2542: Five Steps You Can Take To Get Back Into Shape Fast

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth Episode 2542: Five Steps You Can Take To Get Back Into Shape Fast Release Date: February 27, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 2542 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, and Doug Egge delve into practical and science-backed strategies to help individuals regain their fitness swiftly and sustainably. Drawing from over 40 years of combined experience, the team dismantles common fitness myths and presents actionable steps to transform one's health and physique.

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Step 1: Eat More Protein

Timestamp: [06:35]

Sal Di Stefano emphasizes the paramount importance of protein intake:

“Eat more protein. That alone makes sense.”

Doug Egge adds, highlighting the foundational role of protein:

“I think eat protein is one of the very first things that I tell somebody to do... this is one of the first five steps.”

Key Insights:

• Optimal Protein Consumption: Aim for approximately 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight. For instance, a target of 190 pounds necessitates around 190 grams of protein daily.
• Dual Benefits: High protein intake not only supports muscle building but also aids in fat loss by suppressing appetite and enhancing insulin sensitivity.
• Muscle Memory: Increasing protein intake can help regain lost muscle mass, especially in individuals who were previously in shape.

Melissa reinforces the necessity of protein for metabolism:

“Your body really benefits from eating protein. To build, especially muscle is what you want to get.”

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Step 2: Lift Weights Most Days

Timestamp: [09:29]

Sal introduces the next critical step:

“Next up, lift weights most days.”

Melissa highlights consistency over intensity:

“It's such a good momentum builder and it's a good way to, to create that consistency... it becomes a habit.”

Doug explains the synergy between protein intake and weightlifting:

“Can I get my client to just adhere to the protein intake that we need... and then if I can get you just to do an exercise a day, that's going to take most people so far.”

Key Insights:

• Frequency Over Duration: Consistently performing one to two exercises daily for 15-20 minutes can be more effective than sporadic, longer workouts.
• Muscle Memory Advantage: Individuals who were previously fit can regain muscle mass rapidly through consistent weightlifting, thanks to muscle memory.
• Metabolic Flexibility: Regular weightlifting paired with high protein intake allows the body to efficiently partition excess calories into muscle rather than fat, enhancing metabolic rate.

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Step 3: Walk After Every Meal

Timestamp: [15:43]

Sal introduces the third step:

“Walk after every meal. Sounds simple. It's massively impactful...”

Doug underscores its impact on cravings:

“The biggest benefit that people feel and see is the reduction in cravings.”

Key Insights:

• Insulin Sensitivity: Taking a 10-minute walk post-meal significantly improves insulin sensitivity, more so than longer walks at other times.
• Craving Reduction: Enhanced blood sugar control leads to reduced cravings, aiding in dietary adherence.
• Digestive Health: Regular post-meal walking improves digestion and overall metabolic health.

Melissa adds benefits related to sleep and recovery:

“This is going to contribute more towards any, anybody... it's going to affect my sleep and the sleep, which is the next point.”

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Step 4: Go to Bed Early

Timestamp: [19:44]

Sal presents the fourth step:

“Go to bed early. Just go to bed 45 minutes before your usual time...”

Doug explains the broad benefits:

“It impacts your cravings, it impacts your body's ability to recover, your athletic performance...”

Key Insights:

• Hormonal Health: Adequate sleep regulates hormones that control appetite and metabolism.
• Recovery and Performance: Early bedtimes enhance muscle recovery, strength, and overall gym performance.
• Mental Well-being: Improved sleep leads to better mood regulation, reduced irritability, and enhanced mental clarity.

Melissa connects sleep to circadian rhythms:

“We just said sundown to sun up. Like the closest you can get to that for your circadian rhythms, the better it's going to be.”

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Step 5: Hire a Coach

Timestamp: [22:53]

Sal introduces the final and most impactful step:

“Hire a coach. There is absolutely nothing you will do that will get, will guarantee you success as well or effectively as working with a good coach.”

Doug emphasizes the value of expertise:

“The art of building muscle and losing body fat is a skill. Hiring a coach is having an expert teach you that.”

Key Insights:

• Personalization: A coach tailors fitness and nutrition plans to individual needs, ensuring sustainability and effectiveness.
• Accountability and Support: Coaches provide motivation, adjust strategies as needed, and help clients navigate setbacks.
• Long-Term Success: Working with a coach increases the likelihood of not only achieving fitness goals but also maintaining them long-term.

Sal shares his extensive experience:

“When you look at the success, the data on this is incredible... most of them succeeded... they still maintain and still keep in contact with me.”

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Addressing Common Questions

1. Why is the Fail Rate So High for Getting Back into Shape?

Timestamp: [25:20]

Sal explains:

“The fail rate is worse with each successive attempt... you have to try a new approach, system different.”

Doug adds:

“People assume that, oh, I did it before... if it failed once, it's a failing strategy.”

Key Takeaways:

• Repetition of Ineffective Methods: Reusing unsuccessful strategies leads to repeated failures.
• Psychological Impact: Continuous failures can demotivate individuals, making subsequent attempts more challenging.

2. Is Running a Good Way to Get Back into Shape?

Timestamp: [27:38]

Sal advises against it for most people:

“Most people stop running around the age of 15... injury rate on this is sky high.”

Melissa further clarifies:

“How can I get my body to look better... running is not really a great equation.”

Key Takeaways:

• Skill and Technique Required: Without prior running experience, the risk of injury increases.
• Limited Benefits for Body Composition: Running primarily burns calories but doesn't effectively build muscle or enhance metabolism like weightlifting does.

3. Should I Start My Fitness Journey with a Long Fast?

Timestamp: [29:44]

Sal strongly advises against it:

“Terrible advice... leads to restrict binge situations.”

Doug concurs:

“Building muscle, build your metabolism. You can't do that on no calories.”

Key Takeaways:

• Unsustainable Practices: Long fasting can lead to unhealthy eating patterns and metabolic slowdown.
• Muscle Loss Risk: Without adequate nutrition, muscle building is hindered, undermining overall fitness goals.

4. What is the Success Rate for a Gym Versus At-Home Workouts?

Timestamp: [30:50]

Sal states:

“They're very similar... what you tend to see with gym use is it's more in the beginning and then tapers off.”

Melissa emphasizes consistency:

“If it fits in your schedule best, which one you could have the most consistency with.”

Doug shares personal insights:

“Driviving to the gym... accountability piece... but home workouts offer flexibility.”

Key Takeaways:

• Consistency is Key: Success depends more on consistent adherence than the workout environment.
• Personal Preference Matters: Choose the setting that best fits one’s lifestyle to maintain regularity.

5. I Have a Lot of Weight to Lose. Should I Lose the Weight First, Then Build or Vice Versa?

Timestamp: [32:54]

Sal and Doug advocate for building before losing:

“Building first makes fat loss easier. Losing weight first does not make building muscle easier.”

Key Takeaways:

• Metabolic Boost: Building muscle increases metabolic rate, facilitating more efficient fat loss.
• Foundation Stability: Establishing muscle mass first creates a stronger foundation for subsequent fat loss efforts.

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Conclusion

Episode 2542 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth provides a comprehensive roadmap for individuals aiming to get back into shape. By focusing on increasing protein intake, consistent weightlifting, post-meal walks, adequate sleep, and seeking professional coaching, listeners are equipped with the tools necessary for effective and sustainable fitness transformation. The hosts also address common misconceptions and pitfalls, offering clarity and actionable advice to enhance the listener's fitness journey.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sal Di Stefano [06:35]: “Eat more protein. That alone makes sense.”
• Doug Egge [02:56]: “This is one of the very few things you can do that actually do both... build muscle and burn body fat.”
• Melissa [19:44]: “This is going to contribute more towards... affect my sleep and the sleep, which is the next point.”
• Sal Di Stefano [22:53]: “Hire a coach... there is absolutely nothing you will do that will get, will guarantee you success as well or effectively as working with a good coach.”
• Doug Egge [32:54]: “Building first makes fat loss easier. Losing weight first does not make building muscle easier.”

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For more expert training protocols and to join the Mind Pump community, visit mindpumppodcast.com and follow the hosts on Instagram @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, and @mindpumpdoug.

Transcript

[Sal Destefano]

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases and a touch of mom style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy.

[Justin Andrews]

And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well researched true crime stories. Each week we deep dive into a variety of mind boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heists to whodunits. We're your go to podcast for mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries. Wherever you get your podcast.

[Adam Schafer]

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

[Sal Destefano]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Adam Schafer]

With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews, you just found the.

[Sal Destefano]

Most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode we're talking about the five steps you can take to get back into shape. By the way, we offer group coaching now. Virtual group coaching, small groups. We keep it simple and effective. If you're Interested, go to mindpumpgroupcoaching.com if there's space available, you'll be able to sign up right there. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor by Optimizers. They make mast zymes. I love mast zymes. This is digestive enzymes for people who eat a high protein diet. It helps break down protein to amino acids, helps break down those fats, those carbohydrates, helps with digestion. Go check them out. Go to bioptimizers.com that's B I O P T I M I z e r s.com mind pump use the code mind pump 10 get 10% off. Also, there's only two days left for our big sale this month. Maps anabolic and the no BS six pack formula, $59.99. If you're interested and you're catching this episode when it drops, you have two days to take advantage. Go to maps february.com all right, here comes the show. Have you recently gotten out of shape? You used to be in shape, now you're out of shape. Look, here are the five steps you can take to right now to get back into shape effectively. To get back into shape fast. I'll start with the first one. Eat more protein. That alone makes sense.

[Doug]

When you, when you made these, would you say you ordered them in priority?

[Sal Destefano]

Kinda. Not really. Maybe a little bit. As we go through them, we can list them. You wanna?

[Doug]

Yeah, no, I'm just, I'm looking at them right now and I mean, obviously I agree with them and I'm wondering if you prioritized them that way or not. I think eat protein is one of the very first things that I tell somebody to do. I think we've. If you haven't been listening to this podcast, you've definitely. I mean, we at Nauseum talk about that being like the first tip that we give to people. Regardless, by the way, if your goal is to build muscle, longevity, lose a bunch of weight, like, it's always. This is people grossly under consume the optimal amount of protein. Many people eat enough to like survive and be okay.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, they're not, they're not under eating protein to where it's a problem.

[Doug]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

But there's. They're far more than that amount is where you get the optimal effects. You know how powerful this is, by the way? This is so powerful that if you take somebody who doesn't work out, okay, deconditioned, and all you do is bump their protein intake, they'll build a little bit of muscle. Yeah, they'll actually, with no muscle building signal body crazy. Now, you don't build a lot of muscle from just doing this, but you'll build a little bit of muscle just from bumping your protein intake. By the way, this is even more true as you get older. Like when, as people get older, higher protein intake is very strongly associated with more muscle mass, regardless of strength training. So you can be sedentary, bump your protein intake and you'll build a little bit of muscle. By the way, the other side of this is it leads to fat loss as well. So it's one of the very few things you can do that actually do both. They actually boost. Like you said, Adam, regardless of what your goal is, build muscle, burn body fat, become healthier, stronger, improve performance. Like this one right here is the first step you can take that makes a big impact. Yeah.

[Melissa]

If it's not a conscious focus, it's so easy to miss. And again, to all the clients we've trained, it's just something that's like a repeated top of mind conversation. Because it's not necessarily I want to increase your calories or decrease or whatever. It's that being the central focus because your body really benefits from eating protein. To build, especially muscle is what you want to get. Even if you have a goal down the road of losing weight, we still need to build that muscle and rev up that metabolism.

[Doug]

Well, the thing that we've learned from training so many people, because if you got like, let's say you get this really smart trainer who, who just finished his Ph.D. and Scott say, 10 national certs. Just a smart. That's a lot smart kid. Wow. Just full of knowledge, but not a lot of experience. You could come in here and debate and argue the studies and the science and all the different modalities. And then you train a lot of people and you realize, God, it's so difficult to get people to follow all of these things. What's the one thing I can give my client or the one thing I could teach them that will get them the greatest impact so that I get buy in and then I can teach them the next one thing and then the next one thing. And, and that's how I think we've learned to coach from. And so when I think of, yeah, I could tell you the best exercises and show you the best form and technique and share studies that show you like, you know, progressive over. I mean, I could go on and on about all the different stuff that we've learned about human physiology, nutrition, biomechanics, but when it comes to helping people get in shape, you can overwhelm them with all this different stuff. And so it becomes, okay, what's the, what's one little thing I could tell somebody down that, that if they just go apply that, that I'm going to already show them some serious benefits. And so that's where this comes from, is like, just don't. And by the way, this is what it looks like now when I help family or friends. You know, obviously all of our family and friends know what we do, right? And so every family party you go to, every family event, every. There's always a family member or friend that's, you know, bending your ear, what should I eat? What should I do? What's the. They want you to basically sit down and write a program for you. And when I was young, I used to do that, right? Sit down, take my time, and then they wouldn't follow shit. Right. So it turned into, okay, all I want you to do is go track your food for a week. And then when they come back and I look at it, the first thing I always end up telling them is, okay, all I'm going to have you do is this. Go hit your protein intake.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Doug]

And then. And then they'd be like, okay, what else? Nope, that's it. Start there, just start there. And then we'll visit again in a week.

[Sal Destefano]

So here's what happens. Here's what the data shows, right? If you have two diets, both same calories, okay? So Same energy, one being high protein. By the way, high protein, where you see the upper limit of Benefits is roughly 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight. We'll use that number because it's easy to remember because the studies are a little bit varied. By the way, the, if you're in a calorie deficit, this becomes even more important. Higher protein might actually have more of a benefit. But that's, those are some outlier studies nonetheless. About 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight. Both, both diets being the same calories. The one that's high protein, like I just said, will not just burn more muscle, build more muscle, it'll also burn more body fat. Okay, so same calories, one burns more body fat and builds more muscle because it's high in protein versus the other one, it has an appetite suppressing effect, well documented. So if you're trying to burn body fat, eat high protein, eat it first. Oftentimes this is enough to cut your calories to get you to burn body fat. It has a very well established muscle building and performance enhancing effect. It also has an insulin sensitizing effect or a blood sugar controlling effect. Okay, so studies will show that if you eat a high protein breakfast, regardless of what you eat throughout the rest of the day, your blood sugar levels are going to be more controlled because you had high protein in the morning and then to in with all your.

[Doug]

Meals, which by the way affects cravings.

[Sal Destefano]

It affects your mood, it affects your cravings, it affects your attitude, irritability, all because your blood sugar is more controlled. And of course, longevity wise, every longevity expert will say to you that insulin sensitivity is a key factor in how long you stay healthy, right? Or as Dr. Seeds would call it, health span. It's like how, how sensitive is your body to insulin is connected to brain health and longevity, especially brain health, right? So high protein does all of these things. Now here's, here's the thing, here's why a lot of people don't do it. It's hard. It's actually quite hard to do. So to give you an example, let's say you're a, your target body weight. Let's say you're a man and your target body weight is 190 pounds. So that means you want to hit 190 grams of protein a day. And so you're like, cool, I'm going to eat a high protein breakfast, I'm going to eat a four egg scramble. And then for lunch, you know what I'm gonna do for lunch? I'm gonna have a large deli meat sandwich and then for dinner I'll have steak and potato.

[Doug]

Good job. You had 70 grams of protein.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Yeah. You probably. You're lucky if you hit 100 grams of protein right there.

[Doug]

That's not even.

[Sal Destefano]

You have another 90 grams to go. If you're a, if you're a female and your target body weight is 140 grams. 140 pounds. 140 grams of protein. I mean, that means you need to eat like, you know, 40 grams of protein or more each meal. Do the math. It's actually not that easy, but do it, aim for it, and then watch what happens. This one step right here, even if you don't start working out, even if you don't start becoming more active, will start moving you in that direction. That's why it's one of the first five steps. Next up, lift weights most days. All right, real quick before everybody freaks out. I can't work out every day. You're not doing one hour workouts every single day. My advice on this has changed over the years. Okay. Over the years, I would tell people in the past, you know, strength train twice a week, two days a week, full body workouts, and you're perfectly fine. What I found is that I get more consistency and better results with the typical person when they do like one or two exercises a day. That's it.

[Melissa]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So every single day, do like two exercises or one exercise and. And it takes you 15 minutes, 20 minutes, maybe you're more consistent because it's a daily routine, a daily ritual, and it leads to similar results in some cases better than those two full body workouts.

[Melissa]

My tune has changed a lot with this as well. And it's, it's because it's such a good momentum builder and it's a good way to, to create that consistency and, and to kind of bring back the energy, which a lot of times too, if, if we're coming out of the gates and we're doing these long winded workouts, you, you find really easy to over train. It's really easy to, you know, deter you from coming back to do the next long workout that's in store for you. And to, to take these like one to two, maybe three exercises max and like spread that out throughout the week and just hit those. And you have these small time windows of 15 to 30 minutes or so. It's so much easier for you to be able to squeeze those in and it becomes a habit.

[Doug]

It also maximizes step one, step one of eating more Protein paired with lifting and exercising.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, my God, that's like magic is.

[Doug]

Is now. And which I Love this being 1 and 2. 1. Can I get my client to just adhere to the protein intake that we need to for optimal results? Say in this, this fake client we're talking about is 1 90. Hit it every day, every day. 190. 1 90. And then if I can get you just to do an exercise a day, that's it. One exercise a day paired with that is going to take most people so far.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, so far.

[Doug]

You know what I'm saying? Like, this is. This may not get you a trophy on the bodybuilding stage, but this is sure as shit will take. The average person who is deconditioned out of shape, has a belly, is not. Is unhealthy, and will put them in a very healthy category. If you do an exercise a day, you eat your. You hit your protein target every single day, you're going to get in shape.

[Sal Destefano]

Especially. Especially if you're in the category of people that I referred to in the beginning of the episode, which was, you used to be in shape and now you're out of shape because what you have working for you. Muscle memory is the closest thing we have to magic when it comes to body transformation, and that's muscle memory. It's so powerful. It's so powerful. If you've ever broken a limb or sprained a joint and you've worn a cast, you know what happens when you take it off? You look at your leg and you're like, oh, my God, it's so skinny. I lost all the muscle. And then in a very short period of time, without you doing anything else extra, that muscle just magically comes back. How did that happen? Like, what's going on? It's called muscle memory. And here's how it works. When you build muscle, it's a hard, slow process the first time around. But there are epigenetic changes that happen to your body that stick around forever. Okay. Or essentially forever. We actually don't know how long they stick around for, because when we measure them, it seems to last almost an entire lifetime. But you've built that muscle the first time, you lose it because you got back out of shape, building it back the second time. Now you take advantage of something called muscle memory, and building it back happens so fast, it's as close to magic as you can get. And I'll use just one case study, one example of what this looks like. Now we'll use Adam as an example. Adam used to compete as A professional physique competitor. Okay. At one point, he had 50 more pounds of muscle in his frame than he did when he started this particular transformation journey. So he lost 50 pounds of muscle and he said, I'm going to see how much of it I can gain back in a short period of time. And he started training, didn't do anything crazy. Hit his protein intake, lifted, did two exercise a day, essentially is what you did. He gained over 20 pounds of muscle. What was that? 30 days. Okay. By the way, you don't gain 20 pounds of muscle in 30 days the first time around. That doesn't happen. Nobody can do that. But you can gain 20 pounds of muscle when it's coming out of that 50 that you lost the first time. Because it's muscle memory. So that it's. And by the way, you all have this, everybody watching this. If you had way more muscle and strength in the past and you want to get back into shape, you can take advantage of muscle memory by lift, doing a little bit every day, hitting that protein intake and just chilling out and watch what happens. Your body, it will trip you out. How consistent the progress will happen simply by doing it.

[Doug]

It also gives you more metabolic flexibility. And what I mean by that is let's say your. And we'll just use round numbers so the average person could. Can grasp what I'm trying to explain here. At 2000 calories, your body maintains, if you eat anything above that, it puts on body fat. So say you eat 2,500 calories or more, you're going to put body fat on 2000, you maintain less than 2000, you lose weight. If you're strength training every single day and you have days where you go over that number, 2,320, 520, 100, those extra calories get partitioned over into building muscle, which then in turn speeds up your metabolism and now allows you to eat more calories. So it's also like this buffer on eating. Otherwise you always, if you're the person who's just trying to manage weight and lose weight through the reduction of calories and just movement strategy, you're always having to live in a deficit and eat less and eat less and eat less and move more and move more strategy versus if you're just lifting every day, hitting that protein intake, when you have those days where you peak over what your body actually needs, those extra calories get partitioned over to building muscle and they put good tissue on your body instead of just fat.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. So we have eat more protein Lift weights most days and then next up is to walk after every meal. Sounds simple. It's massively impactful, especially when it comes to health and insulin sensitivity. Improving your insulin sensitivity has far ranging effects on health, on mood, on mentality, on digestion, on lots of different things that contribute to your potential success when it comes to getting back into shape. Now, I like this for many different reasons. One, it's powerful. Okay, so this exam, I use this example all the time. Like if you walked for 10 minutes after breakfast, lunch and dinner, from an insulin sensitizing effect context, it's more effective to do that than it is to do one hour at a different time. Okay. In other words, half the amount of walking because it's timed post meal is so much so powerful. It's as effective as twice as much walking than at other times. Now why? Because when you eat a meal, your body has that blood, that blood sugar rises, it's in your blood. And by simply contracting relaxing muscles, which walking does very easy. Your muscles sensitize themselves to insulin and suck up and store that sugar in the form of glycogen. It's extremely powerful and it's also easy. A walk after every meal is a piece of cake. I don't need to change in my gym clothes. I don't need to schedule a workout. I literally, I finish eating, go for a walk around the office for 10 minutes and then come and sit back down. Do that after every meal. Watch what happens to your health.

[Doug]

I don't think it can be overstated how important that is. And I think a lot of people hear insulin sensitizing and it kind of go over your head as far as, and you kind of, kind of glossed over all the different benefits that come from it. In my experience, the biggest benefit that people feel and see is the reduction in cravings. And that is one of the biggest hurdles for somebody who is trying to adhere to a whole food diet or eat in a deficit or eat a good meal plan is that temptation to want to eat. And those temptations many times are kicked up from this, from the blood sugar spiking. And then here comes the cravings behind that. And so strategies like this, walking strategies like the eating protein, the value of that is so powerful because that pool to want to go eat something that's not good for you is half the battle. And if you can make little choices with the type of foods you eat, protein wise through the little walks in your day to help mitigate how strong those cravings are for yourself, the more likely you are to adhere to the diet and stick to it. And so I can't stress enough how that is such a powerful asset to the, to your success.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I, I, I'll never forget, you know, I, I, I mentioned Dr. Seeds earlier. He's a, I mean, he's a health span expert or longevity expert and you know, researcher, doctor. And I remember when I talked to him about this and he said, you know, Sal, he goes, if everybody just walked after every meal, he goes, we would solve a majority of type 2 diabetes cases just from doing that alone. That's how big of an impact. You want your body to stay insensitive to insulin because that means you're healthy. When you start to lose sensitivity to insulin, besides diabetes, before you get there, before you ever get there, you start to get dysfunction, metabolic dysfunction of the body, which contributes to things like cancers and chronic disease. It's just not good for you. And it's easy. It's literally like you want to get back into shape, lift some weights, 15 minutes a day, eat some protein, and then when you eat, go for a walk, go for a 5 to 10 minute walk after your meals. Piece of cake requires very little planning to do. So it has a huge impact.

[Melissa]

Well, not to mention the massive digestive benefits from doing that as well. Movement is necessary in this process and to help that along, this is going to contribute more to recoveries, is also going to contribute more towards, you know, any, anybody like myself that waits to a certain window or it gets close to bedtime, it's going to affect my sleep and the sleep, which is the next point, this is, you know, this is a massive part of, of this entire process of getting back in shape.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Now, now the next point you brought up is just go to bed early. Now there's a lot of different ways to improve your sleep. Get more sleep. There's been, you know, over the last, let's say, five years, there's lots of great information around this. But I like to, you know, as a coach, as a trainer, one thing that you learn to do if you want to be effective is you take all the information and you, like Adam said earlier, you figure out how to communicate this in a very effective way, simple way. Right. So I could tell you, I could make a whole episode around and we have how to optimize your sleep. And there's lots of different things you do, but here's the one thing that has always yielded great results. And it's just one step.

[Doug]

Just go to bed early.

[Sal Destefano]

Go to bed early. You know, what time you normally go to bed? How about if you go to bed 45 minutes before that? Let's just start with that. Do that every single night. Don't change anything else. That has a profound impact on hormonal health. It impacts your cravings, it impacts your body's ability to recover, your athletic performance, in other words, how strong you feel in the gym, your stamina. Just going to bed early every single night will have all of these incredible impacts and it'll maximize your ability to get back into shape. It really, by the way, going to bed late every night will kill everything.

[Melissa]

We just said sundown to sun up. Like the closest you can get to that for your circadian rhythms, the better it's going to be.

[Doug]

I mean, I just, I love keeping it simple as go to bed early because that can mean a different time for so many different people. So, so really simplifying that is whatever the time you go to bed, go to bed earlier than what you go and set a realistic goal for yourself. Start with an hour earlier. Whatever you're at right now, try and get to bed an hour earlier and you're only going to see positive benefits from that attempt. And then maybe once I get my client to see the positive benefits, maybe we can talk about optimizing and all the other ways that we can improve the quality of the sleep. But simply getting your client to go, hey, you consistently go to bed at 10:30. Cool, let's try 9:30. Let's go to bed at 9:30 consistently. Let's see the improvements in your results from that and then show them that. Then you talk about all the other stuff. But I think that simple rule of just go to bed earlier than what you go to bed currently right now will result in benefits to everybody listening.

[Sal Destefano]

Now, lastly, this is last, and I only put this last because it's. There's a hurdle for this next step that some people have a challenge with. But I will say this. If you overcome this hurdle, this last one I'm going to tell you, is more powerful than all of the other ones I said combined. Because this last step is how you can contribute to modify and work through all those other steps and then some. And that is hire a coach. There is absolutely nothing you will do that will get, will guarantee you success as well or effectively as working with a good coach. Because a good coach knows how to individualize all of this. They know how to help you with workout programming. They know how to encourage, encourage you when you need it. They know how to get you to give Yourself, Grace, when you screw up, because you will. They know how to work with your diet, they know how to work with your sleep. They know how to take you through this journey, because this is a journey. And a coach is somebody that understands which direction to go. They know when to turn, when to go up, when to go down, when to move right, left, whatever. A coach is going to walk you through this process and help you. And so when you look at the success, the data on this is incredible. But I know this because I coached and trained people for over two and a half decades. You work with a coach. When I worked with clients, like I knew, like, the odds of successful me were astronomically higher than if they were doing on their own. I mean, I, every client I worked with for the back half of my career in particular, I think most of them would not have succeeded, but, but as I got really good, most of them succeeded. And as defined by forever results, as defined by having a good relationship with exercise and diet that they maintained, they still maintain and still keep in contact with me. Anyone?

[Doug]

Listen, the. The art of building muscle and losing body fat is a skill. Hiring a coach is having an expert teach you that. And yes, you could make the case that you could Google and watch YouTube videos and get the certifications and butchers up. Absolutely. If you're willing to put in the work, the hours, the trial and error to figure those things out, then you very well could do this yourself. But when you have the opportunity or if you have the ability to financially invest in a coach that can teach you that is an expert in exactly doing that, in building muscle and burning body fat, teach you how to do this the correct way, it's more likely, not only is it more likely that you'll get the results and get the goal that you want, but then more importantly, you'll be able to maintain that because there's a lot of people that could white knuckle their way to losing 20 pounds. And you know, we use those extreme analogies of like, yeah, just don't eat for the next four weeks and walk on a treadmill every single day and you'll lose the 30 pounds. Now the reality is like, nobody's going to maintain that or keep that weight off or continue doing that or else they'd eventually die with that, those type of habits. But that's just an extreme analogy of what people do. People do somewhere on that spectrum, that's all they do is they move more cut calories. And that's their formula to losing weight. But it's Not a successful formula. So hiring a professional who knows how to do this, that can teach you and take you through that process is invaluable.

[Sal Destefano]

Now, before we get to the questions I want to say we have, we now offer group coaching. So virtual group coaching. This one in particular that we're doing coming up here is for people who've gotten out of shape, who were in shape, want to get back into shape. It's mindpump group coaching dot com. There should. I don't know if it'll be available when you, when, when this episode airs. It's a very small group, but we're going to be doing this on a semi regular basis. So if you're interested to go to mindpump group coaching dot com. All right, Doug.

[Melissa]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So our first question is, why is the fail rate so high for getting back into shape?

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, so this is a good question because when you look at the data, okay, the fail rate for getting into shape or losing weight or whatever is very high, right? It's like 90% of people will gain the weight back that they lose within the first. I think it's year or two. Okay. The fail rate when the person tries it the second and third time is higher. Okay. So it actually gets worse each time you attempt to do it again. Now, you would think when you try something over and over again that your success rate would get higher, right? Like I swing a bat, I miss. I kind of learn. I swing a bat, eventually I'm going to learn how to hit the ball. But that's not actually what happens. The data shows that the fail rate is worse with each successive attempt. Now why is that? Why is a fail rate high when you're getting back into shape? Why is it worse when you're getting back into shape than it was the first time around?

[Doug]

Because when you do it the wrong way, it gets more difficult each time.

[Sal Destefano]

Number one. And number two, here's. And people don't get this right, this is what, this is how you define fail rate. You lost 30 pounds, but you gained it back. Here's what a person remembers. Oh, I remember what I did when I lost 30 pounds. That worked. I'm gonna do it again. They don't realize that it failed because they gained the weight back, didn't stick. They place it on themselves and say, okay, well, this time I'm gonna keep it off, that it failed for a reason. That was a failing process. That was a failing model. Don't try it again. So this is what happens. So I'm saying this because this episode is targeting people who are getting back into shape. Whatever you did before to get into shape, the reason why you gained the weight back or whatever is cause it didn't work. And so you have to try a new approach, system different. Because if you try the same approach, you get the same result.

[Doug]

It's so hard to communicate that to people because people assume that, oh, I had, I did, I did it, I did it in the past, I did it before. It's like, no, if it was successful, you would be in shape still today. And I think that's the reason why it gets more difficult for these clients is because it's a failing strategy. And you keep applying a failing strategy, you keep failing. And so eventually you get to a point where you go like, eff it. Why do I keep trying to do this? If I. If the inevitable is going to happen, I'd rather just be out of shape and enjoying the foods I want to enjoy.

[Adam Schafer]

Is running a good way to get back into shape?

[Sal Destefano]

Usually not. No. Running is a good way to get back into running shape. If you are running before or a runner before and you have good technique.

[Doug]

Good biomechanics, good way to train for a marathon.

[Sal Destefano]

But people, most people stop running around the age of 15 and then they decide to get in shape around 30 or 40 and they're like, I'm going to start running. And it's a skill that they lost. So what they do is they lace up the running shoes and they go, just run until they're fatigued and everything is terrible. Biomechanics, terrible. Nothing works well. And the injury rate on this is sky high. It's also not effective for body, where.

[Melissa]

We have to define what shape is, you know, like, I think a lot of people, you know, attribute shape to feeling like they can, they can run far, they can, they feel like they can get up and move, which, you know, may be part of the equation. But in terms of, like, what they're really asking most times is like, how can I get my body to look better? How can I get, you know, more muscle definition? How can I lose body fat? And in terms of those pursuits, running is not really a great equation.

[Doug]

Well, listen, if we are. If we have agreed upon who we're communicating to right now, which is people who have been in shape in the past and are wanting to get back in shape on a transformation journey right now, what that means is we would never start them off with running. Even if running is a good tool for building stamina and can be used as a tool to burn calories. That's not how we would start this person. The way we would start everybody who wants to do this is by building muscle and building their metabolism. And running is catabolic. Running is going to break down, is about. This is going to go the opposite direction metabolically. And so that's not advantageous for this person, at least not yet. Now, this could potentially come down the road for somebody who says, hey, I'm, I'm as ripped as I want to be and now I want to build some stamina. Sure, maybe we can do some running or you got your last couple pounds that we want to shred after we've already built your metabolism up, there's a possibility we can get to this point, but absolutely not. This is a terrible strategy for the person who's trying to get back in shape. Starting off with running is not the way to do it.

[Adam Schafer]

Should I start my fitness journey with a long fast?

[Sal Destefano]

No, no. Terrible advice. Now I know why people do this. It's because they just, they want to.

[Melissa]

Just go all out the kitchen sink.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. And I'm going to start by just going to clean everything out. I'm going to go on this crazy fat. No. A terrible idea. Fasting is very effective for spiritual purposes if you're doing it for that. But when it comes to weight loss and health, except for maybe gut health issues, a functional medicine practitioner may recommend this for something like that. No, this is a great way to turn into a restrict binge situation to fast and then binge and then fast and then binge, which is very unhealthy. And of course, fasting means you're eating no protein and it won't let you lift weight.

[Doug]

Yeah. I mean, I was going to say even simpler way to put this is that this is opposite of what I just said. The strategy is. The strategy is for us to build muscle, build your metabolism. You can't do that on no calories. On no calories, you're not building any muscle, you're not building any metabolism. And so even if fasting is a tool like running that we may use later down the road for certain things, it's not the right strategy, especially at the beginning.

[Adam Schafer]

What is the success rate for a gym versus at home workouts?

[Sal Destefano]

Actually, if you look at the data, they're very similar.

[Doug]

As I say, what is the.

[Sal Destefano]

It's very similar. It's very, very similar. What you tend to see with gym use is it's, it's, there's more of it in the beginning and then it tapers off faster home workouts tend to stay more consistent longer, but generally overall they're right around the same. And it really doesn't matter which one you pick. Go with which one you want to start with, which one you like. I will say this, if a gym is more than a couple miles away from you, the data shows that you're far less likely to be.

[Melissa]

Less likely.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, it's got to be kind of close by. But they're both, they're both equally effective or equally ineffective depending on the individual.

[Melissa]

Yeah, the determiner really I think is if it fits in your schedule best, which one you could have the most consistency with. And that's how you kind of have to balance it out and weigh it out. Some people do have a gym in close proximity and they like the community of it and you know, the energy and so it works. But now that we have a lot of like great home equipment and you know, that's evolved quite a lot over the years, so there's really good options for at home training. So it really is kind of a coin toss.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean, I think in the perfect world you have both options.

[Melissa]

Yep.

[Doug]

I think in a perfect world. And even, and even if you don't have like a full blown gym at home, to Justin's point, you have suspension trainer or bands or things you miss. Yeah. For the days that you miss going to the gym. I've always been a gym fan. I think something about driving to the gym, there's like an accountability piece that comes with that. There's other people around watching you work out. You know, when I want to stop after one workout, I'm more likely to do more. And so I've always found that beneficial. But I also went on a kick after Covid of only training from home for a couple years. Really appreciate it. Really liked the, the luxury of like, you know what, I wasn't going to lift today, but I'm going to go in my garage real quick and just do two sets of squats and doing that. So there's benefits to both. I think in the perfect world you have a, you have both access to it if you, if you can. But I don't think there's a either or, or one is necessarily better than the other.

[Adam Schafer]

I have a lot of weight to lose. Should I lose the weight first, then build or vice versa?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, everybody does this backwards. So one helps the other, the other one does not help the other.

[Doug]

That's right.

[Sal Destefano]

Building first makes fat loss easier. Losing weight first does not make building muscle easier. And Actually, the fat loss first makes it more difficult for both of them.

[Doug]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

So you're better off boosting metabolic health, metabolism, building muscle and then start and then doing the fat loss from the better position. Really a much better, stronger position is by building that muscle. I never took clients and had them lose weight to try to build up. And it's what often people say, like I'll lose the weight first and I'll worry about building muscle.

[Doug]

Maybe the most important question of all the questions because when you have a lot of weight to lose, this is the most common strategy and it is counter to what we would do with every client. I don't care if we had a guy on the phone the other day who had to lose over 100 pounds and felt that we don't communicate to that person by our tips. And I said no, it's absolutely not true. You are the same thing I would do with you who needs to lose over £100 as the lady who just needs to lose 20. The first thing that we're going to do is build muscle, is going to reverse diet, is build that metabolism up because it's only going to make the fat loss journey easier. Trying to do it the reverse to Sal's point makes both harder. Both harder.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at mind pump DiStefano. Adam is at Mind Pump Out.

[Adam Schafer]

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, Persona 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 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 Pumpkin.