 Memelian metabolism is the second most complex thing we've ever identified in the entire universe. Only second to the brain. Alright, what does this mean? When you hear an influencer tell you that one pound of muscle only burns this many calories or this is the only way to lose weight or this is how everything works, realize they're stupid. They're wrong. What you're looking for is a combination of data, science, and anecdote, experience. That's the only way you're going to get the right answer. In fact, if you're watching this on YouTube, we're going to post up a picture of all of the known metabolism interactions and pathways that we currently understand. In fact, scientists say essentially that it's probably going to take another five years with really advanced AI to figure it all out. That's how little we know about Memelian Metabolism. So the next time you hear somebody say, reverse dieting doesn't work or building muscle doesn't really speed up the metabolism, turn it off. They're morons. I hate having to see this every time. You couldn't help yourself. I had to. You couldn't help yourself. I was wondering so simple. I was wondering where you're going to go with this, and I thought, oh, this is pretty good. Well, so Doug, pull up the picture. I texted you because I want you guys to see these. You need to text it to me. I did. It's to the thread with everybody. It's just like a bunch of chicken scratches. Oh, these are the known, these are all of the known metabolic pathways, essentially. I'll send it again, Doug, just in case you're on the phone. So a better question is how much is unknown, though? Like what if we had to put a number to it? Do we know 50% of what's going on? Do we know 10%? Probably 10%. Really? Yeah. Or less. You know what the problem is, is when you look at these pathways, and it's literally the picture that I'm hoping Doug will find is so complex. Just an infinite amount of different. Oh, I mean, you got to zoom in on this picture and look at, and this is what we know. And we don't even know how they interact with each other. We don't even know how one necessarily affects another one, 15 or 20 or 50 steps down the line. And then there's what we don't know, which is like this infinite sea. Yeah. I mean, look at that. What the hell? Looks like the subway system in Europe. Those of you know. This is like us. We're trying to get around. It's like, you know, all the four of us are staring at the tube trying to figure out how to get around. Like, oh, fuck it. Just take the Uber. You know what makes me so mad? Because we'll talk about, yes, and yes, this is true. Like when we talk about speeding up someone's metabolism through building muscle, reverse dieting, how that speeds up the metabolism in combination, we are relying heavily on experience and anecdote because there isn't a ton of data to support this. But you talk to any coach or trainer who's worked with anybody for any length of period of time. They'll tell you, oh, no, it's real. Like, you know, I'm on average, I would get a person's metabolism to boost by 500. A thousand calories was not unheard of for me being able to get someone's metabolism to speed up. That was not unheard of. Trying to explain it with the current understanding of the metabolism, like, good luck. But it happens like clockwork. I need you to explain this a little bit. What am I looking at? So these are all the different pathways, right? So it's like, if like a variable is thrown in there, it's a whole other pathway. Yeah. Right. This is like energy. You eat food. What happens to it? Okay. So that's what you're looking at. The chain of events and where everything is connecting. That's what you're looking at. You know, it's gonna be cool. Easy. But how far ahead do we get here in the next, say, five years with AI? Like, this is an example. That's what they say that's going to be required to understand this is that we're going to need like some serious AI to go in and really figure this all out. Because look, it's, it's obvious. Quantum computers. We, we could take, you could do a fecal transplant and make a fat mouse, a lean mouse with that. What? What the hell does that have to do with metabolic pathways? Right. You could change your hormones and not change anything else. And all of a sudden you become leaner, build more lean body mass. You could change your stress levels, your sleep. I mean, you could have the same macros and calories, at least it seems that way. Reduce inflammation. Do they factor in all the epigenetic factors as well? Epigenetics. Like, come on, everybody. Relax. Like, so I hate it when, because here's what happens with these influencers when they come out and say, no, no, no, no, you know, building muscle is great. It's healthy, but it's not going to speed up in metabolism. Just move more and eat less. What are you doing? You're just going to get a lot of people more confused or worse. A lot of people who've tried that and failed because their approach was wrong. And you're just going to confirm to them that I'm not going to do. I guess I'm just going to give up. Like I've already tried this five times. I've lost 30 pounds, gained it back. I did the running. I did the cardio. I cut my calories. Just doesn't work. Yeah. And all they're being told is you lack discipline. You're lazy. That's why it's not working. And they're like, well, this is weird because I have a cousin who eats as much as I do, works at a desk and is lean. So what the hell is going on here? We tend to make these points and then move on. But obviously we're continuing to hammer this one. Yeah, because people keep doubling down and making more stupid. Yeah, not even that though. Because normally even if someone goes back and forth with us, we tend to like whatever. If you guys are too dumb to figure it out and you don't care. But the reason why I think all of us are passionate about this in particular was because how life changing it was for so many people. I mean, how many... And we've seen it firsthand, like really transformed people. Yeah. I mean, how many times did you get a client that was so frustrated with their weight loss journey because they've gone... They've yo-yo-died their entire life. They're eating such a low amount of calories, yet they're 50 to 100 pounds overweight. They just can't figure it. They can't figure it out. And never once have they tried like fueling their body and focusing on building strength to see what that potentially could do for them because they're so afraid to eat in that manner. And yet when they do that, the benefits that they gain metabolically from that are unreal. And we can't quite quantify it. It's not as simple as for every pound of muscle, you burn an additional 15 to 30 calories a day because that math doesn't math. I've done it enough times that when we do it, it's like this makes no sense. We added five pounds, but you're eating 500 to 800 more calories. Yeah, what's happening? This doesn't make sense. Now, I understand that there's other variables. The person who's now out of five pounds of muscle probably moves a little bit more. They probably increased their volume in their training without even realizing it. That still doesn't account. I know. They probably sleep. I mean, there's a whole host of things that are probably also happening besides this one thing that we're measuring in this controlled six to 12-week study to say that, oh, it's 15 calories. But when you're coaching people, you have to understand that too, though. You have to factor that in. You do. And also understand why is this so complex, right? Why is mammalian metabolism so complex? What's the evolutionary purpose of all of these pathways and what's going on? One of the biggest purposes or roles there is being able to become more or less efficient with the energy that is consumed. Why is that important? Well, for most of history on Earth, mammals and humans in particular, we dealt with food scarcity. We dealt with periods of drought of I don't have. And so what the body does very well is it learns how to adapt. It can become more or less efficient with the same lean body mass. I've seen this happen too, where I'll move someone in a different direction. We haven't even built any muscle yet. And yet their metabolism seems to be speeding up. Well, there's so many different pathways. The body can turn some of those calories more into heat. It can become more efficient in other methods by either making you move more, move less, or some organs are using more energy versus others. Cells can become more thrifty or less thrifty. It can conserve it and store it for later. I mean, it's just, it's very, very, very complex. But what we know for a fact is it's like clockwork. I mean, my wife is an example. When I met her, she was eating 1200 calories a day. She was running three days a week. She was doing all these crazy circuit workouts. And after about a year and a half, I'll say a year and a half of working out together, she took out all the running. So no more running whatsoever. She started lifting weights in a traditional sense, meaning no circuits, just straight sets type of deal. Slowly reverse dieted her to what she was eating 2200 calories a day and leaner and leaner. So for all intents and purposes, less activity, more food, leaner. And she didn't gain 15 pounds of lean body mass. She might have gained something like seven pounds of lean body mass. So, you know, explain that. So just another example of being science-based, but not science-bound, right? Understanding that we know somewhat what's going on, but there's still a lot that we don't know. And if you've been doing this long enough, you've helped enough people reverse diet and speed their metabolism. Again, the math doesn't math. It doesn't make sense. And so I, and I'm not going to try and explain why that is. It's just that I know I've done it enough times to see how, what a difference that it can make by someone adding five pounds of muscle on there. What about like, how about this? How about the chemicals that you can be exposed to? Xenoestrogens have been shown to increase fat storage and some animal studies. And it's not hard to assume that that's probably having an impact on people as well. So, and there's a lot of stuff that we're exposed to that's different now. It's not the simple move more, eat less. Any potential to immune issue and gut problems that you might have underlying. It's all contributing to how well you're going to metabolism. It is. Now, if you're confused, right? You're listening to this, you're like, oh my God, there's so much going on. No, no, no. We're saying it's complex, but the solution is actually quite simple. Feed your body properly. Strength train to speed up your metabolism. Train appropriately. And slowly over time, you will be leaner by eating more food. You'll actually have an easier, it'll be an easier process of sustainability. Maintenance, which is really the problem. So if you're working in the space, the problem you want to tackle isn't weight loss, it's the sustainability. Everybody can lose weight, but who can keep it off? That's the real challenge. And preserve your muscle. Yeah. All right. Today's program giveaway is MAPS Power Lift. Here's how you can enter to win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it, subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section that you got free access to MAPS Power Lift. We also have a sale going on this month. MAPS Resistance, our beginner strength training program is half off. And MAPS Prime Pro, this is for correctional exercises, is also half off. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. Yeah, a little bit of a transition. Have you guys seen the news on Planet Fitness? CEO? No. Fired. Really? Yeah, yeah. I think they lost like a billion dollars in market share overnight. Yeah. A billion? Yeah, yeah. So guess, I know guesses. You guys got a guess? Fitness CEO, okay. Killing it, doing great, doing great. But and initially there was like, no one knew why they, I don't understand this company's been doing great. It's been on the climb for quite some time. Fire the CEO. Any guesses on why you might fire a Fitness CEO? Cost the pizza went up, so the three pizzas. Inbezzlement. Huh? No, not inbezzlement. Oh, that's a good guess, I think. Look up the articles that are coming out right now that are related to it. So party too much. Wait, wait, who did? The CEO. He party too much? Yeah, bro. It's why you look shocked like that. That is like so the space, man. Yeah, oh yeah. Just making money, having fun. Yeah. That's like a dirty secret of the gym industry, isn't it? See what you can pull up. Does he look like the bank CEO? I don't know what he looks like, actually. I didn't look at any of the images, which he got from me, Doug. All the things that he was blindsided and doesn't know why he was fired. Yeah, so that was the initial, that was the initial like talk, was that he had no idea, oh, he looks like he does lines of coke off a stripper too. Tell me that. Bro, he literally looks like he does bumps all day long. Just a little bit of powder on his collar. Yeah, that does look like a bank guy. He's just missing the gold chain, dude. For sure he's partying. 100%. Wow. That's hilarious. Isn't that so funny? A lot of people that don't know the kind of behind the scenes, right, with fitness. Dude, the gym industry is crazy. But I mean, it's got to be something a little more egregious than that, right? I mean, if you're doing cocaine off the desk at work, that's pretty egregious, Justin. I think as the CEO of a massive company like that. It's visible, yeah. Justin's like, if you do it quietly, you're fine. I'm not saying he did that. I don't have any idea. Behind the scenes party guy. I mean, you guys remember the Christmas parties at 24 Hour Fitness? Yeah, they stopped him the last one that I went to. No, no. Were you at the last one? Yes. The one that ended all? All right, so explain what happened, because I heard all the rumors. I didn't attend this one. So two times in that night, there was an ambulance that had to show up to the park. And there was multiple times that I went to the bathroom and VPs and DMs were in a line waiting for people to do coke in the bathroom stalls. It's just, you know, it's so funny. Lower calorie. You talk about this. It's not as fattening as alcohol. You talk about a lot about, we talk about this in general for general population, the binge, the restrict binge relationship that a lot of people have. Yeah. And to think that these leaders in these companies would be immune to that. It's crazy. They absolutely have this same relationship where you got to be tight on the diet and you exercise and you're perfect all the time. Party time. Yeah, you put on this image of health all the time. So then you get that one party every quarter or at the end of the year to cut loose. And when they cut loose, they cut loose. So I remember, I went to one, I only went to one Christmas party. And I remember at the time, my wife at the time, we walk in and she's like, what? Because the way that people were dressing was insane. It was like Mardi Gras. You know, the way people were walking in, she's like, this is if you work here, they don't dress like this at work. I swear to God. Yeah. The last one that I went to, I was in an all white suit. And I had my girlfriend at the time. We didn't have very much money. We had just started. It was like in my early 20s. We bought, oh God, what's there? There's a famous wedding dress in San Francisco that you guys, a name, maybe dub company. No, yeah, company. If I said the name, you guys would know the name, but it's a very... Did Dennis Rodman wear it? All the women right now are like yelling it at the podcast right now, whatever it is. Like it's for sure like a big name, right? So we go there and she needs a dress for the party and she bought this big old, you got Jessica McClintock. Jessica McClintock, is that name? Give me that something like that. I didn't know that. Yeah. Oh, you had that one. Yeah, I don't expect you guys to know those names, but I know somebody listening will. Anyways, they're like really expensive wedding dresses and you know, we're young kids, we've been having money. She wore that white dress all night long and we returned it the next day. So bad, so bad. She needs a tag on? Yeah, dude. She had tucked it in the back. Tucked it in there. I mean it was like, I don't know, probably like a $600 dress, which was a lot of money for us for sure at that point of our lives. And we didn't have a dress or anything for her for that night. We were in the city, we were spending two nights out there and we went all white. We were all white out. Like we were going to a wedding and that was the party where the ambulance had showed up. Now, I only saw one of the, they were like passed out, vomited on themself in the hallway because what they would do is they rent out, I think that was like the Hilton or something, that they rented the entire place out in San Francisco and then like everybody has, and you bring a guest. Yeah, you can bring a guest. So everybody flies in their family and friends. You have all these people in this company. You have a company that has tens of thousands of people that are working for it that are all flying into this. We take over this entire place and it's just a massive dance and food party all night long and it goes all night. And then your rooms are there so people were just pushing the limits and yeah, two different people had to get rushed to the hospital and that was when they finally said like, okay, we can't. This is the last one. Did you ever go to one, Justin? No, no, they cut all that by the time I got there. And the Hawaii trip, so pissed. Why they cut the Hawaii trip? That was money. That was right after the... Do you know why they got a truck? Do you guys know what the origin of that was? The origin of the Hawaii trip? So I talked to... I want to say Mastroff told me this years ago. So he was the founder of 24. Apparently, what was it, July? Was it July where they give away? Yeah, it was always their worst month. It was their worst month. So they try to drum up business. Yes, and so they came up with this idea where they would give away a trip to Hawaii to a member so the way you would enter to win is you... Every time you worked out, you would fill out an entry form and then the top producers in the company would also win Hawaii trip. And the idea was if we do this, we can turn July into a better month. It actually worked. July went from being their worst month to being one of the top producing months, second only to like January and February. Yeah. What do you think of the brilliance of the government? You guys remember the... Oh, is that it? Yes. Yeah, Gunny Sax. What? It's the name of that dress company. Jessica McClintock did buy it and she's since passed on. She was 90 when she died. Oh, okay. I don't know a lot about this kind of stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Random fact. It's not random. You know a lot about this stuff though. Impressive. Impressive. Big dress guy. Did you win a Hawaii trip? You did, huh? Yeah, I went to all of them, dude. Yeah, I went to Hawaii. I think I did four of the Christmas parties. I went to Hawaii four or five years until it wasn't happening anymore. So the first year I couldn't go and then the next year after that and for the next four years, that was my favorite trip. That was a big deal too. I mean, it's funny. Forget that it was Hawaii and it was paid for and that stuff didn't matter as much. It was just the pride of you were number one in your position to get to go to that and that was such a big deal. I was thinking out the garage the other day and I found my box of... I still won't get rid of them. Your shitty glass trophies. Yeah. That's all I... They're great. Just because you only got two of them. You guys got to go to Hawaii and you got like Christmas track and fucking... Justin had two shitty... Just because you had the least amount of trophies. We got three, okay? And schools... So I have a very short window. I have a... In fact, my very first month there I won. So this is 1997. So I'm an 18-year-old kid and I got, you know, whatever first place trophy. They misspelled my last name. Oh, really? Yeah, they misspelled it. So I still have it, I still have my box with all the... Too exotic. All the trophies and stuff. And Jessica keeps telling me, can we throw these away? I was like, no. I got to keep these. You know, I was there before and I was there afterwards, right? So you didn't have the opportunity to work there afterwards. And it was really crazy to watch the way that could shift an entire culture of a company. Totally. And it really highlights how much we strive for that recognition in front of our peers. Come on, that's everything. Especially in a competitive environment like that. It has to go down as one of the dumbest things that company ever did was getting rid of that. When they did the million- The million-dollar production award. So this was if you, for people who sold a million dollars worth of commissionable revenue. So when you would sell a membership, some of it was commissionable, personal training, some of it was commissionable. When you'd reach a million dollars, you'd get this award and it was like the million-dollar club and you'd get a ring and the whole deal. That was a big deal. That was a very big, I mean, I got that as a young kid and I remember getting that and all the other people that got it had been with them when they were nautilus, like way back in the day. So I felt so, to this day, I will never get rid of that award right there. I mean, that's my origin on the whole Rolex thing, right? That's why I'm such a, the whole big deal about having those watches and why that's so important to me. It says they robbed that of me. I mean, I'll never forget literally like making this goal was around this time of the year. Wait, you didn't get the million-dollar because of that? No, so what happened was, so every year, the number one producer in that, in your position, they gave away the Rolex. I remember that. That's the total revenue for the whole year. I remember that, yeah. And so that was, and that was a big goal for me, going into the next year and I said, I set out that, okay, I'm gonna win the Rolex this year. And so I committed to not taking a day off of work. I literally worked like six months without taking a day off. Oh yeah, I'm gonna be saying this. And I was crushing. The next, the second place guy was like, I could almost cruise the rest of the year at the halfway point. And I think it was in October, September or October, and a mass email comes out that says that we're no longer going to be doing this. I was so fucking infuriated that I had already gone three quarters of the year at this point of dedicating my life to like reaching this, that I emailed the divisional president. They got on the phone with the VP and like went back. And I was so angry that not only did they do that, but then also like that they didn't even, they didn't do something to like make me feel better about it. I had my young kid busting my ass, like sacrificing all these days to try and to win this award. I mean, you're talking about a billion. They didn't give me anything. They didn't do anything. It was more like a, a sorry that, you know, that times are tough right now. The economy was doing rough and it was just like, man, I'm like, one of your top producers, there's, I mean, I'm representative 1% of the 1% of this company to not get like a, you know, something. I mean, the old divisional president would send me tickets to Warriors games and things like that. The old guys knew how to do that. And it would have been just like, I think that the gesture alone would have probably made it sting less to not, to not win that, but to be on pace to win that for sure and then not, and then of course. So that was the beginning for me of like being obsessed with like- Did they stop at that point, the million dollar producer? Everything. All the trophies, all the Rolex stuff, all the Mont Blanc pens, all the things that they used to do for the rings, all the awards that they used to give to the employees for achieving these milestones. They completely eliminated all of that. Yeah. Killed the culture. Yeah, no, it's terrible. I got to bring up a cool, interesting study. Have you guys ever met somebody that looks like you, like, like kind of uncannily? You look at it all the time. Okay, does that happen all the time for you? All right. There's a lot of me out there. Well, so I read an interesting study. This is really weird. So doppelganger, right? That's the term for it. Doppelganger, did I say it right? Ganger, yeah. Ganger or danger? Ganger. Doppelganger. I don't know. So when somebody looks like you, obviously they have similar genetics. This is what they're finding. This is like similar genetics. They did a test on doppelgangers and they found that not only do they look alike, they have similar personalities, similar life choices. So literally, Oh, that's wild. If you see someone that looks like you, the odds that they behave like you are significantly higher. The odds that you like them are high? Yeah, they're significantly higher than if they look like, if they don't look like you. I thought that was very strange. That's weird. Isn't that weird? Yeah. So next time you meet someone that looks like you, just give them a high five. Ask them if they want to go get coffee or something. Yeah, I'll give them some cheese. I know you like this. I know you like cheese, bro. Cause I do too. That's wild, right? That is weird. Isn't that weird? That's super. Now, so this kind of echoes the studies on twins, although twins are identical genetically, but you guys have read those studies, right? Where there's like twins separated and they, you know, a birth or whatever. And then they run into each other and they're like both married, like very similar women or husbands. They have the same job. They both have a favorite cigarette or a favorite cereal. Have you ever read those? Yeah, yeah. They're so weird. I don't know if I think that's more fascinating or the random stranger who just looks like you having somewhere. I think that's more crazy. Yeah, I've never met anybody like a hundred percent where that kind of trips me out. You've never been like, so if you're in a certain part of America, like for me, it was the Midwest. I swear to God, like every, I don't know, 20, 30 people, I would see somebody that looks kind of similar to me. Really? It was, yeah, it was kind of creepy. You have a common face. Is that or a lot of inbreeding going on? Spread our seed out there. Just got a lot of cousins. Yeah. That's kind of Genghis Khan-like. Attractive. Cousins of the Midwest. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, interesting, right? The role that genetics plays on your decisions and your behaviors and stuff like that, it's always a trip to read that. What was that one documentary with the triplets, those dudes? Oh, that was good. It was not a documentary, it was like a movie, like they made a movie out of the three guys. Now, what I like about that is it highlighted the power of genetics, but also the power. How they were raised, right? All, this was, okay, spoiler alert. If you watch this, I'm going to give away... Three identical strangers. Three identical strangers. Separated birth. Nature versus nurture. I'm going to give away a spoiler. As an experiment, they got divided as experiments to see how one growing up in a poor house, one in a rich house, one in a whatever, what was the influence of genetics or environment? This is the cra- Now, a lot of things were similar, but here's the crazy part. They all suffered from depression, so there's genetics, but one of them committed suicide. They lived in a house with an unloving household. So it was the thing that pushed them over the edge, whereas the other two just struggled with depression and learned how to kind of battle through it. Yeah. Crazy. I can't remember how much, who's the actor that, there's a famous actor that we know that's in there, how true they stayed to the story. Was it very, because it wasn't a documentary, it was a movie. I don't think they had a documentary, did they? It was kind of like a documentary. I know it was a study. What do you call that? What do you call it when it's like a movie that's based? A docudrama? A drama? Oh, yeah. But then they did show the actual, I mean, this was, they did show the actual... I know that's what I mean, like did they stay true, because you know, that's the one thing about those docudramas, it's like, oh, some of it's true, like there was three twins, all the rest of the shit's made up though. Yeah. Well, the depression and suicide of one of them was real. That was real. Okay. Yeah. I couldn't remember if that happened or not. Did you find it then? I think it's really more of a documentary. Yeah, that's what I remember. Yeah, you're slow today, I see. Andrew, are you working over there? What are you doing over there? Are you on porn hub? What's going on? Help a brother out over here. Hey, hold on. Let me... Huh? It was a real study. It was a real study. No, not the study guy. There's a movie that came out. It's a documentary, the thing, the three identical strings. That's actually a documentary. If you pull it up so I can actually see it or we can just guess over here. No, it's a documentary. I remember it specifically. There was a movie that they made off of it too. And that's what I thought you were talking about. I'm not familiar with the movie. Yeah, there's a movie. Well, you're the one with Google in front of you. Maybe you can find it. I know for sure there's a movie. Yeah, that's the one I watched. And that's... Yeah, that's it right there. And that's the three of them. So it's an actual documentary? Yes. Yes. And it's... I mean, also, by the way, can I just say this, scientific studies, I don't know if they still like this, but man, studies in the 70s were messed up. The shit that they got away with. Yeah. With people is crazy. Hey, don't you think we still do really bad shit like that? We just don't talk about it? Probably. I would think we do. Yeah, probably. We're just now finding out about MK Ultra. So there you go. That's pretty well. But they got separated on purpose just to see how they would all... It's crazy. There was another study that showed there were twins. One went to North Korea. One went to South Korea. Did you see this one? They were identical twins. The IQ difference was significant between the two of them. Same genetics. One was far smarter. They think it had to do with malnutrition because North Korea obviously poor communist country, South Korea being a wealthy capitalist country. And if you looked at their faces, you could see the difference the nutrition made. So they look identical, but one looks healthy and a little taller and a lot of stuff. The other one, not as good. At what point do you think IQ doesn't make that big of a difference? What do you mean? What score? Obviously, the difference of someone who scores extremely low versus someone who scores high, there's a drastic difference. But it's just happiness with money. You mean in terms of... I think about the studies and stuff that we have around making more money. Once you reach a level, then there's other factors that are far more important. I actually heard Elon Musk talking about this. He was talking about IQ. And I think he said once you get above 100, he goes, it's actually not that big of a deal. Not meaning that the person who scores 140 isn't wasting more than 100. It's just that there's other factors, hard work, consistency, discipline. Outlook. Yeah, exactly. Those things now play as much if not a bigger role in your overall pursuit of success. So at what point do you think that is? Do you think that where is IQ almost irrelevant at that point? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I haven't seen the data on that, but I would agree with them. I think also intelligence is also correlated with mental illness, anxiety, and I can't remember something else, but mental illness as well. So once you start to go past a certain point, you see more mental illness start to play a role. They're not quite sure why that is. Well, isn't it too? I'm trying to constantly solve problems. A lot of times when you're at that level, I know I've heard Elon Musk talk about this too. It's just like it's plagued with, I feel like I have answers to help in this category and to always have that constantly running in your mind all day long. That's true. Dogs are probably happy, aren't they? Yeah. Interesting, too. How many times do you meet someone who's really brilliant like that and they're socially awkward? Yeah. Your social awareness skills are important to leadership. You've been able to run a company and things like that. So at one point, it probably even works against you, right? You get to a point where you can't get out of your own head. So it'd be interesting to see what they have as far as like once you hit a certain point, it's like anything beyond that and it's like your other skill sets. Well, you know a lot of the IQ boosts that we saw in the 20th century correlated with height boosts that we saw in the 20th century, but those had more to do with... Nutrition. Yeah. That was the biggest problem that we saw. Yeah, dude. Like people were like, oh, people were so short back then because they didn't get like nutrients. Yeah. And then so in like my family, right? So my family from Sicily, everybody's kids, everybody jokes around how the kids are so much taller than the grandparent. Like my grandmother, like a Sicilian grandmother is typically like... Yeah, because they got fed finally. They're just tiny, right? They're little, right? But yeah, that's what it is and their kids all come out taller and that's because of nutrient nutrition deficient. And same thing with IQ, IQ that the IQ shot up not because of anything other than the fact that they just were malnourished before and lead, lead played a role too. Lead and gasoline. Actually, did you know they connected that to violence? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Going from leaded to unleaded, reduction in violence. Okay, so it was like 70s or 80s? When did they take it out of gasoline? Good question. I think in the 70s. Was it the 70s? Yeah, they figured that out. There was some state that came out that like... So Doug grew up with lead? I did. That explains a lot, right? That's why it's so violent. You have a lot of dumb friends, huh? Dude, speaking of cognition and cognitive performance, so I'm so excited that Organifi did this. So peak power was the product that I helped them put together, right? So this is like a stimulant base for people who don't know, like stimulant based product. There's caffeine in it, but there's other botanicals that kind of balance it out that give you this like euphoric, energetic kind of high, right? So it's really good for productivity, for workouts, that kind of stuff. Pure was a product that they already had. That we all love. That is non-stimulant, right? But it's also a cognitive boost. And you know, you take it and you just kind of feel good. And I was combining the two. I did that this morning. I always take pure with peak power because I like to combine things, see what happens. Really, really great combination. Well, they put together a bundle. Just for you. Just for, yeah, the audience, because I talked to them and they said, hey, you know, peak power and pure go really great together. Why don't you guys make a bundle? They did that. The audience doesn't know. You can combine the two and you will see sounds. Why didn't I have this when I was in college? You know, like that would have been great before to study. We had Jolt Cola. We had Jolt. They still have that at all. Yeah. Now Jolt Cola. I just caught off the phone actually with Drew. You know, he's a new daddy right now, right? He just had his baby girl, right? Oh, yeah. Is he getting sleep? What do you say? You know, he actually sounds like it. I think that, I think they get a pretty good system. He's got pretty good support as far. I think he's got a nanny. I think his wife has the ability to stay home. I think they have a lot. I think they have a lot. And then they're around family. And so, I mean, he just seems like he's full of joy. That's what it sounds like. You know, I feel like you could hear that in someone's voice when they have their first kid. Like you could just, they change, everybody changes. I haven't met anybody yet who has a kid who I can't feel or tell a significant difference than just. How can you not, right? Unless you just, you don't, I don't know. You have to, right? You got this little kid for the first time in your life, you care about something more than yourself, which is crazy because you don't realize it until you have the kid. Because if I say that to somebody who doesn't have kids, they're like, what are you talking about? I love my wife. I love my parents more than I love myself. It's like, just wait till you have a kid. Do you think that's more dramatic for, like that was really, that was a big thing for me, right? Like, and I know I was a very selfish person. Like I was openly that I was, you know, I knew I was very selfish. Yeah, you boasted about it. I don't know about that. No, I'm just kidding. You're a self-aware. Yeah, I was aware enough to know that, you know, I was on a long streak of being a very, very selfish person. And then settling down and finally having a kid, that swing of for the first time in my life, recognizing like, oh, wow, I truly, you know, love this thing more than myself. Like, and actually felt that for the very first time. I've probably said that, oh, I love these other things more. But until I felt that, I realized like, oh no, I've never more than myself until this moment. So do you think that's more dramatic for some people? Like that was such a big deal to me. Do you think some people that are like selfless people and that were born to help others? I mean, of course, I'm sure there's differences from person to person. Like that's not the impact that they have. Yeah, but I mean, most people I think have that, have that feeling. You're not a very selfish person. Justin, did you feel that way? How did you feel? Well, first of all, I want to say, I'm always glad to see like dog people when they finally have a kid. Cause it's so annoying when they compare them. Oh, I have a dog. Yeah. I was a dog person like that. The most annoying thing ever. I just, one of my friends just, he was that guy and then he just had a son. It's amazing to watch that transformation and to see kind of that energy shift. But yeah, I don't know. For me, I was just apprehensive about the whole idea of it. Like I didn't, I wasn't ever think I'd be ready for it. So it wasn't like, I don't know that I'm like a selfish person, but it was more just like, I'm just trying to figure out like what I can do to provide and get myself in a good place financially and all that kind of stuff. Like I was very much more of a practical, like I got married and then I was like, I know it's going to happen at some point, but like then it was just like, bam, like through the birth control and everything. I'm like, whoa, okay, here we go. Like I gotta figure this out. Yeah. I don't know if she got pregnant while she was on birth control. Yeah, man. It was like the first year too, we were married. So when you got, okay. So surprised. I don't think I've ever asked you this before. So I do know that story, but then I never asked you like, so were you guys like, oh, let's be married for five years. Let's travel. Let's do that. What was the plan? What was the original plan? Yeah, it was a few years in like we were, I mean, we had talked about having kids at some point, but cause she at the time too was like working like graveyard shifts and everything. And so it was just like, you know, we're just trying to like stockpile and get ourselves in a better situation first. So it was like, yeah, it was like a five-year sort of idea of like, you know, at that point, like maybe we'll start a family and do the whole thing and get a house. How soon after you got married, did you guys get pregnant? It was literally, we were like, oh my God, it was probably a couple months because in the next year, like we had. Right away. Yeah. Wow. Surprise. Bingo. I was like, wow, I guess that wedding dress had an effect on things. I don't know what happened, but it just, it was powerful. Now you were different. You were ready to start a family. You guys were like, let's do this. We waited. So this was my first year. You guys were in high school, right? Well, 22. I got married at 22. So I waited. But you guys knew each other from high school, right? You guys dated in high school or whatever. So we waited and then we started trying. I was 26, I want to say. And then, you know, successfully had the kids. But then after, you know, getting divorced and that whole, that's a very challenging situation. I was for sure wanted no more kids. Never again, not going to do it. I have my two going to focus on them. It was just traumatic, right? Getting divorced and all that stuff is just kind of traumatic. And then, you know, I met Jessica and you just, if you open yourself up to the whole thing, the truth is not everybody's like this, but for me, it's like I love family. I love big families. And so I made that step and I said, okay, I'll do this again. I'll do this again. I know it's hard, but I'll do it again. And man, I'm happy. I'm so happy I did. Aurelius was planned. Aurelia wasn't, but it was just a pleasant, you know, pleasant surprise. Dude, I don't know if I told you guys this before we planned for Aurelius. We had like a, I don't know, I want to call it a scare, but we thought she might be. And at the time we were going through some struggles because she was kind of like, you know, I think, you know, if we should get married and maybe have kids and I was still against it, kind of like, no, I don't think I want to do this. I'm not sure. She came to me and she was like, you know, I've missed my period for a couple of weeks. My reaction, which told me a lot about myself, wasn't fear. It wasn't, uh-oh, it was joy. Like my initial, she told me that and I initially smiled and became happy. And I'm so, and she saw that so she could see that. That was, that was true. And then to myself, I said, well, that's an interesting reaction. I guess maybe this is something that I, you know, that I want. So I'm glad I went. Did any of you, are any of your siblings, did they all have multiple kids? No. My youngest sister doesn't want any. Okay. I was going to say, because sometimes in a family like that, you know, one kid has an experience where they, oh, I want a big family. And then the other kid is like the opposite. No. Also, it's four of us. My youngest doesn't want to have any kids. And that's been a challenge for my whole family. It's like, oh my God, how can you not? Yeah. And what, does she tell you why? Does she say, I mean, my sister's not having kids. Just doesn't want to, it's too much work, responsibility. I don't know. There's not really a lot of reasons that she gives. She's a good respecter. She's a good person, very good person. I mean, she's the, she was the youngest, right? So you had a part of watching her get raised and you probably recall all that. Is there an ex, does she have a significantly different experience than you feel like you have? I mean, probably, right? I'd actually think that your parents were more chill and actually a better environment. She wasn't around little kids, I think, because she was also in the generation of, of that generation, she was in the younger cousin generation. So there were no younger cousins, at least not for a while. So I grew up, I was in the older cousins generation. Plus I had three younger siblings. So I was around little kids all the time. I was comfortable with little kids. I was always around kids playing with them, younger cousins, whereas she never was. I don't know, maybe that played a role. I don't know, you know. You guys must drive her crazy. I can only imagine. I mean, I was the guy who wasn't going to have kids. I didn't want to say too much here because if she listens to this, I can only imagine. So I feel for her because I know what it's like to be in a family that has like, especially like with Katrina's family, who's huge like that, like in everybody putting that pressure of like, when are you going to have a kid? Why not? Why not? Just like, you know, then I bet it turns to a point two. You're just like, fuck, I'm going to have it just to not have it. Well, look, because everybody keeps fucking giving me more time. I respect everybody's decision. Okay, but here's the deal. The number, this is a fact. This is just the data. Okay. I'm just citing the data, but the number one most regretted thing that people will say on their death bed is not having kids. That's the top number one thing with women. It's like 80%. It's and actually the data also shows that childless women past a certain age a significant percentage of majority. In fact, it was unintended. So it wasn't that they said they don't want to have kids. It's that they waited and they got their career and then by the time they found so it's too late. And you know, that's happening more than ever right now too. Right. We've, we've, we've pushed that off. And I forgot who was breaking it down. What they talked about. I mean, you think about this, this movement, this feminist movement to empower women in the workforce and push that kind of narrative. I mean, they start doing the math like, well, okay, she's 20 years old. She goes to college four, six or eight. It's an advanced degree. It's a good job. It takes another three to five years to actually climb the ladder. Now she's making all this money. And now you wake up your 32, you know? Yeah. I have, I have a niece that I've watched it front row seat of Katrina. Absolutely beautiful, intelligent, kills it business wise and, but wants to be married. But it's like really that was not the focus until 30 something. And then it's like, man, and then the pool just gets smaller and smaller for women at that age. It's difficult. It's tough. It's cause we don't necessarily, as men, we don't have that same, you know, struggle, right? Cause we could technically. We'll have the biological clock. Yeah. You have kids almost, I mean, pretty much the end to the day you die, as long as you're healthy. Plus, plus men will also marry across and down where women will marry across and up. So that limits even more. I'm not going to say too much cause it, but I used to train somebody who was very successful, female woman. She was in her fifties, very successful. And she's like, I can't find, I don't, I don't like to date anybody. I don't want to date anybody. And so we had this really hard, hard conversation. And I said, are you comfortable dating someone who's less successful than you? Cause she was so successful that it would be very hard to find somebody, right? And she said, now I am, but when I was younger, no. And she goes in, it was really hard to find somebody. I mean, that was like, that's like my niece. I know that she, I know that's what she wants. She wants, you know, she's like her dream is like a power couple, right? So finding another guy who's, you know, as educated or more and as acceptable. And she's already in the, she's already bumped herself up into the small percentage as it is male or female. And then finding a man that's that a, around her age that also was not married, doesn't have kids and that wants that same thing as it's just, it's tough, man. And the dating apps haven't made it any easier. They're now showing that the dating apps actually have made it less likely, which is really crazy. Yeah. You guys know that there's a really good interview. Shout out to our, our buddy Chris Williamson. He interviewed that girl, Cody Sanchez who I've shared with you guys a couple of times and they got into that and saying that, that dating apps, she makes a point that she thinks that dating apps are one of the worst things that had ever happened to our society for those, for those reasons. I just think that I agree. I think that you think that it would make it easier, better. But all it did was take us back. You know, it's weird when you look at the data on this kind of stuff, and I can't necessarily explain this. We could speculate, but when you look at arranged marriages, arranged marriages, you didn't even pick the person, your parents and your family. Super high success rates and satisfaction. Huh? What? It's so counter to what we're led to believe. I'm not saying that we should go. It's counter to what we're led to believe, but it's that when you understand that love is a choice, it's not that weird to me, because those people are choosing to love that partner. That's where I was misled for the, I was told or felt like when I was a kid that it's this fairy tale thing that it's just supposed to hit you, and then that stays forever. It's this feeling that you're going to have and you'll know when you know, and it's like, you know, it's a, it's a verb. It's a choice. It's an action. You are choosing to love something. And understanding that empowers you to go, oh, okay, well, let me, and then you figure parents who know their kids really well and know their values and the things that make something last really long time. Go, okay, let these two would make a good match. And then if they're open minded, because that's how they've done it in their culture for generations, they then choose to love them. And then it, well, it's not happening. Well, you know that these, I had an old client and I say old, like literally they were in their 80s and we talked about this once. And this is that when I was having some struggles or whatever. So I'd ask them questions about marriage. And they said, you know, when I was a kid, when I was younger, I should say that marriage was a, it was like, we are going to do this because we're going to do life together. And really what it is about raising children together. And she said, and then it shifted to, you're going to fulfill me and it's love. It's like this in love thing and we're going to fulfill each other. And they said, that's when it all went wrong because the way I grew up, of course, talking about themselves, it was like, oh, you and I, we like each other, we care about each other, but we're going to do this. We're going to go through life together. We're going to raise children together. That's what this is about. It's about raising children and having this family. It's not about you fulfill me, I fulfill you. If I'm not happy, it's your fault vice versa. It was this really enlightening conversation. So that might be why the whole arranged marriage thing. And I really, and I'm not like technically advocating for arranged marriages, right? But I do think there's something to learn from that, right? I think there's something in the middle, right? I know this conversation will always trigger somebody right now that I'll be like, oh, I can't believe you guys are saying that. It's just crazy. But there's, I mean, if it's been so successful for so long, it's like what we talk about with the science and the health and fitness space, it's like it's worth investigating. It's worth being open minded enough to hear about it. What's in there that's working? What is working and why is it working so well for so many people? What can I take from that and apply with kind of the views that I have around that? And I think that's the most important part of that conversation. It's not necessarily like, oh, we should all go arrange marriages now. It's just like, okay, well, maybe not. But then what is it that they've done or why did it work so well? And I think it's the points that we're making. I'm going to take a left here. I want to tell you guys what I'm going to be doing with MPHormones.com. So I'm going to be changing my strategy a little bit. So when we were at the Olympia, do you guys remember the doctor's name that we were sitting with? We had dinner with him and Don. I feel so upset that I forgot his name because I wanted to give him a shout out. Maybe Doug can find his name. No, I have it. It's... Really smart guy. He's been working... Dwayne. Was it Dwayne? Was it Dwayne, right? Yeah, Dr. Dwayne's something. So let's find his name because I want to give him a shout out. Anyway, really smart guy and he was talking about the... Jackson. Dr. Dwayne Jackson. Was it? Okay. So this guy's been working with hormones and athletes and bodybuilders who are on the extreme end of that, right? For long time, decades. And this is just something that fascinates me. And so we were talking about like, well, how do you... What is this like working with these high-level bodybuilders? We're all in all these crazy drugs and this and that. And he was telling us how like the whole idea is to keep them from not dying. And then after the show is to try to bring them back to equilibrium because they're also messed up. So we had this conversation about that and then we got into the conversation about like TRT, right? And I said, I think it's beneficial because I've heard this before and there's a debate. Is it beneficial once you are on TRT to do a period of going off trying to reset your receptors, your androgen receptors and then going back on? Because what happens, and here's the explanation he gave that really was really powerful. Anytime you use a substance, that substance affects your body by interacting with receptors. And what ends up happening with the body is the body will down-regulate those receptors over time and you'll need more of that same substance to elicit the same effect. So caffeine is an easy example, right? You first start drinking coffee. One shot of espresso puts you through the roof. Next thing you know, you need two shots, three shots. Now you're immune. It feels like to caffeine because... 500 milligrams like me. Yeah, like Justin. Because your receptors have down-regulated and so what you do is you go off coffee for a couple of weeks, go back on it. Oh, now the magic is back. And he says, well, this happens with androgens. He said bodybuilders have learned now throughout the years because they're the cosmonauts and all this. They experiment with all this stuff. That there's a sweet spot. And just adding more anabolic doesn't help. You just get more side effects. So what he does with his athletes is he takes them on low doses for a while, resets their receptors. So I said, do you think that's good for people on TRT? I mean, I know we're not bodybuilders. We're not using the same kind of stuff. And he says, yeah. He goes, what you should probably do is occasionally try to go off, try to boost your natural testosterone through HCG and something called enclomaphing, which is a, it's known as a selective estrogen receptor modulator. So what it does, it tricks the body into producing more testosterone. He says, you go off for a few months, get your natural levels back up, then go back on TRT and that same dose now feels super effective. So I think I'm going to pursue this. Okay, you're going to come on. Are you going to do like Clomid or HCG? What are you going to do? Enclomaphing. So Clomid is Clomaphing. Enclomaphing is a version of Clomid that is less side effects and more effective at raising testosterone. I already was on the phone. I was on the phone with the people over there and I said, I want to try this out. And so they're going to put me on HCG and that. And it's going to, I'm going to go off and then I'll stay on that for a few months and then go back on. Well, isn't it like common practice for like, if you're doing bodybuilder doses, right? You go through like cycles, right? But that's never talked about for just people like constantly on TRT. No, and this is a debate because there's a lot of doctors will say, you know, you don't need to do this. This is stupid. Just stay on the whole time. Well, needing and optimal are two different things too though, right? So I mean, it's just like, I just want to do it because I want to experience it because here's the other end of the coin here or the other side of the coin. There's a lot of, some men, especially young men with low testosterone don't need to go on TRT if they do the protocol that I'm about to go through. So oftentimes when I was talking on the phone, I said, is this successful? I said, oh yeah, we get a 30 year old guy with low testosterone. We don't put them on TRT right away. We have them do this protocol. And they said, and oftentimes the protocol alone will boost them up, kicks them up and then they don't need to go on TRT. I mean, it reminds me of when I figured out like how valuable fasting was for someone who was bulking. I mean, it was like, it's this, you're constantly trying to... It's like you desensitize. Yeah. And it seems so counterintuitive to, oh, you're trying to gain weight, you're trying to bulk. How about fasting? You're not assimilating those nutrients. Yeah, go fast for 24 hours. You're like, huh? Why would I do that? Or run a week of, you know, a calorie deficit where you're low calories for a whole week. And it seems counterintuitive to do that. But you know, again, time and time again, I've seen a lot of success, not only personally with myself, but with clients that after I do that, they all, we go back to the bulk again. We always seem to... Yeah, we pick up a couple pounds from that. We get a little bit stronger. They have an easier time eating and assimilating the food. It just, you know, it works. And so it would make sense to me that... Yeah, so I'm going to pay attention to, like, what I notice. Do I notice a drop in performance? Do I notice, you know, do I feel different, better? And then when I go back on, is it going to feel different? So... Now, when you do, are you going to pull off all peptides too? Or are you just talking about with it? Hell, no. It's one thing at a time, though. We think I am crazy. Hey, you want me to show you? One step at a time, bro. Come on. I want to do one thing at a time so I can tell people... I'll back off the TRT for a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I'll take all 12 peptides still. Still a lot of... Yeah, keep that pep in your step. Yeah, let it go. Speaking of eating and food and stuff, did you guys see the giveaway butcher box? What they're doing right now for... The turkey? Black, no. No, no, no, no. Doug, what is it? It's like, you go to butcher box. If you sign up for butcher box, they'll let you pick a steak that they'll send you for free for a year in your box? That's my understanding. Yeah, you can choose a steak that's in your box. Any steak? Any steak, according to... What's on the list? So you got your normal box. For a day for a year, huh? And you can add, for a year, they'll throw in your box at no additional cost. Oh, that's awesome. This is like their Black Friday or whatever deal that's going on. They're so brilliant by doing those. I think they hacked into something by having all these different... Each time there's got to be somebody who's like, ooh, that's what I want. You know when butcher box came out? There's just trends like that. For sure. When butcher box came out, they were highly criticized. Really? It was a subscription model for meat. Who did that before? There was that one company that did it. There's that one? Yeah, they're... Omaha? Yeah, Omaha Steaks. Yeah, but then there was like, oh, you're going to do this but you're going to make it grass-fed. You're going to do all this other stuff. Like, it's not going to work. And it turned into... And it was all internet-based at first. They turned into this massive company. I mean, that's the part that's most brilliant about to me is that if you actually start to do the math, when you add in the things that are for free, like your house, it's grass-fed, the price is competitive. Oh, you can. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to be able to compete with a grain-fed Costco steak. But that's not the point. Yeah, it's not the point. If you want... One of the complaints that people have when they go all grass-fed on some of those, it's more expensive. Organic grass-fed stuff is going to be more expensive. And so, to be able to buy it in bulk like this and be able to get a reduced price and have it shipped to your house is like a no-brainer. It's so different, too. Like, because they also have fish. Have you had? Well, you guys, I'm sure you guys have. Probably not you, Justin, because you don't eat fish, but... I'm scared of fish. Yeah. Do you... When you get wild-caught salmon versus farm salmon? Yeah. Wow. Is it different? Farm salmon is like this. They must be obese. The color looks so different, too. Yeah. Yeah. They're like... It's like... It's like 50% fat. And then the wild-caught salmon is like a leaner, even though it's a fatty fish, looks so different. You know, that was trippy for me. They're like... They're like... English, full English breakfast. Yes, right. By the way, beans on toast for Americans who've never had that. Sounds gross. It's delicious. It's gross. No. You didn't like it? No, it's not good. You still didn't like it? No. It was so good. I liked it. I liked the breakfast. That was like one of my... No. Why'd you eat it then? I saw you eat it. I just... Because they wanted to try it. When it broke, right? Yeah, right. It was good, dude. Beans on toast is good. I mean, I liked it. The tortilla, but it'd be... Beans on tortilla? Oh, yeah. Well, that's still the brief. The whole breakfast. You guys invented that. The whole breakfast with a tortilla to me would be like... would make it that much better. Big toast guy for sure. But what was interesting to me, no matter what restaurant or where we are at in the city, the eggs look so different over there. They were like orange, the... Yes. All of them. That was the standard. Yeah, it wasn't like just like one restaurant was either. That's what was interesting was that they were all like that. It's like, oh, wow, how much are eggs? I wonder why. Yeah, I don't know. They'd probably give them more free range opportunity. Because dude, that's how it was when I had chickens and they were out there eating grubs and whatever insects out in my backyard. It was like neon orange, like the yolks. Right. I mean, we had chickens growing up too, so I remember that also. But I'm surprised that you see that in one of the biggest cities. I know. You would think that it would be more commercialized and they'd be pumping them out like crazy like we have them over here. So I don't know what they're doing different over there. Maybe less mass produced. I don't know. Crazy. All right, one more thing I'm going to add. I know we're going to go longer, but one more thing I want to add. I heard about this the other day on the Joe Rogan podcast. I couldn't believe this was true. And then it dawned on me how hypocritical and strange this was. So I think it was, I want to say Time Magazine put this guy on the cover. He is like, I think he was an ex-Google executive. Don't remember his name. But he's like this climate activist. And in the article, he said, quote, we would be so much better off if there were no humans left. Oh my God. Okay. So now when I hear that and everybody's like applauding him, oh yeah, he loves the climate. He wants all humans to be gone because the climate somehow became their God. I don't know. It's very strange. Humans are parasites. Trade that. Now trade that with somebody who went up there and said, I don't want to kill all humans. I just want to kill all the brown people or I just want to kill all the Jews or I just want to kill. Nobody would put them on the cover. But because he said kill everybody, somehow that's okay. What the fuck is going on? Didn't Constantine talk about him? Who was it that brought him up? I thought one of the speeches. I heard him on a podcast. I heard Rogan bring him up on a podcast. I thought somebody brought him up on one of their speeches. That's the only time I read. Rogan goes back to eugenics and all this stuff. What it literally is, is this is Jonathan Pageout did this talk. We'll post it at the ARC convention we went to where he talks about your top value becomes your idol, becomes your God, and all your other values will twist and morph themselves to serve this tyrannical God. So when you're a climate worshiper, there's nothing wrong with the environment. It's good value. But when that becomes your God, then it makes sense to kill all humans because everything else twists and morphs to serve this false idol. So crazy. What's funny is the more humans we have, the more abundance we have, right? The more we cultivate our environment. Which, you know, the environment left alone is wild and treacherous and violent, you know, and will kill us, you know. So we should just get rid of everybody. It doesn't make any sense. And who's going to enjoy the environment when there's no one here? Yeah. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's all backwards to me. All right. We got a shout out. Did you already shout out Jonathan before? No. Why don't you shout him out? Jonathan Pageout? Yeah. Oh, I did a while ago, but we'll post this link to this talk that he did. I think people should watch that for sure. No, I wanted to shout out the gentleman we saw that we hung out with in London. And we went to that bar, the curling. Oh, the one that we called? Yeah. That was actually one. I wish we had a screenshot of that moment when that happened when she called her boyfriend. He froze. I mean, it was cool because one, we don't have, like if you look at the way our listenership are like by age, right? How they break up. Like the teenagers are the smaller. They tend to attract, you know, 35 to 45 an older population for the most part, right? Of course, do we have some that are younger, but that's like their smallest demographic. So I always get excited when I meet like a young kid that like started listening to us at 15 or 16 years old. He was 16 when he started. He was 16 years old and he's been listening for six or seven years. And when she called him and FaceTimed him, we were all on the camera. He completely, I thought the camera had froze. Like I thought, oh shit, the internet's not working, but he was just like, his mouth was wide open. He didn't say anything that he found out. More like, can you drive down here? Come hang out. I'll be there in 20 minutes. Yeah, yeah, shot down. We had a great time with that kid. Yeah, yeah, very nice guy. Really, really cool. Really, really cool. Another one of the nice things. And his page is eddy underscore teddy 21. Is that him? That's correct. Yeah, so. Shout out to Eddie. Yeah. Thanks for hanging out. Eddie Teddy. Look, if you have kids and you listen to the show, you're probably very, very interested in their health. It's probably very important to you. Most children's multivitamins are basically candy with not that much stuff in them. Well, there's a company called Haya that makes a multivitamin for kids. It's not a gummy candy. It doesn't have all these crazy sweeteners. And it has efficacious doses of nutrients that your children will thrive off of. Go check them out. Go to HayaHealth.com forward slash mind pump. That's H-I-Y-A health.com forward slash mind pump. And on that link, you'll get 50% off your first order. All right. Back to the show. First question is from Rachel Atkinson. What do the different foot and leg positions work on a leg press machine? Okay. This is a good question because you're going to hear and see a lot of information about inner quad, outer quad, quad sweep type of deal, narrow, wide stance type of deal. The biggest difference with foot position on a leg press, it has to do. And there's a difference when you go narrow to wide and we'll get there. But the biggest in terms of development difference has to do with low versus high position on the platform. So low position, putting my feet low on it, I'm going to get more knee, flexion and extension. Essentially, I'm going to get more quad, legs high on the platform. I'm going to get more hip extension. So I'm going to get more glute and hamstring. Now, when it comes to narrow and wide, not that big of a difference aside from, and I do see value in moving foot position for this, muscle recruitment patterns. The strength that you build in an exercise has carry over to other ranges of motion. But the vast majority of the strength is pretty specific to the range of motion and the way that you're training. In other words, if I build lots of strength with a narrow position, I'll have some carry over to the wide position, but most of it's going to be narrow. So what I'm getting at is you probably want to play with all of them and become mobile and comfortable in a wide road. Don't even talk. Where do you put the value on this? Don't even talk. Where do you put the value on this? I'm just going to say I guarantee Justin's never done any of this bullshit before. I have the bodybuilder background. I didn't fuck with none of this stuff. Here's why. Well, you did different exercises where you got it. This is all Instagram bullshit. Let's address this, because I know this is going to get a lot of hate, right? Because there's going to be all these biomechanic guys that are going to come on here and be like, oh, this target's this one. Nothing is going to build more muscle in a particular said muscle than stimulating that muscle novel. And doing a leg press with 10 different foot positions and out, up or down is nowhere near more novel than doing a Bulgarian split squat instead of that. So do your leg press through this other one. I agree. So give me the muscle that you want to build, or area you want to target to build more of. And I'll give you an exercise you're probably not doing that is going to build more muscle in that area than any foot variation of the same exercise that you already do all the time. That's the part that I think is so dumb about the people that are teaching this and getting all these kids to follow this. It's like you're doing this leg press, which is already inferior to most other great exercises like the Bulgarian split squat or front squats or back glottis squats or sumo squats or lunges or step ups or I can keep going all day long of all these exercises that are already better. And you're messing around on this leg press moving your feet or turning your feet in and out when you're missing out on an exercise that's going to pack on way more muscle by doing that because it's novel because you don't do it. Yeah. And even what I said, even with, you know, working different recruitment patterns and developing more, you know, I guess functional strength or strength movement. Yeah. You're better off. Yes, exactly. You're better off doing a different movement than you are moving the foot position. This is, you know what? This is from the bodybuilding space where this came from. And this also, I think feeds the whole like, oh, I should be doing different things but I want to keep it easy kind of attitude because it's harder to go from leg press to a new exercise than it is to go from leg press to leg press to leg press. It's very heavy on feel, right? And so that mind muscle connection thing. And so they try to get creative with the way that they can stimulate certain muscle groups and feel like they're getting some bit of, I guess, contraction or pump, you know, in these types of muscle groups, but overall like worth. So here's the thing too, in terms of like force demand, like how much force you're actually going to produce to, you know, to do that type of an exercise versus like doing a squat version of it or the deadlift version of it or not even close on that. So in terms of you actually building overall muscle and size and a substantial amount of, you know, muscle development there, it's like it doesn't even come close. Yeah, I will say this though. Have you guys ever done a sissy squat leg press or a sissy leg press? It's actually a pretty, yeah. That's an exercise a lot of people don't do. It's more bodybuilder focused. I mean, it's a great way to regress somebody who can't do a traditional sissy squat. Correct. If I have a client who can't do a traditional sissy squat because they can be a bit advanced to do that. Yeah, this is your body weight. Yeah, and it takes a lot of control. It's a great way to regress that movement to get the benefits that you get from that. So sure. And by the way, it doesn't mean that you've never seen me do a single leg press. It doesn't mean you've never seen me put my feet up high or low. It's just that talking about this and getting the people that are in the gym that are doing this is like, you're focusing on the wrong things. Like I'm not picking on the bodybuilder who's been building for 20 years. He's got two and a half hours of this stuff. Yeah, and he's training two hours a day and he's done every exercise that I listed a thousand times and he wants to play with his foot positioning to target a little. Okay, go ahead. If you're already awesome and you're bored. Yes, right. But the other, you know, 99.9% of you out there that are following that guy or girl that's making the case for why they elevate their heel or kick their feet out or it's like, go do the exercise you're not doing. If you, that targets that area and you're going to build those glutes more or you're going to build that sweep on your quad more by going and doing. Plus there's exercises that are better for, like you want to increase glute activation. That's what I mean. I don't mean go do some bullshit hammer strength machine that you've never done before. Go do one of the big movements I'm talking about. Go do the lunge. Go do the step up. Go do the sumo squat, the sumo deadlifts. I mean, there's so many great movements that people don't do enough of that you don't need to be wasting your time on externally rotated feet on a leg press. Like, come on. Totally. Next question is from Katie Massengale. Is it possible to increase BMR beyond what traditional calculators say simply with reverse dieting and strength training? You just want to hammer this, don't you? I picked this one on purpose. It came in hot. We're going to finish hot. This tip is going to be about this. I'm going to answer more questions about this. So BMR is basal metabolic rate. So that's just how many calories your body burns. And there's calculators online. We have one, mapsmacro.com I think is the URL. But it'll give you an estimate of how many calories your body burns at rest based off of your lean body mass. But it's an estimate. It is not accurate. And boy can individuals vary dramatically. I mean, when I was, gosh, when I was a teenager, when I was 18 years old, to gain weight on the scale, I had to eat in excess of four to 4,500 calories. Period. End of story. Like it just wasn't happening. Now, based off my lean body mass and my activity, my BMR on a calculator would have said I should be gaining weight like crazy with that amount of calories, but it wasn't touching me. And I know this because I was putting the calories away and I did learn how to track in those days. And it just, it just wasn't happening. Your metabolism has flexibility with your current lean body mass. It can move all the way to super efficient or all the way to less efficient. In other words, burning and wasting calories or conserving calories and independent of movement and all that stuff just because of the things that you do and the signs and the signals that you send your body. So the best way to use these calculators is like this. If you have no idea where your BMR is and you don't want to track for two weeks to figure it out, you could start here as your starting point and then work with it and see how your body reacts and responds. And it's probably for most people who are average, not active, whatever, it's going to be roughly close, but it's not going to be exact. It's going to be, it's going to be off for sure. Yeah. The short answer is yes. Yes, you can. These things are just an estimate. I've used a ton of these things. I've never had one of them tell me that I need to eat more than 5,000 calories in order to build, in order to put weight on. Yet I've also eaten 5,000 calories and lost weight. So they're absolutely not 100% accurate. Yes, you can build it. This goes back to the original point that Sal made to kick this episode off, which is that we don't even, we can't even quite quantify what adding 5 to 10 pounds of muscle does for your metabolism. We have good guesstimations on what that is, but it's good at best. Next question is from Rajiv Mital. Is cold plunging post-workout worth the trade-off of blunting the muscle-building signal if it leads to better recovery and therefore more frequency and volume? Okay, so here's what's frustrating about, because we get this question a lot. And here's what's frustrating with this, right? Here's what the fitness and health space does very well, is they take a practice that has value and then they try to connect it to the things that sell, which is muscle-building fat loss, right? So fasting, fasting is a good example. Fasting's been around for thousands of years. It's present in every major world religion. Every culture has practiced fasting. And I guarantee you 100%, nobody did it for fat loss. Or building muscle. When people were fasting 2,000 years ago, people weren't like, I'm obese, I need to fast to lose weight. It was not for that, it was for the detachment. It was for spiritual practices. It brings other values. And of course what the health and fitness space does is they take fasting and they find a way to sell it through fat loss. But that's not the value of fasting. That's stupid. Don't fast for fat loss. Don't cold plunge for muscle-building or fat loss or anything else. You know what cold plunging is good for? It's good for mental clarity. It's good for immune system boosting. And it's good, it's really good for, it's somewhat of a spiritual practice. You throw yourself in freezing cold water. You have to learn how to center yourself and calm yourself down. Okay, what are the effects on muscle-building? Yeah, studies will show that it may blunt the inflammatory signal that a workout sends. It's negligible, by the way. It's not like it's like you're going to show pounds of difference. It's very negligible. Also, who cares? If you're fasting for fat loss and muscle gain, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. That's not what it's valuable for. Now, what this person asked is actually, I think somewhat of a valid question, though. Can cold plunging increase the amount of volume and frequency in my training because of its anti-inflammatory effects? Yes. This is how sports teams have used cold plunging. That's the only example. I mean, if you have double days, for instance, or you have another competition that's going to demand that much more ferocious activity, you're going to want to make sure that you bring that inflammation down a bit more. So now you're able to train again. You can train again. In that case, if we look at it from that perspective, to your point, there's so many other benefits health-wise and physiology-wise that we can get from cold plunging. We should just use the cold plunging for what it's best at. Yeah, and if you improve your mental state, if you improve your ability to center and calm yourself, what are the downstream effects of that when it comes to your fitness now? It's probably pretty good. Right. So this whole blunting the muscle-building signal, which again, it's not a huge effect. Well, because then even then, you may be able to get better sleep as a result of bringing the inflammation down. And how much is that? And now, let's argue the nuance there. Is my recovery better? Does that produce more muscle? You can go down this kind of rabbit hole of like semantics. Yeah. There's so many other positive side effects. Do it. That's what I have to contribute. I've been raving about cold plunging for a couple years now. I was going to say, you're the most consistent. What did you notice the most from doing it regularly? The energy right away. So there's no cup of coffee or energy drink I've ever had in my life that even comes close to the feeling that I get after you get out of it. And you do that with a two to five minute plunge. I'm getting the effects of what 300, 400 milligrams of caffeine gives for me without the crash. So I feel better all day long. And because I don't have to take that caffeine, I also sleep better later on. Cognitively, way sharper. So when we go into podcasts, if I would do it before this, the mental clarity that I got from it, incredible. If I were to do it pre-workout, so like, man, right before I would go for a lift, if I plunged, I mean, that was Dr. Brink who got me doing the cryotherapy first. He's like, oh, you got to try this. Forget trying to do this for recovery. He goes, do this pre-workout and see it. But some of the best workouts I ever had was doing that first. So I mean, it's those drastic changes in temperature too and being like acclimated to be able to handle that better, right? When you step in another environment. There's something about too. Just the mental discipline takes to do something hard. To say that this sucks. And then being able to self-regulate and calm yourself down, right? That's what Justin said, right? That was a big one for you, was the stress, your ability to manage stress was better. Yeah, honestly, to not do what I normally would do, which is tighten up and tense up and really kind of bear through it versus like figuring out how to get into that autonomic sort of, I'm relaxed. I could find my way to slow my heart rate, to breathe. And this is something that too will translate really well to an athlete, let's say in a really high stress situation and be able to calm yourself. You're going to perform at a higher level. So that's something that's like a cause and effect of the cold plunge. Yeah, totally. And this is also, cold plunging sounds cool and hip now, but some form or another of this has been practiced for a long time and lots of different cultures. It's actually a staple in Eastern Europe. I've talked about this on the show before. Isn't there an area where they all, there's an area that's, I forget what it's called, but where everyone swims and it's like super cold water. It's like a thing. Yeah, it's a traditional thing. Yeah, and then I brought this up on the show maybe even a few episodes ago where like kids in certain parts of Russia at recess, these are children. They just jump in the snow. They put them outside in their bathing suits and they dump water on themselves as part of a recess. And it's been something they've done for, you know, for a long time. I mean, I think the episode that we did with Wim Hof was incredible. So if you want the breakdown of an hour and a half of all the benefits of why you should do it. It has nothing to do with fat loss. Right, that's right. I don't think there's even a dress. I don't think we talk that much about that at all. So if you want to hear all the different benefits from it, I mean, listen to that episode. Next question is from all out shell. Did you all train while in London? What did your nutrition look like? What new foods did you guys try? You know, there was a huge shift for me. And I think Adam, you've talked about this. You did the same thing. Years ago, when I would go on vacation, I was always worried about losing my gains. I'm going to gain body fat. Where's the gym? I got to keep making progress. What am I going to do? And actually made my vacations and my trips not nearly as enjoyable or would turn into this like, I'd turn off my fitness and then go so far in the other direction that it was just, it was also not enjoyable. Then I realized that later on that, you know, you're going to do this forever. I'm going to work out forever. Okay. I'm going to try and eat healthy for the rest of my life. They are multiple tools and I can use them to maximize the quality of my life, even if the context of my life changes. So when I go on vacation or on a trip, we went to London and we're at that ARC event. And my goal is not to hit PRs. Not to get more musculars, not to burn body fat. I'm not there for that. My goal is to meet people, have stimulating conversations, absorb the information and also enjoy the culture. So my workouts really were about maximizing my mental acuity, my mental health, make myself feel good. My diet was about enjoying the culture, but also managing the potential negatives that can come from eating things that might bother me. So I pay attention to that. But that's it. I wasn't tracking and got to do my workout. My workout looked like 15 minutes. I would wake up in the morning for 15 minutes. I'd go in the hotel gym and I would just do enough to feel good. So I had the energy for the rest of the day. That was it. That's what I did. Yeah. I've thought long and hard about how I want to communicate this message because I don't also want to encourage people not to be consistent with their training and their diet and to do those things, right? Because I think there's some importance, obviously, to that. I haven't worked out in three weeks. So it's been almost a month for me coming up on since I've actually trained just because I got sick right before we left. And it's been crazy since we got back. And so I just haven't gotten around to lifting. But I've modified my eating habits and the other things that I do. I'm doing physical things yesterday, building with my son and stuff. And so I'm still active. I'm still staying healthy. But I also think that's a testament to all the years that we have invested in building our metabolism, building our muscle, learning what our body needs, understanding that the whole health sphere encompasses more than lifting weight, building muscle and burning body fat, that there's other aspects of enjoyment of the culture into hanging out with family and friends and connecting with my son and getting better sleep on this night. All those things matter. And I think that because just like somebody who's invested for a very long time financially, they can get away with blowing some money on here and enjoying things like that because they've been disciplined for so many years of investing that they can get away with this. And so I think that that's one of my favorite parts about being an older man now that's been lifting for over two decades is I've invested a lot in muscle on my body and training and understanding what I need to do calorie-wise to stay at maintenance and what does a surplus and a deficit look like and that meant optimizing my sleep or my relationships is important to my health too. And so when I go on a trip like that, I really don't really think about that shit. And if it happens, it happens. There wasn't really a time where it made sense that we would go to the gym and we were gonna work out and I didn't feel necessary that I needed to get up an extra hour especially since I wasn't sleeping that well there anyways to go and try and work out. I didn't care about that. It would have taken away probably. In fact, someone thought I was competing. Yes, I was approached by a couple prostitutes that walked up to me and said, hey, can you for five bucks? I was buying Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a Diet Coke and she was right behind me and she goes, how did you do? I mean, she goes, you competed and I thought, oh my God, you think I compete right now? You were beaming. He could not wait to tell us about this. I was like, dude, two people. Forget that they were trying to solicit me probably and it didn't matter the fact that she made that. Maybe you missed the second part of the call. I just want to make a point too. I send it to the guys whether they believe me or not and then we were in the lounge at the airport and the lady asked me the same question. By the way, this is three times now something weird like that's happened. The prostitute said that, the lady at the lounge. Do you remember when we were at the airport that other time? I believe it's called Lady of the Night. That's the politically correct. You mean the young kid that thought I was all hip. This was my favorite one. We're sitting around and we're waiting for our luggage. Everybody's tired or whatever. You get these ego boosts all the time. I think God knows. And this kid goes up to Adam and he goes, what sport do you play? And I'm like, what do you mean? You're a professional athlete and Adam's face lights up. I'm like, shit, I don't need to try. Here we go. We take another week off. That was a good time. You know, I did, though, one day, I think I did it because I heard Justin say, oh man, I've been doing some body weight stuff inside my room. I'm like, oh, you know, I could do some push-ups. I did some push-ups. I was like, damn, you know, I'm in a condition right now. I get my lats. I know you guys don't deal with the same, I don't know, how would I label it? Mental health issues. I have identified it as very necessary. It quills the beast. Well, here's the deal. I drive you guys crazy anyway. Could you imagine if I didn't use that? How much I drive you guys crazy? You need it, dude, for sure. For me, it's a constant kind of like a feel thing. I don't like sitting for too long. I have to have movement. Thankfully, we were walking a lot, and that's the great part about going to Europe. It's like everything is in walking distance and we were out and active. It didn't feel too, I guess, I didn't feel too much of this crazy itch that I had to get this crazy workout in. I got one good one in, but the rest of them were like these stupid body weight things. Really, it's just, for me, it's like expressing my muscles. If I ever feel like I'm weak and tight and stiff. Really, for me, it's like a signal of pain stiffness, whatever it is. That kind of stuff. I'm really adamant about getting my workout. Other than that, I'm chilling. I get so scattered. I have so much challenge paying attention. If I'm sitting for longer than five minutes and if I don't exercise, then I know I would have drove everybody crazy and I would have felt like I wasted my time there. If I don't do this, I'm going to sit down at ARC and listen to two minutes and then I'm going to zone out and it's going to be terrible. There was a lot of sitting in store front. I just hoped that we're a part of changing the narrative around what health looks like for our space. For the longest time, it's been this obsessive, I want to be jacked. I've already proven that self. I know how jacked I can get and I got nothing to prove to anybody else. I want to be healthy. I want to be a good father. I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good brother. I want to be a good business partner. Nobody highlights the maturity factor in our space. I know that it doesn't do well on Instagram. That's not a cool thing to post or to show off, but that's where I'm at in my life. The last thing I would want, I'm in London trying to see all these amazing things and enjoy an incredible, what an honor it was to be invited to that place by Jordan Peterson and to be a part of that and to be thinking about what my biceps look like or my abs or if I hit my macros for the day. Just listen to yourself say that out loud, how stupid. Yeah, right? And I know that in our space that's what people want to hear is how did you do this and how did you fit your macros and did you get your workout in and have this plan? No, I've done my investing. I have to be a healthy and fit person and now I'm at a beautiful place where I can go blow some money a little bit and not go broke. That's exactly how I look at it is I had two weeks of splurging and enjoying myself moderately, not being irresponsible. I go blow all my wealth in one week. But if you're beginning in your journey, it's one of our clients that's out there and it's a different subject. They're asking us and we're at and we know our bodies very well. I tell people like that just be consistent but the workout itself should be there to enhance your vacation. So that might mean something small, it might mean but if it's going to improve the quality of your life in that period of time then that's what you should do. You also might be at a different place in your journey right now if you're the client that we're talking about right now and you've never proven to yourself you can put two months straight together and a vacation hits it one week, get your ass in there and work out because there's something bigger than just that moment that you're trying to accomplish and the mental fortitude it will take to overcome that, the sacrifice will come it trumps the best thing you should do for building muscle at that point it's really proven to yourself can I discipline myself for a period of time even with the circumstances where I got to travel. You got to prove that, that's just like an investing thing if you are just starting investing just a few hundred dollars, you don't get to go blow it right away and then just go the other direction it's like no, you got to still stay disciplined just because you're on vacation doesn't mean you've earned that right to do that yet and so when you ask me a question like that or us where we've been doing this for a long time you just... Well you get a varied answer because you can obviously see what we all do is based off of how we see it Doug you probably, did you work out? Yeah I did body weight stuff some push ups, some wall push ups handstands, some bands some bands, that's it But you do it for the same reason I do because I know what you do because it makes you feel So when I went to Japan this summer I was gone for two weeks and I didn't do anything and I definitely lost the muscle and so what I did really when I was in London was just try to preserve what I had I had no, I mean it was like ten minutes You lost muscle for two weeks? I did, I noticed, yeah I felt like it You gained back so fast I gained it back in like two weeks I definitely lost for sure, I mean under eating protein I know I can't really imagine what they would have said I know, right? I might have got on stage, you know You might have given me free services I mean that's just it too, I know that I lost I knew I lost muscle I know I've lost some strength I totally got sore from doing push ups For sure I went backwards but it's like I can afford to do that a little bit but I went forward in other aspects I got better You know what I'm terrible about when I travel I feel like I'm so bad about calling my wife and making time, carving that off to make her feel special, like that's a big deal I'd hit that dude, I hit that every single time that's a big deal for me, right? That's more important in my life right now that I get better at that thing than I proved to myself in getting the gym I've already proven that shit So you have to think about all those things That's where my mind was at Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out all of our free fitness guides, they cost nothing just of your health and fitness goals You can also find all of us on Instagram Justin is at Mind Pump, Justin I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano and Adam is at Mind Pump, Adam