2624: Three Food Additives That Are Killing Your Health & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Episode 2624: Three Food Additives That Are Killing Your Health & More (Listener Live Coaching)
Release Date: June 21, 2025

---

Overview

In Episode 2624 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews delve deep into the hidden dangers lurking in processed foods—specifically focusing on three categories of food additives that pose significant threats to our health. Additionally, the episode features live coaching sessions where listeners seek personalized advice on overcoming fitness plateaus and optimizing their training regimes.

---

Main Discussion: Harmful Food Additives

1. Artificial Colors

The conversation kicks off with an exploration of artificial colors in processed foods. Sal shares a personal anecdote about how wearing blue light-blocking glasses altered his perception of food colors, highlighting the subconscious manipulation of palatability by food manufacturers.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [04:22]: "We're taking food and we've turned it into a drug through careful engineering."

Key Points:

• Health Impacts: Artificial colors like Yellow No. 5, Red No. 40, and Blue No. 1 have been linked to hyperactivity in children, altered brain processing in adults, allergic reactions, and potential carcinogenic effects (e.g., Red No. 3 causing thyroid tumors in rats).
• Regulatory Status: Some artificial colors are banned in certain regions, such as Europe.
• Cumulative Effects: Many processed foods contain multiple artificial colors, preservatives, and emulsifiers, leading to synergistic negative health impacts that are not accounted for in individual additive studies.

2. Preservatives

The hosts discuss preservatives like sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate, which are added to extend shelf life and maintain consistency in food products.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [13:17]: "Preservatives alter the microbiome, increasing inflammation and potential metabolic disorders."

Key Points:

• Health Impacts: Preservatives can disrupt gut microbiota, leading to inflammation, impaired gut barrier function, and metabolic issues such as insulin resistance.
• Combination with Other Additives: Preservatives are often used alongside artificial colors and emulsifiers, exacerbating their harmful effects.

3. Emulsifiers

Emulsifiers like polysorbate 80 and carrageenan are used to improve the texture and mouthfeel of processed foods, making them more palatable and profitable.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [15:56]: "Mouthfeel plays a huge role in palatability. It's like, think about eating something that's meant to be crispy and then it's kind of like stale."

Key Points:

• Health Impacts: Emulsifiers can disrupt gut barrier function and promote inflammation, contributing to conditions like irritable bowel disease and metabolic syndrome. They may also increase appetite by interfering with gut-brain signaling.
• Additive Effects: The combination of emulsifiers with other additives can lead to multiplicative negative health outcomes, making it difficult for the body to adapt.

Cumulative and Synergistic Effects

The hosts emphasize that the presence of multiple additives in processed foods can lead to compounded health issues, far beyond the effects of each additive in isolation.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [19:48]: "Try eating in a calorie deficit with an 80 processed food diet. Yeah. Good luck."

---

Addictive Nature of Processed Foods

Justin draws parallels between the addictive properties of processed foods and drugs, explaining how engineered palatability can alter brain chemistry and behavior.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [22:57]: "Processed foods fit right in that category [of addictive substances]."

Key Points:

• Brain Adaptation: Consistent consumption of highly palatable processed foods can lead to downregulation of brain receptors, similar to drug use, resulting in reduced sensitivity to natural rewards.
• Behavioral Impact: This can subtly affect moods, irritability, productivity, and overall mental health without the awareness of the consumer.
• Withdrawal and Recovery: Transitioning away from processed foods can lead to noticeable improvements in mental clarity and physical health, akin to withdrawal from addictive substances.

---

Future Concerns: AI and Human Capability

The discussion shifts to the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and its potential to detrimentally affect human cognitive and physical capabilities.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [29:23]: "If you don't practice, you weaken these things. Your brain just prunes that off."

Key Points:

• Dependency Risks: Reliance on AI for tasks like calculations and navigation can lead to cognitive atrophy, reducing natural problem-solving skills and memory retention.
• Societal Impact: Increased dependence on technology may result in diminished human capabilities, increased anxiety, depression, and a general decline in mental health.
• Balancing Technology and Human Skill: Emphasizes the need for maintaining cognitive and physical exercises to counteract the potential negative effects of AI integration.

---

Listener Live Coaching

The second half of the episode features live coaching sessions where listeners present their fitness challenges, receiving tailored advice from the hosts.

1. Leslie from Florida: Muscle Recovery and Caloric Intake

Leslie, a former high-intensity workout enthusiast recovering from multiple orthopedic surgeries, seeks advice on transitioning from a caloric deficit to maintenance while rebuilding leg muscle.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [66:17]: "You're going to have to reverse diet. You're going to have to gain weight."

Advice Given:

• Caloric Adjustment: Increase intake gradually to support muscle growth and recovery, starting around 2000 calories.
• Training Modifications: Reduce training frequency to prevent overtraining and focus on strength gains in legs with proper form.
• Mental Approach: Avoid obsessively tracking weight; focus on strength improvements and trust the process.

2. Laura from California: Engaging High School PE Students

Laura, a high school PE teacher, struggles with keeping 14- and 15-year-old students engaged in fitness activities, ranging from low fitness levels to Division 1 athletes.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [79:00]: "Focus on making exercises enjoyable through games and challenges."

Advice Given:

• Incorporate Games: Turn exercises into competitive and fun challenges, such as balance tests or coordination games.
• Simplify Movements: Teach one or two movements thoroughly with incremental challenges to keep students engaged.
• Use Programs Like MAPS Prime Pro: Utilize structured programs that emphasize mobility and functional movements without the need for extensive equipment.

3. Doug from Idaho: Post-Surgery Muscle Building and Core Bracing

Doug, recovering from a hysterectomy and dealing with pelvic floor issues, seeks guidance on safely rebuilding core strength and overcoming fear associated with heavy lifting.

• Notable Quote:
  Justin Andrews [103:14]: "You need to trust your body and slowly get to the point where you're not hyper-focused on every movement."

Advice Given:

• Gradual Progression: Start with lighter weights and focus on proper form and controlled movements.
• Incremental Overload: Incorporate progressive overload by slowing down tempos and adding minimal weight increments.
• Mental Focus: Reduce hyper-focus on core bracing to alleviate fear and allow natural muscle engagement.
• Exposure Therapy Techniques: Gradually increase weight and intensity to build confidence without triggering fear responses.

---

Conclusion

Episode 2624 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth provides a comprehensive examination of the hidden dangers in processed foods, emphasizing the significant health risks posed by artificial colors, preservatives, and emulsifiers. The hosts effectively draw connections between these additives and broader societal issues, including the addictive nature of engineered food palatability and the potential cognitive decline due to over-reliance on artificial intelligence.

The live coaching segments offer practical, actionable advice tailored to individual listener challenges, reinforcing the show's commitment to providing science-backed solutions for optimal health and fitness. Through engaging discussions and expert guidance, Sal, Adam, and Justin empower listeners to make informed decisions about their diet, exercise, and overall well-being.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Justin Andrews [04:22]: "We're taking food and we've turned it into a drug through careful engineering."
• Justin Andrews [13:17]: "Preservatives alter the microbiome, increasing inflammation and potential metabolic disorders."
• Justin Andrews [19:48]: "Try eating in a calorie deficit with an 80 processed food diet. Yeah. Good luck."
• Justin Andrews [22:57]: "Processed foods fit right in that category [of addictive substances]."
• Justin Andrews [29:23]: "If you don't practice, you weaken these things. Your brain just prunes that off."
• Justin Andrews [66:17]: "You're going to have to reverse diet. You're going to have to gain weight."
• Justin Andrews [79:00]: "Focus on making exercises enjoyable through games and challenges."
• Justin Andrews [103:14]: "You need to trust your body and slowly get to the point where you're not hyper-focused on every movement."

---

This detailed summary captures the essence of the episode, providing listeners with valuable insights into the dangers of food additives and practical solutions for common fitness challenges.

Transcript

[Sal DiStefano]

Today's show is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play in this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Adam Schafer]

Hi, Zoe Saldana.

[Sal DiStefano]

Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.

[Justin Andrews]

Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in. You don't need a trade in.

[Sal DiStefano]

When you switch to T Mobile, we'll.

[Justin Andrews]

Give you a new iPhone 16 Pro.

[Sal DiStefano]

Plus we'll help you pay off your old Phone up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it.

[Doug]

There's always a trade in.

[Justin Andrews]

Not right now. @ T Mobile. I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's okay.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see.

[Doug]

Hand sanitizer.

[Justin Andrews]

It's lavender.

[Sal DiStefano]

I'm good. Seriously.

[Justin Andrews]

Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints. Really, I'm fine. Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car. It's our best iPhone offer ever.

[Sal DiStefano]

Switch to T Mobile. Get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us. No trade in needed. We'll even pay off your phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits.

[Justin Andrews]

New line 100 plus a month on.

[Sal DiStefano]

Experience beyond Finance Agreement 999.99 and qualify imported for well qualified plus tax and $10 connection charge. Payout via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days credits end and balance.

[Adam Schafer]

Due if you pay off early or.

[Zoe Saldana]

Cancel CT mobile.com if you want to.

[Justin Andrews]

Pump your body and expand your mind.

[Zoe Saldana]

There'S only one place to go.

[Justin Andrews]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Sal DiStefano]

With your hosts Sal Deste, Adam Schafer.

[Justin Andrews]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, people called in. We coach them on air to better health, fat loss and muscle gain. But that was after the intro. Today's intro is about an hour long. In the intro we talk about scientific studies on additives, fat loss, muscle gain, what you eat, what you shouldn't eat. It was a great time. By the way, if you want to be a caller on one of these episodes, email us your [e-mail] now this episode has some sponsors. The first one is Zebiotics. This is a pre alcohol drink that helps you feel better. Drink Zebiotics. Then go drink with your friends. You feel way better the next day. Go check them out. Go to zbiotics.com, that's Z B I-O-T-I C-S.com mindpump25. Use the code mindpump25. Get 15% off. This episode is also brought to you by Rock Recovery Center. This facility helps treat people with addiction. If you or a loved one need help, go to rockrecoverycenter.com mindpump they're going to be giving away a four month, $60,000 scholarship for rehab. By the way, everybody gets some help, so go to rockrecoverycenter.com mind pump and register. Also, there's two days left for the brand new Maps program launch. Maps Longevity. This is a program that is designed to improve your overall health and longevity, and it coaches you differently than any other Maps program. Learn about yourself. Learn your body. This is how we train clients. Go to mapslongevity.com use the code 50 long. You'll get $50 off the launch price. Plus you're gonna get free forum access for a year. And you get to get on a zoom coaching call with myself, Justin and Adam. Again, all free. This expires on the 22nd. Once more, mapslongevity.com, use the code 50 long. Here comes the show. It's well established that processed foods are probably gonna make you fat and kill your gains. But did you know that the additives in processed foods are killing your health? That's what we're going to talk about today. Three food additive categories that are destroying your well being. Let's do it. Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

We haven't talked about this yet, so I think.

[Sal DiStefano]

I don't know if I shared this with you guys or not, but I did. I don't even remember if it was me or Katrina who did it or said it first. I think I. I might have did it. I might have did it right after you had. You had shared this study on the. The red dyes. And so shortly after that, we just started going through our. Anything that was in a wrapper in our. In our pantry.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

And looking at stuff and the ingredients. Yeah. And. And there's surprisingly, there's a lot of things that you wouldn't realize.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. They're not even red.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. And so it's not like I'm obviously obvious, things like red candy has got it, you know, but there's a lot of things that you just wouldn't even guess have it. And so we Started kind of going through that, and Max was paying attention. What are you guys doing? Oh, you know, Mommy and daddy are cleaning out stuff that has red dye, and it's not good for you. Oh, boy. And it's funny with these kids, sometimes what they hear and then what they latch on to and then like, laser focus and. Yeah. And I don't know if it's a good. I mean, it's great that he's trying to eat better, but it's just like now, like, you hand him something in a wrapper and does it have red dye?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that was my kid.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. So now Halloween, now he's asking everybody, and I'm like, oh, God.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah. It's like the focal point, too. And there's a lot even, like, with my older son, like, because it's whatever's in the news and is, like, kind of relevant, especially with, like, RFK and all these things he's trying to bring up. Like, they just see constant videos of all these things.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, what's interesting about this. So, okay, we know it's established. This is clear in the data. This is some of the best diet studies we have, show that you are very, very likely to overeat if you eat heavily processed foods. They make you overweight, they make you fatter. Avoid them, and you tend to get leaner. We've made this point probably 150 times on the podcast, but what we haven't talked a lot about are the. The harmful effects backed by studies of additives. Now, what are additives? These are things that have been added to foods that essentially make them processed foods. And what they're typically added for is to improve palatability and shelf life. Those are the two main reasons why they're added. They throw them in because scientists have really figured out how to use certain chemicals to make something that tastes good even more enjoyable or to put differently to light your brain up like a drug. And they're also added to improve shelf life because that makes a dramatic improvement on profitability. Right. If food goes bad on a shelf, like, that's a loss of profitability. In fact, the first processed foods, like canned foods, that was the main focus. That was the main focus.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Was how do we. We need survival food or how do we have food for our soldiers in this part of the world?

[Sal DiStefano]

Or whatever plate things you have to ship across the country and stuff. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

One of the reasons, for example, that Spam, which. I don't know if anybody eats this anymore, but Spam is a. Was popular in Hawaii Was because of our soldiers stationed over there. And it was a way to give them meat. And Spam lasts forever. Meat goes bad very quickly. But now the vast majority of the science, and it's been like this for decades, that goes into processed foods, goes into increasing or improving palatability. And there's really, there's three categories. And I wrote down some of these studies that support, you know, what we're going to talk about today. So we'll start with the first one, which are colors, artificial colors. Now why are colors added to food? What does color have to do with palatability? A lot. Yeah, it does, a lot. I remember one time, and I knew this already, but I remember experiencing this wearing back. Way back when we first started Mind Pump. I was experimenting with really, really strong blue light blocking glasses. And what they do is the strongest ones make everything dark red. Like you put them on and it's like this really dark red tint. And I was eating a dinner and I wanted to put them on for the rest of the night. I put them on. I was eating my dinner. I was like, this sucks. Yeah, like I'm eating the food and it's not the same experience at all. Food companies know this. This is established science. There's terrible food experiments that have happened in the past where like ketchup, for example, I don't know what company was. It was blinds.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. They went black, black and green, you.

[Adam Schafer]

Know, because it signals that it's rancid.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean it's just these associations we've already literally built into a lot of these foods. So to, to reverse that is like, that's a huge fail.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. So. So it makes a big difference, the color and the vibrance of some. Now, now this goes all the way back to, you know, when we were hunting and gathering like the color of something, just like the smell and the taste and the texture would tell you what the food had in it. If it was dangerous, should you stay away from it? Should you reach out and eat it? This is why like if a strawberry is a particular color looks good. If it's not, not so good. So color actually plays a massive role in palatability. This is why artificial colors are in. Absolutely.

[Adam Schafer]

Isn't that, I mean nature's way of like signaling an offering?

[Justin Andrews]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Even with flowers and all that too for, for bees.

[Justin Andrews]

100%. So here's some of the data that we have on our. On artificial colors. They with kids that's been linked to increased hyperactivity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD in some children. Now, why is this something we need to pay attention to as adults? Because it's changing the way that the brain is processing and it's changing how the brain uses and responds to the chemicals in the brain, these neurochemicals. What kind of effects does that have on behavior? Well, reduce the tension maybe. Impulsivity in adults would be much more subtle, which is actually scarier, to be honest with you. I think sometimes obvious signs are better than less obvious signs. Because if you eat something, you're like, oh my God, I feel terrible, you probably won't eat it again. Yeah, but if you eat something, especially if you've eaten it over a long period of time, like you always have Cheetos, you always have whatever, you may have subtle effects that are actually affecting your life, your lifestyle and the quality of the relationships around you and not even know it. Yeah, you don't even know that you're more irritable to your spouse or to your business partners or at work. You might not even know that your productivity dropped 4%. Doesn't seem like much. But do this over years, what ends up happening, you may not even know that it's over time changing the way your brain models itself. Because this is what happens to the brain when certain signals are too strong. Your brain adapts by down regulating receptors. And now you adjust. This is probably why there's a withdrawal period when people go off heavily processed foods. And that's what the data shows, which is really interesting. There are allergic reactions in many people. And then here's one that's really crazy, potentially carcinogenic. So there's, there's some studies that showed that like red number three caused thyroid tumors in rats.

[Sal DiStefano]

Now this is the reason why they've, they've started to ban it. Right. In some places it's banned right now. You can't in Europe. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So the color red, as far as the dye is concerned, is the most egregious. Is it like, is there a scale of each color? Like which ones?

[Justin Andrews]

They all seem to have an effect because you can find studies showing all of them. But it's yellow number five, red number 40, blue number one. And then the carcinogen study was done on red number three.

[Sal DiStefano]

Any guess why?

[Justin Andrews]

Good question. You know, when they.

[Adam Schafer]

Was it derived from?

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know. That's a really, really good question, Justin. I do not know.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, because I mean, way back when, right. You would probably have to get it from some kind of fruit or dirt that's right. Yeah, something like that.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. Yeah. That's a good question. But here's why. Like, if you do a study that passes the fda, the study tends to be short. You're.

[Sal DiStefano]

Small amounts.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, small amounts.

[Sal DiStefano]

Not over long periods of time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's not. Also considering. In conjunction with all these.

[Justin Andrews]

They're also not testing pregnant women. So. Yeah, so it just says that it comes from natural and synthetic places.

[Zoe Saldana]

Petroleum.

[Justin Andrews]

Petroleum. Petroleum, yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

That's why it's so bad.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You can't test it on pregnant women. You typically don't test it on women. You definitely don't test it on children. Why? Because it's considered terrible ethics to do so. Like, they would never approve a study on pregnant women to test a new chemical because God forbid, it kills their babies.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Same thing with children, same thing with elderly, same thing with. And then, you know, who signs up for these studies? Right. So. Yeah, so any. Nonetheless, this. The. The effects may be subtle to the point where you're like, oh, it's the sugar, which it might be, but it also might be these things. They also don't test these dyes in combination. So if they test red, they test red, but they don't test red with three other colors.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

And then what's the cumulative effect? Yeah, you know, that's how your body's.

[Adam Schafer]

Gonna react differently to different combos.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. That's right. Then there's preservatives. Right. Preservatives are added to make food last longer. Okay.

[Sal DiStefano]

I always thought this was just sodium. Like, is there other major preservatives that are being used? Like, I thought that we just hammered, like, the.

[Justin Andrews]

There's sodium benzoate and then potassium sorbate, which are the most common ones. But back in the day, like, literally hundreds of years ago, it was just salt.

[Sal DiStefano]

Just salt. It would attack everything in salt.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, they would. Like sailors when they would travel with meat, they salted the hell out of it. But these aren't necessarily the same thing. What do the studies show? Probably alters the microbiome, increasing inflammation and potential metabolic disorders. So in mice, sodium benzoate reduced microbial diversity in mice, which was linked to impaired gut barrier function and inflammation. So again, over time, this could cause problems. You're like, what's going on? All of a sudden, I have gut issues, or I have food intolerances, which are coming from leaky gut. You know, could it be this? And again, you almost never find a preservative without a combination of Also artificial colors.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

In combinations of these different things. Then you have additives like sulfites, which have been shown to cause allergic type reactions, asthma, respiratory issues. And then there's potential carcinogenic byproducts. Sodium nitrate can form nitrocymes, which have been linked to increased cancer risk. Potent. Particularly colon cancer. Yes. So, and that's the. You guys ever. So, you know, you know, when they bring up studies on meat in colon cancer, what they're using is processed.

[Adam Schafer]

Processed meat.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. And there is a. An increased risk of colon cancer with processed meat. So these are like hot dogs and salamis and stuff like that with these type of preservatives. So again, and we're going to get to the next category, but you have preservatives and their potential effects now combined with colors and their potential effects. So do you think that there's an additive effect?

[Sal DiStefano]

There's definitely not a benefit to adding them together, that's for sure.

[Justin Andrews]

Here's the other question. There's additive and then there's a multiplying potential effect. What does that look like? Well, three plus three equals six. Three times three equals nine. So sometimes you combine two chemicals and you don't get the risk of both. You get this, like, synergistic effect that causes even worse problems. Next up, emulsifier. So these are added to change the mouthfeel of something.

[Adam Schafer]

So also, like the binders use it. Structure.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. So like, an example would be. So like an example would be like you get like coconut milk in a can. If there isn't like a really good emulsifier in there. It's like the coconut, you know, fat separates from the water. You'd have to blend it, but they'll add something like guar gum or something to it so it's always creamy and, you know, emulsified.

[Sal DiStefano]

I didn't know that.

[Justin Andrews]

Peanut butter is a good example. You. You buy just straight peanut butter.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oil goes to the top.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. You get like the fake stuff.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. And it's perfect.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, it's like, so delicious.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that one gets me, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Out of all of them, like, and I'm like, ah, you got to go back to the natural stuff again.

[Justin Andrews]

Mouthfeel plays a huge role in impalatability. Huge role. It's like, think about eating something that's meant to be crispy and then it's kind of like stale and not so crispy, even if the flavor is identical. Totally different experience.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Think of the different, you know, versions of a particular food and how it changes the experience. Something that's crispy or soggy or, you know, it's got it all change. It all affects palatability. So that's what emulsifiers do. Now, emulsifiers like polysorbate 80 CMC disrupt gut barrier function, promoting inflammation in conditions like irritable bowel disease. This. This probably is one of the strongest connections with, with gut function are these emulsifiers. Then you have metabolic syndrome. Lecithin, mono and diglycerides can contribute to metabolic disorders like insulin resistance by altering gut microbiome. By the way, they don't even know to test for that.

[Sal DiStefano]

What do you.

[Justin Andrews]

We don't even know how to test for that.

[Sal DiStefano]

What do you think it is about those that seem to disrupt the gut more than like the artificial sweeteners and the emulsifiers? What do you think it is? Or I mean, the preservatives.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, emulsifiers seem to have a higher inflammatory effect. Yeah. So. And I noticed this. So my gut was real sensitive and I would avoid. I, I brought the coconut milk one because coconut milk is great. And I remember it like, I think it was really bothering my gut. Yeah. And I had. Who was might. I don't remember who it was. Was a friend of mine who goes, oh, that's got an emulsifier in it. Get it without. Without.

[Adam Schafer]

I wonder, because I used to use that for coffee for a while. I was trying to kind of like reduce actual, like dairy milk. And that did not work.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it might have been the emulsifier. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Then you have increased appetite and overeating. Carrageenan polysorbate 80. It may interfere with gut brain signaling, increasing appetite and food intake, which, by the way, they would like. So, you know, a food company may notice when we add this, they just eat more.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So let's just keep.

[Adam Schafer]

It's all beneficial.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, let's just keep adding it. Then you have leaky gun syndrome with things like xanthan gum and like I mentioned, guar gum, increasing intestinal permeability, which allows harmful substances to enter the bloodstream. In a 2020 gut microbe study found that high doses of xanthan gum in mice increased gut permeability by altering the tight junction proteins. So again, by the way, there is no study on what this potentially means with the gut microbiome. Mostly because we don't know how to study that. Like, we don't know what the altercations mean. We can only make potential connections. Yeah, but they've never studied anything and said how does it alter the microbiome? And then what does that mean? Because we have, we have no idea. We just know that you eat these and it looks different than when you eat.

[Adam Schafer]

The pushback for all this would be like, it's not going to affect you as much if you're like low calorie, right?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, because eating more increases the inflammation, increases digestive load and all that stuff.

[Adam Schafer]

Absolutely intensifies it.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. But again, I mean, we'll go back to what we said a billion and one different times.

[Adam Schafer]

I know.

[Justin Andrews]

Try eating in a calorie deficit with an 80 processed food diet.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Good luck.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You're just like, you're, you're just, you're just fighting an uphill battle that you'll eventually lose. Okay, now again, I want you everybody to consider this. Your, your processed food that comes in a bag or a wrapper or a box does not contain one additive. It doesn't, it just doesn't. Look at the back. It contains multiple food. Artificial colors. Sorry. It contains multiple preservatives and it probably contains one or two emulsifiers. Each one of these has been tested on its own.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

For a short period of time. None of them have been tested in a realistic, real world environment where a person is eating a food that has, you know, 5 to 15 of these and then also eats it 70% of the calories from these kind of foods and then also does it over months and years and years.

[Sal DiStefano]

Now is that true? Because don't we have studies where people have done like, with like diet sodas, which have a lot of these things in it, and they, you know, drink, you know, 50 of them a day to prove a point for how long?

[Justin Andrews]

And we don't know. It's not a real world, a real world study. You know what we have, we have connection, we have observational studies. What do those studies show? People who eat a lot of heavily processed foods are far sicker, far more likely to have chronic illness, far more likely to have insulin resistance, far more likely to have all kinds of different diseases, far more likely to be obese. Now what they may admit to because they still fight this is, it's because they're overeating. So like, oh, if you just eat enough calories, there might not be a lot of effects. I don't think so. I think that's a big role. But I think you cut out the obesity and you're still going to have a lot of some of these issues because.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, is, is it, is addiction to anything ever been Good.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, probably. I mean, no. No, I don't think so.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know, the other thing isn't that. Isn't that such a basic general rule? Like, it. Like. I mean, put it over to television or anything else that we talk about, or, I mean, like, being addicted to anything tends to have adverse effects always. The problem with food is a lot of people are in denial that they have an addiction.

[Justin Andrews]

It's the most widely accepted abuse substance in the world.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, it's. It's one of the few things that you can get addicted to that you also need.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, Right. A lot of the other things that people get addicted are just. They're unnecessary, and then you get addicted to it where food is necessary, and so it tends to get justified. Why? Well, I have to eat. And so, of course, you know.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, what's crazy about this is what we've done is we've taken food and we've turned it into a drug through careful engineering, and that. That alters not permanently, because I just. I've read some studies that show if you go off heavily processed foods and avoid all these things.

[Sal DiStefano]

What is the definition of a drug, Doug?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, so that. So that, you know, when they came up with the definition of what's considered addictive is when the tobacco industry was getting regulated, that's when they started to come up with what, like, what does it mean?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And processed foods fits right in that category.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, I would think television fits, too.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't.

[Sal DiStefano]

Or media.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't think so.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's why I wanted to see the definition.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah. Let's see what it says. A medicine or substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced in the body. Well, that's everything.

[Zoe Saldana]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Justin Andrews]

That doesn't make any sense. Yeah. That's not a great definition because it's too vague. Water has a physiological effect.

[Sal DiStefano]

That is a terrible body.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

So that is terrible.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that's not great.

[Sal DiStefano]

But isn't it interesting how.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, because I've read and it's like there's a withdrawal period. There's.

[Sal DiStefano]

There's both. Both follow a very similar trajectory when you think about how crazy and amazing it was for us to be able to communicate through television. And, like, wow, that was just like. It was all awesome. Right. And then. Then we started to figure out, like, oh, this is an interesting medium for us to sell things to people and make money. And then it was like, oh, wow, there's ways that we could get them to keep coming back more often. And then it's like, oh, wow, we can get them glued to this.

[Justin Andrews]

The most dangerous things that we've ever done, when you, when you look at it not acutely, but en masse, that affected humanity at large. The most dangerous things that we've done is taken natural human needs and desires and turn them into drugs because the addictive properties are worse and scarier. And it tends to be because it becomes so large and widespread, kind of accepted. So it spreads like crazy. I'll give you guys a great example. Pornography taps into the natural sexual desire that people have. But what they did with pornography is they, they, they just ramped up novelty to such an extreme that it's created, it's turned it into a drug. And it's widely accepted. Up until now, nobody's really criticized it, but it's kind of widely accepted. Same thing happened with food, Right. Processed food. It's like today we're starting to talk about how bad it is, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Where it's been around for a long time. It's caused so many problems. And again, it's been sneaky.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, two, I don't think it's been like, intentionally nefarious. Like, you, you look at like, even like McDonald's or like one of these ones they always target where they start out and they're creating burgers or creating, you know, they're fulfilling a demand. And then it's like, we need to make sure they all look the same. We need to make sure that, like, they're getting the same experience.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't think they start thinking that and then they're crafting it. So it's like, you know, it has the look, it has the same consistency now. The consistency matters now. The taste matters now. Let's add and inject this. And then it's just like, it just gets kind of to a level now where we have to reassess this.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like. No, I don't think it's nefarious at all.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, they're not.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like, I think it's inevitable in a capitalist society.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Where it's like a consumer asks for.

[Justin Andrews]

Something and you make it.

[Adam Schafer]

We're driving this.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's the, that's the real drawback of capitalism is that you, we have to regulate or you have to regulate yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

A, A moral society is required for.

[Sal DiStefano]

Society because it will just keep giving you more.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I'll make the argument moral society is required for all societies.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But it's, it's, it's also required for a free society because producers give consumers what they want, what do consumers want? Tasty, desirable isn't always what just means.

[Adam Schafer]

The education needs to be there in conjunction with it. Like we have to have that as part of the experience.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, what's crazy is when you look at the brain scans of people who consume lots of processed foods, the brain adapts in similar ways to how the brain adapts to drugs. So the executive functioning, the reward system of the brain gets altered. And here's what this means by the way, because we think of it as just in relationship to food. When the reward system of the brain is altered to, it essentially brings, it numbs down its signals because it's being hit with something that's super stimulating. For lack of a better term, that means that your reward system is altered for everything. It's not like it's just for food. You now have a brain that has been molding and modeling itself after foods that have drug like effects. But this affects everything. This will affect all your relationships and your whole life because your brain's different.

[Sal DiStefano]

Is there, is there anything?

[Justin Andrews]

But that's by the way, one of the reasons why when they take people, there was a study that showed this, they take people off processed foods and bring them whole foods and they control for calories. There's a 25 to 30 risk of mental health issues.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh wow.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow, dude. Yeah, that's substantial.

[Sal DiStefano]

Is there anything that you can see right now that we're unaware? Potentially like, okay, so like go back, you know, 40 years or whatever like that when none of us like again the processed food market was like this is a great thing. This is like we can now get food to places where people can get food. We're saving lives. Nobody is even thinking consequences are bad about it. Right? And television, oh my God. We can communicate across the world with this thing and share news. Like this is so amazing. No one saw, no one was talking about the potential consequences at that moment. What is happening right now that is developing or happening. And we're celebrating and we're, we're not even thinking like where this could go.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I, 100% I would say, I would say I like and I would say these new drugs that are being produced that will help you lose weight, potentially build muscle. I don't think people realize this consequences.

[Sal DiStefano]

I've been, I've been thinking so much about the AI thing because recently I told you my story with my brother in law and just how sophisticated it is. And it's like in a very short period of time, I mean it's really easy. We Used to, we used to talk about, you know, why, why know how to do long form any math anymore? I mean everybody, everybody has a built in calculator in their pocket at all times. Like why, why?

[Adam Schafer]

We just moved over here and we're.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like, why spend any years of school, like real. Once you understand how to use the calculator, like you're good. Like why learn any of the long form math? And we've just, yeah, we've all accepted that. Like no big deal. Like the thing with AI is it does so many things like that for you.

[Justin Andrews]

I have an analogy I think that might help make sense. Imagine if you had on a mechanical suit on your body and it was so advanced you couldn't even tell you were wearing it. And it, it functioned like muscles. So now you're three times as strong and it did everything for you.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Cool.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't have to exert myself to do anything. What's gonna happen?

[Sal DiStefano]

Atrophy. Everything atrophies.

[Adam Schafer]

Everything exoskeleton.

[Sal DiStefano]

I think our brains are going to shrink. Are we gonna get, are we gonna get dumber?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Adam Schafer]

And they'll put chips in there just to take, replace, you know, the function of it. Yeah, at some point. Right. Because I mean that's really where this is all going is the transhumanist stuff.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. So like if you're not doing math. So maybe the calculator is way better. It just gives you the answer, it's faster. But if you're not practicing math. If you're not practicing, you weaken these things. Muscle. Yeah, that. Your brain just prunes that off. So now you don't, you just.

[Sal DiStefano]

Your brain doesn't think the same when you, when you're. I don't know if this is like a getting in your 40s thing or not, but it's like that I, I catch myself even noticing that like I always. Math came easy to me. I like, I like math. I work with a lot of numbers a lot of times. But even because I just don't practice and use it to the level that I did 20 years ago. Some of the most simple multiplication that I was like, I used to be like this, like I have to really stop and like.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Is that right?

[Adam Schafer]

And then it's different than getting directions.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what? It might look like, you guys. So, so it was funny. I remember, God, long time ago. I was 16. My grand. My, my dad's dad came from Sicily. I think this is his first time ever leaving the island. He Came here and I remember him watching me work out in the backyard. We had a weight set in the backyard. And he came out and he's just, he's looking, he has his hand on his hip and think of old Sicilian man, right. And he starts like scoffing, he starts laughing. Yeah. And he goes, when I, he goes, I think it's funny that you, you go outside to lift heavy things and not build anything to work. What? You know how I used to work out? He goes, I used to do, I used to work.

[Adam Schafer]

Lift heavy rocks.

[Justin Andrews]

So I wonder if it's going to be like p. It's going to be like people are going to do daily, daily exercises for their brains.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because otherwise their brains.

[Adam Schafer]

Gyms are hard work simulators.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it, you know.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. It is so funny when you think.

[Justin Andrews]

About we're going to have to go to school. Yeah. Like for. Just on purpose.

[Adam Schafer]

Intentionally. Yeah. Seek out hard things like that.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, what are the potential side effects of your brain atrophying? It's not just that you. Maybe I'm going to speculate here, but I think I'm right. I don't think it's just that you forget the process of doing math or you forget how to navigate because now your phone navigates for you. You forget how to do these things. I think it may have wider ranging effects, like more anxiety and more depression, less positivity or ability to have any kind of complex thought. I think it's all connected, which is.

[Adam Schafer]

It'S like built in dependency, you know, like because of, you know, talking with Mike Israel and like his sort of like comments, like it kind of resonated. It's like, you know, at some point you're going to offload all these things, like chemically, neurologically, like you're going to have chips. You're going to have these things that replace normal function that your body's already, you know, fully capable of doing. You have to stress and battle test it all the time so that way you keep it strong and active and relevant. And it's like if we're not doing that, like what, what do we become at that point?

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, do we, do we. Once we outsource all that, do we do other great things that we don't do now though?

[Adam Schafer]

That'd be the optimistic view.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, right. The optimistic view is that, okay, I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore, therefore now I can go do these other things that I would have never.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, like we build buildings bigger than we used to, but we're left with bodies that are immobile and unhealthy. So I don't think it's gonna be. I don't think it'd be a. Devoid of side effects. I think we'll be able to accomplish great things with AI and that's exactly what will happen.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like, I mean your average person now can become like this really sophisticated mechanic for use my brother's example, right where it said.

[Justin Andrews]

And then one solar flare and we're dead.

[Adam Schafer]

You ever listen? Yeah. You ever listen to. I always butcher his name. But like Michio Kaku.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, you got it.

[Adam Schafer]

And he was on Rogue and he was talking about different civilizations and how it requires certain levels of advancement with.

[Justin Andrews]

Intelligence where you harness the power of.

[Adam Schafer]

The sun, you harness the new power. And so it's almost like with AI this becomes like an entirely new development of power. It allows us to expand and the expansiveness is going to take over new industries. So I look at it more of like this is why they're pushing so hard with interstellar travel, spaceships and all this kind of stuff where it's like. I think that's going to be the selling point is to really like push our society so we're. We can reach further.

[Justin Andrews]

This is, this that's optimistic. That's the cell. It's the bullshit selling point. Right. I'll tell you why. Okay. It's all self worship.

[Adam Schafer]

I know. I'm just.

[Justin Andrews]

Does humanity right now, no new advancements. No new advancements. Does humanity right now. If every individual was like this is, this is important. Do we have the ability right now to drastically change the world for the better in a way where it wouldn't even be recognized?

[Sal DiStefano]

We do.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. We don't need no new technology. If everybody right now was like, we're.

[Adam Schafer]

Killing it right now.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's do things for each other, let's love each other, let's care for each other.

[Adam Schafer]

Just pause. It would actually do.

[Justin Andrews]

It would do. Yes. So I, I don't. I think that's. Oh, more technology is going to make life better. No, no it's not. Human behavior isn't going to change unless we change it. That's not going to change. So it's just gonna be more self.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean we're already proving that's not true.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Because with depression and all the other things that are, that are on the rise as we have more can do more. So we're already proven that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's only going to accelerate it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean that's what I think is going to be interesting is that it's.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, at what point do we go?

[Sal DiStefano]

I would have never thought it would happen in our lifetime, but now I believe, like, in our lifetime, we're going to see that point where you can have everything and we can do anything. Like, you're yo with chat, GPT and whatever that looks like model 1000, you know, like, you'll, you'll be able to build, have, create anything that you want, and everybody's going to be miserable as crazy.

[Justin Andrews]

I wish, I wish I could communicate this better, because there's no way possible. I, I think that somebody will understand this unless they've experienced it. But just from an, From a fitness perspective, the majority of the benefits you actually get from exercise are not the, the, the muscles and the fat loss. It's actually the process.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's like all the stuff I, If I look back, you know, every. How it, how I grew through the process as a human being, through the struggle and learning and body worship and. Wait, that's not right. And health and let me learn and pursue this thing. That's where, like, those are the life benefits. But you try telling that to somebody who's never gone through that process. Like, yeah, right, dude, let me get the.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, there's.

[Justin Andrews]

Let me look good.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like, like always. I think there's people that reject the norm and everything. I, I really do believe we're going to have this, this split of plugged and unplugged.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't think. I mean, even split.

[Sal DiStefano]

You don't think so?

[Justin Andrews]

No, I think it'll be such a minority. I think you're going to have a vast majority of people that are, like, embracing, and then a small minority, like Amish. Like, it would be like the Amish people, but different.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, it's. I mean, I think about this sometimes. Like, you know, back in ancient cultures, they had philosophers. Basically their whole job was just to think of these things. Yeah. And they just would really ponder these deep questions about humanity or, or just about, like, where we're going. And I just feel like that's, That's a lost art. And right now it's even more relevant. I wish we had, like, Greek philosophers and stoics and people that were, like, popular, and they're, like, really, like, expressing this information to people. Like, you have to think about these things because if you don't think about it, it's that slow drip that you just end up becoming agree, you know? Yeah. You just, you get consumed by it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. 100 podcasts. I know people have these conversations.

[Adam Schafer]

The last hope. Long form conversations.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Anyway, so we're. We're heading over to Vegas today.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I'll be speaking at the Peptide Peptide Congress tomorrow.

[Sal DiStefano]

You're gonna have a huge crowd, 1500 people or more.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Sounds scary.

[Justin Andrews]

I get more. I definitely. I get zero nerves when I'm on camera. If anything, it calms me. I could be nervous about something else. Put on came, but in front of.

[Adam Schafer]

That and you crush every time. So it's always funny to me.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But definitely that makes me feel a little bit more. More nervous.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. You and I are so opposite when it comes to that.

[Justin Andrews]

You'd much rather speak to a crowd.

[Sal DiStefano]

Much rather be on camera. What it is for me, it's the. It's ironically, it's the. The feedback like. And I don't know if that's just because I've always naturally been comfortable with talking to people in general, whether it's one on one or multiple. And as I'm up there, I can see how you're receiving what I'm saying.

[Adam Schafer]

Is this working or is this going over the head?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Am I talking too fast? Am I losing you? Am I. Do I sound stupid? Like I feel like I can read that on your face when I'm up there. Where. When I'm like this, I have no idea. And it's my own self, my own head messing with me.

[Justin Andrews]

Inner dialogue.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It happened to me more in a crowd. Oh, what am I doing? My hands. Like, am I standing? You get.

[Adam Schafer]

I just adjust.

[Justin Andrews]

You stuck. You get stuck in that loop. Oh my God. We start listening to yourself.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, no.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, I remember that was this, that was this. For the longest time. It took a really long time to. To really forget the cameras were there and that, you know, and stop thinking about. There's tons of people that are listening to it.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, the positives are. I'll say this and this is. This is strange. Some people might not make. This might not make sense, but the crowd is going to be made up of doctors and healthcare practitioners.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, that would. That would actually probably scare the shit out of me.

[Justin Andrews]

That is the most. For me, it's the most comfortable audience I know. You get freeze and just be like, yeah, I love.

[Sal DiStefano]

I'd be like, they're judging everything I'm saying right now.

[Adam Schafer]

I totally mispronounce that.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I trained like. Like I had such close friends that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, you, you thrive in that environment.

[Justin Andrews]

Super brilliant people that I worked with.

[Sal DiStefano]

You thrive in that. I feel you Thrive in that environment.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Super comfortable.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, doing that. But you give me like a. A regular crowd and like.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah, yeah. See, now that's. I'm all about that.

[Justin Andrews]

Are you guys gonna heckle me? That'll help.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, definitely.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. If you guys heckle me, that'll.

[Adam Schafer]

If you encourage it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Just picture Justin naked. That always helps.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm just gonna be in the back.

[Justin Andrews]

What if I did, though?

[Adam Schafer]

I know what you're looking at.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Why is he making that face right now? Oh, no. He's picturing Justin naked.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Don't make that.

[Sal DiStefano]

I've definitely. I don't know if you guys did. We have. We've got like two different cocktail hour days, so I loaded up on our zbiotics.

[Justin Andrews]

Did you?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Are you bringing up for us?

[Sal DiStefano]

No, I did not. I loaded up for myself, bro. They're expensive per bottle, dog. My family raids it every time I get.

[Justin Andrews]

I know how much money you make.

[Sal DiStefano]

Stupid. I have.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, they're hard to get. Exactly.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's. It's. It's less about the dollar amount. What it is.

[Adam Schafer]

Everybody takes them before I can even have them.

[Sal DiStefano]

They. They're. They're the most, like.

[Justin Andrews]

What is a wrong word? Maybe, I don't know. Popular thing that we have amongst our family and friends.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of family come over and my whole family has been introduced to them now. And they're. And Katrina's family in particular, right there. And they're drinkers and it's. I have. I keep them at my bar, in my house, and they just. I just go through cases of them.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

And I get more mad when I. Because I need to reach. I need them. They don't need them. They like them.

[Adam Schafer]

You're professionals.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, exactly.

[Adam Schafer]

Like.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like they were drinking before these things. Like, I didn't drink before zi.

[Justin Andrews]

You felt so crap.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes, same. And so it's like a. That I need it. And so I get more irritated with that when I don't have access. Less about the dollar amount or what. That. And it's more like I gotta go buy another shipment of it.

[Justin Andrews]

Same.

[Sal DiStefano]

And so that. I'm stingy. I'm a little stingy.

[Justin Andrews]

So for people who aren't familiar. So this is a probiotic. These are bad. This is a probiotic. It's probiotic drink. But these bacteria have been modified to break down acetaldehyde in the gut. So acetaldehyde is a byproduct of alcohol. And when it gets to the liver, unless Your liver is, like, strained and stressed from other reasons, typically. Or you drink a ton. Your liver can break down the acetyl diet and process it, and you're okay. But some actually gets released in your gut, and then it gets into your bloodstream. And acetaldehyde is not good for you. It's actually more poisonous for you than most chemicals.

[Sal DiStefano]

My theory, Sal, and correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, what I think is going on between. Because we had this massive genetic variance between people.

[Justin Andrews]

There's a gene.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. I believe that, like, Katrina can, like, process that, like, faster better than I can. And that is the difference. And it puts me on the same playing field. If I can take that. If I can take that, it's like, oh, I get it. I get. Well, how you can enjoy that many drinks. Because I can't enjoy that many drinks without feeling terrible afterwards. Unless I have that.

[Justin Andrews]

No, there's. There's a. I can't find the. I wrote it down. There's a gene that some of us have, and then there's a variation of the gene where you really don't break down acetaldide. Well, one of the signs is flushing. So you know what they call Asian flush, where the red cheeks. Yes. Because it. So acetaldide is like a poison. So all it does, really, is that the pro. The probiotics from zebiotics stay in your gut. And then when it gets. Really. When the acetaldehyde gets released in the gut, it breaks it down.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So you don't get much scotch for whiskey, huh?

[Adam Schafer]

What? I mean, the gene, it came out wrong. I got the scotch in the whiskey.

[Justin Andrews]

Adds more alcohol. That's hilarious. It's all good. Speaking of alcohol, so I looked up. So we're mentioning Rock Recovery Center.

[Sal DiStefano]

So. By the way, great translation there for all you alcoholics, if you.

[Justin Andrews]

If you drink alcohol responsibly.

[Sal DiStefano]

For those of you that don't, you're not very responsible. Responsible.

[Justin Andrews]

We got a place for you. So I talked to Tom yesterday.

[Adam Schafer]

This is a problem.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, you did? Yeah. I got on the phone with Tom, and I love them, and Tom and Ben, good people. They.

[Sal DiStefano]

They probably work with them.

[Justin Andrews]

They really give a crap.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Really, really give a crap. And go out of their way to help people. So anyway, I was on the phone with them. We were talking about. I'm gonna have him come back on the show and talk about. One of the subjects that I thought would be so good for them to talk about is how friends and family members of addicts how they actually hurt the process.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Justin Andrews]

I didn't realize how big.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, are you kidding me?

[Adam Schafer]

That's a tough conversation.

[Sal DiStefano]

Family members are the biggest enablers, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

So I look.

[Sal DiStefano]

And understandably, because it's real easy for people on the outside if you've never been around it. I've been around it enough times to see. And it's, boy, it's. When it's somebody you love and the choices.

[Adam Schafer]

It'S heartbreaking, dude.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, when you, when you are that addicted, right, to the point where you need to go to potentially a recovery center, you've reached some pretty, pretty bad lows. To the point where if you do not enable them, it could lead to them being homeless. And like, on the end, that's the problem. And that is like, for, I mean, think about your, your kid. Yeah, your kid or sister, brother, family member, and you being like, I need to not enable them. But that also means I need to make peace with. They may end up being on the street or they may not have a place to, like, that is easy to say from outside.

[Justin Andrews]

I couldn't imagine.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

I couldn't imagine. So that's number one is enabling. So providing money, shelter, resources that allows them to continue. So oftentimes it means I'm not paying any of your bills. You're not going to live here if you keep this up. And that can be hard because I couldn't imagine, I could not imagine doing that to my kid. And then something happened to them because they were on the streets. And then you thinking, like, what did I, what did I call? That's the fear. That would be the fear, at least. But that's the bit. And the number one, then there's denying or minimizing the problem. And so people will just oftentimes downplay the severity of it. Oh, they're just stressed or it's just this.

[Sal DiStefano]

Or you know how, you know what helped me so with this. And there's, there's, there's lots of levels of an enabling too. It doesn't necessarily have to always be with an alcoholic or a drug addict. Like, you can enable somebody with finances and other things too. And I trained a therapist and I remember this was in my 20s, and I was sharing with him one of the things that I was struggling with, enabling somebody and a family member. And he basically put it back on me that the real driver of doing that, I wrap it in I love them or I, I could, whatever, but it's actually selfish.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, you talking about, like when you like, financially support Family members.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Who are bad with money.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, it's no different. It's. It's. It's you. You would feel awful. And so the reason why you do it. You don't want to feel awful. Therefore, I'm going to do this. So I don't feel. Yeah, it's a. And so, you know, and if I really love them and I really wanted to help them, I would do the right thing and stop enabling them. And it's really hard to look at it like that. When it's your family, you think you. I was very conditioned to, like, this is how family always helps. Yeah, family always helps you. And. And they do. But that's not helping them. No, I. And so learning, like, reframing that, like, oh, I'm doing this, and it's truly selfish. Even though I say it's not. I say it's for them and I'm helping them. But no, it's to make myself feel good of. I helped them. And so when I had. When I reframed that sort of. Look at that. It helped me get through. It's still hard, right? Still. It's not like, oh, great, now it's easy. It was still hard. And then when you watch it unfold and then months and then years go by of you not enabling anymore, and you realize they figured it out and it's like, oh, but it's so hard to make that transition.

[Justin Andrews]

It is. That's an. There's a category that covers that and kind of it's. That's enabling, but it's also called overprotection or rescuing. So this is like when you shield them from a consequence. Like, dude, if you don't. If you don't help, give me money this time. Like, I'm going to lose my house. I can't let them lose their house. Or, I need you to bail me out. That happened to me. That happened to me.

[Sal DiStefano]

I had.

[Justin Andrews]

There was a friend of mine. I won't say too much, but they were somebody that I had mentored. I'll just put it that way. I mentored them. They achieved a particular position at their job through my mentorship, and I felt very closely connected to this whole process. Then they started exhibiting signs of addiction. This was something they had struggled with before but had kicked it. They started exhibiting signs of addiction, and I tried helping them, Tried helping them. And I got a phone call from this person because they hadn't shown up for work and they were going to get fired. And they were like, I need. I need you to bail me out. And so I did bail them out, but the deal I made with myself is I'm going to bail them out this one time, and I'm never going to. I'm going to cut my connection off. And that's it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because this is it. After this, they have to figure things out. And I did, and I cut the. I cut the net. Was really hard, though.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, super. But then I bet they were okay.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, you don't even know.

[Justin Andrews]

I really cut it off because I knew myself, like, I could easily. I could get. I could get, you know, pulled back in through empathy. Yeah, I mean, you start to feel bad or whatever.

[Sal DiStefano]

Speaking of your 20s, I had this thing that I wrote down that I wanted to ask you guys, and we'll start with twenties. So if you had only two words to describe your 20s, what would you say? Doug, you're playing this game. I know it's a long time ago. Doug, would. You're playing this game, too.

[Zoe Saldana]

I don't remember that. When was that?

[Sal DiStefano]

Horses. And.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm going way back.

[Zoe Saldana]

Pterodactyl.

[Sal DiStefano]

Fire. Dinosaurs. Two words.

[Justin Andrews]

Two words that describe your 20s.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, they describe your 20s.

[Justin Andrews]

Super adorable. For Doug. It's gotta be.

[Sal DiStefano]

Stop it.

[Justin Andrews]

But there's a picture, man, that picture you shared, it was like you're in a leather jacket. It was from, like, the 80s.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah. You know, he's got the camera style. Yeah. The first selfie ever done.

[Zoe Saldana]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a great, awesome picture.

[Sal DiStefano]

The original. Yeah.

[Zoe Saldana]

You want me to start?

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, anybody can start. Like, whoever. Who gets. Whoever gets two words first.

[Justin Andrews]

I have mine, if you want to wait.

[Zoe Saldana]

But I was gonna, for me, was confusion.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay, that's one.

[Zoe Saldana]

And then adventure.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, okay. I like that. Confusion. Adventure. We have very similar. Ours is similar.

[Justin Andrews]

I want to know what your confused adventures were.

[Zoe Saldana]

Well, those are two separate words.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, okay.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Have a bunch of.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know, mine was lost and fun.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Zoe Saldana]

Lost would be. I. I.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it. Lost.

[Sal DiStefano]

Lost and fun was mine. So that's interesting.

[Zoe Saldana]

I was very. When I say con. Confused. I. I had no direction as far as where I wanted to go with my life. I graduated from university, and I just wasn't happy with what I was doing, and that's what prompted me to go to Japan, and that's what led to the adventure.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Mine would be recklessly ambitious.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, that's good.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Just ambitious to the point of destruction and destroyed relationships and just didn't spend Wasn't there for my family and just. But I was just on this mission without any realization of the repercussions that it would cause.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, for sure.

[Adam Schafer]

I would say optimistic and naive and mainly mainly because I was very. I had this like thought of. I wanted to accomplish something big and I wanted to get involved involved in. So I didn't know what it was. I was just like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something great. You know, I had this huge visions for things, but was super naive and how to accomplish it and was like just spinning my wheels.

[Sal DiStefano]

You just reminded me of something I, I had totally slipped my mind. Forgot. I used to say. I used to tell people that my goal by the time I was 30.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh God.

[Sal DiStefano]

Was to work at McDonald's because you're.

[Justin Andrews]

Gonna be so rich.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes. And I wanted.

[Justin Andrews]

Bro, you and I sometimes are twins.

[Sal DiStefano]

I used to. And I knew that it always throw people for a loop. They'd be like, what?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, because you were going to follow it up with.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, I was going to follow up with I'm going to be a millionaire. That's right. That I'd be. I will have already retired. I don't want to retire because I like to work and then I work at McDonald's. Yeah. So I have some job where I push a broom. I don't have to. It's mindless and fun for me and I meet people and like I got all the money I need. Like I. And I. Bro, I tell you right now, same. I believe with all my heart I was going to be retired by 30.

[Adam Schafer]

So did I. So did I do great?

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, I, I mean, we're tired.

[Justin Andrews]

How stupid were we? No, I, I, I same.

[Sal DiStefano]

I did. I did.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, your neighbor thinks it happens, so.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, I'm a little past 30, so. Okay, so what, what were your two words for 20? I said lost and lost and fun. I was lost in every, every aspect of spiritually, financially, women. I had it all wrong. Like I and I and I running in that direction. Oh, yeah. But thought I was. Yeah. Yeah. Thought I knew I wanted money wise. Thought I knew I wanted woman wise. Like, I mean, thought I had it spiritual. I mean all I. So I was lost. But it was a lot of fun making all those mistakes, you know, saying so I look back at the 20s and go like, I did a lot of. I did a lot of cool and had a lot of fun. But I also, I mean, what came with that was a lot of, you know, a lot of tears, a lot of hardship. A lot of mistakes.

[Justin Andrews]

A lot of people listening who are in their 20s right now. The reason why it's fun in hindsight is because you shifted.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You imagine still there, yo.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, horrible. You're. No, you're right. You're right.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's all hindsight fun. But I learned from it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Otherwise it wouldn't be fun.

[Sal DiStefano]

And like, Doug, I like, you know, I fun because I did a lot of adventurous things and tried a lot of stuff and found out that like, for example, you know, ironically, we're heading off to Vegas. Like, man, I was so into Vegas in my 20s. Like, that was, I was there every month. I was out in Vegas and just.

[Justin Andrews]

Now I hate it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Me too. It's like I don't even like it. You know what I'm saying?

[Justin Andrews]

But I can actually afford it now too.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Yeah. That's the irony. I could do it better today. I could do it so much better today than I could in my 20s. But I, I, I think I, I wanted, I thought I wanted it then so bad. And then when I, when I look back now. But it was, it was fun learning that and figuring that all out. So what about 30s for you guys? Two words for 30s.

[Justin Andrews]

That's an easy one for me.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, really?

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Let me hear.

[Justin Andrews]

Painful lessons.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

God. How similar are some of the words that we're using?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's a similar one.

[Justin Andrews]

Lots of painful lessons. The repercussions of my 20s.

[Sal DiStefano]

Are you going to use that as one word or two?

[Justin Andrews]

To, to. Because there's a lot of pain. There's a lot of lessons.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay, A lot of.

[Justin Andrews]

And most all the lessons were painful because I think that's just how a lot of us learn. That's how I learn.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I learned by touching the stove oftentimes and burning myself. And that was. I got divorced. You know, we started this business. There was a lot of like, like, okay, this is not what I thought. Things are different than what I had imagined. And then just the pain of trying to figure out what direction I go. How do I, how do I turn this around?

[Adam Schafer]

We share a little bit very similar to that. But I would, I guess my two words that came up were perseverance and reality. Just, you know, as far as, like the first words, I was like naive, but now it's like reality has set in. I, I was married, you know, newly married and then pregnant. And then we were living at her parents house and I was working like two, three jobs. And it was just like this oh my God. I. I'm setting out to do, to create a career and like a livelihood. Now I have, you know, somebody to support and I have to get my. Together I have to be an adult. And I was like, oh my God.

[Justin Andrews]

Running.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, just trying to do all the things, man. And it was, it was just reality set in and just was like persevere. I just put on, you know, the horse blinders and persevered.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal DiStefano]

How about you, Doug?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Zoe Saldana]

I'm sure you're going to take one of my words and make it dirty, but experimenting. Okay.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Zoe Saldana]

And searching.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh.

[Zoe Saldana]

I spent a lot of time in my 30s really trying to define what was important to me.

[Sal DiStefano]

I like that mine are growth and happy. Yeah, I think a lot of those things, a lot of things I was lost in, in my 20s, I found in my 30s, including Katrina. And then a lot of the things, everything from the spiritual thing, the money thing that like that all really came. So I got a. A lot of growth and what came from that growth was a lot of happiness. Like. So I. My 30s were really happy. I had really, really good 30s overall. I mean. But I definitely think there was a lot of lessons in there too. So I share the lessons.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what's interesting about this conversation is I think in each. Because we're now, we're like in the middle of 40s, right? So like, I don't think you can define it yet.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, I'm gonna. I was gonna ask you 40s, because I had. I have a different.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, but we're not even. We're not. We're halfway through. Think about like halfway through my 30s, very different than the back half. Right. Halfway through my 20s, very different. So who knows? That's the, that's for me, what I'm getting out of this is I don't know what it's gonna be like because I, I wouldn't.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, do you have.

[Justin Andrews]

I thought I did.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay, do you have two.

[Adam Schafer]

One word then?

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, do you have one or two words that define how you currently feel in your 40s? Cuz I definitely do. That are. That are way different than the other ones.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I would say minor.

[Sal DiStefano]

Calm and confident.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I was going to say peace. I was going to say peace and.

[Sal DiStefano]

Faith or I. I either calm and confident or calm and grateful.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that's okay. I would use those two.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. See? So those are very different than your 30s and 20s. Now maybe it changes, but I mean, very different.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

What about you, Justin?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, yeah, it was somewhere ungrateful, but it was like, also, I wanted to say wiser or like, just that's a good, more of an understanding. Like, I, I, I feel like there's a lot more data points there for me to really see patterns and, you know, avoid, like, major pitfalls, which I would have totally fell in before.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So I think that's new and it's, you know, brings that calm and it brings that type of, like, feeling.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Doug, you've been through them, so let's hear it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Zoe Saldana]

Purpose and clarity. Oh, yeah, purpose. Of course, that was when Brianna came into my life. And the clarity was really with respect to my career because I was very. Lost a lot of my life as far as what my, my work would be. And then Mind Pumpkin, you know, has, was introduced in my 40s.

[Justin Andrews]

So.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Interesting. Interesting that everyone, everyone's different, but similar in a way.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what's really interesting about this too, is that people, like how often people talk about how, how much it sucks to get older.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, listen to our words.

[Adam Schafer]

Literally, get better.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, here's why. Because of their health. Their health is why they hate aging.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's because if you can maintain your health.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's true.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I don't know about. I know you guys probably feel the same way. I look forward knowing how much I grew from my 20s to 30s, 30s to mid-40s. I look forward to where I'm going to be in my 50s and 60s and beyond. It would suck with poor health. That's the thing. But wisdom with good health, that's amazing. I wouldn't go back in time. No way.

[Sal DiStefano]

What I know now how much different, Doug, is your, your 50s to your 40s then.

[Zoe Saldana]

So I feel like my 50s. I feel like there's been more surrender in my 50s.

[Sal DiStefano]

Ooh, interesting.

[Zoe Saldana]

You know, the reality strikes as you look in the mirror because I really started to notice things change as far as my face, etc, in my 50s, even though in a lot of ways I feel like I do in my 20s or my 30s.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Zoe Saldana]

Except this last week I've been, you know, fighting some type of sickness. But yeah. Yeah, I feel those, like the reality of aging has, has hit. You know, I never felt like I was getting older at all. And then in, in my 50s, it's like, here's the reality. I'm getting older.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Has that, Sorry to cut you off, but it just, that poses another question I want to ask you. Like, has that shifted the way you think or do anything differently because of that?

[Zoe Saldana]

Excuse me. Yeah, I believe so. I mean, I'm a little less, let's just say anxious to get everything done. I don't know. I just, I feel like I have better pacing now. And it's just this realization. It's like, you know, what am I trying to go for here? What am I, you know, time is going and time will be gone. So you got to stop and smell the roses a little bit.

[Justin Andrews]

Most valuable resource.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because you just, you never get it back.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And every single billionaire says that one would sit on their death.

[Justin Andrews]

What's that old proverb? It's like man will. Will waste his health to get wealth, and then man spend his wealth to get back his health.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I really, I mean, I wish, you know, obviously this is our show, but like, like, it's pretty deep. Stay fit and watch and take care of your health and aging will be.

[Sal DiStefano]

Just this wonderful adventure. I mean, my, my way I would wrap this is be healthy, be present. That's what, that's what comes to mind for me. Be healthy, be present. Like the, that, those, those two things right there, I feel like that's, that's how you smell the roses. You know, that's how you, you know, be calm. That's how you enjoy the moment. That's how you value time over money and stuff. And then health. Because what if you're not healthy? Then you.

[Justin Andrews]

Doesn't matter how you think about if you're unhealthy.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Because that's all that matters. So take care of, take care of this one body that you get. So take care of that. And then, and then, of course, the aging process, I think from the sounds of what everybody has communicated, just continues to get better.

[Justin Andrews]

This is why I think one of the most rewarding careers. And there's, there's lots of types of jobs that'll do this, but I think one of the most rewarding careers for somebody who understands this is to be a fitness or health coach or personal trainer. You can really shift and change somebody's life with what you do. It's so profoundly rewarding if you can figure out how to, how to, you know, create a career out of it. It's incredible. It's one of the most amazing things.

[Sal DiStefano]

Speaking of that. Or still taking applications.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, mindpump personal training.com. apply if you want to be a mind pump trainer or coach and you think you can make it through our testing process. If you think that's you and you got a passion that is just. You can't even contain it and you're humble and you want to build an incredible career? Go to mindpump personal training.com forward/apply element is the world's best electrolyte powder. It's the most popular for a reason. No sugar, no artificial sweeteners, the right amount of sodium to make a difference. Better pumps, better performance, tastes amazing. Go to drinklement.com mindpump by the way, you'll get a free sample pack of their most popular drink. Mix flavors with any purchase. Back to the show.

[Zoe Saldana]

Our first caller is Leslie from Florida.

[Justin Andrews]

Hi, Leslie.

[Sal DiStefano]

How you doing, Leslie?

[Justin Andrews]

How can we help you?

[Leslie]

Thank you for taking my call. I will start by saying this is a hint outdated because I originally sent him the question. So some things have transpired. But for reference, I was a former orange theory junkie. Like, if I wasn't high intensity, I felt like I was doing nothing. I do a lot of Pilates. I wasn't walking very much. I have a sedentary job, but I've always been active and into nutrition for at least, you know, the last probably 18 years. I don't drink, pay attention to my macros, high protein, all the good stuff, the bad stuff. I have a pretty significant surgical history. So I've had five surgeries of nine orthopedic surgeries, but five in the past two years. So my question kind of revolves around recovery and going from sort of no muscle in my legs to building muscle and figuring out how to go from deficit into maintenance. So between surgeries three and four, I started focusing on step count. I went back to more traditional weight training, progressive overload, primarily upper body because that was really what I could do. Most everything for the lower was pt. I was able to get to my goal weight in that time, doing a deficit. But I clearly lost a ton of muscle, even though I never really had a lot in my legs because my knees have always been really bad. I've always been in and out of a deficit in between the surgeries to accommodate the lack of the output. So as I'm coming back from surgery and I'm kind of wheeling out of PT and more into solid, I don't skip leg day anymore. I'm doing a really solid leg program and I'm feeling the strength coming and I'm starting to gain muscle, but I'm sort of in that place of where do I find maintenance? I probably because I've been in deficits off and on. I listening to you guys more recently. I'm only sort of new to you in the last few months. I probably might need a little bit of a reverse diet. But I kind of. I'm 591 33. I'd like to maintain this weight but also while I'm recomping. But I also recognize when I, you know, as I'm building muscle in my legs, like the most muscle area that I've never really had that I'm going to need to do a significant change in my maintenance calories.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You're. Everything you want at the same time is not going to happen. Yeah. So your body, you're in a great.

[Sal DiStefano]

She's in a great place though because you, you haven't been training your legs and so you stimulating them again is going to be like a novel stimulus. And because you actually have muscle memory on your side, you're going to build muscle even faster. So that. Yeah. So honestly might be overthinking the reverse diet portion of this too much. I mean I'm going to tell you to eat when you're hungry and feed. Make good choices. Whole food. But let's eat.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

But you know, and just pay attention.

[Justin Andrews]

The problem is with your background and I've. And I, I'm gonna guess that that's difficult for you that you always, that you, you probably have a challenge with gaining weight. Especially when you said I'd like to. I'm 59133 and want to stay the same weight while I recomp. But build muscle and get stronger. But reverse diet but don't want to gain weight. It's not going to happen. You have to reverse diet. You're going to have to. You should probably gain weight.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Gain some muscle and go into surplus or none of that's going to happen. You're not going to be able to build the strength. You're not going to be able to get the metabolism faster. So I would have you or my client, I would have you go on a controlled bulk. I would have you eat in a surplus and that's what we would focus on for a little while. Are you tracking your calories now? Do you know what you're consuming now?

[Leslie]

I am. And I actually just had a Dexa and I had an RMR test done last week. I just got the results for. So it gave me an idea of what my maintenance and. Or deficit and or surplus calories should be. I don't know how, I don't know how to interpret. I mean the test was great. It gave me a good place to start. It's probably about where I'm averaging right now. On a maintenance standpoint. I do track, I do eat A lot of protein. I'm very much heavy on the protein, but, yeah, I'm probably only still even tracking around 1600.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. No, I told you. I knew it. Yeah, I knew it. I've trained a lot of people like you, Leslie, so you.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay. So. Okay. Because we know that this. We're over complicating what we need to do here. But to Sal's point, you're going to be the. You're going to be your biggest enemy, getting in your own way. And so one of the rules I'd have for you if you're my client is no scale and no body fat testing for a while is trust the process. I'm going to bump you to 2000 calories to start because you could easily go up to 2,000 calories. And let's ride that for a few weeks and see what we feel and see in the gym. And all we're watching is strength coming up. I want to see those. The leg muscles build. I do not want you on the scale because if it goes from 1:33 to 138, I don't want you to freak out because that's probably where we need to go right away. That's not a big deal. And you're only. That's. You're going to build muscle. It's. You are. You're at such a good place to accidentally eat too much, because if you accidentally eat too much, it's going to go right into building all that muscle. It is not going to pile on body fat. But if you're going to. If you are going to be measuring, tracking, weighing yourself every day, and that's going to. You're going to get in your own way.

[Justin Andrews]

Here's what's going to happen. You're going to build muscle. Your clothes are going to feel tighter, you're going to freak out, and you're going to cut back down on your calories. Don't do it. Yeah, you need to go. By the way, it's compromising your recovery. 1600 calories at your height is compromising your body's ability. Your knees, it's compromising your body's ability to regenerate and to strengthen your hamper. Yeah. So 2000 calories is where I'd have you go. And you'd have to weather the storm because you're gonna feel uncomfortable, it's gonna feel different, and we're gonna get stronger. And I'm gonna guess you're still over training. How many days a week are you strength training right now?

[Leslie]

Five.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

But I do Pilates. I do active recovery, and I do only when I do interval training. It's five sprints for training.

[Sal DiStefano]

Interval training, two.

[Justin Andrews]

Leslie, Leslie, come on.

[Sal DiStefano]

You are.

[Justin Andrews]

You are an avatar of clients that we've trained many, many times. So you're over trained and you're underfed. I would have you strength train two days a week, legit rest period or three max. It would be real strength training, control, tempo, good technique. Do a set, 8 to 12 reps.

[Sal DiStefano]

Long rest, long rest period.

[Justin Andrews]

Rest for 3 minutes, do it again. Interval training, out the window, Especially with your past surgeries. No, no, no. I would just do steps. Pilates. If you're really attached to it and you love it and you got the community and it's great, fine. Otherwise I'd tell you to stop doing Pilates as well and then bump your calories and watch what happens. But you're going to have to weather the storm of feeling uncomfortable before you start to embrace the fact that you're actually building muscle.

[Sal DiStefano]

Leslie, are you in our private forum yet?

[Leslie]

I am.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay. Thank you.

[Leslie]

I've not spent a lot of time in there. I had originally posed this question in there. Walking. I'm doing steps. So the minute when you can't walk for a long time, like, steps become, like, the most exciting thing in your life.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

So I'm walking. I'm only like 10 to 12 average. I did like a month contest in April and I was doing like 16,000. I'm like, I don't want to do that much.

[Justin Andrews]

You have no idea, because you're underfed and overtrained right now. You have no idea how amazing you're gonna feel when you go in the other direction. You're gonna feel and get through the scary part. I keep saying that because that's gonna happen. It's gonna be your roadblock. Is you're gonna be like, oh, I'm feeling thicker, or, oh, no, what's happening here? Let me go back. Let me train more, let me eat less. If you weather the storm, I mean, you would be the perfect candidate to.

[Sal DiStefano]

Work with a coach to walk you through. I was just gonna ask you, are you. Are you open to having, like, one of our coaches take you through this, or are you dead set on doing this yourself?

[Leslie]

I work currently with. I don't know if you've ever heard of Neurofit. It's a muscle stimulator. So one of my days of training is with this machine that has really helped with my. It has helped dramatically, actually. My first knee Replacement, I didn't find it for three months. And the second knee replacement, I started it at week two. And the improvement in the recovery has been, like, dramatic. Okay, so I'm ready to break up with him because I don't think I need the stimulator anymore.

[Justin Andrews]

No. Because what that did initially is it helped those muscles fire post surgery.

[Sal DiStefano]

Now, you're going to be training, so you'll be all right. Just promise me this. I'm going to have one of our trainers call you and help you, but I. Promise me to listen to them. Okay, Promise me. And we're gonna. We're gonna be checking.

[Justin Andrews]

It's gonna be scary. I promise you it's gonna be scary.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. But when you get through it, when you get through it, you're gonna be like, oh, my God.

[Adam Schafer]

Talk through the whole time. That's going to be super helpful.

[Sal DiStefano]

You're going to progress.

[Justin Andrews]

So.

[Leslie]

Well, permission is what I needed a little bit because I was so stuck between. I have no muscle, and I know I need to eat more to get the muscle, but, like, how much more? And like you said, I'm at a place of, like, going from nothing to something.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Leslie]

So it's only upside.

[Sal DiStefano]

It is all upside for you. You have incredible potential right now. If you follow the steps and trust your trainer, this is going to go really well for you. Just. That's the thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Life changing.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Don't add anything to what they tell you to do. Trust the process. We're going to be right there with you. So let's. Let's do this together. And I have full confidence you're going to be really happy.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's do this, too, Leslie. Let's have you back on in three months. That way you know that you're going to come talk to us again.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, let's do that. All right. When we.

[Leslie]

I would love to hook up with the trainer, so. Yes, please.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we'll. We'll set you up.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's do it. And then we'll have you back on in three months, and it'll be a great conversation.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Leslie]

Very good. Thank you so much.

[Sal DiStefano]

I appreciate it for you.

[Leslie]

Thank you.

[Justin Andrews]

Right, Tell me she's not like an avatar of so many women.

[Sal DiStefano]

It was a great call. I mean, when she first was. When I first answered, I'm like, this is very simple. You're in a very easy, good place. But it's not going to be. It's psychologically crazy. Simple advice, but very difficult to do for someone like that.

[Justin Andrews]

She's going to be scary. She's going to eat more, she's going to feel thicker. Her pants are going to feel tighter. If she weighs herself, her weight's going to go up. Oh, my God. What's happening? Cut my calories.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Ramp up my exercise.

[Sal DiStefano]

By the way, 2000 is just the beginning. She's. Oh yeah, she's tall. She's probably got good lean body mass. She's gonna be, she's active. She's gonna be way higher than that when we're done.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

She'd be 26.

[Justin Andrews]

The struggle is going to be working out less and eating more.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And both at the same time is going to feel super scary.

[Sal DiStefano]

But if they're great position to do that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal DiStefano]

With all. With the fact that she hasn't done anything for her legs in so long.

[Justin Andrews]

Listen, when I had clients respond almost like immediately. I've had so many clients like Leslie and if I could get them to trust me, that was the challenge. The challenge was can, well, they trust me and go through this. When they did, it was like earth shattering, life changing for them. When they didn't, it was so difficult because it was. They had to trust me to get through that process.

[Sal DiStefano]

She'll be her own worst enemy if she does that. Literally this will be her gets in the way. But she has so much potential.

[Justin Andrews]

Our next caller is Laura from California.

[Sal DiStefano]

Hey, Laura, how you doing?

[Justin Andrews]

Laura?

[Doug]

Hi.

[Laura]

Hi. So excited to be here. Thank you guys so much. You're my heroes. I'm a PE teacher, high school PE teacher here in the Bay and I found you guys like a year ago and it's just been great. I've been using your, I've been using your programming and I want to kind of incorporate hopefully something with my students. So my question is I have mostly 14 and 15 year old high school students in PE, you know, ranging from low fitness level to the D1 athlete, which makes it really hard in PE as part of our fitness program, we kind of like the kids in the fitness center, like half will be doing cardio and then we'll be working with other kids on lifting and it just kind of gets monotonous because we do the basic, you know, squat, deadlift, lunge, that kind of stuff over and over, mix it up a little bit. But just wondering if you guys have a program or might recommend something that one of yours or something else. You know, the teenagers have the attention span of a gnat these days. It's hard to get them, you know, motivated, excited. You know, of course the athletes get excited or some of Them actually are too cool for pe, so it's hard to get them. So, yeah, so that's my question for the day.

[Justin Andrews]

This is a great question and thank you so much for calling in, Laura. I have so much respect for what you do because you have to. To balance out what is going to be best for them physically. And also, is this going to help them develop a relationship with exercise where.

[Adam Schafer]

They'Ll like it, what's going to make an impact?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, because sometimes what's best for them, they don't want to do. It's boring. You got to force them and, you know, it's not really going to help them otherwise. Right. So that's the balance. So, I mean, almost any exercise done properly is going to benefit them. The main thing I would say to focus on, I've trained kids, I've trained. I've done groups of kids. And what I found initially when I would train them, it was like, no, we're going to do the best thing. And then they'd lose interest and it wouldn't be great. And I'd see them kind of fall off. And so later it was really about, like, how do I make this something that's enjoyable? And so I would do things like, you know, like a single leg toe touch, for example. Great exercise. Posterior chain, good for stability. So then what I would do is I would turn it into a game and I'd throw. I drop pencils on the floor or something, and I'd say, let's see if you could beat me. And I'd go down and when you touch the floor, you lose. Let's see who wins. And I'm gonna put you in groups of three, and whoever wins at the end, we'll find out who the winner is. And so they're competing over who can do the most. So I would turn it into stuff like that that would kind of make it a lot of fun. And I would also choose things that weren't, because it's easy to get them to compete with, like, strenuous stuff, like who's the fastest or who's the strongest. But that immediately gets a lot.

[Laura]

And those aren't really the kids I'm trying to reach.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. And a lot of kids are, yeah, the ones who are going to love doing that already. You don't need to worry about them. And the ones that struggle with fitness are like, I don't want to see how fast I am, I'm slow. So I would turn it into, like, balance games and, you know, games that require a little bit of skill that also involve, you know, some strengthening. So that's kind of the mindset as far as movements are concerned. I think mobility is going to be your best bet with the kids. So like maps, prime pro type stuff is going to benefit them the most in the short period of time that you have them.

[Sal DiStefano]

I also like taking a single movement and then breaking it up into parts and that ends up being like a whole teaching or class. For example, I could see opening up and talking briefly about the history of the Turkish get up. Where did, where did it come from? Why did they do it? Why is it so good? And then breaking that movement up into like eight parts. Because it literally is like an eight part movement where you break each part up. Everybody practices that and you critique and you kind of teach. Okay. Then you add the next second part, teach that. Then you combine the two, then you add the third part and you sort of. You could literally take a movement like a complex movement like that, break it up into, you know, five, eight sections, teach each section of that, and then string it all together as one movement to get everybody to do it properly. And then. And then maybe you have some, you know, fuel kettlebells there or something that they have to hold over their head and see how strong some of the kids are doing that. That that's an option anytime that you can turn it into play. I do think that that's a win. I think where my PE teachers, I think go wrong is when they try and put to formulate this big long workout that just the kids lose interest because it's too many, too many things that they're already not interested in. So I've seen far more success with teachers that have just like, we're just going to teach this one movement and it's going to be all about the squat and all the. And everything from preparing for it with your ankle mobility and your hip mobility to breaking up in three different sections and pausing at the bottom and pausing in the middle and pausing at the top, like. Yeah, I think that you're better off doing things like that. And then you could add some sort of a challenge.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Combine both of what you guys are saying.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, easily.

[Adam Schafer]

And that's kind of what I've found is. Was most successful when I had the high school groups. And again, even though they're athletes at the. It varied so much in terms of their skill level. And so how do you manage all that? Well, I would start to kind of pair them off with people I felt like were appropriate ranges for them or groups and you know, just having that, that other peer to kind of be able there to learn to how to look for the right things and how to like guide them in terms of their form, but also have them kind of pause and stop and make a challenge out of it. And so you turn that into an isometric challenge and I got to hold this position and then the next person kind of replaces them and then they can see time wise like, you know, who, who was able to kind of handle that more appropriately and you know, just, just to break up the monotony. On some level you really mess with tempo. You can mess with, you know, taking them outside and doing like crawling challenges. And you know, there's a lot of different things you can do to, to kind of change up the environment. I think that's really important. But still stick with the monotonous type of exercises because it's really important that they learn those.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And the games that you would pick, you could look at different kinds of skills so that other kids have an opportunity or different kids have an opportunity to, to, you know, do well. So there's balance, there's stability, there's endurance.

[Sal DiStefano]

Body weight.

[Justin Andrews]

There's body weight.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And then it's like, like some of the games that you could do, like you could, you could say, hey, you know, if you have really good balance, if you think you got the best balance class, raise your hand. You get the dude raises hand. Okay, I got really good. All right, you come up here and who has a really bad balance and then you pull them up, say, all right, here's what you do. You're going to stand on one foot and see who can stand the longest. Then you tell the guy or girl with the good balance now close your eyes and do this and they're going to fall. And then you say, hey, did you know that being able to, keeping your eyes open contributes to your balance? Like they're learning things and finding cool things about what's happening. You can also do tests like stand on one foot and I'm going to push down on your arm and you'll fall over. Let me do it again. Look how much better your balance is. Your central nervous system just adapted, you know, so it's cool stuff like that.

[Adam Schafer]

Body challenges. Yeah, it's a good one for core and just learning how to control your entire body from your fingertips to your toes. So you know another way that's a really tough challenge and you can kind of break that up.

[Justin Andrews]

There are also physical, like, I don't know if you call Them challenges or tests that females do better than males, which is always great to do with the class. Like right there are certain. Just because of the way our body shaped is. You could say, hey, put this stick down and step over both legs. You could find this on social media. And women do it like, no problem. Guys trip over themselves just because we're built differently. Everybody will laugh about it. Like, what's going on?

[Sal DiStefano]

Have you seen that? Have you seen the paper bag challenge before where you do. No. Okay, so they, you, you start off with a full size paper bag and you do the single leg and you have to pick it up with your teeth and then you tear a layer off and then it's. It's got to go lower and it's.

[Justin Andrews]

Like you could get the lowest.

[Sal DiStefano]

Let's see who get the lowest in on the paper bag challenge. And so everybody gets a turn to try. And paper bags are cheap. So you get a bunch of those and put them in groups and then the kids can have fun doing something like that. That's. You could look up paper bag single leg challenge. You'll see a bunch of stuff. The other one I remember in high school was the quarter challenge of using. I mean, right now, Sal talks about this on the podcast all the time, how we're declining in grip strength. Right. It's one of the indicators of overall strength. We've been watching that just rapidly go down. So great thing to kind of teach our kids that, listen, this is what's happening to our societies. We're getting weaker. Weaker. Grip strength is one of the ways we measure that. Here's the quarter challenge. You get one of those little hand grippers that are cheap and put a quarter in there and see who can hold it the longest. And then you keep that record up on the board and so. And then you teach a couple exercises that are good for grip strength, like farmer carries or movements like that. And then challenge the kids to try and, you know, see if you can beat your time for the year after over the whole course of this whatever, and then go back to the challenge. So there's a lot of stuff like that you can look up.

[Justin Andrews]

But the, but the fun with it, you can look, you can look up, boy, you know, men and women, differences with exercises. And you can find. There's one like if you stand up against the wall, keep your butt up against the wall, but go down, touch your toes, guys will fall forward.

[Laura]

I saw that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, right.

[Justin Andrews]

So I've seen that one. And if they don't know that, they'll try it, and everybody's going to laugh because the dudes are going to fall over, and you're gonna say, well, here's what's happening. Here's why women tend to be able to do this. And it's just cool stuff that gets them. And they're all gonna get excited to test it out, and all the guys will be like, I can do it. You know, that's gonna develop a relationship. That's more likely to develop a relationship with activity that isn't scary. Doesn't make me feel like I'm not good enough or whatever. And it's. And it's different. And it's different. And they also get to learn things while they're doing it. I think that's the most important thing to focus on as a teacher because it gets them engaged. So those are the things I would look up the most. Not so much. How do I get them to squat? Deadlift them? You know, that's all great, but I could really imagine the challenge of getting a class of kids to want to deadlift and then get interested in it, you know?

[Laura]

Yeah. We do let them, towards the end of the year, kind of have free time sometimes, and I'll walk around, and then I can, you know, really work with the kids who are totally into it. You know, they'll miss p. Can you teach me how to deadlift? You know, I've seen them.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Laura]

It's so funny. And the trends with deadlifting, I mean, that is huge now where. When I first started teaching, no one, no kid wanted to deadlift.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So funny.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

So you can change a lot.

[Justin Andrews]

You can even say something like, you know, today I'm gonna teach you guys an exercise that gives you a big butt.

[Sal DiStefano]

Huh?

[Justin Andrews]

And then you show them the movement.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know, there's that. There's that cool broomstick challenge, too, where you have. You start with the broomstick behind your back and you have to get up. You've seen that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's another. That's another one that girls tend to be able to do better than guys can. It's a fun challenge. I mean, you could probably look up a list of fun fitness challenges, and then I think I would. I think what I would try and do is always have some sort of a basic lesson, whether it be grip strength or mobility or core strength, and then have a fun challenge. So you. I. I teach. I teach how important it is. I show an example of a fun challenge on it, and then we practice and have. And have fun with It. I think that is a far better strategy than trying to put together, like, an awesome workout, because no kid's going to appreciate your awesome workout.

[Justin Andrews]

But I will say, out of all of our programs, the one that will have the most movements that I think you could pull from would be Maps Prime Pro.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the one that. If you. If you don't have that, we can send that to you, by the way.

[Laura]

Yeah, I don't think I have. I just have. I just finished 40 plus, which probably wouldn't be the best for them. And Muscle Mommy, I just started that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, Prime Pro is great.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, Prime Pro. You'll be able to pull the most from. It requires no equipment, and it's something that you could. You could have the kids get on the floor and do different movements and stuff, right?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Or you take one compound lift. I don't think there's anything wrong with teaching them compound lifts and how to train.

[Justin Andrews]

You just have to sell it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you just simply simplify. Like, just make sure it's that one movement, and then you can add these challenges to complement the rest of the entire, you know, class that. That you have left remaining.

[Sal DiStefano]

So I. I do believe, though, that you have one of the hardest jobs in the world, though. So I just want to put that out there just so everybody knows. Yes.

[Laura]

People think that teaching PE is easy.

[Adam Schafer]

Attention is crazy.

[Sal DiStefano]

Kids. Fitness is difficult. One on one, it's difficult. I've only got one kid. So in a group setting, it just throws a whole Nother. A whole other curve. Curveball. So, I mean, a lot of respect for what you do.

[Laura]

Yeah. Thank you so much. Those are great ideas. I can really see using the challenges. The kids will like that.

[Justin Andrews]

Absolutely.

[Sal DiStefano]

All right, keep us posted.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you. And we'll send you Prime Pro. Okay.

[Laura]

Thank you so much.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you, Laura. Okay. You know, if you think of this is. Just goes across any. For any class. When you think of the. Of the classes that impacted you the most, besides them being a good teacher, that really cares. That's, of course, paramount. It was the teachers that kind of made it engaging and fun. Like, I had a science class. The experiments were just so. And the teacher was so animated that everybody got involved. You know, I had a.

[Adam Schafer]

Because they're passionate and it's contagious.

[Justin Andrews]

I had a math teacher. I hated math. Hated, hated Mr. Christensen. I hated math. And I would, you know, I'd pop in and I was smart enough to get by, so I just didn't give a crap. And I remember one time he Called me out. He's like, sal, you never pay attention. He's like, do you like math? I said, no. He goes, I tell you what. And he knew how to get me. He goes, if you can beat me in arm wrestling, you don't have to keep coming back to class the rest of the year. You just got to show up for the test. Now I'm a, you know, I'm a sophomore. I'm cocky as hell. I'm like, I'll beat him in arm wrestling. And I went up there and he beat me in arm wrestling. He was ex collegiate wrestler. Little did I know. And I showed up. But he engaged me because of the fun of it. And the whole class had a hoop.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, this is. I mean, we've had this question a bunch of times, and every time, I always go, like, man, this is. It's easy for us to sit here in our podcast.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, imagine a whole year of trying to be fun.

[Adam Schafer]

That's what I mean. Like, challenges only last so long.

[Sal DiStefano]

And that's why, to your point, you, you, you have to have a base.

[Adam Schafer]

Like a foundation of what they're getting out of the class and the learning. And so they can. So the ones that. And that's the thing, too, is just impacting kids with the value of it and knowing that it's valuable. So that way, maybe they're not into it, but at least they. They learn the skill of it. So that way, maybe down the road, they. They get into it or whatever, you. You build something with them.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's why a great move, if she can do this, is do a challenge to make it fun, get everybody laughing, engaged, and then teach a movement or two. That related to it. Yeah, related to that.

[Justin Andrews]

Right.

[Sal DiStefano]

So, hey, a lot of people were falling over when they were doing the. The single leg touch. Well, they don't have a lot of hip stability and mobility and strength. We're going to do these 90 90s. That's going to improve.

[Justin Andrews]

Great idea.

[Sal DiStefano]

So you do. You do a full, fun, engaging things.

[Justin Andrews]

Now they're engaged.

[Sal DiStefano]

Now they're engaged. Now teach one to two things that. That bring value to that movement. And then you just build a whole semester around stuff like that.

[Justin Andrews]

Our next caller is Jessica from Idaho. Hey, Jessica. How are you guys?

[Doug]

It's nice to see you again.

[Sal DiStefano]

Hey, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

How can we help you?

[Doug]

I was on about three months ago, a little over three months ago, and you guys challenged me to have to take in about 300 extra calories to break through a plateau.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Continue on anabolic so I'm just checking in with my progress.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, let's hear it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, let's hear it.

[Doug]

All right. So the. The challenge itself was easy. I just kind of looked for some nutritional gaps, focused on being consistent with my food, and I stayed off the scale, except for one time at the doctor's office when I just popped on chatting to the nurse and glanced down and was reminded not to panic, that it was higher than I was used to. But other than that, it was pretty easy. I did, however, have tendonitis when I talked to you last time that I had been ignoring. So I took a little bit of a step back. I had ignored it for about six months, and it was starting to affect my bicep and my mobility in my shoulder. So I went with pt. Definitely needed the accountability there. And so my goal changed a bit from just progressing to healing, and then the gains would be a bonus. However, in all, I think it went great. I think it went great. I don't know if you guys have a copy of my.

[Justin Andrews]

I do.

[Doug]

My email there.

[Justin Andrews]

I do.

[Sal DiStefano]

I'm guessing that the parentheses is where you were, and then to the right of that is where you're at now. It looks like everything.

[Justin Andrews]

Everything went way up.

[Sal DiStefano]

Everything went up, like, significantly.

[Justin Andrews]

Your deadlifts went up 20 pounds in two reps. Your squats went up by four reps. Everything got stronger. Your tendinitis got better. It says it went away.

[Doug]

Yeah, I'm doing great on the tendonitis.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And I gotta say, increasing calories based off what I remember our last conversation, that probably also helped the healing.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Being in a low kind of calorie environment makes it more difficult for your body to heal from injury. Of course, the correctional exercise made a big difference in training properly. Of course, also, just by looking at you, you're really lean still.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Well, what did you. Did you ever get on the scale? Do you know how much you went up total? Yeah.

[Doug]

I wanted to talk to you about that. So this weekend, I got on the scale, and I am happy to say I was disappointed that it was low because I am about the same weight I was. So when I thought of that, I thought, okay, I didn't want to get leaner because I knew I was in a healthy spot, and I did want to build muscle, and so I didn't want to stay the same weight. But I thought it through, and I think I have kind of an idea what happened. I think I was in a bulk initially. That was evident. My cravings went down. I was feeling Good with my lifts, but the weather got nice, and I work harder and I play harder when the weather gets nice outside. So I think what I needed to do was just. Just trust my eating a little bit better and. And increase. Be willing to increase.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yep.

[Doug]

So I think I went into a bulk, but then my activity started going up.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And slowly that became maintenance. And then when it was about six weeks ago, when I finished anabolic and I transitioned, I went over to Maps 15, and at that point, I started pulling out, pulling back that extra food because I know oftentimes it's just in. It's just in your head. But you do feel. I feel like, oh, I probably need to, you know, pull back and lean out a little bit. And in reality, I probably didn't.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, no, definitely not.

[Justin Andrews]

You're stronger, and you look real lean right now. I'd say keep going up.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Bump your calories more. And I don't. You're not. I don't think you're going to gain much body fat. I think you're just going to keep improving with your strength and your body shape. Absolutely.

[Doug]

Yeah. This was a great opportunity for me to just get some confidence in that through the process. So if you have some time, I would like to go over a question with you with my squats.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes, sure.

[Doug]

Okay. So I'm just gonna. I'm gonna read this because it's kind of sensitive but relevant, and I'm gonna try not to overshare. So. Six years ago and post eight babies, my pelvic floor and core were so compromised, I couldn't safely squat at all. In fact, I had to make daily decisions between pushing a shopping cart and vacuuming the floor if I expected to be vertical to make dinner come evening pt. And accommodations kept me relatively active and functional until we finished having babies. Then, after exhausting all the other options, I had a hysterectomy with substantial repairs. Surgery took away the debilitating symptoms, but strength would have to be earned. Starting from ground zero, and perhaps negative, considering functional strength wasn't even there post surgery. I have dealt with and deal with pelvic floor tightness, pelvic floor spasms, and I've had physical therapy here and there. One thing that surgery couldn't fix and I didn't anticipate dealing with was fear. I had spent 10 years with Red flags going off in my brain to caution me from moving in ways that would require me to be flat on my back and consequently prevent me from remaining functional. For my family, the squat position was A no go for a long time. As I progressed, I made it a priority to allow the limiting factor to be my ability to appropriately connect and support my core. In the squat world, I began with movements that felt safer. First the split squat, then the goblet. A year ago was the first time I put the bar on my back. To this day, I'm still confronting fear when I approach the bar. Mentally, I do feel like I'm overcoming, and my back squat has progressed from just the bar to 90 pounds, which finally caught up with my split squat weight. But I have run into what feels like the end of my ability to maintain safe core bracing under load. I continue to work core work and I've tried different methods like squatting every day, but unfortunately, when I overdo it, I get pelvic floor cramping, and that's as bad as it sounds. I have noticed that core bracing is beginning to be a limiting factor in my deadlifts as well. Currently, I am backing off weight and I'm focusing extra on form and slowing my tempo. In researching core bracing for squats, it's often described as creating abdominal pressure, recognized by lateral pressure pushing out, not bracing by drawing the belly in. For years, creating this type of pressure was literally the enemy of my functional existence. Now I'm second guessing if I am executing correctly at all, or perhaps my bracing is becoming a limiting factor to progressing. So do you think that I should continue to pull back and allow my core to be the limiting factor? Do you think I'm just dealing with fear and it's something to mentally overcome?

[Sal DiStefano]

It's probably a little bit of both. Yeah, it's probably a little bit of both.

[Justin Andrews]

It is. And I, I would. So for bracing, because it's always a question, like, how do I brace? Especially after pelvic floor imbalance or surgery, there's a. The. The muscle recruitment patterns change, and it's almost like you have to relearn it. The best way I got people to figure out how to brace would be like if somebody was going to poke you in the stomach or punch you, how would you brace? Your gut or your. Your core. That's how you brace. So you would just brace. You wouldn't necessarily draw in. You would also not necessarily push out. You would just tighten. So that would be the way that I would brace. And it is okay to let your core dictate the weight that you use, but slowly challenge yourself. The fear that comes post injury is real. Not only is it real in the sense that it makes exercises scary, it also Causes pain. This is what a lot of people don't realize. Pain is so complicated. It's not just a physiological phenomena, it's also a psychological phenomena. So people can actually feel pain because of pain felt in the past and because of fear of injury. The only way around that is the same way that you, I don't know if you're familiar with exposure therapy to people like fear of spiders. And they'll start with like a cartoon spider and then they'll picture of a spider, then a video of a spider, then a stuffy, and then little by little they get close to an actual spider. So it's going to be very, very incremental. They actually sell magnet weights that allow you to go up in weight by half a pound at a time. And so you can literally add a magnet to each side of your, of your 90 pound deadlift and go up to 90 and a half pounds. And you could practice that and take it super slow and you'll eventually get your, your, your yourself to a place where it's not so scary.

[Sal DiStefano]

I, I even, I mean, I love what you intuitively already did, which is, you know, you didn't push the weight up, you just slowed down the repetition and really focused on core bracing. Like, so this is an example of, you know, I'm two different clients I'm coaching. One client I'm coaching is not you. And we're talking about deadlifting. And so all the cues are related to getting more lift and getting heavier and power and speed. I'm training you and this is our focus. It's like I'm talking to you about your core the entire time. Like it's, are you bracing there? Are you staying taught? How do you feel like. And it's all related to being able to engage that core through the entire movement. And now can I keep that same weight that you've been able to do, slow it down even slower, maybe even pause in the middle of the rep and, and hold, embrace the core and then finish the rep. And so I'm going to be doing things like that with you. And that is a, that is a form of progressive overload. Because if you were doing a regular tempo, say of £90 or whatever and that, and you're afraid to go up any higher weight, you staying with the same weight but slowing that tempo down is a form of progressive overload. You will see benefit from that.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you ever, have you ever done any tension squats or dumpy squat?

[Doug]

No, I don't think so.

[Justin Andrews]

We'll send you a video on that.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I think that would be very valuable in terms of priming before you. You get into the. The squat itself is just, just. That's the entire focus is. Is how to brace for the entire rep from every single angle of the exercise and just, you know, taking more time to not necessarily be so concerned about load. That's obviously the biggest concern is like, when, when does that, when. When does that release happen where you feel like, you know, you're. You're not able to brace and, and, and maintain that. So, you know, to go through that and just train that for a while builds up the confidence that, like, I have this and the feedback there is real for your body now to feel comfortable, that it's all accounted for.

[Justin Andrews]

So I'm going to throw a curveball at you, Jessica. So, but I need to ask you first, I'm going to assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you are hyper aware because of your past. You sound very smart. Sound like you know what you're doing. You're hyper aware of your core activation while you do exercises.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Justin Andrews]

So I'm going to throw you a curveball. I don't think you should focus more on your core. I think that's part of the problem. So I think hyper focusing on your core is actually causing more issues at this point. And it's. I think you need to trust more that you're going to be activating your core. So rather than sitting and focus with that, which is exactly what I would do with you in the beginning. In the beginning, I'd be like, we're focusing on this. Keep this tight. Are you bracing? But I think you've done that for so long and so much that it's now. It's now become a hindrance. So you might want to get into a squat, go lighter than 90 pounds, maybe go down to 50 pounds, and then see if you can squat without thinking about your core and trust, trust your body and slowly get to the point where it's not like this hyper focus. I've had people with histories of injury where it was debilitating. We got out of that point, everything looked good, movement looked good, but they were so hyper focused on the joint that they couldn't progress. And so I had to find ways of getting them to stop thinking about the area that they're so focused on. And I think that might be you, Jessica. I think what might be a good idea to practice and try is go light and don't think about bracing your core like you normally do. And just go into it and just practice squatting.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Does that resonate with you? Am I. Is that what's kind of what you think might help?

[Doug]

I think you're spot on. I hope. I think it's worth a. Worth a shot. For sure.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Because that hyper focus in combination with fear is going to get you to feel a lot of things that might be scary or might not even necessarily be there. Like, you know, even. Even people watching right now. If I got people to close their eyes and focus on the right hand, they would start feeling all kinds of things in the right hand. Coldness and itchiness and tingling and I'm just. I'm not comfortable. Hyper awareness can actually cause like hyperbody awareness, which is not common. Most people are not aware. But hyperbody awareness can happen after an injury and that can make people so cautious that they actually cause problems.

[Adam Schafer]

You feel like you are bracing as you're doing it. Right. It's. It's really just.

[Leslie]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Kind of seeps in.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So then Sal. Yeah, it's. I would.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. It's an interesting. I mean, it's. It's like a golfer gripping the club too tight. It's like a race car driver gripping the steering wheel too tight.

[Justin Andrews]

It's like relax.

[Sal DiStefano]

Trust. Trust your. Trust that you've practiced this skill a thousand times and you know what you're supposed to do and loosen up the grip a little bit. So.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, I think it's good insight. Sounds like he hit it. So that absolutely could be going on where you are. You're just gripping the steering wheel too tight. And you need to trust. You need to trust that you've put the work in happening.

[Adam Schafer]

It's there.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep. And all you gotta do is just go lighter. Just go lighter and then practice it without thinking so hard about everything.

[Doug]

Do you think there's any benefit to changing the depth of the squat? Right now I'm like just to turf, you know, all the way. But it's probably the hardest for me at 90. Really. And so I wonder. I know. I know. I heard you visit with another gal that was on your podcast and you told her she's probably resting when she gets to the bottom.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And so. And I'm like, maybe I am. I don't think so. I think I keep momentum when I go down.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, not a. Not a bad strategy to lighten the load and doing some of your sets like that. So I still think there's value in going forward full range of motion. But then have Some sets. So let's say we do. We do four sets of squats today, and two of them I'm gonna go full range of motion. And two of them I'm gonna shorten the range of motion up.

[Justin Andrews]

Here's what it would look like. Cause if you. If you feel like you're keeping tension, you probably are because of your experience and the way you're talking. I don't think you're sitting at the bottom of the squat relaxing. I don't think that's what's happening. Okay, so the way it would look and your sticking point is at 90.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, she's not sticking at 90.

[Justin Andrews]

She goes all the way.

[Doug]

I have full depth.

[Justin Andrews]

You said something about 90.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's where it's hard.

[Doug]

That spot that it feels like it's hard to overcome.

[Justin Andrews]

That's what I meant. Okay, so here's what you would do. You would do a full squat. Go lighter. You would do a full squat, and you would pause in the middle. So you'd come up and you'd hold that part that's hard for 2 seconds or 3 seconds or 5 seconds and then come up. But use a weight that's. That allows you to do that. Go light, and it would strengthen that. That part of the range of motion that you struggle in. That's. That. That would be the easiest way.

[Adam Schafer]

You would want to kind of squeeze a bit right there in the middle when you pause, just to re. Emphasize muscle recruitment.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it.

[Doug]

Okay. Super.

[Justin Andrews]

Awesome. Great job.

[Doug]

Do you think. I'll be brief, but I am curious that this doing a bulk and then doing a cut the way that I did it was very, very new to me. Normally, I'm hanging out in the maintenance zone. I've realized that. Do you think that's the most efficient way to build muscle? I know that, you know, you can just slowly increase your calories or you can do kind of mini bulks and mini cuts, but that changing gears just in my mind would take more time adjusting. Like maybe you wouldn't build quite as good as a strict bulk and strict cut. Do you have any opinion on the efficiency?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So a big part of this is a psychological aspect of always being in a bulk or always being in a cut. So changing gears tends to keep it fresh and new, and it tends to help with consistency.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Physiologically, there's not a lot of data to support some data that kind of suggests this, but I have a personal opinion, and I think that the muscle building effect from being in a bulk for too long starts to waver. And I think being a cut for too long starts to reduce its fat burning effect. And so I do like going in and out.

[Sal DiStefano]

I. I think it's mostly psychological. I. The truth is, the ideal world, you would hover in this around maintenance most of the time. And when you feel good, you eat more. When you feel strong, you eat more, and you go off of how you feel and allow the body to. That's ideal. Problem is, psychologically, that's difficult for people. Then they're questioning themselves, how do I feel? I don't know right now. Yeah. So it's easier to go, all right, next four weeks, I'm on a strict bulk. I'm just gonna add X amount of calories. And what happens in reality, what you already saw, what happened, Sometimes you were probably in a maintenance or even deficit. Other times you were a little bit in a bulk. Ends up at the end of it, you weren't really much of a bulk. So psychologically, it might be easier for someone like you to go, okay, I'm gonna go on an aggressive 500 calorie bulk for the next three or four weeks, and then cut back down. But reality is, the perfect world is actually not really doing any of that and kind of living more intuitively and feeding the body when it feels like it needs more. And when you're getting good strength gains, you got a great workout, Give it extra calories, times that you're less active and you didn't get a good training session in, pull back a tiny bit. Like, that's kind of the ideal world. That's just a little bit more difficult.

[Justin Andrews]

Most of my clients that were in your position, I would bulk them leading into the holidays because it works great with the holidays. And they would start a little cut leading into summer because that's what they were interested in. And then everything else was around maintenance that just. It just worked well with lifestyle.

[Doug]

Yeah, good. So it's about sustainability. I mean, sustainability always trumps.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right. Yeah.

[Leslie]

Okay.

[Doug]

All right, well, thank you so much. I feel encouraged and I can have a little bit of a direction to go. And I just, I appreciate your time.

[Justin Andrews]

You're doing great. Your arms and delts look amazing. I can't believe you have eight kids. I remember you said, that's phenomenal. Great job.

[Adam Schafer]

Very impressive.

[Doug]

Thank you. They're awfully proud of me.

[Sal DiStefano]

They should be. They should be.

[Doug]

My husband, too, you should hear him talk about, you know, I mentioned I was going on this podcast and he's like, no, it's like, you know, the podcast. You guys are awesome.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you so much.

[Doug]

Take care.

[Justin Andrews]

You got it. What a badass.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Justin Andrews]

So awesome.

[Sal DiStefano]

She got bicep vein. She's got eight kids.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You know what she was saying about pain is, you know, in the over emphasis on like a part of the body. It's not common. You know, typically when we train people, it's like disconnection. I can't feel this. And focus here. Can you feel this? But you know, based off what she was saying and I, you know, that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Sounds like you hit it on the head. So just gripping the steering wheel type over. Overthinking. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And you overthink.

[Sal DiStefano]

And that's very much a real, like, that's why I brought the analogy of race car drivers and golfers. It's a very real analogy for, for somebody who knows all the form and the basics is just like you're gripping it too tight. Loosen up. You've done the training. You know what to do right now.

[Justin Andrews]

Trust it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, trust the process.

[Justin Andrews]

Look, if you like the podcast, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at mindpump. Distefano. Adam is at mindpump.

[Zoe Saldana]

Adam, 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, thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.

[Doug]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.