 I've tried to film this video like four times, so we'll see if this time actually works. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense. I'm out here in my shop today and it's cold, so that's why I'm wearing my jacket. But I'm out here in the middle of my lifts and I've been thinking, you know, I've since February, I've lost like 20, 25 pounds, something like that. And throughout that journey, I've kind of been thinking about what is the perfect build, you know, physically for the American Minute Man. Is that a thing? I'm not just making that up, like what does that actually mean? And for me, you know, it probably is, and for you it might be different, this is just my opinion, right? It's that sweet spot between being able to be strong, we wanna be strong, being strong is important, right? And being able to carry load over distance. I think about like the Army Rangers, for example, right? If you look at a lot of like Army Rangers, like elite infantry guys, Rangers, special forces, not the SEALs, because they're all like big and huge and do lots of lifting and are doing like direct action missions on ships or whatever. But I'm talking about like traditional, infantry, elite, special forces guys, right? Rangers, special forces, those kind of things. They don't look like, you know, chiseled Greek statues. I mean, they're fit. You look at them and you think, oh, that guy's definitely fit, like they obviously know what they're doing. But they don't like look super bulky or impressive or whatever. They just look like, like, you know, fit normal dudes. And I think that's because they've built their bodies to the mission type of being able to carry load over distances, right? Like some of the final rock marches for those things, like Rangers or special forces, whatever, you're talking like 20, 25 miles of marching with like a 60 pound rock or something stupid insane. That's hard, right? That's a lot of work. That's a very mentally difficult thing, which is why they do the test. But again, they're building their bodies to be able to carry load over distance and just keep going, right? Again, there's a big mental component there that we're not talking about. We're just talking about the physical component right now. And I think that that's kind of where I wanna be as much as I can, right? This is not a fitness channel, you know, whatever, there's lots of stuff out there for that. But I will say that your fitness is important, right? And you need to take care of your body. And as I've been more and more thinking about like weight carrying, right? And how much weight is on my kit. If you're doing that, but you're carrying an extra 20 pounds on your body, what are you doing, right? I mean, you're trying to cut all these little ounces off your kit, but you're not cutting ounces off your body. You see where I'm going with this? Like for example, right? I mean, I've lost, like I said, 20, 25 pounds. Last time I weighed in was a couple of days ago. It was like 205. So I'm down like 23 pounds for my max weigh-in, okay? If the 23 pounds, that's like carrying my plate carrier for free, essentially, right? Or my ruck and my rifle for free. Like that's just like essentially carrying those things for free because I've dumped that weight off my body. And now when I get to carry a gear piece, right? I get to carry it for free. So I think there's some advantage to that obviously, right? The more muscle, the more fat, the more mass you have on your body, the more energy you need to expel to move it, the harder your heart has to work, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like there's just, again, not a fitness channel, not a health channel. But my point remains the same. If you're gonna carry extra weight on your body and cut extra weight off your kit, why wouldn't you just cut the extra weight off your body? Why wouldn't you start with that first, right? That makes the most sense. And now I know there's a lot of like mental issues around weight loss and all this other garbage and whatever, I'm not gonna get into that. My point is really simple. Build your body, your body is far more plastic than you give it credit for. Build your body to the mission that you wanna accomplish. And whatever that is for you. For me, it's, hey, I wanna be able to carry, I wanna be able to move under load. I wanna be able to sustain myself and move under load. Because as an American man, I think that's one of the more important things to happen. Ideally I'll be working around vehicles and whatever, but who knows if things get really bad, might not have vehicles anymore and might just have to hoof it. So I want to be able to move under load. We are going to accomplish this mission. And it's, we're not gonna fail this mission because Dylan can't continue to go, okay? That's not acceptable. That's not gonna happen. So, think about that. Think about what your perfect build is for you as an American man. What are you targeting? How are you trying to get there, right? Simplest ways, if you need to lose weight, in my opinion, okay, again, not a fitness channel. Just stop eating food. That's pretty simple. I did that and that was super effective. So, like with a one meal a day thing. So, think about it. How are you building your body to fit the mission set? Build your body like you build your gear. Take that into account. It's a very important account. And let's be honest, it's gonna improve your general quality of life. Anyway, right? Do your brave deeds. And endure.