2931: The Exact Foods to Eat to Lose Fat Without Starving Yourself

16:32Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I've shared the story a long time ago of when I first started weighing and measuring track of food. the sweet potato was one of the first things that blew my mind because before this, I was using just like a calorie King book that I used to have. And that's how they see their small, medium or large, uh, sweet potato. And, uh, what I was, cause when I, and then when I go to the grocery store, you can, you can visually in your head, see what the smaller ones and what the larger ones look like. The smaller ones are bigger than what the book had as the extra large ones. And so I was like i mean hundreds of calories off my estimation uh when i actually weighed them out and we're like oh wow it's the thing for like bananas yeah bananas are another one where it's like you know what the what the book would say is a small banana like that doesn't even exist in grocery stores like the the smallest banana is an extra large banana and so weighing what has happened to food where they've done that everything's just gotten larger it's gotta be right yeah oh yeah i know the same thing.

17:33Sal Di Stefano:Selective, what do they call it? Selective farming, selective breeding.

17:36Adam Schafer:Dude, it's true for everything. Get an apple. Like what they think is a normal size apple. Get a strawberry.

17:41Sal Di Stefano:You get strawberries like this. What's happening? You get a strawberry the size of an apple now and original strawberries were like, they're berries. They look like not much bigger. They were a little bit bigger than blackberries or blueberries. They weren't these giant things this big. That's wild. Yeah, we've bred them. Pumpkins now? Oh my God.

17:59Adam Schafer:Same thing with chicken breast. Anyway, so 68 ounces of meat. Get yourself a sweet potato, two cups of cooked greens. You've got your proteins, your fibers, your carbohydrates. You've got some good vegetables that are cooked. By the way, the reason why I say cooked greens, if you want your vegetables to really help with digestion, cook them well. If you want them to hurt your digestion, eat them raw. And that's true. So raw vegetables, not so great for digestion. Well cooked, very well cooked, make a difference. But there you have it with the meals. And so what you're looking at is 90 to 150, you know, or so grams of protein per day.

18:34Adam Schafer:So that's going to, that's going to cover the range. Now here's the deal. Some of you guys are going to need more protein than this. This is where shakes come in handy. So now you can have a shake post-workout, 30, 50 grams of protein. And now you're getting for most people in those optimal ranges. Now here's what's key with what we just said. Okay. Meal prep. Meal prepping is key with all of this. In fact, meal prepping is key to be able to eat healthy in general. What really messes people up consistently is that they're hungry, it's time to eat, and their options are basically what they can door dash or what they can drive to or what's in their pantry or what's at the office, none of which are ever typically good ideas.

19:13Adam Schafer:But if you meal prep twice a week or whatever, you're set with your meals and your odds of consistency goes over.

19:20Sal Di Stefano:And it's crazy that we overcomplicate this and we make it sound like it's this big ordeal or like you have to plan a whole day of cooking this. But the things that you chose, like sweet potato and white rice, you cook those in bulk. Yeah. The chicken breast, the ground beef, cook those in bulk. Cook pounds of it at a time to last you two or three days. No different than if you were to make it a meal for just you and your spouse. You just forex it. I mean, you just put more of it on the grill or in the crock pot or in the oven. It's like, so the time and effort. And then the last bit is like, you know, having yourself some nice glass Tupperwares that you, and once you get this down, right, like this system of what it looks like.

20:04Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I've got my half cup scooper for my rice, my big rice cooker, and I've got all the, you know, I've definitely got a lot of glass Tupperware, so I have plenty always that are the perfect size for this stuff. And once you kind of figure all that out, this becomes really routine, really easy to do. And it's funny that a lot of the motivation for me today has been to save money, how ridiculous it is to eat out.

20:32Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah, this saves so much money. Yes, so much money. The whole myth about eating healthy is more expensive. Eating healthy is only more expensive if you go to restaurants. that advertise eating healthy. They'll charge you more for that.

20:43Sal Di Stefano:Everything all pre-packaged. But if you make it yourself, you save a ton of money. Heaven forbid you have a dash to your house these days. Oh, gosh. I mean, you spend an exorbitant amount of money eating these crappy processed foods that aren't even that good, that are way overpriced. So yeah, I mean, then you throw in something like a butcher box where you can buy things in bulk. You can have it shipped to your house.

21:07Adam Schafer:And I just want to add, like, if you try this, Listen, if you're listening and you're like, okay, I'm going to give this a shot and you give it a shot for 30 days, it's going to blow your mind at a few things. One, how much strength you gain. Most people listening, if they did this, they're going to be like, oh my God, I'm suddenly getting stronger. Always surprising for me. Every time. Like every time I'm lifting, my weight's going up. This will happen if you go, if you're the typical, like I barely eat protein too. Oh, a lot of times that's the unlock. That's the unlock. People don't even realize it.

21:35Adam Schafer:Number two, this is really going to blow you away. you're going to feel like you're getting leaner simultaneously feel like you're eating a lot of food if you eat like this protein and fiber especially protein so satiety producing that you're going to eat this way and you're going to be like i feel like i'm stuffing myself what's going on then a month later you're like how did my waist go down a half an inch yeah i feel like i'm eating so much food you're actually eating less calories than you would have if you were eating processed foods uh and eating out but the protein is and number three you will fill it in

22:05Sal Di Stefano:your pocketbook you will say and and you think it's the opposite because like you said you're you're i mean i buy nice cuts of meat buy all that stuff like that and you're eating maybe three or four times a day versus what you were before two times you'll still save money totally it's still when you especially like again like i brought up butcher box you do something like that where you you have something on subscription that's a deal you get your ground beef balls sent to you grass-fed and you cook in bulk like this i have saved so much more money eating this way that's

22:34Adam Schafer:the number one thing i get from butcher box is the ground beef that's the largest of the because we put we cook so much of it and we cook it all together we cook the pot of rice we have it sitting there easy meal together and if you want to you know spruce it up with the salsa you can put guac on there cheese or whatever i just typically do rice and meat most consistent easy way to handle and their ground beef is really good it's grass-fed it's really good uh obviously easy to

22:59Sal Di Stefano:cook you throw you throw it a pan you make it we did their ribs uh everett like requested them and uh it's funny because you know how long it takes but like and we were like okay it's probably gonna be a few hours and uh poor courtney was like still out in the trigger and we were smoking it and it was like i think it was like 10 o 'clock at night and then we all had a feast at like 10 o 'clock we're still eating they're so good but it was like man we should have started Katrina and I each crush a whole set ourselves. So like that, we'll cook that. And she gets one, we each get a whole rack. I'll just eat that.

23:36Adam Schafer:Is it because it's the heritage pork, right? That's why, right? I just like it because it's so much meat on the bone. Because the pork is different. Yeah, the crepe-free pork, yeah. Yeah, it tastes different.

23:46Sal Di Stefano:It is different. Everybody I know that likes to do ribs, and I convinced to go try it. And I've been doing those ribs now for I don't know how many years. since we've been working with them, but for a long time now. And there's been many a times when I'm craving them and I've already cooked my butcher box. And so I have to go to the grocery store and buy some other ribs. And I've tried all different brands and kinds and none of them are as good as the butcher box ones. And I don't know if that's because it's the Heritage Pork. I don't know if they're the perfect size. I don't know why. All I know is that I've tested it many times.

24:24Sal Di Stefano:I wish I could find some a replacement for when I am out of my butcher box ribs but uh they they are amazing and everybody that I've got to do it are like you're right they taste so good

24:36Adam Schafer:I read a post today that was so wild I knew some of the stuff but this person lists it all down and it just blows me away and so basically these are they made a list of some of the most egregious accepted, you know, settled science that we accepted that we later realized was like killing us. So they did this over the years. And now there's way more than this, by the way. So you can actually look up like, you know, prescription drugs that have been taken off the market. So you'll see a lot of them, but this person went through and these were things that people did because everybody, doctors, scientists were like, yeah, that's good.

25:13Adam Schafer:And then later we found out was horrible so they made a list so in 1890s you were giving your kids the new by bear bear made this justin of course they made this new cough syrup that worked it was uh it was heroin uh they were giving that'll stop the cough they were giving kids heroin this was cough medicine for kids and in the 1900s you rubbed calomel teething powder on your infant's gums wow this was to help them because they were teething. For chamomile. No, no. Calomile was the name of it. It's a mercury compound. Wow. You were giving your children what's called pink disease. Swollen, peeling hands.

25:52Sal Di Stefano:Oh, wow. The Bayer was actually even called heroin? Yeah, they called heroin. Not even disguising it. Yeah. Oh, wow.

25:57Adam Schafer:Yeah. Let me tell you, it's effective. Your cough is gone when you take that. Was this... Okay, what is...

26:04Sal Di Stefano:Sorry to derail you a little bit. It just made me... Okay, in the movie Tombstone, she is taking an opiate but it's called something else is it latum? latum so is latum a derivative from this? latinum latum, you're right, it's something like that and she was taking it for like her bad latinum? she got very addicted to it

26:29Adam Schafer:latinum is it's dark reddish alcohol it's opium it's just a tincture of opium it's just a good old fashioned opium Well, isn't that what, I mean, so. So, I mean, heroin came from opium. Opium was like, this is like the, that's the foundational compound. Got it, got it. Okay. It's organic. Anyway. Can we go into Bear's history? No, wait, we will after. Please, please, let's go after. Okay, all right. Then in the 1910s, you start cooking with Crisco, which was launched by a soap and candle company because cottonseed oil is modern and lard is what your mom used. Yeah. So this was trans fats, right?

27:10Adam Schafer:So we were using Crisco instead of lard, and they were advertising as such. Now they advertise anything without trans fats because it's horrible. In the 1920s, you drink something called Radithor. This was certified radioactive water on prescription. Radithor? Yeah. What the hell? Yeah. Ibn Bayer, Bayer's, took 1 ,400 bottles for his vitality. Eventually, his jaw was removed in pieces. Oh, my God. In a lead coffin. They had to bury him in a lead coffin. He was all radioactive. He was so radioactive. No superpowers.

27:42Sal Di Stefano:What? That reminds me of those poor ladies that were working in that factory to paint watches.

27:50Adam Schafer:Yeah. They painted it with this. With radium. Yeah. And they would lick the tips of it. It was uranium. It was just radium. It was just radium. It glow. Yeah. They would lick the tips of the paintbrushes. I don't know that story. What watch company? Do you know? You can look it up, Doug. Yeah, look it up. That's interesting. Yeah, radioactive watch women. Because they'd lick and then they'd - You know, to give it a point, you know, for them to paint these watches.

28:12Sal Di Stefano:For some reason, I thought that was like the envelopes or something like that. No, there they are right there.

28:16Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah. What was the watch company? They called them the Radium Girls. The Radium Girls. They were all getting cancer. Dude. Of course. It's freaking radioactive. Yeah, there's a whole documentary. Oh, there's a whole documentary. Oh, that'd be interesting. I would watch that. It was widely used in the 20th century to make watch dials and military instruments glow in the dark.

28:34Sal Di Stefano:Notice they don't put any brand names? No. Yeah, that's smart. They don't want that kind of bad publicity.

28:41Adam Schafer:I wonder what the... Anyway, so there's that. Here's another one. 1930s, a chemist dissolves a new sulfa drug in diethylene glycol, which is antifreeze. It kills 107 people, mostly children. Then in the 1940s, your doctor is smoking camels in surgery because doctors were the ones that smoke camel cigarettes, apparently. You actually drop an ash over an open.

29:04Sal Di Stefano:Oh, shit. Whoops. You want a nice steady hand, right? So you're a camel in one. Yeah, accidentally ashing the wound.

29:12Adam Schafer:In the 1950s, DDT is sprayed over your kitchen, your garden, and your children. DDT, of course. That's cool. The man who found it or founded it was given a Nobel Peace Prize. By the way, my grandfather, or my great-grandfather told me stories of this. He said when he was little in Sicily, they'd have all the kids line up outside the house and they'd drive a truck through and just blast everybody with DDT for lice. Yeah. It's so great. By the old DDT commercials, you ever watch them? No. People are eating at a picnic and they blow DDT over the food and the people keep eating to show how safe it is.

29:51Adam Schafer:I heard a lot of studies were tainted because they didn't factor in DDT exposure for so many people back then. Yeah, dude.

29:59Sal Di Stefano:And people were getting cancer. Okay, so wait, it stops in the 50s? Did we stop making these mistakes? DDT we stopped using much

30:05Adam Schafer:later. In fact, it was used for a long time. For a very, very long time. We haven't even got

30:09Sal Di Stefano:to asbestos yet.

30:10Adam Schafer:Yeah, I know. I don't even think it's on the list. All right. Cool. 1960s, this is terrible, by the way. Women are using something called thalidomide for morning sickness because it's remarkably safe, except more than 10 ,000 children are born with missing or shortened limbs. Aye, aye, aye. Do you know what happened with that, by the way?

30:29Sal Di Stefano:No.

30:30Adam Schafer:When you look at the molecular structure of this drug, thalidomide, if you do the mirror version of it, if it's flipped, then it produces these birth defects. Scientists thought it was the same. If it's facing this way, it's the same if it's facing it. Not true. If it faces the other way, then your kid's going to be born without an arm or leg.

30:51Sal Di Stefano:So how did it end up being, like, how did that mess up? Like, the molecule got flipped. how the molecule get flipped.

30:57Adam Schafer:Because the way they made it, they just, it was the same process. They weren't trying to control for that.

31:02Sal Di Stefano:Oh my God.

31:02Adam Schafer:So you had tens of thousands of children that were born with these, for this morning sickness drug that was hailed as a miracle and that doctor said was really good for you. In the 1970s, the country puts down butter, picks up margarine because the American Heart Association says margarine's better for you. This was official guidelines. Margarine. American Heart Association. They got a few misses on their belt. I know. And so there you go. And there's more. 1990s, your father's prescribed Oxycontin. And now we have this huge opiate issue as a result. In the 2000s, Vioxx for knee pain was pulled off in 2004 because tens of thousands of excessive heart attacks.

31:45Adam Schafer:Those are just some of the examples.

31:46Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, this is over-counter stuff.

31:48Adam Schafer:And by the way, I was just talking with the dude. I won't say his name, the dude that cut our hair today. Yeah. so um i was talking about his dad his dad had horrible stroke and so his dad's young and we were talking about it five and yeah we were i was asking him questions and um i was like you know just i said you know forgive me for asking this and you don't have to answer this but did your dad ever get the covid vaccine um and he says uh he wasn't sure but he had did you guys know he got the covid vaccine and it gave him the heart inflammation he had to get hospitalized for Whoa. The kid that cut her hair.

32:20Adam Schafer:I didn't know that. And he says sometimes when he gets sick, it comes back and he has to go. Are we allowed to talk about this now? No, trust the science.

32:28Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

32:29Adam Schafer:Thanks, Doug. Thanks for bringing us back. I know someone personally who is late 30s who, through the COVID vaccine, had strokes, several. Yeah. And they linked it back to that. So, anyway, just a little history.

32:46Sal Di Stefano:It was so wild about the, just a little short history lesson that you took us all down with that is the, how there could be anybody on the other side that gets angry at somebody who's just questioning. Just questioning it. That's just like, Hey, I don't know if I want to take this. Hey, I think I'm going to roll the dice and try and go natural. I'm like to, to, to, to shame them or to call it like at all, even if they're wrong, even if, even if they're, they're wrong on it you you have the right to be skeptical or unsure about something i remember my original stance i was talking to my friend and it was really just i was trying to be like you know just logical about it like if you have full autonomy in terms of not being able to sue i was like i don't think that's good i don't want to subscribe i don't want to try i don't want to go through that experiment process because i'm gonna wait to see you know like the reports that come in and like the injuries that inevitably with that many millions of people you're gonna have injuries regardless like you can't with no truck claim you're not gonna have any injuries yeah so it just it was totally illogical to me uh just from that standalone you're gonna have the government protecting it it's like please it is such a good job of fear-mongering the side that if you didn't

34:08Adam Schafer:you were killing people not only fear-mongering but coercing you out oh yeah you lose your job

34:13Sal Di Stefano:you can't do this you can't do that so deceptive to say that you have it you you probably have it but it's uh what do they call it like it's asymptomatic asymptomatic that was the how do Most deceptive marketing I've ever seen. Ever. Like, you probably have it, though. It's not simple. Did I tell you guys? Oh, shit.

34:33Adam Schafer:That's why you're a funny story. Now, in hindsight, it's even funnier. But at the time, I was like, ah. So during, in the middle of kind of COVID, like, you know, during that whole time or whatever, Jessica and I went to the Truckee house and met up with some of her friends that she knew from Cirque du Soleil. So some old friends. So we had, like, three families meet us up there and us. And this was kind of when COVID was kind of going on. Now, all of them were on this side, like the way over here side of that whole thing. It was like, you better get vaccinated. You better not like go talk to grandma.

35:05Adam Schafer:Yeah, that side, right? Obviously, Jessica and I are much more over here on this side. But you guys remember my stance. My stance was not never. My stance was, I'm going to wait. No, I remember all of us, you were actually contemplating at one point. Yeah, I was going to, my whole thing was, look, I'm healthy. I'm just going to wait to see what happens. I'm so glad I did, right? We were never anti. It was just like, whoa, let's see how this plays out. So anyway, so we get to the house. I'll never forget. We get to the house. Everybody does their due diligence or whatever. Everybody's hanging out.

35:32Adam Schafer:And the conversation, because remember, this was like during COVID, right? Conversation starts to come up about the whole thing. And they all immediately are like, whoa, they're way over here of this side. And, you know, Jessica and I, we have our opinions. I'm opinionated. Jessica is even more so. So she just starts, you know, sharing. Like, no, we're not going to do it. We're not doing it. We don't believe in it. We think we're healthy, whatever. She's talking about all this stuff, right? Anyway, later that night, I started feeling sick, and I had COVID.

36:00Adam Schafer:They all left the next morning. You know they were driving home going, I knew it. Those two bragging about their dog Maxine. Of course he has COVID. It's going to be a long winter.

36:12Sal Di Stefano:So you know they felt so justified. How many years ago was that now? Six. Yeah, six years ago. Six? Isn't that wild? 2020. It's just - Six years ago. Those are the fastest years I think we've lived.

36:27Adam Schafer:It also feels like it was way longer than that ago, but it also feels like -

36:32Sal Di Stefano:Oh, it feels like it was way sooner to me. It feels like it was just - I feel like - I mean, even the fact that you just said right now, is it okay to talk about it? Six years ago, bro. I know. It's a long time ago. It's already been a long time, and we're way past it, and everybody knows it was a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. Like, of course we can talk about it. Of course. But that's six years ago. That's wild that it was that long ago. But, man, it lingered for like two full years. Like it was the, I mean, it dominated the conversations everywhere you went.

37:04Adam Schafer:It was, in my opinion, the best example in modern history of mass paranoia and just the power of media and fear. And what we did is we put don't get sick. This is what we did. we created this thing which was no infections ever and we made it our God and we sacrificed everything towards this God of never getting sick so you should just be in your house by yourself all the time what about my friends what about my family no infection turns out that gets you more sick no infection turns out when you sacrifice everything in the wrong direction

37:39Sal Di Stefano:relationships and sunlight are like two of the biggest keys to health and we were told do you remember people

37:44Adam Schafer:getting arrested at the beach yes

37:46Sal Di Stefano:surfing away from everybody

37:48Adam Schafer:in the ocean by himself they'd wait for him to come in and they arrested him. They're like, hey, let's get close to you. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Oh, the whole thing was crazy.

37:54Sal Di Stefano:I know. The whole thing was crazy. Yeah, yeah. Or the restaurants. Mask on, and then you walk in, and then you're like, okay, is it right? Is it right? Now. Now it's free. COVID only hovered at five feet, but once you were at three feet, you -

38:09Adam Schafer:Or the plastic separator. It's just one sheet at the grocery store. Yeah. I can't get the spit on you from here. Did you ever see the videos of the kids in band? They had kids in band, and they had masks with a hole in it so they could put their mouth on their instrument. Yeah. You ever seen that? I did.

38:24Sal Di Stefano:Ridiculous. These zip-up plastic containers they were in playing. What age group do you think, when you think back to COVID, the 9-11s, the riots, so much stuff that's happened in the last 20 years or less, what age do you think would be the worst age to have been through because of your lens that you see the world through? like I feel like one of the one of the benefits that even we can have a conversation like this and we were having a conversation this when it was going on was that when you're old enough and you've been around and you've seen enough things like you can draw back to like oh well trust me there's like I mean even I remember talking to you guys when the when how crazy a lot of like the the riots were and stuff like that it's like dude we've had yeah crazier rioting time but it felt But if you were young.

39:13Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, LA riots back in the day were crazy. Oh, dude, way, way, way, way crazier times. And so, but I mean, because of social media, because of this time, it feels like. I think that's the difference. I think before we didn't have a lot of media coverage and like constant media coverage and every day in your face stuff that like, I think you're able to kind of put it off, live your life, come back to like the shock of like, oh my God, this is happening, this event, you know. But it wasn't like you every day were just like being inundated with it.

39:45Adam Schafer:No, no, 100%. I think kids who grew up around, my two older kids who were really impressionable during COVID, they suffered a lot during that period of time. And older people suffered a lot because older people, when you look at the data on grandma and grandpa.

40:01Sal Di Stefano:Imagine that being your last years of your life and not being able to see your family.

40:04Adam Schafer:Even if it's not, an older person's health declines dramatically when they're lonely. Fact. Yep. And I saw this with my grandparents. And it wasn't like we stayed away from my grandparents for a year. I think it was like four months because of all the fear and stuff. And so we would drop off groceries. And in a four-month period, they aged so much because they were just by themselves. The damage we did was just unbelievable. I know.

40:29Sal Di Stefano:Crazy. Yeah. Crazy. Hey, how was your weekend? You took the boys to Laguna Seca, yeah? Yeah, we went to Laguna Seca. Ethan is like a super fan now of like motor sports in general. But yeah, he's really into these like exotic cars. And like, I was trying to remember the name of this type of engine of this car. Like he just was fascinated by it. It's got like this, I don't know if it's almost like a triangular kind of turbine where like because of that, it creates this compression of its own. Is that rotary? Yeah, rotary. Oh, good job.

41:04Adam Schafer:Doesn't Mazda have rotary engines?

41:05Sal Di Stefano:So yeah, the Mazda RX-7 is the rotary engine, and I'd never heard of it before, but he was explaining it to me. It has the coolest sound. It was very cool to see. But yeah, we saw a lot of sick cars, and what was great about it was how open it was. It wasn't like they had their own little pit that you had no access to or anything. everybody like because it's kind of like hobbyists and it's people that like own a lot of these cars and then they get to drive it on the track and it was a very like kind of relaxed environment so we're going up there they're starting it up they're telling us all about it we're walking it was sick did you not did you know up until that point like how much your boy was into it until like oh that's kind of cool no i didn't like i i kind of like you're like oh shit he like knows the stuff yeah like he obviously he you know in his own time has watched a lot of youtube videos He reads a lot about all the specs.

41:59Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, he geeks out a lot on all these different types of really fast cars. I'm like, cool. I dig it. I love that.

42:06Adam Schafer:You were up at -

42:08Sal Di Stefano:Every day I was up there. What's it called? That's Monterey Car Week. That's right. Yeah, yeah. And there's stuff going on. Dude, I heard the coolest breakdown of what it's like to be like an F1 driver as far as like what kind of athletes are they? First of all, you know that there's only like 20-something in the world to make it to that. And he breaks it down. It was really cool. I'm obviously listening to all this stuff and pay attention and go down the rabbit holes. And I've heard stuff talked about this before, like just what great crazy athletes they are. But I've never heard somebody break it down like this.

42:43Sal Di Stefano:And he starts it off by talking about like how unaware we all are. Because every other sport, like you can go pick up a basketball and play and shoot outside. Oh, we just have no ideas. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you could watch a pro athlete and be like, wow. You can feel like, because you know what you can't do. Exactly. He goes, but you are completely unaware. You think because you get in a car and drive a car, it's nothing like that. And so he's like, he goes, they are super athletes. he goes their strength their endurance their their eye like there's they're like fighter pilots yes on and on that extreme level he so he starts telling this story so he so here's it he's an amateur driver and he got this opportunity to uh to drive like a real f1 car and before he even gets in it he goes like they have to do all this testing with him to see if he's even capable to do his stuff and so he goes he's sitting in there at one point and he's like and then they tell he they tell me to uh break to to press on the brake and the guy's sitting there with the computer locked up to it and he's like hard and he's telling him harder and he goes i and he's describing like i am stepping on this brake with every ounce of hard enough as i and he goes he goes okay that'll do and he's like what do you mean that'll do and he spins the computer around and he shows him that he's like at 82 pounds of of pressure or whatever like that and he goes um well yeah he goes you To give you the average F1 driver, average is 120.

44:14Sal Di Stefano:Average throughout the race. Average throughout the race. And he goes, I was pressing with everything I had just to register at 82. He gives an example of a normal F1 track. He goes, they'll do 17 braking turns in a single lap, and they'll do 50-something laps of that. So do the math while also managing the G-forces, turning change like and he's like that like just because it blew my mind i had i the first time i

44:46Adam Schafer:realized how crazy it was was i watched a video from inside the cockpit of a drag of a drag racer and then i then from there i watched inside the cockpit of a rally racer of a formula i don't even know how they know what's happening yeah i don't you ever seen a drag it's predictive there's no turn in this there's no turns in drag racing you ever seen what they do with their hands and what that thing looks like inside? I know.

45:07Sal Di Stefano:Just to keep it in the lane is insane

45:09Adam Schafer:because it pulls you so hard. Yeah, you watch it. How would you even rally racing? How does he know what's happening? Every turn is going to die. Oh, those ones where they have the passenger navigating for them? They freak me out

45:19Sal Di Stefano:because they don't even know what's around the corner. Well, you're talking about too, so with Formula One, the G-forces and the speeds they're going, he goes, for example, he goes, they show a video of him getting out of the car from doing only so many laps, and he takes his helmet off, and he looks like he was just in a 20 round fight. I mean, just drenched in sweat. He looked like you can see him. He can't get out. Like he's so exhausted. He can't get out. He has to wait before they pull him out. He's like, when you're taking a turn, he goes, imagine you're going around turn and he goes, the G forces that are pushing on your neck is like you with your neck turned with like seven watermelons on it and having to like maintain that.

45:58Sal Di Stefano:He goes, just the weight of that. He goes, it's unbelievable the amount. He goes, I couldn't, Just like you experienced in the jet, like you can't lift your leg off the ground because of the G-forces. He goes, so when you're doing that, he goes, there's so much of that G-force, your leg is pressed against the side of the, and he goes, you can't even pull it off.

46:17Adam Schafer:Dude, I got a question, Adam. Do they, did you get a chance to ask them about diet and nutrition? And the reason why I ask you is because, how long are those races? How long are they in the car for? Oh, they can be in there for hours. Okay. So nutrition has got to play a role in all of that. And I wonder if any of them use like ketone supplements. Like I could see something like ketone IQ.

46:39Sal Di Stefano:For sharpness too?

46:40Adam Schafer:For mental sharpness, for energy. You know, I bet you're right. I bet there is. Because if you could bonk, first off, driving like that, you're going to bonk like if you're running.

46:52Sal Di Stefano:Well, you know, I bet they probably use very similar. Remember what Zach Bitter came on? And he talked how he runs. He's fat adaptive. but then he runs on carbohydrates. I wonder if that's a common thing. If they try and become fat adapted and then they run on carbs for that. What are you looking up, Doug?

47:10Adam Schafer:Yeah, Doug, look at Formula One driver diet.

47:12Sal Di Stefano:I'd like to see what that is. I just wanted some facts I was getting. The routinely experienced between 5 to 6.5 Gs during extreme braking, which is extremely interesting. That's like a lot of Gs. That's like straight fighter jet. That is like a fighter jet. And then they're 90 minutes to two hours. Imagine experiencing that many Gs 15, 20 times in a single lap for hours at a time while navigating around other cars, while taking turns where you have about a half an inch to less between the tire and the wall. Yeah, they're this close to the wall. It's wild. And they have to for that line. Yeah, he's like, we do a terrible job.

47:55Sal Di Stefano:and he goes, and then the people that commentate it, he goes, are other F1 drivers so when they talk, they talk like it's no big deal, but the average people have no idea the feeling and the complexity of the stuff that they're conversing about and he did such a good breakdown of explaining that relative to all other sport examples that you can, everything else you can kind of get out there and kind of do and go wow, I can get behind a wakeboarding boat and I can ride for a little bit and go and then see the pros and go like, whoa. You just have no idea. But that, you're just, there's nothing like it that you can draw an example to.

48:31Adam Schafer:I saw you guys drink. You guys are doing the ketone IQ before podcast now. Yeah. I love doing that. Yeah.

48:37Sal Di Stefano:It makes a difference. Oh, yeah. I could feel the difference and I could just feel, too, it's just another way that I can get that memory recall and it's just like sharp. It's my post-caffeine drink. Yes. To keep me going through the rest of the day. And so what I noticed.

48:51Adam Schafer:It's not the same. You don't get a stimulant. It's not a stimulant.

48:53Sal Di Stefano:No, that's what I'm listening.

48:54Adam Schafer:It's not a stimmity. You just feel sharper.

48:55Sal Di Stefano:So for someone that would use it, this is how I like to use it for what we do and how I would do this. Even if I had like a regular eight hour job. And if you are a coffee and a caffeine drinker early is you always tend to have this, you know, after your coffee's worn off two or three hours later, this kind of where you come down and it's probably somewhere between noon and three for the average person. And then most people have still a few more hours. And so that's right where I take the ketone IQ. And so for me, it's then the rest of the podcasting day or whatever kind of work that we're doing, whether we're shooting or doing other stuff, it keeps that mental sharpness without the weird energy up and down crashing that I get from caffeine.

49:42Sal Di Stefano:To me, it's the perfect. And I know they make ones with caffeine. So if you like both, but that's how I use it. I like the non-caffeine ones. I like to drag my caffeine. Yeah, after, exactly. Me too. I like to have my caffeine drinks. And then when I'm done with that, because I shut that down pretty early because I can't do past noon or I'll mess up my sleep. Then when that wears off, two or three hours later or whatever, then I have the ketone IQ. And then that's like keeps me for the rest of the day.

50:08Adam Schafer:You know what's getting kind of shared all over right now is this new study on red light and how it affects the body. Really? Yeah. So I know, I mean, I know, you know, we're not supposed to talk about our partner Juve right now. It's not scheduled, but I have to talk about this because it's flying everywhere. And it's actually one of the craziest things I've ever seen. So they compared, I'm going to read this to you. So they compared red light therapy to a group without red light, both of them similar diet, both of them Mediterranean diet. Do you know what they found between the two, the difference?

50:40Adam Schafer:The group that used the red light, everything else was the same. The group that used the red light lost more fat. Oh, mitochondrial health. I mean, yeah, but it's actually, by the way, their lipids improved better than the other group. Inflammatory markers are better than the other group. Check this out. So waist circumference in particular. The group without red light therapy lost six centimeters around their waist. You want to know how much the group with red light therapy lost? Fifteen. Whoa. More than double. Wow.

51:13Sal Di Stefano:From red light. So, wait, okay, would you? Just from. How would you explain? Wild. How would you explain to a five-year-old what mitochondrial health is? Oh, God. To a five-year-old? Yeah, yeah. Like it's the brain of a cell. No, it's the engine. Oh, the engine. Okay, so there you go. So that's how you say it.

51:29Adam Schafer:So basically - So all of your cells have an engine that help them function. Yeah.

51:35Sal Di Stefano:The stronger the engine, the better the cell functions. The better the cell functions. So there you go. So of course, duh. Everything works better. If all your cells are used to running on a V6 and now you've supercharged it or built it to a V8 or a V12, you're going to perform better. On all aspects, I would imagine strength performance would be better. Endurance would be better. Stamina would be better. Well, there's other things. Fat loss would be better.

52:02Adam Schafer:There's other things that show that builds muscle too. Right. It's the wildest thing because you're sitting in front of light. Yeah. That's it. You're literally just sitting in front of light. do this on a regular basis you'll lose more muscle I want a bed you know at the gym I go to they just opened a recovery room and they have these they look like saunas but they're not and they're just red light so you sit in there and you're surrounded by red light

52:25Sal Di Stefano:yeah I want to lay in a bed of them either that or like the whole shower thing I've always talked about where I've like turned my whole kind of shower area into it because I'm in there twice a day so I can just blast it like that I want to find a way to do it like that would be ideal because all the benefits of that dude so i saw something uh that scientists just came out with that uh it was like a hydrogel like a skin that actually is a healing uh so you you put it on wounds and it's apparently it heals 90 percent more effectively wow which is pretty wild so it feel like skin missing or a burn yeah just put it on you put it on and in the hydrogel like acts as just like this cooling

53:04Adam Schafer:like a healing agent oh wow is it a new technology yeah let me yeah i want to see what doug pulls up here well another guy well that's no like commercial look up the scientific breakthrough yeah uh moisture rich environment uh yeah uh let me see if i get yeah scientific hydrogel itself you can do a hydrogel research on burns let's try that yeah i bet we'll find something like that let's see what that looks like uh you know if this hosting and podcasting

53:33Sal Di Stefano:doesn't work i think you could totally do the google oh i'll be the i'll be over there the googler i thought that was a batman maybe that'll be the evolution maybe that'll be the evolution of like as our young team comes up you eventually get out of this chair you just just

53:48Adam Schafer:i'll write on the screen when i get mad it's like say this this is what you need to say yeah interesting oh nanozymes okay okay all right all right justin yeah i thought it was cool yeah very interesting that is interesting i have some uh i had some thoughts on cold immersion therapy or like ice baths. Oh, you were mentioning that off air.

54:09Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, so here's - You know, have you watched the bell curve of it, I guess?

54:15Adam Schafer:Yeah, the rise and fall. Yeah, yeah.

54:16Sal Di Stefano:It was like this - Everybody do it. Nobody was doing it. It's been around forever, so it's like this, right? And then all of a sudden, it was like this huge, this is the greatest thing ever. Companies are popping up everywhere. It's amazing, amazing. And then now you have the, this is terrible for building muscle. It's a waste of time. It's overrated. So it's like a bell curve, yeah?

54:37Adam Schafer:No, so one thing I hate about fitness is, or I should say fitness media, is that everything falls under the category of lose fat, build muscle. If it doesn't do that, or God forbid, it reduces some of that, even though it may produce all these other benefits, and even though if you understand exercise science, there are ways to implement some of these tools to maximize other things, who cares because the study shows that it reduces hypertrophy. Okay, so here's where this started. Studies were done on people who strength train and then who did cold water immersion versus those that didn't. Here's what the study showed.

55:16Adam Schafer:People who did cold water immersion post-workout built less muscle. Okay, this is true. One of the reasons why this happens is it reduces the inflammatory pathways and kind of the cell signaling that tells the body to build muscle. So part of the inflammation you get afterwards is telling your body to repair and build muscle. So when you blunt that, you're probably going to build less muscle. But I was working out today and I was thinking to myself, what about strength? What about strength? Now, muscle size contributes to strength, but a lot of strength has to do with your central nervous system and just how your strength organizes itself and how well you fire in order to lift something.

55:57Adam Schafer:Does it have a negative effect on strength? So I looked up some studies and the effect on strength is far smaller than the one on hypertrophy. And just to be clear, the effect on hypertrophy is also small. So it's not a huge effect, by the way, on hypertrophy. It's small. The effect on strength is either smaller to none. So what that means is using cold water therapy might make you build imperceptible to you. But if we did a study, we might see less muscle. But it probably doesn't negatively affect strength or it doesn't affect strength. So I'm thinking to myself, this could be a valuable tool for athletes.

56:38Adam Schafer:because one of the things you have to balance when you're an athlete.

56:40Sal Di Stefano:So much volume repetition you got to get through.

56:42Adam Schafer:Yeah, like a lot of, like when you go lift weights to build muscle, you stimulate, you leave. But when you're an athlete, a lot of your practice is getting good at your skills. Yeah. Getting good at the technique, getting good at how to hit, how to catch, how to run, how to jump, how to twist. You know, even if you're a strength athlete, how to do a power clean, how to do a squat, how to do a deadlift, a bench press. A lot of that is the skill of the lift. And what prevents you from constantly practicing that skill is that you can't – you overtrain. Your body can't heal. Right. So recovery. You can't do football practice 12 hours a day because you would just die.

57:18Adam Schafer:So what's limiting you is your ability to adapt or recover.

57:22Sal Di Stefano:So your theory with that then is that you get to maintain all those like points of practice. and so you're actually able to kind of keep skill training but not necessarily increase the size of your muscle. You could do more. You know that this theory that you're talking about right now is not original by any means, right?

57:42Adam Schafer:Well, they've been using it for a long time.

57:43Sal Di Stefano:This is why during this whole bell curve, pro athletes have never skipped a beat on how they use

57:50Adam Schafer:That's why they don't listen to any of these. The cryotherapy, ice pass, and ice.

57:54Sal Di Stefano:It's always been consistent, and you can watch an NBA game and never once have we broken stride with a player coming off the court to sit down and instantly they're putting ice on his knees right away. And it's because they don't give a shit if it helps with his bench press or his leg press or squat or they don't care if it adds muscle. It's like he's got to perform. Yeah, exactly. They're preserving the body. They've got to perform. They've got to perform at a high level and they do it multiple times sometimes in a day.

58:21Adam Schafer:It's not just that. When you look at the studies that are looking at ice therapy versus non-ice therapy, what they didn't do is increase the volume on the ice therapy group because they can handle more volume. Okay. So if I take two groups and I'm comparing them and I do ice therapy or cold water immersion, I can now add more training stress and volume.

58:43Sal Di Stefano:There's your original theory or great point. That's where I'm going. You're making the case that it's not – well, this is kind of like how we talk about the studies that are around volume and stuff. Yes. is that it's like they say volume is the same,

58:59Adam Schafer:but the truth is if you split up your workouts, you're doing more volume because you're stronger. Exactly. Less fatigue.

59:03Sal Di Stefano:And so in the real world, the study isn't a great one to use because it doesn't really apply because you're going to get way more reps in and way more practice in which you get better at that skill.

59:15Adam Schafer:So let's just say, I'm just going to use strength sport. Let's say you want to get PR in your deadlift. And right now when you train with your deadlifts, twice a week is about as much as you can do maybe a heavy day and a light day okay and that's about as much as you do and you do your auxiliary work but you find if you do more than that you tend to break down and get hurt and you just kind of overtrain well what if cold water immersion allows you to deadlift three days a week you get a smaller build muscle signal but I can deadlift

59:41Sal Di Stefano:I know I know this is anecdotal but I will tell you from experience um when I was competing I was doing all the things recovery, cryotherapy. I was getting massages every other night or every night from Katrina. Uh, the amount that I could put a put towards my squats and deadlifts. I'm that's exactly what I am now. Two times a week, one time being intense is about all my body can handle because I'm, I'm constantly in this kind of recovery state, but I'm not doing any of those things. I'm not doing all the things to facilitate that. So I absolutely am not, cannot handle nowhere near the volume that I was doing.

1:00:20Sal Di Stefano:And of course, those were my peak strength times.

1:00:23Adam Schafer:And so the question is, why would you want to increase your volume so you could practice more? So it could practice the lifts more, so I could practice my sport more. So if you just want to build muscle, okay, then you don't necessarily need it. There's maybe some additional value in other areas. Maybe use it separately from your workouts or whatever. Fine. But if you gain value from practicing your lifts or your skills more often, which pretty much everybody would gain value from that, cold water immersion would allow you to do those things. So now instead of squatting twice a week, if I want to get a PR, I can squat three days a week.

1:00:59Adam Schafer:And why? Because I do cold water immersion. Oh, but you're building less muscle. Yeah, but I'm squatting an extra day a week. I think that pretty much negates the fact that I'm losing the single weight.

1:01:07Sal Di Stefano:I'll add to this theory. And it was Dr. Brink who got me to do this first. And I don't know if any of you guys have experimented with this. Oh, you go before? Before. You do cryotherapy or do an ice bath pre-workout? Yeah, that's crazy. Those are some of the best workouts I've ever had. I mean, so everybody traditionally - The more focused you are, the more, yeah, you can recruit. Dude, traditionally, everybody uses them as a post-workout thing to bring down inflammation and everything like that. Or you might see some people that use it first thing in the morning when they wake up to try and start their day with that, which I think is incredibly beneficial because I've done that.

1:01:47Sal Di Stefano:But try using it 10, 15 minutes before you go into a workout and watch your workout. And then your fatigue in the workout is way less.

1:01:54Adam Schafer:But I'll tell you, I'll give you an example. Because I've been doing jujitsu here and there, and it's totally different from lifting weights or whatever. And the truth is, if I want to get good at jujitsu faster, the best thing I could do is do more jujitsu. But the limiting factor is my body. I can't do it every single day because it hurts and my body breaks down and I need rest, right? But if I do cold water immersion afterwards, I can do more than I would be able to had I not done cold water immersion. Therefore, my jujitsu skills will improve that much faster. And so I don't think we should throw out cold water immersion as this tool.

1:02:30Adam Schafer:I just think we got to use it in the right way. Use in the right way. Cold water immersion could be remarkable. If I was training an athlete, here's the deal. Every coach knows this. The more you can train your athletes, the more they can practice, the better they'll get faster, but you have to balance it with recovery. You're always balancing with recovery. And so it's like, okay, I got to, I got to give my kids or my athletes or whatever more rest because we're just pushing it too hard. But what if I can increase the volume that they can handle through a simple thing like Like, here, jump in this cold bucket full of ice and water after our workout.

1:03:03Adam Schafer:Now we can do an additional workout.

1:03:05Sal Di Stefano:Well, there's also the other thing that these studies aren't measuring either that we talk a lot about is the behavioral benefits of these things too, the mental benefits of this. The mental benefits of committing to something that is hard. By the way, I don't care how many days in a row you do it, it's hard every time. It's hard. Nobody wants to jump in ice. Every time. Every time I was doing it, I went on a streak. So everybody jumped on the bandwagon of trying to shit on it. I went on a streak for a really long time of being super consistent with it. And I tell you what, not one day got easier.

1:03:32Sal Di Stefano:Like, to get in. Once I got in, the breathing technique got easier. Like, I learned how to calm my, which is also really beneficial for you, okay? To learn how to calm your central nervous system down like that, focus on your breathing. While under stress. While under stress, right? So super beneficial, too. That got better, but it was hard to get in every single time. There's got to be some benefits to consistently doing hard things that you don't want to do that have carry over to other aspects of life.

1:03:58Adam Schafer:It just annoys me because the health space.

1:04:01Sal Di Stefano:Fat loss or milli muscle.

1:04:02Adam Schafer:Yeah. And I think, well, how are you using it? What are you using it for? Don't throw it out because there's some value for a lot of people listening right now. If you're one of those people that is trying to get better at something and you're limited by your recovery, this could allow you to train more and to practice more often, thus making you better faster. And so I think it's this really cheap, cool tool that people should still use in the right context. What is dose for your liver? Look, dose for your liver is clinically backed liver health supplements. It's not just another capsule of powder.

1:04:34Adam Schafer:It's a liquid supplement. You take it daily, two ounces at a time. It tastes like fresh squeezed orange juice. Now it cleanses the liver of unwanted stressors that are slowing your liver down. It promotes daily liver function so your liver can do its job. So no sugar, no junk, no calories. Now, what does the liver even do? It's your body's filter. It processes everything you consume and it performs 500 plus daily functions. So you want to think energy production, digestion, fat metabolism, vitamin storage. The liver helps make these processes happen every single day. And when it's overworked, you feel it.

1:05:12Adam Schafer:You feel sluggish. You don't have any good energy. Your skin doesn't look as good. Well, Dose's liver supplement has been shown in some clinical trials to reduce liver enzymes. This stuff actually works. Give it a shot. Go to dosedaily.co slash mindpump. Use code mindpump35 and get 35 % off your first month's subscription. Back to the show. Our first caller is Chris from Connecticut. What's up, Chris? How you doing, Chris? Hey, guys. What's going on? What's going on, man? Good, man. How can we help you? So let me just get right into it, and I'll read my email. A little nervous. Can't believe I'm actually seeing you guys.

1:05:50I listen every day. It's kind of crazy. Welcome to the party. Oh, man, this is awesome. All right. So I'm 53 years old, married, father of two daughters, 21 and 19. I was an athlete growing up, played multiple sports, hockey until I was 26. Once I got married, had kids, stopped training, spent the next 15 years, heavily involved coaching both my daughters through softball. My oldest played Division III. My youngest right now is playing Division I. Before realizing that, my oldest bodybuilding was her passion, so she left school, came home, and started training and participating in shows where she actually placed in a couple of shows.

1:06:34Now, my younger daughter is still playing Division I softball, so I don't regret any of the time that I spent with them and doing that, but I did stop taking care of myself during that process. So since then, I've kind of been on a roller coaster. I did a medical weight loss diet in 2007, which got me down to like 40 pounds, but it came back. Then around 2010, 2011, I started caring for my dad, who was dying from cancer. And I was dealing with a really difficult boss, which put me under tremendous stress. I dropped to 140 pounds. People thought I was sick. And then that weight came back to once life got more comfortable, I put that weight back on.

1:07:192015, I got back up to probably close to 200 pounds. So dealing with a bad back, which I did from remodeling my house, an injury in 2000, which I tore my meniscus twice. So I had knee surgery twice for that, which took me again away from training. And then a couple years ago, I thought I finally got it right. I worked with a trainer, dialed in my diet. After about eight months, I got down to my lowest body fat ever. I was about 15%. I got down to 167 pounds. I gained three pounds of muscle. I lost 24 pounds of fat. And then I developed bicep tendon. So I tore my bicep tendon, ruptured it. I just had it repaired in May.

1:08:03So since then, I've been off my diet, barely training. I do legs probably four times a week. And even that's like been sliding off. I walk about three miles a day, which is a pretty hilly route. So I kind of get my heart rate up and a little bit of sweat when I'm doing that. But I feel myself just sliding back into my old patterns. so my wife's listened to you guys for years and she finally got on me and said you know you need to do this so um i said yeah i hear myself in your show almost every day every day i listen and i hear something that resonates with me in my life so um my question then is you know how do i get back on track after a setback like this i'm 53 with back issue knee issue and now you know the torn bicep that's still healing right now, instead of just ending up in another cycle.

1:08:55Like I said, I keep going up and down for the last 15, 20 years. I want to, and I want to white knuckle it, right? I hear you guys saying that all the time. I feel like, you know, I don't want to do that and just lose that fat and get in shape and then throw something else comes along and it throws me right back to where I was. So I want to do something that I can sustain, give me a good approach and maintain where I want to be. Thanks for everything you guys do. You guys, you guys are awesome.

1:09:23Sal Di Stefano:Chris, how, how is, uh, how's your current like, um, work schedule right now? Cause like building something, uh, with consistency, we want to make sure we keep in mind, like what's what work, sleep, all that stuff looks like right now. Yeah. Yeah. So I work, you know, some days it's eight, some days it's 10, 12 hours. I work from home. I manage a team of about 10 people all over the world, a technology company, somewhat sedentary, but my company's huge on, you know, staying healthy. So we all try to like get out in the afternoon, take a walk, step away from, from the job and do that kind of thing.

1:09:56Adam Schafer:Good, good. Yeah. So, I mean, the prescription or the, or what I should, what I'll recommend is, is pretty simple and easy. I think I know exactly what would be a good idea for you. Obviously we're going to start slow. The challenge is the cycling that you keep mentioning. And I'm going to just point to the root of that if that's okay. Yeah, absolutely. You're an athlete for 26 years. Yeah. And so it's really hard to change that mentality. So what probably happens is you start working out, the athlete comes out and you get competitive and you just go too hard. And then you get hurt and you're set back and you got to rehab and get better.

1:10:31Adam Schafer:And then, oh, I'm feeling good again. And then you go too hard again. And so we got to train appropriately. We got to get out of that mindset. There's nothing wrong with the mindset of wanting to improve and compete. But you're in the 26-year-old headspace every time you get into it. And, you know, when you were 26, you were 26, and you had a background of consistent activity and sports. Whereas right now, you're older, but also you don't have that consistent – like I've been playing sports now for a while. You took a long time off to raise your daughters and get them, you know, to the places they are.

1:11:06Adam Schafer:So what your workout is going to look like is probably like a MAPS 15 performance. It's got a good athletic component to it. It's not going to feel like a lot, but I think that'll be appropriate for you. Okay. And you're going to do that for a while. You're going to do that for a long time. When you start to feel really good and stable and strong, I love for you going out and finding something recreationally that you can do with other people that you enjoy, but do it for the fun of it. and try to train and do that with men your age. Okay. Okay? If you start going out and getting competitive and playing against the 20-year-olds, this is where you'll start to get, you'll go a little too far.

1:11:47Adam Schafer:But you go with a bunch of 57-year-olds, play pickleball or something like that. I love that for a guy like you because there's that component of fun and that competitive component that I think is fine. But I do think you're going to need to be on like MAPS 15 performance style workouts for a while before we do something like that.

1:12:04Sal Di Stefano:One of my favorite parts about training athletes is, you know, athletes have that competitive drive that I like. I just got to get you to reframe like what working out nutrition and how to use your competitiveness. In other words, don't compete in your workouts. Your workouts are designed to take care of your body. If you compete somewhere, compete in your consistency around nutrition. Compete with how many days you string together of good sleep. Compete on those types of things. so use that competitive side to you of like discipline and like i can do this every day like but it's but take that away from the the workout like don't go in the workout going like i'm gonna see if i can get 10 more of these or i'm gonna throw you know get get that out of that i'm here when you go to work out you know maybe you got to change the music you listen to or you just a mindset you come in with but when you come in it's more like i'm practicing these movements I want to feel good through these movements.

1:12:58Sal Di Stefano:I should feel good when I walk out. It's not go crush it. Get that athletic mindset out of your workout when you lift weights and train to be more recuperative, which is a hard transition. But once that clicks, and then take the competitive side to the other shit, to my diet, like being dialed on that and being consistent and competitive with how many days in a row can you eat perfect. So just switch that. And if you can do that, you will really unlock this great, healthy balance of taking care of yourself. Yeah. Take down all those no pain, no gain posters in your garage. And yeah, this is a lot harder than a lot of people think.

1:13:40Sal Di Stefano:You know, if you've been an athlete and it's served you well, it's helped you on the field or you've seen what it does for performance. Right. However, you know, what's going to serve you going on forward here is to be able to really figure that out. Like, how does this workout actually benefit my overall energy in the way that I feel? I should feel better. I should feel more energized after each workout. And that's where I stop. And so the real workout for you is to learn how to taper that off and stop and then wait, save that for the next day. Then the next day, then the next day. And it's something that I battle it all the time.

1:14:20Sal Di Stefano:So I'm like, you know, I hear all these words and I'm agreeing with them completely, but I do know how hard that is. And it's definitely going to be so much better for you on the other side of that because you're going to feel good, but strong and also very much more capable to do a lot of these athletic moves that you, you know, did in the past.

1:14:39Adam Schafer:And Chris, I think, you know, after you follow MAPS 15 performance and you finish it, I think it'd be a good idea to go. If you liked your trainer, it sounded like they did a good job. Be a good idea to work with a trainer once a week or so to kind of, you know, work with you for the next six months or so. I think that'd be a good idea. I don't know. I tore my bicep tendon with them, so I don't know. Well, let me ask you this. Were they pushing you? I went super hard, just like you said. I didn't realize it until you just said that. So I got locked into, like, you know, they were like, hey, let's do this six weeks challenge.

1:15:06And I was probably the second oldest guy. yeah yeah man i was like the second workouts guy in it yeah literally literally look at like i just

1:15:15Sal Di Stefano:told you like your workouts no longer like i don't like i know ever we talk about prs you've been you've been working out and exercise for such a long time i don't need you hitting prs and squats every every couple months like just you go in you live weights you practice lifting weights you've got good muscle memory from somebody who's probably been lifting weights but most their life trust me the muscle will come right back if you put it into dieting you're gonna to have the physique you want. You work on the, the maps 15, that's going to work on the multi-directional movements and unilateral work.

1:15:45Sal Di Stefano:You'll start feeling great again. You'll feel really good, but that's the problem I'm worried about, right? Like my back and my knees, like, I don't want to mess that up. And like, I know what I can get to. And like I said, when I was down that, like a few months ago, I looked the best I've ever looked in my life. And I felt the best I ever felt in my life. And then I just reversed it. I have this issue with food, right? It's like a big joke in my house. And I'll go off the diet and stop tracking, and then I just put 10 pounds back on, 15 pounds back on. Yeah.

1:16:14Adam Schafer:Hit your protein targets, stick to whole natural foods, follow MAPS 15 performance. And after you do that, I think MAPS 15 Symmetry would be another good program for you. And that right there is going to give you a good five to six months. Okay.

1:16:27Sal Di Stefano:We have something cool that I think he would do really good with too. I don't know if you've ever heard us talk about our concierge program, but you'd be a great candidate for that just to check in just a once a month check in um that would be great because i need i feel like i need a coach like i need that type of accountability yeah yeah okay yeah i was able to do it for my daughters when i was training them and getting them locked in and their teams but for myself if i don't have that i will definitely yeah i think i think you'd be great you're a great candidate for that uh so we're gonna have somebody call you they'll set that up with you and I think that's perfect for someone like you just to check in with you on a monthly basis make sure you got a plan you execute the plan they'll check in with you and they'll keep you paced right as far as you can alter it and modify it I don't want to hurt my back again like I deal with that I got my knee like I just want to make sure movements are right they'll also customize your workouts for you too so like yeah we'll send over a program for you right now but they're going to customize it to make it for you and so So that communication that you just let them know how things are going, how you feel them.

1:17:31Sal Di Stefano:They'll change, modify what they need to. And then I think you're going to crush, dude. We'll take care of you. Okay. Yeah. Cool. All right. That'll be awesome. Thanks, Chris. All right, Chris. Thanks, man. Thanks, guys. All right, brother. Great talk, dude. Keep it up, bro.

1:17:46Adam Schafer:So I've said this before on the show. Some of the hardest clients I ever trained were ex-athletes. And it wasn't because they couldn't move well. it wasn't because they couldn't build muscle because they actually do that better than most clients it was the mentality it was like we would do an appropriate workout and they'd look at me like what are we doing i'm wasting my time yeah because you're they know their mindset is set on when they were competing it's like this this is a total mindset shift it was very difficult yeah

1:18:18Sal Di Stefano:once you get them to switch though it's amazing yeah i mean that that's why i brought up what i did because no you're right it's hard to take the athlete completely out so i just have to get him to be be yeah be competitive somewhere else like i'm all cool like i love the competitive side so let me lean into that instead of like trying to take it away from you completely just stop being competitive with your workouts yeah your workouts are recuperative your workouts are to take care of you your workouts are to bulletproof your joints your workouts are like that you walk out of this gym and i want you to feel energized therapy your sanctuary yes yeah yeah let's get competitive on all the other aspects and so let's go and that will serve him way way more Our next caller is Kyle from Delaware.

1:18:53Kyle, what's up, dude?

1:18:53Sal Di Stefano:What's up, Kyle? What up? How you guys doing? How you doing, man? Appreciate you having me on. Not too bad. Been so surreal just seeing this here. Been listening since, I think it was like episode 50 or something like that. So you guys have really come along the way. You've been with us for a long time. Yeah. I think we need to do one of those Justin seven-week shreds again. Yeah. Let's get that going. Yeah. All right, go. Let's go. Very cool. Well, I'll kind of get into it. The whole question is me and my wife were expecting our first baby here in January.

1:19:30Adam Schafer:Congratulations. Thank you so much. I've had a little bit of a knee issue going on for about two years now. And the goal really is, you know, to be an active dad, be able to run around and all the fun stuff, you know, that young dads get to do. So that's kind of the process of my new goal, I guess, to kind of figure all this out. I'm 30 years old, sitting around 270 right now. I'm not sure what my body fat is at. I was training, was using anabolic, put on, I mean, shot on anabolic, put on so much muscle from that program. It's actually ridiculous. But I was doing like a charity alumni game for basketball for my school.

1:20:12and after the game it swelled up and um kind of has been like uh took about a week or so to go down um I went ahead and I didn't see a doctor for quite some time um just thought it was just normal swelling from after the game went ahead and um went back into the gym was able to kind of squat a little bit but still had some pain took another couple days off ended up putting a um, just a knee brace on it with some icy hot, was able to kind of push through it a little bit. Um, kind of worked for a week, but then again, had some more swelling, took some more time off, um, and then kind of really started falling off, just kind of discouraged.

1:20:53Seeing a physical therapist, he, um, he noticed that there was maybe some, uh, under quad development on that side. Um, so I kind of worked with that. I tried, you know, doing some leg extensions just to isometric it out, but, um, I was just, the leg was really shaky. I didn't have much connection to my quad anymore. So still started working on that. I had a, I got like a pop on my hip too. So I figured maybe there's some hip mobility stuff going on, but started working on that, like the mobility side of things. And it got a little bit better, but it never like really went away. Fast forward, some more months go by.

1:21:33The knee swelling's not really that bad. It kind of went down, but then we're on a hike in West Virginia and it swells up like terrible. And my fiance kind of convinced me then to go to see a doctor. So when we get back, I kind of get that scheduled. They do an x-ray, an MRI, take out like three tubes of fluid. And she didn't notice anything with the MRI. She said she maybe had some old ACL, MCL injuries, but that was the cause. She noticed that there was a decent bit of arthritis though. So my dad has had both his knees replaced from kind of the similar things. He used to wear construction, so just being on his knees and using them a lot.

1:22:14So she didn't really have much for me. She said I'm 30. It's either she gave me a cortisone, I believe, and that kind of helped. But, again, I couldn't still get back to, like, jogging. Like, it just was too much pain. I have little nieces and nephews. Couldn't really run around with them much. So, um, kind of just fast forward to today. It's, it's still kind of there. Um, anytime I do like, especially I noticed, like I went golfing the other week or after I wrote in and it swelled up again on me. And so I had to take a whole week off. Um, the whole process too. I'm kind of not as Adam, like say, kind of ate like an asshole and wasn't training as much as I should probably put on like I was maybe 220 210 at the time now I'm kind of like 260 270 so I'm sure the weight has something to do with it but um yeah just trying to get back to to kind of being able to jog around and and squat I miss squatting yeah good good congratulations on the baby by the way

1:23:15Adam Schafer:I appreciate it so this is I'm glad you got imaging uh so it rules out any current injury it sounds like classic movement pattern issue. Okay. So the knee joint can move in an optimal way. It can also move in a suboptimal way. And depending on how bad your movement is, and this could be due to imbalance in weakness in the quad, it could be in the hip, it could be in the ankle. It might be the quad because that's what the PT noticed. But it could be also connected, like I said, to a couple other things. But depending on how bad your movement pattern is for the joint of the knee, The more movement you do with it, the worse it's going to feel.

1:23:54Adam Schafer:So like the hiking made it feel bad. The basketball game made it feel bad. Golf. Golf. And then you mentioned your weight. And if you gained a significant amount of weight, if you're pressurizing the hinges at 220, you've now amplified that dramatically at, let's say, 260 or 270. Okay? Right. The recommendation is pretty straightforward. And your babies do when? In January? January, yeah. So I'm going to give you two programs that never do that. But I like you because. map symmetry is your program okay that's the program you need to follow and i want you to skip the last phase okay so it's all unilateral that's going to help quite a bit uh after you're done with that i'm going to give you maps 15 uh performance uh or symmetry one of the two i'll see what justin thinks because that'll be the program you do when you have your baby because you're going to be sleeping crap you're going to be you need to be there for a wife and so it's just far less volume it's far more appropriate and in the meantime you know what we talk about when it comes to diet hit your protein stick the whole natural foods if you combine that together you're gonna do great yeah i i kind of implemented that a little bit just i think you had an episode on a couple weeks ago about just cutting that out so i cut that off down five pounds in the four weeks just kind of not touching much just just kind of hitting it and again it's it used to be a lot of body imaging that would kind of drive my goals and now it's not really that anymore.

1:25:19I did try I think Symmetry has a pistol squat. I wasn't able to get modifications or something.

1:25:28Adam Schafer:Anything in there that doesn't feel right, don't do it. Just don't do it for now because you do have some stuff going on with your knee.

1:25:36Sal Di Stefano:In the beginning of Symmetry, which is great too because you'll get into these split stance positions and to really kind of reinforce the recruitment part of that and try to, you know, gain that strength stability there, especially the quad and, you know, in the hips, you know, take your time. Like really it's about like slowing down quite a bit and feeling your way through a lot of these things. So you can get that kind of security and it gets to track a lot better, get that knee hinge to really be like securing on that fluid movement kind of pattern. You're actually a case where you would find me actually using a machine quite a bit.

1:26:14Sal Di Stefano:A single leg leg press with you would be a good movement.

1:26:18Adam Schafer:Single leg leg extension. Yeah.

1:26:22Sal Di Stefano:I know we talk so much about free weights and how much free weights are better, but here's an example where you're currently at right now where single leg machine stuff is okay until we start to, one, lean out a little bit, get some stability and strength in there and support and balance out. And then the other thing I would caution you is just caution you of like, you know, you start feeling good, get a little bit of momentum. Don't get too hyped up. Yeah, don't get all excited and go for a jog, okay, and go do that. Just keep progressing and stick with the programming because that's where we could go set yourself back is going out and doing something like that when we're not ready.

1:26:58Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, if we can really like install new movement patterns for you, you're going to thrive. You're going to get to a place where you haven't been before where you're actually going to be like really strong and your movement's going to be sick. So without pain, and that's what we want. Right. So, right. So make sure you really take your time with this. Kyle, did you say, what do you do for work? What do you, are you on your feet? You sit, what do you do? Yeah. So I used to, I used to be doing lawn care and I was lawn care. I was, uh, used to work construction. So I used to be moving around a lot.

1:27:25Then I got an office job. Oh, wow. I sell fireplaces now, so I'm kind of just sitting around. I get to go on some job sites, but even with my wife, we both work in offices, so we've been trying to practice walking more. It's difficult. I think I was averaging like 2 ,000 steps for quite some time, so kind of making more effort to at least hit 5 ,000. That's a good target.

1:27:51Adam Schafer:Yeah, I like that. Yeah. yeah so i mean is is is like um a movement pattern is that something that can change because before this game like i mean i was squatting i had like 380 was able to put down i'm talking pain-free yeah felt powerful is that was i overcompensating in some area so here's that yeah but here's what's what might have happened okay because movement pattern issues can develop post-injury okay so something you did in that game aggravated your knee diverted and then after

1:28:21Sal Di Stefano:that now you're moving in a particular way well also keep in mind this too uh you're when you're playing when you're squatting you're moving in one plane and so you may be you could have been really strong in one plane right incredibly weak laterally i mean this example of me this is why i kept getting hurt doing sports and shit like i'm strong dead lifting and squatting all day long because i've been consistently doing that and getting so strong that way but it asked me to cut in basketball and i blow my knees out right now too because i've just i haven't been training in my body that way. And you're 30 now.

1:28:53Sal Di Stefano:You're not 18 anymore. You used to probably be able to squat a bunch of weight and then not play basketball for a while and then get out there and play basketball, no problem, and be fine. But welcome to getting older and only getting strong in one plane. This is what happens. And so we got to take care of yourself. And to that point, that's why I was bringing up the split stance. I'd be challenging you as a trainer, rotationally or laterally, just to maintain position while you're adjusting to these forces because you know that might be part of the problem is just like you know you're not introducing these types of uh planes of motion in your everyday life and then you're just going like zero to a hundred so you know like it just you know give yourself a little you know uh slack with that like that's something that you know we need to bring a little attention to have you seen the video where a great movement to get to uh would be like have you ever seen the video justin doing the lateral sled drag before uh i mean i've watched everything yeah if you go go on to my mind pump tv and look up the lateral set sled drag that justin does and i would get to a place where i start you with like no weight like literally super light just you're just walking the sled empty yeah and then slowly progress that teach these movements back you know like think about the last time you've really like been intentional with that stuff so you have to like really It progresses just like you're progressing weights.

1:30:11Okay. Yeah. So do I, I think I have symmetry and, and when I follow that, am I kind of chasing, like pushing my knee into positions that I know it should be getting into, even though it's painful or am I kind of like finding the areas it's not painful?

1:30:26Adam Schafer:Play within the, find the line. Yeah. So play within the boundaries a little bit. Yeah. Okay. You challenge the boundaries a little bit, but don't go beyond them because it'll get better. Yeah. And then aggressively, and then copy that form. and that range of motion with your strong leg. Don't do better stuff with your strong leg, or you're going to maintain an imbalance.

1:30:43Sal Di Stefano:And you care more about form and stability of the movement than you do adding more weight to the exercise. So be cautious of that, right? So challenging the range and slow it down, pause. Mess with it that way and challenge the end ranges like the guys are talking about. Totally. Don't get all excited and go, oh, 10 more pounds. Don't go that way. We don't need to do that as much. Like it's, this is more movement pattern thing. So when it's movement pattern stuff, it's, it's, it's stability, range of motion. That's the stuff that we're trying to focus on. And so don't get all giddy and just keep throwing more weight on.

1:31:19Sal Di Stefano:Cause you feel good. I think slow it down, slow the tempo down. If it gets easier for you, slow it down, challenge the range a little bit further this week and a little bit further next week. Like that's the thought process. So like with the leg extensions, like when I get that shaky, like one of my legs coming up, it starts to kind of chase. chase that, just slow that down and kind of... Slow it down. Yeah, slow it down. Squeeze and pause. So get the top of that, hold it there for a second, come down. So that's what you want to do.

1:31:46Adam Schafer:And that shakiness will go away if you practice that. Yeah, it'll go away. Okay. So like, do you think it's, you don't think like the arthritis, like nothing to be... So here's the deal. There's arthritis there. They saw it. Can it get better with good movement? Yes. Can it get worse with bad movement?

1:32:03Sal Di Stefano:Yes. Just so you know, arthritis is fluid that's being sent in that area because it's being aggravated. It's being aggravated because we have poor movement patterns. So that can totally... So I had like bursitis, which is like arthritis in your hips, right? Which is this fluid that gets... Once I fixed all my hip mobility movements, I don't have it anymore. It doesn't happen anymore. So we can fix that. You can totally...

1:32:25Adam Schafer:So when they look on imaging, right? So arthritis looks like deterioration of a joint. you don't have immune related arthritis yours is related to movement pattern issues correct those the arthritis heals okay cool that's very helpful yeah you got it dude yeah I appreciate it thanks for calling in man thanks for listening for so long

1:32:49Sal Di Stefano:take it easy see ya that's awesome crazy 18 years old he started all the way to 30 built a bunch of muscle off anabolic

1:33:00Adam Schafer:Yeah, that's pretty cool, dude. That's great. That's wild. If he does what we say, he'll feel so much better. I know. But when you don't fix, and it's cool that he got imaging, because the imaging show, there's no major injury that's going on. You're just, your knee is not moving great, and it could be related to a few different things, but once we fix that, it's fine.

1:33:17Sal Di Stefano:You know, we should really do an episode on arthritis and bursitis and talk a lot about that, because I feel like, this is what I can't say, a doctor tells you that, and then it makes it sound like, oh, I've caught this thing that my dad had and my mom had. now i got it now i can't do these things because i have i have arthritis right bursitis and it's just like dude you could totally address that yeah it's like it doesn't just stop right there and and the doctor when they say i've heard it if i've heard them tell me when they tell you they tell you almost like you caught it you caught this disease you caught like a disease or something it's like it's a permanent diagnosis yeah yeah they did that with one of our coaching

1:33:52Adam Schafer:clients for uh osteopenia young girl and the doctor afterwards is like how did you get your or else you're a penis reverse. She's like, I'm lifting weights and eating more. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, we can reverse it. Absolutely fix this, man. Broussitis is very different from arthritis. They're both fluid sent over. No. So broussitis is inflammation of the bursa. Yeah. Arthritis is the joint itself. Both cause fluid to come in, but they're both different.

1:34:19Sal Di Stefano:Oh. Very different. Well, I mean, obviously there's a different diagnosis of both of them, but both of them are causing fluid to get filled up. The fluid, yeah, yeah. I hear what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Our next caller is Michael from Louisiana. Michael, how's it going?

1:34:30Adam Schafer:What's up, man? Hey, guys. It's crazy to actually be here. I'm a little bit nervous. How can we help you? All right. So I'll get into my question, my letter real quick. I'm a 65-year-old guy. Got back into lifting seriously about three years ago after starting TRT. And my strength gains and body recomp have been great. But lately, I have been having some chronic knee pain from my leg routine. I injured my right knee in my 20s by pushing too much weight on a Nautilus leg press way back in the day. And since then, I've been very strict about form and never tried to push any crazy weights on the squats.

1:35:11So a few weeks ago, it was leg day, and I was doing squats, and I felt an uncomfortable twerk in that knee. and stupidly thought I could just keep going for another set, thinking maybe I had just let my form drift a little bit. And even though I wasn't pushing a lot of weight, it just wasn't going to happen. So then I tried to switch to leg extensions, but that was way too painful and had to just bail on the whole workout immediately. And then later in the day when I got to work, I couldn't do the stairs at all. So I had to use the elevator like all those old people, and that really hurt me. So my question is, if squats are no longer on the table for me, what other movements can I do to safely keep my legs trained to the same degree?

1:36:01Just a little bit of background. I'm six feet tall, 200 pounds, about 16 to 18 % body fat. And prior to starting TRT and getting back in the gym, I was a very weak and skinny fat guy at 195 pounds. I've used the BPC-157, a TB-500 peptide stack in the past with some success with other injuries and did the same thing for this knee. And after a few weeks, it's really helped a lot. So just wanted to turn it over to you guys and see what you would recommend.

1:36:36Sal Di Stefano:I'm trying to do the math right now quick in my head. How much muscle do you gain? I was like, damn, you put some good muscle on, dude.

1:36:42Adam Schafer:That's like 15 to 20 pounds muscle. Yes, dude.

1:36:44Sal Di Stefano:That's super impressive. That's phenomenal. Good for you, bro.

1:36:46Adam Schafer:This is actually kind of easy, Michael, because there's a lot of leg exercises you could do. But I think the question you're asking is, hey, I want to be able to maintain the ability to squat, which is important. Because there's a lot of machines. You could do split stance exercises. They're all good. Pushing the sled is great. Pushing the sled would be a huge reason. I think that's great. But if you want to keep squatting and you want to reduce the risk of injury, or put differently, make it, quote, unquote, safer, or reduce the skill component of the squat and still maintain kind of its effects, a box squat is where you go.

1:37:21Adam Schafer:I don't know if you've ever done box squats, but a box squat is phenomenal. It stops that, you know, at the bottom of the squat, you got to change directions. That shift in momentum is a higher risk of injury and requires more stability and strength. With a box, you slowly sit down, you wait for two seconds, then you stand back up, and it's a lot, you know, quote-unquote safer than a traditional squat when it comes to injury? So you're literally going down and just sitting on a – Yeah. Yeah, so what you would do is you get – Stopping on momentum. Yeah, so you get a bench. A bench works good. How low do you normally squat when you do a squat?

1:37:57Ass to grass, usually all of it.

1:37:58Adam Schafer:Okay, so you get a bench. Typical bench is probably a decent height. You put it behind you. You back up with the weight. You brace your core. You slowly squat until you sit on the bench. Actually sit. Don't hit the bench, by the way. That's how people hurt themselves on the box squat. You slowly sit. You wait on the bench for two seconds, then you stand up. What you don't do is go up and down, up and down, because that's the same thing as an old squat.

1:38:22Sal Di Stefano:The other good cue or key is when you sit on the bench, don't relax your core. No. So don't rest. So don't sit and rest. Like, you're still tense. But you're sitting. But you're sitting. So your butt is actually on there, but you're still upright with the chest high and core activated, and then you come back out of the hole. And then you stand up.

1:38:41Adam Schafer:And that's just, it's a squat. It's still a squat. It just takes out part of the rep that requires the most stability and control. Okay. Yeah, I normally do like a four-day split. And then one day for cardio, I've just worked in spin class. I had it this morning. I'm telling you, after three weeks of just laying completely off legwork, and then just, I think the peptides help, I guess. And I feel pretty much back to full mobility.

1:39:11Sal Di Stefano:but I'm just being really careful. I don't want to start. Smart. That's actually the one thing that's a little scary about BBC and TB is you recover so much faster. Some false confidence. And I've had a couple of times where I've kind of hurt myself because I was like, man, I feel so good already and then went right back at it. So just take it easy going back in.

1:39:31Adam Schafer:Yeah, take it easy getting back into it.

1:39:32Sal Di Stefano:I'm glad you said that, Adam.

1:39:33Adam Schafer:But yeah, they work really well. But it sounds like you might have strained your meniscus. That's a very common kind of tweak, you know, where later on it feels a lot worse, especially with squatting. Maybe a little torsion on the knee. Maybe your ankle mobility could use some work. So that would be something else I would look at. I would look at ankle mobility. Because if your feet want to turn out but they're grounded, you've got twisting on the knee. And then that sometimes can cause meniscus issues. Yeah, I believe my ankles are a little bit pronated. I had some pulled muscle in my calf and did some x-rays.

1:40:12And the orthopedic told me I had some pronated joint.

1:40:16Sal Di Stefano:And that's what happened. That'll do it right there, especially going after the grass. By the way, that'll make a huge difference, what Sal's saying, by shortening up. So here's a classic example of where advice changes per client, right? So we're always coaching people, range of motion, work under depth, get deeper. You have a case like that. I know just by shortening your range up and not going all the way deep is way less risk and stress on your knees because of what you've got going on. And that's a classic example of that. So his advice with the box squats, it'll completely take it out.

1:40:48Adam Schafer:So what it would look like, Michael, because you do the box squats, it's a shorter range of motion, the box stops the momentum, but you're like, hey, I want to train a really good full range of motion. Well, you can challenge it with lunges. Lunges take that component out, and you can do that full range of motion, still get everything working, you know, the way you want it. But I think you're going to love, I think once you start box squatting, you're like, this time I'm going to squat. Great. Okay. I'll give it a try. And like, I just want to thank you guys again. You're my, my virtual gym bros in my ear.

1:41:18Sal Di Stefano:You're kicking ass, dude. Yeah, you're doing great. Yeah, you're kicking ass. I usually head for the gym at about quarter till five in the morning and put you guys on and hear your latest podcast on the way there.

1:41:28Adam Schafer:So see the old Jack guys are always working on the morning.

1:41:32Sal Di Stefano:that's when i go to do that hey we appreciate the support man you're doing great absolutely a big shout out to doug and all the other guys behind the scenes thank you appreciate it man

1:41:41Adam Schafer:thank you take care you got it record yeah so for people listening when you're when your ankles uh lack mobility what happens when you squat is your feet want to twist your feet want to twist to to make up that somehow. But your tennis shoes are grounded on the floor. So as you're squatting, there's this twisting torsion, and it's the meniscus that takes the leg.

1:42:05Sal Di Stefano:Well, you also have this, right? So you have this naturally people, naturally your knees want to drop in, right? When the knees drop in, the femur internally rotates. That's right. So that's just contortion on the knee even more so. So yeah, and especially after he said he goes ass to grass. Yeah. So ass to grass, that issue going on, like for sure that's what's going on. So box squat, so classic example where, you know, our, our advice could contradict it. You'll hear us talking about doing that, but it's like, that's a classic example where

1:42:33Adam Schafer:you take, you know, it's wild about what we're saying, by the way, is if you see Olympic lifters, they get that knee coming in looking twisting and they do phenomenally well. You're dealing with incredible hip strength, mobility and ankle mobility. Yeah. And so it looks, it looks worse than it is gnarly.

1:42:49Sal Di Stefano:Well, yeah, that's like, that's like comparing you ever watched what a pitcher's shoulder looks like. I know. That would rip all the rest of our shoulders out of the socket. Good point.

1:42:59Adam Schafer:I've seen where they take a freeze frame. Oh, yeah. It's all like, oh, my God, bro. Contorted and throwing a ball 100 miles an hour.

1:43:06Sal Di Stefano:Everybody else's arm would come out of their socket doing that. But, yeah, no. It's great to see, though. I was trying to do the math real quick.

1:43:12Adam Schafer:Well, if we round it up to 200, right? 200 pounds at 25 % body fat is. That means you got 25 pounds of fat. Is that? Oh, no, no, no. 50 pounds of fat. 50 pounds of fat. He cut down 10 % of that. Yeah. So he went down. So yeah, it's like 15. What is that? 15 pounds of muscle?

1:43:28Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Wow. And he went up five pounds on the scale, though. So he went up on the scale. Wow. That's. Yeah. So he put like 15, 20 pounds of muscle on. Dude, that's great.

1:43:37Adam Schafer:He had. He's got 170 pounds of lean body mass now before. What was his body mass? 150. 25 percent. Let me figure this out. So it was 45 pounds. Minus 198. Yeah. Or 195.

1:43:48Sal Di Stefano:What is it? Yeah.

1:43:49Adam Schafer:146. Bro, he gained 25 pounds. 25.

1:43:52Sal Di Stefano:I knew it, bro. I'm like, I'm doing the mat work. I'm like, that's a good 20 pounds or so of muscle right there. Dude, that's badass. That's life-changing.

1:44:00Adam Schafer:Yeah. Our next caller is Ryan from Indiana. Hey, what's up, man? What's up, Ryan? Hey, what's going on, guys? How you doing? I'm doing well. Doing well. Thanks for taking my call. How can we help you? Yeah, no. So I wrote in a little while ago. And actually, I love how I wrote it, so I'll paraphrase it. But long backstory, about 6 '6", 250 currently as of this morning. Former college basketball player, was always kind of a hard gainer, actually hated the weight room for the longest time. And luckily, I could run and jump a little bit. But over time, you know, crept up and, you know, now getting, you know, middle ages, about 37 years old now.

1:44:42And got five kids, so busy guy and, you know, really focusing on strength and really fall in love with just training and getting stronger and all things. So all that being said, um, really focus, probably facing a little bit of what, you know, I hear you guys talk about a lot of, uh, insulin resistance, got some cholesterol numbers creeping up, some blood sugar numbers creeping up. I know you guys aren't medical professionals, so not looking for medical advice, but looking for the best way of your, from your experience to really target that, right? Everything's like, Oh, you lose five to 10 % of your body weight.

1:45:12And you know, that can improve cholesterol that can improve, improve insulin resistance, et cetera. but also don't want to just do that aggressively in a non-sustainable way. So really looking for what you guys think about, uh, from your experience at, you know, how to go about that, you know, maintaining a lot of the muscle that I've been able to build. Uh, but really the best way to kind of get after that, um,

1:45:34Sal Di Stefano:from a training perspective, give us a little bit of, uh, I mean, five kids, what's sleep look like, what's diet look like currently right now? What is your workouts and daily activity look like? Like what's, yeah. Give me more about what we're working on. Yeah, so sleep is – the youngest one right now is about 18 months old, but we have a sixth one on the way in October, so sleep's going to be at a roll.

1:45:58Adam Schafer:God bless you, bro. Six kids.

1:46:00Sal Di Stefano:You're building a football team over there? What are you doing? Basketball team. You're building a football team. You already got five for basketball. Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, so sleep's going to be at a premium here in about 10 or 12 weeks, but right now it's pretty good. Um, diet wise been, you know, trying to dial that in, really try to get hit protein heavy. I don't do a lot of tracking. I try to aim or at least understand, you know, the protein I get towards. I mean, even trying to get 230, 240 grams of protein is it's a lot. You know what I mean? That's a lot in a day. So trying to really do that in a whole natural way, uh, trying to recently, you know, with some of the cholesterol stuff, focusing on some of the leaner cuts and whatnot, you know, trying to, you know, get after some of that, um, activity wise.

1:46:46I would say I'm close to 8 ,000 steps. I'm in a healthcare executive role. So it's an office job, but we have a pretty big building that I roam around. But I just use my phone to track. And at the end of the day, it's 8 ,000. So with the kids in practices right now, I have a chance to just wander around when they're out in football fields and whatnot. So that helps. Like last night, I had like 13 ,000 steps because I just long hauled it while they're in practice. So I have some opportunities to build some of those things in. um but yeah so and then training wise uh i would say i've done i've dabbled with a lot of the programs i think i the one i got through most recently was anabolic and i would say i made pretty great strength uh improvements despite some of the other habits diet wasn't great i wasn't really totally dialed in sleep was average you know i've uh recently tried to cut back on some of the uh what i call celebrating life some of the cocktails and whatnot while you know so cutting back on some of the fun stuff there but um so i thought i made made strides despite some of those things within it i started power lift and then went on vacation and had like a complete week off and every once i got back i've just kind of um dabbled with more of like i would what i would think is like maps 15 type style a couple lifts a day you know 25 to 30 minutes get some steps on the treadmill sauna and get out uh kind of started to like that because i do like going every day it's a morning thing morning kind of ritual for me i like that they started i like that for you

1:48:15Sal Di Stefano:just so you know i would i would have pushed you in that direction anyway so you're gonna live in

1:48:18Adam Schafer:you're gonna live in math 15 for a long time yeah yeah that's your program until you slow down all

1:48:23Sal Di Stefano:the different versions yeah i mean shut them all back until you shut the factory down right right it's going to give you the best results yeah yeah massive team protocol is going to build you the

1:48:32Adam Schafer:most muscle and strength. It'll chip you out. And we have a lot of maps, 15 programs. Uh, do you have any of them? Cause I'd like to send you one. I have the original one. Um, I have that one. I, I just like most people I call in, I played with it for a while and I was like, Oh, this isn't enough. Right. I wanted to be in there longer, but as I've, uh, you know, really going in and, you know, not going in and being like beat up from the day before and just being able to go in and, you know, push it, but not, um, I really have started to really enjoy that the other one that i i bought and i've been really intrigued about but of course and uh you know i would say i'm not scared of it but it's a is symmetry so i didn't know if like it's you know because i've done a lot of i like i like lifting heavy um like that's why i like when i go in and i just try to you know put weight on it and push it and so like lower reps i've tended to like and that's why i think i would try to go power lift but then it's also like i hear you guys talk about the symmetry the performance side of things and so i didn't know um well do you have Something like that would work.

1:49:32Adam Schafer:Do you have any aches or pains? Well, right now my right elbow is a little messed up from some golfing elbow type things. But other than that, not really. All right. Because I think all the MAPS-15 programs are perfect for you. If you like lifting heavy, I like MAPS-15 power lift.

1:49:47Sal Di Stefano:I know. Power lift would be –

1:49:48Adam Schafer:Yeah, I could send that to you. But you're going to live in the MAPS-15 protocol for a long time. And again, I'm going to say this because I think sometimes people think it's like, okay, well, I got to do MAPS-15. I'm not going to get as good results but that's because of my life this is what will give you the best results right now none of our programs will perform better for you than the Mass 15 protocol you just got to be consistent

1:50:10Sal Di Stefano:I also like this for you that protocol and then literally just from what you've told me already all I want you to do is to be consistent on the protein thing and then literally just kind of pull back on the drinking like you said so whatever it was that you were kind of letting yourself celebrate for make that be even more infrequent. So I don't know what that looks like in your life.

1:50:31Adam Schafer:I was just going to ask Ryan, when you did your labs and your lipids came back and the blood sugar came back, was that before you made all the dietary changes? Um, that was, I've been more aggressive about it. It was about three and a half, about three and a half weeks ago now. Okay. Uh, that I did the labs. And so that was when I started to really dial it in at that point. I had, I had labs done in May and they were similar and okay. I didn't really give him much. You mind if I dig a little deeper? Because there's probably some big, some areas that will make the biggest impacts. You don't have to make like a million and one changes.

1:51:03Adam Schafer:When you were drinking, how often was it? Just like a nightly, every night you'd have a drink or two? Yeah. Yeah. Some of that. And then weekends, you know, maybe a few more than a few. Okay. So the alcohol, taking alcohol out will make a huge difference in your blood sugar and insulin. It'll make a huge difference. So if you can cut that out or dramatically reduce it, maybe save it uh for once a week but also don't turn that into like i'm gonna get hammered sometimes that happens like we don't drink all week and we're like i'm gonna go six drinks now so the alcohol makes a big difference and then uh before you started making these dietary changes were you eating like eating like like out and fast food and processed food or what was it no no actually i've been eating pretty well i would say for the most part i mean we we do a lot of whole natural foods i mean with the kids gotta you know you mix a lot of you know they like the pastas and some the other stuff and I try to stay, you know, whole natural food myself.

1:51:55If I eat out, like it's like a chipotle label, you know, double meat and all this stuff there. But for the most part, it's pretty good. I mean, I think there's probably some changes, but you know, with the, I think the other thing I noticed was, you know, if I did, you know, if I was cooking, had a few drinks, like I would eat above and beyond probably what was necessary and, you know, push it, push it in that regard. I do a lot of, you know, Greek yogurts, you know, that's how I kind of end my night you know greek yogurt and some berries those types of things um but yeah so for the most

1:52:22Sal Di Stefano:part not bad but definitely can get tightened up honestly the the the focusing on the alcohol and hitting the protein consistent that's it i wouldn't even natural foods i would not over complicate the the diet yet like that wait and see what that does that with the paired with 15

1:52:37Adam Schafer:power and then if you want to add supplements uh high epa fish oil uh can have sometimes have some positive effects on some of your numbers. And then what company is it, Doug, that you're using for cholesterol? Why is it so for me? Is it Dose? Dose, yeah. Oh, Dose, yeah. Yeah, you could try Dose. Dose has some clinical trials that shows that it actually helps with lipids. You combine that with the reduction in alcohol, the whole natural foods hit your protein, MAPS 15, three, four months from now, I bet you'll come back, you'll see some big changes. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. That's great to hear.

1:53:13I like the idea of the power lift. I started on that pathway with just the regular program, the regular power lift program. But this 15 style, I'm starting to really embrace.

1:53:25Sal Di Stefano:I'm glad you're starting to embrace and like it because I wanted to push you there right away. After you told me the kids, lifestyle, things, it's the perfect program for you. I'd love to hear your numbers after it. Yeah, you're going to see great results if you stick with it.

1:53:37Adam Schafer:And then let me ask you a question, if that's all right. Yeah. How do you manage so many kids and all that stuff? What's the secret? great wife yeah that's it right 100 percent maria saint yeah no it's uh it's busy we're we're loving it we're it's busy as can be we're just the oldest is only nine too that's the crazy part so we got five that are nine and under about to be six that are nine and under good for you man that's got to be such a fulfilling life but also so busy we we are busy but man is it fun and we homeschool them so you know we're glutton for punishment there too wow you guys You're doing a great job.

1:54:10Good for you, bro.

1:54:11Adam Schafer:How many boys and girls? What do you got? We got two boys and going on four girls. All right, man. We were boy, girl, boy, girl, and then the last two girls decided to break that chain. Wow. So we're having, like I said, we're having a lot of fun with it. But you're right. We are busy. The oldest is getting into football right now, which is awesome. Basketball, all the things. So we're staying busy in that regard. God bless you, man. So cool. Very good, dude. We'll send you a 15 power lift, all right? All right, man. Thank you. appreciate it. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. All right. Take care.

1:54:43Adam Schafer:You know, when I hear people with so many kids, first off, when you have a good husband and wife working together, it's still busy. It's still difficult, but it just sounds so fulfilling. You've just got so much stuff going on. Solid team. House full of kids all the time. And I just envision this man at some point being a grandfather. He's going to be surrounded by so many grandkids. So do I.

1:55:03Sal Di Stefano:I think about that all the time. When you have that many kids like that, but one or two of them is bound to love you. I hope your odds are better. Yeah, you might strike out on a couple, but you definitely get a couple of them that are going to really like you. You know what I'm saying? They'll come back and hang out with you when you're old.

1:55:20Adam Schafer:But I got to say this too for people listening, like for some, it's not like this for everybody, but definitely for a significant percentage of people, daily alcohol consumption, even if it's just a couple of drinks, it can have some pretty deleterious effects that you'll measure on blood lipids and blood sugar, and you just get rid of that. I've had clients, and by the way, it's not easy to do because people get attached to it, but I've had clients get rid of that, and it fixed everything.

1:55:46Sal Di Stefano:Well, I'll add this, too.

1:55:48Adam Schafer:You're also talking extra 400, 500 calories.

1:55:51Sal Di Stefano:So I'll add this to that, too, because I've been enjoying that more in my life than I ever did, and one of the biggest challenges for being an over-six-foot dude who needs to hit protein, hard to hit my protein intake and have a couple glasses in the night. You know what I'm saying? That's why it has to be so infrequent for me. It's like, if I allow that, those calories end up going to empty calories and I miss my protein intake, the combination of that just screws up my training. So it's like, that's what keeps me from having that drink here or there. Even though it's not that bad for you, it's just that tough to do both of those.

1:56:23Adam Schafer:Look, if you like Mind Pump, 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.

1:57:08The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.