 In this episode of Mind Pump, we answer questions asked by listeners like you. They go to our Instagram page, Mind Pump Media. They post the question underneath the qua meme, and then we pick the best ones and answer them. But before we do that, we talk about studies, we talk about our lives, what's on our minds. Sometimes it gets real random. It's a lot of fun. That's the introductory portion. It's the best one we get. Of this episode. Here's what we talked about in this episode of Mind Pump. So we started by talking about rehab and interventions. I was talking about this show called Intervention on TV. Really hard to watch. Super depressing. Really powerful. Then we talked about sick kids and how that can be really difficult. Adam's boy is sick right now. And so he got no sleep. Then we got into a great discussion about the fitness industry. You've all heard us talk about the industry of fitness, but we actually broke it down into different segments and talked about the value and the detriment of each of the segments within the fitness industry. Then we talked about quarterly testing of your hormones, the potential value, when it can go too far. I recommend, for example, that men test their testosterone at home by a company called Everly Well. About every quarter. This way you can monitor how your workout, diet, sleep, and lifestyle are affecting one of your most important hormones. And these tests are very inexpensive. And again, you can do them at home. Here's what you do if you wanna get one of these tests. And by the way, we have a discount for you. Go to everlywell.com. Use the code Mind Pump and you'll get 25% off of all tests throughout the end of this month. Then we talked about YouTube changing their child advertisement policy. A lot of these very, very popular pages on YouTube stand to lose a lot of money. This is kinda crazy. Yep. Then we talked about skinny dipped almonds. Actually, by the way, this right now, they've released the dark chocolate peppermint, skinny dipped almonds. These are phenomenal stocking stuffers. Now what are they? It's an almond with just the right amount of chocolate. So the macros stay good. You're not eating an almond, that's just tons of sugar and crap. It's just enough chocolate to give it great flavor. It's just sprinkled on there. And it's a great snack. And we have a discount for you. If you go to skinnydipped.com forward slash Mind Pump and enter the code Mind Pump, we will give you a full 20% off your purchase of these amazing almonds. Hurry before I eat them all. Then we talked about the Nassau Rain Machine. This is a bit of a conspiracy theory. We mentioned artificial neurons. Scientists for the first time have created artificial, this is crazy, neurons in the lab. And then we talked about all the controversy around the Peloton commercial, or everybody's freaking out. Oh man. Then we got into the fitness portion of this episode. This is where we answered the questions. Here's the first question. What are the benefits of very low rep ranges for major lifts like the bench press squat and dead lift? So most of you should probably train in these rep ranges, but we talk about the appropriate way to do so and the benefits. The next question, how does sleep affect fat loss? And how does it affect fat loss, even if your macros and calories are correct? The third question- I'm gonna sleep all the fat off. This person wants to know what our favorite body parts are to train and develop and how do we go about training them? And the final question of this episode, how do each of us vote with our own dollars? Also this month, our bodybuilding, body sculpting focused workout program, it's actually one of our most popular programs. Maps aesthetic is 50% off. So when you enroll in this program, what you get is a full workout broken up into phases. The whole program lasts just over three months and there's exercise demos where we teach you how to do the exercises. We tell you how many reps to do, how many sets. All the guesswork is taken out. This program is designed for those who are aesthetic minded. So if you wanna sculpt and shape your body, how you see fit, if that's the main motivation for you to work out, this is the best program. Here's how you get the 50% off. Go to mapsblack.com and use the code black50, B-L-A-C-K-5-0, no space for the discount. Are we over caffeinated? I think so. Not enough. We didn't take our time. Not enough. That's all right. Dude, you were slipping with the job. Dude, yesterday I was jittery. That's the first time I've been jittery in a while, dude. I was like, well, okay, okay, okay, okay. Give us a thumbs up. I'm good on my end. You had too much yesterday, Justin. I did. I didn't know it was possible still. You know what he did? Because after we were done podcasting yesterday, Justin looks at me and goes, this is like the first time I ever got shaky. I had to maintain myself through the podcast. What'd you do? A bunch of cold brews. Yeah, I did like three cold brews, and then I had like a rockstar. And then I had that shitty jail. I forgot we did that rockstar yesterday. Bro, hold on a second. Three cold brewed nitro drinks. Yeah. A rockstar. Typical. In a row. Yeah, bang, bang, bang. So I think, who's most likely to be in celebrity rehab one day? Justin for sure. No, no, no. For coffee? Really? He'll save me. No way, bro. Just don't introduce me to cocaine. I have my drug habits under control. You're talking about. So far. Keep that bitch at bay. Keep her at bay. Every addict's last words. Oh my gosh. Does anybody ever go to like, I guess so. I guess everybody goes to rehab. It's like self like they're like, oh, I gotta go. No, I have, dude, I have a really cool story with one of my family members who checked themselves in and completely turned their life around. It was really, it was cool to watch because it was a really rough time in our family seeing them. This was years and years ago, but watching him check himself in and then to see what he's done with his life. So, you know, it's cool when you see that. Because a lot of people, I don't know what the success rate of. It's not good. It's low, right? It's not as, the chances are, you're getting to basically doing that your whole life in and out, in and out, in and out. And, you know, he went really, really hard to a point where, you know, was still in his parents' checks and writing himself checks to pay for his drug habits and doing all kinds of stuff. Crazy how it changes people, isn't it? Oh yeah. I wonder if the odds are better if you're the one that's your idea going into rehab versus yeah. Yes. Being like, no, like confronted about it. Yeah, the odds are, I've looked this up. The odds are much, much higher. What's crazy to me is, do you guys ever watch, what's it called? Intervention? Yeah. Oh. I know. You want to watch something? Now that you're a father. Just a downward spiral. Watch it. Actually don't. You won't sleep. Is it a movie or is it a show? No, it's a show. It's a series and what they do is they show people who, their family has decided that they need to do an intervention. But the shitty part about it, and it fucked me up as a parent, is they show, first they'll show the person in full addiction mode. Doing math, living, pulling tricks. Still living with mom. Yeah, selling their bodies or just terrible stuff and you're watching this like, wow, that sucks. But then it gets really fucked up when they interview the family members and the family members talk about them when they were kids and they show pictures of when they were kids. Yeah. How good a kid they were. Yeah. And then there was some kind of trauma. Like yeah, and then we got divorced and their father left. And then he got into drugs at that point. Usually, yeah. It was a traumatic experience that was the catalyst. So hard. And then you watch the intervention and the parents and the family members and the friends who are saying, because what they advise them to do is to say, here's the ways that you've hurt me. And then you also have to tell them what you're gonna take away, but you have to mean it. Like if you don't stop doing this, you'll never see my kids again or something like that. And these family members are crying. Dude, it's brutal. Oh, it gives me the chills, dude. Courtney, I was like, dude, I don't know, it's too heavy for me. Yeah. I just wanna like watch, I feel good. Even some butthead or something. It's a little bit lighter. Like let's chill out here. I don't laugh a little bit. You wanna watch 16 and pregnant? Yeah, yeah. Turn off this depressive shit. Yeah, that's my sick show. And I don't feel good. I haven't been sick in a long time. Knock on wood, actually. Max is sick right now. So that's... Oh, what does he got? I don't know. He's got something. It sounds like it's in his throat a little bit because it sounds like he's congested, but his nasal pathway is fine. Like we can't, he's there. So it's like in his throat and you can hear it. Like the post nasal drip maybe? Yeah, yeah. And he was up all night. We were up all night last night with him and Katrina's with him right now. I don't know what she's doing because I know she was supposed to go into work today. So I don't know what she's doing. Now is that hard for you to when your kid is sick that you start to, I don't know when I happen, when I would see my kid sick, it's really difficult to deal with. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was telling her, so she's, I'm more, I'm harder. I'm more, let him cry. I'm that one. She's the mom. She's definitely the, you know, coddle. Yeah, the nurture, right? So I think we fall into the roles or whatever. She is normally the one quick to do that stuff. Well, when he's sick like this, like I was the one who was like, hey, you know, I know we're really stringent on his bath time in bed, do all this stuff with that, but he's not feeling well. You and I are sitting by the fire. Like let's hold him. Let's just hold him. Oh man. Yeah. So like, you know, it's because, and that's just it as, as much as I'm hard on all those things, like it's cause I know it's important that we establish structure for him. So I don't want my, you know, two year old or four year old, you know, screaming at nine o'clock at night, wanting to play still and do stuff. Like we're training him now or sleep training him. And he's, he's actually really good. Like you bath him and then you get, give him his last feeding. And then he's out by seven 30 for us and sleeps all night. But, you know, there's exceptions to that rule. Like he's, he feels terrible right now. And I can hear him when he's crying, the way he's crying, it's hard. Yeah, it's different. So, you know, when stuff like that, and that's where I feel like that's where you are flexible. If he's crying just to be crying and give me, give me out of bed, like that's where I'm more like, no, let him cry, you know, he's got to learn his bed time. Yeah. Like so, but, you know, the kid's sick. Like, you know, then. I'm definitely got that nurturing characteristic. And it's funny because my kids, they, you know, obviously they're half the time at my house, the other half the time at their mom's house. But when they're sick, even if they're at their mom's house, they call me and they want me to come over. So like my daughter, she was sick, let me use like a few weeks ago, and she called me up and she's like, buh-bah, and I can hear in her voice. I'm like, oh, how are you feeling, honey? Can you come over? I'm like, sure, absolutely I'll come over. And so I'll come over, I'll bring elderberry. You know, I'll put the blanket on her and I'll lay with her and whatever. So it's interesting to see how my kids, they want, they reach out to me for that because that's, you know, what I do. Yeah, it usually takes like, so I vividly remember all of his, like the first time he got like really sick, it was like a, you know, stomach flu or whatever. And we were in Tahoe at the time with some other, ones of my friends and like these other kids and like, and he, it was his birthday. And so we're all celebrating his birthday. He eats a cake and all this. And then he just like turns like pale white and he's like puking and stuff. And then I was like, oh man, I guess that didn't, you know, settle right or whatever. But then the whole night he was just like, you could tell, like it was like a bug, you know, that he had. And so I was like, that was the first time he'd even been like puking or anything. And it was like, pandemonium. And my friend was laughing at me because he's like, oh, it was the first time he got like really sick. I'm like, yeah dude, like, what do I do? You know, and I'm like sleeping in, you know, on the floor next to him the whole night. Like we didn't get any sleep. But it's like, you know, it's one of those things that kind of throws you, you know, your feet out from under you. Dude, is there anything worse? You haven't experienced this Adam, but you will. Everybody does. But is there anything worse than when your kid wakes you up in the middle of the night because they puked all over the place? Oh yeah. That has to be the worst. Well, actually there's one that usually involves shit. Yeah, yeah. It's, dude. It sucks. Make things out of it, thrown it. You'll hear it. You'll see them like they'll knock on the door or you'll hear them. And then you'll know like, oh fuck. And you'll go and it's like two o'clock in the morning, puke on the floor, on the bed. So you have to clean the kid. They're crying. You got to clean their fucking bed, spread. You got to clean the floor. It's a freaking hour and a half ordeal. The worst story I hear and I've had friends tell me, oh, this is coming. So get ready. And I'm like, I fucking hope Max doesn't do this. I'm gonna hang him by his toes if he does. But they're like, oh, there'll come a time when he is walking around and stuff and he shits his diaper and he just sticks his hand down his pants and starts grabbing his shit and throwing it and stuff. And I'm like, what? They do that? I don't remember that raising my brother and sister. I don't remember they do that just so. I'm hoping that it's just, they're curious, man. I'm like, oh, I sure as shit hope that's not my son, dude. And they just smear it on the wall. That happen with you? No. Okay, good. So there's hope. There's hope. Two boys, dude, the odds. But maybe the one boy thing, I don't know, you might get lucky, it's those leftover chimpanzees things. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Oh, look through it. Well, you know, I've shared before that, you know, I played obviously a big role in my two youngest brother and sister with raising them. So I spent a lot of time in their early years and changing diapers. And I don't ever remember anything like that. So, but I've had friends are like, oh yeah, he just wait till he does that, man. You're gonna love that. I'm like, what? Yeah, he just did, I think, because we left him too long downstairs in his crib and he was like sitting in it and he just like reached down there and just started smearing everywhere and a whole, like, oh my, it was like a murder scene of shit. It was just everywhere. Cause he, at that point, he learned how to climb out too. So we had this problem of him, like when we'd leave him there for too long, he'd just like climb out and like walk around and like grab things. And that's another thing where he like ended up like putting a marble on his mouth, like swallowing, I took him to the ER for that too. It was like, it was my youngest that's like, man, like I'm probably gonna like be white, like my hair's gonna be white because of him. That's so funny. Yeah, anyway. Dude, so this morning I was, you know, doing my, you know, social media or whatever. And you know, there's this trend that I feel like we've, we were kind of a part of that now I think has kind of become a little bit out of control. You know, when we first started the podcast, we would talk a lot about the fitness industry, right? We'd refer to- Fitness industrial complex. Yeah, the industry of fitness. And we would talk about the negatives and some of the stuff that it does and you know, what to look out for and that kind of stuff. And you know, and this is a very powerful technique in politics. In politics, it's a very powerful technique to create a clear enemy, put yourself on the other side because it's easy to understand for people to hear. It also tends to strengthen your position. And I see now people in our space taking advantage of that power and using it kind of the wrong way. And so I'm referring to like, I see these fitness, you know, model influencers who, you know, as usual, they just don't, they don't provide great information at all. Most of the information they provide is terrible. Now they're referring to the evil fitness industry and I'm against it. And they're using this tactic in a way that I think is very negative. The truth is when you examine the fitness industry, I mean, that covers just a huge umbrella. But I think if we break it up into segments, I think it's a little bit more accurate. And I wanna do this so that people, when they're hearing some of these arguments that are very powerful, that can be very, very powerful, that they're privy and they know like, oh, wait a minute, you know, who am I listening to? And they're using this tool that's been used in politics for so long. Oh, you feel that way. I also think that another thing that, you know, we were talking about early on was the authentic thing. Oh yeah. You know, and that's been completely abused now. And the opposite is what's happening is, you know, people that, you know, think that being authentic is something that you practice or you try to do are presenting it on Instagram. You have to show your authenticity. Yeah. I'm totally buying, taking a shit. Yeah. Yeah, brushing your teeth with messy hair. I feel like in the last five years, and I don't, I'm interesting where you're gonna take this conversation because I don't know where I stand on this, right? Cause there's a part of me that goes, hey, you know, I'm proud that we put that out there, you know, years ago and I feel like, I mean, I just made this statement on the forum. I was thanking the forum for them being with us for as long as they have and that they're a big part of the success that Mind Pump's had. And I really feel like for the first time that we have a real voice in the space. Like I feel, we were building towards that and, you know, we acted as if we did way back when we had just a few thousand people listening, but I do feel like now we have a real voice in it. And I have to think that a lot of what you're talking or alluding to, it's probably coming because it's spread from what we've been saying. It probably looks like a formula. And what I'm saying is that where I don't know where you're going with this, but I don't know where I stand yet on it because I wanna believe that because of that message it's done more good than harm, but I don't know. Where are you taking this? I think it has done more good, but like any powerful tool, it can be wielded in a lot of different directions and it can be used to manipulate people or to sell a crappy product or to do all the bad stuff that we talk about, you know, on the show, you know, all the time. And here's the thing about ideas because that's an idea, right? To talk about like, here's what the industry does. Here's what you need to pay attention to. Ideas are very powerful and they spread. And when they're powerful and they're effective, they spread very, very quickly. So the idea of demonizing or talking about or collectivizing the fitness industry, you know, it started and it's exploded. And again, I see a lot of people using it negatively. So I'm gonna break it down into subcategories so people have an easier time discerning, you know, good from bad besides the message itself. So I went in and I thought about this for myself. Okay, the fitness industry has done some very good things. Obviously it's brought us exercise, it's brought us nutrition, it's brought us good behaviors, it's brought us motivation. But a lot of that has come from, if we really think about it, it's come from one segment which is the fitness trainer industry, the segment of the fitness industry that is made up of trainers, coaches, and people whose ultimate passion and job is to help other people. Like, you know, when you're a personal trainer, for example, it's of course not true for all trainers, but if you've been a personal trainer, especially for a long time, the reason why you did that is probably because your main passion is helping people and your secondary passion is fitness. You love both of those things, because if you didn't, you wouldn't last longer than three years. I can't imagine somebody lasting as a personal trainer along with three years who didn't have a deep passion for those things because it's a hard job to make a lot of money. You're taking on a lot of people's stress. It is not your typical nine to five job, it's a difficult job to do, but if you're passionate about it, you find meaning in it, then it's extremely worthwhile. So that's where I think a lot of the good is coming from, but there's different segments that I think the majority of the bad shit that we get is coming from. So one of them being the fitness modeling industry. Now these are people who look hot, they're sexy, they look phenomenal, they're muscular, they have nice asses and nice arms and great legs and whatever, and they're part of the fitness modeling industry, but because they have so many eyes on them, they pivot and turn that into, if they can't make money directly off of modeling, which is very difficult, then they'll try to make money, they'll pivot off that and then turn that into, hey, everybody looking at me because I look good, here's some good advice. They're not trainers. Oh, by the way, I have skinny teeth. That's right, they're not trainers. And they're not always promoting bad shit either, I think. I think they're just not experienced. We have friends that are like this, that they've made a name for themselves because they did an incredible job of getting themselves in really good shape. They have the look, they've competed, they've been on covers of magazines, and so they've drawn a lot of attention in eyes and the natural progression of that, especially right now in a trend where online coaching is exploding, it's the natural pivot. Now, the unfortunate part, well, this is also what, we saw this, we saw- Oh, this was the worst. We saw the opportunity to come into this space because the majority of the money that was being made was being made by these people. That's right. They were the one, and it was very easy, I think for each of us, and this was even before we got together, we were already observing this, it was very easy for us to go like, oh wow, like a lot of this information that they're presenting is it's not up to par with what you would wanna be coaching or talking to a client, and I don't think it comes from a bad place, I think it's just more naive. It comes from the wrong place, because think about the passion, I just talked about the fitness trainer industry and their motivations, their passions are help people and then their passion is fitness. The fitness modeling industry, what is their passion? Their passion is body obsession and looking perfect. That's their passion. So the information that they provide is through that lens. So they're gonna give the information that is going to encourage body image issues, encourage body obsession. It's going to prey on insecurities. However, indirectly, it's just the lens that it's coming through and a lot of the shitty information that we get in the fitness industry is coming from the fitness modeling age industry. There's another segment of the fitness industry that also provides terrible information and this is the fitness entertainment industry. These are the ones that make the fitness programs that are really designed to razzle and dazzle you and entertain the shit out of you. So these are your boot camp and your fucking, your Western hip hop dance workout videos and whatever you wanna call them and when you watch them, they're exciting, they're motivating, they're fun to watch, terrible workouts, terrible programming. Their passion is not to help people and their passion is not fitness, their passion is to entertain and to sell lots of programs. They are driven by those two things and so the information that they provide is also terrible. This is with all the stuff that we battled as trainers when clients would come in and be like, but I thought I was supposed to do 10 exercises back to back and I thought I was supposed to do tons of cardio. This isn't as fun, you get that a lot of times too because you get those classes that are just like, there's lights, there's music, there's energy, there's all this stuff. Remember the flood of biggest loser people that came in when that show launched? I remember just- Fitness entertainment industry out there. Yes, right. And the having to, that was such a challenge as a trainer, getting those clients, it was great, it was driving clients to the gym, but then the challenge as a trainer was, they wanted that, you know? I wanna be yelled at and made me run like crazy. Like it's like, no, like you don't understand, like this is not sustainable. There's a reason why 80 plus percent of those people put all that weight on is it's not realistic. No, and every good trainer knows that. Every good trainer knows to not rest upon or focus on or make this the pillar of your training where I'm trying to entertain the shit and motivate the shit out of my clients. Does, it's impossible for that to last forever. It just doesn't work. We are not, we didn't evolve to always be motivated. Being motivated is a feeling, just like being happy, sad or whatever. You can't possibly- Homes and goes. So if you're, if that's what you're resting on and that's what you're focused on is all motivation, excitement, energy. What you'll end up creating is first off, there's no real good exercise programming. So the workouts are not good. They're not meant to be good. They're meant to be fun and exciting. And you're gonna create a situation where people work out and then stop working out and then work out and then stop, which is exactly what we see a lot of. And then there's a third piece of the fitness industry that I also see causing a problem. Now this one has more value, but I also see this causing a lot of problems. And this is the fitness academia industry. Now this industry, these are the researchers, these are the PhDs of the people that study exercise, study nutrition. Their passion is to learn the science of fitness and nutrition. And their value really is to present to trainers. Their value is not to present- Not to your everyday- Not at all. In fact, as most personal trainers start the way that they train people in this space. When you first become a trainer, this is how you communicate information to clients. It's through science. And you think, I used to do this all, this is, geez, this is the first five years of training. Client would come to me, they'd wanna lose 30 pounds or whatever, and I'd give them all the information. You'd break the Krebs cycle down to it. Oh yeah. They're just looking at you like, oh my God. I'd give them all the facts and everything. And- I've been doing it so wrong. Terrible, right? I mean, how effective was that? No, that's exactly what I used to do that. I used to break the Krebs cycle down. That was like- That was literally like, that was part of my presentation. Nice. Exactly. And so it's not good. It's not a great, that part of the industry is not awesome to take information and communicate it to the average person. Cause they're the ones that tell people, it's all about calories, it's all about macros. I mean, here's the thing. This is why that part of the industry is so difficult, is because what they're saying is not false. The fitness modeling and fitness entertainment industry- They're wrong. Pure bullshit. Fitness academia industry, they are presenting correct information. It's just not, the context matters. You're not communicating that the right way. So it's not gonna help people. It's so nuanced that the average consumer gets lost in the weeds. Totally. And because there's so many studies too that contradict each other, it just becomes super confusing. And then a lot of them are, they end up being in camps and they drive stakes and this is what the science says, no, this is what the science says. And then we're debating over things that honestly, and when it took me, at least a decade of training clients to realize, well, wait a second, all the science that I've learned over this last decade definitely has helped me become a better trainer and understanding human physiology, kinesiology. But at the end of the day, what really fucking matters is the psychological piece, the behavioral piece. And that's something that you just don't hear a lot of people communicating when in reality- Well, because they wanna be right. That's the basis of where they're coming from. They have to be right, like the facts, the facts, the facts. But what's the unintended consequence of that for the person on the outside looking in that's just trying to understand where to start? How do I get going? 100% because a good trainer who's been training for a long time whose passion is helping people and also fitness eventually reaches this conclusion. It then takes time because you learn it through client after client after client. Eventually you reach this conclusion right here. My goal is not to be right or to give this person tons of information. My goal is to help this person achieve permanent success to achieve a good relationship with exercise and nutrition within the frame of their life, how individual they are, and to give them permanent success. And this is why the trainer, the fitness trainer, or dare I say guide part of the fitness industry. The reason why that's the good part is because they take all that stuff. They cut all the segments of the fitness industry and they add like a filter. It all pours into them and what comes out, purified water. They're giving you exactly what you need. They're guiding you and they're coaching you to take you to the right place. So, and I wanted to make that discernment because again I'm seeing a lot of the fitness modeling industry, I'm seeing the fitness academia industry, the fitness entertainment industry, all acting like they're opposing the evil fitness industry. When in reality you're a part of exactly what we're talking about so I feel like if I break it down a little more it'll make it harder for them to get away with it. Is this what you're gonna talk about on Friday? No. You should. Maybe. I absolutely think you should. That's such a great place to have this discussion. We're gonna be talking to other future leaders and business and entrepreneurs in this space. I think that's a, and I'm going a different direction. I know my talk is more related to our business and scaling a company and what that looks like so I think that would complement it. Well, I think it's tough because you do see traction being really divisive and being able to like lead people into just one train of thought. Like that's why these camps exist. That's why they're so deeply rooted because it benefits them financially in ways that they don't really see outside of that the bigger picture of it where they could help a lot more people by adopting and incorporating all these modalities. Yeah, and that's why when we, I love talking to trainers and coaches so much because they're the good soldiers in the fight against poor health and chronic disease and helping people in real ways and long-term ways. And I know how hard that is. I know how long it takes. I know it's the long game. This is not, you cannot help change someone in a 15 minute motivational speech or a great article or all this information. It takes time. When I would train a client, it would take years for them to really get to the place where I could look at them and say, you know what, this person has been changed positively, permanently, I feel confident that this person now has created the behaviors, has created a relationship with themselves, exercising nutrition to where they don't need me anymore. They have a deep understanding that was planted there. Do you think if you're like a consumer or a listener right now and you're trying to discern whether this is the person I'm listening to and you think there's like signs or red flags that you notice are common things? Like for example, I think that like one of the things that you see when you separated all these segments and the place that they're coming from, they all seem to, or a majority of them I should say, seem to default to the motivational angle. Because I think that's such a, it's an easy, it's a low hanging- It's like a big red button. It's a low hanging fruit because it feels good. Even I myself, there's still pages that I follow on Instagram because it feels good to watch. The hype, the hype gives me a rush and makes me excited to go to the workout. And because I get a physiological response from it, it keeps people coming back. And so I wonder if the average person can discern from that and go like, oh, am I really getting that good? Or is this person just feeding that rush that I like that I want? And that's why I think I really like them because when I look at their page, they feel motivational, inspiring, and I like it. Is it, do you think that? I think that's a big, that's a big one. I think the other, another big one is when you're listening to the advice of a fitness person or you're asking them a question, if it doesn't, if it doesn't take strongly, take into account individual variance and context, then you know you're dealing with someone who has very little experience. Well, good example. When we had that great interview just recently with Brett Contreras, you know, a good example of a really a really good fucking trainer. Even we took him in all different directions and you know, no matter what we were challenging or asking, it's always, well, depends. And then this scenario, this and then this scenario, that like that you can always, to me, I can always tell, okay, this guy is definitely trained. Not only does he understand the science, but he's also trained a lot of people to answer questions like that. Totally, totally. So anyway, I wanted to bring that up because I was up this morning. I think that's a great Friday talk. I don't know if you've decided what you're gonna speak on Friday. Yeah, I have some stuff I think I'm gonna talk about. I really think that would be a great direction. I could definitely throw it in if I go a little short or whatever. Anyway, another thing I wanna bring up is I got, you know, since we've been working with, you know, these, well, we believe to be one of the better third party hormone testing companies everly well. I get lots of questions now where people ask me, what tests should I do? Or how often should I test myself? Yeah. I think, here's the thing. First off, over testing yourself, probably not a good idea if it causes you a lot of stress and anxiety. That being said, if you're healthy and okay, because there are people who become, you know, A hypochondriac. Yes. And I totally can identify it. I know exactly what that feels like. I know it could turn into the scale for somebody, right? Yes. It could turn into becoming a slave to it and freaking out over every single thing. I look at it kind of like, you know, body fat testing. You need to give it a little bit of time. You don't wanna be testing so regularly that it's like one week and then you're noticing up or down and you're freaking out and you're redirecting your plans or your programming or your nutrition. Like, you know, I think you need to give yourself at least a month to a few months. And enough time to adapt to whatever you do. And to have some consistency of whatever it is. So you implement something. You say, okay, I'm gonna follow whatever said diet. I'm following this program now or I'm addressing my sleep now. Or you decide that, and this is how I use it is, you know, it's basically quarterly for me. I'm probably once every three to four months. I would agree. I test and me more so than anything, I use, I use a lot of them, but the hormone one is the one I'm most consistent with because obviously what I've discussed with my hormone levels. And I do, I, you know, I implement one or two things and that's it is the change. I add, okay, I'm gonna do the red light therapy three times a week for at least 10, 20 minutes. And that's, I'm committed to that. See what that does. I'm gonna increase my carbohydrates. These are the two things I'm gonna be doing. I'm gonna stick to that. Everything else pretty much the same and then test. I agree. Cause I think number one, if you have symptoms, that's a good idea when you want to test. The thing I liked about the at home test is that, you know, there's a bit of a barrier when you go to the doctor. If you were gonna go to the doctor and say, hey, I'd like to test my hormones, you know, every quarter they're, they're gonna probably say, no, it's expensive. It's difficult. So, you know, what I recommend to people like for men, I think a quarterly testosterone test is probably great. And then depending on what those tests say, then you would go to see your doctor. So if you see these tests come back every quarter and you see this big discrepancy, then go to the doctor and say, hey, I took this at home test. What do you think? What's the deal? And then take it from there. But really the value of those tests, you know, you don't want to turn into a, where you freak out and become a hypochondriac. The value of them is really is just to really confirm potential symptoms that you may have or see what your training and diet are doing. And then of course, make sure you go to a doctor. It's the same way. I mean, I love these things. And I know there's people out there that love to shit on stuff like this. And again, you're talking about the science people, right? They're trying to pick apart, oh, this could be by 2%, this could be off. Right, right, right. You know, the Fitbit tool, oh, that's been shown to be 15% inaccurate on this. And it's like, you know what's crazy? If you've been doing this for as long as I have, like, I didn't have any of those fucking tools. I was trying to help people. You know what I'm saying? I was trying to help people with their hormones. I was trying to help people with their vitamin D deficiencies. I was trying to help people with their fucking, with their steps. We had a terrible handwritten formulas. Their calories burn. And you know what I had back then? It's super inaccurate. Tell me how you're feeling or, you know, the scale. Like that's all I had. Like, so the fact that we have all these resources. Remember the nutrition book that we used to use? To give people macros? Yes. You have to carry this around with everyone. Calorieking.com and use them. Yeah, I know. You can actually measure all the food and everything. So for me, and I guess, absolutely, I can find the holes and the place. Nothing is 100% accurate, right? There's nothing out there. There's such an individual variance there. But, man, if you can give me a tool that gives me some insight, some specific insight on something that I'm monitoring. Well, I think it's consistent, right? Like, if you can see trends based off of, like, you know, the consistency of it. I mean, there's a ton of value. Yes, totally 100%. Oh, by the way, did you guys see, I wanted to bring this up. Did you guys see YouTube's policy, their child advertising or whatever policy change? Oh, have they changed that? Because of the ways around it, all these pedophile people. No, I heard they were using the data to market, right? Yes, dude. Yeah, so I didn't read all of it. So there was a law that says that you cannot capture anybody under the age of 13s information or data from the internet. You're not allowed to capture it and then use it to market to kids. So there's a law. And the US government now use that law, which is an old law, it's been around for a while, to against YouTube and Google, and they just find them $170 million with a warning, you need to stop doing this. Now, why is it a big deal? There are channels on YouTube, some of the highest money-making channels on YouTube. Our kids are focused on kids. The little kids, like opening up presents or playing with toys. So what they can't do now is they can't, there's two types of commercials you can do on YouTube. You can do context-based commercials. So like, because you're on my channel, the commercials will match the channel. So like, you know, we have a fitness channel, so fitness commercials will pop up. Then there's them way more powerful behavioral-based commercials where they know the things that you watch and what you do based off your data and then they target you specifically with a commercial, which is what makes internet marketing so powerful. So what they've basically done is said, you can't use the most powerful thing about the internet anymore against anybody other than age 13. So all these channels are losing tons of money. Interesting. Isn't that crazy? Now, where do you guys stand on all that? Because it's kids, I have one thought. Like I think the people that freak out about everybody using, I mean, at the end of the day, all this surveillance data, it's to make companies more money. That's why they want it. They don't want it to spy on your fucking family and watch you naked in your living room. They don't give a shit about your buying habits because they want to sell you out to somebody or the government. They want it so they could sell you products better. And for that, I don't care. Like for the majority, most people will appreciate being advertised things that I'm more interested in than things that I'm not interested in. I get annoyed by getting hit with advertisement on something that I have no desire. But if I'm constantly being fed things that I'm interested in, I like that as a consumer. I'm with you 100% with that, but they also have proven that the government used that data too. So, you know, it's like, if you want to be real like tinfoil about it, like in you're that kind of paranoid person, you know, then you would be valid in your concerns. But like for me, it's, again, it's making the consumer experience, you know, more specific. So I get things that I want to actually see. And you know, and I appreciate the, you know, the way that they can like, not just put just random shit in front of me that I don't even care about. I can actually straddle this issue and play both sides. And I can sometimes I feel one more than the other. Like for example, R is advertising influential. Does it have power to influence behaviors, feelings and stuff like that? Well, yeah, obviously. Otherwise it wouldn't be a trillion dollar industry. So they're doing this to little kids. Is that different than when they would do it to adults? I can definitely make an argument for that. Now here's where I go on the other side. Is government regulating that really gonna help? You know, we're gonna give the worst people the keys to regulating that. Cause what it sounds to me like is they're trying to keep mainstream media more competitive by fucking with news, new media. You know what I'm saying? Because it's basically TV commercials now. Well, I was just gonna say, right? Not only that, how is it any different than when I was, you know, seven years old watching, you know, fucking duck tails and the commercials that came up were G.I. Joe's and were boy toys, things that I would, how was that any different? They made cereal just like they made cartoons like specifically to sell cereal. Right. So I mean, it's different because that's a contextual commercial meaning they're gonna put a commercial based off of the content that's on the channel. Behavioral advertising is they have all your data they follow you around. I mean, they would have done that back in TV days if they could. Right. It's just, we just, we have Super valuable. We have the ability now with computers to capture this data and then refine the way that they market and advertise. I don't know how much I'm anti that. Well, here's the irony of it. And I've seen, I've read articles on this. They could follow parents around, get their information, which is perfectly legal and with incredible scary accuracy, predict the kids. Well, of course. You know, in fact, I read an article that showed that. To school from school, Starbucks, this, that. Yes, I read an article that showed that if you were never on the internet, let's say you have never been online. You've never done anything, but they were, but they follow three people that are socially. They can triangulate. Exactly. They predict everything about you. Oh, that's crazy. So even if you're not on. That's pretty cool. You're fine. Yeah, I still have a couple of friends like that. They're not on any social media. They think that they're like, you know, yeah, I'm totally off the grid, dude. Like, no. No, no, you're not. You're still texting. You're texting me. You're texting me. They know you're connected to me. I'm right next to you. What I always think is weird is when you, this happened to be the other day, actually. I mentioned Skinny Dipped, one of the sponsors that we work with. How does this happen? Has it ever happened to you? Did you get ads popping up on your phone? Yeah, dude, all of a sudden on Facebook? Yeah. And the ad pops up. Because they hacked the microphone. Like, they key in on words. Like, and I think like Amazon actually got in trouble for that with Alexa because it was doing that. And it was just like. That's fucked up. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. It's funny. I actually got turned on to a new, like kind of conspiracy. I don't know how new it is. It's probably old in the conspiracy world, but it had one that was like, actually based in some reality. So like just for the Jeffrey Epstein one, like we brought up was interesting. This one was like the cloud seeding. And then also NASA has like this machine that actually can produce these huge clouds and then can make these rain clouds. Basically, it was a trip. I showed you guys, it's like this tower where they're quote unquote testing, these engines for their shuttles, their space shuttles, but the amount of condensation and stuff that's coming out of it, like billows out, it creases huge fucking clouds. And rain. Yeah, they're thinking that they're able to manipulate the weather with pretty like accurate. You know, this reminds me of the, Sal just did a really good interview with the Word on Fire guys and I was listening to it yesterday and you made a statement, which I've heard you talk about before and I agree 100% with is we are in a time now it's getting crazy, right? I mean, we were talking just a month ago I bought up the glowing mice and you know, science has come so far. They've grown, they've grown ears on mice. Have you seen that? Yeah. They've grown a fucking human ear on a milestone. Right. What are you doing? You know, and one of the things that science doesn't do is science always says can we, right? They don't ever say should we. Of course. Here's a situation where we think we know everything about the fucking environment that we're gonna now manipulate our weather and not, you know, we still, every decade we go back and forth, right? Every decade or two decades I'd say, we're global warming, we're global cooling, we're global, we go back and forth arguing and there's two- Actually you bring up a very good point. The consensus is that what we're doing is impacting the climate. Now here's where the science is not conclusive is, because they predicted this several times. They predicted that, you know, these parts of the world will be covered in water, they haven't been, they predicted that we're gonna be in a nice age. That was in the 70s that hadn't happened. There's a lot of science that we don't know yet but we come to be very arrogant but you do make a good point about the morality of science. Science by nature has no morality. It's not supposed to. If you want it to work, it needs to be amoral. It needs to be hypothesis, test, result and that's it. You don't want morality, you don't want science to be based on morality because then it's not gonna work but you do need to have the people using science to have some kind of moral code because then you get, then it becomes again, can we? Oh, can we resurrect dinosaurs? Let's try. Can we make humans that can jump 100 feet in the air? Let's try, can we, and then it gets weird, man. A lot of times it starts out with good intention and then it turns sour because the technology that exists because of it, right? And I guess even with the cloud seeding thing, like it's happening all over the world now. They're trying to, like one way they do it is with planes too where they put like these flares on the planes to create this kind of like these particles to for all like the moisture to kind of collect too and then that creates the rain to fall. China did it. It's China did it. Yeah, but they were like trying to weaponize it. Okay, so here we go. Who do you think has the greatest interest in controlling the weather, right? Militaries. So NASA, here's a conspiracy for you. NASA was a way for the US government to create a new military arm but to make it look like it was just, oh, a space exploration, but in reality, their research is used to for our military. So when you see guys that, oh no, we were trying to figure out how to fix the climate and do this kind of stuff. Yeah, that's why NASA's halotop secret. No, I've trained clients that are like, can't say. I'm like, you're NASA, why can't you talk to me about that? Oh, okay. Space Force. Yeah. Space Force. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Anyway, crazy. So here's another cool article I was reading the other day. They have for the first time ever created artificial neurons. What? Yes, they've created artificial neurons. So I'm gonna read you a little excerpt from this article. So these artificial neurons are on silicon chips that behave just like the real things. First ever, they've never been able to do this before. And so this could potentially in the future be used to solve problems of chronic diseases like heart failure, Alzheimer's, other diseases of neurological degeneration. For example, in heart failure, the neurons at the base of the brain don't respond properly to nervous system feedback. So then they don't send the right signals to the heart. So it doesn't pump as hard or whatever it should, but creating these artificial neurons to correct that problem could totally fix it. Or let's say you get a spinal injury or you have an injury. And the body accepts it? Like have they like proven that with the animals? I don't think so. I think that they've just created the artificial neuron, but no, that's the next. Like it imitates it. Yeah, that's the next step though. Which is, this is phenomenal. You know what I mean? I mean, that is, yeah, that's totally breaks. Yeah, that's like Star Wars technology. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You cut my hand off. Cyborgs, yeah. What was the, you were showing Sal this morning, I wasn't paying attention, but you were showing him something about Peloton and you were saying there was controversy around this. You know what's interesting about that? Like Courtney actually was turned to me onto it and was like, I'm like, what's the problem with it? Like show me the commercials. So she kind of played the commercial for me and then I'm like, okay. And what are people saying about it? Like what, it was like the most straightforward, like, hey, like I'm gonna like better myself for a year. And like my husband bought me this Peloton and I'm going through this and she's like documenting herself going through the process of it. They're watching it on TV, which is kind of weird, like who does that? You know, anyway, but they're sitting there and like, and then she's like, thanks, like this really helped to change me or something like that. And it was like a pretty straightforward message, but then you see all this negative backlash of like, this is so sexist and all this, cause the husband like- The husband got this forward to get her in shape. Got this forward to get her in shape. She's even really changed. She was skinny already. Like why is she even doing this? This is fat shaming people or she's got a, you know, it was creepy, like a black mirror episode where she'd been forced to do this. What? They were just like reading into something that was not even there. You know what I think, dude? Yeah. You want to know what I think? I think Peloton's people went out and created this false, this false outrage. Like forums with outrage? Yes, because now look- Well, like Gillette did. I think- Now I don't remember what it is. Yeah, but they went like completely offensive. No, no, no, no, no. What I mean is I think Peloton made a real commercial that nobody would have a problem with. Yes. Then they put out fake people saying, oh my God, this is sex. It's super easy to stir that up. Now everybody's sharing it. Everybody's watching the commercial. Yeah, it's like a Russian bot. And the commercial's not a problem. This is a very effective technique. What's the name wrote about it? Ryan Holiday wrote about doing that. We create false, out fake outrage about you or yourself. Then it brings people to you. Then they look at it and say, yeah, this is actually pretty good. It's so annoying because it just brings out the ridiculous people, dude. Because there is a ridiculous amount of people that jump on board with that. It's so funny. I wonder how many of them are actually being told or paid to do that. And then how many people are actually going like, yeah. Yeah, I agree. You could get people outraged for anything. Easy. I could do it for any, pick something and I'll come up with a reason to do it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw fake rallies at start and then they all get there and they're like, who's the person in charge? Nobody's in charge. They're fucking with you. Oh. Yeah. Our first question is from Jake Parker, health and wellness. What are the benefits of very low rep ranges on major lifts like bench, squat and deadlift? Oh man. Yeah. For a lot of people who work out, they less so now, but for a long time, people avoided the really low rep ranges. It was me forever for most of my career. Yeah. And the funny thing is that the really, it's not funny, this is the truth. They're missing out on a lot of the gains that you can get from training in the low rep ranges. Low rep ranges build muscle just like moderate or higher rep ranges. They all build muscle. They really build muscle and are effective when they're new, when it's a new stimulus. That's why I think it's one of the, I mean, again, I've shared this on the show many times that part of one of the most compelling things when I first met Sal and read Maps Anabolic was that he chose to start people in that phase in phase one of Maps Anabolic. And the brilliance that I thought was in that was that at that time in my career, I was just coming to realize this of training so many people going like, you know what? How many people are just like me where they've been told that the best rep range to build muscle is eight to 12. If you want to burn fat, you want to do 15, 20 superset circuit type stuff. Very few people that want to change their physique, right? To look better or lose body fat were being told lift five times. That was only the power lifter guys. Like if you want to be, if all you cared about me was strong, so maybe if you were a football player or you cared about your bench press and squat, you did those type of repetitions. Otherwise, the message to the majority was if you want to lose fat or you want to build muscle, these are the best rep ranges for that. Staying them right. And two, it was very intimidating for a lot of people to jump into that style because you really had to know what you're doing. Like you need to know the mechanics. Like you have to go through like the process of learning those exercises to where you're not going to have that little bit of discrepancy that could lead you to energy, injury. I'm all tripping on my voice. I actually think that, I think there is a portion of people like that, but I think that a majority were probably, even like were more like me, where I wasn't afraid. You just thought it was worthless. Yeah. We're not that valuable. Yeah. I just didn't think it was that valuable. The risk versus reward to me wasn't there. It was, if I go really, really heavy, I could potentially hurt myself. And I'm probably, it's not the best place to build muscle. It's not the best place to burn body fat. So it's not for me. I don't identify with it as a power lifter. So I neglected it for many, many years. And I remember when you finally really started to implement it. I mean, I really attribute that strength training and in that rep range to the way my physique looked like at the amateur level to the professional level to me as the was really that big. I mean, it really packed on more muscle on my body than I had in the last 15 years consistently lifting. And it was something that I missed out. Now that comes with some risks, like to Justin's point, like I mean, I do notice that my joints were more achy and I did notice those things that, but I also know that I fell into the same pattern that I coach and talk to clients about don't get stuck in something because it starts to show you the results. And what happened? I introduced strength training more than I'd ever done in my life. I saw the benefits. I became addicted to the benefits. So I kept training in that range. And then here comes the achy hips, the achy joints. And besides that too, like I think like the actual benefit too, a lot of people that don't do it, like don't know like your capacity, you can increase your capacity to produce more force. And that's a big part of strength. And to have more strength at your fingertips when you want it, like right away is such an advantage then going into any other mode now. Right, it carries so much into that. And that is the thing that I think I missed big time was realizing, oh shit, like even if I don't want to be a power lifter and I don't want to strengthen all time, just at least running a block or a phase of that, how much that contributed over into my hypertrophy training. Oh yeah, being able to summon your strength for a heavy load is a skill. And it's a very important skill that has carry over to all the other physical skills or especially all the skills related to strength. Now you have to do it appropriately. Just like any other rep range or any other training modality, it's got to be done appropriately. So one thing that we always, and I learned this later on. So when I was younger, my low rep training was improper. It was maxing out. That's improper. Yeah, like every time. Yeah, low rep, this is actually a big misconception. People think training a low rep ranges means maxing out. That's actually not training. That's maxing out. That's something totally separate. Low rep training done appropriately is practicing lifting heavy loads for low reps, but you're not maxing out. So what I mean by that is, let's say I'm doing sets of squats for three reps. That's the weight that I pick is a weight that I can max out for six reps or five reps. That's the proper way to do three reps with a heavy weight. I'm not doing three reps with a weight that I can only do three reps with. I'm not maxing out. You almost fail on three. That's a terrible way to do it. And I learned this later on. I remember reading about the old-time strong men and old-time bodybuilders and how they trained. And then it led me to a book called Dinosaur Training, which I've actually referred to before on the podcast. And there's some interesting, there's some valuable information in that book. And what the guy writes about is practicing your lifts. You go out there, you pick up a heavy weight that you could probably do three or four reps with, but you just pick it up once. It's still heavy. You still got to get used to lifting something heavy. You still have to summon a lot of strength. Well, to that point right there is something else to this question. Why do it and what it's a contributing to that? Again, I was neglecting is the central nervous system. That was a piece and I love, and we've talked on the show so many times about your analogy of it as the amplifier to your muscles or your speakers. And I was putting so much investment in my speakers and having great speakers, bigger speakers, better looking speakers, but I was putting very little energy into improving the amplifier that actually puts out all that energy into the speakers. And so think of it like that when you're training those singles like you're talking about or those low rep ranges, is you're investing in getting a better amplifier, a better CNS that is going to then contribute to all the other pursuits. And it also makes you, practicing training in this way appropriately makes you more comfortable handling heavy weight and it makes you more comfortable exerting yourself at that level. Now I would experience this oftentimes with clients, more often than not, it was my female clients where they were afraid to exert the effort that was required to lift heavy weights. Now, again, I'm not maxing them out, but they just were afraid of pushing themselves that way because they just had never been used to it. Once we would train in these low rep ranges, they felt more confident and functional with their strength because they understand how to control it. They understand what they're capable of. So there's a lot of value in training in very low rep ranges and all of this contributes to a better physique. Now, if you get stuck in this phase, just like if you get stuck in any other phase of training, your body will stop responding. But if you never train in low rep ranges, try doing it for three to five weeks. Just watch what happens. Here's my prediction. If you've never done it before over the next three to five weeks, you'll get significantly stronger every single week. Every single week, you'll get stronger in some of these core lifts. What do you think that's gonna do to the way your body looks? It's obviously gonna be reflected in your aesthetics. Next question is from Moe Daywood. How does sleep affect fat loss? Can inadequate sleep hinder fat loss even if macros are correct? Fuck yeah, cortisol. Definitely, yeah. So here's the main ways that lack of sleep affects fat loss. The main way it affects fat losses, it changes your eating patterns and behaviors in your activity levels, okay? Cause you're obviously tired. Your body perceives it as stress. So, you know, the way we evolved was if you didn't have good sleep, your body's perceiving that as you need to be alert and awake. Like why would you in nature be up, you know, most of the night or not sleeping? Probably because you're not in a safe environment. So your body's perceiving is stress. Now, stressed out body wants to, A, store more body fat because that's an insurance. More often than not, the stress that we were under was either predators or lack of food. So I want more. So what it's gonna do, it's gonna make you eat more food as a result. So they've done this in studies and shown that people's appetites tend to increase. It also tends to make you crave foods that give you more of a, yeah, psychological well-being, like feeling of well-being, like this temporary feel good effect. This is anytime you feel like shit. The second thing is your body will lose muscle. In a stressed out situation, your muscle starts to deteriorate because muscle's expensive. It's expensive tissue and your body's trying to become more efficient. So lack of activity or altered activity patterns, more food intake or worse food intake, that's the main way it makes you gain body fat. But the second part of the question was, what if the macros are good? Can it still hinder fat loss? Yes, I definitely think so. I think there's this, your body can lose weight and gain weight in different ways. It's not always gonna be body fat. So what may end up happening is you may end up weighing the same, but you're less muscle and more body fat. So overall, weight stays the same, but your body composition. What about how cortisol is affected and your thyroid and things like that? That can be affected. That's what I'm referring to. So let's say your calories are the same, but your cortisol is totally impacted. The way you store body fat is gonna change and you may store more body fat and lose muscle. I mean, calories in versus calories out starts to still obey, but you know, and here's the other part, Adam, you're absolutely right. Can hormonal changes alter how many calories your body burns at rest? Absolutely. Oh yeah, you give a man testosterone, don't change his activity levels and he'll just naturally get a little leaner and build more muscle. Just from the changes in hormones. So I've noticed, I tell you what, if my sleep is good. This is an example of where I get frustrated with the academics. So you know, when we talked about with the science, when you talk about calories in versus calories out and then they try and bash like, oh, they talk about make insulin a demon, they make cortisol sound like a demon. Those things are all good. Well, no, it's not a demon. It's all part of the body, but absolutely you affect sleep. That changes your hormone profile. Your hormone profile now changes your metabolism, which the rule, the law of thermodynamics still applies, but it's now changed for you. It's now different. You know, your calorie maintenance, which let's say, you know, for hypothetical reasons and for this argument's sake, your calorie maintenance was 2,500. That's what your body burns at rest all day long. And then all of a sudden you have two, three days in a row of poor sleep, your calorie maintenance is no longer 2,500. Your body is, perceiving it as under stress, it slows down to conserve energy and save body and produce or save body of fat for energy. And so then your calorie maintenance now becomes 2,200 or 2,000. And so law of thermodynamics still applies. And yeah, if you're macros, but your macros are gonna have to have been changed. You can't stay the same as what it was when you were getting great sleep because now you're- It's a good point because I think a lot of times people, they assume that your calorie burn aside from activity, because they don't assume it for activity, but if everything stays the same, but you change your stress, well, your calorie burn is a fixed number. No, it's not. A lot of stuff affects your calorie burn. This whole idea that we are stuck with a metabolism is hilarious. Your metabolism can shift daily. And you find your calorie maintenance out one day. I mean, in four weeks, it could be completely different. If you add a couple pounds of muscle and lose body fat, you reduce stress, you could see a huge difference. And then- We used to measure that with the body gym, was that called? Yeah. Breathe into it. And I remember being excited about that device because I was like, wow, you can actually find out where they're at with their metabolism currently right now. And then you do it the next day, you do it the next week, you're getting completely different numbers based off of their stress. Yeah, I've had this happen to me several times with clients where I would have a- I'll give you an example of one client in particular. She was type A, go, go, go, like just the classic overdue everything type of person. She went- And this was early on in my career. So this actually learned, initially learned this through training her. So I was all about calories in versus calories out, how much you're burning, whatever. I'd have her truck her food, she'd show me her calories. Oh, you wanna get leaner? We're just gonna increase your activity level. And I would push that for a while. And we got stuck. We got stuck for a little while. And I remember thinking to myself, like, okay, if I'm gonna push her any harder, I gotta give her some time to rest and recou- So my idea wasn't, it would make her leaner. I thought I needed her to get some rest so we could go after it again later on. So I'm gonna say, okay, for the next couple of months, here's what I want you to do rather than running on, I forgot what days it were, but it's just for argument's sake, rather than running on Saturday and Wednesday, like you always do, where you do all your intervals and your long distance runs. What I want you to do is I want you to go take a relaxing meditation class, and I want you to really focus on your sleep. And so she was like, well, what about my calories? And what about, I'm not gonna burn as much calories. And I said, look, I know we're not burning as many calories. I said, don't worry about it, we'll make up for it later on once I feel like your body's more recovered. Well, here's the crazy part. She did that. Not only did she not gain weight. She lost weight. She started to get leaner. I remember seeing the exact same thing. She blew me away. I was like, how's this possible? She must be lying to me. And then I started to put it, piece it together, like, oh, her body's working better. She's just healthier. And so, and now what happened, that's happened over a dozen times. I had this conversation last night with my mom's husband right now. We were talking about stress and I was trying to explain to him that your body doesn't know the difference between a horn being honked, you lifting weights in the gym, the argument you had with your wife when you got home from work, your boss screaming at you. It's all stress. It's all stress. And if you're getting it from all ends, all going to the gym and hammering your body, even though you, and this is what was hard to communicate to him because he's like, I feel good. Yes. He goes, yeah, no, I love to go work out. And I had, and it's like, exactly. And that's the worst thing you could do in that state. I said, in fact, you get in a big argument with my mom or you have something that you're gonna fight at work with somebody like that. And you don't wanna go hammer the weights out. If you're gonna go to the weights, it should be more recuperative or maybe that's the day you decide to meditate or spend time walking. And then the day that you feel rested, no stress, everything else. That's the day you get after. The reason why it's hard to understand for people is because it does feel good because cortisol feels good. Here's the thing that people need to understand. We hear all the time about elevated cortisol and too much of it's not good or whatever. And by the way, cortisol has very fundamental roles in the human body. You don't wanna slam cortisol down because that'll not make you healthy either. But here's the deal with cortisol. It feels good. If I gave you injections of cortisol, you'd have energy, you'd be hyped, you'd be, it's your stress hormones. It's supposed to do that. So when you're super stressed- I live off that in the morning. Yeah, exactly. So it gets me out of bed. So if you're feeling shitty or whatever and you go to the gym and beat the crap out of yourself, you give yourself under the spike of cortisol, all of a sudden you feel better. Well, now because you're becoming a cortisol junkie, but eventually like we can become insulin resistant, our bodies stop utilizing cortisol very effectively and we need more and more of it than we start to develop problems. Next question is from Jeremiah Johnson. Besides calves, what is your favorite body part to develop and how do you go about training? They must be talking to you guys. Yeah, it's like, slight jab there. You know, some of my favorite body parts to train are my favorites because they were, when I was younger, they were areas that were difficult to develop. So like when I first started working out, there were a few things that I was very, I was obviously body image issues. I would talk about this often on the podcast. That's what motivated me. There were a particular parts of my body that I was really concerned with. One of them was my shoulders. I'm not a wide person structurally. I don't have a wide bone structure. So I had no muscle, plus I was narrow to begin with and I didn't like the way I looked in t-shirts. I felt like I looked like a coat hanger. So I made a special emphasis on training my shoulders. Now I did a good job with my technique and my program and whatever. My shoulders ended up becoming a strong suit until this day, I really love the feeling of training my shoulders. I love the way they look when they're pumped. It's a fun body part to train. Same thing for my back. I had the same problem on my back. It was skinny, I wasn't wide. And I remember just, I remember like it was yesterday, the first time I got a lat pump. And it was when I'd been working on my back for a little while, couldn't feel my back working. I think a lot of people have this issue when they first start working out. It's like, I just feel my biceps. I'm like, am I really working my back? And I read this article on supersets and I did a pre-exhaust superset where I did dumbbell pullovers, which is more of an isolation movement. And I went straight to pull-ups. And I remember getting down off those pull-ups and standing there and being like, what? I have a pump in my, that feels weird. Oh my, I was so excited about it. And I love those two parts. Still my favorites. I'm your prototypical like Monday chest day guy. I am that guy. Like I've always loved, you know, building and developing the chest. And it was just something that, again, this is kind of playing into your strengths. And it was one of those things I found that I could compete with somebody that was like a good 50, 60 pounds heavier than me. You know, like I could hang with people in that lift specifically. And then also, you know, with my triceps as well. So it's kind of that combo of the chest triceps where, you know, I was like, dips or bench press. If I couldn't think of anything in the gym, it's like I'm doing one or the other because for some, it just gave me this good feeling. I just felt strong and capable. And, you know, it didn't hurt that I beat the record for like dips at my school at the time. So I was like reinforcing it. Was it for total dips or weight strapped with a dip? No, it was total dips. What was it? What was the number? 900 and something. No, I don't, I don't even remember it to be honest. Typical Justin. He's so, he's so humble. I know he's like, I would know that number. I was like a hundred and three shadow. I don't remember it's in the past. Bro, Adam and I, Adam would have a tattoo of it. I would know it for sure. It was definitely over a hundred. Yeah, that's crazy. Oh, shit. You know what's actually funny about this question is that when I, as a kid, 100% it was arms because I think for the first three years of lifting weights, all I did was arms. And then after that, I actually have fallen, I've always, still to this day, fallen in love with training the body part that is the weakest or most underdeveloped. Yeah. What a great mental strategy. I know. I've always learned to do that. Yeah, so, and being completely transparent on it is probably my least favorite of those because there was lots of underdeveloped parts is calves and forearms because they're probably the least contributors to almost everything else going on with the body. Like it's like, if you got strong arms having weaker forearms, whatever, you know what I'm saying? It's like, they're responsible for very little. Your calves, if my legs are fucking jacked and cool, whatever they're doing. So I think that those ones have always probably, I would say those are my least two favorite to work and develop on because I think they're just as far as contributing to your overall strength, your overall physique. I feel like they play the least amount of role. Plus, I think they have the greatest difference genetic wise. You either have great big forearms, you have great calves. Not that you can't develop those two because I have done that in both areas. It's just less fun in comparison to everyone else. Like I've loved going to the gym. I mean, currently right now, it's quad and squats for me. Like I'm all into that, I'm in powerlifting. It makes sense to be kind of in that focus. And so I'm really enjoying developing my legs right now. And I've been here before where that's a focus. I can attest to Sal's shoulders. I've never, I've shared the story when one of my female trainer clients that used to compete told me that I asked her to assess my physique because she was a competitor and she said I had weak shoulders and I remember that would like hurt my feelings. And I, you know, that became, and that actually kind of started that. Somebody said no delts to me the other day. Yeah, cool. Yes, said that, said that to me. And that set me down the path of developing shoulders and my shoulders became one of my strengths. And that probably is what lit the fire of like looking at my physique and going like, oh, my chest is weak. Oh, my back is weak. Oh, my quads are weak. Oh, my hamstrings are weak. And then programming to address that. And what's needed when you, when you understand, when you've been lifting for a really long time that chasing after the areas that you're weak in, it gives you that sense almost that, like that novelty thing again, where your body is going to respond best. If I go and let's say my biceps, for example, is a major strength of mine because of all the work I did early on and still continued that for many years, it's kind of boring to train them because I'm not going to squeeze very much out of them. When my arms are at their biggest, I can get back to my biggest arms ever with very little effort because I've already put all the work. It's just not challenging. It's not challenging. It's easy. I'm like that with quads. Right, so if you, if it's an area that it's easy for me to develop, I'm less interested and I'm more interested in the areas where like, oh man, if I put some work in, I could see a difference and change. So at one point, they've all, I mean shoulders at one time was that. I mean back when I was doing the deadlift thing with Sal and I was competing because your back is like for sure one of the biggest difference makers in men's physique having an impressive back. So I got a kick out of developing that and my shoulders, my arms, my chest for sure. There was a point where I had an uneven chest. My left pec was significantly larger than my right. And so addressing the imbalances there, then catching it up and then getting actually a really good strong bench and a pretty good chest, I've enjoyed all of it. I really reframe how I look at my physique when I look at weak points and go, oh cool, I have something that I can improve upon and program around and I will see a difference if I follow and execute. And I try and give this tip to a lot of clients when they're focusing in the gym as if you're, especially if you're aesthetic driven, pick something that is a weak area and that you go see the most improvement there than anyone else. You're falling in love with training it and you're going to train it. You're not gonna skip it. That's a great mental strategy. Next question is from Freeman Axtel. How do you each vote with your dollars? Oh, great. That is a cool question. What a good question because I think people forget how much power we have in free societies to change and mold basically the things around us in society. So many things are driven by the market obviously and the market responds to our money and our dollars. And if we give our money to something because we like it, more of that thing will be produced and if something gets no money, then less of it will be produced. And so this is a great question because people forget they think that we're powerless but it's like every day you make so many choices and decisions that really make an impact and we can change the tide of things. I love this too because I can't wait to hear your answer because I feel like you don't vote on anything. Yeah, well, or very little. So I thought a lot about this. I remember when I first understood this concept as a kid, I thought to myself like I'm gonna give money to the companies that have the best ideals and morals and that kind of stuff. And then as I got older, I started to realize that what I need to do is we kind of do this naturally a little bit with more self-awareness, I think we could be more effective though. Buy the stuff that is best. Just that's it, like you want a car? Buy the best car according to your values and be aware of that. If you wanna buy food, buy the food that you value the most but be a little bit self-aware, right? So like, okay, I value this for its nutrition, I value it for its, like if I talk a lot about like grass-fed meat, for example, I wanna make sure I go and buy it so that there's more signals to that market to produce more organic, for example. Organic for sure. Organic was a lot more expensive 10 years ago. Shit, 15 years ago, you couldn't find organic. It still is, but that's a good example of why I still vote by putting my money there. Yes, I know I could save on the chicken breasts that are non-organic by $2 every single time which ends up adding up but I'm spending that extra money because I wanna see that industry grow. Yep, yep, well that was a thing too. I mean like with farmers markets and then being able to like do these, I forget what you call them but like I get like a whole basket of vegetables and things that are locally grown and so my mentality had shifted over the years of like how much can I kind of give back to my local community? And so I'll go down to like, down to Feltin and I'll go down to Santa Cruz and I'm constantly trying to use my dollar to kind of benefit the local businesses in the area as well. Yeah, you know, and again, I think what we want, what we really want in society is we want- In American truck. We want the best people producing our products. What I mean by that is we want the people who can produce them with the best quality for the cheapest price. Now why is that important? Why is cheap price important? Because price is a signal that shows us efficiency and money represents resources and the reason why free markets produce so much wealth and why we have so much food and so much shelter and why we've solved a lot of problems is because the way that we allocate resources is determined by price. If something is expensive, what that means is that there's a low supply of that particular thing and the demand might not be, and the demand may be high. So as the demand is high, more supply goes to that and the price starts to drop. And so I want the best people doing those things. So I think sometimes we get cut up on what people say. So like you have a CEO who's like, this is what I stand for and people are like, oh, I don't want to buy this product, totally fine, totally up to you to make that decision. But for me, I don't care so much about what they say, I care a lot more about what they do and make. You know what I'm saying? So the way I judge a company is by their products, more so than- Their personal values. Yeah, like I'll look at their products and be like, this person is making the best shoes. These shoes are amazing, they're great, they're cheap, they last a long time. So I think they should get them, even though this person may sound like an asshole, I don't care because they're making the best thing, that's what's gonna benefit us. I 100% agree and I find it funny when I hear people that talk shit about Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and then I look at them like, you fucking asshole. You're using all their products. Yeah, you're using all their products and you talk shit about the person, like either one, that shouldn't matter to you because you support them because they're creating superior products for you or two, if you really don't like them that much then you shouldn't buy as fucking products, right? So I think it's really funny when people do that and it's hypocritical. This is also how I've always justified some of the things that other people might think that I spend excessively on, like I have an expensive TV, I drive an expensive car, I have an expensive bed, but these are areas that I value a ton on innovation. I love where we are with television today versus where I was with a kid. Fuck in A, you can hang, it looks like a, it's as light as a picture frame now, but it fits on your wall, it's clear as fuck. Mine is a picture frame now. You feel like you're watching the people in person, it is, and I'm a movie guy. Do you remember how heavy TV, people, you're listening, if you're like under the age of 35, you have no idea how heavy TV is, the tube. Yes, you know what? Your friend trying to get you to move it down three flights a stair. No, so I, we had a 30, the last, you know, heavy TV like that, I had, you know. Do I buy one off you? We, yeah, no, even before that, the heavy, heavy tube ones, and back then the biggest you could get was a 36, a 36 tube TV was way more than that, and awkward and big, we actually, we lived, and we lived on the third floor, we gave it away, whoever would pick it up. That was the deal, we were moving, and I was like, man, I could try sellers for a few hundred, but fuck that, I'm like, I don't want to take it to anybody, so the deal was, if you came and got it out of the house, you could have the fucking thing because it weighed so much. It's like sword in the stone. But these are things that, you know, and I think of, as a kid, I grew up in a hand-me-down bed and had terrible sleep, and, you know, I remember when I first started making a little bit of money and invested in my first, like, $5,000 mattress was a huge deal to me. Holy shit, it changed my life. It changed the way I slept, and so innovation in that area, if we can continue to make better beds that are better, and more support, and give me better sleep, I am all for spending money there, same thing with the TV, same thing for the way I am about my car. And here's the best thing, here's the best thing, because we could definitely try to be self-aware, and okay, where am I spending my money, and all that stuff, and that's important. But really, at the end of the day, if people are healthy, and I mean that in the full sense, the whole sense, we're healthy physically, mentally, spiritually, we have a sense of meaning, then the choices that we're gonna make are gonna be the best. They're gonna be the best choices. We're gonna see less of the stuff that we tend to see that we get mad at, like, you know, why are these social media stars so popular, or why are they making, why is there a liquor store on every corner, if people are healthy, if we just take care of ourselves in the truest sense, the choices that we're gonna make are gonna reflect that, the money is gonna go to the things that are gonna benefit humanity the most, and it's gonna cause the greatest change in the most positive way. So really, be a healthy person, and then your choices will reflect that, and you'll vote in the best way with your dollars, in my opinion. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our resources. We have a lot of free guides and books on there you can go download. Also, check us all out on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, you can find me at Mind Pump Sal, and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.