 What are the classic signs of overtraining? Watch this. Our next caller is Taylor from California. Taylor, what's happening? How can we help you? Uh, that's much, uh, thank you so much for having me on. I, uh, found you guys late last year. Uh, I started work from home and needed something to kind of fill the void of being alone at home, working and stuff. So been really enjoying the whole, uh, backlog of, uh, podcast and everything. Uh, so we appreciate it. So for the past, uh, six months, I've been running a six day, uh, pull of push legs, uh, beginner strength routine. Um, I've been more seriously lifting for about a year now. Um, though back in high school, I did water, pollen, swim. So weightlifting wasn't a foreign concept to me. Um, after about a few months, the beginner gains, uh, began to, uh, taper off. And every, uh, since then I really, uh, stalled out on the four primary list bench squat, deadlift, overhead press, uh, during this time, I was also running two and a half miles a day and with an hour walk after work as well. Um, I've gradually increased, uh, my calories from 2,200 up to about 2,500 right now to try and remedy the plateau. And I still haven't really seen any increases in strength or weight. Um, and, and so I've been hovering at right around 155 pounds and I'm five foot 10, um, and at the end of every workout, I'm definitely fatigued, tired and everything. So I know it's not a case of not going hard enough, uh, during workouts. Um, and more recently I've been experiencing really low libido, low motivational workout and general fatigue. Um, I got my testosterone tested and I come to find out, uh, that it's in the teens actually and me being 27 year old male, uh, that's pretty shocking. Um, my primary goal has been to increase size and strength, uh, with minimal fat gain, hence all the cardio and everything. I'm trying, trying to do a lean bulking approach. Um, and it's my question for you guys is the lack of progress likely more due to low testosterone, uh, overtraining, uh, likely some combination of both and when I do start TRT, uh, what can I expect? Um, as far as gym performance and just general equality of life improvements. I have started on it actually a couple of weeks ago. Um, and I've noticed a little bit of mood improvement, things like that. Uh, that's going to get your opinion on what else to expect as I continue therapy. Um, increase calories further, revamp my workouts. What do you think? Yeah. Taylor, you've been listening to our show for a little while. I have. What do you think we're going to say? Prediction. Overtraining for sure. Yeah. So, okay. Uh, all the above though, I mean, I want to get this clear. Teens, you were in the low teens. Is that what you said? That's what it said. Yeah, that is what I mean. So yeah, low teens, even like double digits is, uh, pretty concerning. Yeah. Yeah. So overtraining, um, overstress will hammer testosterone. So your lack of gains. Is it coming from low testosterone? I mean, yeah, some of it, but what's the low testosterone coming from? You're beating the shit out of yourself. Yeah. You're, you're okay. So, uh, you're six days a week. You're doing it all the cardio. And it's a beginner beginner strength training program. Six days a week. That doesn't sound like a beginner program is this. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I found it on Reddit. Um, it's a pretty popular one. It's just called like Reddit six day pull up, push legs. Yeah. Um, I will mention that I did like definitely add extra exercises and extra sets, um, especially. It's not that one in on us too. Okay. Taylor bro. Taylor, this is look, let me, okay. So here's a deal with calories, map 15. And then you're, I would have actually like to get a hold of you before the TRT, because I would have liked to see what I could have done first, um, because I think, I think that simply reducing the intensity and or volume of training, bumping your calories, dropping the running, uh, putting you on a program or like a map 15 or a maps, anabolic, uh, I think we could are, and then focusing on things like sleep. Uh, make sure we've got a good balance to make sure you're getting good, healthy, fat, sun. Yeah. Like there's a lot of things that I would have liked to have done with you first just to see what I could do. But it sounds like your TRT was in the, you know, your, your testosterone was in the floor. So, um, so let's, okay, we gotta dive a little deeper here. So you, you're like, oh my God, I feel like crap. I'm going to bump my calories 300. Why did you only bump your calories up 300? Why not more? Um, minimizing fat gain. Uh, last year I did a pretty aggressive crash diet. Um, where, and you guys are going to hate you for this. I was down to like 1500 calories and like running twice as much as I'm doing right now. I did that for a few months and I just felt so lousy. So I stopped doing that. Um, so I'm kind of thinking that really killed my, uh, testosterone and then I just never really checked up on it. That's right. That's right. And you know, you're right. Yeah, that's, this is where this started. And then you just have not tried to truly recover. You think you did something to recover, but you did it. Here's the second question. So question one was why'd you only bump at 300? I'm afraid of gaining body fat. Second part of the question, why haven't you cut the volume and intensity of all your workouts? I like to work hard. Um, why? It's not for results, obviously, because you're not getting any. So why, why do you like to work hard? To feel like I'm doing something right. Um, okay. Okay. So, so this goes a lot deeper than what you're asking. Okay. So you're abusing exercise and diet. So you got to look a little deeper because I'm going to give you advice. It's not going to help you though, until you realize what you're doing with your workouts and your diet. Okay. Cause it's not for results. That's not why you're doing it. Cause you're not getting good results. It's not to feel good because I feel like shit. So this is an abusive relationship that you have with exercise and diet. You're abusing it like a drug, like when someone's an alcoholic and they're dying, but they won't stop drinking. Um, this is what's happening with you in exercise, obviously not to that extreme, but, um, you're not touching those things because you have a poor, this is a dysfunctional relationship. So, uh, now I need you to look at that very closely and pay attention to it because what needs to happen is this, first off, be going on testosterone replacement therapy with everything that's going on. It's like your house is on fire and then you get a squirt gun and you start squirting water at the house. Like is testosterone going to help you feel better a little bit. It ain't going to save you. I promise you that you're still going to, you're still going to drive yourself. In fact, you're going to be worse. Yeah. Cause you're going to, it's going to mass, it's going to mass some of the symptoms and you're going to continue to probably do things that you shouldn't do. Yeah. Like if you were my client, uh, and like there's two ways I would approach this. Okay. One would be this real gradual approach because I need you to be consistent and I know psychologically it'll be really hard to do what you need to do. The second way would be, okay, if I know you're going to do what I'm going to tell you, this is what I'm going to tell you to do. You're going to take two weeks off completely. You're going to bump your calories up to about 2,800 calories. When you go back to working out, you're going to lift weights twice a week and you're going to keep your calories about 2,800 calories and you stay there until you start to feel frickin strong and amazing. And then we'll add another day of strength training and then we're going to stay there for like a year. That's it. Now you can walk. That's fine. Not going to have you run. Not going to have you do anything else. You want to walk fine, go for a leisurely walk. Your walks should not be workouts. They should be just leisurely. And that's it. That's where I keep you for a long, like a year is where I keep you to allow your body to heal. Now, are you, do you think you're able to do that? Or do you think that's going to be too challenging for you psychologically? That might be kind of challenging for me psychologically, because I'm also a pretty competitive person and I have a few friends that also work out a lot that are also really into weight lifting and stuff. And they're always like sending me Snapchat. So, oh, I got a new PR. Oh, I got that's awesome. Are they real friends? Are they just like, like, you know what I mean by like, do they really care about your well-being? Are they supportive or are they just like friends you made through working out where you just try and push each other? No, we've been buddies for years. We used to go backpacking all the time and everything. So it's coming from a good place. I'm just reading way too much into it. And like, I want to be able to keep up and be competitive with them because that's fun. You will, you will be, you will be if we do this right. Yeah, Taylor, so send them, send them this episode when it airs and I'm going to talk to your friends right now. Taylor needs your support and he's going to get triggered with the competitive stuff. He's abusing exercise and hurting his body. So he needs your support. He's going to be working out way less. He needs to eat more. He needs to get himself better. So if these are really good friends, then they're going to help do that for you because I know how triggering that can be when you're watching other people do. Well, you think you should be able to do and it's not working for you. Do you want to send him maps in a ball or maps 15? Oh, uh, you know, I like maps on a ball. Yeah, because two times a week, yep, because I know it'll happen if we give him maps 15. It'll turn into map 60. So it's so many days a week. Maps and a ball, like do the two days a week foundational workouts, bump your calories. And I suggest you work with somebody on the root reasons as to why you're abusing exercise the way you are a therapist would be a good idea. But I think that's going to solve that'll, that'll really help you quite a bit. Otherwise you're going to go, this is going to be a, like your body's going to get the signals are going to get louder. Did you, did, did I hear you say when we first started talking that you really have only been like consistent training for last year or two years? Is that when, when did you get into like fitness? Uh, the past year, I would say I started off at my like crappy apartment gym and then eventually I, uh, moved over to plant fitness for a couple of months. Uh, I realized that was horrible and I found an actual gym with like actual equipment and stuff. So since last October, I've been doing proper, uh, barbell training. Yeah. And you said, what was that? You played water polo, right? Yeah. How many years did you have for? Uh, back in high school. Uh, so that was only four years. Well, what was the catalyst to, to, to motivate you to go and start working out? I mean, what was there, uh, something physically that you wanted to change? Was there a competition that came up? Was there, what made you go, I'm going to start working out. Mm hmm. Uh, so it started off with me, like just kind of wanting to challenge myself to like see if I could lose weight cause I've never really deliberately tried losing weight before. So it was like, okay, I'll try it to see if I can do it. Um, then I got down from 170 pounds down to like 150 and I was like, okay, now I got to build myself back up cause I'm just too small, too scrawny. That's when I picked up weightlifting cause I was wanting to actually put on some size and strengths. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be a, um, this, the challenge for you is not the same challenge that most people have. Most people's challenges, consistency and how do I stick with this and all that stuff. Your challenge is going to be, how do I not abuse this? How do I keep, how do I create a relationship where this is beneficial and not destructive? Uh, so you're going to, I mean, I would have to pull you back constantly if you're my client, which is the opposite of what I tend to have to do. The truth is though, if you do, if you listen to exactly the, the, what you, what Sal said, as far as the two days a week, bump the calories all the way up, cut out the running and, and, and stick to that. You should actually feel and see a difference like within weeks. Like you'll start to feel better and look better all the above. Here, I'll, I'll trip you out right now, Taylor. So I'm going to make a prediction that I'll bet money on. You take two weeks off completely. Okay. You just started TRT, what, a couple of weeks ago? Yeah. Okay. You take two weeks off completely. When you go back to working out, you're going to have significant strength gains from taking two weeks off. You're going to go back. You'll do a couple of exercises and you're going to be stronger. Okay. Okay. And when that happens, so long as you feed yourself, so don't starve yourself. When that happens, there's your hint, there's your clue like, oh, shit, I've been really overdoing it. We didn't, we didn't get into your macros at all or anything like that. But you, did you dramatically cut any single macro? Did you like reduce fat, like really low or do anything like that or did you just go by calories? Definitely prioritized protein. This entire time, it's been at least one gram per pound of body weight. And the like dietary fats, no less than 50 grams this entire time, then the rest will just carbs up and down. Oh, bro, you got to get your fats up. Start having some free sources of protein, start getting steak. If your fat was that low, yeah, that's what you're saying. Did you get your nutrients tested like vitamin D? Your fat soluble vitamins? No, vitamin D wasn't a part of the blood panel. Wow, really? All like the lipids and everything were fine. That doesn't matter. They didn't give you, they give you testosterone with testing your D without testing your vitamin D. Nope. Wow. Yeah, dude, you're, I would guess because your fat is so low with some of your symptoms. I would guess, I say guess because I, because I still want to get this tested. By the way, that's where I want you to bump your calories. Yeah, bump it in fat. Go get your, go get your, go get your, your, your nutrients tested iron, D, magnesium. Those are the most important ones right now. I would say zinc. See if you can get those tested, because if those are low, your testosterone is going to be on the floor as well. You'll have anxiety, depression, low recovery, all that stuff from having, I mean, going from low vitamin D to adequate feels like you just took anabolic steroids. It's a huge difference. And just so you know, 50 or less is low for my female clients with that and who are doing proper, proper amounts of weight training. So that's really fucking low. Okay. So for my situation, what would 100 over 100 hit 100 plus that? Really? Yes, 100 grams plus minimum a day. And so when Sal told you to bump calories, bump it all from fat. So if you're a chicken and fish guy, become a steak guy, you know, start at add olive oil to when you're cooking, like you need to, you need to bump your fat. Okay, sounds good. Yup. That's something I've been like kind of avoiding in the past because I'm someone that loves volume eating. I like need to eat a lot of food to be able to like keep me full and everything. Go to town. It's primarily a like pile of vegetables and like chicken stuff like that. You know why though? That's okay. Eat the chicken thighs, put the olive oil on the vegetables. Yeah. So those are two easy ways right there. We can compromise your client of mine. You tell me that. Okay, cool. Eat your big ass bowl of vegetables, pour olive oil on it. Instead of having chicken breast, have chicken thighs. Add in some steak. Like there's a way to compromise. We can we can by the way when a clue that one of your macro your essential macronutrients is too low is that you need lots of volume to feel satiated. Okay, nutrient deficiencies will do that. In fact, if a nutrient deficiency gets bad enough, no amount of volume will start to feel like it's satisfying you. Yeah, that's one of the beauties of good fats. Like good fats will satiate you. You'll feel better on it. So let's do that. I'm going to have Doug put you also in the private form because I want to be able to keep an eye on as we go through this process. So we're going to send you over maps and a ball like that's the program after you're two weeks off that that that Sal's recommending. I want you in the forum. Go get those tested like Sal was saying and then and then let us know in the forum and then we'll keep an eye on you. We're going to fix this shit. Yep. That sounds perfect. Thank you so much. You got it, man. All right, good luck. You got this, man. Yeah, thank you. See you. You know, I don't know why I didn't I didn't think to ask his macros when I'm glad you did. I figured it. I mean, I mean, it was a good question because duh, you know, if he's doing all this other stuff. Well, he wasn't terrible. He wasn't like, I mean, he's low, right? And obviously when he was 1500, that would have been an obvious thing. But then I was like, you know what, maybe he's like it's one of those guys who eats all fucking fish and chicken and is like avoiding fat like crazy. And that'll make you that'll drop testosterone like that. That'll make you feel like that, too. I want people watching and listening to this, too. Like, you know, it sounds obvious on the outside, like well, duh, like you're overdoing this and that. When you have a dysfunctional relationship with something, it's not. So it's easy to judge, but I'm pretty sure everybody watching right now does something that is not good for them that they really if they thought about it, they know, but they ignore it and they continue doing it anyway. It's no different. And fitness can be abused just as well. And that's what he's experiencing. Listen, it could also you could it could also not be coming from a place of pure dysfunction. Just unaware. You're unaware that you're unaware. It just crept up on him. I mean, I mean, I was we were both kind of prodding for like some psychological thing that he's well, even being a weight train is so new to him, too. And being that unaware is of it's a dysfunction. Correct. It is. But I mean, like it's not like when you say that like sometimes like the thing that I thought I was searching for that I thought I was going to hear from him was like, oh, trauma. I quit. Yeah, trauma, trauma. I quit. I quit drinking or smoking. And now I went this way. Yeah, and then that's what I mean by that. Like some people will think that dysfunction automatically means you have like this crazy trauma. So that you could have this dysfunctional relationship with exercise and food. And it kind of just crept up on you and you don't even realize it just because you think you're doing the right thing by cutting these calories and cutting these fats. You think you're doing the right thing by pushing the lifting weights because I need to build muscle because I'm too skinny. Like he's thinking. It's out for me. It sounds like he's thinking like he's doing the right things. Yeah, I bet you look, that's that's for him to figure out with somebody. And we're not going to be able to get that in this conversation. Right, right. But it's obvious that the that the relationship he has with with exercise is not helping him at all. So that's why I wanted to make I tell you what, though, you what you if he bumps his calories from fat, he takes those two weeks off. Oh my God, he comes back with just 10 pounds of muscle on accident. I hope he really like pays attention to how he feels. And he's on TRT right now. Yeah, he'll gain 10 pounds of muscle literally on accident. Yeah, he'll be like, what happened? His body starving. I hope he follows up with this because he will be he will be a great person to talk to three to six months from now if he listened to what we gave him.