 One of the most effective things you can modify that will almost instantly help you build strength, build muscle, burn body fat, reduce cravings, improve your mood and balance out your hormones is optimize your sleep. Literally, if you optimize your sleep, you can dramatically improve all of the things I mentioned and a lot more. This, this right here, I wish I knew I feel personally attacked when I was younger. I know. I feel like we sleep and you do this because I said that to you this morning or what? No, no. You came up with this? No. Holy cow. That's true. I just came in and say like, God damn it. Well, I got little ones too, man. So it's like, this is a thing. You know what the issue is with this is that, and this is true for a lot of different things, is that people don't, most of us, including me, I didn't understand this as well for a lot of things. Don't understand the difference between essential and optimal. There's a wide gap between essential and optimal. Most people we survive off of essential sleep. Like we know when you're not getting essential sleep because you're literally, you can't think straight. You're like, wow, something's really wrong with me. Usually when you have a newborn, that's when you start to go below essential sleep. And you know, like, oh my God, this is like torture. Delirious. Delirious. But beyond that, most people are like, I get enough sleep because we're getting essential sleep. Like you're not, you're not getting, you're not getting so little sleep that you notice these massive detriments in your personality mood day and your horrible health. If you do, you have insomnia, you probably are going to doctor. I feel like it's real similar to how people look at like, or how they look at protein. Oh, totally. Right. Like everybody thinks like, almost every client thinks like, oh yeah, yeah, I eat protein because they eat meat or something like that. And then they track and it's like, okay, well, yeah, we're not in the range that you're going to die for not eating enough protein. But boy, there's a much greater range that you could be towards the top of to get maximal results in everything that you're doing. I feel the same way about sleep. People sleep and they're like, oh, I'm fine. I get up and do my thing because, but they're running off of four or five hours or interrupted sleep for seven or eight hours. And it's like, boy, there's still so much more potential. That's more common. It's more common that people get the seven to eight hour block because they know that they're supposed to get seven to eight hours, but it's bad quality seven to eight hours. So really it's equivalent to like five and a half or six hours of sleep because it's quality and quantity. But you're right, Adam, this is true for like water. Water is another one, right? I had this conversation with my oldest where he's like, I'm like, you need to drink more water. He's like, I drink when I'm thirsty. My body tells me not water. I said, yeah, your body tells you when you need essential water. Yeah. And the optimal water intake makes a big difference. Well, you know, actually what they say about that is by the time you are thirsty, like the process of like dehydration has already started, correct? Is that right? Yeah, somewhat, right? You're getting there, right? So once you're thirsty, it's like you're starting to get to the point where it's basically like get water right now. Yeah. Yeah. Like if you wait till you're thirsty, that means you didn't get enough. Well, the idea is to be drinking consistently enough to where you never feel that kind of thirst. Right. So when it comes to sleep and muscle gain, fat loss, health, performance and all that stuff, it's not that sleep is this magic anabolic factor, but rather when you lack sleep, it has profound negative effects. Yeah. So when you correct it, it feels like the craziest, most amazing thing you've ever done in your entire life. So literally, this is no exaggeration. When I figured this out as a trainer way later, it took me like, I don't know, it took me like 15 years, literally 15 years to figure out. I didn't look at sleep at all with my clients for 15 years. But when I started focusing on this, I would see, I would have a client, we just like, and we would pick one thing to focus on at a time, right? So let's say it was sleep and I'm like, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to optimize your sleep and I would look at things like temperature of the room, you know, light within the room, things that you do before going to bed, you know, yada yada, all the things we've talked about. And then when they would start to dial it in, it would literally be like an instant four pounds of muscle gain. Like right away, like all of a sudden doing the same stuff, they gain four pounds of muscle or that stubborn five pounds of body fat would go away. Or the, you know, anxiety that they had on and off, all of a sudden disappeared, right? And it's again, it's not that the sleep is magic, it's rather that the not optimal amounts of sleep has profound effects. Well, you got to think that, okay, if you don't get optimal sleep, it's going to affect somewhat of the recovery process. If you don't get optimal sleep, then it's going to affect somewhat your energy level the next day. If you don't get optimal sleep, it's going to somewhat affect your, probably your eating habits and your nutrition. Your hormones, your catecholamines, your neurotransmitters. And all those things play a role in your body deciding whether it's going to build muscle from the stimulus that you probably are going to do inside the gym. And so, I mean, I, it's, it's hard to like measure something like this, but I've done this for long enough, consistently enough that it's very clear to me when, when sleep is aligned and I'm getting good quality sleep consistently, my body responds. Like when I'm training and I'm eating right, I see the difference and changing. When I'm not, or it's inconsistent, I feel like the results are inconsistent. I feel like I'm still eating good. I'm still training. I'm still doing those things, but then the results aren't coming on the same way they are when I'm getting optimal sleep. 100%. And this is how I've heard it explained by evolutionary scientists and it makes perfect sense. Right. So obviously the way evolution works is bad traits tend to disappear or traits that tend to be detrimental to the survival of species get, you know, evolved the way or bred away traits that are positive tend to get amplified. And so over time, you know, the species becomes more resilient to its environment and all that stuff. Sleep for all intents and purposes is terrible. You literally are unconscious. You're, you don't know what's going around. You're not awake to produce. You're not awake to get food. You're not awake to build. You're not awake to do anything. And you're unconscious and you're literally food laying there on the floor and animals can come eat you. So the way that they explained it was, here's how important sleep is. It's so important that we didn't evolve it away. In fact, almost every animal we know goes through a period of sleep. That's how profoundly important this is. So someone watching this might be like, oh, I'm getting, you know, good gains. You know, I eat right. I exercise consistently. You know, I have a good lifestyle. I seem to be pretty fit or whatever. You have no idea how big of an impact optimizing your sleep can have on all those things. It's almost like night and day difference. And I've seen this with young people, definitely with old people. It's just one of those things that makes a profound difference. And we invest so much time and money and energy in our workouts and our diet and our supplements that we completely take for granted. The, the power, the impact that sleep can have on us. You know what I was thinking is, as we're kind of talking about this is, you know, how we look at nutrition and how if you go through a fast, like what, how enlightened you get in terms of your behaviors and what, what sort of things like revolve around your schedule of food. And like, you know, when you tend to eat certain types of foods and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, if we put that kind of attention towards sleep and we really kind of peered into that. I know there's some tracking devices at this point now where you can kind of see like REM sleep. You can see kind of that deeper sleep and get some little bit of insight there. And really like pay that kind of like disciplined attention to it in order to optimize. I think the only time most people really feel that, that real great deep sleep is like if they're on vacation and they don't even realize it. Like they think it's the vacation that's doing all of the work. When in fact it's probably sleep and sun is like the most, you know, optimal thing that they're feeling. Yeah, you're 100% right. And, you know, it's again, it's extremely impactful on the body. And, you know, something to consider is that our environment rapidly changed because we innovated. And what I mean by rapidly is if you look at, you know, big scale, how long modern humans have been on Earth. For most, for the vast like 99.9% of the time that modern humans like my physical body. In the last 75 years, it's like we've totally. Environment completely changed. Like you now have to schedule activity because our lives are completely inactive. Never in human history had we had to like purposely lift heavy things. We never get in an environment that moves anywhere from 65 to 80, right? We've like constantly keep ourselves in this like controlled temperature environment. Totally. We food, we have to actually discipline ourselves to not overeat. Like, could you imagine going back for most of human history and telling people, oh, you know, in the future, people actually die from too much food. They would look at you like you're crazy. They would laugh. Like what are you talking about? That's insane, right? I can string almost a week together and not see the sun. You get up early enough and go to a job where you, you know, are under fluorescent lights and work there until late hours. You may not see the sun for a week. That's crazy. That's right. Now sleep, like if you look at the most, for most of human history, first off, we're terrible at night in the dark. We're essentially blind and we're not very, I mean, imagine being in the woods in the dark so you don't have an electric lights. Maybe it, you know, you have like a torch, right? A flame or whatever. Like you're like sitting prey. Like you're literally a cheeseburger walking around in a dark room and everything around you wants to eat you. So we, we evolved to move around when the sun was out and to hide when the sun went down. So what does that mean? It means that we sleep best when it's dark. We sleep best when the light starts to slowly dim, doesn't just shut off. The sun's never done that where it's like, oh, it's bright now. It's completely dark. It doesn't work that way. It's like slowly becomes dark and the temperature cools down. So optimal sleep temperature is a lot cooler than what we would consider to be optimal temperature to like hang out. You know, most people like 72 degrees, 73 degrees in the house. Optimal sleep is like in the 60s. And that's because, you know, it would cool down at night warm up as the sun went up. So, you know, those are a few things you can focus on. And like, for example, we work with a company called sleep me. And this is a device that sits on your bed. It uses water to optimize the temperature of the bed. Now there's individual variance here. So I gave you the general number. It's like in the 60s. I think high mid to high 60s of temperature for optimal sleep. But you know, everybody's a little different, right? When you optimize temperature and you do nothing else, nothing else, you just optimize temperature. You see profound impacts on sleep quality. So even if you don't do the thing with light, even if you don't do the thing with diet and stress and caffeine, you do nothing else. All you do is make sure that your room or your bed is optimal temperature for you. Then you'll see these profound impacts in sleep quality. And then downstream you'll see improvements in hormone profile, cravings, muscle gain, recovery, like all the stuff that work. And it's such an easy thing. And I like, I like, and I know you guys are like this too as coaches and trainers. There's all this list of things that we can do to improve someone's health and fitness. But the way we prioritize them is what's the easiest and the most easiest or cheapest, right? Yeah, like what's the easiest but also has the most impact. And if it's like, oh, you know, you can burn more body fat by, you know, swimming in a cold lake at 4 a.m., like I'm never going to tell a client to do that because no one's going to do that. But if it's like, hey, put this on your bed, set the temperature and you're going to have profound impacts on sleep. You never have to touch it again. You don't have to change anything else. It turns on by itself. It's also, it's been one of the best things that I ever invested. And it's a, you know, it's a, it's quite the investment the first time you buy it, but then you never have to do anything to it. And I'm terrible with like, you brought up the supplements and stuff because I understand. I know how much that moves the needle. And so that's part it plays into my behaviors around. It's like, oh yeah, I should take this. I need to take this. And it's like, eh, whatever. We're something like that. I can set it, leave it. And I have already had so many nights where I know like, man, if I didn't have that, it would have been a miserable night of sleep. Well, it's funny. It reminds me a long time ago you brought up like where you invest and where you're spending most of your time in. It's your car. It's your bed. You know, it's these places and like your bed especially because, you know, if you invest and you have a good mattress, you have, you know, temperature controlled all these things. Like just think about what a better human you are when you wake up and like, you're in a better mood. You're more vibrant. You have all these things going for you. So it's like, why not like invest in that direction? It just makes too much sense to me. Yeah. It's like a simple, you know, it's funny how we value things, right? I mean, how many times have you guys talked to clients about like the price of a gym membership? And they're like, oh, back, back, by the way, back in the day, gyms were more expensive than they are now. So when I first managed gyms in the late 90s, if you wanted a membership at a global gym, right? It was like 40 to 50 bucks a month, which now is considered super expensive. Yeah, plus like a 300 something enrollment. Yeah, that's back then. Okay. So now they're like 20 bucks a month or whatever, but I'm sure people still do this, right? So I would present someone a membership and they'd be like 40 bucks a month. Oh my God, that's really, that's crazy expensive. And you would, but now as someone who understands the impact of fitness and also understands how much they spend on eating out entertainment, you know, chips, you know, like, like silly stuff, right? That adds up to hundreds of dollars a month. Now people spend hundreds of dollars a month on their cell phone or whatever. And now you can get a gym membership for 20 bucks. If you use it, like there's, there's nothing that in terms of cost versus value and sleep is one of those things. So you can invest in something that will improve the quality of your sleep. I can't think of a single thing aside from hiring a trainer or a coach. I think that's the most valuable thing you can invest in. I can't think of anything else more valuable where you'll get more of a return on your money than just improving your sleep. There's nothing, nothing like it, you know, doesn't even come close. So what's up everybody? Today's giveaway program is maps strong. Here's how you can win that program. You want to leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we post it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. Do all those things. And if you win, we'll let you know in the comment section that you won maps strong. We're also running a sale right now. Okay. Maps anabolic is 50% off and maps split is 50% off. So they're both half off only this month. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right. Back to the show. Anyway, speaking of moods and stuff like that. Justin, I want to ask you what happened this morning. I'm like angsty this morning. I got a little bit of chip on my shoulder. Dude, I don't know. Like I didn't, I woke up and it was just one of those things where you just have kind of like a few things that are off. And you try to ignore it. You're like, nah, I'm just, you know, it's fine. I'll get through this. And like, so I just didn't have like laundry. I didn't have like, I had to like help the kids like find things and we couldn't find it. And you know, and it's just kind of like a domino effect thing. And I'm like on the road, like just rushing to get in because I felt like Nelson, I'm late. And I have my coffee in the car with me and I'm driving over the hill. And it's just, I think when you're in a certain energy, it's just it tracks all this kind of shit that just like kind of finds you. So I had people cut me off. I had like all this kind of like energy just surrounding me and Mike. And I was like texting somebody, which I don't typically try to do, but somebody's like texting me. And I'm like, oh, you know, reading it. And right as I'm reading it, somebody slams on their brakes in front of me. And I'm like, ah, and my coffee, it's, it's one of those, um, thermoses that just didn't fit in the console at all. Like, so it's just like a wide, it was a wide base to it. And it, and so I kind of could fit it in there, but it didn't like secure it in there. And in the cup had like the top lid too. I had it thankfully, uh, but, but it was open because I was taking a sip. And so like I, Sam breaks, boom, it comes back and just spills everywhere. And in the center console, like all over the place. And it was like, I was already like midway in, so I couldn't really pull over and like clean it up. I'm like sitting there, you know, when you have to like just stare at a stain. And it's just looking at you the whole rest of the time. I'm like driving over the hill and I'm just like, ah, and it was like, you know, this is a car I care about, you know, it wasn't even the other one. It's like, you know, I'm like doing like the dump runs with and shit. And like, you know, so yeah, I'm feeling a little angsty right now. I've worked with you guys long enough to know your, uh, like to feel your moods. And yeah, Justin's got this look on his face because he's not like hyper expressive. It's not like he comes in, he's like, I'm mad. He just has this, he just has this look on his face. And you know, like, oh, there's, there's a little bit of a, there's a volcano under that. Let's just chill here for a second. So he came in and I was like, what happened, bro? What is it about coffee and protein drinks? Those are the two things I could spill anything in a noise of shatter me. Yeah. But coffee and protein shakes make me so mad. You just know it's going to stay. You know, like there's just like a little bit of like a smell and there's a little bit of a stick. You're like, this is going to stay a little bit. Well, at least you're wearing like good cause here's, I have this, I have this weird habit of I rarely ever spill coffee. But if I do, it's a white t-shirt day. You know what I'm saying? It's never a camo in black day. I mean, that's cool. Yeah, I at least got that. Yeah. So it kind of blends in. It's always like a white outfit or khaki pants or something like that. And I spilled coffee. The only time I spilled coffee. I think what it is for me is that when I'm getting coffee, it's my caffeine fix. So I'm not, I'm looking forward to a more than like a regular drink. So not only am I mad that I spilled it, now I don't get my damn caffeine. Yeah. And I needed that. Yes. And then with protein, it's the same thing like, oh, here's my 40 grams of protein. I need this or whatever. I remember one time I was in the car and I was in the back seat because we were going with my parents. I must have been 16 years old or something like that. And this was back when, you know, I thought if you didn't have protein every other hour, I would drink. You're gonna lose muscle. Yeah. So I could just see you fragile. So I'm a 16 year old kid and we're on our way to like a communion. So I'm wearing like a suit with a tie. And I got my shaker cup ready and a little baggie with my protein powder. And I'm watching the clock. Oh, it's time for my protein. So I poured in there and I shake it. You ever do this with a shaker cup and the top pops? Oh, this is the only odd. Bro. It just, it just, yeah. Protein, chocolate. Everywhere. Everywhere. All over my shirt. That's the worst or when you, like, furious. You have so many protein cups that the wrong lid is on. Oh, and then just little squirts come out. Yeah, you go and shake it and just squirts all over the place and it's all over your counter and floor. It makes me want to kill somebody when I do something like that. Oh, it's so annoying. I can't stand it. You know, it's funny. I was speaking of feelings and stuff. I heard every once in a while, I'll hear something that just clicks. And it's not like I didn't know this, but it clicked so, it was like really profound when I heard it. And it was, I keep talking about this. I have, there's no affiliation. Okay. So I have no affiliation to this, but it's such a great course. It's the good inside course. Dr. Becky teaches it, trying to get her on the show. She's, I think she's brilliant. And, you know, I'm learning about like kids, toddlers and little kids and all that stuff. And she said something on that. I was so just so impactful. She said something along the lines of you can't like, stop trying to control your feelings. You're going to have them. You can't stop them. They're there. It's the relationship to those feelings that you can work on. So it's not the feeling everybody has anxiety, anger, stress, sadness, all of this experience that it's the relationship to those feelings that you can work on and manage and change. How we react to those how we react, how it feels to like, and if you think about our experience like as humans, the physiological, you know, effects of feelings or pain or hot or cold or whatever, that's pretty consistent. Maybe some variants, but we're so consistent that all of us could go to the doctor and the doctor could treat all of us and for the most part, you know, figure out what's going on. Right. So that's pretty consistent. The gap though between that and our relationship to those feelings is so vast. Like you take somebody who grows up living in the cold mountains and, you know, they grow up with hard labor. Their relationship to like cold and struggle and pain is very different than somebody who grew up in a very comfortable, you know, type environment. And I know, I mean, my family, they're all hard labor and all the way my dad grew up. Like he definitely has a different relationship to being uncomfortable in that way than I do just through practice. So I thought it was a pretty cool thing to think a lot about that, like our relationship to those feelings and, you know, and all those things. I don't know. I mean, I think that speaks a lot to parenting. It speaks a lot to the environment, I think that Katrina and I have worked really hard to try and create our house. We recognize that our son's going to go through phases and times where he's going to be moody or he's going to change the way he likes or not likes things, or he's not going to want to do stuff exactly the way we consistently do some days. And the one thing that we've been really good about is we always remain consistent. No matter how inconsistent he is about those certain things, is that we, and we don't, I think sometimes as parents, we tend to overreact on things. And when you really pull yourself out, that's why I like that. The girl that you're referring to, because I watched the video that you shared. And it's like, you know, when you pull yourself away from the situation, like when you're in it, it's so hard to see this, but when you can actually separate for a minute and go like, okay, is it that big of a deal? Is it that big of a, like, is the end of the world? If, you know, it's 15 more minutes till he gets into his bath or he doesn't completely finish his plate or he skips that food or it's like, or he doesn't want to put on those pants. It's just like, you know, when we really think about, and it's always, it all happens, tends to happen to parents when we're, you know, we're in a hurry to do something or we're multitasking and we're trying to fix something out. You stress that yourself. Yeah, or maybe you got something else going on and that happens. And so, you know, and how we react. And I guess, you know, I think a lot of this has to do with probably how both Katrina and I were raised. We both were raised in very volatile type of homes and we know how much we were impacted as children from that, that inconsistency. And so her and I, it's so great to have a partner who that is as important to me as it is her. And so in those moments, like we just don't let it, we don't ever let it get to us and us react in front of him. And I think that, because she gets, sometimes she gets mad at me. I talk about on the show, you guys have heard me say this, I should clear this up while I'm addressing this right now about like what my son is just seems, he's a great kid. He's easy. And she's like, hey, you know, when you talk about that all the time, you really don't give us credit for what we do. She's like, you make it sound like we just got lucky we got this easy ass kid and we don't actually put- You don't have to parent. Yeah, like we don't have to parent or anything like that. We didn't actually, we don't put a conscious effort towards this and she's right. Like, and sometimes it feels effortless because we've been so consistent with that for so long and I see it pay us back on the way he reacts in his behavior. You know, it's a good example. This is an easy, simple example. I think you guys a lot relate to, you know when your kid is little and they fall down and you'll have the parent that's like, oh my God, and they rush over and then the kid, I mean, nothing happened. They just fell. And then the kid all of a sudden, oh, and then they start crying and freaking out versus they fell. You stay calm, see what happened, walk over and nine out of 10 times, they get up and there's not a big deal. Like that's a good example. Well, yeah. And you from the very beginning trained that his response. Totally. I mean, to that exact point, we did that with the way he throws it when he threw up. Like your kid's going to get sick. Every parent is going to have. Yes. Your child is going to uncontrollably vomit all over you and stuff at one point of parenting. Terrible truth. And when that happens, like if you just, if you take it on the chin and can actually remain calm, especially the first few times that happens, like when Max throws up, like he throws up and then he's like, oh, he's apologizing or he's like, he's wiping out. He just wipes his chin. He doesn't cry. Like it's just, he, we reacted that way. And I see now the, the benefits of that as that's happened so many more times later on. Yeah. So cool. So last night, something happened along these lines. And I think this is actually a dad, a mom, dad thing. Cause I was like this with my older kids when they were little as well. And that, so Aurelius is, he's, you know, it's two and a half. And kids go through these stages where they'll, they'll just be scared. But we start to be scared of the dark or they'll wake up in the middle night and they'll be a little afraid, you know, the whole like monster in the closet or what's that noise type of thing? Super common. And if that happens and he wakes up and he's anxious, if I go in there, I can very easily make him feel calm, relaxed, he goes to sleep. Jessica has more of a challenge doing this. Now there's other things that are the reverse, but in this particular case, you know, I'll go in there and you'll feel calm and whatever. And I was thinking about this. I'm like, I don't really say anything that's like magical. There's no like special thing I do. I'm like, you know what it is, is that dad seems like secure, you know, strong, like, well, now I'm not scared cause dad's here. So instantly his fear goes down. I heard this one woman talking about this, this lawyer who defended fathers in custody situations. Like there's, if you look at like custody, moms versus dads, the dads usually lose. And there's questions that they'll ask the fathers when these cases get really nasty that this particular lawyer says is not fair. And they'll use these questions to make it look like the dad doesn't know what the hell's going on. So they'll say something like, okay, you know, what's his favorite food or something. Okay, Mr. Smith, you're such a good dad. What's the name of his pediatrician? Sure. Yeah. What's the phone number to the doctor? You know, who's the third grade teacher? That whatever. All things I would fail my wife. Yeah. And the dad's like, I don't know. I don't know. So this lawyer, she came out and she said, you're asking the dad the wrong questions. Ask him what's your, what's your child scared of in the middle of the night? What gets them the most excited? Like stuff like that. Things that dads tend to be. So the whole fear thing, I think is a big one where kids just kind of feel, you know, like, oh, dad's here. I feel a little safe. Yeah. Well, remember when we, I told you when we first, when we first started it, we first had Max that I believe that when they can't speak, the other senses are heightened. Like they can read energy and feel that at like such a higher level. I think you put that off, right? Totally. You're this big, imposing, confident, strong man. And then I think your son has to feel, and daughter have to feel that. Even the way you care, the way you carry your kid is different than the way your mom carried. Like Katrina has this much gentler approach the way she coddles and holds him. I can hold him and like pick everything's up and push stuff out of the way, why I'm grabbing him, move through crowds and stuff like that. And I think he just feels that. I remember when we went through that phase where we would go to anywhere public and if it's loud and crazy, like my son is just not a fan of that. And he instantly comes to me, doesn't come to mom. Where in other situations, he goes to her first always. Like if he's sick, you better believe he's going straight to mom. He comes in in the middle of the night and he's half awake and he wants to cuddle, he's going straight to mom. He's not coming to me. But if he's in an environment where he's scared or he has a bad dream or with that, I can walk in, calm him down a few minutes and walk right out. Where if Katrina goes in there, she's got to lay in there with him and stay in there all night. Yes, that's what will happen. I feel like I can come in and she's always just like, I don't get it. Like you don't do anything. You just sit in there. I don't even have to, I just touch him for a minute, calm him down and then I'm sitting at the edge of the bed letting him relax and then I can even lean over after about five minutes of being in there. Kiss him and say, okay, dad has to go to bed. He's chill. He's chill. I literally, I went in there and I rubbed, I said, are you scared, buddy? And he goes, oh, he says okay instead of yes. He's like, okay. And I'm like, yeah. I said, listen, I'm here and nothing's going to bother you. And I'm like rubbing his back and I'm like, hey, you know what you're going to do tomorrow? Start talking about tomorrow. What's going to happen? His cousins are coming over. He starts giggling. All right, buddy, you need to go to sleep. I want to see mama. Mama's in bed, but don't worry. I'll hear you on the monitor. If you need me, you just let me know. Okay. Rub's back goes to sleep. If she goes in there, she'll have to literally sleep on the floor sometimes. Yeah. Well, that's what happens with Katrina. If there's a night where Katrina doesn't come in our bed, that's because she went in to do that and couldn't come back because he would. Now on the flip side, my older kids who aren't even Jessica's biological children. So there's her step kids. When it's something that they want to talk about that's kind of challenging, that they feel like they may get judged on or they want to be understood, they will tell her before they tell me or their mom. And it's cause she's really good at like, she doesn't react to like stuff like that. Like, oh, you know, I went to this party and then these kids were doing drugs or whatever. And they could feel my reaction when I said, and Jessica's like, they could tell her anything. And she's super chill about it. So they'll go to her for it. So thank God I have her because otherwise my kids probably. No, it's just, I always like asking you cause you have two boys and they're both like, I feel like one's Courtney, one's you. And do you have that same, that same experience with both of them or is it different for each of them? Like in that situation, like we're calming them down. If they're scared is like, does one son kind of tend to go to Courtney because of those things and then one tends to go to you or do you consistently see that behavior with them? Yeah. I think commonly to what you guys are talking about, I'll pretty much have, it's a lot easier for me to go in and calm down and be that kind of presence for them, especially if there's anything they're scared about, like I'll go in and it's, it is the same thing. Like I'll just kind of hang out for a bit and then they'll, they'll feel like it rests and then, but when Courtney's in there, she does have to stay in there quite a long time. I think in terms of what they want to share with me, it's a little different. So like Courtney has a little bit of different relationship with Ethan and Everett. Like we both kind of have a little bit of a different relationship, which is interesting. It's not like any better or worse. It's just like, I feel like there was, there's just a different bond between them. Yeah, they relate different. I feel like Everett totally is a mini you. I feel like Courtney and Ethan are very similar. And so I imagine when they have something like bothering them inside, they're going to go to the parent that they probably identify emotionally with. I mean, would you say that? Yeah. Yeah. Like so I told you guys a long time ago, like I was trying to have like the sex talk and I was trying to kind of like, you know, with drugs and all that kind of stuff with Ethan. And so it's interesting because he'll listen and he'll contribute. It doesn't contribute very much. And he tells Courtney like everything. And it's like, it's, it's just, I don't know. Did it bother you? It kind of bothers me a little bit. Does it still or are you still like? No, I mean, I'm totally fine with that. Like I understand like it's, they've kind of been like that forever. Like he's just been very open and honest with her about like just everything. And I'm like, oh, keep that, you know, like I, so I don't want to get in the way of that because it's an open channel that, that it can relay and then I can kind of come in too. And like, and he's not opposed to talk. He's just like, he gets uncomfortable talking about it with me for some reason, which I'm like, you know, I kind of wrestle with that a little bit. I'm like, try to be, you know, try different angles and different approaches with it. But it's, it's, it's really just like a bonding thing. I think from a person out, knowing you guys really well and the person outside looking in, I just, I think it's a Courtney, or Ethan is Courtney emotionally. Everett is you emotionally. And those are like emotional things. And so just the way he feels his feelings is more like his mom. And so when it comes to those types of stuff, you probably grow, and I think you're going to get that with Everett. Everett is so you, the way he reacts and responds to things. So when those conversations come for him, I feel like he's going to gravitate towards you. It is. Yeah, it's very, it's funny because Everett is very similar. Bro, he's a clown. He's caught on to you, bro. If you shrunk, if you shrunk Justin down, that would be. He's a mini me dude. It's almost like painful to watch sometimes, but it's, I love it at the same time because I know how to navigate with him too. And that's, that's kind of like, I understand what he's going through. I understand like these like frustrations he has and also like how sometimes he doesn't have the words for it. And it's like, and then I can kind of help him find it. And it's like, like I could kind of get pure into his way of thinking a lot easier than Ethan. And so yeah, it is. Do you recall the last like big reflection moment for yourself through him? Meaning the last thing that you saw like either him really struggling with or frustrated with or even he over excited about something. And he went, oh my God, this is so. This is me. And then you felt like you took a leap in personal growth because of seeing yourself and him. Can you recall the last, I know that's happened to you. Yeah, no, it's happened a bunch of times. I mean, I'll have to kind of rack my brain about specific ones, but I know one in particular when we're talking about school and this has always been a challenge for me because like that whole structure is never really jived with me. Like even going through and I was like adamant about doing well and it would piss me off that like it just was so hard for me. And like I was so, had such a chip on my shoulder and like I didn't even want to go to college, but I just did it because I was just like, fucking inspiring your parents. Yeah, yeah. Like I'm no do this. I'm going to get it. And he is like, so Ethan, it's really easy. Like he can like memorize and he can kind of like play the game in terms of like studying just enough and then he just crushes, you know, in terms of like test taking and all that kind of stuff like Everett. He does really well, but like he has to put the work in. Like he and he gets pissed when like he isn't good at sort of math in particular is one thing that like we were kind of like working through that and like just that it wasn't, it wasn't clicking and he just like gets the paper and just shreds it. I'm laughing, you know, like Courtney is getting frustrated. Like you can't, I'm like just let him have his moment. Cause that's you. Yeah. I was like, he's just like he's frustrated. He's not getting it. You know, I think he just needs some time to like, you know, have all this kind of settle down and come back to earth. And then it's like, it'll click eventually, but like don't hammer him in a state like this. You know, like don't, don't press him anymore. Like he's already here. Shreds it, his homework. And I'm like, and I'm like, we'll tell the teacher, we'll email. He shredded his homework. Did I get a new one? You know, like that kind of a thing. You know, and I'm just like, Oh no, like I, I could totally see myself doing that. And I have done stuff like that, or just like, you know, just, but it all comes back and once I'm chill, it's, you know, work through. Man, I hope, I see this on the horizon, but speaking about school, I hope that it continues to evolve and change because it is not great for a lot of people. I know a lot of extremely intelligent, successful adults, where they went through school and just the way school is organized. And no, we know so much about it. It's hilarious to me that we still are in this. Like there's enough, like we figured out that it's not ideal the way we do stuff. So it's great. What's cool is that I think more and more parents are, you know, becoming aware of that. And so I think people are doing things outside, like even if they're going through like a traditional school structure, they're finding ways to like educate and with their kids and give them different opportunities. I mean, even the way you're communicating with Domenico on like college, like that's like probably a conversation that maybe even yourself wouldn't have had 20 years ago if it, you know, just the way schooling has gone, where I know that's like 15, 20 years ago, I would have thought like, oh, I'm going to, my kid's going to go to college. He's going to do this. And it's like, wow, now I have a different, a total different perspective of how I would communicate that to him when he gets to that age now. It makes me sad because, I mean, my wife and I are the same in the sense that we both love learning. Like what we do for fun is we try to learn things about random, like I love learning. I love reading. I love, and yet I hated school. I hated the environment. I hated school. She was so unstimulated in school, hated it so much. My wife literally thought she was dumb. She's like, oh, I'm not smart. I'm not good at the stuff. She's extremely intelligent. Like in very, she absorbs stuff very, very quickly. But that's how bad school was for someone who's intelligent, loves to learn, just doesn't fit in that environment. How sad is that? How many people slip through the cracks because of the, you know, that's like, hey, let's take this kid and force him to learn like this. Like, I don't learn like that. All you learn is that you're not doing well. That's what I'm saying. Oh, it's so fresh. It'll crush you. I had a client whose son struggled with school, very smart. And now he's an adult, right? Cause I trained these people a long time ago. They were smart enough. And this is kudos to them. They were smart enough to take their kid out of school. And he was in a good school. They lived in a good area. So, you know, quote unquote, good school. They pulled them and they homeschooled him. And why? Because it was crushing his self-esteem. He started hating himself. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart. He didn't meet this kid. He was just like bright, intelligent kid. He just didn't, again, the structure of it was- Didn't fit in the box. Didn't fit. They pulled him. They homeschooled him. And he's this young entrepreneur. You put him in any environment. He's comfortable as hell with himself. You know, he doesn't, you know, he's just this really confident, like they totally made the right decision. I couldn't imagine if they forced his ass to fit into that box, what that would have done to the poor kid as he had grown up. You know, makes me really sad. Yeah. I think I mean, my personal experience or thoughts around like, you know, the way we do education right now, the greatest value that you get is the ability to discipline yourself, to do something maybe you don't like and still persevere through it. I really feel like that's the, not to say that, of course, all the knowledge that you acquire during those years, but it's very rare that I meet somebody who's our age that says, oh man, what I, my eight year or four year degree I use all the time, the biggest value most of them had got for that was, man, that was hard. Yeah. It was hard and at a time where you're distracted, you know, and going out and partying and doing things like that is something that you want to do in your late teens and early 20s and you had to make sacrifice, you had to delay gratification, you had to discipline yourself, you had to build good behaviors like, man, that to me is where that's the gold in the education process today is just simply that, which can be taught in other ways. I think the value of the degree itself and what you, you know, supposedly learn in school is the least valuable thing about school. Yeah, I mean, I agree across the board. I think that the problem is when the kid, you know, rather than having a teacher or system that's like, hey, let's, let's, you learn, you like to learn like this, let's move in this direction or rather than doing that, the kid learns that they're bad, they're stupid, that they're ostracized or that even worse is what's happening now. They lower the standards so that every kid passes. So rather than helping the kid figure this out, it's like, oh, you can't do this here, we'll make it so easy that now you can pass. Like they're going to teach this kid nothing if you do shit like that. So now along these lines, speaking along these lines of personal growth and stuff, study comes out. I got to check, I got to read to you guys the title of the study. I'd love your speculation on it because it's causing a lot of controversy. Now for, yes. Now for me and you guys, you're probably not going to think it's that controversial. But to a lot of people, this is very, very controversial. Here's the title. This was in Science Daily and this was out of the University of South Australia. Researchers are calling for exercise to be a mainstay approach for managing depression as a new study, ready for this? A new study shows that physical activity is one and a half, 150% more effective. So one and a half times more effective than counseling or the leading medications. Not as effective, 50% more effective. And it's exercise. It's not counseling. It's not drugs. It's literally activity and exercise. How freaking remarkable, well, I guess for us, we've seen the benefit of that. I feel like we've known this, but it hasn't been highlighted like that before or studied like that. So it's like to have that knowledge, to not incorporate that with your therapy and with that entire process would seem like, you're not really doing that person justice. Are you seeing it get pushed back? Is there controversy? People are like, oh, the study is this, that study is that. Counseling is effective. Medications are effective. I think they're missing the point. Yeah, they're missing it. It's not saying that those things that these things are this is that much more effective. Look how powerful that is. Yeah, it's a powerful tool. Yeah. And I really, I think if you look at exercise as a form of therapy, which now the evidence, so now we can say this, by the way, couldn't say this before, even though we knew it because of the way that our regulatory system works as trainers. God forbid you said anything like exercise therapy, right? You get fired, even though we knew it was. We know personally it is. It is for me for sure. Here's why exercise is so powerful of a therapy. There's acute effects. It, you know, it produces feel good hormones. It gets rid of stress physically, puts you in your body, which a lot of people are disconnected, makes you healthier. Your brain, your mind comes from your brain. Your brain is part of your body. If you're healthier, you'll have a healthier brain. Therefore, healthier mind obvious. But then here's the other part of it that I think a lot of people are missing. As you continue to pursue exercise and get better at whatever it is you're doing. Pilates, yoga, strength training, running, cycling, swimming, the pursuit of this particular skill is there's a lot of personal growth that happens along the way. 100% So I think it's great in the short term. I think it's even better in the long term. Well, take, take, okay, take, take exercise out of the equation and focus on anything that's related to personal growth that you actually disciplined yourself to do a minimum of three hours a week and think about it when you're making food choices also based off of it. Just trying to get better. Yeah, all the time. So think about it. So say it was you're just, you're trying to be a better dad at whatever or control your temper or be more empathetic. And you thought about it or you practiced it three hours a week. You also thought about it right before you... Dilligently practiced it like continuously. Yeah, there's not a lot of things. And so, and because you're initially chasing a look or a scale, weight on the scale, you unconsciously are doing that and you don't realize it. And to your... Yeah, that's why it's so powerful. Yeah, I think you say it so eloquently the way that you just kind of like fall into this like personal growth thing that you may not have really pursued. You were actually probably driven by an insecurity that got you to move in the right direction. But if you stick to it long enough you start to connect the dots like, oh shit. Trojan horse, do you into it? Yeah, totally. No, and I think that... Because you know how many people don't, they don't want to do personal growth. They don't want to face those challenges, but they're like, I want to lose 30 pounds. And then not realize that they're actually on a pursuit of personal growth. There's definitely something there though about getting out of your mind and more in your body. Totally. Because like just think about how many things we overanalyze and then what that does in terms of like raising your anxiety even more because now I have to work on this but it's like, you know your deficits all and you keep it all in your mind and it's like, let's just work this out. Bro, you just like literally describe me. So I'm so mental. I'm so cognitively focused. I think about everything. I have a tendency towards anxiety. I could live in my head all day long and I've recognized this about myself and I'm obsessive about exercise. Yes, I had body image issues as a kid, all that stuff, but the reason why now I'm obsessed about exercising is if I don't exercise on a regular basis, I'm literally, I'm not a good person to be around. I don't think right. I don't have the right attitude towards things. It is literally a form of therapy for me that I have recognized that is so profound that if I don't do it, I'm 50% of the person that I normally am and the longer I don't do it, the worse it gets. So I've recognized this for me, dude. Like it makes me a way better person in all aspects. I see a future and I understand why this is controversial because if you're a therapist, a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist and you went to school for a million years and you spent all this money and you got all this stuff and they're like, hey, working out. It's a bit more effective than what you do. You're like, ugh, you know. But I think they're missing the point. I think the point is, and actually good therapists do this already, as part of the therapy, they implement activity. So I don't think this is an either or, by the way. No. I think this is part of the, but we got to know how effective it is. It's got to be one of the top things. Well, and also to defend. Yeah, bring it in. To defend therapy in general, right, is that the average person is actually more likely to show up to their therapy appointment than they are the gym. And so if you actually did a fact, if you did a hundred people who had the option to go to therapy or go to the gym who, and like, knowing that the gym was 150% more effective at the end, and we talk about this all the time, right? When we take, we take apart studies, right? It's like, you also have to factor in what are people most like in that state where they're at, right? They're not in a good place and they're trying to fix something. They are more likely to go sit down in a chair and have talk therapy than they are to go to the gym and put actual work. Now, I'm going to compare apples to apples though. Give them a good trainer and they will show up. Like somebody who understands how to get somebody to show up. I mean, I don't think that's apples to apples. I think apples to apples is, hundred people, they both have the choice to consciously show up to a therapy appointment or show up to the gym. Which one are they more likely to do? I guarantee they're more likely to show up to a therapy appointment. If they know that they're treating depression. Yeah, because it's easier. Right, yeah. Both people are treating depression. Both people know these studies. I see what you mean. Okay, all hundred people. Right. And we talk about this a lot. Like behavior has to be factored in these studies all the time. And what are people more likely to do? I think they're more likely to go sit in a chair because when you are depressed and down, the last thing you want to do is work out. Yeah, the last thing you want to do is go push yourself and make good habits like that. I can at least go show up to my therapy appointment and bitch to my therapist for an hour like that to me. Is an easier in? And then the ideal world is that a good therapist is why we're sitting here and we're talking about it. It's like, hey, you know what? Do you really well? Maybe go to the gym and do X, Y, and Z. Or do a walk. Right, right. Get them going. Well, the irony of this conversation, it's funny because when I first was, I moved out to do personal training on my own and do the independent training kind of structure of my business and all the stuff. And I was like really get into the entrepreneurial side of the whole thing in my sister-in-law as a therapist. And we kind of talk and stuff about how she was moving into her own practice and kind of starting her own thing. And I just like knew that I had all these conversations with my clients all the time when we would actually go for these walks, right? And I would actually take them out and then we'd do hikes together and all the stuff. And all of this would come out, right? Like all of these stories and, you know, past with what was happening with their family and all of a sudden I'm like kind of pitching to her. I'm like, man, it'd be amazing if like you incorporated like walking into your practice and like she kind of laughed about it, but was like, yeah, that might be kind of, you know, a good idea. But like just to hear like now this as being like a valid option and real helpful kind of way to look at it. I'm like, dude, that would make perfect sense. By the way, when I became a better trainer and I would have clients that would hire me and you could clearly see that they were depressed or anxious. Our workouts often consisted of a walk or we're going to stretch a little bit or we do one exercise. Now, early me was like, wait's the time, we got to get you sweating and sore. Later on I was like, oh no, this is having some, some pretty, you know, this is having some benefit. The fact that they showed up and we're just moving. I actually had a client once that 50% of the time would show up. They were going through a really challenging time and they 50% of the time they'd show up and say, they used to pay me 100 bucks an hour for this. They'd show up and say, can we just go for a walk? No training and we just would go for a walk. You know, just being just moving made a huge difference. Anyway, we're supposed to mention Viori. I got to tell you guys compliment my wife gave me. She said, this is true 100% that Viori makes me look a lot sexier. That's 100%. Did she give you a scale? She just, when I, when I wear like the, I'll wear like the workout clothes type of stuff and I'll come out, I'll come downstairs, take a shower, come downstairs. She'd be like, man, you look really sexy. I'll be like, oh really? She goes, yeah, I like the way that Viori looks at you. I'm like, you mind if I say this? It like hugs you. So I wish I remember what family member I was talking to was when I was at the wedding. I can't remember who it was, but they complimented you as the, your appearance on the show has changed the most. Oh wow. Not physically. Well, I mean, when you start real low, it's not hard. Your style's gotten way better. When you're at it zero. Thank God for that Viori sponsor. When you're at it zero. When it come up. Improving twice as much moves me up to a two or one. That's not hard, bro. When you do one pushup, you can double your pushups by doing two. That's how statistics works, everybody. I have a shout out for today. Anybody have anybody we want to, you know, shout out Mike Matthews, our good friend. Yeah, yeah. Was he muscle for life or muscle for fitness? Muscle for life. Is that his, is that his handle? No, I think his handle is fitness for some reason. It's a, yeah, it's muscle. Oh, muscle for life fitness. This is handle. All one word. He's actually, I don't know. I think we told you guys this. Doug and I, when we were putting together maps on a ball and talking about, you know, we first started creating the podcast and we're going to navigate the space. We actually looked at Mike Matthews as a good example of how to do fitness the right way. It was so filled with garbage. I remember, I think, Doug, you found him. You're like, check out this guy's stuff. He's really good. He's smart. He says true things and he writes in a great way. You know, the thing that I think is most impressive about him, I think you guys would agree, is, you know, we tend to connect more to the personal trainer who's, or the fitness guru person, social media star, whatever, that has put 10, 15, 20 years into training clients over the like super educated PhD or person who's just a study guy nerd. And Mike is actually kind of the study nerd guy. I mean, he openly admits like he was a marketing guy before he got into the fitness pursuit and he really was like pursuing fitness for himself and then obviously like a lot of, like us, get passionate and kind of nerdy about something that goes down the rabble. And considering he doesn't have, you know, thousands of hours of training clients like we all have, he like really has a good understanding on... He's a real student. Yeah, how to take these studies and apply them to real life. Like I think that... Yes, he does that so well. That's rare for someone like that. You never find that in somebody who hasn't trained lots of people, but he'll communicate what is important, what's actually gonna be used and what's relevant, which people who are like the science-based fitness people who've never trained people do a terrible job of. They always communicate stuff that we roll our eyes and go, that is a waste of time. You're splitting hairs and that doesn't make a difference. He knows how to decipher that like a trainer, like somebody who's worked with a lot of people. So great follow. Hey, check this out. Do you want to improve your cognitive function, improve the feelings of motivation, innovation, decrease inflammation? Canabinoids can actually do all of that. There's a company we work with called NED that makes a hemp oil product that's high in CBD, but also high in all of the other beneficial cannabinoids. You get this entourage effect. They have a product called Brain Blend, which also includes botanicals that have been shown to improve the health of your brain. By the way, this is one of the only CBD products you actually feel. If you have all the other ones on the market, you take it and then you're like, is it doing anything? Try this one. Take it about an hour later. You know that you took something. You really do feel this. Go check this company out. Go to helloned.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com forward slash mind pump. Then use the code mind pump for 15% off. All right. Back to the show. Our first caller is Melissa from Tennessee. Melissa, how's it going? How can we help you? Hey guys, how are you? Great. Well, I just want to say thank you for your thought leadership and everything you're doing for the community, whether that's people in health and fitness or wellness or entertainment. It's amazing. And Dave Ramsey always jokes that his name is a cuss word in houses. And I feel like mind pump might be coming a cuss word in my house because I'm always like, oh, I heard this today on mind pump or learn this and we need to try it. Perfect. That's awesome. But my question is around anabolic advanced and where to go from here. I'm halfway through phase two and have noticed like two major things from it. My strength games, of course, have gone up. I've been lifting for about 10 or 12 years. And usually when I work on increasing my strength, my ligaments, tendons and my joints kind of pay a toll on that. I was speaking to one guy that was running gear and he said that if you're on gear, your joints feel dried up. And I've never run gear, but my joints, if I chase that strength game goal, my joints kind of feel dry with this program. My ligaments and my tendons and joints have stayed really healthy. I feel very strong and confident in my body and I don't feel like I've given that up for strength. I don't feel like I'm going to lean down and put a sock on and throw my back out. And the second thing I've gotten from anabolic advanced is the aesthetics part. I've been active my whole life and always stayed around 14 or 15% body fat, just maintenance. I have never really cared about how I look. That's just what I maintain. I just like to pick heavy things up and put them back down and feel strong. But on this program, I feel like I'm starting to see definition in my arms and my stomach, my lower body, and I like that. So where to go from here, keeping in mind I don't want to give up compound lifts. I don't care about bench press, but I don't want to let go of my deadlifting. The strength gains, I'd like to continue to get stronger in the gym and maybe some aesthetics, and then I'm pursuing mounted shooting so to keep my back healthy for that. I have the perfect program for you. She says to you on here, I have prime anywhere suspension, but I'm looking for a heavier hitter program, MAP Strong. Oh, yeah. I love that. For everything you describe that you like and I think you're going to see incredible gains from that. Yeah, what's cool about this, Melissa, is you've been working out for a long time. 10 years is like, you know, once you cross that consistent six or seven year mark, like you're really figuring things out. You kind of know what works for your body, what doesn't work for your body. The negative is it's hard to progress. Like at a certain point, like you can't keep getting stronger forever. And yet here you are seeing strength gains. Here you are feeling your joints feel good. Now, I'm not just doing a commercial for MAPs and a ball advanced, although this kind of is one. I'm actually, what I'm trying to convey here is you are following, you're following programming that is well done and it works for your body. And this is exactly how you should feel. You mentioned that you had talked to somebody who said when they run gear, they feel a particular way. So for people who don't know, running gear is, that means on steroids. So somebody takes steroids will say, oh, my joints, your joints will feel dry. That's not the same thing as what you may feel when your joints start to ache, when you're training in a particular way. Antibolic steroids cause muscle tissue to grow faster than connective tissue can catch up to. That's what they're noticing. In your case, you were just following programming that wasn't ideal and possibly you were overdoing it. The way you're feeling now is how you should feel when you follow any program. Now that doesn't mean any program is going to give you the same kind of strength gains and muscle gains. MAPS Antibolic Advanced is like pure muscle, pure strength. That's the goal. Other programs, the goals are a little different. But the way you're feeling right now, the words you're using, confident. I feel good. I feel like I can move. I feel like I'm looking better. I feel strong. That's how you should feel following any program that's appropriate for your body. And I am 100% on board with what Adam said. I think MAPS Strong, the other program I would say would be MAPS Symmetry, would be another program I think you would benefit from because you've been working out for so long. It's highly likely you've never run a unilateral style workout program for longer than a week or two. Most people haven't. So those two programs I think you're going to really enjoy and you're going to really enjoy the benefits. With MAPS Strong in particular, you'll notice a lot of benefits in your posterior chain. Your glutes, your hamstrings, and your back. And then the exercises that are in there, some of them are different. And so for someone who's experienced like yourself, you're just going to have a lot of fun doing new exercises that really have this carryover to everyday life, especially the stuff that you wrote down that you were interested in. I noticed you wrote down, you know, like rock climbing and riding horses and stuff like that. I think you'll really enjoy it. I love your mentality too, going into training and just focusing on getting stronger. I mean, that's a rare thing. It's usually something we have to help kind of coach and guide people towards in terms of like their mentality going into it. It's very aesthetic driven for the most part and the majority of it at the beginning. So I actually had a little bit of a different, have you done like a full aesthetic like hypertrophy style kind of program before? No, I used to do Olympic lifting training. And so that I started in powerlifting and was doing like two and a half times my body weight, not wanting to compete and with a bad back injury. So I was like, why am I doing this? So then I went to Olympic lifting for a while and then came over to you guys and have been following the programs that I wrote down and now with anabolic and advanced. Yeah, I was actually going to steer you more towards aesthetic, which I was surprised, you know, with strong, but I mean, it was a great one for that for building up more, especially the posterior chain like they're mentioning, but I mean, I love that. I don't. So, okay, if we don't normally do this where we tell somebody like this is if I had you as a client, I already feel like I have enough information on you on how I'd like to run like our next nine months. And it would be strong, followed by symmetry, followed by aesthetic. Yeah, there you go. That would be like all the best of all of them. Yeah, that lineup would be just incredible for you. I think you're going to, I think you'll like all of them. Symmetry will probably be the most challenging mentally because there's a phase at the beginning of it that's isometric and you slow down a bit and then you have to go to unilateral. It'll be the most different. Yeah, that'll be the most different. But I think that order would be epic. Yeah, but we'll send you strong if you don't have strong, Melissa. Awesome. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. And like I said, everything that you're doing, thank you so much. Awesome. You got it. Thanks for calling in. Recording. So let that be a lesson for everybody, especially females listening right now. One thing she said was her body fats, you know, 15%, that's lean. I mean, that's visible definition. And she's like, but you know, I'm just, I just, I just really focus more on performance and strength. If you're stronger, if your performance is better, if your mobility is better and you feel good, the side effect of that is you look good. If you try to look good, oftentimes you screw all of that up. So let that be a lesson to people. Like focus on those things. So easy to say, hard to apply. That's right. That's right. But it's wonderful. Like when you look in the mirror, you're like, oh my God, I didn't realize I was like, like my body was changing visually. This is really awesome. Like that's a great feeling versus constantly trying to visually change your body and you're just beating yourself up in the gym. Nothing's working. Next thing you know, you're going backwards and then it feels like a nightmare. That being said, I hope she takes the advice and runs all three because I would love to talk to someone that, like her who's got this kind of experience. Her body would be unreal. Her experience, the right mentality going into it, like that order after what she's doing right now would be phenomenal. What's really exciting is that Anabolic Advance has only been out for what? Is it two, three months now? It's only been a few months. We're getting lots of reports now of people saying stuff like this. So I love that. I love when we write a program. Three, four months later, we get people emailing us and telling us how awesome it is. So that's great. Feels good on that ego, huh? Our next caller is Hailey from Arizona. Hailey, what's happening? How can we help you? Hi guys. It's such a privilege to be here. Thank you for your time. You got it. My question is about reverse dieting. I've been lifting for about seven years and since I found you guys, I've been doing max programs. When I was finishing max power lift and going into anabolic advanced, I knew that it was a great opportunity to reverse diet for the first time, honestly, since I started lifting. So I took some advice that Adam gave a caller about adding stats along with calories each week and just kind of assessing the progress as you go. It's been working better than I ever could have imagined, to be honest. I want to keep going. I've been loving adding steps and breaking up my day. I have a very sedentary job. So getting up and going has been amazing and eating more and getting out of the restrictive mindset has been life changing. But I'm going to run into a roadblock pretty soon where I am going to run out of hours in a day to keep adding more steps. So does that mean I have to quit reverse dieting altogether, which I don't want to do? Or should I kind of force my way through that and make some sacrifices with other time commitments just for the sake of the reverse diet and then I can come back down from the steps later on? Or is that just a bad idea? Hailey, have you seen the treadmill beds that they make? I'm just kidding. You know what, we probably never specified because that's true. Somebody heard that advice and would be like, I'm at 25,000 steps. Like, what do I do? Well, there's not a wrong answer necessarily here. Where are you at calorie-wise right now? That's more important to know where you're at and how you feel. I'm at 2,300 calories and 15,000 steps, which is doable. And I could add a few more thousand, it'll be fine. But I think when I get closer to 20,000, it's not going to be the most realistic thing long-term. So there's lots of different things that I'll do when I get to this point, right? So you can increase the intensity in the workout because that extra demand and intensity is going to require a higher caloric intake. You could start to now do moderate cardio, so stuff that's not super intense. But now maybe I get on the treadmill or the elliptical for 20 or 30 minutes and I'll do maybe a little bit of intervals or start to push a little bit on there, but not really intense because that's not my goal. My goal is to reverse diet right now and probably build muscle. So you could do that is an option. You can keep going the way you're going until you get to that place where normally I found for myself and clients is when they start getting about 20,000 steps, when they get 20,000 and beyond, they seem to require additional forms of cardio in order to hit their step goal. But this isn't like you have to just keep going this way all the way forever. I think you're already heading in the right direction. Hopefully you can get yourself up to about 26 to 2800 calories by the time you get around 20,000 steps and should be in a really good position to decide if you want to reverse and go the other direction or pick up intensity in the training or start to add a little bit of cardio in the day. So my advice can be a little bit different because the point of a reverse diet is to teach your body to burn more calories on its own. What you're doing right now is you're trying to burn off the extra calories you're adding to your diet. So you're adding calories and you're burning it off with extra steps, which to a point, that's great because it increases activity. After a certain point, it's no longer a reverse diet and you're just adding activity to burn the extra calories. We want your metabolism to speed up. So 20,000 steps a day is a lot for some people. 15,000 steps for some people is a lot to maintain on a realistic basis. So here's what I would tell you to do. I would tell you to bump your calories, stop increasing your steps, and watch yourself in the gym and you're probably just going to get stronger. There's an amount of calories your body will burn with the same lean body mass depending on whether or not your metabolism wants to decide to be more or less efficient. It doesn't require more activity. Well, that's a really good point that you're bringing up right now. Where did you come from? Where were your calories at when you started the reverse diet at and where we at? We're at 23 now, so where were you before? I was at 1,800 calories and about 10,000 steps. Okay, yeah, you could probably jump bigger leaps. So if you were going to go up in steps again, you're probably only moving about 100 calories at a time. I'd probably jump to 250 calories because to Sal's point, he's right. The idea of me teaching people this isn't like, oh, every time you add calories, you're trying to cancel those extra calories by burning it off. It's really just to help mitigate the weight gain and the psychological thing that happens to a lot of people when you reverse diet them. If you reverse diet somebody and they don't add any more steps whatsoever, sometimes that additional two, three, four, five pounds that goes on the scale, they start to freak out a little bit. So a lot of times what I like to do is while I increase calories, I also increase steps. So it's a slower, more gradual gain on the scale. But if you're not seeing any gain on the scale whatsoever or we're not building muscle because all we're doing is turning around and burning it off through steps, we're technically not really reverse dieting the way we want to look to Sal's point. And if that's the case, then I would. I'd bump the calories up even higher or bump them up small, but don't add steps. Let me ask you this. How do you feel you're doing what, how many steps right now, 15,000? 16,000. Yeah, 15,000. How does it feel to you? Does it feel like you got to really consciously try to hit those steps or is this like, more exciting and seamlessly? Okay, I would keep it at 15,000 and just keep increasing the calories over the weeks and focus on getting stronger. I don't think there's any need to increase your steps. You're at a wonderful step count for health. Plus the calorie burn you get from the extra steps that wears off. Your body adapts pretty quickly to that. I mean, there's plenty of really overweight male carriers and construction workers and people who move a lot. Your body adapts to that very quickly. The idea is to get a metabolism that's faster on its own. 15,000 steps, if you're doing that and you feel good, I would just start bumping calories and not adding extra steps. Keep them where they're at and then focus on getting stronger. Are you following any of our, you're following MAPS PowerLift or you're following something else right now? I just finished PowerLift, did a D-load week and I just started anabolic advanced. Oh, perfect. Start bumping your calories, keep your steps where they're at and just get to build muscle and get stronger. Great. Awesome. The only other question that goes along with that is once I reach this point where I stop adding calories and I'm comfortable, how long should I stay there before I start cutting? I don't want to do it too soon, I want to do it the right way. You don't necessarily have to cut. I mean, you could kind of hover around. If you're happy where you're at, you can hover around there. If you want to lean out a little bit, you can do it right away. But again, I'd do it very slow and gradual just like you did on the reverse, on the way up. I'd come on the way back down that way if you're trying to lean out. Otherwise, when you reach this area of, let's say, 27, 2900 calories a day, it's a very healthy place to be. You're active, you're training. I mean, your body is probably going to... You'll probably just get leaner, right? Yeah, you will. You'll just continually probably get leaner hovering around that core can take I do not. Okay, do you have an idea? Would you say you're pretty lean or would you say you need to lose X amount of pounds? I don't know. I could probably lose 15 pounds at the end of the cut would be ideal. Okay. Do you mind if I ask your height and your body weight? Yeah, sure. I'm 5'8", and about 185 pounds. Okay. I think what Adam said is ideal. If you really want to do this the right way and have fun with it, I would hit that maintenance, then keep it at maintenance and keep trying to get stronger and you'll get leaner on your own just slowly. I mean, you could cut your calories and make it happen a little faster, but wouldn't it be great to lose whatever amount of weight goal you have and still eat like 2800 calories a day? Oh, yeah. It's a dream. Yeah. Another great strategy is to get... When you make a transition out of this program to the next one, so you go into something like performance and you're... Now, let's say your calorie maintenance is around 2800 calories. Well, you hit 28 most days and maybe a couple that you have two or three days where you drop down to 25 and you go back up to 28. So you have, you know, intermittently have two or three low calorie days, lower, I shouldn't say low, just a few hundred calories less, while also running a new program. I think the combination of that and you'll see a nice gradual lean-out going through that program. Totally. Are those pictures on your Instagram? Oh, yeah. She looks great. Are those updated? Yeah. I should have known better than to ask if you need to lose weight. You got great... You're lean. Yeah. No, you look great. Yeah. Okay. Here's the deal. You look really good. I would keep your calories at maintenance and you're going to naturally just start to get leaner. Oh, shit. You're strong as shit, too. Yeah, yeah. No, you don't need to... What are you pulling there? 300 pounds? Wow. Are you getting stronger on Maps Anabolic Advance, too? Well, it's just the beginning of week, too. Okay. So I imagine I will, but I'm not there yet. Yeah, I wouldn't even... I would not worry about a cut. Yeah, I wouldn't worry about a cut either. You look good. You're doing fine. Yeah. No, you tell. You're strong. You're solid. Yeah, keep it to that. Get it up to where you're happy and then just keep it at maintenance and then you'll just slowly start to get leaner and then you'll be able to get better. Yeah, definitely. Thanks, guys. You got it. I'm glad you pulled those photos. Yeah, thanks, Doug. I should have known better. You know, I know, right? She's tall, 5'8". 180 something may sound on the heavier side, but she's not. She is like small waist, like built legs, strong as hell. What a great example of how different weight looks if it's like someone who has muscle versus someone who doesn't. You know what I'm saying? I know she said 15 pounds, but she's fine. She would just naturally get leaner as she continued down this path, but she's got... And look, looking at the amount of muscle and strength that she has, if she continues to reverse diet but not increase steps, she's just going to get strong. She's already strong as hell. She's just going to keep getting stronger and stronger. Hi, Megan. How can we help you? Hi, how are you guys? Good. I just wanted to say thanks. First of all, just everyone always thanks for just being so real, and you keep me grounded and put things into perspective when I need it, so thank you for that. Awesome. My first question, or I have a couple questions over to the same thing, so I'll just give you a quick background. I've been seriously strength training for about a year now, and I just started anabolic a few weeks ago. I'm doing the at-home mod and I'm using power blocks, not dumbbells. I have the adjustable power blocks, so those are a bit clunky, so I don't know if that's part of my issue. I've seen a lot of changes over the past year and then even more since starting anabolic, but one area that is seeming to be a weakness is in my hamstrings, and one exercise I'm having trouble with are the sumo deadlifts. I feel like I'm connecting with them and I'm not sure if I'm just not feeling them in the right spot. I feel like I don't have enough range of motion, like I go down the ground too fast. I don't know if that makes any sense. I wasn't sure, I'm pretty short, so I didn't know if the lesson of range of motion has anything to do with my height or if I'm just not executing it properly. I don't know if you want to start with the question. Yeah, that's a good start. I think that this is actually more common because I think a lot of times the sumo deadlift sometimes will feel like a squat and so people will actually feel and their quads and glutes because there's less hip extension in the sumo deadlift than there is in a conventional deadlift. Are you holding one power block and are you holding it vertically? I have tried it every way possible. I've done two power blocks horizontally, I've tried one vertically which I don't like at all. I don't know if they're worse, but maybe I don't know if I'm doing it right. Yeah. The shorter you are, the shorter the range of motion tends to be because plates and weights tend to be the same size. Now, that doesn't mean that the exercise is wrong for you. You can stand on plates or two things that'll lift your feet so you have a little bit more of a range of motion. I will say this though. If you do that, go way lighter because you've been training in a particular range of motion and a new range of motion is going to make it far more unstable so be very careful. The second thing is the hamstrings are still being active. You're not necessarily going to feel them though on an exercise like this because they're not in a stretched position and they're also not going to be in a fully contracted position. If you want to feel your hamstrings you could do like a lying leg curl and you'll feel them. Does that make that a better hamstring exercise? No. Some exercises you'll feel and target muscles more than others. If you're doing the form and technique and you're getting stronger, those muscles are still working. It's just like feeling the hamstrings in like squats and in like sumo deadlifts and stuff like that for some people especially if you're flexible. This is sort of the conundrum with compound lifts in general. To be able to feel specific muscles and what you're doing is a movement that's going to provide the systemic type of stimulus so your whole body's like receiving benefit from it. This is too why the load needs to be substantial. It's tough to kind of like really get a good compound lift using dumbbells. I'm just saying you're compromising that to begin with and that's just kind of what people need to realize is like it is great to have the convenience of dumbbells and like we put the blueprints out there. It's not ideal in terms of the benefits you're going to receive from the compound lift aspects. Well, especially a movement like that too. Like you think of the movements. It's just not going to have the same type of like thunder you would get otherwise. Are the dumbbells heavy enough for you? You feel like they're pretty heavy that you can because you've been training for a year so you might still be at the point where the dumbbells heavy is plenty heavy. I'm kind of, I did it with they go up to 50 pounds each and so right now I'm doing about 50 or 60 pounds total so but I wasn't connecting like I said. I kept changing the weight because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be feeling like I wasn't feeling it in my hamstrings. It was more of my quads like you had said so I kind of just kept adjusting the weight so with that in mind I'll just take a better track. It could also be, there could be I'll have Doug put you in our private forum. This is where like it's nice to be able to see what we're discussing right now because sometimes when I teach a sumo deadlift the tendency is to get in position open up their stance and then squat down to pick up the bar versus sliding the hips out and hinging down to get the bar and just you squatting down and you put you in this position where you're going to drive up with your glutes and your quads more versus when I teach a client how to load on a sumo I'm going to slide their hips all the way back so they can feel some tension in their hamstring before they grab the bar. So this could be a little bit of an adjustment on your technique of loading the bar up. To Sal's point though they're getting worked right so no matter what if you bend the knee down to pick a bar up and you stand all the way up the hamstrings are included in that movement but if we were trying to put more emphasis on there how you get up to the bar and load it and create that tension before we pull up could make the difference too so it will help us. Adam makes a really good point there's a difference between a sumo squat and a sumo deadlift so the difference is this when you're holding the dumbbells a sumo squat the dumbbells are going to be more in between your legs if you're doing a sumo deadlift imagine the handle of the dumbbells being a barbell that goes across all the way across your body you wouldn't be able to put the barbell between your legs because it would hit your shins right so place the dumbbells where the barbell would be and that means you're going to have to do more of a hip hinge than a squat meaning your butt's going to have to kind of slide back you still squat down but you're not doing like just the squat where you're super upright because otherwise the bar imagine if there was a barbell right you wouldn't be able to do that because it would hit your shins it would be in front in other words it would be in front of you not right in between your legs and you keeping those weights in front of you is going to force you to counterbalance by sliding the hips back further so this could be like I said if I can get a video of you doing this and the guys and I can look at it we can make some possible subtle adjustments of okay this is what I want you to do move the dumbbells out a little bit more slide the hips back more until you feel the hamstrings then grab the dumbbells then we might feel more there so that's also a possible now one of the things that you said was I should be feeling with certain exercises you want to feel the target muscle with other exercises what you want is really tight good form and you want to maximize the leverage and the technique and the force and you're not necessarily trying to feel anything a deadlift is like that when I'm doing a deadlift I'm not trying to feel my lats or my glutes or anything I'm trying to have perfect form use a lot of force and lift heavy weight with really good technique I'm not trying to feel any specific kind of muscle because that's not going to make the deadlift as effective it's really about the movement more than it is about the muscle now if you want to feel the hamstrings and like I said do you have a physio ball at home do you have a big one of those big swiss balls or yoga balls yeah yeah and so I've been using that in the foundational day too they have the the leg curls yeah there you go I bet you feel that yes I feel it there I feel it if I ever just do a stiff flat or a single leg deadlift like I can feel it in those movements but this wasn't yeah feeling um so thank you my the next part of my question though was just in general my hamstrings don't seem to be like picking up the piece with the rest of my body um so I didn't know if I should add in more hamstring work or switch other things out um and in addition sorry go ahead I would follow the program as laid out and then I would actually do maps aesthetic so and in maps aesthetic that's we have we teach you how to focus on a lagging body part so if you were to run aesthetic you would choose hamstrings as your focus and then that that teaches you how to program specific stuff that's in addition to your foundational days for your hamstrings so I would run it as it's laid out I would practice a sumo the sumo deadlift is such a great movement to practice and get good at it and that that might be what's going on right now it's just a learning curve to get better at it not to mention we're also challenged because we're using dumbbells so you know the fact that you know you give it some time for you to get better at the technique of this I wouldn't abandon it just because you want the hamstrings are going to get worked in this you have this is maps anabolic you're following right yes are you doing your trigger sessions I am and I'm trying to focus them mainly on my lower body I'll do a couple upper body and then I do mainly um other like lower body squats lunges okay touch when you do when you do the leg curls on the physio ball on your foundational day how many reps you normally do um I want to say I did like 10s I think it was 8 to 12 and I think I was somewhere before the ball just like gets away from me yeah so 10 is pretty intense for you yeah I can feel it alright here's what I want you to do on your trigger sessions days I want you to use the physio ball and do five reps leg curls okay each time you each time you do a trigger session just do five reps you'll practice that throughout the day and then your hamstrings you'll see your hamstrings respond for sure okay awesome can I just ask one more part to this yes no problem um so my they're also like my hamstrings get tight and achy it's always kind of an issue of mine like I've always had really tight hamstrings I was a dresser and just I always was behind in my flexibility in that area and I'm just finding it even when I'm like priming for a workout I can feel them like pulling um they're just tight is there anything that I can do to help that yeah um do you do you eat a lot of processed foods um um yeah probably too much you do really okay because I was going to say I want to but I mean we've got kids in the house and there's always stuff flying around you would be surprised uh how many people this is an issue with hydration and not having enough sodium the reason why I ask you that is do you track your water intake um not really should but I don't you know what try drinking a half a gallon of water a day to a gallon actually track it see if it changes anything for you with your hamstrings you would you'd be surprised okay um yeah and you had mentioned aesthetic just do they have a does I have a dumbbell program as well it does it does it does and I'm gonna have I'm gonna have Doug put you in the forum too so we can take a look at the forum so then when you get a chance give us a video of like the side and the front profile of you lifting um like a little video clip and and then we can yeah help help critique from there by the way the reason why I said drink more water the reason why I said drink more water with your hamstrings is you made the comment that you were a dancer it's always been an issue so I'm assuming that you've probably tried a million and one different stretches and ways to try to get them to not be tight okay that's why I went with hydration otherwise I would say stretch them more do more mobility but with your background um and you even said you have kids and here's my experience with people who have kids especially if you watch your kids a lot you don't drink enough water I've never met a mom who drinks enough water who watches her kids or dad who who takes you just don't so literally get something that you can measure the amount of water and say and then figure out how many of them you would need to have to equal a half a gallon to a gallon and then make that a target okay and if in three days you don't notice a difference in your hamstrings then then let us know in the forum but I'm gonna bet money that it's that okay okay awesome all right thank you thanks man thanks yeah I wanted to make sure I specified because before people listening what did you do the stretch yeah who need to stretch or drink a water oh that didn't help me but you know because of her background I assumed that she's tried lots of stretches yeah and man you would be surprised I've had especially I don't know if she's a huge factor for a lot of people and I don't know if she stay at home or what but I know when people are really busy and they have kids I had clients they'll actually like you don't even tell them to add water just write down how many glass of water and then they come back to be like I didn't realize I had like one glass of water all day long the other thing that I would speculate is just the the over attention to him she could be just over working yeah just they're just not you're not letting them recover because you're constantly hammered them because you think they're underdeveloped or they're not strong or whatever well she says they've been tight even when she was a dancer yeah right so I mean you know what's interesting is you went the right route first if it's not that then I would then overdoing it yes yeah but in my let me ask you guys this in your experience if you guys have seen this too whenever somebody has tightness or muscle cramping due to not having enough water it almost always is calves hamstrings or and feet it's always in the lower extremities that I've noticed quad for me yeah yeah very strange alright our next caller is Caitlyn from Indiana Caitlyn how's it going how can we help you hi guys I just wanted to say thank you like everybody else does and yeah I'm just super happy to be on here and I'm excited to get to talk to you guys today but I'm Caitlyn as you guys know and I'm a freshman in college and my minor is kinesiology so I'm in a class called intro to kinesiology and as the semester has come to an end we're beginning to talk about nutrition to finalize everything up and my professor has been talking a lot about how meat can cause cancer and how a fit based diet is just overall a lot better for you and she showed studies of different things that basically just showed that it improved blood markers whenever you go plant based and everything like that so I've been really confused and we even watched a documentary called the game changers and it kind of worshiped veganism and being vegetarian so I just got confused because it just seemed contrary to what you guys say a lot and I also was vegetarian for probably two years and I noticed a lot of hair loss and my toes and my fingers would go numb and tingly so I was just wondering if I should go vegetarian again based off what she said or if I should not and I mean if I went vegetarian I would supplement because obviously I had some deficiencies but I don't know I just wanted to see what you guys had to say about what she was saying and communicating I was just going to ask her if she wanted us to be peace here too late you can share this clip vegan propaganda film is what that was literally I mean this is just 100% Caitlyn your professor is an idiot when it comes to nutrition is a this is the fact that she would show the fact that she would even show that documentary of all documentaries to show in a class let me guess she's a vegan no she actually isn't and I mean I've talked to other people and they've talked to her about it and she still eats meat but she just I guess she doesn't eat it I don't really know if you get time Caitlyn look up Lane Lane Norton review on the game changers he did a complete science breakdown on every point that entire doc and like wrote it all out in a nice like e-book that shit off and give that to her drop it on her desk on your way out of class next week here's a deal ok the data is clear on this ok if you compare a well organized vegan diet to the standard typical American diet it will outperform the standard American diet if you compare any diet that's well planned to the standard American diet it will outperform the problem is is they're not comparing apples to apples ok healthy omnivore diet is superior to a healthy vegan diet and I'm speaking generally because there are always exceptions there are some people out there who for whatever reason have immune responses to meet just like there's some people out there that have immune responses to plants and those are very very rare exceptions in which in where they need to actually eat kind of these extreme diets but our body we evolved to eat a wide variety of foods and and again this is not ideal so I'm not going to tell you that this is ideal but this does give us a clue in terms of how important meat is if you had to pick one food to eat for ever if you were on an island and you can only take one food and you had to live there for two years and not die there's only one food that would sustain you and you would not create a nutrition deficiency and that would be fresh meat there isn't a single plant that could do that that's a really hard thing to refute yeah meat is extremely nutrient dense the reason why you lost hair and you had you know tingling in your fingertips and probably hormone imbalances was because there are certain nutrients that are either not found in plants or terribly absorbed in plants for example the vitamin D that you may get in some plants very very difficult to absorb and use in comparison to the vitamin D that you may find in animal same thing with B vitamins same thing with iron so I am not saying that you should just eat meat but I am saying that an omnivore well planned omnivore diet you're going to do very well by the way studies also show that vegans are have a higher rate of mental illness and have higher rates of nutrient deficiencies nutrient deficiencies among vegans is quite high because of precisely what I am saying now you can eat a very well planned vegan diet and supplement and probably be ok but it's going to require a lot more planning and the odds that you can do it without supplementing are far lower than if you ate an omnivore diet so what's the ideal diet well this can vary from person to person but it probably includes both plants and animals ok probably it's like that for most people so this really makes me upset that a professor would say something like this and makes someone like what makes me even more upset because you're a college student so you're supposed to listen to your professors and here you are hearing your professor say something to you that made your health go bad and now you're questioning should I go back to doing that I am going to give you a piece of advice that I think will benefit you for the rest of your life especially as a female especially going through the medical system because there will be times when you have to go to the doctor and do stuff listen to your body before you listen to anybody else because you are going to encounter doctors as well we're going to tell you that you're losing your mind no you're not let's just take this antidepressant oh it's not your hormones bullshit if your body is telling you something is wrong then something is wrong and I don't care who is on the other end telling you that that's not true so if this professor is like no, vegan is great and you're like my hair is falling out don't listen to the professor obviously something was off with your diet I just googled this to make sure it's this easy to find put in Lane Norton Lane Norton Game changers and the first thing that pops up is his full review and breakdown and refutes every point they make with scientific studies to blow that stupid documentary out of the water now here's the big here's the big big problem or challenge with the vegan movement unlike other diets the vegan diet there's a core group of people who believe it to be moral so this is different than any other diet keto, paleo Mediterranean, carnivore bodybuilding, I don't care every diet the main core principle behind it is it'll make you stronger, faster, healthier, leaner whatever the vegan diet has a core group of people behind it who believe in the morality of the diet so let's just imagine people were eating kids and kids made you healthier we would still be like no we need to come out with every piece of information to tell people not to eat kids even if it made you healthier because those poor kids we can't be eating kids this is how these core group of vegans believe about their diet so to them to hell with the science they're going to take all the data they can and twist it and promote it in a way to just get people to stop eating animals and yes so what some people will be less healthy but we need to save all the animals so the propaganda behind the vegan movement is the worst that I've ever seen in my entire life precisely because of that and if you look at the people that put together game changers that's what you have you have some very militant vegans who were like they will for any cost prevent people from eating animals so and Lane is a PhD he's a doctor in this field he's not a kinesiologist he's an actual nutritionist he goes through and breaks it all down so you can see for yourself but no don't listen to them eat both and if you want more advice I would say aim for about a gram of protein per pound of body weight for performance muscle strength insulin sensitivity and health those that be the other piece of advice that I'll give you okay great thank you so much I really appreciate that and I have been doing that all of this time aiming for a gram per pound and everything so thank you for that I feel like I've gotten a lot of strength gain so that's why I was confused about why she was saying that and I had my boyfriend took the class before the semester before and he was really angry that she was saying all these things and it made me angry whenever she said those things to him and like his class but then whenever I was in it it just seemed so convincing so I got really yeah listen to your body and anybody ever tell you that your body is lying to you if your hair is falling out and you feel like shit I don't care what they say on the other hand there's something wrong right so listen to your body yeah I'm gonna have Doug put you in our private form too so just in case this teacher says any other dumb shit you can run it by us oh my gosh yay she probably will that'd be awesome if they saw this and they wanted to debate that'd be awesome I doubt it thank you that triggered something in me you know what it was it's a professor she had clear signs that her body was not doing well what makes me mad is this there's many diets we eat them in healthy ways there are ways to eat vegan diets in ways that are healthy it just takes more planning we've said that many times I'm not anti-vegan here's what really pisses me off we have a kid she's young and her a superior someone that she's supposed to trust is giving her advice that potentially could harm her health that already did so it's like screw you like what are you trying to do here by putting this crappy message out there and potentially hurting me just like I would never say that vegan is bad for everybody because there are some people out there that does work best for them and it is healthiest for them that makes me super upset I really, really hope that she takes that and prints it off and leaves it on her desk literally just even if she doesn't want to be confrontational herself just anonymously say anything just leave it on her desk highlight the title of it drop it on her desk when she's not looking and leave because who knows how many other people you could save that this teacher stops promoting some bullshit and I'm gonna say this again what typically motivates bad information in the market is money what makes you the most money there's only one thing worse than that and that's false virtue and I get this I respect you if you think eating animals is immoral and we should never eat animals and if you live that way I respect you because your actions support your beliefs I respect that but I will not listen to you because you're so driven by this morality that you have that you're gonna say anything to get me to listen to you and to believe you but you just don't care you just want people to not eat animals and it's a terrible and it hurts a lot of people look if you like Mind Pump head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our guides we have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal you can also find all of us on social media Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin you can find me on Instagram at Mind Pump to Stefano and you can find Adam on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam today we're gonna teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest when I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time chest was up there with the weak part it was for me for sure I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique