2768: The Surprising Benefits of Gaining Body Fat

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2:27All right, everybody says lose body fat. Right? Body fat's bad for you. Got to get rid of it. But did you know that for some people, they need to gain body fat? In fact, there's benefits to gaining body fat for a lot of you fitness fanatics. There's a good percentage of you watching right now. We're going to talk about why some of you, this is exactly what you need to do. Get fatter. Get fatter. You know, obviously, we've talked not only on live callers. We all have experience with helping people with this. this has been confirmed by my experience many many times over but i'm actually not familiar with uh the research around it and do we have uh studies to show that the person who's trying to gain body fat or i mean excuse me gain a muscle from a certain body fat percentage versus another is there is there is a research to support what we're talking about not specifically um but what they do find is uh the the athletes or higher performers and strength tend to carry more body fat than what social media will have you believe is a good body fat percentage so like uh athletes who do really well and perform well right if you're an athlete you're not on stage posing you actually have to perform well and uh athletes that do really well generally male male athletes will fall around 15 % body fat, which is 5 % higher body fat percentage than the 10 % that social media will have you believe is a healthy body fat percentage.

4:01But I'll speak to some data though. Going too low will destroy your hormones. This is both true for men and for women. For men, when you start to go below 10, for most men, you go below 10%, you see depressions in testosterone. Testosterone starts to drop. In women, in particular women, when their body fat percentage starts to get in the teens, especially as it starts to get, let's say, below 18%, what you start to see are reductions in fertility, loss period, estrogen, progesterone levels start to get out of whack. By the way, this is a common thing. If there's a woman listening or watching right now who used to be an athlete and compete and push yourself, you know how common it is that you lose your period because you're just working too hard and getting too lean.

4:56And that's just because of hormone dysfunction. So for many people, in particular fitness fanatics, in particular people who are so afraid of not being ripped, so afraid of not having definition, when I've worked with people like this, oftentimes the goal is to gain some body fat. And through that process, we get all these great results. But until we gain body fat, it's like impossible. It's like pushing a boulder uphill. So I think that's obvious when you talk about like extremely low. Because in unhealthy places, say male at six or lower tends to be unhealthy. And you could have hormonal stuff.

5:37Women under like 17%, 18%, similar type of story. but i wonder if there's more of a correlation to just just okay a person who like let's say um the guy who just because we've talked to someone just recently like this the guy who's just hovers around eight percent body fat and he's struggling to build build muscle but he's always hovering around that well that also tells me another thing that if he's always hovering around there he's always around maintenance maybe he's lucky a slight surplus but mostly in a deficit and i wonder south there's actually less of a correlation to the body fat percentage and more a correlation of just a what what it does to just be in this caloric surplus for an extended period of time and the reason why i say this is because uh coming from someone who's been as low as three percent body fat some of my best gains came right after that i didn't i wouldn't i didn't have to be all the way up 13 15 but what i was definitely on was a massive calorie surplus after that right so coming from a a deficit of six to eight weeks coming into a show and then coming out of a show where i'm feeding the body consistently over my maintenance every day man i just i i i felt like i was growing and building and so you know do you think that maybe there's there's more there than just oh it's there because there's this it's a it's a body fat percentage because you're right obviously when you're when it's so low you're going to have hormonal but if you're in that kind of like say eight percent which some people can carry themselves there and be hormonally okay do you think maybe it might have more to do with the the added 12 13 14 15 body fat from the guy who's used to being at eight percent has more to do with all the extra calories he's has oh of course it does body fat percentage is just the thing that we can measure okay uh but by the way it's actually quite uh relatively rare for a guy who just always is at 8 % have ideal hormones.

7:34And what you'll see when they go up to 10 % or 11%, all things being equal, is their testosterone levels go up. Generally speaking, there's always those genetic anomalies. I know people will point out pro athletes that eat Skittles all day long. Those are just freaks of nature. Those are the only ones I saw that did well. It was the genetic anomalies. Honestly, the guys that were low body fat just would gas out real fast. And, you know, you'd see like power differences completely, too. And I just I think it's one thing to like I think the perspective of that look and that physique is very misleading for a lot of people with when you're talking about performance, obviously.

8:17But that's the general consensus from like your average person is like, well, this person's like ripped or look at fights. Like when I bet on fights, I'm not betting on the super shredded guy. I know. Typically. Oftentimes you have to have a little bit. No, that's not a bad point. And to be quite honest, the people that I've almost always had to coach this to were women. Almost always. There's been a couple of guys out there, but it was the women who strength trained, did everything right, but their calories are always so low. They're always walking around 15%, 14 % body fat. I've had a couple cases, in fact, of women.

8:56one of them worked for me years ago and she got a bone density test and it came back and she's strength trained all the time and it came back she was borderline osteopenia and she was like 30 she must have been 32 and she was so flabbergasted like how can I have I've been lifting weights for years and it was like you gotta eat more and you can't walk around at 15 % body fat you gotta bump your calories right and then again if you look at like the data, like if you look at really, if you look at people who are underweight versus people who are a little bit overweight, a little bit underweight actually has worse mortality outcomes than someone who's a little bit overweight.

9:36Okay. Um, and being overweight, but strong is actually better than being a little underweight and weak, far better from a mortality and health perspective. Um, here's some other benefits that you'll notice by as if this is you and you're listening to this right now you're probably it's just gonna you're scared or you want to skip this you're like i'm not gonna do that but hear me out here's what you'll find you'll find not just you'll build more muscle yes you'll gain body fat and you'll build strength and muscle you'll also notice things like your joints don't hurt like suddenly your joints feel better yeah uh that's a big one that's actually the first thing that the people that i worked with noticed is that their joints just started uh feeling all better hair and libido too oh hair and libido were also hair nails and skin yeah massive difference in those and libido i know a lot of a lot of people that like both men and women when they're when they run low calorie like that or low body fat percentage for an extended period of time uh it crushes that libido by the way i want to be clear with that too because it's not just the hormone uh depression that causes the low libido because that for sure will but you talk to a male bodybuilder on anabolic steroids they got high testosterone that's right And their pre-contest, no libido.

10:46So they got all the testosterone in the world, no libido. Their body fat percentage is too low. Katrina always hated the last two weeks. I know, I'm serious. She just knew like the last two weeks. Adam's turning into a monk. Which is crazy when you think about that to your point is because I'm taking exogenous testosterone. So it's like you have low testosterone. So if you were to go test my levels, it's like I've got higher than normal average in me, but yet my libido was crushed during that time. So really normal. It's a protective mechanism. You need body fat on your body, and it's not just the extreme lows.

11:18I'm telling you, if you're a dude and you always walk around 9%, 10%, and you want to make more progress in the gym, and you eat clean, you probably already do, right? You're 9%, 10%. So it's like, I don't need to tell you don't eat junk food. Track your body fat percentage while continuing to eat healthy and start eating more until you see your body fat go up to 11 % and 12%. and tell me you don't see crazy strength gains in the gym. Right. I know. It's one of those things you're not going to know until you actually go through that process and feel it. That's right. And then, you know, back to what you were saying, Adam, about, you know, when you come out of a show and you get some of the best gains of your life.

11:55Yeah. This has been documented. We know this. Endurance athletes were the first ones to really take advantage of this. Bodybuilders do it to look a particular way on stage. But we know when you deplete and then you, you know, bodybuilders call refilling. Yeah. Endurance athletes know this. your body will store more energy after a rebound. In other words, if you're an endurance athlete, you deplete your carbs, then you eat more carbs than you did before. You'll actually go into your race with more energy stored than you would have had you never depleted and then refilled. Because your body has kind of this rebound effect.

12:27I believe, I don't know any studies that show this, but you talk to anybody who's ever experienced this. Yes, it's a whole strategy. There's a muscle building rebound effect as well. I experienced the same thing out of it. And I did it naturally. i did it when i got really lean for the original maps anabolic i did a photo shoot with doug i got my body fat down like four percent um and after that i just fed my body and i just built like it was like two months of just especially that first four weeks it's like i just built muscle do you do you feel like too that there's something to do with like the receptors like your androgen receptors have been like kind of ringed out or something like that like a sponge that's yeah and then it's just then all of a sudden you feed and it's just like they're just they've been waiting and starting for that totally yeah sleep is another one uh that you'll notice um in fact uh as you get leaner and i've experienced this also for me it's right around seven percent for other people it'll be a little higher or maybe lower for some genetic anomalies but when i get down below eight seven percent i don't care how great i'm doing everything my sleep starts to suffer yeah i just don't get as good of a sleep um we talked about joint pain skin hair nails mood changes big time yeah you guys uh you just feel uh much better and healthier and it's it's only relatively recently that we attributed being shredded to healthy this was almost never the case uh in human history um especially not women when women chase a six-pack some guys can get a six pack and remain pretty healthy and keep their hormones somewhat okay i'm talking about natural men you know you could do it if you do everything right all stuff women who chase a six pack you're pretty much guaranteed to screw up your hormones like it's gonna happen in fact i just saw somebody post in our forum it was a woman she posted a selfie she's like i know it's unhealthy i know it's this and but i want to see a six pack and it's like well I mean, she knows it's going to mess things up.

14:25But chasing that is not a good idea. Now, to the average person, you probably don't need to hear getting body fat because you're probably dealing with too much of it. But there's a lot of fitness fanatics where when I would coach them, I would tell them, you know what our goal is? I've got to get your body fat up. I've got to get your body fat percentage up. Otherwise, this just isn't going to work. Yeah, very much just something that becomes an obsession. it's it's that um that one thing that you think is going to give you the ultimate um version of you to display right so you know it's funny it's tough to add to say add more and you know what's funny about this when they do surveys uh broad surveys on men and women and ask them what is the ideal physique for the opposite sense i was so funny you went that because what was going through my head is just like it's so funny how both men try to achieve this look that women don't even think are very charged and women do the same thing that want the ab like i've never met a guy who's just like oh yeah i like my chick to have like six pack abs rocky abs no yeah no dudes ever said that one guy's ever said that and it's it's rare that you hear that from you you might hear some girls that like that really jack look like you but it's pretty rare that they like i think if you stay but like in our fitness fanatic space then you'll get a little distorted you know opinions yeah but when they do like these big surveys what do they find uh women like men who are fit around 13 to 15 percent.

15:44Yeah, 12 to 15, I think is the number. Fit and healthy. Now, here's why. Our preferences are wired for fertility and health and longevity. That's what it signals. Yeah, so it's like the strong, able-bodied, fertile man. That's the look I'm looking for. It's not 9%. It's not a 9 % body fat percentage. Men typically, like a woman, around 22%, you know, fit, healthy, as high as 25, 26%. in many cases, not the 17%, 16%. Now, if you ask men, like you said, what they would want, and women, what they think they want, it's this really strange, distorted look or whatever. But I'm just trying to encourage people listening right now.

16:26You know who you are as you're listening to this. You might want to try going through a season, a 60-day season of being healthy, exercise, and then your goal is like, I'm going to get my body fat percentage up. And then let me track all the other stuff that happens and see what this feels like. You'll be blown away. And it may just change your relationship with fitness. Paradigm might just shift. That's right. In a direction that'll be really, really beneficial. Have you, since we're on the subject of body fat percentage, have you DEXA scanned lately? I've never done a DEXA scan. Oh, you haven't?

17:00No, never. Oh, I don't do either. No. Well, I know you don't.

17:06I didn't even think you knew what it was. shut up are you saying this because of the conversation earlier about our our combined body weight yeah yeah yeah yeah adam's like really concerned about our general weight there's a there's an there's an off-air joke that uh for 10 years now we've all we've we've been able to maintain the same body fat percentage the same weight roughly they combine combine so in other words one guy gets smaller someone else gets bigger it's always the same shifts yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, and we have this kind of average. Otherwise, it throws off the universe. We need the balance.

17:41So the off-air joke, because I've been texting Sal, I was like, hey, bro, it's your turn to get small now. You need to lean out a little bit. Because I'm trying to get jacked right now. So he's going to throw off our average. I was trying to turn me into a marathon. Yeah, I was like, otherwise, Justin needs to get anorexic. Because if you don't get smaller and I keep getting bigger, he's going to throw the universe off. Justin has to be beefcake, dude. His head's too big. you look like a lollipop like a bobblehead weirdest looking skinny guy you've ever seen dude he has to fit dude I'll do a Dexat with you I've never done one before so I want to go do it right now I always like doing it when I'm just on the front end because right now you're trying to do what build yeah so can I just say this right now I'm just going to say it on air that it's so funny to me how fast you build muscle you just started it looked like you gained 10 pounds literally you look like you put on think about his environment at the last few months, what you've been going through, and now all of a sudden you're shifting back into health.

18:38Yeah, I just have been able to... You would do like three workouts? Yeah, you gain muscle real fast. Super fast. I'm on like three weeks right now. So I'm on three weeks of really good consistency, really good diet, and most importantly, better sleep. I wouldn't even say so. I scored my first 80. I got an 89, which was one of the best scores I've ever had, and I got an 82. uh or the first and in the last uh 45 days those are the first times i've ever touched the 80s 70s has been good for me i've had some really rough ones and so and i think the hardest part or what's new it's so funny i'm doing this for so long every time i do this it presents different challenges so my challenge this time is like i gotta really be careful i'm really dancing this line of like i i'm you know you know i'm we're all like this right we get that rhythm and i want to go you know what i'm saying right so and for me i know that my sleep has never suffered so much and i haven't and i'm not getting good sleep and so i'm very mindful of like you know really keeping the volume kind of low and and the intensity moderate uh while i'm going i also know too when i first get back in like i was just i today's my day in the life so i was just sharing the story with uh you know i'm back to taking the key on uh pills the amino acids yeah the amino acids and so because i'm gonna i'm just probably one of the reasons why you're gaining so first of all you have a lot of muscle memory but you were eating i would assume under 140 grams of protein a day for sure i'm waiting even around 100 i'm so like i you know and maybe i'm different than a lot of people but when when i'm not paying attention or really tracking and i'm I'm always a meat eater.

20:21Yeah. But you'll just eat two meals. Yeah, exactly. I'll eat two meals that are 50, maybe 60. A big steak meal that's giant is 60 grams of protein. And so I easily, and then maybe I had like a bar or something. So you're talking about 50, 50, and another 20 grams in a day. It could be a very normal day. And I'm a 230-pound guy. Like, so that's way under my protein. Have you been able to hit 200? No, I'm not even close to 200 yet. So, well, 150 to 200 would be like a perfect day. And I've had a couple that are around there. But so right now, just the aminos, three times a day I take them. That makes a big difference.

21:08When I did that whole comeback series, and it was after that interview we did with Keon, and uh you know he he really sold me on the science of on especially if you're somebody who's low and i know that's me and so what i'll do is i'll i'll be taking it three times a day until i start getting really consistent with around 200 when i get around 200 i'll probably scale back down to like once a day i'll still take them yeah and then once i start pushing 220 but that's i'm a ways away from like like where you're at right now where you don't miss what is it five Is it five or six of them a day? It's six is what it calls for.

21:44Three times a day. Yeah, yeah, and I do three times a day. Yeah, of course that makes a big difference. I mean, no, it helps while I know that I'm running low. Plus, I need all the help I can get recovery-wise right now with my sleep not optimal. It's hard to eat a lot of protein. People don't understand. I think people overestimate. Because you eat the meat. Because, again, I'm a meat eater. I can easily go eggs in the morning, a meat lunch, and a meat dinner. and so you and your head and i and i got full right i'm full for the day so someone might go like oh that's a lot of protein for me to hit 220 every day you have to go after it go after it and i have to have at least 150 gram shake a day i try doing it all food so hard bro it's like it's like another job it is if you're over 200 pounds yeah it's kind of crazy over it yeah it's like bro that's a lot so at the end of the night i'm like every night i have a shake to hit that number because otherwise it's like okay cool i'm gonna go eat another 40 grams of protein right now i don't want to eat so people understand too hard so people understand too because i know there's there's a there's the other side of the spectrum of just longevity and health sure sure um but i mean i'm in the game of like you you made the comment on it right like that you guys part of why i rebound so fast is because i i check the boxes and i do it in this it's like of course i I could get away with only hitting 150 and still get in shape and be healthy and do those things.

23:09But I know if I'm hitting optimal protein, I have the perfect balance of intensity and volume. I focus on my sleep. If I do those things and I do it appropriately, to me, the real art of this and what's taken me decades to get there is the real right balance of volume and intensity. It's really easy to be off or on. It's real easy to like, ah, I'm not doing shit. I don't do anything. And then it's real easy to like, I'm motivated now. Headphones in. Go get it. And I'm chasing that sore feeling where I've learned, and it's taken me a lot of years of the wrong way or overdoing it to like knowing that sweet spot of like just get in the gym, touch a few of the compound lifts that I need to, don't even have to like push it really hard.

23:59It's like, man, my body's coming off a crazy layoff and recovery. I don't need, I don't need much. And, and then, and then just keep, and then just, just a little, every time I come back to that exercise, so a little bit more, a little bit more. I'm doing what I'm starting to do with myself is one week out of the month, maybe is when I push it with the volume a little bit. And I don't mean a lot, like I'll push it a little bit with the volume three weeks out of the month. I kind of cruise. And you know what the result of that is better results, just way better results. so and i have i'm literally like having to track it because my tendency like a lot of people who love working out is to make it you know every week push it a little bit because i love it i'd rather spend time in here i'm having a good time i listen to music i'm doing my thing so now it's like nope nope stop right there five sets that's it i gotta stop five sets and get creative with it or whatever i i really feel like most people fall on either in the spectrum very few people have got the the right down the middle and i'm not even claiming that i think i got it perfect it's like I've gotten better at getting right there because it's either you're the, and this is for all coaches that are listening to is learning to, to, to figure that out with your clients.

25:12Cause you're going to, you're going to get both clients. You're going to get the fitness athlete addicts, and you're also going to get the people that are the couch potatoes that have a hard time being motivated just to walk. And it's like understanding that about who you're coaching shifts the way I coach completely. And so I, and I, And so I know that about myself, that I've teeter on the athlete intensity, want to get after it person. And so I know that when I get in that mode, it's like I've got to be constantly reminding myself. Well, what people need to understand about athletes even, first off, there's a bias with high-level athletes.

25:47What you have with high-level athletes are they're typically younger. They typically, this is what they do. This is like their job. And they're genetically gifted on top of it, and they've been doing it for years. So let's start there. but even those people have an in-season and off-season they so when we look at an athlete's training regimen well whatever's posted we're typically looking at their in-season i guarantee nobody trains like that all the time you can't yeah they'll injure themselves they figured this out by the way uh so their train doesn't look like that all the time in-season may look crazy again we're dealing with a pro athlete we're dealing with a genetic anomaly they're young but their off season is very, very different.

26:27You can't train like that all the time. So even for fitness fanatics who are very consistent, you got to think to yourself in season, off season. And in season is a lot shorter than off seasons. Most of the year that is me. Don't train. You just approach or train differently. And then strength training in particular, we're just trying to build muscle and build strength. If you want to build endurance and stamina and resilience, it looks different. so then you can add more volume then you can add more whatever and then if you're in a particular sport that requires mental toughness requires resilience well then there's a value in beating yourself up but it's not for the physical physiological strength it's about like i got to be able to take a take punishment yeah because my sport involves that you know when you're with justin when you're uh when you're good consider yourself uh you know inconsistent or or not doing not like in your rhythm or whatever like that what does your training look like because you're you're different than like how i train and how we train so with that like if you when you say you're like off or i'm not training consistently what does that look like it's i mean for me uh it's definitely low volume so i i go way low volume if i'm like off um and it's really just it's kind of like somewhat of a maintenance mentality to it to where i i hit like a few of the major lifts like it's either squats and overhead press it's like it's something that's a big mover and then i'm i'm concerned more on like movement at home and all day and so i'm like more focused on the dogs the kids the this the that everything's outward focus and it's not like inward focus i just i'm really just like touching weights and you know um it's it's not like it's an everyday thing i'll do like one thing yeah you know or like two things you know uh and it's like it gets to a point where I don't feel strong anymore and I feel kind of like doughy and I'm like dude no I don't like this and then I'll get after it and then get consistent I'll go through spurts of like you know two maybe three months and then I'm just I start coasting again and I'm like focused on my kids I'm focused on you know the dogs I'm focused on like moving life over to a new house and yeah you know all this other stuff but uh yeah I've learned to kind of just navigate through that a little bit better by at least making sure like i get i get some gross motor movement in there that's like substantial you have a pretty healthy approach what i noticed about you justin is it appears correct me if i'm wrong it looks like what you do is you make sure you can still do uh certain exercise or movements yeah that's your test like can i still do this can i move well it's very performance driven like yeah i've noticed that with you when you're coasting is you'll go out there and i can tell what you're doing is you're trying can i still do this can i still move can i swing the clubs yeah oh no this hurts a little bit then you kind of ramp it up a little bit yeah exactly exactly yeah and then i'll see it i'll see a weak spot or something like that and then i'm like oh hyper focused on that dude speak you go ahead no i just what he said is something else that as as i've gotten older i've been better about this and is and i don't know if it's just trainer wisdom is that when i'm when i'm often inconsistent i do the same thing is that i'm better like if i'm if i am not disciplining myself to get in and get those lifts in that i know are so valuable then i at least go okay this is the time where i i choose to clean the car i go do more yard work i go do more physical activities and so at least in creating movement i never want to be inconsistent in the gym and then also sitting on my couch yeah i do never do that it's like i feel the same way i feel like that's like hey you didn't go lift today like you need to go for that walk or that hike or oh hey you need to go outside and go do yard work or like that's i've been good about that as i've gotten older of okay and then also even with the flexibility in the diet it's like you know i like there's a lot of foods i like and i enjoy when i'm strength training is when i get to do those things when i when i'm when i'm sending a loud signal that my body needs to build muscle and you allow those yeah then i allow these these extra calories and i still make the signal that simple rule of still go with that protein first and then if i still want that treat tonight i'll go have that treat tonight on top of that but go get that first because I've strength trained I know I send a loud signal to build muscle so I know a lot of those extra calories you're going to go to some good work versus okay I'm not strength training at all all I'm really doing is walking and moving around not the time because all that extra walking and moving around which is not a lot of calorie burn I could easily wipe that out with one dessert afterwards and so that's my way of going like if I really want that I better get in the gym tomorrow and then I'll have it like that that balance has kept me in that teens always in the mid-teens body fat percentage and I probably fluctuate from you know when I'm when I'm on it you know 10 when I'm off of it 15 16 and that's always been no matter where my training volume yeah no that's good you know what's the biggest game changer by far for me was fixing my gut health that was such a game changer it's like i can't even when i think you complain about that a long time it's fine the first year a couple years of our podcast was all bro for probably seven years i was on and off sometimes better sometimes worse but never good yeah yeah and it's such a game changer like i i can eat now 3500 calories of you know healthy food and it doesn't bother me my gut health used to bother me so much that even if i clean healthy things that I didn't react to you.

31:56If I just ate too much of it, it would cause problems. It wasn't until I treated myself for parasites. That's what made the biggest difference. Do you think that was the biggest was the parasites? Because I know you've always been good about the probiotics. You know, you've been good. All those helped. Everything helped. Okay. But I, there was definitely parasites. I went on and I don't recommend this. This is not recommended for people. But you know, I, you know, I tend to do my own thing. I did fenbendazole and ivermectin, which you know, both those together would pretty much kill any, anything you have.

32:25and um and it's again fenbendazole is for animals but you know hey here we go i did it and it worked miraculously and then there was a gut healing process after that where actually had probably some damage that had to heal so it just got better and better and better and better to the point now where you guys if i i mean i still can't have dairy but that's been an issue since i was a kid if i if my gut is off a little bit now it's better within a few hours in the past if my gut was off i was like here i go two weeks of bad gut yeah and it was terrible for two weeks one bad you know issue would last me two weeks now it's like you know i'll be i'll be okay by this afternoon which is so wild it's so wild i feel like i see in you is that i feel like i can tell now because i've known you for so long and you used to be your gut so with that you get uh you get puffy face like i do when you when you eat when you eat off but that's all you get yeah you don't get like a no i'm screwed up gov no i'll hold water i see your dick i see your face starts to hold some water i'm like oh somebody enjoyed himself yesterday we'll do that too there's that one stupid dude we interviewed uh jordan peterson we pinned it at the top of our instagram that's when we came back from london yeah and i was eating all kinds of beans on toast and pastries it's like all kinds of gluten yeah every time i look at that video i'm like in your face bro but i mean what i mean that's what i think has got to be great for you because i i react that way like that's how i've never been really bad gut stuff but i definitely will hold hold water like i'll hold i'll hold water and you'll oh i'll feel i'll feel my hands you know yeah you take your sock off you got a little little mark on your leg you're like what's going on when you see the impression of your sock like just like i can't tell you how many people that clients suffer from that that have no idea that that's all that is.

34:12They think that they got fat or they did something wrong. It's just like, yeah, you ate something that your body, and maybe you don't have crippling gut issues like you had before, but it's enough for your body to get inflamed, retain water. You're a big enough, tall enough person. I mean, that could be pounds of water. I could fluctuate 10 pounds of water. Yes. No problem. Yes. No problem. And so, I mean, obviously you're a big guy. So put that in perspective of a 130-pound girl. I mean, five pounds. Yeah, five pounds. She can go up five. And when you look puffy to the average eye, that looks fat.

34:48You look fat. That's right. I've held water to the point where I was 8 % body fat, but I didn't have abs. Yeah, no, me too. Because of water. Yes. Because I ate a bunch of - 100%. Because gluten will do that for me for sure. 100%. If I eat gluten, I'm going to hold water. I also feel like when you do study too, you get thirstier, so you're pounding more water and you're drinking more. so that just retains more and so the crazy thing about because i had this conference we were you know we had we got out of the holidays i was hanging out my family and we were all talking about you know health and nutrition and then we got to the topic of parasites and one of my family members like yeah but that's like you know third world countries i'm like yeah they get parasites much more often than we do it's much more rare in you know first world uh you know areas however if If you're an adult and you've never treated yourself for parasites ever and you eat raw vegetables, salad, sushi, there's a decent chance you were exposed to parasites over the course of your life.

35:44And they just don't go away. No, they live in you, dude. They live in you and they just grow and they chill. Big little houses. We were talking about workouts earlier. and uh you know there's there's you know genetics make a big difference in many different directions right you have genetics for intelligence you have genetics for athletic ability you also have genetics for just capacity and i i ran across so rocky marciano is one of my favorite fighters of all time that's weird i would never get that just get it safe has nothing to do with he's italian right listen it started because he was a time but i also like i love watching old uh fight films one of my favorite things i love watching old fight films and they're all so different uh the way the fighters used to fight and marciano had this relentless attack he the way he beat people was he would just it was like the the 10th round was like the first round he was just on you constantly wasn't his nickname the raging bull no no that was um lamada oh that's yeah jack lamada okay so marciano was just relentless he was just on you stuck on you you couldn't get him off you and he would punch everything.

36:50And one of his, he knew he would outlast you. So he'd hit you in the arms and make your arms dead. And then he'd kill you, right? He was just, and people would talk. And I watched these old fights. Outendure you. Bro, you look at this guy. You're like, he just doesn't get tired. He just beats the, he just comes after him the whole time. So I came across his workout regiment when he was in camp. So this is when he's getting ready for a fight. Seven days a week. You guys want to know what he did? Let's hear it. This is every day. Every day he would do this. Something that would probably kill your average person.

37:16In the morning, he would wake up and run 10 miles. then he'd go to the gym and he'd spar 30 to 40 rounds 30 to 40 rounds what then in the evening he would run five miles and he would swim two miles now every day he took a nap and every night he would get uh close to 10 hours of sleep but that's what he did seven days a week so no wonder when he was in a match yeah this is a piece of cake yeah i'm gonna keep going that's so it's never stop it's crazy i know i read that i'm like that is brutal so what i was a small heavyweight so what i always think is interesting when you see like like the these these genetic anomalies these people that handled all that that trained at that volume so that and then how much science has evolved today it's like what if you gave that guy red light therapy the perfect balance of volume and intensity like the right supplements the right recovery first off he would be too small to fight as a heavy he was 180 pounds if i'm not mistaken by the way one of the reasons why boxers he was only 180 he thought he was 180 185 w must be short he was just boxers i mean remember this is back didn't look yeah but he still looked he looks he looks thick in his pictures he didn't look if you saw him off yeah off training so in those days uh and you still see boxers do this now but he would gain like 50 pounds because when he was done training he was like i'm just gonna enjoy myself well i imagine that that crazy of intensity in a camp yeah 188 pounds there he is right there so not a big dude for a heavyweight yeah because now you got heavy weights 220 230 yeah dude you guys should watch some of his fights it was just i remember a list like this is mma but i remember kane velasquez was like famous for his like gas ridiculous gas yeah yeah just the motor and and that's a fighter you just don't want to fight like they're just going to keep going relentlessly they have they have no like i need to get some rest or catch my It's also the other heavyweight who's a local guy over here.

39:10He's local heavyweight. DC? Yeah, DC. His gas tank was... Well, he's a world-class wrestler. Well, you know he's a world-class wrestler. Yeah, he is. But he doesn't... What's crazy, what I... Yeah, him and Kane, they're not shredded. Yeah, but they both train together. Especially him. He doesn't look like he would take you deep into the water. Yeah. No, he'll give you some... I've met him a couple times in person. Yeah, I know. It's crazy how he just dominated everything. I mean, except for John Jones, but yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I remember back, so way back, I've told this story before, but a friend of mine was one of the top level competitors in the UFC as a middleweight.

39:50And he was getting ready to fight. And at this time, I was at my peak fitness or whatever. And I was nowhere near his level, but we were friends. And he's like, hey, can you come? We're going to do round robin. I need a bigger guy. I was bigger than him to come roll with. And there's going to be four of us round robin. and they were all pro fighters. Yeah. Okay. And me. Yeah. So I'm in there and now it was pure grappling. Yeah. So I'm, I'm decent. I'm a purple bell. I'm decent. I'm not like the greatest or whatever, but I'm okay. And I'm strong and all that stuff. The difference between with those guys, uh, and me was they were so relentless.