Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2941: Are Artificial Sweeteners Bad for You | The Real Problem Nobody Talks About

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

MAPS Abs and Butt: https://mapsabsandbutt.com Code: LAUNCH for 40% off. Includes Butt Building Diet Guide, Women's Supplement Guide, at-home dumbbell version and a free second program at checkout (Muscle Mommy or Muscle Mommy 15).   In this episode the guys break down the real dangers of artificial sweeteners — why they are unlikely to be physically dangerous despite all the scaremongering, why they simply do not work for weight loss in real life outside of controlled settings, how they change your perception of palatability so that water and whole foods start to taste bland, and why the novelty effect of pairing them with meals causes people to eat more overall. They also cover the LMNT pre-workout pump hack Sal has been using, making 1,000 pounds of tomatoes into Sunday sauce with the whole family, the GTA 6 trailer and the $1-2 billion production budget behind it, the serious and underreported sexual and psychological side effects of finasteride for hair loss, Ketone IQ stacked with morning caffeine as the guys' favorite energy combo before recording, the rock climbing store in Seoul South Korea you have to climb seven stories just to get inside, night club culture and what everyone is like after a few drinks, and Sal chipping a tooth and finding an emergency dentist on a Friday afternoon. Then they coach live callers submitted through mplivecaller.com.   SPONSORS LMNT (electrolytes): https://drinklmnt.com/MindPump Free sample pack with any purchase, no code needed. 1,000mg sodium per serving. Mix with your pre-workout for a dramatically better pump — Sal discusses the hack on air.   Ketone IQ: https://ketone.com/MINDPUMP 30% off subscription orders plus a free gift with your second shipment. Take mid-day after your caffeine window for sustained mental sharpness.   Joymode (sexual performance booster): https://tryjoymode.com/mindpump Code: MINDPUMP for 20% off first order. Natural, science-backed formula — L-Citrulline, Arginine, Yohimbine and Vitamin C. Mix with water 45 minutes to 4 hours before.   LINKS Submit a live caller question: https://mplivecaller.com Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia   0:00 - Intro 2:47 - The real dangers of artificial sweeteners — why they fail in real life 10:02 - How artificial sweeteners change your palatability and make whole foods taste bland 15:32 - Why the novelty effect makes you eat more when pairing them with meals 22:01 - The LMNT pre-workout pump hack — mixing electrolytes with your pre-workout 26:31 - Pickleball injury stories and the 47-year-old playing junior college football 29:34 - Making 1,000 pounds of tomatoes into Sunday sauce with the family 34:44 - GTA 6 trailer — $1-2 billion budget and why it looks like a movie 38:50 - Finasteride for hair loss — the serious sexual and psychological side effects nobody warns you about 47:01 - Ketone IQ stacked with morning caffeine — the guys' favorite recording day combo 47:58 - The rock climbing store in Seoul you have to climb seven stories just to enter 55:08 - Night club culture — what everyone is like after a few drinks 1:04:49 - Caller: Julie (Illinois) — osteopenia, vegan, reverse diet to 3,000 calories, plateau on Maps Esthetic, switching to Maps 15 1:30:36 - Caller: Dave (Georgia) — lost 100 pounds since 2019, wants to improve VO2 max and body composition 1:42:23 - Caller: Elissa (Michigan) — 90-day check-in, strength up across all three lifts including a month in Italy with no training 1:47:09 - Caller: Amber (Michigan) — cleaning business owner, beach volleyball 3-4 days a week, drastically overtraining, needs to cut volume way down  

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hit pause, head on over to Mind Pumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, we're going to talk about artificial sweeteners. So much controversy surrounding them. We're going to talk about the actual dangers of using them. It's a little click baby. Yes, this is true, but we're really going to get into it.

Artificial sweeteners. Let's go. Oh, wow. This topic. Always. We used to talk with this a lot. We did. We haven't talked about it in a long time.

I remember this was, I need to tell you, bring this up. I think back to what brought Lane Norton in us all together the first time. Was this? Yeah. Yeah. It was. Actually, that was one of the more viral episodes we ever did because at that time, Lane was ascending.

We had been podcasting for a while now. And this was one of the few things that we didn't fully agree on, right? And there was a lot of buildup online. And so everybody thought we were going to get into like a big... This is going to be this huge war we're going to have or something. Yeah, well, it's... We're not... We're not really pro or con artificial signatures,

but the con part is not for the reasons that people think. You know what prompted this for me was I saw Max Lugavir did a post. Our good friend Max Lugavir, who I love so much. He's got tons of integrity. And he's very objective. So Max will, he'll change his opinion based on data.

And he has on a couple things. And he doesn't, like I said, he's got a lot of integrity. So I really appreciate him. And he's like, oh, you know, I have the occasional diet Coke.

People were lighting him up. over, yeah, just over the artificial sweetener thing. So here's a deal. And now, as coaches and trainers, I'm going to just say this straight up, I was never pro artificial sweetener, but it's not for the reasons that you might think. So I do want to get this out. They're unlikely physiologically dangerous. There definitely is a lot of scaremongering surrounding artificial sweeteners.

Like they could cause cancer or brain issues or chronic disease, stay away from them. they're totally bad for you. They've been studied a lot. Okay? They've been studied a lot, a lot. By the way, that's not perfect because you can't be 100% with studies. But there's a lot of studies done on artificial sweeteners. Well, they've been around for quite a while now.

And they've been around for a long time. And so a lot of the stuff that you'll hear, the fear stuff surrounding them, is just that. It's kind of scaremongering. So what we're not going to say here is, like, avoid artificial sweeteners because you're going to get cancer or avoid them because they're going to kill you. that's we're not really in that camp okay now of course if something comes out to show the otherwise of course we're going to be like okay here's what new data shows but again we still don't advise people to use them it's not something that i ever promoted um and it's for other reasons and that's what we're going to get into i've never changed my mind on these i've remained consistent since day one on this um i consume diet coke i've openly talked about it since we've started the podcast um i think that if you were a competitive athlete, meaning competing on stage, bikini bodybuildings, men's physique, things like that. We used artificial sweeteners in things like coffee. We used diet coax.

We used things like that because these people were so meticulous about their diet. They were tracking every single calorie that it worked. What I found with regular clients that had a hard time tracking consistently or never tracked and thought they would use diet code. or low calorie, no calorie, foods and drinks that were replaced with artificial sweeteners to restrict calories or cut back on calories. It actually didn't work. It worked in the moment where they said, oh, I'm not going to have a regular Coke. I'll have a diet Coke.

And they would have it, but then they would make up for those calories and other things. Always. And we found that the artificial, and I noticed this even with myself when I have them, it, like, kicks up my appetite. So now I am aware of it. And so, and I've learned to balance my macros and I've done that for a very long time, that I can allow those things in the diet occasionally and be okay. But the average person who needs to lose 20, 30, 40 pounds that is using these, you know, no calorie or low calorie sweeteners to replace calories, end up making it up somewhere else.

So it becomes moot. It doesn't work. No, in real life, it doesn't work as a weight loss strategy. And you see this in the studies. So if you track every calorie that goes into your mouth and you cut your calories, you'll lose weight. And this is when artificial sweeteners can become a strategy. And Adam just talked about this group of people that do that, who are competitors, who get on stage. The average person doesn't do this.

The average person tracking every single calorie and macro is part of a strategy, but you don't live this way. You never live this way. This is part of a strategy that allows you to kind of become aware of what you eat. maybe if you're reverse dieting, you're trying to figure things out. But eventually you want to get out of that. You don't want to just track everything. And so when you look at the data on this and people are told, hey, replace your normal sodas or replace your normally sweetened foods with these low calorie, no calorie, artificially

sweetened foods. And then let's come up, let's follow up with you six months later. They don't help with weight loss. They just don't. Now, the science says they should, right? If I'm cutting 500 calories of sugar out of my diet, And I don't replace it. Of course, I'm going to lose weight.

But that's not what happens. We just don't see that with behavior. Which, by the way, when I want to make this clear, too, because our buddy Lane will cite, like, the studies that show that when they do this. But this isn't a controlled environment. This is where studies don't always do us a favor, right? It's great that we understand that, yes, it's pretty obvious. You take something that's zero calories. You replace it with something that has calories over the course of six months.

then of course you would lose weight. The reality is, though, in the context of the real world and the people that are not in a study where they have to track or have to follow everything by these rules, what ends up happening is they have, it doesn't change behaviors. Right. And so...

And that's what I'm interested in. Right. And so, you know, yes, very aware of what the studies say around artificial sweeteners and how it can help with weight loss. Problem is nobody is working within the confines of a study in real life. And so you have to ask yourself, over the court. And this is why there was, there was debate between us. And rightfully so,

what is our good buddy trained mostly? Yeah. Competitors. So not only does he understand the science and the studies, he also has a bit of a bias because the majority of his clients are, they're like me. They're weighing. And so it works for someone like me that says, that is tracking, weighing and measuring everything. And so the difference is, what did we train mostly? I didn't train that many. I'm trading more competitors towards the end of my career. I trained zero competitive. average people. Yeah, that was way later. Most, still 80% of my client book over 20 years has been general pop.

Right. And so here's, so I'll get into, so first off, it doesn't really work in real life. By the way, they've been, they've been around for a long time. If you look at the amount of calories people get from sugar in the average American diet, if they did work by now, they would have worked, at least in some significant way. But what's happened is we've just gotten more obese. And so they just, in real world, in real life, with real people's behavior, They just don't work.

But here's the part, here are the parts that I really don't like. When you're consuming something that is very sweet or savory or palatable, okay, anytime you consume something that hits those, those senses, that fires the brain in that way, because an artificially sweetened soda has no calories, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect on my body. Obviously. Yeah, I perceive the flavor. How am I perceiving the flavor?

My brain is perceiving the flavor. Something's happening. My brain that tells me that I'm drinking something very sweet. Does that have potential negative effects? Well, physiologically, probably not. Psychologically, yes. And I'll even point to this physiological effect. It'll change how you perceive palatibility.

And this is just a fact. If you consume lots of sweet tasting things, even with no calories, other things that are sweet or naturally sweet, let's say like fruit, for example, starts to become perceived as less sweet. In fact, here's one of the things I would run into with clients who had lots of diet sodas. They didn't like the taste of water. This was shocking to me as an early trainer. I remember when I first became a trainer.

Now, I didn't grow up lots of soda in my household. We're kind of a traditional Southern Italian family. We drank water. We never had lots of soda. So I didn't grow up with this. And I remember I'll get these clients and I talk to them about water intake. and I remember the first time someone told me,

it's like, well, I don't like to taste the water. And I was like, I remember, I thought they were joking. And they were serious. I'm like, what do you mean the taste of water? Yeah. It's water. Like, what are you talking about? It's boring.

I don't like drinking water because it's boring. And then I kept hearing that from more and more clients. And then I started to realize these are people that grew up drinking lots of soda, either regularly sweetened or artificially sweetened. And the way that they perceive sweetness or the way that they perceive sweetness or the way that they perceive flavor or the experience of food has been altered because of that to the point where water tastes gross, fruit is bland and whole foods don't taste good. And we have, this is well documented, by the way. This is well documented with heavily processed foods.

If you eat a lot of heavily processed foods, whole natural foods start to taste less and less exciting and more and more bland. Why? Because they're engineered to be that way. So you cannot find something in nature that has the sweetness impact of a diet soda. It just doesn't exist. And so does your brain adapt to that? It does. We know this. And so does this affect behaviors otherwise? In other words, this just affect other behaviors with food. It definitely does. And so this is what I found with my clients. Like, if we avoid them, we tend to do better than if I let you put them in your diet, except for the people that track every single calorie that goes in the mouth. It just never really worked. Well, I mean, I noticed a difference with my palate with like fruits and vegetables.

Yeah. Fruits and vegetables become more bland, the more of those things that you have in your diet. You take those out of the diet and now fruits and vegetables. Start to taste burst. Yes. Yeah. And again, when we're in the business of helping people change habits and behaviors, it's not always about the science and the math. It's about, okay, if I can get my client to do X, Y, and Z, will this help them long term? And in this case, more often than not, having them in there is not idea. Well, yeah, you think about, like, every single meal, like, growing up. And, like, that's a hard association to break.

So, you know, it's a big ask for your client to be able to have, you know, a meal and then have something with that meal that doesn't have flavor to it. So I used to run into that a lot. Like, water is just so boring. Like, I need something with some flavor. It's a trip. Yeah, it was just because every time they're consuming, that was the ritual. That was the part of the process. And so, like, yeah, it does make a big difference in then how that affects behavior.

So our brain adapts to stimulus in this way. So I'll give a couple of examples that are not related to palatibility, but are similar in the sense that your brain starts to adapt. So I have little kids, okay? And when I put on entertainment that's made today for little kids, it's radically different than the stuff that I used to watch when I was a kid. in the early 80s. When I was five years old, I watched Mr. Rogers. If I put Mr. Rogers on today and compare it to like cocoa melon, Mr. Rogers moves so slow, it's insane.

It's crazy how slow it moves in comparison to the new hyper-stimulating stuff that they make for kids. And if you, now if you showed me, Mr. Rogers, when I was five, I loved it. I loved. I watched it and it was great and I enjoyed it. You show a kid who watches cocoa melon or something. something else all the time, Mr. Rogers. They hate it. Their brain has adapted to the hyperstimulus. This is also true for other things. For example, pornography does this to people when it comes to

traditional intercourse. In fact, you'll see erectile dysfunction has now exploded among young men because of pornography. It's so hyperstimulating and so hyper-novel that the real thing just doesn't do it. Why? Because the brain has adapted. So when I'm constantly consuming artificially sweet, foods and beverages, it's going to affect how my relationship to the rest of food, and it's not going to affect it in a positive way. And I'm going to point to a second piece here, okay? Novelty. So Adam said something earlier that people love to debate.

And I know Lane has even tried to debate this, but it's because they're looking at the studies wrong. So what we have said in the past is that consuming like artificially sweetened foods or beverages will make you eat more. Now what they do is they'll go on the study. They'll study if you consume a soda that's artificially sweetened, how does it affect Grellin? How does it affect hunger in some of these ways?

And it doesn't. It doesn't make you hungrier. But that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is the effect of novelty and satiety. So let me give you guys an example. When you're eating a food that is very savory and salty and you eat so much of it that you're like stuffed, eat something sweet and then go back to it. Watch what happens.

Yeah. Suddenly you can have it again. because you've interrupted the perception of savory with sweet, which introduces novelty. Overwrite it. And then you can go right back. How do people consume sweet, artificially sweetened beverages with a meal? So I'm consuming a meal. If I'm washing it down with something sweet, I will probably, my level of satiety won't hit as quickly because I'm constantly interrupting it with novelty.

So I'm going burger, diet Coke. Burger Diet Coke Burger Diet Coke I'm going to eat more of the burger than if it was burger water burger water even though they have the same calories it's because it's interrupting with novelty

and this is what you see when people have artificially sweetened beverages with meals is it changes how they eat the regular meal because of that novel Well there's also the psychological piece that's attached to that where when you drink a soda let's say a regular soda that has

what is it 160 calories or something like that per can and you're trying to lose weight and you're trying to be good about not overeating calories. There's something that psychologically happens where there's like, oh, this, I'm taking in calories right now.

Versus, oh, this is calorie free. Let's go crazy. So then what it ends up letting you do, so then what do you do is like, oh, I'll have a bunch of these and then to your point, you end up, it ends up being a novel stimulus while you're eating French fries

and something else. And then you end up eating more of that because this is zero calories. So there's also this psychological part of like, oh, this is free. It doesn't count. So I still have more room for something else. And so there's, there's more going on than what these studies control for

for the average person. And again, this is coming from a person who I, I drink openly talk about, I use artificial sweeteners and do it. So it's not that it can't be done, but it just doesn't seem to work very well for the average client. No, it's never been a strategy that any of us have used to help someone lose weight. It's never been one of my stress. Oh, you know what? Let me look at your diet. Here's what we're going to do. Let's swap that out with diet soda. Let's see what happens and nothing. I've only had great success with it with my competitors. And that's a completely different category of people.

When they are looking for, because they're in this deprived state all the time, and they're looking for some sort of a treat. And so we use something like, you know, artificially sweetened jelly on rice cakes. You know, or we use a Diet Coke or something like that. And it gives them this, you know, rush. Small wind. Yeah. And that person, again, they're weighing and tracking everything.

and let me tell you, they still went to bed hungry and they still went to bed under calories. So the average person, though, they have that. They go, oh, man, it's so good than they have something else. So it's, yeah, it's just never worked well for regular clients. And I'll add this lastly, okay? Yes, although the studies show generally safe,

aside from the things that we talked about that affect things like behavior around food and palatibility and how your brain adapts to that constant, you know, signal of sweetness, besides all that, yeah, generally safe. based on the studies. But here's a deal. And I can make this as 100%.

It's a fact. It's not as safe as water. It's just not as, like, we don't know what we don't know. Now, I'm not one of those guys that's like hyper fear mongering, like, don't ever have any chemical because we never know what we don't know. I'm more like that with things that are new, with things that haven't been studied for decades. But this is also a fact. We just don't know what we don't know.

We've been drinking water since day one. We know what it does. Our body's made up of it. we will never be able to say a diet soda is as safe as water. And we just don't know what we don't know. We don't know if it affects the microbiome in some way that affects something else. We don't know if it affects fertility a generation later. We don't know if it acts within another chemical that we get from something else.

And both of them individually don't seem to cause an issue. But when they seem to combine, we seem to have some problems. We don't know what we don't know. And so the people that are like it's perfectly safe. No, you can't possibly say that. By the way, water is very safe, but that's not perfectly safe either. You can drink so much water you die. So nothing is in that category, but definitely water is water.

And the reason why I'm saying this is the fitness community, especially the like the aesthetically focused fitness community. If something is zero calorie, they place it in the same category as other foods or health. Because it's zero calorie, it's a health food, which no, that's just not true. Well, to the water point, a lot, so we talk a lot about how protein, so many people under-consume protein, I had a lot of clients that under-consume water. And more often than not, somebody who was the three to four, zero-calorie, you know, you know, drinker every single day were the ones that were underwatered. They had three or four diet coax or artificially sweetened drinks. We're undih hydrated. And but then drank no water whatsoever to the point you made that.

like the poor clients are like, I just can't stand water by itself. It is wild, but it's also, I mean, I remember when we first started working with Element, it was one of the points that you made what's so great about it is it's so, I mean, it's so good for you as far as the hydration piece to it, but it also tastes so good. You get people who aren't big water drinkers using it. I would prefer, I prefer moving them that direction as well, although water is water. Like, let's just go with water. Speaking to Ellen, by the way, I got to tell you guys a little hack that I deal with it.

So if you're not familiar, elements in electrolyte powder, and it's got about 1,000 milligrams of sodium per serving, which is good, which, by the way, when they first did that, was kind of radical because everybody's afraid of sodium. But the truth is, if you need electrolytes, you need sodium. You need a decent amount of sodium. So if you need electrolytes, that's what you want. But anyway, a little hack is people take a pre-workout before they lift. Mix it with element.

You're going to have a big jug of pre-workout with water. throw element in the extra sodium with the water will give you way better pump. Like way better. In fact, I'm shocked. You've mixed them? I throw them together. It's so good. So do you use a pre-workout that's a flavorless? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Really? Yeah, it's good. Oh, my God. No, it tastes great.

Really? I don't know if I trust your treatment. It is good. Really? But I'll say this. I am shocked. Barry with Wild Cherry. Well, I'm shocked. He's definitely the guy when you were kids that did the 10 slurpy people. flavors all in one. Yeah, you still were the cold. I did that only one. It was way worse than that.

Blueberry. Yeah, that mixed all the slurby. It never tastes good. There was always that kid who did that, who like did mix all the slurpery flavors. No, it's not good. Looks like poop. Yeah, it does. It comes out of crappy flavor.

No, so a lot of water and sodium, you know, 30 minutes before you work out, we'll give you the best pump ever. So, and we've talked about that for a long time. So I've used element pre-workout, but just mix it with your pre-workout. And you'll get one of the best pump. In fact, I, I'm shocked, and I guarantee someone's going to do this now, I don't know why pre-workout companies don't just add a thousand milligrams of sodium to their formula.

I don't know why they should, Justin. Besides the fact that you get a better pump, sodium increases palatibility. So if a pre-workout company adds sodium to their... I wonder what the theory is on that. It's salt, sugar, and fat are the main components in palatibility. I know, but I wonder what the theory is on why a pre-workout wouldn't have a bunch of... Because there's still sodium, like, fear maybe? Yeah, fear.

Like, yeah, that's, I mean, that's still lingers, dude. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. There are people that are a little, like, leery. Although, I tell you what, dude, the pre-workout formula market, I don't think anyone will really care about. I don't think. That's what I'm saying. If you got hypertension, you should have.

They're not marketing to healthy. No. Yeah, if you have any hypertension. Yeah, if you have hypertension, you should take a 300 milligram caffeine. It's probably a bad. Yeah, I wonder what the, the. reason was that. We had... But yeah, sodium is part of palatibility. So for pre-workout

added a thousand, not only would people get a better pump, it is cheap, it would barely touch their margins. Yeah. But they, but the flavor would be better without changing anything else. I wish you had this when I was playing football. It was just like one of those things. I would always hydrate like really well and make sure that I, you know, I drank, you know, quite a few days

before like one of these like big games where I knew I was sweat like a ton, but dude, I wanted to bring some because there's a guy in our backyard that's, he's 47 years old, he just signed up and he's on San Jose City College. He just like made it on

their like junior college team and he's playing football. 47? At 47 years old. He's like football at 47? I don't know a position. I think it's defense. Like I think really yes. I think so. I mean anything but kicker is probably really impressive that age. He's like playing real football.

Like where he'd in the course like he's making kind of a social media. He's like kind of documenting it and stuff and he's like dude and you just look at his fingers all bust. it up. He's got all these bruises and all this stuff. I'm just like, wow. He's awesome. That's a year, yeah, a year from now. There's such a difference running into something real hard when you're 20.

Yeah. That's kind of cool, bro. It is cool. And I applaud him. How did you find him? Did you find him or meet him or what happened? Oh, no. This was on like a bleacher report thing that I read.

They highlighted him because it was, you know, that's kind of a crazy story to be 47 and like getting after it now. He had a huge, like, he, I guess in high school, he was like, you know, a great athlete and then, like, had all these injuries and it prevented him from playing. And so, I don't know. I guess he got a wild hair. I mean, I think that makes it even crazier, right? Because most people, you get all those injuries and then you hang it up. And then you definitely don't come back at 47.

And then you're going to play at the competitive collegiate level. I mean, that's wild. I was just having, I was just talking about with my buddies about this. We were talking about the, you guys, I think you shared one. it's like these short clips on social media where it's like 20 year old guy coming out of the back of his truck and he jumps down and he's like

a 48 year old guy and he's like turning around trying to figure out how you can get down without jumping and he sits on his butt and slides down still twists his ankle yeah we were talking about that one of my buddies is like dude he goes

working out you know I'm starting to feel good I want to go play pickleball he goes I didn't even get to play I'm like what happened he goes I bent over to pick up the racket and I turned and pop my back I had to stop

You're laughing so far. Bro, so, so embarrassing the conversations that I feel like we had. So this weekend I had my fantasy football party at my house and so with that, my buddies and I, my best friend and I, my best friend is he's coaching his kids soccer team now. And he's in good, like, he's good shape guy. But he's not like a workout guy. Like he just maintains his weight, each relatively healthy. He's very active. And so he always maintains like good weight.

And he probably walks around at 15% body fat without exercise. Okay. And he's always been like athletic. He does outdoorsy stuff and everything like that, but he's just not a workout guy. Or he hasn't been for a long time. He used to work out when he used to live with me. And he's motivated to want to get back on the gym.

He's telling me that he was coaching the soccer game. He's like, bro, he's like, man, he goes, I picked up the soccer ball and I threw it across. And he goes, and shit, I can't get rid of this pain now in my elbow. I'm like, dude, you can't. Stain power. Yeah, you can't do that stuff. We talk about all the time.

We talk about the show all the time. And it's like, you hear it. It's like, last. The last thing you want to do is throw or do anything remotely explosive at that age when you haven't trained for it. You just can't do it anymore, dude, or else absolutely shoulder elbows done. I almost want to go to one of those games, dude. I would totally. I mean, you got to keep us updated because I would love to follow.

I mean, that's an interesting story to me to be able to at 47 years old. And to play at that level, too. This isn't like rec ball. No, I mean, in junior colleges, they're really trying, you know, to prove themselves. because, you know, obviously they're trying to get, like, into another college. I think of the respect he's going to get with all the other players on team. They all probably like, let's go, dude. Yeah.

I mean, maybe, yeah. Maybe. Or do they all call them unc and they're all like. I'm sure they call them unc, but. Yeah. I know. It's funny because that actually was the college. I used to, like, I was trying so hard to get my speed to increase and, you know, get my 40 time better.

And I worked with their track and field team. And so I remember that, you know, exclusively. I was like, I was doing everything. all the parachutes. I was like running in their pool. Like everything I could do just to shave that, you know, a little bit of time off. And oh my God, dude.

It's one of those realizations you're like, dude, I can only get so far. So more power to this guy if he thinks he still has it, you know? I mean, making the team at that age is, would be impressive. I mean, just him being. I can't believe it. Yeah. No, I mean, that's impressive itself, regardless if he gets that much point. I had one of those realizations again recently because my, I've told he

my brother who doesn't work out. He just doesn't work out. He went to the gym. So, oh, I finally did a workout as I did 12 reps of 225 on the bench. Oh, my God. Get out of here, bro. Why did you get all the genetics? All the genetics.

He got all the genetics. He just shows up and just starts crank it out. Yeah, whatever, dude, you know? I just, I'm just crush it. Do you ever think, though, because I think about this, like the, that's why I'm grateful for all of my childhood, okay? It's just that I believe, like, I am who I am today because all the, of Of course.

And so, like, would you become, like, would you bet him? You know what I'm saying? Like, no drive to really lift because it's like, yeah, I could go lift whenever I want to. I don't know, but I just know what's the potential. Of course. Of course. And I don't know how to, I was like telling them like, because we did, we made sauce this weekend. So you know my family every year.

Oh, you guys did that this year? Yeah, yeah, we did that. Oh, I thought you were thinking about not doing it. We did it. We did it last year. But this year, and so we were all there. My mom. Your mom.

It's always in my mom's house. Okay, it always is. Can we steal some? Yeah. What are you going to bring this sauce? I want to try this, dude. I've never got a jar sauce, bro. I just forget.

Never. I'm sorry. What is the point of having Italian friends? Who bottles his sauce by the hundreds? There's other benefits. You guys, Courtney, he's a sourdough. Aside from sauce. You guys call me in the middle of night, need some help with something.

You know what I call. But anyway, we were all hanging out. And I was just, I'm trying, like, motivating my brother. And so my buddy shows up and I'm like, this guy got all the genetics. I'm telling him, he's like, you don't even work out. You do that? He's like, no. And then my brother's trying to talk crap.

You know, he's like, oh, my brother Sal is like a four-cylinder twin quad turbo. He's like, I'm a VA. You know, he loves to say that. And I'm like, dude, if you just, can you just do what I tell you for like, just for like six months, bro? Yeah. I just want to see what happened for like six months. Yeah. He's like, nah, I'm all right.

Oh, God. Come on, dude. Doesn't care. Come on, guys. Doesn't care enough. Oh, my God. It's painful, dude. But we did a thousand pounds of, a thousand pounds of tomatoes.

Thousand pounds. Whoa. Those Roma tomatoes? Uh, yes. Yeah. So my dad picked them all up. And then where do you guys get him from? He goes down.

It's like it's on the way to Sacramento. I forgot the town. Is there like is there a, I would think that there's like a place that you always go to? So we used to. So the tradition was, and this is not just my family. A lot of time families do this every year that makes sauce. But originally when my, when my mom was a kid and they did it, they would go to farms and pick the tomatoes themselves. Wow.

So they'd pick the tomatoes. That's legit. Then bring them back. And then they'd do the whole process. Now we just go and buy the boxes. So my dad went, I don't remember what town it was, but he went and picked up a thousand pounds of tomatoes, brings him back. And then it's like an assembly line. And I always do the same thing.

I'm always the guy that washes and cuts the tomatoes. So we have these huge barrels that we fill with water and you move them in each barrel of water so it gets successfully cleaner. And then you got to cut them in half. Then you bring them inside. And we have this machine that you stuff the tomato that, oh, no, then they cook the tomatoes. Then you take the cooked tomatoes and you put them in a machine. and the machine spits out the skin and the seeds and spits out the sauce.

And then there's some other stuff that they do with the jars. I never, I was never been involved with that, so I'm not quite sure. But then they put the sauce. That's usually the women are doing that part, seriously. So we're all, we all kind of compartmentalized. It is. And then what they do is they put the sauce in the jars

and then boil the jars and it seals them. And then, yeah, we have like tons of jars of tomato sauce. Wow. The best part is always at night, after we're all done, we have fresh pasta with sauce. Oh, yeah. That's cool. So good.

Amazing. Do you feel like can you, do you think you can tell or can your family tell like when you, when you go to different farms? Like, is it like, is there, is it very clear on like, oh, this was a good season? Like, can you tell the, or is it just? I don't know. Good question. Yeah, I don't know.

I just cut the tomatoes. I mean, I feel like there's a part of it that's kind of like good wine, right? I mean, part of what makes great wine is the grapes is where you get the grapes. Well, the good news is we're in California. And so this is like, some. of the best growing for anything is around here. Luckily, because if you're another part of the country, that's a good question. I wonder where families and other parts of the country, because Italians do this every year. Yeah, I wonder if they ship them in or something. They might,

right? Well, you know, we're not... We're not far from one of the, like, ag capitals ever. Salinas is known for all of that. Like, I think it's one of the best year-round climates for growing, like, tomatoes and, like, forget what else, but I've looked it up before. It's like... Arichokes, for sure. sure. Yeah, that too. Well, you know in, so you know San Jose, in fact, I just watched this video about the history of San Jose.

San Jose was this was like all farmland and they grew some of the best fruits and vegetables here for I think the military base in San Francisco and other parts of the state and San Jose was like and it was known for its very fertile

land. It was all farmland here. And then of course they discovered Silicon and then came Silicon Valley and forget that. But this is supposed to be some of the most fertile land in the world. Yeah, is it more of the soils or more the climate? I always thought it was like the climate makes... The soil and the climate supposedly are really good. Yeah, it'd be interesting to hear

from somebody who obviously that pays more attention to that because you don't. Is the, like, is there a huge difference? I would think so. I would think, like, you get like a great season of tomatoes and it's like, oh, this is the best sauce we've ever had. How long does... Do you know this? How long does the sauce say good once you've canned it? Oh, a jar? It could last two, three years.

It can. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it's like you go to my parents' house. Cabinfuls? Just jars and sauce, bro. That's so, I know. It's so amazing, right?

It's so awesome. Hey, have you guys seen? Did any of you guys watch the Grand Theft Auto on Netflix yet? No. Oh, no. I saw the trailer for that, but I didn't get to watch it yet. Did you watch it on Netflix? Just the trailer, yeah.

That's what I mean. There's a 25-minute trailer. Oh, I didn't watch the whole, like, the clip of it started. running. Yes. Can you pull Netflix up on here or no? Boy, I don't know. I have to log on it.

So it is... You can't find the trailer on YouTube? You know what they spent building this game? It's been working for... They've been building it for years, right? How many times they delayed? It's been like a few years of delay. Yeah, because of all everything.

Between one and two billion dollars. For a video game. For a video game. That's crazy. It's the most expensive by far. That's crazy, dude. Nothing even close to it. So, you know, we've, there's, it's been a real quiet

the talk about Metaverse for a while now, right? That's pretty much that was like a flop for Facebook and everybody else that was kind of pushing the direction. This has the highest potential, in my opinion, of what they were trying to do Metaverse Wiles. Now, I don't think, I don't think you're not going to wear goggles. You're still going to be playing it on a video game and TV, but they're making it to where you can get paid to play. You're going to have real interactive stores and things that you can buy in the role. And if you watch the trailer on this, like even like just the first three, minutes of it, you feel like you're watching a real movie with real people.

And you're obviously controlling it and stuff like that. But it's, it looks. I knew, I've heard about it forever, but to see it. Okay. And I'll go, wow. I'm like, I've been so out of the video game world for so long, but it's like, this is going to be. Yeah, because I remember hearing they really, the, the detail of being able to go inside

all the buildings and, like, be able to, like, yeah, run a business and do all these, like, crazy things inside it. Yes. Do you guys think if all video games, disappeared today that the society would get better or worse? Worse.

You think all video games disappeared today get worse? Well, like, if you, like, rip the band-aid off worse, or you mean if it didn't exist and then people had to figure out with it? I mean, I guess we could get all, like...

Because it's like thinking about this way. Generally speaking. Because, well, the way of my brain went when you said that exists. Get rid of everyone's addiction. Exactly. It's like... Riots?

No, seriously. I mean, like, now you'd have all this... Place that energy. No, 100%. Like, so it's... Besides that. Besides that, I think. Yeah, because you're right.

because that would be wild. Yeah, it's like you asking, like, if, you know, name a drug, that's highly addictive didn't exist. But I just think generally, besides that, generally, you'd see a lot more people socializing. I think you'd see a lot more people going out. Yeah. And hanging out with each other.

Doug, if you were to went, if you would have went just to Netflix, the streaming service, like literally right on the front page of Netflix is... Yeah, I don't know what's going on. It's okay. I mean, the guys can watch it another time. Yeah, it's 25 minutes. But you guys literally, I mean,

I just wanted you to see the first two or three minutes on it. If you go to the homepage of Netflix, you'll see it that it's being, it's obviously being promoted. There you go. Top left. There you go. Oh.

And so, let's just play it. And then you can get it. So does this mean they're close to launching? I believe so. I don't know if the boys know. If Dylan are, oh, is it November?

Yeah, that makes sense. But the, I mean, it doesn't feel like a video game at all. It feels like you're, the whole, I watch like the first 10 minutes of it.

It feels like you're, you're watching a whole movie. Yeah, with a plot that's like so interchangeable and stuff. That's wild. I'm going to, change the subject and talk about a commonly used medication that helps with hair loss and some of the crazy side effects that it produces. So finasteride, have you guys ever heard of finasteride? Yeah, super popular. Dutasteride, finasteride. Okay, so they both prevent the conversion of testosterone

to Dht. And DHT is a hormone that the male body has. And I don't know if the female body has it, but I think also. And it has some roles. It's androgenic. So it's very endrogenic. But it also can play a role in hair loss. And so reducing DHD in many cases can stop hair loss or maybe even reverse a little bit. But I don't know if you guys are familiar with some of the side effects of finasteroid. But it's it's not one that I would mess with. I'd be much better off being bald. And I know some guys don't, most guys don't experience your side effects.

But if they do, whoa. It was like erectile dysfunction kind of stuff or what? Permanent, right? Like permanent numbness in your penis. What? permanent. Like some guys will get like their sex drive is gone. Then they go off and it doesn't come back. Sometimes

it takes a year to come back. Sometimes it doesn't. Suicide. Increased risk of depression and suicide from this drug. Now these are not huge... Is this going viral right now? Is this like a... There was an article that was posted. Because I just saw a clip literally before we got on.

It was in my feed. So the New York Post just did an article about this healthy 26 year old who had penis numbness, orgasm problems, and it was a year and a half after he stopped taking it. Still stuck around.

But you could look up, Doug, you could Google Phanasteride and suicide for a finasteride and depression. And it's like all in pursuit of just like not losing your hair. Now, it's not a huge risk. So, of course, I'm going to be clear. It's not like it's like this massive risk.

But it's still a risk. It's pretty crazy. This must be what the... So I saw that, what's that, What's that kid's name? Clavicle. Yeah, clavicular. Clavicular.

I was talking about him all time. I knew some of this. I knew some of their stupid name. Yeah. He's a winner. It popped in my feed and Logan Paul was interviewing him and he made obviously it's going viral this clip right now.

He made this bold statement of I'd rather and they must have been they must what I didn't see and it makes sense now that this is in New York Times and you're bringing it up and like why this even popped in my feet that you know, he was rather not be able to use his dick be numb than to be bald and so what I'm assuming is because he takes all this stuff right he does all this stuff takes all this stuff he's probably taking that

and I'm assuming that Logan Paul was asking and what about what they what's come out recently about this and he made the point that he would rather be bald what are you doing yeah I think that's crazy crazy yeah what are we doing yeah what are we worshiping here well some people are just really I didn't realize it until I started shaving my head on the podcast. How many people opened up to me about how much they struggle with that. And it was really tough for me because I couldn't relate. I mean, I could relate to going bald. But I couldn't relate to caring.

Your identity was a little rapid. And I think it's kind of wild because I got like Soraya spots and everything. So I like, I'm not like, that's not the most like, awesome situation for me. Like, I'm not only did I go shave that, but it's also areas where I have my psoriasis. So it's like, you know, I'm sure there's insecurities and I don't like it. But it doesn't, it doesn't phase me like it phases some people. Some people, it's, boy, it really scared a death of it. And it's to where they're doing all these things preventively before they are even going bald or, or they have gone bald.

And it just is crushing their confidence. And like Atwar was asking me, like, how I dealt. I was like, man, I wish I had something good. to say that I had to work through to get there. I was trying to shave my head sooner. You know, there's something you could do about it. Because, okay, you can't, like, I guess you can't just will your hair to not fall out or, you know,

are the things you could do lifestyle while? It's probably not much. But you can get jacked. Like, jacked and bold, is a thing, dude? Yeah, I know. It's a thing, you guys. Like, if you really feel bad about it, not to mention getting jacked requires work and discipline and consistency,

that builds confidence like crazy. that also shows prospective mates that you're that you've got some drive it creates that within you just be bald and jacked i mean i i think that's i actually think that's a really good point because even though it seems so it seems different because it's like but it's like your physical appearance i i think uh i would think but i mean we're not the right people to ask but the opposite sex would prefer a bald jacked dude than a dude with all his hair and sloppy yeah like i just don't. Sure.

I mean, I would think that you would go that. I would think, you know what I'm saying? Like, but that's... Dude, we have a buddy. I don't have to say too much because he gets offended. We have a buddy who's bald who recently just got Jack.

Dude, he looks way different. Oh, yeah. He looks way different. Oh, yeah. Bro. Yeah. I just saw him the other day and I'm like, what are you doing,

I mean, he was at my house this weekend. He looks incredible. He's at my house this weekend. And I'm telling you, bald and Jack is actually, it looks good. It's like a kind of goes together. Oh, yeah. A little bit.

It does. No, it does. And he was getting compliments nonstop all this weekend. So, because it was like a pool party. So he's walking around the shirt off and everybody was like, Oh, yeah. Everybody's like, dude, that's so funny. You're crazy jacked.

I've never seen you like this. Ain't nobody talking about the bald head. No, nobody said nothing about that. You're a butcher bald. No one said that. Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't know what that is. How much is that?

Because I've seen like somebody like, I think it's Juji Mufu actually like, like. He went and did his. Went into the plant Or, well, in Turkey now, they got the, they got the, yeah, there's a whole business around that. Oh, yeah. How much do you think that costs? It's expensive.

No, it's not. Well, I don't know how much is in Turkey. No, no, no, look it up. You look up, look up, turkey, uh, bald, whatever, I don't know what you would you. Hair transplant. Hair transplant, thank you. Hey, Doug, type in bald turkey.

Yeah. You can tell how many times I've Googled it, right? I have no idea. Don't type in ball turkey. I had a buddy of my, one of my, one of my buddies who is, like, hey, bro, let's go. Let's go to Turkey. And I'm like, dude, I'm terrible.

Like, why, dude? So it's between $2,000 to $4,000, but then you got to fly there. Okay. You got to fly there, stay there. Bro, it used to be like a 40. If that's your main crisis, it's concerned. It used to be 40,000 plus, and it used to not be as good. Like, now it's...

In the U.S., it's $8,000 to $18,000. I have a buddy who did it, and he took a picture of his head the day after. Oh, yeah. You're messed up for a while. It traumatized me, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His head looked like a mushroom. Oh, it just because of the...

The trauma. Yeah. It looked like a mushroom. Yeah, you're in flame. I was traumatized. You're in flame for a few days. You just got a high. You look pretty rough for like a week or two.

It takes, I think, a solid. Can you lose the hair again? You can, right? I don't know. Can you? Yeah. I don't think so. If you lost it the first time,

is it like, it grows. Is that a money back guarantee? Yeah, it's like real hair. It's your real hair, dude. So you're just replanting it. Yeah, no, dude. I'll just, I'm just, yeah, it's wild.

There's a lot. There's a lot of fitness people that have, I know. I've seen the, I mean, it works. I just, I don't care. Yeah. This is like, just about, I care about my. You know why you don't care? You know what?

You know what? You know what? You know what you don't care? It's like a new lawn that they're, you know, sheep. And you know why you don't care, bro? Because you're jacked. I'm telling you. Guys, listen to me.

Go lift weights. Your hair's falling out. Go lift weights, dude. It fixes it. Totally fixes it. I mean, rock whatever you got. Or get rich. You know what I'm saying?

Make a lot of money. There are two things you could do that will negate it. For sure. Go make some money. Yeah. Heaven forbid you do both. If you're rich and Jack? Yeah.

If you're like, if you're a fit and you are successful, like, come on. Bald head? Sexy suddenly. Yeah. Suddenly it's attractive. Yeah. You know? I pulled up some studies on exogenous ketones.

Just a change of subject here. And pretty consistently improves cognitive performance in healthy people. Sometimes the criticism is that the ketones, help when people have metabolic dysfunction, which is true. But in healthy people, consistently shows cognitive improvement, which is funny that we need to study for this.

Just try it and see for yourself. Yeah, right? I take two a day, especially when we podcast. Two of the ketone IQs. Oh, I love those. When we podcast. It's been my favorite thing to add now to,

like, because I'm a caffeine drinker, is the back half. It's like my go-to back half of the day. Yeah, dude. It's like front load caffeine, early. Mental sharpness. Stimulate hardcore and then like keep it going. with the ketone. Totally, dude. I think it's

anybody who loves coffee or energy drinks for the morning for work and you haven't done ketone IQ, like I urge you to try that. Try doing that, like start your day with your normal caffeine like you do. Once it wears off. And then, yeah, wear off midday, take the ketone IQ. Yeah, dude.

Perfect. Yeah, it feels great. Dude, I have this idea, okay, for, and okay, so I saw the store. I don't know where it is. I think it might be in Asia somewhere, but there's this, like, like rock climbing store. And they made it so it's basically a seven story rock.

You have to climb just to get into the store. So it totally eliminates posers. That's kind of cool. Which is great. And so if you get there, you actually get the gear, you know? And so like if you're wearing it,

people are like, okay, you actually had to like go climb to get it. So in order to get in, you have to climb. Yes. Show me a picture. By the way.

Can you imagine us doing that for fitness? I mean, that would be so we get so much backlash, you know, for that? Oh, you want to come to the gym? Super exclusive.

By the way, Asia is a lot of countries. Well, I... Somewhere in Asia. It's in Korea. It looks like... The continent. There's this place on Earth? There's this place on Earth I want to go...

He's this really cool place on Earth I want to go to. It's right there in the middle, you guys. Broad, broad... Swipe of the brush with that. Did you find it, Doug? It is. It's in Seoul, South Korea. Yeah, Asia.

See, I was right. Guys, fact checking me. That's why I go broad. Oh, wow. So it's not like a rock climbing wall. It's a rock. It's a rock. No, it's a bunch of stuff.

Look it. It's just one rock. And then you got to go over. Get through layers of the building. Yeah, yeah. Just to get up. So. Yeah, bro.

I think that's, it's cool. It's a cool constant. I wonder how well they do. I wonder what their insurance has to be. I know. To do something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Asia is different there. Yeah. Yeah. Restrictions on that. Yeah. You know, it is smart. It is a smart marketing kind of because I'm sure people show up. just to try it.

So you know what I think is interesting about this. And I think that we're seeing the pendulum swing. We went so hard one way. I feel like we're going to come back the other way. One of the things that we went this, everything's all-inclusive. I think exclusivity is going to be like a big. Yes.

I see that coming back. Totally think more private. Only these people. I think that's going to become more popular again because we went so hard the other way. And this is an example to me of that. It's just like, not everybody can come shop here. Sorry. Can't climb the rock.

Can't come in. Can't do it. And I bet we see more stuff like this. Do you know who started that? That whole like you can't come in. Well, it's been around for a long time. But wasn't Studio 54 known for that where they would walk up to the door? Yeah.

And the- You have to be like hot. The guy at the door would be like, no, you can't come in. Oh, that's still today. That still happens. Abercrime got like in trouble for that, right? Really? Yeah.

Do you know that a lot of, and this still happens. How would have hit to the eagle? Do you know that? you're waiting in line, you go up to the front, the guy looks like, nah, you can come in,

bro. This is what they do. This is still a strategy today is nightclubs downtown will everybody, you always see these crazy lines when you drive by. Well,

they have plenty of room to fit the people in. We'll restrict people coming in so other, you see how crazy popping it is because the line. Oh, sure. Yeah, it's marketing.

So it looks like there's, exactly, it's marketing for them. And then they'll go and they'll handpick the people. Yeah. So you're next in line. You know,

but you're goofy looking. So they walk right past you, You know what I'm saying? And 10 people back. Oh, your ears are too big. It's two or three cute girls. It's like, come on in. And so you move the hot girls in.

And you know, I never understood the appeal of nightclubs. I just never did. You go in there. I know. You're smashed. You can't hear anything because everything's so loud. It's dark. You basically have to get drunk.

Otherwise, you're anxious. There's no other way. I'm just anxious in here. And I'm tight with everybody. And what's going on? You didn't go through a nightclub fan? No. You were married at 12.

That's why. Yeah. 12 years old I mean I was in Chicago I did my share of like Yeah I like lounges I did too Nightclubs are like

Well yeah You sound like an old married man You sound like a guy Did you like nightclubs? Yeah it was cool I mean at an age At a certain point in my life But not now

New girls are gonna be there Yeah but you But you I like to dance I like to drink You really like to dance? Yeah yeah As bad as I am I still like it

You really like it? Yeah bro Bring it on Yeah I'm not ashamed I'm not ashamed of that not shade in my ball head. Stop.

Stop, stop. Let's go. Stop, dude. I don't know you like to dance. Well, no, no, no, Katrina will tell you that she can always tell

how many drinks I've had by how many. Yeah, she's like, she goes, she's like, under four, he's embarrassing to be with. Six, all of a sudden, he's like,

everybody's watching them dance. That's what she claims. Yeah, yeah, it unlocks something. And I'm not, hey, I'm not sober enough to know what it is to be able to put it together,

but something happens. That's what she says. I feel like Justin does the splits. No. Yeah, I used to do like the worm and like, you know, fight people

and stuff. Well, yeah, it turns into fights when I have too many. Yeah. There's a tolerance. What's the number? Yeah, you never, you never, so you never went through the nightclubs, Vegas scene, any of that stuff.

I did it a couple times, but I just never understood. Like, I did nightclubs where we had like table service where you're roped off. That's so different. But when you're in with everybody, you just slammed smashed together

and it's just slammed, just not, I don't know. I would hate to be a woman in that by having dudes all up against you and it's just uncomfortable. Yeah, it's, it's kind of weird to me that you'd see groups and they didn't want anybody to interact with them. And it's like, what are you doing here? You're like, you know this is going to happen. I mean, I'm so, I'm so pro that versus where the society has gone the last 10, 15 years. I agree. I think at least it's social. Yeah. I mean, this, like, stay home and swipe right. No, you're right. You know what I'm saying? Like, way worse. Are you like, who cares? Let's go out and get, you know, in a sardines in a club and maybe meet someone.

Get rejected a bunch of times and one time and get lucky. And learn the hard way. They look different when the lights come on later on. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's all part of growing up. It's all part of growing up. When the house lights come on. Oh, my God.

Oh, shit. They really optimize the light in that bar. Oh, my God. I saw a video of this dude. Everybody has to have that experience. It wasn't in their life. I didn't know. He had a mustache.

It's a part of growing up, man. So, yeah. No, I'm waiting. more. It's a part of growing up. I mean, I don't, I don't like it now. 45. No, I would. Oh, hell. I was like, yeah. I was, I mean, that was, that was, that was, that was the thing. That and house part of you're right. It is better than what's happening now. Yeah. Nobody goes out. Yeah. Did you guys remember, remember when there was a thing where there were these, they were like, nightclubs, but you wear headphones. So you listen to your own music. So why. Why are you here to be alone? Dude, well, what do we do?

I just saw. I've seen they have like different colors. Yeah. Yeah. So you know that person. connect with the person that's vibe into that. Still think it's dumb. I just feel it's too... It's dumb. Yeah. It's dumb. It's like, I was just somewhere.

Where was I at? It kind of defeats the purpose. It's like, can I be alone while being around people? I forget what they call them, but they're like a, they're like a silent dance parties and you're right. Everyone's got these high headphones on. They normally have like two or three different songs playing and they're at the different colors. So we're trying to just cater to introverts.

It is the, it is the, I'm not a fan. A silent dance party. Yeah. A social gathering where you're not social. Imagine you just like walk in. don't know, you know, everybody's just like, yeah. One of the best reasons to, to, like, to walk away and get a one-on-one talk is because it's too loud.

It's too loud. Yeah. You're dancing with someone, you're vibing. You're like, hey, let's get out of here. I can't hear anything. She's like, yeah, yeah, cool. Let's go outside. Versus, you're in there as soon as everybody can hear her, you're like trying to talk to her.

Start whispering. Yeah. Oh, you guys got my text last week. How I chipped my tooth. It's fixed, though. Let's see. Fixed tooth. Emergency dentist.

So I chipped my tooth. Making out with a guy with a tongue ring. That's 100% not what happened. That's not what he said in the text. It was way worse enough. No, don't say it. I know. I'm not going to say it.

It's a little less PC. It was way more PC, but it also involved the piercing. So anyway. Some gauge. Yes. Thanks, Justin. No problem. No, I chipped my tooth and I felt it.

And I'm like, no. Because my dentist doesn't work on Fridays. And it happened Thursday at 5 p.m. When he closed. So I was like, what am I going to do? So I'm like, I'm looking around. So I found. a dentist that was like emergency and I went in there and they fixed it up. They also fixed the other one

that was kind of chipped. How did you chip both teeth? The other tooth chipped a long time where I forgot what I was doing. This one, I was literally biting my nails and my teeth came together real hard. Oh. And I chipped a little. This happened to me before. It was so awkward, but like I had, you know, I have caps. And so like I had one that was just a temporary and it was on the very front. And, you know, over the weekend, I was like eating something. Then I was out in public and I ended up eating the cap. And I just had like one. little fang right here. Oh, my God.

I'm like, hey. Oh, my God. I had no idea. No, you did it. The Courtney's like, oh! I was like, what? What's wrong? And I go in the bat.

I'm like, oh, no. Do you have, is there regular maintenance for veneers? Do you have to, like, regularly go, like, get a mate? I'm sure there is. You can I'm not to look into that. Because, yeah, I'm sure they only last, like, I'm sure it's like a decade or so, but it's really? Yeah, you have to, get them done again?

I think so. Not all the way. I bet it's just like, just like, yeah, I don't. reseal them or something like that? Not sure. Yeah, because the technology you have now with the seal is better. They're like permanent dentures is basically what they are. Right. That's what veneers basically are. I mean, they're super durable. Like, yeah.

More so than even like enamel, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're supposed to be, they're supposed to last for a long time. I think maybe forever. Maybe until you're dead. Let's see. Oh, 10 to 15 years. It may last 20 to 30 years. Oh, that's what made me concerned. I was like, dude, really? Am I going to like have to go back in? Dude, that's, oh, you would think that that would be part of the deal.

It's like you get them and then it's not, I wouldn't think it would be as much to keep them. You get a warranty? Yeah, like me. Just polish them up and buff them out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I got mine done. So if you go, let's see here,

20, you get, if you get 30 years out of me, you just might chuck it. I'm just being, F it. Yeah. Yeah. If you only get 10 or 15, you'd have to redo that. But if you're like, what is that?

That's going to put you, if you go 30, I'll be honest. 75. 75, bro? Yeah, this is my, this is my ball share all the kids. If I just have the spikes. Oh, man, I couldn't rock that. Oh, yeah.

But they can fix. Yeah. Even if you're scary. Even if you were jacked, it wouldn't look good. That doesn't fix it. Yeah, that doesn't fix it. Hey.

You gotta have good teeth. The dentist, she was doing mine and she's like, so what do you, why do you need these done so quickly? Because I call them like, listen, it's emergency. I'm like, I work in media. You know, so course I started a conversation. Yeah, yeah. So she's like, hey, after, you know, now that we're done,

because I like them, I said, oh, you did a good job. She goes, well, you can give me a shout out. I'm like, you don't even know what media I worked for. Yeah, yeah. even recognize me. So you don't get anything. Her assistant's like, oh. I was being serious. You don't listen to my puppy. You get no shout out.

Sorry, lady. I paid the bill. That's what you get. You got to love that, right? Somebody's like, they don't even hook you out. Give me a shout out. Yeah, I know. You don't listen to my show. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome. Here's your bill. Do you shout me out to? She was really good. She did a really good job. But then she was telling me about Pilates afterwards. I'm like, you definitely don't

listen to my show. I don't want to get bulky. So I just do Pilates that sculpt. I'm like, dude, how often is this? If you only knew he were talking to. Bro. I don't even engage those. I don't even like... I don't say nothing

because it's a whole conversation. That's too much. Yeah. And I don't want to discourage someone from doing, you know. No, no, no.

I'm the same way too because then it turns into a long old thing. It was just like, you know, just go listen to the podcast sometime. Yeah. Tell me more about your reform?

You know, my business partner thinks dentists are all fraud. I'll see you later. Yeah. Yeah. And dinosaurs don't exist. I'm just going to drop that.

See you later. If you guys know, if you guys know, if you guys know, much I paid to fix the chip to you, bro. Oh, yeah. Emergency time, too. Yeah.

It was a nice chunk. I don't even want to know. That stuff is up to now, dude. You weren't about to show up with the podcast with that. No, bro. First of all, I don't care that much, but you guys would just, the whole episode, you guys would be making fun of me. I mean, it would have fun with that.

No. Everything is ridiculously inflated right now, dude. I was just texting my buddy where he had to get his oil change. We had the same car. And it's only been one year. since he had been there and i was telling him how much it cost me and he's like damn dude you got to go over to my place i'm like he's like they don't it costs half that i'm like i don't know bro i'm like i don't think it had anything i said i think i think the guy hooked me up too and he goes no he's like

bro i've never paid more than this and he's telling me his number and i said well he's nineteen ninety five yeah well no it was just a year ago yeah it's just a year ago he went to he went yesterday and uh i said yeah what's your bill and it was 300 bucks more than mine wow and he's He's just like, dude, he's like, I tell you what, he goes, I might just handle this myself going forward. You know, along those lines, Costco has predicted, since they've been in business, every recession based off of spending habits of their consumers. Do you know what it is? Interesting. You want to know what it is?

Yeah. And it's happening right now. Oh, tell me. Consumers, when they switch from beef to chicken and then from chicken to tuna and canned meats, when those switches start happening, it predicts a recession. And it's happening right now. So Costco just put out of report. Fastening topic. Yeah, people move away from beef.

Then they go to cheaper, like chicken, and then away from that to the canned meats. And that's what they're noticing right now. It's a big swing. Interesting. That makes sense. Yeah. Because beef prices went up another 17%.

Sure. No, it's nuts. Everything is nuts what the prices are right now. And it's not getting any better. Everything is... Dude, I just went to, like, the arcade, like, down with the boys. I had them by myself this weekend. And I was like,

I got to get out of the house and let's go. We went down there and, you know, most games were like a dollar. Like that was like one game. Yeah, one game. You know that game where you just shoot targets and has all those like lit up targets? You know how much that was? No. Five bucks.

To shoot just to do that. I'm so like I, I, and the kids are like get over it, dad. I can't get over this. It's $5. Well, not only Deb. It's outrageous. You start to do the math. You're like, shit, I'll just go buy this thing for home.

You guys use it three times in the next year. we've already made our money out of it. That's ridiculous. I was like over in the old school section with like Kubert and, you know, yeah. Yeah, I'm playing stuff for like 50 cents. Do they still have the arm wrestling machine there? No, I don't, I didn't see that,

but they had a, uh, um, guitar hero, like, set up and I was like, oh, I want to get one of these for my house. They used to have a really good arm wrestling machine on the boardwalk, a really good one. And it looked like a pro wrestler. Yeah, with the arm. With the big arm. Yeah.

And he'd talk crap to you. Yep. If you couldn't beat them. And it was actually difficult. And I remember as a kid, we would do it every year we went. and there was, well, 60 when I can finally beat it. That's funny, dude. It's wild to think that in just our lifetime,

a game like that is $5. My grandmother used to drop me off here in San Jose when I was a kid at the Nickel Arcade and leave me with $5. And I would play for hours. Hours. Yeah. Hours.

I played off of five bucks to think that you get one game. You're done. Nuts. Dude. Yeah. It was like that long ago. Let's just say we did. You know?

Yeah. That long ago, that was like a kid playing arcade games. When Doug was a kid, it was a shekel. We had pong. It was a string shells. It was a string. We just shook the string. Did you guys see the pickleball video I shared on my Instagram story?

Oh, it was like one of the greatest like rallies or whatever. I shared it. I bet a lot of people didn't pick up on it though because I shared it because of the comments. Oh my God. Oh, yeah. You'll enjoy it. It was like a, I mean, it was a great rally. It definitely was

But it's so The game is so easy You know what I'm saying that it's like Minimal movement Yeah Very very minimal movement for this long run And the the comment section was just Oh, diabolical bro

I was dying So I shared it But then I thought after I shared I was like oh I bet a bunch of people Think I'm sharing this Because I've been openly talking about How I love pickleball now That they're like

I think it's like You're a fan Check it out You know this was sick I know I showed some mean It's talking trash But it's funny

Because like I would I would play And make fun of it the same time. That's how I, that's exactly me right now. I'm exactly like, I'm all in, love it. I think it's great.

At the same time, too, I know it's ridiculous. Yeah. Don't try and hype it up. Yeah, no, yeah. Coolest thing ever. No, not at all. Joy mode is a pre-sex supplement. That's right.

You take it before intercourse for better performance. It's also good pre-workout. It's not a stimulant-based product. All it does, and it does this effectively, is increase blood flow in a big way. So this product was created because one's on the market. We're terrible. And prescriptions come with all sorts of side effects.

You don't want to get those. You don't want to get those side effects. Joy mode is simple. It's easy. It's natural. And it really works. It's backed by data. Here's what you do.

You tear up in the packet. You pour it into six to eight ounces of water. You drink it. And 45 minutes to four hours later, you perform much better. Again, you can also use it as a pre-workout. It's also good for endothelial health. So increased blood flow is good for. for your vascular system.

So this also can be a health supplement. That's how I use it. Go check them out. Go to tryjoymode.com slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Get 20% off. Back to the show. Our first caller is Julie from Illinois.

Hi, Julie. Hi, Julie. Hi, hi, guys. Thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. You got it. How can we help you? First of all, I just want to say thanks.

You guys have been a welcome routine to my morning. and I really appreciate all you're doing for everyone in the personal training space and the fitness industry to try and get people to be more knowledgeable and be able to take care of themselves in a good way for life. Thank you. So I did send you guys a recent update. I'm going to try and kind of summarize my initial email because I know I'm a little bit wordy. So initially when I reached out to you guys, I wanted some assistance with knowing what type of program selection I should utilize to, help with improving bone mineral density and strength because my initial duxa scan showed some osteopenia. At the time I was 46, now I'm 47, 5 feet 4, and have been 115 pounds most of my life until

recently. I am currently up to 130 after starting a reverse diet. I think my osteopenia stems from years of excessive cardio insufficient nutrition and genetic factors, petite frame Caucasian, with the goal of trying to improve my bone. density before going fully into menopause. Initially, I wanted to know what ideal rate I should be targeting for. I did change my macros. I went initially, I was consuming about 2,300 calories.

I bumped all the way up to about 3,200 calories a day. Macro tracking currently is about 120 to 160 for protein, 90 to 120 for fat, and about 250 to 300 carbs. I am fully vegan because of a lipoprotein A abnormality that's genetic. And I started that in December of 2022. With my recent update that I sent you guys, I initially did your free 30 days of training when I first found your podcast. Then did MAPS strong, MAPS performance, MAPS, Anabolic. And I'm currently in phase three of MAPS aesthetic.

But I'm not doing the volume that's recommended in the program. So if it says like four or five sets, I'm usually doing three on the focus days. I am doing mobility or more like a recovery day. Although I had a strength training background before starting your programming, I was not consistently doing movements such as deadlifts, bench press, barbell back squats, and overhead press. Initially, I saw good strength gains with my reverse diet, but I feel like my progress has plateaued for a while.

I've not been able to increase the amount of weight I can lift since finishing map strong or mass performance. No changes occurred with MAPS enabolic in a calorie surplus. At the same time, my weight has increased and I feel noticeably fluffier around my abdomen and thighs. The number on the scale itself doesn't really bother me. It's more that my legs in my stomach are larger, and I can't fit into some of the clothes that I was able to wear last summer, even like around January.

I was at the 3,000 to 30,200 calories per day until starting MAPS is static. since then I've reduced my intake a little bit, averaging about 2,700 calories per day. I typically get closer to 3,000 on the lifting days in 25 to 26 on mobility or walking only days. My workout has also changed recently from 7.45 a.m. to 5 a.m. on work days and later on non-work days. Because of the earlier time, I don't feel as awake or as strong during my workouts, and I expect that this will need to factor on how I approach my training going forward. I've also had some health changes since I initially wrote to you guys. I started HRT and thyroid medication back in November with my lebo-thyroxine and progesterone being bumped up and then was given an esteridial patch in April.

I've also been suffering some from elevated fasting glucose since August of 25, and I just talked to Vita Bell and started a GLP1 medication at a microdose to try and get my, fasting blood glucose closer to being below 100 because it's been running about 100 to 110 120 sometimes. I also did a repeat dexascan in January that showed normal bone density for someone my age using a T score rather than a ZEK score that was used on my initial test. The scan did show a discrepancy between my hips and I did tear my meniscus on the left side at 30 although my in-body scans in the past and unilateral strength work does not show a discrepancy. So I guess other things you should be aware of, I typically get about 6.5 to 7 hours asleep on nights that I have to work, 8 to night on weekends, Friday through Sunday.

My walking is initially about or has been consistent, so somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 steps. Lately, sometimes I hit about 15,000, but it's usually because I'm trying to do. a post-lunch walk for about 10 minutes. I'm also trying to rest approximately 90 seconds to two and a half minutes between sets, but sometimes I will peer exercises to make my workouts more efficient. For example, deadlifts with overhead press and bench press with rows. Current goals of this time are bone health, improving glucose control, maintaining or reducing my current abdominal and thigh size, so I don't have to continue to buy larger clothes, continuing to build or maintain strength without adding unnecessary body mass.

So with that, I want to know, how should I be approaching my nutrition? How should I structure my strength training, given my current plateau, earlier workout time, and slight calorie deficit? Should I continue with three lifting days per week, or would you recommend a different training frequency? And what would you recommend that best programming, the best programming approach would be for my next year to prioritize bone health, glucose control, strength, and maintaining my current body size?

Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for. Very thorough, Julia. For calling you. I'm sorry, like I told you. That's right. It's probably everything you want and then some. No, it's perfect.

Very good. And I can tell you listen to the podcast. Yes, yes. Which is great. Do it a great job. So how, since starting the microdose of terseptit, has that had any impact on your fasting glucose? I've only taken two doses. It's been 98 to 100.

So nothing like significant because I check it every morning. What, tell me a little bit about your diet. I know you're vegan. and you're consuming between 25 to 2700 calories. What does that look like? What makes up your diet? So breakfast is oatmeal with mixed nuts, Brazil nut for selenium, a fourth a cup of mulberries, some soy milk,

and then two scoops of a plant-based protein powder that has no added sugar or anything. Lunch is a very large salad. that is two cups of lettuce, a bunch of vegetables, half an avocado, homemade dressing. What else do we throw in there? It's usually about a 7 to 900 calorie salad, including a cup of chickpeas that I air fry,

sometimes prunes, sometimes like a homemade muffin I make, peanut butter, like something along those lines. Dinner is a lot of vegetables. at least one or two servings or two, at least two cups of that. And then some sort of, I'm trying to think, like this week we made, I made sweet potato burgers. So I do a homemade bun. And then I did a lentil salad and brazed cabbage with apples and an energy protein bite that's made out of peanut butter or some protein powder, almond flour, flaxseed. So we make pretty much everything.

But I'm hitting between 30 and 60. grams of protein per meal. Okay. And you had said that you don't eat animal proteins, and it's because it affects your blood lipid levels, then they start to get a little haywire? So I have lipoprotein A. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. So it's a genetic cholesterol that our liver makes that then contributes to arterial plaque formation. So I had a cradid. So even though I've been healthy for most of my life, my crowded ultrasound has my arterial age at 67.

Okay. So because of that, I went to see a preventative cardiologist who then recommended a vegan diet to try and mitigate the risks that can come potentially with having hair cholesterol that is not genetic. We're going to say that. And then he's got me on some supplements and I do a repeat carotid. I did it two years ago. I have a repeat carotid that I have to do just fall to then see if it's either halted or

potentially reversed with some of the supplements. on. So if that makes sense. So I started tracking, like I wasn't food tracking until I went vegan with my husband because I wanted to make sure we were hitting all of our nutrition targets. So we use coronometer. I don't know if you know that app. So it's very specific. It'll break down fiber. It breaks down all your amino acids. So, you know, like we're out of the park for pretty much everything. So make sure we're getting all the nutrition with what we're eating. Okay. That's great. And then since switch. to the diet. I know you haven't checked your carotid to see if there's any changes or improvements.

Have you noticed any changes in energy, vitality, strength, sleep, or is it all, you sound like you've planned it pretty well. So I'm curious to see if there's any changes, positive or negative. Initially, I felt like I had more energy. I don't feel like the energy has been, you know, this is now going on a few years. I think the energy changes that I've had have been, more related to thyroid because when they started me on the thyroid meds, things felt better. And then when things started to go off again and when they bought my thyroid meds again recently, I think it was April or May, I told her like I was starting to feel tired. I would do not get tired in the afternoons.

I was starting to feel tired in the afternoons. I was freezing like my hands and my feet were cold all the time. It just seems like, you know, constipation was worse. Like all these different things that I felt like were more thyroid driven. So I don't think it's dietary related if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. And are you supplementing with like essential amino acids, creatine, maybe your B vitamins, some of the things that sometimes people can become deficient

and even with a well-planned vegan diet? Yeah, I get regular blood work. So all that's good. But I do do B-12. I do a super B-complex. I do vitamin D. I do omega-3s. I do 10 grams of creatine daily.

Awesome. So I think all those bases are covered. Yes, they are. That's great. And then just kind of a personal question, are you enjoying this process? Because it sounds like you're managing so many different things and you're counting so many things.

And I want to make sure it's not an additional stress on you. I like the meal planning. I actually don't mind the tracking. Like that's not a big deal. The supplements, I feel like we have it down. I've worked out since I was 13 in some capacity. So the fitness thing isn't something that's going anywhere. Like that's part of my life.

I think if anything, if that's the one thing I would never want anybody to take away from me, if that makes sense. It does. I mean, I know you guys are all along those lines. So, you know, kind of nutty, like, really like going to the gym every day, even if it is just stretching or doing something like that. Good. So the one objective metric that I would pay closest attention to only because it's most strongly correlated with what you're most interested in, which is bone density and blood glucose would be strength. So it's harder to be objective with muscle gains.

You can do dexas scans, but sometimes you can be more hydrated, less hydrated. and simple muscle mass isn't as a great of a predictor for those things as actual strength. So that's the objective we want to pay closest attention to. Like if you're getting stronger, you're probably doing a lot of things right. And if that continues on, bone density moves in that same direction. And as you get stronger, you gain muscle, which is great for blood glucose. One of the best ways to... And or maintaining her strength while she's in some sort of a cut in diet.

Because one of the things you've done really good, too, has been able to reverse diet and get your calories. up to a very healthy place. Yep. So the one of the things I hear, too, is, you know, wanting to sounds like reduce a little bit of body fat or, you know, inches around the waist or whatever. So being able to reduce calories and be able to maintain strength would actually be a really good win for us. Yeah.

Now, MAPS aesthetic is a lot of volume, even with a reduction in the volume. I like MAPS 15. Right. So you like going to the gym every day. You said it already. I would put you on a MAPF. Yeah. I go every day.

Yeah. Well, and I figured you guys were probably going to put me on a 15. So the only reason I did math statistic is because I bought your your bundle and I had already done Maps performance. Got it. I mean, you did the right thing with it, by the way. You did incredible. Obviously, you listened to the podcast.

We could tell because of how you modified it on your own without any coaching from us is great. But just to kind of break it down for you. So, you know, I'm trying to recall maps aesthetics. He's typically like three exercises per large body part. Even if you cut down the sets to three, you're doing nine sets three days a week. week per body part, which is still high volume or even, you know, six three times a week would be high volume per body part for most people. So that's even with the reduction in volume. Now going to Maps 15, what you'll probably notice with no other changes. So no other changes in

diet, no other changes in anything else. Well, you'll probably notice is by the second week strength increases. And if that happens, we're on the right track. And I think that's probably what's going to happen. And I think, I guess I was, you know, I really looked forward to anabolic and then to not see any strength pains over that. I was kind of surprised because I, again, I was reverse dieting. I was eating the 3,000 to 3,200 calories. And I just, I had never done full body days. That was my first program doing like everything. Yeah. I've always done some sort of split or something a little bit different. So I'm not quite sure why, unless That's more that hormonal piece.

Yeah, I would guess with going through the thyroid thing, change of time, and also going through that a second time. Well, let me ask you the difference between phase one and let's say phase three, because they're very different. Did you notice any changes between the two? Strength. Yeah, either strength or energy. Phase three is much more volume than phase one. So I just had a curiosity. I don't remember.

Okay. This was back in like March or April, maybe May. I'm trying to remember exactly because I'm on phase three of anabolic right now. But now with the volume I'm doing like the full workout, I cut into two. So like there's the three workouts a week. I'm doing like half of a workout. And then the next day I'll do a half workout that I take a day off. You get what I mean.

But I don't remember. So with anabolic, I know my least favorite is probably the five by five. I don't know if that's part of anabolic or just in general because it's not a way that I was accustomed to training before you guys. So I really have to wrap my head around being safe, I guess, as I do it or feeling comfortable so that I don't get hurt. So I'm always that's kind of in the back of mind. So like the one program, maybe it was anabolic. Instead of doing a barbell back squat, I just modified it to a box squat. That's fine.

Because then I felt like I had enough control where if I don't, I would just sit down. it's not a big deal. Perfectly fine. I'd like to send you Mass 15, and I'd like to see how you respond to that. And just follow it as it's laid out. And like I said, if by week two or three,

you're getting stronger, we're moving in the right direction. And a good goal would be, based off your like kind of annual goals since you asked that, setting up would be to not manipulate diet yet, stick with the way you're eating, just change the program.

If all things go well and we start to see strength, and then you still feel like you want to see some body composition change. you're in a healthy enough calories that we could just put you in a calorie reduction for a little while while staying on MAPS 15. And then remember when we do something like that, really the goal is just to maintain strength.

If we maintain strength in a calorie deficit, that's a huge win. I wouldn't expect strength gains to continue to progress while I'm also putting you in a deficit, which is why also, I think, keeping the diet where it is now, reap some benefits from added strength if the programming was the right program for you.

And then if only then if you start to, And maybe you'll see body composition change just from that, which I wouldn't manipulate calories. But if, let's say, we've continued through Mass 15, you did build some strength, but you still have that. I wish I had a couple, I wanted to inch off my way still, or I wish I was a little bit leaner. Then I'd put you in a calorie deficit with the goal of trying to maintain strength. Then what calories should I be keeping at this point? I think stay where you're at. You're 2700 where you're at right now.

What you're doing, I love, too, how you're undulating it. I know now you'll be in the gym every day. And so, you know, you can, but undulating the way you are is perfectly fine. Yeah, so you can kind of average. Yeah. A little more. So aim for 25 to 2700. Yes.

Okay. Yep. And then if, so I keep going, at what point during the strength gains would I decide to then go on a cut? Like how much would I run the whole program and then the second time I run? Yeah. Run the whole program. In fact, if appetiting. and strength increases during the program, I actually might bump your calories again.

So if- Yeah, and play the reverse diet. So if you're seeing strength gains and appetite, you feel increase, feed that. And then at the end of the program, I'd say, then let's go into a cut, because then we're cutting from an even higher place, which would be even more advantageous. And what would I cut to? If you're averaging 2,600 calories, 2,200 calories would be a sufficient cut. Yeah. For how long? For a whole program, for a month? Yeah, I think a whole program would work just fine. These are great questions, by the way, Julie.

I think I can, yeah, this is great. So, yeah, I would go a whole cycle of Mass 15 and then follow a different Maps 15 if it worked. If it worked and you got stronger. We have a lot of Mass 15 version. So we have like Maps 15 muscle mommy and strong. And then follow it again in a cut if everything worked well and you got stronger. Where that would look different is, where that would look different is if you actually reverse diet during this process. process right now. So if we see strength and appetite increase and I get you back up to say 29, 3,000 calories, then you could pull all the way down to say 25 to 500 calorie deficit and you're eating more and we'll see some of those results. So really aiming for that 300 to 500 calorie deficit after we've gone through 15 trying to build strength and trying to reverse diet.

Are you, by the way, Julie, are you wearing a CGM for the glucose? No, I had a, my provider gave me a CGM. I had two. So I did it twice. I didn't really learn that much. It just seems to be the fasting that's primarily the biggest piece is where I'm having issues. It would be also like if I eat bananas or oranges. Okay.

Or if I don't move after lunch. So that's why I try and do a little bit of some activity for five, 10 minutes after lunch. Because then I would see my numbers start to go up to like 160 instead of if I move right away, it's like 120. Okay. Was where I would peak at and maybe 1.30 and then it would go back down. Okay.

I'm not quite sure because I'm on a super low dose gLP. I don't know if they're going to titrate it up, if they want to see, like, how long am I going to be with this? I don't know if that's going to influence my appetite. A microdose might in a way that's kind of imperceptible. But I would be very careful with someone like you who is trying to improve bone density to go out of dose of a glp. Well, and that's not the goal. I told you, I tried to, I mean, I put it off for a year and now it's just kind of like

nothing's working. And I don't know how to fix that piece and just not wanting to trip to being diabetic as I try and get all this hormone stuff under control. Look into burbering if you are, if you have a brand. I'm already on burbering. How's that helping? Is that helped anything? Okay.

All right. Let's see what happens with the strength training. What I want to do, Julie's, I want you all back on in 30 days. I was just going to ask her, Julie, are you familiar with our concierge program? I've heard you guys talk about it. It's just we're in the process of buying a house. And then some of the medical stuff that I've had going on lately has escalated the bills a little bit. So the concierge is not good right now.

No worries. But it would be something I would be interesting. Yeah, I know. I'm just listening to you. I'm like, you're such a good candidate for this. You come with so many great questions. Like you're the type of person who I think we don't always talk to people about it. because I think most people need a lot more detailed coaching and more handholding.

You're so thorough detail that, you know, checking in once a month of the coach, who's just kind of overseeing what you're doing and making those tweaks. You're just a great candidate for us. Yeah, are you able to progressively overload? Like, I know you're a little bit nervous about like the five by five protocol and like adding weight. Is adding weight something you were able to kind of like gradually progressively do? Or is that something still you're a little nervous about? It kind of depends on the day.

So like for 5x 5s, the highest I can get is a 45 plate on each side for the box squad. That's great. That's really good. That's really good. No, I mean, I guess because I've worked out for so long. And it depends. Like during MAP Strong, I was doing overhead press or cleaning press. I have to remember because this was a while ago with 60.

and like today I did an aesthetic or because I'm doing the, you do that and then you pair it with the rear adult. Yeah. I just did 30s this morning or just a 30 overhead press regular because I was like, and part of it's too, it's 5 a.m.

Yeah. I don't know if you guys start 5 a.m. early. But like even working out at 7.30 compared to 5 is completely different. Totally. Yeah. You just said something that gives a little more context to this conversation too. And I think the reason why Justin was asking

because he's just curious to like, are you like barely putting any weight on? Yeah, I'm just hoping you're pushing you're pretty strong already too. So that's good weight. You know, squatting 135 is very good weight for any female client of mine. And so that's also something to consider too is not I don't necessarily think that you're at peak strength, but you've already got a lot of those beginner gains that, you know, people who just get started. So seeing continued increase, like expecting you're just going to keep seeing increase on the, on a squat. like that. I mean, us being able to maintain 135 is a very, very huge win too. Well, and I guess because

it's not full range, then I kind of just credit it a little bit. That's still, too. That's still good. So when I do, if I'm having a good regular day and I'm doing like an eight to 12 rep range, it would be 35 on each side. Yeah, that's still. 25 on each side is good. Yeah, Julie, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, 130 pounds. Yes, you're doing that. You're getting after it. I had no idea you were lifting that. I would, I would have guessed just a lower, just based on. this conversation, that's good weight. That's, you're strong. Here's what we're going to do.

I'm going to have you back on in 30 days if that's okay. I want to see how you do in four weeks on Maps 15. Okay. All right. And then based off of that. It might be pushed a little bit because my work schedule, but. That's fine. More time is better for us.

Yeah, 30 to 45 days, something like that, whatever. But we'll have you back on, check back in and make any changes if we need to. Okay. I appreciate it. You got it. All right. Thank you. All right.

Thanks so much, guys. Keep doing what you do. Thanks. Bye-bye. That was good, thorough. And I'll tell you what, for people listening right now, these are fun clients. Why is it fun? Because the answer isn't so obvious. Although I do feel the reduction of volume is going to give her the strength that she gains because she's got so many things. 100% covered. This is one of those clients where it's like, let's test this and see what happens because it's a little bit more of a challenge. Well, I mean, we've experienced this personally. we experience to those clients, a lot of clients too.

It's like, and I think this just highlight, the fact that she's as strong as she is also kind of points to this too, in my opinion. She's already kind of reaching kind of. So her volume is as higher than what you would think a 130 pound girl, her age would be doing because she's actually probably moving some good weight. Yeah. So I bet math 15, similar to how we all experience even mass 15 for ourselves, like, oh my God.

I got stronger in mass 15. Well, yeah, because at this point when you've been lifting that long and you've already reaped a lot of the benefits, just adding more volume is the opposite of what you probably need to do. And so, yeah, I think she's going to see great benefits from that. Our next caller is Dave from Georgia. What's up, Dave? How you doing, Dave?

What's happening? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good, man. How can we help you? Man, you know, I wish I could remember exactly what I typed in is my question request when I made it. But I pretty much know the gist of it. Can I give you a little bit of background? Yeah, yeah.

Wing it. So I'm 50. I just turned 50 this past May. and I grew up an athlete, and then when I got to high school, started down the wrong path with some drugs and alcohol, kind of went in a different direction with it. Things got out of control. I got cleaned up and finished college when I was 22, got back in shape. Everything was going really well. Some life things happened, life events kind of went back down that wrong road and started drinking quite a bit again. Got married, had four kids. And in 2019, I woke up, way of the way of that. 350 pounds and was really unhappy, depressed, anxiety through the roof, just not being the husband,

father, and human I wanted to be in that I knew that I could be, had some help with some friends and found a gym, local gym on Facebook that was, you know, the first 20 men to respond, kind of get a free shot to interview and go for a weight loss challenge. I entered that, just figured I might as well give it a shot. I've tried everything else. And for some reason, some of the folks that I met at this gym really kind of clicked with me and everything kind of went from there. I wound up losing 100 pounds over the next three years. And after that, kind of got in a position where my friend who ran the gym, who he became my friend, he ran the gym, he left the gym and we're now workout buddies.

So we work out three, four times a week, strength training. Recent listening to your podcast over the last couple of years, kind of thinking about some different things. Got a Dexas scan done. I'm in a pretty good place, guys. I really am. I'm happy with myself for the first time in a really long time. Coach my son in football, coach my son in baseball. My daughter plays softball for high school.

And so I'm kind of where I need to be as a husband and a father again. Good employee, successful at work, just happy with who I am. But it's time for me, I think, to take it to the next level. So what I've been thinking about were items that you talk about, like your VO2 max, things of that nature, spoke about that with the guy who did the Dexas scan, kind of opened my eyes to a few different things and visceral fat and how I get rid of that kind of stuff. And in a place right now where I'm six foot tall, 255 pounds, body fat was 26%.

Muscle mass is, you know, I think he said top 85, top 90%, men my age. So again, in a good spot, but really want to take it to the next level. and I hate cardio. I love lifting weights. I love being strong. I've always been a bigger guy. Have kind of toyed with the idea of, you know, quote unquote, becoming a runner. Just not for me.

And really just wanted to kind of hear what you guys had to say about maybe some suggestions. I've listened to the reverse dieting part and not really quite have my head wrapped around that just yet. And I think I know the answers, guys, to be clear, like in terms of, you know, dialing in my diet, being more strict or at least more making a concerted effort towards my diet and getting some more cardio worked in. But I love the way that you guys really attack issues when callers bring them up and was just really excited to get on the show and hear what you guys might have to say and maybe inject a little bit more life into my current plan and maybe give me a little bit more life to take a couple steps forward.

Yeah, thanks, Dave. Thanks for calling in, man. I like that your goal is to increase your VO2 max. I like that a lot because it's a performance goal. performance goals tend to be better overall than aesthetic goals. Performance goals can contribute to better aesthetics, but oftentimes when we chase aesthetics, we sacrifice things like performance and sometimes health.

So I like that you said that. I heard that you don't like to run and you don't like to do cardio. I feel you. But an easy way to increase your view to max would be to do some form of activity that gets you to breathe hard. But do something you enjoy doing. Like play something. Pickle ball.

Yeah. What do you got? I'm a big pickleball fan bro now. If you haven't done it. I tried pickleball this summer and I didn't mind it. I mean, that would be the key right there. You like lifting weights. Something fun would help.

You got a workout partner. Do something that involves a little community, friendship. Or your kids. Or your kids. So you're not counting, you know, I'm doing 30 minutes of this exercise. You're just going out and you're just moving your body. You're more likely to be consistent. you're more likely to get better results doing that.

You're more likely to forget that you're working out when you're doing that. That'd be it, man. Once a week, once a week, something that gets you to move that you enjoy with people that you enjoy being around would be the only thing I would say you could add. You could also, there's ways to improve this too in shorter bouts that are paired with your, I loved post. I used this a lot when I was competing. And it also had the benefits on the V-O-2 Max.

It also have benefits on leaning out, losing body fat. Post workout, I would do 12 minutes of hit cardio. And what that look like is I'd pick, you know, stairmaster, elliptical, treadmill, whatever. And for literally 15 to 20 seconds, I get after it. And my heart rate goes basically as hard as I can. You work up to that. So don't go full on sprinting. I like things like an elliptical or stair master to start with.

So you don't pull a muscle trying to do something crazy. crazy or a bike. But you go after it as hard as you can for 15 seconds and then allow that heart rate to come all the way back down. It'll probably take you when you first start doing this a minute to two minutes, maybe in a little bit longer to feel your heart rate come all the way back down and then do it again. And you'll just do 12 minute blocks of that couple times a week paired with what Sal's doing

some play on the weekend with your kids or something like pickleball or something you like doing. And you'll really improve that. Yeah. You'll make big headway on that. the O2 Max by doing that. And then the other thing I would, it sounds like you've already kind of aware of it. Like tightening up the diet would be.

And I know if you've listened to the show, you've probably heard us. The easiest thing, man, is I just, with someone like you, I just like, we're just going to track protein. And my first rule to you is you hit that. You eat that first and always do that first. And that seems to take care of a lot of the things. And then if there's anything egregious that you're aware of that you do, like if you're, a couple times a week, you pound the ice cream late at night, or there's a treat that you always

do. That's mine. That's why I call that one out. So whatever, if there's something major and egregious, then probably tapering off of that, but then really just focusing on the protein, I think takes care of a lot of the problems. Yeah, I love what you guys said about the aesthetics, because I think I'm not a psychiatrist, but I kind of feel like that might be what got me into a little bit of a lull in my training is, you know, going from 350 pounds to 250 pounds was a huge improvement, right? And just being miserable with, you know, how I felt and how I looked and then getting to a place where, man, I really like the way I look. And being 50, I'm assuming, you know, I think this is the second part of the question that I had originally sent in, the elasticity,

right? Like, so I've lost a ton of weight and I've got kind of loose skin going on that I don't know how to get rid of. I don't know if, you know, eventually surgery. the only option or if there's other ways to kind of tighten that up. But yeah, like, again, looking in the mirror, I went from 350 to 250 and I feel great about myself and love what I see in the mirror. Well, then over the next year to two years of kind of seeing that same thing, it's kind of put me back and well, now I'm not so happy with what I see. And I lose sight of where I came from and what I've gotten to. And I've kind of lost sight of that. And I look at, I just, I want, I want to take it to the next step. But you're right. Like, for me, the aesthetic part is really

what gets me in trouble because I start to get, you know, depressed or I don't really like the way that I look again. But the aesthetic part is it's, it's what I focus on, but it's not what motivates me. I don't know if that makes sense or not. It's good. What I, what we currently do is we do a push, pull legs method at the gym. So we'll have a push day, a pull day, and then a leg day. And then the, you know, the fourth day is some kind of, some kind of fill in, whether it's just a deadlift day or, you know, something like that. But I've, I've liked what I heard recently with the upper lower breakdown that you guys do. So just wondering if you guys would mix up what I'm doing strength training-wise.

I would love to give that to you. I think if you haven't followed one of our programs, this also could be a really nice thing for you. We all tend to do this when we create our own programs, including us with all of our experience, is you kind of getting this lull of doing the same kind of things all the time. And one of the best things to kind of spark change and strength. and progress is just simply following a routine that you didn't write or didn't create.

And so I think the upper lower split would be great for you. Yeah. Or, I mean, because you brought up VOTU Max as your goal, like either our performance or strong has like a conditioning element to it, which again, maybe programming it in there would help mentally you'd be able to tackle some of that conditioning and kind of get into it. But really just shaking it up and doing something completely different a lot of times will help the psyche. I love that, Justin. If what I said doesn't resonate with you where you're like, I'm not going to go get on that thing 12 minutes after my workouts and I don't want to play pickleball, but I'll follow a program, then I would lean towards Justin.

But if what I said about just, you know, making a habit a couple times out of the week to do the 12 minutes to hit afterwards and then what Sal said, you know, pick a day up with the kids of doing. physical activity or play a pickleball once. If that resonates with you, then I think you could do an upper lower split with that paired with it would do really well. If you know yourself and you're like, I'm probably not going to do that shit, then I would take Justin's advice

and just follow like a performance because it's built into that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, man, guys, again, I really appreciate you having me on the show. I love listening to you. It's been really good for me, especially over the last year to kind of get back moving in the right direction.

So love your messages. just love you share and just love, love everything about it. So thank you for helping me be a part of it. Dave, let us send you one of those programs of the two, what upper, lower, or performance, which one resonates more with which or where you want to go? Well, I think based off of what you were talking about, I think that throwing in a weekly day of pickleball

and or jumping on that stair master elliptical for 10 to 15 minutes after a workout, I think I can do that. Okay, cool. So let's, we'll send you upper lower then. Upper. Yeah, we'll send you upper, lower, all that, add that. And then go kiss that wife for sticking by you that whole time. Yeah, hey, she just got me a whoop too for my birthday.

So that's where this whole V-O-2 Max comes into play, because now I get to see every day with how I'm tracking and I need to make some changes. Nice, man. All right, bro. Thanks. Thanks, Dave. Hey, thanks, guys.

Take care. You got it. You know, I think if more people just went to have fun and played, you really wouldn't have to worry so much about. Yeah. And the sustainability, and that is so much higher. You're just, you're there to see your friends. You're hanging out.

You're having a good time. And before you know, we did it for an hour. You need to realize with the work you put it. That's right. That's right. Our next caller is Alyssa from Michigan. Hey, welcome back. You're doing, Alyssa.

How you doing? How you doing? I'm good. Give us an update. What's happening? Okay. So previously, you guys told me to focus strictly on strength. Since then, I've been following Maps 15 powerlift and have improved.

I want to preface that I was in Italy for about a month. So my training and eating were basically just pasta and no training, just walking. Which is even more impressive that we saw again, which is great. I know. As of July 19th, my one-rupt maxes are for bench, 160, deadlift, 225, and squat 205. Why? Nice. I'm confident I was in a bit of a surplus during that time.

And my body probably needed the rest. So I guess it kind of makes sense. I don't know. But I'm extremely excited to keep following this program as I did. And this past week, I redid these one rep maxes. And currently for bench, they're 165, deadlift, 225 and squat 255 and squat 225. I'm eating about 25 to 3,000 calories, 2,500,000, sorry, a day and maintaining 10,000 steps a day. I do still run a little bit, but it's down to like below 10 miles a week.

And when I first started, it was like 25 miles a week. So I'm so happy. You guys changed my life. You feel better, don't you? By the way, to see increases in all three main lists is amazing. Typically, when I'm training somebody, I'm like, we're trying to focus on just one of those lifts going up to see across the board is awesome. Yeah.

And it says there you feel amazing. You feel a lot better, huh? I do. Yeah. I like being able to eat food and not thinking about it constantly. because that's kind of how I was in the beginning. I also started pursuing a little bit of personal training on the side. I'm halfway through the ISSA program.

I don't know. I feel like I got the bug. Like, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Hey. It's been great so far. I love that. I'm so excited to read about it. And that's exciting.

You've changed my life. Alyssa, what's your main job? What do you do for, what is your main? How do you pay your bills? Well, I'm 21. It's not really pay bills. but I'm studying construction management. I'm going to graduate in December,

and I'm currently an intern at a construction company as a project engineer. Okay, good. Part time. Cool. But you like- my hours. But you like fitness?

Yeah, I do. All right. Listen, keep us in mind. Yeah. We love hiring new trainers. I know.

I was looking at your website. I was kind of like, oh, I could film a video of myself. I think I like pulling videos. Yeah. Well, say the course. I think you're on the perfect routine.

I think the Mass 15 style workouts are great. Keep doing it. I think in combination with a little bit of running you're doing, diet and everything, I think you're doing phenomenal. And then keep studying. And if you love fitness and you want to be a trainer, this is one of the best places to work. And if you're a huge fan of the show and you know our culture,

those are the kind of people we like to hire. Have you found the trainer podcast we have with our trainers? No, but I know it's called Elite Training. Yeah, elite trainer podcast on YouTube. and you'll hear our coaches talking all about personal training. So if you're into it and you're liking it, you'll like that content too. So listen to check that out. Yeah, I'm definitely going to dive into that.

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. I love it. It's been amazing. Awesome. I'm excited for you. Yeah, so which MAPS 15 do we give you to do? Was it Mass 15 Power Lift?

Do you remember? It was power lift. All right. You're almost done with it, aren't you? Yeah. All right. I'll send you another one. Let's go 15 muscle mommy.

Thank you so much. You got another 15 to follow. You got it. And then you just keep in touch with us, okay? Yeah. I will. Hey, you never know. Exactly.

I hope I catch a video from you soon. I do too. All right. All right, Alyssa. Thank you. For everything. My dad's, hi, by the way.

Okay, awesome. I said hi. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Great job. Great job. Thank you, Lisa.

Thank you. Great news. Yeah. Great news. Yeah, she was running a lot. She was doing a lot of training. She was walking a lot and her calories a low. Yeah.

Yeah. And she was worried. about hormones. If I recall, maybe I'm wrong, but if I recall she had issues with being regular with her period, maybe. I don't know if that was part of her story. But there was, there was, like,

she was like, what's going on? What do I feel this way? And it was just, she was just over. I mean, 90 day check-in, 30 days of that was traveling, not working out, and eating. So it's really 60 days. So 60 days of just following math 15.

And by the way, too, already a very strong person. Yeah. So consistently lifting, already strong. see a increase across all three major lists. Huge. Huge one. Our next caller is Amber from Michigan.

Hi, Amber. Hi, guys. How you doing, Amber? Good. How can we help you? Oh, my gosh. This is crazy. I've been listening to you guys for like nine years.

Wow. Oh, man. You guys have been through a lot with me. Oh, thank you. That's awesome. We made it. Yeah. So basically, I'm just feeling really frustrated.

because I have been working out for so long. I started getting your guys as programs probably about seven years ago. So I just don't feel like I look like all the effort that I put in. For some context, I right now, I own a cleaning business for six years now. So I clean two to three houses a day. With it being summer here in Michigan, I'm playing beach. volleyball three to four times a week. And I have a hard time even keeping up with like Maps 15. So I go back and forth on like, am I doing too much? Am I not doing enough? Am I

eating too much or am I not eating enough? And I put in all this effort, but feel like I don't look like I should with all the effort I put in. All right. Good question. So I'm going to read through some of the stuff in your email if that's okay. Yeah, sure. Okay. So, okay, you mentioned you're cleaned to two, three houses a day, plus playing beach volleyball three to four days a week. I'm assuming you're out there for a couple hours when you do that. Yeah. Okay. And you got two teenage daughters. Oh, yeah. And it says your life is very full and demanding. Uh-huh. And now it says-huh. And I want to correct, I don't know if this is accurate if we got the right email. It says you're 47. 37. 37. I was going to say, I'm like, you don't look 40.

Seven. Holy cow. Well, I hope not. So first off, you do look like your workout, but you're doing a lot, remember? You're doing a lot. So cleaning houses is, if you took, let me ask you a question, if you took one of your friends that works an office job to work with you for one day. Oh, they die.

How do you feel? Yeah, they'll be dead. So what you're doing is akin to a workout. That's your job. Then you're playing volleyball three to four days a week. That's intense. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're redlining. And I haven't even asked you about your sleep, which I'd actually, let me ask you that. How is your sleep? How consistent is it? How many hours a night you're getting? It's typically pretty good, seven or eight hours. Okay. Also, I want to take a guess at diet stuff because this is just taking a shot in the dark.

This is what happens sometimes when somebody has got a lot like this and they feel like they do put a lot of work and effort in is they are eating really clean or really low calorie and then they have these off the rails and then they're really clean really off the rails and inconsistencies with diet. How would you rate your diet? Actually, I don't go off the rails really because I enjoy eating healthy and eating clean just because I like to feel good and being with my work, like I can't go to work feeling like shit. So I really take pride in eating healthy and I enjoy eating healthy. So my, you know, the rule 80, 20, mine's more like 90, 10.

It's not super strict. Like if I want something, I'll take a couple bites, but that's really. all I need is a couple bites and I'm good. So I don't really go off the rails. That's good. That's really good. How about tracking like protein? Are you aware of what you're consuming?

So tracking is not really good for me. I actually had eating disorders for like 15 years. And you guys helped me get through that. So thank you. But I did try to track and I know that I get plenty of protein. Like I can literally snack on chicken bread. so it's not an issue. But tracking is just not good for me.

Would you say you, because of your past, you have a tendency then to maybe eat on the lower calorie side, or would you think you eat a good amount of calories? I don't restrict myself. Like, I eat when I'm hungry, so it's just hard to know if it's enough or too much. Okay. Okay, but you're eating high protein. You're not restricting. Yeah.

You're getting decent sleep. Yeah. You're just really active. Yeah. You're really, really active. You might have to just, yeah, bring it down a little more. Yeah, so, and it sounds like your beach volleyball with your friends is something you really enjoy doing. Yeah.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to cut that down. Your work, we're not going to cut down because that's your job. Yeah. Even Maps 15 is a lot of volume when you add it to all that stuff. Spread out. On a consistent basis, it would be a lot. I recently. a couple weeks ago switch to anabolic because I finished 15.

And I'm not doing the trigger shut sessions because I just usually don't have the energy to do it. I'm dead. And I'm fitting in one full body a day, which is the one day off I get a week because in summer it's crazy. Like even Saturdays I'm working right now because I have Airbnbs and stuff. Okay. And so you're doing one full body workout a week. Yeah. How's that feel?

That's been okay so far. I just... That's probably what we put you. I know. That's... There's two options. Yeah, two options I would recommend. Either one full body workout a week, one exercise per body part, three sets each.

Yeah. Or MAPS 15, two or three days a week. That's it. So, Mass 15, but like two days a week or three days a week. And that's it. Yeah. And base it off of how you feel. You don't need a ton of strength, frankly.

No. You really don't. Yeah. Especially when you're doing so much activities for muscle preservation. Amber, can you recall for me what yesterday's full day of eating was? Like just run me through breakfast, lunch, dinner, or what you ate? Sure. I would love to.

So for breakfast, I'm usually eating Dave's killer bread, two slices, three eggs and two sausage links. And then being on the go for work, I'm usually eating a banana, RX bar, a pack of nuts. and then I'll get home around two or three, eat a meal, which is usually like a chicken vegetable and maybe some quinoa. Then I have dinner, which is also some kind of form of chicken

and carbon veggie. And then when I get home from volleyball, which is usually like nine or ten o'clock at night, I'm eating like a yogurt cup with some stuff in it. Okay. Is that killing that out? Yeah, I'm just doing it in my head real quick.

And it's not, I thought it would be lower. It's not bad. No. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. See, that's where I'm struggling. Like,

I feel like it's a decent. them out, but... Yeah. You're just... Honey, you're literally... You're redlining. Yeah. So let me put it this way.

Three to four days a week for just a mom who works a desk job of beach volleyball, because that's very active. You're playing with friends. Very. Yeah. That's a lot by itself. Yeah. Now you add on top of that your job, which is activity.

You're doing a ton. Yeah. So you can't add that much strength training to your routine. Literally, it would be math 15, maybe two, a week. Or like I said, one full body workout, you know, one exercise per body part where you're doing kind of compound lifts and that's it. Those are kind of your two options.

If you already have MAPS 15, the way I would do it is because you got it laid out in front you is you would do two workouts. So you'd follow the two in a row. Then the following week you'd move to the next two. Then the following week you'd move to the next two. And that's it. Wow. If you start to see strength gains and you feel good, we're moving in the right direction.

Okay. That's your gauge. Do you think anabolic one day a week is okay? Maybe phase one, maybe phase two, phase three would probably be too much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

But I think you should try 15 two workouts a week. Yeah. And I think if you did that, you'll probably notice more energy and strength. Okay. Yeah. Again, let me just paint the context. You took a friend of yours who works a desk job, who's same age as you, and they followed you around and did your job for one day. they would be dead and sore after one day of work.

Yeah, not including the... Go home and take care of the kids. Not including the kids in the volleyball. And my own house and all that. That's right. So you're just doing a lot. Just factor it all right. I know.

You're just doing a lot, a lot. And I think adding strength training is just, you're just overflowing with the amount of stress you're putting on your body. So a little bit of strength training is going to go a long way for you. Yeah. Do you know... Your body recover.

I'm curious, have you ever used it? I'm just curious on your, like, total steps. You probably do a ton of steps in a day. Oh, probably, but I don't have a way to track them. Yeah. It's probably a good 20. That would be my guess. That would be 20,000, especially on volleyball days.

Amber, I've trained people with similar, like, activity levels, typically blue-collar workers. Yeah. And the amount of volume that got them results was so shockingly low. Yeah. And I had to keep scaling back. I remember when I first became a trainer and I would get these clients and I'd scale back, scale back, scale back, scale. scale back, scale back. And it was very minimal before they started to see any progress. And it was just because they were just moving all the time. And they were so used to moving all the time that to them, they're like, oh, I'm just, this is just what I do. And it was, I had to scale it way down. So I, it's also my, my mental therapy, you know, working out too. So. Yeah. So I get that. I literally, well, you do a lot of activity already. I don't think you need more. No. I know. You might need, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, forgive me. me for saying this, you might need some time to not do anything and kind of sit quietly,

which you probably don't ever do. Yeah, I don't got time for that. Let's try MAPS 15, do two workouts a week. By week two or three, you'll probably see some strength gains. Okay. Okay. All right. Do you want to try it?

I would love to try it. All right, yeah. Let's do it. You want to get back on it in 60 days? so we can talk to you and see what happened. Oh, I would love that. All right, cool. You got it.

And congratulations on the success of your business. It sounds like you're doing well. Thank you. Appreciate that. Bye. Bye. Yeah, and just for people listening. If the average person who works out two or three days a week went to play beach volleyball for two hours.

So this becomes exponentially tricky too because of a past eating. disorder and what that could trigger to have her tracking wing or doing those things. But I'm, she rattled that off fast. I was trying to do the math really quick in my head. But I'm, I'm, I'm guesstimating in the low 2000s. So it's not bad. But with her activity, that's why I'm asking, 20,000 steps, okay, that house working out, volleyball, two kids, that is a lot and even, even more so in the context of moderate

to low calories. Someone like that, at her, she's still young. Someone that could be eating 3,000 plus calories. Easy. And I know that wasn't 3,000 plus calories. So, you know, that this is either one. Well, both is probably what needs to happen. We probably need to see a reduction of volume training and have a slight bump and calories.

Hard to say guarantee that without getting a little bit more granular with the diet. But based on what she says, it doesn't sound like egregious to the average person, but she is not the average person. 20,000 steps or more a day. Yeah, that's crazy. Is a lot of activity. And the physical demanding activity. Cleaning a house. I watched two cars this weekend.

It was like my low back was sore for like two days. I'm like, come on. And she's doing that every day. Every day. That kind of bending over reaching. Yeah, just it's taxing. Even on somebody who considers themselves fit and strong. And so I think she's,

I think she's under eating. Undereating and overtraining. Yeah, and overtraining. And so I think a little bit of both would be ideal. Yeah, probably right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media.

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