2709: Diet Smarter, Not Harder: Mind Pump's Top Hacks

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2709: Diet Smarter, Not Harder: Mind Pump’s Top Hacks

Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge
Release Date: October 18, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, the Mind Pump crew dives deep into actionable diet hacks honed from decades of training clients, debunking popular fitness and nutrition myths, and offering science-backed strategies for bulking, cutting, performance, and longevity. The hosts also provide on-air coaching to listeners, addressing real-world nutrition and training challenges for various situations, from gaining healthy weight to thriving through injury recovery.

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Main Discussion: Diet Hacks for Real Results

(Start: 03:41)

Bulking Smart: Tips for Hard Gainers

• Prioritize Protein Intake
  • Focus on hitting your target body weight in grams of protein daily, regardless of bulking or cutting.
• Easiest Calorie Boosters
  • If you tolerate dairy, drink a glass of whole milk with every meal.
    • “A big glass of whole milk with every meal... is a real easy way to add a decent amount of calories to your diet.” — Sal (05:22)
• Bulk With Clean Foods, Not Junk
  • Eating hyper-palatable fast foods slows digestion, kills appetite, and makes it harder to hit protein requirements.
  • Pro Hack: Eat lean meats and rice in small, frequent meals; add bone broth or collagen protein to rice for extra protein.
  • “When I switched to actually eating cleaner foods... I could eat more.” — Adam (06:36)
• Meal Timing & Variety Tricks
  • Start calorie intake early in the day, even if appetite is low (e.g., small Greek yogurt at breakfast triggers hunger later).
  • Alternate sweet and savory foods to overcome palate fatigue. Post-meal fruit like grapes helps you add calories comfortably.

Cutting Hacks: Eating Less Without Feeling Deprived

• Food Order Matters
  • “Hit your protein, eat your vegetables, and then eat your starches... always results in lower calories.” — Sal (12:02)
• Spread Eating Windows
  • Use longer intervals between meals to “subtract” meals without feeling overly hungry—shift from eating every two hours (bulking) to every four hours (cutting).
• Hydration & Satiety Tricks
  • Prioritize water intake; seltzer water with a little salt and lime can reduce snacking and curb appetite.
    • “It just tends to cut the appetite down… it typically cut their calories by a couple hundred.” — Sal (14:40)
  • Chewing gum and eating pickles (for low-cal, high-sodium) as appetite distractors.
• Best Use of Eating Windows
  • Cut off eating in the evening (e.g., last meal at 6pm), rather than delaying breakfast.
    • "Most of the time when we eat food that's not great for us is at night." — Sal (16:02)

Universal Diet Hacks

• Awareness While Eating
  • Don’t multitask; eat at a table, no distractions—cuts calories by 10–15%.
    • “If you're eating while you're doing something else like watching TV, your calories go up naturally.” — Sal (17:03)
• Meal Prep is Key (No Matter Your Goal)
  • Having food ready avoids poor choices and supports any nutrition strategy.

Longevity & Wellness: Digestion Comes First

• Choose Foods That Improve Digestion
  • Well-cooked vegetables, olive oil, chicken, fish, certain fruits—these meals support vitality and well-being.
  • “When I want to improve my overall well-being, I eat foods that make my digestion better, which is different [than simply what digests well].” — Sal (18:37)
  • Big servings of vegetables promote satiety and calorie balance.
• Individualize for What Makes YOU Feel Good
  • Identify which foods enhance your digestion and well-being—even if you're not cutting or bulking.

Performance Nutrition: Match Macros & Timing to Your Activity

• Physical Performance
  • Starchy carbs and high protein are essential for muscle, strength, and pump.
    • “If I want the best pump... I'm going to have around 75g of carbs, 50g of protein... about two hours before [the gym].”—Sal (23:24)
• Cognitive Performance
  • Low-carb, higher-fat, moderate-protein “keto-esque” meals lead up to high mental demand days/podcasts.
  • “For a day or two leading into it [intense podcasting], I go very low carbohydrate, high fat, moderate protein.” — Sal (21:51)
• Timing Tips
  • Meal timing is less crucial for building muscle but fundamental for maximizing peak performance.
  • Experiment before important events to dial in your own winning strategy.

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Notable Quotes & Insights

• “When performance is on the table... timing makes a big difference. It's worth your time to investigate how you prep for that.” — Adam (28:29)
• “You start to fall in love with the feeling and then start to chase the feeling... the secret to getting more of it is to set yourself up well before you go into those phases.” — Sal (97:20)

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Listener Coaching: Real-Life Application

1. Jennifer from New Hampshire: Gaining Healthy Weight at 58

(64:34–79:36)

• Challenge: Longtime under-eater, very low body fat, osteoporosis, wants to gain muscle and fat.

• Guidance:

  • Aggressive calorie surplus is essential—even if discomfort arises; work with a coach familiar with eating disorders.
  • Strength training: Full body, 1–2x/week; minimal cardio; cap daily steps.
  • Practical hack: Add healthy calorie-dense tweaks (granola/honey in yogurt, full-fat options, meal frequency).
  • Avoid constant mirror and scale checking; remove these triggers.

• Support: Mind Pump team offers direct coaching via their in-house trainer.

  Notable moment: “There is no way you're going to approach this and not feel uncomfortable... The idea is, look, listen to your coach, ignore your body.” — Sal (80:42)

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2. Whitney from Colorado: Training Through Injury Recovery

(81:01–92:44)

• Challenge: High-level endurance athlete with major shoulder surgery—wants to maintain leg/scapular strength & mental sharpness.

• Guidance:

  • Reduce volume/intensity below what you think is “tolerable”—not doing so risks setbacks.
  • Prioritize correctional exercise during rehab (Prime Pro), then progress to unilateral strength training (MAPS Symmetry).
  • Consider BPC-157 and Thymosin Beta peptides post-surgery to safely accelerate healing (with medical supervision).
  • Embrace "off-season" mindset, focusing on movement quality, building better patterns, and accepting needed downtime.

• Pro tip: Whatever you think is enough rehab—double it.

  Notable moment: “Do less than what you can tolerate. That’ll give you so much longevity.” — Sal (90:14)

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3. Katie from Minnesota: Chasing the "Aesthetic High" in Training

(93:46–99:32)

• Challenge: Enjoys high-volume, high-energy training phases; wants to safely recreate those positive outcomes.
• Guidance:
  • Continue cycling through different program phases (MAPS Aesthetic, Muscle Mommy, Symmetry, MAPS Strong, MAPS 15 Performance) rather than only high-intensity blocks.
  • Interrupt more intense phases with performance/foundation cycles for recovery, balance, and long-term gains.

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4. Ashley from North Carolina: Postpartum Fat Loss Plateaus

(100:00–105:59)

• Challenge: Down 50+ lbs but is “stuck” at current body fat despite consistent training. Worried about heart rate, plateaued weight.
• Guidance:
  • Reverse diet gradually from 1700 to higher calories (up to 2500), especially by increasing healthy fats.
  • Focus on protein, lifting, and walking (8–10k steps/day)—not extra cardio.
  • Join Muscle Mommy Movement group for structured support, meal planning, and peer guidance.
  • Be patient—slow progress means sustainable fat loss and muscle maintenance.

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Memorable Moments & Lighter Segments

• Fashion Week & Modern Art Satire:
  • Hosts poke fun at pretentiousness in fashion/art scenes, recounting the $6 million duct-tape banana and invisible “art.”
    • “If you can't call it out because you don’t want to be the person who ‘doesn’t get it,’ that’s a problem.” — Sal (33:51)
• Childhood Chemical Exposure & Health Risks:
  • Candid stories about growing up with now-known hazards (asbestos, lead, non-stick pans); reinforces value of safe cookware and practical health precautions.
• Alcohol & ZBiotics:
  • Personal anecdotes on reduced alcohol tolerance, favorite drinks, and real-world results using ZBiotics (hangover prevention).

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Key Timestamps

• 03:41 — Main topic: Diet hacks for bulking, cutting, and more
• 05:22 – 05:46 — Bulking with whole milk and clean calorie tricks
• 11:13 – 12:01 — Palate fatigue and sweet/salty alternation
• 14:40 – 15:36 — Hydration hacks: Salted seltzer and pickles
• 17:03 – 18:25 — Eat with focus to cut calories
• 21:51 – 25:23 — Performance food timing: carbs and mental acuity
• 64:34 – 79:36 — Jennifer’s call: Gaining weight, overcoming orthorexia
• 81:01 – 92:44 — Whitney’s call: Post-surgery training, peptide healing
• 93:46 – 99:32 — Katie’s call: Periodizing for sustained exercise “high”
• 100:00 – 105:59 — Ashley’s call: Reverse dieting, postpartum progress

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Final Takeaways

• Diet smarter, not harder means tailoring your strategies to your unique biology, psychology, and lifestyle—using simple, sustainable tweaks that maximize results without unnecessary struggle.
• Bulk or cut with simple meal tweaks, not extremes, and focus on your long-term relationship with food and movement.
• For lasting change: Prep meals, plan ahead, choose foods you love that love you back, and embrace recovery as part of the journey.
• Use data (strength, hrv, sleep, mood) but don’t become a slave to scales or tracking—adjust for real life and play the long game.
• If you find yourself plateauing, feeling stuck, or battling old habits, seek community, coaching, and objective support.

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Resources & Next Steps

• Mind Pump MAPS Training Programs: mapsfitnessproducts.com
• Muscle Mommy Movement Coaching & Community: musclemommymovement.com
• Prime Pro & Symmetry Corrective Programs: For recovery and movement pattern improvement
• Deep Clean Inner Circle: Coaching for ending porn addiction (mention: MAPS 15 included free)
• Safe Cookware Partner: [FromOurPlace.com] — use code: mindpump
• Hangover Solution: ZBiotics — use code: mindpump25

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Find Mind Pump @mindpumpmedia and the hosts on Instagram, and get all episodes at mindpumppodcast.com.

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For the full, unedited fitness wisdom, listen to the episode. For sustainable, personalized change, apply just one or two of these hacks this week!

Transcript

[Sal]

Morning Zoe. Got donuts. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me.

[Jennifer]

So Dana oh no, I'm not really prepared.

[Adam]

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[Sal]

It's designed to be the most powerful.

[Jennifer]

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[Sal]

Wow, impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network. Nice.

[Whitney]

Je free.

[Adam]

You heard them. T mobile is the best place to.

[Doug]

Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on.

[Adam]

Us with eligible traded in any condition.

[Sal]

So what are we having for lunch?

[Jennifer]

Dude, my work here is done.

[Sal]

The 24 month bill credit experience beyond for well qualified customers plus tax and 35 device connection charge credit send and balance due. If you pay off earlier Cancel Finance agreement.

[Adam]

IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs 1099.99 and new line minimum 100 plus a month.

[Sal]

Plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required.

[Adam]

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[Sal]

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[Adam]

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[Doug]

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[Adam]

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[Doug]

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[Adam]

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[Doug]

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[Adam]

Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Doug]

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

[Sal]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Doug]

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

[Sal]

Most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we had people call in and we got to coach them on air. That's a good time. That was after our intro, though. The intro is 60 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness and muscle gain and fat loss. We talk about some current events and family life. That's our favorite part, by the way. If you want to call in so we can coach you on air, send us your question. Send it to [e-mail] now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is our place. This is Cookware that is free from forever chemicals. It's super long lasting, high quality cookware that's safe. Go check them out. Go to fromourplace.com, use the code mindpump. Get 10% off. This episode is also brought to you by Zbiotics. This is a pre alcohol drink. So you drink this and then you drink alcohol and you feel way better the next day. There is no other product like it, by the way. It's a genetically modified bacteria that breaks down acetaldehyde. So there's a lot of companies out there that promote that their product helps with alcohol metabolism. It doesn't do what Zebiotics does. Doesn't even come close. Go try them out. Go to zbiotics.com that's zbiotics.com mindpump2.5 use the code mindpump25. Get 15% off our program maps. GLP1 is half off. This is a workout program with diet advice, supplement advice, lifestyle advice for people who are using a GLP1. So if you're using Ozempic or WeGovy, if you're using Semaglutide, tirzepatide and you want to maximize fat loss, you want to keep your muscle, keep your metabolism fast, this is the program for you. It's half off. Go to mapsglp1.com, use the code GLP50 and get half off. All right, real quick.

[Justin]

If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs or training gear [e-mail] I'm talking right now. Hit pause, head on over to mypumpstore.com that's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

[Sal]

Easily the hardest part of the fitness journey is diet. That's not a secret. Now, we trained people for over two decades through that process. We learned a lot, including diet hacks. That's right. Tricks that will help you get better results and stay more consistent. We're going to talk about our favorite hacks that we learned through training clients all that time. Let's get into it now.

[Adam]

Is this things like focusing on your protein, for example?

[Sal]

That would be one. We've talked about that a lot, Right? Yeah. Where you, you focus on protein. Hit your target body weight and protein and that makes a big difference regardless of whether or not you're cutting or you're bulking. But there's other things too, right? Like I'll give you, I'll give you one of mine for bulking. So, and this is A hack. Because for some people, bulking is difficult now for some people it's not. The difficult part for some people is just they're afraid of going in a surplus because they don't want to gain body fat. But for some people, hard gainers, bulking can feel hard. It's like I, I feel like I'm eating a lot. Like, what's going on? I can't real chore. Yeah, I can't seem to eat enough calories. This seems to be true more often than not for teenage boys. But sometimes you'll get that, that client that super seems like fast metabolism or maybe they have a blue collar job and it's like I just can't eat enough. It seems to, to build muscle. Like what do I do? So one of my favorite hacks with this is if you can tolerate dairy is to have glass of milk, a big glass of whole milk with every meal. This is a real easy way to add a decent amount of calories to your diet or even have a glass of milk in between meals. It's inexpensive, it's good quality protein. There's some good fat in there, some carbohydrates. For me, this was like a really, really effective game changer for myself and then for those occasional clients I had that, this was a big.

[Justin]

When I was coaching the high school kids, like that was a big. Yeah, you know, some hurdle to get over. And I remember mentioning that. And a lot of the kids actually got a lot of benefit from that and like gained weight, you know, 10, 15 pounds just by applying that one simple concept.

[Sal]

Totally.

[Adam]

I'll give you a bit of a controversial one. That was a major hack and unlock for me. So like you, I was a hard gainer and you know, for all of my teens, early 20s, struggle to put weight on. And because of that, you justified eating the Jack in the box and Carl's Jr. And milkshakes. Calories, just to get calories. And something that rocked my world was when I switched to actually eating cleaner foods, meaning like whole foods, I could eat more. What I found was I might be able to sit down at Jacqueline box and eat a 1500 calorie bomb. But one, the 1500 calories would only get about 50 grams of protein in the 1500 calories, mostly carb, carbohydrates and saturated fat. And then it would, I, it would take so long to break down and die, I wouldn't be hungry for five, six hours later. And then I'd do it again. Another 1500 calorie bomb. Only 50 grams of protein. And then again so. And then I get. It's in my head, I'm going, I'm hitting these, these huge meals. But then I didn't want to eat for like six hours. And then on top of that, it also had. I was low protein. So switching over to like chicken thighs and like, you know, you know, any leaner meats, turkey stuff like ground turkey, ground beef, like the. And rice I could eat now, it would only be a 500 calorie meal, but in an hour and a half, two hours, I could eat that 500 calorie meal again and it would be a dense, high protein meal. And so it really shattered my paradigm when I started eating like that and realized, oh man, this and you. It's easy to justify when you're a skinny kid who just wants to put weight on so bad. And those foods are tasty. Right. But they're hard to hit. The macros you need to hit to. To build muscle and also be in a consistent cereal place. It's wild that you. Your body shuts you down. That's all you want. And. And I would. I had a hard time when I.

[Justin]

Switched one both of you guys had mentioned before, was the bone broth and collagen protein onto the rice. I have my boys both doing that right now and it's making a big impact on boosting up their protein.

[Sal]

Yeah, you're making your rice anyway. Yeah. Make it. Make you a bone broth. You just added 20 grams of right away.

[Adam]

When I started eating staple that look like this rice, any meat that I wanted and a vegetable. And then just scheduling it every two hours. I could actually eat more.

[Sal]

So I'll distill that down because I learned the exact same thing, Adam. And it's this. When you're bulking, by the way, this seems counterproductive. This is why this is a hack. Because what you think is I can't get enough calories. I gotta eat the big high calorie, hyper palatable, like any kind of food. I can to just get these calories in. But what happens is it affects your digestion. You get bloated, lethargic, you can't eat again. It's uncomfortable. Versus choosing higher calorie meals that are easy to digest. Big difference. One of my favorite meals for this, that I could bulk on this very easy was 80% ground beef. So it's high fat ground beef rice. Throw in some vegetables in there, throw in maybe some avocado in a bowl. And if you can have dairy, throw some Cheese on it. And I could eat that six times a day and easily get 5,000 calories from doing that.

[Justin]

Digests well.

[Sal]

Yeah, it digests well. Versus when I would go with the higher calorie kind of poor digesting foods. It crushed me. It made it very difficult.

[Adam]

I couldn't get past it. Now I would allow those type of hyper palatable foods as my last meal. And so I, I used to play this kind of psychological game with myself, like okay, I need to get to these macros by the day and then I can allow myself a little bit of the, you know, more pleasurable type foods that weren't high in protein and really doing a lot other than just calories. Right. So that was, it was like, okay, go get the good calories through whole natural foods first. And then at dinner time, if I'm still sitting at 3, 000 calories and my goal is 4, 500, maybe I'll allow myself to have that crazy 1500 calorie high saturated fat type of meal. But the, the four meals before that were protein dense, fast digesting carbohydrates and that just, it flipped it for me.

[Sal]

Here's another one for me was to get started early. Yes, you get behind the eight ball on trying to eat a lot of calories and you're screwed.

[Adam]

And I want to add, because this was a major hack for me too Sal, was if you have no appetite. Because I know, I remember what that felt like. You gotta eat breakfast and you're like, I have no appetite. So I had to start with these little Greek yogurts, just like, just something the little cups, 200 calories. Even though it's not a lot, but it would get the digestive system going, it would get that appetite to start. And so that's what it looked like when I had no appetite at six o' clock in the morning. But I knew I needed to start the eating. I was like, okay, well I can shovel down this little Greek yogurt real quick that has a little bit of protein, has some calories. And then what I found was, oh, by 8:00am I was ready for like a real size breakfast.

[Sal]

One more for me for bulking. You know everybody knows this, right? You eat a meal, you're full, but if something sweet is presented to you for some reason you feel like you can eat it. This is just, this is working around something called palate fatigue. Yes. So it's change up sweet and salty. That's right. It takes, tends to make a difference. I always found no matter what I ate. I could always eat fruit after, no matter how full big the bowl was, with the ground beef and the rice and the avocado.

[Justin]

Whatever the dessert effect.

[Sal]

It's. I could always have fruit afterwards, and I would choose grapes for some reason. I could just always eat, you know, 200, 300 calories with the grapes afterwards to get those extra calories in. And they don't. They're digest so well and so easy. It didn't feel like I was super stuffed and super bloated. All right, cutting. What are some diet hacks with cutting? Here's one. It's a big one. We've talked about this on the show before, but the order at which you eat your food makes a difference.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

So. And this is what I'll tell some of my clients that we're afraid to track. And, you know, the macro counting type of deal would cause stress, which, you know, you don't want your clients to have a stressful diet that's counterproductive for cutting because a lot of people tend to eat more when they're stressed or causes dysfunction. So I would just say, hey, let's do this. Hit your protein, eat your vegetables, and then eat your starches. And this always results in lower calories, Always. Why? Because protein produces satiety. That typically comes along with some fats, which also produce satiety. Vegetables are filling and almost zero calories, especially if you're eating, you know, like broccoli, like well cooked broccoli or asparagus or spinach. And I get. I'd have a decent. I tell them, eat a decent size cup or whatever or serving of vegetables and then eat your starches at the end if you're still hungry. And then when I would go through and loosely track their calories, it was like, boom, cut calories.

[Adam]

So I'm gonna give another controversial tip here or hack. For me, really, not a lot of my diet changed as far as the types of foods I was eating. Between the cut and the bulk, the difference looked like this. The meal, the foods that we're talking about, exactly the same. What you're saying. I ate those foods when I was on a bulk. It was every two hours I'm eating those foods. And it would be like. And that would be right at two hour mark. I wasn't hungry, but I'm like, I could eat again. And so I would just discipline myself to eat that meal again every two hours through the entire day. When I was on a cut, I would just play this game of, oh, can I resist another two Hours before I eat again. So instead of a every two hour window, it went to an every four hour window, same foods. But when I was at two hours, I wasn't even that hungry really when I was on the, on the bulk. But I could eat. So it was really easy to get the third hour. But by about the third hour starting to get hungry and I'm like, well I only got one more hour. Can I stretch it one more hour before I get that next meal? And so really what it looked like was I just changed my eating windows and I would just discipline myself to go a little bit longer before I ate again on the cut. And that, that throughout the day ends up subtracting a meal or two from your entire diet, but really the same foods. And I could really control a lot of the crazy hunger feelings. Everything that just by playing that game of two hour or four hour.

[Justin]

Yeah, one very simple one, it's not even food related. Was just focusing more on hydration and water.

[Adam]

Yes, that's a good one.

[Justin]

And that was just because it just took the tension away and it also like kind of pushed off a lot of that like int craving that you would get throughout the day.

[Sal]

No, for me, here's a little, I mean again, this is. Since we're talking hacks, it's not a big one, but it actually made a difference when I would have clients drink seltzer water with a little salt and lime. For whatever reason, there's not like no calories in that.

[Justin]

Well, especially if you're alcohol drinking, it's.

[Sal]

A great, for whatever reason, it just tends to cut the appetite down. I mean it sounds silly, but I'll get like a topo chico. I'd put a little salt on the rim, put a little lime inside of it, drink it. And I'd have clients doing this throughout the day and it would typically cut their calories by A couple hundred. 100. A couple hundred. Just because it kind of reduced the snacking. It sounds silly. You know, chewing gum, some people like to do that. That never really worked for me.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

But some people find that that was me.

[Adam]

I, I chew gum and drink water. Yeah, chew gum. Although I do want. I, I used to use pickles too because it gives you they're low, low calorie and high sodium. And when you, we're eating as good clean as we are and you cut your calories sometimes just being low sodium, you get that kind of 100 kick up. And so literally chewing gum, water and that. So that back to that four hour window, chew Gum, water and maybe a pickle. And that was like I was good. That always kept me from meal to meal. And by spreading those windows out like that gave me the difference of the calories.

[Sal]

Here's another one. This isn't so much of a unknown hack anymore, but people kind of do this the wrong way. So you know, eating windows, right? I hate saying eating windows. This is how I used it. First of all, eating windows, people tend to do it like this. Now I don't eat till noon. It's way more effective if you're, if you cut your eating off in the evening than if you start it late in the afternoon. Most of the time when we eat food that's not great for us is at night.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

And so, you know, if I had clients, just say hey look, your last meal is at 6pm after that, stop eating.

[Justin]

Plus you're not moving and allocating it.

[Sal]

Towards your movement, it's just you're sitting on the table.

[Adam]

Also improves sleep too because you're not in the middle of digesting the food. I agree with that too. I think it's way better. I think the you know, intermittent fasting window that you know, tells you don't eat, don't eat till noon or two and then you eat, you tend to, to pile on a lot of garbage the night and also a lot of times miss the macros. They not hit your protein. That's my, my biggest pet peeve or struggle with eating windows like intermittent fasting is depending on how big of a person you are. Hitting your protein goals in this small window is really, really difficult to do. Especially if you're a 180 pound plus human being. If you're 120 or under that like not so hard getting you know, 110 grams of protein or 100 grams of protein in a day in a, in a small window. But try getting 200 grams of protein consistently in a six hour eating window. I mean it's just, that's really tough to do.

[Sal]

Another one that I used in the past with great success, we actually have data supporting this was, you know, I remember, you know, years ago learning that, that eating in a state of unawareness actually increases our caloric intake. And so the reason why I came up with it first off, I learned it from somebody else and then I would find data to support it. So what the data shows is that if you're eating while you're doing something else like watching tv, your calories go up naturally because they'll have, if they've Done studies on this. We'll have groups of people, same meal you eat in front of the tv. You guys sit down and do nothing and eat. It's about 15, 10 to 15 more percent more calories when you're eating in a state of, you know what I would label as unawareness. So what I would do is bring is try to improve awareness around the meal. My clients. Now one way to do that is, and this is definitely will do it is get a journal, write down how you feel before you eat, write down how you feel after you eat and you can do all that. But I found clients didn't like to do that as much as they like. They would do this if you're going to eat. And I would tell my client this, if you're going to eat, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go sit at a table, sit down on a table and you're going to eat a meal and you're not going to do anything else but eat the meal. This cuts calories by itself. By itself. Do nothing else. If all you ever did was only eat. When you're sitting down at a table with no phone, you're not on the go. You're not, you know, multitasking, you're not on your computer, you're not bites.

[Justin]

Don't wolf it down with, you know.

[Adam]

Beverage or drinking a glass of water before. That's right, you sit down and eat. So that's the first. You sit down, no distractions, drink the glass, drink the glass of water and then eat and notice a huge difference.

[Sal]

Difference, that's right. Now let's get to longevity. And I would refer to this, we could point to studies but when I say longevity, it's like vitality, like what makes you feel the best. We're not talking specifically about building or cutting or anything like that, but what just gives you that feeling of like man, I feel really good. The, the best hack I have for this, it begins here. Choose foods that affect your digestion the best. When I want to improve my overall well being, I eat foods that tend to not foods that I digest well, but foods that make my digestion better, which is different because I can digest rice and meat and stuff like that very well. But there are specific meals that I know will throw my digestion into a better state. Typically looks like is well cooked vegetables, olive oil, fish, chicken. For some reason when I eat this way, certain fruits will do this as well. Apples tend to do this with me as well. When I eat this way I just feel really good. Cleans you out on the inside. And so when you're trying to just feel good, if you put digestion at the top, it tends to take care of the rest.

[Adam]

I remember when we early on had Dr. Terry Wahls on, and then I remember seeing you used to come in sometimes with this. I mean, it was a giant bowl of nothing but broccoli. And I had never eaten like that. I'd never thought, could I just sit down and eat a huge bowl of just Brussels sprouts that are well cooked? And like there's. When I, when I am good about doing that, I just, I feel good. And it tends to keep the calories in check too. You eat that much, you eat that big of a serving of vegetables, it's hard to overeat a bunch of food. It's not. I don't think it's a great tip for bulking.

[Sal]

No. But I think you should just feel.

[Adam]

Good, but feel good longevity, keep calories kind of in balance. I just, I felt really well when I was targeting like a large bowl in one part of the day. Just. That's all I had to do was just one part of the day. I'm gonna sit down and have this big serving of just vegetables. Like you're saying, well cooked, a little bit of olive oil or butter seasoning on it, and just, man, felt so good. Totally.

[Sal]

In fact, oftentimes my, my recommendations to my clients revolve revolved around this right here first. Because once we could get around, once we could figure this out, then the bulking and cutting was actually a little bit easier because a person felt so good and they started to identify the foods that make them, made them feel the best. Everybody's a little bit different with this, but for me it was, you know what I said? Well cooked vegetables, fish tends to do this for me. Chicken tends to do this for me. Certain fruits tend to do this for me. Cucumbers or zucchini cooked, tends to do this for me. So identify those foods for yourself and that'll help improve that. Now let's get to performance and we can talk about mental and physical performance. For physical performance, carbohydrates and proteins are essential. Now you want fats always. You can't go too low with fat. That's just the way the human body works. But starchy carbohydrates and high protein, all the data supports this to be the best performance kind of based diet for mental performance. I'm gonna say this right now, and I found this. This is Very true for me.

[Justin]

More keto.

[Sal]

This. Yeah. This is true for a lot of the people, not everybody. This wasn't true for everyone, but for a lot of the people I worked with. Low carbohydrates, higher fat, moderate protein. This is how I eat when I'm gonna go on a podcast run, when I. When I'm sent off to go travel somewhere for mind pump, and I'm gonna be on three shows in a row or something like that. And my. It's like, I just want to do a good job on the podcast. I'm not trying to lift weights, you know, I'm not trying to hit a pr. I'm not trying to look, you know, whatever a particular way. I just want to be able to speak well, be sharp. I want to have good memory recall. I want to be able to make good points, not feel like I'm cloudy. I go very low carbohydrate, high fat, moderate protein. And I'll do that for a day or two leading into it, and then the day of.

[Adam]

And I just feel, wouldn't you guys say too, that, you know, of all the cases, this is the case where actually timing does make a difference of food.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam]

Like when. When you eat foods. Like. So if I'm. If you're trying to get, say, a good performance of a workout, you eat at a certain time. If you're trying to get good night's rest, you eat at a certain time. If you want. You want to have clear focus on the podcast, you eat at a certain. So of all the things that we talk around muscle building in the anabolic window, a lot of that stuff is high bullshit splitting hair difference. But when we are talking about maximizing performance, whether it be performance in a sport or on a field, or performance, cognitive performance, timing makes a difference.

[Sal]

Yes.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

To that point, even I. I would restrict carbohydrates, you know, a couple days and then load up, you know, for a big event. And that worked, like, magically for me for performing on the field.

[Sal]

Yeah. So to be more specific for me, because I'm glad he said that. With timing, if I want the best pump, the best strength, the best performance in the gym, I'm going to have a. A probably around 75 grams of carbohydrates, 50 grams of protein, maybe 30 grams of fat. About two hours before. If I have that two hours before with good water intake, I have a lot of water, I get great pumps, I'm hitting better lifts, I can perform really well. I feel great, and I don't get to do this often because I work out so early in the morning. But if I know I'm going to go try and make something happen, that works for me for performance, for like what I said earlier, podcasting leading up to it, it's more of a keto style diet. And then in the podcast themselves, I delay food as long as I can. Right. That fasted state, I'm already running on ketones. It's like I just, I am sharp, I feel great. In fact, if I have to eat, when I do eat sometimes I'll go do three podcasts in a row and the last one will end like 4pm And I don't want to fast until then. The meal will literally look like vegetables and some protein and, and water in between those.

[Adam]

So if you guys are trying to hit like a max lift and I think we did this a long time ago, I think we actually put out something or, or shared. I don't know if we did a white paper or whatever we did like say you're doing a max lift in, in two days at noon.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Are you going to cut or reduce carbs completely the two days before and then the day of start to load. Like at what point how much do you restrict leading up to the day of. And then how much do you kind of try and load before for max strength?

[Sal]

I never found the restrict and then load to work. I found that to work well for me for the pump. So if I want the best pump, I'll cut my carbs down maybe four days before and then the day before is when I start to really bump them up. And then the meal before if I want most, if I want to be strong, it's high calorie leading up and then highest calorie day before and then two hours before. Yeah, that's what I found for you.

[Adam]

Yeah, I like that.

[Sal]

How about you? Same thing.

[Adam]

Yeah. Yeah, that's because. Well, you know me, I'm not the, I'm not going for athletic performance. So. Yeah, I really, I'm not a big PR chaser either. So I don't. That's why I was kind of asking because I don't really have a formula for. I didn't unders. Let's put this way. I didn't understand nutrition like I do now when I was playing sports as a kid. So all of my application has been towards how I look and look, pump and look in the gym. And I wasn't. And I've never been a PR chasing, you know, bodybuilder. I'VE always been a how I look, and so it's always looked similar.

[Justin]

Yeah, I hadn't done that for the PR lift as much as it was, like, performing explosive, like, aerobic, you know, like, movement out on the field. It worked magically for that restricting, like, two days before.

[Sal]

So what would that look like? So that's a good question for you, Justin, because you competed. I mean, you played football a pretty high level. You got a big game coming up on Saturday. So tell me what that looks like leading up to it.

[Justin]

Yeah, it'd be like, Thursday I would. I would start slowly kind of restricting, so I wouldn't go, like, fully restricted. And then Friday I would go a little bit more restriction. And then towards the night, I would start introducing. Then, like, in the morning, I definitely loaded up quite a bit.

[Sal]

What were your. What were the. The foods that you would choose?

[Justin]

Yeah, the rice, potatoes, and starchy carbs. Like, when I did, like, the wrong way and I did pancakes and stuff like that on. On the. The reloading, it just.

[Adam]

I would. I would have.

[Justin]

That initial surgeon would bonk on the.

[Sal]

Field that I had the same.

[Adam]

It's so funny because in bodybuilding, pancakes and syrup and stuff works so good. You know what I'm saying? Because it's about the pump.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Destroy me.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal]

You're already bonking anyway, so it doesn't.

[Adam]

Matter, you know what I'm saying? So I'm just. Let's just load me up.

[Sal]

I did so just, you know, personal story. I in. It was 2006. I competed at a big jiu Jitsu tournament, United Gracie Open in San Francisco. Francisco. And I was so, like, nervous and what am I gonna do? And of course, I'm trying to, like, do everything with diet to maximize whatever. And I made the mistake that morning of carbing up with bad carbs. I had waffles and pancakes and syrup. I'm like, I'm eat all these calories. Yeah. And I just messed up my stomach. I went into that competition on Pepto Bismol. That saved me and the competitors that way to get through to tell you, because I was not looking. Yeah.

[Justin]

That's brutal.

[Sal]

And I remember feeling that and going. Just shaking my head at myself, like, what are you doing, dude?

[Adam]

I mean. I mean, obviously we just threw a lot. But I think the main takeaway that I wanted to make in this point is, like, when performance is on the pay, on the. On the table, meaning cognitive PR performance, even muscle, pump and aesthetic. And actually, all those are very different. And all those have different strategies. There is, there's worth, it's worth your time to investigate how you prep for that, how you set up timing wise nutrition, all other things. But bulking, cutting. Because there's a lot of people that try and make arguments around, you know, backloading your carbs when you're on. It's like, yeah, I found that's all splitting hair stuff. And that really is whatever works best for you. It's not.

[Justin]

You gotta experiment with it previous to that too.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

To know what works best for you.

[Adam]

Right, right. Because everything that we all just talked about like is kind of a generic formula that we've all done. And I've seen exceptions to all those rules.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

But the main point that I wanted to make was when you are, when you're seeking out performance, cognitive physical performance, even aesthetic performance, timing makes a difference. Makes a big difference actually. And so it is worthwhile to investigate how you're going to go about whatever said thing you're going to do with that. The other ones, when you hear, because a lot of people do talk about bulking and cutting and timing of all that. So that, that's to me does not make that big of a difference. It's really what works well for you. Do it.

[Sal]

One thing, one last thing that I'll add that adds. Makes all of the ones we're talking about easier or to put it differently, if you don't do this, you're doing it on hard mode is food prep. Food prep makes a huge difference with all of this stuff. When you don't have a meal ready and convenient and made your options become challenging. When it becomes compromised. Yes. When fast and convenient now have to be put into the mix and you don't have something that's available that's fast and convenient, your options get very difficult. I don't care if you're bulking, I don't care if you're cutting. I don't care about longevity performance. If you don't have that meal ready, your options are go cook a meal or now go find one that you can buy that happens to be very quick. And those decisions tend to never be the right one. So meal prepping makes a huge difference with all. Anyway, this guy, I got to tell you about this, this just changed subject. This, this guy did something that's so hilarious to me and points to just the ridiculousness of this particular industry. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull it up. I'll read you guys what this guy did as a prank that kind of fooled everybody. So in New York, Fashion Week. So you guys know what Fashion Week is, right? Yeah. And I'm sure, I know you guys are big fans. Justin.

[Justin]

Totally can't wait.

[Sal]

By the way, I record. Can I just immediately. Let me just ask you guys this, like, is there a. Is there a crowd you would want to be around less than the crowd at Fashion Week? Could you imagine sitting in Fashion Week with all these.

[Adam]

I like that. I like that as a challenge is. Can I think of something that I would like less? Because I know that that would be one that I wouldn't. I would just got to be something pull my. That'd be something I would hate. I would hate. Which is because I. I like. I'm into fashion. But if you've ever seen Fashion Week and you've seen what, what they're presenting as, not like, yeah, it's not. It's different.

[Sal]

Or even just the people in there. Like everybody's in there smelling their own farts and they all, oh, we're so great. And it's like almost like, I guess Academy Award would be another one. Like celebrate me.

[Adam]

Do you know, it's, you know, it's.

[Justin]

Turned into very pretentious.

[Adam]

You know, it's turned into one of the biggest like fashion movement statements things than even I would. Maybe this might be going too far and I'll get checked by somebody who's into this more than me that maybe Fashion Week is still a really big thing. But I would make the case popularity wise and more people aware of the. The walk in of an NFL player and NBA player.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

They've turned into a fat like, how funny is that? Yeah, that's a major highlight. And there's huge brands that, you know, give a lot of Jones.

[Justin]

You see his like two face suit that he wearing.

[Adam]

And it's always talked about it's now because. So I would make the argument that is bigger than even, you know, the New York Big Fashion Week type of deal. Interesting that most people and most outlets are talking about what the NFL and the NBA players walk in their outfits. But so anyways go.

[Sal]

So to me, this, this what I'm tell you what this guy did that kind of highlights just the pretentiousness and silliness of it. So this guy walks in, he somehow sneaks onto the Runway and he's wearing clear pla. A clear plastic garbage bag, a shower cap and colorful shorts. And he's walking down and everybody's like, oh, this is a part of the show. Yeah. Oh, look at this. Of course, nobody got It.

[Justin]

It sounds like is something that would pass.

[Sal]

Yeah. Because here's.

[Adam]

Well, this is why. Why Zoolander was so good. Why that movie was so good was because they depicted that the ridiculousness of.

[Justin]

Somebody got to. With his little tiny phone.

[Adam]

He's just like, yes. The out. The outfits were so outrageous. It's like you can't. Is this like. That's what I mean by. It's such a. It's not like anything you wear.

[Sal]

Well, here's what's happening. This is what I picture, right? People are walking down something ridiculous like that is happening, but nobody wants to call it out because they don't want to be the one that can't recognize fashion. So they're just all like looking at each other like, yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it's like modern art.

[Adam]

Like I was just gonna say, you know where else you could do that? Go to an art show where someone's got nothing but million dollar pieces on there. Have a five year old, create something, put it in the mix of all and tell me that. Do you know 79 of everybody there would not be able to pick the.

[Sal]

You know someone did that. Someone put duct taped a banana to the wall.

[Adam]

Yes, that's.

[Sal]

That's.

[Adam]

Do you know how much it sold for? How much it sold for?

[Sal]

It sold. An invisible sculpture.

[Adam]

Bro. Bro, look up. What the. The duct tape banana sold for that sold for a lot of money. And so did the invisible art. Yeah, somebody sold invisible art.

[Justin]

It's a freaking.

[Sal]

It's a freaking hustle, dude.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

It was not money.

[Adam]

That was during the NFT days. There was an NFT that came with the invisible art.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Look up, look up first. Frustrating because I really like.

[Doug]

6.2 million. Million.

[Adam]

6.2 million for a duct tape.

[Sal]

Shut your whole face off.

[Adam]

Like, is that awesome or what?

[Sal]

No, it's not. No.

[Justin]

It's like. Then we encourage dumb art like this.

[Sal]

Well, what I mean, again, this is like, this is the. To me, it exemplifies human.

[Adam]

Did you know about this, Doug?

[Doug]

I'd heard about it, yeah.

[Adam]

Yes, There it is right there.

[Sal]

This exemplifies to me human pretentiousness that you're going to look at this and you can't call it out because you don't want to be the person that can't recognize art. And then you're the guy or girl that wants to show how rich you are because you're so artistic that.

[Justin]

Oh, this is literally make up a narrative to explain this.

[Sal]

It's a bunch of know what you're talking about, and it's just stupid. Yeah. It's just dumb.

[Adam]

I'm so good.

[Justin]

That's what it turns.

[Adam]

So gonna put that in my house and tell people I bought that one.

[Justin]

Oh, yeah, that's skillful art, you know, or people do realism, and you're like, oh, my God, Like. Like, can't we bring that back?

[Adam]

So, okay, since we went here, I'm so curious if Doug, you can find it, if what the story to it is or if there's any. Like, if it has.

[Sal]

Those are all news articles.

[Adam]

I know, I know. I remember when this happened. So it was at. That. It was a big. Yeah. Big Miami art show. I remember when this happened. It might have been the same place, Justin, where the invisible art soul, too.

[Justin]

I probably was.

[Sal]

It's just crazy. Now, Justin brings up a good point. He said earlier, money laundering. So. So the other side of this is that they do ridiculous, stupid things and nobody questions them because it's supposed to be art is. You know, what do they say? Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. Okay. Which. I'll get back to that in just a second. But a lot of these people are laundering money, so they want to get. It's. It's money that they need to give to someone else, and they have to do it in a way that's legal, so they could pay taxes on it. And so what they'll do is Doug is going to create a baloney piece of art. He's going to put up a piece of toilet paper with duct tape or something on it, and I'd be like, wow, Doug, that's totally worth $5 million. Here you go. And Doug's like, thanks. You know, and reality, he's bought drugs from him or, you know, sex trafficking.

[Adam]

Yeah, I. It would be.

[Sal]

It would be literally.

[Adam]

I believe. I believe that. I believe that. That Justin's right. I think that's totally. There was a. There was a documentary actually on. On that. I forgot what it was called, but it was on, like, all the. The. The.

[Justin]

There's a lot of grifters in that space. There's a lot of grifters, too, in the wine space, which they've been caught, too, with, like, really old bottles that they tried to pass off, and then they, like, filled it with newer wines and then, like, you know, sold it for millions of dollars.

[Sal]

Wow. All right, so I want to go back to.

[Adam]

Wait, wait, hold on. Could you look at the invisible one? Because I think that's so funny, too. You have to, like.

[Sal]

I'M pretty sure that whole NFT era.

[Adam]

I am. I just want to say. Well, I hammered that. Do you remember how much I used to post talking.

[Justin]

Oh, my God.

[Sal]

I know. During that time you did, but I'm gonna call you out. You almost got us to buy NFT real estate. No, I did. Yeah, you did, bro.

[Adam]

No, I did. Doug.

[Sal]

Us into buying.

[Adam]

Did I ever explain. I don't recall that there was like a thank you.

[Sal]

It was somewhere you want us to buy? Never.

[Adam]

I was. I was talking about NFT day one. It was the dumb.

[Sal]

What was it that you wanted us to buy?

[Adam]

That definitely not that I would not have.

[Sal]

I remember you kind of made the case a little bit. Okay. All right.

[Adam]

I mean, I might have talked about it, like, how crazy it is that there's NFT real estate being sold and. And broke it down, but no. Okay. Did the thing. Did it go invisible?

[Doug]

Yeah. So there have been a number of them. One did sell for over a million.

[Adam]

So there's been more than one invisible.

[Sal]

More of these. So.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Look at. Look at nothing. Look at the display. Look at this Italian artist.

[Doug]

That's some talent, you know, huh? That's some real talent.

[Sal]

Hey, you know what, though? That's laundering. That's such. That's Adam, when you were. When you were in the drug business, why didn't you come up with this idea? You could have totally bought a bunch of fake art and sold a bunch.

[Adam]

So here's okay to that point. My wheels are spinning on that. I don't know how. Okay, it makes sense because they can't audit that, Right?

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

But at the same time, too, you go and buy a $6 million invisible art or $6 million duct tape and that. And now I've brought attention to me. You're almost better off not trying to pay taxes for it and just giving it to me.

[Sal]

Like you.

[Adam]

Let's say I did a huge drug deal with you and you owe me $6 million. Okay. For all the whatever I gave you. And I'm like, I can't just put that in my bank account. And so you think, oh, so. But I would much rather take it at cash and figure out what I'm going to do with that, then go sell you a signature. And now everybody's. The whole world looking at me buying.

[Justin]

That's if I just like, what do you get out of it? I mean, is it for charity? If it was for charity or something or is like, you know, whatever.

[Sal]

You're forgetting, Adam, that these are very connected people. And so they're this. They're encouraged to do this to make it look good. And then part of it's going to go to my charity, which is another.

[Adam]

So that makes sense. Like you. The only way I would like. So obviously I was never at that level. Right. So if at that level, you've got to have some political connections and ties.

[Sal]

Exactly.

[Adam]

And you got to have people that buy something that are telling you to do that. Here's the deal. If you want to get that into your bank account, this is how you do it. Then we'll. We'll just look, we'll turn a blind eye to it because otherwise the average, you know, black market drug dealer is not going to want to draw attention to himself.

[Sal]

Joe Biden's son sell a bunch of art or something like that they were looking at. Did he do that?

[Justin]

He's a painter.

[Sal]

Yeah, he's.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin]

Crackhead.

[Sal]

A bunch of art that he was selling that people were.

[Justin]

I would actually be curious to see what that looks like.

[Sal]

You know, what's his son's name? What was his son?

[Justin]

Hunter.

[Sal]

Hunter. Look up.

[Adam]

I mean that. Hunter's art, because it was such a famous time in history for us. That'll actually probably pop out culture.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Yes. That'll hold out.

[Sal]

That's the only sold is crackpipe. That's the pretentiousness of it. Now, if you're the one that owns a six million dollar duct tape banana, it's famous and maybe it probably does have value.

[Doug]

That's some of his art.

[Sal]

Here, let me. I can't see it.

[Adam]

It's not.

[Sal]

But it's not up there. Yeah. Connected almost too.

[Justin]

At least it's something. It's not invisible.

[Sal]

Let's see if it's good or not. That'd be cool if it's good.

[Justin]

I know, right?

[Adam]

I mean, would, you know, have a.

[Justin]

Nice Hunter Biden piece?

[Sal]

No, that's stupid.

[Adam]

That doesn't look bad.

[Sal]

No, it's not.

[Adam]

I would rock the one on the right.

[Sal]

What? That's just a bunch of scribbles.

[Adam]

That's what most.

[Justin]

Yeah, I mean a lot of the.

[Doug]

The title of it.

[Adam]

I mean, it could look worse. It can look worse.

[Sal]

Okay, so here. Okay.

[Adam]

Yeah. It's not.

[Doug]

It's not like horrific.

[Sal]

No.

[Adam]

He looks so normal right there in that picture.

[Sal]

Yeah, he's got a lot of energy.

[Justin]

Here's.

[Sal]

That's crap. Get out of here. So here's. Okay, here, here's. Here's the statement I want, I'd like to break down for you. Guys, okay? We've all heard the statement, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think that that statement has been totally bastardized and distorted to the point where you can't look at crap like a bunch of scribbles on a wall or a duct tape panan or something like that and say, that's. That's stupid. That's dumb. I think they've taken that so far because I do believe that there is objective beauty and people know.

[Adam]

Well, there is. There is.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

I mean. I mean, there is.

[Sal]

There's also objective.

[Adam]

There's in humans. I think that. Yeah. I don't know.

[Justin]

It's in the Fibonacci sequence.

[Adam]

So the theory, okay, from, like, the art perspective, from the artists and the people, that is that it's a psyop. It's. I mean, I'm not. I'm not going to take a hard position against you that way, but I know that the idea is that as an artist, that you put this thing on this canvas and it. Like, wherever you are in your life, your mindset was like, that emotion has been put into this painting and that others can see that and interpret.

[Sal]

I know that's the story, but when you have somebody to make, it's supposed.

[Justin]

To evoke something, make you feel something.

[Sal]

I know, but then you have. When you have somebody who gives himself a colorful enema and then squirts it across, that's actually an artist that did that, Justin, I'm talking about. And put. And does it all over a canvas and then sells it. And everybody's like, you're not allowed to say because it's art. You're not allowed to say. That's dumb.

[Justin]

Yeah, but it's dangerous, Sal.

[Sal]

Yeah, no, it's dumb. And I think that. I think it's a psyop. I really do. Look at old. Look at old art, Renaissance art. Look at art before this kind of weird postmortem. Like, I agree. Like, it's like anybody would look at and go, wow, that's a beautiful cathedral. Look at those paintings.

[Justin]

You actually have to touch it. You know, all the skill of it. Like, that kind of stuff, like, requires zero skill. It's just like, yeah, manic ideas.

[Sal]

Some people are so mad right now, but I think that we've been.

[Adam]

Yeah, there's definitely some people.

[Justin]

I hope they're mad because it's crap, you know, like, it needs to stop. Yeah.

[Adam]

Give up on your dreams.

[Justin]

Don't create that kind of art anymore.

[Sal]

I'm over it. Yeah. Dude, what are you doing all right?

[Justin]

Sorry. Oh, I'll see that guy.

[Sal]

We're done. Doug.

[Adam]

That was, that was a fun time. I. I forgot all about. That was a long time ago when that banana.

[Sal]

All right, I'm gonna go on a study talking about cookware. So I tried to look up.

[Adam]

Great transition.

[Sal]

I looked up. I looked up studies. I'll pull it up here real quick. Studies on just how much of these harmful forever chemicals we get from different sources. By the way, the highest place that we get it is water. Water and then seafood. This is where we can get a lot of these forever chemicals that cause things like water is one of the highest. Yes.

[Adam]

Because now if you have like a reverse osmosis machine, you're good. Cool.

[Sal]

But if you're, if you're. It depends where you're getting your water, how it's stored. Like this can cause.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Lots of issues.

[Adam]

I know the ones in plastic bottles are some of the worst, especially when it sits out in the sun and things like that. And then the plastic leeches.

[Sal]

Yes. So the other one is seafood. Seafood can do this just because, especially, especially bottom feeders, you know, like, like mussels and shrimp, stuff like that. They filter things out through the ocean. So that can be another one. And then of course, there's cookware. So I'm like, well, how much can this impact some of your long term health? If you have high exposure to frequent use of non stick pans, for example, the risk over your lifetime for increases in cancer can go up 10%. In testicular and kidney cancer, up to 50%.

[Adam]

Whoa.

[Sal]

Okay, whoa. Yes. Immune function. If you have high exposure to these nonstick pans with these forever chemicals, there's a 20 to 30% antibody reduction in children. So it reduces your immune system birth outcomes. This is a crazy one. Your odds of preterm birth go up by about 1.3 to 1.5 times over the norm from, from non stick pants.

[Justin]

Geez. So it's like that from your breakfast.

[Sal]

Yeah, dude.

[Adam]

And shout out to our place.

[Sal]

They. That's, that's where I was going. So our partners, our place, they use none of those things. But what's cool about them? Because you could go stainless steel, right. You could go cast iron. They could be a pain in the butt to clean. I mean, that's just a fact. They're just difficult to clean. Our place is real easy to clean. Yeah. But it doesn't have the.

[Adam]

They have, they have cast iron too.

[Sal]

They also have cast iron.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah. Because I have, I've got Their whole, like a whole bunch of stuff. There's. We love all of it.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Yeah. It's super high quality.

[Sal]

But I mean, isn't that wild?

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

How much of a difference, by the way? If you're, if you're. The, the. The odds go up if your non stick has been used for like a couple years. So when you use it and you nick it and scratch it, which is going to happen. I mean, that's going to happen.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Then your odds go through the roof. Wow. Because of that. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

[Adam]

Yeah, it is crazy. I didn't realize autoimmune stuff obviously then for some. If your kids eat on that. Probably not. Probably. That's probably why I'm always trying to nail down like where.

[Sal]

Where did you use a lot of nonstick as a kid?

[Adam]

Well, yeah, I didn't. My mom was one. Yeah. Cooking our food and stuff like that.

[Sal]

But we did that was like rampant.

[Adam]

I mean, we're spraying it with Pam.

[Sal]

So.

[Adam]

Yeah. Here's some plastic and here's some more cancer.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Tupperware.

[Justin]

Everything with the sun just beating.

[Adam]

Enjoy your Mickey Mouse pancakes.

[Sal]

Put me in the back of the.

[Adam]

Pickup with the gas fumes, cigarettes in.

[Sal]

Your face at the same time. I wonder why I got this stuff.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

I didn't even eat paint chips.

[Sal]

Hey, you know what's crazy?

[Justin]

Somehow survived my dad.

[Sal]

I was. I just realized this with my dad because we were talking and he was talking about this small town that was near his town. It was an asbestos factory. This town had an asbestos. This is before they knew.

[Justin]

That's not good.

[Sal]

Or should I say that before that everybody knew that asbestos was a big cancer risk and lung cancer risk in particular. I think it's lung cancer. So before that asbestos was everywhere. In fact, old houses, you have to go in and check and then you have to have special like procedures to remove this best. It's really bad for you. Anyway, there was this asbestos. There was this. Remember you know what? I used to do popcorn ceilings as a kid. You just scrape them. We climb up on the bunk bed and we'd make it snow. Yeah. I used to.

[Adam]

Talk about a weird style. Like we. Like we intentionally. That's more work to do that. Yeah, it's more work to. To make it look all popcorny like that. Like. Isn't that funny that that was like a style.

[Sal]

I think it's because it helped insulate. Right?

[Justin]

No, reduced the. Like I think it had anti fire.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Justin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

[Sal]

No, we Used to literally. My cousin's house.

[Adam]

We get up on all houses. Every house in the 70s and 80s had popcorn.

[Sal]

That was like, literally we would make it snowy. That was so funny. Just rub it off the whole time. Anyway, this town with this asbestos factory that my dad was talking about in Sicily, he says that like half the people in the town ended up with cancer.

[Justin]

Oh, my God.

[Adam]

Wow.

[Sal]

He's like that whole town, he's like. And everybody knows it because it's a small town. Everybody had cancer. So we had this whole conversation about these chemicals and this and that. And then I'm like thinking of my dad, dude. My dad worked in, you know, construction. He worked as a tile setter. They're exposed to chemicals all the time. Thinset and plastics and adhesives and. And now you'll see these guys wearing these like really nice gas mask looking ones. My dad never wore masks. Never. When I helped him. Never wore masks. And he was as a nine. He's a. He was a nine year old kid up there, you know, mixing things and just breathing it in or whatever. And I remember, you know, he'd come home and his nose hairs would be, you know, coated in like white powder. So we're having this conversation. I'm like, dad, I'm like, you breathed in a lot of crap, dude. He's like, I know, dude.

[Justin]

This reminds me, I. I'm pretty sure I pranked one of these neighbor kids with like cotton candy and just used the. What insulation?

[Adam]

Wow.

[Sal]

What, bro?

[Adam]

Dude, some things you're not supposed to share on this podcast. Literally, like case salt. Somebody's gonna call us.

[Sal]

Dude, this is. Oh, I was a kid. It's.

[Justin]

What do they call it? Statue limitations. I'm fine, you guys.

[Sal]

What happened to him? Because that's.

[Adam]

He only got probably one bite. One bite in. He knew.

[Justin]

Yeah, just spit it out right away and you know. But I just can't believe I did that. You know.

[Adam]

Now I know. I'm so can't believe I'm trying to picture right now. If you had like one of those and you stuffed. Yes. That insulation in it, it probably would look like it.

[Justin]

Oh, my God.

[Sal]

God. Wow.

[Justin]

Dude.

[Adam]

Imagine how itchy his throat was. Probably.

[Sal]

Oh, my God. That's what gets on your skin. Yes.

[Adam]

No, when you touch it with your hands, it's like you're. Yeah, I wear gloves.

[Justin]

Yeah, it stays with you.

[Sal]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Anyways, you brought that up and reminded me.

[Adam]

You remind me the kid I killed.

[Sal]

Yeah, he's fine.

[Justin]

I saw him.

[Sal]

Dude, we used to do things too with chemicals. When I'd help my dad and I'd just be. And he would. He would just crack the. Open the window if you're. If you're. Since you're coffee and then open the breathing.

[Justin]

You know, we had no idea is the point of all this like all these chemicals like they just like were so frivolous with it, you know weird.

[Adam]

Though is like okay, here we are, our generation.

[Sal]

We.

[Adam]

We've. We've figured out a lot of these things. Right. And we're all. But yet we're not like we're extending life much longer. You know, we just traded. We just traded.

[Justin]

Yes.

[Adam]

Some one this cancer for another cancer. And instead of this problem, now we got this problem.

[Sal]

Women used to.

[Justin]

We just traded or swap it around.

[Adam]

Yeah, bro.

[Sal]

Pregnant women used to drink and smoke.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

All the time.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

And it was prescribed sometimes.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

By doctors like oh, I'm anxious, I'm pregnant. You really try Camels? Those are the ones. There's ads you can find. Ads. Yeah. For Camel cigarettes for. For pregnant women.

[Justin]

Now we got Tylenol.

[Sal]

Justin, don't go there.

[Adam]

Stupid that it's politicized. Dude, that post that you did, do you know the amount of people that were commenting that.

[Sal]

I didn't even do a post like I did. I'm against it or for it. I just said all I said all I said. I read another.

[Adam]

Someone's. That thing's still going and I was.

[Sal]

Just on my Instagram before, so it's got Dr. What's his name on there. Cabral. Sorry. Dr. Raul. Dr. Brawl's on there and he's talking about some studies that point to it not being great. Okay. My comment on there was we're so naive to think that. That we're not going to have other possible effects from taking medication.

[Justin]

Something that affects you.

[Sal]

Yeah. Like anything that has an effect on your body is going to have other effects. The body's so complex. So that's all I said. All I said was that. And it's like, listen, we should always be neutral. And I think a lot of people are careful when they do things.

[Adam]

So you a Trump supporter.

[Justin]

It even says it on the bottle like so I don't understand the backlash.

[Sal]

Yeah, it's so.

[Justin]

It's just again, it's like anything else it gets. Is politically charged.

[Sal]

It's so weird to me that, that anyway there's all. Anything you take that has an effect, it has other effects that we're probably not aware of. That's all. Yeah, I Mean, the human body's so complex.

[Adam]

We have one of the largest health and fitness podcasts. So every once in a while we discuss something like that that's related to health. And you took a position on it. That was not a trying to go viral statement. Literally reacting and explaining your thoughts around it. And to politicize that is just.

[Sal]

Well, first of all, I'm gonna say this. I'm very hilarious. I'm very sensitive to the, the challenges that women go through when they're pregnant. And no, I'm not white knighting here. I'm being serious. First off, you know, my wife was pregnant with our two kids. My mom, I'm the oldest, so I remember she was pregnant with my siblings. It's hard. You feel like crap a lot of the time and you can't take anything. So, like, if I get a headache right now as a man, like we're on the podcast, if I start getting a headache, I'm grabbing something. I'm not like, I'm gonna tough it out. I think I'm just gonna just feel this headache, right? If I get stomach issues, I'm gonna take some. But as a pregnant woman, I'm very sensitive to the fact that they have to kind of struggle with this. So I get it, you know, that's all I'm saying. But the other part of it is, like, anything you take, right, it's going to have some other, you know, kind of effect and we won't know what all of them are because, you know, mammalian metabolism is so complex. The way the body works is so complex, it's impossible.

[Adam]

What do you think? Here's, here's a bit controversy. We'll keep going this direction with, with pregnant women, since we're talking about it. Do you think it would be more important that the pregnant woman is eating or really healthy or versus her occasionally using Tylenol? Which one do you think impacts the baby's health more?

[Sal]

What do you mean occasionally? Like, well, eating healthy would be the best. But what do you mean by that?

[Adam]

Well, that's what I mean. Okay. Well, one of the, one of the biggest struggles for pregnant women is to.

[Sal]

Eat healthy or just eat.

[Adam]

Yeah, because a lot. Oh, yeah, both. Oh, I mean, that's what I'm saying. Like, so, I mean, I've been around quite a few pregnant women, trained a lot of pregnant women. My wife has been pregnant. My mom, I'm like you, the oldest. I've seen her pregnant a bunch of times. And, you know, eating a well balanced, good diet is really hard for them really hard. I mean, so either eating enough, hitting protein intake, even, like, could. I mean, my. My niece is pregnant right now. And, you know, of course we sat down before she was and talked all about nutrition and food, all things. And she was like, all gung ho about it. She's like, I get repulsed at the side of chicken, you know, and steak and meat. Like, she's like, I can't eat it. So it's like, my question to you is, like, what do you think is potentially more detrimental to the baby or position that. However you want to say it. But the. The. Occasionally I take Tylenol because I've had a handful of headaches during the pregnancy, or I haven't been able to eat good at all.

[Sal]

I don't know. I don't know, man.

[Adam]

Because I would make the case that. That. That not hitting nutritional targets consistently for a whole nine months, bro.

[Sal]

I'll tell you what. My. So my wife had the worst nausea, first trimester nausea that I've ever seen in a pregnant woman. She literally. This is not an exaggeration. Walked around with a bucket to throw up in for three months. Yeah, for three months. Mentioning almost any food. Make her. Make her throw up to the point where my son, Aurelius, because he was. When she was pregnant, he was. How old was he? He was one or whatever. He started mimicking her throwing up because he saw her do it so much. So he'd go. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. It's because he sees his mom puking all the time. I remember one point, we're sitting there and my poor wife is on the couch, and she's just, like, constantly feeling like she has the worst stomach flu ever. So if you've ever had the terrible stomach flu, you can't even get a drop of water in my mouth, right? So I'm. I'm. See, I remember she's sitting on the couch and I'm like, what do I do? So I'm like, going through a list of foods that I know are her favorites, and every mention, she's dry heaving. So every single thing I'm saying, I'm like, okay, babe, what about. She loves lomo. This is like a Peruvian dish. I'm like, babe, what about lomo? I'm like, okay, let me think. All right. I'm like, pizza. I'm thinking in my head, like, pizza maybe? I'm like, what about like, oh, no, she threw up. Oh, crap. All right. And I'm like, is there anything. And she's like, I can't talk. I'm like, I don't know. What are we gonna do right now? Yeah, like, so. I don't know, man. I don't know. That's a tough one.

[Adam]

Yeah. Yeah. That's why I say that, because. And I think that's maybe the backlash. And I'm sure, I mean, of course you got politicized, and of course we went the extreme route, and now people are like, chugging bottles of Tylenol to prove a point or whatever. But I do.

[Sal]

I can't be real.

[Adam]

I do. I do believe that you, you know, you. When you're. When you're pregnant, you are eating for you and your baby. And if, you know, you took the occasional Tylenol because of the. The migraines or whatever that happened during those nine months, but yet had this beautifully, like, well disciplined, great diet plays a role. Yeah. I would think that that has more of a positive impact towards the baby's health than those occasional. The times.

[Sal]

And then the pharmaceutical industry's got a terrible history with this. What was that medication? Maybe you could look it up, Doug. There was a medication that they prescribed women that resulted in children being born, like, missing a limb. And this became a big. This was like, a big, like, deal. And. And you know why this happened? They took the chemical and they didn't realize that if you flipped it because they thought, oh, it's the same chemical. So if you make it the reverse, it actually caused children to be born. Oh, my God. Yeah. What's the name of it, Doug?

[Doug]

Thalidomide.

[Sal]

Yep, that's it. What was it prescribed for?

[Doug]

Let's see here. Morning sickness.

[Sal]

So.

[Justin]

Oh, my God.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

So women were given this, and their doctor was like, perfectly safe. Perfectly safe. Take this. And then these children will be born missing.

[Justin]

That's horrible.

[Sal]

Missing a limb. Oh, my God. And the pharmaceutical industry is like, oops.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

It's because the chemical was. Sorry, it was. Yeah. On the left side was the hydrogen, not the right side or whatever the chemical is. Isn't that wild? I know. Terrible.

[Justin]

I didn't hear about that.

[Sal]

Anyway, since we're talking about this topic.

[Adam]

Speed of drinking with pregnancy.

[Justin]

Oh, my God.

[Sal]

Don't do that, bro. Don't do that. Okay. No. All joking aside, zebiotics has to be the most talked about, one of the most talked about products that we have amongst our listeners.

[Adam]

Well, anybody. I think we have a bit of a bias because we tend to have people that are trying to eat healthy, be healthy. I don't think we have a Lot of alcoholics. Not a lot. We have a few that follow us and so I think he's all, we have a few.

[Sal]

Somebody messaged you I'm an alcoholic?

[Adam]

Yeah. Have we have a few that are. No. I think that probably identify a lot with what you and I have said on this podcast for a really long time. Just alcohol's never been a part.

[Sal]

It always affects me negatively.

[Adam]

Yeah. It always felt me neglect even one drink. Yeah. And so, you know, most of my adult life, even during the. The peak times of teenage 20 years, 20 year old, when a lot of us do drink, that was the biggest amount of drinking I had in my life. Once I got older and I could legally do it, it wasn't a big deal. And so. And I really was like going, I feel like shit. I can't work. I don't like. So I avoided it for such a long time until we were introduced to Zbiotic. And I remember the first time doing it being so shocked. And then I remember we did that whole challenge where we were drinking all day and everything.

[Sal]

A lot of our listeners don't even know we did that. We did a drinking game with ZBiotics. We did. And this is a. This is our. This is not even a study. Right. This is just the three of us. No, four of us. Doug was on this too. Doug got destroyed. Yeah. This was just the four of us. So it's not really a study. This was just us. Let's film this. Let's do a drinking game. We'll take. We'll drink Robotics before. And then we'll play this game where you have to take a shot or three shots if this thing happens or whatever. And of course, we took out some rules to make it more of a, like, happen faster because we thought, oh, let's make it hard. And we got.

[Justin]

I get smashed.

[Sal]

I haven't. I hadn't been that. I haven't never. I haven't. I haven't been that drunk for a long time, and I have not been drunk like that.

[Adam]

Oh, I haven't been that. I haven't been that drunk since then. That was the. That was definitely.

[Sal]

We were.

[Adam]

Took me back to early days.

[Sal]

We were crushed. We were crushed.

[Adam]

But the next day, next day we came to work.

[Justin]

All right.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Came to work so blown away. I was like, this is gonna suck for a week.

[Adam]

I mean, we keep. We.

[Sal]

We.

[Adam]

It is.

[Justin]

I mean, we don't recommend that.

[Adam]

In my drawer at my. My bar. First time in my life I ever had a bar at my house. I have A bar at my house. I never had a bar at my house, and I actually have the occasional.

[Sal]

You have them in there? The Z?

[Adam]

Yeah. No, I mean, I just.

[Sal]

It's.

[Adam]

It's been nice. What's nice is that I came from never having it, so I never feel like I needed to have it, but now I can enjoy it. And the fact that I have a wife that does like drinking, that's more of her thing. She, like, enjoys wine. She would enjoy a glass of wine over ice cream or a cheeseburger or something like that. And so on weekends, she tends to occasionally like something like that with her dinner or a nightcap or whatever. And now I can have it with her. It's a nice thing that we can do. And I always.

[Sal]

So what do you. What's your drink now? What's your favorite drink?

[Adam]

Angels Envy. Yeah. Yeah. Justin got me on that bourbon, huh? Yeah. It's permanent.

[Sal]

Really? Just by itself.

[Adam]

Yeah. Straight. Yeah, straight. You know, if. You know. Funny you say that, too. Is that part of why I've. I've and definitely have an acquired taste now? Because if you asked me that 15 years ago and I tried that, I'd be like, oh, my God, no. And yet I. I really enjoy now. And what I also really enjoy is I feel nothing. Like, as far as, like, after effects, it feels that I still, to this day, even with zbiotic, if I do really sugary alcohols and stuff like that, I still might have, like, a headache. I get all, like, zebiotic will keep me from the nausea and keep me from the hangover feeling. But, like, high, like, high sugary alcohol mixed drinks, if I have multiples of those will still not make me feel good afterwards. Zebiotic definitely still helps that, but it's not.

[Sal]

You want to hear the drink? You want to hear the drink I like? And you guys are making fun of me.

[Adam]

Some fruity thing.

[Sal]

Yeah, every time.

[Adam]

I'm sure it's pink.

[Sal]

No, no, every single. It's actually not pink. Where is it? Oh, I can't find it. So it's over at Luna. It's called a Lolita, which already sounds.

[Adam]

Like a chick drink.

[Sal]

It is. It is. You serve it with a flower and it's got. No, it's really good, dude. It's got. I don't. I can't find it. So I can't tell you what's in it, but it's got. It's got, like, the egg white foam on it, and it's, you know, cucumber something and lots of sugar and it's definitely a drink that. When they bring it to me, how often do they.

[Adam]

How often do they hand it to your wife and not you?

[Sal]

They know us there now, so now they know that you know.

[Adam]

When you go somewhere else, though, I.

[Justin]

Had a hibiscus margarita that was all pink and. And I felt like.

[Adam]

Do you. Do you find the same way too, Justin, that straight bourbon that way is something that you. You prefer?

[Justin]

Yeah, I've. I've definitely over. Over time if like not mixed drinks. Because it's just like. Yeah, I like that same effect where like too much sugar is really the biggest culprit when I feel like.

[Adam]

Yeah. And then, I mean, when you're having it straight like that, it's just two little small glasses, like perfect.

[Justin]

Just up and.

[Sal]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam]

It's not a ton of calories. It's not a ton of sugar going on. The alcohol, like, more.

[Sal]

Tastes like a Jolly Rancher.

[Adam]

The more I like.

[Sal]

Tastes like alcohol. I don't like.

[Justin]

You're like the Frappuccino of drinks.

[Doug]

The Lolita or the Lunarita?

[Sal]

No, not a Lunarita. That's a. That's a. That's a margarita with. I can't find it either, dog. I looked it up. Okay, but it's literally called the Lolita and.

[Adam]

And you have no idea what. It's like a tequila type of a drink.

[Sal]

No. Oh, no, no. Oh, Tequila. No way, dude.

[Adam]

Well, that means at a Mexican restaurant.

[Sal]

I just do.

[Justin]

So assuming a smooth tequila.

[Sal]

No, you can't. Dude. I threw up a tequila when I was like 19 and that was. It ruined it for me. It's like burning my memory.

[Justin]

Like the horrible, like bottom shelf stuff.

[Sal]

I don't remember. It was just too much.

[Adam]

I mean, that's a big difference. I've noticed now that I've been able to drink is there's a big difference in like top shelf bourbon, top shelf tequila versus the, you know.

[Justin]

Well, that way.

[Sal]

But yeah, there was a period there where I tried.

[Adam]

I think that's the difference too, in the fact that I like bourbon now. The fact that I've drank, I've had some really nice bourbons. I'm like, oh, this hits different.

[Sal]

There was.

[Justin]

There was not just drinking to get drunk like you were in your teens.

[Sal]

When you're in your teens. That's the goal. When I was. When I was. There was a period for like a year where I was like, I am going to. I remember I made a conscious decision. I am going to learn how to like wine. I'm Italian. This has to happen. People like wine. There's got to be something about it. Because I just can't understand the difference. They're all the same to me. I don't like.

[Justin]

It's funny. I've been on that mission for a year.

[Sal]

For a full year. I would have a glass of wine. I try different wines. My clients recommend this. They recommend that they bring me one at the end of the year. Gross. It's still gross.

[Adam]

Really?

[Sal]

Can't do it. Can't do it.

[Adam]

I feel like the right glass of wine paired with the right dinner is. Just ruins the dinner for me. I think if you get the. If, you know, if you get the right glass of wine with the right meal, it just.

[Sal]

It's.

[Adam]

But you don't. If. Just. It's like, yeah, whatever.

[Sal]

My favorite. One of my favorite Dougs is Wino Doug. Yeah, he has a couple glasses of wine. He's a good time.

[Doug]

It doesn't sound right.

[Adam]

If we were. Yeah. If we're all at a restaurant and we're all eating together and we're having drinks, Doug's most likely to get a red wine with steak. Justin and I are probably gonna get some sort of a bourbon and you'll get some sort of like, foo foo drink.

[Sal]

Yeah, yeah. Typically pink or blue.

[Adam]

Yeah. Yes.

[Sal]

Pornography use is detrimental, especially if you're finding that you have an addiction to it. There is a solution. The solution is the deep, clean inner circle. This is a coaching group that helps men break free from pornography. Look, pornography detrimental, Period. End of story. Become a better man. Go to deepcleancoaching.com mind pump and get yourself signed up. By the way, you will get maps 15 for free if you sign up for that coaching group. Back to the show.

[Doug]

Our first caller is Jennifer from New Hampshire.

[Sal]

Hi, Jennifer. How you doing?

[Adam]

Jennifer?

[Jennifer]

Hi, how are you? This is a little surreal for me. Thank you for having me.

[Sal]

You got it. Welcome. How can we help you?

[Jennifer]

Well, I'm going to read my email. I've had some changes since, but lot going on. So it just says I am a longtime listener and have run many maps programs. My current coach calls me a unicorn. I am working with a virtual coach right now because I am one of those rare people who needs to gain body fat instead of losing weight. I am your typical fitness fanatic who is overtrained and has probably undereaten for most of my life thinking that I was eating healthy because. Because I was eating clean. I know you guys don't really like that phrase, but I didn't know how else to say it. I am now 58, just a month and a half away from being 59. I am also osteopenic, osteoporotic, negative 2.5 in my lumbar spine. So even with a coach, I'm struggling to gain body fat and build muscle. And I've most recently been feeling that I'm having tendinopathy issues. So my other struggle is lies in maintaining and gaining muscle, which I never really had a problem with before, even though I was under eating. I currently weigh about 93 pounds. I'm just under 5 6, which is 4 pounds heavier than I was this time last summer. So my last in body scan, I was just under 11% body fat. So I'd love to at least get to 17 or 18. You'd probably recommend higher, knowing you guys. And I would love to hear your guidance not only for gaining weight, but how I should be training right now. And just want to thank you for everything you do.

[Sal]

Yeah, thank you so much for asking this question. I appreciate you coming on. I really, really feel what you're saying. And the answer is going to be simple, but following the answer is going to be very difficult. Okay. The answer to all of this begins and stops. It begins and ends with eating in a calorie surplus. That's everything right now. And I'll get to training because there is a way that we should train for this as well. But when you're applying stress on the body with exercise without adequate nutrients, what you end up doing is breaking down, breaking down, breaking down through the slow process. In fact, under eating is a stronger correlate for osteopenia and osteoporosis than being underactive. It's actually a slightly stronger correlate. So you actually see what you're talking about is quite common, is very common, especially in the demographic of women who exercise but under eat over years and years and years. And you see this often, often, often they, they strength train, they do all the right stuff, they're active. But because of the years of undereating, they end up with osteopenia, osteoporosis. They end up losing muscle mass. We see hormone changes. Sometimes things like hair starts to fall out and skin issues start to happen. So we need to put you, you have to be on an aggressive bulk. That's what's going to do this. Now the challenge is going to be how that's going to feel for you and how challenging it's going to be to see your body weight go up. I'm Assuming this has been something you've been kind of struggling with or wrestling with for a little while. So that's going to be the big challenge. So there's a couple, couple pieces of advice I have for you. First off, strength training. Once or twice a week, that's it. You're not doing any more than that. We're actually going to try to minimize damage. In fact, once or twice a week in a calorie surplus, if you're in a consistent calorie surplus, you will see rapid radical strength gains. More than that, I'm afraid, is going to provide, is going to produce too much stress on your body because I don't think you're going to be in enough of a calorie surplus knowing your history to support more than that. The rest of your activity could look like walking. And I would actually limit your walking. I would say no less. I'm sorry, no more than about 10,000 steps a day. That's the max. I'd say, look, you hit 10,000 steps, you're done for the day. We're not doing cardio, any additional activity. You're lifting full body once or twice a week at most. And we're going to eat in an aggressive calorie surplus. Okay, so let's talk about the calorie surplus. How difficult is it for you to eat extra calories or more?

[Jennifer]

It's a tough question because when I started with my coach, that's what I tried to do. And I found it at some point that I was just so full and I consider myself an eater. And he had suggested, you know, have a cheeseburger, have fries, have ice cream, you can do this, you know, and because I care about what I put in my body, that was hard for me to do as well. And he actually came back to me and apologized. He said, you know, I'm sorry because I know how you eat and for me to tell you to eat ice cream at night is probably just not going to fit. So that's where I struggle. Like I was doing, I was trying the protein shakes. I'm not a huge shake person, although I think that probably helped me. And I still weigh myself.

[Katie]

Background.

[Jennifer]

I grew up as a dancer. I was a dance teacher. Oh yeah, for 15 years. So I've been in front of a mirror basically since I was 6. And the other caveat to your advice is that I also teach fitness classes part time. So I'm a cycling instructor. So I do a one hour class every Wednesday. I do every, every other Monday for half an hour. And then I used to on my off Monday ride on my own, and then Friday doing a class as well. And then I also teach TRX on Saturdays. So it's a lot. And I know I've pulled back just a few weeks ago because my back has really been hurting me. So I've really pulled back on my cardio. So that's kind of what I'm struggling with, like what to eat, how often to eat. And I don't mind eating, but let's.

[Adam]

Let'S give me a day of what, like the foods you like to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Because what I would do is I would build from that instead of trying to take you from someone who eats clean to go have cheeseburger and ice cream, which is so opposite of you. It's more like, oh, here's a way we could sneak in an extra 300 calories on something you already eat. So tell me what you kind of already eat. So I have an idea there not.

[Jennifer]

To say I don't eat cheeseburgers. I do kind of that 80, 20, 90, 10 person but very, very routine. I make, I meal prep my yogurt bowls every day. So I have yogurt, I put a ton of stuff in it. I do yogurt, I do my collagen powder, I do creatine, I do pumpkin and spices and stuff, you know, like cinnamon and whatnot without getting too far into it. And I do nut butter in that as well. So I do that every day. Sometimes I'll do an egg or two like for a mid morning snack. Then I will have for lunch, very routine as well, especially Monday through Friday for work I'll do some sort of protein and then like spinach and shiitake mushrooms and sweet potato, sometimes rice. And then for dinner I'm usually doing some sort of protein and vegetable.

[Adam]

Okay, yeah, let's start right with breakfast. A full fat yogurt with granola and honey on it without changing so much right there. And we just added 3, 400 calories. So I would literally put granola in there. I would use full fat yogurt and I would drizzle honey over the top of it so it's not way out of what you're. So there's an example, right, how we can take a meal that you already kind of love and eat and do and then we could spruce it up a little bit. That will give you some dense calories and still stay healthy and still taste really good. What was the lunch again? Remind me.

[Jennifer]

The lunch just like a protein I'll either do like salmon or ground turkey with sometimes rice, sweet potato, spinach and baby spinach and mushrooms.

[Sal]

Is it okay if I interject real quick?

[Whitney]

Sure.

[Sal]

Okay. And this look, unfortunately because of the format, we're like on a call. Because if I was coaching you, this would be a longer conversation and process. But I'm going to, you know, part of my brevity. There is no way you're going to approach this and not feel uncomfortable. There's not, there's nothing we're going to do that you can do to move in the right direction that isn't going to feel very uncomfortable. So appetite is strongly connected to our psychology and we know this obviously. Look around, right? Obesity is a major problem and it's, it's less has to do with appetite and feeding the body what it needs type of deal and much more to do with how we, our relationship to food. Now yours just happens to be in another direction. So your relationship to food is closer to orthorexia. Are you familiar with the term?

[Jennifer]

Yes.

[Sal]

Okay. So because it's in this category, in order to move out of this, you're going to feel very uncomfortable. So eating the cheeseburger, the ice cream or eating more is gonna feel. I'm stuffed, I feel gross, I feel heavy. Oh my God, I'm bloated. You're gonna get all the feelings of discomfort. So that's just what it's gonna feel like for a little while. Okay. The ways to navigate that, there's two. One, I highly suggest you work with a coach that specializes in, in eating disorders. So I would work with an eating disorder specialist. Okay. Once a week. And they're not going to give you a diet, but they're going to help you kind of come face to face with what's going on here. Your past, your history and dance, all that, it all fits here perfectly. The second question I have is how important is this fitness job for you? Is this your main source of income or is it just because you like it?

[Jennifer]

No, it's because I love it.

[Sal]

You got to quit. Yeah. Quit your job. I hate to tell you that it's not going to happen if you stay working in the fitness.

[Adam]

Yeah, because here's what Sal's point. What happens with a client that's dealing with this and you have things like that.

[Sal]

You.

[Adam]

And it's because it's such a psychological game. You, I get you to eat your granola and honey and then all of a sudden you pick it up intensity wise inside your fitness class, subconsciously And I bet you've done stuff like this before. You know, you ate a little bit more. So what happens, you get on that cycling, and today you cycle that much harder. And it's like you're so. You're literally working against yourself. You take good. You take two steps forward and you go three back every time we make progress. And so it's not going to support what we're trying to do right now.

[Sal]

It's a snare. So fitness classes, working in fitness is a snare. The mirror is a snare. The scale is a snare. You will get caught in it if you continue in those. So as far as the mirror is concerned, I would. I would not. It's gonna sound silly. I wouldn't look in the mirror. I would look in the mirror just enough to get ready. Hair, makeup, clothes, consciously. No more mirror. Like, I'm not looking in the mirror anymore. I would take my scale and throw. Not even. Don't even have a scale in the house. It's not going to be there. I'm not going to weigh myself anymore. You work with someone who specializes in eating disorder. And then. And the goal is now to eat in an aggression. And I'm going to use these words purposefully, aggressive, bulk. Because it's not going to feel anything but aggressive.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

There is no bulk. There is no surplus. That's not going to feel aggressive to you. So when you're in it, you're going to be like, oh, my gosh, this feels aggressive. I could put you on 1500 calories and that's going to feel aggressive to you. You're going to be like, oh, I'm. This is a lot. It's too much. I don't feel.

[Jennifer]

I do. I track my calories. I'm with my coach. I was trying to get to over 2,100, which I have.

[Sal]

Good, Good. Consistently.

[Jennifer]

Pretty much. Yeah. Because even at my. My maintenance, when I was, you know, 88 to 92 or 90, I was like 1800 to 1950.

[Sal]

Okay. Yeah.

[Adam]

Which is not bad. But that tells me you're probably moving a lot.

[Sal]

Yeah. I would put.

[Adam]

You're moving a lot. You move a lot.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

And you probably. What I said about you pick up the intensity every time you eat a little extra. It's probably definitely you.

[Sal]

I would. I would jump to 26 if we were to track and.

[Adam]

Or just reduce a lot of the.

[Sal]

Activity you have to do.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah, Both.

[Sal]

And.

[Jennifer]

Yeah. I have recently, only because of my back issues and my tendon issues, and I have seen A difference in, in pulling back. I'm trying to not have 10 to 14,000 steps a day. So I have gained a little bit of weight over the past couple of weeks, but it's just so frustrating with these pains that I'm having to be able to continue doing what I want.

[Sal]

Pay attention to this, Jen. If we start moving in this direction, the pain will start to reduce, you'll start to feel stronger, you'll have more energy. Those are the things I want you to pay attention to. Try not to pay attention to the way that your body looks in the mirror as it changes the way it looks, and try not to pay attention to the scale. So if you're like getting strong, if you're getting stronger, you're getting, you're doing great, you're moving in the right direction. And with the right caloric intake, a couple days, a week of strength training reduced all the other stuff. You're going to see strength range pretty quickly within a week or two.

[Adam]

I would love for her to work with Corinne. Are you, are you locked in with your, your, your coach?

[Jennifer]

No, I'm almost over, actually.

[Adam]

Really? Really?

[Jennifer]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Okay. Because I would love to bring you in our house. I would love for our trainer, Corinne to work through this, and then the guys and I would be overseeing this project. So if you're open to it, I would love to set up a call where she could go over everything with you, and then I'd love to take, I'd love for us to take care of you because like Sal said, this is not a 20 minute call or conversation. This is an ongoing thing and I want to be there to help you if you let us.

[Sal]

And the good news is it will reverse quickly if you do everything right. Your body, it wants so badly to build muscle, and then what's going to follow is the, the bone strengthening, so it will move in that direction. It really, it just needs you to do the right things. So it's totally reversible.

[Jennifer]

Yeah. And just another side note, I started HRT last year, estradiol and progesterone last December. And then in the February timeframe, I started on testosterone, just the cream, so I really wasn't feeling a difference. And then just switched to injections about six weeks ago.

[Sal]

Oh, you're primed.

[Adam]

Yeah. You are.

[Sal]

Yeah. You're totally primed. You're going to move in the right direction very, very well.

[Adam]

Yeah, we're going to, we're going to hang up and I'm going to have her call you. Okay. So give us a Little.

[Jennifer]

Thank you so much.

[Adam]

Yes. A little time. And we're going to take care of you.

[Jennifer]

All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[Sal]

All right, thank you.

[Jennifer]

Bye.

[Adam]

Make sure Krin does.

[Sal]

Yeah, it's tough.

[Adam]

Well, you know, I hate it because there's nothing. Well, there's nothing we could say right now that fixes that. No, I mean, even. And I get why you interrupted me. It was just like, hey, you could. You could build her day all day long for her, but then you knew exactly what she would do. So I might have added 400 calories. She would have found a way to burn it. Right.

[Sal]

Back off.

[Justin]

Run it off.

[Adam]

Yeah. Anyways. And so.

[Sal]

Or little by little, taking those calories.

[Adam]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal]

So the problem with this is that we often tell people to listen to your body. Okay. That's a very good advice. General advice. But if you don't know how to listen to your body or if developed patterns where your body lies to you, which is another way to put it, listening to your body doesn't work.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Sal]

It'll mislead you. It doesn't. So for her, going in the right direction with food is not going to feel good. No, she's not. She's going to feel full. I don't feel right. I feel like I'm stuffing myself. I feel like I'm overfeeding. I thought I wasn't supposed to do that. That's what it's going to feel like. And so literally, the idea is, look, listen to your coach, ignore your body.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

That's what it's going to be for a little while until things.

[Adam]

You know, I'm actually really excited. She was super open to us taking care of her. And this is somebody especially primed with testosterone right now, but she needs to.

[Sal]

Get out of the gym, working.

[Adam]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Sal]

Such a bad environment.

[Adam]

I mean, we didn't even dive into her activity, but I'm willing to bet she's doing.

[Sal]

She said she tried to cut it down to 14,000 steps.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

She's just moving and under eating.

[Adam]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Whitney from Colorado.

[Sal]

Hi, Whitney.

[Justin]

Hello.

[Sal]

Hi.

[Adam]

How you doing?

[Whitney]

I'm doing great, thank you. I'm so excited.

[Sal]

Cool. How can we help you?

[Whitney]

Well, longtime listener of the show and I. Just for context, I'll. I'll read my question. I'm a real estate investor. Training, um, I love training for high altitude trail races and climbing. I'm having arthroscopic surgery next week, actually, to repair a rotator cuff tear. My super spinatus has a Full thickness tear. Um, they also will have to shave down a hooked acromion and relocate my biceps tendon, which is essentially a biceps tendonis. I'll be in a sling for six weeks with no upper body use, but walking and light jogging should be allowed by six weeks. Here's why I'm writing in. I fought really hard over the last few years to rebuild my right leg after multiple knee surgeries and finally regained glute strength and proprioception. I have a long history of scapular instability from a car wreck and spinal fracture. Maintaining that hard one strength is a major priority during this recovery period for me athletically. I played D1 soccer, competed in ultimate Frisbee at the national international level. I just turned 50 and over the last three years I focused on eliminating over training, getting my hormones dialed in and optimizing my nutrition. And I, quite honestly, I feel stronger now than I did in my 30s. My current regimen includes nine hours in bed nightly, about seven and a half to eight hours of actual sleep, 120 grams of protein a day including bone broth and protein supplementation. Eat about 95% clean whole foods, no processed junk, and I supplement with multivitamin, D3K2 probiotic and beef liver supplementation. At home I have dumbbells, a bench TRX and bands. And I can go to a gym where I have access to a sled. I love running, hiking and wrecking. I just started walking. I will start walking immediately post op and aim to resume lower body work within one to two weeks if safe. My question, what kind of a split movement strategies or training approach would you recommend to maintain leg and scapular strength, minimizing atrophy and staying mentally sharp, all without compromising my shoulder repair?

[Adam]

Yeah, great question. How much rucking and running are we doing in a week?

[Whitney]

I run three days a week, about somewhere around 12 to maybe 14 miles. On the weekends if I'm training for a race. I just completed the Pikes Peak ascent which was 13 miles uphill. Um, then I'll be doing, you know, 8 to 10 miles on the weekend. I'm coming off of that. So, you know, now I'm probably back down to 20 miles a week of running, rucking, maybe another five to six miles.

[Adam]

And then in addition to that, you're also lifting weights. And this is, this is you coming, this is you no longer over training. This is you coming down from what you, you say used to be over training. Is that right?

[Whitney]

Yes, actually, yeah.

[Sal]

It's a lot. That's a lot by the way, do you have a background in like anatomy or something? The way you communicate? I was like, she's either a trainer or she does this for living.

[Justin]

Definitely.

[Sal]

Privy.

[Whitney]

Yeah, I actually was a second year med student in several certifications in health. Yes. And I actually have a PhD in nutrition.

[Sal]

Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so because of your background, your high level athleticism background, your idea of appropriate when it comes to exercise volume and intensity is very different from what is actually appropriate. So you're gonna have to reduce a lot of that volume so that you're not always doing what you can tolerate, but rather what's, you know, what's appropriate for you, what's right for you to move your body in the right direction post surgery. First off, do you have, are you going to have physical therapy afterwards? I'm assuming yes.

[Whitney]

Yes. One to two times a week. Very valuable range of motion. Yeah.

[Sal]

Okay, very valuable. So do that. After you're cleared from physical therapy, you're going to do correctional exercise for a little while. Okay. So your exercise routine is going to be focused on regaining or encouraging good movement patterns. So it's all correctional exercise. What you don't want to do in combination with that is any kind of repetitive movement where you can continue to train old movement patterns. So it's, it's not a good idea to do lots of stuff that you're already doing that you're good at while you're trying to regain a new movement pattern. Because your body's going to be, you're going to be competing movement patterns. You have old movement patterns which probably contributed to the injury, and those old movement patterns are really solidified. So what we want to do is we don't want to keep practicing those while simultaneously trying to do correctional exercise. So it's going to be just correctional exercise for a little while and then after that, just strength training for a little while to build strength, to build that base. And then you can slowly introduce some of the stuff that you love to do. But I will caution you to always try to do what is best, not what you can tolerate. Because what probably happens with someone like you is you'll start here and you're like, you know, I could do more and you feel good. You're like, I could do more and I could do more. And then you're always kind of tiptoeing that line of what I can tolerate, maybe doing a little too much. So then what you do is you get a little more sleep, do the recovery stuff, supplement a little bit, bring yourself back over that line, continue to do what you tolerate. So you're always kind of toggling between a little too much and maybe just what you could tolerate. But before, what you could tolerate is what's considered best for things like strength and performance and all that stuff. Now, for an athlete like you, because you have an athlete mind, okay, so. And this is like, this is not a bad thing. It's a great thing. So you want to approach your training like in season, off season. So there's a short season and then there's a long off season. Off season is all about doing what's appropriate, recuperating, strength, feel good. It's kind of a cruise in season. You're sprinting, and I'm going to give that to you because otherwise you're going to pull your hair out. Because if you don't have that in season time, you're probably like this boring. So in season off, season, off season is going to be like 75, 80% of the time. 20, 25% of time is going to be when you're kind of pushing it.

[Justin]

Have you been able to take a break from running and just focus on training before? Have you done that?

[Whitney]

I actually, I just finished up my racing season last weekend and so, yeah, I'm totally in off season now. That's why I'm, that's why I'm doing the surgery now, because I know I need to take a break.

[Justin]

Yeah, like you said, the corrective phase is. I would, I mean, and this is kind of a mental difficulty for especially athletes because, you know, we know what we're capable of. However, and two, you want to accelerate the process because it's mundane, I would challenge you to double that. Whatever you think it is to get through it, just in your mind, just stay there even longer. And then from there we're going to get into like unilateral training and really dictating that based upon what you're doing, your, your, your arm can, can tolerate at that point.

[Adam]

Yeah, I'd love to send you over prime pro for all the corrective work that we have in there. And you focus on that primarily and then probably come out of that into symmetry.

[Sal]

Yeah, you say, yeah, symmetry would be great.

[Adam]

Workout pro, prime pro is what you're going to do for what Justin is saying, double the time you thought you were going to do it, and then when you get out of that, symmetry is a great, a great program.

[Sal]

Whitney, you're doing, do you have access to peptide therapy?

[Whitney]

I mean, I've taken BPC before. And nominal improvement for my knee, but I think that's because the problem wasn't my knee. It was actually my hip.

[Sal]

Yeah. So bpc, thymus, and beta, I think.

[Justin]

Is combo of those.

[Sal]

Great combination.

[Adam]

Miraculous for what you're going through.

[Sal]

Yeah. Post surgery, I would use those. They're not. So neither one of those will fix chronic problems. So chronic problems are just dysfunction, but like an actual injury, tear, or, you know, surgery, they accelerate the healing process. So BPC with. With thymus and beta, post surgery, and then correctional exercise looks like this. It's every day, every single day, maybe twice a day. So every day, twice a day, 15 to 20 minutes, you're doing correctional exercise. And unless you get really sore, I got to take a day off and do that and then kind of do that for a little while. I like what Justin said. Go longer than you think, and then go into symmetry. And symmetry is great because it starts isometric, which would be perfect. And then you get into unilateral work, and I think that'll be ideal. And then after you're kind of like, man, I'm feeling balanced and strong, then you can start incorporating the runs and the rucking again. But again, always remember, like, do less than what you can tolerate. That'll. That'll give you so much longevity with that.

[Whitney]

Yeah, I really. I ran symmetry three times this year, and I think that's one of the reasons why my hips and knees and lower back just really stabilized.

[Sal]

Perfect.

[Whitney]

And I was able to race how I wanted to race this year.

[Adam]

Perfect.

[Whitney]

For sure. Love that program.

[Adam]

Oh, so you already have that.

[Sal]

Do you have Prime Pro?

[Whitney]

I do, yeah.

[Sal]

Oh, you're great, Whitney. You've got everything.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin]

Right on.

[Sal]

Yeah, that'd be. That'd be the way to do it. I mean, someone like you, you're gonna do really well, so long as you don't overdo it.

[Adam]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal]

That's the only thing.

[Justin]

It's the mentality going in.

[Adam]

I will caution you this, too. The bpc, then the thymosin, it cuts the recovery time in half. And so I would caution someone like you to wanting to rush back because you feel so good so fast. I remember that. The exact same issue. Oh, man, I feel great already already. And then re. Injured myself.

[Justin]

Press it too hard.

[Adam]

Yeah. Because it will. It will heal you faster. And I. We've talked and speculated that. I think it's half the time that it would normally take without it, and so that's going to make you want to get back into it. So Justin's Advice of whatever you think. Just double it is a. Is a pretty good, smart idea.

[Whitney]

Do you have a suggestion on capsules or injections?

[Adam]

Injections, yeah. Capsules are really subcutaneous, though. It's just a. Yeah. Little diabetic.

[Sal]

Yeah. The oral version is good for gut health, but it doesn't work quite as well systemically as the injection.

[Whitney]

Awesome. All right, well, thank you. I'll give that a shot.

[Sal]

And with your athletic background and your muscle memory, like, if you do this right, you're going to get back to. So, yeah, rebound, like, and the surgery you're getting, I'm very familiar with great success rate. So long as the rehab is done properly. So it's going to be great.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

Use this time to build better patterns. So that's how I'd look at it.

[Whitney]

Awesome. Yeah, I. I'm. I'm really actually looking forward to kind of the downtime after. I just want to really.

[Sal]

Yes.

[Adam]

That's a good attitude. That's a good attitude.

[Whitney]

I kind of have to be right.

[Adam]

Okay with it. That's good. That's. That's good. That's good to hear for us for sure. Yeah. That's good to hear.

[Sal]

Yeah, that's awesome. Great.

[Adam]

You're gonna do great. I'd love to hear back from you after you recover from this, especially since you're going about it.

[Sal]

When's the surgery scheduled? It's October.

[Whitney]

October 10th.

[Sal]

You want to talk with us again three months after?

[Whitney]

Absolutely, I would love to.

[Sal]

All right, let's do that.

[Adam]

Awesome. Awesome.

[Justin]

See how you're doing.

[Sal]

We'll have you back on.

[Whitney]

Awesome. Thank you, guys.

[Sal]

All right, Winnie, send her the link too, to our partners. Doug. So she knows where to go for the Peptides. Yeah, she's. She'll do great. So unless she doesn't overdo it.

[Adam]

That's Justin's advice. Was great.

[Sal]

Yeah, I love that.

[Adam]

Whatever you think.

[Sal]

Twice as long.

[Adam]

Yeah. That's such good advice. Especially if she gets on that bpc, because she gets on that, that's going to cut it down even more. And so even then, I might actually say go three times what you. You're thinking. Because that is the only challenge for someone that active, that athletic. And also very knowledgeable. And very knowledgeable. I mean, this. I. I think sometimes we're our worst. Right. Like, that was 100.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam]

My several injuries I've had because I'm cocky and, oh, I know what I'm doing. And like, oh, I'm feeling good. Let's go. And then re. Injure myself. And so I think if you.

[Sal]

If you did that double rule, it would have been okay.

[Adam]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sal]

But, yeah, she's. You look at her injuries and what she was at a high level at right knee, D1 soccer.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Shoulder, ultimate Frisbee.

[Justin]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal]

You know, 100, 100.

[Justin]

A lot of that.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Katie from Minnesota.

[Sal]

Hi, Katie.

[Adam]

Katie, hello.

[Katie]

Hi, guys. How are you?

[Adam]

We're good.

[Sal]

How are you?

[Ashley]

Good. I feel like I'm meeting my favorite boy band.

[Sal]

Oh, my God. I don't think there's a boy band.

[Adam]

I want to know who each guy is then for sure.

[Sal]

Stop, dude. Stop, dude. Joey Fatona, how can we help you?

[Ashley]

Well, first of all, I just wanted to thank you guys for everything that you do. Your show has been a huge part of my family fitness journey and also some individual. Thank you, Sal. I love the spiritual growth that you've been experiencing and just following that piece.

[Sal]

Thank you.

[Ashley]

Adam, I have to say, your peanut butter hack has changed my life, and it has also caused a lot of conflict in our life.

[Adam]

It's a lot of conflict.

[Ashley]

I feel like you are the unsung hero of the group. I live for your sarcastic comments, and oftentimes I feel like you're the Easter egg in this show.

[Adam]

Great way. Great way to define this. I love that. Awesome. How can we help you?

[Ashley]

All right, so I'm just going to read my question as I wrote it. I have been running your programs for about two and a half years. I've done anabolic maps, 15, symmetry, muscle mommy, and Aesthetic. I've enjoyed each program and appreciated the results that I have achieved from each individual program. But the standout for me has really been specifically phases two and three of Aesthetic and phase two of Muscle Mommy.

[Adam]

Awesome.

[Ashley]

Throughout those phases, I felt an endorphin rush after every single workout and really just felt overall great energy. Throughout my days, I was sleeping better, and I actually was paying more attention to my Fitbit and my watch and the feedback that I was getting on that too. Everything was just off the charts awesome. It's honestly the best I've ever felt working out. And I know just from listening to you guys, that aesthetic is the high volume that you don't want to keep repeating. But I find that I'm kind of chasing that aesthetic high. And so I'm wondering, first of all, are the effects that I experience typical? Or maybe is my body just responding different? And then what would you recommend of your programs that would still give me that same high? Just knowing that I don't necessarily have any specific fitness goals other than continuing to build my strength. Just looking for some advice there on.

[Katie]

What to do next.

[Sal]

That's such a good question.

[Adam]

Great question. A lot of options and I think just from at first glance, you're doing, I think, a pretty good job. When I look at the programs you're rotating through, there's nothing wrong with doing you love aesthetic or you love muscle mommy and you're loving the results. Everything's so positive. It absolutely can be perfect for you. If you just interrupt it every two programs or so with like a performance type or symmetry type of program, I think you could be continue the path you're going.

[Sal]

There's a. There's a paradox here with, with what you're experiencing. First off, what you're experiencing is great. It's awesome. Obviously you love it. It feels good. Doesn't feel bad. You're even measuring hrv. So it's like, you know, it's all.

[Adam]

In my head, libido. Everything's doing better.

[Sal]

Yeah. Like, it's just so. But the reason why you're able to experience all that great stuff is because of the phase one. It's because of the maps anabolic setup. It's because of the other programs that are leading into what you're doing. If you just stayed in the phase two and three of aesthetic over and over and over again, it would definitely go.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

In the opposite direction. So what we don't want to do and this, this, this is, this is common with fitness fanatics is we start to fall in love with the feeling and then we start to chase the feeling. And what that can look like is some people love to feel strong. Right. So they just. This is what they always stay in and they start to develop injuries and pattern movement issues because of it. Or they love the pump and they just chase the pump all the time, or they love the endorphin rush. And so you want to be careful with that because you'll actually get less of it if you always chase it. So the secret to getting more of it is to set yourself up well before you go into those phases. And I think you're doing a great job by going through what you're doing. The different programs. The next program I see that you don't have up there that I think you will love is strong. I think strong is going to give you what you're looking for. Have you done MAP strong?

[Ashley]

I have not.

[Sal]

We're going to send it to you.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Those work sessions are going to capacity. They're going to give you exactly super what you like from those other programs, and it's very different from what you've done.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

Okay.

[Katie]

So give me the variety that I'm looking for.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

You're gonna very unconventional lifts in there.

[Sal]

You're really gonna love it. Great posture to your chain work. You're gonna get great back shoulder glute development. It's got the volume and intensity that you desire, but it's well cycled, so I think that would be a great program to do. Next.

[Adam]

Katie, do you have. Do you have maps 15 performance also, or no?

[Ashley]

I don't think so.

[Adam]

Okay, I'm gonna have Doug give you that one, too, because once you have those two, you have, like, the great mix. You got a great mix of. And as long as you interrupt your year with a cycle of symmetry or maps 15 performance, you're going to be. You're going to get what you want. You got a good balance. You're scaling back a little bit on intensity, then you're going back down, then you're throttling back up. You're doing unilateral work, multiple. Like you're addressing all the main things. You'll be just fine.

[Sal]

Yep.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Katie]

All right.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Well, thank you so much.

[Sal]

You got it.

[Adam]

Doing great.

[Sal]

Yeah. Great job.

[Adam]

Love it.

[Ashley]

All right.

[Adam]

All right. Email in after you're done with Strong. We'd love to hear your feedback. If you go through it, you'd be a great person to talk to.

[Ashley]

Okay, I will do that.

[Katie]

Thank you so much.

[Adam]

All right, Katie.

[Whitney]

All right.

[Sal]

Love to hear it.

[Adam]

She was a. She was a peach.

[Sal]

Yeah, I love to hear it. I love to hear stuff like that.

[Justin]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal]

And I love that she combined the endorphin rush with some objective measures, because sometimes the endorphin rush is just. I'm beating myself up.

[Adam]

Right, right.

[Sal]

Cortisol.

[Adam]

Yeah. Her libido up. Her sleeping better. HRV better.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam]

That's all signs.

[Sal]

She's doing good.

[Adam]

Doing it. Doing a great job. Yeah. That's awesome.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Ashley from North Carolina.

[Sal]

Hi, Ashley.

[Adam]

What's happening? How you doing, Ashley?

[Sal]

How can we help you?

[Katie]

Okay, so I have been a listener for probably about the last two years. I have five boys ages 2 to 12.

[Adam]

Five boys?

[Jennifer]

Yeah.

[Adam]

You got a full basketball team. That's awesome.

[Sal]

God bless you.

[Adam]

Yes, yes.

[Katie]

And I have been working out consistently since 2019. After my third was born, I was doing a popular online workout company. You guys probably know them. If I said Their name, but. And I lost about 50 to 60 pounds after having that child. I was very, I like to call it skinny fat, where I didn't have any muscle, but I was, I was down to the weight that I wanted to be. And ever since then, after having. I've had two babies since then, I haven't been able to get back down there. And I don't necessarily care about the weight so much as the, like, the number on the scale as much as the. I mean, I'd like to lose the fat is really what it comes down to. And so now I am really good at maintaining. I've been maintaining since March, and that's very frustrating because I don't want to maintain. I'm at. I am 5 5, and I weigh around 180 to 190. My lifts are going up, so I am gaining the muscle, but I just cannot seem to drop the weight. And I, I don't understand why. I don't know if it's heart rate. So my heart rate, my resting heart rate is anywhere between 48 and 55 beats a minute. And I go like, I'm doing a deadlift. And I can get my heart rate up to like 120, maybe 130. And by the time I'm done with my deadlifts, my heart rate is back down to like 70 to 100. Like, it's pretty low.

[Sal]

Yeah. Has nothing to do with your.

[Adam]

That's a good thing.

[Sal]

Has nothing to do with your heart.

[Adam]

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good thing.

[Sal]

Don't even worry about your heart. How old are your boys?

[Katie]

So they're 12 to 2.

[Sal]

Your youngest is 2.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Yeah. Okay. You're doing great. You look really healthy.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Justin]

You look super vibrant, strong still. That's great.

[Sal]

Yeah, you look super vibrant. I can see from here you're saying that you're feeling strong. Heart rate coming down after sets. That's a great sign. You're moving in the right direction. You just got to be patient. If you're avoiding processed foods, you're eating whole natural foods, you're hitting your protein targets. You're going to, over time, start to get leaner and leaner and leaner. Don't push the process right now because you're in a good space.

[Justin]

You want your body to work for you.

[Adam]

Any idea where you land calorie wise? And are you really consistent with hitting the protein every day?

[Katie]

So my, my macros, my calories are at right at 1700. I don't want to go any lower than that. I hate the way I feel when I go lower, my protein is at 171, carbs are 149, and my fats are at 48.

[Sal]

Oh, you gotta bump your fat. Yeah.

[Adam]

And we just reverse diet. She's at 17 right now, and you're lifting and doing stuff. Unless you're really sedentary, I'd say we need to go the other direction, which is probably why you're stalled. You're eating a low enough calories that your body's, like, hanging on to everything. It's like, okay, and if we go after a muscle, like, let's go gain some muscle for a good two, three months and then watch what happens when you go back down.

[Sal]

I'm getting stronger on 1700. Calories is great.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

And it's a good sign.

[Sal]

Yeah. Let's. Let's reverse diet. You go up to 1850.

[Katie]

Okay.

[Sal]

Bump it. Do through fat. Your carbs and proteins are fine. So bump up your. Yeah, you gotta get your fats up to, like, 70. I don't like having women anything below 60 or 55 at the lowest. Okay. It tends to not work really well. So bump your fats a little bit. Get up to 1850, keep getting stronger. You're moving in the right direction. You look super healthy, especially for having five boys and the youngest being two.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Sal]

You're in a good place. Just start to reverse diet so we have a place to cut from later.

[Adam]

Where are youwhere you at? What program are you following right now?

[Katie]

Um, I am. It's a. Just an online program. Um, the best thing that I like about it is that I can track my like.

[Jennifer]

Okay.

[Katie]

I started here, and I'm going up here. I don't have anything that I'm.

[Sal]

Okay.

[Adam]

I would. I would like to. I'd like you to get in our Muscle Mommy group group. I think you would absolutely thrive in there. It has two programs already in there that you have free access to. Okay. So you've got the Muscle Mommy full program or The Muscle Mommy 15, which is the shorter workouts and have you inside that group where we're. We're getting weekly calls with the trainers that are coaching everybody through that.

[Sal]

Yep. You'll get some good reverse.

[Adam]

And I would say a good portion of the women in there are also reverse dieting right now. It's a. Tends to be one of the first things that we do with them and so extremely valuable. You can. What's the website, Doug?

[Doug]

MuscleMommyMovement.com.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

And that'll log you right in there. And I'll see you pop up and make sure I say hi right away. And then let the boys and I take you through this. I think you're actually in a really good place and you'll be feeling really good in a couple months.

[Katie]

So what should I do about cardio? So, for example, we literally just got back from a three week trip in Italy and I wore my two year old basically the whole trip, and we did eight to 25,000 steps a day. And we didn't lose. My husband and I both didn't lose anything. We didn't watch what we were eating, unfortunately, didn't get enough protein. And so I don't like. I feel like I need more cardio. Is that like I'm working out three days a week. Do I need more cardio or not?

[Sal]

No, you just walk.

[Adam]

Walk.

[Sal]

Yeah. Hit your eight to 10,000 steps a day.

[Adam]

You're good. Walking, eight is plenty. Eight to 10,000 steps. Walking is plenty. With the. The program is going to be perfect with a reverse diet.

[Sal]

Once we reverse diet you to somewhere like 24, 2500 calories, then we have a place to cut from.

[Adam]

Yeah. And then when you. And then when you do that, you're going to do it with more muscle and you're going to just.

[Sal]

And then you'll see the fat.

[Adam]

You'll see it, see it come right off. You'll feel good.

[Sal]

Does that make sense to you, Ashley, what we're saying? Do you understand why you need to reverse diet?

[Adam]

Okay.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Sal]

Because if you cut from 1700, you don't have much room to go. So. Yeah, we got to get the metabolic rate in a different place. Okay.

[Adam]

You're gonna be good. Yeah, I'm excited.

[Sal]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Get in there. I'll see you today. All right. All right.

[Sal]

She's doing good. She looks real healthy.

[Adam]

She is.

[Sal]

She just had a two. Her baby's two, so it's like not that long.

[Adam]

And she very well could be in this like Goldilocks.

[Sal]

She said she's still getting stronger.

[Justin]

Yeah.

[Adam]

I mean, what's ha. And that can be frustrating for people because they don't see anything moving fast. But she's probably losing a half a pound of fat than building a half a pound of muscle.

[Sal]

So.

[Adam]

Yeah, so it's just this slow process. But like you said, you can see how vibrant she. She is, how healthy she sounds like. And she's getting stronger. Her calories are just low. If she wants to speed it up, the faster route would be to reverse diet. That's right, build some muscle aggressively, get up to like 2500, come back down to 2000 and lose weight fast on a higher calorie intake than she is right now.

[Sal]

Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you at Mind Pump Media.

[Doug]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the like by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.