 Hey everyone, welcome to Mind Pump. In this episode, we talk about the 10 common traits that are shared by fit and healthy people that we have observed in clients who have succeeded versus those who have not. Also, if you want short clips from this show, go to our other YouTube channel, Mind Pump Clips, and subscribe. Alright, enjoy the show. People that are able to maintain good health and fitness for their entire lives often have commonalities, common traits. In today's episode, we're going to talk about some of those commonalities that we've observed in the decades that we've worked in gyms and trained clients. So I want to list out and kind of talk about some of the common traits of fit and healthy people, because, you know, when people get into the fitness space or start working out trying to improve their health and their fitness, it's important to look at the people who've been able to figure out how to do it, how to do it long term. Use those examples. Like, why is that going well for you? What's sticking? Like, what are your habits? When you sent over the list, the first thing that I thought that would be an interesting thing to do is actually to do like some sort of a survey where anybody who considers them like a, you know, lifelong health and fitness person, you know, how many of these would you check off about yourself to see just how true this is? Like, is it because not only, I mean, I definitely think that of the 10 things that you listed, you're going to have some of those, if not all of them, right? And so what would be the common number? It's like, oh, someone who considers himself, you know, a fit, healthy person for, you know, long term, you know, for life, this will be a part of their life, checked at least seven of these 10 boxes or five of these 10 boxes, right? Cause I do think that there's probably five. Yeah, there's, I think most of these when I go through, I'm like, you know, my clients that had figured this out and or my trainers that I worked with, these, these ones like had at least five to seven of these on the list for sure. Yeah. I mean, these were just ones that, you know, we observed in people and then you observe in yourself, right? Like when I, when I talk about, you know, looking at someone who's kind of figured it out, this is somebody who's been doing it for like more than five years, six years, maybe more than 10 years because, you know, most people will fall off within a year, but then there's a chunk of people that'll do it for two or three years, but then fall off. Very few people will do it for five plus years. And we had those members, right? That would come in super consistent. In fact, we've talked about members that we knew, even though none of, even though I didn't work in the same gyms as you guys, I worked in some of those gyms before you guys, for example. And then we talk about that, oh, you know, that one member like, oh, yeah, they used to come in and work out at same time when I was there. And you see these traits in these people. Yeah, I was always paying attention to any of those things like who's the strongest in the gym? Like who's the most consistent in the gym? Like, you know, you look at that and you look for commonalities all the time. And it's just, I think it's just something to pay attention to, you know, in general. And I did that even when my career as a personal trainer, who's the best? I want to emulate whatever, like, you know, they're doing with their clients or I can be closer towards them. So what's the number? Five years, you think? You think five? I think a decade. I think you're probably closer to 10. Yeah, because I think a lot of people have, well, not a lot, but there's a good chunk of people that have done it for five years. You know, maybe they were in a sport or something like that. In school. And so they had these, the reason why I say a decade, I know that now it's just a made up number, right? Maybe it's seven and a half. Who cares? But I feel like you need to have gone through at least one like major life altering shift, which, you know, crisis or something. Yeah, you know, that can even include, you know, getting married and having it starting a family that can include moving across the country or into another country. Just getting older. Yeah, you know, it just or a major shift in careers where, you know, one career you did, you were very physical and active, something very dramatic that has that that you've really had to now build this into your life. And it's no longer convenient, you know, because you could you could be convenient for three to five years, right? Like I say, if you're in school, if you're in, maybe you're in college and you have gym class and your friends all work out a place. So you work out for four years. Yeah, so you work out, right? But it's not like, like you're like, this is going to be a lifelong pursuit. I feel like, so I feel like a decade you have. I agree with you a hundred percent agree with you because I know people who are like, yeah, when I worked at that one place for five years, they had a gym and I worked out all the time and I stopped because my new job doesn't have a gym, you know, so they weren't able to figure it out. Yeah. One of the first things that I noticed with some of the most consistent members in the gyms that I managed was their workouts were scheduled at the same time and the same days every week. I could, I could count on them like the sun rising that at Monday, six a.m. John was going to be here. There would be a group of people that I would always see and they would always come same time, same days. And what does that mean? It doesn't mean that they're neurotic. No, not necessarily. What it meant was that they've put it, it's become one of the rocks in their schedule, just like they probably brush their teeth at the same time every day, just like they eat dinner at the same time. Right. It was just these people had created the schedule and it was just a super. Now, does that mean they didn't miss workouts? No, I'm sure they missed workouts here and there, but regularly they worked out and it was always the same time, same days. It was just something that, that, that I saw on all the people. Now, this, this is something that's not exclusive to training, right? I mean, I think that there's, there's research to support this, right? Just creating any sort of a habit or routine, yeah, making it consistent on the day and the time is like one of the basic strategies, right? So that's, it's not even just exercise. If you want to create a new habit into your life, having a day and a time that you consistently do it, I think that it's, we've already proven that you're going to have way more success. So even though I think life does happen, you also want to be able to, on the fly, hey, I can still get up early and go do it tomorrow or hey, I can do it later on. I think there's value to that. But I think as far as building it into your life, you know, having this time that's like a non-negotiable, I mean, I think of everyone here, I think you, you've done the best of that. So I mean, it is a non-negotiable that you're going to get your workout in the morning, regardless of where we are. And this time has changed for me. It used to be noon. For years, I'd workout around noon or one o'clock because I used to, I would train clients in the morning. And I would have clients that would like to train at six or seven a.m. So I'd have like a seven a.m., eight a.m., nine a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m. And then I'd have a break, usually for two or three hours. And then I'd train, you know, three or four more clients. So it was always noon. And I did that for, I don't know, 15 years. And also when you run gyms, right? When you, when you're managing gyms, the dead time is the middle of the day. It's busy at night, busy in the early morning. So I did that for years. And then, you know, we started doing this and then my kids got, you know, to school age and have to take them to school in the morning. And it just, you get busier with kids and it's like, okay, middle of the day just doesn't work. So it became the first thing in the morning thing for me, but it's always the same time. It's always something that I keep as consistent as possible. And like I said, you know, those regulars that you guys used to see in the gym, you could always count on them being there at a specific time, a specific day. Yeah. And you'd notice it was early in the morning, a lot of times. A lot of times. Mainly because things just interrupt your day and it just, you know, those are a lot of the variables that kind of come in and you see where that becomes an excuse to then kind of like roll it over to the next day. And then you lose that sort of consistency of pattern. You know, another reason why I think this is a 10 year thing is because of your next point too, because I think about, and your second point is the respect for fitness, but don't over obsess over the goals, right? So, you know, I've met people that become obsessed with, you know, bodybuilding at that time or something like that. And so for, you know, a period of their life, three to five years, they're like obsessive about, you know, saying that I've competed or winning a trophy or whatever about that. But then they get done with that and they reach that goal and they completely fall off the wagon. And so I think that's another point to the why I think it has to be longer than like just five years is because this is common. You see somebody gets a major goal, weddings coming up or, you know, I want to say that I've competed for the first time. For a marathon. Yeah, anything, right? And then they become very obsessive and that's how they've had success in their life is to, you know, completely put the blinders on and then obsess about this one goal. And the problem with that is, you know, when you reach that goal, then what? And if you haven't built a good relationship around exercise and it's only attached to this thing that you were obsessed about that you've now reached, what's going to keep you going? Yeah, I learned as a gym manager that one of the questions I used to like to ask members was, hey, what are your goals right now? Now, why would I ask that question? Well, first off, it's a great way to open a conversation about fitness. It also opened up potential conversations about hiring a trainer or new equipment in the gym or, you know, maybe some products that we had. So it's also a good kind of sales question, but generally just what are your goals? It sounds like a pretty general good fitness question. And I remember that I would ask some of the older members that I had that were like super fit and super consistent. Like these are people who were over the age of 60 that I used to watch and respect and see that they were fit and I used to love watching them work out and I would go up to them say, hey, what are your goals? And they would be like, I don't really have any goals. Like, what do you mean by that? Oh, I just like doing this. Now, I would hear that enough and go, that's kind of interesting. Like the younger people, they always had a goal. I want to build my back. Oh, I want to get stronger. I want to get faster. But then the people who have been doing it for long, long periods of time, they just like working out and they they would have maybe many goals like, yeah, I'm trying to improve my flexibility here. Yeah, my knee hurts a little bit. Yeah. But really, they didn't obsess over the goals. It was all about doing it for the sake of doing it. So there's a lot of value in having fitness goals. But when that becomes the soul, motivator and inspiration for your workouts, you tend to run into trouble and you end up running into this problem of, you know, hyper motivation and then stopping. Yeah, it's still a bit surface in terms of what you can get out of fitness. And I do feel that I do tend to navigate towards, you know, those those older members because again, if you're looking for real wisdom, a lot of times you got to have the life experience to back it up, right? And so not to say that there's there's not young people crushing it and killing it and like applying a lot of these disciplines and like you recognize it and you can, you know, take from that. But I just feel like a lot of times you notice that right away from some of the more mature, older members in the gym that they've figured out like how to really just enjoy the process of being there and making their body feel good and doing things that just benefit their body in general. Well, isn't there a term or isn't this some sort of a phenomenon, Doug, where you have somebody who said like we talked, I think, with Mark Manson. Yes, Mark Manson talked about with his book, right? You set these you set a massive goal and then you reach that goal and then all of a sudden athletes go through depression after yeah, Olympic athletes will go through it because they train because, you know, it's every four years, right? You compete in your sport and so they'll train their entire lives, make it to the Olympics, win a gold medal and then many of them go through a period of depression or a period where they just don't want to train anymore because they've lost that what do I do this for, you know, and because they were so obsessed with the goal instead of probably being focused on the journey in the process of trying to reach that goal and actually enjoying that. There's a term now. Is there I mean the word I'm seen as a rival fallacy a rival fallacy. I've never heard that before. Interesting. I don't know if I've heard that before, but it's a thing though. I know that. Oh, no, for sure. Boom. What's up, everybody? Here's the giveaway maps prime bundle. That's prime and prime pro for correctional exercise and better mobility. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. If you do all those things and we'd like your comment will notify you in the comment section that you won free access to maps prime and prime pro known as the maps prime bundle. Also, we got a sale going on right now. Maps symmetry 50% off maps strong 50% off to very popular maps workout programs, both 50% off. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below to get yourself set up. All right, here comes the show. This next one is, you know, I had I remember having lunch with one of my I had a client who hired me and he was already I think he was 65 when he hired me and he'd already been working out for I want to save almost 40 years consistently. Like this guy used to swim every day. He would cycle, he would run and he picked up strength training three years prior to meeting meeting with me. So he had picked up strength training because he thought his doctor told him strength training would also benefit him and then he incorporated strength training. So Jim, his name is Jim, good friend of mine, you know, in fact, he helped me film the first maps anabolic program with Doug. Pretty funny. But I remember going to lunch with this guy and he would eat like he would always make these really healthy food choices. And I remember I said to him, I said, Jim, I said, you're so like obsessive. And he goes obsessive. What do you mean? He goes, like, why do you? Like, why don't you just have a burger or whatever? And he goes, I like eating this way. I really enjoy the flavor and how it makes me feel. I thought, well, yeah, you know, that makes a lot of sense. If you've been doing as long as he has, he's learned. And here's the key here. He's learned to enjoy healthy eating because I think the reason why I communicated that way is because if we identify what we enjoy from food is pure hedonistic value, just the taste, then it'll be very hard for you to really fully enjoy healthy eating because it's hard for whole natural foods to compete with either ultra processed or these prepared meals that are just so palatable. But if you start to really value food for all the things that it provides you, you actually start to learn to eat to enjoy healthy eating. And this is why as an adult, I enjoy eating things like vegetables when I was a kid. I hated them. Why do I enjoy them? Because they taste super good. No, I just enjoy the way they make me feel. And so I actually enjoy eating them. How powerful do you think that feedback loop is? Like, I tell myself this is good for me. I tell myself I'm going to enjoy. I tell myself I like it. I kind of like it. I eat it. OK, not so bad. The next time I really like this, it makes me feel good every time I do this. OK, I mean, how much do you think that's going on, too, in this situation? Well, it can be very powerful. I think it can be very powerful when you identify what it does for you, not that you're lying to yourself. Like, I like this. You know, oh, I think I like it. More like, huh, I notice my joints feel better when I eat this way or my digestion feels better. Wow, this really affects my skin and I have more energy. Once you start to identify that stuff, then you start to find that you crave those foods. And vice versa, you want to identify the bad ways that other foods make you feel even though they taste good. You actually stop enjoying them. Yeah, I mean, for the most part, that's how I see people having that sticking point is that it just stops at the flavor. It just stops at the texture. It's like all of those, you know, initial sort of cues and experience of like eating a vegetable. It's like, oh, it's not a Twinkie. So therefore it's not as good. But yeah, in terms of it, like helping with your digestion, in terms of like adding more energy and like helping you feel like, you know, you have some vitality from just eating more vegetables in general. Like you got to start associating all these other factors that your body's providing feedback towards. I feel like this was a very powerful moment in my journey was making this connection. It was really starting to highlight the things to myself, right? You have to make yourself aware of that. And that's what I mean. That's why I think the, when I was asking about the feedback loop of how important it is to kind of tell yourself that. Maybe the first time I was, you know, getting consistent with eating broccoli, it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. But if I noticed like, oh, my stool was better. Oh, my energy level was better. Oh, I didn't have as I didn't have much bloat from that. Like I felt good, like I slept good. I woke up feeling lean. Like, and I'm saying that and reminding myself that as I'm eating it. And I feel like that happened enough times. And then to your point, and then not doing it going like, ah, fuck it, I'm going to have this anyways. And then eating the five slices of pizza and then being like, bleh, afterwards. And then reminding myself, oh my God, my stool was off. I didn't sleep well. Like I woke up the next day feeling bloated and lethargic. Like, and so I really think the more you practice that and force yourself to be aware of how these foods are affecting the better the relationship with it and the easier it will be to be consistent with it because it's no longer, oh, I can't have that. It's like- I want it. Yeah. Your example, like, oh man, I want to eat this way because it makes me feel great. It's funny because we'll, you know, obviously we started working together later in our careers but when we would go travel, we used to do a lot of traveling. We first started Mind Pump to get on other shows and stuff. And we, you would eat out a lot, right? Because you're traveling or in a hotel room, like you can't cook. And all of us by the end of the trip are always like, oh man, I can't wait to get home and eat a big bowl of vegetables and some, some meat. Just to crave it, yeah. Isn't that funny, right? So you can, by the way, food manufacturers know this. This is why advertisers always connect food to like fun and excitement and, you know, activities because they know that they can make those associations. You can do that yourself. And so people who eat healthy lifelong, they don't do it because they white knuckle at the whole time. They do it because they've learned to enjoy healthy eating. And once you really start to enjoy it, well, of course, and it's pretty easy. This next part is an interesting one to me but I'll challenge anybody if they disagree, go up to somebody who's been working out consistently for more than 10 or 15 years, okay? And ask them, what's your number one reason for being so consistent in the gym or so consistent with your workouts? And I bet you most of them will not say anything that has to do with their physical body. Most of them will say it's the mental or the emotional or the health effects. I do this for my brain, I do this for my mind. Some people call it church, right? Like some people go into the gym. Yeah, to really get in that head space where they can step away from a lot of these, these sort of stressors from work and from relationships and everything else and just, and focus like on your own needs too. It's almost like you don't take a whole lot of time to really just acknowledge like your own personal needs. And like in the gym, it like really provides that and it gives you that sort of, you know, a mental aspect to it as well. You know, when I first read this point too, this was another thing that reminded me of the, you know, this has got to be like 10 years in because- Yeah, you're right, this takes a long time. Yeah, this took, because I was not this person. I was, I used to say all show no go. I used to like make these comments all the time about looking a certain way. Like I was all about doing what I needed to do in the gym to maintain this look that I was, you know, driving towards all the time. And it wasn't until much later and it had to been north of 10 years that that kind of come full circle. So what's neat about this one is even if it's not your motivation right now, it will become eventually. If you stick with it long enough. Yeah, if you stick with it long enough, eventually you will make the connection too. And I think that's key because, you know, especially when you do something like I did in my, in this case where I took my body to probably the best it will ever, ever be. I just, there's the reality of me ever peaking beyond that physique that I built in that time is very, very highly unlikely. So I have to accept that. I have to accept that. I'm gonna keep doing this for 10, 20, 30 more years. And if I'm constantly thinking back to what I could look like, you know, it's gonna drive me crazy. And so you've just, you have to definitely at one point accept that you may not have this physical look that you've attained before. And it's like, I do it for a whole host of other reasons besides that. Oh, I 100% work out for the mental effects. 100%, that's the number. I love the physical part. So that's a great added benefit. But if my health, if my physical health was deteriorating for some reason or what I'd still do it because of the mental effects, I've just found that to be much more valuable. And it's also something that sticks with you much longer than the physical stuff. Now you mentioned accepting, that's the next point, which is people who have done this long term, they accept aging. Now why is this such an important factor? Because I don't care who you are, I don't care how awesome you think you are. At some point, no matter how consistent you are, your fitness, physical performance, your muscle, your strength, how much you can lift is gonna decline just cause you're getting older. Just cause you're getting older. Now you could do what some people do where they just fight it so hard that they hurt their bodies, they use drugs, they do crazy things to try to keep pushing the limit, but you'll still lose. At some point, things decline. So the people who do this long term, they accept the aging process along with everything else and the fitness is just a part of that. We were hanging out with Stan Efforting yesterday. And I think in today's time with social media and stuff and we're all probably guilty of this of posting our best lifts, posting only when we feel great about ourselves. And so everybody has this image or idea about what they see on there and they're like, oh man, this guy is invincible. They use him as an example, point to like, look how strong and how hard he's still pushing. And he's this whole, it's like, yeah, but if you could have heard him talking off air when we were hanging out about like, what nobody gets to see is after I do that 600 pound deadlift, how I get out of bed the next day. How it makes you feel later. Nobody's videoing you and videoing him and telling people that, but it's true. I mean, father time is undefeated and eventually those things will have to change. Your priorities will have to change. And if not, what in my experience, what happens is the body ends up winning. You don't listen, you ignore, you still chase those PRs, you still chase that look and then your body revolts on you. Yeah, and you sort of realize, okay, I have to be a little more intentional now. Like there's like this bit of a shift as you age where there's, maybe there's more of a process, more of a ritual you have to apply to get your, even your joints to respond better and to do things more optimally. It's like, you could be applying these when you're younger and have like a lot of success with that, but you just don't consider those as much until your body really provides that feedback. Like, hey man, like, you know, they start talking to you within the lifts and then you have to acknowledge it. It's a reality. Which takes us to the next one, which is a part of that, which is that people who are consistent forever with fitness, their workouts change based on their life circumstances. Meaning, you know, right now I feel good, I'm getting good sleep, everything's great, I'm working out hard. And then, oh my God, I lost my job. I'm really depressed or I'm sad or I'm not getting good sleep. Now I'm gonna work out differently. I'm gonna work out to improve the quality of my life regardless of the context of what's happening. Or I get injured. You know, some people, when they get so obsessed with working out with their physical bodies and hitting PRs that when they get injured, they don't go to the gym. Like, forget it, what's the use? If I can't squat, because my knee is hurt, I'm not gonna work out. Well, the person who does this long term, they go anyway and they work other things and they focus on other things. So, this is a really, really important one is that your workouts change based on your life circumstances because your life circumstances will change. One of them's aging, but there's so many life circumstances that change that if your workouts don't change and modify to match those life circumstances, you'll either overtrain or become injured or become disenfranchised and lose your inspiration, motivation to work out. Well, anybody who's had children absolutely had to have this happen. Oh, yeah. Both husband and wife, I don't care which side you're. Obviously, the wife has gone through way, way more in that situation and is physically forced in a direction of having to change the way she trains. But even the dad, I mean, if you're, especially if you're an involved dad, if you're an involved dad with the raising of your kid, you know, how you train, when you train, what time you train, how long you get to train for, the perfect rest periods between, I mean, all that stuff gets disrupted. And if the attitude is throw your hands up and be like, oh, I can't do my maps, anabolic routine, fuck it, I'm not doing anything. It's like, no, this is a great time to adapt, adjust. Now you're gonna do things that, and we talked on a podcast the other day about how this is how I like to use all these tools, like the circuit training or supersets or drop sets or like things that like condense the workout in a smaller window. It's like, instead of me like, we always get asked as like the value of them, like in comparison, you know, are drop sets better than these or are drop sets a great way to build muscle? It's like, yeah, it's a tool, it's awesome. But you know what I like to use it is when life naturally pulls me in the direction that this is gonna be advantageous. It's like, oh, look, I only have 15 minutes. This is a great time to cut them short rest periods and do more of a circuit style. And yeah, is it gonna be as good as my five by five training when it comes to building my squad up? And I go, no, but that's the goal right now is to maintain this healthy lifestyle that I've worked so hard to keep. And knowing that I have this uncontrollable that's happened in my life and so you just adjust. The bottom line is your workouts need to improve the quality of your life. Okay, that's the bottom line. And if they don't, then you're doing something wrong. So as your life changes, your workouts have to necessarily change in order to continue to keep the quality of life at its best. That doesn't mean your quality of life is always gonna be high by the way. You know, like I got a baby coming here in five or six weeks or so and my quality of life is gonna change in some ways it's gonna go up. I got his new baby. It's this amazing blessing and my heart is gonna just grow and my love is gonna grow. My sleep is gonna go in the crapper. Meaning my diet's probably gonna go in the crapper. My workouts are not gonna be as intense or as exciting or fun. So I gotta change them so I can maintain or keep a higher quality of life. And so that's what this basically means is you change your routine, you change your diet, you change these practices to improve the quality of life regardless of what that quality, what that life looks like in that moment. This next one is also another important one and this is what you'll find. People who work out for long periods of time consistently when they go to the gym, it's very, it's precise, it's methodical. They're there, they're doing what they're supposed to do. They're not messing around. They're not wasting time in the gym. It's like, this is what I do, this is what I'm here to do and then I'm out of here. Now that doesn't mean you can't go to the gym and enjoy yourself and talk to people and stuff but that usually happens with these people after the workout. If you ever watch somebody who's super consistent and they do like to hang out in the gym, it's when they're done. They don't do it in the middle of their workouts where they're kind of wasting their time. Well, I think that's because they, Justin made a point earlier and I definitely was somebody who used to refer to the gym as church is there's, it's sacred to these, if you have put it together and you have connected the dots on all these things on how much it makes you a better version of yourself and how important it is, this time becomes sacred and you know, you allowing anybody to disrupt that or you to fuck it off yourself is doing a disservice to yourself. And so I think that's why you see this as a common trait and these people that have built that is because this time has now become very sacred to them is like, cause many people have very, very busy lives and they go, hey, I've been able to carve out this 30 or 60 minute window. Took a lot to acquire that. Yeah, it took a lot to acquire that and be consistent with that. I want to respect it by getting the work done that I know pays me the most dividends and flapping my gums with my friend or getting on social media and scrolling around is not paying me back that way. And so I'll save that for when I'm on the toilet or doing something else right now, I'm getting to work. It's basically, it's intentional. Everything's very intentional and they know what they're there to do and they do it and then they're usually out. And like I said, the most consistent people tend to be this way with their workouts. Another one is that they don't waste their time with fad diets. Now, I do want to be clear. This doesn't mean they don't try different methods of eating, different ways of eating to see how it affects their body or use different methods or ways of eating to improve their quality of life depending on what they're looking for. But what they don't do is waste their time on fad diets like, oh, there's that new diet they came out that says it's supposed to be, I'm going to switch to that or, oh, there's that other diet. I'm going to switch to that. You don't see them doing that. Yeah, or maybe they've had enough time where they've seen a full cycle of how all of these sort of repeat and resurface. And it's like, you know, maybe they have self-experimented down the road. And so it's like they've built up a lot of this experience going in to be able to see these patterns and like, oh, okay, now we're focused on getting rid of carbs. And that's like most of the diets out there now I see that this is the entire focus. And then, you know, so it's, I think a lot of times the more time you put in the more you start to really see a lot of these patterns emerge. Yeah, I would say a fad diet slash fad workout toll slash fad, you know, modality of training, right? They just don't fall into the trap of like, oh, there's this new tool or there's new diet or there's this new workout program that it's not, they don't fall into that trap of this is going to be so special compared to other ones. I'm glad you made that point of stuff because I did see, I actually used to do this with clients and this is later in my career after I've come full circle from being a bad trainer to a much or a less bad trainer. And I would actually take my clients through a lot of these quote unquote fad diets. And but when we go through it, the coaching would be, you know, I want you to give me feedback. I want you to, when we're going, when we're eating all vegan right now, tell me how's your energy? How's your strength? How's your mood? How does your digestion feel? How's your skin? Like I'm asking these questions, okay, cool. Now we're going to move over into a more, you know, paleo or carnivore type of diet. Okay, now tell me, or keto-ish, right? Tell me how you feel and I'm asking. And so, and that's really what I'm trying to help them connect the dots to of like how these types of foods are making them feel so that when we build a plan for you that's lifelong, that it includes the things that you enjoy and you like, but then also is centered around the things that make you feel the best. You know, it's funny as I have so through doing this and I'd love to see if you guys have any, have you identified this for yourselves? I've identified diets for me for different, you know, I guess lifestyle goals or specific goals. Like for me, if I want mental sharpness and acuity and verbal fluency, I go keto and or fasting. So keto and or fasting for mental sharpness. If I want physical strength and mass and pumps in the gym, well now I'm bumping my carbs up and I don't go too high, but I'm about 200, 250, maybe 300 grams of starchy carbohydrates will do that for me. If I'm looking for, you know, more, you know, kind of flexibility, maybe I'm highly inflamed, then I tend to bring my total calories down. I tend to eat more fibrous vegetables, I eat less starches and even my protein intake drops a little bit. And those are kind of the three diet cycles that I'll go through. Yeah, I think that's the whole idea of when you look at all these different fad diets instead of one, demonizing it or two, falling in love with it, you take it, you utilize some of the things you learn about yourself, you maybe make connections on, oh, okay. Yeah, this is not something I want to do all the time, but I could see where this would be valuable if this is going on. Yeah, like, do you guys know like what foods to remove or add when you like your digestion's off? 100%, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's definitely been, I didn't feel anything gluten-based, like I'm just, it's an immediate, I can tolerate it for just so long. And then I know that like, if I'm starting to have digestive issues and I'm starting to heartburn, like all these things start ramping up, that's just my first sort of reduction immediately. And it helps like substantially. And the same with, you know, reducing, like all fast, if I want more mental clarity, like that really helps me in terms of like, if I'm in a season of trying to build or whatnot, I beef my calories and breakfast up substantially and that helps me out and add carbs, of course. Yeah, now these are all individual things. So I don't want, I'm sorry, we're giving people advice, but that's what the lifelong people have identified is they identify how to change their diet to make themselves feel better depending on what they're looking to do. They don't fall for fad diets, like, oh, it's the next cool thing that's gonna help me lose weight or this is the next cool thing I'm gonna, you know, follow this thing. By the way, here's a little industry secret. The members that gyms make the least money off of or the members that gyms are like, oh, I don't know if we wanna attract these types of members because they use up the equipment, they get our equipment to, you know, they use up the upholstery, they use up all the weights, they're super consistent and they never buy anything, are the super consistent fitness people that we're talking about. Why? They don't buy anything. They don't buy diets, they don't buy supplements, they don't buy products, they don't buy new fitness tools that are popping out. They show up, they use the barbells and dumbbells and some machines. They actually use everything. And then they leave and they're there five days a week. It's funny and this is an industry secret, but it's true gyms that focus on the most consistent members, they either have to charge a shit ton per month or they have to have like lots of personal training services. That's why the number one chain right now is plan of fitness. It's true. They went to the most extreme version of what you're describing right now is they're like, forget all the, you know, chock-totin, powerlifting, grunting, bodybuilding seven times a week training people. We don't wanna cater to them. We're gonna cater to the extreme opposite of that. All the facts. Because those are the people that will buy all of our stuff. They're the people that will rarely use our stuff. We'll make the greatest margins on. Isn't that funny? It is. Interesting. Here's another one that I've identified and that is that people who have really developed a good lifelong relationship with health have also learned to enjoy cooking. Now this doesn't mean that they enjoy necessarily like elaborate cooking. Like they become chefs or bakers. But what I mean by that they enjoy cooking is they actually enjoy preparing their food because they like to see what's in their food. They like to see how they made it. They like to be involved. They like, exactly. And I noticed this with people, like really fit and healthy people like to just prepare their meals. They find the value in taking that 10, 15, 20 minutes and preparing things and putting them together just as much as they enjoy eating the food itself. Not only that. This is, Katrina talks about this cause she wasn't really a big cooker at all like before we got together. Like she rarely, she ate out a lot. She didn't really cook her own meals. And then, you know, we get together and then of course I go down the competitive road. And so, we cooked every- Food prep, right? Yeah, food prep. So we went from not really cooking our food to we cooked every single thing that we consumed. And of course, so she didn't get bored to death eating chicken rice and broccoli every single day. We would get, we'd have to get creative. And one of the things that she talks about that she absolutely loved about that process was realizing how many things that we could make taste really good that did not carry all the excess calories that a lot of these dishes. I mean, that's like, and good, by the way, good chefs will tell you this like that, that's such a cheat code. Like, salted up, fatted up, sugared up. Like, it'll taste good. Like, you just pile a bunch of that on there. It's like, it's a pretty easy hack to make like almost anything taste pretty damn good. But there's a lot of things just paired properly together or added a little bit of spice or the right things to mix that taste phenomenal. And I think going through that process taught us a lot about, you know, we have this dish that we eat almost every week. And it's like this kind of, it's a quinoa pasta dish. It reminds me of my mom's lasagna. Now, what she uses to make it is very different and the calories and macros are extremely there. But it gives me that same taste and sensation of mom's old lasagna that I loved. I grew up on that, but my mom used to layer it with three different layers of cheeses and the sauce was crazy and like the sausage that was in it. I mean, it's just, you can make something taste really good like that and still enjoy eating it. And I think this is a- And it doesn't feel like a chore. You start to enjoy it. Well, it's a hurdle that a lot of people that are on the fence of, do I want to make this a lifelong pursuit for myself? Or do I really want to go all in on this thing? Because I don't know, I'm kind of happy eating this way and doing that. They don't realize that there are a lot of really healthy, good alternatives. It just doesn't get a lot of FaceTime. No, people aren't making it popular or talking a lot about it. And so you just assume that healthy foods taste shitty and is no good and no fun, you know? Yeah, here's another one that I, this one I noticed immediately with the members that worked out on my gyms that were like super consistent, especially the ones that were older, like I said, over 55, over 60. And that was when I'd watched them work out, they were deliberate, they were intentional, they were consistent, but they almost never overdid it. In other words, I don't watch them work out and see them beat the shit themselves in the gym. They would have workouts and they would have an appropriate level of intensity, but more often than not, the workout looked moderate. It looked for them, moderate intensity. And this is really an app, this is for life. If you do this for life, you're not gonna be able to do beast mode workouts all the time. In fact, 80% of your workouts are not gonna be beast mode. 80% of them are gonna be these kind of moderate intensity, practice the technique, practice the moves, practice the form type workouts. Overdoing it is a very fast way to stopping this pursuit. And this is such a discipline of its own. Like everybody thinks about like fitness as being like this big discipline of having to be able to ramp up enough intensity to crush your workout and just keep this really high level of intensity going the whole time. But to be able to, you know, because that's an easy trap to fall into as well. It's like I just wanna go as hard as possible. And to be able to find that perfect range where you're gonna receive the benefit of it, you're gonna be able to adequately recover, you're gonna be able to come back with more energy, finding that sweet spot and then staying in that sweet spot without like, you know, moving past there and when you're feeling good, you really wanna get after it and it's gonna tarnish your next workout after that. That's a discipline of its own. Well, you know, when you're talking about nutrition and anatomy, physiology and a lifelong pursuit along around health, like this is really a dance. It's not a race, it's not a sprint, it's not a sport. It's like, it's not about the more you put in, the more you're gonna get out, it's not. It's just really fine dance that you have to do with your body because how you're feeding your body, how you're taking care of it recovery-wise, how hard you're pushing it, how you're pulling all these levers really makes a huge difference on your results and how you feel and how long you stick to this. And the sooner you figure out that it's more of a dance and it's less of a competitive thing with yourself, the easier it's going to be and the more likely you're going to do it for the rest of your life. Totally, when I was a kid and I first started working out, I was always sore. I was always sore from my workouts and I made sure to always get sore. Do you know how often I get sore now? Maybe once a month, I swear to God. Maybe once a month I'll get sore from a workout. I'm almost never sore from my workouts. Now you might think, well, you could get results faster if you push yourself harder. I don't know, maybe in a short period of time but I've been doing this now for almost 30 years. I wouldn't be able to do this for 30 years if I always overdid it, no way. So it's really about the appropriate intensity and thinking long-term. Is this something I'm gonna do for the rest of my life? It is, well then let me train with the appropriate level of intensity and let me not overdo it. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our guides. These guides cost nothing. They're free and we have many, many guides, most of which can help most fitness and health goals. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. This one's really important and that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did a bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets at the end of that year, you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out. And less injury, that's another thing. You'll see less injury as well.