Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Sal Di Stefano on Enhancing Body Composition with Peptides

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

How are peptides shaping the future of fat loss and fitness? How do they impact weight management and overall health? How do they work, and what are the risks and side effects? In this episode, I sit down with Sal Di Stefano, renowned fitness coach and co-host of the Mind Pump Podcast, to delve into the world of peptides. In case you’re not familiar with Sal, he’s a repeat guest on the Muscle for Life podcast and a leading voice in the fitness industry with over a decade of experience as a personal trainer. Having personally used peptides and studied them extensively, Sal offers valuable insights into how these compounds can revolutionize weight loss and improve overall health. In this interview, you’ll learn . . . Why the popularity of peptides has skyrocketed The benefits of GLP-1s for weight loss versus calorie-controlled dieting How to prevent muscle loss while taking GLP-1s The risks of buying unregulated peptides Sal's experience with different peptides How GLP-1s will lead to more people lifting weights How GLP-1s will affect the supplement industry And more . . . So, if you want to understand how peptides will change how people lose weight and get fit in the future (for better and worse), click play and join the conversation. --- Timestamps: (05:39) Why are peptides becoming more popular? (08:40) The benefits of GLP-1s for weight loss vs. calorie-controlled dieting (10:32) How to prevent muscle loss while taking GLP-1s (15:23) How peptides affect behaviors like drinking, smoking, and gambling, etc. (16:55) What are peptides exactly? (20:32) The risks of buying unregulated peptides (21:42) Sal's experience with different peptides (26:55) Which peptides has Sal avoided? (28:58) The potential benefits of micro-dosing peptides (31:00) How peptides are changing the food and drug industries (32:20) How GLP-1s will lead to more people lifting weights (36:40) The rise of anti-catabolic supplements like HMB (38:02) The importance of eating enough protein while taking GLP-1s (40:30) The importance of maintaining muscle for health (44:06) Are GLP-1s a temporary fix or can they produce lasting weight loss? (01:00:38) How GLP-1s will shape the supplement industry --- Mentioned on the Show: Mind Pump Podcast MAPS Programs Legion Body Transformation Coaching Legion Training Quiz Pulse  

we may be at the beginning of a really big strength training movement fueled by the use of these peptides because I think a lot of people are going to use them expecting a panacea and then being disappointed in some ways. I think there's a right way to use them and a wrong way to use them and just taking them probably not the right way, but that's what you're seeing. Welcome, welcome to a new episode of Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today. I am your host, Mike Matthews, and this discussion is going to be about peptides, which are more popular now than ever before and which are gaining more and more popularity. I think that this trajectory is accelerating and that is going to continue to be the case for years to come. And in this talk, you are going to mostly be hearing from

Sal DiStefano, the renowned fitness coach and co-host of the most popular fitness podcast in the world, the Mind Pump podcast. And he's going to talk about why peptides are so popular and gaining so much popularity. He's going to talk about GLP-1s for weight loss and how they compare to calorie-controlled dieting. He's going to talk about the problem of muscle loss while taking GLP-1s, which is becoming a big problem for many people. But as you will learn, there are things you can do to prevent it from occurring. but as you will learn, there are things you can do to prevent it from occurring. Sal's also going to talk about his experience with different peptides, not just GLP-1s,

but peptides for muscle growth, peptides for recovery, and more. Before we get into it, how would you like to know a little secret that will help you get into the best shape of your life. Here it is. The business model for my VIP coaching service sucks. Boom, mic drop. And what in the fiddly frack am I talking about? Well, while most coaching businesses try to keep their clients around for as long as possible, I take a different approach. You see, my team and I, we don't just help you build your best body ever. I mean, we do that. We figure out your calories and macros, and we create custom diet and training plans based on your goals and your circumstances. And we make adjustments depending on how your body responds. And we help you ingrain the right eating and

exercise habits so you can develop a healthy and a sustainable relationship with food and training and more. But then there's the kicker, because once you are thrilled with your results, we ask you to fire us. Seriously, you've heard the phrase, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Well, that summarizes how my one-on-one coaching service works. And that's why it doesn't make nearly as much coin as it could. But I'm okay with that because my mission is not to just help you gain muscle and lose fat.

But I'm okay with that because my mission is not to just help you gain muscle and lose fat. It's to give you the tools and to give you the know-how that you need to forge ahead in your fitness without me. So dig this. When you sign up for my coaching, we don't just take you by the hand and walk you through the entire process of building a body you can be proud of. of building a body you can be proud of, we also teach you the all-important whys behind the hows, the key principles, and the key techniques you need to understand to become your own coach. And the best part? It only takes 90 days. So instead of going it alone this year, why not try something different? Head over to muscleforlife.show slash VIP. That is muscleforlife.show slash VIP and schedule your free consultation call now. And let's see if my one-on-one coaching service is right for you.

Sal, it's nice to see your cute face again. It's been too long. Thanks, Mike. I appreciate the compliment. It's been a while. It's been a while. We've talked, we've talked a couple of times on the, on the phone, but I haven't seen you in a while. Yeah, no, I always enjoy talking to you. You're you're it's, it's, it's a great time. If people, people need to meet you because you're one of the smartest, honest, and also sometimes, uh, controversial people I've ever met. But you don't bullshit. That's what I like about, you know, one of the things I like most about you is like,

you know, it's, you know what you think, because you'll tell me. I think of those two truths and one lie memes, you know? Yeah. No, no, it's great, man. I love, I love what you do, bro. You know that. I love what you do. And I love anytime you want me on your show, man, I'm there.

Same, man. As you know, I've been a fan of your guys' work for a long time now. So it's too bad that there are so many miles that separate us. I always have a fun time whenever we can hang out, whether it's virtually or more so in person. Yeah, totally. 100%. 100%, man. So we're here to talk about peptides. And maybe we should start with what cocktail would you prescribe for Biden? Or are peptides not enough? Do we need to go hardcore anabolics? I'm sure he's on everything anyway. I'm pretty sure they have him on a cocktail of all kinds of different things to help. What was the Nazi? It was the high grade meth.

Yeah. What was it called? Per something there there i have no idea but i know i had something to do i know there's meth in that mix it was yeah it was meth i mean it was like lab grade meth basically no i i think um yeah i mean biden aside and what's what's happening there i'll save my opinion for that for off air but uh you know the peptide world is really getting interesting, mainly because these GLP-1 agonists, semaglutide, terzepatide, you know, WeGoV, Ozempic, is going mainstream. And, you know, peptides have been around now for a while, actually a long time. And for a while there, it was like fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders, then it was kind of like longevity clinics that were using them. I know that in Eastern Europe, you know, they've been using peptides for a long time, but it was these GLP-1s that really have brought just the word peptide a bit to the forefront.

I mean, even if you, I mean, I have a 14 year old daughter and she mentioned Ozempic to me the other day and I'm like, how do you know what that is? And she's like, oh, it's something that makes you lose weight. So it's, it's a fascinating space. It's an interesting space, but in particular, the GLP ones fascinate me because, um, I don't know how deep you've gone into the data with those, but by far there is no medical non-surgical medical intervention that we've ever seen that can produce, uh, this kind of weight loss in people. It's B I mean, there's nothing that comes close. And it's not in a stimulant. You know, it's like a fen-fen or something like that. And these next generation ones, these triple agonists, I saw some.

I was at the Peptide Congress in Las Vegas that was hosted by Dr. Seeds. He had me speaking there, not on peptides, but on strength training. But I was able to attend some of the talks. And some of the data they're going through on these peptides is just, I mean, 22% body weight loss. That's on average what people are experiencing with these new triple agonist ones, these, you know, semaglutide where you're 15%, you know, so, you know, you're 200 pounds, you're going to lose probably. In condensed timeframes too, right? Yes. It's pretty wild. And

I have a lot of thoughts around it. I'm definitely not in the camp of miracle drug, this is going to solve everything. I'm also not in the camp of everything has to be natural. And you know, there's no use for these types of things. But beyond that, you know, and we've been talking a lot about these in particular to our audience, especially our coaches and trainers, we're going to remember this time as very similar to like the birth control pill movement or moment or antibiotic. Like this is a huge, this can be a huge culture defining medical intervention. That's going to shift culture in similar ways to antibiotics and birth control. And let in similar ways to antibiotics and birth control.

And let me remind everybody with antibiotics and birth control, we also saw a lot of negatives that we couldn't predict as a result. Lots of positives, but also lots of negatives. And the GLP-1s I would put in that same category. There's a right way, a wrong way to use them. There's a right kind of person, a wrong kind of person to use them. And then there are things that you should do while using them to mitigate any potential negatives, but also so that you don't become a permanent user of these, um, these peptides. Cause that's

what it's looking like for a lot of people. Like I'm just going to always be taking this, this peptide. So it's really interesting. So I've really, I've really looked at the, I just saw a study, uh, that was shared at Peptide Congress, which blew me away, Mike. My thought process around GLP-1s was that the weight loss that came from them really was just the result of the calorie deficit. You lose your appetite. Yeah, it turns off your hunger. Yeah. And you eat less, right? And I thought, okay, well, I would like to see a study that compares groups where you have one group on a GLP-1 and another group that's on a calorie-restricted diet. So we have that control and then see if there's any difference. And my prediction was you wouldn't see a difference. You would see the same weight loss, everything would be the same, whether you're on a GLP-1 or not. It's just the GLP-1 makes it easier for you to eat less. That's not what this study showed. The study that

I saw that was shared, now this was a triple agonist. So there's three receptors that it agonizes versus like trizepatide, which is double, and semaglutide, which is one receptor. But nonetheless, what they showed was twice as much fat loss. So the calories were controlled, twice as much fat loss. They also lost were controlled, twice as much fat loss. They also lost muscle, which we'll get to in just a second, but it was a smaller percentage of their body weight loss. So there's a muscle preserving effect. And their metabolic rate did not adapt as much in a downward trend. So when you cut your calories, metabolism starts to adapt to meet the new energy intake.

And the people on the GLP-1s didn't get the same slowdown and then when they went off the glp-1 and then the other group they told me normally the weight gain happened much slower were there comments on proposed mechanisms of how that might work yeah um increases uptake of amino acids and glycogen into muscle so there's a muscle preserving effect which may be why you had less of a metabolic slowdown and the fat loss, so kind of insulin sensitizing. And then the muscle loss, because a lot of people talk about the muscle loss, these peptides don't cause muscle loss. The muscle loss comes from the restricted calories, reduced protein intake. They're not strength training. And here's a big one. It also blunts the thirst signal. So when you're in a calorie deficit, low protein, and you're not consuming as much water,

that's like a perfect storm for muscle loss. And so they propose, which a lot of forward-thinking practitioners have already been saying, if you're on these, make sure your protein intake is up, strength train. And then let's look at keeping your water intake high but also using compounds that help draw water into the cells into the muscles so like creatine probably it's valuable for everybody it's turning out creatine is good for everybody which i know you're ahead of but creatine would be very good supplement for people on glp1 and protein sources that are high in proline and valine or proline and glycine, excuse me, because both of those are osmolites, I think would be the term. They attract water,

which collagen. Yeah, I was going to say collagen protein could finally justify its existence. That's right. Proline and glycine, very high in proline and glycine. So I'm looking at this like this, like, okay, we're fitness professionals. Our podcast reaches millions of people a month. So we have a pretty large influence on the narrative and the direction. And what we're trying to do right now is coaches and trainers, because this is happening. Like, I don't care where you stand on this. I don't care if you're a zealot, natural

trainer. I only work with real food. I only, I don't take, we don't do anything else. We only work out, you know, with, with rocks or whatever you do. I, um, it's happening. It's here. Like, this is going to be culture shifting. You're going to see most likely, unless some crazy thing happens, like a third or half of the population is going to be on these things. So you need to learn how to work with them. You need to learn how to adjust your workout programming because you do need to adjust your workout programming. You do need to know how to coach these people through behavior change because now you've

got something that helps with that powerful hunger signal. Well, don't stop there. Now you've got something that helps with that powerful hunger signal. Well, don't stop there. Let's now create new neural connections and pathways to new behaviors. And let's continue to weaken the ones that were so strong before so that maybe we can get you off this thing. And then you have these new behaviors. So that's what we're talking about.

In a sense, right? It creates a window of opportunity that maybe would otherwise always remain closed for various reasons. Totally. A hundred percent. So that's what we're communicating to, to, to trainers and coaches, uh, because it's like turning into camps. Like one camp is like the pro take everything. The other camp is anti everything. It's like, look, um, I don't think this is a first line, uh, you know, of intervention. I think there's a lot of abuse potential. You know, you know, people are going to use this for summer, for vacation. People who don't need to lose more than 15 pounds are going to be on these. I mean, I'm already seeing it just in the local gym I go to with younger women who want to go from fit to super fit, or maybe go from

unfit, not even overweight, but just maybe just normal. And then they want maybe go from unfit not even overweight but just maybe just normal and then they want to go from that to just kind of skinny or even skinny fat or are taking it yeah yeah so there's abuse potential there bodybuilders competitors for sure gonna use this pre-contest there's no stopping them so no they'll do anything i mean they use uh i don't know these if it were used to castrate elephants they they would still, they'd be like, oh, well, you know. Does it help me get shredded though? There's a compound called DNP. Have you heard of this?

It's made from dynamite. And if you take too much, you die. Even if you know, even if you know you've taken too much and you go to the hospital, there's nothing they can do for you. You are dead. And you sweat yellow and it gives you a fever and it makes you burn more calories, but it makes you lean and bodybuilders will use that stuff. So yeah, you're right. There's nothing good. I don't put anything past the bodybuilder, the bodybuilder space, but yeah. So we need to figure this out and get ahead of it. So what we're trying to do is communicate it the right way so that the narrative gets

built before we play catch up. Because what I think what I'm afraid of is that the fitness space is either going to, like I said, go all in and turn into, yeah, just take this. It's the whatever. Or it's going to go anti. And then people are going to be like, what are you talking about? Of course it works. You're telling me not to use it.

But look, I got healthier. Look at my blood markers. Like, you know, what are you talking about? So I really want to get ahead of this, um, uh, and, and start to create that narrative. So we at least have some responsible information and communication, but I mean, it's interesting too, because, um, talking to the experts on this topic, Dr. Seeds, like one of the leaders in this and other doctors and researchers communicate its, uh, effects on autoimmune issues. And then here's some, there's some strange, there's some studies right now, Mike, on GLP-1s and what would be labeled as hedonistic

behaviors. So like people are, they're not craving alcohol or they're not wanting to smoke. So that would mean, that would mean other, yeah, drugs, recreational drugs. Would it be other risk type of risk taking type behavior, like even gambling? Yeah, there's some people are reporting that they want to gamble less. So it must be the same hedonistic reward center that people get from food in some cases is being affected, which makes me look at it and go, so everybody's like, oh, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. But could that affect behaviors in other subtle ways that we may not see downstream?

You know, that makes me, if anything, that makes me perk my ears up like, okay, well, what else could that affect? And, you know, like for example, birth control, we now know this, it changes a woman's desires, right? So she's, she desires a man with less obvious signs of testosterone. How has that affected mate selection over the last 30, 40 years? And what has that done? I don't know.

I'm cautious, but definitely like I want to get ahead of it and look at it. But now everybody's talking peptides because these GLP-1s are making their way. So the average person now knows what a peptide is, or at least knows the word. Maybe they don't know what a peptide is. But that whole world of peptides is so much bigger than the GLP-1s. And it's very fascinating from the outside. I'm not a peptide expert, but over the last year and a half, I've interviewed and talked to a lot of people who are, and I'm just blown away. Do you want to quickly explain to people listening what a peptide is? Some people, they'll ask, they want to know, is it like a steroid? Is it like a SARM? Is it an amino acid? Is it

something else? Yeah. I mean, you'll always hear people say this, right? It's a chain of amino acids, which I think assumes people are dumb and tries to make it sound like it's innocuous. Growth hormone is a peptide, so is insulin. And they're both hormones. Okay. So yes, it's a chain of amino acids, but they can have profound effects in the body or they can have subtle effects in the body. I think the big question is, and I asked Dr. Seeds this, my question was, what's the difference between a peptide and a drug? That was my question. Like, okay, so peptide drug, what's the difference? them, we identify them, we see what they do. And because they already exist in the body, there's already a signaling mechanism. There's already protection mechanisms or down-regulation or up-regulation of things to control what happens if there's too much of this peptide, too little of this peptide, to an extent. So unlike a drug where we find a receptor and then we create a molecule to shoehorn into that receptor to cause a reaction.

And then because the body has never seen this drug, we kind of got to watch and see what else could potentially happen. Peptides are in our body. You know, BPC-157, one of the most commonly used peptides, we found that in animals and in humans. So it already exists. Same thing with thymus and beta or alpha or some of these other peptides. So they tell the body to do something and it's already used to seeing this, these peptides to tell it to do something. So that doesn't mean it's innocuous, but it doesn't put it in the same category as drugs where you have these crazy talks, you know, like you could really kill yourself with a drug very quickly or get all these crazy side effects with peptides.

And I'm going to say this very carefully. or get all these crazy side effects. With peptides, and I'm going to say this very carefully, they're safer with less potential negative side effects because they exist in the body. Creatine is a peptide for people listening who don't know that. I mean, technically, creatine is a peptide. That's right, because it's one of the amino acids, methionine and something else that make...

Yeah, two or three. Yeah, that make creatine so so that's the that's the big difference um uh between peptides and um and drugs so like if you took growth hormone is a peptide but you could also take a peptide that would cause your body to release more growth hormone what's the difference i could take a lot of growth hormone but my body will only allow me to produce so much if I signal it to with the peptide. So if I take a peptide that tells my body to produce more growth hormone, it'll, it'll hit like a limit and it's probably going to be what I produced when I was 18 or something like that.

Maybe a little above that growth hormone. I could take a lot. I could take a ton and get my growth hormone levels, uh, through the roof. So that's a big differentiating factor between them. But there's a lot of them. There's a lot of different peptides out there. And what's interesting, because I've used a lot of them now, we work with partners, and we only work with doctors that prescribe them. We don't do the gray market. That's the other interesting thing, Mike. They're under interesting regulation. So technically, a research chemical company can sell. For research purposes only, not for human consumption. And what people are doing is they're buying them from these research chemical companies,

reconstituting them themselves, and then figuring out the dosage and then taking it. And I would not do that. Speaking with Dr. Seeds, he goes, you know, you could have it be off a little bit. It'll still do what it's supposed to, but you don't know what else it's doing. You also don't know what you're getting either. I mean, we've seen enough of that in, I mean, I'm sure you've seen a number of these studies over the years on SARMs and anabolics come coming from random underground labs and in many cases containing very little or or maybe even none of what it's supposed to contain being adulterated with other drugs so depending on what we're talking about in some ways you're taking your your health into your own hands. If, if you go that route. A hundred percent. So we work with a company that works with doctors

and they work with regulated pharmacies. So they still, they have those controls at least. So it's, you know, you're getting what, what you're getting. And then of course the doctors are going to do things like monitor your, you know, your blood and whatnot and modify from there. But now, you know, I've used quite a modify it from there. But now, you know, I've used quite a bit of them now. It's a good and bad thing. I have access to peptides. It's good because it's cool. I get to talk about them bad because I have a bit of an addictive personality with things like that. So it's like, oh, cool. Let me try that. Let me try that. Let me try that. Mr. Mr. N1. Yeah, exactly. But they do work. I mean, they definitely do work.

Can you talk about some of, some of your experience when you say they do work i mean they definitely do work can you talk about some of some of your experience when you say they do work specifically what and to what degree and so forth yeah and and they're not all great like for everybody like i used uh tesofensin which is a technically a peptide but it's a dopamine serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Okay. So I took that and it felt crazy. Like I literally felt they're like, oh, this is good for cognitive performance, make you feel like you're awake and whatever. And it made me feel crazy, like literally almost like I was manic. And, and I cut the dose, still felt crazy, cut the dose, still felt crazy. So I stopped taking that one. I took a MOTC, which you can't even get anymore because that's another thing too, that the regulatory bodies seem to be making it more difficult because peptides are generic.

So like Ozempic is the brand name of semaglutide, but you could buy semaglutide from a compound pharmacy, pay a fraction of the price. some agglutide, but you could buy some agglutide from a compound pharmacy, pay a fraction of the price. And so I think they're trying to, to stop that competition because it's like, okay, I could get Ozempic or you get the same thing generic for far less type of deal. But I tried MOTC. I felt amazing on that great energy that helps with mitochondrial function, but I didn't use it for very long. The two that I would say I had the best experience with were BPC-157 and Thymus and Beta. I could tell when it comes to like my joints, my skin and some recovery.

I can definitely tell both of those work. And I've had a couple nagging, you know, when you get a little muscle strain, you can do site injection with BPC and it's actually a little eerie how well it works. You almost don't trust that it worked that well. You suspect placebo, but then if it's a serious injury, you know that it can't be placebo. Well, it's not even that. It's like, I don't want to test this. It doesn't hurt, but I feel like I'm scared to test it because

it was just hurting that bad five days ago. Adam tore his Achilles, used BPC, and I'm like, I'm scared to test it because it was just hurting that, that bad, you know, five days ago, like Adam tore his Achilles used BPC. And he's like, I feel like I'm back to normal, but I'm scared to test it out. It feels too soon. So, and then thymus and beta is also a signaler for actin. There's a part of the muscle fiber recovery. And so those two, I liked quite a bit. And then I've tried some of the growth hormone releasing ones. Those were interesting. The Tessamarylin, you can kind of tell. You can kind of tell that your growth hormone is higher, skin, hair, sleep, that kind of stuff.

Ibutamorin, that one's a monster. That's the MK677, I think is the other name for it. That one is like you gain mass on it. Like I'll gain eight pounds and that one's an oral capsule. But that one also makes you hungry because it's a ghrelin mimic. So that's the other thing. But they definitely do something. But I will say this.

It's not like what workout diet are going to do for you. I want to say that because I know there's a lot of people who are looking for that miracle something. It's not going to be that. That's for sure. Do you sometimes lack the energy and the motivation to get into the gym? Do you sometimes want to hit the snooze button instead of the squat rack? And are you sometimes just not able to give 100% in your workout? If so, my pre-workout pulse is for you. It is a 100% natural supplement that increases energy, improves mood and sharpens mental focus, increases strength and endurance and reduces fatigue. And the reason it's so effective is simple. Every ingredient in pulse is backed by peered scientific research and is included at clinically effective

levels, the exact amounts used in the studies that found benefits. Pulse is also naturally sweetened and flavored, and it contains no artificial food dyes or other chemical junk. And all that is why I've sold over 850,000 bottles of Pulse and why it has over 11,000 four and five star reviews on Amazon and on my website. So if you want some help getting fired up, zeroed in and ready to crush your workouts, then you want to try Pulse today. Go to buylegion.com, that is B-U-Y, legion.com slash pulse, and use the coupon code MUSCLE at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire order if it's your first order with us. And if it's not your first order, you will get double reward points on the entire order. And that is 6% cash back instead of the normal 3% cash back that you

get from our reward program. And know that if you don't absolutely love Pulse, just let us know, and we will give you a full refund on the spot. No forms, no return even is necessary. So you can't lose. Go to buylegion.com slash pulse. Order now. Use the coupon code muscle. Save 20%. Try Pulse risk-free and see what you think. Are there some peptides that you have explicitly avoided that are maybe popular,

but you decided against probably for reasons related to safety concerns, or, or maybe if there are some popular ones that, you know, you would, you would warn people off. You know, what's interesting with the pro recovery pro, you know, neurogenesis or cell growth ones. I always wonder if that, what that would look like in a pro-cancer environment, you know, would it accelerate? Could that be a bad combination? You know, kind of like taking testosterone with a testosterone sensitive hormone, a cancer like prostate cancer or something like that. Would it fuel it? I don't know, because then I look at data that shows that in some cases they're anti-cancer, but I would still warn against, you know, if you have like, if you had a shitty lifestyle

and then you're going to take these like high doses of peptides that speed up, you know, cell differentiation and growth and stuff like that. I don't know if that would necessarily be a good idea. I'll tell you my experience with the GLP-1. So Adam tested it purely for the purposes of being able to communicate it on the podcast. And he went into it like a consumer would. So he said, okay, I'm going to take it and I'm just going to eat the way that my appetite tells me. I'm not going to like, he's like, cause I can force feed myself, but I'm just going to see what happens. And he took the recommended dose and it crushed his appetite, like crushed it. He's like, dude, there's days I could eat 500 calories and it's not a problem at all. My wife went on it also to kind of test it, but also to see if it would help with any behavior change, because we saw some that data. And it was so strong.

And she went on a quarter dose. They tell you to start on a quarter dose. It was so strong. She said it was like the first trimester of pregnancy. Like she couldn't, yeah, she couldn't eat. She just didn't feel good, nauseous, that whole deal. And then my personal experiences with microdosing it, which I got some advice from Dr. Tina, and she microdoses it with patients for other reasons. And Dr. Tina and, uh, she micro doses it with patients

for other reasons. And so I said, let me see what that does. I don't want appetite suppression, but I want to see if I have any other, uh, potential effects and my gut health dramatically. And I've talked about this on my show now, like five times, like dramatically, dramatically improved. And she, and she did say that they're researching it for autoimmune issues to the point now where I can actually have dairy and gluten, which I couldn't touch, uh, before. So that's, that's interesting. Um, the one I won't touch those at Tesla, Tesla offensive. And that, that would be by reducing inflammation levels. It seems to have an amino modulating effect. So like Adam's psoriasis got better when he was on it. He thought

it was reduced calorie intake, but it was, uh, it was that could be that could be the slowed gastric emptying that it causes. My issue was IBSD and it's slowed down gastric emptying, which might've might've been what I needed, you know, kind of slowing things down. Not so moving so quickly. moving so quickly? I'm not sure, but I'm on a tiny, tiny dose of terzapatide, like one eighth or less of what a recommend, uh, of what a efficacious dose for weight loss is. And that's what I'm noticing. So have, do you have any experience? No, I haven't used, I haven't used any, I've, I've only done desk research. I've only read papers and I've written a little bit about them, just giving my interpretation of the data that's available, but I don't have

any firsthand experience now. Yeah. I think what you're probably going to see moving forward are use of some of these peptides in rehab, recovery, longevity clinics, love them. So you'll probably always see that, you know, the anti-aging stuff. And then the GLP ones are going to go there. That's it's, it's game over for that. It's already meteoric. I mean, it's, it's just going to be stratospheric over the next several years. Well, see, just to, just to illustrate, I don't know if you've seen the data, Mike, on, um, snack food sales, Walmart. Yep. Yep. They're already there are the market is already starting to to bake this in.

Yes. And pharmaceutical companies are are freaking out because there's a lot of medications around the negative effects of obesity. So, you know, blood pressure medications, you know, statins, other diabetic type, you know, medications, whatever, like. There's all types of disease, right, that are downstream of obesity that will be impacted. I mean, there's the pharmaceutical impact, but then there's going to be impact across many other interventions that are required because of diseases that stem from obesity that aren't just diabetes. I mean, even look at cancer, for example, and its association with obesity, heart disease. Yeah. So what you'll see probably, well, definitely, is because we've identified this peptide that has this effect, this commercially desirable effect, right, of weight loss, you're going to see billions of dollars getting poured into it already, right? Poured into researching just GLP-1

and GLP-1 type, you know, interventions. So, you know, like I said, these triple agonist ones are going to be coming out and then who knows what's next. I think for those of us in the fitness space, this presents a tremendous opportunity because simultaneously, alongside the awareness of GLP-1s, what they do and then their usage, you're now getting the awareness around strength training. I don't know if you've heard,

I've never heard, it was already on the upswing, right? Strength training has already been trending positive. Women are really grabbing onto it. You know, big box gyms, you know, I just saw a report, I saw a report last year where the footprint of big box gyms is shifting. And you'll see that with trends. And so they're taking space away from cardio, devoting it to strength training.

The awareness around strength training is going to explode even more now because people, if you talk to the average person and they'll say, oh yeah, I've heard of a Zempik. What does it do? It makes you lose weight. What are the negatives? Oh, you lose muscle. So now you're going to see awareness, more and more awareness around strength training, which is only going to fuel the already growing trend. So like trainers and fitness professionals, like this is an opportunity where you're going to get people who never would have even considered hiring you to lift weights, who just got prescribed

a Zempik and their doctor's like you should probably strength train and to those people i say you really get ready because the the training and programming is going to be different uh when people first get on these glp1 when people get on glp1 initially their their calories drop significantly you're already working with a beginner or deconditioned individual who now is at a calorie deficit. Their ability to adapt and recover to strength training is greatly reduced. And their energy to exert in these workouts is also going to be greatly reduced. One of the biggest mistakes trainers and coaches are going to make is they're going to take someone on Ozempic and they're going to throw crazy workouts at them.

Oh, cool. You're already're already less let's hammer it which i see which i see trainers doing all the time even without ozempic in the equation yes yes yeah the over application of extra of intensity and volume uh is the biggest problem in the trainer and coach space they just they just don't use train they don't program properly they don't understand it and so they over train, beat the crap out of them. Drive them into quitting, basically. Yes, and in terrible plateaus and injury and all that stuff. And then what you're going to do is you're going to take a compromised individual who's deconditioned. It doesn't take much, right? It doesn't take much to take somebody who hasn't done strength training ever or for years

to just get their body to move in the right direction. It doesn't take much at all. If you train them properly, you're going to do a good job. If you over-apply anything, you're only going to move them forward slower or backwards. Then you get them in a calorie deficit because they're on a GLP-1 and it's even worse. So a lot of it has to do with the trainer because they think harder is better. They take pride in beating people up or making them sore. And the other part is the consumer. The consumer believes that harder is better and that you need to beat me up.

And so they tend to demand those kind of workouts. So trainers need to be educated on how to counter that. When you get a client that says, yeah, no, I need someone to kick my ass. You know, you'll hear that all the time. Or I want a trainer to whip me into shape. Like you need to be prepared to educate them so that you could train them properly. Otherwise they're going to get a bad experience with strength training. So what we're doing is we're actually going to be putting out a program. We weren't going to do this, but we changed gears. We, you know, as you know,

we put out a program every quarter, a workout program were going to put one out um and we changed gears and said we need to get ahead of this and so we're putting a maps glp1 program which is like a workout program and it's it's phased because what happens when you first get one get on a glp1 from the people who work with them that are explaining to us calories drop pretty hard at first, but then things start to kind of come up and then level out a little bit. So that initial stage needs to be a much lower intensity, lower volume style of training, uh, but you know, effective to prevent that muscle loss or whatever. And then there's some other stuff that we put in there for behavior modification. Um, but yeah, it's like, we're going to, we're going to look back and again, this could be one of those moments where like, Oh yeah, I remember when these were introduced.

That's how big of a deal they're going to be. Make America skinny again, maybe? Yeah, well, I predict what we're going to see is a lot of investment into muscle preserving or anabolic compounds as well, maybe myostatin inhibitors or something like that. HMB, just on the supplement side, HMB is gaining in popularity right now for this exact reason, just for its anti-catabolic effects. Yeah. So I predict, so I already, it's funny you say that. It's so funny. I love talking to people who get it because it's obvious, right? You're going to see this, you're going to see the explosion of HMB, branched amino acids,

see the explosion of HMB, branched amino acids, essential amino acids, OKG, AKG, glutamine, all the anti-catabolic compounds, creatine for sure. Obviously, you know this as well as I do. If you eat enough protein, you don't need to take all those. However, it's hard to eat enough protein when you're on a GLP-1. For sure, HMB is going to be, that's one of the best anti-catabolic compounds you can take. Yeah, better, better's one of the best anti-catabolic compounds you can take. Yeah, better, better out of the ones that you mentioned, people listening, if you're wondering, I would recommend HMB for that purpose. Now, creatine, you should just be taking period. I would even separate that, but specifically for anti-catabolic effects, which previously was usually in the context of fasted training. HMB, I think, is the go-to because you only need a small dose,

a couple grams, no insulin response, well-studied. There's just no downside to it. Yeah, no, they even put it in some of the supplements in nursing homes because of its positive effects on preventing catalyze. Now, again, if you eat a high protein diet, then you're getting all the, you're not going to get any additional benefits, but you know, as well as I do, that's hard, you know, eating your target body weight and protein. Especially if they just don't have a big appetite. I mean, I have a friend who struggles, a guy who struggles to eat enough

protein just because he has a small appetite. That's just normal for him. He is probably 140, 130 pounds. He's a smaller guy, but it's difficult for him to eat 100 grams of protein per day. Just getting to around that 0.8 is hard for him. Yeah, so taking four or five capsules of HMB makes a lot of sense for its anti-cattleblock effects. And then, you know, there's a lot of myths around them too, or I don't want to say myths, but maybe misunderstandings like ozempic

face. Have you heard that? No. Yeah. You got to look it up where it's like, oh, look at these celebrities. Their faces are so gone and their skin is saggy. And I mean, what's happening is if you go from eating adequate protein, most people don't even eat the high protein targets that you see the studies recommend, right? So. At best, on average, I would say people probably are getting, at best, maybe a half a gram per pound of body weight and maybe even per pound of lean mass, actually. Yeah, that's more like it. So what you're seeing is people who are eating enough protein to get by, then they go on Ozempic and their protein intake drops, everything drops.

But you know what you need protein for? College skin. You need it for, so people are like, what's wrong with my face? Why is my skin melting? Yeah, you don't have enough, you're not consuming essential amino acids and proteins. Yeah, so again, I want to get ahead of it and communicate these properly so we can do this the right way. The wrong way would be to go on and then just, because here's the other thing too, Mike. A sizable minority of people with diabetes, heart disease, or cancer were not obese.

I mean, the majority are obese, but there's a sizable minority, something like 20% or something like that. So we're talking about millions and millions of people who were never obese who get diabetes or heart disease. Like, what's going on here? Even if you control for smoking. Well, I strongly believe in the data now starting to show this, that part of the problem is obesity, but the other part of

the problem is people are under-muscled. Too little muscle, this is a very metabolically active tissue. You want insulin sensitivity, build muscle. You want healthier mitochondria, whatever the hackers, the biohackers, build some muscle. You want to improve your VO whatever the, you know, the hackers, the biohacker, build some muscle. You want to improve your VO2 max, build a little bit of muscle. If your muscle mass is too low and you're weak, your all-cause mortality goes through the roof. I mean, a simple grip strength test, which is a proxy for whole body strength, right? Nothing special about the grip, but it kind of shows kind of whole body.

That'll predict all-cause mortality better than almost any other single metric. So, you know, why am I communicating this? Well, you get a bunch of everyday people who are overweight, but also under muscled, and then they go on a GLP-1. So they just eat less. That's all they do. They just eat less. So they're eat this garbage here. Now they're eating less of the garbage. They don't strength train. We may see some cases where we're, you know, what's the term robbing Peter to pay Paul. So I lost weight, but I've lost strength and I've lost some mobility and bone density potentially could get affected.

And, you know, am I healthier? Maybe a little bit, maybe not. Um, you know, I don't know. So it's really important. We communicate this because losing muscle is not good for you. There's always, of course, there's an extreme with muscle, like bodybuilders and all that stuff, but let's talk about that. But the average person, there's a myth that people think that overweight people have more muscle on their body. It's not true. They have bigger calves. Is that just swelling though? I don't know, man.

I can think of a few people over the years, guys with the biggest calves, one in particular, his calves were so perfect that guys would come up to him. Even bodybuilders would come up to him in the gym and ask, what did you do to get those calves? They were insane. They looked like steaks on his, on the back of his legs, right? Perfect split and everything. And he had never done a single set of calves, calf-specific training in his life. He was just fat for a long time. That's it. That was his answer.

He was like, I don't know. I was just fat. Now I'm not. And this is the vestige of my previous obesity. Well, I know. I've seen that too. But no, they've shown studies that they've done this. And obese individuals have a higher rate of

sarcopenia than normal weight individuals. So they're over fat and under muscle. That definitely makes sense, especially as people get older. It's not having a bunch of body fat is not going to help you preserve muscle as you get older if you're not working to preserve it. That's for sure. No, and even their osteopenia rates are higher than, than, um, you know, what would be considered normal body weight individuals. So again, you know, back to strength training, like we may be at the beginning of a really big strength training movement, uh, fueled by the use of these peptides, because I think a lot of people are going to use them expecting a panacea and then being disappointed in some ways. I think there's a right way to use them and a wrong way to use them.

And just taking them, probably not the right way. But that's what you're seeing. You're seeing people are just going on them. This is the first phase. I mean, this is kind of the Wild West phase in some ways, right? Yeah. Yes, definitely. But yeah, we got to get ahead of it from our space because if we fight it, we're going to be, you'll be left in the dust. Because I have coaches that, you know, there's a lot of coaches that listen to us and they're nutrition coaches. What am I going to do? People are going to want these peptides. They're not going to need me anymore. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Your job was never telling people what to eat. Your job was always behavior modification and helping people develop these, these long-term relationships.

Which is, which is the question that I want to follow up with is, and this is a, this is a common criticism of, of these drugs and that is, okay, so what happens after you lose the weight? Are you supposed to just take a smaller dose of the drug forever. And there will be criticisms to the effect of, well, you're, you're basically guaranteed to just gain a lot of the weight back. And so is this just a temporary solution? Is this just a bandaid? Some people are communicating that you'll be on this for the rest of your life. So you'll always be taking this. Other people are saying there is a way to come off and then, you know, not gain the weight back or whatever. So to be clear, when you get off the GLP-1, the hunger signal will come back. Okay. So whatever appetite

suppressing effects you had, they'll be gone when you come off the GLP-1, but that's not the whole story. Okay. There is a potential silver lining here with that, which is the more you practice a behavior, the more you engage in a behavior, especially if there's a hedonistic reward, the harder it is to break. You create those neural pathways and you strengthen them every time you practice the behavior. This is why any habit or bad habit or whatever, if you've ever stopped something at first, it's really hard. And then it's kind of starts to get a bit easier for most people. I should say behaviors are really complex, but for the most part, that's, that's how it seems to work. So you strengthen those neural connections with that behavior. So I'm stressed. I eat, I I'm

tired. I eat. It feels good to eat. It feels good to eat. It creates this kind of temporary hedonistic, you know, feeling. You go on the GLP-1, hunger signal is blunted. You no longer get that experience from eating. You no longer even think about eating that much. So while you're on it, those neural connections, those behaviors start to weaken because you're not practicing them as much. But I think there's another side to it, which is, okay, we're weight, we're weakening those behaviors. So now let me try to replace those behaviors with other behaviors. So this takes, this is where I think coaching could be very valuable, which is, okay, have you identified when you make the worst food choices? You know, it's when I'm under a lot of stress

or when I'm out with friends or when I'm anxious or depressed or whatever. Okay, cool. Let's identify those because you're still going to have those experiences while you're on the GLP-1. Now let's find a way to, let's create a new behavior around that. So I'm stressed out. All right, what can we do? Or I'm anxious.

All right, what can we do? So now you allow the old behavior to weaken because you're not practicing anymore because the strong hunger signal behind it is gone. So it's easier to just not do it. But now let's replace that with something more positive. And then when you get off and the hunger signal comes back up, do not engage in that old behavior because that old neural pathway will come right back. So try to be as consistent as possible when you're off. And when you get that hunger signal, replace it with better behaviors, better food choices or whatever. So theoretically, this is how I think we can use this as a positive. I'm borrowing, by the way,

because look, I mean, we don't have a lot of experience coaching or working with people with these. These are kind of relatively new interventions, but I'm borrowing from my experience of working with clients. You know, I've trained a lot of people, trained people for a long time and I've trained a lot of doctors. I've trained a lot of both psychiatrists and surgeons. And, and I remember there was one woman I trained in particular, she was a psychiatrist. She was brilliant. And we would have these discussions around some of the psychiatric medications that she would work with just because I'm curious. And, you know, you train people for years. It's like, you know, I'm going to ask you questions too. It's a good time. We were friends. The discussion was, okay,

you go on an antidepressant. Can you come off of them? Like, do you have to stay on them forever? She says, you know, a lot of people do. She said, but I've seen people come off of them and this is how it looks. The antidepressant gives them enough energy to get to, so that they can do the things that will improve their wellbeing. So they were so depressed before they couldn't come off the couch, or they were so depressed before they couldn't get some sunshine or they were so anxious before they just didn't, you know, make any, any connections with people. So like training wheels. So she said, I've had people who go on these, then they'll go do the things that we know because now they have the energy and they feel like they can. And then we slowly take them off and they continue those things and then they stay off the antidepressants. But that takes some work

and you know, the average person, I don't know how much work they want to do, but that's where I'm borrowing from with, with my ideas around this GLP-1s. And I've run them by doctors that work with them who have experience. They said, oh yeah, you know, that's, you know, I've worked with people. That's, that's what I did. Some people stay on them, but some people can come off and that's what the ones that come off successfully, that's what they do. So I think there's a huge opportunity for coaches to work with people. But I don't think it's any different than what we've been doing before, which is behavior. Like a really good coach works on behavior modification.

A really good coach isn't giving people meal plans and just saying, eat this, follow your macros, and you're good. It's like, if you really want to be effective, you have to work with the person and help them modify those behaviors so they can develop this long-term success type of thing. Especially if they've had a lot of failures in the past, then just giving a meal plan and giving a training plan, that basically never works. There's a lot more that the person who can do it that way is in the minority. And they're out there for sure. it that way is in the minority. And they're out there for sure. And they probably need coaching the least out of all the people, the types of people who are interested in coaching, but the people who need it the least are the people who can just be given a meal plan, be given a training plan, just go off, you know, left to their own devices and come back shredded. Thanks, coach. I mean, it's great, uh, for, for those, you know, who could do that, but

many people that that approach just does not work for, for many, many people. No, no. I mean, most people are not like you, you know, where I know you very well. And you're like, I'm going to do this. And then you do it. Like most people are not able to turn it on that way. We're driven by our emotions and, um, and feelings and behaviors, it's hard to change them. Uh, it's very hard to change certain behaviors and food is, um, I mean, it's so ingrained in who we are and how we experience life. Um, and then again, and we're also, I mean, we've put ourselves in a shitty place. Like, uh, the vast majority of research and development that's gone into food for the last 70 years has gone into how to make it as pleasurable to eat as

possible. So, you know, we're kind of in this bad situation where it's like, we've made things so irresistible and inconvenient that there's no wonder why a majority of people are in such poor health. And then on top of it, we've designed our lives to be as sedentary as possible. So we've put ourselves in a really bad situation. But again, I see this as an opportunity. You know, on the strength training front, I'm excited about this because no other form of exercise as is well positioned for the average person is strength training. It really does. There is no perfect form of exercise. It's as close as you can get with all the modalities that exist. I mean, you do it the least for the most results.

It sticks around with you the most. It allows you to eat more food, not because you're burning more calories because you're moving, but because you actually affected your metabolism in a positive way. It's protective against... It's more fun.

I mean, it's more fun than just going and droning away on the cardio machine for 30, 45 minutes. I mean, so much so I see it with my 11 year old son, he wanted to start coming to the gym with me great. So now we go to the gym together in the morning. And of course, we just do our little strength training workouts. And I just have a inappropriate routine for his age. It's mostly machines and some dumbbells. So just so he can gain strength without having to worry too much about technique and learning the intricacies of compound lifts and so forth and so even for an 11 year old kid he thinks

it's fun thinks it's fun but it would he would not have fun if i were going there and just jogging on the treadmill he wouldn't be coming with me yeah not going anywhere and just running in place uh and it's it's also it's also, um, because it's main adaptation is build muscle. It's very protective against being sedentary. You know, being sedentary is deadly. Even if you do lots of activity otherwise, but then you work at a desk, which most people do, it's not good for you. The best thing you can do if you're going to sit all day is have muscle. That's the best possible thing you can do. It's also the most, it's the easiest approach. Otherwise it's like, Hey, every hour, get up and walk for 15 minutes. That would be great. But most people won't do that every hour.

So it's like, okay, have some muscle. It's very protective. And then, and I already said this, but you don't need to do much. I don't know if you saw the latest, some of the, seeing some of the latest data on how much strength training is required to prevent muscle loss. So forget building muscle, but just how much would you need to stop the, I don't remember what it is, 8% muscle or strength loss every decade or whatever. I don't remember what the number was, but the amount of strength training required something like once every two weeks, it's like, it's like so little, it's not even funny. And that will, that one workout would probably be an hour or so.

Maybe 40 minutes, probably. I mean, so it's like so perfectly poised. And so I'm like, okay, let's take this opportunity, everybody, to get people to move in the right direction. Whether they use these peptides or not, people are talking about them. And I think we could do a big positive thing for sure, but also warn against the abuses and negatives. I don't want to be on the wrong side of history. To this point of just how little it takes, it's from there, you do your one workout every two weeks, let's say. Then you figure, I'll do one workout a week. I mean, this is just naturally how it goes because you start to notice

some improvements. You start to feel a little bit better. All right, now you're doing one full body workout per week. And then from there, you look at your calendar and you figure, eh, I can do two workouts a week. How about that? So that's also, I've just seen that so many times over the years with strength training in particular, just because the rewards are more noticeable just in the mirror and therefore are more emotionally satisfying than if you compare that to doing cardio. And I'm pro cardio.

I do a couple hours of cardio per week. And I think that that's a smart thing to do. But strength training seems to be a better gateway modality so to speak for getting somebody into into enjoying exercise and really establishing that habit versus cardio yeah i mean all forms of exercise have value if they're applied appropriately but uh strength training is perfectly poised for the modern life because of the things that i things. You don't need to do much of it. Speeds up the metabolism, whereas other forms of exercise don't really. Sometimes they actually cause a metabolic slowdown. Excessive cardio can do that, for example. Sculpts and shapes the body. So it's as close as you can get to target, you know, shaping. It's empowering. This is what women experience when they do it. Oh my God, I like feeling strong, you know, but I'll tell you what, um, the way that I think that the, we've been communicating strength training to the average person. I think that there's one, a better way to communicate it in the sense of, you know, you said like one workout a week, which I would say

once or twice a week, that's all you need. I think a better approach may be something more like one lift a day, literally, you know, if you did want like three or four sets of a compound lift a day, it would take you 15 minutes. And it wouldn't feel so grueling, you would get adequate volume. It's because it's a daily thing, you're going to the habit tends to be built a little easier, doesn't require a big block of time to be taken out of your day. And I think that's probably a better approach. It's like one compound lift a day. Um, I think for the average person would be plenty. Um, and it's funny when you look, so I looked at, looked at old Soviet, you know, Olympic lifting data. They have some crazy studies

that frequency approach is pretty amazing when it comes to building muscle and strength. It's pretty wild. They would do these all-day workouts where they would have people do like a few sets and then they wouldn't do anything for an hour. Then they'd come back and do another few sets and they would do this all day.

And the anabolic response was crazy. With the amount of volume, they wouldn't be able to accomplish all at once. But it was essentially like a long rest in between these mini workouts pretty interesting stuff but yeah i like to tell that to people it's like one lift a day uh and you you would be great the average person would be perfect with doing something like and then do some walking throughout the day after breakfast lunch and dinner and you're set yeah that'd be a great approach. The only wrinkle that I've come across in talking about that approach with various people is if they have to go to a gym to work out, then it's

a little bit anticlimactic to do the drive. Yeah. One lift, go home. Exactly. And you're going to do a little bit of a warmup for whatever you're doing. And then, you know, you do your few sets and they say that once they're there, they like to do a bit more. And it seems like for most people, the sweet spot in my experience seems to be about 45 to 60 minutes where that's enough to where you feel like you've exerted yourself, but you're not exhausted. You have a nice pump and it justifies the time that you spent. Yes. No, you did it. One of the other roadblocks is that strength training is complicated in comparison to other forms of exercise.

It doesn't have to be, but there are a lot more moving parts. It doesn't have to be, but there are a lot more moving parts. Let's just say there are a lot more ways to mess it up than just putting on some shoes and going for a run. Now, I will say this, though. Technique is extremely... We misunderstand the value of technique in cardio. We think, oh, you just run. But the reason why running has one of the highest injury risks or rates

is because people don't know how to run. I mean, you stop running when you're 12. Then when you're 35, you decide you want to work out. You put on some running shoes and you go till you're tired, which is the worst way to teach your body a proper skill. Fatigue makes your form go out the window. I mean, I understand biomechanics because, you know, that's what I did for a long time. And when I watch people run, it's like, oh my, I can tell when someone can run well very easily versus when most people can't. So people will go and just train to fatigue and their form goes out the window.

But they do that, you know, strength training is more complex in the sense that there's different movements. Technique is important just like it is for all forms of exercise. But I don't necessarily, I think it's bad and good because the good side is people appreciate more that they need to do a technique right with strength training. Whereas with other forms of exercise, they just do it. But again, that opens the door for coaches and trainers because, and a lot of people don't understand this, all exercise is a skill, but strength training in particular is a skill.

Every exercise that you do, every movement is a skill. And like any skill, the better you perform that skill, the more you'll get out of it. The worse you perform a skill or one of those exercises, the more you'll get out of it. The worse you perform a skill, or one of those exercises, the less you'll get out of it and the risk of injury starts to go through the roof. So, you know, I try to tell people when you're doing strength training, don't think of it as a workout. Think of it as practice. I'm going to the gym to practice deadlifts, to practice benchlifts to practice bench press to practice overhead press or whatever that'll guide people far better than the i'm gonna go hit my legs i'm

gonna go hit my back i'm gonna go hit my chest because then they tend to you know the movement becomes just a way to get the muscle sore and technique and all that stuff goes out the window but rather go to the gym and practice those lifts. And then you'll, you'll, you'll probably have an appropriate amount of intensity because you're looking at perfecting your form. So you'll go as hard as the form allows you to go. Um, and you'll appreciate, and then start to see the value of the technique itself. But, but that would be, I guess, the roadblock is it's definitely more complex. There's a lot of exercises and there's really one way to do them right and a million and one ways to do them wrong.

What's the saying? All strength training exercises are low back exercises if you do them wrong. Yeah, correct. Well, we're coming up on time and I want to be respectful of that. We got through all the bullets I wanted to discuss. Is there anything else before we wrap up that you want to add something that I should have asked or bounce around? No. I'll ask you.

You're one of the leaders, and I consider you one of the leaders in the supplement industry. You're always ahead. You mentioned HMB sales going up. Do you predict any trends in the supplement space, either generally or as a result of GLP-1s? I mentioned essential amino acids, branch amino acids, and HMB. Do you see anything else that's coming on the horizon? Yeah, so anti-catabolic HMB, we're already seeing that. We're looking into the viability of releasing, because we have

HMB in one of our products, but it's with yohimbine and sinephrine. So it's a fasted training, really a fat loss product with HMB to just help mitigate the increase in muscle breakdown rates that occurs, particularly after a fasted workout, if people aren't going to be eating right away.

But we're looking into the viability of just releasing HMB as a standalone ingredient because we're seeing this market increase in demand. I mean, it's really the points that you touched on. Amino acid supplements, I still don't sell. I don't foresee a scenario where I will start selling them because HMB will, if we're talking about this use case specifically, HMB is just better. That's what I would take myself. I wouldn't take PCAs. Why? The isoleucine and the valine are basically useless. We just want the leucine. And if we're just going for anti-catabolism, HMB is better than leucine. It's a metabolite from leucine, but it's better for

that purpose. So I wish I could make an evidence-based argument for an amino acid supplement because BCAAs and EAAs are the top two. BCAAs is number one. EAAs are going to be top five. BCAAs, at least, number one most requested product from our customers. And we have a lot of customers at this point. I mean, it represents seven figures in annual revenue, just BCAAs. But I can't make a good argument. What's the argument that it's tasty water? And there are customers who acknowledge that. And they say, yeah, that's actually why I take BCAAs is because it just helps me drink enough water. And I respect that. And I think that's totally fine. But that's not a very good sales pitch. Most people, if that's all it is, if it's, hey, the overwhelming weight of the evidence shows that this supplement is not going to do anything for you if you're eating enough protein. And if you're not eating enough protein, you should be eating enough protein because of course you can't even replace inadequate protein with BCAAs, or even EAAs,

you need to eat enough protein. So I'd much rather have my customers figure out how to eat enough protein. And there are many ways to do that, especially understanding that there's and you know, this that this is this was always a talking point, but there's research that came out recently to, to bolster it. And that is that there seems to be no effective ceiling on the amount of protein that our body can assimilate in one meal. There might be a limit, but practically speaking, it'd be over 100 grams, for example, in one meal. It's probably, it would be your digestion would be the limiting factor, I would guess. Yeah, probably it's, it's, it would just be almost like a mechanical limit. Um, and so then if that's the case, there are many ways to figure out if, especially if you're, let's say you're a woman and you only need to eat a hundred grams of protein per day, let's say,

and you could eat half of that in just one meal or more if you wanted to, or if you're a guy and you need to get up to one 50 or maybe you need to get up to 150 or maybe you need to get up to 200 and you have a healthy appetite, you can eat 100 grams of protein in one meal. Okay. So it's very easy to eat enough protein if you just are willing to look into your meal timing and your meal composition a little bit. So although I think you're right, I think that the demand for amino acid supplements is going to increase because of these GLP-1 drugs.

I'm okay with HMB because there's good research on that and I can get behind that. So that would be my answer to that. I do think that protein supplements, which have also been growing rapidly in popularity over the last 10 years or so, this GLP-1 trend will probably impact that as well. We're seeing more and more protein-fortified drinks and foods as well because more people are becoming aware of the importance of eating enough protein. And this GLP-1 trend is going to supercharge that, right? So a lot more people are going to be cognizant of their protein intake, at least to some degree, minimally looking for some higher protein foods, which can include higher protein snack foods, protein foods, which can include higher protein snack foods, even that you can kind of sneak proteins into like a protein cookie, for example, like, oh, that's okay. Here's my little dessert.

I microwave my protein cookie and I have some high protein ice cream, protein cereal. We're looking into that as well, actually to do kind of like a natural ingredient, a clean, nutritious type of protein fortified cereal. So we're looking into doing some high protein foods as well. And to your point that I do think that it's going to have a rising tide effect, right? Because as more people not just lose the weight, but hopefully use that as a springboard into a healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise and that includes regular strength training. That is going to drive interest, of course, in sports nutrition. I would expect that the compounded annual growth rate is going to be lifted by that. Agreed. Yeah, I agree with that.

I think you're going to see more awareness around all protein and muscle building type supplements. And you mentioned protein snacks. Hyper palatability is actually going to become important for some people on GLP-1s because for some people it crushes, like literally will crush their appetite. Yeah.

Yeah. If the food is not delicious, you take one bite and you're like, eh. Yeah, exactly. Uh, no,

interesting. No, I'm, I'm, I wanted to ask you that because, um, I'm trying to predict what's going to be happening with this because like I said,

I think this would be a culture shifting intervention. I think, I mean, it's going gonna affect clothing sizes pharmaceuticals fast food clothing trends certain types of clothing the demand is going to go way down moo moos for example probably going to be selling fewer moo moos i'm gonna i'm gonna guess more lululemon yeah yeah yeah so we'll see we'll see what happens but i think for those for those of us in the space like let's get ahead of this because uh otherwise we're gonna get dust it

and maybe other nutritionally fortified more processed foods which uh i think and this is this is similar to what you were saying earlier uh about we need to meet people where they are. And these drugs are going to become much bigger than they currently are. Many, many people are going to use them. And so we need to accept that reality and see how we can use that to try to engineer a positive outcome. So if you look at processed foods, snack type of foods, I think that it is important to help people eat less of those types of foods, but people are going to eat those foods. And it's okay if they eat those foods up to a certain point. And so if we can make those types of foods more nutritious, if we can fortify them with protein, if we can fortify them with fiber, if we can maybe fortify them, so to speak,

with whole foods and acknowledging that people are still going to eat them, can we also just, again, create a net positive effect as opposed to just saying, no, you shouldn't eat any of those foods. If I were king, I would just delete them all. Yeah, no, I think now that I'm thinking about it, you're probably going to see an increase in nutrient deficiencies, because you drop calories, you also drop your nutrients. So multivitamin supplements are probably going to be important. In fact, I would bet that a lot of practitioners are already recommending that their patients take a multivitamin if they're on one of these. Yep. Yep. That's a good point. And I think it's probably generally smart,

even for people who aren't using these drugs, especially if you're going to be restricting your calories for an extended period of time. And I do think that taking a good multivitamin is just generally a good idea for basically everyone just to help plug any possible nutritional holes that might exist. We just did an episode on the top four supplements everybody should be taking. Multivitamin was at the top because if you have a nutrient deficiency and you feel that nutrient deficiency, it's game changing. It's life changing because it's an essential, something that you need. But yeah, we have the MAPS GLP-1 program.

And then what we did, and we're going to experiment with this, is we're going to be coaching personally, myself, Adam, and Justin, along with our head trainer. We're going to do a Facebook group of 50 people. We're going to only limit it to 50 of people who are on a GLP-1. And then once a week, we're going to go in there and we're going to coach them. It's going to serve two things. One is we can work with people and coach them. But two is we want to work with people on GLP-1s so that we can better learn how to communicate this and see what pops up and what happens. That's smart. Then you'll be able to also augment your GLP-1 program based on the feedback that you're getting? I know you guys

have already put a lot of thought into it, but you can't think of everything. It's just not possible. No, no. And most of the stuff that I've learned, it's through experience working with people. So we're going to be doing that as well and then modifying whatever we need to as we continue to move forward. But I think that this may be a great opportunity for those of us in the health and fitness space if we are good about it, if we do it right. If we don't, you're going to be left in the dust. Anything else you want to let the listeners know about? Any other new programs or any cool things that they should check out?

No, just the podcast. You can find us anywhere on YouTube or Spotify or, and yeah, and that's, that's pretty much it. We're going to try and stay ahead of this and continue to, our goal is and always has been to talk to the average person, you know, coaches and trainers like listening to us because they can learn how to talk to the average person, but I'm trying to reach the people who are not being reached. Too many trainers focus too much on the people who are already jacked. And that's a mistake.

Stupid. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care about communicating to you about fitness and nutrition. You're fine. I don't need to talk to you about it. How do I get another half of an inch on my biceps? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Nice flex, by the way. I handed that to you. Flex for everybody. I want to talk to your neighbor or the lady down the street who's tried working out a couple times or can't figure it out or has no interest in to be able to reach these people that are unreachable. That's our goal. It always has been our goal.

So we'll continue doing that. Love it. Well, as always, enjoyed the discussion. Look forward to the next one. Appreciate it, brother. Have you ever wondered what strength training split you should follow? What rep ranges you should work in?

How many sets you should do per workout or per week? Well, I created a free 60-second training quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how frequently you should train each major muscle group, which exercises you should do, what supplements you should consider, which ones are at least worth taking, and more. To take this quiz and to get your free personalized training plan, go to muscleforlife.show, muscleforlife.show slash training quiz, answer the questions and learn exactly what to do in the gym to gain more muscle and strength. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did,

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

I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.