2736:DON'T listen to your body!

In short

Mind Pump Podcast Summary - Episode 2736: "DON'T Listen to Your Body!"

Overview

In this episode of **Mind Pump

Raw Fitness Truth**, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews take on listener questions and provide coaching advice. They delve into the idea of whether one should "listen to their body," the impact of music on health, and various listener experiences in fitness and nutrition.

Key Points

Mind Pump Fit Tip: DON'T Listen to Your Body!
The hosts challenge the common notion that listening to your body is always the best advice.
They suggest that many people misinterpret their body’s signals, especially those with a history of poor eating behaviors or unhealthy relationships with food.
Example: A person who has always felt stuffed may not recognize when they are truly hungry.

Listener Coaching Calls

The hosts coach various listeners with unique challenges involving fitness and health:

Call 1: Muscle Gain While CrossFit
A listener wants to gain muscle while continuing CrossFit.
The hosts advise balancing CrossFit intensity with a structured muscle-building program.

Call 2: Managing Weight and Burnout
A listener struggles with severe overwork and burnout while trying to gain muscle.
Suggestions include focusing on manageable workouts and re-evaluating diet for better energy management.

Call 3: Health and Family Life
A listener seeks advice on prioritizing health amidst family and career demands.
The hosts stress the importance of setting realistic fitness goals and integrating movement into daily life.

Call 4: Weight Management Post-GLP-1
A listener is concerned about maintaining weight loss after stopping GLP-1 medication.
The hosts recommend focusing on protein intake, strength training, and gradually adjusting diet.

Importance of Music
The discussion includes the positive effects of music on cognitive health and emotional well-being.
A study from Monash University links regular musical engagement with lower risks of dementia.

Reflections on Celebrity Culture and Fitness
The hosts critique the changing nature of celebrity, emphasizing the perils of fame and its impact on mental health.
They discuss the importance of surrounding oneself with trustworthy friends and mentors in the fitness journey.

Tips for Sustainable Fitness Journey
Self-Reflection and Mindset:
Emphasize journaling achievements and positive affirmations to combat negative body image.

Setting Realistic Goals:
Focus on strength improvements and overall health rather than just weight metrics.

Behavioral Changes:
Encourage listeners to cultivate new habits and routines to replace unhealthy patterns, especially during transitions off medications like GLP-1.

Final Takeaway
The hosts conclude with encouragement for listeners to prioritize health, fitness, and mental well-being, advocating for a balanced approach that accommodates life changes.

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, people called in. We got to coach them on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 53 minutes long. Now, the intro is about fat loss and muscle gain, family life, some current events. It's always a good time. And by the way, if you want to be on an episode like this, submit your question at mplifecaller.com.

0:39Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organifi, makers of organic supplements that can assist you with your health and fitness goals. Go check them out. Go to Organifi.com forward slash Mind Pump. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump to get 20 % off. This episode is also brought to you by Juve Red Light Therapy. This is the biggest sale of the year, up to$1 ,000 off on new Juve Systems. 0 % financing available even for many of their units. Go check them out. Go to juve.com forward slash mindpump. That's J-O-O-V-V.com forward slash mindpump.

1:19Also, everything is 60 % off for Black Friday. All MAPS workout programs, all bundles, everything, 60 % off right now. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com. Use the code BLACKFRIDAY. By the way, every purchase enters you into a contest. Two people are going to get a one-week vacation stay at the Mind Pump Park City House, plus$1 ,000 to travel. 15 people are going to get personal training. And we're going to invite 10 people here to spend the full day at Mind Pump Studios. Every purchase, again, gets you an entry for that contest. And don't forget, 60 % off across the board. mapsfitnessproducts.com. The code is BLACKFRIDAY.

2:00Here comes the show. T-shirt time! And it's T-shirt time. Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. Three winners this week. One for Apple Podcasts, two for Facebook. The Apple Podcasts winner is Dipstick Lifter. And for Facebook, we have Joshua Himmel and Yasmin Kabani. All three of you are winners. Send a name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you you guys real quick i just want to mention we got a sale is up to 25 off equipment and select apparel on our store right now there'll be five dollar items as well sale be from november 20th through november 30th go check it out at mindpumpstore.com it's often said in the health and fitness space to listen to your body.

2:52In fact, we've said that probably a thousand times on this podcast, but sometimes, no joke, that's terrible advice. There are times when you should not listen to your body. In fact, the more times I hop on coaching calls with my trainers, the more times I realize some of you need to ignore your body's signals and we're going to break it down and explain why. My body lies. Yeah. I have a visual of a client. That I remember like the first time I started trying to teach this to clients. And I remember a guy sitting across from me. It must have been 300-something pounds. And I said this to him. And he looked at me all crazy and grabbed his belly and he shook it.

3:33Listening to my body got me. This is what my body's got to me. It's the worst advice ever. So, you know, what this really boils down to. Well, I'll tell you some of the calls I've been on. So, you know, here at Mind Pump, we've now ventured into coaching, not us personally, but we have coaches that we train and develop that now work with people. And so we haven't personally coached people. Now I'm talking about myself and my co-hosts for a long time. And so hopping on some of these calls, it's great because, well, first off, I love it. We all love it. It's just a deep passion. but second it really brings me back into what it's like to work with people um and sometimes you can get disconnected especially when i'm talking out into the internet ether here uh on a show like this and you know i've had a couple calls now where people you know either through body dysmorphia or past poor relationships with food either from you know in in one case a severe situation where there was some anorexia, in other cases, much more insidious and mild, listening to their body, they don't know how.

4:47They don't know how to listen to their body. Listening to their body might make them feel like they're stuffed and feel gross all the time, when in fact, they're not eating enough. Or it made me reflect, actually, one of the calls made made me reflect on myself as a kid growing up, constantly feeling like I was too skinny. Even today, always trying to get more jacked and realizing how crazy that is. I knew as a kid that I had conditioned myself to the point where if I wasn't incredibly stuffed, if I didn't feel like I couldn't breathe, I thought I was hungry. Yeah, you're still hungry. Yeah. Oh, I can, I have more room.

5:24And so listening to my body would have been terrible advice because i didn't know how to listen to my body the signals didn't make any sense to me i'd ignored them for so long that what i thought were signals were just my own distortions yeah there's so many uh you know i you've heard me talk about and the reason why this is top of mind for me this happened literally last night again we ordered in last night and you know i i i double order you know because at that moment i'm hungry and i know what i can eat when i'm really hungry and it's like i didn't even finish the first thing and i like totally wasted the food and it was another one of those moments of like i don't know why it's just out of habit yep it's just purely it's like for so many years you try to get big yes for so many that that doesn't register me it's just a ridiculous amount of calories you know that i don't even want like i couldn't even finish the first thing and i'm like what am i doing ordering that but again because i've done it for so long and so and even though i think i'm very in tune with listening to my body it's it's crazy how insidious it can be because if you've had these be and you know flip that on somebody who's had behaviors for a very long time of overeating overeating some of it's even before listening to the body signals and it's just habit of pouring that much on the plate you know or ordering that much food and it's like learning to first discipline yourself to like pull back and go like why don't i just try like half of what i thought i i need you know and then eat it and and go, let me try and listen, right?

6:54There's like a few clear examples I can give. And by the way, if you're listening, you don't have to fit in one of these categories. It could be in between some of these categories. But in one case, for example, or on one side, you would have someone who's always self-medicated with food. And so the result of this is obesity, right? So this is somebody who's like, yeah, I've struggled my weight my whole life. And you'll often hear this from clients. this person uh oftentimes never really even feels what really what hunger really feels like what they feel is discomfort from not medicating with food and so to this person feeling hungry or what they perceive to be hunger which it's not hunger it's so uncomfortable and they've constantly muted it or they've always muted it with food that it's just it just this doesn't feel right and to them they'll say i'm starving i'm totally starving i have cravings which cravings are different than hunger.

7:49In other cases, you'll have people who have chronically underate. And oftentimes, this is a female, not always, but oftentimes. And this is the girl that is dieted for years and years and years, ate really low calories, overtrained, oftentimes lots of cardio or high intensity type exercise. And then when they try to eat or when you coach them to eat appropriately, they'll come back and say, I feel uncomfortable. I feel like, in fact, some of them will even say they feel bloated. And the conversations I've had with people around this is I'll start to point out what bloat actually feels like. And they'll say, well, I don't know.

8:30I don't think it's digestive issues. Like, well, I think what you're feeling is you're actually eating and you're constantly, you're used to feeling empty. And to you feeling empty is now a source of comfort. And so anything other than that feels like too much. This can also manifest with exercise where if you're not beating yourself up or feeling exhausted, it's not enough. It's not enough. It's never enough. I know that's where I was going with this was just like that propensity to increase intensity. Uh, you're just drawn to it. It's a feeling, you know it's it's a soreness it's a sweat it's a you have all these sort of uh gauges that you're looking for that brings you value from the workout when in fact like you tend to overdo it and you're not actually progressing so you know progressing isn't even a metric for you it's like the feeling and like what you're getting out of that that pain that also can be really insidious too because many times you also connect that with the best shape you've ever been in your life yeah because many times people were doing that when they're in college or high school or playing a sport or like that was they were at peak movement and training and so they have this identity to that like man that's when i looked great felt great therefore that's how i should rules apply that's how i should train and so that's really tough not and not only those feelings that you get endorphins that you get the cortisol spike you get all that of accomplishment that you get when you walk out of the gym feeling that way but you've also connected that way of training with oh that was when I was in the best.

10:03I had that conversation with someone recently, uh, where this, this woman was a high level athlete. So, and by the way, high level athletes or should I say X high level athletes? So this is someone like in college, maybe a high school competed at high level. Um, sometimes it can be very, I would say they're sometimes among the hardest people to coach because they've identified that hardwired in them. So I was talking with her and she was like, man, I used to train like this all the time. And I said, were you 40? She's like, well, no. I said, did you have kids? No. Did you have a mortgage? No. Did you have a job?

10:39No. I said, it's not the same. It is not the same. And oftentimes, we got in the quote unquote best shape of our life in spite of the fact that - I was just going to say, so it's not even just that. It's that if you actually trained better when you were in 20s, you - You would have performed better. Where you thought you were in the best shape of your life, you actually could have been even better than what you were. And that's the part that's hard for people to connect that dot. Yes, it's very, very difficult. And so this is why part of coaching is learning how to read these signals. And then when you listen to your body, then you're actually listening to your body and not to signals that are taking in the wrong direction.

11:17So I think the first step with this is to identify your challenges and to really be objective. All right, what are my challenges? I've always struggled with being overweight or my fear, I should say. This is where I think challenges, this is how you should label your challenge. What are my fears? My fears are I'm going to get fat again, or my fears are I'm not going to build enough muscle, or my fears are, and write them out, write down what they, because those are what's driving a lot of this. Identify these, put them out, and this is the beginning of moving in the right direction. Now, for me, I'll use myself again as an example.

11:51You talked about this with workouts, Justin. I have learned to identify that when I feel at the end of my workout that I could do a lot more that I'm done. That is not how I used to measure my workouts. My workouts used to be measured. If I feel like I can do more, I didn't do enough. Now at the end, if I start to feel like, Ooh, I'm toasted. Oops. I went too far. So now I know if I end my workout and I feel like, Oh, I could have done another 30 minutes. I'm probably doing the right amount. And so I had to kind of identify those channels. So write those down for yourself. What are your fears?

12:31So another way to put it is like, I'm talking to someone, they've chronically under eight, I'm trying to get them to reverse diet. And I'll always ask them, what are you afraid of by bumping your calories or eating more? What's the big fear? Like, I'm gonna gain a bunch of weight. Okay, let's write that down. Cause that's actually driving, that's behind the steering wheel right now when you identify that. The next thing, this is the most difficult, is to follow someone else's plan. So this is how we coach our coaches. We tell our coaches, and this is just true, the most important thing that you can focus on with your client, more important than the strategy and the workout and the diet and the information, is trust.

13:14They have to totally trust you because they're going to be leaning on you and not on themselves. so you have so following someone else's plan will allow you to do this you will get a workout plan let's say you get a maps program that's appropriate for you but for most of you it's not maps aesthetic it's not map split it's not the crazy ones that we have it's probably like maps anabolic maybe muscle mommy probably 40 plus for many people 15 uh maps 15 and you'll just follow it and not do what you've always done. So you'll trust somebody else's well-written plan and structure and then stick to it and not follow what you've always done in the past, which hasn't worked.

13:58There was another point to the earlier one about fears. And one of them, for me and for – it's you don't want to look weak. When you're doing these lifts, you don't want to do what's right for you because it's like, I'm going to go a little bit more because then I don't look like a total puss. And so that being said, like in terms of following somebody else's plan, I think that helps psychologically. It's like, I'm doing this deliberately as it's laid out. So I'm removing my own sort of bias and emphasis on this. It's like, I'm just going to do this and trust that it's going to - Can I just add to this just for you, Justin, because it's so funny.

14:40When we, we don't do this often, actually almost never now, but in the early days of Mind Pump, we were the ones that were the exercise models for our videos. So if we did an exercise demo, we would be the ones doing it. Oh, you're going to throw me a mess. And when you do this, you want your form to be perfect. The weight you use doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much weight you use. A lot of fitness people use fake weights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In videos. It's just about your technique, right? Yeah. We should have done that. Justin would just throw the weight on. I'm like, bro, you're not working out.

15:12you're not doing this with 20s not to mention you might have to do 15 takes yeah yeah a lot of reps that hold and he's like wait a minute i didn't get the shot take the 45s off bro so it is very it is very difficult but yeah follow someone else's plan well that's also part of uh identifying that this is a challenge for you is admitting that hey i've tried to do this thing on my own for years or decades. And obviously I've gotten here and haven't figured out, like, how about I just own that having somebody else guide me through this is probably a better strategy. And so I think that's why one is so important to identify that challenge that you've had for so long.

15:52And then the next is to surrender to the process and go like, okay, what if I just let a professional guide me through this and see what it looks like? So important. You know how much of these coaching calls are like that when I hop on with our trainers? I tell them, I say to them, literally, I'll say to them, you're going to feel uncomfortable. This is going to suck. You're going to think you're not doing enough. You're going to think you're eating too much. I need, just do what we tell you and trust us. And then we won't have to ask you again, because then you'll start to see over time that it's working and then you'll see.

16:23But in the beginning, don't trust yourself. Just trust us. You also want to use and track things that you can measure that are objective. So what is that? Am I stronger? Am I stronger? Am I able to perform the lifts better? Is my sleep better? Do I have more energy? And then connect that to the feelings that are telling you to do more. What I mean by that is, wait a minute, I just added 10 pounds. Give you an example. I just added 10 pounds to my squat, but I feel like I should be doing way more. Okay, my feelings are wrong. Let me just read these objective measures for now and stick with these.

17:02because especially strength is a hard one to argue with. Like if you're stronger, is it working? It's working. So whatever you think you're doing or you're not doing. I'm being greedy. Yeah, exactly. It's hard to tell people this, but avoid the mirror and the scale at all costs. Yeah. They lie, man. They lie big time. And many times clients are on the right track and they're deceived by what they see in the mirror and they're deceived by what they see in the scale because the progress just doesn't work that way. And you would think, well, wait a second. If I'm working out, I'm doing that, I should look better in the mirror.

17:38Well, yeah, theoretically, yes. But a bad night of sleep and watch how puffy you are. Coming off your period, watch how puffy you are. Eat something that your body didn't agree with digestive-wise, watch how puffy you are. And that puffiness ends up looking like I put on body fat. And people freak out and course correct when in reality, everything they were doing was okay. and they would be just fine. Same thing works with the scale. All those things that I just listed also retain and hold water and easily the scale stays the same or maybe even goes up a pound or two. Even though you're getting leaner.

18:11Yeah, even though you're building muscle, getting leaner, getting stronger, and then you course correct. And so for most people that are in this situation that we're talking about, this is something you don't want to pay too close attention to because it many times will steer you in the wrong direction. Totally. You want to question your urges. Your urges are going to feel frantic. That's what they're going to feel like. Impulsive. Impulsive, frantic. It's like you're jerking the steering wheel while you're driving straight and you just want to swerve even though, you know, the numbers are – I'm stronger.

18:49I feel better. I'm trusting my coach or I'm trusting this program that was written by good coaches. is question your urges every time they come, because this is a process of relearning how to develop a relationship with fitness that actually serves you, okay? So again, if you look back at your relationship to fitness, if it was a stressful, spotty, on and off relationship, we have to build a new relationship and it doesn't happen overnight. So a lot of it's gonna be questioning those urges and those impulses when they come up and bring an awareness to them. And then finally, you check in with trusted friends.

19:28So these are not the people in your life that don't want to see you do well, that compete with you all the time. You know who they are. But these are the people you actually trust. I can't tell you how many times I would have a client come to me with all these fears. And then I learned, in fact, I learned that this was a coaching method. And I'd say to, you know, Miss Johnson comes in and she's, you know, I don't know if it's working, whatever. What does your husband say? What is your husband saying right now? Oh, well, he says I look really good. Do you think he's lying to you? Well, I think maybe he's just trying to make me feel better.

20:01No, I think he's being honest with you. I think he's telling you because I can tell you're looking really good. So check in with those friends that you trust to say, you know, I'm freaking out a little bit. What do you think? Do you think I'm moving in the right direction? Do I look like I'm healthier? Objectively, yeah. You know, how do you think I'm doing? The best check-ins, in my opinion, are the people that you trust like that that you don't see for 30 days. Yeah. Like nothing like a sister, brother, mother, somebody-in-law that's close to you, that loves you, that just hasn't seen you for a 30-day window while you've been on this path to like really be able to tell them.

20:33Sometimes husbands and wives who see each other every single day seem to like, I mean, they typically will still say something positive, but maybe they don't see as much of a change because you're seeing that person change before your eye every day. and it's different versus the aunt or sister-in-law or someone who hasn't seen you in 30 days. And they go, oh, my God. Yeah. You look great. What are you doing? Wait until my asshole friend says something nice. Then I'm like, I'm on to something. Yeah. That's random. It never happens to you. What's going on here? Yeah, I'm killing it. I know. I love it.

21:03Anyway, Adam, I was going to ask you, because yesterday you had me do, we haven't done, it's the season. Yeah. You had me mix you up a Christmas blend from Organa. Every day. The red juice and the green juice. Every day now. So it's every day. Well, a couple things. obviously you brought up on one of the last podcasts what I'm going through. So I'm still in the fire. Unbelievable. This is for people to know your withdrawal from heavy creative use. If you're up to date on the podcast, if you don't, that's what's going on. Does it help? It does. Well, so something I didn't disclose on the podcast that obviously why I was kicking something that I thought would be the fight of my life, I may as well get rid of all the things I I think, are a cakewalk.

21:45So weed, caffeine, everything's going. This is such, listen, that's the most Adam thing I've ever heard. I don't know why you do that. You're like on fire. You're like, fuck it, let's go. You're like, hey, can I over there? Pour some gasoline on me. Can you throw some gas on me real quick? That's right, let's just go. Let's just do this. I mean, I'm, well, the weed thing was easy. That's nothing to me. But caffeine, too? Caffeine, so what I've done is I dropped off, I'm doing that methodically. Okay. So, I mean, you can see my Celsius next to me. So, people are like, where's your Celsius there?

22:18And the way I'm doing that is, so typically when I would drive to work, I would have my first energy drink or coffee. That's replaced now with the Christmas blend. And it really, like, I swear I don't notice I have anything left. So, I'm already 200 milligrams down. Awesome. And I don't feel it. I tried to, I actually, being honest, I was like, I did kind of go cold turkey for a few days. And I was like, man, I've got a lot of headaches right now. I'm like, I don't want to add another headache. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. I'm already miserable. My headache has a headache. And then I took, I remember drinking like a little drink, and then like it went away.

22:53I'm like, okay, maybe I'll do that one a little bit slower. So yeah, that was probably not the best idea. We didn't even skip a beat. Like that didn't, that wasn't hard for me at all. Caffeine, though, I thought I was going to rip the Band-Aid off. I figured, ah, I'm feeling like shit. May as well go all the way. And then I went, yeah, these headaches are a little worse than I wanted while everything else felt terrible. So I did reintroduce some of it back. I've had some days where I only do one, but I've consistently removed one completely off. And the first thing I do in the morning is I have the green juice and the red juice together.

23:25And I tell you what, I'm excited that, and I got myself stocked up at the house to make sure so I have no excuses. And it's actually been a really nice way to start. So I think I'm going to try and continue that as my first drink, regardless of what I do, caffeine in the future, if I cut out completely or I - It's adaptogenic. So the reason why it feels so good is you have both the red juice and the green juice are adaptogenic. So the red juice with rhodiola and other compounds and the green juice with ashwagandha, rhodiola is more up stimulating, ashwagandha more relaxing. Yeah. But they're both adaptogenic, well-studied adapted.

24:05And right now your body's going through a lot of stress, which is probably why it feels so good. It feels, yeah, a lot of times I'm actually having it twice in a day. But I definitely start every morning now with it. And the blend actually tastes good. It does. I think it sounds like a weird blend, but the red and the green juice combined together is a great mix. So, yeah, I'm starting off every day right now. So to be continued. Did I share on the podcast my experience in L.A.? I know I shared with you guys, with Bradley Martin. But did I share it on the show? I don't think I did. Not on the show, no.

24:36You just released the clip. I watched the episode. I don't know if anybody else did. I watched it. Yeah, I watched the whole thing. Yeah, you told me. You sent me some really nice, encouraging texts. Yeah, it was incredible. Well, I'll tell you, this is where things get weird for me, man. And this is just, you know, spiritual alert for people who are weird about that. But I'll just share. The Raw Talk with Bradley Martin was the first time I had publicly given my testimony, how I became a Christian. It was the first time I said it publicly. It was a bit scary, but I did it. And I remember when I, this was a year and a half ago, maybe when I was on his show and I gave it, I remember he sits forward in his chair, takes his hat off and I could tell something was pulling at him.

25:21And we had some conversations afterwards, but then that was it. Right. And then after that, I obviously haven't, I haven't had any fears over being public with my faith or any of that stuff, but it was the first time I did it. Anyway, we had rescheduled me to go down to LA to be on some podcasts. and one of them was his. And leading up to it, I had this like, do I bring it up? Do I bring up like, and ask him about if anything's happened with him in this and talk about, you know, faith. Remember, this is Raw Talk. So anybody's familiar with this podcast, this is not like a, you don't talk about these things on a show.

25:57And it's his podcast. More likely to be gambling only fans or something else. And he's, off air, people know, No, off air, like Bradley's a really smart guy. Love talking with him. But I just felt like this stirring, but I felt really discouraged. I was feeling really dark. Like what I kept hearing, I was like, don't stay in your lane. That's stupid. Shut up. Talk fitness. Just a lot of crap. And this was the night before. I had gone to LA to spend the night so I could wake up early in the morning and then do this like podcast circuit. And this is the thing that I wanted to share. That was just, just for people, you know, who've experienced this.

26:32It's just weird. This happens all the time now, but it's really, really weird. I woke up at 5.30 that morning and I had gotten a text at 4.27 a.m. from my friend Tim. And remember, the night before and the day before, I was feeling like, don't say anything. Who are you? Like all this like really discouraging, just terrible thoughts. I wake up, it says, hey, Sal, apologize for the strange text, but God has had your name pop up in my heart this morning. I don't know why or for what, but the only word I keep getting is encourage. And I woke up to that and I'm like, Oh, what? Like this kind of stuff has been happening.

27:11So I get on his show and it wasn't, that's all we talked about for the full hour. And it was a great conversation. It was really, really great. I felt not confident at all, which I say it's great because for me, that's great. I never don't feel confident on camera or talking. In fact, I feel too prideful. so sitting there talking in a way it was just uh so it's new for me but it was it was it was it was awesome it was really good it was an incredible conversation very authentic the way it flowed um i thought he asked good hard questions there were real questions yeah yeah they were good hard questions i think uh you know for someone who wasn't prepared really for that i thought you did a great job um answering and responding to them it was a good conversation It'll be interesting to see the people respond.

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28:00I'm most curious about him post because my experience with him post is he's this great emotional guy, says all these things, and then he kind of just – he kind of disappears off in the wind. And has he continued to converse with you or ask you questions? Yeah, we text. And, you know, he is a good guy. You know what it is? I can't imagine what it would be like to be in his shoes. He was the original – What do you mean you can't imagine what it's like to be? Well, I'll tell you. Let me explain. He was young when it first happened to him. Yeah. He was the first fitness influencer dude. He was really one of the first ones.

28:40Yeah. Blew up that way. Yeah. Got lots of attention for his - Antics. Antics, his body, lots of attention. Built a business around it, very successful business. so um but when you meet him off air there's so much more to him than than those types of things so that's got to feel like a struggle and and when we were when i was on his show he talked about this a little bit too that you reach you and you've talked about this out all of us have experienced this but you know i've heard you talk a lot about this you'll get these things that you think are going to make you feel a particular way whether it's money or fame or or respect that you think and then you're like this is empty this is not giving me what i thought so um and that's kind of a little bit about you know what we talked a little bit about on his yeah yeah yeah i mean i feel like he's wrestled with this for years though now i mean the very first time we so we we've now done we we did his podcast collectively like six years ago six years ago and that was like the the where he was at in his life back then so i mean you're talking about six years later you've been on there twice since then each time he kind of expresses this he's obviously wrestling internally with this he obviously has this i mean i mean this to me is what's it's uh i don't think enough people on the outside realize how and we talked a little bit just recently so not to not to beat a dead horse here because i did just bring this up on the podcast that you know that these people uh become the algorithm they they experience fame and attention and love and adoration uh for this character that they they build and i don't i think all of them come with a very pure intention originally like of like hey you know i'm gonna put myself out there give good information share with people share my life do this stuff and then but what's how it creeps in is, you know, the algorithm tells you like, oh, this gets you more attention and that gets you more attention.

30:43And the people that are coming around you are because of that. Yeah. And then you get more of that. And it's just, it's like this snowball effect. And, and, you know, the first time you, you do something that kind of goes viral that you, you manufactured or you did, it's like, it wasn't really totally myself. I mean, I was me, but I, I mean, I also staged this or did that and then so and you justify it because whatever reason and then you just it's this slow drift and then you wake up six years later super famous everybody knows your name and you're around a week of millions of followers you're making millions of dollars and you don't know who you are yeah and extreme example that is liverking oh yeah that really twisted him really twisted him i mean i think i think the only reason why that's an extreme example is because of the netflix documentary however but i think there's tens of thousands examples right in front of everybody everybody listening right now is following hundreds of these people yeah hundreds of them at least hundreds if not thousands of them you're following that have got gained all this popularity and fame online through doing things that feed the algorithm we see this with a lot of the modalities and like real strong stances towards like this method or this nutrition yes and it's just very like they've leaned into it so hard they've cornered it yeah i can't get out paul saladino yeah carnivore and then he comes out he's like hey i have honey and then boom gets hammered by his people and maybe throw a little fruit in boom gets hammered by his people yeah uh dr mercola uh he was the keto guy yes he was the no carb carbs are bad guy yeah literally just posted uh an article about how avoiding carbs all the time is bad for your thyroid.

32:28Yeah, well, it almost, you know? Yeah, and to this discussion, it's like it almost makes it unreasonable for them to be reasonable, you know, because they don't get any kind of benefit to that. Because the more, like, crazy stance they take, the more, like, opposition, the more views, attention, and all that, and people they draw into their camp. And so it's like it really doesn't benefit them to be, you know, to entertain like a more of a nuanced approach. I mean, to me, it's what we're watching right now in real time for us and our generation in particular was here before and is here now and will be here after.

33:07But it's the changing of the guard for celebrity. Yeah. And we talk all the time about how fucked up celebrities are, right? Like they're the ones that commit suicide, get on all these drug rehab, things like that. but this is the new celebrity is is social media and the ability to do it and everybody thinks they want it because it seems so sexy right now one of the things i i don't know one of the things i've been most proud about and thank god that we were in our early 30s when we started this that we kind of were on the other side of like like no i don't want that kind of attention like that didn't sound sexy to any of us so much to the point that when we created all the all of our names it was business first then us and all we talk about off air is like can't wait the day that i can just shut my shit down you know what else is you want to know what else was a saving grace is that and this is just i think this is just a total blessing we're surrounded because of each other uh by guys that will not allow that to happen right we will call each other out yeah imagine if it was by yourself and you're doing it all on your own I wish more people had that built in accountability I know what would happen if it started to blow up for me for sure one of you guys or all of you guys are going to let me know and I'm going to get it and same thing for you guys a lot of people don't have that and so they're just on their own since you were talking about Bradley Martin and his show it makes me so curious remember he had his two close friends that were a part of his business early on that no longer are falling out and i wonder if that was part of that stuff i don't know yeah because that's it is it is helpful having your boys close to you to rein you back in if we were to think that although i don't know i mean you're most likely we would have to rein you in but i don't feel like we had to do that what reigned me right i mean he's most likely the one we'd have to well i think all of us in different ways i mean all of us in different ways you know we'd have to get reined in but i'll just silent voice in this yeah i'll just speak to look i'll just speak to myself uh i respected you guys i respect you guys so much that you don't have to say much uh but i also trust that you would yeah if it got a little out of you know got out of hand yeah you know um but we all kind of have little checks and balances and we all respect each other and so that's what that's what i'm saying about the blessing like we've never had i mean what i mean by you are most likely not your personality but of who you have to be on the show sure so the brand is built around you so the the you are you are the you are forward facing the most sure from the brand so you're more likely so it's more like so i don't mean by your personality i mean like it's more likely your ego would get fed the most in that area and i think that you've resisted that since day one for sure you know i think you you take that position because you recognize your best in that position and justin and i and doug aren't here to argue that right no i should be the guy i should be the guy i would be the guy you know dude so i think that it that it works like if i mean if there's there was three bradley martin sitting here right yeah there would probably be a lot more pull of like sure you know i could be the guy or i want to be the guy but I really think people need to I've communicated this to my kids, not that they care but I think it's important attention like that is a curse.

36:39Hell yes it is. I bet if you took a hundred people and you gave all 100 of them sudden social media fame that 99 of them or maybe a hundred of them would turn out worse from it. It is not a good, and what's crazy to me about this, the world glorifies celebrities even with their create like you talk about like their brilliance committed suicide at 24 overdosed at 30 and we're talking about how amazing they were as brilliant they were not the tragedy and how terrible and not identifying like marilyn monroe would have probably been better off had she not gotten famous um you know jimmy hendrix probably would have been better off had he not gotten famous you know so i think it's a curse probably always and you know especially if you're young oh my god imagine if you're young and you get this confirmation that you're so awesome idols growing up were the um you know they got fame real real quick and they were known for their thing they were the best of their thing they died and they they left us you know and we that was like and we legend yes that's crazy that was everybody it's a fake love.

37:50That's why. Yeah. It's not a real love, right? Like, you know, this weekend was my birthday weekend, right? So I was with a very small, close-knit group of friends and, you know, it's not publicly shared. It's not anybody, nobody else knows about it. It's like, and the love in the room is undeniable and goes all the way back to where I was a kid and stuff like that. And I've also been in rooms where we have hundreds of people there to see us and lining up for hours to talk and meet us. And it's a, it feeds the ego in that moment. And maybe some of those people say, oh, I love you and say things like that, but it's not real love.

38:25It's not like those people don't know all of me or all of my faults or all of who I am. You know what I'm saying? They know me from a personality on a podcast that for an hour, you know what I'm saying? Like that's, it's a different time. And I think it's easy to fall in the trap to thinking that's real love and then you fall in love with that and then it turns on you and then then you all center like wait these people all love me now they say these mean things about me and they are like and it can flip and on the internet world it can flip on a dime like that oh god or just imagine if you're adored by millions of people because of your beauty and then you get old yeah wow what a hard fall that would be what what's my value who am i you know i'm getting old now that's why you see celebrities with the sometimes you'll see it's real weird you're like what did he do to his face or isn't it somebody telling them that they don't look human anymore with all the procedures do you think that we'll see because we don't um most kids today don't want to be a movie star or a tv star right that's still be an influencer they want to be an influencer right but do you think that's because they and do you think the reason why they don't want to be a movie star or superstar do you think that because enough people have seen the rehab show no i just think the new celebrities or social media.

39:38Yeah. That's all. So you still - So you think that still there's - It's the same. Like, I feel like it's more well-known all the issues that celebrities have or am I off base? They still are glorified. They're still totally glorified. It's still about how great they were at this one thing, whether it's a sport or playing music or fashion or whatever. And because of the attention that the world puts on this and elevates them, you think that that's it. It's just the size of the screen that's changed, really. Yeah. That's about it. Wow, good way to say it. Screen size has changed, but nothing's changed.

40:17Yeah, it's the same game. It's wild, man. I was just at the Brandon Lake concert yesterday. You guys know Brandon Lake? Oh, you went to it? Yeah. Where was it at? SAP Center. Oh, it was. Right here in San Jose. Was awesome. It was so. How many Christian concerts have you made now? I think you're like five now. Four? ask me how many concerts i went to before i was just gonna say we couldn't get you out for a concert for a decade now all of a sudden you've gone to five crowd i was laughing because there's this like band called skillet and they're like a christian yeah they're great but like wait wait skillet's considered christian oh yeah are you kidding me skillet skillet is christian forever what yeah oh yeah the same skillet i'm no way bro you're yeah it's a rock band but uh yeah anyways They're like just a basic rock band, but they just came out with like a Christmas song, and they had like a breakdown, like a heavy metal breakdown.

41:09Me and my friends were dying because it's like, you know, like they got all like heavy all of a sudden. We're like, what? This Skillet? Monster Awake, all that? Yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah. Dude, that's great. No, it was a... Yeah, you're going to get us a... Really? Yeah. I had no idea they were a Christian band. Dude, I got to tell you guys something. Anyways, sorry. Sorry, you're just like... I know me too. I mean, I've been listening to them forever, and I just didn't. I'd never. Well, yeah. A lot of them start out, like, I mean, so, like, Evanescence or, like, and they kind of, like, you know.

41:39Yeah, now I'm going to, like, really listen to the lyrics harder. Like, I don't think I, I mean, I just love the beat in a lot of the stuff. Like, I mean, I listen to it with Max all the time. They were around, like, because, like, the POD era. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this is, again, back when we were, like. They've also done a lot of cool collabs, too. Yeah. They've done some sick collabs. So, we've seen quite a few concerts. Well, Brandon Lake's unapologetic. His lyrics are straight. No, no, he's like. But he's mainstream, right? I mean, you guys have seen his music's hit the top of the charts.

42:06It was such a great environment. It was just wonderful. So many people praising and just a great, great. I love that environment. At the end, he's asking people if they want to come to Christ. And you have all these people raising their hand. But anyway, at one point, he's at the front. And he's like, hey, he's like, I'm not supposed to. This was unplanned. He goes, but I saw this guy's Instagram. he was singing some of my music and I see him in the front row and I want to go up to him he walks up to him there's this guy that performs with our worship team at church his name is Isaac and he was born with some kind of uh genetic disorder where his he's in a wheelchair his bones are very frail he's a little guy but he's got this wonderful voice and he sings on a worship team and it was him no way he brings the mic up to him like Isaac that's our that guy sings at our church and he's saying uh uh some of the one of the songs you know to to one of Brandon Lake songs to the whole arena no way it was so wild to see him dude it was so great oh how cool bro that kid let me tell you about him he has he's just he's this great singer great performer he released this one song that in the in the Christian world went pretty well went really well but when I first uh saw him on stage he tells a story and he said this line that got me so choked up he said the very lungs that the doctor said would not survive and be able to take a breath now can praise the lord in song and he sings i was like oh my god dude but he comes out and it was just so cool to see this kid with his whole family how random of all the people that he's seeing yeah does that kid have a big following i guess on tiktok he does because i mean i'm surprised he yeah he's got he's got a big big following did you know that before i didn't know he had such a big fault oh so that's so funny i just know when i hear him sing on stage he does a great job that's i know what a crazy small did a lot of people from the you guys church go well we took we went with a group of people from church and then i ran into people and then i saw some fans some mind pump fans yeah i ran up to me okay yeah it was really really cool it was a good time man i'm gonna be going to more of those speaking of music charging your back you're gonna like this justin study comes out uh with you're always talking about or you often talk i'll pull up the study of how music is just so beneficial for us oh yeah so this is very affected by it this study came out of monash university and it says this is the summary older adults who regularly listen to music or play music appear to have significantly lower risks of dementia and cognitive decline The data suggests that musical engagement could be a powerful, enjoyable tool for supporting cognitive resilience and aging.

44:47And I believe this. I believe this because I've seen the data on how music engages and lights up the brain. Nothing lights up the brain and engages the entire brain the way that music does. Like both the logical, the creative, the mathematical. More than what you think that attributes to more of like right brain activity that's not getting activated. Like being that most people are pretty left brain and their like focus is very much like, you know, and tasks oriented and like getting things done and very. Well, yeah. Yes, maybe. But also listening to music gets people to learn math faster. I know.

45:32It gets people to do things that you would consider like these logical, linear. Music is math. If you break it down. The beats, the sounds. I mean, you can make it as a formula. AI has figured it out. It makes music now. And the way it makes music is not because it's creative. It's because it knows the formula. And think about how it affects your memory. You listen to lyrics. You'll remember. Your ABCs. Yeah, everything. So I think it's so cool that they're connecting it to the. What's wild to me is how we take music out of schools. because we thought it wasn't valuable. Not all schools. Yeah.

46:04Not all schools. Yeah, they're bringing it back in a lot of schools. Yeah, no, dude. I mean, you keep hearing me talk about ours. I think it's crazy. All song, dude. All songs. Kids are curious. All the stuff that he learns are songs. That was the big thing that number blocks, when I told everybody about that, that cartoon was like huge for Max because they sing all the numbers. So when he was super little, he was like doing all this crazy math. I don't even think he knew the math he was doing until later on. Do you know how people before people, because books, when the printing press came out, everybody, you know, most people could get a book.

46:35But before that, the only people that could afford books were people who had a lot of money because it took a lot of work to write one book. It had to be written by hand. The way that people passed on knowledge information was song. Yeah. And it was so accurate. It's so accurate that decades or hundreds of years later, when they finally wrote it down, there was nothing lost because people were singing these. Song and story. yeah those are the two most powerful ways to communicate what's even more trippy though is like to think to do that the word that come from yeah like the first well i know where it came from but i mean i think as even as someone you know just scientifically minded it is wild yes it is really wild how music does that yeah it's like we we've unpacked that and and like we have the science now to break all that down but it's like you know some cave dude said that to it started Oh, you know, there was something crazy that I was looking at over the weekend.

47:29And it was like a video. They're describing about backwards speak and how the CIA was like, you know, really interested in this. And I had no idea. So back in the 70s, you remember that whole thing with like Led Zeppelin, you play it backwards. You kind of hear like, all right, worship Satan, you know, crazy stuff like that. So they started to go through. There's a guy that's famously was trying to kind of like take public figures, politicians, and then break down their speeches and then like find areas where you could hear phrases. And so you can actually find backward speak within. And so there was like, I mean, it's very pseudoscience and all this.

48:12And it's been like kind of rejected. But like sometimes it's just like nails, like you're like weird. like the moon landing stuff like that like and you'll get like neil armstrong and he'll go through a speech and do a backward speech and it's just like you know i'm a fraud and like no way yeah it's like this is all fake and it's all like it it's really really interesting but what's interesting is that the cia was the only one that that still really cares about it and uses this and has been able to extract some of this from like planning of of terrorist attempts and you know true intention of certain politicians.

48:47And then so I just thought it would, I'd never had heard about this being that like your subconscious actually has a voice of its own. And it's like, you're kind of communicating that to yourself. And so that's what they're trying to break down. You want to know what, so by the way, for people who are like, okay, whatever, CIA, they get so much funding, both on the books and off the books, that they find places to spend money. They've done wild things with it. that we know of men who stare at goats you know like you've heard about all this yes my favorite my favorite like whatever conspiracy theory is how the large hadron collider uh is being used to communicate to people from other or beings yeah from other dimensions it's basically a stargate yeah and then we're we're we're giving you know getting information from them and all that stuff so well there's another okay i really got into like if you guys ever watch the show the y files No.

49:42Oh, it's great. But the guy really breaks down, like, information, factional information. Then he has, like, a part at the end where he's, like, he debunks it all or he's, like, there's some truth to this part of it, you know. And so he's at least somewhat measured with it all. But, like, he was talking about these Sumerian – they're, like – I don't know how they make cuneiform where they're, like, these – it's etched into these rollers. Okay. And you can, like, roll it on clay. Oh, so it writes out. It writes out the – and so apparently there was a bunch of these different ones scattered throughout Sumeria or Iraq or wherever that is.

50:22And then apparently like there's this whole like conspiracy where us getting into Iraq was actually to try to acquire these because they told the technical means to create some of those like Stargates. like open up sickles cage movie. I know. That's what I thought. I was like, dude, this is totally like one of those sci-fi natural treasure. I was hooked. I'm like, dude, this is my kind of shit right here. That's awesome. Yeah. I love that. I mean, how much is it? Like it's, uh, I always trip out on like, cause we, we get excited. I mean, shoot, we have, we have an ad today with Juve and I trip out on the science of that.

51:04It's just like, it sounds like magic. Yeah. It's like, but it's from like the forties. You know what I'm saying? That's all verified. Yeah. You shine a red light on you and you get those health benefits. Yeah, well, it's radiation. It's red light radiation. It actually works. And the data on it's been like decades. Exactly. My point at attaching it to your conspiracy theory conversation here is just like, we're like, the science that gets trickled to us that we get all excited about today is like, that was so long ago. And it's like, what's cutting edge right now that you have no idea is cutting edge because you don't get to know what it is.

51:35I mean, it won't even get released to you for like, isn't there? How long is it going to take until it's proven? And, you know, like, because, you know, sometimes, like, you know that there's some bits of truth in it. But, like, how long, you know, how many years are we going to be able to, like, come into that technology? Well, the Blackbird, was it the SS? Yes, it was, like, 50 years earlier. It was invented in, like, 71. And I think we found out, like, way later. Yeah. Maybe even before. It was, like, the fastest. I think it's still considered the fastest that we know of. The fastest plane.

52:04The stealth bomber. It's just funny. For me, it's people that just discard stuff right away. like oh you're fucking stupid and that's not like there's nothing like oh really yeah because most things like the the people have told me that were stupid and like totally irrelevant are like completely true now well i'd be i'd be interested if there's somewhere you can find doug like what the estimation is on how far we are behind the the general population on what we have the capabilities of science-wise you know i think they only release things when they feel like they have to uh or when they have the next technology or there's a lot of money to be made yeah like like you know the stealth bomber that we use always a hustle we used in iraq the first time yeah i mean we've had that for a while uh and i feel like that they used iraq like let's just show everybody because we have already something else that's way way more advanced so we'll use this now but but i mean to kind of tie back in some of the iraq stuff like they actually like went through these sumerian museums and there was an organized effort of theft and they're like this wasn't just random people stealing stuff like it was organized meaning it was probably like some kind of military involvement do you know who was super into this weird stuff was the the nazis yeah they invest a lot of time and money in the occult perfect example yes oh yeah that's why it's funny because you think indiana jones and all this is a great story like there's a lot of truth like they were going after the occult like all these different ways to get the spirit destiny They were trying to find all that stuff.

53:39Speaking of Juve, just for people, so red light therapy definitely works. You probably already know what it is. Juve is the red lights that they use in studies. There's a lot of crappy ones out there, but they're more expensive because they're legit. Their Black Friday is going on right now. What are they doing? Huge discounts. Really? Huge discounts. They never do, so that's - Yes. In fact, Doug, I think, told me one of their big units was, what did it say there? So you get up to$1 ,000 off. Oh, wow. And they also have payment plans. 0 % financing. Oh, wow. Available. That's great. So for as little as$38 a month, you can have one.

54:13Oh, that's cool. This is like, listen, if you've read the studies on red light therapy, and there's tons, helps with your skin, helps with recovery, raises testosterone, regrows hair. This is all legitimate. Just look it up yourself. But Juve is expensive because, again, it's the real deal. This is the time to get it. They only do this once a year. And the discounts are massive. By the way, I want to bring up that we have some giveaways going on for Black Friday. I just want to mention in particular about the Mind Pump Park City House. It has juves there, by the way. But we're also giving away two one-week stays at the Park City House for the Black Friday.

54:54That's right. That's right. So 60 % off every MAPS program, every program bundle, and every purchase gets you entries. Also, this is the time of year. when that house gets filled up fast. So besides the chance to win, if you're somebody who's looking to go out there, go skiing in Park City or spend the winter out there, winter is the time when everybody wants to get up there and you go to, what is it? MindPumpRentals.com? Yes, correct. Yep, yeah. Paleo Valley meat sticks are delicious. High in protein, on the go. Snacks, they're clean. They're amazing. They're not dry. They're the best. Go check them out.

55:30And right now they're having to buy one, get one free on some of their best sellers, including the beef sticks, bone broth, the Oregon complex, and their super food bars. Go to paleovalley.com forward slash mind pump. That link will get you a discount. Back to the show. Our first caller is Don from Washington. Hi, Don. How you doing, Don? Good. So good now. How can we help you? So I wrote the email a couple of months ago, a little few things have changed and it's a novel. So I know you guys have access to my novel. So I cut it down for you. And I got to put on my reader. Sorry, that's part of being 54.

56:09Hi, Sel, Adam, Justin and Doug. I originally wrote you a novel about two months ago and I know you have access to it. So I will cut it down today. I found you guys about three months ago now. And I think it was meant to be because you are exactly what I have been looking for. and I have binged all the episodes all the way back to May. I am almost 54 years old, wife of 29 years and proud mother of a 19-year-old son. A little history on my physical journey. I was not allowed to play sports as a youth, but desperately wanted to because I was naturally athletically gifted. So once I left home, I got heavy into fitness all through my 20s, receiving double certifications in personal training and aerobics instruction.

56:51Keep in mind, This is in the 90s when aerobics was a thing. Working at Gold's Gym, the Alaska Club, Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, and basically became a gym rat. I competed in fitness competitions, was a bikini model. During this time, I met the man of my dreams, and over the next 20 years, we became fat and happy together. I didn't care if I ever stepped foot in a gym because I had burnt myself out. In 2006, we had our amazing son. And as we all know, that becomes priority number one. And my health got shoved on the back burner. I tried every fad diet known to man to try to get the extra weight off without doing what I knew in my head I needed to do.

57:35When my son went to middle school, I found myself with a bit more time on my hands for various reasons. And this is when I found my CrossFit family. I know what you're going to say. And for the most part, I agree, because over the course of the six years I have been doing it, I have torn a bicep, wrecked my knee and partially torn my supraspinatus. I've become the queen of scaling at the box. And now I've cut my workouts from five to six days a week to three to four times a week and recently added in two days of Pilates a week. Unfortunately, three weeks ago, I fell down the stairs and re-injured my shoulder and bicep, but I'm getting shockwave therapy and working my way back.

58:18When our son went to college, my husband and I decided to invest in our health and both got on terzepatide, which has been a godsend for both of us. I'm down 27 pounds, and after my latest DEXA scan just about two weeks ago, I'm down almost 4 % body fat as well, but still have a ways to go since I'm sitting at 27%. I'm 5 '2", 135 pounds. And with all that, can I gain muscle with one of your programs and still continue to do CrossFit? Because honestly, I cannot give that up entirely. They are my family, and I just love them too much. Okay. All right, Dawn. So a lot here. Yeah. There's a lot. So, okay, what's the point?

59:00Are we still, wait, are you still on the GLP-1? Yes. I came off it for a month in hopes that I could kind of do it, but the cravings just came right back and I'm not at the end of my journey. So I got back on it after a month off. So we want to do GLP one. We want to do CrossFit and we want to do one of the mass programs. And I mean, the short answer is no, but. Not what you want to hear. Let's, let's look at, let's look at priorities, like most important things for you. Okay. So what do you want out of this most importantly? Well, to be honest with you, because of all that I went through in like that 20 year time span, when I found CrossFit, it was the only thing since when I was personal training people was the only thing that like I craved and I wanted to go to the gym and I couldn't stay away from the gym.

59:51So that's what I want. I want to maintain my consistency, but I really, really truly believe in the power of muscle and longevity and I want to be a strong grandma someday. So I would really like to put on muscle. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to create a little, let's, let's, I'm going to backtrack a little bit and just kind of paint a picture. And then I'll ask you that question again. Okay. So I crave it. I can't stop it. I've had three injuries since I started doing it. And I've had issues with exercise in the past that have burnt me out to the point where I stopped completely let myself gain a bunch of weight uh let me ask you that question again what is the what is the top priority for you don longevity you can't you got to stop yep it's not the path it's not the path you got to stop if that's true because your actions right now are not saying that what your actions are saying is that you value the addiction and it is an addiction well you're what you described is what you described was you've connected crossfit the same way that to your old patterns what do you mean by that well you were there was a time in your life when you were a bikini model you were training you were a savage in the gym and you probably and there's a part of you that missed that but you burnt and you knew that burnt you out and you found there's something in crossfit that gives you a taste of that same feeling yeah and that feeling is what led you to burning out and that and and we're at that path again and this is difficult when people attach that to like, man, this feels so good when you do it.

1:01:27It's like, there's such a better path for you that is way less resistance, way less difficult, and it's sustainable for the rest of your life. But it's not through reducing your calories as low as they probably are right now, training in a CrossFit mentality, and then slapping maps on top of that, that will just gets you quicker to that burnout or injury going that pathway. So, so look at, so think of it this way. Okay. There's a relationship with this that is very similar to what someone may have with an addictive substance. Okay. I, you know, and I'm going, this is obviously a little extreme, but you know, I love alcohol.

1:02:05I love the way it makes me feel. I enjoy it. I had a DUI. My wife kicked me out of the house and my liver enzymes are through the roof that happened over the last six years, but I don't want to stop it. I love it. My best friends drink. We hang out together. We have so much fun. So you can kind of hear what that sounds like when you come off of a substance or when you break free or you try to break free from that relationship. What do people always experience? Withdrawal Withdrawal. So this is going to suck. If you really want longevity, Don, there's going to be a period of you're not going to like it.

1:02:40You're not going to like it. There's going to be a withdrawal. There's something there that you crave that you're going to get withdrawal from when you stop. But if you want longevity, you have to do it. Because I'm going to tell you right now, if you don't stop, the injuries and the challenges are going to get worse. Oh, your body will stop you. It's going to get worse. Whether it stops you now, a year from now, two years from now. And just so you know, this kind of training, and I'll just generally say overtraining, okay? Overtraining, beating yourself up, has a very high mortality rate. It's not great.

1:03:16When they analyze the hearts of extreme athletes, they look like somebody who doesn't work out and doesn't eat right. And it's because the stress is involved, the constant stress that they're doing to themselves. So there's going to be a withdrawal here that's going to happen from breaking up with this addiction. I don't even know, honestly, if it's the addiction to the exercise, because the amount that I scale now is like, it's pathetic. It puts me in like the novice beginner category. I think I'm more addicted to the people than I am the actual exercise. I just want to see the people. So I'm wondering if, like, could I ask the owner if I can just go to the gym while they're doing their workout and do my lifting instead of doing the wad?

1:04:02Well, here's why I don't believe you. I believe you believe yourself. I'm going to go to the bar and go hang out with the friends, but I'm not going to have the beer. I mean, if we're going to continue with Sal's analogy. Don, the scaling back. Are they going to want to pull you in while you're there? And it wouldn't have resulted in three injuries the last six years. Yeah. So however much you think you're scaling back, it's inappropriate. What you're doing is inappropriate. You wouldn't have had three injuries. Do you know how many injuries you should have over the last six years with appropriate exercise?

1:04:36None. Zero. Yeah, zero. Yeah, zero. One is a lot. And one would be like a freak accident. Yeah. So, and I know what's happening right now because I do this to myself. I'm like, oh, well, actually, this is the thing that I want. and this is what I like. And so you're going to have to break up with it and go in a completely different direction. It's going to be really hard on your own. I would say this. I think your fail rate would be high with trying to break up with it unless you work with a coach. I think working with a coach who can kind of walk you through, because it's going to suck. That's the only path.

1:05:10It's going to suck for a few months. I mean, I'm just going to be straight up. For a few months, you're going to be like, this sucks. Like, I feel like I'm barely doing anything. but then once your body starts to feel better once you start to see oh my god it looks like things are working the other side of this is amazing yeah then you'll get peace you'll have joyful peace with exercise the other side of this is double maybe triple depending on where your calories are at less volume and training and intensity more muscle on your body energy more metabolic flexibility better libido better i mean there's so much on the other side once you get there but it is going to be rough for a couple months where are you would you be open to working with a coach oh yeah 100 i i will need something because i can't do it on my own that i think like i said that was my encouragement with the box was the people and the community and the atmosphere and the encouragement john i have i have high hopes now i heard you say something that is very powerful whenever i've worked with someone or trained somebody uh and trainers know this when you when they say I can't do this on my own someone in your position that's like the big that's the big first step the rest now is like you put it on your coach I think we're going to be okay I'll have somebody call you we'll take care of you I'm gonna have someone call you Dawn thank you thank you guys you're gonna love it listen I want you back on in three months okay so we'll get it we'll check back in with you and I think this will be a very different conversation.

1:06:37I'm very hopeful, but I'm very nervous and very scared. Of course you are. That's right. We got you. Completely new protocol for you. The fact that you're open to that and you're willing that you're going to be fine. You're going to be okay. That's our job now. Yeah. You're lovely. This will be, you put it on us. We got you. Yeah. Will do. Thank you guys so, so much. I can't even tell you this is, this has been a real difficult place to come to, but it's when you wake up every morning, so sore, you can barely get yourself down the stairs. it's like, okay, something has got to give here. Well, Don, I'm excited for you.

1:07:09I'm excited to talk on here again in three months because it's going to be a different tune. That's right. Awesome. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. So this is just for the trainers that might be watching right now and even people who might identify with Don. So what you just saw, there were a couple things there that you saw that, you know, just we've trained a lot of people, so we could kind of see this oftentimes. times, but you might do this yourself. Or if you're a trainer, you'll see this in a client. Now it's not bad. It's actually great to validate how someone feels, but sometimes you got to call them out.

1:07:42And so she literally sandwiched a statement with two contradictory statements. I've had three injuries and then, well, it's really, I've scaled the intensity down so much. I'm barely doing anything. It feels great. And then I called her out and said, I don't believe you. And then how did she, and how did she close that conversation? Yeah. Something's got to change. I can't be this sore walking down obviously yeah uh that second time when she said i scaled it back she was uh she was lying but more importantly she was lying to herself and this is where it gets very difficult we didn't even get into a different narrative in her head you know we didn't even get into how obvious this is verse two because the fact that she's on a glp one also tells me she's probably really low calorie and somebody doing four days a week yeah yeah that's already way too over Over training, yeah, on top of being under calories.

1:08:28That's right. Oh, I mean, anybody who's ever looked at, we wrote a program for people on GLP-1s, and if you saw the recommendation for exercise and movement, it is very minimal. Minimal. And somebody who is eating that low a calorie, your goal is to just try and save as much muscle. You are not in build muscle mode. You cannot build muscle on 1 ,000 or 1 ,200 calories a day, especially with that much activity like CrossFit. So it was only a matter of time that she was going, her body was going to give. So I'm glad we caught her and I'm glad she's open. The fact, cause that's that, to me, that was everything.

1:09:05It's like, when I asked that question and they go like, Oh, I don't know, maybe or this or that, then you're like, ah, this ain't going to happen. But she was very open to it. So our next caller is Joe from Illinois. Joe, what's up, Joe? How you doing, Joe? Hey guys, how's it going? Good. How can we help you? Good. So I'm 20 years old. I'll just read straight from my email here. um i'm about six foot four 185 pounds i'm sitting around seven to eight percent body fat um currently i'm working at a factory from 3 30 p.m to 2 a.m monday through thursday and i'm also a new personal training um i'm a brand new trainer and i've been with clients for about three months now.

1:09:47That's usually from 9.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. So during the week, I'm only getting about five to six hours of sleep. I still make time to train myself from 2 to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday. I'm currently running a split of chest and back, shoulders and arms, legs, and then a core and recovery day. My main focus right now is building muscle, getting up over 200 pounds and breaking through some plateaus like bench um so my main question is with this kind of schedule and workload what can i do to keep making progress gain size and strength but also stay mentally balanced and avoid burnout for myself relationships and my clients drop the two days a week full body routine instead yeah you're doing you don't need you don't need to do that much with everything you got going on.

1:10:41Joe, let's back up for a second. You're 20, yeah? Yeah. Why are you working so much? What's the goal here? What are you doing? I literally just moved out with my girlfriend this past weekend and then I also have a car payment and I just got bills to pay. So you need to work that much to cover all your bills? Yeah, right now, yeah. Alright. right so so because typically i'd tell somebody back off but you're 20 uh so you kind of get away with going a little nuts um i i hope you're trying to save your money because you can't live like this forever yeah okay all right good you plan on marrying this girl yeah definitely we've been together for about four years now good for you all right so here so here's the deal bro you got to work out way less because you're getting such so little sleep yeah it's just not gonna work dude I mean, I like Adam's suggestion.

1:11:35The other way would be MAPS 15 and eat more food. Do you ever have a time to sleep in or take naps? Well, weekends, yeah. Sometimes I have like my two-hour breaks in between clients and work, and I'll take naps. Take naps when you can and sleep in on the weekend when you can. MAPS 15 is your program, and you'll get stronger. You'll get stronger following that and bump your calories. Are you hitting your protein? yeah i'm around like 180 right now good yeah yeah no yeah i mean mass 15 is going to be a workout you go any harder than that any more than that and you're just going to stay where you're at you're not going to get it okay it really would depend for me on what's easier for you is is it easier for you to get in the gym six days a week for just 15 20 minutes or is it easier just to do one or two days full body full body so yeah i mean yeah i could do like 15 20 minutes here and there like before and after clients and oh because yeah yeah so so why don't we send you mass 15 and and just do it like that just so you know that what's cool about the way we designed that though is you could pair days together so if there's certain days when you got longer periods of time you could take you know but that that amount of volume is what's more appropriate for where you're at right now more lifting a harder program more days or body part splits is not going to build you more muscle right now.

1:12:57Reducing the volume with everything else you're going and eating more calories is what will do it. So are you trying to switch over to full-time personal training? Is that the direction you want to go? Yeah, that's cool. Oh, I see. Good for you, dude. Good for you. Are you at a big box gym? Yeah, I'm at Anytime Fitness. Okay. All right. How long have you been there? It's about three months now. Oh, good man. All right. So if you got, Save up enough money to give yourself some runway. So you mind if I give you some business advice, life advice? Yes, for sure. Go ahead. Save up some money from the factory work.

1:13:31I'm assuming that's your main paycheck right now. So you give yourself some runway. You give yourself maybe three months of runway. When you're there, go all in with personal training. Go all in with personal training. And a company like Anytime, you should be able to build up a book pretty quickly, especially if you apply yourself. You work on sales skills. you work on all that stuff and then you can move up the ladder i know the the fitness managers you could do well general manager you could do well or you could do another anytime i believe so anytime is the small the small the small check-in do they have do you have a fitness manager no i just i have my manager there yeah yeah well and my point is there's there may be opportunities to move up or go in another big box yeah where are you at where you live tell me where you live where you at rockford uh rockford california illinois illinois okay so is that the big is that the biggest uh gym out there no there's like crunches and okay yeah see crunch fitness would be a faster path of like i mean that's what i would do i would i would do what sal said save your money and then because you've already got some experience at any time apply at a place like crunch where you're going to get a bigger schedule and probably more consistent pay as a trainer and then you could really scale up give yourself three months we know people at crunch so yeah that's that's that's the place to go are you in our course that's mastroff's place you know that right no i'm not no yeah dude you got to check out our course dude are you watching are you are you watching the youtube video with the the for trainers yeah i'm in uh i when i'm like not listening to your guys's main i'm listening to kyle's okay good good good okay good bro okay good you're good dude yeah good yeah you're if you really apply yourself i mean you you just build your career in fitness but it'll be hard to do while working at the factory at the same time so That's why I'm saying give yourself some runway, cut it off, and then go all in for three months, and that'll give you enough time to – Somebody with your work ethic, though, when you make that switch, you'll be fine.

1:15:24That's right. Because you just apply that work ethic to inside the gym, even when you're not getting paid, to try and find clients and meet people. Yep. And you'll be all right. And in the meantime, we'll send you Mass 15 so you've got that kind of a workout plan. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, guys. And then stay in touch. Also, I don't know if you're in the – we have a personal trainer forum on Facebook, so if you're not in there, get inside that too. Yeah, I'll join that too. Okay, cool. All right, dude. All right, Joe. We'll be in touch, man. Good luck after it, man. Thanks. Young kid getting after it.

1:15:53Yeah, yeah. I had to ask him why he was working so much because I figured it was something like that, right? But, you know, this is the age when you stretch yourself. Yeah, you grind at this age. Yeah, you stretch yourself. You can handle it. Yeah, and he can get away with it more than I would be able to. If I did that now, I'd die. But in my 20s. I mean, his workouts are just for maintenance. Yeah, that's it. Well, I mean, to me, that's the biggest point to be made right here is that, you know, and this is the mistake that I made at that age. I absolutely worked like that, but I still thought I needed to be lifting.

1:16:22Yeah, exactly. Still trying to get jacked. Yeah. I'm still killing the gym. You know what I'm saying? Like still. Not wondering why. Yeah. Yeah. Wondering why I'm making a hard plateau forever. I wish someone spit game at me and been like, hey, dude, scale all the way back to one day or two days and watch what happens. I'm like, what? No way. That's good. I know. So that's what he needs to do. Our next caller is Kevin from Pennsylvania. What's up, Kevin? Kevin! How you doing, Kevin? What's going on, guys? How we doing? We're doing good, man. How can we help you? Thanks. Super cool to be here. I'm just going to go ahead and read my question off.

1:16:53So, some background personal information from me. I was a personal trainer for just shy of 10 years, starting around 18 and making a career pivot at 27 at the height of COVID. Over those 10 years, I lived in the gym, had no problem getting in four to five days of strength training and mobility work. I was able to maintain a healthy relationship with my now wife while also taking care of myself and my personal responsibilities with relative ease. During this time period, I would typically stay around 210, 220 pounds, which was a weight I felt very good at. For reference, I'm 5 '10". I would say I had a very good amount of muscle built from all the years I had spent lifting weights since starting around age 13.

1:17:35When COVID hit, my gym closed, and I lost my part-time job as a bartender and needed to make a pivot. After a few odd jobs, I finally transitioned into medical sales, and I absolutely love it. It's been a huge boost in my financial and personal relationship health, as I don't work 60-plus hours a week anymore, and I make a healthy salary. The downside is I no longer live in the gym and maintaining the level of fitness I once did in the way that I did it is really no longer possible. My wife and I have been blessed with twins who just turned one in August. And that, of course, just adds to the challenge.

1:18:11Since their birth, I've gained about 20 pounds and sit around 240 pounds. And I can't seem to shake it. I finally feel like I've started to gain some semblance of consistency back in the gym again. now that the twins sleep until about 8 a.m. and I can get up before everyone else and get a workout in. However, I'm now 33 and I just can't seem to get past the mentality of 23-year-old Kevin who doesn't want to make an excuse for getting in the gym less than four times per week and should be eating very clean most of the time. My new reality is that I simply don't have the time to track macros, get in the gym four times a week, get enough sleep, or just generally put myself before my family as I once did.

1:18:53All that being said, my question is simple. What should someone like me who used to do it all be prioritizing to be the healthiest version of myself while hopefully shedding some of the body weight I put on since becoming a father? And some additional info to give you guys some more context. Like I said, I'm in medical sales, so I sit in the car for six to eight hours a day. I don't get a lot of non-exercise movement. All my appointments revolve around breakfast, lunch, and coffee. I generally make really smart decisions, but it's still eating out for two or more meals a day. And that makes tracking next to impossible.

1:19:31I've been running MAPS Aesthetic for the last six weeks with great results. But the early wake-ups and the long workouts are really getting to me later in the day. I'm usually toast by like 2 or 3 p.m. And this ultimately cuts into time with my wife at night as I'm generally exhausted by 9 or 9.30. and that needs to change. So, you know, we plan on having more kids soon. So I don't anticipate getting any of that time back. Just trying to optimize for the long term. Sincerely, thank you guys for all you do. Truly makes a difference in so many people's lives. Yeah, dude. Well, I mean, you're still doing it all.

1:20:04You're still doing it all, brother. You just have kids and a wife and you're supporting everybody. So you're still doing it all. I think the challenge is, you know, the lie that you believe, which is it has to be a particular way. and you actually get better results being consistent doing it a more appropriate applying things a more appropriate way so we'll start with diet uh and i'm glad you added that last part so a lot of your sales happen around a meal yes pretty much all right so it's not like you can meal prep and then you're going to bring out your tupperware while the guy or girl eats across from you so yeah the doctors sometimes they they like to eat with you right you know it's kind of like it's like a family thing they like to have that relationship so i don't ever like to i tried the meal prepping thing for a little bit like you said it's just kind of not sustainable it comes off as a little um you know not so humble when you're yeah no no i totally get it i totally get it so so what i would do when you eat out uh choose a protein and eat low carb it's one of the easiest non-trackable ways to manage your calories so whenever you're eating out big piece of meat yeah meat and vegetables no carbs or oh you know burger with no bun uh and you know and and some pickles or something or whatever.

1:21:14So it's always protein and vegetables and eat low carb. It's just a very easy way to track calories or I should say maintain calories appropriate and eat protein. Also, since we're on the diet, because I did have some thoughts around this, it reminds me of the transition I went through myself personally from being the bodybuilder guy to the guy who sits on a podcast and doesn't do any of that stuff anymore. And it took me a couple of years. I shared, I don't know how long you've been listening, but I shared this on this podcast when I went through this transition of I'm no longer that guy. And so the way every meal I looked at, I had to look at differently.

1:21:50Because what I had to fuel to be this 235-pound jacked dude that was training clients and lifting hour and a half every day, I had to eat double. And so I really had to retrain myself. And I don't know if you have consistent places you eat or consistent meals, that I had trained my brain of like, that's what I order from there. That's what even though it's kind of a healthy thing or semi healthy, the portion sizes were just what I used to eat. And I hadn't I hadn't transitioned to like, well, what if I ate just half of that? And it's like I was fine. I was satisfied with it, but I had literally trained myself to eat the same way.

1:22:28And so I don't know if you experienced that at all. But like I had to just like my Chipotle meal is different. My five guys meal is different. Like all these meals that I ate 10 years ago, I could still eat them. I just had to portion control in a different way than what I used to. And it took me a minute to get used to that. But generally speaking, low carb is the way to go when you eat out without tracking. You aim for the protein, eat low carbs or no carbs. You know, if they have a vegetable side or whatever, go with that. And you're typically okay, typically. Okay. And then when it comes to the workout, a couple options.

1:23:03First off, you don't need four days a week, five days a week in the gym. You know, two full body workouts a day will give you a significant amount of results. Or you could try like a MAPS 15 protocol where you do two lifts a day. So which one works better? Like, because the two lifts a day tends to feel more consistent. It's short. It's like 20 minutes. I'm done. But that might be, I don't know if that's more or less convenient for somebody like you. Or would you prefer like two workouts a week? You know, I think I would prefer the consistency of it. because I'm pretty blessed that my gym is a mile from my house.

1:23:38So it takes me about 15 minutes to roll out of bed, get pre-workout, and I'm in the gym in under 15 minutes. So doing it every day is not necessarily a problem. I guess my skepticism and probably the mindset shift that I need to make is that I've just done so much volume for so long. And I've got, like I said, I've been running Aesthetic for six weeks and I've gotten great results. I know I've built muscle. I know I've burnt a little body fat, but like it's just unsustainable in my lifestyle so i guess i would kind of need to be sold on the idea of like you know like how does the volume go with that here's what will be so much better for you stick out do this do the math 15 and then with that extra time that you would normally be lifting more weights get on the treadmill because you don't have you don't move a lot throughout the day just you're not you're not that use that time to get your steps in and your activity and that's that's how you cut the time like i don't have a lot of time so i do less or none yeah but It's two lifts a day.

1:24:32By the way, I'm not going to sell it to you, Kevin. It'll sell itself. Yeah. Do it for three weeks. Just try three weeks. You'll get stronger the whole time. Yeah, for sure. It'll sell you. Okay, got it. And when you have days, like let's say, because it sounds like you get there in the morning, and if you have a whole hour, then get on the treadmill and walk right afterwards. Throw it on an incline. Nice little power walk after your lift. Days that you don't have that time, just do your two lifts and get out. So that's what your gym routine should look like. And then follow Sal's advice with food.

1:24:59I give it three weeks. It'll blow your mind. If you just stick to that and trust the process. Okay. I understood. It does make sense too, because, and like you said, the, the non-exercise stuff, the movement, I've really been thinking that's kind of where I've been lacking. And like, you know, we take the dogs for a walk here and there, but it's not every day. And I just generally, like I sit so much now. And I think that was the thing that really, I think I need to kind of just work on that. And that makes a lot of sense where, okay, I'm still getting in my movements. I'm still getting in a workout every day, but I can hop on the treadmill and get in a couple thousand steps to really kind of get that low effort.

1:25:34Have you ever wore an aura ring or a Fitbit or used any of those tools before? I have not. I've been really looking into it just to really track my sleep. Get an aura ring. Get an aura ring. Simple. They're easy. I mean, I use that, and I love it for sleep and steps. Those are the two things I use it for. It does all kinds of other cool shit, but I don't care about all the other stuff. All I care about is keeping an eye on my regular daily activity because guys like us, okay, you and us who sit a lot throughout work, it days sneak up on us and I'm like, holy shit, I only did 3000 steps today. Then I have other days where I'm active.

1:26:07I'm doing things and I'm moving around. I get 10 ,000, but that fluctuation is a huge difference. And just being mindful and aware of those days. You're so low of like, oh, that's a day I got to definitely get some walks in, uh, really helps. And then also being mindful of your sleep. I think those two things, uh, I really use the ring for that. And if you don't have one, I think it's a worthwhile investment for where you're at in your journey right now. Okay. understood yeah the sleep has always been i've never been the greatest sleeper which is probably the reason why the early work morning workouts kind of get to me because if i'm running on five or six i'm just useless throughout the rest of the day like i really i need an eight plus to really kind of be at my best um so that would probably be great to just track that and see where i'm really at um and see if i can improve on that too take care of those little things yeah yeah that's a great great plan right here again try for three weeks you're gonna get stronger the whole time and then you'll be sold you'll see for yourself here's the realization you're gonna have kevin is you've done too much and you're like man i don't need to do as much as i thought yeah i know i mean you guys probably know this too it's such a hard mindset to get out of when you're when you were doing it it's always what works and you want to stay with what works but i just know i'm at the point now where i'm like you know i got kids i'm gonna have more kids life's not slowing down anytime soon i gotta figure out how to do this better and more optimally Different season of your life.

1:27:24And here's the other thing too. You did so much training in your past. There's so much muscle memory there that that's going to really serve you. You don't need to do as much as you did to even get what you had in the past. You need to do less. Yeah. You did all the work. It's like, it's like investment. Like you've got more money in the account now to, and so you don't need so much to create as much through the interest. So muscle memory is very powerful. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. That kind of, that exact thing makes me think I need to be doing more, but in reality, I'm sure you're right that the investment is there.

1:27:55It did a lot of work in my early teens and 20s. Try it for three weeks. You'll see. Okay, I love that. I'm going to do that. Alright, Kevin. We'll see you. You guys are the best. Appreciate it. Take it easy, man. That was good. Yeah, that was good. That's a good one for people who worked out a lot in their youth. You build up that muscle memory, you just don't need a lot later. You hear me screaming that on the podcast right now. I think that's the coolest thing. I wish... You don't realize it until you do it. It is such a selling point. It's like, get it in right now. When you're in your 20s, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift.

1:28:26You build all that muscle. Get all the volume you want. Because life will change. Your priorities will switch. You'll have a family. You'll have kids. You'll have a wife. You'll be a provider. You'll do all these things. And the guy who lifted an hour and a half in the gym six, seven days a week just probably. Well, suddenly two, three workouts a week do it for you. Yeah. Our next caller is Jasmine from California. Hi, Jasmine. How you doing, Jasmine? Hi. good morning how can we help you um thank you for having me first of all um this is like a pinch me moment so i really appreciate it um i have been listening to you guys since august and it was off the episode with autumn smith i think that you guys had um my best friend sent it to me because she asked me about why i'm not eating red meat and stuff so i just started listening since then and you guys sound pretty legit and i just follow everything that you guys say i don't even listen to any of the podcasters or any other ones that um i used to so whatever you guys say i'm like okay cool gotta listen to that how can we help you thank you um okay i can start off just by uh reading my email okay so um i'm 31 i was born with hypothyroid um i've been overweight my whole life i just recently lost a lot of weight and neared my goal of 180 pounds um although it sounds like a lot I've been up to 270 pounds and my heaviest and it's been that I think 180 is a realistic goal for me um I started taking a GLP one just recently in the beginning of 2024 and I feel like it's helped me a lot and it started with the semaglutide and terzepatide is what I'm on right now so I went from 225 to 185 within a year and I felt great um I've been going to the gym since I was in 11th grade so I know a little bit about lifting and cardio and I did think that cardio was the answer but now that you guys say that it's lifting I'm like cool I like lifting it's the best um let me see so I had gotten off of the GLP one for a month or two and my goal was to stay off of it and keep my weight off and I feel that I gained gained a lot of my weight back because right now I'm at 205 and it's very disheartening because I'm doing a lot of the same things that I was doing while I was on it.

1:30:47So my question is, how can I get unstuck and keep the weight off because I'm still lifting a lot of weight? I feel like I'm lifting more weight now and I don't want to base my progress off of a scale, which I should know, but still it's very, um, it's just there. I see myself feeling good one day and I'm like, okay, do I want to risk ruining my day or not? And then I ruined my day. But, um, I also want to mention that I work 40 hours a week and two of those days are 16 hour days. So my sleep is terrible. And I know you guys have mentioned that sleep is a big aspect in this. So I don't know what to do.

1:31:33I want to, I want to be able to get the wheel rolling again, but if I can get it rolling with all of them rolling at once instead of one and then mess up one thing. And then I just, I don't know how to approach it at this point. Cause I feel like if I'm doing the same thing, then I don't know what I'm gonna do wrong. Yeah. Thank you so much for calling in and sharing all this. Uh, you're lovely by the way. Can I, can I ask you a direct question? Yeah. How do you feel you've done or how do you feel about yourself through this process? honestly i feel like i've done a great job because this is where i started yeah yeah all right so i got down to i'm not trying to get i'm okay with being thick my genes are just that's how it is and i'm okay with that and i feel good with being at a certain weight that i'm you know having the goal to attain but if i keep going up and down then i just beat myself up every day i feel like every day i wake up and go to sleep thinking about how do i look yeah how do i feel well i agree with you i think you're doing a great job you've killed it so far yeah thank you so but here's how did it feel during that those two months you were off the glp1 and you saw the scale go up how are you feeling terrible how are you feeling about yourself when that's not good Yeah.

1:32:53Not good. This is, it's hard. This is hard. So when you're going off the GLP-1, the signal that the GLP-1 is sending your body is not there anymore. And so it's very insidious. There's this insidious change in behaviors that creep up on you. And then we can beat ourselves up over it. But I want you to give yourself grace because this process is going to be full of stumbles. like this whole process the journey of health and fitness is a journey of you're doing well and then you stumble and you got to get back up and then you stumble and then you get back up and if you don't give yourself grace what'll creep in is shame and the shame is going to move you in the wrong direction and you'll start to view fitness as a way to punish yourself or diet as restrictive and then at some point you're gonna be like i hate i don't like to feel this way about myself I don't want to do this anymore I just want to enjoy my life and then you go in the opposite direction and then shame gets even worse and you just this you just do this back it's like a bumper play it's like the bumpers on the you know when you're when you're bowling you're bing bing bing bing but you're never kind of staying uh in the middle so you got to give yourself grace the whole time and so what'll help through this process is when you're feeling bad about yourself write down three things that are true that are good like man I came from here this time I only gained this much weight and now i'm catching myself and i'm lifting weights consistent those are all true things i got stronger too yeah i got stronger i want to shed some light on a little bit of this this weight gain too because this also is part of the mind fuck is when you came out the glp1 what ends up happening is we typically calories will naturally come up a little bit right for sure and you got stronger you probably some of that weight is muscle so it's not like you just put you went from, you know, doing all this, had GLP-1, then you get off GLP-1, and then all of a sudden you just put all body fat on.

1:34:47If you were still lifting and you feel stronger in the gym right now, you put some muscle on too, which is a good positive thing. Even if we did put on some extra body fat and you went a little further than you would have liked, there is a silver lining in that. I mean, metabolically, that's good for you. Building strength, that's good for you. Putting muscle on, that's good for you. And let's say when you come back down to that weight that you were at before, you'll look better you'll look better because you have built muscle on that frame now so it's not all bad so to sal's point of this is not a perfect linear journey of just all results all possible i mean all of us even as all the knowledge and experience we have our journey looks like that too so it's important that you you recognize that you there's some good that happened in that that weight gain too yeah so are you able are you using the kind of terzepatide that you're able to measure yourself in the syringe or is it pre-loaded doses they're loaded doses okay or my goal is to stay off of it because it's it's pretty expensive so i'm like okay i feel like this is when i was losing weight um and i've also listened to recently your guys's metabolic uh podcast where it where you guys said that if you eat 1300 calories and your body's used to it you're stuck with that your whole life and i don't want to be like that yeah no you're right because my caloric intake right now is 1890.

1:36:08Yeah, listen, you're on point. So, okay, and you're paying out of pocket for it, right? This isn't partially covered by insurance? Okay, if you're paying already out of pocket, you could go through our providers at mphormones.com and go with the compounded terzepatide because then what you could do is you could lower your dose. Yeah, you could slowly lower the dose. Less expensive. Yeah, so rather than going like preloaded and I can't cut the dose, it's like either on or off. What you can do is go on a protocol where it's like, I'm taking this much. Now I'm taking a little less. I'm taking a little less.

1:36:40So it's more of a scale down process versus just coming completely off. Uh, but of course you want to work with a doctor. So they're going to determine all that. So you go, you go there, you talk to them. I'm already on trizapatide. I'd like to switch to yours and here's my dose. And I would like to slowly wean myself down and then they'll, they'll work with you on that protocol. Uh, as far as your workouts, go ahead. is it possible that i would have seen better results off the semi-glutide than the terzepatide no no no that's not what's going on here yeah what you would have had a better success with is had you not cut cold turkey and you if you had the option to cut the dose in half yeah because then you wouldn't the calories wouldn't have bumped up as fast in a perfect world uh jasmine what it looks like a perfect world uh and again this has to be done with the doctor.

1:37:27I want to be clear. In a perfect world, you work with a fitness coach and you slowly scale down the GLP-1 and the coach helps you train and work through the behaviors that are going to help through that process. So here's what happens. You go on a GLP-1, cuts your appetite. And when you come off, the appetite comes back up. But what you want to do is you want to create new behaviors around that discomfort that comes from wanting to eat or being hungry. so and that's kind of a process it's not like just automatic so it's like wait well i used to reach for this you need a lot of when i was bored all right what am i gonna do now when i'm bored so you got to replace it with something else and i'm giving you like the real short version of it so it's a bit of a process that's in a perfect world but nonetheless i think it's it's just from the experience that we've heard from people who've done this it's typically easier and better to kind of slowly scale down uh follow your strength training are you following a maps program i'm not Okay.

1:38:23How many days a week are you in the gym? So I'm in the gym. I try to go for four because I have four days off. So I make myself go. I go for sure three days and I lift. And I listened to another one that said that walking is the answer for fat loss, right? Yes. So I'm like, okay, cool. Sometimes on my lazy days, I'll do like 30 minutes on the StairMaster. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to send you a program so you can follow Maps Anabolic. Okay. Do the three day a week version on it. Okay. Okay. So that's your workout. So we got that under control. Diet wise, hit, hit your, hit a, hit a target protein.

1:39:02I'm going to give you, how tall are you? Five, three, five, three, five, three. Okay. So I'll say a hundred, but yeah, about a hundred, let's go 130 to 150 grams of protein a day. So let's go 150. Eat that first. Yes. No matter what, I'm going to eat that first. Okay. Every meal. try to stay away from okay so first protein then potatoes or whatever yes i don't care what else yep but 150 grams of protein like breakfast lunch in there that's 50 grams in a meal it's a big serving yeah so eat that even if you're like oh man i don't want to eat any more of this meat i'd rather have some of this whatever no i gotta eat this first that's the only rule eat that first is it fine if it's not like meat like because i'll try and do a protein smoothie in the morning which consists of like the greek yogurt that has 30 grams yeah that's fine yeah that's fine yeah That's fine.

1:39:48But if your issue, if you have a challenge with appetite, food is better at producing satiety than smoothies. Okay. So if you're like, man. And then. Go ahead. Sorry, one more thing. So there's often days where I struggle to hit the goal for anything because I feel like I get really bloated. So I also just listen to. That's just what you're eating. That's what you're eating. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because you mentioned SIBO and SIFO. And I'm like, what if I have that? I mean, you might. So GLP one, slow down gastric emptying. So it could probably make more of that happen. But if I think I would avoid avoid things, gluten, I would start there.

1:40:27Avoid gluten, breads, pastas, processed foods. And that oftentimes makes a difference. Step number two, add some well cooked greens, like really, really well cooked spinach, broccoli. You know, I mean, like make it mushy, because that's what makes it easy to digest. berries for fiber that typically handles it then the next thing I'd cut out is dairy then the next thing would be like eggs if you want to go down the list white rice, sweet potato, quinoa fruit, those are your main sources of carbohydrates, stick to those that will more than likely be easy for you to digest and you won't feel bloated from that eat the protein first like Sal was saying so whatever the meat is, yes a shake is fine always shoot for whole foods but you're always better off getting the protein intake and if that means you got to do it through a shake that's better than not doing it.

1:41:12Yep. I just don't use protein powder. That's okay. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. So the protein would come off of the yogurt. That's fine. That's better. It's just when something's blended and you drink it, it produces less satiety than when you chew and eat something. Okay. That's all. But otherwise it's fine. Yeah. Yep. So is 1890 like a good goal? That's fine. I honestly don't care about your calories right now. I'd rather you hit 150 grams of protein, come hell or high water every day day in and day out eat it first okay lift that program that we're going to send over to you and the only other any bit of activity is walking and do that and anytime you want and then see if you can switch to a being able to scale down the terzepatide if your goal is to come off i think it's a much and we don't have a lot of data yet around this but just from the doctors that we know that work with patients they're like oh yeah when people come off this strategy works a lot better and then what it looks like sometimes is they scale down and oh i gotta bump up again a little bit and then i scaled down oh i gotta bump and it's this nice process rather than like boom i'm off and then suddenly you know it's like oh all the appetite's back yeah then you swing the other way okay do you guys uh believe that the in body is not accurate but like it's a it's a decent it's a decent gauge so let's say you decide that you have access to that on a regular basis i might have you do that um one friday every month and at the same time of the day so like first thing in the morning before you eat before you drink before you do anything on friday and you do that once a month and that just kind of just something we can check in to see are we building muscle are we losing body fat to kind of help with the gauge but even that i i wouldn't overthink i care more about the all the rules that sal gave you yeah if you consistently hit that protein intake you eat the protein first then you follow with the carbohydrates that we talked about don't even worry about calories literally follow what we're saying there sleep hit that program hit the program that we're talking about if you do any other activity it's walking we're going to be fine we're going to be good lastly jasmine i'm going to give you the secret to all of this you ready okay let me i'm going to ask you a question first okay how are you feeling right now uh physically energy now that you've lost some more you've lost that weight you're exercising, you're trying to watch her.

1:43:30How do you feel? I feel good. I feel really good. I hated that when I was at that weight, I would, I used to do loss prevention and I would walk around the store one time and my back would hurt. So I hated that. Now I feel good. I can, I could run if I wanted to, I would, I'm glad that you guys said walking is the answer. Um, but I feel great. It's just, I feel, I do feel a little bit of like, ah, how the clothes is fitting a little bit tight, but. Jasmine, if you focus on how you feel, energy, the joy, the enjoyment of the workout. Strength. The strength. Like, oh man, I had a great, I feel good.

1:44:07I got energy. I got my libido's good. I feel like I don't have pain. If you keep focusing on that direction, then everything else will start to weave itself and organize itself underneath that. If the focus is my clothes and the scale, then it's going to go haywire. So if you just keep thinking of like, okay, oh man I'm not feeling so good all right what's going on like okay here's what's happening you just keep focusing on feeling that energy feeling good enjoying the workouts like that will direct you uh far better than anything else get strong lift heavy weights think about that that's why you're while you're lifting it's about is this five more pounds than what I did the you know the previous month like that's that's what you're thinking about okay all right sounds good all right we'll do you got it thanks for calling in okay thank you so much for having me you got it you guys have a sweetheart yeah yeah total sweetheart i mean yeah the thing with the preloaded uh and i think the farm industry is going to change this it's like i hope so yeah it's um i mean maybe they won't huh it's not in their interest because if you if we don't get a hold of her she thinks she has to go back to that so it's in their best interest and they just stay on it yeah you know forever yeah yeah yeah but i mean she's she's doing great, dude.

1:45:19No, she's doing incredible. She's doing really great. Considering her history and all that stuff. I mean, she's doing really, really good. And I wouldn't be surprised. You know, she said she got stronger when she came off the GLP-1. Of course. I would not be surprised if... I bet she was eating way too little. Yeah. I bet she was low calories. She had some muscle. Yeah, fueled it with calories. So even the weight that she put back on, I bet a lot of it wasn't as bad as she did. And I just want to encourage people. She needs somebody in her ear. And I just want to encourage people. I mean, this is impossible for everybody, but if you're going to go on a GLP-1, hire a coach at the same time.

1:45:50The odds of long-term success skyrocketing, at least if you do both of those. And also hiring that coach, ask them, do you have you or do you work with people? Of course. Of course. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you. It's at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

1:46:34With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.

From the publisher

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom.

Mind Pump Fit Tip: DON'T listen to your body! Do this first. (2:47)
'Tis the season for the 'Christmas Blend.' (21:03)
The changing of the guard for "celebrity." (24:28)
Shout out to Brandon Lake! (40:18)
Listening to music is so beneficial for us. (44:11)
Backwards speak and going down the 3rd rail. (47:24)
Making quality red-light units affordable again. (53:39)
Black Friday giveaways! (54:35)
#ListenerCoaching call #1 – Can I do one of your programs to gain muscle and continue with CrossFit, even if I have to cut it back? (55:46)
#ListenerCoaching call #2 – Any advice on gaining muscle mass while managing severe overwork and burnout? (1:09:12)
#ListenerCoaching call #3 – Advice on prioritizing health while managing new family and career demands. (1:16:42)
#ListenerCoaching call #4 – How can I get unstuck and keep the weight off after coming off a GLP-1? (1:28:53)

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People Mentioned

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