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Here comes the show One of the number one questions that I get and it's probably more common From young men, although I do get young women and older men and women that do this But it's more common with like young college men. I get this question on I want to get jacked I want to get shredded. I want to look this way, but I don't I'm on a college budget Yeah, or I don't have a job or I don't have a lot of money And there's this assumption that you need to have this really Expensive high-quality food in order to get an incredible plus a million supplements to go with it Right, and honestly, that's such a good point that I Think the mistake that at least what I made when I was that young kid who thought that same exact way I was spending two three hundred dollars on supplements a month Then probably missing my protein intake because I wasn't dialing my diet totally totally You know a big thing with this is for a long time actually up until recently I Did not Understand just how much people wanted to know this information until we did We did one of our long Q&A episodes and what we do now on YouTube for people listening on podcast is well We'll post the whole episode and then we break up the questions as separate clips and over the last week We you know We would just happen to be hanging out in the studio looking at it You know performance of it You know which questions are people most interested in which helps us address the problem the things that people will want to know the most and one of the questions was similar to this and that particular clip Far eclipsed all the other ones in terms of views and questions and comments And so we were left saying you know what we need to address this because a lot of people Have this question because there's a huge belief and it's largely a myth That eating healthy or eating to get lean or eating to look good Is somehow so much more expensive than eating garbage, you know junk food So it's like oh my gosh, I want to do that But how am I gonna do that when I only have X amount of dollars to invest in food every single month? And I get where it comes from but the truth is when you really break it down. It's not true It's actually not more expensive to eat in a way to get your body to look lean and look good and muscular You just have to know how to do it Well, is it completely not true or is it like because here where I understand and I get it is You could get a lot of calories from the 99 cent menu at McDonald's So, you know that I think that's where this stems from is that I know that I can go to jack-in-the-box And get six tacos and spend less than five dollars. Yeah. Well, that's just it if you're comparing Health quote-unquote healthy processed food to quote-unquote unhealthy processed food Yes, like if you go to the store and you're like, I'm gonna get You know super healthy tacos, you know or whatever. Yes, that's gonna be much more than the Taco Bell tacos But when you look at buying things and we'll get into this right in the episode buying certain foods in bulk understanding good sources of protein carbohydrates and fats and then you do the per serving Value or the cost you find that it's actually very Inexpensive. So yes, if you want to compare healthy, I don't know fast food To unhealthy fast food. Yes. You're you're probably gonna save money eating the garden That's where that comes from. Yeah, and I also think that a lot of people will like look look at something like Whole Foods Where they've actually found then cornered the market in terms of their version of high quality means they just charge more money You know for a lot of these like food items because yes, if it's labeled organic or it's labeled Natural or have they have all these like marketing terms attached to it, you know They can charge like premiums for certain things, but you know, there's there's a lot of other You know stores and other options out there where it's pretty reasonable. You just have to know where to look Yeah, and you know, I think first we need to talk about what it takes to get lean and What it takes diet wise to you know build muscle and look a particular way So let's define that first right before we get into the foods and how to save money Now number one obviously if you want to get lean you have to eat in a calorie deficit This is just a fact So I don't care if you like to eat keto or vegan or carnivore or count your macros doesn't matter One rule you have to follow is you have to eat less calories in your body burns This way your body can burn body fat for energy. So that's You know, that's number one and then number two, although there's a variance here with how people respond to this generally speaking a Diet that's relatively high in protein is beneficial for muscle fat loss And when I say satiety, I mean, you know be able to kind of feel fuller on less calories now I say relatively high protein. I'm not referring to You know bro science high protein, which says that you need to eat You know one and a half grams per pound of body weight or something like that I mean about point six to one gram of protein per pound of body weight in Relatively lean individuals. So if you're obese you want to use your lean body mass, but if you're you know in this Body fat range where you're not obese You could use your body weight. So if you weigh 150 pounds You want to aim for anywhere between a hundred to 150 grams of protein essentially, right? That's those two things are probably are the most important. I would say in that. Well, this is also assuming that this Conversation is going to appeal to people that are wanting to get shredded I would think that this debate is Coming more from somebody who wants to get big right somebody wants to act or because you're eating more food Yeah, exactly. So it's you're I don't think it's as expensive to get shredded Or at least when I at least the the young man that I was when I was in my early teens or early 20s and late teens I wanted to build muscle I wanted to build muscle and get bigger and that seemed expensive because it Met I had to eat in a caloric surplus and it means I need to get enough protein and protein seemed to be expensive If I went to these expensive places or did exactly like you said I compared, you know Cheap cheap jack-in-the-box tacos to healthier version tacos if I did things like that then it just looked So out of reach, but I also didn't have a Costco membership back then I I don't think I had ever bought, you know 20 to 40 chicken thighs and a five pound bag of rice or a bag of potatoes, right? For myself at that time in my life And so I just assumed that it was so out of reach and I'm glad you said that too So what I said about getting lean reverse for gaining you have to eat in a calorie surplus So those are kind of the rules and then we can't miss the exercise component Good effective appropriate exercise programming which refers to like how the workout looks and the structure of the workout Makes a huge difference if you eat very well, but your workout programming sucks You're not going to build nearly as much strength muscle You're not going to nearly affect your metabolism as positively as you could it'll be harder to get lean So good exercise programming is a very important. I want to elaborate on that a little bit because you and I had just happened to Have a really good conversation off-air this morning when you were working out and we were sharing kind of what we are currently doing ourselves and I'd like to think that my programming doesn't suck But just so the the listener the audience knows that sometimes even my programming sucks and that doesn't necessarily mean I'm Like people think sucks and go oh bad exercises terrible technique knows nothing about resistance Training or no what bad programming could look like is this is what was happening with me was I was in this rhythm I'm training five six maybe even seven days some seven days a week sometimes in this past like couple months and I noticed that I wasn't really moving much or my body changes what I mean my body composition wasn't changing much Yet I was being very consistent. I was making good food choices Then all of a sudden I had this thing I think max went through a regression we got busy and then I Naturally fell back to about two or three days a week for a couple weeks and what I noticed was my body responded I actually ended up building a little bit even leaning I looked better after those two weeks of less volume now unpacking all that and trying to figure out Okay, well what happened right there? It's very obvious to me because I know my own tendencies I have a tendency to under consume protein intake and under consume calories sometimes because I'm getting so busy So I was training too high of volume and intensity For the amount of nutrition that I was giving Simply backing off the training for the amount of calories and nutrition that I was providing my body My body thanked me and it responded. So I want to be clear that Bad programming look because a lot of people think oh, I I bought Matt Senate I bought a mine pump program or I have a trainer who's teaching me who's really smart or I am a trainer myself And so I can't have bad programming It means bad programming for the goal and what you're what's going on nutritionally So even somebody has experienced as one of us in this room can fall prey to this thinking that oh I'm doing good programming because I'm choosing good exercises and I'm lifting well We're also creatures of habit. Yeah, that I know at the end of the day too, even if you do know what you're doing It inevitably you're gonna fall into certain patterns because you know, it's it's comfortable or it's something that you know You've always kind of gone towards To to try and like recreate this version of yourself that you may have seen, you know somewhere a while back But you know to be able to kind of seek out something that your body actually will You know get a new stimulation from and respond differently towards That requires a bit of work to kind of go outside of your comfort Well, the reason why I wanted to bring this point up was because this was also one of the main things that kept me from building and gaining When I was younger was first the argument that it's so expensive Well, part of the reason why it was so expensive was I was a seven day a week training Wakeboarding snowboarding basketball playing kid And run like five thousand calories. Yes. I was I was asking I was burning so much And then I'm also telling myself. Oh, I want to build and so and so then I'm burning even more calories by training seven days a week So the amount of calories that I need to consume just simply backing off The activity cutting back on the amount of basketball is playing or reducing the amount of snowboarding or wakeboarding or Reducing the seven day a week split training routine that I was doing at one point And cutting back to two to three day a week kind of program made it a lot easier and a lot less expensive For me to get the amount of calories that I needed in order to build muscle Yeah Now I want to be very clear Adam isn't necessarily making the case that you need to train in the way that he said What the case that he's trying to make is The right dose is what's going to get you there And that's very individual and this is true for nutrition as well What may be a perfect surplus for muscle building for one person Maybe just maintenance or a deficit for someone else or it may be too much of a surplus For someone else where they gain lots of body fat. This can be true for deficits as well The right dose for diet and the right dose for exercise in other words appropriate for your body and your goals Is going to get you there the fastest and anything more than that gets you there slower Anything less than that also gets you there slower, but I like to emphasize the more than that because Here's the trap that I fall into I will hit that right dose. I'll be On all cylinders everything seems to be dialed in. Oh my gosh, my body's responding and I get so excited You throttle down more inevitably. I'm like well, I can I can make this happen faster I can do more I can handle more or maybe if I feed myself more and then you know a few weeks later I'm in the same situation adam is in where I'm looking back and going. Oh man I was I was rushing something and I was already Doing everything right so very important point That the right dose the right dose is what's going to get you there the fastest So, you know back to nutrition you got to have adequate calories meaning the calories have to match your goal and your body Protein intake generally speaking for most people has to be relatively high It's it just it seems to work best for most people. There's always Individual variants. There are some people that a high protein diet can negatively reflect, you know reflect on Digestion and whatnot, but for most people a high protein diet Works best Fat you need to consume at least enough fat to meet your essential needs because there's fatty acids that our body can't make on its own And if you don't consume essential amounts of fat Then it doesn't matter what you're doing your body is lacking what it needs And you can actually cause yourself lots of problems and then carbohydrates are quite flexible Some people do much better on higher carbohydrates within their calories Other people do a lot better with lower carbohydrates within their calorie goals That's the one where I give people lots of flexibility because carbohydrates are not essential In other words, you could never eat a carb for the rest of your life and you won't miss anything That's essential doesn't mean it's optimal. It just means you're not lacking an essential nutrient That's going to end up hurting your body, but this again can vary, but I will say this generally speaking for building muscle Higher carbohydrates as a percentage of your calories tends to work better and forgetting leaner generally speaking again There's there's lots of variants here, but generally speaking lower carbohydrates tends to work better forgetting leaner from well part of why I think that the I mean, we know that the carbohydrates lends itself for more energy and performance in the gym So I think that has a lot to do with why it lends itself well to building for building But I also think it lends itself well to building on a budget because You carbs can be cheap getting baked potatoes and rice is inexpensive very inexpensive Fat sometimes is a little bit more expensive protein for sure can be and protein for sure is more expensive So it's a great and you ordered that by the way You just sell just listed those in the the order of operation right as far as like number one priority calories Second one is protein third is essential fats and then fourth would be carbs So if I were to order, you know, what what is most important if I'm trying to build It would be getting my calorie intake because you could eat all the right protein But if you're under 500 calories, you're in a deficit and you're trying to build You're gonna have a hell of a time building that way. So in carbohydrates also have a bit of a protein sparing effect So for some people they've shown this in studies That lower protein but higher carbohydrates so long as calories are appropriate Does very well So the carbohydrates in other words and the reason why it's a bit protein sparing is if your calories are low And carbohydrates are low and protein is high your body can actually take proteins And convert them into the type of energy that you would normally get from carbohydrates now I do want to touch again on the the fact that eating healthy is more expensive as a myth This is largely due to the fact that people compare Processed or fast foods In this category and so they say oh if I eat at that healthy restaurant versus that unhealthy restaurant Boy, is that more expensive or here's that restaurant that serves that high quality steak Versus, you know chilies or you know outback that serve steak, but that's less, you know That's not as good quality. Wow. Look at the price difference, right? Don't look at processed foods. Don't look at restaurants. Don't look at boxed You know package type foods or fast foods that if you make that your gauge Definitely and mainly it's this. This is the reason why number one. There's a Huge huge market for fast cheap palatable food because there's such a large market There's a much much more production around it and number two Because people who want to eat out but also really prioritize their health They tend to be more willing to spend more money and it's a smaller market But when you look at food that you could buy and prepare very quickly on your own You'll see that that cost disparity actually becomes there's no more disparity I want to make a point about processed foods too because this was a big mistake that I made In my early years of training. I definitely am guilty of the frozen burritos hot pockets You know can ravioli like that was all my food. Right. I know I'm listening things. I know you guys can relate here, right? And And those are cheaper foods, right? What you'll find though and process heavily processed foods Protein is one of the most expensive nutrients to put in any food processed or found whole And so what you'll see is they get they give you more calories But a lot of them don't give you that much more protein I could eat four of those frozen burritos, but then I still only get like 30 grams of protein in there Where if and if I were to break down exactly what each one of those burritos and then I want to just go out and get a Piece of chicken or a piece of steak. I'd actually probably get more protein in it And since protein is one of the hardest things for someone trying to build to get enough of on a budget That's the stuff you got to watch for so a lot of times as a as a young kid Who's trying to build and and eat on a budget? I would make these choices towards foods like that because the calories were high and the and the price was low But then I still would miss my protein intake because of that Oh, I would do the same thing. I would look at you know a can of You know processed garbage and I would look at the protein Like wow if I eat this family of five serving to myself I'll get at least 40 grams of protein. Of course. I'm eating also 2,500 calories And it's like tons of carbohydrates and other stuff. I would do the exact same thing But really if you break it down, it's a trick. It's a trick you play on your mind And again, it's a big widely believed myth If you really break it down as we're going to do for you in this episode You'll find uh, you can you can save money This is the thing too If you do this right you actually will spend less money on your food and get excellent phenomenal results In fact the foods that we're going to talk about today That are are high that provide everything that we're talking about and save you money Are the not just great foods on a budget. They're the best foods period That you can eat to accomplish some of your goals So one more thing I want to do by the way is I want to touch on Organic I want to touch on grass fed pasture raised humanely raised You know those kind of those those buzzwords that definitely have some meaning But I do think that we've placed them too high on the hierarchy of priorities For healthy food. Yes, you know organic doesn't have some potential value for health Yes, I mean we can make some arguments Is it more important than eating the right amount of calories and the right macros? No, it's not In fact, this is quite true Even if you look at foods that we know have inflammatory damaging effects in the body like processed sugars or Fat fats that are inflammatory, right? If you're in a calorie deficit They're still not good for you, but boy does that negative effect get blunted significantly. In fact There's been lots of situations. There's been people who've done this on youtube professors nutritionists and studies where I remember one in particular where this professor was trying to make a point And he said i'm gonna eat nothing, but big macs and twinkies. I think it was and i'm going to improve my cholesterol I'm going to improve my triglycerides and my blood pressure and he did and what he did was he just ate low calories He ate garbage food now. I'm not recommending this but the point. I'm trying to make is there's a hierarchy Organic pasture raised grass fed, you know, all you know cage-free like all these things that have some value And all things are not important all things by the way that we promote. Yes I mean in a perfect world that's I mean, that's how I eat right But I'm also in a very different position at almost 40 years old than I was at 19 years old You can get away with a bit more I think too and again cost is one of the biggest priorities when you're in that Sort of situation where your college student and you know, you're on a budget You know, but one thing to also consider is is you know, how you assimilate your food and how digestible it is Oh, that's important. And you know, if you have any sort of inflammation as a result of You know processed foods or things like that that you're incorporating. So, you know, and the thing about the whole organic You know types of foods is that there's even places like wal-mart that offer Organic foods and it's everywhere. So it's not like it's super inaccessible unattainable to even like seek that out You're so right. It wasn't that long ago. Obviously. I've been in this industry for a long time It wasn't that long ago that I had I had to go specifically to whole foods to find organic foods Well, and now you have direct-to-consumer brands like butcher box if you go even more convenient if you go Which will actually save you money If you go pound for pound Uh, what you're getting as far as protein in a box from butcher box and do the math on it You'll save money in comparison to and and that's eating grass-fed and organic versus going somewhere and buying processed food all the time Or you know buying it like safe way the other brands But I do want to make this point that even with us these are things that we promote We don't promote these above calories macros, you know, that kind of those there's a hierarchy Yeah, like if I'm not hitting my calories and my macros and I'm not hitting those big rocks I mean it really doesn't make sense to prioritize. It's like it's like buying organic gummy worms like oh, yeah I'm gonna be healthy. I'm gonna eat these organic gummy worms or I'm gonna eat these, you know This this this potato chips that are grown a particular way and they're healthier That's you're kind of missing the point. So it's important because marketing has made those things Although there is value in them They've made them appear to be more important than the things that are actually the most important So let's talk about the hierarchy, right? So most important number one calories proteins fats carbohydrates Especially proteins and fats because they're essential That's the most important thing Up there and carbohydrates are are pretty close. The next thing I would say and you mentioned it is digestibility How well does this food digest in your body? poor digestion bloating constipation diarrhea or other digestive related issues Forget the fact that you're eating the healthiest foods in the world That causes inflammation that causes damage that can cause lots of problems and it really doesn't matter what you're eating And a good example of that is that you know dairy products are something that you can get relatively cheap You can get milk and cheese and products like that for a pretty good price And that's a good source of proteins and fats And if that bothers you and upsets your stomach just because it is on the cheaper side It is not so it now that now takes precedent of your ability to digest it and then do assimilate it becomes more important That's me I like dairy if you have no intolerance to it and you digest it very well Is literally one of the healthiest most nutrient dense foods that you can find on the planet If you can't digest it it's poison like if I had a lot of dairy It would cause severe health effects on me over a short period of time Like initially I'd have terrible digestive issues over time I'd have terrible inflammation probably caused myself some big problem. So What a good point another thing I want to touch on when it comes to Investing in food and I don't want to spend too much time on this point because I think sometimes People push this point in order to encourage people to spend more money on food But I do like this and I think it's it's definitely valid The money that you may invest in time that you may invest in your health Actually saves you money Over time and it saves you money because of improved productivity. It's just like exercise like oh, I spent an hour a day exercising I could be doing all these other things with that hour Studies show that when people take an hour away for exercise, they're more productive at work They're more innovative. So in reality, it's like you're turning in an hour and getting two or three hours of productivity back Right. So eating healthy will do this as well Look at your health care costs the vast majority of the money that we spend on Saving ourselves from dying happens towards the last 10 20 years of our life. And let me tell you it's expensive Right eating a little healthier and investing in that over time We'll save you tremendous amounts of money Over, you know over the distance. So it's an important point. I don't want to spend too much time on that But it's definitely an important point now down that list at the bottom There's some value, but this is the bottom is quality pasture raised Organic that kind of stuff. So if you've hit those other things And you're you've got money to spare And you're like, man, I want to really go an extra mile Then I'd say focus on those things But if you don't have those other things stop wasting your time and money on on organic Is you know one step above like going into the supplement I was just gonna say what I was going to say was that notice that supplements didn't even make the list Exactly So it's not even on our list of things that you need to do in order for you to get in The best shape of your life on a budget. So That supplements are one of the most grossly overrated things and again This is also something else just because we talk about organic and grass-fed and the benefit Just because we talk about the benefits of supplementation does not mean that we would put it above This order here. So I want to make that clear because I know there's people that are like, wait a second Haven't you guys talked about the benefits of this and the but yeah, there are benefits just like there's benefits to grass-fed and organic There are benefits to supplementation But when you look at like a pie chart And what what sliver of that pie is taken up by supplementation or by organic and grass-fed Boy, is it a tiny little sliver comparison to everything else you just it isn't by the way the reason why we think Those things are so important is because the vast majority of marketing. Yeah, so it gets the most money to to market it to you Yeah, you're not going to see marketing that says, uh, you know eat, you know Ground beef buy it in bulk or you know rice would a great source of carbohydrate You're not going to see that right what you're going to see is Eat our ground beef. It's all these other things Or take our supplements that are proprietary that nobody could copy This is what's going to take you to the next since you went to supplements I want to bring this up because I wasn't planning on going here But uh, you just reminded me of something that happens a lot to me when Like my sister just recently got on her kick of working out And her husband and one of them like top things I always get is They right away want me to recommend what protein powder to give them and there's this idea that Eating a protein powder or having a protein shake a day Is healthy for you or good for you The only time that I see value in that is if and only if you can't get that through whole foods So I want to make that clear because I I think for me and that's just my my trainer brain I think that's an obvious statement, but it's not because the way it's been marketed It's been marketed to you that it's part of getting in shape or part of getting ripped or Look at all these buff guys and they always promote protein shakes Listen, if you can get all of your calories and all of your protein through chicken breast and beef and whole foods There's no reason to do a protein shake. No and and here's the value of protein shakes 100% is Convenience right and shelf life That's it. Uh, it's got a long shelf life By the way protein powders are great for your emergency home kits or whatever So like if you have like your earthquake box or you know hurricane, you know survival kit Protein powder is great because it lasts a long time Super convenient, but that's it. Is it better than eating protein whole foods? No, it's not It's also relatively inexpensive for what you're getting protein ones Because that's the thing you got to think about and by the way too when again talking about supplements and protein powders I get this a lot of times like I tell a client or somebody Hey, go get this protein powder and then they come back and they show me Oh, I went and got this one because it was half the price When you when you when you're shopping for protein powders You're really paying for the protein and the quality of the protein So if you if you think that your protein powder is so cheap in comparison to the other one that someone's that recommended to you You got to learn to flip it around one read the serving amount inside it That's the first thing you read and then second how much protein you get per serving and then third Like is it something that is actually tested and made sure that's all in there or it'll buy a third party buyer beware I don't know how many times they've gone in independently and studied supplement companies supplements randomly And it's frightening what they find very rarely is what you're looking for actually in the product. Oh, dude It's crazy. There was that one. I remember when this happened It wasn't that long ago where there was a popular protein company powder company. I can't remember who the company was garden Are you talking about that one? No, that was what that one with the metals heavy metals That were like toxic levels of heavy metals in their protein powder So that was one then there was another one where a protein powder Was amino spiking amino acid spiking super popular their protein What they do is when you go into test protein a very inexpensive way to test How many potential grams of protein there are per serving it's to test for specific amino acids So if there's this much Loose scene for example, then we can estimate that there's this many grams of protein Well, what this company did is they put less protein and then just added the Amino acid so it was incomplete protein and they got in big trouble for it You know by consumers to stop buying the product it happens a lot So yeah, you're you're comparing to a study to one one protein powder that this happens all the time It was a very popular thing when people hacked into this and figured this out. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah All right, so let's get into the foods that you can buy that'll save you money that meet all these requirements Yeah, I just want to say one more thing like when I was bringing up all the like I had a nutrition talk with this team I'm trying to help and You know, that was always the first question was okay. Well, what protein powders? That's why I wanted to bring that up coach. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's a very common thought is if I'm getting back into You know, like really focusing on fitness and focusing on muscle building like that's the first thought on everybody's brain and so again to what we're going to get into in terms of foods is immediately where I went because There wasn't quite as big a response from kids coming up to kind of ask me versus the parents are really like Well, what do I actually feed them? Yeah, what do I feed them for dinner? What do I feed them for lunch? Like so, you know, these options like you're going to mention like ground beef and Where you can get a lot of protein at it, you know, reasonably priced You know, you don't have to get steak every night is sort of the point I was trying to make Yeah, there's also there's also a little bit of a cycle or a feedback loop that happens with this too Because I know there's somebody who's also listening It's like, I don't know every time I do that and I start eating my protein shake I do build muscle or I look better and that's because a lot of people grossly under consume protein They're hitting their protein target, right? So now all of a sudden you're starting to hit it or get closer to it and so you see results from it So so they can be I'm not saying they're not effective They can be if you're somebody who averages 50 grams of protein every day You're a 180 pound male young male and you are eating 50 grams of protein every single day And then you add 40 more grams from a protein shaking now you get 90 You're going to see a significant you would also notice if you got 40 grams of protein from That's right. That's my point. So just just keep that in mind The goal is for us to hit that then that was one of the high one of the most important things Is protein intake make sure you hit that the goal is to do it through Whole Foods If you don't then it makes sense to utilize a protein powder easily easily my favorite source Of protein that is also one of the most inexpensive sources when bought in bulk Is ground beef. Are we going to list everything right now? Is that yeah, I mean, I think we should give a grocery list because especially to the point You just made Justin. That's what I get all the time is yeah, can you just make it simple? And by the way when we go through this, I'm sure we're going to miss something that's well What about this or what this isn't like a this is the only thing we just I remember When we were sitting down talking about this episode we were going okay Let's put together the most basic, you know small grocery list that will pretty much actionable plan that you know is not going to be too much easy to find You know relatively cheap relatively inexpensive and I was saying for my favorite for protein is ground beef. You can buy bulk ground beef. There's almost always a sale for buying in you know four pounds and you can buy three pounds or four pounds. I mean you can go to Costco You can even go to your local grocery store. They almost always have this value pack of ground beef and it depending on if you want to eat more lean lower calorie higher calorie You could go as lean as 95% lean or as you know high in fat is 80% You know lean and you just buy it in bulk and then here's what you do You take what you're gonna want for that week out and freeze the rest it lasts forever frozen You put it in a ziplock bag get the air out throw in the freezer Boom you got all this ground beef that you could defrost and then cook later And I'm just going to throw in ground meat in general there right because it ground turkey is probably one of my and it depends right if I was trying to to build and add muscle and gain I lean more towards the the red meat and ground beef because the higher calorie higher amount of fat that's inside of it and I need more calories in case when I'd go to leaning out I'd probably lean more towards turkey or chicken things like that and so I just ground meat in general you know and it can be very very inexpensive you can get more expensive with other things that I love like veal and bison and those are all those have tremendous value and stuff but again it's doesn't it's not it's not on the top of the list you can easily do ground beef and turkey all day and be fun plus I found you know one of the sort of benefits to that too is like you can eat you know like a pound of ground beef versus like a pound of steak and it's you know a little bit more a little bit less of a chore let's just say like oh no because I know that could be part of it when you're in a surplus like sometimes it just feels like oh my god it's just a chore to eat consume all this food and so that's where like some people then to immediately go to a protein shake to kind of solve that but something like ground beef is much easier to do I I first put this together with food when I was I want to say 17 or 18 and this is the first time I got my body over 200 pounds and as a kid I hadn't started working yet as a personal trainer so it must have been before I was 18 and so I didn't have a ton of money I did work but I worked I was a dishwasher at this restaurant and then later on I was you know photocopying files at this you know this lending place or whatever so I didn't make a ton of money I think I think back then minimum wage is six dollars and 25 cents or something like that but I went to the grocery store I bought bulk ground beef and then here's what I would do I would take it I had a gas my dad had a gas grill in the back you could do this on a George Foreman grill or a pan in on your stove and I would just make patties I weighed them out or I even just looked at them to be quite honest with you and I just grilled up a ton of them that's all I did I just grilled up a whole bunch of them that would last me for the whole week put them in the fridge boom totally done and cooking them and getting them prepared took me very little time and if you spread out the amount of time I spent doing it the amount of money that it took to cost and then all the meals that I had it was I couldn't think of a cheaper more effective way to get your protein along those I literally just sent a text message to Katrina so I don't forget to remind us this episode is making me think of a dish or things I used to do that I haven't done in a long time and I mean I used to get I had a big old iron skillet and I would just ground beef and mix the rice and slice some onions and pepper yeah and there I mean that and just and I would do it in bulk and then and then put that free either freeze it if I go so much bulk that I got enough for two or three weeks freeze half of it put the rest in the refrigerator so so inexpensive so easy high protein good source of carbohydrate easy to store like that was a go-to meal for me for a long time it's funny I swear to god you do this you're gonna say it's so funny I got bet you if there's kids listening to us right now or people who are on a budget if they follow this advice at the end of the month they're gonna be like I saved 50 bucks or I saved 100 bucks right here's another one tuna fish and a can extremely inexpensive source of protein what's funny is this kind of fell out of favor for a while because of the worries of mercury or whatever super overblown by the way you look at some of the healthiest countries in the world look at the Japanese culture they tremendously more amounts of fish you don't see these you know radical levels of mercury poisoning poisoning actually in fact their levels that they allow or that they say are safe are much higher than ours and then there are other compounds in fish that kind of offset the mercury by the way but tuna fish in a can super cheap super you don't even have to cook it you literally open the can and you've got your source of protein right there oh I'm sure did you got I mean I used to do open it squirt some mustard on it and eat it straight out just like that was a trainer move oh I would bring it with me I'd bring a couple cans with me to work and there was my lunch or the pouched ones that they used I saw all the time but yeah I couldn't stomach it you're not a fish guy no you would do the canned chicken nuggets yeah where's that at another another really easy one that you got one of the most complete foods is eggs oh one of the most nutrient dense best muscle building foods that exists on the planet whole eggs by the way don't take the yolk out unless calories are a big deal for you but you got your protein you've got great amounts of branching amino acids you have choline in the yolk which is great for brain function great for immune system function you have the dietary cholesterol which is perfectly fine it's not unhealthy they've all since changed their stance on that but also has muscle building effects I consume on average six to ten whole eggs a day and it I'd notice a huge difference and they're inexpensive you could buy in bulk and here's a hack for you that I I mean I love all the foods were listing and we both just gave some some ways that we would cook our meat and rice type of dishes eggs as a base in the morning with also your dinner or lunch mixed in there is amazing yeah this became so eggs makes everything breakfast that's right and this was one of the way it totally does right this I mean I just talked about ground beef and rice that same exact leftover dish or one of the you know 15 pre-made meals that I have in the refrigerator first thing in the morning I would crack three to four eggs and then take the serving of that meat and rice and throw it in with my eggs and make it like a scramble and now I've got this amazing high high calorie high protein good source of of food first thing in the morning for me and super fast and easy so totally here's another one I can't do this because I can't have dairy but when I was younger in my teens I could tolerate dairy and this was a staple for me because and I remember I had no idea about cottage cheese right by the way in the 80s and 90s this was a bodybuilding staple and for some reason nobody talks about it anymore but I remember going to the grocery store as a teenager and be like oh what can I get that's easy that's cheap that's got good protein and I remember reading an article about cottage cheese and like let me go look at this and then I got the content which and it was cheap it's so inexpensive you I pulled it out I looked at the back and the macros and I'm like it's this literally somebody invented the perfect bodybuilding food in terms of macros yeah cottage cheese by the way you could get it so that it's low in calorie and just protein or what I recommend the healthiest way to eat it is whole whole milk cottage cheese you've got your fats which by the way the fats in dairy are are fine for your body excellent for your body and then high quality protein by the way whey protein comes from dairy so if you're eating cottage cheese or drinking milk you're getting a good source of whey in that particular protein I my favorite was the whole the whole milk one with with the pineapple slices yes because cottage cheese has got a weird so I didn't and I never had cottage cheese growing up and I don't I wish I remember where I where I read it or I'm sure it was in some muscle building it was such it was like a bodybuilding staple yeah well it became one for me I but up into that point up until 20 years old I had never even tasted it before it wasn't something that my parents kept in our house and so it wasn't something I had or ever thought to have it looked it looked like moldy cheese to me as you know I'm saying so it's not something I was going after until I read some article it talked about what a great source of protein it was and then I went out trying it and it's so convenient it's so easy if you throw slices of fruit in there if so if the because the texture if you're a texture person or you know if it has to taste good for you like it's got it's got a different taste and the texture to it is different it's almost like yogurt-ish a little bit like plain yogurt yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah chunky moldy yogurt I like it I enjoyed I mean I learned to love it it became a staple but it was different when I first when I first had it and that's why I liked the pineapple the the sweet flavor from the pineapple kind of offset the the weird texture totally back to the whole milk too like it's something that was was interesting remember that big campaign with milk or even with like even chocolate milk about you know basically having all the same amounts of benefits as like doing a protein shake totally the studies show that right so it's if you consider that and you can handle milk in general especially whole milk um you know that's something that you can you know add for very very much cheaper than you would going out and buying you know an expensive uh jug of protein so I used to tell my young clients like well Sal what about protein shake post workout I read it does a sense drink a glass of milk well what about I'm like that's literally a protein shake just exactly a glass of milk and you've got everything that you need you've got a little bit of carbohydrate especially if it's chocolate milk but even if it's not regular milk's got some carbohydrates in there you've got your proteins that are high quality easy to down it's inexpensive there you go now the next one is one of my favorite sources of protein as well and it's a little bit more like I'm going to kind of splurge a little bit in terms of enjoying my meal chicken thighs you know it's funny too by the way I as a as a kid growing up in the in the 90s working out it was all about chicken breast chicken breast chicken breast you gotta eat chicken because it's lean right and I never even thought about chicken thighs later on a chicken thighs I'm like what the hell was I eating before chicken that's the real guy yeah the the breasts are dry boring thighs yeah they definitely have some more fat in them but it's not like they're super fatty you get the skinless thighs they're inexpensive they're very cheap especially if you buy them both they taste way better they're increased to this day it's one of my favorite do you know that light bulb did not go off for me till I was 30 till I was starting till I started competing this is why because the exact same reason there was this myth or idea that chicken breasts were so superior to any other source of chicken and so I always ate chicken breast as dry as they were I would stomach them put them down and then for the first time in my life I was like you know a diligently weighing measuring tracking my macros like I never have in my life when I decided to get into competing and when I started looking at the calories and the proteins and the fats that were in the thighs it was like it wasn't that far off and normally for me I needed more calories so the extra fat and there would help me out when you eat chicken thighs the second day all the the juicy fat gets all kind of hardened around it so when then you reheat it back up it tastes delicious tastes delicious yeah and it's not dried out so when I saw the difference in it and then and by the way too it's actually cheaper to buy in bulk so I was cheaper for me to buy my buy more tastes better same day and next day and when you look at the macro profile when you when you add it in the entire day you're not it's not that far off I was like I to this day now I never eat chicken breast you will never see me at eat chicken breast today because I just think it's why when chicken thighs taste way better and you're talking about a few more grams of fat per ounce that's going on there not even the big of that big of a deal and the whole grand scheme of things and it's a good source of fat totally now speaking of fat unless you're keto you don't need to necessarily typically search out sources of fat if you just eat ground beef and chicken thighs and have whole milk you're going to get plenty of fat now if you're keto if you're keto you may need to go out and seek out fat to hit those calories but here's some excellent sources of fat butter butter is great butter goes on everything by the way throw some butter on your ground beef throw some butter on your rice throw some butter on your vegetables boom you've got your extra fats right there and contrary to common popular belief butter is not unhealthy for you if you're otherwise healthy those fats are perfectly fine it's a minimally processed source of fats and butter is quite inexpensive here's another one this one of course is near and dear to my heart olive oil I love olive oil again you can throw this on anything if I need extra calories if I'm like oh I'm 200 calories short of my fats I guess I'll put two tablespoons of olive oil in my ground beef and rice dish and guess what it tastes even better and olive oil very healthy also when you buy a big jug of it doesn't cost very much one of my favorite sources of fat well you were the one that really had changed this for me because here's another weird thing that you know I don't know where it started like the chicken breast thing but it was something that I bought into was this idea that I had to eat my vegetables steamed and plain I don't know why you know I used to think that like oh my god adding to hate them so much yes me too they were so terry or the other extreme which my mom would do where kids is you know drop drown you know velvita cheese all over so as the fitness guy when I got it I was like okay well I obviously I'm not going to do that so that defeats the purpose of it but I'm not I never thought to just adding a little bit of butter or oil and what a difference that makes to taking down the vegetables I mean it turned something that a dish that I have charred with it oh olive oil I dreaded eating vegetables growing up and even in my early 20s because that's when I was but I was I'd force it down I'd steam broccoli I'd steam I'd steam everything and have nothing on it and eat it dry and it was maybe a little bit of salt is all I got and I was like god this is so hard and the minute I started and I remember seeing you one time come in and you're like big ass bowl yeah your repeating was like drowsed and doused in butter and oil I was like oh my god bro like yeah that's just a couple tablespoons of olive oil and taste ten times better I started doing that it's like and now I actually love and enjoy eating vegetables totally great hack now here's another couple that I'll caution people because they're they are quite palatable and it's quite easy to go over on calories if you're trying to bulk not a problem if you're trying to cut be very careful peanut butter and nuts in general are almonds you can find quite inexpensive especially peanut butter peanut butter great source of fat this is where I caution people if you're trying to cut it's very easy when you're in a deficit to have a jar of peanut butter say I'm going to eat a tablespoon of this and then you're in a frenzy and you want to eat way more than just a tablespoon if you use peanut butter in your protein shakes or you eat peanut butter on celery or you use peanut butter in anything because it's peanut butter is one of my as I think every bodybuilder can relate to this like peanut butter is like is like a huge treat right you got at least a couple times uh tablespoon it out with actually a measuring tablespoon not like oh that's a tablespoon spoon just because you use a table spoon and it's got you know Mount Everest of peanut butter on top of it is not what a true tablespoon that's what I used to do well everybody did I was guilty of the same thing too and then again I remember when I started competing and it became so important that I measured all the stuff what I was calling one tablespoon was more like four tablespoons so you got to do that at least one time to check that because like you said although peanut butter and almonds totally fine for you to have real quick the calories will sneak up into a lot of clients that I had I mean there was a multiple clients that we found this was a major contributor to you know bumping their calories you know up past into a surplus didn't even realize it and then once we just adjusted that it was like all of a sudden these results came like almost immediately I had a client same thing and she's like I put you know a little bit of peanut butter on a rice cake in the morning I'm like would you mind bringing it in and showing me what it looks like a little yeah and I'm like you do realize this is three tablespoons it is like yeah let's measure out a tablespoon just to look and see you know what that looks like so what we just addressed right now we just listed off a little grocery list that is the essential things right so this is all this is your proteins and fats these are essential here's a great list you can literally live by this to get you to where you want to be as far as body composition now let's talk about some what are go to carbohydrates so even though we didn't list that as essential but it's something that is value and it can be optimal right just because it's not essential doesn't mean it's not optimal I think carbohydrates for a lot of people are opt optimizes their performance their muscle building and how they feel the best source first of all this is one of the best sources of carbohydrates period because of its ease of digestibility it's one of the easiest to digest foods it's one of the most widely consumed foods in the world which also makes it one of the most inexpensive foods you could buy rice you could buy a bag of rice a big old bag of rice for nothing and then you can cook yourself a pot of rice that will last you the entire week and it's a wonderful source of pure starchy carbohydrates and it goes with everything everything everything and I don't know a lot of people that have intolerances towards it as well which is isn't it more common to have an intolerance to brown rice than white rice that's why I said white rice yes white rice is easier to digest believe it not brown rice for a long time people were told it's healthier because there's more fiber there are anti-nutrients in brown rice believe it or not if you when they when you look at third world countries they consume white rice because when you see them consume lots of brown rice they start to become deficient in certain nutrients it's harder to digest because they haven't removed the the whole that is hard to digest white rice perfectly fine easy to digest very inexpensive it's a staple in my even if i'm spending a lot of money on food if you flip the bags around the macro profile is almost identical it's like one more gram of fiber and it's like i think literally three three less calories per serving or what that it's like negligible as far as the difference between white and brown rice as far as the macro profile of what you're looking for for building totally now here's another one very inexpensive wonderful source of starchy carbohydrates natural source potatoes you could buy a bag of potatoes for almost nothing super cheap it's one of the most inexpensive foods on the planet and they're very easy to prepare i mean here's what i used to do is i would take a literally a raw potato to work and then when it was time to eat it i'd wash it and i'd wrap it in a wet paper towel put it in the microwave three or four minutes flip it three or four minutes boom bake potato very easily cut it open take the skin off and then i had a nice source of you know 50 grams of carbohydrates from again a healthy relatively easy to digest source of protein maybe not as easy as white rice but still quite easy gluten-free and all that i know when we when we kind of put the list together we weren't planning this but so far i don't think we've said anything that doesn't mix all well together in a pot yeah 100 like really like that's what it all yeah one of the things that you'll notice about olive oil ground beef rice or potato like there you go like seriously i mean they it makes for a really good you know oh i just add some eggs if i want to make it breakfast in the morning take the eggs out if i want to call it lunch or dinner i mean that this is and that was the idea of putting this episode together was to make it as as simple as practical practical and as affordable as we possibly can yeah by the way so here's some easy ways to improve the palatability of all these foods seasoning seasoning is inexpensive makes a big difference when it comes to meet olive oil we talked about that butter we talked about that but seasoning is a very big one here's another one salsa you could buy very inexpensive salsa almost no calories in it and let's say i'm eating a lean bowl of ground beef and rice and maybe some a side of vegetables and i don't have a lot of calories but i want to add something to it to make it a little bit more palatable throw a little bit of salsa on it super inexpensive and to that to that point too once you really start seeking out all this whole foods uh you know in your diet too to be able to season add salt to make sure sodium is still a part of that because it does contribute to performance you know that you're you're you're going for those gains in the gym like that's another vital component actually it's a great point if you sweat a lot work out a lot and you're eating all these food none of these foods have a lot of sodium in them you have to add sodium in fact in fact you may eat too little sodium if you don't concentrate on adding sodium to your diet most of the sodium in our diet comes from heavily processed foods very very good point this is why i benefited so much from uh elementy because i i don't eat lots of whole excuse me lots of processed foods and without realizing it my sodium wasn't really me meeting my my my performance standards so here's another one that's that's really inexpensive you can buy in bulk and this was a staple back in the day it was oatmeal oatmeal you buy a big old thing of oatmeal and have it in the morning take it with you to work take it with you post workout microwave it with some water or if you want with some milk and boom you got yourself a bowl of uh you know nice diet you know starchy carbohydrates this is how i broke up the monotony of always eating the egg scrambled so if i wasn't eating egg scrambled i would end up doing something like oatmeal for breakfast instead so it's a nice way to break up or change up your breakfast and i know that fruits a little further down the list but that's obviously a great combo something like you want to really get a lot the majority of your carbohydrates like in the morning let's say like you know a combo obviously of like a you know fruit with oatmeal is amazing oh bananas and apples and expensive the resources the one knock i will have on oatmeal is it's obviously it's it's i mean you can eat it whenever you want but it's used as a breakfast food most of time and it's not high in protein so the my staple oatmeal this is the time this is another time where i would use what i used to love to put a scoop of vanilla way and so my exact oatmeal like recipe every morning would be when i have it right is the way vanilla protein powder inside oatmeal i would slice up strawberries and um and blueberries and then uh walnuts and that was like my go-to oatmeal in the morning add a little peanut butter and you have yourself or that bulking meal if i went the then peanut butter would be like just the vanilla and peanut butter right so because that's all you need for that you don't want to add fruit with peanut butter that's not very good i did yeah i did it was really good banana yeah yeah banana i don't worry oh that's true yeah banana peanut butter and that would be all right so now let's talk about vegetables right oh what about vegetables and okay frozen vegetables are so valuable by the way there's a myth that fresh vegetables are more nutritious for you than frozen the truth is and this is actually quite remarkable oftentimes frozen vegetables are higher in nutrients than fresh vegetables that's true yes now people are like well why why is that why is that the case well here's why when they freeze vegetables they tend to freeze them right whenever right when it's right when they're deli especially if you don't live in a state like california right where we have year-round fresh vegetables growing all around us but if you live in a state like nebraska and you i've by the way i've done this i've traveled to other states and seen their vegetables in the winter and i'm like oh my god these are terrible why they're shipping them from mexico or flying them from across the country driving them from across the country and what they do is they can't pick them when they're ripe and then ship them over they'll go bad so they have to allow them to ripen somewhat in the store which actually makes them less in terms of nutrients less nutritious frozen vegetables not the case they're frozen at peak nutritional value so you can buy like frozen spinach frozen broccoli frozen brussel sprouts and they're perfectly fine perfectly healthy they last forever one of the problems with buying vegetables that i know a lot of people run into is they'll buy a bunch of them and then they end up throwing up way half of them because they go bad that doesn't happen with frozen that's what i would say is when i when i think about the the probably the the higher percentage of people that are listening to this episode or this episode will appeal to it's i think of the younger younger person going through college on a budget cooking for themselves probably or maybe just them and a boyfriend or a girlfriend so if you're that person frozen makes a lot of sense i mean that's one of the hardest things even with just katrina me and max is you know you get fresh we get fresh vegetables all time and a lot of times we don't cook all of it in time and it ends up going bad and you end up wasting so much of it so getting frozen i think makes a lot of sense still to this day i eat a lot of frozen vegetables it's super easy but i want to make it clear though too like because i what i don't want to do is change this conversation into another stupid debate because it tends what happens on like youtube somebody will take one thing that you say you guys are trying to say that frozen vegetables are better than yeah than no organic you know organic farmers market no i'm not saying that whatsoever we're talking about for keeping it simple easy easy access affordable for somebody prep time yes all that stuff that's the priority here with this particular so there you have it there's all your stuff that you can do and i promise if you follow what we're saying you buy these things in bulk you'll probably end up saving money look if you like our information head over to mine pump free dot com we have so much free content that we've put together for you guys on all kinds of topics that revolve around working out nutrition and health again it's mine pump free dot com you can also find all of us on instagram so you can find justin at mine pump justin me at mine pump sal and adam at mine pump adam if food rules you in many different ways breaking that chain can make you feel empowered now here's the dark side of that right what drives a lot of people to do this is the sense of control in fact they'll do it worse when the life around them is very stressful and things seem to be falling apart that's when they're most strict with that type of eating because it's