 Boom! Welcome to Mind Pump. Hey, did you know your diet may be making you depressed? And if you change your diet to a more healthy one that you may feel much better? By the way, the guys also talk about their own bouts of depression and what they did about it. Also, there's scientific proof that hot girls don't get cold. Yeah, that's true. By the way, the guys also talk about their own bouts of depression and what they did about it. In the second half of the show, we answer three live callers who had questions like, My legs aren't growing. What can I do to build more mass? And also, I get an afternoon crash. What can I do about that? The guys answer that and more in this episode. Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! Do you want to spread the gospel of Mind Pump? We'll go to Mind Pump Clips and share that channel. It's a small channel right now, but you can help it grow. Enjoy the show. Are you feeling sad, depressed, down? Well, studies show that diet can have a profound effect on depression, especially in young men. So I just read a study where they took young men who were clinically depressed and all they did was change their diet and they saw significant improvements in depression. Now, this is not shocking to us. I've seen this happen time and time again with clients. What are the big three? Diet, exercise, relationships? Diet, exercise, sleep. And then you could put relationships. Big three was relationship. I mean, if you look at the studies on exercise and depression, it has profound effects. Diet is now showing profound effects. I mean, you combine the two, it's like, holy cow. Now, when you say sleep, is that if sleep is just madly disrupted, but if your sleep is relatively good, that wouldn't make the time. Yeah, like if you have a good diet, going from a good diet to another good diet, it's not going to have an effect on you, right? But these were people who, you know, so if you're depressed and you have a bad diet, if you eat the standard American diet, you know, heavily processed food. Is that what it was that was in the studies that they were contributing it to? Yeah, they all ate poorly. So the researchers put them on the Mediterranean diet and it was controlled and they watched them and they saw significant improvements. And at the end of the study, the young men were like, we like this and we want to stick with this diet. That's how great this is. And you know, the benefit, the value of this is the side effects are, you get leaner, you're healthier, right? Unlike other pharmaceuticals where side effects can include things like sexual dysfunction, weight gain, other potential effects, lethargy or hypomania or whatever. That's not the case with diet. The side effects are all good stuff. Positive side effects. Exactly. And then the effects don't wear off with medications. Medications, oftentimes you find that starts to happen with the diet. I bet you if we continue to follow these young men, the ones that stuck to eating a healthier diet would notice better and better effects. Have any of you battled with depression? I mean, I've had periods of time that were challenging, but I don't know if you would call that depression. Only you can answer that. Do you think so or no? Battled with it? Probably not. Well, I mean, struggled with it, overcame it, dealt with it, period. You don't have to, it didn't even be crippling. You mean have ever felt depressed? Yeah, yeah. So you have? Sure, from life circumstances, yeah. And can you recall that time in your life and then what got you through it? And how long were you in it for? Oh, I mean, after I had somebody close to me die, I had, and obviously I went through a divorce, which was really challenging. What helped me with people around me exercise and then consistency with my structure. So like I didn't allow or I tried not to allow my structure day or my responsibilities to fall apart. So I tried to stay on task, which helped provide kind of structure, but it got better because I think it was situational. You know, there's people with like chronic depression where it's not necessarily situational. You know, like everybody gets sad if someone dies, that's normal. Like what if you're just sad and there's nothing really happened? I think that's where it gets really challenging, I don't know. Yeah, I'm trying to think about that. I think for me it was, it's more like I didn't realize it, but like looking back, you're like, oh wow, those are total signs of depression. Like for instance, you know, just always wanting to be in bed and sleep. Like sleep in excess amount of time, you know, longer than, you know, I should have instead of getting up and like being productive and go and hanging out with my friends, I would isolate myself away from my friends and would just sleep. Was this when the Spice Girls broke up? Yeah, it's sporty Spice, man. What was it that hit you? You know, it was just being away from my comfort of here with family, friends, and like my entire environment here. Oh, that's when you left for college? Yeah, and then I was in like, it was just, you know, a lot of uncertainty out there for me like freezing and like, you know, you start like piling on a lot to like whatever situation that's tough that you're in. And then, and then I just let it sort of spiral to the point where I was just like, it was starting to affect me physically. But yeah, I had to just like, I had to just get out there, get as much sun and you don't get as much sunlight as well during the winter in Chicago. So yeah, it was just all a combination of all those things, but getting back into better food and relationships and like hanging out and like forcing myself to go like, you know, outside my comfort and hang out with people that I didn't know, you know, really kind of pulled me out of it. But yeah, that exercise, of course. Adam, you said it was when you lost your house, your first house, right? Yeah, but you know what? I can totally relate to what Justin said was a lot of that time site. When I was in it, I didn't know that. That's a good point. Yeah, I didn't know it because I didn't, one, I didn't think of me as a person like that. I definitely was not ever someone was like, feel sorry for himself. Had enough stuff that I went through in the past that I didn't make that connection right away. I just, I had a lot of the symptoms that Justin was describing where it's like, I just wanted to lay around. I love working out. I didn't have motivation to work out. I love basketball. I didn't have motivation to play basketball. I just, I was in a negative mood. I was constantly replaying this like, I can't believe. Like my up in that point. And so I, for the audience that doesn't know this, like I had built up this thing about, you know, coming from not much, right? As far as, you know, generational wealth or help or support financially, like I didn't have much or any. And a huge goal of mine was to, you know, get to a place where I could buy my own home. And to me, when I was a young teenager, you know, early teens, to me, that was as far as I could see, you know, was like, that's the pinnacle for me. Like my family doesn't have even own their own home. If I can get a career and a job and save enough money to own my own home, like that's the pinnacle. And I reached that relatively early. I was only, you know, 21 years old when that happened. And, you know, from 21 to 27-ish, I would say I was on top of the world. And then, and then the big correction happened. And the part that was really hard for me and why it was interesting, why I went through the depression was because I chose to short sell it. I actually had a good job. I could afford to make the payments. But it was advised to me by my best friend at the time who was in the mortgage industry. And what he was telling me is like, well, we bought at the peak, you've got, you know, your house is gonna, I had pulled out one time and paid my car loans off. So then I pulled like another $80,000 out of the house. So I was upside down by over a hundred K by this time. And he says, listen, everybody's gonna be like, everyone's gonna be losing their house. It's gonna be a slap on the wrist. It's gonna ding your credit. And then you'll rebuild it back. And that I just, I wrestled with that for months. I held on and said, no, no, no, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. And then it just, the market just kept doing this. And so I was just watching myself lose equity and then finally convinced my, and he had like had all the, I literally actually lived there. I don't know if I've ever shared this with you guys. I lived there for two years, mortgage-free. So I stacked a ton of cash. It was the right decision to do that. Yeah, it messed my credit up. And that took me a good five, six years to like rebuild that and fix that. But the thing that happened that I didn't see was how the, because I had identified so much. It was such a big deal. Yeah, it was such a big deal to me. And I made it such, it's something that isn't that big of a deal. When I think about it now today and where I've come now, I'm just like, that means nothing. You know what I'm saying? It's not a big deal. A lot of people can have a house. It doesn't mean, doesn't really mean that much, right? Sure, it was a big accomplishment for me in my life and so that, but I had identified so much with that. And I also identified with someone who was, at that point, I had never missed a payment. I'd never had a late fee. I'd never had bad credit. I've all, I had impeccable credit. When did you realize like you were like, oh shit, I was depressed? It wasn't until years later when I look back. When I look back at that moment in my life that was, and it lasted for like six months of that feeling of just not being able to kind of get up and do shit, not feeling motivated to do the things that I love to do. I know there's like a clinical period of time. Like, because there's like, there's like what they would consider normal, healthy, like you're sad, depressed, right? Like something happens. You lose your job. You lose a family member, a friend, relationship, whatever. And then there's like a, it has to last a certain period of time for them to consider you clinically depressed. I don't know what that number is. Maybe Doug, you can look that up. I'm interested, I didn't know that. Yeah. Cause it's, it's, and now here's a, here's the challenge is that a lot of, we're led to believe that we're never supposed to be sad. We're never supposed to be depressed. So any amount of depression is bad. This needs to get treated, but that's not true. It's normal. It's normal. You're supposed to be sad. If you lose your house, something you worked up towards, you're supposed to be, that's normal, right? I was supposed to be sad after losing somebody close to me or going through a divorce or, you know, you went through Justin, right? That's normal. Right. But then there's a period of time, and I don't know what they classified as, but once it goes past a certain period of time where, okay, this is like clinical depression. This is, I'm not coming out of it. I think it has more to do, it has more to do with empathy and loving yourself, right? Like I actually wasn't sad. I was like, I was angry and disappointed in myself. I wasn't sad. I wasn't like, oh boo, I chose to walk away from the house. But what, what ate away at me was like, now I had this voice in my head, like, you're not who you thought you were. You're just like your parents. You're like that type of stuff. So I was beating myself up inside. And so there was a lot of probably anger and hate and resentment towards myself. And what really snapped me out, which is why I love, another reason why I'm so drawn to health and fitness is because it has a sneaky way of teaching you how to love yourself, right? And to be empathetic and understanding. You ain't going to grow unless you're uncomfortable. Let's be honest. That's just the bottom line. Wow, look at this. I did not know this. So Doug brought up, I guess, a diagnosis of major depressive disorder means you have felt sad, low, or worthless most days for at least two weeks. That's it? While also having other symptoms such as sleep problems, loss of interest in activities, or changing appetite. Okay, name one person on earth. I know. I feel like everybody falls in that category at some point. That's weird. I'm a doctor, so I want to say that. Well, that's why it's... But that's crazy to me. No, I don't think so. I think, I mean... No, because that means you get treated. That's what I mean by that. Not saying that you're not depressed. Oh, that's what you mean by that. Yeah, that's what I mean by clinical depression. Like, someone deals with a little bit of depression and we have a pill to throw out. That's what I mean by clinical depression. I mean, you could call it whatever the hell you want. Yeah, I know. I get what you're saying like that. Oh, I mean, that's so... That's wild. I mean, that felt sad for two weeks. Obviously, it's a massive spectrum, right? You break up with your girlfriend when you're 15 years old. You'll be sad for two weeks. You know what I mean? Does that mean you got to go get... I don't know. That's why it's wild to me. Well, yeah. I mean, it's to me... And I've been around like some parents that like their kid scrapes their knee and then they give them like Advil and Tylenol right away. And it's like they don't want them to experience the pain of it. And it's like, this is... I don't know. To me, it's like it's character building. This is all part of the journey is like having to go through some of these tough moments and, you know, depression. Obviously, it's a tough place to be when you're sad and you don't feel like you want to get up and face it. But, you know, to just mask it to me... And there's definitely times when... There's times where you need it, obviously, and to intervene. So I'm not belittling that. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you on that. I just think... Look, growth never happens when you're comfortable. It just doesn't work that way. Otherwise, there's no reason for you to grow. There's no reason for you to change unless you're super uncomfortable. And that's what those... Because when you look back to those moments that were hard, I bet you... I bet you it was some of the biggest growth we all went through. What's that transformative for me? What's that great proverb? And I've heard... I know I heard Tom Brady tell it before. I've heard it several times before. I think it's a Chinese proverb where... Doug, do you know this one where he tells a story about his son who's supposed to go off to war? Oh, maybe you can find that, Doug. His son falls off the horse and then somebody goes like, oh, my God, so sorry for his... And he says maybe... He goes, maybe or perhaps or something like that. Yeah, perhaps or something like that. I mean, that's such a great proverb for that. And I think that's really what moved me out of it eventually was it actually ended up creating more opportunity. I saved more money. It did end up benefiting me in the long run. Temporarily, I went through this period of time where there was depression. And it's like... And what it really taught me was a lesson that I had already knew before, which is that it really does depend. And there is opportunity in every situation like that and to reframe anything that... So now when I'm faced with these moments in my darkest of times or biggest struggles that I've had since that period in my life, I always have this ability now to kind of reframe that situation and be like, oh, where's the opportunity here? That's what got me through the testosterone thing because that was the second time that I'd experienced anything that I would consider... And that was more... That was hormonally induced depression. But now to me, that was a new... It was uncontrollable. The other one was controllable. If I had better disciplines, I did this, this is like, oh, this is kind of... Physiology. Yeah. I'm physically feeling that way. But still, because I had gone through it before and I had a different attitude going into it, I reframed it. And remember what happened? I told you guys like, oh, here's a great opportunity. I'm going to get back in basketball. Then I tore my Achilles. That's right. I knew it. I was like, fuck! But actually... What am I supposed to learn here? Take this away from me. Right. I got back into reading really big and heavy again, which of course has always benefited me when I do that. And so it was like, oh, I think this is the direction. No, this is not it. Oh, maybe here's an opportunity here for me. And so, had you just find it, Doug? Yeah. Andrew found it. Can you read it, Doug? Sure. Is it super long? It's a little long, but not too bad. It's worth it, though. It's good. Okay. So it's a Chinese parable. And it had one of his horses run away. But one day later, the horse returned with 10 other horses. So what started as an agricultural tragedy turned into a positive? The farmer now enjoyed abundance of riches thanks to his runaway horse. Later, the farmer's son falls off one of the horses and breaks his leg. The community originally treats the boy's injury as catastrophic, but then Chinese rulers started drafting young boys to go off into war. The boy was unable to serve because his leg was broken. The farmer's neighbors changed their outlook and began to view the boy's injury as a blessing. But the farmer who always kept a level outlook wouldn't go there. He just said maybe. And this article doesn't. I really have the whole thing in it. Yeah, it's actually not a good way to tell it either. So Andrew can do it for our YouTube audience. If you clip out of man in an arena, there's a clip, and you can probably find it on YouTube of Tom Brady. And he tells it from the perspective of the people saying like, oh my God, it's so bad. That's great. Or that's sad. And then the farmer says, depends. Yeah, the story I heard is like when the horse ran away, oh, that's a horrible thing happened. He said, well, maybe. Maybe. And then the horse has come back and it's, oh, that's, that's, you know, a great thing. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. And then the sun falls off, breaks his leg. Oh, that's a horrible thing. Well, maybe. Yeah. And then, you know, it doesn't get drafted. So that's his attitude throughout the entire. Yes. That's how I've heard it told to me before. And I think it's just such a powerful story when you think about that because my life has been that way. And when I look back now and I reflect on the most challenging, the darkest, the most depressing times, all the above, those have led to the most prosperous, best times, largest bits of growth, most successful times in my life. So right before, you know, it's the worst is when it gets the best. And so now when those times, because they don't stop, they continue to happen in your life. It's inevitable. That's just the way it is. Yeah. Now I just, you know, obviously much older and wiser. I come into a situation like that and I face it with the attitude of like, boy, this really sucks. In fact, this is one of the worst times ever, which means hopefully on the other side of this, it's going to be one of the best times it's ever been. So I can't wait to make it through this bullshit because it's about to get good, you know? So I think that's so important when you're faced in that. Well, I mean, that's in the, you know, from our perspective, right, as professionals, the fit healthy version of you is most likely going to withstand or more likely to withstand life's challenges, which are inevitable. It'll be the most resilient version of you. Yeah. So, and then for, you know, you asked me how, you know what I did, because that was a long period for me because it was, there was a lot in between that too. And the death of someone close to me and the divorce happened within a few, couple of years of each other. And there was more stuff in between that, right? So it was like a four year period. It was really, really hard, but maintaining my structure, maintaining the stuff that I did during the day, going to work, maintaining my workouts, even though they weren't great workouts, they were just, I'm here, I'm here taking care of myself. It kept that structure and it kind of kept me trudging forward, moving forward, moving forward. And in looking back, there was growth that whole time. It sucks. It definitely sucked, but I think that's an important part of all of this. And, you know, again, this study shows diet has a profound effect on this kind of stuff, exercise too. So think about the most challenging time in your life and then think about how you would handle that being unhealthy and unfit versus how you would handle that healthy and fit. And which version of you is most likely to handle? Cause the other side of this, Adam, is when you, you're in these tough moments, sometimes you don't want to face it. And so what do you do? You numb yourself, you distract yourself, and you put yourself deeper. Well, that there, so there's the, you know, you point out like the, the fine line between what you were doing and what, what you just said. Yep. Which is like, there's this fine line of, am I doing all this stuff because it's, it's potentially better than me. Help me work through this depression and improve it. Or am I doing it? Cause I'm, it's distracting me from doing the internal work that I need to get done on this. And so, and that goes back to why I said that, I think it has a lot to do with loving yourself. Right? Like I had to forgive myself over that. And like, and then also remind myself like, that isn't who you are. Cause you had a bad credit score for four years of your life. Like that's not who I am. You know what's funny? I saw this on a podcast where this, this guy interviewed me and he goes, you know, there was a quote in, in the resistance training revolution where it says, you know, exercise, not because you hate yourself, but because you love yourself. And he goes, he goes, some people hear that and that doesn't make any sense. And you just said that you got to love yourself. And he goes, what does, what does that mean? I said, it's not a feeling. It's not the feeling of love. That's right. You're not going to, yeah. You're not going to sit there and be like, Oh my God, I got this warm fuzzy feeling about myself. Cause I just always hugging yourself. Yeah. Defaulted on this property or I just lost my job or I just, you know, because of my actions, I just, you know, destroyed this relationship, whatever. That's not what that means. You're not going to have this warm fuzzy feeling. It's action. It's okay. How do I love myself? Well, here's what I got to do. This is what I would do if I love, this is what love looks like. It's hard truths. It's taking these actions. It's not doing this, it's doing that. It's not the feeling. I want to say that I think sometimes people get confused and they're like, well, how can I love myself when I feel unhealthy or I don't feel good or I did all this terrible stuff? It's like, no, no, no, that's not the same. I mean, look, I love you guys through action. I don't always feel like I love you guys, right? But I do through action and that's what makes this partnership, you know, also work pretty well. Boom, the giveaway for today. Ready for this? Two programs, maps symmetry. This is the program that helps balance out the body and maps strong. This is a strength training program designed by strong man competitor Robert Oberst with us. So this is a strong man inspired workout program. Both of them you can get for free because that's the promotion this month. I'll get to that in just a second. Here's how you can win them. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Make sure you subscribe to this channel and click on notifications. Do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section. That's the only place we're going to notify you if you win in the comment section that you win free access to map symmetry and map strong. Now, everyone else, those are the programs that are on sale all month long. You've asked for it, you got it. 50% off map symmetry, 50% off map strong. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below to get our discount. All right? Here comes the show. Anyway, I have something that's off note that I saw. One of you was talking about it. My interest that hot chicks don't get cold. No, they don't. Is that you? Is it you? No, that sounds like a Chinese proverb. This is a study I am interested in. Yes, so they did a study. Okay. This is how this article feels hilarious. We've all seen those girls walk into the club and at night it's freezing outside and dudes are covered up and chicks are wearing barely anything. You're like, how are they going in and out and what's going on? This is crazy. Anyway, they did a study on this and they found that women who were more obsessed, women who were more obsessed with their appearance and who dressed this particular way, were more disconnected from their body's signals. So they did feel cold, but they didn't feel cold. So they're disconnected from their body because they identified so strongly with their appearance. Wow. So they actually studied this. So what's interesting about that is you would think the reverse would be true. Because they're so obsessed with their body. Yeah, they're so obsessed with their body. They would be hyper aware of its up and down of temperatures. But what you're saying is because of the obsession, it blunts their signal to read how... They're just disconnected. Yeah. They're just disconnected from... I'll pull up the article so I can read it. So maybe because they're so focused on what other people think about their appearance that they're not as much aware of their own. They're more concerned about what other people think about their body than they are about how their own body feels. Here's the quote from the study. We found that women who are more highly focused on their appearance show no relationship between how little clothing they're wearing and the reported feelings of being cold on a cold night out. These findings suggest that to an extent, women self-objectify. They increasingly lose access to their own physical experiences. So it's literally creating dysfunction. So what does that say about Katrina? Because she's cold all the time. That's good maybe, huh? I was just thinking the same thing. Like every girl I've ever dated is always freezing. Always cold all the time. What does that mean? To be a little more obsessed with your... You're with some secure women. That's what that means. Isn't that funny? Because I read the article and I'm like... Those are my favorite studies when you go with studies like that. I mean I did notice that though when you'd go to the clubs and you'd see these girls wearing basically nothing and then they're just... Yeah and it's freezing outside. I mean this is even in Chicago where it was like you get the wind chill and all this and they're just still rocking it, you know, go for it. I didn't think about that until literally you just said it right now. So did I when I read the article. I was like that's true because I remember, I mean I never really went out a lot clubbing because I was married so young. But the few times I did, I remember I'd be with my jacket and I'm freezing and you're seeing these girls walk around and you're like, how are they able to do this right now? It's so cold outside. Yeah. Speaking of studies, a study came out on the safety and efficacy of TRT for health. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so they did this really good study. They actually did analyze tremendous amounts of data and found that in hypogonadal men, so men with low testosterone who took testosterone, okay, so this was medically used testosterone, not like bodybuilders who use antibiotics or whatever for competition, but men who take testosterone supervised by doctors. They found no increase in, because the thought in the past was it's gonna increase your heart attack risk. It's gonna increase your stroke risk. You're gonna get higher rates of prostate cancer, right? That's always the, that was the propaganda or whatever. No, none of those were increased. In fact, there were decreases, slight insignificant or statistically insignificant decreases in a lot of those things, meaning probably the same. So no increased risk of all those fears that we heard in the past by being on TRT. When was the last time you looked up articles to see the growth of that space? I mean, we speculated more than a couple of years ago on that. I mean, I think that's gonna be... I would assume it definitely increased over the last few years. It moves like, okay, so I compared it to the medical marijuana space. That's a great comparison. And if it's gonna be anything like that, it moves quick. And this is how I remember. It started off with the few people that were willing to do it when it was a little gray and risky. And there's a handful of them here and there. And then all of a sudden, the support from studies start coming out that start backing up the benefits and all the positive things about it. And then it just starts to pile on fast. It's definitely still far removed from your general practitioner kind of like setting for hospitals. It's always interesting to me like how little and how much they ask, but also they're just like unaware of, you know, like how to even address a lot of these hormone issues that are happening. Well, there was a lot of stigma is what it was. So it was always, it was legal to be prescribed for a while now, but there was a stigma because testosterone is also a performance enhancing substance. So an athlete could take extra testosterone and compete at higher levels. There was also a lack of education in the general practitioner on... Well, because it was scheduled and because it was a PED, doctor was like, I'm not touching the stuff. Now, the funny thing is, they prescribe insulin, they prescribe thyroid. And those are far more potentially dangerous than testosterone. Testosterone is relatively safe hormone in comparison. So that's the iron of it. But what's happened is the way that society has viewed it. So it wasn't that long ago if a man said he took testosterone. It's kind of embarrassing or what are you, a bodybuilder or what are you or whatever. Now it's like not a big deal. And not only that, it's starting to get to the point where it's become like this, oh, it's cool and it makes me feel good and I look great and all that kind of, so it's becoming kind of trendy. It's just explosion. I don't want to get too far into the weeds with it, but I was listening to this guy who was like a rap for a pharmaceutical company and he was talking about like how, you know, we get information and stuff from our general practitioners. Well, there's been incentives to not have them, you know, defer out to like blood labs and all that to like reduce the amount of numbers because it costs the insurance companies, you know, for them to even recommend that. And so because it's a big business and it's bottom line and every year they have to show increase, you know, they've applied methods to deter physicians from even recommending like major blood panels and things like that. Interesting. Yeah. Which is frustrating. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, so of course they're not going to really dive into it because that takes a lot of investigation and detective work. Well, what's interesting about it, we talked about depression earlier, a man with low testosterone is going to feel physiological depression and if the doctor doesn't test his testosterone levels which they may not. They may like, oh, you're sad, oh, you feel down, oh, you have low energy. Oh, you're depressed. Here's an SSRI. When he just might have low testosterone. Not only that, a guy who could have potentially most his life ran at 900 to 1,000 and now he's running at 450. Which is still within range. Which is still within half. Yeah, which is not a dangerous range where general practitioner would never prescribe it but this dude is running at half of what he is. You absolutely can have those side effects symptoms. Yep. And I think that's where a lot of the general practitioners, at least my experience of talking to them about this years ago because you're right. I mean, if you were dangerously low then a GP would send you to a specialist, you would get it done. But you would have to be dangerously low for them to even consider that route where it's completely changed now. Now they lean more on the feedback from the actual client of like, if you go to like an actual hormone specialist, now that's what they, they'll lean more on that than the actual numbers. I've learned enough from Dr. Ran and their team that it's like, you know, if you tell me, if you check, I forget what the number is for them, if you check like six of the 12 things on the list of symptoms, but yet you still have 600 or whatever that, they would still consider bringing you up. See how you feel. Yeah. And there's some myths around it too where people think, well, if I go on it and try it, I thought this, if I go on and try it and then come off, now I'm screwed forever. That's not true. You'll go back to the where you were before. Whatever you were before that. Whatever you were before, right? So if you, by the way, if this is something you're interested in, we work with a great facility. You go to mphormones.com. You can set up an appointment. Do it with a doctor. And make sure they're good doctors that, you know, work with this kind of stuff. That's all important. I had a, a bit of an update for Adam because of, remember, used to call it Mimi's when it was first like a big thing. You got to be, you got to be like a long, long time listener too. Yeah. Adam used to call him Mimi's. He's like, I posted this Mimi the other day. And, you know, obviously this is like a new form thing that we saw kind of pop up. And I was watching this documentary that, I think it was on Hulu, but they were, it was kind of going into like the QAnon, all this stuff and like some of those like chat rooms and, and places where there's like kind of like hidden meaning messaging and like extreme stuff to kind of create chaos and stuff within the social fabric, the structure of everything that we're seeing. And, you know, you see this sort of on the dark side of social media and all this. And so in terms of like memes, you see a lot of attention that they get and all this. And, apparently, and I didn't, I didn't even know this, but there's, they were attributing some of this like memetic magic. So that mean. What? Yeah. Like it's, it's a practice that's like ancient or whatever is like being able to like cast like some kind of spell through imagery and some kind of like messaging on it to, to affect people. And there's all these people that are like these dungeons and dragon looking people that are like totally into it. And like, this is all part of their. Remember when the, remember when the internet was being, it was like dark magic that they're putting in there. Remember when the internet was supposed to bring like harmony and peace. Oh, I acknowledged everybody. Yeah. And that now we have. When I hear stuff like this, I mean, obviously this is the natural evolution of things, right? Yeah. Like you said, like it comes out of harmony piece. It's all good. And then it gets flooded with everybody. And then here comes the evil, the badness with that. So like when, when you think 10 years from now, like what do you see how this and thinking optimistically, not like, you know, oh my God, we're fucked. You know, like it's, we're going to figure this out like we always do. I believe so. But how does that change the landscape of, you know, social media, online presence. And you know, is it possible because it's such a powerful, like I kind of foresee this. Like it has become one of the most powerful and the coolest tools mankind has ever invented. Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's like the Gutenberg printing press times a billion. Okay. So to that point, because of it, it's still in its infancy and we're so amazed by it and we're still addicted to it. But I actually think in like 15, 20 years from now, like, you know, we'll look at it as like, yeah, it's a great tool, but it ain't that big of a deal anymore. I think, I think social media and stuff like that. It's still, it's still not as peak. It's still got to go through that phase or that. But if you fast forward far enough, like to like our kids, our ages or that, I thought a lot about the next version. I feel like nobody's ever going to get it right, you know, can see in the future like that. But like, especially how we communicate, it changes in such an interesting way. I'm like, I'm curious to speculate and see where you guys think. Yeah. So I think a lot about this actually. And I think what you're, what you're sober. No, all, all states. I'll sit there and think about it. I don't know. So I remember as a kid, when the internet first came out, I had these debates and arguments with my aunts and uncles, and I'd sit down and go, you don't understand humans are going to have access to all the information of all of human history. How come I could, how come I feel like I could role play that conversation? When we know everything, we're going to have all the answers and everyone's going to work together and it's going to be amazing. And they're like, that's not how it works. I'm like, yes it is. And they were right, of course, knowledge is not wisdom. So what I think is going to happen is I think we're going to go through the progression of what you would see with like a human. So you see a human become a toddler, then a teenager, then a young adult, middle-aged and older person. And I think what we're in right now is the teenager, young adult stage. Of social media and stuff. Yeah. Just the internet. Like so much information. Everybody thinks they know everything. We're arguing about everything. Yeah, yeah. Eventually, I think your analogy. And I think eventually old wisdom is going to become popular again. Okay. So I think you're starting to see that. Everybody's going to have to go on a walkabout. So I kind of think we're saying the same thing. Yeah. I really do. So in 20 years from now, the internet will be the old wise man. And we'll use it for what it's good for. We'll dismiss it for bullshit. And I think people are going to value wisdom again. Yeah. I think they're going to value wisdom, old practices, old things, because we've gone through this process. Now the only fear I have is, are we going to make it to that point or destroy ourselves? We will. We always do. We always do. We don't know that. Huh? You don't know that. You don't know if we always have. No, it's true. That's fair. I mean, yeah, there's been catastrophes. That's the global catastrophes. And we've recreated our societies over and over again. I mean, you know, it might be Mad Max. Who knows? We're up. We're due. I have a random question for you guys because you guys are more into this stuff, like anthropology and shit like that. Have we ever found like, you know, when we see like the long bowmen and we see like, when we dig up and we find like these hunters and stuff like that, do we ever find like a female long bowmen? Oh, no. Okay. So there's definitely cases where they find what seemed to be like female warriors and hunters. Yeah. Cause it's not the, it's usually the exception. Right. Right. Which is what I would, I would think it would be like that, right? Cause I don't, I think we were even, even back then as dumb as we were all the way back then, I still think we would be wise enough. Okay. Let's just put our, put ourselves here. Okay. If we, if we hunt guaranteed we all practice, right? We probably have targets and we practice practice. And if there was a chick who's fucking badass and she's smoking everybody bullseye bullseye to think that we would not be wise enough to bring her on the hunt. I for sure think that would happen. Yeah. I just, I think, I just think it's the exception to the rule. It's just probably a smaller percentage of that. Okay. So in, if you go further back, the root of it is that men are expendable and women are not. So a society, if the, if a society lost 50% of its men, theoretically it could survive. If it lost 50% of its women, it's dead because a man can impregnate, I don't know how many women in nine months, a woman can have one baby. So evolutionarily speaking, it made sense that men evolved to take more risks, to be physically stronger, to be the ones taking those types of risks because we're the ones that are expendable. Whereas women are not. So when you go to war and you're going to lose half your people, you ain't going to send the women out because then your society's screwed. You're going to send out all the dudes because half of them come back, but we're still cool. So that's kind of, that's the driver. I would imagine too, there'd be a factor of women sort of escaping some of their like societal pressures and things like, you know, the oppressive sort of, they want to be a part of it, but you know, it's not culturally acceptable in that society. So they like, you know, they dress up as a man and then they, like Mulan. Am I saying like a Disney movie? Yeah. I don't know. You guys didn't watch Mulan? I think I have it. I don't remember that. Of course. They were doing a draft and her dad was old and he didn't have a male, like he didn't have a son who could, so he had to go fight and he's old. So she pretended to be a boy so she could go fight. Oh, I didn't remember that. I didn't know that. I imagine that happened. I mean, we're having this conversation in my house right now because the obviously with the, does Katrina wanna go hunt or something? No. No. I actually consider her more hunter-esque of a female for the most part of relationship and we're at a point in our relationship where I think, and it's interesting for me because it's a changing phenomenon for me because I think I was very attracted to that for most of my life and now we're at a point in a life where I don't need her help slaying anything with me. And so there's other things that she, I could, I need her help with that I find that she's better at than I am. And so it's the, kind of the little bit of shifting of roles in the household and the struggle of that because you've identified as this very power-driven, successful, independent woman your whole life. And I'm sure Justin, you've probably related to some of this. I mean, you have, you're married to one very similar who for most of her life had a great career and was a killer and stuff like that. And so it's a bit of this kind of, and what I was drawing back to, I said, honey, I said, it's like, I'm sure there was, I don't not think that you, being a woman, you can't be a killer and business and do all these things at all. I've been for it, our entire relationship. It's just where we're at in our current relationship, it's less needed for where we're at, where we're at. Where we were 10 years ago, it was huge. It was important. It was paramount. But where we're at now, it's not as important. And really what we're looking at right now is that you and I, both are these two hunters in this situation. And then we also have some gathering and some other things that we need some help with. It's, we may not be spending as much time doing it. We're both doing this like crazy. And it's like, I've already proven to you that I can hunt as well or better. So why are we both doing that so much when you can probably pull back on some of that and spend more time. And then of course, that's a challenge. There's been a shift. Yeah, a bit. I think roles kind of change a bit too based on circumstance and environment, you know, with that as well. Right. And too, like with even child development, like so, where we're at now with our kids, like even in terms of them, like having even less, I guess like, Courtney having a lot less impact in terms of like them listening and on the disciplinary side of things. Right. And so this is one of those things where, you know, she's been struggling through and realizing that she has to pull me in a lot more now to, you know, really establish that firm sort of boundaries and walls and things because they want to push back and they want to push hard and they don't want to listen to mom at all. Yeah. And this is just really hard because it's like... And you just come in as backup. Yeah. I'm just coming to support but like that needs to happen now whereas before it was like, you know, she could, you know, sort of establish that and it was like, not as much of an issue. The way I look at it is it's just, if you run a family, it's just, it's like running a business. It makes no sense for everybody to do everything. Or a sports team. Yeah. And so look, it doesn't matter if the guy is, if the wife does a better job of earning and the husband does a better job of managing all the other stuff, which is also very important. So it doesn't matter who's doing what, but it does matter that it's more efficient to divide labor. Well, and... You know, just, everybody does everything. Well, end-adjustance point that I think is such an important point is that at different seasons of your life, the priority shift in that way. Of course. That when we didn't have Max, it didn't. I mean, there wasn't as much... Yeah, grab your bow and arrow. Let's go. Let's go hunt together all day. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's like home. So there was different... And now the priorities have shifted. And it's like... And to your point, I always use either the hunting, gathering type of analogy, or I use the sport, like, you know, power forward, center position versus a point guard position. That probably is more effective with her. Well, of course. She was a college basketball player. Yeah, yeah. And I do that tour all the time. I'm like, why are we both fighting for the ball to run point? It's like, it doesn't make sense. It's like, go dominate at center. Go dominate at that because that's what we need. That's what we need right now. And trust that I can run point or vice versa. Like to your point. Set some picks. Yeah. If you can handle the ball better, then you can run point. That's fucking fine. Have a ball, baby. No, I think... No, I mean, dividing labor just makes a lot of sense. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's clear cut, but I think if you run a household... Well, that... It makes sense that, okay, I handle this thing, you handle that thing. I handle this thing, you handle that thing versus let's all handle everything because then shit slips through the cracks. And then, ooh, you're not doing it as well as I do. And this and that. No, no, it makes sense. Well, don't you guys feel like in the last like 30 to 40 years, this has become more difficult in more households? Oh, yeah. I feel like... Of course. I feel like there's been so much... Rules and identity have been very convoluted. Right. I think... And, okay, rightfully so. I think, like we always are, I think we were to extreme one direction. I think we over corrected. And now we're in the middle of... We're just figuring it out. Of figuring it out. Yeah, yeah. I think that there is some value to some of these natural things that we each are better at. It's not sexist. It's not a big deal, but it's not like that. And there are always exceptions to the rule. There's always someone in that household. What it was is in the past, the roles were... It made a lot of sense that, okay, one of us has to grab a spear, go hike for 15 miles, go kill this big animal, drag it back. One of us has to nurse the baby, make sense that it was the man that did this and that. And then what happens, we created societies where we're safe, where the jobs weren't so physically, didn't require you to have so much physical strength or so much danger, where women didn't necessarily have to be there to care for the baby, where the baby could be cared for by the father. So now the roles aren't so clear-cut. And you're just figuring it out. You have to figure it out. But I still agree that you have to divide the labor somehow. That's where it gets confusing, where everybody does everything, now nobody does anything. Well, it also gets confusing. And part of the thing that I know she mentions that she was challenged with is that we also do this thing where we measure everything in dollars. And so a lot of people assume... That's such a disservice to people, to people who raise children. I told her that. I said, when I just watched her go through with the party training, she gets full credit for that. I literally had nothing to do with that. If I added any value, it was handling other things going on in our house. While she was all hands on deck on that. And I'm like, you can't put a dollar amount on that. It's worth more than money. It's worth tons more. It's your kid. I said, all the money that I made in that entire week, what you just did in one week's time, was worth 5X that. So you cannot say because all of a sudden, now you've decided you're not going to be this hunter and contributing this dollar amount to the pot or whatever like that, that you're not adding more value. And I said, and this has changed for me until I had a son until you became the mother of my son. I didn't look at it like that. I do look at it like that now. And I can honestly say that is completely shifted. It's sad because I can't think of in a household with children, I can't think of anything more important in that household than making sure that the kids are taken care of, raised and cared for, right? There's nothing more important than that. There's lots of factors that go into that, including earning money. It's a sense of safety, you know, but there's a whole generation, our generation, our generation were kids that came out from school. That's also our legacy. It's them, the things that you pass down and you give to them the way you raise them and we're going to die. We're going to die in the next 40 to 50 years. You don't raise your kids, somebody's going to raise them. And the only bit of us that continues to go on and echo is through them. And if you do a real shitty job of raising them and taking care of them and teaching them those values that you've passed down from the two of you into them, then you just fucked your leg. I can't tell me anything's more important. Money will come and go. The dollar's crashing. We could stockpile that all day long. I don't mean shit. If we can't pass down our morals, our values, our beliefs, our family names, to be good humans, to contribute to society, if we can't do that part, then all this other shit doesn't even matter that much. The thing that's not valued higher than the highest wage could ever pay is crazy. No, and I don't trust anybody more than myself or my wife to raise my kids. That's a bottom line. And if you don't raise them, something's going to raise them. That's right. We grew up in a generation where kids came home from school and nobody was home. This was a whole generation of kids. They had the key to the house. Yeah, and they just sit there and raise them with the television. And there were some nasty side effects of that, right? So I think it's real important. All right, let's talk about earlier I mentioned the Spice Girls, which reminded me about pumpkin spice. Did she really say? Flavor? I did. I remember I told Justin was depressed because of the Spice Girls. Which one? Was there a ginger spice? No. Don't remind me all the pumpkin spice stuff is out. There should have been a full effect. Wait, this is what I'm trying to do. A pumpkin spice. Oh, you said it with an M this time. You always say it with an N, bro. I think you guys all have that hearing. No, you said pumpkin. I guess you do, bro. There's an M in there. Anyway, pumpkin spice Organified Gold Juice is here. It's in season. It's delicious. By the way, are you guys doing the Christmas blend that I used to do back in the day? Remember that? I haven't started that yet. It was red juice. That was something I did. You still have my credit for everything. No, no, I came up with the name. Oh, okay. You get credit. I did it for you. Hey, listen. That's like the Kermit blend or whatever. It was like golden green, right? Gold and green. Thank you very much. No, it's green juice, red juice mixed together. Great energy producing. And it tastes great. It tastes great. So it's called the Christmas blend because it's green and red. You know, you're talking about I've just been doing the green. You're talking about our partners right now. And I just saw something really cool with one of our partners. I saw that Butcher Box is now doing lobster, dude. Yeah. Actually, they're giving it away for free. I don't know how much. How much are they giving for free in each box right now, Doug? Let's see. 10 ounces of New York strip steaks and 8 ounces of lobster claw and knuckle meat. Free. Oh, so it's surf and turf for free. Surf and turf. So if you sign up right now at Butcher Box and you get your normal box on what you want, you pay your fee for it and they'll throw in the New York strip steaks 10 ounces of it and 8 ounces of the lobster meat in there for free. I like that better than the bacon for free one. I know you guys are big bacon guys, but I'd rather have that. Surf and turf. Oh, that is such a great combination. By the way, lobster very anabolic fish to eat. High in cholesterol. Oh, yeah. Oh, high in cholesterol. Oh, yeah. Is it considered a fish or crustacean? Well, it's in the ocean. It's basically a spider. Yeah. It's in the ocean. Not selling it now. Good job, Adam. It's not a spider. It's a scorpion. Isn't it really a giant spider? They're related. That's a crab. They're related. Oh, OK. You're right. I think the lobsters related to the scorpion, maybe. All of them are. Maybe. I think if you're allergic to shellfish, you can't eat scorpion or spider either, Doug. I know every time I eat them, I feel funny. Oh, that would be scary. That reminds me of great movie, shitty effects called Remember Jason and the Argonauts? Yes. Remember when he fought the scorpion? Yeah. Oh, that's good. I mean, they redid that and it was not a bad movie. Come on. I don't know that. Hey, are you watching your Star Wars yet? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I caught Andor. Yes. Is it good? I like it. I haven't started it yet. One episode's out so far. You know what I like about it is it's more of like the human story. Like it's less about like Jedi's and Sith's and, you know, this and that and the other. It's more just like struggling through the fact that like, oh, like, did I did I just do something that's like a bit on the evil side? You know, can I justify this? So what's the story of the cause of the rebellion? What's the story about just the planet of Andor? It's the same guy. So you remember Rogue One? Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's that that main leader. I forget his name, but like he. So they're doing kind of a backstory on him. So please forgive me for not being ignorant on this. But is that the planet that got destroyed when Princess Leia got? Uh, was that her planet? Uh, yeah. Oh, so that's this. So that's the plan. They eventually shoot with the with the Death Star blows it up. Oh, yeah. That's Andor? No, no, no, it's not Andor. Okay. Did I confuse you? Yes. Yeah. You're talking about Rogue One like when they blew that. No, I'm talking about Andor. Andor never got destroyed in them. Oh, did I just stump Justin? Yeah. Yeah. Star Wars. I can't wait to roll the Star Wars. I'm so disappointed in you. So Princess Leia was from Alderaan. Alderaan. Oh, there you go. There you go. Andoran, Alderaan. Alderaan, Pandora. I'll give it to you. Anyway, watch this. You're roasted now for that. I can't wait. He's going to, hey, watch. We're going to, we're going to be done. He's going to tell Andrew to edit that out. It's going to be the same ones doing memetic magic. So I don't give a fuck. Bring it, nerds. Yeah. Check this out. There's a lot of companies out there that sell you supplements with nutrients and minerals and vitamins. The problem is your body sometimes doesn't absorb them properly because of the delivery method. Well, there's a company called Livon Labs that uses a pharmaceutical grade liposomal technology that makes sure that when you take their products, it absorbs the nutrients you're taking and gets them delivered to the target tissues. So it's a great company. Go check them out. And right now, if you sign up, you get lipoglutathione for free when you bundle it with B complex and vitamin C, this is only for mind pump listeners. So check them out. Go to liveonlabs.com. That's L-I-V-O-N labs.com forward slash M-P for the Hill Cup. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Nick from Washington. Nick, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Hey, guys. Excuse me. Yeah, it's good to finally, yeah, talk to you guys in person and not keep listening to you like I do pretty much every night. Well, I'll go ahead and just read my question and then give you guys some background information, which I think will be helpful. So my main question is, which MAPS program or workout modifications would you recommend to someone who is focused on growing their leg size and strength, kind of with the secondary goal of improving their squad? And so some background information about my self. So for the past eight years, I've been one of those types that's, I mean, really a fitness fanatic. And I still work out every day, but I used to chronically over-train and under-eat and I was spending hours in the gym doing cardio and lifting weights, while also training for marathons and triathlons. But about four years ago, I was diagnosed with low-testosterone and hypothyroidism, and so after playing my own doctor, I believe those, the reasons for my low hormones was due from one, like my high stress workouts and under-eating and just my lifestyle in general, but then also from previous concussions that I've had in the past from boxing and from football. And so I found and worked with a coach, a nutritionist and a therapist for over a year and a half to try to make lifestyle changes to increase my hormone levels. And then that's also kind of around the time when I found you guys, which really helps solidify like some of the changes that I was making. But going through that process, I really didn't see much changes. So like my testosterone was originally at about 60 nanograms per deciliter and it increased to 150. But talking with my coaches, we think probably my previous concussions are still playing a role and it's probably best that I go on medication. And so about five months ago, I started on TRT and also thyroid medication. And so I'm still working with different doctors to try to get the dose right and actually looking for new doctors now. But after listening to you guys more and more, I want to really start changing my focus and continue to focus more on getting stronger and building muscle. So with that said, my next goal is to focus on increasing my leg size and strength kind of over the next three months. And so I just finished maps in a bollock and I've actually started it a second time. But this time, what actually works better with my schedule is I've taken the foundational workouts and have kind of split them in half to where I kind of have like a leg slash shoulder day and then kind of like more of an upper body day because really, I kind of only have about 30 to 45 minutes each day to train and I really like just starting my day in the gym, just having that positive start to the day. And so I was looking through your different programs and I wasn't sure which would be the best fit for me kind of giving my background and goals. And then if you do have a recommendation, if there are modifications, say changing some different exercises or things like that around to really focus on building my leg strength. Nick, are you still struggling with under-eating? No. So actually, and so I'm continuing to work with a therapist. And so during that year and a half, I mean really just stopped running completely, kind of stopped all cardio, able to increase my calories from really, I was at 2,000, but up to 2,600. And then I saw like some pretty steady weight gain but then at this point, I actually just started work and now that I'm a little bit more sedentary, I've found around 2,300 right now is about my maintenance. And yeah, I guess still kind of weighing about like 140 pounds and 27 years old. So I don't want to, I'm not going to, you're still working with a therapist. So I would continue taking their advice from the outside. It seems like you're still having some under-eating issues, but that's going to be for you and your therapist to kind of work out. If you don't, if that doesn't get addressed, the best strength training program in the world is going to fail to really put what you're asking for, which is size and strength. You're probably going to have to increase your calories more. However, I don't know your background. I haven't, I'm not a therapist. I don't know what that looks like for you. I don't know how that makes you feel. So I would continue working with the therapist and your nutritionist and work on that. And as far as workout programs concerned, MAPS and Ebola is good. MAPS PowerLift would probably be the one I would go to next because you're focused on squat strength and leg size. And I mean, PowerLift is the best program for that. So if you don't have that, I'll send that over to you. But I think you're doing all the right stuff. You're working with the right people. I like the fact that you're working with a therapist because I think the root issue is going to be solved there. I really do. And it is a slow process. So I appreciate your honesty, kind of explaining that. But MAPS PowerLift will be the best program, but you're going to have to feed yourself to make that work too. So even though it's well programmed, I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if anything will work well for you unless you really bring those calories up. But again, do it in a healthy way, meaning I'm not talking about healthy physiologically, but healthy mentally for you because I've worked with people who have issues with under-eating and then they decide they want to go in the other direction and they do this like, well, I'm going to go from 2,000 to 4,000 calories and then they go back down to 2,000 and they go back up to 4,000. So continue working with the people you're working with. Let them know, hey, look, I want to put on more weight. I want to gain more strength. How should I do this with my nutrition because I know I need to eat more? Have you discussed that with them yet? Have you talked to them about this goal? Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and that's what I mean, we're still working on like increasing my calories and like my weight is still really like the last three or four months has really just been steadily climbing. So I've started to see really good progress and then after finishing MAPS anabolic, I've saw a lot of strength gains, particularly in my upper body and still some in my lower body, but not quite as much as I'd like. I think just from just all those years of endurance training, I kind of have that endurance strength in my legs, but not so much the size and strength I'd like. But I was, I guess, two follow-up questions for MAPS PowerLift, like one, are there modifications that you'd make to target the legs? And then two, do you have any recommendations for perhaps like splitting up the workouts into like smaller sessions just done more frequently? I want to go back to what you said in regards to why maybe you think your legs aren't responding as much. It's actually more likely the nutrition thing. So I mean, just those are big muscles. Those are big muscles. They require more, more. Yeah, it needs more. And so you've probably seen a nice increase in the upper body because you've seen a slow gradual increase in your calories. And that's been enough to see a little bit of muscle pile on your upper body. And it's going to be easier to see that. Those are smaller muscles to see major gains in the legs. You're going to have seen probably a bigger increase in calorie intake. So literally it's going to go, but I really believe Sal's hitting it right on the head with this one. And it's, this is not a lack of your programming and it's not a lack of you not already doing the right things. So if you have this mass on your legs and size and strength, it's going to have to happen over time as you are able to eat more and more and more calories. And the path to that is best answered by your therapist, not by us. Yeah, thanks for that. I appreciate you saying that, Adam. That's 100%. I could tell you to go up to 3,000 calories. I don't know what that's going to feel like for you and I don't know psychologically. So I would go to the therapist and say, hey, here's what I want to do. How do you think? Because they know you, right? You've been working with them. How do you think I should do this? What is this going to look like? Now, as far as mass power lift is concerned, you don't need to modify that. That's a, I believe a five-day program if I'm not mistaken. So you'll be in the gym five days a week. There's nothing you need to add. You're going to gain, if your calories are good and you will gain size and lower body. Oh yeah, for sure. Okay, awesome. Well, yeah, thank you guys. I appreciate it. No problem. You're on the right path, dude. Yeah, you are. Dude, keep us posted. I'd love to hear how everything plays out for you. Well, thank you so much. And yeah, just huge thank you for all the content, everything you guys put out. Seriously, y'all have been a great help for myself kind of on this journey that I've been taking. I appreciate it, man. Thanks for calling in and thanks for being open. Thanks, Nick. Yeah, thank y'all. You got it. Yeah, I'm, you know, I like questions like that because it's good for coaches to hear what we just said. And I think there's a lot of people that don't realize there's a lot more people out there like that than you realize. Look, I could give them the trainer answer which is, oh, you're eating 2300 calories, bring them up to 3000 meals, form in his mind, what his history is with that. I do know he's working with a therapist. He did talk about how he had under-eating issues and overtraining issues. And that could be the wrong advice. His therapist may be like, okay, here's what we're going to do, Nick. Let's just see if we can stay consistent at 2300 calories for a while before we start to bring you up because I know when we bring you up then you start to feel like it's too much and you want to cut it way back. He already did. He got up to 26 and he brought it down to 23 on his own. So that sends a signal to me that says, you know, I don't want to work with them on this process because this is more... Yeah, that's the urgent issue. And I feel like a part of me was feeling like he was kind of looking for like a volume answer. 100% the athlete mind. When I heard him, that's why I stopped him. Let me correct that. He doesn't want the answer to be the diet. So I think you guys nailed it with that. The athlete always wants to hear the what else can I do? They don't want to hear that, don't do this. Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, we don't know the relationship there with the therapist and him and what's been being coached on nutrition. And so he or she is going to be more right than we are in this situation. That's the number one problem. Always defer to them. And I will say this too for coaches, more often than not when you get a male client who has issues with under eating because it's not as common as females you tend to overlook it. And you tend to push them differently more inappropriately with women. Probably more extreme because majority of men won't even admit it. 24, 25-year-old me would have given him the answer to the test. Just eat more. You're only eating 2,300 calories. Because that's what it is, but not knowing that he has this... Kudos to him for putting himself out there and sharing that because he also could have came on this damn podcast, which would be awful and asked us that same question and not said anything about that. And then we would have went to the calories and the advice was, oh, push it up to 29, bro. You'll be fine. I mean, we would have said that. Although I would say this, had he not told us that he was... And this is just an experience thing. Had he not said he was working with a therapist and he had issues with under eating, I would have either A, guessed, or I would have asked him like, are you like a super fast metabolism because by looking at him, or B, no, I'm not, then I would have been like, oh, okay, you're probably not eating enough because he said his weight, I don't remember what he said. 140. Yeah, 140 pounds. I mean, it would have been one of the other, especially if you're strength training, trying to put on size and strength. Our next caller is Anano from Korea. Anano, how can we help you? Hi, guys. First of all, I want to apologize if I sound too bubbly. I am having a little spend girl moment right now. I'm so excited to finally talk to you. So, I recently, in the start of September, I purchased Skinny Guy Bunzel, finally. And I'm doing Max Anabolic. And even though I've been consistent with my training since 2014, I still started with the preface. Before I was doing that, I did a few workouts from Saul's book about resistance training and after that, I did those five free days you gave up on the YouTube for the first five days for Anabolic for about a month. And then finally, when I got the whole program, I started with the preface. Now I'm in the third week of preface and been doing as consistent with it as I can. But the problem that I noticed is that I'm kind of tired, but it's not like right away. So, I get my workout in in the morning and I feel great after two hours. And then after two hours, it just cuts like, I'm out of energy, super sleepy, super hungry and so on. So, my schedule now is like I get my workouts in in the morning before work. Then I have my part-time job. After part-time job, I prepare for my thesis. So, that's how I like that's my schedule and eating and sleep is really out of my hands because I live in a shared house with three other people and they are really allowed till 3, 4 a.m. in the morning and I just eat twice a day and they're before 12 p.m. and after 9 p.m. because that's when I get off work. So, like with my schedule, how can I speed my workouts in so that I don't feel as tired throughout the day after them. Ooh, that's a tough one. Okay, so it sounds... First, do you have caffeine? Do you take caffeine daily? No, not really because I try to sleep on water when I'm working and before I used to sleep on coffee, but since I swatched the water, I don't have caffeine at all. Okay, good. I was wondering if you were having a caffeine crash. The other side would be a possible drop in blood sugar. Your first meal is after your workout, correct? Yes. And what are you eating in that meal? Is it a fat protein meal? Is it a carbohydrate-rich meal? What's in that? I switched with two breakfasts. One of the days I would eat chicken breast and rice and kimchi. Kimchi is like that pickled Korean side dish. And the other days I would switch it for with hand toast. It depends on the time because I have to rush to work. If I have time to prepare chicken, I do that. Sorry. No problem. What time do you get the energy crash and then what time is the first meal? Our first meal is between 11 to 12... 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. And then at 12, I set off for work. And I get this energy crash around 2 or 3 p.m. at work. Okay. Try making your first meal a higher protein, higher fat, no carbohydrate meal and see if that affects you any better. Because you may be getting a rise in blood sugar and then a drop in blood sugar, which is typically characterized by this sudden crash of energy, this irritability of cravings, and you mentioned the cravings in the crash of energy. So I would start with a fat protein meal so you can make the calories the same. In other words, I don't want you to eat less. I want you to make up the carbohydrates with fat and protein so you have the same calories, but you're not getting the carbohydrates so you don't possibly get that spike and then drop in blood sugar. You may also just be doing too much. I mean, you're working, you're studying and doing school stuff. Yeah, people that are disrupting your sleep at home and then you're also training and working out and so you're doing a lot. I don't know how you schedule your current workouts, but maybe I would only lift one to two days a week full body and I would choose the days that I feel most rested. So instead of being like, oh, every Monday, Thursday, I lift, I would go okay, my goal is to lift two days a week full body and I'm going to choose the days that I feel the best. Other days I'll be active, I'll walk, I'll do other things that promote movement and activity. I think that's always a good thing for us, but then as far as strength training and lifting weights, I'm going to pick the days that I got the best rest the night before and I feel energized to lift and I'm going to lift that maybe once or twice a week and see how I respond to it because it could just be you got a lot going on. But I mean, if they're keeping you up till 3am, you know, that's a big problem. That's a tough one to combat. Yeah, do you have earplugs and an eye mask? Are you able to kind of cancel out the noise? I can't because I tried earplugs but then I hear the silence and it even keeps me more up. But there is only one person who is super loud and she's moving out so I think my sleep will get better after she moves out. Well, the other thing you could do besides earplugs is noise. Yeah, white noise. You get a white noise machine. That tends to help people if it's noisy. I don't wear earplugs either because same thing, she doesn't like silence which is kind of weird. Now that I meet someone else, I know she's not making it up so I guess it is a thing. Put earplugs in. No, so a white noise machine could also help but I think the lack of sleep and a possible blood sugar crash would be my two top things that I would look at based off just what you're saying. Okay, thank you so much. I have two more kind of questions. One of them is what is your favorite workout technique and stuff. So in your program, you have hanging leg raises and pull-ups but my grip and my core is super weak to do any of those. So I listened to you guys' podcast and I think Justin was giving some alternatives with the hanging leg raises so that's how I've been swapping them up but I don't know what to do with pull-ups. I tried doing just dead hangs instead of pull-ups but I don't know if it will work or what shall I do with pull-ups. Do you have access to a pull-down machine? Rubber bands. Yeah, rubber bands. I mean, even isometrically, if you do that, focus on the negatives at the top holding for a specific amount of time and then slowly going down that's going to help build up strength. So in other words, you get a banter box so you can walk up to the bar so that you finish the pull-up and then take your feet off the box and then try and hold yourself there for three to five seconds. That would be my isometric or lower yourself with control and that would be a rep. And if you have a pull-down machine that's another thing you could do. You could just do pull-downs and build up strength. It's not the same but it's similar enough to where you're going to reap some of the similar benefits. The next option would be getting bands that can support you that you can put around your knee and above to the pull-up bar that will help pull you up and assist you. So those are all options. All right, thank you. And one last question. It's about the order of the exercises. Sometimes they're doing like Jimmy's two packs. I cannot get the certain equipment so is it okay if I do whatever is available and then go back to it or is the order of the exercise it's important. But it's not a game. It doesn't break the program. In other words, it's okay if you've only got 45 minutes and it's like I got to get my workout then it's okay to switch them around. But ideally you would want to do them in order. We run into this all the time with busy gyms so you just kind of have to be a little bit flexible. It is good to follow it in the certain sequence we have it just because of what we're building up towards in the workout. But yeah, I mean it's not going to kill the workout but it's going to do it out of order. Yeah, thank you so much and I wanted to start this with, I start my introduction with it but I want to thank all of your team of mind pump team for everything you do. Like a light in the dark room for me and I'm really glad I found your podcast. Oh wow, thank you so much. Listen, Anon, can I give you something for free? I know you have the bundle so is there any program you don't have that you would like for free? Basically, I don't have anything except the skinny guy bundle because that was like I saved up to afford this so yeah, it's just everything I have. Yeah, I'm going to send you map symmetry, okay? Thank you so much. And thank you so much for following the show. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for calling. Thank you. What a sweetheart. I like her so much. She's so sweet, yeah. Maybe save your marriage too. I thought my wife made that up. I don't like the earplugs because it makes everything so silent. What the hell? I've heard that before. The energy crash thing is funny. It's interesting, right? When you notice a sudden dip where it's like it's typically usually blood sugar related or your caffeine crash, right? Your AM caffeine just wore off and you're getting this sudden crash. It's always the two first places I look at but that's tough too with the sleep. Yeah, it is tough. What she could be feeling from the workout, the two are being energized just cortisol. She's just getting a spike from that and so it's giving her an artificial signal that she's feeling energized and good and she's actually really feeling down and out. She just pushed herself through the workout and that might be because she's just doing overall too much, too much stress, not enough sleep and so it could be a whole host of different things. We'll be right back in Louisiana. Elijah, how can we help you? Thanks for calling in. Of course. Sorry, I got flustered there so I'll go straight to my question. It is about fasting and I want to know if that is something that I should look into. It's one of the few things that I've never really experimented with but I've always been curious about it and with some background I have a lot of stress on my plate right now. Currently, I have my own training business that I've been running for a few years there so I do nutrition coaching and trading pretty much full time but I'm in nursing school as well to eventually become an endocrinology nurse practitioner which big shout out to you guys, a lot of the interviews that you guys do really have pushed me in that direction so I'd love to have a hormone clinic myself one day. I also just recently got married in a couple weeks so we have a lot of my plates and I'm also currently training for a strongman competition that my friend convinced me to do because it's different than American Ninja Warrior which I've recently been on so I'm just changing things up. I'm wondering if something like fasting would be a little too much to add or maybe weight in order to add something to experiment with fasting or if I should maybe try it out and maybe it will even help me with mental clarity for school. You sound like you're pretty lazy I don't like to work hard at all. I'm curious what the other guys are going to say but there's lots of health benefits to long, long fast I just came off of a three day fast absolutely I love doing this I am not doing nearly as much as you're doing right now and you have to understand that it is also a stress to do that. To not eat for three days is a stress. Now it creates a lot of positive benefits from it the question that I would have would be is it ideal for someone like you with everything you currently have on your plate and are you missing out on so much by not doing it right now I don't know I probably wouldn't push you in this direction to do this because of everything you already have currently going. The benefits of fasting really are the for lack of a better term the spiritual component the detachment from food food is very important for us as humans and not eating for a certain period of time can bring clarity spiritual clarity food relationship clarity now this isn't true for everyone if you have an eating disorder or a disordered eating in your past fasting may actually be terrible in that case it's great but for athletic performance for fitness for fat loss it doesn't it's I mean it maybe can provide some structure for some people but there's no additional benefit and if you're going to do strongman training I think fasting is going to be counter yeah it's going to be counter to your goals because you have to consume food and calories and proteins and it's going to be difficult to do if you have to eat only in a six hour window or whatever you decide to do so unless you're trying to have a relationship to food or enhance a relationship to food you want to go without you want to experience detachment which by the way you can fast from a lot of things it doesn't have to be food it could be electronics, it could be sex it could be alcohol it could be a lot of different things but if you want to experience that then I would say fast but according to based on your goals and your schedule it's not going to benefit you know any of those things yeah I think it's honestly that space for it it doesn't sound to me like there's a lot of opportunity for you to kind of make that kind of space to really get into that you know awareness side of it that spiritual side of it where you can remove yourself from all those other things you have on your plate and what's going on so if that does come up down the road and you want to you know make that a priority I think it'd be beneficial it'd bring a lot of insight and you know I love it for the introspective part of it and to be able to look at like the habits that I'm used to and like what draws me to food and you know where all of those things sort of stack up on my daily schedule but as far as like it being something that you add into the mix of all these other you know training heavy you know demands of work and school and all that I just don't think it's a good time for that yeah if you were like if you weren't doing Strongman and you were just running your business and you're like you know I'd like to just see how my body reacts without food and then with food and I'd like to see how I handle you know anxiety or how I handle certain things how you know at lunchtime I find I have to eat because I get irritable what is that going to be when I don't eat and how am I going to deal with those feelings then that's okay but with what you're trying to do especially with the Strongman training I don't think it's going to be beneficial at all by the way those Ninja Turtles on the wall in the back yeah yeah that's pretty that's pretty rad dude that is awesome that's pretty rad yeah good deal but anyway I hope that answers your question can we give him like a Strongman program just oh yeah let's give you we'll send you maps Strong do you have any of our programs I have almost all of them I have maps Strong I've kind of been breaking it up into like even 30 minute windows with the time that I have my big goal with the Strongman really is I have two goals which is just not get last and then don't hurt myself trying not to last that's a good first goal because a lot of with fasting is I I've never done it so I wanted to challenge myself so then eventually maybe I could coach clients through it but I if getting my clients to experiment with it just because I don't have a lot of experience well that's a whole different point now now I do see value in that especially if you just do like one one week you know plant plant plant it on a weekend where you know that you have the like you obviously have a lot on your plate and I'm sure that ebb and flows right and probably there's more stressful weeks than other weeks and there's better weekends than not better than not good weekend so find what you would consider a good weekend where you have the least amount on your play and say hey you know what I'm gonna do a 24 or 48 hour fast weekend and you really are doing it for research purpose I just I want to see what it feels like I want to see if I have cravings more on the first day or the second day I want to see what I find myself drawn to I want to see when I come out of it how my body responds to certain foods and how I need like yeah I think there's tremendous value as a coach who wants to have wants to be able to communicate that better to his people that potentially could have a get a lot of value from fasting that changes my answer completely so now I'm now I'm pro that's exactly I'm sorry that like a hyper stress environment necessarily it will I should be able to manage that yeah yeah yeah I would I think I like what Adam said I would pick a weekend and do like a 48 hour fast just for research purposes like a slow weekend we're not doing much and that way you can kind of see what it's like yep awesome thank you and yeah and it was I know everyone does it so I'm not going to tell you guys how appreciative for the podcast and I'm not I do think you've made a much better trainer almost adding experience to my experience because of the even bringing it back to the basis that you guys talk about so I'm not going to tell you guys how thankful I am for you thanks for not doing that thanks Elijah have a good day you got it yeah you know that's good I'm glad people heard that because the answer was no and then it became yeah it really depends it depends on the context I don't like fasting for weight loss I don't like fasting to get ripped but for and I don't even like and I don't even really let necessarily like him doing it for the spiritual reasons where he's currently at yeah that's true but then you throw in something like hey I'm a coach I coach lots of people I do I see I listen to you guys I hear that you guys talk about the benefits of that the spiritual side and the people that can really really need it for the relationship with food and so I already recommended but I've never really experienced it myself I want to be able to communicate it whoa okay total different thing I'll take a bad week of training I'll take off training for that week if you really so if you really want that that's such a priority now to me for my career and being a better coach that I'll put the strongman training for the week on the backburn say I'm gonna take lifting off completely and I'm gonna pick two days that are the easiest days of my week and I'm gonna fast for so just so because that those two days will provide so much more insight for him and the ability for him to communicate to those coaches as tremendous value and by the way we have a fasting guide if anyone's interested in just kind of the basics of different methods of fasting right here it's right no it's it's yeah it's right right here but for those who are just listening it's mapsfitnessproducts.com where you'll find that also if you like this podcast and you want more free stuff we have so much free great stuff that we create to help you with your health and fitness goals go to and check out our guides got a lot of guides that can help you with almost any goal you can also find all of us on social media so Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump South this one's really important and that is to phase your training if somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps if you compared that person to a person who did bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps but they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw on some supersets at the end of that year you're going to see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out and less injury that's another thing you'll see less injury as well