 Our first caller is Josh from California. What's up, Josh? How can we help you? Oh, hey guys. Thanks for having me. Shout out to Jerry for coordinating. Yeah, Jerry. My question's all around adjusting calories and training while working through an elimination diet. A bit of background, a regular lifter for about 10 years now. The entire time until about 2019, I was a 60 to 80 mile a week runner, as well as seven days a week in the gym. 2007 to 2017, I was also a daily smoker, so throw that in there. The last 12, 18 months, training much more of a bodybuilding style, high reps, low rest periods, chasing the burn, chasing the pump, using a mix of split and aesthetic. I moved in June, made a switch over to power lift shortly after that. Been way too long in that high rep phase, jumping down to lower rep. I'm actually starting week four, phase two right now. Been eating fairly consistently around maintenance, 2,000, 2,500 calories a day. And then for the last year, I've also been dealing with a lot of like gut issues, inflammation, bloating, discomfort, finally hit a breaking point. I reached out to a friend of mine who's a DO, running a lot of tests, did some blood work, did some food insensitivity and tolerance testing. Also did some heavy metal testing based on the history of smoking and the high levels of heavy metals in the water where I used to live. So the first thing she's having me doing is work through an elimination diet. I already eat a diet very heavy in whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables, lots of animal protein, little to no processed foods. No sugary drinks, water and coffee is pretty much it. So taking all that into consideration, what would you suggest as far as adjusting calories and adjusting training while working through an elimination diet? So I set myself up for the best possible avenue to success. Yeah, thanks for calling in. And by the way, for people watching, Josh also sent his question in and I looked ahead and read some of the stuff. There's some details you didn't explain here and I think they're important. You're also finishing up an MBA at the moment? Oh, yeah. So I work 56 hours a week, my full-time job. Three days of those, three days a week. I commute an hour and a half one way. So those three days, I really just try to move a little bit. Some mobility work, corrective work. The four days I'm home are the days that are my foundational days and I also spend my weekends and kind of downtime working on my MBA program. Wrapping that up, it's one course right now. So it's not a whole lot of work, but it definitely adds to very high level of admittedly self-induced stress that I carry. Yeah, you also commented that you've got brain fog and that your energy is kind of low and you're noticing it's getting worse and worse. Question, have you gone through SIBO testing just for the gut stuff just to get out of that out of the way? I have not yet. I would get tested for SIBO, always see if you can rule that out only because it's relatively treatable and it can cause lots of the gut issues that you're experiencing. But here's what really becomes evident to me right away. Just looking at your question, hearing you explain your past and what you're currently doing. You're doing too much. The inflammation that you're noticing in your gut could also be caused by the fact that you're just chronically over-train and just chronically, not combined with the brain fog and the lack of energy. Now, if you do have SIBO, you could treat that. Typically antibiotics will do it. There's been herbal antimicrobials that have been shown in studies to be just as effective. They just take a little longer. But if that's being ruled out, you get tested for SIBO, you don't have it, or you do have it and you solve it, but then you still have these issues. And even if you didn't have those issues, can you hear me? Oh, there it is. Yep, you're back. Even if you solve it and you still have these issues, whatever, you're doing too much, man. This is a lot of training. Power lift, plus you're running, plus you're trying to complete an MBA. You're working like crazy. Those drives, all the things that you're telling me, your symptoms, scream too much. You're just doing way too much. And this is tough because, especially for those of us that have been working out for a while, we know what our body's done in the past. And we can kind of skate by on this much volume and training and we think that's not the issue. But you would be surprised just how incredible the body responds sometimes when you go from doing too much to doing the right amount. And I would go by cutting your training volume way down, especially with the amount of work that you're doing and the stress that you're under. MAPS Power Lift's already a decent amount of volume. It's a competitive program. Plus the run, it's just too much and you need to cut that down. Well, he didn't even ask that. He was asking a question related to calories and stuff too, which I would actually suggest if you're doing an elimination diet right now, you're not concerned really about eating in a surplus or a deficit. It's more about when you're hungry, feed your body, make whole food choices, stay within the parameters of the elimination diet. Don't add any more restrictions to that. I mean, you've already got enough on your plate. Really, the idea of the elimination diet is to look for these foods that could be causing inflammation or any other issues going on in your gut. So there's no real reason for you to now be trying to eat in some sort of a calorie surplus to gain or build. It would really be eat to be satisfied. And then you also don't want to be in any sort of a dramatic cut or reduction because that could be the reason why you feel so good is because you're low calorie so much and you're not hitting your calorie intake. So I would eat when you're hungry and feed your body when it tells you to, just stay within those parameters in regards to talking about your nutrition question. And then I agree with Sal, you've got a ton of stuff on your plate right now that someone like you, I would prefer if you were a client of mine, you were running something like MAPS Anabolic. I think that program is more conducive to the type of a schedule that you have right now. And if you wanted to put some mobility work in there on trigger days, I think that would be fine, but that's more recuperative than it is getting after it. Yeah, I mean, you said in your question, you say you've been consistent for 10 plus years and used to run tons and tons of miles. Would people who know you well, like your wife or your girlfriend or friends that have known you for a long time, if I were to ask them, do you think Josh is a fitness fanatic or overdoes it? What do you think they would say? Absolutely they would. In fact, it was my brother that really convinced me to ditch the bodybuilding six, seven days a week training and drop down to three or four. Yeah, so here's the problem or the challenge with people. I'm not like you, Josh, exactly like you. I love exercise so much, especially the mental and psychological aspects. I want to do it all the time. The challenge is whenever something is wrong, what we tend to do is we tend to look everywhere else. So rather than like cutting my workout days down, like, well, maybe it's my diet. Maybe I need this supplement. Maybe I need to do this thing with, you know, for my gut health or maybe I need to do this thing with my sleep. And I look at everything else besides the obvious thing that's in front of me like, God forbid, you know, I have to exercise any less. But just from reading your question and hearing what you're asking, that is like glaring. And I can say this because it's not me I'm talking about. I was talking about someone else. I'm talking about you. And it's, to me, it seems very obvious you are throw, you are too much stress on your body, way too much stress. So you're doing all these things and you're doing an elimination diet at the same time? That's, yeah. What does that look like? Cutting out all the, cutting out all cheeses, cutting out all gluten products, all dairy, basically all the fun foods. Have you stripped it down to like one thing and then kind of built, you know, reintroduced it back from there? Are you kind of like just taking out an offender, you know, one by one? Just starting it. I hadn't planned that far ahead yet. I was probably going to do just taking one thing out at a time so I'm not taking everything out and then not sure what it is causing the issue but trying to tease out one individual thing or a couple of things that are causing problems. Yeah. I just know that's, I mean, that's a tough thing to compile all those things on top of, you know, just to be able to focus on that alone, it, you know, takes a lot of discipline and to be able to run it long enough for you to really even know the difference when you were reintroduced these types of foods too, to be able to pay attention to that. So I would, you know, if that's your goal, I would center most of your goal around that first identify, you know, what's really going on and go through the other protocol for SIBO and all those types of things and then kind of get back, you know, and build on, you know, the training side a little bit more exclusively. I would love to see like a maps anabolic with a carnivore-esque type of diet. So a carnivore diet with maybe a few things that you know aren't going to be a problem like maybe rice and maybe certain vegetables that you know that are well cooked. Like I do that something like that diet wise, eat when I'm hungry, stay fed, and then running something like a maps anabolic. That's the direction. Yeah, I follow the guidance of the person you're working with who's an expert on nutrition, ask them about SIBO testing. But with the workout, I would 100% back what Adam's saying. In fact, I would do the two foundational workouts a week, maps anabolic, not the three. I would go for you. Okay. Two foundational workouts a week. That's it. Full body lifting. You can do your run. That's fine. Keep it run. So now you're working out three days a week. On any other day you want to be active, mobility, or yoga, or stretching, stuff like that. All kind of recovery-based type of stuff. Good walks. And don't be surprised, Josh, if you do this and you get stronger within two weeks. Okay? So that's a good sign. If you do this, you back out, and within two or three weeks, you're like, oh my gosh, I feel so much stronger in the gym. You know that you're on the right track. But I would do that to begin with. There's so much being thrown at your body. And it's sending you a lot of signals saying that you're doing too much. Don't keep going and don't wait for a louder signal because louder signals are coming if I'm indeed right. And I think I am. So I would go. Do you have maps anabolic, by the way? I do. Actually, yeah. Let's go that route. Two foundational workouts a week with your run. And then if you're not in our forum, we'll let you in the private forum. I'd like to just, I'd love for you to give us some updates on how everything's going. No, I am actually. Perfect. I knew I recognized your name. I wasn't calling to get anything. I've got all the programs and in the forum been around for a while. I knew I recognized your name, Josh. I've seen you in the forums. Yeah, when I saw your name. Okay, cool. Perfect. Give us some updates of what's going on. Within two to four weeks of following this protocol, you should start to notice some improvements, at least in how you feel. I will. And if you'll allow me, I got to shout out my brother real quick. No problem. He was actually, he was on a live Q&A in February with you guys. Didn't shout me out and a little turd. I'm the one that got him into my computer first. I just wanted to give him a quick shout out. Hey, Spencer. All right, no problem. Thanks for calling in, Josh. Thanks, Josh. Thanks guys. Hey, y'all have a good day now. Yeah, that's the challenge. It's like, I'll do everything. But work out less, you know, and I know I identify with that. I know exactly what that feels like. I just recently cut my training down from six days a week, which I've done forever down to five and voila, the inflammation ahead of my joints started to go away. But it's like, you don't want to kind of face that. But with, especially with everything he's doing with the work and the, you know, all is fighting so much stress internally. You got to start really like shaving some of that back. And I know it's tough to do when you're so, you get so much benefit from moving around all the time and like having a consistent routine and, you know, to tell somebody that's always a challenge. Well, it seems so counterintuitive when you think about it. I mean, you think exercise, you think healthy. So when people think like, oh, I'm not feeling good. I got issues. Oh, exercise more, do more. It'll help me out. But yeah, when I saw the list of all the things he's got going on, I'm like, oh man. And then on top of that, to do a, to run a quote unquote diet is not ideal at a situation like this too. Like if you're over, you're severely overtraining, you got high levels of stress and then you're thinking about either calorie restricting or major surplus of calories. Just not ideal. Eat when you're hungry and satisfied. I love the idea of elimination diet, but not doing it with the intent of trying to lose weight or gain weight. Yeah. As far as the health is concerned, if people only realize that chronic overtraining is almost as bad for you as not working out. I mean, you look at the studies on people who are chronic, you know that high level athletes like endurance runners, their lifespans are not very good because chronic overtraining, that oxidative stress on the body, not allowing your body to adapt to it, it's like getting out in the sun and getting too much sunburn. You don't let your body get a tan. You burn your skin what you end up with, right? Cancer. So you got to train appropriately. And that's a lesson I also have to constantly teach myself, but it's easier to see in other people.