2598: The 5 Best Diets for Any Goal & More (Listener Coaching)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth Episode: 2598: The 5 Best Diets for Any Goal & More (Listener Coaching)
Release Date: May 16, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge

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Introduction: Tailoring Diets to Individual Goals

In this episode, the Mind Pump hosts delve into the five best diets tailored to specific fitness and health goals, answering listener questions and providing science-backed insights. The discussion emphasizes the importance of aligning dietary choices with individual objectives to optimize performance, health, and overall well-being.

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1. Cognitive Performance: Ketogenic Diet

Adam Schaefer [05:26]:
"The best diet for cognitive performance, according to the data, is a ketogenic diet. A very low or no carbohydrate, moderate protein, high-fat diet has been shown to maximize memory and cognitive function."

• Benefits:

  • Enhances mental sharpness and memory.
  • Suppresses appetite, beneficial for periods with limited food access.
  • Neuroprotective effects, particularly useful for individuals with cognitive decline.

• Insights from Hosts:

  • Doug Egge [07:02]: "Running on ketones versus glucose is significant for mental clarity."
  • Justin Andrews [07:27]: Fasting combined with ketogenic dieting can suppress cravings and enhance mental focus during demanding tasks like public speaking or traveling.

• Considerations:

  • Not ideal for strength and power goals.
  • Transitioning into ketosis may require increased sodium intake to mitigate the "keto flu."
  • Flexibility to switch in and out of ketogenic dieting based on immediate goals.

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2. Strength and Power: High Protein and High Carbohydrate Diet

Adam Schaefer [10:00]:
"For those aiming to maximize athletic performance, strength, and power, a diet comprising about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and 2 grams of carbohydrates per pound is recommended."

• Components:

  • Protein: Essential for muscle repair and growth.
  • Carbohydrates: Provide necessary glycogen for high-intensity workouts.
  • Fats: Make up the remaining caloric needs.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [11:41]: Advocates for pushing protein intake up to 1.5 grams per pound for optimal muscle building.
  • Adam Schaefer [12:35]: Highlights that certain health conditions may necessitate deviations, such as adopting a carnivore diet for autoimmune issues.

• Considerations:

  • Ensure sufficient caloric intake to support high activity levels.
  • Avoid excessive fat restriction to maintain energy levels.

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3. Gut Health: Elimination Diet

Adam Schaefer [13:16]:
"To improve gut health, an elimination diet is recommended. This involves removing common food intolerances for 30 to 60 days, then gradually reintroducing them to identify triggers."

• Common Eliminated Foods:

  • Grains, gluten, dairy, legumes, nuts, and egg whites.

• Process:

  • Start with a stringent diet, then reintroduce one food at a time every two weeks.

• Host Insights:

  • Doug Egge [13:47]: "Switching out problematic foods can significantly improve symptoms."
  • Justin Andrews [16:50]: Emphasizes the psychological benefits of controlling cravings and learning to cope without constant eating.

• Considerations:

  • Individual responses may vary; some may need to eliminate additional foods beyond the common triggers.
  • Utilizing tests for IgG antibodies can aid in identifying specific intolerances.

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4. Spiritual Health: Fasting

Adam Schaefer [14:21]:
"Fasting is a universal practice across major religions and is beneficial for spiritual health. It involves abstaining from food for designated periods, which can enhance mental clarity and emotional resilience."

• Benefits:

  • Promotes detachment from constant eating.
  • Enhances mental sharpness and emotional stability.
  • Encourages self-discipline and introspection.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [16:06]: Shares personal experiences of using fasting to manage cravings and improve mental clarity during specific life events.
  • Doug Egge [15:43]: "Fasting brings you back in tune with your body, making you more aware of its natural signals."

• Considerations:

  • Fasting should be combined with practices like prayer or meditation for maximal spiritual benefits.
  • Short-term fasting (1-3 days) can be integrated without significantly impacting physical goals like muscle maintenance.

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5. Overall Health: Paleo Diet

Adam Schaefer [19:06]:
"For overall health, the paleo diet is highly recommended. It emphasizes whole foods, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and animal meats, excluding dairy and grains."

• Benefits:

  • Promotes a balanced intake of macronutrients from whole, unprocessed foods.
  • Enhances digestion and reduces inflammatory responses.
  • Supports long-term health and vitality.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [19:33]: Describes his personal adherence to a paleoesque diet, incorporating rice and oatmeal, showing flexibility within the paleo framework.
  • Doug Egge [19:25]: "The paleo diet covers all essential health boxes without imposing strict limitations."

• Considerations:

  • While not optimal for specific goals like peak athletic performance or cognitive enhancement, it provides a solid foundation for general health.

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Common Mistake: Cutting Calories While Increasing Activity

Adam Schaefer [19:53]:
"A prevalent mistake in the fitness community is simultaneously cutting calories and increasing high-intensity activity. This dual stress can lead to muscle loss, plateaus, and overall decreased performance."

• Risks:

  • Reduces the body’s ability to recover due to lowered caloric intake.
  • Increases stress signals, causing the body to conserve energy and impede progress.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [20:25]: Highlights how competing demands can lead to unsustainable practices, ultimately derailing fitness goals.
  • Adam Schaefer [23:36]: Emphasizes that the human metabolism is complex and can adapt to stress signals in detrimental ways.

• Recommendations:

  • Focus on either reducing calories or increasing activity, not both dramatically at the same time.
  • Implement reverse dieting strategies to sustainably adjust caloric intake without overwhelming the body.

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The Importance of Sleep in Fitness

Adam Schaefer [31:03]:
"Nothing comes close to sleep as a recovery tool. Consistent, quality sleep dramatically enhances the body’s ability to recover, build muscle, and burn fat."

• Benefits:

  • Enhances muscle recovery and growth.
  • Improves cognitive function and overall health.
  • Essential for stress management and hormonal balance.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [32:27]: Praises the Eight Sleep system, highlighting its ability to optimize sleep environment through temperature control and snoring reduction.
  • Doug Egge [32:49]: Notes that good sleep practices are crucial and often neglected in modern lifestyles.

• Product Highlight:

  • Eight Sleep Pod 5 Ultra: An advanced sleep system that adjusts temperature, detects snoring, and monitors sleep stages to ensure optimal rest.

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Discussion on Protein and Gender Bias in Media

Adam Schaefer [35:19]:
"Recent media, such as Vanity Fair’s article titled 'Why are Americans so obsessed with protein? Blame MAGA,' misrepresents protein intake, particularly perpetuating gender biases that disadvantage women."

• Critique:

  • Media often incorrectly frames protein intake as a male-centric concern, ignoring the substantial benefits for women, including muscle maintenance, fat loss, and hormonal balance.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [37:13]: Argues that such misinformation leads to women undereating protein, resulting in adverse health effects.
  • Adam Schaefer [40:38]: Clarifies that while most people consume adequate protein for basic health, optimizing intake supports a range of performance and health goals.

• Recommendations:

  • Encourage balanced protein consumption tailored to individual needs, moving beyond stereotypical gender narratives.
  • Utilize supplements like creatine to support those who might naturally consume less protein, particularly in vegan or low-protein diets.

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Impact of AI on the Fitness Industry

Adam Schaefer [69:38]:
"AI is poised to significantly assist trainers by scaling operations, creating nutrition plans, managing business tasks, and improving workout programming. However, it poses no immediate threat to the unique human aspects of training, such as building trust and personal relationships."

• Pros:

  • Enhances efficiency and effectiveness in program design and business management.
  • Provides advanced data analysis for personalized training and nutrition plans.

• Cons:

  • Potential risk arises if AI becomes indistinguishable from human trainers, threatening job security.

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [70:47]: Emphasizes that AI tools are akin to other fitness technologies and serve to augment, not replace, human trainers.
  • Adam Schaefer [72:15]: Highlights that the core value of trainers lies in their ability to connect and relate to clients, which AI cannot replicate.

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Listener Questions: Practical Coaching Insights

Q1: Maintaining Strength During Injury

Question from Slow Run Mag:
"What do you guys do to keep up your strength when resting an injury?"

• Adam Schaefer [61:44]:
  "Strength loss and muscle loss come back so fast. The number one goal when injured is healing, not preventing muscle loss."

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [62:14]: Advocates for taking time off and modifying other aspects of life to minimize drastic changes in physique.
  • Adam Schaefer [64:01]: Recommends red light therapy to aid in faster injury recovery and promote muscle maintenance.

Q2: Reverse Dieting and Weight Gain

Question from Lindsay ant32:
"What should you do if you are reverse dieting but see weight gain?"

• Adam Schaefer [64:25]:
  "If you see significant weight gain, slow down the calorie increases. Typically, add 100-200 calories at a time."

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [65:00]: Emphasizes the importance of being comfortable with minor weight fluctuations and differentiating between water/glycogen gain versus fat or muscle.

Q3: NSAIDs and Strength Training

Question from SHALL Fitness:
"Will taking NSAIDs to treat an acute injury completely negate gains from strength training?"

• Adam Schaefer [66:17]:
  "NSAIDs reduce the inflammatory process involved in muscle growth but do not completely negate gains."

• Host Insights:

  • Justin Andrews [66:58]: Advises that while NSAIDs are not ideal for muscle building, occasional use does not disastrously impact progress.
  • Adam Schaefer [68:09]: Warns against chronic use of NSAIDs due to risks like tendon rupture and impaired athletic performance.

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Conclusion: Holistic Approach to Fitness and Health

Throughout the episode, the hosts emphasize a holistic and individualized approach to diet and fitness. By aligning dietary strategies with specific personal goals, avoiding common pitfalls, and prioritizing essential recovery practices like sleep, listeners can achieve optimized health and performance. The episode also highlights the evolving landscape of the fitness industry, including the integration of AI and the importance of combating misinformation in media.

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Notable Quotes:

• Justin Andrews [04:46]:
  "I loved to teach my clients that you don't have to always eat in a deficit. Depending on your goals, you can adjust your caloric intake accordingly."

• Adam Schaefer [31:03]:
  "Nothing comes close to sleep as a recovery tool. Consistent, quality sleep dramatically enhances the body’s ability to recover, build muscle, and burn fat."

• Adam Schaefer [69:38]:
  "AI is only going to help trainers scale and become more effective, not replace the essential human elements of training."

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For more insights and personalized training protocols, visit mindpumppodcast.com and follow the hosts on Instagram @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, and @mindpumpdoug.

Transcript

[Sal DiStefano]

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

[Adam Schaefer]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Sal DiStefano]

With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer.

[Adam Schaefer]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. All right. In today's episode, we answered listeners questions. We picked for some questions on Instagram. By the way, you could go to Instagram @mindpump media if you want to post some questions that we could pick from. But that part was after the intro. Today's intro was 58 minutes long. Now in the intro we talk about fitness, science, fat loss science, diets, all the fitness stuff you love, plus family stuff and current events. It's a good time now. This podcast is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is eight Sleep. This is the most advanced sleep system you'll find anywhere. It will dramatically improve your sleep, which will also have massive impacts on everything else. You'll eat better because you feel better. You'll recover better from your workouts, build more muscle, burn more body fat. Go check out Eight Sleep. Go to eightsleep.com mindpump use the code mindpump and get $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Joy Mode. This is a pre sex supplement. It improves blood flow and it's shown by data to actually work. Justin loves it. He uses it every single time. Go check them out. Go to tryjoymode.com mindpump Enter the code MINDPUMP. Get 20% off. We also have a sale this month, Maps 15 Performance and the RGB bundle. 50% off. If you're interested, go to maps fitnessproducts.com and then use the code MAY50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. When most people think about changing their diet or their eating, they think about losing body fat or building muscle. But did you know diets can have profound impacts on many things related to your health and other aspects of performance? We're going to talk about the five best diets for almost any goal. In other words, which diet is best for the different goals that we often have in our life? Let's go.

[Justin Andrews]

Choose your weapon. I love this conversation because this was something. And it was not till later on in my training career did I start to do with my clients, where I took them through all mo for the most part, most of the popular diets, regardless if they really wanted to or not, because I found it as incredibly valuable.

[Adam Schaefer]

Revealing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And revealing to them how each of them affected them differently and the pros and cons and realizing that there's going to be periods in your life where one type of way or one way of eating makes more sense than another way. And so, and when you look at how I know how we all personally eat, we don't like. And I've. We've been asked this, what kind of diet or how do you guys eat? Well, it changes. There's times in my life when I'm getting after it and I'm trying to build and I'm focused on gaining and, and then. And I'm eating a certain way. Then there's other times when I'm not doing a lot and so I'm trying to maintain and not really lose. And then there's other times where I got to be sharp. And so there's. And, and every time I've got a different focus or goal, my diet slightly gets modified and changes.

[Doug]

Just being strategic. I mean, why wouldn't you be strategic with your, your eating to compliment your training or whatever pursuit you're doing and to, to understand these diets and like their benefits. I think it's a smart, a smart approach. I don't. And again, you can work within the foods you're already eating to the certain extent. So it's not like that foreign, you might add or you might subtract some. But for the most part, you know, it's pretty easy to kind of taper that. So it fits within these categories.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, I, I think one of the best ways to look at exercise and diet. Okay, let's just talk about exercise and diet, and we're going to get specific with diet. But I think one of the best ways to look at those two things in the context of I want to be healthy or I want to know how to use them for the rest of my life. Okay. Because throughout your entire life, there's going to be times you're going to be more focused on athletic performance or muscle gain or fat loss or stress or cognitive performance or I need to perform at work or whatever. Right. There's gonna be life changes. And one of the best ways to use exercise and diet is to modify them to maximize your effectiveness or in other words, to improve the quality of your life, regardless of what's happening. Okay. And you can do this with different kinds of diets. And some diets are great for some things and they're not so great for other things, but that's okay. In fact, that's great if you're after that one thing that it's Good for. And if you're not really caring so much about the other thing. Now, to be clear, all diets, so long as you hit your essentials, can be fat loss diets. Okay. So almost any diet could be a fat loss diet so long as the calories are low enough.

[Justin Andrews]

That's typically how these are all marketed.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. They're all typically market as fat loss weight loss diets. Because that's what's, you know, the, the.

[Justin Andrews]

Because that's, that's the one common theme that most of them have is that whatever protocol it is, it's designed to eat, to have you eat in a caloric deficit. Yeah, but the part then this is why I used to like to teach my clients because I, I would show them that you don't have to necessarily do it like that all the time. You can eat it at a maintenance or even a surplus in some of these diets. Talking about depending on what your goals and what you're trying to achieve from it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right, right. But so let's say that, you know, you have different goals, like for example, and I'll talk about the first one and I'll use myself as an example. Now, by the way, we're going to give recommendations based off of what the data shows. That's not, it's not going to be.

[Doug]

True for every serve the individual.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, like, like there's, there's always an individual individual variance. I train enough clients to see this all the time. I had clients who completely bucked the data with certain diets. And I just, I couldn't, I could not, you know, it didn't compute. I couldn't argue though, with what was happening. And so I just started to realize, like, people respond differently to different kinds of diets. But generally speaking, the diets that we're going to recommend today for the diff, for the specific purposes the data shows, these are the best diets for those things. So I'll talk about the, I'll talk about the first one, which is cognitive performance. What if your goal, what if your ultimate goal is to maximize cognitive performance? Now, when would this be the case? Well, you got a big project coming up for work or you're about to go do a speech, or in my case, finals. I'm going to get on podcasts, right? This is what, when I know I'm going to travel or fly to somewhere like LA or Austin or whatever, and I'm going to be on three or four podcasts, I eat in a way to optimize cognitive performance because I don't care about anything else at that point. I'm looking for maximum cognitive performance. Same thing if I'm going to go do a talk in front of 500 to 1,000 people. And the best diet for cognitive performance according to the data, and I find this to be true for myself, is a ketogenic diet. A very, very low or no carbohydrate, moderate protein, high fat diet has been shown in the data to maximize memory cognitive function. It shows this especially with people who have cognitive decline. But in many people like myself, I don't have cognitive decline. But I know when my ketones are high from being a ketogenic diet, I just, I just feel sharper.

[Doug]

It's very interesting. And to go through that process to feel it yourself and know like, you know, running off of different fuel source like ketones versus glucose, it's, it's significant. And for me it is the sharpness and it's, it's the memory recall is, is definitely enhanced.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally. I also think that your added benefit to that, to the, you know, traveling and, and getting on podcasts and speaking like you said too, it also tends to suppress my cravings.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because the carbs are low or non existent and so there' this desire to. I need to be eating every two to three hours.

[Adam Schaefer]

Once you get into it, it's easy to follow.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Appetite.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I feel like it keeps so you're, you're sharper, keeps that under control, you know, well as I do when you're traveling and doing stuff like that, like, you know, there's periods of time when you're not around, you don't have access to food, you're in an Uber, driving from one place to the other and then you're talking for two hours. And so it's like you have these stretches sometimes of three, four hours where you can't get to anything food wise. And what a perfect time for your appetite to be suppressed like that, not have those cravings and then to also be mentally sharp from it. That's extra benefit.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now ketogenic diet is not great for strength and power and for building muscle. For me, if I'm trying to build muscle, I'm not going to go into ketogenic diet if trying to maximize my gains. If I want to hit a PR and a deadlift or whatever, I'm not going to eat ketogenic. But for cognitive performance, this is amazing. So what I do when I'm going to go on these trips, unless these are like easy podcasts, sometimes I won't but if I'm going to go and I want to really kick ass, I go into that day already ketogenic. And that's how I eat while I'm there. If I'm going to go do a talk, if I'm going to go to. Last year I did a talk at the Peptide Congress. It's my first time doing a talk to a room full of doctors, at least representing mind pump. I went into it ketogenic. I'm going to be doing it again coming up here and I think it's June or July where I'll be going back and doing that ketogenic diet. And the data is, I mean, it's one of the best diets for cognitive performance. It just shows it across the board. Neuroprotective. Yeah, neuroprotective. The brain seems to be sharper. People can think faster. So if you want to improve or boost cognitive performance, if that's really what's important to you, then a kidogenic experiment with it. Try it for yourself. Within a week or two, you'll probably notice some benefits. That's typically how long it takes.

[Justin Andrews]

And the reason for it being better for the brain but yet not so good for performance is the prevailing theory is just that it. And to oversimplify it, is that the. The brain tends. It's like a cleaner fuel for the brain.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, ketones operate. The brain operates very well on ketones, apparently. But when it comes to like strength and athletic performance, you want glycogen, right? So you have low.

[Justin Andrews]

It's faster, right?

[Adam Schaefer]

It's just faster. You could, you could lift more, you're stronger. For bodybuilders, they get better pumps. But for the brain, like you take someone with Alzheimer's or dementia, right? So extreme cognitive decline. You put them on a ketogenic diet and you see improvements in their thinking. Now, someone who's healthy, what you'll notice is just sharper. You just feel much sharper.

[Justin Andrews]

And I want to add something because I think this is another thing that when I would teach clients, they would think that this needs to be something that you do for months or, oh, it's going to ruin. Let's say you have a goal of building muscle and that's what you've been on. But then you also have the privilege to go speak somewhere in two days. You switching to keto for two days doesn't ruin your performance goal. It's like you can do that for a three to five day or just a day or two and then go right back to the Other diet and you're not going to lose muscle, lose your gains, not be able to get the benefits. So you can move in and out of these diets based off of the even week by week or day to day type of changes.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's exactly how I'm, you know, I'm communicating here, how you should use these. Now I think if you've never done keto, do it for a while, little while, just so you can kind of figure out how it works. By the way, when you're doing it, make sure you bump your sodium. People talk about this keto flu and they feel like, oh my God, I feel terrible. It's like, well, you need more sodium is typically what the case is because it just, it just pushes water out of your body and you will lose a lot of, you'll lose weight on the scale. But it's water weight initially. But yeah, two, three days of going keto leading into advance. Typically all people need and they'll have to again more level, you know, more stable levels of energy and better cognitive performance. So that's the good cognitive performance one is a ketogenic diet. Next we'll get to strength and power. You want athletic performance, strength and power. Typically this is what the data shows. About 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and about 2 grams of carbs per pound of body weight. So a 200 pound man, 200 grams of protein, 400 grams of carbs. Fat makes up the difference for the calories. And the data just shows this kind of diet gives people the best athletic performance. Pretty consistent.

[Justin Andrews]

Now hasn't some of the data showed that it you even see benefits upwards to one and a half grams of protein?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So you could, you could push that even like. Yeah, that's general, that's a general protocol. But some people, especially people that do well on high protein, that digest it well, have no problems, could push the protein even to one and a half. If we're strictly performance, strength, building muscles.

[Doug]

Your focus, pushing that intensity to recover, I'm sure that would benefit.

[Adam Schaefer]

By the way, I do want to add this. If you've just, if you have certain health issues and one of these diets just makes you the healthiest, let's say you have gut issues and for whatever reason starches and carbohydrates bother you, keto becomes your best strength and power diet as well. Right. And I'm only using keto as an example in this argument. Any diet, any diet. For example, people go carnivore because of extreme, you know, autoimmune issues. Carnivore across the board is a terrible.

[Doug]

Performance, athletic performance, if you're fighting yourself from within.

[Adam Schaefer]

But for that person, it's the best.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, if you asked Michaela Peterson if she performs better or lifts better in the gym on her carnivore diet versus on a Paleo or any other diet for that, she would tell you that for sure. On the carnivore because of her health issues.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. Next, we have gut health. You're looking at improving your gut health. You would do what's called an elimination diet. Whole 30 actually is not a bad place to start with kind of a whole, you know, kind of that elimination style. But typical elimination diet, you're getting rid of common food intolerances, you're getting rid of a bunch of them all at once. You stay that way for about 30 to 60 days. Then you introduce one for two weeks and wait then another one until you find out what the heck is causing a lot of these problems.

[Justin Andrews]

Sugars, grain, gluten, dairy.

[Adam Schaefer]

Typically, you're getting rid of grains, you're getting rid of gluten, you're getting rid of dairy, you're getting rid of legumes, nuts, egg whites. Those are the most common ones. And then you start with. So you're eating very basic. And then you reintroduce one slowly at a time. Just kind of see how you feel. And I've had clients do elimination diets many, many times. And sometimes it gets weird. Sometimes we cut out all those things and the issues aren't that much better. And then we start cutting other foods out, and you're like, oh, it's bananas. Yeah, that was your problem.

[Doug]

Yeah. Or some vegetable that's healthy for you.

[Adam Schaefer]

But it's like, yeah, you can do. Now you can do a test that will test, I believe, IgG antibodies, I believe, to give you a good starting point, because it can get a bit individual. I know Dr. Cabral's team does these tests, and it's a good starting point. And what you're looking at is an immune response, not allergy. So you're not getting anaphylactic shock or anything like that, but just, you know, sometimes your body develops and there's lots of reasons why an immune reaction to a particular food and you just don't know it. And the.

[Doug]

Well, wouldn't you also see that in spikes in insulin or, like, you know, sometimes glucose monitor.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, sometimes you do. Yep. And so. And what do the symptoms look like? They can be delayed. You can have a gluten intolerance and not notice until the next day. So you eat gluten today and then tomorrow you're just, ah, I just kind of feel off and it's hard to make the connection. So that's why elimination diet can be good. Because then when you reintroduce it then you're like, oh, there's that weird symptom that I thought, you know, went away. You know. Next up, and here's something that people don't often think about with diets. What's a good diet for spiritual health? Does that even. Is there a diet that's for spiritual? There is fasting. Fasting is present in every major religion. It's abstaining. And you see this in the Christian faith, you see this in Jewish faith, you see this in Islamic faith. You also see this in Eastern, you know, spiritual practices. Fasting is across the board for thousands and thousands of years the diet for spiritual health. And so now this is in combination with other things. But if you're feeling a bit lost spiritually, then you would combine this with prayer and practice. And that's just, it's been practicing spiritual.

[Doug]

I also think it really brings you back in tune with your body and so you can really kind of pay attention to those signs and signals that have been masked by inundating it with a lot of like food and just kind of going through your day to day process.

[Justin Andrews]

I was gonna say I would, you know, obviously applies for that, but I've even had atheist clients that I would put on this just as a practice of detachment. Like, because sometimes clients have this pool to food that they think and you know, especially you listen to our vocabulary around eating sometimes, oh, I'm starving, you know, because it's been four hours, you haven't eaten. Like, no, you're not, you're, you're nowhere.

[Doug]

Near that word for that.

[Justin Andrews]

It is the wrong word for that. But yet we've all been conditioned that we're all guilty probably of even saying that. I know I've said that before. Just when I have a craving or I haven't eaten a little bit. And you know, it's very enlightening for somebody who's never really intentionally fasted for a day or two or three to realize like, oh, wow, this body is far more amazing than I thought it is and I don't have to shuttle food in it every three to four hours. It could go for a long time. In fact, you start to notice once you get past that craving part and get comfortable with, oh, I'm not gonna be eating for the next 12, 24 hours at least. So I'm. Whatever. You start to realize, like, oh, man. Then you notice, like, the sharper you. Sometimes people feel sharper, they feel better.

[Adam Schaefer]

You also feel free because you're like, oh, yeah, I'm okay. I remember one of the first time I practiced fasting, what was shocking to me, I used to always, you know the term hangry? You know, like, oh my God, it's lunchtime, you know, it's one o' clock, I haven't eaten lunch, I'm irritable. Yeah. I used to say the same thing. And I realized when I fasted knowing I wasn't going to eat. That didn't happen to me.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then I realized, like, oh, it's not because I didn't have food. It was because I anticipated eating and I didn't and I had to wait an hour. So I wasn't irritable because my blood sugar's low or because I need to have food in my body. I was irritable because I had this anticipation that didn't happen. Had nothing to do with the fact that I was supposed to eat.

[Justin Andrews]

So true.

[Adam Schaefer]

So wild. And so that's a very freeing experience because if you're. Someone like me used to feed myself every three hours or two hours, I felt free. I felt suddenly free from this tyrannical thing called.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the other client that this is great for. If. And because this was also. This was me, you know, I was afraid if I didn't eat protein every two hours that I was. Muscle was going to fall off my body. I was certain of it. It was too when it happened, right when I would. But the weight, obviously, water comes out, inflammation comes down, you get smaller, you get. You lose a little bit of weight in the scale. So being the insecure, skinny kid, oh my God, I lost all that muscle I worked so hard for. And so, you know, I had a bit of orthorexia with the eating every two hours. Those are great clients. I used to do it with a lot of competitors since it's common in the competitive world that they think you gotta eat every two hours. And it's like, no, you'll be totally fine if we don't eat all day today and we go right back to your routine tomorrow. And so getting those clients comfortable with that, I think is very freeing. So those are probably the three biggest cases I see.

[Adam Schaefer]

Fasting. Yeah. And then lastly, overall health. Now, when you look at overall health, this is based off our experience and some data. I think a paleo diet is just generally very healthy. It's fruits, vegetables, some nuts and seeds and animal meats and that's it. They don't even include dairy, but I think dairy will be okay if you can have dairy. But with those choices, you're eating a very, very whole food based diet. You're not even eating foods that require too much cooking, like grains. And in my experience, when I've had clients go paleo, overall, they feel great. They just.

[Sal DiStefano]

Overall.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now it's not the best for performance, not the best for cognitive performance, but overall health. I think you can't go wrong with a paleo style diet.

[Doug]

Yeah, it just seems that it's easier to digest and like you don't have as much of reactive response to it. And yeah, for long term, it kind of hits all the, the boxes for you in terms of like overall health.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, if you had to put me in a box of how I normally eat most of the time, even though I don't think I fall in any specific category, I would say paleoesque.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I would say I eat pretty paleo. I add a lot more. I have rice in my diet and I would eat oatmeal. Things like that. That wouldn't be a part of the paleo diet. But for the most part, I would say generally speaking that I fall in that category a majority of the time. And then I move to these other extremes based off of very specific goals and times in my life.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, I want to bring up a really, really common mistake that people make with fitness and diet. And it's so common that I think even some people are gonna be like, huh, I didn't know you're not supposed to do that. A lot of coaches will coach people to do this as well. This is a very common combination of tips or pieces of advice that go together that is actually inaccurate and wrong and actually can cause, oftentimes causes people to stop progressing or to go backwards all further.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And that is to do this right here. Cut calories and simultaneously increase activity. Especially high intensity activity. They go together. Yeah, they go together. They almost, people almost think they're supposed to go together. Right. I want to lose weight, so I'm going to dramatically cut my calories.

[Doug]

Calories. And I'm going to keep burning, burning.

[Adam Schaefer]

All those calories and I'm going to dramatically increase my activity, especially the high intensity stuff. That's the formula. That is a terrible strategy because what you've done, anytime you cut your calories, you dramatically reduce Your body's ability to recover and heal. And now you're also adding stress on top of it. And so you're throwing two signals at your body that are saying, stress, stress, stress. And what often happens when you do this is you'll get some initial progress, then you'll hit an incredibly frustrating plateau and oftentimes lose muscle. In the, in the, in the process.

[Justin Andrews]

Of doing the competitive fitness space has perpetuated this. I used to, it baffled me looking around at my peers that they would do this. And I often got questioned by my methods of getting lean. I just thought, I mean it, to me, it seemed logical. I'm, I'm reverse dieting. So initially, before a cut, you are ramping up the metabolism, increasing calories, building muscle, building the metabolism, right? Taking, you say, take any arbitrary number, you started at 2,500 calories, and then now I'm at 3,500 calories. So I've done all this great work. I've built say five pounds of muscle, which would be a great job in a, in a, in a bulk. I put five pounds of muscle on, I'm eating more calories. And now it's time to get shredded for my show. Like, okay, I'm going to start to cut calories. But at that point, if I did a good job of reverse dieting, building my muscle, building metabolism, all I have to do is do that and let the diet do the work. I now, if I've, if I've done it correctly and I've built the metabolism up and I reduce calories, I don't need to add anything else. I am now in a deficit. And so allow, allow the body to do its job and it will start to lean out. It will start to tap into fat as its primary source of fuel because it's, it's lacking in calories. Where we go wrong is where we do that. And then we also increase the volume of training or increase all of a sudden this high intensity cardio and it's like the body freaks out. Go, oh my God, what is this? All this extra activity and you're gonna feed me less.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like it's just serve, conserve.

[Justin Andrews]

It does. It sends a loud signal that, oh my God, not only is he not gonna feed me what I was used to eating just a week ago, but he's also gonna push me harder. And it does. And it fools people because it might give a. At the initial swing, you get a little bit of a change, but then the body plateaus hard and fast because it's, it's conserving energy because of how hard you're. You don't need to do that.

[Adam Schaefer]

And what's frustrating about this is that you have people, people in the fitness space that argue against this because they don't acknowledge just how complex the human metabolism is.

[Doug]

There's checks and balances all over the place in the human body.

[Adam Schaefer]

And it's your metabolism.

[Justin Andrews]

They also argue it sal because how resilient the body is because it can take it. Just because your body can take it and you can do it doesn't mean it's the smartest approach for a recall.

[Adam Schaefer]

No. Or you're using the example of high level athletes or people with really good genetics who are relatively young, oftentimes on anabolic steroids or the performance in an exact. Yeah, but I mean, the human metabolism has this wide range of how many calories it could decide to burn or conserve. It could also lots of. There's lots of other things that can determine where calories go. Muscle, body, fat. Right. With the same lean body mass though. So in other words, the same lean body mass, your body can decide to burn more or less calories. In other words, it can become more or less efficient. And when you cut your calories, you're sending a signal already to your body that says become more efficient. That's what happens. So think of it this way. You have a job, you earn X amount of dollars per month, and you have so many bills, suddenly your income cuts in half. What are you gonna do with your bills? You're gonna try and reduce them. So your body immediately, when you cut calories, no matter what, no matter what, no matter how good you do it, by the way, this always happens. Your body's like, okay, we need to learn how to conserve more because we're taking in less. The same thing happens with dramatic increases of activity, especially activity that doesn't build muscle. Okay, activity like high intensity cardio, it's just calorie burning, which is fine. But when you send that high, that high intensity cardio signal, the body also tries to learn how to be more efficient. So when you throw both of them at the person, and I'm not even talking about the now the compromised ability to recover from the extra stress which happens from cut calories, It's a perfect storm. So this is a huge mistake lots of people make. They cut calories and dramatically increase activity. Terrible mistake that often results in. This is what happens, by the way, I've seen this happen to trainers, is they'll do this, that this pursuit of getting lean they'll lose weight on the scale, go get their body fat test. They actually went up because they lost muscle or nothing happened. Like what's going on. I mean, so much less.

[Doug]

And it's very common because the urgency, once they get in that state to really. They think it's going to accelerate their results. And, and that's the misconception.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, what's funny about this is bodybuilders, because bodybuilders do. There's a lot of things they do that's right. There's a lot of things that they do that can, that are sometimes wrong. But they, they get, they progress in spite of what's happening.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally.

[Adam Schaefer]

Or there's some other factor that's happening that they're not quite understanding and that's the benefit that they see. But bodybuilders in the off season when they're trying to build, this is what's funny to me. They will do all the right things to build as much muscle as possible. They'll eat more calories and they'll even do less volume of exercise in general, strength training, everything in general, trying to pack on muscle. Then they go into a cut and the attitude is cut calories and dramatically increase activity. What's funny is the thing, the training that builds the most muscle in the off season is the kind of training and volume that you want to do when you're cutting to keep the muscle.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. You don't want to, you don't want to do more. No, you don't do any more. Especially with getting less. Yeah, you're, you're pushing more demand with less fuel. If you were going to do more or test pressing your volume or pressing your intensity, you do it. You do it fed, you do it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

They see what you could do with it. So it's like choose one or the other. It's like, okay, you want to try and lean out by doing some hit cardio. And so. Okay, cool. Stay fed and do it. Let's see how your body responds to it. Okay. Maybe it's not responding. Okay, let's, instead of doing that, let's just try and reduce calories and keep everything the same and see what happens and then watch what happens. It's just this idea. I mean, it kind of reminds me because I get it, theoretically, you. It feels like it because everybody thinks.

[Adam Schaefer]

It'S just this, this plain formula.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, you know what? In, out, Doug and I had this really cool experience. We just had to do the, the driving experience. And one of the things I screwed up on right away was right out the gates, I spun out. And his feedback to me was, you are. You're throttling way too much out of it. You have to ease into the throttle. And I think. And it's such a weird dynamic because you think, how would giving it less gas get me to the point faster? More gas has got to get me there faster. No, it won't. Because the other things like your suspension balance, steering, everything like that is. Is to your point of checks and balances says, no, that's too much horsepower. Too much right now where you're currently at and doing that, you're just going to lose traction, possibly spin out or spin your wheels. And you will not get to point A or point B any faster. That way, actually letting off and letting it do its job will get me to that place faster. But yet your. Your body wants to do that. Like my. I want to more gas. That's what get me faster. And I think that's what people. They get caught in the same thing with exercise is like, yeah, I want to get to that leaner goal. So more has got to give it get to me.

[Doug]

But you got to fight that tendency.

[Justin Andrews]

You have to. You do. You have to fight that tendency. And I think it is very natural for you to think that that's supposed to work. And what's even more deceiving about the human body is the resiliency of it. And that's where these coaches get wrong because. And I, you know, it annoys me when I see the coaches and we have some in our own community that hear us tell that message all the time. Oh, you know, know the M Pump guys.

[Doug]

It doesn't really apply.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, they're. They're talking to a very specific set of community of people. And it's like, no, bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

Average person.

[Justin Andrews]

No, bro. This is everybody. Everybody has high performers. Everybody has a stress bucket. Okay. What is unique to everybody is what other outside stresses besides exercise that they are adding. So they could fill that bucket up a lot quicker than others. But everybody's got a bucket. And at one point, that bucket gets so full that stressing more which exercise is dieting. Less calories is also another one over spills on that bucket and you're just not going to see the results. And so this is everybody.

[Adam Schaefer]

Dude.

[Justin Andrews]

It ain't unique to a small group of people.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. And a lot. And you know, like when you look at the bodybuilding, you know, a lot of like bodybuilding physique, like the competitive physique space, especially the high Level. A lot of the information comes up from there and kind of disseminates and you get coaches that get some of it and the. And they're fanatical about it and they spread it out. A lot of it was, you know, they get away with a lot of it for a couple reasons. One, they have crazy genetics. They just do. If when you get to that high level, you're talking about people, they build muscle by thinking about it. They keep muscle on super low calories. Like they just really good genetics. Then on top of it, they're on hype. They're on performance enhancing substances like anabolic steroids and growth hormone, stuff like that, which helps preserve muscle. So they just get away with it.

[Justin Andrews]

That's all it is. It's not, by the way, they're not doing a great job at it. Okay. Speaking from experience of being in that community for years, having hands on experience of training them and also training alongside them, they, most of them aren't doing it right. And just because all of the people on the outside see the end result of the shredded guy or girl, they're like, well, it sure looks right to me. It does not mean that they got there the most effective way they got there, but most of it. And we had a Great Conversation Recently, Dr. Bickman, this about this, like, it's because they have this crazy ability to just discipline themselves that's just so rare.

[Adam Schaefer]

Suffer.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. All the signals that their bodies tell them they can ignore and just stay focused. And that was the biggest takeaway I had from being in that community for as long as I was. Was. These are some of the most disciplined humans I've ever met in my life. They're not necessarily the smartest. They're not necessarily really understand training and diet that well. What they, what they are and deserve the respect for. Their ability to say, I'm going to eat like this and do this day in, day out without waiting necessary. Oh, by any means. No matter what my body tries to tell me, no matter what I like, just they, that's what they have. That's the superpower they have, is they have that discipline. And that's what really separates them more than any of the other things from their peers is they have that ability to ignore that and keep going.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, speaking of stress, one of the best, one of the best things you could do to improve your body's ability to, to adapt to stress or handle stress or build muscle to burn body fat. Both adaptations, right? Because people ask this all the time, what's a Good recovery tool. What's a supplement that will help me recover more? Nothing, Nothing. Nothing comes close to sleep Sleep by itself. Good sleep does more for your body's ability to recover and adapt than all the other hacks and whatever combined times 50. Like. It's so important that if you get good sleep, your recovery will absolutely explode. But it has to be consistent. This is one of the most important things. And I think people, I know this, I've seen the data. People are chronically under slept these days. They really are. People just don't sleep well these days. And there's a lot of reasons for it. One of them being, you know, the, the introduction of smartphones. I don't know if you guys have seen this data on sleep. Quality is plummeted. It's got bad. When electricity got invented, so humans, people used to generally sleep a lot more. Nine hours, nine, ten hours a night. Electricity got invented and sleep went way down because, you know, now the lights are on. We don't need that. We don't have a, you know, or whatever. So that affected it. Television degraded people's sleep. Cable degraded it even more.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then you added social media and smartphones and. But sleep, boy, that right there, that's why, you know, I, I think so we have partners that, that focus on sleep, like eight Sleep.

[Justin Andrews]

Eight Sleep is best investment I've ever made by far.

[Adam Schaefer]

Eight Sleep, there's nothing as complete as eight Sleep for getting you to get good sleep.

[Doug]

It is literally creating the environment for it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, it's crazy. Have you guys seen what they're. What they did? I wrote down some notes.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, they.

[Adam Schaefer]

With the new.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, they've, they've. The new Pod 5, they've upgraded some really cool stuff. And even if you have, you don't have a pod 5, even if you have the older generation, like I have Pod 4, they updated the software and so the feedback that they're giving now on the ui, like the data.

[Adam Schaefer]

So it's crazy. So this is what it is. So if people don't know, right. So it goes over your bed and it's. The temperature is, is controlled by the pod 5. So, but that's not, that's not even like, that's not even the beginning. That's just scratches the surface, by the way, that makes a big difference. It will, it will adjust the temperature based off of how you're sleeping and it, it'll, it'll individualize it to maximize the temperature throughout the night to give you the best sleep. But it also measures. I wrote this down, it can detect snoring and adjust the position of the bed so it can keep you from snoring. Because snoring, by the way, really degrades your quality of sleep. It detects abnormal heartbeats, disrupted breathing, changes in hrv. I mean, it literally all the stuff that everything, your deep sleep, your different REM stages of sleep, and you don't know this, you just go to bed and then based off of all these measurements, your individual measurements, it will adjust itself and within a day or two, it'll learn how to maximize and give you the best sleep you've ever had.

[Justin Andrews]

This is the best part about it, because this information isn't like brand new. If you own a Fitbit or these other tools, they measure a lot of those things. Also. The difference is what does the average person go do with that? And the AI adjusts it for you. So it's taking all that information you're saying, and it's scoring you. Oh, I had 80% here, 70% here.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like a sleep coach.

[Justin Andrews]

And. Yes. And it's. And it's modifying the temperature to improve all that until it hones in on, like, what gets you the best sleep. It's incredible. It's the. I, by far, one of my favorite partners that we work with. Obviously, I know we love all of our partners. We wouldn't work with them, but there's certain things that I'm like, I love and. But it's like, oh, if I don't. If I go without for a while, it's not a big deal. Then there's other thing is like, I have to have my. The time that mine went down was like torture for me to not, not have that. Didn't realize. And it's like, it's like that person that you don't. You don't. You don't know what you have until you don't have it type of deal. You know what I'm saying? You realize, God damn, I did love her. What happened? You know, it's like, it's like I didn't realize how much until they're gone. That's how I felt. Like that when the eight sleep was down, I was like, damn, man, I didn't realize. I mean, I knew I loved it, but I didn't realize how much I did until I did feel it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Whenever we, when we. We're not working. Yeah, come back to work.

[Doug]

Oh, man, you long for us.

[Justin Andrews]

She's long for us.

[Adam Schaefer]

Just Justin.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schaefer]

You guys aren't here. Dude, I read an article, I think Vanity Fair did it. I'm gonna pull it up. You ever read? Yes, of course you have. I. I love reading articles where I start reading it and I'm like, who wrote this and how did this become political?

[Doug]

Oh, I think I know it's gonna be, bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

This is Vanity Fair. Okay. By the way, I can't believe. I can't believe food has become political. It started happening a few years ago, and it's just ridiculous. It's silly. Everything's political now.

[Doug]

This is about protein, right?

[Adam Schaefer]

Here's a title. Why are Americans so obsessed with protein? Blame maga. What?

[Doug]

Why are they throwing all this nonsense out there?

[Adam Schaefer]

And they're talking about. Here's the subtitle. From the Liver King to the Podcast bros. I like how they call them the podcast bro. Let's just label all of them, like the most popular podcast or just, you know, media in the world.

[Doug]

Nothing intelligent could come out of a bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

From the Liver King to the Podcast Bros. To RFK Juniors. Maha Constituents. America's infatuation with protein has reached a fever pitch.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Schaefer]

And it's ready for this. It gets better. And it's undeniably gendered. Oh, God. So what?

[Doug]

Proteins is an essential macronutrient. You shut the up.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what sucks about this? That they call it gendered. What gender do you think, by the way, they're pointing to with all that?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, right.

[Adam Schaefer]

Let me ask you guys this. As trainers, okay? Trained lots of people for 20 years. You have male and female clients. Who is more likely to benefit from bumping the protein?

[Justin Andrews]

Women all day.

[Adam Schaefer]

This kind of information is terrible.

[Doug]

Such a setback.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because it's going to harm women even more.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally.

[Adam Schaefer]

A bunch of, you know, like, young girls or women who are not privy to the benefits of protein, who probably are undereating it anyway, are going to read this and be like, I don't.

[Doug]

Want to be associated with maga.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So I'm going to eat even less. Women oftentimes more often than men under eat protein. The results of which are less muscle, more body fat, and hormone issues. Hormone issues. And so women benefit more than men often when I've trained them from bumping their protein. Articles like this, calling it gender.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know, man. I'm calling it backfire for sure. This message is too late. It's too late. The fact that muscle mommy is a term and it's popular amongst young women. Yeah, it's too late, dudes.

[Doug]

They're scrambling.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's too late.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

This, this, this tactic might have worked 10, 15 years ago. In fact, it probably would have worked pretty well. 10, 15 years. But that shit ain't going to work no more. I feel like the fact that. That women are on to. I mean, generally speaking, you're right.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because who reads Vanity Fair anymore?

[Justin Andrews]

And what.

[Doug]

What's healthy prevail.

[Justin Andrews]

When was the last time you talked to a woman that said she wanted to look like 80s model skinny? You just. I mean, you might hear it once in a great while. Once in a great while, you might hear it. But not like we used to. I mean, that was common. What you would hear as it described what you want to look like. Right. Where I don't hear that at all. I. I hear, and I get it, that we have our own. You know what I hear, bubble that we probably live in.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what I hear now? I want to lose weight and build muscle. Yeah. I hear both. Whereas before it was just lose weight.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Yeah. I hope you're right, dude. Because as I'm reading this article and it's comical, you guys. Like, they're like, they're talking the podcast bros, which is funny. Are we in that category?

[Doug]

They're just looking at something to dig it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Because Joe Roger Rogan's such a loud voice. And I think that they're just trying to find an angle that will divide people from. You know, that's always the case. It's like fear in division. However they can promote it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. And I mean, it's. It's so funny. Like, it's only men who care about protein. It's like, come on, guys, that's not true.

[Doug]

Well, here's the other thing. Like, the whole fat at any size thing, like, is already taking healthy at any size. Whatever. That's just any size.

[Adam Schaefer]

Look at me.

[Doug]

Skinny and fat. I back that statement. I back that statement. But what I was referring to is actually healthy at any size. And I. You see, like, even Lizzo's already losing weight. And that was the big face of the whole thing. And so I.

[Justin Andrews]

You can't let her get skinny.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Doug]

You can't have that happen because, you know, now your whole ideology, like, crumbles.

[Adam Schaefer]

In front of you. So I hate, by the way, I hate some of the quotes that they have that they put in here from certain scientists. Like, here's a quote. Is there any evidence I know of that getting your protein from whole food is inadequate or somehow it's better to get it through protein powder? I don't know of any evidence to suggest that. Okay. There's a difference between what is adequate and what is optimal.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay. It's rare that a man or a woman in a modern society is eating so lower protein that they're not getting enough amino acids and their body's breaking down. That's rare. That usually doesn't happen. Usually you get enough protein to not die.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

But that's not optimal. And the data on what is optimal is two or three times higher than that. Typically for things like muscle gain, fat loss, hormones, longevity, cognitive function, immune system, like you name it, it's just better for you. So the, but the fact that they twist it a little bit and say you're getting adequate protein, you don't need any more protein. No, you don't need any more protein. But if you want to optimize your health and your performance, all that stuff, then.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, you do. You do. If you're sitting across the table from me and you're saying, my goal, Adam, is to build five pounds of muscle, you do. If you just said, adam, my goal is to just live, you know, not die. Like, okay, your protein intake is fine. But if you want to add 5 pounds of muscle to your body where it's currently at and you're struggling with that 99. Of all the women client that women that I trained, they did not eat. Did not eat enough. No, just. And it was the, it was the first easy go to move was that and lift heavy. It was like switch, switch her over from her kind of circuit based class training to Traditional strength training, 5 by 5 heavy loaded exercises and add protein. And it was like magic. Like right away you would see a huge shift in their physique and they would feel it and see it. It was life changing for them, by.

[Adam Schaefer]

The way, speaking of like protein powder and stuff like that. So creatine is getting a lot of recognition right now in the medical community. I'm seeing it more and more for. As a first line and adjuvant, you know, compound for depression in particular in women, in particular. Five grams. Five grams. They showed in one study, other studies.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, do you think the. I mean, perfect segue from the previous conversation to that is probably because the reason why in women it's showing such great or profound things is because bingo, most of them.

[Adam Schaefer]

I know where you're going.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Under eat protein.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yep. So because crazy.

[Justin Andrews]

Just like how you used to compare vegans. Why is it so profound of vegans? Why? Because they undereat on protein.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So animal, animal meat will contain creatine in it. So the less of that you eat the less creatine you get. But this, this is pretty amazing. It improved depressive symptoms significantly with people who are just doing cognitive behavioral therapy. They weren't on other medications. They just did therapy with the creatine. And now women in particular benefit from creatine for what you said. And I also, they also just store less creatine or less ATP in the boxes. They have less muscle mass.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I also, I mean, you predicted this already and I'm just going to jump on the bandwagon because I think we're going to see what we're going to see. And I remember this curve. Right. So when, when creatine first got really popular, when we were young trainers, right, there was the loading phase and of course, the supplement companies were pushing you to push the numbers up. And then you would go down here and then it was like, you know, 10, 10 to 20 a day for a week, and then you drop down to five. You need five, five a day. And then the, a lot of the research came up and said, oh, you know, three to five is probably what's best for most people. And what's becoming more popular from the cognitive side is we're seeing upwards of 10 plus.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

So I think you're going to see a resurgence in that, that in, in the recommendation being. Because it's like, well, yeah, three to five is probably pretty good for everybody else, but it doesn't hurt to do 10. And we're actually showing all these benefits. I bet you're going to hear more and more.

[Doug]

It doesn't even really saturate the brain cell. You get about 15.

[Justin Andrews]

So I think you're gonna.5 grams per.

[Adam Schaefer]

Muscle.5 grams a day for muscle, 10 grams, 15 for, for brain, which.

[Justin Andrews]

So the, the general recommendation I think is just going to be much higher. It's going to be like, why not? It's, you know, it's relatively inexpensive and it's safe and it's safe. It's like, why not take 10 to 20 tolerate, really? And so exactly. I think you're going to be.

[Adam Schaefer]

There was one study where they took rugby players, they put them on 15 grams a day for a year. Saw no changes in any, any, no negative changes in any of their organ function, kidneys or anything like that.

[Doug]

They're getting a lot of impact. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that, well, what.

[Adam Schaefer]

I mean is just that there was.

[Justin Andrews]

No negative effects, no digestive issues.

[Doug]

I don't know. Yeah, you're talking about brain function.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, but for that they're actually showing Probably. Especially if you're an impact sports. Yeah, it's a good idea. Speaking of supplements, I was reading up on the history of ginseng. I've brought this up on the podcast before. They'll call it like the master or the king herb or supplement. Do you guys know how far back we have recorded evidence of use of ginseng for health? How far back?

[Doug]

Oh, it's got to be a long time.

[Sal DiStefano]

5000 years.

[Adam Schaefer]

5000.

[Doug]

5000.

[Adam Schaefer]

5000 years. We have recorded evidence of.

[Justin Andrews]

What does that look like? Just pictures on rocks.

[Adam Schaefer]

There was a. I should look. I gotta look up dragons.

[Justin Andrews]

That must be gensing. They're drawing.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, it was. I can't find it now. I had it written down, but it's. It was. I believe in India there was some recorded something that they found that showed that people were using ginseng.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Adam Schaefer]

So it's been used for thousands of years in Asia. Native Americans prized it in the 18th century because they. Some people brought it here. And there's also American ginseng.

[Justin Andrews]

It's funny, it comes in waves. I mean, I. Do you guys remember when we first started as trainers? That was a very popular. Very, very popular.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's been popular for a long time.

[Justin Andrews]

But I mean, I feel like it makes. Like it makes the news for a while, then you don't hear about it for a while, then it makes the news again. Like, what is it about it that. Is it. Because people are similar to creatine, they're finding other use cases for it. Like forever. It's been for energy. Right. That's kind of like Chinese medicines. Use it forever for general energy and what, overall health, mental clarity, vitality.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So libido, energy as an adaptogen, improving the body's ability to.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, it's considered an adaptogen.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, yeah. It's like the original adaptogen. Look at this. The history of ginseng in the management of erectile dysfunction in China, 3,500 years ago.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, that's 3,500 BCE.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, my God. Yeah, even more. That is insane.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's insane.

[Doug]

They were having boner problems back then.

[Adam Schaefer]

What does it look like?

[Justin Andrews]

Just a bunch of pictures.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So it's good for erectile dysfunction or, you know, libido. Both the men and women energy athletes have used it forever, but it's one of the oldest, the longest used, like supplement, if you will.

[Justin Andrews]

What's is there, Sal? Like, you know, I know this is. I think it's one of the main ingredients. That's enjoy mode. Right. Is it, they put.

[Adam Schaefer]

They put a really, really good extract of ginseng in there, but they have other things in there that improve blood flow.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, any downside? I've never tried to double up on.

[Adam Schaefer]

That dosage of the Joy mode.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, I've taken two. Two a day. Two a day. Not two. At the same time.

[Justin Andrews]

At the same time?

[Adam Schaefer]

No, no, no.

[Justin Andrews]

Any benefits, any drawbacks?

[Adam Schaefer]

I, I. So I like. So I'll use Joy mode for energy. So it's non stimulant, so there's no caffeine. I know, Doug, you do the same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. So no caffeine, no stimulant. So if I'm done with the caffeine for the day or if I'm doing a low caffeine.

[Justin Andrews]

Justin, I've used it pre sex. I've used it like that. And it's, it's like it, it's fun.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's solid. I mean, that's why I'm curious, like, what would you do? And I just want to make sure there's no adverse effects.

[Adam Schaefer]

Anyone'S tried to.

[Justin Andrews]

That's what I figured. I figured for sure. You've already, like, pressed the upper limits. Is there. And I guess where I'm getting at with this, which I've never used in, in regards to vitality, libido. Is there an upper limit? I would imagine Joy Mode is probably already putting that much in there.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Do I get no more benefits after I hit a threshold?

[Adam Schaefer]

I don't think you'll feel good with a ton. But I, I know the, this, the, the organine extract that they use in there. I can't remember what they call it. There's. There are other things in there that improve blood flow. I think too much of it might give you a bad tummy. Yeah, yeah. But ginseng, you can go.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't want that before sex. That's a terrible mood killer right there. Yeah, you don't want those.

[Adam Schaefer]

Nothing less.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Nothing like a mood when you're laying down.

[Adam Schaefer]

You don't have to do that, Justin. That way. I try to do it. Yeah. So, Doug, pull up the ingredient. Oh, Organized nitrate. That's what it is. That's a really, really good form of organine for, for blood flow, by the way, as a supplement for getting a pump in the gym. Also very good.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, this is another company, by the way, that for the audience that doesn't know the history of our relationship that we were. We kind of laughed off at first. And then I remember you went Did a little bit deeper dive on it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, they're legit.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah, I always like those. I think that's kind of cool that.

[Adam Schaefer]

There'S a couple companies.

[Justin Andrews]

There are. There's a couple brands around.

[Doug]

If it actually works.

[Justin Andrews]

That at first we were very dismissive of it, and then the. The more you looked into it or researched it, you realize like, oh, actually this has got some legitimacy research.

[Adam Schaefer]

Justin, I know you know about this. I'm sure you do. Have you ever heard of the conspiracy theory around art? How there was a psyop?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

A long time. Have you heard of this?

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, tell me.

[Adam Schaefer]

So you've heard the term beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, so that's a BS statement. Because there is objective beauty. There is objective beauty.

[Justin Andrews]

There's a mathematical equation.

[Adam Schaefer]

And if you look at.

[Justin Andrews]

It's like symmetry.

[Doug]

What's the one artist that just does like splatter paint that I don't know. Yeah. So they thought that all of his work is just like it was a psyop. A psyop.

[Adam Schaefer]

So if you look at, like you go to a cathedral or look at like, like, you know, especially, you know, old churches. Right. Thousands year old, you know, whatever. It's beauty. Everybody knows this. You go see, like, I remember when I went to see the. The Duomo in. I think that's what it's called in Milan. Like you're looking at this, it's just breathtaking. Right. And they made this solo hundreds of years ago.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like there is objective beauty. And then we started getting into modern art.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Where people. And I feel like people pretend. I really think that you're acting like you'll see some of the stuff. People stand in front of me like, this is profound.

[Justin Andrews]

Makes me feel this way.

[Adam Schaefer]

And I'm like, it's a red line, you know? What are you talking about? This is just. My kid could have done this, you know, that's the joke.

[Doug]

Well, the value is so made up. Like it's all like relative to what everybody agrees to. And so it's a weird thing. And you don't realize how much like black market stuff is happening behind the scenes. And so it's like, you know. Yeah. It could be like a million dollar painting. You're like, wait a minute. Really? And you realize like they're paying them underneath for something else so they can under laundering.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Like you're selling drugs to Justin.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, that part. There was a whole Netflix series on that a long time ago. I don't remember what it was called. But I'm aware of that, I'm familiar with that. It's a great way to launder.

[Adam Schaefer]

But the, the, the theory was that the, the they went into just, just to confuse people and to make us believe as part of a larger project that there is no objective truth. And part of that is by convincing us there's no objective beauty, that art is whatever you want it to be. And art performances, you ever seen, like, you ever read articles like these weird performances people do where they're like, yeah, this is me expressing myself.

[Doug]

Or they sell the invisible art.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. What was the one that you just sold? Not that long ago, I brought up on the podcast on too that it was duct tape, Banana against the Wall, or the guy who did the NFT sold for like a million dollars. It was nothing. It was like a space. He sold like, like air. It was nothing. Yeah, that's just so wild at that point.

[Doug]

What, what are you talking about? What is this? What are we doing?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I, I think it's, I think it probably stems from a money laundering first. I think it's a creative way for.

[Adam Schaefer]

I also think people fool themselves or, or they want to believe it because they go with their friends. You want to feel special and yeah, we're so like, yeah, we're so smart. I don't know.

[Justin Andrews]

We have the inside track.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, we like, we know art. You don't know art. And then they go and they're like, this is amazing. You know, pro. Like, wow, look at this piece. It's profound. Then the guy next to him's like, I don't want to sound like an idiot. Like, oh yeah, I can really see like the, the depth in that. You know, it's like a black, you know, square. You put some speckles on it or something like that, you know, there a.

[Doug]

Lot of pain, you know.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, that's the title of it. Pain. I can feel the pain.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh my God.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, I was reading about this and I'm like, I kind of agree with it. Like, at what point did we start to believe that that beauty wasn't like objective, that it was like this just.

[Doug]

Well, there's an argument to that too. Even with architecture. And they started to get into brutalism and that. That kind of pervaded a lot of. So it's like, like cement, like all.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, show me dust.

[Doug]

Very fortress looking type houses.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what? All you gotta do is look up Soviet era buildings. That's what you gotta look up.

[Justin Andrews]

So like it's called brutalism.

[Doug]

I Believe so.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm not familiar with that.

[Adam Schaefer]

So it's like. It's like if you were the Soviet Union, they were just trying to build, like. They were just build, like, square brick living places and offices and just look drab and, you know, nothing was great. It was all gray.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And they're trying to argue it's all about function.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

But it's not. That's brutalism right there.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

That doesn't look terrible right there.

[Adam Schaefer]

That one right there on the left.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. The one on the left looks terrible.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So what? Yeah, some of them look all right. What. What was the. Like, what did they try and make the argument of the. Like, that. It was like they were.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because the. The underlying theme is that there is no objective truth. It's all. Your truth is your truth. It's. And you can make it whatever you want. There is no objective good. There is no objective beauty. There is no any of that. And it's. It's all, you know, it's all construct. So if you really want to expand.

[Justin Andrews]

Your mind to sell you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So. And they're just. They're just trying to break it all down.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, that's funny. You know, I. Funny Max story yesterday. Oh, my God, this guy's too much right now. This. This is. If I could probably encapsulate a period of time I. I have to say, five to seven years old has got to be one of the coolest. I knew it going into it. I'm in it now. And it's. It's moments like these where I just. Katrina and I just have. Get a good laugh. And we pick him up from school, and he's in the backseat. Daddy, can you. Is it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Are.

[Justin Andrews]

Are broken hearts real? Yeah. Yeah. Can you have a broken heart? Is that his big thing now? He's. He's. He's. He's learning the difference between, like, things that are made up and then things that are real. Like, so, like, I remember.

[Doug]

I thought a sweet tooth was real.

[Justin Andrews]

Right, Right, exactly. So, like. So he's. He's obviously, he's. He's connecting the dots. So this is what I love. I'm watching it unfold, right? And it started with things like, are dragons real or they made up? Are they. So it's like all the stuff he's seeing on TV and learning and hearing about, it's like, he's always questioning, like, is this. Is this made up or is this real? And so can you really have a broken heart? He asked me. He goes, daddy, can. Can you really have a broken heart. And so I'm like, God, And I love what it throws me out. Obviously, answering dragons is easy. You know what? I' Answering broken heart's a little more difficult. And so I'm like, yes, son, you could. You. You can have a broken heart. And he's like, well, what's the difference between sad? So if I'm sad, I have a broken heart? I said, well, it's a little bit different. How? Well, let's say it's raining outside and a daddy can't go outside and play, so I'm sad I don't have a broken heart, but I'm sad I can't go outside and play. So it's not the end of the world. It's not that big of a deal. But I'm sad, so I'm sad, but not a broken heart. And he's like, okay, what's a broken heart? I go, oh, okay. If daddy came home one day and mommy said, I don't love you, I don't love you anymore, that would break Daddy's heart.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, my God. That could happen. If your mom died, for example, we.

[Doug]

Find out the sun's not gonna be.

[Justin Andrews]

I thought that was better than saying dad, right? I thought, like, you know, if mommy said she doesn't love me anymore, that would break Daddy's heart. And he goes, well, Daddy, you know how to fix your broken heart. I said, well, how, son? He goes, just marry somebody else.

[Adam Schaefer]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

Katrina's in the car. She died laughing. I started laughing. This kid is too much right now, dude. So I. I just. When he catches me off guard is the. The most enjoyment I have answering easy ones. But when I get hit with a heart, like, what do you say to a broken heart?

[Adam Schaefer]

Right? I would have said, well, you. It's like being really sad. So it's worse than sad.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, that's what I did. I said, sad. I can't go outside and play.

[Doug]

It's really. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

He's gonna ask you. Give me an example.

[Doug]

Like, something, or do you love.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, I can't go upstairs for a month now. My heart's broken. I don't know what I'm. No. Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Your mom said she doesn't love me anymore.

[Adam Schaefer]

That was such a smart kid, too. Don't you love hearing how they think?

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I do. That's. It's so cool to watch. And like I said, I know where it's coming from. Because in the last couple months, there's a lot of, like, things right away that our mummies like, we watched Scooby Doo and there was a mummy, and so he's just like, daddy, your mummy's real. And so then I had to kind of explain, like, well, mummies are real, but they don't really come alive. They don't come alive and chase you. So that was challenging to explain, you know.

[Doug]

So I feel like you'd like this show. I got. I kind of got into it, and I think it's called, like, you can't ask that or something like that. It's on Netflix, and it's an Australian show. And you know how, like, they've had love on the spectrum and they kind of these things, like, I feel like. I don't know, they figured something out, like, in Australia, where they're just, like, really good at these social kind of experiments, really, like documentaries about people and, like, interesting people. And so it's like, they take just random groups of people, like, in people with disabilities, and just people that, you know, think completely outside the box. Even, like, polyamorism or, like, you know, like, just like, taboo subjects. And then they take, like, you know, five or six people and they. They interview them and all in separate rooms and things.

[Justin Andrews]

You're not supposed to ask that.

[Doug]

Yeah. And then they get these card deck, and then they answer, and then they read it, and then they. They answer these. These crazy questions that are being told.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's interesting.

[Doug]

Of, like, what you've always wanted to ask somebody, for instance, who's blind or something. And, like, you know, you're not supposed.

[Justin Andrews]

To ask or whatever.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Like, you're not.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Or like, social awkwardness. Like, do I actually, like, is it good that I asked to help you across the street? Or do you get offended by that? Or, you know, like. Yeah, like. Like weird stuff like that. It's just. It's interesting because you learn too, like, one thing in terms of, like, blindness, too, that I. That I picked up, but I. I didn't know, and I actually asked Corey.

[Justin Andrews]

You're not supposed to grab their hand. You allow them to grab your hand. Yeah, well, something like that. Right.

[Doug]

Well, you definitely always ask, like, coming. That's. You know, that's because they actually said some people just grab them and they're like, whoa. It's like being assaulted. You know, you don't. Because they can't see you coming. Yeah. But no, what I. It was about actually how they got blind, like, and. And it was a. It was a common. It was a common occurrence with, like, at least, like 80 of them, was when they Were. They were babies. They were preemie, and they actually gave them too much oxygen.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

And so. But. But Courtney said now, too, like, as a treatment for that, too, they've found out that, like, caffeine actually, like, counters a lot of that effect.

[Adam Schaefer]

Interesting.

[Doug]

So. And it also, like, helps with mucosal lining somehow, and it has protective qualities to it.

[Adam Schaefer]

But.

[Doug]

But anyway, it's just interesting. I didn't know that, like, that was.

[Justin Andrews]

A common reason for blindness is too much oxygen. So when they're being.

[Doug]

When they're. When they're preemie.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Give them oxygen. Yeah.

[Doug]

Because their lungs aren't fully developed yet.

[Justin Andrews]

Too much oxygen is toxic, and it causes blindness. Interesting. I did not know that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And there's just, like, stuff like that, and I won't. I don't remember off the top of my head, but it was a lot in. With.

[Justin Andrews]

With what not to Ask on Netflix.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's really interesting. You guys would like it.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's. That's hilarious. My son. You remind me of a story, my son. There's a girl that. One of our friends has a daughter that's five years old, and he comes over and he goes, hey, ba. Ba. He goes. He goes, I like her. She looks like a good wife.

[Doug]

We started.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

All right.

[Justin Andrews]

Max talks about being married and stuff now, too, because she looks like a good wife. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

What do you mean by that? I'm afraid to ask you what it means by that.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

What does that mean, you know, with deaf people? You know, one of the. You know what? Some. We have technology now where we could.

[Doug]

There's certain cochlear implants now.

[Adam Schaefer]

There's certain kinds of deafness that we could, like, fit. Do you know what one of the most. When they do these surveys on people who finally get their hearing.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, bro, you. Those are so. It's hard not to get emotional when you watch somebody the first time.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, like a little kid.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, God.

[Justin Andrews]

Their first time. Getting.

[Doug]

There's interesting, too, is like, they describe in. With blindness and also, like, with that, like, they describe what it actually is like, so it's like it's a fuzz or, like, what they actually can hear.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You know, and you're like. It's so interesting because it's like. And they hear clicking and stuff, but they don't really hear. So it varies across the board.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, one of the most common misconceptions or misunderstandings or beliefs that deaf people have that when they can hear again, they're like, oh, I didn't know that would be that way. You know what it is? They all think that the sun makes a noise.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah, I've heard that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now think about that. If you looked at the sun and you never heard anything, it would look like it's like making some kind of noise and they're surprised that it doesn't make noise.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, that's kind of wild.

[Adam Schaefer]

I read about that.

[Justin Andrews]

That's interesting.

[Doug]

Yes. Some of them, they didn't like. It was too much. It was too much, too much. And went back to like the silence.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because you just have to learn how to process it.

[Doug]

You have to, big time. It's a big adjustment.

[Justin Andrews]

It's wild.

[Sal DiStefano]

Before we wrap up here, I wanted to remind our trainers that we have a three part series dropping.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

On May 19th.

[Adam Schaefer]

May 19th. Three part bonus series for trainers. And then on the 9th, that's. And then we have a webinar on June 3rd. You can go to trainerwebinar.com, it's free. I'm going to teach you how to close deals. But go May 19th. Listen to all three of those episodes. We're going to teach you some good stuff. Children's multivitamins are just glorified candy for the most part. Except for a company called Haya. This is not candy. It's a real multivitamin. And yes, your kids will still take it because it still tastes good, but it has adequate nutrients, the ones your kids need. This is the multivitamin we use with our kids. Go check them out. Go to hyahealth.com that's H I Y A health.com mindpump and on that link you'll get 50% off. All right, back to the show.

[Sal DiStefano]

First question is from Slow Run Mag. What do you guys do to keep up your strength when resting an injury?

[Adam Schaefer]

It depends on the severity of the injury and where it's at and where it's at. Isometrics sometimes you can do. But I will add this, like strength loss and muscle loss comes back so fast.

[Doug]

Yes, it does. When you get back, rest, recovery is the best move.

[Adam Schaefer]

In fact, I'll make a case for that. Justin, the faster you can get back to training normal, the better. Therefore, your number one goal when you have an injury is healing. It is not preventing muscle loss, it's to heal. That's the number one goal that you have.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I think this has changed for me early years as a trainer. This is probably a question that I would ask or be trying to solve is like, oh, man, you Know I tore my acl. Like how do I not lose the chest gains and the shoulders that I built? And I'd be trying to do all the things. Totally would not be who? Like, I mean I got injured not that long ago. I get injured, I'm just like gonna take the time off. And I, I also think there's something to be said about it teaches you that you also need to kind of modify other parts of your life. And there's probably going to be times in your life, right, Unless you're an anomaly or like Sal, where you never miss that you just fall off of training and you're not doing it consistently. And so long as you learn to modify your eating and maybe your activity level, I. E. Walking, doing physical labor, other things, then there's not this massive swing. Sure, I might lose a little bit of muscle, I might put on a tiny bit of body fat, but it won't be a major swing. Like you take a whole month, two months off, come right back. As soon as you get right back, that muscle comes right back on you. Get right back in shape pretty quick. It's the dramatic swings that we go through where we are so consistent dialed in doing a diet. And then you, and then an injury happens or you fall off the wagon for a month and then you eat like you don't move, you don't. And then you have this crazy weight gain. It's like actually if you just tweak a few things, you're injured, you're not, you're not training as hard, you're not moving as much. Okay, I better scale back the calories a little bit. Hey, you know what? Now I'll probably just go for some walks since I can't really push the weights right now. And, and, and do that. And then what you'll see is like you don't have these crazy swings up or down and, and the body is crazy how quickly it gets back to right where you were before. It's hard to reach new PRs and new levels. But to get back to where you were is really easy.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. You know what's good, by the way, with injuries that also simultaneously helps with muscle is red light therapy. So red light therapy helps heal injuries faster, also simultaneously promotes strength gain. So that's actually a really, really good tool for something like that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Next question is from Lindsay ant32. What should you do if you are reverse dieting but see weight gain?

[Adam Schaefer]

It depends how much weight you're seeing because some weight gain is expected with the reverse diets like 4 or 5 pounds, that's fine. You're talking 15 pounds, 10 pounds. Go up slower. Stay at a caloric level for longer before you start bumping in or bump up slower. When I would bump people up on reverse dieting, my calorie bumps would be between 100 to 200 calories. Typically, if, if I saw like big changes, then I could do as little as 50. Just very, very little. But, but about 100 to 200 is good. So if you see a lot of weight gain, slow down.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I, I think that's, I'm glad you pointed out that you're, you're gonna gain weight. I mean, that's part of this process. You're eating more, you're taking in more carbs, you're probably taking in more sodium, you're probably taking in more water. All those things result in your body having more water, more glycogen inside it, and then it's going to just, it's going to reflect a little on the scale. And all I'm looking for is massive swings or consistently adding weight. If I, if I even seeing, even seeing you adding a pound every week on the scale, I'm still not that worried a pound, you know, every week. So in four weeks, we've only put £4 on. Not a big deal. But I, if I see four pounds in the first week and then I see another two pounds, okay, we're probably moving too fast. Right. Like, we got to scale back. But being comfortable when you're reverse dieting, you, you have to learn to be comfortable with putting a little bit of weight on. And, and, and the other thing is too, is that also what kind of weight? Because if you do a good job of adding a good point, good calories. Yeah, it could be muscle. And like, that's not a, that's not a bad thing at all. Even if you went up five pounds, if four of it was muscle, that's great. You're kicking ass, you know, so keep that in mind also.

[Sal DiStefano]

Next question is from shall we fitness. When taking NSAIDs to treat an acute injury. Sorry. Will taking N NSAIDs to treat an acute injury completely negate gains from strength training?

[Adam Schaefer]

No.

[Justin Andrews]

No.

[Adam Schaefer]

So NSAIDs are non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs. Ibuprofen, naproxen, aspirin. They reduce the inflammatory process. The inflammatory process is also involved in signaling muscle growth or repair, so it probably will reduce the muscle building signal, but it doesn't completely negate, negate those gains. So it's not like you take ibuprofen. It's like, I wasted my workout.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's not.

[Justin Andrews]

If you had, if you, if you guys had to, to put a number to it. Because I, I know this, I know the study and the research to this that scared people away from that. It's like, it's definitely not ideal. But you. It's not like.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, it's not minuscule.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It's tiny. Right.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's, it's, it's. The studies are. With chronic use.

[Doug]

Like, that's the thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And I think this is where people are being misunderstood, misled. It's like, it's not like a few occasions where you're actually in pain, you're medicating some pain. 2. What about like, you know, the following preceding workouts and like, you know, to be able to, you know, recover and bring your inflammation down and be able to move and then also build upon that. I mean, that has to factor in.

[Adam Schaefer]

The studies that were done on this where you see is either a. They're looking at a signal which the signal doesn't always. Like a blunted signal doesn't always translate into, you know, significantly less muscle gain. But the ones that show like increased risk of tendon rupture. There's studies on that. Right. Lots of NSAID use over time can contribute to that or reduced athletic performance. Those were done with people who use them chronically. And what do I mean by that? They would take them every time they train.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because they, they're like, I can't move properly unless I take this. So I take this as a pre workout essentially to be able to do my workout. And they've done it for years.

[Doug]

It's ritual for them.

[Justin Andrews]

And even then it takes you from 10 being your best potential building muscle to 8. It's not like it.

[Adam Schaefer]

But this is like over the course.

[Justin Andrews]

I know, but my point, my point is even that person. Right. I mean, this is also reminds. It's similar to the people that like stop a good habit, like doing cold plunge because they saw the study that said it blunts. It's like you still could build muscle. Cold plunging after a workout. Is it ideal? No, but it's like, like there's also other benefits to you cold bunting. Just like Justin's point of like, you know, if that helps you the, the pain. Numb the pain to get ready to do your workout the next day. Like. Well, you probably wouldn't have worked out had you not take it. So then you have to.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, there's some cases where, I mean, look heavy, consistent NSAID use Probably not a good idea. I think long term use as its risks isn't good for you. But there's cases where like someone's got to perform. Like, like you're a, you're an athlete and you're in season and it's like you don't have any options. Well, okay, you gotta, you know, you're not in a healthy place to begin with, you're competing at a high level then, then you got to use these.

[Doug]

It seems it's totally parallel with icing after a workout, you know, with athletes and I know that was another one that kind of scared icing.

[Adam Schaefer]

Far safer. I was obviously far safer. But, but yeah, I mean the studies again that show this, these are people who use them chronically for years and years and years. But if you're going to use this for like a month, you know, couple weeks, like I wouldn't worry about it.

[Doug]

Nah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Next question is from MFS Wellness. How do you see AI affecting the fitness industry? What are the pros and cons that can come of its involvement for trainers, nutrition coaches and their clients?

[Adam Schaefer]

AI is only going to help. Do you see any cons, trainers and coaches? You know when it's going to become a potential con is when your online AI coach is indistinguishable from a person. Like they literally, like you can relate to them. You trust that, like you can't tell it's not a human. Well then every job is at risk.

[Doug]

Weed out the weak ones.

[Adam Schaefer]

But right now all I, all it's going to do is it's going to take a trainer and it's going to allow them to scale, it's going to allow them to figure out nutrition plans, going to allow them to manage their business, write copy for social media, know how to put together a post. Like it's going to make one person as effective as five people if you know how to use it right. But it doesn't pose a risk. There is no risk.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I don't, I don't, yeah, I don't think that at all. I don't see this any different than pre and post step trackers, metabolism things. I mean your Fitbits, your macro counters, all these, they're all tools and tools to make you better at your job. AI is the same way too. I don't think they're going to replace humans. And no, and I want to be.

[Adam Schaefer]

Clear, like, okay, can AI write a better workout than what Google used to do? Yeah, way better. Okay.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

But if you're a trainer and you think that's your value. You're wrong.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Your ability to write a good workout is a part of your value, but it's a small part. The bigger part of your value is how you relate to the person. How you. How do they trust you? Do you have a good relationship with them? Are they able to follow your guidance? A good trainer with subpar workout programming, but who also gets good trust from their clients and buy in and the client feels like they can divulge information with them, they get grace from them. They want to follow them. Is going to be far more effective than a trainer that writes the best damn workout programs but doesn't have those.

[Justin Andrews]

We're a perfect example of this. Maps fitness products is the flab flagship product or thing that scaled this business. It doesn't exist without the conversations on the podcast.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Just. And it. It is awesome programming. Right. It's the best out there. I stand by that. I'm a little biased, but that's what I think. Right. But does not sell what it sells without the podcast.

[Doug]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's. People buy that from us because of this conversation that's happened for 10 years. That's why if. If it was just the program by itself and put out into the Ethereum, it would terrible business. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

It wouldn't work.

[Justin Andrews]

It wouldn't work. So it's no different. You as a trainer just, just because AI could potentially assist you at writing a program or not.

[Adam Schaefer]

Or write up a meal plan.

[Justin Andrews]

Right, Right. Or do whatever it can do. Like it's not going to replace the conversations that you have with your clients. And all the variables and the nuances and the, you know, personality, all that, all the, all the things that make this show. The show is what makes mass fitness products.

[Adam Schaefer]

The real risk when this all becomes a big challenge again is when AI is indistinguishable from a human. But that's gonna be a weird time and everything.

[Justin Andrews]

And we have a lot of other problems.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's what I'm saying. My. My big problem is going to be what am I going to do as a trainer? It's gonna be like, yeah, there's a lot of human. Are people gonna get married anymore?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

What's happening?

[Doug]

What am I doing here on Earth?

[Adam Schaefer]

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

[Sal DiStefano]

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.