transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
[01:05] If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews.

Speaker 4:
[01:18] You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump in today's episode. Live callers called in and we coached them on air. We coach people on air sometimes. But this was after the intro. Today's intro is 60 minutes long. In the intro we talk about fitness and fat loss, muscle gain, current events, family life. It's always a good time. Look, if you want to be on an episode like this where you call in and Justin, Adam and myself can help you, here's what you do. Submit your question to mplivecaller.com. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Legion. Today we talked about their Crateine product. You can get it in capsule form. Take five a day. There's your serving your Crateine. Double or triple that for brain health benefits. Very inexpensive, pure Crateine monohydrate, well-sourced. If you want the benefits of Crateine or you want other supplements, they have many other products, go to buylegion.com/mindpump. Use the code Mind Pump. You can buy one, get 150 percent off. This episode is also brought to you by Troscriptions. So this company makes supplements that are made by doctors. These are legit products. Today we talked about their sleep products. Actually, some of the most effective ones we've ever tried. Go check them out. Get yourself 10 percent off. Go to troscriptions.com. That's troscriptions.com/mindpump. Use the code Mind Pump. Get 10 percent off. Also brand new program launching, MAPS PPL. Push, pull, legs. All month long, it's 40 percent off. Go to mapsppl.com. By the way, that includes a diet guide and a supplement guide and also includes an at-home dumbbell only version. By the way, there's a men and women's version of this program. Slightly different for men and women. One more time, it's mapsppl.com. For the 40 percent off discount, use the code PPL. All right, here comes the show.

Speaker 5:
[03:16] T-shirt time!

Speaker 6:
[03:17] And it's t-shirt time.

Speaker 5:
[03:19] Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week.

Speaker 6:
[03:22] Two winners this week, one for Apple Podcasts, the other for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winner is Akitch. And for Facebook, we have Jason Kenney. Both of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address. We'll get that shirt right out to you.

Speaker 7:
[03:39] All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause, head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

Speaker 4:
[03:54] One of the most guaranteed ways to fail long term with your fitness success is by having the wrong motivation. By the way, this motivation I'm talking about also happens to be the most common one. It's the one value everybody focuses on. It's how you look. Don't make your fitness about how you look. It will make you fail almost every single time.

Speaker 5:
[04:16] God, it's so hard. It's so easy to say. I think it's so easy to say that, but it's so difficult, I think, for all of us. Not just our clients. I think it's tough to not... I mean, at least personally, it's taken most of my fitness journey to get to a place where I feel like that's not a focal point. I think that you look at yourself in the mirror every day. It's typically what motivated you to get your ass to the gym to make changes, that you saw something you didn't like, and you know that making better food choices and going to the gym is going to fix that or change that. And so, initially, most always, it's the main motivation that got you started. It's so hard to get somebody to move from that.

Speaker 4:
[05:00] A hundred percent. In the world, and I say the world, like media, social media, advertisers, this is the part that they focus on. Not just with fitness, but everything tells you that this is so valuable, that how you look is so important and so valuable, and it's going to give you all this success and happiness, and that it's so much more important than all these other things. The way I like to communicate this is when I'm on podcasts, other shows, often times this topic comes up, and when you're looking at something that you want to do for the rest of your life, because ideally, if you're like, I want to get in shape, you probably want to stay in shape, right? Ideally you would want to be able to do this for the rest of your life. Well that's a, for lack of a better term, that's a relationship with something. Anything you do forever or until you die is a relationship, and it could be an unhealthy relationship or it could be a healthy one. And in order to have a healthy relationship with anything that's long-term, it has to be complete, it has to be like a complete understanding of what this is doing for you and why you do it. So how you look is definitely a value. So what we're not saying is that working out to change your appearance has zero value. That's a real value, obviously. If you're fit, you look fit. And looking fit, there's some value to that. But it's not the only value. It's actually one small piece of the value that fitness brings you. And as you do it, the longer you do it, the more you realize it's actually a smaller value than many other values. And the example I'll use is, let's say that you are consistent in your 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s. At some point, how you look is gonna not be as good as it used to be. I don't care how fit you are. If you're super fit in 65, you're not gonna look as good as you did when you were super fit in 35. So at some point, you're gonna have to face this reality of, uh-oh, how do I stop what's happening here? No matter what I do with my fitness, I'm looking older. And boy, can that go sideways. So you have to develop a complete relationship with fitness for this to be something that will take you through all the difficult times, all the times you feel sick, all the times you may be injured, all the times you can't work out hard because you've got a new baby or because you're stressed or you can't be as consistent because of life things that are going on. What's going to take you through those times is not what the mirror says. It's a complete picture of all of the values that fitness brings you. And good trainers know this, and this is what I would focus on with my clients. I actually had to point these things out to my clients. Because if I didn't, it's like they totally missed them.

Speaker 7:
[07:51] Yeah, and I know it's extra hard too with younger clients. To really express, thinking about all these other metrics to focus on. Because they could kind of just rebound, and they can get away with a lot more in terms of sleep and energy and less responsibilities. But I could pretty much communicate this to older clients. They'd come in still very focused on how they look, and that's what got them there. So that's pretty common for anybody coming into the gym. That's the number one selling point is really to change and improve your overall aesthetic. But to get to that place where you start paying attention to all these other benefits that you're going to receive from going through the process, you just have to get in and experience it yourself. And then it's great to have a trainer to actually point these out because people are pretty oblivious.

Speaker 5:
[08:48] I think it's almost necessary because most of these people don't have a relationship yet to your point of a healthy relationship with all these other metrics that a trainer helps you connect the dots to. I'd say half of my conversation with all clients daily was this was because they sign up to your point to lose 30 pounds or to look a certain way.

Speaker 4:
[09:14] That's everybody.

Speaker 5:
[09:19] Of course, you want to let them know that we'll get there. You'd never have a client if you try to tell them that's not the focus, and so you agree to that. Yeah, we'll definitely get you to lose 30 pounds in shape. Then from that point, it was my job to help them connect the dots to all the other things. But it wasn't like a one-time conversation. It was every single time we met because they're still fixated on 30 pounds or how they look in the mirror, and you're going, well, how did you sleep yesterday? And how has your energy been at work this week? And how's your mood been? And how's that libido doing? So you're having to constantly connect those dots for them. And again, it wasn't like just one time I'd say it, and they'd be like, oh yeah, I feel pretty good. And then it's like, oh, I never had to bring it up again. It was like, I had this every time. Oh, the scale didn't move. Yeah, but what about this?

Speaker 7:
[10:10] What about your strength? What about your pain decreasing? All these types of, there's so many things, too. I think people are just like, waiting for that moment that they have a little bit less body fat.

Speaker 4:
[10:20] Yeah, it's crazy because, I've brought this up at least a dozen time on the podcast. By the way, what we're talking about is a feature of human psychology. It's very interesting. It's that you don't focus on, you actually don't see or notice. There's this video, and maybe my editors can put it up, and I'm gonna give it away so it's not gonna work on you. This is something that, if you've taken any psychology class for the last 40 years, you've seen this video. And it's literally, there's people passing a basketball back and forth, I think there's like 12 people, and the professor in the beginning of the video says, count how many times the ball is getting passed back and forth. And so you count, you keep going, one, two, three, four. And he says, at the end of it, he goes, I'm gonna ask you how many times the ball was passed. So he comes out at the end, and he doesn't ask you that question. Instead, he says, did you notice the gorilla? And you're like, what the heck are you talking about? They rewind the video, and a guy in a gorilla suit walks through the group passing the basketball.

Speaker 7:
[11:15] Like stops, and then he keeps walking.

Speaker 4:
[11:17] Yeah, and now a majority of people, I think it's like 80% of people don't notice a dude in a gorilla suit walking through, because that's not what you're focusing on. So if you're focusing on appearance, you actually don't notice all these other incredible benefits. I got on a call with one of our coaches and their client relatively recently, which I love doing, by the way. I love hopping on these calls. We have trainers that work with clients now, and I forget how much I miss working with people. But I get on this call because this woman had hired one of our trainers for a year. And I would say our average client hires our trainers for nine months to a year, I would say. So I get on there and she'd been doing this for a year. And she had all these fitness goals. And she was frustrated because she hadn't really hit these fitness goals that she had. So I get on the call and we start talking. And it turns out over the last year, she had a surgery on her upper mid back area. She's had some very stressful life things that have happened during that period of time. And so we're talking about all these difficult challenges that she's gone through over the last year. And then we talk about what it used to look like for her before she worked with a coach. And she's like, oh my God, every holiday season, I would gain like 10 pounds. And every holiday season, I would just be super sedentary and this and that. So as we're talking, and I know as a coach what I want to say, but I'm trying to help her kind of realize this.

Speaker 5:
[12:45] Help her come to the conclusion herself.

Speaker 4:
[12:46] And so it turned out, it's like, how do you think you would have done this year had you not worked with a coach?

Speaker 5:
[12:52] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[12:53] And her face was like, oh my God, like this would have been horrible. Had I had the surgery, gone through those stressful things without working with a coach, oh man, this would have been horrible. And so I think that's one of the things that we need to keep in mind when we're talking about fitness. And sometimes progress looks like not going backwards. Or progress looks like, man, I'm going to the gym because this is just alleviating stress. Yeah, I'm not getting muscle right now because I'm going through this terrible thing, but it does make me feel better. And that's what this season is about with fitness. And when you start to view fitness in this more complete way, you won't stop. You won't stop because whatever happens in your life, it makes things better versus I'm always trying to change how I look. I'm always trying to improve. By the way, if you're successful, I'll give you the flip side of this coin. If you're successful with hitting your fitness goals, then what? Because this is the other side of that coin. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes people are so disciplined, so like, no, I'm losing 30 pounds, I'm going to get shredded, I'm going to look amazing. Then they actually accomplish it, and then they're like, I don't have the motivation. Like, I'm here, what do I do now? And that's because you put all your eggs in that one basket and you're not really developing this real understanding of what it's doing for you.

Speaker 5:
[14:14] Well, yeah, you're so fixated on that, and then that doesn't fulfill this hole that you have, and you never gave yourself the opportunity to connect the dots to all the other things. So, you know, what is this all for?

Speaker 4:
[14:26] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[14:27] I sacrificed this whole year to look like this, to be this, and it's not as good as I thought it would be, and I feel like I missed out on all these things, and so you're like, F this. And I mean, I've seen a lot of people that's happened to, where they end up going, they go back because they're just like, why did I do all that if this wasn't as rewarding as I thought it was going to be?

Speaker 4:
[14:48] Totally. And then what happens, by the way, is when you do this the right way, and so what we're saying, essentially, and I'll take a step back, is this should be a very high focus for you if this is something you want to be able to do forever. If you want to have a relationship with fitness where you're just a person that works out and you're just a person that values eating healthy in a real way, right, not in an obsessive way, but in a real way, this, what we're saying, should be very high priority because this is how you do it. The way you don't do it is by looking at the scale, looking at the mirror, looking at the metrics like macros and calories and how much weight is on the bar, and that's all you focus on. That's not how you do it. I was training a friend of mine over the weekend, and he's a very successful, hardworking guy, he's a doctor, ER doctor, and his approach to fitness has always been this, I go real hard, right? Typical high achiever type thing. So we're working out and he's like, I didn't realize you could just feel good after working out, and I didn't realize I didn't have to beat the crap out of myself, and I'm pointing things out to him because I've only trained him now three times, and we've added weight to the bar each time, because that's what happens when you first start working out, but he wouldn't have picked up on it, by the way, but I'm showing him, you did five reps last week, today you just did 10 reps, and he's like, oh my god, I'm not even getting sore, this is super wild, and he came to one of his workouts, because he's a doctor, so he'll lose sleep sometimes at work and stuff, he came in, he was super tired, and the workout looked very different. It was like, correctional stuff, we're doing some belly breathing, some work on the TVA, we're doing quadruped, these are all like correctional exercise type stuff, and I'm like, how do you feel? How do you feel? I was like, man, I feel really good, and I'm like killing myself, and I'm explaining this to him, I'm like, listen, I'm going to get this for you, I'm going to help you figure out or understand like this, is something that you could do forever, only if you understand how to use it properly and what it does for you. If you don't do that, you're always going to struggle.

Speaker 5:
[16:56] Well, I think that's a sign that you've started to, because you might, someone might be listening, wondering like, have I connected those dots, or was I, your workouts will start to shape and look different.

Speaker 4:
[17:06] Totally.

Speaker 5:
[17:07] I mean, it's, I'm sure the audience has heard me say this many times, like it took me a long time to get from this like on or off. Either I'm like, my workouts like...

Speaker 4:
[17:16] Otherwise it was a waste of time.

Speaker 5:
[17:17] Otherwise it was a waste of time. Where like simply, and I say that one of the big, pivotal moments in my personal journey was giving myself the permission to go to the gym and just do squats, three sets or four sets of squats and then be done with it. Or it's just an hour walk, or it's just a mobility. It's a 30-minute mobility session. It no longer became this either I'm heading towards a goal and I'm sore and pushing myself super hard through a workout or I'm not. It's like, oh, you know what? I've had two bad nights of sleep. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna do a machine workout and move at 50, 60% intensity and do that. Or I'm gonna do a 30-minute walk and then maybe I'll do a couple of mobility drills. Once it switched, huge difference. So I think when you can switch the mindset away from being so driven and focused by the look and then becomes this thing that supports so many other things in your life, you quickly can go, oh wow, it should shape and look different.

Speaker 4:
[18:17] You know what the irony of that is that you're saying to you, Adam, is that you'll end up looking better?

Speaker 5:
[18:20] No, well, that's the thing. The best part about this is that when I look back, say the last five to six years, my worst shape in those five, six years is still better than what was peak shape in my mid-20s, trying to kill myself, you know?

Speaker 4:
[18:40] Because you're just more consistent, more appropriate.

Speaker 5:
[18:43] Yeah, I'm consistent. I'm consistently doing something, you know what I'm saying? Even though you'll hear me talk on the show of my training volume picking up or down or I'm on it, getting everything, I'm never completely off of it. I'm doing something, you know what I'm saying? I'm walking, I'm doing something to, or I'm making good nutritional choices because I know that my training volume is down. Your relationship with it just looks completely different if you've learned to connect those dots.

Speaker 7:
[19:09] I think too another big step in the evolution of this whole process is like, because you go through and you do to the T like your workout, like your planned workout. If you're one of those where you actually have a program and you're following it and it's like, okay, I have to get through this. That mentality of having to get through the workout is something that's like step one. Then you'll show up some days and you'll be like, you know, this is where I'm at. I'm overstressed, I'm under slabs. I have all of these other factors going into this workout. As I'm going in, I don't have the strength today. How do I tweak, adjust? Those tweaking and adjustments and modifying to make it beneficial for you while you're there is a whole other step, which you're going to learn that a lot from a trainer. You're going to learn that from experience. Everybody has the ability to do that. What's cool is we've been able to help progress that process because we now have options of like, oh, there's 15-minute versions. There's these other things we're trying to introduce people to because that isn't an overall thought people have going to the gym ever.

Speaker 4:
[20:20] Don't do anything that makes you hate working out. That's such an important thing to understand. If you're going to the gym and you're like, no, I'm going to do this thing, oh, I totally hate, and you're strengthening that, you're not going to do it. You're going to stop. So don't do anything like that. It's funny, I was thinking about when I started to first figure this out, while you were talking, I was like, when did I start piecing this together? I remember when I started piecing this together because I remember feeling a little conflicted at first. So when I started thinking about this, and I was like, okay, why am I having a challenge for the last eight years? Why is it that I can't figure out how to get people to do this for the rest of their life? Why is it that my fail rate is terrible? Like, yeah, people get in shape with me, but then they stop. Especially if they don't work with me anymore, then they totally stop. If I'm really trying to help these people, what's going on? And I remember initially it was like, ah, they lack discipline, they just need more discipline. But I'm like, wait a minute, I'm training executives, I'm training doctors, I'm training really successful, disciplined people. Maybe it's not them. Maybe I'm not a good coach. Maybe I had to figure out the way that I'm trying to guide these people. So I remember when I first started piecing this together, I'll get a client that will come in and they're just tired, and oh man, I had a rough night, and whatever. And I'm like, this was like, I felt like I was going off on it, like I was walking out on a branch. And I was like, you know what, do you want to, let's just go for a walk. And they're like, okay. And we go on a walk. And in my mind, I'm thinking like, this person's going to think they're wasting their money. They're going to be like, why did I hire this guy? Just to go on a walk? Why did I, whatever. And then, you know, I saw another client, you know, a few days later or something, you know, and I'm like, hey, why don't we just stretch? And again, I'm thinking in my head like, oh man, this is a big experiment. Like, I hope these people don't feel like I'm wasting, if they come to me and think they're wasting the money, I'm going to give them a free session. That's what I kept telling myself. Next thing you know, I got clients calling me saying the craziest thing. I'd never heard this before as a trainer. They would call me and say, hey, I'm not feeling good today. Really tired. I know we're not scheduled to work out, but can I come in? What? You don't feel great and you want to come in? I'd never heard that before. And so as I started doing this, the consistency went through the roof. And then I helped develop people into lifelong fitness people. And it was incredible, but it was scary at first. Totally scary at first.

Speaker 5:
[22:42] I feel like we get a lot of flak. I still see it around. Like, all the Mind Pump guys are on this low-volume kick. And I see the comments and stuff, and I'm like, you know what's so funny?

Speaker 7:
[22:53] Five million people hate us.

Speaker 5:
[22:54] Well, it's always the person who's still trapped in that place of like...

Speaker 4:
[22:58] I also am not talking to you. If you're so disciplined, you never miss a day, you're beast mode, I'm not talking to you.

Speaker 7:
[23:03] What are you doing listening to this?

Speaker 4:
[23:05] I don't care. Like, listen, if you're a coach, listen to us, because we're gonna teach you how to coach other people. But I'm not trying to motivate you, bro. You're already going to the gym all the time.

Speaker 5:
[23:13] You're the 5%.

Speaker 4:
[23:14] You're the 5%.

Speaker 5:
[23:14] The other 95% of the population is-

Speaker 4:
[23:16] I'm talking to everybody else that needs help.

Speaker 7:
[23:17] Legitimately can handle it, you know, kudos to you.

Speaker 5:
[23:20] Yeah, dude. No, 100%.

Speaker 4:
[23:22] I would not sit you down and talk to you about you need to be more consistent. You're consistent, homie. See you later, you won. I'm talking to everybody else right now.

Speaker 5:
[23:28] Do whatever you want. Increase your volume. I don't give a shit.

Speaker 4:
[23:31] Dude, I gotta tell y'all- It's an easy thing. I'm gonna change the subject. I gotta tell you guys, this is just for parents out there. My three-year-old, so you have the terrible twos, right? The threes are oftentimes worse, if you talk to other parents. And my daughter went from hard to harder, dude. My three-year-old? Oh my god, dude. Hey, she's so defiant. She's just clapping her back, bro.

Speaker 5:
[23:54] She's just gonna kick you to break. Aurelius was a handful. She's a handful.

Speaker 4:
[23:58] He was a normal, like what you would expect from a kid, handful, okay? My daughter is so defiant and nothing works. Nothing. Bro, I'm telling you, I'll be like, okay, sit right here, and she'll get up and she'll start throwing things off the table. And I'll be like, or she'll do, and I'll be like, and at some point you get mad so you threaten her. So like, I'm gonna throw away your stuffy. She'll grab it and throw it away herself. Just. Do it, dad. I'm gonna do it. What is going on, dude? I got a call, I got a text from Jessica this morning. All it said was, uppercase, I am furious.

Speaker 7:
[24:36] And I'm like, uh-oh, what's going on, dude?

Speaker 4:
[24:37] She's like, your daughter just threw, I guess they were eating a pasta with pesto and we'll put pecorino on it. She got mad for some reason, took the whole thing and just threw it on the floor. And she's like, dude, I'm gonna lose my mind with this.

Speaker 5:
[24:50] I mean, my buddy talks about this with my goddaughter. She's like this, and he's like, bro, I do not want to be a parent that spanked. I have to spank. It's the only thing that works. He's like, otherwise, I cannot get her to listen or do it, she is just that defiant. And he's like, bro, I do not, I always pictured myself as a parent that would never do that. He's like, but I've been, it's the only thing that gets her attention. Otherwise, she'll just do whatever the hell she wants and not afraid of taking away stuff, just doesn't care.

Speaker 4:
[25:28] I know, and I'm like, please, Lord, let this be the phase and not when she's a teenager. Because three years old, I could deal with you throwing stuff, a teenager that does that, oh Lord.

Speaker 5:
[25:38] Well, isn't that what they say? They typically say it's one or the other, is what they say.

Speaker 4:
[25:41] I know, I don't know if that's true, but that would be awesome if it was. Because I'd much rather deal with a toddler.

Speaker 7:
[25:46] I think that just gives people hope.

Speaker 5:
[25:47] Yeah, I think so too.

Speaker 4:
[25:50] Look forward.

Speaker 7:
[25:51] Although I do love, That's not going to be that bad.

Speaker 4:
[25:52] Because I do have two big age gaps, and I love, there's memes that you'll see with, it's like a parent. It's like, when you're listening to someone say, the toddler stage is the worst, but you have teenagers and they're like smiling at them, and they're thinking like, you just wait.

Speaker 7:
[26:07] There's other things.

Speaker 5:
[26:09] Do you see we did soccer? We did soccer last week.

Speaker 7:
[26:12] I didn't see you.

Speaker 5:
[26:13] Yeah, we had soccer.

Speaker 7:
[26:14] How'd he do? Yeah, how'd he go? Was he interested at all, or is it just kind of?

Speaker 5:
[26:19] I mean, we went.

Speaker 4:
[26:21] But did he play? Like, what do you mean? Tell me what happened.

Speaker 5:
[26:23] I mean, so it was soccer camp, which was great, because it was a perfect way to- Yeah, to introduce it. And the coaches were great. I mean, shout out to that. I should give love to the company. I can't think of it off top of my head. Adam Morgan Hill. But a couple guys that were running this camp, there was like three of them probably in there, I'd say late 20s or something like that. Super great with the kids. I mean, it made a lot of games out of it. And it's so perfect for my son to like introduce it. Like, I think putting him on a team and like going straight into full on practices would be, would be like, hell no, I don't want to do it. But because he had three of his friends there and it was a camp and so it was all a lot of play and teaching them some skills and stuff. But yeah, no, he's, and I found out afterwards that like, I mean, he finished the three days because his mother bribed him for a Lego if he made it all three days. Yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 4:
[27:15] Did he say he wants to do it again? I don't want to, he said no more?

Speaker 5:
[27:17] No, I mean, he didn't, he's like, you know, like, hey, how'd you like it? It was all right, dad.

Speaker 4:
[27:22] Well, that's not bad. At least he was like, I hate it.

Speaker 5:
[27:25] Yeah, he didn't say he hated it, but he also said he didn't care for it too, you know? I mean, he's like, he's like, well, you know, mom said I'd get a Lego if I made all three days, so I made all three days. I did it.

Speaker 4:
[27:36] How was he in the, while he was there?

Speaker 5:
[27:38] You know, he was more interested in, you know, when it was going to be over, you know what I'm saying? Like how many, he was constantly like, how many more hours is left? How much longer is left? When's lunch?

Speaker 7:
[27:49] It's like Ethan chasing bees in the middle of the game.

Speaker 5:
[27:52] Yeah, yeah, he was like, yeah, the ball. I mean, there would be times where it would kick his way, it kind of make a jog towards it. And then some other kid would bolt there really fast. And then he'd be like, let me turn around, look at that. He's just, yeah, man, just not, not that. He'll find his thing. Yeah. I mean, so we saw a good progression like day one. So we were going to not go at all. In fact, I tried to convince Katrina to not be there at all because he does better when we're not there. And so I got her to at least agree to being out of sight. So we dropped them off and he thought we were gone, but we weren't gone. We were kind of watching from afar. And there was a couple of times where he went down and I saw that he started to cry a little bit and stuff like that. I went, oh, But the coaches were so great. Got him up and like, come on, shake it off. Get him to move and get going and not focus on getting hit and stuff like that. And so it was really cool. I did get to see day one, that happened. Then to day two, none of that. Day three, none of that.

Speaker 4:
[28:52] So there was a progression.

Speaker 5:
[28:53] Yeah, so there was a progression.

Speaker 4:
[28:55] That's good.

Speaker 5:
[28:56] But yeah, not a lot of interest and it was just like.

Speaker 4:
[28:58] Well, I mean, when they're young, it's interesting. Because really, I was telling you guys about my son. He'll run, but when the ball gets close to him, he runs away for some reason. But he'll run the whole time. I think he's trying to appear busy or something. I don't know. But by the, we're now, I don't know how many weeks he's running now, four, maybe four or five weeks. Now he goes after the ball.

Speaker 5:
[29:18] Yeah, because he gets it.

Speaker 4:
[29:20] So they progress.

Speaker 5:
[29:21] Well, yeah, remember, he's a year, what, year and a half younger than Max is. And he's at an age where he's like, your son's got all the energy and the athletic ability. He just needs it focused on, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. When you're that young, when you first do it, you're just like, what's everyone doing? Everyone's just running around.

Speaker 4:
[29:38] It would be surprising. I talked to a lot of parents who have kids in high school who are like super athletes. Well, my kid didn't figure out until he was 10.

Speaker 5:
[29:44] I had to do the stuff to lose. Well, I mean, Catriona and I were that way. Both of us were. That's what gives me hope is that we were both late bloomers when it came to sports, although I did play soccer pretty young. But I'd say I don't remember my desire for it until- Until you were much older. Yeah, until I was much older, like fifth, sixth grade. So there's still time for it. And all I can do is keep introducing him. But I know, I mean, he's funny, man. He's different in so many different ways. I mean, I could, you guys know Bowser and Mario is like his favorite, his, you know, he's so into that stuff, right?

Speaker 4:
[30:18] Did you guys watch the new Mario?

Speaker 5:
[30:19] Well, so I'm driving, like, hey, a check of time at the theater. I'm like, there's, Mario's playing in the theater. You want to go? And he's like, oh. He's like, it's at the theater. Can we watch it at home? And I'm like, well, it's not home, right? If we want to watch it now, we go to the theater. We get some popcorns, gummy bears for that. And he's like, I'll wait till it comes out at home. It's time we're watching it home.

Speaker 4:
[30:43] Well, you know that's you, dude. That part right there is you.

Speaker 5:
[30:46] I'm a homebody.

Speaker 4:
[30:46] You're so that.

Speaker 5:
[30:47] Yeah, yeah, I'm a homebody. We were at Jason's last night, right? We were at Jason's.

Speaker 4:
[30:51] That's all you're ready to say.

Speaker 5:
[30:51] And we're all hanging out and stuff like that. And he comes up to me, I'm sitting next to Jason, talking to him and his dad and stuff like that. And Max is like, dad, I'm ready to go home now.

Speaker 2:
[31:01] Right in front of Jason.

Speaker 5:
[31:03] All right, all right, dude. I said, give you like 10 minutes. And he's like, dude, he's just such a homebody, bro. He is, yeah. I mean, that's why I don't get mad. I mean, he's patient. He has a good attitude about it. If I tell him...

Speaker 4:
[31:13] He's got great character.

Speaker 5:
[31:14] So it's like, you know what I'm saying? And he knows what he wants. And so, and yeah, he's not afraid to tell you like, yeah, no, dad, it's not, I don't care for it that much.

Speaker 4:
[31:23] We were at a birthday. We were at a birthday. It was like a party with a lot of our friends from church. And a lot of them have kids that are the same age as my five-year-old, but they're all girls. So they were in the jumpy house. And just my son, he's literally like five, six girls his age. And they're jumping and playing. And I'm watching this whole thing, and the moms are coming over, and they're like, this is going to be interesting. But they get older. They're like, yeah, dude, he's the only guy.

Speaker 5:
[31:44] Speaking of that, you know what's funny? We were talking about this this weekend, Larry's birthday party. I was talking to my sister-in-law about this. And we were talking about Max. And he was with, he has this girl, who is one of his best friends. And she's like super tall. And it looks like she's like five years older, but they're the same age. And she totally like grabs him by the hand and he loves her. He'll do whatever she wants to do and like that. It's the cutest thing ever. And it's hilarious to watch my wife. It drives Katrina crazy. Katrina does not like when little girls boss her son around. Oh, it's hilarious. Which is ironic as shit to me, cause every man she ever dated, yes. I'm like the irony. And she goes, the irony of you not to care. You would never put up with that shit. I'm like, yeah, but he's sick right now. It's cute. You know what I'm saying? It won't be cute when he's in high school. And I'm like, yeah, and I'll talk to him when he's in high school. Right now it's okay, but boy, she sits him down. You don't let those girls tell you what to do. Oh, yes, she does. And so her sister and I are talking about, it's hilarious to me to watch your sister get so defensive with these little girls. That is Katrina's biggest pet peeve with the kids, is that, is girls. Is she does not like seeing little girls boss her son around. And so she is adamant about like sitting him down and being like, hey, when she tells you to do this, you don't do that unless you want to. Yeah. And I'm like, let him. She's cute and he likes hanging out with her and he gets along with them and so on.

Speaker 4:
[33:14] She'll figure that out. It happens eventually.

Speaker 5:
[33:19] I mean, maybe that's because my sister-in-law was like, she's like, I'm surprised that that doesn't bother you. And I'm like, you know, I was kind of like that when I was young. I liked...

Speaker 7:
[33:29] You worked through that.

Speaker 5:
[33:30] Yeah. I hung out with the chicks and I liked older girls and they could totally get me to do whatever. I remember being like... Yeah. I remember being in fourth, fifth, sixth grade and being on the bus and having the older girls talk to me and they could get me to do stuff because I was into that, you know, whatever. But then I grew up, I got older, different, you know what I'm saying? But so I look at him and I see that I'm like, it's okay right now. He's fine. Yeah, it's okay. But Catriona's like, hell no.

Speaker 4:
[33:56] That's so funny. That's so funny. I went to Legoland last week. How'd you like it?

Speaker 5:
[34:03] Did Aurelius like it?

Speaker 4:
[34:04] For little kids, it's amazing.

Speaker 5:
[34:05] It's awesome.

Speaker 4:
[34:06] It's amazing.

Speaker 5:
[34:06] Perfect for his age.

Speaker 4:
[34:07] It's definitely, though, if your standard is Disneyland, then you can't.

Speaker 5:
[34:10] Oh, come on, you can't compare anything to Disneyland.

Speaker 4:
[34:12] Bro, it's like super janky compared to Disneyland.

Speaker 7:
[34:13] It's more Knott's Berry Farm.

Speaker 5:
[34:15] I think it's a great, I think it's a perfect right before Disneyland. So like, I didn't want to take Max to Disneyland.

Speaker 4:
[34:21] It's better for little kids.

Speaker 5:
[34:22] I didn't want to take Max to Disneyland until he was able to ride all the ride. Like that was like a big discussion. Like we had friends that took their kids to Disneyland like at four, but they can't even ride everything. It's so expensive. It's like, why do that? And so I was like, let's wait till Max is at an age where he's tall enough and can ride everything. And like Legoland's perfect for when they're before that. Like there's a lot of stuff they can still do.

Speaker 4:
[34:44] And then we did every ride that he wanted. The park is perfect for little kids. And it's the first time it was just him and I. So it was nice father-son time, just havin fun.

Speaker 5:
[34:55] Now how was that?

Speaker 4:
[34:56] It was awesome. It was awesome. He kept telling me how awesome it was. He kept saying, this is the best time they've ever had.

Speaker 7:
[35:00] I don't remember that, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[35:01] Oh yeah.

Speaker 7:
[35:01] Those are the ones that make a big impact.

Speaker 4:
[35:03] Oh, he said, this is the best time, this is the best place. I love this, let's not leave. He just kept telling me over and over again, we're having fun. I let him eat more treats than he normally can have. We stayed up late, right, till nine, which is funny, because he would tell people, I stayed up till nine. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy, but we had a great time, dude. And then before that, I took my 16 year old to down to look at some colleges down in the LA area. And then the day after, we went to Universal together, very different experience.

Speaker 5:
[35:28] Okay, so how did you do this? Did you fly down with your daughter and then fly back?

Speaker 4:
[35:32] And then fly down again with my son.

Speaker 5:
[35:33] Oh, I thought you drove down with him.

Speaker 4:
[35:35] No, I did two trips.

Speaker 5:
[35:36] Oh, you did two separate flights back in, oh wow. Okay.

Speaker 4:
[35:39] And I wanted to have alone time.

Speaker 5:
[35:41] With each of them.

Speaker 4:
[35:42] Yeah, and first off with your teenage kid, it's hard to get teenagers to kind of open up. Especially, I don't know if this is more true or not, but it's hard. Like if I, hey, how's your day? What's going on? To get one word answers. Plus she's busy, she's got sports, we don't have like all this time to sit and just let the space create that. So I'm like, let's get away, we're gonna start looking at colleges soon anyway. And, but it's funny because we were driving and I had AI print out, I printed out, or not printed, I took 50 questions and asked your 16 year old daughter for connection. I actually asked it. So I had kept asking questions, didn't work.

Speaker 5:
[36:21] No. I was gonna ask you, do you remember what, Fig and Eagle, what, there was something he said, there's a way to engage your teenage kid.

Speaker 4:
[36:30] Yes, it's stuff like this, like instead of saying how was your day at school, you would say something like, if today was a movie at school, the title would be, yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, I tried all that.

Speaker 5:
[36:39] Doesn't work.

Speaker 4:
[36:40] No, she asked me in the mood, man, so it was like pulling teeth to kind of get her to, one thing that I can always do with my daughter is have fun, though. So we can always like together have fun. But to have like those deep conversations, it's like what ends up happening is I force it and it turns into a lecture and then she shuts down even more. You know what I mean? So I'm like trying to like, to get her to kind of open up and she kind of did a little bit the first day, then we got a little argument by the end of the day because there's like a certain colleges that I will pay for and anything outside of that I won't. And so she, you know, the whole like, you're trying to control me. I'm like, well, yeah, I'm paying. If you pay, you can decide.

Speaker 5:
[37:19] Do you think part of that challenge is also, because you said something that reminds me of the challenge I had with my siblings. So I have, there's four of us and the two youngest ones, there's a massive gap, 13 and 15 years. And so most of their life, I was just like in another parent. And when I've had a really hard time in our 30s and 40s now, is just being a brother.

Speaker 4:
[37:44] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[37:45] And I know that part of that is my fault. Like I don't even, it took me a long time to realize even the way I talk because I would go into lecture mode, I didn't even mean to. You don't say just natural that that's the way older brother. I have a lot more experience and wisdom, but I'm like, I'm trying to get out of that. And so do you feel like some of it is even you and how you communicate back to her?

Speaker 4:
[38:07] For sure, because.

Speaker 5:
[38:09] Like practicing, she says something and you're like, ooh, I wanna do this, say this, but I need to practice.

Speaker 4:
[38:13] It's not even that, it's just getting to start opening up. We'll just drive in the car and it'll be just quiet and she'll just listen to music. I'm like, okay, I'm here to connect with you. So then I gotta do the whole, hey, put your phone down. Hey, let's just talk for a second.

Speaker 5:
[38:26] Yeah, but what I recognized, what I realized was that a lot of that was my fault because when they would, I would go right into lecture mode versus what I needed to learn to do, was they're gonna say something and inside of me, I have the answer. I think, but I just need to be a brother. Like, oh, damn, that's so.

Speaker 4:
[38:42] No, it's more like this because I know that feeling. I have that with my siblings too. It's more like this. No one's talking. I'm asking a question, I get a short answer. Nothing else. So then it's like, hey, you know, there's a few things that you wanna look at when you meet a guy. And so I just, it's like I'm trying to create conversation, but if she starts talking, I'll listen. You know, I figured that part out with her, but we can have fun. So then the next day we went to Universal, and then we had a blast. And I said, so I get motion sickness. I don't like going on roller coasters, but I'm like, I'm gonna do, and my daughter loves the scariest, most crazy rides. So I'm like, I'm gonna do every ride. I don't care how crappy I feel, bro, by the end of it, it was this close to throwing up. I was so close to it, but I did every ride, and then we were able to start kind of warming up and talking and stuff like that.

Speaker 7:
[39:32] No teacups for you, though.

Speaker 4:
[39:33] No, we did, you know which one almost got me, dude, was the Harry Potter freaking, yeah, dude.

Speaker 5:
[39:38] Hey, was it the first time you've been to Universal? Universal's cool now.

Speaker 7:
[39:41] I've been to beer. Huh? Did you try that butter beer?

Speaker 4:
[39:44] No, what is that?

Speaker 7:
[39:44] Oh, yeah, my son got that. It's like really sweet, creamy, like root beer kind of stuff.

Speaker 4:
[39:53] Oh, okay. I should have got that.

Speaker 7:
[39:54] Yeah, it hurts really good.

Speaker 4:
[39:55] Yeah, I should have got that. No, I hadn't been there in a while. The place is massive. That's fun with older kids, for sure. Not with the younger kids. The younger kids would have hated that. But anyway, I mean, it turned out to be good, but I'm just gonna try to create more of those opportunities to just be just the two of us, because whether it's at home or getting away.

Speaker 7:
[40:18] I feel kind of bad just listening to you guys' stories. We literally didn't do anything for the kids.

Speaker 5:
[40:24] I mean, I didn't do anything either, bro.

Speaker 7:
[40:26] We were sick. Bro, there's so much going on. But obviously, we took them to Palm Desert and it was fun. We went on some hikes and I took them mini golfing. There's this place there that's so old school. It reminds me of Karate Kid. He goes to the golfing stuff. Oh, yeah. It's like the go-karts and stuff. So it was great. I was racing against Ethan. He's super into racing and he thought he was awesome and all this stuff. And so the last lap, I just cut him off and then got right in front and beat him. So I can flex on him forever. That's good bragging rights.

Speaker 4:
[41:11] Do you remind him that you're way heavier and you shouldn't have beat him?

Speaker 5:
[41:13] Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[41:14] I'm basically like King Kong out there, you know, a little like Mario Kart.

Speaker 5:
[41:18] Donkey Kong.

Speaker 7:
[41:19] Exactly. But we actually purchased an old BMW car for him.

Speaker 5:
[41:26] Oh, you got it. You got it.

Speaker 7:
[41:28] Yeah, it's a different one. And it was a bummer because for his birthday, we were trying to time it obviously close to his birthday, but the one that we're going to get fell through, and the guy sold it to somebody else right at the last second.

Speaker 4:
[41:41] We're like, dude.

Speaker 7:
[41:43] But this one was still a manual stick shift, so I really wanted to make sure that was a thing.

Speaker 4:
[41:49] That's a flex, by the way, for him. He's going to take girls out on that. They're going to trip over.

Speaker 7:
[41:53] That's what I said.

Speaker 5:
[41:54] It's also a brilliant strategy on his part too. It's a nice, smart way for a parent to keep your kid off a phone while he's driving.

Speaker 4:
[42:00] Totally.

Speaker 5:
[42:00] Without saying it, you just do it.

Speaker 7:
[42:04] Yeah, and he's really into stock car racing and racing in general. I'm like, if you want to be all in that world, you better know how to drive a stick shift. It started to resonate. I'm like, there's a learning curve. It's not easy. He took it around the parking lot. It was cool because this younger guy who was selling it, he's like, I'll take him and took him around and taught him some things without us, which was cool to watch him figure it out. He did pretty well. He didn't stall it out completely at first. He did all right.

Speaker 4:
[42:40] He's done motorcycles?

Speaker 7:
[42:43] No, not really.

Speaker 4:
[42:44] Oh, really? Okay.

Speaker 7:
[42:45] I mean, he's done quads.

Speaker 4:
[42:48] He knows how to use a clutch.

Speaker 7:
[42:48] He knows how to use a clutch somewhat, but not-

Speaker 5:
[42:51] That's so different though.

Speaker 7:
[42:52] He's totally different.

Speaker 4:
[42:52] He is, but it's a concept. Because I-

Speaker 5:
[42:55] Yeah, sure, sure.

Speaker 4:
[42:55] Because I learned on a, what are they called, the 50s? The little- Oh, yeah, little. And it had a clutch. So when I first drove a stick shift, I got the concept of the clutch. Because otherwise, you don't know the concept of a clutch.

Speaker 7:
[43:07] Yeah. They're like, what do I do? Right. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot to learn there with RPMs and listening. And what's cool though is you get really attached to the vehicle. You understand the sounds.

Speaker 4:
[43:19] I missed it.

Speaker 5:
[43:20] Oh, I missed what's next on my radar.

Speaker 7:
[43:22] I forgot. And I was driving in a bit. And it's funny because it's a very visceral experience that way, as opposed to just turning it on with a stupid button. And then, oh, we're out of here. It's so automatic now. But yeah, I love it because it's like no balls, dude. The other one we were looking at, it was like a V8. This one's like a V4 banger. Yeah, oh yeah. So he didn't know that at all. I was like, and he picked it and I'm like, okay, cool. We were driving it on the freeway, it was like 75. It was like, ah! Yeah, screaming to make it over this hill. I'm like, ugh. But that's good. It's good news for us. His parents were like, it's not gonna be racing.

Speaker 4:
[44:04] Until he starts modding it.

Speaker 7:
[44:05] Well, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[44:06] Yeah, because he's got a job.

Speaker 7:
[44:08] He needs a job before any of that happens.

Speaker 4:
[44:09] Turbo that thing, next thing you know, you got it.

Speaker 7:
[44:11] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4:
[44:12] That's what I would do back in the day.

Speaker 7:
[44:14] That'll be cool.

Speaker 4:
[44:16] I got a friend of mine, I got to tell you guys about this, success story from Creighton. She's a nurse and she does a lot of the swing shift, crazy stuff that nurses will do. So, and she started working out and stuff, but I talked to her about using Creighton for the mental health and cognitive benefits. Because she's like, because you know, you know, it's Justin, Courtney used to work these crazy.

Speaker 7:
[44:38] Brutal, so brutal.

Speaker 4:
[44:39] And it just fries your brain. So she's been taking Creighton and she's like, it is night and day. It's like my energy, I'm not foggy. She's like, I think way better. She's like, this stuff is incredible.

Speaker 7:
[44:49] Anybody on these like graveyard or swing shifts, this should be like mandatory. That's a great call.

Speaker 4:
[44:53] And it's not like, it's not a stimulant like caffeine. It's not, it's like good for you. So she was just rave reviews about.

Speaker 5:
[44:59] It's making, this is making its way into mainstream now. So I was at dinner last night with Jason and his family and his sister-in-law and his mom were talking about Creighton for the brain. And they're not like fitness people and stuff like that. Like, I mean, and the only reason why I came up in conversation, I was there, she obviously knows that I have the health podcast and everything like that. And we're asking questions. You know, I heard Creighton is really good for your brain. I'm like, oh, wow. So it's, it's made its way. When I start hearing it like that, it like a dinner party with like regular people that aren't like considered fitness people. And knowing that, I was like, oh, that's super interesting to me to hear people talk about.

Speaker 4:
[45:38] You know, Legion has capsules.

Speaker 5:
[45:40] Oh, they have capsules?

Speaker 4:
[45:41] Yeah, you can do creatine monohydrate capsules.

Speaker 5:
[45:42] Oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 7:
[45:44] That would be a lot easier.

Speaker 5:
[45:45] I thought it was powder or gummies. I didn't know that.

Speaker 4:
[45:47] No, you just get capsules, which makes it hell easy. And I think it's like five capsules. I think it's like five grams or whatever the dose is. Super easy and expensive. Just pure creatine monohydrate capsules. Put them in.

Speaker 5:
[45:56] Of course, smart Legion did that.

Speaker 4:
[45:58] Yeah, yeah, very smart. I'm watch, I watched, I sent it to you guys, guaranteed you guys didn't watch it. But there's this documentary on Prime called Universe Designed.

Speaker 5:
[46:10] Oh, you sent it to us too, I watched it.

Speaker 4:
[46:11] I did.

Speaker 7:
[46:11] I'll have to check that out.

Speaker 4:
[46:12] Bro, it is fire. So it's all about the probability and odds that there isn't an intelligence behind the universe and all the stuff that we had Steven Meyer on the podcast, which that should be dropping soon, right? Is that dropping soon, Doug? Will that be before this episode goes up? I don't think so. Okay.

Speaker 5:
[46:30] Right after, I think.

Speaker 4:
[46:30] So anyway, so it's a great documentary. It talks about all the evidence, all the, and it's got all these scientists on there, and of course, there's apologists and philosophers. But you know, when I was an atheist, had somebody come at me with this explanation, I definitely wouldn't have been an atheist anymore. Because as they're breaking it down, it's like, whoa, this is the probability that everything's so finely tuned and so perfect. Like if any one of these- Yeah, slightly off. One of the, any one of these forces is off by a little bit, nothing exists. There is no planets. There is no life. There is no water. And then DNA and how it looks like a computer program. It's just incredible. But they really break it down. It's so good. And so I was watching that, and then that led me down a rabbit hole. And I didn't know this, by the way. I know you know this, Justin, I'm pretty sure. You guys know that they find seashell fossils on the tops of some of the tallest mountains in the world. Do you guys know that? Actual seashell fossils. At one point, these massive mountains were covered in water.

Speaker 7:
[47:38] Yeah, evidence.

Speaker 4:
[47:41] Yeah, which, it's like-

Speaker 7:
[47:42] Speaking of evidence, I'd sent you guys, well, since we had such a long car ride, it was like, let's listen to the podcast. And I've been getting into Shawn Ryan's podcast quite a bit, just because of the guests he's been having on, really good. I don't remember the name of this gentleman, but he was going through the exact case for the Shroud of Turin.

Speaker 4:
[48:02] Oh yeah, dude, I saw a clip of that.

Speaker 7:
[48:04] It was so compelling, dude. I've been a big skeptic with, that looks really cool and it looks like it'd be great if you had evidence. And it doesn't have to be true. But they've gone back and forth with it over the years, because they took a bit of the corner of it for evidence and then carbon dated it and it didn't come back. The organic material they use. So I guess he debunked that because it's like the perimeter of it. They have to reinforce because it's like a shroud. So it'll start disintegrating. So they have to reinforce it with this cotton reinforcing. And so that's what they were picking up on.

Speaker 4:
[48:49] The science that they've done, what they've done to analyze it is wild.

Speaker 7:
[48:54] Insane, insane. There's dimensions to this.

Speaker 4:
[48:58] And they tried to recreate it.

Speaker 7:
[49:00] Holographically, you could expand it to where it looks, like the features and everything. And oh my god, there was a stat on there. I'm not going to remember it. But it was an insane stat of the instant that light must have gone through some kind of nuclear event.

Speaker 4:
[49:18] The intensity of it, that didn't burn it, that left this image.

Speaker 7:
[49:22] Yeah, all of it is like impossible.

Speaker 4:
[49:24] I know, it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 7:
[49:25] Impossible, I can't explain it.

Speaker 5:
[49:26] Speaking of shows, since you guys are talking about stuff like that, I have a new one that I found which is totally different than what we're talking about right now. It's called Company Retreat.

Speaker 7:
[49:34] Have you seen this?

Speaker 5:
[49:35] It's on Prime. You all will like this. This is one that I feel like all of us will like. Especially we all like office humor and stuff. So imagine the office combined with a reality element to it. Meaning that one of the employees is actually a real person, but has no idea that they are on a show. They think that-

Speaker 4:
[49:57] Oh, that's hilarious.

Speaker 5:
[49:58] Bro, it is a brilliant concept.

Speaker 4:
[50:00] So it's like a prank.

Speaker 7:
[50:01] It's like the Truman Show kind of, but not even like that.

Speaker 5:
[50:05] Not like Truman. It's more like the office. Just imagine one of the office members really thinking they're showing up to a real job.

Speaker 4:
[50:10] But everybody else is an actor.

Speaker 5:
[50:11] But everybody else is an actor and is in on the prank.

Speaker 7:
[50:14] And they have everything written of how it's all gonna go.

Speaker 5:
[50:17] So they, it's so brilliantly done.

Speaker 4:
[50:19] You can mess with your head so bad, too.

Speaker 5:
[50:20] Bro, it is.

Speaker 4:
[50:21] That you're losing your mind.

Speaker 5:
[50:22] It is so good. And I was so blown away by how good it was.

Speaker 4:
[50:26] What's it on?

Speaker 5:
[50:27] So I think it's on Prime. Look up if it's on Prime. I think it is. Actually, I didn't know this until after I found this. We watched, Katrina and I binged the whole thing. Found out that they did an original one called The Jury. And it was the same concept. It was a staged, whole court hearing. And one person was actually a real person. The rest were all actors. And they put them through a whole like...

Speaker 4:
[50:50] Dude, that'll mess with your...

Speaker 5:
[50:52] Dude, it's so good. And it's hilarious because it's very office type humor. But it's done in such a way where it's so believable that this could happen.

Speaker 7:
[51:03] Everybody's in on it, but you keep matching it.

Speaker 4:
[51:06] Imagine that. You show up to work and everybody's kind of off and doing weird things. You start to lose your mind.

Speaker 5:
[51:11] And when they interview, they interview this guy and it's as an intern and the pitch is that it's going... They're documenting this process on their retreat that they're doing. And are you okay being on camera because we're doing a little documentary on our whole thing? So he's aware that he's being filmed. And so he's in on being filmed, but he thinks it's a documentary for the work. They're just documenting all of it. So, I mean, the fact that there's camera, the cameras that are around, they hide a lot more cameras and there's a lot more to it that he doesn't know about, but he sees cameras and so it's not like a big deal. Oh, it's so good. It's so...

Speaker 4:
[51:46] That sounds funny.

Speaker 6:
[51:46] It is prime, by the way.

Speaker 5:
[51:48] It is prime, right? It is hilarious. Yeah, yeah, you guys will... I can't believe I've never heard of it. I know. We just came across it and I read what was going... And I'm like, just reading... I was like, oh, that's funny. I'm like, no way that's true. Is it one of these reality shows that is staged reality? And I went and did research and I'm like, oh no, this guy 100% had no idea all this.

Speaker 4:
[52:10] I'll watch this with Jessica for sure.

Speaker 5:
[52:12] You guys will like it.

Speaker 4:
[52:13] Dude, somebody that... I won't say too much, so I don't want to talk about who they are, but someone I know started using 70H. Okay, so listen.

Speaker 5:
[52:25] Been telling everybody this stuff, dude.

Speaker 4:
[52:27] Listen, you guys, this is so... By the way, it's made illegal in California. Although, apparently, you could still buy it in some places, but it is illegal. I looked it up, because when I was talking to this person, they're like, they made it illegal, so I'm like, okay, good. 70H is so strong. It's like taking a prescription opiate, but it's from a plant or whatever. She had back pain. This person I know had back pain. Friend of hers said, hey, try this natural herbal painkiller. It's so strong, by the way, that we'll take this tablet and we'll break it up into fours. So you can literally break up this little tablet into little corners. And she's like, oh man, my back pain went away. I felt so good, so I was using it for a month. She was just using it for a month. She tried to go off, severe withdrawal. She's like, I have to scale it down. That was a month, just a month of using this stuff. Which, by the way, so they derive it from kratom, and kratom is addictive. It can be very addictive.

Speaker 5:
[53:29] It's a concentrated version of it.

Speaker 4:
[53:30] But it's basically like the difference between kratom and 708.

Speaker 5:
[53:33] 708 is the chemical inside of kratom that gives you the opiate feeling.

Speaker 4:
[53:38] It's like you took kratom, which is a leaf, and they're like, how can we turn this into a straight up product?

Speaker 5:
[53:44] What they did was they took the one main chemical of the leaf and concentrated it into this pressed pill. So, I forget when I looked up, because I looked up when I was-

Speaker 4:
[53:55] What's the equivalent? How strong was it?

Speaker 5:
[53:56] Oh, I want to say it's like 10 kratom pills, which would be like five grams of kratom is-

Speaker 4:
[54:01] 10 would be like one tablet?

Speaker 5:
[54:02] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[54:03] Ooh.

Speaker 5:
[54:04] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[54:04] It might be more than that. If somebody uses it for the first time and they took one tablet, they would get severely ill.

Speaker 5:
[54:10] They could. It depends on how, like are you the type of person that like, so that would be equivalent to basically taking like a double strength Vicodin.

Speaker 4:
[54:19] Yeah, most people would vomit.

Speaker 5:
[54:20] Some people, like Katrina would get sick from that. She's very sensitive, things like that. Other people would not.

Speaker 4:
[54:24] I wonder if there's been overdoses on 708. There has to be.

Speaker 5:
[54:28] I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 7:
[54:31] Where's the most prevalent? Is it Florida or?

Speaker 4:
[54:34] All over.

Speaker 7:
[54:34] Just all over the US?

Speaker 4:
[54:35] Oh yeah, dude. Oh, so.

Speaker 5:
[54:37] You can get them in smoke shops everywhere.

Speaker 7:
[54:38] So the gas stations too.

Speaker 4:
[54:39] So the feds, or is it the feds? Who controls the drugs and stuff? Is it the feds? Anyway, they're like federally looking like.

Speaker 6:
[54:49] FDA, right?

Speaker 4:
[54:50] They're trying to ban it everywhere because of its strength. What does it say there, Doug?

Speaker 6:
[54:54] I'm seeing if there's overdose history.

Speaker 5:
[54:59] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[55:00] Yeah, we're present in fatal and non-fatal overdose cases, you know?

Speaker 5:
[55:04] Yeah. Well, present, it could be they were overdosing on something else too.

Speaker 4:
[55:08] You know what this reminds me of? Remember when this one back when weed was super illegal, and they were taking THC, chemically altering it a little bit.

Speaker 5:
[55:18] Making it into dabs.

Speaker 4:
[55:19] Making it into, no, not dabs, they were like, it's like weed, but it's legal.

Speaker 7:
[55:24] Oh, Salvia.

Speaker 4:
[55:27] It wasn't Salvia, it was literally like they're making synthetic cannabinoids.

Speaker 7:
[55:31] Synthetic, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[55:33] This is crazy what people, what they'll do.

Speaker 5:
[55:35] Yeah, I know, I've warned everybody I know to be careful because this stuff is like.

Speaker 4:
[55:41] Bro, 30 days, she just used a little bit for 30 days.

Speaker 5:
[55:43] I mean, I'm like.

Speaker 4:
[55:44] And she went through.

Speaker 5:
[55:45] What's the date, where are we at? What's the date right now, Doug?

Speaker 6:
[55:48] The 13th, April.

Speaker 5:
[55:49] So November 11th, I think it was the date that I came off.

Speaker 4:
[55:52] Oh, everything.

Speaker 5:
[55:53] I literally have hit my first week of feeling normal.

Speaker 4:
[55:59] Dang.

Speaker 5:
[55:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just hit it. Just up until-

Speaker 4:
[56:02] Well, that's brutal.

Speaker 5:
[56:04] Yeah, yeah. Up until a week ago, I still had jaw clenching and anxiety at night, and I've just recently, and I still wouldn't say I'm great, but I feel the closest to normal that I have felt now, and this has been there the first week.

Speaker 4:
[56:24] So are you, so you know some people who, most people can have some alcohol, not a big deal, and some people become alcoholics, and then when they stop, if they're able to stop, they're like, I will not have a single drink.

Speaker 5:
[56:36] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[56:37] Is it like that for you?

Speaker 5:
[56:38] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[56:39] Cause you're like, I'm not even gonna touch it. Not even a little bit.

Speaker 5:
[56:41] I mean, I have it, like everyone thought I was crazy cause I didn't even throw away all the pills. I got all of them. Just, I like looking at it. It's a reminder.

Speaker 4:
[56:49] Reminder.

Speaker 5:
[56:49] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[56:50] Good for you.

Speaker 5:
[56:50] Yeah, that I wouldn't want, you couldn't convince me. So different though, right? Like cannabis, alcohol.

Speaker 4:
[56:56] It's cause of what you went through.

Speaker 5:
[56:57] Yeah, yeah. Like stuff like that, I could totally, oh yeah, I'll have a drink with you. Oh yeah, I'll smoke with you. Like I would totally, like, even though I told you guys that I've also, it's been that long since I had done cannabis, I'm not, I didn't announce that and say I wouldn't anymore. And I totally would if like the right situation called for it, I would not be worried about that. But you couldn't pay me enough to indulge in one day of that. Oh yeah, no, because the fact that I still know that I have after effects from it that long, and I also know how easily a little bit turns into a little bit more.

Speaker 4:
[57:31] It's all about knowing yourself, isn't it?

Speaker 5:
[57:32] Yeah, yeah, I'm very aware of, you know, and I knew.

Speaker 4:
[57:35] Because it has a pull on me too, not like quite like that, but I will not, I won't go near it because I know it's got a pull.

Speaker 5:
[57:43] Yeah, so the part that makes me mad about that is I went through, mad at myself is, and I played this game of it's an herb, right? Because I went through, you know, Vicodin stuff like a long time ago. And so I know better, I wouldn't touch that again. Like someone offered me one of those, be like, no, you know, like, or if I needed one, no, I don't, even if it was pain or surgery, I'd still not take it because I know my own relationship with that. So yet I allowed the kratom thing, even though I know it works on the opioid receptor, but it was like this justification of it's this herbal leaf. And so, but to see what it put me through, it's like it was, I mean, what I went through with the kratom was worst withdrawals than I ever experienced with Vicodin. Now I didn't obviously take as much for as long as I did, which is-

Speaker 4:
[58:30] But that just throws in the face of the lie that it's a better substance.

Speaker 5:
[58:34] Yeah, yeah. It's like a total bull crap. I know. I mean, there's a lot of people, so I did a full interview with Doug Bops on it. He had me talk all about it. That's all we talked about. And I saw some of the people in the comments. And there's a lot of people that are saying things. And I get it because I had an uncle that was hooked on prescription medication and the kratom helped him merge off of that. And so there was a handful of people, I'd say, that were commenting on my interview that were saying things like, well, not all of us, it's not bad for everybody and that we're defensive about it. You know? And so I'm like, yeah, no, I can understand that you could potentially use that as a way to merge off of like a really strong Oxycontin or Vicodins. And so it could be helpful for some people. And I know that the whole documentary that originally sold me on it, that's how it sold me. I saw a whole documentary on these-

Speaker 4:
[59:34] It was this thing's documentary?

Speaker 5:
[59:35] No, it was before his.

Speaker 4:
[59:36] Oh, really?

Speaker 5:
[59:37] Yeah, it was called something, I think, I want to say it was a magic leaf or was that his? It was one before him that I had seen. And that was what convinced me that, oh, this is like this, you know, they get pictures of this herbal thing and it's all natural and it helps all these people that have opiate addiction and things like that. I was like, oh, wow, this sounds like a really good thing. And so no different than tea or caffeine or something else. It's like, yeah, that's the thing that trapped me into or led me down this like three years. But yeah, I don't know how many months. I tell you what though, what's the name of the Troscription guy that we just had?

Speaker 4:
[60:16] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Scherer. Yeah, look at what, Doug, are you, his sleep stuff, is that?

Speaker 5:
[60:25] Of all the stuff.

Speaker 4:
[60:26] Is that the best sleep?

Speaker 5:
[60:26] Yes. I've never tried anything like that. So here's the move.

Speaker 4:
[60:29] Bro, that'll make you sleep.

Speaker 5:
[60:30] Here's the move.

Speaker 4:
[60:31] Like, period.

Speaker 5:
[60:31] You take, you dissolve, you dissolve one of the comms first. So I'll have, so I typically, my routine right now is, I'll get ready, I'll make myself chamomile tea. I'll kind of drink the chamomile tea first while we're watching a show or something like that. I'll throw one of those comms under my tongue, let it dissolve completely. By time it dissolves, it's set in, and I can already feel myself like, like totally chill out. And then I take the, what's the Z, triple Z one?

Speaker 4:
[61:00] That's the sleep one.

Speaker 5:
[61:01] Yeah, this is the sleep one. Put that under and dissolve. By time that dissolves, I mean, my, my eyelids are getting heavy. And then I just, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[61:10] It's the most effective.

Speaker 6:
[61:12] Yeah, Dr. Scott's share, I believe.

Speaker 5:
[61:14] Did that episode go live yet or no?

Speaker 6:
[61:16] Let me see.

Speaker 5:
[61:18] Oh, good. Oh, so it'll have gone up. So awesome.

Speaker 4:
[61:20] Listen to that episode.

Speaker 5:
[61:21] So people, people, people have heard us talk about that. So yeah, you'll hear in the, hopefully you heard the episode, him talk about a stack. I've been taking that since we met him and it's been incredible. Yeah, it's been great. What I haven't done consistently that he told me to do also is take the Methylene Blue during the day. And so I really want to string like two or three days together where I do that, where I take the Methylene Blue in the morning or in the afternoon or whatever, and then use those two consistently and see if I, because he says that will help it also.

Speaker 4:
[61:50] You know what else helps is the Tromune, which is a cordyceps extract. And it doesn't make you sleepy, but it does increase REM stage.

Speaker 5:
[62:00] Oh, really?

Speaker 4:
[62:01] So take that before bed, and you'll get more REM stage. It's not a sleep supplement.

Speaker 5:
[62:07] Yeah, but I'm trying to improve REM. So REM and DEEP, I'm trying, I mean, I've been tracking consistently, and I'm still on the hunt. So I have yet to do back-to-back 90s. So that's like the goal for me is trying to do that. But yeah, no, it's been cool. And now I got the sauna going, so I haven't had yet a nice little, which was the plan was this week that we just had off, but Max got sick, I got sick, everything got thrown out the window, but I was gonna really get my regimen together with my training, my diet, the sleep staff.

Speaker 4:
[62:44] I hate to hate that, you get a week off and you're sick.

Speaker 5:
[62:47] I had this whole plan of like, we had this step that I had to take care of with the cars and so that, and that all got pushed out and a headache. I'm still trying to figure, I told you guys that we had like a dead animal that we can't, we had to take the rover in to get like taken apart.

Speaker 7:
[63:01] That's right.

Speaker 5:
[63:01] And then they find it? It's still there. You've had it for a week. You've had it for a week. And it was funny, he tells Katrina like four or five days, we have a connection over there and he calls her up and he goes, hey, he goes, we can't find anything, there's no dead animal, it's fine. And the car is fine or with that coming up. Katrina is like, no, there's, trust me. And so he's telling her, they're kind of like arguing on the phone and they know each other since high school, right? And so she's like arguing with them. And so he's like, well, let me go, hold on, I'll go check. So I guess the car that day had been sitting out in the sun with everything sealed up and he comes back, he's like, okay, we'll keep it. Come in and get a loaner. We'll get to the bottom of this because I guess-

Speaker 4:
[63:40] How weird.

Speaker 5:
[63:41] Yeah, we cannot figure out where it's coming from or where it's at, but it is disgusting and it smells like there's a dead animal somewhere in this car, which is so crazy. Like, if you know my cars, I keep everything like clean and tight and like, you can't, like you would never think that there's this weird coming in. So they're having to take apart everything.

Speaker 4:
[64:00] What if it's like a piece of fruit or something?

Speaker 7:
[64:02] Somewhere, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[64:03] I mean, if it is, it's not where-

Speaker 4:
[64:06] You've tore out the inside.

Speaker 5:
[64:07] Oh yeah, they've already, we've already removed the seats from the front seats, back seats, of all. Yeah. So it's got to be something to throw of compartment borrowed on the carpet or up in the chassis or something like that because we're, yeah, cannot get to the bottom. And he was so certain that there's nothing. We check, we pull the seats up. We don't think we can't find anything. And then he put it up, parked it out there. And he's just like, okay.

Speaker 7:
[64:30] Dude, mice can do anything.

Speaker 5:
[64:32] Right.

Speaker 7:
[64:33] Crazy.

Speaker 5:
[64:33] That's what we're afraid of is that it's like some little, tiny little mouse that got trapped.

Speaker 4:
[64:37] Like in the AC or something.

Speaker 5:
[64:38] Yeah. It's somewhere in there and they can't figure out where it's at. But there's something because it's rancid when the car heats up. So yeah, I'm dealing with that right now.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 6:
[65:37] Our first caller is Mitchell from Ohio.

Speaker 4:
[65:39] What's up, man?

Speaker 5:
[65:39] How you doing, Mitchell?

Speaker 4:
[65:40] What's up, dude?

Speaker 8:
[65:41] Hey, guys. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 4:
[65:42] You got it. What's going on?

Speaker 8:
[65:45] Yeah, so I'll give you a little bit of background and then give you my question there at the end. So I've been lifting for about six years. I'm 24 years old. I feel like I'm pretty strong for my size. I'm six foot three, about 185 pounds. But I feel like I'm not building the physique that I want. So a little bit more background. I started lifting when I was 18. Played college baseball, so that's when I got started lifting. I was about 175 pounds when I started. Then in that first year, I put on about 10 pounds, I'd say, and built some size and strength. Those newbie gains. But since then, I really haven't been able to put on the size that I want. So I feel like, like I said, I'm strong for my size, but I still feel super skinny. I just, I don't know, I feel like I'm doing everything right. I'm running MAPS 15, advanced right now. I'm eating about 3,200 calories a day, about 190 grams of protein. I just, I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. So I just want to get your guys' advice on what I should be doing.

Speaker 5:
[66:47] Dan, you're strong.

Speaker 4:
[66:48] Yeah, you're strong.

Speaker 5:
[66:49] Very strong.

Speaker 4:
[66:49] What's your workout? Tell us what your workout looks like.

Speaker 8:
[66:53] Yeah, I mean, I'm running 15 advanced right now. So I go to the gym, I'm in there five days a week. I work out with a buddy. So I don't do the full six or seven days. I just kind of throw in the day six and put that in, you know, scattered out throughout the week through those five days. But through those, you know, I mean, I feel like I'm pushing myself and grinding. I'm just not seeing the growth, the muscle growth that I feel like I should be.

Speaker 4:
[67:21] You just got to eat more.

Speaker 5:
[67:24] Are you playing any ball? Are you doing any other activities outside? Because these are your height, your numbers, everything is very similar to like kind of where I was at. And I just I was active. I was an active guy. I played pick up basketball all the time. I was lifting. I was wakeboarding or snowboard. I was doing all this stuff. Do you do a lot? Are you pretty active guy or what?

Speaker 8:
[67:44] So my job, I'm pretty active in my job. I do carpet cleaning and water damage restoration. So I get about 8000 steps a day. So I'm not like sitting down in an office all day. But I mean, I feel like I'm not I don't other than the gym. I don't go out and play the ball or anything like that.

Speaker 4:
[67:59] So your age, your activity, the amount of strength training, doing your size, your thousand plus if you get 3200 calories a day is going to keep you where you're at.

Speaker 5:
[68:08] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[68:09] And you're going to be fit and healthy and you'll be good. You want to gain some size. You got to get you got to get up to close to 4,000 calories at least down, which is you just got to eat more food, dude.

Speaker 5:
[68:18] And consistently because I like every day if you've done this, like because I remember also being here, I could I could do a couple of days where I was hitting 4,000 and then I'd go back down. It was just so hard to eat that much, which you can probably you can relate to. And that's really what it is. It's just it's consistently being able to say I talk a lot on the podcast. Some of the big hacks for me. I had to get ahead of the calories. I was not a big calorie eater in the morning. And so starting with something, even if it was like low, low calorie, like early, early in the morning. So I was hungry by nine or 10 in the morning to eat a big breakfast. And then I'd have another meal and then I have lunch. So if I got behind on calories, 4,000 just seemed impossible. If I was good about my mornings, I could do that. I don't know if that resonates with you at all, but that was my hurdle.

Speaker 8:
[69:08] It definitely does because I did struggle with that before. I'm eating about a 600 calorie meal for breakfast before I go to the gym, kind of on my way to the gym-ish. So I've kind of got ahead of that a little bit. It's a little tougher for me because with my job, I'm on the road a lot, like bouncing between job sites. So I don't, just with that and keeping that in mind, I mean, is there any like, I don't know, some types of hacks or anything like that for me?

Speaker 4:
[69:33] Yeah, here's the deal. So here's the deal. A guy like you, it's gonna be like an effort to put on size through eating. And it is hard. Now, if you just keep eating what you're eating and do what you're doing, bro, you're crushing. You're way stronger than the average 24 year old. You're fit, you got good lean body mass, you're doing good. But if you wanna gain another 10, 15 pounds in body mass, it's got to be a concentrated effort with food. And if you're on the go, this means you're gonna need to meal prep. And so what you do is you have these meals in your car, you keep them in a cooler or something like that. And then when you're, you know, every few hours you go out there and you eat one in 10 minutes. And you go back to work.

Speaker 5:
[70:15] Get creative with, so if, and give me your obstacles if you have them. Like, for example, I know sometimes guys that are working on jobs that don't have access to like a microwave. So it's like, so make like a chicken pasta cold salad type dishes. Or like, make-

Speaker 4:
[70:31] Can you have dairy?

Speaker 8:
[70:32] Yeah, yeah, I can. I actually drink a lot of milk actually.

Speaker 4:
[70:35] Oh good. Full fat, full fat dairy cottage cheese is really good. You can throw some fruit in there, some granola. Yeah. The high protein yogurts are really good. You can add some peanut butter for some fat in there.

Speaker 5:
[70:46] Throw some cottage cheese with a scoop of vanilla whey protein in it and pineapple stirred up. Now, you're talking about a 50 gram high protein and the high fat one, like Sal is saying, full dairy cottage cheese. You can keep it cold in your cooler like that. It's easy, so you can scrub it out.

Speaker 4:
[71:04] Tuna fish.

Speaker 5:
[71:05] Yeah. Tuna and chicken, like cold pasta casseroles I used to make, so I can keep that cold. So you need to prep. You got to have stuff like that prep for you while you're on the job site, and you just got your little-

Speaker 4:
[71:18] 4,000 calories consistently every day will not happen on accident.

Speaker 5:
[71:22] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[71:23] Right. It's gotta be, again, I'm gonna say this again.

Speaker 5:
[71:25] You're doing great, bro.

Speaker 4:
[71:26] You look good, you're fit, you're strong, so you don't have to do what we're saying, but if it's like, okay, I want to gain some muscle, I want to put on some size, it's gonna be a concentrated effort every day for hitting 4,000 calories a day, and it's gonna feel like that.

Speaker 7:
[71:43] That's your training for sure.

Speaker 8:
[71:44] 4,000 is the number I should be-

Speaker 5:
[71:47] Yeah, easily that number. Easily that number is what you need to be at. I know, it's a lot. Here, okay, and it helps cheat calories for someone like you, but cheat calories in the middle day, not allowed to do. Cheat calories at the end of the day, allowed. In other words, what I'd had to do was I'd set a goal of I gotta get my 200 grams of protein in through whole food good sources, and then if I was still under on calories, I would enjoy a more satisfying type of dinner, a burrito, a burger and fries. You can get away with that.

Speaker 4:
[72:20] But hit your protein.

Speaker 5:
[72:22] But hit your protein through whole natural foods first, through good meal prepping that you do, and then if you're still only at 3200 calories and you need more, then enjoy those French fries. Enjoy the things that will push your calories up. That'll help you out, but make it a goal to get the other stuff first before you do that. What will shoot you in the foot, which is what I did early, which is like, well, I need to gain, so I'll eat whatever. And then at lunch, I do a drive-through fast food or I eat a burger. And then that would fill me up. I wouldn't get enough protein, and then I wouldn't eat till four or five hours later.

Speaker 4:
[72:54] It's just a bunch of fat and carbs.

Speaker 5:
[72:55] And then now I'm still not eating enough calories and I'm low on protein. That's where you'll get stuck in this kind of plateau.

Speaker 4:
[73:02] It's going to feel like another job. I'm just going to let you know. Eating 4,000 calories a day every day is going to feel like another job. You're going to have to prep, plan it, don't skip a meal, be consistent. And you'll probably gain, I mean, I would bet money that you're probably going to gain consistently with your calories, you'll probably get up 6, 7 pounds of lean body mass doing that.

Speaker 5:
[73:23] Oh yeah. Especially how strong you are. You're just missing the calories, dude. You're lifting good weights right now. You state that you're on the right program. You're doing everything.

Speaker 4:
[73:33] And just to encourage you, it gets easier as you get older because right now your metabolism is on fire, bro. When you get in your 30s, you'll be able to build muscle at lower calories than you are right now. I remember it was like at your age. It was like I had to like feed myself.

Speaker 8:
[73:48] Yeah. Yeah. It definitely, I'm already thinking about like I meal prep with, I make like a breakfast hash for when I get home from work is like a first dinner thing. So I got like a bunch of things in the fridge just stacked up. So I'm trying to eat that like with a bunch of protein in it, but yeah, it's just hard to eat that much. And luckily my, my wife bought me a thermos so I can actually make like leftovers on the job now and just eat a sandwich and stuff. So it's, it's helped, but yeah, it's just hard to eat, man. It's like, it is like a second job. Like it is.

Speaker 5:
[74:16] And things like, like breads and some of that too. It'll, it'll fill, it'll, it'll fill you up on, on something that's a bunch of carbs and you need, you need high protein, high calorie, clean sources that your body burns through and then you're ready to eat again.

Speaker 4:
[74:31] You know, it's a good bulking meal that's not even bad. It's not even cold, is like ground beef, 80% ground beef, rice and then when you take it out of the cooler, you add some sour cream and some salsa on it, mix it up and it's like a cold burrito bowl, but it's like high calorie, easy to digest and I could eat that, man, I could eat that several times a day, no problem.

Speaker 8:
[74:51] Yeah, that's a good idea. Not too expensive either. That's the other thing too, is like eating all that food, breaking the bank.

Speaker 5:
[74:57] No, no, no, it's expensive, dude.

Speaker 4:
[74:59] Frozen vegetables.

Speaker 7:
[74:59] You gotta think bulk right now.

Speaker 4:
[75:01] Frozen vegetables, rice, ground beef, shredded cheese on it, sour cream, cottage cheese, super cheap. Very, very easy.

Speaker 5:
[75:09] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8:
[75:10] But you guys think 15 advance is all right for me to be running too?

Speaker 5:
[75:15] That's a great program for you, bro. Yeah, the 15?

Speaker 8:
[75:17] Yeah, because I ran Power Lift probably, when I hit those numbers in the email, I was running Power Lift and that's when I saw the most strength game, but again, it wasn't like size, but I mean, I was missing the-

Speaker 5:
[75:29] Have you ran Max 15 Power Lift yet? The 15 version? Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[75:33] No, I didn't even know that-

Speaker 5:
[75:34] Oh yeah. We'll send you the Max 15 Power Lift version. So that's-

Speaker 8:
[75:38] That would be great.

Speaker 5:
[75:39] Because I like you, the amount of movement you have, you don't need- the mistake that I made in my 20s was thinking I needed to be training in the gym for an hour every single day. Like, you're running the right program to build, like running a 15 protocol like that, just trying to get strong. You fill your body with 4,000 calories, you follow Max 15 Power Lift. We will put 5 to 10 pounds of muscle on you, we will. Awesome, yeah. So do that. I'd love for you to hear back from me if you do it. Stick with it. It's all in the prep though, dude. Dedicate yourself to prep and be ready for it.

Speaker 8:
[76:10] Perfect, yeah. I would love to keep you guys updated. All right. Yeah, well, thank you guys. I appreciate you. I appreciate everything you do.

Speaker 5:
[76:17] Right on, Mitchell.

Speaker 4:
[76:18] Let's have you back on in 60 days. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[76:20] We're going to send that over to you, Mitchell. Follow it.

Speaker 8:
[76:22] Sounds great. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 4:
[76:25] Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. Eating, I know some people need to lose weight, love to hear that. Eating 4,000 calories every day?

Speaker 5:
[76:32] It's a chore, dude. Grass is always greener on the other side. You know what? Both are hard.

Speaker 4:
[76:36] They are.

Speaker 5:
[76:37] You know what I'm saying? Trying to lose 50 pounds and be lean and skinny is hard. Trying to build and be over 200 pounds when you're the skinny, it's hard. They're both hard. They both take the same. It's interesting because it's such a different struggle, and the other person on the other side always says, oh, poor you, it's like it's just as hard for him to try. He's got to do the same type of preparation. He's got to make an effort on Sunday or whatever day to prep those meals. He's got to resist the temptation to drive through the fast food restaurant and just do some quick and easy, and he's got to make the thing that he prepared in his Tupperware.

Speaker 4:
[77:12] It's such a full time. It is like a full time job, bro, to eat that much food every day. And if he does what he's doing now, he's fine. But he's like, I want to gain muscles. All right, you got to force your body to gain it.

Speaker 7:
[77:22] You got to figure out how to digest well, all that stuff.

Speaker 5:
[77:25] But if he hits 4,000 consistently...

Speaker 4:
[77:27] Oh, he'll build some nice muscles.

Speaker 5:
[77:28] Yeah, he'll be a 200-pound low body fat percentage jack dude.

Speaker 7:
[77:34] He will.

Speaker 6:
[77:34] Our next caller is Kalia from Florida.

Speaker 4:
[77:37] Hi, Kalia.

Speaker 9:
[77:38] Hello. Hi, guys. Wow, this is really surreal. I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 4:
[77:43] How can we help you?

Speaker 9:
[77:45] So, just so I don't miss anything or trip over any words, I actually wrote everything down, if that's okay.

Speaker 4:
[77:51] Yeah, let's go.

Speaker 7:
[77:52] Yeah, let's hear it.

Speaker 9:
[77:53] So, growing up, I was always an overweight kid and I had a really bad relationship with food. And looking back now, a lot of that was tied to using it as a coping mechanism. And it wasn't something that I was intentionally taught, but it was definitely something that got passed down to me and I carried that with me for a very long time. Into adulthood, that put me in a cycle of yo-yo dieting and losing the same weight over and over again. I had tried everything from vegan, keto, fasting, whatever trend was out there, I probably did that too. And it got to a point where I was like, okay, I'm tired of looking on the Internet. I want to know the truth. So back in 2019, I originally got my NASM certification. Originally just for myself, I didn't have any intentions of really becoming a coach or doing anything with it at that time. And over time, I started to find a lot more balance with food and training and my body. And then fast forward to 2022, I had my son and during that pregnancy, I gained over 120 pounds. And there was a couple of times I got on the scale and I was damn near 300. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror anymore, but this time I knew it was different because I knew the things that I had to do. I just had to give it some time. So I focused on fueling my body, lifting consistently and intentionally, and getting stronger. And I ended up losing a lot of the weight and building some muscle too. And that also led me to fall in love with powerlifting. And I've been competing now for the USAPL for about two years. Fast forward to now, I got re-certified in 2024 and built my coaching brand Iron Fox Strength. And it's really centered around just helping people build strength for the long haul and not for just aesthetics. I've also been working with a coach myself. He goes by Muscleman Marcus on socials. And he's helped me a ton with structure, direction and has been a kind of a mentor figure for me as well. But I'll be honest, in the pursuit of chasing a coaching career, I've been doing things a little bit backwards. I've been in the restaurant industry for over a decade. I've done everything from dishwasher to management. And I've been trying to build a coaching business on the side while still working there. I had some clients here and there, but nothing has felt super consistent. And a lot of the times when I'm online, I feel like I'm just yelling into the void because there's so many other people doing the same thing. And recently, the restaurant life just started to feel like it wasn't fitting me anymore, like I was wearing shoes that didn't fit. So I made a big shift. I left that job and I started working in a gym here in St. Augustine called Anastasia Fitness. I'm at the front desk right now, but they told me that any clients I bring in or get are mine. So I'm treating it like an opportunity to build something in person, build relationships with people and the members and grow from there. So my question is, if you were basically starting fresh as a coach in a gym environment, trying to build your first real consistent client base, what would you focus the most on? What works when it comes to building trust, getting those first clients and creating momentum for the in-person space? Because I have a really big vision for where I want to take this and my future. I just want to make sure that what I'm focusing on is the right things early on.

Speaker 4:
[81:29] Yeah, great.

Speaker 5:
[81:31] How many workouts would you say happen in that gym day? How many people you scan in a day? How many would you say?

Speaker 9:
[81:37] About 300 on average, I see on the head count on the computer.

Speaker 5:
[81:41] Okay, that's not bad. That's a decent amount of people.

Speaker 9:
[81:44] It's locally owned and operated too, so it's like a smaller one of the gyms in town.

Speaker 5:
[81:49] So I like the saying that you're in the learn phase of your career, not the earn phase of your career right now. And so what is more valuable than what price you should charge or how many clients can you get to buy from you is how people can you get in front of you is more important. And the fact that you control the front desk and you're scanning people in, I would use that as an opportunity to get those people in front of you for a session of training and use that practice to build your skills, build your ability to convert them into clients. And like really focus on that and then the business will come. If you really sit there and try and strategize on how do I get clients to pay and what price should I be and do I build an online presence and sales funnels, it's like right now you have this great opportunity where you are meeting 300 potential leads. Those are some of the best leads. These are people that have already raised their hand and said, I am going to pay for a membership and show up to a gym because I need to change my life in one form or another. Those are some of the best potential clients you could ever ask for. So getting them in front of you and getting them for a free personal training session or do free assessments with them, or teach them a power lifting move, or make you think of a whole host of things that you can start doing for them, is great practice and where I would start you first.

Speaker 4:
[83:11] Yeah. Kalia, of all the places in the gym, the location that is the best by far to potentially get clients is the front desk. That's the best. Second best is the workout floor, but it's actually a distant second. Because the most difficult part of talking to people or getting them to maybe want to workout with you for a free workout is that initial ice breaking.

Speaker 7:
[83:34] Getting their attention.

Speaker 4:
[83:35] And they're already coming in and, hey, how are you doing? Scan them in. Boom, done. It's the best place. And this is why I trained all my trainers to work the front desk. This is what we talk about in our course that we have for coaches and trainers. So all you got to do is get people to workout with you for free and then from there, you'll get the clients. That's it. Just get them to work out. Hey, what are you working on today? You want to come back and focus on your deadlift? Or you want to build a better whatever? Or let me take you through a workout. I'm a competitive power lifter. And then schedule them for a workout and that's it. And you do a bunch of those, you'll get clients. No problem.

Speaker 5:
[84:10] Yeah, if you become the mayor of that gym, by knowing all the people that get scanned in by first name, what they're working on, what they're working into, before you know it, they're going to want...

Speaker 7:
[84:21] Recommendations, everything is going to come.

Speaker 5:
[84:22] Whoever is the owner of that gym is going to want you as the trainer, training there, because you're going to... I mean, that's the key. And that's the focus on that right now. Can I get to know all these people that are coming in by first name, what their goals are, what they're trying to do, and help them in any way, in any capacity whatsoever? Will that be teaching them the technique of a deadlift or a squat? Will that be taking them through a full workout? Will that be taking them through your NSM squat assessment? I mean, those are all tools that you already have in your tool bag.

Speaker 7:
[84:50] High service, just pay attention to the quality that you're providing them. All of that is going to play the long term so well. You're going to build that reputation in there, and then that's just going to keep escalating and the snowball effect will happen.

Speaker 4:
[85:04] I'll give you specific numbers, Kalia. If you can schedule yourself 10 to 20 free workouts a week, so every week, if you can get yourself 10 to 20 free workouts, within three months you'll have a full roster of clients. That's it. So just do that. Can I get myself for next week, can I book myself 15 workouts with people, like 15 free one-on-ones. If you do that after three months, you'll have a full roster.

Speaker 5:
[85:33] An idea that comes to mind right away for me with someone like you, with a power lifting background, I would literally pick a day, say 30, 45 days out from now, and I'm going to do a squat clinic for free. And I'm going to have a sign up sheet on the front desk. I'm going to say hi to everybody and be like, hey, would you like to improve your squat from somebody who's-

Speaker 7:
[85:53] Just that one lift at a time.

Speaker 5:
[85:54] Yeah. And literally just try and get 30 people to show up to your squat clinic and teach all the mechanics of the squat, how to prep for the squat, how to make like what it looks, whatever.

Speaker 9:
[86:06] I love that idea.

Speaker 5:
[86:07] Now, all those people that show up to that and they get something from you, I guarantee at least three to five of them will hang out after the hour of teaching them. And then you book a free workout. And those are now people that go, I tell you what, let's spend some more time. I'd love to spend some time with you one-on-one. Let's book something next week and you and I can dig more deep into your reason why your knee hurts.

Speaker 7:
[86:26] Boost your authority in there.

Speaker 5:
[86:27] Yes.

Speaker 7:
[86:27] All of that.

Speaker 5:
[86:28] And start hosting these free little clinics every other week where you try and get 10, 15, 30 people in for free and those people will turn into potential clients for sure. And it's something you already do.

Speaker 4:
[86:40] Simple.

Speaker 9:
[86:40] Yeah. I love that idea.

Speaker 5:
[86:44] And then you probably should get in our Elite Trainer Academy since this is the type of stuff that we coach and talk about. I mean, that's-

Speaker 9:
[86:49] Yeah. I definitely have checked out that link. I just haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Speaker 5:
[86:53] Yeah. I mean, that's- So just so you know, when we went out, when we pursued that and decided we were going to build that, we did not want to compete with NCSF, NASM, all the great national certs that are out there. What we saw as a gap is exactly what you're calling about right now, is a lot of these certs do a good job of giving you fundamentals but don't teach you how to go build a business from ground up. So literally our course is centered around that. It's like how do you take your little bit of knowledge that you've gained as a personal trainer and then actually turn that into a business, whether that be in-person, virtual, we cover all that stuff, this is what that whole course is about. So that was really, it's not another NASM or another NCSF, that's not what you're going to get from our course. You're going to get learning how to build your business and tactics like what we're talking about right now.

Speaker 9:
[87:41] Yeah, I had always heard you think you're going to get certified and you're just going to coach people, but really it's just a lot of business stuff and I'm just really learning that and I'm just like, okay, let's figure it out.

Speaker 5:
[87:52] 100%, I mean, this is why we thought this was what our cert was so valuable was because it's like there's a ton of great national certs to learn biomechanics and human physiology and nutrition. And there's not, I think we have plenty of those. We don't have, not enough of them talk about, okay, now what do I do with this damn thing? You know, I understand how to help somebody, but then how do I actually turn that into a legitimate business and a livelihood?

Speaker 4:
[88:19] But Kalia, the fact that you work the front desk in a relatively busy gym, you're in a great position. That's like, that's so much of this is just being able to put yourself in that position. You're already there.

Speaker 5:
[88:29] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[88:29] So the rest is really just follow the steps.

Speaker 5:
[88:32] You'll, I don't know who the boss is, who hired you and stuff like that, but you'll blow their mind if you all of a sudden start holding these squat and deadlift clinics and shit.

Speaker 4:
[88:39] And you sign them up at the front desk.

Speaker 5:
[88:40] And 30 people start showing up to it like I would so do this undercover and just do my thing and like let them watch you and then watch what happens.

Speaker 10:
[88:48] Yep.

Speaker 5:
[88:49] Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[88:50] Yeah. That sounds great. I definitely think I'm going to do that for sure.

Speaker 10:
[88:53] All right.

Speaker 4:
[88:53] Cool. Let's see what happens.

Speaker 5:
[88:54] Yes. And hopefully we'll see.

Speaker 9:
[88:55] Yeah, I will. 100%.

Speaker 5:
[88:57] Hopefully we'll see you inside of Elite Trainer Academy soon.

Speaker 9:
[89:00] All right. Sounds good. Thank you guys.

Speaker 5:
[89:02] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[89:04] I mean, you guys remember we used to fight over the front desk.

Speaker 7:
[89:06] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[89:07] It's interesting that we bring this up now, and a lot of trainers and people who don't even know the power of just people coming in to greet you as they come in and how easy it is to schedule.

Speaker 7:
[89:17] Huge advantage.

Speaker 4:
[89:18] Oh, God. The front desk is like, that's the place to be, and she already works there. So if she just follows the steps, and I was concerned, I think within a few months, she'll have a nice client base.

Speaker 5:
[89:27] And I asked how many people that were working out there, because that makes a big difference. If you're getting 300 leads a day, that's a lot of people. That's plenty of people to let your business off of. You know, it's different if she was working at some small box that sold 10 workouts in a day. It's like...

Speaker 4:
[89:41] It's still the place to be.

Speaker 5:
[89:42] Oh, you're right.

Speaker 4:
[89:43] Far left.

Speaker 5:
[89:43] Oh, yeah. But man, you get 300 workouts a day. I got 20, 30 people showing up to my free squat class in four weeks.

Speaker 4:
[89:50] That's right.

Speaker 5:
[89:50] Easy.

Speaker 4:
[89:51] No problem.

Speaker 5:
[89:51] Easily.

Speaker 6:
[89:52] Our next caller is Catherine from South Carolina.

Speaker 4:
[89:54] Hi, Catherine.

Speaker 10:
[89:55] Hi.

Speaker 4:
[89:56] How can we help you?

Speaker 10:
[89:57] So excited to be here.

Speaker 4:
[89:58] Thank you. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 10:
[90:00] Just wanted to give a shout out to my sister. She listens to y'all every day. So I'm kind of a fan through her to you. She's on one of your Muscle Mommy programs with one of your coaches.

Speaker 4:
[90:11] Nice.

Speaker 10:
[90:12] She encouraged me to reach out.

Speaker 4:
[90:13] Oh, good. How can we help you?

Speaker 10:
[90:16] Well, first, I guess one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to y'all was because I have a son getting married in June. So it's very motivating for me to be at my best. I kind of have been weight training off and on for the last year, but really seriously for about eight months. Then I kicked it into high gear in January, and I've shed about 14 pounds of fat. I think that's really, really, really good.

Speaker 4:
[90:44] It is.

Speaker 2:
[90:44] Yeah, it is really good.

Speaker 10:
[90:47] I feel like I've just stagnated now. I've been in a slight calorie deficit of about 200 calories since January 1st, and it seemed to really be working well. I have plenty of energy. I recover well. I'm sleeping great at night, but now I'm just kind of stopped, and I want to keep getting... I still have some body fat that I want to shed. So what do you suggest?

Speaker 5:
[91:14] Let's talk about your programming. What are you doing as far as your strength training?

Speaker 10:
[91:18] I am doing four days a week, most weeks, upper, lower split.

Speaker 4:
[91:24] Okay. That's not bad. Are you feeling pretty strong?

Speaker 10:
[91:28] I am, actually. There's a couple lifts that I had to regress a little bit in, and I was thinking that was probably maybe because I wasn't eating enough. Then I got over the hump, and I was getting stronger in those lifts again, so that's good.

Speaker 4:
[91:41] That's good. You said you're in a small deficit. What are your calories?

Speaker 10:
[91:46] Between 2,000 and 2,100.

Speaker 4:
[91:48] Okay. That's not bad. We run into a bit of an issue here. You could go into a deficit, and now you're starting to dip into 1,800, 1,700 calories.

Speaker 10:
[91:58] I don't want to do that. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[92:00] I wouldn't.

Speaker 5:
[92:00] We don't want you either.

Speaker 4:
[92:01] I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 5:
[92:03] Especially, I see you're doing 14,000 steps a day, so you're active.

Speaker 4:
[92:06] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[92:07] You're not a sedentary person, so it's a bit of...

Speaker 10:
[92:10] Well, I do a 45-minute to an hour walk every day, so that's where a lot of those steps are coming from.

Speaker 4:
[92:15] Yeah, that's okay. It's still a lot of steps.

Speaker 5:
[92:16] It's still a lot of steps.

Speaker 4:
[92:17] And four days a week of strength training.

Speaker 5:
[92:18] Yeah, you're an active person.

Speaker 4:
[92:20] Yeah, you're better off building into getting leaner than you are trying to cut into getting leaner.

Speaker 10:
[92:26] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[92:26] So if you were to gain some lean body mass and do it in a nice, slow, consistent way, your body fat percentage will go down.

Speaker 10:
[92:33] What did that look like for me?

Speaker 5:
[92:35] 2,300 to 2,400 calories right now.

Speaker 10:
[92:37] Oh, no.

Speaker 5:
[92:38] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 10:
[92:40] My son listens to y'all, too, and he was like, they're gonna tell you to go into a calorie surplus. And my sister said that, too.

Speaker 5:
[92:47] Yes. I mean, that's what you're set up for, because the other option is what Sal said, and you already agreed, we don't want to do, and you're right, you don't want to do that. I don't want to take you to 1,700 calories. That's such a low-

Speaker 4:
[92:58] You'll lose weight, but you'll lose muscle.

Speaker 5:
[93:00] And you won't feel good. You'll feel better going up to about 2,300 to 2,400 calories, and really just focus on getting strong. Don't worry about the scale, because you might see the scale go one or two pounds up. It's not fat. You didn't put fat on. You know what I'm saying? You're eating more calories. You're going to have more water. Just don't worry about that. What should happen is you should probably see maybe the scale go up one or two pounds, and then it will level off, and you'll feel really good. And then that knows we're at a good calorie place and really focus on getting strong. And then the next sign I'm wanting to hear from you is that you're hungry, because then that probably means we build muscle.

Speaker 10:
[93:37] I have started getting hungry lately. In January, it was really hard work to eat 160 grams of protein a day, and I was having to supplement with protein shakes, and it was like punishment eating all that food. And now I'm eating that food, and I'm a little bit hungry when I go to bed.

Speaker 5:
[93:57] Oh, good sign.

Speaker 4:
[93:58] That's good news. When's the wedding? How long do we have?

Speaker 10:
[94:01] It's June 19th.

Speaker 4:
[94:03] Okay. So if you went up to 2,300 calories right now, I think what would happen is you'd probably, you'd get stronger, you'd feel better, and then you'd get leaner. I think if you just stayed there, you could actually even go up from there. You could eventually get up to 25. But I bet if you kept it around 23, 24, and just kept doing what you're doing, you would get the look that you're looking for by June. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[94:25] Yeah, yeah. You just need to be fed more. You're hungry too. That's a good sign. Such a good sign. I mean, I'd love to give you a program too, if we could set you up with one of our programs. Not that there's anything wrong with what you're doing, I think it would do you well to switch over to something else.

Speaker 10:
[94:39] Well, that would be great. I'm getting a little weary of trying to figure out what to do every day. I mean, I have good knowledge, I think, but it gets old trying to figure it out.

Speaker 4:
[94:48] You work out in the gym?

Speaker 10:
[94:50] I do. I go to the gym. All right.

Speaker 4:
[94:51] We'll send you Muscle Mommy. Follow that program.

Speaker 5:
[94:53] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[94:53] Okay.

Speaker 10:
[94:54] That's what my sister's on.

Speaker 5:
[94:55] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[94:55] You'll love it.

Speaker 5:
[94:56] Yeah. You'll do great on this.

Speaker 4:
[94:57] Bunk your calories 23, 24, stay there and give it some time.

Speaker 10:
[95:02] So just keep doing that till the wedding?

Speaker 5:
[95:05] I mean, yes. I also think though that you could potentially get hungry and she could probably still feed a little bit. We have enough time that she could get all the way up to 26, 2700 and then come back down too.

Speaker 4:
[95:15] Look, Catherine, if you want specific, because this is where we would want to adjust.

Speaker 5:
[95:20] We could have you coach too.

Speaker 4:
[95:21] Yeah, that's right. We would want to adjust you as we go, because we would ask you questions, see how you're doing, whether or not we want to reverse a little more or whatever. You could work with one of our coaches and then they could work with you up till the wedding and take you through the entire process and adjust calories, essentially based on how you feel, your performance, that kind of stuff. Okay. That would be another option.

Speaker 5:
[95:42] The only reason why that's better than what we're saying right now is just because what I don't know is the feedback from you in three weeks. The first thing I would say is, boom, I'm going to take you up to 23, 2400, and then I'm going to check in with you and you're going to let me know, I feel this, I notice this, this is going on, and then from there, I'll either say, cool, stay the course, we're right where I want you to be, or I might go, wow, okay, we could eat some more. Let's go up another 100 or 200, and then I might, so that's the only thing that's different, is like it's hard for us to predict how you'll be feeling, what you'll see in three, four weeks. Sal is right, you could probably hover right around there, all the way through, and you're going to see improvements all the way till there. I think we have enough runway room that if I was like-

Speaker 4:
[96:26] Much more specific.

Speaker 5:
[96:27] If I had you that whole time, I think I would really try and keep ramping the calories up till I get about 26, 27, maybe even 2,800, and then hopefully have a whole month before.

Speaker 4:
[96:39] Then we cut.

Speaker 5:
[96:39] Then I cut for a month going down, and I take you from like 28, all the way back down to 2,000 to 22, and you just lean out right into the wedding.

Speaker 10:
[96:48] That is what I was hoping we could do something like that.

Speaker 5:
[96:52] Okay, so that's where the coach would help. Because knowing that you're going to respond exactly how I would think or want you to, I'm uncertain until we're going through that process, and there might be some adjustments along the way. But you have enough runway, you're in a healthy, good place, like that we could totally do something like that. But again, like I said, knowing that for sure. But you have both options. You can do the Sal way, which is like, hover around those calories. What he's telling you, I think, is the more conservative way, where you'll be okay. He knows that he can give you that advice. You'll be better than you are right now. I'm thinking more like, well, I got enough room. I could really push that metabolism, and then I could really cut her. I could do more, but then I would want to be closer to you to see and know so I don't send you on the wrong path.

Speaker 10:
[97:44] Well, I feel like I have the drive right now. I have good energy. I really want to keep moving this thing forward. I'm not tired. I'm not too tired. I think going to the gym four times a week is good. I'm not. But if there's something more I could do, more concentrated to get to the finish line of June 19th. Obviously, it's not the finish line, but it's a good goal to work.

Speaker 4:
[98:10] You have a lot of fun with the coach because it's going to get much more specific. You're going to have a lot of fun with seeing how your body responds. I think you'd be surprised at how great your metabolism responds, the muscle, the leanness. It's much more targeted that way. It's just we'd want somebody to be with you to know when to make those changes.

Speaker 5:
[98:29] The cool part of going through with the coach is you'll have these strategies to use forever. What you'll learn about your body and what they'll learn going through it with you is how you respond to that. Everybody is different. Some people respond really well to the calorie surplus. Some don't so much. I have no idea if that's going to present any sort of challenges mentally too. That's all part of coaching is like listening to my client tell me what they're going through, what they're feeling, what they're feeling, and then trying to coach them on what exactly they're reading. We'll have someone call you when we hang up right now. We'll have one of our coaches lay out what that would look like for you and hopefully we'll see you in there.

Speaker 10:
[99:11] All right. That's great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4:
[99:13] Thanks for calling in.

Speaker 5:
[99:13] See you, Catherine.

Speaker 4:
[99:14] All right. Thanks.

Speaker 10:
[99:15] Bye.

Speaker 4:
[99:16] She's in a good place.

Speaker 5:
[99:17] Yeah. I mean, you gave the best conservative answer. Yeah. It's very conservative.

Speaker 4:
[99:21] That's right. That's right.

Speaker 5:
[99:21] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[99:22] But if you want like focused, targeted, like make it happen, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[99:25] Yeah. I can't help it. I can't help but go like-

Speaker 9:
[99:27] No.

Speaker 4:
[99:27] I don't know how she's going to be in four weeks.

Speaker 5:
[99:28] I got a lot of time. I got a lot of time. She's in a good place right now.

Speaker 4:
[99:32] That's right.

Speaker 5:
[99:32] I would like to ramp her up way more aggressively to like 2,800 plus calories and then put her on kind of an aggressive cut for four weeks. And by the way, aggressive cut will look where she's at in calories now.

Speaker 4:
[99:45] She'll go back down where she's at now.

Speaker 5:
[99:46] Yeah. But after we've spread that metabolism up, built five, six pounds of muscle on her, lift together all her lifts up, and then just watch herself lean out going into the wedding.

Speaker 6:
[99:57] Our next caller is April from Wisconsin.

Speaker 4:
[99:59] Hey, welcome back.

Speaker 7:
[100:00] Hey, how are you doing?

Speaker 11:
[100:02] Hey, guys. Well, glad to be back. I emailed, I think it was Doug or someone a couple of weeks ago. I just want to give you guys an update because in the last two times we spoke, you guys were hounding me to do power lift and I was too stubborn to listen.

Speaker 4:
[100:19] So what happened?

Speaker 11:
[100:21] I ran it and you guys were right.

Speaker 4:
[100:25] That's weird.

Speaker 11:
[100:27] I know. So I'll take the loss on that one. So in October, after we spoke, I was like, okay, I'm going to try it. Ran the program and what is it? It's now end of March and I can happily say that I have visible muscle. Yeah. And it's pretty awesome to finally see the progress that I've made. After October, I actually stopped tracking my calories. I stopped weighing myself. I've decided the only numbers I was going to focus on was the weights I was adding to the bar, the dumbbells that I was grabbing, so no longer tied to the scale. Yes. So it's been really cool. My husband told me that my legs look bigger, my butt got bigger and higher. I actually have arms, so hearing that validation and seeing it myself is just like, it's awesome. So I'm really pumped to keep this going.

Speaker 4:
[101:28] Great job. That's exactly what you needed to do. I'm so glad you did it. I'm reading your email here, so let me know if this is still accurate. You went from 650 calories a day to about 2000 to 2100?

Speaker 11:
[101:41] Yeah, so 1650 to about 2100, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[101:44] And your strength, it looks like you're squatting from 45 to 85 pounds, so you went up 40 pounds in your squat.

Speaker 5:
[101:49] Almost doubled it, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[101:51] That's phenomenal, and you're actually kind of careful with that because you don't want to hurt yourself, it says in the email.

Speaker 11:
[101:56] Yeah, I have two back fractures from when I was in high school. It just never healed right, so I have to be really careful with squatting and dead lifting.

Speaker 4:
[102:02] No worries. And then you gained three to four pounds of muscle, essentially, per the comment of your husband with your legs and your butt and the strength.

Speaker 11:
[102:11] Yeah, I mean, the last weigh-in I did was October, and I weighed 126. I weighed myself last week, I weighed 127, so I definitely think I did a re-comp.

Speaker 4:
[102:23] Yeah.

Speaker 11:
[102:24] Like just eating intuitively, which was really great.

Speaker 4:
[102:28] That's cool.

Speaker 5:
[102:29] Yeah. So I want to hit the question that I see coming, which is the, I have a trip coming up in a couple of weeks, but I want to get back to my plan to increase my calories and again, start Maps Aesthetic. I don't think Maps Aesthetic is the program for you. I do want you to increase calories though. I think you absolutely can keep going up in the calorie direction. I think Maps Aesthetic volume is unnecessary for what you're trying to accomplish and where we're at calorie-wise. That's my opinion.

Speaker 4:
[102:55] Bump your calories and follow Maps Muscle Mommy.

Speaker 11:
[102:58] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[102:58] That'll get you what you want.

Speaker 11:
[103:00] Okay. That was actually the next thing I was going to suggest if you guys had options. I was like Muscle Mommy was one that was kind of on my radar. I did notice that training with deadlifting and squatting, I just got less flexible. Oh, yeah. So doing something definitely, I mean, it has to be something different. I just feel like it's run its course. So I think Muscle Mommy will be a good fit. I have to ask this question, so don't kill me Adam, but when do I do the cut? Because I think I'm fine now. Like I'm like totally in the zone now. I do feel like I'm going to trip myself up once summer gets here and I'm walking around in shorts and tank tops. And I mean, I feel bigger now, I'll admit. I feel fluffy. I feel big, but I'm still not freaking out. I just see myself getting to that point once the weather starts to turn here.

Speaker 5:
[103:53] So even though you only went three pounds up on the scale, husband says it's butt and legs, you still feel fluffy?

Speaker 11:
[103:59] I do, and I don't, I think it's like, I don't know if it's like, because I've increased my food, and maybe I have some digestive issues, but I always feel bloated by the end of the day. It's kind of gross.

Speaker 4:
[104:12] You know what it is? You're tripping. Yeah, you're tripping. So you're used to eating very little?

Speaker 5:
[104:17] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[104:18] So eating appropriately to you is too much?

Speaker 11:
[104:22] So adding more is gonna be even more.

Speaker 5:
[104:24] It is. Well, I mean, what we're getting to is that, so we have, we've just had some recent callers, where we talked about this too. Someone where you're coming from would be far better off building into the physique than cutting to the physique you want. You with, and I know it sounds crazy to say this, but 10 more pounds on the scale or 10 pounds on your body of muscle will look better than trying to cut you down five pounds. It will, you will have the roundness of the shoulders, even a rounder butt, the shape that you want.

Speaker 4:
[104:56] The whole deal.

Speaker 5:
[104:58] You will look more amazing building into the body you want than trying to cut into the body you want.

Speaker 4:
[105:04] April, do you know what your body fat percentage sits at?

Speaker 11:
[105:07] I don't.

Speaker 4:
[105:08] How tall are you? What's your body weight?

Speaker 11:
[105:10] I weigh 127 and I'm 5'6.

Speaker 4:
[105:12] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, hon, you're lean. Yeah. Especially with your strength and all that, you're lean. Yeah. Yeah. I would go up to 2,300 calories, follow Maps Muscle Mommy and have a great time letting your metabolism really just work.

Speaker 5:
[105:27] Same focus too. Don't focus on the scale, focus on the strength of the gym. Those extra calories, if we do a good job, should fuel that strength. That's what we want to see.

Speaker 4:
[105:37] Just so you know, someone like you, if I coached you, I would easily get you up to over time, like 27, 2800 calories, no problem. No problem. So even 2300 is lower than what your body is capable of doing and you're not going to gain all this body fat, you're just going to get really sculpted, is what's going to happen.

Speaker 5:
[105:57] Which is why I wouldn't want to cut you. I wouldn't want, if you were my client and we were together long term, the goal would be to do what Sal said before I said, okay, we could probably cut and see what that looks like because you're tall enough, you're lean enough, you're lifting enough to get to a place where you should be able to easily eat over 25, 2600 calories and maintain the body and physique you want. And cutting you before that is just, I'm setting you up for failure down the road, you know? Okay.

Speaker 11:
[106:32] I don't like eating a ton of food because I eat whole natural foods, right? So I'm cooking all the time, all that stuff. Can I get those extra calories from like adding more olive oil or? Yes.

Speaker 5:
[106:45] I would encourage you not to change much, especially with someone who would feel like they're eating, like adding, I don't know what cuts of meat you eat right now, but have a little bit higher fat cuts of meat. I don't know how often you enjoy a ribeye or a tri-tip or the high fat ground beef. Enjoy that.

Speaker 11:
[107:02] I'm picking a papacow in two weeks.

Speaker 5:
[107:05] Oh, you are? Oh, good. Yeah, so enjoy higher fat cuts. Enjoy those or add an olive oil when you're doing something like that. Eat chicken thighs instead of chicken breast. Don't do the extra lean ground turkey. If you do do ground turkey, make it in olive oil. Add a little bit of butter to your rice. Do things like that. That's not really radically changing the way you eat, but you know you're bumping 100, 200 calories through higher. The higher fat always does good with my females. My female clients always are better served getting those good healthy fats in their diet and avocado in there. Add stuff like that. I love that. Especially if you're hitting your protein already consistently.

Speaker 11:
[107:41] Okay. Yeah, I definitely do. Even though I don't track, I track for so long, I definitely am getting my protein. I do think the digestive stuff probably is coming from trying to increase my carbs because my carbs generally fit on the low side. I did hear you guys had a caller. I think she had very similar stats to me, but she said that she eats very high fat, low carb, and you guys said it was okay that I'll still build muscle even if I'm not chasing.

Speaker 5:
[108:08] Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 4:
[108:10] I mean, going zero, no carb, some women have hormonal issues from that. But going lower carb, higher fat, perfectly fine.

Speaker 5:
[108:17] Yep.

Speaker 11:
[108:17] Okay, yeah, I'm probably like 80 grams of carbs a day.

Speaker 4:
[108:21] That's where you're at now?

Speaker 5:
[108:21] Yeah.

Speaker 11:
[108:22] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[108:22] Oh, you're fine. Yeah, and you can bump the fats a little bit, and if it's digestive, you could try adding psyllium husk to your meals. It's just the fiber that helps. Yeah, so you could try that.

Speaker 11:
[108:33] Okay, cool. Okay, last question for you guys, because again, I listen to you guys every day. Seriously, you guys are amazing. But you had a recent episode about creatine and how women should be taking it. I have a heart condition and I cannot take it. It causes palpitations. So if you could recommend a second in place, supplement that a woman should add to their stack that's not creatine, do you guys have any suggestions of what would be a good one?

Speaker 4:
[109:05] Yeah, I know. And you have been recommended by your doctor not to take creatine.

Speaker 11:
[109:09] Yeah, my cardiologist recommended not to take it just because of my electrolytes have to be dialed in.

Speaker 4:
[109:14] Oh, I see. That makes perfect sense. Okay. I mean, honestly, multivitamin, vitamin D with K, omega-3s, these are just health supplements. There's not a ton of supplements out there that make a huge difference. You're hitting a protein target. If you weren't hitting your protein, it's a protein shake. But there's not a lot of... I mean, there's stuff that could help with inflammation, with sleep, but honestly, make sure you get your nutrients. So like methylated B complex, some women do really well with that. Vitamin D with K2, most men and women do well with that. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[109:48] I'm assuming you're already doing blood work and checking your hormones and you know you're all balanced on that side.

Speaker 11:
[109:53] Yeah, because I also suffered from Graves' disease two years ago, so I get that checked every six months.

Speaker 5:
[109:58] So if you're balancing your hormones out, you're hitting all your micro macronutrients, even as great as creatine is, it's not that big of a deal for you not to be. You're not missing out on some huge gains.

Speaker 11:
[110:10] I feel like I'm missing out every time. I just walk them on and it's like crap.

Speaker 5:
[110:13] No, no, you're not. In fact, you know what, an area that I think everybody can always be better at is sleep. So if you put some effort and energy into getting really good night's rest of consistent sleep, that'll serve you even more than even the best creatine in the world will. You consistently scoring really high on sleep every single night. So having a good sleep routine, for me, it's like chamomile tea, my magnesium, I have my little supplement stack that really helps me calm down, wind down and get a good night's rest. If that, yeah, hold my teddy bear, all those things. So if you don't put a lot of effort into that, I think that would serve you as much or more than even creatine would.

Speaker 11:
[110:58] Okay. Okay. All right, guys, thank you so much.

Speaker 5:
[111:01] You're doing great.

Speaker 11:
[111:03] I'll just say one last thing, anybody, if you're women, especially if you're afraid to lift heavy, listen to them, it actually works. Thank you so much, guys.

Speaker 7:
[111:11] Thank you. Thank you. Good job.

Speaker 11:
[111:12] Bye.

Speaker 5:
[111:14] If I recall, so I should give her love because if I recall, we did the call with her and she got off, I said, she ain't listening to us.

Speaker 8:
[111:21] Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[111:23] We almost took a bet on her.

Speaker 5:
[111:25] Yeah. I think she was the one that I said that, so I got to give her some love that I felt that energy.

Speaker 4:
[111:32] But I got to say this too with the digestive stuff, not that this isn't common because digestive issues can be common in people, but oftentimes I find people who are afraid to eat more or who've constantly eaten too little or restricted, when they eat appropriately to them, it feels like they're bloated.

Speaker 7:
[111:49] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[111:49] I'm dealing with that.

Speaker 7:
[111:50] It's just a new thing.

Speaker 4:
[111:51] Yeah. It's like you're just not used to feeding yourself. You're used to being empty all the time.

Speaker 7:
[111:54] That's a big part of it.

Speaker 5:
[111:54] I'm dealing with that right now. That's what we're going through right now is that, it's like I know it's appropriate. Everybody else says it's a but, feels like it's too much. I'm bloated and my digestion, it's just like, yeah, if you've trained yourself to eat so low a calorie.

Speaker 4:
[112:10] You're just used to being empty all the time.

Speaker 5:
[112:11] All the time.

Speaker 7:
[112:12] Mindset completely.

Speaker 5:
[112:13] Yeah, it feels so different to you.

Speaker 4:
[112:15] If you like Mind Pump, come find us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media.

Speaker 6:
[112:17] Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.

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[113:26] We're lost. It feels like we're going round in circles.

Speaker 10:
[113:30] I'm going to ask that man for directions.

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