2938: The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Fast. Most People Are Doing It for the Wrong One

12:38Adam Schafer:So you're taking away this, you know, and when you're hungry, it weakens you and it can help you turn to spiritual comfort and to, you know, methods like meditation much more readily. So for spiritual purposes, there's real value. It's been used for a long time. So if you're trying to enhance or strengthen your spiritual health and you're on this journey, fasting has actual benefits.

13:02Justin Andrews:Well, I think, too, it gives you that opportunity to get like more of a bird's eye view. And we use this sometimes when we're assessing our own business. Sometimes you've got to get outside of your business to really assess what's going on. And I feel like giving yourself the opportunity to see your patterns and behaviors outside of being inside it, I think is very valuable for people. Totally.

13:25Sal Di Stefano:How would you explain this to somebody, to a secular person, how would you unpack the spiritual benefits for someone who, let's say, doesn't care for the spiritual benefits? In other words, the way I look at it, and you'll probably be able to articulate this better than me, but it's like fasting from food is the entry level to learning detachment, right? It's like we all need to eat every single day. So it's this easy, low-level, like restrict from food. And we know that you'd be fine not eating for days and be totally okay. But it takes discipline and detachment and so you have to do it. And really what you're learning to do is detach from things like that.

14:06Sal Di Stefano:And so there's other ways that you can apply that to your life. So how would you explain that to someone?

14:10Adam Schafer:No, 100%. So that's actually kind of the second point, which is to help with food attachment. So you can fast from lots of things, right? You can fast from tech. You can fast from work. You can fast from things that you feel like maybe have a little bit more control over your life than you'd wish. But with fasting, a lot of us are attached to food. We're attached to lunch or dinner or eating when we're anxious or stressed. Or like I was. Like I couldn't skip a meal because, oh my God, I'm going to lose muscle. I got to always feed myself because I got to be big all the time. So fasting for me was profoundly beneficial for food attachment.

14:47Adam Schafer:This is before I was a Christian. This is like, I was atheist at this point, but I remember experiencing that food detachment from fasting. It was life-changing for me because up until this point, ever since I was 15 years old, it was like, I got to feed myself every three hours. I got to get bigger. And if I miss a meal, it really bothered me. I feel like I'm getting skinnier. Like what's going on? I remember the first time I fasted for 24 hours and I didn't just lose, you know, crazy amounts of muscle off my body. It was very freeing. So that's kind of the experience. Now, for other people, it could be, oh, my gosh, you know, I get hangry at lunchtime.

15:22Adam Schafer:Really what it is is you expect to eat and you're not. And when it happens, you skip lunch and you do that and then you skip dinner. Like, wait a minute, I'm not hangry because I'm expecting not to eat. Or when I'm bored, I like to eat. What do I got to do? Okay, now I'm bored. I'm not reaching for the food because I'm fasting today. This is actually helping me deal with my boredom in a completely different way. So it's that food attachment that I could definitely help with. um here's now there's some some great medical reasons why fasting can be beneficial the easiest

15:51Justin Andrews:one off the top of my head is for gut health issues definitely this is like you've got you

15:56Adam Schafer:know bloat you've got digestive issues constipation um heartburn and you're like essentially and i hate using this term because it's such a bastardized term but you want to reset things giving it a break at least give it a break let that inflammation come down and then reintroduce foods one at a time in a very slow fashion to kind of see what's going on well this is to me

16:19Sal Di Stefano:this is the the best argument for almost everybody doing a fast once a month or once a quarter um just i think there's outside of the people that um have like restricting issues that we talked about earlier i would argue that for health longevity all the benefits that are touted from fasting you can reap all those in a single 24-hour fast and running a 24 or 48-hour fast once every couple months it probably has profound and tremendous value for it and then also get some of these other values too of detachment and those other practices and so i think there's a case to be made and obviously for gut health and resetting that but i think there's a case to be made for everybody to possibly do it for that reason unless you fall in the category of people that have those

17:06Adam Schafer:I know for me, even now, my gut health is so much better than it used to be. But if I have some gut health issues, skipping a couple meals will fix it. I mean, it really tends to fix it. Even if it's healthy food, because sometimes I'll eat something healthy and it continues the gut inflammation. Just skipping a couple meals and then the next day I'm totally back to normal. And this is documented in functional medicine practitioners. We use fasting in this way for certain gut health issues. So definitely beneficial. And then autoimmune issues. Now, it's not all autoimmune issues, but there's certain ones that have documented benefits like psoriasis.

17:41Adam Schafer:And I know you have this as an example. In fact, the data on psoriasis and fasting is pretty interesting.

17:46Sal Di Stefano:Oh, I always notice a huge difference. I mean, that was one of the best benefits of eating really, really low calorie or fasting like that. I mean, one of the ways that I like to do this, because it's not something that I do on a regular basis, is that in my point of every month or every quarter or so, and I'm sure most people can relate to this, there always is this thing uh a wedding travel something that comes up we're like getting to meals is just going to be hectic and the choices are going to be bad and i just allow those to be i go this will be a great day to fast i haven't fasted in a while i do the same thing and it's like and you might as well right yeah and a lot of times like it's taking like katrina a while for her to get used to that with me we're we'll be talking about stuff like that she'll be like well what do you want to do we got to do this then we eat i'm like when was the last time we let's just not eat that day.

18:35Sal Di Stefano:Just one day. It's been a while since we've done that. Totally fine to just do that. It's a perfect time to do it because it's already going to be difficult. So instead of making some bad airport food choice or whatever, it's like, why don't we just chalk this up as this is going to be a day that we decide to restrict from eating and get all these

18:53Justin Andrews:benefits.

18:54Adam Schafer:I was just on I-5. Horrible options. It's just jerky. Jerky and nuts. Zero fiber. Dashboard burritos. It's the worst, dude. Yeah, so MS, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis have the most data-supporting fasting for symptoms. Lupus, not so good. In fact, there are certain autoimmune issues that can get worse with fasting. So educate yourself first.

19:19Sal Di Stefano:In your opinion, because I have, because of my autoimmune, I've played with this quite a bit. And what I haven't been able to teach, and again, this is all AMDO, this is myself personally. So I'm curious to your opinion. The research around this, Is it because you're looking at a 24-hour window and there's this acute difference? Because I would argue that I see just as much value, if not more value, running four or five days in a row of just really low calories.

19:46Adam Schafer:And I'm glad you said that. So when you look at the date, depending on the situation, but in many cases, restricting calories will mimic the effects of fasting. In fact, there's – and that's the next one. Dr. Walter Longo? Yeah, so in fact, that's the last one, which is before and during chemotherapy, which is really interesting. Dr. Valtolongo, seeing the data, because here's what the data shows. By the way, you have to be right for this, because I've been around people with cancer, and in some cases, fasting is just not possible. Sure. You're already underway. Depends on the type. Yeah, you're underway.

20:20Adam Schafer:Tons of sarcopenia. Fasting will actually be very dangerous, so we can't do that. But in some cases, you can do it. and what they find in the data is the cancer responds much more favorably to the chemo. So you kill more of the cancer. And the healthy cells seem to respond better as well. You kill less of the healthy cells on chemo. And what Dr. Walter Longo did is he discovered that having a restricted calorie diet gave you the same effects. Rather than having people completely fast for 72 hours, he does what's called a fasting mimicking diet, which comes out to like 400 calories. Yeah, he was 400 or 500 for five days.

20:53Adam Schafer:So it's a lot like what you said, just restricting calories.

20:56Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, because I've noticed these same, like I said, again, mine is anecdotal. I've noticed that, okay, I could do this 24, 48 hour fast. I see this acute reduction in inflammation. I see my psoriasis improve immediately. But I also see that same thing too if I just say, hey, this week I'm going to run really low cal. And it doesn't even have to be actually that extreme, to be honest with you. It just has to be pretty good of a death. So once I have myself in a pretty solid deficit for days in a row. Then you get the benefit. I get the benefit.

21:23Adam Schafer:And the data is cool on psoriasis, bro. Like I was looking this up and psoriasis has the most, some of the most data supporting it, like really reduction in symptoms. So what you're experiencing is like what people tend to experience.

21:33Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Well, I mean, remember, I remember, I don't know if you guys were, when I, we tracked the whole GLP one process for me, one of the, one of the big positives I got. Oh yeah. Like those are the best my psoriasis, but I mean, God, I was eating hardly anything. Yeah. I know. Yeah. So I lost a ton of muscle. Yeah. I got no zipping face. Oh man, psoriasis was great. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, uh you know we'll see yeah i'd be a little itchy so yeah so there i mean but there to me i i've kind of find that that i've learned that balance a little more is that you know if i stay if i try and keep more of my days in a slight deficit than i do in a maintenance or surplus it tends to keep it at bay here's what i noticed from fasting

22:14Adam Schafer:personally and there's not a lot of data support this the data points more towards a ketogenic diet it, but fasting will put you in ketosis. So it's probably connected. I can make myself sharper by fasting. So if I'm doing like a, a podcast circuit, which I, sometimes I'll do, you know, the company will fly me down to LA or something. I'll do three or four shows, you know, back to back. And I want to be sharp for each one and do a good job. Uh, not eating tends to give me more energy and keep me sharper, uh, in the podcast than if I was eating my normal meals throughout the day.

22:45Justin Andrews:So I just noticed that there's gotta be some benefits of that too, even cause you know how alzheimer's dementia like as far as like that being like the uh diabetes three or whatever like you know being able to shift into ketosis for everybody i feel like at least at

23:01Adam Schafer:some point would be beneficial yeah i think you know unless you fall into the categories of what we said well yeah like i say go for it you know here's an interesting thing and again this it's so difficult to parse this out because here's what we tend to do in modern societies we'll take the side effect of something and make it the main effect so what's the side effect of not eating you lose weight cool that's the thing that's the reason why i'm gonna you know i'm gonna focus on that but i tell you what if you grew up in a modern society you grew up in america uh the odds are you've probably never really been been hungry now yes there's definitely people that have experienced that but most people uh in a modern society i mean you're the the odds that you'll die of overeating are far higher than of starvation so the average person has never really felt yeah They've had cravings, but they haven't really been hungry.

23:45Adam Schafer:Yeah. Like when you don't eat for 48 hours, 72 hours, most people never done that. And I think it's a good experience for people. It is because you start to learn the difference between cravings and hunger.

23:56Sal Di Stefano:Totally. Up until that point. It's very different. Up until that point, I would have defined what was cravings as hunger always. Oh, yeah. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. Oh, it's been six hours since I ate. I'm hungry. So it's like, no, I'm craving. I'm used to eating every three to four hours. And so that's what's going on.

24:12Adam Schafer:No, here's the difference. When you're hungry, you'll eat anything. Eat anything, yeah. Like, give me anything, I'll eat it. When you have a craving, there's certain things you'll eat and certain things you won't.

24:20Sal Di Stefano:Especially as you push to 48 and 72 hours. I remember how wild day two was of the fast. Day two of the fast is like almost easier.

24:27Adam Schafer:Yeah.

24:28Sal Di Stefano:Like day one, it's a lot of that mental battle and struggle of like, am I really hungry? Is this craving? It's like, oh, you're kind of white-knuckling a little bit to get past. And then all of a sudden it starts to pass. And then you wake up the second day and I'm like, I feel energetic. I don't feel hungry. It's a weird, weird feeling. And then I feel like once I get to day three, then I'm counting the hours down. It's like, oh, when do I get to eat that first meal? That's the longest I do. And then like you said, broth sounds good. Dude, broccoli.

24:52Adam Schafer:I don't care what it is. I'll eat it. I feel good about it. Yeah, yeah, so true. Interesting. All right, so I got some cool, speaking of food, I got some really good data on comparing grass-fed meat to regular meat. So here's one of the challenges when you're comparing the two, right? Because you'll hear people criticize grass-fed meat. They'll say, okay, yeah, it's got more omega-3s. It's got more of these nutrients. It's got less of this, but it's not that big of a difference. Okay. If you're comparing one meal, then yeah, it doesn't make that big of a difference. But if you eat a lot of meat, like I do, it actually starts to add up.

25:25Adam Schafer:So here's what I did. I had AI give me, and I tried to be specific because the cut of meat can be very different. Like a ribeye versus tri-tip versus ground beef is very different. So I said, okay, show me the difference between 90 % grass-fed ground beef and 90 % grain-fed ground beef one pound a day over a week. What's the difference in the nutrients? So one pound a day is about what I would average. I eat at least a pound a day of red meat.

25:57Sal Di Stefano:So for me, this is realistic, okay?

26:00Adam Schafer:And it adds up, right? So this is just a week, but you could add this up over a month and over a year to kind of see the difference. And that's how dietary interventions really make a difference. It's the little changes over time. So I looked it up. So over the course of the week, it's about one and a half grams more omega-3 fatty acids, about one gram more of alpha linoleic acid. It's got about a half a gram more of EPA, DPA, and DHA, which is the long chain omega-3s. It's much lower in omega-6s, so less than half of the omega-6s, which can be inflammatory. cla so conjugated linoleic acid i can't say that right uh almost a gram more um vitamin e about two to three times higher and then iron zinc and selenium uh modestly higher it said so that's over

26:52Sal Di Stefano:one week yeah but okay i was just looking for my omegas because i wanted to break you just glossed over the amount of grams more you're having like how is that in comparison to if i

27:01Adam Schafer:Oh, you're typically taking one gram to two a day of an omega-3 fat. This is over a course of a week. Okay. Okay. But you do that over a month. That's four grams. Do it over the course of two months. Okay. It adds up. It starts to add up, especially when you look at the CLA. CLA is one of the big differences, and CLA is a fatty acid that has athletic performance and fat. Remember when we used to sell CLA at 24 Fitness? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:25Sal Di Stefano:Did you do the breakdown? Because the calories are different, too.

27:28Adam Schafer:I did 90 % one pound. so it's the same but you're right if you get a you get a half a pound of a ribeye with grass-fed

27:36Justin Andrews:versus a half a pound of ribeye yeah look at the calorie it's higher protein less fat because it's

27:40Adam Schafer:leaner yep so even though they're both the same weight it's going to be yeah you you did like an

27:45Sal Di Stefano:exact thing where i think you would see an even bigger difference if you would have just went

27:49Adam Schafer:pound for pound no you're right because that's more realistic yeah that's more i wanted to make

27:54Sal Di Stefano:it as like nobody like no like it's not like i uh so i either eat an eight ounce steak at the restaurant or i eat an eight ounce grass fed from my butcher box you know i'm saying it's like so i don't yeah i go like is that 97 you know okay it's like so nobody does that so it's like to me that's an even better comparison you're right it's more realistic yeah which now you're starting to play with a difference of of calories than a dish oh you're like another 10 grams of protein

28:18Adam Schafer:higher protein less fat lower calories same same pound of uh ribbock or whatever yeah that's where

28:24Sal Di Stefano:the big i've just tried i mean i've talked on the show many times about this uh and i don't know if you're the same way like i we when we eat out at a restaurant i enjoy some grain fed beef yeah i don't ask for grass and then when i'm home i'm cooking my butcher box i live off of butcher box

28:37Adam Schafer:and that's what we do and i find that's 90 of what i eat is butcher box meat yeah it's the grass it's all grass fed in there yeah and i'm eating like a pound a day i eat a lot you know of the red meat so for me it makes a difference and i've done it where i've gone without butcher box for a while and i tell i can tell with like inflammation yeah inflammation's a factor yeah i can tell with like my joints a little bit you feel that you can notice workouts yeah i could do yeah i definitely

29:02Justin Andrews:i've messed with both too you know just to see uh the difference and yeah you definitely feel a

29:07Sal Di Stefano:little more achy and yeah inflamed yeah you know what'd be a fun we should do that we've been with butcher box for so long i'd like to just see what the four of our boxes look like oh how different

29:15Justin Andrews:i bet they look pretty i don't know because our base meal is probably a lot of ground meat like we like i'm sure you guys build everything off i'm always chicken thighs in there same i'm always

29:24Sal Di Stefano:ground beef in there. I'm always chicken nuggets in there and I'm always baby back ribs in there.

29:28Justin Andrews:We don't do ribs. I probably have the most chicken nuggets. God, I do not do the ribs.

29:30Adam Schafer:It's the best thing you can do. I don't know how to make them. We just started doing the ribs. I don't know how to make them.

29:36Sal Di Stefano:I'll show you one time and then I feel like you'll barely figure it out. I just don't make steak tips.

29:41Justin Andrews:It's big for us.

29:42Sal Di Stefano:You know what? There's days, especially I think it's your Thursdays, right? Where you're home all day with the kids. Is that that? It's such a good thing for that because you just leave it. Six hours. You just set it on a... in the oven? Get a Traeger. Yeah, you need a nice Traeger. So I don't have one. You can afford one, I'm pretty sure. They're not like crazy. It's not like buying a car. I know how much you make. It's not a big deal for you to go pick one up. You can pick one up. In fact, you can buy mine so I can upgrade mine. So if you want, I'll give you a hell of a good deal on mine.

30:12Adam Schafer:Bro, my mentality is still stuck in the like, when I make meals it's literally, I look at the food and this is not the right way. Luckily my wife, she makes really good food. but when i cook i look at it as protein carbs vegetables i there's a part of me that i so

30:29Sal Di Stefano:relate to that is why i want to i want to sell you so hard on the other side because i've i

30:34Adam Schafer:appreciate it when i eat with you guys and you guys cook i'm like man this is amazing yeah you guys do a good job gourmet boys but you guys see the food the meals i bring it's just like no no

30:43Sal Di Stefano:and i can i can connect listen i was i'm the guy who was eating i was eating cold chicken and rice for like three years. You ate it cold? Oh, yeah.

30:51Justin Andrews:Did you ever do the tilapia? Oh, no.

30:54Sal Di Stefano:That was always... No, I used to mock all the... I did, yeah.

30:57Adam Schafer:You did that? I did because it's actually really easy to shovel down your face and if you squirt lemon on it... It's extremely low calorie.

31:05Sal Di Stefano:Wow.

31:05Adam Schafer:Yeah, no, I was...

31:07Sal Di Stefano:So I was big on lean ground turkey instead. So that was my way of cutting calories. So I would go... When I was dieting for a show, it would like during prep where I was like still at maintenance calories or above. I'm eating ground beef, ribeye, all those things. And then one of the ways, this is why sometimes it's so funny to me how bodybuilders really overcomplicate this with like changing it all weird. I was just like, I would go from like allowing myself to have ribeyes to like having like a - You would just change the cut. Yeah, just change the cut. Like consistency of the meals stay the same and it's like a perfect way to - Yeah.

31:39Sal Di Stefano:And so, and it's only a couple - Cleaner cuts on the way down. And then when I get to the very end, it was like, you know, I was eating some chicken breasts and ground turkey for a couple of weeks. Yeah. It wasn't like the whole prep I had to eat that way. I'm like, I'm enjoying healthy cuts. You're different, dude. I saw, yeah, they would just torture themselves all the time.

31:54Justin Andrews:You know why?

31:55Sal Di Stefano:Because in that world, so much is like passed down, you know. It's also an identity, dude. It's like suffer. It is. There is. There's like a badge of honor to suffer. And then there's this like, it worked for so-and-so. And he was the Mr. Olympian. Rodney Coleman did it. And so it's like, yeah, but when you actually just kind of break down the calories, and the macros of what he's doing, you know you could do different stuff and fit something maybe you like in there. Yeah, no, I always thought it was. Dude. But I did have to travel a lot with my six, seven meals everywhere I went. It was cold.

32:30Sal Di Stefano:And so many times it was just cold. I couldn't get to a microwave. And so we were talking about being on I-5. I'd pull over and just shovel some cold meat and sweet potatoes. I think sweet potatoes are probably the best cold. That is. That's the only one I could do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one of the better ones. But I did. I got to almost be okay.

32:48Adam Schafer:Bodybuilders of the 90s were the craziest. You can watch videos on - Straight canned tuna. Oh, no. It was boiled chicken breast, rice, and broccoli, and then it was like tilapia and a little bit of broccoli.

33:02Justin Andrews:Didn't you used to blend tuna and your protein shakes? But that was because when I was younger,

33:07Adam Schafer:I was extremely dysfunctional. So my goal, I was trying to get more calories in, and logically you could drink more than you can eat. And so I'm like, blend it.

33:20Sal Di Stefano:Okay, what bodybuilder or what person? Because I know I thought about that, but I didn't do that. I did a lot of other bad things or what I like that to try.

33:29Adam Schafer:You did the wake up in the middle of the night protein.

33:30Sal Di Stefano:Oh yeah, I woke up in the middle of the night. I shoveled down double peanut butter jelly sandwiches. Yeah. I mean, I remember times of like - I like Justin judging us right now.

33:40Adam Schafer:I love it. It's fun. You ran full speed. Idiots. You ran full speed at people and blasted them. I just think fat, dude. You did crazy stuff too, bro.

33:51Justin Andrews:Of course I did.

33:52Adam Schafer:It was different. You judged me. Dude, I ran into a buddy of ours, Shea, at the gym yesterday. I hadn't worked with him.

34:00Sal Di Stefano:I haven't seen him in so many years.

34:02Adam Schafer:So 25 years ago, this guy worked for me, right? And so we just start talking. And you see someone from back then, the stories start coming out. You start remembering things. and we started talking about the Speed Stacks. Oh, yeah. The Ephedra drinks that we should have. Yeah, yeah. And I thought it was two a day that I would have. And he's like, no, dude, remember? We would have one here, one here. I'm like, oh, my God, did we exceed what would kill people? Yeah. All the time. And I'm like, I wonder. And then he was telling me he had some health problems. I'm like, I hope that's not why he had two.

34:31Adam Schafer:Oh, God. Well, I had to have an impact. I know. I know. I know. I did that to Justin, right?

34:36Sal Di Stefano:So I still feel good. I say that. I still carry the guilt on it. Honestly believe that. that yeah i don't honestly believe that i definitely had a tumor i mean just think too of like working in that like it was like it was like a mandatory thing that i had my staff do

34:51Justin Andrews:i hired you that's the worst part yeah you would hand them yeah you haven't had this you need to i got number one in the company twice so i don't really have any complaints it worked yeah i mean

34:59Sal Di Stefano:we were literally drug pushers yeah hey speak i so i haven't had a pre-workout in it i would say

35:07Adam Schafer:probably a year maybe more just energy drinks or coffee yeah i just right now i just do that right

35:12Sal Di Stefano:so i've just been doing i've been normally it's coffee in the morning then my energy drinks when i'm here and so i haven't had a i haven't had a pre-workout in a really long time and uh it was i think it was just like just recently it was like on a saturday or something like that and um i i'd only had a cup of coffee and i'm like oh i've got a lot a lot more caffeine i can intake before my workout i'm like i got time i'm like so i'm digging through my stuff i'm because i haven't i don't even know i know i have some like katrina where's that where's the pre-workout she's like oh it's above the shelf appearance i pull it out and you know what happens to pre-workout when you haven't had pre-workout for like yeah it turns into a brick oh yeah so and i'm so i've got a butter i got a butter knife in there and i'm like chopping i'm like i'm like forget it i'm just to do it right so i took it and it was amazing because i had had anything like that and so i tell katrina because i don't want to eat clumpy pre-workout i'm like hey could you have jackie um make sure she puts uh the legion pre-workout in for me before i before i leave tomorrow it was like the next day or whatever and uh so i i get it and then i'm like what is this was always so funny for me when i don't even know about our own partners and some of the stuff they're doing but i don't know if you guys have had legions pre-workout recently or not i hadn't because i hadn't been doing pre-workout so they actually which i think is brilliant and i don't know why everybody doesn't do this i don't know why we didn't know this as a talking point because I think it's fire each serving is in individual packets oh so it's not a so it's in a big bag and then there's single individual packets oh that's god that's perfect take it to the gym yes that's perfect yes and I don't know I mean I don't know it stays fresh longer because I like anybody who's had pre-workout for a long time and I know you can relate because you definitely are a pre-workout guy like yeah it gets clumpy after a while and that's the most annoying thing but

36:50Adam Schafer:it's also the other part that's annoying is you it's and it's okay it's not a big deal but it's There it is right there. Yeah, look at that. This is also annoying, and it's whatever you deal with it, but you have your jug of pre-workout, and then that's what you carry with you to the gym. I'd much rather have a little stick packet.

37:06Sal Di Stefano:Wow, that's great. Yeah, I had no idea Mike did that, and no one gave me the heads up, and I was super excited.

37:13Adam Schafer:Doug, go to the ingredients. So Pulse is one of the higher caffeine pre-workouts, right? 300 milligrams, is that what it's at there? 350, I think. Boy, I just got knocked out. I think it's 350. No, it's 300. No, no, I think it's 350. Is it 350? Did he move it up to 350? What's that top left? Isn't that caffeine? No.

37:29Justin Andrews:Yes. Wow. 350 milligrams of caffeine plus theanine.

37:33Adam Schafer:Oh, wow.

37:34Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

37:34Adam Schafer:So it's one of the higher, so it's a strong pre-workout.

37:37Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah, yeah. So the reason why I knew that too is because - Because most pre-workouts are 200. So I have about 600 milligrams a day of caffeine, and I had my cup of coffee, so I knew I had like 400 to spare. And so I'm like, oh, this will be a time to have a pre-workout.

37:51Adam Schafer:So do you notice a difference between just a regular energy drink that's got caffeine and then the pre-workout? Yeah. It does make a little bit of difference.

37:58Sal Di Stefano:I mean, for sure, what I can't tell you and I don't know. Well, definitely because you're comparing something that's got 200 to 350, so it's got 100. It's almost double the caffeine. Then you add in the fact that it's also got – what are all the things? Beta-alanine. Yeah, the shit that makes your face tingle and shit, which I'm not the biggest fan of that. I like that. I mean, I like it once I'm into the workout. But what I don't like, and you probably have got this down to a science because you're so consistent with all this stuff. But I want it to hit when I'm in my lift already. I don't want it to hit when I'm driving over there.

38:28Sal Di Stefano:And I'm like, my face is itching. And I'm just like, shit, I took it too early. Yeah, so it's like there definitely is like a timing to it. You're like, okay, ideally I think it's like finish it just as I'm pulling into the drive. That way by the time I get my little walk and stretch in and I'm lifting, then it hits.

38:44Adam Schafer:The other thing, too, is caffeine oftentimes helps people poop. So you'll hear people talk about this in the morning, that they'll have their coffee. Yeah. That's the timing also. So you got to do your pre-workout. And you got to make sure you get to the bathroom.

38:56Justin Andrews:Make sure I hit that.

38:57Adam Schafer:That's Justin every day when he gets to work. Especially on squat day. That's what I'm saying. Hey, do you have pre-workout, dog? No, no. You know what it is? He drinks coffee or whatever on the way here.

39:05Justin Andrews:Yes. And then as soon as he gets, like, I just, like, I get there quick. So, you know, that's part of why I. I'm a routine with that.

39:12Adam Schafer:We're usually next to each other.

39:15Sal Di Stefano:that's actually why a lot of times Monday Tuesday Wednesday I won't have coffee because of that because coffee does like I have to be near bathroom time it takes you too long to get here and I don't want to be like that I like my morning drive to be relaxing my audio book maybe I'm making some calls he's got it down to his science though

39:35Adam Schafer:Justin never misses so you must drink it at the right time he looks stressed

39:39Justin Andrews:he looks stressed when he comes in he looks like yeah my morning drive here is stressed but like that gets me up like i need

39:47Sal Di Stefano:i need to sound like doug bro chasing that cortisol high i'm like doug yeah i'm just like trying to

39:52Justin Andrews:wind it up and so i'm like hey i'm gonna perform but then when i'm going home super chill dude i'll

39:57Sal Di Stefano:do the audio but i mean how different are all of our probably our morning routine i need to wind you're the five a.m i go to the gym yeah you're up but you're up at like five in the morning right

40:06Adam Schafer:uh now these days it's six so i can get up a little later because my kids wake up a little later now thank god this is like life-changing they tip my son used to wake up 5 30 that's great bro now he's like 6 30 to 7 so i'm okay so 6 a.m i'll wake up and then i'll get my wife coffee do my thing and lately i've been going to starbucks which is down the street getting her green tea and bringing it back we're door dashing less dude oh good for you oh you could definitely afford a trigger yeah i know one month of pullback on door dash is a trigger for you dog

40:36Sal Di Stefano:that's a new car i i mean i i it's been a long time i've really we cut way back on that i pulled

40:43Justin Andrews:it back isn't that like every financial podcast is like if you just stop drinking that one cup of coffee i know every day like that i mean you know it's like you know what's funny for me is uh

40:54Sal Di Stefano:it it was driven more by principle than anything else i was so angry because it's double that they were getting me on all these fees i was unaware of that it's like out of principle i'm like i am not going to do this.

41:05Justin Andrews:DoorDash is expensive, man.

41:07Adam Schafer:Well, it's because they gouge on everything. You know what my theory is, right? I have a theory that if you want, you can look at people's income, but without looking at income, look at DoorDash usage and you will 100 % be able to predict someone's income level just by their DoorDash. Because it's such an expensive convenience. I bet you're

41:24Sal Di Stefano:spot on with that. That would be a really cool thing to, and I'm sure they, I mean, who knows where they're at as far as how sophisticated their marketing to you is and everything like that.

41:33Adam Schafer:Well, all I know is when I call DoorDash, to answer the phone,

41:35Sal Di Stefano:which is weird.

41:36Adam Schafer:I've talked to friends and they're like, what did they respond to?

41:38Sal Di Stefano:Hey, speaking of money. Oh, that article. Did you see that article Jackie sent over? I did. Harvard? Who did it? No, there were two. Penn State.

41:45Adam Schafer:Yes, there were two. Penn State and someone else. There were two large groups of, oh, what does it say there? DoorDash is used by people of all.

41:52Justin Andrews:Lower income households actually use it more.

41:55Adam Schafer:Than the wealthy? Really?

41:56Sal Di Stefano:Yes. Get out. You know what? The wealthy have the chefs? At their house? How wealthy are we talking here? They pay a servant to go get a chef? I was like,

42:04Adam Schafer:my theory's off.

42:05Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

42:05Adam Schafer:Wow. All right. All right, whatever. Anyway, the article you're talking about, Adam, they're taking different cohorts and studies and trying to combine them together. first start by why

42:16Sal Di Stefano:this is so cool because we've talked on the show multiple times about this. There's a famous study done in 2010 that I think that one was originally done by Harvard or one of the other big, one of the big schools, right? And they had done a study and what the, basically the study had said that happiness, once you hit to about$75 ,000 in income,

42:33Adam Schafer:This was in 2010.

42:34Sal Di Stefano:It was 2010. Yeah, right. So even a jump. So at$75 ,000, that there is no correlation with happier as income goes up.

42:42Adam Schafer:Right. So the peak was$75 ,000 after that.

42:44Sal Di Stefano:It plateaued hard after that, right? And they did a cross study on this and teased out a lot of things.

42:52Adam Schafer:So there was other studies that showed that it was closer to$150 ,000,$200 ,000. then there's other studies that show that happiness goes up incrementally as money tends to go up um but then there was other ones that showed it was straight linear with it all the way that's what i mean it kept going up yeah yeah but when you look into the data so here's what's confusing about all of this first off when you look into the data people who get no more happiness from making more money will definitely get no more happiness from making more money in other words you're making a lot of money and you're miserable making more money is not going to make you happier the data shows that pretty clearly money's not going to solve yes your happiness issue if you're already doing well and you're already miserable yeah okay that's not your issue people

43:32Sal Di Stefano:with well-being that made made more money yeah did correlate with that yes and then it was even higher for people that had that were in the exceptionally positive and happy yes and now

43:43Adam Schafer:here's why we got to look at the data more closely because you could break the data down and here's why money is confusing. First off, what is money? Money is, it could be more time. It could be more education. It could be more things. It could be more freedom. It could be more charity. So just looking at money doesn't tell you a lot. What you want to do is go into the data and see what are the happiest people doing with their money? How is it making them happier? That's what you need to look at because it could mean so many different things i mean right away what what jumped out at

44:20Sal Di Stefano:me when i read it uh is it and i said this to you off air it reminds me of the steroids oh hang with me enhance who you are exactly so like everybody there's this there's this myth that like steroids make you angry yeah and it's like or make you a dick it's like no if you were a dick and you take steroids you're a bigger dick yeah you know i wish you used a different word yeah yeah asshole whatever right so if you were an asshole before you know the visuals aren't working for me everyone i hope our editors are putting the graphics whatever you get my drift and so and and and all the research and studies prove that we know that now right it's uh but still there's a lot of people that think that people think if you're if you're unaware of testosterone there's still this this myth around that uh that that it does like roid rage yeah roid right now to be

45:11Adam Schafer:It's clear there are some steroids that seem to have that problem, but not the typical ones.

45:16Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, generally speaking, testosterone. And testosterone done, especially at therapeutic doses. The horse one, which one was it?

45:22Adam Schafer:Tremble them.

45:22Sal Di Stefano:But it just makes you more of who you already are. I've always thought the same way about money. Money just makes you more of what you are. So if you are a good person, have good well-being, which doesn't matter if you're making$35 ,000 or$3 million, that gets enhanced.

45:38Justin Andrews:You can be more charitable. Exactly.

45:40Sal Di Stefano:Maybe you're the person who only can give out 20 bucks every now and then when we were only making$75 ,000 a year. But now you make$3 million, that turns to huge charity, a huge return. And so I love this study because I've always felt this way. Like, you know, yes, I think there comes this plateau of material things that I no longer see the same. But I definitely have gotten happier.

46:05Adam Schafer:But I've also learned how to use it in a certain way. Here's the other thing too, is that this is hard to parse out, but you can, you can look at the data and kind of break this down too. People in higher income brackets. So we're not talking about inheritance and we're not talking about lottery winners. Okay. So it's not all the same, but people who earn more tend to, tend to be more disciplined. They tend to, what's the word? They withhold when you're, when someone's offering you something and you can say, no, let me wait. What's that called, Doug? when you're not gratifying yourself. Delayed gratification.

46:41Adam Schafer:So they tend to be better at delayed gratification. They tend to spend more time and energy on self-improvement to the tune of, let's say, on-the-job training or education. And they tend to be healthier physically because they spend more time on things like healthy eating and exercise because it helps sometimes to have money to be able to do those things. Other times it helps you to make more money to become more healthy and fit. So it's hard to kind of like parse that all out because you can look at that. You really can't. Look, here's the deal. And I know you've told me this, Adam, because you grew up with not so much.

47:15Adam Schafer:The spending habits that you had growing up, not you, but your family had, were like, well, part of the reason why they were so difficult is their spending habits. Yes. Is they didn't have great. My family came with no education. My dad came to this country with literally no education. They had no money. and they did okay. They did reasonably well because they were really disciplined with what they did with what they earned and how they saved and where they spent and how they worked. And I think those things contribute to happiness more than the money did. It's those strategies and those disciplines and those behaviors.

47:48Adam Schafer:So it's hard to kind of break that down, but there is data on the ways to spend money and how those affect happiness. And it's very clear and the data when you voluntarily give your money to help someone else especially if you could see the result of what you've done it's the longer lasting effect it's the greatest roi by far

48:07Sal Di Stefano:with happiness well you can and anybody who's uh doesn't believe that theory you could test this um oh dude and i've talked about this before like uh there's been many material things that i desired or wanted that eventually i got and it was awesome buying it in the time and when i use whatever the thing was but over time that that dissipates and even when i think back oh man i remember that first watch when i really wanted to get like it doesn't give me this like like i remember that i remember there was a major goal and i could tell a story about it but i don't get a feeling from it anymore it's so long gone and i've exceeded so many other things since then uh but let me tell you a story of something i did for somebody like totally charity wise for a family or did something like that.

48:54Sal Di Stefano:And it could be small things. It could be big things. I could think about that and I can feel it. It's the same effect. You can feel it. Yep. Yeah, I can literally feel it in my body. So test this if you don't believe me. Go do something like that. Compare it to something that you really wanted to buy or have for yourself. And it doesn't even have to be, which is wild. What I'm comparing right now, the stories that I'm thinking of, is that really expensive watch thing for at least was really expensive for me at the time. Very modest charity thing didn't cost nearly as much as that thing. But yet the ROI on the happiness ongoing for years from that exponentially more than that thing.

49:38Sal Di Stefano:So like even the amount doesn't even have to be equal. Does that make sense what I'm saying? No, 100%.

49:42Adam Schafer:In fact, I was in the car over the weekend because you guys know I went to that place with Dylan and Josh. and we were actually talking about this. We were talking about happiness and money. And Josh, I don't know if you guys remember this, but Josh, it was either last year or the year before, he went and built a home for a family that needed a home to be built. He went with a Christian organization down to Mexico. And he's like, he goes, every time I think about it, it gives me the same, he goes, I want to cry. He gives me the same emotion. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. And it was the best time I ever spent and money I ever spent was flying myself down there and doing that.

50:17Adam Schafer:And so that's the takeaway. Like the takeaway with this is like, the things you do with money are what make you happy. And the behaviors that tend to result in a better lifestyle tend to make you happy. The money itself, boy, it can go in a lot of different directions.

50:32Sal Di Stefano:But don't you feel like that study did a good job of really breaking that down? Because it's the people, there was three levels of people that didn't have good well-being or that were negative, unhappy, or whatever, people that had good well-being, and then people that were exponentially good well-being. I mean, I would categorize, But if you have exponentially good well-being, then you probably have a balance of giving, a balance of all those things. And so give that person more money and their happiness goes up literally with more because they've learned to reinvest in time and get that back with the money.

51:04Sal Di Stefano:They've learned to travel and do things that will create memories for them. They've learned to give to other people, which they know will give up great. and so um i mean you know what it reminds me also of the steroids was a rougher analogy maybe a more gentle one would be uh we talk about this all the time with uh obese clients who think that getting in shape will make them happy yeah how often do we have to talk to people like this right where they're just like i just want to lose the weight help me once i do that once i lose at 50 pounds the depression will go away and it's no it won't if you are a depressed negative person and you think it's because you're overweight.

51:41Sal Di Stefano:It is not true.

51:42Adam Schafer:And here's your example of that. If I had a magic pill that just had them lose weight versus the things that they did to lose the weight, the right way, or what make them happy. That's right. The exercise, the changes in the strategies, changing with food relationship, that results in tremendous happiness. So you can't avoid the struggle. You can't. You can't avoid the struggle. Absolutely. You don't want to. You don't want to. You learn

52:02Justin Andrews:everything through that.

52:04Sal Di Stefano:It's the secret to the happiness. Because to your point, if you just did some extreme diet and you white knuckle your way to 50 pounds down or 100 pounds down in pursuit of I'm going to be happy, it's like winning the lottery. It won't solve that. It won't make you any happier. If you're a miserable person before and you win the lottery, you're not less miserable.

52:22Adam Schafer:The data on lottery winners is remarkable. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

52:24Sal Di Stefano:It's 100 % chosen. And that's why, because they didn't learn the disciplines on how to get that much money. One of the things that happens on your way of 75 ,000 to say hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars is all the disciplines required in order to obtain that. Getting, growing in education, sacrificing, delayed gratification, right? All these things. And it's like, oh shit, that is the real secret sauce are all those things. And then, oh, by the way, now I got all this windfall of money from it, which gives you better ways to do it. Same thing goes for fitness. If you were somebody who learned how to lift weights properly, eat correctly, do all the things, and it took you a while to get that 100 pounds off, well, you end up valuing the journey.

53:08Adam Schafer:100%. All right, I'm going to change subject because this note's been up there, and I want to hear about Arlo. I know that you guys did. You talked about him on a recent episode. You said you got a lot of crazy DMs. I did want to kind of bring it up.

53:22Justin Andrews:Did Peter call you? No, not Peter. But yeah, no, somebody just kind of was giving me a little feedback that I was like, I had to like sit and really think about it. Cause it's like, I like to bring things up on the show that are, I think are going to be entertaining and funny. Uh, in a lot of times that involves like stupid things that, especially with my dogs, like he just like does crazy things every now and then. And it's like, I have to talk about it too. It's a bit of like a cathartic cathartic, you know, kind of, uh, a thing for me because I'm like, I gotta like offload this. Cause it's like,

53:59Adam Schafer:This was the story where you were peeing off the deck or something. He ran into it and walked into the pee. Yeah, he walked into the pee.

54:04Justin Andrews:He's shit on my foot. Like he's throwing up on, you know, carpets. He's gone, got like sprayed by a skunk in his face like multiple times. It's just like a constant. Adventures all the time. Yeah, it's like having a two-year-old, you know, that's always going to be a two-year-old, you know. But it's like, I might have mentioned, because it's hard. And it's like, I'm like, you know, I struggle sometimes. like maybe somebody else would really appreciate him. But it's like, it's not true. He's part of the family. I love him. It's like, I have to like put that out there. He's really thought, he's like, oh, he's just like one of those dog owners is going to get rid of him.

54:41Justin Andrews:Oh, you know what it was? It was because Adam said he was going to drop him off in the woods. That's what it was. Oh, that's what it was. That's what it was. I was trying to think back. I was like, I don't think I said I was going to get rid of him. No, you laughed. Like, I think I'll do that. I laughed. Obviously, Justin was joking. Everybody's so sensitive. Yeah, so this is not going to be trouble. I know. Come on, dude. Stop it. Even if you're talking about your kids or something, and you're trying to bring up funny stories, and it's always a negative story. Because there's a lot of times I have good times.

55:12Justin Andrews:I take him out to West Cliff. We walk all the time. For feedback for people that don't realize the amount of work I've put into this dog is insane. so this guy Lance he's like he trains military and police dogs and this is like over you know in Watsonville we took him there for like an entire year and he literally like was like I don't know what to do with this dog

55:38Sal Di Stefano:oh no when you get a dog trainer a military could you imagine us giving a climb back like hey I can't help this person I'm a higher adder he's like this dog's a lot he's neurotic

55:50Justin Andrews:And he came back and he was like, you know, underweight and you see his ribs and everything. I'm like, this is not good for him, dude. Like, we'll just take him. I don't want to keep doing the training. It's not working, you know. And so like, and we, and it was, you know, it's his own style. So I just got frustrated and I'm just like, I'm just going to deal with it, you know, and we're going to kind of just take it day by day. And like, he's really food motivated. And so I've learned to kind of like get them to do better things like with more positive feedback and like get like food out there to to draw him in.

56:24Justin Andrews:And like he'll go take off like down to the school. And like and so, you know, it's just frustrating. It's hard, dude. I even had like a lady like pick him up when he was down at the junior high and he had taken off. And like he's only does a handful of times. but she's just like how would you ever let your dog you know run loose and like was gonna call like animal control and i'm like dude like the ultimate karen lady was just like she was hammering me about like like me and my dog and like how dare you like a car could hit him and anyway so i've been in through the ringer with this dog dude and it's it's hard you know but like i'm i'm still at it and i'm we're still working on so anyway i'm i'm working now on like getting him out a lot because you have to take ownership too like have i taken him out enough like he's a very high energy dog gotta walk him all the time gotta run him all the time gotta throw the ball for him all the time and uh and i'm switching up his food i'm trying to really kind of figure out like you know what maybe maybe i gotta get like a healthier you know version of

57:28Sal Di Stefano:him like how can we do this do you think it's that or do you so what i think it is is it's wrong dog wrong owner i don't think he's the right dog for you yeah just straight up dude you still trying to talk about it no listen we're already there you got to keep him now he's your kid but but no this is more me challenging your way this is just me challenging your way of thinking on do you believe that there are right dogs for right owners and i do yeah i So before I bought my dogs, I did a bunch. To be fair, Courtney got him. Okay. So I did a bunch of research on breeds before I bought my English Bulldogs.

58:06Sal Di Stefano:And one of the things, because I remember wrestling with, I want a dog. Should I get a dog right now? That I wrestled with was. You looked at the laziest dog. That's 100 % what I did. I know. I said, what dogs need the least amount of exercise? Because I knew how many hours I worked. But I still wanted a dog. And I wanted that companion. And Bulldogs came up. so I had to dig deeper and oh there were a lot of you know maintenance and I'm like okay I can handle that stuff but I like I know I won't be able to exercise them my buddy who has a Weimaraner that has so I know three close people to me that in only one of them I feel like has this great relationship with this Weimaraner and he's an ultra marathon runner and that dog runs with him every day are they designed they are bred to be

58:47Justin Andrews:they are bred to run all the time they're bird dogs and so yeah too if you get them to hunt and like really like work them they're super chill do you think a dog treadmill would be good or is that too boring uh i've thought about that would he do it would he do it i actually i don't know if he'd do it he might but you know what i have done is i've i've i bike and so i'll take him west cliff and i can like jam on the bike he just sprints and and he's worn out and so i've

59:15Sal Di Stefano:been doing that a lot lately and i feel like see see and you're not a big cardio guy so i feel like if you were a big cardio guy, then it would be right dog. I think it would be right dog, right owner. Like, I think my buddy Greg, who's an ultra marathon runner, that is a great dog for him.

59:27Justin Andrews:Oh, totally. Because he could go take it on and literally like a hundred mile run. I don't disagree at all, but like, you know, I'm in this situation and I'm going to finish this year. It is what it is now.

59:34Adam Schafer:You took him to the best trainer, like one of the best trainers around. But you're talking right now

59:38Sal Di Stefano:about how maybe it could be like, like, would you really buy another Weimaraner after everything you've learned? No, no, no, no. Oh, okay. No, never. No.

59:47Justin Andrews:Yeah. But to be fair, too, I had a Weimerie before this. You did, but I thought you got lucky. Totally. Yes. Totally got a dog that was like - Chill for a Weimerie. Chill. And here's the thing. Ahead of time, too, it was more of a pet. So they breed these dogs a lot to be show dogs, right? And Arlo specifically, his dad was actually a winner in his breed. And he won all kinds of shows. Really handsome. like perfect like bone structure all this kind of stuff and so he's like a really handsome dog but also really dumb you know it's a lot of inbreeding i mean it's just like it's like a male model that whole world i swear he's the male model version zoolander you should name him zoolander i swear to god dude get him an orange frappuccino you know and he would love it but yeah it i don't know it's it again like i got i had i got lucky with my first dog he was like the best dog dude like would literally like had the recall like i could i i trained him and and it was like i'd come home and he was he'd like put his paws up on me and give me a hug and then he'd go lay down and he would chill and i would take him out on a walk and that was it like i like literally was like Like, so easy.

1:01:05Justin Andrews:So rare. Yeah, it was totally, like, threw me off, you know? And so we got, like, a little wiener dog, too, now, which he's great. He's so easy. I'm like, I'm just going to be all wieners from here on out.

1:01:18Sal Di Stefano:Listen, that's, to me, I know you, your lifestyle, that's the right dog. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's what happens. I mean, I think that Doug's Maltese.

1:01:26Justin Andrews:You don't look very tough, you know, walking down on Westcliff with two little wieners, but, you know, I can handle it. I got a good ego. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:01:34Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, dude, you're confident. You can be fine with that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Have you ever considered a dog? Huh? Have you ever considered a dog? No.

1:01:44Adam Schafer:No. No. We manage a lot already. You run four kids. Why not add a dog? I'm not trying to add more stress. Four kids is already like a lot. The thought of a dog. Here's what happens when I think about a dog in a positive way. Yeah. Okay. Watching TV. Just petting a dog, watching TV. You know what I mean? They make dogs like that. Actually, yeah. They make dogs like that. I love that. That's what I love. I'll get a fast. Yeah.

1:02:04Sal Di Stefano:I mean, if you can handle the farts, English bulldogs are like that. Yeah, yeah. So are the kings, Cavalier kings, whatever. They're like lap dogs. They're like sitting in your lap.

1:02:16Adam Schafer:I think some dogs, I love dogs. I love when people have dogs. I appreciate them. But just the extra stress. I can't leave when I want. I got to have someone watch the dog. And then we got to talk. Yeah, no, I get it. And then the dog is going to wake us up in the night. No, no, I get it. I get it. I get it. I believe, though, there's a dog for every person.

1:02:34Sal Di Stefano:I think that. I think that there's the right breed for what you're into, what you like to do. Same, I think the same. There are certain breeds that are good for them.

1:02:42Adam Schafer:I have an affinity only because I grew up with them and because my dad loved them. I love American Staffordshires and pit bulls, but my dad always had them when I was a kid. Pit bulls are great. I just love the way they look, and they're so athletic and so strong. Yeah. And so I remember growing up, and my dad had one, and man, he could jump. And we played tug-of-war with the rope, and he was very protective of us. That was just my experience with him. And I like the way they look because they look like little bodybuilders. Yeah, they're cool. Yeah, they're all stocky. Yeah, but other than that, like, no, cool.

1:03:12Sal Di Stefano:Did you get a bunch of guilty DMs? I just took a few.

1:03:15Adam Schafer:Yeah, I think that was... Justin loves his dog, everybody. I love my dog, dude.

1:03:19Justin Andrews:Yeah, it's like I post about all the time. If you see my social media, it's like half of it is like me posting me and my dogs. Like, all I do is like, he's not going to hang out with my dogs and my kids. He's not going to get rid of his dog. He's still a great dad.

1:03:30Adam Schafer:he's still there he's still a great dad speaking of animals I gotta hear about how the cows kicked you you were saying this off air I didn't know you got kicked by a cow for real I thought I've told you that before you really got kicked by a cow

1:03:42Sal Di Stefano:like where all the time what shoulder chest all the time like a full on kick yeah well so remember when I used to milk them they're at this level right so what's that level like their feet uh oh cause they're standing up they walk around oh they're on something yeah yeah so that way that way i can you know do all the stuff right yeah do my thing but and when you when i'd come in the morning so it was actually like it was it was designed like this if you can imagine where doug is at over would be the size of this and i'd have four cows in a stall at a time okay and they're all about this level okay you let them all four inch and you lock them you lock them all in then you prep all of them now when i would come in in the morning directly ahead of me right over here would be this big whiteboard and every morning there's at least on a good morning like a low number a good a good morning would be low number two or three cow numbers a bad morning could be like eight to nine and what that is is it's warning me like who's off and a lot of times there'd be a special note if there was something i needed to know like for example 397 back right

1:04:46Adam Schafer:teat don't touch the back right well what i would know is that it's got an injury or something like

1:04:50Sal Di Stefano:Like another cow stepped on it, so it sliced it open. Oh, so don't do that one. And so, well, no, you still do it, but you better be gentle because if you just go in not knowing, and you will get the shit kicked out of you because you grab on an injury on a cow. And so that's always happening. Or one is sick or just off, and so you see numbers. And so when I see the tag come in, a lot of times, you know, but sometimes you're the guy who finds out. Group four? Yeah, yeah. So I come in, I know what I'm looking for, and sometimes you're the dude who found out. And a lot of times the number ain't up there, and you grab something, and then whack!

1:05:26Sal Di Stefano:You can just kick something? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I've flown across the room. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing broken? No, I've actually never had anything broken. I feel like that would hurt, like, really bad. Yeah, no, it does. Yeah, yeah. But it's not like, like, I never broke anything. I am in a, I'm in these full, so I have, like, clothes like this, and then I'm in full coveralls that are like the thick denim gym type coveralls. So I got a little bit, so I'm not going to get, yeah, so I'm going to get a little bit of padding enough to like not be.

1:05:54Adam Schafer:It hits you in the face.

1:05:55Sal Di Stefano:So it normally is not my face because I'm high enough. So it would be chest. Yeah, it's normally would be here. And my head, there's a gate here, but there's this much gap room.

1:06:07Adam Schafer:Did you always start slow just to be sure? Like, let's make sure.

1:06:10Sal Di Stefano:No, because you're, speed is the game, right? I got to get through all of them. So you move pretty quick. Delicate years. But you, over time, one, you learn all the cows. So you give them names and some of that. So you learn who's who. And there's certain temperamental cows. So there's cows that are prone to being pains in the ass. Do you have a favorite? Do you remember any? Oh, I don't remember. It's been so you're talking about, you're making me go back. What is that? I'm 15 years old. So 30 years, you're making me go back? Yeah, no, I can't remember. I mean, I remember Rosa and like some. some names, but I couldn't tell you if there was like a...

1:06:46Sal Di Stefano:She's a sweet cow. Yeah. That one just popped in my head. So there was like, but I don't remember. Because like I said, most of the time, they were going through something. And so therefore, they were temperamental. But there absolutely were some cows that were all... They'd come in, their ears would be pinned back. And so you know, and you could see they're looking at you. Sideways. Yeah. And then other cows, they just put their head in the grain and they're happy and you're like, they're cool. So you don't have to worry about it. So you learn the energy of the animals.

1:07:15Justin Andrews:You squirt your buddy that went by.

1:07:16Sal Di Stefano:As they come in. Yeah, because they were blasting. Oh, no. If you guys were to come in, anytime friends came by and I'd be working, you'd walk around the corner. I could shoot you across the room. Yeah, yeah. With the milk. And then I loved it. Like somebody trying to, if you don't know the technique, you just can't do it. And so you're like, I don't get it. Why is it not? It's not working. It's like, yeah, you got to roll it. There's no way you got to do it. You know so much about this.

1:07:40Justin Andrews:I would love to see you do this. because that's a skill. We got to put you in your element.

1:07:43Sal Di Stefano:Well, you know what's funny about it that I think is interesting? I mean, you guys obviously really know me. It couldn't be more out of character, right? Totally. Yeah. That's why it's funny. I know. If I see you milking a cow right now, I will die. I couldn't be further from the guy. I mean, we joke about how not changing a light bulb or being this, but I did all that stuff for a long time. You name it. Working on a ranch, there's not a lot of things that you didn't have to do or learn to do or figure it out. Yeah, and got very dirty and crazy early mornings and all by myself and all that stuff.

1:08:19Sal Di Stefano:And so, yeah, that's part of why I am the way I am today too because I got plenty of experience to know. I don't want to do that shit. Yeah,

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1:09:31Justin Andrews:Our first question is from Burke himself. if I only do pull-ups, body weight, and weighted, am I missing out on anything by not using a lat pull-down machine?

1:09:40Adam Schafer:No. You know what? This is a good question. Oh, you disagree? Well, no. So here's the deal. Okay. I mean, it's the same movement pattern, same muscles. Like, you know this as a bodybuilder. They do feel different.

1:09:51Sal Di Stefano:They do, but if someone was asking me this question, the reverse, I would say yes. Yeah. To not be able to pull your own body. You've got to pick one or the other. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And unless this person is a competitor, the value you're going to get of – just so you know, for the listener, I mean, I was doing weighted pull-ups the other day, but the three months prior to that, I didn't do any pull-ups, and I was doing all lap pull-downs. So it's not like I don't bounce back, but you could absolutely never do a lap pull-down, but always do pull-ups and weighted pull-ups and get awesome back, great strength, functional.

1:10:31Adam Schafer:you're not missing out there's two two advantages that the pull down machine has one is you're not strong enough to do a pull up so a pull down allows you to use resistance that kind of matches your strength and by the way this could be true for someone who can do pull ups but let's say they can't do a wide grip pull up so i can do pull ups no problem but when i go

1:10:55Justin Andrews:really really wide yeah working on your grip i got to be careful if i do a pull up because it

1:10:59Adam Schafer:can sometimes tweak my shoulder because i'm pulling my 220 pound body up so when i go on a pull down machine sometimes i like to do really wide pull downs but the weight is 160 pounds and it's not as heavy so i can get that you know kind of that different angle or let's take a like a behind the neck behind the neck pull up is really hard when your body weight is high behind the neck you know pull down with 120 pounds uh not a big deal so those are the two times when i would say a pull down machine is better it's like if you're not strong enough i can give less weight

1:11:29Justin Andrews:and add a lot more volume.

1:11:30Adam Schafer:Or you want to add a lot of weight. Weighted pull-ups are awesome, but there's some pull-down machines that go 300 pounds. And if you're a really strong dude and you want to do heavy weighted pull-ups, sometimes it can be a pain in the butt to get the chain and hook around a weight and do the whole thing. And getting under a pull-down machine can sometimes feel better.

1:11:47Sal Di Stefano:I can get behind the argument of you're missing out on some of the scapula mobility benefits if you're going to practice behind the neck pull-downs.

1:11:56Adam Schafer:You've got to be really strong to do that right. Oh, yeah.

1:11:58Sal Di Stefano:Most people aren't going to be able to do that with a body weight. And to be able to control it to where you actually retract the scapula properly. Stabilizing. Yeah. So if you went into lat pulldowns with the thought that like, oh, I'm going to go light today and really work on behind the neck, scapula retraction, and that shoulder mobility.

1:12:16Adam Schafer:I definitely have more fun with grips on a pulldown machine than I do pullups.

1:12:19Sal Di Stefano:Truth be told, the way I look at it today, even with my ex-bodybuilder background, it's like when I'm feeling lazy, I'm doing lat pulldown. Yeah, sure. When I'm feeling like, hey, I want to get after it, I'm feeling strong, or I want to see, like, I'm doing pull-ups and I'm doing weighted pull-ups. For sure. But so if the average client asked me this, I'd be like, you could never do a lap pull-down again, but get strong pulling your body weight up, and you're just fine.

1:12:46Justin Andrews:Next question is from Preacherman Joe. Can you take a day or two out of the week to not eat one gram of protein per pound of body weight? I feel I need to give my stomach a break to recover.

1:12:57Adam Schafer:You did this for a while. I did. So if it's for your stomach, if you're noticing digestive issues and protein fasting for a while, I did. And it was for my gut.

1:13:06Sal Di Stefano:A lot of it was used to go, used to go, used to, did you like a vegan? You did like a Friday vegans for a while early on the podcast.

1:13:13Adam Schafer:And a lot of it was for my gut health. Um, and so I was basically broke down just way less calories. So if you're like, Hey, I need my gut to have a break because here's the deal. High protein's great. In all the data, it's better for pretty much everything. But there are times, and this is not backed up, but this isn't based on data. This is based on my experience. I definitely had clients where we start to push the protein and digestive issues start to become an issue. And these are the clients that I don't have them eat that much protein. And I would have them eat more fiber. We'd change the protein sources.

1:13:44Adam Schafer:That often helped. But there were those clients that no matter what, once we'd get up to a certain amount of protein, they just didn't react well. I do want to say how

1:13:51Sal Di Stefano:rare that is, though, because you just said what I was going to say, which is many times, because I can notice this, because you're not, I know you talk about how you can eat red meat until you're blue in the face. If I'm eating all red meat every day, all the time, that's my only source, I start to notice. And giving myself a mixture of leaner cuts, white meat instantly improves digestion for me and or increasing fiber. so many times with a client like this i will always explore that first yep because we know we know the benefits of consistently hitting protein and how hard that is uh for people and so it's that's already a challenge for me to get people but if i had a client that was complaining about that and they said man adam when we fast or when i cut it my protein in half my digestion was really easy then i'd be like let's try these sources then let's try these exactly i would rotate through fish and through white meat and through adding fiber and doing all that first And if they still keep reporting back, man, just still run.

1:14:49Sal Di Stefano:Then I'm like, okay, then yes, then we go that route.

1:14:51Adam Schafer:100 % what I would do. And even today, my protein intake averages between 200 and let's say 240 grams. I make sure I get fiber with it. If my fiber isn't high enough with that, it can also still cause some kind of backup issues or whatever. But that's exactly the strategy I would have with clients.

1:15:08Justin Andrews:Next question is from Tyler H6201. can you rehab and heal from an injury in a calorie deficit yeah but it's a lot much slower

1:15:17Adam Schafer:it's a lot harder way slower yeah if you're putting your body in a catabolic state or should i say you're making yourself more catabolic so rehab and healing after injury tends to be catabolic tend to lose muscle tend to lose strength um and you put yourself in lower calories on top of that um it can definitely impair injury now this doesn't mean you got to go on this crazy surplus of calories uh because sometimes people do that too they're like on the couch they're depressed no they just did a bunch of maintaining kind of what you're already eating yeah feed yourself a healthy diet don't go low on protein don't go low on essential uh on fats both of which are essential for healing you need them both to heal your body proteins uh heal pretty much every tissue in the body and then fats for like nerve health and hormone health if those are low and you're injured or you need to rehab or you're coming off an illness sometimes you won't like if it's a really extreme you won't heal uh from those like you break a bone and or you tear a muscle and your protein intake is below a certain number it ain't it ain't gonna heal yeah in those

1:16:24Sal Di Stefano:extremes well to materials to justin's point normally just eating the way you were eating before typically handles it because what ends up happening normally when you get injured activity level decreases yeah and so activity level decreasing maintaining caloric intake or diet the way it was prior to injury is normally enough of a surplus that it's at and so long as protein is adequate to to recover because it and we've talked about this before to be anabolic to build muscle would fall in the same category similar to as recovery or repair here you don't need a huge calorie surplus to do that you just need to be in somewhat of a surplus and so uh and a lot of times my clients that have had some sort of an injury they're no longer working out still your activity already yeah as much cadence or doing the thing they were doing you know the original studies on

1:17:09Adam Schafer:amino acids so old studies on essential amino acids and branch that would be a great thing for them to do they were done on burn victims oh right yeah so they would give uh burn victims so that's a major like you know getting like a large part of your body burn is like a major trauma and they would give uh some of these patients um higher amounts of protein or essential amino acids and they would heal much faster so it definitely makes a difference yeah there you go that's that would

1:17:33Sal Di Stefano:be a great strategy right there if you're somebody who's kind of worried about how much calories about that like just add in that essential amino acids great idea next question is from wilkinson

1:17:43Justin Andrews:jared i'm having a hard time activating my rear delts no matter how low i go on weight or how slow i do the reps i feel it in my traps any idea what's happening okay so a couple things i mean

1:17:55Adam Schafer:obviously i'd have to watch your form but i'm going to guess i've done videos on this i'm going to guess what's happening so keep your elbows high keep your shoulders depressed and separate the the dumbbells or pull things apart don't row the cue for me has always been fly out don't fly

1:18:12Sal Di Stefano:back the natural thing that someone does on a rear delt whether they're on a rear delt machine whether they're doing uh cable real down flies or they're doing bent over dumbbell rear delt flies is to squeeze the shoulder blades together and fly back. The cue is to fly out. And the flying, and I have a whole, on Mind Pump TV, I did, I've done several YouTube videos on rear delts. And I talk about this cue. And I definitely think most people don't do rear delts properly. And the reason why, it is difficult because it's a small muscle. Small range of motion. And you're moving in a way that is similar to what a bunch of big muscles can activate.

1:18:55Adam Schafer:It can really easy turn into a row.

1:18:56Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, and so the natural thing is for the bigger muscles to take over the movement. So it does take a really good mind-muscle connection to do that.

1:19:06Adam Schafer:So in this case, because there's a few common issues that happen. One is what Adam's talking about, what kind of turns into a row. The other one is you get this external rotation. So my elbows aren't high, so I'm pulling back like this. And the other one is this, this shrug. Which is probably what's going on here. That's right. So elbows high, shoulders down. See what I did there? So my elbows are high, shoulders down, and I'm separating. Now I'm hitting the rear delts. Yeah, your shoulders down. These were very common cues with my clients when we were trained. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram.

1:19:36Adam Schafer:It's Mind Pump Media. We'll see you then.

1:19:37Justin Andrews:Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

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