Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Legion Live Q&A: How Fast Can You Gain Fat, Dealing With Haters, 2016 Plans, and More...

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by Legion, my line of naturally sweetened and flavored workout supplements. Now, as you probably know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted thousands and thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that basically do nothing, and I've always had trouble finding products actually worth buying, and especially as I've gotten more and more educated as to what actually works and what doesn't. And eventually after complaining a lot, I decided to do something about it and start making my own supplements. The exact supplements I myself have always wanted. A few of the things that make my products unique are one,

Starting point is 00:00:39 they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored, which I think is good because while artificial sweeteners may not be as harmful, some people claim there is research that suggests regular consumption of these chemicals may not be good for our health, particularly our gut health. So I like to just play it safe and sweeten everything with stevia and erythritol, which are natural sweeteners that actually have health benefits, not health risks. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself. If you go on our website and you check out any of our product pages, you're going to

Starting point is 00:01:10 see that we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting evidence in the footnotes. So you can go look at the research for yourself and verify that we're doing the right thing. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in those studies that prove their effectiveness. This is very important because while a molecule might be proven to, let's say, improve your workout performance, not all dosages are going to improve your workout performance. If you take too little, you're not going to see any effects. You have to take the right amounts. And the right amounts are the amounts proven to be effective in scientific research. And four, there are no proprietary

Starting point is 00:01:49 blends, which means you know exactly what you're buying when you buy our supplements. All of our formulations are 100% transparent in terms of ingredients and dosages. So if that sounds interesting to you and you want to check it out, then go to www.legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.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 will save 10% on your order. Also, if you like what I have to say in my podcast, then I guarantee you'll like my books. I make my living primarily as a writer. So as long as I can keep selling books, then I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all

Starting point is 00:02:29 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're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live in the gym grinding away at workouts you hate. And you can find my books everywhere. You can buy books online like Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo,

Starting point is 00:02:58 and so forth. And if you're into audiobooks like me, you can actually get one of my audiobooks for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. That's muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks, and you'll see how to do this. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast. I hope you enjoy it, and let's get to the show. All right, so thank you for coming to another episode of the Jeremy and Mike show.

Starting point is 00:03:46 So as you probably know how it works, probably been these before. Um, you can just put your questions in chat and Jeremy is monitoring chat. Jeremy answers some questions himself and then other ones he shoots over to me. And then, uh, I answer them. So you can ask questions on anything you want. Um, you know, whatever diet training, uh, supplementation marketing business, I don't care. Ask away and Jeremy will shoot them over to me and then we'll just go kind of rapid fire. So here's the first question, creatine or no creatine and loading versus non-loading. So creatine is a great supplement. It's a supplement that if you're weightlifting, yes, you should be taking creatine. There's really no reason not to. It's safe. It works. It's probably the most studied molecule

Starting point is 00:04:26 in all sports nutrition. Hundreds and hundreds of studies have been done on it over the last several decades and it's safe and you don't have to cycle it. It doesn't shut down natural production and like steroids do or anything like that. It's not a wonder supplement by any means, but you will, over time you will build strength and build muscle faster. You will get stronger and build muscle faster taking creatine. So yes, creatine monohydrate, uh, is really the way to go in less, unless you have a, it can upset some people's stomach or it can even like give them diarrhea for whatever reason. And for those people, you can go with a more water soluble form, like micronized creatine monohydrate. Um, it can, can do the trick or like creatine citrate can,

Starting point is 00:05:10 can be good or creatine hydrochloride can be good for that. Uh, creatine malate also. Um, but if you, I would just stick with a simple monohydrate, uh, and then, and then see if you need to go with something that's more water soluble. But if you don't, most people don't, they're fine. Five grams a day. Um, loading just gets it into your muscles faster, so you'll see the effects sooner. Otherwise, there's no real benefit to it. So, I mean, I guess I would probably load it just for that reason, just because you're going to see the benefit. Because it needs to accumulate in your muscles before you're going to see a noticeable difference. So, you know, if you load it, you will get there faster, but you'll also go through that first tub faster if you care about that. If you do care about that, if you do care about that and you're on a tight budget, then don't load, just do five grams a day. And within

Starting point is 00:05:48 your first month or so you should start seeing noticeable increases in the gym. All right. Next question. Are you going to do a contest this year? Transformation contest part with their, uh, this year? No, because we have a month left here. Um, next year. Yeah. I'm sure we'll, we'll put together something like that. We like doing those kind of things. It just, oh, okay, Jeremy was saying if I was going to do a contest, like if I'm going to compete. Well, first I'll finish on, if you're talking about transformation contests,

Starting point is 00:06:16 then yeah, we'll do something like that next year for sure. We've just been super busy with a lot of different things, and really, you know, we get bottlenecked in in in develop in development developers devs actually so we have a really good dev team now that's been working their ass off getting this new website uh done for for legion um which is going to be ready soon it's a full revamp of the current site it's it's awesome it's really really nice we're really excited but it just it takes a ton of time. So we've been limited on dev. So even for little things like that, for instance, the golden label thing that if you remember that we've talked about it months ago, we're still

Starting point is 00:06:53 going to do it. The reason why we haven't done it yet is because we just haven't been able to allocate the dev resources to really get it up and running the way we want it to with redemptions and stuff. So, but yeah, we, I don't see why we wouldn't do some sort of transformation next year just because they're fun and it gets people, you know, it's good motivation. People like it. If you're talking about me competing, uh, like in, you know, getting on stage, uh, it's just not my thing. I'm not interested in it. One. Um, I don't care. I don't have any reason to do it. Um, maybe it would boost my street cred, I guess, a little bit, but in whatever, not, I don't know how much that would really matter.

Starting point is 00:07:30 And two, to really get anywhere in that world, you have to be on drugs. Um, as an actor, as a natural weightlifter or natural competitor, like, you know, the natties cause they look bad, basically like the guys that look small and just frail. Yeah. Those are the natties and the dudes that are big, full, dry, and look great on stage. Those are not, those are the non-atties. So, um, for that reason, it's just not really, not really my thing. I would rather take that time working on other things that I care about. Uh, this is a good question. It's something that I have anyway. So here's the question basically is, is there a limit to how much fat your body can, can store in one from one meal from one bout of overeating?

Starting point is 00:08:12 It's actually funny. I was just talking about it today because I, uh, a couple of times a year, Thanksgiving being one of the times, and usually Christmas dinner being another day, I just go ham on food. I eat until I'm in pain basically. And I don't even care. I just do it for fun. I have, I basically just see how much food can I get in me. It comes out to be like seven plates. It's ridiculous. And I would think that like, I'm pretty, I've, you know, pretty lean right now. I've been this way for, for months and months. Um, you know, I have ab vascularity, like I'm lean enough where, uh, I would think I would see a difference by eating, who knows? I don't even know. 7,000 calories in one meal. Um, and you know, the

Starting point is 00:08:55 next day I would, or at least over the next day or two or something, I would expect to see that I would get a little bit fatter. Like maybe I'd have a little, like my skin would be a little bit tighter or sorry, the opposite. My skin would be a little bit, you know, I just feel some fat, but I really don't see much of a difference. Um, when I do that, which I don't have a great explanation for actually. Uh, and you know, what I, what I can say for sure is if you, if you keep the fat low, which I don't do on those days, I don't even, who knows I'm eating so much shit. But on my week to week kind of like routine, I'm not doing that once a week. I'm sure if I did that every week, it would become a problem. My week to week routine though, is my cheat meal, quote unquote, it's usually a high carb meal. Like my fats aren't really going over a hundred grams for

Starting point is 00:09:38 the day and they're probably closer to 70 grams. But I might go five, 600 carbs. And, uh, that definitely, I mean, that's just kind of cyclical for me every week. I tend to do that. And, um, you know, sometimes eat a little bit less on the next day to compensate, but I don't see much change in my physique. So, I mean, I don't have a good answer to that question. I've looked, I've looked, you know, just through a lot of the research that I've done, I've kept my eye out for something. Is there some sort of answer on that? How much fat can your body synthesize in, in from one meal over eating? Cause you know, I, yeah, on take Thanksgiving, I'm eating 7,000 plus calories, whatever it is. My body is not absorbing all those calories. There's no way like I am definitely, uh, who knows what percentage of that is actually getting absorbed and used.

Starting point is 00:10:26 And the rest is just, it just goes out, you know, undigested. And you actually see that because your poop will like float. And that's normally like, if you had that a lot, that would be a sign of a poor nutrient absorption in your small intestine. And if it were like an ongoing thing, it would actually be something a doctor would want to know about because they, that's a bad sign. And they would, that's something that, you know, they would want to address, but you'll get that sometimes. Like I'll get that if I eat a ton of food and, and because your body just can't, the undigested food makes it into the large intestine. And then, uh, the, the bacteria in there, it causes gas and bloating. And then when it comes out, your poop floats basically. So

Starting point is 00:11:00 you'll see that when you, when you eat a ton of food and your body can't absorb it all or can't digest and process it all. So, um, you know, again, I don't, I don't have a good answer for this question, but in a day you probably could gain a body, a pound of body fat a day is probably a fair assumption. If you ate enough food to do that. Now, I don't know if you could accomplish that in one meal, cause you'd need anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 calories, uh, and not just calories, but you know, if it were, if that, if really you'd need a lot of those calories to be from dietary fat that's efficiently stored. If a lot of that fat, those extra calories were carb and protein, your body, especially if you're lifting and you're exercising, your body has other things that can do with protein and carbs and then convert them to fat. And they don't convert to fat very efficiently anyway. So, you know, you really have to go high, high fat. And if we're talking about, you know,

Starting point is 00:11:51 yeah, I guess if you were to eat over the course of a day, if you were to eat maybe a surplus of 500 grams of fat, maybe you could gain a pound of body fat in that day. But if we condense that down to one meal, I mean, how much fat can you really eat in a meal before you just can't even, you know, what would me, maybe I can go 200 grams deep, but again, that's not necessarily a 200 gram surplus because what I do when I'm going to be eating a lot of food is I just kind of eat protein throughout the day. I save all my carbs and fats. My body's been burning fat all day essentially because it hasn't had much food. Um had much food. And I come into that dinner with a good, let's say, 3,000 calorie buffer or 25, I mean, not 3,000, let's say a 2,500 calorie buffer that, you know, I'm not even in a surplus

Starting point is 00:12:35 until 2,500 calories deep. So when it's all said and done, that surplus of, let's say it's a 3,000 calorie surplus by the end of the meal, but how much of that's really from dietary fat, maybe only a thousand calories of it's from dietary fat. Um, and you know, there's also something to be said for nutrient partitioning and the longer, um, if you're lean and you, and you, and you work out a lot, especially if you train your muscles a lot, your body is, is, uh, you could think of it as resistant to gaining fat in a way, if you have good insulin sensitivity. So, um, kind of a rambling answer, but it's something that I've, you know, whatever it's been on, it's been on my list of things to like, if, if I do come with a,

Starting point is 00:13:17 with a good, come up with a good enough explanation and, and, and answer, I would make a good article basically. Um, which makes me want to read more on it because these days, sometimes it's hard to find new things to write about. So anyways, let's go to the next question. Any underwear advice? A guy who never skipped leg day. Anything that fits my waist, rides up my thighs and briefs. Are briefs the only option? Yeah, I actually have that same problem, especially when I'm doing cardio. If I'm biking, it's so annoying. It's always riding up on my shit and I'm always pulling it down. Uh, so Jeremy says Under Armour. I don't have any Under Armour. Yeah. Boxer briefs. So Under Armour boxer briefs. That's what Jeremy says. I have, uh, do I have any briefs? I'm not,

Starting point is 00:13:57 well, no, I, yeah, I definitely do, but they're not like, I don't know. They're like Calvin Klein and then random stuff. My wife has bought me. So I don't know. I, I, I haven't know, they're like Calvin Klein and then random stuff my wife has bought me. So I don't know. I haven't found a brand. Like I like some underwear, but I don't know what they are because my wife has bought them. So Jeremy says Under Armour though, and I trust him. Calvin Klein trunks, he says, for everyday wear. I have some Calvin Klein briefs that I like.

Starting point is 00:14:20 But anything else like you, what you've run into, yeah, there's just, you know, don't run into it. All right, next question. In relation to bulking, what would you consider too small of a surplus? It only makes sense that there would be a certain surplus required to build muscle, right? P.S. Love you, bub. Thanks, man. I love you too. So, yeah, I mean, really what you want to, what you're accomplishing with that surplus

Starting point is 00:14:45 first and foremost is you are making sure you're not in a deficit because if you're in a deficit, then your body's ability to synthesize muscle proteins is impaired. And that's one of the main reasons why you're just, you really can't gain muscle when you're in a deficit if you've been lifting for any period of time. So that's the first thing you're accomplishing is not being in a deficit. Uh, and that means that your body's able to build muscle most efficiently is what you could say. Now, beyond that now, unfortunately, that's not a, there's not a dose dependent response. That's not, you can just keep on going into a bigger, bigger surplus and you're gonna build more and

Starting point is 00:15:18 more muscle. Um, however, there is something to be said for a larger surplus if those calories are coming from carbs. So if you're just like increase your fat intake out the roof, you're just going to gain fat faster. You're not really going to get anything from it. It's not like your workouts are going to be any better. There's really no point to do it. Um, which is why I always recommend to keep your fat intake at the healthy level. Um, and unless you really like, you know, high fat dieting, there's just no reason to, to, to do it, especially if you're doing a lot of weightlifting and you know what you're doing with your diet and you're not overweight and so forth. Um, so there is something to be said though, for a larger surplus, if you are eating more carbs and that kind of, and how your body responds to that is going to

Starting point is 00:15:56 depend on your body. Um, you know, my body does very well with carbs. So, and again, especially with carbs, my body is kind of resistant to gaining fat from, from carbs. Um, I have very good insulin sensitivity and that's just the way it is. Some other people though, um, they noticed that they gain fat faster from a carbohydrate surplus surplus versus let's say a protein surplus. Um, so it, this is where you, this is one of those things you have to kind of learn your body. And, uh, but if you could go into, let's just say the minimum, uh, the reason why I kind of recommend the minimum surplus being 5%, but I like to say 10% is because then, you know, you're in a surplus because you know, when you're calculating your TDE, you're looking at an average daily energy expenditure. You're not looking at a spot on for every day. And it changes from day to day. It

Starting point is 00:16:42 doesn't matter how anal you are about it. You're never going to be a hundred percent accurate, accurate about your energy expenditure on a day-to-day basis. Um, so really what you're trying to do is get a, you know, an accurate estimate of your daily energy expenditure. And some people get fancy and they raise or lower their intake every day based on activity level. I don't do that. I mean, if you search muscle for life, go to muscle for life and search T D E E, uh, calculator, and then you'll see an article I wrote on this. That's kind of how I do it. Or you can search for macro or macronutrient calculator, and you can see a more extensive article on turning it into a whole diet plan and stuff. Um, so by going to a 10% surplus, you are giving yourself a buffer basically to ensure that you're not in a deficit.

Starting point is 00:17:26 I mean, really ideally when you're bulking, you're not in a deficit any days of the week. Ideally, you're in a mild surplus every day. Um, and so with that said though, if you could go, let's say into a, let's say you could go at another 10% of your TDE straight from carbs and not notice, uh, not gained fat too quickly because as I know, I've written about this, I've talked about this a lot. The biggest bulking mistake you can make is just gaining fat very quickly, which means that you have to cut sooner. You're just not able, you really want to stretch those bulks out, which means you want to see your fat come on slowly.

Starting point is 00:18:01 And if you can gain muscle and fat at about a one-to-one ratio, you're doing a good job. So depending on your body, if you're able to take that, let's just say that you're, you're bulking your 10% surpluses, 3000 calories a day, just for simple math. If you could go up to 3,300 or even 3,150 calories a day with those extra calories coming only from carbs. The reason why that's nice is that is going to make a difference in your lifts. Obviously, there's a point where eating more carbs isn't going to do anything, but your intake has to get pretty high to reach that point. So if you're going from like 400 grams of carbs a day to 450 grams of carbs per day, you might be surprised that you notice that in the gym, that's like, you have a bit more energy. Like that might be an extra rep or two on your big lifts. It really can

Starting point is 00:18:48 be just from glycogen. And just because carbs are energetic. And, uh, when you're doing a lot of heavy lifting or just weightlifting in general, as long as your body does well with carbs and so forth, a high carb diet is going to be more productive. And it's also more conducive to muscle growth, mainly because of insulin's anti-catabolic effects. Higher carb diet means higher insulin levels means less protein degradation. So that's kind of the long answer to that is 5 to 10% minimum surplus. And if you can go higher straight from carbs without gaining fat too quickly, basically, if your body is very carbohydrate sensitive, then take advantage of that. And then might as well just throw this out there as well because I've come across it a lot just emailing with people. If you're someone that has a very fast metabolism or just a – well, I guess it kind of would all come – you just burn a lot of energy every day, so you have to eat a lot of food to gain weight and gain muscle.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Then there is a point where I've emailed with guys where their carb intake is up in the 600 gram range per day and they just visit, they just can't stomach eating any more carbs. And I understand. And, you know, but their weight is stuck in their body fat. They're doing everything right. It's just, they need more food. Um, then we usually actually either increase protein a bit more or protein and fat a bit more. Um, and sometimes it's just fats, but most guys, they like to increase their protein and fats a bit more to, uh, you know, get to that point where their body starts gaining weight. And everybody has that. That's not a uniform, you know, a 10%, what should be a 10% surplus won't work for all people. There are people that the hard gainer types that per calculations, they need to be in a 40% surplus just to gain weight

Starting point is 00:20:25 period, just to even be able to gain, you know, build some muscle. Um, and I would say that's rare, but that is out there. So if that's you and you're thinking that doesn't apply to me, just know that, that there is a point where it's part of the whole game is learning your body's sweet spots. So it's understanding the basics and the fundamentals of energy balance, understanding macronutrients, how they work in the body. And then there's a bit of trial and error in there and knowing where your calories are at, given your lifestyle and given your metabolism, your genetics and so forth. Um, and what numbers work for you? For me, I know that if I wanted to bulk, I would work my way. I would start at about 33, 30, yeah, 3,300 calories a day. And over time I would have to work it up to about 4,000 to 4,300. And then by that

Starting point is 00:21:06 time, I probably be around 16, 15, 16% body fat. And, um, there'd be time to cut. I've done it many times and I just know that's how my body works. So, you know, that that's my body. That's not necessarily your body. You might, your calorie ranges might be smaller or it might be higher. So let's go to the next question. All right. So what's your best advice if you get sick with food poisoning, especially if it happens during a cut, just recently got food poisoning. I hate that shit on Tuesday night and still recovering was cutting. You know, I've, I've, this has happened to me before and what I do, like if, whether it's food poisoning, I've had the flu before when I'm cutting. I, I, I, I, I try to eat around, I come out of a deficit just because your body doesn't need the added stress if you're sick. So I try to, you

Starting point is 00:21:50 know, just eat around TDE and it's hard, it's hard to eat. I understand that if you can't eat, you can't eat. I mean, I would try like protein. I would try to get protein down. Um, but you know, ultimately don't stress too much about it. Um, because even if you do lose a little bit of muscle, you're going to gain that back. Like in your first workout, it doesn't matter. Like muscle memory is real. Uh, you know, that's what, one of the things that you see in a lot of these transformations online is a lot of drugs are often involved, but also, you know, a person's in a detrained state. So it'd be like, if I stopped lifting for, you know, six months and did nothing but eat food and got fat and then started lifting again, I wouldn't even need drugs to make what would look like a steroid transformation because of muscle memory. So,

Starting point is 00:22:30 you know, don't stress about it. If you can eat protein, if you can keep it down, you know, keep it down. If you can keep food down in general, you're just not feeling good, you can't train or whatever, then just try to eat around your TDE and don't, don't, don't exercise until you feel better. I've made that mistake many times, especially like with having colds or flus or whatever, where I like the first day where I feel not like shit, I'm back in the gym. And then the next day I feel like shit again, when you should just be resting. So it's one of those things. Don't, don't, don't beat yourself over it. Just, just get better, eat around, you know, come out of a deficit. So your body's not stressed, get better, and then just get back at it. Next question. Um, I just bought your French vanilla and eggnog protein and they are awesome.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Thanks. Yeah. We're, we like them a lot too. Any plans on coming out with new or seasonal flavors? Eggnog is out of this world. Um, yeah, you know, it's actually funny. That eggnog was an accident. That eggnog was, we were working on our vanilla and they sent us, that was supposed to be vanilla. We were like, that's really good, but it's not vanilla. That tastes exactly like eggnog. And then that was like, let's just do eggnog. And so that's how, that's how it even came about. Um, so yes, we are going to be doing our next flavors, cookies and cream, right? Jeremy. Yeah. Cookies and cream. And that's going to be out. I think it's January, February. Um, and then after that, we are going to do our next seasonal flavor is going to be, um, a summer.

Starting point is 00:23:46 It's going to be a strawberry banana and it's super good. Um, and if everyone likes it and it sells well, we may just end up keeping it. Um, eggnog will probably retire. I think we did our one run of a few thousand bottles or something. And when those are gone, then we're going to just let that one die and then we're just not going to come back. And then, you know, next holiday season, maybe we'll do like a pumpkin spice or, you know, that was kind of ideas that every year we do something cool for, uh, the holidays, but it's strawberry banana. If everyone likes it, if you all want us to keep it, then, then that one we would keep, we really like it. So anyways, cookies and cream in a month or two. And then in the summer, I would say May,

Starting point is 00:24:20 June or whatever, um, is going to be strawberry banana. And, uh, that's, that's that next question. Can probiotic supplements diminish weight gains in overly caloric diets? No, definitely not. Um, there's no, no evidence I've ever seen any of that. Like probiotics are interesting. I've actually done a fair amount of reading on it because we were looking at probiotics for our greens supplement. We're looking at them for a weight gainer, kind of meal replacement type of deal that we're looking at doing. And, um, you'll see in the, in when the, when the sales page for the green supplement goes up, uh, which it will be up soon. Uh, you'll, you'll see, I have a whole section on probiotics

Starting point is 00:25:00 and basically the thing is that probiotics, if we want to go by what the literature, want to go by the scientific research, it's that there may be certain strains that have benefits we just kind of don't know yet. And what is sold out there just at GNC or whatever, what you see in magazines on the internet is a lot of what the benefits that are claimed are bullshit. It doesn't help you lose weight faster. It's not going to prevent weight gain. We may actually end up still including some in our weight gainer, probably some acidophilus. And there are a couple of strains that there's some research that shows that can help with digestion. And that makes sense considering that a meal replacement shake is going to be a lot of calories. So, you know, it can just help with the digestion of that, but you know, it's going to be a minor selling point. We're not going to be pushing like, Ooh, this has probiotics,

Starting point is 00:25:53 like how a lot of companies do. Cause when a company is doing that, when they're really playing up probiotics and how awesome they are for your gut and immune system and weight and blah, blah, blah, it's bullshit. Just bullshit. Next question. So how do you spot fake female natties? Hmm. That's a good question. Not just in terms of steroid use, but how do you tell if a woman has booty implants or just amazing genetics plus sound training, i.e. Jen Seltzer, J-Lo, et cetera. This is a serious question. That's actually a good question. Yeah, that's a good point. Jeremy was saying that regarding the butt thing, if a girl is very skinny and she doesn't have a lot of leg development, like she has very skinny, like, you know, the hot dog leg kind of look, but this big butt, either that's just crazy genetics where

Starting point is 00:26:36 you'll have, sometimes girls will be very skinny with very big boobs. It's just like, that's just genetics. That's, there's no way to get that or do anything. It's just, that's just is, um, it increases the likelihood of implants because to get a butt as big as some of these girls have for the average girl to have a butt that big, her legs are going to be huge, very muscular. It's going to take a lot of squatting and a lot of hip thrusting and split squatting and all that stuff, which is going to build up your legs. There's no way to just build up just your butt. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So Jeremy was saying, um, Brittany, who's one of our sponsored, uh, athletes, if you've Brittany probably. Um, so she has a big butt and she has, it's very developed, but if you look at her legs, they're also very developed.

Starting point is 00:27:21 I wouldn't say her legs are super big, but she, you can see that she lifts and she's done a lot of squatting and her core is very developed, which you also get from a lot of squatting and just compound weightlifting. Yeah. There's also Jeremy saying, if you look, you know, go look through their pictures. And if six months ago they didn't have a butt and now they have this huge butt than that. I mean, that, that is, I would say pretty telltale. Um, but regarding steroid use, um, if a girl is very muscular and very lean, then it's kind of like similar to guys, but you don't even need to be as much like guys can be very muscular and very lean without steroids. Um, girls is much, it's much harder. So if you're seeing, you know, and again, though,

Starting point is 00:27:55 they're not necessarily going to have any of the, uh, androgenic type of qualities. I mean, the girls that are on a lot of steroids, they kind of look like guys and that's obvious, but otherwise that's very hard to tell. Um, but if a girl is very muscular, very hard, uh, and very lean, very dry, then there's a good chance there are drugs involved. There's a girl in my gym, actually a perfect example of that where she competes, which means drugs. I mean, I think she has her, her pro card. Um, and, but she swears natty of course. Uh, but that's, it's drugs. I mean, I think she has her pro card. But she swears natty, of course. But that's her look. Very vascular, very lean, very muscular, very dry, always. Okay, so here's the next question. So this is kind of a back and forth with Jeremy and someone else saying, someone was asking when I was talking about on my cheat day or whatever, cheat meal type of day, where my fats are maybe 70 to a hundred grams. Um, my TD is

Starting point is 00:28:46 around 3000. It's probably maybe a little bit lower. That's kind of, that's probably my average daily. Uh, maybe it's 2,900 ish, but you get the idea, uh, is 70 grams of fat considered low enough for a high carb cheat day and meal. Um, so I'll talk a little about refeeding. So it kind of depends what you're doing. Um, I mean, again, of course it's calories. You just do have to remember that. And this is especially true when you're lean and you're wanting to maintain. So if you're a guy and you want to stay under 10% body fat, you have to watch your fat intake. You just do. Um, now of course it's calories. Now, if you were just, you know, maintaining your, your, if you're eating at TDE, you can do whatever you want with your fat, but if you're going to be in a surplus, you have to watch your fat. You can noticeably get fatter in a weekend by eating too

Starting point is 00:29:29 much fat. I know because I've done it. And this is something that ask any guy who has stayed naturally, not these assholes on Instagram that are like, Oh, I, I, once I learned how to count my macros, I'm now eating 7,000 calories a day and look, I'm 6% body fat by my nutrition plan. Yeah. Okay. As long as you're willing to fucking trend hard, then maybe you can do that too. Um, no, I'm talking about like reasonable, actual real numbers. Um, where if you're fat, if you go too hard on fats and your surplus, you just start putting fat on fast. You can, you, you see it. Um, carbs, as I said, are different start putting fat on fast. You can, you, you see it. Carbs, as I said, are different. Protein is different. Of course you can gain fat if you,

Starting point is 00:30:10 you know, if you're in a surplus from, from mainly from carbs, it's just it's not, you're not going to gain fat as quickly. You just won't. So again, with one meal, I wouldn't really worry about it so much. It's not like I I'm keeping, you know, on that day, it's usually me going to a restaurant and, you know, I'm eating probably about a hundred grams of fat in that meal. And that's really my day's worth of fat because up until then, I'm just kind of eating lean protein, eating some vegetables at lunch and stuff. So I'm coming into that dinner, maybe with 10 grams of fat and I've eaten a lot of my protein for the day and some veggies and stuff. And, uh, you know, so I wouldn't like say there's a number where you can't be over 70 grams of your screw. It's you see, you just have to keep in mind that

Starting point is 00:30:50 depending on what you're eating, um, like, you know, Jeremy went to a cheese restaurant in, in, uh, in, in Tampa recently and he was telling me, and, and, you know, it's just, it's a nightmare because you're going to, you're going to be a thousand grams of fat deep. Like if you go hard, that's yeah. I mean, he says it's worth it. I understand, but it's just, you have to keep that in mind that, uh, if you can keep the lower, you can keep your fat intake when you're in a surplus, the better. If you are really trying to stay super lean, that's just the way it is. Now, let's say you're cutting and you want to do a refeed. So you're gonna do a high carb day to spike leptin levels. And psychologically, it feels good and whatever. In that case, again, it's smart to keep your fat intake. Personally,

Starting point is 00:31:34 like when I refeed, I keep my fat intake very low. It's under 30 grams or under for the day. Now it's just one day. Obviously you wouldn't continue to do this every day. That's that it's just not enough fat for basic health needs. It's just one day though. And the reason there is because really you've been in a deficit for a while, your whole body glycogen levels are low. So you really are just trying to spike your body's glycogen still like, you know, what it stores in your muscles and liver. You want to try to top that off or get, you know, really refill it and, and then spike your leptin without storing any fat, which is why you keep your, your dietary fat low. So, and if you're, if you're just maintaining and you want to do a refeed, you can do that too.

Starting point is 00:32:14 I guess there's no reason not to be the same, same rules. So it's just that difference of like, are you cheat? Are you just cheating? Which is where it's for me, cheat me cheat meal means eat whatever I want. It means that I'm not really like, I'm going to keep, I may not go to the cheese restaurant and eat a thousand grams of fat, but you know, I'm going to go to a restaurant and I'm just going to order whatever I want. I'm going to order appetizers, entree, dessert, and I'm going to eat a lot of food. That's cheating to me. Um, refeeding is a bit more structured. It is, I'm keeping my fat low. So I'm going to be eating pancakes. I'm going to be eating pasta. I'm going to be eating. Usually I have some fruit, some oatmeal, things like that.

Starting point is 00:32:48 Just low fat, tasty stuff. You know, if you're doing pancakes, you maple syrup, there's easy ways to start stacking that up. So hopefully that answers that question. Next question. What type of music pumps you up in the gym? What do I listen? It kind of depends. I'll have different moods. I don't know. Like sometimes I'll listen to different types of rock and heavy metal. Like, you know, I like a lot of older stuff. Like I like a lot of Marilyn Manson's older stuff. I like Korn's older stuff. I like Slipknot's older stuff. I don't know, stuff that I guess when I was in my 20s or even a little bit younger, as a teenager, I was listening to. I liked Nirvana.

Starting point is 00:33:34 So that's kind of the rock stuff. Or I'll go heavy bass, like trap kind of stuff. Like Jeremy listens to the loudest fucking music ever, basically. And then he'll send me songs, and the ones I like, I save to my SoundCloud. So I don't even know what half the shit is i don't know there it's just really loud uh you know uh tons of bass and you know i that you know i don't have a specific song even these days but i just have my soundcloud and really loud i guess he listens to these mixes so it's like a trap mix so it's just like a bunch of loud, loud, loud songs. So yeah, it's just loud noise, but I like it. All right. Next question.

Starting point is 00:34:12 I was wondering when you're in the process of reverse dieting, can you still have a cheat meal? Yeah, sure. There's no reason not to. I mean, it's just one meal. Again, if you kind of just keep in mind what I've been talking about, where you keep it moderate, keep your fat intake under control, just enjoy yourself and don't make a big deal out of it. You know, if you want to save your calories up for that meal, that's always something I do standard because it really does work really well. I mean, especially for these types of situations where you, whether you're maintaining or reverse dieting, you do want to keep your intake in a certain range for a certain reason, saving calories up is great. So you just kind of eat protein throughout the day and drink a lot of

Starting point is 00:34:48 water and, you know, drink coffee or drink whatever you want to just keep you satiated. And then you come into that meal with, you know, you can go 2,000, 2,500, whatever it is, calories in before you're even in a surplus. So that's always nice. So can you talk about how to best go about prep for a show or photo shoot or write an article or link to a trusted source? Yeah, this is an article that needs to be written. You know, Jeremy was saying, asking if Lyle McDonald does. He probably does, Jeremy. I don't know what on his website. If he does, I haven't read it. I would think maybe in his books, I mean, definitely he has a lot of experience working with people. I would, anything Lyle would have to say on it, I would

Starting point is 00:35:30 say, um, that would be a good source of information. Um, Lane Norton is another good source of information on this because he himself has competed and he works with a lot of people that compete. Um, and I did, I did a podcast with him. If you go to muscle for life and you search for Norton, it'll come up and he actually talks about this. And his experience, he has more experience than I do. I've never competed, but I've done photo shoots and gotten pretty lean for photo shoots and so forth. So basically, I've done kind of the same thing that he talks about in the podcast, which is a simplified approach to it, which really centers around just getting lean enough. a simplified approach to it, which is really centers around just getting lean enough. That really is the key is that sometimes you don't realize how much fat you have to lose to really

Starting point is 00:36:09 look the way that you want to look. And it's not about manipulating your carbs and sodium and water. It's about getting lean enough. Um, so what I do is make sure like I give myself enough time to cut, like I don't cut that really close. I don't go, Ooh, you know, I only have two weeks to get ready for this shoot and I need to lose, you know, six pounds, I think. So let's just eat nothing and do a ton of cardio. I don't do that. I try to give myself enough time. So I even try to overshoot it a buffer of two or three weeks, just in case things get slow or whatever. And, um, and so that's the first thing is making sure that I'm lean enough. Now, normally with our photo shoots that we've done, um, they haven't necessarily been like on the books. Like I have to be ready by this date. So it's more just like I cut until I have the look that I want for the photo shoot. Like we did a photo shoot recently for the new cover of, uh, the, the second edition of the shredded chef, which we're working on, which will be out in the next couple of months or so. And, uh, that was just a matter of just cutting until like, I didn't want to be super lean. Um, obviously I want to be lean, but I didn't want to be like super bodybuilder lean necessarily. It doesn't really fit. I don't

Starting point is 00:37:12 think fit the theme of it. I just wanted to be really lean, full abs, just look, you know, look good and look lean. And then personally I do cut my carb intake for probably about five days. I'll cut my carbs to about 0.5 grams per pound. And the only reason why is not that it speeds up fat loss, but it sheds some subcutaneous water. And you do notice it when you get lean enough and you can just get rid of some of that sub Q water. It makes you look noticeably leaner. It brings out, you know, especially it brings out that vascularity in the abs, um, and a little bit more vascularity in the arms and shoulders. So, so that's the thing. Like, and I little bit more vascularity in the arms and shoulders.

Starting point is 00:37:48 So, so that's the thing. Like, and I don't, I don't manipulate sodium and potassium because it's too easy to mess up and then you just end up looking worse. Go check out the podcast I do with North with Lane on it. Um, you'll like it. He talks all about this and he knows what he's talking about. Next question. Uh, question on the dumbbell bench press, uh, Sergio, Olivia senior and Ronnie Coleman stopped short of the top because they thought it worked triceps more than the chest. Other people feel a squeeze at the top is important for pecs. What's your technique and why? Um, that's a good question. I, my kind of default on, on these things, you'll find so many different opinions ranging stuff like that, which is more just anecdotal to even scientific studies that have been done on different types of lifts. And they'll say, stop here. Don't stop here. Do this. Don't do that. Um, and my default go-to is that more range

Starting point is 00:38:29 of motion is better as long as it's safe and you're not forcing the body into an, or forcing anything into a natural positions. Um, so personally when I'm dumbbell pressing, I like to have, so I'm, so I'm here and I actually like to rotate from chest pressing. I like to rotate them like this cause then I can actually get them even deeper. Um, and then, and then I'm here and I actually like to rotate if I'm chest pressing I like to rotate them like this because then I can actually get them even deeper and then and then I'm up and then I do I mean I'm not like necessarily thinking about oh I gotta squeeze my chest but I am fully locking out so my chest is squeezing and if you're not going to do that then you still want if you're going to do like this which is fine you still want to make sure that you are getting that full range of motion don't stop here it's not bad for your shoulders. That's not true. Um, get,

Starting point is 00:39:08 as long as you keep, you know, you're going to keep your shoulders in or sorry, keep your, keep your, I'm trying to get on video here so you can see it. Keep your elbows in. You don't want to do all the flare like this. Um, so it's really more, I think the most important thing is a full range of motion because that makes the body do the most work. I mean, we've seen that. I mean, not that we even need science to tell us that just go do some full squats and see how hard that is versus half squats. So, um, that's, that's, that's my, uh, that's how I do it. Next question. So what percentage or ratio of weight gain should be muscle if lean bulking correctly? Uh, so, uh, I said, said that earlier about a one-to-one ratio is good. One

Starting point is 00:39:46 pound of muscle to one pound of fat, you're doing well. Anything worse, it means you're probably eating too much food or you're not training correctly. And if you're doing better than that, then you're a bastard. No, it just means you have good genetics. I mean, you're doing a good job. Stacked update is, so I have the new dev company, uh, rolling on it and, uh, it's a big company called Apster and they've done hundreds of projects and they're, they're, they're legit and they're going to make it happen. So develop, they, they've done a full review of all the work that was been done on it so far and it's looking good. They're able to be able to use it all. I've met with their team and went over everything, gotten them all on board. So the official development will resume next week and probably

Starting point is 00:40:30 68 weeks from there. So, you know, it's a slow, these types of things are a pain in the ass. I'm just like numb to this type of thing because Jeremy and I have had it happen so many times on so many things. If a project of any magnitude goes off without a hitch, that's almost like how, like what it is. It's just not possible that that's unicorn status. So, um, it'll get done. It'll get done. Next question. I recently moved my workouts to first thing in the morning. So I could lift fasted with forge and deadlift seems much harder. And my back doesn't seem ready that early in the morning for pulling such heavy weight. Any tips or thoughts? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's normal. Um, if you're new to it, if it's only been a few weeks, I would say stick with it, even if you have to go less weight.

Starting point is 00:41:12 Um, but generally speaking, guys are stronger and just, uh, people, I mean, I've seen some research actually specifically on guys because of hormonal fluctuations throughout the day are stronger later in the day. One, because of the hormonal aspect. Uh, and then two, because you've had food in you, you've had carbs in you. Um, so don't be surprised if you are just weaker first thing in the morning period, especially with fasted training. Um, some people's bodies do not do well with fasted training. They just don't like they'll lose 20 pounds on their deadlift and they can't get it back. You know, if they're training fasted. So, um, I would say, give it a, give it a little more time.

Starting point is 00:41:51 See how drop the weight if you have to, and see if you get back up to where you want to be. Um, I myself have been training fasted for a long time now, at least a year. Um, because I've just come to enjoy it. I don't take forge every day unless I'm cutting. Uh, I do some days of the week, depending on what I'm doing. Like, you know, it depends on my food intake is, but, um, so, you know, give it some time and see if, if it really just doesn't work out and it's, um, a problem, then, you know, I would say don't do it. However, if you're training fasted with forge, you're cutting. And that means that you also, if you're

Starting point is 00:42:21 lean, wanting to get really lean, I would say the advantages that having caffeine and forge and fasted training provide in terms of burning stubborn fat outweigh who cares if your weight is down for a couple months while you cut and you're not going to lose muscle. So, you know, take that, take that into account too. Next question. Hey, Mike, I've been getting some nagging soreness in my elbow post-workout. What would you recommend?

Starting point is 00:42:44 Glucosamine has been minimally effective. MSM sulfur has been slightly more effective, but leaves still much to be desired. I heard someone suggest curcumin. What would you recommend? Well, if we're talking supplements, yeah, curcumin is great. I have a joint supplement called Fortify. If you go to Legion Athletics and check it out, it has a type of collagen that's been shown to, it's actually been shown to improve joint health in healthy people, which one of the few things out there that can do that curcumin is another, um, which is the pigment in curry and, uh, curcumin though is poorly absorbed by the body.

Starting point is 00:43:15 So you need to have with, uh, have it with a black pepper extract basically is, is what increases the bioavailability by like 20 times. And, uh, and you can go, go, go check out fortify and you'll see, and I linked to all the research on it. And, uh, there's also grapeseed extract and a couple other things too. So, um, for supplements, I would say honestly fortify and glucosamine again, if, if, unless it's, it can be mildly effective for people with, with arthritis. If you're not arthritic, you're probably not going to notice much of a difference. I myself do take glucosamine just in case. Cause it's not, it's

Starting point is 00:43:48 not, we don't know that it's worthless for people with healthy joints, but we don't really know that it does anything any either. I'm taking it because it's cheap. And if it does do anything, you know, Hey, I'm going to take it. And I hope, cause I that's, you know, keeping our joints healthy. If we look at it in the longterm is super important, um, because that's one thing that our body can be in amazing shape. But if our joints go to shit, we're not, not only we're not going to be able to lift weights, but we're not going to be able to play sports with our kids and just do things that we want to do. So, um, you know, I think it's, it's not expensive and it's worth the possibility that it works. Now, otherwise I would say that if

Starting point is 00:44:23 you were doing exercises that are aggravating your elbow, um, you need to back off those and you need to also possibly look at mobility issues, depending on what the exercise is. Don't try to keep on pushing through something that's nagging. I made that mistake myself with my rotator cuff on my right side. So on the backside, you have these muscles, these small muscles called the infraspinatus and Terry's minor. So on the backside, you have these muscles, these small muscles called the infraspinatus and Terry's minor. And, um, I, I, I'm pretty sure it was, it was golf that started to piss it off. I started golfing about a year and a few months ago and golf, uh, those muscles are involved in external rotation and golf, uh, I'm right-handed and the golf swing is as you, as you're raising

Starting point is 00:45:03 the club, you're externally rotating like this. And then as you, as you start to unwind your body, as you're raising the club, you're externally rotating like this. And then as you, as you start to unwind your body, so you're coming back and then you're unwinding quickly. And it puts a lot of stress because back, back, back, back. And then it, and then it gets unwound a lot of stress on these muscles back here. And so it was that plus a lot of heavy pressing. They started to get a little bit tight and I was just like, yeah, whatever, who cares? And I would heavy press, heavy press, heavy press, golf, golf, golf, golf, golf. And then it started to get tighter up in my neck. And I was like, yeah, who cares? Heavy press, heavy press. So I, you know, do as I say, not as I do. And now it's not injured, but now I'm going lighter on my pressing

Starting point is 00:45:36 and I have to get it. I'm just getting massaging and worked on. Like it was fine about a month ago. And then I started having pressing again. So, you know, I've, I've lived these things. I know how this can go with these nagging things. So now I'm just, I'm not being stupid with it anymore. Uh, so I'm not, I'm just, I'm just not heavy pressing right now. I don't need to, my chest is, you know, it was one of the, my best responding by, I don't even want it. Like it's fine. I just maintain my chest and getting it massaged, getting it worked on and just finally let it settle down. Cause what happens is it's just a bit of what you're probably running into is a bit of tendonitis where the tendon just gets a bit inflamed. That's

Starting point is 00:46:07 what I'm running into. And so, you know, you need to get, you need to get the muscles to settle down so they stop pulling on the tendon. Um, so that is that hopefully that helps. Next question. What do you think about energy drinks? Um, I, I think that, uh, I like, I'm, I'm a fan of caffeine for sure. I've written about caffeine. If you go for muscle fly, search caffeine, there's an article up there. You know, the, the, the standard type of intake is about 400 milligrams a day or less is going to be safe for pretty much everybody. And again, you can go look at the research on that, that I cite in the article, even,

Starting point is 00:46:40 even if you have health benefits, cause it improves blood flow. And so I, there's nothing wrong with having caffeine every day, unless you have some very specific condition that would, you know, contraindicate it. Uh, but energy drinks in general, I don't drink them, um, because I actually just have pulse. That's my energy drink. And, uh, we want to actually create an energy drink because, um, pulse is great for, for, create an energy drink because Pulse is great for, you know, with the beta alanine and BDN and ornithine and citrulline. Those are for training. I wouldn't necessarily need those

Starting point is 00:47:12 if I was just wanting to get a little pick-me-up. And I just want mainly the caffeine, the theanine, and that combo is what's awesome. Like that theanine, that addition of theanine is really what takes that caffeine rush or high to that next level where you almost feel euphoric. So what we're looking at is doing a energy drink with less caffeine. So you can maybe drink a couple because, you know, pulse is not super caffeine heavy, but it is 175 milligrams per scoop. Probably could be a hundred milligrams per, you know, in a drink with theanine. And then with some other things that would be more no tropic, um, or enhancing cognition as opposed to, you know, things that would be more no tropic, um, or enhancing cognition as opposed to, you know, something that would be for working out or, or, or whatever. So,

Starting point is 00:47:50 you know, a lot of energy drinks, they have a lot of chemicals and stuff, and I'm not like super against chemicals, but generally I try to limit my exposure to chemicals if at all possible. You know, I eat mostly organic foods. Uh, I, I, um, I don't have much in the way of artificial sweeteners. I'll chew some gum here and there. I love gum. So if I buy gum, I end up pounding it. So I just don't even really have it around. But if somebody else has gum in the office, I take them. And so I'm not like, I'll never have any chemicals, but that's just the way I am. All right, next question. I have read and owned four of your books and they're great. Thanks. I'm a personal trainer and train

Starting point is 00:48:22 myself using your methods because it works. I just opened my own place, part-time training. And I was wondering, what was your advice on training clients that want to train one day a week? What kind of workout do you think would give the best overall? It's a good question. One workout a week. So you kind of have a couple options. I mean, you could do a full body. That would be the standard way of going about it. I'd say that's probably the best way of going about it really. Um, but what you may want to do is alternate because the thing about full body workouts that can be very hard is if you're trying to train heavy and do full body, you're going to die. Like try to heavy squat, deadlift, bench, overhead, press, just that, try to do that, you know, three sets of each and one workout. And I'll be amazed if you can even do it. So what you may want to do is take, um, alternate, you know, take two, a couple of those exercises, train heavy in the

Starting point is 00:49:12 same or in, in one, in that workout. And then, and then the next two exercises in the workout or the later part of the workout training, like the eight to 10 rep, the higher rep, um, and, and then alternate that, you know, each week. So if you did the heavy squats and deadlifts last week, then, uh, you know, and then after that you did the lighter pressing, then you flip that and you're doing the heavier pressing and the lighter squatting and deadlifting. And, uh, ironically though, higher rep deadlifts, like I did that this week, cause I kind of felt like I needed a deload, but I didn't really want to deload. So I was like, I'm just gonna do some higher rep, but like actually push myself, not just deload high rep and high rep deadlifting.

Starting point is 00:49:47 I haven't done that in a while. And that is the most exhausting shit ever. Like I was doing legit 10 rep deadlifts and I was amazed. My heart was like an explode. Um, so keep that in mind when you are going to be doing the higher rep stuff. Um, it doesn't necessarily have to be 10 reps with your 70, 75%, one rep max. You may want them to go a little bit lighter, something they could maybe do 12 or even 15 reps with, but you're having them just do 10. So, you know, that's probably how I would, and it kind of depends on the person. That's how I would approach it.

Starting point is 00:50:18 Cause I know I can tell you, if you try to just tell them to do a bunch of four to six reps stuff in a full body using compound movements, I mean, try it yourself. It's so hard. So yeah, full body. And I would say alternate between what's heavy and what's light week to week. Next question. Does alcohol, a glass or two on the weekend screw up results? No, not necessarily. The thing with alcohol is it's not as a molecule. It's basically, it's impossible to store as body fat. It just doesn't get converted into fat. It's a poison that gets shuttled out of the body. Um, but it increases or it decreases fat oxidation rates, meaning that it causes your body to store body fat even faster. So that's why if you're cheating, it's, I highly recommend if you're going a high fat, particularly cheat meal, I highly recommend that, uh, you don't drink because you're going to store

Starting point is 00:51:06 as much fat as possible from that meal essentially. And those effects last for many hours to alcohol's effects. So going back earlier in the podcast, we're talking about how much fat can you gain in one meal? Well, the way to test it out would be go to the cheese restaurant Jeremy went to and eat everything and drink a bunch of alcohol and you will gain the maximum amount of fat you can from one meal. Um, so check, uh, go to muscle for life, search for alcohol. You'll see an article I wrote on the subject. Um, and it kind of tells breaks down how this works and gives you a simple little strategy. If you're going to be drinking how to minimize the damage. So, so to speak. So yes, you should be able to drink once or twice a week and, and really not have any problems. You just have to go about it correctly. The question is, um, basically how, how do you keep your fat as low as possible? How low can you go? So a good baseline is about

Starting point is 00:51:55 0.3 grams per pound of fat free mass. So that's everything in your body. That's not fat. Um, and you, and you can calculate that just by figuring out your body fat percentage. Just go search for body composition. Go to Muscle Life, search for body composition. You'll see an article on it. So it's going to be probably about 0.25 grams per pound of body weight, something around there. When I'm maintaining, I'm around, I would say 0.3 to 0.4 grams. I'd say 0.3 grams per pound of body weight is my general intake. And, uh, it sometimes goes higher on some days based on what I feel like eating or lower, but yes, that's a simple answer. Um, that'll give you everything you need for your health basically. Um, and the only reason to eat more would be if, uh, you

Starting point is 00:52:42 really like it. All right. Next question. So what's your foot position for the leg press? Um, I like, I mean, shit, I guess it's hard to show. Um, so about, uh, yeah, I'd say it's about shoulder width or so. And I like it. I like, I like my feet a little bit higher, not with my toes off the top, but like maybe an inch. My toes are an inch below the top of it. And one thing to just keep in mind with leg press when you start going heavy is, you know, you're not necessarily trying to get your knees to your chest because then that can put your lower back. It starts curving under like this.

Starting point is 00:53:26 it starts curving under like this. So, you know, you're kind of, you're getting into a position where for me, my knees get to about here. That's fully loaded for me. And then it's, and then it's back up. So that's, that's, that's what I like. I mean, the higher your feet are, the more it's going to be your, your hamstrings and the lower the feet are, the more it's going to be quads. But again, you have to find what's comfortable for you and don't try to force that range of motion. Be kind of like, don't try to force yourself to full squat if you don't have the mobility to do it because you can just hurt yourself. I've done that before and not really hurt myself. It's kind of like I've had my back like almost pop like when I was leg pressing a long time ago. And strangely, it like wasn't even really hurting. It was just like a

Starting point is 00:54:05 muscle. I don't know if it's something, something because I was trying to force that range of motion. So, oh, let me just say on that. I also really like the hack squat sled, not the barbell. It's kind of an awkward, shitty exercise, but if you do it on the sled, that's also a great exercise for really hitting your quads. I've been doing a lot of that in front squatting recently. All right. Next question. Lowest round of golf. Uh, my lowest round is I shot an 83, but that's like actually playing every ball, no mulligans, no fixing lies, no bullshit. So I shot an 83 with two triples and a double, which is hilarious. Like, cause I had a sick, I was thinking I was one over on, on this, on the second night I had, I had a blow up holes in the beginning and then had a great back nine. Um, but I'm, I, I would like to break 80 by the end of the year. I'm close. I just don't

Starting point is 00:54:51 know if I'll be able to play enough before I go out of the, I'm going out of town in a couple of weeks. And that was my original goal was to break 80 before the end of the year. And I'm fucking close. I just, I don't play enough. So I, I get into these situations where I don't know how to hit shots and I end up with a triple. Nice question. So what's your max ass to grass squat? I haven't, I haven't, uh, ATG in a while because, um, it was starting to bother my knee actually, probably just cause of mobility might've been a little bit of technique. Um, and I just had no reason to do it. So I don't think I ever got more than maybe two 55 or something like that. But that also was after my heavy parallel squatting. I never like started my workouts

Starting point is 00:55:28 with heavy full squats. I would always start with heavy back squats. And then, you know, after doing, you know, anywhere from, I would say three 45 to three 65 for reps there, I would go start doing full squats. So who knows, you know what I mean? These days though, I don't even do them. Although ironically I am doing a lot of front squatting, which are kind of, it's a full squat just because that's just the natural movement. So my front squat, my best so far is 275 for two. But that's because I hadn't front squatted in a long time. I got my back squat up there pretty, pretty well, but hadn't really front squatted a lot. So now I flipped them. So I'm doing a lot of front squatting now because I'd like to build a front squat 315. I think that

Starting point is 00:56:07 is at least respectable. So that's what I'm doing right now. Will I be able to make decent muscle gains if I train fast and do not eat until five hours after finishing my workout? That's a good question. That's not ideal. I'll say it's not ideal. If you can have some leucine or some HMB or something like that, or some BCAs, if you can, if you just want to keep it simple before you train and then after you train and then a couple hours after that, then yes, you'd be fine. But to have nothing, to eat nothing and then train fast and then don't eat for five hours, it's just protein degradation rates, protein breakdown rates really start to ramp up after that fasted training, especially in the time in the, in the hour or so following,

Starting point is 00:56:46 and then it gets worse. And when you're trying to build muscle, what you're trying to do over the course of, you could look at it every 24 hours, is you're trying to maximize protein synthesis rates and minimize protein degradation rates. That's really what you're trying to do. So in this case, you're missing a potential bonus in protein synthesis by having a protein after you work out. There is evidence. I mean, I know it's a controversial thing, but I would say that there's a good chance that over time it makes a difference. And then, so you're missing that and you're adding a fair amount to the protein degradation side of the equation. So it's really not ideal. I'm not going to say you can't make gains, but it's not ideal. All right, next question. So how do you deal with

Starting point is 00:57:28 family or friends hating on you? Friends hating on me? You get rid of them. What kind of friend is that? About your advice, business books, et cetera. That's funny. So I'll say family. I mean, my three-year-old son doesn't really hate on me. I think he just idolizes me at this point because that's just the way little boys are. Like he wants to eat the things that I eat. He wants to do what I do. And my wife doesn't hate on me at all. She's very supportive and she understands, you know, yeah, I work a lot. And she also, I mean, we've been together for a long time.

Starting point is 00:57:59 She knows me. She just knows that that's what she's getting into. When she decided to marry me, she knew that I'm just not going to be that person that is, wants to hang around a lot. That's just not me. So she doesn't, I mean, sometimes it does go a little bit too far and like, I'll haven't like even said anything to her in two days. I mean, not legitimately, not that bad, but you know, where she's like, you're come on, like, let's, let's spend some time. I'm like, all right, good point. Um, so that's just the way that is now friends. I mean, again, my, my friends are like the people I work with, you know, Jeremy's my best friend and the guys I work

Starting point is 00:58:32 with are my friends. Otherwise I don't, uh, I don't hang out with people very much. The guy I work out with is a friend of mine, but he's a business owner and he's of the same mentality. So I have kind of surrounded myself with people that are the same way. It's not just me that works a lot. Jeremy works a lot. Kareem works. Everyone in here works a lot. So we all, and there's, that is supportive in and of itself where the people that are around you, of course, they don't say anything because they're doing the same thing. long weeks and those long hours. And it's, we're doing it for a reason. We're doing it because we like it, but also because we're trying to, we're thinking and we're trying to put a future there. There's something we want to achieve. And we're not just thinking with day to day, what would make me feel good right now? I'm going to go do that. And that's how a lot of people live. And so, you know, if people were, I don't have people that try to give me shit for that,

Starting point is 00:59:22 but if I did, if someone did try to give me shit for that. But if I did, if someone did try to give me shit for that, I wouldn't take that shit. I mean, I would not have friends that are like that because they are going, I know very clearly what I want to do with my life. And I have a good estimation of what it's going to take to get there, I think. And anything else that like anything that would get in the way of that's the distraction. And that would be, that would include a person too. If some person were in my way, that's it. They're out of my life now. So, you know, that's just how I am. Uh, I wouldn't say I'm like an uncaring person, but there's definitely, I have that side to me. Like if someone's like on my good side,

Starting point is 00:59:56 you could say like, I'm very helpful and I like to, and I'm caring, but there's certain things and certain people that are in a, go into a bucket of, I don't care. Like, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to, that's it. So that's the way I am. Next question. I'm hitting all my macros, but I'm waking up in the morning bloated. I was eating carbs late at night. Is this the reason for this or am I eating too much? You know, it's no, I wouldn't say that it's just, oh, you're eating carbs late. Like that really depends on your body. I would say it depends on what you're eating. Go, um, we don't have a search up yet on the new Legion blog. We're going to have a search. Uh, so, so put into Google Legion bloated stomach search for that. And there's an article I wrote and check that out. It has a lot

Starting point is 01:00:38 of good advice in there. Um, and I think it's going to help you. I'll just leave it at that. And it's a simple question, a simple answer. Next question. So when you mess up on a cut by overeating, you can usually just go back to cutting me back on track in a few days. But what do you recommend if you mess up on bulking by overeating and getting too much, a small little cut or just keep bulking pretend didn't happen? Good question. I guess it depends. Like, okay, if you mess up, meaning you overeat for a day or two, I probably wouldn't worry about it. And I would just keep going. Um, but if it's like you went on vacation and you just way overdid it, maybe not a bad idea to come back and cut for a week and then, and then just work, get back on your bulk. Um, do keep in mind though. I mean, how much fat are you going to lose in a

Starting point is 01:01:17 week, a pound? So, you know, in the greater scheme of things, it's not really that big of a deal. It's not going to help that much. There are people out there that like the idea of cyclical bulking where you bulk for like eight weeks and cut for a couple weeks. I'm not totally against that idea, but my personal experience with my body and just working with a lot of people is when you get into it, you get into like a groove when you're bulking. Especially after a few weeks of being in a surplus and you're training hard and you're progressing every week, you gain reps, you gain reps, you gain weight, you gain reps, you gain reps, you gain weight. And for me, stopping to cut has messed with that. And it's been harder to get that momentum back. Like it still takes, I don't know. That's, that's not a very scientific thing. I know it's very anecdotal.

Starting point is 01:02:03 I've just experienced it myself and seen with a lot of people that said, I do know people that really do respond well to that. Basically they bulk until they kind of hit a plateau and they get stuck. And then they cut for a couple of weeks just because if they're stuck on their bulk, you know, they figured they might as well cut. I'm not totally against that idea. Um, but there's probably a reason why they got stuck. It's probably not that they needed to cut. I'm not totally against that idea. Um, but there's probably a reason why they got stuck. It's probably not that they needed to cut. That's not really, that's not why you get stuck. Um, so that may not address the problem. So they might just come out of that cut and still be stuck. Um, if you search for plateau on muscle for life, you'll see an article around weightlifting

Starting point is 01:02:37 plateaus. Um, and if you also search for bulking, you'll see an article wrote on bulking in general. And there's a lot of good advice in there. So I would say it's one of those things that you should try and see how do you like, uh, what do you like more? Do you, I prefer just staying in a surplus, stretching that bulk out, you know, for a good four to six months and then cutting. Um, and on my, sometimes when I was bulking, uh, I would like on the weekends, if I wasn't lifting, I would reduce my intake a little bit. Um, I might say I'm still in a surplus, but you know, a little bit smaller of a surplus. Have you ever encountered any problems with getting lightheaded during a workout? It happened to me several times this week and only on a couple of most compound exercises.

Starting point is 01:03:16 I know it's not my breathing, but it could possibly be a result of overtraining. Oh, good question. I've had that sometimes actually. I've had that when holding my breath. I've had that on overhead pressing and on deadlifting before, but it doesn't happen frequently. And it's usually because holding my breath, like I've had an overhead press, like holding my breath for several reps and then being like, Whoa, like finishing my set and like, damn, that was a kind of lightheaded. So, um, I, I don't, I wouldn't, I don't know of any reason why it would have anything to do with overtraining per se. That's something I haven't really looked into, to be honest. I haven't really run into it myself. And it's very rare that I have other people that are running into it. Blood pressure or blood sugar levels. I mean,

Starting point is 01:03:52 assuming that you haven't had any issues with that, it could just be random. I'm sorry, I don't have a better answer for that. It's something I really haven't looked into. So in bulking, is it a rule that you'll eventually have to up your cows at some point due to slow down and weight gain? Yeah, probably. I mean, yeah, it's kind of like cutting it. If you want to go for a longer period of time and gain a good amount of weight and muscle, probably same thing with cutting. Most people are going to find that they're going to start their deficit at a certain level. And if they want to get really lean or they want to keep that cut going for, let's say, you know, a couple months, three, two, three months, there is a point where you have to start

Starting point is 01:04:28 reducing your food intake just is the way it is. And on that point, of course, it's best to not like you want to do as much exercise as you can and drive that deficit with exercise. Cause that really does preserve muscle, but there is a point where you just have to eat less food. So it's similar to bulking. You can only train so much. You only can do so much in the gym. There is a point where you just have to eat more food. But how that will work, how that will play out for you is really dependent on your body. You know, this is one of those things where you have to just learn your body. Next question. For a female following your plan, great by the way, what do we do when we reach a plateau on the heaviness of weights for lifts? Go to Mus to most for life and search for plateau. Um, and you'll see a, an article

Starting point is 01:05:09 on weightlifting plateaus. Check that out. Um, that is going to, it's going to help you. Um, because there, I think there's like six or seven different things in there that you want to look at. Um, and yeah, check that out. And if you have, if you're still running into issues, just send me an email and then we can, we can go back and forth because usually that article is kind of, that addresses the main points, but sometimes there are just, you know, individually, individual circumstances that need to be emailed out and kind of like, all right, what's going on? Let's see here.

Starting point is 01:05:39 I'm having huge issues keeping my calories low enough to cut at this time of the year. Dinners, drinks, very hard to eat and drink the right stuff. And I have friends, any suggestions? Yeah, don't cut during the holidays. Seriously though, that's kind of the answer. It is hard. I know it sucks. Yeah. Jeremy's saying you can do it. He does where you're cutting a few days of the week. And then just the weekend is a blur. The weekend is just in a, it's just, it's just a gluttonous. Uh, no, it's not that bad, but no, I mean, it is a point where like, okay, if you know that you have something coming up, then just keep on your cut. And again, use the little strategies that I've talked about. You

Starting point is 01:06:17 know, if you can do some exercise before those big meals, it can definitely help with nutrient partitioning, uh, save your calories for those big meals and just do your best. And ultimately, you know, just weigh the enjoyment of what you're doing versus do you care ultimately in the bigger picture? Is it fine that if you're just, your cutting is going to be, you know, maybe over the next month you only lose a pound, you know what I mean? And then you can go hard, you know, come January. And is that worth it to you to enjoy what you're doing with your friends and stuff? And a lot of people would say yes. So then fine. And that's the best way to go about it because then psychologically you're not, you have no anxiety about it. You know what you're doing. It's under your control. You're not, you don't have to feel bad about it.

Starting point is 01:06:58 You know, you're not breaking your promise to yourself. And a lot of people do that, you know, and I understand that. Next question. Will your supplements ever go into retail? I used to work for a vitamin shop and used to promote your supplements. What are your plans for Legion MFL for 2016? So the first question is probably not retail. I don't see that ever working because I spend too much to produce my supplements. My cost of goods sold are, let's say on average, five, four to five times higher than my competitors. And that's the way I wanted it from the beginning. That wasn't an accident because that's what it takes to make good products. And I've said this many times and I'll say it again. The problem with retail is you need an eight times markup, eight to 10 times markup from, from manufacturer to MSRP to make

Starting point is 01:07:43 that work. And you can't make good products for that. You can't, you cannot make a good pre-workout supplement for three, $4. It's impossible. Or maybe even $5. You can't make a good pre-workout supplement. Uh, and that run down the line, you can't make a good fat loss product for that. You can't make a good multivitamin for that. You can't make a good anything for that. Maybe you can make some like vitamin D pills or vitamin C pills or something. And that's it. So I don't see my shit ever being in retail because the quality and the price that it costs to make high quality supplements will never support it. That's why we've really focused on building a selling directly to you, the consumers, because that allows us to have the margins needed to run a business and be profitable and grow and actually make

Starting point is 01:08:25 good products and stuff that I myself have always wanted. And Jeremy has always wanted. And that, you know, that if a lot of our customers are more educated people that they've always wanted since we are, we lads. Um, so, so yeah. And then in terms of plans, um, for 2016, so quick little rundown for Legion, we have this new website coming up, which is also going to include stacks like bundles and stuff, which is more ways to save. We have enough products for it. Now. Um, we're going to be doing a subscription service. Uh, so like a subscribe and save type of deal where it's going to be saved 20%, uh, on your order. And then we'll send it to you every month. Um, and of course it's going to be like a,

Starting point is 01:09:03 no shady bullshit rebilling. You're going to sign up for it knowing that that's what you're signing up for, obviously. Um, so we're gonna be doing that. We're going to be doing, um, we have a whole email marketing campaign and it's, it's a big complex thing basically that, uh, has, uh, uh, it's a whole promotional thing that we've put a lot of time and money into that's going to be rolling out. It's kind of hard to explain, but you'll see it in action when it's up. And we're going to be doing an affiliate program. It's going to be next year for sure where we're going to have to roll it out in a controlled manner.

Starting point is 01:09:37 So an affiliate program is obvious. I mean, these are obvious things. Like who would not do these things anyway? So, yeah, I mean, we'll have to roll that out in a controlled manner. And then we have some new products coming in some new flavors and, uh, we, we want to get serious about looking into getting into Canada properly and the, in the UK and Europe properly. Um, so we can offer really affordable shipping, um, that, that would be big. And, uh, yeah, so those are the big, those are the big things for, for Legion. And we have some other things as well of course and for mfl new website it's going to be first quarter whole new brand new

Starting point is 01:10:09 designed from the ground up um it's time that we did that we're going to be putting up a store on muscle for life we're going to be selling obviously our own stuff but a lot of other cool things that i you know use and recommend and putting together some cool packages and buying books and stuff like that um and we're rolling out a new buying books and stuff like that. And we're rolling out a new meal plan service as well that's going to be kind of a big upgrade to what we have right now based on a lot of feedback to make it more customizable to meet people's needs. And a coaching service, which we've been piloting. It's been going very well. We have our first people wrapping up.

Starting point is 01:10:40 We're going to be announcing those success stories soon. And we're looking at a subscription thing for MFL as well and on and on and on. And then we have the whole app. We're excited to really jump into apps. I think there's a big opportunity there, and we're going to be able to really kill it. So we're doing that as well. So I'm forgetting things, but at this point, it's a melting pot. All right, next question. Weightlifting on a

Starting point is 01:11:06 ketogenic diet. What advice do you have? Uh, search for Legion, go to Google Legion ketogenic diet. And I wrote a whole article on it. Basically it sucks. Jeremy's laughing. There's the short answer. Ketogenic dieting is stupid. It's stupid. It's so hard. Uh, unless you have a medical reason to do it for weightlifting, no carbs, it's just garbage. It is factually worse for building muscle. Your workouts are going to factually suck and you're not going to look as good. You're not going to feel as good. There's no reason to do it.

Starting point is 01:11:40 All right. You're on a desert island and you find a huge supply of either peanut butter or nutella which one do you choose uh shit well because it's me i honestly have to say peanut butter but but i'm a weird person like you can't live off from nutella you'll just straight die dude nutella is so good though if i if i could live off nutella if i knew that i wasn't just gonna die from it then of course nut the Nutella, Nutella destroys peanut butter. Let's be real. But if I had to try to survive for real and, and, and not develop some strange disease or something, then I'd have to go with the peanut butter. Um, next question, given sleep's critical role in recovery and mental acuity, what are some tips to improve sleep? Asking the wrong person.

Starting point is 01:12:24 I do not sleep very much. I can fall asleep easily, but wake up several times throughout the night. That sucks. Waking up, that's probably one of the reasons. That's one of the reasons why I don't. I sleep maybe six hours would be a very, would be a restful night, sometimes a little bit less. Yeah, if you go to MFL and you search for sleep, you'll see an article on it where I give some tips on how to improve sleep. So that, that would be helpful for you. Um, yeah, do that because it could be a number of things. Again,

Starting point is 01:12:53 this is something where like, if we were emailing, I'd be able to send you the article and we'd be able to like actually have a good discussion of where you're at, but check out that article. It's a good place to start. Um, and yes, it's definitely worth, you know, putting some, you probably have to make some lifestyle changes, some behavior changes before you go to bed. And that's where a lot of people mistakes that they make in terms of too much blue light before bed and things like that, and not having a pre-bed routine that relaxes you and so forth. So check out that article, send me an email if you need more help, but that's a good place to start. And also throwing it out

Starting point is 01:13:24 there, not that, I mean, supplements are not my go-to answer for things, but we do have a sleep supplement coming out, which has glycine, which is, I mean, you'll see on the sales page, again, it's going to be our standard style. Everything is, there's all the research is there, but it has, you can look at these things,

Starting point is 01:13:41 like go to examine and look at glycine, look at lemon balm extract, um, look at root of carpeen for, for clearing out, uh, caffeine out of the body, which is great because, you know, a lot of people don't realize how long caffeine stays in the body. It's hours and hours and hours. Um, it depends on how your body metabolizes it. My, my body metabolizes it very quickly, but many people's bodies don't. And sometimes, you know, having caffeine within six hours of going to bed is associated with worse sleep. It is in most people, like there's, there's research on it. And on, you know, I talk about it, I've written about it, whatever. So, um, anyways, check out the sleep, uh, article and then check out lunar

Starting point is 01:14:19 is the name of the product. It's going to be a, it's going to be available in a few weeks. You know, it's being received by our fulfillment house, blah, blah, blah. Next question. What are your thoughts on diet breaks and moving straight back to maintenance after a cut versus reverse diet? I think diet breaks are a good idea if you need to. It's not necessary. A lot of people don't. They just kind of go and then they finish and that's it. But a lot of people, uh, like I know Jeremy likes to take breaks on his diet. Like, you know, every so often when he's cutting, um, he'll just go to maintenance for a few days just because he's familiar with his body. Uh, and he knows that like, there's a point where it's just the stress starts building on his body. So it goes to maintenance for a few days and then goes back into cutting. So there's nothing wrong with that. It

Starting point is 01:15:01 helps. It's good for psychological, uh, you know, just sticking to your diet and preventing, you know, going over the top and then going, uh, back to straight back to maintenance after a cut versus reverse dieting. Um, it's fine if you haven't been cutting for that long. I mean, one of the big benefits of reverse dieting is preventing the snowball eating too much, too much, too much. Because when you've, when you, let's say you've been cutting for two months, your body for various reasons related to hormones and, and, and metabolism is in, is kind of primed for fat storage. So what you don't, the worst thing you can do is finish your cut and just start slamming down food because you are going to gain fat very quickly. So the, one of the big benefits of reverse dieting, it's not, it's not some magical thing. It's just that it, it, it keeps your caloric intake, um,

Starting point is 01:15:46 under control and you're gradually raising it back up. And there is something to be said for gradually bringing your metabolism back up because you are going to, uh, not that your basal metabolic rate is going to change all that much, but your total daily expenditure, energy, energy expenditure does go down as you're cutting your body adapts in different ways to just burn less energy. So as you start reintroducing food, your body starts moving around more naturally. Your, you know, non-exercise activity, thermogenesis comes back up. So, um, so yeah, that's a, you, if you haven't been cutting for very long, you can jump back to maintenance. If you have, you can, but you might do better with a reverse diet just to make sure that,

Starting point is 01:16:24 you know, you don't really gain any fat coming back to TD. Next question. So what should I do if I get stuck on a certain weight on an exercise, such as a bench press while cutting on the year one challenge? I'm currently at 13% body fat of my 10% target for bulking. Yeah, you're, you're cutting and it's very common to get stuck. So just keep, just keep at it. You know, you may not, you may just stick there and that's totally fine. Remember when you're cutting, your goal is mainly to just not lose muscle. If you're new to weightlifting, you can gain muscle while you're, you're cutting. But if you have, let's say, you know, a year worth of weightlifting experience under your belt, it's really not going to happen. So, so long as you're not dramatically losing strength while you're cutting, you're doing it right. When I cut,

Starting point is 01:17:03 I do not gain strength. I really don't even gain reps. I'm just permanently stuck while I'm cutting. So just the way it is in the past, I have gained strength while cutting, but it's been like three weeks. And then I stick next question, help. How do I get rid of my cellulite? Go to him, go to muscle for life and search for cellulite. I talk about it. There are definitely things you can do like gaining muscle, losing fat. Um, you know, there aren't very many like easy, quick, quick, quick fix remedies like creams and shit. I know that some girls swear by body brushing as well. I haven't seen any research on it, but I know it's one of those kind of folk remedies that may have something to it, but go to muscle for life, search for cellulite. You'll find an article.

Starting point is 01:17:38 It'll help you. Next question. Are you planning to release a dick enlargement supplement censored? Next question. Are you planning to release a dick enlargement supplement? Censored. It's not for me. I'm asking for a friend. I like that ad. My friend has a really tiny dick. I mean, not me. My dick is literally massive, but it's really the biggest thing you'll ever ideas for supplements, like should we make a dick pill? And we've looked at stuff to improve blood flow and like yohimbine and there are a couple of things that might – it's not going to make your penis larger, but you might like give you better hard-ons. I don't know. It was like something we've thrown around. We're like, do we even want to make a dick pill? I mean, do we even care? But, but you could look at things that would increase blood flow. I mean, again, it's not really like going to increase the period, make your dick

Starting point is 01:18:33 bigger, but it might give you better hard-ons like, you know, citrulline, for instance, what's impulse or, or yohimbine increases blood flow, theanine as well. So next question, my favorite actor and why? I don't really have a, do I have a favorite actor i don't think so yeah christian bale is pretty sick christian bale's super good that's true leonardo caprio how can he he's a god just because he's so good he plays such who yeah matthew conahay super yeah see jeremy knows me better than me uh matthew conah, super good for obvious reasons. Just an incredibly good actor. I mean, true detective.

Starting point is 01:19:07 He was so good. God, he was good. Who? Yeah, Pee Wee Herman's pretty sick. He's into, like, playing with himself and shit. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I like movies, but I'm not, like, a movie nut. I'm more into reading and writing.

Starting point is 01:19:21 So, anyways. Next question. So, caffeine stays in the body for so long. How is taking creatine after workouts ideal since creatine doesn't work nearly as well as caffeine in the body? That's not definitive. There's like one or two studies on that. And it's kind of controversial because the mechanism isn't understood. And like to be safe, yeah, maybe you don't want to ingest. And remember those in those studies, it was creatine and caffeine ingested together, but then there's another study. So you have, I think it's two that are there saying, Hey, it may not be good to have these together.

Starting point is 01:19:52 But then there was another study that was done. I think it was with cyclists that showed that creatine made caffeine or other way around caffeine made creatine more effective. So don't give that much credence. Like I've written about that and I'm just kind of like, yeah, you know, to be safe. That's one of the reasons why we don't put creatine in our pre workout. Also, not everybody wants to take creatine. So we really wanted our creatine to be in its own supplement for people that want to take it. Um, but, uh, don't, it's not something to worry about. You know what I mean? Like have creatine with your post-workout meal and you'll be fine. You're going to notice the difference. Like there's no question, you know, creatine works. You can try

Starting point is 01:20:27 it. So I wouldn't worry about that. Oh yeah. Hey, so this is, I was just talking to Jeremy on the way over here. Random, cool idea. We'll start doing this. So what we're going to do is at the end of each of these live Q and A's, we're going to pick three people. Maybe we'll do more in the future. I don't know right now. It was random number, three people. And we're going to give you a $100 gift card to our store just for taking the time to come be here and hang out. And we have fun doing this. We hope you like it and use it as an incentive in the future to come hang out with us. So yeah, to come waste your time, basically. We like wasting our time. We like wasting your time. So Jeremy will put it in here.

Starting point is 01:21:05 He'll tell me who he's going to pick, the email addresses, and then I'll say, just so we know who wins. But then Jeremy's going to email you, and you're going to get a $100 gift card to our store, to the Legion's store. And we'll do that every time. We'll just pick three. Maybe we'll make it five next time. Who knows?

Starting point is 01:21:20 But we're just going to do it. All right. We're going to do it right now. We're going to do it live. Fuck it. We'll do it live. All right. So it is Danny underscore d underscore brown at yahoo you win my friend we have jack lantern 31 at gmail you win oh and just so you guys know we also have

Starting point is 01:21:36 uh so we have the sleep supplement coming we have the green supplement on the way we're not happy with the flavor yet it's been a pain in the ass. And we have a five pound, we have five pound ways coming to in the next month or so, which is exciting. And fish oil as well. You know, we've sent out an email. We have to send another email on the surveys because those names didn't go over so well, which it happens. So I have some more ideas. All right, next winner, FBE28 at Hotmail hotmail you win so enjoy your gift cards and uh i think that's going to be it for now and we'll do um you know we could do jim we could do one for fun when we're going to jimmy and i are going to be in europe at the end of the year we could do one like on the laptop or something if if if it works wherever we are,

Starting point is 01:22:26 it could be fun depending on where we're at. We'll see what we can do by at the end of the year. Maybe we'll be able to do something for fun. Um, Jeremy's going to be in England primarily, but he's gonna be around. I'm going to be in Germany primarily, but I'm going to be around. We're going to meet up. So maybe we'll, if we'll find a cool place, if we can do it, if we can make our schedules, you know, align and, uh, we'll do the European version. We'll do it in Amsterdam in a weed shop in a coffee shop. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to be smoking coffee. So, 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, um, where I talk about all

Starting point is 01:23:04 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 like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Legion Live Q&A: How Fast Can You Gain Fat, Dealing With Haters, 2016 Plans, and More...

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