 Hello everyone, welcome to Mind Pump. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, and in the first half of this episode, we talk about how to mitigate the effects of alcohol, how we personally set New Year's resolutions. I lost 50 pounds. As well as other topics. In the second half of the show, the guy is coached four live callers on questions such as what is the best workout to cut and bulk? How should I program my workouts for in season versus off season training? I'm worried that my upper body is getting over developed compared to my lower body. What should I do? And what's the best way to determine my maintenance calories if I'm more active on some days and less active on others? All right, enjoy the show. All right, check this out. Here are some ways you can mitigate the damage from drinking alcohol. I know New Year's Eve is coming up here. So here's some stuff you can do to help yourself out. Number one, stay hydrated. That includes water and electrolytes. Number two, make sure you eat some food, especially proteins and fats. It helps slow down the absorption of alcohol so you're less likely to get too drunk or too tipsy. And the last one is don't drink too late. People tend to feel worse when they drink and they also lose a lot of sleep. By the way, there are products up out there that promise to help with, you know, some of the negative effects of alcohol. None of them have really been proven. There is one called Zebiotics. This is one of our partners, we work with them. And this is a product that actually helps break down some of the negative byproducts of alcohol. But if you are gonna drink, which is totally fine, if you take those steps, you should feel a lot better than if you didn't. So try to take care of yourself during this New Year season. Didn't I hear somebody criticizing you because your podcast promotes drinking alcohol? That's funny. We don't promote. Because we're puritans. Yeah. We only do fit things. You know what? When you communicate long-term forever health and fitness, you wanna include things that like alcohol, like eating pizza, not working out sometimes because that's reality. And if you wanna develop this lifelong relationship and this balance, because there are benefits, there are some benefits to drinking alcohol. No, I'm not talking about the studies that show that maybe you live longer if you're drinking that. Not the antioxidant ones. I'm not using that angle. Yeah, don't bank on those. But I mean, if you're hanging out with people and you're connecting and you're having fun, like is there value in having the occasional night where you're having a lot of fun with your friends so long as it doesn't go too far or whatever? Yeah, absolutely. There's health benefits to that. Even if there are no longevity benefits to it, there are benefits in the moment. I've had some really good times doing it that way. There's always balance, of course. And then again, you can mitigate some of those negative effects if you do it smart. Like if you drink a lot of alcohol and you're not drinking enough water or you're not having enough, your electrolytes are off or you're on an empty stomach or you start drinking so late that you end up going to bed at 4 a.m. Like it's gonna be a lot worse for you is my point. And there are things you can do to mitigate. And I think if you plan it out properly, you know, you have fun and you end up with some, you know, less of the negative, you know, kind of effect. Yeah, if you can be responsible with it, then you know, it's a great thing to have as a celebration, you know, like especially at New Year's Eve, like I mean, come on. Like it's just one of those things that I think, I think as the fitness community, it's just kind of funny because it's always, they're always looking for like staying on this really rigid path. And I get that for some people, it's like all they can think about is like, I just have to stay on track. I have to stay on track. But you know, life has so many variables in it. If you're not allowing for any flexibility, there's more than likely when you go off the track, it's gonna be a really big leap off. By the way, there's nothing necessarily wrong with being on a path where you have no alcohol so long as it's not a dysfunctional, stressful relationship with it, right? Like, and this is typically people who have a religious practice where they avoid alcohol. And they usually don't have an issue with it, you know, where it can become a problem is you got the bodybuilder who is rigid like that with everything. And so they don't hang out with people, they don't develop relationships, they avoid parties because I gotta make the gains, I gotta make the gains. That's actually not good for your health either. In fact, they show that bad relationships are as bad as smoking cigarettes. So we're not advocating for doing these things. But if you do, there is a way you could do it where it's a healthy relationship and there's definitely a way you can do it where there's an unhealthy relationship. What do you think the percentage of fitness influencers like stress about that? Like that they have put themselves like in a light that, you know, they eat so clean, they're always ripped year-round, they'd never missed workouts and that's what they present on their Instagram all time. And how much stress do you think is caused by not sharing either one lying that that's something that you don't really do, you know, or not saying it or you are doing it and just not talking about it? Like how many, what percentage do you think of them live that kind of a life? Well, I'll say this, you know this. There's a lot of them out there, that's for sure. Well, both you guys know this as well as I do. A lot of these quote unquote fitness people who are like body obsessed, they may not drink because of the calories but they do drugs because there's no calories in the drugs and they will, I mean, you laugh but that's true. I know, I know these people. I mean, how many times exactly? Like, no, no, I don't want to drink because, you know, it's got the alcohol on the shirt. Oh, gross, no, give me that cocaine. Yeah, but I'll do these other drugs because there's zero calories. That always leads me out so good. Yeah. Yeah, I can't run a mile. Yeah, but no, I mean, my point is that it's like, there's a healthy and an unhealthy relationship with stuff and it could be anything. I mean, you could have an unhealthy relationship with exercise. You could be orthorexic with diet. Well, here's the program giveaway for today's episode maps strong. This is a strong man inspired workout program. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications. If we declare you the winner, we'll let you know in the comment section that you got free access to Map Strong. Also, one day left for the December special, the at home holiday bundle, which includes maps anywhere, map suspension, maps prime, and the no BS six pack formula. That bundle special is ending in 24 hours. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below to get set up. All right, here comes the show. So what do you guys, do you guys have any plans for New Year's Eve? Are you gonna like figure out, like going to a party or is it just kind of low key? Doug and I are partying in Tahoe. Nice. What do you mean Doug and you? Doug and I will be up. Well, you won't be there. He's gonna be, he's bailing on it. It's supposed to be all of us, but I mean, you decide to have another kid. Yeah. And then this guy is. You say like it was a bad trade. Like a slight. This guy is leaving the country. So yeah, it's gonna be Doug and I hanging out and partying. It's my also my sister's birthday. Save a kiss for me. You know, Cassie's birthday is New Year's Eve. Oh, cool. It's her 40th. Is it? Oh, no way. Oh wow, it's a big deal. Yeah, so it's her 40th, so we'll be out there. She'll be, I think her and my brother have got a place that I think in South Lake, they're gonna be on the lake. We'll be at our place, but we'll come over and visit. You know what the challenge is with a lot of challenges, but one of it with this, what the challenge with kids is, and you learn this as a first time parent, I'm sure you figure this out, Adam, where if you go to bed late, your kid still wakes up early the next day. So it's like, you know, when you have kids like, oh yeah, we'll go to bed at three and we'll just sleep in and we'll sleep the whole day. No, no, your two year old or whatever is gonna still wake up early, is gonna still need you to be there. So it sucks. So you can't do the whole sleep in thing. Now, are you guys the type to plan on what your New Year's resolution is? Do you not even do that? Or do you on a whim come up with it on the day? Like, are you thinking, do you think about this? No, never do that. Oh, interesting. Never. How about you, Doug? I'm sorry, I was- You were not paying attention. You were watching Pornhub. Yeah, I always say that about Doug. You say planning like New Year's? Yeah, so are you the type, Kay, that is already thinking about what your New Year's resolution is gonna be? Or are you the type that just doesn't do anything about it? Or are you the type that like, oh, on the day of you'll come up with something, like how much thoughts can you put around it? Generally speaking, I don't make direct plans. I mean, I like to plan for the coming year, like we do our quarterly planning, right? So that would be part of that. But this year, I have been moved to say that I want to take off a little bit of weight that I've added over the holidays here. Yeah, yeah. I've gotten a little bit lax with my eating plan. And I put on a little extra fluff. What is a little extra? I mean, I'd like to take off 10 pounds. Really 10 for you? You don't look like your 10 pounds over late to me. Well, I hide it well. Adam's all 15, 20, but yeah. Yeah, it's a 6, seem more like 30 maybe. That's easy 10 pounds. You look good right now, I feel. Yeah, you drop 10 pretty easily. I can, but I have to basically focus on it though because lately I've been going out to eat every week and having some wine and things like that. So I really have to get through the weekend in particular, without going too crazy. Yeah, yeah. I don't make, I never do the whole New Year's Resort, probably because I've worked in the fitness space and it just seems so silly. Yeah. I do make goals, but it's never like, oh, it's the time to do it, is because at the beginning of the year, it's like an arbitrary date. Yeah, I mean, I. I'm kind of cynical about it, I guess. I mean, I think we all are a little tainted because of the space, right? But I do, like, I, like. Every year at the beginning of the year you do? Yeah, but I think, so I think about it earlier. Like, I typically know that, like, I'm heading into New Year's coming at the end of this month and what are some things that I potentially want to, you know, make change in my life going into next year? And so I start thinking about that early. Now, I don't make like this, it's like this big New Year's, you know, deal. But I like that it, everybody is talking about it and thinking about it this time. And so it just kind of gives me an excuse of, hey, you know what? There's some things that I want. I've been wanting to make a change. What is it this year? Or do you not want to talk about it? No, it's not Palli. I actually really want to, and I'm a little more specific, like Doug's like, oh, I want to lose 15 pounds. I'm like. He said 10, by the way. There's a. Maybe 15. This is starting to creep up. It's starting to creep up through. Doug wants to lose like 50 pounds. He's underhanded it. It's really, really needs to, you know. Little passive. I just told Katrina the other day that I really want to get our night routine in check. And I think that will actually result in better fitness and all those things. I have, I'm really, and more so. And that's what I like. I try and look at something like that. You know, I have moments where I'm pretty good at it. And I would say I'm really bad right now with my night routine. It's really off inconsistent on what time I'm going to bed. I've also been watching TV. There's a lot of good series on that I'm into. So that's my excuse of why I've been watching TV late. And I've gotten, which has also made me fall out of, you know, doing audio books with Katrina. So I really want to hone in on my night routine. And then I think that it will trickle into, you know, more workouts, better fitness, reading more growth. Like, so that's kind of what I'm. If you do your workout in the morning, your night routine will come together. You have to. I mean, you're right. Is that's the only reason why I have a schedule? And I've considered this, right? So I've considered doing that. But I also, just like with the advice that we give, I give myself like small, obtainable, realistic goals. If getting my shit together in the night results in me getting better nights rest and I wake up earlier, then maybe I'll start to, that'll be the next level to push that. But I, that's- That's the only reason why I have a night routine. I know it. So I know I have to work out the next day. That is one of the things I used to like about the times, the periods in my life where I have made working out in the morning of a thing. I'm exhausted, come six, seven o'clock at night. I'm yawning and I'm tired. And so it kind of makes the going down early a lot easier. So we'll see. That's my focus. I feel like I'm in a perpetual goals. I always have, like if I don't have something like all year round, like some new thing that I'm kind of focused on, and I get like stir crazy and it just bothers a shit out of me. So it's like to pinpoint something for the actual year of next year is like it's just all just rolls into the next year. I think that's a good, I think I do the same thing. Yeah. Like, but I think that because it's New Year's and everybody's talking about it, I tend to make sure that I have something. Like it's like, I'm always got little goals that I'm always kind of adjusting throughout the year micro adjustments of like, oh, I need to focus on this right now. But I start thinking about it right before. You know, what's interesting about this is that cause New Year's resolutions tend to be lofty goals, like lofty things. People tend to- Yeah, I think that's a mistake. Huge mistake. Yeah, I think it's a mistake. Could you imagine if every year it was just something small, like the compounding effect that it would have with people? Because I think the big thing that people need to realize is when you're feeling motivated and a change of year tends to do that because it feels like a new, by the way, it's arbitrary. Like it's 2023, that's an arbitrary, okay, the sun is a different place in the sky or whatever. But for some reason, it makes people feel like it's a fresh start and they get this kind of, they feel motivated. And then when you feel motivated, you make goals that you will not keep when you're not motivated. That's the thing you need to remember. So this is exactly, Sal, how I came to the night routine thing. It's like, okay, I have these things and I'm like, oh, I want to get shredded. Oh, maybe basketball. I have all these other things that are like big, kind of loftier goals that I want. And then how I distilled that down to my night routine is like, I figured like, okay, what is the one simple thing that I can attack that will move in the direction of all these things that I want to do? And let's just drill that. Like, and that is like, I know that that is what I'm messing up the most right now that I know how important it is. And it's like, if I do that and I hit that out the park, most likely it'll lead to my better fitness which will also lead to the physique that I want to get which then might lead to me playing more basketball, doing those things, which will lead to me more, so it's like, I distilled it all the way down even though I have all these other big goals, instead of overwhelming myself, it's like, okay, well, what one big thing can I do that will move in that direction? And then I'll build on that after I like hit it out the park, like, okay. And then I'll start saying, now it's like morning workouts, let's do that. And okay, maybe I'm gonna get shredded now and then I'll add on to that later on. It's interesting to think about is I could, I'll ask you guys a similar question for the last year, like at the beginning. So I did kind of like make a loose goal of last year of like, you know, one thing that I knew was a bit of a toxic thing that I was introducing to myself and like it was bleeding into a lot of different things, like just like consuming a lot of like political pages information and just like inundating myself with all like the current things because I felt like we were like reporting a lot during like the, you know, the COVID hysteria and all this stuff. And so the beginning this year, I was like, nope, I'm just gonna cut myself from this page and this page and this page. And then, you know, that because I didn't wanna bring that home and talk about it and like, you know, vent. And I kept venting about all this stuff going on. And I started to hear my kids picking up on it and they were like, you know, reciting stuff that I had like been telling Courtney and I'm just like, dude, this is not good. And then too, I was having conflict with, you know, my brother, my parents and like we're trying to like mend our family. And then like, so just eliminate all that. And it's been like an amazingly different change. I love that. I think that's so powerful because you can, you have the power to alter and manipulate and change your social media feed. And so if you consciously unfollow, if you look at something go, you know, this isn't really doing me any good. And I tend to get pissed off from this or whatever, unfollow, unfollow, unfollow, block, whatever. Cause here's what happens. What you expose yourself to most often becomes your reality and it skews your view of the world, right? So if what you're looking at is pissing you off because oh my gosh, I can't believe how crazy these people are or how crazy this thing is. And this is what you're consuming. That becomes your reality even though, Jessica does this to me all the time. She's really good at this. She'll say, Sal, how many times have you ran into someone like that in real life? Yeah. And I'll be like, but they're out there. She'll say, okay, but how many times have you actually, I'm like, yeah, you're right because I feel like this is everywhere because that's what I'm consuming. But the reality is you go about your day, how many of those people do you see on a regular basis? Or how many of those actual conversations do you have? Or do you see, right? So it's super rare. Yeah, very rare. It's no different than following a bunch of, like there's fitness garbage that's out there. And part of that garbage are the body obsessed. Like they're basically selling their bodies, like how sexy and how hot I am and how whatever. If that's all you look at subconsciously, you are creating a reality in which that's the norm and you will compare yourself to that. And that is gonna make you feel like crap. You could be fit, but now you don't look fit or you don't feel like you're fit because what you see most of are these impossible photoshopped, chemically enhanced, whatever you wanna call them, bodies. And that's what you're exposed to. When in reality, if you shut that off and you just walked around the real world, you'd be like, oh, this is what people look like. But your brain doesn't know that. It becomes a subconscious thing. And it's funny that you said that because, in fact, I just tweeted this this morning, which is if you're easily offended, you are easily manipulated. That is how the way you manipulate people, this is through marketing manipulation, this is through political manipulation, this is through just manipulation in general, is through strong emotion. So if you feel a strong, and marketers know this, if they can make you, they call it pain points, right? They can make you angry, sad, whatever, right? They can invoke emotion in you, then they can get you to buy their product. So consider that, that if you are consuming stuff that is invoking these types of emotions, you are now in a state that makes you far more likely to be manipulated. And the worst part of this is, you are not aware. This is what you have to tell yourself is, if you're being manipulated, you're not aware of it. And you have to assume that you are. Assume that, and I remember catching myself on some of these political pages myself where they would take something and share it to make the other side look so crazy, and then realize that that is like, they are searching for the craziest thing that they could find to evoke an emotion out of you. Yes, yes. And then I'm like, wait a minute, that's not like most people don't feel that way. Like that's not what's really going on. Yeah, they did a study on that, and they found that social media posts, or whatever, or these pages, don't change anybody's minds politically, but they do make people less tolerant, and more likely to hate other views. That's what they do. They don't make you think differently, they make you hate more, and that's the big problem. So I think that what you said is a big deal. Do you think that, because I feel like I'm starting to hear this message more consistently from people, do you think that the cat's already out of the bag, or the toothpaste is already out of the tube, it's too late that people are already crazy, like so addicted, and it's going in that direction that we're not gonna swing back, or do you feel like more and more people are becoming aware of how toxic social media can be, and the behaviors that come from that, and the thoughts, and we're gonna become more protective of our thoughts and our time, or do you think it's too late? Do you think that- Is culture really gonna shift? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, like are we in the middle of that right now, or are we still on the end of it? That's a good question, because there's micro level in the macro level, and social media is new, but what social media represents is not new. That used to be was mob mentality. So before social media existed, it was crowds. People, this is fascinating by the way, if you ever wanna like blow your mind, read about the behaviors of humans in crowds versus on their own. What's the name of that study? It's a famous study. I don't know about the specific study. You're talking about the one where like the dancing one, right? That's just one example. There's a lot of studies on this. Yeah, but I thought there was a name for that. I thought there was a name for that, Doug? I'm not sure. You know what I'm talking about, right? There's a study where they like show somebody who's like dancing all by themselves, and then how- Oh, I know what you're talking about. And then you put like a group, or the other example is the doctor's office where- Everybody looks away. Yeah, and the elevator, everybody turns a certain way, like there's- People start following along. But there's a name for that study, I thought. Yeah, I think you're right. I'll look for it. But anyway, nonetheless, it's like people who would never damage property on their own, in mobs, all of a sudden become hyper, you know, violent. People who would never hurt people, or hit people, or say things, all of a sudden do so because of the mob. So there's this collective psychological phenomena, collective mental illness that happens with mobs. And what social media is, is an extension of it. So why am I saying this? If you wanna know, are we gonna get better or worse, just look at history. And we tend to go up and down, but over the, over history, over the period of time, it seems like we trend better. Like it seems like we figured things out. Like the way people acted 150 years ago in many ways, would seem atrocious today in some ways. So we tend to get better, but within that macro are these micro cycles of shit going crazy. Like what did people think? What are they doing? So I totally subscribe to that. And I've always said that, that the pendulum just swings back and forth. And I think that overall, we will get better. So that's the part I'm most curious about is where in the cycle are we? Are we still on the hockey stick bottom spiking up of craziness with social media? Or are we reaching the top and we're peeking and now potentially coming back to the other end? Like where, if you guys had to guess, I mean, I guess one of the ways to look at it, maybe Andrew Doug could look it up is like growth of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube and Facebook use. I mean, that would give you a- Yeah, but is it being replaced by something else? And I don't know, like what I would look at- Of course it's being replaced with something else. Well, what I mean is I would look at not necessarily social media, but mental illness. Is it on the rise? Well, no, that's, now you're correlating those without, that's not, a better indicator would just be purely are more people spending more time on those platforms. But my point with what I said with mental illness is, okay, let's say 50% drop in social media use, but people are acting crazier and worse. It doesn't matter. So my point with that is, what matters is human behavior and what's happening with us. And that's the trend that I would look at. Social media just represents new technology. That's not fair either, because the people could be depressed and acting out and doing those things because of other factors. That's not, you can't just all of a sudden say, oh, suicides up, therefore it's related to social media. Do I think that's a big indicator? Yes, I do. I think a much more clear way to look at it is just purely, are we spending more time on these platforms? Yeah, but you're putting more weight on, I mean, you're putting all the weight on social media. I mean, I think that it plays a role. That's the point of the argument though. Yeah, I do think it plays a role, but what's the role that it plays? How much of a role is it gonna play? And that's what I'm trying to say is like, what do we look at? Okay, social media use is down. Are we noticing positive or negative effects or no effects? I think that, I don't know, that's a good question. I have no idea. My point is that I think that the consensus is that social media is a powerful tool. Lots of people have made businesses and money off it, but I feel like the, and I could be wrong, the majority are becoming more aware of the negative ramifications of becoming addicted to it using it all the time. And realizing it's been weaponized. Yeah, and so therefore, because that's becoming a bigger conversation, are people self-regulating and starting to spend less time. So along those lines, here's what I think blows my mind, is that we do know that we're being manipulated. We do know that social media is not what they say it is. We're figuring it out now. And here's the crazy part. Still don't care. People don't care. That's why I'm at a loss, because I wanna think that there's a good high majority of people that are realizing how far we've gotten in terms of really just being manipulated in general, just by following these pages and these algorithms that get you to feel a certain feeling. And it's reading human behavior at a level that I think it's never been done before. And also too, finding out that there's government agencies that have been involved with the manipulation. That's exactly what I was thinking right now. Yeah, and nobody cares. And nobody cares. Nobody's upset. Nobody's out on the streets like you fucked with us. Nobody's saying that. Bro, the FBI paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor people that they told to censor, people who talked about- Bro, if we didn't care about JFK, what way do you think you're gonna kill him? Bro, that news was crazy. Like the apathy level is insane to me. That's just recently came out. Like Twitter manipulation is one thing, but if you don't care about the FBI, CIA being involved with JFK, and the proof is now there, and we're not like in a- The CIA basically- And again, I'm not like- I try not to be all conspiracy guy all the time, but like there's been literal scyops. There's ways they've manipulated governments and elections elsewhere. It's like, why did you think that that couldn't happen here? Why are people so naive? Well, I think a lot of people did think that, but they were labeled conspiracy theory. In fact, isn't that where conspiracy theory- They got invented from JFK, right? Yeah, the irony of that. That's right. The CIA created the term to make people who questioned what happened sound crazy. Right, to disrespect them. Get rid of skeptics. Skepticism is evil. You know what's funny? So the CIA was created because of the Cold War and we created a monster. It operates outside of the confines of the Constitution. Is that what it was created? It was created to, because of the threat of thermonuclear war. And what we did is we created a monster. I was under the impression it was older than that. I didn't know that. No, find out. You can look up, you know, but it was- It basically operates outside of the government. It operates and their intended goal is to protect- It's supposed to, right? Supposed to. So they do all kinds of shit that, like the stuff that we know about is wild, bro. You guys know Operation Northwoods? Yeah. I told you guys about that. Well, just the accounting was the Pentagon, like how many billions of dollars were unaccounted for? Yes, in 1943, 1947. So you're looking at the end of World War II, we had nuclear superpowers. The Soviets obviously figured out how to make nukes and it was this big arms race or whatever. So basically their job was, hey, let's prevent us from getting vaporized. But the Soviet Union fell and the CAA is not going anywhere. It's a monster. It's not going anywhere and it's wild, bro. The FBI, do you know how much the FBI was used? By the government to fuck with people. Martin Luther King and other celebrities. Like this is all confirmed by the way. None of this is like, you know what you're saying. This is all like stuff that they've said yes. This is, you know, I think it was the FBI. Didn't they lose a case? I think it was the family of Martin Luther King maybe look the sub-duck, sued the FBI and won because the FBI was found at fault. So back to why we, why do we not care enough, including myself? Is it because we've been conditioned to believe that, oh well, if the government did something crazy like that, it was probably for our best. Is that why? Why is that not freaking everybody out or getting everybody so angry? This is human behavior. The Romans knew this. So yeah, what part of the human behavior is this? If you entertain them, what do they call it? That's like the, what is it? I saw a clip actually on that like kind of, someone was comparing it. Oh, bread and circuses and bread. Yeah. Circus and bread. Keep them fed and keep them entertained and nobody gives a shit. Nobody cares. So like, oh my God, all this crazy stuff happening. And you're like, yeah, you know, I'm cool. I'm making money. I guess I'm all right. It's wild when you think of it like that because you see the amount of attention and money like sports garners. I mean, you talk about, I mean, we just had the World Cup and you talk about, you know, World Series and Super Bowls and the amount of sports that we consume, like how much. Well, that was why the tension was so high during COVID. It's like we're locked down, all this, they got rid of sports, like they got rid, like they weren't making movies. Like people were just like, ah, you know, like prime to go to the streets and fuck shit up. I didn't even think about that. That is totally true. Dude, and every cause that was out there was a leaderless cause or their leaders were totally manipulated. Everybody's stalled by his money. Like everybody had good intentions going into a lot of these major causes that got them upset. But then completely, you know, if you look at what happened as a result, like they got totally manipulated. Okay, so while we're on the conversation of weird human behavior that we can't wrap our brains around, here's another one. I can't wrap my brain around. Only fans. Hear me out. The biggest winner out of the last few years. Hear me out, yes, exactly. One of the, like the amount of money that they're making is crazy. When you, so, and this is the part that's interesting to me. When you see what the access that you have on Pornhub, okay, you basically have free unlimited porn at your fingertips and anybody can have that. You also have social media where now, you know, the opposite sex can be half naked and still get away with it. So what is it? What's the allure of it? Yes, what is it that makes me pay $8.99 a month to have access to this individual that's sharing basically? Do you feel like it's personal? It has to be. It has to be a personal level. Is that what it is? It has to be. That's the only answer. I, it's so funny when people, you know, talk about like, oh, men do this, men do that. And I'm always like, man, man, man. Here's the one thing that embarrasses a shit at me. Cause you know dudes that are paying for this week. What are you doing? They're paying for fart jars and foot fetishes. How big of a, like a loser do you have to be? I just, there was this one girl, there was this article written about this one girl. Men would pay her on only fans. You ready for this? This is what she would do to get paid, act dead. What? She would, she put the camera on and then lay down and they pay her to do that. Yeah, I know you're all shy. I mean, I know somebody who makes, let's flag back. Her husband takes photos of her feet and it's just all her feet and people pay only fans, a monthly fee, just to see her feet. You don't let it like quit and tear it, you know. But I mean, what's so weird about that? Okay, she's not building a relationship with those people. She's not even communicating really with those people. And you could Google feet and get millions of feet to look at. Why do I pay $8.99 to see her feet when I don't have a relationship with her? Yeah, but is she saying something back? No. Oh, thank you for the money. She's doing Morse code with like, with her toes? Yeah. That's what I, that's the support that I don't understand. Serial with her toes. By the way. How many of these people really do believe that they're getting that excited? Who was it we were talking to, right? We overheard an interview of somebody who has a massive only fans page and they have an assistant who, it was a girl who says she hired a gay assistant who he just sits on there and answers and communicates to all the people. And it's not even, it's not even her. It's not even really her. And people still pay. People are like. I guarantee her membership didn't fall off after she came out and said that. So what the fuck? Yeah, I don't get it. It's strange. There's a lot of, a lot of losers. I mean, it's really, see. I also don't get feet by the way. That's a weird one to me. Feet are gross. What are you doing? Anyway. Preach the choir. Yeah, I don't understand that. I never understood that. Has someone ever broke that down? I don't know if I've ever heard anyone break that down. It's a common. It's the same guy. There's gotta be a reason for it though, right? It's a common fetish, his feet. So do you don't think it shows, it has something to do with your evolutionary theories? I can't figure that. It's definitely an imprint. Like someone who has really good looking feet that are well taken care of. No, because healthy feet, evolutionarily speaking, look, the toes are spread out. You got a thick pad underneath. Those aren't the feet making money. They're all muscular and like. Yeah, those are evolutionarily speaking. If you saw in nature, this was a thousand years ago, and you saw a girl with cute little whatever type of feet, you'd be like, oh, something's wrong with that girl. What's wrong with her feet? She's not gonna last long. Yeah, she can't even walk a mile. What are you finding over there, Doug? Yeah, I'm researching this OnlyFans thing. It said, many said the basis for subscribing was to support the creators and avoid the exploitative side effect of the porn industry. Bullshit. You're all good Samaritans. One user wrote, I want my money to go to hot women, not sleazy porn producers. Free range, farm to table, organic, fair trade porn, said another. I don't think a lot of people realize how unethical and exploitative free porn can be. So how much do you have to lie to yourself? These guys are saints. How much do you have to lie to yourself? Like think about the cognitive dissonance that these people are. Why do you pay for this? Because I like supporting good people and I hate the porn industry. It's terrible. I love the independent, you know. I mean at what point do you consider it? Do I consider what? OnlyFans. What do you mean? Like what, what has to happen? Like when are you gonna go on there? What has to happen for me to go on there? Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay, and feet. Just your feet, bro. Put my feet on there? Why not? My family's starving. Okay. Has to be like that. Like I'm like looking at my kids and they're like, they're already starving? They're almost dead? Or are you like, okay, you've lost everything. The bank counts drained. Bro, I am doing all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, they were like chopping wood and, you know. Chopping wood. And regular shit. I'm prize fighting. I can think of a million different things I can do. Do I take that much for you, Doug? Nobody wants to look at my feet to begin with. Yeah, probably. Really? I feel like you would have well manicured, taken care of feet and that would be a pretty easy money maker for you. What the hell are you? Well, it really depends on the dollar amount, Adam. Oh, okay. I mean, you could probably convince me of this. I feel like I could close you. It's so weird. What is this? Do you do like a dual foot thing? Yo, yeah. I mean, whatever. I'll oil them up. And our tango or toes together. Oh, no. That's Justin. That's Justin's thing. Oh, no. That's disgusting. Hey, the price is right. That's so gross. That is so tug of war. Isn't it, but isn't that really interesting? I find that really fascinating that you have access to all of this. And by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a large percentage of the guys paying that don't have a lot of extra disposable income. It's really weird, right? I would have thought it would have destroyed the pay for part of that market. Because when we were kids, I've said this before, but it's true. Like in the early 90s, if you were 13, 14 years old and you had a dirty magazine, okay? I swear to God, you could get a kid to give you his bike for it. That's how hard it was to come by stuff like that. I can't believe in today's market where it's flooded with anything for free that anybody would even pay. That's really crazy to me. Yeah, there has to be some really unique quality to it. I don't think so. Yeah, that's the thing. I don't understand. That would be the only allure I would think. I think it's, I honest to God, I swear to God, I think, because what Doug read is my shirt. Well, here's another thing. It says the main draw of OnlyFans is the personalized one-to-one interaction. It's fake relationship. You know what this is a sign of? How fucking lonely people are right now. People are so damn lonely that they're paying people to just pretend to talk to them or to like them. That's how, that's what's going on right now. I'll be honest though. Like if I had to do it, like I want to be the one that like shames people, dude. But it would be the only fabric talk shit. You dirty piece of shit. Oh, you want to be that one? That's the thing. Nobody is like, I like to do. That's the thing, what's it, what's it, what's it called? It's called some, it's like we're like, there's guys that pay for girls to like talk down to them. Yeah, maybe it's like, talk about how small you're a loser. Oh yeah, you're just pathetic. And the guy's like, yeah. Oh my God, that's so sad. It's like cool. I feel so bad. Jess is like, I could do that. I could do that. I could do that. I feel so bad. Adam would do the flexing stuff for sure. Oil. Oil. By the way, I passed on it. I had that opportunity. That muscle worship thing was something that I got offered. I didn't, I did do it. It was too weird. No, no, it wasn't too weird. It wasn't enough money. I, I said, you're right. It's not enough money. It's right. I'm with Doug. If it was the right, right. I'm like, oh, it's a little bit of flexing. A little bit of toe, toe playing with Doug. I could do that for him at the right price. You know, I flex anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, who cares? Put the camera on. Yeah, anyway. I don't know, it's crazy. It's sad. It's because people are lonely, dude. That's sad. What are the stats on it? So I heard that. Loneliness has exploded. Like bad. Exploded. So interesting too, in a time where we have the ability to stay connected and be connected to people in a virtual sense, better than we ever did. It's a fake connection. You know what it reminds me of? I mean, I think that's, I think that's part of it, right? Is that I think we're fooled into thinking that we're, we're, we're more connected than we ever been. And oh, I talked to my friends more than my, my dad talked to his friends like, I'm better connected when in reality. One real visit in person for an hour is, I would, that'd be interesting to see the comparison on that, on a, on a, like what the, how, how that plays. They both produce dopamine, but only real connection or person, like, like when we're physically seeing each other produces the oxytocin. So you're getting half of the effect. So think about it this way. I actually heard, I was listening to, I don't remember who was saying this. You will especially touch, right? I mean, that's, that's definitely. So this was brilliant. I actually, I actually thought this was really smart. Think about like you were, when you were a teenager, right? You're 15 years old, 16 years old, even I forget as an adult, it takes energy to get off the couch, put on some clothes, you know, look presentable, go out, put yourself out there, meet people. It's really vulnerable because they're in front of you, right? So, but what drives you to do that? Well, they're bored. There's nothing to do at home, right? So if you're a kid and you're like, part of that is like sexual drive. Well, if you're a young man, you've got the sexual drive and there's really not, it'll drive you to go out and meet people and talk to people. But if you're at home on your computer, watching pornography, playing video games, talking to people, you might not, it takes away that drive to do the thing that you actually need to do. And so people are, it's literally, it's like when we introduce processed food into our diets. Yeah, we're eating, but we're less healthy. Doug pulled up a chart. So first of all, explain the chart. So it's like, okay, so the two, basically they broke it up in two categories. How often you feel lonely, often always some of the times or hardly never. And it looks like more people would claim to feel lonely 50% of the time or more, is that what I'm talking about? Well, this is Brazil. Oh, you're on Brazil. So Brazil is at the top of the chart. As far as lonely. As far as lonely. And who's the best? Well, if you go down the chart, and I don't think we have all countries in Netherlands is way down there. So like 15% are feeling like I often feel lonely. What's the, isn't Netherlands like a socialist? Aren't they all like community driven? Like what's their... No, they're very free market. But are they free market? Yeah. Netherlands, yeah. I don't know that. They are, their culture definitely encourages social interaction. There's a lot of trust in their society. Well, that's the sign, right? I mean, Brazil gets super sunny, you know, like Carnival, like I wonder what... Why they're so lonely. Yeah, what shifted. I mean, is that a massive shift as of late? Cause it seems like the more countries that get less sun and... Well, look, I'll tell you something right now. Along those lines, children, so adolescents and teenagers, the depression, anxiety, drug abuse and suicide rate has been going up steadily since the 2012, 2013. It's been rising. The pandemic, it dramatically accelerated. Okay, to the point where this is like alarm bells are going off. In fact, I have a friend that's a therapist and he told me during the pandemic and after, he's like, we have wait lists. He goes, it's crazy. What happened? We isolated kids from each other. We kept them from going to school, speech problems, social interaction problems. And then what happens is, and Arthur Brooks talks about this with happiness, when you're feeling anxious, depressed and lonely, what you wanna do is not go around anyone, not talk to anyone. He goes, you have to do the exact opposite of that. So it's created this negative feedback loop. Like depression and suicide in kids was almost non-existent. Now you're seeing like 12 year olds and 13 year olds like commit suicide and shit, it's crazy. It's crazy what's ended up happening. It's all because of loneliness. Yeah, it'd be really neat to see who's dug into this because that's a big difference. Japan and Netherlands compared to say Brazil and some of the other ones that were, it looks like America's kind of middle top. Yeah, the US is in the middle. We have about 31% reporting that they're often always or sometimes lonely. I bet we're actually not as, I mean, we're bad, but we're not as bad as some like Brazil. That's really bad. I bet you, I bet you, if you look at statistics of people that have a spiritual practice, I bet the loneliness is far less. And not because of the God aspect, but you can argue that if that's what you believe. I think it's because weekly they meet up in person with lots of other people and that. So in other words, today in modern times, in order to be fit and healthy, you have to schedule movement because daily life is not conducive to it. I believe that today and moving forward, if you want to avoid loneliness, you're gonna have to structure it because it ain't gonna happen naturally. More people work from home. And when they do go to work, they're in the cubicles on the computers, not really working together. People are ordering groceries to their house, people are not going to the store, everything's coming to their house. So I feel like you're gonna have to figure out a practice where you're with people, otherwise you're gonna suffer. You gotta immerse yourself again. Yeah, otherwise you're gonna suffer from some of the stuff. And that takes some work because it can make you anxious or awkward or whatever. Anyway, really crazy. All right, I'm gonna pull up some funny ads from the past. We're gonna change the tone here. Won't you talk about one of our partners first? Oh, we are supposed to talk about OrganiFi, still getting great reviews for peak power, still getting super great. So I've now seen over a dozen, personal, so these are people who are DMing me. Over a dozen people have DMed me and said that they've replaced their pre-workout with peak power because it makes them, they don't get the crash, they don't feel the crappiness. And they use less caffeine and get the same driving effect. I knew it was gonna do well as soon as I saw the forum. The forum are like the most critical fans we have. They're the first ones to tell us something. They are the first to shit on something or something about the show they don't like or a product or what about that. So I've seen nothing but positive stuff come out of there. So that's a really good sign because they are definitely critical for sure. So here's some ads from a long time ago which I think is pretty funny. So this first one Doug pulled up, this is a two-thake drops with cocaine. It was a little kid. Give your kid instantaneous cure. Tooth hurt. Yeah, here's some cocaine. And then there's a- And these are real? So they're real ads from a while ago, obviously. So that one, I believe, was at the turn of the century. Well, the century before the last one. All right, here's one. So this shows you just how different. Can you shrink that? This shows you how weird things have gotten. This is an old ad for a- Other way. You could categorize it as a supplement for adults and for children. And the ad says it makes children and adults as fat as pigs. Now you would think, why the hell would they advertise that? Yeah. Back then, people, food was hard to come by. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you wanted your- Society of wealth famine. Yeah, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna give my kid this so we could fatten him up. Pretty crazy, right? And then here's a good one right here. This is a table pad to prevent your table from getting burned. Do you think that was the original driver of the obesity rise? Do you think that the original driver was, we went from this transition from food being really scarce and it being a sign of wealth and prosperity to be fat. And during that transition, when more and more people had access to it, there was this rush to go consume as much as you- Horde as much as possible. Yeah, so you felt wealthy and prospered. Do you think that was like- No, I think because then the times changed and then- Because we didn't have as, back then when that transition happened, we didn't have like super highly processed foods. It was a processed foods that did it. People, it was convenient. It's- I mean, that's what's centered over the top that we were, it was on the rise even back then though, no? Before, if you go into the 50s and 60s when we were becoming much more prosperous, obesity was not common. It wasn't that common. It wasn't, it didn't exist in children, that's for sure. You know what? I wanted to ask you about a tweet you did that I saw somebody clap back at you and I didn't see you responding. I wanted to ask you because you made a comment about something about what's happened and I think it was around either loneliness or depression or something like that since COVID and somebody made a smart ash remark back to you that, oh, you mean back to where it was in 2018 or something. Did you see that? Yeah, so- Remind me what, which one it was. So I can't remember specifically, but I said something like- I'm going to your thing right now. Like how we really messed up kids because we were, adults didn't act like adults. We were, you know, because adults are supposed to be, we're supposed to be courageous, we're supposed to make the right decisions and what ended up happening is we allowed our fear to dictate policies that hurt our kids. We allowed hysteria to completely take over the landscape. And it didn't make sense. Like for example- Oh, right here, here it is, Sal. So you said it's no coincidence that teenage suicide, depression, anxiety and mental illness have exploded over the last few years at rates we've never seen before. The cowardly policies and actions we force upon children during the pandemic caused this. Shame on us. And then someone said by exploited, do you mean it's still less than in 2018? Weird. Stupid. That's wrong, first of all. And what it is, so I know exactly what you're talking about. So you know what's weird? When people make comments like that, I'll go and look at their profile and whoever that was has like one follower. And I'm like, oh, this is not a real account. And now that we know, now with these Twitter files, I think that they're designed to counter- Oh, you're right. This was somebody- Fake. This person has zero followers and they're following only you. Yep, it's fake. It's a fake account. That's kind of weird. No, it's not. It's not weird. We know exactly what they're doing. So what they do is they try to- Counter-information. Correct, 100%. So that sounds like a good point. Somebody who's not gonna go read up on it- Wow, that's so wild because I was actually, I saw that. And I thought, oh, that's really interesting that Sal didn't freaking- No, I looked at him and I saw that they were fake. Wow. So what- Dude, that is so wild. Because if you don't take the time to educate yourself or whatever, you'll read that and be like, oh, well, it's not worse than it wasn't before the pandemic. False, false, not true. The pandemic, the policies that we enacted during the pandemic with children, keeping them out of school, forcing young children to wear masks, which is completely useless because there's a protocol to using a mask and a five-year-old is not gonna do that. So it's a total waste of time. Those two things alone, isolating them from each other and from whatever, the fear that was implicit in how we were behaving. It's a visible distrust is what they created on everybody. We damaged our children so badly because of our own cowardly fear because we were just spineless. People, adults were just spineless. Oh no, when we knew for a fact, within six months, this is not a disease that really hurts children. And also, anybody who made the point was like, wait, we're making five-year-olds wear masks. Like, don't they touch their faces and take them off? It's like, isn't that a waste of time? No, no, no, no. Makes us feel better. Makes us feel safe, whatever. Ridiculous. And we really hurt these kids. And if you think about it, if you were seven when this all went down, you were nine when it was over. That's two years of your young life. That's a big chunk of your life. To think that we didn't traumatize children with this crap is insane. I'm over here still tripping out that this looks like a real account that only has one follower that actually followed you and just to counter what you were saying. That's so crazy to me. They're there specifically. Disinformation, misinformation. Correct. I mean, those are definite tools at their disposal that they used. I mean, I had no idea of that, right? So it's kind of wild that we talk about this. This is coming from all the fact-checkers out there. It's just like it's all wrapped into the same thing. Yeah, it's a big pure manipulation. It's a big propaganda machine. And it sucks because you're put in a weird position, which is also bad, where if people start thinking that they can't trust anyone, that's also a very bad place to be. Very bad place to be. So I don't know what the answer is to all of that. But yeah, that's why I didn't comment. Because now I look, and if I see you got no followers and you're just following me or you just created your account. See, I almost feel like you should almost say that. Like you should start that going forward. Thanks, robot. I just block them. Well, yeah, but nobody else. Because here I am. Yeah, you're right. I should say so. And we're really close. I actually thought, I'm surprised Sal didn't put him in his place. And I didn't know why you didn't put him in his place. That's why I wanted to bring it up. I didn't go as far to go, oh, let me see how the picture looks like a legitimate dude. It doesn't, because sometimes like the bot ones are obvious to me. And obviously they're getting... Bro, they're really good. Yeah, they're getting better about this because you could, in the past, I feel like, oh, right away you see no picture. That's like, it has a real guy's face, which obviously it's probably not that person, but I don't know that. And I just see a comment like that and go, oh wow, I wonder why Sal didn't. And then I click on it and I'm like, oh shit, this dude is literally only following one person, you. And zero followers. Yeah, I know. What? I know. Yeah, who's the same? I mean, chat GBT feels like it came out of nowhere, but who's the same that hasn't just been like tested? So I mean, so is that like software that somebody has created that like just automatically creates the profile or automatically... I think what they do is they pick up on... It's words and it's sentences and phrases. Yes, and what they'll do is they'll post a comment underneath. That is a very effective, like that's effective. Like if you didn't know any better and you read what I wrote. It's so effective. I know better and I still almost got bamboozled. What did it make you think? Oh, well, yeah, it's bad, but it's not as bad as it was before the pandemic. So you immediately like discredit what I said. Oh, that's fake. It undermines it, yeah. Yeah, luckily I knew better and that's why I didn't understand why you didn't. So you got to say something. You got to be like, oh, another bot or something. You have to give some sort of... So I, you're right. You know if it's a snide comment or something. You know how I started doing this, by the way? I had followers who would do that for me. So I went, so when I first started like, oh, I'm gonna start focusing on Twitter. So after I got kicked off at Instagram, which by the way, I'm more and more proud about every single day when we figure out more of this information because I was obviously annoying the right people. Anyway, as I was on there, I would go back and forth with people and then people who've been on Twitter for a while ago, Sal, this is not a real account. You're wasting your time. So then I started to look and I go, oh, shit. This is bullshit. This is crazy, so yeah. I have somebody for you guys today, somebody who's, it's not like, I normally like to bring somebody who is underground or you don't really know who they are and enlighten someone, but Rob Deirdic, if you don't follow Rob Deirdic, I think he's a great follow. And if I had to choose one, you know, ultra wealthy, famous person who I think lives their life as far as the way they are with their time and money and family. He seems pretty grounded too. Very much so. And I think closely aligns with all of us. And I, you know, it's interesting about that is I've come to realize that the more of his content that I've consumed, but I remember, and I don't know what year this is, Doug, check me the year, because I'm curious how old I was. I was watching Robin Big. Robin Big was a favorite show of mine, and I don't know how old I was when the first season came out. Please don't tell me it was 20 years old. 2006. Free season. Yeah. So. Older week. We're in our teenage, we're a teenager. Yeah. So we're teenagers at that point. Bro, it's like 15 years ago. And I remember actually, no, I remember. 2000s. Yeah, what am I doing? 26. Yeah, we're early 20s. Sorry. Early 20s. It's easy for me because, yeah, I was born in 1980. So I remember watching that and going like, this is when I become really wealthy. This is how I want to spend my money. Or I want to be like this. Like this, I remember thinking that. And that was what drew me to that show was just like, here's this guy who has all this famous success. But then yet he's still this big kid. He doesn't seem pretentious about his wealth and money. And it's like, and he's continued to prove me that way as he's gone on and become wealthier and more famous and more successful. But I just think that the way he goes about it is really brilliant the way he spends his time and looks at money and just looks at his whole business life, family balance. I think he's. Good follow. Yeah. Great follow. Great personal listening. And in particular, I was just listening to his interview with Ed Milet. So Ed Milet was actually interviewing Rob on his show. And he dropped a couple really good, good, good pieces of info in that that I thought was really valuable that I'll go back and even re-listen. So check him out. Zebiotics is a great product that helps your body break down acetaldehyde. What's that? Well, that's one of the negative byproducts of drinking alcohol. So here's what you do. You drink Zebiotics, then you enjoy your night drinking with your friends, and you feel way better the day after. Go check this company out. Check this product out. It is the only one in its category. It is nobody has this. It's a patent pending product. Go check it out. Go to Zebiotics.com. That's Z-B-I-O-T-S-I-C-S.com forward slash mind pump. Then use the code Mind Pump 2-2 for 10% off your first order. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Todd from Virginia. Todd, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Hey, guys, doing great. How are you? Good, good. Awesome. So I'm wondering if you were starting out running the RGB bundle, how would you periodize mini-bulks and mini-cuts throughout it to achieve some sort of body recomposition akin to what Adam did back in 2012, 2013? Would you focus more on cutting or bulking? I know in the past, he said your programs are built specifically for cutting or bulking specifically. But to achieve best results, would you focus on bulking in phase one of anabolic, for instance? I'm just trying to get your thoughts on how to best achieve those. I think the way I would decide that would be kind of where I'm currently at, right? So if I'm maintaining myself in the low teens or even 9%, 10% body fat, then I'm probably going to put a lot of energy towards still bulking. Because I know I can shred that down. You got room. Yeah, and I could shred that down in like four weeks. If I was a much higher body fat percentage, say 20%, something percent or more, I might run a cut. Or it also depends, too, where your calorie intake is right now, too. So I say I might run a cut first, a mini-cut first, and then go back to a mini-bulk throughout the whole thing. But if your calorie intake for your size is low, then I'm still going to bulk first. So there's some variables that I would want to figure out first before I decided how I would exactly do that. And by the way, there isn't necessarily a wrong or right way in this situation. It's just more of a preference. Like if you come to me and you're like, yo, Adam, I'm 5'10. I'm almost 200 pounds. And I'm 25% body fat. I'm going to run the RGB. And I want to get shredded how we start. And then I go, OK, how many calories are you eating? Oh, I'm eating somewhere between 1,800 to 2,200 calories. OK, let's really focus on building your metabolism first before we even consider cutting. So the bulk of the RGB is going to be focused on building up your metabolism, building muscle. And then we'll eventually shred down when we get to a calorie one. Now, let's say you're at a healthier calorie point. Let's say you're somewhere between 2,500, 2,700 calories. Well, we're in that range. Then we could do a little mini-cut or maybe just start with a short bulk and try and get maybe up to 2,800, 2,900 calories and then run a little mini-cut and then back to a mini-bulk. So I mean, we have a lot of options, but you would want to consider all those things that I'm saying on how I think how you would go about it. Todd, there's a couple of things I'll address with this. One is that there's no workout program designed for cutting or bulking. There's workout programs designed for stamina, endurance, muscle building, maximal strength. The diet is really what determines the fat loss or the gain, right, or the muscle gain. So when people say, this is the best cutting program, this is the best, like that's all marketing. Yeah, it's all marketing. So all of our programs are designed for a specific kind of physical performance type goal, whether it be strength or muscle or mobility or stamina, then your calories essentially determine whether or not you're getting leaner or building. And again, the goal with cutting or building is always building. What I mean by that is when you're cutting, you still want to be able to try to build because that'll at least preserve the most muscle. Okay, so I'm going to simplify a little bit about what Adam said. If your goal is to cut, then you want to be in about a three or four to one ratio cut to bulk. What I mean by that is three or four weeks of a cut with one week of a slight bulk, okay? If your goal is to bulk, you can flip that, three or four to one bulk to cut. If your goal is to speed up your metabolism, then it's also like the bulk, about three or four to one, where you're slowly bumping calories and you might do a cut for a week or even maybe four or five days. Does that make sense to you? It does, yeah. Okay, so now let's get specific with you, Todd, real quick. What's your, do you know what your body fat percentage is at the moment? I do, yeah, I'm in like the 18 to 20% range. Don't have a specific number drilled down but right around there. What are your calories, Jen, roughly? 25 to 2700 calories for maintenance. I go three or four to one cut to bulk. So there's three weeks in a cut and then one week in a slight bulk and then repeat. So there's your mini cut, mini bulk and I think you'd be okay with that. I totally agree with Sal. Now that I see your numbers now, I see the 19 to 20%, I see the calories where you're at. So you're actually in a very similar place that I was when I started. Like you referenced my 2012 when I went on my transformation journey. I was at 20% body fat. I was probably around there calorie wise. We're obviously different in height and weight, we're a little bit different but pretty similar place. And you know what I did was actually, I did not try and really move the scale. My goal was I wanted to keep my weight right where it was, slowly reduce body fat, slowly build muscle. And so I really didn't do any cutting. It was just tightening up the diet, making better choices. It was a slow process. Yeah, it was very slow. It was just, I wasn't really trying, if anything I was trying to add calories to diet. So my goal was can I continue to make good food choices, get to a place where I'm eating like in your case, you know, 29, 3000 calories and not see the scale really go up or down. And I just did it over like a six month period. It was a very slow but gradual process. And I really didn't do any major cuts until way later until I had built my calorie intake up. Now I wasn't quite as low as you are. I was probably I think around 3000 when I first started but I got it up all the way over 4000 calories. And so then when I decided to go on more of an aggressive cut, it was really easy to lean out. So you could go that route too where you're not really doing a three week cut to a one week bulk or vice versa. You just are consistent with making good food choices, slowly trying to add calories and following the RGB because what's great is we do all the periodizing and the workouts there that your body's gonna have novelty and wanna build and wanna change. And so just by making good food choices and slowly eating more calories to support the training you should lean out naturally while you do that. Now here's two points with that that'll help. Hit your protein targets. So I would aim for at least 170 grams of protein a day and I would only eat whole natural foods. Those two things alone will take out a lot of the guesswork I should say. You're less likely to overeat and you're hitting your protein targets. And if you're working out appropriately and properly which you probably are because you'll be following our programs then you'll see like a slow change in body composition. Awesome, I appreciate that. Yeah, no problem. If you go the slow way, I will recommend this because it helped me the mental side is the photographs every week, right? So like first thing, Friday morning, fasted when I get up, photo front, side, back. And really I needed that because when you're not doing a hard cut or you're not doing a major bulk, there's not major swings. It's a very slow gradual process. And so I needed this kind of visual reminder of, oh yeah, I'm on the right track, I'm doing good. And I really would only judge myself about every two weeks. Like, I took it every week but I wouldn't correct myself. I wouldn't make adjustments to the training or the calories until I saw like a two week mark of like, okay, am I better after these two weeks than I was two weeks ago? And as long as I could say yes, I stayed the course. And so I do highly, if you go the slower route of just slowly increasing calories and not really trying to cut hard and just doing what Sal said, whole foods, hit your protein and take, then my recommendation would be to use something like that that you can be a little more objective about because seeing yourself every day in the mirror, it's easy to get in your own head and be like, oh, I'm not, I can't see anything changing. And it's like, well, sure you can. If you give yourself a little bit of a break of looking at photos, then you, I think you can. Yeah, definitely fall into that trap. Quick follow up real quick. After I'm done with RGB, I was pointing on doing symmetry. I've recently just built my own home gym. So squat rack barbell dumbbells. I don't have a cable machine. So in symmetry, is it possible to, rather than a cable machine use bands, for instance? Absolutely, 100%. That's a great replacement, but symmetry is a lot of dumbbell work. So, and barbell work at the very end. So you'll be set. Did you see it appear on X-Rack? No, it's like Titan rack, I think. Okay, I was just going to recommend. They just got an attachment for a cable. So that is an option now. Okay, awesome. That attachment might still work even on history. It could, yeah. Yeah, so look at it. You have a pull-up bar. You can do it. I don't know, because it's that bottom part. I mean, it does. So it goes through the hole and it locks in there. So it's at the bottom and then you have a pulley and then you kind of run it through. If you have a pull-up bar, you kind of run it through the top. But it might work. It might not work, look into it. But yeah, it's just nice that they're kind of coming up with these extra accessories for that kind of stuff. Yeah, so Todd, do you have symmetry? I do, yes. Okay, good. You're all set then. I'm a prime pro for correctional stuff. I have maps prime. I do not have pro. All right, I want to send you something. So I'll send you a prime pro. Awesome, I appreciate it. Thanks for calling in, Todd. All right, Todd. Thank you guys. You got it. Man, I really do blame our space for just informing people wrong when it comes to workouts. Like, this is a cutting workout. This is a bulking workout. This is a, well, they literally marketed both together. Like, so they're trying to like push it as like, this is the ultimate cutting program where you're gonna get shredded and they, you know, catty the nutrition right alongside. Yeah, it's too bad. First off, working out is a terrible way to lose weight. This is a fact. Studies will show that it's a terrible way to lose weight. But what you can do with working out is leverage the workouts so that the adaptations you gain from the workouts make fat loss easier later on. And that's building muscle. So if anything you want to do is you want to always try to build muscle in which is what you want to do when you bulk, obviously. But also it's a great thing to do when you're trying to cut because the challenge with cutting is you lose muscle. And you don't want to lose muscle. You want to maintain your muscle so that the very least your metabolism doesn't adapt in such a negative way, but also because you look better and all that stuff. So the workouts, think of workouts as like performance and physical goals and then think of the diet as the way to lose or gain. And this is true for bulking as well as cutting. I didn't realize that his stuff was up there. I saw after the fact that we had his numbers up there because I would have given that probably original advice. I would have instead of given him a mini and he was referencing my 2012 transformation. That's exactly how I did it was I wasn't trying to cut or really bulk. I mean, I guess you could say I was in a slight reverse diet. The goal was can I keep my weight about where I'm at but recomp, right? Change my body fat percentage. And what that looks like is slowly adding calories while I'm also increasing activity and strength training. And so it kind of negates the extra calories and then partitions over into building muscle. And so you slowly lose body fat. You slowly build muscle. You don't really see the scale. But boy is that hard. It takes a lot of discipline for somebody to do that. Everybody overcorrects, that's the problem. You're trying to gain overcorrect by eating two more because all the scales not moving. You're trying to lose you overcorrect by eating two little. Yes, you got to be really patient and trust the process and understand that within a week you are going to have these moments where you intake extra sodium or you eat a food that your body doesn't digest as well as some other foods and then you have a little blow, you have a little bit of water retention and that visually like throws you off and may the scale also. So you might see a one pound or two pound jump on the scale. You might look puffy in the mirror. And it's like, oh, fuck, I'm going the wrong way. And then you overcorrect. And it's like, you got to just, you got to understand that's coming and you got to believe that you got yourself lined up and then adjust in two weeks. Our next color is Isaiah from California. What's up Isaiah? How can we help you? Doing good. Thank you guys for having me on the show. You got it. I'm excited to be here. So I'm 22 years old. I play baseball. I fell in Pacific University and I've been working out for seven, eight years. I just got maps performing a while back. I'm on week five right now. And so with that being said, so this is going to my question. So I have baseball, baseball starts in January and we're going to be practicing Monday through Saturdays. And then we practice for three hours, approximately like three to four hours a day mostly. Sundays are only our only day off. And then starting February, we have double headers Friday and Saturday. So we're out there for like 10 hours to 12 hours just being out there all the time. So with that being said, my question was how would I program my workouts during season so that I can be in tip top shape and what workouts should I do to be able to stay strong and stay healthy? Yeah, good question. Yeah. This used to be a harder question to answer, but since we've created the program Maps 15, I feel like this has solved a lot of issues in terms of like in season training. And we talked to Corey Schlesinger and this kind of reaffirmed what we had already kind of worked on in terms of like trying to incorporate something that was more focused on frequency and getting those muscles stimulated, but less on the intensity and less on the volume, which is something that I would scale now. If I was to go to revisit and do in season training with any of my athletes, like this is definitely the protocol I would send them and being a baseball player and having like some of these more demanding like double header type of games, that's where like mobility is gonna be your best friend priming and making sure that your shoulder is accounted for and your hips and really making sure that you're reinforcing that with mobility drills. So Maps 15 and mobility. 100%, about the bottom line is when you're the training off season versus in season, way less volume, way less volume. So, now you're doing three workouts a week, you're doing mobility sessions, like you go into season and what Justin's talking about is like 15 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day of some basic strength training that's Maps 15 and what that's gonna do, it's gonna help maintain some of the stuff you've built in the off season. You're not gonna over train and it'll prevent injury. Then when you get into the off season again, that's when you can focus on pushing your body. And I can't stress this enough, especially for someone your age, you have a lot of energy you can get away with a lot and the tendency is gonna be to add more and more and more. You don't wanna do that. What you don't wanna do is push your body to its limit. You wanna do the right amount that's gonna give you the best results. And it's gonna be a lot less in season than it is off season, less than you think. So like literally 15 minutes a day of strength training, 15 to 20 minutes a day of strength training is probably gonna be perfect with the amount of practice and stuff that you're doing. And then when he brought up Maps Prime, that's what you're gonna use in your warmups. So before you play, before you practice. In between games. That's it. And do the Maps Prime stuff. Okay. Would you say that the 15 minutes a day, would I even do that on Friday and Saturday the days I have games? On the double header days? No. No. No, those are long days. Not on your maximal like demanding game days. Those are the days that would take off. So we're gonna send you Maps 15, so you have that, okay? So we're gonna send that to you so you have that. And then also Prime, you wanna send him Prime too, Doug? Yeah. Send him Prime also. So we'll send you Prime and Maps 15, so you have both of those. And so here's the trick, okay? So I think you could follow Maps 15 the way it's pretty much laid out. But if you notice anything, any sort of decline in performance, if you notice any soreness kind of lingering, you still gotta scale back on that. And the way I would do that since you already have Maps performance and or we're sending you Prime is I would drop a weight training day and focus on mobility and or priming on that day. So if you find like, let's say you go, it's Tuesday and you're like, you know, you're supposed to do another Maps 15 workout and you're like, goddamn, I'm a hell of a sore from yesterday. I actually would say, you know what? Let's just focus on mobility today. We'll hit your Maps 15. Just take it right out of performance. That's your mobility session. Take one of those mobility days out of performance, insert it there instead of your Maps 15 and then pick up Maps 15 again the next day. So you gotta really learn to listen to your body and see what it's telling you. And if you feel good, stick with the Maps 15 every day. I mean, if you're feeling good, ride that. But if you feel like you're really sore heading into that, drop it and then put a mobility day there and said and then that's, if I was coaching you one-on-one through this season, that's how we'd be communicating is you'd come in to see me, my plan would be to do Maps 15 with you. But if you're like, goddamn, I'm pretty sore from yesterday. I'd be like, you know what? We're going to focus on mobility today. Tomorrow we'll hit your Maps 15. And that's kind of how I would do that. And when you say about volume, are you talking like reps and weight or are you just talking like in general, just volume or how much I do it? All of it. So the formula for volume is sets, reps and weight, right? So you multiply how many sets you do, how many reps you do, how many weight, that equals total volume. If you pull back on weight, you pull back on volume. If you pull back on sets, you pull back on volume. If you pull back on, so Maps 15 reduces all of that, right? Cause you're doing, you're only doing basically two- Just think of it this way, you're going to do less. Yeah. You're just going to do less of everything. The biggest mistake, the biggest mistake athletes make is they train a particular way off season. They try to make progress in season better. Yeah. And they're like, oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to keep trying to get stronger while I'm playing in this really hard season. And then that's how you hurt yourself or that's how your progress drops. And then when their progress starts to drop, they think they need to do more. Oh, I need to push myself even more because the mindset of an athlete, especially at your level, you have the mindset, you have discipline, you'll push yourself through, which is great, but that could be your worst enemy. Well, the way the mindset shifts for me as a coach is when we're off season and every day you and I are meeting, I'm asking you about strength. You feel stronger and are we moving the weight? How's it, how's your form? How's your technique? And we're pushing performance. We're pushing weight. We're trying to get stronger. When we get in season, I'm not, I don't give a shit about your bench. I don't give a shit about you. I don't care if it goes down. What I care about is how you feel. How was performance on the field? Did you play good yesterday? Was your energy levels good? How's your sleep? Were you swinging the back good? How's your sleep? Like, yeah, I'm asking more stuff like that when we're in season, because now it becomes all about baseball and making sure that you feel good for that. I'm not really worried if we lose a little strength on the deadlift or the squad or something like that because I care about how that translates on the field more than I care about what it does inside the weight. In fact, you should expect to lose a little strength in season. That's normal with those lifts. And one thing I do want to highlight too, and you've been going through these mobility sessions, the stick mobility that's in there in mass performance is so applicable to baseball players. And I just feel like it covers wrist, elbow, shoulder, joint health better than most of those moves in there. So really highlight that as a focus on your days where you do feel a bit like you're overstressed. Thank you, guys. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. Yeah, keep us posted how the season goes, man. Yes, I will. Thank you, guys. All right, brother. You know, every time I talk to an athlete, you know, I feel bad for the first young athletes I trained as a trainer because I over-trained the crap. I don't know what the fuck I was doing. You know, training an athlete is hard, bro. It'll only go back in time. That's kind of the, I don't know. I would say it's up there with like the pinnacle of training. It's like, because you have a, when you have a client who wants to lose fat or build some muscle or get stronger, like there's a lot of room for air. Yeah. It's like, oh, we can have a bad week. You can have a bad week and be programming. Like the first layer of the onion. Yeah, but when you get to an athlete, I mean, I can really fuck up a lot of shit. So like every little- And you also tend to think as a trainer, oh, I have an athlete on my hands. I got to do this. I got to do that. I can push them harder because he has that extra gear, which is the opposite. The first time I pieced this together, I was training an Ironman athlete. And he was so in tune to his performance. And I scaled back. And then I had to scale back. And I had to scale back. And I scaled back to such a, what seemed to me an extreme amount. And then his progress started to improve. And then I had the realization, oh my God, I was doing too much with all these poor people that I was training. I needed to bring it way, way, way back when they're in season. They're training so much. Your body can only take so much. Our next caller is Hailey, calling from England. Hi, Hailey. How can we help you? Hello. First off, Merry Christmas, Mind Pump family. Hey. Welcome to you too, yeah. Thanks. So, first off, I just want to say I love the podcast. It's made a huge impact on my life this past year since I found you. Not just about going to the gym and working out, but kind of more holistically because you have such great guests on, such diverse conversations that you've really made me look at, say, my nutrition and my mental health. And I guess it's just put me on a really interesting path now for even the rest of my life. So, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's really appreciated. Keep sharing your knowledge and do what you do. Wonderful, love that. So, a little bit of background is I started lifting weights about a year ago. I got my first maths program in January and then I've run anabolic twice with prime second time and then performance. And I'm now looking at doing aesthetic like you kind of recommend. And since August, I did a reverse diet. So I've gone from 16,000 calories up to 2,500 calories and I'm tracking my macros as well to make sure that I'm hitting my protein. And I'm trying to build muscle and I'm planning to kind of stay in this phase, probably till February, but I'm looking more to sculpt now. And I'm a little bit concerned because I've always been a bit broader in the back, so a bit more kind of inverted B shape. So I'm going to focus my glutes to try and balance out but I am concerned about adding any width or wideness to my back. So I think that's a deal with your lateral side belts and traps. And I'm thinking, can I adapt programs now to maybe cut out those exercises? I don't know if I should, if I can say, cut those exercise out completely, the ones focusing on the traps and side belts. If I just reduce the number of sets or if I do them, but with a lower weight, like maybe 4% less than my max, just so I'm not building muscle, but I want to stay stable and still strong and not set myself up to have a weakness where I'll get an injury. And I'm just now getting kind of lost because I can't program. And I don't trust anyone to program, but you guys, so please help me. Hailey, Hailey. So this- I love the way you asked that question. Yeah, okay, so I love this question too because this was actually what Katrina struggled with when she first finally let me kind of design our programs. She has broad shoulders. She has kind of a boxy shape. Honey, I love you. We've changed that. We've changed that completely. But this was her fear, right? Cause she kind of already has these kind of broad shoulders. And so, here I am telling her, we're gonna deadlift and I'm pushing the weight for her and building her back. And she's like, I do not want a bigger, and I know just trust the process, trust that I know what I'm doing. Your first initial thought is actually right on point. I really wanted to build her hips and ass so it creates more of this hourglass look in her. So even as her, even if her back were to get an inch wider, if I brought in her, got her hips thicker and more ass to her, and then I leaned her out, you actually will be in love with the way you look. And she absolutely is now. But boy, was it a hard conversation a lot during that process because here I am, reverse dieting her, I'm telling her eat more calories. I'm building her back up, which she's telling me I don't want that. And I'm just like, and thank God, she has watched me transform my body so there was that trust there of like, okay, I know you know what you're doing, so I'm gonna trust you, but just know that this is really difficult for me to trust this process. And I promise you the same way I tell her is to follow the programming the way it is, put emphasis on like what you're already thinking, which is build that ass, build those hips, and then when you go to the part where you lean out and you lean down and you start to carve away, what will be revealed is all your hard work and you'll be very happy with the end product, I promise you. So trust the process and stay the course and I think you'll be really happy. You start eliminating some of those exercises in fear of that and you actually will end up with a lesser aesthetic looking body that you like, I promise. Yeah, and to add to that Haley, body fat is very volumous on a pound for pound basis when you compare it to muscle. Okay, so if you were right now, if I were to snap my fingers right now and have you gain 10 pounds of muscle and lose 10 pounds of body fat, you would weigh the same on the scale, but you would be a lot smaller because muscle takes up less space than body fat, okay? So when you go through the cutting process, things will shrink down. It's very rare for a woman to actually get to the point where she builds too much muscle for her liking in her upper body. Usually what it is is she's building some muscle, maybe a little bit like, okay, I don't know how this feels, a little insecure about it, whatever, but then when she gets lean, like Adam says, wow, everything looks really good and it really starts to come together. So that's what I would say. Now, what you were asking about with the workouts and how you can change them, you can also do that, but I would recommend you do that a little later, just because this is a relatively new process for you, I wouldn't start modifying workouts in that way until you've been doing this for like another year or two to where you're like, okay, I've been doing this for a couple of years, I'm gonna take away some exercises and some volume from this area, add it to this other area and do it like that. Right now we're looking at general. You know how we did this with Katrina is what and how I convinced her is to say, listen, let me get you all the way down and leaned out the leanness you've ever been in your life and then together we will assess your physique and then if you don't like something, I'll go back to the drawing board for you and say, we'll cut out some of this back stuff, we'll add some of this, we'll give, I will do that for you, but at least trust the process with me and let me build that physique, let me lean you all the way out and then you be the judge and then what ended up happening? Oh my God, she was so happy with the way she looked, but it was such a psychological mind fuck going through it because that was an area that she, openly was very insecure about for a long time. No, I've never met a woman that says they like looking boxy and she looked boxy because she had broad shoulders and she didn't have much of an ass to her and we built that. We really did, but it took her being comfortable with me letting her build her back and get strong and then leaning out. When you get really lean, like Sal's saying, you'll be blown away on, and everybody holds body fat and water in different places and part of what made her look broader is she held a lot of water and body fat in her low back and shoulder and back carry. And arms, yeah. And when we lean that all out, that's where it all went. That's the cool part is, it sucks when you put on body fat because it goes to that area you don't like. We've all seen those girls that are so lucky, right? It goes all to their tits in their ass. They look amazing as they get fatter, but that's not everybody, right? That's a scientific term, by the way. That's not me. Yeah, that's not my wife either, right? So when she puts on body fat, it goes to those areas she doesn't. Now, the positive side is when she leans out, that's where it comes from. So then when she gets down to that lean body fat percentage where she's happy, it comes right off of those places. So that's the positive side to it is that when you lean out, it'll go from the areas that you like the least that carry the most body fat. One thing I wanna add, Haley, is that, this is true for both men and women, but especially for women. Women's clothing is not designed for athletic women. It is not designed for athletic women. So you'll build a little bit of muscle, like the tiniest bit of muscle, you'll put something on and be like, oh my God, this doesn't fit. This happens to men too. If you're a guy who's lean with a lot of muscle, you go buy a dress shirt and it looks like a dress because in order for it to fit your shoulders, it's made for somebody with this massive waist or whatever. So consider this as well. As you become more fit, your clothes are gonna fit differently than they did before. And again, they're designed for people who don't work out. And especially when you're in the process of reverse dieting, it can mess with your head a little bit. It could definitely mess with your head a little bit. But I think you're on the right path. You kind of just got started with this process. You're already seeing these results. Keep going. I think you'd be really happy with where you went. Haley, are you in the forum yet? I'm on the Facebook one, yeah. Yeah, I'm in that. So chat with people. Yes, and please share with us and chat. And when you have these moments of doubt, be open enough to drop it in there so we can talk some sense into you and not allow you to overcorrect, okay? And trust the process. Thank you. I thought you might say this, but I'm so eager to do the right things. So thanks for the research. I really needed it because I'm loving the programs and I wanna trust. Yeah, and you guys have said that, so thank you very much. By the way, your reverse diet's phenomenal. Where you were and where you're at now, that's incredible changing metabolism. That's phenomenal. That was scary. It is, right? But I mean, how does it feel to eat like 2,500 calories now and just like your body just burns it? Well, yeah, it's that whole thing of, gosh, I can't eat anymore. I'm actually like, I don't wanna eat anymore. So I'm sticking at 2,500, but it's awesome to eat that much food and also to feel the energy from it. And honestly, it's blown my mind, guys. It's been so enlightening and it's because I only trust you guys now though. You're my only resource. So I really needed to come on here and ask you those questions. So thanks very much. No problem. And then the programs that you have, which ones are you following at the moment? You're an aesthetic. So aesthetic, yeah, I'm in phase one and I bought symmetry for my next one because I like to have like a good, you know, program like you're saying about the future. So that's what I'm doing next after this symmetry. Okay. Do you have maps in Ebola? I'd like to send you some. She has the whole RGB bundle. Yeah, she has RGB and she has symmetry. I would say, do you not have strong? Oh yeah, there you go. That's a really strong. Yeah, we're going to, yes, we're going to give you strong. Have the emphasis on the poster. Yeah, yes, a lot, a lot of, a lot of like on the backside. That is literally, it's funny. We wrote that program and women love map strong because of the, because it works so much the posterior chain. So you're talking about building the butt. Map strong is about building. Yeah, we're going to send that one. We're going to send that one for free too. I can't do my boobs. I want to build my ass though. Well, that's, so those are the, those, and that's a great order. So you're, you're on the right track. What you're doing, what you did with the RGB. And then now you're going to symmetry. And then after that is strong. So we're going to send you strong. So you have that lined up after that. Well, thank you very much. That's brilliant. Thank you. Thanks for calling. Yeah. Okay. Cheers. Bye. Excellent. I loved her. Yeah, that's it. That was Katrina to a T by the way. Well, you know, I tell you what, like building anything can be a challenge for women, especially in the upper body. It could feel so challenging. Oh my God. I feel like I'm getting bigger. Like what's going on? But you know, I always have to emphasize this. Like body fat just takes up a lot more space. And even if you were to gain, by the way, gaining 10 pounds of muscle for a woman, like 10 pounds of real muscle is a lot of muscle to gain. Even if you did that when you got down lean, you're not that much bigger. What you'll notice is you just got much better shape. So that's really what it boils down. And you have to realize that we all, we all hold body fat and water in different places. Yeah. And we have these areas that we were insecure about or we don't like on our body. And we think that, oh, I need to like correct the way I'm lifting or I don't want to do these certain exercises because it's going to make that worse. Like no, that's where my body just happens. The whole body fat, the good news is when I lean it down, it's that's where it's going to go. And if you did a good job of building muscle in those areas, it's only going to make that area more sculpted and look even better. And so, you know, here's Katrina telling me, I don't want to build my back at all. And I'm like doubling and tripling down on deadlifting and back exercises. And she's like, oh, what are we doing? And I'm like, just trust me. And then afterwards was super happy. Usually that's how it is. I mean, usually it's just that they are building muscle or getting strength. There's just a bit of body fat there that they're not, you know, happy with. And so once they really focus on that leaning process, it all reveals itself. Totally. Our next caller is Corey from Tennessee. Corey, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, not much. Thank you guys so much for having me calling in just with some questions more focused on nutrition for a little backstory. I'm 37 years old. I've been lifting seriously for about 10 years or so now. And while I have experienced some good strength gains over the last three to five due to getting into powerlifting back in 17, I'm not noticing the experiencing the physique change that I'm wanting. I'm 6'3 and I've sat at about 225 for 15 or so years. My philosophy with diet for a couple of years now has been just stinking well. If I'm sitting a little heavy, I'm getting the right protein. If I just keep strength training, eventually the muscle will win out. But I don't think that's been working for me. So I started getting serious about track in this past spring and summer and I've been cutting over the last three or so months and I'm down to 210. I'd like to get closer to 200 because I think that'll put me around sub 15% body fat. But then would like to start a bulk shortly into the new year and hit a new program to put on muscle. But I messed around with my calories this past summer and tried to bulk for a little bit there. But notice the love handles coming in quickly and it scared me away. So my main question is, do you guys have any preferred methods for honing in on your exact TDE? So you know your proper maintenance levels to calculate your bulk or cut. I have a question for you. When you went from your kind of intuitive type of eating and you decided, oh, I'm going to start tracking, what were some of the things that you noticed that jumped out to you that you were doing? Well, it felt like, well, the protein intake was definitely way more intentional. I felt like I was really having to eat a lot more to get the protein up. And I don't know what's really true out there, but I felt like being a little bit bigger of a guy, six, three, two, 25, it was like, gosh, I'm having to eat a ton of meat or drink extra protein shakes to get up there. So that was a big thing if you're asking specifically from a diet perspective. Yeah, that's exactly what I was looking for. And typically, and that's what I love about tracking is that's probably where you, if you're not tracking, that's probably the area. And that's, by the way, the exact same situation that I'm always in because it's 220 grams of protein for me too. It's a lot. And even if every meal I have is protein focused, I very easily can grossly under consume protein. And that is, it has a direct impact on how much muscle I build and how fast I can get that metabolism up. So I definitely make sure you stay on the course with that because that will be the difference maker in this. Yeah, so to figure out how many calories you should be consuming, you need to track what you normally eat for at least a week or two. And then if you don't gain or lose weight within that period of time, then that's about as accurate as you're going to get in terms of how many calories you need to maintain. And then you go from there. If you gained or you lost, then you want to adjust and say, okay, well I gained two pounds during that two week period of tracking and I was averaging, well, 3,000 calories a day. So my daily maintenance is probably a few hundred calories below 3,000 or whatever, whatever that number was. So that's basically it. That's really the most accurate way you could do it aside from getting your metabolism tested at some university. But even then, I mean, your metabolism shifts and changes. We still would recommend that. We have a calculator online that you guys have free access to that we still would recommend this way. It's just this general idea, but you got to track. That's really the only way. Now, once you track for a couple of weeks, now you have a number and then you work from there. Okay, I know that my maintenance is 3,000 because that's what I've been eating for two weeks. I haven't gained or lost any weight. I want to cut. Well, I'm going to bring it down to 2,500 calories or I want to bulk and I'm going to bring it up to 3,500 calories. That's really the best, most accurate way to do this process. Okay. Yeah. Cause I always felt like the calculators with being bigger were kind of shooting me low a lot of times. And then also I'm in IT. So, you know, unfortunately I'm sitting a lot. I have invested in stand up desk and try to move, but it's like, it's, yeah, it's just been a nebulous area for me trying to figure that out. So, but it has felt like that's the approach I'm kind of going towards and it's good to hear that affirmation. Yeah. The other thing is too, when you, when you do do like a reverse diet or increased calories is especially a guy like you and I who have already a hard time getting protein really discipline yourself to, to get that from either protein sources or whole food sources and not let yourself justify, oh, I'm in a bulk. Therefore I'll go ahead and grab that cheeseburger or I'll add some fry. Like, you know, sometimes we do that psychological game where oh, you know, the guys told me I should bulk. So I'm in the bulk now. And so then you start justifying adding foods, you know, that aren't serving you very well. And that is like a, it's a, it's a double whammy for a guy who already has a hard time hitting protein. Cause then what you end up doing is you over consume on the calories a little bit and you under consume on your protein intake. And that for like our body just, it's all bad, bro. That's like you lose muscle and you put body fat on, which gives you this like shift of, oh, shit. I'm really not doing well, right? So really pay attention to that. Stay on top of that protein. When you do decide to increase calories, do it from whole foods, try and do it through protein. Don't let yourself justify the treats and the bullshit of the calories. Cause what you'll end up doing is you'll increase the calories, not hit your protein intake. And that's like the worst of both worlds. Yeah. What did, what did your macro breakdown look like when you said you're kind of increasing calories and you had a bit of love handles kind of forming. So I was, I was sitting for a little while. When I first started tracking, I was guessing my maintenance was in the 26 to 2800. So I had a couple of weeks where I pumped it up to 29 just to kind of see what my body was doing. But then when I, and even my wife was like, yeah, I've been noticing the little, your little thick in the waist. So I had like 32. So when I was at 3200 calories, I mean it was, you know, based on some stuff I've just found online, trying to get 220 grams of protein, like 90 grams of fat, fill it in with carbs the rest of the way. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of different ways you can organize this. But with the amount of calories and protein you're eating, you're probably going to want to have maybe four meals a day. You know, and you don't need to necessarily go 220 grams of protein. You'd be fine with 200 as well. Okay. Yeah. So 200 to 220. And so long as you hit that kind of calorie target, especially if you're trying to cut, if you're trying to, if you're trying to bulk then of course that can go up a little bit or that will go up. I mean, hopefully what I said hit home for you because I feel like you, what the stuff that you're challenged with is very similar to me. And I know that that's my, that's exactly what I, if I fuck up, it's because I'm not hitting my protein intake. I'm filling the, the extra calories up with carbs and fats. And so then I get this like, oh, then I just put on body fat. I don't put muscle on. So it's like so important that even when you go into a full bulk that you get it from good sources, whole foods so that you don't put on the body fat and you actually build muscle. That, and then we, I know we haven't really talked a lot about programming, which obviously that still matters here. Yeah. What are you currently running right now? And maybe what would be really good for you too right now is to do something, do something very novel, something different that you would never really run. So if you gravitate towards the bodybuilder type program, maybe we run something like a map strong or a different, very different unique program that that would could serve you too. So what are you doing currently right now? Yeah. So, well, I will say it when I started experiencing the strength gains, I joined a powerlifting gym and 17 and I got into, I started using 531 and I used that for like dude, like four years. And you know, I couldn't even bench my own body weight before that, but got up to like, you know, 275 on bench and was feeling great about it. But my joints were starting to hurt. And I know you guys have talked about that if you stick to it too long. So I've been doing a lot of study and I'm trying to find the right programs and cycle things more. Unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, but I do have a year and a half year old son. So my lifting has gone to just like two or three days full body. Right now I'm focusing in the eight to 12 rep range for the past four weeks or so, maybe six weeks now trying some more hypertrophy stuff and trying to cycle between like a powerlifting to power building to hypertrophy and then rinse and repeat is kind of my philosophy. So you don't have any of our stuff yet? I don't. Oh, shit. Let's do performance. Yeah. What do you guys think about performance right now? I think mass performance would be great, especially because he made the comment about a joints. Yes. And then after that, you'd love maps at a ball. You would love maps at a ball like after mass performance, but I think mass performance would make you feel good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're going to, I think you're going to be happy. Awesome. That sounds great. You got it. So much for that. Thanks Corey. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys. Have a good one. Yeah. People need to realize that. Yes. In your calorie intake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In your calorie intake or guessing where you're supposed to be at, you're always going to be off. Yeah. Always, always, always going to be off. If you want to eat quote unquote intuitively, you have to have a really, really good grasp of the signals of your body and you have to be able to intelligently manipulate on a day to day basis. That's the only way that it works. Otherwise you're probably going to be off. Do you remember how much I pushed back when we when you first wrote the intuitive guide and we used to talk about on the podcast because of that because of like, man, I really, I do obviously intuitive eating is the pinnacle of eating around like health wise and stuff like that. And everybody should make that as a goal to get to, but boy do I feel like 90 something percent of the people are just not there yet. You know, because this is a part where it takes a long time of tracking and figuring this out to understand your body, understand your habits and behaviors and what you default to when you think you're doing a good. I mean, I'm doing this 20 something years and I I never ceases to amaze me when I go back to tracking. I'm under over estimating stuff all the time still. Well, this is where I think too. We were kind of coming in with in a bit of a bubble in terms of like we're around a lot of people that were like everyday gym goers like people that were always like sort of stuck in that IFIM kind of mentality of like I am tracking I'm hyper focused on my macros stuff. And so we were trying to kind of buck that at the time in terms of like you don't want to stay there. Yeah. But your average average person man tracking is so enlightening. It's just a learning process. So many things. Yeah. You look if you do something quote unquote intuitively it's going to be based on your current understanding and your current knowledge and knowing. And if your current knowledge and knowing understanding on a scale of one to ten is a two then your intuitive diet is going to be that's about as good as it's going to get. So it's just a process. But yeah you don't want to get stuck in tracking. You don't want to get stuck in counting because that's a terrible way to live. That's not a good relationship with food. You want to have you want to get to the point where you've got enough awareness and you feel good and then you can kind of make those adjustments on a day to day basis. Today I'm going to eat more of this tomorrow I'm going to eat less of that. I feel this way. So I need more of this food or less of that food. And now you've developed you're developing a relationship with food. By the way it's not a goal. There is no goal. This is a constant process. I am not the same today as I was five years ago and I'm not going to be the same in five years from now. So that process of awareness it's going to continue for the rest of my life. I want to add to your analogy of somebody who you know is a two and then they intuitively rate on a one to ten they're a two nutritionally as far as their education and understanding and they're trying to intuitively eat. The people that are a two many times think they're an eight or a nine. So that's another part of this monster is. You don't know what you don't know. Sometimes you get somebody if you ask them hey let's go one to ten like how what's your nutrition knowledge as far as healthy. Yeah. Or I know what a protein I know what I need to. I know my macros so they so they would rank themselves as like an eight or a nine of understanding but because they really don't know how to apply that to themselves or I've ever seen if they consistently do that or know their own behavior they're really a two. So be aware of that also because again back to you know picking on myself I would give myself a ten at knowing like this stuff and yet I still fuck up and under and over estimate. The key is the key is assume that there's a lot that you don't know that you don't know okay just assume that because then the next stage is realizing what you don't know then you're like oh my god I am a two that's the what's going to happen at first but initially just realize this say okay there's a lot that I don't know that I don't know so let me try this process let me turn the lights on a little bit look around and realize the direct you know what directions I need to go and what I need to learn and that's the process that's the whole process of it otherwise you're going to base your your nutrition off of the your current understanding and I'm going to say this right now 99% of people in modern societies base their food choices on palatability and they ignore every other sign they pretty much ignore every other sign so if they eat intuitively it's going to be what tastes the best that's basically the way you're going to go the entire time look if you like mind pump head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides we have guides that can help you with almost any fitness goal and again they're all free you can also find all of us on social media so Justin is on Instagram at mind pump Justin Adam is also on Instagram at my pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at my pumps out today we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong well developed chest when I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time chest was up there with the yeah it was for me it was for me for sure I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique