Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2919: 5 Tips for Bigger Arms (The Mistakes Most People Make Without Realizing It)

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

MAPS BOGO: https://mapsbogo.com Buy one get one free — mix and match any of the top 10 most popular programs (Anabolic, Aesthetic, Performance, 15 Minutes, Anywhere, Symmetry, Starter, Muscle Mommy,... Powerlift, 40+) for $157.   In this episode the guys break down 5 tips for bigger arms — full range of motion and why going lighter beats stopping short, always including a stretch exercise like incline curls or overhead tricep extensions, why elbow angles completely change which part of the muscle you target, using compound lifts like close-grip bench and chin-ups as the foundation, and how occlusion training can add serious size without heavy weight. They also get into cannabis now beating alcohol as America's most commonly used daily substance and the loneliness epidemic it's feeding, the over-justification effect and how rewarding kids for things they love actually kills their motivation, the power of validation and why it's different from coddling, MOTS-C peptide being back on the MP Hormones menu and how it compares to SS-31 for mitochondrial energy, and crazy new patents including a Motorola throat tattoo microphone and Amazon's flying drone warehouse. Then they coach live callers submitted through mplivecaller.com.   Vita Bella / MP Hormones: https://mphormones.com Book a complimentary 10-minute consultation to find out if Vita Bella is right for you. MOTS-C peptide now back on the menu. Consultation: https://meetings-na2.hubspot.com/alever/marketing-membership-consultation Or use code MINDPUMP365 to start your annual membership and receive a free blood panel and gift.   Mind Pump Fitness Coaching: https://mindpumpfitnesscoaching.com 1.9 NASM CEUs   SPONSORS   Kion (essential amino acids): https://getkion.com/mindpump 20% off automatically applied at checkout. EAAs discussed on air — non-essential amino acids not required for muscle protein synthesis, making EAAs more efficient during a cut.   LMNT (Lemonade Iced Tea): https://drinklmnt.com/MindPump Free 8-count sample pack with any purchase, no code needed. Lemonade Iced Tea — 50mg caffeine, L-Theanine, polyphenols, no sugar.   LINKS   Submit a live caller question: https://mplivecaller.com Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia   SPOTIFY TIMESTAMPS   0:00 - Intro 2:46 - 5 tips for bigger arms — why most people are leaving major gains on the table 3:51 - Tip 1: Full range of motion — going lighter beats stopping short every time 8:28 - Tip 2: Always include a stretch exercise — incline curls, overhead tricep extensions and cable curls 13:03 - Tip 3: Elbow angles change everything — how position changes which muscle fibers you hit 15:01 - Tip 4: Compound lifts — close-grip bench, chin-ups and dips as your arm foundation 17:27 - Tip 5: Occlusion training — how to add serious size without heavy weight 20:09 - Kids learning about taxes, entrepreneurship and the reality of margins 33:41 - Cannabis now beats alcohol as America's most commonly used daily substance 39:42 - Cannabis, loneliness and why the combination is uniquely dangerous 43:27 - The over-justification effect — why rewarding kids for what they love kills their motivation 51:35 - Validation vs. coddling — why validating feelings is one of the most powerful parenting tools 54:55 - MOTS-C peptide is back on MP Hormones — how it compares to SS-31 for mitochondrial energy 57:45 - New patents: Motorola throat tattoo microphone, Amazon flying drone warehouse and porch pirate deterrents 1:06:24 - Caller: Kayla (New York) — 39, SIBO history, perimenopause, HRT, 3 kids, wants to look her best at 40 1:20:49 - Caller: Robert (South Carolina) — rebuilding after years of undertraining, gets MAPS Anabolic 1:34:00 - Caller: Aidan (Kansas) — returning caller follow-up, asymmetry progress update 1:41:31 - Caller: Clark (Oklahoma) — detailed history, complex situation, gets individualized program recommendation  

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded Fitness Health and Entertainment podcast in history. We're approaching over half a billion downloads. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we answered live callers questions.
Starting point is 00:00:25 We actually coached people on air live, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 63 minutes long. Now in the intro, we talk about fitness, current events, muscle building, fat loss, family life. Always a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this, submit your question to MPLifecaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Keon. Today we talked about their essential amino acid supplement.
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Starting point is 00:02:34 We're going to give you five tips. They really work to get those arms that you want. Let's go. Big arms. This is all I cared about. When you're young, when you're, that's all I cared about you. That's me too.
Starting point is 00:02:44 Yeah. You know, arm training. Arm training isn't super complex, right? So like if we talk about developing the lower body, working the back in particular, um, training the core. Some people think that's very basic and simple, but it can be difficult. There's a lot more complexity, but a lot of arm exercises are pretty straightforward.
Starting point is 00:03:06 It's pretty easy. Single joint action. It's pretty easy, but people still mess them up, and they mess them up in ways I don't think they realize that they're leaving a lot of gains on the table. In fact, what we're going to talk about when I would train experienced lifters or when they managed gyms, and they weren't clients of mine, but they were members of the gym, and we'd have conversations. and we would include some of these things that we're going to talk about, they seem like minor changes, but they make a big difference in your arm development. And I'll give you the first one. The first one is this is going to sound obvious, but you would be surprised.
Starting point is 00:03:40 In fact, if you're listening, many of you are probably guilty of not training in a really full range of motion with your arm. Yeah, I was going to say, there's actually pushback to this. I've encountered it. Weird. Yeah. In terms of like the time under tension kind of philosophy of, you know, not. necessarily going to full range of motion, like there's some drop off. But yeah, if you're not expressing four range of motion, you're not actually achieving the full potential of the entire muscle.
Starting point is 00:04:08 So I always hated the, I got to maintain tension on the muscle, which is why I'm not doing a full range of motion. I hated that argument because unless you're relaxed in a full range of motion, like I'm setting the weight down. Right. The muscle is under tension. So stay connected the whole time. but the studies on full range of motion demonstrate this pretty clearly. You build more muscle
Starting point is 00:04:31 and the strength that you develop is more complete because it's applied to, most of the strength you gain in a exercise, most of it goes to the range of motion that you train in. The further outside of that range of motion you move, the less of that strength
Starting point is 00:04:45 is applicable. So in other words, if I do half squats, once I go down six inches below that, it's like significant drop-off. It's a big force-direction drop-off. Right. And when it comes to muscle development, full range of motion has been shown in studies to make a difference. So this one's simple. And like I said, a lot of people are guilty of this of stopping their curls, especially like a preacher curl. They'll stop it just short. Or trisip exercises where they don't go all the way up. They kind of stop it halfway.
Starting point is 00:05:12 Like just do the full range of motion with your current exercise and watch what happens. Yeah. I think this is because they end up or we end up trading weight for full range of motion. Oh, because I got to go lighter. Right. And so I think there's this idea that, you know, if I shorten the range up a bit, I can go up another five or ten pounds on the weight. And my ego likes that better that I can, you know, having to stay at 35s. Having to stay at 35s through a full range of motion.
Starting point is 00:05:43 But just to highlight, like, I mean, I've talked about this before with my legs. I remember when that was on law for me. That was a real obvious one because I squatted down a 90 for so. long and then to go full range. And it was a significantly lighter difference to see myself be able to develop bigger legs going through a full range of motion with like significantly like 100 pound plus lighter weight is just highlights like, you know, you going down five pounds or 10 pounds on your bicep curls to go through a full range of motion is far better than you going up five or 10 pounds and shortening that range.
Starting point is 00:06:17 Well, not to mention the longevity of this approach versus the other. And it's, you know, whenever you're going to be encountering anything in life where you're picking something up or you're using your arms to express that push or pull. Like movement, if you're just, I don't know, let's say five degrees, you know, outside of your normal, like lifting patterns. Like that's-injury. Susceptible. Yeah, it's susceptible.
Starting point is 00:06:43 Your body's not going to recognize that. It's going to immediately tense up and try to protect what it can so you don't get injured. I have a, you just brought back. a memory, Adam, that I totally forgot about. So I'm, at this, let me see, I must have been, I was 18, I was probably 18 years old. I was a, I was a fitness manager. And at this point, I'd been working out for a while.
Starting point is 00:07:05 So I started working out of 14. So I'm already experienced with working out. I'm a certified trainer. I'm not a good trainer yet. But I know what I'm doing in terms of exercises, let's say, okay? And I had this trainer that worked for me, his name was Mitch. You might know Mitch. You might have met him before.
Starting point is 00:07:19 Vietnamese dude, it was kind of lean, muscular. and he had these really incredible looking arms. And him and I did this workout together. Now, I distinctly remember this because I had gotten so proud or so, I was so prideful of the fact that I could do preacher curls. So I was 18. I could do preacher curls with the curl bar with the 25s on each side, right? So you got the curl bar, throw the 25s on,
Starting point is 00:07:41 and I would do my preacher curls like that. And I did a workout with him. He put tens on each side. And I remember thinking like, oh, this is going to be easy. Then I watched him do his preacher curls. and he went all the way down, like way, like full extension, almost like he's hyper-extending his elbows
Starting point is 00:07:56 and coming all the way up. And I always stopped just short of that. I would stop, you know, maybe a couple inches short of that. And so I stuck with his weight. I did the real full range of motion with the curls. I got the craziest pump. And from then on, I changed the way I trained my biceps,
Starting point is 00:08:11 especially on that exercise. And I noticed results very quickly. I didn't change the exercise. I didn't change anything. I went lighter, but I moved a couple range. a couple inches further with my range of motion. I also got this with overhead tricep extension.
Starting point is 00:08:25 This is one that, you know, if you, especially if your elbows are healthy, you can get really strong and you can press a big dumbbell or whatever. And I learned the same thing. You know, I had the big 100 pound dumbbell and I would stop just short. And my buddy's like, dude, grab the 50, go down as far as you possibly. Bring your elbows back, feel the stretch, and then go all the way up.
Starting point is 00:08:44 And it fried my triceps and I had great results. It was all because of the range of motion. Yep. So here's the next one. In your arm exercises, try to always include one that loads the muscle in a stretch position. Okay? So this is a,
Starting point is 00:09:00 this would be an exercise where you feel the muscle stretching and you're also fighting resistance. So a good example of this for biceps would be like incline curls, right? I'm laying back on an incline. My elbows are down by my sides, lower the dumbbell all the way. And that's actually a stretch on the bicep. Right?
Starting point is 00:09:17 If my elbows are in front of me, there's no stretch. But when I bring it back because of the attachment over the shoulder, like if I were to stretch my bicep now, I'd have to bring my arm back in order to do so. That stretch position and loading it, the data shows, seems to have a little bit more, it's a little bit more special when it comes to hypertrophy. For triceps, this would be an overhead exercise where you're really stretching the tricep. So in your workout, always try to include at least one exercise that loads the stretch position.
Starting point is 00:09:45 And what you find oftentimes is their entire arm workout, there isn't a single stretch exercise. None of them. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you got to do one in the stretch and one in the flex position. Yeah. And that's just that that's the key. That was a big unlock for me because, you know, even I don't know how many years of, you know, biceps and triceps three, four times a week I was doing. Wow.
Starting point is 00:10:08 But for sure I'm at year, you know, two or three by this time when this finally comes together for me. I didn't realize that, you know, standing cable rope pushdowns, straight bar push downs, triangle push downs and reverse pushdowns. Same exercise. It's the same. All the same shit. Yeah. You know, and so, you know, in a workout, I would do dumb stuff like that where I would do one
Starting point is 00:10:29 of those exercises back to back. Like, I was getting like a different workout. And, you, of course, fell for the trap. Oh, it feels a little different. And so maybe it is different. And it's like, no, I'm not, I'm not hitting the tricep different from a a different angle, right? I'm not putting it in a stretch position and a fully contracted and then somewhere in the middle type of position. And understanding that you're to your next
Starting point is 00:10:51 point, like the elbow positioning of each one of the movements. That's what makes it a different exercise for the most part. Yes. Is elbow position. So although hand supination plays somewhat of a role in bicep development, it does almost, it does nothing for tricep development. But what does change things is where your elbow is. So now, Now when you're looking at your workout and you're like, which exercises should I pick, I'm going to do three today for my biceps or three for my triceps. Well now you have all these exercises to pick from. You're like, okay, which ones do I pick?
Starting point is 00:11:23 I can only pick three. Pick three where the elbow position is different. This is such an easy arm training program hack. Now when it comes to training chest and back and legs, it gets more complex. For arms, it's literally this simple. Pick different elbow positions done. now have perfect, a perfect arm workout. And an example, that would be like elbows over the side, elbows in front, elbows behind.
Starting point is 00:11:47 For triceps. Yeah. Perfect. Or for biceps. Elbows behind. elbows of sides. Like, if you just do that, load those muscles with a different elbow position, you're going to get really a great workout and really full development, much more than if you picked
Starting point is 00:12:01 three exercises with the same or similar. I was waiting for this next one. Compound lifts. Compound lifts. Yeah, just because, you know, in terms of. of loading muscles and also getting the maximum benefit of that, you know, really loud signal and then following up with the single joint movement a lot of times, too, like playing between both. Just, and this is the funny part. You think like power lifters themselves, you know, like,
Starting point is 00:12:27 dude, they get really big muscles. Yes. And it's a very demanding signal that they're producing when they're, you know, summoning all this force. And so the only way to do that is with these compound lifts. And then to, you know, sharpen it, sculpted, I understand all that, you know, as a result of that. But if you're not going to include compound lifts, you're not going to even touch the amount of gains potential. No, and you're a good example of this.
Starting point is 00:12:50 I mean, probably if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see Justin. Justin's got some guns on him. And he probably does an isolation exercise for his biceps and triceps, I don't know, twice a month, maybe? Very infrequently. It's all compound. I enjoy them. But, yeah, it's all compound lifts.
Starting point is 00:13:05 Yeah. Yeah. And so compound lifts for triceps are things like close grip bench press, dips. When it comes to biceps, there are people like, what's a compound lift? Like back exercises? Kind of. You just do them differently. An exercise that I learned from Mike Menser.
Starting point is 00:13:23 So Mike Mencer talked about this. And he learned from Arthur Jones was a supinated grip pull down. Now, I know you're like, well, that's a back exercise. It is, but you can change the way you do it to make it a bicep exercise. If you kind of lean forward and curl the weight down on the way down, watch what happens to your biceps. You can really recruit your biceps. You will feel them like you've never felt them before.
Starting point is 00:13:47 And you'll be able to load them with a weight that you normally wouldn't be able to curl, which plays a big role in their size and development, not to mention the functionality. Well, just to back up how powerful compound lifts are for building the arms, even these, because you guys are naming movements, right, like dips and superintend. pinnated curls, which are, you're trying to, you are trying to target the arms. But you'd be surprised how much your arms grow just from heavy lifting the traditional
Starting point is 00:14:13 compound lifts. So, I mean, since my peck tear, what, a year and a half ago, I can probably count on one hand, maybe, definitely under two hands. I can know less than 10 times, maybe under five that I've trained my arms in a year and a half. Yeah. I never train my arms anymore. But I still do a lot of the heavy compound lifts, and that's been enough to sustain
Starting point is 00:14:35 I don't have as impressive as arms as I did, but I still got arms. I still don't look like somebody who doesn't work their arms out. And that's just been able to be sustained from doing compound lifts and not doing any of these lifts that are even targeting it. And I know a lot of guys that are like that just don't even do
Starting point is 00:14:51 arms. I mean, a lot of your crossfit people, almost all crossfit guys are not, don't do isolation curls. You can't get a big bench from bicep without our tricep. Yeah. Without getting massive triceps and shoulders as a result. It's like it has to balance it out. Yeah, no, 100%. A good example, by the way, of this. And sometimes I get a little bit of
Starting point is 00:15:11 controversy runs away. Look at gymnasts. A gymnast, um, gymnas have crazy looking triceps and biceps. Now, part of this is, you know, when you look at top level gymnasts, what you're looking at are genetically gifted mini bodybuilders. They have these polymorphisms that make them really good at gymnastics. The other part of it is how they train. Uh, you know, the iron cross. I mean, this is crazy tension, uh, on the biceps. constantly doing pull-ups, constantly doing dips. Very little, if no, isolation exercises. And their arms look like amateur bodybuilders. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:44 With the development. And it's all from these compound lifts. Compound lifts are like your bread. This is like your meat and potatoes. Yeah. The isolation exercises are great and they do something. But if you get strong, you get strong at a close grip bench press. Watch what happens to your try.
Starting point is 00:16:00 There is no triset press down in the world that will come close to adding 30 pounds. to your close script. No, to Justin's point, show me somebody who bench presses heavy, and I'll show you some big triceps. Show me somebody who rose a barbell. Rose heavy. Really heavy.
Starting point is 00:16:14 I'll show you some bicep. It comes along with that territory. And the reason why I want to put emphasis on it is because I wish I knew that. I know. I wish someone had really hammered that home to me when I was younger because I spent so many years doing arm, full day, arm workouts.
Starting point is 00:16:32 And all I did was arm stuff. And it was all isolation stuff. And it was like all to grow these arms. And it's like, man, if I would have just got a bigger bench, a bigger row. And not to mention like that we're talking specific about the arms, but the carryover that, getting those things have to just overall building muscle development and everything like that. It just has a compounding effect. You know, it's just you can't, you cannot stress that enough that that should be the cornerstone is because somebody who listens to an episode like this that wants to get big arms, I bet you. are already training arms like all the time.
Starting point is 00:17:06 Yeah. But and they're probably trading that out for other days of deadlifting or rowing or bench pressing or like, don't do that. To make that your cornerstone. And then yes, then take the advice we're giving right now of, you know, elbow positioning and do these compound lifts and that's all. But it's like, man, the cornerstone should be go get big at these, go get strong with these big lifts and watch what that does. No, these are simple, like I said, these are simple tips that make a big difference. And then the last one, this, this applies so well to arm training. So occlusion training or blood flow restriction was really popular.
Starting point is 00:17:43 I want to say like nine years ago, eight years ago. This was, this, this builds muscle, you guys. It builds muscle and it's a strange way to train. It was used in physical therapy far, way before any bodybuilder got their hands on it. And it was discovered, I want to say, 60 or 70 years ago. essentially when you occlude a muscle of venous outflow, so of blood outflow, waist byproducts build up in the muscle and the fast-twitch muscle fibers fatigue and adapt as if you are lifting really heavy weight.
Starting point is 00:18:17 You also get this crazy stretch phenomenon from this intracellular pump, which is the most intense you've ever felt with occlusion training. So for people aren't familiar, it's really easy with arms. It's more difficult with other body parts. But you would take a knee wrap and I would tie it around my upper. upper arm, tight enough to where I could feel, it's cutting off some blood supply. I don't go so tight that I'm numb, but enough to where, oh, yeah, I could feel that's pretty tight.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Then I go wrap out some curls. And I'm going to warn you, the fire that you will feel in your biceps for doing this. It's like, there's nothing more painful than this feeling right here. It's literally because the waist byproducts are just building up in the muscle. You can't get rid of it. It burns like crazy. The pump you get is insane. It's the craziest pump you've ever felt.
Starting point is 00:19:01 and it adds another element. When I've done this, I've done this on calves and I've done this on arms and within weeks I added a quarter inch to both of them just for adding a couple sets
Starting point is 00:19:13 in the week, just a couple sets in the week and it made a huge difference. Anybody doing this anymore? Yeah, it's like the forgotten method. But it's why it was hot and popular for a minute and I don't know why
Starting point is 00:19:26 it fell out of favor or not but I mean both for arms and calves this is like such a hack. Oh, such a cool. cool a lot. It's crazy. It's fun. It's crazy. And again, you grab some light dumbbells, rep them out. You'll feel the burn. Rest 30 seconds to a minute. The burn will not go away while you're resting. It's actually going to intensify. Super novel stimulus. Then go grab the really light dumbbells again. I mean, just so people know, for me it was like 10 pound dumbbells.
Starting point is 00:19:49 Rep them out again. Do this three times. Then let go the dumbbells. Sit for under 30 seconds while everything's on fire. Take off the knee wraps. You're cooked. And you did it. And again, the pump and the swelling you get from this is just super, super crazy. Anyway, I have, Doug has a study that I'd like for him to pull up on non-essential amino acids and how they're not necessary to stimulate net muscle protein synthesis. Okay. So I want him to pull this up. So this is really interesting.
Starting point is 00:20:18 Okay. So muscle protein synthesis, we can measure. And when this is positive, when we see this, what this means is the body's building. Okay. So we're building. So if we measure this and is it certain that's always happening when that's happening? Well, it's got to stay positive all the time. Okay.
Starting point is 00:20:37 So, so obviously you can go positive. Then you can go negative much later and it comes out to like nothing. Okay. But what we do see by doing certain things, eating particular ways or whatever, is like, oh, this is stimulating muscle growth. Now, it used to be, I think, believed that you needed a complete protein for this to happen. And what they found in this study and other studies is that the non-essential, amino acids are not needed. Only essential amino acids are needed to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Now, this doesn't mean this is all you ever do. So all you ever do is take essential amino acids
Starting point is 00:21:11 and you never have complete proteins. That doesn't make sense because you're going to eat food. But what this does mean is that if you're in a cut, this is where this applies, you're in a cut, your calories are low. Adding a bunch of extra protein now is you're counting all of your calories. So you're like, well, you know, how do I get more muscle protein synthesis? But I can't go over my calories, throw some essential amino acids at yourself. On top of it. It's very low calorie, almost no calorie, because it's not a complete protein, and you're going to get more muscle protein synthesis.
Starting point is 00:21:41 And so this is a great strategy because the main strategy in a cut is, besides, is keep my muscle. And essential amino acids, you know, like the key on ones that we've been using, you take six of those capsules, three, four, five times a day to keep that muscle protein synthesis high, your calories barely budge because it's not a complete protein. Well, that makes sense. We've been saying that for people in a GLP1. Totally.
Starting point is 00:22:08 And so, of course, yeah, to take that into somebody like who's on a cut to, I would imagine that's a benefit. I experimented with it last year. It was super effective. I wish I had it when I was bodybuilding. You know, or at least I wish I did it when I was bodybuilding. I didn't do it when I was bodybuilding. In fact, I was still, like, big, you know, amino acids, essential amino acids are just all
Starting point is 00:22:29 Waste. Yeah, waste, BCA's or waste, all this. I was in that camp still at that time. So I didn't waste my time with doing that. And I look back now and I wish I would have, I saw, I mean, I did a Dexa. I did Dexa before, after and the whole cut, I did that. I lost like no muscle. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:44 Do a cut for, you typically lose a little bit of muscle. It's expected. Yeah, you're expected. And your goal is to lose as minimal as possible. And so to be in a cut for as long as I was and shred down like I did that time last year, that was really impressive. If I were to do an aggressive, and I don't really have any intentions
Starting point is 00:23:03 of doing an aggressive cut, but let's say I wanted to get into single digit body fat. And for me, it's a little different from person to person, but if I start to go, like I can maintain around 11% body fat, maybe 10, and I'm okay. If I want to start to get into the single digit,
Starting point is 00:23:19 it's like, I know I'm going to lose some muscle. That's just what happens. Especially if I get below 7%, like, and there's nothing I could do. It's just a matter of how much muscle I lose. The way I would do it now is like I normally do with my diet and everything is I would have the Keon essential amino acids. And I'd take that like five times a day. I would throw six, six capsules at myself, five, six times a day.
Starting point is 00:23:41 And I would preserve more muscle than I have in the past. That would be the strategy. So did you see, Adam, I don't know if you saw this. Did you see the meme that's going around about, I'm going to pull it up right now, about Germany's tax brackets and system and how, and how. like weird it is. How crazy it is. How they're managing that? Okay.
Starting point is 00:24:03 No, no. Dude, this is wild. So somebody did the math on this. And what they did is, so this is a dual earner couple with two children. How much money they would make and how much money they would take home based off of the tax system. In Germany. In Germany. Okay.
Starting point is 00:24:20 So did they convert it to US dollars so it's easy for us to kind of translate? Well, it's in euros. So it's fine. It's close. Close enough. So here's what's crazy. Because of the way the tax system works, you take home essentially the same amount of money if you make 3,000 euros or 6,000 euros a month. It's almost the same.
Starting point is 00:24:40 So you could make twice as much, but because you make so much more, they tax you that much more. And you end up taking home almost the same exact amount of money. Is a person who makes three? Yes, right. Well, I mean, it's not double as crazy because we're not double like that. but I remember, don't you remember this yourself? Like, I remember working my way up, right? The annual income.
Starting point is 00:25:06 And now this is granted, 20-something years ago, so this is probably moved and changed a little bit. But I clearly remember. When you move into a new tax bracket? Yeah, yeah. So I clearly remember what it was like to go from like 70,000 a year to like 90 to like 110 range. And I remember getting to like the 110 and like that was like a big milestone to be in the six figures, right? and going like,
Starting point is 00:25:28 I didn't feel any wealthier at 110 that I did at 70. Because at 70, I had very minimal taxes. I had enough write-offs, expenses. I basically paid no extra taxes. But once I got into the six-figure mark,
Starting point is 00:25:41 I was paying extra tax. So it's like I brought home a little bit more during the year, but then I had to pay back stuff at the end of the year. And I'm like, when I look at the math and I wash it, I'm like, God, for that climbing all the way up to there, I really don't feel like I made much more
Starting point is 00:25:57 And they're really, and they, and I've heard, I've seen people put this up before where it's like the leap you have to make to really make the lifestyle feel different is it's wild. And so even in the U.S., it's like that. There's maybe not that extreme. Yeah. Where it's three and six. Well, what's crazy about this is it de-incentivizes people. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:14 So imagine if you're this couple and you know this and you're taking home X amount and you're like, okay, should I work harder? Should I go for that promotion? Should I try to become? more productive. Incentives aren't even really a part of it. And you're looking at each other and you're like, honey, if we make double, we take home the same amount.
Starting point is 00:26:35 Don't even waste your time. Why waste your time? This happens with some of our like social programs. So I know somebody like this where they get so much money from the state. And I'm like, hey, why don't you get a job? And I like, if I get a job, I don't get this. Then I lose these. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:52 I don't get this anymore. And so essentially if I get a job, I'm going to, to make the same amount as I'm already currently getting, except now I'm working. Yeah. So I think I'm just not going to work. Oh, yeah. And I can't blame.
Starting point is 00:27:04 Yeah. Like, that's a logical thought process. Right. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So it's kind of crazy. No, I mean, that's, yeah, no, I know, I know plenty of people that are like that.
Starting point is 00:27:14 That I've seen it. That's tough for me to wrap my brain around that. But that's, we've, but you've created that. You create when you, and you incentivize people to do that. Why go to work when I make, what? I'm going to make a couple more bucks and I got to work for you. And I'm working way harder. You're going to work way harder.
Starting point is 00:27:27 harder doesn't make sense. I mean, don't you remember going that way? Like with your, like, so the one positive to that, I guess, was, uh, it really made me look at what I did and how much I like it. And so like when I would get opportunities, and I'm sure you guys did too from clients and stuff like that to move careers, right? Like I always had always, you know, I don't know how many times in a year, maybe a couple times a year. I'd get a client who, that we connected, they really liked me and they would be like, you know, hey, come work for me. You should come work for me and I'll pay you this much. And it was, you know, sometimes it was more money than what I was making.
Starting point is 00:28:00 But it was always like a little bit more than what I was making. And I was always like, yeah. Yeah, no, I know what it's like. I love what I do. I love what I do. This is fun. Yeah. It doesn't sound as fun.
Starting point is 00:28:08 Yeah, I love what I do. And another $30,000, $40,000 a year, which sounds like a lot. Yeah. It's not really a lot. Yeah. Because when you move up, that's another tax bracket, you go up. And it's like, really, what is that difference per month? And when you live in an area that's expensive, it's like, uh, I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't
Starting point is 00:28:27 make that big of an impact on your life? One of the tough things I think for, you know, I think people and I get why this is a difficult one. And I was lucky. I had some really, you know, I come from an immigrant family, so they're very hardworking. I was constantly preached to about all the great opportunities here that we could take. And, you know, my dad grew up real poor. My mom, her dad came here when he was, you know, a very difficult time. So I was brought up in this kind to like, you know, you're very grateful for what you have, go out there, work hard type of deal. And it was, it was a huge plus. But I, and I kind of understand where people, you know, where this mentality comes from,
Starting point is 00:29:05 but you see someone producing so much or making so much more. Well, yeah, they should pay so much more in taxes. But what you got to be careful with is what you don't want to do is take your most productive people as defined by what the market says is productive. So I know sometimes people argue this. Like I work out, I work real hard too. Like, I know they work, but I also bust my ass. It's like, okay, you do work really hard, okay?
Starting point is 00:29:30 But the market determines value. And so if somebody's being really productive based off of what the market says, and oftentimes it's skewed, right? Like it could be that they're making some product or whatever. That's like, okay, is that really benefiting anybody? But oftentimes it's also, like they're innovating. They're doing some things that are really, what we don't want to do is de-incentivize people who are really productive.
Starting point is 00:29:52 by saying, hey, you're going to get hammered, you know, more, the more you make, the more you produce. And what ends up happening is you can get people that go, what's the point? I'm not even going to try anymore. Yeah, I think it's really easy to look at that when you've been kind of an employee your whole life. It's different. Once you've had to build a business, like you have a total different lens that you can see that through. I've learned, I've had very different conversations about this with, you know, my friends that are work as a teacher or like work with, the government or, yeah, I've just been an employee and, like, has never even attempted to
Starting point is 00:30:28 own their own business. It's a totally different worldview and perspective you get as a small business owner and a lot of those, you know, tapes and restrictions and things that you have to kind of bust through just to get, you know, what's on paper, you know, bringing that home. It's pretty substantially different. You know, it's been fun. It's been really fun. And your oldest works, right?
Starting point is 00:30:50 Yeah, yeah, he does. Okay. So this is really interesting. This is really cool. I think every kid goes through this. My niece gets a job, right? She starts working. She gets her paycheck, and she's looking at it and going.
Starting point is 00:31:00 Wait a minute. Where's the rest of it? Why is my, I think 15 an hour? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, oh, you pay taxes and just see the light bulb go on. And for her to be like, wait a minute. Isn't that money? I'm like, no, that's how much you got to pay.
Starting point is 00:31:13 Yeah. I just see that. That come through. It's pretty funny. Have you guys experienced that with your kids? Have they said anything about that? Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:22 it was a paycheck and yeah i think the realization of that was too and um the nice part was was eton was running his own experiment with trying to sell t-shirts and he was originally trying to sell like these packets that were like like gatorade that he was like hustling at school and kids were buying it from them and stuff i like that it was a cool little thing he was doing and then he was making you know some some side change from that and of course you know i was buying some stuff like off Amazon for him initially. And then I was like, you gotta
Starting point is 00:31:55 now put that back in. His margins were 100%. His margins were 100%. And so then he, you know, moves all that into like, well, I want to sell t-shirts now. And like, he actually was pretty resourceful and got this like whole setup from his gymnastic gym. They had like,
Starting point is 00:32:11 made t-shirts before in the past, but it was like they, you know, they weren't using it. And so he asked if he could use it. And so basically brought it home. And he's got this whole. thing all set up ready to go. Yeah. I'm like, oh, cool. Like, I'm all about, like, helping you, like, get this thing off the ground, launch and all this, but I was like, you know, you're going to have to buy all the t-shirts and you're going to have to buy the ink and, you
Starting point is 00:32:32 know, and all that kind of. So you got to factor all that in and, you know, see how we're going to recoup. And so he bought all that. He sold a few, and it just, it's like crushed him. You know, he was just the realization of, like, I don't think I'm going to make my money back to that. I was like, I know it's hard, right? You know? But it's like, you got one under your belt. I was like, the more of these you keep doing
Starting point is 00:32:56 and you figure it out, like, that's what entrepreneurship is. I can't wait for that day. It was rad, though. It was fun. My five-year-old, he'll buy, like, it's like jewelry-making kits, but it's like for kids stuff. Like you make a bracelet or whatever.
Starting point is 00:33:09 And he was selling them to family. Of course, family members are going to buy them all. And so now we go to the store and he's like, I want to, uh, Papa, buy this for me. I'm like, why? So I can sell some. some. So then I'm having the conversation of like, okay, it costs $15 and you're going to sell them for a dollar each. You're going to make $10. Yeah. You actually lost $5. And he's like, what? And I'm like, yeah, if you buy this and you sell them for a dollar each, you lose money. And it's like, the wheels are turning.
Starting point is 00:33:33 I need to raise prices. It sucks. Did you guys see? They just, this is the new data that came out. It was a federal national survey on drug use and health. the number one used addictive substance in America. Do you guys want to guess what it is? Are we including things like nicotine and like alcohol? No, no, it's legal stuff. Let's talk about it. Oh, legal stuff.
Starting point is 00:33:58 Caffeine. So, yeah, caffeine. They didn't put caffeine in there. They don't count that. That's a good one, Doug. It should, if they put caffeine on. I mean, it's going to be nicotine or, I mean, I guess nicotine. For the first time.
Starting point is 00:34:08 Actually, not alcohol, I wouldn't weigh down, right? For the first time ever, weed. Wow. Oh, wow. Weed. Weed. Weed, cannabis is the number one used. most popular daily drug.
Starting point is 00:34:19 It now beats alcohol and cigarettes. I don't know how I feel about that. Same. I don't know if I like that. It's not a good thing. I don't think it's a good thing. I definitely don't think it's good. Just from what I've seen from teenage kids and like how insanely pervasive it is and
Starting point is 00:34:34 how unproductive, you know, a lot of these people. You guys remember when we had this debate like a couple years ago? You don't remember this? Yeah. You did. Yeah, you already started that. Yes. I said, man, I would way rather catch my kid drinking.
Starting point is 00:34:47 and drunk, then catch him smoking weed. Yeah. And that was coming from, back then, I was smoking weed all time. And I was like, this is coming from somebody who smokes. Like, I, I would rather that. And it's, and it's not because I think one is more or less healthier. It's not even that angle. It's that it's pervasive like that.
Starting point is 00:35:04 It's easy to justify it. It's healthy for me or it's not bad. Or it's like, oh, it helps you with my anxiety. We don't, like, hangovers and you don't, there's not a lot of, like, immediate consequence for all. Right. things. Right. Exactly. And so that, that to me is, it is, it is, it creeps on you. And then before you know it, it's a daily habit and you don't, you're unproductive, you don't do shit. You know what's one of the
Starting point is 00:35:30 crazy things about this? So I was wrong on this. And I'm going to say this publicly. I thought that legalizing cannabis, this was back when it wasn't legal. Okay. Now it's mostly legal. It's not federally legal yet, but it's basically legal because so many states have legalized it in the federal government doesn't really care or do anything about it. I thought legalizing it would not increase its use. I thought, oh, it's just going to be about the same. And maybe even people will use it less because it's not as like seductive because it's not this black market thing.
Starting point is 00:36:01 It's not exciting. Which now in hindsight was one of the dumbest opinions you could possibly ever have. It for sure increased use. I don't, through the roof. I don't, I don't think it's fair to, to call that yet. It's still novel. It's extremely novel for a vast majority of our society. You think it's going to go up and draw?
Starting point is 00:36:24 100%. Yeah. 100%. It's novel. I mean, I see it in my, like, own, like, family of, like, people that were, like, weed was so taboo. And enough educations come around that it's actually, it's not too bad for you. It's like, okay, let me try it.
Starting point is 00:36:37 Yeah. You know, oh, and they're like, there's this curve happening or this, this pendulum happening right now of everybody can get it. It's not so bad for you. oh let's try oh it's fun I never did it like it's there's a lot of that happening right now and then also kids can get it's legal I do think I definitely think it's going to swing back
Starting point is 00:36:55 will it come way back and lower how high is it going to get before right like that that the verdict's not out just wild to me that in the US it's used more daily than alcohol or or tobacco which is wild here's the other part of this
Starting point is 00:37:12 is interesting to speculate on okay smoking weed by yourself is not is like bad as like drinking by yourself. Well, okay, so you're kind of along the lines where I'm going. So, okay, definitely alcohol can have some horrible effects. Alcoholism terrible. Like how often does, how often did anyone ever say like, yeah, man, I had a couple beers and played some video games? You definitely smoke some weed to play video games.
Starting point is 00:37:35 Well, this is where I'm going. It's always social. Most people, exactly where I'm going. Most people who drink, you know, who enjoy the occasional drink, you know, who enjoy the occasional drink. even weekly or whatever, are not alcoholics. We know this. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol are not alcoholics.
Starting point is 00:37:50 Yeah. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol are doing it in a social setting. Yeah. It's a social. Agreed. One of the effects of alcohol is it's kind of a social lubricant. Yeah. Cannabis is not.
Starting point is 00:38:02 No. Cannabis. People get weird. Cannabis actually is, now some people say it's social. Not really. I don't think so. I know a lot of introverts. Put yourself in a scary social situation, smoke a joint.
Starting point is 00:38:15 Guaranteed you won't. No, no, I don't care. I don't care who you are. I mean, there's obviously, my brother's an example, someone who uses it for social anxiety, right? But that he's a minority, even if that is true, of people that do it. And if it's something that you can smoke in your room by,
Starting point is 00:38:32 do in your room by yourself, like it's not a social. And also, that's like intervention, you know, with alcohol. Yeah. If you're just sitting there, like, drinking hard alcohol by yourself, like, people are going to be really concerned. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:44 But also, I would challenge that. Adam. So I don't know your brother. Yeah. Would you say he's like a super social person? Oh, that's why I did the air quotes. Is this like, I don't buy that. It's right. Yeah, but it's like, listen, who am I to say? Like, maybe it does, whatever.
Starting point is 00:38:58 It's like, I still would argue that he's an anomaly, even if that's true. So I, I'm the reason why I'm like sounding the alarm on this, I'm speculating, but, you know, I've done both, right? If I've smoked weed, I've had alcohol. Weed does not make me more social. Maybe when I'm with close friends that I trust. Yeah. But you put me in a place.
Starting point is 00:39:17 I don't know anybody. If you give me any cannabis, like now I'm, now I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm way more anxious, okay? I think with the loneliness epidemic, with the fact that society is now organizing itself in a way to make. It's a dangerous combination. Yeah. It's like socializing. Okay.
Starting point is 00:39:34 So this is what happened to activity. We organize society to make being active difficult. It's actually being active now is you have to, you have to go out of your way to be active. Being sedentary is the default. This is how we organize society. We've also now slowly, maybe actually quickly, have organized society in a way to make being social with people something you have to go out of your way to do. Whereas being social used to be the default. You had to be social.
Starting point is 00:39:59 If I went to the store, you know, I had to walk to the store. I had to talk to people. I knew my neighbors. We have organized society now to isolate ourselves, door dash, internet. Everything is like, and we know this. The loneliness epidemic is crazy. You throw a weed on top of that. Holy cow.
Starting point is 00:40:15 Bad combination. And that's not good for people. Yeah, no, I don't disagree with that at all. I don't, it's a bad. And that is what could potentially cause it to continue to go really, really bad. Oh, yeah. And stay bad for a long time. And listen, okay, I'll say this about alcohol.
Starting point is 00:40:29 Is there a difference between drinking a beer and doing shots? Yeah. Okay. Cannabis does not look the same as it used to. It does not look the same. You go to a dispensary and you find yourself a joint and you try to find one less than 20% THC. They don't sell them. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:45 don't. No. They're all 25 plus. It used to be 15% 10% team. They're making them strong as hell. So this is, uh, this will be interesting. I mean, if you, I mean, I'm just going to say it. If you could finish a, finish a joint, you're a stoner. I mean, that's like, today, today's , you can't of it? I mean, yeah, no, I'm blitzed if I have like more than two hits or something. I mean, that would be just, if you can actually finish a whole one, like that's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. You've got a crazy tolerance. Yeah, which, yeah, exactly. Which means you had to do a lot to get to that. You had to do a lot to get to that level for sure. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, part of the motivation, there was several things that motivated me to quit. But I also
Starting point is 00:41:26 know my son's getting to that certain age. And I like I definitely, if I want, if I don't want him to ever do that, one of the easiest ways I think is to him not see his dad or, you know, be around that or any of that stuff. And so that was a big, big motivation for me. And I'm not an anti-canamus person. Like I, even when I said, when I stopped, I was like, you know, I'm not saying I'll never do it again. Like I'm sure there's going to be a situation or a time where I partake or do that, but it'll be few and far between. I have a friend of mine.
Starting point is 00:41:56 I won't say who they are and give too many details, but someone I know very well who was a regular cannabis user. So they have it on kind of a daily basis, which now we're finding is not that uncommon. Okay. So they used it regularly. They also had social anxiety and would not necessarily like to be in public or social situations. thought that that was their personality.
Starting point is 00:42:18 Just thought that that's who they were. Quit smoking cannabis after getting through the first couple months of the difficulty of whatever became much more social, hosting events, being around people and literally told me, said to me, I thought that was my personality. I had no idea it was the cannabis. That's like the people that think they're productive on it. And then they get off of it. It's like, whoa, that's what productivity looks like actually looks like.
Starting point is 00:42:43 Oh, good for you. You went to work. You still work. You still did your job. It does not mean you're productive yet. You guys know that one meme that says like hard times create good man. Yeah, yeah. Create good men create good time.
Starting point is 00:42:53 Okay, they made one for nicotine in cannabis. It said nicotine, uh, nicotine produces, uh, produces good men, good times. Good times produce weed. Weed produces bad men, bad men. So basically saying like nicotine was good guys. Wait, get back to smoking cigarettes. Yeah, you know, some tough guys. Work our way back to Marlboro.
Starting point is 00:43:15 That's hilarious. Dude, that's hilarious. I just learned something the other day. Have you guys ever heard of the over-justification effect? I feel like I can guess what it is. It's really cool, dude. I looked at the study. I saw this study.
Starting point is 00:43:30 It was really interesting. So scientists took a group of kids who love to draw. Okay. These were already kids, they love to draw. It's just like their favorite thing to do. Whenever they have free time, they draw, they enjoy it. They took and they divided them. And this, you can look this up.
Starting point is 00:43:45 Look up the over-dustification. justification effect, Doug, if you don't mind. And they took the kids, they separated them. They gave half the kids a star every time they drew. So every time they drew, they give them a star and a reward. The other kids, they left alone.
Starting point is 00:43:57 Here's what happened. The kids who were given a star stopped stopped. They stopped. The kids that left alone continue to go. Continue to do it. They call it the over-justification effect. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:44:09 Athletes experience this as well. You have athletes who are passionate about a sport, love it. Got all the trophies. Do everything. Then suddenly they go play pro, and now it's a job. They're getting paid, and they lose, they lose the passion for it. And you'll see that as well.
Starting point is 00:44:22 Well, they talk about it. I wonder what that curve looks like. Yeah, I know. Because obviously there's some positive reinforcement that probably happens early on. You start drawing and you get a star, you get this thing like that. In fact, actually, I think I saw Hermosie just talking about this. This must have been what he was alluding to this study because he was saying that. Like, that falls off after a while.
Starting point is 00:44:41 So what's the curve look like? Because initially, that reward signal does. work. Like initially... What does it say, Doug? Well, I don't know, but if you look at the graph, it looks like it falls off very quickly. That's right. Oh, interesting. Can you pull it, can you put it up on the... It was like a tree from here? Oh, it's not there. Okay. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:44:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was up. No, no, no, no worries. Yeah, it's interesting, right? And so you see this with people too. Yeah. So people who love doing what they do? Yeah. Yeah, look at that. Yeah, what's that, what's that what's the ex and why? Intrinsic motivation. What's the X and Y? Okay. Obviously, the motivation is on, I guess this would be the X-axis. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:21 And this is over time. And this is when the rewards introduced. Right. So what I'm curious about is, oh, as soon as reward is introduced. Well, it looks, according to this graph, as soon as the rewards introduced. I find out hard to believe it's so quick. I find that way hard to believe. What does it say?
Starting point is 00:45:39 Yeah, we get checks out studies. How does it explain the over-justification fact? Is there something there? Read what that says about the over-juffism. So, yeah, it's the introduction of an incentive that has a detrimental effect on an individual's intrinsic motivation to complete a task that they were initially motivated to do alone. Yeah, so recognizing a kid that likes to draw is different. That would be like, yeah, man, I really like, I love these drawings that you make. It's different than saying every time you draw, I'm going to give you a story.
Starting point is 00:46:07 Okay, this is actually really interesting considering we just had a, we just did this with our leadership team. with like, okay, another way to say this is like, okay, I've got an employee. This is their job. They've been doing their job and tasks for the last nine months, those things. And then I reward that job. They didn't do anything else outside of it. And then we'd give them a race. Wouldn't that cause the same thing?
Starting point is 00:46:34 That's interesting because I wonder if that would apply because they're already getting paid to do what they do. So they're not doing it for free. So I wonder if that makes a difference. You have to equate to their result, right? And so this is another, okay, let's use another example. So this would also imply that I've trained my son to make his bed before he goes to school every day. And he's consistently done it for, let's say, a year of his life. And then all of a sudden I decide, I'm going to start paying you $5 for making a bet.
Starting point is 00:47:04 So here's what it says. The over-justification effect can occur almost immediately, often taking effect after just one or two exposures to an expected, tangible reward. The decline in intrinsic motivation is triggered when a person's brain reclassifies an enjoyable activity. Okay. Sure being done strictly for a paycheck or a price. Okay. So we have to reframe it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:26 So where, okay, so that means, that means this. Let's use my son's bed making analogy I was giving. That would mean that he's been making his bed for a year. On his own. On his own. Loves doing it. I decide he on, on, you know, the 56th time, I start paying him $5. Every time.
Starting point is 00:47:47 Great job. And now, but I start doing it every time, but then I don't do it. Then it, then it's right. That's why. Because he expects it now. Yeah. Okay. But if I kept doing it, I'm sure he would keep doing it.
Starting point is 00:47:58 I don't know. Because what they showed in the kid's study. Well, that's yeah, because it looks at one or two exposures. One or two exposures would be the giving him. So scroll down, Doug Moore. So this is the site. This is the experiment that I read. It's Leper Green, Nisbits.
Starting point is 00:48:09 landmark 19703, nursery school study, researchers documented this shift within a matter of days. Children who already enjoyed drawing were observed after receiving a tangible, expected reward for it.
Starting point is 00:48:21 And here is how the timeline conditions unfold. So they saw an instant shift and self-perception. Individuals learn about their own preferences by observing their own actions. If they notice they're receiving an external reward for a task,
Starting point is 00:48:31 they rapidly conclude, I must be doing this for the reward rather than I am doing this because I love. Is this more about art than it is, you know about like chores I think if kids Well this is what Scott Donald teaches
Starting point is 00:48:45 Yeah artists He talks about this is why you don't give allowance for basic chores in the house Yeah He's like that should be That's part of being the unit and the family You make your bed You take out the trash
Starting point is 00:48:57 You just do It's like But then we have other things He organizes them as like jobs essentially Exactly so it's like These are chores that you do And you don't get real It's part of being the family
Starting point is 00:49:05 We all do this But if you want to make money There's opportunities for you money. Outside of that. You can babysit your sister for a weekend. You can go wash and detail the car. You can go, you know, break down the cardboard, whatever. Like, he has, and he's like, those you create as jobs. Well, I can, I don't know. I guess I could see this from a different perspective of it being like, you know, an athlete and like you're, you love sports. You love the game. You don't love the game because it becomes a job. But like the same thing with artistry.
Starting point is 00:49:35 Like, if I'm making music or something, I'm just doing it for that. And then I get paid. paid this exorbit amount of money for that all of a sudden. Then I'm like, well, now I'm just doing this for somebody to pay me to keep doing this. And then, you know, my interest is going to fall off quickly with that. But I guess, like, I don't really see it from that other perspective. If I'm, if I'm actually doing hard work, I want to get a reward. Yeah, but yeah, I think that's different, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:59 We're already paying them. They're already working for us. Yeah. So, I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to understand. Yeah, me too. And I'm not trying to use the example I get because making a bed would be a chore and it would be a thing that you could train to do.
Starting point is 00:50:09 your kid to do without getting paid. And then if all of a sudden I decided to pay him, he would inevitably fall off of doing that? Yeah. If he's already doing it on his own. So it's intrinsic motivations. So I think it's, you know, their desire within to want to do something.
Starting point is 00:50:24 Right. And so then maybe he does it, but he's now doing it just because he wants the money. Right. So that desire is falling away. So I think that's why it's happening with sports and music and things like that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:35 Interesting, right? I mean, it's interesting. And it, I mean, it makes me wonder, how that does carry over to job and other things like that, too. Yeah, it seems a little bit different. Yeah. I mean, kind of, right?
Starting point is 00:50:46 But there's a part of me, I mean, even when, you know, the example I'm thinking of right now, when we did something like this where we, where we just raise up to raise up, I prefer to like. Attach it to something. Yeah. Like, or give a new goal like, hey, I want to raise you up, but these are the things I'm looking for me. Leading up to that point to get there. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:05 Versus just like, hey, you've been working for us for a year and doing your job. here's another X amount of dollars because then like what what are you rewarding really by doing that and you're just like and then they're just literally just doing the same thing to get that and then you then now they'll expect that every year of like oh if I just do the same job it's almost like the incentive version versus like the 10 tenured you know like I expect like just because I've been here that long right I get paid more yeah that's interesting so along the same lines like psychology stuff I'm reading this book validation it's called validation and it talks about the power of essentially validating people when they're coming to you with something or they have an experience, which by the way doesn't mean you agree with them. It's just you're validating their experience. The data that's cited in this is pretty remarkable. So when somebody has a difficult situation, stressful situation, validating somebody, essentially validating their experience lowers their fight or flight response. Invalidating them triggers it.
Starting point is 00:52:05 So like your kid comes to you. like, oh my God, I'm freaking out over this thing. It's not that big of a deal. Yes. Oh, who cares. Don't worry about it. Like, get over a type of deal. Worst thing you can do.
Starting point is 00:52:14 Triggers. Yeah, worse thing you do. Triggers their fight or flight versus validating their experience. What's funny, what's crazy about it, I'm reading the book. And by the, I grew up in a household. We didn't invalid anything. Everything was invalid. Like, everything was like, get up.
Starting point is 00:52:26 You can do it, whatever. Wipe it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I grew up that way. But when I trained and coach people, I learned that this was very powerful. Like, when I had clients come to me with, with challenges, the worst possible thing I could do was invalidate. Well, I think when you say this, you have to be very clear, too, because I think somebody
Starting point is 00:52:45 will interpret validation to being like coddling. And it does look different. We do this with my son. It's just like he can have a moment of breakdown and you can validate his feelings, but then also correct his behavior. Yeah. Yeah. You can be angry about this. I know, I know that that felt like it hurt and it was this, but you're going to be okay. Like this happens when we play rough. You fall down. It was an accident. You're going to be all right. You're going to be. right? Yeah. Like you can you can validate their feeling, you know, whatever they're going through, and then turn around and coach right afterwards. It's like, hey, I can see, yeah, I can see why that really bothered you. Because I also think, I also think that that somebody can take the validation
Starting point is 00:53:20 thing too far, where it's, that's all you do is validate and you don't follow it up with the coaching. It can just be like, oh, you poor thing, oh my God, that's, oh, I can't believe that. And there's, that's it. And so then that, then you also create a victim. You create somebody every time something rough happens or anything bad, there's like, you come running up. and you're just validating how they feel all the time. And then we have this society of people that want to be validated. So that's the thing. So there's a confusion, right?
Starting point is 00:53:42 Is that validating isn't that you agree that, yeah, I agree with what's how. I agree with you. I agree with your, with your, the fact that you're so upset that, you know, you're, you've got a, an A minus on your test and you're freaking out. Like, you don't have to agree with it. But you can say, look, yeah, I could tell you worked really hard. You expected an A. And so that's really disappointing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:05 And then the conversation. Right. But you lower that fight or flight, they feel valid, and then you can have that conversation. I mean, that conversation, though, has to be equally as important. Totally. Because otherwise, if you just valid. As a parent for sure. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:17 Because if you just go and validate feelings all day long about when, especially when they're wrong. Yeah. Because you kind of reinforce it. Yeah. I mean, if they're acting. But it's different. Validating your kid is very different than like your friend or especially your spouse. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:31 Yeah. You know, like the correcting part with this. Well, let me tell you. work so well. Let me tell you, honey. You're going to. I can see why you're upset. Let me tell you why you're wrong.
Starting point is 00:54:41 Here's why you shouldn't be upset. That's not going to work. That's not the same thing. That's not the same thing. You know, I'm going to take a laugh. So guess what is available, back available as a peptide? You can now again get. What was off?
Starting point is 00:54:56 It was off? Mott C is available again. For a second there, you couldn't. You couldn't for a minute. You couldn't get it. They had put a pause on it. But Mott C, if you, like, It's back on the menu.
Starting point is 00:55:07 You go through our partners at nphoramones.com. You can get MOTC again, which is very exciting. Why? Because that's one of my favorite, favorite pet. Yeah, you and Justin both have been on that in a long time. Oh, it's the best, dude. Yeah, you too have always raped about that. Why was it off?
Starting point is 00:55:20 Because the FDA sent letters and scared everybody. Was that around the same time as the BPC one? That's right. So BPC you couldn't get for a while either. And now they've kind of made it so that. So you can now get a prescription again for MOTC. Get it from an FDA regular. compound pharmacy, and you get the real deal.
Starting point is 00:55:40 So MOTC, the nickname Exercise in a Bottle, and that sounds sensational. But essentially, it really does supercharged of mitochondria. So what people get from it is mostly what they get is energy. Yeah, it's energy boost. You feel just really good energy all the time. What it's also doing is helping things like burn body fat. So bodybuilders like MOTC for fat loss, because of the increased energy production, the increased metabolic rate.
Starting point is 00:56:06 In studies with animals, they'll feed them a high-calorie diet, and they don't gain as much body fat. Interesting. When they take a MOTC increases insulin sensitivity really good as well. Interesting. One of my favorite, dude, is one of the few peptides I took. I actually haven't taken it. It was one of the ones I took where by day three, I was like, whoa, dude.
Starting point is 00:56:25 I feel like it's hit and miss with people that I've talked to at least. It's like very awesome for some, and then some are like, I don't even feel like. I mean, I feel like that's almost everything with peptides. Yeah. Depends on the peptide. Some people like the SS, I think it's SS31. I think that's what it's called. Is that it?
Starting point is 00:56:41 Is that the sloop? No, no, no, that's totally different. That's a different. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's, is it SS31? Put SS31 peptides. See if I got that right. Because I might be wrong here.
Starting point is 00:56:50 Yes. So SS31 also targets the mitochondria but works differently. People either respond really well, MOTC or SS31. Okay, so that's the alternative. Because I've done SS31 and I've heard people rave about it. and I've done it, notice nothing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:05 Mottsey for me, I haven't tried that one. It's like a light dimmer. Like I turned up the light. Yeah, same. Interesting. Is it, so is it injectable or is it pill? Injectable. Daily?
Starting point is 00:57:15 Yes. Oh, it's daily. Yeah. That's why I, that's why I, that's why. You forget. Yes, dude. It's a little tiny. It's not what it is.
Starting point is 00:57:23 Yeah, it's just the habit of doing a daily thing. It's like, it's, that's just another thing. No, I know. So you guys want to hear some cool patents that, uh, I saw this, um, this post on these new patents that just got submitted that for pretty innovative, interesting inventions. I'll read them off to you. Motorola just got a patent for a throat tattoo that works like a microphone.
Starting point is 00:57:49 What? Yeah. A tattoo? How does that work? That works like a microphone. I'm not sure. I'm just reading you the headline. Is Motorola still a strong?
Starting point is 00:57:56 Are they owned by somebody else? Is that like a throat tattoo? I didn't realize Motorola is still doing it. Check this out. Amazon has a patent for a flying warehouse that releases delivery drones. It's happening, you guys. Oh, I've seen that. I've seen that.
Starting point is 00:58:11 They'll be in the air and you're going to order something and a drone's going to come down and in 10 minutes you're going to get your product. Flying warehouses. Bro, imagine that. 15 minutes. You buy, boom, deliver to you. We're so close to Wally. Dude.
Starting point is 00:58:24 I feel like that was the beginning before. I thought they've tested this and it didn't go. Why didn't it? The drone delivery hasn't really taken off yet. They've tested it in areas. Yeah, they've tested it in some areas, but it kind of, I don't know why it didn't take off.
Starting point is 00:58:42 I don't know, but I... I'm scared to regulate, maybe. Who knows, but let me see, because of FAA regulations, noise pollution, privacy concern concerns. Oh, that makes sense. So I think this is going to be the future. I think it's going to be crazy.
Starting point is 00:58:57 Because Amazon really, I mean, Amazon was crazy, right? You get stuff the next day, which is wild. Like, that's crazy. For those of us who know what it was like before. Like, I used to buy stuff. Oh, you get to the same day.
Starting point is 00:59:07 Bro, you do know what we're going to have because of this? We're going to have freaking flying pirates. Oh, 100%. That's why I won't, Justin, that's why I won't, that's why I won't worry.
Starting point is 00:59:19 Oh, they're going to get up. There's still in his packages, dude. Oh, motorcycle drones? Yes. Bro, 100% that's going to happen. I mean, if you, the wrist The risk of robbing...
Starting point is 00:59:33 You're going to make a movie, dude? The risk of robbing a person is... That has to be a major deterrent in comparison to robbing a robot. Like, it's not... It's a non-human, a drone flying, like, shoot a net at it. People are going to punk robots like crazy. Yeah. You're a jack-em all the time.
Starting point is 00:59:51 Humans, they're going to punk them. Now, the only... The counter argument to that is, I, if you would have asked me, if we could go back in time, and, you know, 40 years or more, because it would be even longer than that, we have about 40 years or more, and say one day, every day,
Starting point is 01:00:09 there'd be all kinds of packages dropped off at people's doors, and people wouldn't steal them off their doorstep. Yeah. I wouldn't believe that. Yeah. People don't. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:00:17 I mean, the fact that... All the time now. The fact that there's, there's... Everybody's got a box at their door right now, and it doesn't get stolen, so, you know, maybe people won't... It is crazy to people. There'll be...
Starting point is 01:00:27 There'll be some pirates originally. There'll be... You know what I'm saying? A rampant, like, pirate activity. At least for a while. They're on motorcycle gross. Like, hawks on their shoulder. Have you seen all those?
Starting point is 01:00:42 I wonder how many of them are real and how many of them are staged, those viral videos of people that do steal the boxes off the... Yeah, people put the bait box. Yes, and they bait them with the... Well, now it's AI. They've just done so many of those where it explodes on it. Yeah, I don't know if they're real or not. Those bring me joy.
Starting point is 01:00:57 This is really bad. Yeah. But I get really happy when I see a thief. get blasted with blue spray of my favorite content. It's like the worst, dude. It's up there like, what do you think? It's really annoying me. It's like really,
Starting point is 01:01:06 lowest common denominator, yeah, thing to do. It makes, it makes me really mad. Because, yeah, anyone's... So I, do you guys remember the first time something really valuable of yours that's stolen? Yeah. What was it?
Starting point is 01:01:17 Yeah, it's a car. Oh, more than once. That's a big one. Hey, what are the odds? I don't think, I think most people have never had their car stolen, let alone two car stole. Yes, two car stole.
Starting point is 01:01:29 You know the irony of all that, though, is I had the car, the Integra, and then I had my truck stolen. The car being stolen, the thing that broke my heart more than anything was my thousand CD CD case. You know, I had the big four flipper CDs I've been collecting since I was in high school. Gone. Gone. That was just like, cars replaceable. That collection was not replaceable. In my truck, because I had a DVD player and stuff.
Starting point is 01:01:59 side there. I had at that time, so, you know, my annual trip that we go to the lake all time, we, we would make a short video of us wakeboarding and jumping and doing all stuff like that, right? And I had at least three years of DVDs. Oh, you can't replace that. Oh, I can't. And my buddy, we still can't find the original stuff of that. So it's just like, they're gone. And those were really special to me, even more so now that I'm older. Like it was, I loved him when we were close to Now it's like, man, that was like... I had... The first time I ever experienced it was my bike.
Starting point is 01:02:34 I rode my bike to like the local... It was a convenience store. They had a street fighter two there. Remember that? And I was playing it. And I look out. Check my bike. It's there.
Starting point is 01:02:42 Still playing. Still playing. Look out. Bikes gone. Huh? Bike was gone. And I went to my grandparent's house. We went to my grandparents' house.
Starting point is 01:02:51 My grandfather found out... This is a true story. I'll share it. He passed away so I can share it. And I told my grandfather and he said, what? Somebody stole you a bike? I said, yeah, he goes, come with me. So I get in the car with him, and we're driving around looking for my bike.
Starting point is 01:03:04 Here's the crazy part, okay? This is the crazy part. He had his barretta in the car, dude. And I remember thinking this as a kid. This is a true story. I never even told my mom. He had his barretta in there. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm not going to tell him if I see my buddy.
Starting point is 01:03:22 No way. Like some kid, like, yay. No way, dude. The kid could ride right in front of me. They're like, hey, what's up, Sal? my bike. Terrified. That was the first time that I used to have to.
Starting point is 01:03:34 Old Sicilian. You know what you just made me. The DVDs. Okay, so Katrina told me that we were going through. I shared with you guys that old picture of Katrina and I when we first got together. And because we were going through all these old photos of her and I, one of the other old photos that popped up was the very first kind of thing that we ever did together was I took her snowboarding. And I taught her out of snowboard.
Starting point is 01:03:55 And there's a picture of her and I doing this. that. And she goes, you remember that day? And I'm like, yeah, I know. I told, she's like, you were so patient, this and that. She goes, do you remember what you did on the drive all the way up to the thing? And I'm like, no. She's like, you, you had me watch your wakeboarding video. Oh, look what I do right there. That you do. That you do. That you do. That's amazing. An hour, me like doing tricks. A whole hour?
Starting point is 01:04:26 She's still, she's still. She's still stuck. with you, dude. Wow. That's a good woman. That was good, bro. It was kind of cool. Were you turned on,
Starting point is 01:04:33 maybe? The music behind it and everything. Oh, yeah, dog. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. It's a whole video.
Starting point is 01:04:41 Courtney to watch any of my highlights from football or any of my old band. She was trapped in the truck the whole time. That's why. She ain't go nowhere. I should have held her hostage. That's the move. Dude,
Starting point is 01:04:52 that's the best thing ever. How long were you guys dating at that point? Oh, we adjusted. It was the first real, like, we ever did. No way, bro, early on, too. Yeah, yeah, I'm 29.
Starting point is 01:05:02 I was 29. She was 30. See, she's smart because she's probably like, this is ridiculous. Which is also probably thinking her head like, he's really confident.
Starting point is 01:05:10 This is going to go somewhere. This confidence is interesting. We point this in the right direction. We're good. Yeah, I'm just having to direct this. That's awesome. When your system that is meant to guide your health falls short,
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Starting point is 01:05:38 better performance to feel better. Here's the deal. A lot of people who work out hard, especially if you're on a low carbohydrate diet or you don't eat processed foods, you need more electrolytes. Maybe you have muscle cramps or you have excess fatigue or headaches. Try Element. It tastes amazing.
Starting point is 01:05:57 It's inexpensive. There's no sugar, no sweeteners. It gives you the right amount of electrolytes to fuel you, fuel you for your workouts. Go check them out. Go to drink elemente.com slash mind pump. On that link, you'll get a free sample pack of the most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase. All right, here comes a show. Our first caller is Kayla from New York.
Starting point is 01:06:20 Hi, Kayla. Hi, Kayla. Hi. Wow, this is surreal. How are you? How can I help you? I'm good. Thank you for having me.
Starting point is 01:06:28 Well, so after listening to your episode aired on Monday, I switched things up and decided I should just be straightforward and real. I'm turning 40 in February, and I want next year to be the year that I've looked the best I've ever looked. Yes, I want great mobility, functionality, and strength, but ultimately I want to look amazing, but without doing any harm to my hormones or metabolism. For my background, I spent the last eight years being pregnant, birthing, nursing three babies, just to start paramedopause, a year postpartum after my third, to then have nearly a year of almost daily diarrhea to learn that I had SIBO. I treated the SIBO, started hormone therapy, had a return of the SIBO eight months later, then I need to increase my HRT a few months ago, and I also had carpal tunnel surgery six months ago.
Starting point is 01:07:20 So I'm 30 and I know. I'm a wife and mother to three little girls, 7, 5, and 3. I want to set a good example for them and show them how they need to respect their bodies and take care of their bodies. And they already know that we value protein in our house. I used to run to lose weight when I was younger and as a form of punishment therapy. I turned a circuit training to lose weight. That was a bad idea. In my early 20s, the circuit training worked, but it doesn't anymore.
Starting point is 01:07:50 first world problems, but life has been a roller close to the last eight years. My husband and I had a rough patch when I hit 37 and my paramedipause came on. Thank God I got the HRT because that poor man may have divorced me. Otherwise, and my girls were kind of on edge because I was just a raging lunatic. So now I've gotten my digestion to a better place. I still have to steer clear of gluten, sugar, and most dairy. before all this, I was a selfish person and my husband always spoiled me. And then the onslaught of babies and how my body changes and all the things that come with the entire life change was really
Starting point is 01:08:35 hard for me to accept. But accepting it now has made me a better mom, wife, and just person in general. I've got back to my faith and that's helped me a lot. And also your podcast has really been beneficial. Now that I have things pretty well settled, I'd like to focus on getting some self-esteem back and being a bit more selfish for a year. I want to build strength, lean out and look amazing, but I recognize when it's time to push and when it's time to slow down. My busy season for work is mid-December through March, so I'd like to do a bulk in the fall months, do like a 15 program and some light walking during my busy season just to maintain. Pot and increased due increase some cardio or something to lean out in the spring and burn some fat and then maintain
Starting point is 01:09:25 again through the summer months if that sounds doable. My question is, what programs do you think would benefit me the most during these seasons for the upcoming year? Good question, and I'm glad you called in. Sounds like you've been through the ringer. Well, I mean, what mom hasn't, but, you know, such as life. But yeah, yeah, it took me a little while to accept all the chaos that kids spring. Yeah, although it may seem common to you, it's very difficult. And I've worked with a lot of women through having children, through the hormone changes and all that can happen and oftentimes contributing to poor gut issues. And so you just had all of it all at once. Is it, are the gut issues pretty much rectified? It's not perfect. I unfortunately fell in love with sourdough baking.
Starting point is 01:10:13 So that doesn't help me. But as long as I, steer clear of that then yeah okay okay so we got way to make sure we maintain that so maintain good gut health because that'll throw everything off is your HRT stable now have you found the right dose and it's right and everything feels good now yeah yeah when i started it last june um i was doing a bulk that fall and my metabolism shot through the roof um and i talked to my um obi gyn and she said that it could be that I'm metabolizing things much quicker. So we need to up my levels a little bit. But I'm pretty good now.
Starting point is 01:10:52 Okay. And you're on, what's part of your HRT? Is it, is it the whole gamut? Are you progesterone, thyroid, testosterone, testosterone? No thyroid, estrogen, and testosterone. Okay, good. No. So, okay, good.
Starting point is 01:11:06 So a good, what you want to focus on right now is traditional strength training and you want to get stronger. That's going to be the best thing for setting yourself up for the, for the cut later on. Are you tracking your calories? You have an idea where you're at with that? Yeah, my maintenance is around 2000. When I was doing a bulk last fall, I could get up to 27,000 3,000 calories. And I'm not going to lie, it was hard to cut from that because I love food. Yeah. It's kind of my comfort zone and plus the sourdough, you know, just throws that out of the window. And when you got up to that, were you gaining a bunch of weight? Or were you,
Starting point is 01:11:45 building muscle and maintaining? No, I really only, over the last year, I really only fluctuated when I was lean in the summer, I was like 125. And when I was bulking at my weight, my highest, I was 135. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I oscillate between that. No, no, no, that's phenomenal because this is perfect.
Starting point is 01:12:05 I mean, you would be somebody that I would really look for a body comp change rather than a hard cut. Yeah. You know, so I would put you in a reverse diet. I wouldn't have you climb as high as he did last time. and then kind of stay, you know, if you're at 2000-ish right now, I'd put you at, you know, 24, 25 and just get strong. What you'll see over time is this nice body composition change that wouldn't require, and what do you sit in at right now, body weight? Are you around the 135 or?
Starting point is 01:12:33 Like 130. Yeah. I mean, if you just did that. Yeah, you're at a good way. You would be good and you would just see yourself kind of lean out as your body sculpted in shape. You know, Kayla, I got to tell you, with everything that you're doing, you're a. perfect candidate for coaching. To have somebody coach you through the process would be perfect.
Starting point is 01:12:50 Because you've got all the other stuff. And look, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, managing more things is a lot. You've got kids. You've got a, it looks like you got a job. You've done all the, you know, managing of the CBO and the HRT. I mean, it would be, it would probably benefit you to just offset that and have someone kind of walk you through the process and meet with you on a semi-regular basis. with nutrition and exercise programming.
Starting point is 01:13:18 I don't think you need anything special. I think you're in a great place. I mean, a program like MAPS Anabolic or Muscle Mommy, you know, 2400 calories. I think you'd get great results. But what a coach is going to do is walk you through the kind of reverse diet process, maybe throw in some mini cuts, modify the program so that it's, you know, instead of MAPS muscle mommy, it's a MAPS Kayla. And then just kind of move you through this, you know, maybe six to nine month process
Starting point is 01:13:44 where at the end of it you're like, man, everything's great and it feels good and my body's working the way I want it to. Yeah. Okay. I don't know about the cost of a coach at the moment, but that's something I can talk to my husband about. Okay. But you'd be perfect for that.
Starting point is 01:14:01 But I think, how many days a week are you able to work out in the gym? Well, I've been what I'm, what I call lazy exercising at the moment. I pretty much do a 15. Some days I'll double up so that I can have a day off or whatever. But I work out like, I have a home gym. So I'll go in the basement and I'll do a couple of lifts a day, almost five days a week. Oh, that's fine. I like that.
Starting point is 01:14:25 Yeah, how many steps are you taking on a daily basis? My average for June was 14,000. Oh, wow. Kayla, you're kicking butt. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, don't do anything too aggressive with the cut. I think if you stay the course, especially now the HRT dialed in, what you're going to see over the next six months to a year is this really, nice, consistent body composition change.
Starting point is 01:14:47 The mistake you could make, Kayla, is to try to force it. Yeah. Yeah. It's to try to push too hard in any direction. Yeah. I think part of that is what kicked off the SIBO the first time. You know, like the 3,000 calories, I was impressed with even myself that I could maintain that.
Starting point is 01:15:05 But I think it was too much for my digestion to handle, plus the stress of my busy season. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to try any supplements for gut health, Organify has a new parasite. cleanse that I really, really like. And it seems to be benefiting a lot of all listeners who have kind of reoccurring sebo issues. So it's natural.
Starting point is 01:15:24 It's an easy supplement. You would do like two cycles of it. But as far as a workout, so here's a deal. And this is the mentality. It's like, man, I dealt with all the stuff. I'm coming out of this cloud that lasted the years. And I think my body's starting to work the way I wanted to. Now I'm going to slam on the gas.
Starting point is 01:15:41 This is a mistake. Yeah. You don't want to do that. You're going to progress just fine as long as you're consistent. And what you're doing, at 14,000 steps a day, you know, bring your calories up to 24, 2,500, consistently hit your protein targets. Be consistent with a mass 15 protocol, 15 muscle mommy, 15 power lift, 15 symmetry, either one of those, and just stay consistent.
Starting point is 01:16:03 We're going to see, like I said, over six months to the next year is just this nice change in body composition, this nice, consistent change. And to address kind of your thought process, because you were kind of asking about the whole year during certain seasons this program than that program a you a 15 protocol year around is great for you the thing that changes is your mindset and intensity in the lifting so when you're in your when you're in your busy season and maybe you're not getting as much rest or you're not as dialed on the diet back off on the intensity go through the motions you go to your workout you just do your workout you get your steps you walk the day when you're in your less busy
Starting point is 01:16:38 season and you're more rested you're more fed you feel really good push the intensity this is where I'm trying to get stronger, so I'm going to add more weight to the bar. So that's what it looks like. It looks less like a radical change in the programming that you need to switch up or you need to all of a sudden start doing all kinds of cardio. No, what it looks like is when you're really, really busy and you got a lot on your plate, your workouts are almost therapeutic. You're going through the motions.
Starting point is 01:17:02 You're doing your lifts, but you're not really pushing it when you are feeling great and you're well-rested. And that might look like week-to-week. It could look like month-to-month, like depending on what your, you know, what your seasons look like, but that's how you gauge what you should be doing is like the 15 protocol is perfect for you, but you're manipulating the intensity based off of what's going on your outside of the only way you can mess this up, just based off everything you're saying, Kayla and where you're at, the only way you can mess this up is if you try to rush it.
Starting point is 01:17:32 Yeah. That's it. I'm not worried about you not working out. Sounds like you're pretty consistent. You're active daily. Your metabolism is not in a bad place. Hormones are now where they need to be. The only way that Kayla can mess this up is if you try to rush it.
Starting point is 01:17:47 So that's the issue. If you don't rush it, you'll get great results. They'll be nice and consistent. If you think you can get results faster by rushing it, you'll be wrong. And that'll move you. The only reason I mentioned cardio in like the springtime to really like lean out was because a little while ago, you guys were talking about your hip program and I thought, well, maybe that could kind of jumpstart my cut phase or whatever. But maybe that's just too much for me in this phase.
Starting point is 01:18:16 Well, you're also, you're at such a great place. I wouldn't need to cut you. And I feel this has been a common theme when I've been talking to a lot of our female clients and callers is build into the body you want. Like you don't need to, you don't need to cut into the body you want. You're at a good weight for your side. How tall are you? You're at a good weight. I'm only 5'3, and that's rounding up.
Starting point is 01:18:36 No, you're fine. Yeah. That's a good. Oh, my God. Yeah, 130 pounds. You stay on this path. your body fat will fall in the low 20s. You'll have sculpt, shape, muscle, metabolism.
Starting point is 01:18:48 Yeah. You're going to be great. Yeah, you don't need to get smaller. You'll get tighter and denser. So your weight will stay the same or maybe go up a little tiny bit, but you'll have the physique you want. And that's with the mentality of building into the body,
Starting point is 01:19:00 not kind of burning and leaning out into the body. If you do anything like hit or cardio or anything like that, that would be for endurance. I would, if you're training for an athletic endeavor, You're like, man, I want some stamina so I can go running with my kids or go. That's fine. Go for it.
Starting point is 01:19:17 But if you're looking at body composition change and aesthetics, stay the course. Yeah. Just stay the course. This is perfect. Yep. Okay. Awesome. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:19:25 Do you, which maps 15 programs you have because I'd like to send you another one. I have Muslim Mommy and symmetry. Okay. I'll send you power lift 15. Oh, that sounds awesome. I've heard you guys talking about that lately. Yeah. You're good.
Starting point is 01:19:39 Yeah. Cycle through those, Kayla. That's it. it. Perfect. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for calling in. Thanks. Bye-bye. We need to have, I mean, she just brought, she brought up paramedopause and how hard that was for her. It is very hard for a lot of women. It is very hard for a lot of marriages when that starts to happen. And without education, it can feel like what the heck is going on. Yeah. But it's hormone changes are no joke. They are no joke. They will affect you. And without the education around it and what's going to. on it could feel like you're losing your mind or like what the heck's going on oh i think i've mentioned this once before that um you know katrina's mom life coaches a lot of people and a lot of
Starting point is 01:20:21 people that are in their late 30s 40s and above and almost always um she's when she's dealing with when people have got like a lot of marital stuff a lot of hormones it's like the first thing she sends like you need to go like go do that first and then we can work on all other stuff because if that's out of whack and we're trying to fix all this like and she says it's always life changing for people. Our next caller is Robert from South Carolina. What's up, Robert? What's going to, Robert? Gentlemen, oh my goodness. I'm going to try and stay cool here. A little fan boyish right now, but I'm going to try and stay focused. Yeah, man. Just thank you so much for what y'all do and thank your team for letting me be on here.
Starting point is 01:21:03 It's a truly honor to be able to speak to you guys. You've been an impact of my life for a decade at least. I heard you first on the Ben Greenfield podcast a long time ago. Long time ago. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, dude. It's been a cool journey. Thank you.
Starting point is 01:21:19 How can we help you, dude? So I don't know how far back I need to go in relevancy for a little context, but I've taken up the bold challenge of trying to train my wife. I got my, I know Adam, you can relate here, but I just got my NASM. Cool. And I talked to Anne on the school. And she was amazing. I talked to her like 15 minutes. And I signed up for the for y'all's academy class.
Starting point is 01:21:51 All right, dude. Awesome. Welcome. It's been, thank you. It's been incredible. Cool. A lot of stuff in there that I don't know how I would have approached it. So it's good to have a guide.
Starting point is 01:22:03 And a lot of stuff that challenges me as a person. because I'm not the salesy person. As you mentioned, all that, like, a lot in that course. Like, these are things that typically trainers struggle with, and I am right there. Yeah, right on. So I appreciate that. Good stuff. So, but my current call, again, trying to stay focused.
Starting point is 01:22:21 I'm trying to figure out how to best support my wife. We actually met at a plane at fitness at 5 a.m. like five or so years ago. So fitness is kind of in our relationship from the beginning. but she has been dealing with and we found this to functional some functional medicine stuff testing her cortisol levels
Starting point is 01:22:45 are just tanked out she's got like the midday crashes she's got the migraines that come on a lot and I had tried to start her off with like map starter she did great she was fine with that try to do the muscle mommy with her
Starting point is 01:23:02 it was kind of she likes to do something every day so i was like all right let's try the math 15 let's try and see what we do there um but she still gets those like hard crashes midday uh so um i used your little dexa ai to see get y'all's advice on um on how to approach that scenario and it's like scale way back you know because you don't want to i guess push weight on her so much. You don't want her to stress her physiological system there and burn her out. So I didn't know whether I should be going all the way back to like, let's just do movement-based stuff, like prime, maps prime level, like that kind of thing. Or if I can keep pushing her weight-wise, she really wants to grow in strength. So I kind of struggle with how to balance that.
Starting point is 01:23:53 starter. Good question. Robert, what's the protocol that the functional medicine practitioner has her on right now?
Starting point is 01:24:00 Well, she's using a lot of supplement-based stuff. I don't know if you know like what ADR is and there's another it's like a
Starting point is 01:24:10 mixture of different aerobatic stuff. Just to kind of give her adrenal glands some support. Okay. Especially in the morning. but nothing she hasn't really addressed the lifestyle part of it which again is like a lot of keep
Starting point is 01:24:28 stress low we have a five and two year old by the way another thing that you and i relate on y'all story about your kids is excellent but um yeah so that that's hard to take that stress out of it you know um so that does that answer your question at all yeah i don't know if i did and so i'm asleep is there sleep okay sleep routines um sleep it we we should try to be in bed by like eight o'clock it usually ends up being nine 30 but it's pretty solid she has various nights of bad sleep um but she mostly gets some pretty solid sleep in there okay because that that would be number one uh would be sleep okay uh diet would be number two um i would i would i'm assuming she's avoiding caffeine and alcohol yeah hasn't hasn't hasn't done those in a long time okay um i
Starting point is 01:25:19 I pushed her a lot on creatine. I don't know if that's helpful. Yep, no. No, that'd be very helpful. Okay. Yeah, no, no. Crateen would be very helpful. As far as extra, so here's a deal.
Starting point is 01:25:28 If she's still dealing with HPA axis dysfunction, right, if her cortisol still bottomed out, you have to be very careful with added stress. Did you go like starter? Yeah. I mean, starter might be okay. Even MAPS 15 would be okay, but it'd be low intensity. Yeah. It'd be low intensity.
Starting point is 01:25:47 Yeah. And the idea is, That's a like starter. Yeah, I'm going to get your, I'm going to have you perfect your technique. And your intensity is 60%. And if she gets stronger, great. If she doesn't, that's fine too. We're just, if she doesn't get the hormone, if she doesn't get the cortisol back to normal,
Starting point is 01:26:05 if she doesn't get her hypothalamus or pituitary and her adrenal's, you know, back to normal, nothing's going to happen with the strength training. So that's the number one priority. Number one priority is that. Whatever gets that better is what we're going to. going to focus on. And so the strength training is really, this is how I would do it. What makes her feel better throughout the day? And so what probably going to look like is low intensity, perfect the technique, doesn't even feel like a workout. And she's going to do a little every day.
Starting point is 01:26:34 And that's it. Because what will happen is you push it a little bit. She gets, she's going to get more energy crashes. Bands, yeah. And so that's it. And it might take, you know, HPA access dysfunction can sometimes take a while. It can sometimes take 90 days or longer to get things, move. moving back to where they should. How, if you don't mind me asking, how old is your wife? Gosh, 38. Okay. I'm turning 40, so she's 38.
Starting point is 01:26:59 Yeah. You better get that right. Yeah, no. I know. I know. She's like, when is this coming out? Yeah, we'll edit that for you, Howard. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:27:08 Has she had other hormones? I'm assuming she's had her thyroid checked and progesterone, estrogen, all that. She did Dutch test? Yeah, she had a Dutch test. Thyroid seems to be doing well. And the hormones are crazy off. And we think that's from the adrenals being off. Could be.
Starting point is 01:27:26 A lot of that hooks together. How long they should be doing the protocol with the functional medicine practitioner? About a month. We actually checked in with him earlier today. Okay. So, you know, I'd give it another month or two and see what happens. She's also 38. For some progress there.
Starting point is 01:27:42 And paramedopause and having two little kids can kind of start, you know, causing some issues. So, you know, I would say if after a month or two, you're not seeing huge improvements, then hormone replacement therapy would be another option, you know, and you can send the blood work to mphormosons.com to the doctors there and have them look. But, you know, of course, let's see if things balance out without having to do that. Do you know what they're in South – I've been actually looking for them from me personally. Do you know if they're in South Carolina yet? I think they were one of the states. I believe so.
Starting point is 01:28:14 South Carolina was one of the ones they weren't. Are you sure? I know he was working on it, though. We just got into Hawaii. Okay. Yeah. They're working on it. They might be now.
Starting point is 01:28:23 I would check. Check with them and see if they are. Yeah. And see if they're in there now. But that would be the other thing. Just because of her age, right? Because she's at the top, you know, mid to late 30s, paramedopause starts to kick in. And that can make this much more difficult.
Starting point is 01:28:38 Do you guys happen to use like an aura ring or anything that measures in track sleep? We don't have an aura ring. She has a very kind of base. basic fitness watch, but it does track sleep. So I need to think, I need to take a look at that. I would invest in an aura ring. Just because sleep is such a priority of all the things that we're talking about, it's probably the top of all the things that we're talking about right now.
Starting point is 01:29:03 And even though you're saying, like, she gets pretty good sleep, measuring it and then also playing with habits and routines to improve it. Interventions even, yeah. Yeah, so that you're like, hey, I noticed that when we have that Cam-ML-T and we do this and do that, you get these 80-plus. scores and when we don't you get so you have a measurable thing when you play with different things to improve sleep you know that you can start to improve the habits that encourage you know better and better sleep scores i think that can be extremely valuable um so i use mine i mean i use mostly mine
Starting point is 01:29:34 for steps and then my sleep that's the only two things i use it for i don't care about the calorie bullshit i just want to know am i hit my daily activity and then i want to see my sleep score because i'm constantly doing different things and i'm like oh man when i do that that one thing. If I eat after eight, boy, does that really impact me negatively and stuff? You know, some things are obvious. Some things are not obvious. Everyone's unique and different. Certain things hurt. Some people can have a drink before bed and be fine. Other people have a drink before bed and it'll screw them up. So having something like that, that's a measurable thing that she can pay attention to, I think is worth the investment. Yeah, but as far as... Yeah, do you find... Go ahead.
Starting point is 01:30:12 As I say, as far as a workout is concerned, Matt's 15 or starter would be, that would be where she would live for a while. And then has she started the creatine? Yeah. I'm the one who dumps it in her drink in the morning. And the other thing that the temple, we got the temple electrolytes. And then I sneak in and dump the creatine in. Good.
Starting point is 01:30:32 Yeah. When she's not looking. Yeah, I would go five grams three times a day. So breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'd have her try 15 grams a day to see if that makes a difference with her energy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 01:30:43 Wow. Okay. Yeah. I only did five in the morning. So adding the extra. Because I do remember you talking about the test where the 15 actually is what they find. That's where the cognitive benefits kick in. Yeah, that's for the cognitive benefits.
Starting point is 01:30:53 And if she's operating at a deficit. For stomach can handle it. Yeah, you don't want to take all 15 at once. That's what Justin's saying because that could cause gas. You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Five grams. And within a week, if it's something that'll help her, you'll know. She'll know.
Starting point is 01:31:09 She'll be like, oh, my God, I feel good. And that's pretty much it. But the workout is like, let's perfect the technique. that's it for now. We're just going to practice the technique and that's it. Which is something I, as an aspiring trainer, I've learned that I am weight efficient in like technique. I've gone back now through the videos y'all put it up. Thank you.
Starting point is 01:31:30 Of like the cues y'all use. Like push the door, close with your butt. Like the, you know, let the weight slide up crushing. Those kind of things like, oh, okay, that's how I can get her to not just, you know, feel it in your back. What does that mean? Yeah, exactly. So that's been helpful. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:31:48 Cool. Okay. Do you have both of those programs? I know you have starter. Do you have 15? I do. I do. That's actually what I use.
Starting point is 01:31:55 Oh, good. I love that program. It's so nice to go do something every day and not feel like I'm overdoing or underdoing it. So it's been really nice. And I can do it in my garage. So that helps. Yeah, perfect. That's it, my friend.
Starting point is 01:32:08 All right. Keep us out. Can I say one thing is that one thing? Yeah. before I go I've been playing Sal I don't know it was like a year
Starting point is 01:32:19 two years ago I guess now when you went to a Brandon Lake concert Yeah I've been playing that all around here in Charleston because I play at one of the satellite campuses where Brandon Lake started from
Starting point is 01:32:30 Oh wow And your your description of The it's something different It's not like the Like the crowd effect There's something different I'm like yes
Starting point is 01:32:40 Yes yes Somebody knows what I'm talking about So it's been really great. I wish I had your speaking ability of sharing your testimony. Thank you. What a gift. So it's been really cool. I appreciate it, man.
Starting point is 01:32:52 Thanks, dude. But thank you again for having me on. That was incredible advice. Thank you. You got it, brother. Let us know what happens, okay? Yeah. I will.
Starting point is 01:33:01 Thank you. Take it easy. All right. All right. See you. You know how crappy that is when your cortisol is flat off? Well, that's why I mentioned the sleep becomes the number one priority. It sucks.
Starting point is 01:33:13 Almost certain she'd go HRT route, right? It sucks because of her age. But, you know, back in the day when I used to work, when I had my studio, I had a woman in there that was really good. She did hormone testing, all that stuff. And she did not do HRT. She was not a doctor in that sense. And she had a lot of success with working with clients with HPA access dysfunction. The reason why it sucks so bad is it can take a while.
Starting point is 01:33:36 It could take three months, sometimes six months. And it sucks as you feel like you're doing nothing. It's like, man, you're taking. telling me to, like, rest and, like, walk and, you know, I'm doing one exercise. Like, it's, but it can take a while. And it's, and it feels like crap, bro. It feels like you're dead. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:33:52 Like, no cortisol is dead. No energy all day long. Our next is color is Aden from Kansas. Hey, dude. Welcome back. Hey, doing, Aidan. What's happening? Hey, good.
Starting point is 01:34:00 How are you guys doing? Good, man. So give us an update. For the last time we talked, I believed you had like a, you had an asymmetry going on, uh, some weakness on one side after an injury, trying to balance it back out. Yeah, so, you know, we ran through a bunch of different ideas on what it could be, and we really weren't sure for a while. So I just said, screw it.
Starting point is 01:34:20 I got the MRI. So I'll read my update for you guys. So I did run Map Cemetery. You guys sent over. That was great. I do feel like that helped out. Helps kind of correct my form a little bit, too, because I was having some issues, like with the dealt wanting to take over a little bit and just not getting like full activation of the chest.
Starting point is 01:34:42 after our last call, I got an MRI. The big finding was I do have, so I have some pretty bad synosis in the C6, C7 vertebrae. So they said it's actually caused by a little bit of bone spuring going on. And so the only real solution is just PT, maybe looking into some other ways to, you know, get the inflammation down a little bit. Surgery, I definitely, I don't want to do that if I don't have to do that. I don't know. I still think there had to be some kind of post-viral component that kind of caused all of this because the timing was crazy. It pretty much started right after I was, you know, dead ill for about five weeks. I think over the past, you know, a few weeks, though, it seems like things have kind of calmed down a little bit. I'm not getting as many, you know, zaps, tingles, you know, that weirdness going on. My biggest questions are just kind of, you know, where to go from here because I feel pretty good. I want to, you know, progress. towards getting back to, you know, heavy lifting. I kind of miss being able to, you know, be intense with the exercise.
Starting point is 01:35:48 I feel like it's kind of, it was an outlet for me, especially, you know, like heavy lifting, deadlift, squat, bench, all that stuff. And I just have been avoiding it for so long. I want to kind of figure out what my path is to get back to it. Yeah, man. So, actually not bad news, because I remember you had mono, if I'm not, if I recall. Okay. And we were a little worried that there might be something going on, that it was connected.
Starting point is 01:36:12 to it. Do you know how bad the stenosis was? They said moderate to severe, but like I said, I'm not really having severe symptoms or anything right now. I would stay, let's stay in symmetry. I don't think we should go heavy just yet if you're still feeling the zaps and the tingles here and there. Are you on, because I'm going to recommend a supplement for you for inflammation. That can help. If the if bringing inflammation down helps, then the supplement I'm going to recommend should make a difference. But I want to make sure you're not any blood thinners or any medications that. No.
Starting point is 01:36:44 Okay. So brahmolin, cheap supplement. Take it on an empty stomach two or three times a day. Don't take it with food. Otherwise, it just is an enzyme to break down food. So take it, you know, first thing in the morning, you know, 30 minutes to an hour before you eat, take it in between, you know, breakfast and lunch. Again, in between lunch and dinner.
Starting point is 01:37:04 And after a week or two, see if it makes a difference with the inflammation. stay in symmetry. I would stay in symmetry until you're like, man, I think feel like everything's okay. Then move to the heavy lifting. Because if the stenosis is indeed the issue, what we don't want to do is cause that to flare back up. I have a recommendation for you, too, just because I've been kind of going through similar type of stuff, inflammation related and myself personally and how I feel currently right now based off what I just did. going on a kind of a low calorie cut for a little bit and just kind of leaning out and stay low for a little bit and see how much that just brings down systemic inflammation in your body and then seeing how good you feel when you go lift in that state.
Starting point is 01:37:53 Now here's the drawback of that. I'm nowhere near as strong on my squats and deadlifts in this calorie deficit and down 10 pounds than thicker. fed me is, but I feel way better in my lifts. And obviously that means more to me than, you know, hitting some PR or whatever like that. I mean, I feel strong. I feel good. Even though I don't feel, I feel strong for right now, not relative to what I've been. And so that's the hard part is a guy that's lifted heavy weight before is doing what I'm doing is like I can't focus on what I've done before. I just have to go off of how I feel now. But I can't tell you how good I feel right now from kind of going on that. And so maybe consider that. for a few weeks and just to play and see how just leaning out and being low calorie for a while
Starting point is 01:38:41 to just kind of bring the entire inflammation down in your body. If you are anything like me, where you just kind of might have this kind of mild, low level systemic inflammation always going on and bringing that down just makes you feel way better. That's been my personal experience right now and notice that. But again, the tough part for someone like you is the same thing for me, which is, you know, like putting on kind of sissy weight for me on the squat, like messes with my head psychologically, but I feel really good when I'm moving the weight, you know? Right. Okay. So, yeah, no, I'll give that a shot. Cool.
Starting point is 01:39:15 What would you say, like, what would be a good metric to kind of know, like, when you think, like, when would everything be good enough to go back to trying to push it a little bit? Like, how long would you say to give that? It would all be based on your symptoms. So no more tingles, zaps, everything feels balanced. I think I'm good. I'm not having any of those symptoms anymore. Then you can start playing with, you know, challenging the weight with the bilateral exercises.
Starting point is 01:39:41 But I would wait because if there's still some impingement going on, however minor, pushing the weight heavy, especially with things like squats, you know, in the C6, C7, I mean, you could potentially cause it to go backwards again. So that would pretty much be, that's basically it. It's like when you feel like, and it sounds like you're coming out. Sounds like it's already reducing. So you're already on the right path.
Starting point is 01:40:04 Right. Okay. Yeah, no, that sounds good. Just have kind of just been confused on where to go from here. Had so many different, you know, theories on what could possibly be going on. So I'm kind of glad to finally have some. But bromelin. Yeah, do the bromelin.
Starting point is 01:40:21 Like I said, two or three times a day on an empty stomach within a week. You should notice just reduced inflammation. It's actually quite effective. Okay. Yeah. Now I can definitely give that stuff a shot. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in, dude.
Starting point is 01:40:33 All right, yeah. I appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much. You guys remember his call? Yeah. First time. Yeah, yeah, because we weren't sure what it was. So here's the thing.
Starting point is 01:40:40 Yeah, here's the thing with stenosis. It's not uncommon. No, I've had clients go completely. This is why I brought up the systemic inflammation thing because I think I noticed a big difference with clients that when they're in flame, they're like that versus when that's all tamped down, then it's not bothering them very much. As soon as they get a little inflamed from either stress, overeating, things like that, then it all kicks up.
Starting point is 01:41:00 Yeah. So physical therapy, posture, movement stuff, of course, symmetry type things. That's all going to make it better. And then keeping inflammation down, I think will help. And I still, I still veer towards the, you know, the viral impact because it happened after he had this really, really bad illness. Yeah. With mono, which can affect the nervous system. But he's getting better, which is good.
Starting point is 01:41:23 It just takes a little time. Our next caller is Clark from Oklahoma. How's it going, Clark? How's it happening? Guys, how's it going? Good. How can we help you? Thanks for taking my call today.
Starting point is 01:41:33 I really appreciate it. This is pretty neat. I sent you guys a novel in my email, so I'm going to sum it up a little bit and give you guys just the details. So I'm a pretty average guy here. I'm 6-1, 240, 32 years old. I'm a landscape architect and pull builder out here. I'm in the field quite a bit. My average step count on a daily basis is about 9,000.
Starting point is 01:41:57 and I'm out probably 12, 15 hours a day. But a little bit of background. I lost 135 pounds when I was a 17-year-old. I did that in about six months by doing a lot of cardio in the hit program, Insanity. I don't know if you remember that one. Of course we do. Yeah. I was doing like 45 minutes on the elliptical and three or four miles walking seven to 10 miles riding a bike.
Starting point is 01:42:26 and then going home and doing that. And it was, yeah, it was a lot. So I was prioritizing protein, but at the end of the day, I lost a lot of muscle, a lot of fat. And I felt really good, but realized I'd done it wrong and just kind of hung on to that weight as best I could by just staying in a deficit as much as I could. But then when I got to 2022, you know, throughout the years, I've lost 40 plus pounds on 5. different occasions and at this particular moment I'm looking at that sixth time and but when I was in 2022 I got serious about lifting weights and got on a sarum stack and then I had a buddy that convinced me to start testosterone and eventually a little bit of NPP there and yeah just kind of felt like a moron for
Starting point is 01:43:18 doing that didn't like how it made me feel and so I stopped doing that and now at this particular moment I'm out of the relationship I was when I was doing that doing all that and haven't been in the gym. My living circumstances are a little unorthodox and just kind of had a loss on what to do at this point with working so much. And yeah, things have changed from those macros that I sent you. Right now, I'm kind of at, I'm about 2,600 calories a day, 220 grams of protein, 181 grams of carbs and about 80 grams of fat. I do take 10 to 15 milligrams creatine, 1,200 milligrams, fish oil, 2,000 I use vitamin D. That's about all I can really keep up with alongside a multivitamin.
Starting point is 01:44:04 But, yeah, I'm just kind of out of loss. My main question was, is MAPS 15, my answer with a reverse diet? What do you all think? I do like that. Yeah, I do like that. Are you doing a lot of other things pretty well right now. Yeah, let me back. I'm going to back you up a little bit.
Starting point is 01:44:17 Well, first I want to ask you it. So how long were you on the PED cycle? How long did you do testosterone and MPP for? So testosterone, about two years, MPP was only about two months, and I was only doing 10 milligrams a week on that. Okay. Did you, have you had your testosterone levels checked recently just to see if you had any long-term effects? So I'm actually waiting on Vita Bella to get back to me. We did a draw two weeks ago, so I'm waiting on my results and a protocol to come in.
Starting point is 01:44:45 Okay, good. Okay, good. You got that covered then. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because sometimes that can affect, not all what, usually it doesn't, but sometimes you can affect testosterone levels a little later. So I'd want to see what that looks like. So cool. You're already on that.
Starting point is 01:44:56 So I'm going to ask you, what, what was it about, because you've lost weight and gained it back, you said like four or five times? Yeah. What happens when you gain it back? Are you at a point where like, I'm done with this? This is too much. Is it just, you know, I'm tired of. Go ahead. I think I just kind of fall off.
Starting point is 01:45:15 Like, discipline is not the issue. I can get pretty locked in and stay on. But things just seem to change so often. And then I'm just having a hard time keeping up with that and sticking to whatever protocol I was on at that time. But also. You seem very all or nothing. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, you seem very like the person who's like dialed doing all the things, taking the supplements, training hard.
Starting point is 01:45:40 And then you swing the other way pretty hard. Yeah. Trying to. And at this point at 32, I'm trying to get rid of that all in or all out mentality and just try to have something that's more manageable, honestly. That's why I like the 15 recognition. The way to fix that is not to look at the outside of it. So typically what happens is when people do that, which is real common, dude, this is like most people when they go through the cycle is they focus on why they stopped. And they're like, man, I got to just, if I could just not do the thing where I jump off the wagon, I'm good.
Starting point is 01:46:11 But what they don't realize is the all in is what causes the all out. Yeah. Okay. So that's the beginning of this. the beginning of the beginning of getting you not to stop the all-out part is to solve the all-in part. And so the all-in part has got to look like something that's very sustainable, long-term. I'm not rushing things.
Starting point is 01:46:33 You know, I'm just a guy that works out. I'm just a guy that eats healthy. And whatever happens, happens. Kind of the attitude that you got to have with it. Both on the lifting part and the nutritional level. So I like whenever, you know, I'm like not my ideal eating and I've allowed drinks and ice cream to come in, which I allow those to ebb and flow my diet. And I know that. I don't go anymore from like the guy who was having a handful of whiskey glasses and scoops of ice cream through the week to all
Starting point is 01:47:00 sudden like dialed weighing my food, measuring everything. It's like I'm going to stop the whiskey drinking. You know what I'm saying? And it's like now I'm not only going to let myself have ice cream once every couple weeks. It's like just instead of going one hard swing the other way, like assess your eating habit. You're good on protein, which is that's the main thing we always focus on. Try your best. always eat whole foods. You probably have a couple offenders in there like everybody does that you have either a sweet tooth or you like the whatever, the stuff, whatever it is, right? And make a commitment to less of this or no more of that, but don't do it all right away
Starting point is 01:47:34 because you're all said motivated right now and just stack on that. And like, oh, man, I haven't had a, I haven't had a drink in months now. Okay, cool. That's no longer part of my life. Now let's try the next level. I'm going to get better about doing this thing, right? Like do that both with the way you train and the way you eat, and that will really help with the real hard swings on and off.
Starting point is 01:47:53 Yeah. Now, Clark, because of your activity, because you're pretty active with your job and the history with all. You know, I definitely would like to reverse diet you with strength training, but I know because of your past, you're probably apprehensive because you've been overweight in the past. And that can be a real fear. Is that resonating? Do you feel a little bit like, oh, man, if I reverse that, I'm a little worried? Yeah, a lot of that hesitation and a lot of the all-in motivation is just from having severe body dysmorphia.
Starting point is 01:48:23 I mean, I grew up a big kid. I've always had high endurance, high stamina. I've been landscaping since I was 10. So it's just, yeah, that's the hindrance there. It's just wanting to feel good and look good and going all in and then getting burnt out or just kind of falling off with too many changes. And to your point, Adam, I just gave up drinking, pretty recently, probably within the last month or so in THC as well. Good for you.
Starting point is 01:48:51 Appreciate that. I also bought a cafe, so I'm kind of, I'm around sweet tooth food all the time and good drinks. And so that's, that resonates. That's been fun to manage. Well, so that's a perfect example, right? You're around so much of that and probably when you're off, you allow it all to come in like crazy. And then when you're on, you restrict completely. Like, don't let it look like that.
Starting point is 01:49:12 Look like all, like, I'm like comparing. myself like kind of week over week and it's like hey this week I want to be a little bit better than I was last week diet wise and training wise it's like not I'm not going to go from I was I'm way off the wagon now I'm dialed it's like and I was that guy and that caused these swings back and forth where now I never I never get too out of bounds you know what I'm saying like and it's because I don't I don't go so hard in either direction and so I think that'll really help is just make those small Clark I like where you're at I like the that you you've stopped the THC and the alcohol I like your approach.
Starting point is 01:49:47 Not that you need to, like, not that, oh, I'm so glad you stopped doing those things, but rather it sounds like you're trying to make the right steps to move in the right direction. You mentioned the body of Smorphia. I'm so glad you were honest about that because that's a difficult one to work through. How bad do you want to solve this forever?
Starting point is 01:50:02 In other words, is this something like, look, yeah, I want to get good results, but I just don't want to deal with this anymore. I want to do the up and down. I don't want to deal with it. Okay. It's exhausting. I mean, it's been my entire life.
Starting point is 01:50:14 So, yeah, I just want to get it manageable and just feel good, be healthy and going to this next stage of my life trying to grow this cafe. Clark, Clark, about nine months to a year of working with a coach, we'll do that with you. I'd love to see that. Like, you're in the perfect place. Yeah. It would be a good nine months, maybe a year of working with someone on a monthly basis, having them guide you through it. You're going to have ups and downs, guarantee it. But to have somebody there guide you that you can go with, that you can message, it's going to pull you back, push you.
Starting point is 01:50:44 kind of help you stay accountable, also prevent you from doing the all-in thing that tends to cause it all out on the other end. Yeah. That plus you're getting your hormones checked, which would be great to see where that's at. This is the perfect time to do it. If that's something you want,
Starting point is 01:50:58 I can have somebody call you, but I think you're looking at about nine months to a year of just kind of working with someone monthly and then you'll solve it, dude. Change your life forever. Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And I'm thinking about that pretty much constantly.
Starting point is 01:51:11 I actually just yesterday learned that my landscaping and pool building career is going to come to an end pretty soon. So on a financial side of things, a coach is probably not going to be as easy for me to do at this point. But I do have the NASM training course. So I was going to dive into that and just try to self-teach as much as I possibly could and talk to my friends who are in the health space and see if they could help me out, holding me accountable. So that's good. it's different. Okay. Coaching is different.
Starting point is 01:51:42 It's very individualized. I don't, we don't talk about this on the show, but we have something called concierge coaching, which is far, it's a much, much less of an investment. And you're meeting with someone monthly.
Starting point is 01:51:54 And it is a mind, it is a mind pump coach, and they are guiding you through the process. But this is kind of like when it's strike when the iron's hot. Like you've got these big life changes. It's momentum based. This would be the time to do something like that
Starting point is 01:52:06 and you wouldn't have to deal with it later on. But like I said, if that's something, You can look at it. I guess I'm a call you. You talk with them. Yeah, I would love that.
Starting point is 01:52:14 I appreciate it. Okay, I'll have someone reach out to you. But I do like a reverse diet for you. Yeah. I do like a MAP 15 protocol. I think it's going to be kind of this like stay consistent type of deal, not rush the process too much. And then, and then, you know, be able to prevent those setbacks. And like I said, you're looking at about nine months to a year of kind of working on this before it starts to be in a good spot.
Starting point is 01:52:34 We can solve this right now. And then it'll be forever. So that's encouraging. I appreciate that. Yeah. wind up at the gym most days just to take a shower. So 15, 20 minutes to, you know, plus something out. It's not a big deal. Perfect. Just knowing what that is and is the big part. But I mean, as far as a reverse diet goes, I mean, where do you guys think I should be at?
Starting point is 01:52:58 Calorie-wise, if I'm doing all this activity, I mean, 2,600 to 2,800 seems to keep me pretty energetic throughout the day, but I definitely do fall off at a certain point. Yeah, you eventually should be able to get up over 3,000. You should be all the way up to 3,3,300, but we incrementally get up there. That's right. And so the goal would look like, you know, two to, two to 400 calorie bump, and then you stay there for a while. Weight should stay about the same on the scale. You should feel good, strength, everything like that. Once that's been stabilized for a week or two, go up another two or 400 and just keep doing that incrementally, you know? And, and, uh, easiest way to do that I like to do is either, uh, two more ounces of the meat that I'm already eating or
Starting point is 01:53:39 or adding one more small meal, whichever one's more convenient. People tend to do better, in my opinion, with just adding a larger portion of the meat they're having or a fatier cut. If you're somebody who was eating chicken bread, they go to chicken thighs.
Starting point is 01:53:52 If you're somebody who was eating a leaner steak, enjoy a ribeye, you know, those are easy ways to get an additional, you know, two to 400 calories. That's right. Or you can add.
Starting point is 01:54:01 I definitely do the, I definitely do the chicken thigh after I heard you preach about that. It tastes so much better. So I don't mind doing that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Chuck roast is my go-to, just because it's easy to get hold of. And, but yeah, no, that's, yeah, good point.
Starting point is 01:54:19 I mean, three meals is pretty easy for me to manage. It's hard to do any more than that. Even when I was doing, like, my testosterone and NPP, that was, I mean, I was at about, like, 3500 calories. And I was like, oh, my God, I can't eat anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it, man. You'll get some, you'll get body comp change through that process. So you'll kind of get leaner, build a little muscle.
Starting point is 01:54:39 no big swings on the scales. And I saw, I saw your numbers before. You're a strong guy. So like you lift like, you hit those lifts like that. You stay strong and 15 and you feed yourself appropriately. You'll have body comp change.
Starting point is 01:54:51 Yeah. Yeah, you absolutely. Thank you guys. You got it, man. Bicep tendonitis, what's your go-to move for that? Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:54:58 Deep, deep bicep stretches. Okay. So really, really long static stretching for the bicep tendon. It's actually not a hard fix. And then with the other hand, you can rub on it.
Starting point is 01:55:08 Those rifle. Flips. Yeah, rifle flips. You can look that up on our YouTube channel. Yeah. We do it several times a day and it tends to take care of it. Awesome. Okay.
Starting point is 01:55:18 Yeah, you got it, man. Thanks, Clark. I'll have someone call you. Okay, sounds good. Thank you guys so much. You got it. He's in a good place. He is.
Starting point is 01:55:27 He is. And if we can get through the psychological part, that'll be challenging. That's why the coach is so important. It's not about the information. Yeah, yeah. That's valuable. The information is valuable, but it's about the coaching. That's what we have to convey.
Starting point is 01:55:40 It's about the coaching through the process. It helps a lot. And I know it's an investment. For people listening, it is an investment. But I'll tell you what, of all the investments you can make when it comes to getting results, nothing comes close. If you commit and you do it right and you say nine months to a year, you'll never have to do it again. That's right. I mean, the tools that you'll get from that will last you for the rest of your life.
Starting point is 01:56:00 That's right. So that's why it is like an invest in. And it's not, it isn't cheap to do that for nine months to a year. But, you know, if you think about it like anything else, you've invested in yourself, what better than the thing that's going to be helped you control your health. That's right.
Starting point is 01:56:13 That's right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,
Starting point is 01:56:26 check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPS Anabolic, maps' aesthetic, Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources. at Mind Pumpmedia.com.
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