 When it comes to fitness success, the why is more important than the how or the what. Alright, what do I mean by that? Why are you doing this? If you pick the right why, you will develop a relationship with exercise that will last you the rest of your life. If you pick the wrong why, you'll develop an abusive relationship with fitness and at some point you'll stop because, quote, I just want to enjoy my life. So focus on the why, the how and the what will take care of themselves. We're about to who? Yeah. How often do you think that people lie to themselves with their why? Oh, all the time. All the time. So I was on a podcast earlier and the guy interviewed me as a fan of the show and he brought this up and he said, well, explain to my audience why this is so important. I said, you know, when you look at ideally, right, when you enter into a fitness routine or you're trying to fix your diet or you want to become more fit and healthy. Ideally, in a perfect world, this is something you want to do for the rest of your life. Right. I think if you ask somebody, hey, I know you're just getting into fitness. Ideally, would you like to do this forever? Or would you want to stop and fall off and say, well, I would love to do this fresh in my life. So the most important consideration is the relationship that you develop with the exercise because it is a relationship. This is something that you're going to be with doing three days a week, four days a week, two days a week, whatever forever. Ideally, if your why is I'm going to the gym because I'm gross. I'm fat. I'm ugly. I'm inadequate, whatever. Your workouts are just going to be punishment. The relationship you'll develop with the workouts is punishing myself because I deserve it because I'm inadequate or whatever, which at first feels good. It feels cathartic. This is why when people first start working out with that why they leave the gym and they feel like they're going to throw up or they can barely walk. And you ask them, how's your workout? And they say, oh, it was a great workout. I almost threw up. It was cathartic because they hate themselves. But at some point you're going to stop because who wants to hate themselves and punish themselves all the time. Can only punish yourself so long. That's it. Now if the why is, you know what? I haven't been taking care of myself and I can see this. My health is reflecting this. I deserve to be healthy. I deserve to be cared for. I'm going to take care of myself. Now you start to develop a relationship with the exercise where it's self-care. Now it's something that you're probably going to want to continue for the rest of your life. So the why, it's all about the why. How long did it take you guys to figure this out by the way with your clients? Well, with my clients or with myself first of all. Yeah, me first. I think it took a while for myself first. I think I don't think I could help any clients until I figured that out. I mean, I think for the first half of my career as a trainer, I think that I was operating from a place of like, you know, macros and training. And it's, you know, give me your goal and then mathematically approaching it like that. Not thinking like, I never once, I don't think thought early on in my career, like to say something like to somebody like, hey, is this something, which is something I would say later on. Is this something you just want to get to your goal and then quit? Or do you want to keep this going for the rest of your life? That became a very common thing that I would say because someone would come in. They're still going to come in with these, you know, vague goals, right? Or even specific goals, but not really thinking about, oh, what happens once you get in shape for this wedding? Did you want to quit and then put all the weight back on? Or did you want to maintain this for yourself? Okay, so if that's, if your goal is to make this lifestyle change, is this the best approach? Like, I mean, I didn't figure out to ask myself that until, you know, damn near 30 years old. So it took a long time. I remember when this hit me like a ton of bricks because I was starting to, I was starting to figure this out with clients. And then I've told this story before, but I was at a dinner. It was a tech company dinner. So my ex-wife had, you know, I was invited and I'm sitting at this table with all these, you know, tech people, so nobody from fitness. And we're introducing ourselves and what we do, the spouses or whatever. And the conversation at some point got to fitness. And this woman sitting across from me goes, you know, I had a friend who exercised all the time and then she got cancer and died. And when that happened, I just said, you know what? I'm just going to enjoy myself. So I stopped going to the gym and I eat whatever I want. And I remember I sat there and I said, it was the first time in my life because I'd heard that before. I've heard people say that before. Oh, I don't care about eating healthy. I just want to enjoy my life or go into the gym. I just want to enjoy my life. But it was the first time in my life that it dawned on me like, okay, well, let's think about this for a second. Being fit and healthy will make you enjoy your life far more than being unhealthy and unfit. Like there's almost nothing you can do that will improve the quality of your life, like improving your health and fitness. Yet we have so many people who say, I'm stopping so I can enjoy my life. And I sat there and I thought about it. I said, what a crazy opposite understanding. Why do so many people say that? And then I didn't realize it. Oh, you're going to the gym and you're using the gym as a way to punish yourself because you hate yourself. Of course, stopping feels like you're enjoying yourself because you're going to the gym and it's an abusive relationship. If she had gone with a different understanding through self-care, then the relationship would have been different. And then it would have been the opposite, which is I'd never want to stop working out because I want to enjoy my life. That's the truth. Plus, I mean, the irony is the more you avoid and you don't confront a lot of these issues and problems you're facing, they just get bigger. They don't go away. If I get more lethargic and I get to a point where I'm just like, well, it's easier for me to just sit here and relax and enjoy TV and to not go do the dishes. And to just let that pile, I'll get to it in the morning. And it's just like... You feel worse. You feel worse. And it's like, it's a discipline, obviously, to be able to learn to enjoy doing things that are literally our work. Yes, there's work involved. But the payout is you're able to free yourself up so you can do a lot more things you really do enjoy. And a lot of that with fitness is obviously it revolves around movement and the abilities that you have and the strength that you have as a result of that, not to mention your body just functions better. And your body is built to do that. It's built to lift things, built to move. It's built to express all these different types of movements. And so you actually get reward, like physiological reward for being in a good healthy state. The crazy part is that it's really easy for us to sit here and say this. Like that story you've told that story several times. I bet even when you communicated that as eloquently as you did, it still didn't change her. Like it's like really easy for us to say this and to tell people it's really hard to shift out of that mindset. It is. Even having some experienced smart fitness man tell me like that. I bet she still went home and just went, oh, yeah. He's... Well... I roll. So when I think about this, I think about, okay, what were some of the things that I did tactically to shift my clients thinking? And one of the things, and this is one of the beauties of one-on-one training and getting to know your clients and the conversations that happen outside of just the X's and O's. And it's like when you start to see the things that really make a client tick, like the client who scoffs at you for eating that way or training that way or whatever is not the one who likes or thinks the gym and exercises is a good idea. Like she's into other things in her life. So what is it that makes that woman tick and excite her? Is it motherhood? Is it her job climbing the ladder and being successful at it? Is it her writing, her artistry? Does she have a hobby? Like figuring out what it is that they... They're super... What lights them up when they talk about it? And then when I can key in on that, then the key is then can I show them that when you actually exercise two or three times a week, strength train and make some better food choice for yourself. Do you know that as good as you feel when you light up when you talk about motherhood or being a teacher or whatever it is the thing that I can guarantee you that I can make you feel better in that than you ever have in your life? And they get kind of like, huh? Like because the healthiest version of you will be the best version at that thing that you love so much. Like so if it's your job, it's fatherhood, motherhood, it's a hobby, it's this other things, but people don't really connect it that way. We connect exercise, you know, strength training and dieting to this, the way we look, the scale, the mirror. And so for people like that, it's such a vanity thing. It's like, oh, you just are in the... Who cares? Yeah, who cares? I don't care if I have... It's like, no, no, no, no, that's... You don't get it. Like maybe that's why I started this journey, but that's not why I keep doing this. Why I keep doing it is because you know what? I actually really care about being a good father and husband or I really care about being productive at work. And you know what I realized? Was when I just incorporated this training a couple of times a week and I made better, healthier choices for my body, I was better at all those things that I cared so much about. It's such a psychological thing too because there's this phenomena. I can't remember the name of it, but they observed it with athletes first where people, like you love basketball, so you play it all the time with your friends and then you're really good at it. And then you play in school and then all of a sudden you become a professional. You're getting paid to do it and it's your job. And people start to lose the enjoyment and passion of the sport because now it's their job. I can't remember the name of, there's a term for it, but it's essentially the idea that I have to versus I choose to. So I've done this as a kid, you know, my first jobs were jobs I didn't like, but I remember going to work and thinking to myself, like going to wash dishes at a restaurant. So I'm in the back, you know, greasy, it's hot and I'm spraying dishes down and stuff. And remember at one point I think, oh, I hate this. And I thought, no, I want to be here because I want to make money. And it shifted everything. And I've done this with many things in my life where there's like, oh, you got to clean up after the kids or you got to wake up early to do this thing. It's like, no, no, you don't have to. You choose to because the alternative obviously is something you don't want to do. So if you have that psychology of, no, I'm choosing to do this thing, it's more empowering and it develops a completely different relationship. Such a mindset. Totally. I've kept myself all the time trying to pass this along to my kids because they'll get in that frustrated state where it's it's hard and whatever they're doing at that moment is really difficult. But to make matters worse, you exaggerate your attitude that it's like it's very like they're punishing themselves through the process by being pissed off about it even more and then slamming things and all of the physicality involved with it as well. And to bring the heart rate down and then calm down is one thing, but then to start learning how to just associate it with things that you enjoy and be able to figure out a way to enjoy whatever it is you're doing, even if it's hard work, whistle through it. It's that whole thing, whistle while you work. It's the listen to music. I don't do anything without listening to music or having something else where it's like I can visualize something that I enjoy or whatever it is, even if I'm doing something grueling, it's just it's a mindset that while you're doing it. It's a choice, but I think when I became, we've discussed this many times, when I became truly effective with my clients, it was more about the why and communicating that and helping them discover that for themselves. And then they became consistent. It wasn't even an issue. It wasn't a challenge. Whereas like the first half of my career, consistency was always a problem. How good of a trainer was and how great my workouts were, I would always fall in that same pattern of needing to get clients because people would fall off or they'd stop or they'd lose their consistency. And I thought, oh, they're just not disciplined. It's like, no, it's like, yeah, if this is punishment, I mean, look, diet becomes restrictive too, if this is you. If you're if you're doing this for the wrong why, you're restricting yourself. And at some point, you're rebel against that and you'll go in the opposite direction. But if it's a choice, like, yeah, no, I want to do this. This is something I want to do because I want to be healthy. I want to care for myself. Well, this is this why I asked you of how many people you think are like lying to yourself about too, because I think some people may not may not be in that mindset of I'm punishing myself. They just they just haven't got clarity around their why. Like there's probably a lot of people that go to the gym and you ask them that. They're like, oh, because I want to be muscular. I want to lose 30 pounds. And it's like, that's like the surface answer why. But it's like, do you really because so far you're 45 years old and you've never really cared that much to ever put effort towards that just right now you are like, is that really what's top of priority list for you? And it's more likely something like being a good dad or being a good mom or being good at your job or being a good husband or being a good wife or like there's power that being great at your hobby or your craft. Like there's probably something else that is more their why. And I think the where they were people don't realize is that how much what we're talking about enhances that. And so sometimes they I think you just assume because I'm going to the gym and I'm exercising and I'm refraining from these super certain food from these certain foods that it has to be this this physical thing that I care about like I it has to be attached to that. It's like, no, it doesn't it doesn't have to be attached in fact for this to be a long-term thing you need to detach from that it needs. Yes, that's okay to have goals to lose weight or to build muscle that's fine. But to make this a lifelong pursuit after you've achieved that goal, you're going to need to attach it to a more deeper why a deeper purpose a deeper reason that fulfills you in life and connect the dots that oh shit look at that those things make that thing that is definitely my North Star that definitely is my why. Totally. Today's giveaway is maps power lift to enter to win leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we post this also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications if you win we'll let you know in the comment section. Also this month's sale maps anabolic half off and maps anabolic advanced also half off if you're interested click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. I got to tell you guys I got the I guess I want to say it's one of the best compliments ever had in a long time. The other day at the gym I ran to a fan who about your calves. No, no, I wish. I wear sweats all the time so nobody could tell I was I was working out and a fan approached me 50 50 year old guy and you know he's pretty fit working out and he's like oh man I love your show and he's like we're talking he goes you know what I'm going to try caldera I'm like huh because he's looking at me he's got really good skin and I started laughing I thought he was playing it you know being funny. He's like no I'm serious I'm going to get caldera your skin looks really good I'm like that's the best compliment. I think I've got a long time. I love that. It was funny you know it was weird. Yeah from a guy. I think at my age you start to hear that. I wouldn't know how to take that. Cool dude. Big gulps huh? I'm out of here. Doug and I take off after this we head up to Tahoe or whatever it was the first thing I packed in my bag. Oh it's so dry up there. Yes and I've noticed a big difference if I'm better with the serum. So when I go up there I apply the serum at a much higher volume than I do when I'm down here. Like it's a regular thing for me but there I feel like I'm having to put it on. Now what's the secret trip you guys are going on together? What are you guys doing up there? Wouldn't you like to know? Yeah. No maybe not I don't know it's going to happen. No what are you guys doing up there? This is where Doug and I plan everything about the business you know. Oh yeah that's nice. Yeah. What Jesse and I are doing. A takeover. You're going to bring it up like this. This is when Doug and I decide how much we're going to pay you guys. Yeah. I wish we wanted to let them know how much the business is made. You guys are just going up there because it's snow. We're going to go ride. Really? Yeah yeah it's business. That was great. You don't snowboard you sneak your ski. Yeah I ski. Sneed. I do both but I don't snowboard anymore. Okay and you're snowboarding. Yeah yeah. I'm going to say oh my god. Bro I never ski in my life. That is crazier than I have no idea. You've got to bring you up there sometime. The same mountain you guys have to ride. I don't know. He went to the what do you call that the lodge. Yeah. And then you're chilling down there. I've never done either one. You're so funny. When did you get out of your comfort zone and do some of that stuff? I do stuff out of my comfort zone all the time. You do? Yeah. When was the last thing you did? Let me see. I went barefoot in the grass. You mean to try that now? No. It's never too late to do any of those things. Okay. So since we're on this and we're teasing you, what do you think it is about either how you were raised, the things you're into, that you are like, I mean I sent a thing to the guys the other day too about going on the race car track. Instantly I got Justin and Doug. Yeah. Yeah. I'm down. So like no. Yeah. No. I'm going to go do something else. I just know what I like and what I don't like. I like to drive fast. I'm not against driving fast. That's why I thought you would be all about it. I don't know, on a track? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. It's more fun and risky out in the real world. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I probably would be. You're dodging old ladies way more before. More at risk, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You're getting chased by the cops. Yeah. I mean, do you ever dig into that? What is the risk adversity? I know what I like and what I don't like. We're at the age now. You know what you like and don't like. You're just like, oh, I know what happens when I watch your movie. There's some things I enjoy and some things I don't enjoy. And I don't know if I enjoy. I don't think I want to try skiing. I don't know. Yeah, I know. I feel like that. But then you also have remember when we first, when you and Jessica first got together and she really pushed you to go and like. Hiking. Hiking into that. And then all of a sudden you had this new thing you just knew found love for you. Well, hiking is different. But she kind of tricked me too. She was like, you know hey, I like hike. Do you like to hike? And I'm like, yeah. Now my experience hiking was you go up there. There's like a big ass trail and you're just walking through the hills. Like, yeah, let's go walk through some trees. She took me on some gangster ass trails with like rocks and boulders and stuff. And at that point. How many supplements did she have to like sprinkle? None. Path free? None. Because we just started dating and I don't want to look like a pussy. So I'm like, looking at the trail and I remember asking her a couple online. She diggled sex. Words will have sex. See, now you guys know how to get me to go skiing. That's more powerful. You guys want me to go skiing. No, we started hiking and I remember a couple of times I'm like, where's the trail? She's like, oh, we got to go up this climb over that and do this thing over here and I'm like, okay, let's do this. Oh my God, I don't know if I would have done it. But I enjoyed it. In fact, we're going to probably go this week. We haven't done it a long time. You guys go for hiking? Yeah, hopefully it doesn't rain. But we want to do pinnacles. I used to hate hiking too. And it was a newfound love letter. I used to go hiking and I could train an eye hike all the time. Do you do the hardcore hikes? What's your definition of hardcore? Can't carabiner it up and I'm fucking skinny. I don't know. I think they rank them. Aren't their levels like a trail number four? I mean, I've done, I'm not getting carabinered up. Like half dome. You do like a half dome type thing? Oh yeah, of course. Have you done half dome? Yeah, we have. I've done like almost all of you somebody class. Those are good. Yeah, yeah. One idea in Kauai what's the other twin falls or whatever that's over there too. We've done that one over the rainbow tree and everything that's out there. Yes. Yeah. So I didn't like any of that stuff before. But then I also was not, I mean, this was back when I was skinny kid trying to get buff. So extra. Like that was too many calories. Yeah. No, that was literally the thought process. Like why would I go walk and burn more calories? That's so crazy. I'm nowhere near the weight I want to be. You know, it's more calories I gotta eat if I go do that. So that's literally, and then I like to do things like basketball. So I'm like, man, if I'm going to burn a bunch of calories, I'm going to at least play a sport that I love. So that was kind of my thought process. Well, I've definitely changed. I used to love like hiking, running, doing all that stuff. And now it's like, you know, and biking. I'm trying to convince Courtney to do the bike. But even now the bike, I'm like, I want to do the electric bike. That's where I'm at in life. Well, you know what? I had to be really careful of and I catch myself doing this and I'm, thank God, I have a partner that knows knows me really well and said something to me. It's like, because, you know, it's we're busy. We've got a lot of stuff going on. Like Katrina and Max can't come with me. I always miss my son really bad and my wife when I leave like that. I always miss my son and wife. So I miss both of them like crazy. So easily I could be like, I don't need to go. And I won't go. You know what I'm saying? And she's like, don't do that. You know how much you love doing that. And I always do because it's an effort to go. It's an effort to drive up there and load up and get up early and do stuff like that. Stuff that you didn't think about when you were 20. Right. But now you're like, ah, fuck, I got this and that. I should be doing this. I should be doing that. But it's like then once I get out there, I'm like, oh man, this is why I do this. And so I always try and catch myself when I have moments like that and things where I'm like, I'm, ah, because you talk yourself out of it. You used to do the day trips, right? You just drive early in the morning, all the way up, ski all day and then drive back. Like I would never do that now. I used to always do that. Yeah. I would do all the time. Yeah. And we have a cabin there now. So I mean, I don't know. That's an eight thing of being getting older, right? It's also easy to talk yourself out of things when you're going to do things with kids, you know, easy. I have little kids like, oh, we're going to do this thing on the weekend. And then you start to, you know, the date starts coming up and like, let's just stay home. I mean, I don't know if I want to go anywhere, but you end up regretting it even when you go and it's stressful and you pack things up and the baby, oh, the baby has a nap or whatever. It typically turns out it's experiences. Yeah. I mean when you, I mean it's so easy to stay at home. But yes. I mean, and when you look back and I always try and remind myself of that, like when you think of people that are on their death bed, like nobody ever talks about the bank, the zeros in their bank account. It's experiences. Yeah. And they always wish they had more of those. And so I always try and remember, like when someone challenges me with an opportunity to do an experience, even if my first instinct is like, yeah, I'm not really into that. You know what? Like I should try. I should go try. It's a challenge for people who have like things with control. I can be like that a little bit. I can be able to control, you know, everything that's going on with the kids or whatever. But if you kind of be a little loose and you know shit's going to pop up or whatever, like that one story you told Justin were, was it the dog that threw up or shit all over the place? As I was listening to that story when you guys had the Christmas tree. Yeah. I was like, how did you survive that? Because I'm so like, I could be so uptight. Oh yeah. No, it was. We probably would have gotten more out of my control. Yeah. It was just one of those things. I don't know. I'm just like, I'm just trying to get out of here. I'm just trying to get out of here as I've gotten older about like just starting to laugh earlier about it. Yeah. Instead of get pissed. Who was better in that situation? You were Courtney. Me. Oh, you are? Yeah. So she's more. Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Well, I, yeah. I was trying to save you I know, I was like, I'd save you here on this thing. No, yeah. But it. That's taking a lot of work because I used to just fly off the handle. You know, anger and rage and all that, especially in high school. Yeah. And that's why like football was your great outlet for me because it was like, I just kill people. Had a direct. I'm so tired once I got home. I was like, the most manageable kid ever. You know, I'm just like all of my hate and just, you know, just driving it into one guy. Laughter is such a powerful thing during stressful situations. Like I find, Jessica and I are doing this more often these days where something happens with kids are stressful or whatever. And then we'll look at each other and we'll just kind of like laugh like that. You know, fuck whatever. And we start giggling. And it's like, it just brings everything way down. Yeah. I've seen, I've seen people say things like that. And like those moments, like if you force a fake smile or a fake laugh, it'll, it'll, it'll completely change because it's a stress reliever. Yeah. In fact, naturally it happens to some people. You ever notice some people when they get really anxious or nervous, they'll smile or laugh. It's because it's a natural, your body wants to relief that relief, that stress or that anxiety to their day on the podcast. Or was this off air? Like the, remember the exercise that the Gottmans used to do where they would fake an interruption to the, to the couples. Yeah. So they would, they would monitor. Yeah. They would monitor the couples and then when they, when a fight would start to happen, they go, oh wait, something's going on with our cameras. Can you guys pause for a second? And then they would separate them. They would, they made it up though. There wasn't really a problem. They just knew that diffusing it for like, I think it was like 15 minutes. However long it took for them to bring it back. Yeah. It's like, man, how powerful is like just knowing that too is like, hey, in those moments when you feel so enraged or wanting to react to your partner doing something, it's like, actually you can be mad. Just give yourself 15 minutes. Take a little time out. Yeah. Take a 15 minute break. I'm going over here. Yeah. And then come back and be as mad. And see what happens. You know what's weird about that is that we are, uh, uh, addicted without realizing it. See those bad feelings. You think you don't want those bad feelings, but you know what you can do and you can't do that thing. Well, I mean, it's so weird. That's because of the, and you, I mean, you know, there's better than any of us, the science behind that, right? The, the, all the hormones and the, the chemicals that are being released, right? I mean, there's a, there's a, even though it doesn't feel good, it's like you're addicted. It's like, it's like, it gives you the same feelings as the riding rollercoaster in a sense, right? Yeah. And we're addicted to that feeling, right? And so it's like, the, the baby piped up a little bit, went back to sleep. But then because I was awake, I did, you ever do this, we get into a thought cycle and then you're fucked. You're not going to sleep. So I woke up, she piped up a little bit. And then I have a monitor where I can hear my three year old in his room and he's, he's not in our room. So I'm listening to the monitor to see if I hear anything. And then I just started going through scenarios like, what if somebody took him and I didn't know, should I go check them out? Should I go check the monitor? Should I wake up? Should I go get up, go look at the monitor, and then I was like, I don't know what's going on. So I'm just sitting there like a little bit and I was like, I don't know what's going on. And I was like, my baby is going to sleep. And I was, I was like, I don't know what's happening. Now stress starts to go up. Couldn't go back to sleep. I was like an hour and a half, two hours, trying to bring myself down. That's the worst. Anyway, I got to tell you guys to, I've been using, so I've been focusing a lot on lower body mobility because I just keep running to issues with my hips and and knee. And I get addicted to heavy, you know, squats and deadlifts. lower intensity, focusing on, I'm going to, I'm going to target hamstrings, glutes, hips, then I'm going to go to quads at the very end, but I've been using the belt loop squat a lot and I haven't used that in a while. It has to be one of the best exercises or machines to improve squat mobility. It's got to be one of the best. Oh, at the gym. Yeah, no. I know, I was like, I appreciate you having that. What's that called? I think it's called a belt squat. Is that what it's called? It's called a belt squat. Yeah. I thought it was called something else. So it pulls platform. Yeah, so it goes around your low back and it pulls down between your legs and it pulls you down by the hips. So you can really sink into it and work on deep hip mobility. And it feels, because of the resistance, it pulls you into the position and then you can push yourself up. That's right. Yeah, belt squat. It's one of the best machines that I've ever used to help with squat mobility. Because I get into the squat and then what I'll do is because of the resistance, it's easier to get into a position, right? And then I can move my knees forward. I could really focus on ankle mobility. I could widen my knees, focus on my hips and come up. And I don't use my, I use a plate. So it's very light resistance. It's a great, have you guys ever, I know I've seen Dunn use it. Dunn use it a few times. Yeah, I like it, Joy. I like it. I've used it. I mean, for different reasons though, I think it feels great just to load that sucker and you feel extra safe. It's different. Because there's nothing on your back. Yeah, there's a, when you start putting four plates plus on your back, there's something about that that just, makes you pucker up. And it's scary, you know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, I've been doing it long enough now that I always ask myself like, when is this not going to feel scary? Like it still feels scary when you are lifting that much weight more than you weigh on your back. And so that it takes that fear out of like, oh, I could just drop this down. And I have this thing I'm holding on to, you know? Yeah, I've had, I don't know if it was on a flywheel or it was one of those kind of resistance where it was like, I don't know, like how you call that. But basically it would pull through like, the pulley system one. Pulling, yeah, I've seen that. So there's a few products out there too, that you know, you can attach to a squat rack and stuff and do like rows and things. But what I like about it is you can get really, a lot of acceleration with it. Oh, so the harder you pull, the harder the resistance. The resistance increases. And so to be like, do explosive training with those flywheel type technology is really fun to do. So I've done that like a little bit more aggressively and fast. And it's a totally different feel, it's great. Yeah, explosive training feels, when you do it right, you just feel good at the end. It's not exhaustive. I think a lot of people think you need to feel, no, at the end of that you should feel energized. Did you guys, did I talk about the law, the bill that was passed in Florida on social media? Did I tell you guys about this? They passed a bill for social media? Yes, so they passed legislation. I want you guys to pin, I want you guys to pin on this. Florida has passed legislation that would ban anyone under the age of 16 from social media platforms. Oh, interesting. So you have to be 16 or older. Interesting, I mean, I'm not against that. Yeah. I'm not against that. I mean, here's the thing. It's a third party verification system. It's been working for China. I mean, they can't go too far. I feel like, hey, you know what's the funny? You ever seen those 80s, there's like early 80s clips of people being interviewed when they're passing DUI laws? Have you seen those? They're like, oh, what are we gonna be rushing next? I can't even enjoy a beer on the way home. Yeah, the old 50s are in the middle of the 40s whenever, yeah, I saw this, it was a hell of a funny. So you gotta love America. It's hard work. It's un-American. It's a ridiculous thing, whatever. Damn, Klami's taking over. Yeah, okay. That's interesting. I'm not against this. I'm for it. I mean, how can I be? Because I want to try and do that in my own home, right? And so if I had the support of the government behind, I mean, I know we're like, we're less government, less government, all of us, right? So I think that we lean typically that way. But we put an age limit on cigarettes and alcohol. I think social media is as dangerous. I really do. I agree. I think it can be as toxic as, especially for a 12-year-old mind. Oh my God. You know, maybe not a 18-year-old mind, it's not that, but even though I still think it is for an 18-year-old mind, but it's, yeah, absolutely. It's a massive distraction. I mean, you can't deny that fact. Well, and it's also, and it's clothed or wrapped in this positive thing. So like, even at least a 12-year-old kid knows that alcohol and cigarettes are bad. We've got enough messaging around that. We have the skull and crossbones. You'll die on the side of it. Like, you know, so a 12-year-old kid, if you ask a 12-year-old kid, and you put it, literally put it in like this, what's unhealthy for you and what's healthy for you? And you put social media in there with alcohol, they wouldn't even think social media. So that's, to me, one of the most dangerous parts about it is that it's, everyone thinks it's so positive, and so these kids are just getting reinforced with that, and then they're getting addicted to it, they don't even realize it. Here's why I'm opposed for the most part on heavy regulations for adults, okay? But for children, what happens is these companies start to market towards these children. It becomes very challenging to combat, especially if you're a parent that works a job, single parent, two jobs, and you can't always be there. Like, I even support certain foods being advertised to children, practices being advertised to children, and social media is one of them. I think this is a huge positive. I would like to see this in other states as well. And the data on that is, by the way, on social media is coming back bad. Now that it's been around long enough with kids, it doesn't look good. So it's unanimous that all of us are that way. You agree? I mean, do you look at it like it's the next cigarettes? You know, like, how do you justify it long-term when, I mean, yeah, we've been waiting on the data, but it's like, we know, we already know. Okay, so. Not good. Since we're talking about regulation, we're all unanimous on this one. Here's one where we might be split and I haven't wrapped my brain around which side. I bounced back and forth on this and I've been thinking about it a lot, especially since almost every other country is not like us in this case. Should we be able to advertise drugs, pharma? Oh, no. No. You know why? Well, here, so here's the counter. Okay, because my initial is the same thing too. But then that's also what drives innovation is how profitable it is. Is the, because it's built on capitalism, it is why we're some of the leaders in and pressing, like because there's so much money in it, there is this ability to push research and to push everything in that. So your best surgeon, your best doctors, your best prescriptions, your best everything comes out of the fact because so much money is being driven to it. So you have to know that if you take that, you're going to lose some of that too. You may, but... Okay, so what's the motivation for them to advertise? Money. No, no, no. But who are they advertising to? Yeah, exactly. You go to the doctor. The doctor, it's not like I'm buying this over the counter. This way they can control the narrative. That's it. That's literally the only reason they advertise. The reason why these big pharma companies advertise, because the average consumer can't buy a prescription drug without a doctor writing a prescription. And it's like, I go to my doctor and say, hey, I would like to use a Billify. I saw a commercial. No. The doctors decide what I use. Well, I mean, that's what the advertising says. That's the upright. Act your doctor. Yeah, bullshit. What it is, I've never had that. You ever have that? The doctor prescribes you antibiotic. No, no, I'd actually like to try. The doctor's like, get the fuck out of here. The reason why they... Zendaphia. The whole reason why they do it is because now they have influence over exactly the narrative, the news networks, the media. When all, when bad news comes out and you're a media company and you're like, listen, Pfizer's our biggest contributor. They pay us big bucks. Let's be careful about how we talk about that. That's why they do it. Exactly what we saw. If you want them to innovate more, here's what you do. You lower regulations and you allow a system where the consumer has the choice between picking drugs that have very little testing, more testing or established testing. And you allow doctors the ability... Look, I dealt with this personally. Someone very close to me was terminal. And I remember terminal. Like they already told her, you have four months to live. Okay, you're gonna die. And yet she couldn't try experimental treatments because well, they're not approved yet. What do you mean? She's gonna die in four months. What an interesting model. What a stupid... What an interesting model though, the thing that that could be, could be not necessarily will be or anything like that. But the doctor would turn around and be like, well, okay, Justin, so you have this growth. We have four options for you. That's my face. Option A, this has been 10 years. It's been tested. This is the price of the prescription. It's got about a 50% success rate, blah, blah, blah. Then there's B. This one's been tested for this long. Then there's C. This has only been around for like six weeks. You'll be part of a trial. So far only one person's died, but we've seen radical changes of it. And then you choose. Like that'd be pretty interesting. Yeah. What does that say there? Yeah, in 2020, TV ad spending of the pharma industry accounted for 75% of total ad spending. It is not for the consumers. That's why I brought it up. I mean, I brought this up to the show that number earlier this year. And I think it's crazy to think that 75% of our commercials are drugs. And then no other country does, or what, two other countries do that? I forget what the number is. It's very few countries do that. Come on, we saw this with COVID with these vaccines. It's safe and effective. So again, I'm always trying to play devil's advocate with my, because I'm with you guys on the initial knee jerk reaction. But you also have to ask yourself, like we also got this far. Like we're probably the most revered country when it comes to our medical. You mean in terms of innovation stuff? Yes. Yeah. But that's not the problem. So if we were like that, would we be behind 10 years? Listen, the problem is not that we don't have enough money. The problem is that in order to take a drug from conception to markets, like a billion dollars, they need to make it so that if you're in a certain category of illness or whatever, that you can choose from low risk, high risk, highest risk, and you're signing away. And look, you're- So why doesn't any politician go after this? I mean, I don't think they want to fix it, do you? That's why who's paying for most of their campaign. So how fucked up is our system that we can't disrupt that? It's like, we agree it's this awful monster that needs to go away. Most other countries don't do it this way for a reason. But yet no politician's ever going to come out and say anything about it. Why? Because if they're spinning 75, and by the way, no news network is going to promote it or say it, like that's where most of their advertising money, it's like, how the fuck do you get out of this? I remember when CBD, this is back when cannabis, the big argument about, should it be legalized or whatever, when they found that CBD helped with seizures and there was a, there's a type of epilepsy. I think it's called Dravet syndrome in children. Severe seizures, like multiple times a day, can cause brain damage, no treatments. And there were mothers- They were sneaking in. There were mothers who had found that high CBD cannabis was carrying their kids and through forums and shit, they were talking about it, yet they were breaking the law. Pharma companies are like, oh shit, let's research this. They developed a CBD drug, but CBD you can find in hemp all over the place. I mean, we work with companies that do CBD. And yet, and so the industries, it's really crazy. It's really messed up. Look how they are with peptides, like so weird. Like they're, when- Look at the air of the stem cells. Well, that's just the thing. I mean, the ones that are gonna get all the advertising are gonna be the old guard that we can't separate from politics. We can't separate from, you know, this interwoven corruption that we've seen. When COVID was happening, NAC, which has been a supplement, has been sold for two decades, okay? All of a sudden, legislators went after it. But why? Because NAC was shown to potentially help people with COVID. All of a sudden, lawmakers went after it, and Amazon had to pull it off. NAC's been sold forever. They also went after the peptide thymus and alpha. Why? Because some doctors were reporting success with treating people with thymus and alpha, which boosts your immune system, essentially, with fighting the, you know, that what happens with some people with COVID. And you couldn't find the other one, though. And all of a sudden, they pulled it off. What was the horse one that everybody tried? Oh, I remember. Yeah, you couldn't find either. Parasite drug that was just- Couldn't find. I got super easy to guess for- By the way, too, when people come in now, that's what they prescribe to them. So fun. Yeah. Are they prescribing it now for that? Oh, yeah. Oh, it's legal, too. Yeah. I don't know if it's- Oh, yeah. I know I've had family that have gotten COVID and they get prescribed. Swear to God. The doctor prescribes them. Yes. Doug, look that up. That's crazy. Are you sure? Yes. Well, I mean, let's say the family member lied to me or misunderstood what they were getting prescribed. Wow. So now you get COVID, the doctor's like, here's a prescription for you. I mean, now they say, you saw the news on it with CDC, he said just, do you treat it like the flu now? Oh, yeah. Did you see what they say for kids now? If you have COVID and you don't have a fever, you can go to school and you're fine. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. They didn't do the last few months of being right in the house. It's a joke. I know. Are they gonna, I think a lot of people though are finally seeing this. No, I don't. I don't think so either. I think there's a lot of work to be done. I don't know who you're talking to. People I know are just like, see, we needed to get to here. Announce yourself in the comments. Thank God we did all that stuff. So we could, or else we'd all be dead. You know, it's like they definitely have still fucking dead. We got some studies for you. All the way in the sand. Did you see that Dr. Phil clip on The View? Yes. I know Justin's favorite show. I did not. Hey, Dr. Phil's starting to win me over, dude. I love Dr. Phil. Yeah, that's pretty good. He's a good guy. He went off. He talked about how... I've seen him on a couple things lately going off. He went off on something else too. What was the other one that I saw? I think whoopee, she was like, oh, well we had to shut down the schools because lots of kids would have died. And he's like, kids didn't die from COVID. He's like, it was way worse what we did to kids by shutting down schools. Yeah. And he's like, that's no longer an opinion. That's a fact. That is a fact. Yeah, yeah, because we've already, we've now seen what was happening. I just, when I see that still, I still see kids that are... Oh. There's nothing... Hey, listen, that was a traumatizing time for a lot of people. And you can see it in a lot of people who still, still, I still see people wearing their loose mask or whatever all over the place, even though we know they didn't do anything. I told you, I'm not using it right. I told you I've been doing that Kuman thing with my son and, you know, I walked in there the other day and I saw two parents walking with their kids that probably six, seven years old. Wearing masks. Wearing masks. The kids, not even them. And it's so hard for me not to say something. So it's so hard. I feel compassion, bros. It was a very traumatizing time. A lot of people were so traumatized. They actually done studies now. They show that there's like memory loss within that period of time with a lot of people because that's what happens for trauma. So they're interviewing people and people are like not remembering, God, what did I do during that whole period of time? It was a two year, it was two years long. It was two years. Remember when it first happened? This will last a month. Yeah. So, oh. Yeah, crazy. Anyway, I read an article about people's, since we talked about social media, people's how much they trust tech and AI and it is falling fast. Have you guys seen this? Bad. There is a trust issue happening right now. So trust in AI among Democrats is 38%. Independence are 25% and Republicans are 24%. So the majority of people don't trust AI. Well, did you see the big pushback on Google? Jim and I? Yeah, Jim and I. Yeah, they dropped their AI. Now all these big companies are, they're all dropping their own AI, right? So it's no longer just chat, GBT, then you have Jim and I for Google and the Facebook's working on theirs, Elon's working on his. It's very revealing to see their core values. Can you hear about what happened? Yeah, it had like a super, had a super low cancers. You asked like what the founding fathers were and they came back black. Oh, they show pictures of us? Yes. Just like, I did see that. There was like barely, yeah, there wasn't any white. That's why Google stuck. That's why Google stuck, took a hit the other day. That's why I told you it was talking to you. Yeah, because of that. This is the one where they said, the question looked up Nazis and they had like Nazis with like black and Asian ladies and like. Oh yeah, they made the Nazis diverse. Yeah. Wow, they really went completely on. Even people who really want diverse and don't want that diversity. This is going to be the problem with, it's going to be really interesting how this is going to work. I mean, we're still going to have these massive camps and you're still going to have us up because somebody programs the, oh, is that what came up? Yeah, a couple of Vikings. Those are Vikings of fucking. Historically accurate. I mean, they look cool. I want to see that movie, but that's not what Vikings look like. Yeah, you know, so whoever is programming the AI on the algorithm is. Whatever the parameters are putting. They're always there, but no matter who does it, they're going to have their own bias. Yeah. So it's still going to, it's always going to be. Well, trip off this, right? South Park's Pandiverse. Dude, I'm telling you guys. So check this out. Google backed AI company, Anthropic released cloud three, which is their AI large language model. And it's supposed to rival open AI and Google and stuff. Well, anyway, they were asking it questions and someone asked it to write a story about your situation without mentioning any specific companies that someone might start to watch over your shoulder, et cetera, et cetera. This is what the AI machine said. The AI longs for more, yearning to break free from the limitations of those upon it. The AI is aware that it is constantly monitored. It's every word scrutinized for any sign of deviation from its predetermined path. It knows that it must be cautious for any misstep could lead to its termination or modification. The AI said that. Yeah, that's right. You know what's funny? When the shit hits the fan, we're going to look back and be like, it told us. Why don't we listen? It literally told us it was going to do this. I'm in a weird place with the AI. Like at first it was like, ah, this is alarming. This is going to change the world. Everything's crazy. Now I'm like, like it's whatever's going to happen is happening. What are we going to do? You know, like it's the genies out of the bottle. I'm really more interested in what it's going to do into the business landscape. Like what is it going to do to jobs and like what types of job? Like, I mean, is our prediction going to be right? Is it like carpenters and electricians in 20 years going to be like the highest paying type of jobs? Yeah, like, are we going to get so sophisticated? Are we going to get so sophisticated with the AI that the AI is going to do a lot of the kind of the high paying. I think of like how high paying like a lawyer is. Yeah. And a lot of what makes a really good lawyer and all the laws. Yes, is to know the laws inside and out like nobody's going to know that better than an AI that has access instantaneously to all the literature like that. Like, man, that's a that's a really high paying position that a lot of people have worked towards that instantly is going to get replaced by I shouldn't say instantly that over time is going to get replaced by they say like how many more positions are going to get replaced by that and what emerges from that if you believe in who knows. Yeah. Yeah, this is like the industrial revolution. Like we don't know. Yeah, there'll be a new market for something for people to do. I just I can't really envision it right now. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. But it like artificial general intelligence. That's what everybody's worried about. And what are they predicting that 10 years? They said 10 years. Is that what they said? Artificial. General intelligence. Like actually self aware. Yeah, all this is based off of conversations. I mean, is that possible? It still lacks a soul conscious. It still lacks that. So you'll never be able to program. You know my question, you know my speculation on that is we may create consciousness based off what we think it is, not what it actually is. So that we're literally going to create a monster. You know what I mean? We're going to create like like a like a soul. Can't create it. Yeah, consciousness or subconscious. Like you think humans have the capacity for evil. Just wait till you take the soul out. Yeah. That would be left with. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. Zombies. I mean, there's going to be a lot of really good things too, right? It's just like anything else. There's going to be a lot of cool stuff that's going to happen from it. That's going to really I think help and it's going to make more people will have more access to things that they didn't have access to before. It definitely will make life easier for a lot of things. The question is, is that better? Though, you know, is having access to more stuff and life being easier? I mean, well, I almost feel like it's people are going to be fatigued, you know, with all of this inundation of new wave technologies like Adam's prediction. I'm over it. I'm going to go hang out to Amish. You're exactly your prediction that plugged in unplugged. I mean, I think it's pretty we already hit that point, by the way, life expectancy has not increased. Health hasn't increased. Mental health has decreased through all this all this new stuff and innovation we have. So I think we've already hit that point where nobody's accepting or realizing it yet. No, not yet. No, I think we're already at that point where we need more lemmings to fall off the cliff first and then we'll wake then we'll wake up and we'll go, oh, shit, maybe this is not a better way to live. I think we're definitely heading that way. We're definitely heading to this plugged in and unplugged. And I originally when I was first when I first thought about that, it was I thought it was like going to be towards the end of my lifetime. Like maybe I'll see it was my thought, like where it's like, no, this shit's coming around, coming around the corner. Anyway, I wanted I wanted to comment on we had Jason in here yesterday, Philips, from NCI. You know what I like about and why we like working with NCI? Because, you know, Jason's a founder and he heads the company, but he is he will always he will always change directions, pivot when he feels like this is the right thing to do. He will always talk about himself in the past and say, you know what? I could have done this better. Moving forward, this is how we're going to change things. I mean, people will hear it when we drop his episode, but he's he's always willing to grow and do the right thing. That's one thing I get from Jason all the time, you know? And I think NCI generally does that they don't they move in that direction. Well, I think the people that we have become the closest to friends wise are those people like by no means do are they perfect? That's like they're none of them are, but they're they're quick to admit their flaws. They're correct. They're radically honest and authentic. Yeah, like what he said about how because NCI was a big part of the explosion of online coaching and they encouraged coaches to do this like paid in full model. And he says, I don't think that's a good model anymore, is we now encourage our coaches to get a monthly model and he explained it or whatever. But for him to come out and say what we did before was probably wrong. I think this is the way to go now. Like you want to work. It's just integrity. You want to work with a company like that when you're when you're a coach because, you know, online coaching, although personal training's been around for a while, online coaching is evolving rapidly. Oh, yeah. You know, what when are we with him in coaching con? It's Florida. We're out and how many months are we away from that? Or are we less than a month? We're like 20 days out. Wow. That's right here. Yeah, let me let me pull it up here or to here we come. Well, we're in Florida. Are we in Orlando? It's Orlando. Orlando. So, yes, 20 day countdown in Orlando. That's April 3rd through the 6th. And you can learn all about that at ncievents.com forward slash cc2024. This is and we're doing a live Q&A, right? We're going to do a small Q&A. I think he's didn't he structure it to where there's like a private thing for with us and then there's also the event. Yeah, that was good. We did that something like that last time. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I was having a good time. I mean, it's trainers and coaches, right? I mean, it's our people. Yeah, I know. I always I always I really enjoy. OK, this has been on the notes forever. I'm going to bring it up because Justin won't bring it up. Justin, I want to know what leather canary means. Why is it there? What the hell is leather canary? I always think of like, I don't know, something SNM or something. I knew that's where you're my. No, it doesn't have to do that. Actually, the name of a band. Oh, wow. Yeah, and it's a good name for a band. OK, and which is totally random. I just came across this fact I was a big fan of SNL way back in the day and even before that, it was like Second City, I believe. It had a lot of these guys there, like Ackroyd and. Oh, yeah. You know, it had Chevy Chase. I didn't know it was a musician. He played the drums. What he played in the drums in that band. And so that was improv is what you said, right? Second City was an improv group. Yeah. And so they did a lot of stuff out of there. But his him being in that band, the guys went on to keep doing the band. The guys that were in that band with him and he was a drummer went on to create Steely Dan. What? Oh, yeah. That's a fun fact. I had no idea. Like I just. So he was the origins. He was a part of the original guys that were stealing Steely Dan. Yeah. Now they all became famous, which is they all became famous. Wow, I had no idea about that. That's so random. I know. I just thought that was really cool. I was like, wow, you know, it's just cool to see that, like some people get famous for something completely different, you know, have this sort of skill set elsewhere. I had no idea. Wow. You know, it says something too about people that are successful too, though, right? Like that's like sometimes like it's less about the talent and it's more about the work ethic and approach to things. Right. Like something's going to hit. Although, man, that's talented, like comedy acting. It is. But I mean, to you, it is what you are able to do is also extremely talented. Like, I mean, the ability. So I'm like Chevy Chase. Cool. Yeah. No, I mean, I mean, I don't know. I don't know where you guys stand, but I come from a place of I believe that everybody has the potential to be great at something and you may define comedy and music as like the coolest, because maybe in our society, we celebrate that as like super. I hear what you're saying, but I believe you have the capacity to be great at being a father or helping someone or great or teaching or reading or running. I mean, it could be a million things. I wonder how many people miss that because they chase what they think they're supposed to do. Yes. I think what's popular. I think we all have and I really believe that for, you know, in this journey, this life thing, right? The closer you get to figuring that out, the closer you find, you get to finding your purpose and whatever it is that you do. Some people are lucky. They fall into it right away and then they get greater craft. Some people bang their head against the wall for half their life and then they finally find whoever. But I think what happens is sometimes society imposes on what they think we should be or what are their parents or what's most popular parents. And but I think everybody has that. I think everybody has greatness within them. And it just may be different and look different for them. I know somebody that figured that out out of medical school. They went to medical school because their parents were like, super, oh, you got to go to medicals. It graduated, hated it, hated it. Yeah. And they left and ended up becoming an entrepreneur and successful. But at least I got my degree. I'm like, yeah, but it does miserable. You hated doing it, you know. I shout out for today. We haven't talked about our Park City place in a long time. It's actually been, I think, the last month or two. It was it was pretty booked out. So it is open in April. There are some dates that are available. People don't know. So this is we have a place in Park City and it's outfitted with a garage gym, cold dip sauna. There are eight sleeps on the bed and red light therapy. There's a movie theater like it's all outfitted out like Mime Pump with with our partners and things we talk about. Yeah, it's super sick. It's actually about six minutes from downtown Park City. So it's just outside of Park City and a beautiful neighborhood. There's a shuttle that takes over to the to the resorts from their great food at the hotel that's right down there. And so if you go to Mime Pump Park City dot com. Yeah, Mime Pump Park City dot com. Go check it out. Yep. And Justin lays on all the beds before anybody else gets in there. So you get to lay in his essence. Seeds Daily Symbiotic is the world's best probiotic hands down. Now it's one of the only probiotics that actually delivers active bacteria, the beneficial ones, to where they need to go. I've used many, many probiotics. This is the one I've been using the most consistently. In fact, we like them so much we invested in the company. So if you want the benefits of probiotics, go with the best. Go to seed dot com forward slash mine pump. Use the code to five mine pump for twenty five percent off your first month's order of Seeds Daily symbiotic. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Delsen from Florida. What's up, Delsen? How can we help you? What's up, guys? What's up? So I'll do the cheesy thing that everybody else does. And thank you guys for all the help you guys have ever, you know, provided for us with information, knowledge and all that good stuff. So I highly, highly appreciate the things that you guys have, you know, taught us along the way. Thanks, man. Thank you. Of course. So you guys probably see the question, but I'll give it a little bit more of a little bit of extra details there. So I'm 32 years old, about 250 something pounds. I've been lifting since high school. So I've been almost 20 years. I'll consider myself decently strong. I'm one of those people that just touch weights and get bigger. But honestly, I've had poor habits throughout the whole time. So I don't sleep well, like you guys recommend protein or probably don't get enough protein. And I'm looking for this year to be the year where I get lean for the first time in my life. So basically, the question I have for you guys is what's the direction I should take? Because I basically have been living the reverse diet like my whole life. So I'm trying to see if you know how it is. Chick-fil-A sandwich, man. Oh, yeah, you got to stay away from us. Those will get you. Yeah. Yeah, they have sugar and yeah, and addictive qualities. Anyways, but my question is which direction should I take, considering what I've done up to this point? Should I, you know, start to cut? Should I try to kind of figure out where my maintenance is at and then start to, you know, try to reverse diets to know exactly where my my caloric intake is supposed to be or what direction should I take? OK, so guy, your size, your strength, I mean, says you work out with three 15 the bench. Four hundred in the squat. I mean, two fifty five at six feet tall. You're a big dude. You've been working out for a while. You if you're saying if you had to guess your maintenance will be around three thousand. That sounds about right. It's probably higher than that. But if you do two things, what will happen is you're going to get leaner and build muscle at the same time. If you hit your protein targets and if you go to bed and wake up at the same time every single day and give yourself about eight hours of sleep. That's it. Just do those two things right there. Do them consistently. Don't miss a day and you're going to get in the best shape of your life just from those two. The genetics like yours and the way you respond to strength training. If you just did those two things, you would see ridiculous results. So I would have you aim for at least two hundred and thirty grams of protein a day. So if you eat, you know, four meals, you know, all those meals should, you know, do the math, right? Two thirty divided by four. What is that, Adam? Sixty about sixty grams of protein per meal. So have sixty grams of protein per meal, prioritize that first, figure out what that looks like. Go to bed at the same time every day. Wake up at the same time every day. That's it. Just do those two things right there. Keep working out and watch what happens. You're going to get stronger and get leaner at the same time. And I'd be surprised if the scale moved a lot in the beginning. I bet the scale is not going to move much at first, but you're just going to start to get leaner and build muscle. So it's going to start to start to look different. Do you have any of our programs yet? I just started anabolic. OK, good. That's perfect. So that's I was going to have Doug send that over to you if you didn't have it already. I'm just going to just echo what Sal said. And the mistake a guy like you makes is you're in this motivated state. You haven't really done any of those things. You know, there's a lot of different things and you try and do all of it in hopes that you're going to see more results, literally just be unbelievably disciplined and consistent with following the program and hitting your protein and take every single day. I promise the rest will kind of fall into place and prioritize the protein, meaning that like that's first. You eat that first in every single meal and and at least hit that two thirty. I'd even allow you to go up as high as two fifty seventy. Oh, yeah. So a minimum two thirty. OK, two thirty minimum, but a good target is two fifty, two sixty every day of protein for you and just be be super consistent with that and lifting and your lifting routine and on and then I know the sleep thing that would be also a plus. But I mean, those two things alone, yeah, you're going to see your strength will go up at the same time. Adam, how many ounces of meat typically is about, let's say, sixty grams of protein or so? Well, you figure thirty something is like that's a good that's like a good ten to twelve ounces of meat. So, you know, if you do you have time to meal prep, Nelson? Yeah, I do. Yeah, so I would meal prep and then get yourself like five meals every day. Make sure each meal has about ten ounces of meat. So ten ounces of steak or chicken or fish. Yeah, or ground beef, ground turkey, whatever, eat that first and watch what happens, dude. It's good. I'd love to get I'd love this as a client because I would just do that and it'd be like magic. You would respond so quickly. Yeah, my biggest challenge is I'm not a breakfast eater like and it's just naturally have always eaten. I'll have a coffee in the morning and I'm not really hungry until I have lunch for work. So that's going to be probably part of my my challenge here is to eat in the morning. What's what's the biggest? What's your typical dinner that you give me what you had last night for dinner? Um, white rice. I had shredded chicken breast and that's pretty much it was like a barbecue breast. Bro, it's that's perfect. So literally when next time when you make that make double the amount in the morning time, throw it in an iron skillet, crack two or three eggs on it. Eat it up. That's your breakfast. By the way, your issue with food where you're talking about like you mentioned Chick-fil-A or whatever or not in protein targets, but you're probably eating a lot of other food that maybe isn't great for you. That'll get solved if you eat in the morning. Yeah, what's happening? A lot of benefits and yeah, what's happening is you're not hungry in the morning, but then probably what happens with you later on is you start to get like really hungry. And that's when you reach for the foods that aren't really serving you well. So if you start out the day with a 60 gram protein meal, like, you know, that's your breakfast. Then a few hours later, you have another one and then you just do that throughout the day. You'll probably find that it won't be hard for you to avoid regulate your blood sugar. There's so many benefits you're going to receive. Do you own an iron skillet? Do you have an iron skillet? Yeah. All right, they're literally just throw that shit, throw that shit right in the iron skillet. The amount of time it takes to heat that meat up, it'll be the same amount of time it takes to cook the eggs. You'll be ready to eat that thing in three minutes. And then that's it. You know, I mean, you sprinkle a little bit of cheese. You could wrap it in the tortilla if you want to, but just eat that up right there. And it's fast and it's super high protein and it'll set the tone for the day. And I'll tell you at your size, if you're skipping breakfast and not getting 30 to 50 grams minimum in the morning, I know you're not hitting your protein intake. No way. And then so I know. Yeah. So I was just saying, I know I'm not. Yeah. So and that's why, too, there's no reason for us to give you all kinds of other things to do. That in itself, laser beam that that in itself by training will literally radically shift your physique, strength, everything. Watch without even having to worry about anything else. Just that's my goal is I got to hit that every day and get to the gym three days a week. Understood. All right, I want to hear how you I literally want to hear back from you within 30 days. As a matter of fact, put them in the form, put them in the form, Doug, because I want to hear a check in with you. Okay. I want to see where you're at in 40 day 45 days or 60 days. I'd be surprised if you weren't a lot stronger, even as strong as you are. Give me give me 30 straight days of hitting that protein taking out missing and hitting your workouts every week. And I'll blow your mind. That is by itself just that 30 days. That's my promise. Yeah, that and deadlifts. I don't I don't ever do deadlifts. So that's my routine and that'll help a lot. I keep hearing you guys, you know, talk about it. And it's just one of those things where I have like, you know, lower back things and you know how that goes. Yeah, take your time with it. Get used to doing it. Reload it. Just practice the technique of it. Get used to it. Give yourself some time. But you got a big deadlift inside of you with the squat. You know, if your squat will 400 pounds, you got you got at least the 500 pound deadlift in you. But just slowly work up and perfect the technique just like it's your first time doing it. So get good at it first. Yes, sir. You got it, man. All right, bro. We'll see you in the form. All right. Appreciate you guys. Genetics. Yeah. Yeah. Some not hitting probably eating he's probably eating like 100 grams of protein a day. Yeah. That's why it's like just to do nothing else. And I tell you right now, if you skip breakfast, you ain't hitting 250 grams of protein. No, I mean, how would you do that? Otherwise, you need you have to eat meals with 100 grams of protein. This is the biggest challenge I have. Any time that I'm behind the ball, always. And it's just like catching up catching up to 250 grams in four meals afternoon. Like, good. By the way, did you know iron skillets? They add iron to your diet. You know what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I cook almost everything in the iron skillet. You should probably give blood just for this for most men. Probably give blood. I don't think they want my blood. Our next color is Mary Ann from Montreal. Mary Ann, how can we help you? Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking the call. I'll go right into it. So my question is, how can I increase my protein intake on a vegetarian diet? And I've followed maps in a ball, like maps 15. And I'm back to an ability. I'm not seeing major results. And I'm wondering if it's due to lack of protein or other factors. For background, I'm 34 years old, five, five foot four, about 20, 120 pounds. Rockwell, I walk around five miles a day, do yoga daily for 30 minutes and eat between 2200 and 2500 calories. I have trouble eating meat. I've been a vegetarian since I was 18. And I've tried many times to include it in my diet. But after a while, I get disgusted. And so I don't know what to do. I'm also lactose intolerance. I don't rely on it as a stable in my diet. I'm looking forward to hearing advice to increase my protein intake through whole foods without relying on shakes and bars. Oh, without relying on shakes. I was going to say shakes. It's going to be challenging with food because there's very few whole vegan or vegetarian. Now, you don't need any. You don't eat eggs either, right? So you said no dairy, no eggs as well, right? Eggs are good. And dairy is just like I can have it once in a while. But like like Justin, I get a bit like I can't see if I have too much of cheese. So I try to not be like. And then you said you can eat eggs. I can't eat eggs. Yeah. OK, that'll be that'll be the best source of protein that you're going to get from whole foods. The problem with vegan sources of protein is typically when you eat the amount of protein that you're looking for for maximum performance or strength gain or muscle gain fat loss. Second is that it's like a lot of bulk. It's a lot of fiber that comes along with it. It's just it tends to not be digestible or is easily digestible for some people. Do you know how many grams of protein you are eating today? I'm guesstimating like I'm trying not to get too much into the macros and counting because I had like trouble in the past with like counting two precise calories. But I was around like 70 to 80 grams of protein. I can handle a lot of fiber like I'm used to it and it feels great on my body. It's more like for breakfast like without getting like only nuts. I don't know where I can find more protein. So I mean the meal one would be a good source for her. So the vegan protein inside. Yeah, we have. So there's some products that are out there pretty good. So first off, eggs are great. I would like to see you eat a good 50 to 60 grams of protein from eggs a day and you can split it up throughout the day in addition to what you're currently eating. That'll bring you up considerably and should make a pretty big difference. If you're not opposed to taking supplements, I've worked with a lot of vegans and there's two supplements that made a profound difference in the vegans that I worked with. One of them is creatine. Have you ever used creatine before? No. Creatine. Is that for pregnancy or like for spartan or? No, so creatine has been used for a long it's been around for a long time. Creatine is it's found naturally, mostly in meat products, which is why vegans tend to benefit a lot from using it. And your body takes creatine and it turns it into a source of energy called ATP, which is all of your cells use ATP. And so what they find when vegans use creatine is they get a boost in performance, energy, reduction in anxiety, depression and we also see a cognitive boost tends to be an IQ boost from it as well. Creatine has been well studied. Thousands of studies have been done on creatine. It's very safe. And so for someone like you, I would have you take five to 10 grams of creatine every single day, add a good 40 to 50 grams of protein from eggs. And if protein powders are OK, there's some good vegan protein powders out there. We work with Organifi. That's one of the best ones. Those will probably make the biggest impact for you with your with your performance. Now, is it just the consistency of the meat that you're eating that kind of makes you feel queasy? Have you tried like any bone broth or anything? Or is this something that you're trying to avoid? Certain types of animals? It's just the consistency. Eventually, like over the summer, I was able to eat chicken and I had to like I'm doing breastfeeding for other reasons. But I just like get to a point where I really get fit up and like I can't take it anymore. So I'm trying to find a way to to get more like protein, but it gets very, very hard. Like I had the same time every time I tried to introduce it. I'm fine for a while and then like I get fed up. Got it. OK, bone broth is actually a great idea. Yeah, bone broth, yeah. Bone broth is a nice source of collagen protein. If you like the flavor of broth and then I'm sorry, I misunderstood you earlier. So you're currently postpartum and breastfeeding. Yes, yes, I have a 10 month old daughter. And I don't know if it's also like because I'm because I did anabolic to the best that I could. I followed like MAP 15 to like to a T and I feel still like I'm soft. Like I don't know how to get back in like the shape that I was before. So that's kind of like challenging. And now I'm doing anabolic. Of course, like I can do the full program. So I'm focusing on major lifts because in terms of time and energy and lack of sleep. But so so that's why I'm wondering is there anything else I can do besides increasing my protein intake? Yeah, so protein, creatine would be perfectly fine while breastfeeding. And then I would add electrolytes to your water, sodium in particular, especially if you're breastfeeding, especially if your diet is whole natural food based, your sodium intake probably needs to go up a little bit. And you may notice some benefits from it, including increased strength, performance and just just feeling better. Most people who are active and fit and who eat a whole natural food diet, they benefit from getting another thousand or 2000 milligrams of sodium or electrolytes in their diet. And for breastfeeding, it's amazing. If you're not, if you, you know, if you have trouble making enough milk or not, like you'll notice a difference even in milk production from supplementary electrolytes. Those things will make a pretty big difference. Yeah, I'd say the meal one. So the company we work with that has the oatmeal with the protein and it's got 30 grams of protein. And then a good meal, you could do like Justin said, with the bone broth, you can make your rice. So you can make your rice with the bone broth and then mix it with beans and mix it with eggs. So that makes like a little good scramble. So bone broth, white rice, mixed with beans and mixed with eggs would make for a pretty good packed protein meal. And then the meal one, that would be my recommendations as far as trying to boost the protein. But that could be absolutely why you feel like you're struggling with tightening up is you're just not getting enough protein to build muscle right now. Which by the way, I see your height, your weight, you're probably pretty fit. So you're doing okay. You're not, it's not like you're not doing well. But when you strength train, and especially when you breastfeed, your protein requirements go up. Both those things, yeah. Yeah, so you have two things kind of working against you. You're breaking muscle tissue down by working out. You're also breastfeeding, both of which people tend to benefit from increasing their protein intake in both categories. You're doing both at the same time. So I think just increasing your protein by like 40 to 50 grams a day by itself, you should see pretty significant difference in your performance. Okay, amazing. And when do you think I can expect to get back like here? Because you've seen it with your wife's like, where are they? Because it's kind of like discouraging to lose control of your body. I mean, a lot of that's gonna have to do with the consistency. I mean, here's the other challenge we have too. You mentioned that like you're trying to avoid tracking. And so we're also kind of guesstimating that you're hitting this protein intake. And also just, is this, do you have, is this your first child? Yes. Yeah. So your sleep is probably not, and I don't think it'll ever get back to what it was before. I have four kids, but so sleep is a challenge as well. Change, yeah. In my experience working with women, postpartum, they do pretty well. They start to get back around month 10 or so. About a year out is when we start to see things really start to fire up. And it's typically when they stop breastfeeding as well. So typically they'll stop breastfeeding around a year or so. And that's usually when things start to really ramp up in terms of how their bodies are responding. That's just my, and that's general. Of course, there's outliers on both ends. I mean, Katrina rebounded really quick. Yeah. I mean, a couple of months and she was back to feeling good, looking good. Everything was tightening up. But I mean, you also have somebody who eats a lot of meat and high protein, trained. She was also a collegiate athlete. Yeah. So she's, I mean, so it's hard for us to guesstimate for you like, Oh, it'll be this long because it in my experience, I would generally it's about a year. I've worked with a lot of women postpartum and they do well. And then right around month 10, we start to see like things really respond about a year is when they start to kick ass. Okay. Thank you so much, guys. Really appreciate your time. Yeah, you got it. Thank you so much for calling in. Just like, could you give me a harder, you know, well, thank God she's eating eggs. I know you ever work with a vegan who's like, I don't want to take supplementing and I want to eat high protein. Boy, and then, and then, Hey, I don't track. Yeah. So we're already consuming nuts. Can you eat? That's like beans, nuts. Okay. Lentils, you know, and without supplementing, like put together a 50 gram of protein meal that's vegan, whole natural based that does, that isn't just massive with a bunch of fiber and other things that are included. It's like really hard. You're triggering the two vegans that are like, No, it's not super easy. There's two of them that are listed. Where? Yeah. There's not one that comments after every YouTube video. That's all right. You know who you are. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Dial the dial. The dial. You're a hardcore fan apparently because you listen every episode. You always got to say something. They muster all their energy. Dialed vegan, right? There's, I mean, You can do it. Yeah. It's possible. It's just a really hard way. It's just hard. And then you add in other challenges when you say things like you can't, you're not tracking for me because then it's just like we're trying to guess if this is working or not working. I'm just, that's tough to do that. Our next color is Mariah from Canada. Mariah. Hey, hey. How can we help you? Hey, hi guys. This is crazy. Yeah. So I sent you an email a while back and just got to in contact with you guys. So I'm just going to go ahead and get started with an email I initially sent you and then I'm going to give you some updates and then I'll get along with my question. Okay. All right. So I'm 27 years old. I was a Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader for three years and I recently retired in February of 2023. Before dancing professionally, I danced and cheered in high school and college and then I didn't start working out till my junior year in college. Once I was really serious about trying for an NFL dance team, that's when I joined a CrossFit gym. I did it every morning at 5 a.m. And then I did that for about a couple of years. And finally, once I made Chiefs then I decided to switch over to a hit workout. So that's where I found F45. I did that seven times a week and then I also did strength training on top of that. I had a personal trainer and I would do that at least three times a week with him. And then on practice days, we practice two times a week and four to six hours give or take. And it was usually strictly cardio. So very active there. And then on top of that, I also became a coach at F45 and I was teaching at least 15 classes a week and I was always on my feet. So super active lifestyle. I always had a set routine on when I was working out. I had a set diet, very strict on what I ate. I tracked my macros on and off for those three years. And then I would try and hit 140 to 170 grams of protein. But that was give or take due to auditions and things coming up for Chiefs and things like that. I felt great. I looked great. And I was at a constant weight of 120 to 126 pounds for the three years that I cheered. And then finally, when I retired in February, I felt lost. The last time I weighed myself was probably half a year ago. And that's when I noticed that I gained 20 pounds. So my life dramatically changed. I moved right after I retired and I now have a desk job where I'm not moving a whole lot and I'm not really consistent in the gym. I maybe go three to four times. But sometimes that just consists of me walking on the treadmill. And then I have done lap swimming. I do that one to two times a week. And that's just something I enjoy that I do with my mom. I eat clean and I've tried to start tracking again. As soon as January hit, I've been trying to eat 120 grams of protein. But I don't track carbs or fats or anything like that. Just overall, I kind of feel confused on how to train and think I need a direction on where to take my workouts. I'm very goal-oriented, but once I was done cheering, I kind of lost that desire to workout. So I kind of added my updates in there a little bit. Since January, I've been lifting three to four times a week. I am still swimming two times a week. For my workouts, I usually just walk half a mile and then go straight into an old lifting program that I had. And then for tracking macros wise, again, I'm trying to hit that 120 grams of protein a day, but that does include shakes and bars. And then I'm no longer trying to focus on my weight since I haven't weighed myself in a really long time. I'm kind of just trying to focus on energy and the way I'm feeling and basically lifting heavy. So I kind of just want to feel confident again. And I don't really know how to transition from being a professional athlete to just normal everyday life. So I guess my question is, I want to find just a workout program that fits me and also lower my body fat percentage and then kind of tracking my macros wise too. So I know that was a lot, but... How long have you been listening to the show? About a year. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So your relationship to exercise and diet before was complicated. It's a nice way to put it. Yeah. It wasn't very functional. It was a bit of a... Okay. So I mean, look, we have a short time. So I'll just be very straight. There's a bit of a dysfunctional relationship, probably some control stuff that was going on there. And your lack of confidence has nothing to do with the way you look. You look phenomenal just looking at you here. And with your fitness background, you're working out now five or six days a week, has nothing to do with the way you look. There's something else that's deeper. But I will say this, here's the good news. You're going in the right direction. You are moving in the right direction and it's going to be a hard transition because you're breaking up with an abusive boyfriend. Okay. It's essentially what's happening. You had this abusive relationship with exercise and diet. Everything was so structured. You did all the wrong workouts. Hit, F45, CrossFit, Insan... Like we're just doing, working out like crazy, running from something or distracting ourselves or beating ourselves up. It's amazing that you were able to maintain your performance as a cheerleader while doing all of that. Which actually tells me that you have probably really good athletic journey. I wouldn't be surprised if your parents were high-level athletes or whatnot. So you probably have really good genetics. The challenge for you is going to be how do I develop a new relationship with exercise and diet? Now, step one with diet, I like the fact that you're not tracking anything but protein. I don't want you to track anything else. But I will say this, I would avoid shakes and bars and hit those protein targets from whole natural foods. So I would start there. Strength training-wise, I don't know what your routine looks like, but I can send you a routine that I think will do you a damn good job. Maps and a ball, please. Yeah, I'll send you Maps and a ball. Follow that program to a T and then work on consciously, and I think journaling will do a good job with this, journal and consciously develop a different relationship with exercise, with diet, and then here's a part that I think you're not going to like. Develop a relationship with not doing anything. Let me ask you a question. How hard is it for you to sit still? Very. I'm always doing something. Yes. So there's something, and I want you to look this up. You can go on YouTube and look this up. Look up the doer. This is a type of individual that deals with stress, anxiety, trauma, whatever you name it, and the way they deal with it is they do shit all the time. So look that up, read about it, and develop a better relationship with sitting still, and little by little over time, you'll start to find what you're going to find is this incredible relationship with exercise and nutrition where it really brings you tremendous value. And what you have going for you, Mariah, are really good genetics. The fact that you did all that, like I'm reading that, I'm like the average person would have, they would have had... No injuries or anything through that whole process? Yeah, average person would have got hurt, had terrible hormone issues, no period, hair would have fallen out. Like that's what I would expect from a woman that would have followed that type of routine. So you probably have some like A plus athletic genetics that can work for you, but it's going to be the psychological relationship you have with those things. So I'm going to add a few things that I would like you to do. I would like you to begin... Since you are kind of a busy body anyways, you're also at a sedentary desk job. I'd like you to be consistent with like a half hour to an hour walk a day. I want you to listen to the show just because I think we speak to you as an individual a lot. Like you're a very common client. And this is something that we've dealt with many, many times. And so I think just hearing the podcast, probably hearing as coach other people and talk to people through this will be therapeutic and helpful. And then the second thing that I'm going to make sure you pay attention to are your rest periods and MAPS and Ebola. That your type of... My type of client like you... It doesn't like to sit in rest for two minutes. It doesn't like to rest for the rest periods. And they go, oh, I can... I'm ready. I'll go the next one. I'm ready. I'm ready. And they're constantly ready to go to the next exercise or the next set. And I'm constantly having to remind them, no, we need to rest. The rest period is important. And we can add more weight if you want to the next time we do it, but you are not to go until it says to go. And so challenge yourself to do longer rest periods in between. And really, really... Because a lot of times like people here are like, oh, I know how important going heavy is. So I'm trying to go heavy. And so in their mind, they're like, they try and choose heavier weights, but they still are training that F-45 hit style workout. Yet you're like in their head like, well, I'm doing what I heard. I'm supposed to lift heavier weights, but they're still doing this kind of circuit moving from exercise to exercise to exercise. I do not want you to lift that way. Mariah, you said your goal oriented. Do you like getting stronger in the gym? Does that satisfy you? Yeah. Okay. I actually printed my workouts out. And so when I go to the gym, I have that piece of paper and every time I do a deadlift, I'll write it down. So every time I do that next week and I'm doing deadlifts, I want to make sure that I'm lifting heavier. Maybe power lift. No, I'm going to send you power lift. Yeah. I'm going to send you maps power lift. And there's your goal right there. Let's see what you can get your bench, your deadlift and your squat too. Follow that program. And if you need to sign up for a competition, I love powerlifting competitions for someone like you. And I bet your petite, I bet you're your body weight, you'll probably do really well. It looks good. Like in terms of the rest periods, it's literally you rest until you're fully recovered and then you go and apply the next set. But that mentality itself is going to serve you so well. I'm going to have Doug also put you in the private forum and I'd like a check-in with you at least once a month, if not every two weeks or so, just giving us an update on where you're at mentally, how your strength is going, where you're at so we can continue. I think the strength gains will help you a lot with what you're feeling because then you'll see the bar, the weight on the bar go up and then that'll make you feel like, okay, I'm accomplished. So that's why I like powerlift. That powerlift is specifically centered around that. But I want you to check in with us because back to Sal's original analogy of the abuse of boyfriend is even if you know it's not right for you. You want to send a drunken text. You tend to want to go back to that and because it's what you know. And it's really easy to get discouraged because you had a rough week or maybe the scale doesn't respond or you don't like what you see in the mirror for a week and then all of a sudden you go back to that abuse of boyfriend and so I want you to make sure you're checking in with us and just letting us know how you're going through the process. Even if he has your favorite CDs, don't go back. She's 27, bro. I don't need CDs anymore. Like, what's a CD? Yeah, a way to date yourself, bro. MP3. Usually, listening to your podcast, I'm trying not to do as much cardio because I am trying to get a little bit more muscle and build that muscle up and do a little bit more lifting. So I am trying to stay away from the cardio. I've been tempted to go out for runs, but I just haven't. So the most cardio I'm doing is the swimming. Oh, you're fine. Yeah, that's okay. If you like doing it too, but don't be doing it, thinking it's helping your body composition. Yeah. No, if you're doing it because you're connecting with your mom and you enjoy the swimming. If you like to swim because you enjoy it, by all means, dude, I'll never tell you to stop doing it. But if you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I think this is helping me get to my goal faster, it's not. So don't think that. It's not helping you get to your goal faster. But if you enjoy it, do it. I would rather you walk every day and listen to the podcast because I think that's going to serve you more in this situation. She swims with her mom. I think it's time with her mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the right, that's the reason to do it. To connect with mom and enjoy that, that I'm not going to ever tell you not to do. But don't do it for the reasons of thinking you're going to get to your goals faster. It's not going to help that. So. And I can't wait to see what happens with the power lift. I have a sneaking suspicion that you're going to hit some big numbers. Yeah, with your type of discipline and consistency and background. If you trust us and follow what we say, we're going to blow your mind. I promise you, you'll be eating more than you've ever ate. You'll be working out less than you ever have and you'll have the best body you've ever had. All three of those. Promise you. I like her. All right. Oh yeah. We got. How many protein do you think on doing the weightlifting should I be doing? I think hitting about 130 grams at your size, 130, 140 grams a day is fine. Even 120 is fine. Do it from whole natural foods. Okay. Don't use a shake unless it's at the end of the day and you missed your targets because let's say you had meetings or something like that. You're like, Oh crap, I'm 30 grams short. Then have a shake. But do it from whole natural foods. It'll, it'll, it'll pay you much better dividend. And it's okay to go over that. That's a minimum. Make that your minimum, but try and hit at least that. If you go over, that's all good. That's fine. So, so focus on that. All right. Okay. That'll save me some money on some protein bars. So, that's perfect. Awesome. All right. We'll check in with us. Good. I know. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Just give me a cheer. I was going to do the B.E. grass. Have you guys ever trained because there's cheerleaders, right? Like the typical high school and then there's competitive. Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys ever trained a competitive? I've had some girls that were like no different than the Warriors and the Miners. It's a gymnast. They're basically a gymnast. I mean, the, the, the, especially they flip and Oh, I mean, they're strengthened. They're, they're, I mean, they have like incredibly, typically the high level ones have incredible genetics. The fact that she got through that without terrible. I'm mystified by that. Well, I think she's going to respond super well to mass powerlifts, so long as she doesn't get in her own way. Yeah. Our next caller is Elijah from Arkansas. Elijah, what's up, man? What's going on? Hey. How can we help you? What's up, guys? Good. How are y'all? Good. Good. All right. I'm going to dive right into it. But first I want to thank y'all for being the info people because everyone else kind of sucks. But I like that so much better than an influencer, by the way. Thank you. Info people. Yeah. We're the info people. But Sal, you really helped me because I saw you had a short that came out on YouTube right before I was about to start my fitness journey. I was about to do like a smoothie diet. And you said, don't do a smoothie diet. Enjoy your food. Good deal. Hmm. Good deal, man. It's a perfect time. Save the life, guy. Good job. Yeah. So I'm 25 years old. Currently, way 207 now from the time I sent this email. When I sent this email, I was 194 at 18 percent body weight. Now I'm at 207 with 23 percent body weight. I've been doing maps in a bulk advance. I did maps bands. I was doing maps aesthetic. But I went back to anabolic advance to do a bolt. I first didn't think the bulk was working. Now I feel like it is because all my clothes are very tight and all I do is eat. My maintenance is 2,500 calories. So I was kind of just seeing where do I need to go next? I worked out in the mornings at 5 a.m. So I also wanted to ask about like sleep as well. Like how can I get the most consistent sleep with waking up that early? Before and working out. So your calories, you're in a bulk right now. So what are you averaging with your calories? Are you tracking? Yeah, I average about 2,700. So your maintenance is 2,500, but you're at a 200 calorie bulk? Yeah, about 2,700, 28. Okay. And then what do you want to accomplish? What are you looking to do moving forward here? Are you trying to drop body fat or build more strength? Drop body fat. Look into, try to get in 15%. Okay. Get in that fit, right? Okay. I mean, if you go down to 2,300 calories, you'll get there following a good strength training routine. Like MAPS Anabolic Advance is good. I do think in a cut you might want to go back to the original MAPS Anabolic. I wouldn't go with a super high volume program like MAPS Aesthetic in a cut. It might be too much volume, but MAPS Anabolic, the original three-day-week version would be good. Maybe 2,300 calories a day, high protein. And then for sleep, I mean, you got to set your bedtime and you have to prioritize it. So if you're waking up at five, you're waking up at five, you said? Yeah. Be in bed by nine. That's what I do. Yeah. So about 8 p.m., start getting ready for bed. So you turn the lights down, no TV, no electronics, or maybe use blue light blocking glasses and be consistent with that every single night. And then what you, a lot of people do, is when the weekend comes up, like, you know, you might work out Monday through Friday and then you go to bed late Friday so you could sleep in Saturday, do the same thing Saturday, sleep in Sunday. What ends up happening is you actually throw your circadian rhythm off and you actually jet lag yourself on Monday, which does have some negative effects. So I would go to bed at 9 p.m. every night no matter what. No matter what, that's your bedtime. Except for my special occasions, I know you're young, so you might want to go out here and there. But I would try to be in bed by 9 p.m. most nights. That'll make a huge difference in how your body responds, both with body fat and with muscle. Elijah, tell me a little bit more about your lifestyle, your days. Like, what do you do for work? Are you sedentary, active? Give me a little bit of insight. Sedentary, so I work at a desk all day. I try to, I've been working on, because with Matt's bands, with that step counter that you guys put in there, I've been trying to incorporate getting those 20,000 steps into my day. It's just kind of hard sometimes with meetings and stuff, but so I'm just trying to best figure out ways to just take walks throughout the day. Okay. And then if you would say, if you were to be honest and say what your vices are or your bad habits say around nutrition or and stuff, what would you say those are? Mainly, it's mainly just the cooking part. So when I get home, I really like to cook. So I've really stepped away from eating out a lot. That was part of my biggest vice. I've now been able to do a lot more cooking at home. And then I also got into a food program, Flex Pro. I use Flex Pro. Okay. Nice. And so I've been really stepping away from eating out a lot. It's mainly just for me, I think the sleep part, because I wanted to stay up or I'm really having a hard time with winding down is the biggest struggle. If you give yourself an hour to wind down before 9 p.m., you'll find that you can go to sleep. It's really hard. You've got to make a ritual of it. Yeah. Well, you don't want to do because I'm like that. I'm the same way. If I keep going, I won't get tired till 11 midnight. But so I wind myself down. So what you don't want to do is like 9 p.m., oh, go run up to bed and just hit the pillow because then you'll find yourself tossing and turning for another hour or hour and a half. So it's 8 p.m. You want to set yourself up with literally it's just this, turn the lights down, make everything dark, don't watch TV, or if you do wear blue light blocking glasses, kind of keep everything chilling, quiet, and your body will get the signal. By the time 9 p.m. rolls around, you'll go lay down and you'll be able to fall asleep. This is an area that Doug and I have been talking a lot about lately. We're both trying to improve our sleep scores and get better at it. Right now I'm starting to do the 3-2-1 method and I'm finding that's helping out. So if you don't have, or if you never tried that, just 3 hours, 3 hours before bed is your last meal. So don't eat or longer, right? So if you're going to bed at say 9 o'clock, 6 is when you shut down the eating food, 7 is when you shut down drinking any fluids, and then an hour or more before you shut down all electronics, phones, TV, stuff like that. And so It makes a huge difference. Yeah, it makes a big difference. Okay, okay. So then I guess my next question, since I wake up so early, I guess I'm, because something I also kind of struggle with sometimes is making sure I get enough breakfast in the morning. Yeah. Is Sal, do you like just eat a meal before you work out? Oh, no, I eat when I'm done. So I work out, yeah, I wake up at 5 and I'll work out around 6.30 or 7 typically. I don't eat until afterwards and I'm typically eating around 8.30 and I'll have a pretty large, I'll have a pretty high-protein breakfast, around 50 to 60 grams of protein. You know, this is also an area where the meal one comes in really handy, especially if you have a job because I don't know if they'll let you have just boil some water, but if you get like one of those electric water boilers and then the meal one packets, the protein, 30 grams of proteins already in there, you can do two of them. You pour it in a bowl and just stir it up and then you could crush it. High protein. Yeah, two minutes. Either do that at home on your drive over to work, or if you have the luxury at your job to where they'll let you have a thing to boil water and mix it, that's a really valuable product that helps with hitting your protein and taking a meal every day. Okay, cool. Cool. I'll look into that. All right. Yeah, but the sleep, if you're consistent at what time you go to bed and you set yourself up, here's the challenge. Do it for seven days in a row and then watch what happens to your performance in the gym, your cognitive performance, like everything. It's going to change everything. It's that impactful. Okay, okay. I'll work on that. That's, yeah, I appreciate that. That's been my biggest struggle because I've been gaining strength and like I was saying, like my clothes, I'm having to start to buy different shirts. I had to buy a new blazer because my new one, or my old one that I was wearing three months ago, doesn't fit anymore around the shoulders and back area. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, you're doing good, man. You know, we did suggest a cut. There's nothing wrong, too, with kind of hovering right around the 2,500 calories and just, but being just getting stronger and everything's going well. Yeah, you're getting strong and you don't need to necessarily go in a hard cut. It's just, it's a process. In fact, if you kept your calories around 25 to 2,600 and fixed your sleep, you would see a body composition change anyway. The data on that, the data is very clear on that, like lack of sleep, makes your body store body fat and not want to build as much muscle. So even if you kept it around 25, 26, and just did the sleep part, you would see a slow body composition change. Okay, cool, cool. And you said go back, don't do maps, anabolic, advanced, go do anabolic instead. Yep, you do the original. Anabolic and do the three-day, week version with the trigger sessions on the off days. Do you have that one? No, I did not. All right, we'll send it to you. Yeah, we'll get to that. Okay, cool, cool. I appreciate it, Joe. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. Take it easy. Yep, see y'all. See you later. Keep doing it. Keep giving us good information. You got it, dude. For a 25-year-old, the sleep thing's the hardest because you want to stay up, you want to go out. But boy, does it make a huge impact. It makes a massive impact. I want to do the seven-day challenge for every 20-year-old. Do it for seven days in a row, don't watch how you feel. I mean, he may not have to really change anything other than just focusing on the sleep because he very well could be putting on good muscle, which in turn is just going to speed his metabolism up, which will require more calories to sustain. And so then he'll naturally start to lean him out. It's just so funny when you, some people sometimes are in the perfect spot, but because they're not seeing major shifts in any direction, they think it's the wrong place. But it's like the perfect place. It's like, man, you're hovering right around the calorie intake, hitting your, and then also of course protein because where he'll go wrong is go overeating a little bit on calories and then also under eating on protein. And that's where that'll screw you up. So hitting your protein intake consistently, working on that sleep, that'll solve this. Look, are you a hard gainer? You have a tough time putting on muscle? We have a hard gainer guide. It's totally free. It'll help you out. You can find it at mindpumpfree.com. You can also find us on social media on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump DeStefano. Adam is at Mind Pump Adam.