 Who's the worst person to give you health advice when it comes to diet? Is it fitness influencers? Hey, we're going to see how many people we can trick into eating testicles. Is it diet companies and supplement companies? No, one of those. The worst person is the government. They get almost everything wrong for the last, I don't know, four decades. Remember, they told us fat was bad. You know the chief killer of Americans is cardiovascular disease. Keys preached about the risks of fatty foods. And they were wrong. Remember they said, don't eat egg yolks, they're unhealthy for you. You cannot say eggs are safe to eat, can't say they're safe, can't even mention safety. Turns out, they're very healthy for you. Remember when they said dietary cholesterol, avoid it at all costs. Turned out they were completely wrong, so here's my favorite one, margarine. Oh, so much better for you than butter. Butter is fattening. Wait, this butter is delicious. Oh, that's not butter. I don't believe you, Gloria. You know that processed, trans fat, weird looking thing? Yeah, no, it's actually not only is it worse for you, it's terrible for your health. Oh yeah, grains, grains should make up most of your diet. Well, probably not. How about this, red meat isn't healthy. The researchers found that a diet that includes red meat raises the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and cancer, as well as health problems like diabetes and high blood pressure. Nope, you're wrong again. Sodium. Sodium needs to be low because low sodium is good for you. That looks like you're wrong again. Oh, here's my favorite one. Skin milk. Fat-free milk. That's better than full fat milk. Well, it turns out, skin milk actually can produce bone loss and other issues. It turns out, the government is wrong almost all the time. In fact, if you listen to their advice when it comes to diet, you're fat, unhealthy and sick. And actually, maybe that's what they want all along. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Wow. Maybe they'll get it right this time though, Sal. I mean, I'm optimistic. I told you guys it was coming. I mean, it's okay. Do you, you don't obviously subscribe to the conspiracy theory that they actually want us sick and fat and unhealthy or do you? I think this is the conspiracy theory that I subscribe to is that government policy is heavily influenced by lobby and those lobbies are run by big, you know, food corporations. Yeah, it's money. And it's all baloney. It's money. Yeah, it's all baloney. Marjoram companies rich and our hands are tied in it. If it's, you know, non-fat stuff, it's that direct. I feel like it's money always. I don't feel like it's this evil plan of like, let's make humans sick and unhealthy. I think it's like, let's figure out a way to make the market, make the information sound positive in the direction of this because it's going to line our pockets. Well, so here's like, and then it just backfires. Here's where I start to think that maybe it gets a little more nefarious is because the information that's wrong has stuck around. Yeah. Like we've, we found out a lot of this stuff is wrong. In order to get them to change directions, it's like trying to get a, you know, cruise ship to stop and turn around. It takes miles and forever and it takes years and decades. Now you brought up money out of, look, markets are motivated by money, I mean, our industry, fitness industry is motivated by money and people will lie and order to make a dollar, but here's the beauty of markets. You find out pretty quick when stuff doesn't work. You just do eventually. If it's, if a supplement company, they'll make some money at some point. People don't say that's crap. A diet comes out. The ones that tend to stick around have some value. The ones that fall away is cause people figured out they don't work. Government dietary advice sticks around for decades. That food pyramid, that crappy one. What was that around for like 20 years, 25 years? Easily. Oh, I think that, okay, there, okay, let's talk about that. So I think that has more to do with the, the person who's saying it like comes from a place of authority, government, like school, like things that were taught in school to a student, say 30, 40 years that we've found out now is not true. It's like that, it's ingrained because your professor told you that. And a lot of people aren't going and re-educating themselves. So if government told you this is the truth, you believe it to be true. You don't continue to educate or question or learn more. Oh, I don't mean the consumer. I mean, the government actual official advice itself, it doesn't change. It's like the same crappy information that we've had for the last 25, 30 years. Oftentimes they only reverse when it becomes so obvious it's ridiculous. Oh, or if we're in such a, if we, I mean that again, I go back to the consumer that like we're not, people aren't like up in arms over it. If they were up in arms over it, making a huge deal about it, then maybe it would, but so long as they don't have to, they're not going to. Yeah, I guess not. I mean, it just takes longer to change because it's voted rather than the market. And if we're not, if we're not, you know, picketing, if we're not making a big deal about it, then it's like, whatever, we'll just sweep that on the wrong end. It's pretty similar to DMV in terms of like updating anything. So yeah, that's pretty much what we're looking at in terms of nutrition and fitness advice. It's very archaic and it's definitely something needs to be revisited and looked at and updated like for your today's standard should be completely different than they are. Well, it's crazy because it's not even that they get stuff wrong because they do, it's that a lot of the stuff they get wrong turns out to be the opposite of correct. It's been detrimental. Like, like the egg yolk one, do you know how many people's health got worse because they avoided egg yolks and they probably didn't get the amount of choline and nutrients that they needed that they could have gotten from eggs? Do you know that with their studies showing that skim milk can cause deficiencies because you don't absorb the vitamin D that's in the milk because there's no fat. So people are actually getting, you know, bone loss has been connected to skim milk versus full fat milk. Like this, those are just two examples. Sodium, like the average healthy person, if they cut their sodium too low, they have detrimental effects. In fact, a new one just came out. This is my favorite one. So this whole, we had all this hysteria about plastic straws. Oh God, I saw this. I died when I saw this. This is terrible. So by the way, it's comicals, 99.99% of the plastic straws that end up in the ocean are from countries that are not the U.S. And yet we're the ones passing these policies. And then all these companies jump on board and there's state governments, local governments that require paper straws. Well, it just comes out, studies come out. The type of plastic that they line inside those paper straws are harmful. They're full of xenoestrogens. You're literally digesting or ingesting chemicals that are affecting you hormonally through these crappy, these paper straws that don't even do anything because in America, our plastic straws end up in the garbage, not in the ocean. Okay. So let's, let's speculate like how something like that happens. Okay. So I have like a theory on like how, how that goes down, right? There's like some brothers, uncles, sisters, family is starting this company up, right? That is moving to paper straws who is connected enough to somebody who could go in and actually pass law. They go write some big thing out and then they look at it and they go, oh, that seems like a fine. Such a realistic example. That's what I, I have no idea. It probably didn't happen that way, but I say something like that. I really believe like that's how a lot of this stuff goes down. And it's like as simple as somebody looks it over and goes, oh, how, how bad can this be? Going from plastic to paper sounds like a good enough idea. Oh, the whole world is scared now about plastic in the ocean right now. Oh, that's actually a great idea. Oh, in fact, can you give me some stock in that? You know, they're all telling each other, right? So before it passes, wait a minute, a paper just by itself will totally disintegrate as you're drinking through it. So we have to put some plastic in there to keep it some kind of structure to it. And it's just like, yeah, it just becomes a ridiculous. So I didn't even read, I saw the, I saw the headlines and I actually didn't even read the full article on like, so what is it about the paper straws that are now, they're saying it's more harmful than the plastic chemicals. Yes, the plastic, they line them with, so if you look at a paper straws, you can tell it's kind of shiny. They, they coat it in something to prevent it from completely disintegrating while you use it, even though they after a while it's still there. Yeah, but, and they still do disintegrate as you continue. So what's happening? The plastic. So now disintegrates in your system. At least the plastic, it didn't disintegrate, right? Yeah, dude. And these are, these are, and there's Xenoestrogen, which, which have been connected to things like cancers, testosterone going down, you know, different type of hormonal issues and women fertility issues, and you're sitting there drinking your whatever in these straws, like this is better for the environment. No, it's not. It's not because people are sicker, sicker people don't innovate, sicker people can't produce. And that's the solution for the environment are smart, healthy people who can innovate. Not sick, unhealthy people. Okay, so the next question. And it's also not even helping the environment because our plastic straws don't end up in the ocean. That's a fact. This is like well documented. The plastic straws that end up in the ocean are coming from countries that dump shit in the ocean. That dump the trash in the ocean. Yes. There's no accountability either. Okay, so the next question I have is, when do we start to see the reversal of this? Well, now that this study came out, hopefully, hopefully they'll reverse it. Cause there's a lot of, I mean, maybe they'll just go to the states. There's a lot of that over here. I don't think it's going away, you know. I mean, you're gonna know the, you'll know the first because almost all the restaurants over by you like that. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see. Did you guys notice here that the, remember there was a second when they banned plastic bags at the grocery store and now, now you can use them again? Yeah. So that didn't last because when you do the math, when you actually have to calculate out the impact on the environment, you have to calculate out the production. How many trees you're probably cutting? No, well, just the production, the transport and all that stuff in plastic bags transport very well. They last a long time. Doesn't cost as much energy to produce them. So when you do the whole package, when you look at the whole number, you're actually, it's a wash. And so I think that that data came out and they, the laws kind of let, they let them fall by the wayside. Yeah. Yeah. So I know, and that's the thing. You have to look at the whole picture when you make these, these policies or these knee jerk reactions. But this one pisses me off on a global scale. I'm out immediately when you start to look at like India and China and like the amount of gross pollution. We're not even close. Like, unless there's any accountability there, it's like a stupid conversation. You know what really pisses people off and make you look it up. This is true. Do you know how much of your stuff that you recycle gets recycled? Oh yeah. Barely. I remember when I heard this. They don't recycle it. Yeah. Yeah. Is this too much? They used to take recycling and sell it to other countries like China. And then China would do something with it. They stopped buying our recycling. So we're literally taking our recycling. You can look this up and they throw it in the garbage. I think it's only aluminum and maybe glass. Meanwhile, my trash man won't pick up my trash if I have one bit of food in my recycle bin. Did you look through it? I've been in trouble before. Really? Yeah. We're not bagging it the one time they got mad at me. Dude, what the fuck? Oh my God. Dude, I complained once because the guy, I don't know what he was doing. He kept throwing my can on the ground to like upside down and shit. I got so bad. So I called him up and like your dude needs to come back and pick this back. We just got to look for him back. We just got a letter for our neighborhood that says like that now there's like a specific distance your cans need to be from the each other. So that I guess to make it easier and for like the gravity. Yeah, yeah. So like or they won't pick them up now. Oh my God. This is too much. Look at this. This is what the study shows. Making demands. I'll read you what the study says. This is the title of the articles. The study reveals paper straws contain dangerous. Ready for this? Forever chemicals. Oh. Hey. These are more harmful forever chemicals than plastic straws. Man. Isn't that nice? So they tested 39 straw brands for synthetic chemicals known as PFAS. All right. Today's giveaway is maps symmetry. If you want to win that, you got to do this. Leave a comment below this video on the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We're also running a massive sale this month. This one's actually one of the biggest ones I've seen in a while. Maps symmetry, half off. And the RGB bundle is half off. So it's already discounted taking additional 50% off. So this is huge. If you're interested in either one, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right. Back to the show. Back to the whole government thing. Like, so again, was it you that brought up the cities that are now like opting in for this meatless smart city kind of design. It was a good number of cities, like major cities in the U.S. that were like all on board. Austin, Chicago, there was big ones. But that's the city buildings themselves, not like the whole city. Yeah, but that was a big initiative, which is back to that point of like, why meat is healthy for you? It's an essential part of getting good protein and fats that like, and you're going to eliminate a major food group like that. How are you going to get that? If right now, all Americans just stopped eating meat, you'd have massive nutrient deficiencies across the board. Of course. It's one of the only things that people eat. It's asinine. That's even close to eggs, milk, and meat is one of the only whole foods that the average person eats. And if you cut, I mean, if you cut them all out, you're going to have massive nutrient deficiencies. That's why sometimes I'm like, do they really eat like this? I mean, it's the healthiest part of fast food, too. Think about it. I'm serious. I know. Totally. Everything else is a bunch of processed, fake shit. It's not even real that people are eating. The meat is like the closest thing to real. And even that's processed and not the greatest. But I mean, it's still closer than everything else they got there. And that's how many Americans live off of that? I mean, what's the percentage of people that live off of fast food? It's got to be super high. I know. It's terrible advice. So you take out that? It's like, yeah. So go to alternative sources. Like podcasts. Now here's the thing. I just don't eat. I don't use straws. I'm cool without ever using a straw again. I don't think you're supposed to as a man. I was going to say that, but I don't want to be too. I get offended when I'm at like a bar or restaurant. They give me a straw in there. You get mad at them? Yeah. What the hell's this? Okay. So when you actually have to use the straw, like how do you do it? Stuff for my chick. It's for me. How do you do it? When I have a straw? Yeah. If you have a straw, there's like a technique. Just give it back? No. Like if you're drinking out of a straw, like you have to hold it manly. What do you do? Just got to make sure it's like out of the side. Oh, you got to do it sideways a little bit? Yeah, sideways. Like you're reluctant? Yeah. Like straight on. Hey, there's a way, by the way, that a man also holds his wife's purse when she goes to the bathroom. Like a... Yeah, I don't hold it on the handles. I hold it on the actual bag of it. Yeah. Or you grab the strap. Or you grab the strap. Actually, I did hear. I saw a guy carried it by the strap. Yeah. What are you doing, bro? No, bro. Or you grab the strap like this. Like not like the top. No, no, no. You wrap the strap around the... So you're gripping it like that. That's the most... That's the most... Manly way to hold a purse. That's the manly way you can hold a purse. Holds your wife's purse on his shoulder. What's wrong with you? Put out an e-book for this. I'll punch you. Oh, what is that percentage you gave me right there? Yeah, one-third of Americans eat fast food every single day. Oh, wow. 36 points. Dude, I didn't tell you guys what I did the other day. What'd you do? I did something I haven't done in years and years and years. I ate jack-in-the-box. Oh, my God. I haven't had jack-in-the-box. I don't know. Did you get the tacos? No. Oh. No. Every once in a while, I craved those. She always lasted me. She was like, what? I ate fast food, which I never do. But even if I do, I still try to avoid food intolerances, you know what I mean? So I'm like, I'll get this. No cheese. Oh, my God. I know. Yeah, what's the point? But you know what it is? It's because I got sick. My appetite got destroyed. And I just wasn't eating enough because my appetite was so low. And it finally started ramping up. And I'm just like, I need Cal. I don't remember where I was and I couldn't get food. And I'm looking at the jack-in-the-box and I'm like, what the hell? I regret it. I lost this burger. Right? Oh, I bet it went right through. It went right through me. Yeah. I can't remember. We were somewhere in a pinch and I drove through and had something at a fast food place. It was, this was like a year or two ago. But I mean, that's just how, like, infrequent. You could taste the engineering, right? Oh, yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's actually, I was part of me. It was like a little excited. I'm like, oh, I haven't done this forever. Like this will be good. You know, it wasn't at all actually. It was, it was like Carl's Jr., which was one of my favorite. Oh, yeah. I used to like them. Yeah. I used to like them. Yeah. We were somewhere driving. It was so late at night. I hadn't eaten all day. And I, and I was like, I got to eat something. Right. And the only thing that was open. And I was like, that was my option. Am I on a Taco Bell? Oh, no way. I would do that. I, I made the mistake of doing that like 10 years ago. That's liquid drainage. Yeah. It just destroyed it out. Another one I used to have as a kid, but I couldn't, they just destroyed me. And I'm like, never again. They used to give, Taco Bell used to be on my high school. We used to have. So do we. They're being breed of. So do we. Yeah. What a deal they signed with the school. Yeah. That's funny. You brought that up. I always thought that was fascinating about my high school that we had. So we had like a break. So we had a, I don't know. It was a called break. I think it was what it was before lunch, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like a recess. Yeah. I mean it was high school. So you don't call it recess, right? So it's like a break between, you know, before the lunch break. And then we had these, these food carts that always came out into the courtyard. And it was just a bunch of random stuff. Chips and. Yeah. Made in the cafeteria. Yeah. And one thing we could get was Taco Bell burritos. The bean burritos. Yeah. That's exactly what we had. They must have signed some. They had to. Yeah. And I thought that was so unique to us. I never heard anybody else do that. I didn't know they did that. You had a school special? I did. Sorry. I'm out in the middle of nowhere. We had no time for that. That's why I thought so weird. I'm like, how did we get this out of nowhere? They must have signed, I bet you Taco Bell signed something with the schools. Did they get that? Probably a lucrative deal. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. Probably school probably spent more on them than if they went to Taco Bell about it themselves. Oh, no, I'm sure that's that's how that happened. Dude, I had, I had such a cool moment. I've had a couple of these moments since we started the podcast. It's such a weird feeling to have. So I'll tell you guys what happened. Right. So we get contacted by Danica Patrick, who wants me to be on her podcast. Now, Danica Patrick was like, I mean, she's obviously still famous. I think she's still, she's still one of the like, what are they called when there's like a sporting event and there's a person commentating commentator. Right. She commentates on, I believe formula one, if I'm not mistaken. But back in the day, she was like, she was on the cover of like magazines. I caught one of her races. Did you in person? Yeah. Oh, no way. Yeah. Yeah. Sears. Yeah. So she was like a big deal. Right. When we were like 20s and she was on TV. She was a first female driver to make it that far. Yeah. Yeah. She was great. And I remember it's like, it's like a big name, you know, growing up seeing her or whatever. So then I get on the, and it's all like, oh, this is crazy Danica Patrick. Like that's so wild, right? So I get on and she's a fan of ours. And I got that weird feeling I had when we met Arthur Brooks. Same thing where I'm like, you're my fan? Like I'm a huge fan of yours. So weird. Yeah. It's so weird to hear something like that. But she's a big fan. She had a great show. She does a good job. Somebody was asking me that. So at the NCI thing, I had my NCI on Wednesday or whatever when I talked to the group and that was one of the questions I got asked. Somebody was like, who's the most, who's the most like famous person that listens to Mind Pump? Like, you know, I don't know. I actually brought up, I said, I don't know who that is. I said, but just the last month I said, I found out about Danica Patrick because she interviewed Sal and I said, then Russell Dickerson, country singer who I found out about. I said, so, I mean, I don't think, I don't think famous people put that stuff out through that often. I think that's it. That's the one of, I remember how we used to always like, man, I always take, we'll get one famous person that's talking about Mind Pump. We really call that like the ghost follow us or something. We got a bunch of ghost followers. Yeah, people. I mean, I just think you just don't want the attention. I mean, you don't, they don't want, she's at that level where she's not trying to draw any more attention to herself. And also I think when you're a super high level, every little mention is worth a lot of money. So it's like, why am I going to mention anything unless it really makes an impact on them, I guess would be the thing. I mean, that's what I think we always hoped, right? Was that, I mean, that's how like Russell Dickerson did it, right? Like, he started following our programs. Kanye listens. You should post about it. Kanye, go ahead and tag us. I don't even think Kanye lifts weights. Does he lift weights? I don't know. He's following me upside a ball like I was texting. You know, he's Jackrab, Method Man, dude. Oh, is he? He's Jackrab. Is he really? Yeah. He's dead lift like 500 pounds. Really? Wow. He's getting after it. Yeah. I remember when 50 Cent made that term. Remember when 50 Cent was all chubby and fat and then he got on his kick and then he got like shredded and then every music video after that was like no shirt on. I don't think he put a shirt on and he was like, I see musicians like starting to figure out. Oh, wow. I can also lift weights and be jaded. Hey, I share, I used to all the time. I actually still to this day, I tried to find it the last time I brought this up. LL Cool J had a book and I don't know if it was this trainer who wrote the plan or someone else wrote it for him. I remember this. But yeah, he was a, he was a workout book and he had a great section that was like listed like foods to never eat, foods to sometimes eat. And I used to print it off for clients that haven't put on them. I remember this. It was such a great resource. Yeah. I remember finding him being like, you know what, I don't have a good list like this. It's very simple, general advice. Yeah, it's totally not. There's not like, it's not like this crazy. It's just that it's just, it's so basic, so easy. And clients got the, I would, and I would tell them, I'd say, hey, listen, this week, don't allow yourself to have more than two foods off that list. And then, and it was like so easy for them. They're like, okay. That's why it worked. Yeah. It was the most jacked celebrity. Oh, there he is. That's the book right there. Platinum 360. Is that it? I thought it was, but then I think I actually looked, I think I looked it up and it didn't have the food thing in there. I couldn't find it. So LL's got to be up there. 50 cents up there. What? Most jacked. Danzig. Danzig. Yeah. Wahlberg is up. Just like jacked celebrity. Although ever since Wahlberg started doing F45, he's not as jacked as he used to be. Doesn't work. Snap. He's super. He's apparently a very disciplined father too. Very disciplined. Wahlberg. Yeah. You know, business person. He definitely seems on top of things. He does, right? I mean, I don't know the guy. Yeah. I don't see anything like that. You know what I'm saying? Like celebrities? Yeah. I just feel like you have to. Okay. So let's play this game for a little bit. Like you're, you're Mark Wahlberg rich. Like what are you doing still doing all that work? I mean, and then you claim that you, and I know everyone's claim is this, right? The default is I love it. It's what a Peshma. Okay. I love my kids and my wife too. Right. And if I'm having to be careful, bro, because I don't know if you can ever not work. I will always work. Okay. But if you haven't figured out how we've shaped this business up, we continue to, as we scale, scale out. Exactly. Scale out. And I 100% recognize that there's more money on the table, but I'm not driven only by that. Yes, I am driven by that. And I, and I've openly admit that I like material things and I like money and success and stuff like that, but not at the extent of sacrificing other things. Like I don't want to look back at, you know, and be 65 and be like just stupid rich and then be like, man, I didn't travel. I didn't do that. One thing with my wife. I didn't, my son, you know, knows his dad is the workaholic in the ground. Like I don't want that. You know what I'm saying? And I, and I, and by the way, I totally meant fucking some people have a choice. You know what I'm saying? But if I have a choice, Mark Wahlberg has a choice. I think I have a choice, right? Like at what point do you like stop making so many movies or you stop starting so many businesses? Like cause there's things you can still do to, to build and make money that don't require, I really think a lot of those people have an addiction. Of course. And they justify it through, I love it. Do you know how hard it is? Just like everybody else with an addiction justifies their addiction. Always. Do you know how hard it is for some people to feel a sense of purpose when they're not driving and striving hard with work, especially for a lot of men? It's really hard. Yeah. Like without that. Still is like impossible for a lot of people. We were talking about that show. Struggle that sometimes. We were talking about that show with Tyson Fury. Yeah. Where he's like, he's lost. He's been this fighter, this boxer. He always has a school and I was trying to retire. I don't think he lasted very long. Bro, his poor wife. I was Katrina and I were talking about that. Like we watched it together and I was just like, man, it's got a solid ass wife. Dude, they got six kids. Yeah. She's just been holding it down. They're stupid rich. Have everything. He's the greatest of all time. You know what I'm saying? And like, she's finally like, oh, he's going to hang it up. You know what I'm saying? I'm right there. And they're like, I don't know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying? He has been working hard. It's amazing that he's had one kid then he has a friend for a period of time. So before he left, he was protectors that he was? Right? Of course. After he left, he had to go back. I saw my dad go through it because my dad's, since he was nine has been working hard, like hard all the time, all the time. And I saw him when he retired, he went through like a year and a half, two years of depression. So both, both of my best friends. Dads who are like a second dad to me. Same thing because they don't know what to do. and then they finally get to retirement. What the fuck to do? Bro, my dad, my dad redid the backyard. He could only play golf so many times. Oh, he redid the backyard. He remodeled this section of the house so that my mom would be like, I talk to my mom, my mom's like, your dad is cleaning the house better than I could ever. He goes, she goes, he's so like, he'd get on the floor and like, cause he needed something to like drive him, you know? He's busy, yeah. But then finally what he did is he, and this just helped out is he, he got himself, he's always ridden motorcycles when he was a kid, kind of stopped for about a while. But then he bought himself a motorcycle, got himself a Ducati. Actually, one of his friends hooked him up with a Ducati. He's got this really close friend. And then he became, he became a part of this group of like guys that ride motorcycles. Now he does, he's like long rides. And so he's found his like rhythm. But there was like a couple of years there where he was just, he was going crazy. He's like, what do I do? I used to wake up every morning, go to work, work real hard. Now I wake up and like, what am I gonna do? Wash TV? Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's the ultimate sort of trajectories. If you can, if you can grind, you can work hard and you can scale yourself out to where you, you just find those few things that you really enjoy, but it's still like, you got to work at it. You got to get better at, or it's like a, a hobby that's an obsession that you could be, dive all the way into, like that's sort of the move. But like just to retire and cut everything off, like I just, that's depressing. This is why like old guys will have like, train sets in their basement shit. They got their little conductor hat and they're like, yeah, what's he doing? I mean, that's why I really enjoyed that book, Die With Zero, I thought that was a really good read for that exact reason, because part of that is this, like this conversation of like becoming mindful that as you're building and you're stacking and you're planning for retirement, it's not like, it's obviously it's got a crazy title. It sounds like you should literally like be broke, die with nothing. It's like, that's not the point of it. It's like, it talks all about investments and setting the next generation up, but also like learning how to like utilize money and time and so that when you have all those things, it's like, I don't want to, and you're right, I will 100% work, I'll do something because I do enjoy to work. I enjoy building things, I enjoy that aspect, but not at the expense of time with my wife and kids, but then I don't also want to spend that much time with my wife and kids where all I do is 24 seven, is that, I want to break from them too, which is- Arthur wrote that book about it and he said that the key, according to the data was to go from, to switch from doing to teaching. He said, when people retire and then they stop the doing and then they switch to teaching others to do what they did, he says that their quality life goes up. I could see myself doing that. Like I could see myself volunteering and helping with rehab or exercise or schools or doing talks about helping. Like I could see myself doing that and feeling totally fulfilled, you know, doing that. Yeah, it tastes of that working with the school and it's like, I was like, okay, I can do this when I retire, but right now it doesn't make any sense, you know, just the amount of investment. Speaking of work and making lots of money and stuff like that, you know, it's how, I'd like, I'm super fascinated or I became fascinated over the weekend over Legos. Oh. So- Dude, I've always loved Legos. I know, your kids have been like, I mean, your kids passed down their Lego set to Max and we just haven't really opened it because he's not into it. He's not at that age yet where he can do that stuff. It's like the Legos are a little more advanced for him. And for his birthday, he got a couple different Lego sets and in fact, they were the things that we didn't know. We opened them and then we put them away. I don't know if you guys ever do this or not, but you get so many damn toys. We like hide them away and we're like, we'll pull them out every once in a while. Yeah, pull them out every once in a while. So, you know, we decided this weekend we'd pull out something back from his birthday that we, it was a Lego set. And because he's into Mario, someone had bought him a Mario Lego set. And so of course I have to build it with him because it's actually for like, I don't know, eight or nine year olds, you know? So it's definitely too advanced for him, but together we did it and had a blast. And I was just like, I haven't touched Lego since I was a kid. So I hadn't realized how much they have progressed and like what they have done. And I just went down the rabbit hole of like, looking up the company and owners and all that other shit, right? So first of all, they partnered with, you know, Nintendo and Mario and stuff like that to have the rights to do the Mario thing. And the Mario stuff is interactive. So you first had to build the Mario character and like the castle and all stuff like that. And then he has a battery in him and he has like a basically like a Bluetooth thing that connects to all the other pieces. And so he makes sound effects and then it's connected to your phone. So it's like acquiring coins and points. Oh, wow. As you move the physicals. Oh, wow. And all the instructions, by the way too, to build, which was like, part of the reason why I wasn't looking forward to opening it was like, I don't want to, bro, what if I can't do it? You know, what if I can't do it? I was like, my son's gonna be like, It's not even a technical. Yeah, dude, I'm not an engineer. I know where my wheelhouse is. Yeah, go get the baseball. Go get the basketball. So this one's broken. Yeah, but it has like all step by step on your phone or your iPad and it's like super easy and follow along. And I was just like, man, super fascinated with what they've done. And then again, that sounds like, man, let me, this is how my brain works. Like, but I get into something like that. Did you buy stalking? I went to go buy stalking. So I'm like, could you look up the ticker for this? And she couldn't find it. So I get in there and I'm like, oh, shit, this is privately owned. Oh, I don't know it's not public. The family and they've kept it like all these partnerships. You'd think, oh, man, like Disney must have bought, you know, into them or, or, you know, Nintendo or like not. It's all just like privately owned in-house. Are they based in Europe? They're Denmark. Denmark, that's where it was. The grandson is the CEO. Okay. So the grandson of the founder. So 1930 something is where the company was founded. He's one of the richest men in the world. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Filty rich and they're all, they're privately owned. I love Legos. I think it's such a constructive toy for kids. It gets them off electronics. It's, you're building something. It's very creative. They're great. So along those lines, I was like looking up, I think that I was on YouTube looking up things along and then this pops in my feed. I see, and I heard my buddies mention it, but I hadn't really looked into it. Universal Studios just built a Super Mario like land. And I looked it up and watched like the full tour of it. You got to take your kid. Bro, it is. He's going to lose his mind. It is sick. It's like you take like two days to go through it so big. So we're going to go to Universal at some point soon. Yeah, I'm going to go. Maybe we should, oh, okay. Oh, I'm done. You like, and what they did, which I really like, I was telling Justin this, is they made it so interactive that it's, it's physical. So it's not just going, sitting on rides or just going and looking at stuff. Like you go and you get this wristband and this wristband, you catch coins, you play physical games. You have the question mark box and you get coins and you get like fire, fire and all that stuff, yeah. And physical. And so it's real. And then it has AR so you get in the ride and you put on a thing and it's like augmented reality stuff. So we went a few years ago and they had a Harry Potter area and it was like that. You had this wand and you go up to like areas and try and find secrets. And if you did a special way of moving it like a wall would open and things would come out. Yes, it's like that. Really smart. It's really smart. And I didn't, I didn't know that it was like this. And I'm thought, man, this is really cool. And I love where, I mean, this is, this is where I always have like hope for humanity. When we talk about all the things that are like, oh my God and technology and kids are being addicted to this. It's like, you know what, like then you see companies and businesses that see that and then like try and like, okay, how do we still utilize all this? I really put a physical component to this. Yeah, like how do we, how do we recognize the defaults of these, of these kids staring at screens and doing nothing all day long, but then still make it like futuristic and interactive and cool. It's like, so I really feel like they did that with this. It's like, oh, this is really cool. This is something I would take my son to and get a kick out of like using the phone and all the tech and stuff like that. But then knowing that it's all interactive like that. He's going to lose his mind. Cause he's so in tomorrow. Oh yeah. No, he'll go. Yeah, I'd love to see more companies, you know, pay attention. I mean, obviously you saw that a bit with like Pokemon Go and it became like this sort of phenomenon. But yeah, I mean, that was kind of like our hope a long time ago when we were trying to work on stuff with like, well, what, you know, what sort of incentives can you put out there for that community of people that just like to stare a screen all day? And it's like, it's so immersive and engaging to create something physical like that where they can actually show up and have a similar experience, but it's physical, I think that'd be right. Yeah, that one app you showed us is like that, right? The one in San Francisco where you find where people pooped on the street. I don't want to go through those steps, dude. Dude, I got, hey, I got, I always wear from Viori the Sunday joggers or the slacks. I don't know which ones these are. I switched socks. Are those the new ones? Yes. Those are the core joggers. Core, yeah. I didn't know, I didn't think I'd like them, but I like them a lot. I like them too. So while you're wearing them, are you, oh, you're actually in a normal, what's a nice one? No, I got everything. I got all Viori out. Jerry was asking me, cause she brought him last week to me and she goes, hey, what do you think of the new core joggers I gave you? I go, oh, I really, she's like, how come you're not wearing them? I'm like, oh, I like to dress them up. I feel like they're a little bit dressier than the Sunday joggers. They are. So they're like. And they're super comfortable. But they're super light and comfortable. And there's like a lining in there that I didn't think I'd like, but it actually makes them even more comfortable. Yeah, the real lightweight feeling. Super lightweight. Yeah, that's right. So Sunday joggers. They're light years ahead of everybody. I'm telling you. Sunday joggers and meta pants are my favorite. But these right here are even a thinner and lighter material. So if you want something that's like really breathable, like I can see myself going to a wedding and then putting like a nice shirt on with them and like, yeah, wearing them somewhere where I can dress it up a little bit. Dude, I gotta tell you guys about a challenging situation that I just recently, so you guys know my son went up to college, right? So that was hard because he's out of the house, moved out. It was the first full week, yeah? First full week was last week. You know, I talked to him and he seems like he's having a good time. And I'm like, oh man, I missed my kid. He's not around or whatever. And then I get a call from him yesterday during the day, which is weird because he's not the one that calls, we're the one that calls him typically. But he calls me and he's like, hey, he goes, I'm really sick right now. I'm like, what? Like for him to call me, I'm like really scared. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, I got a fever and what's going on, whatever. Turns out he got COVID, which is flying right now. But so I'm texting him back and forth and I'm door dashing him like supplements and stuff that he has to take. And he's doing the whole thing. And at seven, like at, I don't know, 650 or something, he took some ibuprofen because he felt like he had a fever. So I'm like, take some of this and it'll help you get to sleep. We're texting and then I send him a text at 7.30, no response. And I can see when he's read it, didn't read it, send him some of the texts, no response. Bro, all night, did I have my phone next to me? I had my phone next to me and it was like on just waiting. And then this morning I called him, he didn't answer 8 a.m. And I'm like, I'm like low key into panic mode, right? And I'm like, he's got roommates, he's in a dorm, but there's this feeling that, you know, cause I'm not there and I'm low key panic. And then he finally called me back and he's, he was just sleeping, but I'm like, oh. The funniest part about you- The worst cause he's out of reach, yeah. About you telling me that story is that, you know, that's an inevitable thing that was going to happen sooner or later. Of course. But that you just don't think about like that moment when that's going to happen. Like I had never once crossed my mind when you were like saying goodbye to your son and he's now off to college. Like, okay, of course he's going to have its own different challenges and it's going to be hard and difficult. It's like, oh boy, wait till the first day, he's really sick and you're not there. I can't be there. I'm like, oh. And you know how I am with illness anyway. Yeah, of course. I already freak out anyway. I'm already on the top. So I'm like, it was terrible. And I was really trying hard not to like freak out, call the door. So I'm like, all right, he's probably sleeping. So on the way here, I'm literally low key like controlling the panic. Cause I know logically, like I'm freaking out. I shouldn't need, I don't need to freak out. I'm fine. Everything's fine. And I'm like kind of panicking. And then I get the call that he's okay. Burst of an explosion of energy came out. Yeah, he's fine. I came in and you had a good workout, ready to work. How did I not go to call back to it? Oh my God, man. It's, uh, it's going around right now. It is. Katrina's family has got three people that have it. She obviously just recovered from it. Like it's definitely going around. I saw some school in Kentucky shut down already. I hear is the, like they're starting to ramp up some of the. They better not do the protocols. The old ones. I think a school is shutting down for a day or two. That's normal procedure. They'll do that with like the stomach flu or certain viruses. But if they try the whole like flatten the spread. No, sorry. We know that doesn't work and that's terrible. So I don't know that was, I never had a school shut down because of a flu. Some schools will do that for like stomach viruses or yeah, they start to spread really fast. If then they'll, they'll shut down for a day or two. It's not common, but they'll, they'll do that if it starts to get out of control. Cause then what'll happen is you'll lose half the, you know, half the school. Yeah. It'd be nice to see if we went back to our old sort of protocol of like, if you got symptoms, you just stay home and then that's it. That's the end of the discussion. Yeah, like that, that would just be it. I don't feel good. I guess remember when they told us you had COVID, if you had symptoms or if you had no symptoms, hmm, looks like you always have COVID. You could test yourself, come back negative. You can still have COVID. So it's probably nothing to do with that. Well, yeah, I don't even know if I want to bring this up because it's so negative, I just got, I was so pissed off this morning. Researching a bit more about that lab that they discovered in California, the Chinese run lab. Did you know that? No, I heard him say it out in Fresno and then infectious diseases in there and weird shit in there. And it was all regulated when, when it's maybe a few months ago or month ago. This was a, yeah, this was recently that was, it was running without a license. And so it was running underneath the radar. But before that, it had been running legally, you know, previous. And this was like even a couple of years before COVID even started. And so they, they actually like went through and then assessed and found like all of this like contagious diseases and things that they'd been experimenting with. And isn't that great? Which is like, let's just, just sit back. Maybe it was all like, okay, it was managed and maybe it was like something that was like legally they're, you know, okay with it. But that was literally in our backyard. So when I hear something like that, it's so hard to do this, right? It's so hard to remove yourself from what's happened in the last three years or four years now, right? And go like, if I heard that news five years ago or six years ago, would you, that's weird. Yeah, yeah. And would you care when it would just be like, it says a bio lab, like there's, there's some of those around, right? They're, they're, yeah, obviously they're trying to create vaccines or whatever. And so is, is, is the, the alarmist like what the fuck? Like because of what we just have gone through, or is that really like a what the fuck type of situation? Well, if you're working on infectious diseases and you're not being heavily monitored, that's dangerous, dangerous. You could take a disease and use gain of function procedures where you make it easily transmissible or, you know, just easy to infect you. And you can turn, I mean, corona viruses are basic cold viruses, but because this one was obviously engineered to be more infectious, it caused more problems. Like you could do that with a lot of things. Like there's lots of viruses that are innocuous that if they, if they were changed a little bit, it could become very, very bad. Yeah. So that's bad alone. But in the, like, you know, in the rear view mirror of or, or in the, I should say, looking forward based off of what we just went through, it sounds even more insane to me. Yeah. And in China of all people doing that. That's crazy. And it's, it's a Chinese run operation. It's being investigated right now and they finally got granted access to kind of look at their handlings and everything. But yeah, it was, it was literally illegally run and there was all kinds of like mishandlings involved with it. So it's, it's a bit of a red flag, just to say the least. That's crazy. Yeah, that is weird, dude. I know. That is so weird. Speaking of red flags, I had another experience with this, with another family member. Don't you guys love, I have a big family. Do all the stuff. It makes me think to myself, looking back, how many times I miss this. So I have my brother-in-law and he does jujitsu and he's like, he gets so fatigued. He's like, man, I got wasted. I know what's going on. Um, I talked, I talked to him about his diet. I'm like, okay, we got to increase your calories, this, that and the other. And then I said, you don't eat processed food. He goes, no. And I'm like, do you help like much salt do you use? He's like, well, I salt my food. I'm like, do you add anything? He goes, no. So I sent him some element and I said, drink a packet before and then during. He's like, he goes, bro, he goes, it's, I don't know what you gave me. He goes, but it changed everything. It was literally, he wasn't having, that's it. He goes, it fixed everything. Is he still cycling too? Cause he used to ride his bike or just jujitsu. So I wonder how many clients I missed where you're trying to figure out what the enemy problem is. 100% missed that. I 100% missed that because remember, and you'll know right away, that came up when we came up as trainers. So, you know, this is tying into your opening people to increase or so. Yeah. You're opening, you're opening point about government telling us that, you know, salt and sodium is bad for us. Blood pressure is going to go through the roof. So I never would have told the client, not only that, like, I would actually probably, I'm all guilty of this. Like a client going like, is it okay if I use seasoning or salt? Me going, yeah, just go, go light on it. Yeah. I probably said shit like that. You know what I'm saying? Like we, that's how much it was even ingrained in me that always, you know, be careful of sodium, be careful, be careful, not thinking like, oh, I just got this client who probably ate fast food, you know, damn, near every meal or every other day or type of deal. And now all of a sudden they're eating all whole foods and I'm not adding any salt to their diet that they could be deficient. The first time this, that I learned about this wasn't even me. It was this wellness individual that worked with me in my studio. And I had a client that was triathlete and she overheard this conversation that we kept having about his energy and how it was low. And I'm like, maybe we need to bump your cars. Maybe you're over training this and that. And then she says, hey, you mind if I pipe in a little bit? So yeah, absolutely. And she goes, do you, do you eat processed food? And he goes, no, of course not. I'm super healthy. She goes, do you like add a ton of salt? Do you take electrolytes? He goes, no. She goes, take some Himalayan pink salt and put some of it in your water. And he goes, put salt in my water. And he goes, yeah, he came back like the next week and he's like, bro, huge difference. That was the first time I got clued into this particular thing. And how big of an issue it probably is for a lot of athletes and fitness enthusiasts and health minded individuals. It's like, you, I'm at the point now where if you're a health minded individual that works out a lot, you don't need heavily processed foods. This is the point I'm at now. You probably need to add some kind of sodium to your diet. Well, I think this also speaks to why the company's blown up. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing that some people would benefit from this. It's another thing when a majority of people will. And so I think that's what's happening. I think it's not a huge expense. It's also something you can just test out yourself. Even if you don't have element on you, you can put some salt in your water. And if you all of a sudden you notice like, oh, shit, like that makes a big difference like, oh my God, like this is something I need. That's the key. It's a very inexpensive product you would know right away. So if you think it's sodium, you could test it. And you'll know within the first time or two that you use it. It's not something you take for weeks to see if it works or not. So have you guys ever heard of this doll that's supposedly is like, like this cursed? No, it's called Robert the doll. What? Apparently. I don't know if it's loosely based off of like Chucky, like the movie Chucky might be based off of this. But apparently I forget what part of America that it existed. But it's like this really creepy kind of sailor looking doll. And apparently like there was, I guess, I guess somebody like way back in like the 20s or 30s, like had this doll and the servant had performed some like voodoo or something on this doll. I read about this in the time ago I don't remember now. Her child had died and then she had placed this curse on this like doll. And this doll with like, so this kid started talking to this doll. This doll was like talking to him like all the time. And it became this kind of weird engagement that they had and this friendship that they had between the two of them. And then he grows up and he kind of leaves. He comes back and still has this this relationship with this doll. And weird things start happening. And anyways, it became such a phenomenon that like all this the next person that owned the house had same interactions with the doll. The doll was like had all these like paranormal things to go with it. To where they actually like encased this doll in some like museum. And it has all these rules. Like you have to like you have to ask permission to take a picture of it. You have to say hello and you have to say goodbye. All these things. Otherwise, like you you suffer the curse and the wrath. And there's like thousands of examples of people writing letters and they put all these letters there to ask forgiveness because they didn't follow those rules because they got like boils. They got like rashes. They got like the people dying around them. But there's a Wikipedia on it. It's so big. It's it's like this weird crazy like like thousands of people have experienced its curse. It's in a museum in Key West, Florida. There's a key that's right. There's a picture Doug has of all of it with all the letters around it that you just you just you just reignited a old fear ahead. I watched an episode of the twilight zone with a ventriloquist and a talking dummy and the dummy eventually became the ventriloquist and the ventriloquist turned into the doll. And then he shut him in the case. And at the end of the twist in it, it's the ventriloquist and he's using and he's making the guy speak. But the guy is the doll now is a weird. And I saw that when I was way too young. So it just it freaked me out. You know, I don't have a thing with dolls. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's creepy, dude. It's a creepy look at it. Burn it. Why don't you just burn it with fire? Oh, I know why they're making money off of it. That's what it reminds me of like profitable. Remember, what was that myth? You guys remember that Brady Bunch episode? I'm going to date myself a little bit. Remember the one where they go to Hawaii and they take like a lava rock or something or something and it's cursed. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they get it cursed. They have to go back to Hawaii to bring it back. Yeah, it reminds me of like stories like that. Yeah, absolutely. But like, why are you going to make that, I guess, like you go see it and like what's the point of like berating it and like people are like testing it to see if it's like a real thing or not. It's like, what do you like? Why? Like what's what's even your fate like that? Yeah, yeah, it's hilarious. All right, I'm going to give someone a shout out. She's a neat one. She's obviously super popular. Everybody knows her. But Danika Patrick, she's got a great podcast actually that dives into a lot of very interesting information. Is it geared towards mostly health and fitness or does she go all the stuff that she's interested in? So spirituality, health and fitness. Oh, so it's a very personal type of podcast. Yeah, it's cool. That seems pretty cool. Oh, OK. Do you know the name of the podcast by chance? No. Oh, man. Little jerk. My bad. But you can find it very easily. I think if you just look up her name. Look, there's a company called 8Sleep. It's the most intelligent sleep system you'll find anywhere. Now, what this does is it controls the temperature of your bed and it matches it to your sleep cycles, how you're moving, what's the best temperatures for your body to optimize all the different stages of sleep. It's literally a game changer. And if you go through our link, you get $150 off the pod cover. It's 8Sleep. 8 is spelled out. So 8sleep.com forward slash mind pump. By the way, they ship to the US, Canada, the UK, some countries in Europe and Australia. So go check them out. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Sarah from Virginia. Hi, Sarah. How can we help you? Hey, so first off, I know this probably sounds like a broken record, but thank you guys for everything that you're doing. I feel like I've been listening to your podcast for a couple of years now. And it's just super refreshing, like your whole everyone's point of view on everything. It's super refreshing, especially from a female perspective. So thank you. Thanks for everything you all do. So I'm four weeks postpartum with this little dude. It's my second baby. And I really just want to figure out how to handle postpartum recovery the best way. So I've weight lifted for, I don't know, at least eight years consistently. Before that, in college, I kind of slacked off. And then prior to college, all through school, I did multiple sports this season. So I feel like my body is really used to working out and sports and all of that. And I have a good amount of muscle. I worked out weight lifted all through pregnancy. And I'm trying to figure out the best way to transition postpartum. I don't want to do too much where I'm hurting myself because I'm the type of person that will just work out every day if I let myself. So right now I'm walking about 45 minutes a day with him just trying to do it like a 17 minute mile walk. That's about my pace. And then I'm just doing core and pelvic floor rehab type stuff. So I'm just wondering what the best way is and when to transition back into weightlifting and then also wondering about protein and creatine. Excellent. Well, first off, you're in an amazing position because of your background and because you worked out through pregnancy. But I have to ask this, by the way, are you cleared for exercise now? I haven't had my postpartum checkup yet. I have that on September 11th, so. That week six. Yeah, as soon as you get cleared, and that's obviously we have to say that, then getting back to strength training for someone like you is gonna be really easy because of your background, because you were consistent during pregnancy. The key is this, underestimate your abilities as much as you can when you get into it. Because the biggest mistake I see people like you make, which I've trained women like you where they work out before they get pregnant, they work out during pregnancy, then they take the required time off, then they get back into it. And almost everybody overdoes it at first because they overestimate their, you know, kind of where they're at with their bodies. So I would go super easy. Like literally the first two to three weeks, your goal should be just to go through the motion, just to do the exercises and kind of wake things up. You're training at most a moderate intensity, nowhere near high intensity, and then just kind of feel things out. You already said something that I was gonna ask you, which is are you doing any pelvic floor rehab movements? That's the most important thing because the other side, the other risk is people get back into strength training and depending on how they had the baby, there could be, like if it was C-section, there could be things you need to look at. If it was vaginal birth, then there's pelvic floor muscles that, you know, you would need to make sure that they were okay because you could cause more problems, exerting yourself with certain exercises. But so long as you're doing that stuff, I mean, we have a great program that I think would be a great program to start with, MAPS Starter. But for someone like, yeah, so do you have that by the way? No, I just have anabolic. I'll send you MAPS Starter because I think that's a great program to get back in. But honestly, it's gonna be about going slow and underestimate your ability and not trying to work out, quote unquote, but rather go through the motions and start that way so you can get a feel of where your body's at. Yeah, I just wanna add to that. I've had clients to go through that same process and they're, if they worked out before that, which is, you know, there's a benefit to that in terms of like your recoverability and being able to kind of get back after it and you're gonna feel strong again pretty quickly. It's just to be cautious with that and to really focus on stability and balance and restoring a lot of that bracing that you need when you start adding loads. So that's why Starter is such a good follow-up, kind of a program after this to address a lot of those stability needs. So that way too, you know, you're building off of that good foundation going forward and not just getting back into like your regular routine. So you really address that first. I think the hardest thing is gonna be the mental part, right? It's just you wanting to do more when you don't need to and you were in a very similar position as Katrina was, worked out all through college, was in pretty good shape, trained through her pregnancy, was in good shape and then this was the only time she really took off was the six weeks postpartum and we did Starter. I don't even think we finished Starter although you could totally go all the way through it. I think she got about a month and a half in when she was like feeling really good again and then we jumped the maps anabolic after that. But I did have to constantly tell her that as she was going, like she thought she could always do more and I'm like, just cause you can do more, it doesn't matter. Remember what I, and she obviously knows that I'm constantly preaching to her that the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. You haven't been doing anything for six weeks, hun. So you doing any exercise, any sort of movement is going to elicit change in the right direction. And so take advantage of that while you can. The fact that you could do body weight squats and you're going to see change in results from that because you haven't been doing that for over six weeks. So whatever in your head you think you can do, do less. And that would be my recommendation for at least a good solid month to two months afterwards. And then you could probably start to ramp things up but you're in a great position right now that what you did leading up to this, you'd be surprised how quickly the body will respond and you'll get right back at it. And then my experience with, I think I read that you're breastfeeding too, right? I mean, one of the things that Katrina Love was the amount of calories that she could consume while she was breastfeeding and training. She was like, putting on weight was actually challenging after her six weeks. So that's one of the things that can be to your advantage and nice. Yeah, I just can't stress enough, Sarah, though go real easy because you're not used to your body at the moment. It's a different body. You had it after your first child, so you get kind of an idea there, but your idea of how you move and how you feel and how things connect when you exercise are based off of your years of exercise that weren't postpartum or even during pregnancy. So just like with pregnancy, when you were pregnant you probably felt through the workouts a little bit. That's kind of where you're gonna start. Now your question about protein and creatine, let's start with creatine. Now to date, there are no studies on creatine and breastfeeding mothers. So I can't recommend it to you. I can only tell you my personal opinion. I am not a doctor, but creatine is found in food. I would think that it would probably not only be safe, but probably beneficial. I know there's creatine deficiency syndromes and infants that can happen and they've speculated that would be a good supplement to give moms during breastfeeding, but you would have to check with your doctor. And again, there's zero research, so I have no idea. I'm just giving you in my opinion. Now as far as protein intake is concerned, the thing with wild breastfeeding and during pregnancy, because the question is always like, how should I eat? If you stick to whole natural foods, eat until you're satisfied, you're gonna reach the right amount, whatever that is. And if you start your meals with protein, you're gonna hit your right, your protein intake. Are you eating animal sources of protein like red meat and stuff like that? Yeah, I've been tracking my protein and did it through pregnancy because I had preeclampsia with my first and I read that my protein is like one of the only things I can personally do to help prevent that, the second go around and I didn't get it. So I don't know if that helped, but I was used to eating a gram per body weight during pregnancy. So I was eating a lot higher protein. So right now I easily hit that mark and usually go above that. And I'm so hungry, like I eat 1,000 calories a day. I've just been tracking it to track my protein to make sure I'm still hitting that mark. So I don't know if I should go above that because I mean, I'll eat 3,000 calories and still be hungry some days. So that's good truth. So I would literally just eat until you're satisfied, focus on whole natural foods. You're not gonna go wrong. Between breastfeeding and then you starting to reintroduce weight training, like it's gonna go to good use. Yeah, I wouldn't worry about, now if you eat processed foods, this is where things can get kind of weird because then you can overeat or whatever. But if you're eating like literally whole natural foods, I would have it available and you eat until you're satisfied. Just eat until you're satisfied. It is like a whole grain bread sandwich, just like the worst food I ever eat. So. Yeah, you're totally fine. I wouldn't worry about it. With your background and what you've been doing, you're on track. There would be no issues whatsoever. If you were my client, I wouldn't tell you to track anything I would say, eat the protein first, would be the only thing I would say and then just eat as until you're satisfied. Whole natural foods. By the sounds of it, you'll have the same challenge I think as Katrina did. You probably have, you sound like you get after it and you're dialed in, so that is overreaching. That's probably the thing that is, that will probably drill home the most with you, listening to you, just this little bit of time we've had with you is that you're gonna wanna do more and you won't need to. How much weight did you gain at your peak during pregnancy and then how much of it have you lost so far? I gained 34 pounds and I have lost all but five. You're five. Yeah. Sarah, you're good. So for people watching, and you can obviously, this is for you too, you're an example of what strength training will do for pregnancy. It really keeps things in check. It ramps up your metabolism. You lost almost all the weight and you haven't really started working out yet and you're gonna bounce back very quickly. I mean, you're four weeks out. They say, wait six weeks. Now, of course, you have to listen to your doctor but I've trained clients who did strength training and they went to the doctor and they're like, I feel like I'm ready now and the doctor has some experience with athletes and says, well, we could start. You could start with light extras because they were so strong going into and during the pregnancy. So this is a great example of the benefits of it and how it really protects the body against the challenges from pregnancy. So good job there but we're gonna send you starter because I think that's a great program to start with. Thank you guys. Yeah, that's my problem. I feel like I could go like run a triathlon right now. Yeah, that's gonna be your challenge. Your challenge is gonna be that I just wanted to do too much. You're probably feeling real good right now. I know when my body is telling me to slow down, I guess is that's gonna be the hardest part. It's literally this. Underestimate, start slow, see how you feel the next day, the day after that, try it again and then that's what's gonna gauge. That's how you'll gauge the intensity of your workouts. But it's, what's the big, if you do that, you're still gonna get stronger the next couple of weeks. So don't think that you have to apply more intensity to get there faster. It's more than what you've done for the last four weeks or whatever, six weeks when you're ready. So go slow, your body's gonna respond so fast. If you overdo it, what you may find is joint pain and you might find back pain because of core stability issues. You may kick back your pelvic floor exercise a little bit because the pelvic floor needs strengthening. So go really slow and it'll come back faster than you think. All right, thanks for calling in. That's good. Good luck Sarah. You got it. During Katrina's, so the doctor told us that six weeks we started at four, even though the doctor told us. Well yeah, because she was, I could tell she was moving. I could tell she was feeling so good and obviously she's got me by her side. So like I was the one who was instructing her what to do and we did a lot of like floor bridge work and stuff like that. And when I would tell her what to do exercise wise, I remember her being like, this is too easy. And I'd be like, just tell me, watch how you feel tomorrow. And then she, the next day she was like, oh wow, she was like, I was actually sore from that. Yes, I'm like, that's exactly. I'm like, that's all you need to do right now. We just need to start moving. So the gears of motion. Yeah, let's just start doing some of these exercises. Some isometric holds, things like that. Like, yeah, and it felt like it was nothing to her but she was feeling it the next day. So she, so that was nice that she made that connection of, wow, I could do this little and my body's actually getting sore and responding to it. I said, yeah, so we're gonna do that. And then by, I think we did start her for a month or a month and a half. That sounds about right. About four to six weeks with a fit person. Yeah, about a month or so. And then she was like really feeling good. And she was like, I'm ready to get back into either anabolic or aesthetic. And I couldn't remember if we jumped to anabolic or aesthetic, but she was like right back in it going. Dude, my first experience with this, this is when as a trainer, I really saw the disparity between strength, training and other forms of exercise. I managed enough gyms to have lots of group X instructors and female trainers working for me. After witnessing for about the third or fourth time, I realized there was a trend here where I would have these group X instructors, they're fit, they exercise all the time but it's cardio based, right? It's all cardio. They'd have a baby, they'd come back and I'd watch the progress and how they bounce back. Then it had these female trainers that were super into strength training and the bounce back was like, it was crazy. It was like half the time. It was so media, yeah. Yeah, it was so crazy. And after I saw three or four times that going through, I was like, oh, the strength training is way more effective at protecting your body against that. So that's what Sarah was doing. So she's going the right track. She's gonna be good. Her biggest challenge I could totally tell is gonna be she's gonna wanna do more. Of course, yeah. Our next caller is Richard from California. Richard, what's up man? How can I help you? Hey guys. Hey, I've been following your show for like three years now. I really love it. You guys changed my whole perspective on weight training and fitness. So I just wanna thank you for that. You got it. Yeah, so my question today is about rate of progurin on the weights. And so I think it might help to give a little bit of background on where I've been. So I'm 44 right now. And I've been relatively healthy most of my life. But until I met you guys, I basically only did like body weight training, which I'm not a heavy guy. Like I, the most I ever weighed was like 150. This morning my scale said 129. But like in 2020, I decided to go on a cut and I was all into that intermittent fasting thing. And then so my body weight dropped down to 123. 10% body fat. And I looked fine, but I didn't feel like really good. And I think my hormones are all out of balance. And so then I met you guys and then you really emphasize strength training. So I really got on that bandwagon. And so I got anabolic. I've been through it like three times and I've been really trying to up my strength on the five by fives. And I use that as my kind of scorecard as to like how much muscle I'm building, something consistent where I can look at the compound lifts. So I mainly look at like the front squat, the overhead press, the bench press and the dead lift. So those are the four things I track. I do it on a five by five. And then I do anabolic and I turn on those. And I really want to increase my strength on that. I'm sort of feeling like I maxed out. Like I'm happy if I can like put on a two and a half pound plate on each side at this point, like once a month. And it's like every time I go up like two and a half, like five pounds on any of these lifts, like I basically have to go down to four reps versus five. And I don't know, like, is that normal or not? Or what should I do at this point? Well, two things, if you added five pounds to a lift once a month, that would be like 60 pounds on a lift in a year, which is exceptional. So that's really good. I wish I could do that. So, okay, so the question, cause you wrote out basically, you don't know if you're progressing too slow or what the natural limit is. Where did you start with some of these lifts? Cause you ran through maps and a ball three times. So let's say when you first did maps and a ball like, I don't know, where was your deadlift versus now? Where was your bench press versus now? Like how far did you come? Yeah, so my deadlift started at 25 pounds on each side. So that was a 95 pound on the deadlift. And right now I'm at 200. But mind you, this is like since 2021. So I've been at this for two years now. So I'm happy that I can do a 200 pound five by five right now on a deadlift. But yeah, and then like, you know, your question like where I'm at right now is like with the front squat, I'm at 170 on a five by five. I started on, I think I started most of the squats and a deadlift at 95 pounds, 25 plates on each side. And then the overhead press, now that was hard when I first started. I think I was, I'd be happy if I could put 10 pounds on each side. And right now I'm kind of maxing out at 105 by five. Yeah, I mean, you're doing pretty good. The one I would look at would be diet. And I would, you know, are you, do you know how many calories and grams of protein you're eating? Yeah, so that's another thing I really wanna thank you guys on, because I eat a lot more now. And I'm happy about that. I try to get in like 2,500 calories a day. And then I try to do 0.8 grams of protein per body weight, per pound body weight. So that's where I'm at right now. I would bump the protein a little more and the calories a little more. You sound like you have a really fast metabolism. What is that? Was that fair? Okay, so bumping the calories will make a big difference. Changing the program will be good too at this point. In fact, because you've done anabolic three times, I think the new program that we just put out would be really good for you to go through. And then you can go back through Maps Anabolic and see if you've made any improvements. Cause Maps Anabolic is very effective at building strength and muscle, but it's very focused on a single plane of movement. And it's very bilateral. There's no lateral stability work, there's no rotation. And sometimes, especially after you've been doing it for a year or two, the limitations come from weak links in the chain is where sometimes these weaknesses come from or should I say plateaus come from? So your deadlift may be plateauing because lateral stability issues could be an issue. Overhead press could be plateauing because of shoulder stability issues. And the body does that. It'll prevent you from getting stronger because it fears getting injured. So I think Maps Old, now you have a background in body weight training. I think you would appreciate old time strength. I think if you followed that, I think you would really appreciate it. I would do that and then I would, and we'll send that to you. And I would do that in a bulk. And then at the end after that, go back to Maps Anabolic and I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of weeks in, you hit new records in all those lifts. Yeah. I also wanna highlight that 1% of 1% of gains in the right direction is still awesome. I mean, that's, here in reality, a lot of people have setbacks. I mean, it's very normal for me to be training for six months to a year. And within that year, I see some regression in some things just because of life or practicing that movement. Like, so to see pretty much you've gained consistently crossboard, even if it's small and incremental, that's still awesome. I mean, that's a sign of like, you're doing a lot of the things right. Like if you were under eating and missing your protein consistently and stuff like that. And then you're scratching your head. You're like, I don't understand. I've been doing this consistently and I'm getting weaker or I've plateaued. I'm not getting any stronger in any of these lifts. Like then it's a clear sign of something's off. But the fact that you're still progressing on all these things, even if it is small is a sign of you doing a lot of the things the right way. So I do agree with Sal that you're at a point now too, where I think you would greatly benefit just from a complete program flip up. I wouldn't have gone Maps Old Time direction, but I think that's totally fine. I think the challenge you're gonna have with that is it's so unique that you won't know, there's no baseline for you on a lot of those movements. So it's like, am I doing good? Am I, that'll be kind of hard to measure. And then coming back will be great when you come back to like an analog. I would have moved you to performance and aesthetic in that direction. That's the direction I would have gone cause I think you're due for something like that. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, cause I see that suggestion. I like that suggestion. Also too, I was actually thinking more symmetry just based on like addressing any kind of like instability, you know, unilaterally, you can kind of really highlight what's going on in terms of like any of that lateral or rotational stability that might be an issue. But what I do like about Old Time Strength is the emphasis on grip. And also too, a lot of these like big rotational stability components there that don't get highlighted at all than anybody's programming. So again, I'm totally up for that. And it's very strength focused and heavy on strength. So you're definitely going to see some gains without if you stick with it. One last thing too, and you kind of mentioned it about having to drop sometimes to like four reps or like that, we like rewrite all these programs as like a baseline for you guys, but there's nothing wrong with you running like a phase of like three by five, you know, so or five by three, excuse me, where you're doing five sets and you're only doing three reps. And actually just getting your body used to stacking on an extra 25 pounds that you never would put on there because you're trying to target five reps. So there's nothing wrong with doing it. When I started to try, this was way later in my lifting career, singles, doubles and triples because I never identified as a power lifter. And so even somebody that's a coach and trainer was naive to this, to think, oh, I wouldn't benefit that much from it. I greatly benefited from running some cycles of just like singles, doubles and triples, especially when you want to get stronger. And so it's just getting acclimated to weights that you're not used to moving and you can put on more weight because you know that you're not gonna have to do five. There's some real value to that. So just keep that in mind as you're going through any of our programs that there's nothing wrong with you running a phase where you focus on singles, doubles or triples. I think you'll get a lot of value from that. Yeah, keep this in mind too, Richard, that the average person when they start strength training, they're gonna see a majority of the strength gains that they make within the first year to two, okay? And the first half of that first year is when they're furious fast strength gains and then it starts to slow down and it continues to slow down. And by the third year or so, strength gains are gonna be very slow and they're gonna be typically hard to, they're gonna be hard to achieve. And at some point they become risk versus, the risk is higher than the reward at some point. I think you're still okay. You can keep pushing strength. But just so you know, you've been doing this consistently for two years, it's natural for gains to slow down. But that comment you made about five pounds on a lift in a month, holy cow. At this point you could do that. I mean, you're adding 50 pounds to a lift or more every year. That's exceptionally fast strength gains. After year three or so for most people, if I can get 10, 15 pounds on a lift at the end of a year, we're kicking ass. Oh, if you could just go forward. It's very normal for all of us in here, I have had a year of seeing regressions in movements. I mean, every one of my lifts, you can get on the list, I'm weaker at all of them right now than if it's just part of the game as you've been doing it for a really long time. So it's okay, man. If you're going forward on all of it, I mean, that's a huge win. But I do think strong, excuse me, old time, and I do think a bulk is gonna be wise. And I think you're gonna see some cool stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, just to say that five pound a month, that's kind of hate. And this is why I wanted to talk to you guys because I was like, I don't think that's gonna happen this year. Like, I feel like this is starting to slow down. I can feel it. I'm like, really, I don't think I can like put on another five pounds this month. So I wanted to talk to you guys about that and give him my age. I mean, I'm not, I'm not worried about age. I'm not old, I'm not old, but I'm not a spring change. Yeah, but here's what you're highlighting right now actually does support Sal's decision to move you to old timey. Because here you will see five pound gains every month on some of these lifts because they're just gonna be so unique. Or faster. Because they're gonna be so different. You're gonna have to start really light when you first start off because they're gonna be difficult just to perform the movement. And then as you get good at the movement, you're gonna be able to sort of stack on the weight. And you're gonna go through that kind of new be gained feeling again. That's kind of the secret sauce and the magic of program design and actually doing things that are so unique and different than what you're used to is, yeah, they suck at first and you're kind of weak at first, but then you get to feel those new be gains again where it's like, man, I'm putting weight on the bar almost every month. And that's exciting and motivating. And so to that point, Sal's recommendation with old timey, that you're gonna get to experience that again because it is so different. I bet there's movements in there you've never done before, probably several. And because of that, you're gonna have to start really light and then you're gonna get to see yourself stack on the weight. You don't have to worry about it. You know, all transfer backs, you know, once you go back. Total log, you'll see it. Totally. Great. All right. Well, guys, thanks again. Yeah, you guys really, really changed my perspective on health. And I can't thank you guys enough. So, really great work. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. Old timey's on your way. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, generally speaking, increased strength, there's like three buttons. There's obviously, it gets much more new ones. Well, there's three buttons you can push. There's bump calories, change your programming to where you're changing your reps and sets, schemes and tempo and stuff like that. Or completely new exercises and very different programming. The more advanced I get, the more that third one becomes more effective. It's like when I'm a beginner, when I'm training a beginner, it's like calories usually is the one that does it. Then the second one. But as you get more advanced, like now, I'm doing different exercises, I go back to the old stuff and I'm stronger. And it's because there's weak links there that I can't address otherwise. Just period next story. Well, and to piggyback off that also, that point, when I'm training somebody who's very new, right, say in the first year, I'm only gonna move like one of those levers because that's all I need to move. Yes. And they're gonna see that. Just bumping someone's calories, boom, they're gonna respond. Oh, just changing the reps, sets, scheme, oh, boom, they're gonna respond. As you get more and more advanced, you've been doing this for say three years consistently. Now I can pull all three of those levers and really kind of rock your world. So you see a big difference. Our next caller is Jodi from Connecticut. Hi, Jodi. How can I help you? Hey guys, how are you? How you doing, Jodi? Hello. Thanks for all the great information you guys put out there all the time. I've been a fan for a couple of years, which is why I'm calling you to get some help. I am 62 and I'm going to get back on stage to compete again. And I competed for 10 years, became a two-time world bikini champion at 49. And I'm concerned that my butt is not going to be where I needed to be by November. So I know shows are one from the backside, so I need your help. What are the best exercises for glutes? Jodi, we cannot do this unless you're honest with us. Did you say you're 62? Is that for real? Yes, yes, for real. Holy cow. Oh, you're very sweet. What kind of filters on this camera? You look exceptional. You're very sweet. Listen, you've been lifting weights for a long time. Okay. 40 years. Obviously. I mean, you look phenomenal. Thank you. And you won some, yeah. So I mean, we just talked to Brett Contreras. In fact, we just had him on the show. He's the butt-building guy. He talked about training people who have a lot of experience, who've been strain-trained for a long time. And he basically is like, all of the lower body workouts are glute-focused. And we may throw in some compound lifts like squats and leg press and lunges. He goes, but otherwise it is a lot of glute stuff. It's hip thrust. It's all, it's like the back extensions with the focus on the glutes. It's glute machines. It's high volume. So it's heavy, high-intensity exercises, but also low-intensity single-joint exercises with lots of volume. And he's like, he, in fact, he talked about some of his competitors where they avoided, I mean, any direct, you know, quad work and it was all hamstring and glute and it was a glute focus. And that's when they saw the progress. And you're the perfect person for someone like that because you've got, you've already done so phenomenal. You've got such great muscle memory that, I mean, I wouldn't advise for the beginner to avoid certain things, but for someone like you, I think that that'll be the trick. Keep in mind too, Joey, that, you know, shows are also one in the off season and not in the prep. That's another thing I always tell my competitors is like, so one, what's our timeframe that we have before you actually start prep and do we have some good, because that, when you, if you're going to apply the things that I'm going to recommend with the like Brett Contreras talked about, it does matter that we are in a bulk and we're building because, you know, I could tell you all the greatest exercise in the world if you're in a calorie deficit in prep time, we're not going to build any glutes in that phase. So what are we looking at time wise? So we are exactly 12 weeks out. I started a month ago mentally prepping and working lifting heavier. So for the past month, I've been thinking of it sort of kind of like 12 weeks out, but I knew that I had 16 weeks out. So I've been trying to lift heavier. I was concerned about my shoulders being, I'm not a big person. I'm all of five feet tall and I weigh 103. So I'm not a big person, but so I didn't know how much I could actually lift. So I was concerned about the shoulders too. So to answer your question, I am prepping. So I'm 12 weeks out as of today. So that's the greatest challenge here is that there's not a lot that we're going to do right now when there's nothing we can do right now to technically build your glutes. You just try to prevent losing. Cause what I would have recommended is that we go on a bulk and we train hip thrust three times a week and probably squatting and deadlifting intermittently in there also. So that it would be built around how much can I get that hip thrust up and how much are we squatting when we started and how much we squatting at the end of it. And that would be like the main focus of the programming, but it would have to be done in a bulk and us in a surplus of calories. Cause doing that in a deficit, you're just not, you're not going to build any additional muscle at this point going in and prep. You know what? I was thinking about that because I didn't, I felt my gut reaction was that I'm not going to be ready because how much can I build at this point? Not necessarily given my age, but just that I have, I had 16 weeks out. I don't know if my coach just wants to throw me on stage and see how I'll do in the 60 and over. But I just don't want to look like an idiot. I don't want to look like a fool. I want to bring my best body. I don't think you're going to look like a fool, an idiot. I think either you're going to do fine, but I mean, there's two different things here, right? I'm going to tell you that you're going to do just fine. You're going to do well. I'm sure you'll do well. But if you were, if I was coaching you and you said out of my, my main focus, you put me on that stage again, I want my ass looking right and I want it looking better than I feel right now, then I would tell you, I'd say, okay, well then I don't want to focus on a date yet for when the show is, let's go build this ass. Let's get on a bulk. Let's, let's, and let's measure. Let's see, and let's see the progress until you feel like, hell yeah, I feel a difference. I see a difference. And then I say, okay, now it's time to get ready for this show. Let's prep, let's get lean. Let's get shredded and let's reveal all this hard work we've done. But that being said, if you're committed to going to the show and we're not going to postpone or do it another time and you're right, you can at least, the protocol would be the same. So like I still would be doing hip thrust three times a week like that with intermittently putting squats and deadlifts in there. I would still train you as if I was trying to build glutes. I just want to be transparent and honest with you. I'm not going to. I mean, I wouldn't lie to you as your coach and say, oh, don't worry, we're gonna get that ass this last 10 weeks. It's like, no, you're in a deficit. Like you are, you're catabolic. We're not building shit right now. Now it's maintaining as much as you can. That's how I was feeling. I was feeling, and that's why I reached out to Adam. I'm like, okay, I need, what can you guys do to help me? Yeah, I mean, at this point it's just trying to, you're playing defense, you're trying to prevent muscle loss. But when you get back into the building phase, you're looking at, you know, probably 30 total sets a week of glute work, but of that 10 to 15 is the heavier stuff. And the rest is just volume and frequency and pump. And I went through your Instagram and you've got great quads. So I think you'd be totally fine sacrificing quad work for glute work. I don't think you'd have any, in fact, I mean, a lot of the glute works and includes some quad. So you'd be totally fine. And I would do like a 12 week bulk and I'm trying to build my butt. And that's the focus. How strong can I get my hip thrust? How strong can I get my sumo deadlift? And, you know, how much volume and, you know, intelligent volume can I throw at my glutes? And then I take that volume away from other body parts. Don't make the mistake of just adding volume to all your workouts, but rather, I'm gonna do less quad work, more glute work. Otherwise you're just gonna overwhelm your body with too much work. You're gonna love the Breck and Cheris episode because it was like, I mean, a two hour episode primarily talking about ass. So it'll be, it'll be. I think I saw it and I just haven't listened to it yet. Well, no, it hasn't gone live yet. Oh, okay. Do we have it scheduled right now? Is it scheduled? Yeah, I believe it's gonna be out in a week. Okay, so in a week, it'll pop out. So listen to that as far as like, but again, if we were, if I was coaching you, we would have done this pre prep. Cause come prep time, when I tell all my competitors was, this is where we reveal all the hard work we did in the off season, right? At this point, you're not building a, even though people think you're building a physique cause you reveal this amazing physique after 12 weeks, you're just cutting down. You're just carving away and revealing all the work that you put into before. And so yeah, most of that work would be done already by now. So I mean, I think you're gonna do fine, no matter what, I think you're gonna do more than fine, Jody, you think you look great, you're gonna kill it. But if you want a protocol afterwards, I would say run a bulk and then listen to that episode where we talk everything about building glutes. Okay. Yeah, I think that sounds like, maybe I just need to get my feet wet and see what it feels like. I'm also gonna be competing in a different federation that I've never competed in before. So it's an MPC. So it's just. Well, there's a lot of value in that too, by the way. So like a lot of coaches, I remember this was kind of the debate that I was going back and forth with my buddy who was a coach at the time. And I'm like, I don't want to get up on stage yet. I want a whole year to build the physique. And he was like, I don't know. He's like, just get up there and get your practice and be seen by the judges. He's like, I don't, it doesn't matter that you're not gonna be the, bring the best version of yourself yet. Like right now, you just need to be seen by these MPC judges and you want to get that practice in of what the whole process is gonna look like, even though you have the process of cutting and so with that, but the process of actually going in and competing on MPC stage, he's like, get that out of the way, get the judges seeing it out of the way and then you can put that hard work in. So there is some value of you just getting up there, let them see you. If you plan to do this again after that, that is actually a smart strategy is to get up. Cause you already have a good enough physique that you're gonna do well, whether you win the whole thing or not on your first show or not. Well, that's a different story. And at least now the judges will see you, you'll get their feedback and then you'll have a blueprint for what to go do and build in the off season. Right, okay. Yeah, that all. And reach back to me. I'd love to hear how this goes. So I'll be watching. I will let you know. Thank you so much. Yeah, good job, Jody. All right, Jody. All right, thanks guys. Thank you. Bye-bye. Everybody needs to look at her Instagram. She's looks. I know. I cannot believe. I remember when she interviewed me, I was like, I really thought she was lying to me. I was like, there's no way she's. She looks like a fit 40 something year old woman. She looks good for 40. And I mean, in her Instagram, she has lots of, and that's, I mean, she's obviously strength trained properly and done this for a long time. Cause very balanced, very, I mean, healthy, looking physique and, you know, competing. I think your advice was great, Adam. I think, you know, test it out, see what happens. And then after that, you can focus on like a whole period of building, but she's so experienced with strength training that, you know, if she just did glute exercises for her lower body, she, her lower, her legs, her quads will probably look fine. I'm sure there'll be no change, but she would get the butt gains. Yeah. Part of why I wanted her to come on here so we could discuss it, because I think it's actually a cool conversation because it doesn't just, this doesn't, this doesn't just apply to competitors. This is a common thing that you hear clients want. They want to build this body. They want to build this ass. They want to build these arms. They want to build these shoulders. And then they also want to lose all this body fat. And it's like, okay, well, if we go on this cut where we want to reduce calories to lose the gut or lose the body fat, you're not simultaneously going to build a butt. You're not simultaneously going to build shoulders. And of course there's exceptions to rule to an absolute newbie who's never touched weights that will see some progress in both ends. And what you see is an illusion. So when people think, oh, that's not true. I remember when I got shredded before and my shoulders were there. No, you've always had those shoulders. You always had that ass. It just got, you always had those abs. You just got revealed, that's all. And if you want to quote unquote build those muscles then we have to be in a surplus. It's just science. You can't, you're not going to build it while your body is catabolic. Especially when you're advanced. Now sometimes complete beginners can get away with being in a small deficit and see a build and lose process at the same time. But at her level, unlikely, it's unlikely. She's already built so much muscle. She's trained for so long. Gaining muscle is going to be hard anyway, even in a surplus, let alone a deficit, it's going to be impossible. Yeah, if I was her coach and she came to me and said those things before we decided to do the show, the only reason why I would let her get on stage within 12 to 16 weeks now is because just purely for what I said, hey, we're going to go after, let's say like her and I decide we're going to go after an IFBB broke pro card. And so I know she's going to have a journey. It's not going to be one or two shows. We're going to be doing at least three to five to maybe six shows for that, even to be a possibility. Then I'm like, go do it just so the judges can see you. We can get their feedback. And then the next prep or the next off season will build the physique that I think is going to win. There's value in that. But if she was like, Adam, I'm going to do one show. I'm in my 60s now. I just want to say I did it one more time and I want to bring the best body I can then I'd be like, okay, let's take our time then. Let's really assess, let's talk about all your weak points and then let's build an off season where we're going to be in a calorie surplus. Let's go sculpt this body. That would have been a better approach if that was her desired outcome. Our next caller is Nicole from Massachusetts. Hi, Nicole. How can we help you? Hey, so I started listening a few months ago and since then you guys have completely transformed my relationship with food. For the first time in my life, I'm eating in a bulk rather than a deficit. Nice. So way more calories than ever. Still top sometimes mentally, but I'm mostly okay with it because I know I'm putting on muscle. Finally starting to look like I actually work out. So first, just want to really thank you for that. That's awesome. Yeah, awesome. Thanks for that. Yeah, so I listen to any chance I can. I really couldn't find anything that got into a deload week. I even asked your AI to search for episodes but I couldn't find anything that really got into detail there. So a little bit of background. I just wrapped up Maps Aesthetic on Friday. Saw major results through the program. I hit some PRs in all the major lifts and I'm just feeling super strong overall. Next I'm planning to run symmetry. I knew I had imbalances but I really started to notice that while I was running Aesthetic. I feel like my body is tired. So instinctively, I just think I would benefit from a deload week before I jump into another program and I'm not really sure what that should look like. Okay, that's a really good question. All right, let me ask you this. Let's go back for a second. You said we changed your relationship with food and then you finally went on a bulk which was probably hard at first and maybe even now probably a little challenging. What are the benefits and effects you saw from the bump in the calories? Yeah, so I saw myself getting stronger and even just looking like I was getting stronger. So I did notice the scale go up which was still it was pretty tough mentally but knowing that like I have goals. I wanna chest press 135. I want to squat 200 or more. I wanna get my dead lift up there. So I know that eating, fueling my body is gonna get me there. Did you get more energy? Did you notice any changes in things like sleep and energy and motivation? I think energy. I'm not sure about sleep if that's, if it really made a difference there but I do think energy, yeah. Good, good. So you trusted us and you saw some benefits and you look lean. I could tell from the camera here and you're doing great, you're getting stronger. So I'm gonna ask you to trust us again. That's where I'm getting at, okay? I think you would do well with the deload week before you start symmetry. So I would take a week off completely. You can still walk and be active but I do no lifting for a week. Then after phase, not phase one but phase two I would do another week off and then at the end of symmetry take another week off and then do another program. Okay, so it would be one week off now or when you're ready to start symmetry. A week off after phase two and then after symmetry is over a week off and then try another program. Now here's what the data clearly shows. Not only is it good for you but you're gonna get better results doing it this way. You'll actually get stronger and get better results doing it that way. The only challenge is gonna be the mental part of actually taking that week off. So I suggest you fill the time with something else that might feel productive and it can be anything. You can even be something active. I just wouldn't fill it with a hard workout but you'll get better results doing it that way. It took me decades to figure this out and when I finally did it's like, okay, well this just, I just feel better and I'm stronger and I'm getting better results. There was a recent study that we've talked about a few times on the show. It's probably been a while so maybe you haven't listened to it if you just recently started listening to Mind Pump where they compared two groups where someone took off one group basically trained all the way through. I think it was for like, I wanna say three to six months somewhere in that range and they trained all the way through, no breaks, no deload or nothing. Another group took off every fourth week completely. So like three weeks and then one week off? Yeah, three weeks on, one week off. Three weeks on, one week off. So basically took a week off every single month. At the end of the study, the group saw the same amount of results and so that's a huge eye-opener for most people like, wow. And that's way more deloads than I recommend it to. Yeah, and you don't need to do, you don't necessarily need to do that all the time but that just shows you how much, like, cause the fear is like, oh my God, I worked so hard, I've made all these gains. I don't wanna take a week off and like start all over again. Like not only will you not start all over again, you're going to progress as much as the person who didn't skip at all. So there's, and if you keep your diet in check and you do active things, like say go for a hike or do some yoga or do some other beneficial things for you, I think you'll see tremendous benefit. And then the other thing to point out was your intuition, you felt it. Like no one knows I can be the best coach in the world but no one knows their body better than yourself and if you were feeling that way, it's a great sign just to scale back. And deloading doesn't, like people are always looking for like this protocol. Yeah, protocol for deload. It could be as simple as like, I'm gonna still train this week but I'm gonna cut everything I do 50%. Just gonna cut everything in half. I can squat 200 pounds, I'm gonna squat 100 pounds. If I normally do four sets, I'm gonna do two sets and still cut it but just take it way easy for you or go, hey, I'm gonna go all body weight movements this week. Just no weight, no barbell, no dumbbell, just body weight movements or just doing maybe some stuff from our prime pro program. Like real, that man, huge benefits to doing that. And so as you continue on this journey, like when you have those moments and you feel that way, listen to your body and then scale back for the week and it doesn't have to be like this perfect quote unquote, deload protocol, even though that study showed that they took weights off completely. So you could get away with going completely off or you could just dramatically scale back whatever it is that you're currently doing. Yeah, just active recovery at the end of the day. So it doesn't have to be super specific to his point in terms of a structured day. Just get out and that's where walks come in and that's, you know, I like mobility practices just cause then I can kind of see how well like my joints are responding if there's any pain, any kind of restriction there just to go through those movements and plus to prep for then going into like unilateral work and things like that going into symmetry. It's gonna highlight a lot of that on its own but really it's just about like the active recovery, the movement, the blood flow and then, you know, feeding yourself and getting proper rest. Yeah, you know why Nicole, they have deload protocols? Because athletes tend to overdo it on deload weeks. So it's easier to tell them specifically reps and sets, right? But really a deload week, you should just go have fun and do nothing hard physically. That's it. Just go have fun, do nothing hard physically. I like mobility work a lot during that week. In fact, do you have maps performance? I do not. All right, I'm gonna send that to you because in the program or mobility sessions, you can use those on your deload week. Just do the mobility sessions if you still wanna go to the gym. I love that too. And if you're an outdoor person too, this is the week today. I'm gonna go hiking, kayaking, doing physical stuff that you like to do. That's just, that's a great thing to do during that time too. By the way, Adam said 50% weight. I wanna be very clear. It also means you do the same amount of reps you did before with the halfway. Cause some people will be like, oh, I'm gonna cut the weight in half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I'm doing twice as many reps. That's a good point. So literally, if I did 10 reps of 200 pounds in a squat, I'm gonna do 10 reps of 100 pounds in a squat. Yeah, good point. So yeah, it's gotta be super easy. And you're gonna go back, you're gonna get, here's the deal. I know Adam brought up the study. That's just showing you how little negative effects you get from taking a week off after every three weeks. There's absolutely nothing in this. Yeah, what I told you to do, you're gonna get better results. So you're not taking that many deload weeks. You're literally doing one before symmetry, one after phase two, not phase one, phase two. And then at the end of it, you take another week off and then fall into the program. That's gonna get you faster results. Not that you're gonna get the same results, but you'll get faster results. Would you play with my calorie intake on a kilo week? Nope, nope. Keep it the same, same. And also don't stress it. I mean, understand that you haven't lifted weights for a week, so don't let yourself look at them here and go, oh, God, I feel like this, I feel like this. Here's what happens. Here's what happens with the deload week when people, because here's what people try to do. They're like, oh, okay, now I'm not exercising as hard, so I gotta cut my calories. Well, now you just reduce the effectiveness of the deload week, because what your body does during that deload, by the way, I don't give deload weeks to people who have trouble making it to the gym. So for someone watching right now who skips every other week or misses workouts all the time, you're not doing a deload week. You need to get your ass in the gym. Someone like you, who's very consistent, who has trouble when they don't go to the gym, has tremendous benefits, and then you need to continue to feed your body the same amount of calories, because your body's gonna use those calories to get you to recover and adapt. In fact, you may actually come back from your week off stronger. I mean, in fact, I'll bet that you probably will, so yeah, follow it, do it, don't change your calories, don't try to compensate. You won't gain body fat, trust me. You're gonna, you'll come back stronger, you'll get better results as a result of this. All right. All right. We're gonna send you a dress. And we're sending you performance so you have those mobility sessions, okay? Awesome, thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Nicole. Everything you guys do. Thank you. Thanks, Nicole. Well, I'm glad you, you know, we mentioned the calorie compensation. It's funny because people will be like, oh, I'm deloading, I'm gonna cut my calories in half. Well, now you just wasted your time. Now you're just not working out and you're not feeding your body. And it's not going to happen. Well, many times a lot of what that overtraining feelings is just not giving yourself adequate recovery. And part of the recovery process is feeding the body what it needs. And so to, to go into a cut on your, on your delo week, well, it does it like defeats half of the purpose of it. You know, I do want to point out the worst part about the advice that we gave is that especially since that on the show we talk a lot about behavioral stuff. I think the hardest part about the advice of taking a week off is a lot of us are momentum based and habitual. And so if you've gotten into this, you finally got on your fitness and you've been consistent in your training. And then here we are like, oh, take the week off. It's like, and then all of a sudden that week turns into two weeks or three weeks or you spiral out of control or then all of a sudden you start eating like an asshole. And so I think the most important thing is to know what kind of person you are. Totally. And that if, if taking a week out of the going to the gym and your routine is going to, is going to cause you to spiral. And then if that's the case, then I tell you to go, still go to the gym. Just, just go easy. Just go way easy. Yeah. I've been working out for 10 years consistently. Right, right. So someone like that, I think that is the right, but I just wanted to make that clear because I know there's a bunch of people in the audience who, you know, they hear that and they're like, oh, shoot, well, I just started my journey. I'm on three months right now and I haven't taken a week off yet. And then they're like, Cut the wind out of their shoes. Yeah. I might not take that person a week off even though they could potentially benefit from it. It's like, they've only been consistent for three months of their life. And like giving them a week off could be just all it needs to, To stop it. Yeah, to stop it. Yeah, for me at this point, I just started now doing this kind of stuff. And what I literally do on those weeks is I focus on getting more sleep. I focus on eating even more than I did before. And it's paying me back tremendously as a result. Look, if you love the show, come get some free stuff. We have free fitness guides at mindpumpfree.com. You can also find us all on Instagram. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump to Stefano. And Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam.