2744: How to Track Macros the Right Way (According to Pros)

Summary

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Mind Pump Ep. 2744: How to Track Macros the Right Way (According to Pros)

Release Date: December 6, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the science—and psychology—of macro tracking (protein, fats, carbohydrates), examining who it helps, who should avoid it, and how the pros use it as a temporary but transformative educational tool. The Mind Pump crew draws on decades of coaching experience to debunk myths, highlight common pitfalls, and share real success stories. The team also coaches several live callers with nuanced issues—from stalled progress to post-diet recovery—and gets candid about their own tracking habits.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Macro Tracking & Who Needs It?

• Macro tracking isn't necessary for everyone but is a powerful tool for certain goals.
• Sal: "Tracking your macros...can be a total game changer in the positive and in some cases in the negative. We're going to talk about macro tracking, the do's and the don'ts, who it's good for, who it's bad for." (04:01)
• For general fat loss or gaining muscle, basic awareness often suffices; tracking becomes most useful for advanced goals (e.g., getting below "fit and healthy" body fat levels).

2. Benefits of Tracking: Awareness, Precision, Education

• Even professionals can underestimate or overestimate their calorie intake by 10-20% (hundreds of calories)—enough to stall progress.
  • Adam: "Even for those of us who know...I could still be off significantly—10 to 20%, which is hundreds of calories..." (06:33)
• Macro tracking is an “awareness tool” to align perception with reality.

3. When & Why Macro Tracking Becomes Essential

• For aesthetic goals below “natural” leanness—men aiming for <12%, women for <20%—tracking becomes vital as hunger and bodily signals become unreliable.
• Also important when:
  • Bulking/reverse dieting (to avoid overeating or undereating out of fear)
  • Establishing a true maintenance for metabolic adaptation
• Sal: "If you want to move typically lower than that (fit/healthy), that's when macro counting starts to become important because your body kind of fights you." (10:34)

4. Common Macro Tracking Errors & Mindset Pitfalls

• Many become “trapped” in perpetual tracking—this is neither necessary nor healthy long-term.
• Counting is not a license to eat junk that "fits"—the “If It Fits Your Macros” (IIFYM) mindset often backfires, making adherence harder due to cravings/hyperpalatable foods (22:35).
  • Adam: "It's like putting this whole process on hard mode...You introduce foods that are hyperpalatable...It makes you hungrier and crave more." (22:43)
• Macro calculators and formulae are just starting points; real tracking over weeks gives the most accurate maintenance number.

5. Sustainable, Real-World Macro Tracking Methods

• Macro calculators give a starting guess, but awareness grows best by tracking what you already eat for 3+ weeks to establish baseline behavior.
• Coaching tip: Don’t immediately overhaul clients’ diets. Start with small changes for lasting success.
  • Adam: "I want you to eat normal...If I find out later that the beautiful plan I laid out is so astronomically different than what you just did...I'm setting that client up for failure." (19:06)

6. Tracking Is Temporary: The Exit Strategy

• Macro tracking should be used as a learning phase—not forever.
• Sal: "Macro tracking is good if it's a step towards a...life that is not stressful around food. It's great as an awareness tool." (21:30)
• Transition away from tracking as you build food intuition and healthy habits.

7. Science Deep Dives: Not All Studies Apply to Everyone

• They critique oversimplified study interpretations—e.g., a bulk study where already overtrained athletes didn’t gain muscle from extra calories. Training context matters; calories support muscle only if the muscle-building stimulus (strength training) is present. (24:25+)

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Coaching Call Highlights & Real-World Examples

[65:36] Caller #1: Matt — Bulking, Time Constraints, Arm Growth

• Scenario: Wants to add an inch to his arms, but struggles to fit volume-heavy “MAPS Aesthetic” workouts into his morning.
• Advice:
  • MAPS Aesthetic likely more volume than needed; cut sets or use MAPS Anabolic Advanced.
  • Blend MAPS Anabolic (3 days/week) with added “focus days” on arms and occlusion training.
  • Key Quote: "Have you ever done occlusion training on your arms? That’ll give you a quarter inch fast." (69:16, Sal)

[72:51] Caller #2: Sandy — Perimenopause, Post-Competition Fatigue, Aging

• Scenario: Lifetime athlete, recent fatigue, wants to drop to "stage lean" for her wedding; stuck at “high” calories and not making progress.
• Advice:
  • 1800 calories at 4 days/week training is too low for Sandy’s activity and muscle mass.
  • “You’re in a good place—low 20s bodyfat is fit and healthy as a mature athlete. Trying to get lower (to 16%) is not healthy for your age.” (77:04, Sal)
  • Assignment: Reverse diet up by 250 calories, focus on strength not scale, get coaching support.
  • Emphasis: Psychological discomfort is biggest barrier. “Are you comfortable being uncomfortable? Let’s do that. Bump your calories.” (82:33, Sal)

[87:33] Caller #3: Jason — Post-COVID Recovery, Escaping Yo-Yo Dieting

• Scenario: Former chronic yo-yo dieter, survived severe COVID at 300lbs, now thriving with high calories and steady strength/performance gains, but worried about "breaking the rules" (too many gym days, too high calories).
• Advice:
  • What matters most? “You’re getting stronger, feeding yourself, you feel good—you are doing GREAT.” (91:48, Sal)
  • Slight tweak: Maintain walks/steps as daily activity.
  • Gave a 12-month plan (MAPS programs) to follow.
  • Inspirational: “I’m the only patient that survived that ICU. I’m here for my kids and to live God’s purpose.” (94:58, Jason)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Macro Under/Overestimation:
  Sal: "The over/underestimate of what you think you're eating is silly. It's just dumb. Even for those of us who...know, I could still be off significantly—10 to 20%." (06:33)
• On Macro Calculators vs. Real Life:
  Adam: "Macro calculators...give you a good place to start, but it's not the answer. If you have a coach, I want you to eat the same [as before]...then we'll change one thing at a time." (18:55)
• On Dangers of Perpetual Tracking:
  Sal: "There are people that get trapped in this...macro tracking...becomes a trap. And it's a stressful trap...It's a dysfunctional relationship with food." (21:30)
• On Small, Sustainable Changes:
  Adam: "Small changes produce results...you can start building muscle, start burning body fat right away—with minor macro changes." (20:13)
• On Tracking as Education, Not Dogma:
  Adam: "For the anti-tracking people, the real value is...awareness." (15:06)

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Memorable Moments

• "IIFYM Put on Hard Mode": The team reminisces about the “If It Fits Your Macros” years, mocking the idea that cramming all your protein/fat/carbs into PopTarts and pizza just “because it fits” is a good long-term idea.
• Raw Vulnerability from Callers: Sandy gets a gentle but powerful intervention for her fear of reverse dieting, with the crew supporting her to embrace discomfort for long-term freedom.
• Success Story: Jason’s transformation from near-death in the ICU (post-COVID) to thriving with high calories and a healthy, hopeful outlook is a highlight and inspiration.

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Macro Tracking: Keys to Doing It Right (Mind Pump Rulebook)

Tracking Macros is Most Useful When:

• You’re pushing below typical “fit/healthy” body fat levels
• You’ve plateaued or have no awareness of true intake
• Bulking/reverse dieting and need to ensure enough (but not too much) food

How to Use Macro Tracking Effectively:

• Treat it as a learning phase, not a life sentence (30–90 days is enough for most)
• Don’t overhaul your diet overnight—start by recording current habits
• Address the biggest macro imbalances (usually protein/fiber), not all at once
• Watch for hidden calorie sources (oils, snacks, “tastes” while cooking)
• Remember, macro calculators are a starting point—your real maintenance = average intake over a stable 2–3 weeks

Don’t...

• Use macro tracking to justify junk
• Get stuck tracking forever
• Ignore your psychological relationship with food—address the mind, not just the math

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

• [04:01] – Macro Tracking: Benefits and Downsides
• [06:33] – Why We’re All Bad at Estimating Our Intake
• [10:34] – Tracking’s Role in Extreme Leanness and Bulking
• [15:06] – Macro Tracking as Awareness Exercise
• [21:30] – Dangers of Perpetual Tracking
• [22:35] – Critique of IIFYM Mentality
• [24:25] – Interpreting Nutrition Studies in Context
• [65:36] – Live Coaching: Bulking with Time Constraints
• [72:51] – Live Coaching: Overtraining, Stalled Results, and Reverse Dieting at 59
• [87:33] – Live Coaching: Beating Chronic Dieting and Recovery Transformation

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Final Takeaways

• Macro tracking is a PRO TOOL: use it for a phase, learn what your food contains, get results, then wean off.
• Don’t let it become a prison or a license for junk; use it to build food-awareness and habits you can sustain.
• Use tracking—and coaching—as a mirror to reveal blind spots in both intake and mindset.
• Real change comes from slowly raising your standards, not sudden, unsustainable overhauls.

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For more Mind Pump, visit Mind Pump Podcast or find them on Instagram (@mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, @mindpumpdoug).

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Transcript

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Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Adam Schafer]

With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer.

[Doug]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the.

[Sal DeStefano]

Most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode callers called in and we coach them on air live with their health and fitness. By the way, we start this episode with an intro. Today it was 61 minutes long. In the intro we talk about fitness and fat loss, macro tracking and counting, current events, family life. It's always a good time if you want to be on an episode like this one. Submit your question to mplivecaller.com now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Caldera Lab. Today we talked about their beard oil, but they also have incredible skincare products. Go check them out. Get 20% off. Go to calderalab.com that's C-A-L-E-R-A L A B.com mindpump Use the code mindpump20. Get 20% off. This episode's also brought to you by Vuori. Great athleisure wear. It feels comfortable, looks good, lasts a long time. It's one of the best athleisure wear companies in the world. Our link gets you a massive discount. 20% off. Go to vuoriclothing.com mindpump that's V U O R I clothing.com mindpump Also, this is the last day essentially to take advantage of our reverse dieting strategy coaching call. If you go to reversedietcall.com, you can get set up with a mind pump coach who will set you up with a 90 day customized reverse diet plan. It's also half off $49. You get a 90 day customized reverse diet plan. It's the last day for that. Go to reverse diet. Call sorry reversedietcall.com all right, real quick.

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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 my pumpstore.com that's it.

[Adam Schafer]

Enjoy the rest of the show.

[Sal DeStefano]

Tracking your macros, proteins, fats, carbohydrates. It can be a total game changer in the positive and in some cases in the negative. We're going to talk about macro tracking, the do's and the don'ts, who it's good for, who it's bad for. Let's get into it.

[Adam Schafer]

Are you allowed to Talk about this.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Why you don't track macros.

[Sal DeStefano]

How about I coach people?

[Justin Andrews]

I'm definitely not qualified.

[Adam Schafer]

I just say I have. Obviously we know who's tracked the most, but I'm curious, out of the two of you, who's tracked the least?

[Sal DeStefano]

Justin. That's easy.

[Adam Schafer]

You think so?

[Sal DeStefano]

Justin's never tried.

[Caller Matt]

Have you.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you never tracked Justin?

[Justin Andrews]

No, I've checked. I tracked protein. I mean, that counts.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, but you've never macros.

[Justin Andrews]

If there's not macros in general, again.

[Adam Schafer]

You'Ve tracked a macro.

[Justin Andrews]

I've tracked a macro in a meal. It happened.

[Sal DeStefano]

He looked at the label.

[Adam Schafer]

Really? You. So you've never.

[Justin Andrews]

I thought you did when you do with my clients. But you know, when you, when you got.

[Adam Schafer]

When you got all lean and ripped. When we first started this, you didn't. You weren't really tracking macros.

[Sal DeStefano]

Easy, easy with the lean and ripped. Come on. Screw you, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you got super sexy.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, I, I just. It was mainly just protein and then, I mean, I would manipulate my carbohydrates and everything, but that was just kind of just.

[Adam Schafer]

I. I don't know.

[Justin Andrews]

It wasn't like super deep.

[Adam Schafer]

So you really didn't track. Like, you've never downloaded Fat Secret or My Fitness Pal and logged food for. For myself. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Not really.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. He's.

[Adam Schafer]

You.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes, of course. Now he. Now Justin was an athlete, so, you know, a lot of his was performance based to do calories though, for sure. This is actually a good discussion because macro tracking is, I think, more valuable when you're looking for aesthetic changes. Especially when the aesthetic changes start to get more granular, then it really makes a big difference. Right. You know, so like going from. If you're a guy going from 20% body fat to 15 or 16% body fat, like, you don't really need to track macros going from 15 to nine. It probably is going to make a big difference now. I did. The first time I ever tracked macros was way back in the day. 1997.

[Adam Schafer]

Calorie King books.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, no, this was even before that. I used Scale and Apex. I don't know if you guys did you ever. Was Apex even a thing?

[Adam Schafer]

I thought calorieking.com was.

[Justin Andrews]

You had one of those earlier King books.

[Adam Schafer]

No, I had the Calorie King book.

[Sal DeStefano]

The book. I think I had a book, but there was no, like, Internet.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, yeah, this is pre. Pre. So Calorie King was a book first, then calorieking.com came later.

[Sal DeStefano]

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

[Adam Schafer]

And so I had the book to start with, which that was as far back as I went, where I was writing it on paper.

[Sal DeStefano]

But macro tracking allows you. The reason why this can be so valuable is. And there's so many studies on this, but this is also just based on our experience. The over underestimate of what you think you're eating is silly. It's just dumb. It's. Even for those of us who know or pretty well versed on what food, in terms of calories and macros in food, I mean, this is what we did for a living. I could still be off significantly 10 to 20%, which is hundreds of calories, which is the difference between moving the needle one way or another, let alone the average person who's never tracked before, never coached lots of people. So tracking can really be an effective tool for bringing awareness around where you think you're at versus where you are.

[Adam Schafer]

Actually, I mean, I think for my clients it will. Unless you had a condition. Right. So there's asterisk here. If you obviously someone's anorexic had, you know, history of anorexia or a really bad relationship with food, everybody else, it was, it was mandatory. We did it for a period of time. I just think that for educational purposes, sure. I've never met anybody who says they don't track calories or ever have tracked calories, but they have a good idea of what they eat.

I'm off always. I mean, as long as I've been doing this, and even right now, it's been a long time since I've probably tracked. It's been at least a year, probably more.

I think I have an idea of where I'm at. And if you challenge me, like give me the number where you're at right now. And I had to probably sit down and go in my head, I'd give you something, but I can almost guarantee you that I'm off.

[Sal DeStefano]

You'll get generally close, which means you're probably off by 20%, which is enough to not.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, at least, at least that. That's right, because I'm off 20% of what I'm guesstimating. But it's just like then food, food labels and error and all that stuff and oh, what did I not account for? All right. Because there's the other thing too is like when you're, when you're guessing or whatever like that, like not only are you not measuring portion size, but you tend to also forget, like, oh, that's right, I forgot When I gave my son that popcorn, I took a couple handfuls of that too. I was like, oh, that's right. I had that little mini size Snickers bar when I went.

[Sal DeStefano]

Or even when you're cooking, that looks like a tablespoon of olive oil.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. So the value of becoming, especially.

In preparation for a calorie reduction and a cut, less important on a reverse diet.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a little pushback with that.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Because I think tracking in a bulk, let's just say, can be equally important because what some people will do in a bulk is they just eat a lot more. This will happen to the guy typically who just wants to gain muscle. And so they're like, I'm just going to eat a lot more. And you don't need a lot more to build muscle. You don't need an extra thousand calories above your maintenance to build muscle.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, but that guy is eating a bunch of processed junk to get there. Well, so if you, if you, if you tell a client who needs a reverse diet or bulk, hit your protein intake, eat when you're hungry, have as much as you want, as long as it's whole foods.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what's interesting about what you're saying, because that was my strategy with most of my clients, is that will put you in a cut or a bulk, depending on, depending on where your body needs to go, is what I found. So that's an effective way to lose body fat too. For the person who's overeating, it's great to build muscle for the person that's undereating because you start to, your body signals start to be a little bit more accurate. And hitting protein is the one thing that makes the biggest difference with that because of course, if you just listen to your body, some people will undereat or overeat just based off that. So, so it's interesting because I've had, I've done that with, with getting people to build. I've done that with people and you lose weight too.

So I think it works well for both. But the awareness piece with macro counting I think is really important. I also think it's really important when you're starting to get away from what would be considered generally healthy body fat percentages. In other words, if you're a woman and you're healthy and fit, you're probably in the low 20s with body fat percentage, there's a range, right? It's like between 20 to, let's say 24% probably, give or take. For men, you're probably, you know, north or south. 15% by a few percent. Right. So it could be as low as 12, maybe as high as 17 if you're fit and healthy, if you want to move typically lower than that. That's when macro counting starts to become important because your body kind of fights you. Like most guys, their natural healthy eating isn't going to make them 9% body fat or 8% body fat. And most women, their natural healthy way of eating isn't going to get them at 70%.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, your body will recognize that it's catabolic for an extended period of time. It'll send signals that we need to eat more up your appetite and you have to learn to become somewhat comfortable.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Maybe one day, not a big deal, but you're catabolic for 2, 3 days in a row. The body starts going, hey, that's right, we need more calories.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now people listening might be like, well, I know these athletes or I know this professional something that, you know, they don't watch anything. They're shredded. There's always these crazy examples that average person, average man, give or take, will be somewhere around 15%. You know, either 12 to, let's say 17, fit and healthy eating, protein, sticking to whole natural foods, exercising properly. And women will be somewhere in the low 20s, which is great, by the way. Most people are happy here. You go below that though, and back to what you're saying, Adam. Your body starts to push back a little bit and it's just not, it's just not gonna. Your appetite will. If you start listening to your body and trying to be healthy, getting too lean, your body will make you eat more.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And macro counting become. And if you get lower than that. Well, yeah. Now you definitely. You try to get down to.

[Adam Schafer]

You dream about food.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Try to get down to 7% sub.

[Adam Schafer]

Sub 6. You're dreaming about food.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You think about food all day.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. You have to track because your body's yelling at you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And the same is for, you know, women starting to get below maybe like 18, 17.

[Adam Schafer]

And to your point, there's, I mean, there's always somebody.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm not like that.

[Adam Schafer]

There's always anomaly.

[Caller Matt]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

There's people that.

Can build muscle when they look at weights that eat crappy food and their body powers through it and they're terrible examples to look to for advice for the average person. Yeah, the average person is not like that. The average person has to work really hard to Build muscle. It's very slow. It takes a lot of consistency. The average person, it's very difficult to eat in a calorie deficit consistently. Even when they do, it takes a long time for the body fat percentage to come off. Takes lots of consistency. But we all want to point to the girlfriend or the buddy or the one person who's just like, well, he does that. Yeah, it's like, yeah, he's, you know, there's also people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, I don't care how many books you read, you know what I'm saying? You're not gonna, you're just not gonna be that smart. You know, it's not.

[Sal DeStefano]

And back to the like reverse diet. Bulk, you know, tracking can be important with that too. With the person who's so afraid of gaining body fat. Right. Oftentimes a reverse diet, which is also a bulk. We just don't call it a bulk with a reverse diet because that'll scare away everybody who needs the reverse diet. But really you're eating in a surplus. Right. And the value of that we've talked about many times on the show. But in a nutshell, why would you do this if you want to lose body fat, Build muscle, speed up your metabolism, set up the fat loss to be more sustainable later. Right? That's in a nutshell. But the people were afraid, like really afraid of gaining weight. And you're telling them like, no, no, we need to eat more food and more calories while strength training. And they're like, I don't want to gain any weight. And then you finally convince them to reverse diet. Not having them track what it's going to look like for them is maintenance deficit, maintenance deficit. Because they're so scared that they're just like, ah, this is too much food. So with that person, I'm like, no, no, we have to track. Because when you feel like you've eaten enough, you're so used to eating so little that you're still eating too little. And so now we know we need to increase because you're looking at your macros and you're going, okay, I need to eat another 200 calories, even though I think I'm eating a lot because normally it's a little.

[Adam Schafer]

For the anti tracking people, that's the real value is not that you, you should or you need to track for the rest of your life. It's really just more the awareness thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Because we, we all have patterns and behaviors around Nutrition, some that we're aware of and some that we're not.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

And when you track for a good 30 days or so, a lot of those surface and then you, you become aware of it and it's just like, oh, I didn't realize that on those days when I get really busy, I end up like, okay, I'm, I don't get, I don't get breakfast and then all of a sudden I'm behind X amount of grams of protein. And then that rolls into a day where I sleep in and then I'm really behind. It's like, yeah, I thought I was making all these attempts to do that. I didn't know that. Or oh, wow, I didn't realize how often I walk past that, you know, you know, bowl of nuts that I grab a handful.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, there's just, that was always the surprising one, I think for a lot of clients of mine was the, the fat tracking and like where that was sneaking in with the oils and the nuts and stuff like that because it gets so high calorie wise and, you know, it just kind of sneaks in. So once you start adjusting that, especially if they're on a deficit.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think one of the values of macro tracking is also figuring out your natural, you know, basal metabolic rate or maybe for lack of better term, just how many calories you're probably burning on a regular basis. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Is your basis.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Because all those calculators and, you know, estimates, they're just not accurate. There's such a big difference between person to person, which, you know, metabolic adaptation and hormones and lifestyle and maybe how you've done it before, it can affect all this stuff. But for somebody who, like, how many calories am I like burning on a normal, regular basis? Well, if you track for three weeks without trying to eat more or less, you just tracked. And let's say over that three week period, you're not gaining or losing weight. Right. So you're just kind of staying the same whether you're overweight or not. You're just tracking. You have a good general idea of how many calories you burn now on a regular basis? Yeah. So you add it up and average it out and you're like, wow, on an typical day I'm eating 2200 calories. With my normal life, that's how many calories I'm burning because I didn't gain or lose weight. That's where I'm at. So if I want to lose weight, I got to go below it. If I want to Gain weight. I got to go above it or build muscle. Go above it or. Oh, my goodness, I'm consuming so little. It looks like I'm burning. I was doing all this activity. I'm eating so little. I need a reverse diet. It'll give you a good idea of what your body is doing on its own. And that's really, in my experience, the only way you can really do it. The calculators are not great. They'll give you this general idea.

[Adam Schafer]

The best part about the calculators is that I find, I mean, we have a really nice macro calculator online that's free.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's the link for that, Doug, by the way. So people are going to look for it. Is it macro, Macro calculator.

[Doug]

Let me look it up.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

But my point is I. I do get a lot of people who are like, I just have no idea where to start.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what I'm saying? And so they're like, you're right. And so it'll give you a good place to start, but it's not the answer. And that's what I'm always coaching to.

[Sal DeStefano]

What's maps?

[Adam Schafer]

Macro.com.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So it gives you a little calculator.

[Adam Schafer]

So if you're like, idea. I don't even. I've never tracked. I have no idea what I should start at. Then it's like, there's two ways you can go about this. One, if you don't want to do the macro calculator, which is what I would tell clients a lot of times I actually want you to eat normal now when I'm. So if I'm coaching someone, that's actually what I want. So if I'm. If you're doing this on your own, I think macro calculators can be helpy to health. Health. Helpful to have a starting point to try and figure out if you have a coach. I personally tell my clients, I want you to eat the same shitty food that you eat the week before you hire me. Like, I want to see.

[Sal DeStefano]

Just keep eating normal.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. If that meant a Snickers bar at noon, eat it. If that meant you go climb in the freezer at 10 o' clock at night, do it like I'd like. And they're always looking at me like, all sideways, like, that's not what I'm paying you.

[Sal DeStefano]

I just got to know what you're doing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, but I want to see. I want to see your behaviors. I want to see your behaviors, habits. Because what I know is I could write based off of your height and weight and your goals and your steps. Like, I can write, I can do what the macro calculator can do manually and write out and then ask you some questions about foods and write out this beautiful little plan. But if I find, find out later that this beautiful plan that I laid out is so astronomically different than what you just did the week before, I am setting that client up for failure.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm far better off having them eat the way is with their crazy 700 calorie Starbucks and this and that. And it's not because I'm gonna let them continue to just do that way forever. But then I then I'll methodically change little things at a time so it's not this huge. Like I went from, you know, eating out twice my Starbucks drink, my ice cream at night, and then now got me on tuna fish and crackers and you know, turkey, ground turkey and.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

It's like that person is. Even if they have the best discipline in the world, they're not going to sustain that forever. I need to teach that person how to make small changes. Small change.

[Sal DeStefano]

And by the way, small changes produce results.

[Adam Schafer]

Exactly. That's what's so, what's so awesome about this is you make a couple good, good macro changes in a diet that's really shitty like that and you can start building muscle, start burning body fat right away. Yeah, you don't. And they could still have a lot of like what other people might think is that's not a good food or that shouldn't be in the diet. Well, well, yeah, but they were so under protein and so oversaturated fat. All I had to do is like switch that one meal that was so overly saturated on fat and no protein to a high protein, good fat type of meal. And now their protein just went up by 40 grams a day, which was almost double from where they were. And I've lowered their saturated fat. Now this person's like all sudden.

[Sal DeStefano]

Or bump their fiber or.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, or bump fire and the fiber. So there's like, so, you know.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I, I 100%. I think it's super good advice. And you know, here's the other end of this spectrum, which is you don't want to count macros forever. And so there are people that get trapped in this. We see a lot of, we hear a lot of them when they call in where they do this macro tracking. And then this is just how they live. And then it becomes a trap. And it's a stressful trap. It is a control.

It is a, it's a way of controlling things and it causes lots of stress and it's a dysfunctional relationship with food as well. And so macro tracking is good. If it's a step towards a, you know, a life that is not stressful around food, it's great as an awareness tool. And you can use tracking throughout your life when you feel like you need more awareness or when your goals change a little bit and you can kind of see where you're at, where you need to go. But you definitely don't want to live here for sure. Or what you don't want to do is worship the macro so much that you find a way to squeeze every terrible food into your macro targets. This was a thing and you don't hear too many people talking about this anymore. I think it fell out of favor. But it was, if it fit your macros, was a popular thing, you know, 10 years ago where people were like, well, here's my macros and if it fits in my macros, it's all good. And they would do crazy things just so that they could eat, you know, garbage because it fit in the macros. Loot, pizzas, didn't, didn't matter if it was.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I love how you, you, you use this, the analogy of like, why would you do that? It's like putting this whole process on hard mode.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Like you think it's, you think psychologically it's better or easier because you get to introduce these foods that are hyper palatable and you like, they just made you hungrier and everything, make you crave more of them. It's like, it's such a terrible strategy. That's why, I mean, those that have been listening to the show long enough, why we, we came out so hard on.

If it fits your macros. Not because the science doesn't make sense. And if you don't, if you follow it scientifically, it doesn't work. Of course it does. And bodybuilders do this. You know, I'm saying that's all the time they use, if it fits your macros. But the average client introducing, in fact, I did a reaction video to a, you know, a cheat meal. It's like, I hate that that term, you know, it implies you're doing something bad and it exacerbates this bad, bad.

[Sal DeStefano]

You need to escape your life.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, good, bad, good, bad relationship. But no, it's a, it's a good burger and fries. You know, I'm saying it's a lot of calories. You know what I'm saying? Take account for it. And so it's not a cheat. You're not cheating on yourself or cheating on this thing. It's like it, it adds this element to, to the relationship with food that is unhealthy and not going to serve you. You're far better off trying to avoid those types of foods as much as possible because it actually makes adherence easier. The idea of introducing them back in every week for your cheat day makes that far more difficult.

[Sal DeStefano]

The cravings go up. Yeah, yeah. Along the lines of studies in science and diet. I'm going to bring up a study for you guys because I think it's another good study that illustrates why it's important to understand.

All of the factors in a study and to not necessarily take what the study says as gospel. Okay, so I'll read you the study. I know you guys are going to see it right away, but I'll read it just for, you know, people listening right now. So this was a study on bulking. And so what they did is they took two groups of people and one group and the, they were athletes. So these were athletes who were practicing plus working out or lifting weights. And they gave 1 group 500 additional calories in their diet. And here's what they found at the end of the study. At the end of the 10 week study, the, the group that ate the extra 500 calories only gained body fat. And so the study says, hey, extra calories aren't going to, you know, 500 extra calories a day is too much. That's just going to result in fat gain. Now let me tell you a little bit about the participants.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Tell me about the athletes. How long have they been playing their sport for?

[Sal DeStefano]

It's also, this guys, just. Okay. Both groups continued their habitual training. You ready for what it was?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Four strength workouts a week and 17 hours of sports specific training per week.

[Justin Andrews]

17 hours and four workouts.

[Sal DeStefano]

17 hours of sports specific training per Week and four strength training sessions.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So here's the deal.

[Adam Schafer]

Eating who's the asshole Program.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

Fire that coach.

[Sal DeStefano]

Extra calories aren't going to go to muscle unless the signal is appropriate.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay. These guys, these athletes are overtrained. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Way over trained.

[Sal DeStefano]

Overtrained. They're beating the crap out of them.

[Justin Andrews]

And you're just not in muscle building mode.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, you're just, of course you're going to gain more body fit. Now here's the other thing I would like to see. And it did say that nothing really improved much. But I'd like to see well being and sleep and hormone profile. If we saw an improvement. It might have. Although making up for over training with calories. Although some, some people would say that that's a great strategy. It is a little bit it's not going to fix. Oh well the rest it's not going to fix.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll make a prediction or a what would. Okay. That 17 hours of their sport is what you said.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And four hours of strength training. Okay. Take that client.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's a part time job I broke.

[Adam Schafer]

Take that same. Take those same people cut their sport to a quarter or a half. Okay, half. And their strength training down to one to two days a week. Add those 500 calories, watch what happens. So way less activity. Okay. But a more appropriate strength building signal and a more appropriate amount of endurance and stamina training. And I bet you those calories go to good use.

[Sal DeStefano]

I bet you if you didn't you recover. I bet you'd even bump calories. You just cut all that stuff, you'd see a gain in strength. Yeah. And muscle without even having to add calories.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So it all.

[Justin Andrews]

You're just surviving at this point on those calories.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Look, okay, here's. It's like taking two people that do nothing and this person eating more. We're going to build muscle now. No, you're just going to gain body fat. There is no appropriate.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, you need more energy. You're telling your body I need as much energy as possible. Let's store it because I'm going crazy right now.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. That's right. So yeah. So you know studies like that. Because then the authors like you don't need extra, that many extra calories to build muscle. And this kind of, it's like, well that was a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't care how many calories.

[Sal DeStefano]

A lot of trading.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, let's be honest. I don't care how little or more of calories you gave those people. They're probably not going to build muscle.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no.

[Adam Schafer]

17 hours of sport training in a week. No, I mean that's crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

It is crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

You're not talking about, you're not even talking about a normal athlete. Normal athletes an hour a day and a two hour time on their game. Like what, what is three hours?

[Sal DeStefano]

This is three hours less a day. This is like an end.

[Adam Schafer]

That's an endurance athlete. It's an endurance athlete with. It's like someone who's like a marathon runner that is also trying to strength train four days a week. It's like a no shit Sherlock.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, that's mainly cardio, let's be honest. Like that excess amount of like, movement. Totally.

[Adam Schafer]

It has to be three hours. Yeah. It's crazy.

[Justin Andrews]

Lift weights.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what athletes. Because there are a couple sports that train athletes like that. Because not all sports do that. Even at the high level. In college, sometimes they beat up, like, if you're an athlete at that level, they often beat people up a little excessively, in my opinion. But there are some sports that are just crazier than others. Like water polo is one of them. Were they just extra. They're just working out.

[Adam Schafer]

Wrestling, soccer players run a lot too. But that's not three hours. I mean, maybe for a small window of conditioning.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't even think soccer. Not even wrestlers. Justin. Wrestlers will spend a long time. But I think water polo has to be on.

[Justin Andrews]

Wrestling is like way out.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I would like, you know, did they say what kind of athlete? I mean, can. Can you not guess? It's a marathon runner.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Who else is.

[Adam Schafer]

Who else is doing 17 hours of endurance training a week?

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, it says athletic training.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, okay. Athletic training, that could be anything. They'll call that running would be called athletic training.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, and I mean, what else are you doing?

[Sal DeStefano]

Four strengths. Like four workouts a week with that? Yeah. By the way, four strength training sessions a week is excessive for any athlete. Except for power lifters, bodybuilders. Yeah, That's a lot. Yeah, that'd be a lot. What kind of athletes did you guys train where you were just like, I cannot believe the amount of volume.

[Justin Andrews]

You're psychotic.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. For me, water polo was at the top. I trained a couple water polo players at high levels, and they were in the pool twice a day for two hours. Twice, like morning before everything and after.

[Adam Schafer]

Mixed martial arts athletes could take a major level. Oh, yeah. Could take a major beating. Yeah.

I mean, they have trained resilience, But I mean, also those guys, like, I'm not building 10 pounds of muscle on them. I'm just making them more resilient.

[Sal DeStefano]

And. And then from an aesthetic perspective, because most, a lot of people just want to be healthy and have aesthetics. This is what most people want. So most people are like, I don't want to care about being an elite, you know, polo competitor, you know, water polo athlete or whatever. I just want an aesthetic physique. I've done jiu jitsu, judo, I've done at competitive levels. I've also just strength trained, which is Mostly what I've done rollerblading the most. I've never rollerbladed. Did you see me rollerblading? I twisted competitive rollerblade, actually. You rollerbladed? I did, yeah. Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

That's why it's a fun.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. You did all that? You did a lot of it.

[Adam Schafer]

I did.

[Justin Andrews]

I did roller hockey for a minute.

[Adam Schafer]

I did that too.

[Sal DeStefano]

For me. For me. I could. This in terms of leanness and muscularity. It was just straight strength training with some walking and diet. I could. Even at jiu jitsu even I was competing at high, high level. The leanest I could get and maintain performance was like 11, 12. Any leaner than that, I just. My performance would suck.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

On the mat.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

It doesn't benefit you at all? No, no.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, that's why when we see these athletes that are highlighted, the DK MetCalves and the Reggie bushes that make the magazine covers where they're like 6% body fat and they're playing football at the highest level. Such an anomaly. Yeah, that is such an anomaly. There's aliens out there, dude. There is our aliens. There are. They're amongst us. And that's the examples of it. Like you know, or the Phil. He's the bodybuilders. Like that dude. That dude came out winning. Winning pro shows natural and not lifting weights. He's playing. He was playing basketball. Looked like a bodybuilder.

[Justin Andrews]

Thor Bjorgenson's.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Giants. Yeah. People and we. We always. I mean it's. It's cool to. To watch those people. I. I admire.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's like one of the circus.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's exactly. It's fun. It's like wow, that's so cool. But it's like what happens to too many people is they see that and they think like if I just work hard enough I can.

[Sal DeStefano]

I saw.

Slow motion video from the side. So it's from the side of a 90 plus mile an hour fastball. A picture throwing it. The arm torque and twisting.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

It looked like like I couldn't put my arm in that position without throwing. Like if you put my arm on that. But if you tried to manipulate.

[Justin Andrews]

They're snapping their arm off.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, the torque on the humerus. Yeah. Is.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean it's the reason why they can't go back to back games. I mean they have to. They have to. It looks wild the arm.

[Justin Andrews]

Like you have to be real careful about the amount of pitches they throw too. Like they gotta keep a real good track. You're limited. I mean you have only Certain amount.

[Sal DeStefano]

It looks.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, it's one of the highest. We talked about this the other day in a podcast about like proper power. Like, it's.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It is the. One of the highest expressions of power. Right.

[Sal DeStefano]

You're.

[Adam Schafer]

You are.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's like physics with. With just explosive power.

[Justin Andrews]

Fingertips.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

All the way. And throwing your whole.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, what would happen to the average person if you were able to get them to move their arm that fast? They wouldn't be able to decelerate. It would twist off their body. I think it would almost. It would probably.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, it terror.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You miss for days.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what's funny about that is that it would actually more to a deconditioned person who never works out might be okay and just get sore or hurt themselves a little bit. That. But like a Somebody who lifts weight and is strong and healthy. More likely to do more damage. Yeah, yeah. Do more damage. Yeah. That's always strong. I always found that interesting to like talk about or think about because it's. It's kind of counterintuitive. You think, like, people don't realize that. Yeah. How different the adaptation is. It's like, wait a second. You're this really fit, buff guy. How did you carry?

[Justin Andrews]

Especially if you don't know how to decelerate? Like, you never train those muscles. Like, especially the hamstrings. Always the one that blows out, you know, when you start to run again.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because it's like you don't train to decelerate. You have to literally, you know, be intentional about that.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, it's like. It's like taking a. A funny car or one of these thousand plus horsepower cars that are designed to go in a perfect straight line and go race the new. And go like, okay, I'm gonna rip around corners with all that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Let's.

[Adam Schafer]

Like that car would. That thousand houseport would get destroyed by a Fiat. A 200 horsepower Fiat. And that just like that doesn't make sense to the average person. Like, wait a second. How is that possible? This thing goes from zero to whatever in three seconds. Like, but that little Fiat will take those corners with 200 horsepower and beat it around a track that where it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Has to turn and the handling.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, like, that thing is made. It has so much power in a straight line, but it take it around a corner and it's coming right out from underneath.

[Sal DeStefano]

Dude, you got the. Your beard is glistening, bro.

What's happening over here?

[Adam Schafer]

So I. So could you comb that in? I do.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm.

[Adam Schafer]

I. I ordered. I should Shout out the company because it's not anybody we work with. And I really like it. I found, like, it was, you know, Amazon's top ranked beard brush. Really nice.

[Sal DeStefano]

So it's a brush?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. With the caldera beard.

[Sal DeStefano]

Caldera lab oil.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, the caldera beard oil. And.

[Sal DeStefano]

And are you gonna grow it?

[Adam Schafer]

I am, I am. Although my wife is making me self conscious about that because she's, you know, asked me like three times. And like, I'm like, you already asked me that. She's like, oh, are you growing it out? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And then again, she's like, see me comment. She's like, why are you growing your beard out? And I'm like, do you not like it? Is this why you keep asking? She's like, no.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, you're all defensive. And.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm like, could you imagine if I did that about your hair? Every time you're like, oh, you're going.

[Justin Andrews]

To color your hair, so that's what you're doing.

[Adam Schafer]

So. And then I didn't just ask you once. I came back and I go like, so you decided to call your hair, huh? Like, would you not go like, like, what the. You don't like it? Like, that's how you're making me feel right now. And then somehow got turned around on me that I'm irritable right now. And I'm like, I'm just like, okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, you need to calm down.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it was like that, dude. It's like, I know you haven't had a lot of sleep. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, honey, you've asked me three times in my. In fact, I told you before I was gonna do. It's like, hey, I'm Tell Vicki I'm gonna let the beer grow out a little bit. Right? It was like. She's like, oh, okay. And then I did it. And then I got ordered a thing, and I've been doing the beard oil every night. And she's like, so why are you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Growing your beard out? But do you like the oil?

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah. Well, because with the gray hairs, one of the things I. What I don't like about when we grow our beards out, all of us is. It gets all wiry. Yeah, yeah. And if you use the beard oil and you comb it, it'll. It'll bring it all down. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

It'll.

[Adam Schafer]

It'll. Yeah. Bring it all down. And I've actually never, like, made an attempt to, like, really do that. I've always just, let's Grow out. I hate when it gets all like that.

[Justin Andrews]

That's probably why I stopped, because, yeah, it gets a little wild.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. But now that Caldera has a beard oil and I love all Caldera's product, I'm like, okay, well, maybe I'll actually try and for the first time, train my beard.

[Sal DeStefano]

Have you seen the ad they're running with me on it? The one that's just me putting stuff on my face and I'm just looking.

[Adam Schafer]

The one that you did a shot in the front. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a good.

[Sal DeStefano]

I get hit with that all the time. This is me, dude. Stop sending me.

[Adam Schafer]

Myself.

[Sal DeStefano]

I wonder what Doug would look like with a beard. I know. Have you ever tried growing one?

[Adam Schafer]

Do you have Apache man?

[Doug]

No, I don't. I don't think so. It doesn't grow a lot right here, but I think it'd be fine.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, grow a beard?

[Doug]

Yeah, I did a soul patch once.

[Sal DeStefano]

Don't do that. No, I would never do that.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I did that when we first started.

[Doug]

That was many, many years ago, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

You need 20 years ago grow a beard.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. You would look.

[Justin Andrews]

I agree.

[Doug]

I was thinking about doing a mustache.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like.

[Adam Schafer]

Like. No, Justin's got the mustache. Yeah, he's already. He's already established that his best.

[Sal DeStefano]

He would actually look good.

[Adam Schafer]

I would love to see you in a beer.

[Sal DeStefano]

I mean, you have a good jawline, so I understand why you like to shave, but I think a beer would look good on you, dude.

[Doug]

Yeah, I've been pretty much clean shaven.

[Sal DeStefano]

Most of my life.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, you have. That's why it'd be fun to kind of change it up a little bit. Yeah. Let's see what rugged Doug looks like.

[Sal DeStefano]

Rugged.

[Adam Schafer]

Come on, do it. Just. Just one. You don't have to keep it if you don't like it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

I'd like to see it maybe over the Thanksgiving holiday.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool.

[Sal DeStefano]

You come back.

Oh, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I want to see you in a beard.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, me too.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you met me all the years? Never.

[Sal DeStefano]

No. I've never seen Doug with a beard.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, come on, dude. I want to see a beard. Okay. I want to see a beard.

[Sal DeStefano]

I. There's this videos on social media of dads suddenly shaving their beards and then going to their daughters in particular.

[Adam Schafer]

Freak out.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, kid, especially. You're not my dad. Especially daughters. It. And if you look at the data on this, you know this, right? When that. When. When Pete. When they do studies on this, people will generally Consider men with beards to be better fathers. Yeah, it's, it's consistent. Really? Yeah. For some reason you're. They think you're a better father because you have a beard. So. And I'm watching these videos with these kids, Santa Claus and the kids are like, ah, dad, don't do that.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, so let's try and unpack. Why you think?

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, you don't think so?

[Sal DeStefano]

Is it wisdom?

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Sal DeStefano]

How age?

[Adam Schafer]

No, I think when you stay like, you're like, when you stay clean shaven, sharp, you're more particular about looking handsome. Your image like that, you sort of grow a beard. I don't give a. Yeah, yeah. It's more of a.

[Sal DeStefano]

You're full in.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to. This isn't the best way to attract a lady. I'm saying I think that's, it's more of that.

[Sal DeStefano]

You think so?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't know. Yeah. Because, you know, with, with attractiveness, women tend to consider a short, like, look.

[Adam Schafer]

Even though there's examples. Of course now because beards have become a little more popular. But for the most part, your male models that you'll see, they'll be clean shaven. They'll be clean shaven. Well, that's what I'm. But that's what we.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, but who's looking at the male models?

[Adam Schafer]

That's what we're being marketed to.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, not really.

[Adam Schafer]

What?

[Sal DeStefano]

That's not. Women aren't looking at male models. It's, it's, it's dudes.

[Adam Schafer]

What?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, the modeling space is run by dudes. Gay dudes. You know that. It's not a secret.

[Adam Schafer]

So straight dudes are watching gay dudes?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no, no, no, no. Male models like, like you talking about like fashion? Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's, that's all.

[Adam Schafer]

Male models in general.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're not selling. Look at, look at the model selling things to men. Men selling things to men typically will have a beard. They're not going to be like.

[Adam Schafer]

You don't think, you don't think when your wife shops for something that she buys you from that she's the one who's looking at the dude wearing it in the ad.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. If he has a beard, she's probably thinking he's handsome.

[Adam Schafer]

He's probably not had a beard though.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, he probably doesn't.

There are more today. They're, they're, there's more of it today than they're used. I mean, there's tattooed guys. None of that was like a thing just 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, it would be clean shaven, no tattoos, pretty face like that, you know, maybe a gay guy. I don't know if I haven't figured out if it's more. What's the. What's the percentage?

[Justin Andrews]

I wonder if the preference has changed. Because the question. Yeah, like they're.

[Doug]

I don't necessarily.

[Sal DeStefano]

The fashion industry is. Is. Is like that. What. It's, it's. It's typically like especially male. The male model, female there. It's. It's gay men that are controlling that look.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, but you, you can also.

[Sal DeStefano]

I mean, it's a big stereotype that I'm saying you are.

[Adam Schafer]

It might be true. You are. Because I actually have.

[Sal DeStefano]

I've.

[Adam Schafer]

I have had a couple male model friends that were straight.

No, I mean, I'm. Listen, I mean, what's a. Bodybuilding is mostly gay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Yeah. Is it though?

[Doug]

Okay, so according to One analysis, approximately 6.75% of male models are LGBT, bro.

[Adam Schafer]

6. That's it.

[Doug]

That's it.

[Adam Schafer]

That means 94% are straight.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's lower than the normal population.

[Doug]

A lot of guys who are good looking model.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Doug]

I mean, it's a way to make.

[Adam Schafer]

Some money and meet a lot of girls. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

All right.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, way off.

[Sal DeStefano]

I bet.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, bodybuilding. Hey, check bodybuilding. Bodybuilding is higher than that. Bodybuilding is higher than that.

[Sal DeStefano]

What? How many bodybuilders? Come on, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know. I watched that movie with your homeboy.

[Adam Schafer]

That sounds dog.

[Doug]

No reliable data or.

[Adam Schafer]

They're not tell.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're not telling anybody.

[Adam Schafer]

You're all closeted. That's. Why.

Didn'T you do.

[Sal DeStefano]

You did both. Little modeling, little bodybuilding. No, I did not.

[Adam Schafer]

I do not count.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't count one romance novel as modeling.

[Doug]

I. I did modeling.

[Justin Andrews]

That has to count.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Look, he's straight.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wait a minute. You did modeling? Yeah, I did. I know he's straight. It was a modeling.

[Doug]

So I got a gig for Oracle for their annual report and it was filmed at. Or photos were taken down at the stadium for the A's. And all I did, I got paid $1,000 to sit and watch baseball for a day.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Doug]

Yeah. And they shot photos. That's it.

[Sal DeStefano]

How'd they find you?

[Doug]

I. I had been part of an agency.

[Sal DeStefano]

You were in an agency. You had headshots and everything.

[Doug]

Everything, man.

[Justin Andrews]

So you're just sitting there and they're taking pictures of you?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Why don't we?

[Doug]

I don't even think they used it.

[Adam Schafer]

Why is it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Why don't we know things about you?

[Adam Schafer]

I know.

[Doug]

Well, this is. You never asked, that's why.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't need to ask you about me.

[Doug]

I'm volunteering it now.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. What else have you done?

[Justin Andrews]

We learned things.

[Doug]

I've done all kinds of things.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really.

[Adam Schafer]

You ever a dancer?

[Doug]

Never.

[Sal DeStefano]

Never dancer.

[Justin Andrews]

What else obscure have you been paid for?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes. What's the weirdest job?

[Adam Schafer]

You. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, what's the weirdest.

[Adam Schafer]

The weirdest way you ever made money?

[Justin Andrews]

Even five bucks. I don't care.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

No. Never dancer. I did teach kindergarten.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I knew that.

[Justin Andrews]

So that's kind of.

[Adam Schafer]

Did you try modeling ever?

[Sal DeStefano]

I didn't try, but I did have pictures. I did, and they're embarrassing. They're really.

[Adam Schafer]

They're not as embarrassing as some of the ones I have.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, no, but I don't know if yours are out there on the Internet.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. I will never let out the. On the Internet some of the stuff I took.

[Sal DeStefano]

Real embarrassing one, dude. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Well, I made the mistake of, like, letting.

[Sal DeStefano]

Everyone's gonna find.

[Adam Schafer]

Letting a professional photographer who, by the way, specializes in boudoir car. So let her go. Like, okay, you. You lead me. I'm open. I'll do whatever.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's the one where you're the swing.

[Adam Schafer]

This. I've let the swing out. So, dude, imagine what's not out.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wasn't that one where you're, like, hugging it, bro?

[Adam Schafer]

There's Teddy bear. Oh, I was. I was naked in a bush, dog.

Like, like, naked in a bush.

[Sal DeStefano]

What?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

What? Yes. Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Why, though? Maybe we get famous enough and I need some money. I'll sell it for, like, crazy. Let it out.

[Justin Andrews]

Call it the Homer Simpson.

[Adam Schafer]

It's.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's.

[Adam Schafer]

It's like a reverse version of that. I'm like. I'm hugging forward into a.

[Sal DeStefano]

How did she sell that?

[Justin Andrews]

Hugging the bush?

[Adam Schafer]

She. I sold her because I had had a previous. Remember I tell the story about you're naked and just hugging, bro.

[Sal DeStefano]

Were you actually making.

[Adam Schafer]

There's more than that, so.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

So you know that. You know the book picture, right?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, so the book picture.

[Sal DeStefano]

The.

[Adam Schafer]

The story behind that is that was my best friend who was a landscape photographer.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. Y.

[Adam Schafer]

And this was before. This was before Mind Pump even. And I was learning about Instagram. And this was the. This period of time where I realized that a lot of the people that were in the fitness space were you. They were getting professional photos of themselves. And so I hit my boy up, my best friend up, and I go. And he's a really good landscape photographer. Said, hey, I need to do this, like, photo shoot. What'd you do for me? He's like, what kind of photo shoot? And I'm like, well, you know, kind of fitnessy, sexy, ish, Kind of, you know. And he's like, you mean like, your shirt's off and stuff like that? I'm just like, yeah, kind of like that. He's like, okay. He's like, best friend. You know what I'm saying? You tell. You just want to do it. And we get. And we. I get to his house, and he's got the stuff set up, and he's like, okay, what do you want to do? And I'm like, I don't know. I was like, like, I'm not the photographer, right, dude, what if I was? Nicki Most awkward.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, so he took those photos?

[Adam Schafer]

No, no, no. So, okay, he. So but what's great about this, I. And I should give him the credit. He's never done anything like this. And I've got a couple photos that have been picked up on the Internet and stuff and used, and at least three of his are. Are those. And they're just these random, you know, random shots and not really crazy boudoir shots.

[Sal DeStefano]

Just. Shirt off.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, shirt off.

[Sal DeStefano]

Straddling the chair.

[Adam Schafer]

One straddling the chair. One dumping water on myself.

There's some.

[Sal DeStefano]

There's some.

[Adam Schafer]

There's some stuff like that. Right? And it was just here, dude. Best friend and I are like. I mean, just mortified of both, you know, I'm saying, just.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't think we.

[Adam Schafer]

We talked at all.

[Sal DeStefano]

And for a while.

[Adam Schafer]

It was like, I just.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was just an awkward month after that. You know what I'm saying? Just. And so.

[Adam Schafer]

So that one gets. One of his Gets picked up. It gets picked up for a romance novel. And I got paid for it. And I literally just gave him the money. I said, hey, bro, you deserve good job. Yeah. I'm saying here. Here you go for. I'll never put you through that again. But it was so awkward because I had to also. I had to really come up the ideas. I don't have a photographer eye or anything like that. And so I. I still was on this plan of I need to create all this. These photos to try and attract attention on Instagram early days. And so I. I know somebody who does really, really good photos here in The Bay Area. In fact, she's shot a lot of stuff for us, and she specializes in boudoir, but she does everything. Family photos. Everything she's done, she did. Those photos I have of Max and me and Katrina. Those are her. Yeah. She's incredible, right? And so her name's T. And I. I call her up and I say, hey, T, I said, tell her what I'm trying to do for the business and stuff, or the. The what's not a business. Trying to build a business and trying to gain followers on Instagram. And so I need to have all these photos. I need a whole bunch of them, and have with me as you want, whatever you want to do. And she's like, cool. She's excited because she's a photographer. She does all this stuff, and. And I just agreed to myself that, like, okay, I'll just do whatever she says.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. This is how a lot of bad stories start. You ever hear these stories? Now, how'd you get into the industry? I just did what they wanted. Yeah. Oh, man. So that. So the bush one.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So, yeah. So she like, hey, get in the bush.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. She's like, okay, I have this idea. You, Hank, just trust me. And I'm like, I do whatever. Whatever you want. She's like, okay. She's like, you know, you're gonna be naked, but you're not. You won't. The way I'll shoot it, you won't see everything. Or like that. And I'm like, okay, you know, and so she has me like, it's a big, giant bush.

[Sal DeStefano]

And you're outside.

[Adam Schafer]

And I'm outside.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, it's kind of a private property, of course. Right? So I hope so. But I'm like. I'm like this. If this is the bush right here, I'm like, into the. Into the bush. You know, she's like, shooting this way. And I remember that was like. That was like the.

[Sal DeStefano]

I had done. Now, what's your. In your head? What's your inner dialogue at this point?

[Adam Schafer]

What the are you doing? You're never gonna share this. You know what I'm saying? You're never gonna share this. So. But I was like, great. You know, it's. I don't know. You know, I get you guys. We're. We're big on.

[Sal DeStefano]

We're.

[Adam Schafer]

We're professionals in our. An era. And one of the things I. My favorite when I have a client is just like, hey, I have. I. I think we should do it this way. I think that. But you're the professional, your thing. I trust you and I mean, I love that. Like, let me do your thing. And so I had that attitud. Listen, I, I, I by no means think I know what is a good shot or what will do well or whatever. It's like, you're the professional and I know she's good at what she does, so tell me what to do.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I'm just like, Katrina with you or are you by yourself?

[Adam Schafer]

No, Katrina was there. Yeah, of course. Katrina's loving it. Yeah, she was like, oh, yeah, that's hot.

Yeah, yeah. Have him take more off.

He's super comfortable with himself.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, no, mine's not that bad. Mine's definitely not.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah, no, mine are bad.

[Sal DeStefano]

I took my, I took my photos because I was getting really fit and I just wanted to document it, but there's some of them that are just like, hey, look into the camera. Like, you're sexy. And so I made it.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, those are like all of them. Such a goofy, you know, I'm like behind, like I'm looking behind a, like a chain link fence.

[Sal DeStefano]

Let me in. I've got one.

[Adam Schafer]

I did post one a long time ago. That was for Valentine's Day. I'm holding like a metal heart heart.

So. Oh, man.

[Sal DeStefano]

I mean, what yellow followers from that one? Oh, God.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what? That. So remember when I talked about before we started this, I went through a transition on Instagram. I always try and tell people that we help that, like building a business. Like, I mean, I, I took off like a rocket ship with stuff like that, like the amount of engagement and comments on my page.

[Sal DeStefano]

But we, you wouldn't recommend. That's how you build your.

[Adam Schafer]

No, and that's. So that's my point, I'm going to say. So I, I had to go through this transition of like, filtered everybody out on building my page of.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, the attention I was getting was all the wrong attention.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It was like, it was not for my fitness knowledge. Even though I would sprinkle that in there too. Like, I would be teaching.

[Sal DeStefano]

They weren't liking it for the.

[Adam Schafer]

No, they were like, when's the next half naked photo coming?

[Sal DeStefano]

That's what I'm here for. You know what I'm saying?

[Adam Schafer]

And that was like how it was growing, Jojo, baby. So, yeah, so I had all this attention, but I couldn't convert it into business. And so, so that's when I bailed on all of that stuff. And then it was just like, value, value, value, value. And then My numbers went way down. But the people, the conversion, but the people that were engaging were like, hey, that's, is that right or is this really helpful or what would you do? And they were asking about nutrition and fitness and the stuff that was.

[Sal DeStefano]

Do you think it would have been crazy had it did it, had it turned into a successful monetary business, would you have been put in a position where you're like, ooh, I keep going in this direction?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I mean you could argue that it was having somewhat success. It just, it was having way more of the other stuff. You know, it was like, I get.

[Sal DeStefano]

So even before that you were like, I don't like this.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I didn't like any of it. I mean I, I, I, I, it was a discipline thing for me. It's like, I'm gonna go do this thing. Listen, not to offend everybody that's on social media and stuff like that, but I used to literally say like I wasn't on Instagram, was on Facebook, it was on any of those things. I just like, I have friends in real life, I don't need to get online. That was literally my thing. Someone would be like, hey, do you have a Facebook? Like, no, I have real friends. That was like my attitude, right? It was only because at that time, and we're, we're talking back 17 plus years, I started to meet people that were young 20 year old kids that had built a following of 10,000 people, which is not very many. You know, it was a lot then, but 10,000 people on Facebook and we're running six figure plus businesses off that Facebook. And I was like, and I, I'd heard of that, but once I met somebody, I was like, you did that? And that really then I was interested and then it was like, okay, I'm, I'll, I'll do this and try, try and figure this out. And so that was a lot of me. Try not knowing anything of what I was doing, trying to figure it out. And thank God I, I, I found out that's not a good, that's not a good path.

[Sal DeStefano]

Did you have you'd ever done anything model wise, Justin? No. Really?

[Justin Andrews]

No.

[Sal DeStefano]

Nothing?

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Sal DeStefano]

Except for that one time you accidentally told sent us yourself.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

You guys remember that?

[Justin Andrews]

That was just for my wife.

[Adam Schafer]

Top five mind bump moments.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh God.

[Adam Schafer]

Talk about that.

[Justin Andrews]

We did.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes we did. Right afterwards.

[Sal DeStefano]

So great. I was so, and we were good about it, bro. We didn't rip anything.

[Justin Andrews]

I was so embarrassed but like at the same time it was so funny.

[Adam Schafer]

And you're so Lucky it wasn't worse.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I know.

[Adam Schafer]

It was so lucky. It was PG.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was.

[Adam Schafer]

It was PG 13.

[Sal DeStefano]

He took a picture to send to his wife, but sent it to our group text.

[Adam Schafer]

And it was like a. It was like a sexy in the mirror picture, but yeah, with his shirt off. But not. Was like, immediately. We're all guilty of probably sending our wives a lot more than that. So it could have been really bad if it was something like that.

[Justin Andrews]

She was there too. So it was like. Yeah, it.

[Sal DeStefano]

It just.

[Justin Andrews]

Because it tagged photos and like, I had had like the group and like, I was. I was sending you guys something else and it just added that one in.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I was like, no, we're at dinner and we were good, dude, we had your back because we saw and we could have totally ripped into you at dinner, but we all just looked at each other like this. We'll save this for later.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I mean, I did take pictures for my website, you know, for business. But, like, they're professional. Well, that's why it's so awkward for me when we do those was right. Because, like, I just, like, I don't even know what to do with my hands and my face. Anything. Dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't know what the I'm doing.

I know.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm not even like a flexing guy.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, like anything else. There's an art to that stuff. Dude, I ain't good at it either. There's people that they just. I mean, you. I've.

[Sal DeStefano]

We.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, we've had them. We've had so many models. We've hired so many people to come in and. And shoot photos and videos for our. For all.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's what they do.

[Adam Schafer]

And. And there's a clear difference. Remember when we had. What's her name? That's like a professional model that we had that we used a lot. I remember I liked her a lot. You brought her from Santa Cruz.

[Justin Andrews]

What's her name? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God.

[Adam Schafer]

Can't think of her name right now.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's all right.

[Adam Schafer]

So anyway, Kendra. Shout out to Kendra. I mean, she was like. I think at that. When we were. When we were like. We were always like, what we use a lot. Was like, fans that were in the show that also kind of like, dabbled in my. But she was like the first, like, professional model, like somebody who, like, made a living off of modeling that we brought in. And I remember all the editors were like, oh, my God.

[Sal DeStefano]

No.

[Justin Andrews]

She just knew every angle. The way to look at the camera, the way to position her body like you. And half of that is, like, it's awkward because when you're directing it, it's like you got to kind of, like, stop and adjust them, especially when you don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, and, like, I could see, like, that's the funny part is I could see it in other people, but, like, for me to, you know, replicate that, it's just doesn't.

[Adam Schafer]

Right. It's not your craft. Right. You're not. But.

[Justin Andrews]

But you could.

[Adam Schafer]

You could totally tell when she'd get on.

[Justin Andrews]

I can look and see it.

[Adam Schafer]

She could be. She'd be sitting there. You know, the camera guys would be getting all their stuff, and we'd be talking to her about how she Stuff like that. And they'd be like, okay, we're shooting the shot, and she, like, literally, her face would change, her body posture would change, and be like, like, 10 shots we shot, and they would be, like, amazing. You're like, yeah. Whoa. Like, there's definitely. There's people that can just do that, you know?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because.

[Caller Matt]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

One thing you just look at. Yeah. To present yourselves different.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, Justin does that. His famous pose in the picture is like, he instantly.

You're gonna look like that normally. What are you doing?

[Justin Andrews]

I know. So I always get so angry.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm like, no.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, it's a bad representation.

[Sal DeStefano]

Adam, are those the new Vori Seaside? Seaside. I have black pair. They're the most I've got. I'm soft.

[Adam Schafer]

I've got every color, but they're.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're green, so they're very seaside.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's a seat. They're seaside line.

[Sal DeStefano]

They are.

[Adam Schafer]

So I have the black.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that in the sweatshirt.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're just, like, blanket.

[Adam Schafer]

They have. You got to have. You try their sweater that goes with it. The sweatshirt that goes with it is, like, super. I didn't get that with the. The blue ones, but, yeah, I have. I have the blue, the black, and then my favorite are the. I think it's. I don't know what color they call it, but it's like a sand color.

[Sal DeStefano]

Or they just keep coming out. They have it. So I bought Jessica a sweater from there, but it's not like a athleisure, where it's like.

[Adam Schafer]

No, isn't it? You And I comment, when we were in there shooting our last shoot with them, they have really expanded, like, the styles into, like.

[Justin Andrews]

Into, like, their winter stuff's my favorite, too, because.

[Adam Schafer]

Me, too.

[Sal DeStefano]

But it's, like, not athleisure. Wear some of the stuff now. Now some of the stuff is like, you'll just wear this. Yeah. And it's.

[Adam Schafer]

No, I mean they have flannels and cool vest. Like. No, they've really, they've really grown beyond just. I mean, they remember when they started. I, I mean, Joe could correct me if I'm wrong, but like I really felt like they were the answer to Lululemon men.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because Lululemon took off like crazy. It was of course, the yoga pants for women. It became a, you know, it's a historic time in fashion. Right. Like they, like, they created that, that air, that space. Right. Athleisure aware. But the. They put very little energy towards the men's section. And I remember I used to buy some of the stuff and it didn't fit me. Right. I didn't really care for it much. And Viori really addressed that. And Vori went hard. Joe went really hard, found her of the Ori. I mean, went really hard on. We're going to dress like men Athleisure wear. And they crushed it. And then they really started. Then they moved over into the. The women's space, crushed that. And now they've like grown outside of just athleisure wear.

[Sal DeStefano]

I like their yoga pants better for my wife than the same than the Lulu way.

[Justin Andrews]

That's sounded creepy, but they look serious on my wife.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really.

[Adam Schafer]

Whoa.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what?

[Justin Andrews]

I'm always trying to sell my wife on the, the tennis skirts and she's always like, when am I gonna wear this?

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, I have ideas.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll find reasons. I'm thinking about picking up tennis. Yeah, exactly.

[Justin Andrews]

I pick it up just for that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Dude. I gotta tell you guys about the craziest article I read. I don't know if you guys have seen this. This is a case I believe. I want to say it's in the uk. I'm gonna pull it up. It is. It's a UK woman. Check this out. So a woman, obviously not mentally well, 32 year old woman, goes on these like fetish websites and is looking. Was looking for someone because her fantasy was to be murdered, tortured and murdered.

[Adam Schafer]

What?

[Sal DeStefano]

Dismembered. Tortured and murdered. And she was looking for someone that would engage in this with her. She found someone. This man killed her and now he's on trial. So this is in, in the evidence. All the evidence is like, she voluntarily did it. She wanted it. This was her thing. Doesn't matter. Obviously it doesn't matter. But my, my point with this is this is such a good extreme example of how human reason falls apart without this objective morality. Because I could reason and say, she's consensual. This is her body. It's her choice. She wants it. They're not even role playing.

[Justin Andrews]

They went all the way through.

[Chandler Garcia]

Huh?

[Justin Andrews]

He.

[Sal DeStefano]

She went and he did. Wow. Exactly. That.

[Doug]

Traveled to Florida to do this.

[Sal DeStefano]

Flew all the way to Florida for this.

[Justin Andrews]

Freaking nuts.

[Sal DeStefano]

How crazy is that? Isn't that wild? So. So now here's. Here's the. Here's where I'm gonna make this sound even wilder because you have now assisted suicide.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I was gonna say all over the world.

[Adam Schafer]

World.

[Sal DeStefano]

Can you look up, Doug, in Canada?

[Justin Andrews]

Look at the Canadians.

[Sal DeStefano]

How many Canadians have now been essentially put to death medically? Yeah, it's. It's actually an alarming number. Yeah, I think it's like 2000 or something like that. If I'm not, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

What happened to the pushback with that? It's like, you know, for some reason, all of a sudden now, this became like, oh, this is a great option, boy.

[Doug]

In 2023, 15,343 Canadians.

[Sal DeStefano]

15,000.

[Doug]

Receive medical assistance in dying medically assisted.

[Adam Schafer]

How?

[Sal DeStefano]

How. What a. Weird. Weird. Like. Like, this is. It's wild that we're. We're doing this now.

[Adam Schafer]

What percentage, though, of those people are like vegetables and that are.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, when you're unresponsive. That's not considered assisted suicide.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Assisted suicide is conscious.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, they. They're.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's me saying I have this terminal disease or I'm always in pain or I'm depressed.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's mainly. Yeah, a lot of it's mental.

[Sal DeStefano]

Some of the. Because I know that they open issues the floodgates and essentially are like, if you are extremely mentally tormented or depressed, that. That now will qualify. So.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

What are the.

[Sal DeStefano]

What does that say there, Doug?

[Doug]

Yeah. So since they started this in 2016, there's been over 60,000.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, this is. This is not. This is wild, you guys. This is wild. This is human reason gone craziness because there's no objective morality.

[Adam Schafer]

It's accounted for 4.7% of all deaths of.

[Sal DeStefano]

This is what, in Canada? Yeah. This is crazy. Doug, look up the reasons. What would qualify you for assisted suicide?

[Doug]

Well, so they say 96% of them had grievous and irredeemable medical conditions.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Well, what's that?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that could be aids. Cancer was the most common cancer that you could live with for 20 or 30 years still. How.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, look.

[Adam Schafer]

Look, like. Is it like you're at stage Four cancer and you got maybe months to live. And you're like, I don't want to go through these last four.

[Sal DeStefano]

But also it's like. And again, if we try to reason this with you.

[Adam Schafer]

I know, I'm trying just to play devil's advocate, right. I'm not, I'm not like, by any means. I'm trying to think like, where, where does this kind of make sense or understanding like where you could see that like stage 4 cancer of terminal cancer is a. Is a gnarly last couple. Here's the deal.

[Sal DeStefano]

If you had terminal. If one of you guys had some terminal illness and it's like you're suffering and you're looking at me and you're like, bro, just help me kill myself. You know what I'm gonna tell you. No. Yeah. I'm no bro. If you want to do that to yourself. Yeah, I don't want you to. You could do this to yourself, but I'm not going to help you do this.

[Adam Schafer]

No, I will.

[Sal DeStefano]

This is crazy to me.

[Adam Schafer]

I believe in miracles.

[Doug]

So here's the main reason. Reasons illness related. So physical pain, nausea, other forms of suffering, nausea, serious incurable illness, disease or disability. The second one is loss of ability. So loss of the ability to perform activities of daily living or engage in enjoyable and meaningful activities. The third one is fear of future suffering. The fear of what the future may hold.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that would be like that.

[Sal DeStefano]

That would be like the stage and psychological suffering, suffering. Isn't that always what happens when people commit suicide? Isn't there always psychological suffering when someone tries to kill themselves? Yeah, and now we're legalizing it and making it. I mean, I guess it's. Oh, I don't know, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it'd be interesting on the. The process they have to go through to get approved. Like, how. How easy is it? Is it like I just got to come in and be like, well, 60.

[Sal DeStefano]

000 people are doing it. It's got to be nice.

[Justin Andrews]

I know the right words.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

To get what you want.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's got.

[Doug]

It's got to be.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And I almost feel like it's kind of sold. Like if you think, hey, listen, you know, we have this option and we. You go to sleep, you don't wake up. It's painless. I mean, terrible. Again, we got to be careful with. This is where, like, you need. This is just evidence. There's so much more evidence of this. But you need a. You need to believe in the. In an ultimate power, because that's where you'll get your objective morality. If we rely on ourselves, human reasoning goes crazy. We could rationalize so much insanity. Because I could make an argument right now, I could see here right now making an argument that if you, it's your life, it's your body, you can decide to kill yourself and if you want someone else to do it and they agree to do it, then it's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it says they shelved it, Doug.

[Doug]

I don't think so. This isn't 2024.

[Justin Andrews]

This is the same argument they use.

[Doug]

For like, let me double check that.

[Justin Andrews]

Reducing the population.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, okay, so where, how much you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Want to bet that that's part of the argument that they're like, it's a strain on the medical system, this is.

[Justin Andrews]

Good for climate change. This is good for, you know, the medical care because it's cheaper and you know, it's just all these rational, like, it's crazy. They, they use this, this weird morality behind it.

[Doug]

So it does sound like they shelved the medically assisted dying for people with mental illness.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Geez, I wonder why. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's a lot of people. So many.

[Justin Andrews]

That's alarming as hell.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. To me that's just wild. It would be sad if I had a family member that wanted to do that and then I find out, oh, the doctor did it for him. Oh yeah. Horrible.

[Doug]

Furious.

[Sal DeStefano]

Anyway, running on ketones gives you sharper thought process. It's good for your brain, improves verbal fluency, makes you feel good. But what if you want to? What if you don't want to be on a ketogenic diet? Well, you could try taking exogenous ketones. My favorite company is ketone iq. Take a little bit of that. Instant ketones, instant focus. Go check them out. Go to ketone.com mindpump on that link. You can get 30% off your subscription. Here comes the show.

[Doug]

Our first caller is Matt from New York.

[Sal DeStefano]

What's up, Matt?

[Adam Schafer]

What's happening? What's going on, Matt?

[Caller Matt]

What's up, fellas? How are you doing?

[Sal DeStefano]

Good, how can we help you?

[Caller Matt]

Going very well. First I just wanted to give the obligatory thank you for everything you guys do. My brother in law, he actually introduced me to you guys four years ago and haven't missed an episode since then. So thank you. I'm actually now at the point where I went back to start listening like from the beginning. Oh God, absolute gems there. I don't know if you guys have played these back, but it's so cool to hear like you forecasting what you're going to do to grow the business and basically how much of that has come true. Very, very cool.

[Sal DeStefano]

Awesome.

[Adam Schafer]

I appreciate it.

[Caller Matt]

However, there is one thing that it needs to bring to your attention. Doug, I apologize in advance. You are going to absolutely hate me for this. Oh, I'm up to episode 261. At the 5 minute and 15 second mark, Adam says, and I quote, we eventually will build a mind pump gym and when that day comes, you can hold me to this. I will make Doug rollerblade in tights.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we will video.

[Adam Schafer]

No way. We said that.

[Justin Andrews]

I had no idea.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, we were so making your ass do that, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you for reminding me.

[Adam Schafer]

Us. Wow.

[Caller Matt]

Yeah, Adam, I know you're a man of your words, so there you go.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Doug]

Matt, I don't like you.

[Caller Matt]

That should be easy to email. If I put that in there, you probably would have blocked me.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow, dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

All right.

[Caller Matt]

Okay, thank you. So now to my question.

[Sal DeStefano]

Send them all the program.

[Caller Matt]

I'm currently bulking and I have a goal of adding one inch to my arms. According to my research, it looks like I need to gain roughly 10 to 20 pounds to do that. So 32 years old, 5 11, 185 pounds. My nutrition has been dialed, currently eating 3,000 calories and been increasing roughly a half to one pound per week. For the training I was thinking of running aesthetic. Most Recently I've run Maps 15 and Power Lift. I just did phase one day one and it took me an hour and a half. So this is not a problem for me to do on the weekend. But for days two and three I don't have that kind of time during the week. I wake up at 4am to get to the gym by 5 and need to be out of there by 5, 45, 6. So working out of the evening is also not an option. I want to know what's the best way to modify the program. Either splitting it up the days that I can't do fully or just doing the compound lifts for the foundational days. Then doing the focus session on biceps and back as those are my main lagging body parts. And then just really quick after aesthetic, my plans to run symmetry as I know I'm going to need to do some mobility work running from 15 to power lift to aesthetic. So appreciate the guidance in advance.

[Adam Schafer]

What do you think about Map Syndrobolic Advanced instead of aesthetic?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that would be good. And aesthetics. A lot of volume, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

For most people it's really bodybuilding Inspired. It's really bodybuilding inspired. Like having that kind of time to lift in the gym.

[Sal DeStefano]

You could also just cut. Do aesthetic and cut the sets down by a third. So when it asks for three, four sets, you do two and do it. Do something like that or cut out an exercise. I like cutting the sets down.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I like just giving them maps and a bullet advanced.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, Anabolic advance would be good, too. Do you have that program?

[Caller Matt]

No, I don't. What does that look like? Is it also three days a week?

[Sal DeStefano]

Anabolic advanced is four days a week, if I'm not mistaken. Okay. How many days a week do you want to go to the gym?

[Caller Matt]

I actually like being in the gym every single day. So, like, the plan right now is, you know, I would do, like, the. The foundational days if I'm able to do a full one, and then do the, you know, do the focus session on the other day, and then I do, like, recovery. So I'll go and do mobility for a little bit or do song or something like that. So I like to be in the gym every single day. Not necessarily need to work out every single day.

[Sal DeStefano]

So have you done. You've done traditional maps Anabolic, right?

[Caller Matt]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay, so here's the other thing you do.

[Adam Schafer]

He could blend.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. You could also do maps Anabolic traditional with focus days, with focus days in between on the arms. And I would. Have you. Have you ever done occlusion training for your arms? Arms?

[Caller Matt]

No.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, that'll. That'll. That'll give you a quarter inch on your arms.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, tie off in weeks. Yeah. Up.

[Sal DeStefano]

Let me send you our occlusion guide, and then here's what you do. At the end of one of your workouts, not all of them, but one of them, you're going to do a few sets of occlusion for your biceps and triceps, and that. That'll add. That'll add a quarter inch fast.

[Adam Schafer]

So here. So you got the. The breakdown here, right? So you're gonna basically run, but go back to anabolic. But then you're on. Instead of trigger days, you'll have focus days.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that's where you go and do light. Do like a light workout for.

[Adam Schafer]

So literally, take from the. Take from the Maps aesthetic focus day program and make that your. Your trigger days on Maps Anabolic. So run Maps Anabolic as laid out, but now add in focus days instead of trigger days. And then we're going to send the occlusion guide for you. And then, like Sal's saying, just one of the days end your workout with an inclusion.

[Sal DeStefano]

With a few sets of inclusion.

[Adam Schafer]

Hump.

[Caller Matt]

Yeah, yeah, I got it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Awesome. And if you. If you find yourself getting burnt out, cut it down a little bit. But that's it. You feed yourself well. I mean, that should. That should.

[Adam Schafer]

You should be okay. Even that's less volum. And then aesthetic that we just described. So that's it. And then keep going with what you're doing diet wise. Just keep trying to creep up a couple hundred, you know, calories every couple weeks to feed. To feed the growth, but sounds like you're doing really good.

[Caller Matt]

Awesome. I was sensing that with aesthetic. I mean, just doing the first day with like an hour and a half. The second day was also an hour and a half. Third day, it took me like an hour 15, and I just. I don't think there's any way I could keep up with that with, like, the amount of limited availability I had in the morning.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, no aesthetics. A lot of volume.

[Adam Schafer]

It is.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

This is perfect. This is perfect. And then I like your idea after that to go to symmetry, like you said. I think that's good advice. So run. Run the anabolic with the focus days. Get the. We'll send the occlusion guide. And then after that, do symmetry. You have symmetry.

[Caller Matt]

I do, Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, good. You're sick.

[Justin Andrews]

You're good.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. All right, dude. Yeah, bro. Right on.

[Caller Matt]

I appreciate it.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll make sure you get that video of Doug in his lower blades.

[Caller Matt]

Yeah. I'm sorry again, Doug. I appreciate it, though.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, good looking out, man.

[Caller Matt]

That'll be a good Christmas present. See you, man.

[Caller Sandy]

Thanks.

[Caller Matt]

All right, thanks.

[Sal DeStefano]

Did he say episode 260 something? I don't remember that.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't remember that either.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's cool.

[Doug]

I don't remember it either.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, we.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I. Oh, it's. It's documented, though.

[Doug]

Well, you have to find it before I do anything like that. I don't know if I agreed to it either.

[Sal DeStefano]

Edit it.

[Justin Andrews]

He may have just thrown that out there.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's cool that he said that. We said we would do a bunch of things that we did. Now I'm, like, curious.

[Adam Schafer]

I know. Well, of course we did. You know we did. I remember some of them early on.

[Justin Andrews]

We.

[Adam Schafer]

That. One of the things I like, I enjoyed that we did was we talked to the audience about the business moves. I remember telling them about turning down sponsors and no, we're not going to work with just any company.

[Sal DeStefano]

I remember the conversations around being a media company and us just really only Having a podcast at that point. Yeah. Not having any other media or even.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

White label for.

[Adam Schafer]

It'd be interesting to hear some of the stuff that we. Some of the stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

But occlusion training, just for people listening. Like, this is a. Like, this is one of the fastest ways I've ever added size to my arms and calves.

[Justin Andrews]

Y.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, it's. It's pretty remarkable.

[Justin Andrews]

Low impact.

[Sal DeStefano]

Very, very remarkable. We give it a shot.

[Adam Schafer]

See, it's super remarkable. It. It's almost. I remember how tempting it was to replace traditional.

[Sal DeStefano]

It won't do that.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, it was. It was that good, though, that it tempts you to, like, oh, maybe I'll just do this, and then you just do that. And then you notice that, like, you miss the you. But adding it just that little right amount. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yep.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Sandy from Texas.

[Sal DeStefano]

Hi, Sandy.

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing, Sandy?

[Justin Andrews]

Hello.

[Caller Sandy]

Hi. Nice to meet you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. How can we help you?

[Caller Sandy]

Okay, so do you want me to read my question?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, whatever's easier for you.

[Caller Sandy]

Okay. And I want to say thank you for taking my question. I listen to y' all all the time, and I've learned a lot from you. I don't know, probably the last couple of years, I've listened to you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Thank you.

[Caller Sandy]

So, you know, my name is Sandy, and I wanted to get your feedback on an issue I'm facing. I've been working out seriously for about 10 years. I'm sure more than that. I'm 59 now. When I was like, 48, 49, one of my bucket list things was to do a bodybuilding competition figure. So I started. Started out by doing the Bodybuilding.com workouts back then. So. And I got really great results. I also followed macros. I was, like, crazy about that. And I hired various trainers who taught me a lot as well.

I love bodybuilding, even when I was younger, but I never really was seriously into it. I would consider myself an active person throughout my whole life. Fast forward to the competition. I hired a coach. And looking back, he was one of those people, I think, who would rather I would have been on PEDs. He had me doing some things that I would never do now. Tons of cardio, probably too much. I would question him and he didn't like that. I did do the competition, but I was way too lean. I was 8% body fat. I looked terrible, to be honest. I did a second show the next year with a different trainer. I looked better, but still not good enough. I was probably about 12% body fat. So now I'm 59 and for the last year just losing focus on training. I started HRT recently and it was like the beginning of September to try to help out with the way I've been feeling. I was dealing with a lot of fatigue, but then I thought maybe it's because I'm not working out a lot anymore. You know, I probably took a good five, six months where I didn't work out.

I'm still active, but I was still active, but nowhere near what I was doing before my fiance. You know, we would work out together all the time, but he struggles a lot with stress, sleep and injuries. We did invest in a home gym, but I don't, I like going to a gym more than having a home gym, if that makes sense. But he likes it because it's way more convenient for him.

So right now I'm currently at 140 and I'm guessing 23% body fat. And I just. The needle does not move. I've been 140 probably for last two, three years. I eat right, I track and work out, but nothing happens. Maybe one or two pounds. I want to be 130 and 16% body fat by May of next year year for our wedding. What can I do? How can I make my body respond? Is it my age? And then I sent you a couple of pictures of, from 10 years ago.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, where are you, where your macros at right now?

[Caller Sandy]

Well, right now I'm got them set at 1800 calories.

128 protein, 170 carbs and 57 fat.

[Adam Schafer]

We need a reverse diet. Yeah, we need to go up. You gotta go up.

[Sal DeStefano]

Your calories are low. But let's, let's. Okay, let's back up for a second. Let's talk about healthy and fit. Okay, you want to get down to 16 body fat, which is unhealthy for your wedding when you're. And you're 59. Yeah, yeah, that's that. That's not a good place to be. First of all, that's not a good place to be for a 20 year old, let alone someone who's 59. So you're going to place yourself in a pretty unhealthy place place to get down to 16% body fat. You want to live as a fit, healthy person. You want to live in the low 20s. It's going to give you the best immunity, it's going to give you the best hormone response, the best energy, the best strength. And objectively, you'll look your best. Although your what you consider what probably Looks good is probably distorted because of your involvement in bodybuilding. That whole space, which I understand because that can be the same way. Way. But the reason why the needle is not moving is because you're in a good place. Now if you want the needle to move, the direction I would move is to build strength. And that's the metric that I would measure. I wouldn't look at body composition because your body comp. If you're sitting at the low 20s at your age and all that, you're crushing it. You're doing very, very well. Let me put it to this way.

[Caller Sandy]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

If you're 16% at 60 and you get injured or sick, you're in a bad place. You're not in a good place at all because 16% is too. It's, it's not, it's not a good body fat percentage to be at if anything happens. So just, just to put it differently, but 21 to 24% fit, strong, fed, like, excellent. And you'll, and you'll be able to keep that, that for a very, very long time.

[Adam Schafer]

Your body's holding, though, where it's at because you're so low calorie, though. 1800 calories if you're active and you're lifting weights is not a lot of calories.

[Sal DeStefano]

How many days a week are you working out right now?

[Caller Sandy]

Well, I've switched to four days a week because I can't do five, six, seven days anymore. It's just too much. So I switched to four. And that's working out for me now because it's been about three months since I wrote the letter and since I've been on my hrt, which started in September, I've also added testosterone, and I have noticed a difference.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you will.

[Caller Sandy]

In my strength.

[Adam Schafer]

Be careful, though, because that's, that's a, an outside signal that's telling you that that's not you necessarily being that much healthier. It's that you add testosterone to somebody who's not in the healthiest of place, they will feel better. So I would rather see you at three times a week, like a maps anabolic, and then I'm gonna bump your calories to 2,000 plus calories.

[Sal DeStefano]

Your body's gonna respond so well. It will. You have so much muscle, you're lifting weights four days a week at 1800 calories. You're, you're, you're, I'm surprised you're able to do that still. And you're probably not feeling great. Well, I know you're not feeling great because Your calories are so low. I mean, I would automatically, I would bump you automatically 250 calories a day and drop your training. But if that's too much for you all at once, then keep four days a week and just bump 250 with your calories. Get your fat up.57 grams for a woman is low, especially one that strength trains. Bump your fat up and then, and then watch how you feel. Watch your strength. I wouldn't be surprised if you got.

[Adam Schafer]

Leaner bail on the scale too, because I don't really care about where your scale goes right now because we're going to build some muscle. So we're going to go up and maybe on the scale one or two pounds, but it's going to be muscle and your metabolism will get faster, which will eventually lean you out.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now let's pause, pause for a second, Sandy, because you just heard what we had to say, which is right. I'm confident that it's right. But how does what I'm saying and what Adam's saying feel? Because I can see right now in your body that something's happening.

[Justin Andrews]

Reserves.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. What's going on? How you feeling?

[Caller Sandy]

Do feel good. And trust me, I don't always eat 1800 calories. I'm sure there's days I eat 2000, it's not often because I can't eat. I've never eaten that much food.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So.

[Caller Sandy]

But I feel, I do feel good.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, you don't. No, you don't.

[Adam Schafer]

You don't know. You don't know what you feeling really good feels like, yet you're adapted to what you feel.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, but I'm not gonna. No, no, stop right there. We have you on recording. You just told us you don't feel good.

Are you scared? What are you scared of? What are you afraid of? Bump your calories up to 2200 calories. What do you think's gonna happen? Happen?

[Caller Sandy]

It'll look like I might be uncomfortable in my own. Like I don't like to look like I weigh a lot.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Caller Sandy]

If that makes sense.

[Sal DeStefano]

So let's pause. Okay. You think you're going to gain a lot of body fat?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay, so you think you're going to gain a lot of body fat, but then you're also going to maybe going to be uncomfortable. One of those is going to happen for sure. That's the uncomfortable part part. The body fat's not going to happen. I'm going to tell you that right now. If you go up 250 calories, you're not going to blow up. No, that's not going to happen.

[Adam Schafer]

Doesn't wasn't worked.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's physiologically impossible anyway. But it's not going to happen, especially.

[Adam Schafer]

If you're lifting weights. If you're lifting weights, that ain't happen.

[Sal DeStefano]

But the uncomfortable part, you're going to, you're going to feel for sure. But I'm going to strengthen you a little bit right now. Okay. You like lifting weights. You like being uncomfortable so long as you agree to it.

So you probably like lifting weights because it changes your body. It's a challenge. It's the discipline. Right. We love that. We love that. Can I add some more discomfort to what you're doing to challenge that part of you?

Can we do that?

[Caller Sandy]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay. I want you.

[Caller Sandy]

Yeah, yeah. Because I want to see a change.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay. I want you to bump your calories and I want you to get comfortable being uncomfortable with it because it's going to feel like a of lot of food and you're going to question the.

[Adam Schafer]

Hell out of Sandy. Are you open to working with somebody.

Like a trainer, like one of our trainers?

[Caller Sandy]

Yeah, I mean, I, like I said, I, I do enjoy learning from other people.

[Adam Schafer]

It's not just like reverse. It's just not that. It's that what we're asking you to do is real easy for us to say on a. Yeah, on a call real quick and hang up. But a lot of conversations, the uncomfortable part when you're going through it is what is really difficult. And just having a coach who you're checking in with on a regular basis, that's reminding you that you're doing the right thing, you're doing a good job. When your head is getting in your own way and you're going, I, I don't think you lack the discipline. I don't think you lack the smarts. I think you've been in this world long enough to get macros idea I and that I think psychologically it'll be the most difficult part and the most valuable part of the coach isn't necessarily teaching you new stuff, but it's getting you out of your own way. Is why I want you to work with one of our coaches.

[Caller Sandy]

Okay. Yeah. Because I've already tried not weighing myself. That that was. That always made me so disappointed. Like, gosh, I'm doing all everything else right. Why I and I'm busting myself up about a scale.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Caller Sandy]

So yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Sandy, how would you like to have a relationship with this where it's not stressful like you Love it. But imagine if we got rid of the stress. How would you like that?

[Caller Sandy]

Oh, yeah, that would be great.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay. It's there.

[Adam Schafer]

If you trust us, it's there.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's going to take, though, and here's what will happen. You trust the coach. You just trust the coach. You go with it through the discomfort, through all the. You're questioning it, and it feels wrong, and I don't know. But then once you start to see what happens and you feel the transformation, which will take a second, then it's not going to be as hard anymore because then you're like, okay, I can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then the longer you stay with it, the more revelating it's going to become, and then this whole thing's going to change for you.

[Caller Sandy]

The only other thing I worry about is, like, holidays and what if I don't do my diet 100%? Right? Like.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay, good point.

[Caller Sandy]

Stress about those things.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no, Good timing. Yes. Good timing. Right now we're going to reverse diet with holidays.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Perfect. Yeah. This is the best time to do it. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

You're in a good place.

[Caller Sandy]

Okay. And I've never reverse dieted, so I don't even know what to do.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. That's why. Don't worry. You just. If you promise me that you'll trust our coaches to do it. They've all been trained by us, okay? So they know what to do with you. If you just trust us, we'll take care of you.

[Caller Sandy]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

All right. I'll.

[Caller Sandy]

I'll try that.

[Sal DeStefano]

All right. We're gonna have you back on in three months. Have you back on here. And you know what? You're gonna tell me. Oh, my God. That was so hard. That was so. I can't. But, oh, my gosh. I can't believe it. I feel so good. Yes. You guys were right. That's what's gonna happen. In three months, we're gonna have you back on.

[Chandler Garcia]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

All right.

[Caller Sandy]

Stick with it.

[Adam Schafer]

We have one of our trainers call you do it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Thank you, Sandy.

[Caller Sandy]

Thank you so much.

[Sal DeStefano]

Got it. She's terrified.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, she is. That's why she has. I hope she doesn't bail.

[Sal DeStefano]

I can tell as I'm talking to her, she's.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, you hear she's never reverse dieted.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

I need. I need people to understand this right now. I need women to understand this right now. You're working out a lot. Four days a week. With the kind of lifting she's doing, I Can guarantee you is a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And you have a normal life.

[Justin Andrews]

She was doing five days a week.

[Sal DeStefano]

She's sitting at 23% body fat, which is great.

[Adam Schafer]

Great.

[Sal DeStefano]

Which is a great body. And you're eating 1800 calories a day. Too low. You can't build too low.

[Adam Schafer]

You can't build on that.

[Sal DeStefano]

No. You could do that for a short period of time. Yeah, but not all the time. And she said, I've never been on a reverse diet. I bet. And she's like. And then here's the other side of it. I want people and this. You may do this to yourself. She tried to back out of it after she would just told us she didn't feel good. She backed. She's like, oh, no. But, you know, Sometimes I hit 2000 and I feel good. I'm like, no, you just told me you don't.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we like.

[Adam Schafer]

Not to mention 2000 once in a while.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's not a surplus, I guarantee. I bet you it's 1600 sometimes, too.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, so.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But it takes discomfort to change.

[Sal DeStefano]

These are success stories that I love.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, no. You take someone like, she's got. If you saw her pictures, she had great muscle mass.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Schafer]

So you put. So you give that girl some calories.

[Sal DeStefano]

She's just. Her muscles are sponges waiting for some water, waiting for those nutrients.

[Adam Schafer]

Hungry for. Yeah, but she's. She's got a bail on the scale because that will mess with her head. Because she'll probably go up on the scale, five pounds. Just building muscle alone. She's gonna feel uncomfortable once she gets over that and past that, her fast metabolism, she'll look better than she's ever looked. She'll be eating more she's ever ate.

[Sal DeStefano]

And she won't have this crazy, stressful relationship with fitness.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Get rid of it.

[Adam Schafer]

We believe in you, Sandy.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Jason from North Carolina.

[Sal DeStefano]

What's up, Jason?

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing, Jason, buddy.

[Caller Jason]

Hey, what's up, guys? Thanks so much for everything you guys do. I really appreciate you having me on.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, man. How can we help you?

[Caller Jason]

Well, I'll give you a little bit of background about me. I'm 44 years old, and when I turned 40, I got really sick and. Let me back up a little bit more.

[Doug]

Sorry.

[Caller Jason]

I grew up as a heavy kid, overweight, and then I ended up as an adult weighing 305 pounds at the age of 20. And I was 5 foot 7. And so I thought, well, I got to do something. So I did exactly what you guys talk about, I restricted my diet. I overtrained, and I got down to about 185 pounds. But by that time, I was eating 1600 calories a day, working out six days a week. So as you can imagine, I started a pattern of gaining and losing, gaining and losing. So I was the classic yo yo dieter. And When I was 40 years old, I was back up to 306, my heaviest ever. And I got really sick. That was 20, 21. And so I ended up in the hospital with COVID and was really bad case. They ended up sedating me for six weeks. I was on a ventilator.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow. And when I.

[Caller Jason]

When I woke up, I was all out of it, as you can imagine.

[Sal DeStefano]

All.

[Caller Jason]

All kinds of drugs and whatever else. And they. I remember them weighing me, and it was like 246 pounds. And I thought, well, I lost 60 pounds, but that's not the right way to do it. But, you know, I woke up, I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk. I had to redo, relearn all that stuff. Went through severe deconditioning, went through bouts of physical therapy. But eventually, I was up and around, got back home, got off oxygen, totally healthy. In fact, I was the only one in that hospital who got that sick, who survived the rest. None of them made it, unfortunately. And so. And so I credit everything to God. I call it a miracle. Even the doctors and the nurses said, no, Jason, you're a miracle. There was one other guy who made it out alive, but he died last year from complications. And I'm really blessed. I have no lingering symptoms. I'm totally, totally healed. My lungs are back to normal. But I knew I wanted to get back in shape. And so earlier this year, I had been doing, you know, just trying to restrict calories again, trying to go to the gym. And I thought, I got to do it the right way. This isn't going to work. I don't want to. I was sick and tired of yo yo dieting, as you guys can imagine. You probably hear it. You've probably heard it numerous times. And so I remembered seeing Zuby on a show.

[Adam Schafer]

I said, what was that show Zuby.

[Caller Jason]

Was on where he was talking about breaking the deadlift record, the women's deadlift record. And I was like, wait a minute. That was called Mind Pump. So I'm like, maybe these guys know what they're talking about. Because I had read books and I'd, you know, been working out my whole life, But I always fell into that pattern of under eating and over training. And so I started listening to you guys. That was April of this year. So I'm new to the show, but I love it, and I keep trying to listen to as many back episodes as I can. So I started eating more, which was really scary because you always think, man, I got to eat less if I want to weigh less. So I started basically following your example of doing, like, a reverse diet diet. And then the scale started coming down. When I started, I was 276. And as of last week, I was 235, and I'm eating more than I've ever eaten. Like 33. 3,500 calories a day, 200 grams of protein a day. And so far, the scale is still moving down and my strength is still going up. I added 110 pounds to my deadlift, 140 pounds to my squat. So I'm like. I'm seeing all these things happening that you guys are talking about.

[Adam Schafer]

About.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Caller Jason]

And I'm like, well, is this going to keep going or do I need to change something up? I guess that's kind of my question. So far, things are still going well, but a couple of rules I'm breaking is I'm in the gym five days a week. I do three days a week on the big five, and then that's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Tuesday and Thursday, I do arms. So I'm like, well, I don't want to get to a point where I'm over training again. So what do you guys think?

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, you're doing pretty good. I'll give you a program so you have one of ours.

But what you're doing ain't a bad deal at all. I like it.

[Sal DeStefano]

You're getting stronger. You're feeding yourself. You feel good. You're doing good. Yeah, you're doing great, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

What's the calories at right now? Do you know?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Caller Jason]

About 3, 500 calories.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, brother.

[Sal DeStefano]

You're killing it. You're killing it, dude.

[Caller Jason]

Dude, I know some people who are. Are not eating as much as me, and they're like, how. How come you keep getting smaller? I'm like, you gotta eat more.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Caller Jason]

So I. But it's scary, especially when you've yo.

[Adam Schafer]

Yo dieted your entire adult life.

[Justin Andrews]

Sure.

[Caller Jason]

But I'm like, well, I'll be eating the. Like, I try to do exactly what you guys say, too. I got off protein powers. I'm just doing whole natural foods.

[Justin Andrews]

Good.

[Adam Schafer]

I feel it, man. Yeah.

[Caller Jason]

I'm like, I'm chicken, beef, and Pork enemy number one. Because I'm just have their carcasses at my house all the time.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, man, you're doing great.

[Adam Schafer]

You're doing hell yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So good, bro. Out.

[Adam Schafer]

Dude. So good.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'll send you a program. I'll give you a map Symmetry. I think you'll like it. Cool. When you're ready, you can follow that. And then when you're done with that, you could take a look at some of our other programs. Maps Anabolic, Anabolic Advanced.

[Caller Sandy]

Performance.

[Sal DeStefano]

Strong Power Lift.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, why don't we. Why don't we do this? Since this is a good time. We'll send them the Symmetry. But why don't we line up what. What you would put them do in the next two to three in a row? It's a good time right now. You got Black Friday going on. Everything's freaking 60 off anyways. What would you line up his name next?

[Sal DeStefano]

Like four programs after Symmetry.

Powerlift. I like Power Lift for you, then I like Performance.

[Adam Schafer]

There you. After that, then go to something like Maps Anabolic Advanced.

[Sal DeStefano]

Anabolic Advanced. And then. Yeah, so that'll give you like a year. That'll peak.

[Adam Schafer]

That'll keep you busy for the next year. Like that order right there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

So I appreciate it, guys.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, you got it, dude. And keep going in the direction you're going. You feel good? Good.

[Caller Jason]

Feel great.

[Sal DeStefano]

The challenge when you're crushing it is what you just expressed. Am I doing enough? Should I do more? But if you see yourself improving in the gym especially, and you feel good.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Lean into it. Yeah, dude, you're doing great.

[Adam Schafer]

How's your steps? Daily activity. What do you hit on a regular basis? Do you any idea?

[Caller Jason]

Well, unfortunately, I'm sitting right here at work, so I sit at a desk, so I'm lucky. And I probably do it more than half of the days. I hit about 8, 000, but a lot of days it's more like 6500.

[Sal DeStefano]

That would be the one place that.

[Adam Schafer]

That would be your one place.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's just 8, 000 steps consistently. That'll be great for your health.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Pick up. Pick up the walking when you can not run, not do a bunch of crazy stuff. Just. Just add some walks. And when. Whenever you can.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's it, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Cool.

[Caller Matt]

That's.

[Caller Jason]

That's good because I hate running.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's okay.

[Adam Schafer]

No, no, you're doing. Dude, you're doing really good. You just keep getting strong. You keep hitting that protein intake. You keep those calories around there. You're gonna be good.

[Sal DeStefano]

Jason, what do you do for work, if you don't mind me asking?

[Caller Jason]

I'm a financial adviser.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, good for you, dude. Yeah. Let me ask you a question. Maybe you don't have an answer for this, but you talked about the miracle that it was. You gave God the glory with that, and I do believe it's a miracle just from what you're saying. Do you have. You put a purpose behind that? Is there something behind that where you're like, okay, this is why I was taken out of that. This is why I survived. And the only reason why I asked ask is when you put a purpose behind something, man, it's. It's one of the best feelings in the world.

[Caller Jason]

Well, you know, it's obviously something I've been wrestling with. It's like, well, God, why did you spare me when pretty much no one else made it out of that hospital? And one of the first things that comes up is I'm a father of four.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, bro.

[Caller Jason]

And I'm just trying to raise them in the ways of the Lord. I mean, I love hearing about your journey, Sal. I've been walking with Jesus for 23 years now, so it's. It's the greatest thing anyone could do. So that's my purpose. And I do. Yes. And I teach Bible studies and I. But the main thing is my children, you know, my family.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, God bless, man. I'm glad you shared that.

[Adam Schafer]

That's more than enough purpose right there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wonderful, dude. Good for you, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Very cool.

[Sal DeStefano]

Good for you, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, stay in touch, dude. I love to hear as you go through the programs, you're kicking ass right now, man. Congrats.

[Caller Jason]

Thanks, guys. Thanks for all you do.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

I'm so glad he shared that.

[Adam Schafer]

What a wonderful story.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm so glad he shared that because.

[Adam Schafer]

What a wonderful story.

[Sal DeStefano]

It works. It works, everybody. Bro, he did.

[Adam Schafer]

He went down 1600 calories. Up to 3500 calories. Dropping weight added 100 pounds. Energy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Feeling good. Come on, Come on. And which one's more sustainable, ladies and gentlemen? Which one is the one that's going to be. He'll be able to, you know, maintain. And which one feels. Feels good.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, dude. At 30 out of a 3,500calorie daily intake, the metabolic flexibility that comes with that, which.

[Sal DeStefano]

You don't even have to go that high. You don't even have to go that high at 5 7. But his body is roaring.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, so it's. It's great.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's awesome.

[Sal DeStefano]

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