2921: Your FAT LOSS Stalled ! How Do You Fix it?

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2921: Your FAT LOSS Stalled! How Do You Fix it? (August 12, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Mind Pump crew—Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, and producer Doug Egge—unpack the frustrating experience of fat loss plateaus. They dissect why progress on the scale grinds to a halt and go deep into real-world, science-backed strategies for getting fat loss moving again—without simply cutting calories and ramping up cardio to unsustainable levels. The team delivers the "raw fitness truth" that challenges common fitness dogma, sharing their collective wisdom and stories from decades of coaching.

Listeners get a robust mix of practical advice, new research insights, candid stories, and live coaching calls. The conversation is as witty as it is informative, never shying away from controversial fitness topics or taking on the latest health trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. What Causes a Fat Loss Plateau?

[03:02 - 07:23]

• Metabolic Adaptation Defined: Consistent dieting and exercise lead your body to “adapt” so energy expenditure and calorie intake eventually match—ending your fat loss.

  • Sal: “Your body has figured out how to burn what you’re taking in… That’s what the plateau means.”
  • It’s not oversimplified: If you’re eating 1500 calories and moving a lot, your body may learn to function at exactly that number.

• Common (Outdated) Solutions: Most people and trainers respond by cutting more calories and increasing activity, but that cycle quickly becomes unsustainable and leads to burnout, muscle loss, or rebound eating.

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2. Best Ways to Break Through a Fat Loss Plateau

[08:24 - 21:36]

A. Build Some Muscle / Take a “Mini-Bulk” or Reverse Diet

• Muscle Mass = More Food + Higher Metabolism: The most effective and predictable—but scariest—solution is to temporarily stop dieting and intentionally eat more to support muscle growth, then return to cutting.
  • Sal: “Building muscle is also the most challenging and most scary, unfortunately. And that’s to switch gears... go on what we would call a mini bulk or reverse diet for a short period of time.” [08:26]
• Even a 5-6 lb muscle gain can let people eat hundreds more calories without fat gain. Studies do underestimate the real impact muscle has on metabolism.
  • Adam: “I know for sure, putting 5 to 10 pounds of muscle on somebody’s body is radically different metabolically for them.” [11:30]

B. Adjust Cardio: Add or Take Away

• If you do little/no cardio, adding some can help (predictably increases expenditure).
• If you already do LOTS of cardio, paradoxically, reducing it can kickstart fat loss (reduces stress, lets you build muscle).
  • Sal: “What about the person we're taking cardio away from? ...I take away some of that stress from the cardio, they build a little bit of muscle and I see some fat loss.” [14:00-15:00]
  • Adam's analogy: “Using cardio like nitric oxide for the engine—you get a boost, but overdo it and you’ll blow the engine.” [15:11]

C. Carb Cycling

• Two days of very low carbs, followed by a high carb day (repeat). Not just for the physiological benefits—adamant about the psychological benefits too.
  • Adam: “It gave me something to look forward to, and we talk a lot about how the psychological game is a huge piece of this.” [17:55]
• Often used by stage competitors and experienced anecdotally to break through stalls even when calories stay the same.

D. Shift Focus to Performance Goals

• Take 4–6 weeks off aesthetics/fat loss, focus on hitting strength, stamina, or learning a new exercise; adjust diet to support this.
  • Sal: “This is a wonderful plateau buster. It’s also a psychological plateau buster... Then you get back on your fat loss journey and it feels fresh again.” [20:07]
  • Adam: “One of the best ways to break through a plateau... is to choose something you don’t normally do.” [21:36]

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3. Science vs. Anecdote: What Coaches Know & Evidence is Catching Up

[25:51 - 30:00]

• Recent (June 2025) peer-reviewed study supports what coaches have said for years: A 1.9–3.3% increase in muscle mass = 4–6% lower fat mass.
• Muscle creates more insulin sensitivity and helps partition calories to muscle, not fat.
  • Sal: “Muscle is very valuable when it comes to fat loss.”
• Science sometimes lags behind coach/real-world observations due to complexity and limitations in measurement, but big data and AI may help bridge this gap.

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4. Deeper Conversation: Coaching, Psychology, & Experience

[30:00 - 33:00]

• The team emphasizes the need to combine scientific knowledge with years of coaching/real-world experience.
• Celebrates the importance of “muscle memory,” psychology, and the value of shifting focus for mental renewal.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On metabolic adaptation:
  Sal: “You’re in a calorie deficit for too long. Your body doesn’t feel safe burning tons of calories. It’s going to learn how to burn less calories.” [12:25]

• On muscle-building skeptics:
  Adam: “That’s the dumbest argument I’ve heard... I’ve seen clients add two pounds of muscle and boost their metabolic rate 600 calories from working with me.” [10:25-12:25]

• On cardio:
  Adam: “Using cardio like nitric oxide for the engine—if you just keep running on it all the time... you blow the engine.” [15:11]

• On performance focus:
  Sal: “For the next 30 days, we’re just going to focus on this performance metric... After we’re done, then we’re going to get back on the fat loss journey. And my clients would agree, we’d do it, we’d have fun... and then, like magic, everything started happening again.” [22:53]

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | Key Topics & Action Items | |-------------|------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:34 | Main Episode Start | “Breaking through plateaus” and main advice intro | | 03:02–07:23 | Why plateaus happen | Metabolic adaptation explained; why cutting calories/cardio is not sustainable | | 08:24 | Mini-bulk/reverse diet | Build muscle, reverse diet, increase calories for a few weeks to reset metabolism | | 14:00–15:27 | Cardio strategies | When to add or remove cardio; Adam’s nitric oxide analogy | | 17:44–19:42 | Carb cycling | Psychological and physiological value; structuring carb days | | 20:07–21:36 | Performance focus | Shifting goals for mental reset; focusing on new lifts or stamina | | 25:51–30:00 | Muscle & the science | Research on muscle gain’s effect on fat loss and the complex interplay in metabolism |

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Live Coaching Calls — Highlights

[68:25 - 87:43] Caller 1: Amber from Texas

• Topic: Updating hosts on her break from GLP, focusing on strength & dealing with regained weight
• Advice:
  • Hosts praise her courage to trust the process, encourage her mental health journey
  • Sal: “It gets really hard about 60–90 days in… But if you get down on yourself and start to feel shame, that spiral accelerates. Give yourself grace.” [71:41]

[74:30 - 87:43] Caller 2: Chase from Arizona

• Topic: Former college athlete, overweight dad, wants to become more fit for his kids’ sake
• Advice:
  • Focus on improving fitness, not just losing weight: “The goal is to improve your fitness and allow your body weight to go where it goes.” [79:15]
  • Stick to whole foods, hit ~240g protein, 4 meals/day, use MAPS Performance program, consider working with a coach
  • Adam suggests “compete with yourself for consistency in habits, not perfection.” [81:51]

[88:01 - 94:34] Caller 3: Ashley from Texas

• Topic: Severe morning sickness, postpartum, “starting over” in fitness
• Advice:
  • “Muscle memory is real, but the challenge is not to push too fast. Use MAPS Starter. Stay patient; it may take a year or two to fully feel back.”
  • Sal: “It’s super common for women to say ‘I feel like my body’s not mine.’” [92:38]

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Additional Notable Segments

• On “Red Light” / Recovery Fads — [31:23]

  • Sal & Adam: While recovery tools like red light therapy are trending, nothing beats basics: healthy nutrition, sleep, and stress management.

• Social Connection & Gym Trends — [34:15+]

  • Gyms are evolving into social/community spaces as people seek face-to-face connection in a digital, remote world.

• Fun Tangents & Banter — [45:00+]

  • The crew shares stories about lifeguard heroics, extreme water sports, pet mishaps, and classic Sicilian “justice”—all in their signature comedic style.

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Actionable Takeaways

• Stuck in a fat loss plateau?

  • Don’t just cut calories or add cardio—consider a mini-bulk, carb cycling, performance goals, or shifting up your cardio.
  • Build muscle! The metabolic and psychological benefits are huge and well-documented in both research and practice.
  • Use coaching, habit tracking, and support to stay resilient when your motivation dips.

• Do not underestimate the psychological battle:

  • Plateaus, scale stalls, and post-diet rebounds are normal; give yourself grace and refocus.
  • Real change comes not just from diet or workouts, but from long-term mindset and habit shifts.

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Final Thoughts

The Mind Pump team delivers a science-informed, experience-driven masterclass on breaking fat loss plateaus. They stress the value of focusing on building muscle, being patient with metabolic adaptation, and—above all—shifting your goals and strategies when necessary to keep both your body and mind thriving for the long haul.

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For more, check out Mind Pump @mindpumpmedia, and explore their training programs at mapsfitnessproducts.com.

Transcript

[A]

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

[B]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[C]

With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer

[B]

and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, people called in and we got to coach them live on air. But this was after the intro. Today's intro was 65 minutes long. This is where we talk about fat loss and muscle gain and fitness and diet, current events, family life. It's always fun. If you want to be on an episode like this, submit your question to mplifecaller.com now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Joovv. They make red light panels that improve the health and appearance of your skin, speed up recovery, raise testosterone. This is all proven by studies. It's called photobiomodulation. By the way, Joovv panels have the same red light that you see in the studies. Other red light panels online don't. Don't get the fake stuff. Go with Joovv. Go to Joovv.com mindpump that's J-O-O-V-V.com mindpump Use the code mindpump. Get $50 off. This episode is also brought to you by Legion. They make great supplements for muscle gain, fat loss, athletic performance. Today we talked about their high protein cereal. One serving is 17 grams of protein and 7 to 8 grams of fiber. Double that up and you got 35 grams of protein. It tastes good, almost no sugar. Go check them out. Go to buylegion.com mindpump use the code mindpump and you can buy one, get one 50% off. We also have a great promotion with maps programs. It's buy one, get one free happening right now. Our 10 most popular maps programs. Buy any one of them. Get any other one of them for free. Go to mapsbogo.com T shirt time.

[A]

And it's T shirt time.

[C]

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

[A]

Four winners this week. Two for Apple podcasts, two for Facebook. The Apple podcast winners are Nick and Linds. And it's Johnny VM and for Facebook, we have Nick Choto and Doug Yoder. All four of you are winners. Send the name I just read to itunesindpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you.

[B]

All right, real quick.

[D]

If you love us like we love you, why not show it by Rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at my pump store.com. i'm talking right now. Hit pause, head on over to my pump store.com. that's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

[B]

You've been on a fat loss journey. It was working until it stopped. Today we're going to talk about how to break through fat loss plateaus. We're going to give you some tips on how to get the fat loss started again. Don't stay where you're at. That sucks. Let's get it moving.

[C]

Yeah, let's go. Reminds me of one of the last seminars I did as a fitness manager stuck in a rut. Really? Yeah, that was the. Yeah, that was the.

[B]

Those are the posters.

[E]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

You remember that? Little kits that used to get.

[B]

Yes, yes. I like this topic because this is inevitable. Okay, so it's not a matter of if this will happen, this going to

[C]

happen, it's when and how hard.

[B]

Right? And the typical. So this is what it feels like, right? You, you do your diet, you're doing your workout, you're consistent enough to see some fat loss and the fat loss seems relatively consistent. So you're noticing the scale or you're noticing the calipers change and go down pretty much week over week. And then it doesn't move, and it doesn't move for a week and it doesn't move for two weeks and three weeks and you realize, wow, I'm in a total plateau. What do I do now? The typical answer is we'll cut calories and increase activity even more. Which, you know, that can definitely work, but that eventually also leads to a plateau. And when those two things stop working. In other words, when cutting your calories more isn't realistic and when exercising more isn't realistic, what do you do? How do I break this plateau? I'm already eating 1500 calories or I'm already exercising a lot and if I drop my food even more, there's no way I'll be able to sustain this or I'm going to feel terrible or I'm going to lose muscle or if I exercise more, I don't think I can do that consistently. And I'm not going to like this, I'm going to hate this, and then I'm just going to rebound. Is there anything I can do or am I done? Is the fat loss journey done? And the truth is, there are a few things you could do to get the needle moving again that don't include cutting calories and. Or dramatically increasing yeah, it's quite the opposite, actually. That's right.

[C]

I think you should talk a little bit about the. What happens, I feel like in why the plateau's there. Well, not just that, but like what this was so common as a young trainer and your go to method is. And I think it's so common still in commercial gyms when you see people training clients that when this comes about the levers that they always pull is the cut calories, run more. And I think that it's, it's still prevalent. I mean, I, I just in the gym the other day and you know, I see a group of people that are getting trained by a trainer that are trying to lose weight, obviously. And the entire hour is like dedicated to just burn and sweat. And I'm going like, man, that they would be far more valuable for those people to be focused on strength right now than to be just trying to burn off the calories all the time. And so I just, I think it's important to communicate how common this still is.

[B]

That's right. So here's what happens and it's. This is a very oversimplified, super oversimplified explanation of the weight loss or fat loss process. So you are burning more energy than you're taking in, or to say it a different way, you're taking in less energy than you're burning. This causes an imbalance in energy. Okay, so if I'm taking in 2000 calories and this is how we measure energy from food. So I'm taking in 2000 calories, but I'm burning 3000 calories. The only possible way I could burn 3000 calories of energy if I'm taking in 2000 calories of food is if I'm grabbing that thousand calories from somewhere. Where's it coming from? Body fat, ideally. Right? So that deficit or that imbalance has to be there for consistent weight loss or fat loss to occur. The reason why you plateaued is that balance disappeared, or that imbalance, I should say, disappeared. There is no more deficit. Even though you're still eating the same amount and moving the same amount, your body has figured out a way to have them equal. So if you're taking in 1500 calories consistently a day and you're working out five days a week, doing lots of exercise, and that was working for a while and now it stopped. Here's what that literally means. It literally means your body has figured out how to burn what you're taking in. It has figured out how to survive and perform and burn 1500 calories a day, because that's what you're taking in, and that's what the plateau means. And so there's two ways we can get that imbalance to occur again. There's a few ways. One of them is, oh, I'll just eat less, of course.

[F]

Cool.

[B]

Got another imbalance. But guess what's gonna happen now? We're gonna get back to where we were before. My body figures out how to adapt in that direction. It's called metabolic adaptation, by the way. Second option is I could just move a ton more. Let me just keep moving even more. But believe it or not, your body figures out a way eventually to cause that energy to balance out again. There's a lot of different ways it does this. It can lose muscle. Muscle burns more calories. It could reduce activity when you're not working out in ways that you don't even realize, actually pull away from, in extreme cases, other functions of the body. You start to feel tired, you start to notice your hair isn't looks as good, your skin, your nails, if this happens too aggressively, you can get sick, really burn out, type of. You can lose bone mass. Okay, now. And that's typically what you're looking at. So what we got to do is figure out how can we create this energy imbalance to occur again without necessarily having to eat less and exercise more. And I'll give you the first thing you can do, and this is the most effective.

[C]

Build some muscle.

[B]

Of all of the ones we're going to talk about, this one right here is the one that works the best and the most predictably. It's also the one that's the most challenging and the most scary, unfortunately. And that's to switch gears and stop being in a deficit and go on what we would call a mini bulk or a reverse diet for a short period of time. So this is where you take your calories, whatever you're eating, and eat more, bump them up, in some cases 500 calories, in other cases as much as a thousand. And now you're going to try and build for the next week or two or three or four weeks. And then when your body's balanced out there and you've built a little bit, then you can go back on the cut. And this is really the philosophy behind a reverse diet, how it works.

[D]

Yeah, I look at this a lot. Like, even with lifting weights, there's safeguards. There's, you know, ways that the body protects itself from being injured and overextending itself. And, you know, in terms of Dieting and, you know, like dwindling down to an unhealthy place. Your body has safeguards there and it's trying to preserve energy and at that point, like, it's trying to keep, you know, what it can. So you're going to hit this stall because it's, it's a safeguard. This is, this is your body protecting itself. So, you know, to, to be able to kind of like move past this, we have to like, introduce, you know, a new standard for it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I find one of the, the greatest challenges with communicating this, at least today, is the, is our own fitness community pushing back on how beneficial adding two to three pounds of muscle is.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yep. You know, there's, there's this ongoing conversation and debate around, you know, just how metabolically advantageous adding three to five pounds of muscle is to your body. And, you know, you. And part of the science community, fitness science community is, oh, it's, you know, it only gives you an extra, you know, 10 to 20 calories at most a day that you.

[D]

Dumbest argument I've heard.

[C]

And it's crazy because through what mechanism this happens I'm not sure, but it's not a handful. It's hundreds of cases where I've seen clients who have just only added five, five or six pounds of muscle, but are able to eat a thousand more calories a day and not put on body fat. So it doesn't math based off it. Now we can sit here and theorize the different things that are happening. Oh, that person now is six pounds more muscle and so they're, you know, fitter. So they, they, they're more active throughout the day. And so maybe that accounts for some more of the calories they now can, they're stronger, so they can lift more weight. So there's been natural progressive overload that happens. So maybe more calories are getting expended through there. I'm not sure exactly where it comes from, but I know for sure putting 5 to 10 pounds of muscle on somebody's body is radically different metabolically for them.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

And it doesn't. And I hate when we hear people in our space make the argument that

[B]

building muscle, we will have the science to support what every good coach has observed for decades. So we will have the science eventually to support it. The problem is the metabolism is so complex and the way we measure things is just inadequate to kind of capture what's going on. But we do know this. Here's a fact. Your body can burn more or less calories with your current lean Body mass. You don't even have to add muscle. It could, it could become more or less efficient. Well, a lot of different to me.

[C]

To me, Sal, that's just another, like another, you know, hole in that argument for them of like trying to make this argument that three to five pounds is exactly this or approximately this many calories. When we know that hormones and stress can fluctuate how you. You burn calories in a single day,

[B]

you leverage, you leverage insulin sensitivity, you leverage mitochondrial un coupling, your body can become more or less efficient. I've had clients add 2 pounds of muscle and boost their metabolic rate 600 calories from working with me. We reverse diet people all the time. This does work, you guys. And look, here's the. I'll explain it in a way that makes sense, although the science is going to be far more complex than what I'm about to say. But here's the deal. You're in a calorie deficit for too long. Your body doesn't feel safe burning tons of calories. It's going to learn how to burn less calories. A couple weeks of going on a small bulk tells your body, hey, go ahead, become less efficient with calories. Burn more calories because we're getting food. By the way, bodybuilders have observed this for years. They would do. This is like an old bodybuilding trick where they plateau on a diet and they'd have like a quote unquote cheat day or weekend come back and they'd notice that they were leaner. This is my favorite way to break a fat loss plateau, because most fat loss plateaus don't happen when somebody's calories are still high. This is rare. It's not like I took someone from 3000 calories to 2500 calories. They plateau. This is typically an issue when someone's going down below 2,000 calories. Yeah, that I have to start to do this kind of, you know this

[C]

under 2000 for a female. I'd say under 2500 for a male.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

You drop Most males below 25.

[B]

Yeah. You get down to 2,000 for a guy and you got.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.

[B]

Here's the next thing. This is going to sound weird, but your fat loss is stalled. You can either add or take away cardio. Now this sounds like it's contradicting. What are you talking about? What do you mean, add or take away cardio? Well, it depends on the person you're doing. No cardio. You can add a little bit of cardio. You're doing a lot of cardio, take away some cardio. Yeah. And believe it or not, both will work for fat loss. But let's explain a little bit. Okay. The person who's doing no cardio whatsoever, adding a little bit of additional cardio a couple days a week or three days a week does increase predictably calorie expenditure. It's very predictable. Obviously you're moving more, you're gonna burn more calories. Pretty straightforward. But what about the person we're taking cardio away from? How does that help with fat loss? Well, I'll tell you when I got someone who's doing six days a week of cardio and working out a lot and their calories are low, oftentimes they take cardio away and I get, I take away some of that stress from the cardio, they build a little bit of muscle and I see some fat loss. And I've seen that one time and time again. Nobody wants to do it when I, when I suggest it, everybody fights me on it, but I give them two or three weeks and it's like I take it completely away. But you know, you're doing six days a week, we're going to go three days a week. That's all we're going to change. Let's see what happens. And sure enough we'll see a half percent to percent drop.

[D]

Sometimes that's what the body needs to recover fully and really adapt to build muscle.

[B]

That's right.

[C]

I used to always explain using cardio like nitric oxide for like the engine.

[E]

Hmm.

[C]

It's such, it's, it's such a great way to get that extra bit of boost and speed. Right. If you're, if you understand how nitric oxide works with an engine, you get, it's like, like a blast of cold air that goes in there and you get horsepower. But you'll blow the engine if you

[B]

just keep, you just run.

[C]

Yeah, you just keep running on it all the time. And so somebody who's running on it all the time, taking that away and then building the metabolism is going to be something like through, through building muscle. Like your point, someone who never uses it, right. And they save it and then all of a sudden they hit it. You're going to see a, you're going to see a boost from it, but it's short lived. Just like nitric oxide is. It's not something that you want to keep hitting over, over, over, over like that because eventually you will hit that same plateau. That's why when I used to compete my goal Always for myself and my clients was how long can I get this person to lean out, heading into a show without using any cardio? So I knew at the last couple weeks if I needed to ramp it up a little bit or sharpen up a little bit, I could hit that nitric on that last, that last bit if we had been doing it. And then you see this all the time with competitors, especially like bikini competitors. They're on like a 16 week prep and day one, day one, they're doing an hour Stairmaster already. It's like, dude, you're doing that so early. We get in the final weeks and we don't like how lean you are. We can't ramp it up because you've already used that up. So I like giving that analogy to clients. It's like that. It is a powerful tool, but it's short lived.

[B]

What you get from the person who's not doing cardio right now is agreeing like, oh, yeah, I'll add a little bit. But I guarantee you the person listening right now is doing five, six days a week of cardio.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

Who stalled the fat loss.

[D]

Oh, no way.

[B]

They're listening to me. Tell them to cut their cardio in half and that'll help them with fat loss. And they're just not believing it. Yeah. And here's what I got to say to you.

[D]

They want to fight.

[B]

You got nothing to lose. You're already plateaued. Give it a shot. Worst case scenario does nothing and you can go back to what you were doing before. Next up, this. I don't necessarily have a ton of science to support this, but it's been done for so long by stage competitors and there's so many anecdotes surrounding this, and I have personally experienced this, that I do believe this to be a kind of decent. It's not as effective as the mini bulk, but it's a somewhat decent way to break through a fat loss plateau. And that's to do carb cycling. So carb cycling looks like this. You do two days of very, very low carbohydrates and then you do a day where your carbohydrates are high and you just go back and forth. That's one way to do it. And in my experience, I've gotten myself that final percent percent half of body fat when I plateaued it, you know, something like five or five and a half percent body fat.

[C]

Yeah. I'm not sure if this is attributed more. I mean, I know that most people say it's just the calories that you're manipulating while doing through that. I had a lot of success doing this. I liked it. It also gave me something to look forward to on the.

[B]

On the psychological pieces.

[C]

Yeah. And. And we talk a lot about that. You know, being such a big piece to this whole puzzle is like being able to the psychological game that you're constantly playing. So it's. It's different. Like, I think sometimes when you're in this consistent deficit and you're consistently trying to lose body fat and you're eating the same calories every single day is just monotonous interruption. Yeah. So it gives you a nice little interruption. I always to try to schedule if, you know, this is somebody who's doing this for body composition change. I like to schedule the high carb days around, like, the muscle groups that I was really trying to work on and develop. Or your big ones, like legs big, intense. Yeah. When you needed energy like that, I could really power through a, you know, upper body type of workout. When I'm low on carbohydrates, it's not difficult for me. Lower body, I need a lot more fuel and gas. And so. So I liked that part of it versus just having this kind of consistent moderate or low calories. And so I like.

[B]

I like the psychological piece. I liked feeling because when you go zero carb or low carb for two days, things flatten out. Your muscles don't feel as pumped, but you do kind of feel you lose water. So you kind of feel like you look leaner. Then I do. The one day that's high muscles get a bigger pump. I don't necessarily hold water right out the gates. So for like a short period of time, I kind of look a little leaner in the mirror. And psychologically that was always very motivating me. But I've done this and I've maintained the calories. So I've done this where my carbs are low, but my fats are higher. So it's not like my calories drop. But I still find that it's. And I've done this enough times where it's like I can get another half percent body fat off myself just by doing this. And I would. I did this. The times I've done this is when I'm like really low. And it's when things are just really hard to get to continue moving.

[D]

Well, I like it too, because anytime you remove something like that, that could be a potential tool for you to really boost your energy and like a useful energy at that time. You know, removing sometimes you get somewhat. I don't know if it's like adapted or you're just like you're just kind of been doing it for so long you don't notice. You know that energy boost. It's good to kind of like oh when you re acclimate to it totally.

[B]

And then last. This one's great for a few different reasons. One, it requires you that you feed yourself a little bit differently which is good. Which is kind of similar to number one right going the mini bulk. Two, it takes your eyes off of the aesthetic which I will never downplay. The psychological when it comes to body composition change because the psychological, of all the things we need to consider the psychological is the number one thing. It's the most important thing I know this is a coach. You get that solved. Everything else is easy. You can do everything else. Don't get that part solved and forget about it. And that is to focus on performance. You've been focused on fat loss for so long and now you're plateaued. Give yourself five or six weeks of performance goal. I'm just going to get stronger or I'm going to improve my stamina or I'm going to improve my mobility and then feed yourself accordingly. How do I eat to improve this new performance goal that I have? And I'm going to do it for five weeks. I'm going to go back to fat loss after five weeks. But for the next five weeks I'm going to give myself a break. Mental break. I'm not going to weigh myself, I'm not going to look in the mirror. All I care about is this performance goal that I'm going to do for the next four to six weeks and eat accordingly. And this is a wonderful plateau buster. It's one of my favorite plateau busters because it's also a psychological plateau buster. You get out of your head, you get in love with performance which is going to take you a couple weeks but then you'll see the gains in performance. You'll start loving it and then you get back on your fat loss journey and it's fresh. It feels fresh again.

[C]

More specifically I love to pick an exercise you've either never done or rarely do and focus on that or right. Which is same thing as what you're saying, right? You're saying cuz someone might be listening right now and they're like well I'm kind of always trying to get a stronger bench and I'm always trying to get a stronger deadlift. I'm. I'm so. I'm never not trying to do that. And that's performance focused. And I'm still at a plateau. I'm not seeing anything. One of the best ways to break through a plateau and also focus on performance and see positive change in that performance is to choose something you don't normally do. If you don't ever do Bulgarian split squats and you suck at them, like, great time to switch over focus and see how good you get on them. And you'll see this and this. I love this. Even when I'm. I have somebody who is cutting or trying to lean out. Because even sometimes in a calorie deficit, we'll actually see strength gains, which is hard to do. It's very hard to see performance and strength gains when you're trying to lean out many times. And so. But when you're doing a new movement, a lot of times you'll see that performance gain even in sometimes a deficit. And so I love to add in to someone's routine, just exchange a staple movement that you do with something that you don't do and keep focused on that and getting better in that. And watch how that helps.

[B]

Of all of these steps because the last one we just mentioned kind of goes along with increasing your calories because you're trying to boost performance. Of all of these steps, the one that I was most consistent with with my clients was this one that we're talking about. When I would have a client, we're doing fat loss, we're doing a good job. It's plateauing. It's frustrating, very frustrating. I would literally have this conversation with my client. They come in, it's like, okay, this is week four or five. Nothing seems to be moving. We're definitely in a hard plateau. And I'd say, hey, here's what we're gonna do for the next four weeks. For the next 30 days, we're gonna just focus on this performance metric. And I would pick, typically would pick strength. Cause that's an easy one. So I said, we're just gonna get you strong and I wanna get you stronger at this one particular lift specifically. And we're just. For the next 30 days, that's all we're going to focus on. After we're done, then we're going to get back on the fat loss journey. And they'd be like, well, I want to keep going. So we already plateaued. If we keep pushing, nothing's going to happen. So let's just have some fun for the next 30 days. And don't worry when we get back to fat loss. It's going to start happening again. And my clients would agree, we'd do it, we'd have fun, they'd get into the performance. Then we go back to fat loss and like magic. Like magic, everything started happening again. You know, back to magic. What you were talking about, about building muscle and how it contributes to fat loss. It's so funny. Adam, a study just came out and I'll pull it up right now on the effects of muscle building to fat loss. Actually, this is an actual study and this was June of 2025 and it's a peer reviewed study. The title of it is Effects of Skeletal muscle hypertrophy on Fat Mass and Glucose homeostasis in Human and Animals. It's a narrative review and this, there's some systematic literature search. So here's what they found. The analysis reveals that a 1.9 to 3.3% increase in global muscle mass in humans is associated with a 4 to almost 6% lower fat mass. In other words, as muscle mass goes up, fat mass tends to drop down. That's right. This increase of muscle mass was associated with 23 to 22% less fat mass. So in other words, muscle does contribute to fat loss. And in there they're showing how it affects glucose homeostasis. Muscles are. So glucose is obviously the sugar in your blood. Muscles are a storage vessel for sugar and carbohydrates, just like the liver. And as muscles build a little bit, they become more insulin sensitive, they store more of that. And so you start to leverage the body more towards burning body fat, less towards storing body fat, more towards performance. And so, and what we're finding, you combine this with other studies where they use strength training as the primary form of exercise for fat loss. Even though strength training burns the least amount of calories, it's actually not a great calorie burner, but it's a great fat loss tool. How is that possible? Muscle, muscle is very valuable when it comes to fat loss.

[C]

Yeah, I don't think anybody in the science community would argue. Obviously they wouldn't. It's coming directly from a study. Are going to argue that point or most the points that are made around the benefits of building muscle and speeding your metabolism up. I just think that they. It's a classic example of when, you know, we want to be more. Right. And so when somebody communicates, oh, I had a client who we built five pounds of muscle and they're eating a thousand more calories, they want to come in and be like, that's a bunch of bullshit. That's not true. Every pound of muscle is only this many calories. And what I, and I hate, I hate when this is done. Because the average person that's listening, it's been so difficult to get people off this hamster wheel of body composition change by just running and eating less calories and encouraging people to build into the body they want. We've spent most of our career trying to make this case. And when you have someone like that from the science community that comes in and uses studies to support you just

[B]

throw a bunch of dirt in the water.

[C]

You do cloudy everything. You discourage for what too? Yeah, to be more right, bro. To be more right doesn't help anymore. To be.

[B]

You know what the challenge is with that. I know. So here's the downfall. It's so funny. This is totally linked to that conversation I was texting you guys the other night. This is because people who are really deep in the science data and literature only use science, data and literature as their litmus test for truth. Everything else is just an opinion. There is no truth unless it's proven by a study. Okay, I get that. I get why somebody or how somebody could come to that conclusion. But here's the deal. You take a doctor, right? Well educated doctor, the best doctors in the world, the ones that really do a phenomenal job, are the doctors that know the science very, very well, who also have lots of experience. Nobody would argue that. I think everybody would agree to that, right? They're the most educated, but also the most experienced. You combine the two and they just have a knowledge that is applicable, understands nuance, they're just that much better. Same for trainers. You can have a trainer who has got all the courses, certifications, know all the data, studies anatomy, but they're not going to be a great trainer until they also get the experience. Now you combine both and it's amazing. The challenge was that anecdote and opinions, you would kind of. It was based off of your opinion of the people that you heard or maybe your own opinion. And if I get an anecdote from one person or two people or three people, I mean, it could be anything, right? Is it true? I don't know. Maybe you just experienced it and you attributed your success to that thing and maybe it was something else. But if you could compile thousands of anecdotes or millions of anecdotes, now we got something that points us in a particular direction, right? So experience is that. Experience is. Well, I've been a doctor for 20 years. I've seen enough patients to know that the study says this, but here's what happens in real life and it's kind of different, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, we actually have an opportunity now to compile anecdotes to start to point in the right direction. You can use AI that way. And that's what I was tripping out over.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

I used AI the other night and I asked. It can go on all of the fitness forums, for example, and tell me what does the consensus look like around what works for fat loss or what supplements are best for performance. Now, take that data set and compare it to what the studies show and try to find the commonalities. And it's remarkable. It's amazing.

[D]

So if you just narrow it down quite a bit.

[B]

Listen, you could do that. Go. You could, you could ask AI go on all the fitness forums for fat loss and what are people's experiences with reverse dieting? Do their metabolisms actually get faster? And I bet what you'll get is a majority of people will be like, who did it? Right. They'll be like, oh, yeah, it totally worked. It totally worked.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And yet the data and the science is yet to prove it. You have to prove how it works or why it works.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So. But anyway, I did that.

[C]

Were you, Were you. I mean, Courtney, Justin's wife, was talking when we were sitting by the fire on about her. Her experience as a nurse. Just like being very educated in the field.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

Yet they would take all these nurses with less education, but that have had lots of experience. Yeah. Two years of experience. Because they did like the intern or whatever like that for two years. And she's like, I mean, I just, I think everybody would rather have that. I mean, I always, rather. I would always prefer a coach or a trainer who's been. Who's been doing this for a really long time than, Than all the national Certs. Like, I don't give a. About all that. If you have all the national Certs and you've trained for six months, or give me the. The guy or girl who's been training for 10 years, it's less like, oh, I'll take the one who's been.

[B]

What's crazy about that?

[C]

Helping people for 10 years.

[B]

And what's crazy is that how few studies are repeated. So they'll have a study with a conclusion, then someone else will repeat the study and it'll come to a different conclusion. Conclusion like, well, I guess, right. I guess that didn't work. Yeah, I know, it's pretty crazy. Speaking of science and Studies and stuff. We, you know, we'll get questions on like skin stuff. We have a large female audience and they'll ask us like, what actually moves the needle the most for improving the health of your skin or the way it looks or whatever. There's a few things you can do, but none of them compare besides being healthy. I got to say that. Right. Being healthy is the best thing you do for your skin. But the red light therapy is by far most of like nothing comes close.

[C]

That's by far the. So another way to say that is the. The most by far intervention.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So like nothing beats. Nothing beats diet.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Good sleep diet, stress management, exercise, like that. That's obviously nothing touches that. Right. But the.

[B]

But the thing you could do on top of that.

[C]

Yeah. The greatest intervention, you get a juve

[B]

red light panel within a week. Within a week you notice a difference.

[C]

Oh, I feel like you within a couple, a session or two of doing

[B]

it, you can see it makes a huge difference. It moves the needle the most out of everything. So for people who want to change the appearance of their skin and make it look younger, you get a red light panel. Use that three days a week, bro. That's going to crush everything else.

[D]

I think it was Mercola because way back when I was looking at. Because it just sounded like wizardry. Yeah. And he was really kind of challenging it and going through. And the studies are so airtight.

[B]

Yep.

[D]

And it was just amazing.

[B]

They go back.

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Way back.

[C]

Oh, it's the 70s. It's. It's so accepted though. Ever. I mean, Doug. Did you guys hear Doug talking about Brianna? He just dropped Brianna off at her new place.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[C]

And they're like college campus condos or whatever like that. And inside their gym is red light therapy.

[B]

Oh yeah. Wow.

[A]

They have a room dedicated to red light.

[G]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Yeah, no, it's full. I mean it's.

[B]

Recovery rooms and stuff are getting big in gyms everywhere.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

It's really. It's so not uncommon to see fact. Most all your big name gyms all have. Have it now. Which is so crazy to think that. Right. Because the studies go back pretty far. You talk about Mercola and so that, I mean, he's been talking about it for a long time.

[B]

Red light studies go back to the 70s.

[C]

And then I remember when we first met with Juve. Like, I remember you going through the studies. You're like, man, these are old. These are studies way back when. So this has been happening for a long. But man, it didn't take until not that long ago, it didn't take.

[B]

Because just 20 years ago, if you wanted like a legit red light panel like the ones that studies. Oh yeah, you spend 20 grand. Yeah. So the only way to get red light therapy, you know, 20 years ago, 30, 0. You'd go to an expensive salon that had them and then you'd pay, you know, 50 or 100 bucks per session.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Isn't it kind of typical though? It's like, you know, the gym industry in itself was so focused on, you know, the workouts and like that's the, the priority. And then all of a sudden we realize, oh, like recovery is really where you get everything from. And so now they're just highlighting all the interventions instead of like, well, the actual way to recover.

[B]

You know, it's funny because the recovery means don't come here, I'm the gym. Yeah, hey, go rest more. Like we need, we want them to

[D]

come, we want you here.

[B]

How do they cover more here?

[D]

Did you guys see a hammock? And here's a red light, you know,

[C]

did you guys see the clip that Doug sent over of the experiences and like the hospitality?

[B]

No, I didn't.

[C]

Oh, it was good clip. You guys should have watched it. It was a really, it was a really, it was a really good breakdown. Just prediction on the surge in hospitality.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Saying you're going to see one of the largest booms we've ever seen in hospitality. And a. As AI becomes more and more prevalent in our regular day, more and more people are wanting to experience in person type experiences, of course. And so hence the gyms exploding, wellness exploding right now and going that direction. But you saying even like clubs and lounges and pool party places and would you see happening even like AVAC and stuff like that? It's just blowing up right now. And, and what it is, it's like we're using more and more of this technology, which is great, you know, and everybody's starting to adopt it in business.

[B]

Well, you have to go out of your way to build community and be social.

[C]

That's just it.

[B]

It just doesn't happen as a default of your life anymore. Yes, it used to be that way. It used to be your daily life included social components because you're surround people. Well, yeah, you go your whole. You go weeks without seeing anybody.

[C]

No. Yeah. A classic example of, of. I mean, as stuff that so many people have just now adopted is like getting instacart or doordash your groceries. I mean there was a time when like you wanted groceries you had to go to the grocery store and you had to see other people and say hi and talk to a cashier. And I mean, you could literally not do that ever again. And so, and more and more people, I think, have adopted things like that. And you, I think you just take it for granted. You start to stack those things before you know it. I mean, going to the movies, I mean, see it even in my own son who will pass on going to a new movie release because he knows it'll come out at home and he'd rather watch the convenience of and stream it from home. You know, just like, just more and more of these things that, well, the

[D]

norm, I hope that comes back.

[B]

The norm used to be when you were a kid, there was nothing to do unless you went outside and played with the other kids. That wasn't that long ago. It was a few, you know, a couple decades ago, I want to hang out with someone, I got to go outside. If you needed something, you would go to your neighbor and ask them, you know, the old hey, do you have a, can I borrow a cup of sugar? You know, type of deal. And then most of society attended some kind of a religious service once a week, which is a big community thing. We worked with each other. So remote work is very common now in comparison to how uncommon it used to be.

[C]

It didn't even really exist.

[B]

It didn't even exist. And it's. And so, and then on top of it, we were so entertained when we're alone that it kind of takes away the sting of boredom. And so, yeah, it makes sense to me that now services that organize social interactions are going to explode.

[C]

I mean, it goes back to the thing I think I've said on this podcast many times when we're, when we're debating trends or societal stuff. And it's like we always allow the pendulum to swing one extreme. And then, and then it. I feel like the, and I think this is a positive thing, right? Like this is the thing that I, I always makes me feel good about humanity. Is that as bad as it can be and that we talk about what, what things that are going on. We only let it go so far. And then I feel like the trend comes back the other direction. Now it tends to counter. Swing really hard the other way. And that's kind of just what. But I feel like that that's kind of always what happens. And this is an example of that, like we, you know, all this AI stuff's going. And then of course, all the fear mongering around it and like, oh, my God, we're all gonna. All. No one's gonna have jobs, and everybody's gonna be just. No one's gonna talk to each other. And it's just like, okay, yeah, maybe for a little bit, maybe all of us will experience a little bit of what that is. And then we'll realize, like, oh, this doesn't feel good. I don't like it.

[B]

Well, I like the direction that. That gyms are going. I really think it's cool. I think gyms are going in a. In a direction of socialization.

[C]

So I wonder.

[B]

Connection.

[C]

Okay. You've been saying this.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And now after seeing that clip that Doug sent, I have kind of a different take on, like, does it fully explode or were Jim's just smart enough to be the first to pick up on this trend of this, like, hospitality direction? And they're benefiting from being on the front end of this wave. And does other businesses, like, say, the Ritz and companies like that and other companies start to realize, like, oh, we're missing. We're missing an opportunity right here to be. Be in the mix of this? And then does some of that market share get taken from the gym?

[B]

I don't know how they'll take it.

[C]

I think so.

[B]

Well, I don't know, because gyms are in a perfect position to do this. Like, one of the things that. So to be social without actually having an activity to do, it's hard to get people out of the house to do that. Like, hey, go hang out with people. Like, no, hey, go play pickleball. Okay. Or, hey, go hang out and do this workout class or join this hiking group. Or then, you know, maybe a reading club. I don't know. Maybe libraries will come back because of that. But my point is there has to. I don't see people just going out to be around people unless there's something to do. And gyms are, you know, it's like the old country club model, except smaller.

[D]

It makes me think, too, because I've been watching on hbo, they did documentary on Burning man. And, like, it's interesting to see, like, with the potential, people, like, getting this crazy experience from it. It's really just human connection that's been lost for them. And, like, this, like, bare bones. Like, I have to, like, figure out how to interact with people. And, like, the weather is crazy, and this is crazy. And then, you know, and we're appreciating people's gifts and art and stuff that they're bringing here. Obviously, there's drugs, sex, and all that kind of stuff, you know, they didn't really get into that in the documentary,

[C]

of course, which I was like, minor detail.

[D]

I was just. Yeah, I was curious. It's curious to watch it from afar. I've never been. I know, you know, Doug's been there. Doug's been there. Probably chime in, but it looked cool,

[C]

like he's got a lifetime membership.

[D]

I understand the appeal of it. It being like, you know, people really like dedicating like this. This idea of like a. Like a piece that people are going to benefit from, and it's like outside themselves and they're just thinking of other people, really, in a sense. And. And then I was like, man, I wonder if because of this documentary guarantee is going to blow up, even more people are going to go, yeah, yeah. You know, because of the way they portrayed it. But then also, it's like, you know, in the 60s, there's this big revolution and stuff where people are hanging out and, like, it's like free love. It's like, I wonder if there's gonna be like an underground kind of hippie thing.

[C]

I think so. I think it's. I think that's a pretty good speculation. I think what Sal had been calling and noticing about in the gym space for a while now and what we're seeing and the reason why we saw them is because the people that probably were the most resistant to being antisocial to our. The wellness and fitness people, because they're aware of how unhealthy that can be. Everybody else is like, cool, new technology. Oh, cool. They're not like, if you're not a fitness person, you're not thinking of the unhealthy things of AI. You're not thinking from that perspective. Fitness and health people are understanding that. Right. So I think what they did was they caught the front end of a wave, a wave that was going to happen with or without them. And they are, and they're benefiting from that right now.

[B]

I agree. And I also think gyms are one of the few semisocial places that are just like that on accident.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, there's very few gyms. I don't know of any gyms that you could sign up or you're the only guy in there.

[D]

Well, it's like, you know what I mean? Everybody's there to improve themselves. You want to be around that kind of energy, you know, and it's like, it's really hard to find that available and tell people, come up with other places for you to do that.

[B]

And it kind of happens on accident. Like if you go to a gym and you're consistent, you're probably consistent on the same days, in the same times, right? So you're probably consistent Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 5 o' clock or whatever, you start to recognize the same people because the people are also consistent, also go at the same time. You do, right. Every time you got their own. And so what naturally happens. I know this cause I ran gyms. What naturally happens is you might go in with zero intention of building community. You're just like, I gotta get in shape. But you go at the same time, same days every week and you're very consistent. Cause you're trying to get in shape and you see the same people and before you know it you give them a headband.

[D]

Unconsciously, you're motivating somebody else.

[B]

That's right. You talk to them. Next thing you, you know, you're part of the 5am Crew or whatever. You know, every gym has this. So I think that gyms just naturally were doing it on accident and they're like, oh wait, this, this might actually.

[C]

Yeah, I think they, I think they did. They saw it, leaned into it and they. And they're riding the wave. What I'm curious about, because I'm trying to. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah. What's going to compete with that?

[C]

Well, yeah, well, I mean, there's a lot of things right now, gyms are

[B]

bars, bars are going down, but I bet those go back up.

[C]

That's what this, the prediction of this guy is.

[B]

He says bars.

[C]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, bars, all those things. Because people are going to want.

[D]

They'll come back.

[C]

Which I tell you what, I mean, as somebody who's an investor would be a smart play right now because they're probably discounted because of the down, downturn of.

[B]

Do you know how big of a piece of English culture. I know this because my family, my wife's family's British. How big of a part of their. I don't know if it's still this way. Probably still is. But how big a part of their culture that pubs are?

[C]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Where like after work every day, Every day you go to the pub and you socialize with your friends and you go home.

[C]

Well, wasn't it, was it you or was it my, my other buddy who was out. Out that way? Don't they do a thing where like the. At one or a certain time they close the pubs but they keep it going on inside? So it's like if you're partying in There.

[D]

You're going at night. Yeah.

[C]

So they. It'll go all. It'll go all night. But then you can't leave and drive certain time.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

You can't drive.

[B]

You.

[D]

They lock you in.

[C]

Yeah. So it's like at one o', clock it's like you either stay or go. You know what I'm saying? But if you want to keep going, we're going. But then the door's shut and you gotta stay.

[B]

Or some to prevent like drunk driving.

[C]

I don't know. I don't know. I thought, I thought Justin was the one that told me that.

[D]

I think so.

[G]

Yeah.

[D]

I'm trying to remember. I think it was. Might have been Ireland, but. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, I think it's. I don't know. I thought, I thought someone was like, oh, that's interesting. I mean, talk about a pub culture or drinking culture where that's like, could be a norm. You're staying all night. Let's go.

[B]

All right.

[C]

And people actually, actually do it. Traditional pub lock in is a real invite only custom. Isn't that interesting?

[B]

It says as it is an after hours gathering of trusted regulars. Not a legal practice because serving alcohol after official licensing. Licensing hours is generally illegal.

[C]

Ah, okay.

[B]

Then. Bartenders lock the doors to stop new customers from entering while allowing the most loyal patrons.

[D]

Yeah, the patrons to just get smashed and slipped.

[B]

The real alcoholics. You guys are gonna stay.

[D]

That's kind of. Amateurs can leave, you know.

[C]

That's crazy. Yeah. United Kingdom and Ireland. So that's where it's at. Dude.

[B]

Did you guys see the video of the 16 year old lifeguard?

[C]

Yeah, I did.

[B]

Saving, yes.

[C]

Actually giving me anxiety watching it.

[B]

First of all, how old was the kid that he saved? 13.

[D]

13?

[B]

I think something like that. 12. 13. Obviously younger, but he's 16.

[D]

Yeah, dude.

[B]

He's out there diving, weathering it. And the waves were nasty.

[D]

The waves in Santa Cruz, it was sea bright. I don't know if there was some kind of storm like elsewhere where we got this crazy swell where it wasn't just like regular like swell coming in with waves. It was like from multiple directions. So you'd have one crazy undertow, another crashing, and then it would. It would be all at different times. Yeah. And the riptide was insane.

[B]

I didn't know this was a Seabright. Yeah, this was in Santa Cruz. He's a local hero.

[C]

Am I saying that wrong? Is there a difference between riptide and undertow? Is that the same?

[D]

I think it's the same.

[B]

Undertow was when your Nail is.

[D]

Well, it pulls you in regardless. Is. It's pulling you into.

[G]

Oh, shit.

[C]

I thought you're correcting me on something. I didn't know. I was like, oh, shit. Is that not what I've seen?

[B]

Justin's underwater.

[G]

I don't know.

[D]

I'm just saying it a different way.

[B]

And a riptide are different water movements and undertows. A brief downward pull of water under a breaking wave. While a riptide or rip current is a strong, narrow channel of water moving fast away from shore. So they are different.

[C]

Okay, interesting.

[D]

Well, there you go.

[C]

Let's do it.

[B]

I watched the video.

[C]

I think it was a combination of both, right? I mean, I really grips.

[D]

I've heard on their to.

[C]

Did you.

[B]

Did you know that the kid that he was trying to save had passed out?

[C]

Yeah, you could tell. I mean, I could tell by he. He looked unconscious, the way he was

[B]

holding on to him and just diving,

[C]

the way he was pulling on his arm. The. The kid was not like getting up.

[D]

I don't know how many seconds, but he only had a few seconds to even just get up, get air, hold him and then boom, hits him again multiple times.

[B]

So he's apparently a water polo player. Yeah.

[D]

Oh, and apparent apparently too like this. That wasn't even the craziest save he made. That was a bunch that day.

[C]

Oh, no way.

[D]

Yeah, there was a bunch. We Courtney and showed me a few.

[C]

No way.

[D]

They had interviewed him and he was like, yeah, nobody was filming the craziest one. I was like, he basically like recovered and went out and did it again.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[D]

So, I mean, this kid's a champion, bro.

[B]

Talk about he risked his own life to save some 10 year. It was a 10 year old. 10 year old kid he doesn't even know.

[D]

10 year old.

[B]

But yeah, I read an article, I guess he's a water polo player and I forgot what position he played.

[C]

Does it matter?

[B]

Yeah, there's a position of water polo where you're constantly getting battered.

[C]

Oh.

[B]

And.

[C]

Well, first off, it's like one of the most like physical, grueling sports.

[B]

Have you ever trained a water polo player? Have you guys ever trained one?

[D]

No.

[B]

I have.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. Water polo players, it's like they have the most brutal practices ever. Yeah, they are out there for hours and hours. Their stamina is ridiculous. Sure, they get the crap. So I mean it's.

[D]

And what goes on underneath the water is crazy, dude.

[C]

I guess.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

The kicking, pinching and you know, oh, whatever else.

[B]

But he got. He got invited to The White House. You guys know that.

[C]

Oh, he did.

[B]

Him and his family. I guess he's getting an award or something like that.

[D]

Pretty cool.

[C]

That's cool. That's wild, though, that he had other saves that weren't that.

[B]

Dude, how. How popular do you think this kid is in high school right now? He's 16. He goes back to school. Oh, my God.

[D]

That. That. Well, that brings up too, like, I've been watching this other, like, documentary is like the 100 foot. Seeking the 100 foot. Garrett McNamara, I think is how you say his name. It's interesting to. To hear the whole origin of like, big wave surfing because this wasn't like a thing for a long time until they figured out how to basically like tow them in with a jet ski.

[E]

Oh.

[D]

Because it was just like, so dangerous and like, to get out is like insane. You really have to have, like, safety measures. And so a lot of this was just like, over the past, you know, decade or so has just been developing is like, you know, this brand new sport. And so he's one of, like the pioneers of this whole thing. Started in Hawaii.

[C]

He. Then he came over looking for bigger waves.

[G]

Came over.

[D]

This is where he started to see too, around the world. You sort of see even like plays like in Ireland. Like, they have huge waves, but like, you know, it's like freezing water and nobody's out there, like, you know, oh, I love the surf in this weather. You know, they're seeking like these crazy, like, stormy waves. But he's the one that found like, Nazareth. So this guy, like, this is in what's. What country is that? That's like right next to Spain.

[A]

Portugal.

[D]

Portugal. Thank you. I was thinking. I was like. I say Peru. I'm slot.

[A]

Peru.

[D]

Portugal. And so there's this one, like, point where like the lighthouses gets. Gets these crazy waves to hit. And I guess, like, because of this hu. Valley that. That is really deep and then like, kind of comes up like perfectly meets at this pinnacle. Like, it creates like these crazy waves that could reach about 100ft high.

[C]

That's crazy.

[D]

And like, people surf that, so they never did. They just like fishermen would go out there and there's all these stories of them, like, dying and like, crazy stuff.

[C]

I mean, Falling off of 100 foot, you're dead, right? I think. Isn't 100ft enough? If you hit water after 100ft, you're dead.

[D]

I mean, it's. It's like literally like a high rise building.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Look at the picture.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

What are you doing?

[D]

It dude, if you watch this, you get like all the anxiety. It's crazy to watch. But so he actually had to navigate like when they would get these types of waves to come and form. And like, you know, they went into a lot of the science of like, you know, the oceanography of like, how you know when this is going to happen, like, what the conditions are going to be, all this and, and you know, laid the blueprint, went out there himself, you know, and almost drown a few times. And then they figured out how to like get spotters outside and they would like have bullhorns and tell. Because, you know, the person that's on Jet Ski can't find him right away. He only gets a few seconds where his head's like popping out. And so they like, you know, direct them.

[B]

God.

[D]

And like, it was just amazing to see how this all developed to even be able to surf that for one. And then they start breaking records there. It's with like the biggest waves ever.

[C]

Was it, was it. Was this an older documentary is. It is.

[D]

It's pretty new. Oh, it's really good, dude. And I'm not doing it. Injustice. It's like they go through this because

[C]

I've watched an older one of it. I watched an older one, but I don't know, it must be like a new record, huh?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

So he's still called 100 Foot Wave.

[D]

He's a psycho. He's still going for it. And he's a. He's an older guy.

[B]

That's. That's my biggest like, fear. Like one of my most. My biggest kind of normal natural fears is water. And that right there in particular, being

[C]

out in the water with crazy, with a crazy wave.

[B]

Yes. You ever watch videos of like ships, massive ships in the ocean, storms.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And you'll see from the, from where the captain is and how they'll go over a wave like this and just. It's like they fall off a cliff

[C]

or you see my. This, they're like they completely sideways, the wave coming over the top of it.

[D]

Dude, this is one clip of. Of. And so he had got all confident because he had like mastered like Nazare and all this. He went back to Mavericks. And Mavericks is like huge waves too, but like, you know, was like overconfident because he's, ah, this is no, you know, no big deal. Didn't get towed in. Ended up doing it without getting towed in. So he was a little bit like late on the, on the break of it.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And just, just the crest of it smashed down and he ended up, like, skipping, like a skipping rock.

[B]

Boom, boom, boom.

[D]

And, like, totally obliterated. He broke all kinds of bones and everything. I was like, oh, my God. It was. It was.

[B]

What's.

[C]

What's wild is how is that people do that. How crazy. I know how crazy it looks from our perspective. So. Have you ever been on, like, when you.

[F]

Yeah.

[C]

Being under, it is so different.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

So, like, when you're like. It's like when. I don't know how many times I've, like, gone to go, like, ski something that's like a. Like a double black diamond or something. And when you're, like, looking at it from afar, it's like, that's not that bad. And then when you get over the top of it and you look and you go down and you're looking down. Oh, my God. It's a. So I can't imagine, like, hairs in

[D]

the back of my neck.

[C]

Yeah, it has to probably. It has to feel similar to being on, like, the top of, like, a crazy high rise building skyscraper. Like, you're.

[B]

Is pro. What would that. What's that called? Pro surfing. What's that called?

[D]

That does a. Yeah, it's big wave surface.

[B]

Big wave surfing. Does that have a high death rate?

[D]

Yeah, I mean, they've had deaths for sure. I don't know what the rate.

[B]

I think the highest is what the squirrel suit people.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that documentary we're like, like, at

[D]

the end of it, over half had died.

[C]

Yeah. That was something. Something crazy.

[B]

The overall death rate for surfing, including big wave surfing, is statistically extremely low.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

10 to 20 fatalities globally per year.

[C]

You know why, though?

[B]

They're counting everybody.

[C]

Well, it's because nobody does it.

[D]

Nobody does.

[B]

I know.

[D]

Who's going to attempt that. Yeah.

[C]

There's not a lot of people doing it.

[B]

I didn't know Mavericks is at Half Moon Bay.

[C]

You didn't know that?

[B]

No.

[D]

You've never been up there? Oh, you got to go up there, dude. When they have a six, well, it's really cool.

[B]

Does it just look crazy?

[D]

Crazy, yeah.

[B]

Oh, man.

[D]

Yeah, you get. Oh, my God. You get a real feel for. At least even from. If you're close and you're watching them come in like, you're like, I can't believe anybody's out there right now. This is insane.

[B]

Oh, that's crazy.

[G]

Yeah.

[B]

Adam, I was going to ask you because I heard you off air before we started the show, you were talking about the protein cereal from Legion. What are the macros on that they're really good.

[C]

Yeah, they're really good. A bowl ends up being like close to like 40, I think I want to say like, well, with the.

[B]

Really?

[C]

Oh yeah. I mean a good. It's like a good sized bowl for me.

[B]

Can you find the macro?

[A]

I got it right here. One serving. 170 calories, 17 grams of protein.

[C]

So 17 grams of protein, that's like a half a cup of cereal or quarter.

[B]

Or one.

[C]

One and a quarter cups. Yeah. So that's not even a bowl of cereal. A bowl of cereal. A bowl.

[B]

And it's got 7 to 8 grams of. Of fiber in that serving. So you could do 35 grams of protein. You did two of those and you would have 16 grams of fiber with the. That has got to, it's got to produce some good satiety, I would imagine.

[C]

No, it is good. What Legion did really good is a lot if you. I don't know how many protein cereals you guys have tried. I've tried a bunch of them. They get stuck in your teeth. They're really like the tech. They just. Because they're healthy for you. They don't have a lot of the crap in there. And so the texture is tough. They nailed the texture. It doesn't get all huh, huh. It's like the, the cereal.

[B]

What's the protein in it? Is it whey? It's got to be whey.

[C]

Most likely, I believe so let me get. It's most likely that. It's most likely that I've tried.

[B]

So I can't do dairy right. But I've tried plant based proteins. Cereals. Gross.

[G]

Really?

[C]

I got.

[B]

They're terrible.

[C]

Yeah, they are terrible. I got my, my digestive enzymes that you had me get. Yeah, you know, it's so does it help you? It did. I had. I mean I had. So I had it with that. So I'm having whey and then vitamin D milk and so that would be an example. And a big bowl.

[B]

That's a lot of dairy free.

[C]

It's just a lot in one shot and it never. I could do it but like I definitely felt way better taking those. What I noticed. So I didn't know and now I know why you take so many of them. One pills per five grams of protein.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So you got to take quite a few of them. So I got to get a much bigger bottle than what I got.

[B]

I just also really, to be honest with you, I just overdo supplement. I don't really count.

[C]

Well, no, it's. It says, it says, it says on the bottle, that one pill should be for 5 grams of protein. So if I have a 50 gram protein meal, it's 10.

[B]

So you gotta take 10 pills?

[C]

Yeah, I only took six. I'm like, I don't want to overdo it the first time and who knows what the opposite. So like, let me ease into it. And so I took six with it and I was like, oh, wow, that was really. That felt really good. So that's gonna be like. My new thing is to try and be disciplined to the times that I do have.

[B]

You know what I did the other night? Because dairy for me is the word of all the things that can bother me get away with gluten a little bit, you know. Now nowadays, now that my gut's a lot better, dairy, I just got to stay away from it. Just. It's going to hurt me no matter what. But what I did the other night because I don't have dairy is I ordered. My wife called it salami bread because I ordered a pizza with no cheese. And I know that when I send that order. Can you do that for sure. The guy making it is looking at this going, what?

[C]

I feel like the guy who makes the pizza with no cheese is like the guy. When my wife orders a well done steak at a steakhouse like this, the chef is like this.

[B]

This is.

[C]

Yeah. This absolute sin. You know what I'm saying? As he's like grilled and burning the smashing in there, the pizza guy's going like, yeah, the pizza guys. What kind of more on no cheese? I've heard of an all cheese pizza, but no cheese.

[B]

It's literally a piece of bread with sauce and then it's like salami sausage. All those. It's like, it's like, is it okay? How's your salami bread? It's not bad.

[C]

I kind of want to try it though.

[B]

I'm curious. I mean, it's still good. It's not pizza, but it's good. It's not bad.

[D]

So the gluten actually isn't as like. Because if you're going to compare the two, dairy's worse. Okay.

[B]

Yes. Gluten. What gluten will do to me is it'll. I'll get inflamed a little bit. If I eat a lot of gluten, I'll hold water. You guys will see it. I'll come in here and you guys like, what happened to Sal's face? Yeah, like, but it'll.

[D]

Jordan Peterson, it'll.

[B]

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm so glad we pinned that. Every time I see that, I'm like, what's going on there, bro? No, it'll slow down my digestion at first, so at first it seems like it's not bothering me, but I'm slightly slowed down. Okay. Let's just say that. And then a day or two later, then I have a bad. Then I have a bad stomach, and it. So it takes about a day or two. Dairy. Dairy is right out the gates. Pretty much, like, I'll eat it. And then pretty much I'm not gonna have a good time for a little while, so.

[E]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Interesting.

[C]

No, I got something right now. I'm. Dude. So you guys know my. My. My squirrel issue that I had not that long ago? So I have this where.

[G]

You're.

[B]

Where you're going to battle with the squirrels? Yeah, I lost.

[C]

I'm not going to battle.

[B]

I lost.

[C]

It's already over. War's over. War's over. I got no peaches. Zero. So they are all. They won until next year. So we're. We're.

[B]

Battle is lost, but the war is still going.

[C]

There you go.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I definitely lost this battle deer this year, but I've got a new one on me right now that I have. And I. And I. I'm not 100% sure. I. I'm pretty sure it's my neighbor's cats. They've got. They've got three cats at that roam. And. And he. He or she. I'm not sure. Pisses on my car. On top of my car.

[D]

No, they don't.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Of all places.

[C]

The same car. The same car. Only one car.

[B]

Oh, my God, bro.

[C]

Yeah, only one, Carmine. The one I'd be most upset. The one I'd be most so bad right now, dude. The first, like, the first three.

[B]

The worst. If you ever piss on anything of Adam's, the worst will be his car.

[C]

What is so weird?

[B]

You piss on his clothes.

[C]

It's on the. It's on the back of it on the top. And.

[B]

And cat pee smells.

[C]

It is. It is the most annoying, and it is consistent as hell every.

[B]

Every.

[C]

If I. If I don't cover. So I cover it most of the time, but then I uncovered that.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

And it's in the same spot in the back. And I. I thought it was birds. I thought it was birds that first started happening. I told Katrina.

[B]

Did you watch on the camera?

[C]

So, well, so originally, the way I backed. The way I backed the car up. I back it up so that my overhang of the Overhang of the house shades the car for, for most of the day. So I back it up. So I thought it was a bird that was perching.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

And pissing down. And I was like, oh, my God, what is it? And it only started happening when I, when I had that car. Didn't happen in any other car.

[B]

It's only this car doesn't like your car.

[C]

And so that. What? That is so weird. And so it happened three, four times in a row. And I'm like, I'm complaining to Katrina. I'm like, well, this sucks. The whole reason why I back it up is so I get that shade. Now I'm having to pull it out so I don't get the shade. So I don't get. But then the piss is still coming. So I'm like, okay, there's no way a bird is still hitting it perfect like that after I've now moved it, because I thought it made sense if it was perched and that was. But then I moved, I moved it forward five feet, and I'm still getting the piss in the same spot of the car every Sunday. And so it's like, it's got to be these cats, because I've seen the cat's paw prints before on, like, the hood of the cars when they're dusty or whatever. So it's got to be cats.

[D]

I love when your car's still warm. Mine always, like, tries to get on. I'm like, no.

[C]

Oh, maybe that's.

[B]

Well, the engines in the back. Where's the engine?

[C]

Yeah, that's where the engine's at, but because it's mid engine. But I'm not driving it. Like, it's, I don't drive it as much.

[B]

It just doesn't like your car, dude.

[C]

I, I, it's only that one. It is only. None of the other ones. Well, no, I've been, I've tried to catch it, but the cats are sneaky enough. They don't sit the sensors off. So they're ninjas.

[B]

Yeah. So there's no sensor, just pee.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Demon. I'm so angry, though.

[C]

It's so frightful.

[D]

I had some pet piss problems as of late. Yeah, Triple P, dude. Yeah, that came out.

[B]

His problem.

[D]

His problems and I, we're speculating too. Like, it's so my dog, Arlo, he, he likes peaches. He likes plums. He likes us. And I'm always, like, putting them on leash now because he'll take off and go down to, like, the junior high and, like, eat out trash cans, and he's like a real problem. And so I'm always the one that's like consistently put him on leash and this and that. And Courtney, sometimes he's like, ah. You know, just like lets him out. I'm like, what are you doing? You know, like, you know where he's gonna go. And sure enough, he goes down. He like, he's just eating like all these peaches and, and plums and all this stuff comes back. His breast smells like, like fermented fruit, you know. Anyways, he's sleeping the other night and it was like a, A really bright like full moon and two in the morning. Gets up just peeing all over like, you know, next to my side of the bed.

[C]

In the house, in the house, in the house. Oh my God. He never does that.

[D]

Like, you know, has it in a while at least. And just like there's just this part. I'm like, oh no. We're just getting up, trying to get towels, clean the whole thing outside.

[B]

Bro, that dog.

[C]

How I hate that dog, bro.

[B]

He's done so many things to you.

[D]

Yeah. And it like, I don't know what to do. Like, because I can't like just get. I'm like looking for places that would like take him in, you know, Like I'm that guy. I'm like looking for people. Hey, you want a dog? He's like really sweet. Yeah. Like, he's great. He has little like corks, little problems here and there.

[B]

But he likes to wrestle skunks.

[C]

He pisses in your house.

[B]

Everybody looked at Justin in the face and crapped in his shoe.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

While he was looking at him in the face.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

I would have lost that dog camping a long time ago. I just, I, I feel like he's my rage training.

[D]

He's my rage training, you know. So I don't, you know, I actually like, I'm more prone to like, ah. And I just hold back with him. I feel like he gets that out of me. So I'm not like that with my kids. And I've held myself from like destroying him. You know, I'm like. But I don't, you know, we're. I worked through it.

[C]

My, my, my wife thinks that it has something to do with the way I. By where I am with nature. You know, She's a little more woo

[D]

woo than I am.

[F]

Right.

[C]

So she's like this, this back. Yeah. The squirrel thing was because I killed the squirrel. Like we never got that much. Like we would get. We'd lose some peaches. But she's like, once you killed the squirrel, then they all went back and told the rest of them, and now they ate all of our peaches. And so she. And the cats so back. So if. I don't know if you ever.

[B]

It's like the planet on Avatar, like, all nature now.

[C]

Yeah. So. So in my backyard, in my backyar, I have all this. I have white cushion furniture, which, you know, is already tough to keep clean. So that. And if I. If I don't put. If you ever come to my house, you ever notice that? And if you guys have ever noticed this, when you come in the daytime, if we're not out there with a party, my cushions are all up. I tilt them all up like this. And the reason why I do that is because those stupid cats will sleep on them. And then I get cat hair all over my. All my furniture. So I got to do that every night if. After we have company. So I gotta put all the things all up. So. So a cat won't sleep on there. Also, he'll. He'll sleep on it. And so anytime that cat's in my backyard, I yell at it, throw a rock at it, do whatever like that, just to shoot out of. Shoot out of our backyard. So he knows he's not welcome there. And so Katrina thinks that's why he's pissing on my car now. So that's what it. That's. So I bring on the squirrel eating all of our peaches. I bring it on the cat pissing on my car. And so I don't know what to believe anymore.

[B]

Did I ever tell you this might be a horrible story to shift to. To share, but I'm gonna share it anyway. This is, like, just a disclaimer. This is old school. Like, I guess, Sicilian justice, I guess you would say, when we were kids. So I was young, we went to Sicily to visit my dad's parents. Now, remember, these are my grandparents. They're not alive anymore, but they're like old school, poor Sicilians. Okay, so that's just everybody picture this, okay? We went to visit them, and we were there for. I think it was like the whole summer. It was like two months or something like that. And there was this dog that the neighbor had, and it was an aggressive dog. So when we were outside playing, the dog would, you know, bark, bark, bark, and then, like, scare everybody. Well, anyway, my grandfather hated that dog because that dog had tried to bite one of his other grandkids before. And he said, if that dog bites, tries to bite anybody else, I'm gonna Kill that dog. He remember he told me that. So anyway, we were out there playing and we went inside. My sister was still out there. She started screaming. The dog came out their garage and bit at her ankle. And then the neighbor comes out. My grandfather comes out and he was remarkably. I remember as a kid, I'm like, oh, there's a fight. My grandfather's gonna come out and fight this guy.

[C]

He's calm. He was scary calm.

[B]

He was like, he looked at the guy and he shook his head and he kind of like, wow, he didn't even get. No, no, didn't get. And he had a bad temper. It's like he didn't get mad or anything. It was weird. The dog died a few days later. I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure my grandfather did something. Oh, pretty sure.

[C]

I remember, you know, because he was so calm.

[B]

He came inside, dude, he came inside. You know, I remember all hanging out. We're having dinner. This is like three, four days later. And my grandpa's like, anybody?

[C]

Yeah, exactly. And he says it all. He drops it like that. All coming. Oh, that dog will never bother anybody.

[B]

You notice how quiet is it outside? It is outside. Like, what are you talking about? That dog is dying. He died. Like, what do you mean he died? I don't know.

[C]

Sleeps with the fishes.

[B]

What's going on here, dude? Anyway, I don't know if he did it or not, but let's just say good.

[D]

Cheers.

[B]

There was no investigation, so I'm excited to share with you guys. C15 from fatty 15. This is the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. It's an incredible scientific breakthrough to support our long term health and wellness. And you guessed it, healthy aging. Fatty 15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to support your long term health and wellness, especially as you get older. Based on over 100 studies, we now know that C15 strengthens our cells and is a key healthy aging nutrient which helps to slow biological aging at the cellular level. In fact, when our cells don't have enough C15, they become fragile and they age faster. So fatty 15 is science backed, it's award winning, it's patented, it works. I've used it myself. I notice less inflammation in particular when I take it on a daily basis. Go check them out. Go to fatty15.com mindpump that's fatty15.com mindpump and on that link you get yourself hooked up and use the code mindpump at checkout for a Discount. Here comes the show.

[A]

Our first caller is Amber from Texas.

[C]

Hey, how you doing, Amber?

[D]

Welcome back.

[F]

Hey, guys. I'm doing pretty good. A little nervous.

[B]

That's all right. So what's going on? Give us an update. This is what, 30? We talked to you, what, a month ago?

[F]

Yes. So this is the third update. And since then, I listened to the advice. I'd like to say not half assed at this time. Adam's so surprised. I know.

[B]

I'm pretty sure we hung up.

[C]

And I'm like, she's not listening to us.

[F]

I didn't say that I wasn't gonna listen to.

[C]

No, I said that. I think I said that.

[F]

What I said in Spanish was, I'm afraid that they're going to. What is the word in English? Scold me again. But I did lower the dose, and then I've been off my glp. I have gained weight. I have. I don't know how much because again, I'm not weighing myself, but the clothes that were falling off of me, they fit now. So my clothes are fitting better and I'm getting stronger with my workouts. I haven't changed my workouts, and it could be the testosterone too, but I've done that. And I do have more energy. So much so that I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but I really love dancing, like, it's my life. And I've been able to have more energy to dance again. So I've been given. I've been asked to be. To give some more dance classes. So, yeah, I got off of it. And I've gained weight. Not happy about it, but I have gained weight.

[B]

Amber, great job. There's more in your email. Is it okay if I read a little bit of it?

[F]

Yeah, please.

[B]

It says that you're now working with somebody virtually to talk with about the body dysmorphia and all that.

[F]

Yes. So not too long after our conversation, our follow up, I started seeing different therapists through my work. And actually, I did even mention you guys. I mentioned the podcast because I was telling her, this is why I'm gaining weight before the surgery. Otherwise I've probably wouldn't have gotten off the glp. I would have just kind of been going in the same trajectory. And I'm actually meeting with her later today. So, you know, just to talk about why I have these feelings. I mean, my. My life is a novella, so she has her work cut out for her. But that is one of the things that we're covering.

[B]

That's awesome. So, Amber, great job.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Really, really good job. And I just. Just first off, I want to encourage you, and then I'm gonna prepare you a little bit. Is that okay?

[F]

Okay.

[B]

I want to encourage you because you did a very hard thing. You did a very difficult thing. You got off the glp. You're eating more. You're not weighing yourself, and you're talking with somebody about some of these challenges now just to prepare you. It gets really hard about 60 to 90 days in or maybe a little bit after that. So in the beginning, these changes kind of feel good. You're like, I got okay. I got energy. Getting started is difficult. You got over that hump. And then what happens is we tend to fool ourselves because we're like, I feel good. I got great energy. This is awesome. And you start to compromise. Some of the things that you have decided that you're not going to do or do now. And it starts small, but then the compromises become larger and larger. And so I want to just encourage you. It will get more difficult. You may take a couple steps back, but when you do, just, okay, I'm going to get back on. I'm going to do this again. Give yourself grace. That's what this journey looks like. It doesn't look like a solve. I'm good. It's awesome. It looks like, okay, things are good. I'm awesome. Oh, this is hard. Oh, this sucks. Let me do a little bit here, a little bit there. But if you get down on yourself and you start to feel shame, that spiral really starts to accelerate. So you just get. You give yourself grace and remind yourself. And what might help is you say, oh, yeah, Sal told me this would happen. This is expected. It's expected. It's normal. Let's get back on.

[F]

Yeah. Well, I mean, you guys have helped me a lot over the years. I want to say. I've been listening for 10, 11 years. And first, you helped me with, like, not weighing myself. That was a big one because I used to weigh myself, like, when I was in the real thick of it, I want to say, after every meal, ten times a day. And then you guys helped me focus on getting stronger. So much so that I even did a powerlifting competition. I didn't do well, but I did it. And then, you know, with not tracking, that was a big one for me because I've been tracking for over 24 years. So I trust you guys. It's not always easy, but I do appreciate the help that you've given me, even if it's you know, not something I want to hear, but I appreciate it.

[D]

You're doing good.

[C]

You're doing good.

[B]

Awesome. And Amber, we were just talking. We saw your name come up and then we remembered when we first we met you. How long ago was it we met you in person?

[C]

Nine, ten years ago?

[F]

It was when you guys had that live event in Encinitas.

[C]

It was that night like eight, nine years ago, right?

[B]

At least.

[F]

Yeah. And I want to say that at the time, I was the first you offered me a free program, Sal, because I was talking about the nonprofit work that I wanted to do, which I did end up doing. I'm actually a member of. Member of Guardians of the Children nonprofit. We're a biker group and we go with kids when they have to testify in court and stuff like that. And I've been able to do like some group fitness classes for those kids and I've been doing a lot of non profit work and yeah, a lot of the, the, like the, the stuff that they want to do, fitness wise, I'm able to help them with that. And a lot of the stuff that you guys have taught me, I've carried into that.

[B]

Oh, what a good heart you have, Amber.

[E]

So cool.

[B]

Yeah. So glad you're one of our listeners.

[C]

Yep.

[F]

Thank you. Well, thank you, guys.

[B]

I want you to reach back out if you need anything else.

[F]

Okay, I will.

[B]

All right.

[C]

Keep focus on getting strong. You're doing great.

[B]

Let's go.

[F]

My biker name is Flex, by the way.

[C]

I love it. I love it. Good talking to you.

[B]

She's great. She's great. Yeah, she's doing good, man. And she's, she's definitely come a long way. And you know, the reason why I asked her how long ago we met was it's been a while. So it's not like. It's like she's progressed that entire time. Like she said, she's. She's moving along in the right direction and I hope she listens to this afterwards. But you know, when you get in those tough moments, like think back how far that was.

[C]

That was the Viori launch.

[B]

That's right.

[C]

We helped launch that store.

[B]

First physical store.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

How many years ago was that?

[B]

Yeah, it's about nine years. And I mean, what's weird is we did that and now look how big they are.

[D]

So, I don't know, some kind of weird effect after might be us.

[A]

Our next caller is Chase from Arizona.

[B]

What's up, Chase?

[C]

Chase.

[G]

Hey, gentlemen. How are you?

[D]

Good, man.

[B]

How can we help you?

[G]

Good. Thanks for Having me on today, I appreciate it.

[C]

What you got for us?

[G]

I'll jump right into it. So I am a 34 year old father. I'm 6 foot 6, sitting anywhere between 300, 310 pounds right now. I played a ton of college athletics and I am just tired of being an overweight dad. The reason I say that is because it was maybe too, too deep here, but about a year and a half ago my oldest daughter got in a dog accident. She got attacked by a dog and I just remember racing to the hospital with our other daughters and there was no parking. Had to park so far away from the hospital and I had to carry them all in there and it was just exhausting. I had to stop a couple times and it was frustrating to me to try to get into the hospital to see her and help her and had to make stops on the way there and it was frustrating. Sorry, that gets a little emotional for me. So I decided to make a huge change after that point. Listen to your podcast for a long time. Try to really get back into lifting. So for a year and a half the goal has been just to get put on muscle and to set a solid foundation. So I've been doing that ever since a couple years ago, probably four or five years ago, I did have some success with the keto diet. I lost about £70 doing that. But I hated how I felt and how I looked. I just, I honestly felt like I felt like I looked the exact same but just weighed less on the scale. I lost a ton of muscle. It just wasn't a good experience. Since then I've learned tons about health and nutrition, tried to become better and again, just try to keep going from there. So my question for you guys today is I get super confused with all of the information out there in the world with, with calories and how much calories you should be eating. You know, I put my information into a calorie tracker and it's anywhere from 2200 calories a day to 3500 calories a day. I'm a bigger dude so it's difficult to kind of gauge what, what's correct for me and what's there. So also protein intake. I mean you, I know on the podcast you talked about having the correct amount of macros and protein for your goal weight. So I've tried to been eating 260 to 270 grams of protein per day. Not as consistent in that as I would like to be, but that's my goal for now easily every day. I'm getting about seven to 8,000 steps, so that's where I'm at. So I would love to figure out your thoughts on where to start with calories and just the overall. I feel like I am at the muscle mass that is good. And now I just want to start cutting down a little bit from here.

[B]

Well, Chase, first off, thanks for calling in, man. And you know that story you said about, you know, trying to carry your kids into the hospital, man, I feel that that must have been very difficult. And the reason why I'm bringing you back to that is to help kind of start with the. The best starting point that I think is going to bring you the most successful. Also considering you were an athlete in college, by the way, what sports did you play in college?

[E]

Football.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So I think this will help you a lot. Okay. What I'm about to say, because where the. The origin of the motivation, I guess for lack of a better term, makes a big difference on success. The. The motivation that you have, the real core motivation, is to improve your fitness. It's not to lose weight. The motivation to be able to do what you need to do as a dad or do what you need to do in life really has nothing to do with your weight. Now your weight will start to react to your improved fitness. But I think especially as an. As an ex athlete and especially with that moment that you had, which is a very strong memory, I think the goal needs to improve your. The goal is to improve your fitness and allow your body weight to go where it goes. Does that make sense? Now what will probably happen is you'll probably get leaner, right? You'll probably get leaner.

[C]

You will.

[B]

But if you can move and you got crazy athleticism and Fitness at £290, £280, who cares? By the way, your body will reflect it. You'll look more like an athlete like you experienced when you did keto. Getting smaller doesn't necessarily mean better. You lost muscle, you didn't feel good, your fitness declined, even though you were lighter. So the goal needs to be fitness. And the goal with fitness, with diet, is what's going to fuel my endurance, my stamina, and my strength. So if we start from there, you're going to crush. Now, if we start from I got to lose weight, you're going to run into the problems you had before where you start to compromise your fitness. You start to compromise how you feel in pursuit of a scale weight, which. Which can definitely happen. Does that make sense?

[G]

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I totally Understand, you're saying before I started lift, getting back into lifting heavily, I was. I was around 3:18. So naturally, I've just kind of come down a little bit from. I'm just lifting and doing, trying to eat better, whole foods and things like that, so. Completely understood.

[B]

Yeah.

[F]

So.

[B]

So we could definitely do the whole tracking thing and all that. I think, you know, I think 250 grams of protein is plenty. Oh, yeah, for you, I don't think 200 to 250. Yeah, I don't think you need to go higher than 250. And if you get over 220, you're doing good. So I would keep it in that range for a guy your size, so that would be really the only thing I would say you would track. And then what you do is you eat only whole foods and you eat when you're hungry, and then you gauge your performance. Your workout is also very important here because when we're training for performance and movement and stamina and strength, workout makes a big difference. How many days a week is realistic for you to go to the gym? And I mean real realistic. Like, you could be consistent. Don't give me pie in the sky.

[G]

No, I shoot. I shoot for four days a week.

[B]

Okay.

[G]

I have a home setup that I. That I enjoy. So it's not too hard to get out in the garage and bust out a workout.

[B]

But maps perform easy. Maps performance. That's your program. Maps performance.

[D]

You'll love it.

[B]

Aim for 240 or so grams of protein a day. Only eat whole foods. If you're hungry, eat and you're good. And literally, that's what it's like, oh, my God, I'm hungry. I'm gonna go have whole foods. And what's gonna happen is your performance, your athleticism will continue to improve with mass performance and your body fat percentage and muscle, your body composition will change over time, and it won't feel like you're chasing something that you can't get a hold of.

[C]

The one thing I want to lean into, since you have the competitive athlete side of you that I like to do with my ex, ath, is being competitive with yourself on your consistency around your eating habits. So what it looks like is this. If you're. If your main goal is the. The performance, the health, the strength, like Sal is saying, and that's the. That's the lens that we look at this through. You're. And it's inevitable you're gonna. You're gonna have a day that's not good. You're gonna have a day that you're busy, you don't get to. And like, so what? So what? The next day you're back on track again. And what I want you to pay attention to as that competitive athlete is how many days in a row did I get of eating whole foods, hitting my protein intake and being consistent? Oh, it was seven and then I had him, then I messed up.

[A]

Cool.

[C]

You're back to zero. Next day your goal is eight. Can you get to eight and just compete with now along the way? You're gonna have these days. That's. It just happens. What happens to people though is they have, they had that one bad day where they ate, you know, bad. Or they drank or they, they missed. And then it's like it spirals out of control. Oh, effort. Or they get on the scale and it shows a number they don't like and so they totally go off the rails. And then one day turns into a week of bad eating and not consistency. I don't want you to look at it like that. It's not a bad thing. Fact. When you're chasing performance and strength, sometimes kind of a high calorie day eating out of bounds will fuel tomorrow's workout when you go to the gym and you're going to feel awesome. So don't look at it as a negative thing. Look at it as like, oh man, I got seven days. Was is my new record. I'm shooting for eight. Can I get eight days of perfect eating and hitting my protein and training like. And so don't let the one day here and there that you have start keeping track of how many days can you string together and compete with yourself on getting better. And before you know it, you'll wake up and you'll have strung 30, 40 days of perfection and you're gonna feel the best you've ever felt.

[B]

Do you chase, do you meal prep?

[G]

I do. So each, I mean, each Sunday I'll throw some things together and put them in, putting them in some glass Tupperware things and have them throughout the week. So good. I try.

[B]

Yeah. Good meal prepping is going to be key for this. And then here's the other thing I'll say to look out for because the weight is always going to be in the back of your mind. You might start to find yourself veer towards undereating, which you'll notice in your performance. So you may be like, okay, I know I'm supposed to eat whole natural foods, but if I skip, no big deal. I need to lose weight. Anyway, and then you'll see declines in performance. So I'm going to give you a little bit of structure. Okay. I want you to have no less than four meals a day, no matter what. Now if you're hungrier after that, then eat more of those whole natural meals. But I don't want a guy your size following mass performance. If you eat less than four meal prep meals a day, you're going to be undereating. You'll notice a decline in your performance as well.

[C]

Notice, Chase, that nobody on this call yet has said anything about we care where your calories are at. Like, it's like the whole.

[B]

It'll go where it needs to.

[C]

Exactly. If you, if you focus like what we're talking about, they'll land where they're supposed to land. You'll have some higher days and lower days. But what you should see is consistency, consistently getting stronger and feeling better and performance going. And then to Sal's point, the body will follow. Yeah, body composition, the aesthetics and the leanness and all that'll follow. But if you keep focused on the hitting, your protein intake, eating, fueling the body. So for performance and stringing as many of those days in a row for your performance, the other stuff will follow.

[B]

That's right. But four meals a day, no less than. Because you need a lot of fuel, dude. You're a big dude and. Yeah, and like I said that in the back of your mind may be like, oh, you know, I'll lose weight, it's okay if I skip a meal here, there, and that's going to send you off in the wrong direction. The other thing too, Chase, if you want, if you want someone to guide you through this, have you thought about working with a coach? Because we have coaches and there's, there's a few I have in mind that I think will work right with you.

[G]

Yeah, yeah, I've heard you guys talking about it on the podcast. I would, I mean, I'd love to sit down and chat with one and see what that looks like.

[B]

Okay.

[G]

For sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[G]

It's funny. Exactly what you guys are saying is exactly what I go through on a daily basis where it's, you know, skip a meal or two and it's difficult. It's, it's, it's hard to get past the obsession of if I don't eat, then I'm gonna lose weight or whatever. But no, no mentality of fueling my, fueling my body and just focusing on being an athlete.

[B]

No, no less than four meals a day. Have fun with Your workouts, you've got it in you movement. Get strong and bro, you'll start to enjoy it. You really have a lot of fun. And your body, I promise your body will look more athletic if you, if you become more athletic. I think working with a coach, I think six months for you would be great. Six to nine months. You would be fire, bro. You would be fire.

[D]

Give you such a better mentality towards this whole thing for sure.

[B]

And they'd guide you through. I'll have somebody call you today, Chase, and then you can ask them all the questions or whatever. But in the meantime, I'm going to send you mass performance if you don't have it. Yeah. And you'll do great, dude. If you, if you kind of remember what we're saying, stay there and don't try and do anything crazy. You'll get there.

[G]

Yeah, I'll stick to it all. I'll change up the, the programming a little bit and focus on what you guys have said.

[B]

Thanks for calling in, brother.

[C]

Yep.

[G]

Thank you guys. I appreciate it very much.

[B]

You got it easy. Yeah, I think especially with an ex athlete and getting back into that kind of like, oh man, it feels good to move. Plus like the main that what happened with his kids, you know, you may confuse that with I need to lose weight. And yes, losing weight may be a part of it, but really what you want, what you're, what you were looking for is ability.

[C]

Oh yeah, exactly.

[B]

Fitness.

[C]

Oh, trust me, there's, there's 350 pound guys that can move faster than me. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, it's not a weight thing, you know. Yes.

[B]

And there's shredded dudes on Instagram that would have had to pause each time because they weren't fit.

[C]

That's right, that's right. And then you let that be your guiding light through this whole process. So, you know, the hardest part with athletes is they tend to be all or nothing.

[B]

That's right.

[C]

And that's why, that's why I said

[B]

coach at the end.

[F]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's also why I made the point too of like, if you're going to use that competitive side of you use it towards consistency around the diet. And, and the fact is we all have bad days. And, and so, but what happens many times is the all or nothing person lets that bad day turn into it. Now it's nothing, you know, and then so hopefully he can. We'll get with a coach and they'll, they'll walk them through all this.

[A]

Our next caller is Ashley from Texas.

[B]

Hi, Ashley.

[E]

Wow, I'm, like, so nervous. I'm so excited to talk to you guys.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

So I wrote in. I did just want to say thank you guys. You've really inspired my fitness journey. And I've done a lot since listening to you guys when I discovered you guys, like, five years ago. So I really appreciate all the information that you guys give, but I wanted to ask a question. So I was feel like I was in pretty good shape a year ago. I was working out five days a week and felt really strong and good. And then I got pregnant and I got hyperemesis gravidarum, which is just, like the most extreme morning sickness. Like, I was basically on bed rest and didn't do any movement other than, like, getting up from my bed to the couch for, like, nine months. And since then, now I'm four months postpartum, and I just don't know what programming I should do to get back into the gym without, like, hurting myself. I feel like an alien in my own body where everything just doesn't feel right. I'm so weak in everything. Just simple movements. Just. I really struggle with again. And I just feel like I've lost all progress. Almost all, everything. And I'm starting from zero.

[C]

That's so glad you called in.

[B]

That's a tough position to be in, Ashley. I've trained women like you in similar situations, and it's very difficult. It's really tough. By the way, my wife was pretty close to that for about four months while she was pregnant with my daughter. So tough. Like, what were you able to eat when I. Because I know. Because I know with my wife, if I just said a food, she'd throw up. Like, was there anything you could eat?

[E]

I mean, it was pretty minimal. I was going and getting, like, IVs, and it would just be random. I don't know, like carrots or something that I could really like. It was just super random, the things that I could. But yeah, I would, like, the microwave would go on and I would be, like, throwing up, and it was horrible.

[B]

Brutal. Brutal. Well, this is the way you feel is totally normal. I have the perfect program for you. It's going to be map starter. And just to encourage you, Ashley, is you have muscle memory, and that's a real thing. So the results will come back faster than you anticipate. The challenge will be not to push too fast, too hard. That's the challenge Map starter. Perfect. That's where you need to go. Just follow that program right there. And it may Feel easy after a few weeks, stay with it. Don't do any other program that we have. Don't add anything to it aside from maybe walking. Just follow Map Starter. And at the end of that, you should feel like you can do more traditional, maybe a couple day a week programs.

[E]

Okay, great, Thanks. I started Anabolic initially and I was. That I was like.

[C]

Felt like I was hurting myself too much at first. You might even run Starter twice based off how you feel. So I would have you go through Starter and then if you were feeling great, I'd say, hey, let's, let's see if we can handle Maps, Animal, Anabolic, and then I'd want feedback from you on how you feel. And if you're like, I'm feeling great, we'll keep going. If you're like, man, this feels still scary. I still don't feel like this is all my body. Like, and I'd be like, back to starter. Let's run starter again. And so really got to go off of how you feel. Probably going to be at least a year before you're even thinking about hitting the gym five days a week. That's a lot of volume for anybody, much less somebody who's postpartum and went through what you went through. So Map Starter at least once. If you still feel uncertain, run it again. You'll be great. And then, and then slowly dip your toe into Anabolic and see how, see how you feel.

[B]

And the way you would do Maps Anabolic if it, if you did follow it afterwards would be to start in pre phase and do that for about five weeks before even going into phase one. Does that make sense?

[E]

Thank you. Yeah, no, definitely. That's so encouraging, even just to hear other people say that it's okay. And it's going to take a while because I'm like, to be back to where I was and it's hard to go from feeling so strong and good to feeling like I can't do anything.

[B]

Ashley, you said a few things and you've said a few things that have been echoed by so many people that I've worked with, so many women. And the common thing that they say you actually said it is I feel like my body's not mine. Super common. So, yeah, don't, don't worry. And what Adam said is accurate. Takes between one to two years before moms fully feel like, okay, I'm back. That doesn't mean you won't progress that entire time. You're going to progress that entire time, but it's going to take A little while because you got to still have. You're gonna have a one year old, you're gonna have all that stuff going on and you're gonna. About one to two years later, you're like, okay, I'm back. I feel good. In which case then you tend to have another baby. But we'll see.

[F]

That was.

[B]

She's like, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Yeah. So we'll send you starter.

[C]

Yep.

[E]

That's awesome. Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

[B]

Thanks, Ashley.

[C]

Yeah, be patient and be in touch if you need help.

[E]

Yep. Okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, you guys. You're awesome. Bye.

[C]

Bye.

[B]

Have you ever worked with a woman who had hyperemesis?

[C]

No, dude, not to that level. Dude, I've had, I've had to go to the hospital. I've had clients that have had like, like through the first trimester, had some really bad, like morning sickness, but not nine months. And IVs, she's just on IVs and

[D]

they're trying to give her nutrients.

[B]

It's like you can't eat anything. It's so extreme. So, so Jessica, what was there was like, mom, there were like, there was like a week within that period. The whole period was rough where she was like hypersensitive to anything. There was like a week there, dude, where I'm like, we're gonna have to, like, we have to get something inside you.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you can't just not eat because she would literally just blah. Like, couldn't do anything. It was just on the couch. It was crazy. Hey, look, if you like Mind Pump, you can find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media.

[A]

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