Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2886: The 5 Steps to Becoming the Fittest You've Ever Been (For Life This Time)

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

In this episode the guys break down the five steps to becoming the fittest you've ever been for life — not just for a season. They cover why fitness should improve your life rather than become your life, the importance of building strength for longevity, moving well and being able to play, and what realistic aesthetics look like for someone who actually has a life. Sal opens up about his own ongoing struggle with making fitness an idol, Adam talks about genuinely letting go of the all-or-nothing mentality, and Justin reflects on the identity shift from performance-based athlete to training for quality of life. They also get into the SpaceX IPO and the 4,000 overnight millionaires it will create, why politicians criticizing billionaires is frustrating, Olipop's origin story and 1.8 billion dollar valuation, the delta sleep inducing peptide Sal has been using, parasite infections being far more common than people think, and Adam shooting a squirrel that was eating his peaches. Then they coach live callers submitted through mplivecaller.com. No BS 6-Pack Formula: https://nobs6pack.com Code: 6PACK for 50% off. Full ab building system, two phase workout blueprints, video demos by Sal and a healthy diet guide. $28.50 after discount. SPONSORS Organifi: https://organifi.com/mindpump Code: MINDPUMP for 20% off. Natural parasite cleanse combo (two bottles: one for the parasite, one to heal the gut). Discussed on air with Sal sharing his personal experience. Olipop: https://drinkolipop.com/mindpump Buy any two cans of Olipop in store (any flavor, any retailer) and they will pay you back for one. New flavors: Blackberry Vanilla and Raspberry Sherbet. Zbiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic: https://zbiotics.com/MINDPUMP26 Code: MINDPUMP26 for 15% off first purchase (one-time or subscription, 3, 6 and 12-pack options). LINKS Submit a live caller question: https://mplivecaller.com Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia 0:00 - Intro 3:20 - 5 steps to becoming the fittest you've ever been for life 5:03 - Step 1: Fitness should improve your life, not become your life 22:25 - Step 2: Build strength, why it matters more as you age 25:46 - Step 3 and 4: Move well and be able to play 26:38 - Step 5: What realistic aesthetics actually look like long term 33:26 - Sal is going back to jiu jitsu and his fears about walking in as a purple belt 42:43 - Parasite infections are more common than people think and Organifi's cleanse 53:28 - The delta sleep inducing peptide Sal has been using from MP Hormones 55:57 - SpaceX IPO, 4,000 overnight millionaires and the Elizabeth Warren reaction 1:00:36 - Caller: Daniel (Georgia) eating 1500 calories since high school, 30 year history of restriction 1:20:05 - Caller: Matilda (Singapore) doing everything right for a year but period has not returned 1:29:30 - Caller: Christina (Missouri) 51 years old, six day a week program, not progressing 1:37:31 - Caller: Olivia (Texas) active athlete trying to balance lifting with sports and Pilates  

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I'm talking right now. hit pause, head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, look, we're going to give you five steps to get you the fittest you've ever been in your entire life. Follow these. It will work. Let's define it first.

Let's go. Yeah. Let's first define what we mean. Yeah. Are we aesthetics? Or are we talking about movement, mobility? Are we talking about both? Yeah.

Let's talk about that because when I say fittest, I think people start to have different ideas. I would imagine most people's idea of fittest is like the best that they look. That's what I would think. Like the most lean and the most muscular. Either that or like their most conditioned for some reason, a lot of people think that like, I can get up and run out, you know, so many miles. Yeah. So I want to define what true and good fitness really looks like.

And the context here is it's got to last. It's got to last and it should last for the rest of your life. Okay. I'm not interested, just as a coach or as a personal trainer, I'm not interested in helping people, or not as interested, I should say, in helping people accomplish a flash in the pan experience with fitness, because that doesn't really help anybody. What I'm concerned with the most or what I'm most interested in, or I should say in the back half of my career when I started figuring things out a little bit, was how do I get somebody to want to do this? And what does this look like forever? Because it could truly be life-changing. And so I think that's kind of the direction that we should probably go.

And so I think the first kind of qualifier is for that, if that's what you want. And I think everybody watching probably would say, that sounds awesome. I think I'd like that. It should improve your life. Yeah. Like it's going to enhance everything that you're already doing. Like, it's going to compliment it really well. Yes.

I love talking about this to people. I just recently, for the last maybe six weeks, started personal training again. It's just one client's a friend of mine. Great guy. I've talked to you guys about him before on the show. He's an ER doctor, super smart dude. And so I get to have these conversations again one-on-one, which, you know, side note, by the way, it's really remarkable how when you stop training people for so long, how you kind of forget

what it's like to train people. It's like you're out of practice. And I get to have all these great conversations. I used to have all the time with my clients. And we were talking about this and I said, you know, there really isn't an area of your life that proper fitness wouldn't improve. Like think of your life and think of all the areas of life that are important to you. It could be your work. It could be your family life.

It could be as a husband or a father or a mother or a wife. It could be relationships with other people. It could be things like mental health, depression, anxiety. It can be energy, libido. sleep. There isn't an aspect of your life that you won't have a better experience with if your fitness isn't better. So it's a quality of life enhancer across the board. Another way to say that is, you know, whatever the thing is that is your top priority, whether it's being a father, a husband, your job and profession, your sport, whatever it is that you care most about is, you know,

would the healthier version of you enjoy that or be better at that? Right. That's... On the other side, too, Adam. It's a day in every aspect. Totally. And then on the other side of that, you live a long life. You're going to go through challenges. You're going to go through suffering or illness or deaths or, you know, loss of your job or whatever. In those moments, a more fit version of you, again, in the truest sense, is more resilient.

For sure. And more effective. Because your better outlook, for sure. 100%. Now, there's a key here, and that is that it doesn't become your life. I'm glad you put that in there. Yes, because you can make fitness your life, which looks like obsession, body obsession. It could look like orthorexia.

That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is this tool that can improve everything if it's used properly, which is great because what I love most about this, one of the most, I'd say probably, for lack of a better term, bastardized terms in health is balance. You see this in business too. I know Adam hates it when people talk about balance. with business. It's this kind of bastardized term

because like what does that mean? That means you do an equal amount of everything? Life never looks like that. Like I don't know, but you know, as a parent, I don't think you ever have balance or as a spouse or as a business owner. There's no like equal, you know, I spend, you know, 25% of time here, 25% here.

That's not what balance looks like. What balance looks like with fitness is I can modify my training and my nutrition to improve my life regardless of what's going on. I had an experience of this. I've talked about this before where I went through a really difficult period of time when somebody close to me was terminal, they had terminal cancer.

And, you know, somebody I really cared about deeply. And my workouts and my nutrition looked very different during that period of time. It very quickly turned into keeping me healthy enough and strong enough and resilient enough to be there for this person and for my family. And so balance was kind of baked in. Balance also looks like this. You know, I'm going to go out with you guys. We're going to go out to dinner.

We never go out to dinner, right, altogether, unless we're traveling. Am I going to sit there and count every macro and look at my food like I'm, you know, trying to maximize my aesthetics? Or am I going to sit there and enjoy hanging out with, you know, some of my best friends and business partners? It also looks like this. I'm going to the gym today. Man, I am stiff.

I am tired. I think today I'm going to do mobility and stretching. or, hey, I got a lot on my mind. I think I'm going to listen to a book while I walk on the treadmill. Or, hey, I am on fire, man. I feel great. I got great sleep. Let's go get after it in the gym.

Balance is baked into this kind of naturally when you look at it as a way to improve the quality of your life and the important things in life. How has this changed and evolved for both of you guys in your... Because obviously convincing the two of you or anybody else that's listening that would consider themselves a fitness profession. or a fitness enthusiast, it's not hard to convince that person that every aspect of their life

is improved or better when they're healthy and fit. That's the easy. I'm kind of more interested in how that's changed and evolved because that's an easy box to tick, I think, for all of us. Like, of course, go to the gym, get fit,

be whatever. So how is that changed over your personal journey, you know, when you first started and maybe like the way you trained and you looked at health and physical, fitness versus, you know, 45-year-old version of you. How is it different? Yeah, I'll let you go first.

Yeah. Because that's a loaded one for me. It is a loaded one. It's a lot. I think for me it was, um, my mentality was to improve what I was doing on the field or what I was doing, you know, in the court or, you know, sports driven pursuits. So it's very performance related. Um, and I, I mean, I enjoyed being strong and I enjoyed lifting.

Um, but it, um, but it, was always towards something. And so it always had to be like, this was going to get me X amount more performance. And I'm going to get faster. I'm going to get like, it was like a metric. I always had to have like some metric attached to it for it to have value to me. Otherwise, you know, I knew that it was good. And I felt good.

But it wasn't really like I was put a lot of emphasis on that. I would, I would go more and go harder and suffer the results of like over training, you know, just if I thought it was going to like push me into another category, uh, sports wise. And, and I think that identity shift, leaving sports and leaving that, um, has really, you know, a bit of hard transition for me to just lift because I'm just trying to enhance my everyday life, you know, and like, uh, then sitting a lot has been really tough for me to like, you know, reconcile with like, I used to be like, I'm so active and I stand all the time and I'm moving. And, uh, So now I literally use fitness in like little spurts.

And I'm like, this is going to enhance me. I'm going to get strong. But really I'm trying to like lift my mood. I'm trying to like, you know, boost my cognitive ability. It's like such a different, completely different mentality I have. And it's like what's going to help my sleep? What's going to, you know, make me more less moody around my kids or whatever? And so it's really like a completely different mentality than I had before.

Would you say there's more or less structure to it? Is it more of an ebb and flow to your lifestyle now? Like is it, would you say it's like really inconsistent even, like how you, how you work out and train and every and diet and all the things like in where I imagine if you were early days performance, it was probably very focused. And if you're going after metrics, it's very consistent. And so does it look consistent now? very inconsistent right now. And what does that, what does that look like in comparison? Yeah, I guess the biggest, if I go back and look at that series I did, you know, when I was trying to get that OREB press, like brought me back in the mentality I used to have.

Sure. And so it was like, it was a very stark contrast for me. It was like very structured, very much on the top of my head constantly. So it was, it was all consuming. And so like your first point with this, it doesn't become your life. Like, that was my life. Like my identity, everything I was pouring in was like my physicality and my strength and like I was always thinking about how to improve that so to kind of you know put that on the on the back burner and think about the rest of life and like all these other moving parts and you know yeah so it's it's it's inconsistent but it's I try to keep it in there because it makes me feel good and like I know the value of it and what it does and how it translates to everything else now so yeah but I it's definitely

like an undulating thing. Like I'm like, I haven't been in a while, then I'll go through runs and then I'll come back and kind of, you know, coast a bit. And so the 50-minute kind of style I'll do for a while. And then sometimes I'll go like two hours, you know, it just depends like more on my mood and how I'm feeling. Adam, yours looks so different from when I first met you, so radically different. What's that been like for you?

Because that's a, it's so different. I mean, it's so drastically different. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can identify a lot with what Justin's saying. And the only difference is that he was so performance metric driven. I was so aesthetic driven, but very similar. Because bodybuilding. Yeah, like if I'm training, I was very all or nothing,

and it was all to improve my physique. It was like there was no other, every once in a while I went through kicks when I was playing basketball, just like that where I'd want a little bit of performance stuff. But generally speaking, for most of my training career, if I was in the gym, I am trying to change my body. I am body composition focused. And everything from my diet to my. training into my mindset all the time, like he said. So very, very relatable to what Justin is

saying right now was my mindset. Just it was purely around a state. Now it's really, really, really different. I've completely let go with that. And I don't mean that, but like I've just like let myself go and I'm like way out of shape. But I've attachment. Yeah, I've really accepted something that I think, I think it's important because I think this is something we preach on the podcast quite a bit of this, you know, a healthy, a healthy male body is somewhere between, you know, 11 to 18 percent. Yeah. And, and kind of an ebb and flow in that. And I think I really allow that to happen a lot right now.

I could, there's many times in just the last year where I was probably down to 11. And then there's been times where I've probably peaked at probably maybe not 18, maybe 17. So I probably bounce between 11 and 17, which a pretty good swing. But it's never drastic. I never go from 11 to 17 overnight. It's kind of like, slowly might create. there because I've got a lot of other things that are going on in my life and then I can then I start to bring it back down but it's not the driver um I really look at uh our activity through the

week like for example this weekend um I didn't do any sort of training this weekend uh but I swam and was out in the sun and I saw it and I did and so and I went for a really nice walk with my wife at the beach and like so that I count that now like I never used to think of that as like it wasn't a workout yeah it's that that's that movie my, that I'd make my chest look better. You know what I'm saying? So to me, that would never check a box of I'm doing something to be healthier. But in fact, I would argue that sometimes that's more important to my health journey,

getting sun like that, taking good walk, connecting with my wife. And so to me, that was a very healthy fit weekend. But I wouldn't think that way in the past, right? Where now I consider that pursuit of being healthy. and then, you know, I'll get in the gym maybe two times, maybe three if I'm lucky, but normally two times during the week where I get a lift in and it's pretty moderate. It's touch kind of everything, full body and moderate intensity. I'm not trying to move or gain.

I'm really trying to maintain the muscle that I have and just stay active and move. And so I really look at it like that and just try and stay that way. I want to be clear, too, for people listening, that doesn't mean structure is bad. especially in the beginning. It's the attitude going into it, is I think what you guys are. I also think, too, that. Because you guys have been in the obsession. You guys have been doing this for so long, you know what to do.

That's right. Structure is really good for people the first five years. But the attitude that goes into it isn't that it becomes your life. Admittedly, this is the most challenging one for me. I can speak to this all day long. I'm good at communicating it. I'm good at coaching people through this. Applying to myself is very difficult.

It's a very big struggle for me that I constantly struggle with or I have for for most of my life, where it becomes my life. It becomes an area where it's too high on the totem pole of priorities. And it takes away from my quality life. My saving grace, just thank God for this, was training clients. Because I really cared about the people I worked with. I really cared about the people that I communicate to on the podcast. So I'm able to have a little bit of that clarity, at least when I communicate it.

But if it becomes your life, it doesn't improve your life. That's what people need to realize. And the challenge with that, and I'm being honest, this is a struggle that I have. A lot of people who represent fitness are not honest about this. No. And so what happens is you look at them and the way they look or the way they communicate fitness and you get a message that really isn't 100% accurate. Because the way they're communicating is from coming from a place of this is life.

When fitness is not life. Fitness is a way to improve. I would go as far as to Salta. argue that most are not. I think it's very rare to find somebody who is really, really fit and hasn't allowed it to become most of their life. And they try and make the argument of like, oh, that's just, I get up early every day at five. It's no problem. It's part of mine. But it's still so, they're so focused on it that. I mean, here's, like, if that person can't take a week off of training and it not mess with them, then it is become that. It's become that. And I think a

Or modify it when there's an injury. Or modify it when there's a challenge that's coming up. Like a sleep or something like you're sick. And why I think this is such a, why it's not a good message for the majority of people, because I don't think a majority of people connect with that or want that. Very few normal people. Like just your average teacher, engineer, doctor's where. This is why it doesn't work because they follow the advice.

Because, yeah, they see, they see, oh, what I need to become is this, this guy or gal that gets up. Yeah, does this thing. every day. It does this thing every day. And maybe for a period of their time when they're, when they're heavily focused or they really, or their doctor just gave them crazy news, they feel motivated to be that person. And then life happens and they realize, no, I don't like it. And they think that that's what they have to do to maintain a really healthy and it's not. And a lot of like, you know, getting back to some of things that's really changed for me, a lot that has changed is my relationship with food.

I've learned to, you know, really figure out the balance of, you know, being able to allow myself on a weekend like this weekend with Katrina, you know, have a couple drinks at dinner. But they'd be mindful of, oh, you know, I was below on protein. I overconsumed alcohol calories. Definitely should probably go take for a walk. Definitely want to be mindful of tomorrow how I eat. Like, I'm just more aware of that. I was very on or off. If I, like, in the past, it would be like, if I was drinking, I'm.

also ordering dessert and we're putting our feet up tomorrow and eating peat like it was just one extreme to the other and i think a lot of people do that i think a lot of people feel like oh they do that one thing and they effed up and so it may as well eff the whole thing up where i'm not like that i now i have this just i'm more mindful of of those those choices and i and i choose them in moments when i think they really serve me in my pursuit of overall health totally connecting with my life watching live music oh yeah this is one of those times yeah you know uh tuesday watching the finals, you know, the spurs play while I'm by myself. I don't, you know, sure a glass of whiskey does sound nice, right?

It's not, you know what I'm saying? I'm going to pass. No, I remember I had a client years ago. I was a young trainer, and he was a very successful self-made businessman. He was an entrepreneur, no formal education, just this really cool guy to talk to. And he trained with me because his wife got him training. So it's one of those situations where his wife's like, he needs to work out. I'm going to get him training.

I'm going to force him to do this type of deal. So he came in kind of reluctantly. Then he started to like it, mainly because him and I became friends. And then I'll never forget, he came in and he said to me, his name was Jim. And he said to me, Sal, I'm never going to stop. And I was like, why? Why? And he goes, I give better meetings.

I give better sales trainings. I'm a better entrepreneur. Because that's something that was really important to him. And what he noticed was when he took time away from work to improve his health, he actually got better at that thing. So step one is with this is, how is this going to improve my life and the things that I know to be really important? Okay.

So that would be step one. Here's the second thing to look at. You're strong. Strength is very important. The most important thing to consider as you get older is frailty. I know we talk about things like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, all very important things to focus on. But those are actually downstream of frailty or loss of strength or loss of mobility or loss of muscle.

strength is a very important pursuit for everybody. Now, can you go extreme with it? Yes, if it becomes your life, then you go extreme in that direction. But what does it look like to have good fitness? You consider strength. Do I have the strength to do things for myself? Do I have the strength to lift things? Do I have the strength to help people?

So it's a very important thing to consider. I think that's also been something that's evolved and changed for me that is taking a lot of time. Like, it's hard when you've, you've done some pretty cool physical feats for yourself, right? All relative to who you are, right? Like to get my squad up to, you know, to over 400, to get my deadlift over 500, to hit these, you know, numbers that were big deals for me to still be attached to those. It took me a while to break free of that too.

It's like, because strength is important, but it's also relative to like what you need it for, right? Like being strong enough to deadlift 550 is pretty irrelevant to my lifestyle. Like there's not anything that that's, there's a point where the returns on the investment are diminished. Like you sacrifice. This is for average person. You talk about there's some people get deadlift 550 without sacrificing a lot. Yeah, right.

Most of us to pursue that deadlift, what other things are you sacrificing to get that? Right. And it's not worth it. Like for now, like now when I, like I'm deadlifting and I'm lifting and like I can be, and it took me a while. do this because my ego wants everybody else in the gym where that's around to know that I can deadlift more than 315 on there. But it's just like 315 serves me. It's like it's strong enough that like that keeps me strong, keeps good muscle on me, keeps me capable. Also keeps me away from

a lot of risks. Start creeping up over 400 and I start pushing that. Like all the injuries start happening and I have stuff. And so it's like even this is like understand there's a relationship with this that it's like strength for the average person. Absolutely. Go get as strong as you. can. And then there comes a point where it's like, okay, you've now figured that piece out, just like the aesthetic piece. Now, the, you know, to use your word back, we use or balance, what that looks like is, you know, it's not balance in like I have this perfect pie chart. It's that I understand that I've built good strength. I don't need to be my PR numbers, but keep that level of strength and maintain that for as long as I can. Totally. I feel like

it's so philosophical, like strength itself and like to be strong, like, it, for me, it's, it's, it goes way beyond that. Yes, you, you build this resiliency towards so many things. Yes. And it's that mental resilience is something I think is so overlooked when you're strong and you're pursuing things and challenges are in front of you and you're overcoming them. And it's giving you these rewards as a result of that.

You see there's a way through. And I just think that like people that don't physically, uh, achieve like any, any bit of this with lifting weights or challenge themselves, you know, on that level. Like, I think they really struggle, you know, and I think it's harder as a result because you're just in your mind all the time and you need to get out of your mind. Yeah, I never forget as a kid. I was, when summer I was helping my dad and he had this helper. He was like a bodybuilder.

It looked kind of like a bodybuilder. I don't know how big he was. As a 14-year-old, though, he looked like this super muscular guy. And I remember him just gassing out doing blue-collar work with a bunch of dudes that were half his size and me realizing like, oh, that's, there's a big, there's a difference here. Yeah. There's strength. And then there's like, because here's three and four.

I'll give you number three and four real quick. You can move well and you can play and have fun. So that's quality of life. Like quality of life is like, I can move well. Like I don't have, I'm not losing abilities. What does that mean to move well? Like I could get up up and ground, you know, down off the ground. If I need to reach up and do something, I can jump.

If I want to run and play with my kids or we're at the park and we're climbing or like being able to move well and be able to play and have fun is a massive quality of life improver. And those are, like I said, this number three and four. And then number five, we talked about aesthetics. What does this look like? And Adam, you kind of mentioned this. It doesn't look like 7% body fat for a guy or 15% body fat for a woman.

It just doesn't. Now, I know people are going to point out the super rare crazy genetic anomalies that exist in the world, the one in the millions. And they're out there. There's people out there that just eat skittles all day. and seem to look like, you know, they're dedicated to the gym. But 99.99% of everybody says what it looks like for most people. You look generally, generally muscular, generally lean, you move well, and you feel good.

Your body fat percentage is a guy is in the teens, somewhere in the teens. For a woman, it's somewhere probably in the 20s, give or take. And you've got, again, you move well, you play well, you look healthy. It's not shredded, everybody. It's not the person that he walks by down the beach and everybody stares at them. It goes, oh, my God, that guy looks super crazy. That person doesn't have a relationship with fitness that improves a quality of life. That person's life is fitness and the gym.

And I'm going to tell you right now it's not worth it. It's actually a very unhappy place. Yeah, and I don't want to come off like shaming that person either because I think there's tremendous value similar to Justin's point about strength. I think there's similar value to getting yourself to that at a period of time. just but just like the like it doesn't serve me to be deadlifting 550 all the time it doesn't serve me to be 5% body fat all the time but to pursue that you know the mental aspect to getting strong and things you're saying huge value huge return from that and also all the muscle

that I've built and what what I get from muscle memory because of that amazing same thing goes on the aesthetic side huge value in improving to yourself you can be disciplined and regimen around your nutrition and your diet and be consistent with your workout routine to be able to get yourself into low percent body fat to see what that looks like, to know what it takes, to know what that, because then I think you do find balance. You see that you find the ends, right?

Obviously, most people know it's like to be out of shape. They've all experienced out of shape at one point in their life. But have you ever been in the best shape of your life? And then go, okay, I don't want to be at either ends of this spectrum all the time. How do I kind of hover here? I know what this takes. I know what, obviously I know what that takes, but not a lot, right, to get here.

And I know this takes a lot of sacrifice and discipline. and I'm not happier over here. So where is that at to find that middle? So I think there's lots of value. By the way, this feels relaxed. Right. It's a relaxed place to be. Exactly.

And when you get to that, when you get to, automatic. Yeah, when you get to that level, that's why, and you touched on it well by saying, like, I don't want, you know, earlier when we're talking about Justin I having this, like, no structure. Well, we've earned that right to have that ebb and flow because I know what very structured looks like and where it can take me. And I know what completely no structure looks like in not giving a shit.

And so what is giving a shit with no structure kind of looks like? Well, it looks like easily hovering in the middle. It's also a never-ending journey because, look, you know, Justin, Adam, and Sal now are not going to be Justin Adam and Sal in 20 years. And so fitness is going to be different for us then. What's it going to look like? I can guess, but I don't know for sure. So it is a never-ending journey. But if number one remains number one, is this improving the quality of male life?

then you'll be the fittest in the most real way, and it'll last. It'll be something that you enjoy doing. By the way, the reason why this is top of mind is because, like this is top of mind for me, because this is a constant struggle, like I said earlier. Because you're almost 50? No, not because I'm almost 50.

It's creeping up. No, but because, you know, it's just, it's an idol for me, dude. It's something that I'm dealing with. I try to deal with. I try to work on it. I had a conversation with my wife over the weekend. She totally called me out, too,

which I got really mad. We got an argument over. But then I sat in the garage by myself for a while. And I was like, I think she's right, dude. I was like telling her like, I'm going to start doing this, you know, with my workouts. I think I'm going to start running. She's like, you're just fooling yourself. She's like, you're just trying to manage this thing.

I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm actually going to try, you know, running. I told us that. Running. And she called me out. I don't like getting called out. I don't think anybody does, especially not from your wife. But I sat there with it and I thought about it for a while.

And I'm like, yeah, you know, she's running. Right, dude, I got to really try to make peace with whatever a good relationship with fitness looks like. I got to make peace with that. Not trying to manage the look with the, you know, like I'm trying to manage the result that I want with all the little pieces. Versus like, let's just see where it takes me. And so I think I'm actually for sure. I'm going to say this on the podcast. It's hard, dude.

It's really hard. I know. We're all different, bro. Yeah. And it's really hard because I know, and I can relate to you because I know that you also. I mean, you have like Justin and I in you. Like you are very obsessed with the strength part of Justin and you're obsessed with the aesthetic part like me.

So you've got to have both of our attachments and wrapped into one. And so it's a lot to, it takes time to do that. It took a long time for me to truly accept and be okay. You see yourself at it, which you have experienced 5% body fat and see yourself hitting these numbers. It's hard to like completely let it go and be like, can I really be okay with 10% higher body fat than that or 20% or 30% less strong than that guy

and be okay when you know you're capable of that? Something clicked. I'm not going to pretend to say it's going to stay clicked, but something clicked. And so I'm actually going to go to Jiu-Jitsu tomorrow night. Nice. Oh, you are?

I'm going to roll tomorrow night. You have always said that was the best relationship. It was the healthiest that was mentally with fitness. Yeah. For sure. Because it took me away from body, like, image and from like lifting. Yeah, you're just...

Yeah, because neither one of those are served there. No. Being completely ripped or hell as strong where you're PRing stuff isn't neither one of those serve you in Jiu-Jitsu. No, not at all. There's a community aspect of it.

You know what my fears are? I'll tell you my fears are. Besides the fact that I'm going to lose gains and all that, whatever. Stupid stuff. I hate saying that on the show because sounds so dumb. The fears are,

am I going to get hurt? And am I going to have a target on my back? Because who you are and because you are... Yeah, because I'm a big guy coming in. Oh, and I was a purple belt? No, I'm going in a white belt. Can you do that? Can you restart?

I don't care what they tell me. I do not deserve. It's been 20 years, dude. I'm not walking in with my purple belt. Hey, that would put a target on your back. Be coming as a jack guy with your purple belt would put a target. Well, put the target is kind of a bigger dude, but also, you know, the podcast. If they recognize me, I'm like, oh, I'm going to go kick sales.

You have a lot of Jiu-Jitsu fans, I've heard. I'm for sure. Like as soon as they go in, I'm going to my brother-in-law, so he knows the whole deal. And I'm going to tell whoever I go with like, check it out. Dude, I'm going to go super easy, bro. So just please go easy with me. Let me. I'm going to step out when I need to and just be real because I don't want to get hurt.

Because you're wrestling grown men. I mean, it's not controlled. You're like going in. I have a safe word, you guys. Banana. Banana. Banana. So, yeah.

Hey, did you watch the UFC fights or no? No, dude. You didn't watch TV? No, man. Dude, what are you? Bro, this is, it's modern. You can have a skewed opinion about this, dude. It's modern Rome.

So, wow. You like MMA. You like Jit, too. I can't, dude. Yeah, I have those same inclines, like, and it's funny, because, like, I was, like, waiting for Trump to be like, finish it. Yeah.

Somebody feeding them grapes. Bro, but, dude, it was, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, dude, all the hate, whatever is, is mute, dude. It was the sickest thing I've ever seen. It was the most amazing, well put together event, dude, and like everything just hit. The parallels with the Roman Empire so crazy. I know.

It's like for the glory of Rome. You know, you got like the jets flying over American flag. Dude, blue angels with the thunderbirds together, dude. Every fighter is probably like pumping up, you know. I mean, military everywhere. It was sick. It's so Rome, dude. To back your argument.

I mean, because let's say this weekend was not just that. I mean, you had the NHL finals, you had the NBA finals. So it was just like... Yeah, World Cup. Yeah, World Cup. It was like the bonanza of the Roma. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's all the Coliseum's going on right now.

But of all of them, the one that looks the same of like wrapping the patriotism and all that. It's in front of the White House. It's on his birthday. Yeah. Oh, my God. I know. It's like we got, we got wars that are going on. We're crazy spending.

This is Rome. Rome used to do this. They expand themselves. I know, dude. Put themselves into crazy debt. Distract the people, you guys, with crazy news. We got UFO stuff.

Get them entertainment and bread. Yeah, don't let them look at the Epstein stuff, you guys. Let's distract. And then let's just get them excited with violence. This is exactly what Rome did. So I couldn't watch it. But it was awesome. I couldn't watch it.

Yeah, the sport of it's still so good. You know what I'm saying? I love the sport. Oh, the fight. So I feel like I can do both. Like, I feel like I can be very aware of what I'm being fed. You know what I'm saying? And the same?

And at the same time, enjoy the steak. Yeah. You know what I know. Like, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know damn well when I'm being distracted from. Yeah, yeah. But it's the taste, the steak still tastes good. You know what I'm saying?

Fully aware. Fully aware. Oh, it's great. Speaking of which, it's like that, you know, speaking of all this like stuff when, you know, SpaceX went, uh, public, right? Yes. Yeah. You know what breaks something to me every single time?

I don't mean in a good way. Seeing politicians rail on, uh, someone who, became a trillionaire. Oh, gosh. Oh, inside of me, I get this, like, stirring. Yeah. Like, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, like, you know, Gavin Newsom.

What you get your money? I'm like, you of all people can't talk about this. You do nothing. Yeah. You create no value. You've never employed anybody from your own money. You've never innovated anything. How are you a millionaire?

You create a negative debt for everybody. What's Gavin Newsom's salary? It's like 200 grand a year. How is he a millionaire? How is Elizabeth Warren a million? How is Bernie Sanders a millionaire? I know. It's crazy.

to see this. And yeah, we got a guy who employs tens of thousands of people, innovates like crazy. I'm not like, I don't know the guy, so I don't know if he's a great guy. But from that perspective, like, he's... I don't know. There's two categories, okay, so... And I've heard somebody break this down, but there's, like,

creators and there's destroyers. Yes. Yeah. Politicians are destroyers. They're takers. They do nothing. No. Yeah.

I mean, you see this with NGOs and everything else. And so, like, I don't even listen to destroyers. Like, they can go fuck off. Yeah. You'll also never hear. hear anybody who's ever built a business and employee people say that about someone like Eon.

It's only somebody who clock punches and gets a wage and has no idea how that company that pays their paycheck every single day got to that place. It's never somebody who knows what it's like to build something from zero to actually

build it to where it has, even a handful of employees, because that's impressive. To go build a business that employs five people is incredibly impressive. It's a very small percentage of people that can do that. And if you actually make it to where you employ

hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Yeah. There's just, there's a, there's very few humans that can have ever done that. And that, like, you just discount that that that shouldn't be rewarded.

Come on, stop it. I know, it's crazy. So, again, I don't know, Elon. And the guy who does, and of all the guys, because there's lots of, you know, billionaires and a couple trillionaire, right?

He's the only real official trillionaire now. but of all he's he's he's the dude that doesn't have super yachts and jets like all the rest of these cats do there's a lot of these guys there's businesses yes dude there's a lot of these guys that have like mega mansions all over all over the country innovated in ways so again i don't know the guy i don't know if he's a good guy i'm not saying he's like my hero we're not we're not lifting them up like from a business perspective he went into uh businesses that were like nobody would be like that's a good idea i'm gonna get into the car industry you guys one of the most regulated industries, and I'm going to make an electric car,

crushes it. And then he's like, yeah, I'm going to... Rockets? Rockets? Who builds who just decides, hey, I'm going to, like, address rockets? Dude, he reduced the cost of it so significantly through innovation and his own money.

Yeah. It's wild, so it's crazy how they... Super impressive, dude. I know, I know. Super impressive. But anyway, well, I can't believe you're in for the ride, so you're crazy. I'm sitting back watching.

You know what it is? I know. You should see how it does settle me. You should see how I was calling it. text me like every, every 15 minutes. I'm not, I am very risk-averse with investments. I'm super conservative. Business, I'm risky.

I'll go on business. You know, you guys know this. We're all well-worked together. When it comes to money I make, I'm like super conservative. I just don't have good, you know, risk tolerance. But I look at SpaceX and it reminds me of... Railroads. What's his name?

Who made the railroads. Rockefeller. Rockefeller made the railroads that the Industrial Revolution needed. Yeah. You're building businesses. The whole energy complex. So SpaceX is, he's creating essentially the modern railroads for the future economy. Everyone's going to have to go through SpaceX to build their businesses.

So what's crazy is I bought, you know, the IPOed. I had to buy it a premium because I bought on e-trade. So right out the gates, I lost money. I'm not going to see how much, but I texted at him. Oh my God, I just bought it two seconds later. I lost this. What the hell is happening? You're in for the right.

I'm in the positive now. I'm okay now. Yeah, but it was a... Hopefully it stays there, dude. It was a little stressful. You're crazy. You're crazy. I'm like, I can't watch that stuff anymore.

I literally feel like I made this great thing that I did two years ago where I committed to. I'm done sports betting and I'm going to, you know, start doing those... As if betting on the stock base. I know. You know more about sports. I do. I was way better at that. And so I'm all in the other direction now.

I've sold off on Max's portfolio all the... Just bet on the economy. I mean, just literally index. It's just I'm not going to look. Everything's auto and I'm just going to be that guy who does that and then just walks away from it because trying to pick in time has just been, it's been a nightmare for me. And then I feel more stressed out about it and I do worse than I did in. The only way I can do it, Adam, because I've done a couple of those, but I'm pretty conservative. But the only way I can do it is I have to really believe in the company, like genuinely, because then I can write it.

The only other time I did that was what, you guys remember when I bought GW pharmaceuticals back in the day? They were doing cannabinoid research. I had learned about cannabinoids and how they affect whatever. And I actually bought them on pink sheet, which is even before they hit the market. And then they got orphan drug status for like the epilepsy. Yeah. And it was only because I knew the science. Yeah.

And I believed in the company. Yeah. And I rode that and did really well with it. You know, to that point, there's something I've learned in the real estate investing game. And I feel like the same thing that I've heard in the stock that I think is two big pieces of advice. And I remember going through all this with the real estate thing, going deep down the rabbit hole. I had all these spreadsheets and making sure that everything penciled out like amazing. And, you know, when I look back now after almost 10 years, the ones that did the best were the ones that were heart picks areas that we love this.

This is such a desirable place. It's not a great investment. But over time, that ends up being one of the best investments. I feel like in the stock world, I've heard this advice before, a smart thing to invest in if you don't know anything about picking companies is where do you spend all of your money like are you somebody who has you know four Sony TVs in your in your house and you have all like you know like a roadie like a fan yeah or have you bought every apple phone you know these are probably smart things if like if you are if you consume a lot of that that company and have consistently probably a good like you're already putting money towards their company probably not a bad idea to invest in their company also I think it's kind of a similar type of concept is like if if it's desirable enough to where you you own a bunch of their stuff inside your house and you're constantly buying their products, probably a pretty good company.

Totally. I'm bought in, so up, down, whatever. I'll stay in there. Yeah, yeah. I got a stat for you guys that I think is an under, I think it's a low number, but it's still a number that I think people need to hear about. CDC says that over 60 million people in America are infected with parasites.

I saw that. But I think that's a low number. I think that's a really low number. That's a lot still. And that's reported. These are people, no, this is 60, oh, I think that it's 60 million that are unaware. CDC says there's over 60 million, yeah, that are unaware. Parasites are way more common than people think in modern society.

I think we think of third world countries when we think of parasites. But you know what a lot of people do in third world countries is they treat themselves for parasites once a year. Every year they treat themselves. When you live in a modern society, you might not be, obviously you're not exposed to parasites that you would if you were in a third war country. but if you've lived for 20, 30, 40 years, odds are you've been exposed and you've never done anything to do with it. I mean, they always asked if you traveled someplace. But like, yeah, nobody looks in their backyard.

Like all the opportunities are for parasites to find their way to you. No, and the side effects of this are like anxiety, skin issues, of course, gastroal issues that keep, or hard to, reoccurring sebo. Like, if you treat yourself for sebo and it keeps coming back, could be a parasite. poor motility, constipation, chis-rinding. I remember that was a huge unlock for you

because, I mean, you had done all the gut stuff forever and then all of a sudden you do the parasite. Fixed. Yeah. Fixed. So we're getting messages because, so Organify has, in my strong opinion, one of the best all-natural.

Yeah, I just got my setup for that. It's got one of the best all-natural parasite products I've ever seen. So, you know, two ways you can treat with parasites. You can go pharmaceutical route or you can go natural. Natural is actually pretty good, everybody. If you look at the data, if it's formulated right, it'll do a pretty good job. And Organify has a natural parasite product.

It comes with two bottles. One is for the parasite. One is to heal your gut. And the messages are rolling in. People are saying, first off, crazy stuff. Like, I can't believe what I saw come out of my body. But a lot of people are getting like really good symptom relief from using it. But I want people to know with parasite cleanses, like the Organify one, it's probably

a good idea to do two rounds of it. Do one round, wait maybe like 15 days, do another round because you got parasites and you have the eggs that'll hatch. And then once a year, once a year, do something like this. Doug just pulled up, are those the most common ways people get it? Is that that that is? Yeah. So in the, like the U.S., for example, children, of course, because they are at daycares, preschools, pen words, things like that, Georgia. Sexual practices can do that People with specific sexual practices. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's, like butt stuff. All right, Justin, thanks for the clarification. That's good to know. Contaminated food and water. Obviously, if you eat like sashimi, you could probably... Anything that's not cooked. Vegetable, salad, even. Yeah, and then, of course, pets.

You know, dogs, cats, livestock, things like that. I think so... Last thing that, you can actually transfer from pets. I didn't know that one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. So, but if you're, like, raw food, like, if you eat...

salad all the time or vegetables or sushi yeah and you do that all the time well yeah there's a toxoplasmosis or that one from the cats oh that's a bad one yeah like i guess it you get you really impulsive and like really high risk behavior like after being exposed to that is that true yeah yeah yeah is that the one that makes which is the there's a parasite that makes mice the urine they get attracted to the cat urine yeah it causes the conditions can what are the the side effects of that uh the symptoms roll down Wait, mice get it from cats because they're attracted. So mice will get attracted. They get it, and then it brings them, like, more attracted to the cat.

The cat eats it, gets the parasites, like the cycle. What? That's wild. Isn't that grease? Yeah, flu-lites like symptoms. That's wild that something would make you attracted to your predator. Yeah. Well, there's one.

That's crazy when you think about how that parasites do. There's a fungus that does that with bugs, where it makes them crawl on top of a branch and position itself and then sit there to be eaten. Yeah. So you get. transferred to the... It's like you're a zombie. Isn't that cordyceps?

Corticep might do it. So this weekend, I told you we're hanging out at the pool this weekend. And I'll connect the dots here, I promise. And we have a peach tree in our backyard. And man, the squirrels go to town on my peaches. And I mean, and it's pissing me off because they're not ripe and ready to completely pull off the tree yet. So I can't just go pull them all off.

And so they're just... I should have my dad come over, bro. He's like the arch enemies with one. My... Last week, my BB got my pellet gun came in. So I've got my pellet gun and scope and everything like that's had. Dude, I'm all set up. And Katrina's like, what are you doing?

And she's like, you're not going to shoot the squirrels? I'm like, 100% I'm going to shoot these squirrels. They're not going to get our peters. Yeah. So I now, this thing, I keep this thing down at, and when we're at the pool. So it's ready. Ready. he loaded, cocked, everything to go.

And you see me jump out of the pool get it. And so this is the first weekend I've had it. And we're floating around. And sure enough, here comes this squirrel. And we're like, and I try, Kuchina doesn't want to see me shoot him. So she's like, ah, ah! She's like screaming to see him.

Trying to warn him. So he'll run off. And I'm already going for the gun, you know. Pull the gun. That little shit jumps on the tree, rips a peach off. He's got his hands. And bro, first shot, just blah.

God. And Max's, Max's it. Oh, no. What a match. And Max is like, did you get him, Daddy? And I go, oh, yeah, I got him. And Katrina looked at me, like, freaked out.

Like, and she's, you could see her, like, staring at me how I'm going to explain this my son that I killed this squirrel. And it's like, yeah, you know, son, we, dad, daddy got it. Like, I'll, I'll clean it up. And he's like, oh, my God. And you could tell. He was totally fine. I can see my wife freaking out because she's not at country at all, never seen an animal get shot. And nothing like that.

I'm like, honey, it's a rodent. It's a literally, I know they're furry and cute. Yeah, I know. It's like a rat. You know that, right? If it was a rat, she wouldn't have a problem. It's a furry rat. It's a fluffy, cute rat.

All you need is cats, like, they'll display carcasses daily in front of your house. Yeah. They kill everything. Yes. They're awesome. I know. So we have, we have, both our neighbors have cats, too. I wish they would keep the squirrels away, but they did not keep the squirrels away.

So, Doug, my dad has done everything. I have the owl. I have the owl. It doesn't stop nothing. Okay. So listen. So I have the, I have the, I have the owl. I have two of those owls.

Yeah. And I moved it from the peach tree because we used to be the body peach tree to on the fence where they come in. And for about three days, they were, they were scared. Yeah, then they figured out. Then they just walk around him. Like literally walk around them and stuff. But it works for a day or two. Okay.

Yeah, they're not effective at all. Listen, nobody hates squirrels more than old Sicilian men. My grandfather, my dad, it's like, it's like arch enemies. Like you bring up squirrels to my dad. You see his face change. You see me like that now. Katrina's like, she just seems like this whole new side of me. I'm like so defensive about my peach tree.

My cousin. Because it drives me. I'm like, I'm watching the peaches as they're sort of changed colors. I'm like, oh, that one's almost ready. And then I come out the next day, it's fucking gone. And I'm like, oh, God, this squirrel's getting my peaches, dude. That's so funny, dude. Oh, my cousin lived with my grandparents for a little while when he was in his, I want to say,

in his maybe 20s. And my grandfather, of course, he was his old school society. I mean, he's just like post, you know, great depression, like, and he had these traps out and my cousin's like, what are those for? No, no. And he's like, food the damn squirrel. And he's like, what do you mean for the squirrel? I get the catch of the squirrel.

My cousin's like, what do you do with them afterwards? I kill him. My cousin's like, you're not going to kill squirrels. He's like, oh, yeah, I kill him. So anyway, my cousin was keeping an eye on the traps. Because he's like, he traps a poor squirrel. I'm going to let him go. He's like an animal lover.

And they both saw a squirrel get trapped at the same time. So he read over it. My grandfather grabbed that thing. And he filled up a bucket because he was going to drown it. And my cousin's like, you're not going to do that. And my grandfather goes, yeah, I hate the damned squirrel. He ate all of the fruit. My cousin's like, you're not going to do that.

So he threw it in the bucket. And my cousin kicked the bucket over and let the squirrel go out. I was like one of the biggest arguments you ever got me. He's like, I never seen No-No get so mad at my life. Because he just freed one of his. I can only imagine him. I don't even have that much pride in my garden like he does, you know what I'm saying? Like he's got to have a lot of pride, which is going to be interesting because you, you planted a lot.

of stuff and you're like he's been crazy with that like she'll get the gun before I even I get it you know you know this might be illegal can you not are we allowed to shoot squirrels where we're at is this like is this a problem I don't I think we need to censor this no I think so I mean literally Katrina was fascinated because it says

my BB gun on the box says pest control it is it is legal to kill certain types of squirrels in California but the rules depend heavily on the species of squirrel okay how do you know they all look the same I check I check mine.

They're covered. Yeah. Hey, I got to speak of kids. My son, my son, Aurelius is like this little entrepreneur suddenly. What? Yeah, listen, this is so funny. We go,

there's a toy store by our house, and every once in a while we'll walk over there and I'll let him pick something or whatever. And so Jessica took him, and he wanted to pick a jewelry-making kit. Now, why? Him and I a while ago had a conversation that, I don't know where he came from,

but he's asking me about gems and how valuable they are. So he sees this jewelry-making kit. So he's like, is this valuable? And she's like, well, you could maybe make them and like sell them. He's like, okay, comes home, makes a bunch of bracelets, sends a video to family members. Of course, everybody's buying it. Right.

So now he wants to keep buying jewelry stuff. Then he buys this kit where he can do like fingernails and toenails and stuff like that because he sees Jessica get her nails done. Why? Because he wants to paint his little sister's nails. Because she's got a little bit of money because we give them money something. Oh, my goodness. So I see him painting his little sister's nails. if she gives him a dollar.

I'm like, bro, are you selling your little sister on that? That's so funny. You know, it's funny is that this is almost the exact... He's like figuring out... I think this is the exact age when Max put together drawing and painting pictures that he could sell the family members. It's right around that same.

Remember when I talked about that on the podcast? Well, so now we're going to release is right around the series. Well, we're going to have a conversation now on the cost of product because right now it's 100% margins. He has no idea that dad bought him. So I'm going to try and explain profits to him. Like, okay, now you can buy it. Yeah.

And then if you sell it for this much, yeah. Then you make money. why Ethan's shirt business went under. Oh man, I got a pile of inventory and all the ink and yeah, bro. Yeah, you'll figure that out. That's hilarious. I'm going to buy it for you.

That's hilarious. Dude, how do you guys like the new olipop flavors? This cherry vanilla one is, or blackberry vanilla, is so good. I wanted to try this one right here. You did the... I had that one yesterday. Not yesterday. Sorry, last week.

Super good. Yeah, this is the only one I haven't tried yet. Oh, that's good. Isn't it good? What does this taste like? There was a popsicle. Yeah. It's that one, like the push one that's like a sherbert.

That's what it is. Oh, the push pop. That's what it is. I'm like, I know I've had like an ice cream like this. Push pops are great. So this is. Well, they're killing it. 50 calories and I want to have.

And very no, it's got nine grams of eight grams or nine grams of fiber in it. They kill it. Did they get bought out? Did they sell? I know they're everywhere. I've seen commercials now. Yeah, yeah. And I've seen them in all the big stores.

I'm curious to date. See if they got bought out. I can't remember if someone bought them. No. Oh, good. It's independent still. That's awesome. Wow, they have a valuation of $1.8 billion.

Who. Wow. $400 million in revenue. Wow. Good job. Wow. It's a great. So it was the other, their competitor is sold.

This is, this is, it's such a great market. People like tasty beverages. Yeah. But they're full of sugar and just. not good for you. This is like 50 calories instead of 150 or 200. Yeah, better option.

Almost like no sugar in this versus, you know, 30. It's crazy how popular this, this is category has become. It was not a thing like just five, 10 years ago. Well, people are aware of sugar, they're more aware of like soda has been demonized. I think for the most part, rightfully so.

And so I think people are just, you know, they still like to taste at times. I mean, that's me. I fall in that category. Yeah. Yeah, no, this is, That's why this is why I was such a fan early on of Allie Pop when we first started working with him was, I admittedly have that sweet tooth. You know, Oli Pop was the one that created that market.

They were the first ones. Were they first ones? They were the first ones. They were the first ones. Doug just pulled it up. Oh, wow. 2018. So they created the market.

Isn't that cool? You know when someone does a great job when they come out with a product and then copycats? You know what's even cooler I like to think of? What? Is that we've been attached to a lot of these. I know. Okay. Viori.

Yeah. On the Athleisure side for men, for sure. Caldera, men, men, see what they? All the Apah. I mean, think of some of these brands that we've found and we've worked with from early on that we're like leading in their space. Yeah. It's cool, huh? That's really cool.

Yeah. I want to mention a peptide that I started using that, Doug, you have experience using the Delta sleep-inducing peptide? Yes, I have. Yeah. That works. It does. It works. Absolutely.

For sleep? Works. Sick. You know what it does? So what it does is it increases. is Delta wave. So the kind of deep restful sleep when you take it. So you take it before you go to bed.

I could sleep less hours and wake up and feel like I slept more hours. It's really weird. So I feel rested. I've experienced with it and I find the timing of it is very important. So I've made mistakes of taking it and not being like ready to go right to bed. Oh. And then you miss the window and then it actually didn't help. Like so I, it's like I got to take it right before I.

That's what we do. Yeah, right before you lay down. Because it's like, I think they suggest like 30 minutes to an hour or like that before. And I've made the mistake of taking it before I like shower, get ready for bed. And then I watch a show or something. And then it's like two hours later or something. And then now I've kind of missed that window. I stayed awake when it was trying to bring me down.

And so you, it's smart if you do take something like that to take it, go like right to right. I've never had to sleep anything that didn't. There's lots of sleep things that'll help you sleep better or whatever. But sometimes I feel groggy the next day. Not with this, dude. I wake up and I'm like, I feel rested. It's wild. How effective it is.

Yeah, you guys, you guys get to get. Yeah, contact our dudes at MP hormones. Have them send it over to you. It works. Zbiotics is a pre-alcohol probiotic drink that breaks down an unwanted alcohol byproduct called acetaldehyde. It really works. It's genetically modified bacteria, by the way, patent pending.

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It doesn't affect your buzz. Doesn't affect how you feel from the alcohol. but it does for me when I use it, I feel way better the next day. I never drink without Zbiotics. Go check them out. Go to Zbiotics.com forward slash mind pump 26.

That's ZBiOTICS.com forward slash mind pump 26. Use the code mind pump 26. Get 15% off if you're a first-time purchaser on either one-time purchases. There are three, six, 12 packs, or subscriptions. Go check them out. Here comes a show. Our first caller is Daniel from Georgia.

What's up, Daniel? How you doing, Annale? Hey, guys. What's doing? Doing great. Just wanted to say thank you for having me on, really listening to some of your podcast over the last six months to a year. I really appreciate the focus you've had on kind of having a mature outlook, really focusing on family and a lot of the stuff that's important. That's great.

Awesome. Thank you. How can we help you? So I've kind of had a unique journey. I'm sure you guys hear this a lot, but I've had a long history of weight loss. So in middle school, I was kind of a chunky kid. Lost about 100 pounds before Ozzypic,

before any kind of gastric bypass surgery or anything like that, just, you know, kind of sweat and cried it all off. And then gotten involved in school sports, wrestling, at a low weight class and have basically been on a 15 to 1,600 calorie diet since that time. Got into weights

kind of in high school and bulked up a little bit, but still have never really been able to get away from that kind of calorie count mentality. And I've been on about every diet that they make from keto to

low-carved, low-fat, all of variations that kind of come through the time. And I'm in my mid-40s now, so looking to kind of make that transition away from trying to be so focused on a calorie count and just maintain my strength. I've got three kids trying to be a good example of what it looks like to be a healthy guy kind of at this point in life. Set a good role model for them, but also be a good dad and show them how to maintain health and fitness kind of in the meantime. That's great, man.

So have you been maintaining the kind of 1,500 to 1,700 calories for most of your adult life, yeah? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I'm reading your question here. Would you mind if I paraphrased it a little bit? Sure.

So you've recently, over the last four years, regained about 15 pounds from your lightest, I guess, body weight, which was, what, 156? Was that where you were at before? No, my lightest body weight was actually in high school, I'll get down to around 120. 119 is what I wrestled at. I went through a really stressful time kind of through training and work and gained up to 150. Okay. And that's about where I'm at right now, 155. So 155 is your weight after you've gained 15 pounds over the last four years?

Yes, that's correct. Okay, cool. And you're 5-6, it says? Mm-hmm. Okay, so 156, 5-6. And strength training three to five days a week and eating 15 to 17, or calories and you feel like you've kind of plateaued. That's correct.

What does that mean? What do you mean? When you say plateau, what do you mean by that? I would love to get back to kind of that leaner physique. At one point, I was down to like 8 or 9% body fat. Right now I'm probably sitting about 1819. My strength actually did go up significantly when I gained that weight, which was kind of surprising kind of in your early 40s.

But it did happen. So I'm trying to get kind of a good health, healthy balance between the strength and kind of that lean physique. But for strength, but also for longevity and overall help. Okay. And talk about the energy difference. So when you gain the 15 pounds, any change, because obviously you're stronger, so I'm assuming you probably felt more energy? I actually had more energy when I was lighter, I think. but that period in time in life was just less stressful too.

Got it. Tell me about the stress that's going on right now. Just regular family stuff says you've got three kids. Yeah, I work a 50 to 60 hour a week job. Got it. I have multiple jobs. Three kids, high school, middle school, that kind of stuff. And you wrestled in high school.

How long did you wrestle for? I wrestled for about three years. I had a shoulder injury, had a post-year. shoulder dislocation, that kind of ended in my career. Didn't want to end up having to have shoulder surgery and just decided to continue with the weights, do some rehab and do the cardio, kind of zone two cardio and hit training as I could after that. Got it.

Okay. So what I'd like from you, Daniel, if it's okay, if I can ask you a couple questions. Sure. What does healthy, because you mentioned you want to be a good dad role model, I'm assuming you want energy to be able to do the things that are important in life? your job, you know, with your kids. You still want to be able to be mobile and strong and feel good. What does healthy mean to you?

Let's define that a little bit so we can get a little deeper. Yeah, that's a great question. Really being able to be physically active, not fall into one of those, I mentioned this in my question, one of those dead bod type things where your gut sitting on the belly, you know, sitting on the couch on the weekends, kind of. not setting the best example for for the kids being able to to run with them, um, stay physically active,

kind of longer into life. Um, and still be strong too. Okay, good. And are you able to do that now? Do you feel like you can play with them and do all that stuff now? I,

most of it. Um, you know, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, there's kind of a challenge to keep up with. But, uh, there are, the little ones I,

I'm able to do that. with now. Okay. So there's a couple conflicting things in what you want. Okay. Eight to nine percent body fat in your mid-40s is not typically healthy. So it's not a body fat percentage

we can typically sit at and maintain without sacrificing hormone profile, resilience, energy, energy, and just overall quality of life. It requires a level of control and meticulous, like, you basically got to look at everything you're doing all the time

with diet and exercise, which really isn't a healthy place to be when you're also trying to be a dad and work and do all that stuff. And to be quite honest, Daniel, when you're in your mid-40s, active, healthy, usually, usually, that looks like a body fat percentage that's in the mid-to-high teens. Okay? And so the challenge for people oftentimes, and I asked you about your wrestling, because wrestling, especially when you're in a weight class, I don't need to tell you this, but I'm going to say this so people watching, understand. Is that a very healthy sport from that aspect? I mean, you're making weight and controlling what's going on at a level that I would equate it to like a fashion model.

Obviously, it's a different. Fashion model is not a sport, but you're like counting everything and looking at everything. and okay. And you also have a history when you're a kid of kind of being overweight. So there's probably a fear, maybe correct or if I'm wrong, that you're going to blow up and balloon up into, okay, that's not going to happen. I'm going to let you know that's not going to happen. Your calories are way too low for the things you're looking for.

Now, it's also too low to be able even maintain 9% anyway. You can't go around, you can't do what you're doing with. your work, life, and then that much activity with exercise and sit at 15 to 1,900 calories as a man. It's not going to happen. It's going to impact your hormones, it's going to impact quality of life. I'm curious if it hasn't already. Have you checked, have you had blood work done and seen your testosterone levels?

No, I have never. I would highly recommend that because I would guess that that low a calorie with his highest stress and work that you do at our age, more than that. than likely your testosterone levels are suppressed. I mean, definitely not optimal. Yeah. And if you notice it says here with your sleep, you have issues with sleep. Is that just, how long has that been going on? My whole life, but especially in the last, I would say, five to ten years. Yeah. You know, I have a suggestion. I think if we wanted to improve sleep. If I bumped your calories up 500 and dropped your activity, I bet you'd see an improvement in

sleep within the first week. Yeah. I want to share a little bit about, What I'm going through with a client of mine right now, a personal client that I'm helping with reverse dieting. In fact, their calories were similar to where yours are at. And she's experienced the same thing that you did when you increased the 1900, which is this, you know, yeah, I got stronger and some of these things these marl. But I also feel like I just put body fat on too. I don't feel like I put a lot of muscle on.

And so what will happen and what I've explained to her is that we have to get really, we have to get healthy first before our body will start to respond and build muscle. The muscle thing kind of comes first what you'll feel, what you'll feel is, in other words, your body needed those calories so bad. It's just like, okay, we're on the right track of getting healthier. The first response that we know we're getting healthier is we see the strength go up in the gym. It's like, oh, wow, we're getting stronger. But it doesn't line up right away like, oh, I'm stronger, therefore I should be more,

a bunch more muscle on my body because that's not what's happened for either. She just put on some body fat and her body's kind of getting to the, this healthier place of, well, this is the calories we needed. This is the body fat we needed. Now let's go build on that. And so muscle will tend to follow that. And it could take months later before you start to see the payoff from that increased calorie and that strength.

And what ends up happening psychologically to people like yourself and like her who have that fear of like opening away is you let yourself go up calorie-wise. You don't see the muscle. You just see kind of body fat go on. And even though maybe the strength and some other signs are seeing good, you go back. down because you're like, oh shit, I don't like what I look like. And so this is the cycle she's been in for a very long time before she's hired me. And a lot of the conversation that we have to have is like, stay the course. You're doing good. Like what we see happening in the

gym, I know is we're heading the right direction. Just be patient. You've kept yourself so low in calories for so long. Your body isn't comfortable yet there and it'll take some time. And so I think you're in a very similar situation due to how long you've kept low, calorie, high stress, a lot of stuff going on. And so, yeah, you had initial bump and you saw strength increase, but then maybe you didn't see the body composition that you wanted right away and probably bailed and went, oh, fuck this, went back down and freaked right, which is, this is very normal with someone who's kind of kept their calories where you're at.

But this is what we need to do. My suggestion is because I know how difficult this, I know how much work her and I are doing on the psychological level, outsourcing this to somebody else would be. something extremely valuable to somebody who's got as much on your plate that you trust to take you through that unless you feel confident that you can push through this but if you kind of know yourself like I felt like she did and which is why she because it wasn't a lack of knowledge she's got all the knowledge to do it it was Adam I need someone to just kind of be that voice that reminds me I'm heading the right path and confirm that does that resonate with you or do you feel like that's not

you. No, I do think that I probably should get some help in that area. Yeah. And I definitely, you know, despite all this going on, kind of the calorie restriction over the years, you know, I think I'm kind of at the limit with what I can do at my own home weight setup that I have, basically have, you know, the home bench and the in the dumbbells. So I'm really looking at where do I go from here? I max out the weight that I have. I mean, I've done the reps slower and all the things that we do to make the workouts better. So I think I am ready to kind of level up whatever I'm doing in terms of a workout. Oh, yeah.

That's helpful. If you got a rack and a barbell. Yeah, it would be better options for that now, too. I don't know if you've explored like PRX or anything like that. Have you seen PRX yet? Oh, it's super cool. It's all of us, that's what we all have personally at our own homes and inside here. it's a rack that folds into the wall

so it only sticks off the wall six inches so you can still park your car in the garage and everything and everything gets mounted on the wall and you could also like they have this thing where you can literally pay it like a gym membership too so you can literally finance all of it pay it like a membership

have it all shipped to your house basically build an in-home garage gym for what it would cost to get a gym membership we'll send you a link to that yeah yeah Bob Doug send you a link what it looks like what Adam's explaining would it generally really looks like. And there's always, of course, there's differences in how people respond.

But generally what it looks like is you start eating more. You get stronger, start feeling little better. Probably gain some body fat, but you start to feel better. Then you start to build muscle. Then that muscle boost your metabolic rate. And then we start to see you get leaner. That's what it starts to look like. And I'll let you know, a man with your activity, what you're doing, your calories should be around 26, 2700. At least. At least. So you're well, you're so low, your body's really metabolically adapted. It's really learned how to burn as little calories as possible. And it's essentially, at this point, it's going to try to store extra calories as body fat

because you've been, for lack of a better term, starving yourself for so long. Now, what a coach would do is walk you through that process. Ultimately, what this looks like, Daniel, at the end of this, is you don't track anymore. You're not counting everything that goes in your mouth. that's not a healthy way to live with diet. It's kind of a stressful. Another thing you've got to manage way to live. And it is very possible.

It is plausible if you do this right that at the end of this, you don't have to really track. Every once in a while you're track to see where you're at. But really, you just kind of eat in a way that's healthy. You stick to whole natural foods. Eat high protein. Your metabolic rate adapts in a direction that gives you much more flexibility. You feel good.

You're walking around 13% body fat, 14, but you feel good. And it's not something you have to like constantly watch and manage. And you don't feel like you're going to swing in one direction if you, you know, you have a weekend with your wife somewhere or something like that. I think this energy that you have kind of moving towards barbell training is really going to benefit. Oh, yeah. Just to push you more into just strength, pure strength, focus. You're fueling that. So now you're, you're shuttling all these calories, you know, into prioritizing, like building muscle. And it's just going to have that compounding effect where then, yeah, we don't have to prioritize. your diet, nutrition, be hyper-obsessed over that so much, and it really will pay off. That's actually a really, the fact that you shared that with us is exciting. Yeah. That's a huge plus. That's a lot of opportunity there. That there's, that you haven't gone and moved to barbell training and you've kind of maxed

out your dumbbells at home is a really huge plus because that gives us a lot more to work with. And barbell training will be novel. And just that novel stimulus alone, your body will want to adapt and change. And feeding it properly at the same time will, we'll, we'll, will, send a really nice signal to your body. And so that's a huge plus. Let me do this, Daniel.

Do you have any of our programs? I haven't bought a program app. I was looking at the... Antibolic? Which I think it was a strong... Oh, so do you like... So that's Strongman-inspired training. Power-lift would be good.

Power-lift. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you maps Anabolic. There's a two-day-a-week and a three-day-a-week version on it. So do the three-day-a-week version. There's a dumbbell-only option in there. But then, of course, the full program involves barbells. Once you get the barbells do that.

So I'll send that to you. We're going to send you a link for PRX because we have a discount. So we get you a little bit of a discount. And then I'm going to have a coach call you. And you can determine if that is right for you. If you want somebody to coach you through a process of, you know, six months or whatever, where they kind of walk you through this process of reverse dieting. That's essentially what you're going to do.

We're going to do what's called a reverse diet. And we're going to get your metabolism to adapt. in a direction that's going to make this much more flexible. In other words, you'll be able to eat far more calories without gaining body fat. And that's, it's not just possible. That's plausible.

What will probably happen for sure if we do this right. And we've done it. We do it all the time with people. And your calories are so low. I feel super confident that we're going to move in a direction where you're going to be like, wow, this is wild. I can't believe I'm meeting this much.

And I'm not gaining body fat. This is great. I'm going to really push you and encourage you to do that with the car. Just to give you some forecasting what that looks like and what it's been like for her and I for like the last six months together is, you know, I keep trying to work her up on calories. And then when we have to do what we call diet breaks is I can see this, I can see the psychological part with her.

And so, and that's really what, that's why it's not as simple as like, oh, here's this blueprint. Follow this for the next six months is your coach will be in communication with you. And their job is to be able to see that in you. And you're going like, hey, man, this feels like this. And I don't like it. And then it's like, okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to switch it up. And so they'll be modifying the training.

they'll be modifying the diet based off the feedback that you're given as you go through that process, and it looks different for every single person. Yeah, they'll modify the MAPS program for you too, so it's much more individualized. So I highly encourage that. I think it'll be very valuable to you. And then once you've gone through the process, you're going to be good to go. So you're going to get the PRX link, MAPS Antibolic for free. I'll have someone reach out to you and let's see if that works out.

Thank you so much. Yeah. And you're right. There's a lot of kind of psychological fear around worsening up this. It's been 30 years. Yeah. Of course. I've been doing this.

Daniel, I really appreciate you sharing that because I think men are terrible at talking about this. Like we tend to just kind of bury it. We'll figure it out ourselves. And so there's probably thousands of people listening right now that your vulnerability of sharing and talking about it is going to help. And so I just want to commend you for that because not a lot of people do it. Definitely not a lot of men do it. And so you sharing that, this is so common.

We've been doing this for so long. I can't tell you how many clients I've had to help through this process. And it's not as simple as just go do these things. There's a psychological barrier there that a good coach will help so many work through that. So appreciate you, bro. Lots of opportunity for you, though, on the other side, man. Yeah. You're going to do great.

We got you, so much. We got you. Take it easy, Daniel. Thank you. Yeah, he's gotten his body to adapt to really low cal. He's actually quite resilient to be able to do it that long. That's a wrestler mentality. I know, dude.

It's wild. But, I mean, just, you know, people listening, like, like, calories can get up quite a bit when you do this right. But if you teach your body and train your body to survive on really low calories for long periods of time, you got to get yourself out of that. Your metabolism adapts in both directions. And part of what, you know, we're going through right now, and that's why I wanted to share that with them is it's a long road. I had a long conversation last night with my client. And I was just saying, like, hey, you know, what I realize is that this is going to take long. longer than what we thought. You know, it's, we, it's been, you've been underfed and overtrained for so

long. I've had, I had two, two clients I trained just like that, Adam. And I actually had to tell them, we're going to gain body fat first. Yeah. That's actually the goal. I mean, this is what, exactly what I said to her was like, listen, you need to get comfortable with possibly 21, 23% version of you, which is, uh, saline. Yeah, which is you've never seen. Yeah, right. But that for this person is like, oh my God, I've never seen that. And it's like, you need to get comfortable with that and comfortable with that for a while. Because what I'm noticing is that your body has been in this place for so long. It's going to take a while before it says, it goes, okay, I'm safe.

I can now respond the way. And somebody who is 45 and has been eating 5,700 to 1700 cars as a man since he was in high school is in the same boat. It's like this isn't like you've extreme dieted for a year. No, this is. You've been in an extreme deficit. You conditioned your body. So much that he actually, he doesn't even realize he's adapted so well for so long that he doesn't even know that he doesn't feel great yet. That's right.

Yeah. And so it's like you like wait until you get to this place and you'll feel a whole new version and you go, oh shit, this is what. And so very similar process that we're going through. And it can be a lot. The longer you have been in that place of low calorie and overtrained over stress, often the longer it takes to get out of it. No longer it takes to get out of it. And so just, you know, be prepared for that. But hey, on the other side, dude.

Huge win. Double the calories. Double the strength. Lepido goes up. Energy goes up. Sleep will improve that he's like, almost everything. Everything.

And that is going to be the best example for the kids. Our next caller is Matild from Singapore. Hi, Matild. How you doing? Oh, it's nice to see you guys. How are you? Good. Thank you.

You're a champion for staying up. for us. Thank you. How can we help you? Yeah. So I'm going to read my little email so that I don't lose track. So starting with a big thank you for all of your information. You've truly changed my life for the better.

And I'm so grateful for all of you. So my question is about period of recovery. I'm 29. I lost my period about two and a half years ago due to, I think, under-reading and exercising. because at the time I was doing Pilates every single day and walking 10K steps more every single day while eating I believe less than 1,500 calories. So I think it was too much for my body. And since discovering your podcast two years ago, I started strength training and reverse dieting.

I'm now following Map 15. I merged the day together so that I can do four workouts with two. exercises each, and because it's easier for my schedule. And I'm now at 2,800 calories from my reverse diet, and I'm continuing reversing. And I also lowered my steps to about 7,000 during the week a few months ago. It's often more on the weekends, but less during the week. My sleep is okay about eight hours per night, as well as my stress. So my question is that I feel like I'm doing everything right.

My OB-GYN also confirmed that nothing is wrong with my hormones. I did all different testing. So still, my period is not bad. So what would you recommend should I continue my reverse diet? Yeah, I don't know if you have any ideas. Oh, yeah. How long are you been doing this for now? How long we've been doing the reverse diet?

It's been about one year consistently. At first, I was doing it. I was a bit still scared to gain weight. So consistently, for one year. Okay, good. Okay. And your OB, you said, checked your hormones.

You made sure everything was working. Okay. Okay. So I got to say this, obviously, we're not doctors, but I am going to speak out of experience. Okay. So I have trained a few women who lost their periods. A few of them gained it back within three to four months. I had one woman that took over a year and a half.

I will say this, you seem to be doing everything right. Yeah. You're on the right path for sure. Yeah. So I want to ask. you ask you this, how do you feel now versus before with the increased calories, the more appropriate exercise? How do you feel energy-wise?

How do you feel with everything else? Is there a big difference? Yeah, I feel so great, which is, I think the most frustrating part is that I feel so great. I'm like, maybe I'm still, like, stressed about the period not being back and then I over-focus on it and it's like kind of a mental block, but that's the only thing I see because otherwise, I feel super great. I mean, even workouts, I feel balanced. Yeah.

Good. So if you feel good and based off of what you're doing, it seems you're doing everything well. Your calories went up significantly, which is phenomenal. I'm sure you're a lot stronger. Yeah. You're doing everything right. And if you've checked your hormones and everything looks good,

I think we just need to wait. Now, there may be some medical options to kick things into gear that you might want to check with your doctor if you're really like, look, I want this to happen now. What I don't think you need to do is any radical changes to your exercise or diet. Definitely not. Yeah, that's all good. I don't think gaining or adding more calories will make it happen necessarily faster.

I don't think changing your workouts will make it happen any faster. That's all great if you feel good. And based off what you're eating your activity, you're all, you're doing the stuff that I would, that my expertise is in. You're doing all that stuff right. I'm curious, have you had your body, that checked at all during this process the last year? Like, do you know where you were, where you're at now? Like, give me an idea what that journey's been. I did it at the start. I was at 16%. And now I'm at 21%. Okay. Okay. So this is what, so if you started at 16 and you're

just now at 21, which means you were probably at 17, then 18. And so you probably have only been over 20 percent for a little while, right? I don't think you've probably been over 20 percent for very, you're just now probably where I would want you. Like I would want you over 20% body fat for that to happen. And so give it some time now that you're here. I feel like you're in a really good place. What you're doing training, what you're doing exercise wise, where are your body fat percentages?

To me, like now the clock really starts of like how long it's been until the period come back. Because I think where you're at now and what you're doing now is perfect. But you came all the way from 16, which was so lean. Your body needed more body fat. Well, it's also to mention, Matilda, if you don't mind me going through your question a little bit, if that's okay. You mentioned in there that you had osteopin.

Was that, did you have any? No, that was a different question. When you were eating very little calories, how long did you do that for? I did for a long time, I think, because, yeah, I think more than one year, one year and a half. Okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, and I'm glad Adam asked you about body fat percentage. And you could look up the data on this, but fertility seems to be best. in my experience with my clients, the women that I've trained in the mid-20s is typically when things

start to, the body, the female body likes to have a little bit of body fat before it says, hey, we can have a baby. And you sat at really low body fat percentage for a long time. But you're doing everything right on our end. Yeah. So, I mean, the other conversation would be with your doctor or is anything medically I could do if you're, really in a hurry. But I think if you just stay on this path, I mean, you're doing everything right.

Oh, you will. You've, because you really only have been over 20% for a probably, I don't know, a few months, maybe, right? Maybe three to four. Right. So when we are at 16, way too low still, 17, way too low still, 18, way too low still. 18, we're getting closer. 20, now we're in a good place. 21, doing really good.

Like you're, so you're really just now experiencing kind of where a healthier place. You could still even afford to go up another percent or two to Sal's point. So I think where you're at calorie-wise is great. You'll probably still maybe put a little bit more on. Maybe if you're hungry, I mean, if you're hungry, I'd feed you more. If you're satisfied, I'd keep you where you're at. So that's kind of how I would advise that is, hey, if you feel like you can eat more, I'd go ahead and let you eat more because we can afford to put another percent or two of body fat on.

Are you taking any supplements? I take creatine and magnesium at night. Okay. I would take a multivitamin. Okay. So they have all of them. And then you could also get your nutrient levels checked. Sometimes suboptimal nutrient levels can cause issues.

choose vitamin D being one of them. And so you can get those all tested. But a multivitamin is a very inexpensive thing to take. It's typically good for most people. I like that you're taking creatine. How much are you taking? Five milligrams. Perfect.

You mean five grams. Yeah, yeah. I would add a multivitamin to what you're doing. And then stay the course. Yeah, you know, let me have you back on in three months. Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah.

Keep it going. You're doing great. Yeah, I mean, you're doing everything right. Yeah, yeah. And the fact that you feel so much better is such good news. And I know it feels like it's been a long time because it's been a year since you've really started this journey. But it's only been a few months since you've been in that really good place. So now be patient.

Don't stress about it. It's going to come back. You're going to be fine. Keep going where you're going. You're doing great. Okay. Okay. Perfect.

Thank you so much. We'll have you on again in a few months. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. It's really frustrating. I can hear and I can tell.

And I've worked with people like this where it's like, what's going on? I'm doing everything right. Yeah. So the woman that I had that I trained were it took, I think it was like a year and a half before her period came back. Now, she was trying to have a baby. She did not want to do like fertility stuff. She wanted to see if she could do it.

Is she nutrient deficient? No, we just, we had to get her body fat percentage of. That's my guess. It was just, we were a long time. It's hard to see because she was kind of dark, but I'm like, she looks really lean to me still. And so I'm like, if she's been eating that many calories for the last year, I bet she was really. She reversed dieted for a year.

Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's been up that whole time. Well, yeah, but I mean, she's, but my point is that she's been reverse dieting for a year and gaining. If that's what, and she looks that lean right now, I bet that was why I asked. I figured she came from a very lean place. So, 16, way too low. 17, way too low. 18, way too low.

You know what I'm saying? Like, she's, so she's only probably been experiencing 20, 21% body fat for maybe a month or two. Yeah. So at that point, it's just like, yeah, like, now give yourself. and I bet you less than a year, she gets her. Well, the one client I worked with, and again, it's one person. There's such an individual variance

when it comes to stuff like this. But I distinctly remember at that point when the frustration was kind of getting there, we're like, hey, I think we just need to get fatter. And I remember the look on her face was like, what? And so, let's get fatter. For sure. And I believe we got her body fat percentage

up into the mid-20s, and then things started happening. She got pregnant. Yeah. Our next caller is Christina from Missouri. Hi, Christina. Hi, Christina. Hi, Christina.

Hello. Wow. Hi. It's mainly a programming question. I'm 51. I've been trying to do this myself. I got a notebook that I write down stuff. I have an arm day, a leg day, a glute day. And I just started listening to you guys about six to nine. months ago. And so I started actually writing stuff down and I'm not progressing for what I'm doing. For what I'm doing, I feel like I should be a lot more. I'm really nervous. No worries. Don't worry. How long you've been doing this programming for yourself? Well, this time around, it's been about a year. I had, they call it, it's not a dext. Dexter. a scan, but it's Sky You or something like that. Okay.

Does that sound right? I'm not familiar, but if you don't mind, Christina, can I go through your question a little bit that you wrote in? Yeah. It says that you had a broken foot and osteopenia, so you had some bone density issues. Yeah. And this was how long ago? Probably three years ago.

I was lifting three to four years ago, and I have some. I have some stomach issues also. So I started doing intermittent fasting. It made me feel better. But then I lost all my energy. It went down. And then I hurt myself and broke my foot. And then I just quit doing everything for a while.

This passed, it's been probably about a year now. I bought me a squat rack and a bench. and I got a bunch of dumbbells and plates, and I started trying to get back at it, and I started listening to you guys, and so I was at 1,800 calories, then I bumped it up to 2,000, and then I was at 2,100,

and now I'm easily 23, 2,400 calories a day, and I'm keeping track of my steps, because where I work at, I sit all day mostly. So every chance I get now, because I'm aware of it. I'm walking around building and I'm hitting about 10,000 average steps a day now. Yeah, I don't know if you could see what I do, but like Arm Day, I've been stuck with the same weights, you know, 15, 20 pound weights.

And like then my leg day is, I do bar squats. And I was doing like five to seven reps, just the bar. Yeah. Okay. And so your strength training, how many days a week is that? Well, six days. I do two days of arm, two days of legs, and two days of glute. Okay.

And I get up at 4 a.m. Yeah. Monday through Friday because it's easier for me because I have no distractions. You know, there's nobody else's up. and I can easily get up at four, dedicate an hour, you know, five days a week. Weekends come, and it's like I sleep in and my son's up. And then it's like, you know, I got things I got to do around the house.

And it's like working out. It's really hard on the weekends. You're probably doing too much. Yep. Sounds like it. Yeah. An hour five days a week is too much for most people for, strength training. And in the past with the osteopenia, if you were strength training before and

you had osteopinia, that usually means you were really under eating for a long time. I know I was. Yeah. I was down to 112 pounds at one. And I'm 5.11. So it's going to take, it's going to take some time to start to reverse the bone density. Bone density takes a little while. But if you get stronger and you eat enough over time, you see the bone density increase like clockwork. But your strength training program is just way too much. I would never have, I would not have you work out in the lifting weights five days a week. No, if you were in the gym, five days a week, we'd have you on Mass 15, 15, 20 minutes. We've got two options for you.

If you like to do the longer workouts, I can send you a program that's like three days a week. If you like to do where you get up and do something every day, then I can send you mass 15, which is two lifts a day. And I think you'll see strength gains right out the gates with that. Well, you know, they say you're supposed to do so many sets a week. No. How do you do everything? No.

Nope. You know, I know what you're referring to. referring to the studies that'll say, you know, 12 to 20 sets and X amount of volume. Do you know who those studies are done on? Yeah. Average college men that are eating 3,000 plus calories. College aged males. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you know how many clients I've trained where that was the ideal set range? Yeah. Just not. Probably like 10%, 5%. Yeah. Maps 15. If you follow that, keep feeding yourself.

I'd like to see you increase your calories a little more. I think you'll see strain gains within the first few weeks. More than 2,400. You're at 24 right now? Well, I've been, I was at 21, and then here lately I have been up, and it's about 2,400. How long have you been at 24? Maybe a month or two.

All right, let's keep it at 24, 2,500, follow MAPS 15. Yeah. And I think by week two or three, you'll see your strength go up. I thought about the anabolic that you don't think that'd be We could do that too The difference is that's only three days in the gym For an hour and then that's all you do

If you like like Sal said getting up every morning That's kind of your routine Then you would do Maps 15 But you just do the two exercises That's it so you shut So it really depends on you If you prefer just a three day week routine We could do anabolic

If you prefer getting up every day Or even do some mobility the other days. I honestly like Mass 15 better for you, Christina. I think that's going to give you better results. Yeah, you got to discipline getting up anyways. I think it'd be good for you. Yep.

And I'm telling you right now, by week two or three, you'll see your strength go up. Yep. Okay. Just got to get that recovery. I'm going to try something different because this ain't working for me. Yeah, no. Let's do it.

I'm going to send it to you right now. Okay. And then you know what I want you? Rotate different programs and then. We'll stick to that for now. And then we'll, we'll, We'll circle back with you. Here's what I'm going to do.

Matt 15 will take you three, I think it's three month program. Yeah, yeah. So follow that. Let me have you back on in three months. We'll touch base again. Sounds good. All right.

Very good. Thanks for calling in. Yep. Keep those cows there. Okay. All right. Thank you. See, Christina.

You know, this is where this is where studies get people so messed up. 51 year old woman. Stuck on that. Trying to work out. Oh, I got to do it. Osteopinia. I got to do 18 sets for body part. She's sitting everything twice a week.

Yeah. One hour workouts, five days a week, way too much. Yeah. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm 47. I've been lifting weights forever. I'm on hormones. And five days a week of that kind of routine, I'd have to take breaks a lot because it would be too much for me.

I'm sure it was osteopine. I got to really, like, shook to where it's like, I got to work out a lot more. Yeah. Yeah, got to do the right amount. Our next caller is Olivia from Texas. Hi, Olivia. How you doing, Olivia? Hi, hi, guys.

Thank you for having me on. Yeah, how can we help you? Of course. So essentially I want to get one of your guys's workout programs. I just kind of want your advice and your guidance based on my past and my current goals of which one to get. Right now I'm kind of between push-pull legs and muscle mommy. But I also want to have the ability to do my workout classes as my friends. I like to do Pilates sometimes.

Or I play a lot of soccer. I like to swim this summer. So kind of just finding a good balance between it all. because in the past I didn't really have much of that balance when it came to workouts and over-exercising all that. So I really want to find a routine that I know won't overtrain my body and that will be sustainable long-term. And then I have a couple questions on nutrition and stuff.

Maybe after you guys answer that. Yeah, let me ask you a little bit more about like a, what's a typical week? How many days would you do like a Pilates class, play soccer, do other things like, is it two days every week you're doing something outside of what would be traditional weight training or is it three like what's a normal week look like um i a normal week i'll do like two leg days in the gym and then i'll do it back in biceps day and a push day and then i play soccer once on the weekends with friends and then

i'll take a Pilates class also somewhere in that week um and then maybe i'll go on a run or like some other like maybe go for a swim so soccer, some other sort of cardio, and then four days of lifting, and then one day of Pilates. And the run and a swim, is that typically like an hour worth of swimming and running? Is that a pretty act or more? Yeah, I'd say, like this morning, I was just going to go for a three-mile run, and then I ended up doing eight. So it kind of varies. Okay, that's helpful.

But I'd say it's probably about an hour of cardio. Okay, that's helpful. And how long you play soccer for when you play? At least an hour. It's an hour as well. And what was the sport you played when you were, uh, It says here you played a lot of sports. I'm assuming in college.

I played lacrosse, basketball, soccer, water polo, tennis, all in high school. And then when I got, I just graduated from college. But in college, I also did a bunch of intramural sports. So football, soccer. I was kind of in, in college, I was playing probably three to four sports a week. And then I was also running outside of that and lifting. And it was a lot. but I've been listening to you guys and taking notes and knowing that, you know, I was just doing too much and it wasn't really beneficial or adding to my life.

It was kind of just taken away from it. So I've started doing a lot of research and scaling down on all the cardio and sports, but I enjoy them. That's the hard thing. And I know that I want to maintain muscle, build muscle. So I'm kind of putting an emphasis on that. But I still, I don't know, I still think back sometimes, like maybe if I, am training less that I'm going to lose some of my gains or not be as fit. And I know that that's not what you guys preach at all.

So I appreciate everything I've learned from you guys. But I kind of just want to have like a set way of going about it so that I know I'm structuring it the right way. And not kind of going back. So we have perfect programs for you, but they're not the two that you were looking at. So that's even that's too much, too much volume for what you want to do. So like one of our MAPS 15 programs, any program in that series. So we have a MAPS 15 muscle mommy.

So if that appeals to you, but with the three days of kind of sport activity or classes taking, you really don't need that much training. If you're going to do a full hour workout, it'd only be like one day a week. That's all you would need. And you'd build muscle.

You'd get strong. And that's enough activity to keep you fit and lean. Yeah, there's a difference between like what you can tolerate, because you can obviously tolerate a lot. You've got an athletic background. There's a difference between that and following a program that's going to allow your body room to adapt and build and improve performance. Because right now you obviously can tolerate what you're doing.

Like you can do it, but you're looking to improve. And so we've got to scale back a little bit. And the strength training, from what I hear from you, Olivia, like you really like to be active. Yep. That's a priority. You have fun being active. Otherwise you wouldn't do it.

Yes. So we don't need to make the strength training the center focus of your life. Complement it. Yeah, it's going to be complimentary. And so a MAPS 15 program is perfect. Do you have, is your gym access easy for you? Because it's like a five-day-a-week routine, but you're doing very little in the gym. Yeah, I live in an apartment complex right now.

We have a gym, but it's all the basic things. Perfect. Yeah, just dumbbells and then a couple machines. Perfect. Yeah. I'm going to send you MAPS 15 muscle mommy. That's your program. You should start to see some strength gains.

You'll have more energy when you go play soccer and swim. Here's what I don't want you to do. I don't want you to get all crazy and ramp up your swimming and you're running suddenly. And then let's talk about your food, your nutrition. I see here in your email that you're eating about 2,400 calories a day. Yeah, that's when I was, I had to track it for one of my nutrition classes. And so that was maybe six months ago when I did that. but that was when I was also doing a lot more exercise,

so I was a lot hungrier. And now I haven't tracked it in a while, but I think I'm a little bit less than that. But I definitely, I always just look at my protein, and I weigh, I fluctuate like between 130, 132. So I kind of aim for 135 to 140 grams of protein since I'm trying to build muscle. But, yeah, I kind of wanted to know what your guys' thoughts were on that

or how I should change my nutrition. Yeah, I like what you're doing. Yeah. I think probably around 2,500. calories would be great. Yeah, I would say keep, if you don't want to get crazy into weighing, measuring everything, keep doing what you're doing with the protein. But I would also encourage you if you're hungry to eat because even if you're less than 2,400 calories, you're training, lifting weights. It looks like you have a job where you're on your feet probably moving around a lot to. And then you

also have those three days activity. That's lower on the calorie end. And so if you feel your appetite increase, I would tell you to feed it. So do what you're doing with the protein. Definitely don't try to restrict. Yeah. Don't restrict. Like, that's not what, like, if you, so do the protein thing. And if you feel hungry, have another one of those high protein meals. Like, just eat another meal. Like, that would be the advice.

Because there's a good chance that if you're only eating 2,200 calories, we hit the appropriate amount of strength training with the activity you have. You should feel appetite increase. Yeah, here's, I don't want you to restrict from that because I don't keep you from building the muscle you want to build. That's right. And here's what you'll feel when you start following Mass 15 muscle mommy. You'll have more energy and better performance on the days that you play soccer.

and swim and run. And you'll also see some strength gains probably within the first couple weeks. Okay. And if appetite increases. And how long is this program? Three months. Okay.

Because I have, I'm actually going to start training for a Spartan Ultramarathon in Southern California. So. An ultra. I'm glad you told us now at the end. An ultra marathon? Yeah. It's a 60K and then also has the Spartan obstacles in it.

So I know that I'm going to be. upping my running probably after I finish this program. Okay. And so that's just going to add a lot. But I probably, how much should I eat then? A lot more. Yeah, a lot more. Yeah.

Do you have a training protocol for that? No. Every time I train for a race, I just, I just like eat more. But I definitely probably end up over training because I don't back down with my lifting ever. Yeah, you just end up doing more cardio. All right. So here's what I, and this is a Spartan race with the run. Okay. What's the name of our program?

OCR. Okay, here's what I'm going to do. Do MuscleMami 15 right now. When you're ready to start training for the Spartan race, right now we're going to send you a discount code for another program. That's literally designed for obstacle course racing. Really? Yes.

So you could just follow our program. Yes. That's it. You literally designed for Spartan races. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm excited.

Yeah. We wrote it with Amelia Boone, who's one of the winningest female athletes in us. Yeah. So that program, after you're done with MuscleMami me 15. Doug's going to send a discount code. Just follow Maps OCR. That's your program for, and don't add anything to it, please. Only you add is calories. And eat more. Eat more. Like, feed your body. Feed your body. But I'm curious, I mean, it'd be exciting to hear how you

do through this. Just going to the muscle mommy and feeding yourself and the appropriate amount of strength training. I think you're going to see great results from that alone. Okay. Thank you guys so much. You got it. Yeah, that was kind of, oh, I just had like an extra question if, about creatine. If, I think you guys have said you think good things about Creek team. Oh yeah,

take it. And then any brands in particular? Yeah, I like Legion. I'll send you their link. Yeah, they got really good source of crate team. Yep. Okay, awesome. That's actually the one I'm taking right now.

Oh, good. Oh, good. You're all good. You're all good. All right. Thank you guys so much. All right, Olivia. You got it.

Thank you. Good luck. All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Yeah, that's good. You're moving the right direction.

I think she'll get great results. and I'm glad she threw in at the end. She's very sporty. Oh, by the way, I'm an ultra marathon. You know, typical athlete, right? Typical athlete. And you said it really well with, yeah, you can tolerate all that, you know? And so that's the hardest part with an athlete's mindset is they've been conditioned to be able to tolerate a ton.

Therefore, they assume that, oh, I can do it. Or maybe I need to do more. You know, that's the athletic mindset. It's like, I'm not doing enough, you know, maybe. It's like even the programs that she was looking at weren't appropriate with three other days of like high activity. Like good activity. Yeah, yeah. She's running, running eight miles.

Pilates is not so crazy intense. But soccer is. But soccer is. But soccer. And I would assume she's not playing like, she's playing soccer hard. No. And rarely if you're playing pickup games on the weekend, it rarely it's an hour. Whenever I play pickup basketball, it's normally multiple hours that you're playing for.

And so she's probably playing for them. Nothing wrong with like, you know, that mentality. You just have to, like, corral it by, you know, having complimentary training. Yeah. Not to mention when you play a sport, you have seasons. Yeah. You're in season and off season. When athletes come out of that playing sports, their mentality is in season all the time.

So I'm not saying that Olivia could possibly ramp things up for a season, which she's going to do for OCR. She's going to do it for Spartan racing. But that's not how she trains all the time. She will burn herself out. Yeah. Look, if you like this show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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