In short
The “Goldilocks zone” approach to fitness nutrition—build muscle and lose fat without aggressive bulking or cutting. Hosts argue that constant calorie manipulation (and scale/mirror obsession) often makes dieting stressful, leads to quitting, and can reduce workout enjoyment. They propose eating whole, natural, protein-centric meals, eating when hungry, and hovering near maintenance/recomp for long-term progress.
Guests
No separate guests are named; the episode features the three hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews.
Key claims
Most people can’t reliably stay in the Goldilocks zone without education, so structured bulks/cuts are often used as a “training wheels” strategy. However, for many people, a stress-free recomp approach can still produce fat loss, muscle gain, and lower rebound risk. Targeted bulks/cuts may be necessary for people with eating-disorder history or severely distorted “enough” signals.
Notable examples
A cousin doing jujitsu drops ~3% body fat—either via a 6-week tracked deficit (faster) or a slower whole-food/hunger-based approach with less performance drop. Clients coached later in Sal’s career reportedly converged around 15–17% body fat (men) and 21–26% (women) while getting stronger and building muscle without counting macros. The hosts also discuss supplement contamination studies (1/3 of 200 sports supplements tested contained banned drugs) and natto kinase research showing up to ~36% carotid plaque reduction with no adverse effects reported.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Problems with Bulking and Cutting
2:10 to 4:14
Learn why the bulk and cut approach may hinder your fitness progress.
“Look, a lot of you need to stop trying to bulk and stop trying to cut.”
Understanding the Goldilocks Zone
4:14 to 7:38
Explore the concept of the Goldilocks zone for balanced nutrition.
“If you're a bit overweight in terms of body fat, your body actually has you eat an appropriate amount and you start to lose body fat.”
Strategies for Sustainable Eating
7:38 to 14:06
Discover strategies to maintain a healthy diet without strict rules.
“Like you need some kind of like homeostasis.”
Understanding Client Trust and Expectations
14:06 to 18:00
Learn how client expectations and trust shape the fitness coaching experience.
“So when you came to me later on, it was like, tell me what to do.”
Importance of Whole Foods in Fitness Training
18:00 to 23:00
Discover how focusing on whole foods can positively affect fitness results.
“If we just change the inputs a little bit, like you could still eat and eat until you're satisfied.”
The Role of Meal Preparation in Family Life
23:00 to 26:50
Explore how meal prep can foster family bonds and healthy eating habits.
Introduction to Health Supplements
28:00 to 28:30
The hosts discuss their experiences with various health supplements, focusing on calming and sleep aids.
Effects of GABA and Sleep Aids
28:30 to 30:20
Exploration of the physiological effects of GABA and other compounds in sleep aids.
“If you take traditional GABA and you feel it, Scott actually made a point of this.”
Methylene Blue and Energy
30:20 to 32:10
Discussion on the benefits of methylene blue for energy and mitochondrial health.
“I'm like dozing off and I'm driving, I'm waking myself up and playing a lot of music.”
Controversy in Supplement Safety
32:10 to 34:20
The hosts examine a study revealing that a significant percentage of supplements contained banned substances.
“So there was a 2025 study that tested 200 popular sports supplements, and they tested them for banned substances.”
Show all 25 chapters
Personal Experiences with Supplements
34:20 to 36:10
The hosts share personal stories regarding past supplement use and their effects.
“I took the one that – I didn't do any of the pro-hormone stuff.”
Nattokinase and Heart Health
36:10 to 38:10
Insights into the benefits of nattokinase for reducing arterial plaque and improving heart health.
“this well i've heard about it for a long time uh he's so undercover about everything no i share these things.”
Discussion on Longevity Supplements
38:10 to 40:00
The hosts discuss the shift towards longevity supplements and personal health screenings.
“They saw total cholesterol went down, LDL went down, triglycerol went down, HDL went up.”
Cultural Perspectives on Health
40:00 to 42:04
Exploration of cultural perceptions of health interventions and humor in health discussions.
“It could take him an hour and a half just to get through all the stuff that he takes.”
Quirky News Article Discussion
42:04 to 43:26
The hosts discuss a bizarre news article about a quadruple amputee facing murder charges.
“So he's the quadruple amputee cornhole champion.”
AI and Viral Content
43:26 to 45:22
They explore how AI influences viral content and the perception of reality in social media.
“But it went viral like crazy, and so many people commenting on sharing it and thinking it was real, and then - I'm just laughing, because I can just imagine if that really happened.”
The Aphantasia Phenomenon
45:22 to 47:55
Discussion about aphantasia, the inability to visualize images mentally, and its implications.
“Dude, there's a picture that people keep.”
Navigational Challenges and Neurodivergence
47:55 to 51:19
The hosts share personal experiences related to navigation difficulties and discuss its neurodivergent aspects.
“Like A-P-H, like A-P-H, there it is right there, A-P-H-A-N.”
Green Juice and Anxiety Relief
51:19 to 53:34
A listener shares their experience with using green juice for anxiety, prompting a discussion on ashwagandha.
“our house that we've, we've owned for like eight, eight years.”
The Evolution of AI Searching
54:24 to 56:04
The hosts discuss the nuances of using AI for information retrieval and its advantages over traditional search engines.
“in a strange way like a boober smell of horse this is what Doug will google ashwagandha info I was typing in the origin of the ashwagandha name But yeah, what does ostrogonamine mean is easier.”
Exploring AI's Capabilities
56:04 to 59:05
Learn how AI can assist in decision-making and personal assistance.
Government Use of AI for Targeting
59:05 to 1:00:30
Discover how AI technology is used in military applications and its implications.
“I think they used Plantier to hit the first thousand targets or something like that.”
Training for Spin Instructors
1:03:46 to 1:06:44
Understand how to balance spin training with strength training.
“MAPS anabolic, even if you do the two-day-a-week version, you're now competing strong endurance signal from spin, which spin is intense.”
Caloric Needs and Stress Management
1:06:44 to 1:09:58
Learn about caloric needs for active individuals and managing stress.
“Maybe it has nothing to do with eating more calories.”
Consistency Over Intensity in Fitness
1:10:01 to 1:10:41
Learn the importance of consistent exercise rather than an all-or-nothing approach.
“and on looks like all these days of working out, it's like you just become the person that, you know what?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Adam Schafer:If 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 Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded Fitness, Health, and Entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump in today's episode. We had listeners write questions in that we picked off Instagram. This is at Mind Pump Media. We picked four questions, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 59 minutes long. This is where we talk about fitness, fat loss, muscle gain, workouts, current events, family life. Always a good time. Now, this episode was brought to you by some sponsors.
0:38Adam Schafer:The first one is Troscriptions. These are prescription-strength and grade supplements. Today, we talked about their calm and sleep supplement. Combine them together, best sleep of your life. This stuff is powerful. Go check them out. Get a discount. Go to Troscriptions.com. That's T-R-O-S-C-R-I-P-T-I-O-N-S.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump. Get 10 % off. This episode is also brought to you by Organifi. Today, we talked about their green juice, which also contains ashwagandha. So it's got micronized green supplements in there or greens, plus some botanicals that help with things like stress.
1:16Adam Schafer:They help your body adapt to stress. They help with anxiety. Go check them out. Go to Organifi.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump. get 20 % off. Also, right now, it's 50 % off a nutrition call with a Mind Pump coach. This is a Mind Pump certified personal trainer or coach. You can get on a call with them and they'll set you up with some nutrition guidance and a nutrition plan. It's 50 % off. Originally$99, half off. Right now, go to mindpumpnutrition.com. Use the code APRIL50 for the discount. This offer expires Friday, April 3rd.
1:55Justin Andrews:All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.
2:10Adam Schafer:Look, a lot of you need to stop trying to bulk and stop trying to cut. It's destroying your experience. It's making this impossible. you're not progressing and you stop because of it stop trying to bulk and cut let's talk about it what yeah i know where's this coming from well so uh you know just through talking through uh or talking to a lot of callers that call in and i get the whole bulk and cut um process and why we do it
2:38Justin Andrews:it's like 90 of our callers yeah so coming with that yeah so so for people listening who aren't
2:43Adam Schafer:familiar with those two terms, just real quick. A bulk is the attempt to eat more than you're burning so you can gain muscle. I don't think anybody bulks to gain body fat. And then a cut is the attempt at reducing your calories below what you're burning in order to cause fat loss. And so someone listening might be like, well, that's why I'm working out. I'm trying to accomplish one or the other or both. And the challenge with it is this constant attempt at manipulating your diet and counting these things for a lot of people, uh, makes the experience. So, uh, the, for lack of a better term, unenjoyable makes it stressful, uh, to the point where they eventually stop, uh, because it's a, it's stressful.
3:26Adam Schafer:It sucks. It makes eating.
3:28Justin Andrews:It can be obsessive.
3:29Adam Schafer:Feel either restrictive or, or, or structured, too structured. Um, and it changes, um, the entire workout experience, uh, to be really only about accomplishing a particular goal. which I get that. People have fitness goals. I get that. But when I coached and trained people, everybody had a fitness goal. My goal was always, can I get this person to do this for the rest of their life? So regardless of what your goal is, which I'll help you get to, my goal as a coach is, can I get this person to a place where they enjoy doing this? And oftentimes this structured, I got to do this bulk, I got to eat this much, or I got to eat this little, kind of kills the whole thing and turns it into this experience that really, really sucks.
4:13Adam Schafer:So then the question's always like, well, what do I do? How do I eat? Like, what do I do here? What's interesting, and again, I've experienced this with clients and even myself, is if you eat a particular way, which we'll talk about, because I'm sure you guys have some input, But there are ways to eat where your body kind of directs you in a way to where you eat more when your body's trying to build. If you're a bit overweight in terms of body fat, your body actually has you eat an appropriate amount and you start to lose body fat. And the progress appears to be more of a recomp than it does this dramatic cut in bulk type of thing.
4:55Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I think I'd like to propose an argument to that. Sure. I actually think that the cutting and bulking process eases people's mind and simplifies the process of recomping. Just because when you try – the ideal place, I think, to be, and I think we're probably – most of us probably land is in kind of like this – what we call the – we're trying land in this Goldilocks zone where it's just a – it's like a recomp. You're not aggressively – I don't think you really –
5:28Adam Schafer:You're not trying to push in one direction.
5:29Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I don't think any of us really aggressively bulk or cut. You can make that argument. Back in my competing days, I did stuff like that. But for the most part, I think I just eat somewhere around maintenance, which puts me in this sometimes – which is I think an ideal, to your argument, an ideal place for people to be both I think physically and psychologically. But I think the reason why bulking and cutting has been so popular and why we tend to use it as a tool is because I think people have a really hard time staying in that Goldilocks zone where the scale doesn't really move north or south when they have a goal of, I want to lose fat or I want to build muscle.
6:12Sal Di Stefano:And simplifying it by putting them in a bulk, say the person who wants to build muscle, so they see some sort of potential movement in the direction they think they're going, even though it may not even be muscle, but they see some sort of like, I'm trying to bulk, I'm trying to build. So the fact that I'm up three pounds on the scale feels like a positive reinforcement. And so I stay the course type of deal. And vice versa, I'm trying to lean out, I'm trying to cut, I'm trying to lose body fat. And so I'm reducing my calories significantly. And I see the scale goes down a little bit. And so I think that that strategy tends to ease people a little bit that, okay, I think I'm going the right direction.
6:55Sal Di Stefano:But I see your argument. But I think the reason why it's tough for the average person is I think the average person struggles to be there.
7:04Justin Andrews:Yeah, I think they lack knowledge on some level in terms of what they're actually putting in their body. They're blissfully sort of – they have an idealistic opinion about how they eat until they actually put that on paper. But I agree with the initial statement. it's like you kind of want to work your way to this place where it's like it's basically maintenance or recomp or it's, you know, you're you're serving this as more of a long term health strategy and goal where I can maintain what I'm doing without being too hyper focused on fluctuating into the extremes. uh so yeah i think that at least initially i think it's helpful to kind of put parameters out there of like okay if this this will this is where my maintenance really is this is where you know deficits lie like if i'm going to go you know extreme in that or extreme here um you can at least have a basis for getting a portion of you know this meal i can just slightly reduce that meal or I could slightly add to this meal.
8:10Justin Andrews:Like you need some kind of like homeostasis.
8:13Sal Di Stefano:Well, I agree with your statement about that. The end goal should be what he's saying. Like, I definitely agree that ultimately that's where I wanted to take all my clients. Ultimately, I want to find this homeostasis of where you're eating, where you're in a satisfied place and, you know, and it's not a stress or nothing.
8:31Adam Schafer:Yeah.
8:32Sal Di Stefano:It's not a stress. You're not tracking or pushing really hard to gain or cutting really hard to lose. You're in this really nice place. But my argument is that most people aren't there. In fact, most people do better with some sort of a focus on a cut or a bulk until maybe to Justin's point that that experience and knowledge gets there that it's like, oh, I can I don't need to move the scale in order to be successful. And I don't need to hyper push or focus in a direction and I can get incredible health.
9:05Adam Schafer:There are cases, I do want to be clear, there are cases where a targeted bulk or a targeted cut might be important. I'll give an example. You have somebody who has had eating disorders for much of their life and their idea of eating enough is really off. It's just really off. When they eat enough, like what's appropriate to them, it feels like too much. I'm stuffed. I don't feel good. Yeah. So with that person, you kind of have to recalibrate them. But for a lot of people, by the way, this is what my training looked like in the back half of my career. The first half of my career was all cutting and bulking.
9:45Adam Schafer:It was all this stuff. The back half of my career asked me how many times I would take clients and have them figure out what they need to eat and get them to a cut or a bulk. what it looked like at the end was, um, we're going to focus on, uh, like there were parameters, but it looked like this, like you're going to eat whole foods, feed your activity, really. Yeah. You're going to eat whole foods. That's what you're going to focus on. Really try and stick to that most of the time, as much as you possibly can make your meals, protein centric. Don't skip meals when you're hungry, eat, when you feel satisfied, stop.
10:17Adam Schafer:And towards the back half of my career, this is what my nutrition advice looked like. Now there was coaching through this because although it sounds simple, there's still challenges, right? If you go from a 70 % of your calories come from processed food, like most people to whole food, there's some coaching that's involved. Um, no, not skipping meals or eating appropriate, like, you know, meal prepping, like there's some coaching involved, but there's this, there's this presupposition. There's this assumed, uh, you know, uh, status of people. There's this assume, like we assume that our appetite signals are not to be trusted.
10:52Adam Schafer:Yeah. We assume that if a person just eats when they're hungry, they're all going to end up obese. That's not true. That's only true when you feed yourself food that has been engineered to make you overeat. Then you, then if you listen to your systems of satiety or appetite, well, yeah, you are going to be obese, but when you eat whole natural foods, again, except for the extremes, here's what ends up happening. This is what I ended up finding towards the end of my career. When I would have guys, when I would coach guys in this way, and they'd kind of start to follow this, they would eventually fall around 15, 16, 17 % body fat.
11:31Adam Schafer:That's where they ended up. Everybody, everybody ended up here. We weren't trying to cut. We weren't trying to do anything. We all kind of fell in this body fat percentage. Everybody got stronger. Everybody built muscle. My female clients, they would fall somewhere between 21 to 25, maybe 26 % body fat. Everybody just kind of fell in these healthy, leanish body fat percentages without really counting anything, really only paying attention to I'm eating when I'm hungry. I'm eating protein-centric, and I'm sticking to whole natural foods. And what this looked like for someone who was really overweight is they would see fat loss.
12:08Adam Schafer:for somebody who needed to build muscle, we'd see a lot of muscle gain. For people who were kind of in this average range, we would see a nice trade of fat loss with muscle gain, but it was a stress kind of stress-free approach. And they didn't go through the challenges that you'll often see with like structured cuts and structured bolts. Like I'll give another example. I was talking to my cousin recently. My cousin does jujitsu, also lifts weights. So he's active. and his body fat came back at 18%. He's like, dude, I want to get down to like 15, 16%. So it was dropped like 3%, not a big deal.
12:44Adam Schafer:And he goes, what should I do? How do I go on a cut? So well, there's two ways we could do this. I said, A, we could track your calories and put you in a deficit and then you'll drop that 3 % body fat and it'll probably take us six weeks, something like that. Or you could do this. And I told him what I'm saying. I said, hey, hit your body weight and protein, eat it first, stick to whole natural foods, eat when you're hungry and that's it. now you'll still drop body fat it won't happen as fast however in the structured cut here's what you're going to notice here's some of the side effects your performance is going to drop in jujitsu and in your workouts because you're in this kind of bigger deficit if you do what i'm saying i don't think you're going to notice a drop from performance at all and it'll take longer you're not going to drop three percent body fat in six weeks it might take more like 12 weeks or 18 weeks but the whole time you're going to feel good and it's not going to feel like this structured thing and the odds of rebound are way lower because you're not coming out of a cut you know
13:38Sal Di Stefano:type of deal you know there's a there's a there's a bit of bias that we have that we have to factor in when we give advice like this i think that it pertains to what justin was saying about the education piece that i think is so important i realize that the clients that i got the back half of my career were much easier to deal with because they were all referrals. So when you came to me later on, it was like, tell me what to do. You already helped. My friend, Christine, told me that you're the best at this. And so I could give advice like that. Like, hey.
14:18Justin Andrews:Or you actually gave better advice because of your experience. So you distilled it down to the
14:22Sal Di Stefano:both crux both is true both is true but nonetheless it's biased because you get you don't get the average client you get a client who's coming to you with i already trust and believe everything you're saying where i think the average person or average trainer even if you're knowledgeable and you listen to this podcast and you give a lot of advice still has that challenge of like they have to educate the client still to get them to halt hop on that side i think the argument you're making
14:51Adam Schafer:at them is maybe something like this because i can see where you're going it's like i got to show
14:55Sal Di Stefano:someone movement right on the scale right otherwise they're going to be like this is taking too long right yeah no i get that and i and and and they're all and and they're also we know how deceiving the mirror all those things can be and so you're telling them like just trust me trust this process and we want to hover and they're like i don't look good i don't feel like i'm getting any change and so they have hardwired expectations right so it's it's it tends to be a little bit easier to to say, hey, we're going to go on a bulk. This is what to happen. This is what to expect. And so it's easier to prep for that.
15:26Sal Di Stefano:And then to show that you have that control and ability to manipulate their look, their weight, their strength, all these things. So that I then have the trust to go, okay, this is the place we want to be. Where you talk about your clients, how they, but I mean, we're all biased because by the time we are at our, you know, whatever level you want to call us when we were great trainers or good trainers that I bet each of us in here, uh, we're out fishing for brand new people who didn't trust us. No, sorry. We got clients that were like bought into our philosophy.
15:58Adam Schafer:You know, you're, you're not wrong, but I'll add this. Cause it did what Justin was saying. Uh, my, the way I coached and trained people was different. I would steer away from the scale and the mirror. And I started to point out all the improvements that they normally wouldn't have have noticed because they're so hyper-focused on the scale in the mirror. So my clients, when they would come to me and we'd have these conversations, and believe me, like any coach
16:22Justin Andrews:or trainer listening - Get into their subconscious more.
16:24Adam Schafer:They know this. Like if you're a trainer or coach, you know this, okay? Or even if you're not, and you're a person who hires a trainer, they would come to me and they'd say, no, I want to do this. I want you to tell me what to do. And I want to lose that and lose that. And so, or gain this. And so it was a conversation. But then what I would do through my training is I'd show them, you just did two more reps. You're stronger here. Uh, how's your sleep? Oh my God, I'm sleeping better. How's your energy? You know, I don't need that third coffee in the day. Hey, did you know, do you notice your back doesn't hurt when we do bent over rows?
16:59Adam Schafer:Like we tried, uh, five weeks ago and we couldn't do them. Now we're doing, you notice your back doesn't hurt. And so they started to see all these other improvements, which kept them going. And then eventually what would happen is they'd say things like, I'm getting leaner. What's going on? Like, this is weird. I don't feel like I'm trying really hard. And then I knew I had them. And then I knew like, no, no, no, this is working. But it is a lot of conversations. And I totally get it. Like, almost nobody enters into a fitness program saying, what's your goal? I want to do this forever. Nobody says that.
17:34Adam Schafer:Everybody says, I want to, it's specific. I want to build muscle, burn body fat. I want to change the way this looks or change the way that looks. But the real challenge is figuring out how to do this forever. And look, I'm going to say this right now. Our bodies are not broken, everybody. The problem is you're feeding your body food that was designed to make you overeat, and you live in a world that's designed to make you not move. It's not your body that's broken. It's this environment that we're in. If we just change the inputs a little bit, like you could still eat and eat until you're satisfied.
18:06Adam Schafer:Just eat foods that your body knows when to say stop. It knows when to say eat more because that's what'll happen too. I had many clients through this process that would get so scared because we'd start training. They'd listen to me and start eating whole natural foods, but we're strength training. And what they would do is they'd come to me and be like, my appetite is through the roof. Why am I so hungry, Sal? I don't want to keep eating this much. And I would tell them, no, no, eat when you're hungry because we're building muscle right now. Your body's actually telling you that you need to eat more food.
Read the full transcript
18:35Adam Schafer:Listen to it. And it's really interesting. And I do think so many people are ruining their experience in the relationship with fitness because they're so hyper-focused on macros, cutting, bulking. I got to do this. I got to do that. I think that it becomes this really stressful process to the point when other life stresses start to get high. It's just overwhelming. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done. I'm going to stop. I just want to enjoy my life.
19:02Justin Andrews:Yeah, it's interesting because it is definitely like an advantage to have a coach identifying those things and being able to forecast it and, you know, tell you're going to run into this and, you know, to be able to kind of calm their own urges to, you know, to just fully cut or to fully bulk or, you know. So I think that, you know, it simplifies it. So you can make an argument like the cut in bulk, like initially it's like kind of the new trainer. That's like the easy way to handle that situation instead of like really identifying a lot of those things that are going on in their process of, you know, cutting out the processed food and really sticking with whole natural foods.
19:50Justin Andrews:You have to kind of identify those things and really have them visualize it.
19:56Sal Di Stefano:Well, the truth is that, and I know for sure that each of you would handle this case by case because there's clients that come to you and the first hour, they're communicating to you their goals, their challenges, their previous history with diet and workout and all that. and where you where how you guide them is completely dependent on that of course you know there's there's a there's a there's a scenario there's a scenario example for uh someone that you absolutely put on a cut or absolutely put on a bulk or absolutely tell them we're not going to do either that we're like and so the question becomes you know where do and i think that's where my argument is right now is that I think that most people aren't ready for kind of hovering around that, that place yet.
20:48Sal Di Stefano:I think they have to go through the education process of even knowing what, you know, 150 grams of protein looks like knowing what, Oh yeah. Yeah. You still have to do that.
20:57Adam Schafer:You still got to feel like, what is protein centric? Do I have an egg? Yeah. No, no. Like it's probably more like 30 to 40 grams.
21:04Sal Di Stefano:And what does it look like when I actually intentionally try and eat in a surplus of calories and what does that feel like when i do that and what does it feel like when i decide to restrict a little bit like i mean that's the other thing too i've always had to communicate is like there's this idea of like you know being in a in a cut you won't feel hungry like of course you're gonna feel of course if it's a specific if it is a
21:23Adam Schafer:directed structured cut right right it's gonna be all right and so to me there's there's a bit of uh
21:28Sal Di Stefano:there's a there's a bit of an uh education process that goes through the the teaching of cutting and bulking. Totally.
21:34Adam Schafer:I think the people that I'm talking to know who I'm talking to right now. I think there's people listening who are like, oh God. And I know who you're talking to.
21:41Justin Andrews:Like over and over.
21:42Sal Di Stefano:Right, right. There's people that are beyond that. They understand what their macros are. They know what maintenance probably is.
21:50Adam Schafer:It could even be the beginner right now that's overwhelmed with all of it. And it's like, okay, what do I do? How many calories? And it's like, oh, really? Just eat that? Just eat whole natural foods? Eat high protein meals? Eat it first? That's all I gotta do? You could be a big weight off. Yeah, but to your point, Adam, I had, I mean, look, I was on a coaching call with Will and one of his clients. Now, this woman had been inpatient several times for anorexia, and she had just gotten released, and she wanted to hire a coach. And so she hired one of our coaches. My advice to her was not listen to your appetite signals.
22:26Adam Schafer:Right. Because if she listens to her appetite signals, she's not going to eat because it's off. so my advice to her was this is going to feel uncomfortable you're going to eat well beyond what you think is enough because your idea of enough is so off that you have to relearn what that feels like
22:45Sal Di Stefano:I guess that's where I'm coming from too I have that in the back of my mind right now because I know that Katrina is booking a call for me to hop on with Corinne and one of her clients and I know that her client struggles with eating enough and I know that if I if I tell her to listen to her body she's going to be like oh i'm stuffed all the time it's just like yeah your your signal is is off and you need to be in a bulk and we need to to understand that there's going to be a bit of this uncomfortable feeling and we'll you'll get so yeah and i guess again back to the point that this is what makes personal training so special and so unique right is that there's some general case there's some general rules there's some some principles that you know over decades of training so many people that we've really distilled down to some like core values of like eat whole foods hit your protein that's going to work for like 90 of the people for like 90 of the way but you always get those wrenches but exactly there's always gonna that that's not a it's not like a blanket statement of like just do that it's like there's going to be these people that that come to you that oh no this is somebody who i need to put you know you should hear my cousin's feedback
23:50Adam Schafer:too because he's doing this right now so he's trying to eat uh 200 grams of protein a day stick to whole natural foods and remember his goal is to drop about three percent body fat yeah but he's stuffed he's like he's like i can't eat yeah i can't eat that much protein yeah he's stuffed he's like i can't do it i'm like well you're gonna be in a natural car there you go that's what you wanted it limits you i said do you feel like you're dieting right now he's like no i said that's exactly that's exactly the point but yeah i think the people who know people who should uh hear this no because they're hearing this right now and they're like oh yeah this is overwhelming this is stressful i don't want to live like this anymore and again the premise that uh the average person has the just humans in general had this appetite that if we let it run wild we're gonna go crazy that's not true with natural food it's just not it's only true with food with drug-like effects that have been engineered uh to be that way that's why uh we
24:46Sal Di Stefano:overeat for the most part well this is why i was such a fan of uh whole 30 when it was created it was such a good that's right you know talk about there's not a lot of a lot of diets or modalities that i think i get way behind and be like oh that's really like most people would be very well served to spend 30 days of shit like because it's hard let's be honest it's very hard it's hard especially for the average american i mean you're radically changing how you eat suddenly just a lot of people eat out and eat a lot of processed foods and so it does take some serious planning to plan a month of i'm only gonna eat you know what's another part of that too we actually
25:25Adam Schafer:talked about this i don't know if this was with a caller i think it was with a caller recently but i had this realization that um we've taken meal preparation which used to be this communal it used to be a great way to spend time with people and it turned into like a job i gotta do real quick and i'm just gonna say this like straight up like husbands and wives you guys are looking for time to spend together while you do something and have time to talk meal prep together it's a hack for sure it's some of my favorite time that i ever spend with my wife is when her and i are cooking together it's like a great way to to connect and we're gonna do it anyway uh but why don't we turn it into this like by the way if you have kids include your kids my wife is great at this she'll send me pictures and i have little kid i got a three-year-old and a five-year-old so there's not much they could do but what they can do is like peel things yeah throw things in the blender and so she'll involve them she'll put them at stations and they'll do this and she turns cooking meals into this wonderful experience for the family and i think that's such a hack because now you've you've not just you have the value of meal prepping you don't just have the value of the value of eating uh whole natural foods that are healthy but now you've added the value of connection and this kind of community effect which just makes it so much now it's something i look forward to you know we're at we're trying to um we're in the
26:49Sal Di Stefano:process we're on day three i think we're the third day we're getting there um we're teaching max how to make me coffee in the morning oh really yeah french press oh wow yeah yeah it's great i mean i have all the right tools with the hot water and everything yeah yeah yeah yeah no i mean i want it to be a little risky right so i want to say yeah it has to be a little like that's he's uh we got this again his school so cool his school sends him home with uh this kind of thing for parents and it's like their age breakdown um from you know one to three i think three to five five to seven seven to nine the different things they should be capable to do oh that's great and so it's just a real and katrina and i got that just recently like oh wow we're there's some things in here that we're not making them do we're not in doing more of and so we're we're trying to incorporate that and one of them was like you know making making breakfast or doing things like that for himself and i was like you know what he's in this like money earning phase right now too so i'm gonna like pay him a dollar for every time he makes coffee of course and so yeah so i'm trying to teach him how to how to make coffee right now but he's already connected that cleaning the toilets is ten dollars and doing coffee is a dollar and so he's like trying to get me to pay
27:56Adam Schafer:more for the tell them they're both connected you make dad coffee you'll get to clean he's trying
28:00Sal Di Stefano:to get me to pay more for coffee i'm like i'm not paying you starbucks is already overpriced at three dollars i'm definitely not paying you ten dollars for a cup of coffee they're going backwards so but dude that's yeah yeah it's funny watching uh watching him try and do it right now so we'll see uh we'll see if it backfires on me or if it works out but that's that's my goal i want to ask
28:18Adam Schafer:you guys adam you're the one you've been using the troscriptions calm and sleep i'm a believer dude they nailed yeah whatever the formulations are can you okay that's the most like like i could
28:30Sal Di Stefano:feel it what am i feeling okay i want to know what i'm feeling i can feel the calm which is uh impressive there's a sleep there obviously sleep things like melatonin and stuff like that really
28:39Adam Schafer:most there's a form of gaba is that what it is in the calm that crosses the blood brain barrier So traditional GABA, which is a neuroinhibitory compound. So it basically calms the brain. If you take traditional GABA and you feel it, Scott actually made a point of this. He said it's because you have a leaky gut. You're not supposed to feel it. It's too big of a molecule. But they have a form of GABA in there that crosses the blood-brain barrier. So when you take it, you feel.
29:09Sal Di Stefano:Okay, so explain this to me because I've always been a fan of Ned's product, right? But I feel this more than I feel that. You have a magnesium.
29:21Adam Schafer:You probably need magnesium. But this is not filling nutrient deficiencies. These are compounds that actually have physiological effects. So it's not just filling a nutrient deficiency. It's like this has an effect.
29:32Sal Di Stefano:So Ned didn't have GABA then? No. Oh, that's why. Oh, so it's the GABA that I'm probably filling. Because I couldn't wrap my brain around why.
29:40Adam Schafer:There's a Garin in there. And then this sleep one, I believe, has the GABA, Doug, if I'm not mistaken. Pull that one up. So there's compounds.
29:47Sal Di Stefano:No, I was on the Calm.
29:49Adam Schafer:No, no, no.
29:50Justin Andrews:Go on Troplus Calm. That's the one I was on, yes. Let me go find the sleep here.
29:55Adam Schafer:No, and then there's the Duo right there. That's it. Gabamike Duo. That's the one. That's the combo right there. Yeah, you put those together.
30:04Sal Di Stefano:So I take the Calm about an hour first. And then right before bed. And then right before bed, I take the other one.
30:11Adam Schafer:And then Justin, have you been doing the Methyl and Blue? Yeah. Yeah, I have consistently.
30:15Justin Andrews:Yeah, it's helped a lot with my energy. Usually when I drive home, I seriously have been having this issue where I'm like, I bonk so hard. I'm like dozing off and I'm driving, I'm waking myself up and playing a lot of music. But yeah, there's just moments, a lot more times during the day where I've just like crashed that it's just, it's been consistently good.
30:37Sal Di Stefano:So he recommended to me that I take the methylene blue early as part of my sleep routine. What is it about that?
30:47Adam Schafer:Mitochondrial efficiency. So it's supposed to help with just better mitochondrial health. But if you take it too late, it's a bit energizing. So if you take it at night, then it might interfere with sleep.
30:58Sal Di Stefano:Okay. Because that's the one I've been really good about the calm and sleep consistent. I haven't been as consistent with the methylene blue.
31:05Adam Schafer:And there's cordycepin in there, which is an interesting compound from cordyceps, which has got an effect on increasing REM sleep.
31:13Sal Di Stefano:Oh, this is part of what's in the sleep? Oh, yeah. Cordycepin, the CBN. Dustin, I got that next. Yeah, dude. And it has five milligrams of melatonin in it.
31:21Adam Schafer:When you, the blue pee is funny, though, huh?
31:24Justin Andrews:I got used to it, man. It's so funny. Because, I mean, I have a weird story. I don't feel like, you know, I'll go outside and like pee on the tree, you know, and I forgot that I was like. taking methylene blue a lot. My son saw it. Oh, no, what did he say? He was like, what? He was so confused, dude. Why is your pee blue? He's too young to scare her. He could have made up a total bad one. Oh, no, what does that mean, son? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I could have made up a story or something.
31:51Adam Schafer:You should probably be a really good boy. I don't know if I'm going to be around.
31:54Justin Andrews:It just threw me off because I was like, what? It just became normal now. Dude, that's hilarious. Yeah, I'm peeing blue. That's so funny.
32:01Adam Schafer:Dude, I got, oh, speaking of supplements, Did you guys see the post that – I'm going to pull it up – that Mike Matthews did on the study that they did on supplements? Oh, dude, watch this. I'm going to pull this up. So there was a 2025 study that tested 200 popular sports supplements, and they tested them for banned substances. Okay.
32:28Justin Andrews:Banned substances. Banned. Okay. So this is like anabolics and –
32:32Adam Schafer:200 supplements. One third of them contained banned drugs. One third?
32:39Sal Di Stefano:Third of them. What was in the category of these sports supplements?
32:43Adam Schafer:Like athletic performance, strength, muscle building, nootropic, pre-workout, whatever.
32:50Justin Andrews:Was it John Jones? I remember some fighters making this claim a long time ago. And I'm like, is that true? Because they were saying it was like spiked.
32:59Adam Schafer:Bro, here's what they found. Okay. Now, this is a lot, bro. That's one third. Okay? That's a lot. That's a big old chunk. No wonder the FDA is trying to regulate supplements. These supplements are so stupid. They're going to bring it on themselves. Here's what they found in some of them. One of them, they found a SARM. Oh, wow. Which, like, that's not even an approved drug. Yeah. Okay? A SARM. There were banned stimulants. There were amphetamine-like drugs. ADHD medications and cardiac drugs. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
33:33Sal Di Stefano:That just goes to show you they know the power of just a supplement that people feel. Yes. They want you to feel something. So you feel something from it.
33:46Adam Schafer:Have you guys seen the study? I don't know if I ever showed you guys this. I don't know what you call them, the boner pills category, right? Like sex supplements or whatever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a whole bunch of them. They tested a whole bunch of them. Yeah. And a significant percentage of them had - Viagra? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Like Viagra. I actually put the drug in there. Oh, wow. Like, this works. This herb works.
34:08Sal Di Stefano:I mean, that's what they used to do with the old fake steroid stuff, right? They used to put, like, real testosterone and real stuff inside it to make people – they used to do things that would –
34:16Adam Schafer:Well, they didn't have to back in the day. They were legal. Did you guys know – by the way, did you guys ever take Superdrawal in the early 2000s? Do you guys remember that one? I don't know if I took Superdrawal.
34:26Sal Di Stefano:Which one did you do? I took the one that – I didn't do any of the pro-hormone stuff. The one I did take was the one that Mark McGuire got in trouble for. Oh, Andrus Stanidale?
34:33Adam Schafer:Yes. Oh, that's nothing. Andrus Stanidale. Yes. It's nothing. Actually, I tried that one. That's like vitamin C.
34:37Sal Di Stefano:And I did the trend one that ended up getting knocked off the counter also. So I did a few of the designers.
34:43Adam Schafer:So I remember in the early 2000s, okay, Superdrawal, what do they call it? Pro-hormone. Pro-hormone. It's not a hormone. It's a pro-hormone. It's before hormones. It turns into a hormone. So they kind of like sold it that way. it was called super draw and i'll never forget i took it and i was like wow like i i got like no joke i probably added 30 pounds to my bench press in like two weeks well that's all the side effects do you know what super do you know what you know who uses super draw now power lifters and bodybuilders they say it's stronger than anadrol which is one of those classic steroids what yeah dude it's a it's a real well i remember that it's a designer story that the that i forgot the brand
35:23Sal Di Stefano:into that trend, the trend over the counter was. But I remember it was so strong that I took two bottles back to back and I had side effects. I started to get gynecomastia from it. That sucks from a supplement? Yes, from a supplement. I was like, this is crazy. So you know I had something.
35:42Adam Schafer:Bro, Superdraw is now a black market steroid, dude. I bought that at the store. At the supplement store, dude. I'm like, this is my favorite supplement. Well, yeah, bro, you're taking steroids, dude. Why does this work so well? that's crazy that's the supplement industry for you ladies and gentlemen you gotta be very very good get into your own research okay here's some good news on supplements uh and doug's been using the supplement for a while natto kinase am i saying that right doug natto kinase you gotta
36:07Justin Andrews:say it in a japanese way don't you yeah well the natto part okay natto kinase where did you get this well i've heard about it for a long time uh he's so undercover about everything no i share these things. I'm not secretive. Come on.
36:21Sal Di Stefano:You know, it's just hard to get a word in edgewise. You always defy. Get out of here with that bullshit. We've been together for over 10 years. I can't get a word in edgewise. I forgot to tell you guys about that tax break you guys could have had.
36:33Justin Andrews:Ah, come on. We met the girl he's dating like three years after they were dating. Hey, I am a little secretive. What can I say?
36:44Adam Schafer:He's like, wait a minute. So anyway, I'd heard
36:47Justin Andrews:first heard about natto kinase because of you know like supporting uh spike protein removal
36:54Adam Schafer:removal yeah um so this was a big study doug this is crazy they took a thousand over a thousand
37:02Justin Andrews:people shot spike yes yeah in covid yeah spike protein so it's part of that protocol that one
37:07Adam Schafer:doctor said that you could use to get rid of spike proteins yes but that's not what the study shows So this is on arterial plaque and heart health. They had over a thousand people take nato canace for a year. I hope I said that right again. I like your little accent. Dude, this is wild. Every person had an ultrasound at the start and another at 12 months. The people who were taking 10 ,800, I don't know what FU stands for, per day. It's not what you think, Justin. I was going to say it. It's a measurement. Doug, look that up for me. I'm surprised. I'm embarrassed. I don't know what that is. Here's what they found.
37:43Adam Schafer:At that dose, carotid artery plaque shrank up to 36%. Wow. 36%. Arterial wall thickness decreased by 21 % on average. Those are big numbers. 77 % of the people showed measurable improvements in arterial wall thickness. 66 % showed measurable reduction in plaque size. Improvement rates across all markers range from 66 % to 95 % for the majority of all 1 ,000 people.
38:15Sal Di Stefano:What rivals that, Sal?
38:15Adam Schafer:They saw total cholesterol went down, LDL went down, triglycerol went down, HDL went up. This is like - Do we even have a pharmaceutical drug that has -
38:24Sal Di Stefano:This is either as good or better. Well, that's what I'm saying. What would compare to that?
38:29Adam Schafer:There's a lot of things you could take to help. On the pharmaceutical side. Yes, but they all have side effects. There were no adverse effects recorded at all. Interesting. Yes. It's crazy. Now, they co-administered it with vitamin K2 and low-dose aspirin, but that's it.
38:48Sal Di Stefano:Fibrinolytic units. Fibrinolytic units. I didn't know what the heck that was. Measures the potency and enzymatic activity.
38:54Adam Schafer:So it breaks down fibrin, a protein involved in blood clotting. Dude, this is like - It sounds like something that everybody should kind of take. Why would you not take it? For heart health? Prophylacra, yeah. For heart health, this is a remarkable supplement.
39:08Justin Andrews:It's really, really good. Of course, Doug doesn't show up. And this was... This guy. He's like, I'm trying to live long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. After one of us has a heart attack, then he lets...
39:15Sal Di Stefano:You should have been taking that Nidocanize, whatever. After we did that. I'm going to tell you everything now. You tell me... Everything.
39:25Adam Schafer:But isn't that remarkable? That's like a huge measurable effect on just like a cheap...
39:31Sal Di Stefano:Now, we don't have any sort of partnership or sponsorship or anything to do this. Who does the...
39:36Justin Andrews:Well, I mean, Cabral has... Oh, Cabral does. Yeah, Equilife. They have a version. Oh, they do. In fact, one of his emails was highlighting the fact that this, you know, can address plaque buildup. And I responded to it and bought some. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't tell you. I'm sorry.
39:54Adam Schafer:Well, I started taking it... Oh, you take it too. I just started taking it like... Dude, trying to kill us. Yeah, I take so much money. You got to listen to the show. I'm less. I got a slot. I'm good, bro. Yeah, yeah.
40:05Sal Di Stefano:It could take him an hour and a half just to get through all the stuff that he takes. So I don't even want to hear everything he's taking.
40:10Adam Schafer:I've been taking it for probably two months or three months or so. This was, I remember we did our full body scan. Yeah. But they did, but it didn't look at artery health, right? It looked for like pre-cancer stuff. And I still have yet to schedule. I'm actually going to go see a doctor soon because I want to schedule one of those ultrasounds where they look at your, you know, all your arteries to see if you have any, any bill, just as a precaution. um actually have a i have a family member who at my age had a heart attack not that long ago which is kind of wild yeah and i just found another friend of mine at my age had cardiac arrest so i think we're getting the age now we start to hear these weird things yeah so uh you know usually supplements i would take in the past were related to muscle building or performance now i'm more interested in kind of longevity stuff yeah so for for the past few months i've been taking uh
40:54Justin Andrews:interesting yeah yeah wow yeah have you guys seen i haven't watched uh snl in a really long time but there was like a clip and i was watching it and uh it was interesting because so they were trying to kind of dig at rfk and like a lot of the the health uh movement that he's making and kind of attacking big pharma and all that and so there's this one sketch which is i mean it was reasonably amusing but it was like they're taking this guy through like the er and like quick give me a steak and they're like give me a steak like inject him with methyl and blue and you know and they're going through all these like things like we bring up as like you know like preventative like yeah supplements and they're just like throwing all that at them and like totally like putting a dig in in at uh you know this space and i'm sure it's like a dig at joe rogan and like you know all that kind of stuff but it's it was interesting for me to see like that other side of the culture that's like still in the course like we're not out here like promoting for interventions like on the you know western medicine's amazing for you know to save your life trauma and like yeah it's like it's silly and stupid i know it's a joke but it's it's just kind of funny because that puts it like that thought in you know other people that like have these preconceptions that like oh this is all bullshit you know it's like doesn't even fit in that category no it's not the
42:24Adam Schafer:same yeah i have a news article i'm gonna read it just because not because it's because i think we should talk about the news article but i just want to see if i can read it without you guys laughing oh yeah so impossible this is that this is a it's real this is a real news article it's the most amusing title i've ever read in my entire life so this is uh abc news chicago quadruple amputee cornhole champion facing murder charges in fatal shooting it's not real yeah it is dude yeah it is bro james uh is accused of fatally shooting the front scene passenger as a vehicle during an argument in La Plata, Maryland.
43:07Adam Schafer:So he's the quadruple amputee cornhole champion. Wait, quadruple amputee? He's got no arms or no legs. How did he shoot him? He's got like, I think he's got, it shows pictures. He's got arms like to his elbows. Okay. And yeah, dude. And so he's a champion at cornhole and then he shot someone. Wow. So now he's in trial. Yeah. I have so many questions. Is that real? Look, look, look, look. I told you, bro.
43:32Sal Di Stefano:professional this is real
43:37Justin Andrews:wow that's like you like put a bunch of things I have a lot of questions and shake it up
43:44Sal Di Stefano:throwing cornhole
43:47Adam Schafer:how did he shoot someone though he doesn't you become a professional cornhole shooting a gun is easier maybe that's how the argument started yeah he won that last match he's like yeah you can i can shoot you know you can't what blam yeah i know we're laughing it's terrible but yeah i read that it's so
44:10Sal Di Stefano:that's absurd you have to be so careful with the ai stuff dude now i know dude i had multiple times i've sent things now where i'm like man i can't send anything anymore without how like it's so
44:21Justin Andrews:lame that i have to go if it's on fox news it's real right yeah right i do that's what this so
44:26Sal Di Stefano:This was the, did you see the viral video of the lady acting like she was a dog in front of the grocery store? Oh, and the dog attacked her? Yes. You know, that was AI. That was AI. It had to be. Okay. So that was fake. I knew it. Oh, wow. But it went viral like crazy, and so many people commenting on sharing it and thinking it was real, and then - I'm just laughing, because I can just imagine if that really happened.
44:47Adam Schafer:Me too. Yeah, it's almost like poetic justice.
44:49Sal Di Stefano:It looked really real, that it was plausible, but that's how it gets you, right? It's like it's something that's plausible like that, and it does a good job. It's like, man, there's so much of this that's going to be going on where people... Do you think you've stopped sending stuff to your buddies?
45:06Adam Schafer:You know what AI is doing? AI is detecting AI. I see that on X. So something will get posted, and then someone will underneath it say, hey, Grok, is this real? And then Grok will say, there's an 87 % chance or whatever this is AI.
45:19Justin Andrews:Yeah. Well, there needs to be that, I feel like. You have to. within the next iterations of these like social media platforms if they could have that as options you could scan it first before you share it because like people will just it is kind of cool
45:33Sal Di Stefano:though how uh it organically we kind of self-police it though yeah so like what you have to check the comments oh yeah you check the comments a lot of times you'll see and that's my my telltale to go do a little digging is if i see a hand if i see more than one person going oh this is ai yeah like Like, oh, wow, maybe this is. And then I'll read.
45:51Adam Schafer:Dude, there's a picture that people keep. Yeah, we're in a weird spot with that right now. There's a series of photos that people keep saying are real. But I can't believe that they're real from the Epstein emails.
46:00Justin Andrews:Oh, yeah, with Stephen Hawking. Dude. In a dress. Bro, it's Bill Clinton. Did you look it up to see if it was real or not? One of them. People are saying it's real. One of them said, yeah, they screened it through a lot of the AI detection. And it said it was real. Yeah. And he's like, bro. I'm like, what?
46:15Adam Schafer:Bro, did you see him? Yes, I did. Okay, so Stephen Hawking is like. but then you dress like a little doll there's other ones where the ai can see this is what
46:22Justin Andrews:they do though it's like information then disinformation look at that dude so so that that one is claimed as real but there was another one recently where they had like epstein um bill clinton so disturbing i don't know if it was uh bill gates or not but they're all like you know hanging out with him like on the ground yeah and you're like and so i feel like that they're going to add AI versions of like real pictures just to kind of convolute it all. Right. To throw you on the set.
46:51Adam Schafer:Yeah. Yeah. So is that saying it's real, Doug? Is it, did it say? I don't know. Oh, you had it. You had it. I don't know what happened. Recent. Oh, look at that. Yeah.
47:00Justin Andrews:They just disappeared off. You're racing.
47:05Adam Schafer:I hate the internet. Recent unsealed documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, investigation results in the release of various photographs, including authentic images of Bill Clinton and Stephen Hawking as well as several AI-generated fabrications. See? So just adjusting that. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Okay, so that one's real.
47:21Justin Andrews:They tried to discredit it by adding all this extra AI image.
47:25Adam Schafer:No, see, they're not. The ones where he's dressed like a doll.
47:30Justin Andrews:The princess outfit they're saying is AI-generated. Okay. Thank God. It's so disturbing, dude. It's just weird. I mean, that's the least disturbing out of anything. that's come out with that.
47:43Sal Di Stefano:I wanted you to go down the rabbit hole what we talked about when we walked the other day, the thing that I've never heard of until just recently, the neurological thing I was telling you about, the aphantasia. I think, am I saying that right? Look it up, Doug. I think it's aphantasia.
47:53Justin Andrews:Oh, you finally remember the term?
47:55Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I think it's called aphantasia. Athentasia or aphant? Aphant, like A-P-H. Oh, okay. Like A-P-H, like A-P-H, there it is right there, A-P-H-A-N. Oh, aphantasia.
48:04Adam Schafer:That sounded interesting. Is the inability to voluntarily create mental images in the mind's eye often described as a blank screen when attempting to visualize scenes objects or faces it's a form of neurodiversity which occurs in two to four percent of people so so two to four percent of people if you tell them hey can you picture a car in your mind yeah they can't well no at all at all
48:28Sal Di Stefano:but there's actually a sliding scale so that two to four percent is at all right but a lot of people are somewhere on the spectrum of that like so it's like in and there there's i don't know if Doug looks up the graph, but the graph looks like at all is what, 2 % to 4%. And then a lot of people will fall.
48:44Justin Andrews:So does that also mean that they can't, if you ask them a piece of paper to draw it out? No, it says they can. They can draw it, but they can't see it in their mind? Yeah, they can.
48:54Adam Schafer:They can still. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, there's the scale right there.
48:58Sal Di Stefano:See, not at all. Then there's a two. Then there's a three. Then there's four. I was trying to figure out where I fell on that spectrum because I can see the red apple, but I can't see it to like the five where the, like the one example.
49:09Adam Schafer:I can picture it. Okay.
49:11Sal Di Stefano:Like really like the five is like deep, like the shimmer off the apple. And no,
49:15Adam Schafer:I'm probably in the middle. Yeah. The details. So it's, it's a form of neurodiversity. So I'm, I'm, I have a neurodivergent mind, which, which has been labeled ADHD, but I don't think I really fit neatly in that category. Weird. Yeah. Thanks dude. You just offended. Well, your,
49:30Sal Di Stefano:your ability to recall words is really fascinating. That's why I was really curious to bring it up to you because I was shit when my buddy and i who were talking about this i was like oh i can't wait to bring this up to sal because he and i was explaining to him that you know the three of us can all read a study the same exact study for the very first time uh together and you asked me to recall it and i'll mess it up all over the place like i won't be able to recall it exactly and and i'll need to have read it five to ten times messed it up four or five times repeating it and then finally it that comes like i can explain it where you can do that and then almost verbatim it's almost like i need a story behind it for it to capture for me right right otherwise i'm like i've got to connect it to some things i gotta apply it i've got to teach it a few times details are lost yeah then now i'm starting to get where i feel you can look at a study read it and then 10 minutes later so i
50:21Adam Schafer:didn't know that was weird my family no my family would say i was like that too oh she can do that
50:27Justin Andrews:Very photographic memory.
50:28Adam Schafer:Yeah. So when I was a kid, my family would call me. They'd say I was a walking encyclopedia. I didn't know that was weird. But what I do know is weird is that I have such a terrible sense of direction that it's so frustrating. I get so disoriented so easily. And I had a client once that worked in that field. And I started explaining to her how bad my sense of direction was to the point where I was like, I said, you don't understand. I've driven to this place 500 times. I will have to use navigation every time. I won't know how to get there. And if I go and park in a, in a, in a parking lot and I walk in 10 feet, turn back around, I'll forget.
51:08Adam Schafer:I won't know where I am or what's going on.
51:10Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.
51:11Adam Schafer:And she told me that that was a type of neurodivergent, actually a type of dyslexia. She said, yeah, it just with, no, I've seen it before.
51:17Sal Di Stefano:I've teased you before. We've, we've left our, our house that we've, we've owned for like eight, eight years. I don't know. Do I go left or right?
51:26Justin Andrews:You can go either way. Yeah. Crazy kid. You don't know.
51:31Sal Di Stefano:This is your house. You know that. Yeah. I was like a beard. A couple times. It's really bad. So yeah. I'm bad too. I attribute mine though because I used to think I had that skill really well when I was younger. Well, I'll tell you right now. I can't get home from here.
51:46Adam Schafer:You guys know that, right? You can't get home from here. No. I could probably. Be really concentrated. I could probably figure it out, but it would be a really long way because there's a few places I know where to go. But the way that I always go home, I use navigation. If you told me right now, if the power went out right now, that's my biggest fear. That we lose power. I won't be able to go home to be with my family. Poor kids and wife will be like, the power's out. I mean, there's a... When I go the back way,
52:12Sal Di Stefano:right now I'm driving the back way a lot. It's not that much different. It's maybe like 10 minutes back, like kind of country road where Doug is at. And I I actually so I still put it on but I'm trying to train myself to not to know all the back road kind of turns and it is it's like a muscle you have to train too because I know I used to be really good at that but I've become so dependent like you where I just put it in
52:37Adam Schafer:so mine isn't I didn't develop after navigation we drove long enough without navigation they didn't exist when we were kids I would get lost
52:46Sal Di Stefano:so you recall that even further okay yeah see I recall bragging about how good I was at it. Oh, one time I go somewhere, I got it.
52:54Adam Schafer:I was actually terrified of getting, because I would get lost so often. I used to hate it. I used to hate it, hate it, hate it. If I miss a turn, oh God, here I go. I'm lost now. I'm stuck. I'd have to ask for a direct, figure things out. When navigation first came out, it was like a gift from God, man. It was like, oh God, finally, I can go places. Whereas before, I was totally screwed. Couldn't get to the mall from my house. From where I grew up, to go to the mall is one, two, three turns. Couldn't get there. Couldn't get there. It's crazy. That is funny. Anyway, I want to talk to you guys about the green juice.
53:30Adam Schafer:I had a message from someone who said it really helped with their anxiety. What? Yeah, so it's the ashwagandha. Ashwagandha, yeah. Yeah, it's got to be ashwagandha. They were saying that they had anxiety, kind of on and off, kind of physical symptoms of anxiety, and they started using the green juice for health because they heard us talk about organifies green juice, and it went away, and they started connecting the dots and said, oh my God, it's like one of the best things I've tried for feeling anxious.
53:55Sal Di Stefano:I want to know how Organifi makes ashwagandha taste good. Have you ever had straight ashwagandha? Do you know what ashwagandha means?
54:02Adam Schafer:I think ashwagandha, maybe look this up. I think it means horse piss, if I'm not mistaken. It tastes like that. Yeah, I think does ashwagandha look that up? Is that really mean? Or like horse tail or something like that.
54:15Sal Di Stefano:Horse tail sounds right.
54:16Adam Schafer:Yeah.
54:17Sal Di Stefano:yeah obviously you guys have had
54:20Adam Schafer:Doug what does ashwagandha mean I don't know why you don't have to use google he googles in a strange way like a boober
54:34Adam Schafer:smell of horse this is what Doug will google ashwagandha info
54:41Justin Andrews:I was typing in the origin of the ashwagandha name But yeah, what does ostrogonamine mean is easier.
54:50Sal Di Stefano:Poor Doug.
54:51Justin Andrews:I know.
54:51Sal Di Stefano:Poor Doug. I can't wait for this. It's kind of not fair. And you wonder why I don't share anything. This is why he hoards all the secrets right here. He's resentful. Yeah, he's resentful. Hey, he takes his longevity supplements. Screw those guys. I'm going to live so much longer with those guys.
55:08Adam Schafer:I'm going to save all this money. Doug's good side. He'll get back at us when we need him. Doug, can you hand me my... Why don't you Google it? Oh, really? Why don't you Google it, Sal? What's wrong? Can't Google it right? Yeah, yeah. Why are you so mad, Doug?
55:21Sal Di Stefano:You guys need ivermectin now? You are the Google master, though, everybody. You Google the fastest, for sure.
55:27Adam Schafer:But AI requires a whole different way of searching. Totally.
55:30Sal Di Stefano:The prompt different.
55:30Adam Schafer:Yeah.
55:31Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you definitely have to prompt different with AI.
55:33Adam Schafer:I got to figure that out. I don't use AI the way you're supposed to. I just use it like a Google. Yeah, like Google.
55:37Justin Andrews:I know. It's actually better than Google, though. I like it. Really? Yeah. You prefer it? I like it. You prefer it? Oh, you like it better than Google? Yeah. oh by far oh yeah yeah i've trained myself to use that more because i still was like you know i would just use search engines uh for all that stuff and it's like stupid have you
55:55Sal Di Stefano:like this is immediately give it to you there's so many cool we don't even use it i mean we're still getting better at like that like we have an example right now like uh katrina and i uh we're talking to our um car insurance company and you know he's trying to convince us to is which is separate from my house and you get like a better deal yeah if you you package the house with it and stuff like that and Katrina's like I don't want to do that because I'm so worried that what we originally negotiated there there's coverage that I need to go through the contract do that I'm like dude plug it in put it into AI and have AI compare it for yourself you're gonna read all of it like literally just go like give me the pros and cons of this one give me the pros and cons of this one compare the two of them and and like it like the things that we you can use it for we still don't completely you have to imagine it's like a really smart person that's
56:39Adam Schafer:how you talk to it so you can be like hey I'm gonna be flying into this place at this time I have to be at this appointment at this time i'd like to find things to do uh that are going to be fun in between i'm with my 16 year old daughter she's into this kind of stuff what do you recommend yeah boop boop boop boop it'll tell you and then the layers that you can go for that because then
56:54Sal Di Stefano:it kicks off and you go like oh we'll keep the budget between this price and this price and and the driving distance i mean you can just keep going have you guys asked your ai yet if it knows
57:05Adam Schafer:if it knows who you are no ask it say who am i what do i do and what are the things i'm into
57:11Justin Andrews:too it stores anything you've ever done well it'll tell you it knows who you are yeah it'll say adam
57:16Adam Schafer:schaefer host of mind pump yeah you have this you have one child it like picks up even i haven't
57:21Justin Andrews:used it in the months and it just picks up like we never stopped talking you should ask it because
57:24Adam Schafer:mine knew me and i don't talk about any of my whatever yeah it's like oh you're selling stuff
57:29Sal Di Stefano:well i know that that we were just i was talking to my buddies this how good the the tv listening and phone listening stuff is oh man i mean it's on another it's so creepy it's on another level now that and it's we were talking about this uh my buddy's reading like the snowden book and he was he was talking about this while we're hanging out this last weekend um and he's like he's like he that was part of snowden was talking about that stuff a long time ago right and so we've all kind of known it's been happening for a really long time but the level of sophistication that it's at now is is crazy it'll be there'll be something super obscure like that i've either never talked about or katrina and i haven't had a had a conversation at least in the the years that we've known each other about and we'll have a conversation about it and then like turn our tv on and it's like recommending a documentary related to it or and it's just like dude come on yeah like this is random yeah it's so like way in left field or or pull up your computer screen and all of a sudden you're getting an advertisement for like but like we're he was using the example he's like dude my wife and i were literally just talking about oh we didn't take the kid their kids are getting older we should take them camping this and that he goes 15 minutes later i'm on my computer and it's just like tents for sale and this like all can't like lantern and all this
58:38Justin Andrews:it's like geez it reminds me of uh this comedian the stand-up comedian i forget his name he's he's really funny but he like one of his bits was just like right in the middle he's just like i want to buy a humongous dildo you know he just keeps like repeating it over and over and over he's like you're welcome you're gonna go home and have all these ads yeah yeah hey you're welcome from people listening. That's funny.
59:04Adam Schafer:Yeah, did you know that the US government used, which, Plantier? I think they used Plantier to hit the first thousand targets or something like that. Palantir? Palantir, sorry, in Iran. So they used the AI to find targets and like it was so accurate, they're now outfitting everything with AI to be able to find targets. Maybe look that up, Doug. You know, government using Palantir for targets in Iran. I'll just tell you what to say. I'll just do it, yeah, verbatim. Doug puts it, Palantir information.
59:43Adam Schafer:Doug's taking shots, dude.
59:45Sal Di Stefano:Doug's catching strays today, dude. I feel like Iran right now. Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Too much, dude.
59:55Adam Schafer:Based on reports, in March 2026, U.S. military utilizing artificial intelligence technology from Palantir, specifically its Marvin Smart System. Maven, yeah. Maven, sorry. To identify and prioritize targets in Iran, this technology, often referred to as AI-driven kill chain. I don't like the way that sounds.
1:00:13Justin Andrews:None of this sounds...
1:00:14Adam Schafer:Has been used to significantly speed up targeting process, allowing the military to process vast amounts of intelligence data to strike hundreds of targets in a short time. Wow.
1:00:25Justin Andrews:Yeah. Cool. Not unsettling at all. No. Not at all. And by the way, we have something releasing on Sunday.
1:00:32Adam Schafer:Is it coming out Sunday? It's coming Sunday. Oh, boy.
1:00:35Sal Di Stefano:Here we go. MAPS PPL. Maybe one of the hottest programs yet. Push, pull legs. Any bets? Let's take a bet on where it lands. Let's take a bet on it.
1:00:44Adam Schafer:In the context of just how they've been recently.
1:00:47Sal Di Stefano:Compare it to launches. We've done so many programs. I think we all predict it's going to be a good one, right? What do you think it will in comparison? Top three, top five, top ten? It'll break top ten. Top five. Top five, you say.
1:01:06Adam Schafer:God, what's top three? Muscle mommy?
1:01:09Sal Di Stefano:Yep, MAPS 15. MAPS 15. Anabolic. Anabolic? And or aesthetic would be right there too. That would be in the top five.
1:01:16Adam Schafer:I'd say top five. People are asking for a PPL split forever. Yeah. And this is the first time that we've done a MAPS PPL for men. and for women so the programming is a little different so we programmed it differently for women based on what they're typically interested in which is more lower body volume more glute focus and uh and more shoulder focus than let's say it'd be interesting to see if uh women bought
1:01:43Justin Andrews:more than men in which oh good right like i bet you that's gonna be the case we have a pretty split
1:01:50Sal Di Stefano:uh audience it is split so when i look at the analytics on uh buyers and mouse programs it's
1:01:55Adam Schafer:it's it's pretty you're gonna let the girls beat you guys that's what i'm saying i'm calling you guys out right now yeah that's it's a really it'll be really interesting to see if more men by the women or vice versa but it's the first time we've done that so you'll get you can buy one that's programmed for what men typically want to work on and one for what women typically want to work on
1:02:14Sal Di Stefano:and then probably the coolest thing that we're doing that is unique we've only done it one other time is the the coaching that's coming along with it right so yeah three days of yeah so that's really helpful so cole cole is launching that with it and it'll so by the way like it's within i think three days so after the launch i believe wednesday it will be live right away the coaching will be live with it so as soon as as soon as you pick up the program um it's free it's part of it uh you'll be able to join that if you can't make the times there'll be a recording and you'll be able to access it but if you want to be live on there and ask questions it's also the first time
1:02:48Adam Schafer:a program has come with specific dietary instruction. It's much more specific. That's true. Protein, calories, and it's all organized for gaining. Let's go. That's the dietary advice. You can do the program on a cup. Bulk season, baby. But there is a bulk type program in there. Element is an electrolyte powder. You can add it to your water. There's no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, but it tastes good. Here's the best part. 1 ,000 milligrams of sodium per serving. You need that. If you need electrolytes, you need the sodium. This is good for muscle cramps, energy, better pumps in the gym, better performance in the hot sun, and of course, it tastes delicious.
1:03:27Adam Schafer:By the way, they also have 12-ounce sparkling cans that come ready to go with the element already inside. Go check them out. Go to drinkelemente.com forward slash mindpump. On that link, you'll get a free sample pack of their most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase. Back to the show.
1:03:45Justin Andrews:our first question is from lindsayd2015 i am training to be a spin instructor and currently made it through my first round of auditions i'm hoping to coach twice a week but i'm currently cycling three times a week and running anabolic and i'm struggling with recovery i'm 29 years old mom of two i've been weight training five days a week for eight years what are some tips on structuring my week so i can do it all you can't yeah you need to reduce that you can't do it all
1:04:13Adam Schafer:So spin is very intense. Very intense. Lots of stress on the body. MAPS anabolic, even if you do the two-day-a-week version, you're now competing strong endurance signal from spin, which spin is intense. It's not like just a leisurely bike ride. With MAPS anabolic, it's not going to work. It's just not going to work. You might be able to get away with MAPS 15 or one day a week of MAPS anabolic and then feed your body. Yeah. And no more stuff. That's it. Three days a week of spin, one day a week of strength training, or three days a week of spin, MAPS 15, and make sure you hit your protein targets and eat.
1:04:51Adam Schafer:Or less spin and more antiblock. That's it.
1:04:53Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, but she's trying to be her spin instructor, so I'm sure that's not going to happen. Yeah, that's probably not going to happen. So this is, I mean, for this person who's going to be a spin instructor, your strength training routine is going to be one day a week or maybe MAPS 15, right? That's it. I mean, that's most likely. If you're going to be doing three or more days of teaching spin and doing spin, you only really need one day of strength training or one day broken up over.
1:05:18Adam Schafer:The hardest, the people that I had working in my gym that had the toughest time building muscle were my spin instructors. Yeah. They all had it. And why? Because they would teach so many classes. Yeah. Three, four classes a week, five classes a week.
1:05:30Justin Andrews:All adds up, that volume.
1:05:31Adam Schafer:And if you've ever done a spin class, it's all hype, motivation, intensity. That's what they're all about. It's like, go, push, whatever. And combining that with a bunch of strength training It's not going to work.
1:05:42Justin Andrews:Next question is from Midwest Sweetheart. Do I have a higher caloric need as a full-time mom of a two-year-old, or is stress just sabotaging my goals?
1:05:52Adam Schafer:So if you're not getting your goals and your question is, I'm not hitting my goals, is it because I need to eat more? Is it because I need to do less? I would need more information.
1:06:03Sal Di Stefano:I was going to say, I need more info to give you a good answer.
1:06:05Adam Schafer:I would need more information. But the fact that you're asking this question tells me that you probably do need to eat more and do a little less. So typically when I'm training or working with a full-time mom who's coming to me and saying, man, I have a lot of stress. You know, what do I need to do? Your strength training routine would look like mass 15. And I'd make sure you hit your protein targets and then walk and no additional like crazy workout stuff. And you'll know it's working because you're getting stronger. You feel good.
1:06:38Sal Di Stefano:I mean, that's the best advice based off of the information we got that we're getting right now. Because obviously, like, if her goal was to lose weight, then maybe it's, and she's not hitting her goals. Maybe it has nothing to do with eating more calories. But if you're having, if your goals are to build strength and build muscle and you're not, then most likely you need to be fed more or reduce the stress by like a MAPS 15 program versus something that's higher volume and intensity. so i think the way you said it is the best we can with what we got totally next question is from
1:07:11Justin Andrews:justin jd99 what is your advice on a blue collar maps program maps 15 works great but i wonder if a powerlifting slash performance mix would be a better approach to help day-to-day construction
1:07:25Sal Di Stefano:life well you're in luck we have we have 15 minute versions of that we have maps 15 performance if
1:07:30Adam Schafer:you know and mass 15 power lift yeah maps grade eight would be another good option for you um for people you know blue collar uh workers are very active um and so they rarely need more you know activity but strength training is a good idea believe it or not this is not that much different
1:07:46Sal Di Stefano:than answering the question regarding the spin instructor that thinks they need to do more like you're already a very active person doing physical labor uh you don't need to send a super loud signal to build muscle and if you push it too much you're more likely to get trapped in that kind of recovery state that sal always talks about versus actually adapting and growing and building muscle and so a maps 15 protocol is probably the protocol i would keep this person in and then cycle through the different programs and we have a powerlifting one and a performance
1:08:17Justin Andrews:one yeah and you can even venture to try like the the symmetry 15 only because a lot of times there's overuse uh you know within some of these trades where you're getting a lot of activity just on one side and to kind of address that and balance it out with symmetry would be a good idea. Next question is from Big Rigs Gym Gal. How do you stop the cycle of constantly starting and stopping if you're just bored with the workouts or one day of skipping cascades into weeks or
1:08:46Adam Schafer:months? Typically, this is because you're doing too much too soon and that's why you're stopping. Also, I want to just encourage people like it's good to follow a structured program, especially if it's well programmed uh but second place is just working out uh so long as you're not doing things that are gonna hurt you so if you're like i'm bored with today's workout i'm looking at my today's workout and i'm bored okay uh you can either not work out or just do something else yeah even if it's not ideal you're doing something break it up yeah think to yourself like what would i enjoy doing i'm at the gym or i'm gonna go to the gym today i'm supposed to squat I'm supposed to you know remaining deadlift I'm supposed to bench press and I'm bored of doing that what should I do go in there and do something you enjoy uh rather than skipping I like what you
1:09:35Sal Di Stefano:said first because I think this tends to be the more common thing with someone who says a statement like this where uh you're you're kind of all you're always you're all you're all in or you're all out type of deal uh is what typically happens like you're motivated and so you're training five days a week type of deal and then you're not motivated so you skip a day or miss the two days and then that two days turns into weeks and you're off the wagon again, you're on and off. And a lot of times that's just a little bit over committing yourself to too much too soon. So instead of being on or off and on looks like all these days of working out, it's like you just become the person that, you know what?
1:10:07Sal Di Stefano:I'm going to always make sure I squat every week, at least one time, you know, for five sets or something. And to your point, it doesn't pick whatever you want. Pick an exercise that you enjoy doing and become the person that always just does that thing. And then be consistent with that and then add another thing and then add another thing. I think we tend to do this like because we're motivated right now, we do as much as we can. And that's unrealistic for you to keep that momentum and consistency. And so build something that is something you can be very consistent and then build on that, I think is a better strategy than the all or nothing.
1:10:42Adam Schafer:Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there.
1:10:46Justin Andrews: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. With 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.
1:11:28Justin Andrews: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 5-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
Most people think they need to bulk to build muscle… and cut to lose fat. But what if that approach is actually the reason you keep spinning your wheels?
In this episode, we break down why the constant cycle of bulking and cutting is destroying your relationship with fitness—and what you should be doing instead.
We dive into:
• The "Goldilocks Zone" for sustainable progress
• Why most diets feel stressful and eventually fail
• How whole foods + protein can naturally guide your body
• The psychology behind why people NEED the scale to move
• When bulking and cutting actually make sense (and when they don't)
If you're tired of starting over, this episode will completely change how you approach nutrition and training. Though if you still need help schedule a Nutrition Call with a Mind Pump Coach !
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00:00 Stop Bulking & Cutting (Main Fit Tip)
07:30 Why Bulking/Cutting Feels Easier Psychologically
15:00 The "Goldilocks Zone" (Maintenance & Recomp Explained)
25:30 Whole Foods, Protein & Listening to Your Body
35:00 Why Most People Quit (Stress, Tracking, Obsession)
48:00 Coaching Strategy: Building Trust Without the Scale
59:00 Intro Ends → Transition Into Q&A
1:05:00 When You SHOULD Bulk or Cut (Edge Cases)
1:18:00 Listener Question 1 – Struggling to Eat Enough / Appetite Signals
1:32:00 Listener Question 2 – Fat Loss Without Tracking Calories
1:46:00 Listener Question 3 – Recomp vs Cutting for Active Individuals
1:58:00 Listener Question 4 – Sustainable Nutrition Long-Term