2919: 5 Tips for Bigger Arms (The Mistakes Most People Make Without Realizing It)

19:51Adam Schafer:It's literally because the waste byproducts are just building up in the muscle. You can't get rid of it. It burns like crazy. The pump you get is insane. it's the craziest pump you've ever felt and it adds another element when I've done this I've done this on calves and I've done this on arms and within weeks I added a quarter inch to both of them just for adding a couple sets in the week just a couple sets in the week and it made a huge difference anybody doing this anymore? it's like the forgotten method it was hot and popular for a minute

20:25Sal Di Stefano:and I don't know why it fell out of favor or not But I mean, for both for arms and calves, this is like such a hack. Oh, it's such a cool. It's crazy. It's fun.

20:33Adam Schafer:It's crazy. And again, you grab some light dumbbells, rep them out. You'll feel the burn rest 30 seconds to a minute. The burn will not go away while you're resting. It's actually going to intensify. Super novel stimulus. Then go grab the really light dumbbells again. I mean, just so people know, for me, it was like 10 pound dumbbells, rep them out again. Do this three times. Then let go of the dumbbells, sit for another 30 seconds while everything's on fire. Yeah. Take off the knee wraps. You're cooked. And you did it. And again, the pump and the swelling you get from this is just super, super crazy.

21:04Adam Schafer:Anyway, Doug has a study that I'd like for him to pull up on non-essential amino acids and how they're not necessary to stimulate net muscle protein synthesis. Okay. So I want him to pull this up. So this is really interesting. Okay. So muscle protein synthesis, we can measure. and when this is positive, when we see this, what this means is the body's building. Okay. So we're building. So if we measure this - Is it certain that's always happening when that's happening? Well, it's got to stay positive all the time. Okay. So obviously you can go positive, then you can go negative much later and it comes out to like nothing.

21:42Adam Schafer:Okay. But what we do see by doing certain things, eating particular ways or whatever, is like, oh, this is stimulating muscle growth. Now it used to be, I think, believed that you needed a complete protein for this to happen. And what they found in this study and other studies is that the non-essential amino acids are not needed. Only essential amino acids are needed to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Now, this doesn't mean this is all you ever do. So all you ever do is take essential amino acids and you never have complete proteins. That doesn't make sense because you're gonna eat food. But what this does mean is that if you're in a cut, this is where this applies, you're in a cut, your calories are low, adding a bunch of extra protein now is you're counting all of your calories so you're like well you know how do i get more muscle protein synthesis but i can't go over on my calories throw some essential amino acids at yourself on top it's very low calorie almost no calorie because it's not a complete protein and you're going to get more muscle protein synthesis and so this is a great strategy because the main strategy in a cut is uh preservation is keep my muscle.

22:50Adam Schafer:And essential amino acids, you know, like the key on ones that we've been using, you take six of those capsules, three, four, five times a day to keep that muscle protein synthesis high. Your calories barely budge because it's not a complete protein. Well, that makes sense. We've been saying that for people in the GLP one. Totally. And so of course, yeah, to take that into somebody like who's on a cut too, I would imagine that's a benefit.

23:15Sal Di Stefano:I experimented with it last year. It was super effective. I wish I had it when I was body building um you know or at least i wish i did it uh when i was bodybuilding i didn't do it when i was bodybuilding um in fact i was still like big you know amino acids essential amino acids are just all this yeah waste bcas or waste all this that's i was in that camp still at that time so i didn't waste my time uh with doing that and i look back now and i wish i would i saw i mean i did a dexa i did dexa before after and the whole cut i did that lost like no muscle and you do a cut for you you typically lose a little bit of muscle it's expected yeah you're expected and the goal is to lose as minimal as possible and so to be in a cut uh for as long as i was and shred down like i did that last that time last year um that was like really impressive if i were to do an

24:01Adam Schafer:aggressive and i have i don't really have any intentions of doing an aggressive cut but let's say i wanted to get into single digit body fat and for me it's a little different from person in person, but if I start to go, like I can maintain around 11 % body fat, maybe 10 and I'm okay. If I want to start to get into the single digit, it's like, I know I'm going to lose some muscle. That's just, just what happens if I get, especially if I get below 7%, like, and there's nothing I could do. I'm just going to, it's just a matter of how much muscle I lose. The way I would do it now is like I normally do with my diet and everything is I would have the key on essential amino acids.

24:35Adam Schafer:And I'd take that like five times a day. I would throw six, six, six capsules at myself five six times a day um and i would preserve more muscle uh than than i have in the past that would be the strategy so did you see adam i don't know if you saw this did you see the meme that's going around about i'm gonna pull it up right now about uh germany's tax uh brackets and system and how and how like weird it is no how crazy managing that okay no Dude, this is wild. So somebody did the math on this. And what they did is, so this is a dual earner couple with two children. How much money they would make and how much money they would take home based off of the tax system.

25:18Adam Schafer:In Germany. In Germany. Okay.

25:20Sal Di Stefano:So. Did they convert it to U.S. dollars so it's easy for us to kind of translate?

25:24Adam Schafer:Well, it's in euros. So it's fine. Whatever. Close.

25:26Sal Di Stefano:Close enough.

25:27Adam Schafer:So here's what's crazy. because of the way the tax system works, you take home essentially the same amount of money. If you make 3000 euros or 6 ,000 euros a month, it's almost the same. So you could make twice as much, but because you make so much more, they tax you that much more and you end up taking home almost the same exact amount of money. As a person who makes three. Yes. Right.

25:51Sal Di Stefano:Well, I mean how it's, it's not double as crazy. Cause we're not double like that. but I remember don't you remember this yourself like I remember working my way up right the annual income and now this is granted 20 something years ago so this has probably moved and changed a

26:12Adam Schafer:little bit but I clearly remember when you move into a new tax bracket yeah yeah so I clearly

26:16Sal Di Stefano:remember what it was like to go from like 70 ,000 a year to like 90 to like 110 range and I remember getting to like the 110 and like that was like a big milestone to be in the six figures right and going like, I didn't feel any wealthier at 110 than I did at 70. Because at 70, I had very minimal taxes. I had enough write-offs, expenses. I basically paid no extra taxes. But once I got into the six-figure mark, I was paying extra taxes. So it's like, I brought home a little bit more during the year, but then I had to pay back stuff at the end of the year. And I'm like, when I look at the math and I watch it, I'm like, God, for climbing all the way up to there, I really don't feel like I made much more.

26:57Sal Di Stefano:And I've seen people put this up before where it's like the leap you have to make to really make the lifestyle feel different is it's wild. And so even in the U.S. it's like that. It's maybe not that extreme where it's three and six.

27:11Adam Schafer:Well, what's crazy about this is it de-incentivizes people. So imagine if you're this couple and you know this and you're taking home X amount and you're like, okay, should I work harder? should i go for that promotion should i try to become more productive uh incentives aren't even really a part of it and you're looking at each other and you're like honey if we make double we take home the same amount don't even waste your time why waste your time yeah this happens with a lot of um with some of our like social programs so i know somebody like this yeah where they get so much money from the state yeah and and i'm like hey why don't you get a job and like Like if I get a job, I don't lose these.

27:52Yeah. I don't get this anymore. Yep.

27:54Adam Schafer:And, and so essentially if I get a job, I'm going to make the same amount as I'm already currently getting, except now I'm working.

28:00Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

28:01Adam Schafer:So I think I'm just not going to work. Oh yeah. And I can't blame. Yeah. Like that's, that's a logical, logical thought process. Right.

28:08Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. You know? Yeah.

28:09Adam Schafer:So it's kind of crazy.

28:10Sal Di Stefano:No, I mean, that's a, yeah, no, I know, I know plenty of people that are like that, that I've seen it. That's tough for me to wrap my brain around that, but that's we've, but you've created that. You incentivize people to do that. Why go to work when I'm going to make a couple more bucks and I've got to work for you? And I'm working way harder. You've got to work way harder. It doesn't make sense. I mean, don't you remember going that way? So the one positive to that, I guess, was it really made me look at what I did and how much I like it. And so when I would get opportunities, and I'm sure you guys did too, from clients and stuff like that, to move careers, right?

28:44Sal Di Stefano:I don't know how many times in a year, maybe a couple times a year, I'd get a client that we connected. They really liked me, and they would be like, hey, come work for me. You should come work for me, and I'll pay you this much. Sometimes it was more money than what I was making, but it was always a little bit more than what I was making. I was always like, yeah, no, I know what it's like. I love what I do. I love what I do. This is fun. It doesn't sound as fun. Yeah, I love what I do, and another$30 ,000,$40 ,000 a year, which sounds like a lot is not really a lot because when you move up, that's another tax bracket, you go up and it's like, really, what is that difference per month?

29:22Sal Di Stefano:And when you live in an area that's expensive, it's like, uh, I mean, it doesn't make that big of an impact.

29:28Adam Schafer:One of the tough things I think for, um, you know, I think people and I get why this is a difficult one. Um, and I was lucky I had some really, you know, I come from an immigrant family, so they're very hardworking. Um, I was constantly preached to about all the great opportunities here that we could take. And my dad grew up real poor. My mom, her dad came here when he was, very difficult time. So I was brought up in this kind of like, you're very grateful for what you have, go out there, work hard type of deal. And it was a huge plus. And I kind of understand where people, where this mentality comes from.

30:05Adam Schafer:You see someone producing so much or making so much more. well, yeah, they should pay so much more in taxes. But what you got to be careful with is what you don't want to do is take your most productive people as defined by what the market says is productive. So I know sometimes people argue this, like I work real hard too. Like I know they work, but I also bust my ass. It's like, okay, you do work really hard, okay? But the market determines value. And so if somebody's being really productive based off of what the market says, and oftentimes it's skewed, right? Like it could be that they're making some product or whatever that's like, okay, is that really benefiting anybody?

30:44Adam Schafer:But oftentimes it's also like they're innovating. They're doing some things that are really, what we don't want to do is de-incentivize people who are really productive by saying, hey, you're going to get hammered, you know, more, the more you make, the more you produce. And what ends up happening is you can get people to go, what's the point? I'm not even gonna try anymore.

31:04Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I think it's really easy to look at that when you've been kind of an employee your whole life. It's different. Once you've had to build a business, like you have a total different lens that you can see that through. I've learned, I've had very different conversations about this with my friends that work as a teacher or like work with the government or yeah, I've just been an employee and like has never even attempted to own their own business. It's a totally different worldview and perspective you get as a small business owner. and a lot of those, you know, tapes and restrictions and things that you have to kind of bust through just to get, you know, what's on paper, you know, bringing that home.

31:44It's pretty substantially different.

31:45Adam Schafer:You know, it's been fun. It's been really fun. And your oldest works, right? Yeah, yeah, he does. Okay, so this is really interesting. This is really cool. I think every kid goes through this. My niece gets a job, right? She starts working. She gets her paycheck, and she's looking at it and going, wait a minute. Where's the rest of it? Why is my, I thought I made 15 an hour. And I'm like, Oh, you pay taxes. And to see the light bulb go on and for her to be like, wait a minute, where's, isn't that money? And I'm like, no, that's how much you got to pay. Yeah. I didn't see that. That come through.

32:16Adam Schafer:It's pretty funny. Have you guys experienced that with your kids? Have they said anything about that? Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. Same thing as a paycheck. And yeah, I think the realization of that was too. two and um the nice part was was ethan was running his own experiment with trying to sell t-shirts and he was originally trying to sell like these packets that were like like gatorade that he was like hustling at school and kids were buying it from him and stuff i like that it was a cool little thing he was doing and then he was making you know some some side change from that and of course you know i was buying some stuff like off uh amazon for him initially and then i was like you You got to put that back in.

32:57His margins were 100%. His margins were 100%. And so then he moves all that into like, well, I want to sell T-shirts now. And he actually was pretty resourceful and got this whole setup from his gymnastic gym. They had made T-shirts before in the past, but it was like they weren't using it. And so he asked if he could use it. And so basically brought it home and he's got this whole thing all set up. That's so awesome. Yeah. I'm like, oh, cool. Like I'm all about like helping you like get this thing off the ground launch and all this. But I was like, you know, you're going to have to buy all the T-shirts and you're going to have to buy the ink and, you know, and all that kind of, so you got to factor all that in and, you know, see how we're going to recoup.

33:38And, and so he bought all that and he sold a few and it just, it like crushed him. You know, he was just the realization of like, I don't think I'm going to make my money back. I was like, I know it's hard, right? You know, but it's like, you got one under. your belt i was like the more of these you keep doing and you figure it out like that's what

33:58Sal Di Stefano:entrepreneurship is i can't wait for that day it was rad though it was fun my five-year-old uh he

34:04Adam Schafer:he'll buy like um it's like jewelry making kits but it's like for kids stuff like you make a bracelet or whatever and he was selling them to family of course family members are going to buy them all and so now we go to the store and he's like i want to buy this for me i'm like why so i can sell some so then i'm having the conversation of like okay it costs 15 and you're going to sell them for a dollar each you're gonna make ten dollars yeah you actually lost five dollars and he's like what and i'm like yeah if you buy this and you sell them for a dollar each you lose money and he's like the wheels are turning i need to raise price did you guys see um they just this is the new data that came out uh it was a federal national survey on drug use and health the number one used addictive substance in america do you guys want to

34:53Sal Di Stefano:guess what it is or including things like nicotine and like alcohol it's legal stuff let's talk oh legal stuff caffeine so nick oh yeah caffeine they didn't put that counts they don't count that that's a good one doug it should if they put caffeine i mean it's gonna be nicotine or i mean

35:07Adam Schafer:i guess for the first time actually not alcohol i went way down for the first time ever weed oh wow weed weed cannabis is the number one used most popular daily drug it now beats alcohol and cigarettes. I don't know how I feel about that. Same. I don't know if I like that. It's not a good thing. I don't think it's a good thing. I definitely don't think it's a good thing. Just from what I've seen from teenage kids and like how insanely pervasive it is and how unproductive

35:35Sal Di Stefano:you know a lot of these kids. You guys sound like me. You guys remember when we had this debate like a couple years ago? You remember this? Yeah. You already started that. Yes. I said, man, I would way rather catch my kid drinking and drunk than catch him smoking weed yeah and that was coming from back then i was smoking weed all the time i was like this coming from somebody who smokes like i i i would rather that and it's and it's not because i think one is more or less healthier it's not even that angle it's that it's weed is pervasive like that it's easy to justify it's healthy for me or it's not bad or it's like oh it helps you with my anxiety hangovers and you don't there's not a lot of like um yeah like immediate consequential things.

36:18Sal Di Stefano:Right, exactly. And so that to me, it creeps on you. And then before you know it, it's a daily habit and you're unproductive, you don't do shit.

36:30Adam Schafer:You know what's one of the crazy things about this? So I was wrong on this, and I'm going to say this publicly. I thought that legalizing cannabis, this was back when it wasn't legal, okay? Now it's mostly legal. It's not federally legal yet, but it's basically legal because so many states have legalized it and the federal government doesn't really care or do anything about it. I thought legalizing it would not increase its use. I thought, oh, it's just going to be about the same and maybe even people will use it less because it's not as like seductive because it's not this black market thing.

37:01Adam Schafer:It's not exciting. Which now in hindsight was one of the dumbest opinions you could possibly ever have. It for sure increased use through the roof.

37:09Sal Di Stefano:I don't think it's fair to call that yet. It's still novel. It's extremely novel for a vast majority of our society. You think it's going to go up and drop? 100%. Yeah. 100%. It's novel. I mean, I see it in my own family of people that were like, weed was so taboo and enough educations come around that it's actually not too bad for you to say, okay, let me try it. Yeah. You know, oh, and they're like, there's this curve happening or this pendulum happening right now of everybody can get it. It's not so bad for you. Oh, let's try it. Oh, it's fun. I never did it. Like, there's a lot of that happening right now.

37:51Sal Di Stefano:And then also kids can get it legal. I do think, I definitely think it's going to swing back. Will it come way back and lower? Or how high is it going to get before? Right. Like, the verdict's not out yet.

38:02Adam Schafer:It's just wild to me that in the U.S. it's used more daily than alcohol or tobacco, which is wild. Here's the other part of this that's interesting to speculate on.

38:14Sal Di Stefano:Smoking weed by yourself is not as bad as drinking by yourself. You're kind of along the lines of where I'm going.

38:23Adam Schafer:Okay, definitely alcohol can have some horrible effects. Alcoholism, terrible.

38:28Sal Di Stefano:How often did anyone ever say, yeah, man, I had a couple beers and played some video games. You definitely smoked some weed and played video games.

38:35Adam Schafer:Well, this is where I'm going. It's only social. Exactly where I'm going. Most people who drink, who enjoy the occasional drink, even weekly or whatever, are not alcoholics. We know this. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol are not alcoholics. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol are doing it in a social setting.

38:55Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

38:56Adam Schafer:It's a social. Agreed. one of the effects of alcohol is it's kind of a social lubricant yeah cannabis is not no cannabis you'll get weird cannabis actually is now some people say it's social not really i don't think i know a lot of introverts put yourself in a back put yourself in kind of a scary social situation smoke a joint guaranteed you'll run away who you are like i mean there's obviously my my brother's

39:20Sal Di Stefano:example someone who who uses it for social anxiety right but that he's a minority even if that is true of people that do it and if it's something that you can smoke in your room by or do in your room by yourself like it's not a it's not a social and also that's like intervention you know with alcohol yeah if you're just sitting there like drinking hard alcohol by yourself like people are

39:43Adam Schafer:gonna be really concerned yeah but also i would challenge that adam so i don't know your brother yeah would you say he's like a super social person oh no i'm that's why i did the air quotes

39:52Sal Di Stefano:is this like i don't i don't buy that it's right yeah but it's like listen who am i to say like maybe it does whatever it's like i still would argue that he's an anomaly even if that's true

40:02Adam Schafer:so i i'm the reason why i'm like sounding the alarm on this i'm speculating but you know i've done both right if i've smoked weed i've had alcohol weed does not make me uh more social uh maybe when i'm with close friends that i trust yeah but you put me in a place i don't know anybody if you give me any cannabis like now i'm now i don't want to talk to anybody i'm way more anxious okay um i think with the loneliness epidemic with the fact that society is now

40:28Sal Di Stefano:organizing itself in a way to make dangerous combination it's yeah it's like social socializing

40:33Adam Schafer:okay so this is what happened activity we organize society to make being active uh difficult it's actually being active now is you have to, you have to go out of your way to be active. Being sedentary is the default. This is how we organize society. We've also now slowly, maybe actually quickly have organized society in a way to make being social with people, something you have to get, go out of your way to do. Whereas being social used to be the default. You had to be social. If I went to the store, you know, I had to walk to the store. I had to go to the store. I had to talk to people. I knew my neighbors.

41:04Adam Schafer:We have organized society now to isolate ourselves door dash internet like everything is like and we know this the loneliness epidemic is is crazy you throw weed on top of that holy cow bad combination and that's not good for

41:17Sal Di Stefano:people yeah no i don't i don't disagree with that at all i don't it's a bad and that and that is what could potentially cause it to continue to go really really bad oh yeah and stay bad for a long

41:26Adam Schafer:time and listen okay i'll say this about alcohol is there a difference between uh drinking a beer and doing shots yeah okay cannabis does not look the same as it used to it does not look the same you go to a dispensary and you find yourself a joint and you try to find one less than 20 percent thc they don't sell them oh yeah they don't no they're all 25 plus it used to be 15 percent 10 percent they're making them strong as hell so this is uh this will be interesting i mean if you

41:55Sal Di Stefano:i mean i mean i'm just gonna say it if you could finish a finish a joint you're a stoner i mean that's like today today's can't have it i mean yeah no i'm blitzed if i have like more than two hits or something i mean that would be just if you can actually finish a whole one like that's that's crazy so that's got a crazy tolerance yeah which yeah exactly which means you had to do a lot to get to that a lot you had to do a lot to get to that level for sure yeah no i i mean uh i mean part of the motivation there was several things that motivated me to quit uh but i also know my son's getting to that certain age and i like i i definitely if i want if i don't want him to ever do that one of the easiest ways i think is to him not see his dad or you'll be around that or any of that stuff and so that was a big big motivation uh for me and i'm not an anti-cannabis person like i even when i said uh when i stopped i was like you know i'm not saying i'll never do it again like i'll not like there's i'm sure there's going to be a situation or a time where i partake or do that, but it'll be few and far between.

42:55Adam Schafer:I have a friend of mine. I won't say who they are and give too many details, but someone I know very well who was a regular cannabis user. So they have it on kind of a daily basis, which now we're finding is not that uncommon. Okay. So they used it regularly. They also had a social anxiety and would not necessarily like to be in public or social situations. Thought that that was their personality. Just thought that that's who they were. Quit smoking cannabis after getting through the first couple months of the difficulty of whatever became much more social hosting events, being around people and literally told me, said to me, I thought that was my personality.

43:34Adam Schafer:I had no idea it was the cannabis.

43:36Sal Di Stefano:That's like the people that think they're productive on it. And then they get off of it. It was like, Whoa, that's what productivity actually looks like. It's like, Oh, good for you. You went to work. You still went to work. You still did your job. It does not mean you're

43:48Adam Schafer:productive yet you guys know that one meme that says like hard times create good man create good time okay they made one for nicotine in cannabis it said nicotine uh nicotine produces uh produces good man good man good times good times produce weed weed produces bad man bad man so basically saying like nicotine was guys get back to smoking cigarettes some tough guys

44:14Sal Di Stefano:work our way back to Marlboro. I think that's hilarious. Dude, that's hilarious.

44:18Adam Schafer:I just learned something the other day. Have you guys ever heard of the over-justification effect? Have you guys ever heard of the justification?

44:25Sal Di Stefano:I feel like I can guess what it is. You can guess what it is.

44:27Adam Schafer:Yeah. It's really cool, dude. I looked at the study. I saw the study. It was really interesting. So scientists took a group of kids who love to draw.

44:36Sal Di Stefano:Okay.

44:37Adam Schafer:These were already kids. They love to draw. It's just like their favorite thing to do. Whenever they have free time, they draw, they enjoy it. They took and they divided them. And this, you can look this up, look up the over justification effect, Doug, if you don't mind. And they took the kids, they separated them. They gave half the kids a star every time they drew. So every time they drew, they give them a star and a reward. The other kids, they left alone. Here's what happened. The kids who were given a star stopped drawing on their own. They just stopped. The kids that left alone continue to go, continue to do it.

45:06Adam Schafer:They call it the over justification effect. But athletes experience this as well. You have athletes who are passionate about a sport, love it.

45:14Sal Di Stefano:Got all the trophies.

45:15Adam Schafer:Do everything. Then suddenly they go play pro, and now it's a job. They're getting paid, and they lose the passion for it. And you'll see that as well.

45:23Sal Di Stefano:I wonder what that curve looks like. Yeah, I know. Because obviously there's some positive reinforcement that probably happens early on. You start drawing, and you get a star, you get this thing like that. In fact, actually, I think I saw Hormozy just talking about this. This must have been what he was alluding to, this study, because he was saying that, like that falls off after a while. So what's the curve look like? Because initially that reward signal does work. Like initially. What does it say, Doug? Well, I don't know. But if you look at the graph, it looks like it falls off very quickly.

45:53That's right. Oh, interesting.

45:54Adam Schafer:Can you put it up on the screen, Doug? Oh, it's not there? Okay, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was up. No, no, no. No worries. Yeah, it's interesting, right? And so you see this with people too.

46:05Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

46:06Adam Schafer:So people who love doing what they do.

46:08Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. yeah look at that yeah what's it what is that what's that what's the intrinsic motivation what's the x and y so okay um obviously the motivation is on i guess this would be the x-axis yeah and this is uh over time and that shows this is when the rewards introduced right so i what i'm curious about is oh as soon as reward is introduced well it looks according to this graph as soon as the rewards introduced i i find that hard to believe it's so quick i i find that way hard to believe what does it say how does it explain the over justification is there something there the uh read what that says about the over just so yeah it uh it's the introduction of an incentive that has a detrimental effect on an individual's intrinsic motivation to complete a task that they

46:57Adam Schafer:were initially motivated to do alone yeah so so recognizing a kid that likes to draw is different I love these drawings that you make. It's different than saying, every time you draw, I'm going to give you a star.

47:08Sal Di Stefano:Okay, this is actually really interesting considering we just did this with our leadership team. Another way to say this is like, okay, I've got an employee. This is their job. They've been doing their job and tasks for the last nine months, those things. And then I reward that job. They didn't do anything else outside of it. And then we give them a raise. Wouldn't that cause the same thing?

47:34Adam Schafer:That's interesting because I wonder if that would apply because they're already getting paid to do what they do. So they're not doing it for free. So I wonder if that makes a difference. You'd have to equate to their result, right?

47:48Sal Di Stefano:And so this is another, let's use another example. So this would also imply that I've trained my son to make his bed before he goes to school every day. And he's consistently done it for, let's say, a year of his life. And then all of a sudden I decide, I'm going to start paying you$5 for making it better.

48:04Adam Schafer:So here's what it says. The over-justification effect can occur almost immediately, often taking effect after just one or two exposures to an expected, tangible reward. The decline in intrinsic motivation is triggered when a person's brain reclassifies an enjoyable activity as a chore being done strictly for a paycheck or a price. Okay, so there's a little -

48:24Sal Di Stefano:Do we have to reframe it? Yeah. So where, okay, so that means this. let's use my son's bed making analogy I was giving. That would mean that he's been making his bed for a year. On his own. On his own.

48:39Adam Schafer:Loves doing it.

48:40Sal Di Stefano:I decide on the 56th time, I start paying him$5. Every time he does it. Great job, son. But I start doing it every time, but then I don't do it. That's right. That's right. Because he expects it now. Yeah. Okay. But if I kept doing it, I'm sure he would keep doing it. I don't know. because what they showed in the kids' study is - Well, that's yeah, because one or two exposures. One or two exposures would be the giving event.

49:04Adam Schafer:So scroll down, Doug Moore. So this is the experiment that I read. It's Leopard Green Nisbet's Landmark 1973 New Jersey School Study. Researchers documented this shift within a matter of days. Children who already enjoyed drawing were observed after receiving a tangible expected reward for it. And here is how the timeline and conditions unfold. So they saw an instant shift in self-perception. Individuals learn about their own preferences by observing their own actions. If they notice they're receiving an extra reward for a task, they rapidly conclude, I must be doing this for the reward rather than I am doing this because I love this.

49:36Is this more about art than it is about chores?

49:42Adam Schafer:I think if kids are - Well, this is what Scott Donald teaches.

49:45Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, artists. He talks about this is why you don't give allowance for basic chores in the house. He's like, that's part of being the unit in the family. You make your bed, you take out the trash. What do you do? It's like, but then we have other things.

49:59Adam Schafer:He organizes them as like jobs essentially.

50:01Sal Di Stefano:Exactly. So it's like, these are chores that you do and you don't get real. It's part of being the family. You do, we all do this, but if you want to make money, there's opportunities for you to make money. You can babysit your sister for a weekend. You can go wash and detail the car. You can go, you know, break down the cardboard, but whatever, like he has, and he's like those you, you create as jobs. Well, I can, I don't know. I guess I could see this from a different perspective of it being like, you know, an athlete and like you're you're you love sports you love the game they don't love the game because it becomes a job but like the same thing with artistry like if i'm making music or something i'm just doing it for that and then i get paid this exorbitant amount of money for that all of a sudden then i'm like well i'm just doing this for somebody to pay me to keep doing this and then you know my my interest is going to fall off quickly yeah with that but i i guess like it like i don't really see it from that other perspective if i'm if i'm actually doing hard work i want to get a reward.

50:57Adam Schafer:Yeah, but I think that's different, right? We're already paying them. They're already working for us. Yeah, so I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to understand.

51:03Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, me too, and I'm not trying to use the example I get because making a bed would be a chore and it would be a thing that you could train your kid to do without getting paid. And then if all of a sudden I decided to pay him, he would inevitably fall off of doing that?

51:16Adam Schafer:If he's already doing it on his own. It's intrinsic motivation, so I think it's their desire within to want to do something.

51:24Sal Di Stefano:Right, and so then maybe he does it, but he's now doing it just because he wants the money. Right. So that desire is falling away. So I think that's why it's happening with sports and music and things like that.

51:35Adam Schafer:Yeah. Interesting. Right.

51:36Sal Di Stefano:I mean, it's interesting. And it, I mean, it makes me wonder how that does carry over to job and other things like that too. It's like, it seems a little bit different. Yeah. I mean, kind of right. But there's a part of me, I mean, even when you know, the, the, the example I'm thinking of right now, when, when we did something like this where we, where we just raise up to raise up, i prefer to like attach it to attach it to something yeah like or give a new goal like hey i want to raise you up but these are the things i'm looking for leading up to that point to get there yeah versus just like hey you've been working for us for a year and doing your job here's another x amount of dollars because then like what what are you rewarding really by doing that and you're just like and then they're just literally just doing the same thing to get that and then you then now they'll expect that every year of like oh if i just do the same job it's It's almost like the incentive version versus like the 10-year, you know, like I expect like just because I've been here that long, I get paid more.

52:29Yeah, that's interesting.

52:30Adam Schafer:So along the same lines, like a psychology stuff, I'm reading this book called Validation. It's called Validation. And it talks about the power of essentially validating people when they're coming to you with something or they have an experience, which by the way, doesn't mean you agree with them. It's just you're validating their experience. The data that's cited in this is pretty remarkable. So when somebody has a difficult situation, stressful situation, validating somebody, essentially validating their experience, lowers their fight or flight response. Invalidating them triggers it. So like your kid comes to you like, oh my God, I'm freaking out over this thing.

53:10Adam Schafer:It's not that big of a deal. Yes. Oh, who cares? Don't worry about it. Get over it type of deal. Worse thing you can do. Triggers.

53:15Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, worse thing you can do.

53:15Adam Schafer:Triggers their fight or flight versus validating their experience. What's funny, what's crazy about it, I'm reading the book, and by the way, I grew up in a household where we didn't invalidate anything. Everything was invalid. Everything was like, get up, you can do it, whatever. Wipe it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I grew up that way. But when I trained and coached people, I learned that this was very powerful. When I had clients come to me with challenges, the worst possible thing I could do was invalidate. Well, I think when you say this,

53:43Sal Di Stefano:you have to be very clear too, because I think somebody will interpret validation to being like coddling. and it does look different. We do this with my son. It's just like he can have a moment of breakdown and you can validate his feelings, but then also correct his behavior. And be like, son, I know that felt like it hurt and it was this, but you're going to be okay. Like this happens when we play rough. You fall down, it was an accident. You're going to be all right. Like you can validate their feeling, you know, whatever they're going through and then turn around and coach right afterwards.

54:14Adam Schafer:It's like, hey, I can see why that really bothered you.

54:16Sal Di Stefano:because i also think a lot of sense i also think that that somebody can take the validation thing too far worse that's all you do is validate and you don't follow it up with the coaching it can just be like oh you poor thing oh my god that's oh i can't believe that and there's that's it and so then that that then you also create a victim you create somebody every time something rough happens or anything bad there's like you come running up and you're just validating how they feel all the time and then we have this society of people that want to be validated So that's the thing.

54:42Adam Schafer:So there's a confusion, right? Is that validating isn't that you agree that, yeah, I agree with what's happening. I agree with you. I agree with the fact that you're so upset that you've got an A minus on your test and you're freaking out. You don't have to agree with it, but you can say, look, yeah, I could tell you worked really hard. You expected an A. And so that's really disappointing. And then the conversation. Right. But you lower that fight or flight. They feel valid. and then you can have that conversation. I mean, that conversation though

55:13Sal Di Stefano:has to be equally as important. Totally. Because otherwise, if you just -

55:16Adam Schafer:As a parent, for sure.

55:17Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, because if you just go and validate feelings all day long about when, especially when they're wrong.

55:22Adam Schafer:Yeah, because then you kind of reinforce it.

55:24Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I mean, if they're acting -

55:26Adam Schafer:But it's different. Validating your kid is very different than like your friend or especially your spouse. Yeah. You know, like the correcting part with the - It doesn't work so well. Let me tell you, honey. I can see why you're upset. Let me tell you why you're wrong. Here's why you shouldn't be upset. That's not going to work. That's not the same thing. That's not going to work. Anyway, I'm going to take a laugh then. So guess what is available, back available as a peptide? You can now again get. What was off? It was off? Mott C is available again. For a second there, you couldn't. You couldn't for a minute.

56:01Adam Schafer:You couldn't get it. They had put a pause on it. But Mott C, if you go through. It's back on the menu. You go through our partners at mphormones.com. you can get MOTC again, which is very exciting. Why? Because that's one of my favorite, favorite medications.

56:15Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you and Justin both have been a big fan of it. I haven't been on that in a long time. Oh, it's the best, dude. Yeah, you two have always raved about that.

56:19Adam Schafer:Why was it off? Because the FDA sent letters and scared everybody.

56:24Sal Di Stefano:Was that around the same time as the BPC one? That's right. So BPC you couldn't get for a while either. Yeah.

56:29Adam Schafer:And now they've kind of made it so that... So you can now get a prescription again from MOTC, get it from an FDA-regulated compound pharmacy, and you get the real deal. So MOTC, the nickname exercise in a bottle, and that sounds sensational. But essentially, it really does supercharge the mitochondria. So what people get from it is mostly what they get is energy. Yeah, it's energy boost. You feel just really good energy all the time. What it's also doing is helping things like burn body fat. So bodybuilders like MOTC for fat loss because of the increased energy production, the increased metabolic rate.

57:07Adam Schafer:In studies with animals, they'll feed them a high-calorie diet, and they don't gain as much body fat when they take a MOTC. Increases insulin sensitivity really good as well. Interesting. One of my favorite, dude, is one of the few peptides I took. I actually haven't taken it. It was one of the ones I took where by day three, I was like, whoa, dude, I feel like I like to turn on. I feel like it's hit and miss with people that I've talked to at least. It's very awesome for some, and then some are like, I don't even feel the effects.

57:34Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I feel like that's almost everything with peptides. Yeah.

57:36Adam Schafer:Depends on the peptide. Some people like the SS. I think it's SS31. I think that's what it's called. Oh, yeah. Is that it, Doug? Look it up. Is that the sloop? No. No, no. That's totally different. That's a different thing. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's SS31. Put SS31 peptide. See if I got that right because I might be wrong here. Yes. So SS31 also targets the mitochondria but works differently. People either respond really well to MOTC or SS31. That's what I thought. Okay, so that's the alternative. because I've done SS 31 and I've heard people rave about it and I've done it. Notice nothing. Yeah.

58:06Adam Schafer:MOTC for me. I haven't tried that one. It's like a light dimmer. Like I turned off the light. Yeah. Same. Interesting. Is it,

58:13Sal Di Stefano:so is it injectable or is it pill? Injectable. Daily? Yes. Oh, it's daily. Yeah. That's why I, that's why I forget. Yes. It's a little tiny. It's not what it is. Yeah. It's just the habit of doing a daily thing is like, it's, that's just another thing.

58:29Adam Schafer:nine uh so you guys want to hear some cool patents that uh i saw this um this post on these new patents that just got uh submitted that for pretty innovative interesting inventions i'll read them off to you motorola just got a patent for a throat tattoo that works like a microphone what yeah a tattoo yeah that works like a microphone i'm not sure i'm just reading you the headline.

58:56Sal Di Stefano:Is Motorola still a strong... Are they owned by somebody else? A throat tattoo. I didn't realize Motorola is still doing it.

59:02Adam Schafer:Check this out. Amazon has a patent for a flying warehouse that releases delivery drones. It's happening, you guys. Oh, I've seen that.

59:11Sal Di Stefano:I've seen that.

59:12Adam Schafer:They'll be in the air and you're going to order something and a drone's going to come down and in 10 minutes you're going to get your product. Flying warehouses. Bro, imagine that. 15 minutes. You buy, boom, deliver to you. We're so close to Wally. Dude. I feel like that was the beginning.

59:26Sal Di Stefano:I thought they've tested this, and it didn't go. The drone delivery hasn't really taken off yet. They've tested it in areas. Yeah, they've tested it in some areas, but I don't know why it didn't take off.

59:42Adam Schafer:I don't know. Are you scared to regulate, maybe? Who knows? Let me see. Because of FAA regulations, noise pollution, privacy concerns.

59:51Sal Di Stefano:Oh, that makes sense.

59:52Adam Schafer:So I think this is going to be the future. I think it's going to be crazy. Because Amazon really, I mean, Amazon was crazy, right? You get stuff the next day, which is wild. Like, that's crazy. For those of us who know what it was like before. Like, I used to buy stuff. So you used to the same day. Bro, you do know what we're going to have because of this? We're going to have freaking flying pirates.

1:00:14Sal Di Stefano:Oh, 100%. That's why I won't, Justin, that's why I won't work. And then they're going to get up there and steal it with packages, dude. You're showing me.

1:00:24Adam Schafer:On motorcycle drones? Yes.

1:00:27Sal Di Stefano:Bro, 100 % that's going to happen. I mean, if you, the risk of robbing. You're going to make a movie, dude? The risk of robbing a person has to be a major deterrent in comparison to robbing a robot. Like, it's a non-human, a drone flying, like shooting a net at it. People are going to punk robots like crazy. Yeah. You're going to jack them all the time? They're humans. They're getting punked. Now, the counter-argument to that is... If you would have asked me if we could go back in time and 40 years or more, because it would be even longer than that, we have about 40 years or more, and say one day, every day, there'd be all kinds of packages dropped off at people's doors and people wouldn't steal them off their doorstep.

1:01:14Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't believe that. Yeah. People don't. Oh, yeah. I mean, all the time now. The fact that everybody's got a box at their door right now and it doesn't get stolen. So maybe people won't. It is crazy. There'll definitely be some pirates originally. There'll be, yeah. A rampant pirate activity. At least for a while. Just a picture. They're on motorcycle drones. Like hawks on their shoulders. Have you seen all those? I wonder how many of them are real and how many of them are staged. Those viral videos of people that do steal the boxes off the -

1:01:48Adam Schafer:Yeah, people put the bait box. Yes, and they bait them with the - Well, now with AI, they've just done so many of those where it explodes. Yeah, I don't know if they're real or not. Those bring me joy. This is really bad. But I get really happy when I see a thief get blasted with a blue spray. Savory is like the worst, dude.

1:02:03Sal Di Stefano:It's up there like.

1:02:05Adam Schafer:It's really annoying to me. It's the lowest common denominator thing to do. It makes me really mad. Do you guys remember the first time something really valuable of yours was going on? Yeah. What was it? Yeah, it's a car. More than once. That's a big one. Hey, what are the odds? I think most people have never had their car stolen, let alone two cars stolen. Yes, two cars stolen.

1:02:30Sal Di Stefano:You know the irony of all that, though, is I had the car, the Integra, and then I had my truck stolen. The car being stolen, the thing that broke my heart more than anything was my 1 ,000 CD CD case. You know, I had the big four flipper CDs I've been collecting since I was in high school. Gone. Gone. that was just like cars replaceable that collection was not replaceable in my truck because i had a dvd player and stuff inside there i had at that time so you know my annual trip that we go to the lake all the time um we we would make a short video and of us wakeboarding and jumping and doing all stuff like that right and uh i had at least three years of dvds oh you can't replace that oh i can't and my buddy we still can't find the original stuff of that so it's just like they're gone it's like and those were really special to me even more so now that i'm older like it was i loved him when we were close to that now it's like man that was like i had uh

1:03:32Adam Schafer:the first time i ever experienced it was my bike i rode my bike to like the local it was a convenience store they had a street fighter two there remember that and i was playing it and i looked out check my bike it's there still playing still playing look out bike's gone huh bike was gone and i went to my grandparents' house. We went to my grandparents' house. My grandfather found out. This is a true story. I'll share it. He passed away so I can share it. And I told my grandfather and he said, what? Somebody stole you a bike? I said, yeah. He goes, come with me. So I get in the car with him and we're driving around looking for my bike.

1:04:05Adam Schafer:Here's the crazy part. This is the crazy part. He had his Beretta in the car, dude. And I remember thinking this as a kid. This is a true story. I never even told my mom. He had his Beretta in there and in my mind, I'm like, I'm not going to tell him if I see my bike. No way. Like some kid, like, yay. No way, dude. The kid could ride right in front of me. Like, hey, what's up, Sal? That's my bike. Terrified. That was the first time that I see his death, dude. Old Sicilian

1:04:36Sal Di Stefano:justice, bro. The DVDs. Okay, so Katrina told me, we were going through, I shared with you guys that old picture of Katrina and I when we first got together. And because we were going through all these old photos of her and I, one of the other old photos that popped up was the very first kind of thing that we ever did together was I took her snowboarding and I taught her how to snowboard. And, and there's a picture of her and I doing that. And she goes, you remember that day? And I'm like, yeah, I know. I told her, she's like, you were so patient, this and that. She goes, do you remember what you did on the drive all the way up to the thing?

1:05:07And I'm like, no.

1:05:09Sal Di Stefano:She's like, you, you had me watch your wakeboarding video. No, no, you do. Oh, look what I do right there. No, you do. No, you do, bro. That's amazing. An hour of me like doing tricks. A whole hour?

1:05:27Adam Schafer:She's still stuck with you, dude. Wow. That's a good woman. Yeah, that was good, bro.

1:05:31Sal Di Stefano:It was kind of cool.

1:05:33Adam Schafer:Were you turned on?

1:05:35Sal Di Stefano:Music behind it and everything. Oh, yeah, dog. Oh, yeah, dude. Busted tricks for now. Highlight reel? Oh, wow. Yes, dude. It's a whole video. I didn't get Courtney to watch any of my highlights from football or any of my old fan videos. She was trapped in the trunk the whole time. That's why. She ain't going nowhere. I should have held her hostage. That's the move. That's the best thing ever. How long were you guys dating at that point? Oh, we had just, it was the first real thing we ever did.

1:05:59Adam Schafer:No way, bro.

1:06:00Sal Di Stefano:Early on, too. Yeah, yeah. I'm 29. I was 29. She was 30.

1:06:04Adam Schafer:See, she's smart because she's probably like, this is ridiculous.

1:06:07Sal Di Stefano:But she's also probably thinking in her head like, he's really confident.

1:06:11Adam Schafer:This is going to go somewhere. I know. This confidence is interesting. We point this in the right direction. We're good. Yeah, I'm just going to have to direct this. That's awesome. When your system that is meant to guide your health falls short, it becomes necessary to take your health into your own hands. Introducing Element. So Element is an electrolyte powder you add to your water. There's no artificial sweeteners, no sugar. And it's got all the sodium you need for better muscle contractions, better performance to feel better. Here's the deal. A lot of people who work out hard, especially if you're on a low-carbohydrate diet or you don't eat processed foods, you need more electrolytes.

1:06:50Adam Schafer:Maybe you have muscle cramps or you have excess fatigue or headaches. Try Element. It tastes amazing. It's inexpensive. There's no sugar, no sweeteners. It gives you the right amount of electrolytes to fuel you for your workouts. Go check them out. Go to drinklmnt.com slash mindpump. On that link, you'll get a free sample pack of the most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase. All right, here comes the show. Our first caller is Kayla from New York. Hi, Kayla. Hi, Kayla. Hi. Wow, this is surreal. How are you? How can I help you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Well, so after listening to your episode that aired on Monday, I switched things up and decided I should just be straightforward and real.

1:07:37Um, I'm turning 40 in February and I want next year to be the year that I've looked the best I've ever looked. Uh, yes, I want great mobility, functionality, and strength, but ultimately I want to look amazing, but without doing any harm to my hormones or metabolism. For my background, I spent the last eight years being pregnant, birthing, nursing three babies, just to start perimenopause a year postpartum after my third, to then have nearly a year of almost daily diarrhea to learn that I had SIBO. I treated the SIBO, started hormone therapy, had a return of the SIBO eight months later, then I needed to increase my HRT a few months ago, and I also had carpal tunnel surgery six months ago.

1:08:21So I'm 39 now. I'm a wife and mother to three little girls, seven, five, and three. I want to set a good example for them and show them how they need to respect their bodies and take care of their bodies. And they already know that we value protein in our house. I used to run to lose weight when I was younger. And as a form of punishment therapy, I turned to circuit training to lose weight. That was a bad idea. In my early 20s the circuit training worked but it doesn't anymore um first world problems but life has been a roller coaster the last eight years my husband and i had a rough patch when i hit 37 and my paramedopause came on um thank god i got the hrt because that poor man may have divorced me otherwise and my girls were kind of on edge because i was just a raging lunatic so now i've gotten my digestion to a better place.

1:09:14I still have to steer clear of gluten, sugar, and most dairy. But before all this, I was a selfish person and my husband always spoiled me. And then the onslaught of babies and how my body changes and all the things that come with the entire life change was really hard for me to accept. But accepting it now has made me a better mom, wife, and just person in general. I've got back to my faith and that's helped me a lot. And also your podcast has really been beneficial. Now that I have things pretty well settled, I'd like to focus on getting some self-esteem back and being a bit more selfish for a year.

1:09:59I want to build strength, lean out and look amazing. But I recognize when it's time to push and when it's time to slow down. My busy season for work is mid-Defember through March. So I'd like to do a bulk in the fall months, do like a 15 program and some light walking during my busy season just to maintain hot and increase some cardio or something to lean out in the spring and burn some fat and then maintain again through the summer months, if that sounds doable. My question is, what programs do you think would benefit me the most during these seasons for the upcoming year?

1:10:37Adam Schafer:Good question. And I'm glad you called in. Sounds like you've been through the ringer. Well, I mean, what mom hasn't, but such is life. But yeah, it took me a little while to accept all the chaos that kids bring. Yeah. Although it may seem common to you, it's very difficult. And I've worked with a lot of women through, uh, having children through the hormone changes and all that can happen and, uh, oftentimes contributing to poor gut issues. And so you just had all of it all at once. Is it, are the gut issues pretty much rectified? It's not perfect. Um, I unfortunately fell in love with sourdough baking.

1:11:13So that doesn't help me. Um, but as long as I steer clear of that, then yeah.

1:11:20Adam Schafer:Okay. Okay. Okay. So we got to make sure we maintain that. So maintain good, good health. Cause that'll throw everything off. Is your HRT stable now? Have you found the right dose and it's right and everything feels good now? Yeah. Yeah. When I started it last June, um, I was doing a bulk that fall and my metabolism shot through the roof. Um, and I talked to my, um, OBGYN and she said that it could be that I'm metabolizing things much quicker. So we needed to up my levels a little bit, but I'm pretty good now. Okay. And you're on, uh, what's part of your HRT? Is it, is it, is it the whole gamut?

1:11:57Adam Schafer:Are you progesterone, thyroid, testosterone? No thyroid, um, progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. Okay, good. No thyroid, huh? No. So, okay, good. Um, so a good, what you want to focus on right now is traditional strength training and you want to get stronger. That's going to be the best thing for, uh, setting yourself up, uh, for the cut later on. Um, are you tracking your calories? You have an idea where, where you're at with that? Yeah. My maintenance is around 2000. Um, when I was doing a bulk last fall, I could get up to 27 to 300, 3000 calories. Um, and I'm not going to lie. It was hard to cut from that because I love food.

1:12:36Um, it's kind of my comfort zone. Um, and plus the sourdough, you know, just throws that out the window.

1:12:43Adam Schafer:And when you got up to that, were you gaining a bunch of weight or were you building muscle and maintaining? No, I really only over the last year, really only fluctuated um when i was lean in the summer i was like 125 and when i was bulking at my weight my highest i was 135 so oh that's awesome yeah i oscillate between that no no no that's phenomenal um because you're this is perfect i mean you would be somebody that i would really look for a body comp change rather than a hard cut yeah you know so i would put you in a reverse diet i wouldn't have you climb as high as you did last time and then kind of stay you know if you're at 2000 ish right now, I'd put you at, you know, 24, 25 and just get strong.

1:13:22Adam Schafer:And what you'll see over time is this nice body composition change that wouldn't require, and you're, what are you sitting at right now? Uh, body weight, are you around the one 35 or, um, like one 30. Yeah. I mean, if you just did that, you would be good. And you would just see yourself kind of lean out as your body sculpted and shape, you know, Kayla, I got to tell you with everything that you're doing, you're a perfect candidate for coaching. To have somebody coach you through the process would be perfect because you've got all the other stuff. And look, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, managing more things is a lot.

1:13:57Adam Schafer:You've got kids, it looks like you've got a job. You've done all the managing of the SIBO and the HRT. I mean, it would probably benefit you to just offset that and have someone kind of walk you through the process and meet with you on a semi-regular basis with nutrition and exercise programming. I don't think you need anything special. I think you're in a great place. I mean, a program like MAPS Anabolic or Muscle Mommy, you know, 2 ,400 calories, I think you'd get great results. But what a coach is going to do is walk you through the kind of reverse diet process, maybe throw in some mini cuts, modify the program so that it's, you know, instead of maps muscle mommy, it's a maps Kayla.

1:14:41Adam Schafer:And then just kind of move you through this, you know, maybe six to nine month process where at the end of it, you're like, man, I'm, everything's great. And it feels good. And my body's working the way I want it to. Yeah. Okay. Um, I don't know about the cost of a coach at the moment, but that's something I can talk to my husband about. So, okay. But that you'd be perfect for that. But I think, uh, how many days a week are you able to work out in the gym? Well, I've been what I'm, what I call lazy exercising at the moment. Um, I pretty much do a 15 some days I'll double up so that I can have a day off or whatever.

1:15:14Um, but, uh, I work out like I have a home gym. Um, so I'll go in the basement and I'll do a couple lifts a day. Um, almost five days a week. Oh, that's fine.

1:15:25Adam Schafer:I like that. Yeah. How many steps are you taking on a daily basis? Um, my average for June was 14 ,000. Oh, wow. Kayla, you're kicking butt. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, don't do anything too aggressive with the cut. I think if you stay the course, especially now the HRT dialed in, what you're going to see over the next six months to a year is this really nice, consistent body composition change. The mistake you can make, Kayla, is to try to force it. Yeah. It's to try to push too hard in any direction. Yeah. I think part of that is what kicked off the SIBO the first time. Um, you know, like the 3000 calories I was impressed with even, even myself that I could maintain that.

1:16:05Um, but I think it was too much for my digestion to handle. Plus the stress of my busy season.

1:16:10Adam Schafer:Yeah. If you want to try any supplements for gut health, uh, Organifi has a new parasite cleanse that I really, really like. Um, and it seems to be benefiting a lot of the listeners who have a kind of reoccurring SIBO issues. So it's natural. It's an easy supplement. you would do like two cycles of it but as far as a workout so so here's here's the deal and this is the mentality it's like man i dealt with all this stuff i'm coming out of this cloud that lasted years and i think my body's starting to work the way i wanted to now i'm going to slam on the gas this is a mistake you don't want to do that you're you're going to progress just fine yep as long as you're consistent and what you're doing i like 14 000 steps a day you know bring your calories up to 24, 2500 consistently hit your protein targets.

1:16:56Adam Schafer:Be consistent with a mass 15 protocol, 15 muscle mommy, 15 power lift, 15 symmetry, either one of those. And just stay consistent. And we're going to see, like I said, over six months to the next year is just this nice change in body composition, this nice consistent change.

1:17:12Sal Di Stefano:And to address kind of your thought process, because you were kind of asking about the whole year during certain seasons, this program, then that program, a 15 protocol year round is great for you. The thing that changes is your mindset and intensity in the lifting. So when you're in your busy season and maybe you're not getting as much rest or you're not as dialed on the diet, back off on the intensity, go through the motions. You go to your workout, you just do your workout, you get your steps, you walk. When you're in your less busy season and you're more rested, you're more fed, you feel really good, push the intensity.

1:17:43Sal Di Stefano:This is where I'm trying to get stronger. So I'm gonna add more weight to the bar. So that's what it looks like. It looks less like a radical change in the programming that you need to switch up or you need to all of a sudden start doing all kinds of cardio. No, what it looks like is when you're really, really busy and you got a lot on your plate, your workouts are almost therapeutic. You're going through the motions. You're doing your lifts, but you're not really pushing it when you are feeling great and you're well rested. And that might look like week to week. It could look like month to month, depending on what your seasons look like.

1:18:14Sal Di Stefano:But that's how you gauge what you should be doing. is like the 15 protocol is perfect for you, but you're manipulating the intensity based off of what's going on in your outside.

1:18:24Adam Schafer:The only way you can mess this up, just based off everything you're saying, Kayla, and where you're at, the only way you can mess this up is if you try to rush it. Yeah. That's it. I'm not worried about you not working out. Sounds like you're pretty consistent. You're active daily. Your metabolism is not in a bad place. Hormones are now where they need to be. The only way that Kayla can mess this up is if you try to rush it. So that's the issue. If you don't rush it, you'll get great results. They'll be nice and consistent. If you think you can get results faster by rushing it, you'll be wrong.

1:18:57Adam Schafer:And that'll move you. The only reason I mentioned cardio in like the springtime to really like lean out was because a little while ago, you guys were talking about your HIIT program and I thought, well, maybe that could kind of jumpstart my cut phase or whatever. But maybe that's just too much for me in this phase.

1:19:16Sal Di Stefano:Well, you're also, you're at such a great place. I wouldn't need to cut you. And I feel this has been a common theme when I've been talking to a lot of our female clients and callers is build into the body you want. Like you don't need to, you don't need to cut into the body you want. You're at a good weight for your side. How tall are you? You're at a good weight. I'm only 5 '3", and that's rounding up. No, you're fine. Yeah, that's a good, you're.

1:19:38Adam Schafer:Oh my God. You're 100, yeah, 130 pounds. You stay on this path. Your body fat will fall in the low 20s.

1:19:44Sal Di Stefano:Yep.

1:19:45Adam Schafer:You'll have sculpt, shape, muscle, metabolism.

1:19:48Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. You're going to be great. Yeah. You don't need to get smaller. You'll get tighter and denser. So your weight will stay the same or maybe go up a little tiny bit, but you'll have the physique you want. And that's with the mentality of building into the body, not kind of burning and leaning out into the body.

1:20:03Adam Schafer:If you do anything like HIIT or cardio or anything like that, that would be for endurance. I would, if you're training for an athletic endeavor, you're like, man, I want some stamina so I can go running with my kids or go, that's fine. Go for it. But if you're looking at body composition change and aesthetics, stay the course. Yep. Just stay the course. This is perfect. Yep. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Do you, which, which maps 15 programs you have? Because I'd like to send you another one. I have muscle mommy and symmetry. Okay. I'll send you power lift 15. Oh, that sounds awesome. I've heard you guys talking about that lately.

1:20:39Adam Schafer:Yep. You're good. You'll love it. Yeah. Cycle through those, Kayla. That's it. Perfect. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for calling in. Thanks. Bye-bye. We need to have, I mean, she just brought up perimenopause and how hard that was for her. It is very hard for a lot of women. It is very hard for a lot of marriages when that starts to happen. Yeah. And without education, it can feel like what the heck is going on. Yeah. but it's hormone changes are no joke. They are no joke. They will affect you. And without the education around it and what's going on, it could feel like you're losing your mind or like what the heck's going on.

1:21:15Sal Di Stefano:Oh, I think I've mentioned this once before that, you know, Katrina's mom life coaches a lot of people and a lot of people that are in their late thirties, forties and above. And almost always she's, when she's dealing with when people have got like a lot of marital stuff, a lot of hormones, it's like the first thing she sends them, I'm like, you need to go do that first, and then we can work on all the other stuff. Because if that's out of whack and we're trying to fix all this, and she says it's always life-changing for people.

1:21:43Adam Schafer:Our next caller is Robert from South Carolina. What's up, Robert? What's up, Robert? Gentlemen. Oh, my goodness. I'm going to try and stay cool here. A little fanboyish right now, but I'm going to try and stay focused. Yeah, man. Just thank you so much for what y 'all do, and thank your team for letting me be on here. um it's a truly an honor to be able to speak to you guys um you've been an impact in my life for a decade at least wow um i heard you first on the ben greenfield podcast a long time ago long time ago wow yeah yeah dude it's been a cool journey thank you how can we help you dude uh so i don't know how far back i need to go in relevancy for for a little context but um i've taken up the bold challenge of trying to train my wife uh i got my um uh i know adam you can relate here uh but i i just got my um nasm cool and um i talked to ann on the school um and she uh she was amazing um i talked to her like 15 minutes and i signed up for the for y 'all's uh academy class uh academy course all right awesome welcome it's been thank you it's been it's been incredible cool a lot a lot of stuff in there that I don't know how I would have approached it.

1:23:01So it's good to have a guide. And a lot of stuff that challenges me as a person, because I'm not the salesy person, as you mentioned all that, like a lot in that course, like these are things that typically trainers struggle with. And I am right there. So I appreciate that. So, but my current call, again, trying to stay focused, I'm trying to figure out how to best support my wife um we actually met at a plane at fitness at 5 a.m um like five or so years ago so fitness is kind of in in our relationship from the beginning um but she uh she has been dealing with and we found this through functional some functional uh medicine stuff testing um her cortisol levels are just tanked out she's got like the midday crashes she's got the migraines that come on like a lot um and i had tried to start her off with like map starter she did great she was fine with that try to do the uh muscle mommy with her it was kind of she likes to do something every day so i was like all right let's try the maps 15 let's try and see what we do there um but she still gets those like hard crashes midday uh so um i used your little dexa ai to see get y 'all's advice on um on how to approach that scenario and it's like scale way back you know because you don't want to i guess push weight on her so much you don't want her to stress her uh physiological system there and burn her out um so i didn't know whether i should be going all the way back to like let's just do movement based stuff like prime maps prime level like that kind of thing or um if i can keep pushing her weight wise she really wants to grow in strength uh so i kind of struggle with how to balance that starter good question

1:24:55Adam Schafer:robert what's the uh protocol that the functional medicine practitioner has around right now uh well she's uh using a lot of supplement-based stuff um i don't know if you know like what adr is and um there's another it's it's like a it's like a mixture of different um aerobatic stuff just to kind of give her adrenal glands some support okay especially in the morning um but nothing she hasn't really addressed the lifestyle part of it which again is like a lot of keep stress low we have a five and two-year-old by the way another thing that you and i relate on y 'all story about your kids is excellent but um yeah so that that's hard to take that stress out of it you know um so that does that answer your question at all yeah i don't know if i did and so i'm asleep is there sleep okay sleep routines um sleep it we we try to be in bed by like eight o 'clock it usually ends up being 9 30 uh but it's pretty solid she has various nights of bad sleep um but she mostly gets some pretty solid sleep in there okay because that that would be number one uh would be sleep okay uh diet would be number two um i would i would i'm assuming she's avoiding caffeine and alcohol yeah hasn't hasn't done those in a long time okay um i pushed her a lot on creatine i don't know if that's yep no helpful no that'd be very helpful okay yeah no no creatine would be very helpful um as far as extra so here's the deal if she's still dealing with hpa access dysfunction right if her cortisol still bottomed out um you have to be very careful with added uh stress would you go like starter yeah i mean starter might be okay um even maps 15 would be okay but it'd be uh low intensity yeah it'd be low intensity yeah and the idea is uh starter yeah i'm gonna get your i'm gonna have you perfect your technique and your intensity is 60 percent uh And if she gets stronger, great.

1:26:58Adam Schafer:If she doesn't, that's fine too. We're just, if she doesn't get the hormone, if she doesn't get the cortisol back to normal, if she doesn't get her hypothalamus or pituitary and her adrenals back to normal, nothing's gonna happen with the strength training. So that's the number one priority. Number one priority is that. Whatever gets that better is what we're gonna focus on. And so the strength training is really, this is how I would do it. what makes her feel better throughout the day and so it's probably going to look like is low intensity perfect the technique doesn't even feel like a workout and she's going to do a little every day and that's it because what'll happen is you push it a little bit she gets she's going to get more energy crashes bands yeah and so that's it and it might take you know hba access dysfunction can sometimes take a while can sometimes take 90 days or longer to get things moving back um to where they should how if you don't mind me asking how old is your wife uh gosh 38 okay i'm 40 i'm turning 40 so she's 38 yeah you better get that right

1:28:01Sal Di Stefano:i know i know i know we'll edit yeah we'll edit that for you harvard

1:28:08Adam Schafer:has she had other hormones i'm sure i'm assuming she's had her thyroid checked and progesterone estrogen all that she did dutch test uh yeah she had that she had a dutch test thyroid seems to be doing well um and uh the hormones are crazy off um and we think that's from the adrenals being off um could be a lot of that hooks together how long i should be doing the protocol with the functional medicine practitioner about a month we actually checked in with him earlier today okay um so you know i'd give it i'd give it another month or two and see what happens she's also 38 and uh perimenopause um and having two little kids can kind of start, you know, causing some issues.

1:28:48Adam Schafer:So, you know, I would say if after a month or two, you're not seeing huge improvements, then hormone replacement therapy would be another option. You know, and you can send the blood work to mphormones.com, the doctors there and have them look. But, you know, of course, let's see if things balance out without having to do that. Do you know if they're in South... I've been actually looking for them from me personally. Do you know if they're in South Carolina yet? I think they were one of the states. I believe so.

1:29:15Sal Di Stefano:South Carolina was one of the ones they weren't. Are you sure? I know he was working on it, though. He just got into Hawaii. Okay. Yeah, they're working on it. They might be now.

1:29:23Adam Schafer:I would check. Check with them and see if they are. Yeah. And see if they're in there now. But that would be the other thing. Just because of her age, right? Because she's at the mid to late 30s, perimenopause starts to kick in. And that can make this much more difficult.

1:29:38Sal Di Stefano:Do you guys happen to use like an aura ring or anything that measures in track sleep? we don't have an aura ring she has a very kind of basic fitness watch but it does track sleep um so i need to think i need to look at that i would invest in an aura ring um just because just because sleep is such a priority of all the things that we're talking about it's probably the top of all the things that we're talking about right now and even though you're saying like she gets pretty good sleep um measuring it and then also playing with habits and routines to improve it. Interventions even, yeah. Yeah, so that you're like, hey, I noticed that when we have that chamomile tea and we do this and do that, you get these 80 plus scores.

1:30:18Sal Di Stefano:And when we don't, you get set. So you have a measurable thing when you play with different things to improve sleep, you know, that you can start to improve the habits that encourage, you know, better and better sleep scores. I think that can be extremely valuable. That's how I use mine. I mean, I use mostly mine for steps and then my sleep. That's the only two things I use it for. I don't care about the calorie bullshit. I just want to know, am I hitting my daily activity? And then I want to see my sleep score because I'm constantly doing different things. And I'm like, oh, man, when I do that one thing, if I eat after eight, boy, does that really impact me negatively and stuff.

1:30:52Sal Di Stefano:You know, some things are obvious. Some things are not obvious. Everyone's unique and different. Certain things hurt. Some people can have a drink before bed and be fine. Other people have a drink before bed and it'll screw them up. So having something like that, that's a measurable thing that she can pay attention to, I think is worth the investment.

1:31:10Adam Schafer:Yeah, but as far as – Yeah, do you find – go ahead. I was going to say, as far as a workout is concerned, MAPS-15 or starter would be – that would be where she would live for a while. And then has she started the creatine? Yeah. I'm the one who dumps it in her drink in the morning. And the other thing that the temple, we got the temple electrolytes. And then I sneak in and dump the creatine in. Good. Which is not looking. Yeah, I would go five grams three times a day. So breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'd have her try 15 grams a day to see if that makes a difference with her energy. Yeah. Yeah.

1:31:42Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I only did five in the morning. So adding the extra, because I do remember you talking about the test where the 15 actually is. That's where the cognitive benefits kick in. Yeah, that's where the cognitive benefits.

1:31:54Adam Schafer:and if she's operating at a deficit, your stomach can handle it. Yeah, you don't want to take all 15 at once. That's what Justin's saying because that could cause gastro issues. You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, five grams. And within a week, if it's something that'll help her, you'll know. She'll know. She'll be like, oh my God, I feel good. And that's pretty much it. But the workout is like, let's perfect the technique. That's it for now. We're just going to practice the technique and that's it. Which is something I, as an aspiring trainer, I've learned that I am weight efficient in like technique.

1:32:27I've gone back now through the videos y 'all put it up. Thank you. Of like the cues y 'all use, like push the door closed with your butt, like the, you know, let the weights slide up crushing those kinds of things. Like, oh, okay. That's how I can get her to not just, you know, feel it in your back. What does that mean? Yeah, exactly. So that's been helpful.

1:32:47Adam Schafer:Yeah. Cool. Okay. Do you have both of those programs? Do you have, I know you have starter. Do you have 15? i do i do that's actually what i use oh good um i love that program it's it's so nice to go do something every day and not feel like i'm overdoing or underdoing it so it's been really nice and i can do it in my garage so perfect that helps yeah perfect yeah that's it my friend all right keep us can i can i say yeah go ahead one thing just one thing yeah before i go um i uh i've been playing uh sal i don't know it was like a year two years ago i guess now when you went to a Brandon Lake concert.

1:33:24I've been playing that all around here in Charleston because I play at one of the satellite campuses where Brandon Lake started from. Oh, wow. And your description of the, it's something different. It's not like the crowd effect. There's something different. I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Somebody knows what I'm talking about. So it's been really great. I wish I had your speaking ability of sharing your testimony. Thank you. What a gift. So it's been really cool.

1:33:51Adam Schafer:I appreciate it, man. Thanks, dude. But thank you again for having me on. That was incredible advice. Thank you. You got it, brother. Let us know what happens, okay? Yeah. I will. Thank you. Take it easy. All right. See you.

1:34:06Sal Di Stefano:You know how crappy that is when your cortisol is flat on time? That's why I mentioned that sleep becomes the number one priority. Almost certain she'd go HRT route, right?

1:34:16Adam Schafer:It sucked because of her age. But, you know, back in the day when I had my studio, I had a woman in there that was really good she did hormone testing all that stuff and they she did not do hrt she was not a doctor in that sense and she had a lot of success with working with clients with hpa access dysfunction the reason why it sucks so bad is it can take a while it can take three months sometimes six months yeah and it sucks because you feel like you're doing nothing it's like man you're telling me to like rest and like walk and right you know i'm doing one exercise like it sucks but it can take a while and it's and it feels like crap bro it feels like you're dead yeah like no cortisol is dead no energy all day long our next is caller is aiden from kansas hey dude welcome back how you doing aiden what's happening hey good how you guys doing good man so give us an update last time we talked i believe you had like a you had an asymmetry going on uh some weakness on one side after an injury trying to balance that back out yeah um so you know we um ran through a bunch of different ideas on what it could be and we really weren't sure for a while so i just said screw it i got the mri um so i'll read my uh update for you guys so i did run map symmetry you guys sent over that was great i do feel like that helped out helped kind of correct my form a little bit too uh because i was having some issues like uh with the delt wanting to take over a little bit and just not getting like full activation of the chest.

1:35:42Um, after our last call, I got an MRI. Um, the big finding was I do have, uh, so I have some pretty bad stenosis in the C6, C7 vertebrae. Uh, so they said it's, uh, actually caused by a little bit of bone spurring going on. Um, and so the only real solution is, uh, just PT, um, maybe looking into some other ways to, you know, get the inflammation down a little bit. But surgery, I definitely don't want to do that if I don't have to do that. I don't know. I still think there had to be some kind of post-viral component that kind of caused all of this because the timing was crazy. It pretty much started right after I was dead ill for about five weeks.

1:36:25I think over the past few weeks, though, it seems like things have kind of calmed down a little bit. I'm not getting as many zaps, tingles, that weirdness going on. Um, my biggest questions are just kind of, you know, where to go from here, uh, because I feel pretty good. I want to, you know, progress towards getting back to, um, you know, heavy lifting. I kind of, I miss being able to, you know, be intense with exercise. I feel like it's kind of, it was an outlet for me, especially, you know, like heavy lifting, deadlift, squat, bench, all that stuff. Um, and I just have been avoiding it for so long.

1:36:58I want to kind of figure out what my path is to get back to it.

1:37:01Adam Schafer:Yeah, man. so um uh actually not bad news because i remember you had mono if i'm not if i recall okay and we were a little worried that there might be something going on uh that it was connected to it um do you know how bad the stenosis was uh they said moderate to severe but like i said i'm not really having severe symptoms or anything right now i would stay let's stay in symmetry i don't think we should go heavy just yet if you're still feeling the zaps and the tingles here and there um are you One, I'm going to recommend a supplement for you for inflammation that can help. If bringing inflammation down helps, then the supplement I'm going to recommend should make a difference.

1:37:40Adam Schafer:But I want to make sure you're not on any blood thinners or any medications that – No. Okay. So Bromelin, cheap supplement. Bromelin. Take it on an empty stomach two or three times a day. Don't take it with food. Otherwise, it just is an enzyme to break down food. So take it first thing in the morning, 30 minutes to an hour before you eat. Take it in between breakfast and lunch, again, in between lunch and dinner. And after a week or two, see if it makes a difference with the inflammation. Stay in symmetry. I would stay in symmetry until you're like, man, I think feel like everything's okay. Then move to the heavy lifting.

1:38:16Adam Schafer:Because if the stenosis is indeed the issue, what we don't want to do is cause that to flare back up.

1:38:23Sal Di Stefano:I have a recommendation for you, too, just because I've been kind of going through similar type of stuff. inflammation related and myself personally and how I feel currently right now based off what I just did. You know, going on a kind of a low calorie cut for a little bit and just kind of leaning out and stay low for a little bit and see how much that just brings down systemic inflammation in your body and then seeing how good you feel when you go lift in that state. Now, here's the drawback of that. I'm nowhere near as strong on my squats and deadlifts in this calorie deficit and down 10 pounds than thicker fed me is.

1:39:07Sal Di Stefano:But I feel way better in my lifts. And obviously, that means more to me than hitting some PR or whatever. I mean, I feel strong. I feel good. Even though I don't feel – I feel strong for right now and not relative to what I've been. And so that's the hard part is a guy that's lifted heavy weight before is doing what I'm doing is like, I can't focus on what I've done before. I just have to go off of how I feel now, but I can't tell you how good I feel right now from kind of going on that. And so maybe consider that for a few weeks and just to play and see how just leaning out and being low calorie for a while to just kind of bring the entire inflammation down in your body.

1:39:44Sal Di Stefano:If you are anything like me, where you just kind of might have this kind of mild, low level systemic inflammation always going on and bringing that down just makes you feel way better. Okay. That's been my personal experience right now. And, uh, notice that, but again, the tough part for someone like you is the same thing for me, which is, you know, like putting on kind of sissy weight for me on the, on the squat, like messes with my head psychologically, but I feel really good when I'm moving the weight, you know? Right. Okay. so yeah no i'll give that a shot cool um what would you say like what would be a good metric to kind of know like when you think like when would everything be good enough to go back to trying to push it a little bit like how long would you say to give that it would all be based

1:40:27Adam Schafer:on your symptoms so no more tingles zaps everything feels balanced i think i'm i think i'm good i don't i'm not having any of those symptoms anymore then you can start uh playing with you know challenging the weight with the bilateral exercises, but I would wait because if there's still some impingement going on, however minor pushing the weight heavy, especially with things like squats, uh, you know, in the C six C seven, I mean, you could potentially cause it to go backwards again. Um, so that, that would pretty much be that. That's basically it. It's like, when you feel like, and it sounds like you're coming out, sounds like it's already reducing.

1:41:02Adam Schafer:So you're already on the right path. Right. Okay. Um, yeah, no, that sounds good. just have kind of just been confused on where to go from here had so many different you know theories on what could possibly be going on so I'm kind of glad to finally have some but bromelain yeah do the bromelain like I said two or three times a day on an empty stomach within a week you should notice just reduced inflammation it's actually quite effective okay yeah now I can definitely give that stuff a shot you got it man thanks for calling in dude all right yeah I appreciate it guys thank you so much you guys remember his call yeah first time yeah because we weren't sure what it was so here's the mono yeah here's the thing with stenosis uh it's not uncommon no i've had clients go completely

1:41:46Sal Di Stefano:this is why i brought up the the systemic inflammation thing because i think i noticed a big difference with clients that when they're inflamed they're like that with versus when that's all tamped down then it's not bothering very much as soon as they get a little inflamed from either stress overeating things like that then it all kicks up yeah so physical therapy posture movement stuff of course symmetry type things that's all going to make it better and then keeping inflammation down i think will will help and i still i still i still veer towards the you know

1:42:12Adam Schafer:the viral uh impact because it happened after he had this really really bad illness yeah with mono which can inflate it can affect the nervous system uh but it's but he's getting better which is good just takes a little time our next caller is clark from oklahoma how's it going clark what's happening guys how's it going good how can we help you uh thanks for taking my call today i really appreciate it this is pretty neat um i sent you guys a novel in my email so i'm going to sum it up a little bit and give you guys just the details um so i'm i'm a pretty average guy here i'm 6 1 240 32 years old um i'm a landscape architect and pole builder out here and uh i'm in the field quite a bit.

1:42:54My average step count on a daily basis is about 9 ,000. And I'm out probably 12, 15 hours a day. But a little bit of background, I lost 135 pounds when I was a 17-year-old. I did that in about six months by doing a lot of cardio in the HIIT program, Insanity. I don't know if you remember that one. Of course we do. Yeah. I was doing like 45 minutes on the elliptical and three or four miles walking seven to 10 miles riding a bike and then going home and doing that. And it was, yeah, it was a lot. So I was prioritizing protein, but at the end of the day, I've lost a lot of muscle, a lot of fat and I felt really good, but realized I'd done it wrong and just kind of hung on to that weight as best I could by just staying in a deficit as much as I could.

1:43:48But then when I got to 2022, you know, throughout the years, I've lost 40 plus pounds on five different occasions. And at this particular moment, I'm looking at that sixth time. And but when I was in 2022, I got serious about lifting weights, got on a SARM stack. And then I had a buddy that convinced me to start testosterone and eventually a little bit of NPP there. And And yeah, I just kind of felt like a moron for doing that. I didn't like how it made me feel. And so I stopped doing that. And now at this particular moment, I'm out of the relationship I was when I was doing all that and haven't been in the gym.

1:44:30My living circumstances are a little unorthodox and just kind of lost on what to do at this point with working so much. And yeah, things have changed from those macros that I sent you right now. I'm kind of, I'm about 2 ,600 calories a day, uh, 220 grams of protein, 181 grams of carbs and about 80 grams of fat. I do take, uh, 10 to 15 milligrams, creatine, 1200 milligrams, fish oil, uh, 2000. I use vitamin D that's about all I can really keep up with alongside multivitamin. Uh, but yeah, I'm just kind of at a loss. My main question was, um, is maps 15, my answer with a reverse diet or what do y 'all think?

1:45:12I do like that.

1:45:13Adam Schafer:Yeah, I do. I do like that.

1:45:14Sal Di Stefano:Are you doing a lot of other things pretty well right now?

1:45:16Adam Schafer:Yeah. Let me back. I'm going to back you up a little bit. Well, first I want to ask you. So how long were you on the, uh, the, the PED cycle? How long did you do testosterone and MPP for? So testosterone about two years. MPP was only about two months and I was only doing 10 milligrams a week on that. Okay. Did you, have you had your testosterone levels checked recently just to see if you had any, any long-term effects? So I'm actually waiting on a Vita Bella to get back to me. We did a draw two weeks ago, so I'm waiting on my results and a protocol. Okay, good. Okay, good. You got that covered then.

1:45:47Adam Schafer:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because sometimes that can affect, not always, usually it doesn't, but sometimes it can affect testosterone levels a little later. So I'd want to see what that looks like. So cool. So you're already on that. So I'm going to ask you, what was it about, because you've lost weight and gained it back, you said like four or five times? Yeah. What happens when you gain it back? Are you at a point where you're like, I'm done with this? This is too much? Is it just, uh, you know, I'm, I'm tired of, go ahead. I think I just kind of fall off. Uh, like discipline is not the issue. I can get pretty locked in and stay on.

1:46:21Uh, but I, things just seem to change so often and I'm, I'm just having a hard time keeping up with that and sticking to whatever protocol I was on at that time. But also very all or nothing.

1:46:32Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. That's what I was going to say. You seem very dialed. You seem like the person who's like dialed, doing all the things, taking the supplements, training hard, and then you swing the other way pretty hard. Yeah. Trying to. And at this point at 32, I'm trying to get rid of that all in or all out mentality and just try to have something that's more manageable, honestly. That's why I like the 15 recommendation.

1:46:53Adam Schafer:The way to fix that is not to look at the outside of it. So typically what happens when people do that, which is real common, dude, this is like most people, uh, when they go through the cycle is they focus on the, why they stopped. And they're like, man, I got to just, if I could just not do the thing where I jump off the wagon, I'm good. But what they don't realize is the all in is what causes the all out. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so that's the beginning of this. The beginning of the beginning of getting you not to, to, to, to stop the all out part is to solve the all in part. And so the all in part has got to look like something that's very sustainable long-term i'm not rushing things you know i'm just a guy that works out i'm just a guy that eats healthy and whatever happens happens kind of the attitude uh that you have with it both on the both on the lifting part

1:47:41Sal Di Stefano:and the nutritional level so i like whenever whenever um you know i'm like not my ideal eating and i've allowed drinks and ice cream to come in which i allow those to ebb and flow in my diet and i know that i don't go anymore from like the guy who was having you know handful of whiskey glasses and scoops of ice cream through the week to all of a sudden like dialed weighing my food measuring everything it's like i'm gonna sit down stop the whiskey drinking you know i'm saying and it's like now i'm only gonna let myself have ice cream once every couple weeks it's like just instead of going one hard swing the other way like assess your your eating habit you're good on protein which is that's the main thing we always focus on try your best to always eat whole foods you probably have a couple offenders in there like everybody does that you have either a sweet tooth or you like the whatever the stuff whatever it is right and and and and make a commitment to less of this or no more of that but don't do it all right away because you're all said motivated right now and just stack on that and and like oh man i haven't had it i haven't had a drink in months now okay cool that's no longer part of my life now let's try the next level i'm gonna get better about doing this thing right like do that both with the way you train and the way you eat and that will really help with the real hard swings on and off.

1:48:53Adam Schafer:Yeah. Now, Clark, because of your activity, uh, cause you're pretty active with your job, uh, and the history with all this, um, you know, I definitely would like to reverse diet you with strength training. Uh, but I know because of your past, you're probably apprehensive, uh, because you've been overweight in the past. So, and that can be a fear. Is that resonating? Do you feel a little bit like, oh man, if I reverse that. I'm a little worried. Yeah. A lot of that, um, hesitation and a lot of the all in motivation is just from having severe body dysmorphia. I mean, I grew up a big kid. I've always had high endurance, high stamina.

1:49:27I've been landscaping since I was 10. Um, so it's just, yeah, that that's the hindrance there is just wanting to feel good and look good and going all in and then getting burnt out or just kind of falling off with too many changes. And to, uh, To your point, Adam, I just, I gave up drinking pretty recently, probably within the last month or so in THC as well.

1:49:50Adam Schafer:Good for you, dude. Appreciate that. I also bought a cafe, so I'm kind of, I'm around sweet tooth food all the time and good drinks. And so that's been fun to manage.

1:50:03Sal Di Stefano:Well, so that's a perfect example, right? You're around so much of that and probably when you're off, you allow it all to come in like crazy. And then when you're on, you restrict completely. like don't let it look like that look like like all like i'm i'm like comparing myself like kind of week over week and it's like hey this week i want to be a little bit better than i was last week diet wise and training wise it's like not i'm not going to go from i was i'm way off the wagon now i'm dialed it's like and i was that guy and that caused these swings back and forth where now i never i never get too out of bounds you know i'm saying like and it's because i don't i don't go so hard in either direction and so i think that'll really help is just make those small

1:50:40Adam Schafer:Clark, I like where you're at. I like that you've stopped the THC and the alcohol. I like your approach. Not that you need to, like, not that, oh, I'm so glad you stopped doing those things, but rather it sounds like you're trying to make the right steps to move in the right direction. You mentioned the body dysmorphia. I'm so glad you were honest about that because that's a difficult one to work through. How bad do you want to solve this forever? In other words, is this something like, look, yeah, I want to get good results, but I just don't want to deal with this anymore. I don't want to do the up and down.

1:51:09Like how I don't want to deal with it. Okay. It's, it's exhausting. I mean, it's been my entire life. So yeah, I just want to get it manageable and just feel good, be healthy and, and go into this next stage of my life. Trying to grow this cafe.

1:51:22Adam Schafer:Clark, Clark, healthy. Clark, nine, nine months to a year of working with a coach. We'll do that with you.

1:51:28Sal Di Stefano:I'd love to see that.

1:51:29Adam Schafer:Like you're in the perfect place. Yeah. It would be, it would be a good nine months, maybe a year of working with someone on a monthly basis, having them guide you through it. You're going to have ups and downs, guarantee it. But to have somebody there guide you that you can go with, that you can message, it's going to pull you back, push you, kind of help you stay accountable, also prevent you from doing the all-in thing that tends to cause the all-out on the other end. That plus you're getting your hormones checked, which would be great to see where that's at. This is the perfect time to do it.

1:51:57Adam Schafer:If that's something you want, I can have somebody call you. But I think you're looking at about nine months to a year of just kind of working with someone monthly, and then you'll solve it, dude. It'll change your life forever. Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree with that. And I'm thinking about that pretty much constantly. I actually just yesterday learned that my landscaping and pool building career is going to come to an end pretty soon. So on a financial side of things, a coach is probably not going to be as easy for me to do at this point, but I do have the NASM training course. so i was gonna dive into that and just try to self-teach as much as i possibly could and uh talk to my friends who are in the health space uh and see if they could help me out holding me accountable these so that's good it's different okay coaching is different it's very individualized i don't we don't talk about this on the show uh but we have something called concierge coaching which is far it's a much much less of an investment uh and you're meeting with someone monthly and it is a mind it is a mind pump coach and they are guiding you through the process but this is kind of like when a strike when the iron's hot like you've got these big life changes it's momentum based this would be the time to do something like that and you wouldn't have to deal with it uh later on but like i said if that's i could you look at it i guess i'm gonna call you talk with them um but i do yeah i would love that i appreciate it okay i'll have someone reach out to you but i do like a reverse diet for you yeah i do like a map 15 protocol yeah i think it's going to be kind of this like stay consistent type of deal not rush the process too much um and then and then, you know, be able to prevent those, those setbacks.

1:53:29Adam Schafer:And like I said, you're looking at about nine months to a year, uh, of kind of working on this before it starts to be in a good spot.

1:53:34Sal Di Stefano:We can solve this right now and then it'll be forever. So that's encouraging. I appreciate that. And I do wind up at the gym most days just to take a shower. So 15, 20 minutes to, uh, to, you know, bust something out. It's not a big deal. Perfect. Uh, just know, just knowing what that is and, um, is the big part. But I mean, as far as a reverse diet goes, I mean, where do you guys think I should be at calorie wise if I'm doing all this activity I mean 2600 to 2800 seems to keep me pretty energetic throughout the day but I definitely do fall off at a certain point yeah you eventually should be able to get up over 3000 you should be all the way up to 3200 3500 but we incrementally get up there that's right and so the goal would look like you know two to two to 400 calorie bump and then you stay there for a while weight should stay about the same on the scale you should feel good strength everything like that once that's been stabilized for a week or two go up another two or four hundred and just keep doing that incrementally you know okay and and uh easiest way to do that i like to do is either uh two more ounces of the meat that i'm already eating or adding one more small meal whichever one's more convenient people tend to do better right my opinion with just adding a larger portion of the the meat they're having or a fattier cut if you're somebody who was eating chicken breast i go to chicken thighs if you're somebody who is eating a you know leaner steak enjoy a ribeye you know those are easy ways to get an additional you know two to four hundred calories um or you can add i definitely do the i definitely do the chicken thigh um after i heard you preach about that and it tastes so much better so i don't mind doing that yeah yeah and chuck roast is my go-to just because it's easy to get a hold of and uh but yeah no that's yeah good point i mean three meals is pretty easy for me to manage it's hard to do any more than that even when i was doing like my testosterone and mpp that was i mean i was at about like 3500 calories and i was like oh my god i can't eat anymore so yeah yeah that's it man you'll get some but you'll get body comp change

1:55:36Adam Schafer:through that process so you'll kind of get leaner build a little muscle no big swings on the scales

1:55:41Sal Di Stefano:yeah and i saw i saw your numbers before i you're a strong guy so like you you lift like you hit those lifts like that and you stay strong at 15 and you feed yourself appropriately you'll have body comp change yeah yeah you absolutely thank you guys you got it man um bicep tendonitis what's

1:55:56Adam Schafer:your what's your go-to move for that oh yeah deep deep bicep stretches okay so really really long static stretching for the bicep uh tendon uh it's actually not a hard fix and then with the other hand you can rub on it those rifle flips yeah rifle flips you can look that up on our youtube channel. We do that several times a day and it tends to take care of it. Awesome. Okay. Yeah, you got it, man. Thanks, Clark. I'll have someone call you. Okay, sounds good. Thank you guys so much. He's in a good place.

1:56:26Sal Di Stefano:He is. He is. If we can get through the psychological part, that'll be challenging.

1:56:32Adam Schafer:That's why the coach is so important. It's not about the information. That's valuable. The information is valuable, but it's about the coaching. That's what we have to convey. It's about the coaching through the process. It helps a lot. And I know it's an investment. I mean, for people listening, it is an investment. But I'll tell you what, of all the investments you can make when it comes to getting results, nothing comes close.

1:56:51Sal Di Stefano:If you commit and you do it right and you say nine months to a year, you'll never have to do it again. You'll have to look back. I mean, the tools that you'll get from that will last you for the rest of your life. That's right. So that's why it is like an investment. And it isn't cheap to do that for nine months to a year. but you know if you think about it like anything else you've invested in yourself um it and what better than the thing that's going to be helping you control your health that's right you know

1:57:14Adam Schafer:that's right 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.

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