 You have a client who needs to lose, let's say, 30 pounds of weight. You have two scenarios. One client you take is going to, uh, you know, ramp up the car, do everything they possibly can to lose. They get to the end of the month and they've lost 15 pounds, but a good portion of that's muscle. So they've actually gone up a couple of percent in body fat. Then you have the other scenario where the end of the month is, and they've gone up five pounds, but they've dropped, but they, exactly. Pure muscle. They've dropped the body by 1% who's in a better situation. One of them is supposedly a half, halfway to their original goal of 30 pounds, losing 50 pounds, but their body fat percentage has gone up, slowed their metabolism. Yeah. Client B has actually gained five pounds and body fat percentage is down 1% and in a faster metabolism, like client B is in such a better situation, even though they're actually five pounds further from their original goal. When they came and hired you, that is really hard for the average client to like wrap their brain around follow them down, you know, a little bit of a distance in time and the faster metabolism pertinent, the fat melts off. Yes. Now your body comes automatic. Absolutely. Look, there's more to this getting lighter on the scale, body fat percentage going up, or your body weight goes up and you actually get leaner. We're going to get into that in just a second. But before we do, I'm going to give away a free program. We're going to give away maps aesthetic. Here's how you can win that. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode. Subscribe to this channel and turn on your notifications. If you do all those things and we like your comment, we'll notify you and you'll get free access to that program. One more thing. We have four days left for our April sale. It's maps prime, maps prime pro maps anywhere $99.99 for all three. That's a discount from $361. So if you're interested, go to maps, April.com. All right, here comes the rest of the show. All right. Here's something crazy. You can lose weight and your body fat percentage can go up. That's right. I'm so glad that you brought this tip up. I've been waiting for us to talk about this game. Cause did you see, um, I got roasted on TikTok for this one. What? Yeah, yeah. Oh, did you get the wrong numbers, maybe? Well, yeah. So I just, I did quick math and I was off, right? So the point still stands true, right? That I was trying to convey. But of course, you know, leave it to social media too. I mean, I got just tore apart. That's why they try and like, like you make a good point. But listen to this idiot, he can't even do math. You spelled this wrong. Yeah, no, it was, it was. So the point that I was making was that, you know, I gave an example of somebody, um, you know, losing 10 pounds and six of it being muscle and four of it being fat, uh, so 10 off the scale, but those, that rate, I said that a person's body fat person would go up. Technically, that's not true. I should have used them more of an exaggerated, depends on the body weight. Well, yeah, it depends on the, unless the person was like 400 pounds, that would be the case, right? So, so a better example would have been a more extreme example, you might point across, which would have been like, okay, you know, your client can lose 20 pounds on the scale, right? Their goal is fat loss. They lose 20 pounds and they go and get tested and their body fat percentage could go up. And what happens? Well, what happened is that the ratio of muscle was that the law, the ratio of weight that they lost was more muscle than it was body fat. To put it more plainly, I like to break it down like this. It's really easy, right? If you weigh 200 pounds and you have 20 pounds of body fat on your body, that means you have 10% body fat, right? So it's 20 pounds out of 200 is 10%. Now, if a 100 pound man has 20 pounds of body fat, that's 20% body fat, so you could lose a bunch of weight on the scale and even lose some body fat. But if the percentage, if your body fat percentage can go up because your body fat, your body fat total becomes a larger percentage of your overall body weight. In other words, if you lose a bunch of muscle, maybe a little bit of body fat on the scale, you can become a smaller but higher body fat percentage version of yourself. You can actually go backwards and body fat percentage is what matters because I weigh over 200 pounds. What makes me lean would not make a 100 pound person lean. That would make them actually overweight, right? So this is important to understand because we look at our size and we look at the scale. And this is how we tend to judge how effective our routine is. And we go, oh my God, I lost 30 pounds. I must be doing a great job. And by the way, people have experienced this where they were super frustrating for clients. Oh, you lose weight and then you go get body fat tested. I remember this happened to a client. Early days as a trainer before I really understood kind of how to really train well and they lost a bunch of weight on the scale. We tested their body fat. And I remember I tested it like three times and I could tell the client was like, something wrong. Yeah, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I remember thinking like, am I doing something wrong? And I was questioning myself and I'm like, well, your body fat percentage went up a half percent. She's like, but I lost, I remember what it was. I lost 12 pounds. So then what I did is I wrote down lean body mass, fat mass and I said, oh, I said, okay, you, you're because you lost muscle, your total body fat pounds now is a greater percentage of your body weight and obviously what we did didn't work. And that was really angry clients about this because they're putting in really hard work, typically. So you're, you're adding your workouts that you're normally doing, but you're also now adding an excess of cardiovascular work on top of that and then reducing your, your calories. So you're in the state of just, you know, hyper stress and you're getting to that point where hard work has to equate to muscle for some reason for a lot of people. That's like the thought process behind it would in fact, you're reducing the amount of muscle in your body, your recompensate, your, your body is mainly now the majority of it moved to, to fat or just stayed, your fat just stayed the same amount that it was, but now it makes up the majority of your body versus muscle. The shitty part is this is more common in the people that work really hard. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of what got them there is the, the mindset of, you know, more work equates to better results and that's not how it works. No, your, your body is trying to become more efficient and it's also trying to adapt to stress. And if the stress is, if the stress overwhelms the body's ability to adapt, then what your body's worried about is healing and also dealing with a stressful environment and more muscle equates to more faster metabolism and faster metabolism for most of human history was not really advantageous when you're under a lot of stress. For the most part, lots of stress meant you didn't have a lot of food. Yeah. So your body changes its composition. I mean, if you were to look at a picture of a 200 pound man at 10%, a 200 pound man at 15% and a 200 pound man at 20% body fat, all the same weight, they would look radically different. You can do this for women too, 15, you know, 15, 20, 25% or 20, 25, 30%, right? Same body weight. They look very, very different. So we need to get away from the scale so much and rather look at composition. It's not the scale that matters. It's what your body is made up of. And I use this example all the time. You know, you could cut your leg off and lose 20 pounds, but is that the kind of weight that you want to lose? Yeah. And I mean, your body is doing what it's supposed to do. Yeah. It's very effectively trying to conserve energy that it needs. You're telling your body there's all this crazy amounts of stress and demand. So we need to make sure that whatever you are intaking, we can save that for, you know, the future because it obviously it's scarce. Well, this is another example of, you know, why we get kind of labeled as these anti-cardio guys, which we totally are not. But a majority of clients that would hire you would be looking to speed up their metabolism and lose body fat. That's most clients that hire you. That's, that's their goals. And taking that person and training them three to five days a week and doing cardio every single day is not advantageous. No. And it's, and this is exactly what happens to that person is they are burning so much. They're doing cardio. They're sending a signal to their body to be more efficient with calories. So the metabolism slows down. And even if the scale comes down 15, 20 pounds and they think they're going in the right direction, they're really not. So even though they lost a little of fat, maybe they feel a little better because they look smaller or they're fitting. And they have better fitness. They have more stamina, right? More endurance. Sure. And that's why it can be, I think that's why it can be a luring or, or confusing for people is because they're like, why, I definitely feel better. I can run down the block better than I could before. And I'm definitely fitting in my belt loop has gone down. But the problem is you're losing muscle just as fast. And we're technically not fitter. And you're definitely slowing the metabolism down. That's the biggest trap I've found is, is the whole conditioning side of it because what people associate with being in shape a lot of times means like they have like cardiovascularly conditioned fitness on top of that, which, you know, I get that, but that's a completely different pursuit and adaptation versus like trying to build muscle or reduce body fat. Yeah, that's the messaging since we are kids. I mean, the mile run when you're a kid, like that's how we measure doctors recommendation, run through, you know, 30, 30 minutes. It's a great pursuit. It's just different. Your body aims at getting better at what you do a lot of. And if you challenge your body or stress your body, which exercises the stress, your body aims to get better at it. Well, if I do lots and lots of cardio and simultaneously cut my calories, the signal that I'm sending my body is I need stamina. I need a lot of stamina. I don't need a lot of strength. Okay. Cardiovascular activity requires very little strength and we're burning lots of calories with activity. Okay. Simultaneously, we're taking in fewer calories. So how do, how does the body adapt in that, in that scenario? It pairs muscle down and becomes a more efficient calorie burning machine or in other words, it just utilizes less calories. By the way, there's more to this. When your body pairs muscle down, it doesn't just pair muscle down. It has to organize its systems in a way to do so. And in one of the main ways it does this is by organizing the hormones in a way to pair muscle down. So think about this for a second. You have a man who's just abusing cardio, cutting his calories, his body wants to pair muscle down. What hormone is responsible for building or preserving muscle? Right? Testosterone. What your body will do is lower testosterone in order to make that happen. Now on the flip side, if the signal I'm sending is I need strength and I'm fueling this strength, I'm fueling my body. So there's really no need to worry about so much about being efficient with calories. Food's not scarce. My body is like, okay, let's build muscle and let's build strength and let's organize our hormones in a way to do so. Raise testosterone, right? And women balance estrogen and progesterone, right? Get better growth hormone level. So you can lose weight and go up in body fat percentage. And this is so frustrating. It's so frustrating, in fact, that when I would show people this, like they did this to themselves, they would deny it to the point where they thought that I was lying. I actually had a lady once do this with me. I tested her. She came to me, she wasn't a client. I did one of those free body fat testing booths. And she's like, oh, I got tested four months ago, but since then I've lost 20 pounds. Yeah. So I can't wait to see what it's at. I tested her and it was a little higher than what she had before. She was so mad. I tested her again, so mad. She left, went somewhere else, got tested again. And obviously didn't get the answer she wanted. And then she came back and she's like, I don't understand what just happened. I've actually seen trainers deny it and say that the machine must have flawed. This is totally inaccurate. And then they just like throw out all the science. And there's like, you know, that can't be the case. You know, just stick with what you're doing. I actually think that's half of why this fitness space clowns on those tools so much because I think a lot of them are pissed off because they understand the science. You look like a stupid trainer, right? Well, I mean, it happened to all my trainers, you know, Justin was there at that time. This was back when we worked together. And I used to do these competitions with my trainers where I'd put a bunch of I think we'd all put like 100 bucks and then I'd match it. And it was like, you know, winner of the greatest body fat percentage change. And you know, I think I had 20 something trainers at that time working for me. And I'd say more than half of them had this because most of them are already pretty fit. And so the mistake that they all made was to go, OK, we have, you know, two or three months to get even more shredded. So they all just ramped up everything, cut calories. Yeah. And it was like, you know, even though we lost weight. Yeah. But yeah, everyone came down and a lot of them felt like they looked better because they got smaller. And so and they all thought the dunk was inaccurate, which is really accurate, right? So we did a hydrostatic way, which is really like the the the variance that it can be off is like a tiny amount, like a half of a half of percent compared compared to the skin caliper, especially electronic impedance. So and so these trainers, oh, this thing is flawed. It's bullshit. It doesn't work. It's like, no, dude's accurate. And I remember I knew that I knew how accurate it was. And I had the same thing. It happened to me. And I thought, whoa, like, wow, I had a tough pill to swallow. Oh, very, very tough pill to swallow, especially being, you know, supposedly experts in this field. Obviously, not that much. Nice to speak like, oh, man, maybe I didn't maybe I didn't blow out enough air. Yeah, like I was keeping too much air inside the second test. I'm just I remember it might. So they were trainers were thinking of that. So I had to go and ask the guy who had an errand that the guy who owned the the setup. And I said, hey, you know, a lot of my trainers think this is way off, like, you know, what if someone didn't, you know, what if they held their breath or did this? And he's like, listen, Adam, you could literally hold your breath intentionally because you're supposed to let your air out. So you can hold your breath intentionally and it won't throw this off by a half a percent. Yeah, that's how how minimal the difference. Yes, it helps to blow it all the way out. Yes, that'll make it even more accurate. But he's like, you couldn't throw this thing off of you tried more more than that. Now, on the other side of this, you could also gain weight and go down in body fat percentage. Yes, you just gain right now. If you just gain 10 pounds of lean body mass and not a single pound of body fat, your leaner because now your body fat percentage, your body fat total, the total pounds of body fat in your body is now a smaller percentage of your overall body weight. And this is where it really hit me. I went on this kind of slight bulk, changed my workout, got stronger, got my body fat percentage back lower. And I remember being like, wait a minute, how is this possible? And it's because I went from a cut to a bulk. Gain muscle, replaced fat. That's right. Well, you have a you have a client who needs to lose, let's say, 30 pounds of weight. You have two scenarios. One client you take is going to, you know, ramp up the cart, do everything they possibly can to lose. They get to the end of the month and they've lost 15 pounds, right? But a good portion of that's muscle. So they've actually gone up a couple percent body fat. Then you have the other scenario where the end of the month is and they've gone up five pounds. But they were pure muscle that they exactly pure muscle. They've dropped the body fat percentage by one percent. Who's in a better situation? One of them is supposedly a half halfway to their original goal of 30 pounds losing 50 pounds, but their body fat percentage has gone up, slowed their metabolism. Yes, client B has actually gained five pounds and body fat percentage is down one percent and in a faster metabolism. Like client B is in such a better situation, even though they're actually five pounds further from their original goal when they came and hired you. That is really hard for the average client to like wrap their brain around. And you follow them down, you know, a little bit of a distance in time and the faster metabolism per... Then the fat melts off. Yes. Now your body becomes automatic. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's crazy. All right. So speaking of workouts, I read this amazing article on cannabis use and working out. So, you know, OK, so obviously we are old enough to remember when, you know, if you had a joint, you were like looking at... So they're throwing in pre-workouts now? No, no, no. Oh my God. Just wait though once it becomes federal legalized, I'm sure. But I'm old enough to remember when if you had a joint man, you were afraid of the cops and it was like a big deal. And then it became kind of medically legal and the stigma has changed. Now to the point, depending on where you live, I mean, we're here in California. If you smoke a cigarette on the street, you're going to get more people pissed off at you than if you smoke a joint. I mean, it's just the stigma has changed so much. Now, along with that is people using cannabis for many different reasons and being open about it. And one of them is using cannabis to work out. Now, are you specifically just saying working out in general? Or are you talking about now strength training or cardio? All of it. All of it. All training. OK. All training. So I was... I have different views on both of them. Right. No. And this is going to speak right to that, right? So we get asked this question quite a bit. Like, I like to have a joint before I work out. I like to have an edible before I work out. You know, what do you guys think is it good, is it bad or whatever? Now, the studies done there's good studies done on cannabis or cannabinoids, I should say, and exercise. And cannabinoid use and exercise, the studies are pretty clear. It reduces coordination. It reduces reaction time. And it reduces power output. OK. So it's clear. Like, every study shows this and it's pretty consistent. And so the answer typically is like, no, it's not a performance enhancer. However, the surveys that they're doing now, they're doing lots of surveys and they're finding more and more people like to use cannabis before they work out. Why are all these people using cannabis before they work out if it reduces coordination, reaction time and power? So then they ask them is do you like to use cannabis because it improves your strength and physical performance? No. Do you like to use cannabis before you work out because it makes you enjoy the workout and for the psychological effects? Yes. That's the reason why people are using it. And what they also found in the study is that cannabis pre-workout users work out longer and tend to do more work in the gym or on the run. Interesting. Just less intense than people who don't. More volume. Well, probably, right? I mean, I could see that. Like, I mean, I would I like it on like a mobility day. I love mobility. And I like, can you get lost in it or if I was doing cardio for a long period of time? You know, so if I was getting on a stair master for an hour, you know, taking a couple of hits before I go in there or something that or taking an edible half hour, hour before because then I just get lost in my thoughts. I'm not thinking about the stair master and being that same spot for an hour. I'm thinking about work and thinking about all kinds of other things with that. And you get totally lost in your head. So I could see those benefits. Yeah, majority. I'm reading it right now. A majority of them were psychological and mental effects that just the feeling people work out longer. So this made me think about something for a second. Now, I'm not going to advocate using cannabis to work out. I think it's not necessarily a good association. So like, and I say think because I don't have enough experience around this, it wasn't a big deal when we were training clients. But I think it might create a bit of a dysfunctional relationship or exercise where someone might feel like they need to have it in order to work out. And the only where I'm pulling from is caffeine because I know that caffeine tends to be connected to exercise. And I know how I, if I start to use a lot of caffeine before my workouts, I can get to the point where I don't want to work out if I don't have caffeine. So I'm talking purely from that perspective. Dependency. Yes, but nonetheless, if it improves the psychological and mental effects, I could see how perhaps cannabis use could be could help. This is me just theorizing here could be beneficial for like mind-to-muscle connection type workouts, right? Where I'm going to the gym and the goal is not to go heavy. The goal is just to concentrate and squeeze and feel the muscle pump and just kind of yeah, yeah, volume less. I just I can't see it at all for intensity. No, like it just anything where I'm really having to like summon force and grind my way through exercise or put demanding amount of weight on my back, like that sounds no way. Yeah, but everything else like I made I could see angles there. Yeah, you know, I can't help but think of one of the first times that I ever got really high and not intentionally this high. And I had to eventually drive home and I remember driving home and it was like a 10 minute drive home and it felt like it was an hour. I remember at the stop light it was so paranoid. My truck was going to roll through the so both feet were on the break. And so I just can't imagine trying to lift weights and just having that same paranoia going through it's going to crush me. I'm sure there's a dose dependent, right? Yeah, for sure. That's why it wouldn't recommend it. You know, yeah, it's so anti the kind of energy I like to work out with. I like to be super focused, super like feel like I can like, you know, summon strength and that kind of stuff. So I mean, definitely wouldn't be for me. However, I could see. I mean, with this many people responding to the survey and saying that like, hmm, very interesting. Here's what I'm this is, this is something that I may try, right? I have not used the hemp oil from Ned pre-workout. I have used it a little bit with caffeine because it's a wonderful combination. But if you use a big dose of the hemp oil, it's not like an edible, but you do feel some of the effects of kind of that like that euphoria kind of. Yeah, you don't get high from that. No, not high like a joint, but I wouldn't want to like, I wouldn't want to be like that anyway. I'm wondering if, if using cannabinoids like that are found in Ned, maybe the non-psychoactive was just enough to give you that euphoric kind of calm feeling, if that can help with the connection. By the way, I've gotten emails from people who say that they love using it pre-workout and they say, and I always tell them, well, it's not a pre-workout supplement, but I still, so maybe, right? Maybe. It depends on the focus and the phase you're in and that kind of stuff. I would think it'd be more appropriate for some versus the other. I will say this, the hemp oil with caffeine though is a wonderful- That's a good way to taper it. It is a very, very good, I've never done that pre-workout, but I do that for, like if I'm writing a blog or an article, great combination. I mean, if you think about it, if you have a high-stress job and you're anxious a lot and you're getting ready to go to the gym, I don't think that it's always the, if you're high, high stress, and then you go in and then stress the body even more training, and that's a great way to help maybe transition, like, okay, I need to calm down. Like an hour before. Yeah, I take it, that relaxes me a little, and then I reframe the way my workout needs to look and say, I'm gonna do more of a form and technique. So I can get by then. Yeah, because I mean, again, the reason why this is such a big deal for me with the article is, we always think about the physical with workouts, but we know that the mental is, if not as important, it's more important. Oh yeah, the intent going in is huge. Yeah, so if it, like, you just gave a great example out of it. If somebody used hemp oil and it helped them get in a better mental state, even if they lose some max power or whatever, who cares? Which is, they shouldn't be lifting that way if they got a crazy stressful day, right? Very good point. Yeah, very, very good. So I got an article sent to me and this is kind of along the lines of, like, substances that have mind altering effects. And there was a, I think this was in Ohio, I don't remember exactly where this was, but it was a kindergarten class and this kindergarten student had brought for snack time to the entire class and basically grabbed their mother's margarita mix of the Jose Cuervo. It was passing it around once the kids were drinking this. Kiddy garden? Yes. He claimed she drunk four to five sips. These parents puzzled understandable. Their daughters, given Jose Cuervo margaritas, they thought was juiced by a fellow kindergartener Thursday at Grand River Academy in Livonia at snack time. It's like tequila, yeah. Now it's alcohol free, right? The margaritas hold. No, there's 10% of something. Oh, there is. Oh, shit, oh. Yeah, so there was definitely tequila in there, but yeah, I just, I was trying to picture this, right? Like kindergarten, they're little, little kids, you know? They're like, yay, snack time! And they're drinking this margarita tequila. They're dancing on the table. Yeah. I'm sleeping immediately to nap time. Right after that. Speaking of nap time in the week, Katrina and I are tripping out right now. We are on week two of Max at his new school and never, ever has this kid ever slept for two hours. In fact, his daytime nap is always one of the, because sometimes he naps, sometimes he doesn't. If he does nap, a lot of times it's because we're driving somewhere or because we decided to drive him or Katrina pushed him in the stroller. Rarely ever, rarely, really ever, does Max just lay down at noon or one and go take an hour nap. That's just, he's consistently been. By the way, I take back all the naps I didn't want to take when I was a kid. What an idiot I was. Well, yeah. Now I'm like, what was it thinking? Missed opportunity. Anyway, continue. So he's now at this new school and absolutely loved it, which is, he's loving it right now, which has been great. We're excited. And they, so they, part of when you enroll, like you get this, they have this app that I, they send you updates. So pictures of him and what he's doing. So it's really cool. And every day that he's been there so far, he just goes in with all of the kids and they have a nap time. And I don't know if it's cause there's other kids doing it or what, but he goes and he lays right down and she sends pictures of my son napping and he's sleeping for two, two and a half hours. Whoa. I'm like, what, where has this been? Katrina and I can't get a two hour break. He's been punking you guys. That's why. Dude. And it's not like it was an anomaly, like one or two times. He's happy every single day. There's gotta be like a group mind to that. Cause like I've seen that before in those little classes. It's trippy. I have the answer. I know what it is. I know what it is. Justin, I guarantee this happens to you. How many times have your kids gone over other people's houses and stuff? And they're good for the other side. Yeah. And they're like, you have the most well-behaved polite. And you're like, my kids? It's because they're somewhere else. So that's what some of the parents that we've talked to about. That's what they speculate. They go like, yeah, it's just, you know, the kids just seem to be better kids for other people than yourself or whatever like that. Every time. My mom used to get that all the time. We'd go somewhere and there's four kids and we're kind of wild or whatever. And we'd go somewhere. My grandma, someone would watch us or whatever. Your kids are so polite and they clean up and they do this. And my mom's like, what kids were you watching? My kids? But that's how you want it. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, I know it sucks like when you get like the other side to the coin. I'm with you on that. I'd rather have them see the side. Yeah. I'd rather have to deal with the shitty side of my kid. You know what I'm saying? He'd be a good kid. That's what he's doing. Exactly. And then he's on his best behavior. Yeah, he's on his best behavior. Yeah, laid down. And so he's like, okay. I mean, I'm just tripping out. Like a nap in the middle of the day like that at all. And he just reminds me of Billy Madison where they're all like, you know, sleeping and then they're eating paste, you know, that scene. Yeah. Hey, it's great. You know what you should do? So I used to do this to my daughter when she was little. I noticed the same thing. Like, man, she sat in class, was very, and the teacher was like, your daughter is so good. She's so, I'm like, really? So then what I would do at home is when she would do something, I'd be like, I'm gonna call Mrs. So-and-so. It's like, I tell her, I'm gonna tell her teacher. No, I'm sorry. I'll clean up. Oh, it's great. You wanna be good for your future. That's how I do an elf in the shelf. Dude, that's all it was. He's like this little like security monitor, you know, basically like, he's gonna tell Santa all these things he did wrong. So we've got this new phase, right? This has just been going now for, I don't know, it's been about maybe a month, three weeks to a month, it's been going on. And when he goes to bed now, he likes, he loves to do this. If you guys ever come to my house and you play with him, he loves to hide under the covers. That's like, it's the hide, hide, hide, he can run over to you and he'll wanna get on the bean bag and he just thinks it's the coolest thing to get under like a tent or whatever. So he now does this every night when we actually put him down, he sits up, he gets his blankets and he makes himself into like this tent and he tucks the sheets under his forearm and his head. And so we have to go in there after he's been asleep for about a half hour and untuck it all of it, or he's drenched in sweat. Oh, wow. Oh, I remember the first couple nights that happened, Katrina and I were like, what, did he pee the bed? Why is he soaking wet? No, it's cause he's getting himself in. You gotta build him a little fort. Oh, he's got all, he's got a teepee, he's got the fort stuff. Oh, yeah, you got the teepee. But he's doing it now when he gets in the bed and the sheets, it's the weirdest thing. Is it a security thing? He's like more playful, doesn't seem scary. Yeah, it's not like a- It's just like being covered, dude. Yeah, and he never did it before. We have, but it's a pain in the ass because, one, he grips it. Oh, so you're afraid of waking up? Oh, I have to wake him up. So I go in every night right now and I gotta peel it out of his hands and he wakes up and then I gotta settle him back down. You're all cutting holes in there. I was gonna say, really? I mean, we tried different, we're like, I told Katrina, I'm like, just let him sleep in everything but just a diaper and just a sheet so that it doesn't make, cause he was doing it with a comforter. And he was getting, I mean, he was just sweating within a half hour. It was weird, I've never seen a kid do it. It's like his new thing that he's doing and it's kind of funny and it's like, but annoying at the same time cause he's drenched in sweat. My son, Aurelia, he does two things. One is he started hugging his teddy bear, which is so cute. Like, you know, he lays in bed and we have the monitor on him. So, by the way, I feel kind of weird watching my kid with a monitor all the time cause I'm like, you know, I know he's a baby. It's cause we didn't have it. I didn't have it. I had the sky. He had no private time, you know what I mean? But anyway, he's got this little teddy bear but then he does this thing where when he soothes himself, he'll, on his mattress, he'll like, bang his head, don't, don't, don't. Like, he's soothing himself and I'm like, is he gonna hurt himself? Like, what's going on over here, dude? Max used a gnaw on his bed frame. So his- Just to soothe himself. Yeah, he'd like chew on it. So like his, like all the, his, his bed frame has got, like it's all gnarly and stuff like that cause he just didn't chew on it all the time. Well, I used to sing ACDC songs. No, he didn't. Cause all the lullabies that he used to play. Duh, nah. Swear to God. I swear to God. Bro, you win. The whole thing right now. We didn't even have a camera. I like would hear it. I wish we didn't even have a nanny camera like that. You literally won the whole thing right now. What a great deal. I programmed that. I mean, that's pretty new, right? I mean, they didn't have it for my sister and brother when they were growing up. It was all, it was still this, the sound monitor. The camera thing is really- Yeah, the sound monitor. Those things are so cool. I mean, I'm with you, Sal. Like, and I always tease Katrina cause she was like, she could not separate herself from that for the first, at least year and a half, almost two years. And I'm always like, we'll hear him. You know, he'll, he'll eventually come out and he'll be fine, he'll be fine. I just feel like it's, we're invading the privacy a little bit, even though they're babies. But it's, bro, it's, I mean, it's so nice. Like what age do you give peace of mind though? It does give you peace of mind. I feel like we can totally be doing something else. I mean, I'll even go all walk on the neighborhood because I got it and it'll send it. Bro, they have, it'll tell you the temperature in the room. There's ones you can see that are breathing. I wouldn't use it like crazy. How, okay, so what age is it appropriate to take the camera out of the room? I think once he's at an age, like we're really close to that. I think once he's at an age, where he's 16. Bro, I don't, you want, you want a camera in your 14 year old son's room? Hell no. No, you don't. I don't want to see what's going on, boy. I'll be a denial. I'll be a man of humanity. Be a denial about all that stuff. No, I, so I think that, cause we've talked about this cause I think we're coming up on that age soon. I think once, Like three or four or something like that? Yeah, exactly. Once he's at an age where he goes down to bed on his own and he say, he's like, he's still at an age where he could hurt himself or do something stupid and like, you know, we barely got to that phase where, you know, she feels completely safe with him, just kind of going to bed and getting up on his own. So we're close to that. I think, I think we would get rid of it pretty soon here. At least I will be advocating for us to get rid of it. We'll see how she, she has the attachment to it more than I think he's a teenager, you know? Oh, I know. Son. Yeah. I mean, we barely just recently broke the habit of not having it while we're having sex. I told you that we had that for, I mean the first Oh, that's it. That is a two years. That is a cock block. That is the worst. For her, not a big deal. For me, it's a big deal. I can't look at my son. Dude, how many times you got in trouble for turning the sound off? Oh yeah. I do it all the time. Oh. Oh, I'm not alone. No, every time. Okay. I'll be like, I'll get the monitor. She's so mad at me. No, because you can't, you hit a baby and you know, what are you going to do? No. And plus, I feel like Aurelius has a, he's got like a, like a sensor. He knows, like, oh, oh, dad. Right. Yo. Okay, all right. Get the kid. Creaking those walls together. But he's not, he's not very effective because I got an ounce. Oh, I was wondering if you could bring this up. Yeah. We're having another one coming. Minivan's not too far away, huh? Bro, that's going to be number, that's going to be four. He needs a bus, dude. What are you talking about? That's going to be number four. You can eat discounts on things now, like for having that many, like you have dinners and like movie theaters and things like that. Nothing, but there's definitely some tricks you could play though. Like Danny's school coupon or something. No, there's tricks you could play though. We could go to a buffet restaurant, get one plate, everybody else to start, you know, eat off of it. You could, you know, it was all kinds of stuff. Well, it's great though, you know, maybe the same strategy my parents had that you can, you can implore is a new, you know, that you've got enough to like pretty much, you don't need maids or anything. Now you can guys can just do all the house chores. You get to sign everything. So you don't have to do anything around the house pretty soon here. It's true. A couple more years. No, it's, it's, I was pumped. Jessica, so we weren't, this was unplanned, but it would have been planned a little later. But when she told me, I felt this like just overwhelming joy. I love big families. I really do. I love big families. I enjoy the chaos of it, believe it or not. It's a lot of, yes, it's a lot of work and a lot of stress, but it's a wonderful feeling to have all that. And I've seen now my older kids with the baby and it's just the best thing. And I see my daughter playing with the baby and my son, you know, helping out and having a good time. Now we're going to have another one. And it's a girl, by the way. We come from a massive family. I do. And we found out it's a girl. So I'm going to have a little girl, which you know, you guys know how my daughter is. Boy girl, boy girl, boy girl for you. Yeah, dude. So I'm so excited. Are you going to have to move again? Probably. You are, huh? Yeah, because we don't have enough bedrooms for, they would have to share a room for a second, but because it's a boy and a girl, I mean, they can't share. So that's why I've been looking at Utah. Yeah. Make sense. All the people, all the kids are. Yeah. No, that's probably in a couple of years. I'll have to, which sucks. I really like my place. I love my neighborhood, but you know, that part sucks. But yeah, dude, it's, it's, it's super, super exciting. But you guys, as you guys know, I haven't shared on the podcast I haven't told anybody, but Jessica's had like the nausea from hell for the worst, the worst I feel so bad for. Like it's starting to get better. But for like six weeks, she was literally vomiting all day. Like from morning till night, just feeling like dog shit. And I have to, and then, you know, and we'll sit there and I'll be like, we'll play this game where she's, cause she has to eat or she'll get nauseous, but everything makes her want to throw up. So I'll sit there and I'll be like, what about if I make you this? And then she'll be like, oh, no. Okay, what about this? So we'll go do this thing. And then she's like, don't say any more food. And she'll sit there and she's got the bucket trying to stay calm or whatever. And then the most random, she'll sit and think, right? She goes through the roll of decks in her head, like what food is not going to make me throw up. And then she'll say something like, chicken fingers from Burger King. Bro, it's, it's weird as that. She'll look up and she'll go, a chalupa. I'm like, what? Chalupa? Chalupa. I'm like from Taco Bell. Wouldn't you have that? Like when she was 16? Yeah. She's like, I have no idea. I don't even think I can think about it. It doesn't make me want to throw up. I'm like, all right. The core-ish Dorito one. Okay. I'm like, we'll get you a chalupa. I don't know if they even make those. I mean, I imagine that has to be one of the hardest things for a woman that, especially like Jessica, who I know is very aware of, she's also feeding her baby. So she wants to give her baby the best nutrients. But then she's in a position where nothing that is probably best for the baby is sound good. It's either go get an IV and get calories. Like at that point you have to make, and I mean, there's their hierarchy. We talk about this in fitness all the time. There always is. It's like, yes, those things are important, but calories first are more important. So you've got to make a decision. Now, how is she done with wrestling? Cause I imagine that probably fucks with her a little bit that she's- It does, but she's so bad and so nauseous that she can't just- Just to feel better. Once she feels better- Maybe the first trimester, right? This is the first- Change is- Supposed to. Hopefully. Please, supposed to. I have a cousin who was like this all nine months. God forbid, man, if that happens- Katrina figured out for her, and of course, I know it's different for every pregnancy, but for her pregnancy, she had to, in fact, she got to a point where she would set an alarm to wake her up at four in the morning. She had to stay ahead of it. Yes. If she allowed herself to get hungry, she was fucked. She was then sick, throwing up, whatever, nothing sounded good. If she disciplined herself to get up, and it normally would be, she'd get up and have like salting crackers and oranges or something. It'd be weird shit, but she just needed to get something in her system really, really early. And she'd go back to bed. She'd get up, go downstairs, go do it, and then go right back, right back upstairs. And she felt like she could stay ahead of it. And the times that she missed, it felt terrible. It's funny, because my son, my baby boy, he's 18 months now, and so he gets scared. He sees Mom throw up, and he's like, huh, huh, and I'm like, she's okay, she's okay. And he'll go over and he'll try and rub her back, which makes her throw up more, because if you touch her when she's sick, she's gonna vomit more. So now, because he's seen it so many times, if we have the bucket out, and we have like a plastic bag in it, he walks up to it and he goes, well, he pretends to be there, so I laugh. You're laughing, Jessica, don't think it's very funny. Oh, Aurelius, what does Mama do? He walks over to it, well, yeah. But there was one, she sent me a video, I texted her, this was like, because it's starting to get better, okay? So thank God, but a week ago was really bad, and I'm like, hey, honey, how are you doing right now? And all she does is she's sending me a picture, and Aurelius has this like terrified, like poor kid scared look on his face, and he's running with the bucket. And she's like, he brought the bucket to me. She started like, and she's like, give me the bucket. And he's like, it was ready to give it to her. Poor kid, anyway. So did you guys see the video? This is kind of crazy, but also a sign of the times. There was a video of these two women stealing $2,000 worth of meat from the grocery store. $2,000 worth of meat. So four packages of hot dogs? Yeah, exactly. Two steaks. Yeah, is that all it takes now? I seriously though, what inflation's hitting the food? 14 to 20% is red meat. 14 to 20% increase in price is red meat. Cause I saw a recent one too about some crazy cheese heist. Like, I don't know if this was like across, of course I got every single person in the planet like DM me that, you know? Just it was like some crazy like $50,000 worth of cheese that they stole. But yeah, meat, of course. I'm sure that's even more expensive. David Friedberg on the All In podcast he predicted this when the war started. He said, there's gonna be things that we're gonna see later on with the food supply chain. Oh, and 10 months is gonna be nasty. Yeah, he's saying the next nine to 18 months is going to be worse than what it is right now because there's- They're projecting. So what they do is, one thing that he talks about is they look at the amount of crops that have been planted now, which then they will, you know, get the food from, you know, 10 months or a year from now, right? So the total, and I might be getting the numbers wrong, but the total amount of acreage for corn, I believe was 94 million acres. That's normal. They only planted, I believe, 88 or 89 million acres. So that's a big difference. And what that means is now there's gonna be less available corn on the market, a significant amount, which means the price of it is gonna go up along with the fact that inflation is also contributing because of the money supply. So he's like, it's gonna go through the roof. Same thing with wheat production and other staple crops. Now, here's the big issue. In rich countries, we're just gonna see prices go up. In other countries, developing nations, they're gonna have straight up food shortages because it's a world market. So what'll happen is China, America, Canada, Europe will buy up the supply and then places like Somalia, Ethiopia, you know, other countries, they're gonna end up with none. And he explained that we have like a 90 day amount of food supply in America on average. 25% of our food we have stored. And he was saying that China has 150% year and a half. You have a year and a half of stored food whereas America is only about 90 days. We're also predicted that that's gonna give them all kinds of leverage and power in the next year. Yeah, because then what they'll do is they'll be able to sell that food or use it as leverage to increase influence or increase our influence around the world. But it's weird, yeah, so it's sign of the times. I feel like we're gonna start seeing more and more things like people stealing gas and stealing food. How much is ButcherBox gonna up? Do you know if ButcherBox is, I know they had to increase the rate. I think everybody and had to. Barely though. It didn't go very much. No, no, not at all. In fact, I haven't written down here. Let me back up. While you're looking, you know what I just ordered speaking of ButcherBox was, and I think I heard Doug looking to do it, is the, I can't wait to try him, the burnt brisket ends. Oh yeah. Yeah, is that what they're called? Burned. Burned. I love burnt ends. I didn't know they had them. And it was an add-on. We ordered it the last time. So I'll give you an example, right? So I get a, one of their custom classic kind of big boxes, right? So it's $169, I haven't written down here. Here's what I get in this. And by the way, this is all grass-fed, well-sourced, high quality. So this isn't your conventional corn-fed meat. So it's more expensive anyway, but here's what I get, right? So $169 I get one, two, three, three, one and a quarter pound tri-tips, all grass-fed. I get two, one and three quarters. So 1.75 pounds of flank steak, so two of those. And they get four eight-ounce pork chops. This is heritage pork, all for $169. But you can go in and change, you know, what you want in that box or whatever. You can customize it. Do you have yours, Doug? Cause I know yours different than mine. Yeah, so I always get the ribs. So I got one rack of ribs to 2.3 pounds, I believe. The flat iron steaks are one of my favorite. They're great, especially if you do stir fries, they're super tender. Do they do them also seasoned? Cause I think I have some that are already seasoned flat iron. There's something else. I never get them seasoned, but I ended up getting two orders of that. So I'm getting eight six-ounce steaks of those. I'm getting ground beef. I like having ground beef, ground pork. Yeah, and... Same price, $169. $169, yeah. And it's delivered to your door and it's high quality. And I think because of their sourcing and because they eliminate middlemen, their prices are gonna become even more attractive than they were before. So it's actually an interesting time for a company like Butcherbox, right? You know, speaking of inflation, I read a stat the other day, and I'm gonna get the exact number off, but you'll get the gist that was blown away by this. The amount of money that's been pulled out of people's homes in America. Oh, yes, I heard this. Did you see this? Yes. Was, is almost in last year, a half a trillion dollars. So it was like 400 and like, I think it was like 460 billion dollars. For pulling equity out? Yes, because... And spent it. Yes. So half a trillion into the economy. So think of that, okay? Of all that we've already printed and where that's gone, right? And that wide, that's part of the reason why inflation, and then you add in the fact that you got all these people. And then think about it, if you had $400,000, I mean, all you had to have was had owned your home five years prior to this. And you're sitting on... You got an ATM machine right there. Yeah, you're sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars. Especially interest rates are low. Yes, inequity and interest rates are low. So how many people were refied, pulled out 100, 200, 300,000 dollars? 30, 40, 50 grand. This is part of why we're challenged to with employment. And this is... Yes. Why work? I got 200k in the bank. I've never had 200k in the bank. Yeah, because it's weird because you look at inflation, things are more spent, but then you also have a shortage of workers. And they think this is why. Because people are just sitting on money and equity and they're like, eh, I'm not going back to work. That makes sense. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Interesting, right? Interesting time. Yeah. All right, so you guys want to hear another cool study. This one is on amino acids and appetite suppression and movement. This one's really interesting. So check this out, right? So this is a study done on mice. And what they did is they gave them... They took two groups of mice and they fed them both this, what they would call a milkshake or a shake. One group, they gave them like a sugar-based one. I'm picturing mice drinking milkshakes right now. Yeah, it's just... What was that book? How to feed a mouse? Give a mouse a cookie. That's my thing. It doesn't go away. It goes into this bear's house and he's just like... Sorry, dude, I just... You said that and I'm like, I can't help but picture like a couple mice like sitting there. Good winter. Justin's animal... Animal sound. We give him the opportunity. I can't help it. So good. So they gave one group a sugar-based shake and the other group a non-essential amino acid based one. So you guys... Okay, so the difference between essential and a non-essential amino acid. So proteins are made up of amino acids. So if you took a protein, you broke it down. You would have all these amino acids. Some are considered essential because your body can't produce them itself. You have to get these from food, otherwise you'll die. Non-essential amino acids or amino acids, my body can make itself. So it's not essential that I consume these amino acids because I can make them just like there's fatty acids that are essential and non-essential. Okay. So they gave them non-essential amino acids in these shakes and here's what they found. The non-essential amino acids suppressed the mice appetite and encouraged movement. The mice moved more because of the consumption of the non-essential amino acids. Oh man. You know, this makes the case for these bodybuilders that walk around with the branched amino acids and they're fucking milk jugs all day long sipping on it. No, actually the opposite. Those are essential amino acids. So branched amino acids are essential, right? Oh, they give the... So the non-essential is what... Is the one that did this. That actually suppressed the appetite. Yes. Oh, interesting. The theory was, and they were like, wow, this was very consistent. They also located the parts of the brain of the mice that were being activated to do this, which is a primitive part of the brain that humans still have. So like, oh, this will definitely transfer to humans. This is because when we evolved, you know, for thousands of years, it was, and I wrote this down, it was advantageous for individuals to spend only a short amount of time at a food source that consisted primarily of non-essential amino acids. So imagine you're a cave person or pre-store, you know, it's thousands of years ago and you find some food and you're eating it and your body's getting mostly non-essential amino acids. Your body knows, we don't need these. We got to get up and find essential amino acids. So it triggers movement and it makes you want to go out and find other sources. Interesting. Really interesting, right? Because you're not satisfied. You got to keep going out there and find... It's not even the hunger part, it's the movement part that tripped it out. Okay, so what's your prediction in the supplement industry? What's to get created and follow this? Come on. I hate that. You're right. Oh, it's coming. Yes, I know. I hate that. Some kind of weight loss attachment to that. For sure. It's so funny too. And they'll attach it to a study like this. We do not need to supplement with amino acids. The only people that need to supplement with amino acids are probably vegans and people who just eat really low protein. It just doesn't make that... Burn victims or something. Yeah, it just doesn't make that big of a difference. But I found that very interesting. It encouraged movement in the mice and they said, well, it's because if you're in nature... It is interesting, but I'm now more interested in what is to follow. Yeah. Supplement companies love... Typical shit like this. For sure. For sure. Any angle that you can find that they can make that into a product. They're gonna take it. Every time. Look, life is too short to suffer from digestive problems. If you want freedom from your food, try digestive enzymes, mass enzymes from bi-optimizers. This is actually a phenomenal product, especially if you had a high protein diet. It helps break down the amino acids, get them to your muscles and not have bloat or constipation. So you just take these with every meal. Makes a big difference. Go check them out. Go to mindpumppartners.com, click on buy optimizers and use the code MindPump10 for 10% off. All right, here comes the rest of the show. All right, our first caller is Ben from Nebraska. Ben, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey guys, thank you. Thank you for taking my question and I really appreciate a lot of the information you guys put out and it's kind of really helped me a long way. So my question is in regards to TRT treatment and how to properly diet and train for it, more on the diet side. So this little background for me is I'm six foot, 230, five, 240, about 17% body fat. I'm 25 years old and kind of over the past years that I've been listening to you guys, I started to really learn how to try and optimize my body, trying to figure out the ins and outs. And one of the things that I've really kind of picked up on was testosterone and you guys are pretty big advocates of testing and checking your testosterone. So I went through a lot of those processes. My first test was over a year ago. It came up really low and it was in a mid upper 300s and I was like, okay, so I need to do the right things to kind of put myself in a better situation. So I did those things, fix my sleep, diet, training, all that stuff and kind of felt like it was in a better, it should be in a better place. Tested again, came back lower. It was in 200s actually then. And then that's when I went to seek help. I actually decided to go through the MP hormones and went with Dr. Todd and I felt like that was kind of an outlet. I could trust better and got all my blood tested and it came back a little better that time but he sat down with me and kind of went through everything and it was actually pretty nice because he went through things that my doctors never would have, but kind of the bottom line is when we went through everything we found out like I've just, when it comes to like diet and everything that I've been doing has just been doing perfectly. It's just I have low testosterone and I just don't produce enough. So started on, got me set up with treatment and I started it on this Sunday, this last Sunday on the 17th I believe. And I kind of just more or less wanted to learn about like what's kind of the best ways to like optimize like the process of like starting testosterone. Cause I really feel like, I feel like over the past years I just struggled to lose body fat and just couldn't do anything to fight it off. And I feel like understanding that like I don't produce enough testosterone. I felt like it's more or less like I've been a plant that's just constantly being sprayed with like weed killer and just not growing, not thriving. And I finally got the opportunity to get a little fertilizer and get really growing. And I feel like this is going to be a really good kickstart for me in my progress. And I just really want to know what I should do diet-wise mainly if, cause I'm trying, I guess my goal is to shed down a lot more percentages on my body fat. That's like the overall goal and just for longevity. So I'm kind of curious on where I should start the one while starting TRT. Yeah, good question and a very common one. And this is TRT is actually quite common nowadays. I've said this on the show but testosterone levels have been dropping and men pretty consistently decade after decade for like the last six decades. So not quite sure what's going on. We think there's multiple factors, but it's definitely an issue. And low testosterone in men is, or even in women, but in men in particular, it's quite devastating. It's a hormone that is a driver. It produces dopamine, makes you feel motivated. And of course it contributes to muscle gain and then indirectly to fat loss. But a lot of people wonder like, what do I change now that I'm on TRT? The same things that you do to build muscle, burn body fat and be healthy when you're not on TRT, is the same things that you would do when you're on TRT. Nothing changes, the advice remains the same. Now the only thing that changes is that now your hormones are working for you and not against you. So what you'll probably experience is better muscle gains, faster recovery, the fat loss because of the muscle gains starts to respond a little better. And usually what it looks like is this and I'm gonna go off of the studies, okay? The studies show that men on testosterone, even if they don't work out, build muscle and burn body fat, but the fat loss is the secondary effect because of the built muscle and the fast metabolism. So what you'll notice at first is more muscle and strength gains. But then as that kicks up your metabolism, then the fat loss starts to kick in. But nonetheless, all the stuff that you did before that was good and that works and that is based in science, good programming, good nutrition is the same stuff you're gonna apply today. And I do wanna say I'm happy that you went through nphormones.com because one comment you made that I wanna highlight for other people watching or listening is if you're not talking to an expert or somebody who specifically works in this, you kinda get brushed off or they don't really ask you all the questions and they may have an old mentality where, oh, even though you're within range, even though you're at the bottom, even though you have all these symptoms, we're not gonna have you do anything because that's wrong. We now know that optimal testosterone levels, all things being equal, improves health across the board. Heart health and prostate health and all the stuff that we thought that everything was. And it's very individualized too. It has to be individualized. So, but keep all the stuff you did before that you know is good and works, do the same thing. Here's a big mistake a lot of people do. They go on testosterone replacement therapy. Try and do more. They over train. Yeah, they think, oh no, I'm gonna double everything and I'm gonna ramp everything up because now I'm on testosterone. First of all, it's not like a pro bodybuilder taking anabolic steroids. But even then, you have to train your body to build that kind of resilience and the ability to respond to high volume, no matter what. It's not gonna jump by itself. So you just do what you've been doing that works and allow your optimal hormone levels now to work with you. And like I said, what you'll experience is, you just started. So you're not gonna notice much yet, but usually within, again, this is based off the literature, usually within four weeks or so, four to eight weeks, you'll notice an increase in libido, drive. Then you'll start to increase, notice increases in strength and muscle mass. And then as a result of the more muscle mass, then you'll start to see fat loss as the metabolism really starts to kick up. Now, one thing he asked though, is if he should continue his cut or move into a bulk. I would bulk right now. He just started TRT, now like to your point, his hormones are now working for him. I mean, what are your calories at? Do you know what your calories are at, Ben? It's pretty close to like, I think maintenance is somewhere around 27, 2800. I've been kind of playing with it, trying to figure it out. It's kind of, it's really, really hard for me to dial in. I weigh everything out and it seems pretty hard for me to dial in, but I would say somewhere around 27 to 2800 is maintenance. So 27 to 3000. Yeah, that's good advice then. Yeah. And I wouldn't want to put you in an aggressive bulk. I just want to make sure you're getting, yourself adequate calories, especially since your testosterone levels are optimized now. It's like 3,200 calories, 3,300 calories, something like that. Yeah, on the high end, right? So I think as long as you're giving your body enough of what it needs, because you're going to have, you're going to be sending the muscle building signal through lifting and then your body now has the hormones to get to work. Just want to make sure it's fed now. So make sure you hit your protein intake and get adequate calories. And I would do that for a while and just see what happens. And again, when I say bulk, I wouldn't aggressively bulk. I just make sure you feed the body. If you feel hungry and stuff, that could be just because your metabolism is kicking up, your body's wanting to build muscle. So I wouldn't want to deny that right now, right? Like even if you want to be leaner, I think you could actually increase your calories and potentially get leaner along the way because you'll build some muscle and it'll speed the metabolism up. Yeah, and just so that you know, I'm sure you already know this, but typically the process is you get assessed. They ask you also questions about your subjective state, how you feel, plus blood tests. Then they'll recommend a particular dose, but then you get a follow-up at about 90 days. And that's because it could be very individual. So with increases in exogenous testosterone, meaning that you have to take it externally, you may know what some people will produce more estrogen as a result, which because testosterone gets aromatized to estrogen. Yes, it's been. And some people are no problem. Other people are very sensitive to that. So then they would have to look at controlling estrogen more or less. Some people feel better on a higher dose. Other people feel better on a lower dose. And I know some people watching right now are like, what do you mean? Everybody feels better on a higher dose. Not true. No. Not true. There's people that I've talked to you say, you know what? I'm one of those people. Yeah, yeah. When I, even when I was competing and I was pushing the limits, like I had a threshold, anything over I started to get all kinds of negative effects. Like there's definitely a sweet spot for the amount of testosterone that I wanted to take to get the best results. Yeah. So they're gonna optimize it for you. It's gonna take probably about three to six months. But in that process, you just do the stuff you know that works. Like good resistance training, good diet, high protein, get good sleep. Don't think that you need to bump or change or aggressive any direction now that your testosterone levels are optimized. Because you'll offset it. It's not magic. You could have crazy testosterone levels and be over-trained and have a bad diet and you're not gonna get anything out of it. I mean, I knew people like this in the gym all the time that would take bodybuilder doses of antibiotics and we're like, why am I not gaining anything? You just get puffy from the water. Yeah, like your training's terrible and your diet's really terrible. So consider that as well. What's your program? You're following a MAPS program? Yeah, I'm currently on MAPS strong at week three of days long. Good. You're doing great, man. It's been pretty fun. I'm really ready to get down to the lower set though. Yeah, I do. The lower reps, because the 15 to 20 reps is kind of killing me. I mean, I just came out of split right before that. So it was kind of high reps to high reps again. Oh yeah. Strong is an interesting inversion of the phases in comparison to the other ones. Well, this will be cool when he hits to phase two because you're almost done with phase one, right? Is that what I'm reading? You're almost done with phase one? Yeah, so I got half a week left. And you just start to, this could be great. I can't wait to hear how you feel. Literally like three to six months from now, it's gonna, things are really gonna start moving for you because now your body's gonna work with you rather than you working against your body. Yeah, I really did feel like I was just fighting it. And like, if I really looked back, I was just constantly going against, just going against my body. And it just kind of sucked. And Ben, I can't stress this enough. Working with doctors that will continue to fine tune, work with you, ask the right questions, answer all of your questions because it can be very different from person to person. Some men need HCG to feel normal in some ways. Other men don't. Some men need more anastrasol, which helps reduce or stop the conversion of testosterone to estrogen. Then the dose can be too high or too low depending on the person. So this is all, and it's gonna take a little while to kind of figure it out because you're taking it externally. And so it could take as long as a year to really fine tune it. And you wanna work with people that get it. Not somebody that's like, all right, here you go, see you later. And then you come to them and you're like, why do I feel terrible? Why am I holding so much water? Or why am I whatever? So you're definitely on the right track. And MAP Strong is a great program. And use that forum. I mean, that's why we pay to have them take care of that is so you guys have access to people that are far smarter than we are that are talking to you about warm-ones. So when it comes to anything related to that, they're gonna be able to answer questions even better than we can. So take advantage that they're in there twice a month, answering live questions. And then through the day, every day, they're in there answering. So utilize that forum. Okay, I curious, how long do you think like, so if you said I should go and maybe just a little bit of a bulk, how long do you think today? Just if I felt, the problem I guess for me is I always feel hungry. So it's kind of hard for me to hit that. It's not hard for me to hit that calorie goal. I'll give you two answers. I'll give you one that's more specific and one that's a little more general. The general one is bump it until you feel like, oh, I'm eating a lot. I think I'm eating a lot now and I want to reverse out of it. The second thing is I think a guy your size, and you're already eating 2,800 calories maintenance, I mean 4,000 calories is a pretty good target. I very rarely do I see somebody happy eating more than 4,000 calories. It's a lot to do on a daily basis. So with my clients, once they got to 4,000, I would even try to cut them regardless. So those two right there, but of course it's gonna be based off how you feel. The key is gonna be not feeding yourself with trash, right? So I mean, someone like you, if we were training together, I'd actually kind of let you, hey, you're hungry, let's eat. But I would just say whole foods, bro. No, when I say eat, don't go, oh, I'm gonna go have some chips or throw some ice cream or throw some candy on there because I have extra calories to go and my coach is telling me to eat more. I would say, listen, if you are hungry, go get yourself some more steak and rice and veggies. And just, you know, I just, I would keep pushing that direction because with you following map strong, your hormones optimized, as long as we're getting adequate rests, everything else is balanced out pretty well. That's your body telling me, hey, I want more calories because I wanna build muscle. So I would want you to feed yourself. Perfect, yeah, I feel, yeah, a lot of, I've spent a lot of time before I even decided to go the route of talking with Dr. Todd. I spent a lot of time just optimizing that little stuff like sleep and what I eat because that's, because I mean, that's what's gonna, if I don't have a real problem, that's the first thing to fix it. Yep, 100%. Yep, no, you're working with the right, that's why we work with them. It's the only place we pick, it's the one place we pick because of that. So you're in the right hands, man. Perfect, thank you guys. Thanks, Ben. Yeah. We're getting a lot of these now that we were working with the hormone clinic. I tell you what, dude, you look at the data on this, this is an epidemic and testosterone replacement, if it continues down this path, it's gonna be the norm because it's going lower and lower and lower in men and there's consequences. 25 years old, yeah. Well, be honest. You know, and it's, again, he's not gonna get that kind of advice or any kind of guidance from a regular doctor out there. Like they're not even gonna address it because of his body fat percentage, like his weight, his age, like all these things are not gonna indicate that there's any kind of underlying problem. And so, you know, this is one of those things. It's like, it's great that now we have connections to somebody that actually has answers. Listen, we've been saying it for a long time. We knew it was heading in this direction. I believe we are in the same kind of era as the cannabis clubs were, you know, 15 years ago or 10, 10, 15 years ago. It's all getting de-stigmed with this. Yeah, there was a big stigma around it. Everybody was, it was sketched. And now it's like your aunt, your uncle, like friend. It's so interesting because if you go to a general practitioner and you're a 13-year-old girl and you have irregular periods like estrogen, progesterone, birth control, if you have insulin issues, insulin. You have, you know, any of the hormone issue, let's give you testosterone. Thyroid medication, 100%. That's why it's stigmatized. That's exactly why I think it's just like marijuana. You go to the doctor and you tell him you're anxious or you can't sleep at night or you have, you know, chronic pain. It's like, here's this pill, here's this drug. Here's this drug. It's like, okay, or maybe try a little bit of cannabis. See if that helps you. It's like, which one is the lesser evil to you? It's so crazy. And just like anything, it can be abused. And also, there can be reasons that are within your completely, and this is often completely within your control as to why your testosterone is maybe low. So if you- It was great that he did that though. Right. And this is why- That's why he started with that. This is one of my favorite things about MPHormones.com. Is that those people will ask those questions and they'll be like, oh, you're not working out. You sleep five hours a night. You eat garbage. Yeah, let's look at that first before we look at- Especially at his age. They'll always push that direction first at his age. You know, a little bit different if they're 45, 50. It's, you know, more likely- But yeah, when you go on hormone therapy to normalize or optimize your hormones, don't change anything. Allow your body to dictate if something needs to be changed. And what'll happen is, yeah, sure, if you start to get stronger, you feel better, and then you say, okay, I think more volume is appropriate. But don't throw the volume at your body before it's ready because you'll negate any potential benefits that you could be getting. Our next caller is Brian from California. Brian, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey guys, how's it going? Hey, I just wanted to start off by saying, you know, thank you guys so much for everything you do for the fitness community. And it's a real pleasure to be on your show with you guys. Thank you, man. All right, thanks. Yeah, so I sent in my question, was about like reconditioning for going back into the military. So just a little bit of background. I got out of the Marine Corps in June of last year. And, you know, I got really big into like, I guess, bodybuilding style workouts and, you know, just being in the gym is a really big hobby and I can't go a day without it, honestly. And recently I got with a coach to kind of help me get a physique that going that I really want to get, you know, like, because growing up, I was kind of the chubby kid and I didn't really have like the best looking body. And, you know, I really want to try to obtain that. And he's been helping me out a lot. He's been really good. But, you know, transitioning from that, going back into training to do stuff, you know, for military training, like training for the PFT and the CFT, I'm just a little confused on what I should do as far as like maintaining a goal to reach a physique, but also training for performance at the same time. I'm a little confused on what I should do, like how often I should train or like what I should incorporate exactly into my weight training. Yeah, I need more answers. I got some questions actually to help me give you a better advice. What are you, are there tests or something that you need to pass for the Marines or are you just looking for overall combat, fitness and readiness? Well, so there are fitness tests that you have to pass on a, they're actually a yearly qualification. So the PFT consists, it's a physical fitness test. It consists of a three mile run pull-ups and crunches. Okay. And there's also the CFT, which consists of a 800 meter run or more of a sprint. Ammo can lifts and maneuver under fire, which is kind of like an off school course that tries to simulate combat situations. Okay, are you worried about not passing those or do you feel like you can pass them no problem? No, I know for a fact that I can pass them no problem. Where my dilemma kind of is, is incorporating that type of training with weight training, trying to get a physique, if that makes sense. If you think you can pass no problem, you actually don't need to train that way that often. Maybe I would incorporate it bi-weekly, just to make- Twice a month. Yeah, just to check back with yourself to make sure that you still got it. But you could really shift most of your focus in the kind of bodybuilding direction. Since that's your primary goal, right? Like you're trying to build this aesthetic physique that you're looking for. And if you, as long as you feel like you've got what it takes to pretty much pass that test, I wouldn't worry too much about training a specific way to be great at that test. Like as long as you can pass that test. There's nothing to change if you could pass it. I would just, like Adam said, practice it a couple of times a month just so you know you got it. And just in case that's kind of like the canary in the coal mine, like, uh-oh, I didn't do the run well. Well- Yeah, and then leading in to closer towards these tests. Like you can always like do like a month out. Like this is where we try to peak up like conditioning for getting into season for athletes. Like you can treat it like almost a season where, you know, if you can time it appropriately, you adapt very quickly back to endurance. So that's something that you can sort of scheduled out. So, you know, the majority of your time training can be focused around hypertrophy. Yeah, I mean, honestly, twice a month test them out or if you wanna put it in your routine, I would do one of the tests once a week and then lift weights three or four days a week. I mean, if you're looking for a structured program that's gonna give you all of that, maps performance would be the best because you're gonna get the bodybuilding from it, but you're also gonna get the athletic performance aspect in the program that should take care of all that other stuff. So are you following any maps programs? I was following Split for a while. I just finished doing it for like a second time because I kind of wanted to jump into, like I said, I was transitioning back into getting ready for like the testing. So I'm not really following a program right now. Yeah, let's do maps performance. I think you'll like it. How long do we have till when you go back? So I signed my, most of my paperwork yesterday. It just depends on how long it takes to get sent up to the CO and all that good stuff. So it could, he said he's looking one to three months until I'm off again. Now, will you know like a couple weeks or a month in advance when you're about to? Yeah, so once I get the orders, he said it'll take like one to three months to get the orders and then after that, it'll probably give me a time on the actual orders when I have to report to my next duty station. So the last time that I reported to a duty station, they gave me like two weeks. So I know for sure that that's like the least amount of time I'll have. And you'll get at least that when it comes, when you actually get the, so it sounds like you're gonna have at least three months of training before you even have to potentially go in, right? Right, yeah. So I mean, in that case, I would actually run more like a maps aesthetic program and then transition a lot like Justin's saying, all I need in two weeks time. Okay, you know why like sports teams like all through high school, college, even professionals, they have like what they call hell week. And that week they train crazy hardcore endurance, many times do double days. And the reason why that's been effective for so long is because of what Justin said, it's like your cardiovascular endurance, you can improve that like daily. It's not like building muscle, it's totally different. And so you can literally have a couple of weeks before it's time to do that. And if you were kind of lagging on the running part or whatever, because you've been training so focused on bodybuilding, you could ramp that up in the last two weeks like literally by picking up runs every day. So I mean, if you really wanted to do the aesthetic thing, I mean, Sal's right, like performance, you're still gonna build a good aesthetic body while also building some endurance in there that cause that program's written for that. But aesthetic is heavily focused on sculpting. I mean, it's all about, you know, developing your body aesthetically. If you didn't, if you had trouble passing the test, our advice would be very different. That's right, for sure. I know lots of guys that they bodybuild, but at the drop of a hat, they can be quite athletic and have decent stamina. And so it's not an issue. But then I know other people who train like bodybuilders and you ask them to run down the block and they... They'll tear all their muscles. Yeah, and they can't do it. So, but the fact that you can pass those tests now and it's not an issue, you're not really in any emergency, you know, oh, gotta change my programming, you know, type of situation. So I hope that helps you out. No, yeah, it definitely does. Cause I was just getting a little stressed out, you know, with the programming, cause I am so like, I just like having like a schedule and like, you know what I like knowing what I'm doing next. So I think that's why I was kind of getting a little worried and stressed out about something like that. All right, well, which one do you want? Do you want aesthetic or performance? Gee, I don't know. All right, you'll get both. I'll send the both to you. You took too long, so I'll give you both. All right, well, that was strategic, that pause right there, I don't like that. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a hard choice because I mean, they both sound awesome, but I mean, I'll take your guys' advice no matter what, cause I mean, I've been listening to you guys for a real long time now. And you know, like I said, I really appreciate all the advice and all the, you know, you guys have built me up as a person a lot more than I used to because I used to have a lot of like body image issues. And you guys have really taken me out of that mindset and put me in a better spot. That's thanks to you for serving us, so. Yeah, there you go, brother. That's our gift. You go defend us and you put your life on the line for us, so it's the least we could do. Appreciate it. All right, thank you guys so much again for everything. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, it's overthinking. Yeah, yeah. You know, overthinking a lot of people. And I mean, I know, I literally, I'm sure you guys do too. I know people that train like bodybuilders and if you tell them to go play some basketball and they can pick up, play a game. I mean, they're not like super basketball players, but they're fine. They're not gonna die. And then I know, you know, people who lift and you ask them to, you ask them to, you know, to bend over and tie their shoes and they pull a muscle. So it's very different. Well, usually those guys like, didn't really have much athleticism. That's a big genetic component. Yeah, if you were an athletic in the first place and then you turn into a massive bodybuilder trying to go do something athletic. It doesn't even work. You're just a muscular, not athletic. I think that has a lot to do with it too. Plus he's 22. Yeah. When I was 22, it was like I could just bounce from one thing. Now I'd have to train. Well, and what you said, I think it's the most important point was because you said you could pass that test easily, we're not concerned about it. No. It's just, I mean, if you would have been like, oh, I'm a little worried or, you know, I've failed it before or I'm barely making it. It's like, dude, you're gonna be fine. Especially if you're training, like MAPS Aesthetic, you get into phase three and you feel like you're doing cardio a bit. Oh yeah. You, I mean. Well, that's just it. Your heart's racing. Forget that. Just go do a set of 25 reps in the barbell squat. Tell me you don't feel like you're in gas. Yeah, so you definitely build a little bit of stamina in phase three of Aesthetic, so he could literally follow that. And then like, let's say he gets his papers and it's like, hey, two weeks, you gotta report. Those last two weeks. Hell week. Here we go. Yeah, go hit, run, run. Go do the exact test like two or three times. Yeah, yeah. And then you'd be there, man. So it's incredible how fast you can improve that. Our next caller is Phil from Florida. Phil, what's happening? Hey, what's going on guys? How you doing? Good, all right. Awesome. Hey, it's a pleasure to be here. I've been listening to you guys for a little over a year now. And I can say thanks in large part to you guys. I'm in the best shape of my life at 42 years old. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. That's right. So question I got for you guys is I'm active duty Navy and I'm getting ready to ship out in about two months on a ship schedule right now. It'll be about out about six months right now. I'm doing map strong. I did anabolic before this and feel good. I feel strong. And so going on a ship equipment is going to be very subpar. There'll be some dumbbells. Maybe a couple of machines. From what I hear, there's a Smith machine. So my question for you guys, part one was, your guys thoughts on a training program. I was thinking about doing an old dumbbell workout, maybe some isometrics. So I wanted you guys input on that on what kind of program I could put together so that I can hopefully continue to get stronger and stay in great shape. How long are we on the ship? How long are we on the ship for? It's scheduled for six months right now. Okay. I love the idea of doing suspension right here. I think with you doing anabolic strong and bringing a suspension trainer with you would be a great place to go. You know, anabolic and strong have dumbbell only versions in the programs too. I hadn't noticed that. Yeah, so when you log into the program, there's an option to where you could get all the alternative exercises that are all dumbbell based. We did at home blueprints basically for people. But Adam's, I mean, that's exactly what I would have said. Map suspension, you bring a suspension trainer with you, you could hook up anywhere. And man, that is a great program, especially if you've never trained like that before. Really, really good for fitness. Justin, did we do the at home mod also for performance? Yeah. So I would love, this perfect world for me is I'd have you run through suspension first and then the back half of your trip I'd have performance dumbbell modification run. And then you had a question about nutrition too, I see? Yeah, so on the ship, right now I eat four times a day. I literally track all of my calories to make sure I get my protein and my calorie in. That's not gonna be possible on the ship because I'm not cooking my own food. The biggest concern for me is gonna be getting in enough protein every day. Literally the only time you can actually request how much food you want is breakfast for the rest of the day, it's whatever they give you. So I mean, I was considering just bringing as much protein powder as I can carry with me to supplement with that. Yeah, I love that, it's the move. You know why I like it? It's super easy to take with you. You could store it, it doesn't need to be refrigerated. Super easy source, but this is more protein powder has become clutch, you know what I mean? So yeah, I would take a lot of protein powder with you and use that to hit your targets with breakfast, lunch, and dinner or in between if you have access for sure. Right, yeah, I mean, we'll be working, I work on 12 hours, 12 hours, 12 on 12 off, so there'll be a lot of time for me to just whip up protein shake so it wouldn't be an issue at all. Yeah, no, you'll be, what are you gonna be doing on the ship? I'm an aircraft mechanic. But I mean, I'm a little bit beyond that these days. I sit mostly desk job and tell people what to do, so. Yeah, well, you're 42, right? So probably been doing this for a little while. You'll be able to work on our G6 once we convince Doug to buy 150, right? Hey, I'll be for hire, for sure. Okay, good to know, you're hired. Any secret spaceship aircraft that we have that we don't know about yet? How's your chance to tell us the truth about our military? I'd be way above my pay grade. All right, look, we're gonna send you map suspension and map performance, so you have both of them. Oh, hell yeah. And you'll be all set. And again, we appreciate what you're doing out there, man. And Sal was actually wrong about the strong having the at-home mod. Yeah, thanks for saying that. That's actually one of the programs we didn't have it on, but we do have it for anabolic performance and aesthetics. They have a dumbbell only. So follow the suspension trainer program first. That's gonna be great for you when you get through and done to that. Move to maps performance and look for the at-home mod inside there. So what Sal was explaining, that's actually in performance. And then you can just use the dumbbells for that program. Oh yeah, that sounds great, guys. Cool. Thanks Phil. Hey, thank you guys. Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. This is a perfect, people are always asking about supplements and stuff. Great example. And our advice is always, you know, whole foods. This is a perfect example of protein powders. Makes perfect sense. He's another option. Yeah. This is a great way to incorporate it. Yeah, and then you're on a ship, so it's limited space. You know, you're not gonna get fresh foods into you all the time if you're in the ocean. You take jugs of protein powder, that'll store for six months, no problem. Yeah, I'd even stock up on a bunch of different types of bars and all kinds of stuff. Bars and shakes have for snacks in between your meals that you can actually get. I can't imagine what that's like, huh? Working out, staying on a ship for six months. Have you ever done a cruise before? I did, and I hated it. Yeah. It was all about the food. I've been on a few, and yeah, the food's not the best. Oh, it's nice that you've got different places you can kind of dock and go check out, but yeah, it gets old after all. It's like a teaser though. It's like you don't get the day there, and you gotta go or whatever. Depends on the one. Yeah, but suspension's just, that's so perfect. That's one of the best muscle building, like I don't have space, I don't have a lot of equipment to have workouts. You can add intensity to body weight training, which is great. Oh, you can make it as a, you can make it hell of advanced. Really hard. Or super easy, depending on the angles. Our next caller is Brandon from Texas. Brandon, what's happening? So I'll just get straight to it. Kind of might be a two, three part question, but I have to listen to you guys now, a new listener. I think I've kind of might just figured out how you might answer the first question, but long story short, a little bit of background here. Pre COVID, I was a competitive weightlifter, Olympic weightlifter, so snatch, clean and jerk. I considered myself pretty strong at the time, snatching 320 plus pounds, clean and jerking, 400 plus pounds, you know, decent back squat, bench press, et cetera. Competed at the national level quite a bit. And then COVID happened, all the gyms in Texas shut down for a long period of time. Fitness is kind of my, kind of my cure for kind of stress in my work job. So I decided to pick up running, since that was really the only thing I could do during COVID, had no access to a garage gym, all the gyms were shut down, weightlifting, powerlifting, CrossFit gyms all across Texas. So gone to running. And one of the ways I kind of typically keep myself motivated is I always sign up for some sort of bowl, where there'd be a weightlifting competition, powerlifting, in this case, half marathon and marathon. So I spent two years of COVID running, trained for a full marathon, got COVID, got sick, and then reduced that to a half marathon. And then recently I just did another half marathon trail running. My kind of two big questions. One is all this running, I feel like has really kind of taken a bad, a bad turn in terms of my health. At least not by the doctor saying health, but just how I feel in general. I'm more achy, I'm a lot more tighter. I carry a lot more body fat, even though I was running, you know, 40, 50 miles a week. Based on some of the podcasts that I'm listening to, I feel like my metabolism has absolutely crashed. So that's kind of the first piece there. The second piece is kind of, I really want to get back into strength training, since gyms are back open in Texas, I'm really having a hard time taking that step forward, kind of the mental side of it. Going from putting 400 pounds above my head to struggling to pick up 200 pounds off the ground is pretty tough on the mental side of things, you know, starting right thing from. So kind of any advice there as well is how we could, you know, address that mental side of it, like preparing yourself for what is considered a heavy workout now, even at one time it was considered like warm up sets. I think that's kind of the gist of the two questions, but that crash metabolism and just negative health effects from two years of running. And then how do you, how would you suggest kind of getting started getting the strength forward to really tighten up that mental side to get into lifting everything off the ground again? Yeah, no, it's a good question and what you're experiencing is quite common. And yeah, your metabolism did slow down. It became efficient and good at running. So I'm sure you can run really well now, but pairing muscle down is kind of part of that process, especially when you go from being as strong as you were to what you're doing now, your body is changed and adapted. That's totally normal. Now, what does this mean? Brandon means your body can adapt in the other way too, right? You can go back to what you did before, you just got to give it time. So when you get back into the gym, just take your time, go slow, allow your body to adapt and it's a snowball effect. And what you'll notice is it'll slow, at first you're just gonna kind of feel sore and then the strength will kick in a little bit and then it'll happen faster and then it's kind of the snowball effect. And muscle memory, I'm sure you're familiar with that term you've probably heard it before. It's well documented. It is well documented. If you take your time, you don't over train, you cut the running down or eliminate it and go back to the gym and slowly start the Olympic lifting again and give your body a chance to catch up, you'll be where you were before much faster than you will realize. But you got to be patient and give yourself an opportunity because what you don't want to do, here's the deal. Don't make perfect be the enemy of better, right? Yeah, it's not perfect right now because you haven't been doing it but that doesn't mean what you're gonna do is better, isn't better, it's better and then soon you'll get back to where you were before and your body will adapt, it's an adaptation machine so don't worry about that so much. That would be the best piece of advice I give you. Brandon, how old are you? I am 31 years old. Okay, so I just want to comment on your competitive mindset that you got to be careful of. So you're 31 right now, this is about when you're gonna start to notice this shit. Matter of fact, this is probably your first example of this, like approaching your training always with this, I got to compete, I've got to have an event, I've got a PR, I've got to, that's gonna lead you down the wrong path and you're gonna run into more issues like this. Next comes injuries, metabolism slowing down, eventually one day you will get weaker, like we don't always just keep getting stronger. So learning to change your relationship with training and exercise, it's less of a competition and it's more of a dance. And if you don't start to figure that out now, your body will force you to figure it out as you get older. So this is common, I had lots of clients that they always felt like they needed to have this competition in order to motivate them to go to the gym. And it is, it's a mindset thing. You need to start, stop looking at your exercises like there's this end goal that I'm trying to get and it's a lifelong journey. And part of that is just reframing it, when you train is actually paying more attention to, how was my day today? Was I a better person? Was I nicer to my partner? Did I kick ass at work today? Did I sleep better? Like, do I feel better? Start making the connections to your training to your overall life and how it enhances and improves that and less about how much weight is on the bar, how much closer you are to your marathon time. You've got to break, but and that doesn't mean we can't have a marathon. It doesn't mean we can't train for competition. But when you have a, I can tell by the question that you, this is, you're this type of person. Justin, I know we'll have something to contribute because he's like this. I was a little bit like this too, have an athletic background. And, you know, you want to get out of that mindset or else you're going to find yourself in this trap. It'll just look different next time. Well, that feeds perfectly into your question of how to get in that mindset, a better mindset towards your strength training even though you might not have the same weight on there that you used to when you were competitive about your Olympic lifting. You know, you really need to start looking at your long-term health, your holistic health, like how your body is improving overall from, you know, multiple directions. And getting in that place is a tough transition, especially when you're in that competitive, disciplined, athletic mindset. This took me a few years actually to really identify differently because you're so strongly identified with this competitive go-getter and I want to win something. And so to just gradually work on that and really just appreciate the fact of what this is providing your body, you know, how much you can improve your overall sleep, your relationships, your energy levels. Like you can just start transitioning your focus elsewhere instead of winning something. So I'm gonna advise you to do a different program than I think that the guys might, I think typically we would recommend like a MAPS anabolic here because we're trying to, you know, rebuild the metabolism. That's one of the things that we talk about the program that's so great about it, the way it's structured. But I actually, I would rather, if you were my client, I'd actually rather see you do performance. And the reason why I'd want you to do performance is because of the mobility days and the emphasis on like the mechanics and the movement. And instead of us being competitive about how much stronger we're getting, I know we're gonna be doing some unique exercises that maybe you don't traditionally do that are like in performance. And I would be in your ear constantly about the beauty of the movement and technique. And that's what we're being competitive with. You want to be competitive, let's be competitive with how much better are you moving this week than you were last week. You know, how much further range of motion you have in your squat compared to the week before. And if you need that competitive drive, just shift it in a different direction instead of always being these feats that you have to pass with the weight or the time. Well, you probably noticed that in your Olympic lifts, right? Like you just sharpening the technique over and over and over and drilling it. What did that do in terms of once you started stacking weight? Right, exactly. Because, you know... Yeah, it's gonna improve everything. Straight kind of plateaus. And then the technique is what really makes commitment not to believe it's your strength. Well, Brandon, today's your lucky day because I actually disagree with the program recommendation. Yeah, I don't think... I think mass performance would be great, but I'm gonna recommend map symmetry because I think having you do squats and presses is gonna bring you back to what you used to be able to do. And map symmetry is gonna be so different. You're gonna have nothing to compare it to. So you're not gonna feel bad about anything. I mean, the first two weeks is isometrics. After that, it's all unilateral. And I'm assuming you never really did a lot of unilateral training. So you're not gonna have anything to compare it to. It's all gonna be new. So you're not gonna lift, you know, do a unilateral exercise, but like, oh, I used to do a lot of weight. I like, I never really did this. It's gonna address all underlying, you know, imbalance. Yeah, and it's just so different psychologically. I'm not against that. I think that's great advice. So, we're gonna send you both. That's why I said you're lucky because we already recommend a mass performance. So I'm not gonna take that away from you. But I'm gonna send you map symmetry too. You can choose whichever one you wanna pick. I just think doing different resistance training exercises that you've never really done before, you're not gonna have anything to compare it to. So you're not gonna feel so bad about it, right? It's all new, right? So I've never done this before. I don't know how strong I used to be, but whatever, I'm just gonna get better at this. Yeah, I mean, that's the same advice in a sense, right? That's the same thing that I'm looking for in mass performance with him is I know that there's gonna be movements that he probably doesn't traditionally do. And the same advice though applies for me, regardless if you're doing performance or symmetry, which is make it all about the movement. The workout. Yeah, you know, get rid of the, you know, needing to increase the weight on the bar every week. For you, get back into the love of the technique and movement and let that be the driver, let that be the thing that you're competitive about. Yeah. No, I appreciate it, that makes perfect sense. I mean, I get stuck in that mindset already. The first thing I did was like, okay, I'm gonna jump on a five free one program to get my strength back to normal. Right. But I'm always comparing myself to what I used to with and that makes perfect sense. Now, the cool part about what Sal recommended with symmetry is you'll actually get to do that at the end of the program. So, you know, discipline yourself to do the things that we're talking about and then the last phase of symmetry is like one of our favorite parts of that program is the reveal. Okay, now let's give you a traditional five by five and let's see how you express all those movements. So you'll get your opportunity to go get to put some weight on there, but first do these steps. Yeah, totally. All right. Awesome. All right, and one more thing, Brandon, you know, this comparing yourself to your previous lifts, I get that and the advice that the guys are giving you, like really take it seriously because if you don't, you're going to have to anyway. Like at some point, you're not going to be as strong as you used to be. At some point, if you're, look, some of us are blessed with old age and at some point you're going to hit 40 and 50. And if I always compared myself to my best, I'm 43 now. And if I compare myself to my best lifts, you know, and I keep doing that, I'm going to hurt myself. It's not going to work anymore. So you have to change the mentality and it's better to do it now than it is when you're forced. As long as you're better than all your friends that are your age. That's the key right there. Yeah, look around at your friends. They're all fat. That's not a difficult challenge. I'm like, you know, we're good. All right, Brandon, thanks for calling in, man. Awesome. Thanks, guys. You got it. I actually almost forget we have symmetry because we, because it's so brand new. I mean, we're not supposed to give away a brand new program. But that's, I think that's great advice. And again, too, that's not, there's never, we're never answering. I just know myself and if I have a layoff, it messes with my head to do exercises that I traditionally do and I'm good at. And so I purposely will do stuff I never do because I don't have a frame of reference. What a perfect program to bring yourself back though. Oh yeah. You know, like that's, I was just thinking about that. But I swear to God, man, I used to get clients like this all the time. Like in order for them to stay motivated, they had to sign up for a marathon. They had to sign up for this. This will be his Achilles heel. Totally. His Achilles heel will be, and you know, and it's tough to get somebody out of this mindset because it's served them so well for most of their life. Yeah, cause on the surface it doesn't look bad. Yeah. Right? Well, and I bet he's had a lot of wins in life by applying this mindset. And that's why it took me a long time to get out of it. Cause who's going to tell me like, this is how I do it. You know, grind, get after it, compete with myself, compete with others. Like that's always elevated me. But at one point, like you're, that's why I asked his age. It was sooner or later. He doesn't serve you anymore. Yeah. Sooner or later it catches up and they're always going to be somebody else that's stronger or faster than you. And if that is the way you look at your training all the time, you'll eventually break down. You'll either quit or just get hurt all the time. You got to switch the mindset and start to attach it. And what that looks like is ignoring the things that you traditionally look at and focusing more on the things that most people actually don't think about from lifting. Like I said, your relationship, the way you communicate. I mean, I even noticed things that I've shared on the podcast that it's so stupid. I'm a better husband at home when I work out because I come home and because I lifted, I feel active and want to move. And so I go right into cleaning the house and supporting Katrina. So now when you work out, you know that. Yes. I do. And I recognize that, oh, wow. Because there's been times when I'm feeling sluggish and not helping out around the house. And then what does that do? It causes friction between her and I because I'm not supporting her and it's like, wow. So my workout isn't just about me getting stronger or looking better all the time. Sometimes it's also being about better partners. So learn to make the connections to all those other things. I try to tell my wife, if I didn't work out, let me tell you. However annoying I am now, way worse. So you should be very happy that I worked out every single day. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com. Check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with any fitness or health goal and they're all free, okay? You can also find us all on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. 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