2869: The Best Strategies for Getting a Crazy Pump (That Actually Work)

15:01Sal Di Stefano:Have they done any good studies where they show how much blood and fluid is getting pumped into the muscle in a full range versus a shortened range? No. I mean, that'd be interesting to see. That'd be an interesting study. It's pretty obvious. You can feel a difference in it, and it seems pretty logical.

15:18Adam Schafer:But it's crazy. like any exercise. There's any exercise I do, and there's benefits to doing things a little faster, maybe heavier. There's benefits to that. But if I know I want to get a pump, I'm going through a real long full range of motion.

15:30Justin Andrews:Big contraction.

15:31Adam Schafer:And I am getting a stretch, and I'm getting a squeeze, and I am emphasizing both of those. And I can make the pump happen so much faster when I'm doing those two things right there. Agreed. Next up, higher reps. Higher reps is much easier to get a pump than lower reps. Not to say you can't get a pump with low reps, but if I really want to feel the muscle inflate, yeah, I'm going to go 12 to 20 reps. In fact, sometimes I'll avoid higher reps because the pump can get so painful. It can actually restrict me. Like this can happen with my legs. Like if I go 20 reps, it's like two or three sets. And I'm like, I can't do too much more.

16:05Justin Andrews:It's like stiff. Yeah. At that point.

16:06Sal Di Stefano:I mean, when I think of this, I think of like the analogy of like pumping up a tire and the difference of if I got five pumps versus I get 20 pumps, I don't care how hard I pump that five. like the tire will pump up way more after 20 pumps in that that tire and so it's the same your muscle belly's the same way too and it doesn't mean that there's not benefit to of course tremendous benefit to the low rep but if i'm chasing a pump i'm going to do things like high rep or superset like justin's experience with me is like that's the the best way totally

16:34Adam Schafer:and again like this is it's so effective what we're saying here is so effective like do you guys have body parts maybe you adam because i know justin you don't chase this too much but did you have body parts that got so pumped yeah that they would hurt and you'd almost be limited

16:45Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, delts can get that. Me too. Yeah.

16:47Adam Schafer:Yeah, so me too. So in fact, sometimes I'll avoid doing some of the stuff for my delts because it just gets so, they get so full. Yeah. It's hard to move. But other times it's fun. And I know if I'm going 20 reps and I'm going slow on the movement and squeezing and I'm hydrated, have the carbs, it's going to be balloon time with those muscles for sure. Next up, supersets. You brought this up earlier, Justin, that you did this. Yeah. So supersets are just two exercises back-to-back for the target muscle. and you can either do two compound lifts, but if you really want to get a crazy pump, do an isolation exercise first, go right into the compound lift.

17:22Adam Schafer:Holy cow. Does this make things good? It's a monster. Oh yeah. So like an example of this for like, I talked about it for my back is I did dumbbell pullovers, which is somewhat of an isolation exercise for lats to pull-ups. For chest, an example would be flies to bench press. For shoulders, it would be laterals to shoulder press. For quads, it would be leg extensions straight to squats. so you're isolating the muscle you want to get a pump in then you go to the compound lift let the other muscles kind of help out and they inflate you it's crazy it's crazy and then lastly flexing between sets uh now there's definitely bodybuilders that do this because i want to see themselves in the mirror but there's also uh you know old school bodybuilders did this because it helped get more blood uh into the muscle and so when you're resting you could literally sit there and squeeze the muscle um and hold some contractions there's an isometric benefit as well sure but this

18:12Sal Di Stefano:definitely ramps up well there's some aren't there some pretty recent studies that show the the benefits i mean to intra uh what do they call it interest that stretching or or yeah yeah yeah it's like deep stretching and squeezing yeah don't i mean isn't that similar to that like the the stretching is creating like this isometric tension on it is similar to that would you get the same

18:32Adam Schafer:type of benefit yeah so that's like where you hold a weight in a stretch position yeah you know what's wild about that by the way is you can get a pump with really deep stretching i don't know if You guys ever experienced that? Where you stretch a muscle really, and then suddenly you have more blood in there? So that's another thing. Flexing is one. The other one is in between sets. Now, this is going to lower your force output. So this isn't necessarily what you want to do when you're trying to lift heavy. It's not like a performance benefit. No, but it's a feel. And there's some bodybuilders that swear by this.

18:57Justin Andrews:I've experienced that with a stretch of a fly, just holding it there with weights, and then like, oh my God, the amount of blood that would just pump through there is crazy. Yeah.

19:08Adam Schafer:One of the downsides of the pump is that it's pretty disappointing when it goes away. It definitely, it's, I mean, you know, when you get really. Well, it's not functional. No. And when you get really good at this, you can definitely see, well, this is what is my potential. I could potentially look like this and it's, it could be quite dramatic. But if you do all this and you do it well, you can make yourself look very different 30 minutes into your workout than you did when you first started.

19:34Sal Di Stefano:I feel like all your fitness influencers that everybody sees that. Before they take pictures. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nobody takes pictures. Every time. Why would you? Yeah.

19:41Justin Andrews:I didn't even know that, dude, forever. I seriously thought everybody was just okay. No, they were ready.

19:48Sal Di Stefano:So I remember, again, back in my bodybuilding days, because I was already doing socials by then, and I'd see my competitors. I'm like, dude, they look crazy, you know? And then I'd be like, oh, that's because they're always, like, best lighting, best pump, best everything. you see him in real life and size him up you're like okay, is that impressive? Regular dude. Magic trick.

20:13Adam Schafer:Speaking of competitors so often times, so competitors who compete on stage, they're trying to show themselves off as lean as possible and dehydrated. They're actually trying to be dehydrated to an extent to give them the illusion of being even more shredded and you talk to competitors and ask them how hard is it to get a pump on stage? How hard is it to get a pump when you're trying to pose in front of people because you're not hydrated you're depleted you've tried carb loading but maybe you didn't as well as you could your sodium was low you're it'd been in the calorie deficit forever you're tired and you'll hear bodybuilder say like i couldn't i can't even get the muscles

20:49Justin Andrews:that's like the art of it at the end right is the yeah i mean i took a this is something that you

20:54Sal Di Stefano:know i talked uh many times about the things that i saw as opportunity for me right like i definitely do not think that i've got a a great bodybuilding physique whatsoever and but i i had some advantages with my programming knowledge my nutrition knowledge this was one of the things too that i thought was like a huge advantage to me it was like oh these guys were like like having no water zero water and then trying to use just carbohydrates like most of your muscle bellies water like you want to you want to pull the water between your skin and your muscle but you don't want to pull all of your water out pulling all of your water out your muscle bellies

21:27Adam Schafer:is like you're gonna make it almost impossible to get a deflated balloon yeah so you so i would i

21:32Sal Di Stefano:was i still on actually a day of competing drink a quarter gallon of water which in context of like

21:37Adam Schafer:competitors that's a ton some of them are spitting throughout the day yes water out of their system

21:42Sal Di Stefano:so i would i would i would drink a quarter gallon in on on day on game day getting up there on stage so because i knew i needed that water so to pair with the car but you do still lose the pump really really fast because your body uses up really quick when you're, when you're so low calorie, you're so depleted that you, you do these little rubber band pumps and you're trying to time when you're going to go up on stage. And a lot of times I remember I would go thinking that I'm, it's about my turn to go out and then they would, something would happen and show get delayed. And then you would, you would be like, Oh no.

22:12Sal Di Stefano:You would flat out, you know, this is kind of off subject, but I found this really interesting. Like, and maybe Sal, you understand the science even better than me, but I found that if I, different carbohydrates and or pairing with fats when I would intake food would allow my body to be able to stay pumped up longer. Yeah.

22:32Adam Schafer:I don't know what the science is with that, but everybody says that. Yeah. Everybody has their life. Yeah.

22:36Sal Di Stefano:So I had, I had, so like one, I remember one show I got ready for, and this was the first time that I used a sweet potato with my, my chicken to like get ready for like a show. And so same amount of grams of carbohydrates as measured out as my white rice and everything like that. But something to do with how my body processed those carbohydrates versus then if I would have rice versus rice, I know it's a difference, and then versus when I'd have rice and avocado. So the best combination was rice, avocado, and the chicken and something to do with it. And the difference was how long I could hold a pump.

23:15Sal Di Stefano:All of them had a difference. The longest pump that I could hold and fill myself out with was the rice comboed with the fat comboed with the protein.

23:24Adam Schafer:The food that I'll eat that will always give me a crazy pump if I have it like a few hours before is French fries. Now, it's not because French fries are good for you. It's the sodium and the carbs. It's hella high sodium and it's carbohydrates. It's the sodium and the carbs.

23:35Sal Di Stefano:Period and distorted. By the way, this is also why, to you at that point, this is why so many bodybuilders swear by like the pancakes or the burger and fries before. It's the sodium and the carbohydrates. Yeah, it's the sodium and the carbohydrates. It's just that you're loading up on a ton of sodium and carbohydrates that you've depleted your body up for so long.

23:53Adam Schafer:Do you guys have exercises that you know, like, oh, this for sure, if I want to get a punt, this is the exercise. This is going to get me to just blow the heck up. Oh, yeah. Upright rows for shoulders for me. If I do upright rows, it's going to happen within four reps. My shoulders.

24:05Sal Di Stefano:That's why I love those rear delt cable thighs so much. Oh, that's it. I mean, yeah. If I, all I have to do. Oh, where you're bent over?

24:11Adam Schafer:The full shoulder. Yes.

24:12Sal Di Stefano:Two exercises. If I do a, obviously I'll do something for the full shoulder, right? like a military shoulder press or whatever, right? A dumbbell press in those rear flies, and my shoulders are blown out. Just those two movements, like, for sure.

24:25Adam Schafer:For back, for me, it's a supinated grip, close grip, pull downs. And I go all the way up, get a real deep stretch, all the way down, get a good squeeze. It's like half a set.

24:33Sal Di Stefano:Four sets of heavy deadlifts over the lat pull downs. I don't think it's possible to get a back more pumped than that.

24:40Adam Schafer:Justin, do you even care?

24:42Justin Andrews:I'm just listening to you guys. I don't even know.

24:45Sal Di Stefano:He's like, this sounds so gay. I don't want to inject in this. That's one of those things.

24:49Justin Andrews:It's like, oh, this happened to me? You know? That's kind of how I look at it.

24:52Adam Schafer:You know what's crazy about this is as an athlete, the last thing you want is a pump when you're on the field because you can't move.

24:58Justin Andrews:Especially, yeah, it was always the forearms. Like when I would get a pump in the forearms, I would be like, oh, no. Like I'd be panic mode.

25:05Adam Schafer:Dude, I had a guy hire me who raced motocross. And I'm like, okay, so what are your fitness goals? And he confused the hell out of me. He goes, I don't want to get a pump in my forearms anymore and i'd never heard anybody not want to get a pump before and i remember being like

25:19Sal Di Stefano:oh crap what do i do you know we yeah we just had phil heath here and uh he talked about something and i wish we would have gotten more into it and we've talked about this and speculated on this a long time ago and uh and i i wish there was some good science to support this theory um that i have or that we have because i think we've agreed and shared this where the pump can be bad where you only chase the pump yeah which i was that kid for a very long time because heavy low rep strength

25:48Adam Schafer:training with long rest periods doesn't produce a pump and so you'll avoid it yeah and avoid this

25:52Sal Di Stefano:great way to build muscle and and so and it just what happened to me was i trained the pump forever and i remember for years like man looking at if i could just look like that and i then i would deflate down and feel like now i don't even look like i work out years i felt this way it wasn't until i really started to heavy and train and load and so like that and the biggest difference was when i worked out like that i didn't have the impressive pump but then what i but i exactly but what i looked like is i looked like i had muscle on me all the time all the time it didn't matter if i was pumped up or not yeah and then and now what i see as i've gotten older because i've built so much of that muscle too is like man i touch a little bit of weights and get pumped up and it's like even if i feel like man i'm really deflated i haven't trained in a while oh man let me get in the gym real quick i'll get a pump in and i'll look like a guy who works out all the time like it's so it's it's wild how that heavy training i don't know what it is that we talked about it's more you know uh i think it's just granite like well they all they all build

26:56Adam Schafer:muscle but if you avoid it for a long time and then you finally do it boom you're gonna build tons of muscle i had the same experience when i would lift heavy i had to get disconnected from the fact that I wasn't going to get a pump. It's like, okay, cool. I'm just going to lift heavy. But each time I built muscle, they both can build muscle, but if you stick to one for too long, like we talk about all the time, you're missing the benefit of the other one.

27:16Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. It was a big difference for me, for sure.

27:19Adam Schafer:So I want to bring up this peptide stack that I just got from our partners at MP Hormones. Have you guys heard of the CLO stack?

27:26Sal Di Stefano:Oh, Katrina got that. Phil sent that to her.

27:29Adam Schafer:Dude, so I'm going to look this up. Okay, so... So supposedly

27:32Sal Di Stefano:it's like...

27:32Adam Schafer:Bro, this is the best

27:34Sal Di Stefano:yeah he told her that he said this is because she okay she's always taking like uh you know uh skin face like type peptide and and supplements that we can get our hands on and she would tell she told phil when we all first met what he was saying he's like oh wait till i send you what we

27:51Adam Schafer:have we have the the the best so i looked up reviews first of all i'm very familiar with these peptides so i know like oh this combination is amazing but you also look up reviews and it's like. So it's got GHKCU. So GHKCU really increases collagen production. So it's good for gut health, but it's really good for the skin. Okay. And everybody knows that. Then you have BPC-157. Everybody knows that one. Gut healing or protective joint recovery, but it also helps with collagen and protein synthesis and those types of things. Then you have TB-500. This is a thymus peptide. This is good for hair growth.

28:27Adam Schafer:It's also got some benefits for skin. It's good for recovery uh it's good for healing and then you have kpv kpv is anti-inflammatory it's also good for gut health but when you combine them the synergistic effects for the skin because i've done ghkcu bpc and uh and tb500 i've done that that trio before and you definitely notice my wife's done it definitely noticed yeah we've never never had added the kpv yeah but i know kpv is another peptide that's good stack that and sit in front of the red light man that's like that's what she's doing my wife's doing that yeah right now yeah yeah so that's the that's the four peptide stack and so cool what used to and what's cool about our partners at mp hormones is it comes in one vial so it used to be if you wanted all four of those you get four vials yeah you'd have to do four injections mix it no it's all it's all in one it's like a tiny bit 20 units so that doesn't include the cream also so there's another thing you can also go you can also she uses a cream too You can also apply peptide to your face.

29:26Adam Schafer:Okay. And it's more direct.

29:27Sal Di Stefano:She has the injectable and then she also has the cream that she's doing.

29:31Adam Schafer:So if you're listening right now, look up Clostack before and after, and you'll see people 30-day before and afters, and it's like, do they get a facelift? It's pretty wild.

29:42Sal Di Stefano:Katrina and I talk about this a lot. We've talked about this a while ago on the podcast where we kind of all are at with anti-aging and all the things out there and Botox and face and plastic surgery and like i'm so pro doing things that are like natural and using the using all those tools to do everything you can to reduce aging not a fan of like like you know injecting botox or plastic

30:09Adam Schafer:surgery so peptides for people listening these are these are signalers that in the body that uh your body knows what to do with uh many of them exist already in the body like bpc does thymusin or TB500 is a piece of thymusin beta. This thing already exists in the body. So it's not a pharmaceutical drug. It's a peptide that your body already has. It's signaling it. And so you're signaling just tissue repair, collagen repair, skin repair is what's happening. And many of these peptides that you have in your body decrease with age. You're not injecting a foreign

30:41Sal Di Stefano:thing in there to kill nerves so you don't have wrinkles. By the way, have you guys paralyzed your skin? The data on Botox is wild. That's what it does, right? So the science of what Botox does is it kills the, right? It basically paralyzes the nerves that make your frowns or smiles or all those things like that.

31:01Adam Schafer:Did you know that there's data that shows that people with Botox experience less emotion? Of course. Because they can't express as well? Oh, yeah. And so there's this feedback signal, right? So your brain tells you to be happy, but then your brain also receives a signal from your face expressions that you're happy. And so these studies show that Botox can reduce.

31:26Justin Andrews:Isn't that crazy? Because it's like, yeah, you're worried about these wrinkles when you're smiling. But then you're less happy. Yeah, exactly. Immediately, like it affects your mood. Yeah.

31:36Adam Schafer:Doug, look that up. What's the trade-off? Look up how Botox affects happiness. I'd love to see those studies. I remember reading them a while ago, and it's pretty wild. Super common. Super common. People are using Botox at such young ages now.

31:55Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, they're disrupting their brain's emotional feedback loop. Paralyzing specific facial muscles.

31:58Adam Schafer:Prevents you from making expressions like frowning, which can subtly dampen negative emotions and boost mood. However, this effect varies by treatment. So you basically can narrow your emotional, like I'm less happy.

32:10Sal Di Stefano:You know, there's a way, there's a, there's a hack into the reverse of this for on the positive side too, by the way, if you've never tried this, like it actually takes like you to be very intentional and practice like the next time you're angry is like force yourself to smile and it's, you will feel a difference. So I know you will feel a difference.

32:28Adam Schafer:Like, well, here, try this fake laugh and try it to real laugh. You're good on real laugh.

32:33Justin Andrews:Yeah. have you seen that video where this lady starts doing that and she was like ha ha and then the the guy that she's doing was goes ha ha ha and then they keep going back and forth and it turns escalates and it's real you know and then you're you know even just watching it i started laughing yeah it's like it's it's fake and then all of a sudden it's real that's what i mean like you could

32:50Sal Di Stefano:you fake smile when you're angry and you will literally start to feel better yeah i mean it may not get rid of the problem that you're angry about or whatever like that but it will dramatically shift how you feel about it.

33:01Adam Schafer:We also think like a smile has to do with the mouth and it does, but it's the whole face. So one of the most disturbing images that they've actually tracked this is a face that's smiling without the rest of the face smiling. So it's a mouth smile. You had Doug pull this up years ago. Without the eyes smiling. And it just looks unnerving. Creepy. You had Doug pull this up a long time ago.

33:21Sal Di Stefano:It looks creepy.

33:22Justin Andrews:It looks super creepy. I think they have marketing for that one horror movie. Where they're smiling behind. Yes.

33:29Adam Schafer:oftentimes crazy like like the like when they display a killer yeah they have a smile but the rest of their body yeah look at that that does look creepy dude yeah dude because your brain can't register what's going on and so they look crazy that's a creepy that's so you know what i

33:44Justin Andrews:watch whatever i feel like oh i'm like depressed or whatever like there's this one video it was from i think it was in uh in the uk where they had this this this talk show and they brought in people with like unique laughs.

33:59Adam Schafer:Oh, I've seen this.

34:00Justin Andrews:Oh my God. I die every time I watch it. I don't even have seen that. Oh, it's so funny. It's a bunch of weird laughs. You're like, everybody has like the most bizarre laugh you've ever heard. It's so contagious.

34:12Sal Di Stefano:Where do you think that, why do we all have, that's an interesting. Why do we all laugh? No, no. Why do we all have different laughs? Oh, I don't know.

34:18Adam Schafer:I think it changes too based on who you hang out with. You know, when I was a kid, I thought weird. When I was a real young kid, I thought people laughed in different languages.

34:29Adam Schafer:I was really young. Oh, people, people in the country laugh in different languages. No, stop. This guy. Sorry,

34:40Justin Andrews:sorry. I was trying to think of examples. Think about how,

34:43Sal Di Stefano:how unique that is. So that's an interesting thought you said, Justin. So you think that it changes based off who you hang out with.

34:49Justin Andrews:I do.

34:49Sal Di Stefano:Like much like our slang, our slang does, right? I also start using slang when I'm hanging around. So, you know,

34:54Justin Andrews:it's weird because I was thinking about that even with myself because I've, you know, you listen to yourself on the podcast or you listen just how you interact with different people. And I was with like an old group of friends I hadn't hung out with in a long time. And then I heard one of my friends laugh and I was like, dude, that's my laugh, you know? And then I was like, ew, you probably affected me with your laugh. And then I picked that up and then, you know, so, and then too, Courtney is funny because like the longer you hang out with somebody, kind of mold into that person and like yeah she has certain expressions that i've known i've picked up on she the same with her and me and like she kind of laughs a little bit like me sometimes and i call her out on it yeah it's weird do you notice that do you do you know that uh i don't i'm trying

35:40Adam Schafer:to think about i don't know i don't know that's interesting yeah i like um i like i like it when people laugh heartily you know what i mean like they're really letting themselves like a big belly laugh like you don't care yeah yeah it's great it's like one of my favorite things when you're

35:55Sal Di Stefano:with a group of friends or you're i mean i never knew i did the the the windex one that they make fun of me yeah but i i think i only do that on podcasts for some reason i feel like i might be a fake laugh well i'd be a courtesy no what i think it yeah it's like well no it's not a chrissy laugh what it is is like because i know we're being recorded so subconsciously i'm aware of that you're filtering it and i'm filtering it so instead of a bell laughing like you're talking he's saying something I don't want to like laugh

36:21Justin Andrews:overpower it yeah yeah so I think

36:22Sal Di Stefano:I think I only do that on the podcast I don't think I do that in real life unless you guys hear me do it in real life tell me because I don't think I do

36:28Justin Andrews:I don't think I have yeah yeah I think I've only done it on the

36:30Sal Di Stefano:podcast and I didn't know I was doing that until the staff made fun of me I'm like I don't do that you don't remember when they made fun of me

36:38Adam Schafer:yeah they made like a whole like yellow index yellow index bottle yeah do you guys remember in school when you and your friend would get would start laughing but the teacher's like you can't talk and you guys just couldn't even look at each other you explode oh yeah try to hold it in oh that was impossible that was the best you know what happened in public i don't care where i am by the way it could be the most depressing place i could be at a funeral so i hear somebody fart forget it i'm gone i'm gone i have to leave or i'm gonna

37:01Justin Andrews:laugh i don't do well in like serious environments oh because you're nervous maybe yeah it's a weird tech yeah i just i i yeah i can't help myself that's terrible i'm gonna come to you with bad My son has a...

37:16Sal Di Stefano:I'm going to be dying soon.

37:18Justin Andrews:I bet you are, you pussy. I'm just kidding. See, that's how I'm feeling. I have to make a joke out of it. That's just how it goes.

37:28Sal Di Stefano:My son is super courtesy with his farts. Last night, I'm laying with him. It's bedtime. The lights are out. We already read. We're laying down there. I normally lay with him for five or ten minutes before I go. And he does this every once in a while. All of a sudden, he pops up, and he gets up. And I'm like, what are you doing? And I got to fart, Daddy. And he gets out so he doesn't fart on me. And then he comes back.

37:53Adam Schafer:Opposite of my house. Opposite. Opposite. My son was right on top of you. Oh, bro. He did this to Jessica.

37:59Sal Di Stefano:So I think why this has happened is because when he used to do it, come on, buddy. Oh. Come on. Don't fart on me like that. Like, I think I've. So now he's trying to be. Yeah. Like, so I think I've called him out on that before. Courtesy, yeah. And so he'll go, Daddy, I have to fart. Is that okay? Like, yeah, dude, go ahead, buddy. It's all good.

38:18Adam Schafer:No, Aurelius will. Let it out. One time, Jessica was laying down on the couch, and he climbs up on the couch, sits on her head, and just.

38:26Sal Di Stefano:And now she would. Hey, you know why? Because you'd probably belly laugh over. Oh, how can you not laugh? You know why? I would die laughing. Bro, how can you not laugh? And that's it. Just like I reinforce my sons going, hey, buddy, don't fart on me. Oh, no, dude. You've now trained yours because he's like, oh, Daddy thinks this is hilarious.

38:40Adam Schafer:Of course she got upset, right? She's like, oh my, what are you doing? And I'm just like, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. What are you doing, dude? Yeah, right in your head. You just sat on your head? Jeez. Like, God, that's the worst, bro. That's awesome. That's a bold move. All right, I got a post I want to talk about. Actually, you sent this to me, Adam, a couple weeks ago. I never brought it up. Which one? I thought it was a really good post. So somebody on social media did a post. I think they're a trainer. I'm not sure. They might be just a fitness expert or whatever.

39:10Adam Schafer:Let me see. Yeah, they're a personal trainer. And the post says why young people usually suck at training older people. Do you remember this? Oh, I'll go. Okay. So here's some of the reasons they say why young people suck at training older people. And I want to see if we agree with this. Yeah, let me hear it. And I did read these earlier, and I would have disagreed as a younger trainer, but I think I agree with some of these now. So number one, they can't wrap their heads around how important controlling systemic inflammation and improving mitochondrial health is for health and performance. So what they hear is blah, blah, blah, because when you're a kid, you can drink like crazy, you can train like an idiot, you could go to bed late.

39:49Adam Schafer:Number two, they don't understand that some movement limitations are permanent. Number three, they don't understand general adaptation syndrome and how life stress and physical stress accumulate. Number four, they don't truly listen to what their clients want. And then number five to them, everything is black and white. then there's risk management sounds soft to them they can't accept the fact that full range of motion is subjective what do you guys think about this incredible that's what i sent it to you i

40:15Sal Di Stefano:felt like this was this is every uh 23 year old smarty pants trainer right here yeah that's why i mean that it hit that button for me it was just like you know all these things that when when you're young and even if you're knowledgeable right and you understand the science uh you have this very narrow lens at which you see training through. Once you've been training for a decade or two or three, and you've had hundreds and hundreds of clients and middle-aged people, you start to realize like, okay, I need to understand the science. It's very important, right? But then there's a ton of other variables that are individual to each person I'm going to train that I have to learn to balance and juggle.

41:02Sal Di Stefano:and this is what makes really good coaches.

41:04Justin Andrews:Yeah, I think the biggest thing that stands out for me with that is young people, they want to assert that they know the right answer. They know what to teach this person, and they're not listening. They're not really receiving the feedback. That's a big one. I see that all the time, and I was guilty of that too as a young trainer because you're so focused on trying to figure out the solve. Like what's, how can I like put together the best plan and implement this with this person? But I'm not really listening to their actual feedback.

41:37Adam Schafer:Well, full confession, like as an early trainer, I dismissed oftentimes what clients said. We all do. When I had a mom that was, you know, stay at home mom, two, three kids or whatever. She's like, you know, I have a real tough time finding time to exercise. I'm like, time? You got, what are you talking about? Make the time. You know, you'll have more energy if you do and it's good for you. and then you know i had kids uh in my mid-20s and i was like oh yeah like this takes up a lot of time kids are really demanding i had to train a lot of people before i started to to listen uh the accumulated stress one i i didn't get that in my early days as a trainer like what do you mean we barely you're working out twice a week that's not too much yeah and it wasn't until i had enough clients that would say the same thing not get good results that i started to scale things down i saw good results and i'm like maybe i don't know what the hell i'm doing maybe i need to kind of listen to these people and uh change um how i approach some of the stuff yeah and then i became a much better trainer but i do agree that experience can play a big role in how you train people and young people are at a disadvantage that doesn't mean you won't find a young trainer who hasn't been trained well no because you can learn yes we train the hell out of these people and our trainers and

42:48Sal Di Stefano:we teach them i mean i love it it blows my mind when i sit back and listen to some of these 23 three-year-old kids that we have working for us and listen to the way they communicate health and fitness i'm like they're they're so far ahead of oh it took me 10 years to understand yeah yeah

43:02Adam Schafer:what they what they've learned six months yeah go back read them over again because and then let's

43:06Sal Di Stefano:pick the one that was the most the most yeah what was the biggest like all right because we're guilty

43:11Adam Schafer:of probably yeah so the first one they can't wrap their hands around how important controlling systemic inflammation okay is that's kind of a big one yeah yeah uh they don't understand that some movement limitations are permanent. That's a pretty big one. They don't understand general adaptation syndrome and how life stress and physical stress accumulates. I think for me, that's the biggest one. That's the biggest one for me. Yeah. And they don't truly listen to what their clients want. That was probably another one because I'm like, I know. Yeah. I know what's going on.

43:37Justin Andrews:Both those two are bangers.

43:37Adam Schafer:Here's another one. Everything's black and white. Yeah. Young trainers, everything is black and white.

43:41Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I'm guilty of all of them, but I really didn't understand the stress bucket thing. Same.

43:47Justin Andrews:Yeah.

43:48Sal Di Stefano:That was a big.

43:49Adam Schafer:I also didn't understand how big of a role age played. Yeah. Like, it plays a role, everybody. Sure. Now, you can make a big difference with diet, exercise, and you could be in a different category from your peers. Like, you fit and healthy 50-year-old, you are not like the average 50-year-old, but you're not going to be like a fit and healthy 20-year-old version.

44:08Sal Di Stefano:Well, another way to say that is we all agree, and every trainer listening right now agrees, the stress bucket thing is a real thing. You have a smaller bucket when you get older. Totally. I mean, that's like literally legit. Totally. You have a smaller bucket with more shit. Yeah. Like, you have more responsibility. You know what I'm saying? Most likely have kids, a business, a job. 24-hour responsibility. It's like, yeah, that's the other thing with parents I didn't even realize. And your bucket is smaller. When you're young, you have this big, giant bucket with hardly any shit. And it's just like, so you can get away with a bunch of stuff.

44:38Sal Di Stefano:You can get away with poor nights of sleep and not maybe doing your mobility. I'll sleep in. Yeah, yeah. And still see results. As you get older, that doesn't mean you still can't build tons of muscle. doesn't mean you can't be in the best shape of your life doesn't mean a lot of the other rules in science doesn't apply to that person it's just you're playing a different game you have a you

44:56Adam Schafer:have a different side that can't slip really i mean you got to continuously make you know when i was in my 20s i didn't get that oh no listen when i was 22 i had a gym uh with my partner down in a palm spring area we had a gym down there and i'm not even i'm not making this up like we would work till 10 11 o 'clock at night now the gym itself had a wine bar in there and beer and sometimes we drink afterwards and we go to bed at 2 a.m i'd wake up at 7 a.m i'd go work out right back after it i would be wrecked if i did that right now it would wreck me and back then i could do that that's what i'm bartending i do three four days in a row sleeping go to bed early one night boom i'm back to normal yeah if i did something like that three days in a row four days in a row it would take me a week pain and yeah punishment yeah i just didn't get it i just so you hear people talk about stress when you're a kid and you're like yeah what are you talking about you have no idea but if you're well trained it makes a big difference but here's the thing when i talk to my family members who are getting trainers uh outside of the state so these i have family members outside of state so they can't they don't have access to our coaches and i always tell them okay talk to the fitness manager and try and find somebody who's uh who you feel like you can connect with.

46:07Adam Schafer:In other words, they're kind of your age group and they have experience training people like you because if you get some young kid and they're smart, they just don't have the experience to understand what it's all about. You want to hear some cool study on women's breasts? Of course. I knew I'd get you guys excited for that. Stop. No, this is an interesting study. I got to find this. This was about... Okay, so this is an interesting study. So the more a woman's breasts grow during pregnancy, the more likely it is that the fetus or the baby is a male. Really? Yeah, so there's all these like - Does it require more milk or what?

46:49Adam Schafer:Yeah, there's all these like, what do they call them? Old wives' tales or whatever. Do you hold it high? Do you hold it low? Do you have more nausea? Do you have less nausea? Yeah. They actually did a study and found that - It was in the wrong place.

47:00Sal Di Stefano:Did you ever do the ring one? where you put a ring around their belly button and the way it spins.

47:06Adam Schafer:No, we did the Chinese birth calendar though. We did the Chinese birth calendar too. So when the baby was conceived in the mother's age or something like that, it'll predict if it's a boy or girl. Yeah, type of deal. So I don't know. But this says that this is due to the fact that male fetuses require more energy resources than female fetuses. So male fetuses grow faster, have higher metabolism, accumulate more body mass and generate a greater metabolic and oxidative stress in the mother. so the mother's breast because they contain how wild is that

47:35Sal Di Stefano:the body already knows what's coming and then starts producing milk at a higher rate and just wants to store

47:42Adam Schafer:more body fat in that area to do that what's cool to me

47:44Sal Di Stefano:what's cool to me is

47:47Adam Schafer:what they know about breast milk when the baby's mouth touches the nipple the woman's body receives a signal that the baby needs more immune factors the breast milk is different at night than it is in the morning so it helps put you to sleep

48:04Justin Andrews:different nutrient balance

48:07Adam Schafer:it's wild and there's like a two way street like the baby's saliva sends signals to the mom to produce different things in the breast milk ChatGBT doesn't know that I bet it does

48:20Sal Di Stefano:I bet it wants to how much of a how much more are kids on formula today than they were 30 years ago.

48:30Adam Schafer:I think it's going down. I think it's trending down. I think there's been a movement. So there's a bell curve then?

48:38Sal Di Stefano:So we saw a peak.

48:39Adam Schafer:I think it was going up for a while, and I think it's starting to trend down. If I'm not mistaken, I don't know if Doug can look this up, is formula use trending up or down?

48:51Justin Andrews:I was going to do breastfeeding, but

48:53Adam Schafer:either one would probably work. I think it is going down. There was a big push at one point. It was because breastfeeding rates have been really trending up.

49:01Sal Di Stefano:There was marketing around that it was better for your baby, which is crazy.

49:07Adam Schafer:And that it's more freeing. Don't breastfeed. You're going to say you're more free to do the things you want type of deal. Yeah, it says it's been trending up over the last – breastfeeding has been trending up over the last two decades.

49:18Sal Di Stefano:It has been relatively stable and declining slightly. I should go in the U.S. Oh, that's due to failing birth rates, though, Sal.

49:25Adam Schafer:Yeah, no, no, no. If you look at it as a percentage, Doug, the last - It'll be funny.

49:28Sal Di Stefano:This is not going down in the US.

49:30Adam Schafer:Well, Prolong is shifted due to a mix of supply chain. Okay, so Doug, go back to the first thing you brought up because this is a bit misleading. Yeah. So breastfeeding rates have generally trended upward over the last two decades. So it's definitely, it's gone up a little bit. I think it's just better education. Yeah. What does that say with national trends, Doug?

49:50Justin Andrews:Yeah, let me pull that up.

49:51Adam Schafer:The percentage of mothers who start breastfeeding has increased, rising from roughly 73 % in 2004 to 86%. That's a big jump.

49:58Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

49:59Adam Schafer:While many start, sustaining it remains a challenge.

50:02Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

50:02Adam Schafer:It's a lot of work. Oh, it's challenging for sure. Dude, I didn't even realize it. Until you become a dad and you see like, oh.

50:08Justin Andrews:You see what they have to go through. It's crazy.

50:10Adam Schafer:You're feeding the baby. Then you put the baby to sleep. And then, oh, guess what? Baby's going to wake up and you've got to feed him again. And this is happening all day long. Yeah. I remember my wife. Then they get teeth. I remember my wife was, you know, when she became a new mom with Aurelius, and I remember her being like, I can't even, I don't even have time to pee. Like, she was like feeding the baby. She had to pee real bad, but then she couldn't get off the toilet and the babies. And she's like, this is the wildest thing ever. And I'm like, poor lady.

50:36Sal Di Stefano:I mean, this is another one of those things. I talk about Katrina, how much I fell in love with her, you know, D1 athlete mentality. Like, she was like straight competitive with, I mean, she had stored up so much breast milk, she was able to give it away and help others.

50:49Adam Schafer:Oh, that's so awesome.

50:50Sal Di Stefano:Who did you guys give it to? She donated to people that needed it and stuff. So she was like, not only did she breastfeed for a year, but she also was on the pump, like pumping out as much as she did. We had a freezer just stacked of it in case we needed it. And so then she was able to donate.

51:05Adam Schafer:Did you ever try it? I actually didn't. You never tried breast milk? No, I didn't.

51:09Sal Di Stefano:No, I didn't.

51:11Adam Schafer:Justin's waiting. Oh, man. You missed out.

51:15Sal Di Stefano:This is an experience. Hey, hey.

51:22Sal Di Stefano:Do you remember the bodybuilding trend? Yeah. What are they doing, dude? I mean, listen. I mean, come on. We're sitting here talking right now about how magical it is.

51:35Adam Schafer:Hey, I could make a commercial that would sell the crap. There's only one protein that doubles the weight of a human.

51:42Justin Andrews:I think it was an episode of Taboo that show I used to watch. They actually went through it. because there was a problem because some of these bodybuilders are going to like these wet banks and they, you know, and it became an issue because it's like, they're buying it up and now, you know, they're losing reserves. So yeah, it was, but there was interest for sure. Bodybuilders were like, this is the, the way to get, you know, maximal gains.

52:03Adam Schafer:Yeah. Doug looked it up. Some bodybuilders buy and drink human breast milk. I mean, have we done,

52:07Sal Di Stefano:have we done any good, there should be some good studies on this. It'd be, it'd be cool. I think none exists. I don't think, I don't think,

52:13Justin Andrews:I don't think people are promoting. Why wouldn't,

52:15Sal Di Stefano:Why wouldn't we test this?

52:17Adam Schafer:I feel like we should test this. Doug, look up adults drinking breast milk studies. Let's see if any exist. Yeah, don't look on images because that'll be weird. Breast milk studies. We don't need any Game of Thrones. And then studies. Let's see if there's any studies to support. Videos. Scientific studies show no proven clinical nutritional benefit from adults drinking human breast milk, while compounds like human milk, oligosaccharides, are currently being researched in labs for gut and immune health. Yeah, I've heard about that. Because I've heard people help cure their gut health issues.

52:49Sal Di Stefano:Well, I mean, you know what that does for you. I mean, if you have a healthier gut, you're going to build more muscle. I mean, you've talked about what our partners see, all the studies coming out with them with the benefit of that. I mean, you would think if that helps that, it's got to promote that. So I want to see more research around it. I mean, if you had to take a guess, cow's milk versus breast milk, heads up. For adults? Yes.

53:16Justin Andrews:Hmm. Good question. Yeah. I mean, it's the same species. You'd think we'd be more receptive. I would think so, too. Just out of dumb guy knowledge here. I think breast...

53:27Adam Schafer:Is human milk amino acid profile similar to cow milk?

53:31Justin Andrews:Well, it says that breast milk is significantly lower in protein than cow's milk.

53:36Adam Schafer:Let me see about that. Well, here's the deal. Human milk is trying to build humans. Cow milk is building bulls. so I don't know bro I don't know dude you want to look like a bull

53:47Sal Di Stefano:you want to look like a baby I remember when that guy told me that I don't drink milk I'm not a baby speaking of experiments

53:59Adam Schafer:oh wait isn't Doug doing one he's doing an experiment what does it say

54:04Justin Andrews:it's kind of not well organized for quick reference

54:08Adam Schafer:so Doug's doing an experiment right now here's what he's doing he got his blood work done and he's going to do a 30-day test with dose oh cool with their

54:17Justin Andrews:cholesterol with the cholesterol supplement so my cholesterol tends to come in high this last time

54:23Adam Schafer:i have my numbers in front of me i got 222 so 222 and you're taking dose daily so you're doing that what is it three ounces or something two ounces two ounces every single day now go on the dose website because the the studies on dose are amazing no i remember it was like it reduced

54:39Sal Di Stefano:it by more than like 50 % or something. That's why I can't wait. This is great that Doug's doing this and actually did his blood work.

54:46Adam Schafer:It should definitely impact his cholesterol. But I want to see what their studies... Okay, yeah. Dose for cholesterol is right here. Read what their data shows.

54:56Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I remember last time we talked about it when it had the percentages. There you go. What does that say right there, Doug?

55:00Justin Andrews:Yeah, so LDL... Let me get this pop-up out of the way. So 95 % of participants reported a positive impact. triglycerides 90 again same story with that and then total cholesterol again 81 percent had a positive so this is an actual clinical study that was your ldl high or just your total cholesterol high yeah my ldl is at 146 it should be less than 100 according to them my hdl is good triglycerides are good so i'm really looking at the total cholesterol and the ldl So we'll see what happens here.

55:37Adam Schafer:Yeah, it's interesting. My lipids, I can't do anything to them that make them go bad. It's really wild. I'm just like, no matter what, my - And he tries. I mean, sometimes I'm scared. I get my report, but I'm like, oh, gosh, what is it? Oh, everything looks amazing. Whoa, thanks. 15 ahead. But it is interesting how much genetics play a role in this. But you could definitely affect it through lifestyle, for sure.

56:02Sal Di Stefano:Well, how much is your, like, okay, someone like Doug. who lifts weights, super healthy.

56:07Adam Schafer:It's one factor, dude. So LDL is probably the strongest correlate to certain issues. But you look at all of your cholesterol numbers, so your total LDL, HDL. You can even break it down to look at the particle size. But then you got to look at other stuff, blood pressure, strength, body fat. You got to look at your triglyceride. Like look at all these other metrics. It's a part of a bigger picture. By itself, unless it's extreme,

56:34Sal Di Stefano:yeah it's not the best predictor so okay so is it common with people that have that do have issues if you with that are would be more serious situations like doug you're i'm assuming that most case if he was your client right now you'd be like we're not really worried about it right now we're fine or whatever but what tends to come with that would high blood pressure be something

56:52Adam Schafer:that typically followed that for somebody who is connected to who is unhealthy disease uh yeah so that's why i asked about blood pressure it's connected to well blood pressure for sure you We don't want high blood pressure. But here's the deal. Doug uses dose and it improves his cholesterol numbers. That's a good thing because dose is natural. And so it's essentially improving his health. He takes a statin. A statin is reducing the production of cholesterol in his liver. Yeah, it's a blocker, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean you're healthier. Now, in some cases, it could be a good thing.

57:23Adam Schafer:But in other cases, like prescribing a statin to somebody like Doug, there's a lot of controversy around that. It's like, why would we do this? He's super healthy. it increases his risk of brain fog maybe even dementia so I don't know if it's a good idea and you'll hear scientists talk about this it's a little bit but if you have like this dumpster fire and the person already had a heart attack then it makes sense

57:46Sal Di Stefano:by all means so this will be cool I mean you're really good about being consistent with your stuff so I can't wait to see what a difference

57:54Justin Andrews:and you're going to do it for 30 days 90 days so I have 3 bottles there's 8 servings per bottle so for 24 days and we'll see what happens we'll see what happens all right cool right off

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58:40Adam Schafer:Butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump. Back to the show. Our first caller is Lindsay from Alberta.

58:47Justin Andrews:Hi, Lindsay. How you doing, Lindsay? Good morning. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Good. How are you? Good.

58:52Adam Schafer:How can we help you? Good. I just had a question essentially about building muscle. I've been working out consistently for about four years. The first two years of that were quite low calories. So I was trying to lose weight. I lost about 50 pounds. Since then, I've been trying to grow muscle, but I'm currently in a cut. Obviously, you can't build muscle that way. I'm just wondering, do you think I should do like a straight up bulk? Should I do a body recomp? Because my main goal is to build my glutes. And obviously, that hasn't really worked. And it's kind of frustrating because I got the workout part down pat it's just mostly the nutrition and calories and stuff like that that's you need to be dialed in so we need more information but just right out the gates if you're frustrated with your glute growth then you would go in a bulk yeah if you want to make it happen real slow like imperceptibly slow you could try playing the recomp game okay uh which is really uh let's like takes a long time to see and feel anything um and also considering your background you said you lost a lot of weight with real low calories, but I do need more information.

59:53Adam Schafer:So let's start with your, um, your nutrition. What does it look like right now? Right now I'm about 16 to 1700 calories. I try to get, I focus on proteins on about 140 grams. Um, I try to focus on full foods when I can, I do track all of my food just cause that's what I was doing with a trainer for so long. So it's just kind of an ingrained in me to track it. Um, yeah. And you're in, so, uh, how many grams of fat and carbs you're having uh i don't really properly check that as fat i'd probably say about 50 60 carbs quite i think a decent amount of carbs okay that's why i thought your fat's probably really low but you're definitely gonna have to increase your calories we're not building an ass on 1600 calories yeah i know that the only thing is like when i look online on like a td calculator it varies like hundreds of calories depending on which one i look at so i don't really know what my actual maintenance is well if you're if you're eating 50 what is it 16 1700 okay and you're not seeing anything happen right now then that's probably become your maintenance what does your workout look like uh i do four times a week i do two upper body two lower body one focused on quads one focused on glutes okay and then your and then what is cardio and daily steps and all that stuff look like um i don't do any cardio at the moment i might do a spin class here and there but i i work as a waitress so i get quite a bit of steps probably like 12 to 15 000 a day yeah your calories are way low way low yeah you're gonna have to go up at least 300

1:01:21Sal Di Stefano:calories i'd like to put you on one of our programs too so i'd like to put you on a maps program and then bump your calories at least 300 calories right out the gates okay and that's just a start you're probably gonna have to go up again after that but that's a good like little bump to get you going um and then i'd switch the program out what are you muscle mommy muscle mommy you have

1:01:40Adam Schafer:Muscle Mommy? No, I actually haven't tried one of your programs. I just didn't know which one to do. Oh, yeah. If you want your glutes to grow, that one's glute focus. So we'll send you Muscle Mommy. Follow that one. Okay, sounds good. Increase your calories by 300. You need more fat in your diet. That's pretty low. You're like at the borderline, so I'd get them up at at least 70. Okay. And then you can take the rest of the calories and throw them towards carbs. Your protein's fine. Okay. And then follow Muscle Mommy. And if you're getting stronger, it's working.

1:02:09Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, focus on the strength. hold the 300 calories hold the 300 calories for a couple weeks you should probably see the weight might go up a pound or two on the scale but then it'll level off when it levels off and it's holding for at least a week or two go up again and just keep playing that game so the goal is can I add two or 300 calories and kind of maintain the scale weight around the same and as long as I'm doing that I'm just going to keep bumping up those calories and I'm not worried about seeing a fluctuation of three to five pounds up or down like definitely at least go down we gotta push the calories harder yeah i expect you to stay around the same or even go up three or five pounds in the scale

1:02:48Adam Schafer:not a big deal what you'll notice is more energy and more strength is what you're gonna notice right out the gates and then justin has he made a comment earlier and that's why it was really actually uh i didn't even ask you this are you doing traditional strength training are you resting in between sets are you doing like circuits and trying to um no i rest quite a bit like three to four minutes in between. Good. Yeah. Do what we said. You're going to get right out the gates. You're going to see strength.

1:03:11Justin Andrews:So that's good.

1:03:12Adam Schafer:Yeah. Right. Within a week or two, you're going to just feel way more energy and way stronger. And you know, you're moving in the right direction. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much. You got it. Thanks for calling in. Okay. Thanks. Bye. It's so interesting how so many people, especially women, come up with the idea that they're going to build muscle eating 1600 calories a day.

1:03:33Justin Andrews:Yeah. It's not going to happen. No, you need the food, you need the materials.

1:03:37Adam Schafer:No, no, it's not going to happen. I would say it's almost impossible unless you're a complete beginner and you start at 1000 calories, in which case you're severely under muscled. But if you don't feed your body, I don't care what else you do. If you don't have the nutrients, nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to grow. Wasting time.

1:03:51Sal Di Stefano:Well, we think that the building process is in the gym. It's not. No. It's not in the gym. It's the rest, recovery, and the eating that builds the muscle. And so if you don't feed the body enough calories, you don't recover and rest properly. And that's the other thing, too, is you also have to keep that in contact. Someone who's training four times a week is also moving as much as she is. And a waitress. Yeah, moving as much as she is. And then that low of calories. So that's low calories even if she was sedentary and training once or twice a week. That's super low calorie for somebody who's going four times a week training that much volume and then also moving as much.

1:04:31Sal Di Stefano:It's just like, yeah, you're not going to build on that.

1:04:32Adam Schafer:And the thing to consider too is when you're doing something like this, are you seeing strength gains in the gym? And if you're not, something's wrong. Strength turns into muscle. it's this one of the strongest correlates to muscle growth our next caller is alex from florida what's up man what's happening hey uh appreciate you guys taking the time to take my call yeah you got it dude how can i help you um so i'm gonna do what i pretty much heard everybody else do and that is read my question but i'm gonna add in some stuff that's kind of happened since i uh uh, uh, I sent it in. So overall context, I'm 41.

1:05:11I'm weighing about 245, 250. Um, I'm 71 inches tall. I've had a BMI of about 35 to 34. Uh, and as of my last in body, uh, two months ago, I had around 31 % body fat, uh, which translates to roughly about 80 pounds. So for the past two years, uh, I've been doing a bunch of barbell training, uh, lifting two to three days a week and trying to get back into running shape after I had a foot surgery back in 2023. To do that, I've been eating around 2 ,300. So that breaks out to like 200 protein, 63 fat, 240 carb with about 35 to 40 grams of fiber, which when I started that was told that that was like a 200 to 300 calorie deficit for what should have been my maintenance.

1:06:02For the two Two years prior to that, I was eating about 100 to 200 lower than that. And before that, so call that four or five years ago, I was eating at 1950 because that was the number I had. I believe that at the 1950, though, I was starving myself and I never like fully recovered from that. And over the course of this, what I figured out is I'm having some very crushing fatigue and I'm not seeing progress in the gym to kind of make a long story short. I recently decided that the appropriate goal for me is to get into that 15 to 20 % body fat range and not try and get to an actual scale number.

1:06:42I'm active duty military, and they're changing fitness component to be a two-mile run that for my body size right now to get a passing score, as I'm wearing my dirty loader here, would need about a 16.5 two-mile run. I'm about a minute slower than that. uh all to be said i don't feel like i'm making progress in the gym i don't based on the energy crashes alone i don't feel like i'm eating at the appropriate level for how i am training and i am looking for help because i realized that what i am doing is not working and it is beyond my skill set to solve okay all right good good question yeah you're correct

1:07:28Sal Di Stefano:you're you're on you're on track of like too low for sure are you is the tracking accurate

1:07:34Adam Schafer:or like you're giving us numbers is this consistent you track are you guessing or you like estimating uh when i'm tracking i'm fairly consistent uh i am using a scale um now i'm about 75 70 that's called 70 consistent uh because obviously on the weekends is when i tend to fall off the track. Okay. So we actually have no idea what you're eating then. So we need to know, we don't know. Cause when people are, they've done a, listen, so many studies on this, it's ridiculous. And even people who know, uh, are under, uh, just underestimated. It's impossible. So if you're saying 70, 75%, um, I can pretty reliably say your calories are higher than what you're reporting.

1:08:17Adam Schafer:Probably so. That being said, knowing your background and your workouts and how long you've been training. I also think you're probably doing too much. Now on the surface, on paper, it doesn't look like too much, but cumulatively over time, if it's been something that you've been pushing for a while and staying consistent, then it's probably time for less volume. So is the number one goal for you, because we also need to prioritize what the goals are, is the number one goal to get that runtime or is it to get leaner or is it to build muscle? We got to pick one.

1:08:53Honestly, at this point, it's the get leaner. It's probably been that for about four years. Cause I feel like if I can do that, the rest should flow from that. Okay. Cause I'll have in theory West less to push around.

1:09:07Adam Schafer:Okay. So I would, okay. Get real consistent with your food intake, including the weekends. So real consistent. I'd start you off around 23 to 2 ,400 calories. you're going to need to bump your fat. You put your grams of fat up there. It's pretty low. So I wouldn't want to see you have less than like 70 grams of fat in your diet. I think your strength training is okay if it's a couple days a week with running. Or you could try MAPS 15 and you could focus on getting your run time a little bit better, which would look like a couple runs a week. One would be one mile as fast as you can. Another one would be a slow two mile.

1:09:45Adam Schafer:And you would pursue that. But you've got to be consistent with your tracking. Because you can't reverse diet yourself unless you know what's really happening.

1:09:53Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, Alex, I'm going to take a guess at what happens right here just because this is kind of common when somebody is really good about measuring and tracking during the week and then on the weekend they're not. And where you're telling us your calories are when you are tracking is low for what you're doing. So you under eat nutrients during the week when you're being good. And then on the weekend, you over consume in calories and probably still under eat on things like protein that you need. Absolutely. I think that's absolutely the case. And so this is like a recipe for a hard plateau is that I'm doing all this work.

1:10:28Sal Di Stefano:But then what's happening is I'm underfeeding the body what it needs to build muscle and to see progress during the week. And then I go on the weekend. I over consume the stuff I shouldn't be eating. and I still miss nutrients that I need, like protein intake. And that is just like an absolute recipe for I'm not going to build muscle. I'm going to hold body fat and getting stuck in that. And so I don't know if you've listened to the show for a long time, but I've talked about this a lot, about winning the weekend. Yeah. If that is your thing. That's where my battle is. Okay, so if that's your thing, I actually don't even, to start this kickoff, focus on just those two days more than anything else.

1:11:04Sal Di Stefano:like the the the monday through you've already proven that monday through friday you can measure track and you hit stuff it's like the new goal going forward if you're my client is we're going to crush saturdays and sundays saturdays and sundays are going to be your best days like that's we need to go into if you really want to see this change you want to be dialed in then saturdays and sundays are become your best days and then i know what will happen is the rest of your week will be pretty good too because it's that's already you've already proven that's easy meal prep for your weekend that's right you got to be that's got to be a part of your your weekend is meal prepping that's right so like make that a priority and make that a goal is that i'm gonna track and dial my weekends in and then i bet you if you do that you'll start to see the rest of everything else come together totally and then do you have do you drink on the weekend uh i don't drink at all

1:11:50Adam Schafer:oh good okay good that's it we gave you because i got tired of feeling crappy after i did no good No, so it's what's happened. Adam's right on point. Do that exactly. Be consistent with it. Watch what happens. You'll start to see your body move in the right direction. Okay.

1:12:05Sal Di Stefano:What program you want to send them and put them on? 15. Okay.

1:12:08Adam Schafer:Yeah, MAPS 15 with the running. It's going to seem like a little bit of strength training, but I think it'll be good. I was actually thinking about MAPS 15 performance. Would that be something that was appropriate for what I'm trying to do? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Any of them would be great. So let's send you that one then. Okay.

1:12:24Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. And then I'm going to have Doug throw you in the private forum if you're not in there already. So I'll have Doug put you in there. And so you can just kind of keep us posted. I'm guessing if you win these weekends in the next two, three weeks in a row, you'll start to see a big difference already. Totally. Okay. All right, Alex. That's it, brother. Stay in touch. Yeah, most appreciate it. Thank you. Keep us updated inside the forum. Will do. All right, brother.

1:12:49Adam Schafer:so um when people don't track uh consistently and they give you numbers this is just coaches know this it's it's under yeah it's always under the weekends get a little loose here's what it looks like when they actually when they actually control this and they look at this you know somebody eats 2100 calories monday through thursday friday saturday maybe sunday they get a little looser it actually looks more like 3 000 calories on sat friday it's worse so easy it's

1:13:18Sal Di Stefano:worse than that, Sal, because not only do they do that, but then they, you know what they do? They eat 70 grams of protein. And they eat a fuck ton of saturated fat and a bunch of extra calories. And then you add it

1:13:30Adam Schafer:up and average it out, and it's like, you're way over on your food intake. You're missing

1:13:34Sal Di Stefano:your goal protein for building muscle. You're over consuming the calories for burning body fat. And so you're in this like, hard plateau of not seeing any results. At least he's not partying late at night.

1:13:45Justin Andrews:Yeah, I had to ask that because I was like, if you are, I'll cut that out too on top of it, but yeah. Our next caller is Brianna from North Carolina. Hi, Brianna. Hello. Hi. How can we help you? Well, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question. I'm just going to go ahead and read my email because I tend to talk a lot and I want to stay on time.

1:14:07Adam Schafer:No worries. Hi, Mind Pump. My name is Brianna. I am a longtime listener since 2017 and have valued your podcast so much over the years. I've shared it with everyone I know, and now my husband and I discuss the podcast daily since we listen separately on our drives to work. I would describe myself as a fitness fanatic, and while I do enjoy all fitness, to include running, don't hate me, I especially enjoy weightlifting and have been lifting for about 14 years. My overall question is, where do I go from here? I had a baby 17 months ago, and although I quickly lost the weight, my body was still very soft and soggy, mostly around the midsection.

1:14:41I've been steadily gaining weight and I seems like nothing I do is helping. I'm almost back up to what I was when I gave birth after coming back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. And I'm confused as how I got here. Some background and context because I have a complicated situation. So 2014, I had a hip pinning in my right hip because I fractured my femoral neck. I made a full recovery, got back to lifting and running, completed a half marathon in 2016, um, began getting really strong in my lower body lifts, continue this for nearly a decade. Um, I ran a full marathon in 2023. Um, I lifted most of that training cycle because I didn't have a kid and any other responsibilities.

1:15:23So I had plenty of time on my hands. Um, I did run into some knee and foot issues at the end of the training cycle and, um, probably overtraining now thinking back, um, after that marathon, I decided that I would take a year off, get back to lifting. And then in 2025, I would run the 50th Marine Corps Marathon. Well, I found out I was pregnant in 2024, but I decided that I was still going to go forward with the marathon. I gave birth in December of 2024, trained for and ran the full marathon in October of 2025 at 11 months postpartum. I had a relatively easy and uncomplicated pregnancy. I did anabolic at the beginning, switched to symmetry after that was done.

1:16:02and then following my birth I slowly returned to lifting doing kind of like what you guys say I did bands only at about six weeks postpartum then I did a few weeks of traditional lifting with the stability ball how you guys describe starter even though I don't have that program and then I switched over to MAPS 15 about two and a half months postpartum but this is also when I had to start getting into running so I could train for that marathon didn't have time with a brand new baby to do both my husband was also training for the same marathon so we're just passing baby back and forth coming and going um so i had to prioritize the running didn't lift as much as i should have and i think that led to some imbalances in my muscles um following the marathon i had some hip issues again point got it checked out um there was beginning stages of another stress injury so i was put into physical therapy restricted from any impact activity and any lower body lifting i had begun maps 15 again but with the restrictions on lower body lifting it It felt like I was doing hardly anything.

1:17:00So I switched to MAPS Muscle Mommy, to where I had a little bit more volume that I could actually accomplish in a workout. Sometimes I don't get to do the whole workout in a day. I would do a couple exercises one day, finish that workout the next day. I kind of do, like you guys say, don't look at it as a seven-day week, but just pick up where I left off when I have time. I've been tracking my protein. I get about 145 to 175 grams daily. I was assuming I'm probably around 2 ,000 to 2 ,200 calories a day. I've been doing that for the past four-ish months now. I eat all whole natural foods. I do protein powder.

1:17:38And then my gym has an in-body scanner, so I've been doing that once a month just to see if I'm going in the right direction. Other than that, I don't really step on the scale. I usually do 8 ,000 to 10 ,000 steps a day. I previously was cleared to do a walk to run program because my job does require a fitness test twice a year. After meeting with the doctor, he said, hold off on that. Nix the impact. I'm still cleared to do lower body lift. Really have to listen to my body, not overdo it, to not exacerbate the issue while I'm still healing. But it's been over four months of all this strenuous tracking now that I've stopped breastfeeding.

1:18:19and my baby's mostly sleeping better through the night and I'm not seeing any weight change. And on the in-body scanners, I'm not really seeing any composition change as well. I wouldn't really care about the number on the scale if I was seeing that composition change, but I'm not really seeing any of that either. I'm not sure if the inability to do any lower body lifts is affecting my ability to see progress, but I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and nothing is helping. I don't know where to go from here or how to make meaningful changes. I used to be really jacked and muscular And now I feel like I'm a busted can of biscuits.

1:18:50I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Please help.

1:18:52Adam Schafer:Brianna, thank you so much for calling in. Great description. I know you've been listening to us for a long time. You probably know what we're going to say. Well, my husband asked me the same question and I was like, no, I don't. Because usually when callers call in, I'm like, oh, you know, I'm already pegging like what you're going to tell them. And I really don't know. But for you, we assume that Sal, you're going to say, give it grace, wait for at least two years to start feeling like myself. But other than that, I don't really know. Well, okay. So let's back up. Right. So you had a hip pinning.

1:19:24Adam Schafer:You had a foot injury. You had another stress related injury. You run marathons and you continue to run a marathon through pregnancy while doing maps anabolic and maps symmetry. No. So that was postpartum. I gave birth in December of 2024. I trained for the marathon and ran that in 2025. Okay. Okay. So do you feel like you tend to overdo it? Maybe a little bit. Yeah. Give me a better answer. It's okay. Listen, it's okay to say yes, but not be ready to tackle.

1:19:56Sal Di Stefano:I mean, you had a hip issue. You had a hip issue and you decided to go still go run a marathon. Yeah. Like that wasn't enough for you to be like, maybe I shouldn't run a marathon. Yeah. I mean, I was so close. I was like, after all of this, I was like, might as well send it. No, no, no. Listen, I feel you. That's the attitude right there. I totally feel you. Healing and recovery is boring for you.

1:20:17Adam Schafer:100%. I feel you 100%. So I totally understand. But you got to be honest. Do you think that you have a history of overdoing it? Probably in the past. Yeah. I think that's your button is to go, go, go. Yeah. And I think your body stopped responding after it sent you a bunch of injuries.

1:20:35Justin Andrews:Lots of signals there.

1:20:36Adam Schafer:Yeah. There's a lot of signals right now that your body's like, you're just going too hard. You're pushing your body. You're just like, the second you get clearance and you feel okay, you get after it again. And unless an injury stops you is a little bit of the pattern. And so you're just, you're just overdoing it, hon. Let me ask you this. Are you ready to let go of this? Or are you, do you still want to keep your arms tightly wrapped around this, even though it's producing no results in injury? Can we take, well, I have like decided to give up running for the time being. I still want to be able to lift because that's what I really enjoy however with my job I don't know how much I can give it up completely just because that would end my career what do you do for work?

1:21:22I'm in the military so we do have to do fitness tests there is sometimes hikes or you name it whatever might come up that we have to

1:21:32Adam Schafer:that's easy no no no that's easy for you no you're lying to yourself super easy for you Brianna You're training well above and beyond what you need for passing those tests. You know that. You can pass those tests, no problem. You can train for that easy.

1:21:46Sal Di Stefano:There's not a military marathon test, is there? No. Okay. I didn't think so. And you definitely can't do it if you keep... They're normally like a mile or two type tests. And you definitely can't do it if you keep hurting yourself. Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah.

1:21:58Adam Schafer:And it's really hard to let go of. Yeah. But you're going to have to... So I know what the answer is for you. I don't know if you're going to want to hear it. and I don't think you can do it on your own because you've been doing this for so long. I think it's real uncomfortable for you to stop doing some things because you're forced, like you just said, for the time being. So your way of letting go of it is actually controlling it, right? Okay, fine, I won't do it for now. I'm going to wait until I feel better and I'm going to get after it again and then I'm going to hurt myself and if I do, then I'll stop until the doctor says I can and I'm going to tell you right, it's just going to get worse.

1:22:30Adam Schafer:Bree, it's going to get worse and worse and worse for you and you have a kid now which adds more responsibility and stress and you're, you're, you're still young, but as you get older, it's going to, your body's going to rebel in ways that are going to suck, like really suck. Um, and I don't want you to hit that. Just out of curiosity, have you checked your hormones? Um, so I had done a full panel probably in 2023. I did a course, um, seer where we weren't allowed to eat for like eight days and we were running through the forest and stuff. Um, that really wrecked me. I went to a functional medicine doctor.

1:23:05She did a ton of tests. There was no like glaring red flags, but a lot of things just kind of off. Um, and she did put me on a protocol that kind of helped my body get kind of back to normal. Um, and I've started doing some of those things again, taking some of the supplements. Um, but I haven't gotten them checked post-pregnancy.

1:23:22Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I would definitely, I would definitely do that. Um, just because a lot of the stuff, as much as you've been beaten up on your body, um, and it's after having a kid too, this is sometimes where you start to see that start to come it's not listen uh it's not going

1:23:35Adam Schafer:to help you though unless you change uh kind of where this is all coming from i the here's the answer you're you shouldn't you need to work with a coach you got to let go of it if i give this to you you're i know what you're going to do with it i can give you advice right now i know what you're going to do and take i know how you take my advice and how you're going to play i've just trained a lot of people and so i know uh what it's going to look like um and you're going to let you might do it until you start to feel good and then go back to your old ways um and i'm just letting you know it's going to get way worse and way harder if you stay on this path.

1:24:05Sal Di Stefano:This is not a physical challenge for you. It's a psychological challenge. This is not a thing that you can muscle your way through and overcome it like you have with everything else in your life. This is going to be a psychological challenge.

1:24:15Adam Schafer:Now, I'm going to encourage you. Okay, let me encourage you a little bit, okay? You're really coachable. I know you're really coachable because you're in the military. You know how to take orders, okay? So you would work well with a coach. Here's what will happen when you work with a coach. It's going to be scary. And then you're going to start to feel really good. And then the psychological part is you're going to want to do more, but you're going to feel really good. So I think sometimes the fear of letting go of all of this is, oh, cool. Now I'm going to gain 50 pounds of body fat and I'm really going to get out of shape because I got to like rest.

1:24:45Adam Schafer:That's not how it works. What it's going to feel like is like, huh, I'm starting to feel better. Hey, what's going on? I got more energy. And then suddenly you're like, my body's responding. This is weird. I don't feel like I'm doing anything to make my body respond, at least not compared to how I used to train. That's right. I have worked with a coach previously for probably about two years, up until I got pregnant. And then it was like I couldn't eat anything. And half the time I was too tired to go to the gym. So I just felt like it was a good time to, like, sever. And I don't even think she coaches anymore.

1:25:16But she had gotten me to, like, a really good place. I was eating probably close to 3 ,500 calories. I was probably really lean, probably leaner than I should have been. And so I know that like a coach is probably a good idea. Just don't know how to find a good one because.

1:25:32Adam Schafer:Are you kidding me? We got them. No, no, no, no. We got them. We have coaches. We got coaches now. We have coaches that we hire, train, and develop. So I'll send you, I'll send you somebody to call you. And if it works for you, work with one of our coaches. And I'm going to give you just, I'm going to be straight up with the timeline. This is going to take a year. Okay. Now, that doesn't mean it's a year of no results. It's going to be a year of results. But it's going to be a year, probably a year of work. With no setbacks. Where at the end of it, you're going to be like, I can do this. I could totally do this on my own.

1:26:06Adam Schafer:I see how this comes. Incremental progress. I totally understand how I was before. I don't just know it in my head, but I feel it in my heart. And this is going to be a totally different relationship with all this. Your performance is going to explode. You're going to build muscle. You're going to be stronger. You're going to get lean without feeling like you're beating yourself up. And you're not going to hurt yourself. That's what it's going to be like, but you probably have about a year of this. Yeah. I think part of it is like, I know what to do, but doing it for myself is a lot harder.

1:26:31Sal Di Stefano:And so having somebody else take all the brain work out of it makes it so much easier because I just can do what they say. And then I'm like, okay, that's great. Self-awareness. Great. Exactly. Great self-awareness.

1:26:40Adam Schafer:100%. 100%. You're going to be a great client. Yeah. I know it. So is there any, like, I'm about to finish up muscle mommy. And I just don't know if there's anything that any program I should do next. especially with the limitations that I have or if coach will,

1:26:55Sal Di Stefano:I should coach will modify it all for you. Yeah. So that's their job. Their job is to continue to inquire much deeper than we've inquired and listen to your programming in there.

1:27:05Adam Schafer:And they modify it on the way. So it's what you're going to follow as maps. Brianna is what you're going to follow.

1:27:10Justin Andrews:Yeah.

1:27:10Adam Schafer:So the coach is going to individualize it. And as you work with them, they'll modify it as you go along. Cause you're working with a coach way better than any of our, our programs are written for the masses as well as we can write a program. It'll never, it'll never be better than a coach working with you and individualizing. So you're going to get maps. Brianna is what you're going to get. And then as far as diet, like I used to track like every single piece of anything that went into my mouth, but now that I have a daughter, it's a lot harder because I don't like being on my phone to like track everything.

1:27:39And I don't have time to like weigh everything out. I just kind of like have to go with the flow. Is there a way to do this without having to track every single thing?

1:27:47Adam Schafer:Yes, we have strategies. We definitely have strategies around that. 100%. You're, you're, you're actually the majority. Most people hate tracking too long. It just feels like too much. I used to like doing it because it gave me like all the facts, all the data was right there. Um, but now I just like, I don't have the time. Yep. Oh, a hundred percent. No, this will be great. And I'm going to, you'll see us too. Cause we like to pop in with our coaches and our clients. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for calling in. You're going to do great. Thank you so much. I've definitely taken so much value from you guys over the almost 10 years I've listened to you.

1:28:20And this is my, always in my car. Whenever I put the podcast on, I tell my daughter like, Oh, uncle Sal, uncle Adam and uncle Justin, you know, they're going to join us on our drive. And, uh, yeah. Cause that's all she hears is my bump in the car.

1:28:31Adam Schafer:That's so awesome. Thank you so much. God bless Brianna. Thank you so much. Yep. We'll see you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, dude, totally. She's gonna be, she's gonna be a great client. Yeah. But you know, you see somebody in there to come. Oh, when I asked her, like, do you think you're doing too much? It's like, she doesn't want to admit it. Because I know what it feels like. Admitting it means that I've got to do something about it.

1:28:50Sal Di Stefano:even with stuff like, yeah, I could do that for now.

1:28:54Justin Andrews:Yeah, it's always temporary. Yeah, even the healing, it's temporary.

1:28:57Sal Di Stefano:I just had a, I had a hip impingement and I decided to go run a marathon after that. It's like, hmm. While I was pregnant, probably wasn't it.

1:29:06Justin Andrews:Rational thought. Yeah,

1:29:07Sal Di Stefano:yeah. Well, she's a killer though, you know what I'm saying? Like, so that's how she's approached her. We direct her in the right direction. We'll go great. Yeah.

1:29:13Justin Andrews:Our next caller is Avery from Michigan. Hi, Avery.

1:29:15Adam Schafer:How you doing, Avery? Hello. Hey, guys. What's happening? I'm doing good. Okay, so my question is about fat intake while cutting. I consistently find that fat is the hardest macro for me to hit, especially when my calories are lower. Protein is usually no problem. Carbs are easy. But fats tend to fall short unless I really go out of my way to include them. So I'm wondering when calories are limited, is fat intake something that can be slightly sacrificed in the short term or is it necessary to consistently hit a minimum target of optimal fats even during a cut essentially how strict should i be with my fat macros when calories are tight and does the minimum number of fat stay the same whether my calories are up or down right now my calories in this cut are around 17 to 800 or 1700 to 1800 my protein i usually try to hit a gram of protein per pound of body weight so i'm right around 130 but i usually go over that more in the one fit one 40, one 50 range.

1:30:10Um, my fats, I'm aiming for 60 grams, but I tend to fall under that. And then I just fill the rest with carbs.

1:30:18Sal Di Stefano:So real easy fix, Avery would be to, uh, switch your meat choices to higher cut, higher cuts, higher fat cuts. So I, when someone tells me they're eating that good of protein, which that's, which is great. You're probably doing things like chicken, breast, fish, leaner cut meats. So just switch to chicken thighs and rib eyes and enjoy a tri-tip and go to fattier cuts. You'll be fine.

1:30:41Adam Schafer:You know, here's why though. Here's why that's so important. Okay. There's three macronutrients, right? Proteins, fats, and carbs. Only proteins and fats are essential. Carbohydrates are not essential. Okay. What that means is if you don't eat enough fat, your body will not function. So this is what it looks like in a female when her fat intake starts to be chronically low. Hormone issues, skin issues, nail issues, mood issues, hair issues, you ain't building no muscle. So you need the fat. Okay. And I know we sell protein all the time, but sometimes what happens, and this is more common in women than men, is they're like, cool, I'm going to eat chicken breast and tilapia and have protein shakes because I don't want the calories, but you really need fat.

1:31:27Adam Schafer:You need it. I would, let me ask you this. How often are you strength training? What does your activity level look like? So I'm currently, I just restarted, uh, anabolic. Um, so I'm in the gym three days a week. Um, the days that I'm not lifting, I usually am just, I'll either go like walk for a little bit. I try to hit around 10 ,000 to 12 ,000 steps a day. Um, and I can do that pretty easily. Um, just from my daily, my day at work and everything and walking the dogs. But, um, Yeah, so I'm strength training three days a week and then 10 ,000 to 12 ,000 steps a day. You'll feel better if you bump your fat and if your calories need to be a certain number.

1:32:08Adam Schafer:Cut the carbs and add the fats.

1:32:09Sal Di Stefano:I want to challenge you another way, Avery. I'm looking at your height and your weight. You are tall. You're 5 '7 and you're 135. Instead of trying to cut into the body you want, try and build into the body you want. I get clients that are at this point because at 5 '7", I can have you shredded at 140, 150. Shredded to the bones. So you can be a heavier weight on the scale. Just with muscle. With more muscle. And you'll look 3 % leaner. So you could easily go up to 145 and look like whatever it is you're probably trying to cut down to, 130, 120, whatever that number is. And it's just so tough to do that.

1:32:50Sal Di Stefano:it would be way easier to bump your calories to say 22, you know, 100 calories, and let's get strong and let's build, and not get attached to what the scale number says, and watch what happens in a month or two, and I bet you have the body that you're trying to cut into right now, and you'll be eating more.

1:33:11Adam Schafer:Now, I know why this is scary because I'm reading your email. It says you lost 50 pounds. Yeah, so two years ago. Yeah, so it sounds scary because you're like, oh, great. I'm going to increase my calories than the 50 pounds that come back on my body. It's not. No. You're just going to get stronger and build muscle. I'm definitely, like, I'm not, I want to grow, and I definitely want to put on more muscle mass. So I've been kind of, like, when I purchased anabolic and ran it for the first time, I did have my calories, like, slightly above maintenance. So I was aiming for around, like, 24 to 2 ,600, which, like, I can do easily.

1:33:46um and i like doing that and i like you know getting stronger and i really do i want to like put on more muscle so that i can look the way i want to look with you know at my my weight and my height i want to you know i'm not afraid of like gaining i just i want to look good and i know that comes from like i need to build more muscle but i'm also like right now i'm i'm getting married in july so i do like want to look a certain way for my wedding and everything yeah

1:34:14Adam Schafer:What happened when you were doing the 2 ,400 calories? What happened on the scale, in the gym? What did you get out of that? I felt really good. I always feel great when my calories are higher and I like seeing my lifts go up and everything. It's really encouraging. But then once I hit that point where I'm like, okay, I need to bring it back a little bit so that I can look how I want to look for the summertime and especially for my wedding coming up. so I've been trying to like go back and forth between doing like three weeks with my calories higher and then I'll cut them back down for like another three weeks and I've been trying to go back and forth and I don't know if that's like gonna leave me stranded um yeah no no no let's back up for a second did you gain any weight when you were at 2400 calories um no no I've maintained I've been I've been sitting like really comfortably between like oh Avery yeah

1:35:08Sal Di Stefano:Avery, this is easy. That's a Goldilocks one. No, no, this is easy.

1:35:11Adam Schafer:Here, I'll give you a comfort, because I know it's scary for you. You're getting married. Yeah. Okay, what are you at right now, 1 ,800? Yes, yeah. Okay. And I just reversed that this week. So I took two weeks that I was sitting right around maintenance or slightly above. Okay, which was what? Around 24. Okay, let's go happy medium. Stay around 22, 23. Just stay there. Keep working out. Okay. You'll get a little leaner, and you'll probably build a little bit of muscle. Just shave off. Just stay there. Wedding's July what?

1:35:39Sal Di Stefano:uh july 10th so we have we have a lot of time yeah so i but the thing too is like i already started um my dress alterations so i'm not supposed to like uh fluctuate in weight at all um but i feel like with my calories right and i like goldilocks zone i can maybe build a little bit of muscle and stay like comfortable um and i definitely want to like put more emphasis on my upper body and specifically my shoulders so can i take some like of the volume from the lower body and the anabolic and maybe put it towards muscle mommy you should follow that press we

1:36:16Adam Schafer:should give you muscle mommy muscle mommy is a nice shoulder and glute focus yeah shoulder and butt that's what muscle mommy is but here so check this out okay so you're getting married which is stressful because you're planning it you're doing all the all the stuff for it you're getting your dress altered which means you can't change too much because it needs to fit when you get married cutting and bulking is also stressful you're controlling everything you're trying to watch this just sit at like 2200 calories from now till then just chill you'll be great that'll be your best bet stop going up stop trying to go down stop worrying about everything enjoy your workouts follow MAPS Muscle Mommy 2200 calories will give you a nice little recomp by the time you get married and you're not going to stress over cutting bulking three weeks here three weeks there what's going on just enjoy now till then

1:37:01Sal Di Stefano:relax and you're doing just fine have you uh i mean have you considered uh getting coached through the process would you want someone to coach you to the wedding no and you know there's there's so many things that go into the wedding and so many expenses i don't think it's like something that is in my timeline right now yeah um but like what you guys were saying sounds great i feel like that i can easily eat that much and that would help like having that little wiggle room to be able to add in some fattier cuts of meat that will help me with my fat intake

1:37:29Adam Schafer:yeah dude no i think if you stayed at 22 follow muscle mommy and just enjoyed your workouts you would get a nice little you get a nice little recomp by july you're okay you're you're you're

1:37:40Sal Di Stefano:healthy and you're good and you have plenty of time there's nothing for you to worry about just so you know yeah there's there's like a lot of different ways that we could go about this

1:37:47Adam Schafer:a lot of here's what happens a lot of women in particular guys do this too but women in particular before their wedding they add way more stress with their workouts and diet way more and they end up getting worse results because of or they rebound crazy afterwards so my advice is just chill relax enjoy your workouts 2200 calories just stay right there don't worry about gaining losing and you'll get a little bit more definition and build a little bit of muscle by that time that's

1:38:10Sal Di Stefano:it i'm gonna i'm gonna have doug put you in the private forum uh so you have access to us and then just as you you know keep update us like once every three to four weeks how that'd be great how you're feeling and where you're at because i think you could even end up pushing your calories more if you were already at 24 and you saw no weight gain on that because what what will serve you the most right now is building as much muscle and and because we can always like what i could do with you like let's say we got crazy and we built up to 145 pounds and you put muscle on you're like oh my god i'm too big for my dress three weeks before the the wedding we could cut hard aggressively i

1:38:45Adam Schafer:just don't want to add stress if this if you're like if it sounds relieving to you to like not worry about this yeah then do what i said it definitely does and like that's i don't want to have to add more stress in the process and stress my body out with like good trying to cut and go back and forth like it is it has been something on my mind um and i also don't want to like look a certain way on my wedding day that doesn't look like me so i feel really comfortable and i fall really comfortable around the weight that i'm at and those cat that calorie range is really familiar to me so it does does feel like a little bit of five relief no chill enjoy your workouts 2200 calories have fun in your workouts enjoy your workouts don't even worry about it you're gonna be totally fine okay awesome well thank you so much guys i really appreciate your expertise and it's very helpful congratulations all right thank you so much you got it it's a stress that's the big that was the main thing i'm talking what you're saying adam 100 she's working with a coach and she can let go of it yeah yeah but she's i could tell right away we're talking about she's like i got three weeks here three weeks there on top of like managing all the wedding stuff it's like no no just relax autopilot stay 22 you're fine you'll be good i mean she's such a good place

1:39:47Sal Di Stefano:This is such an easy thing to do that we have lots of options. You have plenty of time. She's already at a good weight. She's young. I mean, she's already seen what 2 ,400 calories to 2 ,600 calories does. She's not overtraining. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

1:40:03Adam Schafer:She's in a good place. Overthinking it. If you like Mind Pump, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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