Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2954: How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle (The Exact Strategy)

Episode Date: September 26, 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 how to cut fat and keep muscle — covering why you need to be in a good metabolic position before you start cutting, why letting food create the deficit beats trying to burn calories through exercise, why cutting volume during a cut is counterintuitive but essential, and why increasing low-stress activity like walking is the secret sauce for getting lean without losing muscle. They also cover Adam's friend who dropped total cholesterol from 293 to 201 and LDL from 200 to 124 using Dose alongside dietary changes, a processed food study linking ultra-processed foods to hidden intramuscular fat in the thighs, the first reversal of adult obesity rates in decades and why GLP-1 is almost certainly responsible, new data showing GLP-1 improving psoriasis before weight loss even begins suggesting an independent autoimmune mechanism, Sal two and a half weeks into MAPS Anabolic for the first time in years and the strength gains already surprising him, Adam's friend Ryan DeVita finally diagnosing the pec major tear that has been baffling Adam for months, and Sal noticing a dramatic difference in digestion after running out of Seed for two weeks. Then they coach live callers submitted through mplivecaller.com.   Mind Pump Fitness Coaching: https://mindpumpfitnesscoaching.com 1.9 NASM CEUs   SPONSORS Dose for Your Liver: https://dosedaily.co/MINDPUMP35 Code: MINDPUMP35 for 35% off first month subscription. Adam's friend dropped total cholesterol from 293 to 201 and LDL from 200 to 124 — all natural liquid supplement with clinical studies behind it.   Seed Daily Synbiotic: https://seed.com/mindpump Code: 25MINDPUMP for 25% off your first month. Sal ran out for two weeks and noticed a huge difference in digestion — confirms it works best as a daily consistent habit.   Butcher Box: https://butcherbox.com/mindpump No code needed. Free ribeyes, NY strip steaks or filet mignons in every order for a year plus $20 off first box.   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 2:18 - How to cut fat and keep muscle — why your body wants to lose muscle when you diet 8:35 - Step 1: Are you in a good metabolic position to cut from? 9:59 - Step 2: Let food create the deficit — stop leaning on exercise to burn calories 13:03 - Step 3: Lower your training volume — this is the opposite of what most people do 16:00 - Step 4: Increase low stress activity — walking is the secret sauce for getting shredded 18:18 - Step 5: Eat in ways that produce satiety — whole foods and high protein 23:31 - Adam's friend drops cholesterol from 293 to 201 using Dose and dietary changes 28:33 - Ultra-processed food study — hidden intramuscular thigh fat linked to processed food intake 33:41 - Adult obesity rates reversed for the first time in decades — GLP-1 is almost certainly responsible 42:43 - GLP-1 improving psoriasis before weight loss begins — independent autoimmune mechanism 52:51 - Sal two and a half weeks into MAPS Anabolic Phase 1 — why he is only adding 2.5 pounds at a time 57:35 - Ryan DeVita diagnoses Adam's pec major tear that has been baffling him for months 1:00:28 - Sal runs out of Seed for two weeks and notices a huge difference in digestion 1:04:15 - Caller: Kyle (British Columbia) — returning caller, 6 pounds of lean mass in 90 days, gets MAPS Upper Lower and Powerlift package 1:19:01 - Caller: Justin (California) — law enforcement, 3-4 night shifts a week, 4-5 hours sleep, gets MAPS 15 and sleep strategy 1:31:07 - Caller: Casey (North Carolina) — returning caller, Hashimoto's, gluten-free 90 days, no scale change but all markers improved

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history, approaching over half a billion downloads. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode.

We had callers call in, and we got to coach them on air. Four people called in. We helped them out with their health and fitness. But this was after the intro. So today's intro was 60 minutes long. Now, in the intro, we talk about how it would have burn body fat without losing muscle. We talked about GLPs and their benefits and some of the weird effects that they have. We talked about strength training.

We also told some personal stories. Look, if you want to be on an episode like this where you can call in and get helped out by us, send an email to mp. LiveCaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to by some sponsors. The first one is dose. Today we talked about their cholesterol lowering supplements, all natural. and we talked about one of our friends who used it, who dropped their total cholesterol from 293 to 201.

It's clinically backed and all natural. Go check them out. Go to dose daily.com. C.O. forward slash mind pump 35. Use the code mind pump 35 for 35% off. This episode is also brought to by C. This is the world's best probiotics.

So probiotics have great benefits for your gut health. They can also help with inflammation. They can also help with athletic performance, anxiety and depression. This is all backed by study. Seeds the best. It's the only probiotic company we work with. Go check them out. Go to seed.com slash mind pump.

Use the code 25 mind pump for 25% off. We also have a brand new workout program, Maps, Abs, and Butts. It's a full body program, but the focus is on developing your abs and getting a round butt. It's 40% off. Plus, we'll throw in a free Maps program, MuscleMummy 15, or MuscleMami. And we'll throw in a diet guide and a supplement guide

all for free. Go to Maps, Abs and Butt.com. Use the code launch for the digital. discount and the free stuff. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mindpump store.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, you want to get lean, but you don't want to lose muscle. Of course not. We're going to talk about how you can cut the fat and keep the muscle. We're going to break it down.

This works. Let's go. Maybe one of the hardest things to do. It is. It's very difficult to And the reason why it's difficult to do, besides the fact that people don't do what we're about to discuss, because the things that we're going to cover here greatly reduce the odds that you'll lose muscle. But the reason why your body wants to lose muscle when you're losing weight is because your body is trying to adapt to the new caloric intake. Okay. So when you're eating less, your body wants to learn how to adjust to that lower intake.

It's no different than you making less money in trying to feed. figure out how to fit your lifestyle with your new paycheck. And you have to cut expenses and stuff like that. So muscle is very adaptable. Your body can pair it down quite easily. If you've ever had a cast on or a sling on for a week, you know how fast you can lose muscle and how it can adapt in that direction. And so your body will pair muscle down to kind of slow things down to meet the new metabolic, you know, to match the metabolic demands with the caloric intake. And it's much more complex than that, but that's basically where it starts. It's also trying to adapt

to the stimulus that you're doing also, which I feel like we get wrong many times in this. Like, I can't tell you how many times I see somebody who decides they want to reduce body fat, go in a cut, and they ramp up intensity, activity, more car, at least. We'll get there for sure. Yeah, so the body's also

trying to adapt to the stimulus that you're doing where, like, what type of body is most conducive for this thing that you're going to do? So you pair that with your point of, it's trying to adapt. to the calories that you're giving you to it, right? So it needs to get more efficient. Then it's also trying to adapt to what kind of stimulus are you doing? Well, so here's a good question.

Are there forms of exercise or performance adaptations that don't lend themselves well to more muscle? In other words, is it beneficial for certain physical endeavors to not have big muscles? The answer to that is, of course. Yes, absolutely. So a good example is this like really long distance. running or endurance. You can see the top, top athletes in the world who already have a propensity to maintain muscle, by the way. Even endurance athletes at that level have a propensity to keep muscle.

If you look at the way they look, and not saying this is the perfect way to measure things, but if you look the way they look, they don't have a lot of muscle on their body. And so certain forms of exercise promote at the very least not keeping muscle at the very, very least. So let's start with the first thing, which is this. And this is, in my opinion, one of the most important. Are you in a place to cut calories from? Yeah, it's all in the setup. That's 100%.

If your metabolic rate is only burning 1,700 calories a day, if you've adapted to eating 1,700 calories a day, where do you go from there? 1,200 calories? Okay, so now you're in a 500-caller deficit that'll result in some weight loss, which, by the way, once you get down that low, it's very hard to get essential nutrients

or enough intake to give you what you need for exercise. But let's just say you're fine. Now what? Now you're stuck at 1,200. You've plateaued. Where do you go now? 1,000, 900? Obviously not a good place to be.

So a good place that cut calories from is a place where you're resting metabolic rate, the amount of calories you're burning on a regular basis, normally is high enough to cut from it. It's more in a comfortable place. Yeah, yeah. And you really do have to put the work in there to sometimes, you know, build it up. way up to a point where it's like, might even feel like a bit of a chore, but to then cut from

there makes it so much more enjoyable. This is maybe the number one problem in the bikini competitor space. For sure. And it became really obvious to me after I competed and got a little bit of attention on social media and at the shows. And I would start to get these competitors to ask me if I would coach them. And I started taking on clients. And I took on quite a few. bikini clients. And many of them, though, I had to turn down or tell them that they had to work with me for a year leading up to the show because where they were metabolically was just not safe or ideal for them to compete.

In other words, I would get these competitors, these female competitors that, you know, they needed to lose, say, 5 to 10% body fat to get on stage, but they were already eating only 1,700 calories or 1,800 calories. And this is out of prep. This is not in prep. And they'd be like, hey, I want you to prep me for a show and say two or three months. And I'd be like, I can't. I mean, I can't in goodwill and good faith because I know that the only way I could get you to keep losing is I'm going to sacrifice a ton of muscle.

And you're going to be, I'm going to just destroy the metabolism. You're going to feel awful to get there. And you won't look good. No. Because we're so low calorie already. And so I would need you to be willing to either one, work with. me for a year or so leading up to a show so I could reverse diet at you, or I couldn't work with you. You'd have to go back and do it on your own and then come back to me when you had a

hired. 100%. If I had a female client who wanted to lose five to eight pounds and she was at maintenance at 2,000 calories, maybe I would cut her for a little bit. That's it. Five to eight pounds. Somebody comes to me and I want to lose 15 pounds of body fat, 20 pounds of body fat, and you're eating 2,000 calories a day right now, I don't have much room. And by the way, the And the lower the calories get, the greater the odds that you'll lose muscle. Okay? The stronger the signal is to get rid of this, you know, this expensive metabolic tissue. If I have a man that comes to me and he's, you know, 2,400 calories, 2300 calories,

and he has maybe 5 to 8 pounds of lose. Okay, I might cut you. More than that, I'm sorry. We don't have a lot of runways. So you've got to be in a good place to cut from before you even decide to cut. Otherwise, you're going to lose tons of muscle. Also consider the room for air when you're dealing with that small of a number because the calorie deficit is a greater percentage now of the total calories. In other words, if I had somebody who had a resting metabolic crate, say, it's ridiculous for hypothetical reasons, 4,000 calories.

And they accidentally, and I have them on a 500 calorie deficit to lose body fat. And they over ate by 150, 250 calories in a day. they're still in a deficit and still fine. We're still heading the right pace. But take somebody who's at 2,000 calories and we're at a 250 calorie deficit and they overeat by 250 calories. They're back up to maintenance, maybe surplus

because of how small of a percentage. So that matters too. The lower you go, the more difficult it becomes, the harder it gets because you have to be absolutely perfect. Precisely. Where when we give yourself this higher metabolic rate, we have a lot more room for, air in a buffer of, you know, as long as we're about this down, we'll be fine. We'll keep

leaning out versus we have to be precise when you're that low calorie. Yeah. And you use your example, again, an extreme example of 4,000 calorie, you know, you're burning 4,000 calories and you want to go on a cut. I can cut you 1,000 calories, no problem. You still have 3,000 calories. Right. I don't have much room to go when it's really low. So let's say this is you. Let's say you're in a good place to cut from. Here's the second thing. Let the food make the deficit, not the calories burned with exercise. Stop worrying about how many calories you can burn with your workouts. Look at your workouts like this. What are the adaptations that the workout induces? And are those beneficial for my goal? So if your goal is to get lean and keep every pound

of muscle, then the adaptation I'm looking for is strength, right? So I'm strength training. What I'm not doing is looking at my workouts and going, what can I burn? Yeah, what burns the most calories? There's two reasons why this is a problem. Number one, the body is remarkable at adapting to calories burned while you exercise. I'll give you a great example. You get really good at cycling. Your body actually learns how to burn less calories while cycling. And it does this because it gets better at it quickly. I mean, the study, this, the study shows quickly as two to three weeks. Yeah, yeah. Two to three weeks, the body starts to adapt and become more efficient at that. And so the thing, and using just... Because you get better at it.

Hypothetical numbers for the person that understand what that means. It's like, the first time you cycle for an hour, your body burnt 500 calories. The next time it was four, 50, you know. So it's just getting lower and lower. And what it is is becoming more efficient at whatever adaptation you're doing. And this is a good thing, by the way. If our bodies didn't do this, we wouldn't have survived. We would disappear. Yeah, we wouldn't have survived. It all disappear. For most of human history, before food became so plentiful. So by the way, by this, so when you're looking at your deficit, don't try, not that activity doesn't matter. It does matter. But you're not trying to create the deficit or lean on the activity for the deficit. It's the diet that creates the

And too, to, you know, people with that kind of mentality will try to avoid, like, true strength training because it doesn't burn. That's right. Which, in fact, the true strength training is what's preserving the muscle. So you have to consider that as well. 100%. Because if I did, you know, 45 minutes of crazy intense circuit training, I'm going to burn twice as many calories than if I did 45 minutes of traditional strength training. Yet the traditional strength training is what's going to keep the muscle. the circuit training is not what's going to keep the muscle.

And also, it's not that many calories, you guys. The many calories you burn during exercise, you could easily eat those calories. Well, that's, I've always found, I always thought this was so interesting when I would see my competitors do this. And I'm like, if you did a really good job in the off season, building your metabolism up to where you have lots of runway with the calories,

I always found it far easier for me to take one less bite in every meal I ate for the day than it would be to get on a treadmill for an hour of high-intistic cart. Way more manageable. It's way easy. It's just, it's way easier to go like, oh, there's one less bite. I take it that meal. I mean six meals a day, one less bite on every single one of those meals, ends up equating to more calories than the entire hour they would get up and do cardio.

That's right. It's a way easier discipline for me to just go, okay, I'm going to stop right there and eat less calories than it is I'm going to go spend an hour doing this time. Where I'm also potentially, especially depending on the intensity and where my calories are, risking that my body's going to want to pare down muscle because it's like, oh, you're going to push us like this and not feed us. Which takes us the next thing. So, okay, you're listening to this right now. Maybe you've listened to a podcast for a while or you've read the data and you're like, okay, lifting weights. That's the best way to exercise to keep muscle while I'm in a deficit.

Okay. Here's a mistake everybody makes. They're in a normal phase of strength training. They're eating at maintenance or surplus. Everything looks good. They're ready to go and they cut their calories and they simultaneously dramatically increase the volume. of their training because they're thinking of themselves and I get the rationale, burn more calories,

I got to do more work, I'm trying to get lean. This is the opposite of what you should do. One of the factors, one of the things that factors into your ability to recover and adapt to exercise is your nutrient intake. So when you've cut your nutrient intake, what you've done is you've reduced your ability

to recover and adapt to exercise. There's an old saying in bodybuilding and in powerlifting. And it's not 100% true, but there's some truth to it. And this is what they would say, The old timers would say this, right? There's no such thing as overtraining only under eating. And why did they say this?

There's some truth to it. There's definitely some truth to it. When you're taking in more nutrients, you recover better. You adapt better. You can handle more exercise volume. When you cut your calories, it's the opposite. What you're doing when you increase the volume of training while cutting calories, you're setting yourself up for terrible failure, overtraining,

and your body's inability to recover from a lessover. Which is counterintuitive and it doesn't come natural, the average person that has been strained training and getting used to kind of lifting for a while and eating better and building momentum, they tend to ramp up as time goes on. And so, and again, I would see this even at the

competitive level is they're heading into showtime, six weeks out. They're doing more training than ever. Yeah, they're, they increased cardiovascular activity. They're doing supersets in their training. They're adding, it's like, man, it's like, no wonder you're not hanging on to muscle during this process.

You were just overstressing the body. while you're underfeeding it, of course it's going to pare down muscle in that situation. Of course, there's factors that can change this, okay? But generally speaking, for me, the best success I've ever seen for myself

and for people I've worked with in a deficit is low volume strength training, low rep strength training. And it's, why? Because it's less volume. So we're doing sets of, you know, we're doing recover from that. Three sets of five reps,

not three sets of 15 reps. We're doing less sets. We're doing less sets. exercises. This is the best strategy I've ever seen for muscle preservation. Now, on the opposite end of the scale, when I've seen, and I did this in the past, because this is what I thought I was supposed to do, ramp up volume, ramp up intensity with the deficit. And all that happened when my clients is they burnt out and lost more muscle. Same thing with myself. Listen, the goal is when we are in a cut, the goal is no longer to build muscle. The goal is to preserve muscle while we

lose body fat. And we know what the study say. It's like, I know there's several, and it ranges from like one-fifth to one-seventh to one-ninth and some of them. It's like one-seventh the volume is needed in order to keep the muscle. And that's the goal. The goal is to keep it. So, and most people don't even come close to cut, which means you can easily cut your volume in half and still be able to maintain that muscle, more than that. But most people don't come anywhere near cutting it in half when they do this. That's right. All right. So what about activity? Daily activity is good for you. It's healthy. Improves longevity. But the game that we're playing with activity in a calorie deficit is stress management. So strength training is always stressful. It's supposed to be. We're trying to keep muscle

or, you know, build muscle, especially when we're in a surplus. So I want to keep the intensity for those important workouts. But what about my daily activity? It's good to be more active. And here's what you do. Increase low stress activity. Increase steps and walking. Walking, unless you're doing extreme, crazy things with walking, you're taking 20,000 steps. By the way, we've seen people on the show, call in with 20, 25,000 steps a day. Unless you're super adapted to that, like you're a male carrier or something like that.

Like, low stress activity, increasing that tends to not increase the stress. In fact, in many cases, it helps reduce stress. Yeah, it's restorative. There's a way to move that's restorative. And really, like, you want the blood to flow. You want, you know, that to carry all the nutrients, to be able to, you know, help you in the healing process and the recovery process in general. So it's a good practice to have, but it's really about, like, managing the intensity of it.

I mean, I think this is the secret sauce to getting shredded. I really do is the low-level walking, neat type of movement increased over time as you're in a cut. And let the food do the, let the food. do most of it with the increase of activity. Because to your point, Justin, more blood floor, more oxygen, more nutrients, means faster. It facilitates recovery. Right. Facilitates recovery.

So we're going to recover. We're going to recover faster and better. And it's not a loud enough signal like getting, because then somebody would be like, well, isn't that what cardio is doing too? It's like, well, cardio is moving the blood and oxygen and nutrients and stuff like that. But then it's also so intense that it sends a louder signal to the body. The body needs to adapt to this modality of training. We're simply just walking and moving.

is not doing that. It's purely recuperative. And so if I can find a way to just increase my activity through walking and steps and movement, I'm going to create a larger calorie deficit and just shred down that body. Yeah. Now finally, obviously, obviously the big challenge with eating in a deficit is things like cravings and appetite. And here's a deal. This is a fact. I'm not going to be one of those people that says being a deficit, never feel hungrier. The odds are if you're losing body fat, you're doing it consistently, your body's going to send a hunger signal. Okay, why? Well, because your body doesn't want to lose body fat.

It loves that stored energy. It loves that, the security of having extra body fat. Okay, so what you want to do with your diet is you want to eat in ways that produce more satiety. Can you do that? Are there things you can eat or things you can avoid that dramatically increase satiety? And the answer is yes. Number one, and the first thing is what not to eat, which are foods that are foods that. that tend to make us overeat.

Heavily processed foods are phenomenal at doing this everybody. They're designed to do this. Now when food manufacturers and food scientists, and by the way, the science that goes into this is some of the most well-studied science in the world. It is so, if you look into it, it's remarkable the science that goes into this kind of stuff. What they're not doing is saying necessarily,

we want people to just overeat. What they're trying to do is make something hyper palatable. In other words, make it so enjoyable, so tasty that the people come back to buy more. Well, here's the side effect of that is you go well beyond what you would do with normal foods in terms of satiety. Some of the best studies ever done on food ever were done on processed foods versus whole natural foods. And the reason why they're so well done is because when you look at food studies, so many of these studies are what are known as observational studies. So we take a group of people, we have them fell out of survey. and those are not, I mean, they can give us some insight,

but it's like, you know, how many tomatoes did you eat, you know, last week type of stuff. So we got to rely on people's memory and all that stuff. Well, here's what they do with processed food studies. They took groups of people and they put them in rooms and they match the macros. So proteins, fats, and carbs are similar in each room. And then they left the people to eat and they observe them. And then even better, they took the same group of people and they switched them into the different rooms. Because you never know.

You might have a group over here that eats more than this other group. But they switched them. Here's what they found. on average, people eat about five to six hundred more calories a day with the processed foods. In other words, the same level of satiety is reached with 600 less calories when its whole natural foods. It's a huge number. Huge. That's a deficit.

Most people in a deficit are trying to cut 600 calories. Well, you're done. So if you're eating heavily processed foods, like if you want to play this game on super incredible hard mode, go ahead and do it with heavily processed foods. You want to make it easier on yourself. avoid them like the plague, stick to whole natural foods. And then the second thing, which is a banger,

because it gives you two benefits, is eat high protein. So protein produces more satiety than carbohydrates and fats, significantly more. Eat high protein, and here's this other side of it that's so awesome.

It also is muscle preserving. In fact, there are studies without strength training, which I love this, where they put people in a deficit, they have a high protein group and a normal protein group. They don't even have them lift weights.

The high protein group still keeps more muscle. So whole natural foods and high protein, that's the part of the diet that makes it far easier to stick to. If you do these things, you'll be blown away by how much body fat you lose and how much muscle. It's amazing how well this works. The hardest part is the psychological part. When the cravings kick up and your desires and habits of, oh, I used to eat this snack or this sounds really good right now, If you can just resist that and go to the food that you hopefully prepped in the refrigerator or the beef jerky, the high protein, or the Greek yogurt, high protein Greek yogurt,

and make that choice, it's amazing how satisfying. Because when you're hungry and you're low calorie, food tastes good. But your cravings and the psychological part of like, oh, God, popcorn sounds really good or all that cereal or that candy. Yeah, all these foods sound so good. and if you could just resist the urge, go like, I'm going to go have the Greek yogurt, even though that doesn't sound the best.

Once you actually eat it, it's actually really satisfying. It's wild. My favorite example of this, and we had Chris Cressor on the show years ago, he gave this example, I thought it was so awesome. He said, if I put four or five baked, plain, boiled potatoes in front of you,

just boiled white potatoes, and I told you to eat them all, you probably would fail. It would be very difficult. You choke down one of them, and then you'd be like, I don't want to eat anymore. But if I placed a family-sized bag

of potato chips in front of you, how much do you think you can eat? Now, I know myself, and I can get pretty far. I might even be able to finish the bag. Well, guess what? Same amount of potatoes. One of them hyper palatable.

One of them, whole natural. One of them, my satiety kicks in real fast. The other one it takes till the end of the bag before I start to get that satiety signal. It's wild health. So it's funny, you brought up the baked potato thing that Chris Kresser talked about. Yesterday's prepped meal,

and today's prep meal I have today is Katrina's meatloaf and just a straight baked potato. And I'll even allow myself to salt it, which adds a little palatibility and easier. And yesterday, I didn't. I got through like three quarters of a baked potato. So I won't, I mean, I eat it until I'm satisfied and I'm good. And I really am eating it just to compliment the...

You want to know what's funny? They just came out with these studies on diet and everybody's blown away, but those of us who've trained people for a long time are like, obviously, people who eat the same foods every single day. So they took a group of people and they said, here, eat the same kind of foods every single day. They all lost weight. Now, the reason why they lost weight is one.

of the factors that plays into palatibility is novelty. And so if you eat the same foods every day, yeah, they just don't eat as much because it's boring. That's the point. So when I read this study, I'm like, well, of course,

you know, everybody's blown away. They'll eat the same foods. It's the new diet. Just eat chicken breasts, broccoli. Swapping any, like, sweet to salt or like, you know,

fat and you kind of mix around those combos. It's like, it's a lot easier to all of a sudden re-stoke it. That's why when you're full, you can always eat dessert. Yeah, talk about blown away. I, um, so I, whenever my friends, uh, reach out to me with like, uh, you know, blood work stuff,

uh, cholesterol, if they're, uh, anything, anything medical related, I always defer to Sal. And so I called Sal up because I had, this was like, I don't know, a few months ago, probably three, three, three months ago or so somewhere on there. Your buddy's lipids were. Yeah, yeah. And I, and, uh, and like, it puzzles me when it's like a buddy mine that I would consider pretty healthy. Like, he's in, he looks in relatively good shape. He's an active guy. does a lot of like mountain biking stuff. And now I don't follow him around and see exactly what he eats.

But he doesn't carry a bunch of body fat and he's active. And he was asking me because he showed me like his cholesterol was really high. I have the numbers here. Yeah. And I sent it to you. So you got him. Yeah. And I was like, what are the things that you would have them do?

And you had to make a few modifications nutritionally and then include dose. And his improvement is so crazy. So dose is a company that makes these – one of them lowers cholesterol. It's proven in studies. It's all natural. It's got natural compounds. It's actually liquid, by the way. It tastes like juice.

So you take like a shot of it every single day. And they have studies to show that it works. And I like studies because there's so many supplements out there that say this, that, and the other. And if I don't see the studies, I'm always very skeptical because 90% of supplements don't do anything. So he tried dose. And here's the numbers. His total cholesterol went from 293 to 201. his LDL went from 200 to 124.

Remarkable change. It's like he took a staten. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. It's great. And that's what he was trying to... Without the side effects of a stat.

So by the way, that's why he reached out was he's like, they wanted to put him on a stat. And I'm like, whoa, before you do that, hold on. Let me talk to Sal and see what he would advise you to do. And I said, I'll get back to you. And so I talked to you and then sent it. Oh, I mean, that was you, bro. To him. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. No, that's exactly what he did. He really just cleaned up. You know, say good job to you? Yeah. Good job for telling me, dude. Thanks. Thanks, bro.

Thanks, Adam. You did a good job. So you pat yourself in the back there, you know what I'm saying? You know that he, I know he cut out the, he knows he was like a snacker and processed food and stuff like that. And so he stuck to the whole foods tried to, he didn't cut out red meat, but he limited it. He wasn't just going, you know, buck wild on it. And then added the dosin every day. I bet his doctor's tripping.

Oh, you know what I meant to ask him what is, what is doctors should do? I know his wife originally was like, hey, why don't you just, why don't you just, do all these things first before you take the supplement of that. And I'm like, I'm so glad you still did it anyways because it's an all natural supplement. Something you could take forever. Everything in itself. It's not a pill or it's not like this. No, it's not a drug. It's not a drug.

This is like, all it is all-natural fruits and things that are combined in a little liquid. You know what's crazy with cholesterol is I'm going to get flame for this. But when you look at the data on statins in there and how they actually, now they, they for sure reliably change your blood lipids.

That's a fact. You take a statin, your numbers will change. That's a fact. But when you look at the data on what does that actually mean in the sense of, does it actually extend life? Does it actually reduce, you know, heart attacks and heart disease and all that stuff? It gets a little bit murky because you also have side effects in there. So there's all this controversy around statins.

When should you take them? Should you take them? It seems like the data points to if you've already had a heart attack, it's more beneficial. than if you've never had a heart attack. And so, and you can look through the data, everybody. You can look it up and see for yourself. But here's a deal. When people change their blood lipids through exercise, diet, natural ways,

like the compounds that are in dose, you see, you definitely see an improvement in longevity. Definitely. So what we tend to do with medicine is we look at a number that connects to an outcome, and we try to control the number. And then we hope to see, or we think we're going to see, see an outcome when sometimes that's not the case.

Sometimes the number itself is saying something else and it's what's causing that or other things. And that's why when you change those number, even if, by the way, even if your blood lipids didn't change much, but you exercise and change your diet, you see great outcomes. So pretty cool. Speaking of which, dude, I got a process food study for you guys. That's interesting. And, you know, years ago, I trained this woman that she conducted studies.

I forgot what university she worked for, but she helped run studies. And she really helped me a lot understand how to read studies and how to look at maybe possible causes or whatever. So I'm going to read to you guys a study. And then I'm going to show you guys kind of what I came out with. So here's a study. So this is the radiological society of North America. So this is the title of the studies in Science News on ScienceDaily.com. Ultra processed foods linked to hidden muscle fat that may threaten your knees.

Okay. So here's what's wild about the study. Eating more ultra-processed foods, which we just talked about earlier, was linked to greater fat buildup inside thigh muscles, according to MRI scans of 615 adults at risk for knee osteoarthritis. Here's where it gets crazy. Surprisingly, the association remained even after researchers accounted for caloric intake, physical activity, and other factors. In other words, what they think they found is that ultra-processed food,

independent of the increased caloric intake would cause more intramuscular fat. So I'm thinking about this and I'm like, hmm, are there obesitygenic compounds and processed foods that can cause these things? There's some data that suggests maybe, but there's actually way more data that shows that it's really about the calories. That's the big thing. So how is this possible that it's independent that they tried to control for calories? and I'll tell you why.

What they did is they took 615 people and they compared them against each other. What they didn't do is take these people and compare them to themselves. So what I mean by that is everybody has a different resting metabolic rate. If you're eating a lot of ultra-processed foods, you're eating way more than you should. So if I control your calories against another guys

and I'm like, oh, they're eating the same calories, but you have more intramuscular fat. What I don't know is that your body burns less calories. So you're just eating more than you would if it was whole natural foods. So what it's not saying, I know the title says, it's independent of calories.

The only way to know that is if you took the same person, put them on the same caloric intake, ultra-processed foods versus not, and then look and see what that is. I'd also be really curious to, like, how accurately are they measuring calories because we know what FDA allows with processed foods. So there's a 20-plus percent room for air.

And if this study is conducted, and we're like, oh, well, we took these, this is 3,000 calories and processed. foods, according to what? The label on the back of it? It could be $3,600. Or did you actually independently take each and every one of those foods and measure what it is? Or did you just take the label for it? And I would imagine in a study that are expensive to do anyways, that you just said, oh, this is good enough. We'll just follow that. When we know that there's room for 20 to 25 percent error, which that alone could make a difference in. Well, here's what I know. If somebody's eating a lot of ultra-processed foods, they're eating away more than they would if they didn't.

For sure. Yeah. Bottom line. So that makes sense. So did anybody speculate on obesity, type compounds? So that, not in this study, but there are studies that suggest, and I think they're decent, that there's certain compounds that promote fat storage, things like xenoestrogens. So I'm not saying that that's not playing a role, but I don't think that's the case here. I think what the case here is is that Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Smith and, you know, Mrs. whatever, we're looking at their caloric intake, we're controlling it.

But what we are not considering is that Mrs. Smith, who's eating 80% of her calories from ultra-processing is eating way more than she would for herself. Yeah. And that's going to cause more fat storage as a result. But yeah, I really appreciate that client because now I can look at studies. You can kind of read between the lines. I'm not the best at it, but it helps a lot because so many studies with the headlines. Oh, I know. You just read the head.

I always wonder, yeah, like, you know, what they're actually, you know, hoping the outcome's going to be. and what the purpose of the study is to begin with. You know, my favorite example? I mean, there's a, I think a large percentage of all studies have, like, a desired outcome in. Yeah, there's a bias going in. I mean, they're being funded normally by the, which I know that.

Well, here's what happens with that. Our friends like Lane and stuff have talked about. Like, it's, you have to have a bias. No one's going to pay for it. Right. Well, so here's what happens with that. It's less that you have this nefarious company that is tweaking the study to try to make it look the way it wants

or they're lying that may play a role. It's less of that, it's more of this. If you're a pharma company or you're a food company and a study comes out with a result that you don't like, you're not publishing it. Right, yeah. So you're not, like, I'm not sending this out. Yeah, we're not going to put this out.

Unless it benefits your product. One of my favorite examples of the, I have a few examples. One of my favorites is the old studies that showed that when, so when I was a kid, they were still saying this, like, oh, don't drink too much coffee. Oh, yeah. That causes cancer. They actually used to say that.

I know. Too much coffee. I know that's associated with cancer. Well, it was because in the 80s, 70s, 60s, 70s and 80s, people who drunk the most coffee also smoked the most cigarettes. So they just weren't controlled. That was a definite thing. That was a definite thing. Coffee and cigarettes.

I thought I saw, coffee is anti-cancer. I thought I saw somebody actually recently, was it Isretel or one of those? I can't remember who it was that was talking about some recent studies on caffeine. In fact, they were said, and Justin would love this, saying that, like, you. the health benefits all the way up to like six, 800 milligrams a day, like that healthy for you. Yeah. That's a, that's a high dose. Just keep watching all these studies like backing

caffeine and cheese, dude. I'm like, hitting it out. Here's the thing with caffeine, it's so individual. So when you look at a group of people that drink 600 milligrams of caffeine regularly, you're looking at a group of people that tolerate caffeine. There's such a difference. Yeah.

There's such a difference with how you... I'm sure it's going to be something about adrenales later. It's like, whatever. Well, I just know that. I know this for fact. like in this room alone, you have a high, probably the highest tolerance for caffeine in the room. Yeah.

Adam would be second. Sure. I'm third, Doug's last. Yeah. So if I had 600 milligrams of caffeine in a day, I would feel horrible. I would feel, 400 is my max.

Doug sticks at like 50 to 100 at the most, right? Which is interesting. On average. On average. Yeah. I mean, I even, it took me till college to even start drinking any kind of caffeine. Like the first time I even had,

it was like black coffee I drank at, when I was working at a restaurant. and I was working a double, and I was just so incredibly exhausted. And I tried it, and then it was like, whoa, all of a sudden it was this energy rush. Because before that, it's like the sugar drinks. You thought, like, Jolt had a lot of caffeine. It had, like, barely any in it in comparison to the drinks now. I think Jolt had 81 milligrams of caffeine.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's all sugar. I mean, my first introduction was my junior year in high school when I started the dairy in the morning before work. Yeah, and so I'd swing by. 7-11 and I was drinking those I mean it's like it's like chocolate mocha coffees you know you know there's like I wish my introduction to caffeine

was what you guys have to and so like I you know and it was literally like at a necessity it was like four o'clock in the morning before school never been used to never been a morning person as it is and then getting up to work I needed something and this was really before energy drinks weren't as popular as they are today Like, there wasn't, I mean, now there's like a plethora of them.

The only energy. I'm trying to remember when Red Bull was first coming on the market. Do you remember what? Much later, dude. Yeah, this is like the 90s, right? So I'm, so. There were no energy drinks. There was Joe Cola and then there were bodybuilders.

So, Mountain Dew is like one, I think that they increased the caffeine a little bit, but. I mean, Red Bull might have been coming on the scene, although I didn't like Red Bull. I never liked the taste of Red Bull. Never been a fan. But they, they were probably the first. Oh, look it. No, no, no. No, no.

No, no. I'm getting late. 187 in Austria. in Austria, but in the U.S., it was like the, probably the two, like late 90s, early 2000. Yeah, United States. 97. Yeah. And I don't remember seeing that.

So that's literally. Yeah. So this is exactly. So 1997 is the year I'm referring to right now. So I'm like, I don't even know about Red Bull at this point. So it was 81 milligrams of caffeine. So literally, oh yeah, and low. So like your, your way of getting energy back then was only coffee.

And so that's a lot. And kids didn't drink coffee. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. I remember like doing it. It wasn't like a. It tastes gross.

I thought I would just stain my teeth. I had to drink the sugar bomb version of it to get it down. And it was like, I needed this to get it going. My association was caught with coffee was either espresso because obviously my family's a time. But my main association were my teachers whose breath would be terrible. Yes. Because they would have coffee breath. That's a thing.

Well, that and they guarantee you they smoke too. Yes. You know, the combo of both was horrible. It was horrible. My, dude, you guys. I wish my introduction to caffeine was coffee. My introduction to caffeine, bro, I went hard right out the gates. because remember I was into lifting weights at 14.

I super nerded out on supplements right out the gates. So I learned real early, ephedra and caffeine and Yohembe and syniferin. And I learned it right out the gates and I didn't know what I was doing. Just making your own cocktails. I did, dude. And I mixed them together because at first I did caffeine and ephedra. And of course I went to the gym and it was like, Superman. I'm taking meth.

You know what I'm working out. This is the greatest thing ever. Homemade meth. And then I did this combination of them, and I'll never forget, dude. I went to the 24th Fitness on Hillsdale. So I was a kid. I was like 15.

My dad dropped me off. And I was like two and a half hours. I was getting after it. It was crazy. Then he brings me home. I come home, eat dinner, barely had an appetite, laid in bed. And I was like, my mom's going to find me dead.

Because my heart was beating. And I was just like, please don't let me die. I really don't mind my mom to fight me this way. Yeah. And then it had the ultimate orange and ripped fuel. I don't remember. My first pre-workout was phosphagen. I think there, the EAS.

I don't think they had, there was no caffeine in that. There was, I think their EAS had a, no, phosphagen was crating. And then there was phosphagane. What was there, what was EAS's pre-way? Do they have a pre-workout? That's a good question. Maybe they didn't then. So then maybe it was the BPN, the red one.

Yeah. Because those are the two, like, I had the furthest memory back is like the red BPN or the, or, the phosphor, or the Phosphorus and EAS stuff. So EAS didn't have a pre-workout. I don't think they did. Did they? What was it called at the time? My old Plexprite.

Now that's now. That's protein butter. Yeah. I don't think they really had one back in the day. It says caffeine in there. Yeah. But that's later. That's later.

You know what EAS had to talk about brilliant marketing? So Bill Phillips came out with a supplement guide. You guys remember that? Yeah. It was actually pretty informational, but it was really just a big commercial for his products. It was brilliant. so much.

Bro, he had a three capsule three supplement stack. He had cratine, vanadal sulfate, okay? I don't know if you guys know what that is. And glutamine,

okay, and you take them all three. And this is how brilliant he was. He said in his magazine he had muscle media 2000. He said, Crateen, that's like D-Ball. You get big muscles real fast.

Wow. Vanitol, sulfate and glutamine, those are more like deca. Like more of the quality. It's literally said. We're selling creetine all wrong. Bro.

I don't see. So I bought all three of them and I took it. And it worked because it was crazy. The other stuff. It's so funny that I so can connect to that because I remember how old I was and like, you wanted the supplements that looked the most. Aggressive. Yeah.

Like if it had like the more illegal. It was made in some crazy like mad science lab. This was banned in 50 something. It's like, what? I'm taking that, you know? Or had like a syringe on the back. It had like a cheetah or a dragon on it or something. Bro, I bought a supplement from the back of the muscle magazine.

It was called muscle marriage. and the picture of it was a vile. So it was a vial. So I ordered it and what it was, it was a dropper. And it was a Smilax was what was in it. This is like a, it's supposed to race. It did nothing, right?

But when I bought it, I was like, oh, this is going to be. Oh, this is straight from the lap. This is crazy. I can't believe. And it's in the back of the magazine. They don't know I'm 15. I'm going to buy this. You still sell stuff in beakers.

Hey, did you guys, you guys didn't see this data. Dude, trip off this. We've been talking about JLP ones. and what they're doing or whatever. You guys want to hear the, this is the first time we've seen this in decades. Adult obesity stopped and reversed.

It is now on the, right now? Right now. It is on the down. It is now reversing. So it peaked at 45%. Right now it's at 43%. So it's been on this uphill climb for decades.

Year over year. Year. Yes. It's just been climb, climb, climb, climb, climb. Nothing's really touched it. We saw it start to stop. right around 2022 or so and everybody's like what's going on maybe we reached peak obesity or whatever and now it's going down and I 100% 100% is the gLP one oh yeah yeah well what was the number

was it was it with dr. Tina we talked about the number of people now that are on one so look up this 10% I saw this 10% of American how many yeah but you what's even crazier is how many people per week are onboarding to it it's like it's like in the I want to say tens of thousands or of thousands. Oh, it's crazy. Weekly are coming on board of starting it. Yeah. Every week.

I think conservatively, and maybe I'll be wrong, but I think half of America is going to be out on GOP, half of them, especially when you consider, I'm looking at these studies that they're doing right now, guys. They're not out yet. In other words, they haven't published what's going on, but they're showing some of the stuff. GLP's obviously helped with weight loss. We know that.

They're showing effects on, what does that say? Tens of thousands to, to, you know, they're showing. over 100,000 people started GLP1 medication each week in the U.S. alone. Yeah. That's insane. So this is what, so trip off this. Works great for weight loss. We know this.

Now there's caveats there. You got to lift weights. Eat enough protein. Doesn't work for everybody. Some people get bad side effects. Okay. But as far as medical interventions are concerned, there's nothing we've ever had that comes close.

Nothing. Nothing. Not even close. So here's what's crazy. We've heard this from practitioners who use GLP. on how people are less likely to drink, to smoke, to gamble, how autoimmune conditions seem to be getting better, what's going on?

The speculation was it's affecting the hedonistic pathways of the brain. That's with all the other addictions. The autoimmune issues, well, it must be the reduced calories because we know this. When people start to eat less, oftentimes autoimmune issues get better. I just saw the study that's coming out that showed that, psoriasis got better before the weight loss

even started happening. Independent of weight loss. Wow. Yeah. And they're studying GLPs for all kinds of stuff. So we may, I mean, we might be tapping into something

that is going to reach more than just. So are you ready for me to switch teams again? So I came out originally and, you know, argued with you that I believed it would be a net positive. You were skeptical early on. Then I jumped ship, came over to your side and said, I think you're right. Yeah.

Might be a negative. And now I'm jumping back on the other side. And I'll tell you why. I think a lot of it has to do with my personal experience. Proper usage. So and maybe that's what was what, and I don't think you were per se wrong. But I think that we had to, we had to swing so hard the other direction where it became alarming. And then, and then course correct.

And more people are becoming privy to how much muscle you can lose, how important the protein intake is. doctors now are probably prescribing lower doses and then what they were early on because if we've seen enough of this alarming stuff come back and maybe that's enough to because obviously there's still going to be people that abuse it don't do it right neglect you know and I see that I definitely still see that but I also do see some people I've had people in my circle who um that I kind of like shook and woke up like okay you were like you're losing a ton of muscle you're taking too much of this have gone back modify their medication and then now much better like got muscle look healthy eating an adequate amount of calories

and so maybe this does end up being a net positive once more education around how to properly dose it and pairing it with making sure that you strength training and protein now i kind of feel like i'm jumping back on the other side again where i think this could be especially when you start seeing this stuff like like why i got back on it with this like psoriasis and autoimmune stuff, these other benefits aside, just people who need to lose weight. I do think the lack of education was resulting in a lot of those alarming stats that were coming back. And, you know, I think too, because it's been out long enough. And yeah, like doctors are a little more, you know, like accepting some of these alternative, you know,

ways of prescribing it. I think it does, you know, has made a positive. There was another study that showed that people with CLP and asthma had less attacks. Yeah. When they were on a Now, I know that obesity is connected to that, but I think there is an autoimmune connection, just because of what I'm hearing from experts in the field who we know that we trust and what some of the data seems to be suggesting, that there may affect in a positive way, and maybe not all, but many autoimmune issues. I know for me personally, part of my gut health issues had to do with treating myself for SIBO, maybe parasites, that made a big difference. there's another part that is probably autoimmune related a little bit and taking a very tiny tiny I'm talking about drops of a gLP for me seems to help my gut and those two reasons for that one it slows down motility which I think helps me because my motility is really fast

but it may be the autoimmune aspect of it yeah I'm interested too because originally it was like addressing diabetes right yeah I wonder what those numbers look like now in comparison because I know like some of these works great for diabetes yeah dialysis clinics and like a lot of them have shut down. Really? Yeah. Oh,

that number has to be crazy good because they don't get a shit about even muscle of that case. It's just like, let's get the weight down to get the diabetes, right? So that's their, so the desired outcome is even different there where I imagine that they're, they're hitting it out the park. Oh yeah,

it's interesting to me to think because like of, you know, all the treatments and things, because this is big business, you know, in the medical world. So if you look at trends, I don't know, maybe Doug, you can look this up. Are we seeing a trend in small clothing sizes being sold. Maybe set that up.

So I read that that that's happening, that snack food companies are seeing losses. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, they're already, you know, they're already back to the drawing board, right? I mean, they're on the drawing board of finding ways to put stuff in here that counter the GLP one.

Mm-hmm. So that, so, yeah, that actually signal. Whoa, the fashion industry is experiencing a measurable trend towards smaller clothing sizes. Wow. Wow. The Ozympic effect. They even have a name for it already.

Yeah, dude. Wow. There's a few times, and this is why we got to be careful. Crazy. This is why we have to be really careful. There's a few times in history when a medical intervention drastically shifts culture. The last one I can think of is birth control. Birth control pill changed culture dramatically.

And I think there was some good. I also think there was some bad for sure. We could all, we could talk about that. but the GLPs are shifting culture, literally. It'll be the same. There'll be some good and there'll be some bad. Yeah, probably. I want to speculate a little bit with you on something I think I asked you and I think

you were like, man, I'm not sure about that with my experience with it and you brought up motility. And the way I described it to you is I feel like my appetite is very similar to what it was like when I was a kid. Like for, and I'm sure you can relate to this. For much of my teenage years, early 20s,

I had to force myself to eat bigger meals, more meals frequently to put on the size of, and over decades of eating and training that way. I've trained myself to look at even portion sizes differently and eat differently. And what I feel like this, this low dose is done is knocked me all the way back down to like where,

I would, like, I would struggle to try and eat for, like, 4,000 calories would be really, really tough. I don't think I could do that right now. Like, I'm landing around 3,000, low 3,000 calories in even sometimes high 2,000s, which that reminds me of what it was like growing up forever. And so can I, can I, could I have impacted both my motility and my ability to, like, can I have changed that? Yeah. Like, yeah. over decades of pushing it and training it. And could this just kind of be reversing me back to like...

Bro, how much does psychology play a role in the amount of food you eat or donate? I guess that's the question. Well, I mean, I definitely... There's an obvious psychological. Oh, yeah. There's a distortion of even the way I visualize. Oh, like you and I, bro. You and I, very similar, right?

Skinny, tried to always gain muscle, always trying to overfeed ourselves, all that stuff. What you and I would register as eating enough has been skewed by, decades of just eating like crazy. Yeah, so I already know there's for sure psychological. I'm more curious on mechanistically, like, is there something going on? Well, it does lower your appetite for sure and it does slow down motility, which probably changes

the kind of foods you want to eat because slower motility will make things sit in your Oh yeah. This is something that it's been really good for me because I've had to like, where I would keep eating because I know I need to to be big, I go

I have that natural signal on. I'm full and I've pushed that a few times where I'm like oh no I get I have more on my plate I'm like you versus I'm done just like I told you I my potato right yeah yeah I would never leave part of my meal yeah like what's wrong with yeah especially it's a healthy it's a healthy food and it's carbs I need that extra calorie you shrink do you have the extra adjustin to so I've just I've just I've learned now I've learned my lesson if I don't like it'll it'll really mess up my digestion because how much my motility is slowed down and so I've learned now to Once I eat my meatloaf, I'm eating my baked potato, and oh, I get about halfway to three quarters way through and like, oh, I'm good.

And I'm like, okay, I can put this away. You're not ignoring that. Exactly. I'm not ignoring that where I've ignored it for so long. By the way, for people listening, so if your issue is slow motility, GLPs can make that really bad. So if you're somebody's stuff like has issues with constipation, you got to be very careful when you're on one. Now, I know you eat less, so that helps, but you got to pay attention to what you're eating. Don't eat things that constipate you when you're on a glpation.

if that's your issue and make sure you you you increase your fiber otherwise because i've i've talked to enough of our listeners oh it makes total sense why it does it because i see how much i've had people call in to get sitting there they got sebo they got sebo from it because they want a gop it's slowed down they're already slow motility yeah it's slowed it down so much they developed gut issues yeah as a result so now for someone like me where it's fast motility it's actually a welcome uh thing no for other people it's been it's been it's been a nice thing it's been something that like my wife's teased me about forever. It's just like,

she always would make fun of me because I'll eat dinner and then like 10 minutes later I'm already in the bathroom. Already? Yeah. It's ready to go. Yeah, it's ready to go.

You know what I'm saying? And so it's a nice thing that I feel a little normal now that it's not like that. You know what I'm saying? They have a normal schedule where it's like I've always been really, really fast like that. Dude, I got to share with you guys.

So I have not done Maps Anabolic or Phase 1 Maps Anabolic. in a long time. Yeah, that's your bread and butter. It's been a long time since I've done that. Now, one of the reasons why I'm doing it is my strength training is only three days a week right now, which is the lowest that's been in a long time. Yeah.

And so typically it's leading up into this, it's three or four days a week. We're all strength train, been working to three. Now I've made like a concentrator after like I'm only going to lift three days a week. It has more to do with my attachment to working out and all that stuff. And on one of the other days, I'm going to do something else that's more beneficial. So I'm kind of using that for that. But so I'm only three days a week. And I've done, you know, bodybuilding style training for a while.

Haven't done anything, you know, heavy, low rap, you know, low volume, like phase one anabolic in a very long time. I've avoided deadlifts for a little while, barbell squats for a little while, just because I just want to work on other things. And this is now week two, maybe two and a half of maps anabolic. And I know why people like it so much. It's addicting to see the strength gains. It's crazy. Yeah.

It's really fun. Bro, I mean, that's like 15, 20 pounds. In fact, you know what I'm doing? And this was inspired by you, Adam, is because I remember when you regaining all that muscle, how you kept hurting yourself. And it was like, it was kind of perplexing at first until we figured out like, well, yeah, you added 50 pounds to your lift in like a week. Like, of course, that's a.

So what I'm doing is I'm not allowing myself to go add more than like five. Like, if I can add 15, I'm only adding five. because I'm like, you know what? Takes a lot of discipline to do that. Bro, you kidding me? I'm like pulling off the floor and I'm like, dude, I could add another 50 pounds of it if I'm not because I don't want to hurt myself.

But I see why people love, I mean, because when you listen to all of our listeners, all of our Maps program customers, MAPs, Anabolic, especially Phase 1 is the one that people tend to talk about the most. It's addicting. Just the string games. It can't help but laugh because we talk about the psychology of eating,

the psychology of lifting around what you're saying, now, especially with deadlifting and squatting. And I do the same thing right now because I learned that lesson. In fact, I was just squatting the other day. And I felt really good and strong. And it reminded me, I literally, like, my old power lifting workout partner from years ago, one of my early 20s was in my head of like, 10 pounds doesn't count on squats. We only move up in quarters or 45 plates.

I swear to God, I trade for decades. Without 10s and 5s. Yeah, never used tens and fives. Jump up. Like, if I can't go up a quarter, I ain't going up. Bro. And so, like, I'm adding two and a half sometimes. Like, I felt really strong.

And I'm like, my natural instinct is to go over and go grab the 25s. I'm like, I can put a 10 on. You know what I can put a 10 on it. Be reasonable. Yeah. If you had a 10 on each side, it's 20 pounds. Yeah, I know. That's a big job.

It is. But in my, like, I have trained myself for so many years that tens don't count. Bro, you should. I'm going to get there. I just want to get there. to the point where it's like, okay, here's the real weight. You should see me right now, dude. I'm working out in the gym, and it's like, you know, week two or week three,

and I go, I get the two and a half. And I put the little tiny two and a halfs on, and I'm like, this is stupid. Yeah, that's even better than me. This is dumb. I was proud. I was proud I went down to 10. I haven't done that forever. Yeah.

That actually, it's a cool strategy when you get in that mindset, and you're just adding the two and a halfs, and you're just like really, like, gently progressing. Well, the hard part is I know what were my potential. I know what I've left before. Yeah. So I'm adding five pounds and I'm still 200 pounds away from... No, that's exactly what's hard for me, too.

It's like, I'm like, this still isn't even that impressive of a way from me. Like, what I'm talking about right now is I was doing 275. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, and I would normally go right up to 315. And I'm like, well, you know, let me just add another. Dude, I'm just battling all the stress. So I'm like, I've literally reduced it down to a few functional movements. And then like, I'd like maybe two, three functional movements a day.

Because, dude, like, my, my, my form flexer and, like, my grip and everything. I must have done something, but it's just, it's just so achy and it's pissing me off. I love how Justin says I must have done something. You moved two tons of rock, didn't you? How many tons of, four tons? No, four times. I wonder what happened. Yeah, weird.

I put my finger on it. Yeah. I must have slept wrong. Yeah. Yeah, well, you're working out. You're like, oh, God, like, oh, it hurts my grip. The only person I believe when they're confused is why they got hers at him. Because he literally will be like, I did nothing.

I just have no idea. Why am I hurt? Well, I'll be like that, I'll be that guy that I'm, like, sleeping and I'm also doing, like, wrist in shoulder cars and all that. I'm, like, really trying to, like, you know, work and spiral my way out of it. It's not working. Speaking of, like, knowledge and stuff like that, yesterday we had my buddy. I was just going to shot Ryan out. Yeah.

I was just going to shot him up because you brought up my injury. And I'm like, so Ryan... I can't tell you how nice that was. So Ryan DeVita, good friend of my... I go way back. Him and I worked at 24th Fitness way back in the day when I started... Him and I started the personal training studio that I owned for so many years. And we split up after a few years.

But he's one of the most, I learned a lot from him when it comes to correctional exercise. He's one of the most of my very knowledgeable. I didn't know that either. I just never knew that. Like, I didn't know him well enough, obviously, as you did. And I just assumed that, like, he was a, like, his, I just thought he was more the business acumen of the two of you and the business. Yeah. I didn't realize he was that brilliant on the correctional exercise.

When it comes to, like, exercise, correctional exercise. biomechanics, correctional massage, like the guy's, like, he's one of the best. I mean, he literally unpacked me in like two minutes.

And it was that I've been troubleshooting with you guys. You didn't even buy him dinner, dude? No, dude. He put his finger, Adam was telling him about some of his issues

with, like, certain exercises. And Ryan literally put his finger right where the origin of the pain was. Yeah. And Adam's like, whoa. Yeah, that's right where it's at. And then I'm like,

well, you got to explain to me why is it just because for me, what was, what was perplexing me was, why is it when I actually put myself in a proper form and what we consider optimal position for bicep curls, I have pain. Whereas if I put myself in this weird hunched over rounded position,

I have minimal pain doing that, which is counterintuitive to me. Yeah, because you shorten. And he broke it down. And then this whole time I thought it was my peck minor. He's like, oh, it's peck major. He goes, you tore your peck major. And it's just a matter how much you,

tour it. It's like you obviously. It sucks. You got to go out. Oh, yeah. I mean, it does suck, but it also feels like Katrina was because I was so excited when I came home and she's like, I don't understand why you're so excited. Like you knew you tore this and I'm like, yeah, but to be like more sure. Pinpointed. Yeah. Because like they. Otherwise you're like what's going on? What's wrong with me? Yeah. Like that's in, I don't know. It has to be like top top two or three pet peas to be a personal trainer. Yeah. And to not be able to solve. To diagnose you with that.

Oh God, man. Like that just, it's like I've helped so many people. in so many ways and then to be, you know, for you to be perplexed on your own body, who you know everything that's going in it, what you're doing, and is I can't get to the bottom of what's going on exactly and why I can't. The last time that happened was when Justin and I figured out

that we needed to strengthen our hip flexors. Oh, yeah. That was like an epiphany. Yeah, you almost never have to do with a client. It's really target their hip flexors. And so, and you and I were getting similar issues. And I don't remember what it was.

We saw something. Yeah. And I'm like, I wonder if it's that. His hip pain. Yeah, and I started doing specific hip flex direction. It went away. I was like, oh, God. Yeah.

Of all things. Just like that. I know, crazy. Anyway, I got to tell you guys. So one of the interesting things about some supplements. Well, some supplements you take and you feel right out the gates and others you feel, but then you get used to how they feel and you forget that they're really doing a lot until you stop using it. You ever have that experience where you run out. That's the only way I decide if a supplement works really well for me.

I'm the one who's, you know, me. Whenever we talk about supplements, I'm like, even when I first start taking. in. You're like, how do you feel this? I'm like, well, I feel pretty good. I'm still skeptical. It's not until I've been doing it for a while. I take it off. And then the discrepancy of that is where I feel like I can really, I can really hone in on like, okay, that's how impactful value that was. So Seed, so Seed's a probiotic company for people listening. And so Seed hasn't sent us a shipment in a little while. And I actually got, I asked our assistant to make sure that they send some. She's like, it's on its way. I haven't taken Seed for a couple weeks. I noticed a big, I noticed a huge difference.

difference in my digestion. Huge difference. And I take it religiously. Every single night. Take it out of the multivitamin like every day. Every night, empty stomach, I take seed. Every single night. We hadn't been getting a shipment. I've kind of been not thinking about it and kind of forgot. Otherwise I would just buy it. And, and, and I'm like, today I'm like, you know, I keep, I got to remember to get some seed. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, we don't have any. But I can tell. I can tell my digestion. Makes it makes a big difference. It's such a big difference. You too? Well, yeah, it does. It makes a huge difference. for me, mainly like the whole day, like, what has my digestion and everything else? Like, yeah,

I feel like way, way more symptoms from, you know, my gut, like throughout the day if I haven't done it. So I'm more inspired now than ever to get consistent with it because of what I'm noticing with the psoriasis and the GOP1. And it's like I feel like adding that into this and trying to repopulate my gut with healthy bacteria. Well, this is probably the best times I should try and do this. And so I was actually waiting for the shipment to come back in, too, for the exact same reason is because it's one of the things I haven't been good. I've been really good since we met with Cabral last time. I've been dialed with my vitamin D and my fish oil.

I've been really consistent with that. I haven't been consistent with my seed. And I've been waiting for it to come in so we could do that, especially with it going on because I'd love to report, like, okay, let's see if I can make a difference with that. Let me introduce you to Butcher Box. Who are they? What are they? So this is a company that delivers healthy, meats to your door and more.

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On that link, we have an awesome offer. You can get free ribbyes, New York strip steaks, filet mignons, and every order included for free for a year, plus $20 off your first box. Again, it's butcherbox.com slash mind pump. Here comes the show. Our first caller is Kyle from British Columbia. Welcome back, dude. How you guys?

What's up, Kyle? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking me back. You got it, man. Perfect. I got an update for you guys. Let's go, dude. All right.

So the last time we had spoken, I just finished my first round of anabolic. And I just switched to free weights during that time. And because of that, I got much stronger during my first round because I was getting used to the bar and getting used to the free weights. So you guys suggested that I repeat anabolic. now that I'm adjusted to see how much strength I can actually gain now that I'm all leveled out. Excuse me. So I've still been working on how to properly fuel myself during this time as well. I had taken your advice on our last conversation to up my protein.

Currently I'm hitting about 160 to 170 grams per day, some days a little more. My low days, which happened mostly on weekends, just because I'm out with the family, the time would be about 150, but I'm trying to fix that at the moment. Not sure how much of a detriment that would be a couple days on the weekend like that. But overall, my digestion is feeling better as last time I'd spoken. I was kind of getting used to eating more. So that seems to be working out well now. So in terms of my training, I've continued to split the anabolic workouts into upper and lower like the first time.

I personally just enjoyed that style and it was working for my schedule there. However, please don't hate me because on this round, I didn't follow Anabolic exactly, mostly due to another inspiring failure that I had experienced. So essentially, the part where you're supposed to lower the weight and up the reps, I ended up keeping the weight heavier because I was very motivated to lift more. and the main reason why I had my brother-in-law over and he was doing some bench press and I was spotting him. He's much stronger than I am and I wasn't working out at the time, but I was just hanging out. And then he eventually got up to 230.

And then I was like, I just want to feel what this feels like. I was feeling stronger, a bit confident. It's like I just want to see if I can do like one rip. Just let me go. So I tried. I got it about halfway down and I needed his help to get a pack up. but after that just one like half lift I felt really sore for about two days after that and I was just super motivated to just keep going keep going I don't know if that soreness was

a slight injury or if it was just muscle soreness but throughout my training of anabolic I kept it as heavy as I could just adding like two more pounds to the bar try to do that on the last set and I did still get stronger, but I don't know if my approach was wrong or how much of a detriment that was. But personally, I just got really into just trying to lift more and more throughout this round. I really just found it super motivating, super fun.

I don't know what it is. It's just like adding two more weights just makes my day, or two more pounds makes my day feel so much better. I don't know why, but it's just a personal fulfillment throughout the day. So that was my training. But overall, throughout this round, I'm overall very happy with my results. And I really truly appreciate all the help you guys have given me. I feel the strongest I've ever been.

I've learned a ton about strength training and keep improving my eating with your guys' advice. To sum up my results after this round, I certainly did get stronger. I'll share my numbers in a second here. I improved my digestion. I hit some new tough goals I set for myself just for fun, like pull-ups and doing some rope-clim stuff. I really have never been able to do those very well, but I'm actually able to do 10 pull-ups now. I can do some rope climb, which is a fun little thing. And I've just overall increased my main lift.

So my numbers went from my bench before was 155, but now it's up to 165. my deadlift went from 165 to 200 overhead press i managed to do one rep of a hundred pounds which was a big achievement for myself because i've always kind of struggled with that one particularly my pull-ups got up to 10 which has been a lifetime goal for me so very happy with that um my body weight I've increased, I'm up to 73.5 kilograms from 70 kilograms before. So I've put on another three kilograms. And yeah, so those are my overall results. I got a couple questions in terms of nutrition and training.

So I can start with whatever you guys prefer. Well, first, I just want to say, you killed it. Yeah, yeah. So 90 days you gained 6 pounds. Well, about a little over 6 pounds of muscle. You actually look a little leaner in your picture, so it's probably more than that.

I think you might have lost a little body fat in the process. Your strength went through the roof. This was all in the course of 90 days, which is phenomenal. I want to get clarity too on the strength because I think you got stronger than you think you got. Because if I heard you correctly, as you progress through MAPS Antibolic,

which starts in a low rep phase, then goes to moderate reps, then goes to high reps, you increased weight all the way through that. You lowered weight or reps, right? No, he kept, he let, he lifted his weight. He increased weight because he's, did you say that he didn't, no, he didn't follow the protocol of the reps. No, he didn't follow the protocol,

the program of lowering the weight and increasing the reps. Yeah, but so, so you kept the weight the same and you kept the reps low. And he did the reps. Yes, that's right. Like I kept adding weight progressively, but I kept the reps like, on my main, it's like bench press, especially. I was around like the five, five to seven. reps.

Okay. So I was like, I thought you, you increased the reps and the weight. No. So you, yeah. So you're like phase one, your whole thing. Yeah. Your strength went through the roof and you gained, uh, uh, I would guess based off your pictures, closer to seven to eight pounds of lean body mass through that whole period

of time. We could have ate a lot more calories. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's it still crushed it. Eat more. Eat more.

Watch what happens. Yeah. Okay. Power. Great. Yeah. Sounds like he would do well with. Yeah.

You would do really well with power lift or PPL or up or lower. I think any of those programs would crush for you with higher calories. You're going to keep building, dude. You'll probably gain another, if you bump your calories effectively, follow some good programming. I think within 90 days you could probably gain another five to eight pounds of lean body mass. Wow. That's awesome. Like I'm hearing your guys initial response here in terms of eating more calories.

I feel like that's probably my biggest. That was actually my main question because I've started to notice like I'm eating. eating the same, but however now, which has never happened before, like in the evening after dinner, I'm getting hungry again. And I'm just like, so it's like, I think I just need to overall eat more throughout the day. And that's, that'll alleviate that. You got to listen to that, Kyle. Yeah, your, your metabolism. Yeah, you got to listen to that. When you, when you, when you feel that way, especially when you're eating good, you're eating clean, right? We're not eating foods that increase appetite. So you're eating good food, whole foods. And you're lifting weights like

you are. And you feel that appetite increase. That's a good signal. That means your body's trying to grow more and build more muscle. You're not feeding it, depriving it, is going to slow your progress down. You feed it. You're going to build more muscle. Yep. Cool. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. You did great, though. You did great. I mean, really good. That's the only critique is like we could have ate more. Yeah. That's it. Okay.

So literally go back, do it again, but do it, follow maybe up or lower, follow Maps power lift. And this time, feed more. Listen to that. Fuel it. I would go up another 400 calories at least. Yeah. Okay.

Excellent. That's actually how much I've been kind of calculating my snacking to overcompensate that hunger. So, yeah, I'll just add that throughout the day. Excellent. Yeah, dude. Yeah. One question just in terms of I've sometimes noticed. So I wanted to start adding a little bit of mobility to either the beginning or the end of my workouts

because the one thing I noticed was like sometimes when I'm in like a plank position or even when curling, I noticed I had like a tight pain here in my shoulder. So I started doing just like against the wall, like the shoulder up and down dealies. And that actually alleviated it for quite a while. But then I kind of stopped doing that. And then I noticed it coming back. So here's why that happened, Kyle. Okay.

So the mobility helps. But you didn't listen to us and you stayed a low rep. Yes. There's always a consequence for not doing the right. No, I'm serious. I'm not, you know, all joking aside. Yeah. Staying a low rep heavy for too long, that'll start happening.

Yeah. So that and also the lesson is you should do that before every bench day. Like so before you do a pressing movement, you should prime with that always, always, especially if you're going to not adhere and you're going to lift heavy longer. So you should do that no matter what. But to Sal's point, if you would have followed the program, you probably wouldn't have noticed that as much because you probably would have phased out of the really heavy lifting. Does it mean that we don't all in here in this room? do the same thing too sometimes where I'm feeling, hey, I want to stay lifting heavy for longer.

That's right. But you bet your ass when I'm doing that. I'm putting in the work on the mobility stuff or else I pay for it. We feel it. Yeah. And this is why, too, we end up recommending sometimes to bridge, you know, and take a break and do symmetry. So we can, you know, address a lot of these joint issues for stability and control there. So, you know, it might be something to consider after you get through, you know, your next phase, your block program.

Kyle, how many of our programs you have? Is it just anabolic that you got? I got anabolic suspension. I got Prime and Prime Pro. And I got Maps 15. Okay, good. So I'm going to have Doug put together a package for you of the programs that we think would be best for you. And we're going to discount the crap out of them.

So if you want to get the next year of programming set up, we'll send that to you. And then if you want to sign up, you'll save a ton. To Justin's point, having symmetry or performance or both in Power Lift, those three programs and what you already have, you're set for life on those and should just make it a habit of when you notice things like you notice like that, that's a good time. Follow symmetry. The next program, I'm going to do symmetry or performance,

something that's more mobility focused, unilateral focused. That'll help. Then you can get back to the heavy lifting and power lifting and just kind of toggle back and forth. We typically recommend once a year somebody does either symmetry or performance that typically addresses all those issues and then feed more, Okay, eat more. Supplement tip for you.

If you see that you're challenged a lot on the weekends to push those protein numbers, you're somebody who would do well with like Keon, the central amino acids, knowing that you're not hitting your optimal protein on those days, you could take some of those that would help. Just put it in your water. Yep. Just drink.

I'm having some right now. So that's something that I would recommend as somebody who knows they have a hard time always consistently hitting protein. adding that while we're trying to build is only going to help the process. Totally. And then, yeah, dude, stay the course. That's it, dude. Feed that appetite. Good job, man. Yep.

Perfect. Well, thank you guys so much. Like, honestly, the last, like, through your guys' advice on these calls, I've made more progress than my whole life. So it's been very helpful. I really appreciate it. You got more good results coming, dude. Yeah, keep us posted. I love seeing the updates. You're killing it.

Awesome. We'll do. Thanks, guys. All right, Kyle. Take it easy. I think it would be a good program package for him would be symmetry, upper, lower, and power lift. Yeah, like that. Would be a good, good three. He's already got prime and prime pro.

To switch through, yeah. I mean, predictable. And, you know, this is good for people to watch because he said it. He's had better results last 90 days than he had in his whole life. And it wasn't for lack of trying. This is the thing.

It's not for lack of trying. You're just, you're doing this on hard mode. You're trying to dig a massive hole with a spoon. and we're offering you a backhoe by doing things the right way. And you'll notice, again, not to point out his folly, but just he went his own way in a small way by not phasing his programs and kind of paid the price. He felt some pain. And so, you know, our programming is written specifically the way it's written because this is ideal. And this will get me the best kind of long-term success and results.

But also big thing to point out for the audience that could see that actually can see the video. and see the pictures, it's really clear that he gained weight, but he looks like he's leaner, which always tells me that we could have ate more. That's right. It's like he needed to lose weight. He was already lean.

Yeah, exactly. So he, and then on top, that was before. So just seen his pictures, I would have said that. And then he goes, man, I noticed at night, I was hungry. So that's a clear sign. The body's trying to grow, trying to build muscle.

You ignoring that signal because you're afraid you're going to get fat or put body fat on. will only hinder your progress, feeding that signal, especially if you make good choices. Like, that's my kind of rule for myself is, even, and this is how I don't count calories on a regular basis,

is just, man, if I'm, if I'm lifting consistently, I'm eating whole foods. And I'm hungry at night. I did it last night. Last night, I got up at 10 o'clock at night,

but she was like, what are you doing? I went down and said, I'm like, I'm hungry. Went down and I literally had what was prepped meal for me to eat today for lunch, which was my ground beef, mushroom and onion and rice meal, and had a full meal.

And so my rule is as long as it's a healthy balanced choice like that, and I'm hungry, I'm lifting, I'm eating whole foods. Feed. Feed. That's my body telling me it needs to build muscle. Our next caller is Justin from California. What's up, Justin? What's happening?

What's up, guys? How are you? Good, man. How can I help you? How are you guys doing? Good, dude. Yeah, so I'm kind of looking for some guidance. So for backstory, like in my email that I preface with,

I'm in law enforcement. and I feel like this is kind of unique for a lot of people that are in law enforcement that are looking at health and nutrition-wise because I know how important sleep is to gaining and losing weight, gaining and losing muscle mass. So kind of looking for some guidance on that because, you know, when I work my night shifts, I'm working three or four nights a week, 12-hour shifts. So I'm getting maybe four or five hours on a good night of sleep. And I know that's completely detrimental to trying to gain lean muscle mass and lose weight.

So looking for some guidance on that and just how to minimize my habit of overtraining. because I know I do that all the time. Yeah, great question, dude. We've definitely worked. We've worked a lot with law enforcement and first responders and people with these kinds of schedules. The main thing you need to understand around this, Justin, because it's a big deal. Okay, so having a sleep schedule like yours where you're not getting optimal sleep or you're getting way below optimal sleep or a schedule that constantly shifts your circadian rhythm. Sometimes people will work nights and then try to make up for it.

you know, on the days that they're not working type of deal. The main thing to understand is your body's tolerance for stress, which includes exercise, is far lower than what it would be if you had ideal sleep. That's the main thing to understand. So overtraining is a lot easier for someone like you. Way easier. Like way, like significantly easier. And so if you apply too much exercise stress, you're just going to burn out.

At best, you'll just spin your tires in the dirt and really not move anywhere. So the workouts for someone like you are absolute minimal. Now, that doesn't mean you're not active. So people sometimes confuse it to. It's good to be active every day, you know, walking and moving.

You don't want to sit down all day long. But workouts themselves for someone like you typically looks like a MAPS 15 protocol. And that's it. You're not doing anything more than like a couple lifts a day. And even on some days you're skipping because you're tired. To tailor it even more for you. I love with my clients that have shifts like you do, I would invest if you don't already

have one, like an aura ring or a Fitbit that tracks sleep for you. And we're using that a boy. Yes. I'm doubled up. Okay. Okay. So like, and that's, and that is what's, I'm using that and how I feel, right, to help me gauge what that workout, if I even have a workout looks like that day. So, you know, let's say it's one of those days where you got horrible. You score a 50 or a 60 on your night of sleep. That might be the day I don't get a lift in that day. I just walk, do something more recoupative, you know. And then the next day I get more optimal, 70, 75.

I'm going to go do my MAPS 15 workout. Then I have a day later where I didn't have work. I actually get a full day off, got a great night's rest. I score a 75, 85, 90. I'm like, oh, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put the two maps 15 day, the MAPS 15 day I missed in today's math 15 together and workout. So I'll do four exercises.

That's it that day. So that's how I would modify. for someone like you a map 15 would be the protocol i'm never doing more than everything in that in that week on days where i get incredible sleep i might do a two-day stack on days that i get less and optimal i'm either doing nothing or i'm doing just the two exercises that's it moderate intensity now i want to add something uh justin because i you know i see your email so there's a lot of information in your email yeah yeah and um should i should i touch on any of that i don't know if you I mean, I can go through it.

So you are a classic kind of overtrainer, which you kind of mentioned. Absolutely. Yeah, so you crossfit competitively. You taught it for 10 years. That alone tells me quite a bit. One more rap on your hat. You're also... I'm a walking stereotype.

Maybe I wouldn't let you do a double day, actually. Maybe I'd make you stick to that. Well, here's the issue is like, my thing that I try to gauge it off of, because I I try to track, you know, what my HRV is, my sleep score and all that. And I can get a sleep score of like, you know, 70% off of four and a half hour sleep. And my HRV is 180. So I feel good to go. But I know realistically, like, for some reason, I feel like that's skewed because I know I should be getting it six to eight hours every night.

Sure. Yeah. So that's why I like, it's hard for me to gauge personally. No, no. Let me touch on that. So, and you're also, you run three to four days a week, about 20 to 35 miles a week. And you're also training for a marathon. Oh, my God.

That's over. That's over. Oh, you're not doing the marathon's over. Okay. Okay. So here's what has. I still run, but that part's over. So here's what happens. And some people just are more resilient than others.

You're probably one of those people. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But how you feel now is not how you potentially could feel. Right. Okay. Also, how old are you, Justin? 31. Okay.

Here's the other thing. Cumulative stress is a thing. And so either we start to shift into direction that's more. appropriate and better, and you'll know because you'll get stronger and you'll feel better and you have more energy, or you hit a wall that hits so hard that you're forced. And it typically looks like injury and hormones crashing. One or the other or both. By the way, have you had your hormones tested? A while back, maybe like six months ago, everything seemed to be in the normal range, so it wasn't too crazy. Yeah, he's resilient. Yeah. So do you know what normal was? Because I know

the normal range is between 200 to 1,000 on testosterone. I think my testosterone was around 700. Good. Good. So I would scale everything way down. And then what you'll notice is better performance. The gauge that you should use is your performance, not your tolerance. So I know HRV, all that stuff.

Some people are more resilient. So those measurements are going to look better on you than they will with someone else. But that doesn't mean you can be much better. But I can tell you this, with that little sleep and this much exercise, if we cut our exercise down, what you'll notice almost immediately is an improvement in performance. Almost immediately you'll feel stronger and faster. And that's how you know you're going in the right direction. Maps 15 is all you need. No more.

That's it. For your lifting, that's it. That is it. No matter how. And it's going to be so hard for somebody like you because you're going to feel like it's not enough. It is more than enough. That's what I was going to get at. Yes.

It's going to feel you're going to do it. And by the way, just so you know, like literally, I was having this conversation with two of my best friends this weekend who do not have a job like you. We're just that we're all the same age. We're in our 40s. And I see how they're training. And I'm like, dude. And so my thing that I started with them this week is I'm texting them what I'm doing, which is two exercises when I go lift. Because they're always asking me, man, how do you?

What do you do? I'm like, I do way less than what you guys do. You guys have been lifting for our whole lives. You've been lifting for a long time. You don't need to do nearly that much to hang on to. your muscle. And if you want to build with all the stuff you got going on, you definitely need to reduce your volume intensity. And it's going to feel like you're not doing much. But like Sal said, what you'll see if you just stick to that, you trust the process. In two weeks, you'll see

strength go up. You'll see your strength. You'll get stronger. And that's your indication of you're doing the appropriate amount now. Yeah, you'll see it in a week. So because you're a police, because you're in law enforcement, you want to maintain some certain amount of athletic ability. so Maps 15 with a couple days a week of running here's what you'll notice I'll tell you right now what'll happen you'll get faster and you're running and stronger in your lifting

and you'll know this within one or two weeks and if that's what happens you're going the right direction okay and you got nothing to lose by the way so you could try it for two weeks and then go back to the crazy stuff that you're doing if it doesn't work but it will you'll see you like I said I was so different when you recover fully.

I was going to say for me, it's going to be the mental battle of not feeling like I'm doing it. That's how it is for me. Like I, you know, it's not diagnosed and self-diagnosed of body dysmorphia. So I feel like I have to put in extra work and do all this extra stuff because if I don't, I'm going to, you know, I grew up as an overweight kid. So yeah, I feel like I'm going to go back that route if I don't do more. So that's the hardest part. If you, Justin, if this is really important and you and you're at a place now where you're like,

I'm committed to making this change. You know that about yourself. It may be a worthwhile investment for you to do like our concierge or just you meet with the coach once a month. That's it. Once a month, they check in and they're basically going over your nutrition, going over your training. Just accountability piece. Not like you need someone to tell you what to do workout ways, but it's more of like I need to have somebody who's reminding me that this, I'm on the right path. It's very minimal investment to do that. And someone like you who's as advanced as you are, I think it's like perfect.

It's not full-blown training where you're with a coach all time. just once a month you're checking in and they're kind of modifying your program and you guys are going back and forth. Do they also work with you on nutrition and programming or just checking in all? No, mostly. Yeah, they're going to, they're going to,

so for example, like if we were working with one of our coaches, they're going to set you up on Maps 15 and they're going to be like, this is kind of what it should look like through the week. You get your first call, your first checking call, and hey, how are things going? You're going to feedback. I fill this, I notice this.

And then they're going to go, okay, this is what I want you to do. you're going to drop this day, add this here, let's bump your calories to this. They're going to modify like that, and then send you on your way again. Then you're going to come back, report again. Oh, man, I notice strength is going up. Okay, great.

Let's hold the line, stay the course. They're going to keep tweaking it for you, and you just follow it, and then you let them know how you're feeling, and they're going to adjust nutrition and adjust workouts. Okay. Yeah. One last thing I want to tell you on. This is more just for, you know,

anyone that might be a shift work kind of perspective is to help with sleep when you are working those crazy long shifts or overnight shifts. I mean, you know, I take magnesium, you know, have blackout curtains, uh, sleep masks, all these other stuff. Do you guys have any other tips to help improve sleep for people? Switching your circadian rhythm so often, uh, is where melatonin actually has benefit. Okay. So it creates a shift. Your circadian rhythm will adjust faster by taking melatonin. Legion has my favorite product for that, just so you know. So they have, it's,

it's a, it's a chewable, which I like, so I don't have to drink water with it. So I can just chew it. It's a chewable tablet. It's called Lunar. It's called Lunar, and it has magnesium and just a small dose of melatonin. So it's not a mega dose, so it's just a little bit because you don't want to take a ton of that shit. But a little bit of melatonin with the magnesium, and you can take that at night. I take it every night religiously.

Okay. All right. Yeah, look them up. Legion, Lunar. And then as far as the mental part is concerned, Justin, focus on the objective measures of strength, speed, and performance. That'll get you over the mental part right out. Because you'll start to see it.

You're like, man, I'm faster. I'm stronger. And that typically gets people out of their head with the like I'm not doing enough. It's because you see the results. Energy increase. Yeah. That's where you want to live. Possibly.

It depends on how well you know yourself. If you know that you really struggle with Bodiesmorphia and you know your challenge with this, sometimes this is where you outsource it. Well, the challenge is you'll get stronger and feel better. And then that'll make you think you should do more. Exactly. That's the challenge. Yes.

But like I said, within a week or two, dude, you'll see it. You'll see improvements in those things. Stick to the programming, though. Trust us. Like, it's, you don't need more than that. That's more than enough for a guy your experience and that what you do with your sleep, like you've got to stay there. And you'll see way better results, way better results.

Okay. Yeah. Cool. All right, Justin. Thanks for calling in, ma'am. All right, dude. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. Have a good rest of day, guys. All right, man. You got it.

Yeah, that's, you know, and hopefully he heaved this because he's 31, so he's still young. Obviously, his body has a lot of resilient. Some people are really resilient. So I think he just handle more. The fact that he can score 75 on four-hour sleep is beyond me. So he's, you know, and he's somewhat resilient. He's testosterone too.

Yeah, but it's what will happen if he stays down that path. You're right. He's 31. Major injury or... He's barely out of his 20s. See, well, you do that. You're in 40. Yeah, I did crazy things in my 20s in early 30s, too.

Now, I would have gotten way better results had I not. That's the thing to understand is that you can get away with it, but doesn't mean it's ideal. I know where near that. Our next caller is Casey from North Carolina. Hey, welcome back. Hey, Casey. Hello. Hey, guys.

Good to see you again. Yeah, what's happening? Yeah, I'll jump right into it. I've got kind of just some updates, what's happened, questions I've had along the way, and maybe some questions for what do I do next. Sure, let's go. So I just want to give you guys a huge thank you. I think just you guys doing podcast calls and callers is a fantastic aspect to your show, but I resonate with a lot of people.

But this, you guys take the time to really dive in with me, like helped me a ton. I've had a lot of people give me miss messages, if you will, and so it was nice to kind of have a solid way to go. So just some background. I was with you guys a little while ago regarding lifestyle, changes in living with Hashimoto's. So again, goal was to simply just feel healthy, feel strong with the added bonus of looking like I work

out. Over the years, I received a lot of mixed messages around diet, work out, all of it just being not working, if you will. So during our call, I was incredibly grateful that you guys recommended Map 15, and I've really enjoyed it. I've loved it,

honestly. Not only the program itself, I felt strong with it, but it, like, just helped me relax a little bit. It was a quick workout, whether it was something I could do down in my gym, at my home, or get over to the gym. But it's like it relieved a little bit of stress, which was nice, especially as I went into the summer months. Summer Casey is a little bit able to do more of that, to get there every day. But even now that I've gotten back to school, we've been back two weeks that it's just been easy to do. So that's been great. I've really, really

appreciated you guys giving me that program. So I went back and listened to our episode and I took what he said to heart, Adam. I really appreciated you being like, uh, in love you say, not winning the weekends. So I zoned in. I did that. It was probably right after 4th of July. I listened to our episode and was like, okay, I can do this. And I think maybe 4th of July, maybe a few days after I was back home with family and really didn't have any of the dairy, any of the gluten, but I know, like, your advice was, like, lock in on the gluten, kind of cut that out, act almost as if you're allergic. But took what you guys just had to say to heart. I really, like, appreciated that, because I think it gave me this, like, pathway of, like, no cheats are going to kind of

off, off-rail you. Um, what else? So since then, I have been gluten-free, dairy-free, free, caffeine free, alcohol-free. And that sounds absolutely terrible, but it's really not been bad. Honestly, I've had less cravings. I've noticed just mental clarity. And yeah, overall, those kind of improvements have been nice. So into it, though, I think with the programming, doing like the diet aspects, I just haven't seen any of the scale change. And I just want kind of your input. I didn't expect to go in losing 30, 40 pounds in the last 90 days, but I was hoping to maybe get on the scale here recently, just knowing I was going to talk to you guys and be like, okay, I'm down, down some weight and haven't seen anything. Haven't seen

any on the scale and just like overall, like how my clothes fit, what I usually go off of, how I feel in the mirror. It's just not exactly where I would like to be. still. So, um, just questions throughout what I've had throughout what I'm going to go through, hopefully after this call is Maps 15, run it again. Where would you have me go next? Um, ideally I'd love to see what you say for like the next nine months, like to put a calendar year together, like what that would look like. Um, yeah, I wondered about sauna sessions. I wondered if that was too much, if that is just going to override some of the things that I'm doing, just as I'm in recovery mode, is that too much?

And then something that has popped up recently with my functional health practitioner, she mentioned the GLP one. I know you guys just did a podcast on it. And so I've got just kind of curiosity if, like, working on inflammation, which I feel like that's what kind of I'm working on, would that be something you guys would suggest. I want to back you up real quick, though, on the frustrating part with the scale. Just curious, because I know you've listened to this show for a while.

Do you think that we would have asked you, what did the scale say? No, not at all. We would ask it, how does your digestion feel? How does inflammation feel? How is strength in the gym? Those are the things that we would have asked you. And sounds like a lot of that stuff has been doing pretty damn good. Yeah.

It's true. And so you've made incredible progress, but we get so attached to this scale and mirror and then allow that to dictate, oh, I did good or didn't do good. You did phenomenal. You've made some major changes. You've seen the benefits of it. And you're starting to make a major lifestyle change. We are heading in the right direction. Yeah, 90 days is a short period of time.

But I just want to remind you that aesthetic changes are downstream from improvements in things like energy health. health, inflammation, and strength. Yeah. So as those improve over time, the aesthetic changes follow. It has to, yeah. Okay. So that's the, and the cool thing about that is something like strength is objective. So it's like I can look at it and be like, well, I'm lifting more.

I'm definitely moving in the right directions. The scale, I mean, it's objective number, but it doesn't tell us body composition. And the mirror is very subjective. Yeah. So all that stuff. So aesthetics follows those other things. okay so keep focusing on those and the aesthetic changes tend to follow um as far as programming is concerned i like the math 15 protocol for you i remember you saying you're a teacher you're in the

school year now so um i don't care which ones you follow uh but what i'll do is i'll put together a 15 package for you if you don't have any more and we'll discount the crap out of it for you and it will set you up for the next year um so you can just follow one after another um and you'll be set up. What was the last question? Oh, GLP. Yeah. So your functional medicine, so off-label, a lot of functional medicine practitioners are

using GLPs at a really, really low dose, what they'll call a microdose, because, again, this is off-label and this is a lot of anecdote. Now, there is research going in this direction, but I can't point to any yet because it's not established. But I do know a lot of practitioners who are having positive results with autoimmune and inflammatory issues by microdosing things like terseptitide. I've personally seen it.

So that's all I can tell you. So now they're your functional medicine practitioner. They're the ones working with you on this stuff. So, you know, I would talk to them about that. The only thing I would caution you on is going on too high of a dose, which will crush your appetite and can throw things, which would show you movement on the scale, but would also move us backwards with what we're trying to accomplish.

Because here's what it looks like, okay? We keep doing the right things. and I think you're doing phenomenal. You keep getting stronger, health getting better, energy's getting better. The fat loss is more of a snowball effect. It starts to happen after. Okay.

Okay. If we just start to cut calories now, we'll see some movement on the scale, but then we'll have this real hard plateau. And then you'll have to go back to what you're doing now and reverse and do all that stuff. So, I don't know, have you heard me talk a little bit about me using transepotide right now? Well, to be honest, it's kind of, you guys,

it was a couple weeks ago maybe now, and it was something you said, that like you had used it in just microdosing sense and felt like the inflammation had decreased. And what was interesting is probably the week prior, functional health practitioner was like, well, we're not seeing any, I don't know, it was kind of disheartening. But hers was like, we're going to put you on a GLP one if we don't see any progress. I'm like, that's not really what I want to do at all. But then I heard you guys mentioning in the microdose sense of like, hey, it could find like some benefit.

it's um but that was kind of it i didn't really do any my own research or anything so let me share like the way i've approached it myself personally again this is my own personal stories this is not me giving you medical advice or telling you what to do it's just like how i'm using it so i'm i found for my dosage i'm like that point five to one unit which is like it's not quite a microdose it's not even a half of a what a starting dose would be it's like in between that that number and what makes me decide whether I take 0.5 or one unit for myself is I need to be eating enough. And so I know that if I take sometimes, I remember I tried 1 point or 10 units, a little over 10 units and it crushed my appetite too much to where it was really hard for me to hit my protein

intake. And so I backed off. So what we don't want to happen. So your dose is going to look different than mine. We're different completely. Whatever she decides, if you do decide to do this, whatever she sets you off. on. If you notice you can't even hit your protein intake because it's crushing your appetite, it's too much. And you need to talk to her. So that, and that's how I'm, because I,

noticing the, the, uh, anti-inflammatory benefits, big time. I can see it in my face. I can see it on my psoriasis. And so that's what I'm really enjoying. But I don't want it to crush my appetite to where I can't get my meal, my whole food meals, because then I'll just lose weight on the scale and I'll lose muscle. So, um, so that's, that's how I've landed on my dosage. And so if, if, you are going to use it, that's how I would want you to also use it if you were a client of mine. I'd say, listen, I'm okay with you because of the autoimmune stuff. I have definitely noticed that benefit. And if you get similar benefits from it, I'm pro it so long as you can hit those adequate

protein numbers every day consistently and you can lift and you have the energy to lift weights, then I'm okay with it. But if you notice it, suppress that appetite and you're like, I'm having a really hard time hitting my protein egg. I don't like it. Yep. okay because i think that's where i was kind of at is like i don't really want to use it at all but i've heard enough where you guys have talked about it a couple other people in my life

they've mentioned it of like how it can kind of help with that inflammation and sometimes that's all it just that's all i need is that to come off and then even yeah the bigger snowball effect of feeling better happens go go with with your with the functional medicine practitioner so that's the person who's managing all that that's why i would turn two for that uh but again And off-label people are using it in that way with their practitioners. And some of the people we've had on the show talked about it who are experts on the field. Yeah. Just pay attention to the main thing I said.

Just if you're and let her know. So whatever, I have no idea what she's going to start your dosage at. But whatever she starts it at, if you struggle with that protein intake, that's a big red flag and tell her and say, hey, I'd like to try a lower dose. Are you okay with that? And then most likely probably cut whatever she gave it to you in half and it'll probably land you at a better place. Okay. Yeah.

that works perfect because I think that was kind of where she was headed next and knowing that I wanted a little more information maybe. I think the only other thing was just as I'm in kind of this recovery mode, I feel like I will be for maybe a little while. Is there any other things you guys would recommend? I know I kind of asked about the sauna sessions. Is that something to do? I know red light therapy I've kind of talked about, but that was kind of the other thing. As I went through the past three months, I'm like, is there any other recovery? I love sauna. Yes.

I love sauna for you. Sana's great. Don't go in there to be a hero. You just kind of sweat and don't go crazy with pushing it. Sometimes people with thyroid issues have issues with temperature regulation. Make sure you drink a lot of water, throw some electrolytes in there. So, but otherwise you'll improve, you know, it's good for endothelial health. It's good for VO2 Max.

Good for inflammation. Red light therapy is totally different. It's not a stress. on the body. It accelerates healing in a lot of different ways. And aesthetically speaking, red life therapy is very obvious. So you'll see the difference with red light therapy. But you won't get the performance benefits or the health benefits like you would have with sauna.

But both of them would be great to add. Yep. I love adding that to your routine. Yes. Yes. Love it. Yeah. I've done the sauna for a while.

And something in me, I was like, I hope this is okay. I think I've just gotten to a point where now I question everything. Yeah. No, you're fine. Yeah, what you don't want to do is go in there like you're trying to beat your best time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That's it. Yeah. That's really all I have. I really appreciate you guys sending me Maps 15. I think I was just, yeah, what I needed and you guys advice and what you guys do.

I just really appreciate it. In case, you're doing good. You're about 60 to 90 days from seeing a big turnaround with how your body responds. So that's what I would guess. Yeah, I would guess about 60 to 90 days. So just keep staying consistent. Keep focus on getting stronger. That's the main thing we're looking at.

Cool. I really appreciate it. It gives me a lot to go with. So thank you again. You got it. Thanks, Casey. Bye, bye, bye. Do you guys remember what she looked like on the last call?

She looks trying to remember. Way different. Yeah. Like healthier. Feel it. Yeah. Healthier. More energy.

Yes. Yes. 100%. And again, I want to remind people, like, aesthetic changes are downstream from improvements in health and energy. and energy. They don't show up right away, although aesthetic changes do show up right away.

They're just not the kind that people tend to pay attention to. It's like that mean where the guy's digging for gold and it's like right there, everybody stops. But it's like, I know this is, in fact, we talked about this off air last week, I can, just through experience,

I can look at someone's face and I can tell like this person's overstressed and overdoing it. Totally. And those aesthetic changes are visible, everybody. You can see it on her from the last time we met.

She just doesn't see it on the scale. Not to mention. I mean, if it sounded like all other markers were positive, right, and doing great. I actually don't want the scale to have moved. No. Because what I don't care about the scale. Because probably what actually did happen was she probably actually lost a couple pounds of fat and gained a couple pounds of muscle. And it's not a big enough number for her to go like, whoa, radical change.

Like everybody notices, but it's enough to be like, we are heading the right path. She had to get healthy. Okay. She had to get healthy first and she's doing it. She cut out gluten, which was all I asked. but she did all the other stuff. All of them. Let's go.

She's going to kill it. Look, if you like Mind Pump, you got to come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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