2641: Five Ways Your Emotions Are Making You Fat and Unhealthy and How to Fix Them & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Episode 2641: Five Ways Your Emotions Are Making You Fat and Unhealthy and How to Fix Them & More (Listener Live Coaching)
Release Date: July 16, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 2641 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews delve into the intricate relationship between emotions and physical health. The episode primarily focuses on five emotional factors that contribute to fat gain and overall poor health, offering science-backed strategies to mitigate these effects. Additionally, the hosts engage in live coaching with listeners, providing personalized advice and fostering an interactive environment.

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1. Stress-Induced Hormone Changes

Adam Schaefer initiates the discussion by addressing how chronic stress alters hormone profiles, particularly focusing on cortisol dysfunction. He references a 2017 study in Obesity that found a strong correlation between elevated cortisol levels and increased abdominal fat, especially in women.

• Quote:
  Adam Schaefer [03:43]:
  "The group with the therapist tends to do better."

Key Points:

• Chronic Stress vs. Acute Stress:
  While acute stress (like exercise) is beneficial for adaptation, chronic stress leads to persistent cortisol elevation, promoting fat storage.

• Modern Stressors:
  Unlike ancestral stressors (e.g., hunting or hiding from predators), modern stressors like constant notifications and global news create a perpetual state of stress.

• Behavioral Impact:
  Stressed individuals consume about 20% more calories from comfort foods, acting as a form of self-medication to achieve temporary relief.

Listener Insight:

• A caller emphasizes how emotions rule decision-making, affecting daily discipline and discipline in health routines.

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2. Emotional Eating, Depression, and Anxiety

Adam Schaefer expands on emotional eating, citing a 2020 study from the International Journal of Eating Disorders which reports that:

• 60% of individuals with depression engage in emotional eating, consuming an average of 500 extra calories per day during depressive episodes.

• Anxiety increases snacking frequency by 30%, contributing to significant caloric intake without conscious overeating.

• Quote:
  Adam Schaefer [12:35]:
  "Solving that makes a huge difference."

Strategies Discussed:

• Awareness Over Restriction:
  Instead of forbidding the behavior, clients are encouraged to write down their feelings before eating. This creates a mental barrier and fosters self-awareness.

• Gratitude Practices:
  Incorporating gratitude can shift the brain’s focus from stress-inducing thoughts to positive reflections, effectively reducing anxiety and emotional triggers for overeating.

Listener Insight:

• A listener shares personal experiences of emotional eating as a coping mechanism, highlighting the difficulty in breaking the cycle without addressing underlying emotions.

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3. Sleep Disruption

Adam Schaefer highlights the critical role of sleep in regulating hunger hormones. Referencing a 2019 Sleep Journal study, he explains that:

• Less than 6 hours of sleep per night can increase hunger by 24% and fat gain by 26% over time.

• Quote:
  Doug [20:58]:
  "Just knowing that was a big help for me."

Key Points:

• Hormonal Balance:
  Poor sleep disrupts hormones like ghrelin and leptin, which regulate hunger and satiety.

• Sleep Hygiene:
  Establishing a consistent sleep routine—including winding down an hour before bed, reducing blue light exposure, and maintaining consistent bedtimes—can significantly improve sleep quality.

Strategies Discussed:

• Preparation:
  Mentally preparing for potential cravings due to poor sleep can help individuals resist unhealthy food choices.

• Consistency:
  Keeping consistent sleep and wake times, even on weekends, helps prevent "jet lag" effects on the body’s internal clock.

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4. Low Motivation

Addressing low motivation, especially stemming from low to moderate levels of depression and anxiety, the hosts discuss how it can lead to a "frozen" feeling, making it difficult to engage in activities that could alleviate these emotions, such as exercise.

• Quote:
  Adam Schaefer [25:35]:
  "Starting an exercise routine makes you want to feel better, which makes you want to exercise more."

Key Points:

• Positive Feedback Loop:
  Engaging in physical activity can create a self-reinforcing cycle where exercise improves mood, which in turn increases the desire to continue exercising.

• Starting Small:
  Setting tiny, achievable goals (e.g., a five-minute walk) can help break the inertia. Often, completing a small task leads to further motivation.

Strategies Discussed:

• Incremental Steps:
  Encouraging clients to start with minimal effort, gradually building up as they experience the benefits of movement on their mood.

• Accountability:
  Sharing goals and progress with others can provide additional motivation and support.

Listener Insight:

• A discussion among hosts illustrates how integrating gratitude and small movements can significantly lift one's mood and motivation levels.

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5. Mindless Eating/Boredom Eating

The final emotional factor is mindless or boredom eating, where individuals consume more calories without conscious intent, often triggered by distractions such as device usage.

• Quote:
  Adam Schaefer [16:00]:
  "You’re distracted from your body's signals of satiety."

Key Points:

• Distraction Leads to Overeating:
  Eating while engaged with phones or other distractions can lead to 15% more caloric intake as the brain is less attuned to hunger and fullness cues.

• Mindful Eating Practices:

  • Sit Down to Eat: Avoid standing while eating to increase awareness.
  • Limit Distractions: Reduce or eliminate phone usage during meals.
  • Slow Down: Put down utensils between bites to savor food and recognize satiety signals.

Strategies Discussed:

• Environmental Control:
  Creating a dedicated eating space free from distractions can help control portion sizes and reduce unconscious overeating.

• Behavioral Techniques:
  Journaling thoughts before eating or practicing mindful gratitude can interrupt the automated response to reach for snacks.

Listener Insight:

• A caller shares experiences of mindless snacking during activities like driving, underscoring the need for increased awareness and intentional eating habits.

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Conclusions and Insights

Throughout Episode 2641, Mind Pump effectively illustrates the profound impact emotions have on physical health and weight management. By identifying stress, emotional eating, sleep disruption, low motivation, and mindless eating as key emotional culprits, the hosts provide actionable strategies grounded in scientific research to help listeners overcome these challenges.

Notable Takeaways:

• Holistic Approach:
  Addressing emotional health is as crucial as diet and exercise in achieving overall fitness and well-being.

• Self-Awareness:
  Recognizing and understanding emotional triggers empowers individuals to make healthier choices and break detrimental habits.

• Consistency and Balance:
  Maintaining consistent routines, especially in sleep and eating practices, forms the foundation for sustained health improvements.

Final Quote:
Adam Schaefer [26:15]:
"Exercise is one of the most Powerful anti-anxiety antidepressant interventions. Based on all the data, it's more effective than anything."

By fostering a deeper connection between mind and body, Mind Pump encourages listeners to adopt a balanced and informed approach to health, free from industry myths and pseudo-science.

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Connect with Mind Pump:
Follow the hosts on Instagram @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin & @mindpumpdoug or visit mindpumppodcast.com for more insights and expertly programmed training protocols at mapsfitnessproducts.com.

Transcript

[Sal DeStefano]

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

[Adam Schaefer]

Mind Pump.

[Justin Andrews]

Mind Pump.

[Adam Schaefer]

With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast in the history of podcasting. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, live callers called in and we got to coach them and help them on air. But this was after the intro portion of the episodes. Today's intro was 55 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness, fat loss, muscle gain, family life. It's a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this, email us your question liveindpumpmedia.com now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organifi. Today we talked about their Creatine Cherry Chews. They're delicious candies with a full serving of creatine. By the way, the creatine is provided by Creapure, which is a great company. Go check them out. And by the way, between the 14th and 15th of this month, you'll get some free cherry chews with any two products. So you can stack them and then you can add 20% off. Go to Organifi.com that's O R G A N I F I.com mindpump use the code mindpump. Get that discount and then don't forget the free cherry chews that you can get. This episode is also brought to you by prx. This is the best home gym equipment you'll find anywhere. Anywhere. By the way, you can get their home gym equipment and make monthly payments. So it's like a gym membership, except it's your gym now. They're famous for their squat racks that fold into the wall so they only come off the wall six inches. Then when you want to use it, you unfold it and boom, you have one of the most stable, strong squat racks you can find. But they sell all kinds of gym home gym equipment. Go check them out. Go to prxperformance.com mind pump on that link, you'll get 5% off. We also have some sales on some workout programs this month. Maps Split in the Anabolic Metabolism bundle of programs. Those are all 50% off. Head over to maps fitnessproducts.com and then use the code july50 for that discount. Here comes the show.

[Doug]

T shirt time.

[Sal DeStefano]

And it's T shirt time.

[Doug]

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

[Sal DeStefano]

Three winners this week. Two for Apple Podcasts one. For Facebook, the Apple podcast winners are True Blue Coug and Shivamalia999. And for Facebook, we have Danny AllenSub. Gross. All three of you are winners. Send the name I just read to itunesindpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right to you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Are you being secretly sabotaged by your emotions? Stress, anxiety, fear? Is this making you fat? Yes. There are five surprising ways your emotions are getting in the way. Let's get into it.

[Doug]

I just read a thing, so I didn't want this direction. I just read a thing that said that 90. It was in the 90. 90 something percent of all the fears and thoughts that we have that are, like, negative or bad in our head don't even happen.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, yeah, it was a crazy stat.

[Doug]

It was like 90. Yeah. It's like, stopped me in my tracks. Like, come on, that's got to be exaggerated. So I, I didn't have a chance to, like, go down the rabbit hole of, like, trying to really get to the bottom of the research on that to see how accurate it was. Yeah, but it just. Since you brought this up, it just now landed. I was like, oh, that's interesting you went this way because I just read that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Here's why I'm going here. I saw some study, I've talked about this on the show before, where they've done studies where they'll take obese individuals. So they'll divide them up into groups. They'll take this group and they'll say, you're going to work on cognitive behavioral therapy, or you're going to work with a therapist over the emotional roots of your obesity. And then they'll take this other group and say, you're going to work out and eat. Right. So we're going to tell you what to eat. We're going have you exercise. Yeah.

[Doug]

Who's more?

[Adam Schaefer]

And the group with the therapist tends to do better. Yeah. And then there's other studies that combine it all, and they succeed at far higher rates than people that don't tackle those reasons. Now, I've talked about this on the, in the, on the podcast before because I've trained people for, you know, over two decades. So have you guys. And, you know, probably 10 years of my career, I realized this is, this is where the success is. It's talking and getting to the root cause of these behaviors. Not the behaviors themselves, but rather why they occur in the first place. And doing that made a huge difference in my success with my clients.

[Caller]

I mean, it makes sense. I mean, I feel like emotion can really rule over your decision making process if you don't have a good handle over it. And I know that that's, you know, it's a big, big influence on like what I'm going to set myself up for, for the day and like how I'm going to be able to get through these type of disciplines that I need to do.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, a big, a big mistake that health and fitness people will make because they're fitness fanatics. So they, they're not like the average person, they're fanatical about it. And what they do, they make two assumptions. One, they assume that everybody else can become a fitness fanatic, which is something not the case. And two, they assume that the message that they, that they've communicated to themselves, the one that most people will ascribe to or subscribe to, and what they end up saying is something like food is fuel, food is energy, food is nutrients. But that's not how it works in the real world. Food is so complicated, our relationship to food is so complicated that entire cultures, you know, are created that revolve around food. There are different foods for different celebrations and we rarely ever eat because food is fuel in modern societies. So this topic we're going to talk about is probably one of the most important ones for people who struggle with this, you know, with any degree of challenge. Now I'll start with the first one, which is stress induced hormone changes. So chronic stress, chronic long term stress, not the stress is normal. Your body requires stress to adapt. Exercise is stress on the body. That's why you become more fit and stronger and you can't live a stress free life. That's impossible. Life is challenging. We get older, things happen, but the kind of stress that sticks around and lingers causes some pretty nasty changes in the body. Now there's some theories as to why that affects us so poorly. And one of them is that we weren't supposed to be under that kind of stress all the time. It was supposed to be, oh, I can't find food. I found it. Oh, I don't have shelter now I have it. Oh, there's a lion now he's gone. So stress gone, stress gone, safe. But we tend to live in a world now where, you know, I'm getting texts and emails from people, I'm being informed of the entire world. So although right now my life seems pretty safe, if I wanted to, I could read endless articles on why it's not safe and why it's so Scary. And what is going on, you can.

[Caller]

Find it really easy.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right. And so what this creates is a hormone profile that promotes fat storage, in particular cortisol dysfunction. And I brought up some studies here. There was a 2017 study in Obesity that found that high cortisol levels, or I think more accurately inverted cortisol, where it's low in the morning, high for the rest of the day, it's strongly correlated with greater abdominal fat, especially in women. Stressed individuals also tend to consume about 20% more calories from comfort foods. So one way that we tend to make ourselves feel better when we're moderately stressed all the time is to eat things that are hyper palatable. Because while you're eating a donut or a cookie or something that you really enjoy in that moment, you notice temporary relief. And so you're medicating yourself essentially.

[Caller]

There's social elements to that where it's like an association and it kind of brings you into that thought process and it helps to kind of cope with whatever stress you're going through. So, yeah, emotional eating has always been one of those things that is a really hard thing to battle when that is sort of your go to comfort.

[Doug]

Totally bringing back to the point that I brought up, I find it interesting that it's like how much of this is real. Yeah, real stress and how much of it is just perceived? How much of this is that you just believe all these things are so bad. So this and how much of it actually, I mean, you bring up the, we're not being chased by lions. It's like how much of this stuff that we make into stress and big problems is even necessary?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, a majority of it I think is self created. Because to just piggyback off this. When you take these same individuals and they follow a spiritual practice or they do therapy or meditative practice or mindfulness, you see a dramatic reduction. You see a dramatic reduction. And in many of those cases, they didn't change necessarily the circumstances. They still had the same job, the stress of their kids.

[Caller]

They still had the reframed and they offload it too. A lot of people don't know how to offload the stress.

[Adam Schaefer]

And a lot of. And some of this is even a gratitude practice. Like I brought up spiritual practices which involve lots of prayer and praise. I've experienced this recently every other hour. What I try to do is reflect on what I'm doing, grateful for that happened the previous couple hours. Just so it's very specific. And what I'm finding is I miss a lot. Yes, there's so much stuff that I miss that I can be grateful for because I take it for granted. Like this sunny day or I went for a walk and oh, my God.

[Caller]

You know, or you're anticipating problems to your earlier point. They don't exist. So your thoughts are there and you're not right now.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. We're not wired to think about the good stuff. We're wired to focus on the negative. So you have to consciously make that choice. And here's the cool thing about neurobiology with that. When you're being grateful, the. The brain shifts from the part of the brain that processes stress and anxiety to the part of the brain that can't. That doesn't process that. So being grateful is actually.

[Doug]

You can't coexist the same time.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right.

[Doug]

Yeah. You gotta be.

[Adam Schaefer]

You can't be super grateful and feel super anxious at the same time.

[Doug]

I mean, it's arguably one of the more brilliant things that you've said on the podcast. I've actually adopted it personally since you've brought it up and I've shared it with several people as just a. Hey, what a. What a hack is. Because I know a lot of people have done the gratitude thing before and have run into the same thing. Either I feel like you're in one camp or the other. Either you swear by it and you're like, yeah, I'm all about my gratitude practice and it's changed my life, or you're the other person who might have tried it and been like, I did it. And the people that say that's because they. I think. I feel like they all come to the same conclusion.

[Adam Schaefer]

You started. It was the same repeated stuff.

[Doug]

I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my job. You're grateful for, like, the top five things that you're always grateful for and just simply. And I've been doing the same thing. I haven't put, like, an alarm or anything like that, but I'm just like. I'm consciously trying to try and do it at 11:00am and then at 1, you know, just random parts of the day. And then the things that you're grateful for are so different. So different.

[Adam Schaefer]

Isn't it weird?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And, like, you miss it otherwise.

[Doug]

And then it really. It just changes that day. It just. That day just gets exponentially better. Even if there was anything great going on, per se, because of how much it shifts your perspective.

[Adam Schaefer]

So what's the bottom line with this? I'm gonna sell it real hard to the People listening. Cause most people listening wanna improve their health and fitness. If you do this and lower your overall stress, the data shows you'll get leaner, that your behaviors will start to change and you'll actually change you. That's right. The next one is emotional eating, depression and anxiety. In particular, there's a 2020 International Journal of Eating Disorder study that reported that 60% of individuals with depression engaged in emotional eating, consuming an average of 500 extra calories a day. During depressive episodes. Anxiety increases snacking frequency by 30%. Again when you feel chronically, you know, kind of low to moderate levels. So we're not talking about the crippling, you know, depression anxiety, like you need that treated right. We're talking about the kind of moderate level, low level depression kind of feeling blue, that anxiety that kind of lingers in the background. You just want to break from it. If you guys have ever felt this. I have. When you kind of have that all day long, 20 minute break is amazing. And an easy way to do that is to self medicate with food or snacking in that moment. Or alcohol. Or alcohol or anything else.

[Caller]

Big one.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, yeah. And so it contributes to this increase in caloric intake. So solving that makes a huge difference. So what I did with my clients who struggled with this is when they felt blue or like anxious and they started reaching for snacks. I didn't tell them not to do the behavior. I didn't say like, no, don't do it. I said before you do, write down what you're feeling and then go ahead and do it.

[Doug]

Well, I wonder it made a difference, some barrier there. Now hearing, I mean, I never did this with clients, but now kind of putting together the whole gratitude throughout the day thing. This is something. If I was a trainer still training clients and I had a client that was struggling with the snacking or emotional eating, I would actually say, like, I'm not going to tell you, you can't. I just want you to write three things you're grateful for before you.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's another great one.

[Doug]

I mean, what a hack, what a hack that would be. It's like that's really telling the client that, not that they can't do it. Just, hey, before you do it, do this for me. Right before that, sit down, write out the five things you're grateful for in that moment and then go ahead, have the thing and see what happens. It would be interesting, It'd be really interesting to see how many people would either one, adhere and actually do the step or else they'd be like, no, I didn't even do it. And then, of course you ate. Or how many people, like, did the thing. And they're like, you know what? I'm okay.

[Adam Schaefer]

I remember we had dinner years ago with Paul. Check. And this was before I, you know, I even had a faith or anything like that. I was at this point, pretty atheist. But what he did it before dinner was he did this strange prayer. And I say strange because it doesn't. He doesn't follow any real, like, specific religion. But I remember him. He. He put his head down, and it looked like he paused. And I said, hey, I didn't know you were, like, religious. He's like, well, I'm not. I said, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm asking my body if this is what it wants. I'm asking, you know, I'm. I'm t. I'm considering the food and what's in the food. He like, basically all he did was pause and essentially do what would be, I think, equivalent or similar to, like, a prayer. And then I realized, like, oh, yeah, if you're spiritual, if you make a conscious effort to do a short prayer, it probably does bring awareness and a little bit of gratitude and kind of do something similar. Just that pause, because that's what he did. He just paused and said. He's like, I talked to my body. Is this what you want? Is this good for you? Do you think you should? And I'm like, you know, when you imagine doing that before eating, like a Pop Tart, you know, you might be like, yeah, I don't think I watch Pop Tart anymore. You know what I'm saying? I think it helps. I think it might help quite a bit. Next we have mindless eating or boredom eating. Here's what's interesting about this one. If you eat while on your phone, because this is what we tend to do when we're, quote, unquote, mindless these days. We're on our phones, distracted. Yeah. So you're scrolling. It's mindless. Right. You're not really intentionally just. Just kind of going through. People who. Who are eating while on their phone scrolling eat about 15% more calories. Like, all. Everything else being the same. Yeah. Now why. Because you're. You're distracted from your body's signals of satiety. So it takes a bit longer for you to process. I'm done. So, like, imagine you're like, I want some chips. Okay. And you're about to watch a movie. Now imagine you're like, you know, What? I'm going to eat some chips. I'm just going to sit at the table. I'm not going to be on my phone. I'm just going to eat some potato chips. You're going to eat way less than if you ate the chips in front of the movie or on your phone. That mindless eating one is a easy way to cut 10 to 15 of calories.

[Caller]

It was fun. I was driving home from Truckee, and we had to stop, like, an i5. And there was just, you know, there's no options, like a gas station nowhere. You know, I'm just like, I'm seeing some chips. And I was just talking to Lay. I'm like, yep, chip, stop. And she was like, you'd be so surprised. Like, I cannot keep my racks filled enough with chips. Like, people are obsessed with chips. I'm like, of course. It's just like that. And think about how many calories you just cram in there so easily. They're just loaded with calories, and it's the easiest thing ever to just consume.

[Doug]

I think the part of not being distracted, too, is you. Because I think a lot of us have. Because I'm guilty of this Very, very much so. Of just some of my eating behaviors from always eating distracted, that even when I'm not distracted, you start to become aware of some things that, like, and you've talked about this before, where you're. You're eating a bite and you're already, like, shoveling the next. You're still chewing the food, and you're.

[Adam Schaefer]

Already not thinking about what's in your mouth.

[Doug]

Yeah. You're already, like, getting the next one ready, and you're like. And then you swallow. And it's like, if you just notice that and realize, like, again, don't tell yourself you can't sure enjoy the thing, but, like, actually eat it and swallow it before the next bite is cut. You know, say, like, watch what happens.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. There's some techniques of this, because the opposite of mindless eating is mindful eating. So what you do is you sit. So don't stand. You sit. You eat with your food. There's no distractions. And you put your fork down in between. Don't drink any water because that'll encourage you to chew and just do that. That. Okay, here's what the data shows on this, everybody. Let's say you want to cut your calories by 15 to 20%, but you don't want to try to cut your calories. You just want it to happen.

[Doug]

Yeah. You want to Eat the same.

[Adam Schaefer]

Just do that.

[Doug]

Yeah, just do that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Don't even change what you're eating. You'll eat less just by sitting at a table with your food by yourself and just paying attention to what you're doing.

[Caller]

Watch it.

[Adam Schaefer]

It slows. It's crazy. I did the mindless eating a lot too, Adam, because I trained so many clients during the day.

[Doug]

We're all the same with that, that.

[Adam Schaefer]

I had a client, you had five minutes.

[Doug]

So you shovel, you shoveled down, became.

[Adam Schaefer]

A terrible 500 calories.

[Doug]

And it was actually a competitive thing. It was like, how can I get this 50 gram, 500 calorie meal down before the next client's done warming up?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. I had actually had a client who worked in functional medicine who pointed it out because I was talking about my gut health. And he goes, and he saw me eat. He saw me eat once. I didn't train him for very long, but he did. He actually taught me something. He watched me eat. And he goes, you take your food like supplements. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, you put it in your mouth, you wash it down like they're pills. I'm like, does that hurt my digestion?

[Caller]

It would be doing that forever. And it's like, definitely backfired. Now I'm like, all the repercussions. I have to eat so slow. It pisses me off.

[Doug]

It would be a really fun experiment to take a group of people through a. A no diet. Diet, meaning we take all the, all the tips that we give. That has nothing to do with food choice.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's how I coach people at the end, Adam.

[Doug]

I know. And like really combined all of them. It's just like, hey, listen, I am. We're not even going to talk about the food you're supposed to eat, but we're just going to give all the advice of like mindful eating. The chewing so many times, the not why distracting. It's just like, let's just see what happens if you just set those parameters and not told someone. And I wonder just how successful a lot of people. I know you would, you would, you would miss on some things. Right? Like I'm, I'm aware that even if I do all those things that I tend to gravitate towards more carb heavy foods. And so I under. Eat protein.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So that one. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's not going to fix everything.

[Doug]

Right? Right. But I bet it would keep. At least it would keep you from putting on a bunch of body fat.

[Adam Schaefer]

So the clients that I did, what you're saying to are the ones that were so apprehensive to any kind of structure. Yeah. That I did that and it turned into. It was us about 8 to 10 pounds in 3 months of weight loss.

[Caller]

Especially momentum to build 8 to 10.

[Adam Schaefer]

Pounds of fat loss in 3 months without really watching and changing anything. Just doing those. Yeah. That's actually remarkable, by the way. It's not as easy as it sounds. So someone listening. I had a client. I'll give you an example. I had a client who did this. And because she was super apprehensive. So I said, okay, here's what I want you to do when you eat. You know, sit at a table, just you and your food. Don't drink any water. If you feel like you're going to go to the cupboard to snack, just write down a few thoughts. So I had a journal. Here's what she did. This is how difficult it is. She would find herself at the grocery store grabbing snacks from the little snack bins as she grocery shopped because she so badly wanted to. Mindlessly.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

To the point where like she came to me and she's. And we talked about it. She's like, I didn't even realize. I just realized it the other day. I still do that. She's like, oh my God. It's such a. It's such a pattern.

[Caller]

Just ingrained in it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Hard to break. Next up is sleep disruption. So there was a 219. Sorry. A 2019 Sleep Journal study that showed that less than or on average 6 hours or less of sleep per night increased hunger by 24% and fat gain by 26% over time. So poor sleep is a very difficult environment for fat loss. It's a pro fat gain environment. It's also an anti muscle.

[Doug]

Just knowing that was a, a big help for me. Just knowing the role it played in your cravings helped me out. Just because I.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because you knew you'd have cravings tomorrow.

[Doug]

And I think that's just. I think I, I can't stress enough to the audience.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's true.

[Doug]

Never just tried to pay attention to this. Like when you. It's like anything else. Like if, you know, Katrina jokes about this whole time, this is. Maybe this is just my personality. I don't know. Because she's like, if I take you somewhere that I know you're going to get irritated because there's lines or whatever. The thing is if I, if she gives me the prep before, I'm fine. You know, I'm saying like, hey, we're Going to go here. There's going to be a line. We'll probably have to sit. So true, bro. It is. And I'm like. Because I know, I'm like, you don't mentally prepare unexpected. Exactly. So handle number. Same thing goes with this. If I have a poor night's sleep and I know, oh, boy, sometime today, I'm going to just. I'm going to crave that weird greasy food that I never crave, and it's going to feel so strong and just telling myself that ahead of time. So that when it's like, oh, here it is. I knew it was going to come today. And it's like, okay, don't do it.

[Adam Schaefer]

You cannot understate what you just said, Adam. I'll paint a scenario. You're driving somewhere and you know that the place you're going to has traffic on the way there. Now imagine driving somewhere you drive to all the time. No traffic. You hit traffic, super.

[Caller]

You're stuck in it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes. So what you're saying is so, so important is if you, if you're like, oh, I had bad sleep, I'm probably gonna have cravings tomorrow. Makes a huge difference.

[Doug]

And again, not putting on these crazy parameters, but just the awareness around it really helps navigate that situation significantly better. And even if you have a hard time resisting, at least you're kind of aware of it so you don't go over the top.

[Adam Schaefer]

It definitely will mitigate some of the damage. Yes, for sure.

[Doug]

Big time.

[Adam Schaefer]

So with this one, it's just this. Create a sleep routine. You know, an hour before bed, prepare yourself for sleep. Turn the lights down. Blue light blocking glasses. Don't eat a chance. Go to bed at the same time every night. Wake up at the same time every morning, even if you have trouble sleeping so that you're not jet lagged every Monday because you went to bed late and slept in over the weekend. Like, those two things right there make a big difference with sleep alone. And then lastly, low motivation. This comes from low levels of depression, anxiety. It actually makes you feel frozen. You actually feel stuck. This is what it feels like when you're kind of struggling with this, like kind of low to moderate depression or anxiety. You don't want to do the very thing that may lift you out of it, which is move. And I remember Arthur Brooks communicating this. He said, the thing that you do is the thing you don't want to do. The first or first couple steps you need to force yourself and then watch the magic. Start small is what I would say. So there was a 2021 Journal of Affective Disorder study that found that depressed individuals are 40% less likely to to meet physical activity guidelines. So here's what you do. If this is you give yourself a tiny goal and say, I'm gonna walk outside for five minutes and then come back and sit down. That's it. What tends to happen? Not always, but what tends to happen is one, you get the five minutes because you forced yourself. But two, the five minute walk, suddenly you feel like going another five minutes or you want to do it again. This is also a recipe for anxiety. If you have like general anxiety where you don't want to be around, start small and say, okay, I'm gonna go to the grocery store or I'm gonna invite one person over that I feel comfortable being anxious around. And then what happens is it starts to kind of work through the problem. So this one is more of a, like, force yourself to take one small step, then the next steps are easier to take.

[Doug]

It's a behavior thing. And it's, and it's a. This was a big one for me too.

[Adam Schaefer]

A big one.

[Doug]

I had to learn myself. I think of it a lot like saving and investing. A lot of people sometimes will be like, well, I don't make that much extra money to save, or I can't invest, I can't get ahead. It's like you start even with the smallest commitment, it's $5. And what you do is you have, you play this game in your head going like, well, what? I'm never going to retire off of $5. I'm never going to get like this. But it's like, it's that attitude that keeps you from the next level of that. It's like, but just starting that, you'll see, oh, wow, I actually had 10 I could save this month. Or oh, same concept. It's like, totally. I'm going to go say to myself, you know what, I'm just going to go to the gym and do a set of squats, or go to my garage and do a set of squats. I'm not going to over commit to a big workout. But then what happens? And maybe that day that's all you do. But then you're like, oh, I did that. That wasn't that bad. And then tomorrow I'm like, I could do that again. And then it's like, oh, I'll do two more things. And before you know it, those behaviors start to compound and you have more.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now here's some good news. Exercise is one of the most Powerful anti anxiety antidepressant interventions. Based on all the data, it's more effective than anything. And unlike medications, it creates what's called a positive feedback loop. Okay, so positive feedback loop is a loop that continues to accelerate in a positive way because what you do impacts the next thing, which gets better, which makes the next thing better. In other words, starting an exercise routine makes you want to feel, Makes you exercise more, Makes you feel better, which makes you want to exercise more.

[Caller]

More energy.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes. So starting this process, as hard as it may be, actually gets easier as you continue because of the positive feedback loop. It's funny you brought up a vesting, Adam. There's this trending topic on X right now that is a little frustrating to see because people just don't have any idea. And it's easy to paint certain people as villains. So here's the. This is what's trending. Okay. Because it's all over right now that there's zero need for billionaires. Like billionaires shouldn't exist. Someone should not have that much money.

[Caller]

So they're. They're typing this in their smartphone.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So. So here. So this is why it's frustrating is because there's a couple, a few different reasons. One, in market based societies, a billionaire became a billionaire because they did something so impactful to society that we gave them billions of dollars. Yeah. So that's number one. Number two, and people are like, oh, they got government subsidies and this and that. Maybe that's true. But I'll tell you what, if I gave a hundred million, $100 million, okay. To any of those people, anybody to be gone, anybody out there, nobody would be able to turn it into a billion dollars, bro.

[Doug]

Nobody, nobody would be able to turn into $101 million.

[Adam Schaefer]

They wouldn't be able.

[Doug]

Nobody could take 100 million million. And if you let you purely put it away in an interest account, they compound it and then didn't spend.

[Adam Schaefer]

They couldn't double it, that's for sure. Oh, let alone a billion.

[Doug]

I don't think they could go 101.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's just.

[Doug]

I don't think you could. I don't think you.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's like giving someone a million to turn it. By the way, taking a million and turning it into 10 million is exponentially easier, however difficult it is, than it is to take 100 million, turn it into a billion. So when I hear people say, and then here's the third part, you're assuming that if we tax the hell. Because what they're making the case is that let's tax the hell out of them. Because why, who needs all that money.

[Caller]

That'S not going to have a downstream.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, you're assuming the government. Government's gonna do a better job with that money. Yeah, exactly. I think we've all learned that they're.

[Caller]

I think we.

[Adam Schaefer]

I know.

[Caller]

You know how good.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, I know. It's so frustrating.

[Doug]

What's so. Well, I think what's really frustrating for me too is, I mean, and I, and you love, I love talking to like somebody that is, you know, first or second generation immigrant that's come over here. That's why they came over here was for the American dream, because we, we, we have a country. Where did you guys see Arnold on the View not that long ago. Oh, that blew up in their face. They brought Arnold on the. On the View to talk about immigration and stuff and everything going on. And I think they intended for him to kind of go his way. And he was just talking about just, you know, how, how lucky we are to be here. Just that in America you could really come from nothing and say, I'm gonna go be. I'm gonna go do. I'm gonna go make. And there's literally nothing getting in your way of possibly doing it. But you're. And it's. You are capable of doing that. There's not a lot of places in the world that you can do that. And part of it is the way it's structured is that competitiveness that if you find a way to help others and serve others so good that millions of people give you millions of dollars, you. You can become a millionaire or a billionaire. And that's really what it is, is can you figure out to serve people in a way that people will continuously give you money. So it stacks up to be millions of hundreds of millions, maybe if you're lucky, billions of dollars.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And that's. You just can't do that anywhere else.

[Adam Schaefer]

The thing I like the, the, the, I guess the picture I like to paint is who would I rather have?

[Caller]

Because by the way, there's dysfunction, there's cronyism, there's. There's problems. And that gets highlighted all the time. But we're not focused on all the benefits.

[Doug]

It's the same thing in argument. It's a steroid argument. That's why I hate this argument too. It's like, you were an asshole before the billion dollars, you're just a rich asshole now. You know what I'm saying? You were an asshole before the steroids. You're just, just now it's like no one's saying. No one's saying. I'm nowhere. Am I defending all billionaires and say they're good people? No, like they're good at.

[Adam Schaefer]

They're good at making money. They're very good at providing services that a lot of people.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And products that a lot of people want. But the picture I like to paint is you have somebody who figured out how to do something that made them a billion dollars, which means they. They served a lot of people in some pretty remarkable ways or in ways that people want to be served. I'm not even saying that what they're doing is good because they could have created pornhub or something like that.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

My point is they serve like we gave them that money.

[Caller]

Yes. But do they voted for that with our dollars, which is more effective than the other voting?

[Adam Schaefer]

Who would I prefer to have that money, Them or the government? And then have the government figure out what. Not the government. That's for sure. Because we know what they do with money. So, yeah, so I see that. That going all over the place. I'm like, oh, man, I can't. That's what I was commenting. I could give you 100, $100 million. Do you think you could turn into a billion? Because I guarantee you wouldn't. I guarantee you wouldn't even make 10 more million with $100 million. People have no idea how challenging it is to do something like that.

[Doug]

You know, I. I get it. You know, I had some family that went through like, a layoff recently in their company, and, you know, I'd overheard them talking about their frustration, like, because this company lost a massive. Their largest account. And so they had to lay off all these people. And from their perspective, working in this, like, assistant manager type of role within the company, they were just, like, infuriated. The company laid off all these people, and it's like, well, they lost their biggest account that pays this company, that then in turn pays. But people don't see from that perspective, they see it as like, oh, my God, there's these people that have been working for this company for 13 years.

[Adam Schaefer]

And.

[Doug]

And just like that, they laid them off and they let them go. But it's like, if they don't, they're going to have to let go of everybody because they're not going to have a business at all because they lost this massive account. The responsibility of building something that supplies an income for people at all, meaning multiples or some of these companies, hundreds or thousands of employees.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like, that's a massive responsibility is continue to make profits.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's the main thing.

[Doug]

That's the main thing. And you are serving a ton of people and indirectly tens of thousands. Not only is your. Your product, your thing, whatever it is, I'm not arguing whether it's good or bad is helping or serving a ton of people, but also the amount of jobs you've created, not only are helping those people, those families, and all the people that they can impact indirectly. It's like, it's crazy.

[Adam Schaefer]

I know.

[Doug]

And it's crazy to think that those people shouldn't get rewarded based off the size or the amount of those people they serve and help.

[Adam Schaefer]

By the way, you know what I like to. When people like really debate this or argue this, I like to tell them, do you think that LeBron James deserved the money that he made in the NBA?

[Doug]

Yeah, of course.

[Adam Schaefer]

And they all say, well, yeah, of course. Have you seen him play? He's incredible. It's like, that's different than what we're talking about. He deserved it. He performed really well.

[Doug]

Yeah. And that's the irony, Sal, that argument. It's like, you know, how many. And I'm sure LeBron has a team of people he's applying, but I guarantee it ain't as much as Facebook or Google.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You know what I'm saying? Guarantee he's not providing as much jobs.

[Adam Schaefer]

And service for as.

[Doug]

As many people as the people that are running these massive companies.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then back to this. Like, like just, you know, the best thing, because we decide by the way, the market decides where things go. And the market is us. Yeah. So we don't like something the most.

[Caller]

Say in that direction.

[Adam Schaefer]

Don't give them money.

[Caller]

Your government versus, like free markets.

[Adam Schaefer]

A lot of people say, by the way, that they want something, but their actions don't support it. Like, I want, you know, local farmers, but they won't buy the more expensive local products. Yeah. Because they need to keep them in business.

[Caller]

I mean, this is all part of it.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. It's all about.

[Doug]

I mean, I don't know. All this is going to get shaken up, man. All this pointing the finger that this person makes that much does all this has all this, like, I. I feel like the whole dead Internet theory and AI thing is so much closer around. Have you guys noticed just your Instagram feed? Have you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Have you, like all the viral stuff is AI?

[Doug]

Yes.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Like, I felt like literally just a.

[Adam Schaefer]

Month ago, the influencer market is going to collapse.

[Doug]

It felt like a month. It already Is.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Felt like a month ago.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug]

Thank God.

[Adam Schaefer]

We were never good at it. I know, right?

[Doug]

So it's just sour old guys, you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Know what I'm saying?

[Doug]

Like, I'm so glad.

[Adam Schaefer]

That was horrible deaths.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I mean, it's not going to change. I mean, I don't know if the information will get better, but it's going to be AI personalities that are going to crush because they can produce better content faster. Put it out. It's more entertaining. And the whole influencer.

[Doug]

So the debate my buddies and I are having, it was like, I guess debate is a discussion that we were having. Like, he was asking me, what do you think? And we were kind of going back and forth. So when this. When this debt Internet theory plays out, which I feel pretty confident it's going to. I don't know if there's debate on that. We can debate that too, if you want, but let. Let's play that out, dude. And my buddy's like, won't. I'll just lose interest in the Internet. I'll. I won't care anymore because it'll be like that. I'm like, will you? I said, do you really think so? Because all the people you follow, you follow because of whatever thing. They're funny, they're entertaining. You ain't like, that's my friend. Exactly. They teach you about cards. They do. Like, what are the things? Like, I know he's in a different stuff. Right. So name all the things that you follow and you're into. What if I made all that even better? You're not going to follow it. Like, I don't know, bro. I say what I think. We'd have a lot of zombies.

[Adam Schaefer]

You want to talk about? I do, too. Do you want to talk about blessings? I feel so blessed that the medium of media that we chose was podcasting. We did that on purpose because you can't really communicate.

[Doug]

We're not handsome.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. We looked in the mirror. Let's do the one where they just face for radio. No, it was because, like, you can't communicate health and fitness effectively. You have to have conversations. Yeah. That's what it's like when you train people. But thank God, because the last media to get taken over by AI is going to be podcasting because it's long form. Yeah, that'll be the one that I think. And that's going to happen, too. That's going to happen too. At some point. It's gonna be a bunch of AI personalities. My cousin showed me a couple podcasts that Was all AI and I was cracking up. Like, wow, this sucks.

[Doug]

Yeah, it sucks right now, but it's gonna get good.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, not that it sucked. It's sucks to hear that.

[Doug]

It was actually pretty good. Oh, I was gonna say it's getting good already. It's not that far, but my buddies were.

[Adam Schaefer]

My.

[Doug]

We got on this top and there's all these cool already abs. He's. And because. Okay, so there's three of us. One of my buddies is, like, almost oblivious to it. My other buddy, my. Who is a teacher and stuff like that, is, like, very privy to a lot of it. And he's many areas further along, even though I'm in this. This space because he's in high. He's in high school, a bunch of kids. So he's like. So we're sitting right there, and he's. He's talking about how good AI don't think you do and why. We were talking. He. He. I see him on his phone kind of messing, like, literally two minutes. And then all of a sudden, he had drafted this, like, custom video from Donald Trump to him talking, like, all this personal stuff about him. Yeah, it was. And I mean, it looked like him. It sounded like him. It was a video. Was talking to you. Justin Preston with a small penis. I just want you. My buddy did that while we're talking and then had that. And he was like, what? He's like, yeah, that's how easy and fast it is, bro. He's like, it's only a matter of time before all the.

[Adam Schaefer]

Which makes me 100. Although I didn't need this, but 100. Do not believe the new surveillance take from the Epstein. No. They're like, oh, oh, we have the surveillance tape, guys. We didn't lose it after all. Oh, nothing happened. And then all of a sudden.

[Caller]

Yeah, they don't have a list. He never had a log or a list. Like, just. Come on, dude.

[Adam Schaefer]

Baloney. He killed himself. He didn't kill himself.

[Doug]

Yeah, we know.

[Caller]

You can't just say you can't release it.

[Adam Schaefer]

They're releasing the video, so they can't.

[Caller]

Release the real stuff.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, the FBI came out like, oh, we did investigation.

[Doug]

I mean, this has to. I mean, don't you guys think. Because obviously now, between having Biden and Trump in there, this is not a left or right thing.

[Adam Schaefer]

This is.

[Doug]

This is a power thing.

[Caller]

This is world power.

[Adam Schaefer]

They got everybody.

[Doug]

Everybody, Everybody. Everybody's in it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah. Everybody wants to point the finger and be like, oh, I bet so and so is like, to Be honest, everybody.

[Caller]

All these are on.

[Adam Schaefer]

And what makes the fear that I would have is, would we want to know. Could you imagine if the truce came out and it was. And it implicated all the biggest leaders and celebrities and people. And I think people would just not believe it. I mean, that's crazy. It can't be. It can't be all those people. That's impossible. That's a world cabal. There's no way. Yeah. I think it would just shake things up so hard that people would.

[Doug]

That's a good question. If that came out, would we believe it? Probably not.

[Adam Schaefer]

It was just leaders on both sides of the aisle. Other countries just like your religious leaders.

[Caller]

Like, even if it is true, nobody's going to do anything about it. That's just the bottom line.

[Adam Schaefer]

Or it would turn into like anarchy because it would turn into execution.

[Doug]

Power structure.

[Caller]

Yeah, it's. It's every. They hold all the keys, they hold all the buttons. Like, what are we supposed to do about it?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You know, on the topic of like shadiness and so that. Did you guys ever get a chance to watch James Smith, his video that he did on all the fake creatine gummies? Did you watch it?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, it's good, bro.

[Doug]

He.

[Adam Schaefer]

I appreciate what he did. I know he took a bunch of creatine gummies and he tested a bunch of them. Third party testing. And a significant percentage of them had nothing. Nothing. They're just candy, bro. He got people straight up gummy. They're just eating candy, bro. They buy a $70 bag of candy with nothing in it. Unbelievable.

[Doug]

Yeah. And for a premium price. I.

[Adam Schaefer]

We work with companies that make like Organifi has the cherry chew legit, by the way. I've had.

[Doug]

I feel like you could taste it.

[Adam Schaefer]

You can. This is what I'm gonna say. This is what I'm gonna say to everybody right now. When you eat a creatine gummy, like the cherry chews or, you know, you find one, you eat it. You could tell creatine's in it because it's a little bit of the grittiness is in there. A little bit of it's in there. It's not like a smooth, perfect gummy.

[Doug]

It's like taking your. It's taking like taking your medicine gummies, your vitamin C gummies. It's good for vitamin C. It's some medicine, but it ain't like Sour Patch Kid good. If your creatine gummies like Sour Patch good, you got something going on. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because the cherry chews taste Good. And they've got good ingredients for creatine. And I know, I know they're legit because I, because I, I trust them very much. They work with crepe pure, which is a company that like, that's legit creatine. But when you eat it, you, you could tell there's creatine.

[Caller]

Yeah, you could tell a little bit of graininess there.

[Adam Schaefer]

There. Yeah. And now too good to be true. You know what it reminds me of? Do you guys remember that one time we were up in Truckee and. I don't remember. It's probably Adam that convinced us to get some ice cream.

[Caller]

Oh, he takes me down first.

[Adam Schaefer]

But I was eating ice cream. We were watching a movie and I was eating out of a small pint and I was eating, I was like, oh my God, this is the best dairy free ice cream I've ever had in my entire life. And remember this? I ate like half of it. I don't know who pointed out. I think it was you, Justin. Like, I don't think that's dairy free, bro. And I look at it, it was wrecking. I was like, ah, have a panic. The worst stomach after that. But while I was eating, it reminds me of this, this creatine gummy thing while I was eating. It was too good to be true. This is, this is like they have really nailed this. It's the best candy.

[Doug]

Just the weights, like now what's interesting to me and what. And I have to ask James, I don't know if James is following like those companies that he called out, like, do they stay in business? Do people still keep buying after it's been called out? Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like they would come back with nothing, like almost nothing in them.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

It wasn't like a little off.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah. It's one bad. It's one thing if it was a little off or had added sugar added, things like that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, the two scenarios he painted, he said, I don't know what's worse. And I agree with him. Either they didn't know and they were fooled, in which case you're the worst CEO ever or you knew when you were fooling people, in which case you're the worst. So either way you're embarrassed. Yeah, terribly.

[Doug]

Yeah. I think that's a. I think, you know, I think you, I think you know, I think you know, you know how unregulated the supplement industry is and it's, and it's like a race to mark. And you also know that what sells better than the best supplements is the best Tasting supplements.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's all the categories. Supplements.

[Doug]

So you know those things and you're not the highest of integrity person, then it's literally a race to market. Can I get the best tasting?

[Adam Schaefer]

How many times does this happen, by the way? What bar was it? Was it Detour?

[Doug]

Yeah, Detour.

[Adam Schaefer]

That they were like, oh, my God, 30 grams. It was a canyon.

[Doug]

I remember that too, because I remember I. That was when that bar hit. There used to be a little.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because it was. Because it wasn't candy bar.

[Doug]

There was a liquor store right next to capital McKee that had them, and I was Crush them. Oh, I was crushing those. I was like, man, this is the best ever. Like, I get to eat candy and get jacked.

[Adam Schaefer]

It tastes like leather at all. And.

[Doug]

And when they got caught and they changed their formulation, oh, the taste changed so much. It was like, oh, this is no longer good. It went from like a Snickers bar to terrible bar.

[Adam Schaefer]

Those assholes. Yeah, I was eating those like crazy. Oh, I was eating them trying to gain muscle.

[Doug]

I was too.

[Adam Schaefer]

How much protein was actually in this at 30.

[Doug]

It was like 30 something. There was like 32.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's what it said.

[Doug]

Yeah, but it was like, oh, it was like.

[Adam Schaefer]

And yeah, that was like the peanuts. Yeah. That were in there.

[Caller]

That website that you could go on and just to see whether or not they had clinical.

[Doug]

Is that examining Exam. Exam.

[Adam Schaefer]

Do they.

[Caller]

Do they bring this up?

[Adam Schaefer]

Not specific companies.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, it's more about the actual general. The actual supplement.

[Doug]

That's who it's. You know, speaking of good companies. Right. You talk about Organifi Legion. Like those. Those guys. You go through places like that?

[Adam Schaefer]

They do.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's.

[Caller]

It's always interesting because they're like, yeah, let's go ahead and regulate, you know, because they're already ready for that and they're doing all the due diligence with all these studies on their own and paying for it. But yeah, it's. It's just. That's kind of the environment.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Dude, I got to tell you guys that went to watch. Are you guys. You might like this movie. I know you won't because it's too scary for you, but did you. Were you true. Yeah, it's true. Did you like the movie 28 Days Later?

[Caller]

Yeah, it was crazy that. That was like a zombie one.

[Adam Schaefer]

So back when that came out.

[Doug]

Didn't rob Zombie make that or something?

[Adam Schaefer]

No, that was a different one. No, his movies are.

[Caller]

Yeah, his are.

[Adam Schaefer]

Why? I don't understand. I don't get them Doug, can you look up 20 days later, the original one? When that first came out, that changed. At that time, a lot of people don't know this, especially if you're younger than we are. Zombie movies had become, like, stupid. Like, zombies were not the scary of all the monster. Yeah, yeah. They were the ones that we made fun of. Like, of all the monsters, of all the scary stuff. Like, zombies were like, don't use zombies. Nobody's scared of zombies. Yeah, that one came out when. Oh, boy.

[Sal DeStefano]

2002.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay. Wow.

[Doug]

Good rating.

[Adam Schaefer]

So. Oh, yeah, bro. So before 28 days later, nobody made zombie movies because they were stupid. Nobody was scared of zombies. Then they come out with 28 days later, and they change the formula to where they are fast, like chaotic and psychotic. And it was brilliant.

[Caller]

And I remember watching that was terrifying.

[Adam Schaefer]

Loved it. So then they had. The Second one was 28 months later, I think it was. I'm not mistaken.

[Caller]

I don't know if I saw that.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then the third installment, I just watched with my older kids 28 years later.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Doug]

Really? I didn't even know there was a series. I didn't know there was more than one. That was just one.

[Adam Schaefer]

No. So the original, amazing second. It's okay. The third one. So my two older kids, my. My oldest is. She's about to turn 20, and then my daughter, she's 15. They're both like me in the sense that they like, you know, stuff that, like, scary stuff. I loved it as a kid. So my daughter sends me a text. She's like, you know, papa, can. Can we watch 28 years later? I'm like, yes, let's do this. Like, nobody wants to watch this stuff with me, but Jessica will never watch that stuff. I'm like, let's go. So yesterday I take them both, we sit down and we watch. And it was. Bro, it was horrible. They went way too far with everything. Just too far.

[Caller]

It was just like the shock and awe kind of.

[Adam Schaefer]

It was not good. And now what I'm predict is it's still going to turn into a cult classic because I could see how some people are gonna like some of the weirdness in it and stuff and turn it into one of those. Yeah. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 88%.

[Doug]

Well, do you see? It was. It was shot completely on an iPhone.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Caller]

Oh, really?

[Adam Schaefer]

Because it gives you that feel.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think parts of it were not the entire thing.

[Adam Schaefer]

The first one has that vibe where it's kind of like.

[Caller]

So it's kind of raw and it feels like you're there.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Yeah, that's the first one was like, not a lot of special effects and, you know, like. But they went too hard, bro. It was like the gore was excessive. And then there were parts of it that were just like. Like, why?

[Caller]

Like, I liked Walking Dead and all that. And then they lost me because it became just like, let's kill all the human beings and, like, slaughter human beings, the innocent people. Like, what the fuck am I watching?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And then, like, the Hills have Eyes was the last real, like, scary movie I watched because it was just psychologically wrong for me to, like, put that in my.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's Rob Zombie, dude. Is it?

[Caller]

Whoever made that one needs to get their head examined.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, Rob Zombie. I watched. What did I watch of his? I actually turned it off halfway through, so I was like, this is too Farm Mutants.

[Doug]

That's his. It was just right.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like, they were like murder rape scenes that were just, like, excessive too, like.

[Doug]

Oh, I think that's what it is. I think they just keep pushing the shock and awe apart. Right.

[Adam Schaefer]

Push the balance of a thousand corpses. I think that was it.

[Caller]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I. I like.

[Caller]

I watch parts.

[Adam Schaefer]

I like scary movies.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's Rob Zombie.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. I like scary movies that are twisted. They make you think they're, you know, kind of.

[Caller]

There's got to be a storyline.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Caller]

It's like. It can't just be all, like, shocking on everything. Like, worst, like, things you can visually see.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what the storyline was for 28 days later. Right. It's. It's a rage virus. And if you catch it, you be. You become violent and you want to murder and kill people. Oh, okay. And you're fast. You're still fast and aggressive. So they're like, not kind of like bath salts. Yeah, but.

[Doug]

Well, isn't that what made the. Is that what made the Florida basalt thing such a big deal was because that had already came out. And so people were act like they're.

[Adam Schaefer]

Acting like the 28 years.

[Caller]

Some pranksters would be out there, like, acting all. Like there's all these videos. Well, there was some truth.

[Adam Schaefer]

There was some truth to that.

[Doug]

Well, that's right. Yeah, I heard there was.

[Adam Schaefer]

People would take. What was it called? Flocka. Was that the name of it? One of them. They would do one of the bath salts and enter psychosis. And they.

[Caller]

And one guy, like, jumped through a windshield.

[Adam Schaefer]

One guy ate his friend's face. Had to pull him off. Yeah, yeah. The cops had to pull him off this one. Florida. Yeah. So maybe. I hope I'm Correct. It was urban. Urban legend.

[Doug]

I know, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, I did hear a lot of stories. I don't know if I. Doug, put.

[Adam Schaefer]

Put. Florida man eats his friend's face on bath salts. Oh, my God. Yeah, I know.

[Caller]

People were. There was psychosis for sure happening.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Eats his friend. See, there it is. I think that's it.

[Doug]

Head flesh. Oh my gosh.

[Adam Schaefer]

Bath salts.

[Caller]

Cuz Also too, wasn't it? The artificial weed too was a big problem.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

People were going crazy with that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh yeah. See Miami face eating attack. Why is it always Florida, by the way?

[Caller]

Yeah, there's some characters out there.

[Adam Schaefer]

I saw. I've seen some newly released videos. Do you guys remember? It was. I think it was in Florida again. That. That mall in Florida where they're like, oh, my God, these aliens or apparitions showed up. Dude.

[Caller]

When that was like, later in the, like, pandemic.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes.

[Caller]

And what happened? That just kind of went away.

[Adam Schaefer]

I saw a recent video that came out that showed like, someone had their phone and like, like, okay, what was that movie doc? Is it Dr. Strange? Is that his name? Dr. Strange. I was gonna say Dr. Weird.

[Caller]

Dr. Weirdo.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's another guy. He. You know how he does that thing with his hand and it makes like a portal? Yeah, it looks like a portal. Like that was. Was. Everybody's freaking out.

[Caller]

So now we're talking about this. I. I have a little bit of like, knowledge to kind of drop here. So I've been watching and this is kind of my genre. I'll watch like Skinwalker Ranch or I'll watch Blind Frog Ranch. And like. Like this is on the History Channel, which I love.

[Doug]

I love that.

[Caller]

It's like, history. It's like there's nothing to do. It's old, like, paranormal crazy stuff. But so there's actually like this astrophysicist guy. He's legit. Like, I. I mean, in terms of like, his pedigree, whatever. Like, they actually bring all these scientists and this guy that owns the ranch now, Skinwalker Ranch, because of the phenomena, he like, bought it. He's like this billionaire and he's in aerospace, I think. So they keep like, buying all this crazy fancy equipment. And now they have lidar scanning abilities and like, all this like, crazy stuff for like, time lapse. And like, you can. So they've been finding some crazy there. Dude. They found like. And they keep shooting rockets up. And there's a spot up in. In the atmosphere where it literally will just stop. And it just frozen and suspended the rocket. The rocket.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then.

[Caller]

And They've showed like. And they mapped it out and they started mapping out all these different like points of.

[Adam Schaefer]

This is on Skinwalker Ranch.

[Caller]

Skinwalker Ranch. This is the latest season and oh.

[Adam Schaefer]

My God, like I'm going crazy with it.

[Doug]

Did you know this was a show?

[Adam Schaefer]

No.

[Caller]

It's like they're trying to prove that it's this weird like energy magnetic sort of like force field thing that goes all the way up into like, like a couple of miles up and then in a mile below the earth's surface as well. And it affects all of the electronics and all the equipment and like fire gets extinguished and like all this stuff. It's weird, dude. And they actually found.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's over the ranch though.

[Caller]

Yeah, over the ranch. And you guys remember the dire wolf thing?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Where they started to try and bring him back. That company Colossus.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, that's right.

[Caller]

So they sent this like it was a. Like a bones of this, this. They thought it was like a bear, but it was really. It was a wolf. And they sent it to get like tested and turns out it had some genetic ties to somewhat of the characteristics of like a dire wolf. And they found it on that property and so they're studying that right now and it did. I just. I recommend it and I know a lot of people think it's all go.

[Adam Schaefer]

Ahead, it's fun, but it's like they're actually.

[Caller]

It's one of those shows where they're actually like finding things and you're like, wait a minute.

[Adam Schaefer]

If there was a chart that, that tracked how many people started to believe this stuff and you started it in 2019 to now, that's got to be a fast growing. It has to be. So. Yeah. With all the stuff that's so many.

[Caller]

Sightings and UFO stuff. But it looks like. I don't know, man, it's. It's like when you fly over it, things get affected. It's weird.

[Adam Schaefer]

Could be the. Yeah, yeah. Like the Bermuda Triangle. Just. I want to ask you about the. The new PRX weight storage pegs.

[Caller]

Yeah, tell me about those. I. I've been looking at weight storage. Yes. There's a way you can actually like screw on these pegs to add extra storage in your rack. Oh, so the rack wall, you can actually do it like onto the sides of the rack.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's awesome.

[Caller]

So you can actually add there. So it'd be a lot easier with that weight transfer.

[Adam Schaefer]

I PRX home gyms are the best. Yeah, that's like a. That is the best home gym. You can have. Unless you have so much space that you just put. Yeah, but commercial equipment in there.

[Doug]

I still think that's crazy. I think it's the best across the. Across the board.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, the racks are more. The most stable racks I've ever.

[Doug]

So that's my point is like I have. I've had friends that were building. Oh, they're talking about all these other brands and beside dude prx. Even if you have the space and you don't want to fold, you don't have to. The fact that you could is. Makes it so. And it's. And it's as good or better.

[Adam Schaefer]

Better.

[Caller]

And they have freestanding ones that still attach to the wall. So it's like you fold it. But also it has the same structure and stability as any of the.

[Doug]

I love our new one. The new. The four.

[Adam Schaefer]

What do you call it?

[Doug]

Yeah, the four point or full cage. One that folds. Folds all the way together and stuff like that. I just. No, I mean, I think it's the. The way I remember before we started working with them being hesitant because I thought, okay, it's going to be kind of like it's all going to be about storage and not about the quality of the equipment and that they'll sacrifice. And then when we got it and I went, oh, this is like top of the line freaking equipment. And the fact that it's. Oh yeah, they. They seem to be constantly innovating too.

[Adam Schaefer]

And you can pay monthly.

[Caller]

So people can keep telling people, you know, they're partners of ours because, like, this is always a common thing. I want to set up my home gym and you know, and I just don't think people know. It's like, that's your best option, hands down.

[Adam Schaefer]

Have you guys seen that video circulating of. Do you guys know Brian Shaw is the strong man?

[Doug]

Yeah, of course.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Yeah. They did a bone density test on him. Yeah, he has the bone density of one. It's so rare. I would love a bone density test, by the way. I've never done one before. I just want to see where I'm at. His bone density was so rare, only 1 in 500 million people would have it. Obviously because he's such a.

[Caller]

He's a freaking huge giant.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then it made me think of something like, you know, I've wrestled with my kids, you know, sometimes I'll tease my wife and you know, you know, I had this conversation fact with my daughter. I've had it many times with her. She made a comment like, oh, if a man tries to do something I'll just kick him in the balls or I'll just, you know this. And I tell her, honey, you run like a man. I don't care how badass you think you are. You can even have a knife on you. And a man is probably gonna have. You need to run.

[Caller]

Yeah. Whatever you do is to get open you up, to free you to leave, get away.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like, I'll joke with my wife. My wife's strong, but I've had. I've played with her before. Right. Let's lay on her like, all right, now let's pretend like I died or something. Can you get out from under me? And it's a struggle. And so my. The reason why I'm going this direction is there's always. Especially with martial arts, the whole technique versus strength. I think sometimes get. Miss People get misled to think that because techniques very. Technique makes a big difference. Definitely. So the strength though, like. Oh, like if Brian Shaw.

[Caller]

There's a controlled environments, like, you know, we have rules.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Versus no rules.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, yeah.

[Caller]

Completely different things.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like, like if Brian Shaw wanted to, you know, if he was wrestling a 150 pound, like top wrestler, that guy would have a very.

[Caller]

He would.

[Adam Schaefer]

He would be able to smother him. He's just so big and strong, especially with no rules.

[Caller]

No.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, no rules. Yeah. He'd be able to kill him. Yeah.

[Doug]

No, there's a reason why they have weight classes and all that stuff. There's a reason. Because if it was. If it was even slightly interesting to not have weight classes, they wouldn't. And the weight classes are so close. That should tell you what a difference it makes you. It's not like. It's like, oh, you're either 150, 50, 180, 300.

[Adam Schaefer]

This is like 1850 to 200 clubs.

[Doug]

Yeah, they're like 6 to 8 pounds or whatever.

[Adam Schaefer]

152. Yeah. Did you see.

[Caller]

Was it Sean Strickland? I think the ufc? Yeah, he was. He had NFL linemen.

[Doug]

Oh, I saw that.

[Caller]

And they were like going to. To wrestle and just getting manhandled. It's like, come on, dude. That's like all they do all day long. They're just.

[Doug]

Yeah, he was trying to stop them is what they were doing. Yeah, he was. They were like linemen and they were just driving, driving.

[Adam Schaefer]

I guarantee they were like 50, 50%.

[Doug]

Because they didn't even look like they were trying to get after him that hard. They were just kind of coming off the line.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, man. And that's That's. So somebody wrote this. Somebody said this, and I believe this. They said being big and strong is a martial art. And I agree. Now, I'm not saying it's as good as a martial art for defending yourself. You want to really defend yourself. Well, get. Learn a martial art. Yeah. But if, you know, you get someone who's fit and strong and big, that's like, they know a martial artist.

[Doug]

Have you guys seen that? There's a. There's a viral clip from a podcast. It's. I think it's Amanda Nunes or it was one of the ex female UFC champions. And she's telling a story and they're talking about. They're. This is the conversation. They're really talking about weight class and men versus women and stuff like that. And she tells a story of like, Yeah, I, I remember when I learned my lesson and she was already a pro fighter at the time and working at like some restaurant or what that basically called the dude out behind the alley and to fight him, you know, and they, they got into it. It was like a six foot dude. And she, she tells. She actually tells it like blow by blow. Like, she's like. And then I rushed him, came back, and he knocked me out, and then I got back up and knocked me over. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Just.

[Doug]

She talked about how, how bad she got pummeled. Any guy has no fighting experience.

[Adam Schaefer]

Why would you do that? As a man, you have no. There's yours. No, you're in a. Lose, lose.

[Doug]

It sounds. It sounded like you beat her up. It sounded like from her. From the way she told the story that she. He kind of antagonized.

[Caller]

She was kind of bullying him a bit.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Still lose. Lose for a guy.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I mean, you're gonna win. You still lose.

[Doug]

Yeah. You don't. You don't. I mean, that's not gonna tell anybody about it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Beat up that girl. What do you mean? Oh, she's a pro fighter, though. Your buddies are still gonna razz you.

[Doug]

Yeah, no, you're right.

[Caller]

Tough guy, huh?

[Adam Schaefer]

Look, I know you've heard you are what you eat, but it's actually you are what you digest. Look, if you eat a high protein diet, sometimes you're not digesting it. Well, you got to use digestive enzymes, mast zymes. They're the best for fitness people. Take mass zymes with your meals. Break down your carbohydrates, your fats, your protein for better digestion, and get those amino acids, those fatty acids and that glycogen to your body. To fuel your workouts, help you build muscle and burn body fat, go to masszymes.com that's M A S S Z Y M E S.com mindpump. Use the code mind pump 10. Get 10 off. Here comes the show.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our first caller is Colton from Ohio.

[Adam Schaefer]

What's up, Colton?

[Doug]

Hey, how you guys doing? You're good?

[Adam Schaefer]

We're okay, man. How can we help you?

[Caller]

I just want to start off by saying I've been watching you guys for about five years and I love the content and I love the information you guys put out. My, my question is, is lately, for the past eight years, I've been training in kind of a bodybuilding style approach. I got two kids and I was just on some light hack squats about a month ago, and I don't know how, but I got hurt. So I've been kind of pampering that. And I've noticed since I've started training in a bodybuilding style of training, I'm starting to notice my body's getting a little stiff. I'm not able to move like I used to. So I was wondering if I was to switch my training over to a functional bodybuilding style approach, how would I go about that with trying to maintain as much muscle mass as I can that I've built over the last eight years?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, good question.

[Doug]

It's a mass performance.

[Adam Schaefer]

Have you been. So you've been really focused on bodybuilding style training for the last eight years? Yeah. Okay. You got to understand that the tightness and the, the mobility issues that come from that style of training is not the style of training, but rather the lack of. Of exercises. Yeah. That strengthen you in the different planes of motion. For example, lateral movements are typically devoid in bodybuilding training. You typically don't see a lot of rotation involvement. It's slow and controlled, which is fine. But you also don't get some dynamic movement. And so what happens, you get really strong in the areas that you're training, and the discrepancy between that and the other ways that your body can move becomes so large that your body, your central nervous system begins to limit your movement. Okay. Because it senses instability. Okay. So it's like a dragster. A dragster has very poor lateral stability. And if you wanted to take a turn, you'd have to really strengthen it laterally and probably reduce some of its power because the power going straight is so outmatches its ability to stabilize. Right. So what am I. Where am I going with this? If you've been hyper focused on Hypertrophy for eight years, and now you're going to focus on mobility. You might lose a little bit of muscle. It just, it just might happen. Is it now, is it, is it 100 guaranteed that that'll happen? No, but you might, because your focus is going to move to something else. But I will say this. In the long run, you'll have a better physique.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because what's happening, if you lose, you'll.

[Caller]

Gain, you know, tenfold.

[Doug]

I don't, I don't think you would, though, Colton. And the reason why is it'd be different if you were eight years and you were Ronnie Coleman esque. Right. Like that much of a bodybuilder. You've put on that much muscle and then you switch completely over to this kind of functional mobility. I think you'll not only maintain. I think there's a chance that you might see increase because you, you start to increase your capabilities. You introduce movements you haven't done. I think you're going to reap the benefits of that and be just as muscular, but also now more functional because you're doing that. And somebody who's been listening for as long as you've been listening, that you're a great example of somebody who I love to like, you know, take you through a program like, let's say mass performance, with running it just exactly how it is. And then you take from that what you learn. That, oh, wow, when I do these movements, it really serves my body. And so even though I love training like a bodybuilder, I make sure I incorporate, which is this, this, like, this speaks a lot to myself personally, is that I recognize, I tend to train like a bodybuilder. That's my default. And if I do that, I do tend to get injured because I, I, I neglect rotational movements. I neglect some unilateral stuff. But I also have found, oh, if I make sure I incorporate a few of those things, like from mass performance within my bodybuilding type routine, it's enough to give me everything that I want. And so that would be my advice, is to go there. But I, I think you, I don't think you're going to lose. Do you really think, you don't think he's gonna lose?

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, here's a two.

[Doug]

I know you should. I know what you're telling him that he should make peace with that.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right.

[Doug]

He's bought in.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because here's what's going to happen if you don't. Is you, you may perceive it, maybe you're not as pumped or I don't know, and then you're gonna back out. But here's where I'm going with this, right? So where I'm going with this is at the end, the end result is a more muscular physique. Because what's starting to happen is you're starting to get limited. Your muscle building potential is becoming limited by your lack of mobility. Yeah. Okay. So even if you did take a couple steps back with hypertrophy, which it wouldn't be a lot, so you lose 15 pounds of muscle, you might lose a little bit that only you can tell. I don't think anybody else will notice. Your wife will probably say, I don't see a difference, or anybody else would. You might feel a little bit, you know, like, maybe your biceps don't feel as full or whatever, but the end result will be more muscle later because right now you're hitting a wall and you're limited by your mobility. Maps performance is great. If you want something that's different and you like to challenge yourself. Old time strength would be great as well. Performance is more of a traditional athletic style of training. Old time is like, this is the way strong, strong men would train. You know, in the Bronze era, late 1800s, early 1900s. Strong map strong would even give you more functional ability. So, you know, which one do you think you'll have more fun doing? Like, what are you more into? Do you. Are you more into, like, the athletic style of training? Do you think training like a strong man from, you know, 1890 would be more fun for you?

[Caller]

I think it would be more the performance route because I've been kind of watching a lot of, like, high rocks training. Oh, perfect along that route. And I. The only challenge I've been running into is the gym that I go to. It's not the best gym. It's Planet Fitness. They don't have the best equipment. So I'm kind of having trouble with some of the programs that I have looked at, and that's why I'm kind of shocked that I got on your guys' show, because I wanted to ask you which one I should go with with you guys, because there's no alternatives with most other programs of, okay, well, if you don't have this equipment, then you can also use this. It's just this. You can only do this, equip this machine, and that's it. So it's like I've been kind of struggling to.

[Doug]

He should be able to do almost everything in performance in Planet Fitness.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, there's landmine exercise. Do they have landmine equipment there? No and no. No.

[Caller]

We just got hack squats and the bench press machine.

[Adam Schaefer]

I think you'd probably be better off than you could do everything in. In old time because they at least have barbells. Yeah.

[Caller]

It's just barbell and dumbbells.

[Adam Schaefer]

You'd be able to do everything in. In old time performance. There's going to be a lot of extra. You can replace them. Yeah. But part of what makes performance performance is some of the movements are free based. So I think if you're going to stay at Planet Fitness, I'm surprised they.

[Caller]

Don'T have a landmine there because, I mean, there's kettlebell, but you could replace kettlebell easy with dumbbells. And that's basically it. And it's. Most of it would be in the latter phases when we're talking about endurance. Because the first two phases, it's going to be pretty much barbell setup, bench and squat rack with some dumbbell inclusion. So not nothing too crazy too. With the landmine, you can always place it. I know this is kind of janky.

[Doug]

You might.

[Caller]

Just put it. Yeah. Shove it up against the corner. I do that all the time.

[Adam Schaefer]

But yeah, gyms don't like it.

[Doug]

They'll probably throw.

[Caller]

I'll get the lunk alarm.

[Doug]

Yeah. I'm just surprised that they don't have that. Do they have kettlebells? They have kettlebells there. No kettlebells.

[Caller]

Yeah, they have kettlebells. I think. I think it's £50.

[Doug]

So literally it's only the landmine we have to replace. We can use some cable movements instead.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, sure. All right. We'll send you performance and then try to modify the exercise.

[Caller]

Hit me up too. And I could always give you some. Some options with that.

[Doug]

Yeah, you should be able to do 95 of it. Anything you run into that you don't know, reach out to one of us or our team and then we'll call or call. Colton, are you in the private form yet? No, not yet. All right, I'll have Doug put you in there. So I'm. Doug put you in the private forum. Anything you run into, performance wise, you have a question that you can't do it there, just message us on there and then we'll.

[Caller]

We'll help you swap out whatever exercise you need.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay.

[Caller]

I really appreciate it, guys.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, Got it.

[Doug]

For sure.

[Adam Schaefer]

Thank you. Yep.

[Caller]

Thank you. Thanks for putting the content out there. You guys put out. I love it.

[Doug]

We appreciate the support, man.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what's crazy to me about. There's a lot of things about Planet Fitness that are crazy. It's crazy to me that they refuse to put like, like squat racks in there.

[Doug]

It's.

[Adam Schaefer]

I know what. I know why. I know what they're.

[Caller]

Because of the Smith.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Caller]

It's just Smith machine.

[Doug]

It's also part of this. It's like you've already dug your heels in.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Doug]

To be like to. To try and differentiate yourself.

[Adam Schaefer]

Here's what's crazy to me about this, Adam, is it promotes the idea. I know that cages are only for the meathead stereotype.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

But serious, the cages are valuable for old people. They're valuable beginners. It's the. It's the.

[Doug]

One of the most valuable, brilliant thing that Planet Fitness has done. And it's what.

[Adam Schaefer]

From a business perspective.

[Doug]

Yes. Is they knew what customers would pay a low bill and probably never show up. And that's who they're trying to attract. You're trying to attract other people. You're trying to attract other people that want to get better, that want to use the gym, that want to get good. They're in the business. And they know some guys like Colton who are serious. They're going to get a few of those guys. But they. That's not their custom. Exactly. Their customer is somebody who goes, wait for only nine bucks. And I get pizza twice a month. That already cancels out the fee. Like, I'm basically getting a free membership as long as I show up for pizza twice a month.

[Adam Schaefer]

The truth is, it's not that I'll say this. I know you'll agree. It's not that we're trying to attract people that want results. We're trying to get people results.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

So. And what they're doing is they're promoting this idea that is detrimental to people's health. And this is the fact. I was in meetings, by the way. I was in meetings with a large fitness company. One of the reasons why I left is I saw the writing of the wall. I remember them saying this. I remember them saying, these are the members we lose money on. And they literally talked about the members that worked out the most.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And I remember thinking, oh, this business model is backwards. Yeah. Like, those are the people we should. We should value the most highlight, not the ones we should look at as money loss.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our next caller is Chris from Wisconsin.

[Adam Schaefer]

What's up, man?

[Doug]

How you doing? Chris Abdin.

[Caller]

How's it going, fellas? How are you today?

[Adam Schaefer]

We're good, dude. How can we help you?

[Caller]

All right. So first, want to start off with the obligatory thank you. I'm 34. I've been living in or. I live in Wisconsin. I have three boys. Five. Three and one. And actually another kid on the way in February. So, yeah, statistics are saying that it's going to be another boy, so please pray for me.

[Doug]

Is that true? Is that what the stats say? If you have three, they're more likely to have another boy?

[Caller]

That's what our OB said. So.

[Doug]

Wow. Wow, you got an army, bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

You almost got.

[Doug]

Yeah, you almost got a basketball team.

[Adam Schaefer]

Do you at least have a female dog or something for her?

[Caller]

No dogs. I. I say I have three puppies, so I don't need another animal. But I've been a listener since 2017. I found you guys at a time when I was coaching high school powerlifting and lifting in the morning with my kids and then crossfitting after work. I was over training and just a little.

[Doug]

Just a little.

[Caller]

Yeah, just a little. So, like, listening to you guys, I'm, like, listening to the people that were calling in. It was hilarious because I'm like, you'd listen to them be like, oh, they're definitely over training. And then literally, I'm sitting there being like, oh, my back hurts, my legs hurt. It's like, yeah, of course. That's me. So I just want to thank you guys for all the advice that you give. I've enjoyed kind of the growth that I've seen throughout the podcast for you guys through the eight years, as well as just kind of go along fatherhood with me. So appreciate that. And then also just sharing your faith. It's awesome that you guys have been speaking up more in time than when we really need it. So thank you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Appreciate it.

[Caller]

Right on.

All right, so my question is, I've been struggling over the last year, year and a half with continuously pulling and straining my calf muscles. So I noticed this starts to occur when I'm training my calves more. I'm going heavier, and then I go to do something explosive like go to play racquetball or even just chase after my kids, and I just tweak it, and it's like, right underneath the calf muscle, right above the Achilles. So over the last month, I've tweaked my right calf, then my left, then my right. And now, literally last week, right before I shot off the email, I tweaked my right one again. So I was just super annoyed. I'm at the point of not wanting to train my calves anymore. I'm afraid to do Anything super explosive, knowing that I have good chances of tweaking one of my legs again. So I have a month long challenge coming up in September for the great cycle challenge. It's a 500 mile or I chose 500 miles, but it's for childhood cancer research. So it's on a bike. I do it throughout the month and I'm just scared that if I keep doing this to my calf muscles, I'm not going to be able to get on my bike and ride. Shout out to Queen there. But I've been trying to do more mobility with my ankles, my hips from guys like Vernon Griffith. Maps performance, the mobility there and then your YouTube videos. I know there's a video of Sal a little bit darker hair in that video, but it seems to help some. But I go back to square one. As soon as I reenter one, it just, it's deflating. So with that, I recently finished Map Symmetry back in like mid May before starting to get out on the bike more. And it has felt awesome. Can definitely tell that my legs have been more even. I've been great on the climbs. It's been going awesome. So I'm really looking forward to how September is going to go and I'm actually going to rerun Symmetry just for a little less volume while I start to put on more miles. But what can I do about my calf muscles? Like, I'm sick of doing this and I'm, I'm kind of at my wits end with it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, good question. You could do what Adam and I do. Don't train your calves, don't train them.

[Doug]

Overrated, bro. Yeah, overrated.

[Adam Schaefer]

No. You know. Okay.

[Doug]

Wear tall socks.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, no. All right, so, okay. Whenever you see cramping, the, the most common offenders is, you know, electrolyte imbalance. Right. In an athlete like you or someone like you, well trained, you know, so sodium would be the first thing. Magnesium's another one. Magnesium is oftentimes something that people lack, especially people who train. I don't know if you supplement, do you supplement with magnesium?

[Caller]

I do, yeah. I typically take that and zinc at night.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay. And what is it? Zma?

[Caller]

No, it's just like the like little dropper full. So I forget what it's called. It's. But it's not zma. It's actually magnesium and then zinc.

[Adam Schaefer]

Got it, got it.

[Caller]

Kind of like separately.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, so make sure you're taking enough. Make sure it's the kind that get absorb well, like glycinate. It's a good type. Okay. That's okay, good. And so. And then here's the other thing. Okay. Is instability tends to cause muscle cramps or tightness. Okay. Especially in somebody who's strong. So when you're strong. And by the way, the muscle that you're pulling is your soleus. If you're talking about below the calf, it's the soleus muscle. So it could be instability, and with this might come from, is a. A. An imbalance between your. Your gastroc, your soleus and your tibialis. And some of the muscles that are. That's. That are that laterally strengthen your ankle. When's the last time you did tibialis raises?

[Caller]

Yep.

Long time.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

To be honest.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So I would. So you might want to lay off the calf training a little bit and do tibialis raises. And if you do calf training, you know, do the seated kind, get that soleus kind of work, but start strengthening the tibialis muscle on the shin and some of theand. Some of the lateral muscles, which I can't. They, for some reason I can't recall them. Peroneals. Yeah, peroneals of the. Of the ankle and see if that makes a difference. Because what that tells me right now, unless it's again, needing more magnesium, more sodium, which could be the case, but typically, it's like there's an instability there.

[Doug]

I think it's one of two things, or both things, which is almost always there's some sort of weakness or instability that caused an injury, which would mean we need some. We need to be more stable and stronger within the ankles to the points that Sal's making. And then the other thing is potentially over training still. So I, you know, and coming from a guy who admitted that he was already that guy who wasn't, you know, was like, no, I'm fine. It's not. I'm not over training. I mean, three boys sounds like you do a lot of challenging things that are intense and long, and you're probably the guy who doesn't miss a lot of workouts. And so. And what you might have felt from symmetry was. I mean, the unilateral stuff was probably good for you, but maybe what you really felt was a reduction in volume or intensity or both, and that's part of why you feel so good. And maybe that is your body trying to tell you a lower dose of volume is more appropriate for you, even though it's not maybe what you want to hear, but for sure it's one or the other or both. Like, in my opinion, it's either 100%. We need to put more emphasis on instability and weakness in the ankle. Doing all the things that Sal and Justin were just saying. And, and, or also, we still are probably doing too much. And that's our bot. Why our body's getting injured.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So what. Here's what the prescription would look like. You would, you would add some exercises, but you'd also take some away. You're not just going to throw extra volume at yourself, but it would look like this. It would look like, you know, tibialis raises, lateral exercise, strengthening. And then you would use a lacrosse ball on a regular basis to press on the soleus and gastrocs at night. And what that does is it just tells the CNS to chill a little bit. So every night, you know, before you get injured, and every, maybe every morning or whatever, you roll them out and you get something in there that kind of presses on them while simultaneously strengthening all the other muscles of the ankle.

[Doug]

Chris, break down breakdown. I was. Sorry, Justin. I just. Before you even answer him, I just would like to. Could you break down like a typical. Not a week when you're recovering from an injury, but like a normal week? Because I know you got racquetball up there, you're riding a bike, you're at strength training. Tell me, like, what you would consider a typical week of training for you.

[Caller]

Yeah, so prior to biking, it was BAP symmetry three days a week. Racquetball on Tuesdays and then core training on Thursdays. And then Saturday would be like, just run around, hang out with the kids, not. And Sunday kind of rest. Now it's Monday and Wednesday weight training. I went back to Anabolic, so I have the RGB bundle plus symmetry. But I went back to Anabolic. But I've been going a little bit lighter in terms of like, squatting and deadlift things, stuff like that. So that's Monday, Wednesday, Tuesday is racquetball, Thursday is still core training, and then Friday, Saturday is out on the bike.

[Doug]

Yeah, I think, I think what you're feeling is you're, you're getting closer to a more appropriate amount of, of volume and intensity that your body should be handling. I think that's what's, what's, what's happening is even though you're not all the way, depending on how much great sleep you get with three boys in relation to that amount of training could be tipping you over sometimes paired with the.

[Caller]

The weakness in the ankles, tibialis raises, and then, you know, ankle mobility. But I think too, if you replace a lot of the leg volume with more lateral movements in terms of, like, caustic squats, lateral lunges, lateral sled drags. Like, you know, you just do a phase completely of just focusing more heavily on lateral movement and strength. I think, you know, you're going to build up that. That support system again, so. And plus, you're going to give a break to Adam's point of view of. Of, you know, allowing that to actually recover fully while also strengthening a lot of, you know, the. The support system.

[Doug]

I love that advice.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yep.

[Caller]

So would that be. So if I'm do focus more on the lateral stuff. So let's say I'm going to run symmetry again. Would I just get rid of, like, the Bulgarian split squats?

And you, like, you could trade that out.

[Doug]

Exactly.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yep, Yep, yep. Okay.

[Caller]

And symmetry. Good to run again. Or like, perhaps 15 or like symmetry?

[Doug]

Yeah, I like symmetry. If you don't have maps 15, though, I would love to give it to you.

[Caller]

Performance would have all that.

[Doug]

I would love to give you maps 15 performance. And at some point, I think you should do it just to see, because.

[Adam Schaefer]

I think that, well, you got a baby coming. Perfect.

[Doug]

Yeah. Be perfect when the baby comes. Yeah. So when the baby comes. I definitely think by then you should run 15, at least for a full cycle because you might get some insight on what. And like us, I think we've shared this on the show. You're 34. You've probably been training for a long time. You'd be surprised at what great of results you can still get with that low of volume. And you might be. And that might be something you need. Is that enlightenment? Like, holy. Like, I used to be the guy who did CrossFit, did all these things and train. Here I am map 15, and I'm feeling the healthiest I've ever belt felt before. So definitely worth going that route. But what Justin's saying, I think is the go to move right now is, you know, switch out Bulgarians or any leg major leg thing for doing more stuff that is going to support the ankles.

[Caller]

Awesome. Yeah. And I know just from doing symmetry, like, it feels it sucks because, like, being the old power lifter, it's like I want to throw up weight. I want to be able to have, like, stuff on my back. But at the same time, it's like, as much as I think it's like a mind that, like, I'm doing single leg stuff and struggling, it's like, okay, I know I need to do this, but. So this was a little bit of some medicine that I need to take in order to be able to do like, more lateral stuff as well and just kind of calm it down. So I appreciate it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, you got it, man.

[Doug]

Well, going to send that over to you, man.

[Caller]

I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. All right, have a great rest of your day.

[Adam Schaefer]

Thank you. Yeah, you know, the. The other thing too, is you can get really strong with controlled movements. Then when you ask for that strength to be fast, you get. You start to develop problems.

[Doug]

So that was what made me. I didn't realize he. Because he didn't say anything about racquetball. And I read it up there and I went, oh, dude. And this dude's doing racquetball. I'm like training kind of like a bodybuilder, getting really strong in these. The same planes. And then all of a sudden, on two days of the week, you decide you're gonna go with your buddy. And that's a serious lateral moving type of sport, right?

[Caller]

So velocity, and it's like, you don't maybe have that like, deceleration ability and the strength stability there.

[Adam Schaefer]

So that's how I pulled my hamstring. I went to sprint, and my hamstrings are strong as hell. I could pull £600 off the floor. Yeah, but when I went to go fast pop, you know, it's totally different thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our next caller is Mike from North Carolina.

[Adam Schaefer]

Mike, what's happening?

[Doug]

New Mike?

[Caller]

What's up?

[Adam Schaefer]

Hello.

[Caller]

How are you guys?

[Adam Schaefer]

Good. Good, man.

[Doug]

What you got for us?

[Caller]

So overall, I feel like my efforts just don't match my results. I think that for my lifestyle, my level of consistency, how long I've been training, that I should be a lot further ahead, leaner, stronger than I actually am. I've only been really paying attention to my diet the last three or four years, and I've made a lot of progress doing so. I've all developed over obsession with tracking or. But I also feel that when I'm not tracking that I just take major steps back. So kind of spinning my wheels, not really sure where I'm going right where I'm going wrong. I just feel like I have to be hyper on point with everything I do, diet training, lifestyle, just even maintain. So really just looking for any kind of guidance of starting to see results that I think that would match my. My lifestyle and level of commitment.

[Doug]

Mike, when you, when you. You fall off the tracking and you go the other direction that you're. You're now aware of how, like, you lose your gains or whatever with that, what Are your big offenders? Are you like a. I know for me, I. I grossly undereat protein when I'm not tracking and paying attention to. And I know how detrimental that is to me. Are you like somebody who overeats a bunch of cal. Are you somebody who you miss protein or are you the person who does both? You miss protein and in addition to that, you eat a bunch of extra calories?

[Caller]

No, I, I never miss protein. Um, if anything, it might be a slight calorie surplus and more fat. I really don't have cravings of, of anything. Um, if anything, it would really be like peanut butter and just more of what I already eat. So it's never like, you know, binging on ice cream, anything like that. It's just. I'm still hungry. I'm gonna have more chicken. I'm gonna have more fruit. I just go over in that direction.

[Doug]

That's not a bad.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, I'm gonna read some of your question that you sent us. Is that okay?

[Caller]

Yeah, go for it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because it's gonna help me with my answer. It says I'm pretty hard on myself and it's partially comparison syndrome, but I drift away from my normal meals and macros for even one day. I get noticeably softer almost instantly and will take a week to get back to normal. You need to relax. Yeah, you need to relax, Mike. This is in your head. I think you know that too. I think you know that it's a hyper focus and your subjective opinion is not objective. In fact, I bet we don't have a picture of you. But I bet most people would say you look like you work out a lot and you look really fit it and you're pretty lean. Is that, Is that what your friends tell you?

[Caller]

Other people would say that. I wouldn't say that about myself.

[Adam Schaefer]

I don't care what you say about you because. Because you're wrong.

[Doug]

Yeah, you're distorted.

[Adam Schaefer]

So we need to get you out of that right now. Because what's happened right now, and I'm speaking from personal experience, is you have a filter on that's lying to you. So you're looking at yourself through a filter that is totally distorted.

[Doug]

You have reverse beer goggles and it's.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. And it's totally messing you up. Messing up. It's really messing you up right now. I mean, I know this because a couple things you said in your email, but also in the question, you said, I've only really been looking at my diet for three to four years or taking it seriously. That's a Long time, dude. Three to four years is a lot of success when it comes to consistency. I mean if you said three or four months, I'd be like, that's not bad. Three to four years, you're crushing it. You're doing great. So what you need to do is take your eyes off of the mirror, the scale and judging yourself. But we need to put them somewhere else because that's not going to work. In other words, I can't tell you to not do something. I got to tell you to do something else. So what I'm going to tell you to do is focus on performance and take your. Stop looking in the mirror. Focus on strength. Don't look in the mirror. We're focused on mobility. Don't look in the mirror and you'll be surprised at what happens.

[Doug]

Let's dive a little bit into what your programming looks like. Are you following any maps programs or you've been kind of throwing your own thing together?

[Caller]

I'm not. Mostly because I've been kind of in the air of which one would be most appropriate for me. Yeah, I've been following full but for the majority of the last couple years, full body, three to four days a week.

[Doug]

Okay, that's okay. That's pretty solid. So long as it's appropriate as far as the amount of volume and stuff.

[Adam Schaefer]

Would you be interested in following like a powerlifting program for a while just to. Just to focus on strength?

[Caller]

Absolutely. Powerlifting is a pretty big focus of mine. I compete a couple times a year.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, bro.

[Caller]

So it does. It absolutely interests me.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

I just have to folk get that balance of, you know, my physique and my. Versus my performance too. So that's something I'm constantly going back and forth with where deadlift or lean out and.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Wait, wait. So you give me, what are your.

[Doug]

Give me some number. I want to hear the numbers. And then also have you, you. So I want to hear your powerlifting numbers just to kind of get a gauge of where you're at strength wise. And then two, have you even tested your body fat percentage? And if so, where is that?

[Caller]

The last meet I totaled just over a thousand pounds.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay.

[Caller]

And my body fat, if I had to guess, I'm probably in that 13 to 15 range.

[Adam Schaefer]

You're doing great, bro. You're good, dog. You're doing good, man.

[Doug]

Yeah, there's. Okay, so there's, there's another layer to this, right? I agree with everything we've said so so far but you know, to, to get into single digit body fat which is it sounding like you, you want to look like or whatever. There is another level of sacrifice and discipline. And I think the thing that Instagram people do is they, they normalize or downplay the sacrifice it takes to walk around like that all the time.

[Adam Schaefer]

I'll say it differently. They normalize the dysfunction that's required to get those things.

[Doug]

I was being nice.

[Adam Schaefer]

There's a level of dysfunction in the context of a normal life or a normal healthy life that's required as a man. Especially if you're natural to get into single digit body fat consistently stay there forever.

[Doug]

It's easy to do it for a small period of time and say, look, I did it. I didn't cheat on my diet for three months straight. Look at me, I did it. But to say I'm going to maintain this single digit body fat, and of course there's somebody listening who's like, oh, that's not true. I, I enjoy this. There's anomalies, there's genetic freaks of people that just, just naturally carry there. But that's not most of us. Most of us, most of us that lift weights hover around probably 12 to 15 body fat.

[Adam Schaefer]

With a good diet.

[Doug]

Yeah, with a good diet. Not crazy, not like weighing, tracking, everything, but that's, that's where I fall. I fall between 12 and 15 when I'm eating my protein training, occasionally doing my thing. It takes another level of sacrifice to say I'm gonna walk around in single digits. It just does.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what I'm do, Mike? This is what I'm do for you. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have somebody call you and I'm gonna have somebody work with you to get down to single digit body fat just so you could see how less happy you are at that. No, Honest to God. You're gonna get there and you'd be like, ah, this is not what I thought it was.

[Doug]

Or maybe you're gonna be like, it's awesome.

[Adam Schaefer]

It'll be, you walk around with your shirt off all the time, you talk to anybody who's done it and then have them look back like it wasn't worth it. It really wasn't that big of a deal. But I'll have somebody call you because it shows here that you're in a coach in a coaching group, and it says here that it lacks the one on one that you're looking for. Is that correct?

[Caller]

I was. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay. All right, I'm gonna have some call you and the goal is gonna be, let's get you to Single digit. And then I want you to get to single digit so that you could have a little bit of a point of reference. But I'm gonna tell you something right now. The solution is gonna come from the filter that you have when you're viewing yourself. And I get it, man. This is a struggle for me. I'm older than you are. I've been doing this longer than you, and this is still a struggle for me. So I get it. But this is why I can speak to it, because the. The other end of this isn't what you're looking for. The other end of it is just more. Oh, there's more that I want, and I'm not happy enough, and it turns into a lot of. A lot of bad things. So. But I'll have somebody work with you, so at least I know the person working with you is gonna do it healthy.

[Caller]

Okay, cool.

[Adam Schaefer]

Thank you. You got it.

[Doug]

All right, Mike.

[Adam Schaefer]

You got it, Mike. And then from there, we can decide what program and all that stuff. Yeah.

[Doug]

They'll tell you which one.

[Caller]

Gotcha.

[Adam Schaefer]

All right, brother.

[Caller]

Sounds like a plan. Thanks, guys.

[Adam Schaefer]

You got it, man. Right on. Yeah. He had to read. Reading his email. Yeah. If somebody says, I miss one day and I instantly feel soft, look different.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Doug]

No, no.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

No, no.

[Adam Schaefer]

By the way, I know what that feels like.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I don't want people to watch this and think I'm, like, judging from this, like, high period. Like, high. I know what that feels like.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I know exactly what we talk about.

[Caller]

Everyday occurrence.

[Doug]

We talk about all the time.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. I mean, we were.

[Doug]

How obsessed we were with not missing a meal every three hours. Because I. I could swear to you, muscle just that long muscle fell off my body if I took a day or two off of marketing.

[Caller]

So effective in that direction.

[Doug]

No, it is.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's a tough. Listen, it is a tough place to be in because. And I love the word dysfunction because. Because we all know this. We've all had this experience where we've had a friend, somebody close to us who's in a dysfunctional relationship, and they can't see it until they get out. They just can't see it. And you try to tell them, like, listen, that is not normal. It is not normal that your girlfriend's like that. Your boyfriend's like that, your husband or what, like, that's dysfunctional.

[Caller]

They hear it just as a real resonate.

[Adam Schaefer]

They don't see it until they get out of it long enough to go, oh, no, that was dysfunctional. Things should be different. And it's hard when you're in it, man. It's so hard. But coming out of it is a gift.

[Doug]

Yeah. As an exercise Mike, when you listen to this, when you go back and listen to this, I. I think it would be worth unfollowing all the, you know, fitness influencer dudes.

[Adam Schaefer]

Anybody.

[Doug]

Yeah. That post shirtless pictures all the time. That's just not good. It's just not like, like it completely distorts reality totally.

[Adam Schaefer]

If you open not even reality for them.

[Doug]

Yeah, exactly. If you open up Instagram and you see 20, you know, 6% body fat dudes, you know, every day pictures, you're.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like, that's what everybody looks like.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's what everybody looks like. And I, I've been training for 15 years. Like him. Why don't I look like that? And it's like, no, dude. Like, that's our. That's a. That. Get out of that. Stop that for a while. That alone will probably start to help us move in the right direction.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our next caller is Andrew from Florida.

[Adam Schaefer]

What's up, man? How can we help you?

[Justin Andrews]

Hey, so I. Earlier this year I ran. I guess so I just finished running Maps Anabolic and I got to the point at the end of phase three where I wasn't seeing any strength gains and I was actually seeing like, my lifts decrease pretty significantly and just like fatigue was on setting pretty heavily. And I'm kind of just trying to figure out what exactly I did wrong with it to. Because I didn't add any, like, additional cardio, I didn't add any additional, like, volume to it or anything. It just seems like everything sort of tapered off. And then just a. To preface it, I did do a reverse diet from about 1900 calories to now I'm looking at 28. But it seems like I've added.

[Adam Schaefer]

Body.

[Justin Andrews]

Fat instead of actually adding muscle to it. And so that's kind of why I'm getting confused as to what happened there.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, you got it. All right, so typically, here's the order of issues or challenges that we can look at as to why somebody's not getting results with a good program or what would be considered generally a good program. Okay. And it goes like this. It's either diet or sleep, lifestyle, the program itself, and then maybe hormone issues, which is typically last. Okay, now I'm going to start with the programming. As good as Maps Anabolic is, it's not perfect for everybody. That's just a fact. Like, there's. There's no general program that we can create that's going to be great for everybody. It's impossible. This is why the best, this is why personal trainers so valuable is they could individualize programming to the individual. And there's such a wide variance that it's, it's, it's shocking how different people can, can be when, with how they respond. Even really good programming. Diet wise, it sounds like you did okay by bumping your calories. Although the bump might be a little too fast. If you gained body fat, did your weight change on the scale?

[Justin Andrews]

So for the first, about through phase one and phase two, it was, it stayed relatively the same with about 0.2 pounds being gained every week. Um, I added about 50 to a hundred calories each week. And then towards the end, that's when it really started to increase. When I hit about that 26 or 2800 mark, um, and I just wanted to see it through. I was like, all right, let's, let's just see what happens.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, there's the before and after.

[Doug]

Andrew, you're. You're doing pretty good, bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, well, that's the before, that's the after. Okay, so look, look, now, now when.

[Doug]

You say, oh, he's got him flip flopped.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Okay, when you say he got weaker, are you comparing the weight in phase three to the weight in phase one? You're not doing that right. Because that's low.

[Justin Andrews]

So I know that I dropped the weight for phase three because the volume increased.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But so afterwards I was like, all right, let me. So, like, I was feeling pretty tired at the end of phase three where I was, I was like, I'm extremely tired. Like, I don't even, like I still went, still lifted, but it was definitely. I could feel it. And I was like, I don't. My body does not want to do this.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And then, so then I, I took a week where I just did active recovery. Like after I, after I finished it up, I just took that week, did some like, lighter lifts just to like maintain everything, and then went back and I was like, okay, I'm gonna test everything and see kind of, kind of where the numbers are. And my bench had decreased, like significantly.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I. At the end of phase one, I think it was like 175.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's going to happen. When you. Did you get stronger in phase one?

[Justin Andrews]

In phase one? Yeah, it seemed like I was getting pretty, a lot stronger.

[Adam Schaefer]

Then in phase two, how did you feel?

[Justin Andrews]

That was more consistent, but you could see through the tracking that the weight had started to sort of taper downward.

[Adam Schaefer]

That'S supposed to happen. So. Yeah. So if you go from phase three back to phase one, after a couple weeks of phase one, then you'll see a strength jump. Yeah, quite a bit.

[Doug]

I was gonna say. I would love to see you run it again with the calories where they're at now.

[Caller]

Right.

[Doug]

So the. I. I think you needed more calories in the first place, so you did the right thing. Reverse dieting. I'd like to see what a round. What phase one would be like, and.

[Adam Schaefer]

I'd like to see you cut phase three to one week. So phase three, the super sets and the high reps is. Can be very taxing for some people. I'm one of those people. Phase three for me, kills me to the point where I cut it short, either by sets or by length. But if you felt great in phase one and phase two, I would go one week of phase three and that's it. And you can even lengthen phase one and two by a week and keep it at that. Yeah. Phase three is for people who aren't familiar with anabolic is high reps and supersets.

[Caller]

It's a monster. Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah. You look like someone who's pretty detailed. I'd love for you to go through this again and then tell us your experience from that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And then with the higher calories and then how was.

[Adam Schaefer]

How are other things like sleep and lifestyle?

[Justin Andrews]

So sleep wise, I'm. I'm pretty good. And then, I mean, admittedly I'm not. I don't have a super stressful lifestyle.

[Adam Schaefer]

At the moment.

[Justin Andrews]

But, I mean, so I think everything is good. That's why it was very confusing for me.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

I feel like I'm pretty dialed with everything.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Phase three could be a monster for some people, especially if at the end of it, you don't notice more stamina and you started to feel fatigued at the end. Yeah. So I would go back through, go 1, 2, lengthen each phase by one week.

[Doug]

Keep calories up and go.

[Adam Schaefer]

And keep the calories up. I don't bump them up anymore. Just kind of keep them where they're at. And then phase three, do a week and see how everything feels. Okay.

[Doug]

Andrew, are you. Are you in our private forum yet?

[Justin Andrews]

I'm not.

[Doug]

Okay. I'm gonna have Doug put you in there too, because I just would. You're a great person. I'd love to talk to as you go through this, so I'd love to hear your. Your response as you get through each phase. So if you could just Just, you know, message us and keep us in progress.

[Adam Schaefer]

Photos after each phase would be cool. Yeah. Okay. To notice. And so tip. So here's what happens to me because, and this is just maybe because of my years of training or because of my genetics, I'm not quite sure, but I respond really well to low reps. High reps is really tough for me. Really, really difficult.

[Doug]

You typically just use it to interrupt your.

[Adam Schaefer]

I use it to interrupt and to give me some stamina. And what I'll notice between the first week and second week is I get really good pumps, but then they fade and it starts get fatigued and I got to back out. And that's just how my body, especially lower body, and I've gone through long phases of high reps and stamina for my lower body, and it's a brute. It's just brutal on me. But the, you know, the fast twitch stuff I tend to do really well with. So like I said, so go four instead of three weeks of one and two, go four weeks, phase one, four weeks, phase two, one week of phase three. That'll give you about the same total time. And then do some progress photos and let's see what happens.

[Justin Andrews]

Just a. Do you think running like a powerlifting would be beneficial then? If. If you're saying cut, cut volume down pretty heavily.

[Adam Schaefer]

Power Lift has got a decent amount of volume. And you'd be surprised because Power Lift starts with high reps. Now, it's not super sets, but it starts at high reps and it peaks you at the end with the low reps. And I mean, that's another great. That's a great program.

[Doug]

Let's. Yeah, but let's run anabolic again, the way we're saying, because we're trying to figure out a variable right now. Instead of, like changing too many variables. Let's. Let's keep the calories up. Let's run maps, anabolic, the way Sal's saying. And then just stay in touch with us. And then, you know, depending on that, because I do think Power Lift would be a great program for you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Did you notice changes in libido and stuff like that? How old are you?

[Justin Andrews]

I'm 31.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

So when. When I cut down to the 1900 calories and I reached a certain, like, level of body fat percentage, that was when I noticed that testosterone, I think, had just completely tanked and, like, nothing was working anymore. I was like, oh, great. And that was when I decided I was going to reverse diet back out a bit.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, good. All right, good. Let's yeah. Do what we say. And I want to follow up with you. In fact, why don't we have you back on the show at the end of this and see if we can't figure this out.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Doug]

All right, awesome.

[Adam Schaefer]

Thanks, man.

[Doug]

All right, Andrew, thank you.

[Adam Schaefer]

You got it. You know what's cool about this is, and trainers know this, that this is not the norm. But I know people that you keep their reps around 15 and they build muscle and they get amazing results. I know people that you keep their reps around four and they build muscle and they're amazing and you flip them and they just, you have to flip them at some point because you don't want to stay the same all the time. But when you flip them, it's almost like, okay, I'm going back.

[Caller]

Well, this is where it would be kind of creatures of habit.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

You do kind of figure out you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Fall in love with what works.

[Caller]

You fall in love and you don't want to venture out of that. But yeah. So he might just need to, you know, limit that amount of exposure.

[Adam Schaefer]

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

[Sal DeStefano]

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.

[Adam Schaefer]

Performance.

[Sal DeStefano]

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 Mindpoint Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pumpkin.