Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Live Q&A: Artificial Sweeteners, Weight Gainer Shakes, "Healthy" Drinking, and More...

Episode Date: January 29, 2016

This podcast is a recording of the latest live Q&A I did over at Legion, and this time we're talking artificial sweeteners, ephedrine, weight gainers, doing research, myofascial release, and much more. If you want to get in on the next one and ask me questions, sign up here: https://legionathletics.com/qa/ 03:31 – Is this good HIIT cardio: Incline at 7.5 with 10 mph on a treadmill for 10 minutes. 06:24 – When I take creatine monohydrate I get bad insomnia and have to pee 10 times a night. Is there a different form I can take? 07:50 – I just had surgery and was looking at your joint supplement Fortify. Could you comment on the effectiveness it might have after surgery? 10:27 – Most bodybuilders rag on the Bowflex, is there anything wrong with the actual system if someone is still doing low reps, heavy weights, proper form? 11:42 – What do you consider to be the ideal Carbs/Protein/Fat percentage when cutting for a female? 18:36 – How can I avoid forearm pain during bicep curls? 20:01 – When are you going to come to the dark side and do a powerlifting meet? 22:33 – Could you please address problems with artificial sweeteners? 25:47 – What's the "healthiest" way to get drunk? 28:10 – Can you comment on the use of Ephedrine HCL? 29:50 – What's your go-to method for cooking chicken? 30:32 – When carrying out research for articles, what is your go to reference for trusted information? 32:42 – Is there a certain downside to using mass gainers? 35:29 – Did you work with researchers/scientists to come up with your Legion protein? 37:26 – What's your opinion on taking cleansing diet pills for cutting? 40:03 – What's the ideal amount of time to fast for IF? 40:16 – Do you take into account the afterburn affect of HIIT when counting macros? 41:04 – What are your thoughts on myofascial release? 41:25 – Why wont you go vegan? 43:37 – If you could only shave one part of your body for your next photo shoot, what would it be? 44:06 – What do you think of Tim Ferriss and the whole life hack fitness industry? 45:47 – How often should macros be adjusted as you're cutting? 46:29 – Can women follow the Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger program? 50:02 – Can you explain some guidelines for LISS cardio instead of HIIT? 51:14 – Any news on your app (beta) release? 53:03 – What do you think of yoga for mobility? 53:38 – Can you tell us a bit more about your affiliate programs for 2016? 57:30 – What are your thoughts on the Chest Dumbbell Pullover as a chest building exercise. 58:22 – What are your thoughts on using accessories such as wrist/lift straps, belt, knee sleeves? 1:01:41 – Any advice for dating German girls? 1:02:10 – What are your current max lifts for side lateral raises, squats, deadlifts, bench and overhead press? 1:06:24 – I'm a female NPC competitor at 16 % body fat and have been working out for almost 3 years now. Any exercise that would help my quads show? 1:10:25 – Let's say I put together a a protein bar that tastes better than Quest Bars. What is the first step to bring this product to market? 1:13:06 – Is it ALWAYS calories in vs calories out, or is it true that when people get older their metabolism lags? 1:15:09 – Why have you never been DEXA scanned? 1:18:02 – At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to start a career in the fitness industry? 1:25:04 – Is it possible for a hernia surgery to mess up the abdominal wall? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength

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

muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or grind away in the gym every day doing workouts that you hate. Now you can find my books everywhere. You can buy books online like Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audiobooks like me, you can actually get one of my books for free, one of my audiobooks for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. That's www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. And you can see how to do this. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I really think you're going to like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion.

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

on our website, we explain why we've chosen each ingredient. And we also cite all supporting studies. So you can go dive in and check it out for yourself. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. This is important, of course, because while something like creatine is proven to help improve strength and help you build muscle faster, if you don't take enough, then you're not going to see the benefits that are seen in scientific research. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. All our formulations are 100% transparent, both with the ingredients and the dosages. So you can learn more about my

supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right, thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast, and let's get to the show. All right, so here we are, another monthly Q&A. We're doing these the last Wednesday of every month is generally when we do it. We miss it here and there depending on what's going on, but we try to keep it last Wednesday of every month. So if you like these and you want to keep on coming,

then just make a note in your Google Calendar or whatever. And we'll obviously email and maybe we'll throw it in some emails earlier in the week or something in the future, just so people can think with it. But let's get started. So the first question, hey, Mike, is this good hit cardio? Incline at 7.5 with 10 miles per hour on a treadmill for 10 minutes. Does that. And then I do this after 20 minutes on a Stairmaster on level 12. So wait, so this is, so incline, so incline walking is fine. I mean, that's, there's, I just wrote an article just recently that walking is not hit in terms of overall effectiveness for losing fat as quickly as possible, but it has its upsides, which one, it's easy to do.

Two, it's very low. It's low impact, which means that it's easy on your joints. It's also just easy on your system. So when you're cutting, your body can only take so much abuse. Basically, you're in a calorie deficit, which puts stress on the body as it is. You're still lifting heavy weights. That's more stress and more recovery demands. And then you're adding in some high intensity cardio that adds more stress. So, so there's a point where you, you know, you just can't push your body any further. Walking is a very low intensity activity and there's actually research that shows, oh, it's seven. Yeah. I guess, I mean, Jeremy was just saying that seven and a half is kind of a jog. That's true. Oh, sorry. I was reading that wrong. I don't ever treadmill.

that seven and a half is kind of a jog that's true oh sorry i was reading that wrong i don't ever treadmill uh yeah so so yeah so i guess that's drawing anyways just finished what i was saying on the walking point um the it's it's a good low intensity activity that burns like you know you can burn a couple hundred calories an hour uh walking so in this case though i read this question wrong uh so yeah it's more like a jog for 10 minutes and then do this after 20 minutes on a Stairmaster on level 12. See, the idea with HIIT cardio is that you're doing high intensity and low intensity, high intensity. So this is more just like steady state. So, you know, jogging for 10 minutes and that's following 20 minutes on the Sarah master level 12

That's fine for cardio if you like to do that, but that's more steady-state You know medium kind of intensity or might feel like high intensity But high intensity interval is a bit different where you're pushing yourself really hard for anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds depending on your conditioning and depending on what you're doing and then you're backing it down for Usually at least the same period of time as your high intensity interval, if not twice as long to let your, uh, to you're essentially catching your breath again. So in your high intensity intervals, you're pushing yourself. You really should be pushing yourself to the point where you can't comfortably hold a conversation. Uh, and you're maintaining that for a certain period

of time. And then you are backing down to where you're, you've caught your breath again, you're repeating. So if you like doing that, uh, you know, steady state kind of medium intensity type of cardio, then do it. Um, you may be able to lose fat faster if you were to switch to a high, high intensity interval type of training. It's just tougher because those high intensity intervals are, are, are hard. I mean, you really have to be pushing yourself. Next question. When I take creatine monohydrate, I get bad insomnia and also have to pee 10 times a night. Is there a different form I can take that will not give me these symptoms? You know,

that's a good question. Some people, it's strange, just react strangely to creatine. Unfortunately, I have not heard insomnia, but I've heard indigestion. Really? Jeremy says he's heard insomnia. I've never heard that. I've heard definitely indigestion and just like stomach problems and diarrhea. It's not common, but I've heard it. Insomnia, I have not heard before, but you can try another form. It probably isn't going to make a difference. You could just try a more water-soluble form. I know, I've written some articles. It depends on what's out there, but creatine hydrochloride or if you go, if you search on Legion's blog for creatine supplement, you'll see a list.

And, you know, some micronized is going to be monohydrate, but it's a more water-soluble form might help. Yeah, that's the only thing you can really try. Like creatine, there are a few forms I talked about in the article that just aren't even as effective as like liquid creatine is just doesn't really work at all. And there are a couple other forms that don't really work. So unfortunately, it might just be that you cut out the creatine, which in the greatest scheme of things is not a huge problem. Yes, creatine works, but it's not necessary. It's just helpful. All right, next question. Hey, Mike, I just had a surgery and looking at your joint supplement. I was wondering if you could comment on the

effectiveness it might have after a surgery. Is it more for prevention of stiff joints or could it help heal my joint faster as a torn meniscus that was repaired? You know, I don't, I mean, obviously you're, you are in recovery mode. So I'm assuming you're not really going to be doing any sort of exercise or anything that's going to be aggravating your joints. So I don't think Fortify would help your joints heal faster. It is for reducing inflammation. So in that regard, it may help. But it's, I wouldn't say it's, it's not necessarily made for, you know, the, that, that type of situation where you have a damaged joint that needs to be repaired.

The reduction of inflammation might be able to help, but it's mainly for people that, it means for people with healthy joints and it helps them preserve healthy joints primarily by preventing the autoimmune response that can happen that eats away cartilage over time. That's what leads to rheumatoid arthritis. And it's also for people with compromised joint health already that, again, where it becomes this vicious cycle of inflammation, autoimmune response, further inflammation, and just degradation, degradation, degradation. So by really focusing on mitigating that autoimmune response and reducing inflammation, you can get rid of pain,

you can get rid of dysfunction. But in your case, I can't say for sure that it's going to help. It's not going to hurt, but I can't say for sure that it's going to help. It's not going to hurt, but I can't say for sure that it's going to help. Yeah. I mean, you can give it, give, you can give it a, give it a go and get, get, you know, one bottle. We'll have it back soon. The problem with, unfortunately the company that produces the collagen, which is a company called Inner Health, and this is, it's a patented collagen. There is no good replacement for it. I looked. Yeah. Jeremy was just saying it was a cartilage surgery. Yeah. it may help. I can't say for sure. But anyways, we will have it back sometime within the next three or four weeks. The company that produces the collagen, they were having trouble meeting

demands. So they wanted to increase production capacity. So what they did is they just shut down their entire operation for like four weeks to increase production capacity. And now they are backlogged with orders and now it's a big problem for them. So that wasn't, I don't know why they did it that way. So that's why we ran out of Fortify because we couldn't get collagen and there's no replacement.

There's no other that is the patented molecule. That's what we need. So anyways, they're supposed to be shipping out to my manufacturer on Friday and then my manufacturer is going to rush it. So hopefully that happens. Next question. Most bodybuilders rag on the Bowflex.

Is there anything wrong with the actual system? If someone is doing low reps, heavyweights, proper form? Um, I wouldn't say that it's something that's wrong. It's just that it's not going to be as effective as free weights. And, um, this is kind of on my list of articles. It's something that I've written about and spoken about kind of incidentally in other articles and other podcasts and all over the place really. But I think it deserves its own article, which is free weights versus machines.

And the bottom line is, and there's quite a bit of scientific research on this is, free weights are just more effective for building muscle and strength. It's not that you can't build muscle and strength on machines. You're just not going to see the results that you're going to see with free weights and um you know i've actually my parents have a bow flex so i've messed around with it and i find that when you try to really ratchet up the resistance it's very unwieldy it's it's a clunky type of system because the resistance it it increases like exponentially as you can as you move through your range of motion. That's what, you know, Bowflex would be like one of those things that I would, if I were stuck in a hotel and that's all I had, I would do something with it, but I would never,

you know, like if I were setting up a home gym, I would never opt for a Bowflex. I would just get a simple barbell set up with some adjustable dumbbells before I would do that. All right. Next question. Mike, you rock. What do you consider to be the ideal macro carbs, protein, fat percentage intake when cutting for a female? Pretty simple. Not much changes. For most men and women, there doesn't need to be a big change. I would say protein is pretty universal. Somewhere around a gram per pound of body weight is good. If you're very overweight,. Somewhere around a gram per pound of body weight is good. If you're very overweight, that could be a gram per pound of fat-free mass, which is if you take your body fat and if you remove your body fat from your body weight, what's left after that?

So, you know, let's say you are 150 pounds at 33% body fat. So, you're at like 45 or whatever pounds of fat, and if you took that out of your weight, and if you were left with 105 grams of protein, then that would work. In terms of carbs, I am a big advocate of high carb dieting for fat loss. I actually just wrote an article over at MFL on how many grams of fat should you be eating per day that explains why I'm not a big proponent of high fat dieting, which is kind of the trendy thing right now. There is a certain amount of dietary fat that your body needs for basic health purposes. You have the essential fatty acids. You have alpha linoleic acid, linoleic acid. These are things that your body can't produce that it needs to get from its diet, especially there are types of fats called omega-3 fatty acids that are very, very important

that you get enough in your diet for various health reasons. But once you've met those basic health needs, increasing your fat intake beyond that, it doesn't really have any benefits in terms of health or body composition or performance. You may enjoy it, and that is a reason to do it. If, you know, some people just really, the types of foods that they like to eat are generally fattier foods, and that's okay. As long as, ideally, you know, that you're getting your majority of your fats from unsaturated fats, which are fats that are, you know, liquid at room temperature. So oils, nuts, seeds, things like that, as opposed to getting the vast majority of your fat from saturated fat, which are fats that are solid

at room temperature, like, you know, the kind of fat you'd find in dairy, like butter, or the fats that you find in meat. And the reason why is although, again, eating a lot of saturated fat is kind of the thing right now, there are – it's not conclusive. The science is not conclusive that – and some people will say it is, that we know now saturated fat has no association with heart disease. That's not true. And I talk about that in this latest article, How Many Grams of Fat You Should Be Eating Per Day. heart disease, that's not true. And I talk about that in this latest article, how many grams of

fat you should be eating per day. The research that has been prominently shared around as the definitive proof that saturated fat, you can use as much saturated fat as you want and it will not increase the risk of heart disease, has been thoroughly criticized by prominent researchers and scientists. So I think it's smart to play it safe and keep your saturated fat intake to somewhere around 10% of your daily calories or less and get the majority of your fats from unsaturated sources. So as long as you're doing that, I would say that your fat intake could be somewhere between 15 and 20% of your daily calories. And as long as you are getting enough omega threes, which I personally just take a fish

oil because I don't like fatty fish is that's really your best source of omega threes. You can get omega threes from plants, plant sources, like let's say flax seed and, and others. But the problem is that the conversion of that, of the fat that is in the plant sources, by the time it gets converted, your body converts it into a fatty acid called EPA, which it then has to convert into DHA, and that process is very inefficient. It's very inefficient to go from ALA, which is the fat in the plant food, going from ALA to EPA is already very inefficient. I believe it's like 4% or 5%, maybe 6% can be converted. And then EPA into DHA is even worse,

where it's almost negligible. So the best way to get your omega-3s, your EPA, DHA, is just you'll find it directly, you'll find it in fatty fish in large amounts. That's the most common way that people get it. If you like the, you know, like salmon and mackerel, I think sardines as well. And if you like those fish, then, you know, eat a few servings a week and you'll be good. I really don't like them. So I just take fish oil. So I take about four grams of fish oil a day, which gives me about two and a half grams of omega-3s of EPA, DHA, and I'm good to go. So if your fat is 15 to 20% of your total daily calories, um, and it's the primarily unsaturated fat, your saturated fat is limited and you're getting your

EPA, DHA, you're good to go and you get the rest of your calories from carbs. Um, so that's a good baseline. That's a default. It's a starting point. If though you find that that is not enough fat for you, you just don't enjoy it. I mean, fat also, when you eat fat with a meal, it helps keep you satiated. So it is smart when you're cutting to have some fat with every meal. So if that's just not enough for you, that's fine. Increase your intake by whatever you would like to add. Let's say you want to go up 10 or 15 grams of fat per day. Just take from your carbs.

So for every two grams of carbs that you remove from your numbers, you can add one gram of fat. So in that case, if you want to add 10 grams of fat to your daily, just pull out 20 grams of carbs and you're good to go. So that's the baseline that I recommend. Most people, and I've worked with thousands and thousands of people, and most people do best on that type of setup. High protein, high carb, low to moderate fat. And they're able to lose fat efficiently. They're able to, you know, enjoy the, their, their, the foods, because generally we like to eat carbs, carbs, may, you know, they improve, they increase mood. They give us energy. They help keep our workouts, you know, good. They help make sure that we have, I mean, obviously our glycogen levels in our

muscles and in our liver is going to be generally low because we're restricting our carbs regardless, but the higher, the higher we can keep that and the more glycogen we can keep in our body, the better our workouts are going to be, generally speaking. And also, just to throw that out there, that it's a myth that women need to eat so much more fat than men. It's just not true. There's no physiological reason for that. The dietary fats play an equal role in hormones in men and women. And the point is, you just need to get enough for your body's basic health needs. And if you're going to increase beyond that, you should have a reason to do it, not just because. All right, next question. How

can I avoid forearm pain during bicep curls? I even tried going back to the 8-10 rep range, but it keeps coming back even after a few weeks of rest. That really kind of depends where this pain is. If it's along this area of your forearm, and if you're new to weightlifting, that's just something you have to deal with. Heavy curling, you know, I had the same issue years ago and I just had to keep on going through it. If it's somewhere else, it could be a tendonitis issue. I just had to keep on going through it. If it's somewhere else, it could be a tendonitis issue.

But regardless, I would say just stop doing whatever it is that's bothering you. So maybe you can switch to a different type of curl. Maybe if you're doing traditional curls, you can switch to a hammer curl, and maybe that will not aggravate it. So I'd have to get more information. You can send me an email on that if that doesn't help you, because I'd have to know where is this pain? Is it following an injury or is it something that just kind of crept up on you? How did it creep up on you? Was it that you were going up in weight? Because what I've heard from a lot of people and I experienced

it myself is when you start getting into heavier and heavier curling, there is a point where you get this strange pain. It almost feels like it's at your bone. And in most cases, and in my case, I just kept on going. And it wasn't excruciating pain. It was just uncomfortable. And then in time, it just went away. All right, next question. When are you going to come to the dark side and do a powerlifting meet? Uh, the problem with powerlifting and me is if I wanted to really focus on getting stronger, I would have to be fatter. There's just no way that I'm going to stay, you know, somewhere around 8% body fat and be super strong. Um, you know, and I've pushed myself hard. I've kind of maintained

this eight percent ish place for about a year now. And I've pushed myself hard in my training. I've done all kinds of stuff. And I just I feel like I've hit a ceiling with my strength, given my body weight and given my caloric intake. Unfortunately, you know, my being a natural weightlifter, which everybody says, which I don't really talk, I don't really, I don't push it and go on and on about it because I think it's silly. And I think the more someone like claims that they're natural and swears up and down how natural they are, the less, the more likely they are on drugs.

But my point is my, my calories on, on a day-to-day basis are about 2,800 max, 2,900, even somewhere between 2,700 to 2,900. And so I'm not able to eat 700 or 600 grams of carbs a day and stay lean. That's just not going to happen. If I could, then yeah, I could probably gain 50 pounds on all my lifts over the course of the next whatever, know, whatever, six months, if I could just eat, you know, a lot more food. But for me, I prefer to just stay lean and look a certain way over being super strong. I've maintained good strength across the board. But yeah, unfortunately, I just wouldn't be a very impressive powerlifter with my setup the way it is right now. And I also, I mean, I'm not training for powerlifting. I'm not doing a strength program, which also brings me to a little aside on strength programs. One of the reasons why also I personally wouldn't be interested in that is

most strength programs, the lower body volume is much higher than the upper body volume. So you're doing a lot of squatting and doing a fair amount of deadlifting. And the physique that that builds is a very lower centric one where you have really big legs, you have a really big butt, and your upper body can be muscular. But in most cases, people do a lot of strength training. It's just a lopsided type of look with huge legs, huge, you know, but he's huge lower body and underwhelming upper body. And that's, that's also just not what I'm going for. All right. Next question. Could you please address problems with artificial sweeteners in terms of health risk and weight management? Thanks. I actually have this on my list of things to either, either do a video on or on or write an article on. And, you know, there's some

evidence that it may mess with your intestinal, it's called flora, the environment in your intestines and in your gut. But it is inconclusive and we'll have to see what comes out of it in future research. There's also, it's pretty well established that having a lot of sweet, just sweet, you know, tasting things throughout the day that it can stimulate your desire to eat more calories. So the fact that you're having something sweet with no calories can kind of mess with your bodies. I mean, it'd be more hormonal in terms of leptin and ghrelin, but it can help promote overeating. So there's that. And, you know, there's a lot of controversy over the more, I guess, sensational type of claims against artificial sweeteners that, you know, aspartame increases your risk of cancer and all these other things.

increases your risk of cancer and all these other things that those, when you start going that far, uh, you know, to, to that, to the, to the alarmist kind of end of the spectrum. Um, I don't put, I don't put much stock in that stuff and I don't think there's, there's good scientific evidence of that. So like I myself, I don't never have artificial sweeteners. I chew gum here and there. I guess that'd be kind of my really only source. I don't eat, you know, I don't really have anything else that would have that. I don't drink energy drinks. I just drink pulse. But I do, I all chew gum here and there and whatever. So it's not that I'm like rabidly against artificial sweeteners. But, you know, if what's coming to the point of workout supplements and why I chose to go with natural sweeteners is not so

much that like having a serving or two of artificial sweet with natural sweeteners is not so much that like having a serving or two of artificial sweetening or sweeteners every day is going to cause any problems. But what if you're taking, let's say four scoops of protein a day, you're taking two scoops of a pre-workout a day, you're taking a post-workout, you know, you're taking, let's say we have a sleep supplement, we have, so, and let's say, you know, we have our green supplement Genesis coming out soon. So it could easily be that somebody would be taking eight to 10 servings of my supplements a day on top of who knows what else, drinking diet soda, chewing gum, having other things with artificial sweeteners.

There is a point where it can become a problem where there is a certain level of intake where if you're having, let's say, let's say someone's at 20 servings or 15 servings of artificial sweetener a day, that's probably not good for your body. It's just probably not. And the same thing would go for artificial food dyes. So that's why we chose to go with natural sweeteners and natural flavoring as well. Flavoring is much less controversial. I don't know of any scientific evidence that artificial flavors have even similar effects as artificial sweeteners. But we figured if we're going natural flavor or natural sweetener, we might as well go natural flavoring as well because you can still make things taste really good. And then, you know,

if at some point we know that, hey, maybe we shouldn't have been eating all that artificial flavoring either, then, you know, we kind of have our bases covered there. So that's where I'm at on it basically. And to dive into more details, we taking in detail video or an article, a question, what's the healthiest way to get drunk? It's a good question. I've never been drunk. It's kind of strange. I never got into drinking and never, I don't know. I, I, I, I don't have anything against it morally. It's just, it was never really my thing. And then I never really felt like I had a reason to start. So I just never did. Um, it reminds me of a quote. I read, I read a, uh, a biography on John Rockefeller, a senior just recently. And reminds me of a quote in that book where basically he said that he never became a drunk because he

never took the first drink. And, um, so I think there's, there's some wisdom there. Uh, however, the healthiest way to get drunk, I mean, if we're talking about, I mean, really what I can speak on here is if we're talking about minimizing fat gain, because there's no healthy, I mean, alcohol is a poison. And, you know, it's not a question of are there health benefits or not. There are no health benefits. It's a question of how well can your body tolerate alcohol? Some people's bodies can tolerate it very well and they can drink quite a bit without any apparent, you know, ramifications, whereas other people's bodies can't and they drink much less and, you know, run into all kinds of health issues. So genetics is going to determine

that. But in terms of body composition, the problem with alcohol is it just accelerates the rate at which your body stores fat, dietary fat as body fat, because it blunts fat oxidation rates. So if you're going to drink, then you really would want to have it be almost like a refeed type situation where you're having as little dietary fat as possible on that day. But then you also, you don't want to be eating a ton of carbs because glucose can be turned into fatty acids as well. So you're kind of looking at like a low, like a higher protein, lower carb, and it's very low, very low fat type of day as possible. And especially when you're around, when you're drinking, because like the worst thing you can do, uh, would be if you're going to be drinking,

be in a large caloric surplus for the day and, uh, have a ton of dietary fat and drink alcohol. So, which is what a lot of people, you know, usually eating fatty foods. Um, that's just basically you're, you're gaining as much fat as you possibly can in that, you know, period of time. So I would say that's probably the best way to go about it. All right. So next question. Can you comment on the use of ephedrine, hydrochloride, HCL? I've actually never used ephedrine, not because I just, I don't know.

I guess I just never really, I just never did for no good reason particularly. I've read a bit up on it. And as far as I know, it's, it's well tolerated and you can be abused and there can be, it can be problematic like anything, but that's caffeine as well. Or that's, I mean, if you abuse water, you can die. So, um, not that ephedrine is, is, is obviously it's, it's more quote unquote dangerous than water, but you get what I'm saying. Um,rine works, there's no question. I mean, in our fat burner Phoenix, there's something called sinephrine in it that is a, it's kind of a natural form of ephedrine. So like you have the traditional bodybuilder type of stack, which is the ECA stack, the ephedrine, caffeine,

aspirin stack, because ephedrine and caffeine are synergistic and then aspirin helps as well. In Phoenix, we have sinephrine, no caffeine, because we prefer, I mean, most people prefer to get their caffeine from other sources than pills, whether it be pre-workout drinks or energy drinks or coffee or whatever. And then we have, there's, it's a molecule called salicin that comes from the white willow bark. And that salicin, that's actually what aspirin was. That's nature's aspirin. So we kind of can recreate the ECA stack naturally by using Phoenix and some caffeine.

But I don't know the dosing on ephedrine because I haven't used it and I haven't really looked into it. I haven't written about it. But I don't know of any reason why you couldn't give it a go. Question, what's your personal go-to method for cooking chicken? Baking these days, mainly just because I've been doing, I've just been doing one pot stuff for so long. And, you know, that's, it's just super convenient. So I have this big baking dish and every Sunday I just kind of do a vegetable medley with some sort of meat. It hasn't been too creative recently just because of time.

But I mean, obviously, I mean, baking is easy, but you can always saute. And if you're not even, you know, if you're baking a chicken dish as opposed to just a single dish, baked chicken can be really good because it can be very, very tender, very, very juicy and succulent. So sauteing or baking. Question, when carrying out your research for articles, what is your go-to reference for trusted information?

My main source is just scientific journals, actually. So you can pay to access whatever you know, whatever you want, really. And then there are different services out there that allow you to access multiple journals. But it's jumping from, so you'll find like, you know, papers that are like systematic reviews, for instance, where they're going over a lot of research that's out there on a subject and compiling it all and analyzing it and saying, what can we learn from all of these clinical trials? And those are great. I mean, it depends on obviously the circumstance, but they can be really, really illuminating because it allows you

to one, gain a general overview of, okay, where are things at? What do we know about this right now? And then you can go from those references. And just like how, when I'm writing, I try to, I try to cite, you know, studies for, for any claim that isn't just, you know, basic physiology or just basic knowledge, then I'm really trying to cite, cite studies for it. So that's how, that's how scientific papers are written. So if you're reading, you know, let's say you're reading a meta-analysis on something or a systematic review on something, and they talk about some, you know, physiological mechanism, something that you want to learn more about, then there's a very, very good chance that there are going to be other papers that are cited for that, that you can go read. And that's really my main source of information. There are good research reviews out there. Examine.com has one.

Alan Aragon has one. I believe Brett Contreras has one. So those are good for staying just up to date on what, because those research reviews talk about new studies that are done. They talk about older studies that are done. They have kind of editorial pieces that are on all different types of subjects. So that's smart as well. Because again, that gives you a jumping, a starting point where you can jump off and then dive into other research. So yeah, I mean, there's no like real trick to that. It's just, it just takes time. And, you know, it takes some money as well to gain access to the research. All right, next question. I've used your supplements before, but I'm trying up your mass mass gainer because I'd like more help trying to gain mass.

Is there a certain downside to using other mass gainers than your own? Good question. We actually don't have a weight gainer meal replacement product yet, but we are working on one and we have the formulation almost done. The price is in the right range. I'm not sure if it's going to be too grainy because we have some flax in there and stuff. So we need to get some samples going to see if it works, but we like the formulation where it's at right now. So we have a protein powder, but this is going to be a protein powder. It's going to be a blend of whey and casein. And then it's going to have, instead of of C and this kind of brings me to what I don't like about a lot of mass gainers is, or bass gainers, weight gainers, meal replacements is they're,

they're very expensive. In some cases it's like 12 servings for $60, which isn't that bad. I guess if you're thinking that it's a full meal replacement. If you're replacing entire meal for $5, I guess that's pretty cool, but it's just junk. It's, it's just filled with usually dextrose, which is a simple plant sugar. It's not that it's like super bad for you, but it's just a simple sugar. It's cheap. It's whatever. It's like just eating a bunch of Malto. And I don't like that for a meal replacement because I would prefer to have some sort of carbs with nutrition. So we're going with a mixture of oat flour and potato starch flour. And I'll explain why in the sales copy. And so we have, it's a pretty unique product in that like all of our stuff, we're just putting a lot more money into producing it than your other, than your average weight gainer. So we're

able to offer higher quality ingredients and just more good stuff than than really any other weight gainer. That's that's why I don't like weight gainers really is just junk calories. And you're not getting much in the way of nutrition. So it wouldn't be a big deal, I guess, if you were eating plenty of nutritious foods. And so you're meeting all your micronutrient needs that way and you just are trying to get in an extra thousand calories on top of your 3,000 calories of nutritious foods every day. Okay. I guess that's not, but that's not the case. A lot of people, you know, they're having a couple thousand calories of one to 2,000 calories of weight gain or a day and they're not

getting enough fruits and vegetables in their diet and other nutritious foods in their diet. And so I would rather have, and this is why I'm making it, I would rather have a meal replacement be a true meal replacement, not just in macronutrients, but in micronutrients as well. And even give some of the micronutrients that you probably are not getting enough of in your diet regardless, like vitamin K and some other things. So I hope that answers the question. Next question. Did you work with researchers and scientists to come up with your Legion protein product? The protein product, no. I mean, we've worked with, we have two people that we've actually worked with on everything except for the protein because it just kind of is what it is.

We, you know, it's just a clean, simple way isolate. And in the future, we're always looking, we always kind of have in the back of our minds, we're looking for, you know, how can we improve our products? How can we add to them? You know, in some cases we can't afford to add to them. Like Triumph is just maxed out. It's just so expensive to make.

some cases we can't afford to add to them like triumph is just maxed out it's just so expensive to make but whenever we we gain uh you know price uh improve whenever we we get a better price on things because economies of scale or or just because of different efficiencies then you know we're looking at okay so how can we how can we improve how can we improve and we've already done several revisions to products uh but so in the case of Protein No, that was just kind of, we really liked this Irish way. And that really for us is the, that's the unique selling proposition. That's the unique angle. That's why you should buy ours because it's just better quality and you are, it's nice to know for health reasons.

And I explained why on the sales page for the whey. But it's also better for, it's just more, it mixes better, it tastes better, the mouth feels better. If you haven't tried our protein, really give it a try and you're going to be amazed. We've had so many people. Since we've released that product, the average sales have over tripled. And that's just word of mouth. It's not like we have some, our average weekly bottles of whey sold has tripled since we've released the new protein. Um, because it, it, it's just that good. It's so good. It's abnormally good for, for, for the macros too. It's so creamy and it's so tasty and for being naturally sweet and naturally flavored and just being a really

clean, simple protein. It's, it's like, it's really something special. So that's that question. Next question. Could you please voice your opinion on taking cleansing diet pills for cutting? I feel like it's getting more and more popular and curious to try it out. Yeah, go to Legion and search for detox and you'll see an article I wrote. Basically, a long story short is, yes, we know that there are, we're exposed to all kinds of toxins in our environment, in our food, in our water, everything we can't get away from it. And we do know that, that some of these toxins, uh, do get lodged in our fatty tissues. That's true. Um, but where the lie is, is you can't, uh, detox, you can't dislodge those toxins and

clear them out of your body by just taking some pills or, you know, drinking lemon water every morning or anything like that. It just doesn't work. So that we know doesn't work. And when it comes to like detox and these like detox teas and all this bullshit, cleansing teas and cleansing pills, of course, they're sold with weight loss because if you're following one of these regimens, you're eating very few calories. You're eating, let's say, 500 calories a day. Yes, if you starve yourself and eat 500 calories a day, you are going to lose weight rapidly. Unfortunately, you're going to feel like shit and you're also going to lose muscle and it's just a miserable

way to go about it. And if you take it too far, it's just bad for your health. But you can skip the tea. You don't have to drink the stupid, skinny, whatever tea. Just starve yourself if you want to starve yourself and don't bother with the tea unless you just really like tea. But if you really like tea, don't waste money on that crap tea. Go buy a high quality green tea and just drink that instead. So long story short is these cleansing pills are not going to do anything. Um, you know, I know that some of them, like they even put stuff in, in these pills to make your shit black. So you think that, Oh, look at all the toxins you're pooping out and it's a scam. So, um, save your money.

And if you want, uh, to go about, you know, learning, losing weight correctly, um, go to search for calories on Legion on the Legion blog and look for an article. How many calories should I be eating? I think is the name of the article and that'll break it all down for you. Um, so you can work out what your caloric intake should be so you can be aggressive with your fat loss, but not reckless. And you can also work out your macros and work out your meal plan and just do it right. And it's a much more enjoyable experience. And it's sustainable. You're not going to be dreading every day. You're going to eat foods you like. You're not going to be starving. You're not going to be hangry all day, you know, hungry, angry.

Just do it right. And really, that's my best advice. What's the ideal amount of time to fast for IF? I would say no more than 16 hours, somewhere between 12 and 16 hours. Search for fasting on the Legion blog and you will see an article I wrote on this breaks it all down for you. Do you take into account the afterburn effect of HIIT when counting macros? No, I don't. macros? Uh, no, I don't. And I actually don't like to try to estimate caloric burn every day, caloric expenditure every day. Um, because it's just not necessary. I prefer to take your BMR and multiply it by a multiplier based on your activity level, see how your body responds and adjust up or down accordingly. If you want some good advice on that, um, you know, you can read

the, the setting your calories article I just just mentioned and then go in muscle for life and search for not losing weight and check that article out because it breaks down all the basic it's kind of the simple or the most common mistakes that people make when they're dieting that prevents them from that halts weight loss and then also explains how you ratchet your calories down as you continue through your cut because you have to do that thoughts on myofascial release? I actually wrote an article on it. It's good. Like, you know, I get massaged every week and that's, you know, you can do it on yourself with like foam rollers or with a lacrosse ball or a baseball if you're brave. But check out, go to Muscle for Life and

search for myofascial and you'll see an article I wrote on it. Question, why won't I go vegan? Good choice, Jerry. Why would I go vegan? Yeah. So actually this is on my list to write about. In terms of bodybuilding, which I mean, I'm not a bodybuilder per se, but in terms of just weightlifting and maintaining optimal health, vegan diets, you can make it work, but there are known deficiencies like B12 and iron and zinc. And these are things you can supplement for and that's fine. But I really wouldn't enjoy a vegan diet. And I understand on the ethical side of things and I do know that a lot of what the meat industry – what happens in the meat industry is pretty disgusting.

I've seen videos and what I would go in for is buying meat. And I've actually looked into some farms like some ranches that I could buy meat from. They obviously they ship it to you packed in dry ice. Like I would go in for buying, not supporting that element of the meat industry by just choosing to get my meat from, you know, like cows that were raised humanely and then slaughtered humanely. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't feel that it's immoral to kill animals and eat them. I mean, in nature, animals are killing each other every day. And I know that there are ethical, I know there are counter arguments to all this, and I haven't really gotten into, it's not an argument that I really want to have. So, yeah, that's basically it. I wouldn't enjoy my diet.

I like, you know, I'm not crazy about meat, but I like meat. I also like eggs a lot. I like dairy a lot. So it would be very, I really wouldn't enjoy it. And there are downsides in terms of health and meeting your micronutrient needs and meeting your protein needs. And I don't personally feel like it's unethical to kill animals and eat them. But it's on my list to write about. Next question.

If you could only shave one part of your body for the next photo shoot, what would it be? for next photo shoot, what would it be? Um, I don't, yeah, my right nipple. That's a, that's what, that's definitely what it'd be. That's, Hey, I was, I was telling Jeremy, I was like, should I like cut again? And if we do another photo shoot, like what for? Like, I don't know, just, there we go. It's going to be the right nipple shaved shoot. That'll be all of our new images. I now have a reason to cut again. All nipple shaved shoot. That'll be all of our new images. I now have a reason to cut again. All right, next question. What do you think of Tim Ferriss and the whole life hack fitness industry? I mean, Tim Ferriss as a person is an interesting person. He's a very smart person. He's a smart marketer. I listened to some of his podcasts. Like if he's interviewing somebody that I'm particularly interested in, I'll check it out. Biohacking, that whole, I mean,

you said life hacking. I don't know if you meant biohacking. Biohacking is silly. And, you know, like the whole Dave Asprey bulletproof thing is just silly. And it's not, it's just not nearly as effective as just sensible, following the fundamentals, you know, eat right, train hard, be persistent. And, you know, eat right, train hard, be persistent, and, you know, you'll get the body you want. That's how you build a great physique. That's how you build a healthy body, a strong body, not by chasing weird biohacks, eating exotic Brazilian nuts at 9 p.m. and putting, you know, tablespoons of saturated fat in your coffee every morning, blah, blah, blah. So if that's what you meant, I think it's silly. And I think, though, that honestly,

Ferris knows that it's kind of silly. It's just, it makes for good marketing. That's kind of the point. When you can say that, oh, you know, you did all this research and you have these exotic herbs from China that do this and these nuts from, you know, Brazil that do that. And that sounds sexier and is an easier sell also from a PR angle to get reporters to cover it and just to get coverage as opposed to saying, sorry, you got to watch, you got to, you know, you got to watch your caloric intake and your expenditure and you got to make sure that you're just, you know, balancing your macros and keep on showing up and work hard in the gym. That's not as sexy.

So next question. How often should macros be adjusted as you're cutting? Good question. Go to Muscle for Life and search for not losing weight and read that article. And it breaks it all down in there. It really depends on your body. Some people really their metabolism is their metabolisms are just very resilient and they don't experience much reduction in their TDE as they diet or it takes, you know, quite a long time

for them to really notice a difference. And other people's metabolisms are, I wouldn't necessarily even say slower. It's just that their body doesn't adapt as strongly as others. So check out the article and it's broken all down in that article. Next question. Can women follow the Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger program? Yeah, definitely. If you are, just that program is for advanced weight lifters, is for people that are very, that have built their first, if it's a guy, I would say probably 25, 30 pounds of muscle. If it's a girl, about half that and are very comfortable with heavy lifting on your big compounds, like two to three rep stuff you're doing. So you need to know form. You need to know

when to push for reps and when to back off. And so if that's you, and also it needs to fit your goals. If your goal is to really kind of maximize your strength and muscle growth, then that's you, and also it needs to fit your goals. If your goal is to really kind of maximize your strength and muscle growth, then that it does, that is the direction you want to move in, which is more periodization, some very heavy work, some moderately heavy work, and some lighter work. There are different ways of doing that. You can periodize linearly where you're, you're doing some very heavy stuff for a few weeks, and then you're focusing on some lighter stuff for a few weeks, or you can periodize in each workout, which is what I prefer and what I recommend that program. But I do have on my list to I do plan on doing a beyond thinner, leaner, stronger book. It's just I don't think I'll be able to get to it later in the year. And

I'm still kind of compiling what I want that book to be because it needs to be a bit different than the men's. You know, whereas bigger than you're stronger and thinner than you're stronger, there's a lot of overlap because the fundamentals are the fundamentals. But the beyond books I feel should more address, okay, so you've built your foundation, where do you go from here? With guys, it's a bit easier because most guys are still looking to gain size and gain strength for, you know, at least their first four to five years of training. With girls, that's not necessarily always the case. It's not just, I want to be as big and strong as possible. I don't come across very many girls that say that. Of course,

they're out there, but that's just not, that's what most guys say. Most girls, in my experience, are much more into shaping, working on certain areas of their body and bringing up weak points as opposed to just I want as much whole body strength and size as possible. Next question, in the US you say a 150-pound man should start with a diet of 2,400 calories a day, 2340. However, the meal plan examples in the book for 150-pound man has a target of 2,724 calories. What number should I base my intake off of? I think I actually,

I think you put this on the blog comments and I answered it today. Yeah, that was actually just an oversight in that those are actual custom meal plans we've made for people. So in the book, I give formulas that are kind of a good starting place for everybody. They're a safe starting place. Whereas when you're like, for instance, when you're cutting, I want to make sure that you're in enough of a calorie deficit that you're going to lose weight. I'm assuming that compliance might not be perfect. If you're bulking, I want to make sure that we're not starting you much higher than you need to be starting. So we're not putting unnecessary amounts of fat on you. I would rather have you start your bulk a little bit low and, and let's say gain a half a pound a week and then rat and then work your calories up

a little bit to where you can get to the one pound a week range. I'd rather have that than start you too high and have you gain 1.5 to 2.2 pounds a week, let's say, unless you're brand new that that can happen. But you know, the point is I would rather have you gain a little bit slower at first and work your calories up. So that's all start, start with the book, start about 2400, see how your body responds and then move up from there. And, uh from there. And I need to make a note on that, that maybe we just pick a different, because that was a meal plan made for a specific person. And we're able to then make it very tailored to that person's needs and what they really need to eat to gain weight. Next question. Can you explain some guidelines for list cardio instead of HIIT? I have a DIY treadmill desk and can literally walk for hours

every day. Is there such a thing as too much list cardio while cutting or bulking? Yeah, go check a muscle for life and just go into like the articles, I think from the last week or so, I wrote an article, the easiest cardio workout you can do that actually works. And it's all about walking. And as I was talking about earlier, walking is, is great for, um, I think supplementing your, your energy expenditure. Um, because you have a, because you have a treadmill desk, you'll, you will be able to burn quite a, quite a, quite a bit of energy every day walking. Cause again, you're probably going to, it's going to be somewhere around a couple hundred calories an hour. because, again, it's going to be somewhere around a couple hundred calories an hour.

So if you were to do three or four hours of walking a day, that's great. And in terms of too much, there's probably too much walking at some point. It becomes a bit counterproductive. But if you did three or four hours a day of walking, I don't think that will cause any issues. And I wouldn't do any additional cardio because it's not necessary. That's a lot of cardio in terms of how much calories you're going to be burning. So do yeah, do try that. Try that plus your weightlifting and you should be fine. Any news on your app beta release? Yeah, I kind of had it in the back of my head to email

out an update on it. I just wanted to have a bit more to show before I email out. So basically it is fully in the hands of a new company called Appster out of San Francisco. I chose them, which is, I really should have just chosen a company like them in the first place. They're very expensive, but they've built hundreds of apps. They build award-winning apps. They really know what they're doing. And so, you know, everything is rolling. They are, we're working on, you know, there's a whole process where you make wireframes and I approve the wireframes and then they develop and you develop one little piece at a time. So it's rolling. In terms of when the beta can begin, I would think probably summer, March-ish, March or

April, and it should be fully done, ready to sell in summer. So, you know, the whole project has taken, it's going to have taken quite a bit more time and money than anticipated initially, but that's kind of my fault in that I didn't do my due diligence initially. And I assumed that it was going to be a bit easier of a project than it was, which is always a stupid mistake to make. Always assume it's going to be harder and more annoying and more money and more time than you think. And then you will be somewhere closer to reality. A question on stacked, the app stacked. Any plans on adding a comment part after each set? Solid reps, last one was a grinder, good form, bad form. Yeah. Yeah. We're either going to do that,

have a comment section for each set, or there's definitely going to be a comment section at the end of the workout. That's one of those things that I have it in right now in the spec sheet, but we're going to be in using it just make sure that you know, it works the way that we want it to work. But yeah, that's in there. And it makes sense to that, you know, we would want to we would want to be able to save notes for sets and then potentially review them, you know, in the future. Okay, yeah. So what do I think of yoga for mobility? Um, I think yoga is good. I used to do yoga a couple of times a week. Uh, my wife was into it, so I'd go with her and I liked it. Uh, it wasn't particularly challenging. Um, like, you know, the, the teacher would challenge me with these

different weird poses and do this and hold this and do this bridge and go from this position to this position. And,. And I mean, some of it was kind of hard, but I wasn't, I didn't feel like it wasn't like a weightlifting workout, but it was great for the stretching aspect and always felt very good after. So I think if you want to do it, do it. Next question. Can you tell us a bit more about affiliate programs for 2016? What are you looking for in terms of athlete traits you'd like to sponsor? Good question. So we are looking at doing an affiliate program

for both Muscle for Life and Legion this year. Muscle for Life is going to get a full revamp, just like how Legion has a brand new website, brand new blog, brand new everything. And we're still, we have about another month's worth of work, dev work, developmental work on Legion to implement some more marketing and just kind of e-commerce things that we want to have on the website. And then we're going to be turning all of our focus over to MFL, which is going to, again, it's going to be a complete overhaul, head-to-toe type of deal. We're going to be putting in a store, and we're going to be changing the meal plan service.

And we're going to be really – we've been piloting this coaching service and it's been going very well. So we're going to kind of make that, you know, it's going to have its inaugural announcement. At some point, we're looking at doing affiliate programs for both. Now, the reason why I say at some point is where it's going to be a tentatively, we're kind of looking at Q2, Q3, because with Legion, for instance, we have to, it's going to be a closed affiliate program, essentially, that we can't just open it up and let everyone sign up because we'll run out of stock. Like we're already, you know, we're running January. It's great. Things are going very well, but January is going better than we even anticipated. And we knew it was going to do

well, but it's doing even better than we thought. So now, you know, we're rushing our manufacturer, hey, you know, we need it, we need stuff earlier, what can we do? We don't want to run out of this, we don't want to run out of that. So we just want to avoid inventory issues in 2016, more than anything. Now, some running out of stock here and there is inevitable, because sometimes things just happen where for, you know, you place an order, it takes two months to make a product to make, you know, to produce, let's say 10,000 bottles of whatever you place that order thinking that, you know, you're totally fine. You have 16 weeks worth of inventory left and 12 week production time. Okay, great. And then somewhere in the middle sales double the weekly sales just double. And you didn't, you didn't do

that. You're not complaining, but you didn't, you didn't do that. You're not complaining, but you didn't plan for that and you'd run out of stock. So that can happen. But what we don't want to do is do something like just roll out an affiliate program. I get asked about it a lot. I know there are a lot of people that would love to be able to promote Legion and make money. And we would love to have that. But what I would hate to do is roll out an affiliate program and then have everyone jump on board and then it just blows us out. And then, you know, that's just not the way to do it. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to have closed affiliate programs, meaning that we'll be accepting people in batches.

So, you know, let's say we're going to accept 50 people and see what kind of impact that has on our sales, what kind of impact that has on our inventory and kind of roll it in waves. So anyone theoretically is going to, you know, be eligible for that. It's different. This is not necessarily a sponsorship thing. We're not going to pay people to promote. We're going to pay people for sales that they generate. So if you were, if we had it and you were one of our affiliates, you would have your own special unique link that, so when you're promoting Legion or Muscle for Life, or let's say you're promoting, cause we're going to be selling books on Muscle for Life and we're going to be selling, you know, meal plans and coaching and supplements and other things.

So we'll have an affiliate program on each. So you'll have, you know, you'll say it's your name dot muscle for life.com or however it's going to be, then all sales that occur from people that click through your link, you would get paid a commission on that. So that's how it's going to work. It's going to be a later in the year thing though. We are definitely going to do it. We just have to make sure that we do it right and that we're ready for it and that we have a large surplus of inventory basically to make sure that we don't just explode ourselves. I just want your thoughts on the chest dumbbell pullover as a chest building exercise. I'm doing flat barbell benching, inclined benching, and dumbbell benching. Just wondering about the

pullover. The pullover, you know, it can be good for your serratus. And the idea is that it kind of expands the, at least visually the rib cage area. And, um, you know, Arnold, Arnold was definitely an advocate of it. I used to do it in the past. And, um, I would say it's not nearly as important as your heavy pressing, but it's, it's, uh, if you wanted to incorporate it and see if it does anything for you, I would say just do your heavy pressing, you know, do your nine sets of heavy pressing, then maybe do three sets of lighter eight to 10 rep pullovers and do it for a couple months and you know, take your measurements, take your pictures and see how your body responds. If nothing else, you can get some more serratus development out of it, which is which is a

bonus. Our next question, what are your thoughts on using accessories such as wrist and lift straps, back belt, knee sleeves? So wrist straps, I think are good. If, if you're, if you're new to, to heavy weightlifting and you're having wrist issues, then you know, I used to use these gloves that also had wrist straps built in and it can be, it can be nice for your overhead pressing and your bench pressing just to stabilize your wrist. And, you know, gloves for deadlifting. I've torn my hand several times deadlifting, which in some cases was annoying because I couldn't deadlift for then another two weeks or so because, you know, it just hurt too much. The skin needed to heal itself.

So that's fine. Now though, I mean, you lift enough where your wrists just get strong enough and you don't need the straps anymore. And, you know, same thing with straps for your grip. I think it's okay. I would personally rather do some grip training just to make my grip stronger, which if you go on Muscle for Life and you search for forearms or you search for grip, it'll come up. And there are some simple exercises you could do. You could just put them at the end of your pulling workouts and just spend 10 minutes doing some grip exercises. And within a month or two, you'd see a dramatic increase in grip strength. So, again, those straps for grip purposes is fine if you need it, but I think it's a good idea to

work toward not needing it. In terms of a belt, I think that a belt is not necessary, but if you use it correctly, it just gives you something to push your abs out again so you can really brace your core. And that's good. You don't need it. You can do it without a belt, but that's really what you're getting out of it. And obviously, you see with powerlifters and people that do a lot of heavy weightlifting, they're almost always using a belt. And that's why, because it does help you lift a bit more weight because you can generate so much pressure.

And that also protects your lower back. So I don't lift with a belt. I actually tried one just recently just because I hadn't tried one in a while. I got a good, it was like an Inzer, I think it was. And, you know, yeah, I mean it is what it is. I just don't feel like I need it because I have a strong core, a strong lower back. And, you know, just by taking a deep breath and really kind of pushing your core out and really stabilizing everything, if you can maintain that position, then you're fine. And knee sleeves, I do use knee sleeves. I use rebands or how you

pronounce it? Ray bands, um, R E H B A N D. And I like them because they just keep your joints warm and keep everything kind of in place. They're not like knee wraps, which yes, can increase the amount of weight that you can squat, but it also is bad for your joints. Knee sleeves are not bad for your joints. Um, they just, for me, they just keep, again, it's just, it's just, it's more of a comfort point. It just keeps, uh, my, it prevents joints, my joints from cooling off while I'm resting. And again, just kind of make, keeps everything tight and feeling, you know, like it's moving the way that it should. Um, so I, it's also, it's, I also recommend you didn't ask about it, but I also do like, um, good weightlifting shoes. Like I use

Addy powers for, for squatting primarily, cause it makes quite a bit of difference to have a really stable base that you're squatting on that you can really torque your feet into. It makes a difference. Next question. Any advice for dating German girls? That's funny. Yeah, learn German. No, I don't know. My wife's German, so that's why he's asking. Go over to Germany.

They like Americans over there. They actually really do. And, you know, otherwise, I don't know. I've only dated one German girl, so I don't have any good advice other than whatever. Whatever works with girls probably works with German girls. All right, next question. How much weight do you guys do for side lateral raises? Yeah, the next question is what are your current max lifts for squats, deadlift, bench?

Yeah, basically, do I even lift? And the answer is no, I do yoga. Basically, do I even lift? And the answer is no, I do yoga. So for my side laterals, I like to do them, like I do them hanging like this. So I do it on the power rack. So I'll be hanging like this, and then I do it one arm at a time. I really try to keep my body stable. That's kind of the point, because I found that as I got into heavier weights, once I started getting to 45, 50 pounds, two at a time, it was just, I had, it was very hard to just keep my form in. But by not doing single arm hanging, I can really keep my form in and not get my body all over the place. So the, the, the heaviest I've been on my side lat raises anytime recently, it was 65 pounds for four, but that was hard. And I felt like my body was moving a little bit too much. So I've been on my side lat raises anytime recently was 65 pounds for four, but that was

hard. And I felt like my body was moving a little bit too much. So I've brought it back down to 60 to 55, depending on, um, I'm doing it twice a week actually. So I'm doing like my heavier 55, 60 pound stuff, reps, uh, sets of six to seven. Um, and then a few days later, I'm doing some higher rep stuff, some 10 rep, 10 to 12 rep stuff, just because I'm just trying to bring my shoulders up as much as I can. Um, it's a slow grind cause there's slow muscles and I'm not, I'm not bulking. So that just is what it is. Um, so that's that. And then how my squats, deadlift, bench and overhead press, um, my, my recent bests have

been, you know, again, like I was saying earlier, I haven't really bested my, my, my PRS that I set probably about even six months ago, which on a squat, on a back squat, I was up to about three 65 for a few. And it doesn't sound like it's that heavy, but I have long legs, long femur squatting is, I, I mean, just the range of motion that my body has to go through because I'm fairly tall. I'm 6'2", and I just have long legs. So for me, also given my body weight and given my body fat percentage, it's not bad to be at a one rep of about maybe 370. I wanted to get to a 405 or so for reps, but given how I'm training right now and given how my body is, it's just not going to happen. And I don't want to switch to a strength program and really, uh, dramatically raise the, the, the volume of my lower body,

lower body training. And I don't want to get fatter. So I've just, I'm just doing, you know, doing my thing basically. So on my deadlift, um, the best was, I believe it was like 425 or 430 for sets of two or three, which again is nothing super impressive, but it's fairly strong. And, uh, I don't do that every week. I kind of work up to that and then deload and then come back. And then, you know, just because again, I found that like when I was fatter, when I, when I weighed 10 pounds more, I was able to – I just had more energy in my workouts. I was able to really push myself hard and heavy, and I could recover better, and it just is what it is. And my bench press, the most I've bench pressed flat is 295 for two or three.

The most I've ever inclined is 265 for two or three. And those were semi-recent, somewhere within the last six to eight months. And my overhead press seated 225 for two was the most I've ever done. And I've recently started doing standing just because it's a new challenge, something different. And my standing is pretty pathetic. I've gotten up to 165 for three or four, and it's slowly going up. If I could standing press 185 for four, I'd be happy. That's pretty good, but it's much harder. Like my seated 225, good, good form for two or three. And when I switched from, you know, that level of strength, or maybe at the time,

cause I'd gotten leaner, I was at like 205 for reps on seated. When I switched to standing 135 was not hard, but harder than I thought, like 135 was my whatever warmup before. And I go to 135 standing and I was like, this is actually kind of hard. Um, so it's, for me, it felt like going from the Smith machine back in the day to like Smith bench to freeway bench. That's kind of how it felt. Um, so yeah, I do lift a little bit. Um, all right, next question. I'm a female NPC competitor. I'm 16% body fat and I've been working out for almost three years now. Can I get my quads to show? I work legs two to three days a week with four or five varied exercises. Why would

one's quads never reveal themselves? Or maybe I'm not doing the right exercises. Any suggestions on what exercises would help them show? That's a good question because, you know, I've actually had the same issue with my legs. And, you know, my best answer for that is there's a genetic, there is just a genetic element to this. There is a genetic factor that's in play. Like, you know, Jeremy's legs just naturally have more definition than mine, period. He does not have to be as lean as I have to be to have, you know, the same amount of definition in his legs. And, you know, that just is what it is.

It also, I find that, you know, my legs, I neglected them for a long time when I was training in the past. You know, I've only really been training legs properly, I would say for three and a half, maybe four years. And again, I've kind of hit a ceiling in that time, because the last year, I've really just been maintaining this leaner type of physique. And that's not ideal for continuing to build everything up. So, you know, I would say I had three solid years of good bulking and cutting and doing everything that I, you know, say to do. And then I've just been in a maintain mode because I'm happy with my leg size. But, you know, I have noticed that in that time, my upper legs haven't gotten all that much bigger,

which I'm fine with. Because at this point, certain genes, I just had to have had to just throw away. They don't fit me. I can't get them over my quads. And I really, my upper legs, I think it's proportionate now. And I don't particularly want them to be all that much bigger, but by, uh, by doing a lot of, uh, just been, been still just training hard. And I've been, I've been building up my strength on my front squat because I found that my, my back squat just kind of hit that ceiling of three sixties for a few reps. So I switched to front squatting and, um, which I hadn't been doing in a while and started again. I was like 185 and my front squat was, was uncomfortable. It was harder than I thought. It was similar to switching to the overhead press. And so I've gone from 185, uh, in the beginning for reps, which, I mean, I could do it obviously, but it just,

it was harder than I thought to my recent best is 275 for one or two on my front squat. Um, so I've been making progress on that, but I have noticed that my quads seem to be getting a little bit more defined and I wouldn't say it's necessarily because of the front squatting, because obviously the back squat is very quad dominant. And I'm sure if you're doing four to five exercises and it sounds like, you know, you're doing, you're doing the right exercises. Um, it, it may just be a, it takes time. I mean, the what you're doing, you're doing the right exercises. It may just be a, it takes time. I mean, the more you're doing, the longer you lift, and especially it seems with heavy weightlifting, the denser and more defined your muscles seem to get.

And I know that just sounds bro-sciencey, and it's actually something I've read a little bit about in a couple papers that were talking specifically about powerlifting and its relation to building a denser type of muscle tissue. So it's kind of on my list of things. I may be able to write an article about it at some point. I don't feel like I have enough of an understanding of it myself yet, and I don't feel like I have enough scientific evidence of it. But I've seen it. I mean, anecdotally, and I've seen it in my body and I've seen it now with working with a lot of people and it seems to be something,

there seems to be something to it. So it might just be that you need to continue doing what you're doing. Also, I will say that staying very lean, like 16% for girls, very lean, that's really not ideal for if you're trying to continue to gain size and just develop your muscles in general. It's really not ideal. Again, I'm doing it, you know, I'm staying lean, but I'm doing it knowing that I'm not, you know, I don't complain that I'm not repping 405 on my squat because I know that if I want to do that, I better gain 10 pounds as the first step. So I hope that helps. And I'll go to the next question. Maybe a silly question. Let's say I put together a protein bar that tastes better than Quest Bars. And let's say I want to try to bring this product to market. What's the first step? Well, hypothetically, you know, I'm going to say wait for the next podcast. This is going to get posted as the podcast tomorrow, but the one after that is going to be on building a business because there are a lot of – I'd say, okay, the first step is if you have it yourself, if you've made it yourself and you have the little formula yourself and you know this is awesome and if you've done some hustling and you've given it to your friends and given it to people in the gym, and you know that this is a winner, don't just think it's a winner because you think

it's a winner. Uh, no, it doesn't matter what you think. And this is something that in marketing, just a kind of a viewpoint that you really have to learn to take your opinion about things. Doesn't matter. What matters is what everybody else thinks. And if you can attune yourself to what everybody else thinks, and if your opinions happen to find resonance out in the marketplace, then that's a bonus. But I just hear from a lot of people that are – these days especially I hear about more and more that want to start businesses or want to do something similar to what I'm doing or whatever. And when it comes to naming products or naming businesses or deciding on what products to even sell, too many people are just thinking with, well, I think that is good. I think I should do this. I like this. I like this. And it doesn't matter what you like. It doesn't matter

what you think if no one else thinks the same way as you. You have to, you always have to keep that in mind. I mean, yes, it's very good to have an independent streak in you for entrepreneurial type of things, because you do need there, there are things where you need to be able to say, this is a good way to do this. And this is the way I'm going to do it. But you also need to be have your finger on the pulse of your market. So assuming you've done that, and assuming that you have gotten good feedback, and people really do like your bars i mean the first thing you'd have to do is find a manufacturer that can produce them in any sort of quantity um you know unless you were going to really try to just bootstrap and make them all yourself out of your home or something like that which legally maybe you

can do i'm actually not sure probably which isn't probably not a good thing but you probably could I'm actually not sure, probably, which isn't probably not a good thing, but you probably could. So the first thing would be how you're going to make these. And then from there, of course, we go into how do you get the word out and how do you get people to care? And I'm not going to go into that right now, but the next podcast after this one that's going to get posted is going to be on just business building in general. And a fair amount of that talk is going to be about marketing because marketing is so important.

All right, next question. Is it always calories in, calories out, or is it true that when people, especially women, get older, like in their mid-40s, their metabolism lags? I have some older friends who swear this is true. The metabolic decline associated with aging is primarily due to loss of lean mass, loss of muscle mass. aging is primarily due to loss of lean mass, loss of muscle mass. Because muscle burns energy, so the more muscle you lose, which you do in your, somewhere in your 20s, you start to lose muscle if you don't do anything about it. So by the time you're in your 40s or 50s, you could have lost a lot of muscle by then, which dramatically reduces your basal metabolic rate. So, you know, if you're burning now a couple hundred calories less per day, but you don't adjust your eating,

it's easy to just gain fat. But then there's also, as we get older, we tend to get more sedentary, which people tend to forget that when they were younger, they played sports. They just moved around more. They did more with their bodies. And now, you know, we have jobs and we sit at a desk all day and then we go home and we're tired and we watch TV and, you know, we're just not moving our bodies much anymore. So that can account for, for a lot of energy expenditure as well. You know, we're just not moving our bodies much anymore. So that can account for a lot of energy expenditure as well, you know, comparing when you were younger and more active to older and more sedentary. So in terms of weight loss, weight gain, energy balance is the key that does dictate everything. That's never going to change. That just is what it is. Calories are

not calories if we're talking body composition because what your body does with protein is those calories contained in protein, you know, have different effects in the body than the calories contained in carbs and in fats. So if you want to learn more about that, go to Muscle for Life and search for macro, M-A-C-R-O, and then look for the article that's on it. It's like a simple and accurate macronutrient calculator, I think is the name. And that's a really good breakdown of everything and talks about energy balance, energy expenditure versus intake and how you need to start there and then turn it into a good meal plan with the right macronutrient ratios or breakdown and why. So yeah, I think that that'll be the best answer for you. Just go check that article out. So yeah, so the question is why

haven't I ever gotten DEXA scanned? And it's actually funny because I'm wrapping up an article. I have to work on it still some more tonight actually. It's going to be posted tomorrow over at Legion about measuring your body fat percentage. And I know that people generally, I used to think myself that DEXA was like the gold standard, DEXA is always right. And then when I was researching for, I actually researched for a previous article, something similar on muscle flight, if I wrote about body composition, I was surprised to find myself actually DEXA can be very inaccurate. So basically the problem with body fat percentage, with measuring body fat is every method you have available, readily available is, is, can be very inaccurate. That's, that's, you know, BIA, body impotence, that's calipers,

that is, I mean, bod pod, that's DEXA. Now Now Dexa maybe tends to be more accurate than let's say BIA. But, and that also then clicked for me in terms of Dexa, because I've seen videos on YouTube, like I saw this one video of some dude who got Dexed at like 6.8% or 6 point something, but was straight bodybuilder stage ready shredded. And it was like Dexing around seven, but the dude was just like strided from head to toe. I'm like, what? That makes no sense. I mean, he's ready to step on stage. He is not 7%. And it makes sense then that Dexa can be wrong. So the article's going to go live on Legion tomorrow, actually. So if you want to learn more about it, just check out the Legion blog tomorrow.

Sometime in the afternoon, EST, it'll be up. But that's why. And also, it's not readily available. I'd have to drive a couple hours, I think, to get to the nearest that I know of. I know somebody that goes to university, and I could go use theirs. But if it were right down the road, maybe I'd just do it for fun. But again, you can't put that much stock in it. It's a guesstimate just like anything else.

And maybe it's a guesstimate that's more likely to be closer to reality than not. But ultimately, kind of the long story short with body fat percentages, the mirror is kind of the end of the story. If you don't look the way you want to look, if you think you look too fat, who cares what your body fat percentage is, keep cutting. Once you have the look you want, maintain that. And it is smart to keep an eye on how your body's changing. Calipers are great for that because you can just keep an eye on your caliper measurement and see even if something is inaccurate, like a caliper is not going to be perfectly accurate, even the one that I like to use. But if it is consistently

inaccurate, at least you can use that to keep an eye on how your body is changing so you can make sure that you're not gaining fat too quickly or you're not losing fat too slowly. So that's my answer for that. All right, next question. At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to start a career in the fitness industry and why? Um, so, uh, yeah, this is, I kind of stumbled into this whole thing, to be honest, I published my, my interest first and foremost was writing actually not fitness. Um, and I, my original love with writing was fiction, just storytelling. And this is in 2012, or it was actually 2011, Amazon's KDP platform was gaining. I was just hearing about it in the news because there was a guy named John Locke that was like the first dude to sell a million e-books on Kindle using their KDP platform. And it was kind of like his little success story.

Kindle using their KDP platform. And it was kind of like his little success story. And I saw that as it just kind of rekindled my desire to, to, to write and publish books. And so I, I tell this story in most of her life and I've told this story in many places. Um, at the same time I was, this is when I was finally kind of getting things right with my diet, learning how dieting works, learning how training really works, learning the importance of heavy compound weightlifting, of progressive overload, blah, blah, blah. And I was getting really good results in my body. And I was helping friends and family with what I was learning. And I was starting to have people were saying, hey, you should like one friend of mine was like, when I was getting really lean and starting to look good, he was like, you should just use your body to sell stuff.

You know, he was just thinking like, who cares? Just go on YouTube and sell shit. And I was like, that sounds lame. I don't want to do that. But then other people were like, you should write a book. You should write a book. You should write a fitness book. And that I was at first, I was like, I don't want to write a fitness book. I'm not like, I like fitness and I like helping people, but I'm not crazy about the idea of becoming a fitness guru or anything like that. But the idea kind of grew on me that I could actually produce something unique that could fill a real need in the marketplace because I started to look at what other books were out there and I was like, why is there no book that breaks down flexible dieting properly

and teaches the real fundamentals of energy balance and of macronutrient balance. And, uh, and, and, and then with on the weightlifting side, why is it all about muscle confusion and why is it all so complicated and the workouts are two hours long and blah, blah, blah. So I was like, actually, I might be able to do something kind of special here. So I decided to write bigger, leaner, stronger I did and I so I was the first book and I published it in January 2012 and the time I had another job and I just did as a side project I wrote it on at night and and you know I think it sold like I don't know 20 copies or less or something in the first month but I was just excited that anyone bought it I was

like shit that's cool I put a book up I Amazon. I didn't do anything. I just put it up. I wrote it and I put it up. I didn't, not like I had any, I didn't have a book launch. I didn't have anything and someone bought it. That's neat. And then the next month it maybe sold like 40 copies and, and, and it kind of started growing. And then I started getting emails from people and, and within six months or so it was selling fairly well. And I saw that, Hey hey this could actually be something so I started writing the next book and that kinda took me through 2013 to where I decided that this is a real opportunity and initially

I actually wanted to and this is when along the way this is when I had you know started talking with my best friend Jeremy who he's the person answering all the questions. You've heard Jeremy, you've heard me mentioned Jeremy many times. He's my business partner and all this stuff. And so I started talking to him because at the time, he's in his early 20s and he was trying to work out what he wanted to do. He could work in one of his family's businesses or not. And I was telling him, dude, come work with me. Let's do, let's do a publishing company.

Let's take what I've learned with selling bigger than you're stronger. And then shred chef, call these other books and let's sell other people's books. Um, Jeremy, the idea was that Jeremy would be the marketer and it's something you'd have to learn, but he's smart and very good at learning things. So he would learn it. And then I would be the publisher editor type of person. That was like the initial idea. So we actually started to go down that path and named our company and started building our website and we're putting together our strategy. But then we

kind of stopped and really, and as, as in that time period, as the fitness stuff just got more and more popular and getting more emails and people really liking the books. And, you know, we just looked at it and said, what's the better opportunity here? Uh, you know, and I, myself, I was like, at first I was a little bit resistant to the idea of doing the fitness thing. Cause I, again, I'm not very, my personality, I don't think is all that well suited to being a show, being a guru type of person. I I'm kind of private and I just like to do my work. And look at my Instagram. There's my life. You see, it's boring. I work and I do things with my family. It's not boring for me, but there's no vicarious thrill in following my life. And my videos would

be so boring of like, here's my day. It's 6.15. I woke up. I did that. It's the same thing every day. So at first I was like, and I'm not one, I don't care to try to chase. I don't want people to love me. And I, you know what I mean? I just like to kind of do my thing. I like to help people. I like to stay in touch with people, but I'm not narcissistic enough to want to, to where I was like, oh yeah, I want to be famous. I want to be famous. So I was a little bit like, I don't really want to do that initially. And, um, but in talking with Jeremy, we were just like, this is clearly the better opportunity. And there's, there's already a lot of momentum, like the universe is speaking to us, you know what I mean? Where we just felt like this is the smarter choice. Our guts were saying we should really embrace the fitness game. And although the publishing company is a great opportunity as well, and I think there still

is an opportunity there, it just seemed like it was a better use of our time and just a better business decision to go into fitness. So end of 2013, we just decided that's what we're going to do. Started building Muscle for Life. That launched in March of 2013. for life that launched in March of 2013. And, uh, you know, we started, uh, also in 2013, working on, on Legion, um, which took about a year of work to really put it all together and to get our products lined up the way that, you know, our initial products and to come up even with the name Legion and the branding and everything, it was a lot of work. So then

Legion launched 2014. Um, last year was our second year, obviously. And yeah, so in the mean, in that sense, I've done a lot more writing and I've kind of gotten to a groove and Jeremy has learned a ton. He's become a very good marketer and I've, you know, tried to keep up my part of the bargain, which is just, I'm trying to get as good as I can. I want to produce as good as content as possible and really build as good of a relationship with all of you as possible. And that's really what I kind of try to focus on. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of the story. And I did just do a podcast on like, you know, some of the lessons I've learned and what I think are important points for starting a career in the fitness industry. So you may want to check that out. That was just the last podcast. All right, here we go. Is it possible for hernia surgery to mess up the abdominal wall? I had two

hernia surgeries and I can't seem to develop any ab shape. That's a good question. Um, I, you know, I'm, I'm not sure on that. I don't, I don't have a good answer for that. It really would depend on, you know, I guess where they were and how bad was it. I don't see why that would necessarily prevent you from building up your rectus abdominis. I would, before I would just chalk it up to say, oh, well, you're fucked because you had a hernia surgery or a couple of hernia surgeries. I would question where your body fat percentage is at because if you're, let's say this is a, if you're a guy and you're at 15% or higher, if you're a girl and you're at 25% or higher, you're really not going to see much in the way of ab development at all. Like you have to really get to about 10%

as a guy to really start seeing what you're working with or 20% as a girl. And, uh, and then I would also kind of question, what are you doing for your abs? I found that one of the best things you can do for your abs is weighted work, a combination of weighted work, like weighted crunches or weighted hanging leg raises or captain's chairs. And then something that works the obliques, like air bicycles are very good for that. Captain's chair leg raises, not weighted, straight legged until failure are good for that. Planks are okay for that. Reverse crunches are decent, not for obliques, but it's more rectus abdominis. And then the abs recover very quickly. So there's something you should be

training your abs two or three times a week. And you should be probably doing, I like to do a circuit where I do like a weighted exercise, 10 to 12 rep range weighted right into an unweighted, like a, like a leg raise to failure right into another unweighted, like an air bike to failure and doing three of those circuits three times a week is a lot. Plus your heavy compound lifting, which isn't so great for your rectus abdominis, the ab muscles, what you think is ab muscles, but is very good for all the supporting core muscles. So yeah, that's, that's what I think that's, that's all I have to say on that one. Okay. So it's 920. I have to get ready for a call that I have in 10 minutes. So I hope you found this helpful and we will be back in a month. And obviously, if your question didn't get answered, just go throw it in the AMA on Muscle for Life. Go to

muscleforlife.com. There's an AMA linked right on the homepage. Drop your question in there and I will get to it. We run a little bit behind, obviously, because I get a lot of emails, I get a lot of messages, and I can't spend eight hours a day doing it, but you will get an answer. So thanks again for taking the time, and I will see you next month.