2506: Measuring Your Progress With the Mirror or Scale Is a FAILING Strategy (Listener Live Coaching)

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth – Episode 2506 Summary

Episode Title: Measuring Your Progress With the Mirror or Scale Is a FAILING Strategy (Listener Live Coaching)
Release Date: January 8, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews
Producer: Doug Egge

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1. Introduction to Measurement Pitfalls

In this episode, hosts Sal, Adam, and Justin address a critical issue in fitness: relying on the mirror and scale to measure progress. They argue that these traditional methods are unreliable and can often mislead individuals striving for fitness goals.

Sal Di Stefano [03:38]: "You’re trying to get in shape, but you’re using the mirror and the scale to measure your progress. You will fail."

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2. The Failings of the Scale and Mirror

The hosts delve into why the scale and mirror are inadequate tools for tracking fitness progress.

• Scale Limitations: Measures only total mass without distinguishing between muscle and fat.
• Mirror Limitations: Highly subjective and can be influenced by mood, lighting, and minor changes that might not signify true progress.

Sal Di Stefano [04:07]: "The scale lies. It just tells you mass."

Justin Andrews [05:22]: "So would you say circumference measurement for the waist would be a good one?"

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3. Alternative Metrics for Success

Instead of the scale and mirror, the hosts propose four reliable indicators to measure fitness progress:

1. Performance (Strength): Increasing strength signifies better fitness and metabolic health.

   Sal [11:19]: "If you’re stronger, you’re more fit, you have more stamina, you have better mobility."

2. Energy and Vitality: Enhanced overall well-being and sustained energy levels throughout the day.

   Sal [12:34]: "You have improved vitality on a day-to-day basis."

3. Sleep Quality: Restful and uninterrupted sleep indicates proper training and nutrition balance.

   Sal [14:53]: "Sleep disruptions can signal issues with your training or diet."

4. Libido: A healthy sex drive reflects hormonal balance and overall health.

   Sal [15:00]: "If your libido crashes, it means your body isn’t feeling healthy enough to procreate."

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4. Dietary Cholesterol and Strength Gains

Sal introduces the concept of dietary cholesterol as a promoter of muscle hypertrophy and strength gains, citing a 2007 study.

Sal [20:38]: "Dietary cholesterol has a modest role in muscle mass and strength increases."

He shares personal experience, noting that increased dietary cholesterol improved his strength, likely due to enhanced muscle protein synthesis and central nervous system activation.

Sal [22:25]: "The dietary cholesterol seems to stimulate muscle protein synthesis more than when the cholesterol is lower."

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5. Egg Quality and Production Practices

The conversation shifts to egg quality amidst concerns about bird flu and changing perceptions of cholesterol.

• Pasture-raised vs. Free-range vs. Cage-free:
  • Pasture-raised: Chickens have ample outdoor space, leading to more vibrant yolks and better egg quality.
  • Free-range: Limited outdoor access, often resulting in cramped conditions.
  • Cage-free: Chickens remain indoors, negating the benefits of outdoor access.

Sal Di Stefano [24:37]: "Pasture raised is the best one. But there's like parameters."

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6. Cultural Shifts and Marketing Strategies

The hosts discuss the rapid cultural shifts in media narratives, particularly the surge in "woke" content aligning with market demands for GLP-1 medications like Wegovy and Ozempic.

Sal [32:58]: "And they're just getting insurance companies are getting lobbied like crazy to cover them."

Adam expresses concern over the swift changes in entertainment reflecting political and cultural agendas, suggesting manipulation of consumer choices.

Adam Schafer [31:28]: "It's a perfect little coincidence that all of a sudden that all came out."

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7. Historical Medical Practices and Modern Perspectives

The hosts reflect on outdated and harmful medical practices, drawing parallels to current supplement trends.

• Arsenic for Complexion: Women in the early 1900s ingested arsenic to achieve a pale complexion.
• Cocaine in Medications: Prescribed for pain relief during surgeries.
• Modern Supplements: Highlight the evolution and potential dangers of current supplement fads.

Sal Di Stefano [42:12]: "They used to sell arsenic tablets and pop them and it would give their skin like a white, clear complexion because it was destroying red blood cells."

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8. Red Light Therapy Benefits

A brief discussion on red light therapy's benefits, including improved skin health, reduced pain, and enhanced eyesight.

Sal Di Stefano [51:15]: "Red light therapy has been shown to improve eyesight and your ability to perceive colors."

Adam inquires about the necessity of safety goggles during red light therapy sessions.

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9. Listener Live Coaching: Keith’s Competition Plan

Caller: Keith from Tennessee, 69 years old, preparing for a competition in July.

Discussion Points:

• Current Status: 2500 calories/day, 18% body fat, active gym routine.
• Guidance Offered:
  • Reverse Dieting: Gradually increase calorie intake to boost metabolism.
  • Macro Tracking: Emphasize consistent protein intake.
  • Program Recommendation: Start with Maps Anabolic to build metabolic health before cutting.
  • Hormone Panel: Recommend checking testosterone and other hormone levels to ensure hormonal balance during training.

Adam Schafer [61:28]: "Shows are won in the off season. It’s all about how we set up your metabolism going into prep."

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10. Listener Live Coaching: Chris’s Star Wars Fan Club Workout

Caller: Chris from California, developing a strength-based workout for a Star Wars fan club.

Discussion Points:

• Program Design: Incorporate strength and mobility using a stick as a prop.
• Phased Approach: Technical form perfection, slow isometric training, and speed/power phases.
• Collaboration Offer: Justin offers exclusive workout programming tailored for Chris’s group.

Justin Andrews [86:54]: "I wrote a full 30-day program using the Axon stick. I'll send it to you for feedback."

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11. Listener Live Coaching: Jeannie’s Strength Training Questions

Caller: Jeannie from Germany, beginner in strength training, enrolled in the Muscle Mommy program.

Questions:

1. Breathing Technique: Holding breath during exercises.
2. Weight Selection: Should beginners strive to use consistent weights across exercises.

Advice Provided:

• Breathing: Exhale during exertion while bracing the core without holding breath.

  Sal Di Stefano [95:33]: "Practice stabilizing your midsection and breathing out on the exertion part of the rep."

• Weight Selection: Choose weights that challenge without compromising form. Adjust weights across sets based on difficulty.

  Sal Di Stefano [96:20]: "Form is most important. Pick a weight that is challenging but doesn’t break down your form."

• Program Recommendation: Start with Map Starter to build foundational strength and core stability before advancing to Muscle Mommy.

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12. Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with Doug promoting Mind Pump’s resources and encouraging listeners to engage with the podcast through reviews and social media.

Doug [110:44]: "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 [e-mail]."

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Notable Quotes

• Sal Di Stefano [03:38]: "You’re trying to get in shape, but you’re using the mirror and the scale to measure your progress. You will fail."
• Adam Schafer [11:19]: "If you’re stronger, you’re more fit, you have more stamina, you have better mobility."
• Justin Andrews [96:35]: "Form is most important."
• Sal Di Stefano [42:12]: "They used to sell arsenic tablets and pop them and it would give their skin like a white, clear complexion because it was destroying red blood cells."

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Conclusion

Episode 2506 of "Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth" provides insightful analysis on effective methods to track fitness progress beyond the conventional scale and mirror. By focusing on performance, energy, sleep, and libido, listeners gain a more holistic and accurate understanding of their health and fitness journey. Additionally, the live coaching segments offer personalized advice, emphasizing the importance of tailored programs and proper nutritional strategies to achieve individual goals sustainably and healthily.

Transcript

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[Doug]

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[Sal]

You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? Today's episode we answered live callers questions. People called in, we got to help them out on air. But this was after the intro. The Intro today was 56 minutes long. In the intro we talk about fitness and current events, talk about family life. It's a good time. By the way, if you want us to help you on air, email us your questionive mindpumpmedia.com now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is joovv. They make red light therapy for your home. Red light therapy has been shown to improve the thickness and look of your hair, improve your skin's health and complexion. It's good for pain, might even raise testosterone in some men. Backed by data that goes back decades, go Check them out. Go to Joovv.com, that's J-O-O-V-V.com mindpump. Use the code mindpump. Get yourself $50 off. This episode is also brought to you by Ned. Today we talked about their immune boosting supplement. They have lots of different products. This one is great for this season. If you're trying not to get sick or you are sick, try it out. Go to helloned.com mindpump Use the code mindpump to get 20% off. We also have our new year sale. So it's the beginning of the year. We do this every year. We put together some bundles of workout programs, and then we discount them massively. So each bundle is at least $300 off. The first bundle is the new to weightlifting bundle. Then we have the body Transformation bundle, we have the New Year Extreme Intensity bundle, and then we have the body transformation bundle 2.0. All of them available right now. If you go to maps january.com. all right, here comes the show.

[Adam]

T shirt time.

[Doug]

And it's T shirt time.

[Adam]

Ah, shit, Doug. You know, it's my favorite time of the week.

[Doug]

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[Sal]

All right, so you're trying to get in shape, but you're using the mirror and the scale to measure your progress. You will fail. There are four ways to measure your progress that will almost always guarantee success. Do them instead. You guys want to guess?

[Adam]

Oh, I like to. I like to hear this. Yes, definitely. Your strength has to be in there.

[Sal]

Yeah, that's performance. I put the underperformance right. So let's back up for a second about the mirror and the scale and why they lie so much. And then let's get to the. The four ways that if you use these four ways that we're about to say to measure your progress, your odds of success are so much higher. But let's start with why the mirror and the scale are so terrible. First off, let's start with the scale. The scale measures total mass. It doesn't tell you lean body mass. It doesn't tell you fat mass. It doesn't tell you health. Other than you're heavy or You're. You're heavier or you're less heavy. And the analogy I used to tell people when they would hire me about this is I would say things like, because everybody wants to lose weight, and they'd say, well, we could cut your leg off and that would be a quick £15. And of course, nobody want to cut their leg off to lose weight.

[Justin]

I'd throw BMI in there too. Yeah, same.

[Sal]

Same thing, right? It doesn't say much. I mean, my BMI puts me in the obese category. I know you guys are the same.

[Justin]

I've been had many calls about it.

[Sal]

So the scale lies, especially if you're building muscle. And this is especially damaging to women. I would have female clients who would lose fat and gain muscle. Therefore, the scale didn't move. They were smaller, they were leaner, they were more fit. But because the scale didn't move, it ruined their. Their day. It would ruin their week, and they would make these crazy corrections with their diet that would send them. Yeah. In the wrong direction. So scale lies. It just tells you mass. And. And towards the back half of my career, more often than not, I would tell people to not weigh themselves at all.

[Justin]

So would you say, like, circumference measurement for the waist would be a good one?

[Sal]

That's a better one. That. Yeah, that would be a better, I think, measure of.

[Adam]

I think this conversation is so important, though, because I think it's the. What most people use it is. And I would make the case that half the time, if not more than half the time, it. It ends up sending somebody in the wrong direction when they were already doing really well or they think they're doing really well when they're not right. And so this is why it's interesting that we. This isn't communicated a lot to trainers. I wish that it was taught to me when I was coming up and learning and getting certifications and coaching clients. It was only through many, many years of training so many people did I start to realize like, oh, wow, this is such a bad way to gauge our success. Because regardless if you're trying to build muscle or lose body fat, you can move on the scale in the direction that you think is right, but actually be doing the wrong things and vice versa.

[Justin]

So you have false expectations.

[Adam]

And I think in. When I go back and think of all the different people that I train, I would make the case that probably half of the time it was sending a message that wasn't accurate.

[Sal]

Totally.

[Adam]

And if I wasn't also taking a body fat percentage, I would have not known that.

[Sal]

Yeah, I mean, I've had people work out in gyms that I manage that would lose weight. And then through body composition testing, I realized you actually lost more muscle than body fat.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

You're lighter with less muscle, which means metabolically you're less healthy. And your body fat percentage actually went up even though you lost weight on the scale. Because the percentage that matters, not your weight. And the disbelief I would get from them, how is that possible? And I have to explain the math and what's going on.

[Justin]

I've been doing all the work.

[Sal]

That's right.

[Justin]

That's the frustrating part. That's right.

[Sal]

Now, the mirror is also a terrible way to measure your progress because it's subjective. And the way that we're wired, we're not wired to notice our progress. We're wired to notice the places that are imperfect. And so studying yourself in the mirror, especially daily, especially every single day, is going to cause you to become too self conscious on your appearance. And people who become very self conscious about how they look over, train, under, eat or overeat or just do the wrong things. I mean, how many times have you. Well, how many times do I have people on the show that call in and send us a picture and we'll say, oh my God, I don't know how to progress anymore. We're like, you look amazing. Yeah. But they can't see it because the mirror is based off their subjective experience and it's a lie. And especially again, if you stare at yourself on a daily basis, you can ruin your day because of something you may perceive that might not actually be something anybody else notices or it might be something that is not even an issue. Oftentimes that's the case.

[Adam]

Not even just your perception being skewed, but also inflammation. So this is the one that I thought was really interesting for me because obviously when I was competing, I was using the scale, using the mirror all the time. I'm going to be judged by the way look. So of course I better be paying attention to how I look. And many times I know I'd be right on track. Right. Everything's being measured, tracked. I know exactly what I'm doing. And I'd wake up the next day and I would look like I gained body fat. But all it was was inflammation.

[Sal]

Water retention.

[Adam]

Yes, water retention. And that can really skew you. Like, thank God I was tracking diligently and knew that there's, there's no way that I put on body fat just mathematically isn't possible. Because of the type of cut that I was in. So something else is going on here. And I knew to be patient for a few days. And what I found was by about the third day that would like get released and then all of a sudden you would see really how the progress is making. But I can't, you could have overcorrected. I can't imagine how many times in my earlier years as a trainer, I probably overcorrected. The client, or a client who doesn't even have a trainer over corrects, they see that, freak out next day, what do they do? Cut calories, get on a piece of cardio equipment and start heading even in, in a worse direction than they are already heading. And so it's a terrible gauge, even if you have, like you, I mean, your point's valid, right? Like so many people see them. Like how many times does someone look at themselves and don't think they look good to the point you're making? But even if you have a very objective, fair way of looking at yourself, it still can look like you gain body fat because of the water retention.

[Sal]

That's right, in, in body dysmorphia, which there's, it's a scale, right? So there's extreme cases, there's less. And I'd say I could make this statement, I think pretty accurately. I think most people in modern societies to some extent have some body dysmorphia just because we're constantly advertised to and we are looking at social media, we're looking at others, we're told how valuable our looks are, we're very self conscious about how we look. So watch looking in the mirror every single day. Your mood influences what you see. It's not just the reflection in the mirror, it's also how you feel about yourself. And then of course, the objective stuff like lighting, water retention. Are you on your period? Did you have poor sleep? Did you eat a little bit more sodium? Are your muscles flat because your carbs were low, but now you think you lost muscle? You don't look as buffed or jacked or whatever. It goes in both directions. And so the mirror can also very much lie. One of my favorite ways to illustrate this with clients would be when I would get a client that would be in say their 40s or 50s, they would talk about how they want to look like they did when they were 30. And then I, you know, we'd work out and get fit, but they'd still have this kind of complaint. It said, you remember when you were 30, we used to say about yourself, like, yeah, I used to think I looked terrible and now you're looking back and wishing you looked like that. I said, do you think that might be happening now? And you'd always see people's faces like, oh, yeah, I guess, I guess I need to be a little bit more careful with how I judge myself. So mirror and scale. You can literally not look at yourself, take your scale, throw it away, and then pay attention to the following signs or the following, you know, pieces of data essentially. And if you follow these, they're going to direct you in the right way. And you mentioned one of them, which is strength. But I put that in the category of performance.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

If you're stronger, you could be moving.

[Adam]

Towards something that's not related to getting stronger on. Yeah, weightlifting.

[Sal]

So if you're stronger, you're more fit, you have more stamina, you have better mobility. It's, it's, you're doing a lot of things right. You're not eating terribly, you're not getting poor sleep, your workout programming isn't terrible. If you're improving in performance, if you're improving performance, you're probably doing a lot of things right. And if you took the average person who doesn't exercise and if they improve their performance, let's just say linearly, which doesn't happen, let's just say magically, they were able to linearly improve their performance over an entire year and then they were able to do a reveal and look in the mirror at the end of the year. Do they think they would look radically different? Yeah, absolutely. So performance is one of the best ones. If you're improving in the gym and getting more fit, then you're moving in the right direction. If your performance is getting worse, regardless of what the scale says, you may be or probably are moving in the wrong direction.

[Adam]

Agreed.

[Sal]

Next would be energy, just overall well being and how you feel. I like this one because oftentimes people will lose weight and because the scale goes down, even though they feel like garbage, they'll, they'll think they're doing well.

[Adam]

Right.

[Sal]

Like, oh, I'm doing really well. And it's like, you know, your energy.

[Adam]

Or you get the people that think that your good workouts are based off of how much you destroy yourself in the gym. And then they're suffering all day long from their energy just being trashed because they beat themselves up in their workout time and just because they feel accomplished because they did this hard workout, in reality, it's not what's ideal for the body at the time. So it's a great way to measure this.

[Justin]

Two, it also helps to kind of address the over training aspect. If your energy is suffering substantially and it just keeps getting worse in terms of you're doing too much, you're doing too much. And so if you can use that as a gauge to kind of, you know, back off, reduce intensity or volume a bit, then that's, you know, something to pay attention to.

[Sal]

Yeah. If you're doing things mostly right with diet and exercise and lifestyle, you should notice improvements in vitality. So that's what I'll, I'll use that word. Instead of energy, you should feel better vitality throughout the day, more alive, more energized, not hyper, but just more energized, more alive, more sustainable energy. Feel good. You feel good more often than you did before. That's very common when you're doing things right. That's actually one of the number one results you'll get is you'll just have better vitality on a day to day basis.

[Adam]

There's another reason why this conversation, I think is so important and not just to the progress that you tied it to, but also if you're going to be somebody who's going to do this forever, at one point you have to move away from the scale and the mere goals.

[Sal]

Totally.

[Adam]

That might have been what initially got you into the gym, right? Oh my God, I need to lose 40 pounds or oh my God, I don't like the way I look. And so that initially gets you into the gym, but sooner or later, if you do things correctly, you accomplish that. And the thing that will keep you going forever is if you've learned to make the connections to all these things. You know, is my energy levels better? Is my skin better? Is my sleep better? Is my libido better? Is it like, do I feel younger? Am I more productive as a dad and as a partner and like life? Like, you have to learn to look at all these other things and compare the healthy fit version of you to the not healthy and fit. And that is what will keep you going and working out. Because once you've accomplished the PRs, the look, the scale that you want, how.

[Sal]

Do you do this for the next.

[Adam]

How do you do this for the next 20, 30, 40 years of your life? This is the only way to do that, is to learn to measure these other ways of telling your product which happens to be the more accurate ways to do it anyway.

[Sal]

That's right. And it allows you to adjust, adjust your training and diet based off of what's happened in your life? Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sleep is the next one. You just said that one of the first signs of over training or poor nutrition is a disruption in sleep. Now this, by the way, sleep doesn't just mean when you sleep, it's how quickly you fall asleep, if you're able to stay asleep, if it's restful sleep, and when you wake up, how you feel. So you could all, you could be like, oh, my God, I hit the pillow and I crash. I close my eyes and I'm out. Well, how do you wake up? Oh, yeah, I'm like, I feel like a zombie when I wake up. So that's all of. That is part of sleep. So you should be able to fall asleep relatively easily. Not you hit the pillow and instantly fall asleep. That can also mean that you're maybe a little overdoing it. But you fall asleep, you stay asleep, you wake up. No, no pain, no inflammation. You wake up, you feel good, you don't feel like you're, you're dragging. That's good. When you start to see disruptions in sleep, usually there's a problem, or oftentimes I should say there's a problem with your training and your diet. In fact, over training, one of the number one signs of overdoing it is insomnia or broken sleep. So if you're training really hard, you're working out really hard, you just got started and you're like, man, it's weird. It's like, I notice I wake up now at 2am every night, or I wake up every morning at 4, 4am and I can't get back to sleep. Oftentimes that means you're overdoing it, regardless how much you're doing, by the way. So, you know, because sometimes people judge us and be like, I'm only working out three days a week, you might be overdoing it for you, maybe because your current fitness level can't maintain that or the intensity is too high. Back off and see what happens. But sleep is one of those signs that'll tell you whether or not you're doing things right or wrong. And then you mentioned libido, Adam. That was the last one. Yep. If your libido, you know what your normal libido looks like, if it crashes, that's a problem. That means your body does not feel like you can procreate. So that means that you're either overdoing it, underdoing it, your diet is off, and that's pretty much it. Performance, energy, sleep and libido like, you measure those and those are moving in the right direction. You're doing everything right.

[Adam]

And the libido thing, this was a, I mean, it was a, a miserable time for me when I went through this, but was what a good experience for me to see this. And that was when I came off of testosterone for those couple years and try to bring it back naturally. And the only thing that made me feel okay was the, the day after a great, like, leg, you know, deadlift or a squat session. And what I realized was it wasn't super intense. It was. I was definitely strength training, but it was an appropriate dose of that would result in this spike in my libido about 24 or 48 hours later. And I think that's so important that you, you get again, connect that. Oh, man, when I do these types of things, how much better that makes my body feel. I don't know if I would have been able to really parse that out had I not been in that situation to feel how dramatic of a difference it is. But it's definitely for somebody who feels like their libido is low. Is assessing one if you're working out at all and then if you're doing the appropriate amount. Also, when it comes to diet, I remember cutting for a show when you start to get in that unhealthy part of it towards the last couple weeks where you're just so depleted and you're not feeding the body. One of the first things you see that libido, and that was even on testosterone. So even taking synthetic testosterone, I would see my libido go in the floor because of. And again, it's just a sign of I'm not healthy at that point. Right. I'm too low of body fat percentage, I'm too low a calorie. And my libido would take a die.

[Sal]

Yeah, that's because your body, especially if you're a woman, by the way, it was true for men as well. Your body says, hey, you, you don't have enough resources, your health isn't good enough to support another human being. So we're going to shut off your libido. We're going to make it so you're not fertile or you don't have a child. That's why the libido. Now, there's lots of things that can affect libido, but that's just, this is just again, one of those signs that it'll, it'll get better. If you're doing things right from a fitness perspective, it'll get worse if you're doing things wrong.

[Justin]

From a fitness perspective, where did this word come from?

[Sal]

Libido.

[Justin]

Yeah, that's a good sound.

[Adam]

Latin.

[Sal]

It does.

[Justin]

I mean, I haven't heard it said this many times listening to you guys. It's like.

[Adam]

Libido, and it's a Latin word derived from something I have to be. Yeah, look it up. Doug, what do we got?

[Justin]

Yeah, because, I mean, I guess there's not a lot of ways to say sex drive, so this. That works.

[Sal]

Yeah, I bet you're right. It's got to be a Latin based. So.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Yes, it comes from Latin.

[Sal]

And what does it say?

[Doug]

Means desire, lust, or sexual pleasure.

[Justin]

Oh, hey, obviously, very good on the money.

[Sal]

All right, so. So I got to tell you guys about conversation I had over the weekend that led me to looking up more studies on a topic that I haven't brought up in a long time. I used to. I used to rave about this early days of mind pump and then kind of stopped talking about it, but there's more studies supporting it. So I was, I. I made breakfast in the morning, and my, My. I'm on a thread with a bunch of my cousins. We're all men, the same age, yet we all have kids. And so sometimes in the morning, people will start sending, like, what they're eating, right? And we, you know, we'll poke fun at each other, whatever. So I sent my breakfast, which was bunch of eggs, eight scrambled eggs. So I had literally eight egg yolks in a pan. And I'm like, well, I'm about to.

[Justin]

Scramble just the yolks, right?

[Sal]

No, I ate the whole thing. The whole thing.

[Justin]

Okay.

[Sal]

No, so I'm eating eight scrambled eggs, and so one of my cousins gets on and goes, oh, my God, eight eggs. Is that okay? Like, can you have.

[Justin]

You get a die?

[Sal]

Can you have that much cholesterol? And so I'm like, oh, man, you're. You're good. You're so behind on what's good, what's not good. But I explained it to him, and then we talked about the strength benefits of dietary cholesterol, which, even though I know I've told him, must have gone on one ear out the other. So I found some more studies to support this. By the way, this is an old. For people that know, this is an old bodybuilding hack.

[Adam]

Bodybuilders back in the day have, like, cholesterol pills.

[Sal]

No, they never.

[Adam]

Oh, they didn't do cholesterol pills.

[Sal]

No, they used to sell desiccated liver tablets. Yeah, liver but, but I don't think they were desiccated. So I don't think those are those.

[Adam]

Big old pills they used to get terrible horse pills.

[Sal]

So this is another study that, this was done in 2007. The effects of dietary cholesterol and muscle hypertrophy with resistance training. Dietary cholesterol has a modest role in muscle mass and strength increases. So they don't. So, and this is just another one where if you increase your dietary cholesterol, what you see is better adaptation to strength training. More muscle, more strength. Now, this is my experience. In my experience, if you take your diet, if everything else stays equal, by the way, so you know, it's not like you're increasing protein or whatever, keep everything the same. But if you dramatically increase your dietary cholesterol within a week, you'll see pronounced strength gains. And these strength gains or this hack last for a good six to eight weeks. Afterwards, you start to see a blunt. And I'm assuming it's because your body then starts producing less cholesterol to make up the difference. But in that short period of time when you have additional cholesterol, and we know this, that your muscles suck up cholesterol when you, for lack of a better way of explaining it, it's almost similar.

[Adam]

Would you say block is, Wouldn't you say it's kind of similar to the feeling that you get anybody who's ever been on a really low carb diet for an extended period of time? Low calorie, low carb. And then you load back the calorie. Load back the carbs and the calories.

[Sal]

That extra.

[Adam]

Yeah, I mean, you feel like, I mean, some of the best workouts I ever had was post show. After I refed that next week or two even, it just felt like every, every workout I was stronger and felt amazing. But then that obviously that levels off and you don't really feel it anymore.

[Sal]

No, the dietary cholesterol, it does feel like that. And the dietary cholesterol seems to stimulate muscle protein synthesis more than when the cholesterol is lower. We see this in studies on whole eggs versus egg whites. Even though they'll correct for macro. Excuse me, they'll control for macros. The whole egg just stimulates protein synthesis more. Again, bodybuilders have noticed this forever. There's lots of studies now on cholesterol and its correlation to strength muscle gain. Like if you're otherwise a healthy individual and you want to just do this hack, test it for yourself and see what happens. It's pretty remarkable. The strength gains Initially, I don't think are from more muscle because you'll notice it within five days, five to seven days. I think it's central nervous system. I think it has something to do with CNS really firing harder. And then you start to see the gains in strength and muscle.

[Adam]

Interesting.

[Sal]

Yeah. But I do think there's a CNS component because I can almost like. Like five, six days later, it's like, oh, there's that, there's that strength.

[Adam]

Yeah. Speaking of eggs, what's going on with eggs right now?

[Sal]

Oh, it's because the bird flu.

[Justin]

Flu, yeah.

[Adam]

Really?

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

I didn't hear anything leading up. And then all of a sudden I.

[Sal]

See we have this massive story, state emergency.

[Adam]

Yeah. Eggs are in the news like crazy these days right now.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Did you see the Costco article too about the. Oh, yeah. So they. I was trying to explain to my family. They were sending and saying that the. Because recently didn't the FDA come out again on and talk about eggs, that they're now healthy. Yeah, they're now healthy. Right. So they recanted like, I don't know, a decade ago. Right. Or American Heart association recanted what they had said about cholesterol.

[Sal]

Dietary.

[Adam]

Yeah. And then they came out. FDA say they're actually healthy now. And so of course they're all over the news. Then an article comes out saying that Costco's eggs are the least healthy. Or it could be like, why? Oh, because they're all those. Costco's getting bulk. You know, they're getting the ones that. Where they smash all the chickens together in a tiny little. Yeah, they're not free. Yeah. Costco doesn't do free range eggs, dude.

[Sal]

When I. When I only get pasture raised eggs. Right. Because the first time I had pasture eggs, eggs when I cracked it open and the yolk was like, all you have to do.

[Adam]

I feel like all you have to do is see that one time the pale justify the value of spending a little bit.

[Justin]

Like I said, that's your. Your gateway to becoming a conspiracy theorist. I thought I saw this whole video that like literally played this all the way out. Because you see, you're just like, wait a minute, like, why am I eating eggs that look like this versus, you know, having your own chicken that. That produces an egg with a vibrant orange yolk like this, like. And then you start questioning things and you're like, what about this other food? And you know, it's funny. It's a funny video. It just kind of goes through this whole progression.

[Adam]

Eggs are so Obvious to me. So, I mean, buying organic chicken and non organic chicken or I mean, I get. You could see in grass fed beef too, because grass fed beef. Oh, you can tell, you could really tell how, how marbly like grain fed is compared. So you could tell there.

[Sal]

But eggs are like.

[Adam]

But yeah, crack them next to each other and they look. Yeah. One's like bright orange, the other one's like this light yellow. Yeah, light yellow.

[Justin]

Now you know, so much better. I mean, it's, it's unreal. You know what, I'm even close.

[Sal]

You know what I'm worried about though? Because you know what? They did this with fish, right. With farm raised salmon versus wild caught is they'll. They'll color feed.

[Justin]

Yes.

[Sal]

They'll add feed to the farm fish. To me, it's only a matter.

[Adam]

It's only a matter of time before somebody figures out they're already doing it.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah, they feed the chickens.

[Doug]

They feed them some type of vitamins and things to make their yolks yellow.

[Adam]

Really?

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

I didn't know that.

[Doug]

I figured it's been a while because.

[Adam]

I mean, you could still see a huge difference in them. So, I mean, is that, is that what it looks like after they've already been trying to catch it up? Because that's really bad.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Because if you can see that.

[Sal]

Oh, I don't think they're all doing it. I think some companies.

[Adam]

That's why I'm wondering, like, we're so.

[Doug]

I don't know who's doing it, but I think if you go with pasture raised, you have a better chance. But even then, who knows what's going on?

[Sal]

Pasture raised. Because sometimes these laws are ridiculous. Like, yeah, free range means that they leave the chickens out for like 10 minutes and they throw them back in the crate or something like that. Right. I swear to God.

[Justin]

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's like really minimal.

[Sal]

I think pasture raised is the best one. But there's like parameters.

[Adam]

I think free range is better.

[Sal]

No, free range is like a short period of time outside the cage.

[Adam]

Really.

[Sal]

Pasture is where they actually feed and eat.

[Justin]

Yeah, we have to look that up. I don't know the parameters because. Yeah, that's, that's depressing if that's the case.

[Doug]

So I'm. Hey, I have some answers here for you. So pasture raised chickens are out in an open field. They have to typically have at least two and a half acres of outdoor space for a thousand chickens.

[Adam]

Okay, what's free range?

[Sal]

And then look up free range. Free range is, is. I I read this a long time ago. It was dumb. It was like. Yeah, I was like, you let them outside for a little bit and you kick them back in the.

[Adam]

Really? Yeah, really.

[Sal]

It was something like that.

[Justin]

So weak.

[Sal]

If it has. Okay, so here it is. If they have access to outdoor for more than 51 of its life. Oh, that's not too bad. Okay, that's not too bad then.

[Adam]

Well, what. Okay, wait a second though. Like outdoor, I mean, that just means you could cram them all into one little spot, move the cage outside. That's true.

[Doug]

Just take the roof off the barn.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

It has access to outdoor. Don't mean they go outside. Poor chicken scared.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

But that also doesn't mean how that other one actually had parameters. Around two acres. A thousand birds. That's a lot of room for even a thousand. That's a lot of room. So that means they could take.

[Justin]

It's a perfect little back section.

[Adam]

Yeah. Interesting. So you're right. I mean, that would mean pasture raise is the better way to go.

[Sal]

Yeah, I knew that.

[Adam]

I thought there. Have I seen free range pasture raised?

[Sal]

No. Unless they're just trying to market it differently.

[Doug]

They also have cage free, which is cage freeze.

[Sal]

The worst. Yeah, look up cage free. That's the one. I think that was really dumb.

[Justin]

Sounds like it's good.

[Sal]

I think cage free was the one where I was like, this is stupid.

[Adam]

What does that even mean?

[Sal]

Yeah, dude, what's going on here? Look at. Look that up. Yeah, because I think that's the one that I saw.

[Justin]

No cages. We just applied bondage.

[Sal]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's housed in an enclosed area that allows it to access to food and water without limit and roam freely during the laying cycle. So it's just a big barn.

[Justin]

Okay.

[Adam]

It's just during the laying cycle.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Kept in a crowded. Okay. However, cage free chickens may still be kept in crowded conditions and some may never go outside.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Oh, yeah. So that's. That's funny.

[Sal]

That's all right. We're going to be growing all this food in labs soon anyway.

[Justin]

Oh, yeah, Perfect.

[Sal]

We'll be totally good.

[Adam]

Oh, my God. We're around the corner.

[Sal]

Speaking of food, did you guys see what Nestle is doing? You know, one of the largest food manufacturers or.

[Adam]

Bro, I'm so glad you're bringing them up because I have. Is. It. Is. Does. Is Oreo owned by Nestle.

[Justin]

They still acquiring all the.

[Adam]

I just sent you guys water in the world. I just sent you guys a video. Okay.

[Sal]

Okay. What is It.

[Adam]

I just sent you guys a video in our. In our group thread on text message. Look at it. Look at the video. It's Oreo cookie and which I think is owned by Nestle. I think Nestle owns Oreo. Right?

[Sal]

Maybe.

[Adam]

Is that right, Doug?

[Doug]

It does. Nabisco was before, but now there's another company called Mondalez or something.

[Adam]

Anyways, I actually had already had this saved because I wanted to bring it up to you guys. They have this demonstration of like a blowtorch for 0.1 seconds. One second on it.

[Justin]

Oh, I did see that video, bro. I saw that.

[Adam]

I sent it to you guys. So it's you literally nothing happens. Nothing. You literally a blowtorch is hitting that thing for like a minute and nothing happens.

[Justin]

They should literally look at that for insulation for your house or something. Yes.

[Adam]

I was like, God, we eat that.

[Sal]

Have you seen them do that?

[Adam]

I've had an Oreo cookie.

[Sal]

Have you seen them do that with American cheese? Like the fake cheese. They'll light it with a lighter and it just turns black. It doesn't really do anything. Yeah, yeah. All this processed food is weird.

[Justin]

It's just.

[Sal]

Yeah, it's so Nestle plastic. Let me tell you about what Nestle did. And I. I mean, it was a matter of time right before food companies did this. So GLP1s like WeGovy and Ozempic and all the other ones.

[Adam]

Oh, now they're gonna start making snack foods that are specifically targeted to those people.

[Sal]

Yeah, because.

[Adam]

Yeah, it's brilliant. Yeah, I knew that was coming. We knew that was coming.

[Sal]

They just included 12 items, including pizza and pasta, which, I mean, what gonna put in these foods? Like this is for. It's a smaller one. What is it? Like, what are they gonna do?

[Adam]

Yeah. How are they marketing it?

[Sal]

So that's a good question.

[Adam]

Like high protein. Is it something like that?

[Sal]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, I think it's just it protein based.

[Adam]

Yeah, but what is high protein? I know.

[Sal]

What do they consider it's gonna be?

[Adam]

It's still low.

[Justin]

I've seen Starbucks version. It's pretty pathetic.

[Sal]

Of what?

[Justin]

Of pro type protein.

[Sal]

Oh, they're protein.

[Justin]

Yeah, it's like basically like two.

[Adam]

Oh, they're little. They're a little egg. Their little egg thing.

[Sal]

Yeah, it's two eggs and like it's.

[Adam]

Like a total of 8 grams or 10 grams of protein in that little thing.

[Sal]

No. So, I mean, what Nestle is doing is smart marketing. They're trying to capture all these people who are getting on these glp ones and they're like, okay. Where, you know, you all of a sudden you go to the store and you see a food that says, oh, this is for me.

[Adam]

So where are we at with that? I know. I felt like we, we laid off on our audience for a little while because we were, we were talking so much about GOP one exploding. Is it still.

[Sal]

Oh yeah.

[Adam]

Is it still like running like crazy?

[Sal]

Yeah. Especially Gen Z. The younger generation are. They have a really, really positive outlook on GLP1s, whereas the boomers are the ones that are more likely to be. I'm not sure.

[Justin]

So do they develop the oral version? Is that mark in circulation?

[Sal]

I haven't, I haven't seen. Yes, many that are.

[Adam]

I don't know if it's the real one though. That's a problem.

[Sal]

Yeah, I've seen them.

[Adam]

There's a bunch of like some my mother in law sent me like, son, should I take this? Like. And it's just like now they're like all kinds of pill form which you know how that's not regulated. So if it's a pill form.

[Sal]

Oh really? So you, so you mean actual GLP1 in capsule?

[Adam]

I don't think it's actual. I think it's being marketed like it is, you know.

[Sal]

No, you can get a GLP1 in tablet form, but from what I've heard, what I've read and from the people I've talked to who work with them, they said it's not nearly as effective.

[Adam]

What exactly is the GLP1 probiotic? That. That's the one I brought up.

[Sal]

I brought that up on a previous episode, Akkermansia. It's a bacteria that seems to raise your natural GL and has been in studies, shows some weight loss. So it's not going to have the same effect, of course, but interesting. It's an interesting bacteria.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

That seems to have some, some of those effects. But yeah, this whole GLP1 phenomena, I mean it's exploding. It is exploding.

[Justin]

It's every commercial now.

[Sal]

I stand by what I said. I think you're probably gonna have about. Probably 60 to 70%. I'm being conservative of Americans are gonna be on one probably the next 10 years. I think it's that. That many.

[Adam]

That's a huge number.

[Sal]

Yep. And they're just getting. Insurance companies are getting lobbied like crazy to cover them. I think it's going to become a political issue. I think in the next, over the next election, four years from now. I bet that'll be something they talk about like Your company needs to pay for.

[Adam]

Oh my God.

[Sal]

Yeah, that'll be weird. Companies will probably offer it. I could foresee big companies saying, if you work for us, we'll cover the cost of your GLP1. I mean, it's culture shifting.

[Adam]

Yeah, talk about culture shifting. You sent a text message yesterday and it was on my notes to bring up to you guys. Anyway, so I was like, oh, this is crazy. So obviously you. Sal sees it too. I mean, I like, notoriously, I'll be watching TV with Katrina and you know, I, I gripe and when I'm like watching like a new Netflix show or Amazon, and it's like we can't get but 15 minutes in the show and all of a sudden there's just like this woke narrative in it and I'm just like, oh God, can we just have a good show that just has a good premise to it, doesn't have to insert that where it doesn't even need to be in there or whatever. So I've been bitching about this, I feel like for the last like 10 years. And I'm always quick to like point it out. And then Katrina's like, just stay with it. Maybe it's good. No, I don't want to watch it. I'm like grumpy old man. Right? Like that.

[Justin]

So.

[Adam]

But it's so wild to see how fast the pendulum has swung the other way. Like in the last 30 days, no joke, I've watched an Apple TV show, I've watched a Netflix show, I've watched an Amazon prime show. All were that were rated, right, the top 10 or whatever like that movies right now or that are either faith based, hard conservative values from it. It's so trippy to see how quick we just switch the narrative like that. And it just, I don't know, it feels so inauthentic to me. Of course, you know, it's like I. I don't know if I ever really noticed that stuff before. I think I probably just because I didn't really follow much of the political landscape and just probably, I probably blew with the wind like everybody else, you know, but now because we pay so much attention to it, or at least I pay way more attention to it now than I ever did. It's so obvious to me because it's like I've seen more in the last 30 days than I did previous 10 years.

[Sal]

It's a market. It's a market based. We live in a market based economy. And it's going to follow the culture.

[Justin]

Yeah. And the culture Also, when things get deregulated, too, I mean, I feel like the DEI affecting a lot of the investments, and those groups, like, really did have a massive impact on, especially the entertainment.

[Sal]

Well, there seems to be, first off, a culture shift towards religion. And you're seeing this in younger people. And I've spoken to quite a few people who are saying they're noticing this. I see it on social media. Young men in particular are attending church, whereas that was a falling demographic. Forever seems to be reversing. Then you have just the political pendulum swing, and the market just follows that. And yes, it is inauthentic. Some of it's authentic.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

But a lot of it's like, what. Here's what.

[Justin]

They're trying to make money. So that's it. Where's the money now? They just go all in. It's like, happens so fast.

[Sal]

100.

[Justin]

They see the shift.

[Sal]

That's it.

[Justin]

And. And that was clear because of the election.

[Sal]

100.

[Adam]

I don't know.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

So, I mean, I guess, well, this is where, like, I become, like, tinfoil hat guy. You know what I'm saying? Like, it makes me a little programmed. Yeah. It makes me a little worried. Like, we are being proven. Like, it was planned the whole time. Like, yeah, we're gonna run this way for, you know, we're gonna piss everybody.

[Sal]

When everybody gets mad, we'll go, yeah.

[Adam]

Then we'll go this way. And it's just like. It's almost. Because it was. It's so quick.

[Sal]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam]

It wasn't like it was a handover. It wasn't like it was like, oh, one show. And then I saw. It was like, all of a sudden, I went from never seeing that to, in one month's time, seeing more of it than I did in 10 years. That's pretty quick for something to happen like that. That's what makes me go, boy. It's pretty interesting timing that all this started coming out this way. It makes you wonder.

[Sal]

Quote. No. No one is more hopelessly enslaved than. Than those who believe they are free. So that's the whole game, right? The whole game is. I want to say, Bastia, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if it's him, but it. It's. It reminds, like, if you want free will versus if you want to control people effectively, you. You don't let them know they're being controlled.

[Justin]

You let them believe the illusion of freedom.

[Sal]

If you give people an option between Coke and Pepsi, and that's the only two options they have, and they Pick Pepsi. They're picking the. One of the options you gave them.

[Adam]

Right.

[Sal]

And you win. That's an old strategy. So it could very well be because you're right. It seems like. It seems like it went crazy. Like it switched so fast.

[Adam]

Fast.

[Sal]

I know.

[Adam]

Yeah. And movies take a long time to produce. It's not like that. Like, producing a movie.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Takes years. It's not like an overnight thing. We're all saying, oh, hey, this is where we're all going, so let's switch the narrative. It's like, that's interesting. Pretty nice convenient timing that all of a sudden that all came out.

[Sal]

Who's that?

[Doug]

Johan. Wolfgang von Golf.

[Adam]

Is that Wolfgang?

[Justin]

No, Noser.

[Adam]

Oh, that's who that.

[Sal]

Yeah. I always thought that was a cool name.

[Adam]

Wolfgang.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

That's just awesome.

[Justin]

Wasn't Eddie Van Halen's son Wolfgang Van Halen something?

[Sal]

I think you're right.

[Justin]

Yeah. I was like, oh, that's.

[Sal]

That's an awesome. Awesome.

[Adam]

I. I have a, like a little bit of a science question for you that you. I'm wondering if you know the answer to this when we get. I just. I'm coming off a cold right now, and I got it on Thursday and the. Every once in a while I'm really good about this, where I feel it's starting to come on. And then I go, right. I do the stack, you know, take everything and do everything. And I feel like there. And then there's other times where I get sick and I kind of drag my feet, like, oh, I need to get the meds or I need to get those things. And it's like 24 hours later and then I start taking it. I feel like there is a dramatic difference on. If I get on it. Like, as soon as I feel it coming on versus it's already hit me, and then I get on it is. We have research that supports, like, oh, if you get the cold and you get it in the first 12 hours and you get on top of it, because, I mean, I feel like it's night and day difference. Like, I was so good about my stack this time that this was probably one of the easiest colds that I've ever had. Like, it just didn't feel like it even bothered me.

[Sal]

There is definitely some. Some data to support that, especially with this. The studies on infectious diseases that we have a lot of data on. Or like, if you treat somebody early, whether it's a bacterial or viral infection, early on, you're. You get far better results. So what will happen with the Natural stuff, just, again, anecdotally, is if you start to feel like you're getting a cold. So Ned's product is. You use them too, right?

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah, that was part of my stack.

[Sal]

Yeah. What's it called? It's right.

[Adam]

Immunity boost.

[Sal]

Immunity boost.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

So they have a good one. So if you start to feel like.

[Adam]

You'Re getting stuff like that and then.

[Sal]

You start taking it.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

You're probably still gonna get sick because you were already getting sick. Once you start to feel symptoms, you're infected, but what'll happen is the symptoms are gonna be way less, and then it'll be shorter duration rather than lasting five days. Last four days or three days.

[Justin]

Yeah. So we did the same thing because my brother, actually, his wife and. And daughter couldn't make it to Christmas, and because it was. They were like, had the flu, and. But he still came, like. But you probably are exposed, and, like, you're here. And I'm like, oh, my God. And so we're all, like, taking all the vitamins and everything we could, but also, too, like, I was, like, from the whole Covid experience and everything. I've listened to people talk about, like, preventative ways of not contracting, and it's like, you know. Yes. Washing the hands, but also it's like washing your face. And, you know, you're. You're, you know, flushing everything out and making sure your mouth's clean and everything, too, to get that out. Like, I. So I was doing, like, all those things, and it's been good.

[Sal]

Yeah. Peroxide nasal. I think you could do a swab.

[Justin]

Nasal swab. Yeah.

[Sal]

Yeah. There were some studies out of Europe that showed that that kind of helped.

[Justin]

It does.

[Sal]

Yeah. Well, none of us got. So. Remember Doug last week came in sick. Remember he came in, like, super sick, which he comes in, and I could tell right away, and he's like, oh, my God. I woke up last night. He's like, I was just puking. I'm like, what happened? He goes, food poisoning. I'm like, from what? He had some frozen food that he ate. And I'm like, you don't get food poisoning from frozen processed food. You're sick. And he's like, maybe I am. He comes in here, sits down, and then an hour later, he's like, yeah, dude, I'm sick. He leaves. We were all here with him for a bit. None of us got anything. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah. Praise God.

[Adam]

All I got was a little cold. I think you had a little cold? Like, I did a week or two ago.

[Sal]

And you and I kissed a little bit.

[Adam]

Merry Christmas.

[Justin]

I exited out no mistletoe.

[Adam]

But I mean, I do. I noticed. I noticed a big difference. If I'm really good about all those things. Yeah, I'm really good about getting on it. The minute I think I might be getting sick or even like just saying, like being preventative, like, oh, someone's sick around me, versus just dragging my feet a little bit and waiting till like, I'm full blown sick and then taking it. Then it feels like it does very little.

[Sal]

You want to. Oh, by the way, we're talking about, like, supplements, things you could take and you ever go down. I'm sure you guys don't, but I love doing this. I love going down, like, historically looking at supplements and medications that we used to give people for particular things and just how crazy wrong we were with certain things. Do you guys know what they use, what women used to buy to improve their complexion? It was in tablet form.

[Adam]

You guys will never get tablet form, improve your complexion. Is it a drug that still exists today? Is it a drug?

[Sal]

Oh, it still exists.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Sal]

But you definitely wouldn't take tablets of it, that's for sure.

[Adam]

What would you take tablets of?

[Sal]

Arsenic.

[Adam]

What?

[Sal]

They used to sell Google arsenic tablets for complete.

[Justin]

That wasn't on my bingo card.

[Sal]

They would buy arsenic tablets and they'd pop them and it would give their skin like a white, clear collection because it was destroying red blood cells.

[Adam]

Oh, my.

[Sal]

So they would look, they would have this pale, like, you know, like. And that was the fashion. So like. Oh, this, this, this works.

[Justin]

Really pale and clammy. I love this.

[Sal]

Slowly poisoning themselves.

[Justin]

And they just had the faint couches.

[Adam]

You know, so that real, that real pale look, right? They almost to where they were. The, the pasty, you know, white hair, the white. They do like the white faces. Like that was that. Is that. Because back then it. It's simple. It was a symbol that you didn't work outside.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Was that. What is that because you were. True.

[Sal]

Yeah, that's.

[Adam]

That was okay.

[Sal]

So that's why if you had a tan.

[Adam]

Yeah, you did work outside. You did labor outside.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

So the wider your skin looked.

[Sal]

That's right.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

I would have done great back then.

[Sal]

So look at that. Look at that. Dr. James Campbell's safe arsenic. Arsenic complexion wafers.

[Justin]

People would eat those arsenic wafers.

[Adam]

How long ago, Sal? When was that? That's right there on the day. I can barely see. Were those late 1800s, 1919 something.

[Justin]

Let's see.

[Adam]

I can see it right here. 19.

[Doug]

Oh, 1916 to 1928.

[Sal]

Yeah. There you go. Wow. Yeah. So like, literally one of our great grandma.

[Adam]

Well, I mean, didn't we used to, like, prescribe women like cigarettes too, when they're pregnant?

[Justin]

These little bits of cocaine for. Yeah, for colds.

[Sal]

And you ever see kids cough drops from back then. Yeah, that's got heroin.

[Justin]

Yeah, that's cocaine.

[Sal]

Like, little Timmy just fine.

[Adam]

He feels great.

[Justin]

Look at him. He's just running.

[Sal]

He's out playing with his friends again. This is great.

[Adam]

This is why. Hey. That's why that generation thinks we're a bunch of. Oh, it can't handle no gluten.

[Sal]

We used to give our kids cocaine.

[Justin]

Seriously.

[Sal]

I know.

[Adam]

Come on.

[Justin]

Early 1900s, right? The end of the 1800s, dude. They were still trying to figure out surgery. And I remember this one show kind of went into all that and, like, it was. It. What was it? It was the one where you, like, you strain your. Your groin and then you have, like. What's that called when. When you have.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Hernia. It was a hernia surgery. And like, they're. They're just trying to develop it, and they're still prescribing cocaine and prescribing, like, heroin. All these things to, like, cope with, you know, the pain, the whole thing. They're just cutting.

[Adam]

I mean, heroin makes sense. It's like the strongest form of opiate, so it's like Vicodin times a million. I mean, really, when you think about it. We should get people. Yeah. I was gonna say we haven't. It's just a true Viking. Oxycontin is a. I mean, we're prescribed meth.

[Sal]

We prescribe meth to Q kids.

[Justin]

That's true.

[Adam]

So not much of it has really changed when you think about it. We've just. We've just 10. I don't know what.

[Sal]

We've.

[Adam]

We've added it with a bunch of other stuff.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Actually normalized it.

[Adam]

That's what's even crazier. Right. It's. I wonder if that was like the history of it was not because we. We decided that heroin was bad. It was that it couldn't get patent. And so then we just added a bunch of pharmaceutical stuff to it so we could patent it and then wrap it in some. And cloak it in some other name.

[Sal]

You might be right.

[Adam]

Right. I mean, when you talk about those things. You guys are talking about meth, heroin. These are things that are prescribed.

[Justin]

That's what you want to make it in your bathroom.

[Sal]

You guys want to hear something.

[Adam]

I mean, a lot of people. A lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people do not realize that that's what OxyContin and Vicodin is. It's derived from opiates. And that's all. That's all heroin is. So. And the same thing with your. All your ADHD pills and stuff like that. It's all meth.

[Sal]

Do you guys want to hear something just. Absolutely. Just terrifying to hear? Because that they used to do to women giving birth. They used to give them a compound. I can't remember the name of it, but they would give them a compound while they were in labor and. Because supposedly it helped with the whole process, but the reality is they felt everything. Every piece of pain, everything. They would tie them up, but what it did is it made them forget.

[Justin]

Oh, my God.

[Sal]

So afterwards they'd be like, yeah, I think it was okay. It makes. It caused memory loss. And that's what they were giving women while they were having a baby and suffering from terrible. Oh, my God.

[Adam]

What was the other thing.

[Sal]

It's effective.

[Adam]

What was the other thing that we. They used to do, like, for women, like, they had really bad pms, were like that. They used to like shock therapy and stuff like that.

[Sal]

Oh, well, yeah. I mean, they used to. Vibrators.

[Justin]

Vibrators, yeah, exactly.

[Sal]

Yeah. If you suffered from hysteria, which was a crate. It's a. It basically means overworked, over stimulated. Mom. Hey, doc. My wife. I'm fine. And then they would use a vibrator on her. Use this. And she'd have orgasms.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

And it was a cure for hysteria. Brilliant.

[Justin]

God bless that, doctor.

[Sal]

How do you know it works? My wife's way happy. She's in a better mood. She came back not hysterical anymore. That's how they invented those. Hey, I read an interesting study on prenatal nutrition and face shape.

[Adam]

Say that again.

[Sal]

Prenatal nutrition and shape.

[Justin]

Face shape.

[Sal]

Like. Like characteristics of your face.

[Justin]

Like as it develops fat face.

[Sal]

So, just asking for a friend.

[Justin]

What kind of nutrients.

[Sal]

No, listen to this. So they did. They did a study and they found that a diet that is high in protein resulted in. So it's in. You have enhanced. Higher protein is enhanced mtor. So MTOR is this stimulator of muscle growth performance, et cetera, et cetera. Chiseled jaw, broader jaw, thicker nasal cartilage, more pronounced facial features. Low protein diets, Slender and pointed features. So. And they're thinking this has to do with adaptive advantages to environmental conditions.

[Adam]

Nothing on fat Face.

[Sal]

No, no, soft face. I should look that up. What did my mom gave me a fat face or whatever?

[Adam]

Yeah, that's chat. Gbt.

[Sal]

Yeah. So feeding what you. The mom eats will deter, like now. And by the way, you can see this sometimes with twins. You ever. You ever meet a pair of twins that are identical, but one of them looks a little different than the other? It's like one of them got the more protein than the other one did, so. One. Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. I know a couple sets of twins like that where you look at them both and one of them is a.

[Adam]

Little classic movie twins.

[Justin]

Yeah, he's eating all the. All the steak and the other guy's.

[Sal]

Like, all the protein went through the billboard. Hit 1 first and then what's the next one?

[Adam]

Yeah, dude, I, you know, it's. I don't know. It seems obvious that what the mom eats, you know, while she's pregnant would. Would obviously influence that. Like, that was one of the coolest things I remember when, you know, obviously I don't know what kind of mother Katrina's gonna be until we actually, you know, go down that. Go down that direction. Right. And it was cool to see her collegiate level athlete side of her come out. Like, just the way she approached her competitive side. Like, I remember, I mean, that was the best I'd ever seen that. I've been with her for 14 years. Best I ever saw her ate was when she had Max, you know, was when she was. When he was in her tummy and when she. After she had him and was breastfeeding him, like, her diet was like she was regimen about. About that. Which was really cool to see because it wasn't like she was that, you know, person.

[Sal]

You know, what's tough about that is for some women. So Jessica with Aurelius wasn't as bad, but with Dahlia, the first trimester, well.

[Adam]

She had problems eating things like meat and stuff.

[Sal]

Well, the first trimester she got. It was. She was so nauseous, it was so bad that she had to walk around with something to puke in all day long. Yes. So bad. And there's a. There's. That's not that uncommon. I have another friend who's pregnant and she lost weight in the first trimester because she couldn't keep anything down. So that's tough. You know, if you're listening to this and you're like, pregnant, you're like, I can't eat anything, but I know, what do you do? Waffle.

[Adam]

What do you do?

[Sal]

Because everything else makes Me throw up.

[Adam]

Because obviously some nutrients is better than no nutrients.

[Justin]

Exactly.

[Adam]

So at that point you have to. You know, the lesser evil is.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

The greasy burger or whatever.

[Sal]

What do you do?

[Adam]

Yeah. What do they connect that to? Is there anything connected to that?

[Sal]

Yeah, you're.

[Adam]

Well, the theory was traumatic or whatever like that.

[Sal]

The theory is that your. Your body is much more hyper vigilant to potential toxins. So because of the hyper vigilancy, that nausea. So if I put something in front of you that's bad.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Naturally you'll notice, you'll smell it, but. Oh, I don't want to eat that.

[Adam]

Right.

[Sal]

So now imagine that thing going up to like a thousand.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Because you're pregnant. It's just so strong now that any strong smell, any whatever can cause. Trigger that. That nodding.

[Adam]

Even if it's like a good. Because she would. She's repulsed by even like chicken. Right. And stuff like that. So.

[Sal]

Because like it's like two. It's like turned up to a million.

[Adam]

Wow.

[Justin]

Wow.

[Sal]

You know, type. That's the theory at least. But I don't know who knows why that, that's great. Anyway, I. I read another study on red light therapy. Do you know that red light therapy has been shown to improve eyesight and your ability to perceive colors?

[Adam]

So I knew it was good for your eyes because that was something I asked. I asked the doctor about like, do I need to wear goggles? Because I know they come with it. And he's like, no, it's. It's good for your eyes.

[Sal]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're used. So there's studies on using red light therapy for macular degeneration and it's got positive effects. So I mean again, any cell with a mitochondria is going to benefit from. From red light.

[Adam]

Why do you think Juve gives those goggles then? Just because some people.

[Justin]

I don't think somebody just stares into it.

[Sal]

Yeah. I don't know if you want to open your eyes to the bright red. Probably close your eyes. It gets through the eyelids. You know, it goes below the eyelids, but it's probably so bright you probably don't want to look at it directly. But I don't know. That's a good question.

[Adam]

Bother me. It never bothered me.

[Sal]

No.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

No. But there's actual studies on red light therapy for people with eyesight and there was like a one, one study I read was like a 40 increase improvement in the ability to discern between subtle changes in color.

[Justin]

That's cool.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Do you guys follow who's the guy who's super famous for the biohacking right now, Brian.

[Sal]

Is it that dude that says he wants to live forever?

[Adam]

Yes.

[Sal]

He looks weird.

[Adam]

Yes.

[Sal]

He looks like an Android.

[Adam]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Sal]

I don't know what his name is. I know exactly.

[Adam]

Get him on the show.

[Sal]

He looks, like, really, like, pale, and he's like.

[Adam]

I mean, he's.

[Sal]

I was everything to optimize.

[Justin]

I mean, like, was it Aubrey De Gray or.

[Adam]

No, no. Do you not know who this guy is? No. Brian. I think it's Brian Johnson or Brian.

[Doug]

Oh, that sounds right.

[Adam]

Yeah, I think it's something like that. He was just recently on. Got interviewed by what's his face, Derek.

[Sal]

He's the guy that spends, like, so much money every month.

[Adam]

Oh, they do. I mean, I was. I got sucked in a little bit because of, like, how thorough they are on, like.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Everything that he's doing. So it's interesting. Right?

[Sal]

Yeah. You'll recognize him if you've seen his. Yeah.

[Doug]

Brian Johnson.

[Adam]

You had it. Yeah, yeah.

[Sal]

Look, pull up his whole picture. He. Yeah, there's something.

[Adam]

Would you guys want to interview him?

[Sal]

I'd love to ask.

[Justin]

I mean.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

It's a man who thinks he can live forever. Good luck.

[Justin]

Yeah. Well, we could definitely poke at it.

[Sal]

Yeah. I mean, he goes above and beyond. Right. He does all.

[Adam]

Oh, crazy. Above and beyond.

[Justin]

Like, I don't know this guy. I'll be honest.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Doug]

They say his biological age is 18.

[Sal]

Yeah. That's how they measure it.

[Justin]

It's hilarious.

[Sal]

Yeah. I wonder how accurate all that is.

[Justin]

I'm 12, so.

[Adam]

Yeah, I was like, 67. That.

[Sal]

Yes.

[Adam]

Those aren't accurate.

[Sal]

My sense of humor is 15, so.

[Justin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sal]

I feel like.

[Adam]

I don't know. I had heard about him before, and then I. Then I got sucked into listening to that interview. And I think I was just intrigued by the. The level of testing and stuff that they're doing on every.

[Sal]

Science is so not clear on a lot of that stuff. Yeah, it's like, you know, I don't know. Know. What we know for sure is, like, exercise, eat right, get good sleep. Then they go. And they go way off into all these other things that.

[Justin]

How are we going to determine that once we're cyborgs?

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Justin]

You know what I mean?

[Sal]

Exactly.

[Adam]

I mean, that would be so lame, though. You went through all this process, and then we ended up hacking it.

[Justin]

Like they're competing with a cyborg a month.

[Adam]

You could be half cyborg and just do this.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Yeah. Oh, Justin, I want to ask you, dude, before we ran out of time, the. The pier in Santa Cruz fell into the water again.

[Justin]

Yes, same one. Or if you saw that, it's. No, this is a different one. That was the Aptos that you're thinking of.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah. That just happened last year. The year before.

[Justin]

Yeah. Or capital, I should say. But no, this was off the boardwalk and the wharf itself. So there's actually. There's more to the story. As I kind of followed along, I guess that the environmental standards played a factor in this. So there was one particular species that really kind of set this off, and I guess it was the seagulls, because they have, like, a natural habitat, something they're trying to preserve. At the end of the. They were, like, burrowing themselves into the piers, and I guess they weren't able to go in. And actually they knew about this as a potential problem that they were trying to go in and kind of reinforce and fix. But, like, the environmentalists, like, prevented them from doing their normal upkeep in construction. And so, like, it just started to deteriorate. And so these poor people were like, on the. The end of the pier and this huge wave came. And actually, like, I guess somebody was describing it as like, this huge wave. It didn't fall, like, boom. And everybody, like, got injured. Everybody was fine. But it literally lifted it up, up and it collapsed, and it went with the wave and went down. So it just kind of moved down into the water. Now all of a sudden, we're in the water and they're floating, and it just. It was crazy to see because I actually drove down to make sure to kind of look because it was interesting. And we were driving by the boardwalk, and you could see it's, like, washed up right there near where, you know, they have some of the rides and stuff. Like, it was making its way in inland in the river. So it's a huge, like. Like, bathroom, you know, facility and building.

[Sal]

So for saving habitat, it destroyed the habitat, and now we have destroyed the habitat.

[Adam]

And seagulls, are they in danger?

[Sal]

Seagulls. I know. I thought seagulls.

[Justin]

Yeah, right.

[Sal]

Like, who's saving seagulls?

[Justin]

Don't get me started.

[Sal]

Here's.

[Justin]

Here's my pet peeve, okay? If we're gonna go down this road, I have dogs, okay?

[Sal]

And.

[Justin]

And a lot of other people have dogs in the area. And we're not allowed to go on all these trails because of whatever, like banana slugs or very specific types of beetles, you know, and things were interrupting, like, dude, let's interrupt there. I'm just gonna put it out there. Let's interrupt it and allow us to walk our dogs because like, we can't go anywhere else. Like it pisses me off, dude. Because we have so many beautiful trails.

[Sal]

It's like sometimes they go too far and ends up causing more damage. Like if it's. They're protecting habitat, didn't the habitat get destroyed by the falling?

[Adam]

Sure, yeah, of course it is.

[Justin]

Their whole philosophy imploded.

[Sal]

It's like what they do with the forest fires here. Like, yes, these ideas. But then there's a huge forest fire that kills everything.

[Justin]

I'm for preserving things. And like, I love nature, I love animals, I love all that stuff. But again, if it's illogical, then we can't do this now.

[Adam]

Is that just bound to happen? Like it was. You know, statistically you're trying to save so many different animals. Sometimes it's going to work really well, other times it's not going to. And it's just like.

[Sal]

I'm sure there's a balance.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

I mean it's.

[Justin]

I think the passion is there. But again, we gotta like measure it. Like, does this work? Is this method working? Is. Is this protection? Like we got to get in there and we got to fix things because it's a safety hazard. You know, it's like, come on.

[Sal]

You know, that's my biggest fear would be to be on a pier and it to collapse in the ocean. The ocean terrifies me. Yeah, that would be terrifying. There's some features you're falling in there.

[Adam]

I mean, definitely, like crashing a car into the water would.

[Sal]

Oh God, yeah.

[Adam]

Go anything in the watering down. And then like. Oh, yeah, yeah. A voice. And I have those little tools and of course I do. Really? Yeah. But I don't have in my car.

[Justin]

It's hard to get out, man, that pressure and everything. You can't like just roll your window down.

[Sal]

I saw a video on that. We're like, what do you do if your car sinks? Because you can't open the door until you're fully submerged.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

And then you can open the door.

[Doug]

You can't open the door even then.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

As soon as the water's in filled up in your car, the pressure, then you can open in it.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Sal]

Oh, but you have to wait when.

[Justin]

You land to the bottom.

[Sal]

Yeah, yeah. So they sell those things. That's what you're talking about, right?

[Adam]

Yeah. The little hammers, sharp tip. And you're supposed to just hit it.

[Sal]

You just break the. Break the glass. But of course that's what water are you going to crash around here?

[Adam]

That would be the worst is going to that and then knowing that I have like three of those things and then not knowing where it's at or send another glove.

[Sal]

Guys, we got to wait till the car sinks. Yeah. Terrifying.

[Adam]

Thank you.

[Sal]

Children's multivitamins are typically just candy. They're full of sugar and not the right kind of nutrients or at least the right amounts of nutrients for your children to thrive. Well, there's a company called Hiya that makes a multivitamin that we support for children. It's not a candy. It's an actual multivitamin, but they will eat it and it has adequate nutrients for your children's health and vitality. Go check them out. Go to hiyahealth.com that's h I y a health.com mindpump and on that link you'll get 50% off your first order. All right, back to the show. This segment of the show where we answer questions is brought to you by trainerwebinar.com. this is where Adam and I teach trainers and coaches how to be more effective. The next one is January 7th. Make sure you register.

[Doug]

Our first caller is Keith from Tennessee.

[Sal]

What's up, Keith?

[Adam]

What's going on, Keith?

[Keith]

Hey, guys. How we doing?

[Adam]

Good, good, good. How are you?

[Keith]

Doing well here. Enjoying life. All good, right?

[Sal]

Awesome. How can we help you?

[Keith]

No complaints. Well, as you can see in my question, I'm. Oh, by the way, I better not forget you guys are a family thing for us now. I got a adult daughter and an adult son who listen to you guys every day.

[Sal]

That's great.

[Justin]

All right.

[Adam]

That's awesome.

[Keith]

We've purchased your stuff and so we appreciate what you're doing and you've. You're impacting my family, so I appreciate it.

[Sal]

Thank you.

[Adam]

That's awesome.

[Justin]

That's great.

[Keith]

Anyway, I'm 69 years old. I'm looking at competing next. Actually, it's going to be July. They bumped it up a month. And so my question really is around needing help or guidance for a guy my age wanting to get on stage, what would you recommend? What guidance? What I don't know. Help cautions you might give to someone like myself. As you can see from the email, I've been worked out seriously for the last six or seven years. Lost 30 pounds, hit the gym three or four times a week. Used you guys programs last year. This year has been a little different. But just curious what you guidance you would give it somebody my age with a competition in about Six months. I probably would need to lose, I don't know, 25 pounds of fat, probably to get where I need to be, which to me would be quite a challenge. But anyway, I love this.

[Adam]

This is cool.

[Keith]

Help me.

[Adam]

First of all, you look incredible. Already 69 years old, so that's awesome. And what a fun client or goal to have. So what I tell all my clients that I was getting ready for a show is shows are won in the off season. So the, the prep is, is actually the easier part, believe it or not, in, in this process, because it's all about how we set up your metabolism going into prep. And that is, that's what will make or break somebody getting ready for a show. And what I mean by that is, and I'm always, like, cautious when I get. Would get a client that would hire me and be, Adam, I got a show in July or I got a show this time. Can you have me ready for that? And I'd say, well, I haven't seen where we're at metabolically. And so I don't like to commit to a date until I see that, because that is what I want to make sure is ripping and roaring before I start to cut your calories and deplete you and get you ready for a show. And so to me, that is the most important part. Is it 5, 8, 200 pounds or so? You know, how many calories are you able to eat to kind of maintain your current body and physique? And if you're at 18 body fat, I want to make sure that I've got plenty of Runway to slowly reduce those calories and lean out so that we don't find ourselves starving your body and running on the treadmill every day just to try and drop an extra couple percent. And you've stalled out on me. And so that's the most important part. So have you done a reverse diet and do you know where you're at calorie wise? Like, talk to me a little bit about where you're at right now. Now.

[Keith]

Yeah, I probably. Maintenance is probably 25 to 2700.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Keith]

And right now I've just kind of been more at maintenance, I guess. I haven't been tracking, just eating what I want, being very careful. I'm trying to, you know, just kind of set myself up, not overdo it. I'm not bulking or anything. Before January hits, I feel like, man, by the end of the day, I feel full, like I can't eat anything.

[Adam]

More.

[Keith]

Protein is a priority. Trying to get 150, 170 grams in, which is really challenging. So does that answer your question?

[Adam]

Yeah, it kind of does. And is this, I see up on the screen that you're 18 body fat. Is that where you're at right now?

[Keith]

That's what it was a couple, about a month ago.

[Adam]

Okay. Because at only 2500 calories and 18% body fat, it doesn't give us a lot of Runway because I, I know what. So let's just, let's just play this out a little bit. So let's say we started a cut, and we do the cut partially in movement and partially in calories. So we go from 2500 and I drop you down to 2, 000 calories and we increase your steps by a little bit. That'll, we'll drop, drop 2 to 4% body fat over the course of a month. But then you're going to stall out right there. So then we go from 18, we're down to now 14 body fat. But now you're eating 2, 000 calories and you're walking 10, 000 steps a day. So we have to ramp that up again. Now it's time to cut again. Now I'm dropping down to 16, 1700 calories and telling you I need you to get 15, 000 steps. That drops us another 4%. Now we're at 10% body fat and. But you're only eating 1700 calories. You're doing 15,000 steps a day, which means you're probably doing an hour of list cardio every single day. And we're far from like, really bringing that impressive single digit, you know, physique to you. And so that would be my concern about getting ready for a show right now is I would rather, I would like a guy your size. We should be able to get your calorie intake up to 3,500 calories. Now, I don't, I don't mean that overnight. I don't mean taking you right Now, Keith, from 2,500 to 3,500. I mean, we start we're at 2500 right now, then I don't want to be up to about 2800.

[Sal]

He's at six months out. Right. So what do you think, Adam, like, reverse diet for like two months or so at least?

[Adam]

Right? So at least two or three months. Yeah, for at least two or three months. We would actually be trying to increase the goal right now if you're my client. Right. You've been with me for a long time. This. We set this goal for next year, and I love it. I'm excited about it because I'd like to do this. I'd be like, all right, Keith, our goal right now is we're just going to keep, keep reverse dieting, increasing calories. And my goal is to not put body fat on. Can I not put body fat on? But you get your calories as high as possible and it'd be a slow process of increasing by 250 or so calories, you know, week over week if we can, and really focus on building some muscle. But that's the main goal would be to do that first. And why, if you were my client, I wouldn't want you to commit to a date yet is because I wouldn't want to feel like, like, oh, we've only got now two and a half, three months before it's July. We gotta now start your cut. But then you're still only at say 2900 calories or 3000 calories. And I'm like, ah, Keith, I really want you to be closer to 3,500. I'd rather slowly stair step you up in calories and building muscle. And I don't care if that takes you two months or eight months to get there. That's the goal first. And then once we achieve that, then we can go, okay, now let's pick a date. Now let's pick a show date that we can, we can start to cut you for, to get you ready for that show. Otherwise, what will happen, Keith, is you'll stall out far before you feel good about where your body fat percentage is to get on stage. And you're going to want to be around 6 to 7% at least if you're going to want to get on stage. And that's. We're going to need more calorie Runway to get there. That's, that's my recommendation.

[Sal]

Yeah. And you know, Keith, just.

[Keith]

Yeah, I was thinking, I was thinking at my age, yeah, I'll be 70 by the time I'd walk on stage. I'm thinking, well, I'm going to be competing against guys that probably wouldn't be at 6 or 7%. So if I was at 10%. But I may be totally wrong. I don't know. I'm not.

[Adam]

No, you're not totally wrong there. I mean, you, you could, you could do, you would still probably do. All right. I mean, you're right. You're competing against guys that are 70 years old. So it's not like you're going against a 25 year old kid, it's going to be 3% body fat up there. But I still would want to be, I, I could get you down to 7, 8%, no problem if we had the metabolism where we needed to be.

[Sal]

Right now, you know, and just, just also, Keith, you're in a really good place right now. You're, you're eating good calories, you're strength training, you're obviously very fit and healthy. Competing, getting yourself down to single digit. What Adam's doing is he's trying to set you up so you don't mess things up. Because the damage that can be caused, caused from going down to 1700, 1600 calories, 15,000 plus steps a day, plus strength training at your age, actually, at any age, but even, especially at your age, you could cause a lot of damage that then would take a while to recover from a lot of hormonal damage. And it just, it's not good, it's not healthy for you. Adam's trying to get you to do this in the, in the healthiest way possible to where, I mean, if you love working out, you love being fit and competing, isn't your life like, you know, then it's, it's not worth doing it in a way that's not healthy or ideal. Otherwise, you're, you're. Because what'll happen? Are you on hormone therapy, by the way? Are you doing this all natural?

[Keith]

All natural, yeah.

[Sal]

So then especially. Yeah, because you start cutting your calories like that, start bumping the cardio, you're gonna crash your testosterone. I mean, a 25 year old would crash their testosterone, let alone a 69 year old. So, so that would be tough to recover from. And I don't know if that's worth it. I don't think it'd be worth it for some, you know, because you've been working out six, seven years consistently, you're into fitness. So he's trying to set you up to do this so that you don't cause those problems. I mean, getting down to 7% body fat will lower your testosterone regardless, but you do it in a way to where you're eating, you know, you know, 1500 calories. Working out like crazy. Yeah. You'll get your testosterone down to levels that are just any, not great.

[Adam]

Any interest in hiring a coach to take you through this?

[Keith]

Yeah, good, good question. I actually have not hired so much, but I've gotten in contact with a local guy. He's an IFBB pro who's been doing this for 30 years.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Keith]

So yeah, he, he takes A someone like myself and primarily acts as a consultant. He's not going to train me, but he's going to help guide me when I have questions or hit a, hit a wall or something. So I appreciate that, that kind of approach as opposed to, you know, showing up every week and him putting me through the grind. So, so yeah, I have actually because I've, I've been trying to do this for three years now and stay at the same weight and I think, I hope I build some muscle but I can't seem to lose the weight. So this is the one factor I haven't included. The, the training aspect. Coaching so well, Keith.

[Sal]

I mean I'm hoping this will be, you know, 5, 8, 200, 200 pounds, 18 body fat. @ your age you carry a lot of muscle. Like, yeah, like that's exceptional.

[Keith]

I think I, I think I do actually. So anyway, I'm not quite sure what that means down the road, but I know I've got this fat thing, visceral and otherwise that I'm, that I'm dealing with that always bugs me.

[Sal]

You know, you can get yourself down to 12% body fat without having to do anything too extreme at all. I mean a little bit of a cut, you know, some reverse diet, mini cut, mini bulk. Spend a little more time in the cut than the bulk over time, you know, 14, 13, 12% body fat. Very doable by the way. 18% body fat if you're fit is perfectly fine. Going down from 18 to 12 or 13 is more of a cosmetic thing. So not that big of a deal. You're eating, it sounds like you're eating healthy again, you're working out consistently, you carry a lot of muscle, you probably got great mobility, but you can get down.

[Keith]

That's always an issue.

[Sal]

Well, okay, well let me ask you this, Keith, context matters. Keith, around your peers, your age peers, how's your mobility?

[Keith]

Oh yeah, okay, that's what I thought. I'm, I'm, I'm stellar.

[Sal]

Yeah, that's, that's what I mean. Okay.

[Adam]

I mean a lot of levels. Yeah, I, I don't know if you're, if you, if you are. We don't advertise this or talk about it, but we have, we have our own in house trainers that we, we do coaching very similar to what you're saying, like consulting like that where it's, it's like virtual check ins and we're, we're kind of overseeing what you're doing. If you don't end up hiring this guy, I'd love To have one of my guys help you out, just. And I would oversee it. It just because I, I know where you're at. I know what needs to be done here. My fear of you hiring somebody else is that they'll just take your money and say, let's get. Let's try and do this and cut you where. I'm telling you right now, where we need to go is we need to reverse diet you first. And, and, and they're in, in this, in the competitive space, a lot of these competitors, they'll just take somebody's money and be like, all right, let's get shredded. And he'll just start, cut calories, add cardio. That's going to be the formula. I'm telling you. I've been doing this long enough, and I know where your, where your body fat percentage is in relation to where your calories. And we ain't got enough Runway not to do it to where you'll feel good and be healthy afterwards. Like, my goal is to get you down to whatever percent. Doesn't even matter if we only get down to 8 or 9 or 10, but that it's actually somewhere you can sustain, not where you're, like, almost dying. You know, where you're eating 1100 calories and doing an hour of cardio twice a day just to, just to prove to yourself you do it. And then you. Then as soon as you stop top, you put all that body fat back on, because there's no way you're going to eat like that and train like that forever. But there's a way to do this to where, you know, you get in really good shape and you actually could maintain that body fat percentage because we've done it in a healthy way metabolically and so. And not a lot of these coaches that you pay or hire will care as much about that, though. Their job is to try and get you the leanest you've ever been. And they'll do that, you know, they'll. They'll ramp up your movement, they'll cut your calories. Won't be worth it, but. Exactly, it won't be worth it because you'll feel miserable. You potentially will do stuff hormonally to yourself, and you'll end up putting all the body fat back on where if I had you, I'd say, okay, I like this goal, but let's, let's first focus on this. And then we would build that metabolism first.

[Keith]

So if I built up the metabolism, let's say calories at 3 to 3500 for the next couple months. And then do I have enough Runway to, to get prepared? Let's say I continue to keep that as a goal. The. Yeah, the stage thing, I think it's the middle of July. Yeah, that's enough time. Three months, four months to.

[Adam]

So here's a good. Yeah, yeah. So half a percent a week is normally what I would tell a client is realistic. If we're coming from a healthy metabolism, half a percent a week. Okay. So if you are, if you coming from a half, I mean coming from this, which is why I said 2% a month. Right. You could probably drop down. Now, I've seen faster and it's possible and the healthier your metabolism, the faster the body will respond. But a good Runway is all right. We get somewhere, get you healthy metabolically, and then we can, we can shave a half percent a week is a realistic thing to do to somebody who's coming from a healthy place. So reverse that out from, you know, where you want to be.

[Sal]

Keith, side note, have you had your, your hormones and everything panel done?

[Keith]

Oh, it's been a while. I, I don't know that I could pull up any numbers.

[Sal]

I would. So just because you're, you're, you got good muscle, you're. You seem to be a fitness fanatic. You're 69. Go get them checked. And, and if you, if, if you did hormone optimization at your age, you probably wouldn't have to change anything. You drop 3, 4%. So if they went in and said, oh, you know, you could go on trt, raise it up to optimal levels, do a little, this little that you would just notice. You just get leaner and build a little bit of muscle just from that alone. So just, that's another thing that you could potentially look at.

[Keith]

Yeah, I wanna, can natural. Can natural guys do TRT and still be considered natural?

[Adam]

No.

[Sal]

Oh, I don't think so.

[Adam]

No, no, no. If you, if you use synthetic testosterone at all, you can't, you wouldn't be able to compete in a natural show that you would be in an. In what you would do. I don't know if you, what, what, what federation you're looking at right now.

[Keith]

But that's just a, it's a small local thing.

[Adam]

But is it a natural show? Is it a natural show? Do you know? It is. Okay. Okay, well that, that also makes the. How low we have to get better.

[Sal]

10'S not bad for 69.

[Adam]

10, 69 year old guy. But still, no matter what, my advice still stays the same. We're Just. We're not getting quite as shredded, but you're still gonna. You're still too low a calories where I'd want to take you. You. I mean, Keith, are you in our private forum yet or.

[Keith]

No, I am not.

[Adam]

Okay, I'm gonna have Doug put you in that. Do you ever use Facebook? Are you on Facebook or. No? Okay, good. I'm gonna have Doug. I'm gonna have Doug put you in the private forum for free. I got you. And then anytime you have questions about this process, just tag me. Okay. In there and ask me, and I'll communicate with you. So I'll. I'll. I'll kind of be a consultant. And if you end up hiring somebody else and you want to check back with me, like, hey, Adam, what do you think this guy's telling me this? I'll tell you what I think. Okay? So just do that. Do that for me. I'll. I'll do that for you if you. If you just keep me posted on kind of where or. And if you go decide to do this on your own, you're like, all right, you're gonna take my advice and you're gonna slowly reverse diet. Just check in with me every 30 days or so, let me know where you're at. Hey, Adam, I've got it up to 2, 800 calories. I haven't put on any weight. Doing good? Feeling good. Where do you know? And I'll. And I'll. I'll step you through it if you. If you tag me.

[Keith]

So you're saying I do you. I need to track my calories, though, then process.

[Adam]

Yes. Oh, 1, 100. If you're going to compete, that becomes mandatory. We've got it. We've got to get a real good because. Okay, that's great. Great point, Keith. You could be actually already eating 3,000 something calories, and you're in a better place than I think you are just because you are.

[Sal]

Yeah. Oh, this was a guess.

[Keith]

I don't really know.

[Adam]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's start tracking. That's. Step one is. Is download Fat Secret app on your phone. It's free Fat secret.

[Keith]

I got it.

[Adam]

And just start inputting your food. So do what we should do right now. Now, before we talk anymore about what you can or can't do is let's go track for the next two weeks and tell me in the forum post and let me know what your average calories, protein, and all your macros were, and then that will give me a really better idea of where we need to go.

[Keith]

Okay. Okay. And what about programming? What.

[Adam]

What do I do right now? Maps. Anabolic. Maps. Anabolic would be the ideal program because right now we're trying to build the metabolism up, and that's. That's probably one of our best programs when it comes to reverse dieting. Somebody. So I like Maps Anabolic. For now, when we get ready for. For prep and we start getting ready for the show, we might switch over to aesthetic. I'll help you with that, too. So if you just. If you. If you do me. You got those, huh? Okay. Okay. So if you got those already, if you do that. If you do this, I'll. I'll help you with that. So all you got to do is track and do that. I'm not charging you or anything. Just. Just do it and then post it in there. I'll help you with it. Okay. Okay.

[Keith]

All righty.

[Adam]

I'd love to see you do this, but I want to do it right. I want to do it right.

[Keith]

I. I want to do it right, too.

[Adam]

I.

[Keith]

Health is number one.

[Adam]

Good.

[Keith]

I. I don't want to end up all messed up at the end of this, and. Yeah, not at my age. So does my age matter?

[Adam]

Yeah, sure.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Keith]

I mean, my hormones or whatever.

[Adam]

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. That's why. Oh, yeah. The reason why Sal asked that. And you may. If you haven't had that panel, I would recommend that, too, because if you have really low testosterone levels, man, it's really hard to reverse diet and build muscle and get shredded when you have really low testosterone levels, which I.

[Sal]

Which I doubt, by the way.

[Keith]

Yeah, I'm thinking it's pretty decent from what I remember.

[Sal]

I. I think it probably is, too, just from looking at you and listening to, you know, what you're saying and the amount of muscle you're carrying. But, you know, I would get it. I would get it done anyway, just to see. Especially if you're gonna go on a diet and try to compete, because then you'll want to look at it.

[Adam]

Exactly. That's really. Even. Even if you're all good right now, let's see where your levels are, because then let's. Let's do this. And if we. Because you're going to push the body. I mean, competing is like a sport. It's not healthy. Just bottom line, getting shredded is not a healthy thing to do. But that's okay. You can challenge yourself that way. And if. If we're paying attention to those markers, we can, like, test as we get closer based off of how you're feeling and if we're seeing anything really alarming, we can pull out because that's obviously more important to you.

[Justin]

You.

[Adam]

But let's go get a baseline.

[Keith]

So. Okay. Testosterone is the, is the main marker. That's what I'm really focusing on.

[Sal]

Yeah. Do full hormone panel. So they'll look at thyroid free and total testosterone. And then you can also look at things like DHEA and your IGF one if you want. But just do the normal traditional full panel. Make sure it's free and total testosterone.

[Adam]

You do that, you can share it with Sal. Sal will look at that. I'll check on your diet stuff.

[Keith]

Okay. All right. Super helpful.

[Sal]

You got it.

[Adam]

Let's do it.

[Sal]

Thanks, Keith.

[Keith]

All right. Appreciate you guys.

[Sal]

Take it easy.

[Keith]

Have a good day. All right, see you.

[Adam]

I feel like I pissed in his Cheerios.

[Sal]

He looks good.

[Adam]

He's great. He's. I mean that's why you see him.

[Sal]

You can tell in his sweater and just his face, you know, I love, I love. I gotta say this little side note. I love older people that are. That really strength training are fit. It's so motivating to me. See hear you know how they feel and whatever and it's great. But yeah, like competing is just not great. Competing at 69, even worse. But I'm glad you asked if you track because we have no idea how many calories.

[Adam]

Yeah. He could be a lot better than.

[Sal]

What he's probably more than he thinks.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

If you're not tracking and you, you're guessing, you're guessing low typically is what you're doing.

[Adam]

Yeah, I think, I think so too. But let me tell you, 70 years old or not, this is the number one mistake everybody makes that wants to get into a show is they, they pick a show date, they ask can I get shredded for this? And it has. Has nothing to do with the show date. Has everything to do where you're at metabolically. If you are in a place where you're already at like moderately low calories and you have a long ways to go to get shredded, you're just screwed. You're not going to do. You're either not going to get there and you're going to, you're going to bonk and give up before there or you're crazy and you do push yourself to that and then you fuck yourself up.

[Sal]

Up.

[Adam]

It's just not a good idea. It's far better to get yourself in a place metabolically really good. And then we go, okay, hey, let's get ready for this show.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Chris from California.

[Justin]

Chris, what's happening, Chris?

[Chris]

Hello, everybody. Let's see. My question's long, unfortunately, but I guess I'll just start it. My question involves a kind of a programming and strategy regarding how I can roll out a strength based workout for our Star wars fan club.

[Adam]

Club.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And a little bit of what it does sum up with a lot of ideas, not a lot of wisdom. Context. Member of a Star wars fan club that is recognized by Lucasfilm called Lightsaber Team. As I understand it, and I could be wrong, that means we can basically openly use the intellectual property without as long as we do not make any money on it and basically do not offend the brand or bring ire from the higher ups. Oh, also, I must say that for legal and safety reasons, we do not do any sparring. Just also cost. So all of our stuff, if we do clashing, it's a choreography only. So there are other groups that do that, but not ours. Okay. Brief note that a lot of our stuff, I mean, there's some stuff that's a little bit analogous to the shadow box routine that's in naps anywhere, but a lot of it just basically ends up being cardio. So that's why I want to try to bring a strength based idea to it. Background. I am not an athlete growing up and so I started my fitness journey kind of late like around 2013. Funnily enough, this would have been the 24 hour fitness at Santa Teresa. Although I think all of you guys are out of that.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And then blah, blah, blah. I had two trainers during that tenure up until 2017. In both cases, both of them went independent. And then 2017 is when I joined Lightsaber Team. Also roughly when I Learned about the YouTube channel of my Mind Pump. But I did enjoy it. Start listening to the podcast until 2021. 2022. That's also when I started Maps Anywhere. So more to question. Like I wanted to have. It's not surprising. It's a basically a very loose, watered down version of Anywhere. What I wanted to do. I'm just backing up a little bit. I do do zoom classes during the pandemic. They were pretty random, unfortunately. Like basically all the problems you have with the Group X that Adam, I think has talked about on Group X. But lately I've. I've reformatted it to be basically modified Prime Pro webinar. So 90 90s combat stretch. We can't. One person really doesn't like the handcuffs, so I do like snow Angels instead. And then it's a routine after that. So instead of the body weight squats, it's new other activity. But I wanted to what I was my plan was picking just two exercises that hopefully involve less stick because that's what this is at the end of the day. And then have for the benefits of the audience. It's based on Maps Anywhere's amp system which again for the benefit of the audience. That's five categories. Pull, push legs, core and kind of a complex full body. And then was going to present that in. I had three phases originally. One was going to be technical. Just perfect the form. I'm not sure if you guys have the question up here in front of you, but it would be two to three sets up to fatigue. Like anywhere does one minute of rest. The in between days. I was going to have that time for webinar plus our routines. It's kind of a skills day. Phase two would have been that slow isometric that five, two, two thing that Adam likes just so that they want similar movements. But then they would own it. And then you'd have phase three which would be the speed and power which is what everyone wants. But I wanted to dangle that. It's like the carrot. And then I did think that probably there needs to be a phase four which is endurance. But I didn't have a plan for that one yet. And then there's however the heck we want to roll this out. I know that in the other coaching thing that Adam has and a few others have pointed out email that might be a thing where we present this as like, okay, this week is going to be whatever the plan is.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Cool. So yep.

[Justin]

You're just trying to program this specifically for this group of people and you're not selling it.

[Adam]

Right.

[Justin]

Right. So yeah. Do you have our mass performance 15?

[Chris]

I did just get it. And yes, I do love the commercial.

[Justin]

Good. I really wanted to make sure you saw it. I wanted your opinion from a real fan. But I actually have something that we're not going to sell ever that would be perfect for you. Long time ago. I don't know if you remember way back in the day I had a product that I was trying to invent that used a stick that a lot of isometric exercises.

[Chris]

That was a let later question. The Axon.

[Justin]

The Axon stick.

[Chris]

So I'm aware of it. Like I'm not sure if you had like a plan that you've taken up.

[Justin]

I did. I wrote a full 30 day program for that. Never released it since this is free. And you're doing this is like, kind of with your group of people, and. And you're experimenting with it. I'll go ahead and send that to you. I'll give it to Doug. It's already programmed out, phased out. You can utilize, you know, the stick. It has mobility moves in it, has a whole strength with it. So you can actually give me some good feedback on that. Nobody else will ever see it. We'll see if you guys can get some benefit from that.

[Sal]

All because it's Star Wars.

[Adam]

Wow. Just given intellectual property away like that.

[Justin]

There it is. It's all yours, buddy.

[Adam]

Got hooked up, Chris.

[Justin]

So. Yeah. Because otherwise, I'll sit here and explain the reason, the rationale, all that kind of stuff. You kind of saw the way that we program maps anywhere, and it did have a lot of those elements where, you know, obviously, we're trying to maximize body weight and. And progress that through intense and intensifying the exercises and, you know, different strength, endurance challenges with that. So a lot of that is incorporated in this. But it just. The difference is it uses a stick to kind of as a prop for a lot of these mobility moves and also isometric moves, and I think you guys would get a lot of benefit from that, and it'd be fun.

[Sal]

That's perfect.

[Justin]

There you go.

[Chris]

Like, you can tell I modified this to be a mobility stick.

[Justin]

I'm jealous.

[Chris]

Mobility stick.

[Adam]

That's awesome.

[Sal]

Chris, can you show us.

[Justin]

That's rad.

[Sal]

Can you show us a cool move or something like that? I want to see.

[Justin]

Yeah, let's see. Let's see a few crazy strikes.

[Chris]

I can show you something that. This is something that we use for. It's. It's kind of an advanced thing, but, like, so not everyone can do it, but it's like. It's my version almost, of the lunge matrix, except different lunges, but it's more like a kettlebell clean.

[Justin]

Oh, snap.

[Adam]

Oh. Oh.

[Sal]

You just killed everybody.

[Adam]

Oh, I like that.

[Justin]

I wish we had noises to go with this.

[Chris]

This is the one I'm not good at.

[Keith]

Oh, hey.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah, that's rad. Bust that out at a party.

[Justin]

Yeah, I would totally do disco song or something.

[Adam]

That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome.

[Sal]

Chris, when you were training in 2013 at Santa Teresa, who was your trainer? Yeah, who are your trainers? Because we might know.

[Justin]

Is it Jerry?

[Chris]

Let's see. Who is. I think that one at Santa Teresa was Brandt. I don't know his. Oh, ready? Yeah. It would have been Grant. And then the one I did in Sunnyvale. That was Matt. I'm not sure what their last names are.

[Sal]

I don't know.

[Chris]

Yeah, the Sunnyvale one was. That's the one that's near 280.

[Sal]

Yeah. Yeah. Chris, are we. Can we put. Are you in our forum?

[Chris]

Yes, I'm in the forum. I'm in the trainers group. I'm also in the coaching group.

[Justin]

Oh, look at you, man.

[Sal]

Nice. We love you.

[Justin]

Hey, I want to see videos of you guys doing these workouts. Okay?

[Sal]

He's gonna send him to. Nobody has this. This is like, crazy exclusive. Justin just gave us exclusive.

[Justin]

Yeah, it was just gonna go somewhere and die, so I. I want to resurrect it with you.

[Chris]

All right.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Very honored and. Yeah, very awesome.

[Adam]

Very cool.

[Sal]

You got it, man.

[Adam]

Chris, make sure you follow up with Justin. Let us know.

[Sal]

Chris, are you with the San Jose area still?

[Chris]

Yes, I. I could walk. Walk to Santa Teresa where I live. I'm working in Pleasanton, though.

[Sal]

Listen, I want you to email the person. I want you to email the person that set this up.

[Adam]

Jerry.

[Sal]

And email Jerry and have her set you up to come watch a live episode if you're. If that's okay with you.

[Chris]

Awesome. Yeah, I think you guys are, like, right near, like, the industrial plastic store that I get cosplay materials right down the street.

[Sal]

We're not gonna tell you. Don't get too much detail. We don't want anybody know where.

[Adam]

I don't tell anybody. Chris, we're incognito. Yeah.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

But we. We. We'll see you soon then. We'll have you come listen to a live episode.

[Chris]

Hey, awesome.

[Sal]

You got it, man.

[Adam]

All right. Chris, send that over to you, man.

[Justin]

Force be with you.

[Sal]

No, he did not. Hey, listen. Hey.

[Adam]

What a perfect follow up to our. Our. Our competitor was. Justin got his.

[Sal]

Oh, dude, that.

[Justin]

Yeah. Was just silent.

[Sal]

Other.

[Justin]

Hey.

[Sal]

I literally pushed my bike away.

[Justin]

I don't know how I know you guys like.

[Adam]

I.

[Justin]

Whatever.

[Sal]

I like.

[Justin]

Listen, that's so great.

[Sal]

We have great fans.

[Justin]

I love it.

[Sal]

Justin has the best fans. He's.

[Justin]

He's wild, dude.

[Sal]

Listen, can. Justin. I'm gonna put you on the spot here. We can edit this out if you need to, but can we make it out a guide or something? Can we do, like. That's sick, bro.

[Justin]

We could. I. I just. I didn't know what to do with it because obviously it died.

[Sal]

Making a guide.

[Adam]

People would love that free Star wars guide.

[Sal]

I mean.

[Justin]

I mean, I have that now. I have a high school football guide, too. Like I wrote the whole thing.

[Adam]

What are we doing?

[Sal]

Let's make these guys whatever. All right. We're sitting on it anyway. That's cool. I like this. That was awesome. But he was busting out his moves.

[Justin]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam]

I mean, he, he legit, obviously. I mean, he was breaking down all the programming in our. Our program. So he studied put a lot. Yeah, he's put a lot of thought.

[Justin]

He's in our coaching group and all that too. So, I mean. Yeah.

[Adam]

Well, now I'm glad you.

[Sal]

I want him to come in. I want to give the kid hug.

[Justin]

Totally.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Jeannie from Germany.

[Sal]

Jeannie, how can we help you?

[Hildy]

Hi. It's such a pleasure to get to talk to all of you. So I have a question about strength training. I just started the Muscle Mommy program. I've never lifted before, and I'm really wondering because I have no experience, when am I supposed to be breathing during the exercises? Muscle Mommy starts with the sumo squat, and I was finding that through the sets I was holding my breath and it was getting. Making my face red. Then I found that I was holding my breath through the planks and the push ups. I'm just wondering when is there a technique for the breathing? Then? Second, because I've never lifted before, I'm not sure how it's supposed to go through the programs. Am I supposed to strive to use the same weight value for each exercise in the day's plan? I've been using either 5 or 10 pound weights for the exercises just as a beginner so that I can get comfortable with the movements mostly. And I'm not very strong beginner, but didn't know if I should be allowed to change between the exercises or even the set.

[Sal]

Yeah, good question. Jeannie, I'm so glad you called in. I love working with people who are totally new to strength training. It's my favorite. First off, I think Map Starter would be a great program for you to start with because it's going to help with. And it's all tied together. This is all tied together to your question. The reason why you're holding your breath is you're stabilizing your core instinctively. Okay. When you hold your breath, it's helping to brace your core and provide stability. Now, there is a way to do that while breathing as well. And so what you want to do is you want to practice stabilizing your midsection. And the way you do this, because sometimes you'll hear people say, brace your core. And you're like, all right, what does that mean? Pretend like somebody's going to come poke you in the or tickle you in the ribs. What do you do? You kind of bear down a little bit, brace your core, and practice breathing out on the exertion part of the rep. So what that looks like with a sumo squat is when you're coming up, up, you're breathing out through a braced core. And it probably sounds like this. You're breathing with a braced core. So it's not a relaxed breath, almost like hiss. Yes. So it's like. And you're breathing through the back of your throat with a braced core. At the top of the rep, take a breath or two, then you breathe in, hold your breath lower. You can hold your breath while you lower and then breathe out on the way up. Okay. And that'll help you now. Now Maps Starter utilizes a physio ball in a lot of the exercises, and that helps you learn how to brace and stabilize your core while doing strength training exercises. It's the perfect place to start. Once you're done with Starter, it's going to feel so much more natural to move into a program like Muscle Mommy.

[Justin]

Muscle Mommy would give follow up after that.

[Sal]

Now, as far as the weight that you use, the weight I did a video on this is adjusted based on the exercise and how you feel. So you want to pick a weight that is challenging, but not a weight that causes your form to break down. So it should feel challenging. It should feel hard to complete the desired reps, whether it be 8 reps or 12 reps or whatever the program calls for. So it should feel hard. But if your form starts to break down, then go lighter. But always aim to challenge yourself. What you don't want to do is make it so easy to where it's not really that challenging. But you also don't want to go so challenging to where your form starts to deviate away from what the video demonstrates to be perfect form, and that that is a nice place to be. Go ahead.

[Hildy]

What would be more important? The challenge to get the number of reps done or challenge to keep my. My form and just keep as many reps as I can get in.

[Sal]

Form is most important. And so this, this, there's a learning process through strength training, especially in the beginning, that you'll start to figure out as you go along. Probably four, five, six months into it, it's gonna feel much more natural, but it's gonna be like you're gonna pick a weight and be like, I think I can do 10 with this. And then you'll do it and you'll be like, oh, I can probably do 13. Or, oh, I'm at 7 and my form's about to break down. Stop the set or go past the rep count, because you can keep doing more and then go heavier or go lighter. So that's, that's one of the main reasons. There's a lot of reasons why there's multiple sets, but one of the values of doing three sets is you can adjust the weight with each set. So the first set, then the second set, by the third set, you've kind of picked the right weight. And because you're new, you're going to find yourself getting stronger pretty consistently. So that weight that you used last workout, start with that again and then adjust from there. So it's going to be a feeling out process.

[Adam]

I sent Doug over a video. I actually did a really good video breakdown of everything that Sal just covered in a. In a YouTube video. So I sent it over to Doug so he can send it to you. So you have that to reference also.

[Hildy]

Thank you so much. That's helpful.

[Adam]

And the, the breathing thing, I used to tell my clients because it can get a little complicated trying to breathe a certain way like the boys were describing. So the most important thing is that you breathe. Breathe. Yeah. And so, and so that's.

[Justin]

At the top. You just pause, take your time.

[Adam]

Yeah, that's really, really. Seriously. I mean, like, that's like clients would ask, oh, I heard this. You're supposed to breathe in it. But we're doing this really slow, negative. I don't understand. Then that's really. And I'd be like, listen, we just need to breathe. That is the most important thing. Learning to breathe all the time and not hold your breath is number one. And then just learning how to brace your core, you can actually do that technique they were talking about where if I go to poke you in the belly button, the way you brace, that's a good thing to practice, is just bracing while also talking. I'm doing it right now, so right now I'm bracing my core, but I'm also still breathing and talking. You want to practice that? And you can practice that all the time. It's good. It's a really good thing for you to practice that throughout the day of can I tighten up my core? Like someone's going to punch me in the stomach, but then also still talk and breathe. You're learning to do that. If you learn to do that, then you just apply that to all your exercises. You brace, but then you also still breathe.

[Sal]

Yeah. And then Map Starter uses a physio ball. You know, the big yoga ball type thing. A lot of the movements are on that, and that encourages you to brace your core.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Otherwise you move all over the place.

[Sal]

Yeah. And so it's a. That's why it's a map starter. It's a great way to learn exactly what we're talking about. And then from there you go to muscle, you know, Muscle Mommy. It's going to feel so much more natural to move into those exercises.

[Hildy]

That sounds wonderful.

[Sal]

I'll.

[Hildy]

I'll start with that. I like to have a roadmap of what's ahead of me. So do you think it would be worth it to put Muscle Mommy on.

[Sal]

Yes.

[Hildy]

Pause for a moment and go back to starter and get.

[Sal]

Yep, yep. And you. You're not gonna slow. You're not gonna slow down. Any progress. You're gonna actually probably progress even better.

[Hildy]

Perfect.

[Sal]

Yep.

[Hildy]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[Sal]

You got it. We're sending that over to you. Okay. Okay.

[Justin]

Yep.

[Hildy]

Thank you.

[Sal]

Thank you. My favorite. I love those kind of questions. We get so many people that work out all the time. You almost never get questions like that. Yeah, but that is for people watching or listening, I thought. Extremely common question.

[Justin]

Very common. I always start there.

[Adam]

I thought that we used that video. I did. And we started to include it in all the programs. Did we not do that?

[Sal]

I don't think so.

[Adam]

That should be in the coaching of every. I mean, that's just real basic, especially.

[Justin]

Newer ones, beginner ones, I mean.

[Adam]

Yeah. Okay. So if it's. It should be in those. Because it's just. That's like the number one question you get asked for someone who's just starting.

[Sal]

And again, for people watching and listening. And even if you're a new trainer or coach and you haven't trained a lot of people or you haven't trained anybody about to get started. People will hold their breath instinctively when they strength train when they first get started, because that's how you instinctively brace your core is who you hold your breath. And then they don't know how to do both breathe and stabilize at the same time. Well, you know, you start to get into 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 reps, people start to get dizzy and lose their breath as a result. So it's definitely something that you have to cover and talk about for sure.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Hildy from Israel.

[Sal]

Hildy, what's happening? How can we help you?

[Adam]

Hello.

[H]

Hi, guys.

[Sal]

How are you?

[Adam]

How you doing?

[H]

Thank you. We're good. Thank you. Thank you for having me on again. So this is what I had written to you. It's been just about a year and a half since I had the pleasure of speaking with you. We spoke last June and I was hoping to get a little direction at this point now on where to go from here. I am 56 and I'm. My youngest daughter just got engaged so she's getting married at the end of May. And when we spoke on the air and you, you listened to my story about finding fitness in my later 40s and trying to get the right calorie count for my activity level, you gave me some really great feedback. Since then I have followed anabolic and then I did anywhere before going back to another round of anabolic. Through the end of last year, I enjoyed following both programs and I especially love the feeling of getting stronger and conditioned. I saw myself doing squats and deadlifts with £70, which is a maximum weight that I can handle because I have a vascular condition. My focus quickly changed from getting the greatest calorie burn from cardio and running to building strength and getting leaner. That focus continues to be my top priority today. I currently train two days a week with my trainer focusing on strength training and conditioning and implementing longer breaks in between sets as you had suggested last June. I love to lose some inches. I have seen some changes in my waist and arms thanks to the workouts, but my priority is right now about being a strong fit 56 year old and rocking the mother of the bride look come May. I don't want to be an athlete, but I want to be athletic. I don't want to look like a bodybuilder, but I'd like to see some more toning and definition in my arms and my lower body, especially my bottom area. I'm looking to get a little help from you of where to go from here.

[Sal]

Yeah, great question.

[Adam]

Definitely sounds like we've nailed down the programming for sure. Now this is getting into the nutrition and the diet part. That's where we're at now. I mean you're what you're doing program wise. Phenomenal. That'll take care of all the stronger, all the goals you have. So long as we are on point nutritionally.

[Sal]

Do you track? Do you know where you're at so we could maybe get more specific? Okay.

[H]

I use my fitness pal and I focus on the big macros, the fat, protein, carbs, but I also try to keep an eye on fiber to make sure that I'm getting enough fiber.

[Sal]

Great.

[H]

I drink water at least 64 ounces, anywhere between 64 and 96 a day.

[Sal]

Wonderful.

[H]

And I have all kinds of equipment right now in Israel I don't have as much, but I have weights and some machines here. But at home I have my gym. I'll be going back back next week. And I have kettlebells and weights and trx, which I also have here. I have battle ropes, OSU weight bench.

[Sal]

Do you know where you're, where you're sitting, calorie wise and protein? What do you, what are you averaging?

[H]

I know I'm not doing as much protein as I should because you had mentioned about trying to. I know you're big on eating the, the weight and protein, so I'm not quite there. Some days it's a little on the lower side. Probably like 110, but it could be as much as like 180 carbs. I try to keep under 180, but they could be anywhere between like 130 and 180 and.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[H]

What else can I tell you?

[Adam]

Calories. And are you, would you consider yourself right now what you and your trainer doing calorie wise, Are you in a maintenance, Are you trying to increase calories or are you in a cut? What are you doing right now?

[H]

So I, I wouldn't say I'm in a cut. I, I generally have 21 8, 2100 that we kind of came up as a baseline based on like, I think he started with like the BMR and then seeing activity level and I am quite active. So on some days when I'm more active, I'll add some calories. So sometimes it could be like 2300. It could be as high as 2600 if I had a really high activity level day. But an average day could be like.

[Sal]

2100 if you're, if you're tracking. Hildy, this is what you, this is what I would have you do to give you some, some accuracy. Take the last, if you're consistent with tracking, take the last two weeks, add them all up and then find the average. So add up all 14 days, divide it by 14. That's your average calories. That'll give us a much more accurate number than BMR plus activity, which is historically inaccurate. Protein wise, really try to hit consistently your target body weight and protein. So whatever body weight you want to reach for this wedding or whatever, hit that consistently. Once we know what your average calories are and you're hitting protein, then from there it's just a cut and then you can just drop 3, 400 calories from there and we should see some good, some good fat loss from that Nice consistent fat loss.

[Adam]

It's Hildy, it's really important. I'm gonna just reiterate what Sal said. The protein thing is the only macronutrient. Okay. That this is different with is that you don't get to do an average of it. So if you had a high 180 day and a 90 day, it's not the average of the two.

[Sal]

It's, it means one hit and one.

[Adam]

Didn'T one hit, one did it. And you gotta have. Okay, you want to be hitting every day. Consistently consistent. Consistently. Especially when we're strength training because that's the building blocks to build that muscle. That's what's going to give that tone, that definition. That's you making sure you're giving the body what it needs to go build the muscle that you want. And so that's so important. And that's also only going to help you metabolically and speed your metabolism which will also will make the leaning out and cutting process better. But I, I, it sounds like what we, what would be good for us right now and hopefully the trainer will take you through this is a nice slow reverse diet of consistently hitting protein. So if you figure out your average and we find it's say let's, 22 or 2300 calories is what the average is. I'd love to put, if you were my client, I'd say okay, our goal is now to hit 2,500 calories every day and not miss your protein intake. And let's, let's go, go. And that would be the goal right now is to do that. That's probably the best thing that we can do if based off your goals and where you're currently at.

[H]

Okay. So, so concentrate mostly on the protein but keep the carbs consistent.

[Adam]

Yeah, I'm not even worried about the carbs, to be honest with you. Yeah, I'm, protein is what I care about. Protein. Hit that protein and keep the calories around what we're talking about. So if you find out can go.

[Sal]

Up and down, you go down to zero. I mean I wouldn't recommend it, but they're not essential. It's the protein that's important.

[Adam]

So wherever your average is. So after you do what Sal said for the, you know, two weeks and then figure averages, bump it by 200 to 250 calories a day. Okay. And then, and then hit the protein every day that by itself. And again, I don't really care where the. Where the. Especially since you're tracking fiber for yourself. So you have a good idea of like you're not way under that or. So just make sure you hit that protein intake. That's the number one thing with those calories.

[H]

Okay, Sounds good.

[Sal]

Yeah, yeah, you got it. And you have. And you have anabolic and anywhere.

[H]

I also have bands. I haven't really done that, but I'm.

[Adam]

Do you have suspension? Because I know you have a suspension trainer. Do you have map suspension?

[H]

No, I don't.

[Sal]

Oh, good. Send that to her.

[Justin]

Great program for you.

[H]

Oh, that would be great. Thank you.

[Sal]

You got it.

[Adam]

Yes.

[Sal]

And congratulations on the wedding coming up.

[H]

I love it. I really love the trx. It's a really great.

[Adam]

Oh, you're gonna love the program.

[H]

Exercise.

[Sal]

Oh, you'll love our program then.

[Adam]

Yeah, you'll love it.

[Sal]

Yeah, it's great.

[H]

Thank you. Well, thank you guys so much and thank you for all that you do.

[Adam]

All right.

[Sal]

We appreciate you. Thank you.

[H]

Thanks. Take care.

[Sal]

Yeah, that's simple. It's an easy fix for what. I mean, not that she had a problem, but easy recommendation, but yeah, you don't want to go off BMR and activity just for anybody watching. That's so general and it could vary so radically from that. If you track, that's your number. If you're tracking, get that average, there's your number. Nothing's going to be more accurate than that. You're not going to get any. There's no app or anything that's going to match the accuracy of what you're already eating and whether or not you're gaining or losing. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is @mindpumpjustin. I'm @mindpump, Distefano and Adam's mindpump.

[Doug]

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 [e-mail] 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. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now, plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.

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