 You've heard me talk about creatine before, many times, all of its incredible benefits. The list is almost endless, builds muscle, is good for the heart, good for the liver, improves cognitive function, improves mitochondrial health. Well, you can add potentially one more thing to that list. A new study has now found a correlation between creatine consumption and reduced cancer risk. Now, it hasn't been proven yet, but I'll bet you that more studies in the future will prove this connection. Why? Creatine improves mitochondrial health. We know this, and mitochondrial dysfunction plays a role in the proliferation of cancer cells. Also, it helps the body methylate. This is also an important function to reduce cancer risk. So, creatine, it's probably the healthiest supplement you can take. Not to be the turd in the punch bowl, but isn't it like a far reach to always attach everything to, you know, pro or anti-cancer? I mean, you can almost say anything that improves mitochondrial health, anything that builds muscle, anything that improves insulin sensitivity is, or does the reverse of that is pro or anti-cancer? Do you feel like sometimes articles and studies attach things to cancer because it's such a powerful word for people that you go like, oh, that's anti-cancer. It's like, well, so it was exercised, so it was sleeping well. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that are anti-cancer and there's a lot of things that are pro-cancer. Do you think that we use that a lot as like a way to, like, get everybody's attention because it's such a powerful word? Yes and no. I agree with what you're saying for sure because it is a, like you put cancer in a headline with a study. Yeah. You're going to get a lot of clicks. For sure, but because creatine is a supplement, it is interesting to find this correlation. Now, the way they did the study is they looked at people who consumed the most amount of creatine from dietary sources. So, there's more to this study that's interesting because what it actually also potentially shows, and this is where people like Max LeGavir are pointing, is, hey, number one, the highest concentration of creatine is found in red meat, no, red meat in particular. So, the study is showing the highest consumption of red meat to also being the one that has the lowest rate of cancer. So, now the way that they figured this out wasn't red meat versus this kind of meat, it was just creatine consumption. So, there's a lot of things potentially to unpack here. Can you also say that that's like comparing someone who's on a ketogenic diet versus somebody who runs a vegan diet? They didn't control for macros. I know, but don't you think the same outcome would happen right there? So, if you compared the cancer patients, right, with people that were on a ketogenic diet versus people that were on a vegan diet, you, I think we already know what the outcome would be. You would see a positive stuff from the ketogenic diet, you'd see less positive stuff from- It's so complicated because there's so many different ways to do keto, so many different ways to do vegan. What we know is if you consume, if you don't over consume, you reduce your risk. And then there's weird- Is there anybody that does keto who doesn't run a bunch of red meat? Are you familiar with someone running a keto- But no, but there's people who run keto- It's almost necessary to run a ketogenic diet, I mean, run a high red meat diet on a ketogenic diet because of its, how nutrient-dense it is, and you're limiting yourself to so many different foods. Yeah, but there's people who do keto who eat like a lot of bacon and hot dogs- Oh, okay. Yeah, processed meats. Okay. So there's a lot, and cancer is really complicated. This is why we haven't found a solution. I remember years ago, this was something I dived really deep in because I had somebody close to me who was suffering from it. And I had clients that were cancer doctors and surgeons. And I remember one of them, really, really smart guy, probably one of the smartest people I've ever met in my entire life. He was an anesthesiologist, but he was just absolutely brilliant. And he goes, he goes, dude, it's so complicated. He goes, because I brought up the Warburg effect to him, which is a long time ago, I think in the 1930s, scientists discovered that the mitochondria in cancer cells consumes glucose at really high rates. And if you starve it of glucose, the cancer cells tend to die. Now, so in other words, going ketogenic could be anti-cancer. And I brought that up to him and he said, well, some cancers actually thrive. Feet of it. And something like that. And he goes, and it's really weird from one cancer to the next. That's why, I mean, we put this big general category of like cancer, but some things will make it worse. The context matters, but there's general things we know. Like we know building muscle is very anti-cancer. In fact, pro-bodybuilders who are not healthy, okay? Pro-bodybuilders take a lot of drugs. They don't live a healthy lifestyle. They die of cancer rates at lower rates than the average person. So the amount of muscle mass they have actually protecting them from cancer, even though these guys are taking growth hormone and insulin and living a ridiculous like excess calories. And by the way, a lot of bodybuilders that do all those drugs are okay with other drugs too. It's rare that you meet a bodybuilder who's just like, oh, I won't do that drug. I'm okay with doing all the other ones. But creatine fuels the mitochondria. And we know that the mitochondrial dysfunction is at least a factor in a lot of different types of chronic diseases, including cancer. So that's the theory. That's my theory. Is it proven in the study? No, it's a correlation. But I will say right here on this show that I think we're gonna see studies that are gonna show that creatine in a healthy environment, I'm not talking about in a pro-cancer environment, that's different. That changes everything. But a healthy environment is gonna be shown to be anti-cancer. That's my strong belief. Now you brought up methylation a few times. Like, can you explain a little bit more like the benefit of that and why that's something to pay attention to? Methylation is your body methylates, there's certain pathways in the body that require what's called methylation. And some people do this better than others. Certain things are called, or certain compounds are called methyl donors. And there's a gene, I can't remember what the gene was, I got tested for it, where you don't methylate very well so you can have higher rates of things like B vitamin deficiencies. You'll have to take like certain types of B vitamins. You're more prone, you don't detoxify the body, the body doesn't detoxify as easily. Well, anyway, creatine, methylation is involved in the making of creatine in the body. So, and the way your body makes creatine is you either consume it or it takes a couple of amino acids and it makes creatine, it's essential, okay? Supplementing with creatine reduces the amount of creatine your body needs to make. So it frees up this methylation process. So here's a, okay, good, thanks Doug. There's some of the symptoms of poor methylation, anxiety, depression, insomnia, IBS, allergies, headaches, muscle pain, and addictions. Pretty much everything. Yeah, it's pretty much everything gets it going. Yeah, I just haven't heard anybody kind of pin it to that. So that's interesting. Yeah, so, and so this is, so creatine, who is it that said that, Dr. Seeds? Dr. Seeds, yeah, I brought that up. He said it's one of the best thing you could do to help the methylation process. So I don't at all disagree with this, right? The point of me bringing up what I said was less to do with like, I think we've all agreed that we're gonna continue to see more research, positive research around creatine. We've also speculated that I can easily see it being in people's multivitamin packs or something. I could totally see us like pro, giving it to children in the field, like all that stuff I think is coming down the pipe and I agree with it. And I agree that it should be, there's so many positive benefits to it. But I just think, whenever I hear the studies that always attach things to cancer, like I just, I right away go like, well, I mean, if you understand what's going on with cancer, there's a lot of things that we can do that's pro, preventing it and there's a lot of things that we could do that are to pro it happening. So it's like- And then the context matters. Yeah, and so, you know, and I just think- It just attaches it to like people's biggest fear, I guess in the hell space. Yeah, I just think it's an easy way to- The alarming thing. To manipulate the masses, right? Because you hear cancer and all you hear is pro, or anti and then the word cancer. And so that- And you don't consider the context. Yeah, you don't consider the context, you don't consider what percentage of that or how big of a deal it is. Because there's so many factors. I'll give you a great example to back up what you're saying. MTOR, if you stimulate MTOR, it builds muscle. It's a pro, it's an anabolic pathway that causes muscle growth. MTOR also causes cancer cells to grow. So people are like, oh, we got a lower MTOR. No, if you're healthy, you want MTOR to be high because it's good for you. If you have cancer, that's when you might want to tamp it down. Protein, amino acids fuel cancer growth. Does that mean you should eat a low protein diet all the time? No, if you have cancer. Look at that conflicting sort of duality right there already. We're talking about how you get the benefits from creative, from red meat specifically. But now you can make a case completely in the opposite direction based off of MTOR. A pro cancer state is different than a normal state. And then you need to treat them both. Again, here's another example. Low testosterone, chronically low testosterone can increase the risk of aggressive prostate cancers. If you have prostate cancer, you want to lower your testosterone though because it can fuel it, right? So two situations where it's the opposite of each. So this is why it gets so complicated. But I think creatine is a little different. I think it's just a pro health. Yeah, it's a nutrient. Yeah, type of thing. But if you have cancer, you've got to throw everything out the window and look and see, like, OK, well, I have cancer. What kind of cancer is it? You know, like if you have an estrogen-sensitive cancer, well, you're going to want to take things that block the estrogen receptor or lower estrogen. Is that what you want to do when you're healthy? No, that's why I feel like cancer is in its own category of exceptions to the rule. And then I feel like when we do these studies and this stuff comes out, like we should just leave that out of the conversation. Otherwise, it just confuses people. Because even after what we did. It's a good selling point. It is. It gets your attention right away. That's really what it's for. But then really what I think it ends up doing is confusing the most people. Because even just listening to you guys just talk right there, you go like, so does that mean I should or shouldn't take that? You should take great things. I'll be very clear. Everybody benefits. Unless it bothers your gut or whatever, some people are like that. I think you should take it all the time. But not to go down a rabbit hole, but the most promising research on cancer now is targeted individualized cancer treatments where they'll literally be able to analyze your cancer and create a cancer-specific drug that will attack your specific cancer. And there's research right now where they're trying to develop this. And that's probably what it's going to be. It's probably going to be in the future. We detect you have cancer. We have tests now that are starting to detect it earlier and earlier. There's rumors of blood tests that can do this. But so far, they've all failed. But if we can detect it early enough, then find what your DNA looks like, what your cancer cells look like, and then tweak the treatment, give it to you, and then boom. Does that look like something that's more like a peptide or like a vaccine? Like what would that be more like? It would probably be a viral transport. So it'll probably in a type of virus that's inactive that then is used to infect your cells and then deliver the payload. That would be more like a vaccine than a peptide then. Kind of. Vaccines before, right? Like we'll give this to you so you don't get cancer. This is more, it's similar in the sense that it's an inactive virus, I guess. But that's probably where it's going to go. But it's interesting. With AI, they're doing now more on a computer. I was listening to Michio Kaku on Joe Rogan with these quantum computers. And he's like, they'll be able to test millions of potential drugs instantly. Just simulate it. Right away. And right away we'll get like three of them that'll work. And now I have to test it on an animal or a person. We'll have three candidates. And it'll give us like 95%. This will probably work or whatever. Yeah, that'll move things. Oh my. Dude, speaking of AI, you actually just, this wasn't even on my radar to talk about this, but you just reminded me so that it came yesterday. It was like popped up in my feed. What's his name? Ty Lopez. Yeah. He was doing a live stream. And it just caught my attention. He's doing this live stream. I forget where in the world he was at. But he had like four or five kids with him that were all under the age of 25. They were like 20 to 25 years old, four or five, all multi-millionaires. And he was sharing with his audience like how they got there and then the tools that are available for these. Now almost all of them sold digital products online. It's like the go-to hustle, right? And then he literally uses like a chat GVT with a plug-in and shows people how these people are making millions. Like right, it was wild. He basically, he prompted his audience, tell me a skill that you have. Any, whether it's the job you do or something that you're passionate with. And people just start like, you know, piano. And like people just pay like. Don't tell me I gave him the plan. Bro, it did more than that. So he goes, first one that popped up, piano. Okay, here we go. Like he prompts it to give me 10 titles of becoming good at piano in 60 days or something. And so it prompted 10 like really good titles. Then he picked the title and he goes, now write me a 5,000 word e-book starting with the first chapter, bro. Are you serious? And it, like while he's talking, it's creating. And then people turn around, fucking throw that out there, put it up there as an e-book. There's plugins that'll create the landing page for you. Everything. And then now you collect emails. And then you can literally say, hey, make me a newsletter that I give these people piano every week. And you can even go. Holy cow. And then you can even go back and you can adjust it and go. So let me ask you this. So here's what's crazy about this. Remember when Facebook started to really become big and the people that figured out the advertising of Facebook early on were just crushing. That's what's happening. Until it got, right. At what point do you think this is gonna be where it's not gonna work? So it's gonna get, it's gonna be a while. Like, I mean, look at, we, obviously it's already been happening. Millionaires are being made off of it. I didn't even, I wasn't even like, and I've been talking about AI like crazy. That's crazy. I wasn't even aware at the level of like, oh yeah, that does make sense. You could do all of those things. And man, if you, now. That's literally .com secrets. Told you how to do all this yourself. And now you can do it in an hour. And so he talks about what he's talking about on his live stream was like, you know, we actually had to do this work just five years ago. Five years ago, this was still a good, a smart pathway to make millions of dollars online. But you would have to write it. You said to write it all. You had to write it all, do it all yourself, which would take time where he's like, literally this is in minutes. And you could have a library of these like e-books. So for people who don't understand like exactly what you're talking about, literally this is the playbook and it's been a playbook and it works if you do a decent job. You create a free, valuable product and e-book how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, whatever. You put it out there, you let people opt in for it. It's gotta be valuable because if it's crappy, it's not gonna work. They'll get it, you'll get their email. Then you build an email list and then you foster a community through that by giving them like a weekly newsletter or monthly newsletter and you get them to open the emails and you get this, you build up this email list of people who really wanna read what you have to say. And then they're a captive audience. Then you can sell them stuff. You could create coaching courses. You could sell other products. But that's like the playbook and it works. It's very consistent. And you used to have to write all that, create it, foster it. It was a lot of work before because you could literally say to the chat, hey, give me a weekly newsletter on playing the piano for the next 10 weeks. Yes. And you got 10. Put it in the parameters. How many words? And then you can plug it into email that automatically sends it out. How many words you want? You can put it, you can plug in. I want it to be a semi-comedic or write it in the form of how Sal DiStefano writes or I could prompt it to write it however I want to. And then it becomes mine because it's original work. It's not like it's copying anything else out there. It's using everything that's out there to come up with its own content based off of how you prompt it. And so, and this is all stuff that we've known how to build a business. But I mean, you're able to prompt this sucker in minutes time. And you used to have to have some talent. Yeah. And now, and so here's what I think is going to happen. So what I was asking you is right now we're in a period where the opportunity is easy. But at some point, we're going to jump on board. We're going to saturate. So there's some still challenges, right? So like, let's use the piano person as an example. You know, and he's showing that person that if this person has garners no attention and has no audience yet, it doesn't really fucking matter that much. They have 10 people that can send an e-book. If they have no reach, it's not going to go far. So you still have to build community, right? You still have to be probably, and I think that's the future of like how. Who can get the attention? Like, yeah. So I think you'll be more cautious about just buying anybody's e-book online. You'll want to have listened to their podcast for 50 episodes, first to be like, okay, I trust these guys. Can actually explain it, yeah. Yeah, I think you would want some in the future. I mean, for now, this still works. I mean, if you're on Facebook and you're looking for piano lessons and this e-book pops up and it's free, well, I mean, why wouldn't you? And you could also technically, because you could build an authority and an audience through blogs. So you could very easily start that process with chat, GBT, write a weekly blog, develop a bunch of followers, offer a free e-book and then boom. You're off to the races. Was it you that was telling me it was Adam Bornstein behind the Arnold AI podcast? So he's literally writing and prompting the AI for that. That's right. And it's like, is this still up in the charts, Doug? So Doug looked, it's way down. Doug looked and said it was way down, but I was talking to Mike, and Mike said it was crushing. So I mean, I don't know who. Yeah, but you know how those rankings on iTunes are. Well, that's what I'm saying. So I think Mike is referring to like an article on like what it's doing download-wise and growth. I think Doug was just looking at what iTunes is. So yeah, I don't know who to believe as far as how well it's doing. Nonetheless, people are listening. It's fascinating that it's working. Well, I'm just very curious because I'm too in like other segments, like other industries, like if they're doing this and they're testing it and you know, where they haven't success with that. It'd be interesting to see like which ones kind of break through that are like fully AI. This totally reminds me of when social media advertising first started and now looking back, everybody feels like an idiot for not taking advantage. I had friends. Yeah, I know. I had friends that would tell me, Sal, you don't understand. It's so easy on Facebook. And they would literally spend $5 and make $20 each time and they just scale it up. And then of course they changed the algorithm. They got saturated and now it's much more challenging. You just have to have an exit plan. Otherwise, yeah, people get like so cornered into that one way and that formula and that platform and then they got decimated once they changed the algorithm. I mean, every week we talk to the coaching, right? So we have a coaching group through NCI. Every Wednesday we communicate to like a group, groups of trainers that we're trying to, I am always like passionate. Figure this out. You have to be working on this. You guys have to be utilizing these tools because it's going to accelerate your business or you're going to get eaten alive by somebody who has figured it out. Or in the middle, you're gonna look back, you'll be okay, but you're gonna look back and be like, oh, why didn't I do it back then when it was so easy? You know? Today's giveaway maps, old time strength. We're still in launch season. You can win it. Here's how. Leave a comment below this video on the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. Now everybody else, there's two days left for the launch special, meaning you can get it for $80 off and two free eBooks. Forgotten muscle and strength building secrets and Jay Campbell's living a fully optimized life. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below or go to mapsoldtime.com and use the code old80. All right, back to the show. Speaking of AI and stuff. So we, with our partners that we work with, sometimes we allow them to use clips of us and stuff to sell their product or we'll talk about it and we'll do like a commercial for them. And it depends on the company we work with. And so we did this with Viori. So a lot of people, in fact, I have family members that don't even listen to the show. They don't even know I have a show. We're like, oh my God, I saw you on a commercial for Viori. That's crazy. What are you doing? It's that or the GIFs. That's where we get recognized. But I don't know if we talked about, we did talk about how there was a company that was, did we talk about the company selling supplements? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did we talk about that on the show? I think so, yes. Where they used a clip of me talking. Bro, it was so cool. And then AI finished the sentence and it made it sound like I was promoting their product. It was so good. I was actually the one that found it. I sent it to Doug right away. And I actually didn't have the same alarmist attitude. Doug right away was like, that's what I'm fucking calling the lawyers. I'm getting like, he was on it right away. And I'm like, oh, I had more of the attitude like, oh, whatever. And then one of you said like, I can't believe they manipulated. And I'm like, well, no, they didn't manipulate your voice. He just clipped it out. And they're like, no, they present the product. And I had to re-listen to it again. And they go, oh my God, it was so good. I didn't even pick up on this. His voice was saying things he didn't say. Yeah, that was the part that was like, my attitude originally was, hey, kudos to them. They took part of our stuff up. They chopped it up. They made it up. They're just promoting us. Yeah, I mean, so what? No, but then they make fake words. Yeah, the part that I didn't even register because it was so good. It sounded just like you that I didn't even go, oh shit, sound never said that. Dude, yeah. So here's why I'm going with that. Cause obviously we do stuff for Viori. We do stuff for other companies as well. And we love Viori. They do great job, great products. So there's no problem with that. But at what point are we going to have to sell or patent or I don't know what the regulation is? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's already happening. I mean, so I was then what will happen is our partners will just purchase the rights. So they'll use our voice and our likeness to do. So Viori will run an ad with me, but I never really did it, but we sold them the likeness. We're going to have to do that. So I went down this rabbit hole last night. I watched that telemarketing thing. I told you I was still like, man, I got closed so hard. It's like you're sitting on me so bad. Like I annoyed. And so now like, you know what's happening right now? I'm like, I'm questioning everybody. Everything that was ever said to me like, and what I might have felt. And so one of the big hustles right now is ERC. Right. So explain ERC. So during COVID you had a lot of companies that, you know, struggled. They kept their employees afloat and stuff. And so if you were someone like us who kept all of our employees during that time, you have potential to get credit back. So I forget what ER stands for, but employee retention credit. There you go. So that's what ERC stands for. And so you could get a big chunk of money for every employee that you kept on staff. Now we've already checked with our CPA. We don't qualify for it because we did well. So that's part of it. They're assuming that during that time, you held on your employees, your business, you suffered. And so then they're going to give you a credit for it. And so since that happened to a lot of people, there's a lot of these people that are getting this. We don't get shit because we did a good job. Yeah. So they're just kidding. So I already know that, but yeah, we get tons and tons of them. Well, we're getting them all the time. Katrina gets them all the time. Last night, her and I had, we had already watched that telemarketing episode that a couple of days before together. And she's like, oh my God, you have to listen to this. And so she puts on speakerphone and it's Snoop Dogg trying to get us to fill out all the paperwork for ERC to get tax credit. And so then I'm like, what? How can they do that? Apply for your ERC. Oh, it's so funny. It's so funny that they would do that. But I mean, it's like, well, I guess it's a name that you are a voice that you recognize. And so you're more likely to trust that, even though it's a rapper. I don't know what I would ever trust a rapper with my fucking name. Dude, he is everywhere. He is everywhere. So everything he does, all of it. My point of bringing this up was I went down the rabbit hole of like looking into like, how is this possible? Is he suing like this? I actually think he sold his likeness. Yeah. I think it was. Yeah, I think that he like, because I couldn't read it. Agent is a crazy. Yeah, so it's already happening to your point, Sal. It's like that's the future actor in Die Hard. Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis did that. Because you know, he can't. Yeah, because he can't. He's just a degenerative disease. Yeah. So he can't act anymore. He sold his likeness and movies and companies. This was my speculation years ago when we first started talking about this one. I mean, I think I brought it up back when the first like CGI Star Wars thing happened. And I said, you know what? The future is actors no longer even having to act anymore or they could do instead of being able to do one or two movies in a year, they could do 10 movies in a year. Well, isn't it right on the wall? And that's I mean, that's going to be part of their whole strike. You know, in terms of them trying to like sell like, because they can. They can take their likeness. They can take their voice. They can digitally render them into movies. So here's so here's what's interesting. I was thinking about that the other day. I think that actors from today and let's say celebrities or influencers from today and before are going to be very valuable because moving forward, they're going to start building authority and audience with fake fake people, completely made up. Completely fake. And it's already happening. Yeah, but here's already pages of social media. Here's the thing I hear your thought process. And like the theoretically that's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Like they'll be valued more. But the future, you'll be able to create. You could say like, name your two favorite actors. Combine Bruce Willis with, you know, Mel Gibson. And so you get the character, like make it look like Arnold, but be funny, like, you know, some like Eddie Murphy. Like you could combine personalities and traits. And so these new human. Yeah, these new creations or actors or actresses could be even better actors. I hate talking like this. It always makes me what the hell, you know, you brought up, you brought up COVID. You guys seeing I hope people are aware. Did you see my meme yesterday? No, you didn't see it. No, what was it? It was, uh, uh, alien and predator and they're swinging on. Oh, they're swinging on the swings. Are we all waiting? It says, are we up yet? They're like, no, they're doing the. And they had to do in the pandemic. Do I can't? I did not think it would happen this soon. I'd like to do some speculation here, but they're bring. So Alex Jones leaked some documents that said that they're going to bring back. They're going to start with mask mandates because there's a new surge or whatever mask mandates. And then slowly by December, full COVID policy lockdowns. This is from TSA closures. Like, you know, there's going to be school closures, business closures. The whole deal, dude. I first off, no effing way. Well, so, so here's the thing. I think public sense. And by the way, the propaganda starting. Yeah. So when I saw that released, I'm like, oh, is that real? And then the article started coming out. Some places already require masks again, which by the way, don't work. Yeah, they don't work. No, no, no, there's a study. There's places that are required masks already. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Lionsgate. There's way too many studies that have dismantled that completely. So Kevin Bass, who we've had on the show, he posted a 2019 clinical trial from JAMA showing no difference in rate of influenza infections between those who wear N95 and surgical masks and neither one prevented respiratory viral infections. The other thing is that the average person doesn't use a mask properly. There's a huge protocol and procedure. Any doctor or nurse will tell you this. It's not only is it doesn't work, but it's also detrimental for many reasons, especially for children. We've talked about this on the show. All right, it makes me so angry, dude. Lockdowns did not work. They did not work. Countries like Sweden did better than other countries. States with less lockdowns did just as fine as other states. And if you count excess mortality, depression, anxiety, business is shutting down and actually caused more problems than not. And then the vaccine mandates, obviously now they've been shown for some people to be OK, everybody else not safe. All right, so let's, let's, so they're bringing the shit back. Let's speculate. Why are they now? I know so I just read it. I just read an article with the propaganda against people who are opposing this kind of stuff. They're already trying to paint them in a corner. In fact, yeah, OK, so let's bring it up. Let's speculate how this unfolds then. OK, oh, I have, I have a good one. All right, I want to hear, I want to hear what you think. OK, so first, let me read this article title title to you. This is already starting. This is NBC News. How climate lockdowns became the new battleground for conspiracy driven protests movement. Protesters radicalized by their opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns have a new target, anti-traffic measures. They're already starting the propaganda against people who are going to say, no, we're not going to do that. I love how anybody pushes against government overreach is a conspiracy theory. Of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, because we have to just completely submit. Don't you think that's starting to blow up in their face? Totally. Because now conspiracy theory, the big joke is just like, oh, conspiracy theory, the truth is two years. Yeah, no, six months. I mean, so that's like the new thing now. So I don't even know if that's a smart point anymore. Here's what I think. How do we fight this, dude? That's what I want to know. There's a large enough percentage of people who are going to not comply, like not to simply not going to comply. I'm keeping my business open. So this is the area I disagree with you in. Oh, so I think there's a large enough percentage. I don't think everybody, where people are going to be like, no, I think this is my now, now we can put on our conspiracy theory hats. I think they're trying to provoke a reaction. That's what I think. I think that they're pushing the shit specifically to get a reaction so they could use that politically to pass because it's going to be chaos. I think they're so good at using media and fear with people that you are going to see almost the exact same percentage response, almost exact. And here's why I believe this. They love when people get upset. So I have this beautiful litmus test amongst my friends because where there's this, there's me and my buddy, I would say that are like, opposite right and left. And then I have my friend who's probably the most centering, like he ping pongs between agreeing with each of us on time. So it's like this nice dynamic that we have, right? Between the three of us. And obviously we know where my buddy on the far left is probably going to land in this situation. He'll be, he's probably already fucking wearing a mask. So he's probably doing it right now. Then my buddy in the middle who was kind of leaning towards my friend, he has a nurse's wife also. It was leaning more towards my other buddy early on. And then as things unfolded and should happen and then everything that came out now, like full went over on my side. It was just like, you were right. You called it, but all the stuff like that. Well, he, I reached out to him that, hey, heads up, it's coming down the pipe again. So that, and his response was from a place of fear because his wife is a nurse and she had already came to him and said like, Oh my God, the hospitals are getting flooded again with COVID patients. And so I could hear in his voice on where he was just say, a month ago on all of this, cause the way it's unfolded to how quickly he went to the other way because of the fear from that. So I think, I think it's going to be exactly the same. I think you're going to see the same people that were staunch about it before we're going to be like, fuck no, I'm not going for this. And the same people that fell right in line are going to fall right in line again. Here's why I'll disagree with you. I don't think it's going to be- I want to be wrong by them, I know. I don't think it's going to be everybody with the middle finger and them being like, Oh, this doesn't work. I don't think that. But there's now enough mainstream voices, maybe not like the traditional mainstream, but enough mainstream voices now that have like said, no, enough scientists, enough scientists that have come out. There's enough people now that realize that everything was censored before and it was crazy. There's enough data now finally that we can point to that I think there's going to be a much larger percentage of people that are going to get so fed up, they're going to say no. And I think they're going to keep pushing them till they get the kind of reaction that they want. Cause then they're going to have clips of riots, clips of people acting crazy. And they're going to use that to pass their agenda. Because the people that dug their heels in will just dig their heels in harder. So they're going to get what they want to your point. And everything you're saying right now seems completely logical. The fact is people do not react. Did you realize some states passed laws that you are not, that they can never apply COVID lockdown policies again? Florida being one of them. So in other words, if the federal government tries this. Right. Some states are going to say. Which they were already though, that state. We already have great examples of what states are going to be like Texas and Florida. Yeah, all the same states are going to be. California, New York will be the other side. Like we know how this is all going to play out. That's what I say. I don't think you're going to see much difference than what we saw before. I think, I literally think I think you'll see a difference. I think a lot of parents saw the damage to their kids and they're going to say no. Yeah, but don't you think those are, to me those are the same parents that were already skeptical. Because there's definitely a percentage of people that went along with things and just went like, ah, the rights over playing this, the left is over playing this. I'm just going to comply and be whatever. And then now they're like, oh wow, that didn't play out the same way. So maybe I'm not going to this time. But like. They're going to get a more aggressive pushback. I agree. I'm a lot more people that were probably more, let's see how this plays out. Yes. Because it literally proved it worked. So, you know, this is completely a government overreach. I think it's going to be the same people. I agree that they'll be strong. Like the people that are frustrated that were frustrated last time will be more, they'll be like, oh my God, they're doing it again. And then they'll feel compelled. Yeah, but I feel like. But we'll all have to conform to the airline like protocols and that's where I know that that's going to be the most frustrating bit is travel. Yes. Because they can control that completely. You know, like, so me going to work or like, you know, there's going to be some verbal battles that we're all going to have to get into and be like, no, I'm not complying. Here's where we can get away with that. But like flying is going to be brutal. Yes. I think there's things that the federal government had a lot of power over. Those are going to be the ones where people are going to be like, whatever, I can't deal with this. I think the battlegrounds are going to be schools. Well, I mean that. I think schools are going to be battleground. Schools. Because I think a lot of parents, a lot of moms, you piss off moms, you're done. That's just a fact. And a lot of moms are pissed off because they saw the damage it did to their kids. So that's one. And two, I think local businesses are going to be another battleground. I think a lot of local businesses are going to be like, I barely survived the last one. Exactly. Screw you. And then the customers are going to be like, yeah, screw you. I'm going into this business. Shut things down and just smother out all the remaining small business left. Like, come on. Well, I can't see that for what it is. That's where I think the battleground is. It is a little scary that it's starting now already because we, I mean, like you and I were saying off air talking about this, like, of course, we could have predicted this. Like, this is not going away. No. Like, I'm pretty sure I just had it for the third time. No, it worked. Katrina just had it. How funny, by the way, like a power perspective. How funny is it, though, by the way, that it's right in time for election season? So, okay. You've got to admit that the West is conspiratorial about that. It's not conspiracy. It's exactly what's happening. Well, it's also, well, okay, calm down. It's also leading up to what the natural time of, it's going to spike in October, November, December, and the winter anyways. Yeah, never left, though. It didn't go. Yeah, I know. Everybody's been getting sick. There's been spikes. The entire year's proceeding. I'll be calm. Yeah, there's been spikes ever since then. I think it's, I think. I think they're, I think they're, they're priming. They're just using it. They're priming everybody. Can I tell you something? For it coming down the plus. Can I tell you guys something right now? I'm glad this is on here. I'm going to say it right now. Listen, if you watch the playbook that the CIA plays on other countries to overthrow or cause civil unrest or to, to be able to install puppet governments, it's literally the same playbook. Literally the same playbook. You create a bunch of civil unrest. Then somebody comes in and takes over and everybody begs them to take over. Martial law, please get everybody, we need, we need more law. We need more control. This is crazy. And they have more power. I know, I know, I know, but isn't that, what's that, what's that law called Doug? We're like, because there, there's so many potential variables. Like it's bound to like align that way also. That's what's that called? There's a, there's a, there's a, it's a, it's a theory or a lot. Like if, for example, if you said that it, it rains every time. Oh, I know what you're saying. Every time the San Francisco giant, or every time it rains, the San Francisco giants wins. Well, there's somewhere in the country where it is always kind of raining. And so it's not that. Okay, so how do you explain that? How do you explain that? We now have. What's that called Andrew? You know what that's called? Somebody find with it. There's a confirmation bias? No, I know what you're talking about. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, when bacon prices go up, then it rains more. Yes. And it's not really to just, yeah. Natural causes. Well, let me ask you this. How can you explain that a few years later, after everything that we've seen, all the damage we caused, the economy is literally on a tightrope that, and we have the data now. We have it to support. We know everybody looking back is like, okay, this shit was terrible. We have examples of why it worked out better when we didn't do those things in many different places. How do you explain them hammering this down again? Now what, what's the point? I don't think this would happen if there was election. That's all I'm saying. I think that the election's happening, and they're like, oh, here we go. Let's push this button. That's my, that's, that's, that makes sense to me is all I'm saying. It just looks that way. Yeah. I mean, I, I definitely think it's, it's a control thing. I definitely think that I, and I definitely think that they know that October, November, December, you're going to see this ramp up. So let's prime, let's prime everybody right now by starting the conversation now. That way, as the numbers start to come out and confirm it, it'll make people be like, oh, shit, do I think that has anything to do with it? I don't know. I mean, it could. I don't, I don't know if I, but I also think- Next year's going to be rough. But let's address your, your, your economy point. I mean, that's the part that I tell you what- It makes no sense. If we do lockdowns today, like we did last time, we're going to kill so many people just from the economic devastation. We barely survived. People don't realize we barely survived. You think inflation was starting to get bad, and maybe we're, oh, what's going to happen? We're fixing it maybe, and the people are living off credit right now, and it's a tightrope. You know what'll happen if we do that again? We're going to push everything off the, off the cliff. And who's going to suffer? Well, that's the scary part is that we haven't fallen off the cliff from the last one yet. Like it's still hanging on. People are still tons of equity. People still, we still have, there's a ton of money in circulation. It's not like, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's like that scene in Mortal Kombat when the guy's like, oh, wobbling, finish him. Exactly. You know, he's not done yet. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, here we go. We got to throttle down again to kill it off. I'll say this. The only thing I'm going to say is that if you are one of the people that wants to not comply, do so peacefully. Civil disobedience is the only way. Violence and property destruction will get used against you. Plays into their game plan. That's right. So if you're going to be one of those people that says, I'm going to do what I want, and I'm going to disobey or not comply, do so peacefully. Historically, it sucks, and you still get beat, you still get thrown in jail, whatever. But it's the only thing that works. That's all I want to say. I'm not encouraging people to. People will do that. I'm not encouraging people to do that. Peacefully protest it. If you're going to do it, do it in a peaceful way. That's all I want to say about that. Anyway, I'm going to change directions. Thanks for bringing it up. Well, I know. I want to say on the drama stuff, well, it's somewhat drama. How's ketamine? Oh, yeah. I did another ketamine session. Yeah. There's some drama there. There's some drama there. There's some drama there. This one was different. Oh, yeah. Interesting. So the first one was heavy, lots of unprocessed, negative emotions coming out. This one was, although I did get nauseous at the end, which didn't feel good, so I think next time I have to take an anti-nause medication. So that kind of sucked. But during tremendous gratitude. Oh. Tremendous gratitude. Well, that had to feel good compared to going in the last week of it. You had to be going like, oh, God, this could get worse. So the last one, I had these unprocessed like, there was tears and a lot of like, it was hard. And when you start it, you lay back and then you try to have like your mind kind of wanders. So I said, I'm going to go back to what I processed last time. And they didn't have the same feelings. Oh. So I must have processed. Oh, that's awesome. Isn't that crazy? That's awesome. So, but gratitude was this one. And one thing that I thought of was, and a lot of us do this, you judge your past based off of what you know today. So it's really easy to look back and say, oh, it's so stupid. What an idiot. Why did I do that? I was a bad father. I was a bad, whatever, bad friend. But it's not fair because you did your best then. And yeah, today you're much wiser, much smarter. And it's just not a fair compare. You can't, and I, the, that's so funny. The analogy I used that made sense to me was, it would be like someone who's been squatting for 10 years and then making fun of themselves, how shitty they were when they first started and being ashamed of it. Obviously, you're not going to be that good. So that was that. So I was kind of like, it felt gratitude for growing all these years. Felt tremendous gratitude for my wife, my kids. Thought about you guys quite a bit. Actually thought about all of your amazing traits and how lucky I am to be working with you guys. So it was really nice. It was really, really nice. I got some details on you guys. I could tell you guys afterwards, I don't want to make this a mushy. Oh, really? A mushy intro. Oh, I'm sure. The audience would love that. It'll get really mushy. And Doug's giving us the five minute thing. All right, I'll tell you. I'll get too awkward. I'll give you, I'll just do the short one. I'll tell you guys a long one afterwards. Okay. I was very grateful for Justin is the most solid person I've ever met in my life. Every word, every action matches every word that he says. I've never met anybody as consistent as him. Doug is probably one of the best human beings I've ever met in my entire life. Bar none across the board, just a good, pure human. And he is also just, we call him the puppet master, but he doesn't pull the strings like that. He's so patient and so wise with all of us that you can only see his impact when you look back because it's so subtle and so effective. Shepherd is probably better. Yeah. And Adam is an absolute killer in a pit bull. And when it comes to, and I was thinking about you and I was thinking about how you and I tease each other over who's a better closer. And one thing that I realized about you is there's closers and there's deal makers. I've never met a deal maker like you. Adam can make a deal and it works for everybody and you don't know how he did it and it's just absolutely brilliant. So it's an amazing person to work with. So that's it. Oh, that's nice. Also, fuck you guys. I guess so. A bunch of assholes. Anyway, one more thing I want to add. You want the ketamine train here. One more thing I want to add. How funny is this? Guess who else now is stealing my caldera? So first it was my wife. So I have to get extra bottles. Yeah, yeah. Guess who else discovered it? Daughter, your son. My daughter. Oh, your daughter. Oh, wow. Oh, I love this. Now it's gone. Is she? Okay. So the girls are they using the serum or they're using the serum? Yeah. Yeah. And now my daughter's skin is porcelain. She has got the most perfect skin. But for some reason she thinks she needs to do more stuff to it. But yeah, she discovered the caldera and it's gone. So I'm going to need more. I've been doing the eye cream. I've been trying to like, I have it. I should do. I should get out of the website. This is so not me. It's more style to do this. But to see what the difference between the actual eye cream itself and the base layer, they feel similar in texture. I would imagine they have similar things in there. So what's that inflammatory stuff in the eye cream? That's to help reduce like the puffiness and puffiness. Oh, okay. So that was something that I noticed. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. Oh, that's cool. I use it too because I tend to get puffiness in my eyes. Okay. Yeah. Because I was like, sometimes I felt like I was being a little redundant to do that. And then I do the base layer and it's like, is it the same thing that I'm getting in it? Or is there, okay. All right. Shout out. We got to give Grace Barga a shout out. She looks amazing right now. Super fit, super mom. Great example for people out there who have kids who want to figure out how to organize their fitness around their children. She posts videos of her working out with the kids playing in the background. You may remember her from our Maps Anywhere program. Yep. She was in there. She was interested in that. She got ready for a show. Did she compete yet? Not yet. She's like, still like four or five weeks out and really wanted me to coach her. And I really wanted to because I knew she was going to kill it. And I would love to take the credit for it. But she's, I just didn't have the time to commit to it. But I've been staying in touch with her along the process. And she's also just an awesome person. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I wanted to, I wanted to be there to help her. But I also told her to like, you should get a coach because I, the attention you're going to need for like getting for prep like is not, I'm not able to do that. But hey, check in with me. I'll help wherever I can. And I mean, she looks incredible. So she's going to do really well. She's got great physique, man. She's built a lot of muscle. She's very, very strong. And so watching her peel down and get ready for it. I just have so much respect for her. I mean, she works, she really has three kids and she's shredded. And they, you see, I see stuff with her and her husband and the kids. They do a lot of family stuff. Like got really, she's a very unique to be able to balance all that, that well. It's impressive. Check this out. Organifi is offering a mind pump performance stack. This includes pure and peak power. Combine them for euphoric, creative, energized feelings. Great for before workouts or before creative projects. With this discount code, you get both for under $100. That's a big discount fact. I think it's for under $80 if you use our code. So go to organifi.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump to get that massive discount. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Chris from Colorado. What's up, Chris? How can we help you? Hey guys, how's it going? Thanks for taking my call. I really appreciate it. You got it, man. How can we help you? Well, before you guys helped me, I figured I'd return the favor and offer some unsolicited advice. Just some tips to help, you know, maybe make the podcast a little better. So I'll start with Doug. Doug, maybe lighten up a little bit, let the guys talk about sex, religion and politics a little bit more. All right. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Yep, you got it. Justin, maybe a little too much function. Let's get some hypertrophy, some aesthetics. I want to know how many calories to cut to get down to 5% body fat from you, please. These are things he cares about. Yeah, you're way off the mark here, pal. Keep going. Paul's references, please. A little more of those. I think that would help. You got it. And then Adam. Don't change anything. Maybe let's maybe pump the brakes and all the bougie references. We all get it. You're rich. Good for you. I can't wait to give you advice, Chris. What's your question? Is this a roast or a question? Yeah, no, no. I'll get into my question. We're going to give you great advice right now. So this took place about three years ago. My wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time and I figured it was a good time to go get some blood work done and just sort of check on health. I had some odd blood markers come up during the blood work and my primary care physician preferred me to endocrinologist. One of the items was elevated creatinine levels, which is a marker for kidney function. It was slightly elevated above your high normal range. I saw creatinine and I thought that sounds a lot like creatine. So I did some googling and found out that creatine can cause elevated creatinine levels. I asked the doctor about it for the endocrinologist about it. She googled creatine while I was there with her and pretty much said, don't take it. Further research on my end looked like creatine can cause elevated creatinine levels, but it can be a false marker of kidney function. So I just wanted to see, I don't know if you guys had any experience with this or any thoughts on the potential of creatine causing kidney problems and if that's a valid concern or not. That's a great question. So could a hard workout within 24 hours because I had the same thing. Just so you know that, if you did a workout within 24 hours of that blood work and you had, let's say, a pretty intense workout, that'll actually do too. Yeah. So before we get to that, because I'm very, very familiar with this. But first I want to say I'm not a doctor. None of us are doctors. So I have to say that for lawsuit purposes or just to make sure that people understand we're not doctors. So you can confirm this if you want yourself, anybody watching can as well. Number two, my opinion, this is just my opinion. But if you ask your doctor a question and they Google it right in front of you, you'll probably have a good sign. I have that. I assure their opinion. Yeah. So I would take that particular piece of advice with a great opinion would be good. Before I call my uncrate nine levels, what other blood markers were off? Did you look and see what your protein and your urine look like? Were there any other markers of kidney function that were off? That was the only marker of kidney function that was off. I have really, really high TSH. So my endocrinologist diagnosed me with Hashimoto's. TSH at the time was like 44 or something. Okay. Yeah, not related. Okay, good. So I just want to make sure there were no other markers of kidney function that were off. Okay. One of the problems, one of the challenges with general practitioners or doctors that don't have experience working with athletes is that when there are certain markers that are going to be slightly out of range, and I say slightly because you can have create nine levels that are like extreme, in which case that itself is not a danger. If create nine is so high that it can actually cause dysfunction with the filtration of the kidneys, that could be a problem. An example of that would be rhabdomyolysis, right? So you create so much muscle damage, and this is rare, but it can happen. You create so much muscle damage, you have so much muscle breakdown that your create nine levels are through the roof. I've seen people's numbers be so high that they had to be put in the hospital and given fluids and IV and really helped the kidneys to filter all that out. Yours were slightly out of range. That is expected when you're measuring somebody with more muscle mass. So more muscle mass is with somebody who works out, they are going to have higher levels of create nine in their blood because that's a marker of muscle damage. It could be a map marker of kidney damage. It could also be a marker of heart damage or other organ type failures. But in this particular case, with other numbers looking okay, the fact that you work out, if this person was experienced working with athletes and people who train, they would have looked at it and they would have looked at you and they would have said, well, you look like you work out. I'm not going to worry about this. That's probably what would have happened. Did they even ask that? Did they ask you if you've trained in the last 24 hours? No, no they didn't. I think my blood work was taken around 9 a.m. I lifted it like five that morning. For sure. You lifted this right there. And just having more muscle mass in general can cause levels to be a little higher. And then creatine does cause a slight elevation in creatinine, but creatine in healthy populations has been through many studies, not one study, not two studies. We're talking about probably hundreds of studies over the last few decades that has shown it to be very safe for the kidneys. That was the concern initially when creatine hit the market was because it does get processed through the kidneys, will taking creatine stress the kidneys too much? Just like there used to be a worry of protein. Oh my God, if you eat too much protein, it could stress the kidneys. We now know pretty unequivocally, there's lots and lots of studies that show that high protein in a healthy individual is no problem. Same thing with creatine. Now, if you have impaired kidney function, we don't know for sure, but there may be an issue, just like there is an issue with some people with renal disease, where a phrenologist will tell them to lower their protein intake, although sometimes they tell them to raise their protein intake. So it depends on the individual. So if you have impaired organ function or damage or if you're pregnant or if you're a child, these are the areas where there's not tons of study. And there's a lot of potential speculation. But otherwise healthy people, creatine has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. In my opinion, I mean, I'm talking hundreds of studies, some of them very long-term studies, not like three months, but like years, to show it being extremely safe for the body and the organs, including the kidneys. But if you work out, you got more muscle mass, you eat a high protein diet. By the way, a high protein diet can also cause you to have higher protein levels, urea in your inner blood. And creatinine levels can be elevated slightly from those, just from supplementing. So you could stop taking creatine, stop working out, that number goes down. So there are some blood markers that on their own could mean something, could also mean nothing. Of course, context is how odd a range they are. But you would have to look at them in the context of other blood markers. Like they would look at your filtration rates, they would look at protein levels, they would look at lots of other things and symptoms, and then plus that, then they would say, let's do some further testing. There may be some stuff going on with your kidneys, you know, high blood pressure being another one. But if it's just that and you're otherwise healthy, you know, work out, you take creatine, it's expected. Again, I'm not a doctor. You can confirm all this on your own. I suggest you go see somebody who is a kidney specialist who has experience working with athletes, and I would ask them, hey, do you have experience working with athletes, people that lift weights? And then I would show them the, you know, your numbers and then see what they say. But I'd bet you every program we have, and then some, that based off what you're telling me, you're probably totally fine. And not related to the antibodies that you have from Hashimoto's or anything like that. So yeah, much shorter, simpler answer. This is, I have this all the time. If I work out, in fact, I even get it if I'm working out within 48 hours. And I've messed with this where, because I get my blood work every three months. If I don't train for two or three days before my blood work, this I'm in normal levels. I'm always slightly elevated a little bit. If I'm on my training regimen, and I'm like normal, I always have a little bit elevated levels. The minute I take blood work and I make sure that I don't train three days before, I come right back in a normal range. That's literally what it's like for me every single time I test this. To be 100% like my opinion, my very strong opinion, I think if you lift weights, you have muscle mass or an athlete, I would almost expect those levels to be in the high range or slightly out of range. So for anybody watching or listening, again, I'm not a doctor. This is my very strong opinion. Confirm it on your own. In fact, like I said, you can ask people that work with athletes that are in this field. It's expected. I specifically work, so this always happens with me, where I'm at the top or a slightly out of range. Then I worked with somebody who has experience with athletes. And they're like, oh, this is what I expect to see. Now it could be so out of range that that doesn't account for it, but you are slightly out of range. And it would be like I said. And he trained at 5 a.m. and tested at 8. It's like a no-brainer. That should have been the first question that if you walk in and you look like you've lifted weights before and I'm a doctor and I am doing that, that's the first thing I would ask you. And again, for legal purposes, I'll say confirm this with a doctor, but the data seems extremely clear that creatine is not just a great supplement to take for athletic performance, but is a great supplement to take for health and longevity. And everybody probably should take creatine unless they have some kind of chronic illness where it would be contraindicated. Otherwise, it's not just the performance. So it's like a total health supplement. In fact, there's lots of studies show it improves heart and liver health. There's a new study that shows it may actually reduce cancer risk. I can't wait until that gets confirmed because I think it will be. So, you know, and this is the sad thing about general practitioners is it's not their fault. Your doctor sees lots of patients. A super small percentage of them exercise regularly. So they don't see lots of people like you. They see you, people like you super rarely. So your blood work is going to probably look a little different. And if you don't have a lot of experience working with people who work out, your frame of reference is the average, you know, weak, low muscle, slightly obese individual. And then that's what you pay attention to. Okay. Do you guys have any tips on like, how do you find your doctor? You know what I mean? Like mine is just close to the house in my network. But is there a better way to try it? You know what I mean? Just try and find a doctor that's kind of jacked. Yeah. Well, your first, I mean, really here's the thing that I say to the doctor is I ask them, I let them know, I work out, you know, this is my lifestyle. Do you have a lot of experience with people like me? And if they say no, then I'll say, okay, typically people with more muscle mass notice these kinds of things. I've done this before with other doctors, or I'd say, okay, thank you. And then I try and find someone else. Well, like with the Hashimoto's, and have you gone through like a functional medicine practitioner? And this is why we connected with like your Steven Cabral's and also to our hormone specialists. And we try to provide ways for people to find doctors in that regard. So getting your blood work done with more specialist's eyes looking at it, I would highly suggest. Yeah, if you're not, if you're not in those forums, Chris, you should be in there. Those are, those are free to you guys. So yeah, and you can ask that question in there. Functional medicine practitioners who are much more specific answer. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Okay, sweet. Those are, are those on Facebook? Yes, it is. Yep. Okay. I'm off of all the social media. So you're a good man. Maybe I'll make a big account so I can. Well, at least you're mentally healthy. Yeah. Hey, congratulations on your daughter, by the way. How old is she now? Thank you. Yeah, she's two and going on three months. So yeah, she's a lot of fun. Good for you, man. You got any more in mind? We got more in mind. So she's our, she's our first and she's keeping us busy for now. Of course. Well, God bless you, man. Thanks for calling in. As far as your other advice, fuck off, Chris. See you later. Yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, dude. Thanks. Thanks, guys. You've got my email. If you want any more advice, just shoot me an email. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. We'll do. Thanks, guys. Take it easy, brother. Here's a good analogy that talks suckers. I know. I know. You know what, I appreciate it. Of course, I love that. I mean, it just shows he listens to the show. So here's a good analogy for people listening right now. Okay. If you work out male or female, if you lift weights, okay, your waist to thigh ratio is totally often skewed. You go to the store, you try to buy a pair of jeans, or if you're a man, you try to buy a pair of slacks and you will either buy slacks that are way too big in the waist that fit your legs or one that fits your waist that doesn't fit your legs at all. That's how certain things can be with blood work. The range is based off of the average general person. If you work out regularly, you already are not average or general. You're already weird and out of range, just your lifestyle. So there's going to be, there's potentially things that you could be out of range with with your test. Now I'm not saying way out of range is normal, but my point is some of the stuff, you have to take this into consideration, communicate it to your doctor, or find somebody that's experienced working with someone like yourself. I thought you were really polite talking about doctors right now. If your doctor asked to Google fucking creatine, you need to get out of there. And if your doctor looks at you and you like you work out and they, and you did your blood work and they didn't ask a simple question like, did you work out three hours before you came in here? Because that's going to change. That could change several different things on your blood work. So that's, that should be a very basic question. If someone that looks remotely fit walks in to an office to go over blood work. Hey, did you lift? Listen, anybody that's listening to the show, I mean, like general practitioner is rough. Remember when I got diagnosed to go see like a bariatric treatment center and like lose weight just because of my BMI, I mean, get the fuck out of here. Yeah. Good luck with that. Like go see a specialist. We're going to do a bi-gastric bypass. Are you obese? Holy shit. No, it's a lot of glutes. It's a lot of glute muscle. No, look, to be fair, doctors are treating a lot of people. You're right. Now you make a really good point. And they're trying to do a damn good job. And it's like, look, all of us, think of all the clients we trained and then think of that one that was like so out and so weird and so different. And it really like, holy shit, how do I deal with this? Just because you have no experience with it. Yeah. How the average doctor, how much experience do you think they have working with super fit people? Well, obviously not a lot with this one. Not a lot. Barely any. I still think, I don't know. You're giving them a lot of latitude. I feel like there's some basic questions like that you would think so. I used to train doctors. So I have a lot of. I mean, I could tell by the video he like, he looks fit. He's fit. He had veins in his neck. So he walks in with veins in their neck. I'm going to ask that you lift. Yeah, he's fit. I look, I train doctors. So I have, and so I know how much I care, how hard they work. And I remember one doctor I trained who was very into fitness. He trained with me. He worked on his own. His blood work came back and it was high on that. And he for a second kind of freaked out. And then he looked it up himself. He's like, oh, it's because I, it's because I worked out. And then him and I had this great conversation over it. And so he himself as a doctor got a little concerned. Yeah. Well, I remember the first time it happened with me too. I didn't know, I didn't know what was going on whatsoever. I had, that's how I found out was like through finding out that, oh, me working out within 24 hours can make an impact. And I actually have done this. How did you figure that out? Did you have to look that up or? No, because the, the actual doctor that I was working with, actually, they asked, they, they, because I was like, oh, that's weird that I'm high like that. And they're like, yeah, well, did you work out? And I'm like, oh, I work out every day. And they're like, oh, okay. Well, that could be why next time they, then they said next time try not to work out within 24 hours. And I actually did. And it still was again. And I actually have to not work out almost two or three days before. And then it makes a difference. So do not make a difference. Because if you have, So that's muscle breakdown. Yeah. Yep. So if you, if you train slightly intense and you lifted within two days of that, that could throw that off. It's like just a little bit. I had a client who did it, uh, not to hammer CrossFit, because I know we do a lot, but he did a CrossFit workout and he was out of shape, went to the doctor, got his blood test. Probably went to the roof. 20,000 was above, which is like, They probably freaked out. Yeah, they put him in the hospital and they had to like detox his body. Our next caller is Julia from Virginia. Hi Julia. How can we help you? Yeah, I'm so excited. Hi. Hi. Um, What you got for us? How are you doing? I've been listening for a while, but I have some questions. And I'm super excited because I feel like you guys would be able to help me. So I'm just going to go ahead and ask. Go for it. Yeah. Okay. So a little bit of a background is, I'm currently 30, but I've been like working out since I was like 15. But like started running 2015 and then 2018 started getting into like more intense, like CrossFit. So then I was doing that for a while. And then I started doing more like functional bodybuilding. But last year, I think it was August, I started working with a nutrition coach because I was getting a little chubby, I thought. And then I lost like 15 or 10 pounds with her, just dialing my diet. And then I got off birth control last September. And then after that, I dropped another 15. So I got pretty lean. I was like at my smallest like 120. But since then I haven't gotten a period. And I've probably gained maybe like five or seven pounds in the last maybe like three months. And I was like, oh, because when you see yourself so lean and then you're like, whoa, I was like a little concerned. So I just don't know like what to do. Like I know it'll come back eventually maybe, but that's kind of like where I'm at. Okay. This is quite common. Now, I would say a functional medicine practitioner would be able to diagnose this much more specifically. But I'm going to speak from experience and based off of what you said. And also I can tell, I don't even see all of you. I just see your traps in your shoulders. You look really lean. Do you know what your body fat percentage is at? It was at eight when I was like 120. Obviously, I know that's super lean for female. That's not good because at a certain percentage you start losing your period. I think it's under 13. Right now I probably weigh like 130-ish. So it went up. I don't know what exactly it is, but I- Do you have abs? Sorry? Do you have abs? A little bit. They were like pretty defined before, but now like I can see them, but it's not like it was. So that's why I was like freaking out. Like, oh my God, like what's happening? Yeah. I'm going to make a, I'm going to guess, but I think I'm right on this. You're just way too lean. You're not eating enough. This is very common with female athletes. Now some women, it sounds like you read when women start to lose their period. Okay. Here's why women will lose their period. Aside from any potential medical issue or hormonal issue is too much stress, not enough sleep, too much exercise. Now it's all in context, right? Too much exercise for one person can be not enough for another person, etc., etc. But, and I know you read that after 13% is when women will lose their period. In my experience, I've seen women lose their period from being over-trained at almost any body fat percentage. And then just body fat percentage alone, I, I'd say a decent chunk of the fit, we, the women that I've trained will start to lose their period or become irregular below 16%. So not all the way down to 13%. In fact, I don't know any woman that I've ever worked with who didn't experience some irregularities getting below 13%. Okay. Yeah. You gained five pounds from 8%. So you're probably still below that, that number. You know, I'm afraid to ask, but what are your calories at? Do you know what your grams of fat and protein are at and what your calories are? Yeah. So I'm still working with that coach and I have spoken to like a naturopath doctor and she's kind of been helping, but I feel like because I was on the pill for so long, my hormones never really regulated on their own. So I feel like eventually it might come back, but she has me at 150 and I, I lowered it. I told her, I was like, I don't want to eat all these carbs. So, but like this is what it is now. 150 grams of carbs, 160, because I eat a lot of protein and then I think it's 90 grams of fat. Yeah. I think you're, I don't know how many calories that is. That's like 2095 or something? It's only 2000. Well, the calories aren't bad, but you're too lean is what I would say. I mean, if you got, if you put on some, some body fat and went on a bolt, I bet that would work. I have a question. You stayed in here that you shifted your, your, your CrossFit training to a more functional bodybuilding training. Could you give me kind of an idea of what that looks like? I wonder too of maybe backing off the intensity of training in conjunction with also probably feeding yourself a little more. So what, tell me what that training looks like. Well, today I did like a strict press. I did some strict pull-ups. And then I did like, what else did I do? I did some dumbbell, like rows. I did some Spider-Man, spider curls and some tricep stuff. How many days a week do you work out, including cardio? You're going to hate it. It's like every day. Yeah. So, and let me finish, I want to hear it. So then when you train this way, are you like standard two, three minute rest periods? Are you doing it more like a circuit? Are you doing anything in between like jumping rope and shit? Or is it like, like straight bodybuilding training? Like today it was more relaxed. It wasn't like too much. I was resting. I'm trying to like relax in between like sets of like what I'm doing. Yeah. You say, you say trying. Is that because you don't normally do that? It depends on time. If I'm rushed, then I kind of just do what I have to do. But like now I'm just, I think more aware of just taking that rest period and you know, chilling out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I would, I would scale back on the total volume of training. So I wouldn't train seven days a week. It would look something more like three to four. I know that could be dramatic for somebody who does seven days a week. So I would slowly peel you down. And then I would want you to eat more. You probably especially understand too, if you're that low carbohydrates and you are training pretty intensely too. So I mean, that'll help fuel the workout. And then it's how long has it been since we've been off the pill? A year. It's been a year. Yeah, but okay. So sometimes it takes that long. Yeah. Especially if you haven't increased the body fat and calories and laid off the intensity. Julia, do you, can you share any blood work that you've done recently? Any other? Yeah. So that was the thing that I, the last few months I was trying to work on. But she said like my, they always freak out. She's like, your cholesterol is so high. And I was like, well, there's good and bad cholesterol, but it's like, I think it's like 300. But I know when you work out a lot, I, it like elevates your cholesterol or it's, and then I, she was saying I have fatty liver too. But I know a lot of like athletes, like it, like when you work out, it filters through the liver or something. So that's why it might be elevated. Because I know when I did all the blood work, I trained beforehand, a fasted came in, did all the tests, the blood work and then, but I had like cholesterol, I had thyroid's fine. Like all the other things that would show signs of like cream metaphors are not there. So I wasn't like worried when she said, she's like, oh, you're fine about that. It's just like, you know, your cholesterol. And then she looked at magnesium and that's fine. Was it a Dutch test? Was it a Dutch test that you did? Or was it just a blood test? Just a blood test. Okay. I want you to try a Dutch test because that, the problem is with the blood test is because women have hormonal fluctuations. And then there's fluctuations throughout the day. You're just getting a snapshot with a blood test. A Dutch test is, it's like several tests throughout the day. They also take into account the, you know, where you would be in your cycle potentially, although in your case, it might be a little more challenging, but it would give you a better picture. Nonetheless, first off on the cholesterol and fatty liver, you could have a genetic polymorphism where you would need to reduce saturated fat intake in particular, because some people do have some negative effects from saturated fat. So I don't know what your diet looks like, but if you see a number as high as 300 total cholesterol, I don't know what the other two numbers are, like HDL and LDL, then typically what I would tell a client, by the way, I'd be working with a functional medicine practitioner. So I'm just speaking based off what you told me, is I would have them lower their saturated fat intake, increase their fat intake from other sources like avocado, olive oil, fish, and so on, just to see if we can make a difference there. But I don't think that's related to your period. I think your period has much more to do with the fact that you're too lean and you're working out too much. So if you really want your period to come back quickly, I would take your workouts, I'd move them down to three days a week, and I would take your calories, and I'd add about 400 calories. And I would do that for, I bet, I would feel pretty confident saying you would probably get a period within a couple months doing something like that. Now, this is again, based off of the information you're giving me, and again, I'm not a doctor, but that's where I would go, and again, I would work with a functional medicine practitioner. Here's what you'll probably, now I'm gonna speak from the fitness side, here's where I am confident. Here's what I think you'll notice if you did that. If you bumped your calories, three to 400, you dropped your strength training down from every day to three days a week, you're gonna get really strong, and you're gonna build some muscle. And your body fat percentage is gonna go up a little bit, but you're so lean, you're probably gonna like the way it looks and the way you feel. So, the mental hurdle, I would focus on strength, because that's where you're gonna see some real positive gains by doing that. Like, you're gonna get really strong, very quickly, training just three days a week, and bumping your calories. And I would focus on that. Yeah, let's, if you don't have maps in a bulk, I'll have Doug send it to you, I think that's the program you should follow. For sure. Yeah, I was looking at your guys' programming, but I didn't know which one I should follow. Maps in a bulk. Okay, yep. And do the three-day-a-week version. Yeah, we're gonna send it to you. Okay, thank you. Yeah, because I, like, I like looking lean, but like before when I was like 145, 147, I was stronger, and then when I got really lean, I was like, man, I'm so weak. Like, I can't, I just look strong. Like, I'm not strong at all. Just so you know, just so you know, for other people looking in, if you have strength in muscle, and your body fat percentage is between 18 to 22%, to everybody else, you look incredible. You look fit, you look sculpted, you have incredible shape. The problem is your view of yourself is, is gonna be very skewed. It's, it's not objective. So as part of this, I would even recommend avoiding checking yourself out in the mirror. I would just, and I'm not weighing yourself, and I would just focus on strength and performance, and I would really remind myself of how I feel. How's my sleep? How's my libido? How's my energy? And just place your focus, because you're gonna, your filter is gonna be based on what you focus on. And if you look in the mirror a lot, what you'll notice is, ugh, I'm not as shredded. Or if you look at the scale, oh my God, the scale's going up, and then you may ignore all those other good signs. I'm gonna ask you some other questions, okay? Because this might be a little illuminating. Are there any other signs that you're over-training, that you're under-eating, and that you're, that you're doing too much? Are you noticing anything, like women will typically notice changes in skin? Hair. Hair loss, nails. They'll notice loss of libido. They'll notice disruptions in sleep, weird fluctuations in energy throughout the day. Are any of those things that you notice? At first when I got off the pill, while I was tired, my sleep I've been working on. I've been taking, like, before bed magnesium to help. Hair's fine. My nails, they've gotten a little bit fertile, but they're okay. Okay. Yeah, I think everything has been okay for the most part. Okay, but you said you're working on sleep. Sounds like that was an issue. Kind of, yeah. I wasn't sleeping solid, but even now, sometimes I wake up and I have a hard time going back to sleep, but I feel like since I started taking magnesium before bed, it's been a lot better. Yeah, so if you do what I ask, if you do the three days a week, you bump your calories a few hundred, you'll probably notice within a few weeks improvements in all those things. Look, worst-case scenario, Julio, okay? Worst-case scenario. You'll gain a little body fat and it didn't work. You go back to what you were doing before. I don't think that's going to happen. I think what's going to happen is you're going to have some huge revelations and you're going to be like, holy cow, I was totally over-trained. It's hard to see it when you're in it, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, like I know I over-train, I run and I swim too, and the wintertime I was swimming three days a week. Yeah, Jesus Christ. I was looking for that. I didn't get it if I asked you. I'm even more confident. I'm even more confident. Yeah, it's a combination of just the low calories, low body fat percentage, and intense training. Too much. You move the other direction in all three of those and you're going to see a positive benefit. Lay off the intensity in the training. Lay off the total volume in it. Increase some calories. Add a little bit of body fat percentage. And I feel pretty confident you're going to start seeing a difference. You'll start seeing a difference and feeling a difference within two to three weeks. Right away. And I think like Sal said, within a few months, hopefully we have our period back. Yeah, if you want to do this quickly, do what we say. If you want to drag this out, then go ahead and slowly chip away at it. But if you want to make it happen and see what the deal is. What do you do for work? Well, I was working retail, but now I am listed in the Army. Okay. Yeah. Okay, listen. That means you're probably the kind of person that looks at a goal and tackles it. So let me ask you this. Can you do anything for 60 days? Can I? Yeah. Do you have the will and the capacity? Good. Do this for 60 days. It's a challenge. Can you do that? The diet, like the training is going to be huge. That's right. I know. Can you do it? I'll try, but I'm already stressing about it. Go for a walk instead. Put an audio book in and listen. There is no try. There is only do. That's a famous quote from Yoda. But seriously, can you do this? Will you do this? You're on camera. Everybody's watching you right now. Can you make the commitment? If you can't, that's what I understand. But if you can, do it now. I'm going to try because I know it's important. I need to get it back as much as it's nice not having to deal with that stuff. All right. Look, we're going to put you in the forum too, Julia, because I want you to check in with us when you feel like you're slipping backwards. Okay. And then we'll get on there and hopefully we can get you back on track. We'll yell at you. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good luck, Julia. Thank you so much for calling in. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Bye, guys. Have a good day. You got it. Yeah, it's a little side story. I had a client once. She came to me. I've been training her for a while, right? And she was an athlete in college and high level soccer player. And she came to me and she goes, God, I haven't had my period for like three months. And I'm like, huh, I'm like, what other symptoms you have? And went down the list and she's like, yeah, that's really weird. My gums are kind of swollen and this and that. And I'm like, did you take a pregnancy test? And she went next door. She came back and she's like, I'm pregnant, we're having a baby. And I'm like, okay, that's why you don't have your period. But what Julia is saying is super common with female athletes. Super, and it's super scary to back out because you've created this relationship with your exercise. It's like breaking up with an abusive person. It's very hard. But once you do and you get out of it, oh my God, this is incredible. You actually see this a lot in the CrossFit community. Oh, time. Because you have these super athletes that are highlighted on television that you see that have these amazing bodies and they're super strong. And so then you get the average person who's not competing in the games who wants to look like that and train like that. And then so in order to look that way and get that lean, they have to diet. And then they diet really low while they're training like an athlete because it is a sport. And that is, this happens all the time. I hear it all the time. I want people to understand. That's why I wanted to know her training. I knew. And she would, she literally. She literally. She literally paleo conundrum they were into. I knew. She literally didn't tell you all of it. I know. Because she knows. I know she traded CrossFit for her own CrossFit. She was holding a lot of, she was holding a lot of exercise regimen that was still out there. Yeah, she's like. I knew it. She's like, oh, I love weights every day. Yeah. When she was wrestling, I'm like, that doesn't, I bet you don't. And she's in the army. She's in the army. You don't think they do PT like every day. Yeah. You know, like so. She's freaking. There's a lot there. She's training in tech. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. And I do want to make this statement right now. Extreme high performance is not health. Okay. Fact. So when you look at these athletes that are performing at super high levels, they are not at their best health. That's just the trade-off that you make. It's a sacrifice. When you get to that level. Our next caller is Allie from California. Sorry. Canada. Not California. Allie, how you doing? How can we help you? I'm good. Thanks. Thanks for taking my call. I'm like really new to the whole mind pump thing. And I kind of stumbled on it as I was sort of going through a journey with fitness. My background is I was an athlete and my sport was Alpine skiing. And I lived, you know, most of my teenage years through being an early adult training for that. So lifting, being involved in athletics and sports has been a part of my life since I can remember. And I just sort of, you know, as I've gone through life, it's kind of been like I've been into lifting and then sort of switch gears, had kids, different, did different things. And then sort of realized within, I would say, the last year and a half that I am like 100%, your classic overtrainer. And I kind of came to realize this by doing my own sort of deep dive discovery into just having a better understanding of how to make it a lifelong path for me instead of just sort of skipping from thing to thing and just hoping for results and kind of spinning my wheels and not seeing them. So I'm super grateful to have come across with the stuff that you guys do. I emailed your team and just said like, this is where I'm at. This is what I do on a day-to-day basis. What do you recommend? Like I'm all in to, you know, collecting more education on it. And I, they wrote me back right away, which was awesome and suggested that I do the anabolic program, which I am about nine or 10 weeks in. And I love it. It's super awesome. It's like for the most part it's given me like permission to recover, which is the best thing I think for me at this point. So I've been doing the home version and I'm reasonably set up. Like I've got, you know, a bench, I've got dumbbells and I've got a chin up bar and stuff like that. I do certainly appreciate that I would have gotten more gains if I had like a squat rack. But I think for me it was okay to take this time to like go back to some basics and sort of build a little bit more from the ground up. And if I go through it again and do it again, I'm happy to like either invest in a squat rack or a gym or whatever it is to get gains that way. My biggest question is around the nutrition part of it. And what I've realized is you have to invest just as much time into the nutrition journey as you do your exercise journey. My background is in food. So I was trained to be a chef and I love, my passion is cooking, especially when it comes to cooking healthy meals and for myself and also helping others learn how to cook in a way that you are love your healthy food and are satiated from eating healthy. So I have a pretty good understanding, but I'm certainly missing a link. Like throughout this anabolic process, I would say I've actually gained body fat rather than lost it. So I'm at like a little bit of a loss. I would say I have been likely unintentionally running at a deficit for too long. I've certainly incorporated like a major boost in protein and trying to get my protein targets. And when I do get to that, my calories are really low on those days. So any kind of help, feedback, like I've got a couple of questions under sort of the main event of being nutrition. I'm curious as to know how do you know how many calories you're supposed to be taking in when you take into consideration your activity level? And do you consume that amount of calories on training days as well as rest days? And am I correct in saying that if you run in a deficit for too long that your body will actually preserve fat? There's a handful. You go ahead. Yeah, there's a handful of things here. We've got to get to that. There's a lot to unpack here. First off, you so alpine skiing is hardcore. A lot of people don't know what that training looks like. If you train at a high level, it's intense. Yeah, we were twice a day. Yeah, it's a lot and you did it for so long that this became... I still do it. Like I still work in the ski industry. Okay, so this became your context of or your criteria of, I don't know, for lack of a better term, judgment in terms of what workouts should feel like, what your body should feel like. It's her normal. It's your normal. Okay, what that normal looks like is not what healthy longevity long-term looks like. That's what high performance looks like. High performance is not the same as healthy and longevity. Now, looking at you, you look lean. You probably gain body fat because you needed to gain body fat. There's a healthy range of body fat for both men and women, and that means you can get too low as well as too high. And so taking someone from, let's say, extreme high performance, ignoring a lot of the body signals, which you need to do when you're competing at a high level, like athletes often, for example, compete with some kind of nagging injury. Like you probably had something that hurt with every competition that you went into. You ignored a lot of- Oh, I still do. Like I'm still on, like that stuff is still present. So your criteria of judgment is super skewed because you lived in high performance, ignoring negative signals, move forward anyway, push. And there's a lot of benefit that comes from that, but now there's a lot of detriment. So now you're trying to move into health, and health looks and feels very different. What it's going to feel like to someone like you is, I'm not working out enough. I feel like I'm not, I may be gaining body fat. Maybe I should be doing more. Am I, I think I'm like, am I not eating enough or am I eating too much? The nutrition part is really challenging because athletes do so much that they often develop habits around nutrition that wouldn't match what a normal active lifestyle looks like. For example, when I would train high-level athletes that then stopped because they've got out of college or even pro-athlete, I even worked with a pro-athlete post-retirement. And their idea of what was enough was so off because when they were training, it meant something completely different than it did afterwards. So that's going to be totally off as well. So as far as diet is concerned, you're probably going to gain some body fat because you're supposed to. If you're getting stronger and you feel rested and you feel more calm and your skin starts to look better and your joints start to feel better, like those are all positive signs. If you feel like you can do more, that's actually a positive sign. You should not feel like you're hitting your limit unless you're training for maximum performance. Then there's a different, like I said, there's a different kind of criteria around that. If you're eating whole natural foods and a high protein diet, then your body will naturally fall into a healthy body fat percentage. For women, that's probably anywhere between 17 to 23, 24% body fat. So it's a bit of a wide range. Being that you're an ex-athlete, you're probably going to sit somewhere around 20 or lower. That's probably where you're going to be. You were probably sitting much lower than that when you were training as much as you were when you were competitive. So that's just normal. That's natural. It's going to be hard to get used to. How do you find the right amount of calories? Go ahead. I was just going to say, like I feel like I've transitioned quite well out of like having this need of like, if you want it, work harder for it. And I feel like once I've started the anabolic, I was like, thank God, I can give myself a break. And I'm loving it because I have more time to put towards like, I've got two extremely physically active, busy boys and I love doing all the things with them. So I feel like it's actually given me permission to do less and I'm loving that. And I'm good with that. And it's given me the opportunity to like, unpack from a psychological standpoint as to maybe what I carried over from sport into adulthood and need to address. Like my goals for myself are just to be strong, be capable and build self-confidence. And I feel like that that's my long-term path and it's just as important for me to feel those things and unpack whatever I need to unpack and deal with that's come out of sport. But it's just as important for my boys to see that for me. You're on the right path. You sound like you're in a good place. Let me address something that you said that I've personally been challenged with myself and I've had clients like this. You made the comment about feeling like you're putting body fat percentage or increasing your body fat percentage while also struggling to hit your calorie intake when you hit your protein intake. Something that sometimes is really common and again, I've struggled with this myself is that you have days where your protein is perfect and you eat probably within this lower calorie range and then the days I don't hit it, I over consume other foods. And so what ends up happening when you pull back and you look at an average over a couple weeks or a month is you're actually at a little bit higher calorie intake. That's why you feel like you've increased body fat percentage but you're not hitting your protein intake consistent and so your body's not building muscle, it's just adding body fat. And so you can't look at it just like a day-to-day thing. You have to be able to pull back and go like, okay, at the average over the last two weeks, what is my average protein intake hit and then what is my total calories hit? And what I find with people that have this up and down of being consistent with hitting their protein intake is their low calorie, they hit their protein intake and their low calorie that day and then the days they don't hit their protein intake, they over consume, but they over consume things like fats and carbohydrates. And so then we don't get the body enough protein to support the muscle and to respond to all the lifting that we're doing, but we're actually in a little bit of a calorie surplus so we do actually put on some body fat. That's actually really common with clients, female clients in particular, and I've actually struggled with that personally. So- Well, also too, I mean you're gaining strength, you're giving your body a little bit more adequate time to recover and you're probably feeling like you're gaining mass in general. So in terms of like building muscle, like a lot of times my female clients get uncomfortable with that because their clothes feel different. So in terms of they feel like they're gaining more fat mass with that as well when in fact it's just, your body is changing and adding more lean muscle on top of that. And so maybe your body fat is pretty similar to what it was, but now you're giving yourself a little more time to build muscle. Do you, are you doing body fat test? Do you know what that, what like the range is or where it's been and where it's going? No, no, I don't know. I mean, I did that when I was an athlete, but like I haven't done that for years and years and years. I would say, you know, my, after having my second kid, I was like, you know what, I don't want to set anymore goals. I just want to like feel like I can put on whatever I have in my closet and walk out the door without thinking twice about what I'm wearing or what it feels like or any of that. So I mean, I totally get your point of when you're like women feel like they're putting on fat when it's actual muscle. I mean, I could, I build muscle very quickly. And our sport was always like, the bigger you are, the faster you are, the bigger, stronger you are, you're going to be faster and you're going to make the next team kind of thing. So like there is certainly some psychology for me to unpack from that because I was like tired of having bigger, stronger legs. Like, but I appreciate the strength that comes along with it. I just like, I struggle to get to 2,000 calories a day. Yeah, yeah, I would, I would think I think you're probably needed. Yeah, I think you're in a good headspace. I think you're probably more like what I was alluding to, which is you hit the protein intake, you struggle with any calories. If you don't hit the protein intake, you can over consume on carbohydrates. And that gives you this kind of, I feel like I'm putting on a little bit of body fat percentage, but that's also Allie, explain alpine skiing training. You said you did it twice a day. What would it look like? Oh, like in our off season, you know, when we were doing dry line training, we were like, you're twice a day at the gym. So you're like doing huge lifts, like squats are huge, plyometrics are huge, agility is huge, like there's so much that goes into it because there's so much decision making when you're in a ski race that happens. So usually there'd be a strength element. And for sure. And then there would probably be like some kind of cardio or sprint element. Okay. And then when you're in the same day, and that was a long time ago for me, but I still think of myself like, I think I'm a professional leisure athlete. Yeah. And then in season, what does it look like? I mean, you're training all day, like you're training hard, like for sure half a day or all day, depending on where you are in your season, you're traveling to races, you're all over the place, but I'm, and then yeah, some days there's dry line afterwards, but like I said, like that was a long time ago for me, but again, I understand why you're asking. Yeah. The reason why I'm asking is because sometimes coaches, depending on the sport, will tell their athlete, you got to get bigger because the kind of training they're doing is, will just literally deplete their hell out of you. That's a lot of training. You're not going to build tons of muscle. First off, you probably have amazing, Waste away. Yeah. You obviously have amazing athletic genetics, otherwise you wouldn't reach that level. So you probably do build muscle easily. So in spite of all that training, you probably did build some muscle, but now you're probably going to build even more muscle. What's the difference in body weight now between then? Do you know? No, not really. I would say I was, I've always sort of hovered around like 130 to 140 kind of thing. I don't, I got rid of my scale. I stopped playing myself when I started doing anabolic because I was like, I don't want this. It's a detriment to my day. I was like, I don't want to ruin my day anymore. Allie, you're doing everything right. Okay. What's considered high protein for you then? When you say you have your high protein days, what do you think? Also, what, why do you think you're gaining body fat? If you're not using a body fat test, you're not, you're not using a scale. Where are you feeling it on your body? You don't feel like what Justin said. So why, how do you, how do you come to that conclusion? I thought you guys would ask that. I see it like in myself, like I am like, I would say in my stomach, which has never been an issue for me really, but I, it is certainly different to me now than I said, would say it was a year and a half ago. And I would say over a year and a half is when I was like just killing myself with workouts. Yeah. And it's made me question in like, what are my true intentions and what is my relationship with health and fitness? And I like diving into that stuff. So I'm just being really honest with it. And maybe it wasn't all with a great intention, but now I feel like I have a much better intention with it. But I, like I think I see a bit of an incline in body fat when I know I've got the potential to like lose body fat and be shredded. Yeah. Well, I'm okay. Look, I'm going to have a little bit of a different maybe objective opinion. And obviously I can only see you sitting there in your shirt. You look lean. Okay. I would guess and I'm pretty good. I'm really good at this. I would guess you're, you're lean. You're probably 20 or lower in terms of body fat percentage. Okay. So you're doing good. Remember, there is a healthy body fat percentage range and women tend to notice negative effects from body fat percentage below someone below 17%. Other women can get as low as 15 and be okay. Or when body fat percentage starts to get closer to 30, you're probably sitting around 20 or lower 18 probably. So you're probably pretty lean. You might have needed to gain some body fat. Let's talk about the diet for a second. What's high protein for you? Talk about when you eat high protein. What is that? How many grams in a day is that, is that high? I try, like try to get to 120, 130. Okay. Okay. So you're, okay. You're doing great. Here's the deal. Here's the thing. You can track. Look, we, and we'll talk about this. You could definitely track, figure out your total calories where you're supposed to be or whatever. But I think where you're at now is a healthier place where you're eating whole natural foods, it sounds like, because you're a chef. You're kind of aiming for a good, a good protein intake. And then your calories are falling probably where they should. Now, if you feel effects of low calories, low energy, low strength, poor health, then I would say, okay, we should probably look a little closer. But that's your, your, Doug pulled out your Instagram. You're definitely lean. Yeah. You're, your calories are falling probably where they should. I've worked with a lot of clients and typically when they eat whole natural foods, they eat a high protein diet and we have them trained appropriately, their calories fall right where they're supposed to. And so you're going to kind of feed your body what it needs. And your hunger cues are going to be pretty accurate. What's the longest streak of hitting your protein intake, hitting your goal, protein intake every day? How many days in a row have you strung together? Honest. Not the 30 days that you recommended. So I would, I've tracked my food and I like, I'll put a good effort into hitting it every day. So I would say two weeks for sure. And then I'll have a day where I'm like, oh crap, like I didn't get to, didn't quite get to a hundred or around that. But I, I just, I feel like I am, I get a lot of like really good educational information from you guys or other sources that you've recommended that eating more and consuming more will lead to like better restorative, like better recovery, better fat loss. So I'm just, it just goes back to my question of like, I'm probably consuming too little calories. And it's like the missing piece of the puzzle. Well, yeah, but that, okay. Yes and no. Again, like, okay, if you're, if you're gaining body fat, it's impossible that you're eating too low of calories. That's just, that's how it works. Like you can't possibly be eating too low of calories and then be gaining body fabrications. That means we are in a caloric surplus. Or getting stronger. But what could potentially be happening exactly what I'm alluding to right now, which is you're in a little bit of a surplus and over the average of say 30 days, and when you actually look at your average over 30 days of protein, you could be lower on the protein and higher on carbohydrates and fats and simply fixing that macro profile will probably level like, like, which is alluding to what, or what Sal is alluding to with the eating, focusing on the protein and the whole foods. It'll probably level you out and then fix the body fat percentage question or challenge that you seem to have. Just so you know, the studies on protein intake in athletes and in body builders show a maximum limit in terms of, in terms of positive effects. Okay. So not maximum limit like you can't eat more than this, but like the most you can eat where you'll see positives and then beyond this you really don't see any. Is about 0.7 to about a gram of protein per pound of body weight. You're within that range. If you go down to like 95 grams, 95 grams of protein for someone like you is still high protein. 130 grams is still high protein. That's all within that range. I think you're doing perfectly fine. In fact, talking to you, hearing you, you're going through the transitional challenges that a lot of high level athletes go through. You're totally on the right track. You're questioning a lot of things because it's new and it feels different, but you're, you're doing great. If you were my client, what I would literally, what I would tell you, if I had a good relationship with you, because I know we just met that I would say to you if I knew you for a while, let's sit you down and I'd say Ali overthinking this. Yeah, trust the process. You're super overthinking this. Everything's going great. You're on the right track. So I'm sorry I'm saying that, Tina, I just met you. No, I get it. It's all good. Like I, if I take my foot off the gas pedal, I take the foot off the gas pedal. Like it's all good. I am in it for the long run, but I just, I'm loving the information and the change that has come in my life with all of this and I am like pumping it out to friends and stuff who I think also probably need the same information from you guys. So I'll stick the course. Good. And I'm going to give you, doing what I'm doing and keep watching it. And I will like, you know, once I transition out of anabolic, I'm not sure what to go to, but I'll tell you, I'm going to give you some fitness advice. Get a barbell and a squat rack. You'll love it. You will love it. I think anabolic is great for now. I think after anabolic, I would love to see you do performance or symmetry. I think someone with your background, especially after following anabolic, you would love those programs. In fact, I'm going to send you one of them for free right now. What do you guys think we should send, have her do first? I think she should do symmetry and mainly because of that athlete mindset of like, and like you said, you've, you've gone through nagging pains and things that you've tried to kind of push your way through. I want you to really sit in that and see, you know, where those imbalances and discrepancies lie. Yeah. So after MAP Centabolic, follow the program we're sending you right now, which is MAP Symmetry. You'll really enjoy it. Okay. I'd love that. Thanks. It's getting a squat rack in our garage is certainly something that's on on the list of things to get. Go to PRX. We have a link. Maybe duck and email it to you. What is it? prxperformance.com forward slash mind pump. I believe so. Yeah. And you'll get a discount. They have squat racks that fold into the wall. So it literally comes off the wall less than six inches. And it's super, super sturdy when you unfold it. So that's check them out. They're really cool. Very conspicuous. Yeah. So awesome. Yeah. That's kind of what we're looking at as well. All right. Thanks guys. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And I want to say one more that you're very self-aware. Like I love talking to people like you, like you would be, I mean, just from the transition you're making the way you're communicating like you're super on point. You're really on the right track. Yeah. I'm like working, like I love working at it. It brings me like a lot of joy and now in a different way than it used to. And I work with a personal trainer once a week. Like squats are bugging me my back right now. So I go to her and I'm like, can you like check form? What do we do? Take weight off, work on deck. So. Cool. Excellent. Oh, symmetry. Symmetry will be perfect for you. Okay. Awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks, Alex. I really appreciate it. You got it. Okay. How refreshing to hear someone at that level communicate this way? It's usually not that kind of a conversation. She's definitely overthinking a lot. She's totally. But I do disagree with you nutritionally. What do you think? I 100% when I look at- You think we go higher, higher protein? Yep. And I think she, so listen, let's let's first, let's talk about the facts. If she is, if she's right and she's gaining body fat percentage, she has to be in a color surplus. Sure. We all know that. That's science. Okay. Right. And if she's getting stronger. That's the other part. Right. Which that simply could just be she's lifting weights now and she hasn't been doing, I mean, she's getting newbie gains right now. She gets adequate rest. Yeah. But I mean, I look at what she's, she still works in downhill skiing. She's downhill mountain biking all the time. Yeah. Okay. She's, I, she's not tracking. Okay. She's not weighing. She's not doing body fat percentage. So how many times have you ever met somebody who's not doing those things and who's accurate about their, what they're reporting? And when, when, when you have this, I look at it, I have a little bit of belly, I look, I'm gaining belly, belly fat. I struggle to hit my protein intake consistently. This screams to me at, and does endurance type sports. This screams to me, training endurance type of sports, not hitting enough protein intake. The days that you do consume extra calories, you're not hitting. Yeah. I don't think you're wrong. The reason why I said what I said is because I got the strong sense that she's overthinking. Well, that I, that we're on. And so I'm like, you know, yeah, she's fine. Yeah. So I'm like, she's fine. So that's the, that's the direction I'm trying to go. And because you gave that advice, that she's going to consider it. Well, that's why I didn't say anything because I do agree with all the advice. I do think that she's way overthinking this. You're not wrong though. I mean, I think that that's also something that I believe is 100% correct. It's just, I want to give her like the balanced, like don't overthink it type of deal. Well, and the truth that she shouldn't be really focused about getting lean and shredded. She should be focused on getting healthy. And then the original bit, yeah, where you're just like you want, your body wants to gain a little bit of natural body fat to be in a healthy place. And like, that's a really hard mental, you know, hurdle to overcome when you're a high performance athlete. Now you're like doing something completely different. Totally. Our next caller is Jackie from Kansas. Hey, Jackie, how can we help you? Hey guys. So a little bit different call. I think I've been talking to Justin. Hey, Justin. Hey. We started talking in May, I think it was. I contacted him with an opportunity that I was afforded through our local middle school and high school to help out with the girls, summer weights, strength and conditioning programs. So I reached out to Justin and asked his advice on what kind of programming to run. And he recommended symmetry. So we ran symmetry and really had a lot of success with it. The girls were pleased with the results. And we ran it for five weeks with the middle school girls through their program that's six to eighth grade. And then the high school girls ran it for a full eight weeks. I did have to condense it a little bit because I think that's an 11 week program. So we just ran each phase for two weeks. But those who stuck around have definitely been converted. So I just wanted to reach out and say thank you Justin. Thank you guys for some great programming. I was pleasantly surprised with the buy in because you guys created the program. It's not something that is like your traditional what we think of weights weight training program where we're not grabbing a bar and throwing on plates right away. Yeah, love to hear that. Excellent. Well, first off, the buy in is that's kudos to you. You're the one teaching it. And that's the buy in comes from the coach or the instructor. So that's amazing. What sport were they all playing? Are they all different athletes or was it just the general strength training class? It was just the general strength training over the summer. For the high school, we have had everything from golf and tennis, volleyball, basketball, wrestlers. We have a few female wrestlers in our school district. A few runners. I don't know about distance runners, but a few runners, some track athletes, softball. But our biggest and most consistent representation was cheerleaders. Phenomenal. So I mean, that was that was awesome. We were stoked for that. I love to hear the feedback. So what what things did you have the most success with? What was maybe the most challenging through it? We're always trying to get better at helping all the teachers that are helping a lot of these students out. Right. So for us, equipment was a challenge. We don't have cable machines. So like crossovers, things like that, those were a challenge. We use bands. So we adapted and made it through. We also don't have suspension trainers. We've got 10 racks, beautiful racks. We've got all the plates that we could need and all the bars that we could need, multiple bars for each rack. But we don't have any suspension trainers. So again, we adapted. We used bands for a lot. We had 90 minutes a day. And I believe in the past, it's been Monday through Thursday with an optional Friday. And at first, we didn't have many kids showing up on Fridays. But as they started seeing the benefits, more and more showed up on Fridays. Our last Friday, I think we had seven high school and two middle school kids show up. One thing that they had talked about was, excuse me, it's supposed to be strength and conditioning. We just didn't have time for conditioning. So some of the other coaches and I are throwing around some ideas that we may try to adapt next year. And I just, I'm not sure how to implement that with symmetry. I've listened to you guys since right before the pandemic started. And I know we prioritize in the day what our priority is. So for us, it was strength. And I've had several of the kids now that they've started fall sports say, I just feel like my conditioning is a little lagging. So do we create a program for them and have them urge them to do it on their own? We may have something down the road performance wise for you for that. But one thing too, like I know you're trying to really sell this idea of isometrics. I think that was like a bit of a struggle in the beginning, right? If getting by in with that, how did that go? That's correct. So we ended a few days here and there with the diamond hold, diamond push-up hold. And at first they did not like that. But I think they, and it's understandable. I demoed everything. So I didn't even have to work out during those weeks. And, you know, I was sore all over from all the demos. But the isometrics, they really got to like them. At first, yeah, that was that was a really tough sell. And the mobility sticks. I had probably, I don't know, 12, 10 to 12 mobility sticks I took in every day. And by the end of, well, throughout the entire program, I'll put it that way. Everybody from middle school to high school was asking for a mobility stick that they could use because they wanted to work on their shoulders. That was, that was like a huge win, man. I was stoked to see that. Great job, Jackie. I'll ask. Jackie, for the conditioning, you know, off season, it's really good to focus on building strength and muscle. As you get closer to season, typically if the athlete or the person is relatively fit, two or three weeks of conditioning is a great way to lead into in season training. And so what you would do is you would substitute some of the strength training workouts for more conditioning workouts. What you don't want to do is add conditioning to the strength training. Because then you could, you run the risk of over-training, which is what a lot of, a big mistake a lot of coaches make. I would say all the way up into the last two weeks. I think you can go strength training all the way the last two weeks, and then I would drop all the way down to one day a week of the strength training, then the rest all conditioning. There you go. Yeah. Much like how we block it out in, in MAPS performance. Yeah. So that, that was the, the idea there as well. So Jackie, how many students on average would you have show up to these classes? Well, we had, the first day of high school, I believe we had 25 kids show up. And we got quickly down to our core 12 to 15. And through the last week, we had a solid 12 showing up. And from what I understand, this is my first year, I recently, recently retired and moved back to Kansas in my hometown. And from what I understand in, in past years, by the point, the midway point when we have our break over 4th of July, we were lucky to pull in two to three girls. Wow. Okay. So that was, that's amazing. That's, that's, that's kudos to you. That's really all the instructor is, makes that. Are you going to, are you going to do this again? If they allow me to, you know, if, if the kids and the parents and the administration allows me to come back. Yeah. Well, Jackie, if you should, if you can get them to come up, to do it again, we'd love to send you some free suspension trainers, courtesy of Mind Pump. Yup. That'd be awesome. That'd be awesome. So literally the email that you emailed in to get on this call, email Jerry again, that's who's running that, and let us know if they bring you back to do that, let us know how many suspension trainers you could handle and we'll send them out to you. We'll send them to you from us. Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome. The kids noted that their, their strength, their stability, their balance, their strength. I said that they're, they had bigger muscles and more definition. So I was going back through, looking through the program, preparing for this call and it's just like everything that you guys have in the template about what to expect for each phase. We were marking them all down. It was, we were checking all the boxes. That's awesome. So you know that, I guess the moral of the story is trust the process. Of course. Of course. Yes. Let us know. I'd love to send you suspension trainers to the school. I'd love to hear more success stories like this. And then a program that I think you might benefit from to help improve things like mobility or work on potential areas of injury or pain prime pro would be maps prime pro. And that would be a great resource. We'll send that over to you right now for free. Okay. Yeah. I've got it. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, I've got that. And you know, I've got performance and I was thinking about running some performance with some of the kids. That would be the one. If they're off season. But most of them are three sport athletes and then throwing some cheerleaders in there too. No, well, that's awesome. Well, hey, these kids are lucky to have you. Yeah. Are you really passionate about what you're doing? That's awesome. I wish my kids had a choice. Keep us up to here, Jackie. Yeah. Right on. I will. And you know, I got it. I got to tell you, you know, it takes a village and there was a team of us that we're working with these kids. I just had access to Justin in the maps program. So, you know, we really appreciate what you guys are doing. And before I forget, my 10-year-old daughter this morning, she was like, you talking to Mind Pump today? Yeah. She's like, tell them hi. Oh, that's great. That's great. Thank you so much for us. Yeah. Thank you. I will. She's a middle schooler and she likes to show off those biceps and even her a little bit of the peck, the upper peck development and her deltoid. So if you like, look at this and you know, she's talking about arm wrestling little boys at school. Pretty excited about it. That's awesome. Getting after it. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Jackie. All right. Thanks guys. We're forward to hearing from you. Well, that's a nice feel good. Yeah. No, it's been fun, man. I mean, it's again, this is kind of like, I mean, it's a big passion of mine is to help in any way I can. Anybody that's helping kids especially and like going through that process. So that was that was a fun one that it's, you know, she took it on and really applied it and good things were happening. Yeah. Look, I know that good programming plays a role, but it's like 10% of the buy-in. That was all her. She's so passionate about it. I mean, I could feel it. I could feel it. She's, you know, that's that's that's kudos to her and those kids are blessed to have somebody. No doubt. Yeah. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our fitness guides. They're free. Download all of them. They cost nothing. You can also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump. DeStefano and Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam.