2855: 4 Simple Steps to Lose Weight After 30 (What Actually Works for Women)

Summary

Episode Summary: Mind Pump 2855

Title: 4 Simple Steps to Lose Weight After 30 (What Actually Works for Women)
Date: May 11, 2026
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge

---

Overview

In this episode, the Mind Pump crew cuts through the typical diet noise and presents a straightforward, real-life-validated approach to effective and sustainable weight loss for women over 30. Rather than relying on fad diets or complicated science, Sal, Adam, and Justin weave together decades of coaching experience to break down four fundamental principles—simplicity, convenience, muscle preservation, and hormone health—that actually work for women facing the unique physiological and lifestyle shifts of their 30s and beyond.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Challenge of Weight Loss After 30

• Science stays the same, but context matters:
  • Adam: "Fat loss works the same regardless of your age... but when you coach people for a long time... you see what actually works in the real world." [03:39]
• Adherence is the real hurdle:
  • 95% of people who lose weight by just cutting calories and doing more exercise cannot sustain it long-term.
  • "What's really hard, though, is can I get this person to get there and then stay there? That's the real challenge." – Adam [03:51]
• Behavior psychology and sustainability:
  • Good coaches know long-term success isn’t just about technical accuracy but about behavior—what people will realistically stick to. The hosts underscore that many textbook diet approaches fail because they don’t account for behavior and lifestyle after 30—especially for women juggling more responsibilities.

---

Four Fundamental Steps for Weight Loss After 30

1. Keep it Simple

• Why? Complexity kills adherence, especially for busy adults.
• "If I give you 15 diet steps, even if they're great diet steps... that's a lot when you have a busy life... It needs to be simple, yet effective." – Adam [04:48]
• Memorable Quote:
  • "Simplicity needs to be a part of this..." – Adam [05:14]

2. Make it Convenient

• Why? People don’t fail because they don’t want to eat healthy—it’s the lack of time and convenience.
• Justin’s Lesson: Meal plans rarely work if they're drastically different than what someone's already doing. Tiny tweaks in existing routines are more likely to stick long-term.
• "A better strategy was let me have the client track what they're doing currently... then understand where we need to go." – Adam/Justin [09:38]
• Convenience means:
  • Easy recipes, meal prepping, and only adjusting what is strictly necessary.

3. Prioritize Muscle Preservation (Pro-Muscle)

• Why? Dieting can cause significant muscle loss, which slows metabolism and leads to poor body composition.
• "If you go on the wrong kind of weight loss diet, even with strength training, you're going to lose muscle... Muscle loss accounts for sometimes half of the weight that you lose." – Adam [11:40]
• Visualizing results:
  • “A woman who’s 5’6, 160 lbs at 35% body fat looks very different than one at 25% body fat, even at the same weight... What we want is less body fat, and we want to keep or build muscle. That's what gives you the look that you want.” – Adam [13:12]
• Pro tip: Don’t get hung up on the scale—focus on muscle and body composition.

4. Prioritize Hormone Health

• Why? Women tend to be more sensitive to dieting and under-eating, which can crash hormones and halt progress.
• "Both men and women’s hormones can respond negatively to being in a calorie deficit... But women in particular tend to be sensitive to this." – Adam [15:31]
• **If you feel run-down, low-energy, or stuck despite doing everything "right," hormone health may be a missing link.

---

The Four Actionable Steps (with Practical Advice)

Step 1: Ditch Processed Foods

• The Core Rule: "Don't eat processed foods. That's it." – Adam [16:10]
• Why it works: Eating whole foods almost always creates a calorie deficit naturally due to increased satiety and less “engineered” overeating.
• Controlled studies: Swapping processed foods (high shelf life, multi-ingredient) for whole foods results in 600–700 fewer calories eaten daily, even when eating until full.
• “When I had my clients just do this... every client lost like 15 pounds.” – Adam [19:07]

Step 2: Meal Prep for Convenience

• Tactic: Set aside a day or two (Sundays are popular) to prep large batches of whole-food meals for busy days.
• Adam’s Blueprint: Grill 5–7lbs of meat, large pots of rice or potatoes, double-up on dinners and let leftovers carry you through the week.
• “Meal prepping makes a big difference... I do the same thing.” – Adam [24:13]
• Result: When healthy meals are ready to go, people are far less likely to grab something unhealthy out of desperation.

Step 3: Hit Your Protein

• Why? Protein is most protective of muscle when dieting and also keeps you full.
• Rules of Thumb:
  • 1g protein per lb target bodyweight (or at least 30g per meal for women).
• “Protein is the macronutrient that's not just going to protect muscle, it's also going to produce the most satiety.” – Adam [24:56]
• Pair with whole foods: This combo creates an effortless calorie deficit and preserves metabolism.

Step 4: Protect Hormones with Enough Fats and Carbs

• Critical Lower Limits:
  • Fats: Don’t go below 65g (50g is rock-bottom and not recommended).
  • Carbs: Don’t go to zero—100g is still “low,” 50g only for aggressive dieting.
• Why:
  • Going too low on fats will quickly wreck female hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone).
  • Carbs, though not essential, help with thyroid and feeling well.
• Real Talk:
  • “When fat gets too low, forget it. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone start to plummet. And yes, you need testosterone too. And you just feel like crap. Total crap.” – Adam [26:37]
• Hormonal health is often the reason for unexplained stalls or fatigue, even with all other steps dialed in:
  • “There’s been times where my clients… doing all the things and not seeing results. And it almost always was in regards to their hormone health.” – Justin [28:04]

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Fat loss works the same regardless of your age... but in coaching people, you see what actually works in the real world.” – Adam [03:39]
• “Simplicity is definitely an important factor... that contributes to it working in real life.” – Adam [07:59]
• “You lose muscle... and if you want to make something unsustainable, slow your metabolism way the hell down.” – Adam [11:43]
• “When I had my clients just do this—just avoid processed foods and eat as much as you want—everybody lost like 15 pounds. It was wild.” – Adam [19:07]
• “Protein is the macronutrient that's... going to not just protect muscle, it's also going to produce the most satiety.” – Adam [24:56]
• “When fat gets too low, forget it. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone start to plummet. And yes, you need testosterone too.” – Adam [26:37]
• “There's been times where my clients [are] drilling everything... not seeing results. It almost always was regards to their hormone health.” – Justin [28:04]

---

Timed Key Segments

• 00:44 — Episode intro & overview: Why focus on weight loss after 30
• 03:14 — Science vs Real World: Why “what works” is different after 30, especially for women
• 05:14 — Step 1: Simplicity & adherence over perfection
• 07:59 — The importance of real-life strategy vs theoretical “perfection”
• 09:38 — Step 2: How convenient, tiny adjustments beat rigid meal plans
• 11:40 — Step 3: Saving muscle is the key to looking and feeling your best
• 15:31 — Step 4: Hormone health—why it matters even if you’re "doing everything right"
• 16:10 — The One Rule: “Don’t eat processed foods”
• 19:07–21:00 — Why this step alone is the biggest breakthrough for most clients
• 22:18 — The nuts and bolts of meal prep for busy adults
• 24:56 — Protein: the muscle-preserving, appetite-suppressing must-have
• 26:37 — The real risks of undereating fats and carbs, especially for women
• 28:04 — Troubleshooting: Hormones and hidden reasons progress stalls

---

Conclusion

The Mind Pump hosts distill weight loss for women over 30 to its core essentials—ditch processed foods, prep whole-food meals for busy weeks, get enough protein to keep your muscle (and metabolism), and don’t sacrifice your hormone health by over-restricting fats and carbs. Simple, but highly effective.

For anyone struggling with the overload of fitness advice, this episode offers a refreshingly practical playbook tailored for real women with real lives—grounded in evidence but tailored for outcomes that last.

For customized advice, Mind Pump certified trainers are offering 50% off nutrition coaching calls for Mother’s Day (see episode for promo details).

---

This summary skips ad segments, intros/outros, and focuses exclusively on episode content, capturing the hosts’ voices and best takeaways.

Transcript

[Sal Destefano]

Everyone deserves to be connected. T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Our networks are coming together bringing more T Mobile coverage all over the country. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com Switch and now T Mobile is available in a US cellular store near you bigger network. The combination of T Mobile and US Cellular's network footprints will enhance the T mobile network's coverage savings versus comparable Verizon plans. Plus the costs of options, benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third free line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Sal Destefano]

Mind Pump.

[Adam Schaefer]

Mind Pump.

[Sal Destefano]

With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer

[Justin Andrews]

and Justin Andrews, you just found the

[Adam Schaefer]

most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode we're going to teach you four simple steps, very easy steps to losing weight if you're over 30. Also, we have trainers and coaches here that work at Mind Pump. Now we have Mind Pump certified trainers and coaches and they offer a lot of services. One of the services they offer is a 45 minute call where they can give you individualized nutrition advice. They can break things down for you specifically and give you a plan of nutrition. And what we're doing right now for Mother's Day is making that 50% off. Okay, so 50% off. A 45 minute call with a mind pump trainer. Go to mindpumpnutrition.com, use the code Mother's Day for the 50% off. Now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, RO Nutrition. So they use liposomal technology to deliver supplements in far more effective ways. Creatine is a good example. Some people, when they take a big dose of creatine, get gastric distress. Well, in liposomal form. A lot of people say doesn't bother me. They have other products too, like NAD and glutathione, both of which are improved bioavailability, significantly improved with liposomal technology. That's what RO does. This is medical technology. Go check them out. Get 20% off. Go to row nutrition.com that's R H O nutrition.com forward slash discount, forward slash mindpump. Use the code mind pump. Get 20% off everything on their store. We also have a sale this month on maps programs. Buy one maps 15 style workout program. Get another one for free. So buy any Maps 15 program. Get any other Maps 15 program for free. Go to maps15bogo.com Here comes the show. All right, real quick.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

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.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Enjoy the rest of the show.

[Adam Schaefer]

Nutrition for weight loss after 30. We're going to talk about what actually works. What we're going to do is we're going to give you four steps. This is four steps for weight loss after 30 for women. Let's go.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Now, before we get into it, explain what's unique to this at 30 versus, say, versus 20 or so. Because you would think that a lot of the same rules apply. I mean, it's macros. Are macros calories burn or calories burn. There's certain laws that don't change just because you're 30.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

But there are, I'm sure there's some considerations that you thought about totally when you think about, like, because I do know that even though the same rules apply to Everybody, men, women, 15 years old, 40 years old, there's, there's certain things that you tend to, to focus on based off of certain things, like that 100%.

[Adam Schaefer]

So great, great way to intro this. So fat loss works the same regardless of your age and the science of weight loss or how the body loses weight or loses fat is pretty well established. But when you coach people for a long time. So the three of us have coached people for decades. We also employ a lot of coaches. We have a lot of trainers and coaches that work for us. And the effective coaches, the ones who are able to get people to their goal and then who are able to stay at their goal. So that's success for a trainer. Right? A trainer getting someone to lose weight, it's kind of hard. What's really hard, though, is can I get this person to get there and then stay there? That's the real challenge. And we've really nailed it down to what really works in that context. Because you can lose weight by just cutting your calories and moving a lot. But we know the fail rate on that is like 95%. So what actually works in the real world? What actually has the highest success rate? So there's a few things to consider, especially when you're dealing with someone over 30 and especially when you're dealing with women over the age of 30. And number one, it needs to Be simple. So if I give you 15 diet steps, even if they're great diet steps, that's 15 steps. That's a lot of things to consider when you have a busy life, when you're trying to change your lifestyle, you're trying to lose weight, you've got lots of things going on. It needs to be simple, but it also needs to be effective. Right. So it's going to be simple, yet effective. So we want to do is we want to implement steps that have a huge payback.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like what's a, what is a simple step that's going to give me all kinds of return versus all these little steps that give me little returns? Do those even exist? And the answer is yes. Yes. So simplicity needs to be a part

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

of this and make sure it's not too drastically different from what they're already doing. So that way too, it's not like, you know, the adherence of, it isn't too overwhelming and, and something that's like, you know, they could just shift something and focus in on, on something they're already kind of aware of. But now, you know, this has a lot more payback.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Now. This took a, a long time to get to this place because we originally we took what we learned from our certifications, what the studies and research said. There are ways to get somebody to lose weight or get in shape that sometimes as a coach and a trainer you might throw out. And I think that it took a long time for me to understand the fact we still, I feel like battle this online sometimes when a clip drops of us talking about something, whether it be cardio for fat loss, which is a common one that we'd still argue about or recent one that we just did about, you know, advocating for free weights for building muscle over machines or cables. Right. And there's so much more that goes into being a good coach and your client having long term success than just what a 12 week study says.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

And that took a long time to figure that out because it wasn't just, you know, you didn't make that mistake just one time. You had to probably apply that to clients before you finally realized like, oh, like I know what the research says, that X, Y and Z is optimal or ideal for their getting these results. But what I found after training, you know, 30 of these ladies that are over 30, this doesn't seem to work very well and, or they have a really hard time sticking to that. And so what if I focus on these things? I think that's the part that is Tough when we communicate something like this because we, it's, we always get some sort of a pushback from, you know, some fresh out of college, you know, kid or fresh out of a certification kid that is like, well that's not what the research says. It says that this X, Y and Z. But you also have to factor in behavioral psychology and arguably that's as important or more important than what the research might say as far as, you know, calories in, calories out or you know, what's ideal for progressive overload for this client. Like you have to factor in are they going to do it consistently?

[Adam Schaefer]

I don't, I mean I don't care what something says in theory. I care about what, how it looks in real life. Theory is great.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

How it plays out.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now play it out what actually works. And simplicity is definitely an important factor wins with when it comes to diet. That's, that's a, it's a very important factor that contributes to it working in real life. Another one is convenience. We have to create strategies to make this somewhat convenient. One of the big challenges with eating healthy isn't necessarily that people don't want to eat healthy. It's that they, they feel they don't have the time to plan. They don't feel like they have the time. And so a lot of the foods that people eat are really just convenient and fast and easy. So we have to come up with strategies that can help somebody with this convenience issue. Because when you're hungry and you don't have food that's there and things are inconvenient, it's very easy to grab the thing that's fast. It's very easy to doordash or eat fast food. It's very, very easy. So we have to have, we have to come up with strategies to combat that to make this much more convenient.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Well, when I think of convenience when it comes to nutrition, I don't think just of convenient, you know, meals then go to. And I also think of the convenience of not changing them so much from what they already currently did. This reminds me of when I threw out meal plans. Yeah, we used to have great software I plugged in a 30 year old woman wants to lose 15 pounds this much days they can work out this is their height, their weight and it would spit off the perfect diet. But the problem with that is it was so radically different from what they're rigid from what they were currently doing. Nobody ever stuck with it more than a few months before they fell off of it. So, and I remember again Doing this for a long time before I realized, like, this is worthless. What's a better strategy was let me have the client track what they're doing currently, and then I understand where we need to go as far as getting nutrition. And instead of going like, oh, here's the meals I want you to eat, and they're. I'm changing.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

Add more of the good stuff.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Exactly. It's like, oh, let me, let me look at your breakfast right here. You know, and instead of this, let's, let's add, you know, one more thing here, or let's add 4 ounces of this meat to this, this meal and let's have less of this. So it's not so different from what they're doing. It's just making these. And you admit, and even then, it may not be in, in the, in a perfect controlled study, the answer to them getting to their final destination yet, but it's getting them to shift just a little bit from where they currently are. That's what I think of when I think of like convenience or realistic or the ability for them to do it. It's like, that's convenient. They can start to make these little adjust adjustments that aren't so radical that they're more than likely adhere.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

And it's not like they had that minimal success and then they moved on. It's like they continually improve again.

[Adam Schaefer]

It works, right? The next consideration is it needs to be a pro muscle type of diet. So anytime you're losing weight or eating to lose weight, by rule it is necessary that you eat less calories than you burn. Now, there's a lot that goes into that, but whenever you're eating less calories than you're burning, your body tries to learn how to burn or adapt to burn less calories to meet the new intake. This is how your body adapts. And one of the ways it does this is it makes you lose muscle. So weight loss diets a hallmark of a weight loss diet, or should I say one of the challenges. The biggest challenge with the weight loss diet, if the weight loss is successful, is muscle loss. And you don't want to lose muscle. Number one, losing muscle doesn't look good. Part of the reason why you want to lose weight is you want to look good muscle looks good muscle. What gives you shape, it's what gives you sculpt is what gives you the tone. Number two, losing muscle is a fantastic way to slow your metabolism down. So if you want to make something unsustainable, slow your metabolism way the hell down. Because you lost a bunch of muscle. Now, if you eat anything over 1800 calories, you gain weight back. We don't want that. So we need to eat a diet or that promotes muscle preservation. Now, strength training is a part of this, but this is an episode about diet. So strength training has to be part of that. But diet plays a role too. Yeah, because if you go on the wrong kind of weight loss diet, even with strength training, you're going to lose muscle. Now with nothing at all, just cutting your calories, muscle loss accounts for sometimes half of the weight that you lose. It's pretty consistent around 40%. So you lost 20 pounds, 8 pounds, 10 pounds was muscle. Oops. So one of the strong considerations of an effective weight loss diet is one that promotes muscle preservation. It maintains your metabolism and you look better when you lose the weight. So that's a strong consideration.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Would you say that this is one of the more difficult ones of all the points? Because a lot of times when this is a client that wants to lose weight and the point you made, you, we have to be in some sort of a calorie deficit in order to eventually lose body fat. But you know that it's important to be pro muscle, which then requires a lot of time, this time to go after food and telling. Telling somebody who come. Who came in and goes, hey, so I need to lose 30 pounds. And then you go like, okay, I need you to eat more of this macronutrient or eat more of that. A lot of times they find that a massive barrier hurdle because it's like, man, this doesn't feel right. I'm having to eat you to lose weight. Right. I came here to lose weight, and it feels like you're making me eat more.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. No, that's 100%. And also, people get so tied up with the number on the scale that, like, I don't care if I lose muscle, I just want the weight to go down. But I'll say this. Look, a woman who's 5, 6, and 160 pounds at 35% body fat looks very different than a woman who's 5, 6, 160 pounds, 25% body fat. They'll weigh the same on the scale. They'll both step on the scale, still says 160 pounds. They will look radically different. 25% looks sculpted and tight, flat midsection, round glutes. 160 pounds, 35%. You're 160 pounds of flab in comparison when they. When you look at them head to head. So you Got to get over the scale on the weight. Don't worry about that. What we want is less body fat, and we want to keep or build muscle. That's what gives you the look that you want. It also maintains metabolic rate, and of course, it maintains function. You want to be strong, you want to be mobile. You don't want to have osteopenia or start to lose your ability to do things because you're trying to just lose weight, which, again, it's crazy, really.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

Like the big point of not having any flexibility, it's like, yeah, you can achieve less weight, let's just say. And of course you're going to, you know, inevitably lose some muscle along the way, maybe like their desired outcomes to lose weight. You have no flexibility. There's nowhere to go. You're almost in a prison of, of, like, low calories. So it's just the opposite is just so much better. You're strong, you're energetic, and you look better.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

I feel like this has been a common theme on the podcast with quite a few of our female live callers that are. Are calling us and want to get down to a body fat percentage. And I find myself saying the same thing to most of them, which is, instead of thinking about this body fat percentage or fat you have to lose, think about building into the body that you want to build to the point you're making. Because a lot of times it is. It's somebody who's sitting at like 23, 24, and they're like, I just want to get down to that last few percent and get down to gain four pounds of muscle. Yeah, get down to 20 body fat. And we're trying to make the case, like, listen, who cares? Your body fat percentage could stay the same or even go up 1%. But if I add 5 to 10 pounds of muscle, your body, I bet, yeah, I bet you get the look that you're going after that you think is attached to this arbitrary number.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. That's right. 100%. Last consideration is hormone health. So women are generally more. Now, both men and women are sensitive to being a calorie deficit. Both men and women's hormones can respond to negatively to be in a calorie deficit, especially if it's prolonged. But women in particular tend to be sensitive to this. And what you don't want to do is go on a diet and work out and then crash your hormones. You'll feel like garbage. Your body will stop progressing, you'll have fatigue, and you just won't. You'll Lose your libido, you just won't feel good. So that's another consideration. So the four considerations that we're gonna, that we're gonna address right now are we want it to be simple, convenient, it needs to be pro muscle. And we also wanna maintain good hormone health while we go on this diet to lose weight. So let's, let's start with simplicity. Very simple step. Okay, everybody, this is very easy. One step. Don't eat processed foods. That's it. Now, not eating processed foods will almost always result in a calorie deficit for most people without you even trying or thinking about it. Okay? And studies on food and diet can be a bit dodgy sometimes because many of them are what are called observational studies. So these are people that come in and fill out surveys. So it's like, how many tomatoes did you eat last week? And, okay, we're going to send you off for 12 weeks. Try eating this way. But nobody's really watching them. Nothing's controlled because it's extremely expensive and extremely inconvenient or difficult to get a bunch of people together and have them live in a lab for, you know, for 16 weeks. But the studies on processed foods are very controlled and very reliable. They've duplicated these studies, and here's what they do with these studies. And they're amazing. They'll take groups of people, they'll put them in two rooms for a certain period of time. Both rooms have similar macro breakdowns of foods, meaning proteins, fats and carbs as a percentage of calories. Okay? But one room is heavily processed foods. These are foods that are in boxes or wrappers, foods with a high shelf life. And the other room is just whole natural foods. It's just foods of one ingredient. Fruits, vegetables, rice, potato, meats, those kinds of things. And then they let the people eat. Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full. So they're not giving them any instruction that says anything like don't eat too much or stuff yourself. Just eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full. Then they watch them for a long period of time. Then they take the same group of people, the two groups, and then they switch them and put this, this group over here in the other room and this group in the other room. So now it's like super controlled. Consistently, what we find is when people eat until they're satisfied, which is what we all tend to do, you're going to consume about 6 to 700 calories more with heavily processed foods just from that because these foods are engineered to make you eat more. In other words, the signal that you get from your body that says, I'm satisfied, takes much longer to kick in with processed foods. When I figured this out with my clients, this was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, dietary breakthrough that I ever experienced. My clients, it was. It was wild. It was just like, you know, diet's always something you struggle with with your clients. Workouts are not so much of a struggle because they show up, they're with me, we're going to get a good workout. It's never an issue. They enjoyed working out with me. They're going to show up. Diet was always the hardest. Every trainer or coach knows this. I think everybody listening knows this. If you say, what's the thing you struggle most, most with? They'll say, well, it's probably diet. When I had my clients just do this, and I. And it was followed up with, by the way, eat as much as you want. Just avoid processed foods. Eat as much as you want. Don't eat any processed foods.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

That's the biggest benefit.

[Adam Schaefer]

Everybody lost, like, 15 pounds. Yeah, everybody lost weight. And they all would come back to me and were blown away.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

It takes the air out. It takes all the pressure out of the whole situation, which, you know, again, it.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

It's taken from the gym into, like, the lifestyle. What, you know, you're interacting with your family. Like, there's a lot more complexity when it comes to. To eating and the schedule of it and the food that you're consuming. So to just, like, limit it to, you know, whole foods, like, but literally eat as much as possible, and it's. It's almost impossible to. To teeter over into, like, really high calories.

[Adam Schaefer]

You get full fast.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

You know what I like about this, too, for clients is even along the way, when we have hiccups on this or we have pitfalls or we don't have perfect days, just the process of eliminating processed foods. And, like, becoming a person who focuses on eating all whole foods already starts to send them in the right direction. Totally. In other words, the average person eats a lot of processed foods. In fact, most people, a majority of their diet is processed.

[Adam Schaefer]

70% of the average person's calories come from processed food.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Right. So 70%. So just already moving from 70% to 50% or 30% or 25% sends them in the right direction. You already start seeing progress. Which kind of reminds me of why also, I love weight training, right? Getting a client who's always trying to lose Weight, they've never weight trained, even if they're not perfect and they hit the gym every day on their weights that you want them to hit and they, oh, only this week we made it two times or only one time, they still already start seeing positive change. Because how powerful and impactful this one thing is. I feel like that this tip is the same way with the diet. Go with food is that even if you aren't perfect and you're like, oh, that was a processed food, but it's the fact that you went from a person that was consuming 70, 80% of your diet to already trying to improve that, you already start to see positive benefits by moving in the right direction by attempting it.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. And what I like about this is it doesn't feel like dieting. What does dieting feel like? Starving. Like, I'm restricting, I can't eat. I need eat more food. When you eat whole natural foods, you eat until you're satisfied and don't even realize you've cut your calories. That's how powerful this one single step is. Now to address convenience. Okay, whole foods can be somewhat convenient, but to be quite honest, processed foods win when it comes to vegan. There's nothing more convenient than grabbing a box of something out of the pantry. Right? That's super easy driving through somewhere. So here's the strategy. How do we handle convenience with our clients who are busy? Maybe they're moms. They work like, how do I do this? Meal prep. You meal prep. And so what you do is you select a day or two of the week. Or you could do this with dinner. Most people still cook dinner and you make many, many servings of your whole natural foods meals and you put them in the fridge and they're there and they're easy. Or you take them with you to work. In my experience, when people meal prep, their success rate explodes. It goes, and now if you don't have food available, if I'm hungry and I'm remembering I need to eat whole natural foods, but I'm hungry right now and I don't got a lot of time, convenient processed foods become the number one option. So meal prepping was such an incredible strategy.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

I mean, this is when the weekend thing came for me was convincing my clients to really focus on the weekend. And part of that focus was making sure we had a good weekend of eating well, getting movement in, and then prepping our food for the week. And this like the, the whole foods goal is the simplicity of it. Even if somebody isn't perfect again. And they don't meal prep every single meal they're going to eat. Just starting to meal prep and have some totally options ready for that time when you're like, oh my God, I'm so hungry right now. Oh, I have that thing in the refrigerator. And the more times that you can have something prepped and ready for yourself, the more likely you are to be successful. I think is huge. And it, what has always worked really well for personally for myself and my clients is Sundays before the week starts is, is a big meal prep day. And I try and I've been sharing it on my social media a lot just to encourage people, show people I still do this even when I, even when I don't have major fitness goals. It's become a part of my lifestyle. Just on Sundays, I grill somewhere between five to seven pounds of meat with some sort of, you know, rice or sweet potato or big pot of rice

[Adam Schaefer]

or a bunch of potato.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Super easy. And that ends up being dinner for us. And then the next like two days worth of prep meals at work. So I've got breakfast and lunch set up for the meals here. Then we always cook a dinner and then when we cook that dinner in the on Monday and Tuesday night, I kind of double it up. So there's a trickle over.

[Adam Schaefer]

You have two extra meals. Yep.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

And that's kind of how it exactly what I do. It literally just bleeds through the entire week like that. And just that big just does that jump start on Sunday. Now back when I used to bodybuild, I used to prep every single thing. So it was like everything was measured and count for. But I don't do that now. I just do that decent sized one on Sunday. And then like you said on dinners, I just double the recipe for dinners. That's always enough to kind of trickle in the next day and that's enough to get through the whole week. It's not a lot of crazy extra work.

[Adam Schaefer]

It actually saves time.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

It does save time.

[Adam Schaefer]

It does save a lot of time. Meal prepping makes a big difference when you have those meals ready to go. I do the same thing. Adam, you usually it's Wednesday or Thursday where we make the larger dinners and that's another two meals for the following day. And then Sunday I do the exact same thing. I grill a bunch of meat, we cook a big pot of rice or I'll boil a bunch of potatoes or I'll have some fruit ready. And then there's my meals for the rest of the week. So meal prep that's going to handle the convenient part. Now let's talk about pro muscle. It's very clear what macronutrient protects muscle. Protein. Protein is the macronutrient that's going to not just protect muscle, it's also going to produce the most satiety. Meaning when you combine a high protein diet with a whole food diet now your calories drop even more with the same level of satiety. So we talked about avoiding heavily processed foods. Now if it's high protein on top of it, you're going to be in a nice deficit. But the whole time you're going to feel like you're eating a lot of food and you're going to keep more muscle. The studies on high protein diets in a calorie deficit, all things being equal, result in more muscle kept, more preserved and better fat loss. There seems to be an enhanced fat loss effect, probably as a byproduct of the metabolic rate that stays more elevated. Whereas with other diets you get that metabolic adaptation where your metabolism slows down.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

I feel like this goes hand in hand with the meal prep because in order for you to hit that protein intake, you've got to be, you gotta plan for it. Unless you have an unlimited budget to be able to order double meat every single place that you order out at, really, really tough to be able to hit the protein intake that most clients need. And so meal prepping becomes paramount to making sure you hit the protein tank so it all, all bleeds together.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now to be make it real simple, there's two ways you can look at this. Either eat one gram of protein per pound of target body weight, or if you want to make it as simple as possible. For women, 30 grams of protein each meal. For men, 50 grams of protein each meal. And that generally works for all men and women. So if you're listening, you're a woman right now, each meal that you have, make sure it has at least 30 grams of protein in it. Know what that looks like in terms of ounces of meat or whatever. And you have now this muscle preserving, metabolic boosting, satiety producing diet when you

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Sal or Adam)]

combine it, especially blood sugar regulating. So I mean, yeah, it's like it, it literally helps with curb all cravings as well, 100%.

[Adam Schaefer]

And then last we talked about hormone health, here's where you could really mess yourself up. If your diet is too low fat or zero carb or too low carb. Now low fat will hammer your hormones faster than no carbohydrates. But both of them seem to have a detrimental effect on hormones. Low carbs you can get away with a little longer because carbohydrates are not essential. Low fats you don't get away with for too long. So what does this look like? Well, for women, I, I almost never let my female clients go below bare minimum. 65 grams of fat, usually around 70, 50 is like you're redlining and you're pushing it. So about 65 grams of fat, minimum your diet should have. So don't go too low fat. You need the fat for hormones and then carbohydrates. I don't, don't go down to zero. You know, 50 would be really low. 100 will be still low. And okay, but you don't want to go down to zero. If you go down to zero with carbohydrates, you start to see in the literature and I've experienced with my clients, you start to see some thyroid issues. When fat gets too low, forget it. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone start to plummet. And yes, you need testosterone too. And you just feel like crap. You feel like total crap.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

This is so important. When I think back to the clients that I had the most difficulty with showing results to, it was any of my clients over the age of 30 that had their hormone health was off. And many times they didn't know because they thought they felt over time their body adapted. They've been okay.

[Adam Schaefer]

They're used to feeling crappy.

[Mind Pump Host (possibly Justin or Adam)]

Yeah, they're not. They don't know what feeling great feels like anymore and they think they feel fine. And then we go get their blood work done and we find that, find out that they have issues. And I can tell you that there's been times where my clients drilling everything, protein intake, lifting weight, they're doing all the things and not seeing results. And it almost always was regards to their hormone health. If your hormone health is off, you could be doing a lot of the right things and not seeing the results that you want to see. And so this is huge to making sure that you're having success on your

[Adam Schaefer]

journey a hundred percent. So you follow those four simple steps and you're going to see consistently and you'll see phenomenal results. Now, if you want something custom, if you want to talk with a coach that can get on the phone with you and really get more individualized with you, we have trainers and coaches here that work at Mind Pump and we have four 45 minute nutrition calls that we offer. What we're going to do because of this episode and because of Mother's Day is all nutrition calls. All these 45 minute nutrition calls are 50% off right now. So if you want to get on the phone with a Mind Pump coach, go to mindpump nutrition.com, use the code Mother's Day that gives you 50% off and you get a 45 minute call with a real Mind Pump certified coach that can individualize nutrition for you. You can also find us on Instagram. It's mindpumpmedia. We'll see you there.

[Justin Andrews]

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.

[Adam Schaefer]

We're lost. It feels like we're going round in circles. I'm gonna ask that man for directions. Hi there. We're trying to get to the state fairgrounds.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, you're going to take a left at the old oak tree at this here road. Nah, I'm just kidding. Let me get my phone out.

[Adam Schaefer]

How is there signal out here?

[Sal Destefano]

T Mobile and US Cellular are coming together so the network out here is huge. We get the same great signal as the city, saving a boatload with benefits. And there's a five year price guarantee too. Okay, here's the turn.

[Adam Schaefer]

Actually, can you pull up the way to a T mobile station store?

[Sal Destefano]

America's best network just got bigger. Switch to T mobile today and get built in benefits the other guys leave out. Plus our five year price guarantee. And now T Mobile is available at U S Cellular stores in hermiston Best mobile network Based on analysis by Ooklo Speed test intelligence data second half of 2025 bigger network the combination of T Mobile's and US Cellular's network footprints will enhance the T Mobile network's coverage price guarantee on talk text and data exclusions like taxes and fees applied. See t mobile.com for details.