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Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode, subscribe to this channel and turn on your notifications. Gotta do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you and then you tell us which one you want. Which bundle do you want? Which nine month exercise programming bundle works best for you and you'll get it for free. Everybody else, they're all super discounted when you go to maps january.com. It's like a huge savings. One more thing, if you're just interested in the flagship maps program, you just want to do one program maps anabolic. We're also putting that one on 50% off sale. So for that, go to maps fitness products.com. And then for the 50% off just maps anabolic use the code Jan 50 Jan five zero with no space for that discount. All right, here comes the show. It's the first episode of 2022. Horn noise. That's the horn noise. Yeah. No, I you know what we should talk about. Okay, because this is like, this is fitness marketing sales, gym membership, weight loss season, right? January. Oh yeah. So when everybody goes crazy, everybody wants to lose weight. And a lot of people are looking for advice from other people. How do I do it? What should I do? How do I lose weight? And so what we need to talk about is eight worst pierced people to make advice from that you had your yes, the worst people. I'll say that clear mouth. That's right. I jack the worst, the worst eight people that you can take diet advice from. These are the people that annoyed us during our fitness careers. You get a client or a member. Hey, I heard so and so told me to do this. So and so told me to do that. And it was almost always terrible advice coming from these eight people. Numero uno has to be on all of our sheets. Say it. Sure. Say it. Doctors. Yes. Oh, okay. So it's true. So number one. Okay, let's let's talk about why we're saying doctors. First of all, doctors know their craft exceptionally well, heavily, highly educated. I've trained lots of doctors. I know lots of doctors personally. Very well meaning all the ones I know, well meaning smart, intelligent, good people. Now, here's the problem. Doctors comes the shit sandwich. Yeah, doctors have no unless it's their field of expertise. There's outliers out there and I'll throw that in the mix. True. But but in your unless it's your specialty, doctors have almost no education or nutrition. I believe it's a semester or a class that they take. It's very miniscule in nutrition. So they have no nutrition training. However, what they do have is all of the authority and credibility of being a doctor, which makes them the hardest ones to counter so challenging. Like I'll tell a story that it was so frustrating to me. I had a client come to me. This was somebody I think she had to lose about 60 pounds. She hires me and I'm talking about changing behaviors and we're going to do strength training, we do all stuff. And then she comes to me, she goes, oh, I'm starting a new diet. And right away, of course, my alarm bells go off and like, oh crap, all right, what am I going to have to, you know, what kind of damage am I going to have to fix here? So so what is this diet? Where'd you get it from? She goes, don't worry. It's all good. I got it from my doctor. And what it was was a powder that she drank throughout the day. It was a no solid food diet doctor approved diet doctor approved shakes every day to get her to lose weight. And I said, well, what happens after you lose weight? Then I go back to eating normally. I was like, oh, and now the hard part was it's her doctor. And this person has so much authority, so much education. So in order to counter that, I'm like, I have to kind of go through and be very careful with how I counter this. But Matt, that's what makes that this person such a challenging person to deal with Doug, what is that phenomenon that happens where because someone because someone is in a position of authority, like a doctor that you automatically halo effect is that would that be considered the halo effect? It's something like that, right? The halo effect is like you look at a halo effect is more like a celebrity and you think that they can do no harm or wrong because they're good at one thing. They're so good at one thing. The doctor thing is different like a doctor could give you advice on probably stocks and you would probably take his because he's a PhD because he's educated and you know, you went through all the schooling to get this position pedestal for sure. Right. I think there's a name for this phenomenon when this happens. I just don't know what it is. And it's not the halo is more related to like celebrity. It's similar to idolize somebody who's like super famous. So you think they're like an angel, right? You think that they're, you know, they don't do any wrong, right? But this is more like because they're in this authoritative position, you assume that any direction that give you is correct. That there's something I forget what it's called. I expected Doug. Well, I mean, again, I don't know. Again, here's the thing and you can talk, look, you can talk to any doctor. Again, unless it's their specialty, ask them, what is your formal training on nutrition? And they'll tell you it's very, very minimal. You look at all their eight or 10 years of school, including internships. And it's, it's a couple courses or a few courses on nutrition and what they learn are things like proteins, fats, carbohydrates, calories, calorie balance, and then that's pretty much it. So they have no training on working through nutrition, on sustainability, on individualizing the training and on not only that, but here's the other thing. And this is just part of how our medical system works. Doctors, it's really hard for doctors and the way things are structured to spend a lot of time with patients. And this is even when you're doing dealing with something that they specialize in. Nutrition is a, is a coaching thing. If there's, there isn't a prescription you can give someone to solve it. This is something that needs to be worked with on a consistent basis over a certain period of time. And so what doctors tend to do when they give diet recommendations is kind of like prescription. Here, don't eat carbs or follow this or just do this, you know, this liquid diet, which like I said, I dealt with that and it was really hard to overcome. Yeah. And just to play, I mean, not to play devil's advocate, but there's definitely like some substance to, I've talked to some doctors about this and they're just, they're pretty aware that if they dole out, you know, good information, a lot of people aren't gonna do it and apply it. And so I think that there's a little bit of jaded kind of perspective in terms of, you know, I know that they'll take these pills and they'll do these things, but they're not going to make the lifestyle changes in habits. And so they get somewhat, there's somewhat of a reserve to actually even bring it up in the conversation. Well, I think it also leads into our, our second worst person or entity that we think that you should listen to diet advice from is a lot of their information is coming from the government. So there's, there's a second worst person or entity to listen to. If you followed government guidelines for nutrition for the last few decades, you're probably going to be sick and unhealthy. Very sick. And that's how wrong they were. I mean, listen, when I was a kid, the official advice from the government, right? So government agencies, FDA and all the nutritional advice was that margarine was healthier than butter, butter is terrible for you. Eggs, don't eat eggs, only eat the whites. If you drink milk, drink non-fat milk. Now, you know what's funny? Consume 60% of your grains and carbs. Yeah, or carbs from grains, right? Now, you know what's funny? Now they show very clearly, whole milk healthier than fat free milk, butter healthier than margarine, whole eggs far healthier than egg whites. They missed on all of them. Yeah. Not only did they miss, but it was actually the opposite, right? So it's, it's one thing to kind of be off, but it's another thing to give someone. Well, and this is where a lot of these doctors pull from. So because they don't have a ton of nutritional advice, but they've maybe read FDA guidelines and things like that, or maybe the one semester they read the book that was written in 1957. And that's where they're getting their diet information. And so I think they, they kind of feed into each other. That's part of the reason why the doctors are so bad is a lot of them are pulling from the information that's being presented by the government. Yes. Now, now this doesn't, this, these aren't the only, this isn't the only entity that falls prey to this kind of influence, but the government's notorious for this. If you look at the people that run many of these agencies, many of them came from pharmaceutical companies first. So they would, they would leave pharmaceutical companies for these government jobs or vice versa, leave a government job going to pharmaceutical company, or you'd see these lobbying companies having tremendous influence over these recommendations. So when you're getting these recommendations, I mean the classic example, it's a silly example, but it's funny. There was, I don't remember when this was, I believe it was during the Obama administration I want to say, but they tried to pass new government regulations for school lunches. And one of them was that a school lunch was required to be, you had to give one serving of vegetables at the school lunch. It introduced pizza, right? Isn't that what happened? Lobbyist went in and said, Oh no, no, no, you know, and what they did, the lobbyist made the case and got it that pizza sauce because tomato sauce is a vegetable. Because it's tomatoes. So now slice of pizza, it falls under those guidelines. And so now the kid is eating, oh, it's under these guidelines, right? If you look at the government regulations on the, on the back of your food, right, you read the nutrition facts. Now, there's nothing wrong with nutrition facts. I think it gives us a good general guideline. But when you learn the margin of error that they're allowed, it's pretty damn big. Yeah. It's you, how much can they be off? It's, I've said this on the show multiple times and I can't remember if it's 25% or 35%, but it's in that range. Yeah. So even if it was 15%, right, right. You know, you're eating a 2000 calorie diet. That means you could be having another 300 calories, which literally can make the difference between. Not to mention they also, they also, the way they write on labels, I've always thought it was so interesting that they, they try and they pick a serving size that they present. And almost everything I've ever ate that has a nutrition label on the back. I've never sat down and ate the serving size. I've never opened a 12 ounce drink and had half of it. It seems like you drink the whole thing yet. It's, you know, they break up half of it and they do the serving size or they have like a single serving. It's very misleading. It's very misleading. Cause a lot of people don't, you know, honestly, a lot of people don't do the math. They don't sit down and go like, oh, I probably had two, two times this. I think I'm not sure. It's not only that, but like in the 80s and 90s, fat was given the blame for obesity, for heart disease. And so the government comes out and says, fat is bad. Okay. This was, this was the general. This is a huge one. Yeah. Low fat, low fat. That's fat is bad. Now we know that's totally false. But here's what happened. Government comes out with that. Food companies are like, okay, we need to change our products. People still, we need to make them so people will buy them. They need to be palatable. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to cut the fat. So in the 90s, if you went through a grocery store, like, like one of the biggest pieces of marketing on food would be low fat, low fat, low fat. I mean, red vines. So, you know, red vines are the licorice-looking candy, literally we'll say on a fat-free food. So we're gummy bears because this is, this is from the 90s, essentially, but how they, what they do to make them more palatable is increase the sugar. So a lot of the information was misleading. Much of it was actually the opposite of what was true. Sodium is another one. They're low sodium, low. So in the context of a healthy diet, low sodium is actually very bad for you. Cholesterol, they told us not to eat cholesterol. American Heart Association had to totally redact their original state. They told women to take calcium for osteoporosis. Then we saw, oh, this is causing problem with your arteries and actually it's not doing anything to supplement with calcium unless you're in a deficiency. So the government is a really, really bad. And again, they're so heavily influenced by special interests, lobbies, the pharmaceutical companies. For example, here's another one. And statin drugs are very effective at lowering cholesterol. And in many cases, lowering cholesterol with statins can cause a beneficial effect. However, when you look at, and I would love for a doctor to comment on this, I've talked to many of them. When you look at the, all the things that you can measure, by itself cholesterol doesn't tell us a whole lot. You have to look at the whole thing. But cholesterol is very easily treatable. So it became the focus. We got a lower cholesterol, lower cholesterol. When you look at cholesterol and you don't look at everything else, it doesn't mean a whole lot unless it's super, super crazy at a range. So don't listen to the government when it comes to nutrition. Now the next one, this one was challenging for me at first, right? So the next one is science zealots. And as a young trainer, I struggled with how to debate or argue with someone that would argue with me with studies. That's not the best way to lose fat, Adam. This is look at this study where they have this 16 individuals and they were put on cardio and then they reviewed, you know, right. And they would use that to argue with you. And at that point in my career, you know, I was still figuring things out and didn't realize at that point, the behavioral aspect and how much that plays in a role of long-term success and that we are really robbing people by, you know, presenting these short studies all the time and using them as the standard of like, this is how you should do things. And that being said, I don't want to shit all over science. Without that, we wouldn't have gotten where we're at today. No, I'm glad you said that. The studies are essential. They're necessary. They're valuable. But you can't coach nutrition just based off of study. I'll give you one clear example. So this is an easy example that I like to give, right? So artificial sweeteners are, they taste sweet and they reduce or eliminate the need for sugar, which has calories. Okay. Now it's a fact. If you eat less calories than you take in, you will lose weight. This is one of the things you have to do anytime you try and change your nutrition or get leaner. Now, of course, it's more complex than that and what you eat and how you eat and the behaviors around it and how they make you feel and all that stuff, very important. But the bottom line is, you still have to eat less calories than you burn to lose weight. And if you cut the sugar out of your diet, especially if you have a high sugar diet, voila, you cut the calories, you're going to lose weight. And so artificial sweeteners came out and were like able to promise that. So then they did studies that were controlled. So what they'll do is they'll take people or animals and they'll replace artificial sugar with artificial sweeteners, count and control all the calories. And of course, artificial sweeteners cause people or animals to lose weight because the calories are lower. Now the problem is in the real world, when people replace their soda drinks for diet sodas or their sugary candy with, you know, sugar-free candy, we don't see weight loss. Now why is that? Because people replace the calories with other foods. They end up eating more of other things. Now there's debate as to whether or not that's an unconscious thing that the sweetness from the artificial sweetener minus the calories that usually comes with it triggers stronger hunger response or yeah, or the person thinks they can eat more because now they're having. And by the way, that's where the science is else will try and poke holes in the people that try to say that. That's not true. Look at this study. They show that it doesn't increase this. It doesn't mess with insulin. And so they try and use. But it doesn't matter. They have failed to show that people on their own consuming artificial sweeteners instead of sugar end up losing weight. So it's a terrible strategy, but the science zealots will point to the studies will point to the fact that it reduces calories and we'll say, no, it's really good. But in the real world, it just doesn't work. And I think that's where the science, when you see this with the, with exercise to the science, the exercise science zealots, right, they completely lose the context of human behavior and real life. And everything is, you know, down to the study that was done in this controlled setting, which sometimes doesn't apply to the real world. They're just hyper focused on one value they're getting from that. Like if muscle contraction, they can test that. So that based on that alone, they're going to value whether or not your exercise is as effective as, you know, another one and not really considering, you know, the overall like systemic effect of some of these compound lifts as opposed to, you know, isolating these particular. You know what? There was this one study that reminds me of maybe Doug can find this, that is an old study. They took a bunch of people as relatively controlled and they took half of them and they replaced their animal fat intake with vegetable fat intake. So vegetable fats typically have, you know, lower or no saturated fat. You're going to see a lowering of total cholesterol. And so at the end of the study, they showed, Oh my gosh, we replaced these people's animal fat intake with vegetable fat intake and their cholesterol drop. Wow, it's successful. But then when they followed the people longer, they found all cause mortality increased with the people eating the vegetable fats. And now we know trans fats and stuff like that have, you know, bad values, but the, the zealots would have pointed to that study and say it's a very effective way to improve your health. For example. Yeah, I look at it as it's, it's good to have that in the conversation as perspective in context, but application sometimes, you know, will prove a different outcome. Well, that's why you, you can't take, you can only take the study stuff at face value because there's, there's too many other variables when it comes to the success of a client. Like you, you talked about all the thing too that you mentioned already. Another one is just the time period. Even if this, the study is right, even if it still aligns with some of the human behaviors in a six week period of time, what someone will do and, and what the results you'll see in six weeks can be very, very different for a year, compared to that. So even if someone behaviorally can stick to something for six weeks, the question is, can they make this a lifelong pursuit? And what is it? And so what does it even look like six months to a year from there? And maybe they have all this success in a short window, but in a long window that it completely changes. And you just have to know that when you look at these studies and go, okay, there's some good information here and let me take that. But then also let me take into consideration, I need to do this for the rest of my life. That means I'll be exchanging this out. What's the reality of me actually sticking to this long term? And do I want to long term? Because a lot of times people think in a short window, like, oh, of course I can do all those things. But then you say, do it forever. Yeah. Then you say, do it forever. And they go, oh, no, I'll just do until I get my goal. Yeah. That's why when people used to say to me, what's the best form of exercise? And I'd say, well, first off, which one do you enjoy the most? Because it doesn't matter which one's the most effective. If you hate it, you'll never do it. Well, you said, what's that saying you used to say all the time that an inferior program done consisting will always consistently will always outbeat a superior program done inconsistently. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that's so true. It's like, I mean, we pride ourselves a lot on our ability to write really good programs that we think that we write some of the best programs that exist out there, but none of that shit matters if you don't follow it. Totally. And you're better off doing, you know, influencer Susie's workout butt program if you stick to it consistently and you never miss because then it becomes a superior program than even ours. Now, the next one, and one of the beauties of being in a professional in the fitness space for almost 24 years, I think, is that this next one we're going to talk about, I have seen come and go and I've seen different iterations of the same thing. And I've seen it. So it becomes really obvious when this keeps happening. And these are the diet pushers or the people who say this is the diet that works. This is the diet for everybody. There's no nuance. There's no considering individual variances. It's a one size fit all. And they often will demonize certain aspects of nutrition or whole macro nutrients or whole food categories. Yeah. It's part of their diet, you know, the diet that they're promoting. It seems like it's gotten even more intense over the years. I think because of social media and access to the internet and being able to pull up, you know, like your own confirmation bias, like I'm going to grab this study and cherry pick certain items out of there and place it in there to make my argument even more compelling. And it just becomes this ideology because they're so passionate about what they feel like it's bringing in their own personal life. But what they forget to remember is that everybody is individual and has individual needs and there's lots of biodiversity you got to consider. What do you guys think the percentage of the people that fall in this category, the diet pushers, have bad intentions versus good intentions? Oh, that's a good question. Like meaning that there's, because here's, I do. I don't think they have bad intentions. I do think so. I think some people are out for blood. Start a Keto podcast on the swing up of the Keto trend. I think some people write a paleo book when paleo is getting popular. I think there's some people that use it as a marketing strategy and that's their their main motivation to write it. So I do think there's some people that have bad motivation by, which I would consider that bad motivation. Then I think there is the other side of people that mean well because let's say they did some of their own homework or maybe, and we have friends that are actually PhDs that actually push certain diets like carnivore and vegan and things like that. And I think that they're intelligent. They're well read and they followed a diet that impacted them personally in such a tremendous way that they feel emboldened to go out there and share this diet. And they're smart enough to back it up with certain studies and arguments. So and I think that the most successful examples of this are exactly that. They are intelligent. A lot of times PhDs that have done a deep dive on a specific diet. They have applied it to themselves. They've seen tremendous. And now they have the experience, the intelligence to push this diet on people. Whether they mean it to be a pushing way or they are just they're sharing their experience. Also, don't you feel that they're getting rewarded for being more polarizing? Always. Whatever it is in terms of people just buying into this war on methodology, it just becomes something that a lot of people glom onto because they're into the drama of it, the fervor behind it. Yeah, okay. So here's the formula for a successful popular diet. Well, first off, it has to be low calorie. Otherwise people won't lose weight. That's all diets. All diets are low calorie. That's why people lose weight. But here's the formula. Simple. Okay. So like one or two steps. Don't eat carbs. Right. Don't eat vegetables. Don't eat meat. Right. It's got to be very simple. And if you really want it to crush, say something that's counter to what people have been hearing for a long time. So in the 90s, low fat, low fat, low fat, atkins comes out. No, eat all the fat you want. Just don't eat carbs explodes. Right. You hear that for a while. Then you hear someone come out and say, vegan, vegan, vegan. Don't eat meat. And then someone comes out carnivore. Eat carnivore. It's the opposite. Explodes. Right. So these are the formulas. They work very, very well. But one of the main reasons why diets don't work is because in this context, a diet is something you want to go off. Okay. So whatever you do, think forever. So you got to think forever. And also consider yourself as an individual. Your physiology is slightly different from the person next to you. But your experiences and your behaviors and your relationship to food are very different from the person next to you. So there is no perfect book or diet. Now what you can do, and here's what I like, is these PhDs with different opinions. I think it's cool to listen to them, take bits of information, see what applies to you. But nine out of 10 times following these diets, these extreme diets, is going to result in total failure. So I would not listen. And so far to date, there hasn't been a single diet. That has reversed the course of the obesity epidemic. There you go right there. Absolutely. Now the next one, I don't know what this was 20 years ago. And it's now manifested into this role, or whatever, or where they all were 20 years ago maybe. But this is maybe one of the worst group of people you listen to. And that's fitness influencers. Oh, this is a dirty, dirty. And did they just all come out of nowhere? Where were they all? They were celebrity diets. Is that what it was back then? Yeah, I remember them. Is that what you think they've replaced? They've replaced their celebrity? Whatever. Remember when we were kids, you go to the gym. I mean, history tends to repeat itself. And we're creatures of habit. Totally. And I don't think there's anything revolutionary in the diet world in the last 20 years. And so there's this huge wave of Instagram, TikTok, whatever influencers that are promoting diets in ways of eating that where were they 20 years ago. And so your guys' theory is that that was... Well, yeah. Remember when we were kids, you go to the grocery store and you'd see the magazines. And there'd be those magazines that have a celebrity. Like, this is how Cindy Crawford got, you know, stays super fit. Great English reference right there. Yes, Cindy Crawford. I got to throw a huge jack. You'd get ready for Wolverine. Right, kids? You've totally masturbated to her, right? Stop it. I got to throw it back so that... But you remember that, right? It was about, it was all celebrities, right? I was like, Kathy Ireland. She's like 65 now. I'll go with your analogy. Kathy Ireland was the other one, right? Or how Oprah lost 30 pounds, of course, she gained it back, right? So it was celebrities, but now it's fitness influencers. The problem with fitness influencers is they have the visual evidence. So the challenge with them is they do look good, right? They do look incredible, right? So automatically you think maybe they know what they're talking about. What you don't know is that they don't know what they're talking about. 99% of the time they have no training, no education, no experience actually working with everyday people. They have figured out a way to get themselves to look really good. And that often is dysfunctional. A lot of people don't know this. But if you look at these fitness influencers, I would bet that a good 70 to 80% of them have a... What would be classified as a dysfunctional relationship with exercise and nutrition? I would agree with that. And I'd even go as far to say in their defense that they don't know that they don't know, right? And I always try when we harp on the fitness influencer that to have some compassion, because I too remember what it was like to be a 23, 24-year-old trainer who was in good shape, thought he knew better, and thought I was out there giving great advice. And I just didn't know that I didn't know. So I think a lot of them come from that place. Again, like the other categories, I think there are some people that are vicious or have ill will to do it, and they're just looking to make money. But I like to think that a large portion of them are just young and unaware, right? We've now... There's a brand... This is a brand new... Even though maybe you guys are saying this is a similar tactic as celebrities, this is a brand new market, though, of fitness people that get credibility with never having to train a person in real life. I mean, that's kind of a crazy... The credibility is there. That's kind of a crazy phenomenon. It's all about how they look. It can be... I just... I cut down and went through this whole process to get up on stage to show off my body. I took all these pictures. All of a sudden I get a following. Everybody wants to know what that blueprint looks like. Can you sell that to me? And the credibility is 100% how they look. It's not what they know or their experience. And to your point, a lot of times they got there through extreme diets, steroids. I mean, you've got fitness girls that are doing... You've got to blame the consumer, right? But implants and liposuction and doing all these things to create this image in authority. Crazy drugs and starving yourself. I'll say this, a majority of people in the fitness industry, period, have some kind of a dysfunctional relationship with food and exercise, which is what drove them to be in fitness in the first place. But you go with a fitness influencer route, it's even higher. These are people who are just displaying their bodies and they have no business giving anybody fitness or nutrition advice. So I definitely would not listen to them. All right, the next one, this next person knows more than the last person, but just a bit more. And it's not really applicable to most people, and that's the bodybuilder. Now the bodybuilder, they've gotten shredded, they've bulked, they know exercise to a degree. They know how to work really hard. You see them work out and they perform well and all that stuff. So now it's like they're going to give diet advice. It's like your bro science category. Yeah, no, I think that they have figured out how to get themselves stage ready. And they could maybe coach another bodybuilder very similar to them with the same kind of genetics, same drugs, same fanaticism. But man, I am telling you right now, if you are not as fanatic, as fanatical as a bodybuilder, their advice is not going to work for you. Because bodybuilders, I've known a few competitive bodybuilders, have done it for years and years. Nobody wants to live that way. It is like their foods are portioned, they walk around with Tupperware, they weigh their food, their workouts are religious. Everything is so regimented and dedicated, it's 24 hours a day. And their advice is going to come across that way. Here's what you need to do, here's your five meals, here's your meal plan, do your cardio twice a day or whatever. And it just doesn't work. Yeah, I feel like a simpler way to say with bodybuilders is I feel like they have the answers to the test. They have figured out the answers to the test, but they don't know how to teach the proper formula to the average person, right? It's like a lot of athletes that just aren't good coaches. Right. You know, like you can see a stellar athlete out there and then you ask them their whole process of like how to get there, how I can improve and they just don't really... Right, they had, like Sal said, they've hacked into the answers for them to get to that level and it's worked really well for them, which is a lot of times there's this kind of feedback loop where they think that they know what they're doing because they help a couple more people that are like them. They get a couple clients who are in the same place or maybe the same body type or same personality type that this type of instruction works really well for them, same insecurities, right? Same place in their fitness journey and it works and so then they think, oh, I'm a good diet coach. I'm a good competitor coach. I figured this all out and then it's... That's like solidified with the way they look too. So they have this perceived authority too because of these great physique. So I used to have a trainer that worked for me that competed at a pretty high amateur level. He competed like Mr. California. I think he got second at one point. He did really well and then he became a personal trainer and I remember this was like six months into being a trainer working under me and I remember sitting down with him and he goes, I did not realize... This was his literal word, something like this. He goes, I did not realize just how different people's... The average person's genetics were and how they respond to exercise from mine. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, well, I know how to work out. I know how to get my body to respond but when I do it applied to the average person, it's like I'm hurting people. They're over-training. They're not responding the same. And I remember sitting him down and saying, look, you work hard but you have one in a million genetics. Obviously you're anabolicly enhanced on anabolic steroids. This is what you do all the time. You try to apply that to the average person and it's just, it's too much and it doesn't work. So knowing how... And here's the deal, I've trained lots of people. I can't name a single person that I trained exactly the way I trained myself. Everybody's a little bit different. So what I know how to do for me, I know how to do for me. But that tells me very little about how to work with lots of different individuals and what to consider when I'm working with different individuals. And this is where bodybuilders kind of fall in that category. So they know some stuff but they don't know really how to work with lots of people. And if you talk to bodybuilders who have coached lots of average people, they'll tell you the exact same thing. They'll say, oh yeah, I had to figure this out through years of this process. And many of them, at least in my experience of running around on the circuit was, one of the most impressive things about a lot of the competitors I met was, they have some of the most incredible discipline that I've ever met. Yeah, very just... Like they have the ability to tell me what to do and they will blindly follow it and do it with like a crazy, crazy discipline. You don't have to consider the normal human behaviors that you get with the average person. That's right, that's right. Like you can't tell that to the average person and expect them to wake up at 6 a.m. and do this when you say, and eat at this time and measure their food all the time. But with bodybuilders is so fanatical that you can give them the script and they'll just follow it, at least for 12 or 16 weeks right before a show. All right, here's the next one. This one used to frustrate the heck out of me because it's hard to battle because the people that you tend to trust the most or the people you know, they're around you, you know their story, you see their struggle, then all of a sudden they lose weight and it's your friend and your friend says, here's how I lost 30 pounds. And you're like, I know Susan, she lost 30 pounds following the celery diet and doing cardio in the morning fasted. I'm going to do the same thing, right? My friend Rachel, she does CrossFit. She looks amazing. Yes, this was a hard one. This is so many anecdotes. This is a hard one because think about the as a... Because then you don't want to talk crap about their friend. Well yeah, as a coach and a trainer, right? We're building this relationship with somebody. Like we don't have the same, we don't quite have the same authority or relationship yet that this person has with their best friend who they've been hanging out with say for 10, 15, 20 years and they know so well, they trust, they look out for each other. It's like, so her girlfriend telling her or her buddy telling him that, oh my God, you got to go try this workout plan or you got to go try this diet that I've got right now. And they've seen with their eyes like, I've known Susie my whole life and she's always been out of shape and this is the best shape I've ever seen her. And she tells me the answer was X. And I'm like, oh my God, I've got to do this now. Real hard for a trainer to overcome that and say it's a bad idea. By the way, this is why in the supplement and diet space, some of the highest-grossing products are multi-level marketing. Literally, if you look at the diet space and the diet supplement space and weight loss space, these companies have become billion-dollar companies because multi-level marketing relies upon that. They hack into that accountability piece. Yeah, and you go talk to your friend and this worked for me and then they saw me lose weight. Now, 10 other people buy it. I think Herbalife crushed because of that. Oh yeah, I mean, they set up the entire structure so you pull in your friends and family. That's who you're marketing to even get started. And it's just, it plays upon that fact that it worked for just this one person that I know intimately. So, you know, this must be the formula. Yeah, it is. So friends, I think, you know, and it's great to consider some of the stuff that they did, but remember, you are you. So be very careful when you're just listening to your friend or somebody you know that lost. Well, that's the dangerous part about it is you can have a friend who has similar goals. You guys are both, let's say, in the same situation as far as I'm overweight, trying to lose weight, knowing each other, have all these things in common, but then have just completely different metabolisms and just in different places as far as muscle mass on their body. Their skill and ability to do. Yeah, hormone, I mean, there's so many other variables that make such a difference when it comes to your results and of course seeing long-term results that it's, I can't remember any time that I've met a pair of friends or a pair of people in general that looked like each other or had similar goals. And I had them on similar programs and diets. It just, it doesn't work that way. And unfortunately, it's part of the reason why we avoided nutrition and diet for so long. It's not that we don't have the ability to help somebody out with nutrition. It's that it's so individualized that we wanted to scale this thing to millions of people. And we just knew that like there's, we can help millions of people by coaching and giving general advice, but to help somebody on a diet level, like that's so specific that we would never be able to reach every individual. You know what, let's do a little sidetrack. What also makes this challenging is when I would see people in my gyms or clients or trainers that work for me and their clients, but when I would see them follow the same routine and diet that their friend did and they didn't get the same results. It's crushing. It's crushing because now it's like someone you know and wow, why can they do it? Why doesn't it work for me? And it oftentimes gets people- Confirms you're the loser in the group. Yes. And it gets people- It doesn't feel good. It gets people to stop all together. Actually, I remember specifically one guy, he was like, dude, my buddies are building muscle and they're doing, and nothing's happening to me. He's like, it's just not for me. I'm going to stop. And I had to have this whole conversation like, listen, man, everybody's body responds a little bit different. We got to find what works best for you. And luckily, I'm convincing I got him to stay, but he would have left. He would have left because he followed what his friend did and it just didn't work for him. All right, this last one is one of my favorites and that is the supplement companies. Now, supplement companies, you may think to yourself, what do they have to do with diet, right? They're not selling me food. They're selling me pills. Ah, that's where you're wrong. Look closely at the diets that they recommend. There's almost always their supplements incorporated in the diet. And this is a brilliant strategy to sell their powders and their pills. It's like, we give someone a diet, and then at 9 a.m., you also take this carb blocker and at noon, you take this pre-workout fat burner. And then when you're most hungry, oh, I get hungry at 4 p.m. You get that protein shake right after your workout. That's why you drink this shake that kills your appetite so that you eat less and the person loses weight because it's a low calorie diet. And they're like, this XYZ supplement is so damn effective. Well, I blame, I know I should take responsibility. It's my fault, but I blame the supplement companies for my poor nutritional advice early on in my career because we went through Apex nutrition. You remember that? We got certified. My first class was taught by the founder. Through 24 Finesse. We used to have this, you would get a client. You would ask them all the foods they like. They don't like. You put it in all their metrics as far as their body weight, their body fat, their goal, all that stuff, their movement. And then the algorithm would spit out this perfect diet quote. So perfect that it'd be like weird stuff. Like three quarters of an orange and two crackers and one quarter cup of tuna. Like, what the fuck? Who's ever gonna eat that, right? It was just counting the calories. Yeah, it would literally just, it would figure out like the perfect macro breakdown and it would give you these. You're taking me back. I feel so bad for breakfast. And the other thing that would do that I, this is, it was ingrained to me now that going forward was, you know, they would recommend Apex bars at least once or twice a day and an Apex shake, plus the Apex multivitamin. And it's in the plan. Yeah, it's in the diet plan. That's part of your lunch. If you take a step back, you have to really marvel at the brilliance of how they sold so many supplements. Absolutely, absolutely. So brilliant too. I mean, it trained me to think that this is Adam, how you put together a good meal plan. Apex is a food group. Yeah, and you find that out. And you start, and so my meal plans for probably the next five years, looked like that. When I would write them, I, you know, I was sold on the convenience of it and how hard it is to get protein. And so I would build in bars and shakes as like, that's part of a successful healthy nutrition plan. And the truth is, I was completely brainwashed by supplement company to think that this is how I should advise people. And in reality, I should, my goal should be, and the way I talk about it today is, our goal should be, we don't need any supplements. Now, does that mean we might or might not use or we may use some supplements? Yeah, there's very good chance we'll use protein powder and we'll use some of these things. But the goal should be to try and eat. Do it with food. Yeah, all whole foods. And to be doing that as consistently as possible and using these things as tools on the situations where I can't, not as a crutch or a, needs to be in the diet. Dude, I remember, you're taking me back. I remember the sales presentation I learned from taking my first class. Are you, we're going to figure out if you're a slow, moderate or fast oxidizer. And that means that you either eat, they're a lot of carbs or a lot of fat and, you know, and the paper burns fast. That's like carbs and logs burn slower. That's like fats. And then it'll give you the perfect diet. And then in the meal plan, like you said, multivitamin in the morning, you bar in between for your snacks. Oh, your workout. Make sure you have three branched amino acid pills before and after. Oh, your goal is also build muscle. We'll add two creatine pills to the before that. Oh, you want fat loss? Take 10 pyruvate tablets before after. It was insane. And that's just, you know, again, brilliant, brilliant way to sell supplements, but really terrible way to help people with nutrition. And supplement companies will do this. And supplement companies understand this. If you, you'll notice that protein powder, for example, protein powders got lots of value if you're not hitting your protein targets. Okay, we talk about that all the time. But how did protein powders really start to sell in the tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars? How did they start doing that? They started to say, you need protein post-workout, right? Brilliant way to inject it into your normal routine and into your diet. Post-workout, don't have food. Have a protein shake. It absorbs faster, gets you to recover faster, right? You know, before these meals have this supplement that blocks carbs or this one helps you with fat absorption or whatever. Don't take the supplement company's advice. And nutrition is hard to sell the right way, right? It's hard to sell it the right way because it's not sexy. So if I'm selling something that says, you know, I don't know, what's a popular food that everybody thinks is healthy? If I sold a book, like Kale Makes You Fat, right? Oh my God, I made a lot of attention. I thought Kale was super healthy, right? That's how you sell these things. So those are the people you don't want to listen to when it comes to diet. Now, I think we should say a little bit about who you probably want to listen to. And I think these are people who specialize in the field of nutrition or people have lots of experience coaching and helping people through the process of sustainable long-term success with nutrition. Those are the best people that you probably want to work with. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our guides. We have guides that can help you with every single fitness and health goal you can imagine. We're almost every fitness and health goal you can imagine. You can also find us on Instagram. So Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump Salon. Adam is at Mind Pump Atom.