2896: Why 95% of People Regain All Their Weight (And How to Be in the 5% Who Don't)

17:44Adam Schafer:So let's get to that for a second. So this is something that I've talked about before, and I've organized it into something that I think is catchy that I think people can kind of identify with that kind of communicates to this mentality that we get into when we're trying to change how we look and feel through diet and exercise. So it kind of looks like this, right? Average person finally decides I'm going to do something about the way I look or the way I feel. And typically it starts with this like, man, I feel gross or overweight or inadequate, or I don't like the way I look in that picture, or somebody said something to me, or I'm tired of, you know, feeling this way type of deal.

18:25Then they shift into the mentality of a tyrant.

18:29Adam Schafer:and the tyrant, they become this tyrant that then tyrannizes this other part of them. So the tyrant says, you're fat, go to the gym. You can't eat that food. How dare you? Go train hard. I can't believe you're so undisciplined. You need to do this. Make it happen no matter how you feel. And so you tyrannize yourself into producing these behaviors that you think are beneficial. And so when people offer you food that's off your diet, it. It's like, no, I can't have that, which is an interesting thing to say. I can't. It's like, what do you mean you can't? Either you do or you don't. Can't is like, who's telling you you can't, right?

19:03Adam Schafer:Or you go to the gym and you work out so hard that you can't walk two days after, or you feel like you're going to throw up and you leave. And even though you feel like garbage, you say to yourself, great workout. That was a great workout. Why? Because this person I'm tyrannizing deserves punishment. So it feels cathartic. So you get into this mental state of tyrannizing yourself. You're the tyrant. And then there's another side of you that's the tyrannized. And here's what happens eventually. Eventually you start to identify more with the tyrannized than you do with the tyrant. And what does someone do when they feel like they're being tyrannized for a long period of time?

19:39Adam Schafer:They rebel. They rebel. They rebel. And this is why when you go off your diet, you don't just go off a little bit. You go way off your diet. It's like you're giving yourself the middle finger. It's like, no, I'm not just gonna have one cookie. I'm having the whole damn sleeve of Oreos. No, I'm not skipping one workout. I'm not going back for months. Like I'm done. I'm off this whatever. And so you rebel. And this is why people swing so hard in one direction or the other. By the way, there's another direction that this can also turn into. It's a much smaller percentage of people. Most people end up rebelling, but there's a very small percentage of people that go in another dysfunctional direction, and most of them work in the fitness industry.

20:25Adam Schafer:And this is not the rebel, this is the robot. This is the person that becomes orthorexic with their diet, whose workouts they never miss, no matter what's going on, who says things like, food is fuel. Food is fuel, that's all it is. I work out no matter what. It's all about discipline. You know, I'll never skip. This is my life type of deal. And on the outside, they look very fit and healthy, but on the inside, they're quite dysfunctional and unhealthy. And again, we know a lot of these people and I've struggled with this myself. So the solution to this is to change the mentality, which is, uh, I'm not a tyrant tyrannizing myself.

21:00Adam Schafer:I am somebody, uh, who, uh, is worthy of being cared for. I need to take care of myself. Why? Because I deserve to be cared for because I'm a human being. So what's that going to look like? And what that ends up looking like is balance. Workouts are more appropriate. Nutrition is more balanced. There are going to be those occasional times you go out and enjoy food with your friends and it's okay because right now it's not about eating something healthy. It's about hanging out with my friends. But most of the time I'm probably going to eat healthy. And sometimes my workouts are hard. Sometimes, man, I'm tired and stressed.

21:32Adam Schafer:I think my workout needs to be a little easier or I need to take the day off. and you develop a relationship with diet and exercise where you enjoy it because it's caring for yourself and it's very, very balanced. And that mentality has to be the starting point and it has to continuously be worked on. Otherwise, you end up in a bad situation.

21:52Sal Di Stefano:Going back to the rebellious part and you're talking about that being like this mentality, right, of being tyrannized and then you rebel from that. Wouldn't you say too, there's also a physiological thing that's happening too. So it's not just the mentality, which I think we agree is a big piece of that. But even the physiological part of this is what happens when you deprive your body of calories for such a long period of time, your body's will have these natural signals of like, we got to eat. I mean, I remember going through this when competing and you'd be in a deficit for a long period of time.

22:28Sal Di Stefano:I've dreamed about food. And all I thought about after the competition was like, I am going to eat this and I'm going to eat that. And it's like all of a sudden you start fantasizing about that. But I think part of that too isn't just the mentality of like I'm telling myself I can't have these things. It's also the physiological side going like you haven't had it. We like calories. You want calorie dense foods because you're going so low. You're not eating to nourish your body. You're not eating in a balanced way. You're eating in this crazy deficit. And then you're also. You go too far. I mean, yes, many times pushing the body.

23:01Sal Di Stefano:So the body is screaming at you. You eat a lot of calories. You eat a lot of calories.

23:04Adam Schafer:Well, there's two parts to that. One is you can definitely go too far where you're starving yourself and pushing yourself too hard in your workouts, where they're excessive, they're not beneficial.

23:13Sal Di Stefano:And I think that's hard to gauge, Sal, because results come slow. Yeah. And so what ends up happening is a lot of times people start off with this deficit or start off with a little bit of cardio, and a week goes by and they only see one pound move or no pounds move. And so what do they do? Just ramp it up. Throttle down. Well, instead of an hour cardio a week, I'm going to do two hours of cardio a week. Instead of eating a 500-calorie deficit, I'm going to go 1 ,000 calories deficit.

23:38Adam Schafer:Your diet and your exercise routine should improve the quality of your life. That's it. So if your quality of life is not being improved, if it's like this is dreadful, this sucks, I hate this, life sucks, I can't move, I'm too sore, oh, my God, I'm dreaming about food all the time, it's not benefiting you. You should feel better. Through this process, you should feel better. As an effective trainer and coach, you learn this over the years. Like, wow, the more my clients enjoy this, the better the results come, the more consistent they are. They stick around. Yeah, so you should definitely, it should improve the quality of your life regardless of what's happening in your life, which this is why your workouts and diet change throughout the whole period.

24:17Adam Schafer:You know, workouts aren't gonna look the same all the time. Sometimes they're gonna be, you can't train hard. Same thing with diet. There's going to be times when you're on vacation and I'm not eating perfect. This is where the robots, by the way, freak out, right? Put them on vacation. Watch what happens. All of a sudden they're stressed out because they can't count every macro or they don't have a gym, you know, that's right next to them. So this mentality aspect is very important, but it's also important to note here, look, you are going to feel some hunger. You are going to have some temptations in directions that want to bring you back to kind of how you lived before.

24:47Adam Schafer:And that's just because you're changing things. Like if you're used to eating lots of heavily processed foods and you switch to whole natural foods, whole natural foods isn't going to excite your brain like the other stuff does. It's going to be a big contrast. If you're in any kind of a calorie deficit, even if it's a minor one consistently, you might get a little hungry. But it's different. When I'm feeling a little hunger, but I'm doing it because I'm caring for myself, very different than when I feel a little hunger and I'm telling myself, don't you dare. Don't even think about eating food right now.

25:17Adam Schafer:Like you're fat or whatever. Good luck with that. At some point, you're going to, again, you give yourself the middle finger, and you're going to go in the opposite direction. Well, that's the thing.

25:24Sal Di Stefano:The challenge is to stick with it on that end of the spectrum versus the other one is to double down, to throttle down, to add more. And it's like the real discipline is to just trust in the fact that this is benefiting my body the most. I'm building. And the building part, you're going to have to wait for that transition really to kick in. Well, speaking more to the mentality piece, I think that this is so important that the self-awareness kicks in here too. Because to your point, during this process, you'll start to notice when these cravings and patterns and behaviors happen. And if you don't approach it through that lens of like, I'm trying to learn about my own behaviors or peer into that, because I think, at least in my experience, I don't have a lot of behavioral things that they didn't see before that when you start to restrict, they start to reveal themselves like, oh, wow, I noticed that every time I have a rough day at work, I want to do this thing.

26:30Sal Di Stefano:Or every time my wife and I are kind of getting into it, I kind of want to do this thing. Or wow, I can't have dinner and not feel like I need to go have a second serving. Or I can't have dinner and not feel like I have to have a dessert. it's like or man every time i walk past that peanut jar i have to go like you have to peer into all that to start to unpack and unlock um all these behavioral things that you have going on and then find ways to to work on and change that otherwise you know it'll all rear its head it'll come back and you know you can you can white knuckle it for you know so long before all that

27:03Adam Schafer:stuff well i just want people to know like this what we're talking about is how we coach people it took us all I would say probably took each of us a good 8 to 10 years and then after that listen this is 100 % you guys my success strategy and Justin and Adam are the same our success strategy when we figured this out with our coaches went through the roof like 10 years into my career most of my clients became consistent and still haven't stopped the first half of my career here most of my clients were not consistent yeah and we couldn't figure this out so it's very it's a very successful strategy this is how we coach our coaches and trainers here at mind pump this is how they work with people so it really does work and i i have no there are no other ways that

27:50Sal Di Stefano:i've seen that will give you uh success yeah less turnovers more lifers that's right even my personal journey has changed a lot um through this lens i think that i think we're we're all we're all on this spectrum, right? Like maybe I'm not the full tyrant and don't totally tyrannize myself, but I'm certainly guilty of somewhat of that. And I'm certainly guilty. I can connect and relate to that rebellious, you know, rebellion, sitting down and eating a whole thing of ice cream when it's just like, what, what am I doing? Like I can have ice cream anytime I want. It's like, what, like, what, what is that?

28:25Sal Di Stefano:Right. And so I think, I think we're all, and just because maybe I don't ever let it go as far as maybe some other people that struggle with it. It doesn't mean that I'm immune to it or I don't struggle with it also. I think we're all somewhere on this spectrum, and it's taken me a long time, probably almost into my 40s, to really find that nice balance of not allowing the pendulum to really swing hard anywhere and trying to find that even balance of both exercise and diet. It just doesn't, neither looks really extreme anymore. It looks like a much healthier balance of eating, eating when I like out of balance every once in a while, but then not going out of control.

29:05Adam Schafer:I had a conversation with one of our, uh, one of our clients here, uh, at mind pump. So we have, we have trainers that work with people and every once in a while I hop on calls and I love doing it. Um, just reminds me of why I love training people so much. But anyway, I was on a call with someone and we were having this very conversation and I said, why are you afraid that if you don't tyrannize yourself, that you're just going to, run in the opposite direction? And she said, yes. And I said, look, I get it. Like I know if you're in that position, you're like, look, if I don't, if I don't hammer down on myself, I know what I'll do.

29:37Adam Schafer:I'll binge or I'll go in this crazy direction. I said, look, first off, it's not working for you because you're still doing that. I said, but you may, you may run a little bit in the other direction, but we have to get to this other place. And so the truth is for somebody feeling this yeah you might have to switch gears and you might find if you don't tyrannize yourself suddenly you feel like you have this like freedom to like go off a little bit and you may go off a little bit but you'll bring you'll bring yourself back you'll bring yourself back and it won't be this wild swing um and then you'll develop a relationship

30:09Sal Di Stefano:with us where you know that's exactly the way i feel it's it's it's gone for me personally exactly it used to be this dramatic swings in my 20s and then the swings got a little bit smaller and then smaller. And then it's very, very subtle now. That's right. And now what it looks like is I can come off of a week vacation where I enjoy myself. I maybe only get one or two workouts in, more just like active golf, things like that. We all are eating whatever we want, having nice drinks, but I'm not splurging or overdoing it. It's just this nice. And then here I'm back to Monday. Meals are prepped, ready to go.

30:43Sal Di Stefano:Perfect. Yeah, packed. And I didn't put on any real weight. I didn't feel like I fell out of shape. Like it's just, they, they look these very real, and it feels so much better, but it's taken me a long, even myself personally, a long time to get there.

30:56Adam Schafer:Speaking of breaks, I, so because we were gone, which we'll talk about that, um, I hadn't used ketone IQ for, uh, almost a week and a half, right? Cause we, we were up in Arizona last, the week before, then we were gone for a week. Yeah. And, um, you know, when you use something consistently and then you stop and then you use it again.

31:17Sal Di Stefano:That's how I always know if something works or not. Dude, I came... I love doing that.

31:20Adam Schafer:So I haven't used it for like a week and a half, right? And typically, I use like two a day, especially when I'm here. This morning, I took one before I went to get my hair cut. Just lit up a bit. Oh, bro.

31:29Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

31:30Adam Schafer:So clear.

31:31Sal Di Stefano:That's how I always know when a supplement really works to me is like... I can never tell just starting to get it. That's why I'm always hesitant when someone asks me, how do you feel? Yeah, it's when I stop it and then I come back to it again and then I feel like, okay, now I can tell the difference. So you know it's a huge difference. Oh, dude, clear, like mental energy, sharpness.

31:48Adam Schafer:It's so different from caffeine. And I totally noticed it because I had stopped for a little while. So anyway, I had a great time, by the way. I was out. We were out in Yellowstone. I saw some of your videos, all the bears and stuff. So you actually went to that spot where you could feed the bears. So you can. That's crazy. Okay, so there's a place called. I didn't know that. There's a place called Bear World. It's called Bear World. It's like somewhere in like Florida where they do like, there's like crocodile.

32:14Sal Di Stefano:I thought it was a nudist colony. No, no, no, not those kind of bears. No, no, no. You can do that in San Francisco.

32:22Adam Schafer:No, it was near, so we flew into Idaho Falls. So it was kind of like in that area. And you drive your car through. So there's two places. There's a part with rides. So there's actually kids' rides. But the main part is you drive your car through. Yeah. And there's like, there's grizzly bears just walking around. Grizzlies. Grizzly bears. and black bears. I mean, they gotta be more lazy. They're just walking around. They come up to your car. They're like, keep your windows closed. I'm like, yeah, no crap, dude. I can open my window. But they'll walk up to your car. They'll walk around. They're scratching their backs on the trees.

32:56Adam Schafer:They're like, you know, moping around. Of course, the kids are like, they're cute. I'm like, don't open the door, kids. So you drive through slowly and there's just grizzly bears and black bears everywhere. Then there's this part with rides. And then there's a separate thing that you could pay for where they take you on this, I don't know what you would call it. It's like a big tram, like car or whatever. And you go up on these steps so you're high. And then the bottom part of it is all like protected. So the bears can't reach you. And they give you food. And they pull up and you just, you throw the food over and you just feed the bears.

33:27Adam Schafer:Why does this sound like this is like the worst idea? Well, they're not wild.

33:31Sal Di Stefano:They're all in captivity. Yeah, yeah. The grizzly bears and the black bears cohabitate. They can do that. No, they keep them separate. Okay, as I say, I didn't think they could. I figured like them grizzly bears would probably eat them black bears. Oh, wow.

33:41Adam Schafer:But we were feeding them, and dude, the bears are hilarious because obviously they get fed all the time. So they'd walk up to the tram or whatever, and they'd come up on two legs. Like dogs. Yeah, dude, they'd catch up their mouth. Dude, tricks. What's going on? Wow. A big old claw's hanging down. It was awesome.

33:57Sal Di Stefano:I've never been to Yellowstone. Yellowstone's definitely on my list to go there. You guys went in through Idaho.

34:03Adam Schafer:Yeah, dude, it was a long travel because her brother drove from Vegas. So the last time I went, we flew into Bozeman, which is closer. We had to go to Idaho Falls, which is a regional airport. So you have to take two planes. Then you have to drive an hour and a half to where we stayed in Island Park, which is 30 minutes away from the park. So it was long travel.

34:21Sal Di Stefano:Okay. So that's not how you would do it if you were to suggest it. That's not what I did last time. So how would you suggest it to go through Bozeman? Bozeman. That's what I did. It's the closest to get to Yellowstone.

34:29Adam Schafer:Yeah, and we stayed there, and that's what we did last time. But anyway, we went into the west entrance, and Yellowstone's crazy, dude. Like we, at one point we went to the Grand Prismatic. So that's, those are like those pools of water that are. Oh, that's a cool color. It's really crazy. Yeah. A bison just walked right through everybody. Like onto the walkway. Bro, he was like, we're Duggas. That's how close he was. Like just chilling with you guys. Just chilling. Now everybody's like, oh, look at the cute dumb bison. And I've seen videos. Yeah. You've seen people get lost. And I'm yelling at my kids.

35:01Adam Schafer:Get up. Get your husband. My daughter's trying to get close. I'm like, get back here. Trying to keep everybody. because I've seen videos of bison launching people in the air. It's not a Disney movie. No, dude. But they look so cute and they're not going to do anything. I'm like, no, dude, that thing's a pile of muscle. But he walked right in front of us. Those things are huge. Huge, bro. I pulled up a video of one pushing a car over.

35:23Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, them and moose are like, they surprise you when you're in person. I didn't see a moose. Oh, you didn't see a moose out there, huh?

35:29Adam Schafer:No, a bull moose is pretty hard to see, I think. I think those are hard to see.

35:32Sal Di Stefano:Well, I mean, when I was in Jackson Hole, I was from here to Justin from one. A bull moose? Yeah. That's huge. That'll launch you too. With the baby too. Oh, my God. That's dangerous. Yeah. But I mean, I was on the patio. I was walking around the little courtyard where all kinds of people were at. I mean, I wasn't going to mess with it for sure. You know what I'm saying? And I had like a little, like this little, it was like a walkway with like a fence. A fence that would not stop him if he wanted to, but at least made me feel like there's something separating us. I guess there's like a big deer, right?

36:02Adam Schafer:It's in the same family.

36:03Sal Di Stefano:I mean, giant. Yeah, I know. But they're notorious for going in people's yards and eating. I mean, you go like this. You go deer, elk, and then moose. Because elk are like giant deer. And then moose are like. Moose doesn't even look right. Like an elk looks big in person. A moose is just. I've seen a stack. Moose is like a tank.

36:22Adam Schafer:I saw a moose a long time ago far away, and it didn't look right. It looked like a dinosaur. Like, that's the biggest. I didn't know they were that big. Yeah, they're huge. But yeah, it was great. It was a super great trip. And then my son, my five-year-old, caught a fish. Oh, really? His uncle took him fishing. Stuck. And he's like wheeling it in or whatever. It's so important to catch it if you're doing that. Yeah.

36:43Sal Di Stefano:Oh, there you go. Did I do it right there? Goes deer. What's in between there, between the deer and the elk? Let me see if I can get this thing to clear out here. Oh, a caribou? Yeah, the caribou. Yeah, so it goes deer, caribou, elk, moose. Moose. So big. Yeah, but look how big the moose is compared to. It looks like. It just dwarfs the rest of them.

37:02Adam Schafer:But he caught a fish and we cooked it and everything.

37:05Sal Di Stefano:Now, every day did you – so did you ever – you guys just hang out at the house or did you guys go in every time and go –

37:12Adam Schafer:Most of the days we went out and did something. But one day we went to the – because the kids were tired, so we just took them to movies. We watched Toy Story 5.

37:19Sal Di Stefano:Oh, Max and Katrina went. It was cute. I love the idea of the villain being the iPad.

37:25Adam Schafer:It was one of those movies – do you guys remember when WALL-E first came out? Remember WALL-E? And how it kind of made you uncomfortable because it was a little too much truth in it. Yeah, yeah. Like, ooh, this is kind of hitting home. Yeah, Toy Story 5 did. Bro, listen to this. Like the kids all on their electronics and not playing with each other. Okay. That was a little too like.

37:40Sal Di Stefano:So Katrina took Matt. So we were up in Truckee with all of our family friends and stuff like that. And I've openly talked about this. This is one of the unique things that I think we do with Max that's different than my friends is he gets no iPad, right? So he hasn't had an iPad for well over a year or two now. And they all get them. and they all went to Toy Story 5 together with all the moms, right? So they all go watch it. And so Katrina and I were talking about this afterwards. She goes, it was so crazy. We went and watched that. And she goes, it was so great. She goes, it's everything we talk about with the iPad and this and that.

38:12Sal Di Stefano:And so the storyline's great. And she goes, literally, we come back to the house and all the kids grab their iPads. It was like - Had like no effect. Yeah, like no effect. It was like, oh my gosh, you just watched that. And no effect on the parents enough to be like that. Like you said, they hit close up. Now, I didn't see it, but I know the storyline, and I know that the main villain is the iPad, and the whole idea is that the kids are now all on their iPads in the same room with each other. No one plays with the toys anymore, right? I'm assuming that's what's right.

38:43Adam Schafer:There's a scene where this little girl, she gets her first, it's not an iPad, but it's like a starter type one, like a leapfrog type of deal. So she gets it, and all the toys are like, what's going on? She's not paying attention to us, and she's just glued to it. but then there's a part as really it really makes your heart hurt where she she's trying to make friends so she's like kind of needs friends so she messages through the app through the thing her friends and then they tease her through it and you know like the things that actually happen with like messaging and stuff and she's this little girl i was like oh my heart was breaking for me yeah when i see stuff like that i get emotional well one of my one of my friends has

39:21Sal Di Stefano:even though they haven't eliminated it, they have dramatically reduced the amount and they've connected the dots to the difference in my godson's behavior. And so they've noticed a big difference. And they had a hard time this week because they've been really pushing to do that, but he still has it. And then the other kids have theirs. And so they're like, man, they're letting their kids get on it right first thing in the morning. And normally we don't let him get on his, but then he's coming to us like, mom dad everybody's on their ipad how can i can i get mine and so they felt they felt terrible and so they would give in and let him do it max came in it's so funny because max doesn't have one forever and he asked just because all the kids were on it no okay the way he asks he knows we

40:07Adam Schafer:save that stuff for like when we're on the plane or a long car ride like that's where we start to kind of use it i think it could be valuable because you know especially when you want to talk to your wife but yeah dude that movie was like you you could see it you could see it in

40:22Sal Di Stefano:kids you know oh yeah i had like the opposite experience um so i was like hanging out i spent a good amount of time with everett just me and him so we got to spend some good quality time um but it was the opposite because i was like being stretched a lot more in terms of freedom and allowing him to adventure and do things a little outside my comfort zone a little bit And, you know, so I had him like set up on my, my e-bike and my other friend, his, his kids actually a year younger. And so it was like, I'm like, oh, okay, he's a little bit younger. So, you know, maybe they're not going to be as wild and crazy.

41:01Sal Di Stefano:And like, so not the case, but you know, it started out well. Like, so I at least was like, okay, I'll be comfortable with this. if, you know, I go, I went and rented a bike for myself and then he had a bike. And so we all kind of like went on this tour of like, here's the roads and here's the beach access. And like, here's the kind of the areas that I was like, okay with. And like, you know, traffic wise, like, and we went all the signals and everything else and all that. Uh, and so we're kind of going through all that and it was fun and having a good time and all that. And then it's like, okay they just want to go out on their own you know and i'm like all right like you know keep your phone on you and like we could obviously we could see like where they're going and whatnot and then uh you know one of the days they just like they went so far they ended up like in some farm and they're like they found some like pump track where they're like jumping it and stuff and like i had to like fix the bike we went and picked them up and pick them up but it's like dude so memorable for them they're like just you know beside themselves because they're having so much fun it was like you know it was just it was a struggle a bit for me because two you know like courtney was with you know ethan at his competition and so we were kind of split with all this and uh and i know she has more of an issue of like i'm like nothing can happen you know not on my watch not on my watch

42:32Adam Schafer:get hurt at another time not this time you know it's my responsibility it's like when you're an older brother and your sibling gets hurt yeah rub it out I'm so curious

42:44Sal Di Stefano:on how I'm going to handle that phase I was with my buddy it's funny you're bringing up the e-bike and letting him go because this is what my buddy Mike and I were talking about literally yesterday we're sitting down and just chopping up this his son is 12 or 13 and he's got one of those really fast e-bikes you know now like the motorcycle dirt bike ones or whatever and they go they go they go really fast they're pretty quick i know real fast yeah you get pulled they'll take those bikes now yeah if you don't have if it's a class above it's like class three they'll take them so he's so he had he did this he's registered it in another state so he could drive it because they're illegal in california you need a license Yes.

43:22Sal Di Stefano:So he's got these, right? And he's like, he grew up over here, right? And he remembers when he was a kid, like he just had free reign, go wherever. And he's like, man, I have such a hard time with letting - That was a parent? Yeah. Letting my boy do that. So we're like talking it out. I'm the same way too. My parents, they - Well, they didn't have a choice.

43:43Adam Schafer:They couldn't stalk us. They couldn't track us. They had no choice.

43:47Sal Di Stefano:That's the part that's crazy. Like we have -

43:49Adam Schafer:12 hours of not knowing. We have -

43:51Sal Di Stefano:Just come back at this time. We have AirPods and phones and watches and so much, and we know it's safer. So logically, you go, it's safer now. You have more trackable things than you have before. Why do I struggle so much with allowing that freedom? Because we're too aware of all the dangers and the fears. But we all know that it's not. It's less. And yet, we don't want - And so, we were talking that out. And now I have the kid who's little. I'm not faced with it. So it's real easy for me to say, oh, man, come on. Just let him go. Yeah, he'll be fine. Right, right. But I've seen too many of my buddies that feel that same way.

44:30Sal Di Stefano:And then they get to that age. And then they're like, ah. It's weird, dude. I mean, yeah. So logically, in my head, I hear Justin talk about that. I hear Mike talk about that. I'm like, dude, just let him go. And it's new because he's the baby, too. It's like it's not my oldest. So it's like I'm a little bit different with the oldest. And then him is like, you kind of want to keep him, you know, like this little kid. And it's like, you can't. Yeah. Katrina looked at me all crazy this weekend because I, I was already. So, uh, I don't know if you saw, we got Max one of those big wheels, right? Yeah.

44:59Sal Di Stefano:And he's like, he's into it. That's awesome. It's like, like finally he's into like a thing like that. He's all about it. And, uh, I'm like, I'm already. And so, uh, Hunter and Jojo. So my buddy's kids are, uh, eight and nine and I'm like, Hey, let's, let's encourage them to just go. You know, let him ride the whole neighborhood and just, you know, have to give the oldest the walkie talkie and say, yeah, it's safe in an enclosed place in truckie. Everyone drives their car slow in there. And she's like, you tripping? He just started riding this thing. Like, he's even like, no way. And I'm like, I mean, we got to.

45:36Sal Di Stefano:When you were six, your mom was letting you walk to school. I pulled up my old neighborhood just because, so this, this topic was all about this. So it's funny you went this way because this was a topic all week for us.

45:49Adam Schafer:We're doing second grade. And I'm like, so yeah, it was, no, it was third and fourth grade.

45:54Sal Di Stefano:It was third and fourth grade.

45:55Adam Schafer:So how old are you in third and fourth? What is that, seven, eight?

45:56Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, it was third and fourth grade. And it was about a two-mile walk. And I did have to cross a four-lane road to get there. And I think back to those things like, God, that's crazy. and probably the part that um i think i worry about more than the danger is just how naive you are as a kid because i i do remember two times that i got in huge trouble because uh even though i was told a million times come straight home from school do this i you know ran into a friend on the way and like hey come over i just got the new zelda you know and like okay and you're just thinking in your head as a kid you're thinking i'm sure if i go back bagel bites yeah and and And that quick little stop by his house turned to two hours.

46:41Sal Di Stefano:And my mom waiting for me to be home and freaked out, called the cops and all that stuff. So I think I worry more about just my son being naive like that more than I feel like the danger. You know what I'm saying?

46:52Adam Schafer:It's weird. A lot of it's in our head. But the truth is, part of the reason, people aren't going to like this, but statistically speaking. They're safer. It's safer today. But here's why it's also safer. Kids are out less. So kidnappings are down. Well, yeah, because kids are harder to kidnap because they're not outside like they used to be. interesting thought. And alone. Because this is what I told. Think about it. Like, think about it. If you go back into the 80s and you're a kidnapper, there's kids everywhere. Yeah. And there's no parents watching them. It's true. In the 80s, when we were out, like, we were in the store.

47:21Adam Schafer:It's like a dime a dozen. Yeah. All these kids. Come on, dude. All you need is a kid that's like, ooh, I'll come in your van. Like, now it's harder because kids are not everywhere and their parents are watching them. They don't like ice cream as much. So statistically speaking, that's one of the reasons why it's safer.

47:36Sal Di Stefano:My buddy got, oh my God, his wife. Right before we went on the trip, this happened. And so she was like not speaking to him for like a week. She was so angry at him because he had been having him walk home from school and she had no idea. Oh. Because they both work and sometimes he's with a patient still. And they only live two blocks, two and a half blocks or so from the school. And so he's been doing it. And then other times when he can't go home, his work is across the main road and about four blocks away. And so sometimes he'll tell his son, like, hey, just start walking towards my work, and then I'll meet you at the main stoplight, but don't cross the main stoplight.

48:12Sal Di Stefano:So he'd been doing this with his kid for, like, months, and she had no idea. And she found out, and oh, my God, she freaked out on him like that. And he's like, nobody's going to kidnap our son. And she's like, are you kidding me? You let him out there. There's so many cars. Somebody can pick him up. He's like, have you ever sat in the car with our kid for five minutes? That kidnapper would bring our kid back so fast. That was his argument back. I'm sorry. He's annoying. He has no way. He's annoying the shit out of some kidnapper within five minutes. That kidnapper dropped that kid right off. That's so funny.

48:43Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I used to walk home every day. I remember one time we actually got chased by a homeless guy. He was throwing bottles at us. It was wild, dude. We would go through horse trails. I almost got bit by a rattlesnake.

48:56Adam Schafer:There's all kinds of stuff that happens. My sister almost got kidnapped. My sister was walking home. I'm not making this up. a dude pulled up in a van, opened the door, and he's like, hey, do you want to come play? I have kittens here. And now my sister, my mom told her, if anybody ever said, so my sister ran away and told us about it. And she was like, but literally a dude, literally was like, here, come in my van, play with my cats.

49:19Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Oh my God. That actually happened. I know. So that's funny that you say you saw that because one of the things I speculated with my buddy Mike was like, you know, I know it's safer, all the stats, blah, blah, blah. But I, you know, you grew, I said, you grew up here 20 plus years ago, 25 plus years ago, when this was like mostly farmland and it was a slow town. I said, now it's normal to walk outside and see a homeless person or a crazy person talking to themselves. I didn't see that as a kid. Yeah, it's a lot more prevalent. Yeah, so I think there's a part of that that's in the back of your head too.

49:53Sal Di Stefano:Like, it's not weird for me. I mean, I was just driving to work the other day and somebody was like, right in the middle of a four lane main road, just walking down the diagonally and yelling at cars you know i'm saying like you just i don't i don't remember seeing at least i don't remember seeing that as a kid and so now thinking like having a kid and going like oh man i would that would freak me out my kid cross i don't know man i i think back to when i was younger

50:15Adam Schafer:and i'm like let's say 12 or 13 and i'd go off with my friends we did a lot of stuff that if i as a parent now i'd be like that is dangerous we did a lot of stuff yeah of course that was terribly dangerous. We never knew about it either. And we were gone. My mom was like, come back, be back at five for dinner. Okay. And we're gone. Hours. Just disappeared. She had no idea where I was. And we were doing things that were like, not good.

50:39Sal Di Stefano:That's probably half of what also makes you just like, yeah, I do a lot of the stuff that I was doing.

50:45Adam Schafer:But you know, the other side of it, I was just talking with my niece and my daughter about this the other day, is we would do things and nobody could film it and post it. Thank God. I know Because now kids are like Super hyper aware that Oh if I You know someone's gonna film You know Take a picture of me Post this Everyone's gonna share it Like thank god Nobody had a camera When we were out there Cause stuff would've gone viral So that's Anyway I was gonna ask you guys So we've been now Using the Super Patch For a little while Have you guys been using Any of them consistently

51:16Sal Di Stefano:Yeah I haven't been consistent This last week Because we just came off Of vacation But I was using the pain one For a while Because of my And I told you It brings it down

51:25Adam Schafer:from like i said like an eight to a five i was talking to my buddy about this he's a an er physician and of course he looked at me like is this like oh you told him about it what is this like what is this bro and now and he he trusts me so i'm like no listen i said here i sent him the studies i said look at the studies like the study on the pain patch it's by the way these are these are controlled studies these are published peer-reviewed it's equivalent to advil it's equivalent to to taking an inset yeah that's how effective the pain there's no medicine it's not transdermal it's all based off of haptic what's called haptic technology uh the sleep one is wild put the sleep one on track your sleep watch what happens to your REM yeah it increases so i did i

52:05Sal Di Stefano:did the sleep when we were testing it but i haven't been consistent with it i was and i did it enough to test it i use it every night yeah and i would track it with my aura and it was improving it so it's wild it's like i still have it's a new science yeah it's a new science it totally doesn't it remind you of when we got when they dropped the red light therapy on us i felt like the same way I was like, so get out of here. Get out of here with this BS. But I can't argue with actual data.

52:27Adam Schafer:And there's like 15 or 16 peer-reviewed studies.

52:30Sal Di Stefano:The one that won me over was the pain one, being equivalent. How many times have you guys taken Advil? Yeah. When you have a little bit of - Every day last week. Yeah.

52:37Adam Schafer:Altitude.

52:37Sal Di Stefano:Right. I mean, so it's like if you take Advil and use it for things, especially when it's chronic pain, low back. I had low back stuff the other day. Like if you have stuff like that going on, it's like, and you would take it at Advil, like why would you not take a patch if all the studies are showing that it's equivalent to that? and you're not having to take something, like way better route for sure.

52:55Adam Schafer:Anyway, I got to tell you guys, one of my favorite segments in social media world right now, have you guys seen the videos of Europeans? Yes. Because they're here for the World Cup? For FIFA, yeah. And how much they love America. I love it. I know. I love it. It's so great. It's a good reminder. It's a great reminder. Like there's videos of people in like AC because they have air conditioning. So like it's so hot. I come inside and it's so cool. You don't know what it's like. and they're talking about how they don't have air conditioning where they're at. There's people that get refills on their drink.

53:24Adam Schafer:Bro, there was just one Italian dude. Ice in their cup. I haven't seen that. There's just a Italian dude and he gets a Coke and he's like, I cannot believe it. It's free. And the guy's like, no, you paid for that one. He's like, I didn't pay for five of them. And he's like, I drink as much as I want. Yeah, true. No, my fear was these two guys were at a barbecue place

53:42Sal Di Stefano:and they're eating ribs. Oh. And he was about to eat it with his fork and knife and then the owner comes over and says, no, no, no. You guys eat it with your hands. They're like, what? And they didn't know what to do.

53:53Adam Schafer:And they're like eating it. Like, I've never had meat that like falls off the bone. Like they're tripping out. Yeah. They're raving about it. There was a couple of them went shooting and they were just tripping that you could just like shoot guns. Like this is amazing.

54:09Sal Di Stefano:It has to be like, yeah, if you're going to visit America, you have to do that. I didn't even think about that for Europeans coming over here for the gun. Oh, yeah. One guy. They're so not allowed to have guns either.

54:17Adam Schafer:There's this one British guy. He's got a mustache. He's got great videos. And he's like, oh, and they go into Walmart and they freak out. They're like, you can't see the end of the store. It's like, it's as big as a stock. I saw the Target ones.

54:28Sal Di Stefano:All the chicks that were like so pumped. Oh, yeah. There's ones that girls are like, oh, my God, Target. Everyone was all excited about Target.

54:35Adam Schafer:But it's so good to hear as an American because there's so much media that's so focused on how negative stuff. And you even see some of the videos people are saying like, man, our media lies. They said this, that, and the other. But I love it here. Yeah. Which is pretty, it's pretty cool to hear as an American. No, no, no.

54:47Sal Di Stefano:To see that kind of stuff.

54:48Adam Schafer:No, that's really, that's really cool.

54:49Sal Di Stefano:Hey, did you guys see that? I meant to tell you too that, I don't know how much you guys were on, if you were on a social, because I posted a little bit on Max's stuff. But my buddy, I have to give him some love, dude. He's the teacher of the group and the friends. And he was the one last year that put on the whole talent show for the kids every day. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this year was the Truckee Games. Did you see it? No, I was like, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. So he split all of us. He split, what was the names, dude? where he came up with these names for all of us. But he split all the kids and all the adults up, and there was three teams.

55:24Sal Di Stefano:We had color bandanas on. He made a whole PowerPoint video with music for the kids to watch to get everybody all hyped up before. And the game. That's what my brother would do. And I was really nervous. I knew he was doing something. I didn't know what. And I know how my son's not competitive. and so like i was really worried that he was he was gonna like not want to do it and when he got announced he had this moment this is where we're at now like we've gotten to a stage where we don't cry but i can tell when he wants to cry and he's like regulating his emotions and so he did the whole video all the kids are hyped i'm hyped and i'm like looking in the corner of my son and he can see him just like no just watching it and and so everyone kind of finished and my buddy he's i I think my buddy sees it, tries to hype up my, my son, my son's like not feeling it at all.

56:18Sal Di Stefano:And then like, he just gets up and he walks over into our, our map, the master bedroom over there. And, uh, and just goes in there and Katrina looks at me and I'm like, give him a few minutes. And so a few minutes I walk in there and he's like, he's laid down in his bed. It's like middle of the day. I'm like, what are you doing, buddy? He's like, Oh, I'm just gonna take a nap. What can you take a nap for dude? He's like, Oh, I'm just, I'm just going to take a nap for a little bit. And so I'm like, you know, I'm not even going to push because if I push into it, it's going to make him more emotional.

56:46Sal Di Stefano:Just see if he gets himself out of it. So I walk back out and I tell Katrina, I'm like, he's he's laying down. He's fine. He's laying down. And she went in a few minutes later, just talk to him and said and she I don't know if I remember you talked a long time ago. We're really consistent with like the the affirmations. You're brave. You're strong. Yeah, you're a leader. And so it was a great opportunity for Katrina. She reiterated that to him. You know, these are the reasons why we say this is we, you know, we believe that you're a leader. we believe those things and one day you'll believe it too and so he like totally like got himself together went out did it had a blast won like two of the events and did really good wow yeah yeah so it was a really cool moment to watch this oh man you're getting me choking oh yeah it was so great yeah no it was cool to see one it was cool to see him that challenge yeah to see him one not default to crying because that's like a year ago we would have been crying and like just i don't want to do it and like making a thing like that it was like you could tell he didn't want to you could tell that he was going to take care of his emotions, gather himself, still do it.

57:48Sal Di Stefano:Katrina kind of had that little talk with him, and then he ends up having a great time. So it was the caffeinated koalas, the feral goldfish, and the unstable hamsters. Yes, dude. Those are all the names. He came up with this cup stacking relay thing. So it was just red cups that you had to stack. and then the kids had to wrap a whole roll of toilet paper all the way around. Mummify, a parent was one. They did our upstairs balcony down to the jacuzzi. They put a bunch of red cups and you had to drop ping pong balls. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, they were like perfect. They were like, another one was like a beanbag toss into the buckets that we have out there.

58:29Sal Di Stefano:And so, yeah, they were all like really good, like fun. Achievable for their age. Yeah, and that's why I was so worried. I was like, man, you make my son do a bunch of stuff where he's going to get his ass whipped and everything like that. It's going to be so hard to convince him to do anything. Totally. So it was so, so perfect. And it was a cool moment to watch him go through that whole cycle and then to be able to experience that. And then I was like, oh, man, maybe there's, maybe.

58:54Adam Schafer:You know what I want to hear about? I want to hear about Justin's note on the guy that injected C-Mid to himself. Because I see this note up there. I like to throw some chaos. And while we're talking, I just keep seeing this note. and I'm like I'm going to bring this up because Justin might not because Justin won't find a transition for that he's like speaking of that speaking of kids definitely not a good transition

59:18Sal Di Stefano:for that the irony is like I found out about this you know where they came from with semen

59:24Adam Schafer:so what is this

59:26Sal Di Stefano:so this guy I think he was from Ireland but like decided that he had super spunk if you will and it was going to heal his back pain and so just started taking it upon himself to collect it uh put it in a syringe and inject it like in his arm what uh oh god it's like one of the only recorded cases of somebody

59:48Adam Schafer:but i just was like i didn't know that i i was like this isn't real like nobody's really done that like who would think to like die of course it'd be a guy it's always dudes that do we like

59:58Sal Di Stefano:i have magical i mean yeah how do you even make that leap yeah like where do you like what what What makes you go like, oh, this could be a healing. This is a whole other level. Because you've heard of people drinking pee for some kind of weird longevity reasons. There's some scientists in it. I'm just kidding. You guys, listen. I mean, if you were in a desert and you had no water, that would be one of the ways to hydrate yourself. So I could even see the leap there.

1:00:21Adam Schafer:I cannot see the leap of injecting. Injecting yourself with your own. He just had this understanding that it was going to get an infection.

1:00:28Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:00:28Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah.

1:00:29Sal Di Stefano:It looks like that's his arm right there. He did for a long time, too. like until it backfired.

1:00:35Adam Schafer:Oh, God. So gross. Did it work, though? Yeah, he no longer could feel his back pain. Yeah, exactly.

1:00:43Sal Di Stefano:He no longer had back pain anymore.

1:00:45Adam Schafer:Hey, I'll tell you who would do that. If there was anything at all that made it anabolic, bodybuilders would be doing shit like that. They probably would.

1:00:52Sal Di Stefano:Well, yeah, the other ones that were drinking breast milk. He just grows one huge muscle. Because they read somewhere that it was. Again, even that seems less of a leap than this. So what do you do with someone like that? It's just wild, dude. I couldn't believe somebody did that. You drain it?

1:01:04Adam Schafer:Well, no, what I'm saying is you help solve the immediate issue, but then you have to refer them to mental health specialists, right? Yeah, like what leads you to that decision-making process? You're not all there, dude. Yeah, you would have to kind of evaluate that. Exactly.

1:01:16Sal Di Stefano:That's why I'm more curious to how you make that leap. Like, there's no logic behind that, so there's something going on with this person. Yeah, and is there, like, somebody online that's, like, preaching this kind of stuff to you? You read it for them? Yeah, I was like, because you know how - Oh, guys, check it out. A whole sunning, you know, this weird stuff people do. Maybe Google that, Doug. See if there's a form. Doug, Google injecting semen for back pain. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Watch AI confirm it. It automatically populates. Watch AI. It populates. There's nothing on that.

1:01:45Sal Di Stefano:There's websites that are on it. Did you click on those right now?

1:01:48Adam Schafer:What's going on here, bro? Welcome back. Speaking of weird stuff, I have to bring this up. This is really interesting. It's not a long conversation, but really interesting. so there's this mushroom the psychedelic mushroom that produces a specific type of hallucination which is really weird okay so you think you would think that hallucinations are individual but people see the exact same thing a shared one on this this type of mushroom and it's called uh lamb lambuea aseatica aseatica when they eat it they see little All right. People everywhere. What? Everywhere? Yeah. They see little tiny people or gnome-like beings that appear and they last for 12 to 24 hours or sometimes stick around for days.

1:02:37Adam Schafer:And they interact with the objects around you. So like if I ate that, I would see little people walking up on the microphone or climbing off the floor. This has got to be where all this folklore comes from, right? Dude. You know, like all the legends of all these like little sprites. But it makes you wonder why they're missing the same exact thing. It doesn't make any sense. Are we like tapping into like another dimension? Are they really there? Well, that's like that DMT red laser experiment that everybody is talking about.

1:03:03Sal Di Stefano:I'm so curious about that one. You heard about that, yeah. See the matrix? You see numbers. Yeah. It's the same numbers. Everybody sees the same code. Yeah. Like there's an underlying code to everything is what they're talking about. I know. Yeah. I don't know. I won't eat those mushrooms yet. No, thanks.

1:03:19Adam Schafer:What is dose for your liver? So Dose for Your Liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement. It's not just another capsule or powder. It's a liquid supplement. And if you take it daily, two ounces at a time, so a two-ounce shot, it tastes like fresh squeezed orange juice, by the way. It cleanses the liver of unwanted stressors that are slowing your liver down. So it promotes healthy liver function. There's no sugar, no junk in there, no calories. So what does this do for you? Well, you get more energy. You get better digestion. By the way, Dose Liver, their liver product, has been shown to positively affect liver enzymes in real studies.

1:03:59Adam Schafer:In other words, it really does work. If you want to avoid midday crashes, you want to feel better, you want to support liver health, go to dosedaily.co slash mindpump. Use the discount code mindpump, get 25 % off. Back to the show. Our first caller is Carolina from New Hampshire. Hi, Carolina. Hi. How are you? Good. I'm going to start off the way that most people do and say, I really love your podcast. I just kind of started listening a couple months ago, and I work three 12-hour shifts Friday through Sunday. So you're basically in my ear for 36 and a half hours a week. Wow, yeah. So it's good stuff.

1:04:43I will start by just, I'll just read my question. And I'm going to update a couple of things just as we go. So I wrote, I've lost 600 pounds. Yes, you read that right, but not in the way you'd think. I'm 30, female, 5 '5". My current weight is 152. Starting weight, 340. I have lost and gained over 150 pounds four times. I'm tired of wrecking my body. I've successfully lost the weight again and am the smallest I've ever been. I started lifting in January and I'm loving strength training. I had been eating 1500 calories a day for over 14 months before I found your podcast. Now I'm slowly reverse dieting, which scares the crap out of me.

1:05:30I am up to 1800 calories now and my weight is stable. I really, really want to do things differently this time. My question, I guess, is how do I not repeat the pattern I've fallen into so many times? I understand how to do the reverse diet, but I'm a little confused on how it actually works. My metabolism is definitely damaged right now. If my weight is stable at 1 ,800 calories, do I keep adding every week? And how are people getting up to 2 ,500 to 2 ,800 calories? Thank you for being the first thing in 30 years to shift my mindset enough to actually try something different.

1:06:06Adam Schafer:Carolina, thank you so much for calling in. And I'm so happy that you're saying your mind is shifting and changing. Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you've lost 150. That's a significant amount of weight to lose and gain. And so I can only imagine the mental state or how you feel about yourself and behaviors are radically different at both ends. Yeah. What are the differences in both of those? Not necessarily the behaviors like, you know, eating and activity, but what's the difference in how you're feeling or what's it like to gain 100 and lose 150? What's the difference between the two?

1:06:49Well, so I grew up obese. You know, I weigh less now than I did in third grade. So you kind of get to a point where you just you're used to being invisible. So you don't really like what's the point in trying for a lot of things. or for me, like overeating was a way to really feel calm for the, like the only way I could feel calm. Um, but with that comes, you know, you're so full, why would you bother exercising? You don't feel like it. Um, and then I had kids, um, so that, you know, really this time around I'm, I'm down 180, 88 pounds, I think right now. Um, but I have a four-year-old and then 21 months old.

1:07:34and I realized that if like if I go to the park with them and the baby goes left and my older son goes right what am I gonna do you know it's a safety hazard so I had to I had to try again this time but I don't know when you're when you're over 300 pounds you just your life's just kind of like you don't you don't really try and now you know and it comes slowly but you start to put more effort in in every aspect of your life. You start to enjoy exercise because you're eating well enough that you have the energy to kind of want to do it. And you don't, you don't really hate yourself as much, I guess.

1:08:19Adam Schafer:Yeah, I hear that. I hear that. I heard you say eating made you feel calm in the past. Yeah. When you're on your way up, when you're gaining weight, does that feel like, do you feel like free in that period of time? And does it feel restrictive when you're trying to go in the other direction? Yeah. Yep. It's like, in the past, I've been so strict that you finally like relinquish that control that you have and, you know, do whatever you want. But as far as gaining that much weight, and when I gain, I gain really quickly, like within a year. You're kind of going through the motions and just ignoring it.

1:09:04You know it's happening, obviously, but you're just kind of telling yourself you don't care. But you do. Obviously, you do.

1:09:11Adam Schafer:Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally hear that. What is it about our show that got the mind shift for you? What did you hear us talk about? or tell us a little bit about the mind shift that you're experiencing. Yeah. So, well, you know how the media is these days. Finn is in. But after repeated, you know, 10 hours a week of listening and then, oh, I really like this, 20, and then, you know, my whole work week, just having you constantly hammer, fuel your body, build muscle, longevity, over and over and over again, whatever got it to kind of stick in my head a little bit. That's great. So is it okay if I challenge how it felt for you to go down and up and maybe the mentality around it?

1:10:01Adam Schafer:Okay. Okay. It's a false feeling of freedom when you're going up. It's actually you're in chains, you're in bondage. You're in bondage to moving your body in a direction that is not healthy emotionally and physically. But the reason why you feel free is because when you go the way down, the way you get yourself to go down is you treat yourself like somebody that needs to be held down and controlled because if you take the control off i'm gonna go the other way yeah like if i don't tell myself you can't have that how dare you and you better keep this up and remember what happened last time and you better and you beat yourself up if i don't do that to myself i'm gonna go in the other direction does that resonate yeah absolutely yeah no wonder it feels so free to stop doing that to yourself.

1:10:58Adam Schafer:So there is a solution. It's a simple, but not easy. Okay. So it's simple because it's a, it's not true, Carolina. It is not true that for you to maintain a healthy body and behaviors that you need to beat yourself up. That's actually false. And we have evidence of that. Do you want to know what the evidence is? Yeah. You escape and you go in the other direction. so it actually doesn't work and it doesn't feel good. And I've never had success with a client who hated exercise and hated eating healthy long. It just doesn't work. So we have to find a way for you to actually enjoy doing it. And the only way to do that is for you to switch the paradigm a little bit and treat yourself like you would your own child, which is like, Hey, I'm going to take care of myself.

1:11:55Yeah.

1:11:55Adam Schafer:Because otherwise taking care of yourself feels like stop tyrannizing yourself. So we got to stop that. Now I'm going to just let you know what this will look like. It's going to be, it would be, it's a scary process. And by the way, at the end of this, I'm going to give you more, more specific advice and maybe some, some directions to go. Okay. But initially it's scary because you've learned to lose weight through this process of beating yourself up. So initially when you stop beating yourself up and you start saying, I'm going to take care of myself a little bit you test it and so it looks like a little binging a little moving in this direction oh okay now i'm going to go back and then i'm gonna and you're going to kind of start to find the balance it's really important you give yourself grace and don't uh revert back to beating yourself up because it'll just keep doing what you're doing what eventually happens carolina by the way i'll just let you know that process eventually people give up and they're like i'm done beating myself up i'm done i'm just gonna enjoy my life that's it I'm over.

1:12:47Adam Schafer:I'm done. I'll never try this again. So, so that's kind of what it looks like. Now I can, there is a right way to do this in terms of like the structure and behaviors, but the root of it, the, the, the, the fuel, the thing that drives it has to be from self-care because everything I say after that doesn't work if it doesn't come from a self-care model. Does that, does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So reverse dieting in a nutshell, by the way, your metabolism is not broken. I want to you know, metabolism works. That's why you gain and lose weight. That means your metabolism is actually doing what it's supposed to.

1:13:21Adam Schafer:Uh, it's not broken. Uh, you're, you're, if it was broken, you'd be in the hospital. Let me put it that way. Uh, it's just adapting. Okay. So what we want to do is go through a process of building your strength, uh, improving how you feel about exercise, changing how you feel about nutrition and giving you something called flexibility, flexibility. So it doesn't feel so restrictive because no matter how you cut it, 1700 calories, two kids, busy mom, forever is going to feel restrictive, even if you're doing it the right way. It's just not that much. So we want to kind of move you in a direction where you've got more flexibility and you can eat more.

1:13:59Adam Schafer:And it feels like, you know, if you go off, it's not going to turn into something. I do want to say that I don't know if I made it sound like I didn't, but I do love exercise now. I walk every day, love the gym. However, it's 15 months and I have not had a single bite of food that was not on my, at least planned out. I don't think it's the exercise that's the issue. I think it just comes paired with the nutrition, but I don't, I don't think exercise is the issue. It's the, it's the nutrition. It's the food. By the way, I'm going to straight up. That's the hardest part for everybody. There isn't a single person where the exercise isn't easier than the nutrition because food is connected to everything.

1:14:41Adam Schafer:It's what you eat every day. It's connected to celebrating. It's connected to like your feelings. It's also marketed all the time and you're surrounded by really tasty food all over the place. It's super cheap and easy to get. And so that's the hard part. Engineered to be addictive. Yeah, that's the hard part is going to be the exercise. It won't be the hard part with the exercise part. We're just going to try and get you strong. That's what we're going to try and do. Get you really like getting strong.

1:15:03Sal Di Stefano:What does the training look like right now? What are you doing as far as you're lifting? So I do three to four days a week, and it's kind of just like a chat GPT program, but buys and tries, chest and back, lower body. I'm in there for like an hour and 20 minutes.

1:15:19Adam Schafer:Oh, we're going to give you a program that's way better. Do you want to go to a gym then? Yeah, which off comment here, I pulled up to the gym on Monday, and there was an eviction notice on the door. Oh, darn. I don't know what I'll be doing, but I'll be doing something. I hope you didn't do one of those prepaid memberships.

1:15:36Sal Di Stefano:I hate it when Jim do that. Are you in a rural area? Are you near another gym? I am. The issue is the child care aspect because I have to bring the kids. But I'll figure something out.

1:15:50Adam Schafer:Good, good. Are you open? So here's the deal. So what I said is definitely the path. It's going to be really hard because it's going to feel super uncomfortable for a while. Because you're going to do this kind of like back and forth, and I don't know if I can treat myself like somebody I care about. Now I'm going to beat myself up. How dare I? I can't believe I went off and I went off big time. And it's going to be this kind of up and down. A hundred percent, it's going to be up and down. A hundred percent, you're going to feel like you're running and then you're going to fall on your face. You're going to want to get back up and keep going.

1:16:19Adam Schafer:You would do really well with a coach through this process. Like your success rate is going to quadruple if you work with someone who can check in with you and work through this process with you. and give you grace every time you stumble. Is that something that you're open to? It a hundred percent is. And I totally agree with you. It's just the, I can't really afford it right now. I a hundred percent agree, but right now it's not feasible. We have, we have different options. We have one that's called concierge, which is a much, much lower cost. And you would meet with somebody once a month and you could check it out and just see and have someone call you.

1:16:59Adam Schafer:In the meantime, I'm going to send you a program that I think is good called Maps Muscle Mommy. I think you would love that. You'd be in the gym, I think, three days a week. It's going to be way better than the ChatGBT's program. Thank you. Also, just regardless, whether you work with one of our coaches or not, I'd like to see you in 30 days. So at least we could check in on you. Yeah. Okay. Are you hitting protein targets? Tell me the specifics about what you're doing with your 17-year-old calories. Yeah. So I'm, I've reversed up to 1800 now. Um, but I'm one of those weird people that I've heard you guys talk about that has no issue getting protein in.

1:17:36I, I get 160 to 180 grams from, um, all from, um, natural food. I don't supplement.

1:17:43Adam Schafer:Good. Good. So, yeah, no, you're doing great. Now is how structured is your diet? Is it like the same? Are you meal prepping everything and making it all the same? Yeah. Very, very structured. Yeah. Okay. If you end up not working with a coach, I want you to ponder this. So if you feel like you can do it, do it. If not, then stay the course until you feel like you can. I would like for you to have a day where you don't eat exactly the same foods. Okay. Okay. And what you're going to do is you're going to kind of dip your toe in the water. And if you go way off on that day, give yourself grace, get back on and go again.

1:18:20Adam Schafer:But we've got to kind of play with moving outside of this really rigid structure. Yeah. Otherwise, because it's unsustainable to do this forever.

1:18:29Sal Di Stefano:I'd actually like to put her in the Muscle Mommy group with Corinne. She's going to get calls weekly with a coach in there. She has a group of women that most of them are reverse dieting. What she's going to learn in there and support and help. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, especially if – obviously, having a coach one-on-one every week would be the most ideal thing, but I understand the financial thing, so I'd like to put her in the Muscle Mommy group.

1:18:49Adam Schafer:All right. So if you end up not working with a coach, you get that at least. We'll put you in there. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you.

1:18:54Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I just want someone, because like Sal's saying, the advice is easy that we can give you. It's the week to week. It's inevitable. We're going to have some setbacks. And having somebody talk you off that ledge when you do and remind you that this is not that, like, you're okay. This is great. It's fine. No big deal. It happens. Now we do this. Through that process, it's just, you can't put a price on it. It's so valuable, and it's what it'll take, and it'll take a while to get there. But the other side of this is amazing. And the other side of it looks like not tracking calories and having some flexibility to still enjoy some foods that are enjoyable and still be able to maintain a very healthy, fit physique and be strong and have energy and eat a lot more calories than where you're at.

1:19:40Sal Di Stefano:And so you're at a good place, though. I think you have the right attitude already with exercise. And it's really the diet thing and building that confidence. And we'll get there. We will. We're going to help you through it.

1:19:51Adam Schafer:What I hear from you is you sound like you got some good resolve. Like, you know what? I'm going to do this different this time. Yeah. Which is really, really positive.

1:19:59Sal Di Stefano:Huge. That's positive.

1:20:01Adam Schafer:Really, really positive to hear that. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. Thank you. And like the way that it's gone before, and you guys are totally right, like I would lose 150 pounds in, I don't know, 10 months. And then I'd have one binge and then completely off the rails. Off the rails. Literally just one. And that's all it takes for me. So that's, that is common. That is super common. What I want you to do, if that happens again, okay. Is when it happens, I want you to write, this sounds silly. Please try this. Okay. I want you to write a letter to yourself, giving yourself grace and then encouraging yourself to continue to get back on track.

1:20:39Adam Schafer:And it literally like you're writing a letter to your kid. Like that's how I want you to talk to yourself. Yeah. And it sounds silly. It sounds super dumb. but writing your thoughts out gets it out of that emotional reactive state. It's also a buffer between one binge and the next and the next. And you're going to give yourself grace. You start with that. Hey, I totally understand. This is really hard. I get it. Like that type of deal. And then encourage, don't say you better get back on, but encourage yourself. You can do it tomorrow. I want you to start it again. Just like you talk to your kid.

1:21:12Adam Schafer:Just like you talk to your kid. Same way you talk to your kid. It sounds silly, but it is really effective at breaking that. cycle.

1:21:18Sal Di Stefano:We're going to stay in touch with you. We'll see you in 30 days. We're going to stay in touch with you. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Thank you, guys. You got it. Thanks for calling out. See you in 30 days. Bye.

1:21:31Adam Schafer:That's tough. She's at a good spot, though, right now. I just got to say this for people listening. For sure. 100%. Hiring a good coach. I say good because there's a lot of coaches out there. 100 % it's among it's among one of the most expensive investments in fitness you can make a gym membership doesn't come close our programs don't come close like hiring a trainer in comparison to all the other things you can do or invest in with fitness is the most expensive thing okay that being said it the you get the best odds of long-term success with a good coach and it doesn't even come close. So for anybody listening who's like, oh, it's a big investment.

1:22:18Adam Schafer:Yes, it is. But a good coach, let me tell you, if you're over having to deal with this and you're over having to live your life a particular way, you're like, I just want this fixed forever. Nothing will get you there. It's a psychological battle.

1:22:32Sal Di Stefano:You got somebody in your corner that way for sure. And it's an investment because even after you're done with the, say, the three months or the six months or however it long takes to go through this, it forever pays itself back. That's right. And so up front, it can be for a lot of people. But once you get to – and she's already proven that she can lose the weight.

1:22:52Adam Schafer:Yep.

1:22:53Sal Di Stefano:She's already proven that she knows that she can white-knuckle. But the way she does it. Yeah, she can white-knuckle herself down 150, 180 pounds. But to build a better relationship with that, it takes help in coaching. Totally. It's not as, again, easy advice, not simple to do. Our next caller is Michelle from Ontario. Hi, Michelle. How are you doing, Michelle? Hi, how are you guys? Good.

1:23:17Adam Schafer:How can we help you? So I'm currently trying to figure out how to get back on track of working out. So it's been kind of a while that I've been off. I've had a baby. He's 14 months old. So it was kind of a complicated pregnancy and birth. So just trying to get back into like getting back to myself and like working out. So I've just been like kind of wondering how to do that. I did purchase your PPL, I think the women's one. So I've been working with that and I just kind of finished phase one. So I've been wanting to start phase two this week. Okay. Was that the first like workout program you did since the pregnancy, since the baby was born?

1:23:59I went back to the gym a couple of times. My husband's a big kind of gym person. So he's kind of helped me there too. But going to the gym is, has been a little bit difficult just because of having my son. So I've just been trying to do stuff at home more. I guess like program wise, this would be like the first big thing that I've kind of gotten back into.

1:24:20Adam Schafer:Okay. And then what about history? Any exercise history before you had your. Yeah. I used to go to the gym quite often. I would say maybe like two, I would say three times, sometimes four times a week. This was before I had my son. And then just once I got pregnant, I couldn't, I was put on bed rest. And that just kind of, I think. How long were you on bed rest for? I want to say almost three months. Oh, wow. Okay. And then how was the, how was the delivery? The delivery was kind of scary. So he came eight weeks early. So with that, I was put under, so I wasn't even like awake during it. The recovery after, so I did have a C-section.

1:25:00um so the recovery after like was definitely hard but like not as hard as i thought it would have been like i was up i may be like four or five hours after the surgery walking and moving around so i knew that that was a big thing that like i wanted to make sure that i was up and moving right

1:25:15Adam Schafer:away okay good good and then you said when when we opened that you need help getting back on track what do you mean by that i guess just trying to like manage my time and really focus on like what I can be doing working out wise. Like I obviously don't want to spend hours upon hours in the gym because I don't have that, but I also want to make sure that I'm using the time that I have efficiently and like getting workouts done properly. Yeah. And you also want to train appropriately. Yeah. Okay. So, um, I think PPL is the wrong program for you. Okay. Um, we, we want something that's good because there's been some changes to things like your pelvic floor, your core musculature.

1:25:58Adam Schafer:You also had a pretty traumatic process through pregnancy and birth, which also affects things like the central nervous system and whatnot. So we want to start with a program that's appropriate to start with, which may feel to you, I'm going to warn you, like it's too easy. Okay. So you might do it and you'll be like, this is not enough. but uh it's it's gonna it'll get you better results and it'll prevent things like burnout injury uh where the risk is a bit high considering all the things that you told me and put it on starter first yeah so i have a program called map starter and i'd love you to run that program we'll send that to you yeah and and i'm also looking through do you mind if i read through some more of your email that you sent in yeah okay maybe you doug you could scroll a little bit here.

1:26:48Adam Schafer:It says, uh, you had, uh, cortisol was low in the morning. So you had inverted cortisol. This was before a pregnancy. Yes. So I had done a bunch of testing with my family doctor and that's what we found out. So I was doing IV therapy to help with that. Okay. How's energy and everything feel now? Back to like what it was like low and like not there. Okay. That makes that helps me a lot okay so we also don't want again like i thought with how the cns is being impacted uh we have to be very careful and judicious with how we apply stress which is what strength training uh will do and so if it's right you're gonna feel good if it's wrong you're just gonna be the doing the workouts and be like why do i still feel like you feel like wore out or why do I feel wore out?

1:27:39Adam Schafer:Yeah. Okay. Uh, so this just confirms map starter for me even more. And what I want you to do, I'm going to add a little bit to it is I want you not just to follow map starter, but I want you to do it easy. Okay. So I want you to feel like you're going through the motions. Okay. And I want you to do that until you start to feel more energy and then you can increase it, the intensity a little bit. So be very like judicious. Okay. I'll go a little bit harder. I still feel good energy. I'll go a little harder. Oh, I'm crashing. Okay. I got to back off a little bit because we're going to heal your body through that process.

1:28:12Okay.

1:28:13Adam Schafer:Okay. Talk to me a little bit about nutrition. Probably definitely not the greatest. I feel like I barely eat. When I do eat, I probably eat way too much, but it's definitely like not enough. Okay. I could give you some pretty simple advice. It sounds like you're having a tough time, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. So I can give you some pretty basic advice to get you started. And I think hitting what I'd like you to start with is trying to hit your target body weight. Okay. And grams of protein. Just do that. Okay. And I want you to eat in the morning. I think that's the biggest thing is that, yeah, I don't eat in the mornings.

1:28:56Adam Schafer:So that'll help you manage your blood sugar and insulin, which may have a positive impact on the cortisol. Okay.

1:29:06Sal Di Stefano:Do you have an appetite at all or does it feel like you have no appetite? Depends on the morning, but it's usually like I don't have the appetite. And I probably don't eat until my son's down for his nap because I feel like that's when I have the time to eat. sometimes something light like a greek yogurt with berries or something like that to start when you're not when you're feeling that way because that's sometimes a chat like asking you to go eat a you know four eggs with meat and something heavy uh if you don't have an appetite um but if i don't if you're okay with like things like greek yogurt if you like that um some greek yogurt blueberries um they make stuff they make greek yogurt too that's already like higher in protein like 15, 20 grams in those little cups.

1:29:49Adam Schafer:Yeah.

1:29:49Sal Di Stefano:I have one or two of those to kickstart the day. That'd be really good. Yeah.

1:29:54Adam Schafer:So it's like, okay, what's my target body weight? And then you eat maybe a little less than that in grams of protein and just try to prioritize that. It's probably going to look like 30 to 40 grams of protein per meal. And so doing that, let's take a step back for a second though. I want to take a step back with you. Michelle, how does everything we're saying, how does that feel to you? Do you feel like, does it feel like you could do it? Do you feel like it's overwhelming? Not that it's overwhelming. I just, I've tried and like, I will say I've failed at it. So I know it's something like I need to be on top of better.

1:30:31Adam Schafer:Okay. You got a lot to manage, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Is it feasible for you to outsource this, to have a coach manage this for you? Financially, no. Okay. All right. That's okay. Because it's off of work right now, I have no income. Here's what we're going to do then, Michelle. We're going to put you on. We're going to have you back on in 30 days so we can check in with you again. Okay. Does that sound helpful?

1:30:53Sal Di Stefano:Yep.

1:30:53Adam Schafer:Okay. I'm going to encourage you a little bit, okay? It gets a lot better. Yep. I promise you it gets a lot better. Okay. It's one little step at a time. And the challenges are going to look like this, okay? You're going to do a little bit, and you're going to listen to what we're saying, and then you're going to start to feel better, and then you're going to feel like you need to go hard. Okay. And that's going to set you back. Okay. I want you to be real gentle with yourself. View the workout as something that just while I'm doing it, I feel good and I get a little time to myself. Don't view the workout like I need to get in shape.

1:31:28Adam Schafer:I need to build some muscle. I need to sweat. I need to push. I need to burn body fat. Yeah. Don't look at it that way. Just be like. You want to feel good. Just like, okay, here's my 35 minutes of me making myself feel better right now. Get energy from it. Like right now it's going to make me feel better. So it's going to look right now, probably with the energy and stuff you got going on, like you're kind of going through the motions and you're just kind of like, oh, that feels good. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.

1:31:52Sal Di Stefano:Any idea on your activity level throughout the day, like your steps? Do you know how many steps you take a day? I did start trying to track it. And at one point, I was hitting at least 8 ,000. It's just, it all depends on the day. And I know that has been a goal of mine is to make sure that I am hitting it, 8 ,000 at least. Now, so even better way to do that, if I was coaching you, would be to just kind of monitor what a normal week looks like because maybe 8 ,000 is double what you do on a normal day that you're not trying.

1:32:21Adam Schafer:It's too big of a jump.

1:32:22Sal Di Stefano:It's too big of a jump. And part of this key, and if you're not picking up on it from Sal, is we want to set very easy goals that we can win and build consistency versus doing the most you can do. I'm not trying to do the most you can do every day. I want to know, okay, looks like in a normal week when you're not even trying, you only step three to 4 ,000 steps. Okay. So if that's the case, the goal is 6 ,000 steps a day. I just, okay, let's just try and get 6 ,000. And so it looks like going through the workout like Sal's saying where you're taking care of yourself, you're going through the movements.

1:32:57Sal Di Stefano:It's more therapeutic than it is push and grind and sweat and do that thing. And then it's, hey, make sure I get my walks in today so I hit my 6 ,000 steps. That's what it looks like. and it looks like let's just be consistent with that and let's do our best to try and get that protein and even if you have a day where you have a setback it's okay we get right back on the horse tomorrow we'll make sure we're better about it starting early in the morning get that greek yogurt in and like that's what it looks like and it looks like just building some consistency around that and momentum versus i feel good today so i'm gonna go after it as much as i can and then all sudden you feel like crap and then it sets you back and then you feel then you beat yourself up like you failed.

1:33:34Sal Di Stefano:And it's like, so we want to avoid that and just build some consistency.

1:33:38Adam Schafer:Think of it like this, Michelle. Think of it like this. Right now, you need to be taken care of a little bit. So the workout and the nutrition, I want you to think like, okay, I'm going to take care of myself right now. And so the workout, like I said, it's going to feel gentle because right now that's what you need. What you don't need is to get stressed, to feel the stress of the workout. Yeah. And just do that for a little while. And I promise you, it's going to get better. Yeah. I promise you it's going to get better. okay okay i'm gonna send you map starter and we're gonna have you back on in 30 days

1:34:09Sal Di Stefano:okay thank you okay and literally between now and then the just good goal is like i said just move the steps up a little bit from what your normal would be and be consistent with that and and get consistent with the breakfast with some protein in it if you come back in 30 days and you've like hey i've got my workouts they're feeling good i'm making my steps i'm doing better on a protein that's a huge win in 30 days right there yep that's a good and a good goal good goal for us to do that and be consistent with it so let's set that as our first goal between now and seeing you again in 30 days and then we'll stack on that later yep okay sound good that does thank you yes we got this yeah we're gonna do this you're gonna be good we'll see you in 30 okay yeah see you in 30 thank you bye thank you she's having a tough time oh i can feel i can feel it

1:34:57Adam Schafer:too i could feel it too yeah well so bed rest for three months it's rough and then emergency c-section

1:35:04Sal Di Stefano:oh it's traumatizing well you could i mean come on she you could see her holding back the tears just just you asking her about it i know yeah yeah no for for sure very very traumatic if it's still

1:35:15Adam Schafer:affecting her that way but the workout first off workouts are always self-care so i want people to understand uh they're always self-care sometimes it looks like i'm pushing my body to adapt because that is what self-care is. In her case, pushing her body to adapt with exercise is not going to help her. It's to heal right now. That's it. Yeah, we got to heal. She has to feel good right now. And that's what the exercise should be for her. Our next caller is Sandy from Connecticut. Hi, Sandy. Hi, Sandy. How you doing? Hello. Good to see you. Welcome back. Thank you. Good to be back. Give us the update.

1:35:46Adam Schafer:You look healthy, by the way. I do? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. All right, give us some updates. um okay so uh up and down stuff it's it's been a very different 30 days than the first 30 so um more stressful situations um because i didn't have enough you know so uh continuing the emails and things for the the lawsuit going on and you know having to fill out paperwork and affidavits and all that jazz. So, so that's, that's going on. The, I have made the decision that I am going to go to the sentencing at the court, the end of the summer. So that'll be, I don't know why, just want to be there.

1:36:41My daughter's been going through some medical stuff, some challenges, health issues, and a lot of testing being done to, and they haven't got a definitive diagnosis on anything yet. We're still waiting for some, some test results. So that's been stressful. But, you know, she is feeling better. And, you know, with just some diet changes and things and some supplements. So I'm feeling hopeful about that. And what else? Well, that's kind of on the stress side of things. However, with that said, I have to say my thinking and attitude about it is different than in the past. Like I said, I'm feeling hopeful.

1:37:29I helped her make a few changes with things, and I'm seeing the positive things. Yep, this court stuff is stressful, but it's coming to an end. And so I can move on, you know, and figure out, you know, what life is going to be. So getting past it kind of thing. My sleep is better. And I don't really know why, because I haven't changed anything as far as making myself sleep better. Like I'm not taking any medications or supplements or I'm following the same routines and things. I did start wearing my Fitbit these 30 days while I sleep just to get some real data on it. And it was averaging four to five hours.

1:38:17And then I bumped all the way up to six or seven hours. I had three nights in the past 30 days at seven and a half hours, which is a lot. This week, I dropped back down to an average of five. I don't really know why, but anyway, so it feels better, though. So that it is better. So that's good. And what else? Community stuff. I met with the pastor at the church one on one and just kind of told them how much life has sucked for the past couple of years and and why I was there and what I was looking for. And I officially joined this last Sunday. And it was kind of a presentation at the church. It was kind of cool.

1:39:05It was also another couple joined. So they're just such a welcoming community and things. So there's a lot of committees that they have and groups and things that they do. So they were talking to me about that. I did go to the social hour after and things are talking to me about that. Like, what do I want to, what do I want to do? And a lot of it is they're, they're kind of a sit around kind of group of people, which I am not. So I wanted, I want to contribute something in my wheelhouse, you know, kind of thing. So I'm really noticing, I'll say, you know, like there's 50 to 60 of us at service each week.

1:39:52And I'll say a third of them are complaining about aches and pains and illnesses and things. And, you know, people with walkers and canes and, you know, their highlight is telling about their pain of the week or their new diagnosis or whatever. So I kind of want to introduce maybe some exercise in life, but not use that word because I know it would freak them out. I love that. Can I give you an idea?

1:40:21Sal Di Stefano:I love that. give you an idea i think yeah please that's not as as scary to those type of people for like exercise is a walking group yep i think that's a great idea start a walking group within that community and yeah and the church yeah that's yeah i think that would i think that's a great idea because you know it's the church is on this cute little street flat surface and stuff so we could walk right there and you know instead of you know what i'm sitting with them in the social flour and they all have their coffee and their cake. And, you know, it's like, you're telling, you're sitting here talking about all your health issues, eating cake, what are you doing?

1:41:01You know, obviously don't say those things, but maybe let's grab a water and go for a walk. Anybody want to come? I love that idea. That would be so good.

1:41:11Adam Schafer:Puts you at serve and you're, you're serving. It's a great way to build community. And it's something you're offering that I think is so valuable. Yeah. My son, he works for Anytime Fitness. I don't know if I'd mentioned that before, but he's, he developed the, got consulted with somebody. I don't remember the guy's name, but anyway, did and has developed the Ageless program. Oh, wow. Ageless Fitness. And he's, he's huge. He's six, six and, you know, muscle man and all these little old ladies and guys that he works with just feel so safe with him. Um, you know, they, he works with a guy in his eighties who falls cause he had a stroke and, you know, Kyle catches him and things.

1:41:57So I was thinking about asking him maybe to come in to one of the, they have a lot of different groups in the evenings and things, and maybe just talking to them about the ageless program and so wonderful.

1:42:08Adam Schafer:Yes, I love that. Because he knows what he's talking about, too. At the very least, he can offer advice that's wonderful. Yeah. If I can get him to do it. But just to hopefully spark. He can motivate anybody to exercise. And he sent me a video last week of this 92-year-old woman walking across the gym unassisted. Wonderful. And she started in a wheelchair. So it's that kind of stuff. So anyway, I thought maybe with his motivation to might spark some interest and I could get him to do something. So what else? Oh, I did connect with a women's shelter in town that is a 24 bed facility for recovering addicts.

1:42:55They needed stuff. They needed kitchen items and those kind of things. So I just went through the house and, you know, I have plenty of stuff and brought over a bunch of boxes of stuff and whatever I can do to help them. So, again, looking for things that don't cost money, but you can still do with people to help. So what else have I done?

1:43:19Adam Schafer:It says you got a lot stronger in your email, Sandy. Yeah, you know, so here's my frustrations and stuff. So, yes, I definitely feel stronger. And it just seems like it's happening fast. And I'm almost back to the weight that I was lifting, you know, prior to the train going off the track with the hormone mess up and then the knees and all that jazz. And it's like, wow, this is really fast. And then I was thinking, well, maybe it is some of that muscle memory you guys talk about, you know. bouncing back from things so yeah that went back to um like leg presses and things like i had to stop on the leg press machine when my knees were so bad because it was just so much inflammation and and pain and you know i was a little leery of it greg was starting light you know like i started at um what was the weight it was 135 pounds just to start and i'm up to 225 Yeah.

1:44:29So. Nice. So that's good. The, in the sled, when I first started doing the sled again, I was again getting a lot of inflammation in my knees, but I'm not anymore. And so we just kept pushing through and I started at 165 and I'm up to 265. Wow. So.

1:44:52Sal Di Stefano:That's great. So that feels good. Yeah. Um, it's, it's funny cause there's, I, I struggle with, um, the barbell, uh, press, anything that I'm laying on a bench or even deadlifts because I feel a strain in my back when I do those things. So my tendency is to, you know, try and then say, I can't do it because of my back. And, you know, Greg said, no, you can't do it because of your head. Get out of your head and pick the bar. So, you know, so I am. I'm doing it. So if there's anything, that was one of my questions this week, if there's anything you can advise as far as any, maybe some more priming things that to strengthen that back for those specific lifts.

1:45:42So and I think part of it is I'm worried a little bit. I feel a little unsafe. I feel like I might hurt my back and I don't, I cannot be out of the gym again. So anything for that.

1:45:56Adam Schafer:It sounds like, so you have your coach, so you're doing it with your coach, right? Yes. Okay. So listen to his prompts, brace your core when you're doing the lifts. And if you don't feel safe going heavier, don't. And just say, okay, I just want to stay at this weight and maybe I could slow the reps down. And so, and then embrace your core because we can happen sometimes we can overarch. our backs. So we're trying to be straight, but what ends up happens, we overarch. And the way you offset that is you brace your core like you're trying to brace it as if someone's going to poke you in the stomach while you're doing the lift.

1:46:29Adam Schafer:Yeah. I arch my back a lot. Yeah. So overarching will make it feel like there's some shearing pressure in the low back. Okay. Yeah. I still can't get my arms flat against the wall when I'm doing the priming, you know. That's hard. as long as you're making progress you got a lot stronger yeah your sleep is improving you're building community this is like some of the best progression i've seen 60 days the

1:46:55Sal Di Stefano:downside yeah you're doing great like you're killing it i can see it in your face too you look good yep yeah well thank you um i gotta say though the the the other priming exercises i'm rocking it i mean i never thought i could make my arm go all the way around on the wall because the first time I tried it, there was like, no way. This is impossible. It's like, I think Justin and Doug have rubber bands instead of bones because I can't do this, and I'm doing it. Not a problem. That's awesome. And the squats, everything, but not the arms on the wall. Cannot get them there. That's a tough one. That's a tough one, Sammy.

1:47:37Sal Di Stefano:That's a tough one. That's a tough one for me. It's a tough one for all of us.

1:47:39Adam Schafer:But if you're seeing improvements everywhere, I mean, you're chipping away. This is 60 days. Yeah, yeah. It's only 60 days. Like, this is, you're kicking butt. Yeah. My back is better, much better. But I do stiffen up after my workouts. And, you know, unfortunately, I'm going from a workout to sitting at a desk. And it's just so stiff and sore. But so the downside. Do you know how to do pelvic tips, tilts? Do you know how to do pelvic tilts? Just going to say. Yes, I know how. And when you said that, I can't even tell you the last time I really practiced it or was prompted to do it. So you could practice pelvic tilts while seated.

1:48:21Adam Schafer:A better way to do it is laying on your back with your knees bent. And you'll have a natural arch in your low back. And you just flatten the low back. Squeeze your core. Let it arch back up. Flatten. Let it arch back up. Flatten. Butt stays on the floor the whole time.

1:48:34Sal Di Stefano:Squeeze our glutes really tight, especially when you go to bridge and hold it at the top and reinforce that. Come back down. adjust so your back is super flat again then we go back do we have a pelvic tilt video on mind pump tv that would be a good primer for you to do uh before anyone even afterwards yep yep okay yeah okay great good i will do that will help kind of reinforce that strength okay the downside is the nutrition um i i think just with stuff going on And I got sloppy with tracking and planning and prepping everything. It just kind of.

1:49:12Adam Schafer:That's fine. And then I got all in my head about that. It's like, oh, my God, I failed. I don't want to go back on the podcast, tell the guys I didn't do what I was supposed to do. Sandy, Sandy, I don't care. Don't trip about it. Honestly, God, you know, can I tell you something real quick? I'm actually happy you stopped tracking. I think it was just too much control, too many things to worry about, which is probably why you stopped. And everything else is doing great. I don't care. I don't care. If you want to get back to tracking, go for it. Just try to make healthy choices for now. I'm not worried about you tracking right now.

1:49:44Well, I know I didn't up my calories much, which, you know, I get so frustrated that I don't see, physically see the progress. In fact, I lost my mind because I had a couple events in this past 30 days that people took pictures and posted on Facebook. and oh my god i'm not gonna i'm gonna stop you right there i'm not gonna let you do this to

1:50:08Adam Schafer:yourself when you look at the bar that you're lifting do you see a difference between when you started and now yes yeah so there's a difference you see something i do i do as long as i don't look at my reflection i don't want to hear but you're moving in the right direction and your body's going to follow yeah what we're seeing right now is change so let me put it this way

1:50:30Sal Di Stefano:You're shifting.

1:50:30Adam Schafer:The Sandy that leg pressed one 35 is not the same Sandy that leg pressed 220 pounds. You're actually different. It's fundamentally different. Okay. Now the changes might not be big enough for you to notice in the mirror. And that might be because it's subtle. It also might be because you might be overly critical, but it's only been 60 days. You are moving in the right direction. I know. And Greg says it's been 60 days. I know I want, I want to get to 365. Don't, don't get in your head about that. That'll, that'll slow everything down. Just you're doing, you're great. I'm glad you're not tracking.

1:51:07Adam Schafer:If you want to get back to it, go for it, but it feels like too much. Don't do it. You're, and you're eating enough. Obviously you got stronger.

1:51:12Sal Di Stefano:A better, a better goal nutritionally than getting back to like tracking everything is like, if you know, um, most people have a thing that they're, they know that I'm bad at skip, I skip breakfast, or I know that I should have ate this time. That should have been more protein, set a nutrition goal like that. Instead of getting more into tracking every single calorie or trying to like, where, where do you skip a meal or where could you make a better choice? And like, just that one thing, it's like, Hey, I'm going to be more consistent with starting my day with this meal or ending my day with this meal or making sure I have this many ounces of meat when I, whatever the thing is, instead of like making it a big deal about the, every single thing that you consume or all day tracking, it's like, I know I could be a bit better at this time of the day with my food, I'm going to make it a goal to make that choice there or add that protein shake, whatever it is, but make a simple goal nutritionally and just focus on that versus the whole thing.

1:52:07Well, yeah, that would be dinner because, you know, I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch every single day. Okay, good.

1:52:14Sal Di Stefano:So simple. So if I could just, because sometimes I just find myself, I'm hungry, I go grab something and it tends to be nuts or something. And then I like, oh my God, they're so high in fat. And, you know, I started beating myself up about that because I didn't pay attention to how much and it's like, oh, so I would say snacks and dinner. If I could get a grip on that, I'll feel good. There you go. So let's just focus on one of those things. Let's do that. Let's just focus on one of those things and be more consistent with it. And if the one day happens when you're not perfect, it's not a big deal.

1:52:48Sal Di Stefano:Tomorrow we'll be good about it. Just focus on that one thing versus tracking every single thing and overthinking it. Just focus on that one thing.

1:52:55Adam Schafer:I'm going to tell you, you helping other people is going to make it so much better for how you are with yourself. You doing the thing where you went to the women's shelter, maybe starting this walking group, I think that's going to be so awesome. I think it's so good.

1:53:10Sal Di Stefano:Being way less critical about yourself.

1:53:12Adam Schafer:In 30 days, let's check in and see how those went. Okay. Yeah. yeah that's really i guess i i started beating myself up because i felt like i failed you guys you know it's like all i had to do was be good for 90 days and i blew it how the heck could you fail us you're killing it even if you didn't by the way i'm gonna tell you something sandy even if you didn't get stronger even if you get on here right now we checked so many other boxes guys listen i couldn't do anything i couldn't do any of it i'm really stuck right now you showed up you showed up you got back on the call with us I did you're doing great we'll see you in 30 days Sandy okay great we love you thank you bye she's so sweet connecting with her community helping other people is so good it's going to be so positive because you see how quickly she wanted to switch to like It turns it back in.

1:54:13Adam Schafer:Yeah. Like I'm terrible. First off, objectively, you're kicking ass. Yeah. Objectively. Yeah. So it's just inaccurate. I think that's just a tendency and we got to stop that. But I think helping other people to be such a great, such a great thing to do. Our next color is Jackson from Florida. What's up, Jackson? What's up, Jackson? Hey guys. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate it. You got it, man. How can we help you? I got to say, first off, The biggest thing I've taken away from you guys is the less is more. So thank you for that. I'm going to jump into my question here. And it revolves around bulking and cutting.

1:54:51I've been training for around 20 years. And while I'm definitely stronger than when I was 15 years old, it feels like I'm somewhat treading water. I've always looked stronger than most of my peers, but I've never really uncovered my abs, which I'd say is kind of my biggest, kind of what I'm looking to do. So to get some added context, about three years ago, I herniated my L5 deadlifting. I was doing MAPS anabolic, and unfortunately, your program worked way too well. I was getting super strong, doing like 500 pounds for around three reps with a hex bar. I tried everything, but eventually had to get surgery after about a year and a half of recovery.

1:55:27I'm back in the gym now with mostly no limitations. Biggest thing, I'm hesitant to do squats or deadlift under about seven or eight reps. The closest I've come to feeling ripped, I would say, is when I cut down to about from 187 to 180, about six foot tall. And I was using Lane Norton's Carbon app, tracking all my food to kind of get down and figure out where that was. With all that being said, my main question would be to try and look better with a shirt off living in Florida, going into summer. Do you all recommend cutting down to a lower body weight and then hitting maintenance calories? um do you bulk first uh do you you know like i'm just kind of trying to figure out like if i were to try to bulk first i feel like i'd largely add fat since i've been doing so since i've been training for so long um and then just a real quick side note for this specific question uh i just am getting over mono um i'm about a week uh at this point it's more like two weeks into training and i'm probably functioning at about an rpe8 at this point um and i'm just kind of ramping that up slowly.

1:56:34I lost seven pounds during mono. So I'm right around 180 from where I normally sit at 187. So I'm less weight, but I didn't lose it in a good way. I lost it because of the mono. So where do I go from here for both training and nutrition? And in the future, when mono is kind of out of the question, what would sort of your standard advice be?

1:56:55Adam Schafer:Yeah, good. So let's back up for a second. What was the surgery that you had? It was a discectomy. Okay, so you have no disc or they replace it? They just shaved out a little bit. Okay, okay. All right, all right. So you're okay with not squatting or deadlifting below seven reps, and you're totally, with your experience, because you sound, I mean, you're using terms like RPE, you've been strength training for a long time. Split stance exercises are perfectly fine for a guy like you. Yep. So because you've probably built up your squat at different moments of your life to pretty good numbers, you could switch to split stance exercises is if you want to go heavy and then stick to the higher reps with the squats, you'll be totally fine.

1:57:32Adam Schafer:Okay. As far as the deadlift is concerned, you could always treat that just with lots of respect. Once again, because you did get your weight so high. So like you, I mean, you could pull, you pulled a lot of weight. So I wouldn't, you're not a guy that'd be like, nah, let's challenge it. No, no, we'll just, we'll just do the deadlifts and maintain them and get stronger on other lifts. If you feel like it's a big risk. Do you know what you're eating now, what your calories look like now by any chance? Uh, yeah, I'm right around 3 ,100, I'd say for maintenance. 3 ,132. Yeah, dude.

1:58:03Sal Di Stefano:And you know where you're active, active job. What do you do for work? I make ice cream actually. Oh, really? Yeah. Like literally like, like your ice cream truck. What do you do? Well, no. So I'm, I'm like the batch planner and, uh, like purchaser and stuff for, we make, we make like three gallon tubs for scoop shops and stuff here in Florida. Oh man. You'd be a dangerous friend of mine. I was just going to say, it's what I'm about to call you. Yeah. It's pretty great. Yeah. We couldn't, we couldn't hang out, bro. It'd be all bad.

1:58:27Adam Schafer:drug dealer taking me down a few times well okay so when you're over the mono your calories aren't a bad you're they're good you could definitely cut from there and i don't do your body weight is you're probably already relatively lean would you do you have a guess for what your body fat sits at you know doing all right if i had to guess i'd say i'm like 14 15 oh yeah i look a little even at this like new one i i said 180 i'm more like 182 probably doesn't matter to you guys um So I definitely look a little fluffier, though, than what I would think I should look like at that weight. Well, you just had mono, and you're still in that.

1:59:03Adam Schafer:But under normal circumstances, if you're eating like 3 ,100, 3 ,200 calories, 14 % body fat, you could go in a deficit, go down to 2 ,500, 2 ,400. That'll get you down to 11, 10%. percent. So it wouldn't be hard to do that.

1:59:18Sal Di Stefano:Also keep in mind, because the goal to see abs and be strong are kind of conflicting. Yeah. Right? So just, and I heard you say that earlier when you're talking about like wanting to get stronger in your lifts and things like that and where you've already been and where you're heading. And then wanting to see abs. And they're kind of two different things. Like if I'm going to focus on seeing abs, I'm not really tripping about how heavy of a weight I'm lifting because I'm going to be weaker. I'm going to be low calorie. I'm depleted. being that low is not ideal. So definitely make sure that's not like in your head of like, oh man, I'm only doing this now.

1:59:51Sal Di Stefano:It's like, let that go. If we're going to head that way, if we're going to say, let's see how shredded we could get, just accept that you're not going to be, your lifts aren't going to be going up. They're going to be going the other direction more than likely.

2:00:02Adam Schafer:Now, if I had to pick one, because especially because you're coming out of motto, is I would go into building and I would build for maybe 45, 60 days and then I'd go on the cut just because you're coming out of getting sick. So would you keep it like maintenance calories or would you add 100, 200 kind of thing? I think I would add a little bit with some strength training. Yeah. And you're going to see some strength gains anyways coming out of illness. So I'd get up to like 3 ,300 calories. At least.

2:00:27Sal Di Stefano:Maybe 35. I feel like you have a healthy metabolism. You could probably jump up to 3 ,500 calories and be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I think honestly, the biggest thing that I find when I'm like eating higher calorie amounts is like I get to the end of the day and it's like, well, we got to have a bowl of ice cream kind of thing. It's like I'm eating, I think I guess I just got to add more like fatty meats and things like that in order to not do that. Because I think something can be said about a calorie is a calorie, but also there's things that, you know, go way beyond that. No, I mean, that can also be the thing.

2:00:59Sal Di Stefano:The one thing that's kind of keeping you that kind of fluffy feeling that you're feeling right now, too, is that you add calories, but then they come from things like ice cream. So which I could totally relate to what that's like. And it's a big difference of you. and sometimes okay just so you know um so this is a sign that when i'm not eating enough calories so in an easy way without me getting crazy and tracking for me to kind of lean out get ripped build muscle it's like kind of the goldilocks zone is when i'm still at the end of my day and i know i've had my meals i've hit my protein and i'm still hungry and then i go get ice cream or something like that simply just not having ice cream and making another meal makes a huge difference just like just saying okay obviously my metabolism saying i want more calories still so I'm building muscle.

2:01:41Sal Di Stefano:I'm ramping up. If I could just discipline myself to not go have the 800 calories of basically sugar and go have a 500 calorie high protein meal, oh man, that's a... If you feel that, sometimes that's that metabolism ramping up and saying, I still want more food and I'm too low a calorie.

2:02:01Adam Schafer:On the flip side, if you get to 3 ,100 calories, you've hit your protein. At the end of the day, you're like, I'm full. I don't want to eat anymore. Then don't.

2:02:08Sal Di Stefano:then shut it down.

2:02:09Adam Schafer:You hit your protein. You're fine.

2:02:10Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Shut it down. Yep. Okay. That's cool. What? So it sounds like you're saying, go ahead and add some calories back in. Like I'm pretty close to being able to go back into the gym. I feel like a hundred percent. Um, so adding some calories back in trying to gain, would you, would you kind of try to stay like, like what sort of training do you guys look at when you're either, either in the gaining or kind of the, the more cutting phase like do you let that affect or is it just all strength training is trying to build

2:02:39Adam Schafer:muscle whether you're in a cut or in a bulk so it just really depends on well okay i'll give you i'll

2:02:44Sal Di Stefano:give you a tip for a guy who's advanced like you because uh do something novel yeah so if you are the person who typically would like follow a maps anabolic type of protocol then run something like a performance protocol or symmetry or strong or so like a good a good strategy for guys that have been lifting for a long, have a lot of experience in the gym and you want to build, uh, is doing something novel. Like if you've never done like a old timey lift, like that type of training, we have a program like that, like follow a program of ours that you normally wouldn't follow. You know what I'm saying?

2:03:15Sal Di Stefano:Instead of falling back into the kind of norm of what you do, go after something that you haven't and that novel stimulus with the additional calories, that'll put some good muscle on right away. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. I've actually, I've got map symmetry. So maybe I could run that one again. Um, cause I think that that's the one that does like the split stances that you're talking about. Yeah. That's perfect. That'll

2:03:36Adam Schafer:be good for you considering your low back injury. Okay. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I like that. Awesome. And then, um, you had mentioned, so after, after the, uh, the symmetry, you said either, was it performance or aesthetic that you would recommend? Oh, after symmetry, you could do performance, but you could also do almost any other program. And PPL would even be good if you want to do more of a bodybuilding split. Okay. Yeah. I'll, I'll check, I'll check them out. And I really appreciate, you know, you guys and kind of, I wasn't really thinking that you guys were going to say like build from here.

2:04:11And so that's kind of, that's some good advice to, to go build. And then from there to kind of cut down.

2:04:16Sal Di Stefano:So especially coming from off the model like that, that'll, that'll do well for you. Are you just, do you check, do you track your steps? Do you know what you do like per day? I don't actually get that many steps because of what I do for work. We have been renovating a house. And so like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I've been getting quite a bit of activity in, but that's stopped over the last month. And so my guess is my average step count is like 6 ,000. Okay. So I'm going to take further advice for you. So this is what this path looks like to me. Get up to 3 ,500 calories, follow symmetry, follow that through basically a full bulk and kind of stay there until you're kind of hovering around the weight.

2:04:53Sal Di Stefano:You're not gaining any more. You're not losing any weight. You're getting stronger through the program. Then when you go on the cut, cut it back down to 3 ,000 to 31 range and just bump steps by 2 ,000 steps a day. That's your first protocol. And then literally kind of keep your calories there and just try and increase your steps. And then go down a little bit on the calories, maybe down to 2 ,800. And just keep kind of playing that game of trying to slowly increase steps week over week while just kind of cutting a little bit of calories. And if we do a really good job, you should probably still be able to eat 25 to 2700 calories and be pretty shredded.

2:05:31OK, yeah.

2:05:32Sal Di Stefano:That's awesome. Yeah. If you get up to thirty five thirty five hundred calories, maintaining your weight, feeling good, put on a couple pounds of muscle. And then we just kind of slowly, incrementally come down in calories and then slowly incrementally go up in steps. That should be enough to nice lean you out really nice. OK. And the steps are basically just to get you that little extra bump in calories. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yep. Awesome. Cool. Well, hey guys, I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. You got it, man. All right, Justin. Thanks for calling in. All right.

2:05:59Yep. Bye.

2:06:00Adam Schafer:He'll do well.

2:06:01Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Healthy metabolism.

2:06:02Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah. Yep.

2:06:03Sal Di Stefano:He's strong. He's at that weight eating 3 ,100 calories, and he says he's pretty sedentary, actually. That's actually really - No, that's great. Yeah. He's in a good place. That's great. Yeah. He'll build it. He'll build it. You know, he said to me earlier, that's why I point out, you know, sometimes you have

2:06:15Adam Schafer:goals that are a bit conflicting oh yeah i want i want abs and be strong yeah it's like yeah that's

2:06:20Sal Di Stefano:a good point yeah yeah it's not going to do you so well uh trying to cut and then also and then that's what recipe for injury right you're pushing the weight like crazy because you're stuck on i want to get stronger but then you're also low calorie and it's just like then you get hurt

2:06:35Adam Schafer:trying to do that that's right look if you like the show come find us on instagram it's mindpump media thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin

2:07:03Sal Di Stefano:to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos,

2:07:12Adam Schafer:The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

2:07:20Sal Di Stefano:The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com.

2:07:30Adam Schafer:If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.