Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2853: How to Build 5 Pounds of Muscle in 30 Days (Step by Step)

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

I In this episode the guys break down exactly how to build 5 pounds of muscle in 30 days. They also get into the "boring diet" trend taking over social media, a wild dehydration study, and what the data actually says about mental health and community. Then they answer questions from our Instagram page covering deadlifting frequency, gym training for blue collar workers, intermittent fasting for fat loss, and whether part-time personal training is a realistic career move. MAPS 15 BOGO ⁠ https://maps15bogo.com⁠ Buy 1 get 1 FREE — limited time   SPONSORS Legion —⁠ https://buylegion.com/mindpump⁠ Code: MINDPUMP — New customers: buy one get one 50% off | Returning customers: 20% cash back Butcher Box —⁠ https://butcherbox.com/mindpump⁠ No code needed — Now through 5/18: New users choose chicken breast for a year, top sirloin for a year, or ground beef for life + $20 off at checkout Dose for Your Liver —⁠ https://dosedaily.co/MINDPUMP⁠ Code: MINDPUMP — 25% off your first month subscription   FREE RESOURCES 20+ Free Guides —⁠ https://mindpumpfree.com⁠ 7 Day Overtraining Rescue Guide —⁠ https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/overtraining-rescue-guide⁠   0:00 - Intro & sponsors 0:13 - How to build 5 pounds of muscle in 30 days — the exact steps 18:38 - Water gun challenge — diaper, potato & baseball story 22:23 - Prison inventions rabbit hole — Post-it notes, pruno & toilet communication 25:05 - The "boring diet" trend going viral — does it actually work? 36:36 - Dehydration study: 1.36% dehydration makes tasks feel 58% harder 46:23 - Political party & mental health rates — what the data actually shows 52:10 - Jonathan Haidt: Church community is the #1 protector against teen depression 58:42 - Are kids going back outside? Risk-taking, camping & helicopter parenting 1:03:55 - Q&A: How often do the guys actually deadlift? 1:08:24 - Q&A: Gym training for blue collar workers 1:10:44 - Q&A: Can intermittent fasting be used to stay in a calorie deficit? 1:13:04 - Q&A: Is part-time personal training realistic?

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we answered listeners questions at the end of this podcast, but we started with a 61-minute intro where we talk about fitness and fat loss, muscle gain. We talk about current events and family life.

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I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstor.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, you have 30 days you want to build muscle. Is it possible? Can you build five pounds of muscle in 30 days?

It might be. We're going to give you the steps. Let's get to it. Five pounds of 30 days? Yeah. Yeah, that's actually a really good target. Let's not act like it's easy. Five pounds of muscle in 30 days is, that's a really good.

That's kind of an aggressive goal. Yeah. But you could do it. Yeah, you got to have everything lined up and be super dialed in for sure, but you can do it. I think it's aggressive and it's difficult in the context of somebody who's been consistently training already and has already built quite a bit of muscle. Oh yeah. Beginner will do this all day long.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And or somebody who's falling out the wagon for a while and then getting back home. Muscle memory. Yeah. Might take a drastic change. but it could happen. The most difficult person this would be for is if you're listening to this and you've been consistent for the last two years and you've built already a good amount of muscle and you're trying to add five more pounds of muscle. That is difficult.

Well, I'm glad you said that because that's what we're talking to. So for the beginner to build five pounds of muscle in a week, not that hard. Just follow a good program, follow a maps program, eat properly. Oftentimes you see people getting five pounds of muscle in the first month or two. If you have muscle memory, even easier. If you used to have all this muscle, you lost it, then you get back into working out. Muscle memory is crazy, especially when you feed yourself properly and he's trained properly.

It is incredibly wild, how quickly you gain muscle back. I remember when you did your YouTube series, Adam, and I knew muscle memory was crazy. I've experienced it. I've seen it firsthand. But to see what happened to your body in the first 30 days, it still blew my mind. And so many people thought you were lying. Oh, I know. Yeah.

I thought you were making up your Dexas cans. The thing that probably was the most surprising for myself was how little I actually had to do to get that back. That was what was really interesting to me was that I mean, I was only doing two lifts a day. Yep. So to think that you could build that much muscle back. I mean, just to highlight. Now, just to go off on a tangent, but just a little context here. First off, you gain how much muscle in the first month?

23 pounds? 23 pounds of muscle. 23 or 22? as verified by a dexas scan, by two dexas scans. But here's the context. He was gaining back, I think, 40 or 50. He was still a good 30 pounds away from his most muscular size. Oh, more than that.

Okay, so you were deep in muscle memory. You didn't gain back all the muscle you never had. You still had way room to go. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think I'd calculated like I was 50 pounds from peak, you know, body building. So you didn't even get halfway too. to muscle memory.

That's why I was so confident in that. Like I called it before I did it. And I felt really confident that I could get halfway there pretty fast. Yeah. I figured the back half would be way more difficult to get back to that. And just so people understand, like, muscle memory is well documented. And when you first build muscle, it's a slower process. If you lose it and gain it back, it's much faster.

And the best way to explain this, I guess the best analogy is like, you have to build muscle, imagine you have a construction site. And so you're going to build a building. So you need machinery. You need plans. You need workers. And then you need the materials. And they build this building all the way up.

Now imagine that building is torn down. But you have the remaining machinery, the remaining plans, and the same workers that built it the first time. Would they be able to build it faster the second time around? Yes. You don't have to get anything else. You just got to go.

And so that's the best way to explain it. Of course, physiologically, it's much more complex than that. But we're going to speak to people who are consistent. And so the first step that you need to take in order to do this is to start with a delode week. I love that. I love that as advice because we're speaking to the person who has been really consistent and maybe plateaued or already gained a bunch of muscle.

It's like, how do I get on a five more? We just talked about this recently on the podcast, one of the last ones we did, where how many times all of us have been in this kind of training. routine and consistency and then we took a vacation for a week or got sick and then you come back and you're stronger and it's just always this like oh wow my body really just needed some time off

and I hadn't done that because you strive so most of us strive so much to be consistent and to continually and progressively overload and that's hard as it is rarely do you think like oh what I need to do is actually scale back or take a week off. It's still so counterintuitive

for those people that are working that hard And, yeah, their entire effort and emphasis has been on trying to be as consistent as possible and, like, keep achieving progress to then peel back and then allow your body to really fully recover is transformative. Yeah. So this is, and the reason for this, there's a reason for this. And I'll get to some data here in a second. But if you're really consistent, what tends to happen, almost always with anybody who's really consistent with their training is that they start to veer away from what's ideal. and they start to move slowly towards what they could tolerate. And they start tipping into this like where they're hitting this line and they're

slightly crossing it. So they're doing what they could tolerate, which is more than what's ideal. So what's ideal will build the most muscle, most strength, give you the best results. More than that actually slows down to progress. You could tolerate, but it slows down your progress because there's more recovery involved. But we tend to move in that direction. You know who you are. Like you've been working out for a while.

Your workouts are slowly over time, got a little harder. You're adding more weight, which is volume. maybe you've added more sets, that kind of stuff. So you're already playing that game already. So taking a delode week resets you, gets you ready to gain that five pounds of muscle. Number two, there's a recent study that I just read, or I just recently read,

where they actually compared two groups of well-trained people. And they had them follow the same routine, but one group had a delode week every, I don't remember what was, every five weeks or something like that, and the other group didn't. And so a delode week for people aren't familiar is essentially a week where the, you know, intensity in the volume is dramatically reduced.

Not a little bit like a lot reduced. It's like a super easy, almost like you're going to the gym, going through the motions type of week. You're like practicing lifting. That's right. The group that did the delode week every so often gained 29% more strength and significantly more muscle. So you just build more muscle. I mean, I like the other study even better that showed the two groups that went through

and every month one group took an entire week off. That's way more than what's normally recommended. And that group saw the same results as the group that took no weeks off in those three months. That, to me, that is enough for me to, like for everybody to at least consider doing this. Even if you think, oh, no, I don't think I am overtrained

or I don't think I need a deal with week. It's just like, well, have you been training consistently for three to six months and not taking a full week off yet? Like, maybe try it and see what happens. Because what the research shows is that you definitely You won't go backwards. That's for damn sure. Nope.

And there's a great possibility. you'll see as much of results or more results by doing that. And so I think there's a lot of value in everybody starting with this. So I love that you use this as like your first tip. Two ways to approach this. One way is you go into the week and you cut your volume in half and your intensity in half. So it literally feels like you're wasting your time in the gym. That'd be a general way to do a delode week.

There's another way you can do this, which is we have a free guide. In fact, I'll point to it. it's the seven day over-training rescue guide. It's free. It's at mindpumpfree.com. You get this guide and just follow the seven-day layout. And it's literally designed to take somebody and get them fully ready to go in seven days. Okay, so follow that and then you're ready to go.

So delude a week is what you start with. Then you get back into it. We'll start with diet first because you need the nutrients and you need the extra calories to make this happen. You're not going to build five pounds of muscle at a thin air. get your protein above one gram per pound of target body weight. So if you're already doing well with this, if you're a 130 pound female and you're eating 130 grams of protein, I say add 30 grams to that, add 40 grams. Like guys add 50 to 60 grams to what you're doing.

So bump your protein even higher than where you have it. The data suggests that this will, in combination with other things, contribute to more muscle gain when you're in a period of time where your body's actually trying to build the extra muscle. Yeah, when you're anabolic, you need the materials there to help them. Doesn't it show up to 1.5? Isn't that what the kind of the upper limits are? Like, once, anything beyond that, there hasn't been shown any of it. So it depends on who you're looking at.

If you're looking at, like, well-trained people who've already got good strength and muscle, they seem to do, in some cases, better when they bump it up a little higher. It also depends on the rest of your calories. I'm recommending this because I know generally speaking, most people are going to benefit from this. You definitely won't go backwards from doing this. And it's more likely than not going to contribute to the more muscle. So aim for more than a gram of protein per pound of body weight.

I'd go like 1.2 to 1.5. You know, something like that. Next up, bump your calories aggressively. So ladies, you're going to gain 5 pounds of muscle. This is not a 100 to 200 calorie increase. You're looking at 600 calorie increase. Fellas, more like 800 calorie or 900 calories above what you're currently eating. If you're going to try and gain 5 pounds and 30 days of muscle, you're going to have to go on a four-week bulk.

Yeah. Not a controlled slow reverse diet, but a bulk. Add those calories. Now, it will say this. Don't let it be garbage. Yeah. Because that quickly turns into 1500 calories above. Yeah.

And then you'll be left. with, you know, more muscle, but a lot more body fat. Yeah, fat will go with that. Yeah, so it's going to be aggressive. It's going to be aggressive. It's going to be like a 400 calorie, 400 calorie bump for women, 700 to 900 calorie bump for men. You're doing it for four weeks, so go for it.

Get those calories up there. Doesn't matter if it comes from carbs or fats, so long as you're eating the essential fats. So I know that's the next question. People are like, what should it be carbs or fats? Make it a mix. Doesn't matter if you're eating enough fat. Don't care if it's more fat.

Don't care if it's more muscle. In my experience, people tend to build muscle more when the carbs go up a little bit. It doesn't that true for everybody. So you know who you are. You know how you feel. Yeah, it's normally not true in the case of somebody who doesn't eat enough fat. Yeah.

So in the case, you're a little deficient. Yeah, but once you, if you're, if you're a female, you're north of 60 grams of fat, you're hitting adequate. If you're a man, you're eating over 80, then you're fine. You can get it all carbs. If you're under those, then I would definitely bump fat first. Totally. Next up, sleep amazingly.

Okay. What does that mean? Every day. every day, weekends, Friday nights. If you really want to gain five pounds of muscle on 30 days, if you're like, for the next 30 days, my goal is to add a half an inch on my arms or half an inch on my glutes,

which will five pounds will translate to. If I want to see visible change, if I really want to gain five pounds of lean body mass, your sleep needs to be great every single night. That circadian rhythm. That's right. Sun up, sundown. No going out with your friends.

No staying up late, playing video games. it's the same time every night you're going to bed, same time every morning you're waking up, Friday, Saturday included, Sunday included, have a sleep routine and make this a priority. The difference that good sleep makes to like okay sleep when it comes to muscle is silly. It's so crazy.

When you finally connect the dots that you don't build muscle in the gym, you build muscle when you eat and sleep. Yeah. That is when you build muscle. So when you really, when you really, understand that, that it's not the extra set in the gym. It's not what exactly what you, it's what you do when you rest and you eat, then the resting part becomes a huge piece of that. And if you unlock that by

putting a focus for 30 days of like, okay, I'm going to create a night routine and I'm going to be consistent for 30 days. Watch what happens. Everything else you're doing is trying to stimulate that growth. You're not going to grow unless you add those components and that emphasis into sleep and eating. Yeah, totally. I remember a just funny story. I've told this before, but there was a year, and I don't remember how old I was. I want to say I was 15, and my parents went to Italy for 45 days. So they would long trip. My dad's got family there.

And so it was the first time they'd left us kids for that long. So we stayed with my grandmother. Okay, so this is my Italian grandmother. And my Italian grandmother, like many Italian grandmothers, her favorite thing to do is feed you. It's like her favorite, favorite thing to do. And so I got really good sleep at my grandma's house because, she let me sleep in. There wasn't much to do at night.

They didn't have all the cable channels or whatever. And she literally, my grandmother was like, what do you like to eat? Steak. And I said, I don't know, steak. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My non-na made me steak and pasta and other stuff. But like all the meals.

Like I would wake up and I go out downstairs, big-ass steak waiting for me. And I gained so much muscle in that 45 days. Grandma's hooking it up. And I thought there was something magical about red meat. I just didn't realize I wasn't hit my protein and getting the sleep like I was at my grandma's house. So it was pretty funny. All right.

Next up, lift differently. This is the time you change the stimulus. Also love this. Yes. So for many of you, if you're doing a split, go to three days full body. We'll do it for you. If you're training in the low rep ranges, raise the reps a bit. You know, if you're always at five reps, go up to, you know, 10 to 12.

There's always 10 to 12. Go down to five. Long rest periods are probably going to be good regardless. but change your plan up a little bit. If you always do an hyperjafee, try a powerlifting. Don't overlook this. I think this is one of my favorite go-to moves with clients was to switch. When they got stuck in a plateau, one of the best plateau breakers was just getting them out of their routine.

And I mean, I, instead of the advice you just gave, I recommend getting a program that is different than what you would get. Because, one, people tend to gravitate towards the things they already like. changing it up for them many times is changing it back to something they just did not to right before that. And so it's not, it's not novel enough, right? The more novel you go here tends to get the best results. And so I love to look at how somebody trains and go and kind of adjust. And his point is like, have you ever trained like power of them?

We're like, no, I've never. Okay, cool. That's what we're doing. It's like you ever train something like performance or unilateral stuff, multi-planters? No, never done it. Okay, we're going that direction. So something that is so different than how you would normally train,

uh, tends to, uh, you send a great muscle building signal with that in conjunction with the increased calories and sleep and everything else you're giving us advice. I mean, that is just a rest of me for building muscle.

The five programs off the top of my head that we have that are really good for most people for building muscle because all the programs are great. But the five that tend to be the most appropriate for most people listening. If they're going to do this would be like maps endabolic, maps PPL, Map strong, muscle mommy. And math power.

Power lift. I think those would be the five that I'd say for most people. If you're relatively well-trained, well-rested, well-fed, like, pick the one that's different. Choose the one that's most different than what you would normally do. Totally. Last, be okay with fat gain. If you're scared of gaining an ounce of body fat,

you have no business trying to gain five pounds of muscle. That's it. I mean, so many people are so afraid. Definitely not in 30 days. No. Because you're not that aggressive. If you're going to gain that aggressively, you're going to put some body fat. Yeah.

So you've got to be okay. You got to be okay with it. You got to be okay with it. If you gain five pounds of muscle and two pounds of body fat, you did great. That's a win. That's a huge win. Even if it was five and three, you did a phenomenal job. If you're a hard gainer, if you're like super, super lean all the time and you gain

five and five, that's a win too. Yeah. So I just want people understand that. You got to be okay gaining some body fat. The people that have the most difficult time with building muscle are the people that are most afraid of getting body fat. Those are the hardest people to get to gain any muscle because they're so afraid of any pound going on the scale.

Actually, supplements is, I'm sure people are going to ask what kind of supplements. By the way, supplements don't play a huge role, but we should list like mass, like the best supplements for gaining muscle mass. I mean, they're helpful in this category, especially when you're trying to get in a surplus. Yeah, I would say, so Legion is a great company. We're sponsored by them. They have so many good products. Cratine, protein powder is up there.

Their essential amino acids would be good. What else would you guys say? Does Mike have an actual mass garner? Do you know if he does? Look up Legion Doug and see if he's got like a meal replacement with some calories. That would be good for somebody. It's a really good. Yeah.

And even if he doesn't, then all I do is you add a banana or scoops of peanut butter to a shake. Right. So that's like I prefer to make my own mass gainers with the like a peanut butter, whole milk, two tablespoons of peanut. And like a tablespoon of Nutella or something. And it's like you want a good thousand calorie shake. There you go. What did you find that?

there, Doug. Yeah, I don't think they have an official mass gainer. Okay. So I would say do their weight protein, their creatine, and their amino acid supplements. You can throw in a multivitamin there. That would be your mass gain stack over the next 30 days. Banana and two tablespoons of peanut butter. Best weight protein on your gut.

Inside that weight protein. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Or the egg. Either one of those would be good. Oh, that thank you, Adam. I don't do weigh. I can't do dairy. But their egg protein, that's what I do.

Yeah. And it's right up there. Yeah. So if you can't do way, do their egg, their eggs. amazing. And then, like I said, add the banana and two tablespoons of peanut butter. And now you've got yourself a nice hike. You know, I actually prefer, so my wife can have, she can have weight or she can have egg. Yeah. We prefer the egg. The flavor wise? It's so good.

It's frothier. Yeah, the vanilla and the chocolate is really, they prefer, she prefers it. Yeah. I like both. I like both. I like both. I go back and the way. I have both of them and I use both of them. Yeah, I got to tell you about funny conversation we had that other than I. I didn't think about it until afterwards. And I'm like, what's going on? So you guys know how we did. I don't know what you call it, but there's this thing on social media. Our team had us do it.

And so I don't know if it's been up yet as of the airing of this episode. But you're with your friends. You take a gulp of water. You hold it in your mouth. And then each person pull out like a random object they brought from home. And the goal is to make everybody laugh. Yeah. Okay.

So we did that. So you took that home with you. Well, no. So I took, I brought three random objects from home. Yeah. I brought a diaper. I got little kids. So I figured you guys will laugh because we always talk about, you know,

have kids or whatever. Yeah. I brought a diaper. I bought a potato. Should you put a snicker bar in there, though. I do. I'm telling you. I almost did.

Made it look like poop. Oh, yeah. And then eat it afterwards. Freak you guys out. Big time. So I brought a diaper. I brought a potato because a potato's random as hug. Yeah.

And then I brought a baseball because you guys make fun of me that don't play any sports. So I thought you guys laughed, right? So a potato, a diaper and a baseball. So I come home and my wife's like, oh, did you, did you bring everything back home? I'm like, no. A potato, a diaper and a baseball that I'm pretty. that I'm pretty sure you're annoyed. Like, you want me to take those back home?

She's like, yeah, I want you to bring it home? Like, okay, whatever, dude. So then I'm thinking about, like, does she just want to tell me what to do? Like, who brings a potato and a diaper back home? And a baseball that nobody knew we even have. I'd be able to look for it. Maybe the diaper's still useful.

It wasn't here. I saw it because you're not used to baseball. Yeah, I left it on the counter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you get it or no? Yeah, I got them. Oh, okay. They were here yesterday.

No, that's why they're not there anymore. Oh, okay. But as I'm getting, I'm like, really, you want me to take home a diaper and a potato and a baseball? Nobody knew we had a baseball, by the way. Yeah. Did you even know you had it? Or you just like, looking for it.

I was like, I'm going to bring a ball, some kind of a sport, you know, ball to work because they're going to laugh. And the baseball was easiest to carry. I even though we had it. So I'm like, I'll just. Yeah. It could have been a football too. That was the best one I thought you did. Yeah.

Because that one got me. I almost, I almost put the water out on that one. He's like, okay, that's ironic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Elephant trunks definitely got me, dude. Bro, that's disgusting. I was glad I didn't have to touch him. Oh, I know. He's like, I never wore him. Live. Shat through him on your face. Katrina.

My, uh, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my eyes. Check it out, guys. My, uh, my oils failed, too. Just nobody, nobody read them. They would have been funny if you guys were to write them. So what was the oil? What was written on? They, oh, I can't even remember what they were, like, really funny.

sexual names for each type of oil and they were funny and so if you would have read them but you know we all have water in our mouth so I can't say like read it and I just thought I thought what I thought would happen was I put it out there and Justin kind of Justin did grab it and do this for a second but no one like

and I thought that's why I would go down would be like one one guy would grab it and actually read it and then start and then start dying laughing and then everybody else would read it and it didn't play out I like how Doug pulls out a gun yeah yeah what are you doing does he went hard it's you know it's funny he did it Because Katrina suggests that.

She'll bring one of your guns. I'm like, what? Why would I bring one of my guns? She told you two? Yeah, she told me to do that. Because we're trying to think where I'm like, man, you got help me think of three things that are like super. Well, it matches Doug because we always tease him about his, his, uh, his anger, you know, that he's, well, the shiv would have got me. Yeah.

If you brought like a, if you brought a sharp. I was actually going to get a toothbrush and shaded down. If you would have shaved down a toothbrush, I would have lost it. I taped to one end or something. Especially considering we haven't said that in a long time. Like, that used to be like an ongoing. joke on the podcast. Yeah.

But we haven't talked about that forever. And so to pull that out, that would have been like... Dude, you just reminded me, speaking of which, so my wife's probably going to volunteer with this, there's this group that, that you can go and meet with prisoners and you become what's called a chaplain and you meet with them and you meet with them on a regular basis and kind of give them hope and help them type of deal. So she's going to volunteer for that. But I went to the training with her, and they had a list of things that were prohibited.

Yeah. Okay. Post-it notes. Post-it notes? Post-it notes. Post-it notes. What do they use that for? They were hiding drugs in the plastic.

And not the plastic, the, you know, the glue on the back of post-it note? Yeah. They were able to figure out how to put fentanyl in that. Like, line it in there? Yeah. Like, it looks like the, the, it looks like the glue. But then they would peel it off, I guess, and use it as, I know. There's got to be a book.

They're so crafty. There's got to be a book that has, like, all the crafty things that, like, prisoners make. I know. There has to be. There's like so many. There's so many that I've heard some. I'm like, what? They can do that? Yeah. No way. So inventive and engine. Yeah. Their ingenuities. Yeah, dude. It's just going to say. Hey, you know, it just highlights when the human mind is like put it like rest. When you're bored and you got nothing to do but think about like ways to do things. Is there a book, Doug? I know there's got there. There is actually. It's called Prisoners Inventions. Yes. incarcerated artist named Angelo.

Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like hell of thick. Documents in genius, often contraband objects and methods created by prisoners to make life. Or bearable. You know that they know how to communicate to each other through the toilets in some of these prisons? Yeah.

If you like flush it, I guess, or empty the water out, you could speak into the toilet and then the person down there can hear. Yeah, they can send messages. There's currencies. There's all kinds of crazy. It's wild. Ways that they get to do the... You know, they make, like, sex things in prison? Sex things?

It's like toys. Okay. Yeah, dude. Yeah. I was, got me down a rabbit hole, and there's this one guy that interviews people who are, like, ex-inmates, and they're talking about, like, the way, the things that they do and they create in there. I'm like, man, like, again, if you're bored. Yeah.

Well, I mean, Doug found a whole book on it. There's a whole book on it. So I'm sure there's hundreds, if not more inventions inside there. Like, what happened to today's jello? Yeah. Yeah, there's all kinds of... I took it. Are you looking at it?

Looking at several or what? Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff here. I don't know. It looks interesting anyway. You know what Pruno is? Pruno is that... It's like a wine, right? Yeah, with just rotten fruit.

Yeah, rotten fruit and socks, right? I don't know how they make it. They use, like, socks and rotten fruit. But they literally make alcohol with rotten fruit. They ferment it, and they get hammered. Yeah. They call prunot. I know.

Super wild. Whatever you can do. All right. Diet. Speaking of diet, have you guys seen this trend on social media called the boring diet trend? The boring diet trend? Yes. Well, I saw, remember the video they did of, they've called the, you know, what's they call it dog food or boys, boys food?

Boy, boy kibble. Boy kibble. Oh. You saw that. Which is the stuff that we eat, the ground beef and rice. Oh, like boy meals and girl meals? No, I just call it boy kibble. It was on the news.

They were talking about like, you know, boy kibble sweeps the nation. this way of eating or what like that. And they were like, they were shitting on it. It's like, man, that's such a good, such a good meal. Is it ground beef rice? Yes, just ground beef and rice, you know? Boy, cubill. They were calling it a boy kid.

Why they're trying to make everybody unhealthy? I know, it's like, it's such a, I mean, that's like my go-to. That is a-it tastes good. That is a kid. It tastes good. I mean, I, I mean, I saute onions and mushrooms and make it real good. And, and, and, and it's a staple weekly meal that I prep because you can do it in bulk and then it goes so good with eggs and I like it I like it for doesn't matter morning afternoon

or night it's like so you know what I do this is such a this is such a bodybuilder thing I take a potato yeah I wrap it in a wet paper towel and I microwave the hell out of it you know you can bake a potato like seven minutes and then I take it out yeah and I you know put butter on it and then I put my ground beef on top of it and then two sunny side up eggs and I throw on top of it makes it together it's good it's really really good that's pretty good yeah anyway by the way and you reminded me there's like another trend where it's like boy meals and girl meals and they'll show a picture. Like a girl meal is like tomato. Yeah.

Like, you know, like like nice looking. Yeah. Random cheese and like some like vegetable. Yeah, dude. So anyway, the boring diet trend. So this guy writes and he says, if you follow this diet, you're guaranteed to lose weight. He goes, you're only allowed to eat. Uh, sweet potato, chicken breasts and broccoli.

Eat as much as you want. And everybody's like, this is brilliant. I'm like, oh my God. Of course, dude. Of course. Do they not know who bodybuilders are? I know. Well, what this points to is that when you keep, when you make things unpalatable, you eat less.

Yeah. And boredom, eating the same thing over and over again, is actually a great way to hack your appetite. If you have like cravings all the time, novelty triggers the heck out of cravings. Right. So if you're one of those people, it's like, man, I get really stuck and I just keep overeating. Something you can do with yourself is eat the same kind of foods all the time. And it'll actually tamp it down. That's what whole foods are good for.

The hardest part is the window at which you start to get hungry. That's why I always like, you know, I remember we used to talk about. One of the first things that we came out when we first started this, you know, 11 years ago, was the frequency meals myth. And I've always been a fan of the frequency meals. You mean small meals throughout the day. Because not only my personal experience, but with clients also, what I found is when a client gets busy at work or four or five hours stretch between meals and they start to get hungry,

then come the craving. Your choices aren't great. Oh, it's just, and I know what it's like to feel like this. When you let that happen, you're like, God, this sounds good. And like all these cravings start kicking in. And then it's like, oh, but I have sweet potato and ground beef in the in the refrigerator, right? And I, and I, the discipline it takes to go do it. Now, what I've learned is that when I have those moments and I just go microwave and I start eating,

I'm fine. But the decision to go do that when you let those cravings kick in is really difficult for a lot of people to handle. And so I had a lot of success by just having my clients break up three big, big normal meals to sick small meals and just train them. You have a few hours. Yeah, every couple hours, even when you're not hungry, get that next one in and get that next one in. It's such a small meal. It's easy for them to eat and digest. And they never allow themselves to get that.

No, you're right. And it just is. Plus, it automatically encouraging. Like purges meal prep automatically, which is a huge benefit when you're trying to eat in a healthy way. Yeah. No, it makes a lot of sense. I know when you go grocery shopping and you're hungry? Oh, yeah, look the stuff you buy.

Bro, I'm a fitness guy. If I'm hungry at the grocery store, I'm going to buy candy. Yeah. Like cheap, crappy candy too. I'm going to have nerds or something like that at the grocery store. I can eat boring, though. I feel like there could be like steak, cheese and chicken nuggets. Like, I'm done.

Bro, you have the palate. I'm fine. Hey, the chicken nuggets from butcher box? The gluten-free chicken nuggets from butcher box? Yeah. It's a problem. It is. It is a problem.

I didn't realize that the chicken strips and the chicken nuggets were different like that. Yeah, one of them's gluten-free and one of them's not. The gluten-free ones are the nuggets. The strips are not. Yeah. But I get four bags of it. So my butcher box comes.

I put four bags in those nuggets. They're gone, dude. Yeah. My wife and I were kind of like having a fight over this. And mainly because my y'allel youngest and I like we eat them almost immediately. So it's like it doesn't even last like a week in our house, uh, having five bags. And so each time she's like,

when you realize like you have to trade some other meat out like so you, you know, for me to keep like, so she was always trying to argue that like, yeah, we just need like three bags. I'm like, no, we need five bags.

Like we're going to eat. Well, especially if you and the boys are eating. And I can't like, yeah. It's competitive. We get, I think that's how we get, but,

because it's a staple meal for math. and occasionally I'll I dip into it. So I'm maybe, maybe once a week or every other week I eat them because I know that's like his meal, right? But if I start dipping into them like that where I'm getting it. The protein in them is pretty good. Well, yeah. Yeah.

No, I'll crush 20 of those suckers. You'll make 20 a time? Yes. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Which puts a debt in the bag. Yeah, yeah. By yourself?

Yeah, yeah. It's a pile, dude. It's not, not even. How many servings is in a bag? I would say there's, I think there's about 30 or 30 or so because I've done, I've done 20 and 20 20 20 and me me and max could finish a bag in almost one sitting so I know that's only got to be 25 30 at most I eat however many it takes to get 40 grams of protein whatever that is oh that's only like 12 yeah it's like damn you're eating 20 or 30 uh six of them is 13 grams I believe

okay so no so no so no so no so you said six of them is how much 13 grams so you're trying to go for 40 grams of protein? Yeah. Protein? Yeah, yeah. So what am I doing? 18, 18, 19, that's not right.

Six is not 13 grams. Is that what it says? No, it's not. Let me look it up. I guarantee it's not, because I track this whole time. It's more like 12, like I said, is about where you're at.

It's about 40. Yeah. You know, you think six. We didn't arguing macros with that. I know. I was like, well, I mean, I've looked at it too, all right? Yeah, let me find,

let me find, let me find that exact. I mean, just, thinking about that logic for a second. It's more than... Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. There's like, I think if when I do 20, it's like 50, 50 or 60 grams... I just want to see how many calories. So you're like 12.

You're like 12 to 14. Okay, so I'm sorry, you're right. I know, I'm right. You're 10 grams for three pieces. Thank you. I was off. 10 for three. Way off.

Okay, so what is... I stand corrected. Wow, you were right on the dot. 12. Well, no shit, bro. No shit. So, why, you think I got defensive? Like, I forgot.

I was... Really good to see your argue with me over this? Like, I've actually broke it down. How many of you are in a bag? Oh, so there's eight servings, so that'd be like 24 nuggets per bag. So hold on, how many calories? Oh, so there's 24 nuggets in a bag? Yeah, so there's eight servings.

I eat 20 eats four. Oh, man. 170 calories per serving. 170 per what, how many nuggets? Three. And there's eight servings? Yeah. Damn, Justin, you're having 1,300 calories of nuggets.

Boom. Yeah. But a solid, like, six. It's a big lunch. Hey, I do that sometimes in the weekend. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I mean, but at least you're getting, like, like 60, 70 grams of protein in the answer.

So it's not like... Yeah, getting 80 grams in a bag. I just... I've been burning a lot of calories lately, though. I just picture Justin with like a pile of nuggets, and he's watching cartoons. I'm not watching cartoons. It does feel like that, though.

Yeah. I mean, I'm with you, bro. I totally get down. But that's why I can't, if I eat them... I mean, I ain't doing less than no 12 to 16. I'm definitely, like, anything less than that's a waste of time. Yeah. So I'm going to put a big dent in them if I eat.

them a lot. And that's like Max's like, I feel super weak right now that I only eat 12. I'm surprised that. Yeah, you only do that because you're Mr. Meal over here. Bro, my meals are healthy, dude. You guys make fun of me all the time, but I'm eating good. That's healthy. That's just all the time. Yeah, yeah. That's all. No, what I mean is I'm eating like, you know, I'm not, I'm not going crazy. You know, that was one of the biggest things that helped me to use, excuse me, to change this conversation to be helpful for somebody. Like, when I, uh, switched over my bad habits at night of, like, like ice cream and just shit calories.

You know, sweets. And just like going and crushing 12, 16, at least I'm 50, 40. I feel too. It does deter me from like eating cookies and crap. And it feels like a total treat, right? I'm getting chicken nuggets, right? Like stuff like that, magic spoon spirit cereal. I used to do that.

Like those types of things like that where it feels like I'm getting somewhat of a treat. But I'm crushing 30, 40, 50 grams of protein. Are you guys, are you guys ketchup? Do you guys catch up them? No. God, no. Just straight up. Barbecue sauce.

Barbecue sauce. You know what I used, dude? Oh, ketchup is the best. No. What? Ranch. Manease?

Manas on those? Yeah. What are you from England? Yeah. Dude. Do you like French fries and mayonnaise? Are you one of those? You do.

That's European. That's what they did. I know. I've tried it. It's too much. No, I'm not a mayonnaise guy at all. You're white. Stop it.

I can do a cracker. I can do tartar sauce on on fish chips. You'd be a lot. Hot sauce, shut up. Yeah. All right. That's enough. That's enough.

I'm just going to do that. Sorry, guys. I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry, guys. Do you guys know where the word goodbye came from? I just learned this the other day. Oh, I heard that too. Did you, Doug?

Goodbye? God be with you. Yeah. So in the 1600s, people would say a parting, like a parting thing to say is God be with ye. God be with ye. And it got, and it started to get shortened into goodbye. So goodbye.

comes from God be with ye. I just learned that the other day. No idea. In the 1600s. I had no idea. Yeah. That's interesting. Isn't that cool?

Did you see the same clip I did? I probably did, yeah. Our algorithms are a little similar. Yeah. Adams algorithms all cars. Yeah. It's all cars stuff, bro. If you looked at everyone should do this right now.

I want to see what everybody's, uh, explore. Justin's like, John's all butts. Mine's all butts. No. Just to get your back. Justin. Mine used to be like that.

I had to change it because I have to filter it. There's too much butts on my explorer page like this. Yeah, I know. If we look at- It's all dachshunds now. Look it, you know. Hot ruts. Look it.

Let me see. Yeah, look at that. It's all cars, dude. Wow. That's crazy. What does mine look like? Yeah, all cars are. You know, I'm barely, I'm barely ever on Instagram, honestly.

In fact, I had a friend of mine. Let's see what mine looks like. Oh, so here's mine's like just a bunch of randomish kind of stuff. Oh, Jesus stuff. Yeah. So I had a friend of mine. I had somebody message. I saw a friend and they were like, oh, dude, I DMD you.

I sent you this link. I'm like, I don't check any of that stuff. My team pitches. I got kicked out of my social media by my partners. I mean, anyway, that's hilarious. All right. I got some dehydration stats for you guys. That was kind of interesting.

What do you mean by that? So I saw this and I thought it was really interesting. I'm going to pull it up in terms of like a fact. of dehydration? So in young women, so the study, the title of it, this was a journal of nutrition, mild dehydration effects mood and healthy young women. So trip off this. In young women, just 1.36% dehydration.

Just a little bit. Just a little dehydration. Makes tasks feel 58% harder. Concentration, 45% harder. Fatigue 17% worse. and headaches are twice as likely. Just 1.36%. How do they get it down to a...

Why you always ask questions? I don't have the answer. I mean, good questions? How do I ask good questions to challenge these studies? How are they fielded this? How are, like, what are they using to measure, like, oh, she's 2% dehydrated right now?

Do they give them, like, a specific cup to use for this? I don't know what they did, you guys. Well, do you have a guest? Do you have a science-educated? guess for me? Because I'm like, I'm trying to figure out how you get a, okay, in any study, there's 30, 40, 50, 50 in a group. You got 40, 50 ladies in this group. I think what they're doing is they're looking at probably their urine and they're probably looking at the concentration of, okay, uh, electrolytes in the urine. And there's something that's deemed, um, hydrated and there's

something that's deemed like, okay, that's something that's deemed like, okay, I can't even wrap my brain around. Like, how, how do you get to like, oh, she's 5% hydrated? You're losing the concentration of it. Depends how salty it tastes. Yeah. Sorry. You got to have somebody in there. So I, okay, so I get what they probably did. They probably.

Samples. Gave them all a certain amount of water and then, and then asked, like, how's your, do you have any headache? How's your energy fill? How would this task? They surveyed. And then they tested and saw like, oh, wow. I know, like. I know this.

So I used to, I had this belief as a trainer that your thirst was a good indicator of. No, is it when, by the time you're thirsty, you're already dehydite. Dehydration has already kicked in. That's not for sports, like primarily. Not necessarily, but what I learned was is there's, you'll drink as much water as you need, okay? So 1% dehydration, you're okay. You're not going to die.

You're fine, except you're going to not feel as good. You just might not know what's going on. But your thirst will get you enough water. It's not like people are walking around dying of not having enough water. But there's what's minimally required, and then there's what's optimal. And so I remember I had this woman I worked with in my studio when I saw my studio.

And I would hear her, and she was not a bodybuilder. So this wasn't like bodybuilding advice, because that's why I discredit it. My old bodybuilders, they say that. They must not know what they're talking about. She was not a bodybuilder. She was correctional exercise specialist.

She was a wellness expert. And she was telling her clients, her female clients, like drink a half a gallon of water a day, sometimes more to her male clients. And she would say, you'll have less pain. You'll have more energy and less cravings. And so I started to, and then they'd come back and be like, I can't believe it.

My back pain is. lower and you're right, I have more energy. I don't understand. So I started recommending it. And my everyday clients who could care less about gaining tons of muscle and whatever, they all notice the same thing by drinking just more water. Yeah. So that became a big focus for me too and training clients. And mainly it was energy, it was headaches and it was pain. Yeah. So like any of those that like came up when I'm fielding questions about, you know, their experience or their background or anything, it was like, if any of that showed up, I was like, okay, the focus is here.

Let's like focus on your hydration. Yeah. I mean, I shared that on the podcast a long time ago. It was Justin who I remember hearing, talk to his clients about that. And I was like, really for like that? That wasn't on my list of when I asked somebody how their energy levels. And I'd hurt him repeatedly. I'd go, you know, how much water are you drinking and then recommend that?

And then noticing how many people that that was solving it. It was like, oh, wow, interesting. How many people are just that low on water? And then what a difference it makes on their energy. That's right. How did you, where did you live? Did you learn that from someone just or is it all just from yourself? It's like experience, but like it was a lot of, like in college and also in high school too.

So there was a lot of sports, um, athletic trainers that would kind of like reiterate this, especially too. And I was in the Midwest and there was, um, humidity was a big factor to that. Like it was always stressed like, you know, you're behind or like, you know, all these symptoms. And they kept reiterated. the symptoms. And I felt like the extreme version of that when I went to St. Louis and I played in this game where it was like 90 degrees. And it was like, you know, almost 100% humidity.

It was like crazy. So, yeah, I lost like 10 pounds almost like on my way to the game. So it just started clicking to me that that was like something to address even when I would before practice was like, and they would weigh us and everything. And it was real like. systematic. And so you just knew the importance of it and then you communicated that to your clients. Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. It makes a big difference just a little bit. And I mean, again, that study kind of confirms it that a little bit. Is that a new study? Yeah. That's an interesting study. Yeah, yeah, it just came out.

And it's for, and they had young women. So I would imagine that the older you get, the more sensitive you are to slight, you know, slight dehydration. I would imagine. Where does the, there's a, like, there's been a movement in our space with the, the water fasting and the idea that we drink too much water. And have you seen, have you seen content like that? Yeah.

I've just heard, where does it come from? What's the, what is the basis of it? I've only heard Andy Galpin talk about that, like, as just like another way to stress, like,

and get that kind of hermetic effect, but yeah, maybe, but you know what? You add stress on stress on stress. Like, there's things that communicate, like exercise.

And then there's things that, like, it's not that important. Like, I'm not going to communicate water fasting to anybody. I don't know. Do you remember a person you worked with?

Well, it kind of reminds me of why we don't talk a lot about protein fasting. And there's benefits to that. Right? So there's benefits to going. Can you think of a client that would have benefited that except for maybe the bodybuilders you train? No, exactly. That's my point. My point is that so many people underconsume that even though there's research to support

a occasional protein fast that has lots of benefits. but it's like all my clients struggle getting that. So why would I do that? You know what I'm saying? So it's the same thing. I fill the same thing with water. It's like, I don't have a lot of clients that were like overconfirmed water that I'm like,

okay, we should go a whole day with no water and do a water fast. It's like, no, it's constantly trying to communicate. Yeah, I don't think I'd ever like see a reason to promote that. No.

I mean, to me, that's, that this is the difference of somebody who's like a deep, you know, study research person and somebody who's coached a lot of people. It's just like it's, I,

I'm familiar with the research that points to both those having benefits. But it's like in the real world. Who do I apply that to? Yeah. It just doesn't make sense for most of the people. They're going to get detrimental effects. Yeah. And fasting in general, its roots are in religion.

It's all its roots are all in religion. The benefits of all fasting was spiritual. And what we do with anything spiritual as we take it and we turn it into something that's aesthetic or optimize this or that. But the benefit, it was all spirit. People didn't fast back in the day because they wanted to increase cellotophagy or, you know, improve my mitochondrial function. No, they were like, I'm going to fast, weaken the flesh so I can pray more. You don't be a fun episode for us to do that we need your help to do.

But you're just thinking about this right now of like worthless studies. So like a whole episode on like, you know, what we think are the top five worthless studies. So studies that have been, in particular, like ones that you've heard shared in our space as using this as a reason to do this. Like chocolate burns body fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stuff like that, right? Like just or the antioxidants and wine, right? Like all these different ones that have been promoted before.

That's like, okay, yeah, that's what the science says. Like stem machines to improve the, you know, the output of muscle contraction. Oh, yeah. You know, like on top of everything. Yeah, yeah. It's like, no. I know. So I remember I had a client that was telling me about all the incredible benefits.

Do you guys remember when, what was it called? Remember the, Isaiah, Barry? There was like that company. Mona V. Monovi. Monovi. My stepdad. Way back.

This was like a, it was a multi-level marketing thing. And I remember I had this gym. I was managing a gym. I was one of the people that come in. It was like trying to sell me on it. It's like, listen, you got you run this gym. You got training. You can make so much money.

And you're trying to sell me how like revolutionary this Barry is. And I remember, like, I was listening to him and I was thinking about it. I'm like, why hasn't everybody heard of this berry before? And then I did a little research. I'm like, oh, it's like a super common berry in Brazil. It's like a blueberry, but in Brazil. And then I looked up on the accidents and blueberries, and I showed them. It's almost identical.

I'm going to have blueberries, dude. Yeah. Like, there's nothing special. I wanted to mention something, though, about fasting. So water fasting is when you're fasting, but only drinking water. If you're not drinking water, it's called dry fasting. Dry fasting. Just so that we have.

Good distinction. Thank you, yeah. Dry fasting. That feels, this sounds absolutely terrible. I'm not excited for that at all. It's a thing though. It's a thing,

but it doesn't sound very good. I don't think you're a lot of very often, to be fair. warnings about it. Do you guys want to do, like, you want to go to controversial direction, Doug?

What do you think? Should we go to come to? It really depends on what it is. I have a study, Doug. I know Adam's all about it. Is this political? It is political, but it's not really political, but it is political.

But it is political. You can fast forward, right? So this was, all right, let me pull it up here. This is, the data is from the U.S. General Social Survey. Percentage of younger people diagnosed with a mental health problem. Okay. Look at it. So who do you think, put you guys on the spot,

who do you think these are young people as the highest percentage of reported mental health issues between the political parties? Like which, which, sorry. Liberal women. Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, is it right? It's right. So here's what it is.

Someone who identifies as a strong Democrat, 56% also have a reported mental. Not like a moderate, like, strong Democrat. Yeah. Next is a weak Democrat. So someone's like loosely, 41%.

Next is independent, 35%. Next is a weak Republican at 30%. And thus the lowest rate of mental health, reported mental health issues, is a strong Republican at 15%. These are younger people. Okay. That's a big difference.

How do they determine that? That's my question. It's a survey. How do you identify politically? And then have you been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, or you have you on medication, that kind of deal? So the difference between a strong Democrat and a strong Republican and younger people, 50, what is that?

56% to 15%. 40% difference in mental health. So the more interesting part of that conversation is why do you think that is? Yeah, why? Why would that be the case? So my theory would be somebody who is that, you know, is strongly left-leaning or in that direction, right? A lot of it is less of personal responsibility, more about relying on government, more. And that forces you to worry about all these outside.

somebody who's like strongly right is very much so accountability. I have personal control of my health. I have control of my finances. I'm like a very capital. Overwhelming factors. Yeah. So I think that that says the most about. Because this is a big difference, everybody.

So I know some people are like getting mad or whatever. Like this is real. It's real data. It's a big difference. It's not a small difference. So there's two ways to look at it. One is do people with more mental health issues tend to lean towards a philosophy that says, we'll take care of you.

And there's lots of scary things that are out there. It's probably both. It's probably true. And then there's another side to it. So this guy wrote about it. And I can't disagree with some of the stuff he says. He says, if your ideology convinces you to avoid marriage and children for travel and career or because the climate is going to turn into hot lava and kill you, that probably

is going to promote some little bit of anxiety and oppression. I agree with that. Yeah. another one. It's always there. Well, the first thing you said, that and then what I said, I think are all true. Here's another one that strong Republicans are more likely to go to pastors and their church community for support. Whereas people who are identified strong Democrat are more likely to go to therapists.

And there's some interesting data around that on people have good relationships. Just in general do better. Wasn't the, I mean, this will piss a bunch of people off. Who cares? Wasn't the original? you know, but the, what wasn't, that's what therapy was designed to replace the church. Isn't that what that originally was? As people moved, got out of community, they needed, uh, there was like a gap.

Yeah. And so they started paying people for, for that kind of stuff. So that's another, uh, that's another big one. Um, and then the fear kind of around, you know, things uncontrollable. Yeah. And this kind of negative spin. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, versus.

But I think the avoiding marriage and children and focusing. on just travel and career. And I think the, you know, the less of people in this kind of strong faith-based community or strong community in general, I think those are probably two of the biggest factors. Because when you look on the other side of that with the data, I'm not saying this because that's my opinion. When you look at the data, when people are married and have children and realize that that's really value that, their odds of depression, anxiety, and also have to weigh down.

I mean, I'd be way more interested into seeing all the things that you just brought up versus just the left versus right leaning thing. Because within that in both of those, you're going to find those groups of people. Sure. Right? There's going to be people that are, that are Democrat that want to have kids and want to have family and don't. And I think their doctrines changed a lot over the years, too, in terms of what they're promoting. And the tactics they're using to gain votes. And I just feel like it's the extreme.

have definitely happened on both sides. But, yeah, especially the negativity in the campaigning and the mudslinging creates more anxiety. That's why I think a study like that's not very helpful to me because it just creates more divide in division on the level. And both are horrible. I think it's helpful if you look deeper. I think if you just look at it and like to point the finger, then it's not helpful. Well, what would be more helpful is a study like you just said is like, do people that want to have kids, have this, and that, are they, like, that would be more helpful than do conservatives or Democrats?

That's what I'm saying. So it's like, family values, morals. You're looking deeper, but the average person's going to go, see, let people have more mental issues. They're crazy. Yeah. So that's a, it's not a useful study. It would be more useful. Because there was a study that came out not that long ago, and it was actually conducted by this person was secular.

I can't remember the name of the guy. He did a study on adolescence and teenagers and depression and anxiety. If I remember his name, you guys know what I'm talking about because he was all over the place, not that long ago. And he was like, why are adolescents and teenagers experiencing anxiety and depression at rates we've never seen before? Like, never before, relatively recently was that age group more depressed and more anxious than people in midlife? That just, throughout all the times we've been recording this, midlife is when you experience the highest rates of those things. When you're adolescent or teenagers, typically you're like having the time of your life, right? and yet they're the most anxious, most depressed.

How much did we care about politics when we were a teenager? None. Not at all. No, but it was the worst. Like, ugh. No. So what he did is he looked at the data and he's like, is it social media? Is it like, what is it?

Is it the news? Is it this and that? And he found the most protective thing. You guys want to know what the most protective thing was? It wasn't how little you were on social media. It wasn't any of that stuff. It was the kids that were most active in a church community almost had no effect. In fact, they had almost no rise in anxiety and depression.

So the ones that were the most active, like weekly and twice a week and three days a week, going and becoming in their church community, grounded in something else. And being with other people, they were like, no problem. This purpose elsewhere. And this guy's secular. I can't remember his name. Is the guy or is it Gene Twenge? No, no. Hygien.

No. I can't remember his name. You'll know. It's a book I read. I talk about all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you do this, Doug?

Say church protective with depression anxiety among teenagers. Did she talk about that in that book? I don't remember her talking about that. That book is really, you would really enjoy that book. It's more about social media. That entire book is nothing but studies. Yeah. And speaking of social media, I don't think it's social media that's damaging.

I think the reason why it's damaging is what it's replacing. So you don't have friends. You're not going out meeting with people. You're not connecting with people. It's artificial connection. That's right. So that's what the issue is. It's less about social media.

I'm not saying that it doesn't have negative possible. Yeah, as I say, I don't think it's, I don't think it's more about what's, because again, what they found in the study was kids that were at the church, they still used less social media. But even the ones that did, it was like, it didn't have that effect on them. Because they were with real people. And they just need to care about school and sports and, you know, like, they don't need to take on all the world's problems.

Yeah. Like, let kids be kids, man. I mean, is it happening? Is it happening? Is it, is it, is it, is it, are we going back the other way? I mean, are the, are the, Is the younger generation less and less? Yes.

Well, you mean lower and lower rates that we're saying? Yeah. We don't have good recent data that shows that that might be reversing. There's suggestions that it's starting to flatten out. But this is more like observations. Like, it seems like maybe kids are moving away and maybe they're starting to do this kind of stuff. But we don't have good data on this. I mean, it feels like it's, you know, it's funny how this whole like the AI

stuff and all the all the I mean already I mean look how quickly our feeds change to a bunch of AI made content it's gonna naturally kind of force everybody out I mean I think everybody's gonna be like oh this I mean I already see I already see it when somebody share something now yeah like oh that's it's fake it's fake well that's AI that's not real like it's already getting to that place and and like feels fake and it still it still gets me right occasionally where I share something I think and I'm like oh my god I didn't even know but sooner or later that's going to happen to me enough times or it's just like that's going to become my default is I don't care so I'm not interested and I'm like you'd have

to prove to me that it's real if I like have you seen I lose interest yeah I've noticed some people that I like loosely follow that are starting to replace their posts with just AI images and an AI driven posts and you're like in the adults just sprinkle them in I'm like it's obvious

you know and it's like it's weird to watch because it's like you're becoming less of a real person like in real time you know like it's I could see people being like just abandon that. You got Doug? Dr. Tyler Vanderweil.

Is that correct? No. It's somebody well known. Sal made it up. And he was being interviewed left and right. And you guys would totally recognize who it was and I'm really frustrated. Now, is he a doctor or is he a... He wrote a book on it or he's reporting on it, but he's not the one that conducted the study.

And I can't remember who it was. That was... I'm going to find the name, Doug, because I can search. You should read hygiene. I think you would like it. Yeah, I know. Jonathan Hate. Oh, Jonathan Hate.

He's the one that talked about it all the time. Oh, oh. Yeah, he was going all over the place talking about it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Protective it was. Yeah. For these kids. You know, his story's really cool.

You know, you know, speaking since you went politics with that, like him and then the other co-authored coddling of the American mind were like liberal teachers. Oh. Yeah, yeah. You know that? No. Oh, yeah. Look up the two, the two authors of coddling the American mind.

It's, it's Jonathan Haidt and. and then somebody else. And one of them was like a really strong left leading. And the other one was like a... You pulling it up, Doug? Yeah, I'm pulling it up. See who it is. Yeah, but he was...

Jonathan Haight, Greg Lukinoff. Yeah. And I forget where they were professors. I read that one a long time ago. But if you can watch interviews with Jonathan Hayt and he breaks it down. He's like, look, I don't have a dog in this race. I'm just reporting the data. Yeah.

It was very protective for kids. Yeah. just something to pay attention. And we've lost, look, kids used to have community. Definitely used to be in church, but it also was just, you went outside. Yeah. You went outside and all your friends. You were with your friends.

There was nothing to do at home. So you had no choice. But now it's like it's replaced with artificial relationship. So of course people are going to be depressing. Well, I mean, you recently talked about, and I don't disagree, that we see the already the change in what's happening in the gym culture, right, with the community from that way. I mean, they all start with the adults and the parents. then maybe that'll eventually trickle down to the kids.

And maybe we will see this like pendulum swing back where it becomes cool again to go outside and play and do stuff besides sit on your phone all day. Yeah, I just, there's actually a stunt. There's actually so there was a post. The gym era is ending. And what's replacing it will define the next five years. I mean, don't you, don't you think it really, it really, I feel like we talk a lot about, you know, Gen Z and millennial. And like it, it's really our fault. like never once have I gone outside to go jump in the pool or play outside and my son not want to go.

Oh. It's, but if I let him, he would want to, he would, if he was a TV, yeah, he'd watch TV or sit on an iPad if I let him. But if I go, I'm, guys go get in the pool, it's like he's bolting with me. Well, kids that eat unhealthy, it's because their parents eat unhealthy. Right. And so, so really who's to fault is that us adults, who have had an iPhone for the last 15 plus years, and we're okay sitting on the couch doom scrolling or watching television. And it's like part of why these kids don't go outside anymore is because at some point,

the adults stopped. You have to foster the environment. Yeah. If you don't foster it, if you don't teach it and they don't see it, then they don't know, you know. And so, and then you create an entire culture around everyone's sitting on their phones and not interacting.

And then that's what. Because I guarantee if my son saw outside, the whole neighborhood was always playing. Every time we came home from school and the kids, like he'd want to stay out there. I wouldn't have to like go do it. But because everybody has done this, it doesn't. Send him outside.

Nobody's out there. Yeah, yeah. What do I do? Go outside, Dad, by yourself. I have been getting help lately. I mean, there's been, even with my kids, like, their friends, they want to go. And it's kind of like a nerve.

I know for Courtney, especially it's a bit unnerving, but like they want to go sleep out in the wilderness by themselves. And they want to do that by, uh, so they have this kind of rope that they tie and there's like, YouTube videos and stuff that's kind of popular now where they create these kind of, you know, platforms that they, they can lay on top of and like they string it all together. I forget what it's called, but it's like, it's really cool. And it takes like hours for them to create it. And then, you know, and they have their own kind of little hangout for it. And they pop up. And they're like trying to do it like near this beach. But it's like all these trees. And Courtney's like, well, that's somebody's property. And they're going to call cops. And like, let them like deal with that.

Yeah. You know? Like maybe that's a consequence, but like, what are they going to do? They're just going to unravel it. Yeah. And then cops just say get out of it. Yeah. Like,

you can't just always think about consequences. Yeah. Like, like, let's get back to like risking some things in, in learning, you know, like in working together towards something. And it's like things like that, like little projects or, like fishing or, you know, camping, I feel like is something that my kids have really been pulling. me back to get into. So we're, we're starting to kind of move in that direction. That's kind, I mean, that's probably, that's probably one of the hardest challenges I have,

even with Katrina, with, with Max's like, like, I'm always encouraging, like, him to do stuff that, where he might get hurt or he might fall in or he might. I'm like, I'm here. Like, he's not going to drown from me being like, like, like, by time he falls in, I'll be there in three, he's not drowning in three seconds. Like, it's not happening. It's like, and you know what? Maybe he'll scare him and he'll teach him not to lean over the pool and do that again. Like, it's, it's okay. Like, it's okay for him to take some of these wrists and potentially fall or get hurt. You know, they talk about that. That's a natural tension between moms and dads.

That moms, uh, you know, bring him in and dads kind of push him out and they're supposed to have that tension. Because too much of one or the other? Sure. Like, I think there, I think if I was somebody who was like wanting him to do like really crazy, dangerous stuff, I could see it be good. Yeah, she would help control. But it's like, man, we got to let him do some of these things where, yeah, it's okay.

I know he's by the fire. Trust me, you know, if he gets, if he gets, if he gets, burned by it's going to hurt he'll learn his lessons he won't do it again he's not going to die he's not going to catch on fire you know what I'm saying his hand he's going to put his hand near it and it's going to go oh shit and he's going to cry and you're like that's hot you got to be careful around the stove you got be careful around those things like that's like but always oh you know moving him and doing it doing it for him it's like no I mean that's how they that's how kids learn and so we have turned into I feel like a culture that that does a lot

of that with our with our kids and I think that's part of the problem too Safety is way too high on the pedestal. Yeah, I'm with you. All right, what is dose for your liver? Now, check this out. This is a clinically backed liver health supplement. It's a liquid supplement. And by the way, in trials, real trials, real studies, a majority of people, 90% of people

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My deadlift routine is pretty, I'd say relatively inconsistent. I probably deadlift once a month, maybe. But the reason for that is for me, the deadlift is a lift that. I'm really strong at. And getting stronger at it, I don't get great returns. The risk is really high now. So at any given moment, I could probably pull 500 to 515 off the ground. When I start training deadlift's regularly, my deadlift strength goes up pretty quickly.

And I'll, you know, in a relatively short period of time, get up to 560, 5, 70, 5, 80. And then my risk of injury is really high. So I always do some kind of hiphinging movement, but I don't deadlift regularly. Now, for most of my clients, deadlifts were a relatively regular part of the routine once a week or something like that. But for me, it's not a regular part of my routine anymore. The irony of this, because we promote it so much. And yet right now we're all going to say we're not doing it very much. Yeah, I'm doing RDLs only right now.

I've been dealing with a pain, forearm pain and stuff that I can't get to the bottom of. It's been an issue for a while. And just heavy conventional just lights it up at. So like me doing RDLs, I'm only holding like 135, 150 pounds. And so it's not very stressful where I deadlift 300 pounds. And so and that really strains it. And so I haven't been doing that. I'll always squat.

So that is something that I never, I never not do is I always squat. Deadlifting moves in and out. I mean, I just conventional deadlift though, like maybe three weeks ago was the last time I did it. but I've been doing RDS more regularly right now because of what I'm dealing with right now. Yeah, I kind of go back and forth. And mainly now, if I do deadlifts, it's going to be trap bar deadlifts.

And I've scaled down my squatting a lot too. Oh, really? It's not like you. Just mainly because of my hips. Squats for you are like me with deadlifts. You squat so much weight. And it's been so many years that I've focused on squatting that I think I was just trying to kind of give my body a bit of a break and focus.

I'm actually more focused on building up my core again and just my control of my body. I feel like I've lost a little bit of that on command. Like I can move a specific way. Like I feel like I've lost a little bit of that. And so it definitely looks a lot more like, you know, power and speed training. And, you know, if I do any hiphinging, it's definitely. more like kettlebell work and swings. And so I don't do a ton of heavy deadlifting anymore, but I do go through periods of it.

Like maybe it's like two weeks or so. And I'll focus on just kind of building myself up again. And then I'll, I try and kind of get back to that. What's cool about some of these compound lifts is when you, when you do them for a long time, you get really good at them, you can do them intermittently. Oh, yeah. And maintain them. Yep.

The key is to never, never do, like, you don't want to not do a hip hip hip hip. Well, that's not. I feel like if I, like, I could go pull 300 pounds deadlifting. Yeah. I know I can. And so, like, which is, is not impressive, but it's also not weak. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

So it's like, they'll always remain enough in the routine to where, like, I still have that kind of, like, foundational strength in it. Squatting for me is the main one that I never let go because when I really worked on my mobility and my hips and my ankles, the thing that keeps that now is just good. I don't squat heavy hardly ever anymore. I mean, I rarely, I normally two plates is what I normally work. I just work out with two plates, but I go real deep and slow in control.

I keep higher reps. Like, that's typically how I train all time. And that and part of why that is so important to me even more than the deadlift is, is just I find that it keeps my hips low back and ankle stuff like in check, big time. Next question is from just a kill shot. how would you explain the importance of dedicated time in the gym to someone who's very active at work and doesn't see a need for it? You know, I have a lot of blue-collar workers in my family. And so these people, these men are very active.

Like, their jobs are workouts all day long. But I strongly advise them to go to the gym for correctional exercise. So the injury rate with very active jobs like blue-collar work, construction work, you know, welding, whatever. there's a high injury rate. Yeah. And that's because of repetitive movement, muscle imbalances. And you're not addressing the posterior chain really. That's it.

So I would, I'd have them go to the gym once a week, focus on certain lifts, correctional exercise, and it keeps them healthy. It keeps them injury free. They can do the jobs better. And so that's what it looks like. Now, the average person is so sedentary that I'm just trying to get them to move. But, you know, when you work with someone like this and you look at their eight-hour day, it's like, oh, geez, you're like super active all the time.

you don't need hard workouts. What you need is correctional exercise. Yeah, I agree. And even more specifically, I'd be like, give me the job, right? Like, are you a contractor or a carpenter? It's like, oh, you hammer on one with a hammer on your right hand all day long. That's going to create some serious. You're always raising your arms.

Yeah, yeah. Like so or a painter, right, that does one. Like, so, you know, give me the job. And I can probably point out the things that they probably have issues with and that we want to correct that in balance that imbalance out in the training. And that's what their training looks like is to support their work. Right. So you're, better at your job. You don't suffer from chronic pain. And so the gym becomes super important. In fact, arguably more important for that person, because when you do repetitive movements, it's just like a lot of people think that like some of my most dysfunctional people were ex-athletes.

And it wasn't because they lacked being in shape or active. They were very active, but they threw a baseball with the same side. They're locked in positions. Yes, thousands of times where they punched one on one with their lead punched and jab when it's like so you have when you do things repetitively all the time all day every day sure you're uh less likely to get fat because you move and you burn calories but you're more likely to have imbalances in chronic pain and so our training looks like supporting or correcting a lot of that um and you absolutely want to be inside the gym and arguably as important or more important it it becomes less of a conversation about body fat percentage or calorie burn because they move, it becomes more about like protecting your body.

Yes. Next question is from A. Kumar, can intermittent fasting be used to stay in a calorie deficit? Yes, not ideal. You know, people like to do this because it's so black and white. And so for them, it's like, don't eat, eat, and it can help them. But in my experience, this just promotes really dysfunctional eating pattern. It looks like it's like restricting and then binge and then restrict and then binge. and it's just not a good long-term strategy.

It can be a strategy, and for some people who need something black and white, like I'm shutting it off at this time, you know, type of deal. I could see it having potential benefit. But long-term, you look at the data on fasting for calorie, the fail rate is just as high as with any other diet. Yeah, to me it really depends on where this person is at. I'll tell you that I use this a lot,

but it's not a very good strategy for me to be in good shape. It's a good strategy for me to not put on a bunch of body fat. So like right now, a lot of times I will not eat till noon or one. Now, the problem with that is I almost always can't hit protein of that. And so it's inevitable. I'm going to lose some probably muscle on that. The benefit is I don't need a lot of calories. So my calories naturally come down.

But I'm not in good shape. And if I want to get in better shape, it's not a good strategy. So it's a decent strategy for me to manage. calories, like the questions being asked. It's not a good strategy for me to be in my best shape or get in shape. And so if you're somebody who's like, oh, I'm happy with where I'm at, muscle-wise, like, so where I am, like, I'm not trying to really make any major change. I'm very aware that I've been in way better shape, but I'm like, I'm not trying to do anything special. So it's not a big deal that I don't eat till noon or one. And I probably don't, I don't build any muscle or

I lose some muscles. Who cares? But I know that I'm not going to overeat because now I'm behind a thousand calories. But if you're somebody who is also trying to get in shape or be in better shape, I don't think it's a good strategy at all. Next question is from Josh W. Fitness. How realistic is it to want to work as a trainer part-time? I enjoy my Monday through Friday day job, but would love to help people. And I am currently in the process of getting my Nazim cert. In my experience, first off, personal training is a high turnover rate. Okay. Anyway, and there's a lot of reasons for that. Mostly not good coaching and training from other trainers or fitness managers and stuff like that.

But there's already a high turnover weight. In my experience, people who start as part-time trainers, the fail rate is really high. Yeah. Okay. But if you're going to do it, the only way to do it is to go to a big box gym that's going to give you leads and clients. Problem with it, though, Sal, is very few big box. They're not looking for part-time. Yeah, I never wanted a part-time trainer.

It was like, I mean, I had to like love the person. The only way to do it part time is if you have friends and family that want to pay you a little bit to train them, then you can do something like that. Yeah, your friends or somebody you know already. And if you have a full-time job and you don't need to make money and you can be okay with only training one or two people, then you totally can do this. Yeah. You know, if it's like you're not trying to grow it to be your main gig and you have a job you like and you're like nothing. There's nothing wrong with, I guess, having one or two clients at all times that you're kind of helping or training. And that's the best way to start is probably with family and friends.

And maybe you get a reputation because you're so good at it, that the word of mouth, they start telling their friends and family and other people about the help that you've given them. And it becomes like this little side hustle that you have that you love doing. In my experience, the only people that are interested in doing this are either students who are going to school. So they want to train people and then I also want to go to school or people who are afraid to make the leap to fully committing to being personal trainers. So it's kind of like, I'm going to keep my day job so I can make money and then slowly learn how to become a personal trainer. It's a terrible strategy. Terrible strategy.

Better strategy is save your money. Give yourself a few months cushion of savings and then dive in headfirst. Your odds of success are way higher doing it that way. The other way, with kind of dipping your toe in the water, your fail rate's like, I mean, you're probably going to fail. I don't even know if I know anybody that's been successful. I don't either. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media.

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