2866: Stop Adding Weight to the Bar — 5 Times It's Actually Hurting You

16:41Adam Schafer:Let me ask you guys this. Think of the last four times you've kind of injured yourself working out. I bet you every single time after you hurt yourself, you said this to yourself. I should have known better. It was there. Yeah. I should have known better. It was telling me. It was yelling at me. That's my fault. That's my fault. Why did I do that? Oh, every single time. Every single time. All right. Next up is if you've had bad sleep the night before. This is actually quite crazy. Yeah. This is wild. It's the number one predictor of injury, isn't it? it's it's more it's worse than warming up it's worse than poor form it's bad yeah it's like the risk of injury goes through the roof if you had a bad night of sleep the night before you know why this one is so confusing it's good to know here's what can happen this happens to me if i have one bad night of sleep because i'm stressed sometimes the next day my stress hormones make me feel like

17:31Sal Di Stefano:i can push myself no this i'm glad you said that because i actually think it's really common that people, they get a bad night's sleep, and they'll say things like, you know, I just got to get going. I break that first sweat, and then I had this great, I had my best workout. It was a terrible night's sleep, and so they try and make this case for -

17:47Adam Schafer:They've got all this cortisol, these stress hormones. Yes. Yeah, pumping through their body. Yes, but you have no idea

17:53Sal Di Stefano:what high risk you're at in that situation. It's just the squeeze isn't worth it.

17:57Adam Schafer:No, and it's well studied. So I don't think I've ever shared this before, but the very first time I pulled 600 pounds was - Four night of sleep. No. Well, it was the day after I initiated my divorce with my ex-wife. It was the day after. And I was in such a high state of stress that I was in this kind of like stress hormones, you know, like I got to go, I got to, you know, figure this out type of deal. And I went and I pulled 600 pounds. And looking back, I'm like, yeah, that was all stress hormones.

18:26Sal Di Stefano:And lucky you didn't get hurt. And very lucky I didn't get hurt.

18:29Adam Schafer:Yeah, that was a blessing.

18:33Sal Di Stefano:Lastly, you're in a cut. So this one is my favorite to talk about because it was so crazy to watch this at the professional level. Again, I think it was one of the things that gave me an advantage of being in a, you know, kind of fish out of water in a space that I wasn't familiar with, didn't have coach with that. But I saw this and I was like, the amount of pros that were ramping up intensity and volume. When their nutrients were low. When they're in a cut for a show. they're in an eight week cut doing cardio doing this thing and then they're also ramping up intensity inside the gym and i'm going like what are you doing right now like talk about or not only a recipe for possibly paring down and losing muscle but also injury yeah like and i saw it all time so guys get hurt getting ready for a show like and a lot of it had to do with this just start with the like just being anxious that they didn't you know do enough yes leading into the competition trying to like last minute thinking they're either going to make gains coming into the last bit which i thought was always ridiculous it's like at this point you're not building any muscle you're just revealing what you've what you've done or increasing that intensity and so that thinking that they're going to burn more calories which will help them get lean and shredded and so i think the two of those is what fed that way of training going like dude this is cruise control time like you did the work to build muscle like now it's all about reducing body fat and keeping the muscle and you talk about the studies all the time about how little we have to do to keep the muscle so i'm training every day so i definitely don't need to be training super hard like you train once a week or once every other week you'll hold a lot of muscle so you don't need to do that so the this idea of pushing really hard while you're also in a cut

20:17Adam Schafer:is just counterproductive yeah so the question that people have is well what if i feel strong like I'm going to cut and I feel strong uh well you are if you're gen if you're genuinely in a calorie deficit you're in a stress uh place anyway right your body has is intaking less nutrients than it's burning and so here's what you do if you feel strong you still go into your workout uh with moderate intensity so so long if you can add weight to the bar and not hammer yourself then that's totally fine but oftentimes what people do is they hammer themselves and you're better off this way. You're better off this way because the biggest challenge with being in a cut with your workouts is that the workouts your body can't recover from very well.

20:59Adam Schafer:That's the biggest challenge. So volume needs to go down. Intensity needs to go down when you're in a cut, not up. This is what people have to flip. They think if they're in a cut, they need to ramp things up. It's actually the opposite. And that causes so many problems for people. Like you said, it's not just competitors, Adam. It's like, oh, I'm on this diet. I'm going to burn this off. I'm going to ramp. It's like you're burning the candle at both ends. It literally is what you're

21:20Sal Di Stefano:doing to your body so i'm i'm smiling and laughing because something happened to me this this weekend that that feeds right into what you're talking about right now so uh i had my my big hampton group thing right we're in miami beach and one of the guys has his company is really cool it does all these corporate events um called boom pop awesome company it's i think it's the largest corporate event planning uh company in the world and uh blake is shout out to blake he's awesome And he always plans our whole trip. And everybody that I go with, they're into working out and fitness, stuff like that.

21:54Sal Di Stefano:And he plans all this stuff. And one of the things that he had planned was this, like, group boxing class. Yeah. Did you do this? So listen. Do you guys have to box each other? And so, you know, I'm on a trip, right? So one of the things I do when I'm on vacation like this is I'm not getting all my meals. So I already know that I'm like lower calorie, lower protein. Time difference. Yeah, yeah. And didn't get good sleep at all. And so I went in and I got my lift in the morning and followed that up with a good breakfast and a protein shake. So I at least get some protein. My lifting was very moderate.

22:35Sal Di Stefano:Like I wasn't just all the points we're talking about right now. I know I've not slept well. I know that I'm undercalorie and stuff like that. And then the second day, there's this boxing class. And I'm just like, yeah, I'm not going to that. And you're the fitness guy. Yeah, and I'm the fitness guy. And so there is a part of me that's just like, you know, you should probably run it by me and ask me some questions because I'll tell you why none of you should probably go to this class. That's bad for all of you. Yeah, it's not good for you because I know what everyone's goals are. And I'm like, this is not a good idea if you want to, you know what I'm saying?

23:05Sal Di Stefano:But I don't. I just like I want to bow out. And then like he made me feel guilty because he paid for it ahead of time. And so I just don't show up and I Venmo him money for not going and stuff like that. But I could tell he was a little frustrated and upset that I didn't go. And I feel bad because I also don't want to be that guy lecturing everybody on the thing. But the logic that's going through my head is exactly that. It's like, why would I? My goal is to be muscle sparing on a trip like that, right? And or build. I'm not in like lean out, get smaller guy version right now. I'm in smaller me already.

23:38Sal Di Stefano:So I'm already trying to preserve what I got. And I had already trained that morning. so i already kind of know like what i should or shouldn't be doing for the rest of the day and then there's this high intensity boxing class and i'm like yeah no there's i'm not going to tell all of you you shouldn't even though i don't think you should either i'm gonna whatever but i'm definitely not going and so it was pretty funny that you know i was that guy you know i'm saying and i'm like but i don't want to preach too you know yeah dude i think i feel like so i'm

24:03Adam Schafer:caught in like his predicament i feel like fitness uh professionals i don't know trainers coach whatever like uh i think often we're in a situation like this where family's like we're all going to do this like fitness and they all look to the fitness guy yeah you know your eyes roll like oh god yeah this isn't the way to do it no i don't want to do it and i know and i know you're all gonna watch me because i'm the fitness guy and i'm sure the way they think and i'm sure there's

24:24Sal Di Stefano:somebody who's who's listening thinks too it's like oh come on i'm just like one class you're not and it's not like i know i'm not gonna lose five pounds of muscle in one class it's not that either it's like it doesn't even sound like fun to me no it doesn't it doesn't sound like fun and it's not good for me so i'm like yeah i'm probably not gonna do that thing you know so so that's where i feel like bad and i'm like uh just i opted not to like lecture everybody on like all their

24:49Adam Schafer:goals and what they're doing i had a i had a good conversation similar i had a real good conversation i do this uh um i volunteered our church and i was at this table and they served dinner and so we all had dinner and then i had uh like a couple bags of chips because i barely had any dinner because i'd eaten before they had potato chips there and so i had a couple bags and of course and i'm not even thinking about it i'm just like whatever it's too small bag who cares right yeah i'm not even thinking about it and of course one of the guys looks at me and he goes i feel so much better now that i see a fitness guy like you eating two bags of chips so i'm like you know it said so we had a nice conversation about nutrition i'm like i almost never eat this i said but also uh i have the ability to eat stuff like this it's not that big of a deal because of these and so we had this wonderful conversation people think that fitness like being fitness minded means that you're like this crazy rigid robot yeah like perfect and I'm like that sucks does anybody really want to live that way that's not what I preach we're so

25:45Sal Di Stefano:aligned right now in stories so listen so now I'm in the airport this is me getting ready to fly back so I'm getting ready to fly back I'm where you go to get on the plane right waiting it's like 10 minutes till we're boarding and I'm I'm leaning against the wall. My head's kind of down. I'm looking at my phone, stuff like that, and I'm holding a bag of Doritos because I had just got a chicken sandwich and it came with chips also. So I'm holding this bag of Doritos and I'm just sitting there. We got a protein bread of Doritos. And I'm right on a corner of a wall. And so this couple comes up and they're in the corner of my eye and my head's down.

26:21Sal Di Stefano:And they're like, is the plane boarding or not? And I look up and the couple goes. And they point at me. They're like, mind pump? Yeah, you got a bag of Doritos. Yeah. and i'm like yeah so i introduced myself and hey while we're talking i could see them like looking down at me holding this bag of doritos you know say the whole time we're all talking they were super friendly talked to him for a long time actually the guy uh is it was so great the the wife turned him on to the show he was a pilot and so they were looking to see they could jump on the plane and they're i forgot where they were going hiking somewhere uh and they're just making to stop along the way.

26:58Sal Di Stefano:Great, great couple. And he's a pilot, super in good shape, and he helps other pilots stay in shape. Takes a lot of the information and stuff that he's learned from the show and applies it to the clients and things that he helps out. But he specializes in helping other pilots stay fit and get in shape.

27:13Adam Schafer:Oh, that's cool.

27:14Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I invited him to come down. I said, hey, you guys should come for a live recording. He had emailed me already, so I'll set up a time, so hopefully you guys get a chance to meet him. But I thought it was so funny. That's funny, dude. Just so random like that. And I did end up eating him, But I was like, even on the fence of like throwing them away. I'm like, I shouldn't throw these away. I'm going to snack on them. But I can see them. I don't have a lot of stories like you guys, but you know, because my physique's a little different. Shut up. But I do get all the time. It's really annoying.

27:40Sal Di Stefano:Like when I go to buy energy drinks, I get a lecture from like the gas station guys. What? These really aren't good for you. You know? Like all these things you've read. You should tell me he's a terrible entrepreneur. Yeah. I buy it from your store. Well, I was going to say that the person who owns that gas station. pissed the person who owns that gas station would be pissed he'd be doing that because that's how they make their money they don't make no money on gas exactly yeah it's just it's bizarre dude like i've gotten so much grief every time i drink an energy drink and i'm just like that's interesting

28:09Adam Schafer:dude that's hilarious this is not the same this is not the same at all but it does remind me of this one i used to have this client who was an oncologist so cancer doctor right and great guy super great guy obviously a stressful job it's like what i can't i can't imagine a more stressful uh doctor job that you could do right um and i'll never forget uh we were scheduled to train my my first the client that i had before him didn't show up so i go for a walk and i walk by him and he's out like nearby smoking a cigarette he's a cancer doctor and i'm oh my god yeah dude i'm like oh my god i remember thinking to myself like how could you scratch scratching your head yeah so he came in and we're we start working out and i knew the guy i was real i was friends I've been training for years.

28:52Adam Schafer:I'm like, dude, I got to tell you, bro. So I walked by you. I saw you smoking a cigarette, dude. I said, aren't you like? You know the stats, right? I'm like, aren't you a cancer doctor? And he goes, yeah, that's why I smoke. And I remember my heart broke. And I was like, oh, yeah, dude. Of course you smoke, bro. You see people die all day. You're so stressed. Yeah. I'm like, it's actually. That's his outlet. And then I told him, like, you know what? Oh, my God. I said, I'm surprised you don't do more than smoke cigarettes.

29:17Sal Di Stefano:He's like, me too. I'm like, good job, dude. Let's work out, bro. No, I would not put that on the same category, though. It's not the same. Yeah, definitely not the same as a trainer who eats a high-calorie. No, we're not stressed out.

29:29Adam Schafer:That's not why we eat Doritos.

29:31Sal Di Stefano:You know what it's like podcasting?

29:33Adam Schafer:I got to eat these Doritos. It's like it's so good. Sneaks in there every now and then. No, anyway. So I got to talk about. So I finally did. I know you guys did, too. I think you guys did, right? I did my first appointment with our partners at MP Hornet. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just finish that. I mean, their service is great. so fast by the way very very good listen two days later turn around is amazing two days later i got

29:52Sal Di Stefano:my stuff and so i i had two days i had an hour call with a medical professional yeah an hour we went over everything everything in my house very thorough anyway so i want to tell you guys so

30:03Adam Schafer:first off they definitely like the reviews their service is great super fast which is crazy our old partners it would take me like two weeks three weeks to get my stuff i know it was two days was at my door but anyway they set me up with a peptide called five amino one mq and it sounds like this long whatever it's a capsule wow so what it does is uh it inhibits an enzyme called nmnt by doing so it increases nad in your cells uh it's a fat loss peptide but that's not why the guy recommended to me he said it's good for energy and i'm gonna tell you guys this is day three of me taking it and it's phenomenal so explain to me how is this better than just taking straight

30:46Sal Di Stefano:NAD.

30:47Adam Schafer:Because this prevents, this raises NAD way more effectively than taking NAD will. Because it prevents the breakdown of NAD or the conversion of NAD to something that's not usable. So you already have NAD. It's like comparing

31:00Sal Di Stefano:arginine versus what? Citrulline.

31:02Adam Schafer:Yeah, great job, dude. That's right. Absolutely. That's right. Citrulline will raise nitric oxide more than arginine.

31:08Sal Di Stefano:Are you doing the injectable C-Mex too? I know. I just started. I'm so happy. Did you get that? Yeah, I got that. And NAD. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

31:16Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah? Yeah, it's like clarity. Clarity, yeah. It's crazy. Well, the five amino 1MQ, this is day three or four, and like crazy stamina working out. Sat in the sauna. Normally, it's 200 degrees, 20, 25 minutes, and I'm like, I got to get out of here.

31:35Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

31:35Adam Schafer:It was 25 minutes, 200 degrees. I had to get out because otherwise I was going to be late for work. I was like, I could sit in here for another 10 minutes. This is wild. Oh, yeah, that's wild. So that stuff, yeah. I was thinking Doug should probably use something. Dang, I was trying to order everything. It's in capsule form. If you look at the reviews, people like the fat loss. That's not why I'm taking it. I don't make it care less. But the energy part made me excited. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, anyway.

31:57Sal Di Stefano:How crazy did you get? Because it's funny. They were asking me, like, are you sure you don't want any? And I'm like, oh, I just want my basic. No, I just got a couple things. Oh, OK. I did that. I said, wait for your call with Sal. I said, don't worry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking Sal brain. I was like, I'm in a kid in a candy store. I'm like, give me everything. I'm trying to get as much stuff as I can think of.

32:17Adam Schafer:No, I should try the C-Max. I haven't done that in a long time. Yeah. Is it nasal? No, it's injectable. Oh, no. That's injectable.

32:24Sal Di Stefano:And then finally got some good Dihexa again. Oh, yeah. He likes that stuff. He loves that stuff. Now, you've had the nasal and the injectable C-Max, right? Yeah. Do you prefer one or the other? Well, so far, I like the injectable. Oh, okay. Yeah, over it as far as feeling the difference. Okay. So, yeah, I definitely feel a little bit different. Awesome.

32:42Adam Schafer:All right, I got a cool study for you guys on exercise and exercise variety. I'm going to pull it up because I think it's pretty interesting. So they studied people who did different forms of exercise and single forms of exercise. And here's what they found. The people who did the most different types of exercise, okay, so people who did like cardio, strength training, you know, stretching. like the people have the most variety yeah uh had the best all-cause mortality uh and it had nothing to do with doing more exercise it had everything to do with more variety of exercise okay so which is kind of cool yeah so people who who kind of do this kind of like sense you know it does make sense yeah um so doing a variety of exercise uh is for mortality longevity is better

33:36Sal Di Stefano:well this i mean this is what uh which i would have guessed i would i would have guessed that too i mean this is the the thing that i think i've talked about with you guys like early years how i used to every workout i said didn't i never repeated itself yeah lots of benefits of like i could see of just overall health like joint health mobility like i felt good but i wasn't really strong i wasn't really buff but i was a little bit of all that responded well yeah yeah you know and so for somebody who could care less about getting much bigger building a bunch of muscle or could care less about getting that much stronger and they just want to be relatively strong to their body weight and they want to feel good and be longevity, it's a pretty good way to train.

34:15Adam Schafer:Well, so you know why I was thinking about this a lot because I read this study last week and I've been thinking about this because there's a couple things we need to, we have to kind of tackle as coaches. And this, one of them is more important than the other. Yes, variety of exercise, and this makes sense, is a good idea. But the main thing you need to tackle is that, is what are people going to do consistently? This is just the number one factor. Yeah, that too. And so in my experience, and I think most coaches would agree, getting somebody to exercise, to do a structured form of exercise twice a week is a win.

34:48Adam Schafer:Period. End of story. So at the top of the list is what they like. And if they like a few different things, but they want to get the most bang for their buck and they're not going to do a lot of variety, strength training seems to be the best. That being said, if you like to exercise and you don't mind the versions or types of exercise you do, I think the reason why this shows that it's so protective is because there's checks and balances with different forms of exercise. In other words, if I chase just building muscle, at some point I go beyond benefit and I start to sacrifice health benefits and go into just getting as big as possible.

35:19Adam Schafer:But if I'm running at the same time, it's going to prevent me from pushing that too much. If I only run, lots of benefit from getting endurance. But at some point, if I push too much endurance, I'm sacrificing longevity. Strength training counters that a little bit. Agree. Flexibility. All these things are kind of checks and balances because you could go too extreme in one pursuit and start sacrificing longevity. And each one of these is kind of a check.

35:43Sal Di Stefano:Plus all the different stimulus is going to help cognition, the brain, and that connectivity there. So yeah, and I just think your body overall as a whole, you express all these different types of movements. I think it's healthy. I think it's very important, though, that you know what you want, right? So because this takes me back to the conversation with this group that I was with, too, because they may like to train classes and do all this stuff like that for these reasons of longevity and helping. But then when you're also sitting down, you're going like, man, I want to build about 10, 15 more pounds of muscle.

36:16Sal Di Stefano:Now we're talking specifics. Yes. And so I think that's the important thing because you'll have people will say, like, well, I like the variety and I like the training. like all this stuff with that but then i want to lose you know 10 you know 10 pounds or i want to build fight it's like okay well there's a better way to go at that than this like all these random exercises all the time like okay they might benefit you longevity and it may you might it might be entertaining for you and you may not get a lot of joint pain from it because you're not hyper focused on something but it is not the fastest best way to build muscle or to lose body fat there is a and so i think that's people hear hear one one part of that and they go oh well that's what I want to do.

36:52Sal Di Stefano:It's like, yeah, but then they follow it right up with, yeah, but I want to, you know, I'd like to put, you know, 10 pounds or I want my chest to look at this or my shoulders look at that. It's like, okay, well now we're talking about something different now. So it's like being very clear with what, what you want to get out of it is important.

37:04Adam Schafer:No, a hundred percent because now why is that important? Because, uh, results, uh, make somebody, uh, more consistent. It's just a factor. It's not the factor, but it's one of the factors. And so if somebody does all these varieties of exercise, but they really want to see like a change in the way that their, I don't know, their arms look, they want to build a little muscle, it can become very disheartening and unmotivating suddenly. Well, this is how I used to talk

37:29Sal Di Stefano:to my Orange Theory people is they come to me after a class and they tell me how much they love the class. Like, listen, I'm never going to tell somebody who shows up to this thing three, four days a week and loves it and loves everything about it. But then you're like, I'm having such a hard time. I can't do this, I can't do that.

37:45Adam Schafer:And you're starting to feel disheartened? Yeah, exactly.

37:48Sal Di Stefano:It's like, well, if, you know, If you're okay with how you look, how you feel from showing up to this class all the time, then keep going for it. Keep doing it. But if you don't like the way you look or feel and you're doing this, there's a better way. And so, like, getting them to understand that, like, in every case is going to be different. Totally, totally.

38:05Adam Schafer:Doug, have you been using the TMG from? Yeah, I've started to use it, yeah. Okay, so I'm reading more about it. What is that? So, Betaine is another name for TMG.

38:16Sal Di Stefano:You brought that up once before, but I don't remember.

38:18Adam Schafer:Yes, so I have some studies here because Doug was kind of talking about it. How long have you been taking it now, Doug? Just for about a week now. Okay. Are you noticing anything with your workouts yet? Not specifically, no. I can't say I have. What it says in the data is it does increase maximal strength and vertical jump. So it's athletic performance.

38:39Sal Di Stefano:Wait a second. The studies show that it helps just that?

38:44Adam Schafer:Basically strength power is what you're going to see in the studies from supplementing with it. So you'll see it in some... That's what I'm going to take now. So sometimes they put it in pre-workouts. You'll see it. Now, Roe has it liposomal. So the dose, more of it's going to get absorbed in your body because it's protected by these little lipid molecules. What mechanism is it?

39:06Sal Di Stefano:What is it doing?

39:07Adam Schafer:Methylation increases ATP production. Really, like creatine? So paired with creatine? Paired with creatine is amazing. That's the best. That's the best.

39:16Sal Di Stefano:Oh, I wonder if a lot of creatine supplements carry it then in it. It's probably popular. Some do.

39:22Adam Schafer:Some will include betaine or TMG. But if you're already taking creatine, take it. If you don't, take it also. It's got all these athletic performance benefits. That's what I was wondering. Yes. You know, Thomas DeLauer has been talking a lot about it on Instagram. So I've been seeing his stuff come up. And one of the things that was interesting to me is the body recomp aspect of it. losing body fat it helps with uh i'm just looking at their website now normal liver fat metabolism

39:51Sal Di Stefano:so that's interesting we should link up with he's local yeah he's local yeah we haven't seen what's

39:55Adam Schafer:been like two years really smart guy you know what i gotta say this so the most common side effect of creatine is gastro distress um and so some people will have to take smaller doses throughout the day it's very common by the way you take a big enough dose of creatine everyone's going to get that so um like if you're taking creatine for brain health you got to probably take closer to 10 15 maybe 20 grams a day you take that all at once you're gonna have some some stomach issues um we're getting messages from people who are using rose creatine and they're saying that they don't get gastro distress because they're liposomal might be so they're trying the bigger doses with the with roe and they're like i have no

40:34Sal Di Stefano:i actually didn't even think about that yeah and i have and i didn't notice anything if i do the

40:40Adam Schafer:gummies i have to break it up which is too many at once then yeah yeah but i can drink a big dose up on interest i didn't even think of that yeah so i've got a few messages from people who are like hey i've tried the larger doses with roe and it doesn't bother my gut and i think it's because it's liposomal yeah so which makes sense which kind of makes sense it's still the same still create two monohydrate yeah you're not gonna it's not like it's gonna give you a yeah

41:02Sal Di Stefano:but that's good to know because there's there's there's times where i'm i'm taking it and i'm thinking like okay i want to i want to boost it you know especially after like a poor night's sleep right so that'd be a time i'd want to do kind of mega dose um that would be a better way

41:15Adam Schafer:to do it i didn't even think of that yeah cool huh so i i read something the other day that i wasn't fully familiar with so do you guys know who pope john paul was you guys yeah yeah when we were kids he was the name yeah okay so he was he was famous for a few different reasons yes after after you get that's right so a couple things he did that were really interesting one was he gave a speech in poland i believe that they that that people believe historians believe was one of the contributing factors to the fall of the soviet union uh in poland in communist uh you know territory he had people pre uh chanting um like millions of people chanting we want freedom we want freedom which is like like you say that in a communist country and uh yeah but anyway so There's that.

42:03Adam Schafer:Very brave guy. So there was an assassination attempt on him in 1982. Maybe, Doug, you can confirm this. So he got shot. Dude in the crowd pulled out a gun. There's a picture of this guy holding a gun like you could see when the guy shot him. He gets shot. Was it 1981? Let me see here. 45 years ago. So let me just see. It said it earlier when you were in the. Yeah, 1981. So he gets shot. They rush him to the hospital, like straight in the chest. the surgeon pulls out the bullet and he said that the bullet went straight for his artery and went around it. So it went for the artery and then went around it.

42:42Adam Schafer:He's like, I've never seen anything like this. It's so wild. This should have totally killed you. So of course the pub's like, it's a miracle. And he's got this famous quote where he says one hand pulled the bullet, uh, pulled the trigger and another hand guided the bullet, which is kind of cool. So anyway, there's a picture of him with the guy that tried to shoot him. He met.

43:00Sal Di Stefano:Oh, that's a picture of him with the guy who tried to shoot him. That's right.

43:03Adam Schafer:He didn't try to shoot him. He actually shot him. Sorry, he did shoot him. He visited the guy in prison. So the guy that tried to kill him, and he talked to him. He was basically like, I forgive you, right? And he's like, talking to this guy in prison. The man finally gets released later, converts, becomes a Christian. No way. There's a famous - I didn't know that story. There's a famous picture of the guy at the funeral of Pope John Paul. and he's basically like, you know, this horrible thing that I did and it got me to become... Wow, there's all kinds of pictures of him meeting with him right there, huh?

43:38Adam Schafer:Isn't that wild? That is wild. Isn't that crazy? Such a crazy story of redemption. You know, it's like the guy tried to kill you and then you visit him genuinely and it changes the man. It's sad we don't hear more stories like that. Did you know that story already? Yeah. Oh, you already knew. I didn't know that story. There's another crazy story. You can watch the video. People can look this up. You could hear these guys get interviewed. You guys know who Billy Graham was? Yeah, of course. So like greatest evangelist of the modern times. There were these three men, I don't know where they were.

44:09Adam Schafer:They have an English accent because I watched the video of these guys. They went to one of his, I don't know, what do you call it when he gets, when he's speaking to like huge stadiums? What is that? Like an altar call or evangelist? I don't know, it was like an evangelist event or something. Yeah. He would do these all over the world, right? Yeah. These guys showed up with a gun and they're like, when he does the call, so at the end of him preaching, Yeah. What Billy Graham would do, that's the video right there. What, what Billy Graham would do is he'd call people up to accept Christ, right?

44:36Adam Schafer:Yeah. He'd say, come up and whatever. So they're like, we were going to wait till he did that. We were going to walk up and shoot him. We hated him. We wanted to kill him. So they sat in this, in the lawn waiting, listening to the whole thing, listening and converted and converted. And they went up there and got baptized, dude. It's wild. Isn't that wild?

44:53Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. It's such a crazy story.

44:54Adam Schafer:That one. It's a whole video right there. Wow. Oh,

44:56Sal Di Stefano:is that it right there? Yeah. That guy right there, dude oh was he one of the ones that was plotting to kill he was one of the guys that wanted to

45:01Adam Schafer:kill him oh yeah i guess there were gangsters or something that were oh wow yeah dude i know it's wild such crazy that is such crazy stories anyway i'm gonna change uh topics here a little bit uh want to talk about a strategy i don't think it's a long-term strategy but it is a strategy that people can use to help them uh with fat loss um and i don't like talking about it too much because people can get carried away with it, but it is a strategy and it can be used, especially initially when you're trying to get things kind of under control. And that is to replace one of your meals with a meal replacement shake.

45:38Adam Schafer:Now people have gone too far with this in the past, but I could definitely, I've definitely seen this be a successful strategy to, to, uh, with some of my clients and I've gotten them to move from there to whole natural foods, but just as a way to get

45:53Sal Di Stefano:them to get things under control well i'll tell you a way i've done it as a strategy where i like it is post reverse diet so what i'll do and i've done before with somebody is slowly increasing their calories through whole foods like we all talk about get them up to a place let's say i like say i have a female client that hires me and she's at 1800 calories and over the next six months i get her all the way up to like 26 2700 calories and she's like this is this is so much food and like a good place to go because it's so much food and i still want to say our protein is i'll take one of those meals and replace it with like a ready to drink or a shake there you go some sort of a drink i've never done that oh yeah oh that's great that's a great way to cut cut the calories back still get protein intake in easier for them to digest so they're not force feeding themselves more food and then it's a nice way for us to start to lean out it's a perfect way after a

46:42Adam Schafer:reverse diet here's how i've done it with clients so i've done it with like clients that really struggle with nutrition. And then what the conversation typically looks like, likes this, I'll say, okay, which meal is the most difficult for you? And typically it's a breakfast or lunch. Sometimes it's later, but typically it's like breakfast. I'm, I'm, I'm coming out of the house. I don't eat anything. Then I overeat later, or I've grabbed this really fast garbage food or it's lunch. I don't pack a meal. I terrible at meal prepping lunchtime. I end up ordering out or whatever. So with these clients, what I've done is I've said, okay, here's what we're going to do.

47:14Adam Schafer:where you do a meal replacement shake in the morning. Or for lunch, you're just going to have a meal replacement shake. And it worked for a lot of these people. And what I mean by worked is it was a good bridge. It was a good starting point. And then we moved to different behaviors. Now, here's the key with this is protein shakes are okay, but they're not a meal. So protein shakes are just protein. And what you want if you have a meal replacement is some carbs and some fiber and a little bit of fats with your protein. it's going to produce more satiety and it's a more complete meal it's not just pure protein yeah because sometimes people use just protein yeah uh well you explain the differences you

47:53Sal Di Stefano:people have heard us talk about so example that would be like huel huel is an actual meal replacement then you've heard us talk about things like whey protein powder which is just protein just protein and so this is different and then so you have to explain the difference what's the

48:07Adam Schafer:benefit why would i want meal replacement because i'm going to get some carbohydrates i'm going to get a little bit of fats uh i'm gonna get some fiber and so it's gonna give me more satiety and it's more of a legit meal because it's more complete like you would never have a meal that was like a boiled plain chicken breast you know it would always include some other macros in there yeah and so huel is much more of an appropriate that's a good example much more of an appropriate

48:34Sal Di Stefano:way to do this what is their what is their mac could you pull up their site doug real quick what is their their macro right now another they're high protein 35 to 40 grams normally yeah 35 grams

48:42Adam Schafer:protein seven grams of fiber yeah and look up their complete macros doug if you can because there's also a little bit of fat some there you go what do we got let me pull it up it's pretty small here i just made it smaller so one bottle is 400 calories which is a meal yeah yeah you know versus a 160 calorie you know just protein nothing yeah clients on the go that was

49:04Sal Di Stefano:always like heart you know when they make bad decisions so to have a replacement was always a

49:09Adam Schafer:good option this is also vegan too so yeah can you read that yeah so uh so they i'll you want all the macros in yeah protein stats carbs so yeah so uh fat 17 grams um carbohydrates it looks like 30 grams and protein is 35 grams plus there's some other what's their what's their

49:30Sal Di Stefano:So what's their protein blend? What are they using?

49:33Adam Schafer:P protein is one of the main. So P faba bean. Yeah, P faba beans. P protein's got a pretty good amino acid profile for vegan protein. And it tastes really good, which is important. They do taste good. It's important. People need to eat something.

49:50Sal Di Stefano:They have a coffee one. Did you finally get a chance to try the coffee? I've never tried the coffee. But I've just been avoiding the caffeine probably is the real reason I've done that. It's not a lot of caffeine. I'll try it maybe after this. I actually didn't even check the amount of caffeine, to be honest with you. That's in it. Justin or immune. Yeah, I knew it wasn't no high caffeine. No one's better. To me, I don't count under 50 grams, dude. I know. It's got to be at least 100 at least for me to even count it. But it's the flavor I like. I like coffee-flavored stuff. So the iced coffee one is bomb.

50:22Adam Schafer:Have you guys ever used – maybe, Justin, you have. We've used bands to add resistance to the bar. Have you done reverse bands? Reverse bands. Yeah, where it helps you, assists you? Oh, I have.

50:35Sal Di Stefano:I remember being made fun of one time because I posted a video about that when I was doing bench. And I was just like, I was inside the rack and I had it set up. Yeah, so I could, I was just experimenting with it because I had seen powerlifters do that before.

50:50Adam Schafer:You know what's weird? So you would think it doesn't matter. Yeah. If I put bands to add resistance, or if I put bands to - It's totally different. It feels way different. Yeah, it does. But here's why I would think it's the same, because if it's pulling up, I'm going to get, it's going to pull up the hardest at the bottom, so it's going to make it heaviest at the bottom, like the top. If I'm doing it to add weight, it's also easiest at the bottom. Yeah, the lockout's still heavy. Yeah, but the opposite happens.

51:14Sal Di Stefano:You can load more when it's assisting.

51:16Adam Schafer:Yeah, it is, but then the weight would be the same because the bands -

51:19Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, but now I can feel heavier weight. of real weight in other words like so i like it for actually squatting is awesome in the cage with assisted so i used when i was getting used to moving 405 like when that when i was getting to that place i started with getting assisted with the bands when that would be like a single pr but i could put some heavy bands on the 405 and get like three reps out so getting three reps out of that feeling that you're built in spotter feeling that 405 yes 405 on my back but i've got the you

51:50Adam Schafer:You would think if you added enough band resistance, it would be the same weight.

51:55Sal Di Stefano:It is, but it's a different feel. Now I have 315 on my back and I'm adding bands. So sure, at the top, they both feel the same. But that's not what I want. I want to feel what 405 free weight feels on my back. So when I unrack it, I'm feeling like, oh my. So we're at the top where you're re-racking and stuff. Yeah, it's heavy at the top. Yeah, it feels way different.

52:17Adam Schafer:I think maybe. I've been thinking about this. because I'm like, I'm doing the math in my head. It doesn't feel so good. Well, I'm doing the math in my head. It does feel different. It feels way different. So I'm doing the math. I think it might have more to do with the fact that - From a tension in a resistance place,

52:31Sal Di Stefano:those studies would show it's the same.

52:32Adam Schafer:It's the same. Yeah. I think it has more to do with where the band is anchored because it's pulling me in a direction versus pulling me in a direction. Yeah. So it has more to do with the anchor, but here's a funny thing. Band-assisted does not cause as much stress in my body as band resistance.

52:48Sal Di Stefano:It lifts a lot of that tension in the joint. It's weird. I know.

52:51Adam Schafer:It's like I could do more volume with band assistance.

52:53Sal Di Stefano:That's what I felt when I was benching. It was like sometimes I'll get a little bit of a tweak in my shoulder like at a certain point, a certain weight, and it was just like it wasn't there because it just had that little bit of extra bit of elasticity.

53:06Adam Schafer:It's like my favorite way to get stronger fast is to use bands. Yeah, that and then like using them fast, like for faster.

53:14Sal Di Stefano:I have yet to do that. When you reverse the direction is when the most stress is on the joints. And so now that's being assisted by the band versus the opposite. So think about that for a second. At the bottom of your bench, when you're coming down the bench, the most stress is right here when you reverse direction. And you now have assist there. When you have band the opposite way, the most amount is at the very top. At the bottom, it's not.

53:40Adam Schafer:So what I mean is it's the same strength curve. It's easiest the bottom, hardest the top. whether the bands are on the bottom or on the top. It's the same. But it definitely feels less stressful on the body. And I'm really trying to think about why, but I don't know 100%. I think there's something about what you're saying. Maybe it has to do with where the bands are directed.

53:57Sal Di Stefano:So I think that's one. And then the other thing, again, that I find beneficial when you're trying to get – because most of the time you're using these bands because you're trying to get through a plateau, right? You want to get stronger. There's something about feeling that weight that you wouldn't do by yourself on your back or on your chest knowing that you have these bands

54:19Adam Schafer:to assist it to get it get it all the psychological lift yeah like a psychological it's just like

54:23Sal Di Stefano:i just feel getting me getting used to i remember i've told this story before uh back in the days when i was just like a 20 year old kid and those uh guys that were at this time i could barely do a plate squatting they put like three plates on me yeah i'm like i can't even do two plates why i got three on here i play that same principle when i was like starting to approach the you know overhead press it was like i just need to feel the weight for a while yes and i just had to like hold it i'm like oh my god it felt like lead weight dude like the first like few weeks and then you start adapting you start responding and like okay it starts to really kind of like

54:57Adam Schafer:your body produces so i love the way band assisted feels it works great for pressing and squatting deadlifting i don't i'm like where would i attach this for the deadlift that doesn't make any sense but i thought of an idea so you know out there we have that platform where the bands go across and you could put the bar underneath it and pull up. Imagine if those attachments were higher, you put bands across it and put the bar on top of it. Now you get a little bit of assistance at the bottom. Couldn't you do it?

55:24Sal Di Stefano:Inside the cage. Put it on your back.

55:26Adam Schafer:You could, but it's going to pull it straight up. And when you're trying to deadlift it, the bar's going to want to move away from you or towards you. When you deadlift, your bar path is straight. A little bit. Yes. I mean, I haven't experimented with it, so I don't know.

55:38Sal Di Stefano:I bet you could make that. Inside the cage, you could do that. It'd be an interesting experiment. Yeah, but it works really great. The challenge about inside the cage that I'm thinking about right now is that the bar goes across. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know if it would. If the plates don't hit the ground. Yeah, that would probably be the challenge I would do.

55:54Adam Schafer:Can you guys imagine what I'm thinking? Yeah, no, exactly. Higher attachments, bands across, you put the bar on top of it. Yeah, I've never done band-assisted deadlifts before.

56:03Sal Di Stefano:Squatting and bench press is my favorite.

56:05Adam Schafer:I've done band-resisted deadlifts. I do those all the time.

56:08Sal Di Stefano:You know what I haven't done with it? Did you ever try that, actually, with shoulder pressing? It would be kind of cool to shoulder press with it. Yes, it feels great. Yeah, that would be... I haven't done... I had never done it with shoulder press before. It feels really good.

56:20Adam Schafer:Band-assisted anything feels really good on my body. Shoulder press would be cool.

56:25Sal Di Stefano:I want to do that now. I never thought to do that with shoulder press. Yeah, well, the landmine, I'll do some of those presses where I actually stand on a rubber band and then have the bar. Yeah, and just do some shoulder presses, like single arm. And then so you get this cool dynamic of you can do speed wraps with it or you could just do, it adds to the resistance, but it's smoother. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's a totally different feel, but I've, I've experimented with that.

56:54Adam Schafer:Yeah. You know, it's cool about what we're saying. So if somebody listening right now has a home gym, uh, and you want more variety bands are phenomenal and they're cheap. You can go on Amazon and get yourself a thick pair of like weightlifting bands and with your cage, you can do all kinds of cool stuff.

57:10Sal Di Stefano:We also sell them too.

57:11Adam Schafer:Yeah. Do we have just the bands or do we have the ones with the handles?

57:16Sal Di Stefano:No, just bands. Oh, go on our site. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. Go on our site.

57:20Adam Schafer:Yeah, we got the best ones. We do sell them. Or you can go on Amazon if you want. Element is an electrolyte powder that you can add to your water. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar, and it's got enough sodium to actually make a difference. So this is great for eliminating headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, or other symptoms of electrolyte deficiency. So who could benefit from this? Well, if you have a low-carb diet, if you eat a lot of whole natural foods, you don't eat a lot of processed foods, if you sweat a lot, you work out a lot, this can make a difference. And again, no calories in it at all.

57:56Adam Schafer:It's just electrolytes with 1 ,000 milligrams of sodium. Go through our link and get yourself set up. Go to drinkelemente.com forward slash mindpump. That link, you'll get a free sample pack of their most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase. Back to the show. Our first caller is Sarah Beth from Mississippi. Hi, Sarah. How are you doing, Sarah? Hi, guys. How are y 'all doing? It is so cool to meet you. Yeah, awesome. Thanks for calling in. How cool helping. This is awesome. So before I start, I do have to say, I have to be mama bear for just a minute and let y 'all know how absolutely proud I am of y 'all as men and fathers and husbands, just for being so open and vulnerable about your lives and your struggles and your accomplishments and all those things.

58:40And like putting that out there publicly. I think that is so important for other men to see. And I just thank y 'all for being a space for that. That is doing so much good work out there. If you ever, whatever you do with Mind Pump in the future, please don't ever change that. So thank you. Okay. So my question is, what does a good appropriate cut maintenance in bulk look like for a very short female? male so I know that like being a woman I am already at a lower metabolic rate than a man obviously but being I'm five foot tall like on a good day so that puts me at like the lowest of the low when it comes to metabolic rates and I feel like all the fitness content out there is geared towards like the average male or the average female so I feel like whenever I hear these goals and numbers and everything to reach I almost have to like filter it of like okay like that's a good thing, but like it doesn't completely apply to me.

59:39So that's kind of my question. And I wanted to give you a little background information on myself, just so you can know kind of where I'm coming from, from a psychological standpoint with my question. So I'm 34. I was overweight my whole life. My heaviest point was in 2020, about a year after I had my daughter, I got all the way up to 248 pounds, which is insane to even say. I sent Doug pictures for y 'all to see because it was just, it was insane. And I really got to a point where I was like, this is not healthy. Like I've got to do something. So I didn't really know where to start. And I picked up a book about processed foods and it scared the crap out of me.

1:00:19So I immediately was like, all right, no more processed foods. That's insane. We're going to go all to whole foods. And that's the only thing I did. And over the next three years, I lost about 70 pounds just doing that alone. Then I got on Ozempic for one year. I gave myself the deadline of just one year. And in that one year of still not really changing anything else, still doing whole foods, I lost an additional 60 pounds. Well, when I got off of the Ozempic, immediately, of course, my hunger came back. And it kind of hit me. I was like, Oh, if I don't like for real make like some lifestyle changes here, like all of this weight is going to come right back.

1:00:57Like, yeah, I've got to actually change something here. So that's when I dove into the fitness space for the first time. And I immediately like fell in love with it. I was like, this is how have I never discovered this before? This is amazing. So I started integrating kind of one thing at a time. I started by hitting, you know, my goal weight and protein. And then I got my steps up and then just kind of incorporating other, you know, movement type of things. And then it eventually led me to strength training. That's always the last thing for women is strength training. So about, it was about seven months ago that I started like a real structured strength training program for the first time.

1:01:39and I am type A overachiever, goes way too hard when I do things. So of course, that's exactly what I did. And I overdid it. And I went, I was going to the gym four days a week, doing an upper lower body split. Each session was an hour or longer. And then I would follow each session by 20 to 30 minutes of cardio. I was getting 15 to 20 ,000 steps a day. And the kicker is that because of my height, I would use, you know, TDEE calculators and combined with my complete fear of gaining any weight, I would not let myself go above about 13 or 1400 calories while doing all of this activity. So as you can imagine, that very quickly took its toll on my body.

1:02:27And after about five months of doing all of that, I am super consistent. I don't miss a workout. I don't miss anything. Don't miss my steps. Five months of doing that, I wake up one morning and of course my body is exhausted. I'm under fueled. I'm, you know, just completely worn out. I got out of bed and standing up too quickly, I passed out and fell face first, hit the floor and some other things on the way down to the floor. Had to go to the emergency room, a huge deep gash on my forehead. They had to sew together. They took a CT scan. Thank God there were no broken bones or internal bleeding.

1:03:06but I had a very, very nasty concussion. And the doctor who, you know, treated me after asking me, like, how did this happen? And I told her that little history of what I had been doing. She kind of looked me dead in the face and was like, I'm going to need you to go home and get in your bed and recover from this concussion. And then I'm going to need you to eat. And at that point, I had only been listening to you guys for about a month. So I was just dipping my toes in the water. And, you know, I had been hearing you telling people about reverse dieting and about, you know, under fueling their bodies and how, you know, you can try all you want to build muscle, but if you're not giving it enough calories, it's not going to happen.

1:03:49And you're going to put yourself in some real risky situations here. And after that accident, when I came home, it was like, it hit me in the face. I was like, oh my gosh, they were talking to me. like I always put myself out of these categories because I'm like, Oh, I'm a short woman. It doesn't count for me, but no, it totally did. And I put my body in some real danger doing that. So I really, and at this point I'm listening to you guys 24 seven. So I'm just so, I'm like a sponge. I'm soaking it all up. So after I healed from my concussion, I completely revamped my strategy and my goals and everything here.

1:04:25I went down to three days a week in the gym doing full body workouts that only lasted 30, 40 minutes tops. I cut out all extra cardio, brought my steps down to about 10 to 12 ,000 steps. And I started my first ever reverse diet, which was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. But I looked at, you know, what had just happened. And I was like, you got to do better. You're not you're not treating your body with respect and well, and you're going to just keep driving yourself into the ground if you don't do something different here. So I, very incrementally worked my way up. And I am proud to say that as of this week, I am at like between 1 ,900 and 2 ,000 calories and I'm still going.

1:05:10We're still pushing. And just like you guys said, I saw all the things that you talk about all the time. My energy skyrocketed. My mood skyrocketed. I thought I felt great beforehand. I realized I didn't know what great felt like. My period normalized. My sleep got better. My strength. Oh, I'm not kidding y 'all. During this reverse at some point, I can remember there was one week where I went to go do my hip thrust and I added a couple of pounds and I was like, I can go more. I can go more. I can go. I literally added 20 pounds to my hip thrust in one week and then another, you know, 15, 20 pounds to some of my other compound lifts in the week or so after that.

1:05:54Crazy, crazy. So here's where my question comes in. I believe it. I'm a believer. Reverse diet is the way to go. It's amazing. But I am still a five foot tall woman. And I listen to you guys advise women all the time. And, you know, advising some women to push all the way up to almost like 3000 calories or more in a reverse. And I'm looking at myself and what I'm eating now at 2000. And I'm like, there ain't no fricking way that I can push myself, you know, up to that point. And since, like I said, there's not a lot of content out there geared towards petite women. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on, you know, as I'm doing this reverse, how far do I go?

1:06:33And then really, from my health standpoint, when I do eventually want to go back into a cut to reveal all this muscle that I know that I'm building right now, what does that look like in a healthy way? Because I obviously did not do it correctly first time around and I don't want to make that mistake again. So any advice you guys have, I would really appreciate it.

1:06:53Adam Schafer:Well, great question and a great job. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really, you're doing a really good job. It's really hard to get out of the fear of gaining weight. And now you see, now you see like, okay, that fear was, uh, it was, it was just that it was a fear. It's not happening. Like I thought it would. In fact, the opposite's happening. I'm stronger. I feel better. So here's the, here's the context with, um, reverse diet. And then I'll get to kind of your question. The reason why we often recommend that women get up to 27, 28, maybe even 3000 calories is because oftentimes women are interested in losing body fat.

1:07:30Adam Schafer:And so we just want to give them runway. So it's probably not a maintenance, but it's going to give you a nice, uh, runway to go back down and to end in a nice, comfortable place. Okay. Number two, uh, there's such a wide individual variance with, uh, someone's let's say metabolism with activity. Um, and yes, does, does your size play a role? It does. Uh, but, uh, it's, it's pretty amazing how high somebody can get their metabolic rate, whose strength trains is active, uh, and is, is petite like you are. Like I've had women, I've trained women like you who've gotten their calories above 3000. And it wasn't, it wasn't an issue.

1:08:13Adam Schafer:You actually have a healthy metabolism. The fact that you've already reversed and you're seeing great results tells me that you're going to respond really well. Cause sometimes it's more challenging. Sometimes a reverse takes a long time to get the body, the person's body to not be so afraid to build muscle. And it still wants to store body fat, you know, type of deal. So where do you stop? Well, there's a, there's a couple of things to consider. One, I don't like a fit, active woman who's working out ever to be at a maintenance that's below 1 ,800 calories. It's too low. If you're walking around at 1 ,600 calories, strength training three days a week, hitting 10 ,000 to 12 ,000 steps a day, if you've got kids and a life, that is too low to maintain.

1:08:58What you'll almost always run into is at some point burnout, at some point hormone issues, at some point it's just too low.

1:09:06Adam Schafer:So 1800 is like, that's kind of like the limit where I'll have somebody maintain who's active and strength and do all the things that you're doing. So now here's the other side of it. You're going to reverse diet to a place where you're going to be like, this is so much food, I feel like I'm just overdoing it. then that's a good place to cut from because where you'll fall at is going to be at this comfortable place considering your activity level your strength training uh the fact that you're a mom all that stuff i'd like to see you at a maintenance that looks like 2000 2100 so if you want to cut we got to get above that so we could cut at 2000 like 1900 that you're at right now 1900 2000 now i'm not going to put you in a cut if i put you in a cut right now you'll see a little bit of fat loss.

1:09:57Adam Schafer:You'll also see strength loss. You'll feel like crap, you'll plateau, and then you'll be back kind of to where you were before. So I wouldn't, I'd have you reverse out. Now, here's the other part of it. If you reverse properly, especially if you see strength gains, oftentimes you see yourself get leaner through this process. Like if I put 10 pounds of muscle on you and you gained no body fat, your body fat percentage went down. You actually got leaner. Right. And you're going to look leaner. Well, and that's, yeah, that's one thing I was kind of going to ask too, is I, obviously I'm gaining muscle because my strength has gone through the roof.

1:10:30I went to go through a baseball the other day and way overshot my target. Like I know I'm getting stronger, but I can kind of feel and tell in my body. I know that I am putting on a little body fat too, which I know comes along with it. So kind of what you mentioned earlier, I feel like I may need to move a little slowly through this because I was at so low calories for such a long time kind of thing.

1:10:51Adam Schafer:so it's you know here's the deal if i was coaching you it would be based off of uh how well i could coach you through this process because you're you're do you know what your body fat percentage is i you look like you're in i don't okay i don't if you're in the low to mid 20s keep going that's a good healthy body fat percentage you'd be at you look good it's all good it's fit yeah everything's fine keep going now i would if i'm coaching you and you're just like sal this is too uncomfortable I used to be overweight I'm really scared then I might slow it down then I might slow it down but if I could get you to uh relinquish control and trust the process I don't care if I get your body fat up to 25 26 because I'm gonna set you up for a nice cut later that's gonna have you sit around 21 20 with maintenance at 21 2200 calories now you live your life and it's like it's no right and that's the goal honestly I think I wrote in my question my like app honestly my My fainting thing was kind of a big scare for me.

1:11:52So it's like my goal at this point is I just want to be healthy. Like I want to be here for the long run. I want to be independent as I get older. And, you know, if it means body fat goes up a little bit in order to maintain that, like, so be it. I'm not going to lie. At one point it was let's get as tiny as possible. But, you know, I kind of got scared out of that, honestly.

1:12:11Sal Di Stefano:How many weeks have you been at the calories you're at right now? Here I've been probably three weeks. So taking it, but you know, at the same time, because I restricted calories for so long, and this is kind of like a, Ooh, I get more calories. I have kind of made the mistake of like, all right, my goal this week is 1900 calories, but I can have the extra cookie or two, but I can have the extra. So, you know, in reality, if I average out my week, I'm probably, I've probably gone above a little bit. So, you know, and, and how during that three weeks is Is your scale weight kind of maintaining?

1:12:47Sal Di Stefano:It's fluctuating up and down a few pounds. What's it looking like? It's, it's maintaining. Honestly, if I do have a night where I'm like, oh, let's go get pizza. Of course, it'll spike up the next morning, but within two or three days, it's right back. And so it's, yeah, yeah. So I would say it's maintaining. So that's okay. So kind of a good rule of thumb when I'm reverse dieting someone like you is that I want, I want to increase you by about 200 calories, give or take, uh, whenever we get to a place like this, when you are holding weight. scale weight like you say you are right now that you're and you're feeling good in the gym it's like okay let's go up another 200 calories then i'm going to hold there again and you might see scale go up one or two pounds i'm looking for it to level off again and hold again and so i want to see it hold for like a week or two and then i'm going to go up again i'm just going to keep stair stair stepping you up with your weight kind of maintaining i like we're ready for the next bump and just keep doing that until you get to a place that sal's talking about and really it's less about your height because i've seen really really petite short women eating 3 000 plus calories and i've seen people that are tall and lanky barely be able to eat 2 500 calories so it's has everything to do with your muscle mass your training volume like it's unique it's also complex and so getting it to a place where you are like this is a lot of calories because what we know now is like you feel great at where you're at right now so this would be the ideal place to cut back down to.

1:14:11Sal Di Stefano:So if you know, if you, if this feels like a good amount of food, you have nice flexibility with the food, like you can enjoy a cookie every once in a while, like you can do things like that. Like, then this should be a good goal of like, this is where we want to end up. But if we're going to end up here, that means we need to take it up a little bit higher so that we can come back down to this place.

1:14:28Adam Schafer:It's true, Sarah, let me ask you this. So you said you really want to be healthy, have energy, feel good. If we look at the whole context of all of that right now, what's happening with you, Your energy, your strength, how you can perform at home for your kids, the amount of food that you're able to eat, the way you look. Would this be a great place for you to be forever? Would you be happy? I mean, yeah, I would like maybe a little bit less body fat. Like I said, I feel like I've added just kind of a little more body fat in the past several weeks, but it was just probably just fluctuations. but I mean overall like yeah like I say that but then I go out with girlfriends this past weekend and every single person is complimenting like oh my gosh you look so good that fits you so well you know so I know a lot of that is a mental thing it is so the reason why the reason why I'm saying that is um you know 25 body fat for a woman with more muscle objectively looks better than a woman with less muscle at 22 so that's number one yeah but number two you really want to have a complete relationship with this.

1:15:34Adam Schafer:Not a narrow relationship is the mirror, the scale, body fat percent. A complete relationship is like my energy, how I feel with my husband, what I'm able to do in the gym. Do I feel like I'm overstressed with my food or I kind of feel like it's kind of relaxed? So that's the complete relationship. And if you're feeling like, you know what, I feel kind of good. Even if you just went on this path, you're going to kind of have this nice body recomp. bump maybe slow but over time it's probably going to happen right the other side is this is this if you want someone to guide you through this process uh because that makes a big difference to outsource it then i would say work with a coach and we have coaches that are really really good and then you don't got to think about this you give it to your coach and your coach does the reverse for your your coach asks you the questions your coach is monitoring all this stuff and working with you when you're having the oh am i gaining weight what am i doing what i and they'll just take you through this process and considering where you're at, um, you're probably six months.

1:16:35Adam Schafer:It's probably a six month process, which includes a reverse and a cut six months. We'll give you the reverse and the cut. And then you'll have, you'll, you'll kind of be where you're, where you want to be, but you're kind of getting there. I think your relationship to it sounds like you're getting in the right place. So if you want to coach, I can have somebody call you and they could just take for the next six months, you have them do it. Otherwise just to encourage you, uh, yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say too, I, through this entire process, like I have never hired a coach. I've never talked to a nutritionist.

1:17:07I've never even owned a gym membership. I don't even have like friends and family who are into fitness. So it's just like me and podcasts and chat GPT, like we're all dogging it out here. And so I'm like, you know, I'm figuring everything out on my own here. And I feel like I've done a pretty good job, decent, you know, learning everything. You've done a great job.

1:17:24Sal Di Stefano:You've done a great job. Yes, it's definitely, it's definitely one of those things when you don't have someone to bounce the ideas off of directly, you get in your head and you overthink and you overanalyze and you second guess and all that.

1:17:35Adam Schafer:Honestly, you're like six months away from being in a really good place with all of this, uh, to where you, you know, you have someone coach you, teach you, and then you're like, now I can do this and I can maintain this. And I know what it feels like. I know how to go through the process. I know how to modify this. Uh, I know how to improve the quality of my life through this process. Cause what you want, Sarah is for the rest of your life. you want to be comfortable with this, but you don't want to do, you don't want this to be the stressful tracking, you know, like lifestyle forever. That's not going to work.

1:18:05Adam Schafer:You're like six months away just based off of talking. If you want to coach, I'll have someone call you and I think you would do really well with them. But again, I'm going to encourage you. You're on the right path. Like you're really doing a good job. Thank you. All that is really encouraging to hear. Cause like I said, doing it by yourself, you, you kind of, you're kind of shooting in the dark. You don't really know. So that's why I really wanted to talk to you guys and hear your opinions, because it's that's very encouraging, everything that you're telling me. And I was going to say, you know, there was a day, you know, six, eight months ago when I was in the 1300 calorie purgatory and working my butt off in the gym where I thought to myself, like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to have to do this every day for the rest of my life in order to.

1:18:46And so like finding you guys and hearing everything that you have to say and everything that you tell people it, I know you hear it all the time, but it has literally changed my life and made me realize like, no, you don't have to do that. You can actually enjoy it and enjoy your life and have energy to play with your six year old when she wants to and all that kind of stuff. So you have really, really appreciate it. You have to get to a place where you enjoy it.

1:19:08Adam Schafer:Cause I promise if you hate this, you're not going to do this forever. There's no way. There's no way.

1:19:12Sal Di Stefano:You're doing great, sir.

1:19:13Adam Schafer:Yeah. You're doing really good. But would you want somebody to call you? Because we have really good coaches. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. I'll have somebody reach out to you and let them know that, you know, based on our idea, we think probably six months will be good. But they're going to ask you more questions and probably get a little more individualized. At the very least, we'll send you a free program. Are you following any of our programs? I'm not, no. Okay. All right. I'm going to, I'll leave it up to the coach to which one we should send you. But you get a free program regardless. So.

1:19:40Thank you guys so much. Y 'all are amazing. Can I say one more thing to you before I go? Yeah. So I want each of you to do me a favor when you go home tonight and give your wives a big hug for me. My husband also owns and operates his own business. So I see how much work and dedication and time and stress and all the things that it takes to do that successfully. And I know that you guys have seen all this success that you have seen because you have someone at home to love and support you through that and take care of all the other things so that y 'all can do it. So I really appreciate everything y 'all do, which means that I really, really appreciate everything that they do at home for y 'all to make this possible.

1:20:19So if y 'all could do that for me, I would appreciate it.

1:20:22Sal Di Stefano:They'll love that, Sarah. Thank you.

1:20:24Adam Schafer:You got it. Good. Thank you guys so much. You got it. She had a great attitude and she did a great job so far. Great job. It is scary. Reverse dieting when you're, you know, we're, we're, she lost over 130, she lost 130 pounds. Yeah. She lost. but she had that little wake up call which was obviously a blessing. She's feeling the benefits. She has no idea how much better she's going to feel when she keeps moving this direction.

1:20:48Sal Di Stefano:I mean I think she's doing really good. I think the fact that she can even recognize that in this reverse diet, yeah I put on a little bit of body fat but she knows and she's okay with it. Says a lot about how well she's doing.

1:21:01Adam Schafer:I think six months is going to give her time to continue to reverse and then cut with a coach. She's very coachable. Yes.

1:21:07Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. She's very receptive to information. I think she's going to do well. Best use of a raw dog I've heard yet. So I did catch that. Doug doesn't know what that means. That's good. I've heard it before.

1:21:19Adam Schafer:Our next caller is Chelsea from Australia. Hi, Chelsea. Hi, Chelsea. Hi, how are you? How can we help you? First of all, just the usual thank you as everyone else does for everything you guys have done. You guys have helped me through a lot from like training to even like eating disorders. It's been crazy. So thank you guys. Second of all, so I, September, October around last year, I was about 76 kilos, super fit, had quite a lot of muscle on me for a female, dabbled in some retortide, lost about six kilos, pretty much old muscle because I didn't hit my protein, couldn't train because it just, it killed my drive.

1:22:04I knew better, but I still did it. And yeah, kind of paying the consequences of that ended up quite like skinny fat. Around January, found out I was pregnant. And then from about January, obviously came off everything, January to April, wasn't training, wasn't really eating kind of lost my motivation for the gym um I'm now 18 weeks pregnant and I hate the way that look and I hate going to the gym I have absolutely no motivation I have been going now a little bit um maybe like once or twice a week if I can but from being like the really strong girl to you know I did 30 kilo back squats the other day and that just absolutely took it out of me whereas i'm used to being able to do like 80 kilos and yeah i just don't know where to go because like i want to train for health but i am still kind of chasing that aesthetics but i know it's kind of probably pretty far away in reach you be careful chelsea

1:23:08Sal Di Stefano:like this is uh your goal has to be totally different or you're growing a baby you're growing a baby right now how how you look aesthetics and even strength goals are not important anymore. Just not right now.

1:23:20Adam Schafer:I got to say this too, Chelsea. Not enough is communicated to women on just how challenging this process is, especially if you identify with being a fit or a fitness fanatic beforehand. It is very challenging because a lot of our identity, especially if you're a fitness fanatic, was probably wrapped into how you look and how you could perform. Maybe, if you don't mind me saying, a little body dysmorphia, which is probably what led to the Red Atrutide. Super common, super common with fitness fanatics. I'm raising my hand because I'm one of them. And so now it feels like your body's not yours. It's not yours.

1:24:07Adam Schafer:It's doing things that none of your old tricks work. You probably don't want to eat anything except for hyperpalatable food. It's probably the only thing you can keep down because otherwise you won't throw up. you're tired when you do work out all your stamina and strength is like where'd it go uh and you're you're injury prone on top of it and your hormones are totally different and so it's this radical like who am i what am i it's out of control and a big re a big challenge that people that fitness fanatics have is a sense of control so oftentimes one of the reasons why we are so fanatical about our fitness.

1:24:46Adam Schafer:It makes us feel like we got things under control. I got my schedule. I got my eating. I got my supplements. I got my workout. And now it feels like you have no control. So it's extremely challenging, but it's also a blessing. And I'll tell you this. I'll tell you why. Besides the fact that you're going to bring a human into this life, into the world, it's a blessing because it's going to help you face some of the biggest challenges that you probably had that you maybe didn't want to face before. You're just kind of forced. so here's what it looks like and i'm going to ask you this okay i'm going to ask you a question uh are you someone who is worthy of being taken care of yeah of course well okay but really but what's the answer really yeah yeah do you feel that or do you just know that in your head

1:25:39um no i do feel it i do feel it i just don't relay that into like gym and fitness but i relay it into the real world and other in other like aspects definitely yeah so that's going to lead

1:25:52Adam Schafer:you so if you can tap into that uh like if you had a best friend or a sister that is going through exactly what you're going through you would probably advise them and come and comfort them and give them empathy in ways that you probably don't give to yourself. And so that, if you let that guide you, your fitness and nutrition is going to be exactly what you need. And so what it might look like your first trimester or you're, you're kind of in that space, a lot of nausea, probably you're feeling that right. Okay. Yeah. I'm just, I've just gone into the second. So the nausea has finally disappeared and the energies come back a little bit.

1:26:34but yeah the first trimester was like I couldn't all I did was sleep and vomit basically yes so so taking care of yourself during the first trimester probably look like sleeping and the

1:26:47Adam Schafer:only thing I can keep down is pizza or the only thing I can keep down is you know lucky charm cereal or weird like I know this my wife went through it with my daughter she didn't have it so bad with my son but with my daughter she literally had to walk around with a bucket because she was throwing up so often and she struggled with it and I'm like honey right now taking care of yourself is like being able to hold down food. So I don't care what it is. Let's eat it. But now that you're coming out of it, it might look a little different. So you might look like, okay, what's going to nourish me? And then when you go to the gym, what you need to think is not what workout I need to do or what body parts I need to train.

1:27:20Adam Schafer:When you go there, you literally have this conversation with yourself and think, what's going to make me feel better? And maybe that's walking on the treadmill. know maybe that's stretching maybe that is lifting weights and so how long were you working out for before you got pregnant you're a fitness fanatics you've been doing for a while five plus years okay i don't care what your workout looks like if you guide it with what i said so when you get to the gym all right what does taking care of myself look like today is it skipping the gym? Is it walking? Is it yoga? Is it two exercises and get out?

1:27:57Adam Schafer:And how do I know I'm taking care of myself? I feel better when I leave. Like I leave the gym feeling better than I did walking in. Let that guide you. Yeah. And then let your body do what it's going to do. Now, if you do that and you're able to do that properly, your bounce back is going to be so much better than the average woman. But I'll also say this to you. It takes a lot longer than people realize and this isn't communicated well on social media either they like to tell you oh four months later i mean you'll definitely be better than the average woman or if you had never worked out but give it it takes like a year or two before you're like oh i feel like my old self like completely okay so it's all it's all about caring for yourself in the right way and you're going to develop if you do this right you'll develop a relationship with fitness it's going to last you for the rest of your life yeah i think the hard thing is seeing a lot of like and I know I know better um but like social media I see like pregnant women and they're like this is my workout and they've got this big bump and they're like jumping around and I'm like how are you doing that right now like and I thought that would be me just because I was so fit beforehand and it's just most most it varies so much a very big percentage of women feel like you they're just not the ones posting about it yeah they don't want to talk about it go talk to some pregnancy

1:29:16Sal Di Stefano:She's different too. My wife has two separate complete pregnancies. One was like that she could work out. And then the other one was like completely like bedridden. So you just never know.

1:29:28Adam Schafer:Yeah. And talk to other moms and be like, Hey, how was it for you? Cause this is what I feel like. And I guarantee you're going to hear a lot of moms be like, Oh my God, it was horrible. It was so hard. I felt so sick. It was so difficult. But I will say this, it's better than had you not been a fit person. Like however bad it's been, it'd be a lot worse if you went into it without your fitness background. Yeah, definitely. So that's the context. I'd like to sell you a program, excuse me, send you a program that has, I think, good workout programming for someone through pregnancy. So if you need some structure and some exercise, you know, exercises, I can send you one.

1:30:05Yeah, definitely. I've got anabolics, but that's probably not really appropriate right now.

1:30:11Adam Schafer:No, starter. Yeah. i'm gonna say you started that's that's a great one for during and post uh partum amazing thank you so much okay and this is gonna be hard especially for someone who's who's identified so strongly with their fitness but lead with like okay how can i take care of myself today how can i take care of myself today and that's gonna just kind of help move you through this and then talk with other women who've had kids because they're not the ones posting on social media they're not the ones standing on a soapbox if when you feel great that's what you want to tell everybody nobody wants to talk about how hard it is but when you sit down actually talk to other moms i promise you you're gonna get a lot of women they're like oh my gosh thank you for yes definitely that was

1:30:50Sal Di Stefano:really difficult for me yeah yeah how does hearing all that make you feel um i guess i kind of knew some of it but i i don't know i thought maybe they'd be like i'll just go three times a week That's all you need to do or something like that. Like I've tried, you know, I put it in chat, GBT, and I'm like, tell me what do I need to eat? Like I know the answer, but it's like there's got to be another way. There's got to be like a minimum criteria of what I just should be meeting. But, yeah, I guess kind of just resting up and utilising this time to just train to feel good opposed to trying to still kind of, I guess, chase somewhat aesthetic.

1:31:35Adam Schafer:no listen to your body listen to it listen to it and and i've trained i've trained pregnant women that that were like once a week this is all i could do the rest of the week i could do a little bit of walking and then other pregnancies look totally different so if you're like i feel like garbage and i do not i can't move i think what i'm gonna do is go for a walk that's your workout yeah yeah yeah i'm studying fitness as well at the moment and should be qualified by the time the baby comes so wonderful utilize that towards other women good yeah this will make you a good trainer for women through pregnancy which is very very needed in our space awesome all right thank you guys i really appreciate your help you got it chelsea thanks for calling in no worries thanks all right that's tough yeah that's tough dude i couldn't imagine getting pregnant and then being like oh i can't do things different now yeah i can't get a read if she's gonna listen or not I think she knows I think maybe it confirmed it and I'm hoping that starter will help her a little bit but here's the deal she's got no choice because if she goes too far her body's going to shut down she's going to go to bed

1:32:43Sal Di Stefano:our next caller is Sandy from Connecticut Sandy how you doing I'm good how are you

1:32:53Adam Schafer:welcome back give us a little update in the last 30 days. Catch us up. Yeah. How's it been going? What's going on? Thank you so much for having me back. I have to say that what you, a month ago, you know, what I expected to hear was not what I heard, but I think it was exactly what I needed to hear. So thank you. I was really focused last time on all my failures and fears and my setbacks and things. So really turn things around. Your advice really turned things around for me. And I spent this month, you know, just trying to change my thinking. I've gone from focusing on failures, fears and setbacks to just understanding this is my year for recovery.

1:33:47So So, and I'm going to be okay. So just some updates. So as far as retirement stuff goes, I'm just going to read my notes, keep from babbling too much. You know, we went from having no information for so long to being overwhelmed with information this past month. The person that's responsible was finally charged. He did plead guilty. every week this past month I've gotten either an email or a letter or a phone call with more information and next steps what to expect etc so it you know that's that's been very stressful I mean I'm glad things are moving along and getting towards the end of this nightmare but just all that contact and all this information is just like the kick in the gut again and again and again.

1:34:45So there's no good news as far as getting any money back, but it seems to be wrapping up so we can move on with life. I did reprioritize my goals this past month, as you suggested. I made community and stress reduction number one. I did find a church that feels just right. And, you know, it's already brought me a sense of peace and hope again. So So that's been great. I need more time to really connect and, you know, form a community there. But I've been going to these services and it's been pretty great. I do have a community of friends at the gym. I kind of made it sound last time I had nobody and, you know, for community.

1:35:35But they don't know everything going on. I mean, it's my happy place and they just think I'm this happy-go-lucky exercise freak. So very few of my friends and family know what's going on. I don't like to burden people with my stuff. So other than you guys, I'm kind of dumping all over you. Sorry.

1:36:02So that's kind of what's going on there. My coach changed my workout based on your advice. I now am doing one exercise in each set and two minute rest between each exercise. And Adam, I know you said closer to five minutes would be good, but I'm telling you two minutes was an eternity. It always feels that way. You know, all the same people are at the gym around the same time. So, you know, they bunch of all these guys were coming up and they were like, what are you doing? I've never seen you stand around. Like, usually you're flying around here. And so people were calling me out on this two-minute thing.

1:36:48So I didn't know what to do with myself. But I really, really am seeing the benefit of that. So I just can't stress it. I mean, you guys stress it all the time, the rest, how important it is. And so somebody approached me and said, you know, what's going on? that you're, I started walking circles in the gym because I couldn't just stand there and wait for the, I literally was standing there watching the clock. And so actually the other day I was dusting during my two minutes, which they appreciate. So I told, so this woman who walked up to me, you know, said, Sandy, what is going on? And I said, listen, you build muscle during recovery.

1:37:34Sal Di Stefano:so you need to increase your rest time that a girl yep so i said and you need to listen to mind pump and they're like what's that and so um so anyway that that's what's going on there just i really see improvement in my strength like already in 30 days it's it's pretty crazy that's right um i know you know my numbers aren't that impressive but just to give you an example I'm doing a trap bar deadlift and I started at 115 pounds yesterday. I'm at one 50. Whoa. That's a huge difference. That's a big jump. That's huge. That's huge. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm pretty proud of that. You should be right on.

1:38:20I did do the, any volt body scan at the gym and for a baseline. I didn't look at the numbers. It's it's would wreck me. if I did. So Greg didn't let me look, my coach. He has it. He has the printout. The plan is to repeat it in 90 days and then review it and look at it.

1:38:45Sal Di Stefano:Good. Smart. Good. So I'm dreading that, to be honest. So true confessions, I have not stopped going to my two classes. it's you said the intensity was a bit much but honestly it's my crack

1:39:06they're my people it's it's I'm still going okay I did miss one week and and not you know I had two for work and my phone was blowing up where are you where are you so that's nice so I'm not ready to give that up. I did watch the video on the Maps Prime webinar. Doug, you're a beast. Holy cow, you're a hard act to follow. I was a bit surprised. I failed miserably. Let me tell you, Justin, it was not good. It's okay.

1:39:43Sal Di Stefano:Everybody does in the beginning. So, I like that you kept saying 90 % of the people, you know, don't do great. I was surprised how hard it was to put my arms up straight on the wall. My back arches so much and my lower back pain is a huge problem. So I would say I was a good foot from the wall with my arm. And yesterday I was about three inches. So I'm getting there. Progress. But I have not been doing practicing consistently at home, like I should. So that's still a top priority to keep going with that. Have you noticed any reduction in pain a little bit or no, not yet? Pardon me? Have you noticed any reduction in pain yet?

1:40:29Sal Di Stefano:Yes, I have. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I have. Yeah. That's great. Amazing. Yep. Keep going. The squat I'm pretty happy with. I can't keep that pole straight for anything, But the fact I can squat, I mean, a year ago I couldn't squat because my knees were so bad. And my new knees are wonderful. So I'm squatting with a 50-pound kettlebell at the gym. Nice. Very good. And doing, you know, elbows to knees squat with it. So I'm getting there. I'm back to planning meals and prepping on Sundays. I've been eating protein like it's my full-time job. I've consistently gotten about 160 grams. And so that feels good.

1:41:21For the most part, I feel pretty good. I will admit I'm hungry a lot. I am back to tracking. And I eat a lot of the same things. But it just feels good to have some control. So that's helping with that. I am walking with a friend a couple days a week. I'm averaging about 10 ,000 steps a day. My sleep is better. It's not great, but it is better. I've been sleeping. I've been going. Well, first, I did tweak my evening routine a bit. I stopped checking emails after like five because I just want to avoid in case there's any triggers in there. Any more news that I don't want to know about at bedtime.

1:42:07I did add the chamomile tea. I've been going to sleep pretty easily and sleeping four hours solid before I wake up. They may or may not go back to sleep after that. Most of the time I do. So if I had to guess, I'd say I don't wear anything to track the sleep. So I don't know for sure. But I would say five, six hours max. And it's not solid. But so that's better. Not great. So anyway, overall, I think I've made progress. And, you know, I don't feel so hopeless anymore. I'm trying really hard to see progress in other ways besides a scale in the mirror. And that's, I think it's too soon to see much.

1:42:53I'm struggling seeing much. I'm focusing on these numbers, the weights and stuff, the going up and those kind of things. So I do have a couple questions. um do you think 90 days is too soon to redo the the body scan and look at look at results um if in any other anything else i could do for my lower back pain and just a reminder that's you know the pain is the degenerative scoliosis of arthritis in the spine and um lower lumbar disc disease the doctor there's absolutely no restrictions said the best thing i can do is keep working out and working with a trainer and strength training and things.

1:43:37So there's no restrictions. If it hurts, stop. That was the only thing he said. And then not really a question, but, you know, I understand focusing on stress reduction and, you know, sleep and building my spiritual community is still the most important part right now. It's also the hardest. I mean, I am white knuckling it in that area. So any other advice or thoughts about that, I'd appreciate. So thank you.

1:44:06Sal Di Stefano:First of all, Sandy, you're doing phenomenal. In 30 days? In 30 days. Remarkable. I've seen progress and strength like that, to see your upper mobility and your upper back and arms and getting closer to the wall is incredible. Noticing stress, building community. You've got so many wins that are happy right now. The 90-day body fat test, that's not for you. That's for your coach. So don't – I wouldn't want you to – if I was coaching you, I'd do exactly what he did, which I like that he didn't let you see it. That's for me. It's for me to make sure if I need to tweak anything, I'm not giving that to you to go, oh, this is what you did or didn't do.

1:44:47Sal Di Stefano:You need to let that go. That's his compass to make sure that he's got the right plan for you so you don't dwell on what it does or doesn't say. You need to let that go and you need to focus on the things that you're, what you already are focusing on and seeing great improvement. Continue to try and practice the zone one test in prime as much as you can, because that's already showing you improvement. That's going to continue to make you feel better. Keep getting stronger in the gym. Like you're doing, you're walking. All those things are great. I wouldn't take the, uh, you know, the crack classes from you yet, because I think that I think that part of community is valuable to you.

1:45:26Sal Di Stefano:so I think but I would continue to point out to you notice what happened when you gave yourself two minutes rest look how strong you got in 30 days keep leaning into that you're going to see continued progress that way but you're doing a hell of a job stacking wins right now yeah you're

1:45:40Adam Schafer:doing a great job doing so good the so so we're we saw you 30 days ago and you're very coachable and you're doing phenomenal so I think I can add a couple more coaching tips now moving for the next 30 days. So one, find something you enjoy to listen to or do for your rest periods when you're strength training. If you're sitting there watching the clock, you're going to hate it. So if you have a book or a podcast, or you like to read or write down notes or music or music, learn something or learn something in between sets, that's going to make that like feel productive and it's going to also make it enjoyable.

1:46:22Adam Schafer:Okay. Otherwise it's going to be very difficult for you. And what'll happen, Sandy, is you're going to eventually the two minutes will become one minute, go back to 30 seconds. So find something you can do in that two minute period where it's like, oh, now's my time to, you know, read or listen to this book or something you enjoy. Okay. So I think that'll be a good practice for you. Here's the second part. Um, and I totally identify with this. Uh, it's building community super important, but doing life with friends where they know all of you, that's community. So what tends to happen with a lot of us, and I can be like this, is we have what are called duty-free friendships.

1:47:05Adam Schafer:So duty-free friendships are like, hey, happy, how you doing? And then we go off on our own way. And I don't let you in. I don't really let you in on what's going on. And you don't let me in on what's going on. And so what that means, Sandy, is that when you need somebody there with you the most, you don't have somebody. You have someone there when you don't need them necessarily, which is when you're having a good time. But when you're really going through the tough stuff, that's when the value, the real true value of having relationships lies. And so that's a difficult one because I know I heard you say, I don't want to dump on anyone.

1:47:39Adam Schafer:I don't want to scare them away. And so, you know, think of the people, you know, and the people you think that might be open and, or maybe at your church and you tell someone, Hey, look, I got some struggles and some challenges and I just need to talk to somebody and I'm really scared to do so. And you would be shocked at how loving people can be. And that is so different than just, you know, having your gym friends, which is great, but you got to have those real relationships where you can let people, because otherwise you're on your own. You're doing this by yourself. Well, I've always been the one that everybody else comes to to fix everything and help everybody.

1:48:21And being in this position is different.

1:48:24Adam Schafer:So maybe, and forgive me for saying this, maybe it's because you feel like you're, you're only lovable when you're a value. and when you're not of value, you maybe feel like a burden? I think that's right. Okay. Well, just so you know, people love the opportunity to love you. They love it. People love to help too. Just like you do. Just like if somebody came to you, you feel like it's, oh my God, let me help you. And like I said, you could try at your church or maybe the people you know already and see if you could pursue those kinds of relationships. When it comes to stress reduction, nothing's more powerful than that.

1:49:02Adam Schafer:nothing is more powerful than that and so I would say you know maybe seek that out and then also make peace with the fact that for the next year none of your goals are aesthetic for a whole year you're not even going to, now I'm going to tell you this just to encourage you, your aesthetics are going to change, you keep getting stronger you keep doing this the right way, your body's going to look better and better but your goal for a year is none of that, my goal for the next year is I need to take care of myself just make peace with that yeah and then i think i wanted to i've already gone through two years of hell i was like i can't do another year of not getting reaching goals so when you kind of stress that last time i was like i can't do another year of this and it's like well you have to well you have to so when it's

1:49:49Sal Di Stefano:the recovery i guess well the goals are just different and and and it's not going to feel like healthy and strong and by the way you might be ready i know we didn't get into this because we didn't get into like calories and so like that and i'm sure your coach is monitoring that But the fact that you're hitting protein as high as you are, you're seeing strength gains up, and you're telling me you still have an appetite. You eat more. It might be time to eat more. And that scares the hell out of me. I'm sure it does, just like the rest periods did. But I'm telling you, okay? I'm telling you that when my client tells me that she's hitting protein every single day, I'm seeing her hit numbers in lifts she's never done before.

1:50:25Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you want to have 30 pounds. And she's telling me she's hungry. I'm going to say, eat. You need to eat. that's your body telling you, I want to build muscle. So if you want to see aesthetic change, you want to see body change, then let that body build some muscle.

1:50:37Adam Schafer:It's going to take over for the fat. And let me just say this. Adding 30 pounds to a trap bar deadlift would be phenomenal for a year. You did that in 30 days. That's a crazy amount of strength to gain.

1:50:48Sal Di Stefano:And it's probably why the appetite's up. The appetite's up because the body's saying, hey, we need some more fuel. We're ready to build. Yeah. So feed it. Eat what? More protein?

1:50:59Adam Schafer:or like I a whole food whole meal a whole food meal yeah protein yeah something healthy something like what you're already eating just just eat another meal or portion or add your or make your portions a little larger that's all okay yeah but look let me let me let me reframe let me put something in a different context that will help you if somebody reduces the amount of stress in their life or is able to reframe the stress to add meaning to it and then deepens the relationships with people, is that more enjoyable or less enjoyable? Is that a better quality of life or a worse quality of life? Definitely better.

1:51:32Adam Schafer:So you just went through hell.

1:51:34Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:51:34Adam Schafer:The next year is not going to be hell. No, it's going to be enjoyable. It's going to be better, but you got to do those things that are scary. Like let people in and take your eyes off of the aesthetics and it's going to feel so much better. It's going to be way better. yeah i mean i still did freak out on about you know how to how to how to get through these years with with my nest egg gone you know but well it's it's really scary by yourself yeah yeah let's let some people want to help let let some people in let some people in maybe one person or two people for the next 30 days if you can um and uh start deepening those relationships you're very lovable i barely know you and i i

1:52:23Sal Di Stefano:like you so our audience loves you by the way you know how many you know how many emails we got

1:52:28Adam Schafer:after our first episode are you did you look at your episode to see the comments underneath on youtube no okay go on youtube find your episode go read the comments your homework so last week i was a couple weeks ago i was driving to new hampshire for a work meeting and it came on the radio. I always listen to you guys. You're always in the car with me like I told you, but I was listening and it came on. I was like, oh my God. That was wild. I heard a lot of things I didn't hear the first time, honestly, because I was... Yeah. That was cool, but no, I didn't know. Are you in our private forum? No.

1:53:11Adam Schafer:Put her in there right now. I got homework for you. Yep. Okay. So three things. Find something to do that you like on your rest periods. Not dust? Actually, you could dust. You could dust. I'm sure the owner of the gym appreciates that. If you're a psycho and dusting is enjoyable, go for it. I feel like you just want to be busy. But that's fine. Sure, if you want to. But find something enjoyable that really feeds you in your rest periods. Try to deepen some of your relationships. And then here's your third assignment. This one I want you to do right after you get off here with us is I want you to go on the private forum.

1:53:47Adam Schafer:Doug's going to give you access to it. It's on Facebook. I want you to introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Sandy. I'm the one that was on the episode where this happened and that happened. And just tell the forum that. I'm the one that I talk to the guys and they just let me in and I just want to meet everybody. And that's it. I'm just going to let the rest happen. Let them talk to you. Just watch what happens.

1:54:08Sal Di Stefano:Okay. Do you work out with headphones or no headphones? Are you headphones or no headphones? uh either or oh you do both okay yeah yeah maybe play some gangster rap i feel like yeah a little tupac don't do that the the wicked stressful days i i'm listening to pink floyd oh yeah all right all right okay there you go yeah i like that i i have to tell you a story that sal i know you'll you'll get something out of this um it's pretty wild um Oh, sorry. I don't want to cry today. That was my goal. So I left church one day and I, after, after the service, they always have a coffee hour to get to meet people and socialize and things.

1:55:02And a couple of people approached me on, you know, it's a small church. This church is 250 years old. The floors are the wooden planks that are scratched up. the pews squeak when you sit down, the windows are drafties, you know, it's small, maybe 40, 50 people were there. So it felt like home. It was great. The sermon was about hope. And I had the day before, I know we weren't getting any money back, but we got something that kind of confirm that? So I felt hopeless. So anyway, I go in the sermons about hope. And honestly, it was like, you would have thought I sat with the pastor and told them everything.

1:55:46And he was talking to me. I was like, holy cow, this is like spot on, pretty wild. I leave I'm in my car and I was thinking why why did I not go to the social thing I I haven't done that yet and this is where I'm going to build my community this was my homework I'm failing you know and you know and I was like I am white knuckling it through this this part you know um hanging on my steering wheel and that phrase white knuckling it came to mind I had on a rock station I was listening to Bob Seger and Pink Floyd and all my stuff Carrie Underwood came on the radio country on that station is unheard of and she was playing and she sang Jesus take the wheel I was like okay that's a sign right?

1:56:42I was like that's that's crazy

1:56:46Adam Schafer:Yeah, well, if the guys don't get annoying me, I'm gonna just preach to you a little bit. Remember when Jesus was washing the feet of his disciples and one of them said, no, I'm not gonna let you wash my feet. And he said, if you don't let me wash your feet, you'll have no part of me. That's the part of us that we don't wanna let people in. It's the dirtiest part. It's the part that's dark. We wanna hide it. And so you let people in, let people in. That's how you get those relationships and that's how you're gonna get some of this. That's how you're gonna feel supported, Sandy. You can't be by yourself.

1:57:16Adam Schafer:We're not made to be by ourselves. Yeah. I have a couple of very, very close friends that, you know, they know everything. And, but I, I worry that I make them worry about me and they don't, nobody needs to worry about me. I'm going to be fine. You know, I'm this, this two shall pass and I'll, I'll white knuckle it through, you know? And so I, I'm careful what I share. Yeah. But you know, it's more stressful when people guess. Yeah, that's true. I know my kids, when they don't tell me things, I'm more worried than what I know. So it's a myth. That's true. Go on the forum. Go post in there right now.

1:57:53Adam Schafer:Tell them your whole story because I know a lot of people in there looking for you. Yep. Okay. And we're going to see you in 30 days. Yep. All right. Thank you so much. See you, Sandy. Thanks. Take care. She's so much better than last time. Yeah. Wow. Huge progress. Dude, 30 days progress. She's going to keep pumping her up. I mean, I hope she realizes what a win that was in just a 30-day period. In 30 days, yeah. And remember the people in the forum were talking about her? That's why I was like, oh, gosh, she's got to get in there because people are looking. Total good call, yeah. I'm surprised we didn't do that the first time.

1:58:25Adam Schafer:I guess we forgot.

1:58:27Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, we're just probably tied up in her conversation.

1:58:29Adam Schafer:Yeah, but I can't wait to talk to her in 30 days. She's going to do all right, man. Our next caller is Parker from Georgia. What's up, Parker? What's happening? Hey, guys. How's it going? Good, man. How can we help you? I appreciate you having me on. I am going to read my question to you. All right, so some background on me. I did not start lifting seriously until my senior year of college, and I learned power lifting style training from a friend, ran programs like 5x5, 531, things like that. I was able to hit lifts of a 405 deadlift, 385 squat, and 250 bench, which is nothing special, but I enjoyed hitting those numbers.

1:59:05Then life happened, multiple kids, demanding job, inconsistent sleep, training, and diet. Over the past four years, I've inconsistently run some MAPS programs and just kind of tried to keep training as much as I can, but it's been highly inconsistent. I'm in a much better season of life now. I can reliably train three days a week. I get good sleep. I'm working on improving my protein and movement. But my question is, as an intermediate lifter who still has okay strength, how should I approach progression? For example, I can still pull 300 by 5 on a deadlift whenever I want to, but then it beats me up pretty significantly.

1:59:47So I don't know if I should aggressively push my strength back up or intentionally undershoot. I don't want to spend nine months getting my working weights back up to just 225 pounds because it feels like I'd be spinning my wheels, wasting my time. Kind of reminds me of Jeff Goldblum's quote in Jurassic Park, though. They were so preoccupied with whether they could. They didn't stop to think whether they should. So how would you guys structure progression for someone like me whose goal is building muscle, strength and longevity? If you were me, which maps program would you run for the next year and how would you progress the lifts?

2:00:21Adam Schafer:Yeah, great question. Number one, I see in your question here that you're hitting only 100 to 120 grams approaching a day. Yeah, typically when I track, that's what I end up hitting. Right away, change that. Yeah, get that up because that'll make a huge difference. Like 100 to 120, the difference between that and 180, 190 grams for a guy your size is like 30, 40 % increase in recovery, strength gains, performance. So make that a priority. I would say that's number one. I could set you up on a succession of maps programs that I think will be good. But the thing you want to consider is you have muscle memory, which is going to come back in a hurry, especially if you're consistent.

2:01:02Adam Schafer:The thing you need to be considerate about is mobility and injury. That's the thing that'll stop you because you're probably going to get strong real fast, but you're going to want to temper it even though you feel like you could go faster because injury risk can be a bit high when somebody's strength. because it's not like you're weak. You're still pulling 300 pounds. So going from 300 to 330 to 370, like those are big jumps. Now you're playing with heavy weights and you want to take it easy even if it takes you longer because injury risk starts to go up when you start to move heavier weight.

2:01:34Sal Di Stefano:I mean, it's not a bad idea because of that to start them on something more like a mass performance or a symmetry first and then go to anabolic then would be more ideal. So if I were to lay out like the full year for you, Symmetry or performance would definitely be in that rotation. I'd probably start it with that. Since you are already – I mean, you're not strong. If you're pulling 300 pounds, you're already moving good weight. And remember, symmetry is a 5x5. It's taxing you. Yeah. So to kind of reprioritize it, do more unilateral work and more plane of motion focus, that's going to reinforce all these main lifts that you were already pretty strong in to begin with.

2:02:15Sal Di Stefano:So I think it's a good break from that.

2:02:17Adam Schafer:Yeah, if you did symmetry and you hit your protein targets, you could probably follow it up with power lift as long as you're smart with your training and you'd be okay. So take my, for instance, deadlift, take it down to maybe 225, 240, something like that, and jump by 10, 15 pounds a week and see how it goes. Or is that too aggressive? We're going to switch your program. Just follow map symmetry. At the end of map symmetry, there's a five by five where we get to deadlift. then go ahead and pick your weight yeah and go ahead and go for moderate to high intensity your

2:02:50Sal Di Stefano:focus completely i think this is a good time to do that yeah but go map symmetry and when it's done

2:02:55Adam Schafer:then jump to mass power lift and then you got percentages and numbers in there that you play with yep okay and then after power lift how do i need to approach like if i'm running anabolic how do i approach progressing those weights weekly monthly how do you recommend approaching that you want to go by feel but don't ever you know maxing out like maxing maxing out uh i would keep that

2:03:15Sal Di Stefano:super rare yeah you should be fine if you're running if you're running reps of five uh where you're getting where guys get in trouble when they start getting strong ones and threes yeah they start testing ones and threes and so and they're going 100 and so if that's if your goal is to stay healthy and we're not you're not trying to do some match right you're not going to go compete and go just do some shit like that then there's no real reason for you to push ones and threes unless you feel amazing and you just want but i would avoid that if your main goal is health longevity and you're going that direction it's just stick with fives if you're running five by five type of protocol you're you're moving a weight that you you easily can do singles doubles and triples with so it's you should be okay and if you do a good job of doing programs like symmetry and performance as long as you get those in you every year you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna

2:04:03Adam Schafer:bulletproof yourself and just to add to that you would do five reps with a weight you could probably do eight reps with so that helps you judge the intensity okay so you're not doing five with what you can max out with five so that's that's where you start to get in trouble leave like two in the

2:04:16Sal Di Stefano:chamber yeah yep so doing that plus the protein i'll still build muscle and be just yes oh i'll have to be ratcheting it up too much your strength is going to go up you're going to get stronger

2:04:25Adam Schafer:yeah for sure yes but it would be symmetry hit your protein targets follow them with maps with maps power lift and i think you're going to be great excellent well that was easy yeah i'll send you symmetry we'll send you symmetry right now if you don't have it i think i've actually I already got it. Do you have power lift? Cool. I've got a lot. So I may actually do performance instead of symmetry. Okay. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Either one of those are great.

2:04:48Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, both those, either one of those would be great. It's a good rule of thumb. I don't know if you've heard me talk about it on the podcast. It's just once a year. One of the other. One of those programs should be in everybody's rotation, in my opinion. I don't care what your goal is. I think running either symmetry or performance once a year should be in everybody's rotation. Okay. Yep. Well, that's good advice. I appreciate it, guys. You got it, man. All right, Parker. Thank you for your time. Thank you, man. Have a good one.

2:05:13Adam Schafer:Yeah, that's good. It's the challenge, just for people listening, when you got muscle memory, it's one thing to have muscle memory and not be, like, really strong for your weight. He's pulling 300 still. He'll be adding 30, 40 pounds really quick if he's consistent in his protein target. And then you got to be careful with injury risk.

2:05:30Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, and you're running, you know, this program, and you're noticing these lifts, and you're starting to feel restriction and pain. And this is something to really pay attention to. And this is where we need to kind of shift and alter our focus. So, yeah, that's where like a symmetry or a performance comes in because it's going to address a lot of those, you know, variations that you need to address. Totally.

2:05:50Adam Schafer:Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's 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.

2:06:34The 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.

2:07:23Memorial Day sale, May 11th through 26th at the Wayfair store at Edens Plaza in Wilmette.