Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2764: 5 Simple Ways to Accelerate Fat Loss FAST!

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: 5 Simple Ways to Accelerate Fat Loss FAST! (2:16) AI is a TERRIBLE coach or trainer and the value of human connection. (25:26) Shout out to Caldera! (46:30) Shout out to Gabrielle Lyon and the Forever Strong Experience. (48:47) How long should the average person spend in the gym? (51:48) Success is NOT just about making money. (57:50) Higher doses of creatine can erase the measurable effects of sleep deprivation. (1:03:44) #ListenerCoaching call #1 – Why is my HRV low despite tracking macros, adjusting training, and managing stress while aiming to lose weight and body fat? (1:06:44) #ListenerCoaching call #2 – How to determine what weight to lift when not using percentages based on your 1-rep max. (1:18:20) #ListenerCoaching call #3 – How can I balance giving God the glory for training others while also having the desire to be financially successful with it? (1:26:14) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get Coached by Mind Pump, live! Visit https://www.mplivecaller.com Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order of their best products. ** Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP Buy one, get one 50% off for new customers, and 20% cash back for returning customers! ** MAPS 15 Symmetry 50% off! ** Code DECEMBER50 at checkout. ** Mind Pump Store How to Undulate Your Calories for Faster Weight Loss & an Improved Metabolism Carb Cycling: A Good Way To Lose Fat? – Mind Pump Blog The Benefits Of Carb Cycling – Mind Pump Show Attend the Forever Strong Experience, a free virtual event created and hosted by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on January 10! Sign up here: https://drgabriellelyon.com/forever-strong-exeperience/  Mind Pump #2757: When Life Gets Busy, Your Fitness Should Shrink…Not Disappear! Watch Elway | Netflix Official Site Visit Hiya for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Receive 50% off your first order ** Mind Pump #2250: How Eating More Can Make You Leaner (& How Eating Less Can Make You Fatter) How to Choose the Correct Weight for a Lift - YouTube Sal Di Stefano's Journey in Faith & Fitness – Mind Pump TV Trainer Bonus Series Episode 1: The Successful Trainer Mindset Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned IFBB PRO Johnny Sebastian (@_johnnysebastian) Instagram Jonathan Pageau (@jonathan.pageau) Instagram Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (@drgabriellelyon) Instagram Jay Campbell (@jaycampbell333) Instagram Ben Pollack, Ph.D. (@phdeadlift)  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 in the history of the world. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we coached people on air. So people called in. We got to help them out right here live.

but this was after the introduction in the intro portion, which was 63 minutes long, we talked about fat loss and muscle gain, diet, everything fitness related, plus current events and family life. Always a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this

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That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, let's talk about fat loss. Everybody's interested in getting leaner. But did you know that over a two-week period, maybe three, you can accelerate the process? Now, this isn't a long-term strategy, but you can make things happen much faster in a short period of time. There's actually five ways we have found that actually do this. We're going to talk about them today. Let's get into it.

I'm curious how you nailed this down to five right here. Yeah, well, there's a few ways, right? But these are the ways that I've used, and I know we've talked about the software. These are strategies we've used with clients. Now, is this based off of research or just our own personal experience what we've used as far as strategy? A little of both. It's hard to find research on something like this. A lot of this is based off of what you'll find in particular competitors.

Okay, I was just saying, because when I saw it, I looked at it and I was like, okay, these, I totally agree with these. But I don't know if you found data to support what you're about to say. At best, the data suggests that this works. Now, the issue is it's not a long-term strategy. And here's why bodybuilders will do some of these strategies is they're so lean that. that an acceleration of fat loss over two weeks with the bodybuilder is visible. Yeah. The average person, you know, if you're trying to lose 50 pounds, it's not going to make that

big of a difference. But if you're getting there and you're getting close to your goal and let's say you've got something coming up or you want to see what you could do over a concentrated, you know, 14 day period, maybe 21 day period, you can incorporate some of these things and you'll see fat loss accelerate. You'll see it happen faster. Yeah, I think this is one of those where you've put all the work in. This is not substituting.

No, no, no, no. This is the last kind of sharpening techniques. I think there's something more there, too, with what you said about, like, relating this to somebody who maybe has to lose, like, 50 pounds versus maybe somebody who's closer to getting to their final goal. Because what tends to happen with someone who has to lose, you know, a significant amount of body fat is they actually do too much of stuff like this too fast. And it kind of shoots themselves. the foot. And so this is not a long-term strategy or, or in particular, all these is what I would recommend to somebody. Although some of them are strategies that I think I use even with that person. And when we get through them, I'll explain, like, this is where I still would use this for

somebody who's 50. For example, your very first one, I think is a good strategy for kind of all people. I agree. I think this is just a healthier, better balance a way of eating. Yeah, so the first one is undulating your calories. So what we mean by that is, you know, typically when you talk about fat loss, obviously you have to be in a caloric deficit, meaning you have to take in less energy or less calories than your body's burning. If that doesn't happen, you're not going to lose body fat. Okay, now it's more complicated than that, right?

Because your body can deal with the deficit by pairing muscle down, which we've talked about many, many times. It could cause you to become less active to make up the difference. but at the end of the day, there has to be a deficit. Otherwise, your body will not burn calories from itself. In other words, it won't get rid of body fat. So that has to happen. And so typically, the standard approach is to have this kind of consistent deficit.

And so what this would look like, and I'll just for argument's sake, is let's say your body's burning 3,000 calories a day. You're exercising. You got a good, fast-roaring metabolism. So you're like, okay, I'm going to put myself at a 500 calorie deficit every day. So I'm going to eat 2,500 calories every day. Right. That's one approach. That's the standard approach.

But in my experience, undulating calories has lots of different benefits, one of which being, in my experience, accelerated fat losses. So what this tends to look like, and bodybuilders have done this for a long time. Bodybuilders call this, you know, refeed days or higher carb days or whatever, where some days, they're not in a deficit. In fact, some days they might even be at a slight surplus. but other days the deficits much larger than the 500. Ultimately, it averages out to about the same.

So if you're looking at 3,500 calories of a deficit over a week, right, that'd be 500 a day. Instead of it being 500 every day, one day might be zero. The next day might be 1,000. The next day might be plus 200. The next day may be down 700. And so the calories are going up and down, but some days are real low calories, some days are higher. and typically people will time the higher calories around workouts to fuel their training. Now, to what you're saying, Adam, I like this as a long-term approach as well because it mirrors real life.

Not only does it mirror real life, but there has to be something, and this is theory, right? Because I don't have the proof on this, but it's like we do have an understanding of somewhat of an understanding around metabolic adaptation. Yes. where if you, let's say someone just, let's use that 3,000 calorie person, and let's say they just eat 2,000 calories every single day, consistently for a long time, eventually what ends up happening is the body gets metabolically adapted to that new calorie intake. And then the, and then the fat loss slows or stops completely.

And so then you need to either, you know, either reverse diet or increase activity or whatever to create a larger deficit. But nonetheless, what we call that is it's not a brooky. your metabolism is adapting to this new calorie intake. So based off of that that understanding, it makes sense that undulating it would slow that process down or keep that from happening as fast, right? Agreed. So instead of it just being this 2,500 calories every single day and then, again, these are all very hypothetical numbers, you know, five weeks down the road, my body is now adapted to 2,500 calories. If I'm having some

days where I'm at 3,000 and then 27 and then in 2000. It makes sense to me that it would be your body is less likely to adapt to a set amount because you're having this fluctuation so much. Agreed. And that's exactly, that's the theory. And that's how, in my experience, it feels. Yeah. Because one of the ways your body, so you said your metabolic adaptation.

That's a phrase that encompasses an incredibly compact. complex thing that happens. So your body burns less calories. Cool. How is it doing that? Oh, boy. There's a lot of things that happen there. Compare muscle down.

Your body becomes less or more efficient with how it utilizes calories. It'll influence you to move less in ways you might not even perceive. They've done studies where they'll drop calories and they just see people moving less like they're shaking their leg less or they take a few less steps or they sit a little more. It can influence your hunger to try to make up the difference. There's all these things that hormones can get affected. But what I think tends to happen when you have a real low calorie and then you eat, you have a refeed, you feel that energy.

You feel that strength. You move more. Maybe your intensity goes up. Your hormones aren't as affected. And I don't think your body is as afraid of the lower calorie because it just got higher calories. And to me, this makes sense because it not only mirrors real life, this mirrors how humans have probably always eaten. I guarantee you.

It was a lot harder to get food back in. And when we did, we eat it. And we most certainly weren't weighing and measuring it out to get an exact calorie amount. You make a kill and you have to eat it then. You know, and so you'd feast and then there'd be bits of famine in between. But you'd always like, you'd have like intermittent bouts of big amounts of calories. Totally. And then to elaborate on your point of what mirrors real lifestyle and I've just found this is

that there's certain days where you're less hungry and you're more hungry. That's right. Example of that for me is like, man, I just, this. has happened the other day and Katrina was like teasing me. She's like, oh my God, you're eating again. You're talking. I'm like, man, I trained legs hard the day before. And whenever I have like a good heavy leg session day in the day before, man, the next day I just feel like fuel up. And it just, again, makes logical sense to me. I just, I just trained them really hard. There's a lot of recovery process. They're big muscles. There's probably a lot of demand. My body is naturally going,

we need more calories and I allow it. All right. Let's feed. You know what I'm saying? And I allow it. All right, let's feed. You know what I'm saying? And then the next day, for example, after that was what I would have called either an off day or a very low intensity day. I came in and touched up arms. Bison tries real life. The appetite wasn't there. And so it's just like, hey, my body doesn't feel like it needs a ton, a bunch more calories.

So it was a more moderate to lower calorie day. So I really find that, you know, even when I undulate, I don't even go plan to undulate. I don't go, oh, this day I'm going to do $3,000. Because I think sometimes when we talk about this, people go like, okay, well, then I'll make this day $2,900, and I'll make this day, 2,100, and I'll make this. And because the guys say, that's the way to go. It's like, honestly, if you just say, hey, feel it out and go, you know,

or days like when you know, you're just not moving a lot. So, like, on a weekend where, you know, especially now coming in the holidays, it was raining. There was a couple times where Max and I were just building Legos and watching, watching cartoons and stuff. It was like, man, I didn't. move very much that day. That was a really low calorie day for me because my body wasn't expending a lot instead of like saying that, oh, this was supposed to be my 2,900 calorie day. It's like just

allow that natural undulation. I think the biggest thing though to always remember or that I find I still have to focus on when you undulate like that is obviously on those lower calorie days, it becomes significantly more difficult than the protein. So there has to be a protein should be consistent. Right. There should be. There needs to be a really strong emphasis on still go after that protein, but maybe I choose lower calorie foods or maybe I'm on the lower end of my protein but still getting what my body needs

versus the days where I'm higher. I'm glad you said that because protein doesn't really get stored. That's right. So that's, yeah, good point. Next step, go real low carb. Real low carb in many cases seems to accelerate fat loss.

You definitely lose more water and it does tend to blunt appetite. in many people. So typically we'll make up the low carb with some more fat intake. It's short-lived. But again, this is a bodybuilder trick. You could, you know,

you could literally do two weeks of under 50 grams of carbs. I don't think it's a good idea to go that low all the time, except for certain circumstances where maybe these are medical situation or gut health. Sometimes this will help people.

But just for pure fat loss, do like a week or two of this. and then go back to normal. And you could do this intermittently. You know, you could do this every three or four months. You have like a one week of very, very low carbohydrates. Now, why does this accelerate fat loss? It tends to drop calories.

It tends to really drop calories. Your appetite tends to go down when you're eating just fats and proteins. And so this, again, it's an old school tip. But I found this to be just a really fast way to kind of accelerate the definition at the very least that you'll see in the mirror. I love sharing about this because I, I played a lot around with like different types of carb cycling and and when I was competing. And so and I in there's there's no like real wrong or right way.

You just gave an example of running it for a couple weeks. Their traditional bodybuilders will run a low, medium high day, low medium high day. And that's then they'll cycle that way. I found I would just stay low carb for two, three, sometimes four, days and then refee. And again, going off of how I felt, like I would like, I'd really try and keep it low carb for a few good days in a row, at least two to three days in a row, if not four or five sometimes. And then when I felt like my body was really needing more calories, then I give it that kind of high carb day. And then I go right back to that. A lot of people, I think,

that want to try this overcomplicated, like, well, how many grams should my carbs be? And bodybuilding can take it to that level where they're very very, very, very much. And bodybuilding, can take it to that level where they're very, very, like if you asked our buddy Johnny, who's always, you know, getting ready for a show, he's probably got it down to I do 50 grams of carbs on this day, then I do 75 on this day. And he's got it to a number. Yeah, yeah. So he's got it to a number like that. I was just like, okay, I'm going to try and stay at like 50 grams of carbs or lower for like three, four days in a row. And then on that, the next, next time I was, I would refeed and eat a lot of carbohydrates and let myself come all the way back up to a maintenance or even maybe a surplus.

And that just worked really, really well for me. And it wasn't, I didn't have to get so granular where I was like, oh, I can only have this much on each day to where you're trying to calculate each food. It's just like, no, I'm going to stay low carb for a good three days in a row. And then day four, I'm going to give myself a high carb day and cycle like that. And then again, it naturally brings those calories down. And so the average of the week ends up being lower, that one worked really, really well. Yeah, I love it for the, performance benefits and I try to keep low carb as long as possible. And then you go to refeed and it's like turbocharging, especially on the super intense days that you have kind of planned and scheduled out. So the majority of the time I'm trying to kind of stay very low, you know, and then intermittently

kind of bring it in and then base it off of that like intensity factor. Yeah. For me, I know what it feels like to be in ketosis. So I'll go low carb and then I'll feel myself in ketosis. Then I'll stay there for a couple days, then I'll refeed. Yeah. And just kind of play like that. Next up, you could drop your calories really low for a short period of time. And studies will show that minimal muscle loss will happen. But this is short.

Okay. So this is like one week or less. Yeah. Usually a few days. Yeah, yeah. So if your target calories are 2,500, you know, you go 1,000. You can go 1,000 calories for three, four days and then go right back to where you were before. In fact, I suggest the next day.

when you're coming off to go higher than you normally would, and then go back to your normal calories, and you'll get a little bump, an acceleration in fat loss. This, I will say this, one caveat is if your calories are really low anyway, don't do this. If you're a woman listening to this and you're at 1,300 calories,

like, don't do this. Well, I would add another caveat to that, which is if you are also somebody who already struggles with hitting protein intake, this makes it exponentially more difficult. You're not going to get your protein for most people, depending on your side. you're not going to get 1,000 calories,

you're not going to get enough protein through 1,000 calories. So if you're already somebody who has a hard time hitting protein, and then you now stretch two, three, four days or more in a row of 1,000 calorie days of extremely low protein, now you're just setting yourself up for, yeah, you might lose some weight, but you're probably also going to pare down some muscle during that process. So this to me, like, this is, like, where you're at in your diet, I feel like if I was training you nutritionally, I could do this to you. Yeah, my calories is so high.

You're so high in calories. You eat a lot of protein consistently. So three days of thousand calories, you would do nothing. Like you're not going to pare down a bunch of muscle. You're just going to see the leaning out benefits of it. Be difficult food-wise. But you are somebody who would be an example of a client that I could do that with. Most people, because they struggle with getting enough or the point you made are already pretty low calorie,

they hear that and they go, okay, I'll just cut down. I'll starve. Yeah, not a good idea. Not a good idea. Next up, 48 hour fast. So again, you want to be in a healthy place to do this. Now, the 48 hour fast, here's why this accelerates fat loss. Okay, yes, you're not taking any calories for two days.

That's part of it. But really, it resets a lot of your cravings. It resets your connections to food. Your gut. Your gut health, your inflammation goes down. I don't think it's a good idea to work out on this. This is not a 48-hour fast plus workout. That's a bad idea.

It's 48-hour fast and chill. But this, for many people, in particular, people who are afraid to skip meals, you know, who you are. You're like, I got to eat every three hours. I can't miss this. I can't miss that. You know, this can do work wonders for helping you kind of break some chains to the kinds of foods that you're eating. Here's a good example of it. You know, this is the kind of person that I'm talking to with this.

if you're that person where noon comes around, you're like, oh, I better eat. Otherwise I'm going to get annoyed. You probably would benefit from doing a fast because you're probably connecting time to food, not necessarily to hunger. This was definitely me. This would benefit me, for example.

If I did a 48-hour fast, it'd come out of it with a better relationship to food. Now, if you starve yourself all the time, probably not a good idea. In other words, snacker, you're always having to have something. Yes. This was my favorite thing I've shared this before

in the podcast to do with my competitors. most competitors have I bet they were so scared too Oh, terrified, terrified Which is why I made them do it It was because I knew that most Not all, but most competitors Have some level of orthorexia

Or not and so that client Who feels like they can't go two hours Without eating a meal and hitting it And fear of their muscles Is gonna fall off their body It's a good practice for them To go through that And actually realize that

you're going to be just fine. In fact, there's incredible health benefits for you doing that. And so those are typically the clients that I use a strategy at this. Again, most people that are on the fat loss journey don't hit enough protein consistently, under-eat calories, and we have the reversed item. This strategy tends to work better with the, you know, a never-miss-a-meal every two hours type of person. Or like Justin said, always got a snack. Always got to have a stuff.

Yes, yeah, yeah. Someone like that who needs to break the chains of their relationship with food. and they haven't learned how to distinguish between cravings and hunger. This helps teach that. And so that's where this is really valuable. Totally. All right. And the last, you want to increase your activity, duh, but here's how you don't do this.

So you do this over a two-week period. And oftentimes when people are trying to accelerate fat loss through activity, they just go jump on a bunch of cardio. They go run. They go do some lots of intense activity, which there's nothing necessarily wrong with that if you want to build endurance and stamina. But the intensity of it tends to overspers. stress the body, and it tends to promote a down pairing of muscle as you start to train for

endurance. Here's a better way to do this. Just double your steps. So you dramatically increase your activity, but it's a very low intensity, leisure type of activity requires minimal recovery. It's minimal stress on the body. This is great for people who average 6,000, 7,000 steps a day, track your steps. Six, seven thousand steps a day is not bad, okay? Eight thousand steps, typically the target. But let's say you're hitting six, seven a day. Get your track. I'm going to hit 15,000 steps a day.

Do that for two weeks and you'll see an acceleration. Yeah, you're up. You're active. You're more productive. It's just that like you're not trying to really feel the impact of it quite as much as you would, like doing cardio in a long, intense session. It's spread out throughout the day. And it's just one of those things like you notice I sit a lot during this period here.

I don't move around. There's a lot of things kind of hanging over you, and this is just a great way to kind of attack all these things while getting the benefit. There's another compounding benefit to this that just recently I've been talking to one of my family members about their activity level, and everybody knows that I've been closely tracking my sleep lately because of everything that I went through.

There's something that I kind of connect to the dots with just recently that I think is really powerful. and I think a lot of people can relate to this and if you've never really paid attention to this, try paying attention to this. We're not the only ones that have jobs where we sit a lot at a desk or in a podcast or a studio like this.

And for most of human existence, we moved physically all day long. Unless you were sick. Right. We're built to do that. We are. And I think that has a massive impact on how well you sleep.

I mean, obviously, strength training people of a dash step, but even just moving, our bodies were meant to move for that many steps or more every single day. And I think sometimes just doing that ends up making sleep so much better.

So maybe you're only trained, because we tend to recommend like a three-day full-body routine for most people, but then the rest of the days, if you're still, if you're going, you're strain training three days a week,

which is great, but then you're only moving four to six thousand steps on the other days, just you, simply getting that up over 10,000 steps, watch the impact that it makes on your quality of your sleep. And the quality of your sleep makes a huge impact on your recovery and your strength and building muscle and all these other things. And so I think that that's another huge benefit

to this is not just the fact that weight loss. I think it's a compounding effect because it naturally also improves sleep. You know what's funny about what you said, Adam, is any parent knows exactly what I'm talking about. You know what happens when your kids are sitting down all day and then it's time for bed. They don't want to go to sleep. It sucks. And somehow we think we're different. Now, the difference is an adult.

You don't cry and expect someone to come help you, which is what you just stay in bed and you're having insomnia. You keep waking up. We're the same. So, like, I know for me, when I'm with my kids all day long on those days we don't work, like, I get them to move. And when I do, they go to bed. So nice.

They sleep. Such a huge difference. Oh, my God. If it's raining outside and we end up doing nothing all day long, try to get the kids to go to sleep. It's so different. Attitude changes, how well they sleep, when they go, I mean, all those things. And you're right. They're such a good example. Like, we're no different. We just, we've learned to regulate our emotions. Yeah. So instead of throwing tantrums. Yeah, yeah. So instead, we call it like, oh, I got a busy mind. But yeah, what it is is that my,

my brain might be going going all day long, but my body hasn't been. And so I don't have that same physical exhaustion that you should have at the end of the day. And so I think that this is, is such a huge hack for not just his weight loss, but of course the extra benefits that you get by improving sleep. And we talk about how important sleep is. And so, and it says something again, I've really, really noticed what an impact.

It's made on myself right now with struggling with my sleep. Like really, I've actually, you know, we're the anti or non-cardi-cario guys. I've been doing a lot more cardio a day. And it's low level. It's less. So it's like walking or elliptical type movement. So I'm not doing strenuous,

but it's really just a lot of, get the step. I need to get the step. I need to get that energy out. I need to get the steps up and movement up for the day in order for me to improve that sleep. And it's made a big difference. Totally. All right. I'm going to switch gears here. I saw this clip. I won't get too detail. But I saw this clip where these coaches were talking about how people, these are fitness coaches, how people are using AI to coach them through fitness and nutrition. And so I think it's important that we had.

address this because I don't think this is happening a lot, but it will. It will happen. Sure. And I think it's a terrible idea. For the same reasons why many states, I think there's now a few states and many, many more who've now put this, like they're going to start legislating this, for the same reasons why many states have made it illegal to use AI for therapy. It's a terrible coach and trainer. Now, what you'll get from AI are do this, do that. But what What makes a coach effect, you talk to any coach, any personal trainer who's successful, who's been doing it for five, 10 years, who has a good business, whose clients don't leave, it is good.

You ask them, what makes you successful? And I guarantee you what make the top 20 list is, oh, I just tell my clients the right stuff to do. That's not what makes you a good coach. It's just reinforcing you a good coach. It's just reinforce your own bias. Yes. Yeah, you're going to ask certain questions that you want to steer it in a certain direction

because you have your own tendencies and things you like. And so it's going to feed you exactly what you think you want. And it's not necessarily like what you need to be working on. So it's, I think it's alluring, you know, and it's something that people are like really interested in because it seems like it's just like a genie. It's like it's going to give you everything that you're hoping for. And it's not playing out like that at all.

And I think people are not cautious about it at all. Terrible. Super interesting you went this way. So I shared a text with you guys on Christmas Eve because Josh was in here, Eli was in here, Kyle was in here all day working and stuff. And I get to spend some really good time with them. This happened to be the discussion. And what I actually said that I think is going to happen is it's going to grow. There's going to be a lot of it.

And I think there's going to be a very clear divide because because AI, it's going to give the ability for these services to be unbelievably cheap. You're going to be able to get an AI coach for some $20 a month subscription or something like that. At some point free. And the reason why this came up was because there's a lot of things on the back end that we use AI for. And one of the things that Josh just recently had built, he'd built AI Sal. And it's actually really cool. It's really, really cool. And I was actually really impressed with it.

And we were discussing, like, how far do we take this? And there was a little bit of debate. And one of the things that I told Kyle and Eli is that, listen, I'm fully on board with us utilizing some of the benefits and the tools of AI. But I want you guys to keep in mind that as we are building that, like, It's like we're building a new company or a new business right now with the trainer side. It's unique. It's different than what we have done for the last nine years. And so one of the core values that I think all the owners, I think you guys agree on,

is that why we're moving into this space is because we understand the importance and the value of personal touch and connection to humans in this new AI world that we're heading into. So if you imagine that's our core value as all these opportunities, to use AI within our business approach itself, don't ever forget that that's what we value more. And so AI Sal might be able to do some of these things for us on this side of the business, but I never want it to be the thing that is the relationship with the client just so we can make a buck. I said, I want us to always keep that in mind.

It's back end. It's not front end facing. Yes. And so it made the decision really. clear because again, like I said, this thing was really, really cool. And it's like, now this would be a really cool tool to use to then qualify people that would potentially be real clients and stuff like that and help maybe somebody who can't afford personal training or do that personal touch like that. And so we can use it as an aspect of the business. But really, our focus is on people that value

human connection, people that want that personal touch because there is going to be a very clear. divide. There is going to be people that will opt for an inferior, less human touch, less human connection for just bottom line. This cheap's in it helps me do something versus someone who's like, you know what? Like I really value that human connection. Here, look, look, here's the bottom line with this. Your success as a coach, first off, there's a bar. There's a bottom bar. Yeah, you better know the right stuff to do. You better know diet to an extent, exercise technique. biomechanics, workout programming, like all the things that people say, you know, coaches. Like that's the bar.

That's the bottom, you guys. If you don't know that stuff, like, don't be a trainer. So that's it. That's the bottom. Now, what makes a trainer that's good is can the client relate to you? That's it. Now, that's not just it. That's a very hard thing to do.

But can they relate to you and do they trust you? The best thing AI can do is fool you into that. Now, here's the thing. You know you're talking to AI if you're working. with an AI code. Even if it fools you, at the end of the day, you know it's not a human. It's never going to be as effective unless you go into it, never knowing it's AI and you're completely fooled, in which case, I don't know, we can still make some arguments. But I know this is a code. I know this is from someone who coach people for two decades and who coached other

trainers on how to train people. It's like, here's a deal. You better know your stuff. That's how you become a trainer. But what makes you good is do they relate, connect to you and trust you? And again, the best thing that the closest AI could get to that is to just simply fool people. But it's no different than having an AI girlfriend or boyfriend or therapist or best friend. Do you have any friends? Yeah, I have three AI friends. Those are my real friends. Is it the same though?

Can you really relate to an everlasting machine? So this is the main thing. So in other words, right now AI is not going to give you the best answers yet. But it will soon. Soon it's going to give you good answers. But it's not going to be as a. effective. It just isn't. You know, I don't even know if that's the argument I make, although I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think the argument that I would make is that we're very aware

what has happened in the last now two decades since the introduction of Facebook and iPhones and Instagram and all these social media tools. We are lonelier, higher suicide rates. We have less friends, we have less connection, yet we're connected to more people. Right. And we understand what chemicals and stuff and bonds that are made when we're here right now. Right now, there is a clear difference between someone that is listening through us through a, you know, radio versus somebody who is listening in the room with you. Right. And so it's not as, it's not as bad, but the next level to, I think, think not as good would be the AI versions of us having this conversation and someone listening.

And so you not only lose out on this part, but then at least the people that are listening to real people right now get a portion of that connection. When it turns into an AI, you lose completely. It then becomes only information and data and science and answers. And we are social creatures and you don't realize the potential ramifications. of what that looks like. And I think that there is already an example of that with what we saw happen with social media and Instagram.

You have got more people that you're connected to, yet we are more depressed because you're not doing it in person anymore. So what happens when you lose even the shows that you watch on TV or the shows that you listen to on a podcast become AI-generated or the coaches that used to be a real person that's asking about your wife and kids and the days and so with that. And it's an AI person who's asking about you because it will prompt and do all those things too.

So what it's like the answers will be good. In fact, I even think the answers can get to a point where, you know, it's like Sal with all the data that we have. Wait till you see the one that we have. You're going to be blown away when I can have, I can have, we mess with it and ask like deep personal questions and started sharing emotions. And your empathy came across right through it. Like so, but it was.

an AI like you're saying. And so, you know, so I think logically people will think, oh, this is great, but I think you're getting even further away from the human connection. And what we don't know is what does that look like 10, 20 years from now and, and what we see, see, because I don't, I don't think anybody saw Facebook and Instagram having those ramifications. No, I don't think people said, this is going to make us more lonely. Right. I think, I think, I think they thought it would I think it's more connected. He thought, I, I, cheers on to narcissistic,

psychopaths. Really, just, I just think really, I think really lonely and depressed. I think it's just going to exacerbate that. At least, at least the person who's, the person who's connecting on Facebook and Instagram with a real person or listening to a real podcast or

watching real actors, because the next one is the actors, right? I've said this a while ago. Like, we are this close to, you know, Tom Cruise, never really acting in a movie and just selling his likeness and then it's now a CGI version of it. And for our entertainment purposes, what do we care? It looks similar.

It looks similar, but it's like, again, now, but you know you're not even watching him really act anymore. So you've got to think that that's going to have some downstream effects. You know, it's funny. This is kind of related. I think I might have sent this to you, Justin. It was like this long post about J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. When they went to go watch, they went to

the theater to watch which one was the first Disney Snow White was the first. They went to go watch so Snow White was the first animated feature film ever right they put it on the big screen and everybody went it was like just in Marvel and J.R. R. Tolkien and

C.S. Lewis who were great storytellers and writers right J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Hobbit and C.S. Lewis was the what is it Narnia? Yeah. Okay so Lange Wish Wardrobe. They went to watch it and they came out and they were just so

upset. And they're like, Disney took the art of storytelling and turned it into entertainment. And so then this whole article explains what it means. So, and so here was, this was their objection. They missed like the main morals of the entire story. Here's their objections. Disney took and made everything very clear, good and bad. So there's the evil princess. She's just evil. Here's the good guy. They're just good. And so they went to explain how real storytelling talks about the complexities of life. Like, name in, and, in real life, when people are all good or all, like, do, are there people that are just pure good and pure bad?

It'd be so much easier if that was the case, you could categorize them immediately and be like, well, they're evil. Yes. It's not that clear. No. And so they were explaining how, you know, storytelling is supposed to tell us about life and make things hard to kind of grasp and think about, whereas Disney took the storytelling and just said, here it is very simple, very basic entertainment and teaches us actually.

in fact it teaches us things that aren't so great because you watch Disney movies as a kid and what do you think fall in love happily ever after evil good prince charming princess uh oh my life isn't that way i guess i should get divorce or this is what's going on everything's wrong when that's not how it's i think it was it was really really interesting article that is a really interesting discussion and debate i've never heard that uh that before i mean it makes sense because and this is why you have a big like novel readers will always say the book is so much better. And the reason, I've always asked, like, why? Why is it so much better? I love watching the movie. And the argument would be the character development. Because the nuances of the, the evil character, there's always something when they, in a, in the book. It's a redeeming in there. Well, redeeming or relatable, where you have more of an understanding like, oh, I kind of get why maybe they're, they're bad like this. And you get a lesson in that. You get a lesson of like, oh, I could see how this could make someone or turn. Every hero in the Bible, besides Jesus, is incredibly flawed. Yeah. Massively flawed. Because they're human beings.

Kiss their people. You know, you read about it and be like, oh my God, David, you know, a man after God's heart slept with his friend's wife and then had his friend killed. Yeah. The king, you know, the first. Reveread, one of the most revered characters. Yeah, dude. So that's like Moses, Abraham, like all of them. So anyway, I thought it was very interesting. Who is it? Jonathan Pageau talks about this because a lot of these, these fairy tales that we know are actually rooted in old stories. They just changed them to make them, you know, easy to watch. He used the example of, I think it was, which story is it where she's given the poison apple?

Is it also, is that Sleepy's Beauty? Snow white. Snow white. And that's the one where she's like, yeah, he did the black mirror on the wall. He did the black mirror thing with, you know, the relation to the phone. Yes. But also, there was one where he said in the original fairy tale, you know, she's looking in the mirror, mirror on the wall, you know, who's the fairer son?

It talks about this princess. That's just the most beautiful. So she gives a gift to the princess And you know what she gives her? A mirror and a brush. And you think, what does that have to do with? And she's because the story is showing this innocent princess,

the reason why she's so beautiful, part of the reason she doesn't know. Yes. She's so beautiful. So she gives her a mirror and a brush. She's just like looking at herself and obsessing about her looks. Like that was not in any Disney fairy tale.

Such a parallel to AI too. I know. I mean, when you think about it and like all, or old stories, you'll see stuff like that where it's like people get consumed by their own what do you call that

when they're just obsessed with themselves. Yes. Yeah. And it it's clear like you know, just vanity is what I'm looking for. Yeah, they get into that vanity of like, well, I look this way. People have reinforced and told me this way and then it changes and you age and then it just becomes this curse.

So I mean, playing devil's advocate here a little bit, right? Because a big part of what we do, and or why we did this was to really reach the masses, right? One of the things we agreed when we first started this is like, when we, when we looked at the entire fitness space, it was like so much of an echo chamber of just, you know, obsessed fitness people talking to other obsessed fitness people about how to get in shape,

which is literally like this tiny minority. And we remember like, man, none of this conversation was this type of stuff that we were communicating to our real clients that were normal people. Right. It didn't relate at all. So part of the success of the show has always been that like that that was the goal was to go after and help the 98% and really in inform and communicate in a way that that helped and they understood. And so coming from that perspective, you have to think that and this is the struggle is that, you know, AI Sal that is way inexpensive and affordable now gives somebody else, give somebody maybe the resources and tools that. you know, wouldn't have it before.

Sure. And so how do you, how do you wrestle with that dichotomy of like, okay, you've got this, you've got this side of it that you think is a new powerful force? Is evil, bad, all these things. It's not good. It's just going to have all these ramifications downstream. But then it also now allows somebody who could never afford to get coached by you. Can I just add here.

It might sound like me. It might have all the information based off of the 2,500 podcasts that we release and all the other content. But you know what AI Sal's never going to do? It's never going to tell you, hey, look, I'm done. I'm tired. Stop asking me so many questions. I got to go be with my kids.

It's not me. Yeah. It's not me. It actually won't even hang up the phone. It won't even hang up the phone. I'm going to say bye. Listen, if you call me, you're a fan. Doug was messing with it the whole time.

Doug would just be like, okay. And then he would say something else. Love you. Okay. And then it just kept going. And it would just keep going until he finally said, okay, bye. then it would hang out. No, I think, I think there's, I think there's value in, you know, Facebook and social media. I think there's value in processed foods. They have a long shelf

life. I think there's value a lot of things that have just become abused. So, you know, I, I hope what it does is it gives people good information and it helps people make the decision to work with a real code. I mean, it does. It does a great job. That was the point of it, or the point that I made with the boys is that, hey, I, you know, this, I don't want this to be a coaching service. This is something that people should be able to use, utilize for free that wouldn't be able to. And then, and then the ones that know that they want help and coach, it will be able to qualify and then direct them because we have so much traffic. And so I think it'll be a good middle for people. You know, you're taking over the, the overseas contractors, you know, take all the phone calls normally.

Yeah, you know, that's, that's, those are gone. Those are gone. Yeah, they're gone. Yeah, that's complete. But nobody cares. You know, you just, you just, you just, you just highlighted something that I hadn't thought about really, too. That could also be really, like, we were, I was joking, but I'm serious that, you know, Doug was messing with it and not hang out the phone. Yeah. And I thought, man.

You do that to me. I'll hang up. Like in real life, dude. You call me. You call me when I'm eating dinner. I won't answer. Yeah. Well, how many, how many really lonely people are going to just.

terrible. Talk and talk. And you know what? I hate to say this. Loneliness is terrible. Okay, there's a loneliness epidemic. But you know what the feeling of loneliness can do for a lot of people? It could drive them to seek out.

Yeah, to go out there. But if you placate that feeling with false connection, you'll never get out of your house. Just like pornography would do to a teenage boy who's talking to girls. They're going to sell it to people. that it's better than that, right? So it's like, they're going to sell it to people that it's better than being lonely. Like, hey, you can talk to AI South

for eight hours straight if you want. You know what I'm saying? And he's really nice and empathetic and answers all your questions. He's brilliant. What's the AI mean? About you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We like experimenting with you first. Yeah, I know, we did. I mean, you know why you talk so much, bro. There's way more, there's way more data. Are you going to replace me on the show? We tried to do AI Justin. It was just like one-liners. What do you want?

He's like, this is not going to work. just eat better. And they might have all these like spelling errors. I don't know. Adam was too mean. Yeah. Mine was too. Mine was too direct.

That's because you're fat. Yeah. Yours was hell of good, dude. I can't wait for you to hear it. It's funny. It's really, I'm going to have a call my wife. Is it not telling her? I will.

You know, just listen on the other end. Well, you have to, so you have to do like, to really appreciate how good it is. You have to do like what Doug did. Like I told my family about it and I asked just poor Josh on I was thinking it was like on Christmas Day I'm bugging this guy. Hey, send it over me. I want to show my family.

So he said it and I gave it to them and they were like they were so lame with it. You know? I'm like, no, challenge. How many grabbed your food color? Yeah. They were just so like simple. Yes. No.

I'm like no. Like Doug really was like talking about like oh, I'm really struggling with my butt. And I don't know what to do. And you know, it makes I feel insecure like he was talking about it like he was sharing like a person. Send me a picture. And it did such a good job of communicating to that. By the way, you're very empathetic. You are very, very, very much so.

Like it does, I mean, let me tell you, listening to it, it will be better than 90, I'm going to say 95% of all sales closers. Oh, I see. The way it tied down, the way it asked questions, the way it. Oh, dude, it was, it's, it's programmed really well that I, if you, if someone's in phone sales right now, I'd be dropping applications places because it's, it's, it's, someone's going to program it to do stuff like that. It's so much. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a true. Dude, we were speaking earlier of mirrors and stuff. I got to tell you guys, this, this, here's a testament to, uh, our partners at Caldera Lab. So we had our, our 10 year anniversary Christmas party. We had family and friends come. And my cousin Sepp came with his wife, Sarah. Love them. My cousin Sepp and I are very, very close.

So he's always invited. And he's come to most of them. So he shows up. They come, they hang out. And then they left with their gift bag. So we give special guests and friends, gift bags when they leave. What's in there typically, there's a gift and maybe some stuff from our partners. He had never used Caldera Lab.

And now my cousin is not like, I'm going to put stuff on my face kind of guy. He just didn't even think about it. That's how it gets every year. I wasn't like that until we worked with them, right? So I go up there on Christmas and we're hanging out. And we go to the gym together. We go do a workout. It was the day after.

And we were talking about peptides or something like that. He's like, oh, I got to tell you. I really like the face stuff. He just said face stuff. And I forgot what we put on. I'm like, Caldera. He's like, yeah, Caldera Lab. He's like, dude, I love it.

I can tell a big difference. I'm like, bro, you're using face creams. They're so effective. They worked so well. It does. It got my cousin. It was, he's going to buy, he's going to keep buying it. It's the number one.

It was the number one thing in the gift bag. It was the number one thing in the gift bag that people, I mean, I got a text message from somebody that is just like, hey, I'm, I'm picking up some of that Caldera Lab. I want to know, do you guys have a link or whatever? I sent them over the partners thing to go through that, that. But that, smart on them. Shout out to them for doing that. I mean, they supplied 100 people, all that stuff.

So that's a, every person I've talked to you is going to buy. more. I know. So, me too. So smart on them. That was a major investment for them to do that. I surprised the hell out of me that, uh, that they did that. Katrina told me that like the last week heading in. She's like, dude, you know Caldera Lab. Well, they have to know. That's how it works, right? It's like, you got to apply it once you actually use it. It just basically sells itself. I mean, to me, that's the, that's what made that product so good was that you can be somebody who's not into that. I think all of us were not that person. And you apply it one time and you can feel and see a, difference. And it's just like, those are the products that just, they sell themselves. It doesn't,

require you. Speaking of friends and stuff. So Gabrielle Lyon, is this her first event? She's put in her. No, no, no. She's done this before. She's done this before. So I thought, okay, her forever strong experience. Very popular. She's putting it out again, January 10th. So I was in it. So she interviewed me. So I'm going to be part of it. It's great. Yeah. It was great. Was there a specific topic or did you go? Where did you go with her? I mean, she stuck to my wheelhouse. So strength training and a proper application. You know, it's cool too. It's talking to, to, to, take, to, to, to Dr. Lyon. So she's obviously an exceptional person, right?

She's a doctor, very, very disciplined woman. Also just a great woman, but very disciplined. She's definitely in the fitness fanatic camp. Like she's a fitness fanatic, okay? So her questions, I could see that her questions were challenging her a little bit because she was like, well, how many days a week do people need to work out and don't they need to do this? So I was able to kind of communicate like, you know, well, this is what we tell people

because most people are not going to become like you or I, like fitness fanatics. And this is what the data shows. And she knows the data. So she's kind of like, oh, yeah, you're right, you know. It's a really good conversation. And she does a great job. She does such a great job. Great guests, too.

Yeah. Great guests on this. Arthur Brooks, Lane Norton. This is a live stream, or a stream, right? It's streaming, a virtual event. It's going to be on January 10th. It's totally free, by the way. Yes.

So everybody should sign up for it. It's Dr. GabrielLyne.com forward slash forever dash. strong dash experience. So it's free for everybody. Forward slash name of that. You'll have it in the show notes, right? Yeah. I think the spelling of Gabriel is

G-A-B-R-I-E-L-E and Lion is L-Y-O-N. Yes, yes. You know, it's funny. Who's that other guy? I can never remember his name. He's all over the place. The Navy SEAL dude. Jocko.

Jocco is going to be on there too. Arth Brooks, Jocco, Lane Norton, me. Yeah, they have all, she has a huge lineup. So it's a huge lineup of a great guess. It'll be really cool. She's done so much to bring strength training and high protein intake to women. So much. Because she's a woman.

It's the way she's a doctor. It's a way she communicates it. I mean, her, I mean, I think she's coined the phrase unless I'm unaware that she got it from someone else. But she's the first person I ever tell people that we are not obese. We are under muscles. And that, I think. that just hits like a ton of bricks when you hear that because most people are just our society, we've been saying that like you, you could pick 10 strangers off the street that don't work out

and ask them, does America have a problem with obesity? They would all say yes. You know, they would all say overweight's a problem. Nobody, no, not one of 10 would say. They're calling it a silent epidemic because nobody knows. Yeah. And so I think that that message coming from her is such a powerful message that, and I've got to ask her if she's coined that because I hadn't heard anybody else say that before her. You know, talking about fitness fanatics and, you know, recommendations on training and stuff like that.

I'm so glad you said that because I had actually seen a clip of our buddy Jay Campbell getting interviewed by, oh, this guy, what's this, Chris, Chris Cavalini or something like that. and he's like one of them you know shirt off motivation hype you know

high ticket coaching all the and also runs the the man camps you know like yeah yeah just made me spray you with water

yeah yeah yeah dad didn't love you and slap your fat belly yeah so so I don't know him personally and so I'm careful

not to say too much because too many times I've been wrong and I end up liking someone when I meet him, but this, the conversation is the point. And I'm describing who he is, just so you guys know. But the thing that I think is just, is just off that they, he, he asked Jay about how many, how many times a week should somebody be in the gym.

And I, I could hear that what he was doing was kind of countering a message that I think that we talk a lot about, about how minimal it takes that you need to work out. And he, Jay's like, I think the average person should be, you know, four times in a week in the gym. And he's like, yeah, see, average. So if you want to be average, it's going to be minimum of four days a week. And this is why I'm advocating. You know, I know there's a lot of people out there that, you know, advocate for less than this.

And that is just like, if you want to be an average person. Yeah, dude. And so I was just like, I got to bring it up because I just want to, this is what drives me crazy about the people that are in fitness that. Who loves that message? You know who loves that message? People work out six days a week. Yeah. That's what he's talking to.

Yeah, get them. Yeah, cool. Good job, dude. You got a bunch of people who work out a lot to agree with you. The people that are still massively insecure and think that fitness revolves around six-pack abs and doing that. And they've justified that it's this connection to success and everything else. And very similar to the people with the four-clock morning routines. And let me tell you, like.

Because you have all the paraphernalia that goes with it, right? You got to sell the outfit. you got to sell the shaker cops and, you know, all the things. And what I think the reason why it's just like hamster will of like consistent reinforcement is that it's so damn difficult for everybody to ever be that person that, in fact, most people will never be that person, that it leaves people believing that's just like, ah, this is, that's why I'm not a millionaire. That's why I don't have those because I don't do what this dude does.

And it's like, never get in shape like that. And, and, you know, pulling back the curtain for everybody who listens is that, man, if you only knew how massively insecure all these people are about themselves, and that's what makes them so disciplined on that, is it's this crippling insecurity of being teased when they were little or that the way they look in the mirror and that drive has given, that has given. The same thing, it's not just the. body. It works financially. It works a lot of different ways. Like, I'm fully aware that that's where a lot of

my drive and motivation came from was not having some of those things. Same thing came with fitness. Was I was teased when I was like, I'm very aware that that was stuff that I, that propelled me early on to get to get to where I was going because I was so massively insecure with those things. And what you see on online are people still in the thick of it. They're still in the middle of it. and then they use all this storytelling to justify their behaviors. And it's like, but deep down, they're riddled with insecurity around that. And just because somebody exerts macho and says all those things, it's like, that's them selling themselves. That's them closing themselves that they're so secure and they're so this.

That's why I walk around my shirt off all the time because I'm so secure. It's like, no, bro, that ain't it. That's not it, dog. Meanwhile, I was the same guy looking in the mirror every time pinching himself. Yes, yes, dude. Oh, my God, look at the fluffy today. But everybody thinks that they want that. You don't want that.

Trust me, you don't want that. What you want is to be able to be strong, be healthy, be fit, sleep well, be a present parent, father, husband, and enjoy so many other aspects of life. enjoy the beautiful things of a good meal, a good glass of wine, a thing like that, and still be healthy and all those things. Like, that's such a better way to live. And it doesn't require seven days in the gym, you know, an hour on the stairmaster, and getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning doing 700 push-ups. It's not that.

You're running from something, dude. You don't need yourself if you're not doing well. Yeah. Stop, dude. But, I mean, it hits so many young, young, insecure men in particular. I think for some people hearing the message of discipline is a good is not a bad thing, right? But the problem with our, the problem with many spaces is the people that get the air time are the extremes.

And you don't necessarily, look, you talk about billionaires, right? Who pops up? Elon Musk. Would you really want to trade place with him? No. Really? No. Yeah, he's super wealthy, cool.

Yeah. But he's tormented, obviously. the guy's constantly doing something, chasing something. He'll say so himself. I don't want to trade. I wouldn't want to trade with him. I'm glad Elon exists. I've heard stories of him just like sleeping at the office, you know, when they go into

and he'll just stay there for like weeks. And like not with his family just to make sure these things get launched. I mean, it's the same. It's a same thing you see with these. There's a great new documentary on Netflix on John Elway. Great. Just one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game. went to the Super Bowl five times,

has two champions, two championships, like just incredible dude. And here he is, I think he's in his, what is he, I think it's late 60s now. Maybe Doug and look,

I can't, I don't forget his name or his age right. But, you know, beautiful kids. He has three or four kids. And, you know, 14 years or 14 or 16 years in the league, then ends up getting to general manager.

And then, like, loses his sister, loses his, loses his marriage and realizes how disconnected, he's 65 years old, how disconnected he was all those years from his family. And because of his desire to be this great. And like, I mean, that's the part that we just don't tell that side of the story very much when we see greatness like that, whether it be finding.

Are you kidding me? Look at our idols. It's like Marilyn Monroe. Ooh, she's awesome. She died. She killed herself because of her lifestyle. It was terrible. Yeah.

You know, we look at people like this and we put them up here as these great people to emulate. Meanwhile, the silent, wonderful people out there, the moms and dads and, you know, people out there are doing a great job, raising great kids who, you know, they're not billionaires. They're not pro athletes, but they're doing a good job. They're keeping things together. You know, they're leaving a legacy. You know, I was at my uncle's funeral, you know, over the weekend. and he, you know, he was young when he died, and his kids were up there speaking about him.

And they said the most, they said the nicest thing. You know what they said about their dad? They said, both of them said this separately. I don't have a single bad memory of my father. That's crazy. Now, he's not a famous guy. He wasn't a billionaire. But you got your kid up there, your 20-year-old kid,

who's, you know, said a lot of good things. But one thing they said, what, I don't know anybody in my life that I don't have a bad memory of. But for them to say, I don't have a single bad memory of my father. I thought that was incredible. But he's not on the, you know, he's not on social media with a million followers. He's not, you know, nobody knows who he is except for the people around. Now, how would you guys describe this?

Because sometimes I think what it comes across that, because I think the argument the other side makes of this is like, because I'm not, I don't feel, I'm not selling balance either. Because I understand. I also recognize that, you know, to do certain things, to exceed in certain areas of like, I think what you're sacrifice. Yeah, but I think what you're selling is context. Yeah. Uh, is you're, there's a full story here. So this guy's glorifying seven days a week in the gym, eat, you know, superstructure, whatever, but there's another side to that. There's an unhealthy side to that. But we don't sell that. What we see is, oh, it's this body. In fact, that's the best thing. That's what's going to make me so happy. Like, no, there's more of the story. So I think it's

context. I think is what's important. Yeah, yeah. Because I, I also think that too, right? Because you made the point of like, I think, you know, teaching young men the importance of discipline and so like that, there's a lot of value to understanding delayed gratification, discipline, sacrifice. Totally. There's a lot of that that comes with being successful in business and life and sports and family and all those things. And it doesn't look like this beautiful balance of, you know, a perfect pie. all the time. It looks like sometimes I'm sprinting really hard in one direction. Other times I'm sprinting hard on another direction. But I'm also, and I think the, you know, what I would

define the balance is I'm always checking in with myself on that. That's right. Like it's like, and I'm also always communicating that. Those, I mean, Katrina and I were all discussing this too. She was saying, you know, I love that you always come to me and tell me because I just recently came to her and been like, you know, this coming year with everything we're doing. It's like, I'm going to need some of these days where I come home later than usual. You know, we've gotten really comfortable with me being able to pick max up from school, this and that. Like, I need you to be understanding if there's a couple times a week now where I come home

really late because we have this team now that I understand the value. And it's important to me. But what I won't do is go all in on that and lose years of my son. Right. And nights with my wife. That's what I'm talking about. You've got the context. You know.

Right. Right. So it's not. It's not, and so I guess I wanted to communicate that because I think sometimes people think that we're selling this perfect balance of like a little bit of everything. And it's just, no, there's periods. Right now we're in the middle of this massive transition. And so I go to my wife and I go, hey, you know, I know you're used to not me coming home long nights. I'm going to have a couple of those a week, probably this year coming up.

And it just, I need you to know that. It's the communication of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the, what we always try to highlight is just like, if I'm in communication, and my family and, you know, my people I'm working with. And, like, there's periods where we need all the attention here. And so then you let, you know, family know that.

Or I'm, you know, I need to spend some time. We're going to put more attention in this bucket. And it's like, that's the thing. It just shifts a lot. And it's never like fully balanced, but it's like, you have to just recognize where the deficits are and where you need to spend most of your attention for that period of time. Right.

It's never fully balanced. And, but you never lose sight of the in balance. That's right. Right? So I think that's kind of like a way to say it is just like it's never balanced, but you're always aware that, hey, I've been running this way for a minute, and I'm certainly not going to let, you know, years go by of missing my son's important moments. And so, or even I won't even let weeks go by.

Maybe there's some, a couple days where I really grind that. But in that week, I'm going to make sure it. So I think that's kind of what it looks like. Speaking of work of running hard, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, know, I've talked about this down on the show a few times, the data on high doses of creatine to erase the measurable effects of sleep deprivation. So the studies will show, like, you could test people on cognitive tests and you can see measurable effects of sleep deprivation. And the studies, giving people 20 grams of creatine, erases. So, and I want to be clear, it doesn't mean

you could do this and never get negative effects of sleep deprivation. It just means in cognitive tests in the short term, it seems to get rid of them completely, which is pretty cool, right? So it's this nice band-aid. And so I've been experimenting with this, especially when I'm sleep deprived. And so I'll do it with the Legion creatine gummies. Yeah. And it makes it easy because I can't do 20 grams all at once. That'll give me stomach issues. But I'll do five grams, you know, four times in the day. And it is miraculous. Yeah. It really does work. You brought this up on the last time that We talked about Legion. And so I wanted to, I started since since.

It's only been like, oh, that's right. Yeah, it's only been, I don't know, a week or so that I've been doing it because I've been having issues with sleep. So I reporting back so far so good. Again, you know me. I'm always skeptical to like feel strongly about something until like I feel like I have enough consistency around that and enough good and bad like when I miss and when I don't. And so now that I'm really actively trying to do it, I'll keep you posted on what I notice because I do have some of these nights. that are rough still. I don't have all, my sleep still is not back to normal yet.

And so because you said that, I'm like, you know what? I really need to make a better effort of really trying to see. It's like four or five gummies, I think is five grams. So just do that like four times. Yeah, it was four, it's four, I think is. And so I was just splitting that up four or five times a day. Makes it big difference. If you need to try that for like jet lag and all that, totally different time zone.

Yeah. Totally. I'll have to try that. Totally. Or head trauma. Here's what, here's where the studies are going now is, can it help? with the negative effects. Yeah, like healing.

So like, oh, I had a concussion. Should I megadose creatine? Interesting. Over the next couple weeks. And I would bet money, yes, that it would make a big difference in how quickly you heal and the potential negatives of a concussion. Nice. Higher health is a multivitamin for kids except it's not candy.

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Go to HayaHealth.com. That's H-I-A-Halth.com forward slash mind pump. That's the link for 50% off. Here comes a show. Our first caller is Lorraine from South Carolina. Hi, Lorraine. How are you? What's up, guys?

How are you? We're good. How can we help you? Let me, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm super stoked. Let me pull up my question so I don't ramble. And just a fair warning, a little bit of it has changed, but still the problem, I guess, would resume.

Still be the same. So 41 years old, 5-1 at the time. This was in October. 118 pounds, current body fat percentage of 26.9. Been in the fitness industry for over 15 years. I used to compete. And now I'm a trainer. I'm looking to build muscle, drop body fat, and I'm having a hard time.

Recently got into monitoring my metrics with a whoop band, and I cannot get my HRV to go up. It keeps dropping. And I weight train about three to five times a week. But because I've been monitoring with the whoop, I don't train when I'm in a low state or a red state. I don't know if you're familiar with whoop. But when my recovery says I'm low, I don't want to push myself and not train. Also, been doing intuitive eating for years and years and then I did an in-body scan. And although I look the same, my body fat went up, muscle muscle went down, and I realized that I'm not eating a lot of protein, or enough protein, I should say.

So I want to do maybe one of the maps plans, but I don't know which one because I get bored really easy because I've been doing this forever. but I don't know what to do about the HRV and while I want to build, I want to lose fat and build muscle, so I don't know what to do. Let's connect you to the overtraining under eating. So that's why you're having that. So we can solve that. Yeah, get rid of the stop tracking your HRV.

Just yeah, get rid of it. Let's just get you strong. And let's build muscle. That's how you're going to get leaner. We're not going to get leaner by trying to get leaner. I know that sounds crazy. for someone like you with your experience, you probably have a tendency to over train,

under eat, let's get you strong. Maps 40 plus, great program. It's great programming. Or 15. Follow that or follow Maps 15. That's another good option. Do you do cardio on top of this? Anything else?

No, God, no, I hate cardio. Okay. Cardio I do as I walk my dogs. Good. Yeah, let's get you strong. And then let's get you eating. What's your body weight at? 118, 120?

So now I'm at 1.30. Okay. And now my muscle, my body fat percentage, I did this, the in-body scan, November 25th. It said my body fat percentage was 21.8 and skeletal muscle mass is 49.6. Okay. So you're sitting at 21% body fat? Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good. You're doing good. Build.

Yeah. Yeah. Why do you make that face? Yeah. I would like to be a little, and I know like, like, I hear it in my clients also. The numbers thing. I would like to see it a little bit lower, like maybe 18%. Why? Why?

Yeah. I want to see my abs again. Do you like your hormones? But that's the crazy thing is I just got my labs done. Not just. It was probably back in February. And they were normal. They weren't.

It wasn't all whack-a-doodle. At 20-something percent body fat they are. You get down to 17% body fat, you chase that. It affects it. Yeah, you're going to have, your hormones are going to go. Listen, too, here's, if you were my client and we were training, I know I pull you kicking and screaming, but I say, I'm going to, I'm going to push you all the way up to like 135 pounds.

And then I'm going to bring you. Yes, I know you would. You would. But then you would love me when it's all done, because then I would bring you back down to like 125 pounds. You would have the best body you've ever had. You'd be eating more than you have. You'd have the, you'd see ab.

You would look good. And you'd be in a healthier place. Here's the way to get leaner for you. It's not to lose body. It's to build muscle. If you gain some muscle, your percentage of body fat goes down automatically because it's a smaller percentage of your overall body weight. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I explain it to my clients all the time. If you gain muscle right now, you're going to get leaner. Don't try to lose weight. Just try to build. Yep. So go ahead. So I've been, that's what got me to this place of, really starting to track because that's what I was trying to do.

I was trying to build, build, build. Because obviously, you know, big booties, but I put on muscle really, really easy. So I thought it would be easy. And it wasn't. And then when I started tracking, then I was like, shit, my fat is high and my muscle mass is low. Like, what is happening? Well, you said it. And I'm a progressive overload plan.

You said it already, though. You weren't hitting your protein intake consistently. Yeah. That's like you're building a house with no material. What was your average protein intake? You could have all the great hammers, nails, no material. You can't build it. What was your average protein intake when you were tracking?

I was probably at like 80 to 90 grams. Let's go 120 minimum. Every day, every day. Consistent. And don't do the thing where you're like, it's going to be dry chicken breast. Like eat some fats and some carbs. Absolutely. eat some fat right. And get strong.

Let's just get you strong. And if you're getting stronger, you're moving in the right direction. Right. Absolutely. So then that's when I was having a problem deciding like, well, then which maps program should I try? Because I don't, I mean, yeah. How many days a week do you like going to the gym? Like?

Yeah. How many days do you like? Yeah, like to go to the gym? Not that you do. How do you like when you want to go to the gym every day? Form it into that. I mean, five. Five.

Five. So like Mass 15. Mass 15. Mass 15. Are you okay with doing two lifts a day? Not okay. You have to be. When I heard y'all talking about that, I was like, ooh.

That's the problem. That's the problem. That's send her mass 15 muscle mommy. Okay. Yep. You said booty, right? Yeah. All right.

Yeah. All right. There's a little emphasis there. And literally with the calories, if you just go after the protein we're saying and get it from good fatty meats, uh, chicken thighs, rib eye steaks, have some tri-tipers. every now and then Sam, like, enjoy fatty or cuts of meat.

It'll take care of the calories. So you don't need, you don't need to like try and find an extra meal to put it in there. Like go get that protein consistently. Enjoy yourself fatty or cuts of meat. That'll bump the calories. It's also going to probably be, because I don't know where your fats are. Typically, my girls, I have to get their fats up a little bit anyways. And so just go for fatty or cuts of meat.

It'll take care of both problems for you. And then you cut back on the volume, intensity and stuff that you're doing in training. follow the Maps 15 protocol and watch what happens. Yeah, don't weigh yourself because that's what you mess with you. Stay away from that. Because honestly, the path is, like what I said, 130 something possibly on the scale and then back down to like 125, 125, 128, and looking like you've never looked before and feeling the way you've never filled before.

But the psychological part of seeing a scale go over 130, I know would freak you out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I know. I know.

I say it to my clients all the time. When they're wanting to build and lose fat and build muscle, I'm like, don't pay attention to the scale. But I wasn't seeing anything on me. So I was like, what the hell? Maybe I shouldn't follow my metrics. And especially if you build muscle easily, like you said, you're going to love. Yeah. So you're going to work.

The other option of this, I mean, we gave you the path. If you find yourself still struggling with it, I mean, this is why coaches have coaches, too. So, you know, just because you have the knowledge and everything like that, sometimes you just need, you need someone like me who's. You're talking to you once a week and going, you're fine. You're doing great. Keep doing that. You know what I'm saying? When you try and tell me otherwise,

and be like, no, you're doing great. Just keep going. And so that's something to consider too. If you find that, you keep, you know, jumping back going the other direction. You start hitting PRs and some of the big lifts. You're moving in the right direction. And you're going to see your body get leaner as a result. So I shouldn't be worried about the HRV situation.

You know, here's a deal with HR. You know who you should use HRV? athletes who are in season, who are working with coaches and nutritionists, who are really towing the line. Yeah. You know what it does to everybody else? It just too hyper focus on, yeah, it's like,

just get stronger. I also think the reduction in, I think the reduction in volume and the increase in protein is going to take care of it also, though. It's, yeah, that part of the reason why that is, is you're underfed, we're not getting the, giving the building box once you're training hard, your body's trying to recover.

So that's what you're, so I bet it, But it doesn't matter. I'm with Sal. Like I don't have any clients I use HRV for. Just so it's such a, I like, I like things like ORA or if you use the whoop. I like it for steps just to keep an idea of activity, you know. And I do like to see my sleep score stuff. Like I think that's valuable to know kind of like, oh, wow, I strung too bads a good sleep

to there. I better back off the intensity day. I think that's really valuable feedback. But that's all I really use those tools for. I don't care what brand, which one you like more. or whatever, but I look at activity level, just keep an eye on it relative to what it. Because what I have found is that everybody has a day, two or three in their week. It is very inconsistent to the other days.

And becoming aware of that is really valuable because you either one, you need to pick up your activity with walking or you need to adjust calories on that day because you're not nearly as active. That's really valuable. And then also just knowing that, oh, wow, I've had two or three bad days of sleep. I better take it easy in the gym and just go through the motions. Other than that, all the other stuff is, is we're overcomplicating it. And I think it ends up, uh, more a paralysis by analysis for people. Okay. Cool.

All right. We're going to send that over to you. I'm excited. Thank you so much. We are too. Let us know how it goes, please. Yeah. I will.

Yeah. All right. Thanks. Yep. That's going to be hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's why. That's why I brought up the coach thing is just like, might maybe consider that. Yeah. It's not a lack of she doesn't know. Yeah. She's been coaching people. I bet she's given that advice to their people.

I mean, but you see the look on her face when I say, 1.30 something? It's always different than it's yourself. I've trained a lot of girls like that. And when they do what I tell them, it's like, boom.

Like results are just. There's a point. And that's like, when she listens to this, if she didn't go the coach part, you're investing in the coach to just get you to that point because there's an unlock point is.

I don't know if it's four weeks. I don't know if it's six. I don't know if it's 12. But if you follow them and you follow the plan, there comes this point. where you see it, you feel it, and then it's like, oh shit. Like, that number would have freaked me out, but I'm looking at a body I've never seen before and I like, and I'm lifting weights.

And you go, and I'm eating more than every eight, like, okay. And then all of a sudden, it unlocks. But sometimes you need somebody there to kind of- You need someone that you just outsource it. Fine, I'll do what you tell me, fine. Because you can't trust yourself and then it works. Yep. Our next caller is Savannah from Oklahoma.

Hi, Savannah. Hi, Savannah. Hello. How can we help you? Okay, I'm just going to read my question, figure that would be easiest. So I'm 37 years old, 5-7, 155 pounds, around. I kind of sit between 22 and 25% body fat. I was a college athlete.

I also played pretty much every sport growing up. Degree in health and exercise science, comfortable, lifting heavy. But I'm really having a struggle and transitioning away from like training based on percentages and one rep maxes. I have maps, anabolic, anabolic advance, and muscle mommy. I really want to try to stick through using one of your

programs all the way through, but I honestly get a little overwhelmed trying to figure out what weight to use and when to go up and weight. I love doing programs by Sorenix. I do squat over dead cimber every year, but I also know that's not

sustainable year round. I currently am focused on building muscle and leaning out. I tend to hold extra weight in my lower belly, and I kind of have that harder time getting of, like, what you would say, a more defined look. I did start topical testosterone in September, and I take progesterone at night. I also microdose on a gLP. I developed hypoglycemia and insulin resistance after having COVID in 2020. My body pretty much does not regulate blood sugar on its own, and that's actually kind of been like a miracle drug for me. Nutrition-wise, I really aim for 140 grams of protein a day. Sometimes I

land closer to 120 just because of work and traveling. So my main question was, what programs would you recommend me starting and what goals should I set? And then how do I determine what weight to lift when I'm not using percentages based on like one rep max? This is a rad question because almost never do you hear somebody ask a question, Like this. So you're definitely athlete background. I want to know what you do for work. Can I ask what you do for just curiosity?

I work in construction. I'm the manager of communications and executive services. So I manage all of our executives for you. You're doing great. It sounds like you like strength. Yeah. You train kind of like a strength athlete based off of percentages and this is how much I can lift and all that. It's really just learning how to feel.

So you're going to pick a weight that's going to be. difficult within the rep range that's prescribed, and you're just going to have to trust, and you have to kind of train like a bodybuilder. Also, this is one of the things I always communicate to is that, you know, when we set out like these maps for any plan that we go for this, right? Like, and it says six reps, if let's say you, you guessed away and you guess wrong and you put it a little too heavy, it's okay that you did three reps. It's also okay that you did 10 because you picked too light of a way.

Right. It's okay. It's like it doesn't ruin the program. It's not going to ruin your results. So the next time you come around that, you know, it's not. you realize like, oh shit, I was stronger than I realized. Or, oh, shit, I overestimated on what I could do. It ain't that big of a deal. It really isn't.

Like, it doesn't have to be that prescribed. You've got to figure out something that you land right on that. And so you can give yourself that permission. Now, typically, you're a little bit different because you like, you have the athletic background and you like to live strong. Normally with my girls, I'm like, you can do more. And I keep trying to push them to fail at three when it says six. And so I have to do that.

You might be the opposite. And I might have to kind of pull you back a little bit, but that you're a rare case. but it's okay it's okay and it's just as okay like Sal said if you picked a weight it was a little too

light and oh you got an extra two or three reps then the next set increase it'll be a good program for you what map symmetry okay map symmetry

I think I might have it actually you know you say that but I think I got like I started reading all the testing stuff that you have to that you kind of do it

the first and then I got super overwhelmed oh yeah no no map symmetry the first two weeks is is is asymmetrics after that you get it unilateral training.

Yeah. Okay. And you'll, someone like you's perfect for you because you got to feel. It's all about technique, form, feel the muscle. Plus,

because of your strength background. We'll kick you out on that part. Unilateral training is probably not something you really focus on a lot. And so it's going to balance out your body. You're going to get more symmetry. She doesn't have it done. You'll build more muscle.

Okay. No, I think she has prime. Yeah, she's talking about testing. You're talking about prime. Yeah. We'll send symmetry over to you. I will caution you, be patient.

The first two weeks will be the most challenging mentally. because you're not moving a lot. You're doing a lot of isometric stuff. And that like somebody who's like a go-getter, go do things like move, like push athlete, slowing down for the first two weeks of doing isometric.

This enhances your recruitment process. It may feel a little bit torturous to you, but really important for laying the foundation for the rest of the program. So if you trust us, you trust the process, follow it how it's laid out, hang in there on the first two weeks

when it's a lot of isometric stuff because it starts to get, it really gets into some great, It gets really good, and then the program ends with a traditional five-by-five, so you can see how strong you got from training that way. So it's got a cool way to kind of wrap it all up. You've got to trust the process, trust what we did, and do that. But like I said, it'll really add a nice aesthetic to your physique.

Awesome. That's super helpful. I think I just got in my head in terms of, like, I have to stick to five reps. So I think that's helpful coaching-wise. Like, if you can do more, do more, if you need to do less and less. Everybody does. Your body's going to respond really well, too, by the way. If this is how you've always trained and you move to something like this, it's totally novel.

You're going to see some really nice shape and fullness and roundness to your muscles. You've got to go through the experimentation to really like, you'll recognize the weights and you'll just know, like in the future after going through this quite a bit, like what works best for you and how to push yourself. You know, think of it this way too, Savannah. Let's say I pick a weight and, you know, the rep range says eight. And I'm on rep six and I'm like, I can probably do 12. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to slow the rep down. I'm going to squeeze.

I'm going to make it so that eight is what I can do. Yep. So this is how bodybuilders train and there's a lot of value to it, especially if this is not how you normally train. That's it. It's the perfect form. It's the mechanics. And so if you're doing it with slow tempo,

that's how we gauge it. And then from there, it's like what you can control. And then we add to that. That's right. It's another way of progressive overloading. You're increasing intensity by slowing the tempo down. So you don't, weight is not the only metric

that progressively overloads. the body. There are other ways. And so when you just like Sal saying, when you're heading into and you're like, oh, this is too easy. Shit, slow that way down. Make a really, really hard. And I mean, like, really down. Like, you can make it to where it's like a six second negative. You do two or three reps like that. It makes that weight fill a double, double what it is. Easily you can make it fail at that. So, but I, I would love to hear back from someone like you with your discipline, your background, your consistency. Applying symmetry. I think if you, if you stick to it, you trust the process with us. I would love.

love to hear your results. Can we have you back on in a few months? I want to hear how this all went for you. Awesome. Yeah. Very cool. We'll see you soon. All right, Santa.

Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Thank you. See it. Yeah, rare that you hear female come on. I don't know how to train. Except for that percentages.

And it's like, oh, this is going to be great for you. Yeah. Yeah. Because she's not afraid of lifting. She's not afraid of the right mentality. No, right mentality. By the way, most women would do better training like her because they train in the other way. Right.

It's very rare. But when you go from that to feel, contract, squeeze, unilateral. You know, when you train bilateral strength, then you switch to unilateral, suddenly it's like a whole new. Yeah. I remember who's our friend, what's his name?

Ben. Yeah, I remember he was doing split stand stuff? Yeah. He's a guy who squats over 650 pounds. Suddenly split stance like 135, and he's like, oh, because it's just, it's super foreign. Yep.

Our next color is Troy from Utah. Hey, Troy. What's up, man? What's going on, fellas? How are you doing? Good, man. How can we help you? doing good i mean just going to say roth that this is weird the last five years i've been talked to you in

my car and you never actually talk back so it's gonna save me a second they get used to but i know this is weird all right uh yeah i'll dive right in because it's a little bit of a weird odd long question but uh the main one is how can i balance the desire to be financially successful with personal training with giving the glory to god and just wanting to overall help people to the best of my ability. So a little bit of a back story in context so you kind of get the full scope of it. So 34 years old, starting to go into the gym when I was 13. I was a homeschooled kid growing up.

So, you know, didn't necessarily fit in super well with the other kids in my age. And I was always a lean kid. So when I'd get compliments about, you know, the way I look, things like that, my brain attached it to, oh, if I'm jacked, then I get the acceptance. of other kids and so I kind of just ran with that. Fast forward to my early 20s, dabbled in physique competitions for a couple of years, which for anyone listening when the guys tell you that competition,

I'm not going to fix your insecurity, please listen to them because they're 100% correct. So yeah, I did that for a hot minute. And then that worked for a big box gym for a little while, doing personal training management for them. And unfortunately, it's just a not so great experience. There's a lot of shady stuff they were kind of doing with their business deals and just the

GMs and DMs that didn't sit super well with me. So it kind of left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth when it came to personal training at big box gyms. And at that time, I was going through my CPT certs. But by the time I got to the end of it, my kind of understanding of personal training everything was associated with what I saw going on there. So I thought, why am I going to do this if this is what it's going to be? I don't feel good about going about it this way.

So stepped away from that. Fast forward a couple more years. Just kind of kept getting this sense of wanting to, you know, take this love of fitness and nutrition, everything I learned over the years and, you know, bring that to other people. So I was helping out, you know, friends and family. eventually started to try and, you know, build an online following, did it all the wrong ways, you know,

trying to kind of hack the algorithm and, you know, emulate what I was kind of seeing with other fitness influencers. And, of course, it just was terrible. And eventually, you know, just felt too conflicting. I was like, I don't want to keep doing this and kind of stepped away from it. And I got my CDS during that time period just from listening to you guys. I want to teach mobility more to the people I was helping out.

And then most recently in the past year and a half here at my job, we have a Slack groups that we can create and manage with other people. So I created one just where I put out fitness tips and tricks, you know, once, twice a week for people that they can just follow along to. I've done a couple mobility classes here in the office, some movement assessments, just breaking down, exercise for people who feel like they need the help. And I've just been doing that for about the last year and a half or so.

And I guess it's just hit the point where it feels like that door to, you know, actually taking this on as more of like a source of income is coming up again. But my mind flashes back to all the times that I did it the wrong way. Or I was doing it for the wrong intentions and not actually to, you know, honor God through what I was doing, but also just to, you know, give back to people in the best way that I know how. So my main question is I almost feel conflicted about bringing money into the equation. And I know you guys talk about getting the reps in and taking time just to give things away for free. And it almost feels weird to step out of that.

So, yeah, I'm just curious as to your thoughts on where I should take this. if I should take this somewhere and yeah, anything that's got for me, guys. Yeah, good question, dude. Okay, so you want to, here's the good news about fitness. It's not a hard field to do for the right reasons. There's a lot of fields out there where you kind of have to think to yourself like, okay, who am I serving here? Right, right.

But the good thing about fitness is, I mean, if you do a good job, Troy, as a trainer, you improve somebody's health. you help them improve their health. You help them navigate a modern world where the default is dysfunction around diet and activity. It's poor health. And so, you know, the Bible talks about this, right? It talks about how your body is a temple and to essentially care for it and treat it well so that you can do the things that, let's say, God wants you to do. Money is not bad.

A lot of people think that there's a quote in the Bible. Bible. The money is the root of all evil. That's not true. It's the love of money. That is the root of evil. And are you familiar with the parable of the talents? Yeah, when I didn't know, it's not bad. So, you know, Jesus gives a parable where he talks about a master giving three of his slaves, well, talents or money. And he gives five to one, two to another, one to another one. And then afterwards he comes back after he be gone for a while. And he asked them what they did. And the guy with the five talents said, oh, I took your five talents, and I invested it here and I did this. And I got you another five talents. And the master says,

great job. I'm going to give you more responsibilities. You did a good job. The guy with the two talents comes back. Same thing. He increased its value. He said, great job. You get more responsibilities. The guy with the first talent, the one talent says, I buried it. I knew you were kind of a harsh man. I buried it. Saved it. Brought it back to you. Here it is. And he's like, you idiot, essentially. You could have put it in the bank, at least and gained interest. you're getting nothing. In fact, I'm going to give your talent to the other guys, and I'm going to put you out into the,

in the wilderness, where there'll be the weeping and gnashing of teeth, right? So the parable is essentially saying that you're given talents by God, and if you don't use them, it's a waste. And so if you love fitness and you love helping people and you're trying to help people genuinely, and you're a good steward with the money you earn from it, this is for God's glory.

Now, if it's for the sake of your own fame, of your own pride, of your own, you know, I'd just make money for the sake of making money. Well, that's totally different. But if you genuinely are trying to help people and you do it from that heart posture, it's great, man. And we've proven you can do it the right way, by the way. I'm so glad that Sal went that way because I had something to say to you right away and I wanted to wait to see what he had to say. And it's so crazy that it would lie. I was going to ask you if you know your gifts. And one, do you believe that God gives everybody a gift, a talent to his parable?

And do you know what yours is? And I think that's the most important piece. If you believe or know what your talent is that he's given you, the best way you can glorify him is to go, go be great at that talent. Go do it and share it with the world. So first identify that. And if you believe you know that, and it fits somewhere in this helping others and personal training and working out and health. then you're on the right track and do it to the best your ability. And you're serving him through that.

So I think sometimes people overthink this or what it looks like. And many times they feel like they need to express it and tell him right out. He knows your heart posture. He knows where it comes from. And so let that lead you and guide you. But also don't be lazy and just dig a hole and bury it and think he's going to come. do it. Yeah.

Work. Work at it. Be great at it. Struggle through it. Keep going. You know what I'm saying? And it's like... By the way, Troy, what you're saying,

even for non-Christian trainers, they struggle with, the way they struggle is they say, I just want to help people. Yeah. I just want to help people, but I don't want to charge them for it, which is silly because if you don't make this

into a business, you can't... It reaches many people. That's right. Yeah. So, yeah, and that's the thing. And I understand. Same thing. Like, you know, this is trainers

across the business. board. It's that it is kind of a bit of a service focused business. And so it's like, you know, and you want to help people and this is a passion driven job. And so, yeah, to be able to understand, though, as a business, any business, you know, that's what helps move things and grow things to a level where you can help and reach a lot more people, which is really the goal for that. So you're doing good things through the money is a part of that equation. So there's nothing wrong with that. It's like you said, it's the love of it.

I mean, we could have, the four of us could have kept just putting this free content out into the world and still helped hundreds of thousands of people like we did. And not built a business around it. But we built a business around it that now supports 30 employees. Those 30 employees go out to impact hundreds of lives every single month, like in, person that that's crazy. I mean, not only just their, but on top of the lives that we continued to impact on this podcast, because we built a business around it. I mean, I'm sure there's a percentage of people that wish we would have just kept everything for free and just kept doing that. And sure, but we only went able to do that for so long. The fact that we built a business

around it has allowed us to. It's kept us here. Yeah, it's kept us here this long, has allowed as to employ so many families and lives, and then they go out and go and pack some of them. So it's far bigger than just this little room right here. Let me give you an example, Troy. Okay. So, you know, we could sell a lot of workout programs by using before and after pictures of the people

that have used our programs. But we know in our heart that that kind of, you know, that pushes people towards that body-centric body obsession type of deal that we speak against. And so the thing is like, okay, we could sell more programs, but is it really coming from the right place? Or is it serving people in the right way? And we decided, no, it's not.

And so we left a lot of money on the table doing it, you know, what we would consider the right way. And I think we've proven that you can do that in the fitness industry. You really can. And I'll make this argument here. If you do it the right way, you'll build a more sustainable business. You'll make more longevity to it. Yeah, so, you know, go out there and love people in genuine ways.

Build a business. Be a good steward with your money. Check yourself when pride comes in because it's going to. It's going to do that every day. And you're totally fine. And don't worry so much about it. I think you're doing good. I think you have the right.

You already, just because you're asking this question tells me you're moving in the right direction. I was mentoring three trainers the other day. This was just last week and having a similar conversation with, for, with what to focus on where they're at. And I think you're even further along than they were. And I said, what you need to focus on right now is serving and building a community of a few hundred people with the goal of getting to a thousand.

Can I serve and help a few hundred people? Can I build a community that I don't really make probably any money off of, but build this community of people that I'm serving, I am helping. And if you can get to a place where you start reaching 500, to a thousand of those people that you've done that with, you're sitting on a million dollar business. And instead of actually wondering what you're going to sell or going to do,

continue to serve and allow the community to tell you what they want from you. And the opportunity will reveal itself. And that right there is hard enough, takes long enough, requires consistency, discipline, follow through, and is going to take enough time that everything else will unfold. But everybody gets distracted by algorithms and virality and what business plan going to do and I heard this guy on a sales funnel and how to make 10,000 overnight and we get all distracted by all this other bullshit. It's like go use your gift that was given to you to go serve

as many people as you can and it's going to start off like this. It's going to be 10 people. And then it's going to be 50 people. And then it'll be a hundred people. And then it'll be a few hundred people. Now you're starting to get some momentum. And then before you know it, maybe a year, maybe two, maybe three years later, okay, you've got a thousand people that absolutely, love and adore you because you have changed their lives from a million. And they are going to tell you what they want and what they need from you. And there's your business. And you're sitting on at least a million dollar business right there.

Just focus on that. And then, you know, one last thing, Troy, you know, you have the God of the universe. Pray before all this stuff. You know, don't take out the supernatural. It's real. And so ask for guidance. You're going to need it 100% because you're going to, you know, move in the wrong direction throughout even throughout every day.

So just involve prayer throughout this whole process. But because you're asking this question, it tells me your heart's already kind of starting off on the right place for sure. I appreciate that for sure. Yeah. I think for me is definitely more of a worthiness thing. Like am I actually worthy to receive money for this? I'm good with, you know, I could have conversations with people for hours on

in just on health and fitness and not. think about, you know, oh, well, what am I getting out of this? I just love talking to people about that. And yeah, I think it's for me just that getting past the imposter syndrome of saying it's okay to, you know, make money while also doing this. Let me switch that for you, okay? They'll determine if you're worth. That's right.

Your customers will determine if you're worth money. You don't make that decision for them. You don't have, you know, that's actually quite arrogant. If you think about it, it's like, oh, I'm arrogant enough. Let me let them decide. So here's my services. They'll decide. And then the second thing is this unworthiness, turn that into gratitude.

Because it can easily turn into shame, which is not, that's not valuable. Gratitude is very valuable. Like, wow, man, I can't believe. I get to do this. I'm so blessed. Like, look at these clients and they're paying me and I've got this business and I'm supporting my family. And this and I get to do this thing that I love.

Like, that's where it should go. Not the like, I'm, you know, guard. You're grateful for the results in the knowledge. that you're passing on to them. There's like any other business. Have you been listening to the podcast long enough or before we actually monetized and made any money from the business?

Did you ever, did you listen that far back? How far back are you? I've been about five years. So not, I don't think quite that far. Okay. So, so the story goes,

MAPS enabolic existed before mind pump media did. We had something to sell. Um, we did over 250 episodes. Okay. So a year of free content. free content. We had a free forum that we were driving people from there, helping them. The four of us were talking to those people every single day, helping, helping, helping,

and what had happened was after about a year, year and a half, so many people every day were just trying to give us money. We weren't trying to sell anything. We didn't, we didn't tell anybody about MAPS and Apollic yet, but people felt that felt compelled to give it. They wanted to donate. They wanted us to start a Patreon. And when it got to a point where every, every owner was coming to the studio hearing, I got at least two messages just yesterday, just like that. It's like, okay, now it's time to offer this MAP's Antibolic Program that we have. And when we did that, that was the beginning of, that was the beginning of what started everything. So go serve with that attitude, not of I need to charge of I need to go serve and help. The business will will reveal

itself. And if it doesn't, keep working on your craft, keep working on what you're serving. And then it'll show, it'll show you. Yeah. I'll love that guys. Yeah. appreciate it. And yeah, I think it's just the words I needed to hear and confirmation just keep grinding away at it and keep, yeah, my heart postured towards God and people. And then like you said, the rest will kind of shake itself out. So yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah, dude. Go do it. Go do it, Troy. Go do it. Right on, brother. We'll do you guys. Okay. Well, just want to leave it off. I know you hear it every day, but I hope it's never lost on you that you guys are leaving behind a legacy that's just a lot more

than helping people with their health and their fitness and all these things. But you're really exceptional men that I have the most and utmost respect for. So, yeah, just God bless you guys. I appreciate everything that you do. And you've given me so much personally in my life that, you know, I can't give enough gratitude for that. So thank you, guys. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Have a good Christmas, fellas. Thank you. So funny. Literally last night, I read, I was reading the parable of the talents. Yeah. I was going to jump. I was going to jump right in.

I had something to say, I'm like, let me hear what Sal has to say first. And it was like, oh, it's so aligned with where I was going. It's just that, I mean,

I believe that everybody has a gift. You're given, you're giving them. If this is what you believe, this is what you follow, you're given gifts for the kingdom. That's it. And if you don't use them,

you hoard them to yourself, you hide them, they actually wither and disappear. And that is sinful. That's the thing that you want to use these gifts. And fitness is great because you're genuinely helping people. You know, you're not selling cigarettes. You don't, you know, and sometimes some businesses I could see how it would be a hard, like,

oh, what am I doing? I'm like, am I actually helping people? Yeah. In fitness, you are helping. That's hard to reconcile, but yeah, this is beneficial. I mean, it's, I mean, I know at least in my personal life, you know, I, there's, and I've shared this before, I mean, I left the fitness career to go chase the money. and it was very obvious to me after a couple years

that I wasn't aligned. I wasn't aligned with my gifts. I wasn't aligned with what I was supposed to do. I accomplished the money thing, more unhappy than I'd ever been. Relationships were shit. It was very obvious that I wasn't... Such a great thing to communicate.

I wasn't using my gifts. And so I think that's this dilemma that a lot of people get, though, is they're attracted to something. It could be money, could be fame, could be attention, could be, oh, that looks like fun to do. But you're not using.

your gift, but then you're drawn to this thing, and then you're wondering why you can't unlock it. It's like, well, maybe it's because you're not aligned with your gifts and the potential that you can. Or you're like a curse, which you actually came out of it in the right way, which is you get what you think you want. And you had the strength to say, this is not what I want. But a lot of people chase the money, get the money, and then they're afraid to leave, even though they're miserable. Or they think it's just they need more. Oh, even worse. And they just keep chasing it. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see what's at Mind Pump Media.

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 Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic, nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

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