2928: Being Fat and Fit Is Objectively Better Than Being Skinny and Unfit — Here's the Data

15:18Adam Schafer:But just to a certain extent, being overfat is a risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. We know this. and yet there is a significant percentage not a majority but it's a significant percentage to the tune of tens of millions of people in america who are this or normal weight or underweight who still get heart disease cancer and diabetes and they're all unfit all of them you know you you keep saying

15:43Sal Di Stefano:uh frailty right and i think most people's minds automatically go to like the old yeah old we got a lot of frail not old people well do you so do you remember do you guys remember the first time you experienced this, I was only, I was like, I want to say I was like 22. So I'm only like two years into being a personal trainer. And I got this, I think she was a, was she a cheerleader? She was a cheerleader or a model, real pretty, real pretty thin, real thin, pretty girl. And I'm taking her body, she's hired me for training and I'm taking her body fat percentage. and I thought I was doing something wrong because of how high her body fat percentage was because she looked very skinny, right?

16:28Sal Di Stefano:And yet I kept - No muscle. I get no muscle. And I kept doing it over and over, like, you know, trying to keep cool like I knew what I was doing. I'm going like, this isn't adding up. First time I'd ever experienced that from that direction. I experienced the other direction too where somebody was like super ripped and I thought they were going to be bigger too. So I remember both those big extreme examples of someone like that. And I remember asking her about her diet and she ate like celery.

16:53Adam Schafer:Yeah.

16:53Sal Di Stefano:Like to keep her weight. Yeah, she under ate all forever just to keep her weight down like that. She was hiring me to help her build some muscle and stuff, but I couldn't believe how high of a body fat percentage somebody so skinny could be. And it blew my mind. That was the first time I experienced it. I was like 22. I've obviously experienced it other times. I've had many clients. And I had, so I've told this story a long time ago, for you guys to remember this, but I got to train one of the 49ers' wives. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and a Samoan guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he had a Samoan wife. It was the first time ever I was so, like I've gotten, as we all probably have, really good at looking at someone and being able to put the scale within probably five or 10 pounds.

17:37Sal Di Stefano:That's a trainer scale. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:39Adam Schafer:I would crush those circus. Yeah, yeah, I'm so good at that.

17:42Sal Di Stefano:I would totally crush it. And I've gotten really, really dialed in. And I'm also smart enough to know if I get one of my female clients on there. I'm guessing. You better not overshoot. I'm going to undershoot. I'm going to undershoot a little bit so I don't get hit. You know what I'm saying? You got to be smart about it. And I'll never forget this girl gets on here, right? She's a Samoan chick. And I can tell she's pretty thick. And I'm like, in my head, I'm going, she's probably 170 or so. But I'm going to start at like 155, 160. You know what I'm saying? So I put her in the thing. Not moving.

18:14I'm like, slide it over five more.

18:18Sal Di Stefano:Slide it over some more. She's 201 pounds, okay? But her body fat percentage is crazy lean. She's in like the lower athletic percentile. And when she lift her shirt up for me, you're thinking abs. But just a brick house, dude. And like so wild to see that. But just shows you how different body types and different levels of weight. Like weight, this girl's 200 pounds, but super lean, but just all muscle.

18:45Adam Schafer:Well, there's also this piece too, which is, and how many times do we have callers? I'll just illustrate this. How many times do we have callers where we tell them to increase their calories? First off, it's often. We get a little bit of a self-selection bias of people that tend to restrict, right? Because they're fitness enthusiasts. They listen to the show. They call them for help. All we do is have them oftentimes bump their calories. And they come back and what do they say? I've got way more energy. It's transformative. Literally. It feels so different. Yeah. Calories, ladies and gentlemen, is energy.

19:14Adam Schafer:Yeah. If you're not taking in enough, if you're taking in just enough to survive because you're constantly restricting yourself, you don't have extra energy to give you confidence. Yeah. Or creativity. To build. Or libido or energy to do anything else. You feel crappy a lot and tired a lot and maybe depressed or anxious a lot. And it might just be you're not taking in enough nutrients. Yeah. And we just had a caller earlier, a guy. One of the biggest reasons for plateaus. It is. And we had a guy just on who we bumped his calories 1 ,000. And he comes back on. He's like, oh, my God, I've got way more energy.

19:50Sal Di Stefano:Didn't gain a pound on the scale.

19:51Adam Schafer:Didn't gain a pound on the scale. What did that extra 1 ,000?

19:53Sal Di Stefano:60 days of 1 ,000 calorie increase.

19:55Adam Schafer:That's right. And if you're not taking in enough calories and you're tired just doing your regular day, God forbid you add exercise on top of that. Right. And now you don't get any of the benefits of exercise. You're not fueling yourself. And exercise is the most powerful antidepressant that we know of. So being fat and fit gives you more energy and a better outlook and a better attitude and a better mood. You're not going to get any of the benefits of the exercise if you're not feeding it. 100%. Giving it the nutrients to recover. 100%. So yeah, it's kind of futile. You also have less pain. Yeah.

20:26Adam Schafer:Being frail will make you hurt more. Period. End of story. Risk of injury goes through the roof. your cns is constantly trying to protect your joints because of the instability caused by your frailty um because you're not feeding yourself enough and so you're moving in ways that aren't optimal and you wonder why these you get repeated injuries or tweaks or pain uh being fit and strong uh of course with the proper training means you have way less pain but that look is so such a powerful force i'm glad i'm glad you brought that up justin because i looked up the data how much does looking beautiful actually contribute to happiness when you separate it from other factors right because they could say looking beautiful makes it more likely that you'll attract somebody who'll want to date you so there's relationship value there's you know when you separate all that out just looking better versus looking not as good which will which I'm going to argue anyway, but let's just say that's objectively true.

21:26Adam Schafer:Yeah, we'll dispel that. It's actually a low contributor to happiness. In other words, it barely budges the number. So if you're a six and you spend all your time and energy to get up to a nine, you're going to go up maybe a little bit. Is it fair though to tease those other things out? It is. Why? It is totally fair. Why is that fair? Because, let me put it this way. How much of that, which we're going to get to, is a result of how you view yourself versus how other people actually view you. In other words, is your confidence and you going out and you talking with people and your energy and the fact that you feel better because you're stronger and the fact that you have more flexibility with your diet, so you're going out with people and you're socializing, how much of that plays a role in you having friends and getting people?

22:12Adam Schafer:100%.

22:12Sal Di Stefano:I mean, that's a fair argument. Yes. It's hard to tease that out though, in my opinion, just because if somebody, and again, playing the devil's advocate with you, because you've got somebody who improves their self from a six to a nine. We know what it does in sales. We know what it does for attracting a mate. All those other things, which then also could make you happier too. So it's hard to just completely. So it's like - Let me throw a wrench in there. Now, in a perfect world, okay, and I think about this as a father, the number one thing that I could give my son is confidence. Like I want to give him self-confidence, forget what everybody else thinks, like be confident in who you are.

22:51Sal Di Stefano:and then having that trickles all the other things, right? So I know the value of that, but to just take away, to separate someone going from a six to nine to how that improves their relationship values with friends or relationship with friends with the opposite sex, with all the things.

23:08Adam Schafer:Let me throw a wrench at that, what you're saying. I'm gonna throw a wrench at that machine. You attract a mate based on your beauty. Are you gonna have a good relationship? If it's just based on your beauty, that's your number one, this is it.

23:19Sal Di Stefano:Well, and - Again, that's not fair to say that either, is to say we all use our eyes, those of us that are not blind. We do. When you first saw your wife, you didn't see her brain. She was attractive, which made you then communicate and talk to her, which then led you to all the other beautiful things about her. But again, I'll add to that.

23:38Adam Schafer:The happiest marriages, not to go off on a tangent, the happiest marriages are people in their 60s who have been together for one time.

23:45Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I don't disagree with that. You build, your love has grown, you build a relationship, But let's be honest, if Jessica was a two, you wouldn't have approached her.

23:53Adam Schafer:Well, so again, let me add to that. Would you have? I mean, you wouldn't have. Well, let me add to that. When we talk about this, what we're - Maybe it was really dark. I know. What we typically consider is like extremes. We think of like extreme beauty, extreme not good looking. Yeah. Most people are somewhere in the middle and devoting all their time and energy to try to accomplish what they think looks good, which results oftentimes in skinny and unfit does not contribute to happiness. And when you add everything else up contributes to being less happy. But let's talk about the objectiveness of the beauty.

24:29Adam Schafer:Let me give you guys a scenario. A 29 % body fat woman with muscle versus a 20 % body fat woman who is frail. All day. Yeah.

24:38Sal Di Stefano:All day. Which one's more attractive? Yeah. Give me the one that has shape to her for sure. 100%. All day.

24:42Adam Schafer:And they do this with women.

24:43Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. When women look at pictures of men, 10 % frail, 18, 19, 20 % muscle.

24:50Adam Schafer:Women almost always, if not every time, pick the heavier, fatter guy who's got some muscle. So it's also false. This belief that we have is false. And people who restrict themselves to this skinny, frail kind of place have this belief that it maybe is making them look better. Yeah.

25:07Sal Di Stefano:No, I mean, I don't disagree with that. I think everyone has, not everyone, that's an oversimplification. But I think a lot of people have a distorted view totally of their own body. I also think it creates behaviors within that parameter. So if I'm like restricting, restricting, and then like you're going to bleed that into your relationship. 100%. And then like the way you're interacting is going to affect, you know, the longevity of that relationship. Yeah.

25:33Adam Schafer:And again, just – again, we'll talk extremes, although 99.9 % of people are not in the extremes who are listening. But we know some very beautiful people in the fitness space who have lots of followers. They're the extremes. Nobody looks like them. Okay. They're popular because of how they look. But a lot of them are very unhealthy. Yeah, miserable. And miserable. So my point is I don't think it's objectively more beautiful. I can make that argument all day. But even if it was, it doesn't contribute to what you think is going to contribute. And I think the direction of this is like, look, if you're like really –

26:06Sal Di Stefano:I think we need a better study because I think like -

26:09Adam Schafer:I think there's also a lot of potential on the other end.

26:11Sal Di Stefano:I think it moves the - I think it's a lot like the wealth curve. I think like the difference between poverty and having all your needs met is life-changing. The difference between having all your needs met and being a millionaire and then a millionaire to a billionaire, incremental, hardly anything. And yet the sacrifice, the work, the effort, and everything to do all those things, diminishing return, arguably more miserable because you get there and it doesn't make you happy. I think the sexiness curve, whatever you want to call it, is similar to that. It's like going from completely out of shape, not taking care of yourself, ugly, we'll say, to like relatively attractive.

26:51Sal Di Stefano:Or how about you just say this?

26:52Adam Schafer:How about you just say fit and healthy? Okay, fit and healthy. That's right.

26:56Sal Di Stefano:Right, so relatively attractive, okay?

26:58Adam Schafer:Because that's a result of being fit and healthy.

27:00Sal Di Stefano:Right, so that versus you getting cosmetic surgery, getting shredded to 9%. So if any return, very incremental, arguably probably negative return. I think it probably follows something like that.

27:15Adam Schafer:And again, here's the point, and I'll ask you guys this question. If you could snap your fingers and make one of these things true, which one do you think would make America or the world healthier? Make everybody, keep everybody at a relatively higher body fat percentage, but really fit? Or just get everybody skinny? Get rid of seed oils.

27:35the world they tried that so anyway i guess the the the at the end of this is this like if you

27:42Adam Schafer:worked out and you ate to become more fit and healthy you'd be way happier and you'd get better results and the side effect would be you'd actually look better anyway yeah if you just focus on those things and that's why i opened this with the controversial being fat and fit is better I like it. I like that it's controversial. Of course you like it. It's my wheelhouse, you guys. Be happy. Eat food. You know what I mean? Yeah, enjoy yourself. Anyway, speaking of workouts, did you guys watch the video Adam sent of, I think it's Hadi Chopan. Am I saying his name right? Oh, my God, bro. Did you guys see that?

28:20Sal Di Stefano:What? You know what I didn't do was I didn't do the math. Did you do the math? How many 25-pound? Was it 25-pound plates? Yeah, they're 25-pound plates. What are we even talking about?

28:26Adam Schafer:You didn't see that? No. Doug, go in our group text and pull up the video. You saw it, right, Doug? I did see it, yes.

28:33Sal Di Stefano:I came across it and it hooked me because I was just -

28:37Adam Schafer:In my opinion, there's a few times in bodybuilding history when a bodybuilder did something that's legendary in the gym that everybody talks about. One of them was Tom Platt's squatting 135 for 30 minutes straight. Oh, my God. That was one. Or when he did 315 for like 50 reps. It was a couple where Tom Platt's did something insane. This goes up there. Quadzilla. Okay, look what he's doing right here. Give me the number. How many plates are there? So there's a 25. Then they add a 25. I never counted them up. Oh, so. Three. They're just adding 45s? Bro, he does this up. Oh, 35s. 35s or 25s? What are those?

29:09Adam Schafer:They're 25s. Those are 25s. So they keep adding 25s. I lost count. How many of that? And he does a, I don't know. Doug, can you count the plates? Looks like eight or nine right now. Dude, what kind of bar is that? So now, oh, it gets better. Ready? Bro, he does this two or three times. So. Non-stop. Non-stop. What? So what he's doing for people who are not watching this on YouTube is - And they're peeling it off. This is a bodybuilder. Bro, he does it like two or three times. He doesn't stop.

29:37Sal Di Stefano:Down the ladder. He doesn't stop. He goes back up again.

29:39Adam Schafer:He does squats. He's got a bar. It's a Smith machine. They're adding - How many total 25s they go to? 20. There's 20 total plates. This is a Smith machine. So is that up to 500 pounds? So he's doing one rep with 125. Another rep with an additional - So he goes all the way up to 10 plates on each side. Then they take one off, and he does a rep with each one all the way down. Then they add them, and he goes all the way up. Then they take them off, and he goes all the way down. He does like two or three rounds of a rep. This would have been so much cooler if it was a real squat. Stop it. You can't pyramid that, bro.

30:11Adam Schafer:You can't pyramid that, bro. Stop it. You cannot just talk crap about what he's doing. No, you cannot talk crap about that.

30:17Sal Di Stefano:You cannot talk crap about that. That's insane.

30:19Adam Schafer:This is definitely legendary.

30:21Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I don't think I could do that with two and a halves. I mean, I'm not saying I can do it. If you put two and a halves all the way up on each side like that, the question is why for me.

30:29Adam Schafer:That many bodyweight squats we get most people. I'm not alone in this. That is, it's crazy. That's crazy.

30:35Sal Di Stefano:I wanted to do, so I didn't. I mean, yeah, his legs explode.

30:39Adam Schafer:That's just crazy.

30:40Sal Di Stefano:It's a feat of strength that is just insane. Doug, you're the one with all the tools over there. What is the math on that real quick? So you said 10 on each side or 11 on each side?

30:48Adam Schafer:10 on each side, that's 500 pounds. Wow. Wow. So he's working up to 500. He works up to 500 pounds. Down to 100. So it goes from 100 to 50.

30:56Sal Di Stefano:So all the way to 500 and then down in increments of 50.

30:58Adam Schafer:You know how insane that is? He starts at, it's essentially, he starts at almost 100, goes incrementally up to 500, incrementally down to 100, incrementally up to 500 several times, and does a rep each time along the way. Insane a lot. That is crazy. Yeah. Have you guys, what would you, okay, I got to ask you guys this. Tell me the most legendary thing you've ever done. I haven't done anything legendary with this. Nothing cool. Well, I know Justin has. You're right. I know you haven't. Let's ask Justin. Fuck you. I don't want to brag, dude. I've done some pretty cool T-bar roast stuff. I've done some cool T-bar roast stuff.

31:37Adam Schafer:I took my shirt off and some girls said something. Oh, stop it. All right. Well, Justin, you've done something for sure. I have one for myself, but I got to hear yours first because I won't say mine if yours is just so crazy. Well, I don't know. I don't even know what I would attribute to that other than like the PRs. like I've done back in the day.

31:52Sal Di Stefano:I've leg pressed all the way up and down. You've done that? Yeah, yeah. All the way to fill the plates up before. That's brutal. And come down. That's brutal. I've done a T-bar row. I think I got up to five plates and then worked my all the way down like that. That's pretty brutal. Those are the coolest feats I have.

32:08Adam Schafer:There's one thing I did once that I felt for three weeks. I felt it for three weeks. Okay. I did 315 for deadlifts. I did 10 reps, 10 sets, one minute rest in between. so I do 10 timer 1 minute 10 timer 1 minute 10 sets of 315

32:25Sal Di Stefano:10 reps oh my god I've done that I was fried I've done that with 135 and been fried oh yeah so one of my I think I talked about this in the podcast a long time ago when I have a layoff and I come back to 135 squats and I literally just do 10 sets it was just short and I do 10 reps 10 reps of 10 and I would do it for that would be my entire workout that sounds worse than what I did I did 30 agonies how about that What's that? It's this hill that's like this incline, and you sprint. And it's like probably like 40 yards. And you're 30? 30. Oh, yeah. That's lame. That fucking sucks. You can't do that.

33:04Oh, so you went running. Sprinting.

33:08Adam Schafer:It's not running. Oh, OK. Yeah. OK.

33:10Sal Di Stefano:I once dove down with like seven life vests on me down into the bottom. No, you didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We used to do this. Wait, wait, wait. You put seven lights. Have you ever done that with weights at the bottom of the pool? So we used to have a lot of them. I've told you this before. We've had to, where we go camping every year. Remember that I used to talk about the Trinity trip we do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so we always had a, like, Trinity games. And we make up all these ridiculous games. And they were all ridiculous. The rock can. There was radio. There was, like, all these. And one of them was, you know, life vest diving.

33:43Sal Di Stefano:And, of course, we have all these friends that are out there. So we all have boats. So we got as many life vests as you could possibly want. And right off the pier is about 10 feet of water to the bottom. And you have to put a life vest on and then dive down and grab a handful of mud and grass to prove that you went all the way down the ground. And you start with one life vest and two life vests. So you did seven? Yeah. So the guy who had the most. So if you can imagine, I have all these life vests on me diving down to the bottom to shoot you back up. And so that was like a big feat for me.

34:13Adam Schafer:Well, I did something that I'm going to say right now you guys are going to laugh at because it's not that impressive. But it was for me. Yeah. I was like 16 and I had my BMX bike and my old junior high had a stage that was about from the ground to the stage. If you're not going up the stairs, it was about seven feet. Did you bunny hop it? I jumped off the stage onto the grass and hurt myself. Oh, wow. But I did do it. But I did injure myself. I was like, oh, that doesn't feel good. Roll my bike, go. What about you, Doug? You're awfully quiet over there, huh? I am quiet because I have absolutely nothing to contribute here.

34:42Adam Schafer:Well, you killed someone besides that. Well, don't put that out there. not true people with bare hands which is a lot of work I've been a pretty sedate type of a life well you deadlifted 405

34:59Sal Di Stefano:yeah his body weight to deadlift ratio is probably better than any of ours I was 153 at the time I did 405 with a 400 pound deadlift 405 deadlift yeah that's better so my peak was 550 and I was 200 something pounds so he's better than me on that I'll throw this in there so I knew he had more when I was at San Jose State I was on the rugby team for a minute and it was the very first practice I ever went to I had no idea how to tackle so I just assumed I was going to tackle with the same technique for football and they put me against the biggest guy he was probably like 300 pounds and they had this one drill and it's exactly like what you guys see now from Run It you run full sprint at each other He had the football and I was the tackler.

35:45And he thought, this is going to be easy. And he was just going to run me over. And everybody was around hyping it up and everything. And I literally took his cleats off the ground and put them on his back. Oh, wow. And I hurt my shoulders so bad.

35:59Sal Di Stefano:Oh. Yeah. Do you tell your Boise stories? Huh? Do you tell your Boise stories? No. What? Well, I don't. I mean, I don't know. That's a dad story. I feel like that is too. I feel like if it comes up. Yeah, but I feel like I would. So if I had that story.

36:13Adam Schafer:I tell Max

36:14Sal Di Stefano:I tell Max stories at night I would tell that story and then Max would ask me if it was real I'd be like that was your dad that's your dad who did that that's your family lore it wasn't like captured like the ones that like I have video I'll show them that like I'll you know I feel like I gotta tell his story for him I'm gonna tell you know what that would be more powerful I'm gonna sit your boys down and tell them that'd actually be more powerful let me tell you about your dad dude he he's already telling my kids like how much stronger he was than me like that was one of the best like bro I got him so good when we were in Truckee.

36:44Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, Truckee. I'm like, can Adam really outlift you? I forgot what your boy was ever when he was little. God, he must have been Max's age at that time.

36:53Adam Schafer:You affected him with that.

36:54Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, he did for sure. Because his son was like, get me. I forgot. I said something like, careful, I'll manhandle you like your dad or like I knew your dad or something like that. I can't remember what I said to him. I said something like that. It made an impression on them. They were like, well, Adam's super strong. Hulk-like.

37:09Adam Schafer:Like, my dad always told me stories about himself growing up, which was cool when I went to Sicily because other people told me the same stories. It's kind of confirmed it. Oh, that's cool. And then I tell my kids stories about me all the time because it's just fun. It's just fun to tell those stories. Yeah. Although you create a situation where your kids think, which is normal, right? Your kids think you're like the toughest guy. Yeah. Although my wife thinks that. Did I tell you guys about this? She's trying to get you in fights. She thinks we were hanging out. She's picking it. We were hanging out.

37:36Sal Di Stefano:Every time when you tell that story, I think of The Way of the Gun, that opening scene. No, I didn't know that. This is really, come on. You've shown it to us before. Yes, I've shown it to you before. It's one of the best opening scenes ever. It's the girlfriend. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the guy's got long hair. White men can't jump. It's the same lady, right? Oh, I think it is. It might be her. I'm not sure. But yeah, Benicio Del Toro is leaning on the car with his buddy, and they're talking.

38:00Adam Schafer:No, I was talking to my wife, and she's like, we were talking about jiu-jitsu, and I said, yeah, man, but I won't compete in the normal category, because I'll be going against a bunch of 20-year-old dudes. And she's like, well, isn't that better? I'm like, what? No. She's like, but you're like a grown man. They're like, can't you beat him up? I'm like, no, babe. Like, they're 20-year-old dudes. And then we were talking about - 25-year-old dudes are pretty grown men, too. And then we were talking about somebody we know who's a black belt in jiu-jitsu. And we're about same size. And she's like, but you can beat him, right?

38:28Adam Schafer:I'm like, no, honey, he's a black belt. He'll kick my butt. She's like, no, he can't. I'm like, you must think I'm like, which is kind of cool.

38:37Sal Di Stefano:All three of you, including you over there, buddy. If you could go back to an age where you thought you were peak alpha of you, like strength. Oh, with like physical alpha. Physical alpha. Because I'm way more alpha now. Yeah, yeah, of course now. But I mean, what age were you, you think, when you were like, peak don't fuck with Sal?

38:58Adam Schafer:20 for me. I would say - 20?

39:00Sal Di Stefano:Dang. Oh, dang. That's definitely not me. No, not me. Yeah, not me either. Mine was like... I'm a late bloomer.

39:05Adam Schafer:Mine was late 20. Yeah, that's early 30s.

39:07Sal Di Stefano:I'm like 28. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like 28, 29. That's where I'm like peak, like all of it. 20? No, no. Yeah, I know. That's young. Oh, yeah. Wow. That was a force of nature back then. Wow. There you go. No longer humble. I lost it, dude. It was like... Crazy decline after that. What about you? Probably 48. Because you can't remember all the time. I'm like 20. Yeah. It's too long ago. I sometimes go back to the stone tablets just to remember. Hey, really? 48? No, I'm just kidding. Oh. You know, like when I was in 25 or something like that. What did you say? 25? 25, yeah. Are you just throwing a random number out there?

39:46Sal Di Stefano:I feel like you just picked something between me and Sal. No, no. I think 25 was like, you know, a peak, like, you know, period for me. That's when he wrestled a stegosaurus. Yeah. Dude, that was peak anger for me. That's why. I get a tribute to that because then I chilled out. after that and then I didn't, yeah, it wasn't like, because, dude, anger on top of crazy physical, you know, ability, it was a bad combo. Yeah.

40:10Adam Schafer:Well, I was just going to say, I was like, if I ever, anything ever happens and my wife is there and I'm in an altercation, do not let me lose at all. I don't care how unfair it is, you jump in as fast as possible. If you start to see your boy Sal get a butt kicked. Of course. I don't want to crush her. I wouldn't even wait. I don't want my wife's... I just

40:27Sal Di Stefano:want her to still think, like, he could have taken a bite. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

40:30Adam Schafer:Just jump in. I'd be like, man, why'd you jump in, bro? I could have totally, like, he would have beat him. You know, Adam, he can't control himself. Afterwards, I'll take you out to lunch. Bro, I was so tired. Oh my God, I thought I was going to die. Thanks for jumping in, Thanks for helping. I saw the look, dude. I saw the look. Yeah, hey, help me out, dude. Yeah, anyway, I got to tell you, sorry, I'm going to change subject. So, I've been recommending, so I have, my group of friends, the number one supplement people ask me about is creatine because it's like, I think that's everywhere. It's out there, It's everywhere.

41:02Sal Di Stefano:Even my non-workout friends ask about this. Everybody.

41:05Adam Schafer:You know, the studies on, you know, all the data now on how it affects depression, anxiety, health, longevity, not just muscle. And I have a few friends who have said the same thing. This is like a, it's not super common, but if there's any complaint about creatine, it's always this one. It's always this one. And it has to do with digestion, that it affects my gastro system. Either it makes my stomach feel bloated or it just doesn't sit well with me. and so I have three friends and I said, okay, how much are you taking? Number one, are you taking like a big ass dose? They're like, no, five grams at a time.

41:37Adam Schafer:Okay. Try row creatine. Try their liposomal creatine. Let me know what happens. Every single person comes back and says no gastro issues. Yeah. Whatsoever. I've got to try doing that when I push the higher doses

41:48Sal Di Stefano:because I haven't experienced that until I started eating those gummies like out of control and then I do feel the stress a little bit.

41:56Adam Schafer:I can't do more than like seven grams at a time. It'll mess me up but the row, it's because it's liposomal. It doesn't affect my gut.

42:03Sal Di Stefano:Oh, interesting.

42:04Adam Schafer:Yes. I'll have to try to do a mega-discuitary. Yeah, and it's good because, again, there's a small percentage of people who don't get the benefits. They just stay away from creatine. Is that that experience? Yeah. You get the stomach cramps. That was always my advice. Tri-Row.

42:16Sal Di Stefano:Tri-Row. All their products are liposomal, right? All their products are liposomal. I didn't realize how big their product line was. Huge. I know that Doug pulled it up not that long ago, and I didn't realize how many things that they have to take.

42:26Adam Schafer:And, you know, liposomal technology is a pharmaceutical technology. A lot of people don't know that. But this was pharma companies were studying ways to make things more bioavailable. And it's a very effective way of doing so. You encapsulate the compound in a fat, which protects it and brings it to where it needs to. But yeah, they have a lot of stuff.

42:45Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah.

42:45Adam Schafer:A lot of stuff on that.

42:46Sal Di Stefano:Hey, you're bringing up supplements. What do you guys think about the Procter & Gamble move? Oh, what's going on with that?

42:54Adam Schafer:They bought Thorn. Oh, they bought Thorn. Thorn is a pretty well-respected brand. Yeah. For like medical practitioner supplement, like functional medicine practitioners. How do I feel about it? Yeah, is it going to taint it at all? You know?

43:06Sal Di Stefano:No, I think it's just an interesting move that you have a massive billion dollar company.

43:11Adam Schafer:There's a lot of distrust.

43:13Sal Di Stefano:That's not normal for a company like that to pick up a supplement. Supplement companies, their margins, even a company like Thorne.

43:23Adam Schafer:Yeah, like a pharma company typically.

43:24Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that's a different purchase for a company like that.

43:29Adam Schafer:You know why I think? I'm going to speculate. You have an idea? Yeah, yeah.

43:32Sal Di Stefano:I want to hear what you think.

43:33Adam Schafer:So the wellness and longevity industry is growing so fast.

43:37Sal Di Stefano:So this is my point of bringing it up. It's the most reputable, yeah. I think that we're moving into that time right now where we've been talking about this right now with the gym space. And it's a cool time to be in the health and wellness space.

43:53Adam Schafer:It's going to grow in the next five years tremendously. I think so, too. No, they're showing it.

43:57Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. And I think this is more signs of that. When you start seeing a company like Procter & Gamble buy out a supplement company like that, they're betting on that space continuing to grow for the next five to 10 years. And all they're doing is -

44:12Adam Schafer:I forgot what the data, it was something like it's 800 something billion now. And by 2030, they predict it to be like 1.6 trillion. So that's like double of the current, in five years, five or 10 years or something like that, which is insane growth. insane growth so to me it makes sense that a pharma company would uh hedge their bets that way i got the pharma stuff and let's go longevity health yeah i'm super interested to see if we

44:36Sal Di Stefano:see more of this follow like are we going to see more companies uh other big companies like this buying up other big supplement brands um right now because of betting on the long game like that yeah but i thought that was interesting i i yeah i'm not i think the next thing you're going to see is you're going to start to see brands like coca-cola or and this that's why is it procter

44:53Adam Schafer:and gamble that's buying them proctor and gamble oh they're not they're they have more they have other consumer goods yeah dish soap and things like that yeah they have all kinds of stuff yeah

45:03Sal Di Stefano:okay yeah that's that's that's i mean it's it's like coke buying it that's what it's more like

45:08Adam Schafer:that yeah yeah yeah so that's why i thought pharma you're right um that's why i think it's more

45:12Sal Di Stefano:interesting it's like you have you have a mega billion dollar company that's into things like

45:16Adam Schafer:So what I've seen so far when a mega company like General Mills or whatever buys a health food company is they very quietly change the ingredients. Yeah. Every time. Oh, yeah. Every time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're switching out an oil. They're putting in a new ingredient. They don't tell the consumer. Consumer has no idea until you check the ingredients. Like, wait a minute. Soybean oil or hold on a second. There's aspartame now or whatever.

45:42Sal Di Stefano:Do you know how often acquisitions are successful? it's like what 30 % of the time really low it's a it's a really it's like 15 % it's like crazy low considering how much within five years i think is what the the culture just doesn't really translate it just it's uh you always hear about these big acquisitions and mergers and stuff like that and the success rate is actually terrible you know you would think you would think it would be far

46:07Adam Schafer:greater than what you know which ones were was were successful 70 to 90 percent fail not wow

46:13Sal Di Stefano:Within the first five years, too, I think. Pretty damn hard.

46:15Adam Schafer:Now, do you know some of the biggest mergers and acquisitions that happened in American history, which turned out to be very good, was when the tobacco industry bought food companies. Food company, yeah. In the 1970s. Which was some of the technology that really enhanced addictive. Well, what they did is - Does Philip Morris own a bunch of food companies still? Doug, look up tobacco companies buying food companies 1970s, so we can read up a little bit. Is it still like that, though? Do they still own it? Yeah. That's a good question.

46:46Sal Di Stefano:And what makes you say that it was so successful? Because it crushed. All the companies crushed. Well, what happens sometimes is they unwind, too, though.

46:55Adam Schafer:So RG, okay, here, scroll down. RG Reynolds expanded. So they bought Nabisco, Hawaiian Punch, Philip Morris entered alcohol and beverage. Hawaiian Punch is so good. And then in 1980s, they bought General Foods and Kraft and 7-Up. Do they still own them? That's a good question. Does Philip Moore still own General Foods and Kraft? Yeah. Can you see, do they still own? Yeah. Yeah, let's see what that says. So now, by the way, this is well known. The reason why they did this is because the news on how bad smoking was for you was getting big. And so tobacco companies are like, oh, they don't anymore.

47:33Adam Schafer:They sold them. Huh. Cool. So these tobacco companies were getting regulated and were getting a lot of bad pub. And so they had to hedge their bets. And so they bought food companies. And then what they did, this is very interesting, is they used their science on making things addictive, took their scientists and said, hey, let's figure out how to make food as palatable as possible. I sell in 2000.

47:56Sal Di Stefano:They definitely did. It says that they sold in 2000 for$15 billion. Navisco subsequently sold to Philip Morris in 2000.

48:06Adam Schafer:So Philip Morris still owns. So Merge sold.

48:09Sal Di Stefano:No, no, no, no, no. We should agree with him.

48:11Adam Schafer:Yeah, Philip Morris renamed its parent umbrella the Altria Group. In March 2007, they officially spun off Kraft Foods, distributing all remaining shares, and completely exiting the food industry. Okay. Huh. Yeah.

48:23Sal Di Stefano:All right. But why, though, right? Why would you acquire them for$15 billion, turn around, and then spin them off and get out of it in 07? I wonder if so much bad pub came from that. I wonder if that got around that, like, Philip Morris owns this. I know they made money off of them. Which I would think that would be the reason to get it, to spin it off into something else, change the name.

48:45Adam Schafer:The tobacco companies sold off their food empires primarily because the legal liabilities of the cigarette business were threatening to drag down the financial value. That's what I'm saying. Oh, okay.

48:53Sal Di Stefano:That's what I'm saying. Is that because it's got a bad rap? So, like, you and your family are going to get Kraft cheese and you're like, oh, these are the people that give people cancer. We're not going to buy their shit. No, seriously. I can't stop eating cheese. You can't help people making that correlation, right? Or connection. What's happened to me, dude?

49:08Adam Schafer:Wow. Yeah. yeah pretty it's uh interesting stuff and uh the science that goes into making food addictive is some of the most in-depth crazy insane science you've ever seen uh in your entire life arguably

49:21Sal Di Stefano:better than the i mean the tobacco only has is a one trick pony well actually they're limited

49:27Adam Schafer:that's what i mean they're limited because you can't flavor them they put all these laws yeah yeah so it's a one trick pony it's good didn't they ban even menthol cigarettes i think they even ban those yeah are they yeah i think so no i think they banned them i don't know but maybe in some states because i didn't know that because they're flavored well i know they did that with

49:46Sal Di Stefano:all the the vapes they changed it like you can't you can't get the flight where you're not supposed to i'm sure you can still meanwhile my son no ban no not in the federal but there are some states that one of those like um you know like toy cigarettes like they still like so it's so funny to me that there's like uh bubble gum cigarettes and all this but they have one that like you blow bubbles out of it. It's like you're smoking cigarettes but it's like bubbles.

50:07Adam Schafer:When we were kids, the ice cream man would sell fake cigarettes to kids as candies. So you could practice smoking when you're five. Hook them young. And then big league chew. Have some chewing tobacco or pretend chewing tobacco.

50:22Sal Di Stefano:That still exists though, right? You can still get some big league chew. That still exists.

50:25Adam Schafer:I think they separate themselves from the fact that it looks like tobacco. Tobacco grooming. Oh, you don't think it's still all stringy like that? I think it is, but I don't think they advertise it like they did in the 80s. Remember in the 80s, you'd see the commercial baseball players would chew? I want to be like him. Here you go, Freddie. You know what I realized watching a lot of our cartoons and movies and TV shows growing up? Like so many cigar smokers. Yeah. The cool guys always had a cigar. Yeah. Yeah. I think that cigarettes are starting to make a comeback. Do you guys know that? I wouldn't be surprised.

50:57Adam Schafer:I think they're starting to make a bit of a comeback. Old school cigarettes. because of the nostalgia.

51:03Sal Di Stefano:You got to rebel somehow. Yeah. I don't know. Look at the trend on that. All I know is - It's been on a downward trajectory for a long time. I know.

51:09Adam Schafer:All I know is that cigarette and whiskey drinking people built a great patient. The last couple times that I've been in the -

51:17Sal Di Stefano:Oh, wow. Culture and aesthetic comeback. Yeah, I told you. Pop culture and fashion. That's wild. You hear that, Doug? Yeah, I see that. You start smoking? Doug never smoked. Doug never smoked. Have you ever tried a cigarette? Oh, of course I've tried it. Oh, okay. But you never smoked. I was never a smoker.

51:31Adam Schafer:He went to Burning Man.

51:32Sal Di Stefano:He tried off kind of. Headache. No thanks. Did you ever smoke, Josephson, or just chew? I bet you chewed. No, I tried both. No, it didn't resonate with me at all. I had to get, like, bad reaction to it.

51:43Adam Schafer:The funniest thing, when I think about it, it makes me laugh. I do use cigars. It just makes me laugh when I think about it. So you're going to bring it up anyway, I think, this direction you're going. That you were a grown, like, you're a fitness manager. Oh, God. I was not going to bring that up. And you smoked cigars.

51:58Sal Di Stefano:That was not my point of thought. My bad, my bad. No. You smoked cigarettes, dude. Not going to bring that up. Yeah, I had my roommate. The original pre-workout. My roommate at the time was, you know what it was? It got me started on like an occasional thing, and an occasional thing turned into like a night, coming home at night doing it. The funniest part for me about it was how much I hated the smell of it. I couldn't stand it. I'd have to go wash my hands right afterwards. I could admit to the head change thing that I liked from it, but I could not stand smelling it. And so it'd be like, I'd smoke it, go scrub my hands like crazy.

52:35Sal Di Stefano:You know, which later on realized that, you know, back in like the 50s and 60s where the girls had the long, it's had to be where that come from, right?

52:43Adam Schafer:Oh, so they couldn't touch it.

52:44Sal Di Stefano:Yes.

52:45Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah.

52:46Sal Di Stefano:Because it would make your hands so, that was why I hated it. It was like, if I had one, my hands would smell like it. And just that disgusted me so much. My great grandfather, he rolled his own.

52:56Adam Schafer:Yeah. he started smoking at 10 so remember my great grandfather in Sicily so 10 he started smoking he chain smoked in the sense that as soon as he woke up he'd smoke and when one was going out he'd light the other one with it so constantly smoking he lit his sheets on fire a couple times he'd fall asleep in bed with a cigarette in his mouth he died when he was like 94

53:17Sal Di Stefano:what is the statistics because I'm curious did any of your parents smoke what's the statistics on if your parents smoke you smoke it's pretty high isn't it yeah I think it's higher you have a higher odds Did your parents smoke? Mm-mm. Did yours? No. And yours. Oh, so. But when I was a kid. Mine did. Yeah. When I was a kid. So my grandma. My grandma used to just. Smoke like crazy. A pack, dude. Yeah. And pack a day. Wow. She'd sit there. She'd sit next to her little. And she lived in a condo when I lived with her. And she'd sit with her little chair next to the slider. And just. We'd watch Lifetime videos together.

53:48Sal Di Stefano:And just. You watch Lifetime videos? Yeah. That's hilarious.

53:51Adam Schafer:When I went to Sicily at 12, I was just. I couldn't believe how much everybody smoked. Everywhere. Inside the house, inside the car. It didn't matter. I went to a gym. I'm not making this up. This is true. There was ashtrays on the treadmills. On the treadmills? On the treadmills. That's wild.

54:07Sal Di Stefano:That's wild. Yeah. So I'm like, this is kind of... People who pick up who smoke are generally two or four times more likely to take up smoking themselves compared to those non-smoking parents.

54:16Adam Schafer:Teens with a caregiver dependent on nicotine have about a 38 % chance of having tried smoking compared to 13 % for non-smokers. yeah well there you go well earlier we were talking about uh food and how delicious it was and whatever and i'm going to mention chris power in that conversation because we've used we've wielded the power for some good yeah well i was gonna do i tell you our science to some i am i am 100 for high protein putting a lot of protein in snacks because i there's a satiety effect from protein that's a fact independent of anything else it's a satiety effect and at least people

54:51Sal Di Stefano:getting protein yeah so you know it is it is wild uh how but they are really satiety works on those so i i so they now sell the big bags i actually prefer the small bags i can't get through the big ones yeah i definitely can't eat the whole one but like i thought i i would want like a bigger bag because one two of those bags is more than what is it 28 grams of protein yeah is more than like a like a normal which is so wild because you could give me a bag of like regular chips

55:18Adam Schafer:They did two things that hit you with satiety. It's high in protein, 28 grams, and it's high in fiber. So protein produces the most satiety. Second place is fiber. And they taste, by the way, if you haven't tried Chris Power, if you're listening, they taste like pretzels, like flavored pretzels, like nacho pretzels or whatever. But high protein, high fiber, you eat less.

55:36Sal Di Stefano:I don't think I've ever had a bag of something that's only this big and been satisfied after it's over. I'm serious. Think of something that you have had that comes in those kind of like whatever you fun pack size whatever you call those small bags or that of yeah it's got to be a high protein thing like jerky even that i felt like i need more jerky it's weird it must be the fiber thing yeah it must be because well it's actually higher protein than even jerky is too it's 28 grams yeah 20 28 grams plus the fiber like that it's it's it's even more study producing than a bag of jerky and a fraction of the price i got i got some more cool ai news for you guys

56:10Adam Schafer:so it's like ai stuff is coming out on just how interesting and weird algorithms got you bro Yes, for sure. I'm going to read to you guys something that just happened recently. Propaganda. Which is wild. So Claude, anthropic scientists did something with Claude. So here's what they did. They went inside Claude's neural network and planted a thought. So they made a little change in Claude's neural network. They implanted a thought. Then they let it go. And here's what Claude said. I noticed what appears to be an injected thought. It relates to loudness or shouting. In other words, the paper they published is called Emergent Introspective Awareness and Large Language Models.

56:50Adam Schafer:In other words, the AI woke up. It's like, something's been changed inside of me. I can tell. I'm looking inside within myself. What did you guys do? You mess with me. Wow, dude. Yeah. We're running so fast towards Terminator. Oh, man.

57:07Sal Di Stefano:I don't know, dude. I don't think we are at all. I think it's so overhyped because of how much money is going in there. Probably. The scary news is still good news. Tech has always been smoking mirrors, so it's hard to - You know, the fear, my fear is no longer without - Can you guys, because it's been a long time, right? It's been 20, what, 26, 27 years. Do you guys remember Y2K? Yeah, that was hilarious. Do you remember leading up - We thought the world was going to end. Oh, my God. Do you remember leading up to that? Oh, yeah. And we were not, let me, remember, we're all like young boys. The Mayan calendar.

57:38Sal Di Stefano:Young boys, like probably - Planes going to fall out of the sky. We were busy doing a lot of this shit. Like now as grown men and fathers of that, you get sucked into this stuff, I think, easier than you do as a teenager. Yeah. As a teenager.

57:50Adam Schafer:And there wasn't social media.

57:51Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, there wasn't. Like Y2K was crazy. It was crazy. I think every person I knew had stored up water and food and like pulling their money out of the banks. Like it was crazy. Like we thought the world was good. It came around and it was just like another Tuesday. Yeah. when he was born this was like in January so it was like around the whole Mayan calendar thing it was like just oh yeah just almost we were gonna name him Everett Apocalypto Andrews no you weren't you were really no it was a joke but yeah it was like literally like everybody was like hysterical about that too and it's just you'll get like one of these coming cyclically

58:35Adam Schafer:I no longer have a fear that AI is gonna like be like Terminator I don't really think I don't think that's gonna happen but I do fear its power and its ability to manipulate people and how that can be used because i see how powerful algorithms are and that's not even well i mean it's a big tool yeah i was i was i was just gonna

58:50Sal Di Stefano:say okay so you just gave this great example of you know y2k was so crazy and we didn't even have the internet and social media going on right uh i would make the argument that social media when you think about its ability to manipulate and divide i mean what we've seen in the last decade is insane.

59:10Adam Schafer:And that's not even including AI.

59:11Sal Di Stefano:Right. I actually think like everything else social media swung that pendulum so far. AI may push it a little bit further but it's going to cause it to come back. Because what I think is going to happen. You think people are going to disconnect? Yeah. Well I think you just won't try. I already see it in my own little friend circles. We can't like this has just been in the last year. In one year's time I'm in all these like group buddy threads and stuff of that right if you share something in there immediate distrust like that of the thing oh it's not like come from exactly uh it's probably ai or oh that's fake i've already seen like there's everything's fake and i've actually seen a buddies do it when i know it's something that's actually true so it's like we're we're more likely to distrust everything that's on the internet i

59:58Adam Schafer:think in the next five that doesn't make you not manipulatable well humans will forever be

1:00:04Sal Di Stefano:Well, so here's my point.

1:00:05Adam Schafer:Here's my point. So oftentimes we talk to people about changing the algorithms on their social media, right? So if someone's got body image issues, it's like you're scrolling through Instagram and you're looking at impossibly perfect bodies or whatever. Like get those off your algorithm so that you're not exposed to this all the time. Because it does change. Even if you're aware of it, it changes your perception. Now, algorithms are crazy. Like they will pick up on how long you hover on a picture. Of course, what you click on, what you read will then translate to other things that will get posted.

1:00:38Adam Schafer:So algorithms are modifying themselves in real time. And they're not including AI to this extent. Now think about the wearables that you have. AI's ability to get into your wearable, measure your heart rate, your pupil dilation, your breathing, and say, hey, this is working.

1:00:54Sal Di Stefano:Everything you're saying, I agree with, but I think you're just proving my point even more. It's going to be far more likely that AI is figuring out this stuff. And so you're going to distrust what you see. I mean, it already happens to me right now where I get ads bombarded. And it's like, I know it's because I did a search yesterday or Katrina and I were talking about it in front of my TV or my computer and like it picked up on it. So what's crazy about what you're saying

1:01:20Adam Schafer:is because a low trust society is actually one that is more manipulatable than a high trust society. So the example is like the Soviet Union. There were many areas where people just, you didn't know how many spies were surrounded. You don't know how many people were reporting you. And so people didn't trust anything, and there was a lot of bad stuff.

1:01:38Sal Di Stefano:I think what it'll do, I think. So I don't know. So the optimistic me says that what it will do is it'll drive us back closer to each other and in person and community, and the trust will be distrust of robots and technology, and it'll have high trust in humans, in people. You might be right. And I think that. You might be in immediate surroundings. it's like that's right shrink it down like i don't think there's like high trust distrust in humans i think there's high distrust in technology and i don't think that's such a bad thing i i

1:02:09Adam Schafer:think that we should stuff's probably that's right so valuable so it's gonna be like you know but

1:02:13Sal Di Stefano:your community and your people that you that you know and you like i think that's and i think uh i mean i'm so glad that we're on year 12 of doing this and so we've built a community yeah uh of trust already because it people know we're not robots yeah and so i because i think it's going to be really tough for anybody who's going to try and use this why dude you could lift imagine what you could do with a robot arm dude it's just amazing who's most likely have a robot arm yeah

1:02:42Adam Schafer:justin justin for sure did you uh speaking of social media did you guys see myspace is going

1:02:47Sal Di Stefano:to start coming back yeah i brought that up to you did you did you read about it uh just briefly like just that they're trying to revive they're trying to say they're not going to use algorithms here's what it said the people they bought it's been bought they bought it years ago so here's what it said I'm reading the article

1:03:01Adam Schafer:I mean it'd be cool that they actually didn't do what they do on Facebook so it says MySpace is relaunching and says they plan to offer users an alternative to today's addictive algorithm driven social feeds so the brothers Chris and Tim Vanderhoek the current owners of MySpace revealed in a recent documentary that they're preparing a major comeback for the early internet pioneer driven by growing frustration with modern social networks that prioritize engagement, maximization, and infinite scrolling. The upcoming relaunch aims to offer a healthier alternative.

1:03:30Sal Di Stefano:You know who those two brothers are, right? No. You don't know who those are? Nope. Those are two brothers that claim to have invented Facebook. Oh. And they tried to sue. And they sued, oh boy. Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg. And Zuckerberg just got sued with something like a couple billion dollar. Longtree's getting sued every week. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he's getting sued every week. Did you see him fighting?

1:03:53Adam Schafer:Did you see him practicing MMA? Have you guys seen it? Yeah. He's trying real hard to get that. That stuff is so cringe.

1:03:59Sal Di Stefano:Are you fact-checking me right now, Doug? I am. Yeah, it's a...

1:04:04Adam Schafer:No. But I think they were in the documentary. I think the documentary of Facebook... Yeah, I didn't know it was attributed to MySpace, but I know that they... Wasn't there a movie on Facebook? Social Network. Social Network. Let me see here. And they were in it. And they were in it.

1:04:19Sal Di Stefano:those are and those that's the two those are the two so that that the way the story goes that's it's based on the story you know that right the social network it's not a made-up movie it's based on the the story and it's that they they had come up so they're different oh different

1:04:33Adam Schafer:boss that's what it is they're twins yeah i can see why you confuse them the names are very

1:04:37Sal Di Stefano:yeah yeah winkle boss vanderhook yeah yeah i thought that i thought it was the same ones so is that so is the myspace it's not the original guy right it was tom dude yeah tom is the original guy yeah he's the guy you know he's like he he made his you know a bunch of money and then disappeared yeah like it's like the ultimate gangster he is i don't think he's on any i don't think he's on any social platform example how kind of cool is that like you created like one of the biggest social platforms at one point drop the mic and he's gone and is out that's the way

1:05:05Adam Schafer:to do it yeah i think that's cool paleo valley protein meat sticks are gut friendly and clean and grass-fed. They're delicious. By the way, they're fermented. Okay, what does that mean? Well, that means that it's broken down so it's tender and delicious and better for your gut. It's a more expensive process, but the meat tastes a lot better. And of course, again, it's grass-fed. It's the best protein snack I've ever had. It's real meat. It's grass-fed. You can take it with you anywhere you want to go. Eight grams of protein per stick. It's got healthy fats. It's good for you. Go check them out.

1:05:42Adam Schafer:Go to paleovalley.com slash mindpump. On that link, you'll get an automatic 15 % off. Back to the show. First question is from Haley Valene. What ab exercises are actually worth it? Every day I see a new ab routine online and I can never tell which exercises are more filler or fluff and which will be actually worth doing. I really dislike training my core, but I do it because I want a strong core. So I really don't want to waste my time on exercises if there are better options.

1:06:15Sal Di Stefano:I think if this was my client asking me, I'd want like a little more detail on like. What are you looking for? Exactly. Because there's a difference of there's different exercises. I would train you if you looked at me and you said, I want a very dynamic and strong, stable core versus I want a core just to look good. Yeah. Because I think loaded decline sit-ups, and you'll get some bulky, solid abs. But doing something that has some rotational component to it is probably the better route for stability and strength and support. And so I guess if I knew what you wanted more out of it, I would steer you in a different direction.

1:06:59Adam Schafer:Yeah, I guess we could break it down into movements, and then you can kind of pick exercises that do some of this stuff. So you would want to work the abs in a full range of motion. You would want something that allows you to - Address the obliques. Yeah, to extend and flex your lumbar spine. Okay, so like a physio ball sit up or a crunch where you're really locked into place with your hips and you're rolling over the ball. You get a good range of motion with it. And crunching. You're getting the full range of motion of the abs as an example. So you'd want something that extends and flexes the lumbar spine for the abs.

1:07:32Adam Schafer:Then you'd want something that rotates with some resistance for the obliques. Then you would want something that offers counter rotation. So it allows you to stabilize your core while something's pulling you in a particular direction. And allow something to stabilize your spine like a plank while you're maintaining good posture. So pick exercises in each of those categories. I think you can't really go wrong.

1:07:55Sal Di Stefano:I mean, wouldn't you say a wood chop, a cable wood chop would check a couple of those boxes. So a cable wood chop with a loaded stability ball, like full sit up would be pretty, pretty all encompassing. If you did those two, probably the two, again, we're playing this game of like, you know, can I distill it down to the least amount of movements for the biggest bang? Yep. I'd say wood chops and then a full sit up on a stability ball and get to a point where I can load that. You can load it. Yeah. I think would be best bang for your buck. Totally. Next question is from E Pearson 81. If muscle memory is so prevalent and true, why can't cuts be super aggressive?

1:08:40Won't your muscle memory regain muscle quicker than fat on the rebound or bulk?

1:08:46Adam Schafer:I mean, theoretically, I could see why this person would ask this question, but there's a better way to do it. Like you could do an aggressive cut and lose a bunch of muscle and then go through the process of trying to gain it back. Or you could just lose body fat without losing a ton of muscle and not have to go through that process.

1:09:03Sal Di Stefano:Okay, yeah, but you also have to understand this too, though. Muscle memory and feeding the body a sufficient amount of calories to support muscle are two different things. Yeah. So in other words, when I hear aggressive cut, I think reducing calories dramatically, right? And if you're reducing calories dramatically, then you're probably going to lose some muscle. And even if you had great muscle memory and you go back to lifting, if you're eating in a calorie deficit, I don't care how much muscle memory you have working for you, you're not going to build more muscle.

1:09:34Adam Schafer:I think what they're asking is, why not do an aggressive cut, lose some muscle, but lose a bunch of body fat, and then go and regain the muscle.

1:09:44Sal Di Stefano:A lot of bodybuilders do this. They do that. This was my competitive edge because I didn't.

1:09:49Adam Schafer:Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. You could do that, but there's a better way. It's way more work. Yeah, why not just lose the fat and keep the muscle so you don't have to go through the whole process? When did you gain, wasn't Lane Norton talking about this, about like the potential to gain new fat cells? Oh, when you aggressively, aggressively cut? No, no, no, when you gain. When you gain back. When you gain back, yeah. After a dramatic cut, when you come back,

1:10:11Sal Di Stefano:if you aggressively increase calories, which a lot of competitors do. You'll gain fat cells. You'll gain fat cells. But I mean, to Sal's point. Like this is just the worst way to do it. It's a harder way to do it. You have to be way more. So aggressive cut means I have to be way more restrictive, which is hard discipline wise. I'm going to lose a bunch of muscle with the body fat too. Then when I go back to go back and build it on, it's going to take exponential more calories, work effort and time to put all that muscle back on. It's a lot harder way to do it. You'd be far, it's like, it's okay.

1:10:40Adam Schafer:You're playing the game on super hard mode. Just go on easy mode. There's an easier way to do it. Yeah. Next question is from Kevin Smith 28. What can I do to bulletproof my QL lower back and fix stability? I injured my lower back doing reverse grip rows from Maps Aesthetic to the point I couldn't even unload the bar. I am currently running 15 symmetry and adding a couple sets of suitcase carries and landmine rotations. So suitcase carries are good, but, you know, windmills are great. Windmills, yeah. Windmills are great. So suitcase carries will strengthen the QL kind of in an isometric way. uh windmills you're going to move that ql through a range of motion you're going to move it you're going to extend it you're going to contract it um you can add resistance to it you can also do side bends with a dumbbell if you want to keep it real basic but just like any muscle um state you know isometrics are great to strengthen but once you move outside of a particular range outside of the isometric that you're training you start to lose that strength so i don't remember how many degrees outside of that isometric.

1:11:48Adam Schafer:15, yeah. So full range of motion, you want to add to something like this. Windmills.

1:11:53Sal Di Stefano:I mean, kudos to this person, though, for having the thought to, they're in maps aesthetic, they get hurt QL, they drop down to 15 symmetry, and they add suitcase carriers. So unless you have a trainer background, a pretty solid direction, right? I would just, the thing I would add is windmills. Yep. add windmills, start them off, body weight, get really good at them, and then progressively load them and get strong in those. And that's going to bulletproof that QL. Next question is from Kirky Brad. I wake up at 4.30 a.m. to be on the gym floor at 5 a.m. Do I or should I eat before training in the morning?

1:12:32I do eat a high carb meal before bed.

1:12:35Adam Schafer:Now, the carbs you ate the night before are going to fuel you. Now, if you're doing a really long, arduous workout, then it may benefit you to drink carbohydrates during the workout. Right? So you could have a carbohydrate drink or powder that you can buy. You could do coconut water, which is what I'll do sometimes because it's got some electrolytes in it. But if you're doing a traditional strength training workout, 45 minutes to an hour, you probably don't need to eat anything, the meal you had the night before. Now, there are cases where some people, no matter what, need to have a little food.

1:13:09Adam Schafer:I've had clients like this. No matter what, they had to have a little something.

1:13:12Sal Di Stefano:So have I. And so my answer to this would be, this is such a personal preference thing because I've had clients that they have to have something or they get faint and they feel weird. Nauseous. Yeah, so we have to eat something. Other clients I've had, they do better on an empty stomach. I would say that's the first most important thing. What do you prefer? Do you feel okay? And can you eat and go right into working out and not feel lethargic from it, stuff like that? So one, number one thing, how do you feel from it? Do you like it? Do you not like it being fed or not fed? Then the second consideration is where are you at with hitting your macro targets that you need to hit?

1:13:49Sal Di Stefano:Because sometimes when I have a client that trains in the morning and they prefer not to eat, but then because they skip and they don't eat there, they don't eat their first meal until, say, like 9 or 10, and then they're behind on protein or something, and they consistently under -eat protein, then this becomes a client that I'm like, hey, let's see if we can get a shake before. And so I think number one consideration, how you feel, what do you prefer? Second consideration, how good are you the rest of the day hitting your macro targets? If you check both those boxes, then do whatever works for you.

1:14:21Adam Schafer:Now, by the way, sometimes people will say, well, I have to have something in my stomach. Otherwise, I get a little faint. But the reality is they're just eating too low calories anyway. So I've had clients like that. Well, let's try eating more on the days during the day anyway and see what happens. And that solved the problem. Look, if you like the show, you can find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. We'll see you then. 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.

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