2778: Why Your Body Is Resisting Fat Loss (And What To Do)

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2778 – “Why Your Body Is Resisting Fat Loss (And What To Do)”

Release Date: January 23, 2026
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge

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Overview

In this episode, the Mind Pump crew tackles a crucial but often misunderstood topic in fitness: why your body may be resisting fat loss, and when pushing for fat loss is actually the wrong move. The conversation emphasizes nuance, dispelling common myths that more leanness is always healthier. Using personal stories, client experiences, and scientific research, Sal, Adam, Justin, and Doug break down physiological, hormonal, and lifestyle factors that impact fat loss, and offer science-backed strategies for approaching health and performance sustainably.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Challenging the “Fat Loss is Always Healthy” Myth

[03:11–05:10]

• The team clarifies that while losing excess fat is generally beneficial, there are important contexts where pushing for more leanness can backfire—especially for already lean individuals.
• Sal: “Getting too lean for men and women can be very unhealthy if you go below a certain point... Most natural kind of healthy dudes working out, when they start to push below 10%, I don’t care how well you do it, there’s negative side effects” (04:01).
• For women, the threshold is higher (negative effects appear at under 18-17%).

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2. Impact of Extremely Low Body Fat on Hormones and Health

[05:11–12:21]

• Doug: “Once it starts messing with your hormone balance and fertility and all these other indicators—it’s like, is it really worth the look?” (05:10)
• Women are especially sensitive: getting too lean can cause fertility issues, amenorrhea, and hormonal imbalance.
• Example: Adam’s wife Katrina was advised by her doctor to gain, not lose, body fat to support fertility even though she felt healthy and wasn’t visibly “shredded” (06:11–07:24).
• Sal: “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze... Being totally shredded versus just being fit—it’s actually not worth it. You don’t get happier; oftentimes you just feel much worse.” (08:22–10:10)
• Social media distorts what ‘healthy’ looks like.

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3. Evolutionary and Social Factors in Perceptions of Attractiveness

[11:26–12:21]

• Peer-reviewed studies show that opposite-sex attractiveness peaks at body fat percentages much higher than most people assume:
  • Men: 12–15%
  • Women: 21–24%
• Pursuing "Instagram leanness" often undermines health and doesn’t increase happiness or attractiveness.

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4. The Cost of Chasing Fat Loss with Unbalanced Hormones or Stress

[12:22–16:28]

• Sal: “If your hormones are already unbalanced, trying to push leanness typically counters your goal of balancing hormones—it tends to make things worse.” (12:35)
• Excessive stress (work, family, poor sleep) is a major reason to sidestep aggressive fat loss.
• Sal advises people under high stress to “just try to be healthy”—focusing on recovery, sleep, nutrition, and movement leads to better long-term fat loss than aggressive cutting (19:38–20:45).
• Justin: “The goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most change… Exercise is good, but it’s also part of filling that stress bucket.” (20:41, 21:18)
• If your “stress bucket” is full, adding more intense training or caloric restriction is counterproductive.

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5. Calories & Metabolic Adaptation: When Reverse Dieting Is Needed

[16:28–19:38]

• Chronically low calories stall fat loss. Even for overweight individuals, starting with a reverse diet and focusing on building muscle can “set up more success.”
• Adam: “This is so common that I came to a place in my career where I almost didn’t care. We were always going to reverse diet to start everybody.” (16:37)
• Cutting further from an already low intake leads to unsustainable calorie levels and muscle loss.
• Example: GLP-1 users (appetite-suppressant drugs) who plateau on fat loss while eating extremely low calories.

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6. Building Muscle vs. Cutting: You Can't Do Both Optimally at Once

[13:48–15:53]

• The myth: simultaneous “build muscle and lose fat” at any level is possible. In reality, you need to focus on one primary goal.
• Most effective: spend dedicated phases on building muscle with sufficient calories, then switch to focused fat loss if desired.

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7. Personal Stories & Trainer Case Studies

• Adam and Justin share examples of clients (and themselves) suffering decreased energy, poor hormonal health, or joint pain due to excessive leanness, all of which resolved once body fat was modestly increased (08:22–09:50, 10:10–11:26).
• Sal: “Aggressively trying to build while aggressively trying to get leaner… you end up just staying in the same place or burning yourself out.” (16:07)

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8. Supplement Science: NAD+ and Glutathione

[22:58–30:45]

• The hosts discuss their experiences with RO Nutrition’s liposomal NAD+ and glutathione versus other supplement forms—which most find ineffective due to poor bioavailability.
• Sal: “NAD... the data is pretty remarkable, but every time I’ve tried it except for recently I’ve gotten nothing—minimal results.” (22:58)
• Liposomal encapsulation allows reliable delivery, experiencing improved energy and vitality.
• Liposomal glutathione reliably raises blood levels, which is only otherwise possible via injection.

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9. Training Anecdotes: Stamina, Split Squats & The Value of Change

[30:45–35:14]

• Sal and the team reflect on the value of pushing into uncomfortable rep ranges or exercise variations they typically avoid for better results—and how discipline in doing what you “know you’re avoiding” pays off.

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10. Modern Life & Social Trends: Technology, Youth, and Fitness

[35:18–48:26]

• Host discussion shifts to social commentary on modern youth:
  • Young people today are less likely to drink, do drugs, or have sex, not by choice but due to social isolation and digital entertainment replacing in-person connection.
  • Dangers of highly engineered addictiveness in games, apps, and content.
  • The team draws a parallel between modern digital addiction and historical opium epidemics—a warning against underestimating modern tech’s pull (47:17–48:26).

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11. Red Light Therapy—What Works, What Doesn’t

[51:35–55:58]

• Sal and Adam warn consumers about red light devices: only medical-grade units with proper wavelength and power (like Joovv) match the scientific research; cheap alternatives are “almost a waste of time.”
• Sal: “If you look up studies on photobiomodulation... the studies are crazy. They’re remarkable. But a lot of the products on the market don’t have the right power or wavelength.” (53:06)

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12. Listener Q&A Highlights

[65:19–75:12]

1. Constant Quadriceps Soreness
   • Solution: Check intensity, protein intake (“bump by 20-50g”), calories, and sleep. Overreaching on any of these leads to poor recovery.
   • Sal: “If you’re a woman... and you bump protein from 70g to 140g, it is like—you’ll feel the difference big time.” (66:29)
2. Tight Hips
   • Solution: “Tightness is a mobility issue... Your CNS is keeping you tight for protective reasons.” Do mobility and corrective exercises—not just stretching or foam rolling (66:59).
   • Resource: PrimePro webinar (PrimeProWebinar.com) for guided mobility work.
3. Preserving Strength While Pregnant
   • “The goal is to simply stay healthy... Intensity drops. Very little volume and intensity is required to maintain—just be consistent.” (70:08)
4. Building Strength with Circuit Training
   • Circuits are great for stamina/endurance but suboptimal for building strength; if you want to gain strength, do low-rep, heavy lifts with sufficient rest—not just minimal rest circuits (72:28–75:12).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Sal: “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. You don’t get happier. Oftentimes you just feel much worse trying to be shredded.” (08:22)
• Adam: “This is so common that I almost didn’t care anymore. We were always going to reverse diet to start everybody.” (16:37)
• Justin: “The goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most change...” (20:41)
• Doug: “Once it starts really messing with your hormone balance... is it really worth it?” (05:10)
• Sal: “Your CNS is what tells your muscles how loose or pliable they can be. Tightness is a protection mechanism.” (66:59)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Challenging Fat Loss Mentality: 03:11–12:21
• Calories and Reverse Dieting: 16:28–19:38
• Hormonal Imbalances & When NOT to Cut: 12:22–16:28
• Supplements (NAD+ & Glutathione): 22:58–30:45
• Red Light Therapy Discussion: 51:35–55:58
• Listener Q&A: 65:19–75:12

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a reality check for anyone fixated on relentless fat loss or pursuing leanness at the expense of overall wellness. The hosts advocate for context, sustainability, and a nuanced approach tailored to the individual’s current health status, lifestyle stress, and real goals—not external pressures from social media or outdated fitness dogma. Key takeaways include respecting your body’s signals, the importance of intelligent programming and nutrition (especially protein), and the need to periodically reverse course to build muscle, restore health, or simply maintain.

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Find more from Mind Pump:
Instagram: @mindpumpmedia @mindpumpsal @mindpumpadam @mindpumpjustin @mindpumpdoug
Web: mindpumppodcast.com

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Transcript

[Justin Andrews]

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[Sal Destefano]

And I'm U.S. paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having.

[Justin Andrews]

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[Sal Destefano]

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[Justin Andrews]

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[Sal Destefano]

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[Justin Andrews]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Sal Destefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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

[Sal Destefano]

Mind Pump Mind Pump.

[Justin Andrews]

With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer.

[Adam Schafer]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the.

[Sal Destefano]

Most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode we picked listeners questions from Instagram. These were posted at mindpump Media. We picked four of them. We answered them, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 61 minutes long. In the intro we talk about fitness and fat loss, muscle gain, current events, always a good time. Again, if you want to post a question that we might pick, go to Instagram indpumpmedia Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is RO Nutrition. We talked today about their NAD and glutathione with their liposomal delivery. This makes it usable, absorbable. If you take nad, they that's not liposomal or glutathione that's not liposomal. You're wasting your time. You're peeing it out. Liposomal delivery raises blood levels reliably. It's a great company. They have other products as well. Go check them out. Get yourself a discount, 20% off. Go to rownutrition.com that's rhoneutrition.com discount mindpump and then use the code mindpump. You'll get 20% off everything. This episode is also brought to you by joovv. This is Red Light Therapy that works. This is the stuff you see in the studies. Other companies. Red light therapy is not strong enough, doesn't have the right wavelength. It doesn't make that big of a difference. Joovv is like the stuff you see in the studies. It's the only red light we work with. Go check them out. Go to Joovv.com, that's J-O-O V-V.com mindpump. Use the code mindpump. Get $50 off. We also have a sale on four maps workout programs. Maps Starter maps, transform maps, Anabolic and Maps performance. They're all 50% off. Go to maps january.com, use the code newyear50 for the 50% off discount. All right, real quick.

[Doug]

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.

[Justin Andrews]

Enjoy the rest of the show.

[Sal Destefano]

Everybody wants to lose body fat. Typically that's a good thing. But sometimes it's the wrong thing. It's true. Sometimes pushing for fat loss is going to make things much, much worse. We're going to talk about who those people are when pushing fat loss is the wrong move for your body. Let's get into it.

[Justin Andrews]

This is a cool conversation because let's.

[Doug]

Do a little cushion push.

[Justin Andrews]

I think a lot of people just assume if you're carrying extra body fat, you wouldn't fall potentially in this category.

[Sal Destefano]

Or that it's always a good idea.

[Justin Andrews]

Right, Right, exactly.

[Sal Destefano]

Also because fat is so bad, fat on your body is so bad you gotta get rid of it.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. But there's a lot of nuance to that or variables that determine whether I take a client through a fat loss journey or not at that time.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

So this is, I think, a really good conversation.

[Sal Destefano]

And let's just. We'll start kind of an easy one. Although you'll see lots of fitness fanatics that fall into this category. There is what is considered essential body fat. And even above that is what would be considered healthy body fat. In other words, getting too lean for men and women can be very unhealthy if you go below a certain point. Now for men, I mean, if we want to look at clinical unhealthy, typically it's when you start to get into the single digits where you start to really see some issues with women, it's when you get into the high to mid teens. Now, of course, getting lower than that gets really, really sketchy. But I'll say this. Most natural kind of healthy dudes working out. When they start to push below 10%, I don't care how well you do it, there's negative side effects. Okay. And for women, when you start to push below 18, 17%, most of the time, there's always those outliers. You start to see negative effects even if you're doing everything right. So pushing fat loss when you're already leaning is typically not a good idea.

[Doug]

Yeah. Once it starts really messing with your hormone balance and like fertility and all these other, like, indicators, it's like, you know, is. Is it really worth the, you know, the look of it? I should say.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. You.

[Justin Andrews]

I feel like you, you should highlight how much more of a factor this is, though, for women than it is men.

[Sal Destefano]

Much more sensitive. Yes. Yeah, women are. Well, first off, you'll notice the difference, as I said. Right. Men, single digit women, kind of mid to high teens, women just need more body fat on the body. And the evolutionary explanation for this, or what's, I guess widely accepted, is that, you know, women's bodies are designed to carry life and so there needs to be a certain amount of body fat there. A woman's hormones will react much faster in a negative way to getting too lean.

[Doug]

Very sensitive.

[Sal Destefano]

And you mentioned fertility, Justin, you'll lose your period. Yeah. This is actually quite common with female athletes.

[Doug]

Athletes.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And definitely female stage presentation athletes. Like women that get on stage.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, you would be surprised even. Not even to that level. I mean, it shocked me when the doctor told Katrina that she had to gain body fat.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because, I mean, you guys see how Katrina walks around. She does not look like a orthorexic. She doesn't wait. She's never weighed and measured her food.

[Sal Destefano]

And she was healthy. Yeah. It wasn't like she was unhealthy.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. She's in. In healthy athlete.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And they, they had suggested that, you know, put. You need to put on some body fat. And she was just like, what? I don't even feel really lean at all right now. And it. And that. And I would objectively tell her the same thing too. I've seen her leaner and I. And, and she's never really got into bikini lean type of look. Like, I mean, one time in our relationship, she tried to see her abs one time and even then she got like her top two abs she could kind of see. She's never had like an exposed six pack and so the fact that she was. And we weren't dieting at the time too. And so do you remember what she.

[Sal Destefano]

Was sitting at, percentage wise?

[Justin Andrews]

So she's always measured lower. And I've told you this before, like, it's, she's shockingly low, even though she doesn't look like she's that low. And she was like 18, 19.

[Sal Destefano]

She's, she's got athlete genetics. Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I mean, she's a, she's a bit of an anomaly. And I mean, she would tell you it's really frustrating because she'll, she's hydrostatic way at 12, 13.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But not look, look it.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So that, and I bring this up not to put my wife on, on Blaster on the show, but it's just like. Because I bet there's a lot of times where I know how she felt. I know how she looked too. Like, I would even as a trainer, in my experience in this, I didn't, I wasn't telling her, like, oh, you need to put on some body fat. I thought, I thought she was fine. But the doctor was like, you know, you probably should probably add a little extra body fat and it would serve you. And so sometimes you don't, you don't, you don't have to look like the shredded person. And especially if you are trying to get pregnant, this can be affected. And so there's a classic example of that because if you would have asked her in that moment, she was, the way she was thinking was, I want to come in some of the best shape of my life and get pregnant so that I can maintain that through pregnancy and be healthy on my way out. And the doctor's going like, yeah, you don't, you can't, you don't need to be any leaner than what you are. In fact, you should probably put on some body fat.

[Sal Destefano]

I've had more than a few female clients that were trying to get pregnant while I was training them. And this is what we had to do. We had to gain body fat. It was, it was, that was the goal. The goal was now you're moving, you're fit, so it's like you stop working out and all that stuff. We're still training, but they had to gain some body fat. And then as they gained some body fat, they, they were able to get pregnant. It was literally the thing that fixed it. I also had one male client where, you know, he was super consistent with his diet and his training. And he's just like, man, Sal, my Energy just isn't great. I don't know what's up. I just don't feel that good. I got some joint pain. And again, I'm training him. So we're doing correctional action, we're doing all this stuff, and he's still not kind of satisfied. He still kind of feels low energy. The joint pain seems to be general, not specific necessarily one joint, but it's because of just his joints in general. And he's always trying to build muscle. And I'm like, dude, I said, I think you need to gain body fat. He was always walking around like 8, 9% body fat. He's like, really? I got all this muscle. I work out all the time. I ate healthy. I said, I think we need to get your body fat up to like 11, 12%. And sure enough, we started getting his body fat up. Joint pain was gone, energy went up. He was just walking around too lean. So if this is you and you're lean and you're like, but I want to get shredded, oftentimes this is not a good idea. And by the way, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. A lot of people think, and look, you could talk to anybody who's been here, they think being shredded is going to give them all this incredible life satisfaction. I'm going to tell you right now, it doesn't give you at all what it's worth. In other words, the sacrifice, the way you feel, the obsession with food, having, you know, being totally shredded versus just being fit. It's actually not worth it. You don't get, and the data on this is very clear. You don't get happier. Oftentimes you just feel much worse.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, we've distorted what healthy looks like, especially with, with social media. And I think it's like the body, we have these incredible, it's in this incredible system that is, was designed to let us know when, when we're getting dangerously low body fat and we need to find food. And like, it's crazy what happens with, you know, growth hormone and, and insulin and cortisol and everything that's happening in your body. Like, it all of a sudden starts to organize itself differently because it, it thinks that it's going to starve because of how lean you are.

[Doug]

Famine.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And, and, and all that starts to re and reorganize itself. It, in order to do this, it puts you in a less healthy state. And it does that for a reason, to motivate you to go hunt, kill and, and put some body fat on. And if you keep yourself at this, you know, perpetual state of body fat percentage year round, then you are, you have no idea what's going on internally inside of you is not healthy. And yet we highlight these bodies, these extreme bodies. Yeah, the extreme anomalies and, and the, and the genetic anomalies that can actually maintain some of that for a while and be sometimes okay. And then also how many of them don't tell the full story of what's going on too? And so it's, we've been misled for a very long time of what?

[Sal Destefano]

It's, it's funny, it's funny we're saying this. There's a peer reviewed study that came out relatively recently, recently where they did full body DEXA scans on men and women and then they asked, you know, opposite sex what they consider to be most attractive. For men, it was 12 to 15% body fat. Women considered men to be most attractive around 12. This is not the shredded body that you, that you see on social media. For women it was in the low 20s, it was like 21 to 24% body fat. Most women are thinking they need to get down like 17% body fat. That was. Now why do we consider that attractive? Well, there's an evolutionary reason for it. It's like that's what we consider healthy. In fact, getting too lean isn't that, isn't really that healthy. So if you're already lean and you're always pushing for fat loss, you're probably going to make your best progress in the gym and feel your best by stopping, stopping to try stopping this pursuit of getting leaner and actually trying to gain.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, this also leads to your, your second reason why you wouldn't many times too is to my point is you start to run low body fat diet and your hormones start to, or reorganize himself and not in a healthy way.

[Sal Destefano]

No, no. You want to hammer your testosterone as a man, go ahead and try to walk around it. 8% body fat all the time. Good luck. You're going to destroy your testosterone. With women you see all kinds of hormone imbalances, thyroid issues. That's a very common one in women when they're constantly in this whatever. By the way, if your hormones are already unbalanced, I don't care what your body fat percentage is, unless you're like super unhealthy and obese, in which case getting leaner tends to balance things out. But if you're like working out and you're, you know, you're doing things and you're like, I want to get leaner. But my hormones are off. Probably not a good idea. The only time that's a good idea is when your body fat percent is really high and you're inactive, in which case getting leaner balances you out. But if your hormones are not balanced and you're already working out and you're already trying to do all the right stuff, trying to push leanness typically counters your goal of balancing your hormones. It tends to make things worse. The next one is you're trying to build. This was. This is a funny one. Yeah. People are like, I want to build muscle and I want to be shredded. Yeah, pick one. Okay, pick one. By the way, the one that you want to start with is building.

[Justin Andrews]

Or, or most common, I want to build my butt, but I want to have a tiny waist.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I want a six pack and I want, you know, bigger butt. Or dude, I want to get bigger arms when I have a six pack. Well, you got to pick one and typically start with building because it contributes to getting leaner, whereas getting leaner first makes getting.

[Doug]

Doing both is pretty much counterproductive.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, good luck.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, and I, I mean, someone will, someone on the Internet will clip that and try and counter that argument that you can't do both. And it's not true that you can't do both. You can't do both at the exact same time. It's impossible to be anabolic and catabolic at the exact same moment. But in a 30 day window, you can have periods of time where you're anabolic and you're catabolic.

[Doug]

You can undulate.

[Justin Andrews]

Now the challenge with that, I think the most important point to make is that most people are challenged psychologically to be able to do that, because that's what we call the Goldilocks zone. And most people, they do better just right now. Focus on reverse dieting. Who cares if the scale goes up a little bit? Be there. Most people have a really hard time actually hovering around maintenance where there's this beautiful exchange of back and forth.

[Sal Destefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Because they don't see any progress or they don't see it fast enough and then they get discouraged and then they overcorrect.

[Sal Destefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

So, yeah, aware that you could absolutely, in 30 days, build a little bit of muscle and lose a bit of body fat. But typically it's easier to take a client through one goal and focus on that and speak to all the things that are related to that and be like, that's our main focus right now. Don't worry about that thing. Then we achieve that goal, then it's like, okay, now let's go for that one. That. That seems to lead to more success than selling the dream. That. Oh, absolutely.

[Sal Destefano]

And by the way, what this looks like, I don't mean like, you know, that you have to either, you know, choose building and gaining body fat versus losing body fat. What I mean is, if you're trying to, like, get stronger and build, don't worry so much about losing body fat is what I'm saying. Now, sometimes you'll see some body fat percentage drop if you gain muscle. And you don't necessarily gain body fat because now your total body fat is a lower percentage of body fat. And this can happen. Sometimes this can happen, especially when you first get started where you're trying, you're building, and you actually get leaner.

[Doug]

That's how you kind of measure, like if you're going too excessive in your bulk. If I do see a significant gain in body fat, and you know, that's where I'm going to taper down a bit. But at the same time, you're not afraid that little bits of body fat.

[Sal Destefano]

Aggressively trying to build while aggressively trying to get leaner. It's like these two just don't go together and you end up just staying in the same place or burning yourself out. This next one is the most common one. This would be the number one reason why. And I don't care how overweight you are, if your calories are already really low, we're not going to try to lose body fat. We don't have much room to go.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't have no Runway?

[Sal Destefano]

No. Yeah, no.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, sure.

[Sal Destefano]

This is plateau city all day. This is muscle loss.

[Justin Andrews]

This is maybe the most common.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes, it is.

[Justin Andrews]

This. This is so common that I came to a place in my career where I almost didn't care. We were always going to reverse diet to start everybody.

[Sal Destefano]

It just made it easier.

[Justin Andrews]

It just did. It was just, you know, I didn't care if you needed to lose 20 or 5 pounds of body, 5 pounds of fat, or you need to lose 100 pounds of fat. I'm reverse dieting you. I'm going to focus on building muscle first, no matter where your calories were falling, because I just knew that that would set us up for more success. And it was a much easier strategy than taking that person who's like, oh, I eat this many calories and I need to lose all this weight and I go right into cutting. And this is, to me, the. The hallmark of a experienced trainer versus a new Trainer, a new trainer who gets a client who needs to lose 20, 30, 40 plus pounds, you know, immediately wants to show them weight loss because they probably sold them that they're going to. And so they instantly cut calories, increase activity, put them on cardio, move them like circuit type of training just to show them a quick little calorie, I mean, quick little weight loss, but quickly those people hit a plateau and then stop seeing results. And so almost always I consider you too low. I think most people that are getting back on the wagon and started again should reverse diet.

[Sal Destefano]

But I'll be, I'll get specific, right? Guy comes to me, I want to lose 30 pounds. I'm not active, I'm not exercising. I say, okay, let's track your, just your normal eating for the next couple of weeks. Then he comes back to me, he's like, okay, I'm at 1900 calories a day. How far am I going to go with, with a calorie cut to lose 30 pounds? Like, he's at 1900 calories now. Where are we gonna end up at a thousand over, over time? And then what, what do we do then? Now we're at a thousand. First of all, you're gonna lose muscle like crazy. Second of all, it's not sustainable. Can't stay there, right? Or a woman who's like, yeah, I want to lose 30, 40 pounds. I track her, you know, whatever. I'm eating 15, 1600 calories a day. And I was like, well, we don't have much room to go. We gotta get your metabolic rate up. We gotta build your metabolism first so that we have a place to go. And this is a real thing. This happens with GLP1 users. Everybody. Like we, we worked with a 50 plus group, a GLP1 cohort of people who are on a GLP1 which, which crushes your appetite. And there were people on there who had lost 70 pounds and then they had 30 or 40 more pounds to go and they had plateaued hard. And you're like, well, okay, well what's happening? Where you at? Like, well, I'm only eating a thousand calories a day, so. And I can't lose any more weight. Well, yeah, where can we go? We're gonna take you down to 500 calories. You can't live that way. And so with these people, we had to reverse diet them, build some muscle so that we can then cut them. So if your calories are already low, you need to reverse out so that you can get the fat loss later. Otherwise you're gonna be stuck. You're gonna be a really bad place. Last. You're under a ton of stress.

[Justin Andrews]

So hardest one to read for most people.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. So it's like crazy life not getting good sleep, work, kids, you know, I'm trying to lose body fat. It's like, you know, a better focus, which will actually be better and more effective for fat loss is just try to be healthy. So rather than pushing fat loss, if this is you, if you've got like a crazy life, by the way, some people like, my life's not crazy. Like, okay, tell me about your life. I got three kids under the age of seven.

[Doug]

Focus on recovery.

[Sal Destefano]

I have a full time job. I'm married. You know, what's your sleep look like? Ah, six hours most nights because baby wakes up or whatever. Okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna try and get healthy. Yeah. By the way, that pursuit results in better fat loss than the pursuit of pushing fat loss. And so when I would get clients like this, which were common. This is a common client. I just gave you an avatar of the, of a typical person. I'm like, look, we're not even going to try tons of fat loss. I'm just gonna make you feel good. I'm going to improve your health, we're going to get you stronger, we're going to boost your protein intake, we're going to go to whole Foods. And then what would happen magically is they would lose body fat. But we weren't pushing the fat loss.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, this is where the, the saying came from. You know, the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most change is because this is, this is the most appropriate way to scale somebody to more intensity, more volume, more things. Is starting with the least that we have to do to move in the right direction. We can always pile on. We could always add intensity, we could always add more, more sets, more reps, more days, more, more time. It's like, let's do just what we need to do to start moving our direction. And I, and we, we know that exercise and working out is healthy and good for the body, but we rarely discuss it as like, it's also part of filling that stress bucket.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So it is a, it's a good stress. Right. It elicits this, this change, this adaptation that builds muscle, that burns body fat, that, you know, strengthens the heart has all these great positive benefits, but it's, it's a stress. And so you have to count it. And so, and so is not getting the best sleep. So is a long day at work. So is an argument with your spouse, so is your kid. You know, like those things are. And it's all. And once that bucket is full, adding.

[Sal Destefano]

More stress is a bad.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, adding, Adding more. Which workout. More workout stuff would be. Adding more stress does not result in better results. In fact, it's the opposite of what happens. And so many times, and a lot of times you've adapted to that. Like, you've, like, how many times have we had the client who's like, yeah, I don't know, I don't feel stressed at all. I'm. You have the three kids, I've got the job where I'm doing this. And it's like you, you've. You've become so adapted to all that stress that you, you decide, you don't count it because it doesn't feel stressful to you because you've adapted to it. But it's still. Is. It's still got your bucket three quarters full. And then you throw a workout.

[Sal Destefano]

So someone's like, well, what do I do, not work out? No, no, that's not what we're saying. It's just appropriate. It's a different focus. So the focus is rejuvenation. The focus is more energy. The focus focus is improving my health, improving my mobility, improving my movement. And so then that becomes a stress reliever rather than a big stress ad. And so the workouts look different, the intensity looks different, the approach and the application is different. But with this person right here, if we focus on getting healthy, this is the irony of it, the fat loss then starts to happen versus pushing fat loss with this person, which looks like aggressive workouts. Aggressive cut with diet, aggressive. And then nothing happens.

[Doug]

Or at least holds on for dear life.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Or I just feel worse, you know? Anyway, I want to talk about a supplement that is frustrated me for a long time because the data on it is pretty remarkable. But every time I've tried it, except for recently, I've gotten nothing like minimal results. Nothing. I'm talking about nad. Yeah. So if you're in the, in the biohack world, the, the health world, the longevity world, you've heard of NAD and nad, These levels decline as you age. And NAD does supplementing with it in the data contribute to reduced inflammation, more energy, better vitality. It's like this compound that allows your body or helps your body produce just more good energy. It's not a stimulant, it's not caffeine. It's literally Part of the energy production of the body. And so more a better energy production system. Your mitochondria is working better, all your cells work better, and you feel better. And this is what the data shows. Now, the problem is I've tried. I've done the IV drip where you get this big old massive dose of nad. And it just made me feel terrible. My legs felt heavy. You guys remember this when they came in?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I felt weird and it just didn't like it. Then I've tried, you know, like the, like, pills, and it's just. It just.

[Doug]

We've done the patch.

[Sal Destefano]

Doesn't work. Patch was great. I like that. It just didn't.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, the thing I like a patch is I left a rash on me.

[Doug]

Yeah. So, yeah, that was a little rough.

[Sal Destefano]

So here's the deal with NAD is it is effective. The problem is you got to be able to get it into your cells, and you need to get into your cells regularly. So when you do the iv, it's one massive bolus of nad, and unless you're super deficient, it's not going to get utilized. It gets in your blood and then it just overrides. It just doesn't feel good. And it doesn't do much for you. The supplemental forms don't give you enough and don't get absorbed well enough to make a difference. And then RO approached us, and theirs is this liposomal version of nad. So liposomal means it is encased in a liposome, which is a fat.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

That allows it to get into the cells and you can supplement it daily, several times a day, and get that NAD in your body. And this one is different. That's what I noticed.

[Justin Andrews]

I like that it's in these little squirts. I keep that and the glutathione and I've been taking every. Every single day.

[Sal Destefano]

And then they have liposomal glutathione, too.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So I, I was sold. I mean, I'm. I'm probably one of the more skeptical ones of all of us when it comes to the supplements. And I always feel like I, I need to feel something to, like, really get me bought in.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

And if you're. You're coming off of a cold or going through a cold or like, what I went through with Kratom was the first time I went, holy crap, I could feel the difference of nad. Like, that was the, like up into that point, we kind of experimented with it. We talked about it. I'm like, ah, you know, I think I feel good, but I Don't. It was one of those I'm skeptical of was when. When I. When my body was down the way it was to feel all getting that nad and the glutathione, because I took both. What a difference that it made. That's what's what sold me. So now that's like become.

[Sal Destefano]

So glutathione is a good one. So glutathione is like this master antioxidant. Your liver gets depleted when you use certain medications. You're under a lot of stress. It's great if you can get glutathione levels to go up for immune system, for health, for all these different things. The problem is in the studies, it was always injectable because oral glutathione is poorly absorbed. But liposomal glutathione, it reliably raises glutathione levels in the blood. So they also have that. So liposomal is just this delivery system that encases the compound in a liposome, which is a fat, which allows it to get where it wants. And you can read the studies, you can look at the data, look at glutathione, liposomal glutathione, and injectable glutathione. You'll see that the liposomal gets the levels up reliably, whereas normally it wouldn't.

[Doug]

So great delivery system.

[Justin Andrews]

It's funny you're bringing up. We're talking supplements right now because this is the longest streak I've ever been.

[Sal Destefano]

I know, Dad.

[Justin Andrews]

I love it in my life.

[Sal Destefano]

You're taking all kinds of supplements.

[Justin Andrews]

I. I have.

[Doug]

I'm definitely like supplement guy over there.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Channeling my inner Sal and, and doing my best to be. I've. I've never been this consistent. I mean, out of necessity. Right. Right. I. I've. I'm coming off of feeling so horrible for so long, and it's wild that, like to know that I don't. Where am I at now? I don't even know how many Are.

[Sal Destefano]

We two, three months out?

[Justin Andrews]

No, we're two. We're probably two. I'm not quite three yet. Two, probably two months of. Of recovery and, and doing all the things I mean and not missing. I know.

[Sal Destefano]

I got to give you a compliment, dude, because you. You were mentioning the other day that your son has a characteristic like you where he can, like, he's like, no, I'm not doing any stubborn. And that's actually can be such a strength. You. When you decide to do something, you're so stubborn in a good Way I've seen you go off anabolics and just suffer low testosterone for a while, and I saw you go through. And you're still going through this process, and you're just like, no, I'm not going back. Even though you're suffering, even though you're whatever. Like, what a strength, what a superpower it is to have that.

[Justin Andrews]

Which is great. I appreciate that. I mean, I think we're all. This is one of the things I think we all share. I think we're all very. Our word is important, our integrity. And I think when. When you say something, it means a lot. Like, I think that's, like. I think I'm. I'm attracted to other people that have that characteristic that, like, if you say you're going to do something, you're going to do it. I think that's probably like a huge pet peeve of mine is somebody who. Big, big talk. You know what I'm saying? I think you guys are all. All like that. So, yeah, once I say I'm gonna do something or commit to it, like, I'm. I'm all in on it. And I've admitted for a long time that it's hard for me to be really consistent with the supplements and pills and stuff like that.

[Sal Destefano]

He came in the other day and he's like, so how do you remember what to take? And I'm like, just one word. Dysfunction, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I'm obsessive because I've had a couple baggies. Well, I've had a couple. I've had a couple times where I've got this, like, kind of mild headache. And I'm like, why do I have a headache right now? This is weird. And then I'm like, going back through my day. I'm like, oh, I overdosed on that. I took that one too many times.

[Doug]

And you gotta check your inventory.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. So. Because I've. What I've done is I've been. I'm like, I'm committed. I'm taking all these. These supplements that Sal's got me on and doing all the things and all the peptides and everything I can to try and get my body back to its healthy state. And of course, I mean, I'm not talking about diet and exercise. That's the cornerstone. Right? Like, I mean, you're doing that. Yeah, yeah, that's. I hope that everyone knows that's a given, that that's the foundation and the biggest mover. But I'm also trying to do supplement and. And get myself back to. To Back to normal. And I'm getting closer and closer to there and feel really good. Like, I've had some of my best. I've. I haven't seen sleep scores above a 70 in a very long time. And, you know, I've had a couple 80s and just yesterday was 77 back, dude. Yeah, so it's, it's coming around. But I, I am, you know, like, it's, it's making me more of a believer on a lot of the, the supplements this guy takes every single day. It's just I've never been able to be good enough to be. Be really consistent with it longer. And I think there's something to be said about that. I'm guilty. I'm sure as many people are of like, you know, you hear someone talk about supplement, you take it once, you know, or, oh, I take it for three or four days in a row, and it's like, I don't feel anything crazy. And, you know, back to your nad point. Like, it's when I felt the way I felt. And I remember taking that nad and going like, oh, wow. Like, it was such a night and day difference. It was that. That's all I had to feel to go, like, okay, I'm. I'm bought in now.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Talking about things you're going to do or whatever. So I decided last week that I was going to work on leg stamina because my strength training for my lower body is lazy. That's just the word I'll describe it. So what I mean by that is my legs respond really well, which has made me lazy about it. Like, my quads will just grow hamstrings. It's not a problem. They just, they just build. And so my workouts are like, heavy, low rep because it's easy. I can go do sets of three reps and I'm cool. And I can lift a lot of weight, and it's great. And anything above 10 reps, I'm just like, oh, I'm gonna die. But last week I'm like, you know what? I don't care how much weight I was on the bar. I'm doing sets of 15. And, dude, the amount of weight I had to take off the bar is ridiculous. And I'm just telling myself, I don't care. I'm going so light. I'm going controlled. I'm doing sets of 15. Brutal, bro. I walked today. I barely did anything to my volume. Justin is so low, dude. It's just because the reps are up there. I walked out of the Gym. And I look like a, like a baby deer. You know, when baby deer born and they're walking all like. That was me, dude. You know, and I'm lifting like, you know, £150.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It's funny because I've similar, like I stopped doing, you know, back loaded squats. It was like all split stance everything and lunges and, you know, Bulgarians and all that stuff and just focusing on that with like less load. But it's still really hard because, like, you get back from not doing it forever and you're just shaky and it's like I feel like a total wuss bag and it's, you know, but you go through that pain process and you get strong again. I'm looking forward to that part of it. But yeah, the. My legs are all, you know, worthless.

[Justin Andrews]

Letting go of Bulgarians for a period of time and coming back is always like, I'm at that place where I know I need to get them back in my routine. And I miss the days when I.

[Sal Destefano]

Such a mental thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I had such a strong Bulgarian split squat.

[Sal Destefano]

It was.

[Justin Andrews]

You feel so good when you do.

[Doug]

Yeah. And start putting the barbell on you for those.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, that's when you know you're doing it. I. I know what I felt like when there. And I'm far from there and to get back there is like, oh, God. Starting all over again with little 20 pound dumbbells.

[Sal Destefano]

Doing it like, oh, my God. This is.

[Doug]

Courtney's workouts are pretty similar now.

[Sal Destefano]

So that's the benefit. Yeah. Well, I've just decided I'm just going to get leg stamina. So I'm like, forget everything else. I just need stamina in my lower body because I don't have any. I'm good for like a rep. You.

[Justin Andrews]

Know what I mean?

[Sal Destefano]

I'm furious at a rep after that.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know if I see you as mud. I'm. I. Walking lunges are like one of my favorite.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm not there yet, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

I love.

[Doug]

I love locking lunges too.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And you know, I don't. I think it came from working at Cottle because we used to have that area with a stretch mat and we used to go get a bar and you would just. We. It was a perfect amount of 10 to 12 steps out, 10 to 12 steps back.

[Sal Destefano]

I know exactly what you're talking about.

[Justin Andrews]

And I got in the habit of doing that for years. And so. And I just in. In depending on where I'm at is like how much I loaded. It becomes more of like a long stretch with a little bit of a balance.

[Doug]

Feel like it's just mentally easier a little bit too to move instead of just stationary pain.

[Sal Destefano]

I do too.

[Justin Andrews]

So that, that's what my. So my, my way back to Bulgarians looks like getting strong at walking lunges. And then I kind of start to really get that loaded and I'm like, okay. And then that also builds the stamina in my legs. And then for some reason, Bulgarians still feel more brutal to me than the, than the walking.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm just, I'm so comfortable with grinding heavy weight, but you know, pushing through a long set of reps. Dude, shoot me. Yeah, like I want to go home.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean this is why we, we talk about this. I think on the show is like, I think everybody is guilty to everybody to gravitating to and, and, and it's not to shame or say it's bad because obviously, look, you've been able to maintain a strong, healthy physique for a long time that way. But we, we. You. You know what's better for your body? You know what you're avoiding. Yeah, you know what you're avoiding? Great way to put it. And, and most often it's, it's what's best for you. You know what's, what's really best for you in this moment in time is the thing that you don't, you don't do. And it takes a lot of discipline to, to, you know, your earlier point to say, hey, I'm going to do that and then commit to it and follow through because you know, a couple of those workouts, you're like, oh my God.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, that's what I've done in the past. I'll do like one or two. Like. Cool.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm going back.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I did it. Yeah, I did it. Let me go put four plates on the bar and do a set of, of two.

[Doug]

That's cool.

[Sal Destefano]

Anyway, I was, I was reading the study, you guys, this data and it's mixed in terms of like, is it good or is it bad? So this data was coming out and it's showing that kids so younger generation are doing less drugs, drinking less alcohol and are having less sex than previous generations by a long shot. And so it sounds like, okay, well that might be a good thing.

[Doug]

You know what's interesting about that? I've noticed the trend even in bars and there's a of lot, a lot more options for non alcoholic cocktails and there's all these emphasis on new products coming out that like taste Just like, you know, any of the fancy cocktails you normally would have with. Without the alcohol.

[Justin Andrews]

I didn't even know what a mocktail. I wouldn't. I didn't know what a mocktail was until, like five years ago. Well, I never heard of that before.

[Sal Destefano]

Here's the bad side of it, you guys. It's not because kids are trying to do less drugs, drink less alcohol and have less sex. It's because they're not meeting up and hanging out with each other. These kids are isolated.

[Justin Andrews]

I. So we debate. Now, I'm not saying we debated this on the show a long time ago. And I don't disagree that obviously that plays a role. Obviously, that plays a. And it probably plays a big role. I do think too, that because of the information that you can access with chat, GBT and AI and the kids. Listen, you. You think you're good at using it. The kids that are 15, 16, 17, 18 use it way better than all of us. Okay. And I'm sure you guys are seeing that in your own teenagers, right? And so it's not hard to ask AI risk and dangers and things like that. And I think that. I think they're a little more. We were a little more naive to the dangerous stuff that we did.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, we lived in the just say no generation. That's not true.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I don't.

[Sal Destefano]

They. They are doing. So there's more studies now. They're coming out and they're showing a direct. It's. It is a direct correlation between isolation, loneliness, anxiety, and less of those things. So it's not that those things are good to do. It's just a reflection of how isolated kids are now. They're at home on their devices, watching Netflix on social media, and they're not meeting up and they're not hanging out, and that's why all those things are down. So it's actually. Although drugs, alcohol, lots of promiscuous sex isn't good, it's just reflecting that kids are not going out and doing.

[Justin Andrews]

I'd be interested to see how. Where they categorize drugs too, because I would. I would argue that things like Adderall, Adderall, Ritalin, and things like that.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, you mean prescription drugs? Yes, that's a good question.

[Justin Andrews]

I think prescription drugs are.

[Sal Destefano]

You're right, because when they say drugs, it's a little.

[Doug]

Marijuana went way up, dude, in comparison to our generation. Like, because it's easily accessible. Like, all these kids are grabbing vapes.

[Sal Destefano]

Like, from their parents, you know, where. You know where marijuana use has Exploded is in the adult population.

[Justin Andrews]

So. And here's, but here's the thing. They're. They're also illegal stuff. So they're putting cocaine, crack, heroin, things like that. So marijuana is now legalized. So they're not throwing that in. They're probably in that category. And it's not this, it's probably not a Schedule 1 drug.

[Sal Destefano]

No, marijuana is in there because it's still federally.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, but I mean, if you're not including prescription drugs, prescription drugs are at an all time high.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, the, the biggest one. That's down to sex. That's way down, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it doesn't. Things like Adderall and Ritalin kill that too.

[Sal Destefano]

Uh, no, that can actually do the opposite in some people. It can cause hypersexuality in some people initially. No, some people, that's a, that's actually. You could look it up. You could look up one of the potential side effects of those is hyper. Hypersexuality.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, interesting.

[Sal Destefano]

You're right. And some people, it does that too. But again, they're doing all this other studies and they're showing that kids are just not going out, dude. And you know, here's your, here's another piece of evidence of that. So my daughter, 16, got a driver's license. And I'm talking to parents, I'm like, oh, my daughter just got her driver's license. How old is she? Sixteen. Like, I can't get my kid to get their driver's license. They're 18, they're 19, they're. That was never.

[Doug]

Everybody I'm talking to is saying that even in my own oldest, he's just not motivated. He just finished his permit finally. And so now, you know, before he's 16, but he, but he's not like antsy to get his license. And I think it has a different meaning, you know, for him.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, some, some it's when we were kids, if you were 19 without. First of all, I didn't know any 19 year olds without a driver's license.

[Justin Andrews]

I didn't know any. I didn't know any 16 year olds.

[Sal Destefano]

I didn't know any 17 or 16. Right. Yeah. That just didn't happen.

[Justin Andrews]

Used to go on your birthday.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

As soon as possible, you scheduled to get your, your test on. On your birthday. That was part of like your 16th birthday.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. And that's because you needed it to go do things. It was freedom. Not just, it's just to do things.

[Justin Andrews]

Before you were 18. Before you were 18 and illegally an adult. It was the closest thing to being adult or freedom you could have.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, let me ask you.

[Justin Andrews]

Getting access to a vehicle that took you somewhere else.

[Sal Destefano]

You didn't have your driver's license. Okay. You're at home. What did you guys have at home? Did you have the Internet? No. No. Did you have social media? No. Did you have video games? No. You had nothing.

[Justin Andrews]

We had video games.

[Sal Destefano]

Games you had. Yeah. But not like the ones they got now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, now my friend that had.

[Doug]

The cool video games, though, you know.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. But. But kids now, they're not motivated. Because I'm cool.

[Doug]

Full on entertainment system in the room.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

In their pocket. Yeah, in their pocket, actually. Yeah. In their pocket. Yeah. I mean, I'm moving to VR. I. I'll make the case. And. And I've been screaming this from the rooftop since eight years ago. You know, the iPhone has a. A massive. Played a role in all the.

[Sal Destefano]

You're right. That's. That's what it shows.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

As soon as the.

[Justin Andrews]

As soon as iPhone is all those things that you're saying in your pocket. I mean, I, I think just that, like, I, I think that one of the best things that we can do for the generation coming up is to get rid of this. The. The. The consistent access and unfettered access to the Internet and all the things it has to offer for a adolescent and a teenage mind.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, I mean, as a young.

[Doug]

Real world cool again.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I'll speak just as a young. As a young. As a man. Right. As a young man, a lot of the motivation to get out of the house was, number one, there was nothing to do at home. And number two is you. I mean, you're horny, so you want to go out and talk to girls, but you got pornography at home and endless entertainment. You're neutered. And that drives.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm telling you. Look at Sal. Doug pulled up Adderall. Can significantly affect sex drive, libido and sexual function in both men and women.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. One way or the other. So some people go hypersexual, other people go losers.

[Justin Andrews]

But it's showing more erectile. Showing more of that. I'm not reading anywhere where it's saying that it goes hypersexual.

[Sal Destefano]

No. Others feel increased arousal from dopamine boost. So it says right there. That was me, by the way. That's one of the reasons why I. I couldn't take out Adderall anymore.

[Justin Andrews]

I wonder, though, what happened. I wonder what happened, though, if you kept taking it for a really long time.

[Sal Destefano]

I did it Long enough.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. Because, I mean, I know you got.

[Doug]

To keep trying, so.

[Sal Destefano]

No, dude, I.

[Justin Andrews]

There's a lot of the young. I mean, it's crazy to think I see them prescribing it to, like, young, young kids, you know, so it. That. That didn't really exist when we were. It was just coming on the scene when we were getting.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. One of the potential side effects that you have to look out for with your teenage kid with Adderall uses chronic masturbation because of the overstimulation and dopamine that it causes. So it's both. It can go in either direction. And that's like a real risk. It's a real.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And then they have the, then they have pornhub in their pocket. All this all the time too. So it's just like really tough.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I mean, to me, I think that's a big, A big part of this. I mean, this is our, our goal as parents now. I mean, I know I'm a long ways or away from where you guys are at with teenagers, and you guys are having to deal with it from a different position than I am. I'm doing my best to lay the foundation now. Like, I mean, we have, we don't. We haven't used an iPad now. And coming up on a year, we like, like we're. We hold each other accountable about how much we, we're. We. We. He even sees it out. Like, we do our best to do that. So I mean, I, I'm gonna delay that as, as long as I possibly told you guys.

[Sal Destefano]

With my five year old. You know, he'll, he. Or my niece. Was it my niece or my daughter? One of them was playing. What's that game?

[Justin Andrews]

Minecraft. Oh, no, no, no, no. Roblox.

[Sal Destefano]

No, it wasn't Roblox. It was the one that Minecraft. Fortnite. Fortnite. I think it was my daughter. She's like, hey, can I put. Can I bring my, my system out of my room so I could play in the big TV in the family or whatever? And so we, I'm like, yes, let's do that. We put it out there. And my five year old said, hey, can I, can I try? And I said, yeah, I'll let you try. And we let him play for like 25 minutes. And I even did. I did everything right. I gave him a timer. Okay, five minutes left, buddy, because we'll do this when we take him off TV or whatever. You give him a timer. It's a good, a good practice with little kids. So it's not abrupt. Five more minutes. Okay, you got one more minute, bro. We took him off. He threw and he doesn't throw taste 5. He doesn't do this anymore. He threw a tantrum. Yeah, a full on tantrum. And, and Jessica and I looked at each other and said, oh well, we're never going to have this. Then we went over some friend's house and they had some older kids, great people by the way, wonderful people. And the older kids were playing with our kids. Well, they were starting to play a game on, I think it was on one of their phones and it was like a Tetris type of game. And so he was totally into it. And again, hey, five minutes left. All right, we're going to come off and we're taking him off. And bro, the way he reacted. He tried to bite my wife. He doesn't act like this. It was like an addict. And we looked at each other and we're like, no, they make them so addicting. It wasn't like old games are not like this. They're not like that.

[Doug]

They're way, way engineered differently. It's like, yeah, they figured out ways to keep the user engaged. And that's, that's the entire objective of a lot of these like companies, you know, it's how often can they get you to be on there to get your attention, your eyes, because then they advertise or they do whatever. That's the objective is how they make money.

[Justin Andrews]

Well model and, and, and there's levels to it too, right? To your point about the. Just to see his behavior on the big screen TV in a family without the room is one level. To put it on your phone six inches from your face is a whole nother level too.

[Doug]

It's very intense.

[Justin Andrews]

And that's a rip. I mean that was literally all it took for us. We didn't even need to see a tantrum. I just saw how, how not engaged with the world he was when we were allowing the iPad. We were very minimal about it. We saw but just a simple fact that if I, he was watching a cartoon like this and I would say his name, I was not in the room and I was like, oh, that didn't know that was it. That was the end of it. It was like. And if you want to watch cartoons, we watch and it's a huge, just. That is a huge difference because like I think a normal kid his age, if it's a normal cartoon, which thank God he loves like Older, older cartoons is playing. He loses interest so fast. I mean it's on the tv but he's playing with his Legos and he's not even watching. And then, you know, because he, because like most kids, they watch the same stuff over and over. When it gets to a part that's funny or that he remembers, he stops with his Lego, he laughs, does it. So he'll watch it for a second and then he'll go back to playing. So different than if I was allowing that on the iPad on the couch. He becomes numb to the rest of the world. And so there's definitely. And I think we've just never had.

[Sal Destefano]

Things that were engineered this way. So it's only been around for a little while. And so I think a lot of us as parents, we think when we were kids, oh, I watch tv. It wasn't a problem. It's not the same stuff.

[Doug]

It's not the same and it's exhausting.

[Sal Destefano]

Put Mr. Rogers on, put that on TV. It is slow and boring. You can't even believe people used to watch this. That's how different it is from the stuff that.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it's like, it's like, it's like it's evolved. The science has evolved just like food. I mean the food today is, is, you know, way different than what we've engineered it and we've. The, the science has evolved so much and it's in their best interest to keep you on the thing, you know, it's in their best interest to get you to eat more.

[Sal Destefano]

I used to be so anti. Any kind of. But as I've gotten older, I'm just, It's like it requires a hyper disciplined person to not fall into these traps. And the vast majority of us, myself included in many areas. Just, just not. By the way, this is, I think it was in China, I want to say in China, where if I believe it was the English that introduced heroin as a way to try to control them. And they knew that once they introduced this, they would create these. It was opium, opium. And they create these opium Dems. And the government had to shut it down hard because it had such a profound. How long ago? That was a long time ago.

[Adam Schafer]

I want to say around the 1900s, 1800.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, maybe look that up. And these opium dems used to just open up and men just stop caring for the family, stop going to work. They would just smoke opium all day long, opium. And literally it was a strategy by the English to sell and also control them.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, interesting.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes. And they had to clamp down. So now I'm like, you know, I think, I think regulations have their place with a lot of the stuff. And I think there's a lot of things that we don't realize need to have some of these safeguards, things that we wouldn't necessarily put, I mean, at.

[Justin Andrews]

Least in my opinion, for, for underage kids. Because if. For sure, you know, I'm saying, like, for sure. I mean, I'm, I'm a firm believer. I'm still with you on the regulation for once. You're an adult.

[Sal Destefano]

Although the age of an adult is silly. Come on, guys. 18. 18. That's an adult. I know a lot of 18 year olds. Yeah, no, you're a child. You're still a kid, Everybody. It's not 19, 20 anymore where you're 18. You got, you already got kids and you're, you know, you're already working hard labor.

[Doug]

It was like 25. When you're finally fully developed at that.

[Sal Destefano]

Point, you know why they don't change that number, right? You guys know why it's 18 is still. You know why, right? Because if we. Because that's when you can. Drafting, that's why. That's when you can enroll. That's when you can go fight in the military. If they change that number to 25, do you know how many soldiers we would lose?

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, most of them, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Because a person who has kids, family, they're like, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go sign up in the military motivated. So that's why it stays that way. But an 18 year old is not an adult. They're just not. Do you guys know 18 year olds? I know some.

[Doug]

I remember even myself being super gung ho, like when I was that age, dude, looking all into it, you know, that was like, I was just ready, man. Especially after, like, you know What? I wasn't 9, 11 at the time. It was something else. But like, you just like get all fired up, you know, I'm like, oh.

[Justin Andrews]

Have you, have you seen the, the Netflix show that's on right now? That's basically. What's it called. It's a mil. It's a military one. They fall around like snipers and stuff like that. It's. Oh, I think I know.

[Sal Destefano]

Talking about.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I've watched like for when we did the, when we did our MRI thing, I watched one of those episodes and I think I've watched like four or five now. And what you guys are describing, it's like, you know, it's these 18 year old boys that are full of testosterone.

[Sal Destefano]

Vinegar come from hard.

[Justin Andrews]

Come from hard backgrounds, impulsive, low risk. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, definitely. And if, if you got rid of that age group out of there, you'd lose a lot of our soldiers for sure. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Which is not a good thing either.

[Adam Schafer]

So I want to clarify this opium thing for you.

[Justin Andrews]

They talked about it in China.

[Sal Destefano]

They forced China to legalize the trade.

[Adam Schafer]

They forced it. They didn't open the dens, but the Chinese did after that was forced upon them. The opiate opium wars, those were like in the 1800s. So 1839-1842 was the first one because China ban it.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And then the 1856-1860, they had the second one and they lost both times.

[Justin Andrews]

So. Okay, so explain what went down here.

[Sal Destefano]

So, so. So the British were selling opium to China. So they forced. They said, no, you need to keep this legal so that we could trade with you guys. And China said, we don't want this to be legal because it's wrecking society. Yeah, yeah. So they forced them to keep it legal. That's kind of messed up.

[Justin Andrews]

That's interesting.

[Sal Destefano]

Very messed up. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, now the British tried and forced him, but they lost.

[Sal Destefano]

Or did.

[Adam Schafer]

No, the British won. There's a British in the French.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, British and the French. Well, they both were.

[Sal Destefano]

Meanwhile, they had their own regulations, of course, in their country. Wow, that's messed up.

[Doug]

Gotta make that money.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. You have to sell fentanyl here. Why don't you guys sell it?

[Doug]

We're good.

[Sal Destefano]

We'll sell it to you guys, ship it over to you. Yeah, you guys are good, dude.

[Doug]

It's good stuff, I promise.

[Sal Destefano]

Was I hearing earlier? I heard you talking to Katrina earlier. Did you successfully put your juve red light in the shower?

[Justin Andrews]

You're gonna give me in trouble. Defined successfully. Well, you did it because it's not.

[Sal Destefano]

Supposed to get wet. How did you do that?

[Justin Andrews]

So, well. Okay, I have a. I have a shower that is probably from where I'm sitting right here to the end of that coffee table.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. So decent, big length.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And it has like a. It has a step at the end of it.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

And you know when I shower in there, I look at the glass and it doesn't get too wet.

[Sal Destefano]

So.

[Justin Andrews]

So I just decided.

[Doug]

Cleaned it up on there.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, so it's on a step, so I. And I have to stand. So I just, I just ran in there and then.

[Sal Destefano]

Damn. Just make sure not to get any water on it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. And I'm Showering way over here. And it's, It's. It's shining on me. And so, you know, I'm kind of rolling the dice.

[Sal Destefano]

How many times have you done it?

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I've done it for the last week. Consistently, every day, twice.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. Not recommended.

[Adam Schafer]

Not recommended. No. And stop doing the toast at the. In the bathtub.

[Justin Andrews]

Making yourself. I know.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. I'm not.

[Justin Andrews]

This is not a disclaimer. This is not me telling anyone to do it. But I. Obviously, if you listen to podcast, you know, the last time I talked about the, the shower above and stuff, and I got. Everyone started sending me all these. There's shower heads that have red light in them. But the problem is they're. They're like rechargeable lights. And I don't think.

[Sal Destefano]

Not the real.

[Justin Andrews]

I know. I. So it's like, so for people don't.

[Sal Destefano]

Know, like, when you look at.

[Doug]

Big difference.

[Sal Destefano]

Because if you look up studies on photobiomodulation or red light therapy. Yeah, the studies are crazy. They're remarkable. I mean, it dramatically improves skin health, reduces joint pain, it raises testosterone.

[Doug]

It regrows all the characteristics of the cell.

[Sal Destefano]

It actually helps with muscle growth and strength. And the way it works is this wavelength of light supercharges the mitochondria, and so basically all your cells work better. Okay. So anything you shine it on, including eyes. People have actually improved their eyesight with red light therapy. It does that. Okay. The. The problem is when you go online to buy red light therapy, the ones they use in the study are a certain wavelength and a certain power. What A lot of the products that are on the market don't have, like, they're like 1 10th, 1 50th, 1, 100th of that.

[Justin Andrews]

You can actually do the math. So I, So my family, obviously, they've seen us, Katrina and I, using it for a long time, so. And then of course, they started seeing commercials and ads, and so they all start getting curious. And I've had them buy stuff and I would go back and I would show them the, the lumens, wavelength and power of it and explain to them, like, if it, if it's. If the juve light is four times more powerful, then you have to sit in front of your red light four times the amount of time to get what I'm getting out of it. And it's already difficult for me to be consistent.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, it's actually worse than that. Right. It's not a direct. It's not a direct Time for time. So if it's four times stronger or weaker, it doesn't mean you sit in front of it four times as long because the intensity also triggers the reaction. So it's actually probably more like they have to do it ten times as long.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, wow.

[Sal Destefano]

It's almost a waste of time.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I mean, I. I made my point really clear because it's like if I got to sit in front of mine for 10 to 12 minutes, you gotta sit in front of yours.

[Sal Destefano]

Or 45 minutes, probably more like an hour and a half. Oh, my God.

[Justin Andrews]

So, yeah, so I. My. My concern with a lot of these, for these kind of gimmicky products that are out there are. That. That's exactly right.

[Sal Destefano]

And you.

[Justin Andrews]

And, you know, maybe you find a good one, because I know. I know Juve isn't the only one. They're. They're. They're the best. They are the best. And. And I know that there's competitors that have come out there that are. They're. But they're all similar. If you're at that level, you're paying that price.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So, like, all the medical grade ones are at the. The same level in price of juvas. If it's really inexpensive, that should be your first red flag right there. Is that. And then. And then just go look at the lumens, the power wavelength, and then compare it to the medical grade, and you'll see it's just not. And so. So anyways, yeah, all to be said, I put it in my shower. I've been using it. I'm on this. I'm like, I'm gonna just. I'm gonna roll the dice. I'll let you know if it. But it seems to be fine. I have a fan in my thing that pulls the steam out. So it's not getting. It's not getting, ladies and gentlemen.

[Sal Destefano]

Don't do it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's not getting. It's not getting wet.

[Sal Destefano]

I predict the steam will make it break in, like, a few weeks.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, you think so?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Even with my shower open, I don't have a closed shower.

[Sal Destefano]

It's still moist in there. You know, I hate that word, moist. You know what I mean?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's descriptive.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. I mean, you still get condensation.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah. I mean, and this is. This time of the year is the time that I would get the most. And so if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen now. So I'm gonna.

[Sal Destefano]

That's all right. I said, come on.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm sponsored by them. What am I really rolling dice would be different if I. If I had to go buy it again. You know, I said. I said, I'll call him up. Be like, hey, hey, you probably shouldn't put this in your showers.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, we're gonna get a call. We're not replacing it. Adam. You did.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I got to know, too. It's not like, I don't. It's not on my floor shower. I have a. Like, a bench that's elevated, and then I have the thing that it's on, and it's far enough away that I. I think I'm going to be okay. I'm going to roll the dice. Katrina does not allow it to be in there when our son is in there. But I do it. And so I want to be consistent. I want to be consistent. I want to do it every day, twice a day. And it's just like the supplement thing. I've. I have streaks where I'm doing the juv. Light and I see the benefits, and then I fall off my consistency. But if it was in my shower and I first do this, then when I remodel my. Remodel my bathroom, I'm going to build it into the walls. I'm going to build it into the walls. I'll build fans to make sure I. Like, I'm going to. I'm going to figure a way out to make my own version of that, because all these other knockoff companies that are trying to do something similar just don't put the power out, so.

[Sal Destefano]

Hey, did you guys see. Just a quick change of subject real fast. Would you guys see the new Barbie?

[Justin Andrews]

No. You brought it up, and I wanted to hear about it.

[Sal Destefano]

Doug, look up new Barbie. I don't know what would makes this look any different. So they made a new Barbie that's got autism. What?

[Adam Schafer]

What?

[Doug]

That's like, how are they going to make it look like she has autism?

[Sal Destefano]

That's. She's got head like. Like, ear muffs on. That's it. So it's just Autism Barbie.

[Doug]

Oh, my God.

[Justin Andrews]

Shut up.

[Sal Destefano]

I. Look it up, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's a real deal. Yeah, look it up according to this.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, look at the picture of it. It's like, this one has autism. Okay, that just seems wrong.

[Justin Andrews]

Dude, we'll do anything to sell more, won't we? Anything. Like, what do you do?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, look, it's just got, like, ear muffs on, you know, because the.

[Justin Andrews]

So I always want to be.

[Sal Destefano]

That's. That's Autism Barbie right there. She just looks like she's got headphones on. Yeah, normal.

[Justin Andrews]

But do you guys, do you guys, do you guys watch Landman? Do you guys watch Land?

[Adam Schafer]

I do.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I know you do. You're on. You and I get to talk. But Justin, you watch Landman.

[Doug]

I've been meaning to get into it.

[Justin Andrews]

Doug and I, off air, we're talking about this. It's, it's, it's obvious to me he's a conservative writer.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know the shows that he's done. And so like they, they, they, they. And I've been watching this is season two and they, they have this scene where the daughter goes off to college and she gets her dorm, her dorm room partner or whatever. Roommate, sorry, lack of a better word, partner, sorry. And they make it like an extreme like left kid that has like all the safe space. Like, like the stereotype, like extreme stereotypes.

[Adam Schafer]

Like everything you can think of, they've thrown it in there.

[Justin Andrews]

And so you're waiting, knowing is. And then the character that's involved with this is this like over the top, loud, vocal, radical honesty, say whatever's on her mind type of personality. And I, Doug and I were both thinking exact same thing. We were not watching it together. We're talking, having this conversation afterwards and I'm like, how about the seat? I'm telling him, how about that scene? How classy they, they handled that because.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, they couldn't make it one sided.

[Justin Andrews]

They exactly. They could have done, they could have. It was so set the table to go the extreme right version and really hammer this, this kid for the way she was acting and treating her daughter and everything like that. And I was so impressed with the writing and how, how they did that in, in such a classy way. And it made me feel good about for a moment television. I feel like we do this really bad job of really polarizing left and right so much. And when you're, you're on one side, you want. And I'm admitted that they did the character, that character so bad that there was a part of me that want to be like, oh, she slam her. You know what I'm saying? Get her like you want. There's a part of you. But then inside of me, I'm also going like, no, that's not what, that's not what we need. You know, that's. And the way they're very compassionate was very compassionate.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, that's what we need more of.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. And it surprised me. I wasn't, I wasn't. It made me go like the show even more.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, I'M going to go in a different direction, you guys. The non compassionate route. That video of that dude, there was the protesters and there was like the right wing one and then there were left wing ones and then that. And then he beat the.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, the left wing one was taking a bullhorn and following him and blasting a high pitched noise into his ear.

[Sal Destefano]

And the dude was trying to walk away. He kept trying to walk away and the guy kept in his ear. And I tell you guys, I, you know, I'm watching it and I'm like, I don't know how I'd react with a dude following me with a blowhorn, trying to walk away the whole time. And then he reacts exactly the way you'd want him to when you're watching this. Like, man, I hope he like gives it to him. Yeah, he did.

[Justin Andrews]

He.

[Sal Destefano]

And they. And then a bunch of them went after him and he laid out like four people.

[Justin Andrews]

He slept. Two guys. I mean slept. I mean, you know when you go stiff as a board and you see. So they went straight and it was a older dude. Didn't look like. So he didn't. And he didn't have no fighter stance. He didn't look like he's like some trained marshal.

[Sal Destefano]

A couple hands.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he just, he just. Back ain't real good.

[Sal Destefano]

That guy was following him with the blowhorn just in his ear the whole time. Like, what are you doing, dude? That's not cool. That's not cool.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

I don't know. To me, it's funny because you, you think about like, who's seen like. I swear, only certain people see those kind of videos. You know, it's completely algorithmically, like set. So it's like, you know, you're getting this one and then, you know, they're getting stuck something else that's like super like. Yeah. Rage bait. You know, on the other side, you.

[Justin Andrews]

Have to, you have to really. And I've been really working on this with my social media. Aside from not being on it that much at all. You can't even. I think Sal's brought this up before. Like, I've already disciplined myself to not like the stuff.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But it knows if you hover, if.

[Sal Destefano]

You hover on it.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Your algorithm will change.

[Justin Andrews]

So it's like you have to, you.

[Sal Destefano]

Know, you have to do.

[Doug]

You have to watch your eyes, dude.

[Sal Destefano]

You have to go.

[Justin Andrews]

Go fast.

[Sal Destefano]

No, no, what I do is at the top.

[Justin Andrews]

Or you asked not to see it.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. I don't want to see this. So you have to consciously every day Modify your algorithm every day.

[Doug]

Two days later they're just like, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, I know you're right.

[Sal Destefano]

You, the one that you bought your wife some like, lingerie.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

You were the ones you were saying they. Now you get all these ads for.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Like you have to click on it. I don't want to see this. They're flood your feed.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, it's, it's. It's wild how proactive you have to be. I mean, it used to be and it's still like I was able to shift my. I'd say 80% of my feed by actively go liking the stuff that like my sports and car stuff. Right. So it's like that's kind of what.

[Sal Destefano]

Like that's.

[Justin Andrews]

I want to make my social media like sports and cars and bulldogs, you know, so it's like I actively like a lot of that stuff. So that gets. Starts to get in my feed. But like Justin said, they'll just every once in a while, like, we still remember who you are.

[Sal Destefano]

We know. Well, bro, we know.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, we still know. And then it's like. And if you just hover for a minute, like, here's a sn like that one you sent me because I've, I've gotten rid of all. I've done my best to get rid of all political stuff on there because it is so polarizing to Justin's point. And so because you looked at it.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm sure you got more. Yeah, no, I, I have. So I'll have on. On my. The one that I use the most is X. So I'll use X. And that's makes me get kicked off the other ones before. So I'm kind of like mad at them or whatever. In fact, my staff does. A lot of people don't know this, but my staff manages my social media. I'll pop in, in there, but they basically manage it just because I got kicked off.

[Doug]

So I talked so much trash about.

[Sal Destefano]

You all the time, I didn't even see it. But I'm on X. And so I'll follow like, you know, preachers and you know scripture and stuff like that. And then sometimes one will pop up. That's infuriating. It's like somebody that's like using scripture in a way to be hateful or mean. And so I've had, I've got twisting it, twisting it. Right. So I got pulled in and I commented on a couple of them, like, this is not what I. The Bible says and you're using this to hurt people. And then of course. What shows up on my feed, more people and preachers who are speaking this way. I'm like, I don't want to see.

[Justin Andrews]

Can't get away from it.

[Sal Destefano]

And then I get angry. I'm like, oh, I see what you're doing, dude. So I got to go. I don't want to see this. I don't want to see this. And otherwise it won't change. It won't change. I know.

[Justin Andrews]

So crazy.

[Sal Destefano]

Paleo Valley makes the best Paleo inspired supplements and products. Here's my favorites. I love their meat sticks. Their meat sticks are not dry. They're delicious. Great macros. This is grass fed meat. Thisit's fermented so it's not dry. It tastes amazing. It's a great snack on the go. They last a long time. I always use them when I travel. I also love their bone broth protein chocolate. Tastes like chocolate donuts. It's the least processed, best tasting protein powder I've ever had in my entire life. Try it for yourself. You'll see what I'm talking about. It's also great for gut health. If you have issues with digestion with other protein powders. You won't with their bone broth protein. Go to paleovalley.com mindpump that link will get you 15% off. Back to the show.

[Adam Schafer]

First question is from Renee Magnuson. My quads are always sore after squats, lunges, et cetera. And then they stay sore for days later. I warm up, stretch after, try to progress but not go too heavy when my muscles ache. What else can I do to alleviate that pain?

[Justin Andrews]

You know, a lot of times just bumping somebody's protein.

[Sal Destefano]

Right. I was just gonna say that.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh yeah, yeah. It just does help. And I'm saying that I'm assuming this, this is a girl who's asking this question.

[Sal Destefano]

More likely.

[Justin Andrews]

So it's more likely I, I bump this person 20 to 50 grams of protein a day and all of a sudden they feel recovery.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. This is either, this is either too much intensity and volume, not enough protein, not enough calories, or your sleep is off.

[Justin Andrews]

Or a combo a little bit of all of it.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. Like so you could be doing a little too much on the intensity and or volume. You cannot be sleeping the best. And you're also not really high protein and, and trying to actually improve all those a little bit. Right. So kind of coming back a little bit maybe on your intensity and volume, maybe focusing a little bit on a little bit better sleeping protein. You do those Three things and I've been.

[Sal Destefano]

You would be shocked, though, if you're a woman. Let's say you're a 140 pound woman and you're consuming 70 grams of protein a day and you bump it to 140, it is like you'll feel the difference big time. It's like dramatic difference in recovery. Dramatic. So if that's you, watch what happens. Bump your protein.

[Adam Schafer]

Next question is from Chelsea Wellsie. Do you have any tips for perpetually tight hips? I have a desktop job, but I do a lot of walking and foam roll several times a week.

[Sal Destefano]

So tightness is. So here's where tightness comes from. Muscles are tight. First off, your muscles are controlled by your central nervous system. Your central nervous system is what tells your muscles how loose and pliable they can be. It's what causes them to contract, it's what causes them to relax. And so when you're tight, what's happening is your central nervous system is saying, stay within this range of motion because we're unstable outside of it. And so it limits things and it tightens things around the joint because it believes to be protecting you. And so this is a mobility issue where you need to work on correctional exercise. That's what will alleviate this. So you can stretch, you can foam roll, you'll get temporary relief, but you won't get permanent relief until you address the root cause of the tightness, which in this case it may be you don't have good external rotation. Right.

[Doug]

We need more extension.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes.

[Doug]

Like maybe we need to strengthen, you know, hip flexion. But yeah, definitely something to, to look at there, There's a new one. I started actually working on this myself.

[Sal Destefano]

I saw that hip flexor plank.

[Doug]

Hip flexor plank, which I've just started to do it because I've had a lot of hip pain and, and have been trying all kinds of different methods for strengthening my hip flexors. And this, this was a different method. So isometrically I can, can.

[Sal Destefano]

Have you seen it? Focus in on it a bit more.

[Justin Andrews]

So let's say I can imagine that you just do a plank, but you, you, you loosen up your core and you.

[Sal Destefano]

No, no, no. So what you would do is let's.

[Doug]

Say my knee will be on top.

[Sal Destefano]

His knees on the table or table, and his hands are on the floor and he's holding himself up with his knee. His other leg is off the floor. So he's. That one leg hip flexor is supporting him.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, interesting.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And it's an isometric and you'll hold.

[Doug]

It for, yeah, and like 20, 30 seconds.

[Sal Destefano]

Hard.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's hard.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I, I want to, I'll, you know, to show that to me so I can watch you do it. I'd like to actually add that into my routine.

[Sal Destefano]

Learn that from. By the way, do you know someone.

[Doug]

You know, this was suggested in the forum. Somebody that we, you know, aligns a lot with us. I forget his name, but another really good functional coach. I'll have to give him a shout out later. But, yeah, I picked it off from him and I was like, I've never seen that before.

[Justin Andrews]

I love, I love when I see the trainers do stuff like that. You know, a lot of this too, that will address this is one, what Justin's saying is a possibility too. Also. I start to notice this when I'm just, I'm not, I get away from my map performance symmetry type of training and doing multi planar things and directional stuff. Or like your, your favorite sled drags.

[Sal Destefano]

Like lateral sleds?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, lateral stuff. Like my hip, my hips start talking to me when I start getting a square. When I get a strong squat and deadlift. And I haven't been doing those things, the hips are one of the first things I start talking about.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, we have a webinar that you can watch. It's an old one, but in there, Adam takes you through mobility for the whole body. But there's a lot of hip stuff in there. It's PrimePro webinar.com so you go PrimePro webinar.com, so, Chelsea, if you're watching this, follow the hip mobility stuff that Adam's doing in there and follow his cues and then see how you feel. It should help you.

[Adam Schafer]

Next question is from Sarah Ann Fairbanks. What's the best way to preserve as much strength as possible while pregnant?

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, so two things. When you're pregnant, the goal is to simply stay healthy. Okay. So I'm glad you put the word preserve here and not gain number two. Intensity drops. Very little volume and intensity is required to maintain 1/7 very little. So all you're trying to do while you're pregnant is just do what feels good and just kind of stay consistent. That's it. You're not working out with the same intensity. You're listening to your body. Maybe it's your first trimester. You're nauseous, you're not eating. You barely can work out.

[Doug]

Cool.

[Sal Destefano]

So you barely do any workouts. Second trimester tends to be, you know, it's a honeymoon Trimester, we'll call it. You feel good, all right, you scale up a little bit, you feel great. Third trimester, you start to get uncomfortable. Well, now you back off a little bit. You really gotta listen to your body and just maintain a certain level of, of consistency and then realize that postpartum, getting your body back into fitness takes a lot longer than people will have you believe on social media. It's a slow process, especially if you're breastfeeding, especially if you had a difficult pregnancy or delivery. But most women takes about a year or two postpartum before they're back to what they were doing before. So just understand that as you go into it. But the best thing, the best approach here is to be strong before going into it. You're pregnant, that's the key.

[Justin Andrews]

You go the way you go into pregnancy and, and then to What I said, 1/7 is all you need to like maintain. So if you trained leading in, up into pregnancy and then you just did at least 1/5 or 1/7 of the training that you were doing and, and, or volume or intensity, what you're doing, you're going to maintain that. People think you're going to lose all this strength and muscle during that time and it's like you, you won't. The mistake that you people make here is trying to progress during this time. And to Sal's point, like this is the time to take care of yourself, be healthy, don't worry. I mean there's seasons of your life and at this season, it's obviously about being as healthy as possible for your baby. And that isn't always the, the strongest you're going to be like strength wise. So you're not pushing that right now.

[Adam Schafer]

Next question is from Better Mang. I'd love to hear about smart ways to program heavy circuits. Not talking about orange theory style circuits, but taking three to four lifts using different muscle groups and resting maybe 30 seconds between lifts, which would give several minutes before repeating any one lift. Can this be done in a way to gain strength and build muscle?

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, so the last part changes things. Okay, so if you're doing a circuit, the circuit, a goal with the circuit is to build stamina and endurance. That's what circuits are for. So what you're asking me is how can I, how can I screw this, screw in with a sledgehammer? So it's like a wrong tool for what you're looking for. That being said, if this is all I had to work with and you're going to do a circuit, you're like how do I build strength and build muscle? It's low reps. It's literally three reps over here, rest 30 seconds, three reps over there, rest 30 seconds. It's very low rep. Strength training, focused. That's how you're going to build muscle and gain strength in a circuit style. Otherwise it's hiit training. And we have a program maps hit by the way, Dylan, make sure you put up a discount code. So if you want really good circuit style training, but you want the stamina, the endurance, the calorie burn, well, program maps, it would be the way to do it.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I also want to address something that can be misleading or a mistake. The way this is, this is worded or set up. The idea that because you're not returning back to, let's say, let's say you go deadlift, a push up, pull up, kettlebell swing, and then, and so it's.

[Sal Destefano]

Been three minutes since I did.

[Justin Andrews]

Is it three minutes? Deadlift does not mean that you're getting minutes rest and that you're building strength. For the deadlift you're training. If you're only resting 30 seconds between lifts, you're training endurance. Yeah. And you're not going to build a lot of strength with 30 second rest periods. I don't care what the exercises are, in what order. You're not going to build a lot of strength that way. That or that is by far. It doesn't mean you can't build any. You could for sure, especially if you're coming from nothing. But it is definitely not a great way to progress. Yeah. Not an ideal way to progress.

[Sal Destefano]

Now that's, that's why I said low rep. So imagine this. Imagine you had three or four lifts set up and it was two reps and it was, you know, 80% of your max. So I'm going deadlift, bench press.

[Doug]

This is looking more 60% tricep.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Doug]

And it's like not like a circuit.

[Sal Destefano]

No, it's like three reps, 30 seconds, three reps then. Because fatigue isn't playing a role now I can build strength and muscle fatigue is the strength and muscle building killer. Fatigue is great for stamina and endurance. So you got to pick a lane. Which way? Which direction?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I just, I just, this just totally reminded me of so many conversations I had years and years ago with clients that would do this, that would, you know, I tell them that we're going to rest for three minutes and they said, well, what, what exercise or what should I do while I rest? Should I do some abs?

[Sal Destefano]

It's like.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, wait, no, no, I mean rest. Like completely rest. That or else it's not rest. So you're not. So if you're doing something else, another exercise, you are not. You're not resting. Just because you didn't do that exercise doesn't. Doesn't count that. Oh, well, I got, you know, it's been three minutes since I did that deadlift. But you did three other things every 30 seconds on the. So you're training endurance. That's what you're doing.

[Sal Destefano]

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

[Adam Schafer]

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