Diet Masterclass: What To Eat, When To Eat & How To Eat For Longevity | Sal Di Stefano

Summary

Podcast Summary – Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Diet Masterclass: What To Eat, When To Eat & How To Eat For Longevity | Guest: Sal Di Stefano

Date: April 20, 2023

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Overview

In this episode of Impact Theory, Tom Bilyeu sits down with Sal Di Stefano, the mind behind Mind Pump Media and author of The Resistance Training Revolution. Together, they unpack the brutal truths and challenging misconceptions in the fitness and diet industry, focusing on what it really takes to achieve and sustain long-term health. Their discussion traverses the psychological and emotional roots of unhealthy behaviors, the hierarchy of factors influencing health, practical diet strategies, and the importance of mindset and self-respect. This episode is a comprehensive guide to understanding not just what to do for better health and longevity, but why most people fail to keep the weight off, and how behavioral change can really stick.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Obesity and Long-Term Weight Loss: It's Rarely About Diet Alone

• Obesity Is a Choice, but Not an Easy One

  • Sal & Tom start by confronting the provocative notion that “obesity is a choice,” emphasizing that while the path out is difficult, people must recognize agency in their health to progress.
  • “The default of living in a modern society is poor health. The default is obesity. You have to…take conscious steps.” (Sal, 06:06)

• 95% Fail Rate for Long-Term Weight Loss

  • No matter the diet—Mediterranean, keto, carnivore, vegan—the statistics show only about 5% of Americans keep the weight off for years. The core problem is not losing weight, but maintaining it.
    • “Millions of Americans lose weight every year, right? Nobody can keep it off. And this doesn't matter what the diet is…all of them have a similar or the same fail rate.” (Sal, 04:54)

2. Drivers of Health: Psychology Over Physiology

• Sal’s Hierarchy of Health Drivers (12:39):

  1. Lifestyle (sleep, sunlight, stress)
  2. Love (relationships, emotional well-being)
  3. Excuses (mindset, self-talk)
  4. Diet
  5. Muscle mass
  6. Exercise
  7. Hormones
  8. Insulin resistance
  9. Mitochondrial dysfunction
  10. Already accumulated body fat
  • “If you have a bad lifestyle and poor relationships, you can become fanatical about exercise…You’re not going to be healthy.” (Sal, 16:11)

• Therapy Over Nutritionists/Dietitians for Obesity

  • Data shows therapy is more effective than traditional nutrition interventions for sustaining weight loss among those with emotional eating patterns.
  • “Therapy has a higher success rate long term than people who work with dietitians or nutritionists.” (Sal, 07:11)
  • “People aren’t eating to feel good long term. It’s to feel good in the moment or to numb themselves or distract themselves.” (Sal, 11:12)

3. Food as a Drug & The Emotional Web of Eating

• Eating for Emotion, Not Hunger

  • Modern eating is driven by feelings, boredom, convenience, and “palatability” rather than true hunger or nourishment.
  • “We use food rarely as a way to nourish ourselves and rarely do we eat because we're genuinely hungry.” (Sal, 08:35)

• Drug Models of Food Addiction

  • The conversation draws parallels between food and drug abuse, noting societal context and emotional well-being are often deeper drivers than the substance itself.
    • Notable Study: When rats were given stimulating environments with playmates and toys, addiction rates dropped sharply—paralleling how humans in richer environments are less likely to develop food or substance addictions.

4. Breaking the Cycle: The Power of Step-by-Step Change

• Epiphany vs. Habit Formation

  • Tom and Sal argue that while rare “epiphany moments” can create lasting change, most people succeed through incremental, challenging-but-sustainable steps.
  • “There’s two ways to do this sustainably…The majority of people will find success [with] developing the skill of discipline and modifying their behaviors over time.” (Sal, 22:31)

• Behavioral Pyramid: Start Small, Grow Gradually

  • The domino effect: One small, realistic, and challenging habit builds upon itself, growing into a sustainable lifestyle.
    • “Ask yourself…What’s one step I can take today that is realistic forever but also somewhat challenging?” (Sal, 24:09)

• Add, Don’t Just Subtract

  • Instead of forbidding foods, Sal promotes adding positive foods (like sufficient protein or water), allowing natural crowd-out of unhealthy foods over time.
    • “I stopped taking things out. I started adding things…” (Sal, 34:28)

5. Mindset: Desire, Self-Respect, and the Inner Narrative

• Desire Is Essential, But Not Sufficient

  • “The one thing I’ve seen…is that people don’t want it badly enough. It’s a game of desire.” (Tom, 28:24)
  • But: desire must be paired with habit and the right relationship to food/exercise, or people eventually revert.

• Relationship With Self: From Self-Hate to Self-Love

  • “If you go into weight loss from a standpoint of self hate…it becomes a punishment. If instead you choose to love yourself…exercise becomes self-care.” (Sal, 32:10)
  • On self-respect: “You have to do things that you believe are worthy of respect in order to have self-respect.” (Tom, 74:08)

• Four Stages of Learning for Lasting Change (57:13):

  1. Unconscious incompetence (don’t know what you’re missing)
  2. Conscious incompetence (awareness of issues)
  3. Conscious competence (intentionally forming habits)
  4. Unconscious competence (habits become second nature)
  • “If you’re able to do it properly and you do it long enough…then you’ll get [to unconscious competence].” (Sal, 58:30)

6. Practical Diet & Exercise Strategies

• Sal’s ‘All Weather’ Diet Approach (79:41):

  • High protein intake: “Aim for around 1 gram per pound of body weight…If you’re obese, use lean mass.” (Sal, 80:33)
  • Avoid heavily processed foods: Engineered to drive overeating and hijack your neurochemistry.
  • Prioritize fiber: Satiety and gut health.
  • Hydrate well: Half a gallon to a gallon daily tends to support good behavior and energy.
  • Start the day with a high-protein meal: Blunts blood glucose spikes, stabilizes energy.

• Muscle Mass as a Key to Longevity

  • Resistance training is the most powerful tool for improving insulin sensitivity and metabolic health.
  • “Nothing compares to strength training…Strength training controls blood sugar, glucose, insulin sensitivity far, far more effectively.” (Sal, 108:24)
  • Building muscle teaches discipline, self-respect, resilience: “The act of having to do it…teaches you this really powerful lesson at a deep limbic level.” (Tom, 111:12)

• Activity & Glucose: Small Movements Matter

  • Even mild post-meal activity like walking or raising heels can powerfully manage blood glucose levels (109:21).

7. Hormones, Mitochondria, and Longevity

• Lifestyle Before Hormonal Interventions

  • “If your sleep is not great, but you improve your sleep, you'll typically see an improvement in testosterone.” (Sal, 92:20)
  • Optimize sleep, stress, diet, and sunlight before considering interventions like testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).

• TRT: When Necessary, Not as a Shortcut

  • “If lifestyle and behaviors can't solve a particular issue and medical intervention can help, then go that route.” (Sal, 91:52)
  • TRT can be life-changing in genuine deficiency, but isn’t a substitute for healthy living.

• Mitochondria & Insulin: The Emerging Science

  • Muscular activity drives mitochondrial health, improves insulin sensitivity, and potentially guards against brain aging and cognitive decline.
  • Case for strength training as a vital longevity tool.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the burden of modern life:

  • “If you just lived a quote unquote normal life in modern societies, you're going to be sick, unhealthy, and probably overweight. You have to take conscious steps, develop different behaviors, disciplines, structures. You have to be weird…” (Sal, 06:06)

• On emotional eating:

  • “You aren’t eating to feel good long term. It's to feel good in the moment or to numb yourself or distract yourself. And this is a very difficult relationship to break.” (Sal, 11:12)

• On self-love as an action:

  • “Love is an action. I have kids. I don't always feel the feeling of love. Sometimes I want them, I want to kick them out of the house, but I actively love them.” (Sal, 32:10)

• On the flaws in fitness industry messaging:

  • “Fitness space is riddled with bodies that look ripped, that belong to extremely unhealthy, dysfunctional individuals.” (Sal, 16:11)

• On incremental change:

  • “Every step is a step forward. You do have the control, you do have the responsibility. But we have to do this in a way that is sustainable.” (Sal, 22:31)

• On true body positivity:

  • “Acceptance is more like this. Yeah, this is, this is what I look like. This is what's going on…Now it's time to take care of myself...Body positivity and self care is okay. Now it's time to take care of myself.” (Sal, 74:08)

• On earning self-respect:

  • “You can’t stare in the mirror and say, I love you, I love you, I love you. You’ve got to go do something that you already think is cool, that you think is valuable.” (Tom, 111:12)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Obesity as a Choice; Modern health challenges – [01:00–06:10]
• 95% Failure Rate & Psychological Drivers – [04:54, 12:38]
• Drug Model of Food – [08:29–12:38]
• Sal’s Hierarchy of Health Factors – [12:39]
• Exercise: Motivation vs. Sustainability – [16:38–24:09, 22:31]
• Building Habits (Small Steps, Adding vs. Subtracting Foods) – [24:09, 34:28]
• Mindset, Self-love, and Respect – [32:10, 74:08]
• Four Stages of Learning/Behavior Change – [57:13]
• Diet Recommendations (Protein, Processed Foods, Water) – [79:41–86:44]
• Strength Training & Insulin Sensitivity – [106:23–111:12]
• Self-Development via Fitness – [113:15]

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Conclusion

This episode transcends quick fixes and fads, diving deep into the underlying psychological and systemic issues that keep people from sustainable health change. Sal and Tom blend compassion, lived experience, and scientific insight to strip away the “fitspo” illusions and reveal that longevity comes from prioritizing relationships, discipline, and self-respect above fads, quick hacks, or punishment-based motivation. Actions, not just intentions, are what shape both your body—and your life.

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Follow Sal Di Stefano: Mind Pump Media (link)

Host: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory

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For those seeking transformative health change: Start with your mindset, commit to sustainable habits, and build a relationship with health rooted in self-care—not self-punishment.

Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm really excited to have the man behind Mind Pump Media, Sal DeStefano joining me for today's episode. Sal is known for giving the raw truth about health and fitness. He's all about delivering truth and exposing lies in this crazy industry. From his podcast Mind Pump, with millions of downloads a month to his book the Resistance Training Revolution, Sal is helping men and women spot the fitness lies and see what it truly takes to achieve long lasting health. Sal explains the top two drivers he identifies in your ability to lose weight and get healthy, and neither one is diet or exercise, which, I'm telling you, sounds as crazy as it is. We talk about why millions of Americans lose weight every year, but fewer than 50,000 people actually maintain their weight loss. If you're making food choices based on taste and convenience instead of what it does to your body, or if you're doing a ton of cardio and not seeing the results that you want, or you haven't embraced the brutally difficult truth that obesity and poor health is ultimately a choice that you're making every day, then this episode is going to blow you away. And if you hear even one tip you can implement right now and want more conversations like this. Make sure you're following the show so you never miss an episode and you're one of the first people to know when a new episode is released. It's the best way to support this podcast so that we can help other people just like you reach their full potential. I'm Tom Bilyeu and welcome to Impact Theory. Obesity is a choice. This doesn't mean it's easy to solve, but it is a choice. You must accept this or you will never solve this problem. Yeah, all right, I agree with that wholeheartedly and I Know how much you care about people. So I don't want people shutting down or thinking that you're being a jerk. It's just like, this is a problem that you can unwind and it is a problem that you created for yourself. Again, lies abound. Lies in the food pyramid, lies that we tell ourselves, lies that our parents raise us with, all that. But. So the list that I gave you, in terms of what people need to understand, what they're going to have to unwind, and then I had you put it in order. So in no particular order, this was the list. Diet, exercise, which for what we're talking about, we'll call cardio. Already accumulated fat, which I don't think people understand is, is a, it's a organ and it signals hormonally and all kinds of stuff. Muscle mass excuses, insulin resistance, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormones, lifestyle, which for this I'm going to say is sleep, sunlight and stress. And then love, relationships, joy, joy for life, something a hobby that you really love. All right, that was the list. So in terms of things that get people there and keep them stuck, what's the order?

[Sal DeStefano]

All the things that you listed contribute, but a couple of them contribute to the rest. There's a couple of them that are drivers to all of them. So first I want to address the tweet that I sent out. And I say that with the most compassion. I made a career, I mean, two and a half decades of working with people, trying to help them improve their health. And anytime you're trying to change anything, you have to. You absolutely. Especially if you want to do it long term, you have to accept the things that you can't change. And you, but you also have to take the responsibility for things you can. So that feeling of empowerment is crucial to long term success. Like, there was one indicator, one predictor of whether or not a client that I worked with would be able to get that long term success, which by the way, is less than 5%. If you look at all the data on weight loss diets and attempts to lose weight, it's like a 95% fail rate. It's, it's dismal. And it doesn't matter is that initial

[Tom Bilyeu]

weight loss or long term. Like you actually can't.

[Sal DeStefano]

This is like within a couple years. So you lose the weight and then you gain it back. That's like 95%. And I would stretch it out to even higher if you were to go stretch that timeline out even further. I mean, millions of Americans lose weight every year, right? Nobody can keep it Off. And this doesn't matter what the diet is, right? By the way, they compare all diets, diets that are considered healthy, like Mediterranean diets that are extreme, like carnivore veganism, you know, fasting, you name it, all of them have a similar or the same fail rate. Okay? So the problem is not losing weight. The problem is keeping it off. And the challenge is like, what's, what's happening? What is it that is preventing people from being able to positively impact their health and then maintain that process or maintain that type of relationship that keeps them there? And that was the problem that I worked on and tried to solve for years and years and years. You have to start with believing that there are things that you can control and accepting that those things are your responsibility and saying, okay, now that doesn't make it easy at all. It's still hard as heck. Obviously, modern society is. The default of living in a modern society is poor health. The default is obesity. You have to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's really terrifying.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's 100%. If you just lived a quote unquote normal life in modern societies, you're going to be sick, unhealthy, and probably overweight. Okay? So you have to take conscious steps, develop different behaviors, disciplines, structures. You have to be weird in the sense that you're not going to be like most people in order to live differently, in order to break free from the default, which is sick, unhealthy, and obese. You accept that there's things that you can change, control, accept that this is my responsibility. Doesn't make it easy, but you got to start there. And then let's talk about that list that you sent me. So you went through all those different things. There are two things that contribute to the rest. Now. I remember years ago, as a trainer, I first started out thinking that losing weight would help people become happy. I later took me 10 years to figure out that you first had to learn how to be happy before you could really lose the weight and keep it off forever. That's really the direction of where things go. When you look at data on people working with dietitians or nutritionists versus people working with therapists, we're talking about obese people. Therapy has a higher success rate long term than people who work with dietitians or nutritionists. Let me restructure this. Let me paint a different context. When you're eating and living in a way that is making you severely obese and giving you poor health, it's not unlike somebody that has a poor relationship with, let's say alcohol. So let's say you have a friend that has got a bad relationship with alcohol. They're an alcoholic and from the outside it's easy for you to look at them and say, God, why can't they just see that they're killing themselves? Like, why can't they stop doing this? It's very similar to when somebody's, let's say 60 pounds overweight. It's like, what is going on? Why can't they care for themselves in a way that's going to make them feel better? Why can't they take care of themselves like somebody who deserves to be taken care of? That's the root of what's going on. We use food rarely as a way to nourish ourselves and rarely do we eat because we're genuinely hungry. Most people in modern societies never really feel true hunger. We don't go more than a day without food for most people.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, I think the right way to think about food is it is a drug that you have to take every day to survive.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's one way.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But it has drug like effects 100%.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that's one very accurate way to look at it. So if you look at all the reasons why people eat, it's usually because of feelings. I'm anxious, sad, depressed, happy, or because I'm bored or as a distraction. We develop a relationship with food in modern societies that revolves around palatability mostly. How good does it taste, how does it make me feel while I'm eating it? And maybe convenience. Those are the two main things. And so our relationship is almost entirely revolved or developed around those two things. This is why when people are with each other and they say, hey, what do you want to have for lunch? It's an interesting conversation. Well, I feel like this, or what about that? Or it's what they're, what they're using to regulate or consider what they're going to eat next. Is those two things palatability, convenience, maybe fun. And that's about it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting. I want to push on this a little bit. So when I think about therapy being more effective than going and working with a trainer or a dietitian, that brings me back to this idea of it's a drug like effect. So last year is the first time in my life where I've ever been so stressed that I found myself wanting to manipulate my neurochemistry. And I was like, whoa. So now I understand how people get here because I was like, this is really intolerable. And if I didn't have rules in my life. If I didn't have meditation, if I didn't have a healthy relationship with my wife, if I didn't have a healthy relationship with food, I. I would have really gotten myself into trouble. And it was the first time where I was like, oh, this is the. People get into a neurochemical state that is so unpleasant, they will do anything to get themselves out of that. They will smoke weed, they will drink alcohol, they will. Sex addiction, food addiction, all of it like that. They have to change that neurochemical state. There's something though, when I say that it's like a drug that I can tell doesn't quite click into place like a puzzle piece for you, but for me that sounds right. What is it you think that I'm missing that is still congruent with the idea that therapy is the most useful treatment?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So what you're saying, by the way, that it's like a drug is 100% correct. The reason why what you're reading is that it doesn't maybe fit 100% is because when we use the word drug, the understanding that people have or the, I guess the knee jerk reaction is, oh, that's negative. Because food can also be quite positive, by the way. So can drugs. Drugs can also have profound positive effects as well. But when we say it in that context, we're like, oh my God, it's negative.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm saying all this though in the context of someone is obese and they are stuck.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes. No, you're, you're 100% right. They aren't eating to feel good long term. It's to feel good in the moment or to numb themselves or distract themselves. And this is a very difficult relationship to break. In fact, if you look at the studies on drug addiction, which we can put food addiction in this category. When you look at the studies on drug addiction with the old ones on mice, they would put mice in a cage and then they'd give them water or cocaine laced water, and the mouse would just drink the cocaine laced water until it died. And so they said, oh, these are so powerfully addicting that you can't control yourself. Well, later on, scientists said, hold on a second, this is a mouse stuck in a cage. Let's create an environment where they have playmates, where there's lots of space, there's lots of things for them to do. And what they found is the addiction rate dropped significantly. So the substance wasn't necessarily the problem. It was the state of mind that drove the animal or human to this type of abuse. So what we need to do if we're looking for long term success is stop considering or stop thinking of humans as machines where we can put inputs and then it just follows directions. And remember that we're these emotion driven, behavior based creatures. And so when you gave me that list, I put at the top two, which drive everything else. All the other stuff in order, in order.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, let's hear.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'll give you number one. Yeah, I wrote them all down. So lifestyle, first love, then comes excuses, and then the rest are important, but the order of them isn't as important. Then it goes diet, muscle mass, exercise, hormones, insulin resistance, mitochondrial dysfunction, and then already accumulated body fat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, all right, hold on. So I got lifestyle, love, excuses, diet,

[Sal DeStefano]

muscle, and then exercise, hormones.

[Tom Bilyeu]

People have got to be freaking out. The exercise is that low.

[Sal DeStefano]

I know. Insulin resistance, mitochondrial dysfunction, and then already accumulated body fat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Last one is body fat.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Okay, so interesting. Yeah. And I'll explain this and it'll start to make sense. Okay, so why did I put lifestyle and love at the top? Those two things drive behaviors. If your stress is dysfunctional, if you don't get lots of sunlight, you get poor sleep, those are very, very strong behavior drivers that will drive your behaviors to comfort, distract, seek out foods or activities that in the moment might make you feel better, but in the long term aren't so great. Love is right up there as well. Love has, or lack of love has profound negative effects on our health and amazing effects on our behaviors. There was a study done within the last 10 years where they showed that having poor relationships was as bad for your health as smoking 10 cigarettes a day. So you could be a health fanatic but also have terrible relationships and you might as well be smoking 10 cigarettes a day.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you know what the mechanism of action is like? Is it that it raises your blood pressure or something like that? Do we know all of the above?

[Sal DeStefano]

When you look at the, the physiological effects of poor relationships, all of the physiological measures that we can measure decline. All of them. Immune function, hormone, hormones become imbalanced, sleep becomes dysregulated, neurochemical balance becomes dysregulated. We're such social creatures that it's in the Geneva Convention. Isolating someone for too long is considered inhumane. This is, these are prisoners of war. Okay? That's how, that's how terrible it is for us. Now, this list is linear, but it's actually more of a circle. Okay. Because all those other things that I listed, when those start to go downhill, when I start to not be active, when I start to lose muscle mass as a result of it, when my mitochondrial function starts to become dysfunctional, when I start to develop insulin resistance, when I develop, when I gain more body fat. And then that body fat starts to signal my body through hormones and chemicals. What it does then is it goes right back to affecting my lifestyle, affecting the relationships that I have, which then also affect all those other things. And. And it actually becomes a positive feedback loop. So for people who don't understand what a positive feedback loop is, it's like when you have a microphone and a speaker and you put the mic close to the speaker and it gets real loud because the microphone picks up the noise of the speaker. The speaker then projects it, and it just gets super loud. So when you get into that spiral, it gets really, really hard to break. Now, this isn't to say that you need to just focus on lifestyle and love and everything else will follow exercising alone, if you do it in the right way and that I just want

[Tom Bilyeu]

to remind people how low exercise is on your list.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, yeah. Again, if you have a bad lifestyle and poor relationships, you can become fanatical about exercise. You can become orthorexic about your diet. You're not going to be healthy. We're talking about health here. Okay? You're not going to be healthy. And I know plenty of people like this in my space, in the fitness space. Fitness space is riddled with body. Bodies that look ripped, that belong to extremely unhealthy, dysfunctional individuals.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so where. If. If somebody is obese. First of all, for anybody that's listening to this as a podcast, Sal's jacked. It's important to note. And for anybody that is obese and they're looking at somebody that's in shape, it. I think they would need to understand what. Under the amazing outward appearance, where they do look healthy.

[Sal DeStefano]

What.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What isn't going well?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's. That's a really, really good question. You know, one of the biggest challenges, this is where I feel for people who struggle with obesity. Well, there's lots of reasons why I feel for them, but this is one big one. Obesity is a very outward, visible, obvious sign of poor health or dysfunction.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'll say if we can tie it back to lifestyle. When I see somebody that's overweight, I know they're struggling emotionally. I don't wonder. I know, right?

[Sal DeStefano]

But like a gambling addiction, can't always see it. A drug addiction, a lot of times you can't see it. Someone has a sex addiction Terrible relationships, other dysfunction they could present themselves and at first glance they're like, oh, they're okay. But if you're walking around 80 pounds overweight, you know, there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of assumptions and you're, it's like you're wearing your challenges on, on, on your sleeve. It's, it's out for everyone to look at. So it makes it even more challenging, I would say. But okay, so you look at somebody and they look ripped. You're on Instagram. Oh, wow, look at that person. They're super ripped. But what you might not know is that person abuses their body through over exercise. That the relationship with diet is not a healthy one. It's extremely restrictive, it's very orthorexic, lots of stress around their food. If it's not perfect, if I'm not hitting the right macronutrients, oh my God, I'm going to be going on vacation or what am I going to eat? I'm going to that restaurant. I can't go there. I can't enjoy birthday parties. I don't like going out with anyone unless they're fanatics like I am. So it's this unhealthy relationship that on the surface appears to be because you look at someone and we've learned to glorify extreme bodies as healthy. Oftentimes drug abuse. Drugs that make the person feel better, that don't have calories. You'll see a lot of drug abuse with the fitness space that isn't alcohol because alcohol makes you fat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So what drugs are popular?

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh gosh, any drug that doesn't have calories, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, you name doesn't make me gain body fat, so I'll abuse it. And then pharmaceutical performance enhancing drugs, anabolic steroids, growth hormones, appetite suppressants and the like. So they can be very unhealthy and be quite miserable even though they appear. And this is one of my gripes with the fitness industry. There's so much bad information that comes out of the fitness. I'd say majority of the information that comes out is bad. And a lot of the reason why it's bad part of it, it's consumer driven. We want the quick fix, easy answer. But a lot of it is that the information that we get is coming from these fitness fanatic orthorexics. These are people who don't understand what it's like to be normal. They're obsessive about their lifestyle and so they're communicating to the everyday average person. And so what do you hear? You hear stuff like, beast mode. No days off. Food is fuel. I don't even taste the food. I just eat what I need to nourish my body. Type of deal, which I could see for some high performers might have some value. Look, you're a high performer in business. I think you know what I'm talking about when it comes to that. You have this, another gear that you could turn on. But I think when the average person hears that, first of all, either they're like, oh, that's what I got to do. And that doesn't work because they're not that fanatical, or it turns them off completely, you know?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I want to talk about that for a second. Okay, going back, people are obese. They're stuck. There are lies running around in their head. A lot of those lies are being told to them by them. They've absorbed some things through other people. But I want to go back to your tweet, and it's like, okay, I come from a morbidly obese family. When I say that I love these people, I love these people. So in no way do I disparage people that are in this gnarly situation. But I really want people to understand that when somebody says, go beast mode, go ham, all that, it will work. And if you do it and you can sustain it, like, there is something I don't ever want to say, hey, this really hardcore mentality, it's not gonna work. I love that shit. I love people going ham and pushing themselves and like, dude, I want to be the greatest of all time. And one of the things that drives me crazy is when everybody's like, the tyranny of low expectations, like, oh, you're overweight. Oh, man, you're never gonna make it. Don't worry. Like, aim low. And of course people don't say that, but it's like, hey, aspire to something that you are inspired by that you really would be prepared to just go after for a very long period of time. But understand that you have to find a thread and you begin pulling it. And so just anchoring back around lifestyle. Lifestyle was sleep, sun, and stress, which you said is everything is downstream of that. And so people like, I don't want to give people low expectations. I want them to aspire to something great. But then I want them to take one step at a time. So I know that being a trainer for as long as you were really beat you down, because a lot of people give up. And so I've heard you say a lot that, like, my goal is to get people to do two or three days a week and they'll sustain it. I really have a hard time with that.

[Sal DeStefano]

I know. You know why you have a hard time with that? How many Tom Bilyeus do you think exist in the world or people like you? You are literally one in a million. So those messages that you hear, the beast mode and aspire and they resonate with you because that's who you are. There's two ways to do this sustainably. Okay, there's two ways. One which is extremely rare, which you fall into, is the epiphany. This is the moment. That's it. That light switch. And it could be anything. It could be trauma. It could be. You just decided it could be an event. Someone had a heart attack. My friend died from cancer. Sometimes you see this and they're just like, that's it. I'm never going to be the way I was before. That's extremely rare. Extremely rare. I know more people who've had heart attacks, more people who've lost people to poor health who didn't have that epiphany, than people who have and it stuck with them. So you're a rare individual. Now, here's where the majority of people are. It's the developing the skill of discipline and modifying and changing their behaviors over time. This is where a majority of people will find success. I am not saying aim low. I'm saying if you want to climb the mountain, there is a way to get there. And it's a step by step process. And every step is a step forward. You do have the control, you do have the responsibility. But we have to do this in a way that is sustainable. And the only way to do so is to take this step by step approach. Now, the reason why I say my goal is to get people to develop a relationship with exercise, where they're doing it two or three days a week, is because in my experience, the average person who is not the ultra driven, high performing, high achiever, you know, rarity, the average person wants exercise to improve the quality of their life. And they don't want to do it all the time. They want to go to work. Not because they want to, you know, be the most successful person in the world, but they just, they. They want to do something they kind of enjoy, but they want to go back to their house and enjoy their family and le and lead that kind of a life. And there's nothing wrong with that. So those are the people that I'm talking to now. If you were my client, Tom, you came to hire me, you'd be easy. You'd be the easiest client in the world. I know I would know exactly how to train you. I tell you what to do and you do it. And you'd show up as many days a week as I told you and however many times a day I told you to show up. In my 25 years of working with people, I can say I've had like two or three clients like that. The vast majority that wouldn't work. And I'm a. I can be very inspirational motivational speaker and communicator. And in my early days as a trainer, that's what I tried to do, is I tried to turn everybody into a Tom or a me in that regard. And I was successful at getting people on board. Terrible fail rate long term. And again, the data is super clear on this. So how do we get the average person to become healthy? How do we get the average person to lead us a lifestyle that's balanced, that improves their longevity, makes them feel better, balances out the hormones, get them to a body fat percentage or body composition that is sustainable but healthy, improves their mobility, gives them energy. How do we get those people to do so? It's a different conversation. It's more of a conversation like, you know, like, like this. Take. Ask yourself the following questions. And I've said this so many times, I think I even said it last time I was on your show. What's one step I can take today that is realistic forever but also somewhat challenging? It's got to be challenging because otherwise it doesn't mean anything. But it's got to be realistic forever because otherwise I am going to set myself up for failure. 95%. Okay, whatever that step is, there's no wrong answer. There is no wrong answer. So it could be, I'm going to drink an extra glass of water. It could be I'm going to walk five minutes a day. Now, is that ultimately what's going to lead them to this healthy lifestyle? If they just did that? No, probably not. But what it does, and in my experience is they do that and they do it and they. And it becomes a consistent behavior. They develop a good relationship with it, and then on their own, naturally, they ask themselves again, it usually happens within a few months. What's the next step that I can take? What else can I do? And over time, this trend becomes a snowball. And over time we develop this relationship where I'm never going to stop taking care of myself. I enjoy this. I'M never going to stop eating in a way that's healthy because I want to. Not because I'm feeling forced, but because this is something that is caring for me, that I'm caring for myself. That's the direction that takes people there long term. Everything else is good luck. I could give people all the answers. I could give them the cheat sheets, what I used to do, and it just doesn't work. It's hard, it's almost impossible. This is a skill that takes time to develop. And again, the epiphany when you say

[Tom Bilyeu]

this is a skill.

[Sal DeStefano]

What's this, this relationship with yourself, with exercise, with nutrition, with lifestyle, that is healthy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so going back to give a counterpoint to that and I want to fully acknowledge that the number of people that you've seen in this context is extraordinary. And so I don't want to diminish the just you've tested this idea against real world people. What I come back to, so I get the same kind of thing through Impact Theory University, but it's not usually about the body, it's about the mind. So think of it as is goals that aren't the body. So you've dealt with goals that are the body. And I deal endlessly with goals that aren't the body. And the one thing I've seen over and over and over is that people don't want it badly enough. It's a game of desire. And there were two things as you were talking that I wrote down. One was desire, that people just, they have to want that thing. And the problem with fat loss, the reason I think that people lose fat, but then they gain it back is consistency. Like people don't understand. Like when it comes to success in business, they can do what I tell them for two weeks, but can they do it for two years? And even if they can't, two years is nothing. Can you do it for two decades? So every time I put my head down and I'm like, I have to get this person to change their behavior, I come back every time to they've got to want it badly enough and then they have to see results. Now the thing like that, I want to scream into the fucking camera and get people to hear me. If you eat right, you will feel awesome. But there, there is this window for me, it was about three weeks where when I started eating well, which I will say is whole food and don't eat things that spike your glucose. If you do those two things, oh my God, like you're going to be in great Shape. But for three weeks it was miserable. And I remember going to my wife and saying, if I ate a cookie right now, I would feel better. I have a headache. This is fucking stupid. Like, I. I just want to eat a cookie. And my wife is like, you can keep whining about it, or you can realize that if you keep going down this path, you will break your addiction to sugar. And supposedly, because this is a long time ago now, it's like, so commonplace that people understand metabolic flexibility, the difference between burning sugar and burning ketones. And. Ah, but I didn't know any of that. But she was like, look, supposedly on the other side of this, you're not addicted to sugar anymore, and those headaches will go away. So either eat that cookie and stop complaining or get to the other side of this. My wife can be really cut and dry sometimes.

[Sal DeStefano]

I fucking love it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so I was like, yeah, you're right. I'm not going to eat the cookie. And then I woke up one day and I was like, I feel different. It was so on off. Like, I went from headaches. This is miserable. To waking up one day and being like something is different. And like, I. There is a person I'm thinking about right now that I love very much, Sal. Very much. And every time I see them, they are in tears over how much they hurt. They don't feel good. And they. They'll even say, I know, I know, it's my diet. And I'm like, for three weeks. Just for three weeks. Because if they get that result and they start feeling better now, they want it. And once they want it, nobody has to tell me to eat well anymore because I don't like the way I feel when I don't eat well. And I'm lucky enough to be old enough that if I eat something bad, my skin will start to itch, my joints will hurt. And so I'm like, I know how much I can get away with. So I never eat more than that because I don't want to be itchy, or I don't want my joints to hurt, or I don't want my sleep disrupted. I don't want brain fog. Oh, my God. So. But ultimately, what I really want people to hear, or for you to smash me down and say, I'm out of my mind because I am very open. If you can open a door to me and I can see a way to helping people that I don't currently see, they've got to do something to build the desire. And if they fail to build the Desire, they will never get beyond the, like, doing enough.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. There's a lot of truth in what you're saying, but you have to ask yourself this, right? How many people became sober and then went back? How many people lost weight, improved their health, felt better, and then went back? So it's like, what's going on? They got the result. They felt better, they felt healthy, and yet they went back to what they were doing before that made them feel so crappy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Can you say in a single sentence what you think happens?

[Sal DeStefano]

They didn't build the right relationship with what they were doing. So I'll, I'll give you an example. Okay, let's say I go into weight loss from a standpoint of self hate. I hate my body, I'm gross. Exercise is now a punishment. Diet is now restrictive. So while I'm eating better, it's restrictive. I can't have that. I can't have that. I can't have that. Exercise in the beginning is cathartic because I'm punishing myself. This is why people initially love working out to exhaustion. They leave crawling out of the gym. Wow, that was a great workout, right? They commiserate over how hard the workout was with their friend. But then eventually it's like, this sucks. Who could possibly enjoy beating themselves up every time they work out? So the relationship they built with this lifestyle, although their health has improved, although they move better, what they're focusing on, you know, what you shine the light on is what you, what you see. Right? What they're focusing on is, this is punishment. This is restrictive. This sucks. Now let's flip that instead of saying, I hate my body, I'm gross. Like, I love myself, by the way. This is not a feeling. It's not like the joy, the love feeling. Love is an action. I have kids. I don't always feel the feeling of love. Sometimes I want them, I want to kick them out of the house, but I actively love them. Okay? So it's an action you have to choose. Oftentimes, if you've been married for a long time, anybody who's done that for a long time knows it's a choice sometimes. So I can look in the mirror and say, I need to start loving myself. I need to start taking care of myself. I deserve to be cared for by the person who is most responsible for me, which is myself. Now exercise becomes self care. Now nutrition becomes self care. It's no longer restrictive. I can't, I can't, I can't. It's. You know what? I don't want that. I actually don't want that. Going to the gym is no longer punishment. It's self care. You show up the gym and you go, all right, what can I do to like, take care of myself? Sometimes it's hard workouts, sometimes it's easy workouts, sometimes it's stretching, sometimes it's cardio, sometimes it's strength training. You're actually trying to care for yourself now. You've developed a relationship with the behaviors that lead to the healthy, fit body. Because it's the behaviors that lead to that. It's not, it's not the effect, it's not the result that leads to the behaviors, it's the behaviors that lead to the result. That's how it typically works. So now I want to care for myself now when I eat, I want to care for myself now. I've developed a relationship with those things where, look, I crave healthy food. I know people hearing this might be like, what are you talking about? No, no. I know pizza tastes better than a fresh salad. Like, I know the palatability of pizza is through the roof. But I've developed a relationship with food to where I also know all the other values that that salad may bring me. I feel better, my skin is better, my energy is better, I feel sharper, my digestion is better. That pizza is going to taste amazing. But I know all the other stuff that comes along with it. So when I'm sitting down and I'm offered both 9 out of 10 times, I don't want the pizza. Not I can't have it. That's very different. I don't want it. I do want the salad, you know, 10. But Tom, this took me 10 years to figure out. I trained people. I. I apologize to all the people I trained the first 10 years I was a trainer. Sounds terrible, but I remember early on, or for those first 10 years, I should say first decade, when, when I would look at people's diets and change their diets, I would take things away, okay, write down what you eat over the next two weeks. And then they bring it to me and I'd look at it, okay, we're going to cut this out. We're going to cut that out. We're going to cut this out. And it was a terrible long term approach. I mean, if they listened to me, they would do it. We'd see results. And then everybody eventually went back. Everybody. Later on, I stopped taking things out. I started adding things. And you might think, well, how does that make any sense? You're trying to get someone to lose weight. What do you mean you're adding things? I added things that I knew would contribute to the behaviors that would then get them to take things out of their diet. So I'll give you some simple examples. I would say, hey, look, eat, continue eating the way you are. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to hit these protein targets every day. So here's what we're gonna have to do. We're gonna have to add protein to every meal to hit your whatever, 130 grams of protein a day. So that's going to be 40 grams of protein plus a protein shake. So when you eat your breakfast, lunch and dinner, I don't care what else you eat, but before you eat whatever you eat, hit the 40 grams of protein, then eat the rest. Now why would that work? Protein is very satiating. Protein controls blood sugar, contributes to behaviors that make you eat less, gives you more sustainable energy. So when they would do that, you know what I would find? They would end up eating less. Here's another one. I would say, hey, do whatever you're doing, continue doing it. But I want you to drink almost a gallon of water a day. Let's, let's hit that target every single day. There's no fat burning miracle properties of water aside from, you know, if you need to get the right amount of water. But I knew when they would do that, they wouldn't drink anything else that had calories. They had to drink a gallon of water. You know how hard that is to do for most people. And it also helped with cravings, satiety, energy, inflammation, those types of things.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Sal DeStefano]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

This is a great strategy. Without denying that I will say it is sidestepping, that therapy is more effective. So when I asked if you could describe in a single sentence what you think is going wrong, the single sentence I have is that this is a neurochemical Problem people are trying. They have an emotional issue, and they are manipulating their neurochemistry. And the reason I think people rebound. So I know somebody that was sober for a very long time, 30 years, and then they relapsed. And if I told that story to a therapist and said, what do you know about that person? They're going to say something stressful happened, and the answer is yes. And if it's a breakup, if it's a career failure, whatever things happen in the mind that people go, I can't feel this way. And going back to, you know, one of the really brutal things about being overweight is that everyone can see that you're struggling with something emotional. But there are other ways that people can begin to develop that healthier relationship therapy is one of them, but then the other is feeling good, which we talked about. But the other is a compelling future. And so what do you think the role of compelling future is? Like, I am excited about something, and I'm willing to fight for that something.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's all, you know. You said we're sidestepping therapy. What I said about adding things, I learned from therapist, I. I had huge growth as a coach and trainer, working concurrently with therapists, with clients. And it started with clients that I would get that were recovering from eating disorders. So I'd get people who are recovering anorexics or bulimics, and they would come to me, hire me, and I'd say, do you mind if I work with your therapist? Because I'm a trainer, I'm not a therapist, and I would work with the therapist with these people. And I learned a lot, a lot about how to be effective through my vehicle, which was fitness. And that's one of the things that I learned was the psychology that we have around restricting can be so powerful. Tell people to take things away, and it's hard. Tell people to add things, and it tends to be a little easier because it doesn't feel.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So they're rebelling against the instruction, the rebellion. Don't tell me what I can't eat.

[Sal DeStefano]

Absolutely. By the way, speaking of rebelling, you know why people, when they go off a diet, they don't, like, just go back to what they were doing before. There's a period of, like, where they went worse. They go worse than what they were doing before. You ever notice that? It's like they don't go off the diet and eat, like one cookie. They go off the diet and eat a box of cookies, make themselves sick. It's because they're Rebelling against their own selves, their own tyrannical identity. That was telling them, you will punish yourself with exercise, you will restrict your diet, and then eventually that inner child or whoever feels like they're being punished, who's like. At first they're like, yes, you deserve to be punished, but eventually is like, I don't wanna live this way anymore. Breaks free. And like a teenager doesn't just go back to what they were doing before actually over corrects.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Did the therapist ever give you anything around how to get them to stop feeling they need to punish themselves?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, absolutely. You have to connect. One of the biggest mistakes people make with exercise is obsessing over the scale. That's a metric. It's not. It's not. It's an important one. So I'm not going to downplay it and say it's not important. But it's not the only metric. There's lots of things that exercise and nutrition positively impact that, for lack of a better term, most people are not even aware of because all they're focused on is the scale. In fact, people are so focused on the scale that they'll sacrifice their health in order to make the scale go down. They'll actually make themselves feel worse. But they're like, oh, it's working because the scale is going down, not even paying attention to all the other things. So I used to really help people connect the dots to all the other things that were happening. So it's like, okay, the scale hasn't moved over the last couple of weeks. But how was your sleep? How was your energy? How's your skin? Have you noticed any changes in productivity? What about your moods? What about your libido? And then they come back and be like, you know what? Yeah, actually, I'm sleeping, like, way better than I was before. And, you know, I feel more patient with my kids. You know, I remember I had this one gentleman that I trained. He was very successful entrepreneur and he had a tough relationship with exercise, but he was this very disciplined entrepreneur. That used to always confuse me, by the way, where as a trainer, early trainer, I thought it was just people were just lazy. And then I realized, like, these are some pretty successful people that are hiring. I mean, to hire a personal trainer, you have to have expendable income. So most of them were doing pretty well. I thought, oh, they're not lazy. There's something else that's going on. They obviously crush it in other areas of life.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They are lazy just in that area.

[Sal DeStefano]

In that area. But. But there. But how can I get that carryover. You know, it's like they're not just generally lazy people. Like, what's going on here, right? So I had this gentleman who was a successful entrepreneur, and I remember when this connection happened to him, and I knew, like, this guy's never going to stop. Now he came to me and he goes, sal, I am giving the best sales presentations I've given in years. And he goes. And I realize, because I feel so much better from exercise. And that's what I knew. This guy's not going to stop. Now the thing that he loves most, he is now connected to the fact that he's exercising. Which, by the way, there isn't a single. And this is a great selling point for most people, there isn't a single thing in your life, nothing, that will not improve if you improve your health. Nothing. Agreed. Partner. You'll be a better partner. Entrepreneur. You'll be more productive, more innovative. You'll have better ideas. You'll be able to work harder. Sleep gets better, Libido improves. Hormone profile improves. You're a parent, you'll become a better parent because your health improves. On the other end of that, there isn't a single thing in your life that won't become worse if your health declines. So why is this important? Well, we talked about the scale. Okay. All right. Well, so the scale is one metric. Let's look at everything. Maybe you didn't lose any weight and you've been working out for three months because you still haven't figured out the right amount of calories. You're still kind of overeating, but you're exercising. Maybe making some different choices with food that were better than before. What other things can you look at? What other things have you noticed those are also very important. Pay attention to those things as well. Then you start to develop this broad, complete picture of what's happening through this process. Then you start to develop this full relationship, this balanced relationship that then stays with you for the rest of your life. I'll tell you what. If you were to take 100 people who have been consistently appropriately exercising for 10 years, people who are consistent with it, people who've developed a good relationship with it, tell them to list the top five reasons why they continue to do it. And I bet you how they look won't make the top five. I bet you number one has to do with something mental. I feel better. I have better energy. It makes me more positive or helps my depression or anxiety. How they look won't make the top five trip off that. And yet the number one reason why people approach exercise is to change how they look. Here's something that I've said on my show many, many times, and this one, I remember when I first said it. It's like people. It resonated so strongly, and I realized that I was taking this for granted. If you chase aesthetics, you will eventually lose your health, and then you will lose the aesthetics. If you chase health, you'll get health, and then you'll get those aesthetics. Your body is a reflection of your health. And if you compromise your health to accomplish this look that you're looking for, then you'll have neither. Eventually, you'll lose both. I learned that the hard way. You mentioned my microbiome gut issues. I learned that the age of 31, when I had sacrificed my health for the pursuit of trying to look, you know, ripped or buffed or whatever, and I lost a lot of my health. And then my. I started losing muscle and started feeling terrible. And I had a whole year where I had to, like, completely change how I looked at things. And thankfully, it was a blessing. I look back and it was a terrible time. But I'm so, so grateful that I had that because it really shaped and molded the voice that I have now on my show and how I communicate health and fitness to. To most people. So the, the way I'm talking about health and fitness is, I believe strongly the way that we need to communicate it to the average person. It is not easy. I'm not saying that. You know, what I am saying is this, is that if you want to get there, you want to do it long term. You have to work on the why, not as much as the how. The how is important. What I do for exercise, what I eat, all that also contributes to the, you know, the why and the drivers. But let's, let's start to look at the why. Why am I doing this? What's making me do the things that I do? Why am I reaching for the. The. The. The slice of, you know, cake or pizza instead of the thing that I know that'll make me feel better? Why am I not getting up to move? Why am I allowing myself to. To make my health worse? What's going on here? This is not an easy process. It is a process of awareness. But as you move through this process, you'll get there. You'll totally get there. And there's. There are. And I don't want to make it sound so esoteric. I can give specific ways that'll help a person get there. Like I'll give you one example. A lot of unhealthy behaviors become impulsive behaviors. Impulse is just under consciousness, it's just under awareness. It's that reaching for that unhealthy food because I'm anxious and I'm not really fully aware of what's going on, right? So one simple, silly sounding, yet effective way of helping somebody through this process is create barriers between you and your impulse and don't allow yourself to be distracted when you're eating. Those two, those two things right there would typically with my clients result in like a 10 pound weight loss. Just those two things right there. So I'll give you an example of the barrier. Take a food that you know for yourself is like your impulse food, right? For me it was potato chips. Don't have it in the house. But don't say you can't have it. Say, oh, if I want it, I'll have it. I just got to drive to the store and get myself a bag of potato chips. That barrier between you and the impulse just creates the space for a little bit of awareness. And what happens often when you do that is you pause. Do I really want to get in the car? Why do I want the. Am I really hungry? I'm not going to do it. So that's one silly, simple example. It makes a big difference. The other thing I said was to not eat while distracted. So studies are have shown this, by the way, when you eat while distracted, on your phone, on your computer, watching TV, you'll eat about 10 to 15% more calories. So you want to cut your calories by 10 to 15% without even trying. Just sit down to eat and don't be distracted. Literally sit down, you and your food and just eat. Don't do anything else. That will naturally. And the studies show this result in a 10 to 15% reduction in calories. So if you eat 2,500 calories a day, you'll eat 250 less calories a day, which is like 30 minutes of cardio. You know, that's how many calories you'll burn. About 30 minutes of cardio. Like simple things like that make a profound difference. Another one, which I think I've said on your show is to avoid foods that have been engineered to make you overeat. So when people, I used to love doing this, by the way, people would think I was like a wizard or there's some magic to what I was doing. I would say, you know, Ms. Johnson would hire me, she wants to lose 30 pounds. I'd say, all right, here's what I want you to do. Eat as much as you want. Just don't eat heavily processed foods. She'd be like, what do you mean? Eat as much as you want. Whole foods, fruits, vegetables, potato, meat, eggs, you know, eat whole natural foods. Eat as much as you want. Let's start there. And then they'd lose weight and they'd be like, what I can't believe. Like heavily processed foods are so, you know, make your body gain body fat. And then I'd tell them, well, you're eating about 500 calories less a day. You just don't realize it. And the data on this is some of the best studies done on food are done on heavily processed foods versus whole natural foods. So actually take groups of people in a controlled setting. One of the challenges with nutrition studies is they tend to be observational. So people will come in and report, which is just notoriously wrong. Tell people to tell you what they ate a week ago. It's like, forget it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They either can't remember or they lie.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, it just, it's just never. Yeah, but by the way, I'm super aware. I know it's in food. Tell me to estimate, I'll be off. Right. So just super. That's, that's why there's so many conflicting studies. But these studies actually took people, put them in a controlled environment and said, and they put whole natural foods in this side, heavily processed foods in this side. Macros controlled similar ratios of proteins, fats and carbs. And they just let people eat and they observe them. Then they took those groups and switched them. Just in case you had like a group of people that ate more than they switched them. 5 to 600 calorie difference between the two sides. That's a big. When I tell people, when I cut people's calories down to get them to lose weight, I typically would try to cut about 5 or 600 calories. So again, we're talking about behaviors here, right? Psychology. I could tell somebody, track your calories, cut 500 calories. Or I could say, eat as much as you want. Just don't eat heavily processed foods. Both will result in the same calorie reduction. One of them is much more likely to feel restrictive and the other one is more likely to be something that they'll feel like they're not restrictive. And it's something I can maintain and do on a long term basis.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's so interesting. So going back to where we started, so you've got everybody is. There are Lies that are bouncing around inside their head. Most of them are self inflicted. And they're causing them to make mistakes, causing them to go for hyper palatable food, to manipulate their brain chemistry, causing them to think that I need to be punished. And so I'm going into the gym and now I hate the gym because I'm just beating myself to death. I need to punish my fat, I'm gross, I'm disgusting, and I shouldn't eat these things. And so now they're ruling things out. But then because they haven't dealt with the emotional issues, a stressful thing comes up. They're feeling bad again, they turn back to their drug. Now they're not eating a single cookie, they're eating a whole box of cookies and they're in this death loop. And this is why I say it isn't that people don't know what to do. Anybody that's made it this far in the episode has already heard you say the very simple truth. And that is eat whole foods. And so if you eat whole foods and avoid spiking your glucose, you're done. Like, you don't have to worry about anything else. And so the question is, now that everybody that's heard that, I have a feeling 95% of people will still put the weight back on long term. So I want to go back to the therapist. And this idea of self punishment and the way that I combated this was with rules. So I'm really prone to negative emotion. And so I'm really prone to thinking, oh, I did something, I didn't succeed the way I wanted to succeed. And you know, damn it, that makes me a bad person, I've done something wrong and I need to be punished for that. And when I finally realized that I had that because it was subconscious, not like I thought I need to be punished. But it was just like I was beating myself up. I was going over and over and over, like, oh my God, you're a loser, like you're never going to do it. This is where you're at. Like, because you're dumb or whatever, right? And so just like I realized, okay, hold on, I need to set guiding beliefs in my life. And I was like, okay, I think every person ought to act in accordance with the following statement. You should only do and believe that which moves you towards your goals. And that ended up really changing things for me because I realized, oh wow, like I was beating myself up because I thought I deserved that level of punishment. But once I had a rule that said I can't stop that first negative impulse of like, oh, you're an idiot, or you deserve to have lost. I was like, I can't stop the first one, but I can stop myself from looping on it. What's my goal? Is my goal honorable? Because, look, if you're a dirtbag and you've got goals that are about manipulating and taking advantage of other people, like, not good. But if my goal is honorable and exciting to me, so I really want it going back to desire, but then also it elevates not only myself, but other people. Okay, well, then why would I death loop around what a loser I am? Because it will stop me from pursuing this goal that is honorable. And so I was like, okay, that really makes sense. And I think making that a guiding light in my life will be useful. And it was. It was huge. It stopped me from spending the mental and emotional energy on, like, either beating the life out of myself in the gym, starving myself, which I was very good at, by the way. And so all of that, back to your point about you have to develop this healthy relationship. Once I started not only putting behavioral guideposts around what I ate, like, and I think it's brilliant. Eat the protein first, great behavioral guideline, but also put a behavioral guideline around what I allowed myself to think repetitively, ended up being really transformative. And so going back to when you were talking about, hey, I had these entrepreneurs, they're really high performing. I know they're not lazy people, but they are being lazy about this thing. What gives? It just comes down to, what do you want badly enough? What do you have behavioral rules around? Even when I think about my own physique, I used to have more muscle mass. I used to be leaner. And I always tell people my body is a reflection of the exact amount that I care about. And so I care, right? I'm not obese. I stay healthy. I make sure I don't have joint pain. I make sure I'm sleeping. I don't have brain fog. I'm very clear. I'm optimizing cognitively, but I'm not yoked because it was just taking too much time and energy. But my life really is regulated by behavioral rules around what I allow myself to think. And then everything cascades from that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Tom, I want to interrupt you right there because what you said is so brilliant in that what you just went through, and I don't know if you realize this were the four stages of learning, which we all go through whenever we develop an automatic lifelong behavior. And this is what they are. This is what the four stages are. It starts off with unconscious incompetence. Okay, you don't know that. You don't know. Like you said, you had this negative self talk, but you weren't even aware of it. It was just like there it was happening. So you had to move to the second stage of learning, which was conscious incompetence. Oh, this is what I don't know. This is what's happening right now. Okay, I need to do something about that. Which takes you to the third stage. And sometimes people get stuck here. If you get stuck here, then it's hard to continue to progress. But the third stage is conscious competence. I have to consciously do the things that move me forward. I create the structures, the disciplines, the behaviors. So for somebody with weight loss, it would be like, I'm going to eat protein first. I'm going to avoid these foods. I'm going to get up and move on these days. Okay, conscious competence. But conscious competence, you can't live there for the rest of your life. Okay, I'll give you. And so the fourth stage of learning, and then I'll use this, I'll use other examples, kind of illustrate why you want to get there. The fourth stage of learning is unconscious competence. Okay, so let's talk about a behavior or a skill that we have that is in stage four that we take for granted. Breathing, walking. Imagine if you had to consciously think about walking and breathing all the time. And in fact, I apologize for people watching because you're probably now consciously breathing. It's real uncomfortable, but it would suck, right? You have to consciously take a step every time or consciously breathe in and breathe out. Like you can't live there, Right? So you can't live there when it comes to your health. You can't live there when it comes to your lifestyle. But you have to go through that in order to get unconscious competence, which happens through doing it over and over and over and over and over and over again until it becomes a behavior. And that's exactly what I've. What I'm trying to communicate here is you go from each stage so it opens up by you don't know what you don't know to. Okay, I'm listening to the podcast. I'm watching this video. I'm hearing them talk. That's all the stuff I don't know. I'm going to make these changes. I'm going to create these structures, these, these, these behaviors. And Sal said, start with something small, make it something realistic. That's challenging. I'M going to start there. So now I'm consciously competent about the things I'm doing. Do it long enough and then it becomes like I lead, you know, I exercise and I eat a particular way and I'm in that fourth stage. I'll probably never stop. It's just a part of living. It's like walking and breathing. For me that's the place we need to get to if we're looking to have this be the rest of our lives. Because going back, circling back to the beginning of the episode modern life, the default is poor health. If you just live a modern life according to the way society structured, the way technology is structured, the way our jobs, our houses are organized, the way everything's organized, your fourth level of learning is going to take you to poor health. The unconscious competence that we have in modern societies is to eat hyper palatable convenient food. To ignore all the other signs is to be inactive. Everything's designed to reduce activity. I mean I, I, you could doordash anything you want to your door. You could walk nowhere if you wanted to. Almost literally. Pretty soon we'll have hover chairs like they do in Wall E. Your, your, our, our medical system is designed to keep us there. I have a headache. Take a pill, I feel joint pain. Take a pill, I feel this, Take this. Not. Let me see what's causing those types of things. So it is a, it is going to be a process. You do have to get the conscious competence stage. But if you're able to do it properly and you do it long enough, then you'll get. Because I don't. Look, I'll tell you what, I'll ask you this. I guarantee you don't have to sit there and consciously think about your structured discipline like you did when you first started. I bet you now it probably feels like second nature. It would probably be hard to kick you out of it now. Whereas before you had to keep yourself there, you had to really, really focus on what I was doing and what's going on and am I moving forward. You probably still have those conversations with yourself, but it's not like it was in the beginning. And that's only because you're so growth minded that you're probably always trying to grow even more. Right? You're always trying to put yourself through that, through that scale or those four stages of learning. But yeah, that's it right there. And if you get to that fourth stage, diet becomes just how you eat, you know, exercise. Well, this is just what I do. Do I enjoy it? Yeah. I enjoy it for the most part, you know, just like I enjoy breathing and walking.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, man. This topic is something I fret about a lot because the fact that the default stance in the modern era is unhealth, the fact that being unhealthy makes people miserable in myriad ways. One, if people aren't already aware, I really believe there's a subroutine that runs in your mind that if you're not in shape, not shredded or anything like that, but if you're not in shape, you will feel badly about yourself. I don't think there's any escaping that. I don't care how much body positivity comes out, people will not be able to escape it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Did you see the meta analysis that came out on that? No. There was a meta analysis that recently came out and they are now finally. This is positive, very positive news. They are now finally going to consider exercise as a first line treatment for anxiety and depression. So the meta analysis came out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think that's more important than diet?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Really?

[Sal DeStefano]

Not in the, not in the context of what's going to make you healthier, what's going to make you lose weight?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Just talking anxiety and depression.

[Sal DeStefano]

If you get people to start exercising and they do it right and it's appropriate and they enjoy it, they tend to then try to eat better. They tend to then try to take care of themselves.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why could exercise so much lower on your list then?

[Sal DeStefano]

Because the rest of them were kind of lumped into one. Interesting. Because the other stuff led to lifestyle and love and relationships lead to everything else. But what this meta analysis showed was that exercise was as effective. And this is, this is in the meta analysis, are looking at like six months. Okay. As effective as pharmaceuticals and talk therapy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now, I would argue, and I, and I'll bet my house on it, that in the long term exercise is more effective because.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Than diet?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, than pharmaceuticals. And. Yes. Because there's no downregulation of receptors, there's no adaptation to where it's no longer as effective.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This is very interesting and I don't want to lose the forest for the trees here, but so as somebody that struggled profoundly with anxiety, I will say that the biggest breakthrough for me wasn't exercise. I was exercising like a fiend at peak anxiety. And exercise is amazing. I don't want anyone to think it's not wunderbar, but if I were going to say n of 1, plural of n of 1 is not data or whatever the phrase is. I get that. But I will say my bet, given how much the gut regulates neurotransmitters. It's something like 70% or more of the serotonin in your body is created and stored in the gut. There's a reason for that. So you are a collection of a lot of microbes from mitochondria to the bacteria on your skin, in your mouth, in your gut. Now, for me, it was Diet Monster. Once I cut Diet Monster out, my anxiety dropped by like 70%.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm going to say this so it's in the context of appropriate exercise. I bet you a lot that you overworked out. I bet you that when you first went into exercise it was inappropriate.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm pretty bad in the gym. I want to give myself that credit. And okay, look, how you do anything

[Sal DeStefano]

is how you do everything. And you're. You have two gears, probably sleep and go, no.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So. Oh, God. I don't want to deny that. How you do that. That is a very good heuristic. Okay? Very good rule of thumb. It gets you real close. But the reality is, I think that what people's lives end up becoming is what do you care about? And I know I sound like a fucking broken. But I really want people to understand this. Like, if you are not consciously saying, I care about these things, this is why I tell people, get your fucking value system down. What do you value?

[Sal DeStefano]

Because.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And people value things and they haven't take the time to pull it into their conscious awareness. And so they're just steering by. Like for instance, if somebody tells you you can't eat those cookies and you are like, fuck you, I'm gonna go eat those cookies. You value autonomy. You do not want anyone telling you what to do. Be honest about it. I don't like people telling me what to do. Okay. Are you gonna be a slave to that? You need to be very thoughtful because if autonomy is thing, which mine used to be, so I can certainly relate same, then you're going to be in real trouble because now you're just doing something to be defiant instead of saying, oh, I value longevity, I value love, whatever, but like, rank really put them in order.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I mean, to be fair. Okay. To be fair, diet and exercise are. I mean, if I had to pick, here's why I. If you forced me, I would pick exercise. Here's why exercise is easier than the diet to move a little more statement. I can get someone to move a little more. More successfully than I can get them to change their diet.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Food or drugs, baby.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's hard.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And people are in a bad mental state.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that's why I sell it this way. Because I know people are watching right now and here's what ends up happening. They're going to hear what I say and if they do anything, they're going to do well. Sal said this is more important. More people will find success by moderately applying appropriate exercise at first than they will by trying to change their diet at first. So when I would get clients, and any trainer who's watching has been doing this for a long time will tell you it's easier to get them to show up for the workouts than it is to get them to fundamentally change their diet. So that's the reason why I would rank it a little higher now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'll just say this so that I can firmly establish myself as the asshole in this conversation.

[Sal DeStefano]

I love you, Tom.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm just going to say boys and girls that are listening, that's a you problem because diet is way more effective. I need people to acknowledge to themselves you are doing a suboptimal thing because you have not gotten a hold of your own mind. So if you'll let me think out loud for a second, I want to ask myself why I feel so strongly about that. So I work with people a lot. So people that only know me on YouTube but don't know me in impact theory university where I'm trying, I am trying, man, to teach people what I did. To go from scrounging my couch cushions to find enough change to put gas in my car to be able to afford to drive to a fucking job interview to building and selling a billion dollar company. This is my third multimillion dollar company in a row. Like this shit is teachable now. I my father in law didn't want me to marry his daughter. My mother assumed that I was going to fail when I left for college. My best friend said, I just assumed you were going to marshmallow your way through life. These people had not misidentified me. I really was that lazy. I really did not know how to put things together. It is just a series of ancient ideas that have literally for thousands of years that if you deploy them, everything in your life will change. But I have a real issue. Remember this is me thinking out loud. I have a real issue with like people aren't just saying the real fucking thing. And I think the real thing is you have allowed. I get it, life is hard. Your parents fucked you up in a thousand ways. The bully that picked on you messed you up. But you going back to your tweet, you have to own that you can change 100%. It's what I call the only belief that matters. The only belief that matters if you want to change your life is that if I focus on getting better at something, I will actually get better. And the thing that I think keeps driving me to push this point is the thing you actually need to get good at. If you want to go from the 95% of people that fall back and put all the way back on to the 5% you, it's going to be a little cheesy. And so I reserve the right to refine this. You don't love yourself, and you have so much negative emotion that you are flailing about in every area of your life. And whether you're like me and you are like. The thing that I use to soothe myself is meaning and purpose. And so meaning and purpose leads me to work a lot. Now, I'm very thoughtful about managing love. Love is my highest priority. My marriage. To make it not cheesy, my marriage is my highest priority. But even I know that, like. Like, I understand that there are insecurities that I have that lead me to want to prove that I'm worth something. And I manifest that in the world of business. Cool. Acknowledging it, being aware of it, keeps me from ever letting that spiral out of control. But people need to understand there's a mess inside your mind. You don't love yourself. You don't have a healthy relationship with who you are and who you want to become. And you're ignoring your biology. And if I can get people to, hey, if eating protein first is the thing that gets this going, I fucking love it, man. Like, whatever thread you can pull, whatever's gonna be the doorway. If working out a little bit is like that thing that, okay, it gets you going, but if you don't address your mind, you will never address your biology. And if you don't address your biology, you are dead in the water.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, you are 100% correct. But I'm gonna give you an example of a story. I'll tell you a story that. Or create a story that kind of exemplifies a little bit of the. The approach. What's going to be an effective approach? So I remember as an early trainer, people would sit in front of me and I'd ask them about their fitness goals and what's prevented them from working out in the past, and I would get the. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time to exercise. I'm just too busy now. Initially, or early on, I would do the whole. We all have the same 24 hours in every day. It's how you prioritize your time. And the more time that you make for exercise and for your health will contribute to the time that you do other things. It'll make you more productive. It'll make you better parent the whole thing. All true. All totally true. Okay. Not nearly as effective as when I learned to say this. It is tough. You probably are really busy. How much time do you have to commit to some exercise? And then whatever answer they gave me was fine. Was fine, because it opened the door. They would hire me, and I trained them once a week. And if I did a good job, which I figured out how to do later on, then they'd come back twice a week, and then three days a week, and then so on. So what you're saying is correct. But the way that we're going to reach most people, you know, what's that saying? You attract more flies with honey. The way you reach most people is empathy, understanding, truth, honesty, which is what you're delivering right now. I do not believe in lying to people. You got to be honest with people, create those boundaries, be very clear. But let's start here, and then let's see what happens. And what almost always happens is they start to move in that direction. They start to move in the right direction. So everything you said is 100% true. And it is 100% a choice. And you do. Everybody watching, listening to this right now, has the power to move in the right direction 100%. And it's your fault. You're where you're at. It's largely your fault. Yes, there's circumstances. Yes, there's. But if you made different choices, different decisions, you would be in a better position. Maybe not perfect, nobody is, but you'd be in a better position. Accept that. Okay? What do you do with that information now? It's still hard. I don't know what to do. Do this. Take one small step. That's it. Take one small step. Start caring for yourself. You said people don't love themselves. People listening to this right now are like, well, how can I change that feeling? I have all these negative emotions. How do I change those negative emotions? Here's how you do it. Act like somebody who cares about themselves. That's all. Act like somebody who cares about themselves. Act like, take care of yourself, like somebody that you actually love. And then here's what happens. Those negative feelings start to become less and less, and you start to create more Positive feelings.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you think about this? You have to do things that you believe are worthy of respect in order to have self respect.

[Sal DeStefano]

100%. 100% agree with that? Absolutely. If we treated ourselves. Here's what makes it tough, Tom. This is why people treat themselves so poorly. It's because who knows you better than you? So you know all the shitty thoughts that you have, you know all your imperfections, you know all your weird whatever stuff. So you can judge yourself pretty damn harshly based on real information. That's what makes it so hard. So I like to tell people this. Think of someone in your life that you really care about. How would you treat them? How would you feed them? How would you encourage them? What would you say to them when they struggle? What would you say to them when they have those negative thoughts? What would you say to them when they want to skip going to the gym or not being active? That's how you should talk to yourself. And if that means you have to act it out because you don't feel it, well, yeah, that's, that's, that's where you start. 100. Eventually it becomes more like second nature, but that's where you have to start. So this whole, like, you know, you mentioned body acceptance movement and body positivity movement, it's such a. It's been presented as such a distorted, opposite end of the spectrum, incorrect, terrible approach. You know, on one end of the spectrum you have the whole hate your body, you're gross look like these sexy people or you're worthless. And what they did is they went in the other end and said, your poor health means you love yourself. Loving yourself and accepting yourself means you do nothing about the fact that you're 80 pounds overweight or that you have bad health or that you can't, you know, play with your kids because you ran out of energy or, you know, out of breath. That's also incorrect. Acceptance is more like this. Yeah, this is, this is what I look like. This is what's going on. I accept the fact that I've played a big role in this and I've accept. I accept my limitations. I don't have the genetics to look like a model or whatever. That's fine. Body positivity and self care is okay. Now it's time to take care of myself. And what does that look like? What does it really look like? What does that really look like most of the time? Most of the time it looks like eating healthy. Most of the time it looks like being active. Most of the time it looks like prioritizing good sleep. Most of the time, it looks like getting rid of toxic relationships and fostering the good, healthy ones. Sometimes it's eating a cookie and having some pizza and a beer. Sometimes it's taking a day off at the gym. But most of the time it's all that other stuff. So if you just go from that standpoint and separate yourself and ask yourself those questions, the decisions you'll make will most of the time point you in the right direction. And again, I want to be very clear, not easy. It's one of the hardest things to do, as evidenced by the fact that a majority of people have poor health and majority of Americans are overweight and we're on our way to becoming a majority obese.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Jesus.

[Sal DeStefano]

So it is not easy. It's super hard. But it is possible. It is 100% possible. And the. The way it will create for you. You know, this. This other thing that annoys me about my space is this whole emphasis on motivation, which I'm sure probably irks you just as much in the business space where it's people like, I don't have motivation. Like, well, I don't wake up motivated every day either. I do it anyway. I do it anyway. That's the difference between discipline and motivation, by the way. Creating the behaviors that make you consistent, having that discipline leads to the environment that sparks motivation more often also. So you like being motivated, then do it when you're not, and you'll get motivated more often anyway. Isn't that. Isn't that weird?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. Facts.

[Sal DeStefano]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

All right. I want to talk about the mechanism of action with some of these things. So we've talked a lot about lifestyle, but just to put a fine point on it, sleep, sunlight, stress. I don't think people get nearly enough sunlight. Yeah, but that's probably another episode, love. We could definitely derail on that excuses we've talked about. But let's get into diet a little bit more. Okay, so what are your, like what if you were going to put a quick nutshell on your strategy? What's to use Ray Dalio's terms in finance? What's your all weather strategy? You don't know who the person is, you don't know what they're struggling with. But what's that nutshell where it's like go do this.

[Sal DeStefano]

I want to preface this first by saying that there can be a very wide variance when it comes to individuals and diet. So you're going to see some people who are going to do much better

[Tom Bilyeu]

on diet based on genetics and microbiome or something else.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes, and behaviors and emotions and our connections to food and that kind of stuff. So we're just such a fingerprint physiologically and emotionally and psychologically. But generally speaking, most of us are somewhere in the middle. Generally speaking, if you prioritize protein and eat a high protein diet, you'll eat less generally overall and you'll get better blood glucose levels that are more stable, which leads to behaviors that lead to better eating. So you don't get these spikes and drops that tend to make us irritable or have cravings and that kind of stuff which leads to overeating. So high protein diet, this across the board has been shown to be beneficial for fat loss, muscle building energy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And is there like a ratio 1 gram per pound of lean body mass,

[Sal DeStefano]

6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. I tell people body weight no matter what.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You're 800 pounds.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, for relatively average weight individuals. So if you're a little overweight or whatever, that's fine. If you're obese, use your lean body mass. So you want to take your body fat percentage, subtract that and then that lean body mass is the number that you'll hit. And I tell people, aim for a grammar because most people fall short of it and they fall within that number. And again, that's better for almost any goal. And it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you care vegetable versus meat?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, not if you eat that much protein. If your protein goes below that, then animal sources make a big difference. So in other words, if your protein intake Is high. You're eating a gram of protein per pound of body weight. Doesn't matter the sources. If your protein is like you know, 0.3 grams per pound of body weight. Animal sources make a big difference. They really do. So I'm glad you asked that question. The second thing I would say is avoid heavily processed foods. Just avoid them. They are carefully and expertly engineered to make you overeat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think overeating is the only problem or are there chemical issues that

[Sal DeStefano]

are also causing all of that leads to the overeating. But yeah, you're 100% right. So they have drug like effects. They've taken. Here's what they do. If you've ever, I don't know, have you interviewed anybody who's in the processed food space that talks about how they, they engineer these foods? It's remarkable.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Used to be in the food industry. So we hyper aware of this is remarkable.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's like it's not just the taste, it's the texture, it's the mouth feel, it's the.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, it's the rap vanishing density. The imagery they use.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh the science is remarkable. I mean you could eat, most people could eat a family size bag of potato chips but they couldn't as a warm up. Yeah, but they couldn't eat five plain potatoes. Right. Same same amount of potatoes. In fact the potato chips are so crazy higher in calories. Right. So avoid heavily processed foods because they will make you overeat or you're gonna be white knuckling this thing the entire time. Which it's. That's a terrible idea. So high protein, white knuckling.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Meaning I have to reduce my calories so much.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, you're just. Oh, you're just constantly like if you eat heavily processed foods, you're constantly gonna be battling overeating. It's just, just you're not going to win that battle. It's very, very challenging. So high protein, avoid heavily processed foods. Make sure you get enough fiber. Fiber also has a wonderful satiety effect on most people. Great for digestion, leads to a healthy gut Microbiome as you've talked about on the show, microbiome can drive a lot of our behaviors. It turns out our bacteria influences our behaviors to ensure their own survival. Well so it's kind of like we're zombies walking around with bacteria telling us what to do. True man.

[Tom Bilyeu]

A biological experience like getting people to understand that you're in a battle, you're living harmoniously with all these bacteria. But they want things and they'll Speak up.

[Sal DeStefano]

They will change your mood. They will change your mood.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And whatever you eat, you will want more of. So if you eat cakes, cookies, pies, ice cream, you're going to crave that. If you eat meat and vegetables, you're going to crave that. People don't believe it until they do it, but it is bananas.

[Sal DeStefano]

It is 100% true. So the next thing I would say is eat or, sorry, is drinking half a gallon to a gallon of water a day. This tends to contribute to better behaviors, overall, better energy. So here's what the data will show you. The data will show you it's not that big of a deal, but if

[Tom Bilyeu]

I look at this too, I don't see how it could be anything else. Yeah, because dude, from an evolutionary standpoint, animals fucking kill each other at the water hole. Water holes are seasonal. They're there, sometimes they're gone the next. How would humans ancestrally have ever had access to that amount of water?

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what? The challenge, you know what it is, is that what we're not talking about is essential and optimal. There's like, you need a certain amount of water and this is what we understand. Optimal is what we don't understand so much. Just like protein, essential protein for a man would be like 40 grams a day maybe. I mean, I weigh 210 pounds. I could, I could eat 40 grams of protein a day and I would definitely lose muscle mass and the like, but I wouldn't die. Right? I'm eating essential amount. Is it optimal? Not even close. Right? With water, there's essential and then there's optimal. And in my experience, a half a gallon to a gallon a day for most people. So long as your electrolytes are balanced and all that stuff. That's a whole nother discussion. You will typically see better behaviors, more energy, less cravings, better digestion and so on. It tends to lead to just, just behaviors that lead to a healthier lifestyle. So those would be the most important. You start there. You could totally start there. By the way, starting your day off with a high protein meal. They're now showing the they have cgi. So continual glucose monitors are pretty cool. They'll show how your body responds to food in real time. If you start your day with protein, with a high protein meal, even if you eat garbage later on, your blood glucose levels won't be as affected as they would have been had you not started with a high protein meal. So start your day off with a good protein fiber breakfast. And later throughout the day, you probably will have Better behaviors or less cravings and you'll feel better later on. And then down the, down the list, I would say learn how to track your macros. This is that whole conscious competence stage where now I'm kind of paying attention. I know what 30 grams of protein looks like. I know what 50 grams of fat looks like. I know you know what 30 grams of carbohydrates look like. I know what 10 grams of fiber looks like. I know what's in the foods that I'm eating. And that's important because when we get to that unconscious competence stage, we have to be able to attach or connect the foods we're eating to how we feel. And then eventually it could be like, I don't count. I don't sit there and count my macros. I know, like, oh, I need more protein. That's what makes me feel this way. Or I'm gonna, you know, like today I'm coming on your podcast. I eat a particular way when I do these podcasts because I really optimize my. Yeah, there's a way I'll eat, optimize my physical strength and performance and then there's ways that I'll eat to optimize my cognitive performance.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What, what do you do on a day where you need peak mental acuity?

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, it's usually it's going to be high protein, fat fiber, lower carbohydrate. In fact, if I really want to be sharp, this is my, this just works best for me. And you'll see this with a lot of people. Fasting, slash ketogenic tends to provide that for me. If I want best physical performance, I want to go hit PR in the gym, I want to go lift a lot of weight, then I'm going to have a lot more carbohydrates than typically starchy carbohydrates. If I want to positively impact my digestion, this is again for me. Then I'm going to eat well cooked vegetables, fish, grass fed meat, and I'll avoid starchy carbohydrates. I'll have berries. Those tend to do really well for me. I've identified that for myself. By the way, what's cool about that now is I don't sit down and think about it. I see how I feel and then that tends to be what I crave. So I came here and this morning, what did I crave? Eggs, berries, cooked spinach. So that's what I had for breakfast this morning.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's very interesting. There's, there is a lot of n of one Individual stuff with diet. But I have found that there really is. And it, I would say it lines up what I would tell people is basically identical to what you just told people. I think that there are going to be things outliers on the extremes, or some people really like a vegetarian or vegan diet. They just feel so much better. And then on the other side, where it's all meat all the time, but for the most part, there's a real down the middle fastball that if most people just stick to that, they're gonna be fine.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes. And you can separate. And this is where things get really interesting. And this is why I talk so much about, about the mental emotional component. You can't separate how you feel about foods. Not physiologically, but maybe emotionally or mentally with the physiological aspect. I mean, you take a vegan who is vegan because they truly do not want to kill animals. Like, they're like the vegans that stay vegans long term, forever are typically these. Like, they really believe, like, I don't want animals to hurt. I don't like to eat animals. I do this for the betterment of animals. You give that person a piece of meat, you force them to eat a piece of meat. You will see a spike in blood sugar because of the stress response, the fear response.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Really?

[Sal DeStefano]

Absolutely. Because they ate something. Oh, my God, this is terrible. Oh, yeah. Like right now, if you get stressed out, you get some bad news, you answer the phone, you'll see a spike. Your liver will release cortisol goes up and your liver releases a ton of.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, true. Compared to eating carbohydrates.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, oh, it could be worse. Get really, really stressed out and you'll see your physiology act like you've just ate a bunch of candy or like you just made sure for me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I wore a continuous glucose monitor probably for six of the 10 months that I was stressed out of my mind. And it was. I could see it when something acute would happen, I'd be like, okay, yeah, but compared to eating something, I would, I would.

[Sal DeStefano]

And you're. This is where the variability in individuals. I would venture to say that you probably do pretty well with stress.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm speaking generally. There's also an immune response. Some. You might have someone who eats an avocado and sees a strange spike in blood glucose. Really? Yeah. But it's not because of the, the fat or anything that's in the. You know, obviously it has no carbohydrates or sugars, but maybe their body has developed some Type of an immune reaction to the avocado.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And that releases glucose.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, because it's a stress response. It can in some people. So people will, like, people have food intolerances and they'll eat a food, not an allergy, but like an intolerance will eat a food and then they'll feel like garbage afterwards. That's an, it's a systemic stress response. There may be foods that you have a positive association with and you'll see positive neurochemicals and hormones and stuff. You know that. I mean, you can't separate the two. You really can't. It's like they both speak to each other. So why is this important to know? I mean, we're getting into the weeds here, but it's important to know because you, you want to consider all of it. You want to consider all of it when you're getting, if you get down, if you get through the basics that we talked about, which that's, that's 90 something percent of it. Okay. But when you get through all that and you're doing it, then the other stuff starts to, starts to matter more. And you can say, okay, well, I do have this positive association with these things, this negative association. This does, for whatever reason, make me feel a particular way. Who knows? But it doesn't matter. I feel this way. It's like the placebo effect. Placebo effect is real. We can measure it. So is it there? Yeah, it totally is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. So interesting. Talk to me about hormonal regulation. So one thing I'm actually considering, well, not considering. I'm going to get my blood tested. Do you know Derek for more plates, more days? Yeah, I do say, I think you guys had hit it off.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So had him on the show, was talking about trt.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So he's going to be doing a blood draw for me, running a panel. I'm super curious to see where my testosterone levels are. What do you think about trt? So I know you've done it for a while.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So I, I. Western medicine is amazing for what it's great for and if there's what acute issues that could be solved through medical intervention. If lifestyle fact, if lifestyle and behaviors can't solve a particular issue and medical intervention can help, then go that route. Okay, so I'm not a black and white.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What should I do naturally first before I say, oh, I need trt.

[Sal DeStefano]

So the things that affect testosterone in men significantly are sleep, stress, diet, exercise, in particular, strength training and sunlight.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Not like Brazil nuts or anything like that.

[Sal DeStefano]

If you have A nutrient deficiency. If you have a zinc deficiency and you supplement with zinc or you eat something that's high in zinc, you'll see a positive influence on your testosterone. If you don't have a nutrient deficiency, it's not going to make a difference. So these foods that raise testosterone are typically because they're feeling nutrient deficiencies that are common in men. Okay. But if you supplement, like if you have low vitamin D and you take vitamin D, you'll see better testosterone levels. But if your vitamin D is great, you could supplement with vitamin D all day long. It won't do anything for you. In fact, it might be detrimental. So those things that I listed. So like, if you lift weights and you're getting stronger and building muscle, you'll typically see higher testosterone levels, higher free testosterone, and more androgen receptor density. So these are the receptors that testosterone attaches to. If your sleep is not great, but you improve your sleep, you'll typically see an improvement in testosterone. If your stress is overwhelming and you find a way to manage it better, whether that be reduced stress or have stress management techniques, then you'll typically see an improvement in testosterone levels. And then there's genetic factors and other factors that are harder to parse out. Like, you know, personally, for me, in the early 2000s, you know, full disclosure, and I don't think this is a surprise for most people. This is why most people start exercising. I started working out because I had body image issues. I had insecurities.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Too skinny.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, too skinny. And so I started working. I wish, you know, people who struggle with being overweight say that people who are too skinny.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I know, I know. We have a guy here that just, he struggles to put on weight. It is so crazy to me.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

To watch him eat. I'm just watching him pack away the calories and he'll be like, dude, if I let off, like my just obsession with make sure I eat all my calories, he was like, I will lose like 3, 4 pounds in a week. I'm like, what?

[Sal DeStefano]

I know it's weird. Never. It's. But insecurities are insecurities, right? So. Well, yeah, you can't tell them. Tell someone otherwise. But I got into it because of body image issues. And in the early 2000s, you had this market, gray market of supplements that were called pro hormones.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I remember that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Remember that when Mark McGuire was taking Andrew Senadal and all that stuff. Well, anyway, supplement companies can be pretty. They can be like the pharmaceutical industry. What they did is they went through the laws and they saw what was illegal and what wasn't necessarily legal. And they went and found discarded anabolic steroids that pharmaceutical companies stopped pursuing that weren't technically illegal and sold them as pro hormones over the counter. So here I am, young kid, insecure, want to build muscle. Oh, I can buy it over the counter. It's legal. It's a pro hormone. So it's not technically, but it was. It was a designer steroid. And so I took them. And, you know, in fact, they're not black market steroids, but they could. You could get them over the counter. So I took them on and off for years and then eventually stopped taking them. Well, it turned out that they affected my body's ability to produce testosterone. Once I hit my late 30s, early 40s, I was just. Just couldn't tell what was wrong. I had everything optimized. I was doing, you know, I'm a fitness guy. So I worked out, slept good, ate right, took the right supplements, did everything right. The part that was weird to me was my libido was okay, but it's. I've now learned that libido can be affected by so many other factors than testosterone.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But you were having issues everywhere else. Lethargy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Just my energy was off. I was getting anxiety, which I never had before.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's part of why I want to try it. So I've dramatically reduced my anxiety, but it's still like a daily thing where I'm like. Like, it's there. I won't say ever present, but it's there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, it was weird for me. Like, I just. I would get anxiety speaking, which. That's my favorite thing to do. It just. It didn't feel right. I would tell my wife, like, CRT helped with that. So I got my testosterone levels checked. So we had a company approach us. Hey, we want to work with you guys. We're a hormone replacement facility. And we've been approached many, many, many times by other companies, but this one said, hey, we'll give you guys free blood work. And so we're like, okay, let's go see what's going on. And I went and got my blood work tested, and it came back and my testosterone was in the floor. It was. My total testosterone was 2 was below 240, which is like, yeah, 300 is like the bottom, right? And then, you know, in retrospect, at that point, I was like, oh, my gosh, it all makes sense now. And at that point, I was like, exercising well and eating right and taking the right supplements. And I, you know, I get My nutrient levels tested and I had this conversation with my wife and I said, honey, if I raise my testosterone by 50%, I'll be low. I'm still going to be low.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, this sucks. And so I had this, like, it was really challenging for me to make the decision because. Why? Because I'm a health and fitness guy. So I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have to. You know, this is. And I know some people go through

[Tom Bilyeu]

this, which I assumed I always would need to as I got older.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So I got. I. So I went on testosterone replacement therapy. And yeah, it was like, game changer. Complete game changer. And I was like, okay, now I feel like myself. And by the way, I'm a great, you know, n of 1. So people who are like, what's the difference between low testosterone and high testosterone in terms of, like, let's say athletic performance and fitness? So. And I'm a great example because I was doing everything right before and I continued to do everything right after. So really the only change was the testosterone. And for me, it was about around 14 pounds of lean body mass and around 7 pounds of body fat. Yeah. So I lost body fat and built. This was over the year, Over a year and a half.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting, because I've always told people 15 pounds of lean muscle and for somebody that's not obese is a game changer.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Like you're gonna look fundamentally different now. You were already, I'm sure, pretty big, so maybe not as noticeable on you, but.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, no.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, a good amount of muscle.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was a game changer for sure. But that's because I went from low to, like, high.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And where are your levels now?

[Sal DeStefano]

Now, Now. So what happens when you get tested? Because there's different ways you could administer testosterone, but I prefer the old fashioned, you know, once a week injection when you.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why not daily?

[Sal DeStefano]

I feel better. I feel better this way. And most people with an athletic background will, if they go on trt, will go this route.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So I just feel better. But I know people who are more like the convenience of topical, you know.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you pay attention to Rogan at all? I do because he does trt. I thought I heard him say he does daily. I don't want to put words in his mouth.

[Sal DeStefano]

Not sure, but I know he does testosterone. He's also done growth hormone, a couple other things, but yeah, it'll. At its peak, it'll be out of range, a little bit out of range, but by the time it comes down during the week, then I'm around like 800, 900 total.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so which is about free. Do you pay attention?

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, God, I. You know what, that's a good question. Same. It would be slightly out of range and then within. Within high. Within high, normal. And you know this again, I'm not a doctor, so this is out of my wheelhouse now when we're talking about like testosterone levels and stuff like that. But as explained to me by the people that I work with, they base it off of the range, but also how you feel. So. And you'll look at things like libido, energy, sleep, you know, that kind of stuff. And then they'll look at markers, like blood markers, your, you know, red blood cell count, cholesterol levels, you know, blood lipids, that kind of stuff. So now I'm an advocate, but I'm not the, I'm not going to tell people to go on TRT when they have an unhealthy lifestyle because that'll mask a lot of things and probably not going to help you a ton. I mean, it's, I'm sure it's better than nothing, but typically your testosterone levels are quite manipulatable through lifestyle and we can see this in studies with men. Although, although testosterone levels of men have been dropping consistently now for decades and we're quite, not sure, we're not quite sure what the hell's going on. This is again out of my wheelhouse, but this is well established. Like men's testosterone have been going down since the 50s and 60s. That's crazy. Yeah, like an average 20 year old. Testosterone now is like what a 50 year old would be in the 70s and 80s or something like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm gonna just pop off because I know nothing about this, but if I had to guess, it's going to be diet, it's going to be chemical exposure both on the food and in the air. Yeah, I'm sure between those two things you're gonna get obliterated from an endocrine perspective.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, they think it's like xenoestrogens. They think it's lack of activity in diet that's, that's probably causing lack of activity.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Lack of muscle mass, strength. Men's strength levels have declined pretty significantly as well, but yeah, so that was, that was a, a game changer for me. So if it's appropriate, I'm a huge believer it was. Life changed, my health dramatically improved.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that's very interesting to me. Okay. Insulin, mitochondria.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you. How do you think about those? I. So as news started coming out about that Alzheimer's is Probably diabetes type 3 or diabetes of the brain. And then I had a guy on named Chris Palmer. I don't know if you know him, but he's got a hypothesis, he wrote a book that's basically the punchline is that mitochondrial dysfunction is the root of all mental illness. Anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, like all of it. All of it? All of it. And while I don't know if he's right or not, he's got a pretty compelling case for. If you look at what's happening to the mitochondria, that when you take those. If it's the mitochondria in other parts of your body, it will. Will manifest as not being able to have enough energy. It will manifest as an inability to deal with glucose appropriately. Body fat storage, like on and on, becomes an issue. What happens when that's happening in the brain and it just asking the question of what does mitochondrial dysfunction in the brain. So if we're unable to get the right amount of energy in the brain, what ends up happening? What are the consequences of that? It makes sense that there would be some pretty scary repercussions. Do you think about that? Is that something that you look at yourself?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So that's compelling. That's a compelling argument. Now, the challenge is what contributes to the poor mitochondrial function? That's a much more complicated conversation. But here's what's interesting. You take people with Alzheimer's, dementia, and sometimes actually a significant percentage of people with depression, anxiety, you put them on a ketogenic diet and you see improvements. And that directly has to do with the energy production of the mitochondria. So people who have issues with utilizing glucose for energy, the reason why you see improvements is they're now utilizing ketones. And ketones are just a cleaner, easier source of energy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so glucose literally sticks to cells.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, so. So if your body isn't inappropriate, if your body isn utilizing glucose, well, then that's why you see improvements in those things with people when they go on like, things like, like I said, like ketogenic diets, where they fast, for example. That's pretty interesting. Okay, so let's talk about insulin and mitochondrial function. And I think they're both closely, pretty closely related. You're. When you start to become insulin resistant, you start to see some dysfunction in the mitochondria. One of the most, one of the single most effective ways to improve insulin sensitivity is to build muscle. Now, it's not the be all end all. But it's one thing that will almost always improve insulin sensitivity. In fact, they have studies on muscle is very insulin sensitive. It's also one of the places that we store glycogen, which is made from

[Tom Bilyeu]

glucose, and use it.

[Sal DeStefano]

And use it. Right. So the liver being the main source place, but then muscle mass. So if you build a little bit of muscle mass, you improve your body's ability to store and utilize glucose for energy. So they do. They have studies on obese individuals where they don't have them lose any weight at all. They just haven't build a little muscle. And we see some improvements in. In their blood glucose and their insulin sensitivity.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You know, I'm gonna say if I wanted to get somebody to work out that was struggling with weight, one thing I would do, put a continuous glucose monitor on them and then say, you can eat whatever you want. This could absolutely fucking kill them at a cellular level. But this is so powerful for me at Christmas, where I take all of my rules, I throw them out the window, I eat whatever the hell I want. I steer only by how I feel. And one thing I've learned about myself is if my blood glucose goes to 175, I don't feel good. I actually feel kind of sick. I'm lightheaded. It's really gross. I absolutely hate the way that it feels. So nobody has to tell me not to go over that. But one thing I realized is I can eat, let's say, ice cream, which is a big thing for me. Ice cream and licorice. Oh, wow. Yeah. So licorice. Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, wow.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is there any other kind? Yeah, red licorice is not.

[Sal DeStefano]

Licorice doesn't count.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's red vine.

[Sal DeStefano]

Licorice is a flavor. Yeah, you're right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Anyway, I get on my high horse about licorice at Christmas. What I do is I will go and do a lot of leg workout. Legs and back. Oh, okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Big muscle groups.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. So early in the day, I just go do really high reps, rep legs back, legs back, legs back. And I'll mix it up, obviously, so I don't end up like, with imbalance. But then I find I can eat a ton. And for. So I did this for about two weeks over Christmas, and my average glucose level was like 78. So I had a CGM on the whole time, morning, noon and night, eating ice cream, licorice, cookies, cakes, pies, whatever the hell I wanted to. And all I steered by was my average glucose level. I was shocked just by working out so to your point that the muscles just suck it up. Now, whether the following statement is true or not, but I heard this, I'm almost certain I heard this from Jesse, the glucose goddess, who said that if your muscles are screaming out for glucose, it will actually go into those cells without the need for insulin.

[Sal DeStefano]

Insulin.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If that's true, and it's also true that insulin actually ends up damaging the system when it's in overabundance, then working out, having that muscle mass becomes an incredible way. This is terrible, but it becomes an incredible way to be able to cheat a little bit on your diet and get away with it.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, I mean, this is. Bodybuilders have known this for a long time where they'll. I do not advocate for this. I think this is terrible. I think it's terrible. It fosters a poor relationship with food. But they'll say things like, eat gummy bears and pixie sticks post workout, replace your glycogen. And they'll, they'll show that their, that their blood glucose isn't affected. They see it's great. Well, you got a lot of muscle. You just did some strength training and your bodies are, your muscles are sucking up amino acids and glucose to repair muscles are glucose, you know, utilizing machines and they're very insulin sensitive. Sarcopenia is very strongly related to diabetes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's sarcopenia?

[Sal DeStefano]

Muscle loss. It's very strongly related to diabetes and insulin resistance.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So now you just have nothing using that glue.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. You know, by the way, all exercise, appropriate exercise will have a positive impact on, on blood glucose and insulin sensitivity. But nothing compares to strength training in that regard. Strength training has the most profound. When you do a. Apples versus apples, time versus time spent. One day a week of cardio or whatever, one day a week of strength training, five days a week of each, whatever, you go apples to apples. Strength training controls or works with blood sugar, glucose, insulin, you know, sensitivity, far, far more effectively. And it's just because it, it just builds muscle.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So you can see it with a cgm. Like the first time that this happened and I was feeling weird from eating ice cream, I was like, let me try to do some air squats. And literally over the course of, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour, I just watched it just start going down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And normally when I eat ice cream, it's going up, up, up, up, up, up, up. So it's very impressive.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So it's one of those things that is as drug like, as you Want it to be. It's like, oh, you have this thing. Your blood glucose is escalating. Just doing air squats now. I had to do a lot of them, but just doing air squats, you so fun.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. That's why like pre and post activity, even if it's mild, actually is pretty good for, for that when you eat. So post what they call postprandial activity. So like you eat and then go for a walk, you'll see significant. Just a walk. Yeah, there was a study. Oh, this was a good one. I hope you guys can find it. If not, I'll look for it. They did a study and they, of course they market it as like this miracle thing. But it's. There's nothing spectacular. It's what happens. The body where they had people simply do heel raises. Like I'm doing them right now. You can't see it on camera, but literally I'm just picking my heels up and bring them down. They had people do that while they ate and afterwards and they saw significant improvements in their blood glucose and insulin sensitivity. So yeah, so even just activity around a meal and it doesn't have to be much. You know what I find that's interesting about this, Tom? When you, if you want to find truths, one of the best ways to do so, in my opinion is to look at different cultures, different societies and see if you can find commonalities in their behaviors and then there's typically some value there. And what I find that's interesting is most old cultures value a post dinner walk or post meal walk. You'll find this in many different countries where it's like they eat a big meal and then let's go for a little stroll outside. Very interesting. But yeah, that, that's got, that has a pretty good effect. It's real simple. But yeah, just, just build some muscle. And most people who are inactive will build a decent amount of muscle. Just strength training, even once a week. You'll see a nice improvement in that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that especially. So going back actually to one of the ideas that we touched on briefly is I think the most transformational thing that you can do for your life. Your mentality. Everything, everything, everything is add muscle, the act of having to do it. And I've heard you talk about this and this is very important. If you could take a drug and it added the muscle for you, it won't work. But the person you have to become in order to be consistent enough to show up, to put on the muscle, it teaches you this really powerful lesson at a Deep limbic level of, I showed up, I pushed myself, I did something hard, and I added muscle. You're going to earn self respect. So, and I think it is very important if you want to respect yourself, you have to do things that you think are worthy of respect. There's no way around that. So you can't stare in the mirror and say, I love you, I love you, I love you. You've got to go do something that you already think is cool, that you think is valuable. And if you do that, it's really transformational for how you feel about yourself. I don't think I would have gone on to have the success in business that I had if I hadn't first had to morph my physique. And by showing up and pushing through everything and getting trapped under the bar multiple times and like having to figure your way out and like embarrass yourself and ask for help, like all of those things, and you see it and it actually happens and you go from like one of the coolest things in the world to me, and I can't do this anymore. But I used to be able to bend over and pick up almost 400 pounds. And that used to really, like, every time I do it, I'd be like, this is crazy. Like, like, I literally can just bend over proper form, bending my legs. Obviously not straight legged deadlifts, but that psychologically was so powerful. And so the fact that it then also helps with glucose and it also helps with mitochondrial function, and it also helps with mental acuity. It's like one of those things that. And this is why I want to like, scream into the camera to get people to do it. Because, man, if you push through and you stay consistent and on the other side of that self respect, you hit

[Sal DeStefano]

the nail on the head, Tom. You could take a helicopter and it could fly you to the top of Mount Everest and the view will be amazing and everything's looked great and wow, this is beautiful. But it's nowhere near the transformational experience as climbing the mountain yourself. And I've said this so many times on my podcast that one of the things I love most about fitness that I learned myself personally and I could see in the clients that I trained was that it's one of the most powerful vehicles for personal growth. It's extremely powerful. Part of the reason why it's powerful is it's, it's unassuming. A lot of people don't go into it thinking like, this is a personal growth, you know, thing. It's like I just want to get more fit. But you mentioned a lot of things that you learn from it. You know, getting pinned under the bar, that's like learning how to fail. Like, you know, there's a story. What was the statement? Winners. Winners lose more than losers lose. Okay, so it's like learning how to win is great. Learning how to lose is even more important because you're going to lose way more in life than you're going to win. So what does exercise teach you if you pursue it? How to suck, how to lose, how to continue to try and practice? Teach you self acceptance. Because at some point you're going to get older and you're not going to be as strong as fast as you were before, but you do it it anyway. It creates a positive relationship with pain. You know, like people who are advanced with exercise feel as much or more pain in the workouts than beginners do, yet they feel it differently, or at least they experience it differently. Think about the carryover into everyday life with that. I mean, think about how you can learn how to experience pain and challenge in everyday life. Because you go to the gym and you can push yourself through a set of 20 reps in the heavy barbell, squat or whatever. It teaches you growth. It teaches you how to keep trying and iterate and change and try different things and change directions. Because this isn't working. Oh, that's working. Oh, this is great. It's a wonderful journey. It's one of my favorite things about it. I used to love training kids for that reason. I would train young teenagers or, you know, late teens, and they come see me and their parents would come and comment about how they got better grades or how they were, you know, better at home. Why? Because this week we did 10 push ups. Next week you did 12 push ups. Guess what, Johnny? Yeah. You're not the same person this week as you were last week. You did two more. You are fundamentally a different person. Like, you can't tell me that doesn't have carryover into everything else. So, yeah, you hit the nail on

[Tom Bilyeu]

the head with that massively, brother. Where can people follow you?

[Sal DeStefano]

Mind Pump Media, you can find our podcast. You can find us anywhere but Mind Pump Media, look us up. I love it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.

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