Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 839: Natural Ways to Increase Testosterone, How to Time a Cut, Riding the Line Between Intensity & Burnout & MORE

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND some really fun to date conversation in our intro. We start off by giving our six week challenge update. Maybe one of the more valuable intros, I think. So this is definitely one you should listen to. Yeah, you know, I commented that Adam, Justin and Doug, are looking really, really good. Adam thinks I have a little bit of a ulterior motive with that, but I am being patronizing us. I am being genuine, you guys look really good.

Starting point is 00:00:42 I trust you about as far as I could throw you. Yeah, that's not that far. Then we talked about Katrina's Spartan training and how her body is adapting to this endurance training. Good or bad? Did she get leaner? Did she gain body fat? Did she go on that earth?

Starting point is 00:00:55 No, no, no. Oh my God. Then we talk about my Everly Well hormone test. So I did another Everly Well test to test my hormones and my testosterone went through the roof and we talk about what I've done To increase my natural testosterone levels then Adam gives us his renewed protein powder use How is he using? Organify now to get his protein intake back on the powder everybody now

Starting point is 00:01:19 We are mench we are sponsored by both Everly well and or GANIFI so with Everly well If you go to EverlyWell.com, enter the code MindPump, you get 15% off any test, and with Organifi, which has the protein powder, if you go to Organifi.com, forward slash MindPump, enter the code MindPump, you get 20% off. And then we end the intro by talking about the drugs, known as, Psalms. Everybody's taking sarms. Do they work?

Starting point is 00:01:46 Do they not work? Are they safe? What the hell are you doing taking these to crazy? I'm not in the sarm. Find out what it lines, pump things. Yep. Then we get into the questions.

Starting point is 00:01:53 The first question was, how do you extract a balance between listening to your body and pushing your body to build muscle or burn body fat? Are those competing ideologies? How do you work between the two of those? The next question was, what is a good indicator that your metabolism is at the point now where you could start cutting calories to lose body fat? This is a great question. We get into detail so you

Starting point is 00:02:16 can know when the right time is to start your cut. The third question was, how would someone who works all day long at a desk, this person sits down for like eight or more hours a day. How the heck are they supposed to get 10 to 14,000 steps a day? We give some useful strategies in that part of this episode and the last question. What are some of our self-care practices and how do they impact our mental and physical aptitude just and drop some wisdom in that part of this episode. I always do, but this one is special. Lots of self-care. Also, I want to remind everybody,

Starting point is 00:02:52 MAP's performance is 50% off, half off. This is the first time we've ever done a MAP's performance promotion for this long. Now, in order to get... That is the most videos of all the other programs we sell. Oh, this is very different from what you're doing now. It's a very functional program, mobility based. This is designed to get you functional, athletic performance. It's probably what you're not doing

Starting point is 00:03:14 and you should be doing. So I'm challenging everybody out there who hasn't tried it yet to give it a go. Now this program is not for whims, it is hard. It is a very, very hard workout. You will sweat, you will burn a lot of calories. In order to get the discount, you gotta go to mindpumpmedia.com,

Starting point is 00:03:29 enter the code green50, GREN, and the number 50, no space, and you will get 50% off. I also wanna remind you that we have bundles on that website, bundles are where we combine multiple maps programs, and put them together for specific goals, like our Super Bundle, which is a full year of exercises and workouts all planned out for you. So you can find all the bundles and the 50% off map performance with the

Starting point is 00:03:53 code green 50 at mindpumpmedia.com. Justin can I just say something? You look fucking handsome today. Thanks man. You guys are all, you guys are all, I'm gonna be honest now, no more shit talk. I'm not gonna talk shit. This is on it. Hey, nice. I don't want your compliments. It's a new strategy.

Starting point is 00:04:12 I'm tired of your compliments. You know what it is? I know you, bro. This is you slowly closing our audience. It's you slowly closing the audience on how much we had to be changed. You want some things. And how much advantage do we have changed. He wants some fun. And how much advantage do we have?

Starting point is 00:04:27 I'm being honest. I know you, dude. You're setting everybody up. First of all, I talk shit all the time. And you're also trying to get us to relax. No, no, no, no. First of all, I talk shit all the time. I am being completely honest.

Starting point is 00:04:37 I'm fucking Obi-Wan, dude. I'm being completely honest. I'm fucking, I'm fucking. What a dick. I can't even say so nice. Don't look skywalk Skywalker me, bro. I don't know if you did. Stop using Star Wars or just paddle on it.

Starting point is 00:04:49 That's just, that's just it's gif. It's like, listen, I am being completely honest. Everybody's looking really good. Doug look like, I mark, I will bet money. Doug, did you measure your arms? Did you gain at least a hat? He's bringing in some good. At least a quarter inch on your arms.

Starting point is 00:05:04 I have zero idea. Oh, you have a measure to it? I have a measure. He mentioned? He's bringing in some good. At least a quarter inch on your arms? I have zero idea. Oh, you have a measure to it? I have a measure. He mentioned his waist, he already mentioned that. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know what your waist looks like because you wear a bag of t-shirts, but your arms look bigger.

Starting point is 00:05:13 Adam's looking way different. You look healthier for sure. Can't wait till you do your next hormone test. Justin, fuck dude, you look good. Everybody's looking good. This is really, really, now the guys who aren't making that big of a difference. Serious. Taylor looks the same. Drew looks the same. And so's getting leaner. Fuck dude, you look everybody's looking good. This is really really now the guys who aren't making that big of a difference serious

Starting point is 00:05:25 Taylor looks the same Drew looks the same and so's getting leaner Yeah, I don't start to look leaner. Yeah, he's everybody's doing really well And I'll be honest with you like of course I want to win all that you know grand very competitive at the end of the day If one of us does well on the rest of a suck it looks really bad Yeah, so I'm really happy to see that everybody's killing it. You guys are all killing it. You knew that would happen though. Everybody on this team, especially the owners, right?

Starting point is 00:05:50 And Katrina, so she's part of this competition with us right now, right? So she's been going along. Is she really? Yeah, and she's also training for Spartan. So she's got the big Spartan. Well, that's gonna be a challenge. Two weeks to major challenge. Two weeks to make your challenge.

Starting point is 00:06:05 So listen to what happened here. So we did a little, this was the mid point for us. And so I wanted to go and get my body fat tested again, just to kind of make sure that I'm on pace for where I want to be and stuff like that, like checking up. And she did too. So we went together and before we even went, she's kind of talking to me about her past week, you know what she's been doing. And I've been we even went, you know, she's kind of talking to me about her past week

Starting point is 00:06:25 You know, she's been doing it and I've been telling her that you know, just keep in mind what you're trying to do right now Like you know, it took me a really long time to get you out of being a runner to building and sculpting a physique And you you love everything about it and now you've decided to take on this new Spartan thing Like her and her brother of their they're on pace, they're gonna go get the three, right? So she's gonna go to the championship. They want the whole complete. Yeah, they're gonna complete the whole thing and she's now on her, what, I think,

Starting point is 00:06:52 third or fourth Spartan race. Good for them. Yeah, they're having a blast, they enjoy doing it and I said nothing wrong with this, but I want you to know that when you get yourself involved in a body sculpting competition and you're also training for a Spartan race. Which is in conflicting interests.

Starting point is 00:07:09 Conflicting. Completely conflicting, and you cannot be hard on yourself because there's going to be a give and take here. So the worst part is when you're doing that kind of training, the scale moves down. So you can get short. So listen, listen to what I'm going to share with the audience right now, what happened here? Because this was a great lesson for her and I think a lot, a lesson for a lot of people.

Starting point is 00:07:26 A lesson in the, Adam is correct. No, and I'm definitely not that guy at all. Like, I don't told you so at all. I mean, I actually love for us to do this, because it, it applies, it applies tangible things that I now can use to, to demonstrate the example that I've been trying to give her. And she, and I definitely don't rub it in, because I know how it feels. It sucks when this happens.

Starting point is 00:07:49 So leading up to this, going to the test, she had a really busy week at work, and because she's getting closer to a Spartan race, she's been slowly increasing her mileage on how much she's running and working on her endurance, and she had kind of a slow week lifting. I mean, she's very consistent with her lifting, you know, her and I train anywhere between four to six days, a week on a very regular basis. And I think this week, she only got in like two or three times. But she got her runs in and she's down two pounds.

Starting point is 00:08:17 So she feels leaner and stuff and she's going to get dumped. And she goes and we get dumped and her body fat percentage went up and she's fucking pissed. You know, and I'm like, why are you mad? Like we talked about this. Like, I'm not surprised at all. You shouldn't be surprised. And she's like, I just don't understand.

Starting point is 00:08:34 She's like, her body's becoming more efficient. I'm like, she's like, I'm down, I'm down weight. I'm all, she's all, I'm dialed on my food. Like she's eight perfect. And she's like, I don't, I don't, I don't, this is not fair. And I'm like, well, hun, you gotta understand that you were, you've been consistently lifting

Starting point is 00:08:53 and then all of a sudden you have a slow week. So you sent a signal to the body that it doesn't need as much muscle this week because, and of course it works on a grander scale in this, but I'm using this as an example to explain to her how the body is responding to exactly what she did to it, which was you reduced volume of training, you know, just by chance, because you couldn't get to the gym. This happens to people every day.

Starting point is 00:09:13 This is why people get stuck in plateaus of the up and down, up and down is you get a busy week. Your volume inevitably goes down, meaning you have less sets, less reps, less total weight that you move that week, which then sends a signal to the body that I don't need as much muscle, because I'm not moving as much weight this week as the prior three weeks. You're also sending the competing signal of... And then on top of that, you're getting these runs in and you're increasing the amount of time that you're running, and it's not a lot.

Starting point is 00:09:39 She's not running like crazy, just a little bit. But just the fact that you are running and then you're increasing the amount of time you're running, you're now sitting in a signal to the body saying, we need to be more efficient. We need to be efficient with our calories, we need to be efficient with our body weight, because we have to be moving longer, so it's not advantageous for us to have this muscle,

Starting point is 00:09:55 so less volume and more running, definitely tells the body, let's get rid of this heavy-ass muscle. So it's exactly what you wanted it to do by what you did this week So you can't beat yourself up. Such an important thing to communicate and I know we continue to hammer it, but it's because You know, it's it can seem be will-during it can seem like a massive mystery. I mean here you are You're working out hard you're doing way more cardio, so you're burning more calories eating perfect eating well Then you weigh yourself and like oh shit. I'm down in body weight. I'm getting leaner especially if you're burning more calories. Eating perfect. Eating well. Then you weigh yourself and you're like, oh shit, I'm down in body weight. I'm getting leaner, especially if you're a female.

Starting point is 00:10:30 And when I say that, it's because women tend to focus on wanting to get smaller. Not leaner, but smaller. So when they go on the scale and they see that they're lighter, they're like, hell yeah. But then when you will get a body fat test, which most people don't get, most people don't get or have access to body fat tests, right?

Starting point is 00:10:45 They just look at the scale. Then you get a body fat test and although you're lighter, your body fat percentage went up. Now, how is this possible? People want to ask it, well, how is this possible? It's easy. If your muscle mass went down and your body fat stayed the same, your body fat percentage went up. Okay? Does that make sense to everybody? Because your total pounds of body fat might not have even gone up, but it is now a larger percentage of your body weight because your overall body weight went down. So you might not even gain body fat, but your body fat that you have on your body now is a larger percentage. And that's exactly what happened to her. Yeah. Yeah. Is that she lost and and all it has to be is a one to one ratio or less, right? So if she lost two pounds and she didn't gain any fat,

Starting point is 00:11:31 but her body fat percentage went up because all she has to do is lose 1.1 pounds of muscle and 0.9 pounds of fat and she'll get fat. And the ratio is different. Right, exactly. And then now the body fat percentage goes up. Now the other side of that of course is, that's a slower metabolism, right?

Starting point is 00:11:47 You lose muscle or you lose strength, that's a sign that your metabolism's starting to slow down. And what happens, people get stuck in that trap and they continue to push it, because here's what most people do. Most people are not like Katrina, don't go get a body fat test, aren't, you know, with someone who's a trainer

Starting point is 00:12:04 with lots of experience on that stuff. Most people would just look at the scale and be like, oh, this is working great. Right. I'm gonna do more of this. Right, or continue even. Yeah, I'm gonna do more cardio, do less weights because when I do weights, my body weight

Starting point is 00:12:19 doesn't change on the scale. But when I do shit tons of cardio, I lose a lot of weight on the scale, not realizing that they're getting softer, slowing their metabolism down. Now over time, you dig a hole. What happens, you dig a hole with the slower metabolism. And over time, you're in a situation. I mean, my girlfriend is an amazing example of this. When I first started dating her, if she consumed over 12 or 1300 calories, she would gain weight. And this is because she used to do, she used to run like a maniac all the time, tons and tons of cardio. Now,

Starting point is 00:12:49 today, you know, this is, you know, a few years later, I mean, now when she's cutting, she's at like 1700 calories and, you know, 1600 calories and that's getting her leaner, whereas before anything over 1200 would have her gain weight. And she's not doing barely any cardio. So this is what you can do with your body, with the right kind of training, and it just takes a little time. I mean, if you get on, and you start, I just did Christina Rice's Insta story,

Starting point is 00:13:13 because she has a large female following and a lot of them are having trouble understanding this concept, and now I was telling them, look, when you first start proper resistance, first of all, if your goal is endurance, then go run, if that's your goal, then yeah, you wanna run. But if your goal is overall fitness, be leaner and be stay leaner easier in regular life Well, then you need to lift weights and what I explained to them was look when you first start lifting weights

Starting point is 00:13:34 Here's what happens. You're not gonna lose a lot of weight on the scale initially What's gonna happen is you're gonna feel more firm and toned than your body shape will start to change a little bit I love it when I get messages from clients and they're like, you know, the scale hasn't changed, but I definitely look way different. That's because more muscle less body fat, it's give you a better shape, right? But then the fat loss starts to happen. Once you start to get past that point, then you start to notice fat loss and it becomes dare I say far easier. Far, I hate saying easy because it sounds like I'm like a commercial for a diet pill or something like that But it's fucking true. I mean imagine if you could eat 600 more calories a day and Not do cardio and get leaner. Is that easier than what you were doing before?

Starting point is 00:14:13 Oh, yeah, you better believe it and we see it all the time so now speaking of Things we've changed and getting our bodies to to respond and what what not I know I gave you guys compliments earlier and everybody is changing really well But I think you guys might earlier and everybody is changing really well, but I think you guys might be screwed because I saw your test. I saw your test. You guys are competing with,

Starting point is 00:14:32 I mean, I'm on natural roads. I'm on natural roads. Well, there's a couple of factors there, right? That we were talking about, like you had that all day workout. So first of all, you did the Everly Well twet. Yeah, so what I did was so, so in 2017, I had bought my, this is before we were sponsored by Everly,

Starting point is 00:14:52 now what I love about Everly Well, keeps them all right. Well, I love, yes, we're sponsored by them, but we got sponsored with them because I had done stuff with them before and I had liked them, so we had seek them out. And what I like about them is they're tests are inexpensive that you do them at home.

Starting point is 00:15:08 Cause it's a pain in the air. You ever try to go get a hormone test by your doctor? You gotta go see your doctor, you gotta get prescription, then you gotta go out. It'll let you know your results are up. It's super easy. Yeah, but it ever really well is like you get the at home test. I think the testosterone test is like 49 bucks.

Starting point is 00:15:20 And that's retail, we have a discount. You get the test and for a lot of the hormone test, it's saliva. So you wake up first thing in the morning and you don't brush your teeth or anything and it tells you within 30 minutes of waking up and you fill up a vial with saliva and what it's measuring is free active testosterone, which is important measurement because total testosterone doesn't tell you how much of is active and how much of it is bound. When testosterone is bound, it doesn't do anything in the body. So you want to know what the free testosterone is. So you spin this vial, then you just mail it in. When they get it, they send you a text, they send you a website, they save it.

Starting point is 00:15:56 So I did one in 2017. And the reason why I did a test back then was I felt like my testosterone levels were low. I remember telling Jessica, like, I just don't feel like myself. Now, I was chalking it up to, you know, I'm, you know, a year and a half or whatever out of a divorce and a lot of stress. Maybe that's what's going on, but it just doesn't feel my normal testosterone levels. I've always felt like we're kind of high, but I never really knew because I never really tested it.

Starting point is 00:16:23 So I did that test and it came back average. Then a year later, we get sponsored through Evily Well, and all of us do a testosterone test. I did another one, and it came back just a little higher, but it was about the same. So again, it was average. Now at this point, I'm like, okay, I know it says I'm average, but I still don't feel like myself.

Starting point is 00:16:41 I still don't feel like the old Sal were. I had lots of, I always felt like I have higher levels of testosterone. So I examined my entire life and I said, what could I, what could I be doing now that would be depressing my testosterone? Let's talk about some of the indicators that tell you that you just didn't feel normal.

Starting point is 00:16:57 Like what are the, because I know what they are for me and the things I look at, like as far as libido, skin, my sleep, my energy levels. Like what are the things I look at, like as far as libido, skin, my sleep, my energy levels. Like what are the things that you're... My libido, although it was good, and Jessica would argue, she would always tell me, shut up, your libido is great, and I'm like, you have no idea how it would it used to be. So I felt like my libido wasn't as high as it was before, but again, that was kind of like, if my recovery with weights wasn't as good, my strength was harder

Starting point is 00:17:26 to lift as heavy as I did before. Of course, that could be age. I'm now almost 40 now. So I'm like, well, it could be that. So it was hard for me to, but I did notice the declines and things that you're supposed to notice when your testosterone level is not as high as it once was or whatever. So I said, I want to test it again, but this time, I want to address the potential things that could potentially

Starting point is 00:17:50 be lowering it, you know, bring it lower than what I think it normally is. And so the two main areas that I looked at were my diet. Now I had been eating keto style for a while now. You guys know this. Since we started Mind Pump, I'd always eaten that way. And it wasn't for any of the reason then for my gut health, it just helped my gut health and so I felt better.

Starting point is 00:18:12 And I do wanna be clear on the podcast, health is always number one, cause had I just tried to eat in a way to raise testosterone and not pay attention to my gut health, I would have worse health and testosterone probably would have been worse anyway. So, but with keto diets and low carbohydrate diets for long, long, long periods of time,

Starting point is 00:18:30 it's pretty well established that it will cause a lower testosterone in man. This is a well established fact. It's not a secret or whatever. It's not a controversial. But again, if you need keto for your health, that's more important in doing the opposite, we'll make everything worse anyway.

Starting point is 00:18:47 So I said, okay, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start slowly increasing my carbs. My gut health was much better because I was doing those monthly fast. So I said, maybe I can start doing that. So I started bumping on my carbs. I started feeling stronger. I started feeling better.

Starting point is 00:19:00 I noticed like, oh, you know, maybe that's affecting me positive. The other thing I looked at was cannabis. Now here's the thing with marijuana. Cannabis very reliably in animal studies will lower anabolic hormones in animals. Very reliably, like they can literally, they know it's gonna happen every single time

Starting point is 00:19:20 when they give an animal high doses of cannabinoids that they're testosterone and animal hormones go down. Now with humans, the studies are mixed. Some show it lower, some show it doesn't do anything. The problem is humans are hard to study like with animals. It's hard to take a bunch of guys and then who don't use marijuana. And then control the variables.

Starting point is 00:19:41 Control every time. It's like you got 100 guys, they all smoke weed, and you're trying to see if the weed makes a big difference in testosterone, but we're not talking about their stress, and control all the variables. Control every time. You got 100 guys, they all smoke weed, and you're trying to see if the weed makes a big difference on testosterone. But we're not talking about their stress, we're not talking about their sleep, we're not talking about their weight lifting routine.

Starting point is 00:19:52 It's hard. And we know that those things could potentially positively affect testosterone, even more so than marijuana can make. Now I know the endocrine system is riddled with cannabinoid receptors, but so is a lot of the body, the brain, the digestive system, the bones, but the endocrine system for sure, and weabinoid receptors, but so is a lot of the body, the brain, the digestive system, the bones,

Starting point is 00:20:06 but the endocrine system for sure, and we do know, and this is quite well established, that lots of cannabis use will decrease the quality of your sperm. So if you're a man trying to get a woman pregnant, lots and lots of weed, not a good idea. The other thing too is when you go to a doctor, when you go to an endocrinologist,

Starting point is 00:20:22 I hope I said that right, endocrinologist, thank you. said that right. Endocrinologists, thank you. When you go to a hormone doctor, if you go to a feroid guy and you get gynecumastia, for example, let's say you start to grow breast tissue, one of the first things they do is I ask you if you smoke marijuana, because they've seen anecdotally that it can cause that.

Starting point is 00:20:38 There's some evidence to suggest that they do that, maybe not, it's kind of up in the air. So the studies are, but here's the other thing too. I was using cannabis every night. Now initially I did this for, again, my gut, but my gut had been so much better and I said, you know, am I just using it every night now because I like it?

Starting point is 00:20:55 So, you know, I told, I told exactly, I told Adam, I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut down. Am I? I'm gonna cut way down on cannabis. Here's the thing I noticed when I cut down on cannabis, by the way, I went through two weeks of withdrawal, which really pissed me off, because that told me I was already using too much.

Starting point is 00:21:10 I don't like to feel withdrawal from anything. That tells me that I was lying to myself. I had my sleep, it wasn't terrible. I was like heroin withdrawal, everything else. Terrible, it was my sleep was off, and I wasn't feeling like myself. But that told me, oh shit, my body adapted

Starting point is 00:21:24 to using this every night. So I went from using it every night to using it once or twice a week. I increased my carbon take. My sleep was good and all that other stuff got my new, everly well test. And this time I did the men's health one, which not just not only test the testosterone, it tests cortisol, estradiol, and DHEA. So test all the important hormones for men.

Starting point is 00:21:44 Now is that one a little bit more expensive because it does all three. Yes, not that much more though It's worth it. I wish I would have done that the first time like that's what I have now That's the one you're gonna do now. Yeah, no, I had it all set to go this morning And I did this is twice I've done this with every way well test is I Brush because I just have this habit first thing when I get out of bed I'm barely awake. I'm like brushing my teeth. Yeah, no, you can't brush your teeth I screwed up the last one so yeah, it's interesting to do so I'm barely awake. I'm like brushing my teeth. Yeah, no, you can't brush your teeth. Yeah, I screwed up the last one. So yeah, that's interesting to do.

Starting point is 00:22:07 So I'm gonna put it like into my dresser. It's going on my bathroom counter. So I know not to brush my teeth first. So I'll do mine tomorrow. So what I did was, I did the test and he came back. My estradiol was normal, cortisol was normal. DHA was higher, was high, and my testosterone was high.

Starting point is 00:22:29 Now it's not high like I'm on steroids or anything like that. It was definitely above, they said anything over 185 was high, I was at 220, but that's almost double what I measured before. So what I'm doing now is working. Now I can tell when I'm working out. I can tell since I started doing this, I'm stronger, I feel better. I seem to be building more muscle.

Starting point is 00:22:51 Double, double your, the hormones is crazy. Double free testosterone. It'll be interesting too, like I've been thinking about this because going carnivore for so long, and then I just literally reintroduced like a cup of rice, like some carbs into my diet yesterday. And it was the craziest surge.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Like I've felt like even like I've ever, to be honest with you. Like I've never felt that much energy and immediate access to strength. Like when I went back to the workout. So tell me you weren't thinking about what I've said a million times in this show about, the most anabolic I've ever felt is what it went manipulating nutrition for a show.

Starting point is 00:23:30 Oh, dude, it's got more than any objection I've ever taken. Like, it was like a lightning bolt. It was so obvious. And that's why I was like, and I remember Sean Baker and like having him on the show, he made great points and all this kind of stuff. But like, you know, like even when we were kind kind of off air, we were asking about his testosterone levels and this and that and he was kind of vague with his answers with that.

Starting point is 00:23:51 But I can't imagine that it's going to raise testosterone being in this deficit. It feels like you're in this deficit all the time and I'm fighting against my body. Dude, just because you can doesn't mean it's ideal. Sorry. I think what they're doing is like, oh shit, you can eat meat and be okay. Well, yeah, you can, just me, but you're not, that's not ideal. And here's a deal.

Starting point is 00:24:14 A lot of people who do it like Michaela Peterson, okay, we had her on the show. This is Jordan Peterson's daughter. She eats carnivore because if she's to anything else, severe problems. She eats anything else, she has an immune reaction. Well, it's like the point you made earlier. It's just like you.

Starting point is 00:24:28 You'll yourself first. Right, yeah, for health purposes, it makes sense, right? If you have somebody who is this severe gut issues and by doing the carnivore diet or doing the ketogenic diet, resolves that for you and you're overall health, sleep, being libido, all is good.

Starting point is 00:24:44 But for you, just an average person who's trying to be in shape and trying to get in better shape and you're trying to hop on one of these fucking, you know, trendy diets right now. It's like, dude, carbs serve a purpose. Using the lie tools. Yeah, and I already see sort of people like getting into the dogma of it

Starting point is 00:24:59 and getting swept into that. Like it's like, oh, I'm getting always performance gains and I'm, you know, cutting down and this thing, like, no. Like, let's separate ourselves from that and really dissect it because to me, it's like I've had shit performance and I'm just gonna be dead honest about that. That's why I'm a little bit interested to see,

Starting point is 00:25:18 like with my testosterone levels, like, what that comes out. I know I kind of wanted you to test it before you did any of that and I have to be honest. I mean, I know Sal has been giving compliments to everybody around, but I really haven't been worried about you. I know I kind of wanted you to test it before you did that and I have to be honest, I mean, I know Sal has been giving compliments to everybody around but I really haven't been worried about you because I know you're gonna fuck shit up with how low you've been with all the carver to.

Starting point is 00:25:32 I am a little nervous though, you start adding carbohydrates into your diet. That does make me a little nervous because coming back, for sure, I think you're gonna see a big difference from that. Well, the problem is this, here's what you need to understand, because I did keto for a long period of time. You are a hyper-sensitive to carbs, okay?

Starting point is 00:25:49 Yeah, yeah, big. You had one cup of rice. That is not a lot of carbs, and you felt a huge surge. Here's the problem, you're gonna start throwing carbs in, you're gonna feel good, you're gonna wanna increase in,

Starting point is 00:26:00 appetites can go through the roof, boom, you're gonna hold water on body fat like crazy, so do it, what I would recommend. I'm gonna do it intermittently. I was just gonna say, what I would recommend is if you wanna do it now before the contest is over, is I would do a cup of rice every other day or every third day.

Starting point is 00:26:14 That's it. Just play with that and see how that feels and slowly increase it. Adam was telling me about sort of a progression too that I might apply as well as far as like adding a little bit, you know, a little bit more, a little bit more than going back down to nothing like in carnivore again,

Starting point is 00:26:27 and kind of like protecting the pattern. But I mean, I think people should use these diets as tools. Like, you know what they're good for when to use them. Like, here's a deal, okay. Let's say you have, let's use me as an example. When my gut was really off, and I was going keto and using cannabis daily, and it was helping, would my hormone levels be better in that situation or would my hormone levels be better

Starting point is 00:26:49 if I just focused on eating carbs and not using cannabis and letting my gut health go to shit? See what I'm saying? Good health is what kept me where I wanted to go. Now that my health was good and I didn't need to use those tools anymore. Now I can remove them, change things up, and now I'm in a more optimal state, but good health is number one,

Starting point is 00:27:10 because that's gonna give you the best. Along those lines, and this is a, it's funny that we're doing this competition, we're back in this place again. I now feel like I'm all sudden this protein powder advocate again. I'm back on, I'm back on to drinking the organifi protein, and here's the deal, like I just, when I track and I pay attention to what I'm eating, naturally, I have a hard time

Starting point is 00:27:32 consistently getting protein into my diet. I just, and maybe that's because as a kid, I just gravitated to carbohydrates my whole life and it's not that I don't crave meat. It's just that I'm a, you're aiming for 200 grams. Yeah, I mean, I'm a 218 pound guy, I swear I don't crave meat. It's just that I'm a, you're aiming for 200 grams. Yeah, I'm a 218 pound guy. I throw them weighing right now.

Starting point is 00:27:49 And my lean mass is probably somewhere around 180 plus pounds of lean body mass. And that's a decent amount of protein you gotta get. For so and so, and if you're only eating three times, maybe four times in a day, we'll do the math. Divide that up. Those are solid proteins. It's like 60, 50 to 60 grams of protein.

Starting point is 00:28:07 Right. Which is more than a six ounce chicken breast. So think about that. And then if that's a good day, right? A good day would be every meal has a good portion of 40 to 50 grams. Well, what's a day where I don't? What is a day where I just had to intermittent fast?

Starting point is 00:28:20 What's a day, and those days start to add up for me. What are you averaging? How many shakes are you doing? Like one shake a day, two with a day, and those days start to add up. What are you averaging? How many shakes are you doing like one shake a day, two shakes a day? Yesterday was the first day I didn't do one in a while, but I've been consistently probably having a shake every day right now. Like 20 grams or 40 grams of protein?

Starting point is 00:28:36 Well, closer to 40 because I'm adding the three egg yolks into it. So I do the organifive vanilla, and then I do the right now spinach, blueberries, banana, and then the three egg yolks. That's like become, that's been a staple post workout. Shake for me. Now totally honest, you are a way protein guy for a long time now using the organophile,

Starting point is 00:28:57 consistently digestion wise. That's what's different. So I notice I don't hold as much water. Way worked fine for me and I still have my way protein. And I haven't been using it lately because this shake I like right now and it's working well for me. But I've said on the show before that I've used way before. And I still intermittently use it.

Starting point is 00:29:16 I haven't been lately. And the biggest difference that I notice from the organa 5 versus the way is I don't have a bloat afterwards a little bit. I had my stomach sits. I don't have the farts or gas. I noticed that because sometimes I can get gassy after drinking a lot of protein shakes. That's important. Yeah, these are just little things, right? And those things I didn't spare the air.

Starting point is 00:29:36 I didn't notice that before. These aren't things that I really paid attention to. I just thought that's part of the game, right? If you're a bodybuilder, you lift a lot of weights, you lift a lot of protein, you just fart all the time. It's like, well, I notice a big difference if I'm doing a lot of wave versus if I'm just doing like the organify protein shake.

Starting point is 00:29:50 You know the worst of those, the egg protein farts. Oh my God, you ever use, oh, egg protein powder? Oh yeah. That is like, I think maybe because it's high in sulfur. Yeah, it must be. But you, first of all, that's what Craig was eating. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:03 Oh yeah. Bro, you fart out. I don't know. He destroyed us Oh, you're at the, bro, you fought out. I never, you destroyed us. That may have been the nastiest part of the world. Forever remember that. I will. They're like, peeled the paint off the walls. There's not many farts that you like remember for years.

Starting point is 00:30:15 Like that's like two years ago. It's a memorable part. Yes, dude. We were in the suite and the motherfucker cleared the suite, dude. You know what I reminded me? It almost fell, maybe this is an illusion, but it felt thick. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:28 Like you could comb it out of the way. It was moving my arm and like this. I could almost see where it is. Oh, there it is. It looks strong. It was just lingering. Speaking of supplements and health and all that stuff, if I, I keep, do you guys get messages on SARMS?

Starting point is 00:30:43 Dude, all the time so popular It's maybe it's up there with the top three things that I get in my DMs is SARMS and steroids stacks and asking me about it and dude. I'm there's the appeal in comparison to like I Here's here's what I remember okay, and this is where I'm patient because I get I get furious like you do too and frustrated or whatever But then I the patient side of me is I also remember being a 19 year old boy trying to find whatever's out there and then also a scared of steroids, because I've heard steroids is a needle.

Starting point is 00:31:15 Sort of like a stepping stone to that. Right, and thinking that like that, like steroids are so bad, I don't wanna do steroids, but if there's something on the market that's like, it's close to steroids as possible, that's a pill or something that I can get that's not quite illegal Then in my head, I'm justifying that's okay. And so I so I think I understand where a lot of these people are thinking I do too. Here's why I'm furious I'm not furious with people asking me questions

Starting point is 00:31:37 Mm-hmm. The fury that I feel is because people in our space responsible Fitness health wellness people in our space, responsible, fitness, health, wellness people in our space. They're the fucking ones that are telling people, it's this, yeah, check it out. It's this experimental thing and the side that's got little side effects. What the fuck are you doing?

Starting point is 00:31:58 What do you know that? What the fuck are you doing? First off, okay, so here's a deal. I'm gonna give a little breakdown on Sarm. I just did a post on Instagram about it, because I was getting really mad, because I get people messaging me who are telling me, hey man, what do you think of this Sarm?

Starting point is 00:32:10 And how about if I take this much, you know, whatever? Sarm's, first of all, Sarm is an acronym, and it stands for selective androgen receptor modulator. So it's similar to a Sarm, which is a selective estrogen receptor modulator. Those are chemicals that attach to the estrogen receptor and block it. And women will, you know, they'll give them to women who have like breast cancer or sometimes bodybuilder will take them because they're getting elevated levels of estrogen, where they're taking testosterone.

Starting point is 00:32:39 But what a Serm aims to do is it aims to attach to the Androgen receptor. The Androgen receptors are the same receptors that testosterone attaches to. Now, what are these receptors responsible for? Well, they're responsible for masculine-izing effects. So masculine-izing means making you more masculine, okay? So body hair, facial hair, lowered voice, oily skin, you know, that kind of stuff, okay? So obviously if you're a woman, you don't wanna stimulate these too much

Starting point is 00:33:08 because you'll start to become more male. And if you're a guy and you go hard with the energy, don't make out with your boyfriend that could potentially be taking you to. Yeah, of course, thank you. Just to get banned from profit is thingy. But if you're a male, you don't wanna go crazy with the Androgen receptors and masculine

Starting point is 00:33:26 adhesion, because then you can lose your hair and have enlarged prostate. Like all the male things that tend to happen with men. So anyway, besides that, the Androgen receptors also build muscle and burn body fat and make you stronger. This is why men, one reason why men are stronger than women. We just have hormones that activate these receptors more than them. And so we have all these, you know, on top of the masculineizing effects, we have all the same stuff.

Starting point is 00:33:50 Now, so arms are chemicals that drug companies have been trying, because for a long time, drug companies have been trying to figure out the problem of testosterone. The problem is this, if we give testosterone to a cancer patient or to someone with osteoporosis or somebody with a degenerative disease, they tend to feel better because testosterone builds muscle, makes them stronger and all these other things. The problem is you get the masculinizing effects with it as well. So you don't want to give a female cancer patient steroids to make a build muscle and feel better in a way. So it becomes more male.

Starting point is 00:34:22 Is this the main reason why serums are even on the market or the testing is there. They're trying to figure out a solution for women that. So they're trying to find a solution that it gives you all the good effects without the mask-and-lizing effects. So they're trying to give you like, okay, let's create a chemical that'll build muscle, strengthen bones, make you feel better, burn body fat,

Starting point is 00:34:44 but also don't cause these mask-and of the grow balls. Yeah, and also Doesn't lower testosterone because when you take testosterone your body identifies it and It starts to reduce its own production of testosterone. So that's why you you know guys on steroids We'll get their balls will shrink or whatever it's because their body start producing less testosterone taking over its job. Yeah, so what they're trying to do with storms is okay, can we get the good effects without any negative effects. Now, here's a deal with them. These have very little science behind them. They're not anywhere near FDA approval.

Starting point is 00:35:19 So they're in this kind of animal study stage. Some of these storms, one in particular, what's the company, Glaxo Smith Klein, I think, the big pharma company, was testing one of these, dropped it. Many of these charms were dropped by pharma companies, by the way.

Starting point is 00:35:36 So they were being tested, you can actually find literature. This is how a lot of these gray market drugs get introduced, is these keyboard scientists will go through and look at chemicals that were tested, drugs get introduced. Is these, you know, keyboard scientists will go through and look at chemicals that were tested but then dropped. And then they'll say, oh cool, we'll make this chemical and sell it because it's not technically illegal.

Starting point is 00:35:52 Well, let me tell you something. If a big pharma company drops it, drops a drug, because they definitely don't have the best reputation when it comes to integrity or safety. Now, quality control is like an afterthought. I mean, one of them, you know, when it comes to integrity or safety. Quality control is like an afterthought. I mean, one of them, you know, GlaxoSmithCline saw that it was giving animals cancer.

Starting point is 00:36:10 So they're like, we're not gonna go further. But of course, you know, the gray market picks it up and it's marketing it now to other people. So these things have very little study and the amounts that are being used in the studies are way less than the amounts that people are recommending that humans use, way less. Because if you use the small amounts that they show

Starting point is 00:36:29 in studies, guys, here's what happens. They're weak. People leave storms and they'll gain like a pound of muscle, maybe, and this is with higher doses. Some guys will gain four pounds of muscle with these super high doses, but on top of it, some weird shit's starting to happen. You're getting reports of liver toxicity,

Starting point is 00:36:46 strokes, you're getting, you know, eyesight, issues are having, people are having issues with their eyes. I don't know how five pounds worth, why would you do that? Why would you do that? Everyone would mess with your eyes. But here's the deal, maybe they are safe or not.

Starting point is 00:36:59 We don't know, it's a, there's not a lot of stuff behind it, it's a new fucking chemical that you're ingesting. And here's the best part. So there was an investigative report that was done. There was an article in the New York Times, I just read. And they just did an investigative report. And they tested, I think, 40 over-the-counter gray market

Starting point is 00:37:19 farms and found that half of them had way less than they said they did and 10 out of the 40 didn't have any charms at all and some of them had other hormones and shit in them. Wow, man. Yeah, so at a 40, at a 40 half were off completely. Some had nothing and some had other shit in them. Because this is, again, this is a gray market for these products. There is not only, there's no regulation, but there's also, it's a new market.

Starting point is 00:37:52 So you don't have a lot of user feedback. Right. There's a lot of forums that are like, you know, being real descriptive about the areas. How do you test them? You know, how do you test them to see what's in them? So you're basically trusting these companies who aren't even selling supplements. These companies are selling SARMS as research chemicals. That's the game.

Starting point is 00:38:14 Here's how I've been, I feel about this. It's like, if I'm gonna put a chemical in my body, like I'm gonna use something like testosterone. I mean, we've got guys that are 80, 90 years old that are fucking taking testosterone. We've got guys that are 80, 90 years old that are fucking taking testosterone. We've got guys that have been doing it for 50 years consistently taking testosterone. Like, there's people that it's been around for a long

Starting point is 00:38:32 we've got tons of studies. We know what testosterone does and what it doesn't do. Right. You know? There's so much more research around that that I, if I'm gonna take the step of putting some sort of a chemical or something synthetic into my body to make myself bigger and stronger, I just feel so much more comfortable with

Starting point is 00:38:52 something that's been around for a long time. Dude, it makes me angry. It's a reminder. It reminds me of the BPC157. That's another research chemical. Now I had, I got convinced that, okay, maybe I'll try it and I, you know, all these people that I trusted. Yeah, all these people I trusted all this then,

Starting point is 00:39:11 the other it's safe, there's no side effects, whatever. I used it for about five days, and I'm very sensitive to things. I pay attention to how my body feels, and all you guys know I'm the intuitive eater and all that stuff. And I started to feel a little bit like flat, a little down. I was like, what the fuck's going on? This is kind of weird. And I started to feel a little bit like flat, a little down.

Starting point is 00:39:25 I was like, what the fuck's going on? This is kind of weird. Is it the beefy senior mood? Yeah, so I do some my own research and I dig real deep. And I find that, oh, BPC157 affects the dopamine and serotonin systems of the body. Well, that's fucking nice. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:39:42 So again, this is like one of the, they my bad, you know what I mean? My So again, this is like one of my bad, you know what I mean, my bad for messing with something without, so when it comes to this gray market, it's like, and here again, you're gonna take a charm, you're gonna get the same effects you're gonna get from Cray team, you know, if you wanna go that route, fucking take steroids, not being a pussy, go take some steroids.

Starting point is 00:40:00 You know what I'm saying? You're gonna be great, that was what you were saying. You're not supposed to say that. But you get what I'm saying, right? I'm not telling people. No, I'm not telling people to tell people. I'm not telling people to tell people. No, I agree.

Starting point is 00:40:12 This is what I'm saying to people in my DMs. When they message me this stuff all the time, I'm getting messages constantly about serums. And I'm like, listen, I'm not, to each their own, it's your body, do what you want with it personally myself. If I'm even contemplating taking something to enhance my muscle building advantage, I'm gonna take testosterone.

Starting point is 00:40:31 It's just, I'll just take a lower dose of it. You know what I'm saying? I'll just take a 200 milligrams of it. We have stuff to show that 200 milligrams of testosterone, every four, I mean, you have doctors prescribing that right now to people. I feel really comfortable taking something like that. Plus it's been around for a long time, of testosterone every four, I mean, you have doctors prescribing that right now to people. I feel really comfortable taking something like that.

Starting point is 00:40:47 Plus it's been around for a long time and it's a hormone that your body makes. Like a sarm is a chemical. You have more knowledge of the risk versus reward. You know, and that's a decision you can make as a adult. It's just that these people, like they're experimenting with things that don't have that kind of data behind it. So it's like, you may be just doing your body nothing but harm right away.

Starting point is 00:41:08 Plus the data, even if there is data, it's not that long. Do you know how often drugs are taken off the market? Yeah, now keepers later. The long-term effects. Yeah, keep in mind the FDA, the American FDA, the American drug approval process, is the most extensive and expensive in the world.

Starting point is 00:41:28 It costs a hundred, something like, I don't know how many, like a hundred million dollars to go from creating a drug to getting it finally on the market because of all the tests. And even with all that rigorous, whatever, regulation, all that stuff, we still have drugs that were like, oh, we've been doing this for five years, but now it looks like it also causes dementia

Starting point is 00:41:49 or it causes heart valve problems or other weird shit that's going on. We get drugs taken off the market all the time. Sarms had even made it to that point. Yeah, they even got to that point. And people are experimenting. And the problem is that people are counting on their friends. They're like, oh, he took it and he looks okay.

Starting point is 00:42:04 Well, yeah, I know smokers will look okay too. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right, right. Yeah, I don't recommend it. And if you're in the fitness and health and wellness industry and you're like. Air responsible. And you're promoting sores.

Starting point is 00:42:15 I agree. Come on, man. Maybe like, you know, you just tell people you're experimenting on yourself. You don't recommend it. Right. I don't think, I mean, here's the thing. Like, I took the BP157 from my Achilles and I had an incredible experience with it. So I, and now I'm not out there promoting it

Starting point is 00:42:30 and telling people they should take it by any means, whatsoever. This was my choice. I know the rest that I'm taking and where I was at with my Achilles. And my Achilles feels a million times better than what it did before I had taken it. So I was a fan of it for those reasons.

Starting point is 00:42:44 Now could it actually affected my serotonin levels? Like maybe it did before I had taken it. So I was a fan of it for those reasons. Now could it actually affected my serotonin levels? Like maybe it did, but for the trade-off for me, how debilitating my Achilles was, it was worth the risk for me. And it's my body, so I'm gonna fucking do something like that. But at the same time too, I'm not out there telling people that this is all, you gotta try this, it works so well. Plus, it's the week anyway. Like, I guess I said, I know a lot of people

Starting point is 00:43:08 who've taken sohru. They're not new, they've been around for a while. And people are gaining, you know, three to five pounds of muscle, I'm taking high doses of something. Oh, and by the way, it shuts down your testosterone too. That's the other point. At the doses that people are using, you will shut down your testosterone.

Starting point is 00:43:25 So let's look at the facts here. You barely gain any muscle, you're shutting down your testosterone, and you don't know the safety profile of it. I don't understand why a person in that situation doesn't just go take antibiotics steroids. You're gonna shut your testosterone down anyway. You already know what the side effects are.

Starting point is 00:43:40 Reminds me of what goes with the real thing. It's what I told you. And you're gonna gain more muscle. It's the needle part, right? The irony irony is it's better for you for that exact reason right that it's injectable so I but I I remember being a 18 19 year old kid getting into lifting willing to take almost any pill over the counter to try and build muscle not thinking about the consequences but I wouldn't touch steroids because that just seemed like a dirty bad drug and that's just the education around it you know know, which I think we're evolving, we're

Starting point is 00:44:07 getting better. I think there's more conversation. There's more people that are openly sharing about steroids and talking about anabolic and things like that. And where I'm at with it is I always tell people that, you know, going back over again, I wish I wouldn't have done that because of all the health problems and issues that it's caused me down the road. But that's neither here nor there.

Starting point is 00:44:25 I definitely, if I'm debating doing a Sarm or testosterone at this moment, 100% I'm doing testosterone. Not even a question, like it's just because we know it's safe. You know, it's using them too a lot. It's getting popular on the female competitive, you know, among female competitors,

Starting point is 00:44:42 because of the promises that it's gonna build muscle without... With the masculine. Without mask analyzing yourself. Here's a deal, women. You don't wanna stimulate your Androgen receptors with chemicals. That's like a man stimulating his estrogen receptors with chemicals.

Starting point is 00:45:00 That's what makes, if you're a female and you wanna get a sex change, that's what they do. They give you hormones that stimulate your endrogen receptors. And so, even those psalms promise that not whatever, at those doses and all that stuff, you're gonna get some of those effects. And, you know, you start to throw your hormones off.

Starting point is 00:45:17 That sucks. That sucks coming out of that. That's the talk to anybody. You've heard Adam talk about his ordeal with coming off testosterone. Like, I know women who did cycles of low low low doses of anabolic steroids like anavar Which they're you know they're told low doses will say and I know how they felt

Starting point is 00:45:38 Through them all over the place, you know, so I was worst feeling ever. Yeah, I don't for sure I don't recommend it to anybody This quads brought to you by organify For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition, Organify fills the gap with laboratory-tested certified organic superfoods to help give your health a performance-the-edit edge. Try Organify totally risk-free for 60 days by going to Organify.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com and use a coupon code mind pump for 20% off at checkout All right, a first question is from mr. Fricky

Starting point is 00:46:10 How do you strike a balance between listening to your body signals to avoid burnout and injury while still pushing yourself hard enough to grow? Mm-hmm. That's a good question. Fricky fricky. I made that maybe the the question forever. I'll ask myself I don't know. I don't know if we ever truly truly master master this, you know, I think that you know, well pushing yourself is not balanced. That's the difference. Right. Right. And I think Dr. Andy Galpin talks about this a lot and we've quoted him many times on that you're either optimizing or you're adapting. And if you're optimizing, you're trying to have more balance and that's your focus and when you're trying to adapt, you're pushing your body and stressing it and trying to cause it to adapt. So

Starting point is 00:46:58 you're constantly flirting with being in and out of that. And I think that you have to understand it. I think, and both are actually necessary for health. Yeah, for good health. Yeah, no. And so I had this talk with Enzo, right? So he did this incredible weight loss journey, and he's been a mind-pumplist and a for a long time, and it follows all the mass programs, and he looks phenomenal.

Starting point is 00:47:23 And he's really struggling kind of breaking this plateau. And I've been with him quite a few times when he's worked out and what I've noticed is that he's just like kind of following the maths program to a tee and he's just kind of doing the weights that he's kind of always done. And I mean, he can sit there and talk to me, he's texting on his phone,

Starting point is 00:47:41 and I'm like, you know the reason why you're struggling with seeing gains is you're not kind of incrementally stretching yourself. I said, you really need to start to stretch yourself a little bit and don't take that advice and go overboard the other way and go kill yourself. Just every workout, kind of try and take it up a tiny bit more than what you did previously.

Starting point is 00:48:02 And that's what will force your body to adapt, grow, and respond. And I think that's just it is, is we're always trying to do that without doing it too much. And it's inevitable you're going to overreach sometimes. I just had this on the show recently where I talked about, I knew I knew I was stretching myself on my back routine. I knew I overreached a little bit, and I fucking paid for it. You know what I'm saying? And it set me back three or four days, and that's a lesson of, oh, you know, fucking,

Starting point is 00:48:30 that's what I get. And I know I'm in the middle of a six week competition right now, so I already know myself. I'm more than likely going to overreach that I am to underperform right now because I'm competitive, you know. If we weren't doing that, I probably would have stopped, you know, three or four sets earlier or pulled off 10 pounds and not really stressed it that much.

Starting point is 00:48:51 And so, yeah. And I think too, with your average person, what, I mean, what we always try and focus on is like, how can we, how can we address these things with like your average person? What are they, what are they experiencing? And I think the hardest thing initially is to get to that place of homeostasis. What does that even look like? What, where am I in terms of like

Starting point is 00:49:11 where I'm sort of at a maintenance level, I've been super consistent, you know, like so that way now going forward, I know, you know, just by doing one incremental thing, it's gonna affect my body in a certain way, and I can pay attention to that, versus just sort of randomly doing things, like, and introducing things,

Starting point is 00:49:31 you never really have that baseline established, so that way, I can, I can do certain exercises with certain intensity, and I know that it's gonna either be, at this level or, you know, at two higher levels. So that's a great point. I like to look at the balance and the health and the intuitive eating and all that stuff

Starting point is 00:49:55 as home base. You know, I mean, that's where I like to know my home base is at. Now from there, I will move out of home base and I'll push myself to do different things like maybe I want to get stronger Because I enjoy working out and enjoy challenging myself, right? So maybe I want to hit a new PR in my squad or my bench press or my deadlift or maybe I want to build a little bit more muscle Or maybe I want to get little leaner because you know the summertime is coming up or because I have this contest right now Maybe I want to increase my endurance. I always move from that home base. The other thing, too, you want to consider is that when it comes to balancing your body

Starting point is 00:50:32 out and feeling healthy, you have to consider all stress, all stresses in your body. It's not just your training that you need to consider. It's also your sleep, your lifestyle, your work, your relationships. All these things are things you need to take into consideration. So when you're looking at balance, look at the whole picture and use exercise and fitness as a tool to balance your body out. What do I mean by that?

Starting point is 00:50:59 Well, if I'm in a state of high stress, let's say I'm at work is just insane. I'm working 12, 13 hours a day. Maybe I have kids. Maybe my life, my home life is very stressful. I'm not getting good sleep. Well, I'm gonna use exercises a way to take stress off my body.

Starting point is 00:51:17 I may do more mobility and stretching work go through the motions, make myself feel better. Let's say the rest of my life is ideal. I'm getting good sleep, work is great, relationships are great, I feel good. Now I can apply more stress on my workout and also strike that balance. But at the end of the day when you have that home base, it's a great place to know you can be as you move out from it. Like I'll give you some examples. Competitors are notorious for not having a balanced home base.

Starting point is 00:51:48 They don't even know what the fuck that looks like. They're either... Oh, or nothing. Yeah, they're pre-contests or off season. And the difference between a pre-contest bikini competitor, physique competitor, body builder, average, not all of them. Some of them are really, really good.

Starting point is 00:52:02 But the average one, the difference between the way they look and their health and their lifestyle, it's like two different human beings. I know female bikini competitors who, the difference between contest and off contest is like 40 pounds. I'm gonna talk about small girls. I know guys where it's even worse.

Starting point is 00:52:19 You know, some of the old school bodybuilders were notorious, so I know Lee Priest would get, he's a show-on-body, he'd have to lose a hundred pounds to get into contest. He had no healthy base. It was two extremes. It was two unhealthy situations. Both of them high stress on the body. See what I'm saying? Both of them not good for the body. This is what I always thought I was a major advantage to the way I train doing in during the competing time. And with my peers is I would watch them all do this.

Starting point is 00:52:48 And I had the ability to come out of a show, get right back to my home base, kind of reset, gather myself, make sure I'm cool and then get good back into prep and never allowed myself to swing really far out of range. And I was just watching a YouTube video with what's his name, Paul Rivera, which is Lane Norton's buddy who talks about nutrition a lot and he's a natural competitor. And he talks a lot about this with these competitors with these huge gains in the off season,

Starting point is 00:53:17 like, you know, they're trying to build and so they try and add 20. And they used to, and I was the same way too. Like, and he talks about this. Like, I was exact same way. I used to just care about the scale just putting weight on. Man, I see that. You're so focused on that, but then you don't realize that when you add 20 pounds of weight and you want to get lean, and in order to get lean, you need to be in this deficit, and to lose a lot of that fat that you put on with the muscle, you've got to be in this calorie deficit for a long period of time.

Starting point is 00:53:41 And it's inevitable. Your body's going to adapt, and you you will lose muscle and there's a good chance You're gonna lose a good chunk if not almost all of what you fucking put on That's what's crazy is and I would see this with the competitors and it was it's so obvious to me and so and this is I'm over generalizing because not all competitors this way I mean, I know I gave kudos to and I know we tease Jeremy Blandio a lot But one of the things I've I've give credit to him is, I have seen his physique progress year over year over year.

Starting point is 00:54:09 And to me, that's, that you're doing something right when you have this ability to progress like that. And it's very obvious to me when these athletes don't progress and that there's something wrong in their programming and their nutrition. And that's because they're doing the same thing. They're just, they're on, they're off, they're off. That's why they're doing these like 16 week prep.

Starting point is 00:54:28 Right. And these insane low calories. And then they get this insane. Like this is for real now. I'm not making this up. I know competitors, female competitors will gain 15 to 20 pounds in the week after a contest. That is an insane bodyweight rebound.

Starting point is 00:54:45 And now we have science to support that. Not only are there fat cells growing, but they're adding fat cells because of the crazy contrast. Making it more difficult each time they go through that process. I know guys that will gain 30 pounds in that same period of time.

Starting point is 00:55:00 And that's just insane to me. One thing about that. And they're making it so difficult. Oh, and one thing about you, Adam, that I enjoyed watching the few times I saw you compete was your preps were short and you would sharpen up. That was it. It wasn't like you were fat and then you got shredded.

Starting point is 00:55:16 Like you were lean and then you got sharp. And because you had a good understanding of where that kind of home base needs to be. So it's not about trading the two out. The way I look at it is most of the time, most of your life, you should be in this really healthy state of balance, of homeostasis, of intuitive eating, of training to feel good, of taking care of your body.

Starting point is 00:55:40 That's how you should be most of time. But you should definitely push your body sometimes and have a good time with it and just know that, now that I'm done pushing my is what I do right now I do that I didn't do this before I used to gain 30 pounds every winter no joke I get my body weight as high as 220 to 30 back in the day and then I cut all the way down to 190 It was this ridiculous thing that I would do every year now what I do now is I push my body To you know add 15 pounds on a lift or whatever, or maybe I'll gain

Starting point is 00:56:07 seven or eight pounds on the scale. I have accomplished now what I wanted to do. And then I'll pull back and see where my body falls when it's in balance. And so far, and now I'm older, so I don't think I'm not gonna progress like I did before. But when I started using this strategy, each time I come down to my balance, I'd end up a little bit better than I did before, but when I started using this strategy, each time I come down to my balance,

Starting point is 00:56:25 I'd end up a little bit better than I did before. It wasn't this crazy, huge swing where I had to do, you know, 16 weeks of dieting, or force feeding myself insane amount of food. I mean, I used to force feed myself 6,000 calories, so much food. There's no way I'm pretty sure I played a role in some of the good issues that I have now,

Starting point is 00:56:44 but yeah, that's really the key there is find your balance and then move from there and don't go. Yeah, move in and out of it. That's it. You're encouraged to move. If you're going to adapt and grow, you've got to move out of your balancing comfort zone. That's optimizing.

Starting point is 00:56:58 Balance is optimizing, stretching yourself, and re-overreaching a little bit, is you're adapting and growing. And you just, you want to minimize that. You don't, people do too much as they, ah, you know, I want to grow. So it's tons of calories, training, hell of heart, and it's everything they got towards that. You just, it's this kind of ebb and flow thing where it's, hey, you know, I, I, I would

Starting point is 00:57:19 like to, I think everybody needs to practice. And this is why too, I used to rant about the, you know, you have a lot of people have no business competing until they've learned how to control their body weight and put themselves in a healthy, low body fat percentage that they can maintain without even really trying that hard. You should be in that place before you start competitively going one extreme or the other extreme.

Starting point is 00:57:41 So it's the same thing goes for this average person, like before you start pressing hard to grow, you need to find what homeostasis, like Justin said, looks like, and then, you know, be able to throw a variable in there, like, hey, I'm going to add 500 calories, and I'm going to increase my volume by 5,000 pounds a week over the next three weeks. And let's see what my body does, you know, and then pull back from there and then add more, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's what it should look like. And you did mention the scale.

Starting point is 00:58:05 I think that's a good point too, with the scale. The scale is really it lies to you. Okay. That is it. I used to watch the scale. And if it went up and wait, well, I'm doing a great job.

Starting point is 00:58:14 Yeah. But there's a lot of things that can add weight on the scale. The same thing for losing weight. At the beginning of the episode, we talked about Katrina losing two pounds and actually going up a body fat percentage. Like the scale is such a general signal, you gotta look at other things.

Starting point is 00:58:29 And just, look, here's a bottom line. I could cut off your arm and you would lose weight on the scale. You see what I'm saying? And it's funny, I used to play games. I don't know if you did this at them because I know you were always trying to game too. I would weigh myself after eating a big meal.

Starting point is 00:58:41 Of course. I would not weigh myself first thing in the morning because I wanted to make sure that the scale would go up. You want to load it. It's so funny how you mess with your mind. Next question is from lemon based drop. What's a good indicator that you've built up enough strength

Starting point is 00:58:55 to start cutting calories to lose fat? So I think what they mean is, what's a good indicator that you're in a good position to start cutting calories? Like your metabolism is built up enough. I really like this question because this is kind of the dilemma that I was in before we decided to do this competition.

Starting point is 00:59:15 I was really excited for us to do this because it added focus for me and more motivation than I already had to get healthier and get better. Now the challenge with that is that I am so competitive, I wanna win so much that I'm constantly having this mental battle of what I should do for my body and what I wanna do to try and win, right?

Starting point is 00:59:34 And I knew damn well going into this competition between all of us that I am not in the position to, you know, like Sal was saying earlier, just sharpen up and get lean. Because normally what I do in a position to, you know, like Sal was saying earlier, just sharpen up and get lean. Because normally what I do in a prep is I am in a very healthy place with my metabolism, with my hormones. Well, I'm taking synthetic normally when I'm competing. So of course they're flying, they're good.

Starting point is 00:59:56 And I go, okay, I'm at X amount of calories, which I'm, for me, I could easily be eating 4500 to 5,000 calories before I decided to cut. I'm in a great place. I have a lot of room to reduce calories up or down or add cardio or whatever I wanted to do. And I'm in a very healthy place. I'm not there yet. I mean, a good day of eating for me right now, like a high calorie day is like 3,200, maybe 3,400 calories. And any more than that, and I start to put on some body fat.

Starting point is 01:00:28 So my metabolism is not roaring. Now there's a lot of factors that come into play there. My lean body mass has significantly been reduced since then. My keelies issue and my mobility, my movement, I'm not moving as much, I'm not burning as many calories. So I have a lot of things that are going on, but in a perfect world, you know, even in this, in this competition, like you don't see me cutting. I'm not trying to aggressively cut just to win this competition with these guys.

Starting point is 01:00:53 I'm still trying to build and cut, build and cut at kind of the same time, because I'm ultimately trying to make sure that my health is in the right position. So kind of going back to the first question about, you know, finding what homeostasis is for you or what that balance looks like. Well, I know for me, like, the amount of calories I like to eat that's sustainable for me is about 4,000. That gives me lots of room to have a burger every once in a while. It gives me the ability to where I don't have to be like, penny-pinching my calories or cutting things or being really stingy about my proportions, I can eat very comfortably in that calorie range. It fuels my body properly, I have good workouts.

Starting point is 01:01:31 So that's kind of where I'd like to be. So the fact that I'm only at about 3,234 tells me that I'm really not in the right place to start cutting calories to lean out. Now I'm trying to flirt with that a little bit because of this competition, so I'm having a few days. So what I'll do is I'll run a few low days at like 2500 calories, which is really low for me. In fact, that was the lowest I ever saw during competing days.

Starting point is 01:01:56 That would be like for one day I would give myself a 2500 calorie day at the very end of a competition. So where I'm at right now, I wouldn't recommend to me if I was coaching me to go cut. I would be telling me, Adam, you still need to be reverse dieting, you still need to be building muscle. Let's continue to build up that that Mattel was now. What that means to you is gonna be different, right? So where, when I think you're ready to be cut,

Starting point is 01:02:22 and this is how I used to coach Melissa when she was asking me the same question, well coach, when is it you're ready to be cut, and this is how I used to coach Melissa, when she was asking me the same question, well, coach, when is it time for us to come back the other way and start shredding? You keep adding calories, you keep telling me to do this, you keep doing it, whenever you're gonna start to lean out, get ripped. I said, my goal for you is to keep feeding you

Starting point is 01:02:38 to a get to a point where you finally look back at me and you say, Adam, that's a lot of food. I can eat this, it's just a lot. It's becoming, when it becomes inconvenient to get the amount of calories that your body needs to sustain your weight, you're in a very good place. So start to go the other way. It's, that's your body naturally saying, hey, we got plenty of food.

Starting point is 01:02:58 It's hard to get all the food I need to get just to sustain this weight. Now it's very natural for me to say, okay, now pull back. And then I would just tell her, okay, now just cut one of those meals out. And then we just fucking drop. And it's and she's comfortable because she's not stuffing herself to get there.

Starting point is 01:03:13 She's still eating a substantial amount of calories and her body is just responding. Yeah, because a little rule of thumb and just to put it differently, the same exact thing that Adam's saying, is I'll tell people, where would you like your calories to be when you're maintaining your body? Right, right, right.

Starting point is 01:03:31 So if you're a woman and you're saying, well, I'd like to, I think I'd be okay eating about 1,800 calories a day, every day for the rest of my life, I think I could maintain that. It's a decent amount of food. It's not too much, it's not too little. I would love to be able to maintain at 1800 calories.

Starting point is 01:03:48 Well then what I'm gonna do with that person is I'm gonna say, okay, well the goal then is to get your metabolism to a point where you can, you're burning off, you know, six, seven, eight hundred more calories in that. Because then when you cut, you're gonna cut down to that number. So the goal is, you wanna be able to cut down.

Starting point is 01:04:03 You can't side that a bit. Yeah, you wanna cut down to that number. So the goal is you want to be able to cut down. Yeah, you want to cut down to a number that you feel you can maintain at long for a long time. You don't want to cut down to a number that's hard to stay at. So if you're, again, if you're the same female and you're losing weight and getting lean, but you're eating 1100 calories, well, guess what you're going to have to eat to keep that off? About 1100 calories. Well, I've got the same issue with another client friend of mine who is also an ex-competitor, and she's currently at, you know,

Starting point is 01:04:31 1800 calories, and she wants to lose a good 30, 40 pounds. And she's like begging me to give her the green light to cut and go the other direction. And I just, I'm not okay. I'll show go down to 1200 or 300. Yeah, because I know, I'm like, yeah, we can drop to 12, 1300 calories and I could shred you off another 10, 15 pounds real quick, but to keep that off,

Starting point is 01:04:53 now you gotta maintain 1200 calories. Like who the fuck wants to live like that? So that's perfectly fine. That's exactly, and that's why this advice is different per person and that only you can make that decision on where you want to be. Absolutely, I could throttle down right now to try and accelerate my fat loss, to try and edge out, sell, or just in the body fat reduction right now by reducing my calories, reducing

Starting point is 01:05:15 my calories, reducing my calories. But then I'm going to end up in a place where I'm at like fucking 1800 calories and like, fuck you, I don't want to live there. Like, we know what the other end of that looks like. Yeah, I'm not gonna maintain that for a long time. What I'd like to do is continue to reverse diet, build myself up to where I'm pushing myself at like 4,500 calories, 4,000, somewhere around that range.

Starting point is 01:05:37 So then when I cut back to like 3,500 and 3,000, that's a very easy place for me to kind of maintain and be healthy. So that's a very easy place for me to kind of maintain and be healthy. So that's how you make that decision. And most cuts, most times, you know, when you cut someone's calories, it's typically between three to 600 calories a day. So average, four, 500 calories.

Starting point is 01:05:55 So think about it that way. Like you might want to get at least 500 calories over where you want to maintain to keep your body weight. And that's another great point. That brings me back to what I was saying about how I like to really get up to like 5,000 because that gave me that flexibility to push harder. Somebody who eats 5,000 calories,

Starting point is 01:06:15 dropping to 4,000, and a big deal. Because 4,000 is still, I'm hitting all my mad. And this takes time, it's important people know this, by the way, we got to communicate that. This takes time. If you've gone through a year or longer of cycling In this takes time, it's important people know this, by the way, we got to communicate that. This takes time. If you've gone through a year or longer of cycling through diets or low calories, you got to give yourself, I've had people I've had to work with for a year, a full year before

Starting point is 01:06:36 I decided, okay, now we can start to cut your calories. So this may take some fucking time if you've got some, quote unquote, damage going on with your body. So just make friends with the fact that, okay, this can take a little while, because you don't want it, otherwise you're kicking the can down the road. You're gonna stay where you're at, and you're gonna be in one of these situations where for the next five to 10 years,

Starting point is 01:06:57 you're constantly fighting to lose that last 10 pounds, and you're barely eating any food. It's kind of a shitty place to get in. Well, a lot of these arbitrary numbers that we're throwing around, too, comes from, you know, the individuals, RDAs, for all these macro and micronutrients. So think about this for a second, and a lot of people have not even ever done this before, which I have.

Starting point is 01:07:14 And that's where this all came from and how I started to figure it out for myself is, you know, go through all your, and RDAs, you're recommended daily allowance, right? So what you should be taking in for these macro and micro nutrients and start to look at all those. And if the calorie number that you're at doesn't sufficiently give you enough nutrients that your body needs, and we'll just use the basic ones like protein and fat right now, like proteins and fats have calories in them. If you're at a certain body weight and size, muscle mass,

Starting point is 01:07:46 your body needs X amount of protein and should be eating X amount of fat to sustain that body. And if you're having to eat significantly less than that just to lose some weight, you're not in a good place. You wanna be like, sour saying, you wanna be in a place that I can reduce my calories

Starting point is 01:08:03 and I could still hit what my nutrient targets are. So my body's being fed and is healthy and is getting what it needs instead of being a super deprived place in a very low calorie, low nutrient deficient. You're just asking for your body to say fuck you. Hey, real quick guys, I do want to remind you that this month, all month long, MAPS performance is 50% off. You got to use the code green50, GRE and the number 50, no spaces. Just go to mindpumpmedia.com.

Starting point is 01:08:34 Next question is from Camlil Doty. How would someone who works as an engineer and sits at a desk for eight or more hours a day, get their step count to 10 to 14,000 or more steps per day. Great question. You know, it's funny because for most of human history, this was not a problem, right? Everything you did involved movement and walking,

Starting point is 01:08:59 and the average person probably averaged closer to 20,000 steps a day, just from doing daily things. In fact, if I took, so if I went back in time with a time machine, 500 years, and I brought people back from 500 years ago, and I brought them into a gym, they'd be like, what are these machines? You know, you paid to come do this. You paid a work, they'd go,

Starting point is 01:09:18 I got a farm right at the road. What do they got? I have you boxes over there. I'm going to lift to those lakes. What do you guys building? Oh, nothing, they're just doing it for the over here. Like, where do you lift to those legs? What do you guys building? Like, what's, oh, nothing. They're just doing it for the sake of doing it because they need to move.

Starting point is 01:09:27 I mean, so the key here to understand and just become friends with is that you're gonna have to schedule it in. It's bottom line. You have to be very intentional the entire process with this. And that means like, you know, parking far away, you know, like all these like little things

Starting point is 01:09:41 that you can incorporate throughout your entire day that like, okay, I'm not gonna allow myself to sit when I get home. I'm gonna be walking doing things constantly. That's right, this is what I used to tell clients who were at desks all day long. I used to tell them every 90 minutes, go do a 15 minute walk or activity.

Starting point is 01:09:59 That's it. Now, you will actually find you're more effective and more productive when you do this because movement does stimulate neural connections in the brain, increases BDNF in the brain, which is like a new tropic, right? It helps you think faster and smarter, it gives you more energy, it gives you a little break from what you're doing, changes the environment. And if you could do things that don't require you to sit down, if you could do certain things

Starting point is 01:10:22 standing or moving, then do so. And this is the other thing too. I don't understand this part right here at all. For people who sit down all day long at work, why do they go sit down for lunch? That doesn't make any fucking sense to me. Eat your food and go for a walk. You got an hour, like take advantage of that.

Starting point is 01:10:38 Your body was not designed to sit that long all the time. It just wasn't. And so you're gonna have to literally schedule it in. I like what Ben Greenfield does, right? He sits in a lower amount of his phone. And every- It's a little micro workout, so he does all over the place.

Starting point is 01:10:53 Yeah, every so often is a alarm will go off and you're like, oh, I gotta do 10 squats and then you'll go sit down again. Oh, another one went off, I gotta do some push ups. Right. And you'll do that. Now, when I started doing trigger sessions, I noticed greater productivity.

Starting point is 01:11:07 So when I first started testing the maps program, the first thing I did was I wrote the workout out, just like how to do the workout. And I was testing it out. After I wrote the workout out, then Doug and I had to create all this marketing material for it. And Doug puts it together. He wraps it, makes it look nice.

Starting point is 01:11:25 But I do most of the writing. I have to write the sales material, I have to write the information, I have to write the blogs, I ended up writing, I don't know how many blogs at the time. And I found that on the days that I did trigger sessions, I was way more productive than the days where I just did a one hour workout

Starting point is 01:11:42 and the rest of the day I was inactive. It was crazy, I was like, I'd sit down and I'd write and I'd find myself getting stuck and I'd be like, oh, should I gotta do my- Well, I took a trigger session. Yeah, I think that's an even better strategy than just trying to get steps in because now we're actually like trying to stimulate

Starting point is 01:11:56 like other parts of your body and other muscles that are, you know, you're completely inactive because you're sitting for so long as opposed to just like getting movement in, you know, being very purposeful and being very intentional about what types of movements that you can, and plus, too, it doesn't take up a lot of space. So like walking, you gotta go somewhere,

Starting point is 01:12:18 you gotta go do something else. Like literally like you said, with the Ben Greenfield thing where he does like pops into squats and like has these alarms that kind of go off. You can kind of incorporate that. It feels to me a little bit easier with like a rubber band, something that you can do that's a little more purposeful. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:36 And I think in, is it in Japan, Doug? Because I know you live there that some companies have mourning exercise routines for the employees and then like mid afternoon exercise routines. Yeah, I think a lot of the big companies or even small companies would have people outside in the morning doing calisthenics. Yeah, like, I actually saw like a Mercedes dealership, I drove by once and in the morning

Starting point is 01:12:59 everybody was out there doing their calisthenics or you know their stretches and their jumping jacks and all that stuff. Now, you know why their stretches and their jumping jacks and all that stuff. Now, you know why they did that? That's cool. We can remember the Japanese culture. This morning improved productivity. Oh, they're very focused on productivity.

Starting point is 01:13:13 And it shows tomorrow. The explosion of Japan's economy in the 1980s was a crazy, it's just a tiny country and they just exploded onto the scene and they were, they're just super effective and that's why they implemented those things that they found that we do this with our employees. They're a lot more effective at their job. So, because I think a lot of people think if they stop to move that they're gonna get less work done,

Starting point is 01:13:35 no, I gotta sit at my desk, I gotta get all this work to do. Five to eight minutes is really all you need. Do that movement. I mean, you end up doing, if you're there for eight hours, you'll probably end up doing about, you know, you figure about five to 10 minutes each time. That's a good 40, almost 40 minutes of exercise spread out, but your productivity will increase, you know,

Starting point is 01:13:55 at the same time. Now, I 100% agree with you guys. If you are a person who can actually bend greenfield the shit out of this, and every couple hours, like like or 90 minutes or so like south saying get up and do these these little micro movements. I haven't had as much success with clients in those those those strategies. Now some of my clients will implement that a couple times maybe throughout their day but a lot of my clients just they get so busy

Starting point is 01:14:23 with work that four hours passes and they have them fucking move. So that tends to be difficult to pull somebody away from their super labor and tense of job or mentally focused job that they're in. Now for me, first of all, 10 to 14,000 steps, if you think that's a lot of steps, like, it's not. It's not a lot of steps. It may sound like it, it may feel like it because you get up, you get in your car, you drive

Starting point is 01:14:48 to work, you sit at work, and then you drive home, and you sit back at home and watch TV, or maybe within there you have a one hour workout, which is only about two to three thousand steps if you're walking around the gym. So that may seem like a time, but listen to what I just said, you're doing. You're not fucking moving at all. Simply getting up one hour earlier in your day and going for a walk first in the morning, whether you have a dog or a pet or a spouse that you can go walk for and or in the evening or training yourself at the dinner meal.

Starting point is 01:15:18 So this is what's been very successful for me and teaching my clients. If you're an morning person teaching them to be up early because people, some people like to be up early and get up and have a cup of coffee or whatever. So instead of having your cup of coffee and sitting at the table and reading the newspaper, have a cup of coffee and listen to your newspaper and walk and go walk outside in the morning for a share and add that into your routine an extra half hour or hour earlier. And then I love the idea of, and this does work for a lot of my clients, is that lunch break do go for a little 20 minute, 30 minute walk, and then at the end of the night

Starting point is 01:15:51 after you have your last meal go for another walk. And then you guys see me right now, I don't know if you notice it or not, but when I train in here, I pace between sets. Yeah, I do the same thing. So, and I'm not doing jump rope, I'm not doing burpees, I'm not trying to elevate my heart rate, but I am moving my body. I am burning more calories than I would be if I was sitting absolutely still.

Starting point is 01:16:14 And because I use my steps as a way to measure the way I'm increasing movement over the time and progressing into the competition like this, I incorporate just walking in between sets and that tends to ramp up a couple extra thousand steps from my one hour workout. So those are simple ways for you to add that in. Now all that being said, you can, aside, you can schedule one hour of LIS cardio, which is low intensity steady state where you're just kind of elliptical,

Starting point is 01:16:46 a very light, light jog. You're not trying to push the heart rate super hard. And in an hour's time, you're going to get 10,000. You'll get 10,000 steps just from a light jog. A walk will get you eight. So if a walk will get you eight, a light jog is going it gets you 10 to 14 for one hour. And so you might need to be someone who, okay, my goal is, I'm gonna do what the boys are saying, and schedule all these breaks in the middle day, or a morning walk, or even, and if you do, you may not have to do this hour of list cardio, but if you don't, that's your default, right?

Starting point is 01:17:21 My default is, fuck, today was just crazy. Boss didn't let me get away from the computer. I couldn't get a break. I didn't work through a lunch just a crazy day. I know those days happen, so I understand that. But then when that happens, that's when I discipline myself to go, hey, well then today I need to make sure

Starting point is 01:17:37 that I go for that walk with Katrina tonight when I get home. This is a day I can't skip on that because this was also a day where I sat on my ass all day long. And this is why I love FitBits and trackers is just for this exact reason, just a reminder. Not because I hang on the number, I go, oh my god, I only burned this much, I got to do this or oh my god, I'm only this these steps are going to do. It's just a, oh shit, I didn't realize how inactive I was today.

Starting point is 01:18:01 Holy fuck, it's four o'clock and I'm at 2,000 steps. That I'm not on pace to hit my 10, 15, 20,000 steps or whatever you're trying to do. So that's how I use those things and then I would incorporate some list cardio. Next question is from Elizabeth A. Charis, what are your self-care practices and how do they impact your mental and physical aptitude?

Starting point is 01:18:23 Self-care. I'm master be a lot. That's what it's all about. It makes clear's my head, you know, helps me to start my day the right way. Yep, same here. What about you Adam? No, I'm just kidding.

Starting point is 01:18:36 You know, you know what I think about when I hear this question is, I think about all of the parents that I've trained throughout my career. And then of the parents that I've trained throughout my career, and then of course myself, I have children. It is very important to take care of yourself if you want to be an effective parent or an effective human being.

Starting point is 01:18:55 Especially, I communicate this to parents more often because it's easier to become a martyr when you have kids because you value and love your children so much. Like I love my kids more than the word love even express us. There's nothing that compares. So it's very times you get lost because you don't see like how much you're pouring outwardly, right? And you're not like filling yourself up.

Starting point is 01:19:16 It's just easy to get into that sort of a trap in that mentality. You know, as a parent, so totally agree. Yeah, and it's it's it's easy to do because you love these kids so much, and it's altruistic and it feels good. But at the same time, if you're tired, if you're not taking care of yourself, you become less of an effective parent, less of an effective human being.

Starting point is 01:19:37 And so that's when I think about, you know, with this question of my mind, now for me, my workouts are my biggest self-care practice. I wake up every morning at between five and five 30, and within 45 minutes to an hour, I'm in my garage, and I'm working out. I have a workout partner, it's my girlfriend, Jessica, but it's our time, we go in there, and we do our thing,

Starting point is 01:20:00 we have a ritual, we do our workout, then we come back out, and it's my time, it's our time. This is when I take care of myself. It's been like this for the last 25 years of my life. I've been doing this since I was a kid. That's the biggest, most important self-care practice that I do for myself. The other one is a little bit more recent and this is something that I've done more recently since I started dating.

Starting point is 01:20:25 Jessica, and this is at night, we do at least 30 minutes, sometimes an hour, where her and I will sit down. We have the lights off or candlelight, just because we're trying to get our bodies ready for sleep, and we will sip on tea and we'll just have a good conversation or just sit there quietly. And I've really started to appreciate that, that wind down before bed, because I used to be the kind of person

Starting point is 01:20:50 that I would run real hard and then go right to bed. There was no prep before going to bed. So I'm really starting to appreciate doing that, allows us to connect with each other, communicate, and kind of end the day on a good, relaxing note. And I think those are the top two things that come on top of my head. Yeah, I think for me, what I've noticed really helps me to be able to get to that space is to create more systems within like outside of work. Like work we're always trying to kind of organize and get better about like, you know, being, being a solid, like,

Starting point is 01:21:26 oiled machine, like, all the systems are in place and everything's working the way it should. Well, I hadn't, I hadn't realized that I didn't really establish that in my own house, like, and for myself, like, to, you know, what do I do when I come home? You know, what are the first items? And like, it took me a while to figure out like the priorities of like, okay, I'm gonna address this first because now, you know, we have a puppy, he's gonna get exercise constantly, you know, the kids, they have work, they need to accomplish, they need to clean rooms, you know, this or that,

Starting point is 01:21:55 whatever, the other, like, I'm gonna go, you know, cook outside, I'm gonna do like barbecue, I'm gonna wash the dishes like, like all these things are, are items that like, if that like if I now get into a rhythm with it, yeah, I don't think about it anymore. Now I don't think about that anymore. Now I can go and enjoy, so I'll go to walk the dog, for instance, I can be meditative about it now.

Starting point is 01:22:18 Okay, now I'm out. Now I'm just, I'm really trying to just get the chatter out of my mind. And so that allows me to come back in a better state of mind. I started accomplishing these other tests. And then, you know, and then go through the whole process of, you know, putting the kids to sleep, you know, this and that and the other,

Starting point is 01:22:37 and to where like, now I can kind of like, enjoy reading a book or like talking to my wife or like, you know, just being in a better mental state, creating that sort of organization of like, okay, this is literally what like a day is going to look like. I can repeat this. And so that's really helped me to bring me into like a relaxing kind of a state. So I was was looking for a text message that I sent to Katrina on Monday because this sparked this this thought for me. And if you I don't know if you've listened to the interview that we did

Starting point is 01:23:13 with sex with Emily, I think on her show, I think it was her show. I talked about the when I tell Katrina, I love you because I'm one of the guys who doesn't do that enough. So I'm terrible at it, but there's reasons behind that and I get into it in the show. But when I do, it's because I'm thinking of something and I can always explain. So we have this kind of thing that we do in our relationship where if I say I love you that at any time she can challenge me and say, what are you thinking about? And I'll be able to tell her exactly what made prompted me to say that. And so on Monday morning, or Monday late morning,

Starting point is 01:23:51 I sent her a text message that said, I love you and then she sent back to me, you know, why? And then I listed off all the reasons why. And it was more about taking care of myself and how important that is to me loving her. And when I'm taking care of myself and how important that is to me loving her. And when I'm taking care of myself, my own practices and doing those things, I'm a better partner, I'm a better employer, employee,

Starting point is 01:24:15 like I'm better all the way around. And I recognize now as an older man, how important all these things are over a lot of the other superficial things I probably used to chase when I was much younger. And so the list of things that I had said to her I'll read them to you, so it can just pop up right now. I sent this to her on Monday, Monday morning, I sent her over the I love you

Starting point is 01:24:40 and then she sends back to me, what are you thinking about? And I said, our house is clean, our boys are clean, my cars are clean, Camaro is running, meals are prepped, boys are walked, read my book this morning, had coffee on our patio, walked a couple miles, trained both days this weekend, had a great weekend, sex with my beautiful wife,

Starting point is 01:24:59 I call her my wife, even though she's not. Week set, we could set for success. Life doesn't get much better than that. It's all coming together. And really all those things that I listed off are so important to my self-care practices. For some reason, I've put this together a long time ago that when the cars that I get into on a regular basis are not cluttered and they're clean. When my dogs that I pet that you pick up dust

Starting point is 01:25:28 and drive my allergy crazies and it allows me to love on them and play with them, makes me a happier person. When we have incredible sex, obviously, that's always really good. When I wake up early enough time for me to go get a nice brisk walk-in, like we were talking about in the last question, and I'm able to read one of my books,

Starting point is 01:25:46 or listen to one of my audio books while I'm on a walk, all of these things impact my mental health and where I am at as far as myself. Those things right there, if that's where I'm trying to get every day. When I can hit those out the park every day, I fucking crush, man.

Starting point is 01:26:02 I crush every aspect of my life, and I think it's extremely important that you, whatever yours are that you figure those out because it will enhance every other aspect of your life. And I know that may sound weird because I'm telling her I love her and it's all about me, but I'm a firm believer in that you can, you can't love anybody fully until you fully love yourself. Absolutely. It's what Justin said earlier. I'm loving myself. Things come out.

Starting point is 01:26:33 Oh my gosh. Sorry. Excuse me. Oh my gosh. Excuse me. So check this out. We have free guides that we've written for you. Some of them teach you how to burn body fat, others teach you how to train certain areas of your body.

Starting point is 01:26:47 They're at mindpumpfree.com. You can get all of them again. They're free. 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, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on a ballad, maps for performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically

Starting point is 01:27:18 transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound and an ingesting as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family.

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