2949: Why Eating Less and Training More Is the Reason You Are Not Losing Fat

20:55Adam Schafer:It makes a difference. The only time it doesn't really make that big a difference is when people are like doing super long, low intensity type endurance, in which case even the top athletes in those categories will have carbohydrates at least during those events. So they definitely make a difference. Then comes fats. Okay. Fats are not bad. You need them. They're essential. If they get too low, good luck trying to make anything happen. It's just bottom line. You want to mess up your hormones. A great way to do that is to have your fat be too low. So, because here's what's starting to happen now.

21:24Adam Schafer:The protein conversation has become more mainstream, at least in the fitness space, that now you're getting a lot of people saying, okay, cool, I'll eat the protein, but I'm going to do it with whey protein shakes, chicken breast, and tilapia. Yeah, egg whites. And egg whites. Minimize the fat. And the fat is too low. And so you've got women eating like 30, 40 grams of fat, dudes eating like 80, 60, 70 grams of fat. Way too low, guys. Your fats are a part of this. You need the fats they're essential so don't be afraid of the fats now you don't necessarily go chase fat uh like you will with protein but don't avoid fat this is where the problem happens is when when you're eating the protein and you're consciously avoiding the fat from your whole foods if you don't try to avoid fat from your foods then you'll get it's easy don't don't eat

22:11Sal Di Stefano:chicken breast have chicken thighs don't always eat the leanest cut of meat have a ribeye occasionally don't eat tilapia have salmon it's like it's don't get the extra extra lean ground turkey have regular ground turkey have ground beef it's all there olive oil it's it's like it's so yeah when you cook feel free to cook with olive oil use butter things like that if you just do that but then eat all whole foods and good foods you're fine it just it you don't need to chase it yeah i don't even need i don't need a client to count it i don't even it's just like that's the way to eat

22:41Adam Schafer:the only time i've had clients who ate a whole food diet hit their protein intake uh and ate adequate carbohydrates like we're talking about and their fat was too low was because they were actively avoiding fat.

22:52Sal Di Stefano:They were eating chicken breast. They were eating white fishes. They were not using oils at all. They were not using butter at all.

22:58Adam Schafer:Or two out of their three or four meals was a shake. Yeah. Or something like that. Yes. Here's the other thing. During this process, the scale and the mirror don't count anymore. So just stop. While you're trying to eat more to lose fat, or should I say eat more to build, to set yourself up metabolically for fat loss, stop studying yourself in the mirror okay first of all that's subjective number two when you eat a little more you're going to have more water in your muscles you're going to have better pumps you're going to be a little bit more hydrated you might feel a little bigger if you sit and study yourself in the mirror and you're like wait a minute yeah I look like I'm getting deter you from progress you're going to you're going to reverse course way too fast you're going to over correct it's like when you're driving a car and it starts to hydroplane it turns a little bit so you whip the steering wheel and now you crash.

23:44Adam Schafer:Like everybody knows when you hide your plane, don't whip the steering wheel. It's the worst thing you can do, kind of slowly allow your car. So studying the mirror, get out of that, stop doing that. And then the scale at this point, stop watching the scale. Now that's one thing to gain a sudden 10, 15 pounds, but when people try to eat more to set themselves up for fat loss and they see the scale goes up three, four pounds, oh no. And they go in the opposite direction, never really giving it a chance to work. And if you've done this right and you've set yourself upright, and this should take a few months at least, you're in a place where your calories are high, you're strong as hell, you feel good, now you can cut.

24:22Adam Schafer:And then watch the fat come off your body, and it's going to feel so much easier than what you've experienced in the past. It's just patience.

24:30Sal Di Stefano:That's right. It's being patient and waiting for that. We want everything to happen so fast. And that we're using those two things that I think are just really bad indicators. The mirror and the scale are just so deceiving. I can't tell you how many clients were doing so perfect. And because the scale stayed the same or even went up one pound, they assumed it was bad and it wasn't the right direction. Or because they had a little more carbs that day or water, or it was that time of the month or whatever. And there were more sodium in the diet the day before and they're holding some water. And so they think, they look at it and they look puffy and they think that's fat.

25:07Sal Di Stefano:Like I can't tell you how many people misinterpret what they're seeing in the mirror and what they see on the scale and that lack of patience and belief in the process results in overcorrecting. Let me ask you a question, Adam.

25:21Adam Schafer:I already know the answer, but just for people listening, have you ever gained weight and gotten leaner? And have you ever lost weight and gained body fat percentage? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Someone's like, how is that possible? Yeah. If you're current, let me just paint a picture. You're a woman, you're 25 % body fat, you're 150 pounds. And you gain 10 pounds of pure muscle, okay? You're now 160 pounds. You've gained 10 pounds on the scale of pure muscle. Your body fat percentage went down. Because your total body fat is now a smaller percentage of your total body weight. By the way, you look leaner also.

25:59Adam Schafer:So it's not just a number. We're not just playing with the math here. If you look in the mirror, you're like, whoa, I look leaner. now I'm going to paint a different scenario. You're 150 pound female, 25 % body fat. You lose 10 pounds of muscle, pure muscle. You're 140 pounds. Now you're lighter on the scale. Your body fat percentage went up and you look softer. And this is, that's how that happened.

26:19Sal Di Stefano:Well, I'll say something. I think that it'll come off a bit controversial, but it's the truth. And I'm sure you guys would agree with me. I get a client. She hires me. She hasn't worked out in a while or ever, uh, needs to lose 30 or more pounds. And, uh, I get a hold of first thing I always do let me see what you eat eat the way you do i get a hold of the diet i make some adjustments normally what the adjustments are is like one thing i add protein to the diet or whatever with that and uh two weeks goes by and we hop in the scale and she's down five pounds i'm disappointed and i'm actually pushing her to eat more calories yet her goal was she hired me i want to lose 30 pounds i what that tells me is that we're in too much of a deficit we've just introduced strength training for the first time, right?

27:03Sal Di Stefano:So I know that we're lifting weights now. And if she's going down on the scale, that means we're not feeding enough calories for that body for what we're doing right now. And I want to take mass advantage of the fact that we're lifting weights and that is a novel signal and that she's going to build a lot of muscle right now. And so I want the scale to hover around the same. Maybe I see a couple pounds at the beginning because there's this exchange of inflammation and water weight coming down, but I do not want to see this rapid drop upright of weights, too low of calories. And I'm not reaping the max benefits.

27:35Sal Di Stefano:You're not setting her up metabolically. No, I'm not reaping the max benefits of lifting weights. If she hadn't been lifting weights before I got a hold of her or hadn't in a long time, and we start lifting weights, even though the goal is to lose 30 pounds on the scale, I don't want to lose right out the gates. I want to build muscle right now. And I want to eat adequate calories. And that is really difficult to explain to somebody who hires you or decides, I'm going to make a lifestyle change. I need to lose 30 or 40 pounds. And they see the scales start to go down and think that's a good thing.

28:05Sal Di Stefano:It's like, no, it's not. We just started lifting weights. We should be building muscle right now. That doesn't mean we can't lose some body fat while also building muscle because then what that more looks like is a beautiful exchange where the scale stays the same. That's right.

28:15Adam Schafer:That's right. 100%. Speaking of controversial, I'm going to say something that sounds controversial, but I'll back it up. uh there isn't a thing that red light therapy doesn't improve on the body there isn't a thing

28:32Sal Di Stefano:that it doesn't improve i mean it's it's it's improving the cells that's it so for someone listening we're made up of a bajillion of these things yeah and if they make them better

28:42Adam Schafer:should make everything better so here's the thing so years ago so years ago we were probably it does sight it's adhering yeah if you could shine the red light on the structures inside the ear yes the problem is it can't get to the ear right but if you could shine it in the ear yes okay so years ago we had a company juve we work with them now who approached us and told us about red light therapy i was completely i had no idea what photo biomodulation was i did not know about red light therapy i didn't know anything about it and i remember they told us it does this that and the other. And I looked at them and I looked at, I said, I'm like, this, this, this is crap.

29:19Adam Schafer:It doesn't work. And they said, Hey, look at the studies. Like, fine. I'm always open to look at studies and the studies. There's tons of studies, hundreds of studies, some of them going back to the sixties and seventies. Okay. Cause we've been studying this wavelength of light for a long time. And so then I was like, what is this? How does this work? So red light is on the light spectrum. And it literally feeds the mitochondria of your cells. So when it shines on your body and it does penetrate through the tissue, so it doesn't just go on the skin, but it does go below the skin into muscle as well.

29:59Adam Schafer:All the cells that it touches do better at what they're supposed to do. So here's what you see in the red light therapy studies. It improves eyesight. It improves skin health. It builds muscle. They've actually done studies where they shined it on one leg and not on the other leg, and they strength train. And the one with the red light built a little muscle. It enhances fat oxidation. If you shine red light, this is 100%. Look it up. This is going to sound crazy, but it's true. If you shine it on your testicles, you make more testosterone. So red light therapy is wild. It's wild. We've known about it for a long time.

30:35Adam Schafer:But in the past, in order to use a red light panel that produced enough of this wavelength to really make a difference, you had to go to a super expensive spa because these panels were tens of thousands of dollars. Now you can go to Juve and for hundreds of dollars, you have a panel at home and you basically put it wherever you want. Better skin. You want less stretch marks, whatever. And it works.

30:58Sal Di Stefano:We can't be far off from builders building it into houses and stuff. Like have a red light room? yes we can't be far off from that that would be sick for the knowing knowing what we know about it i and i think the bathroom is the best place for it makes the most you're already in there showering you're naked yes i feel like that's i think the future is some of these homes will start to build it internally into the home and it'll be you flip the switch and your your bathroom red light uh mobility yeah i've seen gyms already do it where they have like red rooms like that I have seen that. Yeah, yeah.

31:34Sal Di Stefano:So they've already, gyms have already started to do something like that. But it just makes more sense to me because the benefits of getting it on a regular basis, that you would want to do it somewhere where it's already, because the one thing for me, it's something that I have to do, like go do. Like we have ours in our bedroom and even then it's so close and easy, but I still, You still have to stand in front for 20 minutes. Exactly. I get out of the shower, which I just spent 10, 15 minutes in the bathroom and shower to now stand in front of it in the next, you know, another 15. You want to multitask.

32:07Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I mean, just being honest. It's not like, oh, being lazy or something like that. It's just like, I got to, I have to.

32:13Adam Schafer:What if there was a, God, I'm just going to give someone an idea. Because, you know, these like group class type, you know, fitness studios tend to pop up. They're always different themed and they're typically trendy and then they kind of go away. What if somebody did a workout class and it was like red light? That exists already.

32:30Sal Di Stefano:Really?

32:31Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah, yeah. Where they have red light therapy? Yeah, yeah. You could probably Google and find one. It's not just red light bulbs. It's actual red light therapy.

32:36Sal Di Stefano:Well, I mean, I don't know if they're using Juve or what brand they're using that's like -

32:41Adam Schafer:But they're using the red light that does -

32:43Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah. No way. You remember, what's his face? Santa Cruz had a red room. Yeah, they had one. It was called the red room. But yeah, I think it's just the red lights, but -

32:53Adam Schafer:Like, imagine a workout class, and then the last 10 minutes is stretching. Yeah, I guarantee you. Look, look, look, there's there right there.

32:58Sal Di Stefano:Look at Pilates. They have some combining low impact workers with Pilates, yoga, bar, red light therapy.

33:03Adam Schafer:Biological benefits of photobiomodulation. Yep. Wow.

33:05Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. No, it definitely exists. It works in the, it definitely exists in the gym world, which I think is cool, but I think way cooler to have in a home. Wow. Yeah. Because again, that's still, of course, because that still requires you go to the yoga class. And you'd have to take it at least a few days a week. Yeah. So. So it's just like hammocks, you know,

33:25Adam Schafer:naked and it's just, just lay there. It'd be like perfect. I love it. All right. I got a conspiracy theory for you guys. Let's hear this. Justin's going to love this one. Finally getting spicy. So there's a couple things. If you're trying to, this is for all the conspiracy theory people out there, right? And there's a lot of us out there. Can we drop the theory part soon? So far, I think we're like 10 and 0. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, drop the conspiracy part.

33:53Sal Di Stefano:It's just a theory now. Yeah, it's a legitimate theory. We'll just call it a prediction.

33:59Adam Schafer:But so what I've been seeing in, because if conspiracy theorists like to look at trends and one of the things that they'll say is that when something big, when a big psyop, let's say, is about to happen, they prep us ahead of time. And they'll prep like news articles. They'll start getting people's awareness up a little bit. They'll start kind of testing the water, setting people up before they drop the hammer type of deal. Okay, so I've been seeing articles about how, two things. One, I think President Trump put out a big warning and said, hey, our energy systems are super vulnerable for attack.

34:39Adam Schafer:We need to do something about this. And then I saw several news articles of them saying an 18-month blackout could possibly happen with a big cyber attack. So there's that. So everybody's like, uh-oh, what if our infrastructure is easy to be, could be under attack? Okay, we got that. Then we got what's happening with AI. And Anthropic is coming out. And there's people who just right now quit. Anthropic, who are doing posts on X. Who are like, I quit because this is dangerous. And because nobody is trying to slow this down. Everybody knows it's dangerous, but everybody's moving forward because the idea is, well, at least we'll get there first.

35:22Adam Schafer:But this stuff is getting kind of wild. To like Skynet level. Yeah, like this is like, we got to be careful. So meanwhile, too, you see there's people kind of showing a lot of Costco's like selling flashlights everywhere and selling gas cans and selling, you know, a lot of like, you know, stuff for like a power outage, basically, which was interesting. I did see that. Like, you know, and so that was like, hmm. What if, what if there's a. Generators. Because now we're prepped. Everybody's prepped. The power system is vulnerable and AI could be something dangerous. What if rogue AI, a rogue AI agent comes out, cyber attacks the hell out of everything.

36:05Adam Schafer:It shuts everything down. Now we're screwed for a while until the government comes out, defeats rogue AI and says, hey, guys. A savior. Everybody's money was wiped out. Here's what we're going to do. we're going to start over with a digital currency because your money was wiped out but it's okay we're going to put everybody at zero no more debt right but we're just going to give everybody

36:28Sal Di Stefano:digital currency i mean you've layered a couple conspiracies there yeah yeah yeah that's not a conspiracy that's like four or five different this is deep bro plans because i and i feel like this is a movie i don't i don't feel like it's fair for you to do that because all it takes is like one of those things to come true and you're like see i told you it's like there's like five conspiracies you just labeled right there because i because i don't crystal ball i definitely don't disagree that you know uh because i'm not a big believer in this this bitcoin push that we've had forever and other than the fact that it's going to be a way for the government to control money even more so and it's been sold to us as it's a way to decentralize and not have control which is bullshit do you think the alien thing they just dropped it because it's just like everybody's like nah wait a minute the aliens dropped bitcoin is that what you're saying what i mean is there's so much hype about aliens and then it's like you know now everybody's kind of moving more to ai because it's like they're like maybe not everybody when you guys were talking don't you remember i when we were all talking about this is all bs it's something else is happening so something already happened while that would the guy well let's let's do this the way we were all looking at the alien thing was, let's go back in time.

37:39I think the aliens lost some momentum.

37:41Adam Schafer:Yeah, let's go back in time before Doug, quickly before Doug, because I know he's giving me the look, like stop going so hard here. But let's just go back in time during what some people would say was a psyop that happened recently. We all remember the policies around COVID. And I think a lot of people now look at them and go, we went way too far with some of the things we did and we caused more damage. Do you guys remember the fear stuff that was happening that had nothing to do with COVID. You had the race stuff going on. You had politics stuff. You had Antifa going on. It was like fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

38:17Adam Schafer:Now you're primed, COVID. Now everybody's like, yes, please lock us down and please throw people in jail who don't get vaccinated or whatever. So maybe it's just more fear stuff. More the fear to drum it back up. To scare us. Yeah. So the rogue AI can come in. Because then aliens have the right AI to control us. I don't know, dude. I don't, I don't try to follow this.

38:39Sal Di Stefano:I don't think, I don't think the AI and the robots things are going to do anything near what everybody thinks it is. I think it's going to be, to me, it's like the, the dot com push. I've made the case on why there's so much news and conversation about it is to keep money flowing in that direction. Yeah. You know, it's a first, we got to build all the AI and it's going to be the most amazing thing for us. Oh no, it's going to kill us. So we got to build other AI is to protect us from those AI. It's like anything to keep billions and trillions of dollars flowing that direction. is totally.

39:07Adam Schafer:So you'll like option B then, Adam, because I have two conspiracies. I have one.

39:11Sal Di Stefano:You're going to cover all your bases, so you're going to definitely be right. Let me throw out all the conspiracy theories. No, no. Space stations, those cost a lot of money.

39:19Adam Schafer:I purposely created one for Justin, and then I have one for you. Okay, I'm going to hear you. So Anthropik's about to go public. Okay. Okay. So what's in the news right now? People coming out saying, we quit because this is way too powerful. And there's also rumors that they believe that they have a 100 % cure for cancer. this is all leading up to their IPO so maybe it's to pump up I believe that one I knew you

39:42Sal Di Stefano:Doug and I are on the same boat with this this is most everything's money money money motivated power control stuff all the fear stuff is a bunch of I mean I think what's more interesting since you went this way because it's been did you see the recent uh you know AI robot thing that goes in your house that's supposed to fold laundry and compete with the what's the other one neo or whatever you could just see it it's another oh yeah it's like it's instead of like having it instead of looking as human like it's on this like uh it has like more like um like on a track the bottom of it but it's more like wally yeah yeah it looks exactly it's more like wally and then has arms was a folder laundry it's supposed to be like half the price of what the neo thing is where i can't help it's because it's so by the way because everybody knows you and i have been debating about this for so long that everybody sends me every one oh yeah oh i get an update every single week.

40:32Sal Di Stefano:You know, just by, yes, you are based off of the amount of people that flood my DMs. If I would have known that that was the winner or loser who would get bombarded by their audience, it's me who lost that for sure. The funny part that just cracks me up that nobody talks about, because it's just like, it's going to do this, it's going to do that. It's like, you see how painfully slow and retarded this thing looks? It's ridiculous, dude. Like, I could just imagine sitting on my counter watching this thing do dish. Like, let's pretend it actually figures the dish thing out. But you watch it move.

41:11Sal Di Stefano:Like, it's like nails on the chalkboard type stuff. Like, I would just get up and be like, give me the plate so I could do it. Because it looks so awful and so slow.

41:21Adam Schafer:Yeah, but it doesn't sleep. It doesn't have to. So it can be slow. It'll keep working. So it'll just fold and clean.

41:27Sal Di Stefano:So I'm laying in bed at 1 o 'clock in the morning. I clean, clean. and my dishwasher opening and closing and the laundry buzzer going off. Yeah, awesome, bro. That sounds like a great idea. And then he falls down my stairs because he's freaking retarded. Please help. Help. Help me over. That sounds awesome, right? Did you see that guy? Or freaks my seven-year-old out because he's walking through the -

41:51Adam Schafer:It's taking the clothes off. Yeah, the whole - He's trying to fold your kid. Yeah, hallway at two o 'clock in the morning. Terrible. Dude, what was it? the Olympics they had for him. Yes, the competition. Yeah, the one that beat the record for Usain Bolt. So somebody actually recreated the same mechanics to try and beat Usain Bolt running like the robot. Hilarious, dude. You guys checked. I saw those, and a couple of them exploded. They fell, and sparks were coming out. Yeah, I didn't know if that was real or not. I'm like, is that real? Is that like, it's not. It was silly.

42:23Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I don't know. I just, I, I have a hard time, uh, imagining like, let's pretend it does all the things that we say it's going to do, which I also think if it does, it's going to take a very long time before it does it pretty efficiently. It's like, is it really, uh, they say, they say 10 years, 10 years.

42:43Adam Schafer:Yeah. So, uh, Kurzweil, right. That's his name. Kurzweil. Is that what's his name? Kurzweil. He predicted the singularity happened 2029. and they're saying that he's kind of on point, that it seems like that's the direction. Now, Anthropic, it's speculated right now that their AI is already able to improve itself. So that's the beginning of the singularity, right? Where it starts to make itself better. And then once they make themselves better, then the acceleration amplifies just very quickly. There's the running robot. You know what's crazy about that? I don't care about a running robot because you could just get an RC car that goes fast.

43:23Adam Schafer:We already have robots that are way faster.

43:25Sal Di Stefano:That's why the stuff that we use to show - Like they have a boxing. The stuff that we're showing to show the complexity of what it's doing and so with that, it doesn't impress me. And then the ones that actually where I could see a use case for it is folding laundry, doing dishes, is painful. It's like, oh, cool, we can make this thing go really fast in a straight line. It's like, oh, neat, you know what I'm saying? Or we can program it to dance and do this weird stuff.

43:48Adam Schafer:What robot would you buy? Would you get a robot? And if so, what would it have to do? What would sell you?

43:57Sal Di Stefano:It's a really good question. Because I don't think I would like it in my house, in my way, doing chores. I just don't think so. Not to mention, it's kind of too late for me because I've connected the value of that. like uh so it's like okay uh i don't know if i would want this thing walking through my house uh and doing that stuff so you really wouldn't buy a robot for anything yeah i don't i don't know not to mention that that you could uh you know right now they're all attached to somebody in the philippines that can that looks in your room at any time it wants that's funny which by the way i think it's so good over there they're like don't worry if it gets stuck in the corner somebody will jump on and back it out for you.

44:39Sal Di Stefano:It's like, oh, that's exactly what I want. I got you. I'll help. If you're already the person who's paranoid that our TVs listen to us and our iPads have cameras that can already do it, let's put a robot in there that's got eyeballs that could definitely pivot around your house.

45:00Adam Schafer:I've been seeing posts of people who've been using agents to make clips off of content create new channels, gain subscribers, and make money. And it's all because they told the agent... Who's watching these channels? I think that's a short window. I think it's all bots that are watching it. It's like... I don't know. I think a lot of it is hacked for views. You'll get bots farms to come over and watch these things and make some money. But I don't know. I don't believe it. I don't believe people are sitting there watching these. You know what?

45:33Sal Di Stefano:Maybe I finally thought of something i was like god there's got to be something yeah all right what are you landscaping outside okay yeah you could landscape for me but you know my landscaper's so damn cheap like it's he'd have to be super inexpensive yeah i mean these things caught what do they cost per month i forget what they cost my landscaper costs i think less than that so i'd have to have it have to be cheaper cheaper and better than yeah because then you're not employing a dude

45:57Adam Schafer:like port you know what i mean right right at least you're giving you know yeah yeah so it would

46:00Sal Di Stefano:have to be it would have to be cheaper and better to do that and so let's pretend that can be in 10 years it could get to that point uh that wouldn't bother me he's outside where i can't i don't have to see him and he's like and you know and i and then he parks himself away when i wake up in the morning in my yard looks beautiful every single day i can see that it's kind of cool well so along those lines clean the outside of my house all day like so so along those

46:21Adam Schafer:lines did you guys see the study the data that just came out on iqs uh and for the first time ever i'm gonna pull it up we're seeing them go down have you guys seen this oh yeah i've seen

46:32Sal Di Stefano:this i mean that's of course obvious we're outsourcing all this basic critical thinking

46:37Adam Schafer:stuff uh so so check this out school test scores continue to collapse internationally okay so they're actually going down very quickly and what the speculation is that the social networking made us less social unlimited information made people dumber and technology used during childhood has made children less. Distracting them from actually learning. Yes. So because our brains are being trained with this like quick dopamine, like kids don't read. They're not paying attention. They're not focusing. And they can just - They're a little genie to think for them. That's right. Because scores are going down.

47:14Sal Di Stefano:Can I tell you a cool story that I thought was super, super cute? And I love, it just shows you too how much our kids are listening. So I'm in my son's room laying on his bed. My aunt and cousin are visiting. they share a lot of values that we do and we're talking about we talked about Toy Story 5 I finally got to see it loved that so good and I was kind of sharing the story of like how surprised I was that it didn't impact my fellow peers because they literally threw their kids on the iPad as soon as they got back home from it they're watching it on the iPad I just thought that was so crazy but I'm talking to my aunt and my cousin and we're kind of sitting there and Max is like in his room playing with his Legos and his toys and stuff.

47:56Sal Di Stefano:He's not involved in the question, but he's obviously ear hustling and I don't realize it. And just, we're talking, I was talking about just the, you know, the dangers of the iPad and being addicted to it and the YouTube, how bad YouTube is with the algorithm with kids. And it's just like, absolutely not like, so he, I can hear him and he, I guess he goes in the room and tell Katrina, tell Katrina, this is right before bath time, you know, daddy's talking about really bad stuff. I don't like it. And Katrina's like, hey what are you talking about in front of him like what do you mean what am i talking about talking about nothing she's just like he says you're saying things that is bad and this and that and i'm like oh he's he overheard me talking about youtube and how it's bad and all these things like that and for all the reasons and uh says i daddy won't talk about it anymore max don't worry i was just like i'm looking at katrina just kind of like eye roll you know so he can't see it as like he's like being overly sensitive about this conversation so that was just this weekend right so yesterday he goes to uh to vicky's barbershop to get his go get his haircut and one of the things that he gets to do when he goes to vicky's and she does it to keep him still so that on the tv she puts up boss battles which is a a youtube video and they're youtube videos of just the game mario game of all the villains that the guys oh yeah yeah and so it's one of the things that we've allowed

49:15Adam Schafer:him to continue it's like street fighter but with the the the characters yeah yeah yeah and and you

49:20Sal Di Stefano:You can look on YouTube, and there's just hours and hours of just people, you know, Mario fighting every major boss and thing, and he loves it. So it's been a thing that we've allowed him to do forever when he gets his haircut and stuff, keeps him still. And it was so cute because Katrina tells me, you know, it's so funny, you get his haircut, and she goes to put it up on the TV. Oh, you want to watch your boss pals? He goes, no, no, no, I'm getting too old for that. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's so hilarious. It has to be because of what? Because you heard that conversation. Yeah. And then I tell you guys the other thing that was just hilarious too about him.

49:54Sal Di Stefano:Again, more of him listening and just picking up his stuff. The red dye in the candy. Yeah. So the new school teacher this year, so interesting. She tells the parents on the first day, which Katrina is just like, oh, my husband's going to look into that. I doubt that's true. And she says like, hey, just so you guys know, on test days, we give the kids a small half of a gummy one single like red dog well i've got a gummy bear or something like i don't know what what the gummy is or whatever but it's sugar basically and there well you can google this because i did and looked up the studies uh it's not true even though there's a prevailing theory and idea that's a myth that giving kids sugar right before a test makes them like hyper like get cognitively more focused and so of course i went down the rabbit hole looking up the studies that tried to prove this and this and that they've been it's been long disproven obviously this teacher has not been updated on her science and stuff like that and so i i tell katrina like yeah no we'll we'll be telling them to skip our son on on something you know what it could do what it

51:03Adam Schafer:could just create a good association like oh test time sure i mean i'm sure that's okay because some

51:09Sal Di Stefano:kids hate tests yeah yeah i'm sure you can make an argument um for it i didn't even know it was a thing or whatever but i thought what was hilarious so this is the first week week of school right so then they had their first test this this last week and she goes to hand it by side of my son's like does this have red dye she's like no it doesn't have red dye so he and and he i he told me the story like she he didn't tell me about the red dye thing uh until i asked like hey i heard you took a test today did they give you a gummy and he goes yeah she gave it she gave me a gummy like that but daddy didn't have red dye and i was like okay so you're fine it's like dude this kid this kid listens and hears everything dude it's so so hilarious did you look it up doug that uh it doesn't do anything no i know it doesn't but there's actually there there they thought it did there was like a movement there for a while there i think what they probably noticed if they noticed

51:59Adam Schafer:anything uh anecdotally was a positive association so kids are like yeah i get to have my candy and and it's test time, you know, which, okay. I guess you can make that argument. You know what type of deal? Sure. My, I got to tell you guys, my sister. So I gave my parents the freedom super patch, the pain patch. I love that.

52:19Sal Di Stefano:I don't know if our team did this intentionally. These are the two brands that we were most skeptical of working with. And they're on. Yeah, together. I know. I don't think they've ever had, we've ever had both of them on at the same time.

52:32Adam Schafer:No, so I'll get into that, right? But I gave some to my dad because my dad has got some arthritis stuff. And so I gave him a packet of the Freedom Patch, the super patch that's for pain. And when they came over, he tried it. And he's like, whoa, I think this works. I'm like, yeah, the studies show it's as good as like an NSAID. So he's like, I like this. So he took it home. My sister had hurt her knee working out. She tried it and she took the whole bag. My parents are always so generous. She took the whole bag and she's like, I want more of them. So now I have two family members that have used it that are just like, this thing's amazing.

53:07Sal Di Stefano:I think it's so crazy that when we first started testing them, I think I was one of the first people to test it. And I, at that time, I had like some forearm pain that I've been dealing with. And you asked me, I was not the one to look at the studies. It's always you who looks at the studies. And you're like, well, do you notice anything? And I'm like, yeah, I notice. And then when I describe the, I give you a number.

53:26Adam Schafer:It goes from an eight to a six.

53:28Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. I gave you like a number of what, you know, if I had to rate my pain, I think it's at this number and taking it is brought. So it's not like it got rid of it, but it brought it down to this is about what I, and you were like, and I remember you reading the studies. You're like, it's like exactly what the study said. I didn't know that. So that was fascinating because it wasn't like I knew of the study and then I was just.

53:49Adam Schafer:For people listening, there's no medicine in it. There's no supplement in it. It's not a transdermal patch. It's a patch with ridges on it. It uses signals. It uses something called haptic technology, which is kind of this new field of research that essentially when you place certain patterns on your skin and you move, it communicates to the brain and it can change how the brain perceives things. This is a real science. There's real studies behind it. There's over a dozen studies that support specifically super patches. The two with the best studies are sleep and pain. Those are the two I use the most.

54:23Adam Schafer:The sleep one is phenomenal. It will definitely improve your REM sleep when you use it.

54:27Sal Di Stefano:I mean, is it the same like neuropathway or similar science as how Braille works?

54:36Adam Schafer:Well, yeah, in a sense that you could perceive through touch, you could read using those same. That's kind of what sparked the study. For people, they can go back and listen to the episode, but the gentleman who spent, I don't remember how,$40 million on the research? his mom she was suffering from a neurodegenerative disorder and he's an engineer, a brilliant engineer and so he kind of deduced and got all this spent lots and lots of money and through trial and error essentially and through looking at brain wave readings EEG tech there's thousands of these recordings maps the patterns and it actually works which is really weird

55:19Sal Di Stefano:speaking to that, I should have sent it to you I sent it to Justin, super fascinated in this. It was actually one of these trainer guys that I follow. Talks a lot about fascia training and things like that. He's a sports performance guy. Really interested in a lot of the stuff. And I think I've sent Justin multiple stuff that he's put out because I find it really interesting. And he recently posted about this. I brought it up to Tina. You weren't in the room, but I brought it to her. And she's like, oh, yeah, no, that's a real, that's what I used to quit smoking back in the days. and so it is um like little very similar like yeah whatever technology you call that where it's you put these stickers yeah and they have little acupuncture points in your ears yeah

56:02Adam Schafer:in your ears look that up doug because um i'm familiar so you can go to acupuncturist they'll take these little it looks like beads almost and they'll tape them yes yeah okay yeah so look up the data on that because i've had clients who also swore by it i've never looked so they're

56:16Sal Di Stefano:using it for like uh high performing athletes are using it to increase performance and the

56:21Adam Schafer:studies that he was talking about on it are super fascinating do uh do they work so uh doug you can go ahead and ask uh does acupressure work for smoke cessation well don't go smoke i don't care

56:35Sal Di Stefano:about that i was more interested in the fitness one she just well i want to see for smoking

56:39Adam Schafer:I want to see what the data shows on smoking specifically. Or let's see. Can be helpful supplemental tool to reduce nicotine cravings and withdrawal symptoms, but there is limited clinical evidence that they work effectively on their own. Most medical studies indicate that while acupressure can successfully lower the psychological and physical intensity of immediate cravings, it is most reliable when combined. Oh, so it does something.

57:04Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I mean, that's what she claimed. I care more about what he was claiming related to sports performance.

57:09Adam Schafer:Have you guys ever had legit acupuncture?

57:11Sal Di Stefano:I have. I have. Katrina has acupunctures. Her and her mom, they see. Have you noticed anything for her?

57:19Adam Schafer:I told you guys my experience years ago. I had somebody that worked in my studio.

57:24Sal Di Stefano:I haven't done it enough.

57:26Adam Schafer:I had a weird experience. So this was back when I was. You guys think I'm skeptical now. And I'm still skeptical. I'm a skeptic by nature. but back in the day I was like if it is not science then it is no you know if I don't see the data then forget it right yeah and I had this woman that worked for me that I respected who swore by this acupuncturist um you might have even gone seen her dog did you ever go see Nora no okay so anyway she kept talking about her and she kept sending her clients to her and the clients kept coming back talking about how great it was and I was like placebo placebo placebo anyway long story short she challenged me and she said go see her because I got in this like debate with her.

58:05Adam Schafer:She's like, go see her. Why don't you try it and see first? I'm like, fine, I'll go. So I went to go see her. She did her thing on me where she tested me. She's like, you have too much yang energy, which I guess is that, you know, gives you too much heat or whatever they say in Chinese medicine. And she said, I can do a treatment on you to bring that down. And she said, do you want a mild or an aggressive treatment? And I said, give me the most aggressive you can give me. And she said, are you going back to work? Because if you're going to go back to work and you're, or you're going to drive. I don't want to give you the most aggressive treatment because you're going to get really drowsy.

58:41Adam Schafer:It's going to really, and I'm like, I'll go home. I lied to her. I'm like, I'm going back to train my clients. This is going to do nothing. So she did it to me. She did the acupuncture. I laid there, did the whole thing. She moved the needles. I'm like, whatever. I don't notice anything. I pay her and I leave and I come to work. I swear you guys, I'm sitting there waiting for my client. And it felt like I drank two servings of NyQuil. I'm sitting there and suddenly I'm like, oh, bro. I could not keep my eyes open. I was like, this is, oh, I felt so, oh, I had to cancel my appointment, had to take a nap in the back.

59:16Adam Schafer:And I was like, I don't know if that was a powerful placebo, but dude, I felt it.

59:22Sal Di Stefano:I just sent to the group thread, Doug, the video, because I wanted Sal to watch the video. Of what? Of what I sent Justin. Of the athletes? Yeah, yeah. And so maybe Doug can pull it up and give a sound so you can actually hear him talk about it. You know what's tough about athletes? The way he communicates it is like the inner ear is like this connected to the entire body. It's like a map of the body. That's Chinese.

59:45Adam Schafer:That's Chinese. Yeah, yeah, no. He's talking about it through fascia. Yeah, ear seating. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is classic Chinese medicine. Speaking of meridians and energy, very classic. The way I would explain it in Western medicine really has to do with referred pain. That's a real thing. How you can push one area and feel it somewhere else, or you have a heart attack, you feel it in another place. So maybe something there? Yeah, I can see pain relief, especially if that's a constant signaling that you could sort of reroute or place it. Confuse the system. Yeah, confuse it. Yeah. There should be value there.

1:00:23Awesome. For sure.

1:00:23Adam Schafer:You know what I want to ask you, Justin, is you brought up Mr. T. Yeah. And I haven't heard his name in a long time. I know. You guys remember, like, you know, your childhood was, like, a lot of Mr. T. Yeah. I honestly didn't. I thought he was in more things. Like, he was really, like, Rocky III, and they went into all that of, like, how he ended up. In the A-Team. Getting that role. Yeah, in the A-Team. And then all the cartoons and commercials and all that. but that's it that was like his legacy um and anyway this doc they go into like how you know he he really like started off in rough like in the projects in chicago and uh like his mom i guess one time he was trying to make make it out of there and was like working in the city and his mom was like held up uh and and robbed and by by like uh these guys were holding her up and like with with knives and he found out about it and like um anyways went back and took handled you know handled these guys yeah and like totally beat them you know within within an inch of their life uh and then he just had this like drive to to to be a protector and like you know i gotta be around for my mom and i want to be a protector so he ended up getting into like uh being a bodyguard and he was the first like celebrity he had was like uh michael jackson he was like a bodyguard for him for a while.

1:01:46Adam Schafer:He was Michael Jackson's bodyguard? Yeah. No way. Yeah, and then he was a bodyguard for, I forget his name, but he fought Muhammad Ali and won. Frazier? No. Oh, oh, oh. Like, I didn't remember. Not the other. Sort of the S, I think. No, it wasn't Sonny List then. No. Who beat Muhammad Ali? It was Joe Frazier, and there was another guy that was a heavy puncher like Frazier. I can't remember his name. Yeah, he was a real heavy puncher. But anyways, he ended up, he ended up.

1:02:13Sal Di Stefano:Wow, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Steve McQueen. Leon Spinks. Leon Spinks, that's who it is. Leon Spinks, Joe Frazier. He must be kind of a badass if you were - If you're Joe Frazier and you need him. So what's cool about it too is he's so - You talk about authenticity. It comes through a lot in this documentary. He's just like - You would not mess with Mr. T, dude. Everybody feared him. you know like he would show up and because he he like protected um uh sphinx too in this one like um fight where basically the whole crowd was like you know going against him because i don't know if that was the ali fight or not but like you know they were like grabbing at him and all this and like mr t's just knocking fools out like left and right on and getting him out of there and he so he hired him on full time uh but he built this reputation of being this like total like tough guy And then he was on some local TV show where it was so funny because it was like a competition of bouncers.

1:03:18And so he's like the quickest to be able to jump over the bar, run over, throw somebody out of the bar. And it's like this. Anyways, it was a pretty funny. Was it a documentary? Yeah. Where? What was it? I watched that. Yeah, it's on Netflix. Yeah. It was really good. What was it called? What was it called? Something Mr. T. Is it new? I haven't seen that. Yeah, brand new. Oh, dude. Oh, wow. Wow. But anyway, like the thing is too, like his whole persona with his like chains and all that. And like the feathered earrings and the mohawk. Oh, it's an untold. I love the untold. Pity the fool. Yeah. It explained like, I mean, he took that from an African tribe.

1:03:57So it wasn't like Mohicans. It's not like. You mean his hair? Oh, his hair? Yeah, his hair. And like they were like. Tons of gold. Tons of chains. Well, well, the whole thing was that was like, you know, he was talking about like slaves that came over and so he was actually wearing he's like they wore the shackles like i'm wearing you know the gold and it was like sort of an honor of that but anyway anyways like he it was a really cool story because it it showed too that like he he had somewhat lost his way because he got rich and famous and all this and then realized you know like he was kind of losing touch with like you know the community and all this he goes back and became real like faith-based and like he's He's still, I don't know if he's alive right now or not.

1:04:39I think he is. I think he still is. But he, I mean, I actually was able to meet him one time when I was in Chicago. And it was so cool, dude. I, like, idolized him as a kid for sure. Did you really? Yeah, dude. I loved him. He's, like, B.A. Baracus and, you know, all those guys. And, like, Hulk Hogan and him connected for wrestling. So I just, I don't know.

1:05:01Adam Schafer:I enjoyed it a lot. I'll totally watch that. He's, like, the definition of a character. Did you ever eat his cereal? Yeah. You do? Did you ever have a cereal? Yeah, I've never had a cereal. Look at Mr. T's cereal, Doug. You had a cereal, bro. There was like Mr. T's and there's E.T. Like cereal. I tell you what, bro. Look at it. See? Oh, my God. Mr. T's cereal. I never had it. Was it good? No. It wasn't good. It is. It was a good. I don't even think there's any marshmallows in it. Yeah. Made her birth. I can't wait to watch that. I'll totally watch that. Dude, I thought he was cool. A-Team was rad, dude.

1:05:36Adam Schafer:Yeah. But they're super bad. No, no. Well, it's funny. I mean, he did a really good interview with, what's his name? What does the T stand for? Or is it just Mr. T? Oh, so the whole thing about Mr. T, he wanted to be addressed as Mr. because his dad was addressed as boy. His brothers was boy. Like, everybody was boy. And he's like, you're going to address me as Mr. And so, like, he put that in there. Oh, his real name is Lawrence Truode. To Road. To Road. Mr. T. Wow. That's awesome. And he legally changed his name. Yeah. When he turned 18. So he did that before he became famous. Yeah.

1:06:11Sal Di Stefano:That's badass. Yep. That's badass.

1:06:13Adam Schafer:Whoa, dude. That's cool. That is really cool. He had a whole vision for those things. Cool story. I can't wait to watch it. I really enjoyed it, yeah. What is ButcherBox? So this is a company that delivers meats to your door and more. So if you want grass-fed meat, you want heritage pork, you want wild-caught fish, and you want it at a good price, you go to ButcherBox. Every month, they deliver a box to your door with the cuts of meat that you selected. Now you've got the cuts of meat. You've got the healthy stuff. You can put it in your freezer, ready to go, ready to eat, and you save a tremendous amount of money.

1:06:48Adam Schafer:My favorite cuts are the tri-tips. They also have gluten-free chicken nuggets that are actually the best chicken nuggets I've ever had. I'm not making that up. Their pork is amazing. Try their ribs. I've never had better ribs. And it's all the best quality stuff. If you're into quality, if you're into protein and you like to save money, go to butcherbox.com slash mindpump. On that link, you'll get free ribeyes, New York strip steaks, or filet mignons in your box for a year for free, plus$20 off. Again, it's butcherbox.com slash mindpump. Here comes the show. This segment of the podcast is brought to you by Mind Pump Fitness Coaching.

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1:08:05Sal Di Stefano:Our first caller is Phillip from Ontario. Hey, Phillip. How you doing, man? Hey, guys. How are you? How are things going, brother? Oh, you know, they're all right. They're all right. How can we help you? Yeah, so thanks for having me back on. for this update. I really appreciate the insights. Just a little recap from before, I guess for the listeners too. I called in with a pinched nerve pathway in my lower spine, a slight bulging disc. You guys suggested systemic inflammation to drastically reduce volume. I took that to heart. The first week, I took a complete deload week and then subsequently after the weeks following that was our game plan of doing Maps 15 symmetry and then I was going to the gym every day maybe six days a week, maybe not seven but I was at the gym still for like an hour and a bit and the remaining time would be used for mobility as well as just walking on the treadmill.

1:09:16as far as the mobility exercises go I didn't know quite was what was good for for my issues so I kind of did what I thought was best but after the initial like month or two I'm sorry to report that there wasn't really much of a change I'd still have some intermittent lingering discomfort here and there. Um, but the one thing that I did find, uh, my wife sent me a video of, uh, the McGill three exercises. Um, and I started incorporating those in the mobility and I noticed there was a bit of a change. My symptoms were seemed to be slightly reduced or at least have less flare ups. But one thing was really clear when I was doing those exercises, I didn't realize how weak my core was.

1:10:01uh so my core is you know i shake when i'm doing any kind of like a plank or anything like that and i just wonder if there's any kind of um crossover there for sure yeah um i figure everything's interconnected um so again i don't really have much of a a background in this stuff so i'm not sure how it's connected but i know what it must be um and then another another symptom that i forgot to mention the last time i was on um if i'm ever in a squatted position and i can i have really good ankle mobility and I can squat very low. Uh, but if I'm working on something, you know, whatever, changing a tire doesn't matter.

1:10:37But if I'm in a low position for a long period of time and I go to stand up, I have like a one in four chance that there's like a nerve that pinches inside my groin area enough to bring me to my knees again. And I have to kind of walk it off for a bit. And it's, it's very odd and it's only been since this incident. So I don't know if that's just a pinched nerve or what's going on there or if there's a tightness but yeah

1:11:01Adam Schafer:so that's that's pretty much where we're at remind me what part of this uh the the back had the bulging disc again uh i think it was the l5 and s1 okay yeah so core your core um is huge strength

1:11:14Sal Di Stefano:and stability supports that yeah one of the one of the best analogies i'd give to clients when explaining how this becomes this is important for everybody but this is exponentially more important to you because if we do have a slight bulge disc it is every once in a while hitting that nerve which is just shooting this pain up and down you so think of it like this if you had a pen like this and then i would tell my clients your core is built up of all these muscles that wrap around the spine and when it's strong it works like a vacuum and it tightens up around the spine and supports it when it's weak there's all kinds of play and movement there and so the fact that you have already noticed that your core is really weak i mean there's all kinds of play going on with your spine and it's not being supported by those muscles you do getting a really strong core right away will probably start to alleviate some of these symptoms and pain that you're having and so that's actually a really good sign that you figured this out because that's going to help uh to address your your point about like you know this i'm guilty of this also so i I can deep squat with great form, totally fine.

1:12:22Sal Di Stefano:But if I'm cleaning my car all day like I was the other day over the weekend and vacuuming, and I go to stand up, oh my God, my back will lock up. And the reason why that is is because I'm not squatting down in perfect form while I'm cleaning my car. I'm bending over and I'm putting that stress in my low back versus properly supported in the muscles. And so my guess is when you feel that locking up like that, it's because you're probably not sitting down in this beautiful squat while you're working or bending over. You're probably just bending over. And then that's what's bothering versus why you're fine when you do squats because your mechanics are well, your muscles are supporting the stress instead of the low back supporting the stress.

1:13:06Adam Schafer:Yeah. So just to be a little bit more specific, all joints have end ranges of motion. and what muscles do is they stabilize and protect and strengthen and what you don't want is a joint to support end ranges of motion like it's like my knee hyperextending and the ligaments keeping my knee from hyperextending versus my hamstring so if you're noticing weakness in your core that would be where i would uh 100 for sure uh focus uh is on strengthening the core and being very meticulous and careful about your form and your technique on strengthening those muscles. Sometimes people will overwork the hip flexors when they're trying to strengthen their core.

1:13:48Adam Schafer:And that can cause problems. Not that you don't want your hip flexors to be strong, but if your core muscles are weak, your abs, your obliques, your TVA, then your hip flexors tend to take over and they attach, and one of the hip flexors attaches to the lumbar spine. And so that can actually cause more problems when there's, you know, that kind of, for lack of a better term, imbalance. So I would really focus on kind of really carefully strengthening the core. A correctional exercise specialist in person would be very valuable. So if this is kind of this ongoing thing, sometimes chiropractors are well-versed in correctional exercise, sometimes.

1:14:29Adam Schafer:Other times it would be a good physical therapist or sports medicine specialist. but correctional exercise in person would be worth its weight in gold remind me where you're based out of uh in ontario canada okay maybe i'll say bring reaching out to brink in our forum might

1:14:46Sal Di Stefano:have contact you could it would be virtual no no he might have contacts oh i see i see he could do virtual too but i mean in our private forum which if you're not in there i'll have dad dad i'll have my dad.

1:15:03Sal Di Stefano:I'll have Doug Jordan shallow, get you in the private forum. Um, and, uh, Justin Brink, who's a movement specialist. He, he, if you tag him in there and let him know that you've talked to us on, on here, he not only can help you virtually, but then there might be somebody personally, uh, somewhere out there personally that he's got, he's connected all over the place. and so maybe he could refer you. But we also too have some really good Mind Pump TV videos. Sal did a hip flexor deactivator video on Mind Pump TV and we've got some good ab exercises on there where we're really stressing the technique in there that will be valuable to you.

1:15:40Adam Schafer:But none of it will replace somebody who knows what they're doing and seeing you in person. Correctional exercise is so individualized. It's not like traditional exercise. It's very individualized. And when you do the right correctional exercise, it makes a huge difference. Okay. Now, in terms of, again, I know taking to what you just said to heart in terms of, you know, correctional is very specific to the user. What are some exercises that are probably safe? Like I'm thinking cross cable chops, things like that. Is that, what are we looking at? Vacuum poses? Like what am I looking at? Yes, but it's hard to say.

1:16:17Adam Schafer:It's hard to say because technique is everything. So rotating can be great and it could also hurt you. depending on how it's being performed um and and what the actual issue is so it's it's hard to say because uh this seems to be very specific um and taking some time off uh and you know training with less volume didn't seem to fix it and there are a few movements that you seem to notice uh that benefited you the mcgill three so it's hard to say um you know with cases like this uh and i you Again, I hate to point in this direction because I'd love to give you just the right answer. Having someone there in person is where I would refer.

1:16:57Adam Schafer:If you were my client, I would watch you carefully and help identify it through the movements. And then even if that didn't work, I often would send people to a correctional exercise specialist. That was even better than I would.

1:17:09Sal Di Stefano:If you can't find that, I think the next best thing, in my opinion, is a virtual video with Brink. Because Brink will have you do movements virtually and ask you, how do you feel? And he's so good. He's going to be able to even virtue. Obviously, like Sal's saying, nothing beats having a specialist like that watch you. Because if I was watching you move and you made a sound or you said, oh, I feel that here, I would modify and change on the fly and be like, okay, we're not going to do that. We're going to do this instead. And so that's what he's communicating. Brink, if you can't find that, Brink will be able to do that virtually with you better than anybody else I know.

1:17:42Sal Di Stefano:And so definitely, if you can't find someone in the area, reach out to him and at least do that virtually. So it'll be worth the visit for sure too that you do with him just to get some good movements that you can go work on on your own. So you go, okay, these are the things I need to do. This is how I need to perform it. This is how it should feel. And then he'll prescribe to you. Do it this many times a day or a week or whatever and then really work on that. But all in all, I know you didn't get to see great progress from our last coaching with you. But this is a good sign that you've been able to isolate it to how weak your core is because this will make a huge difference.

1:18:15Sal Di Stefano:I know clients that have lived their whole life with a bulge disc and had zero back pain. And then I've had other clients with a slight disc and it's bothering them like crazy. One of the key differentiators between our clients are the clients that really developed a strong core that supported that spine, made a huge difference. And so it's a good sign that you've figured this out because there's room to really improve this. Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense. I know it's the same thing with the pop can analogy, right? If a pop can is full of soda and you poke the side of it, it won't crumble. but with an empty one, it will.

1:18:47Like, I know there's a lot of, you know, supporting structures in there that require some integrity and some pressure. That's right, yeah. On a silver lining with this, the last two months, this whole summer about doing this reduced volume. And I'm sorry to say that I was always struggling with the whole less volume. Do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. and having gone to the gym six days a week and doing, oh Christ, I don't know, 18 sets per workout and all this, uh, and switching to dedicated six sets of workout. Uh, I got leaner

1:19:30Adam Schafer:and eat more. Isn't that weird? It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. So, uh, that has been eye opening. I've now realized that I have more of a, of a, of a new fulcrum point, right? Where I'm I'm like, okay, I can do a little bit more volume, but I don't have to do anywhere near as much before. I can spend more time doing mobility, more sauna, more treadmill. Awesome. Awesome, dude. Very eye-opening.

1:19:53Sal Di Stefano:That is silver lining, bro. That's great. And it's great news. You work on this core. I think you'll see a huge difference. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. All right, man.

1:20:00Adam Schafer:Thanks, Phil. Okay, thanks, guys. Much appreciated. And keep doing what you're doing. All right, take care.

1:20:10Adam Schafer:yeah the first off uh i love that he experienced doing so much less volume got better shape i love that people people do that it blows them away you know correctional exercise um is so incredibly valuable i mean we could we teach our coaches here if they're going to spend any time on improving their skills that's one of the first places because um it it solves a lot of issues i I mean, I just recently had an experience of that with my own hip. And it took three sessions for seeing dramatic reduction in pain. And this was an issue that I'd been dealing with for a long time. I just really didn't focus on it 100%.

1:20:46Adam Schafer:It makes a huge difference. So a lot of people live with this kind of like, I got a bad shoulder. My back's always kind of bothering me. And if I avoid these exercises, I'm okay. Like directed correctional exercise that's individualized oftentimes fixes things. Yeah. I'm glad you guys pointed him to a coach though. because a lot of times even watching the videos and like emulating the movements, you know, sometimes clients don't really have, they're not quite in tune with their body to that degree. Totally. To be able to create that kind of bracing and that type of, you know, strengthening around the area, not exceed it.

1:21:19So, you know, to learn that is invaluable.

1:21:22Sal Di Stefano:Oh, man. I mean, especially, I mean, considering one of the examples he gave was like woodchops. Like talk about a movement that. Could make or break it go wrong. Right. If you don't have the foundational strength connection to your core to activate it, tighten it up, and keep it tight through that movement, that's like a recipe for an injury in a movement like that.

1:21:42Adam Schafer:Or it could help. Or it could be amazing. It depends on how it's done.

1:21:46Sal Di Stefano:Done properly can be amazing.

1:21:47Adam Schafer:And by the way, you can't tell. An expert can tell. But most people would look at the both, done wrong, done right, and would not be able to notice.

1:21:55Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. It's hard. That's what makes the core a lot more challenging and unique for the typical coach or someone to just look at and be like, oh, yeah, because you'll do the movement. It'll look, you know, you'll move in the same plane. But if it's not, if he's not activating constantly, it'll make a huge difference.

1:22:10Adam Schafer:Our next caller is Savannah from Florida. Hi, Savannah. Hi, Savannah. Hi, guys. Morning. How can we help you? So I originally sent this when I actually broke my ribs. So I'm thankfully in a better place now. But I am a professional equestrian, so I ride horses. And unfortunately, I broke my ribs doing something with the horses. But I'm also really into fitness. I've been lifting pretty consistently and seriously for about five or six years. I started a strength training business specifically for equestrians, trying to kind of bridge that gap. But during this time, I was trying to figure out what could I do to not lose strength?

1:22:55Because obviously I still had to be able to work and, you know, be able to when the time came to ride again, not be behind and trying to catch up there. if there was anything both in the gym and also sides like BPC 157, you know, using a peptide, that sort of thing. And in your guys' opinion, short-term injuries, how much strength would I actually lose versus I know we talk about, you guys talk about strength coming back quickly, and it's a muscle memory and all of that. But in my head, I'm also, you know, I just felt like I was going to lose everything that I had worked so hard for.

1:23:43Adam Schafer:Yeah, no, good question, Savannah. Thanks for calling in. So are you, you know, is it okay if I'm a little bit direct with kind of what I think the issue is here? Please. So the issue here is fear. So you have a, you broke your ribs. Explain that injury to me a little bit because that's a pretty gnarly injury. Breaking ribs affects a lot. that was the hardest thing i've injured other parts where you just kind of kick on and you know you brace it work other things the ribs really slows you down oh yeah you can't do anything how many ribs did you break and where i brought broke um seven and eight and i got kicked unfortunately so it wasn't even a call yeah it was it was pretty brutal i gotta say darn it so the issue is fear here so here's the deal uh you can't do much uh as you're as i'm sure you're where the ribs are connected to almost everything.

1:24:31Adam Schafer:So doing almost any movement that requires any kind of bracing, which is almost everything, is gonna be very difficult with broken ribs. And broken ribs can take a little while to heal. All the supportive structures can take a little while, as I'm sure you're experiencing. You will get weaker. You're 100 % gonna get weaker, okay? The things you could do to help yourself get better quicker or to help yourself not lose as much strength is to heal faster. So you have to change the mentality from, oh no, can't lose the strength. What can I get away with? To how can I get myself to heal as fast as possible?

1:25:08Adam Schafer:That's the best strategy. Will you get weaker? Yes. Will you lose muscle? Yes. Will it come back very quickly? Faster than you can imagine. It comes back. Muscle memory is radically amazing at its abilities. It's crazy. I don't know if you've ever broken a limb before and had to wear a cast and take the cast off and you see how much the muscle atrophies and then it just comes back on its own. Has that ever happened to you? Since I was a kid, so a long time ago. It comes back so fast. In the meantime, if you can do isometrics, that would be the best thing to remain connected. You can also use stim to help keep the muscles connected.

1:25:52Adam Schafer:but isometrics would be the best thing and it's probably going to be just the limbs because again the ribs are at your trunk and any kind of supported anything is going to affect the ribs so you might be able to sit and do like a leg extension and squeeze the leg or maybe do a leg curl and squeeze the leg or do an abduction and squeeze you know and just kind of tense things the good news about what i'm saying is you could practice it often so you could do it you know five times a day, you know, type of deal. Um, and then in the meantime, uh, rest, feed yourself because the other fear sometimes people have is, oh my God, I get so fat.

1:26:29Adam Schafer:Okay. So restricting calories will slow down recovery as well. Now I'm not saying eat garbage, but get adequate protein, adequate fats, carbohydrates. Um, and then the peptides that, that have the most effect on speeding up recovery in order of effectiveness, and you can combine them all, is BPC-157, Thymus and Beta, or TB-500, GHKCU, and KPV. But BPC is the most effective. Thymus and Beta, or TB-500 would be second. Those two are the most powerful together. And then if you want, you can combine GHKCU and KPV. and all of those are, they work synergistically to help heal the body, to help with collagen, connective tissue, muscle, bone, all of that stuff.

1:27:21Adam Schafer:And then when you're able to get back into training, the mistake that people often make is they think they need to go hard. Actually, very little will get the body to start getting stronger. You don't need to make up lost time. It's crazy. I'm telling you how crazy it's going to blow your mind when you start to kind of get, First off, you're going to be shocked at, oh my God, I'm so weak. And then the following week, you're going to be like, whoa, I feel a lot stronger. And then by week four and five, you're going to be like, whoa, I'm coming back very, very quickly. So just rest in that. The mental part's going to be a hard part because you're probably very active.

1:27:55Adam Schafer:I know your sport requires a lot of – you're doing it a lot. You're also in fitness. So the mental part is a hard part because now you're kind of forced to sit still, which is really, really tough. Right. that's probably the hardest part honestly not much to add to that other than maybe uh red light

1:28:12Sal Di Stefano:therapy if you have access to that that's great so and you can shine it right on the ribs yeah so live in front of that thing uh get in get in front of that uh pretty frequently um are you in the ocala area where in florida are you i'm wellington okay yeah mike matthews is oh he's out there yeah

1:28:29Adam Schafer:the question area oh here's the other thing too are you able to get into a swim because a pool and water with its buoyancy sometimes can provide a little bit of stability are you able to do that yeah for sure so you could even get in a pool and like walk that's a good call back and forth you want that blood circulation you want movement but it has to be really light and not a lot of impact so you know i think yeah swimming would be a great biggest mistake though that uh

1:28:56Sal Di Stefano:trainers slash athletes which you are both make is too much too fast yes 100 keep it light that That is the, and that you want to talk about the fastest way to lose more muscle is trying to, trying too hard, too fast and setting yourself back an extra week or two of slowness or taking your time is not going to hinder your progress. Trying to do something you shouldn't be doing yet is set you way, we'll set you months back. So remember that. I understand that. Yeah. But in my head, that's going to be the first part. Trust me. I know. I know so well because I'm guilty of making the mistake more than once.

1:29:35Adam Schafer:All of us have done it repeatedly to ourselves. So we're speaking out of experience. I know how much it sucks. Yeah. Okay. One more question. So you say calories and protein are obviously important. I've never not ridden like in my entire life. I've always been able to ride. So I don't even really know what maintenance is in that sense. And I know walking is going to be, I'm going to be walking more than normal. So should I almost go above what I think?

1:30:01Sal Di Stefano:You're better off going above than going below. That's for sure.

1:30:03Adam Schafer:At the very least, eat exactly as you were before.

1:30:06Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:30:06Adam Schafer:Yeah. Don't try to adjust it because of the reduced activity. Some people will make that mistake. Okay, well, I'm moving less. So I'm going to cut my calories down, which actually, now you're sitting too single.

1:30:17Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I can tell you're lean through your long sleeve shirt. So you are better off adding a couple pounds of body fat to speed up the recovery than you are just trying to hover right around the same way. So definitely bode on maintenance to surplus than trying to figure out, well, now I'm not riding, so maybe I should only eat this much. Like eat too much, accidentally put on three to five pounds. That's better for us. Yes. Yes.

1:30:39Adam Schafer:Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

1:30:41Sal Di Stefano:Yep.

1:30:41Adam Schafer:Yeah. How long did they tell you it's going to take? Honestly, not a great answer. They're like four or six weeks. Could be eight weeks. I'm like, okay. Ribs suck.

1:30:52Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. You don't want to sneeze. What week are you on right now? How far in are you right now? um so i'm actually i'm past now i'm pretty in a good good spot i'm at like eight weeks now okay good and how do you feel like you said i was pretty discouraged at the beginning and now i feel better there i can still tell i can still feel things actually um the hardest thing is like

1:31:16Adam Schafer:chest exercises which i guess yep yeah rotation chest exercises rows with the hard squeeze might be difficult, you know, cause the ribs, if you look at the ribs, they attach to the spine and they come around and they're just kind of floating and there's all these muscles that attach and connect to them. And so it can be, it feels unstable. It can feel like it's unstable after they're healed for a while. Yeah. Yeah. That it was a very odd feeling. And, um, I just started riding again too. And that was very odd feeling. Okay. So since the ribs are healed, so the brakes are healed, right? You're saying they're totally healed now.

1:31:51Adam Schafer:Okay. Breathing exercises are going to be really good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So full diaphragmatic breaths that expand the rib cage, contract the rib cage. You want the rib cage to stretch and come in. Don't get crazy with it. So don't go do a dumbbell pullover where you're trying to like really, cause you'll pull something, but like focus on the breath. Cause here's what also happens. So I'm glad we're at this point. And this brings me to another thing that's important. Broken ribs, or when they heal, sometimes people develop breathing pattern issues that last a long time because you had to breathe differently, maybe not even realizing it because of the rib injury.

1:32:27Adam Schafer:Yeah, real shallow. And then that can continue to cause problems for a long time. So practice full diaphragmatic breaths throughout the day. So that's another thing to add. Interesting. That makes sense though. Yeah. Cool. Thank you guys. Yeah, you got it.

1:32:44Sal Di Stefano:Be patient. You're going to be good. Be patient. thank you thanks for calling in thanks so much bye of all the bones that would suck i think the

1:32:55Adam Schafer:two that i would hate to break the most i mean i'm sure there's other ones but just off the top my ribs yep and collarbone those two because they don't put us they don't put like a cast on you no they don't like help it like you break a collarbone it just we're gonna let it heal the way it is okay i'm just gonna not do anything hold myself together that's your new collarbone

1:33:13Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, ribs would probably be the, I mean, I've never had a broken bone, so thank God, not if I would, but ribs sounds painful. I've bruised ribs. I saw it in person, so I went snowboarding, and my friend's dad was actually snowboarding with us, and he decided to try and keep up and went on one of those platform jumps right in front of me, and then his hat flew off, and he goes to catch it in the air. sideways, lands sideways, boom, right on his ribs and broke all his ribs on his left side. It was so brutal. He was in a lot of pain. Our next caller is Mike from Arizona. Mike, what's up, dude? What's up, fellas?

1:33:54How are we? How can we help you? Before we get started, of course, I have to give some thank you to you guys. I have probably a dozen MAPS programs. I have probably every sponsor that you guys work with I have or have had with the exception of maybe eight sleep. So if you guys have any extra in the back room, let me know. That's next. But the amount of money that I've spent with you guys and all your sponsors comes nothing close to the value that I get from you guys. Just the way I understand fitness and nutrition and health and wellness is beyond anything. So even I'm a golf professional in Arizona, and I opened my own golf instruction company about three years ago.

1:34:46And just the parallels that you guys talk about coaching clients and golf instruction is very, very close. So, Sal, a lot of your analogies that you use with your clients and you talk about, I take and make my own just to put a golf spin on it.

1:35:01Sal Di Stefano:So, very cool. Sometimes when you talk golf, Sal, it's a little like, ugh.

1:35:09Adam Schafer:I don't know very much about golf at all. Just chalk it up to sports ball. I did beat them at top golf. Does that count, Mike? Hell yeah, it counts. Man, don't say that. Adam, you probably remember this. We've chatted a few times, but maybe about two years ago, you guys were doing an event in Truckee, and I was going to come out and give you a golf lesson and get on video for the business. Oh, that's you.

1:35:35Sal Di Stefano:Okay. You look familiar, too. I was like, man, I felt like we met before. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, I remember now. So I still owe you one. Some way or another, we're going to get that in. No, no, I would love that. I would love that, dude. That's for sure. Right on. So question. I've been doing exclusively MAPS programs for about four years. I've done anabolic, I think twice, advanced three times, aesthetic, performance, power lift. For maybe the last year or so, I've been doing MAPS 15 style programs. And anyone who's on the fence about that, they're legit. So I didn't think I would love it as much as I do.

1:36:16But man, it's such a great, great program, all of them. So, um, so I, being on the 15 protocol for, like I said, the last year, I wanted to switch things up. Body feels good. Um, wanted to, you know, uh, increase the volume, want to see if I could put on a little bit more size. Um, so my original question I had to you guys was like, Hey, like, how should I go about this? Um, since the first email I sent in, I, some, there's been some updates. I went and had a DEXA scan. DEXA showed that I am, I'm six feet tall, 220, 15 % body fat and 181 pounds of lean. So I'm 41. I realized, hey, I'm doing all right.

1:37:03We're 41. You won.

1:37:05Sal Di Stefano:You won. You're doing great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So like I said, I'm working with a practitioner. I'm on TRT for the last year and a half. I just had my labs drawn and it was showing that my IGF-1 was fairly low. So exploring the world of peptides, again, did some a few years back. But so this is going to, it was kind of falling, everything falling into place. Hey, I'm going to hit, bump up my volume, get on some peptides, be optimized, do as much as I can and see, like re-measure DEXA in three months. Now, when the DEXA came back, it showed that I had 1.6 pounds of visceral. So just kind of like looking through the lens of health, hey, maybe that's a better idea to get that 1.6 off me versus trying to get another five pounds of muscle.

1:37:59But I want it both. So what's your guys' recommendation? How can I get both? I'm stubborn.

1:38:08Sal Di Stefano:In process of adding five pounds of muscle, you'll probably pursue the lower body fat percentage. So I would go that direction. But I'm more curious about, I'm going to let you go, Son, in a minute. But before we jump out of these 15s, I want to know how much golf you're playing. So I don't golf a lot. So I actually tell people that I don't really like golf anymore. I golfed a ton, but I get my feel of golf by teaching it. So I'm around it every day. I get to talk it. I get to help people better at it. So I don't need to go out and golf, you know, four hours, you know, every day or so. I mean, I golf probably a dozen times a year at most.

1:38:46Sal Di Stefano:so okay so i'm gonna impede training mike there's really no wrong way for you to go i mean you're

1:38:51Adam Schafer:doing so well 15 body fat is great you've got a lot of lean body mass um i mean you could use peptides to bring up igf1 you could go you could go hgh as well it's not going to be as dramatic as testosterone trt can be quite dramatic with its effects hgh and growth hormone you know you'll notice that over the course of a year or two you might get a little leaner you know better sleep that kind of stuff. There's really no wrong way to go. I mean, where I would point you in the direction of is whatever feels the most fun. Because you could go on a cut, you could try to gain muscle, you could work on mobility, you could try new skills, because you're in such a good place, dude.

1:39:32Adam Schafer:It really, honestly, what sounds the most fun for you?

1:39:35Sal Di Stefano:Well, I have the other question I might ask you too, because I do, I think Sal's so right. Like you're in a great place. This is kind of like right where I like to hover. This is, I hover right around this body fat percentage. We're very similar size. When you look at your diet, eating, drinking, whatever the things are, is there anything that stands out to you that's egregious that you know you could tighten up or be better at? Because maybe the pathway is just that. Like you're like, for me, I'll just tell you, I know when I could be having more whiskey than I probably need to have in the diet.

1:40:09Sal Di Stefano:And so it's just like, and then I get the dex and I'm like, I'm a little higher in the body fat percentage. I should probably lean out. I should probably cut back on something like that. But how do you feel about your diet when you assess it? Yeah. I mean, I'm like, I'm very, it's kind of cruise control. Like it's not, I'm not restrictive. It's just like, I'm in a good place diet wise. Like I enjoy my treats. Um, I, I try to eat clean. I, you know, I eat 200 plus grams a day. Um, so I'm doing, I know I'm doing everything right, but like I go back and forth the other day, you know, I hit a PR on bench of 385.

1:40:43And then it's like, so one day I love being strong and I'm like, let's bulk, let's go, let's get 405. And then the next is now let's get down to 10 and see what that looks like for fun. Cause I've never been shredded before. So it's like, so it's every day it's, it's kind of back and forth.

1:40:58Sal Di Stefano:Okay. Well, so then I do have an opinion on that at 41. I would push you to get leaner from my personal experience of having that exact thought and then injury and shit happens. Like that, so you're already, we talked about this the other day on the podcast. Like at one point, when you start pushing 300 pounds on bench, squatting 400 pounds, deadlifting 400 pounds, you, yeah, you are reaping 90 % of the benefits of what lifting heavy weight's going to give you. Go adding another 20 pounds is all ego that wants that next thing. And it's not going to serve you. So it's why? At our age, why go do that?

1:41:40Sal Di Stefano:Where getting leaner absolutely could serve you. If you've never been shredded in 9 % body fat, there's a lot of value in that. There's a lot of value of like - And learning about what that's like. Yeah, learning how to diet like that, training that way. And that's a lot safer. Your strength is going to come down a little bit. Who cares? You're already hella strong. You know what I'm saying? Get shredded, get lean, enjoy that process. Challenge yourself that way. It's challenging as shit. So challenge yourself that way. I wouldn't push you. and this would be different advice if you were benching 185 and you're like, I'd be like, cool we got a lot of room still to get bigger and stronger

1:42:13Adam Schafer:there's not going to be much benefit for you getting stronger other than the fact that you're lifting crazy weight but you know what Adam's saying getting leaner, I mean the discipline involved what that looks like, what that feels like there's some stuff you can learn, you're in such a healthy place that you know I'd say go for it one word of caution when you're cutting is you've got to drop the intensity and not get addicted, or should I say not marry the weights that you're lifting. Sometimes dudes are like, no, I'm not going to get weaker. You know, I'm trying to get 9%. Yeah. And then that kind of becomes a problem.

1:42:44Adam Schafer:It's all diet, dude. It's all going to be structured diet. It's all going to be like prepping your meals, you know, all that stuff.

1:42:50Sal Di Stefano:I mean, honestly, what might be a cool move, if I was coaching you, would be like, stay on Mass 15. Let's diet to get to 9%. Once you get down to 9%, let's increase volume, increase calories. and just let it do its work. Like literally just go like, stay the volume where you're at. Because to Sal's point, when you start cutting, all of a sudden ramping up your volume right now is not going to serve you. No, no, no. So it's like, so keep your volume in, so run a MAPS 15 style, but do it in a diet. Cut out all the goodies and maybe pick up the activity a little bit as far as walking, moving steps, those things and get lean.

1:43:26Adam Schafer:And here's another thing too, with a guy like you, you're doing so well, dude, that let's say you go on Tessa Maryland. This is a growth hormone-releasing peptide. If you kept everything the same, you're probably going to drop, and I'm careful when I say this because this is not for everybody, but for a dude like you, muscle. One to 2%. Yeah, you'll probably drop down to 13%.

1:43:45Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:43:45Adam Schafer:Just from the Tessa Maryland over the course of like six to nine months. You combine that with a calorie deficit, drop 500 calories. You'll probably get down to like 11 % without like really hard focus, just some focus. so that's just another thought so i am from the my practitioner i did i'm two weeks into testemoral and ipamoral and okay uh i'm doing bpc tb and then uh ss31 and mot c okay are you using ss31 and mot c at the same time yeah how do you feel to the gym lift like i do it uh two days a week like dude yes i'm on mutsi too for some people both both of those combined at the same time could be too much is that what gave you your little issue it was yeah i could not take them both at the same time i did not can i ask what was going on uh it's just too much mitochondrial like amping and so stds flared up you had to go to the hospital no no those are no i felt uh it felt bad it made me feel not good it was just too much mitochondrial surgery focus so i can do one of you isn't that when you got the serotonin thing no i get it all confused for all the things you've been testing yeah yeah so i i've done it i've done the combination uh i think two like monday and thursday before lift and like that's i just hit the pr so i don't like i feel great in the gym so no negative yet but going back to your point i am on tessa morelin i just started that two weeks in yeah so tessa morelin plus motzi alone will probably drop two or three percent yeah yeah yeah so you can keep everything the same dude and you're probably gonna over the course of six to nine months but we're we're

1:45:33Sal Di Stefano:all at in our life uh i mean your your strength you're you're winning you won you're at the place you want to be to me this is ideally to kind of hover around this totally you think it's cool to go up or down but the i really have changed a lot of my opinions around the pursuing the like really pushing the PR thing because the risk versus reward at this place in our life is just like, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And it's still challenging. I have my moments. I had the other day, I was in squatting in the gym and there was this power lifter chick that was lifting right next to me.

1:46:04Sal Di Stefano:And I was like, fuck, she's like literally doing more weight than me right now. Like that was really tough for me to not like intentionally start. And I'm like, get out of your, get out of your head. Like, like it's, so I still got to have the conversation with myself because it's all ego that makes me want to do that it's not going to serve me anymore at that point and you're you're you're at pretty peak strength dude to you're not going to get much benefit from that you get more benefit from getting shredded though you know you know what

1:46:26Adam Schafer:you could do mike honestly because like i said you'll probably drop two or three percent just kind of staying where you're at right now maybe two percent i would say you could hire a coach and get real crazy with your diet i'm getting down to nine percent is kind of wild you know 10 9 8 it gets kind of weird there's a lot of mental stuff that goes on it's very meticulous You got to weigh, measure things type of deal. Hiring a coach and just going through that might be something if you're interested in going that far. But I got to tell you, dude, you won, dude. You're kicking butt. I'd say just, I don't know if it's the God, just have fun.

1:46:58Adam Schafer:Like that's the best advice I can tell you, just have fun. So I like, that's the thing. I never want to get to a diet or like in the gym where it feels like work. Like I just, it's just, as you guys know, it's going to the gym is my therapy. It gets me, it's my time. So, um, I did, I was on a cut for about 12 weeks or so. And it wasn't like, I didn't drop, uh, below 2 ,600. Um, but I did lean out to, I probably dropped 12 to 15 pounds. So I did just come off of a cut. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, I wouldn't go in a cut then. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I, yeah, just bump your calories up and get strong. Have fun, dude.

1:47:39Adam Schafer:Yeah. Cause 2 ,600 is about as low as I would take a guy your size. I wouldn't go any lower than that because that would really be a quality of life decrease and you get some negatives. And I can't go lower than that. I'm so damn hungry when I was at 26. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, dude. You're a big guy, dude. So you're probably good at 3 ,000, 3 ,200. That's probably going to keep you lean, strong, good. You could probably get up to 3 ,800 to build muscle. You know, it's probably your range.

1:48:05Sal Di Stefano:I mean, you literally could just do it. That's why I asked the thing about you know you're better than anybody. Like, I know what my handful of things that don't serve me in the diet. if I just restrict for like four, six weeks from those things, I can drop two, 3%. It's like when you hover around the place where you're at, it's like, okay, I could. You take out the gummy bear. Yeah, I could stop the whiskey for a month. You know what I'm saying? I could stop the ice cream after dinner. I could do, like there's a handful of things I know that I love, which you could also enjoy and be 15 % body fat.

1:48:35Sal Di Stefano:But if you want to mess with some things, you can play with that for a while. But bro, you're at where we try and coach everybody to get to. dude. In your mid forties, strongest shit, activist shit. You're at the top of the mountain, dude. You're a great balance of muscle aesthetic. You're not, you're, you have good body fat on you. You're not, you're not too shredded. You're not too, you're perfect, dude. So you could just kind of fuck it up from here to be honest. Well, thanks for nothing.

1:49:03Sal Di Stefano:We left you with nothing, bro. Just my only one thing you can go either way, but just, I just caution you with the strength thing uh because you're you're 41 right you said right this is yeah I mean literally 40 to 40 I'm turning 45 you're stronger than 99.9 percent this is 40 40 to 45 where I'm at now is where all these injuries started happening like crazy and it was a lot of me chasing numbers that I just didn't need to do anymore you know yeah I hear you so I did I'm three weeks into anabolic again and I did just start uh uh ice hockey league um i haven't played in like about 10 years last night was the first game but um so i did introduce a i mean a big cardio stimulus into my my uh life anything change still just have fun well now i okay so that does change advice because then to me your training should be something that's going to complement and bulletproof your hockey because this is exactly this is exactly how I get hurt.

1:50:06Sal Di Stefano:Wakeboarding and basketball or my injuries were picking that up later in my life. You know, I don't know what you were like in hockey size wise, but when I was playing sports and jumping around on wakeboards, I was not 220 and I was a little, I was thin.

1:50:21Adam Schafer:He sent us some pictures that Doug pulled up and he's pretty damn athletic for being a big guy. So yeah, so MAPS 15 performance would probably be good while you're playing hockey. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Yeah, dude. Well, then that's what I'll do. 15 performance. Good. Do it, Mike. Good, dude. And then next time we're up in the truck, we'll link up. Yeah. I sure hope so. Well, Arizona. I know, Sal, you may have been out for the Peptide World Conference. Oh, yeah. Open door. If you guys are in Arizona and you don't reach out, I'm going to be pissed. Okay. Well, we go there once a year now. Yeah, cool.

1:50:53Help us beat Sal. Yeah.

1:50:56Adam Schafer:And knock down those Angry Birds, dude. Yeah, yeah.

1:51:01Sal Di Stefano:All right. Keep us posted, Mike. I'd like to hear how it goes for you, brother. Right on, guys. I appreciate the time. Take it easy, man.

1:51:07Adam Schafer:Yeah, it's not often that people get into that great place, but I got to say this, you know, because sometimes, you know, for people listening, if this is you, there's a difference between climbing the mountain and enjoying the view. And sometimes when you're climbing the mountain, you get to the top, you're at a place, you learn to enjoy the view and not chase so hard after certain things. And then that becomes a problem. Like you said, I'm like, you know, it's 380 bench. Like, what if he's like, I want to get a 400. Like, I want to break 400. it's cool but the risk of injury bring you though it's going to bring him nothing that other than

1:51:36Sal Di Stefano:he can say he benched 400 no no i mean it's not often we get we we talk to somebody like that on on the podcast so and i i don't know i i think i feel extra passionate about this conversation because i've wrestled with this the last five years of my life and so and i think when i when i really think back to and i'm sure there's somebody who's listening like oh that's a weak cancer you guys give me because good like but it's like no i mean at this point in stage in my life like uh health longevity maintaining that athletic strong 15 build is way like man tearing my pack tearing my achilles tearing acl mcl all that stuff was were horrible setbacks horrible setbacks and i went through periods of time on some of those injuries where i was depressed and frustrated and It's like, dude, if I go back and do it all over again, I'd be like, what are you doing?

1:52:29Sal Di Stefano:Chasing numbers like that.

1:52:30Adam Schafer:Our next caller is Michelle from Ontario.

1:52:32Sal Di Stefano:Hi, Michelle. Welcome back.

1:52:33Adam Schafer:How are you doing, Michelle? Hey, how are you guys? Good to see you. How's it going? It's been an interesting month. I will say. Okay. Fill us in. Let us know. I'm going to say it's been more of a negative. We just had a lot going on this month. So I haven't been like the greatest at everything. So that's been kind of like frustrating. but like I know I have to take it like day by day. I'm starting work in a couple of weeks. So like that's been like on my mind too. So like I don't know how things are going to work. My son started daycare. So that's been a lot. And then I even like injured myself.

1:53:07So like that kind of like halted everything. So like that's been like my biggest thing of like, how do I get back into it after an injury? But like, how do I also like still focus on working out without like pushing myself too much?

1:53:22Adam Schafer:I totally get that how did you hurt your back what happened honestly like I think it's just like sleeping weird like my back and my upper back and my neck like it just like I couldn't turn my neck like it was just like really like hard I even like went to like get a massage to kind of like help that work out whatever it was but like it just like I don't even know how it happened and like that's like more of the annoying part yeah that sucks when that happens that's happened to me before. So the thing to remember, Michelle, with the fitness journey, okay, is that we want to use exercise and nutrition, not just for these things, by the way, okay, because there's, especially with diet, there's so much that goes around our food, like celebration and connecting, okay.

1:54:04Adam Schafer:But we also want to be able to use those as ways to improve the quality of our life, regardless of what's happening in our lives. And so sometimes what happens is we'll go through something. Like we had a client, I actually got on a call a while ago with one of our trainers and their clients. And we had talked about the previous year that they had done coaching. And there were a couple really difficult situations that had happened within that. One of them was a personal one. The other one had to revolve around illness and injury. And so she was a little bit, well, she was disheartened. And she's like, man, that was such a tough year, and which it is, it definitely was.

1:54:41Adam Schafer:And then I said, look, had you not had a coach or had you not worked on these things and had good nutrition and worked with your exercise in a proper way, how much worse do you think it would have been? And she's like, oh, it would have been a lot worse. And I think that helped her kind of get a different picture on what fitness and nutrition can do. Because sometimes what we do is we look at them and we create this ideal and then things happen in life, illness, job, maybe a random injury. It could be lots of different things. And we're like, man, it just sucked. It didn't do anything. But the reality is those things helped so long as we applied them properly.

1:55:22Adam Schafer:So I want you to kind of have that. The other thing I'd like to add, if it's okay, Michelle, is you're going through a challenging part of life. You had a baby, going back to work. That's very challenging. Kids going to daycare, very challenging transitions. when you look at the data on moms and dads that really get through these challenging times or commonly challenging times, they're the ones that have the closest network of support. They belong to a community that they do life with. Oftentimes it's church or family. Do you have that or do you feel alone in all of this? No, I definitely like have it.

1:55:59I think I'm also the person that kind of like prevents asking for help because like. they're not doing life with you then yeah yeah doing life with people isn't just hey how you

1:56:10Adam Schafer:doing good to see you let's get lunch it's those people that you go to and you say this is hard this sucks I don't know how I'm gonna do it you let them know you get real vulnerable that's the only way that you get the kind of uh connection and support that really makes a difference if you kind of hold it in and keep it to yourself, then they can't really be there for you in the ways that you need. And I'm going to tell you this, and this is a lesson that I have learned repeatedly. You can't do it all by yourself. You just can't.

1:56:44Sal Di Stefano:I also want to add is we have, you have like a call like this with us and we do this with so many people. And what happens a lot of times is someone gets off the call and they're motivated, inspired, whatever. And then they, they start in their head planning like okay i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do that and i'm gonna do this and then maybe they start the next day and they start moving in that direction and then to sal's point life happens shit goes wrong wake up you feel stiffness you hurt you are you and you don't accomplish one of those things and then you immediately start punishing or feeling bad or mad at yourself or whatever the thing is and you spiral from there versus being like man i can't train today or i'm not going to be able to that's okay i'm gonna go for a walk today or i'm gonna to do something.

1:57:28Sal Di Stefano:I'm going to stretch to this more. Like it's, it's okay to take small steps. And so don't have this vision of like this perfect, like what it's got to look like in your head, be okay. And give yourself permission that there's going to be these moments and times when you just don't got it to do the thing and get it up and take, making a choice that is serving you and, and, and a health would be a healthier version of you. Like say maybe in the past that spiral would happen. And then you would make bad food choices and sit down and watch TV or do something that you know is definitely necessary. Like just make a healthier choice.

1:58:03Sal Di Stefano:Don't do that thing. Go for a walk. And that's a win. That's a win. So what? You didn't get to the workout. So what? You didn't do X, Y, Z that you thought you were going to do, but don't allow that to spiral and don't set these expectations of you've got to do these things because then you set yourself up for failure. And then when that failure happens, then you spiral versus every day trying to get a small win get a small win even if it is like i said just going for a walk and i feel like ever since like talking to you guys like from the first time and then last month like i feel like that was who i was like i was that person like you know i put myself down beat myself up without it and i have noticed that ever since talking to you guys like i have started switching my mindset and that like good when i do have a bad day or whatever something throws me off i do try to think and like not be so negative on myself and like even now with this being getting hurt this month and everything that has been going I've been kind of a more mindful of like okay well I did a walk today I did an extra 30 minutes of walking I've noticed that change in myself I want to say it's a big thank you to you guys and opening my eyes up and helping me switch my mindset.

1:59:11Great job.

1:59:14Sal Di Stefano:That is a win this month. Here's the deal. Even if you had the most perfect month this month, eventually you're going to have rough and hard months. That's how you got to handle it. This is a hard time. I didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do, but it's okay. This time I didn't beat myself up over it. Instead, I did this and I did do these things. and you know what? Next month is going to be a better month. And just, you got to reframe it. And it sounds like you actually did a lot better than you think you did. On the mental side, maybe you didn't hit all these goals that you might've had on the physical side or the diet side or whatever that, but mentally you're already framing this different.

1:59:50Sal Di Stefano:And that's the first step of really moving and getting that momentum.

1:59:54Adam Schafer:I only have one, like, you know, moving forward recommendation if it's okay. So if you can think of the two people in your life that you feel most comfortable doing life with. Like just think of two people. You only need one, but just think of two. And then when you hang up, you get on the phone with them and you just tell them, hey, let me tell you the things that are hard for me right now. I'm gonna go back to work a couple weeks, put the baby in daycare. I got hurt. I'm kind of struggling. And I just need to tell somebody and I need some support. And you're the person I thought of. That is really hard for somebody that feels very self-sufficient.

2:00:34Adam Schafer:I can identify with that. But I'm going to tell you right now, it makes a huge difference. Huge difference to have that person. But if you don't let them in, they don't even know. If you got that person, I would call them today. And I'm telling you, it makes a huge, you could read all the data. I don't know if you're a data person. I am. When I see the data on that, I'm like, why am I not doing this? It's like the most effective thing I could possibly do.

2:00:56Sal Di Stefano:Okay. Not to mention, it'll blow you away by how you make them feel.

2:01:01Adam Schafer:Oh, they love it. I mean, think about it.

2:01:02Sal Di Stefano:you love people. If they came to you, you'd be like, thank you for coming to me. Especially when you're the type of person who doesn't do that. Yeah. Because it is rare. You'll surprise them and you'll make that person feel loved, feel special, feel seen. And so that in itself has a lot of power too. Okay. I will definitely do that. You will?

2:01:21Adam Schafer:Yes. I will. All right, Michelle. All right. Yeah, thanks for calling in. You got this. Good to see you again. Doing good. Yeah. Thank you, guys. Thanks, hon. All right. Bye. that's the hardest thing uh by the way the things that she mentioned uh a lot of people don't talk about that when you look at again i'm a data guy right you look at the data on moms going back to work it is a major it's traumatic yes that's the exact word it is a major uh transition yeah then there's the guilt of my kid in daycare and how's that gonna go and they're gonna be around other people and uh it's very very challenging and there's a lot of moms that like i'm not gonna tell anybody, this is what we do.

2:02:00Adam Schafer:This is what we're supposed to do. You just have to do it. Or I'm just going to get up and make it happen. It's like, you know, when you work with other moms and other family members who've done it before and you could talk with them through it or whatever, it makes a huge difference.

2:02:11Sal Di Stefano:Well, the hard truth is that we've, we've normalized something that's not normal at all. That's not normal. It's not normal to do that, to have to do that. And so, yeah, there's, it's very, very normal to feel that way,

2:02:24Adam Schafer:to go through something like that. If you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

2:03:10The 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 5-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. Rubrik is the security and AI operations company built for what happens after an attack hits. Not just the moment before, AI has turned the threat landscape into quicksand, moving too fast for any human to fully predict.

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