2861: If You're Not Building Muscle, You're Probably One of These 5 People | Mind Pump 2861

17:51Adam Schafer:cutting thing that's probably you know yeah 100 uh and what's funny what's ironic about this by the way is as a kid when i finally did allow myself to get really really lean the comments I would get would be, wow, you look so much bigger. And then with my female clients, when they would let go of the feeling and I'd have them not weigh themselves on the scale, they'd come back to me and be like, okay, here's what's weird. I feel bigger, but people at work are telling me like I lost weight, that I look like I lost weight. It's like, well, yeah, your body composition's changing. So it definitely feels different.

18:19Sal Di Stefano:You know, I feel like that, I mean, you just gave the example of how we are the opposite of this, but we're missing a name then. We're missing a name for the person that's like you or I in this situation. So it's not stay shredded, Sally. It's like stay big something.

18:33Adam Schafer:But see, those people don't have issues with building muscle. They have issues with getting muscle. Stay big body.

18:37Sal Di Stefano:Okay, that's a good point. Okay, that's a good point.

18:39Adam Schafer:And then we got weekend warrior Wally. And so this is the person who their diet is good Monday through Thursday or Friday. Their workouts are pretty consistent. Friday night, Saturday night, I'm going out. I'm enjoying myself. Weekend, I eat whatever. I go to bed late. That's okay because I'm sleeping in. and they can't figure out why they're not building any muscle, even though almost 50 % of their week is dedicated to not being consistent and eating like garbage. So three out of seven days is, I mean, it's not half, but it's a significant amount, and you'll throw yourself off enough on those three days to make it so that you're just kind of maintaining or getting no progress.

19:23Sal Di Stefano:You know, we talk about how much I like wearables, This is where this came from. So when, uh, when the body bug first came out, um, I mean, I loved it for my clients, but it was so eyeopening for myself. Uh, cause I was definitely this person at this, at this point, like I could not figure out for the life of me. In fact, at that time in my life, I, I thought for sure it was because all the guys on the covers of magazines were on steroids and I wasn't was like, Oh, that's why, you know, that's why they look like that. I can't, you can't get like that until you get on steroids. It's like, this is the best you can look without that.

20:00Sal Di Stefano:That was like I was convinced because I was a trainer. I understood macros. I knew how to train. I was doing all these, and I was super dialed. Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I wouldn't go crazy. At least I didn't think I was going crazy off the rails. But if I went out and had some drinks on a night or two, I would. If we had pizza, that would be the time. Sleep in. And the body bug really shed light on what a dramatic difference Monday through Friday activity-wise, macro-hitting-wise. And Saturday and Sunday was enough to erase all the great work that I was doing.

20:39Adam Schafer:You probably high-calorie, low-protein. That's right. That's right.

20:41Sal Di Stefano:High-calorie, low-protein, no activity. I'd sleep in until 10 o 'clock in the morning, lay around, watch TV or football, order a pizza, do my whatever. And the opposite on a training, you know, Monday or Tuesday, train 10 clients, you know, starting from 6 a.m., not stopping to 11. I mean, I would be burning 5 ,000 calories. So to burn 5 ,000 during the week and nail my macros, and then on Saturday and Sunday to only burn like 2 ,800, 3 ,000 calories, but then over eat like I was eating all week long. It's a whole lot of discipline, too. It's a lot easier if you're regimented throughout your week.

21:21I'm going to go to work. I got to do this. You're on the move. And then the weekend is like, well, I'm going to kick my feet up. And then your plan throughout the week goes out the window.

21:31Sal Di Stefano:This was the birth of the term when the weekend for me came from. I realized that a lot of people were in this same trap. Like they could, it didn't. And it doesn't, if you're in it, because the way you would convey this, and clients have conveyed this to us before, like, hey, how would you say your diet is? Oh, I got a pretty diet. I'd say, you know, 80-20 or 90-10. And they think of it as Monday through Friday is 80%. And then the weekend's only like 20%, right? So I'd say I'm 80%. I'm 100 % dialed. I mean, 20 % I let my, and so it doesn't make sense to you how much that can set you back. And I swear that's been a huge shift for me is to realize that.

22:13Adam Schafer:This one, this for me, the big one for me figuring this out was sleep because as a kid. That too. Yeah, because as a kid in the summers, oftentimes I would go to work with my dad. And when I would do that, we'd have to wake up early. So I'd go to bed on time because otherwise I'd be dead, right? But then if I didn't have to go to work the next day with my dad in the summertime, I'd stay up super late, sleep in. And it wasn't until I had a summer where I was real consistent with sleep that I saw this progress. I was like, does it really make that big of a difference? Yeah, it makes that big of a difference.

22:47Sal Di Stefano:Well, you add that factor into what I just said, too, of over-consuming on bad calories, under-consuming on what I need, the protein. staying out Friday night at the club or something like that. You know what I'm saying? So throwing myself off. The combination of all that, I don't care how dialed and perfect you are Monday through Friday. It's enough to throw it off.

23:07Adam Schafer:Well, here's the thing with building muscle. It's hard. It's a slow, hard process. You're telling your body you're going to require more nutrients and more resources to maintain. Your body doesn't want to do that unless it thinks all the – it can, unless it has the right signal, the right food, and the right environment. And if you don't create that, it's just not going to happen. Building muscle is definitely not an easy process. It's funny just looking at all the names like you chose for all this, like how long that took. The last one kind of triggers me a little bit, I'll be honest, because of that one dude who's like our rival quarterback, Wally.

23:41All I can think of is weak-ass Wally. Wow. That's what I want to call him.

23:45Adam Schafer:You just can't help him throw the check. Screw that guy. Hey, can I tell you something, Adam? Yeah. I picked your name on purpose. I did, dude. I did. I was like, hey, this morning, This morning I wrote this down between sets, you know, and I'm working out. I'm like, oh, I'm going to write Wally down. This is what triggers Justin. It did. Well, you triggered me. It totally did. All right. I got to bring up an old study I brought up once, and I read it again. It's the craziest. It's actually a wild study that, and there's been some other studies that have kind of supported this. I've told you guys, this was done in 2016, the twin study that was done on red light therapy.

24:21Adam Schafer:Did I tell you about this? You guys remember this? No. This is so crazy, dude.

24:24Sal Di Stefano:No, a twin study on it? Yes, dude. So one of the - It's the best study possible.

24:29Adam Schafer:Yeah, dude. One of the gold - Dude, so great. So one of the gold standards of whenever you're using some kind of intervention is if you have twins, because it's so hard to control for genetics. Now, it's not perfect, because twins can have different lifestyles and all that stuff. But when it's a simple intervention, like red light - Red light's very simple. You're going to come to the lab, we're going to shine a red light on one of you, and the other one we're not you know type of deal it's beautiful because now we can look at we can rule out genetics and just say what did the red light actually do and they also controlled the workout so they took identical identical twins and they did a 12 week 12 weeks of strength training one of them got the red light therapy on their quadriceps post-training the other one got a placebo so they just shined a light wasn't red light therapy the the one who got the red light therapy, had 20 % muscle growth versus 5 % in the placebo.

25:26Adam Schafer:So 15 % more in 12 weeks. Better performance, lower muscle damage markers, reduced delayed onset muscle soreness, favorable gene expression changes, so up-regulated hypertrophy genes, down-regulated inflammatory atrophy ones. It was just the red light. That's wild.

25:44Sal Di Stefano:What did the 5 % come from the placebo? Just the fact that they believed in it. So that's, typical results would just be 5%. Yeah, dude, so 15 % more. So to me, or four times, right? Four times the results. That's crazy. By being, which is, I think that's... Being actually effective, yeah. Dude, that's wild.

26:01Adam Schafer:So just for people to know, what does that look like? Well, I guess we would have to put it in strength terms. It'd be like you'd be able to do two or three more reps than the other guy. That's not nothing in 12 weeks. That's a big deal. Yeah. You guys. Stretch that out over a year.

26:12Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah.

26:13Adam Schafer:So imagine if you had like a Juve red light, and your structure was, after I train whatever body part, or I would say this to make it more realistic. I have a lagging body part. I have a body part I've been focusing on. Every time I train that body part, I'm going to go to the red light therapy and shine the juve light on it for 20 minutes. And you're going to see better gains. It's so crazy.

26:36Sal Di Stefano:Was it Asprey or who is it that we know or Greenfield? It was someone we know who tested it where they shine it on like one leg only to recover. People have done that. And they said, like, boy, it's like you can feel a huge difference. I know Mercola's done a bunch of studies on it, too. But, yeah, I think it was Greenfield.

26:53Adam Schafer:Dude, it's wild because it's one of the few things that will build more muscle that's not, like, a hormone or a peptide or, like, do the same things that you're doing now.

27:03Sal Di Stefano:Well, that's an easy way to test it, too, what I just said. Like, if you don't, like, because, I mean, that's the hard part is, like.

27:08Adam Schafer:Or maybe put it on a body part, like, a side that you need to bring up. That might be a good idea. Yeah. I mean, you go do heavy squat.

27:15Sal Di Stefano:I know how I'm going to feel when I do heavy squats on a day or whatever. I know how sore I'm going to be. You shine on one side and not the other. You'll probably feel a big difference from left to right. That's enough to sell you. You don't want to do that all the time, but enough to get like, okay, this is definitely working.

27:31Adam Schafer:I think if you have a garage gym, you know what I would do? Because I have this in my bedroom, but if I put it in my garage, you know what I would do? I wonder if this would work just in between sets. So you don't have to spend an additional.

27:42Sal Di Stefano:I'm waiting for the... Just every recording set?

27:45Adam Schafer:Yeah, three minutes or two minutes in between sets. Boom, shine it, go work out.

27:49Sal Di Stefano:You know, people sent me... You know, I brought it up about the shower thing, right? So there's all these knockoff ones that do shower heads. And it's not the... No. I looked it up. It's not the same power lumens and whatever. No. It's nowhere near what you do.

28:03Adam Schafer:There's a certain intensity frequency that you see in the studies. That's the one that Juve uses. there's a lot of red light therapy panels and stuff that are out in the market and it's not only is it they're different which means they don't work yeah so it's not like they work less they just don't work just like christmas lights you're just literally putting a red light yeah i

28:21Sal Di Stefano:want i want i'm waiting for like the first like contractor who would build it into your like bathroom ceiling i think that would be cool i think it'd be cool you come in i could hit a switch and my whole bathroom just glows just turns on yeah because i mean you're in you're in there naked your shower and getting ready and stuff like that i'm in there i'm in there for at least 15 to 30 minutes every day be so much easier to just get hit like that by like consistent yeah i'm wondering like you know if you had like in a gym you have like your locker room and all that but then you just had like stalls boosts with just like all red paneled out i think a lot of yeah yeah i think there's some gyms that have done that i've seen some uh like uh like group x type rooms where they have it where it's like when they're doing yoga and stuff like that where Oh, wow.

29:03Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah, yeah. Or they do it like that, too. Are they the legit ones?

29:06Adam Schafer:I don't know.

29:07Sal Di Stefano:I don't know. It might just be ambiance.

29:09Adam Schafer:Yeah, they just put red bulbs in the -

29:11Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I don't know what brand they're using and the quality of it.

29:15Adam Schafer:So for people who aren't familiar, the real red light, again, there's a certain radiation and whatever. By the way, it's not bad because it's well-studied. Like, well-studied. The studies go back decades. But the way it works is it ramps up mitochondrial function. Yeah. So for whatever reason, whatever cells it shines on, the mitochondria works better. And so better working mitochondria means whatever your body's trying to do, it does better. Heal, skin looks better, hair grows back, you get less stretch marks. And then if you shine it on a muscle, because it penetrates through. Doug just put it up.

29:51Sal Di Stefano:The most effective red light therapy uses specific wavelengths, primarily 630 to 660 nanometers. And 10 to 850 nanometers for near infrared.

29:59Adam Schafer:For 10 to 20 minutes, three to five times per week. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Anyway, I got some, you guys want to talk about UFO stuff?

30:10Sal Di Stefano:Has your beliefs changed this week or whatever? So they're trickling.

30:14Adam Schafer:So are you guys seeing what they're releasing? Well, I know that there's documents just released, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what is in there? So here's what's interesting to me. Because a couple of things. One, I think we could pretty reliably say that the government doesn't release anything it doesn't want us to see. Of course. And there probably is some kind of a narrative or ulterior motives. They're not just like, hey, guys, we just want to show you cool things.

30:42Sal Di Stefano:So that's what page I'm on.

30:44Adam Schafer:I mean, that's for sure, right? Because I was having this conversation with my friend, and we're going back and forth. I'm like, when's the last time that they didn't have – And anybody that can legitimately explain any of it that have disappeared. like oh that's the crazy thing about those scientists yeah that's weird anyway so so some theories so one theory i heard this today and i thought that's interesting they said the only reason why they'll trickle information out is to prevent uh people from getting too like too excited too much um what's the word i'm looking for uh with people pandemonium yeah so they're going to slowly trickle it out get people used to each piece and then make more and more and they said the reason why they're doing this is because they know we're going to see more of these things in our neighborhoods and over us anyway and they're just trying to get us from to to stop to not freak out because guess what we're going to be seeing a lot of this stuff yeah and so they're just trying to prepare do we freak out i just i'm still i thought we'd i think we'd freak out if people just started seeing them in their neighborhoods all over the place i mean uh

31:41Sal Di Stefano:okay if if it's if it's able to travel light years away to get to us which i think we'd all agree right unless it's living in the ocean it's interdimensional yeah or yeah or yeah right so if it's so they have to be a pretty evolved species more evolved than us the likelihood that they're here to hurt us or attack it they could have done it if they wanted to so i don't think it's that scary i think it's uh i think i don't think it's because if it if it is and they're they're capable of doing that and they're that evolved and then even if they are i feel like if they're not just

32:14Adam Schafer:trying to kill you bro they're trying to take away your salvation so they got to convince you

32:19Sal Di Stefano:i'm still sticking with that i'm not yeah i'm not on the demon theory dog i don't think that's what

32:23Adam Schafer:it is i don't think it's that at all so but anyway that was one uh that that that's the deal um so yeah dude so i don't know i thought that was kind of interesting like are we gonna start seeing more of this stuff and are they keeping us from freaking all the precursor being over in what the east coast where they had like a few of those what would they say they were like the size of like a vw bug or something like in the sky yeah so i mean obviously they did it intentionally so it just started to kind of socially condition everybody did you guys see the star one that they released it looked like doug maybe you can look it up like ufo star did you see the one they released the government released it looked like like a star but not like an actual star it was in the shape of a star and it was like floating around and they were yeah dude it's that's that's the one resembling an eight yeah that one right there what yeah that's the government released that cool star-shaped ufo uh video that's weird yeah i don't know yeah well yeah how do you make movies now yeah it's like everything's already happening in real life that bottom left one doug is a clear picture that no the bottom uh on your yeah right there look at that picture of it like what is going on dude and they're releasing this kind of stuff it's like a christmas ornament And these officials are coming out saying, oh, it's nothing.

33:38Adam Schafer:You just wait. We got stuff that's going to blow your mind. Just wait for the probes. No.

33:46Sal Di Stefano:Leave us alone. Oh, no, dude. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not even watching any of it, dude. I honestly have turned off so much of this stuff, dude. It's so lame.

33:55Adam Schafer:It is.

33:57Sal Di Stefano:And every day, too, something hits me now in my feed. And I get pissed every time it does this. Something catches me. I did it this morning. Does it suck you in? Yeah, and then it sucks me in, and I'm watching it for a minute, and then I realize I'm watching AI. You know what it's like for me? You know when you read a really good book, and then you watch somebody directs the movie of it, and it sucks balls. That's what reality is now. I was all excited about aliens and Bigfoot, and now it's just super lame. They made the lamest version for us to try out. What could be, okay, this whole alien thing comes out.

34:35Sal Di Stefano:What would be like the lamest story? Like what makes it like just wah, wah, wah? Oh. They're not your demons. It doesn't fulfill that. I don't know. They're just stopping by. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, how are they going to convince everybody other than like with some kind of crazy force like to scare us? Scare is like scaring people is like a go-to.

34:59Adam Schafer:Maybe if we came out and find out that they made it all up. Maybe that the government came out and made it all up.

35:04Sal Di Stefano:To me, that's the part that I think is coming. I think that it's made up.

35:09Adam Schafer:What if this is the government's way of showing the world the technology that we have without saying it's our technology? So it's like, how weird. Look what this does. You could totally just go in and out of your airspace.

35:23Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I lean more towards that than I do, that there's these demons or aliens that are flying around. You know what's weird, too, to me? Why are all their spaceships differently designed? One's like a VW bug. One's like a Christmas tree. One's like, why are they all so different? The only thing I'm excited about is the lizard people. Yeah, dude.

35:45Adam Schafer:If that's real, that's awesome. There's more people coming out and saying that. I heard that, too. Here's what I want to know. No way. Why is it the U.S. just has information? Is the rest of the world, like, left out? Another thing that's weird. They're just dealing with us? Yeah. You know what I mean? Is anybody else, like, yeah, do they have all these signings? Yeah, why aren't other countries coming up? Signings?

36:03Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, dude. I don't know. They're too busy. That's why I don't buy it, dude. They're not trying to distract everybody from corruption. Hey, did you see, sorry to switch gears from your alien talk, but did you see the, I sent over an article, our buddy, you know, Casey, he does the, he's got that great sports YouTube channel. He's been on the show a couple times. He called in with his wife that one time. He sent me over an article. He's like, hey, you guys might enjoy this. And he goes, I'm curious to hear your opinion. And there's a college basketball player at Kansas. Oh, you sent this to me.

36:35Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I sent it over because I wanted to hear your opinion on it. So it's Darren Peterson. So he's been getting full body cramps so bad he locks all up. And tested his blood afterwards and said, like high creatine levels with that. And so blaming that, and his whole life he hadn't really taken creatine. When he comes to Kansas, part of the sports nutrition guy and stuff puts all the athletes on high doses of creatine. And so the claim is that it's creatine's fault that this is happening. So the theory

37:06Adam Schafer:was...

37:06Sal Di Stefano:Which hydrates your cells. So that kind of... So here was...

37:10Adam Schafer:It's actually an old myth. It's more hydrating. I'll break it down. So the theory was when creatine first hit the scene in the mid-90s, there was a lot of uh fears it's going to harm your kidneys because your kidneys have to process creatine by the way uh it's been studied thousands of times and well done studies good for your does not harm your kidneys whatsoever it might even be uh protective but there's zero uh zero evidence zero that it'll harm your kidneys the other one was uh cramping because uh when you take creatine you have more atp and so uh atp molecules uh need water molecules and so you your body actually holds, your muscles hold more water.

37:51Adam Schafer:And so they said, oh, it must be drawing water from other areas and it could cause dehydration as a result. So that was a theory. So they've studied creatine and muscle cramps a lot. This isn't like a little bit. This is like a big area study around creatine over the last few decades. And here's what the studies actually show. They tested it on Division One college football players. In hot human conditions, by the way, people who took creatine had significantly fewer cramps so less muscle cramps uh they also showed that people with uh hemodialysis uh patients so people who are prone to cramps creatine reduced cramping frequency by about 60 percent so not only does creatine not cause muscle cramps but all the evidence shows that actually reduces it yeah yeah the incidence of muscle so we've i thought he's

38:41Sal Di Stefano:just he's just he's just he's just electrolyte balance is electrolyte balance yeah it's the same manage it well yeah not blaming creatine no like creatine that's why that's why i figured i'm like this is something we've talked about before and it's interesting that it's making i mean new york times making headlines over it and i don't know maybe that's because the new york times knows that i mean creatine is i for the first time ever i feel like creatine has become a household name like i never felt like that before it's always been a sports performance supplement we've known about it forever as like the gold standard of best performance supplements out there but your average person hadn't thought about that like i have my family and friends that are

39:19Adam Schafer:like totally not working because the longevity of benefits are pretty clear now which i've been by the way they've been clear for over a decade it's just now getting to the mainstream which maybe

39:28Sal Di Stefano:that's why new york times takes this article right and runs with it is because it'll it'll create

39:32Adam Schafer:headlines in other words creatine isn't just good for building muscle athletic performance and strength it's actually good for your health it's good for longevity it's good for your organs it's pro longevity pro health supplement not just one uh that improves um athletic performance so i think that's why it's making headlines but it's just it's just not true it's been well studied so it's

39:53Sal Di Stefano:not like it's a little bit it's been well studied and yeah and when the evidence not just doesn't

39:58Adam Schafer:just show it doesn't cause cramps but actually does the opposite then you know that uh he's tripping i have friends right now who are not fitness fanatics who are using creatine because they've seen the data then they asked me about it we're talking so uh one of them's an er doctor another one is a psychiatrist who also works uh long hard hours another one is a nurse neither one of them is a fitness fanatic now they'll do some exercise but the reason why they're taking creatine is because the hours that they work and the stress that their job entails especially the er doctor and the nurse yeah they're like would it would it really help me with like uh sharpness yeah will it give me energy life changing is what they're telling me life changing I mean the nurse is coming to me and she's like they're doing like the 15 to 20 gram yep like 5 grams like a few times a day right like the nurse came to me she's like dude she's like I feel like someone turned the lights on just from taking creatine wow yeah it's had a significant benefit for them so again they're not fitness fanatics they're just regular people who have kind of stressful lives and don't get a good sleep you know quite often because of their jobs.

41:06Adam Schafer:And they're like, this is the most... Are you the one giving it to them?

41:10Sal Di Stefano:Or did you set them up or what?

41:11Adam Schafer:I'll give them first, and then they'll go and buy it on their own. I thought, was it creatine that has somewhat of a neuroprotectant? Yes. You know, for even trauma. Brain injury? Yes. Injury. Yeah, I wish I had known all that. I'm glad to know it now, at least for my sons and whatnot, to kind of pass it on. But it's like, yeah, thinking about that, even with athletes.

41:30Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I didn't take it until I was like 20. It was after playing sports as a kid. It wasn't popular yet. At least I don't remember it being popular.

41:37Adam Schafer:Dude, I've been taking it nonstop since I was 15.

41:40Sal Di Stefano:I mean, if you've been taking it since I was 15, that means it was. It was around then when I was in high school. I just don't remember.

41:44Adam Schafer:It was expensive back then.

41:46Sal Di Stefano:Celtec was really expensive.

41:47Adam Schafer:No, it wasn't Celtec. It was before Celtec.

41:50Sal Di Stefano:That's when I remember. So you're just in the monohydrate by itself?

41:54Adam Schafer:Yeah, so EAS was the first to really put it out there. And it was, so Bill Phillips owned it. and it was 90, I want to say 94. Dollars? No, no, no, 1994. But it would cost 40 bucks back then for 30 servings. It was a tiny bottle of powder.

42:12Sal Di Stefano:So 1998, okay, so that's right. That's Muscle Tech. Yeah, yeah. Don't say Cell Tech. No, no, I asked him to put that. I wanted to see, because that was when it came on the scene for me. Yeah, so it was like four years later. Yeah, so that's when I started taking it. So 98. Yeah, grape flavor.

42:26Adam Schafer:Doug, when did, there you go. 93. Yep. That's when I, phosphagen, that's when I started taking it.

42:33Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

42:34Adam Schafer:But people often ask, so my friends will ask me, creatine is everywhere. How do I know if it's good or bad? Which one should I take? So I'm like creatine monohydrate, but then you want to look at where the creatine is sourced or look at the company because, you know, supplement companies notoriously. Yeah, there's some sheistiness. Yeah, and so I point them to a couple of our partners, Kion in particular, because Kion is just top. Do they use CreaPure?

43:02Sal Di Stefano:Is that where they get it? I believe so.

43:03Adam Schafer:But Keon is, their stuff is just, it's like top, top shelf or whatever. And because creatine is not super expensive, it's not expensive anyway. Yeah. But you're going to get like real creatine. It's remarkable to me when studies, third parties go out and, or investigative journalists go out and take a bunch of supplements and test them. It always makes me so angry. It's like half. Heavy metals in there and fluff. Bro, it's like, it's either half or more than half are terrible. It's not like 10%, 5%. Might as well be sawdust. It's like most of them.

43:35Sal Di Stefano:Well, especially stuff like that, the margins are so slim that it's the way to make the, it's how you make a lot of money in it. I mean, if you create enough popularity through brand or marketing and you're selling tens of thousands of bottles, it's not a lot of money unless you're doing something like that. Especially creatine.

43:54Adam Schafer:Creatine is not a high margin supplement anymore. It used to be.

43:57Sal Di Stefano:I mean, this was a thing I think that a lot of fitness people don't even realize. I think every fitness person thinks that they're going to get popular and then sell supplements is the way to make money. And it's just your best supplement brands are 10 % to 15 % margins. I mean, so you've got a million-dollar company. You make$100 ,000 a year. It's not a lot.

44:21Adam Schafer:You have two avenues to go, right? You either skimp on quality. so maybe uh it's good maybe it isn't oftentimes it isn't and so what happens is you have a cheap product but your margins are high because you're getting it sourced terribly or you go the super quality route and you really have to convince people that your creatine monohydrate is pure and good versus this other guy and yeah you're gonna spend another 10 bucks but hey here's all here's all of our analysis this is good or our studies that we had to pay for to show the proof

44:53Sal Di Stefano:of how good it is, right? Because that's the problem. The problem with the supplement company or the supplement industry is that it's not regulated, which is not a bad, I don't think I want it regulated, right? I don't think it's a good thing for us.

45:03Adam Schafer:No, but it's buyer beware.

45:03Sal Di Stefano:But exactly. Because then it's like, you know, you get to pay for, and the people that go through the third-party testing, they have to pay out of pocket. So they have to. So not only are they purely sourced, but then also if they're getting third-party tested, they're paying for the third-party testing. So you're paying for higher quality stuff and you're also paying for third-party testing. So for you to, you're going to have to charge significantly more than the people that are pixie dusting the the

45:27Adam Schafer:product so and kion is like this is like what their this is their whole deal is uh quality 100 so that's why i appointed them for creatine but i love to hear it's so cool to hear from people who are not like fitness fanatics you know come up to me in church and she's like

45:41Sal Di Stefano:it's like the lights turned on i mean it's just in i'd say the last year is when i've noticed uh non-fitness people talking about creatine. I can't remember. It was just like a month ago. Oh, was that our buddy Jay's house? And he had all his family. And you're talking like none of them look like they work out or anything like that. And at the dinner table, everyone's talking about creatine. I'm like, this is such a weird suit. This is weird for me. It's new multivitamin. You called it a long time ago. I remember it was like, it's true. Ten years ago. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they've incorporated it.

46:16Sal Di Stefano:They have. Yeah, there's companies that have it in multivitamins now. It makes sense.

46:20Adam Schafer:I'll tell you this right now. I'm not saying that this is what I'm advocating for. But I think in the future, you can write this down. I think they're going to give it to kids. I think it will be part of the protocol for people as they age. And I think they're going to give it to pregnant women. Again, I'm not advocating for kids and pregnant women because we're not allowed to say that. So that's not what I'm advocating. I just think probably 10, 15 years from now, they're going to be like, this is part of your prenatal. Yeah, there'll be studies in that direction, I'm sure. This is what you need to give your kids.

46:52Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, interesting that we haven't. I guess it's just the risk factor, right? Why they wouldn't do something? Russia will do it sooner or later. Well, here's the deal.

46:58Adam Schafer:You can't do studies on kids or pregnant women. It's unethical. It's very unethical. You can't take a group of pregnant women and be like, we're going to see if this is safe. That's why I said Russia will do it. Yeah. China. China's already done the studies. That's terrible. That's terrible. I want to talk about peptides for a second because there's this viral video that's going around where this doctor is talking about BPC-157 and how it spurs angiogenesis. Oh, I'm glad you brought this up. Did you see this? Yes, I did see this. I'm so glad. I forgot about this.

47:32Sal Di Stefano:I wanted to bring this up. Yeah.

47:33Adam Schafer:So this woman, this doctor says it triggers angiogenesis, which is the formation of new blood vessels to cells. So if you have an injury, more blood supply, more nutrients to the injury is going to mean it's going to recover faster. That's not the only way that BPC-157 works, but it's one of the ways, right? Yeah. And so she said, you don't want to take this because it doesn't know the difference between cancer and a normal cell. and I get the rationale. I totally do. But what people need to understand is there is a normal physiological state and then there's a pathological state. So to use a different example, eating a high protein diet builds more muscle, burns more body fat, contributes to better longevity.

48:21Adam Schafer:Okay. With all things being equal, your healthy exercise, all that stuff's better. Can protein feed cancer? Yes. Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates produce energy, well-being that can help with hormone balance. Can carbohydrates feed cancer? Yes. We can go even deeper. mTOR, which is a marker or trigger for muscle growth. Mammalian target rapamycin. If you boost that with a cancer cell, cancer cell grows. Does that mean we shouldn't lift weights? Because every time you lift weights, you boost mTOR. No. In fact, in a healthy state, building muscle, spiking mTOR reduces cancer risk. So, testosterone. Testosterone.

48:59Adam Schafer:Testosterone-sensitive cancer.

49:00Sal Di Stefano:That was the first thing that went to my mind when it was the fear-mongering that was around testosterone. Same angle. So you have prostate cancer.

49:07Adam Schafer:It's only irrelevant if you have cancer already. Well, so again, you have prostate cancer. It's sensitive to testosterone. It could drive the growth. But what we see in data is that men with really low testosterone have a high rate of prostate cancer. So there's a healthy state, and then there's the pathological state. What they find in the BPC is that it doesn't contribute in some of the data that we have to cancer or cancer growth. It actually shows anti-cancer effects in many of those cases. So I think the worry, what they're looking at is the mechanism, and they're forgetting that there's a lot of other things that are happening with that and not just to look at.

49:45Sal Di Stefano:Now, the other argument that I think that doctor made, too, is that we have very little or no studies on humans. Everything is on animal studies. So that's her big...

49:56Adam Schafer:There isn't a ton of human studies, but humans have been using them for a while. And there are studies out of Russia that we like to discredit. But peptides are really interesting in how they work. They're all the same, but some of them seem to be regulating, meaning they can boost inflammation when necessary or reduce it when necessary. Sorry. It's not like a drug that just forces its way in your body. Yeah. So it's very different. Not saying you shouldn't be. Like adaptogenic somehow. Yeah. And not saying you shouldn't be careful, but they're typically not in the same category as drugs. Well, really, the big concern is the quality of where you're sourcing it from because you don't really know from some sources what's actually in there, which could exaggerate.

50:45Adam Schafer:Yeah. Underlying problems. Yeah, because the gray market is research chemical peptides, and then you don't know what's in there or where they're coming from. Versus like when you go through, like we have partners at mphormones.com, and those are medical professionals, and they prescribe the peptides, and the peptides are from FDA-regulated compound pharmacies. So they have those standards.

51:09Sal Di Stefano:I remember when it was first getting popular, I mean, we were doing the podcast, and I thought originally it fell in the same categories like SARMs.

51:19Adam Schafer:No.

51:20Sal Di Stefano:And so, yeah, I was totally, like, not a fan of it at all and thought it was very similar to that. I'm sure that there's still a lot of people that feel this way. Like, do you inject it? It's probably like a hormone or it's like a SARM. Like, this can't be good for you.

51:35Adam Schafer:You know what's interesting, too, about just to go to hormones, because there's the fear with hormones, right? If you use too many hormones because some cancers are hormone sensitive, it could cause higher rates of cancer. We have a wonderful kind of self-study group of people that we can look at to see, does that actually happen? Bodybuilders. Bodybuilders. Yeah. And let me tell you, they are not using appropriate levels of hormones. They're going crazy. and the cancer rate with uh bodybuilders is lower than the average population so not saying that you should do what they do because they die from other things but i i think that a lot of the fear mongering around some of the stuff with cancer there were those studies with women yeah where they saw women who were on hormone replacement therapy at higher rates of certain cancers but when they went back and they said oh you know we threw in here were a bunch of women who were on birth control forms of hormone therapy, which is not bioidentical.

52:35Adam Schafer:It's like synthetic, you know, versions of progesterone or whatever, which don't act the same as actual progesterone or actual testosterone or actual estrogen in the body. So anyway, one more cool thing. Are you, do you guys see the study that's going viral on ivermectin and mabendazole? Have you seen this, Doug? I think you saw it. I've seen some of this. Yeah. No, no. They're going to look deeper into this, but I'll pull it up. There's a lot. A lot of relationship with parasites and cancers on some level. Yeah, there's a lot of speculation on these two old antiparasitic drugs and their potential effect on cancer.

53:13Adam Schafer:Good old ivermectin. Yeah, so this was a prospective observational cohort. So you got to take it with a grain of salt. Still interesting. I think it points us in a direction. There was 197 patient prospective observational cohort with a telemedicine platform that went viral. It reports that 84 % clinical benefits rate at six months follow-up. So in other words, 84 % of the people who were using, who had cancer, who used ivermectin, mibendazole had a positive effect. The problem is it's not a randomized control trial. We don't know what else they were doing. But it is kind of interesting that, and there are mechanisms that they can point to and say these have anti-cancer effects.

53:55Sal Di Stefano:It's ivermectin and what? What'd you say? Mibendazole. Is it combined or are they two separate? Two of them together. Okay.

54:01Adam Schafer:Yeah. And they've been used for a long time. See, Doug's pulling up some interesting. In lab settings, both drugs have shown the ability to inhibit tumor growth, trigger cancer cell death, and target cancer stem cells. There's clinical data early. It's limited, but observational studies that show that they seem to help with breast cancer. Or in some says no, no help. they're pretty relatively safe uh drugs to take but i think it's pretty interesting i have a friend who's um i won't say too much because i don't want to encourage anybody to go in this direction but this person is uh there's lots of anecdotes i've read too there is uh and i went down this path you guys know this years ago i have a family member who had cancer and uh she was terminal and so you're left with like what do we do it was like yeah right um and uh so i know somebody that is kind of going down this path and the traditional methods aren't working.

54:56Adam Schafer:And so they're going to probably go down this path because what else you got to lose? You're already kind of going there. But anyway, interesting area of research. So it'd be cool if we find anything. Wow. You still have, you keep that on hand, don't you, Ivermectin?

55:08Sal Di Stefano:You keep the other one too or no?

55:09Adam Schafer:I have them at home, yeah. Yeah, I do too.

55:13Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I do too. Stockpiling. Is everybody still, people are actually privy now that it's not like just a horse dewormer, right? There's like all kinds of stuff benefits to it. Yeah, there might be some effects. Yeah, dude, for sure. I got a few things at home

55:27Adam Schafer:that I won't share here. There's a lot of crossovers veterinary medicine. It's kind of hilarious. Let's talk about the single variable everybody tends to forget, sleep. Look, you can dial in your training, your diet, mobility, but if your sleep is off, even if it's not off by that much, you're not going to build muscle and it's very difficult to burn body fat. It's true, sleep makes a huge, huge difference. This is why we work with 8sleep. So 8sleep has a device called the Pod. It's a smart cover. It fits over your existing mattress. Now, what it does is it actively cools or heats each side of the bed independently all the way down to 55 degrees or up to 110 degrees.

56:10Adam Schafer:There's a huge range there. And as you get into warmer nights, this makes a big difference. By the way, it also has AI technology to adjust this on the fly. It actually monitors your sleep to maximize your individual sleep. So here's what the data says. Users of the 8 Sleep say they have 35 % more deep sleep. They fall asleep up to 44 % faster. Heart rate variability is up 13 % on average. People's resting heart rate goes down by 2.3 beats per minute on average. It tracks it all, by the way. It does this all for you. It's literally smart sleep. So go to 8sleep to maximize your sleep and your gains.

56:51Adam Schafer:Go to 8sleep.com forward slash mind pump. You can get up to$500 off the pod during their Memorial Day sale. This is happening now through May 31st. Go check them out. Back to the show. Our first caller is Jonathan from Northern Ireland. Hey, Jonathan. How you doing, Jonathan? Hiya. Thanks for having me on, lads. I really appreciate it and all the stuff that you do have only recently. buying just sort of short clips online and just sort of delving into the podcast. And I don't know if you've got to see my email, just a few things going on and thought I'd reach out because it's just sort of a confusing situation.

57:33I thought I was doing the right things and it sort of maybe led to my detriment in a sense. But just a bit of background, played professional rugby for probably over a decade or so. had to retire due to concussion and then obviously carried a bit more weight back then when I played hooker and lost a bit of weight but just like there recently was just about all over the place so I would have obsessed over training and diet and you know cut down quite a bit of body fat and then obviously sort of got a bit better or whatever but a friend sort of suggested just sort of the my physical and whatever mental or what sort of you know when he said get your testosterone tested and I didn't really take much heat or think about it and got it done and it's came back um very low and got a retest there last week and it's even lower again and I just thought I'd reach out and sort of ask you know your your opinion or your thoughts on it because obviously it's a lot more prevalent today, but I'm not quite sure.

58:45I feel like I've been doing the right things with my lifestyle and training and looking after myself, so it's a bit confusing with it coming back so low.

58:54Adam Schafer:Yeah, yeah, good question. So there's a few common reasons why a man's testosterone may be low, sometimes mysterious, but there are some common reasons. One of them is overtraining, being underslept, too much stress uh or nutrient deficiency or diet okay many times it's all the above yeah or it could be all the above with a guy like you okay at your ex-pro athlete okay uh your concept of appropriate training or should i say an athlete's concept of appropriate levels of training is so skewed. I'd agree. I always do too much than too little and probably when I was playing HADA, obviously we have our S &C coaches and they sort of guide you and you have your downtime, whereas probably since retiring, I've just sort of kept the grind and just more on the mental side, yourself getting into the gym and it's sort of an escape and that's sort of just an outlet.

1:00:01So probably guilty of that, but I feel like my diet's pretty good and I look after my body and sleep well and I am very active. I don't know if it would be diet or stress because obviously life throws a lot of shit at you. I'm sort of trying to balance everything. But I'm seeing my general practitioner again on Friday in there referring me to a hormone specialist, but it's something I don't want to just jump to conclusions on if it's something that can be avoided. But I do know that I don't want to walk about the rest of my life feeling like I'm dragging myself about like a 90-year-old.

1:00:42Sal Di Stefano:Are those pictures you just sent, are those current? Is that you right now? No, that would have been me, I'd say, mid-November or so. Like that's the lightest or leanest I've ever been. Okay. I was just thinking, your testosterone level will come back low when you're that lean. Even when I was on testosterone and I'm going to get that shredded for a show. You feel like it. Yeah, your testosterone levels will come down. So being that lean is not ideal for testosterone levels. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, no, I'm up to about 83 kgs. I've probably about 5 kgs on since I've furloughed. So I'm definitely in a better spot.

1:01:29But there's still, they came back. The second test was 5.4 nanomoles, believe it. So I think that equates that. It was at about 150. Okay. Yeah, that's low. That's low.

1:01:42Adam Schafer:So there's also this stress too, Jonathan. How long were you professional, did you say? Decade. 10 years? Yeah, but obviously you come through, and it was different in America, like college sports and stuff. You'd have academies here in the UK and Ireland, so came through the academy system, but fully professional training with the senior team over 10 years, so I was lucky to do that. And then before that, you were very competitive even in your youth, probably. Oh, yeah, just playing whatever got me out of class. Yeah. Just playing sport. like almost sure okay so so it's very stressful to have something become your identity and then to snatch it away so they've done studies on this where somebody uh retires and they identify very strongly with their job especially if what you're what you did brought you a certain level of glory uh and a certain level and identification if you identify strongly with being that athlete and competing and now you're retired it's very stressful it's like okay who am i what am i doing now i'm lost um and so that's a stress as well um so you got that plus you probably i'm going to ask you what your workout looks like but i'm going to guess it's a lot so tell me what your training typically looks like i've tried to be better now and try to like read my body and be a bit more intuitive but um on average like recently i do like three all body sessions and gym sessions a week about 90 minutes and you know kind of bring them close each set close to failure um and then i try and do try and do two car like it depends just how the body's been like a run or a bike you know twice a week but it just depends like sometimes i might do mileage of like

1:03:37Sal Di Stefano:25 care you know over two runs on a bike as a pro athlete your your gauge of what you can handle and tolerate is so crazy it's so far beyond what is ideal for health for your body so i can without even finishing i can tell you right now you're way you're hammering the shit out of your body yeah that's why you're feeling this training to failure three full body workouts plus additional cardio sessions on that.

1:04:05Adam Schafer:25 kilometers.

1:04:05Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that's a ton. And it may not feel like a ton to a pro athlete who has been able to handle elite levels, but there's a difference between training for an elite sport and being in condition to handle your elite sport and then training to be healthy and fit and have good testosterone levels.

1:04:25Adam Schafer:Totally different. It's also cumulative. And so this is what you'll notice. It's not that you're old, by the way. You're obviously in your 30s, right? But it's cumulative over time. So you're just pushing your body, pushing your body. And it's like five years, eight years, ten years of doing this. And it's just cumulative. And so what you don't want to do is look back and say, Mike, I used to do twice as much. This can't be too much. I used to be able to do way more. You're probably going to need to go through a good year of kind of detraining. And so three days a week, full body is fine. Yeah, it's good.

1:04:59Adam Schafer:But I wouldn't do the failure part.

1:05:00Sal Di Stefano:90 minutes of training to failure, that was a lot. Right.

1:05:02Adam Schafer:I would go 60 minutes and I wouldn't train to failure. You want to stop your sets where you feel like you could do another three, three reps or so. So drop the intensity, drop the volume. The cardio is okay if it's leisure, but if you're pushing yourself in the cardio, then that, that might be too much. And what'll happen is let your body recover, feed yourself, by the way, start, start feeding yourself. Don't, you don't want to walk around too shredded. Start feeding yourself. Give yourself about six months of this, retest your testosterone see what happens now if it doesn't change substantially testosterone replacement therapy could be a game changer now if if you are indeed doing too much which is what i think is happening and you take testosterone you're going to put a big band-aid over the whole thing yeah it's going to mask it all you're still feeling good because you got the high testosterone uh but you're still overdoing it um so yeah so you're not selling the rig calls yeah yes so i would give it six months of doing kind of what i said 60 minutes three days a week uh three reps short of failure don't go to failure the data by the way doesn't support failure anyway so you don't need to train a failure three reps short of it think of practicing the lifts like their skills rather than beating yourself up and then when you do your cardio make it leisure yeah yeah

1:06:19Sal Di Stefano:and i think i mean and i think you'll feel you can walk away from a workout feeling energized we're on the right track i mean something to consider i mean you're you're an ex-pro athlete so i know you have an appreciation for being coached something to consider is to have someone coach you through this process to get you to that point and then and because this is fixable most most more often than not this is fixable before you have to go the trt route but it's just yeah we got to find that right balance uh for you and then from there it's then then it's easy a guy like you who i know can take uh what yeah you have no problem with discipline yeah we just have to

1:06:57Adam Schafer:point it in the right direction now again if if you do this and in six months your readings come back low um then trt is a fine option there's nothing wrong with it uh at all the only issue would be fertility if you have want to have more kids but you could also use something called hcg while you're on trt which will maintain fertility um and it's really not uh if it's still low at that point it's probably healthier to go on tier tier yeah yeah and there is a potential association with head trauma and low testosterone so so what we what we're saying may may work but if it doesn't work it may be associated with the head trauma that you got from your sport because there's also an association there yeah because that's probably why like the specialist that i saw you know i think whenever you're playing, everything's a million miles an hour, even whenever you might get to go out and have a drink with the lads like a social every 68 weeks, but when you get that opportunity, you went hard, same with your food, you had to eat so much and then when you do retire, you keep living that lifestyle or you have those habits and you don't train, where he was like it's fit for life, not fit for your 20s or 30s So I think I really took that, you know, on board.

1:08:18And like, I probably went too far and like tried to dial everything in. Because obviously, it's in your head, like you're getting battered about. And obviously, there's more and more, you know, studies coming out and different therapies and treatments. And at some point, like, especially like for American football as well. And ice hockey, you know, they're going to have cures for that stuff. So it's sort of, I probably just the fear of that and just trying to like really nail it down probably just went a bit far.

1:08:47Adam Schafer:Yeah. I think if you did what we're saying for three months, you would know if it would work. I think three months is plenty of time to get retested and then be like, okay, it didn't go up significantly. Now let's go the TRT route. I think peptides are also a good option for you. There's two peptides you might want to look at. Actually three. There's BPC, CELANC, and CMAX. Yes. Or DIAXA, really. All three of those are really good for the brain, for healing, for inflammation. Memory recall. Yep. So, Selink, C-Max. I'll have Doug send you the names. I don't know how available they are in Ireland, but you might be able to get them.

1:09:21Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I really appreciate that advice, Lyle.

1:09:24Adam Schafer:Yeah, you got it, man. And then, why don't we have you back on in a few months?

1:09:29Sal Di Stefano:We also have a coach call you if you're interested in that. If you want a coach to coach you through this, one of our coaches can. So, it's up to you if you want to do that. Yeah, no, but great. to have a chat or see what the options were because I know I'm bad for like I'll always do that extra mod rather than you know it's good you know yourself I'm learning the hard way unfortunately but I think that's like everything in life you have to learn the hard lessons yeah good

1:10:00Adam Schafer:let's have you back on in a couple months so we get some we'll get back on with you

1:10:05Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, we'll have Doug send those peptides over, and then we'll have a coach call you and kind of show you what that would look like, and then hopefully we'll have you back on. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it, guys. All right, brother. Have a good one. Thanks, Jonathan. All the best.

1:10:16Adam Schafer:Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Yeah, so a couple things, right? Ex-athletes, especially when you live that way for so long, it's so hard to titrate your training. It doesn't feel right. It feels like you're doing nothing. Well, his gauge is way off. Way off, dude. Rugby? Oh, God. 10 years ago? At least he's doing three days a week. I'll give him that, though.

1:10:37Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, not bad. But there's cardio in between. As I was going to say, it's not really three days a week. It sneaks it in. It's five days a week. That's true. 90 minutes of failure. I mean, his physique, when they pulled the picture up, I'm like, oh. He's obviously got pro-athlete genetics. That was like 6 % body fat. Yeah, he's shredded. Maybe lower. Yeah. I mean, he was shredded. He's like stage ready. He's got pro.

1:11:00Adam Schafer:He goes hard, dude. He's got pro-rugby genetics. Here's the other thing, too. that we know. Head trauma is also associated with hormone disruption because it comes from the brain. And so they're not quite sure, but you'll see this often. Hormone disruption, you see thyroid sometimes, testosterone.

1:11:19Sal Di Stefano:I feel really confident with the advice, we move him up. How much up is uncertain. Right. But he's over-trained. He's over-trained, under-fed, for sure. And just simply tweaking that a little bit, It'll show some improvement. The question is, can we get him up over healthy range?

1:11:39Adam Schafer:He said his position was hooker. What is that position? Yeah, hooker's in the middle, and it's actually the first in the scrum. Oh, so you're just getting brushed. Yeah, your head is like, like I told you guys, the very first game I played at San Jose State, our hooker broke his neck. Oh, my gosh. I was like, what am I doing? You know? It was pretty sketchy. Give me a helmet, dude. Yeah, no. Next caller is Lindsey from Georgia. Lindsay, what's happening? How are you doing, Lindsay? Hey, guys. Thanks for having me today. You got it. How can we help you? Yeah, so I'll go ahead and get started with my email that I sent.

1:12:10I'm a registered nurse and a mom of two boys. I'm currently 11 months postpartum with my second child. I've been consistently following your programs for over the past year and wanted to reach out. After my first pregnancy, recovery seemed a lot easier. Of course, this one's been more challenging. I previously did MAPS Anabolic and recently completed the Power Lift. I wanted to say thanks again because my strength has improved a lot. this past month i hit some new prs um 235 on squat 250 deadlift and 120 bench press pretty pretty proud of that working as a nurse and postpartum recovery um for reference i'm about 5 '5 and currently about 160 pounds my goal is to lose body fat gain some definition and look more tone while getting back to my pre-baby weight which is still about 18 to 20 pounds away i am currently tracking macros i'm around 1600 calories and around 120 to 140 of protein a day.

1:13:04Even with a busy schedule, I make a priority to be strength training four to five days a week. I do about 15 minutes of cardio before working out and a HIIT session one time a week. Despite this, the scale seems to be creeping up and my clothes are tighter, especially in my legs and midsection. So looking for any advice that you have on how to approach fat loss at this postpartum stage. I'm not sure if I should change programs, adjust calories, do different cardio or something entirely different. My husband listens to your podcast daily and recommend that I reach out since I won't listen to him.

1:13:40Adam Schafer:So you don't listen to our podcast. You're not familiar with our advice typically. Yeah, I have been listening. Yes. Over like the past, probably six months. Okay. Okay. So, so first off, I'm, I'm shocked that you're as strong as you are eating six, 1600 calories a day. That's really low. Yeah. Low. Yeah. Super low. In fact, we have nowhere to go if we want to cut calories.

1:14:02Sal Di Stefano:We want to build into the body you want. And so the first advice I get is let go of what pounds you were before because you're actually doing a lot of the right things, like the way you're lifting and the direction you're heading. But the attitude would be let's build the body we want instead of trying to cut into the body that you want.

1:14:20Adam Schafer:Yeah, we've got to reverse diet because your calories are so low. I mean, you could go down to 1 ,200 calories. You'd see a little bit of loss. You'd also see some muscle and strength loss, and then you plateau.

1:14:30Sal Di Stefano:And your energy would suck.

1:14:31Adam Schafer:And your energy would suck. You'd hate life. So you'd be better off slowly reverse dieting, building more muscle, building more strength, getting you up to, like, with your activity, 23, 24, 2 ,500 calories, somewhere around there. And then we could do a cut.

1:14:44Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:14:44Adam Schafer:But you need to do a reverse diet. You need to probably reverse diet for a good six months or so before we try a cut. That would be the way to do it.

1:14:51Sal Di Stefano:If we do a good job at this, the scale should kind of hover around. You could go up and down three to five pounds. But if we do a really good job of reversing slowly, adding like 200 calories every couple weeks, and just keep doing that until we get to a number like Sal's saying, 24 to 2 ,600 at least, and then we can bring you back. If I got you all up to 26 and brought you down to 2 ,000, you would see yourself just lean. You'd see fat loss. You would see fat loss like crazy.

1:15:17Adam Schafer:Eating more than you are now.

1:15:18Sal Di Stefano:And eating more than what you are now. And you'd feel good and get where you want to be. But if we do this right, I think you should actually kind of see that transition happening while you're increasing, too. That would be the goal. My goal would be, can I increase your calories, not see a lot of movement on the scale, kind of hovering the scale around three to five pounds north or south while we get stronger and keep focusing on the strength?

1:15:39Adam Schafer:Yeah, I mean, just to put it in simple terms, and it's way more complex than this, but at 16 or calories, that much exercise, that much. I know that nurse, nurse, you're moving all the time. You got a baby. um your body's hanging on to body fat for dear life it's just hanging on it's just too low so you're you're you're giving yourself the bare minimum of nutrients so we gotta we gotta slowly build that up uh through a reverse 200 roughly a week just adding in like the rice that you guys have talked about or is there a certain area where i should add that in at yeah you could go

1:16:13Sal Di Stefano:okay so easy way is i mean do you do well with high protein can you increase like so just eat a bigger portion of meat when you eat your meat. I don't know if you're like a six ounce meat eater or what your ounces are. Add two more ounces. Usually it's between five and six. I think the back story is this weight was my heaviest about six years ago and I lost almost 40 pounds in a year like that. I guess it's kind of like a mind thing like increasing calories. I didn't want to see all of that weight gain back.

1:16:44Adam Schafer:It's different though. Look how strong you are. Here's the other thing too. while you're lifting weights like that. Lindsay, here's the other thing too, hon. You're 10 months postpartum. And I know everybody tells you on social media, like, whoa, you're out of it. No, no, no. No, no, no. It takes, listen, I've trained a lot of women postpartum. Especially number two. It takes about two years before you feel 100 % like your old self. Okay? Right. So you're still in that phase. You still got a baby. You got another one at home too. So give yourself some time. If you force it right now, things are going to backfire big time.

1:17:14Adam Schafer:Mm-hmm. So now do you know what your fat intake is at? I think it's roughly between 50 and 60 grams. No, bump your fat, hon. Yeah, you'll do better around, you'll do better closer to 70 probably.

1:17:25Sal Di Stefano:What are your meat choices? Are you eating leaner cuts? Is that what you're doing? A lot of the times they were lean. Here recently, as I had heard, my husband's like, you've got to reverse diet. You've got to listen to him. And I was like, okay, I need to hear it from them first. So I did do a lot of mean cuts, but right now it's a lot of like chicken thighs. we do a lot of deer deer meat deer roast you name it we load up on deer meat nice okay good yeah stick with just stick with the fattier cuts that typically that's all i have to do with my clients that are good at hitting their protein with their low on fat i know right away they're like eating fish and chicken breast and stuff like that it's like enjoy enjoy some red meat enjoy the ribeye enjoy some tri-tip enjoy enjoy some chicken thighs that'll bump the calories naturally

1:18:07Adam Schafer:and you're getting it from a good source are you have you ever reverse dieted before No. Would you want a coach to walk you through it for the next like six months or so? Yeah, I mean, I would be open to that, especially since I'm not familiar with it and kind of what steps to take or how soon and things like that. Yeah, because as you go through it, there's times when you pull back a little bit, times you add a little bit more. It's going to mess with your head, I promise you. So I'll have a coach reach out. And what they would do is that process of reverse dieting, set you up for a cut. They would just walk you through the whole thing.

1:18:37Sal Di Stefano:The hardest part is the psychological part. By far. There's no doubt if I was coaching you through this process, there'll come a time when I'm doing this with you. You're going to fight it. And you'd be like, Adam, this doesn't feel right. And then that's where I got to kind of talk you off the ledge. Like, trust me. I see where we're going. You're doing a great job. And if you surrender that to the coach and just trust the process, you'll look back in six months, you're going to be pumped. You'll be pumped where you're at. Okay, great. Well, thanks. So what about my workouts as far as is there, I've done, like I said, the MAPS Power Lift, the Anabolic, um obviously hardly any sleep right now so that's a challenge but still aim um for about four at least four days if i can um i feel better after but as far as program wise back up back up tell me about your sleep what do you mean hardly any sleep um i have an 11 month old that's up about every three hours oh lindsey and a three-year-old that doesn't like sleep either lindsey you're

1:19:30Adam Schafer:redlining huh yeah i should i should have known too you're a nurse you guys always do that you You guys redline the hell out of yourself. Oh, we pushed through, yeah. Well, I'm a soft, I guess a soft nurse now. I used to do oncology and ER and now I work for a coach. Oh God, you're, you're, yeah, you're a redline machine. You used to adrenaline. Okay, so when you, when you work with your coach, they're probably going to recommend a back down on volume. They'll probably do MAPS 15 with you. Yeah, I should have asked you that.

1:19:53Sal Di Stefano:They'll take care of the programming for you though.

1:19:54Adam Schafer:Yeah, they'll, they'll recommend the right program, but it's, it's not going to look, it's going to look like a lot less volume because you're just, yeah, with, with lack of sleep, that is, that was just brutal. you train too much with lack of sleep um and that's another sign that says hold on to body fat don't build any muscle don't speed up metabolism yeah okay yeah that was definitely i knew the no sleep obviously is hard but you feel better after a workout and you're used to it

1:20:17Sal Di Stefano:just remember baby remember what that is that's a court that's cortisol dumping in your body so it's as we call cortisol junk you thrive off my nurses love that my nurses love that you thrive

1:20:27Adam Schafer:you thrive off of stress right so yeah that's that's why you feel great yeah yeah yeah over time though it definitely adds up on the body for sure 100 all right i'll have somebody call you i think we got a good idea now what this will look like yep okay sounds great thanks lindsey thank you yeah should have known when she said nurse i have yet to meet a nurse that doesn't do this to the red light button i mean she she adds uh and she was er oncology

1:20:55Sal Di Stefano:is there a more stressful nurse she also adds the additional cardio and hitch hit in there also so

1:21:02Adam Schafer:she's definitely but like a mass 15 protocols nice slow reverse diet with walking she's gonna feel like a new person hardest part will be psychological work oh yeah that'll feel like

1:21:11Sal Di Stefano:nothing for her and it's totally different operating yeah it'll probably it'll make her nervous a little bit but if she trusts the coach she'll be fine our next color is rob from connecticut what's up robert what's up how you doing rob what's up guys how are you all thank Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. You got it, dude. I can help you.

1:21:30So, yeah, basically what I'm looking for is some help with my offseason. So I'm a pro basketball player right now in Italy, which is awesome. I love doing it. It's a really long season, though. So it's like only a couple months that we have in the summertime to kind of train for the following season. It goes from September until, depending on playoffs, May or June. And so in the past, what I've done is done a lot of stuff on the court. and this summer I kind of wanted to lay off of that and focus more on working on my body and my question revolved a lot around diet so I think right now if I had to guess I'm probably 15-16 % body fat I haven't gotten it measured but I think I would be around there.

1:22:41I'm around like 215, 220, depending on the day or the time of day. So I think in terms of how I can optimize my on-court performance, I would like to get down to around 10 % if I can. the challenge becomes whether or not it's sustainable for me to stay at that level when the season comes back around and so it is a little bit different to track things over here in in Italy it's a it's a bit tougher like for example on the a package of ground beef. They don't have like the percentage of fat and lean that it is. So not to say that it's not doable. And in the past, I haven't really tracked diligently before, but I am very conscious of what I eat, what I put into my body.

1:23:44So I guess overall, just looking for some advice on diet, whether or not you think that's a, it's a worthwhile goal, I guess, to begin with. And, you know, how I can do that effectively without Mac, without sacrificing recovery performance on the court. And obviously while keeping as much strength and muscle mass and stuff.

1:24:16Sal Di Stefano:Good question. So you've been listening to the show since you were in high school? Yeah, it's been a while. 25, so. That's cool. I was on the bandwagon early. That's cool. And it's been great. I mean, I'm trying to, you know, spread the word, tell my parents about you guys all the time.

1:24:34Adam Schafer:Nice, man. You're 6 '6 in Italy. You must be a giant over there. Yeah. I actually played in Sicily for a year and a half. Oh, wow. That's great. Oh, nice. Nice. I've been there. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so this is going to be different for someone like you, but I need to know more about the season. You said it's a long season, and the offseason is about two months, two or three months? Yeah, so, like, for example, I have my last regular season game next week, and I got here for preseason August 5th. So, it's like a 30-ish game season, uh, one game a week. And then during the actual week, we're practicing around two hours a day.

1:25:23Adam Schafer:Okay. It could even be more. So it's a lot of practice. Um, okay. And so that's why I think this summer might be a good idea to just lay off a lot of the core volume. This is different for someone like you, right? Cause you got a long season, you're playing a game once a week, uh, And on top of it, two hours of practice a day. And then your off season's about like what, 60 days or so? Yeah. I mean, it could be more, but I think 60 to 90 days. I know it's a little bit of a large. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So let me, let me back up for a second. I'm going to answer the body fat question for you. Going down to 10 % body fat won't necessarily improve your performance.

1:26:06Adam Schafer:No, I don't think so at all. Yeah. It actually might take away from your performance. Take away your energy a little bit. Yeah, so typically leanness is a side effect of performance when you're looking at your level of athleticism or at the level that you play at, right? So if I take a guy like you who's playing well at 15 % and I just focus on getting you lean, oftentimes we'll see a decrease in performance. Now, if you're training properly and suddenly we like fix, like we have the perfect programming, perfect diet, and your performance goes through the roof, and then you just so happen to drop a few percent body fat, who cares?

1:26:38Adam Schafer:But what we don't want to do is chase leanness, thinking that's going to make us perform better, because that's oftentimes not the case with someone like you. Okay. As far as your offseason is concerned, your offseason should be focused on recovery. Because your season is so intense and so long, do you guys do any practice during the offseason at all? No. So for the off season, I'll be back at my home in Connecticut and I'll be doing a little bit of coaching and stuff. And then other than that, it's me making my own schedule in terms of, you know, working out and that stuff. So I think one or two days a week of strength training and then playing basketball a couple days a week.

1:27:25Adam Schafer:Just light, light shooting and drills, bro. Yeah. Shooting and drills.

1:27:29Sal Di Stefano:Light, light drills.

1:27:30Adam Schafer:And that's it. And then just focus on recovery. It's so important, dude.

1:27:32Sal Di Stefano:I mean, if our goal is, is, is continuing to be a better athlete, then that's, that's the recipe. Yeah.

1:27:38Adam Schafer:Cause otherwise what'll happen is we'll start to rack up injuries and stuff because of how much you're doing in the, uh, during the, uh, on season. So it might look like, it might look like, uh, you know, one or two days a week, three lifts, you're going to go into three compound lifts. You're not training at a high intensity or you're training at like 80 % intensity just kind of try to get stronger then a couple days a week play basketball or practice your skills so that you can maintain your skills and then rest sleep uh massage mobility uh more sleep red light yeah all those things feed your body uh appropriately which i think you're doing because the other challenge in the off season is someone might be like well i'm just gonna go party with my friends and eat a bunch of garbage don't do that uh but also don't go in a cut So I think just continue to eat healthy, eat adequate protein, feed yourself.

1:28:30Adam Schafer:I wouldn't do a purposeful cut in the offseason. I think that would be a mistake.

1:28:34Sal Di Stefano:Doug just pulled up all your pictures, bro. You're athletic and fit. You're lean. You're plenty lean. I wouldn't want you leaner.

1:28:42Adam Schafer:Most people's performance is best at 15%. Yeah, yeah, no.

1:28:45Sal Di Stefano:And I think he's at the high end 15. He looks like he's 12 to 13. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're fit, bro. If you were high, I would tell you. If I thought you were in the high 20s or something like that, we can lean out and it would benefit you. You know, if you were Zion Williamson, then I would tell you to cut some body fat, you know what I'm saying? And it would serve you on the court. But that ain't you, dude. You're like what I think all of us would agree is like optimal body fat range.

1:29:12Adam Schafer:Look, I'm going to send you MAPS 15 performance. That's a great program in the off-season for you. So it's a little bit every day. And then continue to practice your skills in the offseason and then rest.

1:29:25Sal Di Stefano:Actually, that would be perfect. MAPS 15 performance with shooting drills and footwork drills. Just to keep your skills. It is perfect.

1:29:32Adam Schafer:Yeah, sharp. And then rest. Lots of rest, dude, because the season's so long and there's so much going on in the season that you need the rest. Yeah, that makes sense. So, actually, I have MAPS 15 performance and I've been doing it kind of modified in season, which has been pretty perfect. Yeah. So I think it's good advice. My thinking with the whole body fat thing, and obviously I've heard you guys talk pretty recently about the performance detriments it can bring to drop. But one of my goals was to kind of get, I guess, lighter on my feet, like more agile, quicker. And I've heard that, you know, being as lean as possible is obviously beneficial for that.

1:30:20Adam Schafer:No, it's strength to weight ratio.

1:30:23Sal Di Stefano:It would be if you were built like a Zion Williamson and you're carrying that much extra. You're not, though. If you were at 23 % body fat, then yes, leaning out a little bit could actually improve performance.

1:30:36Adam Schafer:Let's say you lost 10 pounds, but in the process of losing 10 pounds, you lost 15 % strength in major lifts. You're not faster. You're just smaller. Right, it's a negative. It's strength to weight ratio. And the same in the reverse. You can gain 20 pounds of muscle, get super strong, but now your weight is so much higher that it doesn't make a difference. You're at such a good percentage, dude.

1:30:57Sal Di Stefano:If you weren't, then it would make sense, but you're at a good percentage. Again, if you were 25 % body fat, then absolutely leaning out a little bit could make a big difference on our performance, but you're in the optimal body fat percentage. If your dog is more on foot strength, ankle mobility, and you direct all that movement up towards your hips and your glutes to take care of most of that, you're going to be so much lighter on your feet. to have that strength support around the ankles and feet opens up a whole level of movement potential.

1:31:26Adam Schafer:But here's the other side of it, Robert. You're playing at such a high level that what you don't want to do is mess so much with your mechanics that it throws your technique off that you've honed. So I remember we saw a picture once of, I think it was LeBron James. It was his feet. And they looked all messed up. And the trainer in me is like, oh, we got to correct his feet. but the dude plays with those feet he's so good at playing with those feet that if I suddenly snapped my fingers and made him have perfect foot mechanics it would throw off his technique and he would not be as good so that's where you're at dude you're playing at such a high level that honestly it's like just recover dude mass performance, go do your drills rest and you'll do so much better in the season reinforce the joints and eat yeah that sounds good I think it's probably been a while since I've taken an extended amount of time off just dating back to college too and summers have been a grind because that's kind of the the culture as well within you know basketball and whatnot is multiple workouts a day and so i felt as the years have gone on a little bit the benefit of like you guys are recommending shorter more intense and then just a lot of rest and what a difference it makes to actually be fully recovered.

1:32:43Totally, dude. Eight hours of sleep every single

1:32:46Adam Schafer:night, go to bed and wake up at the same time and take a nap every day. I'm not even joking. It'll work. In combination with performance, a little bit of basketball, you'll come back feeling amazing. Cool. That's it, dude. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in, dude. It's so different. People need to understand it's so different when you're talking to a high level athlete, the strategy is completely different. Because someone might be thinking like, oh, offseason, let's build. This is the time to build. His performance is already at peak. Bro, like he's there.

1:33:21He may need to maintain.

1:33:23Adam Schafer:And he probably needs, based off the seasons that he was talking about, he may need to just rest for a couple months.

1:33:30Sal Di Stefano:Well, his thinking is logical if he was at a higher percentage body fat.

1:33:34Adam Schafer:If he was getting tons of body fat.

1:33:35Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some pro athletes that... that yeah if it's slowing you down yeah that i mean this is uh and this is the big knock i kept bringing up zion williamson on him is that he's he's so big and heavy and he's constantly injury prone and he's he carries a higher body fat percentage like in the mid-20s you know and so it would make sense yeah a guy like that you he's right even by the way wouldn't even be like this targeted cut it'd just be cleaning up his diet yeah so but he's he's in like what we talk about the optimal place like you can see he's a perfect any leaner and i think it would it would if we

1:34:06Adam Schafer:chase leanness he would not no he would do strength you said he would lose strength and that would be a lot quicker too yeah yeah our next caller is carissa from pennsylvania carissa hello hi guys hello nice to meet you all same how can we help you so i was calling um my question is about gaining muscle but also trying to maintain some sort of leanness um i'm looking to gain muscle throughout this year and make actual changes to my body without going through a cutting and bulking phase if possible. I understand I will have to gain some weight in order to gain more muscle, which I am okay with, but I'm trying to do it at a rate, preferably where I'm gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time.

1:34:47I just began raising my calories every two to three weeks by a few hundred calories to see the calorie range I could get to while maintaining my weight. Do you think this would be a good plan to take or would you suggest to do a bulk and cut approach? I've done about two books throughout five months and had gained roughly eight pounds throughout. But I was just not seeing the results that I was really striving for. I have run through MAPS Anabolic and MAPS Muscle Mommy for the last three years. I do my 10 ,000 steps daily. I hit my protein goal. I'm just not sure what else I could really do to make actual changes.

1:35:28Sal Di Stefano:What are the calories at right now?

1:35:30Adam Schafer:um i do like 2300 okay so okay so let me just help you real quick a bulk and a reverse diet it's the same thing yeah it's just different branding yeah but they're both in a surplus and the goal is to gain muscle the other thing is gaining muscle while losing body fat to be more accurate you'd want to gain muscle with the body fat percentage going down that's different so if you gain five pounds of muscle but gain no additional body fat your body fat percentage would go down because now it's a smaller percentage of your overall body weight. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Now what's your body fat?

1:36:07Adam Schafer:It says here that you're sitting around 19%. Yeah. So I know it's low. Um, and I'm comfortable where I am right now. Truthfully, I just wish I had like more shoulder definition. I like my legs to get a little bit bigger. Like I, like I said, I want to actually gain more muscle. Um, okay. So I, I know that it probably does have to go up. Keep moving in the direction you're going. And yeah, you probably are going to have to get up to probably 21, 22 % body fat. But here's the deal. More muscle at 21 % or 22 % body fat looks leaner in your shoulders and legs than 19 % does. So don't get too hung up on the body fat percentage.

1:36:46Adam Schafer:Yeah. That's where I felt like I was getting with this scale. We have the Hume scale and I was like, I feel like I'm getting in my head about it. Yeah. I would look at strength and keep reverse dieting nice and slow. 2300 is a nice, a nice place to be. I think if you got up to 2 ,500 and you stayed there for a while and just keep focusing on getting stronger, I think you're going to get what you're looking for. You might even get there just staying at 2300 calories. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I appreciate it so much. Yeah. Are you, so you're going between anabolic and muscle mommy? Yes. Yeah. I go, I go back and forth, like just to switch it up every once in a while.

1:37:25Adam Schafer:Have you done power lift? No, I have not. All right. Let's get your power lift. Let's have some fun. Oh, all right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. I'm definitely up for anything. I like switching it up and I love your programs. Um, I feel like I've gained so much more like freedom and not working out five days a week and just doing a three. And I like to take my dogs on walks. I have a one-year-old, so we're always out doing that when we have our free days too.

1:37:52Sal Di Stefano:You're doing really good. Yeah, you're kicking ass. The mindset I'd want you to have if I was coaching you is that we're going to build into the body you want, not cut into the body you want. So you're already plenty lean enough. You're eating a good amount of calories. The things you want, shoulders, leg depth, all that, we're going to build into that, not cut into that. So that's the direction to go. And slowly increasing the calories like you are and focusing on getting strong. Powerlift will be a great program. Focus on the weights. Just get stronger. Try and add weight to the bar and slowly increase those calories.

1:38:21Sal Di Stefano:And then we'll look back in three months. You'll be super happy with what you said. Okay, perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it, guys. Nice to meet you. You too.

1:38:30Adam Schafer:Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. She's doing – she's already good. You've been 2300 calories ago. Yeah, no.

1:38:36Sal Di Stefano:I mean, that's – and she's only 118 pounds. Yeah, she's doing great. So she's not – so she's – No, she's doing good. Yeah, she's in the right place.

1:38:43Adam Schafer:What she's looking for is more muscle. She's not looking for leanness.

1:38:46Sal Di Stefano:And that's why I meant that the mindset is, yeah, build into the body. I think that's just such a common theme that we need to keep saying to people. They have this look in their head that they want. And they think it's about losing. And they think it's about losing. And it's like, no, you absolutely build into that body, and you'll get the best of both worlds. You'll be eating more than you've ever ate before. You'll feel stronger than ever. And then you'll also have that physique. And who cares if you're at 19, 22, 23, 21? If it looks the way you want.

1:39:14Adam Schafer:Yeah. And you feel better. Right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. 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.

1:40:01The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is mind pump