Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Best Protein Powder for Building Muscle, Signs of Overtraining, Laws for Happy Living, and More...

Episode Date: December 18, 2014

In this podcast I talk about which protein powders are best for building muscle, how much protein you can absorb in one meal (it's more than you might think), how to recognize and prevent overtraining, 8 laws for happy living, and more. ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: What is the Best Protein Powder for Building Muscle? http://www.muscleforlife.com/best-protein-powder-for-building-muscle/ The Truth About Protein Absorption: How Often You Should Eat Protein to Build Muscle http://www.muscleforlife.com/the-truth-about-protein-absorption-how-often-you-should-eat-protein-to-build-muscle/ 8 Signs of Overtraining That Most People Don't Know http://www.muscleforlife.com/8-signs-of-overtraining/ 8 Ancient Laws for Creating a Simpler, Happier Life http://www.muscleforlife.com/simple-happy-life/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

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Now, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the supplement industry. I mean, I've wasted who knows how many thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that really do nothing. And I've always had trouble finding products that I actually thought were worth buying and recommending. And well, basically I had been complaining about this for years and I decided to finally do something about it and start making my own products. And not just any products, but really the exact products that I myself have always wanted. So a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because

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about my supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, welcome to the Muscle for Life podcast. This is Mike Matthews from MuscleForLife.com. And in this podcast, I want to go over a few things. I want to go over protein powder, particularly like which is a question I get asked often, which is the best protein powder for building muscle.

I want to talk about overtraining because a lot of people try to push through overtraining by training more or they don't realize they're overtraining and it can cause some pretty annoying issues if you don't recognize them for what they are and handle them correctly. And then finally, I want to talk about what I'm going to do in these podcasts is I'll talk about, you know, two or three different fitness, health and fitness related things. And then one kind of just general life success kind of subject on my website. I write a few articles a week. Well, I actually end up posting about an article a day.

Most of it is health and fitness. But then one of the articles is related to it could be, you know, business type stuff or achieving goals or whatever. Just something not totally health and fitness related, but relevant to just doing better in life. So I figure, you know, people seem to like those articles, so I figure I'll do the same thing in the podcast and kind of mix it up in the end of the podcast and talk about something just not health and fitness related. and talk about something just not health and fitness related. So let's get started with the question, what is the best protein powder for building muscle? I get asked this very often.

And the first thing that you should know about protein powders and building muscle is that you don't need a protein powder to build muscle. You don't need protein supplements to build muscle. Of course, you need to eat enough protein, but supplements are not vital necessities. They're convenient, and I actually do recommend protein supplements for that reason. I use them myself, but most of my protein that I eat every day comes from whole food. So speaking of whole food first, the best forms of protein for building muscle in terms of whole food are, uh, stuff like chicken, turkey, um, you know, red meat. I prefer leaner cuts personally.

Um, fish, eggs, and dairy. Those are probably your best sources of protein. Plant sources are not bad. Um, and I do get a fair amount of protein every day from plant sources, mainly from vegetables. Um, and also from, I don't eat very many grains, but sometimes I'll have some grain And I do get a fair amount of protein every day from plant sources, mainly from vegetables. And also from, I don't eat very many grains, but sometimes I'll have some grain-like stuff like quinoa. Or I will have some brown rice now and then.

But I usually don't eat very much wheat just because the general quality of wheat here in the United States is just terrible. And if I eat wheat, like a couple servings of wheat a day for a few days, my stomach will start to bother me a little bit. I'll look bloated, feel bloated. I'll get constipated. So I actually stay away from wheat, generally speaking. I'll have some here and there. If you're vegetarian, your best options are stuff like eggs. Uh, low fat cottage cheese is great. I like organic valley. I like to taste it a lot. I just put some salt and pepper in it. It's, it tastes pretty good. Um, you know, low fat kind of European style yogurt, like Greek yogurt.

Um, I like, uh, Faye, uh, spelled F-A-G-E, F-A-G-E. They have a 0% that, I mean, I, I like that. Um, like if I'm going to go to have a 0%. I mean, I like that. Like, if I'm going to go to one of these frozen yogurt places, I like the tarts more. So I like plain yogurt. And Foyer's is very good. Their 0% is no fat, but pretty creamy, actually. And their 2% is a little bit of fat.

I think it's like 5 grams per cup, which is very easy to work into your daily numbers. And I think it tastes very good, very creamy for just 2% fat. And then their total, which is like 10, 10 grams fat per cup, I think is delicious, but, um, it's a little bit, depending on what I'm doing with my diet, I usually don't eat that. Um, so yeah, so Greek yogurt is great. Very, very high protein, by the way, like a cup of Greek yogurt is is like I think it's like 23-24 grams protein which is crazy for you know that 0% Fie is like 0 fat 2 or 3 carbs, 20 something

maybe 5 carbs, 20 something protein so it's a great snack tastes good you know if you want to sweeten it a little bit you can put some honey in it or some agave tastes good in it as well so yeah that's another good source And then tempeh is a decent source

Tofu I wouldn't recommend eating A lot of soy I would recommend limiting soy intake The science is a little bit hazy But there is research to indicate that regular consumption of soy For us guys Can just mess with our

Testosterone levels lower our T and raise our estrogen. Quinoa, I already mentioned that, you know, it's a good vegetarian source of protein. Of course, it's very carb dense because, I mean, it is a carb, but it has, I believe, a cup of quinoa. I want to say it's somewhere around 10 to 15 grams of protein. So it's not bad. Almonds as well. They have a lot of fat, but it's healthy fat. I get, um, I have a couple tablespoons of almond butter a day. Um, it's one of the sources of fats that I really like, you know, tastes good and a little bit of protein as well. Um, rice has some protein, you know, beans have some protein. The thing is, uh, with plant sources is obviously you're not

going to find a high protein, low carbohydrate, low fat option. Usually the plant sources is obviously you're not going to find a high protein, low carbohydrate, low fat option. Usually the plant sources of protein are high carbohydrate or high fat with some protein. So it can be hard to balance your daily macros if you're a vegetarian, but you can do it by using dairy, by using eggs and by using a protein supplement, which of course we'll get to in a second, which one I like. Although I mean, my protein supplements I use are just whey and egg, but if I were to use a vegetarian, or it's really actually a vegan protein, I'll tell you which one it would be in a second. So one thing also to know is that there are claims out there, you've probably heard this

before, that certain sources of protein, like plant sources in particular, are not complete proteins and that you have to combine them in weird ways to form complete proteins. This has been completely debunked years ago by research conducted by MIT. I'll actually link an article down in the description where I talk about this if you want to go look at the study. But where they showed that that's not true, that all like plant sources of protein, they're complete proteins. They have all the essential amino acids that our body needs, but they have them in different amounts. So certain vegetable sources are better than others.

That is true. Because, you know, for instance, the amino acid leucine is particularly important to us weightlifters because research has shown that it directly stimulates protein synthesis. That's one of the reasons why whey is very popular in the bodybuilding world is because it has a lot of leucine in it. Certain plant sources of protein would be lower in leucine. Of course, there are other very important essential amino acids as well. And of course, there are other very important essential amino acids as well. So where plant, where combining plant sources of protein would make sense would be just to make sure that you're getting enough of the essential amino acids. But you're going to be getting some regardless. like in the in the world of vegan bodybuilding vegetarian bodybuilding the way of the vegan vegetarian world is a combination of pea protein and brown rice protein because they complement

each other nicely their amino acid profiles complement each other nicely where I believe pea is high in leucine if I remember correctly and it's lower in one or two others and brown rice is lower in leucine, but higher in the ones where the, where the, where the pea protein is deficient. So when you put them together, you actually have a pretty nice blend and both of those proteins are absorbed fairly well by the body. And that's another issue that you have to just be aware of with proteins is that certain proteins are absorbed better than others. Meaning that, you know, when that, when the body you're, you eat the protein, it breaks down amino acids. How many of those amino acids actually make it into the bloodstream

and are able to be used by your body to build muscle and repair tissues and whatever. That's where plant proteins also run into some issues. Like hemp, hemp is a popular plant protein, but research has shown that it just is not absorbed well by the body at all. If I remember correctly, it's somewhere 40 to 50% or so of like you eat, you know, a hundred grams, that'd be a lot of hemp. Let's say 50 grams of hemp protein, your body is only able to use, I mean, it's a range, obviously, I remember correctly, if I remember correctly, it's like 40 to 60% or something like that of what you're eating. Whereas something like beef would be in the seventies to eighties way is even higher. I believe I think way is, uh, upwards of 90%. Uh, egg is very high. Dairy is very high. So that's also, you know, animal based proteins have that advantage over plant proteins

as well. They're just better absorbed by the body. Um, but don't think, don't think that that means that as a, as a vegan or as a vegetarian, that you can't build muscle. You can, you just have to be, the meal planning is just a little bit more complicated or you, you just have to, I wouldn't say it's more restrictive. You just have to be a little bit more deliberate with what you're eating and plan it out. You don't want to just kind of wing it as a, as a vegan or vegetarian. It's much harder. So I also, I should probably just touch on this, I mean, it's really just a myth, but it's common advice or common knowledge out there that the body can only absorb X number of grams of protein per meal. That's a common claim like some people say it's 20 some people say it's 30 some people say it's higher or

whatever and I'll link a link an article or on in the description below if you want to really dive into this but I'll just summarize it here and tell you that the body your body can absorb a lot more protein in one meal than you might think when you eat protein research has shown eat protein, research has shown, when you eat food, research has shown that it moves, the food moves through your small intestine where the nutrients are absorbed in different speeds. It depends on how quickly the body can absorb what you ate. Carbohydrates can be absorbed fairly quickly so they can move more quickly through the small intestine, whereas protein, it does take longer because your body, you know, you eat it,

it goes in the stomach, starts getting broken down. The amino acids then are absorbed through the walls of the small intestine into the bloodstream. That process is slower. You know, your body can only absorb, can only extract so many grams of amino acids per hour, you know, into the bloodstream. But what research has shown is that the body's smart. It doesn't just rush, you know, if you have this much amino acids, it doesn't just rush it all through and then try to, you know, whatever it gets, it gets, and it just wastes the rest. It actually can slow down the movement of those amino acids through it so it can absorb, or at least try to absorb everything that you ate.

So if, I mean, the reality is like if I weigh about 192 pounds or so, given that body weight, and I talk more about the research in the article if you want to go see it, it's fairly safe to assume that I could probably eat upwards of 100 grams of protein in one meal and my body would absorb it. It might take it six hours to do it, but I wouldn't lose. It's not like I would lose, you know, 30, 40, 50 grams of that to just like, well, I ate too much in one meal. So don't worry about that. When you're planning your meals, the reality is if you've ever tried to eat 100 grams of protein, it's very hard to even eat more than that. I mean, that's, uh, you know, a pound of meat, that's tough. Uh, that'd be about like a pound, like 16 ounces of

beef would be, uh, about a hundred grams of protein. So you've probably had a massive steak before. I mean, good luck trying to eat more than that. So the reality is you can plan in, uh, you know, for me, I generally like to eat about 50 grams of protein in a meal. That's a comfortable amount for me. When I start going over 50, uh, I get, I generally like to eat about 50 grams of protein in a meal. That's a comfortable amount for me. When I start going over 50, I have a hard time fitting in the rest of my food. So when you're going to be, you know, whether it's a shake, you know, if you want to double scoop a shake or if it's food or whatever, don't worry about trying to limit your protein intake to like, you know, 20 or 30 grams per meal and trying to then eat it every two hours. Uh, the timing doesn't matter on the protein. Um, it is smart to have protein before and after you work out. Um, but otherwise you can just fit it around your schedule,

eat, you know, protein when you can. The important thing is that you hit your numbers every day, however you get there. Um, so, uh, just to kind of, just to kind of recap on whole food proteins, we have lean meats are great. You know, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, very good. Eggs, very good. And then the vegetarian sources that I talked about earlier, like, you know, the dairy, the eggs, the tempeh, the tofu, quinoa, and so forth. And then on the supplement side, the supplements that I like most, protein supplements, are egg protein. I like egg protein a lot. It doesn't bother my stomach. I might be a little bit lactose intolerant, but also people, research has shown that people can be allergic to the actual protein.

They're called subfractions, but basically the protein molecules, you could say, in dairy products. So it's not only can you, that's why you could have like a good whey isolate, which has all the lactose extracted, and you could still have an allergic or an intolerant type of reaction to it, is because the actual protein molecules themselves might just not jive well with your body. But that said, I do do whey before I work out and after I work out because it's a fast-digesting protein. It's high in leucine, and research has shown that. I mean, research will be on both sides of this,

but there are a few studies that I thought were particularly good in terms of how they were designed, conducted with bodybuilders, which is obviously very relevant to any of us that are weightlifting regularly, as opposed to elderly people, and has shown that whey protein is particularly good for pre- and post-workout nutrition in terms of building muscle and building strength. So I use whey before and after, and I use egg. I usually have about one other scoop. So I'm doing about three scoops of protein a day for a total of 80-ish grams of protein. My total protein intake is about 200 grams a day. So as you can see, I'm getting over half my protein every day from whole food sources, which is how I like it.

And I like to do one scoop of egg protein later in the day in the afternoon. I could just eat food, but I'm at the office kind of in a rush. I can just drink it down. And that's really the convenience of protein. Then of course, there's casein, which is also a dairy derivative. Slower digesting, not as slow as egg, which there's research I can actually link. I'm just going to make a note here. Yeah, I'll link an article so you can go see a study for yourself. That's also one of the things I like about egg. There's research that has shown that having protein before you go to sleep,

it's not going to, the idea that you're going to lose lean mass in your sleep is not true. But if your body requires amino acids to repair muscles, of course the body is repairing the muscles throughout the day. But when, you know, if you're sleeping eight hours, that's a third of the day. And if your body runs out of amino acids in, you know, let's say that you ate your last protein at 7 p.m., that was your last meal. By midnight, your body is going to have absorbed everything unless you ate a massive amount of protein. So if you have from midnight to 8 a.m. where there's just no protein or there's no amino acids in the blood, your body can't repair tissues without it. acids in the blood, your body can't repair tissues without it. So that's why, and this has been shown a study that I talk about in the protein, well, in the article that I'm going to be linking down below, you can go see the study. But basically it showed that having protein before you go to sleep

just helps with muscle recovery. And that's why, because it just gives that, it makes sure that your body has amino acids during that eight hour period when it could be doing something. sure that your body has amino acids during that eight hour period when it could be doing something. So casein is good for that because it's a slower digesting protein and egg is good for that as well. Although me personally, I prefer, that's where I have some whole food protein instead. I do either Greek yogurt before I go to bed or an hour or so before I go to bed and that, or I'll do low fat cottage cheese. Either way, I just kind of mix that, or I'll do low fat cottage cheese either way. Um, I just kind of mix it up. I'll do a cup of one or the other and it gives me, you know, very low in carbs, very low and just low in calories, just mainly protein. And it's a slower burning because it's, you know, you have the casein that naturally occurs, uh, in any of the

natural milk proteins that are a little bit slower digesting. Um so those are the protein supplements that I use and I recommend. Egg, whey, casein. And then in terms of a vegetarian or vegan protein, Alex, there's brown rice, pea. Either just brown rice alone or just pea protein alone is good, but ideally you would use a blend. And Sun Warrior makes a good blend, which I'll link below as well. Okay good, so then now if you're wondering why I'm leaving soy off the list,

it's because as I mentioned earlier, I mean there's a kind of a debate on whether the what the bottom line really is but in my opinion a debate on what the bottom line really is. But in my opinion, if you look over the studies, you have some studies that say as much soy as they want doesn't matter. And then you have studies that say that or show that regular consumption of soy can mess with your hormones. If I add in the anecdotal evidence of me personally, I've kind of always stayed away from soy, but in working with a lot of people, I've run into quite a few people that noticed a negative effect from regular soy intake. Like noticed even like a little bit of a gyno type look and just the standard low T, lower T, less energy, a little bit less strength in the gym, a little bit harder to lose weight. So, you know, it's not totally known. It's hard to say for sure, but to play it safe, I say stay away from soy. And there's also the genetic modification aspect

too, because the vast majority, unless you're getting organic soy, even that's organic, the organic world is under a lot of attack, as you probably know. But you're getting organic soil even that's organic the organic world is under a lot of attack as you probably know but you're getting genetically modified beans which is a whole nother subject and similar to artificial sweeteners it may not be as harmful as some people say but there is definitely enough research to give us pause before we want to go pound a bunch of genetically modified food. I was reading a paper recently that kind of just summarized it well and pointed out reasons for concern and that it's more that we need more research before we make GM foods all,

you know, widespread, normal, everyone's eating, everything's GM, all you know widespread normal everyone's eating everything's GM because we just don't know the long-term health implications and there are reasons for concern that have been shown in animal research so anyways that's why I stay away from soy and in terms of the actual products that I use I will link them in the description below the whey protein is from my own line. It's 100% whey isolate, naturally sweetened, naturally flavored, and it has additional leucine, four grams per serving, because research has shown

that the addition of leucine to a protein powder when used in, I think, if I remember correctly, in the study, it was a post-workout meal. So they were having it as increased protein synthesis, which is, you know, the building of muscle. So that's why I added leucine to my whey. I like it because it's just a clean product. You know, it tastes good. I put it in a, I make it with a smoothie that has rice milk and it has like a frozen banana. I put in some cinnamon and I put in some fiber just to make sure that my fiber intake is where it should be every day and tastes great. Also, I like Healthy and Fit is the brand. You may have seen them, may not. They

don't do very much marketing, but they have kind of like an underground following. They've been in the business for a long time. They make good products, naturally sweetened, naturally flavored. And I like the chocolate egg protein. It doesn't taste bad. You can mix it with water, mix it with rice milk. It doesn't taste great. It doesn't taste bad, but it's a clean product. I like it. And then in terms of casein, I like Optin Nutrition's natural casein. You pay a little bit more for the natural sweetener, naturally sweetened. I believe it's just naturally sweetened. I don't know if it, I think it has some artificial flavoring, but artificial flavoring is something that I personally am not worried about because in looking at the science, there just is no,

there's, from what I, from the studies I've seen there there's no reason for concern whereas artificial sweeteners there's a lot of research out there that would indicate that it could be harmful regular consumption of this could be harmful there's it's been shown in some animal studies and there is some epidemiological research out there that indicates that it could be causing negative effects in the body or I mean you could say indicates that it could be causing negative effects in the body. Or I mean, you could say even that it probably is causing some negative effects if you're having it regularly. So that's why I'm all about just avoiding artificial sweeteners altogether. And I stick to naturally sweetened stuff. Like my products, my line of supplements,

which is called Legion, is sweetened with Stevia, which is a natural sweetener it actually has health benefits which is cool and improves insulin sensitivity among other things that I talked about the website which is legion supplements calm so yeah those are the products that I like in terms of the vegan it's I believe it's Sun Warriors raw vegan is what it's called protein once again it's I believe if I remember correctly it's either a hundred percent brown rice or it's a brown. Once again, it's, I believe if I remember correctly, it's either a hundred percent brown rice or it's a brown rice pea blend with maybe some other stuff, but primarily brown rice and pea protein and tastes pretty good. And it's a little bit expensive. That's the nature of, of, of good vegan products and kind of just good products in general. But if I were to use

just a vegan product, that's what I would use. And then the last point is just in terms of like when to use slow or faster digesting proteins. I like to use a faster digesting protein in my pre and post-workout meals, which is whey for that reason, which I mentioned earlier. It just quickly elevates amino acid levels and research has shown that this could help. I mean, there's some studies, like I said, that I think are particularly relevant to us and are well designed that just show that there is a slight benefit to this as opposed to eating a slower digesting protein in the pre and post workout. There's also research. I mean, this is kind of just an area of ongoing research, so we'll see over the next couple of years really what comes out of it, but that otherwise a slower burning protein might be better for building muscle over the long term. So like you have your way of your fast digesting before your workout and after your workout.

And then your other protein that you eat is on the slower side. But these are minor points. Like you don't have to freak out on your meal planning and go, well, you know, is this a slow enough burning protein? Am I eating it, you know, is this a fast enough burning protein? I like to keep it simple. I do whey before and after, and otherwise I get my protein from meat, dairy, and then if I supplement it's egg. So that's what I do. And then before you go to bed, I recommend having some protein, a slower burning protein, that's just going to release amino acids over the course of the six to eight hours that you're sleeping. If you're going to do a supplement, I recommend egg or casein.

Egg is a slower digesting protein than casein. And if you have any sort of dairy intolerance, then I would do the egg. Yeah, so I used to do egg, just one scoop, 30 grams of egg protein before bed or an hour or so. But, um, I, I like the taste of Greek yogurt and it's, you know, it's super good, I think. And also the low fat cottage cheese really good. So I changed it for that. Wasn't bothering my stomach. So, uh, but if I, I noticed that if I started doing two cups of Greek yogurt a day or two cups of cottage cheese a day, plus the whey started to bother my stomach. So I just found my tolerance level for dairy and I kind of just stay under it. So that's

pretty much everything in terms of protein powders for building muscle, you know, going over protein absorption and such. Once again, I'll link some articles if you want to kind of dive into it a bit more and go look at the research. So feel free to do that. So let's move on now to the next subject, which is overtraining. I run into a lot of people, I get emails from a lot of people that are stuck in an overtraining rut and they don't realize it. And it sucks. I've been there myself. I used to train incorrectly. I used to spend a lot of time in the gym every day, two hours plus. I used to do a ton of sets, drop sets, super sets, giant sets. I'd follow these bodybuilder workouts. I'd watch or read articles of so-and-so professional bodybuilders workout, 30 sets and crazy volume,

and I would just go and do it. And yeah, sure, I made some gains, of course, but I got stuck in a rut pretty quickly and would eventually just wind up overtrained. And I didn't know it, though, so I pushed, tried to push through, push through, push through until I just had to take, you know, one or two weeks off because I had no energy, totally fatigued and had some of these symptoms that I'm going to be going over. So the thing is, like, yeah, in most areas of life, the more work you put into something, the more you get out of it. You know, it's very true of career, of relationships and whatever. But working out is different. More is not always better. When you're a natural weightlifter, you can only do so many reps per, I'd say, time period.

You can look at it per five days or even per week for each major muscle group when you're working at certain intensities, meaning weights. So when you're lifting heavier weights, which obviously, if you're familiar with my work, I'm a big proponent of you focus on heavy compound weightlifting. That is the foundation of any good weightlifting program is heavy compound weightlifting. doing that, you can only do so much before you train to, you know, before you're going to, you're going to cause too much damage to the muscles and also put too much stress on the, on the nervous system. That's also a big part of it. Obviously when you're working out, you know, cortisol level spike, the body is under stress and it's good. But when you do too much of it, it's not good. So like for instance, the recommended volume, if you're going to be working at a higher intensity, like on my Bigger Leaner Stronger program, for instance, you're working with about

80 to 85% of your one rep max. This is for men. In my Thinner Leaner Stronger program for women, it's about 70 to 75% of one rep max. Heavyweight either way, particularly heavy for men, you want to be doing about 40 to 60 reps per major muscle group per five days or so. And because that causes enough damage to, and I mean, muscle damage is not the only driver of muscle growth, but it's the primary, you know, progressively overloading the muscle, damaging fibers. It does, it pushed that, you're pushing that to basically the upper limits of what you can do without getting overtrained. Uh, but that's quite different 40 to 60 reps per five days. I mean, a lot of people just think about it like a common workout routine you might see in the gym is like,

you know, five exercises, maybe three sets per exercise for 10 to 12 reps. So, I mean, if you're looking at 15 sets for 10 to 12 reps, the minimum of 150 reps per, you know, and then some people that could be like chest day one, and then they're going to come back. That might be a Monday. Then they might come back and do more on a Thursday. So, or on a Wednesday. So a lot of people are just, they're just overtraining their bodies. And they're on a Wednesday. So a lot of people are just, they're just overtraining their bodies. And they're also, I mean, a lot of people, if you're focusing, if you're a natural weightlifter and you're focusing on like the 10 to 12 rep range, you are going to make gains up to a point and then you're just going to stick

and you will never break through it. You just won't. You'll never have the type of physique that if you look at some of these people on the internet and you aspire to look like that, you know, big, lean, strong, you'll never get there working in a 10, 12 rep range. I talk about why in several places on my website and also in my books as well. But it's not that higher rep training has no place in workouts, but it's for advanced weightlifters, and it's also never the focus. It's never the emphasis.

Periodized training does work when you get strong enough to use heavier weights. But once again, you can look at the higher rep stuff as supplemental to the workout, whereas the majority of the workout is heavy compound weightlifting. whereas the majority of the workout is heavy compound weightlifting so anyways let's go over some of the the symptoms of overtraining because a lot of people they just don't know that you know they'll be stuck in it and they think it might I mean you'll see when these symptoms are pretty varied so you could you could ascribe them to many incorrect things so one sign is that you just you can't finish your workout.

If you've ever had that before, and I remember when I had it particularly bad, I mean, I went to go train back, and I think I started just with some pull-ups, just as like a warm-up. Within five minutes, I was yawning. I had no energy, no strength, and that was kind of a more extreme case, but it comes on. Like your strength starts going down, your energy starts going down, your workouts start feeling really heavy, really hard. That's a, that can be a sign of overtraining. Um, you can also feel, you can be getting like, you look fatter. It's really like you're looking at, you're holding more water, um, which is,

is as your cortisol levels, uh, they can become chronically elevated as your body becomes more and more stressed. And that can just, it can throw your testosterone out of whack too as you get more overtrained, which means then your ratio between your T and your estrogen becomes imbalanced, which can lead to more water retention, so you're looking fatter. imbalance, which can lead to more water retention. So you're looking fatter. You can, your insulin resistance can become, your insulin sensitivity can go down, which then can make you more predisposed to storing fat from carbohydrates. It doesn't mean that you're going to, it just means your body can't deal with carbohydrates as well.

So that's also, if you're looking fatter, just, you know, despite, you know, being in the gym, sticking to your diet, training hard, it could be related to overtraining. If you're training hard seven days a week, you're probably, if you're not overtrained, you're going to be overtrained soon. can lift or do, you know, hard sprinting or just kind of engage in otherwise intense physical activity seven days a week without getting overtrained. You know, I've tried this myself and I lasted, I remember this one, I was training with this trainer years ago and he had me doing this crazy program and I lasted, I think four weeks until I actually just had to stop. Like I felt, I remember waking up, I felt like I had gotten into a car wreck. I mean that that was like my entire body was sore,

had a bit of a headache, I had no energy and that's what happens if you push it too hard. What I like to do is I weight lift five days a week. Currently I do three days of cardio. I'm just maintaining right now, you know it's holidays so I'm trying not to get fat, basically, trying to limit my food intake to some degree and just kind of keep my cardio in. For cardio, though, I do about 25 minutes of HIIT on the recumbent bike, which I really like. HIIT is high-intensity interval training, in case you're not familiar with that acronym. And what it is, is where you do a little warm-up, and then you're doing like 30 to 45 or maybe 60 seconds of all-out exertion,

where you're pushing your heart rate to about 90% of its max. And then you're doing, it could be 30, 45, 60 seconds of low intensity. So in my case, I'm doing the recumbent bike, so I jack the resistance up, pedal super hard, get my heart rate pumping, and then put the resistance down and then just pedal. I don't like barely even move my legs, but I pedal at a comfortable pace for about a minute. I'm doing about 30, 45 seconds intense, and then about a minute low intensity, and you just rinse and repeat. There's a lot of research behind this type of cardio and that it burns more fat. It helps you preserve more muscle.

It's just an all-around better way to go about it because you also don't have to do as much of it, which is not only I don't mind cardio, but what I, so I don't care. I mean, I could go, I like to read while I'm doing it. So I'll bring my iPad and just read. So sure, I could sit on this bike for, that's a loud train. I could sit on this bike for 45 minutes and read. That's fine. But I would rather do 25 because research has also shown that I'm going to wait. Okay. Research has shown that the more cardio you do, the more it interferes with muscle building

and strength building. So if your goal is to build strength and build muscle, overbuild your cardio endurance, you want to limit your cardio. So when I'm cutting to get really lean, you know, in the 5% or 6% range, I'm only doing about two hours of cardio per week because my goal is to preserve my muscle while I'm cutting and preserve my strength. My goal is to preserve my muscle while I'm cutting and preserve my strength. So only high-intensity interval training can give me enough of a fat-burning boost in two hours a week.

I mean, you'll hear some of these crazy contest prep routines where guys or girls are doing two hours of cardio per day. That's nuts. That is going to fry your system and fry your muscle. Terrible way to go about it. Like the common, you know, horrible contest prep advice out there is like, if you're a girl, okay, 1,200 calories a day, lifting five, six days a week, maybe even seven, two hours of cardio, five, six, seven days a week. And, you know, these girls, they'll come into the contest. I mean, I've spoken to girls that couldn't, they had, they ended up in the hospital

before, you know, they're prepping for a bikini show or something, end up in the hospital. It's just terrible. So much better way to do it as a mild calorie deficit, focus on heavy compound weightlifting and do only hit cardio and limit it to a couple hours per week and be patient. Don't try to lose, you know, two, three pounds of fat per week. Uh, know that like, you know, in the beginning you might lose about one to two and then it slows down to about half pound to one and just, and, and, uh, plan enough time to, to do it right. So you come out, you know, at the end of your cut, you've, you've maintained your muscle and you look good and you've you've also maintained your health and not ruined your metabolism.

So another overtraining symptom is you're restless at night and you're having trouble sleeping. This is just a systemic disturbance of overtraining. It will mess with your sleep. You'll have trouble falling asleep. You'll wake up a lot. It's just a common symptom. You'll just kind of feel fatigued and sluggish just generally. You'll have low energy, low energy in the gym.

You won't want to get in there and do your workouts. It's an overtraining symptom. You're going to have odd aches and pains in your joints, bones, or limbs. This is also how I even know now. This is how it starts for me. I'll just have weird aches. On the bench press, my elbow will ache a little bit or my knee will ache a little bit when I'm deadlifting or whatever. And it just kind of

goes with, this is when overtraining is coming on. This is when I'm not fully like overtrained yet. So it's something to watch for. You're getting sick more often than usual. That's another one because when you're overtrained, your immune system is depressed. So you end up getting sick more often. You kind of will just feel drained and crappy after what would normally be a good workout. Because of how I train and how I recommend that other people train, I'm in the gym for no longer than an hour a day. And I finished my workouts feeling energized. Yes, I feel like I could do more, but I don't need to do more because I've done my, with the program I'm doing right now, I've done my 10 sets. Um, you know, I've hit some really heavy weight and I've

hit some moderately heavy weight and done a couple sets of a lighter weight. I've done everything I need to do. So it's not some people, like it goes back to that point where people think that more is better, more is better. If you're not leaving your workout, feeling absolutely mentally defeated, then you're, you're not gaining. That's not true. You should feel good after the workout. You should feel energized. You should feel ready to start your day. You shouldn't want to just go fall into a coma. So if you normally feel that way, but now after your normal workouts, you're feeling kind of just run down, low energy, feeling generally just shitty, then it could be overtraining. So those are the symptoms. And fortunately, handling it is very simple. You just have to

take time off. That's it. You have to give your body rest. A lot of people, they don't like doing rest week, taking a rest week. I don't, but it's necessary. So for me, it's about every eight weeks or so, especially with what I'm doing right now, it's pretty every eight weeks or so, especially what I'm doing right now. It's a pretty intense program. It's basically an advanced kind of periodized version of the Bigger Leaner Stronger program, which is awesome for building a solid foundation of muscle and strength. And then the program I'm on is going to be the program in my follow-up book to bigger, leaner, stronger, which is going to be coming out in a month or so. So this follow-up book is really

going to be targeted for advanced weightlifters, people that have already put in, I would say, probably a minimum of one and a half to two years, you know, with a proper program, they've built their first 25, 30 pounds of muscle. They've hit certain strength benchmarks. That's who this program is going to be for. And, you know, there'll be a lot of stuff for everybody in it, but that's really who I'm going to be recommending that they start the program. And then the dietary side, it's going to be focusing on more of the goals of an advanced weightlifter with the diet, which is getting really shredded, getting down to that five or 6% range without burning up all your muscle. And then also staying lean for extended

periods of time while also making gains in the gym. Cause that's also an annoying part of you can get super lean, but if you don't know what you're doing with your diet, you won't be able to eat enough food to really make any gains in the gym. And yeah, you can look good and you can be happy about that, but for me personally, it's not fun for me to just go in the gym and be stuck at the same weight every week, be lifting the same amount I was lifting two months ago, even though I might be very lean, even though I might be 6-7% body fat. I prefer, I like lifting, I like getting stronger. So if you know what you're

doing with your diet, you can very easily maintain a 7% to 8% body fat range basically year round and make gains in the gym, have plenty of energy, get stronger. Maintaining a 5% or 6% range, it can be done as well. It's a little bit tougher, but the strategies I'm talking about will work for that as well. I guess it also really depends on the body. Some people find it much easier to maintain that super lean and make gains than others. My body's somewhere in the middle. If I'm at 5% or 6%, I can make gains, but there's a difference for me 5% to six or seven to eight. It's just my body.

So the thing is, you handle overtraining by giving your body rest. I mean, that's the bottom line. You take off from the gym. You don't do any weightlifting. If you're going to do cardio, you make it lower intensity. I wouldn't do a bunch of high-intensity cardio, which also does put stress in the system. And that's basically it. Now to if you're over trained right now, so I recommend just lay off the weights for seven days, you're going to feel better,

I guarantee it. But then what I also recommend is that you plan in some time off every eight to 10 weeks, you can either be you can either take time off completely, no, no lifting, or you can do what is called like a deload week which is where you're just lifting basically light weights you're doing a bunch of warm-up sets essentially like for my deloads i would do like if i'm going to deload well basically anything what i'll do is i'll go in and do about nine sets total but i'm never working with more than 50 of what i would normally lift on that so if i'm normally deadlifting like 405 for five, let's say, I'm going to go in and I'm just going to do sets of 225, three sets. Let's say I'd normally do

three sets with the 405. I'm going to do three sets of 225 or maybe even 205. And I'm not going to push it to failure. I'm going to do maybe 10 to 12 reps, just kind of stimulate the muscles a little bit, get the blood flowing, and that's it. So yeah, you can either take time off completely or do a deload week and just work that in every 8 to 10 weeks. And depending on what you're doing with your dieting, you can just kind of keep your calories the same. Or if you're bulking and you would like to just cut back a little bit,

which I understand, you kind of get sick of eating all that food, you can just go down to maintenance for that week. And if you do that, you'll never get overtrained. Basically, you just never have to deal with it. So yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say about the overtraining issue. And the last thing I'd like to talk about, the kind of non-health and fitness thing of the week is going to be, I wrote an article called eight ancient laws for creating a simpler happier life a lot of people like this article it's gotten a lot of views shared around etc so I thought I would just talk about it here in the podcast so these these are laws that I've kind of I like to read a lot of different things so I've kind of

gleaned things from from various books and various sources that I've read, and then just put them into practice in my life, and they've served me well. So here are some just very simple, I think, general rules of thumb, rules for living, that just makes life simpler and more enjoyable. So the first one here is if you say you're going to do something, do it. And if you say you won't do something, then don't do it. This is especially a big thing for me in a work environment. I hate it when people I'm working with, whether they be employees or contractors or whatever, or even people I'm trying to do, contractors or whatever, or even people, you know, trying to do deals with whatever,

when somebody says they're going to do something and then they don't, unless there's like a real problem that came up or something, if it's just, I forgot, you know, didn't feel like it or whatever, some reason they're not even saying, I hate that. And, uh, it is a general, I mean, it extends also into life people that can't, that, that who aren't who you, they, their word doesn't mean anything. Or if you, they say they're going to do something, they say they're going to meet you somewhere. They say you're going to go, whatever, do you use a friend, right? Or they're going to help you move or whatever. And when that person, when you just know, like like I don't know if I use that person you know they're unreliable those type of people don't have very much value I mean this might sound a little bit harsh but it's true and

especially in a work environment people that don't keep their word are not very valuable and would never be valuable to a company. So I think it's a good general rule. And also, if you have that rule in with yourself, it makes you consider your commitments a little bit more. Consider what are you agreeing to doing as opposed to maybe in some cases it would just be more comfortable. You want someone to go away or you don't want to worry or you don't want to think about something.

So you just go, yeah, sure, I'll do it. But in the back of your head, you're thinking I'm probably not going to do something. So you just go, yeah, sure. I'll do it. But in the back of your head, you're thinking, I'm probably not going to do that. Um, you know, not that I've never done that before. Of course I have, but generally speaking, I don't do that. If I'm not going to do something, even if it's a little bit uncomfortable, it's like awkward where somebody is asking something that, I mean, I've had people, for instance, ask, um, for my help, uh, with, cause you know, I just, with the success I've had selling books and building up a website and et cetera, et just with the success I've had selling books and building

up a website and et cetera, et cetera. I've had people come to me and ask for help with their projects. And ironically, these people, before I was doing what I'm doing now, I've asked for their help from different, with different things. And they, you know, whatever, they didn't have any time for me. But now that I'm doing something, they come to me and want help. And I've just told them straight up, no, you didn't help me back when I was asking for your help. But now that I'm doing something that's going to benefit you, you want my help? No. As opposed to being like, well, yeah, maybe, yeah, just shoot me an email and just dragging it out. So I try to keep things simple.

And if I say I'm going to do something, then it'll be done. And I take it upon myself to not forget. If I tell someone, we're going to do a Skype call this day, this time, I put it in my calendar. I have reminders. And if I have to change it, I let them know. So I think it's just a good law. Keep your word. Another law here is don't lie, exaggerate, Another law here is don't lie, exaggerate, withhold vital information, or mislead others. Honesty is a big, being dishonest makes life tough. And especially the more dishonest someone is, the more and more trouble that they have.

And, you know, lies beget lies beget lies. And eventually, I know people that are pathological liars at this point. I mean they've constructed, they've told so many lies to so many people that they have to keep up. I'm sure they can't even keep up. They probably are actually worried about what they've said to who or whom and because there's just no way to keep track of all the lies. It's like you build this false kind of world that you have to, you know, guard from people inspecting or looking into. It just kind of disengages you from life. So be honest, even when it's tough. I mean, once again, of course I've lied. But as a general rule of thumb, I try not to lie about, you know, really about anything. You know, generally, I try to do things that I don't have to keep secret, I don't have to lie about.

But also, you know, even coming back to when people ask me certain things, if I'm going to do this or do that, or if I'm interested in this and that, I don't lead people on or lie about it. I'm just going to say yes or no. And if that means I have to deal with consequences, then fine. It's better than dealing with the more insidious consequences of telling a bunch of lies. And, you know, because also that gets around. These people that I know that are pathological liar types, they, everybody I know that knows them knows that that person's full of shit, but that person

doesn't know that everybody knows. So, I mean, I feel kind of bad for these people. Like, they go around telling these stories. Like, I know this one guy. He's known for this. All he does is tell stories about himself. He's totally full of shit, doing nothing, makes up all these stories. There's a group text.

I'm not in on it because it's not really my thing, but I know people, there's a group text where all they do is share stories about this guy and all this shit he makes up and they egg him on and tell him to get all their you know he then makes up more ridiculous details and they all text on it and they think it's hilarious um and you know once again that's not really my thing but uh that guy i mean he doesn't know he thinks all these people think he's awesome so that's pretty shitty. But once again,

you know, it goes back to that guy. If he weren't lying about everything, this wouldn't be happening. So yeah, being honest is just a big, a big part of having a kind of a simpler, happier life. Another one here is being on time always, which is kind of a silly thing, maybe kind of a subset of that first law of keep your word. But I think it's an important thing. It's like a basic courtesy. If you tell people you're going to be somewhere at a certain time, be there. If you're saying you're going to, you know, be available at a certain time, be available. If you're going to be meeting you, do a Skype call, that kind of stuff, just, you know, be on time. And, you know, especially in the work world and dealing with people that you want something from uh you know be early it creates a good impression uh so here's another law is

outwork everyone you know until you've made it and then you can loaf if you want this is a big one that i am a big believer in this um you know if you feel that you haven't accomplished your goals you know whether it be in your career or maybe it's like a financial thing or you know I mean I guess that's probably like the main focus of work but this also applies to any kind of area of life where you want to achieve something you at least my viewpoint on it is that you work is like work as hard as you can to get there, really evaluate what your other option, like what else are you going to be spending your time on? It could be in a lot of people, they spend a lot of time just doing nothing, just, you know, surfing the internet, watching TV,

even hanging out with friends or, you know, whatever. Not that these things are inherently bad, but, uh, for me personally, I mean, I guess, I mean, I'm a fairly driven person. So I feel like I don't need very much leisure time because I have a lot of stuff that I want to get done basically. And my kind of, this is like kind of a rule that's just cast in titanium for me, is I am going to, you know, I work long hours, maybe 70 hours a week, maybe even more. I don't know. I have to look, I have to count it up. I make some time for my family. You know, on Saturdays we do some stuff, a little bit of time at night. And I take a little bit of time, you know, if I'm watching a TV show, maybe I'll watch an episode here and there. But I just do not spend a lot of time goofing off, because I just, right now,

my focus is, I want to be able to provide for my family, I want to, you know, a certain type of lifestyle that we like to have, and, you know, I, of course, enjoy my work, but that's what I focus on right now, is I want to build up my work, and I, you know but that's what I focus on right now is I want to build up my, my, my work. And, uh, I, you know, that's where I put the majority of my time and every single person, you know, I, I know personally, um, I don't even know, probably at least 30 self-made millionaires through, um, through my work. And also, um, my dad's successful business plan through people he knows and whatever. And one for one, that was like, I mean, there are other common denominators with these people, but one for one, they worked insanely hard.

And, you know, hard work doesn't mean it's necessarily grueling. It just means time. They just put in a lot of time. They were doing, you know, yeah, the 70, 80 plus hour weeks in some cases for years. You know, my dad's neighbor is, he's a guy, his name's Phil. He sold a software company for $200 million or something, no, hardware, computer hardware. And he was, and then he goes out and, you know, he sells the company $200 million. I think he had one partner. So I don't know how much he got of that, but, you know, at least half of it. And so he builds a $15 million house and he goes and he flies around the world, gets a jet, does all this stuff and has fun for a couple of years, gets bored of that.

And then, you know, I find him, this is when I was living in my parents' house years ago. He was like out, you know, I would talk to him. He's a cool guy. He'd be out like gardening in the middle of the day.'m like what are you doing why why are you like you're out here gardening he has you know a team of landscapers like why are you just like gardening or what and he's like and not really but he was just bored he didn't even know what to do anymore and he said that ironically when he was building his business, you know, working 12, 14 hour a day, sometimes, you know, you'd have to do these 24 hour stints. I mean, he was a very,

very busy dude. He said, ironically, he was more happy at that time than he is now, or than he was then. I mean, not that he was depressed, but he was, I would say, solidly just in boredom. In general, he was just in boredom. Like he didn't in boredom like he didn't the toys didn't do anything for him anymore he already had gone through a couple ferraris and bentley and the plane he got a helicopter and i fly he shouldn't care anymore and he was bored uh and he said that you know it's just funny to him looking at it that now that he's made it or whatever he's just kind of bored whereas when he was building his business and a lot of stress and a lot of things that could go wrong, he was happier in general.

Eventually what he did is he just got back into business, of course, and busied himself in that way. So he's doing fine now and he's happy and has his business stuff. So, yeah, work hard. That's just a simple, I think of happiness hard work here another law here is kind of do the right thing even when it costs you something you know and I think that we don't need to really go and dive into philosophy to know what's right and wrong I think we all come with a pretty good moral compass and you know

you can go back to that golden rule of don't do unto others what you wouldn't want done to you or do unto others what you would want done to you. I think it's a very simple way to know if you should do something or not. And also, I think, you know, call it karma or whatever, but doing the right thing, it ripples out and it comes back in many different ways. So, you know, once again, I'm not holding myself up as a paradigm of all these things, but I do try to keep this in and I try to do what's right and not just look at my own, what I have to gain, but also consider who else is involved and, you know,

act, try to act selflessly as much as possible in whatever kind of situations. The next law here is always make time for personal growth. I think this is a big important one. You know, this is with today's kind of culture, I think it makes it very easy for us to just shut off mentally. You know, We can spend so much time with reality TV shows, video games, or even books, not like fiction-type books, which I like reading fiction. I actually have an interest in writing fiction, but it kind of just goes along with it. It can be just mindless entertainment. And to the point where if you took all this stuff away,

I mean, a lot of people, they probably would be they probably wouldn't even know what to do with their time anymore. Because when you watch six TV shows and play these video games and you're reading these whatever books, it can add up to a lot of time without any time being made for personal growth. Now, what I mean by personal growth is, you know, it could be really anything that involves learning. Anything that you would like to learn, anything you'd like to get better at, you'd like to do. It could be learning another language. I'm learning German. My wife is German, so I've been doing Pimsleur courses, which are cool. I'm on the last one, German 4, and learning to sprechen spreken to deutsch

but so it could be that it could be you know playing an instrument um you know if there's self-help books you want to read or or um it doesn't just be necessarily self-help but you know i like to read a lot of different business books that help me just you know it gives me ideas for for my businesses and what i'm doing. I like marketing a lot. So, I mean, I've read a lot of marketing stuff. I haven't read something recently, but there was a time when all I was doing was just pouring just one marketing book after another, learning a lot. And that's something that I think is an important thing. Use your mind like, just like a muscle, you know, you got to exercise it or it just kind of uh you could

say it rusts from disuse and um you know this is not only this i think that doing that also has a lot of different like let's say learning to play an instrument if you're not going to be a musician that might have nothing to do with necessarily doing better in life. But I think that making time for yourself and using your mind and keeping your mind sharp and learning is a great way to do that. Then that can help you in many different areas. So another law here is just never have debt. This is a big one for me. I've had debt. I've had a lot of debt.

one for me I've had that I've had a lot of debt when I was younger I was you know I travel a fair amount go to Europe a lot and spend a bunch of money and then I wouldn't want to ask for all the money that I would spend from my dad so I only asked for some of it and you know just would like leave some on credit cards and I was no it wasn't my money so of course I didn't care about it I was just being stupid so I know what that's like though then when I had to like finally when I got a little bit older and I was like all right I gotta make something of myself now uh so I know what it's like to then be like feeling like you're kind of a slave to the banks and you know you make you know you can make minimum payments and whatever and it sucks so what I did is um, over time, I paid off all credit card debt.

I don't have any credit card debt now. And I think that just having that peace of mind that you don't owe anything to anyone is much more valuable than having stuff that you can't afford. And that's how it was for me. I couldn't afford the lifestyle that I was living. So now, I don't have any debt. Obviously, I've now built up savings, which I didn't do before, which I'm going to get into in a second. I have a mortgage, of course, but I guess what I'm talking about here is like unsecured debt, you know, just buying

stuff on credit cards. I think a mortgage is acceptable. Although I would like to have it paid off at some point, but anyway, live below your means, don't have debt. And, you know, it's kind of funny because like some people, you know, friends of mine and stuff that I've talked to who also have kind of messed up their finances, they've said like, well, yeah, that's easy to say for me because, you know, I'm now making some money or whatever. But that's not like one, I put this in before I

was really making any money and just started getting my finances in order. And then also, as you start making money, it becomes actually much easier to kind of bury yourself in debt because now, you know, you can have, uh, a lot of credit card room. Um, banks want to, you know, they want you to take out another mortgage on your home they you know want you oh you want to buy that sports car you want to buy that boat whatever here you can have money have money have money that's that's how it works and I get of course we all get a lot of credit card offers but you know so anyways it's if you if you're not good with money when you start making money you can really start to screw yourself up so how I kind of deal with it now is I pay for things in cash.

Not literally in cash. I put everything on American Express, actually, because they have a good rewards program. And I destroy them, basically, with so many points and stuff between businesses and whatever. But I have the money. I don't just buy things and hope that I can. Or you even plan, like, oh, well, I'll just pay this off for the next six months. No. I don't just buy things and hope that I can, or even plan, like, oh, well, I'll just pay this off for the next six months. No.

Like, I'm, you know, although these Amex, you know, even the Amex charge cards, like the gold card, even the platinum card or whatever, you can have a revolving balance on it. It comes as a charge card, but then they'll offer you a revolving balance, but the APR is insane. It's like 25% or something. But I treat it like a charge card. So if I'm going to buy, you know, something that costs $500, then I better have that $500 and so forth. So yeah, I think that's an important point. And the last law here for kind of simpler, happier living is to build up an emergency fund of a year's worth of expenses. And this kind of ties into the last one because not having money in the bank sucks. And I know what it's like. I

know, like I had a bunch of debt, no money in the bank. And, you know, it can, it can just cause stress and make you worry. And it also can be a real actual, like tangible problem. If something bad were to happen, if there was some sort of emergency and you needed $5,000, you know, let's say a hospital or whatever, anything, and to not have that, it sucks. So my recommendation is just don't put yourself in that situation. You know, live below your means so you can save up an emergency fund and just don't touch that money for anything. Really, it's for emergencies.

And, like, you know, if you've ever read the book, Richest Man in Babylon, cool book, great simple laws for financial security, basically. What I like to do is just take percentages. So 10% of the money that I make goes into emergency fund. Wife and I would like to build a house and at least start at the end of this year. You know, it's a process, whatever. So I put a percentage of my income toward the house. I put

a percentage of my income toward, you know, just like disposable income, whatever. I'll let her spend however much per month. And so I have, I have it all kind of divvied up. It works well, as opposed to making it kind of random, like, well, I made this much per month and I, you know, I feel like buying this thing. So I'm not much per month and I, you know, I feel like buying this thing, so I'm not going to put money to the emergency fund. I'm not going to put money to this. That is not, I used to do that as well, so I know how that is. I think it's much better to be, to treat that like that money that you make and it doesn't matter how much it is. But if you're going to put 10% into emergency emergency fund or you're going to put 5% in an emergency fund,

just have a separate account for that and transfer that money to that account and just don't touch it. And over time, let's say your average monthly expenses are $3,000 or whatever, $2,000, whatever it is. If you have 12 months of expenses sitting in the bank, it feels good. You know that if you have 12 months of expenses sitting in the bank, it feels good. You just, you know that you're okay. If your income dips for a certain time, if something happens at your work and you need to find a new job, whatever, you don't have to get all stressed out about it because you have that money there. So yeah, that's it.

Those are the kind of the eight laws of kind of simple, happy living that I've come across and put in my own life and they served me well. I hope that you didn't find it boring. I hope you liked it. Let me know. Because if you like this kind of stuff, I mean, I, you know, I like talking about things other than health and fitness as well. So I can talk about various things and that are also relevant, you know, that I've experienced and things that have helped me kind of come along in my career and whatever. So, uh, yeah, that's it for this podcast. Um, if you liked it, please subscribe on iTunes. I'll put a link down in the description below, you know, subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'm going to start doing a lot more YouTube stuff. Um, I've kind of focused just on writing up until now,

which has been great, but I should start doing more videos. So I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to do a podcast every week. I'm, I might miss a week here and there, but I should start doing more videos. So I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to do a podcast every week. I might miss a week here and there, but I'm going to try. I'm really now going to be like steady on it. It's fun. I enjoy it. And then I'm also going to be doing some shorter videos just based on various different things, similar to what I do with articles, pick a subject, talk about it, et cetera. So yeah, if you like my stuff, you can find me at muscleforlife.com. Subscribe to my channel here. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. I'll put all the links in the description below.

And have a great new year. Today is the 30th? Yeah, today is the 30th. So I hope you're having a great holiday. Have a fun year of celebration. And I look forward to helping you make 2014 awesome. I have a lot of cool plans with the website and such to help people, and we're going to be expanding it and whatever.

So thanks again, and see you next time. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually.

I release kind of four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscle for life.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.