Hey, Pumpheads. This is the final day for our Maps Super Bundle promotion, where we're going to give you the NoBS six-pack formula for free. God, I think we're giving away another... What else are we giving away, Doug? Occlusion Guide. You get the Occlusion Guide and the NoBS six-pack formula for free for enrolling in the Maps Super Bundle. You can find this at mindpumpmedia.com. It's the last day. Hey, check this out. Eldoa certification that's happening here at Mindpump Media Studios. It's a pretty revolutionary certification. We're going to be attending it ourselves. It involves using the fascia to create lines of traction in the spine.  Eldoa is an amazing certification. It's happening here March 11th and 12th. You can sign up for it at mindpumpmedia.com. Just go under the event calendar. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mindpump with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. All right. You're going to hear us talking to a good friend of mine, Stephanie Obrigozo. She's an exceptional personal trainer. I've known her for a long time. She's a lifestyle and exercise coach. I consider her one of my experts, one of my personal experts on gut health. She would hate me calling her that, but it's true. She's extremely knowledgeable on gut health, on things like food intolerances, on correctional exercise. She's somebody that I consider one of the best trainers I know and I've worked with, and we got a chance to talk to and interview her. So here we are, Mindpump interviewing Stephanie Obrigozo. Do that again with your toes. Toesplay, bam! Look at that, Adam. Can you articulate each one? Not everyone, but... That's pretty wide with the pinky. That's pretty good. Bro, she could... Pinky's out there. Pinky likes to rip things. Do you attribute that to your Aldoa knowledge or your Czech knowledge? Where did you learn to spread your toes? Have you always been that connected to those toesies? No, I don't think so. I spread my toes like this from on a forest when I did forest yoga teacher training. She's really big on active feet and staying really grounded by not letting your feet go to sleep while you're in yoga poses. So you already had that before you moved your way over because you've got Czech and you've got Aldoa, I believe, underneath you, right? I did the Aldoa one. And I did study with Guy Voyet when I was over in London a couple of his Soma training courses. What does Aldoa stand for again? It is a plenč aklonim. And I do not speak French. I'm actually going to spit it out because it's a very hard one to say. No, but translated into English it stands for longitudinal osteoarticular decoaptation stretching. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which sounds just as hard to say as in French. You may as well try to say it in French. Okay, now say it in English. Interesting, very interesting. That's a mouthful. So you already had that. Tell me, I'm really interested. Did Sal tell you we have Aldoa coming here? Yes, he did. And I'm very excited about that. I'm excited too. We actually kind of started to dive in through some of the videos and it seems really, really interesting. What did you like about it? About the Aldoa course specifically. Yes. Well, it's a great way to address issues with certain segments of the spine. And it works pretty quickly. So it's a good tool to have in your toolbox. For example, if somebody has degenerative disc disease or lost disc height or has a lack of mobility at L5S1, there's a very specific stretch that you do and it's a very active stretch. And it will... Instant relief right after you do it? For a lot of people it is, but you know, you do have to stick with it continuously, but you know, you do the Aldoa for one minute and a lot of people will find that they get instantaneous relief from that. That it does help create more space between L5 and S1. Which makes sense, right? It makes sense. That's really cool. So I met Stephanie God. How long ago was it that we met? That was when I started teaching yoga. It was like 2010. Was it until maybe seven years ago? Yeah. So I had opened up a separate facility where we taught, you know, we had group classes. And then I met Stephanie because at the time she was a yoga instructor and I was very impressed with her approach to fitness and wellness and just she was really good with... When she would teach class it was a lot of charisma. She had a lot of people connecting to her, but you have a very interesting story. What got you into fitness and wellness in the first place? Well, I was really actually very overweight as a child and I did not play sports. I had very little self-esteem, very low confidence.  Like how overweight? I was like 25 pounds more than I weigh now when I was 11. Okay. Oh, wow, at 11. Yeah, at 11. Okay, wow. Just squeeze it. Now, Kase, can we dive into a little bit of that? Like, what do you attribute a lot of that to? Do you think as a kid?  I had cereal for dinner. We had ice cream all the time. Candy like crazy. Sugar cereals. Yeah, what do you attribute a lot of that to? And is it the way you raise? What you were around? What you were exposed to? And you know, tell me how that... You know, that's funny because my parents, my father's from Spain. He's Basque. And my mom is from Korea. And so growing up, I ate a wide variety of real food. Like we had a lot of unprocessed food. But I always felt like I was an outcast. Like I wanted to be... I wanted to have blonde hair and blue eyes. Like I wanted to be American and I wanted to be like the other kids with their American like normal parents. So I actually started to ask for junk food. And then I just kind of found solace in eating these sugary processed foods. And then I became addicted to them. And I actually had a lot of signs of fungal infections at that age. Like what? My fingernails were just growing in like all weird. And I just had fungal infections there. I even had like a toenail fungus at the time. Interesting. And I had chronic ear infections as a kid. And just like lots of skin problems. Eczema, cracking skin behind my ears. My ears would bleed. It was terrible.  But once I got into eating processed foods and like microwave stuff, I just wanted more of it. And then I used that to soothe the feelings that I had about myself, which was that I felt like I wasn't good enough. I wasn't like the other kids. You know, I didn't play sports. I wasn't in shape. Now this is you reflecting back on you being 11. You didn't put this together at 11, did you? Oh no, no way. This is you later on going like, wow, okay, this makes so much sense now. Yeah, exactly. And at what age did you finally make that transition? So you're 11, you're overweight at 11, you're 11 year old, eating all kinds of processed foods and candy, wanting to be as American as possible, which is funny, right? Yeah. The American way. TV, dinners and candy. Yeah. When did it start to come together for you? Right before high school, I decided I was going to lose weight. I was tired of being tormented.  So I decided I was going to lose weight. And this is really actually very funny. I was 13 years old and I see an infomercial for Tony Little's target training. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Gazelle master. Tony Little's a man. I'm not kidding. The sex machine. Oh, yeah. Him and his ponytail and his singlet. Yeah. Have you ever seen that Superman blue singlet that you wore? It's so hot. Oh, yeah. That bulge. Yeah. I felt like I became a woman that summer watching him on VHS. Oh, that's cool. And I literally started doing his ab routine workouts. I was like, this is totally going to work.  So that initially allowed me to shed about 15 pounds before high school. OK. But then I started to run into a lot of hormonal problems. I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured when I was 15 and I landed myself in the ER going what's going on. Like endometriosis or? They never diagnosed it as endometriosis.  You just get on birth control. You'll be OK. Oh my god. They actually recommended you going on birth control. Well, that is what they recommend. That's actually the first line of medicine that they'll give a woman when she has issues with. Hormones. With that area.  OK, so I want. Irregular, all that stuff. It's like birth control right away.  What is your thoughts on that? Let's just talk about that for a second. What are my thoughts on birth control currently? Yeah, currently with birth control, the being that is. Using it as a treatment. Yeah, using that as a treatment. What's your thoughts on that? Well, it's not a treatment. It treats the symptoms potentially, but it does not address the underlying reason why, you know, the hormonal dysregulation in the first place that's causing all of these problems. And now, you know, a lot of research is suggesting that it actually destroys the microbiome. So for that reason. Oh, really? Oh, for that reason alone, birth control, oral contraceptives. And I'm not sure about like the injection ones and things like that. Oral contraceptives are very hard on the microbiome and they alter a lot of things. And a lot of women will report they're afraid to get off of it because they don't want the acne to come back or they're afraid that their body won't know what to do. And it took me a long time to get myself back into working order where I now have a 28-day cycle. You know, my periods are very regular. And I also use an app called Period Tracker. It's a free app. Oh, that's the one Justin has there. It's great. Yeah, I know. See, it's great because Justin always knows when he's fertile. Actually, it's not for me. And I avoid it like the plague. No, I recommend this for men so that you know when your girl is about to get crazy. Well, Justin uses it for when he's trying to figure out when he's going to be able to get sex. He's like, okay. I know right here. We're on to number 22. She's the horniest on this day. Justin comes out in his little costume. I told you. He's a smart guy. He's a numbers guy. He plays the odds. Yeah, he plays the odds. He knows he's getting sexual. He stacks all my cards together. Seven times out of the month. Put all my ducks in the line. And so he tries to line. Seven times a month. That's not bad, actually. He's not a yawning. But two kids. Yeah, so he's yawning. It usually works. Okay, so they put you on birth control. Yeah, 13 years old, you hop on birth control. This was when I was 15. Oh, 15, okay. 15, so they got you on birth control. How long? How long are you on it for? I took it for about a year and a half. Okay. And my experience was I was nauseous every single day. Oh, man. And they were just like, no, that's a side effect. It was just a side effect. I'm like, oh, I guess I just feel like I'm on the verge of barfing at times. And that's supposed to be acceptable. But at that age, I just didn't feel like I had options. And I didn't even feel like it was okay for me to ask questions. It was just like, I'm the authority here. I'm going to write you a prescription. Take this. If you don't want to take it, here's a prescription for Vicodin. And I'm not kidding. Wow. Because I said my cramps are unbearable. And I don't want to take birth control. This was a few years down the line. Here's some more drugs. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was just, their answer was like, well, some women just have to experience it that way. And I just wasn't in a position. I wasn't mature enough to say, you know, I'm not going to accept that. I want to know what's going on here. Wow, 15 years old. Here's some birth control. Here's some Vicodin. Call us in a month. Well, because I know, I know Stephanie. And I know she's extremely passionate about wellness and fitness. And it all makes sense when you start to hear this story. Oh yeah, of course. Because she went through it herself. And when you do this, you really empathize quite a bit with everyday people. And then you look at a fitness industry that, you know, kind of preys on the cosmetic and talks about everything has to do with, you know, lose weight, getting shape, look fit, and, you know, promotes kind of products that don't really promote real health and longevity. And it can make you angry. But I know you have a lot of empathy for people in this particular situation because you went through it a lot yourself. When did you start changing things? Yeah, yeah, continue this story. You got me all into this. Now we're at 15. Did you start taking Vicodin too? No, I did not. It didn't make me feel well. Like I had to take it when I broke my knee in a skiing accident when I was 13. And I just, I felt horrible. So I was like, okay, this stuff isn't for me. But I did start doing cocktails of like a leave and, you know, Ibuprofen and Tylenol. Just whatever I could do to kind of manage the pain. Right. The thing about the type of birth control I was taking is called orthotricycline. And it's my understanding that it really elevates your estrogen.  Like it was like crazy. Hey there. Like so much. Some benefits to this. Sweater puppies. Hold on, hold on. I'm about to tell you why this was not such a benefit. Okay. Running? No. No, I went to a, yeah, like I ran. I was just, I just started gaining weight from taking this as the point that I'm trying to make. But after I stopped taking it and when I started eating healthier and living a healthier lifestyle and I lost the weight, I was left with stretch marks. And then I had to deal with that whole thing of like being 21 and going to see a plastic surgeon to contemplate getting a breast lift. Like that was, and that was just a whole other struggle. So I was really pissed off because I was like, all right, I wasn't given any options. This didn't help me. In fact, I think it probably hurt me, you know, more than anything. And so after I decided to get off the birth control, which really wasn't so easy. I kind of went from one thing to another to another. I tried that Nuva ring and it was the first time in my life I had ever felt suicidal.  I was crying all the time. I was, I was filled with rage, like these feelings that I was just like, where is this coming from? I did not feel like myself and it was horrifying. You know, I don't, it's funny because we don't connect, especially when it comes to birth control. Obviously hormones are very strong drivers in our body.  And although this may be one of the more rare, you know, side effects to birth control, the more common ones are milder. I have, I've had many female clients come to me and tell me just like, I just don't feel like myself or I feel kind of off or, and it's almost like. A lot of times they'll switch birth control and they'll get a totally different experience, right? Yeah, exactly. And they'll accept it like, okay, this is just the way, this is just the way I guess I'm supposed to be. And I'm, you know, I'm glad you're talking about this because it's kind of letting women know that maybe you look there because I can't tell you how many times I've had a client where that's the last place they look. They're like, oh, I don't feel like myself. It must be this, this and that. And then, you know, I ask them, are you on birth control and say, well, have you considered it might be the hormones that you're on so.  I'm not just saying, you know what I'm saying? It's not a generalization at all. This is a good scientific, buddy. I've got nothing to back that up by Adam. That's my first experience. Your girl's like, he's so sweet. He just gave me the best compliment. Although, although in comparison, that's not a hard metric to, that's what she would say. She would say it's not a compliment at all. So when did you start to look at fitness and wellness? When did you start to look in that direction and start to want to educate? I mean, is this something you knew you wanted to get into? Are we even there yet? You're only 15, 16 now. Yeah, she's 21, she said. Okay, we shot forward to 21 now. Okay, so 21, what's going on now? So you've been taking aspirin and stuff to kind of dull the pain. You're still on birth control. You've tried the Nuva ring. Where are you at? So at that point, I was no longer taking birth control. Okay.  It was that bad that I, and I did it at a gym one time. It was so embarrassing. I was in a spin class and I was like, okay, I kind of have cramps. I'm like, maybe this spin class will make me feel better. And I started pedaling and it just got worse and worse. By the time I got off the bike, I walked out the door and I collapsed outside the door. Oh, wow. Some random guy picked me up and had to carry me down the stairs at like Nautilus of Marin. And then he like put me on the floor in the office where I was just writhing in pain and he like shut the door. He didn't know what to do. They didn't, I didn't know what to do. And it was one of the scariest moments of my life. So, okay, kind of back up a little bit. So after high school, I got into dance. I finally found something that I like to do where I could be active that I enjoyed where I didn't feel like I had to go to a gym and do something that wasn't fun for me. So that was kind of how I started to get my body in shape in a more natural way. But it wasn't until a few years later that I really started getting into the holistic health because I had gone to, there's something called the Safe Cosmetics Campaign and they had put on an event in Oakland where I was working at the time. And basically they were like, did you know that 89% of the ingredients found in your personal care products have never been tested for human safety? And many of these ingredients have been, taken out of products by the European Union, but they're still allowed in our products in the United States. And I was working in retail. I was wearing a lot of makeup, like most women, deodorant, perfume, all of these chemicals. And I was like, whoa, a lot of this stuff is carcinogenic. It causes birth defects. It causes infertility. What am I putting on my skin? And that was kind of my introduction into holistic health. And now from there, when did you start, I guess educating yourself or deciding that this is something you want to do for work? Well, I have a real quick question before you go there with her. I'm interested in because I find you have this really, really cool outgoing personality now. Were you the same way when you were going through all this? That's a great question. That is a great question. I would say yes, but it was a disguise. It was an act. It's like, today I feel, I'm like this because this is genuinely who I am. Like I wouldn't be able to live my life any other way at 35. God, I hope I would have grown out of it by now. But back then it was my cover. I was the funny one. And because when I was fat, I was the funny one. That was how I got by without wanting to shoot myself every day. It was like, I'm just going to be funny and that will be my thing. But there was a lot of pain that I was hiding underneath that. Great self awareness. Yeah, very good. Okay, so now getting into fitness, getting into wellness, when did you make that decision? When did you say, hey, this is what I want to do. I want to work with people or educate people in the field of wellness. I mean, is that something you knew you want to do or was there a moment that it happened? Sort of because I studied psychology and so I got my bachelor's in 2004 in psychology and I thought that I wanted to go all the way with that.  It wasn't what I wanted to do, but I wanted to help people. And I thought maybe I'll become a personal trainer. I'm interested in fitness, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm taking cardio kickboxing. Everything I did was a cardio class, by the way.  And that was what I decided to do was go to personal training school so that I could figure out what I was doing. And then that was how everything started and then that's when I met the Czech guy. Oh, and then that took you to the next level. That took me to the next level. Wow. So now, having been in the industry now for, how long have you been working professionally in fitness? About nine years now. About nine years now. What are some of the biggest myths that you see in fitness? Or what are some of the biggest challenges you see? Or biggest paradigm shattering moments for you. We talk a lot on the show about, you know, because, God, we've been doing it for 16 to 20 years and, I don't know, how many times during our career. Oh, we've evolved so much. We've been like, oh, my God, I can't believe I was telling people this. Oh, my God, I can't believe I was doing things this way. Do you have moments like that that you remember going through this? Because, you know, one thing is for sure, you definitely, I mean, to get in, Paul Czech being one of your first major... I know. You went like right to the top. Yeah, you did go right too. And you already knew a lot about wellness, too, which is like, we were probably, like, spouting all this apex information out. You know what I mean? She's coming in with, like, pretty solid stuff. We came from the meathead side, is what happened, you know, where she came more from that wellness side, especially going to Czech. I guess a better question is, how'd you get buff? No, what was that process like for you, you know, getting information from someone like Paul Czech, who a lot of people still don't know his philosophies or ideologies and stuff like that with health and wellness, and what was it like for you learning from him, seeing everything out there, probably working with peers that had total different opposing views. What was that like for you coming up in the industry? Oh, man. I don't even know where to begin with that one. I guess, but the thing that kind of shattered my paradigm from what I had originally thought fitness and health and wellness was all about was this mentality that more is always better. And I'm still seeing it everywhere. I know you guys are seeing it everywhere. And I'm so glad that you talk about it on your show because not very many people are, and the people who are do not have access in general to like larger crowds. But yeah, this mentality that, you know, you always have to push harder, burn more calories, do more of this. Man, my life changed for the better when I started to strip away. Not talking about my clothes.  But really just seeing what I could take out of my life that was causing more problems or doing more harm than good was the biggest paradigm shift for me because that was hard for me to do. Like I'm a doer. Like I want to do things and I'm, I got a lot of energy and I'm always trying to do more. Which explains why the class, the class setting of high energy fed right into that for you, right? Exactly. So how long did you struggle with that?  This is not helping me. It's doing more harm. Cause I know like the things that we went through too. It's a, it's a consistent reminder that I have to remind myself. Oh, I still go there. Cause there's almost like a part of, you're partially addicted to it, right? The endorphins like you talk about. So what was that like? Was it like this? Okay. Once you knew then how long after that did you battle with yourself back and forth? You know, I want to say that this is embarrassing because it was up until last year. But I'm not, I'm not embarrassed by that because the truth is that knowing something is completely different than experiencing something. So even though intellectually I knew I needed to cut back, do less, incorporate more meditation, more time alone, more time in nature, less time in a gym, trying to mold my body into something that, you know, could arguably not be my body type or what's right for me. So last year I got really, really sick. I had a, I got tested for SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, which is when the good bacteria from the large intestine creeps back up into the small intestine where it doesn't belong. And it starts eating your food and it creates bacteria, which creates hydrogen and methane gases and creates a lot of gastrointestinal discomfort. I feel like this is more common than we think. I've met now, since I've talked to you, I've actually met several people who fit symptom wise right in that category and then I'll tell them, hey, you should go look into potentially having SIBO and a couple of them came back to me and said, oh my God, I do. I bet way more have this issue than real life and they just think, oh, I got an upset stomach or a bad stool or whatever, right? I imagine that's where they probably just connected to that. What are some of the common symptoms people can have when they have such an issue like this and why do they get that? Why does that even happen? So the symptoms depend on which type of gases produced. So if they have excess hydrogen, which was what I ended up having on my test, you're going to experience more loose stool diarrhea. You could have a lot of belching, bloating, just abdominal distention, abdominal discomfort. For me, it was like I would eat and an hour and a half later, I could feel this really creepy, crawly kind of disgusting sensation like in my small intestine, knowing the food had already left my stomach because it wasn't really my stomach. It was more like an intestinal discomfort. And then it was leading to actual anxiety attacks at night.  What just happened? Nothing going on in my mind, no nightmares, no bad dreams, but it would absolutely ruin my night of sleep. Well, the gut communicates directly with the brain now that they've identified how the lymphatic system actually connects directly to the brain. And their study after study after study is showing how influencing everything, your microbiome influences your mood. So it could definitely cause psychosomatic issues where you're getting anxious or depressed. Depression, they're connecting to it now. My sister shares a very similar story. So she got, she's battled endometriosis and she's hyperglycemic. And when she found out she was hyperglycemic, she tells a story very similar like this of in the middle of the night waking up and just with anxiety and sweats and like just super anxious. And that's where they finally, they rushed for the hospital. It was so bad one time.  And she had no idea up into that point. So, yeah, that's, it's so crazy how much, how much the gut influences everything. Oh, it's incredible. So how do you, how does one go about treating something like this? You have to go through antibiotic course and then repopulate with probiotics, or what do they do? Very quickly, I just want to go back because there's another type of gas that's produced by SIBO. So if you've got the methane producing bacteria, then you will experience chronic constipation. Oh, while the opposite. Yeah. But potentially also all of the other digestive discomfort that there is. So it really depends and the tests are pretty good about showing that. Wow. And so you have it, once you get it, what's the treatment look like? What do they do? Is it a long course of antibiotics, I would assume? So Dr. Pimentel, down at Cedar Sinai, he is like the leading expert in SIBO and he typically treats with antibiotics, but the recurrence rate with antibiotics is 45%. So it's a little bit of a deterrent to take, maybe two weeks or three weeks of, I think it might even be a month of antibiotics. Just to know if you're probably going to get it again. We all know that what that does to your microbiome, so you basically have to build it up from scratch and cross your fingers that it doesn't populate with more pathogenic bacteria. But there are herbal protocols as well, which is what I chose. That was the route that I chose. I was working with a functional medicine practitioner and taking the herbs. And it worked for you? It helped. Fanta... Oh, that's good. That's good that it helped. But what I came to realize was that it was more about the state of my nervous system than it was about what I was eating or like the herbs really helping me. And this is where, for me, a lot of the stuff does come back to the foundational teachings of what I've learned at the Czech Institute and from Paul Czech, is that the underlying foundation principles of health, if they are out of balance, it doesn't matter what treatment or therapy you use, it doesn't matter how great of an exercise program you write for somebody. If they are not balanced in their thoughts, their breathing, their hydration, nutrition, movement, and I careful not to use the word exercise because a lot of people need to work in, as you had mentioned previously, rather than work out and circadian rhythm or sleep. So while we can get really cerebral and get really complex about all of this stuff and it's super interesting and I love it too and I really get into it, I find myself coming back 98% of the time with my clients to balancing the foundation principles. When these principles are balanced out, most health problems will resolve themselves. The body then just seeks to heal itself. Let's be honest though, right? As all of us in here are all trainers, how challenging that is. Oh, good lord. Yeah, I mean, it is... It's somebody to fully reset. I mean, I rarely work with people anymore now and I always keep a handful at most of clients and they're fans of the show, they know everything already even coming in and they still... When am I gonna run? When are you gonna push me? When am I gonna do that? Dude, we still gonna lay the foundation here because God, it's so hard for just us Americans to think that way. Exactly. And I think that's why, you know, I think we come out so hard on the B-Smo thing and all these extreme things that the fitness industry puts out there because that's why, because we know that we're speaking to the majority and there's always... Because you're always gonna have somebody be like, oh, well, I feel that helps me or that's motivation for me or whatever like that, but it's like, man, you're the exception and majority of people have a hard time getting the basics. And I think it's a testament to how there's some truth and a lot of the information we were getting from the wellness hippie kind of crunchy crowd, which up until about five years ago... Very crunchy. ...did not communicate with the fitness, look good, aesthetic, build muscle, burn fat crowd. They were two separate camps and you just talked about the foundations of health and one of them that you mentioned was thoughts. And I wanna talk about that for a second because it sounds woo-woo, it sounds, you know, new age, like thoughts. Like, what are you talking about? How do I work on thoughts? Like, what do you mean by that? So let's go into that for a second because I know now through experience, both with myself and with clients, is a very, very important component to overall health and wellness, including your physical symptoms of health. Thoughts play a huge role. So let's talk about that for a second. What do we see when we see people having issues with thoughts and how do we work with that? What are some good practices that we can do to balance that particular part of our, you know, wellness out? That's a really good question, Sal. That is probably the most challenging of the foundation principles to help somebody kind of rewire and balance out because think about the old tapes that play in all of our heads, you know? Like, the voice of, let's say you wake up in the morning, you don't really feel well, you feel like you need more sleep, you have it in your schedule that you're supposed to work out today.  You should just go to the gym, make it happen, do it, do it. It's better if you do it, you know? And it's like, suddenly it's not okay for us to just be like, you know, I'm really not feeling it today. I'm gonna like honor my body and what my body is telling me it needs, what it needs is more rest.  So the first thing that we have to do with our thoughts is become aware of them because a lot of people do not listen to how they talk to themselves, you know? They're just unaware of it. It's like this thing that's just kind of playing in the background. And so awareness of your thoughts is definitely number one. Now, if you find yourself thinking a negatively oriented thought, and I'm not saying we're supposed to think positive all the time, but if it's something that's damaging, if it's something that's coming from a place of fear or lack or disconnection from yourself, then you can stop and say, okay, I realize I'm having this disempowering thought or this limiting belief. How can I tell myself a new story, you know, and just do your best to catch yourself doing that and flip it, flip it on its head. So it's literally, you're just stopping the cycle. Well, I think you, Sal, you said something the other day on the show that I think was just great information as far as, you know, learning first how to work out because you love yourself, not because you don't love yourself, right? Which when you think about 90 plus percent of the clients that come and hire any of us, they're normally coming to you and it's more like a, okay, I finally, I'm doing it. I'm paying somebody to help me because I can't figure it out. And they're angry or they're disappointed.  They hate the way they look. I've never had someone hire me and say, hey, I love myself so much. And I know that you know more about the body and you're going to help me on this journey. Have you ever had a client hire you and say those things to you? No, they're like, I don't like this. I want to get rid of this. I'm not happy with this. I want to change. It's all these things that, so I think that's a great place to start for everybody is learning to go and move and to eat better and to do these things because you love yourself, not because you're unhappy with yourself. I think it starts there, right? It's almost like the advice you would give. I used to ask clients this all the time. It's okay. They would say things about themselves and I'd say now, if you were talking about a loved one, if you were talking about your child, would you be saying those things if they were in the exact same situation you were in? And of course they always say no. Like I would never tell my kid, you look horrible, you're fat, you're ugly, or they would never talk to someone they loved in that way. And yet they can talk to themselves that way. And it's a very interesting, it's a really interesting thing to ponder. And I do think a lot of us get stuck in those repetitive thoughts of I'm not good enough, I'm not whatever enough, I need to beat myself up, I need to punish myself. My body's gross, that's why I'm going to the gym. I have to work out, I can't stand the way I look. One thing, what really brought that to my attention was having children. When you have kids, you become a little bit more aware of the things that you say. And I would never say anything to my kid, I would talk to them about nutrition, right?  I would say things like, this gives you good energy, this fuels your brain, this is good for health. But then I would say things about myself, not realizing that they're internalizing that.  Not realizing my kids are listening to me and it really hit home one day when my son, we were eating something or cake, it was a birthday or something and my son said, no I don't want that, I don't want to get fat.  And I realized, he heard me say that about myself. I never said that to him about him. It was about myself. And so I became more aware of really treating myself a certain way and then it just changed. Well that's just it, when you're talking in front of kids you just see how much is absorbed. It forces you to become aware of what you're saying because it comes right back at you as feedback. You know what I mean? It started changing how I worked out and how I ate because I became aware that someone else was watching me and I just needed that impetus to get me going in that direction. So when you're working with clients, do you see, because there are definite challenges that men and women see separately. Maybe different kinds of pressures or different ways that they treat themselves. Do you see that a lot? Do you notice there's a big difference in maybe how you approach sometimes training a man and a woman? I think there are a lot of similarities. Like you mentioned, even though a man and a woman might have different goals or different pressures on them, where I find, you know, if you look a little bit deeper into the story behind the story, it all comes, it all stems from not feeling like enough, not feeling good enough. I will be great when I lose 10 pounds. Then I'll be good enough. But then the person loses 10 pounds. They find that they still have these feelings of inadequacy. So where is it coming from? It's coming from a much deeper place. Wow, so that's great. So you're finding the commonality. I love that. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about nutrition now. I know you've done quite a bit of research. You have a lot of knowledge on nutrition.  I've actually sent you a couple of people. You know that. Well, thanks, huh? I've sent you a few people. When it comes to gut health, you're somebody that I really admire because of your knowledge on the subject. And you've done some experimentation with different types of nutrition type programs. You recently did a stint eating a ketogenic diet. What was the motivation behind that? What did you find from eating that way? I could not tell you what my motivation was. I literally woke up one morning having known about the ketogenic diet and its benefits for four plus years and never really feeling inspired to try it. But my boyfriend's been on it for, I think, over a year and a half. And it's just worked out really well for him. And one morning I woke up and I was like, I'm going to try this. And I just put two tablespoons of fat in my coffee that morning. We fried up some belcampo chicken wings. And I was good. And when I went into the gym that day, I just had this lasting energy whereas I used to get the blood sugar crash. I would know when I was just done with glucose. Okay, I'm done. And I guess my workout's over now. So I just felt really, really good. But what I noticed as time went on was the nocturnal panic attacks stopped. Oh, interesting. The SIBO symptoms stopped. Like, suddenly there wasn't enough carbohydrates, seemingly, for the bacteria to be feeding on. So you were starving then? Yeah, to a certain extent.  I understand that they can still adapt in a ketogenic environment. But it was a way for me to manage my symptoms and it was the best that I could do at the time. And I was like, wow, how easy is this? And it was just so nice to not have to eat, not to feel like I was going to kill somebody if I didn't get some food because I would start to feel anxious while my blood sugar would get low. So yeah, that was something that I just felt was right for me at the time. So I tried it. Now, you said you've kind of gone away from it now.  You just kind of, now you still introduce carbs. Tell me a little bit about that because that's a similar, we all kind of went ketogenic around the same time. And it was, we had Dom Diogostino on the show and we'd already been doing our own research on it. We were all very interested in giving a try. And I remember I was the last to really want to do it because I was a 400 to 600 gram of carbs a day guy. And I could maintain a physique that I was happy with.  I was really excited about the bacon and butter. Yeah. So yeah, Justin was an easy close. But for me, it was like, but then I, I'll never forget, I heard me saying that on the show and I thought, well, shame on me. We talk about being open-minded and we always talk about, you know, challenging ourselves and our paradigms being shattered. Well, why don't I just do it and see how I feel? And I was blown away. So I have psoriasis. So I have autoimmune stuff.  I didn't have these peaks and valleys in the day because I wasn't relying on glucose as my primary source of fuel. I noticed that I even noticed some aesthetic changes just the way my muscle bellies even filled up that weird things like that. The bit and satiety throughout the day. I didn't have cravings. Like I used to be a major create a carb craver. You know, if I hadn't had carbs, if I was low for the day, like I want them bad. And then it definitely would lead into binging a lot. So I noticed a lot of these things. What I noticed that I didn't like about it after I had been doing it for a while was my natural food rotation. I found like a lot of coconut oil, a lot of bacon, a lot of avocado, a lot of macadamia nuts. And it was like this kind of- Starting to look very familiar. Yeah, too familiar. And we talked so much about the benefits of rotating your foods and all the different things that you get by doing that. And so I thought, okay, well, confining myself into just this ketogenic diet, I feel like I'm limiting myself of all these other nutrient dense foods. So then what I started doing is I took what I got from that, which is, wow, I had never eaten that high of fat and that low of carbohydrates. So now I kind of live that way where it's like a modified version of it, I like to say, or I'm just a much lower carbohydrate and much higher fat intake. What was your experience and what was your progression of coming out of it like? I didn't, like you said, I didn't really plan on coming out of keto.  And at first I felt fine. And I was like, oh, okay, this is okay.  People always change. Oh, wow, that's a great, that's a very, very good point. Absolutely. I just like to listen to my body for what it needs. But then it got to the point where I was incorporating so many carbs, I started to get the blood sugar issues again and then the SIBO symptoms started coming back. And so for me, it was kind of like, okay, so the ketogenic diet is a great tool that I can use to manage my symptoms, regulate my blood sugar and not that this is a goal of mine, but I did lose four pounds, you know, within the first two weeks of going keto. And I'm sure a lot of it was water, but I just felt so good being on it. And it's so funny how many people want to tell me it's bad for me who have A, never try a ketogenic diet.  C, have no idea where I source my food, which is, you know, the cleanest possible sources I can get. And it's just at the end of the day, I'm like, why are you trying to tell me I shouldn't be doing this?  And so at the end of the day with my coaching, what I'm trying to teach people is not tell them what they should be doing, but teach them to think for themselves.  Listen to the signs and the symptoms your body is giving you. If you have good energy, clear skin, you know, your body just feels good. You got good energy, you're in a good mood. To me, those are all indications. You're on the right track, but if you've got bowel issues and skin issues and, you know, things that are causing you pain or to feel sluggish, then that might be an indication to look at things and make some tweaks. Yeah, regardless of what your diet is. I'll have people come to me and be like, hey, I've been doing, you know, the keto diet or I've been doing this diet that you guys talked about for two months and I just feel horrible. I have no energy and am I doing it right? And I'm like, stop doing it. It's not working for you, dude. Yeah. I'm kind of stuck to go off that. You shouldn't be throwing up or having diarrhea or whatever. Probably an indication. I literally had somebody message me and be like, yeah, I've been doing keto now for three months and I'm just constantly bleeding out of my eyes. I poop like once a week and I'm like, okay, well, you probably shouldn't, do you need to go off keto if that's happening? I feel most people, I feel they get themselves in this kind of limbo, at least in my experience, when I try and teach the principles behind keto, because as Americans, we did such a good job of demonizing fat for so long that even when you tell someone, hey, we're gonna have a high fat diet and virtually no carbs. Yeah, not only they freak out, but then even when you finally convince them to do it, their high carb is double what they were intaking and what they really need to be doing is quadruple it where they were and so they're in this limbo of they're not getting enough fat, they're not getting any carbs so they don't feel good. They're just miserable. Yeah, they're miserable. Their body's turning proteins into glucose. Yeah, it's like your body is, you're not giving it enough source of fuel and we've gotten rid of the carbs which you were so adapted and used to having for so long and then you barely are giving yourself enough fat and you're probably very low calorie too. So what do you expect? So I usually encourage people, do your research, educate yourself about it, because a lot of times people will hear about something and they'll be like, oh, I'm gonna try this. Well, first learn about it so you know you're gonna be doing it the right way or work with a professional who feels confident that they can coach you through this diet or whatever lifestyle change you're willing to make and then try it and see how you feel.  That's that person. Their biochemistry is completely different than yours. Absolutely. I have to ask you this question because you were friends on Facebook and you watched videos that are great to watch where you'll have like a pot of food and it's on the stove and inside the pot is like a fish head or like a heart or like some animals kidneys. Or a testicle. Or a testicle. Like let's talk about this for a second. What is it with these foods? Why are you eating these foods? Why are you preparing meals with these types of foods? Are they good for us? What's important about them? Well, it depends on the food. Organ meats. Let's talk about that for a second. Kidneys, heart. I've seen a few videos where you're making, wasn't there one where you're like cutting a heart? Probably. Yeah, probably. Oh no, I was holding a heart in my hand. That's what it was, yeah. And I was going to crock pot it. And it was delicious. I mean, if you don't tell people what it is and you just serve it up, not that I've done this a whole lot, but people will agree. They're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I feel so good when I eat it. And like that's testicle. Surprise. Organ meats are really high in fat soluble vitamins. ADEK. They're high in a lot of other things. Actually, Dr. Terry Walls was one of the first people who was suggesting that we include organ meats in our diet at least once a week.  It's as pasture as veal can be, you know, babies drinking milk from mom while mom's on the pasture. And that has a nice mild flavor. I just had some goat liver last night because I'm on my cycle right now. And I find that it helps me put iron back in because on the functional medicine scale, on that range, which is, you know, different than a normal medical range, I am borderline anemic, or I was like a few years ago when I got tested. So I was like really low energy. I was exhibiting signs of anemia. They have different criteria? Different ranges, for sure. Oh yeah, normal range, like if you go to, you know, your standard doctor, they're comparing you against the average American, which I'm sorry, I don't want to be compared to that. That to me is just because it's normal, doesn't mean it's healthy, right? But in functional medicine, they are actually showing what is the healthy range for vitamin D? What is the healthy range for iron? What is, you know, everything else they do blood work for. Wow. So you were anemic on the functional range, but normal borderline, borderline anemic on the functional range. But my standard Western medicine tests were saying that I was fine. Oh wow. Okay, wait, wait, I want to, I want to talk about something that she brought up right now because I used to do this for my female clients like during period time as far as giving the recommendations. Period time. Yeah, well no, like foods, foods. Moon time. Foods that would help replenish red butt, blood cells, iron, stuff like that. So do you have like go-to foods, like whether it be some sort of a fruit bowl or a type of salad that you make that around that time, that's go-to or that you recommend?  He has so much iron. Oh my gosh, it's insane. Well, I just want to kind of put a disclaimer out there that you know, because people often get nutritionist and nutrition coach confused. I do not practice clinical nutrition. So when somebody asks me for a plan, tell me what macros I should be eating. No, I'm going to refer you out to somebody who does that kind of work because I teach people how to eat and that's very different than clinical nutrition. Okay. So I don't have an actual meal or thing that I do, but I definitely will eat liver or organ meats. Like usually I try to do it right before my cycle starts or like by day one of my cycle. And I find that I feel so much better if I do. And this is what your favorite is, liver? Well, I don't know if I'd call it my favorite, but yeah. It's kind of like your go-to. It's easy. Yeah, I started eating chicken liver more recently because it's so high in cholesterol. Yeah, believe it or not, I actually seeked out cholesterol because I know. Because I read some interesting studies that increasing your dietary cholesterol intake will increase your strength. And anecdotally speaking, it was very true. I noticed when I ate more cholesterol, I was stronger in the gym. But aren't you going to die of a heart attack? No, I don't think so. The chicken liver's quite tasty. I can't do the veal. I did the veal liver. Who was it, Doug? Was that you that bought? I think it was just cow liver. Oh yeah, that's strong. Yeah, it was a little strong. He had a big old thing in his freezer of liver. What about the fish head stuff that I've seen you make? Fish heads. Yeah. Did you do that once? I probably did. It was something like that. Oh yeah. It was like eyeballs. I was making a fish stock. No, I don't buy bags of eyeballs. It wasn't? I could have swore I saw you do. Where would I get that? I'm just going to go find a witch at the farmer's market and be like, I'll take two pounds of your eyeballs. But no, fish heads, yeah. I mean there's a lot of cartilage and there is a lot of chicken heads. That's what you're thinking of. That's what it was. Because I had a pot and it looked so scary because all these chicken heads just floated to the surface and they were like, ah! It looked so creepy. But yeah, I mean, those are some of the most collaginous parts, right? And so if you boil that down and you get a nice gelatin soup, that's going to be a lot better. You use it like a stock then. That's what you do. Oh, okay. You're not actually eating the chicken heads. Yeah, I don't like rip it open while it's raw and like shove it in my face. That would be awful. I am half Korean so I have been known to eat some crazy stuff. That's hilarious. Let's talk a little bit about exercise. What do you see when you look at the current fitness routines of people out there? What do you see wrong out there? What are some of the things you think people can implement or add to the routines that might be better for them? Wow, that's such a loaded question. Totally. I love the loaded ones. I don't even know. I don't know. Still, I'm seeing like so many people doing cardio at the gym, which is so funny because like, have you gone outside? It's amazing. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. I'm like, what are you doing in here breathing like all this disgusting building air and like looking at a TV while you're jumping up and down? It's nutty. So yeah, that's a pointless thing that I myself used to do. But you know, if I'm going to do cardio, I'll just go outside. Go for like a walk or a hike or something? I go for a walk. Yeah. But as far as like movement patterns go, like this is something that's pretty new for me. I think in our industry, it's standard for people to take primal movement pattern, squat, bend, lunge, push, pull, twist, and perfect form on these things and then experiment with different variations of them and get better. And once they get better, they tend to add more weight and then continue to get better and more efficient in these movement patterns. But one thing I figured out when I started dancing again last year is that I had this inability to isolate my rib cage and like my torso. Like I can move my hips, you know, I was doing salsa dancing, but we were trying to do this rib cage isolation. I was like, oh, I only know how to do like neutral spine. Like I am so weak when my spine is inflection because I've actually trained my own body into a neutral spine dysfunction. Meaning I'm extremely strong in neutral spine, but when my spine is like, if I had to do a roll up off the floor, like imagine doing a setup where you peel yourself up one vertebra at a time. I can't do it.  I can't go anymore. I was literally just teaching Katrina that last night. Really? Yeah. Just being able to do that as slow and as in control as you possibly can. I think what you should do. I think what you should do. We'll do a video of that. We'll do a video of that because I think it's... Would you mind being in a video with us on that stuff? I'd love to. I'll show you how I have Bob kind of assist me to like give me just the littlest bit, like just a couple pounds of assistance so that I can actually do. So that you can roll up. It's so funny you said that I did a post a while ago on Instagram that got a lot of heat from people that was demonstrating. The plank? Did you remember that? All that neutral spine.  And you just said something interesting. I never heard that term before but it obviously makes sense. Neutral spine dysfunction? I don't know if that's actually a thing. That's just what rolled off my tongue. We just made it a thing. Neutral spine dysfunction which basically means you're strong and neutral spine but outside a neutral spine everything breaks down. Exactly. Boom. Ching maps. Yeah. No, no, that's a great, great point which is I think the extreme of what happened to I think that's a great example of a paradigm probably shattering moment for you. Like as trainers we were all taught neutral spine, neutral spine, neutral spine and you know I mean after all the time that we've been spinning with Brink and you know when I started getting into Kelly Starr and Dr. Spinon all these guys that are the opposite of that you're like oh shit like we should be able to you know and I remember when we had Brink in here and we had him like he'd got down in the quadruped and then he could like And he started articulating every vertebrae? Yeah, each vertebrae individually and then like wanted us to get to all this we're like no. I didn't even know how to start.  That was such a like a wow wow moment for me that it's just this it's such a simple movement we're not even moving weight but how disconnected we have become but yet I consider myself as this trainer who trains in all these planes and is strong in all these planes but yet then I can't even articulate my spine. Yeah, we're coming from the point like our goal like he said those primal movements we're always trying to figure out how to make those better specifically and then you go to do like any kind of functional movement or you play a sport or whatever it is and you're just like it doesn't translate and why is it translate? We're not robots and so like when you do those movements and you're so hell bent on neutral spine all the time the movement starts looking robotic like you just want to move around in the world that's fine but like we're meant to be fluid right fluid fluid that's another one write that down Doug what the I'm going to be Adam right now write that down down neutral spine, dysfunction and fluid more what the yeah I wanted you to come in here to my pump media and have you on the show because I think from day one I recognize you as a trainer who's kind of doing it right who's really bringing the right message and kind of gets it I hadn't seen very many people who understood all, just the broad spectrum of wellness and fitness. I saw people on one end that kind of got some stuff, but didn't get the other stuff. I mean, I had a great story about that. I went to, and I was so glad when you came to teach yoga because I wanted to take yoga classes because the experience I had going to yoga was probably what some people feel when they go to a meathead gym for the first time, or like a woman will go to a meathead gym and leave because she feels uncomfortable. This is how I felt taking a yoga class. I went into a yoga class, and here I am, and I'm not some massive buff dude, but in the yoga world, I'm like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I walk in there, immediately everybody's like, who's the big stiff guy? He's wearing the wrong pants. Yeah, who's the big sweaty guy in the corner with the wife, Peter, trying to do yoga? I did wear a wife, Peter. And I'm doing the class, and of course, it's my first time, so I'm not good at it. I'm not going to be good at it. And I owned a facility. I made my place very welcome. I did not feel welcome whatsoever. In fact, the instructor made a couple snide joking remarks to the big guy who can't get into the mood. He didn't fit in. And what I realized was... Did you punch him? No, it was a woman. Did you punch her? I did. Right in the face. Wow. No, I didn't do that. But trying to get into positions, I had a tough time doing it, obviously my first time. But she made me feel like it was a different camp. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, this is our world. You don't belong in our world. You stay over there. Look, kids, here's an example of what we don't want to be like. Totally, right? And what sucks... I had a similar experience my first time.  Here I am recognizing the benefits of another modality. And I was there, by the way, not just for the yoga movements, but I was there for the meditative aspect of yoga because I love... I think that's a very important part of yoga practice is the whole learning how to breathe, getting in the Savasana, I believe is the name of the... We're on your back. Corpse pose. Corpse pose, yeah. Savasana. Oh, I said it wrong. I said I called it Savasana because I thought my name would be in it. Always interjecting himself. Yeah, what's that other one? Chaturanga? Sure. Yeah, I called it... I don't speak Sanskrit. I called it Chimichanga. Chaturanga. So I went there for those things that I recognized the benefit that they could have for my overall wellness, fitness, and health. And here I felt like... Not only was I an outsider, but I wasn't welcome because I'm from the weight training world. You know what I'm saying? And when I met Stephanie, she kind of got it all. You kind of understood it all. You understand the resistance training. You had come in and did some stuff with the TRX. You talked about things like gut health, but you also talked about nutrition from a macro component. You did the yoga. And I was like, okay, this is where I think the future of fitness and wellness should go. And part of the... I think part of the reason why some people like Mind Pump is because here you have three meatheads who have locker room talk who then talk about these things that nobody that tends to look like we do. We talk about feelings, man. Talks about that kind. Justin feels super uncomfortable right now. But I mean, seeing that kind of stuff, if somebody were to enter into the fitness industry and want to work as a fitness professional, where are some areas you recommend that they start looking? Do you think Czech would probably be a good place to start? It depends on what they're most interested in, I would say. I mean, if somebody really likes to nerd out on the assessment stuff and really, you know, Czech practitioners take measurements of spinal curves. We measure degrees of pelvic tilt. We measure head carriage. We use goniometers to measure range of motion to see which stretches a person might need. So if you're into geeking out on all the assessment stuff, I think Czech is a really great place. And also if you're into more corrective exercise or rehabilitative exercise, it's great. I recommend their holistic lifestyle coaching course for anybody. It doesn't matter what type of work you do because level one's all about getting you healthy. I believe that it's HLC1, right? Yeah, holistic lifestyle coach. We actually have access to it right now. We do. And I believe that that's what they're going to be teaching here. So we have them coming. Doug, do you remember when they're coming? I don't know when they're coming. Well, that's Brianna. Anyways, they're coming in the next couple of months to teach their HLC1. Very cool. Very cool. If I can just add something about the yoga, you know, I think people like to identify with certain groups because it makes them feel comfortable. It's like they can kind of show that they're either expert or confident in something. Unfortunately, I mean, it's not just the yoga world. You find that in a lot of different areas. But interestingly, I really hurt my body with yoga and that's why I had to stop teaching. You told me that. What happened with that? I just had a lot of unexplained pain and a lot of that was connected to adrenal fatigue. I was doing too much. I was working too much. I was teaching too much. I was talking too much. I mean, that does take a lot of energy. But I actually, at my check practitioner level one, the instructor used me as an example for all of the assessments we did because he's like, she's the most screwed up person in here. So, yeah, he was like, oh man, like just breaking down my gait and every movement pattern I had. And basically what his analysis of my body was, was that I had kind of ruined my global system by doing yoga and holding these poses for very long periods of time. And I had weakened, you know, the muscles that support my joints. So I was getting a lot of ligamentous laxity and it was the hypermobility that was causing a lot of my pain. So, you know, sometimes people look at yoga and they think like, oh yoga, it's all about like how far you can stretch and how much you can bend. It's like, first of all, the asana practice, the physical practice is just one part of yoga. But yeah, there's this whole world of spirituality and introspection, meditation and awareness that that's really the main foundation of it. Are you teaching classes anymore? I am not. What do you do now in fitness? Are you just doing personal training? Do you have a studio? I know you had a studio at some point, right? Yeah, I did. You did. And what are you doing now with fitness? Now that I've just moved back from LA, I've opened up an office space with a squat rack in it. And it's in Mill Valley, which is just a few miles north of San Francisco. So I'm doing integrative coaching, lifestyle and exercise coaching. Awesome. How's it going for you? Great so far. Fantastic. I know you traveled for a while there too, right? You were doing some coaching overseas in some other countries. I was. I was. I was coaching a member of a royal family and living in the UK for about a year.  Was it really? What? It was really strange. Oh, wow. Can you talk about it? You can't just say that and leave us there. Royal family's caboo. She's like, is this going to air? Well, you can edit this out, right? Because I mean, I'd love to tell you guys, but it's not something that I can share. Okay. You know, we'll do that. We'll wait till after and we'll talk about that.  Oh, no. Oh, no. It's an interesting story. We can get all the kids. Well, on that note, we're going to wrap up so I can hear this story. All right. Hey, thanks for stopping by. Yeah, anytime. Thank you very much. Listen, if you like Mind Pump, leave us a five star rating review on iTunes. If we like your review and we pick it, you'll get a free Mind Pump t-shirt. You can also find us on Instagram at Mind Pump Radio. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Adam, and Justin at Mind Pump Justin. 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 Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths 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 Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. 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The floor may not be in the robot. Pretty much all of you have heard of Sesame Street, so it needs no introduction. It's the longest-running kid's show in America, based around the titular denizens of Sesame Street, with some human, some puppets. When I was a kid I would almost constantly watch it. It was one of, if not my favorite show for quite a while. Of course, I've moved on to other shows, but it's always held a special place in my heart. I loved the characters, the music, the stories, everything felt perfect to my childhood self. Recently, my kid, Millie, just turned four, and I wanted to give her some of my old Sesame Street tapes as a birthday present. She was so excited, as it was one of her favorite shows too. I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree then, eh? Well, immediately after getting them, she zipped to the TV and started to watch them. I, of course, joined in for a little blast from the past, and boy, was it a blast. It was so nice spending time with her, I wanted it to last forever. But eventually, they turned to night, and Millie fell asleep. I took her to bed, and let her doze the night away. I returned to the living room shortly after, and continued my Sesame Street binge. I was on the last disc, and the last episode began to play. There was no intro, so I couldn't tell which episode it was, but I was ready to relieve childhood memories, though I did know it was sometime in the 90s. The episode started with Gordon introducing the episode. He was standing next to the big pole where the iconic Sesame Street sign laid, when Mr. Snuffaloopagus came by. He was there waiting for Big Bird for a day of fun, and was telling Gordon about what fun things they had planned. Gordon later departed, saying goodbye to Snuffy and leaving him alone. Where Gordon once stood was a man that appeared out of nowhere.  He also had with him a black umbrella, which he held high into the air, even though there was no rain or wind. Eerie low-pitched music started to play, and then the scene faded out. The scene transitioned to Big Bird walking down the street, finding himself at the titular pole, but finding no sign of Snuffy. Gordon came by and asked Big Bird what he was doing, to which he said he was waiting for Snuffy. He started saying what fun things they had planned that day, which was quoting Snuffy verbatim, until Gordon interrupted him. Gordon told Big Bird that he saw Snuffy just minutes earlier, and they both got a concerned look. They then searched out looking for Snuffy, and the scene ended. After that scene a quick cartoon played. I didn't remember this episode, but I chalked it up to being a bad memory, but I was interested to see where it was going. The next scene showed Elmo and Zoe playing in the park together.  After a minute of playing the game, Elmo excused himself and left, and just behind where Elmo stood, the umbrella man was there, just in front of the bushes. The same music played, and the scene faded to when Elmo was just coming back. Elmo found that Zoe was gone, and he became worried. He found Gordon and Big Bird looking for Snuffy and told them about Zoe, to which they took to finding both Snuffy and Zoe. Later, a scene showed the search party becoming bigger, with more people coming to aid in the search. Gordon stopped by a tree to relax for a minute, and Big Bird was getting worried and repeatedly asking Gordon to get up. Gordon calmly told Big Bird not to worry, and that he'd catch up in a minute. Big Bird left, and the umbrella man was right where he stood. The man started walking towards Gordon, but just before he got to him, the scene ended. The next scene showed Big Bird worrying about Gordon and his friends, when Ruffy came up and told everyone that Gordon, Grover, and Cookie Monster were missing. This caused a bit of a commotion, until Mr. Handford settled the tension with a positive and persuasive speech. The crowd's noise died down, and everyone went in different directions to search more effectively. After that scene ended, the next scene showed that it had been three days, and no one was found. Telly was sitting on a bench, talking to himself, worrying about his fellow citizens of Sesame Street. Elmo then came up and tried to comfort him, also learning that Susan, Harry, Bert and Ernie were missing too. Elmo was just on the brink of relaxing him, when the camera zoomed out to show that the umbrella man was standing right next to them. They looked over at him in fear, and the scene ended. After this, a scene showed a random puppet running in the streets, yelling, See where's the umbrella man! After running into Looper's store, Mr. Handford and some others calmed him down, and got him to explain. The puppet explained that he saw the umbrella man take Telly and Elmo, and knew he was responsible for the others disappearing. Big Bird was among the crowd and looked towards the viewer, pondering if this supposed umbrella man was behind his friends disappearing. Just when he was about to ask the puppet a question, the puppet was gone, and a silhouette of a tall man holding an umbrella passed by the window. Big Bird ran outside to find no one, and he went to his nest in a slump. Mr. Handford told the other patrons of the store to relax, and that this whole thing would be sorted out. The camera angle changed to show the umbrella man, standing just outside the shop, but they were all oblivious to his presence. The scene ended with a slight zoom in onto the man's face, a very smooth face, with no signs of hair or expression. The next scene showed Big Bird sitting on the steps of the 1-3 Sesame Street building, alone. He sat sighing, and wondering where everyone went. He told the viewer that merely everyone was gone, and he was scared. Oscar came out of his trash can, wondering what the noise was. Big Bird was relieved to know he wasn't alone, but Oscar wasn't so happy. Oscar explained he was enjoying the peace and quiet, when Big Bird woke him up from his nap. Big Bird apologized, but started going on rambling about how his week was awful. One camera shot was of Big Bird's face, then it went to a shot of both of them, with a small part of the umbrella man being visible, but both were oblivious. Big Bird then said this was the best day of his week, since he found Oscar, with the camera focused in on his face, but just after he said that, the shot zoomed out to show that Oscar and his trash can vanished. Big Bird went quiet, and solemnly walked towards the pole, where the episode began. He looked around a bit, then looked down to his feet, looking more miserable than ever. The last shot of the episode showed him looking down, the umbrella man walking up behind him. I was a little shocked by what I saw. I didn't know what moral purpose this episode gave, if any. Maybe stranger danger. I don't know. This was a pretty creepy episode, not just by Sesame Street standards either. I mean, everyone you love going missing. That's quite horrible for kids, may even adults to watch or comprehend. I haven't let Billy watch this episode for obvious reasons, but I still have the disc. I don't know if I'm the only one who has this episode, or if it was aired at all. I know this is real, if this isn't legit, it's quite the high-scale rip-off. I've looked on the internet for details, but nothing informative has come up. Just stuff about cancelled episodes and banned episodes, like the one with the Wicked Witch, came up. But, for now, I'll have to settle with the knowledge that this exists, whether I like it or not.