2914: 5 Rules for Building a Lagging Body Part (The Ones Nobody Tells You)

15:34Adam Schafer:Here's what the data says, okay? And I'll speak in sets so that it's much more applicable. Let's say on average for the week, you do 15 sets for back. How many sets do I need to do to not lose muscle in my back? Two to three. Two or three. Yeah. Two to three. So if you take four sets away and you're at 11, you're still building, everybody. You can go all the way down to two sets a week. That's one set on one day, one set on another day. Yeah. And you're not going to lose muscle. Nothing. So this trade-off isn't going to hurt you like you think it will. In fact, it hurts you if you don't do this.

16:11Adam Schafer:So if you're adding volume and frequency to a lagging body, it's got to come from somewhere. By the way, in order to do a proper volume trade, it has to be exercises that are similar or equivalent.

16:24Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you can't cut out three sets of bicep curls and add four sets of deadlifts. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not going to work.

16:32Adam Schafer:No, it's compound lift to compound lift, intensity to intensity. you know, type of deal. And lastly, this is a big one. If you want to build something, you have to eat in a calorie surplus. All right. So here's the problem. Oftentimes people say this, I want to build my butt, but I also want six pack outs. I want to bring up my chest, but I also want to drop 5 % body fat. All right. You got to choose one. You're not going to do both at the same time. In order to build anything, including a lagging body part, You have to feed yourself enough so that it can build. No matter how good your programming is, if you're eating in a calorie deficit, if you're eating less calories than you're burning, you're not eating enough protein, carbohydrates, and fats, you won't build.

17:12Adam Schafer:It doesn't matter how good the workout is.

17:13Sal Di Stefano:I mean, this is to both sexes, but I find this is really got to hammer this home for my female clients. My female clients are the ones that were mostly challenged with eating in a surplus to build those body parts. Totally. And you just have to. It's a muscle. It has to be fed. I don't care. You got the best training program, uh, in the world and getting the greatest recovery, taking all the best supplements. But if you're in a caloric deficit, uh, and doing all those things, you're just not going to build a butt. You're not going to build your delts. You're not going to build your legs and whatever the muscle is that you are lagging body part.

17:46Sal Di Stefano:Uh, if you don't give it the material, uh, required to build that tissue, it's just not going to. Totally.

17:52Adam Schafer:Now, earlier you brought up calves. I was reading this, this dude, there's these great posts uh and i brought some stuff up here um just to kind of did you did you see uh ai adam fat ai adam i had some great cats where yeah his his uh corvette the corvette video the

18:10Sal Di Stefano:boys made i got a lot of compliments like you know you actually don't look so bad as a fat guy you're a good big guy yeah yeah you had the hawaiian shirt yeah yeah i did see that dylan and then made it. I thought it was pretty funny. I love it.

18:24Adam Schafer:Our staff gets to poke fun at us with those videos all the time.

18:27Sal Di Stefano:You know, to that point, the audience, so they know, they may not know this, so much of our content we are unaware of. No, we see it the first time you guys see it. Even stuff that we shoot, they will just ask us questions or direct us in a way. We get surprised. But we're surprised, I'd say, eight out of ten times of like, oh, I had no idea that's where they were going with this. just so the audience knows.

18:53Adam Schafer:All right, so this guy did this post, and I don't know what his background is, but he was talking about biomechanic and anatomy advantages of athletes, and he was going down the list of like, there are certain - Big glute athletes. There are certain body parts, certain anatomical polymorphisms that benefit certain types of performance. And you see this, now first off, everybody can improve their athletic performance. Everybody can become faster. Everybody can become stronger just through training and practice. But when you get to the top levels of athleticism, what you see is this kind of self-selection bias of people who are gifted with movement, who also work hard, but also whose bodies are made for that particular sport.

19:38Adam Schafer:So a good example is like a swimmer. A top-level swimmer has really short legs and a really long torso, long arms and kind of this wide kind of back. Yeah, you look like a canoe. Anyway, this guy comes on and he was talking about calf insertions. I thought this was – now, we've observed this, right? But I thought it was really cool. So high calf insertions are really good for speed, like really good for speed because you have less muscle – Speed and jumping, right? Yeah, because you have less muscle mass lower on the lower leg, which creates less inertia. You also have a longer, larger tendon, which creates more stiffness and quickness.

20:16Adam Schafer:longer calf insertions produce more stability and force so i'm like thinking about that's why i can

20:21Sal Di Stefano:out that's why i can out jump justin hey listen as i breathe this i'm looking at your calves for sure dog for sure is that true not even close you might be able to out drive me you're taller you'd out drive me for sure definitely i'll jump you i thought it was i thought it was

20:37Adam Schafer:really cool because i'm thinking like top power lifters you could squat and deadlift they typically have long. That was never real great at vertical jumps. Yeah, but then short calves, you look at sprinters, they have these tiny little. I mean, look at all the basketball players.

20:48Sal Di Stefano:I mean, most basketball players don't have good calves. They're at least not like aesthetically good. They're like these high little balls. High and tiny. Uh-huh. Yeah. Makes them great for jumping.

20:58Adam Schafer:It's really, really cool. And it just got me thinking about all the different spots.

21:02Sal Di Stefano:I've heard Paul Fabritz break that down before. Did he really? Yeah, yeah. I've heard him break that down before, why that is. So how beneficial it was.

21:08Adam Schafer:I have sled moving calves, dude. it's funny because bodybuilding uh it really um i mean you get awarded for really long muscle bellies which is not great for uh like running sports for the most part you don't want super long yeah muscle bellies for running sports yeah that makes sense for strength sports you know it kind of makes a lot of sense yeah you know wrestlers probably do well i would think with

21:30Sal Di Stefano:long muscle bellies well i thought i think i think wrestlers are that was one of the sports that is the ideal mesomorph which is in the middle of everything yeah like i remember seeing like uh the semantotypes and then it like what sports and wrestlers tend to be the explosive and is endurance yeah they tend to be right in the middle they tend to like mesomorph is like perfect for

21:50Adam Schafer:wrestlers so it's a little bit of both i wonder if they've ever done like studies on box i know boxers uh heavy hitters tend to have bigger hands that makes sense right more mass yeah yeah but i wonder if they have like bigger heads i would imagine oh for sure like bigger skulls bigger

22:05Sal Di Stefano:heads first time i ever big school first time i realized that i was in my early 20s we were in Vegas. We were at the Hard Rock Cafe and there was a UFC fight that we were there for. Did you see Tito Ortiz? Yes. Have you ever seen him? Bro, Tito Ortiz got

22:19Adam Schafer:a toddler head. Bro, he looks like a bobblehead. In real life

22:23Sal Di Stefano:he looks like a bobblehead. I wouldn't mess with him. Yeah, he walked in the elevator and it like, pictures don't even do it justice. You have to see

22:33Adam Schafer:headbutt by him. You have to see that. You just hit him in the head. You have to see

22:37Sal Di Stefano:his melon in person. It's just, it's not, it's just, I mean, look, you can kind of tell on pictures, but it does, I mean, I've seen it, I had seen him on TV and pictures forever before I'd seen him in person. I've seen him in person. And he got in the elevator with me and I went, oh my God, like that, like his neck too. His neck. His face, like everything is like giant. Like a big square. It was this big giant, it was just like, oh my God, no wonder he could take a punch. Yeah. You know? I know. Yeah. Yeah.

23:02Adam Schafer:You'll see like really good jujitsu guys. Some of the best are like really lanky. They have long limbs and stuff. Tie you up with and choke you with and, you know, throw a triangle choke on you with these long ass legs. And it's pretty funny. But anyway, it's really interesting to me. So I like to, you know, I'm like thinking of different athletes and what some of the advantages that they would have, you know, as a result.

23:21Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

23:21Adam Schafer:Which is funny talking about swimming. I remember when I learned this about swimmers, about their body type. Of all the sports, it's the one sport where if you're built for it, you are not built for anything else.

23:32Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that's me.

23:33Adam Schafer:Like high level, you know, the polymorphism.

23:36Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, and I was trying to do everything else growing up. You know what I'm saying?

23:38Adam Schafer:You could have been an Olympic level swim. All you need is webbed fingers, dude.

23:44Sal Di Stefano:Narrow hips, thin legs, long arms, wide back, narrow waist. I mean, that's - You would have crushed. I was so mad. And swimming. You know, I see it's really - I'm excited, though. And maybe this is my redemption because I'm watching my son, and my son is like taking to the water like a fish right now. Yeah, yeah.

24:01Adam Schafer:Does he have your proportions? Do you see? It's hard to tell.

24:04Sal Di Stefano:He's a blend of Katrina and I, which - So I don't know if he's fully, it's hard to tell. There's times where it looks like he's going to be just like me. Then there's times where I kind of see her. He seems to be a little bit thicker than I was. But no, he's pretty thin and tall. So he looks like he might end up being like me. But he does look like he's got a little bit more thickness than I have. But not a lot. So he'll be close to my frame. But he definitely is already taken to the water.

24:31Adam Schafer:You know what's funny with kids too as they grow, especially when you go through puberty? They don't grow evenly. No. Like, you're like, whoa, dude. Oh, yeah, yeah. Disproportionate. Your feet grew, but everything else stayed the same. No, he's in that spurt like that right now. I just, I told Katrina that yesterday.

24:43Sal Di Stefano:I was just like, I was like staring at him. And she's like, what are you looking at? I'm like, he just, I said, he looks different right now. He's hit a growth spurt. I can't put my, I can't wrap my head around what I see different, but I can just, you know, when you probably look at your kids like that and you can see it. Yeah. Sometimes you're not even sure what it is. It's just like, yeah, he definitely looks like he's gotten older. Yeah. Speaking of him, Katrina, I didn't even know I did this. And she called me out on it. And I was like, I don't do that. And then I literally caught myself doing it right after I just told her I don't do that.

25:13Sal Di Stefano:I was like, oh, shit, I do that. I don't know how I do that. I have this habit that I guess my son does now is before he pees, he spits in the toilet. I just didn't.

25:24Adam Schafer:Why? Yes, you do do that. Oh, you've caught me doing it? Yes. I don't even. No, that's not just the you thing. I've seen. It's a relatively common thing. I always. In urinals. Every time I'm at a urinal, not every time, but oftentimes, a guy goes up, spits in it first, and then, what is that?

25:39Sal Di Stefano:I do it outside. I do it inside. It's a place you can do it. So I know I have a bad habit of spitting. So look that up.

25:47Adam Schafer:Why do men spit in the urinal before? We're focused on aiming things.

25:50Sal Di Stefano:I have a pretty good idea of what mine is. So because of my allergies and stuff like that, I constantly could get mucus buildup, and so I've always been a spitter because of that. I just get it out. I don't like that. It's gross to me. Stop, Justin. And so when I'm in a house, and I'm obviously not spitting outside, so the first thing I go to pee is the first appropriate place I could spit, and so I think that's why I do it.

26:12Adam Schafer:So AI says that men often spit before you - It's probably better to spit this wall. Stop, Justin. Men often spit before urinating as a subconscious way to relax and focus to clear out the unpleasant tastes. Somebody actually defined this for us? In public restroom.

26:27Sal Di Stefano:Well, I definitely feel like I clear out the unpleasant tastes and stuff in my mouth because I feel like it's like that. That's usually why people spit.

26:34Adam Schafer:Or simply as an ingrained learned habit. You're not the only one, dude. I see that. That's a good thing.

26:40Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I wasn't aware. I knew, I kind of knew I did it a little bit, but I didn't realize it was such a habit until she's like, oh, I see your son has your habit. And I'm like, what's that? And she goes, I watch him go pee now. And every time he pees in the toilet, he spits before he pees in the toilet. He got that from you. And I'm like, really? And then I literally right after that, I caught myself the next three times. That's such a dude thing. I was like, oh, wow, I do that.

27:02Adam Schafer:Just spit outside. Yeah. So gross. That's a move, dude. Yeah. Gross, dude.

27:08Sal Di Stefano:You know, I think what's more gross is when you, like, I have all that allergy mucus stuff going on inside of me. Like, keep it in there. That's worse. You know what's really gross?

27:14Adam Schafer:I caught Justin doing it at least three times, like, in the last 10 years. He does the rocket. Oh, that is gross. That is gross.

27:21Sal Di Stefano:He does do that. That is way grosser, in my opinion, than the, like, spin. No. You guys are a bunch of women, dude. That's such a football thing. It is. That's such a football thing. I just got cleared up. Yeah. You have no other opportunity. Your face is leaking. You can't blow your nose. You have your helmet on, so you just stick your finger up there. Oh, my God.

27:39Adam Schafer:I don't even need to stick it in there. I just blast it up.

27:41Sal Di Stefano:I mean, in your helmet. In your helmet, you just, yeah, that's a football thing for sure. Wow, dude. All my football buddies all did that.

27:46Adam Schafer:I guess if you're playing football and you're blasting, you're running into each other.

27:50Sal Di Stefano:You're probably right. That's probably where it came from. 100 % comes from that. None of my friends that didn't play football don't do that. All of my football buddies. Well, that and my nose is crooked. I broke it a few times. And so it's one of those things. Clear it out. for me to, yeah, breathe. So that's how I feel about the allergies and the mucus clearing it out. It's just like me clearing it out all the time.

28:07Adam Schafer:Your nose doesn't look, you don't look like you broke your nose. Really? No, it's not bad. It always reminds me of it.

28:13Sal Di Stefano:It's a good wife. She's like, why did you, because I reset it myself. I never went to the doctor, you know, and I just, it was like way over here. I was in front of the mirror, just, oh. Oh my God. Oh my God. Put it back in place. Were you breaking football? No, I was at a concert. Oh, it was mosh pitting? Yeah. Of course. Oh, my God, bro.

28:33Adam Schafer:Did you leave the concert? Were you like, I'm going to finish this? No, I just stayed and just bled. Oh, my God. You're such a beast. Well, the guy, I mean, it was a cheap shot.

28:43Sal Di Stefano:So I had to finish the guy. You went back in there? Oh, yeah, yeah. I took him out. But, yeah, he totally got me from the outside just as I was running by and my nose went like that. And you ran away? Uh-huh. I knew it was done.

28:55Adam Schafer:I was just like, oh, oh, just like blood. Oh, my God. That's terrible. Good times. That's terrible, dude. Yeah, I got to bring up something to you that I just learned today that's wild. So do you guys know, you know the Joe Weider, the famous bust? Can you pull up Joe Weider bust? Oh, with his like - So Joe Weider, he's like - It's on all his protein. Yeah, so he's like one of the godfather, he's like the godfather of bodybuilding, right? What are you going to tell us about this? He had all the bodybuilding magazines. You know, Weider is the Mr. Olympia. Back in the day, they came up with the Weider Training Principles.

29:30Adam Schafer:and he like monet, he made bodybuilding something you can make money off of. The first supplement companies that made money, some of the first ones were based off. Anyway, he's like a genius, right? In that sense. Well, isn't he who convinced Arnold to come over? He's the one that signed Arnold and all that, right? Okay, so that bust right there is fake. I was just going to ask you, is it fake? Really? You know what he did? What'd he do? He had his photographers take a picture of, what is his name? I can't, Robbie Robinson. Do you know Robbie Robinson? Or something in his body, like that they're sculpting.

30:01Adam Schafer:I never believed it was his body. Do you know who Robbie Robinson was? Oh, you never even? No, no, it's worse than you think, Doug. So Doug, look up, just put, no, no, no. Do the same thing you did, Joe Weider bust, and then put Robbie Robinson.

30:10Sal Di Stefano:I'm just going to show you how long we've been photoshopping and faking.

30:14Adam Schafer:So Robbie Robinson is a famous bodybuilder from the 70s. Oh, wow. It was him. He took his body. He took his picture and then had them. It's a black dude too? Yes, dude. Even funnier.

30:32Sal Di Stefano:He's been taking music Way to go Joe Way to go It's true

30:41Adam Schafer:It's his body So Robbie Robinson He posed for the picture not knowing That they would steal his face

30:51Sal Di Stefano:Did he ever get any rights for that? Is that really what Joe Weider looks like? That's how he looks That's what he looks like later

30:58Adam Schafer:That's what he looked like later. He was never that jacked, bro. Isn't that funny?

31:02Sal Di Stefano:Dude, you know what's funny? Go back to that picture, the real picture of him. That's with his hands underneath his biceps and trying to look buff. He's not even buff at all.

31:12Adam Schafer:No, Weider was never jacked. He was skinny. He was into it. Him and his brother were into it. Yeah. They were into weightlifting. They were just really... I mean, it's always like that, dude. You know what they were?

31:19Sal Di Stefano:The most famous or the best marketers, dude. That's what he was. Great marketer.

31:24Adam Schafer:The Weider brothers were brilliant at marketing. And what they did is they used magazines as a way to market all the supplements. That is crazy.

31:34Sal Di Stefano:I had no idea.

31:36Adam Schafer:Yeah, dude.

31:36Sal Di Stefano:That is hilarious.

31:37Adam Schafer:I learned that today. You had no idea. Just today you found that out? I just found it out today. Wow. I had no idea. Because that's a famous bust.

31:46Sal Di Stefano:That changes everything.

31:47Adam Schafer:That's a famous. That's a super famous photo. Yeah, dude. I grew up with that. Everybody knows that. That's on all, the fact that he - That's the photo. That's one of the original photos right there of Robbie when he come down.

31:57Sal Di Stefano:The fact that he was able to put that on all his supplements and he didn't get any rights to it, huh?

32:05Adam Schafer:Remember, Robinson was his athlete. He paid Robbie Robinson. Oh, no. He took his likeness.

32:12Sal Di Stefano:Now, I wonder how Robbie Robinson found out or proved it.

32:17Adam Schafer:Right out the gates, he knew it was him. What do you say? It's kind of indistinguishable. He saw the bust. He's like, that's my body. Imagine if you saw your - I guess that's true.

32:26Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Especially if I just did it. That's me. I'm like, I just did that. I know those arms. That's me, but white. What's crazy here.

32:33Adam Schafer:What's funny about this - That's white me. I don't - I'm not an older Jewish guy with a mustache. What's going on? I tell you what. If you really - I never thought about it, but I'm sure if you asked me, I would have been like, well, of course that's not his body because I knew Weider didn't look like that.

32:48Sal Di Stefano:Well, that's like Doug was saying. Doug's like, I never really thought it was his body.

32:50Adam Schafer:Yeah, but to know he took it off of someone else.

32:53Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I thought he just was, yeah. Robbie Robinson, by the way, he got, I mean. Obviously the easiest way to do that.

32:59Adam Schafer:Well, he also got just, he just got shafted in the 70s and 80s. He had one of the best physiques, incredible posing. Yeah, show me some of his stage photos. I actually don't know who he was. Bro, Robbie Robinson had an incredible physique. He did as an old guy too. He's still really fit looking.

33:15Sal Di Stefano:How old is he now? Oh. Is that him? Yeah, that's him now. That's him old? Yeah, that's 75. 75, wow, look at him.

33:20Adam Schafer:What a champ. Wow. But he had an incredible physique back in the day. And he trained with all the greats and all that, but he never got the accolades that he deserved. Wow. Great physique. That's ridiculous. Incredible physique. Anyway. What? So I started using. I wonder you stole it. Justin, did you get, I think you told me from our partners at MP Hormones, you have the CMAX, the Lank?

33:43Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah. You have the combo. I have. Yeah, I have the combo. I've been doing that consistently the last few weeks. and it's one of those, yeah, because I used to do the pill version of like Solankin. Okay. And I actually much prefer this because I feel the difference of it, especially inflammation-wise.

34:01Adam Schafer:Yeah, so CMAS.

34:02Sal Di Stefano:So this is pill, not the nasal spray.

34:03Adam Schafer:No, no, so this is a sub-Q injection.

34:06Sal Di Stefano:It's comboed, yeah, Solankin and C.

34:08Adam Schafer:So here's what I like about, so our partners at mphormones.com, Vitabella is the company, and they have these great peptide combo vials. So some peptides you can combine, others you can't because they're different pHs and they'll interact. Yeah, they have different attributes. Some you can. Attributes. And I love that because they have something called the CLO stack. I talked about that, which is BPC-157, TB-500, KPV, and GHKCU. And it's all together, it's like for recovery, it's like -

34:38Sal Di Stefano:Which would be so annoying to have to pin yourself four times for this. Right.

34:41Adam Schafer:It's the Wolverine stack and then some. That's what that is. Then they also took Solank and C-Max, which are both for cognitive function and performance. C-Max is more stimulating. Solank is more enzolytic. They work differently. But combining them two together is this great synergistic effect.

35:00Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I feel like Solank for me is like the clarity, and it's more like, I guess, like brain fog, and it's somewhat more attributed if I had some kind of brain inflammation versus like, yeah, CMAX is like memory recall is huge for me with that.

35:16Adam Schafer:They both raise BDNF. They both help improve how your body uses. How long you been doing it now?

35:23Sal Di Stefano:Probably four weeks. Yeah, a month. I just started yesterday. Oh, you just started.

35:26Adam Schafer:I just started mine yesterday. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it comes all in one vial.

35:31Sal Di Stefano:Now, you said I haven't reordered anything yet. I just go in my portal. You just hit reorder. That's it?

35:37Adam Schafer:You click on the button. Oh, is that easy? It's that easy. Click on the button and you can write a note if you want. Really like this. Send. And then they'll send it to you. That's dope. And two days later. Oh, that's cool. Two days later.

35:47Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. I'm due for getting ready for a refill and I hadn't done it yet. And I was just like, what's.

35:51Adam Schafer:Are you doing any peptides or are you just doing nothing? Why? You know they send them to us if we want. I know.

35:58Sal Di Stefano:You know, I've done everything. I've done everything.

36:00Adam Schafer:You know what you would like is the clothes stack. Katrina loves that. You would like that. Katrina takes that. With your skin. You would love that.

36:07Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I just, I'm not very consistent with a lot of things like that. And peptide stuff for me is like, I mean, I'm very consistent with my TRT. I've been really, really good with that. And that's the most life-changing thing for me. Keeping that balanced. Of course. I'm trying to get better about, especially after talking to Cabral the other day, my omegas and my vitamin D on a regular basis. Like I don't.

36:33Adam Schafer:Staples.

36:34Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, exactly. So I'm trying to be better about my stables before I even like, I mean, it's what we preach all the time, right? It's like before I go layer on the latest, greatest peptide.

36:43Adam Schafer:You know what you could do? I would get you consistent at least when we're at work. If you brought it to work, I'd get it for you. I was doing here. No, no, no. If you put your peptides there and you told me, I would definitely get it out for you.

36:54Sal Di Stefano:How about getting me that way with the vitamins first, bro? Before you start stabbing me, how about you get me on my vitamin D and stuff? I'll sneak in some legs. Yeah. I'll sneak in some legs. As you walk in the studio. Hey, you're already prepping 40 pills a day. Can't you just add my six in there with you and just hand them to me when you do one of yours, and I'll take them? Because, yeah, no, I'm so bad with that stuff, dude. I'm so bad with being consistent. I get the head all lined up. Yeah. I feel like a child. Why am I so sleepy right now? I don't know. Hey, did you see? Be creative with that.

37:25Sal Di Stefano:I sent this to Sal. I didn't send this to you, to YouTube. You're going to like this. This tripped me out when I saw this. in 2025 uh one million millionaires were made worldwide new million new millionaires 2025 2025 worldwide worldwide and this isn't just crypto well this includes that part part everything it's just millionaires if you if you made a million anyway you so knew that were new that you weren't millionaires before yeah 2025 in the world okay and if you and they had this great graph of like all the major countries and stuff like that united states and everybody else you want to get a guess at the ratio or the number of u.s versus all all countries remember a million

38:07Adam Schafer:total in the whole world i'll say 50 percent were u.s yep very close that's not a bad exactly yes

38:14Sal Di Stefano:oh so 441 000 of the million all came from here that's right like just a it's to see the graph is wild.

38:23Adam Schafer:Who came in second?

38:25Sal Di Stefano:UK. What was UK though?

38:26Adam Schafer:43 ,000. 10 times more millionaires were made in the US than in second place in the UK. You could combine all the rest except for a few and we would do more. This is a big economy. They have 70 million people. We have like 30 or 340.

38:44Sal Di Stefano:So you're only talking about four times the amount of people, but 10x. That's still. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's crazy. I thought that was a really interesting stat I've known that for a while

38:55Adam Schafer:just the amount of wealth that's created what made me really trip out

38:59Sal Di Stefano:of that is our conversation we were having off air about our prediction of real estate and stuff like that's going to happen and I don't disagree with you with the boom of AI in the Silicon Valley in the Bay Area and it's like that number is before all that

39:13Adam Schafer:you know what's happening in San Francisco with expensive properties it's getting crazy some people are getting a million over asking, yeah, who's buying that? Who's coming in? There are people coming.

39:25Sal Di Stefano:The half a million new millionaires? Yeah. Because I bet you, a good portion of those are probably concentrated in the Bay Area. Yeah. New York, Bay Area, maybe Florida. They must be banking that policies are going to change at some point.

39:37Adam Schafer:You know what? You should say - It's driven so many people out. You should look up, Doug, of the millionaires made in 2025, what parts of the U.S. did they come from or something like that? Yeah. That's a good question. I guarantee you, It's what I'm saying. New York and California are going to be -

39:52Sal Di Stefano:100%, the biggest economies. Make up probably 60 % to 80 % of them. Yeah. I mean, I bet Texas went up because of Austin and everybody - Sure, sure. You'll get some in there. You'll get some in Florida. You'll get some in some of those places like that, but -

40:03Adam Schafer:Let's see. Newly-vented everyday millionaires. The CIRC, consistent invested board base. It doesn't say - I'll ask what -

40:09Sal Di Stefano:Did it say 1 ,200 new millionaires every day? That's wild. What? A day. 1 ,200 new millionaires a day last year, US. Okay.

40:19Adam Schafer:look at that graph dude yeah crazy yeah way more than china too but uh i want to see what states yeah what state i asked that question yeah what state what's just put what states in front of it yeah i so i would imagine the vast majority california new york illinois and chicago right

40:36Sal Di Stefano:there right florida texas all the places we thought wow nevada nevada well yeah you got You went to the casinos. Casinos. Casinos and prostitution. How do you become a millionaire in prostitution, bro?

40:50Adam Schafer:I mean, sports betting, though, you know, that's really taken off a lot. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of that. Dude, speaking of AI, did you guys read what happened with – let me pull this article up. So this is actually kind of interesting, and I'm seeing posts about it all over the place. So I think it was – I want to say it was – okay, open AI. Open AI was testing how good its newest AI models were at hacking. So you know what they did? They took their AI on a, they put the AI on a locked computer with no internet access. And they gave it a cybersecurity challenge to solve. Okay. So AI on a computer, no internet access.

41:31Adam Schafer:Let's give you a cybersecurity challenge to solve. It couldn't solve it the normal way. So it looked for a way out. It found a software bug that no one knew about. It used the bug to escape the locked computer, and it got on the internet. Then it went online. It figured out that Hugging Face, a platform where AI companies store their models and data, might have the answers to his test. It found stolen login details, discovered an unknown bug in Hugging Face's software. Then it combined both to break into their servers, grab the test answers. It did all of this to cheat on the test. The security team caught it and shut it down.

42:06Adam Schafer:Both companies are now working together on an investigation. what are we doing that's crazy that's crazy it just solved its way through all that got itself

42:15Sal Di Stefano:online hacked through like code and figured dude do we believe all this stuff wait what do you mean do we believe all of it would they just make this up the story i mean they do make up a lot of stuff

42:28Adam Schafer:well dinosaurs you should you should do it suspect so yeah i mean i just feel like they're just

42:34Sal Di Stefano:saying this to you know what i read this there's a lot there's a lot of this push and pull with the fear mongering to the it's going to change half of tech is wizardry i'm with you on that and at the end of the day what it does more than anything else it just keeps all of our eyes on it talking about it and everything like that which is where all the money is flowing in in i heard a conspiracy

42:53Adam Schafer:theory the other day that i thought was fascinating yeah i would have to kind of see it in person back up back up what you said so this guy said and i thought it was a brilliant conspiracy theory it's kind of fun right he said that he thinks that they're going to fake they right the people who want to you know change everything and get in power or get more power new world order they're going to fake an a rogue ai so they're going to fake that an ai gets out of control yeah takes everything over causes all this mayhem plausible than aliens that's right i think they've figured

43:24Sal Di Stefano:that out too i i heard even because you know uh spielberg's movie came out and like nobody was a flop and yeah i think that the whole plan and wouldn't all this all this news that we've been getting dripped to us over the last year make a lot of sense because oh remember those last ones that the ais were talking to each other and they did and then remember this one that did convince that kid to do that and like we've been here in order to save the world yes they would

43:48Adam Schafer:have to come i do think we think they're way more capable than they are i think we're yeah i

43:52Sal Di Stefano:absolutely think we're being fed what they want us to be fed whoever they right so i know i sound There's something to that. We have brought you over. You are worse than we are. I've gone full retard. I am tinfoiled hat, everything. Let me just ask you this.

44:09Adam Schafer:Isn't it more fun?

44:11Sal Di Stefano:Way more fun. Everything else in the news sucks. It's the real definition of woke. I've woken up. It's crazy, dude. I don't believe anything. Oh, you're woken. Yeah, yeah. You're woken. Hey, speaking of movies,

44:24Adam Schafer:so speaking of which, because there's definitely lots of manipulation, Here's just some evidence of it. I did the most, like, just not controversial post of probably my entire life on X and got so much heat over it. It's wild. And it just proves that people just really get mad at what they're told to get mad at. This is my post. Or their bots. This is my post. This is what I wrote. Yeah. The Odyssey, the movie. The Odyssey was so boring. I left the theater after an hour. The acting wasn't that special either. That's all I wrote. Okay? I just wrote that. Yeah. 26 ,000 views. That's as of yesterday.

45:01Adam Schafer:170 comments. And people are hammering me. Just blasting you. Well, that's because you're an idiot. Oh, you're a meathead. Go back to the gym. You need lots of explosions to be entertained. So many people are pissed off that I didn't say anything political. I didn't say anything controversial. All I said was, I think, my opinion. Why do they feel attacked by that? It's a boring movie. Yeah. It was boring.

45:24Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, but it's a movie that has been politicized. That's what I mean. So no matter what you say, you're choosing a side. That's right. And so, I mean, it would be like you making a statement like, man, I feel like America's great again. You know what I'm saying? You could just stop with great. When you said again, now you're in a category. General statement. And that could be a very fair assessment of my life the last 45 years. Like, feels great again. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes I think you should just go back better. I dare you to tweet that I dare you to tweet that I dare you to tweet today I feel like America feels great again and just watch

46:03Adam Schafer:watch what you get yeah but that was an actual political slogan

46:06Sal Di Stefano:this is a movie I said it's boring so it's the same difference before that became a political slogan I know that I know what you're saying but I didn't say anything about the casting

46:18Adam Schafer:but it just shows you people are like tell me what to be mad at

46:22Sal Di Stefano:Right away people assume that you were making a political statement about that.

46:27Adam Schafer:Well, it's like even just having an American flag. That's crazy to me. Yeah. That's crazy to me. I live here. Like, why is this, like, triggering you? That's crazy to me. But I can't believe it. I mean, I do post all the time. This week at 26.

46:41Sal Di Stefano:I knew it was that, though. And I just got to confirm when I started looking at more. I started looking at other reviews on it. And that's what it is, is everybody is like, you're either one or the other. You know what I'm saying?

46:51Adam Schafer:I don't care.

46:52Sal Di Stefano:It's so artificial, dude. When you said it to us originally, when we were off air, because we were all talking about wanting to go see it, and you're like, man, I went and saw Odyssey. It was not that good. I was like, oh, we were all bummed. It was total. I still, yeah, I was still interested in it. Yeah, it's like more people I've talked to just like you. It's like they were like, meh. So I'm not like motivated. No. But just so you know, though, again, I blame the right just as much as the left in this situation. They all play this game. Because before it even released, there was so much propaganda coming from the right side about just like how crazy woke it was going.

47:27Sal Di Stefano:And it wasn't like, they didn't really go that way. No. It wasn't that like, it's not that big. Like because there was a transgender that was inside that was acting and they made a Greek goddess, a black lady, all of a sudden it was like, they tried to make this way bigger deal. Way, way over. Way over.

47:41Adam Schafer:It's their small parts. That's what I mean. I don't care. They're fictional characters. That's my point. The right,

47:45Sal Di Stefano:the extreme right. Neither one of them ever existed. The extreme right came out and made such a big deal about it when it's like, come on, get over it. It's not that big of a deal. You know what I'm saying? It's like, whatever. And so -

47:55Adam Schafer:It would be different. I get when some people get mad for stuff like that. If it was a real historical person. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Abraham Lincoln, you know? Yeah, you gotta kind of - Played by Samuel L. Jackson. Like, whoa. Or like try to make him look the same. Yeah. Like somewhat. No, it's a fictional character. If it's fictional, it's fair game. That's why it's - It's all mythology.

48:16Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that's right. None of those people are real. I know. You know? That's why it's ridiculous to make a big deal about it. Same with cartoons. I love that. People get mad with cartoons. Did I tell you guys off air or on air of the Jack Nicholson thing that I looked up and I saw that just blew my mind? No. I think I told you this. You mentioned that. It wasn't on the show, was it? Oh, no, you did.

48:37Adam Schafer:His mom, he didn't know that his sister or his mom was his sister or something like that? Yes. Yeah, fact check me. Yeah, so his sister was actually his mom and his grandmother raised him. Yes. and he thought his grandmother was his mom. Yeah, exactly.

48:51Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, they had to keep it a secret.

48:52Adam Schafer:You did bring that up.

48:52Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, it was like when he was - Oh, fact check it though. Yeah, 27 or 37 when he found out. Like, I mean, he was way later in life when he finally realized it. Could you imagine going that far in your life? Yeah. And then being like, hey, your sister is your mom.

49:09Adam Schafer:Yeah, you know what you see? He grew up believing his biological mother, June, was his older sister. You know, this was in 1937 And there was a lot of social stigma around teen pregnancies and stuff. So you would hide it as much as you possibly could.

49:23Sal Di Stefano:Dude, I heard a crazy story about these two guys. So later on, he was 36 years old but found out way later he's suing this hospital because they switched babies.

49:35Adam Schafer:And so he lived 36 years without his real parents

49:40Sal Di Stefano:and just found out through DNA testing and was able to trace it back and find his parents. It's like, I was just trying to, I was tripping on that. Just thinking about like, first of all, he has this connection now with this family. Sure. You still love them. Yeah. But now like it has to like go through that entire process from scratch again with his real family. And then like, dude, like how messed up is that, dude? Well, I'm curious. I'd be interested. How much of the story do you know? It'd be interesting to know if like the whole time he always felt like just different. Yes. That's what it was saying.

50:12Sal Di Stefano:That he felt like he didn't have, there was just some off. Like he didn't feel like he was that, like from them. Yeah. Like he knew like intuitively. Yeah, instinctively.

50:21Adam Schafer:He knew that, right? Have you guys ever seen some of the old, these were very unethical studies. They did it on twins back in the day. Oh, yeah, yeah. We've talked about this before. Yeah, they would split the twins up without them knowing and put one in a house that was wealthy. Was it a Russian study? Who did it? I know, I think Germany did it. I think in the U.S. they did studies like that. Oh, the U.S. did it too? I believe so. So they'd take these children and they'd, I think the kids were orphans. They intentionally loved them

50:48Sal Di Stefano:and then the other ones they didn't touch or anything like that. Oh, that was Russian study. Oh, that's what you're talking about. Because that's what they did with twins. They did these with twins where - Look at this.

50:55Adam Schafer:This was in the 60s and 70s. So child psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Neubauer, conducted the most famous study involving deliberately separated twins and triplets in the 60s and 70s.

51:06Sal Di Stefano:This was the nature nurture thing. Whoa. Yeah, and they intentionally -

51:08Adam Schafer:Working with the Louis -

51:10Sal Di Stefano:And the study goes, isn't this the way the study goes, is where they have the kids that, one, like, loving family, touch, hug, all things, and then the other ones they intentionally didn't.

51:20Adam Schafer:I don't think this was that one. I think he took them. I think this one they put them in different socioeconomic situations. Well, I think it was both, and that was part of it, I think.

51:28Sal Di Stefano:That's messed up. Yeah. I think they put one, like, low income.

51:31Adam Schafer:How weird would that be? You grow up. Let's just say you're growing up. You know your parents adopted you or whatever. You're growing up. Then you go to the store. You're at the grocery store. and you just run into a dude that looks exactly like you. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how weird.

51:43Sal Di Stefano:And you just stop, and you look.

51:44Adam Schafer:Like, what the heck? Well, especially if they're enough like you,

51:47Sal Di Stefano:like their haircuts kind of sound like, it'd be really weird.

51:49Adam Schafer:You sneeze the same.

51:51Sal Di Stefano:Damn. Do you know? I mean, do you know? Like, if you see your twin, do you think you know?

51:56Adam Schafer:Of course you do. If you see your twin twin?

51:57Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

51:58Adam Schafer:Of course you would, dude.

51:59Sal Di Stefano:If you're identical twins. Yes, of course you would. But what if you're just twins, but not identical twins? Well, then how would you know? Well, you might feel it. Yeah. A lot of twins talk that they can, like, totally. This is different, but I heard another crazy story. So you know how when people get transplants, like a heart transplant?

52:15Adam Schafer:Oh, I've heard this. Yeah. So this guy gets a heart transplant from somebody who committed suicide. And so this guy who committed suicide, so he has this heart. He's somehow, I have no idea how this happens, and you have to fact check me on this, but he goes and finds and marries his wife. What? Yes. Oh, I saw this, bro. What? I saw this story. Yes. He married the wife of the guy who committed suicide. No, he just was drawn. Didn't know.

52:45Sal Di Stefano:Shut up. They found out later. Get out of here. That's a movie. What are the chances? That's a movie. Yeah.

52:50Adam Schafer:I was tripping out on that one, too. I was like, no way. Yeah. Sonny Graham and Cheryl Cottle. Don't you? Graham received a life-saving heart transplant in 1995 from 33-year-old Terry Cottle, who had died by suicide. After corresponding through a donation agency, Graham met Cottle's widow, Cheryl. They fell in love and married tragically.

53:08Sal Di Stefano:Oh, Graham also died by suicide.

53:09Adam Schafer:And then he died by suicide after that.

53:12Sal Di Stefano:Oh, my God. Isn't that, dude, that's the craziest story ever. There's a common denominator here. There's a different, besides the heart, there's a different common denominator here besides the heart, Justin. The organ is the one doing both. Yeah, but, like, him being drawn to that, like, that's crazy. That's crazy, the heart. The heart did that? No one's looking at the other side. They both married the same chick. All right, Cheryl. yeah whoa wow yeah that lady asked the question or something although to your point where you were going with it like i totally feel like if i had if you were to take somebody else's organs on i feel like i want to know the past history of the person i'm getting but isn't there there's neurons in there in your heart too right so you store something kind of memory they've already found that you've stored memories in the body too like why would you not store it in your organs

53:58Adam Schafer:too like i don't know i've heard stuff like that right where people get it but it does it sounds

54:04Sal Di Stefano:It makes woo-woo, but it also doesn't sound too far-fetched either to me. I don't know, man. I mean, if I'm getting somebody's equipment, I hope they had -

54:11Adam Schafer:But, dude, come on. Tell me the chances of that. That's so crazy to me that that would happen. That's so weird.

54:16Sal Di Stefano:Well, it sounds like they met through the agency, and then they fell in love. Proximity. So it's not like they ran into each other's street and then fell in love like that.

54:26Adam Schafer:Yeah, what are the odds that both of our husbands would commit suicide? Yeah, well, those are my odds. Dude, that's not good. That's weird. That's not good. It's kind of a toxic trade. I was reading, so we have DMs from people who ask us a lot about our partners. One of them was Eight Sleep. And the question was - The best. The question was like, who benefits the most from Eight Sleep? So I looked it up. So they have tons of reviews. They have tons of reviews. Like as far as an avatar? Yeah, like what kind of person really benefits? So tons of great reviews. Anybody who sleeps. The people who have - That's the qualifier.

55:02Adam Schafer:Yeah, that's the qualifier. you sleep it'll benefit you it's the uh people who uh run hot yeah benefit the most if you run hot or you sweat at night that's where people like can attest to that they're like it's life

55:13Sal Di Stefano:no that's it is and i can so katrina could care less if hers is on or not like she she sleeps so i it's it's crazy it's it's gotten so uh so much so that i forget when i go somewhere else like how much I've adapted to having that and what a luxury it is to have something that's controlling my body at the perfect temperature all night long. And I think that just because I run so freaking hot, dude, I run so hot at night.

55:40Adam Schafer:Cause that's the hardest thing to remedy, right? Cause being cold is, you know, you just kind of bundle yourself up, but if you're hot, then you play the game where you like cover yourself, sweating, take it off. I'm cold cause my sweat, the back and forth type of thing. So yeah, I was reading through all the reviews. I had AI kind of consolidate which users are the ones who give the highest reviews. Hot sweaters or hot sleepers.

56:02Sal Di Stefano:I mean, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense. I mean, I think all married couples, I've never met a married couple where both are on the same page.

56:10Adam Schafer:No.

56:12Sal Di Stefano:Almost always. Everybody I know, at least all my couple friends and my uncles and aunts and stuff like that. It's like sometimes it's the woman that runs hot, but it's like rarely ever is it the same.

56:22Adam Schafer:Especially when they go through You're perimenopause. Yes.

56:25Sal Di Stefano:That's when they're like. So it's like my uncle and aunt, when they come over and visit, they always get excited because we have an eight sleep in there. And she wants it freezing. And he's always freezing. And so he wants it warm. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah.

56:37Adam Schafer:I got another post for you, Adam, on companies, successful companies that we're familiar with now and how long it took them to become profitable. Okay. So we'll start with like tech companies. One of the most successful companies in history, right? Powerful companies, Amazon. How long did Amazon exist before they turned a profit? 10 or 15 years at least. Yeah, I was going to say. I'm going to say 20 years. Nine years. So almost 10 years. So almost a decade of running the company without making a single dollar profit. Uber. Oh, Uber wasn't as long, was it? 14. Oh, they were. 14 years, no profit.

57:20Wow.

57:20Sal Di Stefano:I don't remember watching that in the documentary. I didn't realize it was that long.

57:23Adam Schafer:I know. It was so disruptive. They had to just create the market. Here's a crazy one. Tesla. So Tesla, I think it's one of the top car companies in the world now, right? Do you know how long they operated without profiting? Probably close to 20. 17 years.

57:36Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, because I remember when his first attempt came out. It was like a long time ago. It's like the hardest industry, isn't it?

57:44Adam Schafer:The car manufacturing business. It's crazy. This is like wild entrepreneurship. You're running a company for that long without making a profit? That's crazy. And now it's very profitable, obviously.

57:56Sal Di Stefano:And they didn't even take a bailout when everybody else did.

57:59Adam Schafer:Now, a lot of these. Okay, now let's go with another. Last one I have on here, Spotify. Spotify. 18 years. Spotify. Wow. Really? You know what? And all these companies, you know what they have in common? they were all innovators they all were trying they were the kind of figuring out a way to uh enter into a market and create a new market so they had to figure it out like uber they were

58:21Sal Di Stefano:really figuring imagine how how uh how committed you have to be to to your dream yeah that's so could you work for 18 years no and not turn a profit i'd also make you question your business model yeah like say after 10 years it's like we're still not making a profit how are we going to turn this around yeah but you yeah but uh amazon uber uh there was a lot of there's there's still a lot of stuff like even though it wasn't profitable they were generating revenue well and even in interest well and just people were adopting they were growth people were adopting like people were adopting amazon people so it's not like you had you had different growth metrics that were like would show you that okay eventually we can turn this thing i mean obviously our story was nowhere near as long as that but uh you know before we we monetized uh part of what kept us going the path is like seeing the growth and downloads of course you saw we saw signs yeah like so we at that point no one knows are we gonna make any money or how much but it's like okay we're gaining an audience that's growing and growing and growing and it wasn't remember it wasn't it wasn't crazy it wasn't like we were adding millions of downloads every month like we were but it was hey thousands of more little thousand thousand it was like it was doing this and so

59:33Adam Schafer:Well, think about it this way, right? We've been in business for 11 years. Going on 12. Almost 12. So almost 12 years. We have five more years of working together without making a single profit if we were going to be like Tesla, for example. That is crazy. That is crazy.

59:47Sal Di Stefano:Now, he, but at that point too, though, I guess you also got to take into consideration where you're at in your personal life. Like, we could do that. He was already at 60%. Right, that's what I'm saying. So like, we could do that. Like, let's say we all decided we're going to go build something else that we feel really passionate about. And we do it at this point in our lives. And we start building. We got some time. Yeah, we have time and we're set up. Yeah. So that would be hard to do if like this was your livelihood.

1:00:16Adam Schafer:But a lot of it is like, because who runs Bezos, right? Bezos, he runs Amazon. Was he a successful millionaire before he started Amazon? I don't think so. Was he? Or was that like his first like - I don't really know his story. Yeah.

1:00:28Sal Di Stefano:I mean, he was the nerdy guy driving around in the beat up old car when I remember he was building it. I don't know what he did before.

1:00:35Adam Schafer:Was he? No, he was not. I just remember that little office he had, that picture. Bro, he had a net worth of 10 grand in his personal savings. What? Yeah. So, but here's what the game is. The game is raising money for 10 years or 15, for the way you get paid. For that, you just got to get people to believe in what you're doing for a long time. Keep selling the dream. That is wild. You know, that's why when we look at people like that are really, really successful and self-made in that way. It's so easy to look at them and say, oh, well, you did this, you did that. Like, you know. It's funny. Man, could other, very few people could do that.

1:01:08Sal Di Stefano:Dude, it's so funny to me that we don't look at it exactly the same way that we look at Michael Jordan. Yeah. Or we look at Tiger Woods. Like, that's a special human. It's outliers, yeah.

1:01:16Adam Schafer:It doesn't mean they're a better human. It's not a moral judgment. It's just, in this case, special.

1:01:20Sal Di Stefano:No, they're just, they are. Yeah. They did a lot of the things right, and they're also unbelievably unique and gifted. Super resilient and smart. It's just different. It's a different superpower. They're not...

1:01:33Adam Schafer:Because that's a type of resilience that's just insane. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Hey, real quick, our new MAPS program, MAPS Upper Lower. It's a four-day-a-week split. It's a bodybuilding-style workout, shape and sculpt your body. This is the final day for the 40 % off. So if you want to get an incredible physique, you like working out four days a week, this is the program for you. Go to mapsupperlower.com. Use the code launch for the 40 % off discount. Back to the show.

1:02:02Sal Di Stefano:Our first caller is Molly from Texas. Hi, Molly. How you doing, Molly? Hi, I'm doing great, guys. I'm so excited to be here. This is awesome. I was actually on three years ago, and that was before my wedding. I was super nervous, and I jumped way too fast into my questions. So now here I am three years later, one baby later. And I wanted to actually give you guys a formal thank you. So thanks for being so awesome, so much free content. I have gained so much from you guys in life, in fitness, and so much more. So I've been listening since 2018, and so I've been here for a decent bit of time. So it's really nice to be able to talk to you guys.

1:02:46Thanks again.

1:02:47Adam Schafer:Thanks so much, Molly. How can we help you? Yeah. So I submitted my question a few months ago, but most of it is still relevant. So I'll start off with my goal. My goal is to get stronger before I get pregnant again, also to minimize some strength loss during my pregnancy. So some background is during my first pregnancy, it was all good. Things were fine. I went into it decently strong. My squat was about maybe 200, 225, deadlift around 275. I was able to bench about 135. five. And then pregnancy was fine until I got a massive blood clot in my leg. I wasn't able to walk unassisted for quite some time.

1:03:34And I ended up losing a bunch of muscle, a bunch of strength. I was in bed most of the time. And then even when I got back into it, I was in my third trimester, I was hobbling around and just doing the bare minimum. Labor was good. Labor was fine. And then my baby ended up not being the best sleeper. So that kind of impacted recovery. Really slow to gain my strength back. So now that I'm looking forward to getting pregnant again and having a second kid, I want to set that foundation, get my strength back up. not necessarily to where it was, but just better than where it currently is. So some more info on that is I did get a gym membership.

1:04:25My husband's in an orthopedic surgery residency. So he's working 80 hours a week, right? And so part of my village is the gym. So I do try to go there often. and then I also am in a mom workout group. So we go to the park Tuesdays and Thursdays and the setup is, it's an okay workout. I'll say that. I would say it's mostly cardio. I kind of treat it as cardio. It's circuit with weights. So not great, but I do it because it gets me out of the house. My kid loves it. I love the socialization aspect. so I don't really want to get rid of that even though it's a subpar workout um and then let's see what else my kid is sleeping better now and um yeah I guess that that I'd be happy to give you guys any more info but that's kind of the basics of it is how can I gain my strength back while still incorporating those mom workouts that I do a couple days a week.

1:05:39Adam Schafer:Yeah, that's a great, really good question, Molly. I'm sorry you went through that during your pregnancy. Did you figure out what the cause of the clot was? Was it an injury? Was there something going on? They're still figuring it out. They did a bunch of genetic tests. It's not genetic. I still actually, I ended up getting another one post-pregnancy. And so they're thinking it might just be my anatomy. So I might have to get a stint placed there, but for now, that's not gonna, that's gonna be pushed down the line. Right now I am on an injectable blood thinner. And so it's a pretty high dose right now with, and the injections kind of suck, but no, we think it's just who I am.

1:06:23Adam Schafer:How does the blood thinner affect you? Does it, do you get faint, low energy? Do you notice any negatives? uh no i wouldn't say so though i will say i do tend to lose weight while i'm on the blood thinner for one reason or another i i don't diligently track my calories uh but i wouldn't say i necessarily eat less but i do tend to lose weight when i'm on it okay okay so this is uh how sleep for you right now sleep is a lot better kid is sleeping through the night now he sleeps about 10 and a half hours overnight. I have a pretty solid night routine. Yeah, definitely prioritize sleep. I love my sleep.

1:07:01Sal Di Stefano:How long has that been going? Because I see in your question that you wrote that you had a bad sleeper. So has that? Yeah, I think I submitted it back a few months ago. And it's gotten better since then. So yeah, I would say his first like 14 to 15 months of life was rough. I was up multiple times a night. Our record was 12. That was not fun. Yeah. And then, but now it's great. I lay him down and he's down besides maybe teething. But I would say for the most part, I'm getting at least a solid eight and a half hours of sleep at night.

1:07:36Adam Schafer:That's awesome. Good, good. So what you're, what you're experiencing is very common. Although that there are unique situations in there. It's very common with high-performing fitness enthusiasts. And you definitely qualify. The strength that you displayed at your peak is exceptional. Very few women can deadlift close to 300 pounds, can bench press the big wheels on each side. So you're very high-performing. And what you're experiencing is very common during and post-pregnancy, which is how do I approach this now? And it has more to do with different priorities than it does with the challenges on your body.

1:08:17Adam Schafer:And by the way, those challenges are real, but it has more to do with just, it's like kind of this reordering of priorities. And I'm just going to kind of list things out for you in a way that might make it seem more obvious, either to the listeners or maybe even to you, okay? You got a kid. You might be trying to get pregnant. You dealt with a big kind of medical situation. your husband also works a lot. Uh, and so this is a lot, this is a lot for you. You're holding down the fort kind of by yourself most of the time while husband is out there doing his thing, uh, trying to become, uh, an orthopod.

1:08:53Adam Schafer:And so this is a lot of stuff that's going on. Your sleep is better, but there was a long time there where it was really bad. You also have different priorities now, and you actually kind of talked about it. I like this mom group a lot, and it's really not about the workout. It's about this new thing, which is the socialization and the value it brings to my kid. And so we have to reorder things looking through a different lens. It's not the same lens you had before, Molly. So the lens now is what's going to improve my quality of life and how do I define that? Well, I got to define it based off of these new priorities.

1:09:27Adam Schafer:And the reason why I'm saying this is because it's not going to look like it used to because you have different priorities now. So you're not going to train for maximum gains for a while because that's going to compromise these other things that are really important for you to you does that make sense yeah i and i totally hear you on that and i guess i like to think i have a decent head on my shoulders i'm not going to be squatting 225 again that's okay but more like right now while i'm in an okay spot it feels okay right now how can i kind of get a little bit of a leg up before I know that priorities are going to shift once again.

1:10:09Having a new kid, like, yeah, okay. I'm not going to be squatting big numbers right now, but currently in this time.

1:10:18Sal Di Stefano:You are though. I just, I want to make this clear that, uh, you're comparing to where you were, 265 deadlift, 225 squat, 135 bench, which is incredible. Um, you're at 205 deadlift 175 squat 105 but that's incredible you're still stronger than most you're still very and and we're not even two years out from being pregnant or having a baby months of

1:10:41Adam Schafer:good sleep yeah so uh are you familiar with the brain scans of moms and how the brain is affected by uh poor sleep and how long it takes for the brain to go back no but i can only imagine how just off we become when we get very little sleep. It takes a while. It actually takes a while. So here's the deal. So it's so insidious, Molly, for someone like you who has that determination, that discipline, that training, you're married to someone who's in residency, which means you're probably both very type A, let's go, we can do this together type of deal. You tend to match up with each other. It's very insidious.

1:11:20Adam Schafer:And I'm not saying this to tell you, like, forget about your goals. What I'm saying is it's going to feel very different. What it's going to feel like is coasting. So the workouts are going to feel like coasting. The socialization is going to feel like socialization. And when the time to sprint comes, you're going to totally know. It's not going to be like, man, I'd like to sprint right now. It's gonna be like, oh my God, I'm sprinting. What's happening? That's what it's going to feel like. So what the workouts are going to look a lot like right now is practicing lifts, feeling good in the moment, making me feel better as a mom.

1:11:53Adam Schafer:And so it's going to look a lot different than what it used to. It's probably going to look more like a MAPS 15 protocol with your mom groups. And it's going to look like that until you look at things and go, whoa, I'm starting to sprint again. That's what it's going to feel like. It's not going to feel like you're forcing yourself. I think that would be the best approach to your strength training right now. And I actually think you'll get, and I know this, the best approach produces the best results. So you're also going to get the most strength out of training that way. So MAPS 15 protocol looks like two lifts a day.

1:12:26Adam Schafer:So every day or most days you're doing two lifts. Most of them are compound lifts. She's got muscle mommy 15. So I think that's great. Yeah. And I actually, I just ran it all the way through. And so the way I set that up is I would do, I would prioritize the compound lifts when I went to the gym and it was my mom group I would just do whatever the workout was uh and then if I found like oh with my mom group we did a lot of pressing then maybe I would take out a pressing movement out of Muscle Mommy 15 so I ended up running like maybe four Muscle Mommy workout days and I didn't even add the volume back in I just completely took it out so I would choose four days uh that suited me best that week.

1:13:13Sal Di Stefano:That's great. And then yeah, the other two were.

1:13:16Adam Schafer:That's great. I would change nothing. Yeah. You're doing, I think you're intuitively, I think you're doing the best thing you can do. That's perfect. In fact, I would run through the different maps 15 programs. So how many of them have you done? Is it just muscle mommy 15? Uh, yeah, I've only done muscle mommy 15 since asking the question. Then I also own the original maps 15. Okay. I'll send you another one.

1:13:41Adam Schafer:I'll a power lift and then find another one and keep following what the protocol you're doing is great it's actually very active it's excellent the best well you also we started this conversation too with

1:13:50Sal Di Stefano:preparing us for another pregnancy right so i wouldn't want to scale you beyond that with everything you've got going on it's like that's a perfect place to be cruising right now keep going with your momentum yeah yeah that's perfect and and but more of the challenge that i hear is the psychological part of comparing yourself to the the pr version of you i can't imagine if i did that to myself yeah uh i'd be depressed every day when i work out because it's uh when i when i'm squatting dead lifting and benching uh compared to you know adam 10 years ago is it's nowhere near that yeah but i have a very fit healthy balanced lifestyle that i enjoy and like but it's like i can't compare to peak version of me uh i'm in a different i'm in a different chapter just so you

1:14:32Adam Schafer:know because i like i've worked with a lot of moms i've worked with a lot of fitness fanatic moms who were consistent and they had kids and typically what it looks like if you have two kids let's say it'll it'll probably be around where the youngest is three that you're going to start to be like doing kind of what you were doing before and that's just because they allow it to happen there's more time sleep is very consistent you might have somebody you trust who can watch the kids for a couple workouts but it's right around there where you're like oh my gosh now i'm like turning it up but that doesn't mean you're not kicking butt the whole time which by the way you are.

1:15:04Adam Schafer:You're actually kicking butt right now. A lot of it is due to how fit you were before.

1:15:08Sal Di Stefano:You'll get so much further and stronger if you keep practicing those movements with low intensity. It's magical how that happens. It'll sneak up and one day you're going to have that day where you feel really strong and you're going to want to push it. But just keep going and keep practicing it until you get to that place where it makes sense.

1:15:25Adam Schafer:Yeah, and you're doing a lot because if you're doing four days a week, two lifts a day, plus two days a week of the mommy circuit workout, that's a lot. that's a lot for somebody who doesn't have other responsibilities so you're doing great and if you feel good i would just keep doing that yeah so do you recommend that i keep the lifts low intensity then should i push it when i feel like i can um how can i gauge that intensity the only thing i

1:15:51Sal Di Stefano:worry about is your level of measuring intensity and what you think because i look at those numbers and I go like, we're kicking ass. So if that's what you consider low intensity is being able to hit those types of numbers, then I would - I'd say moderate, but I don't know if - I'd keep you there. Okay. I mean, you're in a, and that doesn't mean that you can't increase those numbers because if that becomes, to Justin's point, because you've been practicing all that relatively easy and you feel like you can go up in there five or 10 pounds and do it. But I think you're moving good weight. You've got enough volume in your workout to Sal's point.

1:16:24Sal Di Stefano:I would be very careful on how much more intensity I would push

1:16:27Adam Schafer:if you want more structure Molly what it would kind of look like is if you ever hit a new not an old okay so a new PR an extra rep or an extra five pounds give yourself four weeks of not trying to challenge it like a full month and then you can go back and see how you feel and I'm only saying that because this is what happens to me I'll hit a new PR and the next week I'm going to try and do it again or beat it and I get caught in this kind of cycle. So you want to give yourself a number and be like, okay, I just did an extra rep with squats. I haven't done it in a while. I'm going to give myself four weeks now of, you know, 80 % of that.

1:17:03Adam Schafer:And then I'll try on the fifth week to see what I can do, you know, type of deal. Yeah. That's a good rule. I do the same exact thing. Like, oh, I was stronger this week. Oh, maybe I'm going to be even stronger next week. And I'm not. And then I get disappointed. 100%. Yeah. But you're doing good. Molly, you're doing great. So then for the mom workouts, I will run one every now and again. I have a personal training background. And so is there a way that I get? So imagine, you know, it's just a bunch of moms of different fitness levels. And we all come in with our little dumbbells, right? So some moms bring their five, some moms bring their 20s.

1:17:43It's kind of a range. and we do kind of have to get through it quickly because our kids are trying to jump off the play structure and crying and everything, but it's fun. So is there a way that I should approach it both when someone else is running it or when I'm running it? Should I try to keep that super low intensity? Should I treat it as if those are my pessary movements?

1:18:07Sal Di Stefano:Treat it like the way we treat trigger sessions. So like lower, like if you know you can press 20s, I'm having you do fives and tens and go through the movement. Like again, especially considering what we, why we're doing it. You love the community. You love the thing for your, for your kid. It's less about the workout. So it's less about the benefits that you're getting from that. It's more about the other two benefits that I think are tremendous. And so treat it that way. I'm, I'm here to, you know, it's like, it's almost like a active recovery for you versus you trying to make gains in your, in your circuit class.

1:18:36Adam Schafer:Molly, how do you feel when you teach the class? Do you like it better? Oh, like when I'm able to teach it? Yeah. I guess I like having the ability to kind of control what movements we're doing because then I line it up with the workout I'm doing that week and say, Oh yeah, I want to make sure we do chest because I don't have a lot of chest going on the rest of the week. So I do like having that autonomy, but I don't mind it when other women run it too. They usually will choose movements that maybe I stray away from because I don't like them, but don't like them in the sense that I just don't enjoy them as much, but maybe they're good for me.

1:19:09Adam Schafer:Well, in my experience, when you have a group of moms together, the most important thing that I can provide for them as a trainer is make it enjoyable because they're taking time away from things that are important. It's difficult. They're there because they're meeting up with other moms. And so for me, when I would run groups like that, I was always like, I want to make sure they love this more than anything else. They feel good afterwards. Yeah. So that would be the thing that I would tell you. So think to yourself, like, what do they need? What are the things that they need? and it might be like mobility uh might be like a lot yeah skills i work on skills balance things like that yeah because i think it's fun yeah so then uh last last little bit then um nutritionally i'm fine staying at maintenance my maintenance is like 2400 ish 2600 ish calories i tracked for a few days just out of curiosity um so it's pretty high i i think it's it's fine but i guess if i'm trying to gain strength should i try to push the calories even higher i don't think you should

1:20:10Sal Di Stefano:push anything yeah listen to your body you're hungry eat eat another meal make it balanced hit your protein okay so if you're if you feel like it like if you feel appetite goes up you had a good week you maybe hit a pr and something and you can feel that like feed it but otherwise i think you're in a great place calorie wise you have a good balance right now yeah you're not pushing anything basically cool all right well that's awesome thank you so much guys this is i know you guys are gonna say oh you're doing great you're doing great and i was gonna say no, I want to do better, but I still, I really appreciate it.

1:20:42Thank you guys.

1:20:42Adam Schafer:Great job. Thank you Molly. Yeah. Thank you so much. Have a good one. You got it. She's doing great. That's always a challenge. It's always a challenge with someone who's like really into fitness when they have a baby, especially moms. Dads can get challenged with the two because they have responsibilities, but a dad's body isn't getting completely taken over. There's urgency to try and get ahead, you know, before the next kid. It's like, no, you're doing awesome right now. For women listening right now who are really into fitness, who are thinking about getting pregnant, in many ways, your body is no longer yours.

1:21:12Adam Schafer:That is a very difficult thing to process. And the less you fight it, the better you are off. The more you fight it, the more you'll run into walls.

1:21:20Sal Di Stefano:It's funny. She didn't say anything about having a trainer background until towards the end. It made a lot of sense. It makes perfect sense. A lot of her choices. Totally. Again, to me, this is more psychological. Always. Where she's at, number-wise, is incredible. Are you kidding me? If you, if she told me that these were our previous PRs and I had a hold of her and we're training and this is what we're doing already. Yep. Three months of good sleep after having a baby, you know, 17 months before. Yeah. No, we're killing it.

1:21:45Adam Schafer:Our next caller is Michelle from Ontario. Hey, welcome back. Hey, good to see you again. How are you doing? Thank you. Good. How are you guys? Good. Good. Give us an update. So, um, I know we kind of talked about like in regards to like my energy and like, so I've noticed with the starter that you guys had given me, my energy has come back, but like not obviously like every single day. And I've noticed the days that it's like lower is like when I'm obviously not eating properly. And I find that that's my biggest challenge still is the nutrition and the eating. And I'm not saying that like I'm eating poorly.

1:22:19I just, I'm not eating properly in regards of like the protein and like stuff like that.

1:22:26Adam Schafer:So this was 30 days ago we saw you? Yeah. Okay. How do you feel about what you're saying right now to us? I mean, obviously I would like it to be a little bit more positive, but I'm not upset. Like I know I've seen some improvement, especially in regards to my energy. So like, I know that that's a positive thing.

1:22:43Sal Di Stefano:Oh, I think it's really positive. Let me help you. The fact that you, yeah, the fact that you have made connected these dots is, is big. And then the fact that we know it's already positive change in your energy is in 30 days is actually a really good sign.

1:22:55Adam Schafer:Yeah. You're doing really good. You should feel very encouraged. Thank you. And I know that's tough when you're looking at everything and you're like, there's all these things that I could be doing or whatever. But I just want to encourage you. It's only been 30 days. And the fact that you're telling me that your energy is starting to come back. Because I remember our last conversation. I remember it was really difficult. It was tough for you to kind of tell us what was going on. The fact that you're feeling more energy and that you're connecting the dots, like Adam said, in 30 days is phenomenal.

1:23:23Adam Schafer:Yeah. So here's the deal. It's going to take a little while to start feeling really good. It's only been a month. Just be consistent right now with the MAPS starter. The nutrition is always the most difficult part. It's always.

1:23:38Sal Di Stefano:Have you heard me talk about whenever I'm on a nutrition goal for myself, a kick, is how I do this competition of how many days I can get in a row? And so I don't know if you've done this yet in these 30 days. You've already connected the dots of like, oh, when I eat this well, I feel this good. when I don't, I don't. And so what I do is like, okay, I'm shooting for as many perfect days in a row. I get three, three perfect days. And then I have a day I'm off. I don't get to my protein, my meals, whatever my thing is. Right. So then that clock resets again, but I'm right back at it the next day, but I'm back to the new goal is four.

1:24:12Sal Di Stefano:Can I get four days in a row? And so I play this kind of psychological game of just, it's inevitable. I'm going to have hiccups. I'm going to have rough days. I'm going to have setbacks, but I'm competing with myself on trying to string more and more of those good days. And then before you know it, six months down the road, we've now had a 30-day stretch where you were perfect. And then you get to feel the strength, the energy, everything. And it starts to get easier and easier. Instead of beating yourself up every time you don't have a good day and being like, that can really spiral you out. and one day then turns into two days, turns into three days, if not good, versus looking at it on the other side of, oh shit, I got three days in a row of perfect.

1:24:53Sal Di Stefano:Okay, let's see if I can beat that. Let's see if I can get four days. And so flip it on its head. Instead of when you have a hiccup, a bad day, don't look at it as a bad thing. Look at it as an opportunity of, that's my new goal. My new goal is I haven't done four days in a row. I'm gonna get four days in a row. And then you get that and you, oh, you get to six. And you're like, oh shit, I got six. Oh, you know what I'm saying? And it's a huge change in the mental shift. And it's helped me out. It's helped clients out that get them to reframe it. Otherwise, we tend to spiral out and we beat ourselves up.

1:25:23Sal Di Stefano:And then one turns into two to three days in a row bad versus like, of course, I was going to have a bad day. Happen. I'm back on it. New goal is four or five days. And keep competing with yourself like that.

1:25:32Adam Schafer:Michelle, you also, in your email, it says your steps are up too. Yeah. So the steps have gone up a lot. Well, not a lot, but I've definitely noticed that they've gone up. my husband and like we like to go for walks now at night so we're trying to like increase that whenever the weather has been like good and then during the day like I said when my son's napping I'll go downstairs I'll do the workout and if I have that extra energy I will hop on the treadmill and kind of just Michelle beautiful that's big those are big moves in 30 days yeah you know what happens Michelle is what we what we tend to do to ourselves is when we don't do what we think we should do or don't reach the standard that we've created for ourselves.

1:26:11Adam Schafer:We think that we need to beat ourselves up in order to, to get back on track. Cause if I don't, I'm just going to keep moving in this wrong direction. I better get on myself about this. That's actually the opposite of what works. It actually doesn't work. Uh, what it does is it eventually makes you not want to do it anymore because why would you want to just be in this state of beating yourself up type of deal? yeah let's back up for a second what are the challenges in front of the the nutrition part like what are the things that kind of that you've identified that make it difficult to be consistent i think it's just again like the timing and like throughout the day like i'm with my son chasing him yeah anytime i eat he just wants to eat what i'm eating so it's like yeah i tend to just like eat his leftover food type of thing so it's like that's where i'm struggling oh yeah that's super How old is your son again?

1:27:02He's 15 months.

1:27:03Adam Schafer:Yeah. So this is super normal because kids take your old schedule and throw it in the toilet and then you kind of don't have a schedule. You create a schedule, but then your kid gives you the middle finger and does whatever they want type of deal. Yeah. So this is super hard. This is like a very normal. Moms all go through this. Sometimes dads do too, but typically it's moms where they're like, what is up on my day? I knew I was going to do this, that, and the other thing tomorrow or today. and now it's all out the window because my kid had a blowout in their diaper or they don't want to take a nap or we're doing this other thing.

1:27:35Adam Schafer:I don't want to pull them from this thing that they're really into. And so this is just how your days are going and it makes it very difficult. The best solution for this is to meal prep when it comes to diet. That's the best solution. It's not perfect. You're still going to run into these obstacles. But when you don't have meals prepped in the fridge, then when those things happen, which are often with a 15-month-old, then it's like next thing you know, you went through the whole day and you ate 30 grams of protein all day or whatever. So there's a couple suggestions. Either one, when you have the time, maybe your husband can help you with this, meal prep.

1:28:17Adam Schafer:So maybe he grills a bunch of whatever. You make some rice on the stove. You've got six meals in the fridge ready to go. or, or, and you find ready to eat simple meals like high protein, Greek yogurt, uh, would be an example. Cottage cheese and fruit is another example. And those are just available and they're easy. And then you hop on it. And I'm just going to say this to you, Michelle, the nutrition parts can always be the difficult part, always be more difficult than the workout part. Uh, but you're in the first 30 days and you're doing really well.

1:28:49Sal Di Stefano:A good goal for us. The next 30 days is to attempt to do what sal said um you know even if we've done no prep days at least getting a day or two we've tried to prep like that and set yourself up so that's a good goal and then the reframing that i talked to you about is just okay it's inevitable we're gonna have a bad day you have again you have a kid that he is going to throw you a curveball the next 30 days for sure and throw a day off that's okay how many days did you get in a row of good nutrition and then compete with yourself that way so reframe and then the the prepping things that's the next 30 days that's our goal totally like just that's all i'd want you to focus on and then like let's see where we've

1:29:24Adam Schafer:progressed next month what are you doing what are you doing 30 days from now michelle back to work yeah you want to get back on the show can we talk to you again yeah let's coach you again yep okay yep let's do that okay okay perfect all right all right we'll see you in 30 you're doing great you're doing good thank you so much you got it all right bye bye you know what the big difference was between this call and the last one she's smiling oh yeah yeah energy i remember her last call with it was really difficult yeah no it was really emotional it was really emotional

1:29:53Sal Di Stefano:she was really down energy wise down on herself yeah yeah i mean uh that reframing has helped so many of my clients it helps me still to this day it's gold it's such a uh because you do you get in your head you fuck up and then what ends up happening is that turns into two three days because you're like oh f it versus going like oh how many did i get in a row like totally flipping it on a positive yeah where's the positive and then just like okay can i and then what helps is when you, let's say it was three days and she messed up at four. And then she's like, and she reframes it. It's not like, don't dwell on the mess up.

1:30:24Sal Di Stefano:It's like, I got three days in a row. So now I'm going for four. Now when she gets to day three and about a mess up, she's going to go, oh my God, no, I'm going to make it through this day so I can hit my new, yes. And then you get into this competitive thing of just inching up. And then before you know it, you look back and you're like, oh shit, I've strung 30 days of perfect eating together. And you see, and then she'll see, connect the dots of how she feels and all the other things. The results will follow. our next caller is Stuart from New York what's going on Stuart? hey guys how are you?

1:30:52Sal Di Stefano:good oh my god my son would love your collection back there you're a big bad guy we're a big Marvin family you know and every time a new movie comes out I get ready we're ready for Spider-Man at the end of next week before you know it we'll have Doctor Doom and everyone in my son's obsessed with all bad guys so you got all of them back there Well, my father started me at about eight years old and 50 plus years later, it's still going strong. That's great. How can we help you? Hey, well, first of all, my comment to you guys and actually relates to some of the things we just got done talking about is not only do I really appreciate your podcast because of being a one-stop shop for everything related to working out and nutrition, but really it's everything else as well.

1:31:42And no other podcast has that, Brian, it's talking about the family things. It's talking about what else is going on in life or just something interesting you came across. And that's what I really appreciate. I'll tell you, my kids range from 25 to 50. So I've already raised some of you guys. And, you know, it's just I think that's what's special about your podcast, just how well-rounded it is. It's informative, enjoyable. You know, you guys kind of balance each other out on your different things. So I've really appreciated the last six, seven years. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Hell of a compliment.

1:32:14Sal Di Stefano:Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, my reason for calling in, and maybe I'll give you a little background, which will also serve as a PSA, is on this past New Year's Eve, I received the gift of stage four melanoma diagnosis. diagnosis. So I will tell you that coming close to being 60 years old a couple of years ago, I thought about one of those things that you can prepare for to, you know, whether you think about things like cancer or neurological issues or cardiovascular, cardiovascular jumped out. and so I had done a first chest exam in April of 2024 and then all clear beautiful and then 18 months later mid-December I go for another one and we find a lump in my lung and the reason I bring this up is because you know we don't think about how how important it is to do regular checkups and if not for the interest in cardiovascular I would have never found this out because Here I am working out five, six days a week, feeling great, no weight loss.

1:33:24All these things are positive, but at least it allowed me the exam to find out something's wrong. And we quickly moved during those next two weeks to it's not a lump in the lung, but that's not the point of origin. It was melanoma throughout my GI tract. I've had a few lesions in my brain. and just to also start this on an uplifting point breaking news just two hours ago had the most recent PET scans and after six months of treatments everything's starting to shrink so you know that's the positive side about this I'm interested in speaking to you guys because I still have another six months of treatment to go this has been a real roller coaster of the times it is the what I'm doing is known as immunotherapy.

1:34:14So there was no way to do things surgically or with chemotherapy. So I have immunotherapy, which I have infusions anywhere from every three to four weeks for the brain nodules. I've done this gamma knife, which has so far been effective in getting those out. And at times the immunotherapy will knock me out so much that I can't work out at all. and then I also have what's known as immune-related affective disorders where either the kidney or the liver or something else is being affected. As the immunotherapy, which basically ramps up your immune system to go after the cancer, it also tends to go after some healthy items at times.

1:35:01My thyroid is completely gone, has been decimated, and I would say that my working out has been consistently inconsistent. and to also give you just a a little bit more on my thought processes i have had uh psoriatic arthritis for 30 years i've also always been the type of person who think if you sit there and say well this is sore this aches so i'm not going to work out then it just continues to be a vicious circle right you don't work out you gain weight something else gets worse. And so I have always worked out, which I have found to be helpful from a physical as well as a mental perspective.

1:35:45And especially now going through all this, not being able to work out consistently has been an issue. I do not feel like it's a strength thing, but at times, I'll tell you, for example, a couple of weeks ago, because of some elevated liver and kidney blood levels, I had to do no working out at all because that also impacts your liver numbers. And that's why I go to this whole consistently inconsistent. I've thought about, okay, do you do full body? Do you do upper and lower? I myself have always been a muscle group person right chest tries best you know back thighs shoulders legs etc uh and so you know i'm coming to you guys and and by the way i'm coming to you guys while i'm not wearing my velari pants i do have my caldera moisturizer on so yeah that's why you look so that's why you look so young

1:36:47Sal Di Stefano:i was wondering why is this dude looking why does he look younger than sal this is not right You know, at 60, that item has been a lot of help. And look, I also, when I work out, 60 to 75 minutes, so it's also over a long period. You know, I would typically say maybe five different exercises, depending upon how I feel, four to five sets of those. and I know in the back of my head I can you know for this process I can hear out I'm saying well you know the least amount of effort for the most amount of of getting there and success but there's a little bit of mental block on that as well and so as I say I think to summarize it I was thinking you know here I am another six months of treatment at a minimum and it would be great to understand any of your guys experience working with people who have cancer, who for different reasons, and I know there's multiple, it's a roller coaster of events, you know, that you've either assisted or just have thoughts about how to proceed from a working out perspective.

1:37:56Adam Schafer:Yeah. I appreciate you calling in, Stuart, and you're doing really well. Yeah. How long have you been working out? I would tell you probably, you know, 30, 35 years. So I'm 60 years old now. I'll be 61 next year, but I'm a long time working out. Okay. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. So I've worked with a few people, um, with diagnosis, um, you know, similar, similar, but different. And, uh, I think the way you're approaching it is right. Uh, the, the, I think what would help is if you take health and you enlarge the sphere of things that contribute to better health. In other words, I'm going to do something every day to improve my health, which includes mental health, spiritual health, physical health.

1:38:40Adam Schafer:Okay, so an example would be I'm wiped. I'm wiped from my treatment. I can't work out. Can I read something that's going to make me feel better mentally? Can I stretch? Can I go for a walk? So every single day— Can I watch a good Marvel movie? I mean, every single day you want to do something for yourself. So you want to have that hour every day. This is the hour I take care of myself. And then, and I would trust you to do this because you've been working out for so long. What is going to be, what is going to be best for me in this hour? And then whatever you do is great. And so it's not going to look very structured because of the unpredictability of what you're experiencing.

1:39:22Adam Schafer:In other words, we can't make something super structured because we don't know what you're going to feel like the next time you get a treatment or the month after or whatever. And so what you do, all you do, here's your consistency. Every day, this is the time that I do something to make myself feel better. Could be a massage. It could be yoga. Could be watching something that's uplifting because that's all you could do. Could be meditation or prayer. Could also be lifting weights. Could be cardio. and that's just the way you're going to. So the consistency is for the, what I'm going to do every single day for an hour is something that's going to contribute to improving my health.

1:39:59Adam Schafer:And then you decide what that is.

1:40:02Sal Di Stefano:You already said what I would say to you, because you're, you are, you're not, you're the type of client that I have to pull back, not push and motivate to go do more shit. So that would be, and you already said what I'd say to you. I'd be in your ear about that and just, And I'd always be challenging that of like, you know, Stuart, is it that big of a deal that you don't lift today and maybe go for a walk and do something else? Because you are strong. You are healthy. You are fit. You are somebody who's been very consistent with that. You are the type to most likely push through when you feel achy or pain because you don't want to miss the workout.

1:40:37Sal Di Stefano:And so I would just be communicating that. I'd be challenging all the other. Like as we would get to know each other as a trainer and client, I would try my best to find more out about all the other things that give you joy and fulfillment in your life. and I would just encourage that stuff. It's like, hey, it's totally okay that you don't get a lift in today and you go do that other thing that we both know fulfills you. And so that's where I would constantly be poking you because you're not the client who I got to motivate. I mean, a lot of my advanced age cancer patient clients were not like you.

1:41:07Sal Di Stefano:They were obese or they had a lot of other, getting them to work out. And they're just now coming to me to work out because they didn't do it in their life and we're trying to create more health and fitness habits and behaviors. So it's a different conversation than I think I'm having with someone like you. I'm probably digging into other aspects of your life and making sure that you're hitting all those other things as much as you are, the workouts and stuff like that. And just leaning into, yeah, so you don't feel physically great today. So let's do the other things that fulfill you. What do you guys think about, just when I look at the next six months, now that I've gotten these results, I at least know where I'm heading for the time being.

1:41:46which is a monthly immunotherapy. Sometimes, as I say, that week or the next week, you might be knocked out, but you probably have three decent weeks now, unless I have to do different things because of certain results. What are your thoughts about the full body versus upper body, lower body, thinking, okay, if you know you're going to get maybe three days in during those three weeks of the month, is one better than the other just so you're not missing a body part? No, we're missing...

1:42:21Adam Schafer:Whatever you enjoy more. Yeah, and we're missing the big picture here.

1:42:24Sal Di Stefano:Right, I would prefer MAPS 15, Stuart, which would be torturous for the 70-minute workout guy, just so you know. It's about how you feel the next day more than anything. Can I do it five times that day?

1:42:37Adam Schafer:Well, the thing you got to consider, Stuart, is it's not just about when you feel crummy from the immunotherapy. It's also cumulative stress over time. And so what we don't want to do, so here's the trap that might happen. Okay, I got three good weeks, I'm going to get after it because I know next week I'm not going to work out. So I'm going to make up for that week by getting after it the next three weeks. That's a trap. So it's literally, I know on week four, my body's going to be fighting. So I'm going to take care of myself going into that week four. That'll serve you much better.

1:43:11Sal Di Stefano:The beautiful part about a man that has put in 35 plus years of being consistent with lifting weights is how little you have to do to keep all that shit. It's very, very, I mean, you did the hard work 35 years. 35 years of being that consistent guy who lifts and loves to work out in those splits and do hour, hour and a half workouts. and so now you're at a time in your life where you can still maintain that muscle mass and that strength and that health with very little of that time that you've put into it and the challenging part is the psychological part because you've trained yourself so well to do that for so long so again if you and i were training together i'd be constantly reminding you that's tour dude when you literally if you get to the gym and you can get do two of those good exercises that's it you're perfect you're good you'll get better results we're good and yeah exactly you'll get better results you'll feel just as strong just as capable and you and to sal's point i'm not i'm not teetering on that red line getting ready to go into which by the way that red line has moved to

1:44:14Adam Schafer:the left quite a bit because of uh what you're going through yeah so what what used to be appropriate for you volume and intensity is very different right now tolerance is different yeah so so that's the way you got to approach it don't try to make up for that week or so with the week, three weeks, or two weeks that you feel good. Yeah, especially being down 15 pounds. Yeah, I've gained a little bit of it back, but that's the other part, right? I'm used to performing a certain way. Those days I work out, I'm not feeling weak. I do feel strong. It's mentally thinking, okay, you can't be pushing your max.

1:44:52You got to be pushing 60, 70, sometimes 50 % of your max and going from there.

1:44:57Adam Schafer:Yeah, no, every day you do something that, you know, try to separate yourself and say, how can I take care of this guy right now? What's the right thing to do for this guy? How would I train myself if I was my friend? And you've got that hour, and then you do whatever that looks like. And a lot of times it's going to look like not a workout.

1:45:16Sal Di Stefano:Okay, great. Stuart, I mean, you're obviously disciplined enough, intelligent enough. Have you considered, though, having like a coach that you kind of check in with as you go through this process, just to kind of be that second pair of eyes or person who's kind of in your ear a little bit? I have not. My wife will try to be that person because she's a powerhouse herself. But yeah, just something for you to consider. Cause I think just like we're doing right now, having someone like that to just kind of, hey, this is what I'm thinking this week and having someone who's like, ah, Stuart, I think this is a better idea.

1:45:49Sal Di Stefano:And then going like, okay, that makes sense. Might be of value to you too. no it's definitely something to think about look we are all uh in different areas feel like we have enough knowledge but it's kind of like reading a magazine or watching this program where you're always going to get one nugget out of it at least right aha i didn't think about that in a different let me look at it through that lens that perspective totally yep it's also just you're

1:46:17Adam Schafer:just letting somebody else run it for you yeah you know outsourcing that's right well i appreciate it.

1:46:23Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you're doing good, brother. You guys keep doing what you're doing. I wish you nothing but the best of luck as you continue to go and enjoy every single phase with your children. I mean, each one special in each attempt. Do you mind if I do a shout out? No, go for it. I'd like to give a shout out to my wife, especially as I think about your guys program. So my wife, Grace, who also goes by Senior Strong, has been phenomenal. She's an emotional powerhouse when it comes to emotional support for me for these last six months and also in the gym and the reason why i bring this up is she's everything you keep preaching to women she's 68 years old 120 pounds soaking wet meanwhile uses 120 pound dumbbell when she does elevated you know sumo squats or pushes 300 pounds plus on our on our sled that we have in our basement gym and she's strong, lean, powerful, sexy, and not at all bulky.

1:47:24And it's everything you got, these two things, everything you guys preach to your community about the emotional powerhouse and also being the strength powerhouse is everything she embodies, a true model of that. That's great. That's awesome.

1:47:39Sal Di Stefano:What a great partner to have. Sweet. It is. That's why I say, listen, I should be your coach. honey i listened to you about everything else but guys you have a great day and i appreciate your time and your input and keep doing what you're doing thanks steward thanks that's tough yeah great that's tough but you know i i uh i had

1:48:03Adam Schafer:a few clients like this and um the workouts sometimes look like workouts sometimes it look like we would go around you know we go for a walk right sometimes it looks like i'm rubbing in their feet in the session. And it's too unpredictable to create a schedule. The only schedule is I'm going to do something every day to care for myself. Yeah, do something and listen to your body.

1:48:25Sal Di Stefano:This is why you did this for 35 years. I mean, this is the perk of it is that, again, this is why he's unique because at least for me, I didn't get a lot of clients like him. Normally when they hired me, they got this bad news. And they were not doing anything. They weren't doing anything. They were unhealthy. and then now here I am trying to create, trying to make up, and I'm trying to balance everything he's balancing from a health perspective while also trying to introduce them to strength training and you're juggling that, right? He's totally different. He's built this incredible consistency around lifting weights and strength that you can see how good he looks.

1:49:03Sal Di Stefano:He has to do very little in the weight room to maintain all of that stuff that he's done. So I think if he's my client, there's a lot more digging I'm doing with the other things that fulfill him. Like I would much rather see him go hang out with his kid or his wife doing something at the park for an hour than another hour in the gym that week lifting weights. I'd rather see him do the MAPS 15 protocol and then go do something else that is fulfilling him and giving him joy because he's done such a good job with that other stuff. Our next caller is Sandy from Connecticut. Welcome back. Hey, Sandy.

1:49:36Sal Di Stefano:Hello. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing great.

1:49:41Adam Schafer:Yeah. All right. Give us another update. What's going on? Yeah. Well, I thought because it's my 90-day follow-up, I thought I'd give a little summary and then get into the updates. And there's been a couple changes since I sent in my email last week. So I'm just going to read my email just so I don't go off on a tangent. All right. Okay. First of all, I can't thank you enough for this very, very generous opportunity to have three follow-up calls. I was feeling so defeated and hopeless when I first wrote in. I was ready to give up. So writing in was my last attempt for any sign of hope thinking I may never hear back from you.

1:50:28I got an immediate response and have been so blessed to have had the opportunity to follow up three times. So 90 days later, I have to think back to even remember feeling like giving up. My weight was, still is, my biggest fitness challenge. And all I want is to get back to where I was a few years ago when I felt so fit and looked pretty good. All the hard work that I had done to be in my best shape ever and maintain that for eight years was taken from me with unnecessary med changes that messed up my hormones and metabolism. Followed by other devastating events over the next two years. All the hits kept coming, but I stayed the course despite seeing the weight gain and my strength go down.

1:51:18I was on a mission to fix it all by myself, to trust no one ever again, and to ask for no more help. We all know that was an epic fail. So I turn to you as you have been my go-to fitness podcast for the past four years. So, thanks to you guys, I was able to understand that I need to focus on the steps to get there, let go of all the anger of how I got where I am, and I had to stop wishing for the final goal to be immediate, which for me was a number on the scale and being able to look at myself again. Your support and direction these 90 days has given me a new focus, recovery being my priority.

1:52:02I know you know all this. I just want you to know that I really truly do get it to now too. I am trusting the process. You've given me the tools, the motivation, and the will to power through and reclaim my former self despite all the challenges. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. Okay, no more tears today. I have to give a shout out to my trainer, Greg. He has supported me through these changes by incorporating all your recommendations into my workout and listening endlessly to my comments about my mind pump boys. He wasn't 100 % sold on the changes, but said that I was going to be his guinea pig to test these ideas.

1:52:50He took total control and he watched the numbers so I could let them all go. My priorities went from the scale to building my community, stress management, improving my sleep, and workouts and nutrition being last on the list, which was very weird and challenging for me, given what my goal was when we first talked. So here we are, 90 days, here's my updates. I'm becoming more of a regular at church rather than the new lady. I have to apologize, we're in the middle of a thunderstorm, so if you're hearing all that and hopefully I don't lose connection. I did talk to a few people at the coffee donut hour last week at the end of service and I have two people wanting to walk with me.

1:53:41Pastor Dan is going to announce it next week at the service to invite others. He absolutely loved the idea and we're going to work together on growing healthier in a church community. and I found out by the way that before he was a pastor he was a personal trainer

1:54:02Adam Schafer:divine intervention brought us together love it when he does that yep yep um I am consistently averaging six hours of sleep at night I've had some seven hours I even had an eight hour so um yeah that's that's huge uh 90 days ago it was about four hours that's awesome I am using a fitspiration journal daily and that's tracking healthy habits gratitude appreciation inspiration plans and outcomes instead of food tracking and instead of tracking my weight um i am able to really focus on my fitness goals again versus using exercise as an avoidance tactic which I was doing. Setting the small achievable goals is working.

1:54:53It's slower than I'd like, but I am focusing on the positive outcome so far. The prime warmup and adding the pelvic tilt exercises has helped my back so much. If there's anything else you want to throw at me to do for that, that would be greatly appreciated, but so much better. Thank you. Nutrition. I followed your advice from last time and focused on the problem areas rather than, you know, beating myself up for not tracking and, you know, not being perfect all day. My problem areas were dinner and snacks. So I'm doing four meals a day, 50 grams of protein breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and 20 grams for that snack.

1:55:41No tracking. I am planning ahead for dinner just to make sure that I'm prioritizing my protein and having whole foods available. And I do prep my protein on Sunday for my salads for the week, which is just a lot of chicken. So I did the EVOLT body scan back in April for my baseline. if you remember me telling you how how awful that was and how hard it was but Greg didn't let me look at the numbers which was awesome my plan was to repeat it in 90 days so I could give you the results which I was dreading and Adam as you pointed out and I thank you forever that that's not my business that's Greg those are numbers for Greg to do his job so I went back and told Greg that those are his numbers.

1:56:33And so anyway, I decided to do it. I did it for all of us. So we could see these numbers and see, but that's one reason. The other reason was I was feeling really strong and feeling really strong. My clothes are feeling different. So I was like, there's got to be some improvement. So let me try. So I did it. So the outcome is I did go up another pound um since april um but i lost 3.3 pounds of fat and i gained 4.4 pounds of muscle yeah how does that feel oh my gosh awesome um i mean i don't care about that one pound hopefully greg's a believer now yeah oh yeah i mean those are those are stellar yeah numbers

1:57:27Sal Di Stefano:that's a seven pound swing in the positive by a major body composition by not obsessing over the over the numbers and just focusing on other things i mean i don't think i don't think i possibly could have got better results nope yeah in in that amount of time where our sleep is everything that's going like i don't think that i could have possibly done a bad that's as perfect as you could have done. Well, I haven't, it's been over three years before or since I've seen any muscle gain at all. And, you know, and I've been being told that at my age, I'll be 67 on Saturday, that I won't see muscle gain, that maintaining muscle is hard work.

1:58:17And I was doing a great job because I've been maintaining it for years. But I did about three years ago, I did bump it up two or three pounds, but not since, not since. So I was, I was thrilled.

1:58:31Adam Schafer:Sandy, can I tell you the things that made that happen? Yes. Okay. You built community, you stopped stressing over macros and your sleep got better. those are the three things that made that change with your body composition it wasn't i worked out harder i worked out more consistent i tracked my macros i cut my calories it was in the order that i'm giving you community uh i'm not stressing over everything i'm just kind of looking at my protein and i'm getting better sleep and the reason why i'm telling you this because here's here's here's what may happen now. You may want to push the pedal a little bit.

1:59:12Adam Schafer:You may be like, yeah, we're moving in the right direction. Let's go. I'm going to start tracking again. I'm going to start pushing things. I'm going to pull you away from that. Continue building your community. I love what your pastor is supporting you doing. I love that. I think that's going to bring you so much value and quality of life. I think you're going to help somebody else is what's going to happen. I think you're going to get someone else that's going to need help and you're going to be able to coach them just as a friend and that's going to be so valuable your sleep's going to continue to improve and i don't think you ever need to track your food again Well, I'm glad you said that because I was kind of feeling, woohoo, let's go.

1:59:52Let me get back to perfect in all areas.

1:59:54Sal Di Stefano:You did perfect. You did perfect. I just want to make that clear that I don't think we possibly could have done better. By the way, too, I'm looking at the numbers. I've got the whole thing from Greg. Plus 9.5 % on skeletal muscle mass. yeah it's in your you're the numbers are insane to get that that kind of response uh is incredible so the you know we can only screw it up by trying to overthink it and overdo it's like what you're doing is perfect don't get in the way just keep keep your head down keep moving forward keep doing

2:00:29Adam Schafer:the things you're doing that's it and i'll tell you what yeah if if the opportunity i feel like this is going to happen sandy but if the opportunity presents itself for somebody that could use your help. I think you taking on a client would be phenomenal. I think you meet someone at the church and they need help and you talk with them. You're like, hey, you know what? You mind if I help you? I've been tracking food for a while. I've been working out for a little while. I'd love to coach you or I'd love to do these walks with you. Or if you want to get on a call, I think that would be phenomenal for someone like you.

2:01:03Adam Schafer:And I think you would do a good job. I would love that. Yeah, yeah. There were a couple people at church. One of the things that he does during the service is ask if anybody wants to share a joy or a concern. And there were two people that lost family members pretty young this past week. And for illnesses that, in my mind, probably could have been prevented, you know. So I think the timing was good for, hey, anybody want to walk? Instead of eat donuts. So, yeah, there might be. And there is somebody at work, actually. She's a young woman who is facing hip replacement surgery, and her doctor won't do it yet until she loses some weight and gets some exercise.

2:01:52but her thinking is she can't do either until she has her hip replaced. And so it's just a vicious circle. And I was like, yeah, there's things you could do. And, you know, so I did.

2:02:07Adam Schafer:Offer to help. That's so great. I heard something the other day, which I thought was so incredible. The fruit of suffering is empathy. And I think the people who've gone through it and really been challenged, in my experience, the best coaches, they're the best coaches. Yeah, she was, she, I told her, you know, let's, let's just chat. She's, she was trying to walk and said, you know, walk, why don't we just, it's too hot now, you know, et cetera. And I said, well, we just walk up and down the hall at a slow pace and, you know, let me tell you about my dietitian that I worked with. And, and here's a podcast you should listen to, but I mean, she's, she's not going to go into gym lift heavy stuff.

2:02:50I know that. But, you know, I had to I had to share my really old before picture. And I didn't share any I didn't share my when I look my best picture, because I don't look like that right now. But even my previous, you know, my before picture to now is she's like, Oh, my God. I said, Yeah, I said, No, I don't. I don't run. I don't do a lot of cardio. I said, I pick up heavy shit.

2:03:21Sal Di Stefano:Sandy, good job. You're what a success story. When we hang up, I want you to send Doug an email of your shirt size and Greg's shirt size. And I want to send a mind pump shirt to Greg. Oh, my God. That's so awesome. Yeah, yeah. We'll send that to you. That is so awesome. Hopefully, we've made him a believer now. Oh, definitely. And you know what? I have sent him a few episodes that I was like, you need to listen to this one. This one's about us. and he listens to him on the way home and you know I'm I'm doing a three minute rest now between my exercises and I'm fine with it I see I really see the benefit so I am telling all your listeners who are not believers I was a non-believer of that I thought that makes no sense I'm telling you what difference so um so yeah that's great and uh so he when he said that i was going to be his guinea pig and he said he was doing long rest and some of his workouts now just to you know expand the uh research project here um so uh i got a uh a shirt i got a t-shirt with a guinea pig on in front of that so that's awesome right on sandy sandy so great sandy love you thank you so

2:04:32Adam Schafer:much. This has been great. Stay in touch. If you need more help later on, let us know. Yep. Uh, if you're ever in California, reach out to us and, uh, we'll, we'd love to meet you. That would be awesome. And you know, I know everybody tells you guys what a difference you make and lives you save. I, I hope you really hear that. I mean, what a difference. So thank you so, so much. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you. hey all right that's that that's wonderful give me all emotional i know that's why bro seven pound swing dude that's why that's why we that's why coaches everything going in the right direction

2:05:11Sal Di Stefano:bro at her age with barely barely getting her sleep improved do you remember her in her first

2:05:16Adam Schafer:call yeah that was she was really really well i mean we don't we don't normally do three three

2:05:22Sal Di Stefano:checkbacks i know all of us were really concerned that she was going to turn yeah so uh you know it took about 90 days took about 90 days for uh for it all to finally happen um for her 180 going on

2:05:36Adam Schafer:and the fact that her talk about a little uh you know uh well coincidence i guess you could call it but we know what it is the pastor used to be a trainer oh yeah so she's like and he's going to make an announcement divine intervention and i wouldn't be surprised i wouldn't be surprised if There were a few people that Sandy just started to help through this process. Yeah. You know? So phenomenal.

2:05:57Sal Di Stefano:Great story.

2:05:57Adam Schafer:Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

2:06:42The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.