny you say that too is that part of why I've, I've definitely have an acquired taste now because if you asked me that 15 years ago and I tried that, I'd be like, oh, my. God, no. And yet I really enjoy it now. And what I also really enjoy is I feel nothing as far as

like after effect. It feels that I still to this day, even with Zbiotic, if I do really sugary alcohols and so with that, I still might have like a headache. Like you know, like Zibiotic will keep me from the nausea and keep me from the hangover feeling. But like high like high sugary alcohol mixed drinks, if I have multiples of those will still not make me feel good afterwards. definitely still helps that, but it's not the same. You want to hear the drink? You want to hear the drink I like? And you guys are going to make fun of it.

Some fruity thing. Yeah, every time, I'm sure it's pink. No, no, no, every single, it's actually not pink. Where is it? Oh, I can't find it. So it's over at Luna. It's called a Lolita, which already sounds. Yeah, it is.

It is. You serve it with a flower in it. No, it's really good, dude. It's got, I don't know, I can't find it. So I can't tell you what's in it. But it's got, it's got like the egg white foam on it. And it's, you know, cucumber something. Oh, that's good.

And lots of sugar. Yeah, yeah. And it's definitely a drink that when they bring it to me... How often do they... How often do they hand it to your wife and not you? They know what's there now. Oh. So now they know that, you know, what's happening?

When you go somewhere else, though, how... I had a hibiscus of the margarita the other day. It was all pink. And I felt like... Do you find the same way, too, Justin? That's straight bourbon that way is something that you prefer to... Yeah, yeah, I've definitely over time of, like, not mixed drinks because it's just like, yeah, I'll get that same effect.

where, like, too much sugar is really the biggest culprit when I feel like... Yeah. And then, I mean, when you're having it straight like that, it's just two little small glasses. And I'm like, perfect. Just lones you up and, yeah, it's not a ton of calories. It's not a ton of sugar going on other than the alcohol. The more it tastes like a jolly rancher, the more I like it. If it tastes like alcohol, I don't like it.

You're like the frappuccino of drinks. Oh, the Lolita or the Lunarita? No, not a lunerita. That's a, that's a margarita with... I can't find it either, Doug. I looked at it up. Oh, okay. But it's literally called the Lolita.

And you have no idea what it. Is it like a tequila type of a drink? No. Oh, no. Oh, tequila? No way, dude. Well, that means that's at a Mexican restaurant. I just do this, assuming.

You get smooth tequila. No, you can't, dude. I threw up with tequila when I was like 19 and that was it. It ruined it for me. It's like burn into my memory. Yeah, you play the horrible, like, bottom shelf stuff. I don't remember. I was just too much.

It just made me six. I mean, that's a big difference I've noticed now that I've been able to drink is there's a big difference in like top shelf bourbon, top shelf tequila versus the, you know, I used to do that way, but yeah. There was a period there where I try. I think that's the difference too in the fact that I like bourbon now. The fact that I've drank, I've had some really nice bourbons. I'm like, oh, this hits different.

There was a, there was a, just drinking to get drunk like you were in your teens. Yeah. When you're in your teens, that's the goal. When I was, when I was, there was a period for like a year where I was like, I am going to, I remember, I made a conscious decision. I am going to learn how to like wine. I'm Italian. This has to happen. People like wine.

There's got to be something. about it because I just can't understand the difference. They're all the same to me. I don't like them. That's funny. I've been on that mission. For a year, for a full year, I would have a glass of wine. I try different wines.

My clients recommend this. They recommend that. They bring me one at the end of the year. Gross. It's still gross. Really? Can't do it. Can't do it.

I feel like the right glass of wine paired with the right dinner is just incredible. Ruins the dinner for me. I think if you get the, if you know, if you get the right glass of wine with the right meal, it just, it's just, it's like, whatever. One of my favorite, one of my favorite dugs is. wino Doug. Wine. Yeah, when he has a couple glasses of wine, he's a good time.

That doesn't sound right. If we were, yeah, we're all at a restaurant and we're all eating together and we're having drinks. Doug's most likely to get a red wine with steak. Justin and I are probably going to get some sort of a bourbon and you'll get some sort of like foo food drinks. Yeah, yeah. It's like pink or blue.

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By the way, you will get MAPS 15 for free if you sign up for that coaching group. Back to the show. Our first caller is Jennifer from New Hampshire. Hi, Jennifer. Hello, Jennifer. Hi, how are you? This is a little surreal for me. Thank you for having me.

You got it. Welcome. How can we help you? Well, I'm going to read my email. I've had some changes since, but a lot going on. So it just says I'm a longtime listener and have run many maps programs. My current coach calls me a unicorn. I'm working with a virtual coach right now because I'm one of those rare people who needs to gain body fat instead of

losing weight. I'm your typical fitness fanatic who is overtrained and has probably under-eaten for most of my life, thinking that I was eating healthy because I was eating clean. I know you guys don't really like that phrase, but I didn't know how else to say it. I am now 58, just a month and a half away from being 59. I am also osteopenic slash osteoporotic, negative 2.5 in my lumbar spine. so even with a coach I'm struggling to gain body fat and build muscle and I've most recently been feeling that I'm having tendonopathy issues so my other struggle lies in maintaining and gaining muscle which I never really had a problem with before even though I was under eating I currently weigh about 93 pounds I'm just under five six which is four pounds heavier than I was this time last summer so my last in body scan I was just under 11% body fat. So I'd love to at least get to 17 or 18. You'd probably recommend higher knowing you guys. And I would love to hear your guidance not only for gaining weight, but how I should be training right now. And just want to thank you for everything you do. Yeah. Thank you so much

for asking this question. I appreciate you coming on. I really, really feel what you're saying. And the answer is going to be simple, but following the answer is going to be very difficult. Okay. The answer to all of this begins and stops. It begins and ends with eating in a calorie surplus. That's everything right now. And I'll get to training because there is a way that we should train for this as well. But when you're applying stress on the body with exercise without adequate nutrients, what you end up doing is breaking down, breaking down, breaking down through the slow process. In fact, under-eating is a stronger correlate for osteopenia and osteoporosis than being underactive. It's actually a slightly stronger correlate.

So you actually see what you're talking about is quite common, is very common, especially in the demographic of women who exercise but under-eat over years and years and years. And you see this often, often, often. They strength train, they do all the right stuff. they're active. But because of the years of under-eating, they end up with osteopenia, osteoporosis, they end up losing muscle mass. We see hormone changes. Sometimes things like hair starts to fall out and skin issues start to happen. So we need to put you, you have to be on an aggressive bulk. That's what's going to do this. Now the challenge is going to be how that's going to feel for you and how challenging it's going to be to see your body weight go up. I'm assuming this has been something

you've been kind of struggling with or wrestling with for a little while. So that's going to be the big challenge. So there's a couple pieces of advice I have for you. First off, strength training once or twice a week. That's it. You're not doing any more than that. We're actually going to try to minimize damage. In fact, once or twice a week in a calorie surplus, if you're in a consistent calorie surplus, you will see rapid, radical strength gains. More than that, I'm afraid is going to produce too much stress on your body because I don't think you're going to be enough of a calorie surplus, knowing your history, to support more than that.

The rest of your activity could look like walking, and I would actually limit your walking. I would say no less, I'm sorry, no more than about 10,000 steps today. That's the max. I say, look, you hit 10,000 steps, you're done for the day. We're not doing cardio, any additional activity. you're lifting full body once or twice a week at most, and we're going to eat in an aggressive calorie surplus. Okay, so let's talk about the calorie surplus.

How difficult is it for you to eat extra calories or more? It's a tough question because when I started with my coach, that's what I tried to do. You know, I found it at some point that I was just so, full. And I consider myself an eater. And he had suggested, you know, have a cheeseburger, have fries, have ice cream, you can do this, you know. And because I care about what I put in my body, that was hard for me to do as well. And he actually came back to me and apologized. He said, you know, I'm sorry because I know how you eat. And for me to tell you to eat ice cream at

night, it's probably just not going to fit. So that's where I struggle. Like, I was doing, I was trying the protein shakes. I'm not a huge shake person. Although I think that probably helped me. And I still weigh myself. Background, I grew up as a dancer. I was a dance teacher for 15 years.

So I've been in front of a mirror, basically, since I was six. and the other caveat to your advice is that I also teach fitness classes so I'm a cycling instructor so I do a one hour class every Wednesday I do every

other Monday for half an hour and then I used to on my off Monday ride on my own and then Friday doing a class as well and then I also teach TRX on Saturdays so it's a lot and I know I've pulled back just a few weeks ago because my back has really been hurting me.

So I've really pulled back on my cardio. So that's kind of what I'm struggling with, like, what to eat, how often to eat. And I don't mind eating. Let's give me a day of what like the foods you like to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Because what I would do is I would build from that. Instead of trying to take you from someone who eats clean to go have cheeseburger and ice cream, which is so opposite of you. it's more like, oh, here's a way we could sneak in an extra 300 calories on some of you already eat.

So tell me what you kind of already eat. I have an idea there. Not to say I don't eat cheeseburgers. I do. I'm kind of that 80, 20, 90, 10 person. But very, very routine. I meal prep my yogurt bowls every day. So I have yogurt.

I put a ton of stuff in it. I do yogurt. I do my collagen powder. I do creatine. I do pumpkin and spices and stuff, you know, like cinnamon and whatnot without getting too far into it. And I do nut butter in that as well. So I do that every day. Sometimes I'll do an egg or two like for a mid-morning snack.

Then I will have for lunch very routine as well, especially Monday through Friday for work. I'll do some sort of protein and then spinach and chattaki mushrooms and sweet potatoes, sometimes rice. and then for dinner, I'm usually doing some sort of protein and vegetable. Okay. Yeah. Let's start right with breakfast. A full fat yogurt with granola and honey on it without changing so much right there. And we just added three, 400 calories.

So I would literally put granola in there. I would use full fat yogurt and I would drizzle honey over the top of it. So it's not way out of what you're, so there's an example, right, how we can take a meal that you already kind of love and eat and do. and then we could spruce it up a little bit that will give you some dense calories and still stay healthy and still taste really good. What was the lunch again? Remind me the lunch? It's like a protein.

I'll either do salmon or ground turkey with sometimes rice, sweet potato, spinach, and baby spinach and mushrooms. Is it okay? Is it okay if I interject real quick? Sure. Okay. And this, look, unfortunately, because of the format, we're like on a call. Because if I was coaching you, this would be a longer conversation and process.

But I'm going to, you know, part of my brevity, there is no way you're going to approach this and not feel uncomfortable. There's nothing we're going to do that you can do to move in the right direction that isn't going to feel very uncomfortable. So appetite is strongly connected to our psychology. And we know this, obviously, look around, right? obesity is a major problem and it's it's less has to do with you know appetite and feeding the body what it needs type of deal and much more to do with how we our relationship to food now yours just happens to be in another direction so your um the your relationship to food is closer to orthorexia are you familiar with the term yes okay so because it's in this category um in order

to move out of this you're going to feel very uncomfortable So eating the cheeseburger, the ice cream, or eating more is going to feel I'm stuffed, I feel gross, I feel heavy, oh, my God, I'm bloated. You're going to get all the feelings of discomfort. So that's just what it's going to feel like for a little while, okay? Yeah. The ways to navigate that, there's two. One, I highly suggest you work with a coach that specializes in eating disorders. So I would work with an eating disorder specialist.

Okay, once a week. And they're not going to give you a diet, but they're going to help you kind of come face to face with what's going on here. Your past, your history and dance, all that. It all fits here perfectly. The second question I have is, how important is this fitness job for you? Is this your main source of income or is it just because you like it? No, it's because I love it.

You got to quit. Yeah. Quit your job. I hate to tell you that. It's not going to happen if you stay working in the fitness. Yeah, because here's what you do. At Sal's point, what happens with a client that's doing with this and you have things like that, you, and it's because this is such a psychological game, I get you to eat your granola and honey. And then all of a sudden you pick it up intensity-wise inside your fitness class subconsciously.

And I bet you've done stuff like this before. You know you ate a little bit more. So what happens? You get on that cycling. And today you cycle that much harder. And it's like, so you're literally working against yourself. You take two steps forward, then you go three back every time we make progress. And so it's not going to support what we're trying to do right now.

It's a snare. So fitness classes, working in fitness is a snare. The mirror is a snare. The scale is a snare. You will get caught in it if you continue in those. So as far as the mirror is concerned, I would not, it's going to sound silly. I wouldn't look in the mirror.

I would look in the mirror just enough to get ready. Hair, makeup, clothes. Consciously, no more mirror. Like I'm not looking in the mirror. anymore. I would take my scale and throw, not even, don't even have a scale in the house. It's not going to be there. I'm not going to weigh myself anymore. You work with someone who specializes in eating disorder. And then, and the goal is now to eat in an aggr- and I'm going to use these words purposefully, aggressive bulk, because it's not going to feel anything but aggressive.

There is no bulk, there is no surplus that's not going to feel aggressive to you. So when you're in it, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, this feels aggressive. I could put you on 1,500 calories, and that's going to feel aggressive to you. You're going to be like, oh, this is a lot. It's too much. I don't feel it. I do. I track my calories.

I'm with my coach. I was trying to get to over 2100, which I have. Good. Good. Consistently? Pretty much. Yeah, because even at my, my maintenance when I was, you know, 88 to 92 or 90, I was like 1,800 to 1950.

Okay. Which is not bad, but that tells me you're probably moving a lot. Yeah, I would put you're moving a lot. You move a lot. Yeah, I would. And you probably, what I said about, you pick up the intensity every time you eat a little extra, it's probably definitely you. Yeah, I would jump to 26 if we were to track.

And or just reduce a lot of the activity. You have to do both. Yeah, yeah. And I have, yeah, I have recently only because of my back issues and my tendin off the issues. And I have seen a difference in in pulling back. I'm trying to not have 10 to 14,000 steps a day. So I have gained a little bit of weight. over the past couple of weeks.

But it's just so frustrating with these pains that I'm having to be able to continue doing what I want. Pay attention to this, Jen, if we start moving in this direction. The pain will start to reduce. You'll start to feel stronger. You'll have more energy. Those are the things I want you to pay attention to. Try not to pay attention to the way that your body looks in the mirror as it changes

the way it looks. And try not to pay attention to the scale. So if you're like getting strong, if you're getting strong, you're doing great. You're moving in the right direction. And with the right caloric intake, a couple days a week of strength training, reduced all the other stuff, you're going to see strength rains pretty quickly. I would love for her to work with Corinne. Are you locked in with your coach? No, I'm almost over actually. Really? Really? Okay, because I would love to bring you in our house. I would love for our trainer, Corinne, to work through this, and then the guys

and I would be overseeing this project. So if you're open to it, I would love to set up a call where she could go over everything with you and then I'd love for us to take care of you because like Sal said this is not a 20 minute call or conversation this is an ongoing thing and I want to

I want to be there to help you if you let us and the good news is it will reverse quickly if you do everything right your body it wants so badly to build muscle and then what's going to follow is the bone strengthening so it will move in that direction it really need it just needs you to do the right things so it's

Totally reversible. Yeah, and just another side note. I started HRT last year, estradiol in progesterone last December, and then in February time frame I started on testosterone. Just the cream, so I really wasn't feeling a difference. And then just switched to injections about six weeks ago. Oh, you're primed. Yeah, you are.

Yeah, you're totally primed. You're going to move in the right direction very, very well. Yeah, we're going to hang up, and I'm going to have her call you, okay? So give us a little bit. Thank you so much. Give us a little time, and we're going to take care of you. All right. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Bye. Make sure Cren does it. Yeah, it's tough. Well, you know, I hate it because there's nothing. Well, there's nothing we could say right now.

That fixes that. No. I mean, even, and I get why you interrupted me. It was just like, hey, you could build her day all day long for her. But then I knew exactly what she would do. So I might have added 400 calories. She would have found a way to burn it right back off. Run it off.

Yeah. Anyways. Or little by little, taking those. Keller. Yeah, yeah. So the problem with this is that we often tell people to listen to your body, okay? That's a very good advice, general advice. But if you don't know how to listen to your body, or if developed patterns where your body lies to you, which is another way to put it, listening to your body doesn't work. Yeah, it'll mislead you. It doesn't. So for her, going in the right direction with food is not going to feel good. She's not, she's going to feel full.

I don't feel right. I feel like I'm stuffing myself. I feel like I'm, overfeeding. I thought I wasn't supposed to do that. That's what it's going to feel like. And so literally, the idea is, like, listen to your coach, ignore your body. Yeah. It's what it's going to be for a little while until things, you know. I'm actually really excited. She was super open to us, taking care of her. And this is somebody, especially prying with testosterone right now. But she needs to get out of the gym, like, stop working. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Such a bad environment. I mean, we didn't even dive into her activity, but I'm willing to bet she's doing. She said, she tried to cut it down to 14,000 steps or so.

Yeah, yeah. She's just moving and under eating. Yeah, yeah. Our next caller is Whitney from Colorado. Hi, Whitney. Hello. Hi. What are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you.

I'm so excited. Cool. How can we help you? Well, a long-time listener to the show, and I, just for context, I'll read my question. I'm a real estate investor training. I love training for high altitude trail races and climbing. I'm having an authorship at surgery next week, actually, to repair. a rotator cuff tear. My super spinanus has a full thickness tear. They also will have to shave down

a hooked to chromium and relocate my biceps tendon, which is essentially a biceps tendonesis. I'll be in a sling for six weeks with no upper body use, but walking and light jogging should be allowed by six weeks. Here's why I'm writing in. I fought really hard over the last few years to rebuild my right leg after multiple knee surgeries and finally regain glute strength. and appropriate exception. I have a long history of scapular instability from a car rack and spinal fracture. So maintaining that hard one strength is a major priority during this recovery period for me. Athletically, I played D1 soccer, competed in Ultimate Frisbee at the national and international level. I just turned 50 and over the last three years, I focused on eliminating over-training,

getting my hormones dialed in, and optimizing my nutrition. And quite honestly, I feel stronger now than I did in my 30s. My current regimen includes nine hours in bed nightly, about seven and a half to eight hours of actual sleep, 120 grams of protein a day, including bone broth and protein supplementation. I eat about 95% clean, whole foods, no processed junk, and I supplement with multivitamin D3K2 probiotic and beef liver supplementation. At home, I have dumbbells, a bench, TRX, and bands, and I can't. and go to a gym where I have access to a sled. I love running, hiking, and rucking. I just started, I will start walking immediately post-off and aim to resume lower body

work within one to two weeks if safe. My question, what kind of split movement strategies or training approach? Would you recommend to maintain leg and scapular strength, minimizing atrophy, and staying mentally sharp, all without compromising my shoulder repair? Yeah, great. Great question. How much rucking and running are we doing in a week? I run three days a week about somewhere around 12 to maybe 14 miles on the weekends.

If I'm training for a race, I just completed the Pikes Peak Ascent, which was 13 miles uphill. Then I'll be doing eight to 10 miles on the weekend. I'm coming off of that. So, you know, now I'm probably back down to 20 miles a week of running. Rucking, maybe another five to six miles. And then in addition to that, you're also lifting weights. And this is, this is you coming, this is you no longer over training. This is you coming down from what you say used to be overtraining.

Is that right? Yes, actually. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. By the way, do you have a background in like anatomy or something? I know. The way you communicate, I was like, she's either a trainer or she does this for a little. Definitely privy, yeah.

I actually was a second year med student in several certifications in health. And I actually have a PhD in nutrition. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so because of your background, your high-level athleticism background, your idea of appropriate when it comes to exercise volume and intensity is very different from what is actually appropriate. So you're going to have to reduce a lot of that volume so that you're not always doing what you can tolerate, but rather what's, you know, what's appropriate for you, what's right

for you to move your body in the right direction. Post-surgery, first off, do you have, are you going to have physical therapy afterwards? I'm assuming yes? Yes, one to two times a week. Very valuable. I think it's just range of motion, yeah. Okay, very valuable. So do that. After you're cleared from physical therapy, you're going to do correctional exercise for a little while. Okay, so your exercise routine is going to be focused on. on regaining or encouraging good movement patterns. So it's all correctional exercise. What you don't want to do in combination with that

is any kind of repetitive movement where you can continue to train old movement patterns. So it's not a good idea to do lots of stuff that you're already doing that you're good at while you're trying to regain a new movement pattern because your body's going to be, you're going to be competing movement patterns. You have old movement patterns,

which probably contributed to the injury. And those old movement patterns are really solidified. So what we want to do is we don't want to keep practicing those while simultaneously trying to do correctional exercise. So it's going to be just correctional exercise for a little while. And then after that, just strength training for a little while to build strength, that build that base. And then you can slowly introduce some of the stuff that you love to do.

But I will caution you to always try to do what is best, not what you can tolerate because what probably happens with someone like you is you'll start here and you're like, you know, I could do more and you feel good. You're like, I could do more and I could do more. And then you're always kind of tiptoeing that line of what I can tolerate and maybe doing a little too much. So then what you do is you get a little more sleep, do the recovery stuff, supplement a little bit, bring yourself back over that line, continue to do what you tolerate.

So you're always kind of toggling between a little too much and maybe just what you could tolerate. But before what you could tolerate is what's considered best for things like strength and performance and all that stuff. Now, for an athlete like you, because you have an athlete mind, okay, so, and this is like, this is not a bad thing. It's a great thing. So you want to approach your training like in-season, off-season. So there's a short season, and then there's a long off-season. Off-season is all about doing what's appropriate, recuperating, strength,

feel good. It's kind of a cruise. In season, you're sprinting. And I'm going to give that to you because otherwise you're going to pull your hair out. Because if you don't have that in season time, you're probably like this boring. So in season, off season. Off season is going to be like 75, 80% of the time. 20, 25% of time is going to be when you're kind of pushing it.

Have you been able to take a break from running and just focus on training before? Have you done that? Actually, I just finished up my racing season. last weekend. And so, yeah, I'm totally an offseason now. Awesome. That's why I'm doing the surgery now because I know I need to take a break. Yeah, like you said, the corrective phase is I would, I mean, and this is kind of a mental difficulty for especially athletes because, you know, we know what we're capable of. However, and two, you want to accelerate the process because it's mundane. I would challenge you to double that.

whatever you think it is to get through it, just in your mind, just stay there even longer. And then from there, we're going to get into, like, unilateral training and really dictating that based upon what your arm can tolerate at that point. Yeah, I'd love to send you over Prime Pro for all the corrective work that we have in there and you focus on that primarily.

And then probably come out of that into symmetry. Yeah, you say? Yeah, symmetry would be a great workout program. Prime Pro is what you're going to do for what Justin is saying, double the time you thought you're going to do it. And then when you get out of that, symmetry is a great, a great program. Now, Whitney, you're doing, do you have access to peptide therapy? I mean, I've taken BPC before and nominal, like, improvement for my knee.

But I think that's because the problem wasn't my knee. It was actually my hip. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So BPC, thymus and beta, I think is a great combination. Miraculous for what you're going through. Yeah, post-surgery, I would use those. They're not, so neither one of those will fix chronic problems.

So chronic problems are just dysfunction. But like an actual injury, tear or, you know, surgery, they accelerate the healing process. So BPC with thymus and beta post-surgery. And then correctional exercise looks like this. It's every day, every single day, maybe twice a day. So every day, twice a day, 15 to 20 minutes, you're doing correctional exercise. And unless you get really sore, you're like, I've got to take a day off and do that. And then kind of do that for a little while.

I like what Justin said, go longer than you think. And then go into symmetry. And symmetry is great because it starts isometric, which would be perfect. And then you get into unilateral work, and I think that'll be ideal. And then after you're kind of like, man, I'm feeling balanced and strong, then you can start incorporating the runs and the rucking again. But again, always remember, like, do less than. what you can tolerate. That'll, that'll give you so much longevity with that.

Yeah, I really, I ran symmetry three times this year. And I think that's one of the reasons why my hips and knees and lower back just really stabilized. Perfect. And I was able to race how I wanted to race this year. Perfect. Love that program. Oh, so you already have that. Do you have Prime Pro? I do. Yeah. Oh, you're great. I wonder you know what you're doing it. Whitney, you've got everything. Yeah, yeah. Right on. Yeah, that'd be the way to do it. I mean, Someone like you, you're going to do really well so long as you don't overdo it. Yeah. That's the only thing.

It's the mentality going in. I will caution you this to the BPC and the thymocin, it cuts the recovery time in half. And so I would caution someone like you to wanting to rush back because you feel so good so fast. I remember that the exact same issue. Oh, man, I feel great already. Already. And then re-injured myself. Yeah, because it will heal you faster.

And we've talked and speculated that I think it's half the time. that it would normally take without it. And so that's going to make you want to get back into it. So Justin's advice of whatever you think, just double it, is a pretty good, smart idea. Do you have a suggestion on capsules or injections? Injections. Yeah, capsules are real. It's subcontaneous, though.

It's just a little diabetic. Yeah, the oral version is good for gut health. But it doesn't work quite as well systemically as the injection. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you. I'll give that a shot. And with your athletic background and your muscle memory, like, if you do this right, you're going to get back. Oh, yeah. You rebound like even better. And the surgery you're getting, I'm very familiar with. Great success rate so long as the rehab is done properly. So it's going to be great. Yeah. Use this time to build better patterns. So that's how I'd look at it.

Awesome. Yeah. I'm really actually looking forward to kind of the downtime after. I just want to. Really? Good. Yes. That's a good attitude. That's a good attitude. I kind of have to be, right? Okay.

That's good. That's good to hear for us, for sure. Yeah, that's good to hear. Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome. You're going to do great. I'd love to hear back from you after you recover from this, especially since you're going about it.

When's the surgery schedule? It's October? October 10th. You want to talk with this again three months after? Absolutely. I would love to. All right. Let's do that.

Awesome. See how you're doing. We'll have you back on. Awesome. Thank you guys. All right, Wendy. Send her the link, too, to our partners, Doug, so she knows where to go for the peptides. She's, she'll do great, so long as she doesn't overdo it.

Justin's advice was great. Yeah, I love that. Whatever you think, double that. Oh, I'm done. Twice as long. Yeah. That's such good advice, especially if she gets on that BPC, because she gets on that, that's going to cut it down and even more. And so even then I might actually say go three times what you're thinking, because that is the only challenge for someone that active, that, athletic and also very knowledgeable and very knowledgeable i mean this i i think sometimes we're our

worst right like that was 100% oh yeah my several injuries i've had because i'm cocky and oh i know what i'm doing and like oh i'm feeling good let's go and then re-injure myself uh and so if you if you did that double rule it would have been okay yeah exactly but yeah she's uh you look at her injuries and what she was at a high level at right knee d1 soccer yeah shoulder Ultimate Frisbee. Oh, yeah. You know, 100%. A lot of that.

Our next caller is Katie from Minnesota. Hi, Katie. Hello. Hi, guys. How are you? We're good. How are you? Good.

I feel like I'm meeting my favorite boy band. Oh, my God. I don't think the boy band is. All right. I want to know who each guy is then for sure. Stop, dude. Stop, dude. Joey Fetona.

How can we help you? Well, first of all, I just wanted to thank you guys for, for everything that you do, your show has been a huge part of my fitness journey. And also some individual, thank you, Sal, I love the spiritual growth that you've been experiencing and just following that piece. Adam, I have to say, your peanut butter hack has changed my life, and it has also caused a lot of conflict in your life. It's a lot of conflict. I feel like you are the unsung hero of the group. I live for your sarcastic comments.

and oftentimes I feel like you're the Easter egg in this show. Great way to find that. I love that. Awesome. How can we help you? All right. So I'm just going to read my question as I wrote it. I have been running your programs for about two and a half years.

I've done anabolic, MAPS-15, Cemetery, Muscle, Mommy, and aesthetic. I've enjoyed each program and appreciated the results that I have achieved from each individual program. But the standout for me has really been specifically phases two and three of aesthetic and phase two of muscle mommy. Awesome. Throughout those phases, I felt an endorphin rush after every single workout and really just felt overall great energy throughout my days. I was sleeping better. And I actually was paying more attention to my like my Fitbit and my watch and the feedback that I was getting on that too like everything was just off the charts awesome um it's honestly the best i've ever felt

working out and i know just from listening to you guys that aesthetic is the high volume that you don't want to keep repeating but i find that i'm kind of chasing that aesthetic high um and so i'm wondering first of all are the effects that i experience typical or maybe is my body just responding different and then what would you recommend of your programs um that would still give me that same high, just knowing that I don't necessarily have any specific fitness goals other than continuing to build my strength. Just looking for some advice there on what to do next.

That's such a good question. Great question, a lot of options. And I think just from at first glance, you're doing, I think, a pretty good job. When I look at the programs you're rotating through, there's nothing wrong with doing, you love aesthetic or you love muscle mommy, and you're loving the results, everything's so positive,

it absolutely can be perfect for you. If you just interrupt it every two programs or so with like a performance type or symmetry type of program, I think you can be continue the path you're going. There's a paradox here with what you're experiencing. First off, what you're experiencing is great. It's awesome, obviously. You love it.

It feels good. It doesn't feel bad. You're even measuring HRV. So it's like, you know, it's all in my head. Libito, everything's doing better. Yeah. Good signs. But the reason why you're able to experience all that great stuff is because of the phase one.

It's because of the maps anabolic setup. It's because of the other programs that are leading into what you're doing. If you just stayed in the phase two and three of aesthetic over and over and over again, it would definitely go in the opposite direction. So what we don't want to do, and this is common with fitness fanatics, is we start to fall in love with the feeling. and then we start to chase the feeling. And what that can look like is some people love to feel strong, right?

So this is what they always stay in. And then they start develop injuries and pattern movement issues because of it. Or they love the pump and they just chase the pump all the time. Or they love the endorphin rush. And so you want to be careful with that because you actually get less of it if you always chase it. So the secret to getting more of it is to set yourself up well before you go into those phases. And I think you're doing a great job by going through the different programs. it out.

The next program I see that you don't have up there that I think you will love is strong. I think Strong is going to give you what you're looking for. Have you done that strong? I have not. We're going to send it to you. Those work sessions are going to give you exactly what you like from those other programs. And it's very different from what you've done. Okay.

So give me the variety that I'm looking for. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very unconventional lifts in there too. You're really going to love it. Great posture of your chain work. you're going to get great back, shoulder, glute development.

It's got the volume and intensity that you desire, but it's well cycled. So I think that would be a great program to do next. Katie, do you have MAP 15 performance also or no? I don't think so. Okay, I want to have Doug give you that one, too. Because once you have those two, you have like the perfect, you got a great mix. You got a great mix of, and as long as you interrupt your year with a cycle of symmetry, or Maps 15 performance, you're going to be, you're going to get what you want is you got a good

balance, you're scaling back a little bit on intensity, then you're going back down and then you're throttling back up, you're doing unilateral work, multiple, like, you're addressing all the main things, you'll be just fine. Yep. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

You got it. Doing great. Yeah, great job. Love it. All right. Email in after you're done with Strong. We'd love to hear your feedback after you go through it. It'd be a great person to talk to you.

Okay, I will do that. Thank you so much. Thanks, Katie. All right. I love to hear it. She was a peach. Yeah, I love to hear it. I love to hear stuff like that.

Oh, yeah. And I love that she combined the endorphin rush with some objective measures because sometimes the endorphin rush is just, I'm beating myself up. Right, right. Yeah, her libido up, her sleeping better, HRV better. Oh, yeah. That's all signs. She's doing good.

Doing a great job. Yeah, that's awesome. Our next caller is. Ashley from North Carolina. Hi, Ashley. How are you doing, Ashley? How can we help you? Okay, so I have been a listener for probably about the last two years. I have five boys, ages two to 12. Five boys? Yeah. You got a full basketball team. That's awesome. God bless you. Yes. Yes. And I have been working out consistently since 2019 after my third was

born. I was doing a popular, um, online, uh, workout company. Um, you guys probably know them if I said their name, but, um, and I lost about 50 to 60 pounds after having that child. Um, I was very, um, I like to call it skinny fat, um, where I didn't have any muscle, but I was, I was down to the weight that I wanted to be. Um, and ever since then, um, after having, I've had two babies since then, um, I haven't been able to get back down there. Um, and I don't necessarily care about the weight so much as the like the number on the scale as much as the um i mean i'd like to lose the fat is really what it comes down to um and so now i am really good at maintaining i've been maintaining since march and that's very frustrating because i don't want to

maintain um i'm at i am 5-5 and i weigh around 180 to 190 um my lifts are going up so i am gaining the muscle but i just cannot seem to drop the weight and i i don't understand why i don't know if it's heart rate. So my heart rate, um, my resting heart weight is anywhere between 48 and 55 beats a minute. Um, and I go like, I'm doing a deadlift and I can get my heart rate up to like 120, maybe 1.30. And by the time I'm done with my deadlifts, my heart rate is back down to like 70 to 100. Like it's pretty low. Yeah. Has nothing to do with your, that's a good thing. Has nothing to do with your heart rate. Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. Don't even worry about your heart. How old are your boys? Um, so they're 12 to 2. Your youngest is 2. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, you're doing great. You look really healthy. Yeah. You look super vibrant. You're getting strong still. That's great. Yeah, you look super vibrant. I can see from here. You're saying that you're feeling strong. Heart rate coming down after sets. That's a great sign. You're moving in the right direction. You just got to be patient. If you're avoiding processed foods, you're eating whole natural foods, you're hitting your protein targets. You're going to, over time, start to get leaner and leaner and leaner. Yeah. Don't push the process right now because you're in a good space. You want your body to work for you. Any idea where you land calorie-wise? And are you really consistent with hitting the protein every day? So my macros, my calories are right at 1,700. I don't want to go any lower than that. I hate the way I feel when I go lower.

My protein is at 171. Carbs are 149. And my fats are at 48. Oh, you've got to bump your fats. Yeah, and we just reverse diet. She's at 17 right now, and you're lifting and doing stuff, unless you're really sedentary. I'd say we need to go the other direction, which is probably why you're stalled.

You're eating a low enough calories that your body's like hanging on to everything. It's like, okay, and if we go after a muscle, like let's go gain some muscle for a good two, three months and then watch what happens when you go back down. You're getting stronger on 1,700 calories is great. And it's a good sign. Yeah, let's reverse diet.

You go up to 1850. Okay. Bump it through fat. Your carbs and proteins are fine. Okay. So just have my fat. Yeah, you got to get your fats up to like 70. I don't like having women anything below 60 or 55 at the lowest.

Okay. It tends to not work really well. So bump your fats a little bit. Get up to 1850. Keep getting stronger. You're moving in the right direction. You look super healthy, especially for having five boys and the youngest being two. Yeah.

You're in a good place. Just start to reverse diet. So we have a place to cut from later. Where are you at? What program are you following right now? I am, it's a, a, just, an online program. The best thing that I like about it is that I can track my, like, okay, I started here

and I'm going up here. I don't have anything that I'm great with. I would like to, I'd like you to get in our muscle mommy group. I think you would absolutely thrive in there. It has two programs already in there that you have free access to. Okay. So you've got the muscle mommy full program or the muscle mommy 15, which is the shorter workouts.

And have you inside that group where we're getting weekly calls with the trainers that are coaching everybody through that. Yep. You'll get some good reverse diet coach. I would say a good portion of the women in there are also reverse dieting right now. It tends to be one of the first things that we do with them. And so extremely valuable. It's you can, what's the website, Doug?

Musclemommanymovement.com. Yeah. And that'll log you right in there. And I'll see you pop up and make sure I say hi right away. And then let the boys and I take you through this. I think you're actually in a really good place. And you're going to be feeling really good in a couple months. So what should I do about, like, cardio?

So, for example, we literally just got back from a three-week trip in Italy, and I wore my two-year-old, basically, the whole trip. And we did eight to 25,000 steps a day. And we didn't lose, my husband and I both didn't lose anything. We didn't watch what we were eating. Unfortunately, didn't get enough protein. And so I don't, like, I feel like I need more cardio. Is that, like, I'm working out three days a week. Do I need more cardio?

No, no. No, you just walk. Walk. Yeah, hit your eight to 10,000 steps a day. walking walking is plenty uh eight to 10,000 steps walking is plenty with the program is going to be perfect with a reverse diet once we reverse diet you to somewhere like 24 200 calories then we have a place to cut from yeah and then when you and then when you do that you're going to do it with more muscle and you're going to just and then you'll see the fat you'll see it see it come right off

you'll feel good does that make sense to actually what we're saying do you understand why you need to reverse diet okay yeah yeah because if you cut from 1700 you don't have much room to go So we've got to get the metabolic rate in a different place. Okay. You're going to be good. Yeah. I'm excited. Yeah.

Get in there. I'll see you today. All right. Great. Thanks. All right. Thank you. She's doing good.

She looks real healthy. She just had a two. Her baby's two. She's like not that long ago. And she very well could be in this like Goldilocks zone. She's still getting stronger. Yeah. I mean,

what's how. And that can be frustrating for people because they don't see anything moving fast. But she's probably losing a half a pound of fat than building a half a Yeah, so it's just a slow process. But like you said, you can see how vibrant she is, how healthy she sounds like, and she's getting stronger. Her calories are just low. If she wants to speed it up, the faster route would be to reverse diet, that's right.

Build some muscle aggressively, get up to like 2,500. Come back down to 2,000 and lose weight fast on a higher calorie intake than she is right now. Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com.

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