Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2754: Stress is Making You Fat! Here's how and how to fix it.

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

Mind Pump Fit Tip: Stress is Making You Fat! Here's how and how to fix it. (2:28) The most effective anti-inflammatory. (26:04) Hip thrust king! (28:19) Baby sumo. (31:27) Kids do the darndest things. (34:13) The delicate dance of getting your kids to do things they don't want to do. (36:48) Carnival genetics. (39:24) Effects of ultra-processed foods on kids. (41:32) American culture and consumption. (43:18) The importance of having a healthy microbiome on your skin. (49:42) #ListenerCoaching call #1 – How to structure the workout when hitting two or more muscle groups in the same workout. (55:38) #ListenerCoaching call #2 – How do you know when a low HRV score means you actually need to back off training, versus when it's just reflecting daily stress, hormones, or life chaos? (1:04:46) #ListenerCoaching call #3 – How to balance work/life, while trying to be an inspiring entrepreneur. (1:12:15) #ListenerCoaching call #4 – How can I continue to incorporate all of the things I love without losing muscle and strength gains, while also seeking optimal overall health outside of aesthetics (I deal with quite a bit of body dysmorphia)? (1:24:26) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get Coached by Mind Pump, live! Visit https://www.mplivecaller.com Visit Fatty15 for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit with code MINDPUMP ** Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order of their best products. ** MAPS 15 FORTY PLUS 50% half from Dec. 14-20th. Code DECEMBER50 at checkout. Mind Pump Store Purpose in life and stress: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 16 samples Gratitude enhances health, brings happiness - Harvard Health The importance of friendships in reducing brain responses to stress in adolescents exposed to childhood adversity: a preregistered systematic review Ultra-processed foods threaten brain health in kids and teens, review warns Australia's social media ban for kids under 16 goes into effect 'We fear people will end up in financial trouble.' Americans will spend a record $20 billion via buy-now-pay-later during the holidays. Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code 20MINDPUMP for 20% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. ** Mind Pump #2469: Compound Before Isolation Lifts are the Best, Except When They're Not (Listener Live Coaching) Online Personal Training Course | Mind Pump Fitness Coaching ** Approved provider by NASM/AFAA (1.9 CEUs)! Grow your business and succeed in 2025. ** Mind Pump #2560: How to Break Free from Destructive Body Image Issues Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram Christopher M. Naghibi (@chrisnaghibi) Instagram Kyle P (@mindpumpkyle) 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 live callers call in and we got to coach them on air. But this was after an intro. Today's intro was 52 minutes long.

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Stress. It's making you fat. Well, that's a little dramatic, but it is true that stress can change how your body stores body fat. And there's lots of studies that show that there's a relationship between too much stress and your body storing body fat. It's also connected to a loss of muscle. So we're going to talk about that today. How you can fix this is the reason why you're not making progress your stress. Let's get into it. Everybody relax.

Yeah, that's it. You're fixed. Done. It totally works. Yeah. Now, this is like, there's a bit of this that's controversial, right? Because is this only in the context of a calorie surplus or can this possibly happen to somebody who is operating in a place of, say, maintenance or even a deficit and still store body fat from that?

That's a great question. So, first off, and we'll get into this, but stress affects how you eat. So it's hard to separate the two. Okay. So it does also affect your caloric intake. What types of foods that you mean? We'll get to that. But independent of that, the data does seem to suggest that stress itself has this, like, special quality of increasing or changing, I should say, especially fat disposition or where you store body fat.

And this is probably due to hormones. Now, that being said, your calories out does get affected by the stress also. So, yes, the law of thermodynamics still applies, meaning you can't gain extra tissue without extra calories, but does stress affect how you burn calories? Or another way of saying that stress is potentially also slowing the metabolism down. Yes. Putting it more in this kind of survival mode of, I'm taking on all this stress, I need to conserve energy. Right. Is that kind of another way of saying it?

Yeah. So stress does have a direct effect on hormones. We'll start there for a second. Everybody knows cortisol is the stress hormone. I do want to say cortisol is not a bad hormone. No. If you had no, you would be miserable with no cortisol.

You need cortisol. But what stress does do is it elevates cortisol because cortisol is this kind of energy-producing hormone. Now, if too much exposure to it, it can cause problems, but you need it, okay? And cortisol and a healthy individual spikes in the morning and slowly comes down. That night is problematic.

You want it to go down throughout the day because otherwise you can't sleep. And you want it to go up in the morning otherwise you can't wake up. And chronic stress can cause just constant elevation to cortisol, or what becomes more common is an inverted cortisol curve, where it's just slow to come up in the morning. And then, and so you wake up and you're like, I need coffee,

I need energy drain, I need something. I'm dragging. And then by the end of the day, you're tired but wired. And you're like, why am I having trouble sleeping? What's going on? And that's related to cortisol. Now, elevated cortisol also affects insulin sensitivity, makes it worse. And it has effects on all kinds of different things, including anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone, which start to get dysfunctional as well.

So from a hormone perspective, definitely, definitely has an impact. Yeah, but I like having this question in relation to the whole calorie thing because I think this is where there's a divide in the fitness industry where the science community will, you know, know, we'll point to the people that are talking about cortisol and hormones and say, oh, that's all fear mongering. It's all calories in versus calories out. But what we understand when those hormones are in balance, when you have these spikes of cortisol when you shouldn't be like at nighttime and stuff like that, this throws off behaviors. Throwing off the behaviors ends up throwing off what you eat many times. And so they're not independent of each other. And so I get really annoyed by our space when we when we do this when we start pointing at each other who's

more right about it when someone's communicating about the importance of a real impact has a massive definitely influence has a massive impact and this is an area where studies fail us because when we talk about these these people in studies where it's oh it's just the it's just the law thermals it's just the calories thing so it doesn't matter that person's insulin's a little this way or cortisol that way if they were to eat these calories. But the reality we know is that that person who's all over the place, insulin, cortisol doesn't eat the way that control group does and therefore it affects their behaviors and therefore makes that impact. Even if they didn't, Adam, even if they didn't, we'll get to that, by the way, because it has a very, very powerful influence on your

eating behaviors. That's what stress. Stress is like stress eating is a thing, right? Yeah. So it does affect your behaviors strongly. And we'll get to that. But even if it, even if you're caloric, didn't change, your hormones will change the, or influence how many calories your body burns anyway. So, yeah, law of thermodynamics still applies. But law of thermodynamics doesn't change, but suddenly your caloric burn changes. In other words, if you take a man with really low testosterone and you put them on testosterone and you change nothing else, they get leaner.

Well, what would happen? They built muscle. Yeah. It changed. It improved insulin sensitivity. muscle, metabolism boost. You know, he's leaner as a result of more muscle. And does he actually lose pounds of fat a little bit?

That's what the data shows. You do the same thing with women with their hormones. You start to see changes in body composition. So do hormones play a role? Yeah. Is the law of thermodynamics also apply? Yeah. It all applies.

It's not one or the other. It's all of them. Yeah. And one affects the other. You could also affect your hormones through your diet through trying to manipulate the law of thermodynamics by under eating or by overeating too much. Yeah. So it all plays a role.

But let's talk about how it affects behaviors. Stress has very powerful effects on the foods that we choose to eat. And it can look like this. It could either look like I don't want to eat. So extreme stress will do this in some people, which typically is followed up by a rebound in appetite. Or more commonly, when you feel chronic levels of stress, you want to escape.

Yeah, you want comfort. You want comfort. And in the moment, really hyper-pallible food, does that in the moment. It's normal. And so what people tend to do when their stress levels are not managed properly, which we'll get to, is an increase of consumption of salt, sugar, and fat, which are the three main ingredients in palatibility. The trifecta. Or to be even more specific, processed food consumption, fast food consumption goes through the roof. And that's just what stressed out. Now, is it this related to what's going on with,

cortisol, insulin, and then how it impacts Grelin, and that impact is now... All of it. Okay. It's not just that. It's also neurotrans. Way more complex than that, but it's also that. But it's also neurotransmitters. It's also, I feel crappy.

I want to feel better psychologically. I mean, there's, I remember, and we've talked about this on the show a bunch of times, but I remember that being such a, like a big hack for me was becoming aware of that, those cravings for just like junk food or foods that I normally don't crave and connecting the dots to to poor sleep. And I remember just like... Because poor sleep is a stress. Yes.

And it throws all, throws the cortisol off does all the things that you're talking about right now. And so realizing, just becoming aware that that's coming because I got like waking up and going like, oh, grogging. Oh, God. Terrible night of sleep. Wasn't good. So that.

Like just going, oh, I'm going to have a challenge today. Made making those decisions. and being good, like with my food choices, that much easier, just simply being aware versus, oh, it'll feel good, slamming that coffee or energy drink to get me going and then just like ignoring that and getting my day going and then getting busy and then realizing I haven't eaten anything

and now I'm starving and oh my God. Super burrito, please. The only thing that sounds good is a super burrito or something greasy, fat, like, and then that be, and then when I wait to that moment of awareness or not even in the almost mind, deciding to go eat or buy. It's really difficult to make that right decision.

Simply understanding the impact of what you're talking about, knowing that, man, I had, it's been a crazy week. It's been very stressful. It's going on in my family. I had a rough night last night. You're aware the temptations coming. Right, right. I know like, oh, tonight around, today around this time or tonight,

I'm going to be really wanting that thing. Like, it's wild, how much just the awareness. It doesn't mean it's easy, and I still don't have to make that choice. You just not caught off guard. But I'm not caught off guard. Totally. And so, and I'm aware. And that has made a massive impact on making it easier to make that decision.

Which, by the way, is a good coach will do this for a client. They'll tell them, hey, anticipate to feel like this. Yes. And their odds of success are so much higher. Right. And a lot of times I tell them, like, listen, I'm not going to tell you not to do the thing or not do the thing. Just go do this first and then tell me how you feel. And a lot of times what will happen is they'll go eat.

And this is all I've learned to do is like, my brains and, man, I really want that thing. It's like, well, let me go eat this first. And then if I still want it, I will. And then many times. that right there. Well, yes. That's right. That's right.

So stress, and what's interesting about what stress does to the body, so it has a negative impact on sleep, either making you sleep a lot through depression or more commonly broken up sleep, where you kind of either have an insomnia or you wake up at 3 a.m. and it's tough to go back to sleep or you're restless. It has a negative effect on sleep, which then also has a negative effect on hormones, which then also has a negative effect on cravings and appetite, which you're eating. behaviors then go back and affect hormones negatively, which also go back and affect your sleep poorly, which all add more stress. It's a positive feedback loop that makes things a lot worse. It also does

this. This is what we deal with all the time as trainers. A lot of stress can create a dysfunction around exercise. And what that looks like with people is either I over train because I'm needing more cortisol because in the temporary cortisol feels good. So I'm going to push it out through these hyper intense workouts, or I'm distracting myself by moving all the time, or I don't want to do anything. Yeah. And so the relationship with exercise in the context of too much stress is dysfunctional. That's a very common one, too, to over exercise in the state because you do get an energy

spike and a surge from that cortisol. Totally. So, yeah, I mean, we see this common all the time with our clients. Totally. All right. So let's talk about the fixes. Now, we're going to go off of what the actual data shows to be. be the most effective way to deal with chronic levels of stress.

What people typically think they need to do with stress is eliminated from their life. Or sweat it out. Yeah. Or sweat it out. But typically it's like, I got too much stress. I need to change. I need the stress out of my life. Here's why that's not a great approach.

Just need to meditate it out. Oftentimes you can't because it's my job. It's reframing. Or it's my kids or it's life. and if you look at the data, you could look at people who objectively have more stress in their lives who do far better

than people who objectively have less stress in their lives and you think, well, what are they doing different? There's a few things that they do different. One of them is they add purpose to the stress. Right, there's a difference between I have to go to work. Oh my God, I have to do this job. And I'm lucky to do this job.

And I want to. I'm choosing to do this job because of all these other things that are important. to me. When you have a sense of purpose behind what you do, stress is not nearly as stressful. Literally how you perceive it makes a tremendous difference. And adding purpose makes a big difference. And saying that is easier said than done. And so a lot of times when I'm helping or coaching somebody through this process, a lot of times you've got to kind of just practice saying it before

you believe it. Of course. You know? Like, you're going to train yourself. Yeah, you do. You do. And so, and that's, it's a hard step for people because people go like, yeah, but I hate the job and I don't want it and all the things is just like yeah but it also provides that roof of your your kid's head and your wife and it also does this thing and it also does that you're doing a great thing yeah yeah and you're good at it and you actually have been successful and you've been doing it for a long like it's like like you have to reframe it you have to say it out loud and then you're going to continue it to do it because it's not like you do it one time you're like oh now I feel this purpose it's like you have to practice that and then through that practice it starts to sink in and set in

and then you start to believe this is your eyes are set on the other other side of that too. Like a lot of these like obstacles that you're facing that are stressing you out. It's like avoiding it is going to cause way more stress than actually like pursuing your way through. It's funny too when they do studies on men and women or in particular married couples when and it's a little different for men and women but just illustrates what we're talking about. When a wife tells her husband who's working real hard, let's say he's working 12 hour days, grinding and she's like, you're such a champion for our family, something like that. it changes how he perceives the stress of the work.

When a wife goes to the husband and says, oh my God, today was so... That's a big reward signal. She's like, today was so hard. And instead of trying to solve it for her, like a lot of men do, he's like, yeah, man, it is hard. She suddenly feels different about, yes. And so it makes a huge...

That's just one example. But you can do this for yourself. You know, I had to go through this as a young father trying to, when I was, you know, first became a dad, except that my life is different. A lot of people will start... going to have kids and they'll say kids are so stressful. It's a different kind of stress when you're,

when you can't let go of your previous life. When you're like, wait, I can't go on my buddies anymore or I can't go do that thing anymore versus, wow, this is a new stage of my life. This is who I am now. This is what I do. It changes quite a bit. Another one is to practice gratitude. People have heard this so many times.

You guys, this is so effective precisely because how our brains are wired. our brains are not wired to notice positive things. I think to Adams earlier point about like really verbalizing that, because if you're constantly saying things that, you know, nag you out and you're, you just catch yourself in conversations with people, like bringing things up and you're not in that positive mindset, you know,

it really comes out. And so if you practice actually verbalizing positive things in gratitude, not just journaling. And yeah, that's great. I practice that as well because that's a whole other, part of the process, but like to actually say things that are going well and say that and maybe out-compete the negatives. Yeah, yeah. The last 30 days of my life have been, if not the worst and hardest I've ever

been through. It's definitely a top three. And it's not just because of the stuff that I shared on the podcast withdrawal. We've had a ton of other stuff behind the scenes that most people have no idea about that has put a level of pressure, stress, pain, all the things on me. And of course, I have a lot of great family, friends, brothers that are consistently texting me. How you do and how you doing? And I mean, these guys have been on the other end of that text message. And I go, I'm honest. This is the hardest, craziest thing.

Followed by. But I have so much peace and joy and gratitude. And I've said that every single time. And it's amazing how I feel going through this whole process. But I do believe that a lot of that has to do with, I've had to say that. I've had to say that to believe that, to then feel that. And it's been crazy to think back. I mean, my own wife is just, it continues to remind me.

It's just like, she goes, it's been so wild to watch you go through all these things that's been happening, both personally, business and what you've gone through. and just to see you happy and joyful. And everybody knows I'm the moody and all this of that. So you would think that my personality type would defer to just this raging pain in the ass to be around. But, no, I've, I've reframed this hard stuff as like, you know, there's nobody else I'd rather do it with.

I'm so blessed in so many things. This could have been so much worse. but I still got this going, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's what's being said in my head constantly. And I had to verbalize it and have done it enough now that I really feel it and believe it. You know what's what you're saying? First of all, it's the data shows works. It works.

Yes. Here's the challenge that people have. We've been told that it's invalidating. Oh, you have stress, but, you know, a difficult life and you're trying to think of the positive. That's so invalidating of your struggle. No, it's not. It's not. It's not saying you're not going through difficult times.

It's realizing and understanding this. Our minds are not wired to notice the positive. They're wired to notice the negative. Period. End of story. Whether or not you're going through really difficult time or not, if something bad happens, you will remember it. Lots of good things happen all day long that you take for granted.

Yeah. Or you don't. And look, I come from a family of poor immigrants. And I remember as a kid growing up in my family and then being around other families and being like, wow, this is really, it's kind of different. Why is my family different in some of these respects? I'll tell you why, because they were poor as hell when they came to this country.

My dad had, I mean, he slept in the same bed with six siblings until he moved out at the age of 18s, literally. I don't even know how you fit six siblings. They had to put two beds together. My grandma would put a sheet over it, and they would sleep head to foot, head to foot, up until he was an adult. old, didn't have a bathroom in his house until he was in his mid-teen. They didn't have a phone.

And, you know, this is just the story of my family. And they were always so, like, grateful. And so, and he would tell me about how he blessed he was that, you know, we have these things. And it's because he had that gratitude because he had that contrast, which is gift, which is actually a gift. And I've practiced this, by the way. I've practiced this. You have to do this consciously. What I'm trying to say is if you consciously pay attention to blessings, and I've done this where it's every other hour because otherwise I forget. So if it's every other hour and I think, what was great that happened in the last couple hours?

It changes your filter and you start to notice these things and it's really awesome. You guys know I've shared before. I love Shaquille O'Neal stories and so many of them are buried and hidden because he doesn't talk about him. I saw a new one that I hadn't heard about. That was really cool. And he tells a story when he's his early years in the NBA. And he just terrible game.

didn't show up his best self or what like that. And his dad calls him up. And it was just like, he's like, what's up? You didn't, you didn't, yeah, I was just basically telling him it was tough. I didn't, I didn't, you know, I didn't bring my game. I didn't show up, like this and that. He's like, get your ass on the plane right now. Dad, I've got to go to hear him.

Get your ass on the plane right now. Made him fly all the way across the country back from where he's at. Literally gets him in the car, drives until he finds a homeless man. And he says, get out. get out and go talk to him and then he leaves him literally leaves him and he goes get out go take care of him go help him out

and left meets the guy figures out now at this point he's already making good money he has connections all the things and so he ends up like literally making a couple phone he asked the guy what he did before he used to do landscaping lost his job he has a family he doesn't have a place to live

all these things makes a couple phone calls a buddy who owns condominiums and apartments get him a place pays for his living for the next year gets him a job and lands escaping, stuff like that, literally. But it completely reframed, like, what he was bitching about. This guy gets to do what he loves to do for living, get paid millions of dollars, and you can't show up.

You can't show up. You can't show up. You can't be grateful for what you have, what you do. Like, you're complaining, you're bitching, you're making excuses. Like, no, let me show you. Let me show you what real struggle. But you have to practice it. It doesn't happen naturally.

By the way, what we're talking about changes the effects that your normal stress has on your body. So what we're saying is your normal. stress that you're not changing your life necessarily. You still go to work stuff. But because of these practices, your hormones change. Your insulin sensitivity change. Your body changes how it reacts to this stress and you become more resilient.

Another one that data shows is to be around good friends, especially good friends who are in the same life stage as you. It's remarkable how helpful it is if you're a young mom struggling with your kids or whatever to hang around other young moms going through the same thing. or if you're a new dad or if you're an entrepreneur or if you're a new trainer or whatever, you hang around other people who are friends of yours that you have good character

who are going through a similar struggle and you'll find that it makes things feel a lot different. I would add that there's a fine line there. And what that fine line is, is it does have to be the right people. Of course. Because you don't want to be a negative people. Well, I mean, and a lot of people do this. A lot of...

Comasurer. That's right. A lot of misery loves company. And a lot of people, surround themselves with people that are doing less in their lives to make themselves feel better and those people in those situations are not healthy for you and actually can bring that or exacerbate a situation like that. So having people that really love you, that you admire, that emulate things in life that you want to be like, that you consider a brother or a sister

or someone like that, you're that close to you surround yourself around those people because they will, they will elevate you. They will tell you the truth. They will, and And that is super powerful. But it can also work in the other direction if they're wrong. You know who they are. If you go to them and you feel worse. I've known people like that. Yeah.

Don't talk to them. Lastly, use exercise properly. Strength training is a really, really effective way to make your body resilient. It has to be appropriate. The right dose. Yeah, right. Maps 15 would be the kind of program that most people who are feeling too much stress would do great with and nothing else.

Like don't add a bunch of other exercise. Yep. And if you do those things, you'll literally change how your body reacts and responds and your hormones and all those things to the current stress that you have in your life. And again, this is backed by the data. I'd say that's probably, I don't know what percentage if you guys had a guess. I'd say at least 30, maybe even as high as 50% of the collars that we get. Matt 15. Yeah.

And a lot of it's due not because they're not doing enough or doing the things. It's because they have so much stress in their life and their training. We're adding it on top of it. Yeah. It's like, I mean, we had one today, at least one or two today, low calorie, 15,000 steps, only eating 2,000, you know, 2,000 calories, training four days a week, plus playing some sports here and they're like, just doing all these kids, a job 50 hours a week. It's like, man, that is a lot. And you're thinking going to the gym is that, with that type of intensity and consistency should be showing you. It's not.

And that's part of the reason why is they're not taking care of the stress. All right. I got to talk about a supplement that I've been taking now for 45 days, maybe two months consistently. And I talked about it in a previous podcast. I noticed a pretty big reduction in inflammation. Wanted to keep using it. And it's for sure this. It's for sure this.

And it's the fatty 15. And it's the, Doug, what's the name of the fatty acid? In fact, I get that for me because I forgot the name of it. But it's a fatty acid. that has really good anti-inflammatory effects on the body. And I was talking to Justin about it because he's been noticing the same thing. Yeah, I've been noticing that. And I was going to ask you, does it have any relation to sleep in terms of quality?

Yes. Because that's something that's changed a bit for me. Yes. C-15. C-15 is the name of the fatty acid. It's found in high amounts in whole dairy, which, by the way, to get the amount of this fatty acid from whole dairy, you have to eat a lot of it. because some people might be like, well, I have milk. You actually have to consume a decent amount.

It's so interesting that it's not derived from that because it's considered vegan. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Yeah, they made the fatty acid. So that's interesting. So it's for people. But it's the same thing. Yeah. It's the same thing.

Yeah, so you're getting the benefits of dairy without consuming a product. Of this particular fatty acid. Yeah. This particular fatty acid has these effects. So I was getting lift, and I still have a little bit of it, left hip pain. All truth, you know, truth be told, I probably have a little bit of damage in my left hip from just lifting like a idiot. Yeah. And since taking that, it went down 80%.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we commiserated about that because, like, for a while there consistently would wake up and the hips were the first thing to talk to me. And I was just like, oh, man. And I just regular workouts. It's just anything squat related, any kind of hip hinge, and I would pay for it. And I'd say, I haven't had that experience a while. It's literally the most effective anti-inflammatory thing I've done a long time. And it's different than Omega's then.

So it's like you would do it in conjunction with it. You could take it with Omega 3s. Okay. Because I've been consistent with that. I haven't been with the Fatty 15s. That's right. That's why I haven't ran next to me. The sleep thing makes me really want to try it.

Oh, yeah. I didn't realize that. Yeah. No, today I was just telling Jess, I'm about my world record hit thrust. I tried to act impressed. I really hate, hey, can I tell you or not? I hate that it's an exercise. you can't brag about because I want to brag about it.

I mean, you can. You call your boy Brett. That's what I said. Hey, bro. Yeah, yeah, I text him. Yeah. I told Justin. You'll pump your tires.

He'll like, well, show me. Yeah. Let's see you do it jorts. I told Justin when I came in here that I'm going to have the biggest butt. I'm going to have the biggest butt in here. Oh, that's it. I'm coming after Justin. I think you have the juiciest.

But I think mine'll be the, you know, powerhouse. Bro. Don't worry about it. Just kidding. If my butt was bigger than you know, you know, a disproportionation of my body. look. You look like a Brazilian buttlet? It looks like a gritty.

Minutard, dude. How many? How often are you hip thrusting right now? Once a week. Okay. And then, like, how many till you cross over to the other side, you know? What? Too many hip thrust?

Yeah. You've been thrusting twice in a minute. You know what? I like it because it's making me feel strong in my posture chain, of course. But it feels good. And it's a very simple, basically. exercise. You're just doing, because we don't have a machine here.

You're just doing it. And you're doing it. Where do you put the bench against the squat or the deadlift thing? Yeah, and I get the lower bench. Because that's the only thing I can't say. Yeah, I'm, yeah, six plates today. I was just wrapping that out, dude. Yeah.

How you like that, Justin? We're all the trainers impressed? Huh? We're all the trainers impressed? I mean, I'm sure they were. I don't know. Corinna and Alyssa, like, that's cool. Yeah, not bad.

You're like great, your bikini. Anyway, it was a good time, too. It was a good time. You say, though, you do notice it translate over into your squat and deadlift. Squat and deadlift. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a safe.

Yeah. It's a safe hip, hingeish exercise. I mean, I anticipate maybe more even deadlift, no? What do you mean? Like, it translates. Oh, yeah. Yeah. More deadlift.

Oh, yeah. But, you know, I'm not deadlifting a ton these days because I get carried away with it. I get strong real fast. I feel like you always say that and then I catch you like. You know, I'm going for seven. There you guys. Here and there. The next day.

I feel like you. I feel like he says it. And then all of a sudden I go walking by and it was like, you know, the five plates over there. I'm like, okay, guy, this is... Well, that's not heavy, dude. That's my, that's my normal. Yeah, he threw that at me and I'm like, wow, dude. Hey, you're no good to us in a wheelchair, dog.

No. Yeah, you know. I can still talk. You know, I've had that thought. You know, I had that thought. I actually had that. Oh, my God. What a morbid thought the other day because we've had some...

What if I broke my spine from dead... Well, I was, I was thinking this is how crazy. I've had some, we've had some terrible stuff. I won't go into it because it'll make everybody crapped out. Some bad things happen to my family recently and we've had some loss. But I was thinking I had these morbid thoughts like, wow, what if something happened to me? And then I felt blessed. I'm like, dude, I have a job where I could lose half my body and we'd be all right.

You know what I mean? You just put me in my chair and I would just do this. Sal's head, like, maps upper body. It's a, it's a trachorama or, you know, like an encapsulated head. That's it. We'll keep this podcast going forever. Speaking of big, dude, what do you guys think of that picture I sent him by? Oh my God, bro.

His belly goes. Dude, you're such a hot. I don't remember him being well-fed. That well-fed. He looks like a little mini strong man. What were you guys doing? Yeah, yeah. It was Jessica, dude.

Just funny, dude. Which is so funny because you always tell the stories of like the Italian grandmother who's falling around food. Was that like Jessica? Well, he ate it. She didn't force feed him. He ate it. He loved it. But what she used to do, she broke.

Like steak and stuff, right? She broke. We got those. What's those? super industrial strength blender. What's that called? Vitamix. The Vitamix?

Yeah, Vitamix or ninja. Okay. We bought the, like, the, like the real powerful one. She broke three of them. Because she would break them, the engine would burn out because she put tritip and sweet potato, but like, tri-tip. Just like sludge. Yeah, and she'd like the whole thing.

And she'd make these little meals, you know, for him. And that kid, I'm sure he was one and a half eating 70 grams of protein a day with that. Oh, my God. And he got. That's so rad. That picture. in his little shorts and his beef cake. Oh, yeah.

Oh, my goodness. How do you guys, do you guys feed him? I know you have, like, your kind of your foods they can have all time, and they can kind of roam, and that's their, their snacks. But they typically eat the same thing you guys eat every night for dinner, or is it different? It depends. It depends. We always, Jessica will always have ground beef and rice for them.

Yeah. So they can pick that anytime they want. Yeah. And sometimes they'll just eat that because we'll have something else that they're not interested in. Do you want your meat and rice? Sure. Yeah. Give it to them.

Yeah. And that's such a great easy dish. You know, some just grass-fed ground beef, rice. Steaking rice is what Max eats almost. Yeah, dude. Steak and rice, chicken and rice are like the go-to. So like that. I tell you when he went to his friend's house,

he went to his best friend's house. And, you know, we're now at age where I'm totally like, I'm cool about what everyone feeds him and does now. And like I feel like we've done such a cool job of like laying a foundation that he navigates. Yeah, he did two nights ago with his auntie Jarlene. They're there to have a tradition where they do cookies and they taste test. and we don't tell him you can't or you have a certain like and he comes back and mom's like

how many did you have I had two you know it's like you just have two cookies and he could have had more he he had a dozen with him carrying with him when he came back and he'll he'll say no to it he went to our friends uh his friend's house and his dad ordered five guys burgers and he gave him the buns back yeah he just ate the meat yeah yeah look at hey look at picture dugs rolled out look at a hoss bro little little meatball dude he's a hoss right there I love, I don't know what it is about chubby kids, but they're the best. Dude, his feet were as wide as they were long. He had a little square feet.

Squarespace. Yeah, they look like a little biscuit of Flintstone. He's lanking out right now, though. He is. He's growing. I want to see him next to Max because he looks like he's taller than Max now. Bro. He looks so much older than what he is.

My three-year-old, my daughter is, because he's got some muscle genetics from his mom. Dahlia is strong, bro. She's three. She grabs onto the edge of the counter and does a legless pull-up. just with her fingers she pulls herself up to look over I saw her dude the other day yeah yeah I'm like what did I did look at my head

did see what she did the other day did you hit you with bro she was jumping off the couch and she jumps and does jump kicks which I don't know where she learns them she does spin kick yeah kicks or she'll jump and hit me and she hit me with her teeth

and it didn't hurt her but she saw me bleeding and then she's like cried and I'm like oh it's okay it doesn't hurt I'm like trying to reassure her the whole time bro she told me too she got remember i told you guys i gave her like dad actually bleeds i told you guys i gave her like the least

angry look of all time but it like she's so sad she she brings it up to me now oh you made the meanest face to me the other day i'm like oh honey it's it's such a trip to me to see the daughters man remember when i brought up a long time ago about uh where kids are most likely to act up and do those things are like the percentage yeah with mom is so so wild because I always, Katrina always hears me talk about Max and she's like, you know, you say that by our son,

but our son can be a little shit with this and that. And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never seen that before because he will. He'll be, he'll, he can be honorary with her. But it's like,

that's just it is like he's, he's finding that boundary with her. And he's good once he tells her, but I don't even see it. Like, it don't happen to me. Like I did, she's already corrected it with her,

with him and she had to deal with it. That by time it gets to me, it's like he doesn't, you know, he doesn't challenge it whatsoever. So it's an interesting thing to talk about with her because she's like, when they get to teenage sometimes they'll push dad a little bit. That's what I'll hear from other dads.

They try. Yeah, well, they'll do a little bit and then they got to hear the better. Yeah, they never did. And yeah, they start kind of tone the line a little bit. And then you just bark one time. There's a part of me that I'm wrestling with because it's almost like I want a little bit of it because I want. I know. I know that I know that's the part I'm wrestling with it.

It's like, come on. Don't be careful what you wish for, right? Especially if he inherits any of your tenacity, bro. Didn't you, like, not talk to your mom for, like, a year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you literally didn't talk to her for like a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's, like, that is some dedication, bro.

No, that's for sure. That's, that's, like, some trauma dog. It's like some, it's like some, still kids, still trying to figure out all the trauma stuff at that point at that point. But we're like, I cannot, for that I think, did I tell you guys, his best friend, that they're inseparable, right? They do everything together. He's hardcore into football right now. So at recess, like his best friend goes and plays football. And my son's like, yeah, no.

And I pick him up and I'm always like, hey, what did you do? I always ask him what he did for his elective. And then I said, who did you play with at recess and what did you do? And I'm like, you didn't play with Julian. No, no, he played football. I'm like, how come you don't play with him? Dad, they're rough. And I'm like, yeah, but that's part of playing.

And he's like, yeah, can I? I tell you something? I'm like, yeah, of course you can. He always ask, can I tell you something. I'm like, yeah, you could, yes, you could tell me. He goes, yeah, the teachers don't really like it. And I'm like, I'm like, why? And he's just like, because they're, they get hurt all the time. And he's like, so, yeah, no, dad, I don't, I don't, I don't really care. I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, he's so cute, dude. This guy is too much, too. Oh, he's like, well, and Katrina, let's her and I had to talk. We're like, okay, there's some things like, like, he don't even want, he don't want to ride a bike, right? So we're like, okay, we're going to have to like, he's getting to an age now where he needs to know how to ride a bike.

Like, you need to know how to ride a bike. Have you tried? You probably already have. Have you tried? Strider and all the. No, no, no, no, no. I mean like something he really wants. And then you say, hey, if you. Oh, so this is what we just decided was, okay, there's things that he's really into.

Payino is like all these things. And there's always that. And that's what we do a lot of stuff. So what her and I just agreed is like, okay, I think Christmas we're going to get him a bike. And we're probably going to do that he's going to be a training wheel direction. And so we'll do that. and then what we're going to do is just start to the end of the block. And when he goes, hey, let's play Uno.

He'll be like, all right, cool. First we've got to ride to the end of the block. And then we'll play it. That'll work. We'll do the baby steps of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to do that first. And then we'll play that. And I know he'll kind of begrudgingly he'll do it. But I think he'll start to get good at it and figure it out.

And then I think he'll like doing it. But we're going to have to do that. Like we're going to have to use something else to get him to introduce it to him. You have to do that in some direction, no matter what. Yes. And so literally, this was last night's conversation,

her and I, like, are agreeing that, like, okay, he's getting that age now where all his friends are going to be swimming, riding a bike,

doing these things, and playing sports. And it's like, if we can't get him doing some of those things and we don't find a way to kind of almost force to introduce it.

But then also that delicate dance of like, I'm not going to make him do something he hates. But I'm like, if I can go, hey, if you just ride your bike

down to the corner Then we'll play Uno or we'll do the thing. I think that's going to, so I'll report back. Did I bring up on the show how Aurelius did with the BB gun? I know I told you guys all fair about it. Well, I, of course, got excited when you send that because your son's younger in mine. I'm like, hey, look at this. And I'm like showing him like, we should get one of these.

He's like, that looks dangerous. Meanwhile, I'll tell you what Aurelia said. So we were shooting, first of all, he's gifted. He is gifted with pain. Yeah. And you guys know how I'm. I'm like the carnival guy. There's something there, I think.

Some carnival genetics. When it comes to firearms, I've always been pretty accurate. Not that I go to the range often, but when I do, for that age, for him to be hitting the can, it's very impressive. We put it flat. Very impressive. So we got a huge, you guys know, we have a huge backyard. And it took him three or four times to figure out how to aim, and then he was every time,

bink, bink, and he's hitting it's far. Then he said, but, but can you put it flat so I could shoot in the hole? You know the mouth of the can? And he was hitting it in the mouth of the can. That's impressive. With the BB gun. I mean, to me, especially since I have an older son and watching that, I'm going like, it's impressive that he's even handling the gun and even somewhat aiming it.

Oh, it's great. And then we're, but then here's, you know, now you get a taste of him. My son, he's like, can I shoot birds? Like, no, we can't shoot birds. What about crows? We don't like crows. We don't get crazy. Like, back of my yard, we have this whole dedicated.

We were really into the. this for a while with like the pellet guns and BB guns and all that stuff and you have the ones that spin I drilled in all these ones all of these trees and we had like you know can strings like the whole thing dude there's there's really cool ones that they have now that like move yes and anyways you can you can geek out and ting and I did all that as a kid growing up we used to have like we lived on the country he just hang all that on bobwire fences and fill the cans it with waters of the water squirts out when you hit it. Oh, yeah. I was hardcore into wrist rockets and BB guns really young. Oh, I moved on the paintball after that and then it turned into like we

just injure ourselves. Oh, I can't wait. My son's going to be 20 when I finally get to do it with her. It's so fun though. A, speaking to kids, the study came out on the effect that processed foods have on adolescent kids. It's a stronger effect on adolescent and it has a longer lasting effect. Of course. Which definitely points to a developing brain. You introduce a developing brain to the engineered hyper-pallitability of these foods. It's going to have a stronger effect. And I bet you, I bet you kids who grow up being a lot of this food are going to struggle more as adults because of the way that their brains mold.

Well, I mean, we just talked about this where I brought up the whole sugar thing. And I mean, they've done this before where you see how the brain reacts to a bunch of sugar. comparing you to things like cocaine. And I know that's like the fear mongering that people do. And it's alarmist. We were the hot pocket bagel bites generation. That's like a normal brain. You're like a little child's brain like that.

You let them go. It shapes itself off of these signals. What's crazy to me is a majority of the food that is advertised and made, well, this is true for everybody. But if you go down the aisles of processed foods, of processed foods, how many of them are geared towards children? All of them, the colors and the animals and the characters and the... It's crazy.

Yeah. Where they position it on the shelves, like all the things. All the cartoons were based on Sony cereal. Yeah. That's it. If heavily processed foods were invented today and we had the science available now, I bet you could make a case that they would be banned on anybody below a certain age. I bet.

I bet. When you look at the data, you look at the data, well, you look at the data, Well, you can make the case. I didn't say it would actually pass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you could have the case that it would be, you know, speaking of banning, do you guys see that? So I told you, I think it's Denmark,

banned social media for under 16. Australia just followed. Oh. Under 16. Interesting. And they're saying that this is the first of the dominoes. They think that the whole, that lots of countries are going to start banning social media for kids.

I mean, I love that. So do I. I mean, you could make the case for 18 years. Same. I agree. You could make the case for. It's undeniable when you actually look at the, the research and you know how how it's affecting with these kids it's it's unreal it is because really

you have to you also have to i mean don't i mean i mean wouldn't you guys agree that for your teenage girl or boy 16 and 17 and right in the middle of high school it has to be some of the most detrimental time for them to get into that also so i don't know how it'd be interesting what this will do right because what did we all do when we we weren't allowed to drink alcohol at an at an early at an early age, you end up and you sneak it, you do it, it's like this, and then, and you don't just do a little bit of it, you drink a lot because you, because you can't have a type of deal. Yeah, yeah. So does this promote that? Do you kids, do smart kids, find a loophole around it, or does another app get created that's like a bypasses, I mean, what stops them from just getting?

It still limits it, though, because there's a difference between I have to sneak around to get on social media and I'm just allowed to be on it all the time. Yeah, but doesn't, doesn't the, doesn't the, doesn't The research around, it's fascinating to you, like the kids drinking age in Europe and the difference of how it's abused and used versus the United States and their age is much lower in those areas. Yeah, there's some debate around that. But part of the, here's a thing. Social media is way more addictive.

Yeah, but here's the other thing, too, though. American culture is binge, it tends to promote binge everything. Yeah. There's a thing about American culture that any type of. consumption, you can multiply times 10 here. So when they say, well, European kids grow up with wine at the table and so they don't, yeah, I get that may be true. That might be.

So I'm not saying it's not true. But I don't, but if you look at American culture with any consumption, we blow the doors off everybody. So I don't know if it's just. Yeah, we want to win at everything. Yeah. I mean, more more. Yeah, you do this, we have more.

We can have more. Like all drug consumption is through the roof here in comparison to other countries. All any consumption, food. consumption, you know, just it's through the roof here. It does feel like that people are figuring, are figuring this out somewhat, or is that maybe I'm in my bubble? Like, do you think that like consumer is, I mean, I was just, I was just watching a clip from like a, you know, very big popular minimalist podcast.

Like, that's like a thing now. You have tiny homes, minimalist. You have these guys that are talking. I don't know. I heard this really cool guy respond to like all the stuff that he got away. And the guy was asking him like, um, like, how do you? how do you like how do you like not having this and only having X amount of this and when you go into a store and someone you know is trying like do you have this temptation he goes no what I've realized

is the guy who's selling this to me wants to get rid of the shirt and he wants what I have which is to not have the shirt it was like such a right like his goal is to get rid of this this stuff and give it to other people and he goes I've already got that because I don't have it. And so I, he wants what I have, which is to not have it. And it was like a cool way to kind of like, the absence of clutter. Yeah, to flip it on its head. You know, but then there's that other stat you shared.

Who was it Naguibi that shared that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 11. So just over the Black Friday, $11.9 billion. My decimal might be off. It's like 11 something around there.

Billion was was sold. or I mean was financed for Black Friday. Financed. And of that, how many billion? Well, it was 60-something percent was financed. Yeah. 30-something percent people were like, we're not going to pay this in the first 30 days.

They won't even be able to pay it in 30 to 60 days. So that's three. That's wild. Bro, that's one out of three people is like, yeah, I'm buying this stuff and I'm going to pay it off over months. Yeah, or not at all. That's crazy. That has to come to a halt.

Yeah, it has to. I mean, eventually the banks and the people, like, they can't afford to let people do all these pay knowledge. Stop punishing people for saving money. It's like, there's no incentive to that anymore. But there's this weird, I think, again, I think it's just there's a culture of consume and spend and, you know, like if you just gave a bunch, like, okay, you know, Trump said, I don't know if this will happen. He's like, oh, we're going to get rid of income taxes because of the terror, whatever. Okay, let's just imagine. income taxes stopped, or suddenly people had more money, do you think they would save that

or they would just go spend it all? I don't know. It would be interesting because obviously they did. If they did that, all consumer goods would go up dramatically. Yeah. Dramatically. Oh, because they tax, there would be more taxed. Of course.

Yeah. Television's go up. Cars go up. All the things are. Well, let me rephrase the question. If everybody just got a bunch of money, do you think they would suddenly save it or they would spend it? That's different.

I'm so I'm such a fan of. But what you're saying, I get it, because then there's another incentive that says, hey, buying things is more expensive, though. That's right. And so you better really want it. You're going to burn it up real quick. So you better really want that thing because it's really, really, I like that. I think it creates a, I don't think that that gets, it eliminates anybody from living paycheck to paycheck or still, like, that's going to happen. But I think it would incentivize at least more people than now to hold on to their money and not buy that thing. because that thing is now 4x more expensive than what it was. And I get, you know what I'm saying? Like I think it would be, I think it's a better way to run the society than the way we, than the way we do it right now where we're just, we're trying to make everybody accessible.

And they don't spin it somehow, like we're all entitled to these things somehow. And so we have to like, you know, bail everybody out. Yeah. Well, when you have your, you know, AI, AI robot who can 3D print and build whatever you want, whenever you want and work around the clock on it real soon here, like it's going to be. People are going to figure out that's not the. Yeah. Yeah, it's not everything.

I mean, it's going to be interesting to see when that happens. Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know. It's wild. Anyway, I was looking up some data on skin health. And there's lots of studies out there on what helps improve the health of your skin, the look of your skin. But do you guys know how much of it points to the microbiome of the skin? So much of it points to the microbiome of your skin.

Like, if you have a healthy microbiome on your skin, you're going to be a healthy microbiome. you're going to have younger-looking healthier skin. And a lot of products that serve to make your skin look better, the ones that work typically are because they improve the health of the bacteria that live. Because bacteria lives on your skin. Yeah. You have a microbiotic, like, soap is so, like, not a great idea. Yeah.

Well, I feel like we're figuring this out because the past was, like, all these chemicals and things that would kill and clean and, like, cleanse. Well, think about this, but they're like, here, strip your skin of its natural oils, destroy all the bacteria, replace it with this other fake oil or whatever, when really healthy skin doesn't need much of that because the microbiome of, when the microbiome is healthy, the skin produces what it needs and stuff. So where I'm going with this is, you know, because Caldera Lab went from a small company to exploded.

Yeah. And people love them. And the return rate of their customers is, it's crazy. It's in the stratosphere. And I know why it works, obviously, but their products are all based off of improving the microbiome. It's all natural compounds that help your skin. Enhancing your, yeah, your natural processes.

Well, it makes sense. It's the largest organ in your body. And everything that we've learned about the gut microbiome and the importance of that to all things is like, it makes sense. Well, I remember, I was trip out when we first started working with Caldera Lab, there's serum, which is an oil. I remember I looked at it and it's an oil. I'm like, well, this will be for Justin because he's,

he's got dry skin. I'm not going to put oil on oily skin. That doesn't make any sense. It actually balances me out. And for him, it does the same thing. Yeah, it's like a sponge. Yeah. And my skin normally is oilier. When I put it on it, makes it more balanced.

I'm excited to, you know, Benjamin Button over there to start putting the beard oil. Doug. Yeah. He's got the, now he's got a beard. It's almost racing. It's going on over there. How are you? I don't know. Let's go. Keep it going.

You want to me to keep like Santa Claus style? Keep it, keep it going. Keep it going until the lady starts saying, okay, it's a little much. It's too much. His girls love it. I know. I ever, my wife was compliment. I think I've seen nobody, but everybody compliment. Everybody who's talked to him. I was honestly surprised. Yeah. I didn't think people would think it looked good. He's like, shit, I should have done this years ago. Look great, dude. Yeah. Let the top go break. I've missed out on so much opportunity. If I can convince you to let the top go break, you would look amazing, Brick.

The gray, gray, everything with how young your skin looks and how fit you are. Misery loves company. Don't buy a doll. No, hey, listen. He doesn't look like me, bro. I age and accelerated. I age and accelerated. It sounds like, come on, dog.

Go all gray with me. Come on, dog. Hey, my gray's gone almost. I'm losing it all, dude. I'm going to be doing. You're like me and Justin combined. Justin's going to be the last, last man standing with his hair. No, he's still got.

I'm going to be like Doc from back to the future. It's all white. But no hair loss. No hair loss. Whatsoever. You know what? If you were to really grow it out, what would it look like? Give me an actor.

Could you get like Kurt Russell type? Oh, he would pair. Man, I don't know. Like, it's going to be wavy, really wavy. Yeah. Like at first it'll be curly and then once it gets longer, it like kind of stretches it out. And I've done it one time. And it was just because I was going for this huge pompadour that went like up and back.

And I hate curls. So I just grease it. so it's straight. Doug, look up, pull up until they get seen a an image. Show Kurt Russell as Santa Claus. This is what I want,

Justin. It's great hair. I was looking at him. I was watching Santa Claus with my son. You know, it's so funny because, like,

Everett was, like, trying to prod me because he's like, I've never seen you try and grow your hair out long because I always give them grief, you know, and he just like buzz cut it.

Now that you go the opposite. Yeah, he's like, I just buzz cut it. Why don't you grow it all the way out? Yeah, yeah. I want to put the image up because I feel like, if anyone has a chance

to have... If Justin had long hair, he would look like, you know how some dudes like this, they just can't get rid of the 80s? Like, they're like,

man, I was cool in the 80s. Look at that great hair right there. Yeah, well, yeah, you would. You would look like Santa. I mean,

I don't know if it looked that good, I'll be honest. Yeah. Isn't it, isn't that good? Yeah, he's got, he's got great hair. That's excessive, though. Yeah.

That's pretty excessive. That's great. Yeah. He likes his, yeah. He likes... He likes... I mean, he likes...

Russlesleslese, though for sure. Yeah. He's one of my favorite. I mean, if anyone has a chance to making that happen right there, I feel like, like Justin does.

His head already doesn't fit in his helmet. I'm like, if you wear any, yeah, my hats will fit, dude. I'm already on like that one last, like,

notch. I get mad that he wears hats all time because he's, he's got good hair. You have such good hair and you wear hats all the time. I've done this as a kid. I know.

I mean, who am I to talk? I'll be wearing hats. But if I had hair, I would, you would be not wearing a hat as much as I were. I might be wearing a hat here soon.

I don't look good in a hat, though. I don't know. That doesn't look right on me. Probiotics have been shown in studies to have profound effects on health, athletic performance, fat loss and muscle gain. I'm not making this up. Studies show that using a quality probiotic will improve, increase fat loss. It's actually a fat loss supplement.

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Go check it out. Go to seed.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code 20 mine pump and get 20% off. Back to the show. Our first caller is Anthony from Minnesota. What's up, Anthony? How you doing, Anthony? Hey, guys, how's it going?

Good, good, man. Hey, just wanted to thank you guys. I know you get a lot of them, but they're never going to be enough. The amount of education you guys provide. is just instrumental for me listening to guys for the past five years. It's helped me in my business and with myself. So thanks again, guys.

You got it, dude. How can we help you? Yeah, so I had a question revolving around hitting two muscle groups in the same workout and whether you should do the exercises consecutively with each muscle group or switch back and forth. For example, I'll do chest, chest, chest, chest, chest, chest, chest, or do chest tricep, If there's any difference there. All chest, then I'll try.

Real quick, Anthony, you're a trainer? Yes, sir. How long have you been training people for? About five and a half years. Oh, good for you, dude. How many of our programs do you have? I only just have the one, unfortunately. Which one?

Well, a couple of years ago with my ego, I bought the aesthetics. Okay, you did. So I was going to ask you, say, if you have our programs, you can see how we wrote them. And that'll teach you, as a trainer, one of the best things you can do, well, there's a lot of things you can do that'll help with your programming, but one of them is to look at established workout programming. There's good stuff out there for powerlifting.

There's good stuff out there for athletic performance. You have our programming, which, you know, we have targeted avatars with each one of them. And it'll teach you a lot of, on terms of how you would structure workout programming. And so what you'll find in our programs is that when there's multiple body parts done in a workout, you finish the large group before you move on to the smaller groups. And there's a couple reasons why. By the way, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's a general rule. So there's a reason for this.

When you're working out your chest, for example, or on a push day, your triceps are typically involved in a lot of the chest exercises. And if I go chest triceps, chest, triceps and really start to fatigue my triceps, it really compromises my ability to do those compound lifts. So if my triceps are really fatigued and then I go try to do another pressing movement, it's going to compromise my ability to press. So you typically will start and finish the larger groups before moving to the smaller groups. Which is the biggest bang for your buck. So the last thing you'd want is a isolation exercise to hinder your compound lift. Not to mention that, but you also got to consider the CNS too, right?

So like just the repetition of doing the same movement in three to four sets in a row, you get better at it. A lot of times you'll feel that even as your strength progresses in the set many times. And it'll peak after your first set is rarely ever your best set. And so if you're always doing a set, then you go to another exercise and then come back, it's kind of like your first set again. Right. And so, you know, you'll benefit also from just the technique of it, staying with it and then finishing it and then going on in the next one in addition to what Sal is saying to it. Now, here's where you could break that rule. You have a weak body part that you feel just isn't developing well.

My triceps, let's say. My triceps, they just don't develop well. Then you can work out your triceps before you hit your chest, especially if your chest is a strong body part and one that does. So that's where you could kind of break this role. I could think another way where I break that rule. Another way I could break that rule is if I know that I'm modifying intensity and I'm not going after a hard, effective workout,

but I just want to touch the muscles. I'm trying to get in and out. So I'm kind of super-setting those two things back and forth. so I'm trying to move through it. I know I didn't get the best of sleep. I'm not the best on nutrition, but I'm going to show up to the gym anyways. I'm not pushing intensity.

I'm not trying to get the max out of my bench press. I'm trying to get the max on my triceps. I just want to send a signal to my body that, hey, we lifted these weights. And so there's another example where I might do something like that, but you're always almost better off doing it the other way we're talking about. Now, Anthony, when you train your clients, how do you do it? You know, mainly I try to get a good, you know,

dynamic warm up in first, right? Makes sure we're really kind of getting that mind muscle connection already from the beginning, you know. So if it is a chest tricep day, you know, using some bands, using lies, you know, something like that, just get the body warmed up in those specific areas too. And then, yeah, I do start with the compound movement. It might be an incline bench press, for example, moving into free weights and then finally into like machines and really isolating the muscle. And sometimes I have a question.

I maybe know the answer, but let's say we're hitting chest. you know, two exercises and then two tricep exercises, and we really want to focus on growth in the chest. Does it behoove us to, like, add another chest at the end or maybe not so much? Depends. Total volume, you want to consider the person's recovery, what they've been doing, progressive overload. So you could, but you could also just, it would be too much.

Well, yeah, keep in mind that more exercises, more volume doesn't always equate to more muscle. So if we're talking about one of your clients right now who wants to focus on chest, but they've only been training for you for a month. And it's like you adding another chest exercise to a like, let's say a MAPS antabolic program is not going to serve you. Like there's already enough volume in there for that person to build a chest for months before. And then then you have to take an account. If I'm going to add volume to this chest, then I need to probably take away from somewhere else or you're just going to end up over training that client. So that's a big mistake a lot of people make, even young trainers will make, is just like, oh, this is an area you want to focus on.

So I'm just going to do more of that stuff on top of what I was already doing when you really need to account for that total volume, that total stress that you're putting on the body. It's like, okay, well, he doesn't care so much about, say, his shoulders or he doesn't care so much about his hamstrings. And so we're going to pull from there and we're going to increase more on the bench press. So, yeah, there's more to it. Also, generally speaking, if you're going to add another chest exercise, you do it. it at the end of the chest workout before we move on to triceps anyway. Yeah. Right.

It's the same kind of same general rule. Perfect guys. Well, hey, I really appreciate the guidance. Keep doing what you guys are doing. You got to do it. And Anthony, if you haven't done our course, I highly suggest it. I think you would gain a lot of value out of it. Yeah.

Absolutely. I'll get right on it, guys. All right, man. Thanks, Anthony. I'm surprised. It's like he's full shit. Yeah. Well, I wasn't going to say it like that, but cool, out of it.

I mean, I can smell it through the mic. Mike, come on. Well, here's the thing. I'm surprised at his question, and he's a trainer for five years. That's a very basic programming question. It's not if you've been listening to us for that long and you only have one program, it's MAPS aesthetic. Or just listening. Or just general workout programming. That's a very basic workout programming question or your problem. So I'm surprised when I asked him, how long you've been a trainer. I thought he was going to say like a month, but five years. I mean, it's been a long time. We've communicated this on the podcast, but because we typically talk about the programs to the general population.

But I think one of the most valuable parts of all the programs are for coaches and trainers. I mean, if this was 22 year old me and I was in the thick of becoming as a trainer at that time, right? Only two years in. And had found a podcast like this, I'd own every program, even if I didn't plan to run it, not because I plan to do it.

It's just that like, okay, I'd like to see how these guys program for this type of client. Because I know in my 10 plus years I plan to be a personal trainer, I'm going to come across multiple people that are going to want to train this way. And yeah, I could go try and figure it out myself or I have mentors virtually here that I could go and go, oh, okay, I see how they did that and then unpack it. I mean, that's how I learned, you know, powerlifting programming. You know, I saw West Side Barbells programming. I saw a dinosaur training that taught me about full body workout.

Like programming makes a big difference. The order of the exercises, reps, sets, total volume, how it lays out in the week, how the weeks all lay out together, how the months. Like it makes a big difference. And what this communicates to me with a question like this, is there still a lot of trainers out there that just look at exercises as exercises. And we're going to do this today. And we're just going to put these as if it doesn't make a difference.

It makes a huge difference. Like to the tune of two or three times as fast results or, at worst, zero results in injury. I think that's because the industry communicates how important nutrition is, which it is so important. So where you see things like, you know, nutrition is 75% of the results or 80% of the results. And it's like, you know what? You're right. If you have a poor diet and you have a subpar training program, like you're going to see little to no results. If you have an incredible perfect diet and you have a subparter training program, you'll probably see.

some good results. And so because of that, I think people just go, oh, well, then the program doesn't really matter that much, as long as you're doing something or you're doing what you like, or you're doing exercise. And it's like, oh, no, it can be far more effective than that. Way more. Our next caller is Emma from Iowa. Hi, Emma. Hi, Emma. Hi, hi, guys. How are you doing? Hey, I'm good. How are you? Good. Can we help you? Good. Okay. Okay, I'll go right into my question. Okay. So I've been on the show once before, and I've been diving deep into recovery metrics lately. I've noticed that my HRV drops for a few days. Sometimes when my workouts, nutrition, my sleep are solid.

I have a two-year-old, so most of the time it's solid. I'm a busy mom. I work full-time. I have some side jobs. I strength train. At the time I wrote the question, three days a week, I was running aesthetic. I have now went to split, and I'm at the last phase of split. So life stress, kids, all the chaos happens.

How do you know when a low HRV score means you actually need to back off training versus when it's just reflecting daily stress, my hormones, and life chaos? Well, let's pretend like you don't have the HRV score and you just told me those are the two programs that you lean on. I would tell you that those are probably not appropriate. I mean, those are our two like highest volume programs. programs. And so my mom of two, without anything else, would be enough for me. Be like, yeah, maybe right now we run something a little bit different. Emma, are you, if I talk to people who knew you really well, would they say that you're like, you just overachiever, go, go, go, do too much, super busy all the time. Yeah. And I married one too. Yeah. Yeah.

This was like gasoline on the fire. Yeah. And it sounds like you're tracking a lot of things. Yeah, yeah. I, yes. So I've been working out for 10 years. Just tracking the data is been my, it's my habits. It doesn't feel hard. It's just what I do. Well, what it does is it gives you a sense of control, which it sounds like that's something you like. So, and so that's a stress.

Yeah. We got to change your relationship with this, so it's not so stressful, hon. Yeah. Tracking HRV, you know who should track HRV? Nobody. Athletes? Yeah.

Like, hardcore athletes in season by their coaches. And even then it's like, the best coaches that we talk to, They don't even communicate it to their culture. Yeah, they don't. They use it just as another feedback tool. But they don't tell the athlete. They don't go like, hey, you're loaded days.

Put that stress on them. It's over. Right. No, no, no, you need to stop that. In those workouts, you picked the two most high volume that we have. Inappropriate workouts. Whatever results you're getting right now are in spite of like that you're doing weight. Like, if you did more appropriate programming, do how much better your results would be?

I would love to see one of our Maps 15 programs. I do. I do have it. Okay. Yeah. But can I plead my case? I already know what it is, but go ahead. Yeah, that's right.

Go ahead. Let's hear it. Tell us. Okay. So the reason I like Matt Split is it keeps me in the gym five days a week, which gives me that hour, so I have a basement gym, an hour kid free, jamming the tunes, lift and weights. So we can still do this, okay?

So what it looks like is Mass 15, you're in just as many days, okay? Slow down the workouts, make them 25-minute work. And then the other 30 minutes walk on a treadmill. Or, or mobility. Or mobility. Or read with music. Or some ab or some ad work. I get the break.

I get it. Yeah, I know. I get that too. But you got to be able to have a break and not like work out. Yeah. It doesn't have to be high stress on the body. It could be more recuperative. I would love sauna.

I would love yoga. I would love like, so do the strength training. And then the back 30 or 40 is all mobility, all yoga, all sauna. I mean, a list of all the recovery. a coal plunge, what do you want to do? Like, you can do a lot of other things, but pushing the body more during that time. Do you like results?

I love results. Oh, okay, then just do what we're telling you. You get so much better results. And stop tracking HRV. Stop tracking everything. Yeah. It's not helping you, I promise. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm surprised you're smiling. Yeah. She knows. That's why. What kind of work do you do? What do you do for, what do you do for? what do you do for work? Okay, so I am a receptionist, my 8 to 5,

and then I do photography on the side, and then I also answer 9-1-1 for a county that's close to us. Yeah, yeah. Were you an athlete? You should have like two more kids. You're not that busy. Yeah. Well, actually, I do have four kids.

One step and three daughters. Emma. Oh, my God. That's great. You know what? You're going to get crazy results with Mass 15. You will. You will.

You're going to, you obviously Only though. You're obviously resilient. Only though if you promise us that the other rest of the time is recuperative type stuff. Yeah, don't replace them a bunch of stuff. Don't start jump roping or doing something else that's like more high intent. Like do something recuperative. Do yoga.

Do mobility. You know, read. Yeah. Or walk on the treadmill. Walking on a treadmill would be awesome. I mean, just a nice stroll. Put the podcast in. Not a crazy like power walk.

Not a. not a 15 incline hill climb and like get out. It's like a walk. Like literally a walk. Dude, you're going to get so strong. Your body's going to sculpt and shape. Your metabolism probably six, seven weeks in is going to kick up.

You're going to see your body get leaner. You're going to feel amazing. And it's going to give you more energy to do all that other stuff that is so important. Okay. Yes. Listen, do you have Matt, you have MS-15. I do have Maps 15.

Okay. So what did we release recently? Which 15 is? We have other 15 that we just released. We'll give her a muscle mommy 15. There you go. I'm going to send you muscle mommy 15 also. So you got two 15.

Awesome. Yeah. And then we're going to do this, Emma, because I'm going to talk to you again. So I know you did it. I'm going to have you back on in 60 days, okay? This is the nice conversation. If we have to have this sternly next time. You don't do what we tell you in 60 days.

I'm going to take all your programs away. Don't do that. Okay. Can we have you back on in 60 days? I would love that. All right, good. Please do it. Please do it.

You're going to get really, really good result. Hit your protein intake. That's the only thing we didn't talk about, but just... I guarantee she tracks your protein. If you do that, hit that. Okay. Okay.

So if you do that and you do what we said, you're good, you're going to be great. It's going to be great. Okay. I'll take some... Can I track photos? Can I take photos before and after?

Absolutely. Yeah, that's fine. Sure, sure. Yeah, but don't obsess. Yeah, don't obsess over the scale in the mirror every day. It's like, go ahead, take some before photos. Every 30 days, do a photo. Yeah, there you go.

That's it. Deal. Cool. I can do that. Yeah. Let's do this. We'll see you in 60. All right.

Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. I knew it. I knew it. I just used to tell me the program. Stethic and split. Yeah, dude. Too high.

It's bodybuilder. Whenever you meet somebody. Four kids, three jobs. And you're tracking everything, everything, HRV. Who tracks HRV? Yeah. No. Too much.

If your workout and your diet is another, if it's stressful, and I don't mean, yeah, but you remember someone like that doesn't think it's stressful. Yeah. Would she claim it as like, The Sabbaths. It's a routine. Yeah. It's the whole like I got to feel like I got it all under control.

Yeah, yeah. And that's, that could be a... I mean, once you unlock, though, somebody like this who has that kind of disciplining consistency. You know how strong... I mean, you know, she's going to get so strong and see such crazy results. It's going to blow her mind. Yeah, no, it'll be incredible if she does it. Our next caller is David from Arkansas.

What's up, David? How are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you all? Good, man. What's happening? No, not much. I'm excited to be here.

Thank you all. for everything, really. I started listening to y'all about three years ago right before I became a personal trainer. Y'all actually helped me decide that's what I wanted to be for my career path.

Nice, man. Awesome. How can we help you? So in my question, I'd ask how many balance, work, life, and trying to be an aspiring entrepreneur because I want to start my own online business, but I'm also an amateur bodybuilder and I also work at a gym currently and I'm married,

so it's just a little bit difficult to find a good balance of everything. So I was wondering how you all did that in the beginning. How old are you and do you have kids yet? I'm 22 and I don't have any kids. Oh, good. You're fine, bro. There is no balance. There is no balance.

Everybody wants this perfect balance, work-life stuff. Like there's times in life. And what that balance looks like, it doesn't look like a daily balance. It looks like there's periods of times when I'm sprinting at work. And then there's periods of time when I'm very present and connected to my wife. Like that's what it looks like. And if you're building something, hopefully you have a good partner that you married that knows that you're off and you're building a future for the two of you.

And she understands when you got those 10, 12 hour days sometimes. And she supports that. but this idea of going to have a nine to five and come home and then I always have this dinner and we're going to be together and it's on a half weekends off and I have this nice and I'm going to build the company. It's like probably not going to happen. It doesn't mean that it may be somebody who has done it or got lucky, but most people that build a successful business had to really grind and sacrifice a lot while they were doing that. But then you can always have the vision like we did early on. I remember when I sat down with these gentlemen and we we said long before

anybody was paying attention, we were making any money, the goal was to scale up and scale out. So as opportunity grew and we could make more money and there was an opportunity to make even more money, we'd look at each other and said, well, does that pull us back in and make us work more hours? Yeah, it's more money. But do we have to work more? We'd look at each other and go like, yeah, it's not for us. We'll take less money because we want that balance. We want to be able to still have weekends with our wives and do those things. But early on, man, it was a grind. We were all working full-time jobs. Then we'd show up to a studio from eight to sometimes 11 midnight. You know? So not a lot of a lot of time with the wife at that time, but she knew what we were

building. And so that that's what balance looks like to me. Yeah, David, it's, I'll use a fitness analogy, right? You can't both be the strongest that you can, you could possibly be and have the most endurance. You have limited capacity. You have limited ability. limited time. So if you want a little of everything, you could do that. If you want a lot of one thing, you've got to devote more time and capacity and energy into that direction. Now, I'll say this because you're married.

You want your wife on your team. Trying to do this without her on your team is you're going to suck. So a husband isn't very effective when his wife at home is not on the same page with him. So what does that mean? Does that mean you berate her? No, it means you got to get her on your team. and typically what they respond well to is a timeline.

And so what a lot of guys will do is I'll say, look, I'm just trying to build this business. And then it goes on for two, three, four, five. It's like,

okay, what's the goal? Like, when are we going to stop this? But you could say something like, honey, I need the next 12 months. To bury myself.

And I'm going to bury myself. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to give it a year. And it's going to look like this. So she knows what to expect. Can you support me in this? Because here's the goal. I want to build this.

life for us. That tends to bring people together. You don't want to do this open-ended, like, you know, type of thing. Or don't even communicate it. So a lot of guys will make this, they don't even communicate. They just go and expect their wife to be on the same page. And she's like, what's going on here. So you got to communicate that. Look, here's what's going to sacrifice. Here's the goal. Here's what I want for us before we have kids. I need a year to really get after it, make it happen after this year. If it doesn't work, then we'll reevaluate. But here's what, you know, I think I can do. Can you do this with me? and then get her on your team.

And then you know this. Like if your wife is on your team and you feel supported by her and she's proud of you while you're doing this, you'll probably drag yourself across glass. So that's the important thing about to understand with this is your wife could be your best asset, but it's your job as her husband to get her on the same page. And it's not going to happen by force or by guessing or just expectation.

You've got to communicate very clear with her. And then when she's on your team, bro, then it's your, you're unstoppable. I also empowered Katrina to be the CEO of our relationship, meaning, listen, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to bury myself into this vision. And I know sometimes I can get tunnel vision. And if you feel like we haven't had time together or we're starting to drift apart because I'm so focused, you have the power and control to set my calendar and I won't ever say anything. So you, and so she still to this day does this because I still can run like this. where I put my head down because of the season of the business that I got to have to

pull myself back in. And all of a sudden, I'll open up my calendar and I'll be like, why am I blocked out on Friday, Saturday, Sunday? She's like, because we're going here. Mom's taking the kid.

You and I are going here. And she's like, we need it. It's been a while. And so, and I don't, I don't cry. And I would never book that myself.

I know that if I were to keep going when I'm in it, I'm like, there's always something I got to be doing where she knows and she knows us and where we need to be. And so I've, We've always made that agreement that if you feel like I'm starting, like, I'm, because there's, I can do this. I'm guilty of being home and she can see me look through her because my, my brain is still on business.

And she totally gives me that latitude to be that way when I'm in it, but only for so long. And then she'll be like, okay, it's time to bring my husband back. This Saturday, we're going here and we're doing this. And I don't say nothing. I go and we, we connect again. And then I get refueled. And then she goes, go kill it again.

for us and then I go do it. Now here's the other thing too. You mentioned you're a bodybuilder and entrepreneur. You're probably going to have to pick one. That doesn't mean you don't work out if you pick entrepreneur. And it also doesn't mean that you don't work if you're a bodybuilder. But if you want to really excel at either one, you're going to probably have to put most of your focus on that to try to excel.

Because I know bodybuilding and bodybuilding is a very time consuming, selfish sport. So it'll be really hard to really push in a problem. yourself entrepreneurially while also, unless you're leveraging it for your business, but even that,

I would say, is limited. I mean, I use that to get the original attention for mind pump. But I didn't, after that,

it was, yeah, but I couldn't wait to be done with that so I could focus on the business. Yeah. Yeah.

So hopefully that helps you. No, absolutely. But the idea was to leverage it because in the start of everything, I was 300 pounds. And this past September,

I got down to 194 doing men's open bodybuilding like heavyweight. So I was wanting to eat that as a leverage point. Yeah, that's fine. Just so you know, though, that's enough right there. If people have watched you go from that overweight to being able to step on stage, that's enough proof. You know what you're doing.

That's enough proof on the internet. Like to get, and I remember when Katrina asked this when we were competing, and I was on year, I think it was on year three of this. I remember she looked at me and she's like, hey, is this going to be our life? Like, am I going to be married to like a competitor? I'm like, hell no. Like, the mind pump thing is almost there.

I'm like, trust me, once this thing, once it outgrew me, once, because at that time, I still had the biggest pull on, on the internet as far as all of us together. But once the show, even slightly outgrew my personal brand, I switched my name to a mind pump Adam, got rid of bodybuilding, and I was done with it. Yeah, you're, you're done, dude. You got that before and after, and, you know, you're good. Yeah. Doing more competing isn't going to help that much.

I mean, it's only going to distract from the, from building the business. You've already proven that you know how to change body. And you're building, what, a coaching business, personal training? Is that your focus? Yes, sir. That's the blame. Are you in our course?

Yeah, no, he looks great. I don't know. Oh, bro. You got to get on our course. That's what we do. Yeah, I'm looking at your photos right now too, bro. You've already proven. You know what you're doing.

Yeah, that's great, dude. Any more trophies you gain and get to gain you more clients. None of my clients have ever been like, so how much, many trophies do you have. They just like to see the before and after. None of them did that. Like they see, see where my body was, see what I can do. And it's like, okay, it's, you know, that's, that's it. Like, you've already, you've done it, better transformation than I did. You look at you incredible. It's not serving you anymore other than feeding your ego. That's all it is now. Gotcha. Cool. No, I appreciate that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, now, now the next step is just going to get you in our course, bro.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll do it. I'd ask this. All right, brother. All right, dude. Let's have someone call them. All right. All right. Thanks, man. Thank you all. Take it easy. You too. Hey, it looks great.

Yeah. You know what work, life, balance, conversations are about? Because they are, it's important. It's important to understand. What that's for, though, is for your life. Yes. Right? You can't live your life.

I mean, I guess you could, but boy, would that be dysfunctional? But there are seasons where you've got to place a lot of energy. It's like, look, it's like this. you're going to, at one point, you're going to have an infant. You know what that season's going to look like? You're spending a lot of time trying to support your wife during the, you know, those initial six months or whatever. I mean, I'm always more, when a father or a mother is,

has a child also in the picture, I'm more delicate with that conversation. Because those years are gone. Yeah, if you don't have a kid, fuck, you ain't got no reason in my opinion. And your only thing is you better pick the right partner who gets that. That's, like, if you're going to go be an entrepreneur and you go build that, you have to have a partner who's willing to support that. For my understanding, just when you look at the psychology of men and women, when you give a timeline and a distinct goal and you're like, this is why.

Oftentimes you'll get that support. And I'll say this speaking to women, men, when they feel that strength and support from you where you're just like, you're pushing them out the door, go do this for us, honey. He'll do anything. You'll walk across fire. Yeah. So, and it's an incredible team when you work together. I mean, you hit it on the head.

I think that's a, I think a lot of men will say something like, I'm going to go build this thing, but then they don't map out the plan. Yep. I mean, the Adam Lane Smith episode, that go live. It did. And there's a, I talk, I share about one of the challenges that Katrina and I had recently had. And the mistake that I made was I failed to communicate like a plan. That's right. It was just like, hey, we shouldn't do this with Max or, hey, we should do this versus saying like, hey, here's the things I'm thinking that we should implement.

And, you know, if we can try. and then communicating to her like that, changes that whole conversation versus, I'm going to go build a business. It's like, okay, well, what, for the next 15 years trying to be able to business? And like, how long is a wife do I sit back and just watch you fail at this thing

before I tell you like, let's do something else? Versus I go, here's my plan. I'm going to use my physique. I'm going to transform it. I've done that. Now I'm going to go out and I'm going to build attention and build a community.

And for the next year, I'm going to do these things. I'm going to go. Now you're on the same page. Right, right. And then at a year, I'm going to know, if this is for me or not.

And, you know, can you hang with me that? And then she's like, okay, cool. I know what I got to do versus like, I'm going to build this business. And then three years later, she's like, you've been trying to build this business for three years. I'd seen shit. Our next caller is Natalie from Minnesota.

Hi, Natalie. Hi, Natalie. Hello, this is so crazy. They all say that, but it really is. How you doing? Good. So, first of all, I just want, as everyone does, thank you for everything you do.

I've been listening to you every morning for over six years now, and it's a great part of my morning walk. You've completely shaped the way I think about fitness and wellness. And as somebody who works in the functional medicine space now, I really appreciate the holistic perspective that you bring. You've really transformed my relationship with my own health, and I'm very grateful. Awesome. Thank you. So my email was crazy long, so I'm going to try and make it shorter and just tell you a little. little bit of background. I'm 26. I've been in the fitness world for a long time. I used to be a personal trainer and a group fitness instructor, and I definitely had a pattern of overtraining in the

past. I'm no longer working as a group fitness instructor. I think it kind of started to push my body a little bit too hard. I also have not trained any clients for quite some time now, but it's something that I really love. I have a complicated health history with gut issues, and a history of being underweight due to those issues. I lost a lot of weight from 2020 to 2022, and I still haven't really gotten my cycle back due to being underweight. And I've also come off birth control since then, so I know that there's a lot of hormonal issues probably going on.

Over the last year and a half, I've really focused on healing, increasing my protein intake. I've gone from at one point being under 100 pounds at 5.5. five, seven, so very underweight too. Now I think I'm around 1.30 or so. I try not to really weigh myself. I do know that that's healthy progress, but as someone in the fitness industry, I struggle with, you know, the body image side of it.

And it feels like the weight will show up my stomach or thighs or, you know, where the women don't really want rather than muscle. So my goal is now to build much more muscle and strength without slipping back into over-training. I've run MAPs Anabolic and MuscleMami twice. I'm currently going through anabolic again. I love solid core for low-impact strength and core work. And then I do love running. I'm a runner, but I try not to do it too much. I haven't run for a while due to an injury, but I love cardio mainly for the mental health benefits. And I love walking a lot. So I try to focus on the walking rather than running. So my questions are, how should I structure my training

so that I can keep building muscle while including things like solid core and occasional running without overdoing it. Nutritionally, how should I think about going about how much I should be eating? I try to track my protein. I think I'm getting about 120 to 150 grams, but I don't, I try not to track my calories just because I don't want to slip into unhealthy. habits there. And then lastly, is the way that I'm gaining weight normal for someone rebuilding after being under weight and under a lot of chronic stress. So I hope that that was somewhat concise. And I really appreciate your guidance. Yeah, no. We appreciate you. So you're moving in the right direction. You're really moving in the right direction. And it sounds like you came from a very,

very tough place. Yeah. So you're doing good. So here's the thing with stuff. like this, we can look at all of the symptomatic behaviors and we could try to modify those. And that's okay. But if we don't address where they're coming from, then it's going to be very difficult. And so what I mean by that is if we address the root of why you struggle with some of this stuff, then the behaviors will match. And I think you have the information. I think you know a lot.

because of your background of what you do, you know more than most people in terms of exercise, nutrition, stress, hormones. You said you work in functional medicine? I do, yes. So I think you probably could coach yourself really, really well, but we have to address where all those things kind of come from. Were you ever, if you don't mind,

is it okay if I ask you some direct questions? Yeah. Were you ever diagnosed with an eating disorder? I was not. They really couldn't figure out because they were flagging that, that that could possibly be an issue and they were never able to diagnose me with anything. Okay. Because I've always, I've always fueled myself. I've always eaten healthy.

So it was really difficult. Okay. When you talk about not wanting to track or, you know, because you'll slip back into certain behaviors, what behaviors would you slip back into? You know, as a girl growing up in diet culture, just trying to not slip into controlling what I eat too much to change my body. And I'm also type A perfectionist, as you probably assumed. So I just don't want to become over-analyzed with that. I want to be able to enjoy my life because I already have a lot of like dietary issues or gut issues, sorry. I've had SIBO.

I've gone through all of that. And so I know what my triggers are. So I'm already like a little bit too hyper-aware. And so I don't want to get nitty-gritty into tracking anything more. No, that's great. You're doing really good. Yeah, it's really, really good awareness. So how do you feel about, do you get repeating thoughts about your fitness, your progress?

Do you criticize yourself? I do. Okay. Yeah. I know that I have a lot of body dysmorphia. Okay. There's a way to counter that. And so it's not by stopping the thoughts. That's impossible. Like if I were to tell you to not think about a zebra, you're probably now thinking about a zebra. So the way to counter that sounds hokey is to counter it with truths that you know are true. Right. So if you're repeating thought is, I'll just make one up. You're not good enough. Or you're not, you know. Your body looks this way. Your body looks whatever. What I want you to do is say something. that is true, that is positive.

And I don't care what it is. My squat's stronger than it's ever been right now. I'm moving in the right direction. I'm becoming healthier. I am worthy of being cared for. I am a person that I want to care about or whatever. And what you're going to do is you're going to repeat these to yourself out loud when you catch yourself with the repeating negative thoughts. This sounds silly, but it's really powerful.

It is really powerful. especially if you do it on a consistent basis. So I'd start there. It feels hokey at first, by the way, and awkward, but that's the point. So this is also where, depending on where you're at in this journey, you know, investing in like a really good coach is valuable. They're helping you with that, reminding you that once a month. And kind of outsourcing it to somebody.

Yeah, right. So it's just like, you come, I meet with you once a week and we get on these calls and you're like, Adam, I fill this and this. And then I remind you of how great you're doing and all the positive things. and it's just like sometimes it helps to have someone do that. If you have the ability to do that on your own, then I think you're doing a great job. You're moving in the right direction.

You're already moving in a great direction. Right, right. So you're doing great. But that is the next step to this is reminding yourself of all the other positive things that you're doing when that creeps in. So repetitive thoughts, psychologists will comment on this or talk about how repetitive thoughts, actually repeating thoughts turn into beliefs. So they actually start to things that are true because they're repeated. That's why it's important to counter when you become aware with the truth that you believe,

but that is good and positive. So you just boom, no, here's the truth. And you just say it out loud. Say it out loud. It's really powerful at shaping behaviors. Something else I'll help you with is because you need a direction. So we need a direction with your training. Let's go get strong.

That's the best direction I can point you is to get strong. Yep. If you can take your laser focus, which I think you have, you're probably a pretty focused person. Am I correct? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you focus on getting stronger?

Yeah. You want to do powerlifting? Mm-hmm. Can you train like a power lifter? Yeah. Let's do it. I want to. I want to get strong. All right, let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's point you in the direction of powerlifting. And Doug, is it too soon for me to introduce her? Give her a mask 15 power lifting. We just, we haven't even released this yet. You're going to be the first one to get it. It's Maps. It's Maps 15 power lift.

So it's two lifts a day, except some days it's one lift when you're focusing on the core lift. And you're going to hit PRs in this. Okay. We're going to send that. Do that program. And all I want you to focus on with your training is can I get stronger? And then feed yourself accordingly. The last thing I have a little more questions on just because I'm not fully familiar with.

Tell me a little bit about the core. classes. Solid core? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's huge right now. It's like 50 minutes. It's on a Pilates-inspired machine, but it's more of, it's more strength-focused. Okay.

So it's less Pilates. It's full body, but each class will have different muscle group focuses. So every class has core and oblique work on the machine. And then they'll have a lower body. body and on everybody. So it'll be like center glutes and shoulders. So then there's like movements focused on that with the cables and the the machine. How often are you doing that? I go one to two times a week. Okay. We're fine. With Mass 15, this is fine. This is what was my concern with Maps Anabolic. Maps Antibolic is plenty of strength training. There's no, there's no reason to do any more.

But if we pull you back down to Maths 15 power lift, then we can afford to do this, this core class. Yeah, then you're good. Yeah. So you can still do that core class. Stick to your, when you're doing cardio, that it's lists. So if you're on there, just walking, do you track steps? Where are your steps out on a regular basis? I'm like, I walk a lot. Now that there's snow on the ground in Minnesota, it's harder and it gets to be really cold. But I love walking. So I do walk more than most people, probably like 15,000 steps a day. Yeah, you're good, then. Yeah, that's, you're good. And then with your dodge, it. I know you're tracking your protein, which is fine. Do you eat until you're satisfied,

or do you eat what you think is appropriate? I definitely eat until I'm satisfied, sometimes beyond even like when I'm trying to get more protein in because I'm trying to actually fuel because as I want to get strong, I want to make sure I'm actually eating enough to get strong. But there is a little bit of a mental block there sometimes where I question, like, am I eating too much? No, no, no, you're doing great. You're doing great. Let's have you back on the show in a couple months. I want to hear about your strengthings. Yeah, yeah.

I would love to. Can we do that? Thank you. Yeah, yeah. But I do just have one other question about the power lifting. So my access to gym equipment is like, there's a gym at my apartment building. And it just has a Smith machine. So that's what I've been using for like squats.

But there's no like free weight barbell. So I'll use dumbbells too. like what what do you think i should for the deadlift you can i'll let you use dumbbells but you can use a smith machine for everything else just modify your technique it's not ideal but it's okay okay so i the strength is still possible yeah oh yeah yeah i guess i always i get concerned about that no no no you're okay just modify the where necessary but the presses the squat you know you're going to have to set up the squat differently where it's more like a hack squat but you could still chase strength. For consistency, that's fine. I would try to every once in a while,

make it to a normal gym if you can, just so you can mess with barbell stuff. I think it would be great. But I would never make you do that. And then it sacrificed the consistency of it. If it's like, I consistently will do it here, then that's that trumps. You're still going to get stronger. That'll trump it. But then I'd also be like, hey, if it's a Saturday and you can go work out or with that, maybe go to your local gym where you have barbell stuff that you can practice, it would serve you. But the deadlift one is the only one. I'd say switch to dumbbells. Okay. Yeah.

Natalie, what is about what we're saying challenging for you? I actually feel really good about it, to be honest. Yeah. I'm excited. I feel like I've been kind of crossing that line of I want to go to Salkore, but then I also want to lift, but then I don't want to do too much so that it actually gives you the opposite results, you know, and I'm not actually gaining strength,

and I'm overdoing it so that I can't. And so I feel like the 15 minutes a day is really going to be what I need so that I'm not over-training. And, you know, as I said, I've listened to you for a long time, so I trust you. And it might be hard to, you know, like not be in the gym for a full hour. But if I can just push through that and- Yes. Make long rest periods. That 15-minute workout will easily stretch to 30. by having long rest periods between.

Yeah, okay. That is something that I always struggle. I mean, as Gervinus instructor, so obviously I'm one of like, make it a circuit or super setting. I'm glad you said that then. Go the opposite with this. Go super long rest of course.

Turn maps 15 into maps 30, please. Let's get you strong. I'd be happier to see that it's taking you 30 minutes, then you get it done and make it 30 minutes. I feel good about this, though. I feel really good about this. We're going to have you back on in 60 days so we could check it on here.

Okay, and that's great. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun, so I can't wait. You got it. Thanks, Natalie. Thank you. Oh. She's doing a good job.

Yeah. I feel for her. She's a self-aware. She's a kid. She's only 26 years old. But, you know, the repeating thoughts, that's a difficult one. But if you replace it with pause, in fact, I was just reading an article about this morning. And that can be tough for people, especially when they're thoughts that are, you know, ones that break yourself out.

I mean, I think this is so this is tough for everybody, I actually think. I mean, the webinar that Kyle and I had just ran like the third, the third thing that where people fail, we were talking about, with just accountability, having a coach, having support and help. And I said, one of the biggest things that a coach and a trainer does, support-wise, is literally just help people disconnect from the mirror and the scale and connect to all the other things that strength training and eating correctly does for you. And that's, it's hard for the average person to do that.

Much less if you have any sort of issue or condition or struggle or type of personality. It's like the average person, we've been conditioned to look at the mirror, look at the scale and judge that. And that's a relationship. And it's like it does so many things for your energy, your libido, your hair, your skin, your mood, your relationships, your sleep. It's like the list goes. You can't develop a complete relationship without paying attention to all those things. And so even the average person, I mean, you talk about somebody who admitted. has struggled with some of this stuff. It's like, no, I mean, I think the average person

uses those two metrics and has a really hard time. I mean, most of, I'm sure your career was the average person coming back to you saying like, hey, the scale's not moving or I look the same in the mirror and they're going like, yeah, but how's your energy? Didn't you just tell me about your libido? And look how strong your squad is. And it's like you have to help them make that connection. That's right. 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. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPS

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