 One of the most commonly asked questions that we get in our message boxes is, What program to start with? Yeah, like which program should I start with? Now for most people, the vast majority of people, we recommend MAPS anabolic. It's the foundational program. We recommend it because it brings you, it starts you off with full body type splits. It introduces you to the frequency concept of trigger sessions. With MAPS Prime though. With MAPS Prime, because Prime helps correct imbalances and helps you prime your workout. So it just beings it that much more effective. Now for the few times I do get messages from like competitors, like bodybuilders and bikini competitors and stuff who are stage presentation athletes who have lots of experience, great recovery ability. I'll recommend that they do MAPS aesthetic. Um, and there are times where I met recommend people start in mass performance and this is usually people who are athletic minded or who are, you know, performance minded. Like, Hey, you know, I actually just had a message the other day for someone who's going to go take a test for a police department. So he's like, which program should I do? I have, you know, three weeks, three months to get ready. Definitely MAPS performance. It's like the most performance oriented MAPS program we have. But really for most people, the ideal sequence is to start with MAPS anabolic, which is, uh, you're going to get a lot of strength at a MAPS anabolic and general muscle mass, general speed up your metabolism. Like overall building comes from MAPS anabolic. Then you go to MAPS performance, which is how we progress you and mass performance is multiplayer movements. You're doing more complex exercises. You're doing mobility sessions. So you're working on control in these new ranges of motion. So you're basically becoming, uh, more, and I hate to use the term functional cause that's been sold now. So improperly late, but you do become a lot more functional, um, with a lot more stamina, um, strength, endurance, power, all the things that an athlete would value. So you go to that. And then lastly, we tend to tell people to move to MAPS aesthetic, which probably has the most volume. Wouldn't you say? Oh, it absolutely does. Each one of those programs though, um, everybody will benefit from. So we don't think that there's a program and same thing for like, this is male and female. I get a lot of times too. I get a lot of women that go, what's the program for me? Or I'm a woman. Like what do you guys do for women? And the same thing. Yeah, we absolutely refuse to market discrimination. Yes, you're, you're, you're the weights. Do not know the difference of your sex. It doesn't work that way. You're, you're the weights. Don't know if it's a male or a female lifting it. It responds to the movement and it builds muscle or it burns fat. It's that simple. And we just refuse to market to, you know, men and women separately. We sell a lot more programs that way. If we did the whole thing and we did pink ones and blue ones. Now that you're bringing this up, if you feel like you have metabolic damage or you feel like your metabolism is a little slow, um, either because you've been dieting a lot, uh, on your own, or if you've, because you've come off of a competition in your metabolism slow, definitely starting maps, anabolic, that one gives your body time to recover and really builds up the metabolic system so that you burn more calories. That's the one I start everybody on who's got metabolic damage on. So all three of those programs, you can get them individually or you can do a bundle, which discounts them almost like, it's like 20 something or 30% off. And that's our RGB bundle, which includes maps, anabolic maps, performance and maps aesthetic. Now, if you want to take it a step further, you can get those three plus include maps prime, which we talked about, or and maps anywhere, which is our, our equipment free maps program. That's our maps super bundle and that discounts all of them even further. So those are the two bundles, discounts, everything. If you follow them in order, you'll have at least nine months all planned out for you, at least with the super bundle. You'll have more like 10 to 12 months of exercise programming. And this month and rolling one of those two, and you could, your pick two T shirts that we have available for an additional less than a dollar. And you'll get those two shirts. That's the promo going on this month. You can find all those programs and read more about them at mind pump media.com. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. I mean, we've talked about this before. I think we all agree. Like if they had a CrossFit sport and CrossFit fitness, yeah, and there were two, you could do it in the same facility. You would just have different classes. Well, if I owned, if I owned a CrossFit box, I would definitely do that. I would definitely say, here's your, here's your CrossFit sport classes. And then here's your CrossFit fitness classes. You know, are you here because you're interested in competing or because you want to train like a competitor? Or are you here because you're just looking to get in better shape? Right. And it would have two different. It would be really hard to do it under one facility, though. It would be, because it'd be right. It would be tough to, you'd almost have to be like, it's separate. That's why I don't even know how that looks right now. Because we should think about it though, because we'll be talking to Rob Wolfson and all these guys. I've thought about this a lot because I've thought about how Orange Theory is made. Like, is Orange Theory a similar problem, right? Similar issues. They just took out the Olympic lifts. So they just went back, they scaled it back, right? So they took the, but you still have the same issues. People over usage. So you're getting all these like, all intensity, yeah. It's all intensity driven. So you get all these like aches and pains on people and they don't know how to address it. They don't know how to get to the bottom of it. And as in a group class, I would try and teach like mobility drills and like, okay, if this bothers you, hear some moves that you should start to incorporate before you work out. So I did my best to like, but when you're in a group setting, it's so challenging to talk to all 30 to 50 people in there. When they're all dealing with different stuff. Well, you know, to be totally objective, because I have my own, you know, there's, there's emotion behind it, because I, I saw how it was early on and what the attitude was early on. And now seeing how it looks like it seems to be shifting, to be totally objective, you know, there are some negatives to group training. There's some positives also. I think because the owners of boxes have so much latitude, because they do, they have, it's not a franchise, it's like an affiliation, they have an incredible amount of flexibility in terms of how they can teach and, you know, coach the classes and all that stuff. I think like Mike, when we talked to Mike Bletzel, he was saying the good ones are going to rise to the top and the bad ones are going to sink. And I think when you have a good instructor, we know a couple of them, right? We know a couple of good instructors that they'll place that kind of emphasis on how they teach it. And this is what I would like to reach out. If we have any CrossFit box owners, I would say, you know, really look at your model and how you can make it as sustainable as possible and make it, you know, in a fashion and a way to where people can progress from your average sedentary person through the process to being able to incorporate some of these lifts, like these Olympic lifts. The sport is at the pinnacle of like, you know, going through the process of building your way up towards that. It is. And look, if you go, I trained in Jiu Jitsu for a while and I went to MMA gyms a couple of times and I'll train at them. And you had MMA classes like these are classes for people who are looking to compete in MMA. And then here's the instructional classes for people who just want to learn Jiu Jitsu and boxing. And, you know, you could box and just hit mitts and bags, or you can box to do smoke. Well, I actually think what we're built, what we're currently building could complement what they're doing. For example, OK, so and I brought this up in the podcast with the girls was, you know, it's very challenging for us because when you think about it, we're teaching a group class. We have, I mean, we have a million people out there. OK, listening to listening to mind pump that need help and advice and training and we're giving all of them similar advice. Right. So we, in a sense, we're we're teaching a group class. And so the biggest challenge that we've had is like, OK, well, how do we individualize that for all these hundreds of thousands of people? Right. So what we're having to structure between the all the podcast, the 30 days of coaching, the YouTube channels, all the playlist, we're starting all the program, all the different programs like Prime, like we're starting to put all these pieces in place that when somebody who's going through goes, oh, this is a problem or oh, this is bothering me that they have a direction to go. And I feel like you could take that and you could implement that into a crossfit class. So when someone's going through a crossfit class and they're like, oh, this bothers me, they can't stop the class and be like, oh, individualized train this one person, but we'll have the virtual tools that they could say, hey, go here. You know, mind pumps a trusted source. We know the guys that are given information are given really good information. If this is bothering you, you notice you can't do this movement. Go follow these steps and that we have provided those steps so I can I can see us really complimenting. Yeah, or you go through those phases like, you know, strength and then you go into like, if Olympic lifts is a skill like, you know, that you're trying to compete in at one point, like there's a specific protocol where you're doing that for like your four month or your four week period and we're just sharpening the skill. We come back, we do the strength, we do the mobility, we do that kind of work. We come back up. So there's there's a process that leads up to the actual part where it's like, okay, I've fashioned and sharpened my skill to a level where I feel like I can now kind of compete in this. But like, I feel like it's all there, like it's all there, like if you just separate it out and you work on all those different attributes and then you treat it like now it's it's season now I'm in season, you know, in the CrossFit season and what how long that season looks is, is I don't know. And you know who's who trains or coach people like that? Some of the leaders like we've in here's here's what's changed my mind and what I mean by change my mind is my perception has changed pretty pretty significantly in this in regards to CrossFit and a lot of it has to do with that. We've met a lot of these leaders in CrossFit like Rob Wolff, you know, Mike Bledsoe and some others that we've talked to and they are fully aware of the pitfalls and they're leading the charge in terms of trying to try to fix it, how to fix it in structure in a way to where it's got longevity and they're very smart. They they understand training on a level that is, you know, it's way up there. You know, I think, you know, Bledsoe was talking about how how long, you know, he trained Olympic lifting before even, you know, putting it into the fatigue based type circuits that they do and all that stuff. So I see I see a lot of potential progress happening just from the fact that we've talked to these people. And the only thing that I I caution is that it's all under the name of CrossFit. And unfortunately, if you have enough bad apples or bad coaches or, you know, people who kind of celebrate intensity the names tarnished a bit. You start to tarnish the name and they're the ones that get all the well. That's where you got to ask yourself, can they come back from that? You know, can you come back? Has is it gone too far and is the number of bad boxes and bad coaches outweighing how many of the really good ones there are out there? And can it can it get its reputation back? Well, here's the real here's the question behind that even. Let's take it a step further. I know we talk about business all the time, but you have CrossFit, the brand, which is flourishing, right? They've got CrossFit games, which is growing every year growing. They've got brands behind them and sponsorships that are massive. And then there's the side of the CrossFit clubs, the CrossFit boxes. Are they doing great? Are a lot of them making money or a lot of them struggling or a lot of them opening up and then realizing I think a lot of them are struggling. And I think that that was where what we were was really neat talking to Mike Bledsoe about. Yeah, cause he's trying to solve that. Yeah, Barbell Shrugged is gonna do very, very well in the next five to 10 years plus. Working with them. Yeah, working with boxes and organizing that piece because it's not that easy. Everybody thinks it's like, it reminds me of when I started with all my boot camp business and I started running them all over the bay and then hiring trainers underneath me to take it. Like in your head, it sounds like a great idea. Like all these classes and then they'll charge a monthly fee and I'll make a ton of money. And then when I'm so overwhelmed with classes I can bring a trainer underneath me and then they'll start to manage that and then I'll make a cut of that. Like, it was a monster. And I got it run into where I was making good money but it was a lot of work just to make good money. It wasn't the type of money that I wanted to make and what I needed. Well, you still have a big overhead. I mean, just having a facility to maintain. Well, I think a lot of people, just like with any fitness trend, right? Any fitness fad or whatever trend you wanna call it. You get a lot of people going in cause they see the dollar signs. I don't, you're not gonna, most people don't make a ton of money owning a CrossFit box. You just don't. Owning a gym, you don't make a ton of money. Very few people make a lot of money owning brick and mortar fitness facilities. And there's not a lot of people making a ton of money with CrossFit. There's a lot of people who are breaking even and losing money. And if you're going into it because you're motivated simply by the money, it's probably not a good idea. If you're motivated by and you're passionate about it and you're a student of the game and you're really a fitness person and you have some business sense, now you've got a decent mix. But you can't have one and not the other. Like you can't be a super good trainer and no shit about business. And you can't be a super business oriented person and have no passion about fitness. Either one of those scenarios you're probably not gonna do well. You had a lot of those with like, remember when curves opened, all these people like, I'm gonna open a curve is so easy. And they all failed, haven't failed them. Well, there was a time when you probably could and you could just ride the wave. But I think that time is over. It just reminds me, it reminds me of the cannabis club industry. Like when I got into it, in San Jose I was the first two of the first four that existed. And now there's like 150, I think it got all the way to like 2,300 and they started scaling them back. Got to a point where everybody was like, oh my God, all you had to do is open a shop and get going and make all this money. And it wasn't like that. Sure at the very beginning it was. Those are the good old days. Yeah, it was a good old days. And that's why I always tell people it's part of the reason why I'm not. It's not the only reason why I'm out of it. But it's totally different now than what it was when it first started. And it was a lot easier. You didn't have to know exactly what you're doing and you could still be successful. And I'm sure the first thousand CrossFit boxes were probably pretty successful just by opening their doors because of the fab. Because of the momentum. Yeah, but now it's competitive and like what Mike was saying, what you're gonna see is. The era of the like just dirty, dingy, unorganized boxes over. Yeah, it's over, yeah. Yeah, now it's gonna be the guys that, the ones that rise at the top are gonna be those guys that actually, and girls that run these boxes, you have a lot more business sense behind them. And understand, like you said, like you can't just have great business sense. You also need to understand biomechanics and be able to help people. And you need to be already trying to think of. You, if you're gonna teach. Be a more effective coach. If you're gonna teach the lifts that they teach in CrossFit, you don't need to be just a good trainer. You need to be a fucking excellent trainer or be smart enough to hire. Yeah, you hire specialists. Look, I consider myself a pretty good trainer. I would not coach Olympic lifts, the Olympic lifts that they use in CrossFit. But I'm smart enough to know that I would have someone who does that. Do you know that? I mean, I would bring a coach in who's just that. Do you know a big, big miss though that I think people don't understand when we talk about coaching and like, because I know, and I remember talking to one of our buddies who used to coach classes, he's like, oh, I'm a really good coach. You know, I can get, you know, 10 people at the same time, like to, you know, pick up on the snatch with me and do this and that. And where I have an issue with it is like, and this, I know this from firsthand, I remember training clients is you can, you can stand right next to a client and show them like perfect form of a squat, you know, a thousand times over. And if they're disconnected, right, they don't have, if they're not, if the right, the correct muscles, they have not trained to fire properly, I don't care how great of a coach. They can't replicate it. They can't, they can't replicate it because they, until you address those issues. And so it's not as, it's not a matter of being a great coach with great cues and great form to show you. It's like, you know, and that's what I meant the other day when I was talking to the girls on the podcast, I was like, you know, why, what I have, the bone I have to pick with this is I've spent years, and I mean five plus years teaching a client a single, you know, Olympic movement and that's taken me years because of the mechanics of it. Like, and I don't, and I'm hesitant to do it because I can barely do it, break it. Everything has to fire optimally. It's such a accelerated, like this, it's such a specific skill to be able to get your entire kinetic chain to do what you want when you want it, like on command. Like, and to produce like as much force that is required to throw this weight around. It's like, it's such a, I just feel like it gets, it doesn't get enough respect, you know, and I feel it's being disrespected by just throwing it in the mix. So, yeah, so I mean, that's, it's just one of those things, like you said, you gotta go to the root of it and like. And there's some, well then you've got smart people who see an opportunity. Well, yeah. Who look at it and go, oh shit, I know how I can organize this in a way. Well, that was, that was, bear into it, so let's sharpen this up. That was blood, so I mean, that was what kind of surprised me when before we got on air with him, we were talking and we're just kind of bringing that up and he talked about how he did Olympic lifting before he ever even got any CrossFit. And then all of us right away were like, oh really? Yeah. So how do you feel about it? Yeah, like, did you see what was going on? Cause normally if, you know, you meet a power lifter, Olympic lifter or even a gymnast that that's their sole sport that they do and then their feelings on CrossFit, they normally are super anti it because it's, to them they feel- Do they see the form problem? Well, yeah, and to them it's almost disrespectful. It's like, you're gonna throw, you're gonna throw a sport that I've trained for years on how to do, you're just gonna throw it in the mix of all these other sports and combine it all together and like they normally don't like that. So I was really surprised to hear him and how he responded to that. But I mean, you see that, he's a very intelligent business guy and he's like, like I thought CrossFit ain't going away. You know, he's like, this ain't going away and I can either sit here and sit on one side, talk shit about it all day long or I can insert myself trying to influence it in the right direction, whether I pass or fail it and make a shit ton of money on the way there. And so there's where I have a lot of respect for what he's doing because he does, he sees a problem and he knows that it's not gonna go away. And instead of just sitting behind doors and just talking shit about it, he's gonna go out there and he's going to try and do something to improve the sport. This seems like there's more people doing that. So I have better hopes for the future. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, I'm slightly being more optimistic now for sure. Like it took a while to, I don't know, like some of the venom to kind of go away. And I mean, like it's just, well, you know, I was in that camp where I just felt like, I felt like, cause I've worked on a lot of these Olympic lists. I just felt like it was so, it was like nails on a chalkboard, you know? Well, this reminds me real similar to what we just recently got into with the supplements and the protein shake that the doctor recommended. And we got in this huge, you know, 400 comments on fucking Instagram thing that Sal and this doctor were going back and forth with recommending supplements. We had some people get really upset at us. And it's like, it's not that we're saying that none of us have used a way, I just had a whey protein shake just like fucking three days ago. So it's, I utilize it still. What we're trying to change is the culture behind it, that it's being recommended as a tool for people. It's like, just like I think about like CrossFit, there's people that should be recommended to that and there's people that shouldn't be recommended and recommending to the masses is what I have the problem with and that's where Mind Pump comes out and speaks out on it. And we have to kind of come that way because- It may seem trivial, but it's one of those things. Like we have to sort of put our stance and challenge. There's something like that out there that we know there's a better message that you could insert in that situation. And just not so much like, we hate what you're saying. It's like, I know where you're coming from with that, but like there's such a better message, check yourself on that. Understand that, why are these guys, and that was the, a lot of the comments I read was like, I don't understand where all the hate is coming from. Just try to help people and I get that. But like, we've evolved, like information has evolved. Like really the check is to go back and study it and go look at where this message came from and what we can do to change and improve on this. Well, I think two things. First off, the doc in question, for the most part, if I went through his social media, 90 something percent of what he says is really good. He's got great message. He's an obesity specialist. I actually liked the guy. We've actually talked to him in the past. It was just, it was the whole slim fast based meme. Eat a sensible deep meal and then replace this other meal with a shake and then eat another sensible meal. And then they compared that to a really bad diet. And they're like, this is a great way to lose weight. And it's, it reminds, first off, it's that whole slim fast model, but it reminds me of like, when you hear people say, oh God, I switched to this diet and I'm so much better. It's the best diet in the world. It's like, well, it's better than what you had because what you had was horrible, but it's not great. Right. And you know, the thing with supplements. Baby step. Yeah, the thing with supplements is at most, they can be used to cover a base that you're missing in your diet and they have convenience and all that stuff, but they should never be used to replace real food. They should never be marketed that way. Right. And the way that they're marketed is that they are the answer to a lot of your problems. Like this is how you lose weight, you take this. And this is how you gain weight, you take this. And you know, our episode on pre-workout supplements that we kind of broke them down, it was really popular. A lot of people sent us messages and were like, I don't realize how much of a waste of money these pre-workout supplements are. Well, some of our own guys were really intelligent guys, you know, that loved if any chance they can find to challenge us. Love to speak out and challenge, which I appreciate. Yeah, we love that. Yeah, it creates great dialogue. And I think that was really the message. So here's a couple of things. One, you're never gonna see Mind Pump go on some young kids page and punk him for doing a post like that. Like we're not in the business of bullying people whatsoever. But if there's a doctor who puts out something like that that we think is bad information, we're going to challenge it. And mainly so people can see the dialogue that happens because I know he's not gonna just get like, oh, you're stupid, get in a name card. Well, not to be afraid to challenge authority. Yes. You know what I mean? Like I feel like if you're in a position like that and you have a doctor title, everybody immediately is afraid to challenge that. You know, to challenge the information of it. Well, and the people that were coming to his defense, okay, were like me, somebody who might take a protein shake throughout the day, okay? I might include a protein, but let me tell you why I do that. I'm 220-something pounds. And for me to get even close to a one-to-one ratio of protein with missing, skipping, fasting, so that is already really challenging. So if I just came off a day where maybe I had a pretty long fast or I didn't get that much protein the day before, then I have another day and I happen to be in a hurry and I'm low on protein again, I might make that choice to do that. But to market towards people that are overweight or obese, because you're obesity doctor, on using something like a protein shake as a tool for fat loss, I disagree with. Because that person is not like in this dire need to make sure they get that extra 20 grams of protein. In fact, why wouldn't that person- Why don't they just fast? Why don't they just fast? Why don't they just fast? A better option would literally be instead of sensible dinner, you know, fast food meals, sensible, excuse me, sensible breakfast, fast food meal, sensible dinner, and then replace the fast food meal with protein, a better option would be sensible breakfast, skip lunch, then have a sensible dinner. That's actually the best option. We know this, right? Right, or have some nuts, have some fruit. I mean, we can go all day. There's a million things, I think, that are, that's just it. There's a lot of things better than that shake. And the people that were arguing with us yesterday, you're an exception to the rule. Like, go ahead, you can have a shake. You're not an obese person who's trying to lose weight and being recommended that. You're some guy who's trying to build muscle and you're concerned that you're not gonna get enough grams of protein in for the day. Let's talk about protein powders for a second. Let's get into them. Let's do like we did the other day with supplements. Let's actually pull them up. Let's pull them up, let's turn the labels around. Let's talk about the top ones out there. Put a critical eye on them. First off, let's look at the history of powdered food. Powdered food has actually been around for quite a while. Powdered protein in particular was used as a way to, and I believe formulas were probably the first things that be created when mothers couldn't produce milk and so they tried to do powder. Isn't this stuff that we use in the war for like soldiers and stuff like that, that we'd send over there so they could get the meals while they're on the go? I mean, it was never considered like a great option to replace. It was an emergency kind of option. Bodybuilders started using protein powders or I should say advertising protein powders when it became common knowledge that protein built muscle. So if you're in the sport of muscle building and protein builds muscle, it's an easy sell, right? I can sell the public and say, hey, protein builds muscle, take this powder, get this extra protein, therefore you're gonna build extra muscle. We know that's false. We know that past a certain point doesn't matter how much protein you eat. And that number is backed by pretty conclusive science, lots and lots of studies that show about 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight. And this is for lean individuals. Is the upper limit, meaning any more than that is probably you're just wasting protein or it's getting turned into energy or stored as body fat. So if you're a 200 pound athlete, you're looking at 150, 160 grams, anything over that, it's not really doing you any benefit. So there's no need to really seek out extra protein and to try and get extra protein. But what's really interesting is somewhere along the lines or somewhere along the way, protein powders became touted as health food, which is really weird. It's really, really weird because if you really break it down and I want the audience to kinda just be objective for a second, let's break this down, right? When we think of health, true health and true wellness from a nutritional standpoint, that means whole natural varied food, fruit, vegetables, nuts, healthy meats. For some people, that means dairy, good fats, good proteins, good carbohydrates, right? Nowhere in that is something that comes out of a box or something that's heavily engineered or processed. But for some strange reason, and this was due to the brilliant marketing behind it, protein powders turned into a health food. Like if you went to a health food store, you'd walk through and then they had protein powder, which is very strange. This goes back to the knowing that protein and fat are essential, right? We know that those two are essential. So if they're essential, I can scare you. I can scare you that you're not getting enough of it. You could die. You're not hitting your RDA. Yes, you could die. You're not getting your RDA. Muscle could fall off your body and for somebody who's deciding to exercise and lift weights, oh, and then also for recovery reasons, right? So I'm gonna pitch the amino acid side of it. So here's where I think we took a little bit of good information and we exaggerated the fuck out of it and we built a market around it and now we just, because so many people are making so much money on it, it was how many times did we almost align ourselves with the way of protein? How many times? How many times did we go back and forth and say, hey, listen, I still use 20. I still use them. I mean, I tell you guys all the time, like I still find it for me, okay? For my size, I was just telling Justin the other day because I've been intuitive eating for quite some time now. And then just recently I started tracking again and kind of keeping track of my protein and I grossly under eat protein. My whole life I was a sugar eater, carb eater, so I naturally gravitate towards carbohydrates. And when I intuitively eat, I still kind of gravitate that direction and when I start to actually break it down, a big guy at 200 something pounds like I am could actually have a day where I only got 90 grams of protein, which is really low for someone like me who's lifting as much weights as I'm lifting. So for me, if I had a day where I'm like, oh, shit, look, that's two days in a row of only like 90 to 120 grams of protein, I'm gonna have a shake before I go to bed. So I get that extra protein inside there. So I get it. I understand where it could have its place. Now I would be better off having a fucking full meal. Which is why you even just said like, oh, I just had one three days ago. People consume protein powders several times every single day. I mean, a lot of the people I've worked with will have a minimum of one, but usually two shakes every single day. You probably will have less than two shakes a week. Oh yeah, no, it's my tub. I don't even know how long I've had that tub. I've had that tub for a long time. So it lasts for quite some time. Right, right. And so, and if you, now I understand if you fall for the whole you need to eat one and a half to two grams of protein per pound of body weight, which is complete 100% utter bullshit. But I understand if you fall for that, that protein powders then become essential. Because if I'm a 200 pound guy and I'm led to believe that I need to have 400 grams of protein, but I have to also be within certain amount of calories, where am I going to find all that pure protein without any fat or carbohydrates? How can you digest all of that? You know, without something that's as easily like processed as a protein powder. I mean, eat 400 grams of protein from real food. Good luck. Oh my God. Yeah, and so now powders become essential. Right. And so, so number one, realize that that is not doing you any good. It's a waste of time to take that much protein on a daily basis. It just absolutely is. It doesn't help you at all. Maybe for extreme athletes with lots of muscle in for very short periods of time, there may be a little bit of a benefit. I even debate that, but definitely no benefit on a regular basis, zero. So at the most one gram of protein per pound of body weight is right where you want to be at. And if you're not lean, then you can cut that way down. I mean, if you're walking around and you're a dude and you're at 20% body fat, don't match your body weight to your protein intake because a lot of that's fat. It's probably even a lot less. Number two, realize that protein powders are about the most processed you can get when it comes to processed food. Think of the process that goes through making food, taking real food. I mean, they sell fucking beef protein. What is that, that carnivore protein? You ever seen that? Made from beef protein. Oh no. Think about the process that they go through to take steak or red meat, extract the protein, separate the fat out of it, right? Because they want just protein. All right, yeah, you can't have the fat. Dry it and turn it into a powder that you can mix in water. And then flavor it so it doesn't taste like a steak. That's palatable. It tastes like cookies and cream instead. That's palatable, right? That you'll actually drink. Think about that. The amount of engineering that goes into that. We are talking about the highest level of engineering to create an extremely processed food. So protein powders are very, very, very, very processed. So if you're a person with health as your priority and wellness, understand that on a daily basis you are consuming something that's extremely processed and engineered to be very, very palatable. What's that power left to his name? And he's like 400 pounds. He has one of the squat records. I was watching his Instagram. This fucker every day takes literally, he'll take eight ounces of steak, six ounces of chicken. He'll take two avocados and blend it and blend that fucker and drink. Think about it, you're like 400 pounds. He's like, I think it's high 300s. He's gotta get it in. And power lifting all the time. I also want people to consider the digestive issues that are caused by, and if you're listening right now, don't you fucking lie to me. You know your fart smell horrible when you take protein powder. Your stomach is very loud. It is a, it's like a common, it's so common that if you go into a gym or you talk to bodybuilders, you talk about protein farts, everybody understands, everybody knows. And it's related to, more often than not, the protein powder, not necessarily the food. Well, all you gotta do is find your protein shaker like a couple days later, you're left in your car. Just open that up and take a big whiff. That's what's going on inside you. So think of what's happening to your digestion that's causing that bubble guts and the farts and all that stuff. A lot of people get constipation or diarrhea. Well, it should already be like a sign or a red flag for you that you're probably overdoing it a bit. Like come on, like if your stomach feels, It's not benefiting you. Yeah, if you're shitting like diarrhea, okay, and you're farting like crazy, your stomach's all bubbly, like you're probably overdoing the protein. I think your body's telling you something, right? Not only are you overdoing it, but if your digestive system is off, if your gut is off, you're actually limiting or restricting your body's ability even to burn body fat and build muscle. Without a healthy gut, lots of systems are in jeopardy and part of them is your ability to burn body fat and build muscle. Think about it when your stomach's messed up. How strong are you? How fit do you feel? How healthy do you feel? Think of the fact, understand the fact that many key neurotransmitters are created in the gut. That hormones change if your gut is off, that sleep is altered, nutrient absorption is off. So if your gut is off because you're taking a protein powder but you're telling yourself, oh, but this is building muscle, so it's helping me so it's worth it, it's actually not only not building muscle for you, it's probably taking that away from you. So if you have those problems also, you're not doing yourself any favors by taking these protein powders. It doesn't help too, like we were saying this thing's been around for a long time, so we found all kinds of ways to market it too. Now we have a nighttime one, we have the anabolic window is so popular, so hey, you got that 30 minute window to maximize your muscle building, so it's much easier just to drink a shake real quick than go home and make a meal, that could take an hour. I don't have an hour, I only got 20, 30 minutes to hit this anabolic window, I gotta take this shake, dude. Yeah, it's false. Does it accelerate glycogen repletion? It does but it doesn't mean it's not gonna happen if you don't have that shake. Really where the benefit comes from is if you plan on having another workout a couple hours later, that's real hard. Then you'll benefit from having something post-workout, but it's not limited to a shake. The same thing happens with food, you can literally have a chicken breast or some tuna and some white rice or studies have actually shown a fucking glass of milk is just as effective. Literally a glass of milk, it's got a little bit of the sugars from the lactose, it's got the proteins, it's got some of the fats. I did a post on that a long time ago. You drink it and they've compared it to protein shakes and it's just as effective on all those levels. The difference is it's not as expensive. Well, let's take the number one, which I see Doug's got on the TV. So he went on to bodybuilding.com and he's looking at the top 10 protein powders and the number one protein powder is by Optum Nutrition, it's gold standard, 100% whey. Doug, why don't you click on that view product and let's break it down. So let's look at their ingredients. First off, a protein blend, which comes from whey protein isolate, concentrate and peptides. Basically, it's just whey protein, isolate, they call the purest form, because they've completely removed everything else aside from the protein. Too close. Concentrate. Red number 42, they got them both. So here's the rest of the ingredients. Lessethin, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid, sucralose, FDNC, red number 40, and then there's something called a minogen. If you have a protein powder. It has soy also. What's lacklace? Is that another sugar? No, these are all. Katerina and I were looking to grow a lacklace and a red 40 tree next summer. Beautiful. No, we've noticed how many of these are in supplements we thought we could probably grow one of those. No, lactace is the enzyme that breaks down lactose. What's a red 40 tree? It helps people digest it. What's a red 40 tree look like? Exactly. What you'll find in protein powders is most of the things underneath ingredients are there to increase palatability or make it taste and feel better. So they try to add things that make it feel smoother to your mouth and they add things that make it dissolve really well in a shaker cup. If you look at all of the money that goes into protein powders, all the money that goes into research and development, the vast majority of it goes into palatability. It's not going into creating this crazy, effective protein powder that's gonna be better for you. Now it says it also has soy in it, but it's promoting this as whey protein specifically. It just has lecithin in there, which is almost like an additive. Yeah, it's an additive to keep it. I think it keeps it from clumping. So they have to put that in there because if someone's allergic to soy, that they'll know that there's trace amounts of soy in there, but it's not soy protein that they're putting in there. So zero, you're not getting iron, calcium, you're not getting vitamin A, C, you're not getting really any vitamins in here. We're getting mostly just a little bit of sugar and... No, a glass of milk is better for you. If you can have whey, then just have a glass of fucking milk and you're good and it's cheaper and it's better for you. You know, as far as... The difference is 10. It's a difference of 14 more grams of protein. Yeah, and here's the other thing. Like if you're reading, if you're looking at this, if you're looking at your protein powder and there's like an amino acid blend that they add in there, a red flag needs to go up. Number one, if you're getting 20 grams of protein, you have all the branched amino acids you need. Adding extra BCAAs or glutamine or whatever isn't gonna do you any good. Studies have shown this. If you have enough protein, you don't need... That guy shredded. You don't need that. But if you do look at your protein powder and the ingredients, they do have a bunch of added amino acids. Here's why that's a red flag. Recently, it's been discovered that protein powder companies were spiking their protein powders with amino acids to fool tests into believing it had more protein than it did because the way that they'll test protein powders is they'll look at particular amino acids and then based off that, they'll say, okay, this has 30 grams of protein. Well, if you're a company, you know that you can add those amino acids for cheaper than just adding extra protein. You can probably Google protein spiking and what Sal's talking about would pop up. That's just my guess. Cause it was popular. It's been popular for a long time. Well, a lot of protein powders were found to do this. It wasn't like one or two. No, I remember when we first started this podcast, there was a big study that had came out in regards to we had just talked about supplements and then out comes this study that picked the top like six or seven protein shakes and all of them were less than 50% of what they said they had in it. And there was only one that was actually 50% of what they said. So all of them were grossly over reporting the protein and they were doing it through this protein spiking, which is what Sal was talking about where you throw all these amino acids in there. So the test shows that, oh, all cause of all the amino acids added in there plus the protein. Oh, this must have 30 grams of protein. Yeah, it must have 30 grams or 40 grams. No, it's like 15 or something like that. And here's what you got to be careful of. By the way, if you Google what Adam said, cause Doug just Googled it, you'll pull up a bunch of blogs that are going to tell you about protein spiking that are also selling their own protein. It's a very, very, it's a very smart strategy. So if I'm a supplement company and a new as news story comes out that, you know, FDA or independent lab went out and tested all these creatines and found that they all had, you know, toxic... No news is bad news, right? Bye products. Then if I'm a create team manufacturer, what I'm going to do is I'm going to write an article that's going to talk about that, but then at the bottom of it or whatever, I'll link you to the creatine that I sell, that seems to be good. So that's optimum nutrition. Oh, Jim. Here we go. Hey, Jim. Our favorite guy. He's coming up in the top. Dude, Jim is fucking shit. He's killing it. Shit up, bro. I think he's up there because... He is bossing out. Bodybuilding.com, don't they own that company? Wasn't there a lawsuit or something? Yeah, he's known G&C or something else. I wonder if these are the ones that they want so much. Maybe they're trying to get rid of them, yeah. I want to know if he's stupid rich from this or not. Me? I think I partnered with the wrong guy. He might have been cut out. He might have been cut out of this one. You partnered with the wrong Italian. Yeah, right. Doug, why don't you pull that up? Let's look at the ingredients here. The ingredients, too. What you got in here, Jim? Let's see what you got. So chocolate cookie crunch flavor. Ooh. Chocolate cookie crunch. Hey, look at the ingredients list. That sounds like my kid cereal. Look at that ingredient list. This could take a day just to get through this. All right, here we go. Protein blend. It's got whey protein, micellar, casein, milk protein, isolate, and egg albumin as the mix for protein. So does it matter if you're drinking a protein powder that is pure whey or that's this huge mix of proteins? Not really. I mean, we are literally splitting hairs to the point where it's not going to make a difference at all. It will for marketing purposes. Yeah, exactly. Like, hey, our protein's better because it has all these. Because it has casein in it. It's got all these other proteins that digest slower and faster and whatever. It's the perfect blend. No, you're so splitting hairs. It's not going to make a difference. So that's stupid. It's stupid. It's just all marketing. The next thing that he has in there as an ingredient is non-dairy creamer, which is made from sunflower oil. There we go, Doug. Thank you. Sunflower oil, corn syrup solids, sodium cassinate, mono and diaglyceride, diapotassium phosphate, trichalcium phosphate, soylesitin, and tocopherols. So he basically threw something in there. I mean, that's what I bought at the grocery store. Yeah, exactly. First of all, the first two things in there, sunflower oil. I hear like it's Jim, who's like stirring it, whatever. Poor Jim. Hey, you put your name on the bottle. Yeah, that's what happens when you put your name on it. So sunflower oil and corn syrup solids, two unhealthy ingredients that I would completely avoid. Sunflower oil is a very inflammatory fat. So it's up there with all the other vegetable oils that are highly processed that are fats you should stay away from. I mean, they're up there with, they're not quite as bad. What does cocoa powder Dutch process mean? Like a Dutch oven? My favorite is. What's a cocoa powder Dutch oven? A Dutch oven. A good Dutch oven. What is a cocoa powder Dutch process? I don't even understand half of it. Well, so check this out. Let me blow you guys away. Cookie bits, chocolate cookie bits? I like guar gum. Remember that band, guar. Dude, I saw them one time live. It was fucking awesome. I mean, I highly suggest it. So I'm going to trip you guys out. So here's a little brilliance in the marketing because they know that people read the ingredient list. So they could have just listed sunflower oil, corn syrup solids, sodium, quesadine, all those different things. But instead, what they did is they put non-dairy creamer. And then in parentheses, they put the ingredients to non-dairy creamer. Now, the reason they did that is because we've been conditioned now that if we don't understand an ingredient, it's probably not good for us, right? So what they're doing that is they're explaining the ingredients. Oh, it's non-dairy creamer. Now, the average person like, oh, non-dairy creamer, not a big deal. Non-dairy creamer is extremely processed, invented, engineered creamer, which is the alternate to regular creamer, which comes from dairy. And if you're trying to avoid dairy, then you shouldn't be having this protein anyway because it's got weight. Cows are bad, labs are good. Yeah, so sunflower oil and corn syrup, I would avoid anyway, but they threw them in there because what it does is it gives it a nice mouth feel. So when you mix it, it tastes creamier. So that's why the non-dairy creamer's in there. Then you've got cocoa powder in there, which I think to give it a little bit of a chocolate flavor. Of course, natural and artificial flavors, mostly artificial. Chocolate cookie bits. Again, rather than just putting rice flour, sugar, tapioca starch, cocoa processed with alkali, palm oil, corn starch, salt, natural flavors, sodium bicarbonate, and soy lecitin. Instead of just putting all that, they put, it's chocolate cookie bits, and then they put all that in there. Of course, this is appealing again to your palate. If you're reading this and you're like, oh, protein powder. Oh, shit, they put chocolate cookie bits, but it has barely any carbs. This is crazy. Just a bunch of stuff in there to make it taste the same way. Guar gum again, mouth feel, and then a bunch of preservatives and sucralose. This is a chemical shit storm of a protein powder. If you were gonna buy a protein powder and your choices were this, an optimum nutrition, based on the ingredients, I would go with optimum. Of course, my advice would be to go with neither and just eat food. Why? They both have that. Because this one has a lot more random shit in there. It probably tastes better. Well, this is also, okay, so since you said that. The flavor of it probably promotes that. This is something that, because I always like, Taylor was talking about this the other day when he had Dr. Ruscio, I was like, you know, a lot of the great stuff that you just shared right now just went over a lot of people's head, and I think an easy way to tell people, like when you read it back to the ingredients, if there's a lot of things that you can't sound out, and you don't know what it is, and it's really long. Take caution. That's just a red flag right away. I've never in my life found something that's healthy for me, and the ingredients list is fucking long. It's just doesn't, they don't go hand in hand, right? So if it's something really healthy for you, normally it's going to have a very, very short, I think it was like five ingredients. Somebody told me that a long time ago. Oh, is that what I mean? And I've always kind of gone off of that. Well, if you're buying whey protein, if you want whey protein powder, you know what should, you know what the ingredients should say? Whey. Whey protein. That's it. Number one, whey. No color, no flavor, just maybe another ingredient to prevent, maybe to prevent clumping, you know, and that's pretty much it, and just mix that shit in your shaker cup and drink it, and stop being a pussy and trying to drink, you know, a frickin' milkshake. It's like, if you want some, it tastes good, go drink a goddamn milkshake. I don't get that. Yeah, separate your options there. But I mean, again. Making a treat and delicious. Again, it's got a shit ton of stuff in it. The protein version of it. And if you're drinking this every single day, which by the way, Well, again. A while ago, I got into a debate with Jim Stepani, and because he was telling people to consume an incredible amount of protein, and he was telling people to take four servings a day of this powder. Think about that now for a second. Half of your protein every single day, a quarter to half of your protein every day comes from this laboratory creation. And you're gonna do that long term. Do you really think that's gonna be a good idea? Probably not. No, I don't think it's a good idea. And I don't think that, I don't think you cannot not have, or not have a protein way. I think there's, it can be something you can utilize. I think the choices that I think we're trying to get to people that understand is that if you're somebody who is missing your protein intake grossly, and you don't have time to get a meal, and you're trying to get that in, there is a lot better choices than the cinnamon swirl, chocolate bed, cookies and cream whey. If that's your reason behind doing it, where we got, I think where we got into this, this whole battle and how this conversation got started was because of this doctor and mind bump going back and forth on recommending it to the masses as a good option in replace of burger and fries. And it's like the top of the shit pile. Like it's, okay, so what? Yeah, it's a different, it's another option, but it's still not an ideal fucking option for people. And I feel like people in, My grandmother used those expressions. In a position like we are in or he is in as a doctor, we have a higher responsibility to educate and inform people. And the one off, so the idiots that we're arguing or debating or getting all, getting taken it personal with us. Like, okay, you're one off, bro. You know, you're somebody who, you know, cycles for four hours, lifts weights like crazy. You have a low body fat. You have a hard time getting the protein in. You don't have time to sit down and make your meal. Sure, by all means, go get your all pure whey protein, shake in and do that. But when we're talking about people that are, if you're an obese doctor, your audience are a lot of fat people and a lot of fat people that struggle with their food choices and teaching them to replace that with some artificially sweet and bullshit fucking shake instead of burgers and french fries. It's the top of the shit pile. It's the next least worst thing for them to do. And it's not a tool. Like that's everybody's argument is like, oh, he's just helping giving them an option for a tool. No, it's not a tool. It's not a tool at all. It'd be a tool for the other guys. The exceptions to the rule, the one percenters, the athletes, the ones that probably could use it and probably know more about their body. But when you're talking to the general population, like what we do on Mind Pump, that's why we share stuff like this. It's not that we, I don't take away shake every once in a while. It's that I know I'm not like most people. I'm most people are not training seven days a week in whey and have 200 pounds of lean body mass on them. Most people have about 130 to 150 pounds tops of muscle on their body and they're overweight. And if anything, they can cut out a meal. They don't need to be replaced or they can have some nuts or have some fruit or a million other options besides a shake. Yeah, I want, you know, the other thing too is we're constantly chasing taste without substance. And what I mean by that is I want something that's sweet but I don't want sugars or carbohydrates, right? And this is kind of hacking the, or at least hijacking your body's natural systems of perception. And you want to ask yourself why your body perceives tastes to begin with? Like why do we even taste things? Why is that an important evolutionary trait that humans have? Like why should I taste things? What if I just tasted nothing but I just ate? You're trying to identify whether it has nutrients in it or not that you need. That's what's happening. Like for, again, we evolved to when we sensed or we perceived this taste of sweetness, it was accompanied by a fast burning source of energy, some type of a natural sugar or carbohydrate. And it was accompanied by certain nutrients that were found primarily in foods that tasted that way. Like vitamin C for example, vitamin C is difficult to find if you, unless you eat, you know, good sources of, you know, like fruits and certain vegetables. And so it makes sense that when you tasted sweet, you know, you craved it and you ate it and fruit was kind of hard to find for the most part. You didn't find a lot of it if it grew naturally and when you did find it, you ate the hell out of it. So what happens if we seek out taste without, you know, a macronutrient? Well, it changes a few things. Number one, it changes, think about it this way. Your body's now expecting sugar or carbohydrates but it doesn't get any. It still pretends like it gets it in terms of how the chemicals and the hormones react in the body but now it's not getting it. So it's kind of being fooled a little bit. Your brain's, you know, centers that perceive this particular type of taste start to get altered to the point where you're now a regular sweet no longer taste sweet to where you need these artificial, you know, engineered sweet taste. So now when I do go to eat fruit, it tastes bland or I go to eat regular food, it tastes, doesn't taste satisfying. I need to have this extreme, you know, type of flavor. So this is what you're doing when you're consuming these types of things which is why, you know, people have such a tough time giving up. They're approaching things because they love the taste. This is why we're so passionate about it too is that we know this from, you know, I know this not, and I said this on that thread was I know this not from the, you know, hundreds of people's lives that I've changed. I know this because of the thousands of people I failed because I told clients, here, have these bars and use this when the next time you're hungry, don't eat, don't go through McDonald's, have this bar instead. Hey, here's some of these shakes, like make sure you have this shake right after your workout or if next time you want to go through McDonald's again, have this shake instead. And I failed them all. I wasn't helping them. I wasn't getting to the root cause. So when I see a post like that, that's where the passion comes from. It's not that nobody should have a whey protein shake. The people we're talking to are not the people that fully understand and calculate out their macros and know that they're only getting 60 grams of protein so they need this shake to get an extra. We're not talking to those people. We're talking to the rest of the fucking world, which is the majority. Well, like we said, if you're eating adequate protein to build muscle, it's about 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight, which means you can easily get it from food and it'll fit your calories and do all that stuff. You don't have to drink it. You can't, okay, I wanna stop you there though. You can if you're, you know, especially if you're the average person who's probably got 100 to 150 pounds of lean mass on you. It can be challenging for somebody who's got over 200. I get that. Sure, sure. I get that and understand that. But I also think- But again, even a big guy, you know, like you, you're not doing two shakes every day. No, you see what I'm saying? Like they've worked it into their meal plans. Yeah, it becomes exactly because it's- If they're diet. It's an emergency, like it's an emergency and it's something that you- I've actually seen meal plans where you see it show up, like meal three- Oh, well, I mean, I did that, I mean, we did that. I did that as a trainer for many years. For many years, I would wreck, which is like how that post was, which was the sensible breakfast, the shake for lunch and then the meal for dinner. I mean, that was, we were taught that when we were going through training, the whole apex thing. We talked about this the other day on the podcast was, you know, when we were taught to sell supplements, we would tell people to eat these shakes and bars and replace of meals and restrict the calories and we were pitching the same bullshit that it's a tool. It's a tool to help these people lose weight. No, it's not. Not when 80% of them get fat again. We're not fucking helping anymore. It's like how cereal made its way into being a balanced part of your breakfast. Yeah, exactly. Cereal is dog shit. Yeah, and you got it. You have to think, you know, how do we define success because what's gonna happen is people will show studies and be like, look, all these people lost weight. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. If you lost weight, you still haven't succeeded. If you gain it back, you've failed. If you lost weight, you're healthy and fit and it's always, that's it, now that's your new lifestyle and you've lost weight and it never comes back, now you can call that a success. Very, very... I don't know where I heard it first, but someone said it great. Well, they said, you know, America does not have a weight loss problem. We do not. We do not have a weight loss problem. No, we lose it. We just don't keep it up. Yes, we lose millions of pounds as a nation every single year. The problem that we have... Then we put on more. That's the problem. The problem is that nobody keeps it off and that that should be everybody. You know, I don't care who you are, but that should throw up a flag for everybody and I especially think it should throw up a flag for those doctors and people in professional positions that have been in those positions for a long time or that are speaking to the masses that this message is not a good message. That's all I'm saying. We're not saying you can't take a protein shake. We're not saying we're not demonizing protein shakes. No, not that at all. I use them, okay? It's that what we're trying to do is let people know that it's not a good message for the masses. If you're that anomaly, if you're that one-off, if you're that athlete, fucking take it. Use it judiciously. Understand that it's not ideal that you should be eating whole foods, but you're in a pinch, you're in a bind. Have your fucking shake every once in a while. Good for you. The rest of the people should not be taught that this is a good replacement for real food. No, you shouldn't have, for the most part, you should not be having a protein shake every single day. I have a protein shake even at home and the way I use it is kind of like the way Adam does or every once in a while, I'll make myself a smoothie type of treat or whatever and I use it for flavor or to add a little bit of protein just cause I don't feel like I'm not blending chicken breast or whatever, like other people, like that bodybuilder you were talking about. But it's gonna last me a long time. I just don't use it that often. So the number three on this list of the top 10 was muscle tech, Nitro tech and it's a cinnamon swirl flavor. Let's go ahead and swirl. Cinnamon swirl. Yeah. This one's got all the added. Well, this one sounds like it's a Willy Wonka. The Nitro Amino Matrix. This one has Nitro, and this one has Amino acids added to it. That to me is always a big red flag. First of all, you don't need to add the BCAA, so you're paying for- Well, this is probably how they get it from 20 to 30 grams of protein. People are excited. One gram of sugar, wow. Yes, I'm doing good. They have a huge whey protein blend. I guess that's now become the thing. It's supposed to look a lot like, oh, it's a blend, therefore. See, yeah, it's a good amount, right? Artificial sweeteners, more sunflower less than gum blend, which is to give it that feeling of smoothness. Enzaplex, which is just papain and amylase, which are enzymes that help break down protein. Of course, sucralose. I will say this about sucralose, by the way. Sucralose is, by far, the most popular artificial sweetener you'll find in your protein powder. Sucralose has been demonstrated to alter microbiome, or at least your gut flora. So it does alter gut flora, not a good idea. You don't wanna do that. Every once in a while, probably not a big deal. If you eat it on a regular basis, you may be harming your gut, and after five to 10 years, you may find that you all of a sudden can no longer digest protein powders. All of a sudden you've become intolerant to dairy. And you say may, because this is an area that we're still learning about. We are, but you won't find a single gut health specialist that thinks that sucralose is a good idea on a daily basis. It's just not. And this is just so people that have been listening to the show, or maybe you haven't, like there's, whatever we have, somebody that is a special, either a nutritionist specialist, or somebody that's a gut health specialist, and we bring this question up, that's always the answer, is to, I would be very, very, if you're gonna take something like that into your diet, I would definitely minimize the amount of it that you allow in there. It's in a lot of food out there, though. It's in a ton of food. It is, because again, we're chasing flavor, right? We're chasing that particular, you know, sweet or whatever. You know, I'll tell you what, for the most part, most of the popular protein, first of all, you don't need to take a protein powder. That's my advice. But if you want to, if you really, really want to take one, seek out one that is organic, has minimal ingredients, no flavor with some strawberries and blueberries. No flavor, but if you want to get a flavored one, then get the ones that are organic and naturally flavored, and they'll probably be flavored with Stevia. You know what's crazy to me is if you take, a lot of people don't realize this, if you take a half a cup of blueberries and three strawberries, you know how little calories that is? Not much. And how much flavor that you get from three whole strawberries and a half a cup to a cup of blueberries? The calories are very low, so that's how I would take my shakes. I'd add a banana, because I like bananas too. You go and you add that in with some ice and either some almond or coconut milk or water, if you want to go really low on calories, and you get a plain ass way. Plain with no flavoring, no nothing, and then you throw it in there. So if that, and then you make your own, and then you could play with things and then you could add it with different types of fruits. And so I'm getting some good natural fruits in there, some good antioxidants, some good real whole foods with this plain ass way by itself. So if you're somebody who's seeking that extra gram to 10 to 20 grams of protein, you absolutely feel you need it because you can't seem to find a way to get all the protein through whole foods on a very regular basis, then I get it. Now, Doug, can you look up, because I want to, for people who can't have dairy or vegans or whatever, vegans might be a good, they might be a category of people that would do well with the protein powder just because it's hard to get adequate protein with a vegan diet. No, look up warrior blend. Click on that and let's look at the ingredients if there's an ingredient area. Well, here you go. So it's got a protein blend, pea protein, hemp seed protein, and goji berry. Is that it? Let's double check on that because if that's it, that's not bad at all. That's awesome though. I mean, that's what you're looking for. You're trying to find these, if you feel like you can't break free of your whey protein and you need it in your diet, this is what you're looking for. You're looking for a step in the right direction. You're looking for a blend, let's see. What does that say? Does it say organic stevia? Oh no, it says sea salt, other ingredients. Oh yeah, yeah, they do have some other ingredients down at the bottom. Yeah, thank you. It's got organic vanilla flavor. I don't like that it has a proprietary blend. Organic, well, so you know, okay, so here's why they're gonna do that with vegan proteins because vegan sources of protein are sometimes limited in certain amino acids, so you'll get more complete protein. This is why vegans are always encouraged to combine like rice and beans and proteins together because your body will utilize however much protein it can, but then if it's limited by one amino acid being low, one essential or whatever, then it's actually not very bioavailable. So it's gonna be very rare to find a vegan protein that's not a blend, although hemp, pea and soy are actually pretty good on their own. Look at what they did, okay, so there you go. They have a stevia extract. Yeah, so this has vanilla flavor blend, guar gum, which gives it that texture, sea salt and stevia. So is stevia a good substitute for artificial flavor? It's a better choice. It's a better choice. Is it ideal, no. Again, you are talking about something that is giving you that sweet signal to your brain that's not delivering carbohydrates or sugars and could change how your brain perceives certain foods. Also, stevia not entirely sold on how it affects the microbiome. I'm gonna bet it's a lot better than artificial sweeteners but having even that on an every single day basis probably not the best idea. So this is actually a protein that I've had in the past that every once in a while, and when I say every once in a while probably at the most once a month, more like once every other month where I'll throw it in a smoothie or something like that. And that's warrior blend by sun warrior. So I guess at the end of the day, here's the advice. Whole foods, nothing comes close to whole foods in terms of health, muscle building, fat loss. The way your brain is gonna perceive the way you taste certain things, digestion, like everything across the board, whole foods, superior. You don't need protein powders, you're better off without them. That being said, if you are one of those people that may need protein powder here and there, then go for organic, minimally, minimum amount of ingredients, non artificially flavored, non artificially colored type protein powders. Those are the ones we recommend. The two that we just randomly pulled up with them. And they may be a little more expensive and it may look like your serving size is less, right? But that's, you wanna seek more of the quality, right? Because plus the serving amount that you're gonna use is gonna be less than what all your other people are gonna recommend. So it's gonna last you a decent amount. I also wanna make a point that our bodies don't run on this perfect 24 hour clock. So don't look at it just as a one day snapshot. So when I made the point that I actually utilized whey protein shakes every now and then, it's because I've strung two or three days in a row that I've noticed I've been really low on protein. Cause first of all, having some low protein days actually ends up benefiting me. Cause we've talked about that oversaturating our body with too much protein, then it becomes, then it desensitizes it, right? So when I have like a day or two of low protein, I don't even sweat it whatsoever. Now I start pushing three, four, five, a week straight where I'm consistently not hitting my targets. That's where you see me kinda introduce that. Don't look at it just for that one day. If that one day you're low, but yesterday you probably ate over 20 grams of protein, you're fine. You're totally fine. Cause it doesn't work that way. It's like an average. It's like it doesn't work on a 24 hour clock because this day you're low on protein, but yesterday you weren't. Don't look at it like that. Start looking at your nutrition like a snapshot of like a week and pay attention. And if it is something that you're consistently missing, then I could understand putting it in there. But for a single day, one day of low protein actually will probably do more good than it's going to do harm. You're not gonna lose pounds of muscle off of your body with even missing your protein targets for an entire week. Doesn't work that pounds. And if you really wanna drink your calories, post workout and dairy is not a problem. Have a glass of non-fat milk or ideally have a glass of whole milk. By the way, and the reason why I said non-fat cause you got people freaking out about I don't wanna have extra calories from the fat or whatever, but I'm gonna also tell you this that there's now been some studies that have shown that non-fat milk connected to things like diabetes and health issues, whole milk, far healthier for you. And of course, don't forget the fat soluble vitamins that are in milk require fat to be utilized. So going the non-fat route actually is far worse for you. You're better off with whole milk or get some like whole fat, you know, Greek yogurt or whole fat cottage cheese. Or if you can't have dairy, can of tuna fish. Super fucking easy and a fruit, boom. There's your post workout. I wonder what the stats are on non-fat and slim milk over the last three to five years compared to like the 15, 10 to 15. Non-fat milk sales have dropped and whole milk is starting to go up. Yeah, I would be curious. I've never given my kids fat free milk. It's so not good for you. Always whole milk. It's like, it's very, very, it's not helping. I grew up on 2% and then when I first got into training and lifting, then I went to slim, which is one, right? And then I went to non-fat. So for years as a trainer, it was non-fat milk forever. The healthiest part of milk is the fat. Right? I know. That's the funny part. It is. That's the funny part of the whole thing. It's crazy. And it tastes fucking amazing anyway, so. So there you go. There's your advice right there. If you wanna drink something post workout, grab yourself a glass of whole milk or eat a can of tuna fish or something like that. If you absolutely have to take protein powder and you just, just something that you have to have in your nutrition, aim for the organic, non-artificially colored, non-artificially flavored varieties of protein. And I hope people understand where we're coming from on this. Like I feel like we get misunderstood when we get into these like, you know, battles on Instagram with doctors that are out there. No, I think we made our point pretty well. I mean, we're not anti-supplement. I mean, we gotta be very clear. We're not anti-supplement. We're pro-supplements used properly. We wanna use them for deficiencies. That's it. Supplements have, there's definitely a need for supplements. If you have low vitamin D or certain minerals are low or like Adam was saying, if you're one of those people that, you know, you're just deficient in protein or, you know, if you're an athlete and you're just, you're trying to squeeze out another half percent performance because you're training at that level or something like creatine, which has lots of benefits, especially for vegans. Like then that's where supplements, you know, can come into play. But supplements don't replace food and they probably should not be a staple part of your every single day life unless you're one of those rare individuals. You're not healthy just cause you're eating supplements. Yeah, and then there are categories of supplements that are complete waste of fucking time like pre-workout supplements. You can just throw them away completely. So with that being said, we offer 30 days of coaching for free and it's still available. It's still for free at mindpumpmedia.com. Just go to the site opt-in. You're gonna get tons of free information from us and it gets updated by us, which means you'll always have it and you'll always get it updated. Also, you can find us on Instagram. We answer questions on Instagram all the time. We answer them on air for our Q and A episodes. The Instagram page is mindpumpmedia or you can find our individual pages. I'm Mindpump Sal. Justin's Mindpump Justin and Adam is Mindpump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mindpump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. 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