Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Ep. #1188: Q&A: Beating Bad Habits, Free-weight Leg Day, Legion Clear Protein, & More

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

In this episode, I discuss strategies to beat bad eating habits, my favorite free-weight exercises for leg day, upcoming developments with Legion Clear Protein, and more.As always, these questions come directly from myInstagram followers, who take advantage of my weekly Q&As in my stories.If you have a question you're dying to have answered, make sure you follow me on Instagram (@muscleforlifefitness) and look out for the Q&A posts. Your question might just make it into a podcast episode!If you like this type of episode, let me know. Send me an email ([e-mail]) or direct message me on Instagram. And if you don’t like it, let me know that too or how you think it could be better.---Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(02:03) Intermittent fasting—fad?(06:33) Beat bad eating habits?(10:39) Dream Whey+ flavor?(11:25) TLS workouts—full coverage?(11:52) Dexa scans reliable?(12:50) Butter healthy?(13:24) Best Adonis belt exercise?(14:34) High urea—lower protein?(14:54) Fastest way to first pull-up?(15:21) Green powder worth it?(16:00) Bicep tendonitis—alternatives?(17:11) Biggest Legion challenge?(26:03) Count all protein?(29:03) Train on period?(29:46) Raising what cows?(30:47) Check nutrients without bloodwork?(31:19) Compound vs. machines?(34:47) 100g+ protein needed?(36:01) Phosphatidic acid thoughts?(37:16) Natural or enhanced?(38:54) Best leg exercise no machines?---Mentioned on the Show:Coaching PageThe Little Black Book of Workout MotivationWhey+

Hello and welcome to another Q&A episode of Muscle For Life. I am your host Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to hear me answer a bunch of questions that people asked me over on Instagram. So every couple of weeks I put up a story asking for questions, I get a bunch of questions, I go through them, I choose ones that are interesting to me or topical or ones that I haven't already answered a million times before, and then I answer them briefly there on Instagram and bring everything over here on the podcast where I can expound on them further. And so in today's episode, I am answering questions like the best way to beat bad eating habits for people who are training regularly, but just not hitting their calories

and macros regularly are just eating too much food regularly. What can you do? I answer a couple questions about Legion, some of the plans for this year like for example ClearWay Isolate which is coming soon-ish from Legion Q1 of this year. I have a question here on DEXA scans for body fat percentage. How reliable are they really? And a question on butter. Is it a healthy fat source? Should you be eating as much butter as you can possibly shove into your gullet or not?

The quickest way to get to your first pull-up and more. Before we get going with today's episode, I need to tell you about my one-on-one coaching program, which might be for you if you are feeling like no matter what you do to eat better, no matter how much you work out, no matter what supplements you take, nothing seems to work. And I know what that's like. I've been there. It can be very frustrating. It can even make you feel a little bit crazy. You try and you try and you try and then when those things don't work you try something else. You jump onto the new diet,

the new workout plan and then when you give your all to the newest things that don't work you finally feel like giving up or maybe you can muster the will to keep the cycle going, but either way, you remain stuck. And this is how people can go to the gym for years, how they can eat well, at least well enough, they can take good supplements, and still look more or less the same as when they started. And today, I'm going to give you the solution. I'm going to show you how to get unstuck and finally out of that vicious cycle once and for all. And it starts with this. The biggest thing that I see with the people that we help is this. They are often missing just one crucial piece of the puzzle.

And I bet it's the same with you. You are probably doing a lot of things right. However, there's probably something you are not doing right that is giving you most of the grief. For example, maybe it's your calories or macros. Maybe it's your exercise selection. Maybe it's your food choices. Maybe you're not progressively overloading

your muscles. Whatever it is though, here's what's important. Once you identify what that one thing you're missing is, once you figure it out, that's when everything finally clicks. That's when you start making serious progress. And this is exactly what my coaching team has done for over 3,000 men and women of all ages and abilities. For example, they did it for Sarah, one of our clients who lost 21 pounds and six and a half inches off her waist in just 90

days. And in her words, quote, I'm in the best physical appearance of my life at age 45 and I have more energy and confidence, I feel like I found the secret to success." We also did the same thing for another client, Andy, who cut 11 pounds of body fat and over four inches from his waist while also gaining over 50 pounds on his key lifts. He did those things also in just 90 days. And in 90 days, we helped another client, Jen, slash 4 inches from her waist, add 30 pounds to her squat and cut almost 15 pounds of body fat all while eating foods she loved

and in her words, quote, rarely feeling hungry. Now I could go on like that literally for hours, but in almost every success story, first and foremost, we helped our clients figure out that one thing that made all the difference for them. It's kind of like typing in a password to log into your computer. You could have all the letters, numbers, symbols, and so forth, right, except one, and then what happens?

You can't log in, right? But as soon as you get that last remaining character right, voila, you are in business. And so if I've learned anything from the thousands of success stories that we've racked up over the years, it's this. You too are probably just one major shift, one important insight, one powerful new behavior away from easy street, or at least what feels like easy street compared to the street you've

been stuck on. And if you want some help figuring out what that one thing is, that one thing that's missing for you, then my one on one-one coaching service might be for you. And of course, it could be a couple of things. It doesn't have to just be one, and we don't charge extra for that either. And so if you want to see if my coaching service is right for you, go to bylegion.com slash coaching.

That's B-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash coaching, and schedule your free consultation call so my team can learn about you, your goals, your lifestyle, and then so the both of you can determine if the program is right for you. And by the way, there are people we speak with who are not a good fit for the program. That does happen, but we almost always have other experts and other resources to refer them to. in but we almost always have other experts and other resources to refer them to. And then if the program makes sense to you, you sign up and you show up every day, you do the work and then we guarantee your results or you get your money back. So again, if you are still listening to this and are even remotely interested in what I've

said, don't put this off for later and then forget. Take the first step now. Schedule your free consultation call over at bylegion.com slash coaching. CSH 1213 asks, best way to beat bad eating habits I train but the food so hard to be consistent. I think the single best way to beat a bad diet is to simply eliminate the opportunities to eat the stuff that you eat too much of start there. You don't have to stay there forever. This is similar to an elimination diet, right? Where you have someone who is experiencing various negative reactions to foods that they're

eating, and they don't know which foods are causing the problems. And so with an elimination diet, you often go to just meat because meat is well tolerated by most people. So you get rid of everything in your diet and you just eat meat. And then you see how your body responds. Often the negative reactions disappear, not because meat has some magical property to it, but it's just you've gotten rid of whatever has been causing the problems. But then the next phase to the elimination diet is you start reintroducing other foods one at a time and seeing how your body responds. And in that way, you isolate the exact foods that your body does not do well with.

So we can apply that mentality to junk food or sweets or other types of foods that people eat too much of that get in the way of them achieving their fitness goals. So you start with just eliminating that stuff. So for most people, that means not stalking it at home. That's what is most important. Just not buying the things that are getting in the way of your goals, the things that you are eating too much of. That also generally means eating out less because the more you eat out, the more likely you are to just overeat. Even if it's accidentally because you don't understand how many calories are actually in those dishes.

You don't understand how many hidden calories in the way of butter and oil and sugar and cream and so forth. So eating out less and also reorganizing social events so they don't involve eating or drinking. So that's the place to start. And yes, it's a bit extreme for some people, but you don't have to stay there forever. You just start there and then you recalibrate there. And then you start reintroducing strategically little things and seeing how it impacts your success, seeing how it impacts your eating habits. And what you may find, for example,

is that there are certain foods that when you're looking to control your calories, you simply should not have around. So ice cream is a good example of this. I can speak personally to this. I can't eat a hundred or 200 calories of ice cream and be satisfied. I mean, I can force myself, I can use discipline and just eat the one to 200 calories of ice cream and move on with my day. But I don't find that

very satisfying for the calories to get satisfaction from ice cream. I would say I need to eat at least half of a pint. So we're talking five or 600, maybe even 700, depending on what's in it, calories of ice cream. That's satisfying to me. And so I simply don't keep ice cream around. I just don't buy it. And I've recently started messing around with the Ninja Creamy, which so far I'm really enjoying because you can get a bit of the ice cream experience. It's not exactly the same, of course,

but you can get a bit of the ice cream experience using lower calorie ingredients like almond milk and using protein powder for sweetness and flavor for a lot fewer calories, maybe two or three hundred calories in a pint and there's a bit of protein. But anyway, coming back to ice cream, that's something that I've learned to just not buy. Just don't bother. And for my little indulgences, I much prefer dark chocolate. For example, I can eat a hundred or two 200 calories of dark chocolate and be satisfied.

And so you'll learn these quirks of your psychology or physiology, maybe a bit of both by doing this kind of elimination routine. Okay. Dan Yev, DB seven asks, what is a dream flavor of whey plus that you wish could exist tomorrow? New Jerk responds, honey drizzled cornbread. I actually want to see if that's possible. May not be possible to get right, especially with natural ingredients, but I'm going to

look into it. And I have another question here from DanyevDB7, would Legion ever look into these clear protein powders? Absolutely. We have one on the way. I don't remember exactly when it's coming out. It's Q1 this year. I want to say February, maybe March, and we have one or two flavors initially, and

we are going to aggressively expand our offering. We're going to, we're going to push hard on, on new flavors. So yeah, excited for that. Dr. CK Tom asks, do your TLS workouts hit all muscle groups twice or more each week? Uh, so TLS is thinner, you know, stronger by the way, my book, specifically fitness book for women, and there are several programs with the book, three, four and five day programs. And so the four and five day programs programs train all major muscle groups two to three times

per week and the three-day programs are one to two times per week. German Rosales asks, how reliable are DEXA scans? Big difference in body fat percentage between DEXA and calipers. Well, despite the common belief that DEXA is absolutely infallible, it actually can be just as inaccurate as anything else. If the machine isn't calibrated properly, and this has been shown in a number of studies, it's not just my opinion, DEXA can also over or underestimate your body fatness based on physiological factors like hydration and others.

And if you want to learn more about body fat percentage, calculating it, what it is, what it is not, head over to LegionAthletics.com, search for body fat percentage, body fat towards a percentage. And you can find a number of articles that I've written on the topic, like how to measure your body fat percentage using calipers, what a healthy body fat percentage is for men and women, and more. Jan Korn asks, why is butter a healthy fat source

when the primary fatty acid is palmitic acid? Sadly, butter is a uniquely unhealthy source of fat because of its special association with elevated total and LDL cholesterol levels. This has been shown in a number of studies, large body of evidence. Now, that's not to say that you should avoid butter, like maybe you should avoid cigarettes,

but it is to say that you shouldn't eat a lot of it. That should not be a primary source of fat in your diet. Javier De Haro asks, what exercises make the cum gutters pop more? And I now know what cum gutters are had not heard that one before. That is also called the Adonis belt, you know, the V shaped muscles that go from the man's hips to his PP. And the answer is one, you got to get lean. That's more important actually than doing any specific exercises. And then two, if you do heavy compound lifts

that engage the core, like the squat, the deadlift, the overhead press, that is going to train those muscles in addition to many other muscles. And then if you need to, you can supplement with some core specific training, like for example the hanging leg raise or the bicycle crunch, two simple exercises that you can even superset together. And as you get stronger on the hanging leg raise, you can add weight by just snatching

a dumbbell in between your feet. But many guys find that they don't even need to do that. Once they get strong on the basic lifts and then get lean, they have great come gutters. Jay back is 79 asks, if your urea nitrogen level is high, should you drop protein per pound? No. So a high protein diet increases urea nitrogen production due to the metabolism of excess amino acids. That's normal. That's expected. So that's definitely not a reason to eat less protein. JT Gann, 1985 asks, what's the quickest way to get to your first pull-up? So a few sets to failure per week of the following exercises. The lat pull-down,

the negative pull-up, the assisted pull-up. So that could be band assisted or machine assisted and also lose weight if you are overweight. So you work on those things and before you know it, you'll be doing pull-ups. Kapil asks, should I eat greens powder if I've only sweet potato and cucumber and not enough veggies in my lean bulk diet? No. So I think better is to just buy some raw spinach and eat a large handful every day, not even as a salad, just like a cow, just slam it into your face, force yourself to eat the handful. I mean, it's just a handful of spinach.

Simple, spinach is awesome, super nutritious. I think it's the best single vegetable to eat. Not that you should only eat one vegetable, but if I had to choose just one, it would be spinach. Another question from Kapil, I have minor biceps tendonitis, can't do biceps curls, any alternative exercises? Well, really any type of curl or row that doesn't aggravate the tendonitis

and to be specific that doesn't cause pain or discomfort that you would rate any more than maybe a two or three out of ten and that's going gonna be it. And if nothing works, if every type of curl that you can find, every type of row that you can find causes too much aggravation, then you need to rest the injured limb. So that means no curling, no rowing, if rowing is also a problem for that limb, but keep training the healthy limb. And I know that

may sound a little bit counterintuitive, however research shows that it will help maintain the muscle and strength in the injured limb. It's called the crossover effect if you want to look into it. So you keep training the healthy limb, you let the injured limb heal up, and then you get back to training the injured limb when you can. Do again, some type of curl, some type of row with minimal pain, minimal aggravation, Kimball Jensen asks, what is the number one challenge in Legion athletics right now? So currently the number one challenge is probably just not having enough of the right people to make

the most of the growth opportunities that we have. And that's not a knock on anyone working at Legion. We have a lot of great people, but we just don't have enough people to pursue the many growth opportunities that are in front of us. Like retail, for example, we're just getting started in retail, which really is a mistake. And that's on me a hundred percent my fault that we got the e-commerce business to almost $50 million a year in revenue without pursuing retail at all. That's, that's never a good playbook.

Like typically in CPG, what you do is you use e-commerce to prove your product market fit, to prove that your value proposition resonates with buyers, to prove that your business can scale. And then you use that as a business case to bring it to retail. And to put a specific number on it, you probably have a good business case at 5 million in trailing 12 sales. And you can take that again, and then get into retail and often retail can scale faster than e-commerce. But let's say you're very good at e-commerce. And so then you, you can scale e-commerce and retail at about the same rate. And something I didn't know years ago that I know now, retail

revenue is often viewed as more valuable, like in the case of a strategic partner or a strategic buyer even, retail revenue is often valued higher than e-commerce revenue. And that has to do with distribution, it has to do with controlling shelf space. And so if you only stick to e-commerce, you can expect lower

valuations. You can expect lower multiples on the business than if you have a healthy mix. Often you're going to want probably 30 to 50% of your revenue to come from retail, if not more depending on the business. But if you're strong in e-commerce, then again, you want to be strong in retail, where probably ideally about 50-50 to justify a significant premium on the valuation of the business. In fact, if you generate enough retail revenue, then the valuation becomes more of a multiple of revenue than a multiple of EBITDA. And if you stick just e-commerce, you're almost certainly looking at a multiple of EBITDA, unless you have explosive growth or some other unique factors that justify the premium that

comes with being valued on a multiple of revenue. And so anyway, my mistake, I guess, is now a big opportunity. Well, I mean, it is. So I'm not trying to cope, but at least there is a silver lining in that Legion is more than primed to succeed in retail. Again, we've gotten our e-commerce business

to probably about 10 times what you would normally do before going into retail. And of course with that then comes a lot of brand awareness, brand equity, and so retail needs to be executed properly. Of course, it could go badly if it weren't done well, but if it's done well, it should go quite well for us. And so another example of a big growth opportunity for Legion that really should have been of a big growth opportunity for Legion that

really should have been pursued a long time ago is international, both e commerce and retail. When you take the international market or markets collectively, it represents actually more potential revenue than the domestic for me, the United States. And so we're really just getting started there as well. Again, I would call that a mistake and comes ultimately back on me. And the primary reasons those mistakes were made were just looking back on it, strategic oversight, strategic tunnel vision, getting too focused on what we have been doing, what we have been good at, which is e-commerce and not fully appreciating what retail can really do for the

business and what international can really do for the business. And then it comes back to this point of people. It is difficult to find people who are true experts at retail who can make retail happen in a big way, not sell into some mom and pop shops here and there, maybe some independent chains. No build a program that's going to produce 50 million in annual revenue, a retail program that can produce 50 million in annual revenue in call it three to at most five years. Those people are out there, but they're not easy to find. It takes quite a bit of work to do that.

And it's not that I am work shy or anybody that works with me is work shy, but it's not as easy as just sending some messages on LinkedIn and fielding some resumes and hiring the perfect candidate. So anyway, my team and I, we are working to resolve this this year. And we've already been working at this

and hiring key people. And there are a few other key hires that we're going to be making this year to allow us to really capitalize on the opportunities that we have in front of us. We will resume today's episode shortly, but first I need to tell you about my best-selling fitness mindset manual

for breaking through mental resistance and barriers, building unshakable discipline, and keeping your goals alive when things get tough. It is called the Little Black Book of Work book of workout motivation. And while fitness is not everything, everything is harder if you aren't fit. Because the muscle and strength that you gain from working out is less important than the person you become by working out. You become a person who understands that growing into the best version of themselves necessarily includes getting into great shape.

And you become a person who never underestimates the power of simply believing in themselves and always looks for reasons to bet on their hand. You become a person who realizes that they can achieve far more than they thought they were capable of. And that's why I wrote the Little Black Book of Workout Motivation, to help you become that person by sharing insights from scientific research, compelling stories, and practical strategies

for staying motivated when setbacks, failure, and self-doubt makes you want to give up. And so here's a sneak peek of what you will find inside the little black book of workout motivation. The what, when, where, if, then formula that will rewire your thinking for more consistency inside and outside of the gym. Three simple questions that will reveal your true why for fitness and unlock a wellspring of motivation that will keep you going even when it's hard. How to stop sabotaging your personal growth habits with complaining and negativity

and how to develop a solution oriented mindset that will empower you to take action and keep taking action. Warren Buffett's two list strategy for prioritizing your goals, eliminating distractions and achieving a laser focus and maximum productivity. How to use productive pessimism to avoid what scientists call the positivity paradox and cultivate a balanced mindset

that will turn self doubt intoief, and much more. So look, the bottom line is getting fit is like doing anything that most people fail at. It is harder than you think it will be, it will take longer than you think it will take, you will make way more mistakes than you want to make, but there's also this, you can't fail unless you give up. So if you're feeling overwhelmed in your fitness,

if you are struggling with laziness or procrastination or self doubt, if you are trying to reignite your passion for working out and if you'd like some strategies for developing a resilient mindset that will empower you to stick with your fitness for the long haul, because that's the ultimate goal, not just to get into shape, to stay in shape for the rest of our lives. Then head over to Amazon now and pick up a copy

of the little black book of workout motivation and enjoy. All right, Mario Hugon asks, daily protein intake, would you recommend to count all types of protein sources, bread, pasta, etc.? Yes, however, ideally you would get most of your protein from the best sources, so the the sources that are well absorbed, that are rich in essential amino acids, and then you would top off your protein intake with the lower quality sources and that would be a lot of the residual protein in random foods. So again most of your protein coming from it's going to be

mostly animal products from various types of dairy various types of meat but seafood is great of course and there are some some good sources of plant-based protein as well. However, practically speaking, what most people do, most of the protein is coming from protein powders that it's often whey or casein. So again, coming back to animal products, animal-based foods, and then it's supplemented with protein in plants. Megan Rudis asks, is intermittent fasting a fad or is it effective? Well, it's actually both because it's a fad when you view it in the context of many of the claims

that are made to sell it. Most of those claims are false. However, it is effective when viewed in the context of controlling your food intake. So some people find it easier and just more enjoyable to hit their calories, to hit their macros with IF, which for many people, it's just skipping breakfast. So they stop eating, call it at dinner, maybe slightly after dinner, they're done eating by 6pm, 7pm, 8pm. And then they skip breakfast and they start eating at lunch the next day, basically, p.m. or 1 p.m. Many people find that better for controlling their calories, controlling their macros, feeling full, enjoying their diet, than more frequent eating, than forcing themselves to eat breakfast. But then there are many people

who really enjoy breakfast and actually do best with a larger breakfast, they make that the largest meal of their day and then they just taper their calories down per meal as the day goes on. So it's just important to do what works best for you with meal frequency. You can't really go wrong. Now, if you were a natural bodybuilder, you're trying to get as jacked as possible,

I would not recommend IF, I would recommend more frequent feedings of protein in particular. I would not recommend something like OMAD one meal a day because that's going to be even worse. But if you're not a natural bodybuilder, if you are even just a lifestyle bodybuilder, you're just a person trying to get into great shape, stay in great shape. Don't worry about your meal frequency. Eat and also your meal frequency, eat, and also your meal timing really. Just eat as many meals per day as what works best with you and your appetite and what you like to do. Make sure you just get enough protein by the end of every day.

You don't have to try to space it out perfectly. Just get enough every day. All right. Myra Biche asks, is it right to train when I have my period or just pause the training for five to seven days? So, you can train and if you find that you are okay in your workouts, if you perform well in your workouts, you don't actually have to change anything. But if your performance declines noticeably, if those workouts are just not the way

that you normally are able to perform, you can simply modify your regimen accordingly. So for example, you don't have to necessarily skip the workouts, but you can just make them a bit easier. And if it's so bad that even the easier workouts are bad, then you can just skip them altogether. Ms. Dani Ryan asks, what kind of cows did you mention you want to raise

on your new property? So she's referring to a house I have under construction finally going to be done. I'm told that I should be in it by March. I mean, they say February, I don't believe them. So I'm saying like March, April. I'm just so cynical at this point. And there's a bit of land, so it's a farm.

And I've thought about putting some animals on the farm. There are already horses, but maybe some other animals. And as far as cows go, I don't know yet. I haven't looked into it. I wanna get onto the property before I even bother wasting my time, getting my hopes up. But my wife has found these little cute miniature cows, of course, to go with her equally impractical

and decorative silky chickens that she wants, form over function always. And I mean, I'm open to it. The cows are pretty cute. So we'll see. We'll see when we get on the farm. Permadog22 asks, Is there a less invasive way than blood work to check your nutrient levels? Unfortunately, no, that's what you need to do if you really want to know. However, if you've never had it done, it is a non-issue. It's mildly annoying at most. So if the person who's doing it knows what they're doing, you don't even feel the needle going in. And you feel it a little bit when they have to swap files.

And you maybe have a little bruise after and that's it. Reid Ali asks, reducing compound movements versus machines in order to limit fatigue thoughts. Yes, this is actually an effective way to help manage fatigue, especially when you're moving from say barbell work to machine work. And that can be appropriate, it can be optimal actually, depending on the person's circumstances and their goals. So for example, if you have a, an advanced weightlifter, somebody who's gained quite a bit of muscle and strength,

and they're really trying to gain the last call it 20% of muscle and strength that is available to them, particularly the muscle that's available to them. It could be appropriate for them to do less barbell squatting and more machine work. For example, I've experienced this firsthand over the last. It's probably been close to a year now where I've done a lot less barbell squatting and a lot more power squatting. So if you just look up the machine power squat, I think that it's also called a V hack, but power squat pivot press, which I love, I'm never like pressing again.

The pivot press is going in my home gym that I'm going to end up building on the property in a separate building. I'm definitely getting a pivot press. I love it. And the pendulum squat has been another machine. So I've made good progress on those three machines in particular. And I have noticed a significant relative to my training experience, my genetics, my musculature, a significant improvement in the size and the definition in my quads in particular. And one of the reasons for that is

that those machines are less systemically fatiguing than a barbell squat. For example, once you get fairly strong in the barbell squat, you're probably going to find that your back is more of a limiting factor in your performance than your quads, that you could push a bit more out of your quads, but eventually your back just can't take it. And that's fine. It doesn't mean that the barbell squat is a bad exercise. It's just more of a whole body exercise than the power squat or the pendulum squat or the pivot press, which is

more of a quadriceps exercise. You could argue there's a little bit of maybe stabilization that needs to occur. It's not as much of a quadriceps isolation exercise as say the leg extension. That's probably true, but it is much more of a quadriceps isolation exercise than a barbell back squat or a barbell front squat. And so I've stuck with those machines. I've done a lot more of the work on those machines than the barbells over the last year, just because I've made good progress. It's been nice to see that. And even though I wasn't explicitly trying to make my legs bigger, because now I'm getting into the awkward upper leg size

where some of my jeans aren't quite fitting right anymore. They're starting to look like leggings. Some of the nicer pants that I have for dressing up also are now gonna have probably be tailored again, but I like training. I like making progress. So I'm just doing it anyway. And so that's just an example of when it could be totally appropriate to move away from just compound, free weightlifting and not move away from it entirely, but to just shift a

significant portion of volume for a given muscle group to machines. All right, I have the real Stevie J1 is more than 100 grams of protein daily, really necessary for fat loss. I struggle getting more. For women, no, this is fine, regardless of the current size, regardless of the anatomy, 100 grams per day is going to be fine for women.

However, for men, that's, that's often going to be low unless we're talking about a smaller man like a shorter man who then really shouldn't be weighing probably more than 150, 175 pounds. And even in that case, I would like to see a bit more. I would say a hundred can work. But if we're talking about a man who had a healthy body composition, add a bit of muscle, bring his body fat down to something around 15% really should be weighing, call it 180 plus, or maybe even 200 plus, then a hundred grams of protein per day is not going to be optimal. They're definitely going to get better results with more and I would say bumping up to 150 grams

per day is going to make a big difference. Bumping up from there to 200 grams a day is going to make less of a difference. Tim Sanchez 51 asks what are your thoughts on phosphatidic acid? So this is often sold to enhance muscle growth. And I wish that I could get behind the research that's used to support it because I would put it in something over at Legion, but unfortunately, the evidence just doesn't support the claims. So out of six studies that I've reviewed, three found no such effects. Three showed improvements, but one of them was confounded with other anabolic substances.

So when you look at the weight of the evidence, you really can't get excited. And I don't want to stick that in a product and claim that, well, the research shows. Here, I'll just show you the two studies that showed positive effects. I'm going to leave out the one that was confounded, and I'm not going to talk about the three that didn't show effects, but according to these two, it can help. That's not how I like to do business. I would consider that lying for a living, and I refuse to lie for a living. So you can try it if you want want because there is some evidence of efficacy.

It may work for certain people under certain circumstances. It's not going to hurt, but I would not expect the type of results that are often claimed to sell it. Yulichesua asks, is your body naturally built or have you used any enhancements? So I've never used anabolic or cutting drugs. I have used a phedrine, which I don't know if you'd consider that a cutting drug, but that's, I haven't used it in a while. When I was probably about mid twenties, I tried it on a cut and I did notice a bit more metabolic activity, but it didn't make a huge difference.

And so that's it as far as chemicals go, artificial chemicals. And I did get my blood work done recently and my testosterone, my total testosterone was in the 700s. And so I'm just gonna stay natty for as long as I can. I hope it's for a while. I think it is very possible that I can maintain healthy hormones for another 20 plus years. And that's the plan. And at some point, if my testosterone is clinically

low and I've done everything I can naturally to bring it up and my quality of life is negatively impacted, which it would be if my testosterone was clinically low, then it would be hormone replacement therapy because living with clinically low testosterone is not only unhealthy, like physiologically unhealthy raises the risk of different types of disease. It's also psychologically unhealthy for men. And then it, it messes up your quality of disease. It's also psychologically unhealthy for men. And then it messes up your quality of life. And so for those reasons, I would get on HRT understanding that

I'll be on it for the rest of my life. Wimbo asks, favorite leg exercises when machines are not available. So the back and the front squat, the lunge, really any type of lunge, the Bulgarian split squat love that one, the Nordic curl, and you actually really don't need anything else to get great legs. Now again, if you are a bodybuilder or you're wanting to approach your training like a bodybuilder,

you're trying to get your legs as jacked as possible. Eventually, you're going to want to incorporate some other exercises, some isolation exercises, probably some machine work, particularly for your quads, just to try to squeeze every last ounce of development out of them. But if you're just trying to get strong, you're trying to get muscular, not bodybuilder jacked per se, you really don't need anything else.

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And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscle for life.com and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about,

maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.