 Our next caller is Shannon from Pennsylvania. Hey Shannon, how can we help you? Hey guys, how are you? Good, good. Good. It's amazing to be on here today. I listen to you guys every day. I never miss an episode. Oh, thank you. So I'll just jump into it. So my question is about building my metabolism. So a little background. Two years ago, I competed in my first speaking bodybuilding show. My coach kept me on prep for about 10 months and had me ready eight weeks prior to my show. But instead of increasing my calories and reversing me into the show, she continued to keep me at under 1200 calories in about two hours of cardio every day for those remaining eight weeks. So at five, six, I went from weighing in the 140s and I went on stage at 112 pounds. Unfortunately, I did stay with her for another prep. That was shortly after that first one, but three weeks out, it was canceled due to COVID. So six months after that, I did get a new coach and she did bulk me back up to about 152 and then we started another prep. After six months, I decided to call that prep off because my body was not responding and I wasn't willing to ruin my hormones or anything else for another show. And at that point, at the end of the six months, I was doing about 1200 to 1300 calories, 120 minutes of cardio, and I had only dropped about 10 pounds. So I ended that prep this past May and have been honestly trying to figure out what to do next ever since. So currently, I'm holding steady between 140 and 145, but I don't feel fully comfortable at this weight. I did try to do a mini cut, but after six weeks at about 1200 calories and four days of an hour of cardio, I barely lost anything. My body didn't respond. So I know that my current metabolism is awful. I feel like with my height and how much muscle I have that my maintenance being around 1400, 1500 calories, I think that's extremely low. And I know that I need to reverse and increase my calories, but I, one, would prefer not to put on more weight. And two, I really don't want to put on more muscle. I do think that my upper body is where I would want it to be. I don't see myself competing anytime soon again. So if I do put on muscle, I do focus on my lower body. And so my question is to put it simply is, how do I increase my metabolism without getting that much muscular if it's possible? Shannon. So, okay, at this stage, looking back, actually right now, while you're telling us about your first coach that had you prep for almost a year and doing two hours of cardio a day on top of your resistance training workouts, when you say that now, or when you look back, how do you feel about it? Do you feel like it was a good idea? Do you think it was totally damaging looking back? Like what's your opinion on it now? It makes me really frustrated, to be honest, because I live and breathe health and fitness. And for some reason, I just did what she told me and I ignored all the red flags. So it's very frustrating because I, if I had a proper coach, I know that I could be really good, a really good bodybuilder. Let's go back, okay? So why did you stick with it that long? You said you live and breathe health and fitness. What made you ignore all the obvious signs that this was not good and this is... Were you not listening to Mind Pump yet? I was not, no. I wasn't listening to you guys yet, but I also do have a history of binge eating and I actually hired her as a lifestyle client first to get my macros in order because after trying to figure it out myself, it wasn't happening. So seeing the results, like seeing myself actually lose weight, it was addicting, so I stuck with her. Okay, so I'm glad you were honest about that, Shannon, and I felt like there was something else there that you might not have told us. Knowing that, and I do want to say this, and this isn't for you, I think you might have already figured this out, but this isn't for anybody listening right now. If you have a history of binge eating or anorexia or any type of an eating disorder or disorder related to that, the absolute worst thing you can do for yourself is enter into some kind of a contest where you get judged on your body, especially bikini or bodybuilding or physique or something along those lines. It's a very, very bad thing to do. It typically results in worse outcomes for people. And now what we're dealing with is this, Shannon. Now you're in a situation where you literally have to heal your body. You can't diet. If you diet, and I think you might already understand this, if you start to diet now, nothing happens. Your body's so resistant because of the trauma that you put it through with a 10 month prep and then followed up with a very short bulk with another cut. Your body just wants to hold on. It has a memory of what happened. And what you have to do is get healthy. You have to give your body a chance to get healthy. So the scale, toss it. No more weighing yourself. No more judging your body by its appearance. You're going to have to take care of yourself and allow your body to heal for a second. What does that mean? Feed your body. Eat whole natural foods. Stay away from heavily processed foods because those can definitely be triggering and make us want to overeat. Just training. I would avoid all that crazy cardio that you're doing because I think you have a bad relationship with it considering you've done hours of it, even on your reverse diet. So I would say just walk. Just go outside and walk if you want to do some form of cardiovascular activity. Lift weights a few days a week. Focus on full body and heal your body. Don't worry about gaining weight. Don't worry about losing weight. Don't worry about gaining muscle. None of that matters until you get your body to the point where it's healthy and not scared anymore about the fact that it might have to go back to where it was before. If you do that for a while, I think you'll be shocked at how your body starts to respond. But it may take a while. It may take you a year or two. You've done about a year or maybe even more than a year. You actually did more than a year of this kind of damaging approach to yourself and maybe even before that. I don't know what you did before that. So it may take you a year to come out of it, but that doesn't mean within that year you're going to gain 50 pounds of body fat and oh my God, what happened to me. If you take care of yourself in a very genuine way, you'll be very pleasantly surprised that you're not going to get some crazy rebound, but you're going to give your body an opportunity to heal a little bit. And then at that point, you can get back on focusing on maybe more of a reverse diet or whatever. But I think right now, if we focus too heavily on calories and macros and the scale and all that stuff, I don't think that's a great idea for you at this moment. You also said something that would concern me if you're a client and I'm trying to help you in this direction, which was that you do not want to put on any muscle right now. And if you've got that in the back of your head while you're also trying to build your metabolism right now, it's going to be really tough for you to overcome what you potentially might see in the mirror during this process. Because if I tell you to limit or cut out cardio completely and I say just focus on strength training, feed your body like Sal is saying, there is very much so a potential that we might put a few pounds on. You might look a little fuller. You might build some muscle. But I'd have to be in your ear on a regular basis telling you this is just part of the process. Just trust the process. We've got to rebuild this metabolism. I promise you that losing muscle is one of the easiest things you could ever do in life. So don't worry. We can peel it down later if you absolutely hate it. But right now, our focus has to be around getting you healthy. And for me, it would be a little more prescriptive. I know Sal was kind of, you know, being vague. But I would say you're lifting only two to three times a week. MAPS anabolic is what I would have you on. You are not allowed to do any cardio. You could walk. So if you have a routine, because there's one thing I never want to take from my clients, if you really enjoy that getting on the treadmill or StairMaster or doing these long bouts of exercise, I wouldn't say, you know, go sit on the couch and do nothing. I'd say, okay, well go for a nice walk. You know, go walk on the treadmill if you want or ride a recumbent bike and read a book or do something that's more recuperative and active at the same time. But I do not want you pushing the body and running and sweating doing cardio. Movement is fine. But mainly focused around the two to three days a week of a full body routine. That is it as far as strength training and then the rest focused around, you know, eating the whole foods and slowly increasing your calories. Our goal would be, can I minimize the amount of weight that I put on while also increasing calories over the course of the next six months plus? And Sal's right. We have to fix this first before we worry anything about our aesthetics and if you want to get out of this, if you want to get out of this, that's got to be the focus. And again, not to pile on because this is a good time to address the audience. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with online virtual coaches. Now, this is an extreme example because you're a competitor, but this is happening every day to thousands, maybe more than thousands of people that are hiring these people online to give them diets and recommendations to get their body to look a certain way. And it's dangerous. And it could really affect somebody long-term and you got to focus on health first and get that under control. Shannon, are you in the market for another coach? No. No, currently I'm not. If you are, if you get to the point where you'd like to hire someone to help you, do not hire a fitness coach, definitely don't hire a prep coach. I would suggest you work with a therapist that understands and works with either eating disorders or body image issues. So, non-fitness-related, but someone you can talk to on a regular basis, on a weekly basis or bi-weekly basis, that focuses on those things. Now, here's how I'm going to sell it to you, Shannon, and I'm not going to lie to you, I'm going to be very honest. If you work with that kind of a therapist, you'll get better results than you ever did with the other coaches. I'm talking about physical results, okay? You will get the side effect of that. You'll get better physical results, even though they're not going to coach you on fitness or macros or calories. They're just going to work on body image and they're going to work on eating issues and relationships with food and relationships with yourself. And that's, I'll put my money on that all day long. So, if you think to yourself, I want to hire somebody, go in that direction. Not only is this something that I think you'll just benefit from generally, but I think physically, you'll get way more out of that than any fitness nutrition coach that you'll find. Okay. All right, do you have MAPS anabolic, by the way? I do, yes. Oh, good. So, you're set. You know what, Shannon, we're going to put you, if you're not in the private forum, we're going to let you in the private forum. I would love for you to give us some, you know, just to let us know how you're doing. Yes, please, please. Okay. And as the challenges arise, which they will, share with us and we'll do our best to kind of help support along the way. Because for me, I think the hardest thing that I know I would have to deal with is you already kind of know in your head, I don't want to build muscle and so you're going to struggle with that a little bit as you start to potentially put on a little bit of weight. It's going to be a head game. This is going to be really, really hard on your psyche and I can relate, okay? Because I know I went through something kind of similar. So, it's going to be a challenge, understand that, know that going into it, that, okay, the obstacle in my way is going to be me and remember that because you're going to, that side of you is going to emerge, especially if you haven't weighed yourself in a few weeks and maybe you're feeling a little bit tighter in your jeans or maybe you're getting stronger. Uh-oh, am I gaining weight? What's going on? That's going to be your biggest challenge. So, just keep that in mind, okay? Try to stay above that. Try to maintain kind of an elevated view of everything because it'll lead you in the right direction. Okay. I have a quick follow-up. So, you said do not focus on any macros or calories right now so don't count or track. No. No, eat whole natural foods. You know, make sure you're eating protein with every meal but don't, just listen to your body. So, eat until you're satisfied, not until you're stuffed. Does that make sense? Do you know what that feels like? Yes. Okay. And if you were going to track anything, I'd say just pay attention to the protein intake and you don't even have to be precise. It's like you know your body weight somewhere in the 130, 140, so make sure you're getting about 110 to 120 grams of protein a day and as long as you're close to that consistently. Yeah. If you're eating 30 to 40 grams of protein three times a day, you're fine. Yeah. Yeah. Not an issue. I get around like 160 now. Okay. All right. Good. So, as long as you hit that and then stick to the whole foods and then you'll be fine. Yeah. Thanks for calling in, Shannon. Good luck. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. You know, these... I get so fucking heated. It makes me so mad because... It gets me all... Oh, I know this is your guy's world so I'm just like... Bro, they literally prey on people's challenges and insecurities and the problem is this, this coach that helped her, here's the worst part of it. Okay. The worst evil is done by people who think they're doing good. Yeah. That's the problem. The problem is these idiots think that they're doing the right thing. And it's because they themselves have these terrible relationships with their body and diet and nutrition. So, they think they're doing the right thing. This worked for me. So, let me do it. With a 10 month prep. This is crazy. With two hours of cardio, 1200 calories a day. This is happening all over the place. And this is again... You know how many people, too? You know the trend has become, too, to hire a prep coach just to get you in shape. Forget that you're going to get on stage, that this whole Instagram coaching thing has gone so viral and that's what people do. Save your money. Is, oh, let me look at this body that looks amazing. Oh, they're a pro physique competitor. They're a pro bikini. So, and they do coaching. So, I'm going to... Just apply the same process. Yeah, I'm going to hire them, get ready for Vegas in three months. These are the idiots that are going to get personal training super-regulated by the federal government. This is right here. The idiots right here hurting people. That's going to make... And it makes all coaches and trainers look bad. I mean, it's times like this, I wish, you know, maybe I shouldn't have, but I would have loved to get this person's name out there so that nobody hires us more on anymore. Well, the truth is, there's more of them than the other side. I know, you cut one head off. It's like a Hydra, right? Yeah, it doesn't even matter. Like, you're not even... Yeah, there's too many people that this is happening to right now and it's really, really sad to see. I'm so glad, though, that you did bring up the eating thing. You smelt it out right away, that there was something more there. It was underlying. And the irony in this is that the people that are attracted to this, which we talk about at the time, the people that are the ones that need it the least, that's the most dangerous for, if you already have body image issues or you have any sort of an eating disorder in the past, literally going to compete is the worst thing you could possibly... Try talking them out of that. It's difficult. It's like being an ex-alcoholic and then signing up for wine tasting every weekend or something like that. Like, what are you doing? The odds of you not relapsing into some kind of dysfunction are so small. So don't do that if you have any body image issues. Unfortunately, the majority of people that sign up for those contests, that's why they sign up for those contests. I know, but also the problem is, but are also not aware that they have body image issues. They think that's... And sometimes it's willingness. They're willingly unaware. Like, she knows going into this that she had bulimia issues, but you willingly ignore, like, oh, no, I'm going to keep doing this. It's not until after when you look back and go, wow, like, what have I done? And it just makes me upset because people in our space... It was bad advice. We have the tools to solve health problems, not to create them. Like, we shouldn't be creating more health issues.