Here's an unfortunate fact, the guys with the biggest calves are the ones that don't even work them out. All right, what does that mean? Genetics play a big role in your muscular development. Here's something else. Who cares? Does it matter? You can't control it.  I feel like this lesson eventually is learned. If you stick to working out long enough, eventually you get to this growth place where you're like, who cares? But in the beginning it's mostly like, it's tough. Why don't I look like that guy? Why is that person stronger? What's going on here? When there's a deficit or there's a visible, especially one of those things, people are like, oh man, I really want my calves to grow and it becomes an obsession. Then it's like, well, somebody that just doesn't even really lift weights has amazing calves. That's a hard pill. Not only though, because people will say that, but then in the same breath, they're not prioritizing it like it's the most important thing. There's still a lot that they could do. Yeah. I mean, as annoying as it was, I mean, obviously when I had to get on stage, that was obviously a thought to my mind. Okay, if I'm going to get up here and present my physique, I got to make sure I bring my calves up. I'm in shorts. That's going to look really weird. If I'm so disproportionate or I'm massive up top and I have these skinny calves, and so it became a huge priority. For the first time in my life, I actually treated it as if it was any other muscle group that I had to develop and I had to bring up, which means I prioritized it in the workouts. It started the week out. It was the first exercise I always did. I increased the volume.  But then it was like, they were also treated as the redheaded step child. I never fricking addressed them or if I were to miss something, it would be those. Or I never really started. How many people start their workout with calves? Nobody does. It's always an afterthought. It is. Our tendency is to want to make excuses because otherwise it's a mirror. Otherwise you have to look in the mirror and be like, all right, what am I not doing? Because it's very easy to look at other people and say genetics, steroids, they don't have the same job. They don't have, they have all the time in the world comparison trap. The comparison trap. It's terrible. And what it does is actually disempowers you. Right. So there's a false belief that if you accept responsibility, now it's going to suck. Well, it kind of sucks because it puts the ball in your core, but it's more empowering because there's a lot you can do and it doesn't matter what the other people around you look like and what they can do. There's always someone stronger, always someone better, bigger, better circumstances, I guess. Nobody's like perfectly balanced in every muscle or in every strength pursuit. It's like, I don't know, I guess that's just sort of the thing for me. It's like I try not to get into the hole like, well, this isn't working. I mean, I do like figure out where I'm weak and I'm like, okay, I got to get better at this and do whatever I can. But once you start comparing your progress to somebody else, that's such like a losing pursuit. Yeah. What do you, oh man. Why do you guys think though that we've put so much emphasis on the calves and that like, I look at calves like your forearms, like they're the extension of the arm or extension of the leg. It's their. Oh, why that muscle?  Look, what's where your forearms about weak your forearms are. And they can actually be just as underdeveloped and comparison to your bias, but no one ever says that. And so what do you, what is it about? Oh, I think legs in general or tend to be skipped by guys. So in general legs and of the legs, if they do work them out, then the calves tend to be skipped because it's not like a beach muscle. Yeah. It's not a show. It comes from that. You know what the guys that just get their upper body workouts in and no it is a beach muscle though. If you're in shorts, your calves are being showed off just as much as your forearms are. So I just, isn't it weird? Like what, what in our culture decided that? Because very easily bicep of legs, you know, it's like, yeah, very easily with that logic, it could have been the forums. You know, why, why did we decide as a culture like that would be the thing that we would, we would target and I would, I would make the case that they're as underdeveloped or, or like focused on as the forums. Like there's plenty of people that have small forearms, especially guys, some guys that have massive biceps and triceps. I guess we could get deeper because you know, let's start shaming forearms. Stop it. You know, no, we can, okay, we can get a little deeper. Here's the interesting thing about calves from a performance standpoint. Okay. This is where it gets weird. Big or small calves, like some of the highest performing athletes in the world have high, short calves, long Achilles, and they don't have like, look at some of the best athletes. Yeah. Look at the lower players right now. Yeah. And so, you know, so I don't, it's, I don't think it's necessarily, evolutionarily speaking, connected to your ability to hunt or defend yourself like broad shoulders, strong hands, strong forearms, wide back where, you know, that tells you a lot, right? Somebody who's a really underdeveloped back. You're probably not very physical. You probably don't have very good performance. Whereas calves, you know what they find with calves is like big, long, meaty calves tend to, you know, you tend to see that on like strength athletes, probably because it gives you a strong solid base. And then like running and jumping, there tends to be a, it tends to, to, to move towards higher, shorter, shorter type calves, but from a, I guess, from an aesthetic standpoint, right?  Like you never hear that, right? It's always abs, arms, chest, something like that. So that's probably why. And I feel like, uh, forms are, forms are better connected to like real world strength and like, yes. So you'll never meet a really, really strong guy with underdeveloped forms. Like he's going to have, he's going to normally have a really impossible. Yeah. So it's, it's kind of funny that, that I don't know that that's, that isn't talked about as, as much. Yeah. I mean, I think it's silly to, again, the original point compared to other people were all unique and different. And so it is what it is. But I've always thought it was interesting that nobody put any emphasis on the form, the same way that you put on the calf. Yeah. I mean, the bigger conversation is the whole comparing yourself to other people, like genetics are interesting. I remember there was this dude who came to work out at one of the gyms that I worked at and he looked like, he looked like a hundred and sixty five pound dude.  He kind of looked like a thick guy. He was wearing a rash guard. So it's like a long sleeve rash guard. And he gets under the bench and I, you know, I'm just in the gym, I'm working with clients, you know, doing my walkthrough. And I walked through once and he's warming up with two twenty five and it was moving pretty fast. It's like, wow, he's pretty strong for a size. Well, I come back through three plates around the, on the, on the bar and he's benching that. Then I didn't see for a while and then I go back through. He's got five plates on the bench. Now I'm looking at him because I'm like, for sure, he's gonna hurt himself.  I've seen people do this before. I'm going to have to jump in and grab the bar and help him.  He was doing singles with it full range all the way down, pause all the way up. And I, so of course I introduced myself. I'm like, dude, I've never seen, this doesn't make, I said, no, no offense. I said, the physics just don't make sense. I literally said this. I said, no offense, but you don't look like you can lift this much weight. And I said, what do you do? He's like, I compete. Thanks. Yeah. I'm a power lifter and you know, bench is one of my strongest. So it's like genetics are interesting with how, how some people have like the, just the right leverage and CNS activation and who knows what. Yeah. So crazy. It's just so wild to see something like that. It made absolutely no sense. And then of course we've had, we've had employees like that, right? Where they go, they barely work out and they just surpass us and they fire them immediately. But I mean, what are you going to do?  I mean, I honestly think, you know, what's funny is that I feel the same way, which I know bothers people when I talk about this too, with the whole like feeling coming from a place of not having a lot of privilege when it comes to. Oh God, the same thing. Exactly. Like I feel, I feel that that was an advantage to me because it forced me to build good habits and behaviors and work hard and be resilient. Totally.  You go the other direction with your development on your body, part of what I think made me so into exercise and nutrition because it was difficult because I didn't have the genetics because I was terrible because I was weak, I was skinny. I was all these things that I was insecure about. And so it forced me to like really go deep and figure all this out. Had I been the kid who like already looked like everyone had that kid in high school that already looked like he left weights before even lifted weights and then he touched weights and then he just doubled his size.  Like, I don't know, I probably wouldn't have landed in this field. I probably wouldn't have cared to go that deep and to learn that much and to work so hard at it because so I don't know.  Like off the shoot. And so I had to like learn how to like get better at being predictive, watching film, like breaking everything down, like training every chance I could in the gym. Like every last bit I trained with a track team for like two years and like barely got like, you know, 0.1, you know, off my 40 time.   Yeah, the, okay, of course, your genetic propensity for things like intelligence, your opportunities that you're presented with that you're not responsible for, maybe the people your parents know, the schools, that all plays a role. But if there was one, and it's a, look, it's a combination of factors that we would have to use to predict someone's potential success and failure. So that's the complete picture would be to look at everything, but if you had to pick one that would be the greatest predictor of success in any area, it's mindset. There's no other greater predictor than somebody's mindset.  And what it did to you is you had a mindset around it where it became an advantage. If you had a different mindset, you would have ended up like every other person who grew up in your situation. Not very well. It's the mindset that makes the difference always. And this is why they call, this is why they talk about the immigrant advantage. When you look at immigrants and you look at their children, so people who come to this country and then they have kids, when you compare them to the same race natives, people who have been here for generations, so same color, same everything, right? Controlled everything. Immigrants, the children of immigrants outperform them. They have, they call the immigrant advantage, the mindset because their parents came here obviously because this was a better opportunity. And so it's like they have this, they have a different mindset. They see the opportunity, they see what's going on and they're less likely to be like, oh my god, I can't control anything. I'm a victim in everything that I do or whatever. This you have to learn with fitness. You absolutely have to learn this because I can, very easily, I can come up with a million reasons why I can't get fit, healthy, stronger, leaner. I can come up with it. It's very easy to come up with a million reasons why or I can be like, fine, I don't care. What can I focus on? What can I do? What do I have control or focus on that? That right there will dictate your success with fitness more than anything else. Yeah. By far. Today's workout program, Giveaways Maps Split. Here's how you can win that program. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. We'll let you know in the comment section if you want. We also have a sale going on this month.  You can get both of them with that discount by clicking on the link at the top of the description below. All right. Here comes the show.  And I thought was really funny because I was like, you know, we now have had. I'm worried. We've now had some of our kids work for the company and so not mine, but you guys kids work for the company. I'm like, I would totally do this. So I guess when he worked for his dad when he was younger, did you know that his dad also did a random drug test for the company or the business? Yeah, did you know that? Yeah, I don't remember that. And so my point of bringing it up to you now, because obviously we've had like the kids come through and help out around the business. How do I drug test my kids? Yeah, I would totally do that.  You know what I'm saying? I don't know. And he's working for the company. I mean, oh, by the way, mine pumps drug testing now we new new policy. It may seem like it's like everybody's doing it. And then I find out I was the only one that did it. He did it like that. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.  I would so do that.  Like I'm sure that they were like, oh man, like we got to check up. So looking back, you were pissed. I'm assuming super pissed. Okay. Now as a dad, what do you think? Well, it's conflicted because it actually pushed me towards smoking weed. Okay, so that's an interesting perspective. I wasn't even doing it. I was a very good kid. Okay, so let's put let's let's let's play this out with your boys. They're working for the company in a year. And you they all said you think Everett's getting high. Are you here? He's got friends that are getting high. First of all, we can't drug test everybody because we'd all fail.  Yeah, it's okay.  Oh, man, they all kinds of stuff in their system. We're gonna keep it anonymous. I don't know. Honestly, I would help more that like we just have an open conversation and communication between each other that I wouldn't need to like test him and like, you know, try and get one on him, you know, I just don't feel like we have that kind of relation. I mean, I don't think any of us have that with our kids. So I think you're right. Like I still think I would do it I still think I would pull that move. I think I would do it on his friends all day. We'll hire his friends and then test them and, you know, like all screen them all out. What's the saying like parents who are too strict raise sneaky kids? Yeah, is what it is. I think that's true. I think so. It happened to me. Yeah, because I so I'm I try work on this, but Jessica is so good at it. She does not react like the kids will say stuff to her and I'm in the background and I'm like, I got to leave the room because I'm I know my face. I'll give away, you know, my cards and she just doesn't react like, oh, really? What happened? Oh, OK, what did your friends say? I'm sure laugh or whatever.  And I'm in the I'm sweating in the back like, oh, my God, I can't believe that happened. You know, but she she has this great conversation with them and then it allows us to be influential. Otherwise, there's no influence. You have zero influences a parent like my parents and I talked about nothing, nothing, not sex, not drugs, nothing controversial whatsoever. Me either had no conversation about this kind of stuff. So if my parents came to me to talk to me about stuff, I would have been like, I don't know what you're talking about. No, that's what happened. I don't know. Right. Not my whole defensive. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm on both sides of this with like, I think I could see myself still being like, oh, man, son, the company is doing this like, I would totally like doubt. No, you would say anything. Yeah, give it to everybody. Well, yeah. I mean, if it's standards practice like, come on, because here's how I would also like think of it too is like, listen, I mean, in the real world, this could happen. I'm saying in the real world, you could be working for a company and and there's consequences if you were like, so, you know, and then here's the thing. If it came out, right? Like let's say I test him and if he does pass, then the conversation is really like, you know, why didn't you communicate this to me? Like you could have shared this with your dad and this is something that we could have talked about or worked. You know what I'm saying? And like, you know, you're lucky it's it's my company. So we're not firing you, you know, but you could have got fired over something like this. And so that. So I think there's like an opportunity for a conversation to to to get us to have to talk more. Did you hear about the government a while ago was going to hire people for internet and technology like hacking and they needed like really smart engineers and they had to stop drug testing them. They were all failing. I couldn't find anybody like they get these really good hackers. You don't pass the drug test. Damn it. So they stopped drug testing people. That was like the did you ever finish that that series that was that we were all watching the telemarketer ones telemarketing? Oh, you didn't finish that. No, no, no. Probably can't believe you did. That's something you would totally like. Oh, wow. Yeah. You have to watch that. Craziest, shadiest characters. Yeah. I'm just like, you can't drug test these guys. They're like all on one. Hey, isn't the UFC not drug testing? Did we talk about this? You started like pulled out, right? It's they're just handling in-house now. Oh, so OK. I have like conspiracy theories around that. But do we know that's yeah, it's kind of strange that kind of don't look natural no more. Yeah, I don't think anyone thinks Conor's natural. I think everybody is pretty like, you know, it's pretty obvious that he's taking something, right? Yeah. And it's obvious of the pool, right? That he that he has for the UFC. I mean, there's no money machine. He's a money machine. It doesn't matter who he fights. John Jones will be all jacked coming back. So I'm wondering is it like, did they do that just to make it easier for him to come back? Or is there more going on? Because I don't know enough, right? So I don't. I mean, I follow MMA, but and enough to know that news. We'll know if we're watching the UFC and if the fighters like if you've been fighting for years and years and years and then you randomly get jacked. OK, there's something like I mean, imagine it like if it was like pride. So a lot of people I loved pride, new MMA fighters. Yes, see, in wake of split with over McGregor. So a lot of people who are current MMA fans, I don't know if they know what pride was. Pride was an organization in Japan. Does it not exist anymore? No. Oh, wait. Did they buy it and change it? I didn't. I thought it was still a question. I know there's other organizations. But did you know? Did you know this that I watched an interview with Rampage, Jackson and probably helped him get it? Well, no. So when he went to that when he went to pride, they got their contract. He said the first line on the agreement said we do not test for steroids. Oh, wow. That was just that's all it said. We had tests for that. We don't test. Yeah, those guys were crazy. Well, they look like amateur bodybuilders fighting each other. So OK, what does it say? Pride was eventually folded into the U.S.C. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know. So they don't call it. They don't have they just. I guess all the absorb them. Yeah. Remember Alexander? What's the name? Overing. What was his first Alistair Alastair over he fought and kickboxing for so long, he was like a tall screeny looking dude. And little by little, he was just getting jacked. Yeah, fighting. Is it like a monster? What's he made the U.S.C. You know, what else was crazy like that was and I think they eventually kind of kind of crack door is W.W.F. Back before was W.W.B. Oh, yeah. I remember reading Brett Hart's biography and he went into like, I mean, they had like a built in pharmacy in the course. Like you go see your doctor and you be like, oh, my knee hurts on this and that. And so they would just prescribe everything and you'd like he tells stories of like grocery cart shopping for like stuff.  Man, it's so crazy. That's speaking of well, this is not in that category. These are peptides. These are legal. Hey, can I tell you guys? So I've been using that. They the sub QBPC 157 for a while. Yeah, you love that. And then I added thymus and beta to that, which wholly. So I did. I'm messaging back and forth with the with the people. Oh, this is the TV 500 or something. The TV 500 is a synthetic version of thymus and beta. But this is thymus and beta. This is the real stuff. It's a little more expensive, but I think it's better. But anyway, same identical chemical structure, right? It is making me look gnarly, like gnarly looking in the way that my my muscles look like the hardness. So I'm going back and forth. You saw me messaging Jakes. I'm like, is this this has some strange anabolic? I know it's for healing. It's for regeneration and healing. But I'm getting a very strange, like aesthetic muscular. Do you think that could be especially since the amount of volume and how consistent you are with your training?  So I looked in some forums and I was reading about this in forums because combining the two is like a really popular combination for injury healing and just for healing the joints.  And this is what I'm noticing as well. So what thymus and does, so, okay, BPC speeds up the rebuilding and regeneration of soft tissues. So ligaments, tendons and cartilage. Thymusin works on actin, which is part of muscle fiber. So muscle injuries, it would heal fast, whereas BPC would heal like tendon ligament injuries. Tendon ligaments, yeah. So it could be that. It could be that it's really making the actin regenerate faster and heal faster and that's what's causing. Yeah. The growth? I don't know, but it's, I'm like visual, cause visually see a really hardening, interesting effect. I'm going back and forth with the people with our partners at mphormones.com cause I'm like, okay, I'm very sensitive to things in my body and pretty lean so I can see what's going on. And I said, this feels very strange. Like I didn't expect that. So I don't know if you saw the message from Katrina this morning, but she says we're getting a bunch of emails. I want to hear your opinion on what you would do in this situation because of the potential of what could happen in that market. Oh yeah. If people should stock up on their peptides. That's a good question. Yes, good question. I mean, I don't think you're going to advise other people to do some of that. I'm asking you, what would you do? What would I do? Yeah, yeah. Well, now that I, God, okay. That's tough because I know the market. The shelf life. Yeah, I know that. Well, you get, you can, you don't reconstitute them so you can get them separate and then reconstitute them later. So I'll give them a longer shelf, a really long shelf life. The gray market is the research chemical side. I don't like that though because literally anybody could do that. And you don't know what's in there. We talked to Dr. Seeds. He says, if the peptide's off. I know, but I'm thinking more from the perspective, okay, say you're somebody who's already getting these peptides right now from MP hormones and they end up cracking down and saying like no more or they try to make some bullshit, you know. Especially if you're receiving all the benefits from it and then you're just like, oh man. I mean, I would. So that's why I'm asking you. I would. I mean, that's what I would do. I would. If there was something that I really liked. Probably, but I mean, I'm stocked up on BPC 157 for like literally just to have case. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was like, you know what? Same. Part of mine wasn't had anything to do with, this was before all that. I just like, I'd rather have it on hand and for the times that I need it, then have to wait because it's sometimes a process to get it. And I'm like, if I have an injury or I feel that way, I want to be able to take it right away. I don't want to have to wait, you know weeks before. I knew this would happen with the FDA, man. I swear to the soul, the FDA is kind of inevitable. It just, it mirrors the medical marijuana industry so much to me. It reminds me of that. I mean, it's the plus and minus of being early adopters like we are. And that was the same thing for me when I was in the cannabis space. It's like when nobody, when everybody's all skeptical and afraid of it, that's the best time to go into a business because you get to ride the early wave.  People need to understand that a lot of, regularly, not all of them, but a lot of regulations exist to protect special interests, large corporations. Most of the time, bro. A lot of look. Most of the time. Look, cannabis was made, speaking of marijuana, everybody knows this now. So I'll bring this up because nobody can argue this. It was made to schedule one drug federally, meaning most illegal, most illegal, biggest potential for abuse, most dangerous. The reason why it was put there, and we all know this very well now, was because they were trying to find a way to throw the counter-cultural protesters in jail. And they couldn't throw them in jail for protesting because that would require changing the constitution. So they took their favorite drug and made it schedule one.   I know. Like, really. It's safe enough that we know. We don't even know what the, we don't know what the LD50 is for. That's how non-taught, I mean, you're not going to have a good time. It's not going to be great for you. But yeah.  You're not going to die. No. So they did that. Even people need to look this up. In 1974, I want to say, the government did a study on cannabis trying to connect it to lung cancer because they needed to continue the propaganda. They couldn't even put that out because they ended up, they found that it like actually. They saw an anti-cancer effect.   So with peptides, peptides, you can't patent them because of how they are. You could change them just a little. It'd be impossible to try and patent them. It's very difficult. Compound pharmacies can make them. They have real applications, real potential benefits. People are going off medications because they're taking peptides. They can become very inexpensive as a result. And this is a major threat to the pharmaceutical industry. So the FDA will step in and to protect their friends in big pharma will eliminate their competition. That's it. Or there's always like in the cannabis space, there was this, these backdoor deals that like what we would see is all of a sudden zoning would change. You know what I'm saying? Where it's just like, and they would like target competitors. And then the ones where the zoning was okay, it just so happened to be the people that were friends with the people that were making the decisions on where the zoning was going to be.  And I don't know enough about the peptide space. Like I'm not, I was in the cannabis space. Although they'll attack the pharmacies, they're gonna let them compound is what they'll do. They'll go after the compounding ability somehow because the peptides themselves are gonna be really hard. Which is just like what they do with the dispensaries.  So they just made it illegal to bank with them. Yeah, so they made it, exactly. It was like, okay, you guys could sell this stuff but then you can't put it in a bank.  How do I do it? Well, now exactly. Now we're gonna get you on that. This is what they did. So yeah, no, it totally reminds me of that. It's so, so some. Now the positive thing for the consumer is eventually this leads to, eventually it leads to everybody getting involved in it. The price is coming down, it'd be more accessible. So eventually it will get there. The process on the way there though is always shady. It's so frustrating, it's so frustrating. Anyway, speaking of like cool cutting edge stuff, that study I brought up on a few episodes ago on red light therapy and blood glucose levels is flying. This was a big deal. Okay, so this was the study where they took red light therapy for 15 minutes. They shined it on the upper trapezius muscles of subjects. Doesn't matter where you shine it but they just used that area. Lowered blood glucose, so they did nothing else. Just red light therapy. Now red light stimulates the mitochondria. So the mitochondria uptake and utilize glucose more. This is what ended up happening. And they dropped their blood glucose numbers by 28%. Literally doing nothing. Just sitting down. So lots, it's circulating. People are going crazy. Cause there's very few things you can do that'll do that to you besides exercise. Like you could exercise or walk or move after eating and you'll see really, really nice significant changes. This is just you sitting there. So I could see people at desk jobs after lunch. Like the red light room. That's it, just after lunch.  You're less likely to get a crash, a spike in crash with blood sugar. You're less likely to get insulin insensitivity issues. Scheduled breaks. So people could like get some kind of exposure. Probably less likely to store body fat. What would that do? Like, so my sister, right? Who works for us. She, her thing is that she puts it up by her computer. And it just kind of blasts her. You know what she also has now is she has the treadmill desk. So imagine her doing lunch, going to lunch. And then doing that. And then walking on the treadmill while hitting the red light. Probably one of the best situations right there. Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, obviously she'll hear this. She's onto something for sure. But I mean, talk about remarkable. So people are just, they're commenting on, talk about it. It's like, again, there's nothing you could do besides pharmaceutical that would lower your blood glucose like that. By 28%. That is crazy.  But our, does juve proposed these? Oh, they do. If you go on their website, they have all the latest studies on red light therapy and what it does and what it doesn't do. By the way, just for, you know, I know we work with juve, but one of the reasons why we work with them is the red light that's used in studies very rarely is the same red light, like wavelength and intensity that is used by people that sell products. It's not all the same. Just cause it's red is not mean it's the same red light. Juve uses what they use in studies. So it's legit. I wonder how much the, I mean it's not black market, but what would you call that? Like when it's like a- The knockoff. Yeah. The Fugazi version. Like what's the Fugazi market of red light? Like I wonder how big it is. Because it's been getting more and more popular.  I have a buddy that had a, so I, he was like, hey, Sal, I was listening to your show. I want to look into the red light thing. I'm like, oh, here's the link. You know, we have a discount code or whatever. He's my friend. Yeah. Idiot though. I found this one on Amazon. So annoying, dude. You don't think I did my homework? You know what I mean? Yeah. This is exactly what I told him. I said, bro, this is my space. If you asked me about fitness and health, trust me.  Anyway, what does he do? He goes online. He's on Amazon. Bro, he went online, ordered a red light hat. So he was doing it for hair loss. He was, bro, I found this one. He's like, the one you were showing me was like three times as expensive. This one was like, it was like 50 bucks. It's a hat you put on with red light. Oh, God, bro. I said, I said, It's like, give me a break. It burned my skin. So I pulled up to study and said, does it have this wavelength, the red light? And he goes and looks it up.  That way, dude. Yeah. You just look like you did that for Christmas. Yeah, you just walk around with red light. Well, you know, the unfortunate part about that, I believe that's probably why some people feel like it's a gimmick because there probably are people that go buy something, they hear red light and they get advertised that this is like the same thing.  Every day for months. Do you guys have friends and family members like that? Totally. A new workout or diet? After asking you what to do? That's the worst. It happens to me all the time where they ask advice like that and then I see they're doing something else. I'm like, why did you do that? Well, you told me this. I'm like, no, I told you this. And then you went and decided to just do whatever you thought was a good idea. Don't ask me then. I have a family member.  Oh, here's my diet. I'm cutting these things out. And I see it every time around my, do you know how many times I've given you workouts? How many times I've talked to him about diet? I'm like, here's what's going to happen. So the last time, I didn't say anything this time because I'm over it. But the last time I said, here's what's going to happen. You're going to lose 15 pounds. Three months later, you're going to gain it back.  That's what you did the last five times. Do you want to bet money on this? Yeah, but how much you want to bet? So we bet money, sure enough, went back. I didn't take the money. Because he's already... Just listen to me, dude. Just listen, bro. You think I'm... No, my favorite lie was people say like, no, no, no, I know what you say, but I'm going to do this first. And then I'm going to do that. That's like the most common one. It's like, yeah, I know what you say. You know what I'm saying? I'm definitely going to do that, but first I'm going to do this. But also I need to do cardio on top of that. So my dad, obviously he's an expert with, especially with stonework, right? He's been doing this since he was nine years old. He went to go work on a friend's house and was doing their kitchen. And the friend was like, I'll help you.  But if I help you, my dad's like, that's fine. You can help me, no problem. So the whole time this guy's telling my dad, you don't need to do that. No, no, no, just do it this way. I saw it on YouTube. And my dad is like... He's getting so like, yeah, dude. He does it because he does a very good job. Yeah, he's been doing his whole life. And he's like, no, no, no, no. If you do that, here's what's going to happen. You're going to want to damage, this is going to break, whatever. Anyway, he ended up leaving halfway through because the guy kept telling him, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, I saw this on YouTube. This guy knows you're talking about it. My dad's like, do it yourself. I'm out of here. Dude, the guy called him back. I'm sorry. Come back on your job. So annoying, it's so frustrating. Hey, speaking of annoying things. Dude, you want to talk about stress. You guys, okay, I moved because we had mold in the old place. Had to get out, right? Moving to this new place.   Yeah, I know you told us that. How much did you have to throw away? So we're getting new mattresses. Get rid of, okay, new mattresses. So how many is that? That's like four or five. A lot of mattresses. I mean, you got a lot of kids. Mattresses. Bro, you should at least have me go try and work a mattress deal with someone first. I swear, that's fucked, man. That's a lot of money in mattresses. Oh my God, bro. The kids' toys, out. All their poorest toys, gone. Hey, if you didn't already, we do have a relationship with sleep aid or aid sleep, I always do backwards, right? They have mattresses too, just so you know. So before you do that. I mean, I know today's not a commercial for them or anything like that, but since you're bringing up mattresses and before you go and... Let me see if I can return them. Oh, you already bought them? We bought some. What were you thinking, guys? I wanted to came with a big vat of bleach. Bleach won't do it. You have to use specific, white vinegar. And then there's a spray that you can use. If you don't want to get rid of certain things, you spray, it's got thymol in there, which is like a plant oil. But now your house... So wouldn't it be a smart thing to... So you don't, that just doesn't potentially happen again to like do like a wrap around the mattress? Like some sort of a plastic wrap that goes all over. Like brand new mattress comes. Like why wouldn't you just have like a real thin piece of plastic all the way around it and then put all your stuff on? I mean, you could, but if it's brand new, it should be fine. But here... I know, but if it came from the house and then the infantry said it wouldn't get through the plastic. Oh, now you're really encouraging mold growth though, underneath that.  Oh, really? Yeah, because mold grows where there's moisture, lack of oxygen, lack of sunlight, dark, cool spaces.  Otherwise you're encouraging. Yeah, cause I don't know, yeah. So we're just getting rid of everything.  So she's like, what do I do? I gotta wash this. But then if I put it over here, it's gonna touch this thing. And she's like, I'm like, I don't know if it's like Ebola. Maybe we're okay. If we just like wash things. Your house looks like Dexter. This is all part of just cause master planning to get all new stuff. That's what it is. It's really what it is. And it's really what it is.  Let's freak Sal out. He's easy to give up. They'll add to that. Oh, the weights. We gotta throw the weights away. Oh man. I thought of you. I saw this video and I was dying. And it was like, okay. So you know how, so people like me will give like an Italian accent. And it's kind of like, you know, you add the bibidibidis to it. Now imagine, imagine an Italian guy like trying to give like a English American accent but in gibberish. He had, okay. So there's this, this. Oh, so he's pretending to speak. There's a song that literally is like a hit song that this guy from Italy made. That's an old song. I've never heard it before. But he's, the whole thing is gibberish. It sounds like it's like real words in like. That's a classic.  Oh God, I'm so mad now. He's gonna put it up. I gave him a link to it earlier. That's a famous song. You know what? I'm gonna get so much flack for not remembering this guy's name. He has some of the most popular classic songs. Yeah. Adriano Salantano. Salantano. Yeah. Is he like the Italian version of like Weird Al? No. No, no, no, no, no. Don't ever say that about him. No. He's a national treasure. Maybe I like Weird Al. So he's seeing, what's the song called? It's called, oh boy, I can even pronounce it. Pre-send, colon, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, you have to hear this to see, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm so lost right now. Okay, let me put it up, we'll play. It's a famous song in Italy and then there's a part where he's pretends to be speaking English but he doesn't know English. It was done in the 1970s. 1970s. So I grew up listening to Salantano. Okay.  Yeah, I was like. He's literally a national treasure. It's catchy for sure. He's like Bruce Springsteen. Okay, I was gonna say, what is the parallel to us? Oh, he's like Bruce Springsteen or like. Oh wow. Yeah, in Italy. So he's really good. He's very fit. And then this is like his, and now is he doing it like as a mockery and kind of or just tongue-in-cheek or what is it? That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if they knew in the 70s what was going, like if he was just doing it, I don't know. He just started just like, you know, gibberish and then it just became like, oh, this is catchy. Yeah, we're gonna put it up now. None of that's English, yeah. Not even one to the word. Oh, that's great. What's the name of that song, Doug? I'll tell you what it is. It's like 25 letters long.  That's great. Yeah, that's great. We literally, I'll look them up. It's a long, I forgot how to say that. It's precinct, all-in-and-fragilistic, expilodentious. Basically, yeah, it's so soul. One of his, yeah, I'm looking it up right now, he's bringing back so many, so many memories. My dad literally had every one of these freaking albums. Oh, really? Yeah, dude, he still does. We still listen to it half the time. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and people, I saw people commenting on that. Like why go through all that trouble and not write actual words, but it's because he didn't know any English. Yeah, he still, to this day, he'll still get on a Thai MTV and he'll perform a People Just Love The Guy. Well, it's funny, because even when they write words, like there's been a bunch of these 70 songs where they just like, they get in the studio and they're like super high and then it comes out different and it is like gibberish, but it's like, oh, that's the one we keep. You know, just, I don't know, I think it's sometimes you get in flow and it's like, this actually makes sense. It sounds good with the beat. It's actually a great song. Yeah, you could tell. I can tell like, oh, okay, that's a good beat to it. It took me a minute to realize, oh, he's not saying anything. Yeah, yeah, I'm registered. For my ears, I think he's saying another language, but I'm like, oh, no, he's trying to like sound like he's saying English words, but there are none of those are English words. No, that's funny.  I just thought of that. I was like, yeah, is he gonna be like me doing that? Snow, Informers. Well, he's actually, did he really have an accent, what's his name, Snow? Did he really from Jamaica? Dude, that's gotta be fake. Yeah, it's fake. Isn't it? No, I think he was from Jamaica. He was saying real words, but he was doing it all fast, you know? Yeah, but it was a real accent. I feel like that's like the white guy version of doing it like Jamaican music, bro. I totally feel like that. When Americans make fun of other languages and make up words though it's racist, you can't do it. Yeah, I'm not even gonna try.  Hey, speaking of canceled, what's up with him playing that fight, huh? Oh, did you watch it? I watched, I normally watch these, and it was a weird time because I think it was in London. A lot of bad press. Apparently it was just a joke. Oh, they fought? It was, I didn't know. I saw the highlights afterwards. Dillon Down, whatever his name is, like he was just not taking it seriously.  Pretending to like try to guillotine at one point, got disqualified, lost.  The whole time. But it went to decision too though, so such a, like I feel so sorry for, you know what, this'll be interesting, right? So I'm glad you brought it up, because we have this ongoing conversation on this show about how we speculated like the future of boxing and stuff. This is an example of what will kill it, I feel like, for a lot of these people that are paying for these fights, because they string enough of these types of fights in a row like this, and people will stop paying that pay review money. Because it was such a joke.  There was no, it wasn't a real good competition. It was all built around the drama. Lina, it was very Jerry Springer. And I think that you have to ask yourself, how many people will continue to pay that kind of money?  So that's a different story. Like would people actively keep paying 5.99 a month or whatever to cash out, I don't know. No, the reason why it was getting so popular is because the circus, but then the fights were actually legit. If it keeps going like this, I think it's- I don't know though, right? Because there are, I mean, again, Jerry Springer is the example I'm gonna use is very popular, but it's also on cable TV, so it's free. Yeah, isn't that the risk though of hyping so hard? You know what I mean?  It's like, that would have been okay. Has that happened to you with a lot of guys? Yeah, it's good. Has that happened to you with a lot of guys? It's exactly how it's happened.  And they totally let you down. I'm an underseller. So many guys, dude.  So many guys let me down. So many guys let me down. Yeah, gross. Come on, that's enough. You set the table for that. Bring the thunder. That's enough. Way too good. I mean, I saw it on Andrews, Dugs, Maze, and Justice Bay, everyone had the same thoughts. I gotta give you- Always letting us down. Give me those legs. They're gonna sell out. An underseller, you gotta over deliver, man. But I, so I wonder if it'll keep going. I mean, again, with the whole Jerry Springer thing, I don't know, maybe would people actually, do you think people would pay like a monthly fee or a big fee to actually watch Jerry Springer? Or do you think because it's- Well, Jerry Springer's all fair now. Nobody watched that anymore, right? Oh, bro, rerun still on that thing.  That show was so crazy, bro. Dude. That show was so crazy. And people watch. Did you see the one with the, I don't know what you're supposed to say now, a little person, I guess, the little person stripper?  I'm like, what, who made this? Is this real? Who invented this? Yeah. This is crazy. Yeah. Like how much of it was like people they just, I don't like, are these real people like every time? Or is it like, did they find certain people that like have a certain role they play? I mean, that's for the hack. I think Adam brought this up. If you feel bad about yourself, watch Jerry Springer. Yeah. All of a sudden your life seems pretty well put together. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, like so I was ever brought to my attention that there was actually a coloring book that he was looking at getting and like, I just lost it. There's a coloring book literally for people of Walmart. For people of Walmart? What? Have you ever seen, okay, have you seen the book? I've seen the book. The People of Walmart. No, there's a famous book. There's a famous book called The People of Walmart and it's a whole book. Yeah, so there's actually like a coloring book that these people like... Are they on like rascals? Yeah, well, it's just all the wild outfits and the wild body types and the whole nine yards. And so I was like, it's artistic and creative. Like, let's go. So I bought them that and then... Where do you even find something like that? Amazon. Do they have like ridiculous things in there? I saw the worst thing once at Walmart. I just remember, I just, I think I blocked it out because I just remembered it. There was a really, really heavy set woman. And she was wearing a, just a shirt. Okay, it was a big shirt, just a shirt. But because it's a shirt, it was kind of short. And her belly was like exposed underneath it. So it was covering everything. So it was like, you would see her walking and then the belly, the bottom belly part was coming out of the shirt. And there was nothing else. Yeah. This is it right here, Justin? Yeah, yeah. Wow. Like the American flag overalls and the cat t-shirt and... That's great. Dude, that's fun. It's fantastic. Oh my, I'll totally tell you that. We're making a project out of that. It's all we want. These are bad humans. Dude, I know, it's like... Oh, it's been around since 2016. Wow. Hey, you know what's on Netflix now? Dune. Have you seen Dune? The original? No, I mean the... Yeah, of course. God damn. I started watching that again yesterday. That's one of the few movies I've watched now. I bought that on... That's a long movie to watch multiple times. I've seen it three times and I'm gonna watch it again. It's one of my favorite movies. It's so well like the... Just the design of it, the way they present the culture of the future in contrast to the technology and all that. Like they did... I hope the second one hits. So do I, dude. Just the same, because yeah, you never know, but... Oh, it's a great movie. It was good. I think that's one of the few things that I think we were all on the same page with. I think when it comes to movies, a lot of times we're off. Did you guys ever watch the original movie, Dune? I did. A long time ago, the kit fell flat. Yeah, that was tough. Have you guys seen it? It was so long. Have you guys ever seen the actual book, Dune? Yeah, yeah, I tried reading the whole thing. Yeah, it's like two Bibles. I think I got through like three quarters and I was like, I'm just done. I mean, isn't that the idea of all these, these are like following the story, right? I mean, it's obviously the first one left out a ton of what's inside that book. So it would be interesting to see how it does. Yeah, it is. It comes soon though, doesn't it? Uh... Yeah, I think this year, I think so, maybe...  I don't know what his name is. Oh, really? Yeah, like, what's his name? I can't remember. He keeps like headlines and stuff about him. Go ahead, Doug. Yeah, March 15th, 2024. Oh, good. Yep. It's coming out soon. I'm excited about that. Adam, I want to ask you about the feedback on the flavor that you invented for having. I am going to take the credit for it. Actually, I was just talking to Mike this morning. It is becoming everybody's favorite flavor. Wow. So we were getting that already on our end, but he's saying that that's the feedback he's getting on his end too. So it's flying. I'm just going to point a few things out. So this is Creatures of Habit. People don't know. High protein oatmeal. Adam came up with the idea for the flavor, which is now becoming the top selling flavor. So it's amazing. So I'm just going to put a few things out there. Sometimes there's signs in the universe that say that something should happen. And we've now worked with companies that we work with with ideas for supplements and products. So far, they've all been a home run. All I'm saying is we should start a supplement company of some sort. You guys should give me. Let me try.  Oh, come on. We don't need you any more distracted right now. I think the fans want it, right?  No, don't get them involved. I will put something together. This is the perfect situation, right? We've now built such good relationships with partners. They're allowing us to make these decisions. To me, without any of the stress and headaches. That guy's trying to build and sell a company. You know how stressful his life sounds? So stressful. Like all we have to do is. It's amazing. Here's an idea. Yeah. And then it crushes. Deal with it. It could be us. Yeah. You don't want me to make something scary? What do you care? You don't even care about any more money. Huh? You don't care about any more money. No, I just want to make some of this. I mean, we get the credit for it. I mean, our name is all over it. And, you know, so I think that, I mean, your name was on the peak power and now this. And then, and then what? We're going to work on something with Ned, right? So we're going to do something. I mean, to me, that's as cool as to have all these partners that we love and do business with. And they are coming to us to formulate stuff. So I don't want to be the guy. I don't want to be the guy that came up with the algorithm for Google. And then, you know, just the engineer. You know, I mean, Google takes the algorithm. I'm keeping my most, I'm keeping my best ideas myself. Yes, we do. We've all, we've all agreed we want to be that guy. We want to be the, you know, the engineer. I make no money. He got paid a salary. He signed it over to Google.  I don't know.  Yeah, for sure. He's doing all right. Yeah, I don't know who did that. Actually, I'm sure it's probably the two guys, right? But you know that that's how it happens with a lot of these companies is they have people, researchers, and they will discover things, but they automatically, when they work there, sign it away. So it's saying, like, if I come up with a huge discovery, it's, and I get why, right? Otherwise, the person wouldn't have the R&D and ability to do it. But that's what happens. You're like Steve Wozniak and you're not jobs. No, I don't even think you don't even realize you don't want that. You don't, you like being anonymous. You don't, you already don't like the any sort of attention that you get as it is. So any more attention, you don't want to be the guy. No, you don't want to be the guy. No, but I want to start a supplement company. Nobody knows, you know what I mean? That's going to be real successful, huh? Yeah, how does that feel like you're eating? I want to make a for-profit business that nobody knows about. Okay, I'll talk about it like this. We're like, guys, this is weird supplements. It's going to be black market soon. Yeah. Crazy, though. They put ingredients in there, they're like banned in other countries. I mean, it would be, it would be fun is to do something eventually at one point as a completely side project. Salami sups. Salami sups. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, would you like Salami to capsule? Hey, I got, I got. It goes down good with me. I got to bring something up that is so illuminating to me. You guys are probably going to think like, whatever, we already know this. That's fine. But I, there's a page on Instagram called, maybe this will be our shout out, but this, this page is called, I wrote it down. H, A D H doers. So A D H D and then. Ours, right? So it's a page for research and behaviors with people who have about people with ADHD. So I found this page because your wife studies it because she's been studying it trying to figure me out. Yeah. And boy, you know, it's very illuminating, a little saddening, but also illuminating. Like I, I didn't. So there was one, there's a doctor on their side. I'm going to try and get these people on the show in fact, because it's pretty, pretty interesting. So this guy talked about it. It was this doctor and he says, yeah, you'll meet people with ADHD. And you'll, and they'll say, I don't have memory problems. I remember more things than anybody else. I could tell you it was on the page of this book that I read and I read this thing and he goes, people with ADHD don't have issues with memory. They have issues with short-term working memory, meaning you'll tell them something, they'll go in the other room, forgot what was happening and then get distracted doing something else.  That's total. Yeah, told me that's 100% time. That's the page right there. Really interesting stuff. Time blindness. Did you guys know that this was a thing? Time? I refuse to believe that's a thing. Well, look, I have created a lot of, it's an excuse to be late. No, first off, first off, I'm not late to a point, I'm not late to a point.  Me calculating how much time something's going to take is very difficult for me. So I could do that in like 15 minutes or I could do that in whatever. Very difficult. Or I'll go perform a task saying I'll be back in 30 minutes when actually it's going to be like two hours. But they were talking about some of the stuff and how the brain works and it's really, really very fascinating. There was also a talk on, because a significant percentage of entrepreneurs have ADHD and there was this woman that interviewed that interviewed people with ADHD and found what made them the successful people. So successful. And the reason why they were successful is they leaned on their strengths and learned how to outsource their weaknesses. So I mean, that's why I think that's the single greatest piece of advice that was ever given me. I totally realized that because I don't even know if I've never cared to decide if I was diagnosed with this or officially have this or not. But I definitely have found that not worrying about the things I'm not so good at because I can't seem to focus on those things is just a smart strategy. And then going all in on the things that I'm already good at because if I'm good at it, I tend to really focus strongly on it. And I think this is a successful way to. And at that point, yeah, it doesn't seem like it's something you need to solve except for the fact that you need to just harness it and realize what you're good at with that. Like you hyper focus and so you can be productive and, and, you know, do well, it's just like it becomes a syndrome that they can add medication. Here's another weird one. This one is so weird. You guys know when I walk in, when I'm doing things, I'll just be loud for no reason. I'll for no reason. I'll just yell something or I'll say something or I'll make a song or whatever. Right. And I just have done this my whole life. Apparently this is a way that people with ADHD stimulate dopamine for themselves because it helps them pay attention. I didn't realize that's what I was ramping it up just naturally. Yeah, dude, I'm reading this thing and listening.  That's why I do those. Now, what is your, what's your take on the fact that like what 50, 60 years ago, like none of this like existed. And then now it's like this, this widely accepted thing that we and diagnose all these kids. And my take, my take is, if you use it as an excuse, just like the beginning of the episode, we would talk about, right? If you use it as you can use anything as an excuse. And when you do that and I get a disadvantage, the here's the benefit understanding yourself because then you can help design and create structures and create a lifestyle. You can optimize it. Correct. Yeah.  Like, like there's a lot of weird things that I do that now I'm like, that's why I do those things. But that's what you need to do is understand yourself. Oh, that's what, okay. Well, then now that I know that this is a much more challenging for me, obviously I know this, but now I know why, let me design my life around it in this particular way. For example, organization, terrible, terrible. I can be so disorganized. Well, knowing this and knowing that this isn't just me not trying, it's just actually like hiring an assistant or somebody who organizes for you is very valuable, worth your money.  Why are you hiring someone to do your schedule? Right. Do yourself. Splitting your money up, yeah. Totally. I thought you were bringing us, because there's a page that I saw. It was like D, ADHD, ERS or something, because it was all these dads that like, yeah. But it's a good page. It's a good page. If you have kids or a partner or you want to learn about yourself or whatever, really interesting stuff. Very cool. Sweet. There's a lot of CBD products out there. Here's a problem. You don't feel any of them. Well, that's because either they don't use CBD, there's no regulations, or they don't use full spectrum hemp oil with all of its terpenes and other cannabinoids that make the CBD more effective. Well, there's a company called Ned that uses full spectrum hemp oil. You take this, you feel it. It's not like other CBD products. This one you actually feel for real. Check them out. Go to helloned.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com forward slash mind pump.  All right, back to the show. First caller is Tyler from Iowa. Tyler, what's happening? How can we help you? All right. What's up, man? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. It's fun to be on with you. Right on. Thank you. So all right, a little bit of background. So I'm 52 years old, 6'2", roughly about 210 pounds. Battled my weight, my entire life, kind of a classic on-off, light switch dieter. Had several events of relatively extreme weight loss that always would land me back where I started or even worse. My latest fitness journey started about four years ago. I started working out with my son, who was then a high school senior. He's also the one who turned me on to you guys. And he's also a recent NCI grad. So shout out to my son, Solomon, who's been a huge part of my success in my fitness journey. So originally, I intended to lose about 10 pounds. And just once I got on track with a healthy diet and weight training, I ended up losing about 50 pounds in that first year. And again, that was about four years ago. And so over the last four years, I've been spending four to six days a week in the gym, just weight training, walking, spending time in the sauna. And clearly, at this stage, weight training was the game changer. I have, yeah, I genuinely have adopted a lifestyle that I know is going to remain with me indefinitely and just fell in love with the process of weight training, love being in the gym, got focused on the process and not the outcome. And so the weight training has transformed my body and truly changed my life. So recently, I started MAPS anabolic at the recommendation of my son. And before that, I was sort of doing my own thing with traditional splits, with doing push, pull, upper, lower, full body stuff. But I've really enjoyed the MAPS programming and being on MAPS anabolic and just really excited to see where that takes me. So that's, again, just a little bit of background on me which will take me to my question. So through the course of that, like everybody else, have been tracking some of the key metrics, just body fat, weight, all the sort of all the standards. And going back, even three years ago, have just not seen a lot of dramatic changes in those numbers. I've been fluctuating around that 210, been fluctuating in the 14%, 15% body fat. And looking back again, that gets a little bit frustrating. And so I guess my question, at my age and stage and my fitness journey, how should I think about gains? Should I be just okay with knowing that it's gonna take this kind of work to maintain where I'm at or should I expect more? Yeah, that's a great question. So first let me answer that last part. Should I, and I'll rephrase it a little bit, should I be okay with the process and whatever the result of that process is so long as I do the process in a healthy way? The answer is yes, that is the answer to long-term success with fitness. Now the rest of your question is in regards to your age and how that's gonna impact your progress and what you can expect at this point. Your 62, 210 pounds sitting at about 15% body fat. Very good place by the way. Like you got a lot of lean body mass, you're very fit and 15% is a great body fat percentage to maintain.  Getting down to like 12, 11, 10, now you're getting to measuring- Be obsessive a bit. Yeah, you gotta be meticulous every day, weekends included. And if that's what you want, and I think it's fun to go for it, I don't necessarily think it's a great place to maintain. People who tend to maintain that kind of lean body fat percentage tend to have a challenging relationship with diet and exercise, myself included anyway in the opposite, right?  But if you wanna get a little leaner, then you gotta start to get really detailed with tracking, and you start with the tracking for two weeks, find your maintenance, get your macros down, hit those targets day in and day out, and then you'll start to see that number change. As far as building muscle is concerned, that's more of a slow consistent process with your strength training. I do wanna ask you this over the last three years, have you seen changes in performance? Forget the physical, like what you see in the mirror and weight, are you seeing yourself stronger, more mobile, more stable? Yeah, and so that was something I should have added. Not really, so when I, and I'm not super diligent about tracking all of my volume, but of course I know what sort of my standards are. I know what dumbbells I'm gonna grab when I'm doing, depending on what types of curls I'm doing or my bench press, I know all those stats. And it honestly, again, over the last three years, not a lot of change in that. I feel like there's a lot of physical changes again, thrilled with where I'm at, probably for sure in the best shape of my life, certainly for my age. And so I am satisfied with that, but sorry, that's a long answer to your question, but not really, not a lot of progress with my volume. I have a theory on what might also be going on here too. So a lot of times when I have a client that has dropped as significant a weight as you have, they're really hesitant to go back into like a bulk because they have finally shed all this weight and they haven't really put effort towards a legitimate bulk because in fear of putting on that body fat. And even if they do kind of go to a bulk, they do it for a little bit and they go, oh God, I'm putting on weight, I don't wanna go. They go back the other direction. Is this something that you've experienced? Have you actually ran a consistent bulk and seen if we could build some and put some size and weight on? Yeah, no, my son's gonna love that you said that because he's been telling me that for at least a year. He's been encouraging me to try it. And yes, I am, again, as somebody who's, literally my entire life battling my weight, the idea of doing that is unnerving. Yeah, this is the progress. 100% how this is so normal. And I had a feeling when you first, because you laid everything out really nice for us. And I'm like, I bet he hasn't gone on like a serious bulk in a long time. And by the way, that is just enough to kind of keep you there. And this is a perfect thing where I have this conversation where I go, okay, you're healthy, you're fit, you're strong, we're in a place and if you like the way you're eating, we can stay here kind of forever. But if you want the next level, then what we need to do is we need to go into a bulk for a while and actually build some muscle and support all this work you're doing so you can get extra calories to build more muscle and you'll see the strength gains go up and then we'll come back down the other direction. And I think it'll come off pretty easy.  But it's, if you wanna go to the next level of body fat percentage and strength, it's necessary that we do.  A reverse diet, which I'm sure your son is very equipped to individualize for you, much better than we can because we only have a little bit of time here on the podcast, but a reverse diet is exactly, would be the exact prescription that I'd want you to do in pursuit of building strength. And what'll happen is your weight will go up a little bit. It'll probably be just lean body mass.  But you'll see the strength gains go up, your metabolism will kick in. It'll feel great. And then you can cut down from there. You know, the other part of this that's important, Tyler, because we're talking a lot about, especially in the beginning of the question, like how to do this forever and enjoy the process, there's a learning process here that is basically being shown to you right now or revealing itself to you. And the learning process is to become comfortable with eating more food.  Okay, yeah, awesome. So, you know, I assume then, and tracking is something that I've struggled with and something that I know that I need to start doing, but as I start in that bulking phase, is are there anything, sort of any benchmarks, things to look for to say, hey, you're not actually gaining lean body mass, you're just overdoing it, you're over consuming. I mean, is that, or am I overthinking that piece as well? You're overthinking it a little bit.   And then you go the other direction, right?  So the big thing I would want you to do if you were my client is like, okay, we're gonna focus on protein first, we gotta track that and make sure we hit that. That's a bare minimum. Like let's make sure we hit our every single day, 210 grams of protein and let's be consistent with that. And then as long as you're eating whole foods, I really would just encourage you to try and add a meal in there or add a portion size. So let's say you eat six ounces of meat every meal and let's say a cup of rice, I might just bump you an extra half a cup of rice in two of your meals or I might just bump two or three of your meals the ounces of meat from six to eight ounces or from eight ounces to 10 ounces. It doesn't have to be a lot.  It's like, if you know what you kinda eat, like your portion size, literally bump the meat a couple ounces or bump the carbohydrates, especially good sources like rice or quinoa or sweet potato or potatoes. Just bump the ounces by a couple ounces and that's enough to feed an actual bulk and then the goal should be to slowly be able to increase that. It sounds like already you've got a pretty smart kid. Yeah, and it sounds like he, I mean the fact that- I would have him do the reverse. I would. I think between, if you track and do a good job of tracking protein and then like filling out- You just hand it over. My fitness pal or a fat secret and then he has a very good non-bias view of what you're doing because you are gonna have to get out of your own head while you do this and kinda trust him to kinda guide you through this. I think he's gonna do you right. I have a lot of faith in him and just a little bit of time we've talked about him. Yeah, it sounds to me too. Like, I mean, the more we can move towards focusing on the performance gains and strength gains and your sort of mentality going into these workouts of like, I just wanna see like incremental growth there and just focus all my like attention just like you're focusing on your intention on being lean for so long. Like this needs to be a massive shift just in your thought process with that. So now too, a lot of that just kinda happens naturally. But, you know, initially of course like tracking just to make you see that there is gonna be progression with it is important but really to relieve yourself of that stress of the scale and how things are going. If your progress is moving forward with your performance in the gym, things are moving the right way. Yeah, I'll echo that right now. That's the best way to get out of your head is to focus on the strength in the gym. If you're doing a good whole food-based calorie surplus if you're working with your son and you're tracking I wouldn't weigh myself at all if I were you. I would just look at the weights on the bar and be like, okay, I added 10 pounds to my squat. Whoa, there's another 15 pounds on my deadlift. You're moving in the right direction. Then you know, like, we're moving in the right direction, we're doing everything right. And you could do this for a little while. And then when you get to the point where like, wow, I feel good, I'm eating a lot of food. I'm getting really strong, I feel great. I think it's time to cut. Then you can go and go for a cut. It'd be a lot easier to get lean from that point for sure. Is there a certain program that once, so again, I'm doing anabolic, that's the first one I've run. Is there one that I should go to and then to go back for the sake of trying to lean back out? No, they're all, they're all- I like you there right now. Yeah, I like anabolic. They're all, you can, any strength training program is gonna be good for either one. The key is, the key would be that you're doing something novel, which it sounds like you are, because you just started MAPS anabolic. So I would stay in MAPS anabolic, follow a reverse diet.  And always give yourself, like if you and your son do like your body fat or check some of these things occasionally, make sure you give yourself a good amount of time. I never would judge myself on my diet and my training in a like a two week short period of like, oh, this isn't working out. Like make sure you give yourself a solid month of trusting the process, sticking to the diet, sticking to the training the way. And then you can look at the like month movement and go like, all right, I'm moving in the right direction. And if so long as you're moving in the right direction to stay the course, if you're not, because sometimes this happens, you over correct, maybe you know, you somehow, you eat 700, 800 more calories a day than you should. And you put on say 2% body fat, then you go, oh, okay, I didn't need to put that many calories. I can scale back a little bit on the calories. But just avoid tracking and measuring the body fat stuff too, too close together and over correcting left or right. This is gonna be a lot of this.  For sure, when you've come from where you've came, you'll probably get in your own way. And so just kind of relinquish that a little bit to him and trust the process. I think you're gonna be just fine. Yeah, okay, awesome. So quick on anabolic then. So I'm in phase three and I've had some interruptions in my weekly routine. So okay to restart anabolic. I've heard you say that to others. Like it's okay to, we don't have to move from program to program. It's okay to cycle. I mean, would I start back over in one again? Yeah, so I didn't know you finished, you're almost done with maps anabolic. You know why I like him doing that though? You know why I like him doing that? With a calorie surplus? Yes, because I like you doing that and because you just came through it. So when you go back and start over again, you're gonna remember, oh, I was squatting this much or I was deadlifting this much. And hopefully if we're in a good surplus back to Justin's point, you see a performance in gain on some of these things. You'll see that phase one. Yeah, and phase one is where you'll really start to notice it. So I like you running it again. Okay, so quick question on anabolic. How important are the trigger sessions for whatever reason I struggle getting him done? I'm great when I'm in the gym. Very disciplined, but yeah, the off days, it's hard for me to just stop what I'm doing and hit a trigger set. They'll add a secret sauce, man. Yeah, they'll add a good three to 5%. So not insignificant. Okay, just make sure you don't do them super intense. The goal is just to get a little bit of a pump. 10, 15 minutes. Okay, that's it. It doesn't have to be a lot. That's it. Okay, all right. Awesome. Thanks for calling in. Hey, Tyler, follow back up with us too. Yeah, thank you guys. I'd love to hear how you and your boy are doing in about two, three months. So I'd love for an email back. Let us know how things are going. Right on. I'll do it. Thanks, guys. That was awesome. Yeah. You know, it made me think like... Killing it. I had a feeling though, right out the gates because of his... Oh, you called that, yeah. Yeah, you hit that right in the nail on the head, man. It's interesting, it's like, you know, if we lived in a world without scales and mirrors that required us to have to climb and move and have strength, people would look better. Everybody would look a lot better. The irony, right? Yeah, and just realizing the reason why we value the way people look when they look a particular way is because it's the... It's because of the work. It's actually the effect of the fact that the person can move, or it's a sign that the person can move well. It's not the thing that we're actually desiring. Yeah, they're doing what their body needs and wants. Yeah, so, you know, him not weighing himself, just focusing on strength is gonna be key to this whole process. Yeah, this is a really hard place to come from, right? When you've... Totally. Because he said he struggled with weight, sounds like most of his life he's been kind of... This is the opposite for me when it was cutting. That's right. Opposite. So it's like he doesn't want to lose that. Yeah, yeah.  The biggest amount of weight gain happens right away.  You know, you increase these calories. Yeah, five pounds, easy.  And it's like, no, it's not. And that's why I liked another number that it gets kind of bashed. But again, I used to love to use this for clients. It's like 3,500 calories equals a pound of fat.  Like we had to build some muscle, like a lot of that's water. So just keep that in mind that that's all, you got to eat a lot of extra calories to put on in a week's time, a pound or two pounds of body fat. And I think you end up thinking that weight on the scale or even the way you looked because, you know, the way you look is you play tricks on yourself. Especially if you know you weigh two pounds in a year. It fluctuates so much.  Sounds like his boy though, you know, I love it. Oh, he's an NCI grad. He knows what he's doing. Yeah, that's awesome. Our next caller is Kimberly from Iowa. Hi, Kimberly. How can we help you? Hey, how are you guys today? We're good, how are you? Great. Doing great. Good, good. Hey, I just want to start off with saying thanks so much for, you know, just cutting through the mainstream jargon and really promoting and teaching what real health and wellness should look like. Thank you. It's really awesome to hear from you guys.  And I personally just, I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thanks for calling in. So how can we help you? So, you know, I wanted to say that I bought some of you guys' programs. Last year, I wanted to really get my body in the best shape for being 50 years old. And so I'm there. And so last year, I bought the bikini body, kind of aesthetic program, worked through that really hard, did 11 weeks of that. And I felt really good, felt great about my body. Had used the focus and fortify part of that, the off days for my lower half, lower body, which is always kind of been an area for me that I want to work harder at.  And like I said, I'm a fitness trainer and have been doing it for 16 years or better. So I know what, you know, how to exercise, but I just really wanted that extra, you know, just really going a little harder. So bodybuilding was an area where I thought about aesthetically being able to get my body there. And some people that I know have done it, a girl half my age recently has a coach who she suggested I could use. And I guess that's just where I'm kind of not sure because I've been listening to you guys the past couple of years pretty closely. And most recently, you guys say a lot of bodybuilding coaches suck. And, you know, bodybuilding is really hard on the body. And so I guess, you know, I thought, okay, the alternative may be some powerlifting, but I really don't know how that's gonna make my body feel or look. So I'd really like to hear more about that and what you guys think may be a good alternative for me, somebody who, you know, I value health, I value fitness. It's just my lower half of my body, my upper body. I always feel like does really good and I get lots of compliments. Nobody doesn't compliment my body. That's not what I'm saying, but I personally want to really work between where the hamstrings and the glutes meet. That's where I have the biggest problem. And so I was just kind of thinking about, you know, these bodybuilding or powerlifting types of programs and how that might really put me there. All right, good question. It's all strength training. The, they're all gonna build muscle, the one that's gonna work most effectively for you is gonna be typically the one that's most novel. Now powerlifting the sport and bodybuilding the sport are very different, but for someone like yourself who's been doing this for a long time, you love fitness, you love training your body. If you've never done powerlifting style training or programming, you'll probably get really good muscle sculpting, you know, effects from it. Probably better than bodybuilding style programs if bodybuilding style programming is what you tend to always do. Now the, I see in your question, you have some questions about your SI joint and how it's gonna make you feel. The challenge with powerlifting style training because it's so focused on strength and performance is always gonna be mobility. It's always gonna be, you know, is my body stable enough? Do I have, you know, is it bolstered enough to push weight in certain lifts? I don't know the answer to that. So if you notice mobility issues with yourself, you say you have SI joint type problems, I think working more towards mobility might be more beneficial unless that's your MO right now to begin with. So I get the better question would be, what do you do now? What does your training typically look like now? I just wanna add something to what you're saying, so because I 100% agree with the direction you're going. If you are limited to what you can squat and deadlift because you're, this is, okay, well, this is also probably what's hindering your progress in that specific area. So you've been- It could be, I mean, that, that sacroiliac issue that I have, and it's probably from beating myself up all these years, guys. You know, I've been in group fitness for 20 years. Then that, I've learned a lot through listening to you guys though about the symmetry and about slowing down and form and just, you know, all of that. But my doctor, my Cairo, he's what I do. I don't do a lot of mainstream doctors, but anyway, they said, he said 90 pounds would be tops. And right now he's suggested maybe not doing it because I'm a little inflamed at the moment because deadlifts and squats inflame that joint back there. And so I've been a little concerned about what I can do when it comes to powerlifting then. Yeah, I would avoid, in that case, I would avoid powerlifting training. And here's the deal. I said something that I want to address.  You've been training, you haven't addressed the right things. You've just been training wrong for a long time. Joint pain is not the natural state of the body because you work out. Joint pain, if you work out, is a result of strength and balances, weakness and stability issues. So we do have a program or two that I think would benefit you. Symmetry would be where I go. Map symmetry would be excellent. And, you know, prime or prime pro for its correctional exercise, I think those two things would help quite a bit. You probably lack some type of lateral stability, maybe always working in the sagittal plane. There may be some core stability issues. Hip mobility would be a big focus for me. But this is solvable, I want to make that clear too. This is solvable.  That's why I don't think bodybuilding or powerlifting should be our focus right now. Our focus should be let's solve this. Let's solve this. It's a big roadblock that's in your way. That's right, because once we solve that and then we can start to load the bar and you can start to squat and deadlift, because it's not squatting and deadlifting. It's a hip hinge movement. That's a movement your body should be able to do pain-free. And the fact that you're limited to 90 pounds or less because it inflames you so much means we have a root cause we need to address so we can progress not only strength-wise but progress your physique the way you want. You want to build that lower half and sculpt it. You've basically, you've probably already tapped out all the possibilities of doing that without actually loading the bar and we've got to get to the place where we can load the bar and so we got to fix whatever this issue is. Like how restrictive is your depth? Like even just gaining a few inches of depth is gonna give you a whole new exercise potential and like different muscle gain that you're not seeing in your legs. And so just the restriction there and trying to work through a lot of the barriers that the pain is kind of signaling to be able to kind of bring back some stability there in your hips and also like your lower half is gonna open up a whole new world of potential. I see that you do hot bar and yoga consistently. I do. Yeah, I don't think flexibility is your issue if you've been doing that for a while. I can get past 90 degrees in the squat. It doesn't hurt during the squatting or the dead lifting. It's the day or two later is when my joint starts my low back hurts a little bit. Sometimes I push through, you know. No, no, this is a strength stability issue. Strength. Yeah, it's a strength stability issue. So there's something lacking in your ability to stabilize when performing under load. We have to address that otherwise it's never gonna go away.  You don't wanna not be able to squat with some load. That's gonna cause issues later on in life anyway. So we gotta figure out why your SI joint keeps hurting you when you do a fundamental human movement. Yeah, what's Kimberly, what's your chiropractor doing? Is he just adjusting you or is he actually giving you like movements and exercises to do to correct this? He has given me some moves and exercises. I actually ask for those. So yes, he's given me some, but a lot of it is just some light adjustments or he'll tell me you need to lay off the squatting like right now since I'm a little inflamed lay off the squats altogether, which I love squats, you know. And so I'm doing like band work and some of the other stuff that was in the bikini and I got the maps 15 too, which kind of helps. So I was adding in those because I just don't wanna go a full hour all the time either. So I like that. Yeah, I was just, I just really didn't know where I should go with this so that I could get that body where I wanted it. And I'm not realizing that SI is, you guys now are saying that's the biggest problem. Yeah, this is getting your way. Have you done any isometrics? Have you messed around with that at all? No, I haven't a whole lot. Probably just in group fitness. I've done isometrics. You guys, I have the, I do priming. I did buy the anabolic too. And like I said, I do priming, but maybe I don't do enough. You just haven't addressed the issue. Do you know, do you have an idea of where the instability is coming from? Yeah. Yeah, so I have a little note here. Just what's going on is that my ilium is tipped forward on my right side and it causes a little nerve interference. And so then my, I have a rotated low sacrum too on the right side. So it's always the right. Yeah, yeah, but that's like saying, that's like saying my SI joint's inflamed and I got an MRI on it. So it's not telling us why, why is that happening? It's probably a dysfunction between the communication if you're with your psoas, your QL, maybe your core. It could be all the way down to your ankles though. It could be all the way down to our foot. Yeah, so, so maps symmetry is the program I'd want you to follow. I want you to start every exercise with your stronger, more stable side. Copy the reps and the weight with the weak, sorry, with your weaker side. Copy the weight and reps you do with the weaker side with the stronger side, even if you feel like you can do more, be limited by the weaker side. This is not a compromise by the way. You're going to see body progress by addressing this the right way as well. So it's not like you're putting all your progress on hold, you're going to see some progress by addressing this as well. So it's not either or it's actually both. So maps symmetry would be the program to do for you. I also, so if you don't have that Doug, we'll send that over to you. I also would like to get you in the private forum if you're not in the private forum already. Are you in the forum? No, I don't believe so, and I would love to do that. I also, because I'm very interested in some reverse dieting, Adam, that you've mentioned.  And I feel like that's my, my low spot. Maybe this is obviously an issue too, but I wonder about some of that as well because I seem to keep the fat right there in the unfortunate saddlebag area they call women's form, you know, so. Let's get you in the forum. I want to get you in the forum. I really want to address this pain. I think when we address this, we're going to unlock a lot of things for you. We also have Dr. Brink who is in there, who is our go-to doctor when it comes to a movement specialist. And I would love for you to actually video yourself performing like a barefoot squat. You don't need to load it. Just literally barefoot squat as deep as you can, show us, you know, a front side view of that and tag us and Dr. Justin Brink. And I'd like to take a look at how you're moving in a squat and maybe we can, maybe something will be a little enlightening for some of us to give you even better eyes. But I'm telling you right now. I need to see you move. Yeah. This, this is the limiting factor for you seeing the gains you want to see and the change in your lower body. Like 100% is you've maxed out what you can get down in your lower body through working around this issue for so long. We need it now.  So let's, let's fix that. And then we'll go from there. Thank you. You got it. No, I just didn't, I didn't realize I was going to be the topic. I really thought I could go into some body building but obviously none of that's going to work if I'm not feeling good. Yeah, you know the irony of this, Kimberly, you've been training people for a while. I bet you, if you had a client who came to you with the exact same stuff, you would have given them the answer that we gave you. Right, absolutely. I'd want them to get healed. Yeah. That's the bane of being a trainer. So funny. It's different when you're working with yourself. You know, compared to- Always, of course. For the root of it, of course. Always different. Thank you, Kimberly. All right, Kimberly. We'll see you in the forum. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you in the forum, okay? Take care, guys. I'll see you there. You got it. Ain't that the truth with trainers? Every time. Every time. Every single time. So much better with our clients. Yeah.  If it's not an acute injury. You do whatever you want. You ain't going anywhere. That's it. That's not going away. It's just gonna exaggerate it and it's gonna get louder. But yeah, it's one of those things like we can throw ideas on and just spit ball with it, have to sear her move and really see how that compensation happened. I would speculate though, she probably had a previous injury that didn't even realize, you know, affected all that. The reason why I wanted her to do Barefoot Squad is I think I'm gonna be able to see something from her foot all the way up. So that's what I think. I hope I don't offend her, but I also don't like the chiropractor. I also think that giving her the generic diagnosis that he gave her and to not be stressing specific movements and strengthening, and the advice is don't squat or deadlift or avoid. Well, who knows what the whole conversation was. Yeah, I know. But yeah, I know. I mean, and then it sounds like they just mainly do adjustments. You know, this is an area where I get, and of course, I don't have all the information, but I don't know, I'm willing to bet that we're gonna get her in that form. We're gonna see the way she moves and between the three of us and or Dr. Brink, we're gonna be able to give her things already to start to progress and improve her current situation. Yeah, the whole like your, your sacrum is tilted this way and your ilium is this. And then, oh, look, here, here, it's all straight now cause I adjusted you. Yes. And they come back next weekend. It's back the same. That's exactly. Just come see me every week and I'll straighten it out for you. It's exactly the vibe I get. Why does it keep happening though, you know what I mean? Yeah, how do I strengthen it so it actually supports itself? That's right. Our next caller, Zach from Illinois. Zach, what's happening? How can we help you? What up? What's up, man? Hey, here, man. First of all, like everyone else does, I just wanted to thank you for not only as you guys share, but also kind of the mental health and mindset side of things. You know, as a young male growing up in today's age, it's truly been eye-opening. You really transformed my life in such a small amount of time. So, sincere thank you for that. Love that, man. Awesome. Right on. Thanks, man. Cool background. I'm currently a 24 year old physical therapy student, former collegiate basketball player. My measurables are six foot six, ranging from 205 to 210 pounds. And I've been lifting consistently for probably six or seven years. During my playing days, I suffered multiple stress fractures due to over-training and under-fueling. I would, even outside of practice times, do more lifts or do more cardio than I should be doing. And then not eating enough, obviously takes a lot of calories to build that back up. So I had a couple of stress fractures. But ever since hearing from you guys, my mindset has changed dramatically. So I have to know about you guys now, but I'm wishing I knew about you then because I would have spent a lot less months on a walking boot and not suffered those. So my main question has to do with bulking and adding size as someone with a taller and thinner frame like I do. It's been hard for me, like the mental side of things too, to engage in a true bulk for months at a time. I'll add like five or seven pounds and then I'll lose that within a few months. And it's kind of that same cycle over and over. So I've been falling in the same weight for probably five years now. So now I've also heard kind of adding to this, just the genetic side of things, you know that maybe if you have smaller wrists then it's kind of predisposed to you and not having as much muscle or that kind of limits you from that. So overall just your advice kind of going into this winter trying to bulk up as a taller thinner guy and maybe that genetic piece as well. No, good question. So you're in a different head space now around over training and all that stuff. A lot of percent, definitely, yeah. Okay. So here's a deal with genetics. Yes, at six six, you're probably not going to compete in bodybuilding. However, you were a division one basketball player. Basketball is, there is a lot of explosiveness in it. And basketball players at that level, even though they're tall, they typically have pretty good muscle building genes. You don't typically get to division one unless you have some pretty damn good athletic genetics. So you've got the potential for sure, but you're probably going to have to track and be very consistent with your bulk and not over train in the gym. I think a three day a week full body lifting routine with a nice five to 700 calorie above surplus bulk and watch your strength gains go up and watch yourself pack on some muscle. At two, five, six, six at your age, knowing your history, I think you could gain probably 10 to 15 pounds of lean body mass within a relatively reasonable amount of time. And that's a decent amount of lean body mass. Easy. And I think you're also heading into for a tall, also tall, skinny, lanky guy, not so skinny anymore, but I used to be that tall, lanky guy. This is the age where it gets easier for you. Like it starts right now. Like it'll get from 26, 27, 28, 30. Like your lifestyle will probably be less and less active as you're getting the nut saying that you, because I still did a lot of things active, but not like it was when I was 22. When I was 22, I was playing basketball every single day, lifting every single day, wakeboarding, snowboarding, doing everything. I mean, it was like nonstop. So you'll see that will work to your advantage as you start to get to, you know, later twenties and early thirties for packing. And that is advantageous for being able to pack on muscle. Normally one of the hardest thing to do, if you've got the training, you've listened to us long enough that you've figured out like, okay, I was probably overtraining before, say you're following like a MAPS anabolic program. You're set on that. Like that's the perfect program for someone like you to be following. The hardest part is the diet part, which is, I mean, I was a notorious meal skipper. I was notorious for not being hungry in the morning and wanting to eat like a big breakfast or I'd eat a big meal and then I want to eat for like six hours and so, and then, or maybe I would for a week and then if I just wasn't thinking about it or measuring and weighing it, I would naturally go back the other direction because I just wasn't a huge eater.  Are you a breakfast skipper? Are you not a big luncheater? Like what is it about you? And then finding little hacks, that's all that I've shared on the podcast. I'm sure you've heard me talk about like a big hack for me was making a double or triple size dinner, carrying that over for breakfast in the morning and then literally like cracking three or four eggs on top of that like meat, potato, scrambled thing. And now I'm eating like a 900 calorie, 50 gram protein breakfast. Like that was clutch for me to put size on because otherwise I was easily the guy who could just eat some oatmeal or nothing and then it's noon and I'm already trying to play catch up on calories.   Yeah, I used to track more regularly. Right now, I pretty much eat the same things every day just like listening to you guys and I'm not that, you know, ground beef, rice and eggs and vegetables, chicken thighs, being pretty consistent with that. But I think maybe adding those snacks in is kind of where I give those three meals but then it's hard to get, you know, 3500 calories. Kind of that's where when I've tracked these days is probably around 3500 calories of where I'm at right now. So, you know, like four meals of doing that seems to be quite a bit, but it's something that's better and I've even the last few weeks I've actually gained three or four pounds. So it's definitely improving for sure. I mean, that's it, bro. Yeah, that's, that's a mean for big guys. Like that's 3000, 3500 calories is low for us. Yeah. I mean, that's low. So, I mean, when I was up to 240, I'm eating 5000 calories. Obviously, that's a big jump from where you're at now. But just imagine like the road to go that, to put on that kind of size is gonna be through eating more food consistently and good choices, right? Yeah, if you know what you're eating every day and it's the same thing, you add an extra meal. Literally just add an extra meal. I would follow maps anabolic and get strong and you'll see the gains.  Obviously, back to those insane. I think I've burnt that out with basketball. I've got the grown man game with pickleball. It's my new thing. So I play pickleball, that's right now. I'm just running, but in terms of anywhere from 10 to 20,000 steps a day, living in Chicago, a lot of, but I'm definitely trying to maintain at least 10,000 steps a day and be active at least every day, but I would never take any days off and have to list guys at least one day a week doing more recovery mode, more mobility stuff. So that's changed the game too. Yeah, I think, do you have maps anabolic? Cause I think that would be the program for you. Yeah, that would be perfect. On my Black Friday look. Well, we got you covered up. We got you covered up. It's gonna come early. We'll give it maps anabolic, follow that program, add an extra meal, make sure you get good sleep and you'll be good. I would add an extra meal every day consistently to Sal's point. And then I would also, when you have those days where you decide to play pickleball or do something that's kind of outside the normal, extra activity, make sure you have like a high calorie sugar drink before or right after. I've put up a bit, yeah. Think of it like you, that is an extra thing. And so you need to eat a meal or a shake. Just to cover it. To cover that. So that it's, cause that's not pushing you back in the other direction. So that'll help.  Yeah, just quick. I'm actually, I didn't add this to like a personal trainer right now. I do some online coaching and stuff and kind of have that entrepreneurial mindset. And I was just curious, obviously you guys have built a huge thing with what you guys have now. Just asking you guys for a physical therapist trying to enter the space and take on more of the entrepreneurial side of things would be great to hear. Well, I've worked with some incredible physical therapists, like some really, really good ones. Great career to have. Compliment personal training. I was just gonna say the one weakness, the one weakness I saw with physical therapists was they didn't understand traditional strength training that well. Unless they did it themselves, they were excellent at diagnosing and excellent at correctional exercise. But when it came to traditional progressive overload, compound lifts, squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, the physical therapist I worked with, they taught me correctional exercise. I taught them traditional strength training. Now the fact that you're also a personal trainer, you've got it. So I would say I would lean heavily, if you stay in the personal trainer space, I would lean heavily on your ability to, on your knowledge on correctional exercise.  If you go the physical therapy route, I would lean heavily on your knowledge of progressive overload and strength training, where instead of discharging your patient, okay, we're done. It's like, hey, listen, I can also coach you from where you're at now to where you wanna go. It's not physical therapy. At that point now it's online coaching or personal training. I also offer those services because now that we've got your function back, you wanna get stronger, you wanna get more fit, I can do that for you as well. So those are the two avenues I would look. Do you already, Zach, do you already own Prime and Prime Pro? Is that on your, is that on your Black Friday list? It better be. Oh, it is.  That's it. Okay, that is literally us bridging the gap between physical therapy and personal training. I mean, that's one of the things I think all of us are most proud of is because there is a huge need for what exactly Sal is saying, this ability to rehab somebody at the DPT level and then how do you take that same person and progress them to their fitness goals? Because a lot of times DPTs, they do all that work to get them back healthy and then it's like, okay, go figure it out on your own. And we really felt there hasn't been anybody that's really done a good job of bridging that gap. That program represents that. So you'll get a lot of benefit. It'll make a lot of sense to someone like you and what you're going through. So very, very valuable tool for you to have. But yeah, man, I think what you're doing is the best thing you can do, which is experimenting with yourself, with diet and exercise and training and going through all of our programs and learning that way. Because what you're learning in school for DPT, that's only gonna compliment that business. That's gonna, yeah, you're in a good place, dude. I'm actually really excited to hear your journey. I think you're gonna be a good trainer, dude. All right, guys, really appreciate it. And I've been continuing to tell our faculty and our classmates about you guys. So hopefully continuing to bridge that gap. So thank you guys. Awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks, Zach. All right, guys, take care. You got it. Yeah, a shout out to the PTA I learned the most from. Her name was Lori Matroca. She was incredible. But the one area, and I was so honored when she asked me, she comes to me and she goes, can you teach me like traditional strength training? And I taught her dead lifts and overhead presses and bench presses and all that stuff. But the correctional exercise side was so, you bridge those two, your value goes through the roof. Whether you're a trainer or a physical therapist, like each space could use the other so much. It's, I can't express it enough. So you don't just throw them out to the wolves. Like they have a plan that they can continue. That'd be perfect. It's crazy how closely related our fields are, yet how far apart we are. You know, you remember Melissa Wolf, she was going, she's now a doctor, right? She went through her DPT, right? And I remember talking to her at the process and she's like, you'd be blown away at them by how foreign like traditional strength training is to these deep, and she's like, they're brilliant. As far as corrective exercise, but I'm blowing, she was telling me, she was like blowing their mind with the stuff that we were doing for her bodybuilding show. She was like, it was just like so foreign to them. But yet we're so close. It's so wild. I think this as like having a, like the only other thing I think could add to this type of a person is the psychology. So like a therapist therapist, now you're looking at it. And you can be the perfect clinic. That's a superhero. The trifecta has to be like some sort of psychology therapy background with DPT type stuff and personal training. Are you kidding me? Yeah. You, if you, and so, you know, to, I guess we didn't tell him this. He'll hear this now. I would be, I would get into reading about behavioral psychology and therapy around dysfunctional eating. Yes, like if a substance abuse. You want to make yourself unstoppable in this field. Or connect with people who do those things very well, which is what I did. Yes, yeah, connect with them, learn from them or read in that direction. It will, I mean, to me, those three things as a trainer, you, you could tackle almost anything. Our next caller is Sarah from South Carolina. Hi, Sarah. How can we help you? Hi guys. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for calling. Awesome, awesome. Look, I just really want to share with you guys, making the decision to, to be strong instead of always chasing being skinny has been incredibly liberating. Wonderful. And listening to your show and following your programs has been like integral in the development of that mentality for me. So I just really appreciate you all. Awesome, thank you. Sorry, I'm more nervous than I thought I was going to be. So I just have two questions in reference to preparing for a power lift competition. So I'm very much a beginner lifter. Can I just be twang of the idea of enrolling in a competition? I found some local people and just wanted, just wanted a big strength goal to, to really strive for instead of chasing aesthetics. And I was pretty intimidated at first, but they've actually, since I submitted my question, they've reached out to me, being super amazing, said, like, don't even wait, just get in there. Don't worry about what you can lift. Just, it's, they've been really, awesome, really encouraging. So anyway, my, I just had a phase three of anabolic. I've always intended to follow up with performance and aesthetic, but based on my change of heart and goals, I picked up power lift and split. And I was just wanting your thoughts on, like what trajectory I should now take. Should I stay on track, run through performance aesthetic, and then maybe focus on the lifting or get stuck into something like power lift now. We shouldn't, we should add that in July 24th is when the competition is, is that right? Okay. Yeah, so, so let's go backwards. So power lift is, is that three months or four months? Three. 23. Is it a three month program? Justin knows. Yeah, it's three months. It's three months. So I would go, I would start power lift so that you can finish it about a week or two before the competition. So basically we just need to, we need to get her to May. So I would, I would follow the other programs. The other program leading up to May. Yeah, I like performance and I like symmetry just to keep you balanced so that when you get into power lift because power lift is so focused on the three lifts, just to prevent injury, to keep you healthy, to keep you feeling good. And then power lift will take you right to the competition. Okay, okay, great. So skip aesthetic. Yeah, I mean, aesthetics fine, but that's so bodybuilding focused. It's so high volume. I think there's value in it, but because you have this competition. After the competition. Yeah, performance is going to be great for mobility. It's going to be great for multi-planar movement. Symmetry is going to be great to keep your body balanced. Then you get into power lift. And that's the one that's going to take you right to the competition. Right, okay. So are you, are you doing this all on your own or do you plan to have a coach or anyone? So that was actually my, my follow up question was if I can find a coach, I have a few limits around here. Even the local competition is a couple of hours from May. So that's a gym that actually does power lifting and they hold meets. Like I said, I'm kind of rural. So within a couple of hours, but actually finding a coach who's familiar with competition around here is going to be a little difficult. And yeah, so I wondered if just working with somebody now would be a good idea, or if I should wait until I'm a few weeks out from the competition to look for someone and make that effort. The sooner, the better. And mainly for your technique, right? So power lifting, you mentioned that you're relatively new to lifting a lot of this stuff. I totally agree with what they said to it. I think, hey, just go, go for it. I love the attitude of like, don't put any limitations on. You need to be this strong before you do. Just go do it. I think it'll be, I think you're gonna enjoy it. I think you're gonna learn a lot from it. I do think there would be lots of value in having somebody who's proficient in the main lifts and that could teach you that. And so that doesn't necessarily mean you need to have a powerlifting coach, although I think that would be ideal. I just would want a trainer or a powerlifting coach that is proficient in the main lifts and that's what they're really there to help you with is technique. And also with powerlifting, because you're doing to do the competition, there's a lot of ins and outs of the competition day and what to expect and all that stuff. Even an online powerlifting coach would be valuable. Somebody to check in with would be very valuable. Yeah, someone you could check in with, you can send video of your main lifts and then they can tell you, and if they're good powerlifting coaches through video, they'll be able to give you some good pointers. So obviously- I'm actually, I'm already in the forum and I didn't start deadlift, I didn't start doing deadlifting until about phase two of anabolic, cause I just had a tweaky back and I started with a track bar. And then when I finally went to pick up the barbell, I was very humbled and really felt like I just wasn't connecting, had no idea what I was doing. And I posted it in the forum and I'm just an amazing group of people in there. They were awesome. So I've already improved it, but I mean, it's a really low lift. But yeah, so I definitely, technique is definitely something I'm really trying to focus on and just being comfortable with the environment. We probably have actually a good trainer in there. I guarantee it. In the forum, I guarantee it. Yeah, you could probably just- I would make an, I would make a post and say, hey, I'm looking for an online powerlifting coach who could help me and you'll probably find one in the forum. Especially, yeah, since you can use Mass Powerlift, they can just, you know, keep an eye on your forum and make sure you're on track with what you're doing there. Now you have Mass Performance, so that would be a good program to go to. Yeah, no, I'll do that. We're gonna send you symmetry. So follow it up with symmetry. Okay, awesome, thank you. And then powerlift after that. And you should see, yeah. And you know, the powerlifting community is such a supportive community. They're one of my favorite strength training communities. It's like, man, it's so awesome. They're all there. Everybody cheers for everybody. It's so great. Yeah, it's not like- Yeah, I was really impressed when they, it was a few days after I contacted them by email and this lady got back to me and she was like, don't even worry about July. She said, we've got to meet in May. It's all ladies, come out. And I was like, I can barely lift the bar. And she's just like, it doesn't matter.  It's so funny. Totally, yeah. Yeah, as they do, it's like everybody just loves, it's just such a great supportive. It's one of my favorite strength training communities and it's a healthy community, especially in comparison to bodybuilding. So yeah, you're doing, it's gonna be great. Yeah, I love it. I can't wait to hear about what happens. You're in the forum already, so I love it. So just keep us posted. Just tag us when you do some updated posts. And so we'll keep an eye on you. Do the best we can to help support you. I do think if you can find someone to hire, it's only gonna be that much better for you. But even us, we'll do as much as we can to help support the journey and excited to see you go through it. Awesome, excellent. Well, thank you. Look, I really appreciate the feedback. You're all having me today. And thanks again. Thank you so much, Sarah. I'm very, very happy to hear about this. Thank you. Well, that warmed my heart. I wish, I wish more women, especially, interred powerlifting competition. It's happening, dude. It really is. It's so, it doesn't trigger body image issues. Look, powerlifting can get unhealthy too. Any sport can. But it doesn't trigger body image issues.  It's not even funny. It's a good foundation of stuff. Even the most competitive power lifters who want to just crush each other on stage, backstage or when they're doing the lifts, it's like high fives and let's make this happen. It's a great place to, it's such a great place. Especially for women, because I mean, I know there's always an exception to the rule, but I actually have never met a woman who is taking it too far and unhealthy. It's normally men. Yeah, because we got the crazy egos. Yes, men typically go overboard with the unhealthy side of powerlifting. Oh, there's some women that can do it. Sure, they can. That's what I said. There's always an exception rule, but I haven't met one. Most women that I know that I've introduced to powerlifting. It'd be, it's very enlightening for them. Yes, they normally have, they're on the other end of the extreme. And so being introduced to training this way is very enlightening and empowering and it ends up being incredible for them. So I'm glad that we see more of it. So I'm excited to hear it. And I love that she's doing it even this early in her journey. Oh yeah, it's great. She admits that it's hard for her to even to deadlift anybody right now. You know how much you learn from the lines of benefits. She's gonna get, she's gonna get a lot of benefits. Look, if you like the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our free fitness guides. They can help you get to your fitness goals. You can also find us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump DeStefano and Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam.