Boom! Welcome to Mind Pump! In this episode, we're going to talk about why having a victim mentality is a surefire way to fail at fitness and probably everything else in your life. You gotta stop blaming everyone and everything else. Bottom line, do some people have it easier than others? Yeah, that's a fact of life, man. That's just the way it works. Also, we talk about what happens if you eat highly processed foods for 30 days straight. It's not pretty. In the second half of the episode, we answer four questions from our Instagram account at Mind Pump Media. Questions like, what is my muscle building potential and how can I figure that out? And what should I do if my friends and family demonize me because I try to make really healthy choices and they think I should be eating crap? Finally, if you're looking for a way to share clips with other people that are short and concise or if you want to search specific topics, go to our other YouTube channel, Mind Pump Clips, and subscribe. All right, enjoy the show! For long-term fitness success, you must eliminate the victim mentality. If you want to do well, you have to embrace responsibility and you have to feel empowered, not disempowered. Personal accountability, that's hard. What's driving this message today? Oh, I tell you, it's the politics is now getting into fitness and nutrition. That's the issue. And I see this body acceptance movement continue to become distorted and twisted and grow and what they're doing is they're taking, obviously, there was one side that was wrong of how fitness and health were promoted. It was about being ripped and being extreme and then they went in the other direction saying things like, this is healthy when obviously it's an obese individual and this means I love my body when obviously they're displaying that they don't love themselves in the truest sense. And what that promotes is it promotes this victim mentality where, yeah, you know, I'm obese but it's my genetics or I'm obese and it's because I grew up in this particular neighborhood or because of, you know, the food that I didn't have access to or because of whatever that I don't have control. I don't have, I'm not empowered, which is the, it's anti long-term success in health and fitness because the only way to really make it work long term is to accept full responsibility and move forward. Also accept the limitations. Fine. I don't have the genetics that are going to let me be a professional athlete or I don't have the genetics that are going to make me, it's going to make it where I can walk around shredded with a six pack all the time. That's fine. I accept that. I'm going to move forward anyway. So I heard a neat analogy. I think it was, I think Jen Cohen was interviewing somebody. I wish I remember who it was, but it was a small clip and it was talking about this and he was talking about that we're all dealt different cards, but it's not about the cards that you're dealt, but it's about how you play the hand. Always. And he gives like the poker analogy of like, I've seen somebody with, you know, pocket twos when a million dollars in poker because the way they played their hand.   The same that you could come from absolutely nothing and not have anything or not have a favorable hand and actually be someone who turns out to be a superstar. So it's less about what you're dealt and it's more about how you deal.  Everybody has a potential and it's a wide range. Like think about it this way. How far down and dark do you think you could get if you made just terrible bad decisions your entire life? Like that potential is massive, right? Well, there's an equally high potential for how, how well you could do if you make good decisions, if you took responsibility, if you worked hard, if you were honest and you did the right things. So that's your potential. Accepting that you can't change certain things is part of working towards that. And then accepting your responsibility and saying, I'm going to focus on what I can do. And look, we've all had those clients that you could tell that they were going to be successful because they had this attitude, or you could tell they weren't going to be successful.  They weren't going to, they weren't going to be able to do this. They weren't going to be able to improve their health in any meaningful way or at least not for long term. Well, one message is empowering and moves you in positive behavioral changes and one message you know, really just is negative.  It's, it does nothing in terms of create any kind of opportunity other than to just basically profess this is where I am. Yep.  Or did you, have you always been about personal responsibility?  Not always. Some keep going all the way till they're much older and they still feel this way. So do you remember a period in your, in your life where you kind of felt like a victim and then you've transitioned out of that? Or did you never feel that? God, that's tough.  So I don't Yeah. Yeah, you and Doug, I could never glom on this. This question's more for Sal. Sal, having immigrant parents. You know what? If you ever remember a time feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I didn't, but it was really never, it was modeled so strongly. My parents didn't talk, by the way, it's not like they sat me down and said, take responsibility. You know, you have to be empowered. You're not a victim. Nobody ever sat me down and said that to me. They were just, they modeled it so much. I mean, again, my, my parents came here. They were very poor, uneducated. My father, I think he went to fourth grade and that was it. Cause he was super poor and he never, he didn't sit there and complain about the fact that he couldn't speak the language that he didn't know how to write and read in English that jobs were hard for him to find. All I saw him do was, was go out and do it. And then when there were challenges, he always would be like, what can I do? And my mom was the same way. And so I feel like it was just, it was modeled. It was instilled in you. Yeah. Without, like they didn't say it, you know what I mean? Cause I saw it that way, which I think why I grabbed onto fitness so much cause it was this very like, it fit that. That was teasing you Justin, but did you ever? I mean, well, cause I mean, so I've noticed this too in the sports realm a lot, like in, in being around a lot of different coaches.  Like even, even to like, you know, and because you're on sports teams, you're, you're around a lot of different personalities around a lot of different, you know, people from different backgrounds, social and economic backgrounds. Like, you know, I was always immersed with like a very diverse group of people growing up and, and you know, even then going to Chicago and like so, you know, it's in that message just never resonated that victim message. And it's just interesting to me, um, you know, now our culture has shifted so much of like, we're, there's none of these like underdog stories are being highlighted anymore in terms of like overcoming, you know, adversity, overcoming the odds. It's just this, it's, it's this sort of, um, fodder that's just thrown out there to, uh, sort of, um, you know, justify like anger and outrage, uh, against like a lot of the, um, the success of other people, success of other people. So that's, it's just interesting to me. Yeah. I don't, I can't really say that I've, I mean, I've, I've definitely had like victim mentality for certain things, but I think it just was so modeled away from that. You know what I love about, uh, sports, the one thing that I love about sports is it's a, it's a, in many ways, it's an example of responsibility at the highest level. Well, it's, it's an example. It's a, it's a nice represented representation of life, right? And, and so you can say whatever you want. You could have whatever philosophy you want, but if the team wins, they win. And the players that play the best tend to make the most money and they tend to lead how other people should play. And then the teams that work together tend to do the best. Not only that, but if you've played sports long enough, you've seen this example happen before where the gifted, talented, more privileged athlete is the starter and he's awesome and he's amazing, but then there, there's always that one guy on the team who isn't as gifted talent, but then we're outworked and then takes that. If you've played sports, celebrated it. That's right. If you play sports long enough, you've seen, you've seen that happen. And I think to your point of like, it's a great representation of life because that does happen. It absolutely happens. There's absolutely people that are in a much more privileged situation and that are gifted and talented and don't have to put the work in as hard as the other people and they naturally kind of rise to the top. But then there's always that guy who, who didn't have all that and ends up outworking that guy and then it takes that, takes that position. You know why in most many sports it remains somewhat pure in that sense is because you watch their evolution and you watch the game. So you see what's happening. You see, you see the hard work, you see the play, like you don't see people arguing why LeBron James gets paid so much versus another player because you're like, well, obviously I can watch what he's doing. I see what's happening. You know, it's funny. Okay. With strength sports, you get more, and by the way, by no means is there a huge victim mentality in the sport I'm about to mention, but you see more victim mentality in bodybuilding than you do in strength sports, like Olympic lifting and powerlifting. Why? It's objective. Yes. You'll hear bodybuilders complain and whine more because it's judged. Whereas in powerlifting, the guy lifted more than you did. Like, what are you going to say? Yeah. You know, there's nothing you could say about it. And in sports, you see that. So this is why you'll see people who will say, wow, CEOs get paid too much, but professional athletes and entertainers don't. Like you never hear someone say Beyonce makes way too much.  You don't see that so much because people watch her perform. They see how talented she is, but this nameless faceless CEO, nobody sees what they do behind the scenes, how hard they work and how much value they bring to the company. All they see is how much money they make and how much the people who work for them make. And then they make these arguments. And that's, they're trying to pour that into health and fitness. Now you might want to ask, why? Why do they want to pour that into health and fitness?  You know how easy it is to sell somebody something? When I tell you it's not your fault, it's everybody else's fault? Because I have the answer. I have the answer. Here's the pill. Here's the thing. Here's, oh, I know taking responsibility is really hard. Like when I had to sit down and examine my first marriage and some of the contributions I made to my divorce, that was hard.  I played some roles in all of that. That's hard to do. It would have been, it would have, in the moment, it would have felt good if somebody came to say, you did nothing wrong, Sal. It was all the other person's fault, right? And then I'm like, okay, good. I don't have to bear that burden. But then there would be no change. It would be no me moving forward. I wouldn't have become a better person. And that's the thing. So if you want long-term success in your own health and fitness, you got to stop blaming everyone and everything else. Bottom line, do some people have it easier than others? Yeah. That's a fact of life, man. That's just the way it works. Now what? What are you going to do now? You got to accept what you got. And you got to move forward anyway. You got to accept your genetics and move forward anyway. You got to accept the fact that you can change your nutrition with whatever tools you have. Money, no money, whatever. You got to accept the fact that you could be more active or less active, regardless of the equipment and the gyms you have access to. You got to accept those things and move forward. And when you do that, you will accomplish long-term success. If you don't, you'll fail every single time. No one has ever succeeded long-term with that victim mentality and health and fitness. Today's free workout giveaway is MAPS Split. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. Do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section that you got free access to MAPS Split. Also, we got a big sale going on this month on two very popular workout programs, MAPS Symmetry, one of our most popular programs, one of our newer programs that helps build symmetry between the right and left side of the body. That program is 50% off. And then MAPS Strong, that's a strong man-inspired workout program, is also 50% off. So both programs, 50% off. You can find both of them if you click on the link at the top of the description below to get the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show. Andrew, did you ever go through that? Did you go through feeling like a victim at any point in your life? Yeah. Yeah. From what age to what age? And when did you snap out of it? It's okay, though. High school. And then coming out of high school. Yeah. Was this when you got your girlfriend pregnant? If you don't mind me saying, was that that? Yeah. My girlfriend pregnant, things in my periods, things like that, more specifically, my father being absent in my life. And then kind of blaming him. And then it took a while before I was able to recognize that, be aware of it, and then take things like in my own control. Yeah. And when you did take those things in control, it was probably a big difference. Yeah. Well, it brought back like a lot of confidence in everything that I did. And fitness I think helped kind of bring me in that direction. I'd say the same time period for myself. It was probably, you know, what's funny is I actually didn't think I was. My attitude or the way I thought. Because in many ways, you were also like, I'll pull myself up by my bootstraps at a young age. Right. And so, and I did have that attitude. But then there was, there was still a, this undertone of victimhood too. Because then what I would do is I would compare myself to my peers that were complaining about us now. And I'd be like, come on. Like that's what you're complaining about. And in my head I'm going, I've been through so much worse. I've been through so much worse. Oh, like a chip. Yeah. So, and I didn't realize it. I wasn't truly, at that point in my life, maybe I didn't think I was, had victimhood, but I didn't, where I'm at now, I'm actually grateful of the disadvantages I had. You know, chew on that for a minute. Like I'm so grateful for all those things. And that didn't take until my mid to late 20s of actually going back and taking account of all the shitty things that have happened in my life. Whether I brought them on my own or I was, I inherited them or I had no control of them, didn't matter. What I realized was all the ones that I went through and overcame, I started to connect the dots to what that created in my life or the character that it built or the success that I had afterwards. And then what I started to see was like, whoa, the stuff that I think was like poor me or the shittiest part, the ability for me to work through that and overcome it, what I got from that was some of the most valuable things that I ever got in my life. And so then it started, so then I started to reframe these disadvantages that either I had or that would happen to me in life because I quickly realized like, oh, this is an opportunity. It's an opportunity for growth. If I can make, this is shitty, this is unfair, this sucks, but man, it's a test. If I can make it through this and I surpassed this or I overcome this disadvantage, then now I'm at an advantage because this other kid who was more privileged and didn't have to overcome that, he didn't build the skills that I had to build to overcome that. And I just, I think that was like this major pivotal moment in my life was to start to look at those things.  Why'd that happen to me? And, but quickly it shifts to, oh, here's an opportunity. You know, something great is going to come. Something you said right there was really important is you said, yeah, it sucked. Yeah, it was hard. Yeah, it was unfair. It's important you say that because what people will do, the people who promote the victim mentality, what they'll glob on to is, well, you don't know how hard it is. Right, that you don't have empathy for people. You don't know. Yes. Yeah. And that's, okay, that's not at all. What I'm, look, I've made a career. We all made a career out of helping people through the struggle of obesity, through the struggle of poor health, through changing relationships to food and all the reasons why the relationships to food were not ideal or all the reasons why they weren't active and why they had poor relationships with exercise in their bodies. Like we made careers out of that and we were successful because we were empathetic, but we were also successful because we understood that I don't care who I had in front of me and I don't care how great of it. I consider myself a pretty damn good trainer and I got pretty good at the end there, but I can't do anything unless the person accepts that responsibility. I couldn't do anything. I can't do it for you is the bottom line. And so that's the truth. So the empathy is there, but you know, it's funny. Real empathy is like, man, that sucks, but also you can do this. Yeah. And that's the only thing you do to improve things. That's the only way it's going to happen is if you do this. And so that's why I want to talk about that because if you feel so, if you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, and you're not moving forward as a result of it, and you're pointing the finger at everybody else, you're going to be stuck and you're going to be dark. It's never going to change. It's funny. I feel like I gave a terrible answer to you for that, but it's like, to me, looking back, it's really, I always thought everything was my fault. You know, ever since I was a kid, being the youngest and just having that kind of communicated to me from coaches or parents or, you know, just like not living up to expectations and standards and things. And so I had a huge chip on my shoulder.  Well, that's, that's an interesting point because this is a product of potential being in a privileged situation because you feel like, man, I have these other people that had way less than me and they figured it out and I haven't figured it out yet.  I haven't, on this, I'm that, that voice that you're now starting to, or that conversation you're having with yourself because you came from a situation that may be more privileged than other people.  It's more like, I'm going to figure this out. You know, there's two types of people, right? There's the person that looks at the success, the success of someone else and says, how, how dare that person have that success? Who did they steal from? How did they cheat the system? They don't deserve that. I deserve some of that. Then there's the other person that looks at success and goes, wow, that's awesome. Look at what's, what, look at what potential there possibly is. Maybe I can get to that place or maybe I can get close to that place. There's a spectrum of that, right? I feel like, because I've, I mean, even, even us, off air, when we're evaluating somebody we don't know anything about, I'm always intrigued by somebody who's had success. Of course. Always. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I reserve judgment no matter how much I disagree with what they say or I don't like the way they do stuff. I'm interested. If you found a way to have success, I'm real, I'm curious. I'm curious to what worked in your life. And not a lot of people are like that. A lot of people see that and instantly want to look for the holes in those people and the things that are negative and bad. And I just have a, you do, you do do that very well. Yeah, definitely for sure. You know, this is a, maybe connected to it, but what's interesting is I'm starting to see that there seems to be an interest or more of a groundswell in kind of what I'm talking about or what we're talking about. We're rejecting the victim mentality, accepting responsibility and the things that you have control over. There seems to be something stirring in people and growing. And I do think it may be the result of the insanity over the last couple of years. I really do. Cause I think now looking back, now that we're kind of somewhat separated from the last, you know, just the unprecedented last couple of years, I think a lot of people are looking back and going, um, that was a little crazy. And I think you guys gaslit us a bit. And I think we overacted, overreacted and you know what, I felt coerced. I could tell I was manipulated by fear.  I don't think I want to give anybody that power anymore. And I'm starting to sense it with people. People are starting to talk more about it. So speaking of like, you know, being grateful for certain things, I think I'm grateful for the insanity of the last couple of years because I'm starting to see people are starting to say this kind of stuff.  It's very transparent now. Yeah. Yeah. It came all out because of, yeah, just everybody's fear and hysteria. It's like, you could see what the result was. Dude, I read an article. I read an article that enraged. So my wife, first of all, if people think I'm outspoken, you have no idea. My wife is, I joke with these guys all the time. If I ever ended up in the gulags, it was probably because of my wife saying something like she's way worse than I am. And I shared an article with her and some of my aunts and they were just so pissed off because you guys remember when they, when they were like pushing everybody to get vaccinated, right? And there were women that were coming out saying, this is messing with my menstrual cycle. My period is off. It's heavier. It's pausing. And people who are saying this on social media, we're getting shut down and blocked. And you can't say that, don't say that. Well, now their study's coming out. So, oh yeah, it definitely, it may in fact have an effect on women's menstrual cycles.  And that's just one example. So I think stuff like that is making people look back and go, hmm, maybe we shouldn't give people that kind of control. How trustworthy are a lot of these officials in these powerful positions? Well, speaking of gaslighting, and I guess, I guess you have to, I feel like you have to laugh about this because it's, it's, I can't be the person who's just going to constantly be negative about this stuff. So I have to find things like this that I just kind of like chuckle.  Did you see the vice? Did you see that they brought? You guys told me about this. So, okay, vice, vice, which is unfortunate because I used to like vice and I just feel like, especially in the last couple of years. They seem like they have an agenda. They've, yeah, they've gone super, super woke directions like that. I still consume the content though. I'm like, I'm always like that where I like to still consume it from both sides all the time. I actually follow some of the most woken space. Yeah, I do. I want to hear. I do. I think it's important. I think it's important for balance. So I do.  He was a sex offender. Sorry.  That's like integrate them into society. They need empathy anymore. Yeah.    Boy, that backfire didn't take long, dude.  This guy, I would imagine it's probably astronomical. 70%. Dude. I mean, no, no, no, that still means 30% don't. That's right. That's right. So you can't, so we can't castrate them all just because 70% of them still don't. You know what my view is on that? My view is the crimes that should be punished the most harsh are crimes against people, meaning violence, sexual assault, property crimes, I think should be punished relatively harshly. The crimes that I think shouldn't be punished nearly as harshly as they get punished are like crimes against yourself. Like I'm using drugs or yeah, like that doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me that getting caught with a bunch of cocaine will get you thrown in jail for longer than, than you sexually abusing a child or sexually assaulting a woman or punching someone on the street. Destroying other people's lives. Yeah.  That kind of stuff should be punished the most harsh. The stuff you do to yourself, that's you're hurting yourself. And I know there's other ramifications, but I think it makes more sense that those are punished less harshly. Crimes against property and people should be punished the most harsh. You know, I wonder how many, you know, I think I'm thinking about the number I just gave you the 70% of those sex offenders. I wonder of the 30%, what percent of those were situations where like, you know, a 19 year old guy slept with his 17 year old girlfriend. Obviously they probably fall on that, that 30%. So what of that 30% that are reformed, quote unquote, then are actually just people that had, that were that person and how many of them that were actually true, like true, true sex. Or like, you got peeing outside of school.   Did you find out, did you find out if that was trolling yet or not? That guy with the, I think, I think it sent me like, yeah, it's like some red or a colic to, you know, and it, I mean, I would have hoped that that was the case, but yeah, I don't know for sure if that's, that's, it smells like a massive troll to me. You know why? It would have made sense, but yeah, it looked so crazy, but you, but you know, you never know. You just never know these days. So you, you have in fact, so Reddit was trying to say that it was. They were trying to basically say that he, he had problems with some of the policies of the school before. And so this was like his, his way of being, his way of being like, well, if we're going all, we'll can go in this direction. Like he'd literally like dressed in prosthetics and, you know, it has to be. I mean, cause it's so extreme. It does sort of make sense. Right. Are you not convinced that way? I'm so convinced that way. No, I'm not. I'm not because from what I read, he had, he's, they already knew that he was going through, he was transitioning.  It was something that, that they were doing and then they came to school. Yeah, but he could be, he could be, he could be transgender and potentially transitioning and still have issues with the school over like stupid stuff. And they're, and so he, he went, oh, okay. You won't, you won't let me do. You want to mess with me? I'll mess with you. Yeah. Right. So maybe. Yeah. So he can still, so both those stories. What a weird, what a weird world right now. I know. You don't explain it. It is though, but that's one of the, to me, things like that are one of the best ways to put a mirror in our face. You know what I think? To let us know like how we're like, wow, that I guess we hadn't thought it that far out that it could get there and how ridiculous it is that we're here. Or, or fine, let's just be, let's just be clear and draw a line. Like here's, I think it's the ultimate, you want to talk about patriarchy and sexism. That to me is one of the most egregious examples. Had a woman, a biological woman who naturally had those kinds of massive boobs who wore a sheer, because this person's also wearing a sheer thin shirt where you can literally see the outline and color of the nipples and they're poking out. No bra. Had a woman, yes, had a woman who was built that way, come to class and done that, they would have got sent home. They would have got sent home for being inappropriate. But because this person says that they're transgender, they can't touch them. That's, to me, that's, that seems like it smells a lot like sexism. And if I was a woman, I'd be like, excuse me, that's not cool. Because if anybody, any of us did that, you guys would have sent us home and said it was inappropriate. That's what I think. It's crazy. Anyway, I got to bring up this crazy, there was this UK doctor, I'm going to bring it up, who did this, this ultra process diet for 30 days. You guys read about this? No, I didn't read about it. I did hear about it though. Yes. So they went on a ultra process diet for just a month. 80% of their diet was ultra process food for 30 days. And what they found was- No, okay, so are they restricted calories? Are they actually dieting or are they just eating? They're just eating. Okay, so this is not a diet then. No, no, they just- This is just what they're saying is they're going to eat all processed food. 80% of their diet would be ultra processed and they would just eat that way and see what happened. So listen to their body, eat as much as they want, as little as they want, basically and see what would happen, right? Because I think it's disingenuous to put someone on an ultra process diet but then control their calories. Because a big part of the problem with these foods is they make you overeat and stuff. Sure, sure. So this is what this guy did. So went on this diet and first off, within a few days, he noticed that he felt way more hungry, way more often than he used to. So he started craving more foods. He became extremely constipated. Check out some of the stuff that- This is in 30 days. Constipated? Yeah, his diet is obviously- His digestion was messed up as a result. Within 30 days, he gained 14 pounds. Yeah. Which, okay, so 14 pounds, a lot of that was bloat and water and some of it was body fat. His blood tests revealed that there was a 30% increase in hunger hormones. So the hormones that drive hunger went through the roots. Stuff we've been saying. Yes. Yeah. I remember when I brought- Remember when I told you guys how like, I mean, the process of competing was one of the neatest things that I experienced as a trainer because it was the best test I had ever done, like, with things like this. And I clearly remember how interesting it was to eliminate protein bars as part of my prep and then have one where I said, oh, I have whatever I want.  It's been a while since I've had one of these. Not liking it, to then liking it, then loving it. And then wanting two and then eating three and then going like, oh my God, I had four of those today. Like, so wild to feel that and not recognize it myself. Well, check this out. This is the most crazy part of this, right? They did brain scans before and after. So you could actually see what was happening in the brain. Doctors revealed that the new diet had, this is in 30 days, had sparked the creation of new functional connections between certain brain regions. So the quote is, the diet has linked up the reward centers of my brain with the areas that drive repetitive automatic behavior. So eating ultra-processed food has become something my brain simply tells me to do without me even wanting it, which is what you see in people with addiction.  It was driving him to keep going. I mean, are we surprised? Some of the probably the best, probably some of the best scientists in the world, I would assume work for food companies. You're right. Some of the best smartest scientists in the world are working for freaking food companies for that exact reason. So I'm not surprised at all. You know, just being a processed foods, there's a terrible commercial transition, but it's the truth, right?  Like 100% processed foods get into my diet. It's not impossible to not, like I could live off of a whole food diet, but the reality is that they're convenient and sometimes it's a choice we do. Here's an example of how I've even let my son have processed foods right now. So we, the school he goes to doesn't have a microwave. And one of the things I've been telling Katrina is just like, you know, when I look at his lunch, it's very carb-heavy and I'm like, and it's not bad, okay, quote unquote, but he's not getting a lot of protein in his, in his lunch and stuff like that. And she's like, well, they don't have a microwave. So I don't want to give him like cold bison and like, because that's normally when he eats at home, he eats what we, you know, we have, we have bison and sweet potato. We just do a small version in his little cups and that's what he eats and he loves it, but making the kid eat it cold and stuff like that. I'm like, so she's, she's giving him a lot of like package stuff. And I was like, why don't you do the beef sticks? And she goes, I, you know, I've never thought of that. I'm like, yeah, just chop, because she's always paranoid about him swallowing and choking on everything, right? So we have to chop every, she cuts everything up. So I'm like, yeah, just cut them up in small pieces, put them in a little- You can snack on them.  Again, they're not bad. Does he like them? He loves them. Yeah. He absolutely loves them. Now he's getting more protein. Now there is processed and then there's, there's a scale of processed, right? There's like, yeah, right? Like, like, like jerky in general is, it is a process, more processed form of meat than just having a steak. But there's a lot of types of jerkeys and meat sticks that are minimally processed, basically the process to give them a long shelf life and make them convenient. And you can get some that are more or less, right? But these beef sticks are minimal ingredients. So his, what it's replacing, so he gets those, you know, organic, um, squeezes all the time, right? That's like one of his favorite things but they're so carb heavy. Yeah. You know, it's fruit, fruit and vegetables, which is great. Great. It's not bad, but it's like, I know he's not getting a good balance of protein. And so, you know, I'm trading one processed food that he was going to do anyways with another one that's grass-fed beef, beef jerky sticks. Like, and he's not getting, like, to me it's a no brain.  I saw you post it. No. Okay. So they have. So yeah, is that bone broth? Yeah. So, you know, I want to say this too because I get people will message me and say, I thought bone broth and collagen was an inferior protein in comparison to whey, which is okay. Whey protein, egg protein are superior compared to other forms of protein in a gram-for-gram basis. Now, if you eat enough protein, it doesn't matter. If your protein, it takes high. You get enough amino acids anyway. However, I will say this, that you got to consider digestibility. So for me, 50 grams of whey protein versus 50 grams of bone broth, the bone broth is superior because I can't digest whey. So I don't care how superior it is. It, it, it messes up my gut. So I love bone broth proteins because they, for me, it's, and I, working with clients and, and, you know, my family and friends, same for them. It's the easiest protein you'll ever have in terms of digestibility. It literally is like just water. You feel nothing. Now they only, Paleo Valley had unflavored bone broth, which I liked because I don't want anything in there. It's just literally bone broth. But a lot of people want it to taste a particular way. So Paleo Valley made one that was chocolate. It's really good. Walk me through that. So do you eat it or drink it, I should say, like hot?  Just drink it cold. And it's like a protein shake. Because like, okay. You know what it tastes like? It tastes like bone broth. I don't think chocolate is a good match with that. But like, how does that hit your, hit your taste buds? No, it tastes just like, like a chocolate shake. Doug tried it. Yeah, I love it. It's like just a chocolate shake. So I have yet to do this, but I am interested in doing it because I have, when I do the whey protein, there's a limited amount of how much I can do. Oh, until it messes with you? Yeah. So like, if I go, if I go whey and I mix it in milk, and let's say I go one and a half scoops instead of just one, which is the serving size, it'll, it'll, I'll have kind of bubble guts afterwards. And so I have to like stick to like, I get one scoop away. But then there's times where I was like, man, I could really use double the scoop. It's not, I know it won't sit well with me with the whey. I'm curious if it would with the. Try it. Yeah. I, it's the easy Doug, do you digest it easily too? Yeah, no problem. It's really, it's really, it's like literally water. Like I could pound 70 grams of it. And I feel like. So that's what I'm curious about. I'm wondering if I could push the grams of protein because it's the bone broth. So I'll experiment with that. But the chocolate flavor, it tastes like chocolate shake, especially if you mix it with like macadamia nut milk or almond milk, it's like a chocolate shake. And it's actually, it's not like, you know, some protein powders like, yeah, it's chocolate, but it's still kind of doesn't, this actually tastes like a chocolate shake. It's actually really, I would say it rivals chocolate whey protein shakes. Now I saw you did like four scoops or something. I saw you posted, you did quite a few scoops. Like five, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm putting like a little over 50 grams in there. Is that how much? Yeah. You know, and because that's for me, that would be like a serving. Right. And it's like, again, it's almost like I drank water. So I've been doing, I always did their unflavored, but I know people like, they're like, I don't want unflavored. By the way, the unflavored bone broth doesn't have that much of a flavor. It doesn't taste like chicken soup or something like that. Yeah. It's got almost, it's got a very mild kind of blend. It's almost flavor, it's not flavorless, but it doesn't have a lot of flavor, but the chocolate one tastes legit like chocolate.  Because that's all I think about.  I was like, ugh. Yeah. You know, wild. How many grams of protein did you do a big serving or? So I did like two scoops. I think there's 13 grams for a scoop. And I just mixed it with macadamia milk. And it was great, like chocolate milk. The only way it makes sense for me is if I can do four or five scoops and it not make me feel that way. There's one way I think it will. There's one absolutely way I'll do that. There's been many times when I'm getting a protein shake, which is how I use my protein shakes typically, is I didn't get enough protein for the day. I know I didn't because I can recall like the two meals I had. I'm like, I'm at 90 grams. It's towards the end of the night. And I'm like, I definitely need to get protein shake. Now, in the past, what I've tried to do is, oh, I'll just, I'll do three scoops of the way protein then. And I'll get like 70 grams of protein. And it'll tear me up. Then you just. Yeah. I can have one. I can have one. Yeah, I can have one scoop fine. Totally sits fine with me. But if I push the way too much, or again, if I mix it with dairy. So I got a hack for everybody here. So I've never talked about, I can't believe I've never talked about this on the show. If you want to make, so protein, it's satiety producing, right? So it helps with appetite. Protein powders, I would say, is a little lower on the scale because it's so predigested and so quick absorbing. But I have a way of making it produce even more satiety and making it even much healthier. So here's what you do. And you don't taste it. This is the crazy part. So you buy psyllium husk powder, not the little granules, but when they, it's literally like a fine powder. So you could buy psyllium husk in powder form. And psyllium husk is just, it's just fiber. It's, a lot of it is this undigestible fiber. People will take it for digestion to help them poop better, all that stuff. And I take psyllium husk probably two, three times a day, just to add healthy fiber to my diet. Is it considered like a digestive enzyme or what is it? No, it's not a digestive enzyme. Just the fiber in it is what's. Yeah. So there's some, some types of fibers that feed your microbiome. This one kind of does a little bit, but really what it does is it helps things move through the body. So if you, if you take psyllium husk, you'll find you'll just have better bowel movements, better digestion. You tend to get lower cholesterol as a result. So people will take some psyllium husk for that. So it's a very safe, healthy type of fiber. And you, they sell it in powder form. So what I do is I make my protein shake with, I'll use the bone broth, and then I'll put in like, like a, like kind of a level a tablespoon of the psyllium powder, shake it up. You don't taste it. And I literally just added like seven, eight grams of fiber to my protein shake. Lube for your intestine. And it, and it digests better and I get more of a satiety effect. So I'll do it and I'll feel a little bit fuller. That's interesting. For longer. And you don't taste it. That's the crazy thing. You don't taste it in the powder. Don't most of the powders have a decent amount of fiber already in them though? No, protein powders? Yeah. No, zero fiber. Is there zero? Zero, it's just protein powder. Oh no way. I didn't know that. No. Oh, I assume they infuse some of it with fiber already. No, nothing. Zero. Now is that only when you're talking about like a pure source of like, if you do like a meal replacement shake? I mean, I don't know if they add fiber. I think sometimes they try to, but I don't, I mean, psyllium husk is super easy. It's not a fiber that, sometimes too much fiber can cause bloating, but most of the psyllium husk is the kind of fiber that passes through the body. So you're not absorbing it and breaking it down. It just goes through. Now how valuable do you think that is if I'm making my protein shake and I do like a peanut butter banana inside there already? I still think it's great. You still think so. Yeah, because you just added fiber to your diet. Yeah. And it makes it, have you tried that yet? I have. I haven't done it in a shake. No, but I use psyllium husk. And yeah, it works great. It does.  I'm big into husk. Yeah.  If you leave it, it'll gel up a bit. But that's what's happening in your gut, right? And it's kind of allowing things to move more freely. Freely and it's a bulking agent. Does it give you guys like the texture that it gives the shake? Because I actually like, have you ever done like, I'll do like egg whites in my shake because I actually like that one boosts my, that's by the way, that's one of the ways that I would do it in the past because it wouldn't upset my stomach to bump, you know, put a couple egg whites or back in the days when I used to have them. Oh, the pump? Yeah. Yeah. I just pump a couple extra inside the shake. No, it actually, if anything, it makes it a little thicker. That makes it a little creamier and thicker. We used to do that some drinks at the bar too. You put a little bit of egg white in there. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's when they have the white. Builds body to the drink, makes it a little thicker. Yeah. Delicious. That's a cool way. I think that's always been a, even if you just do a little like you said, you don't have to do a ton, it just kind of makes it give this kind of, like a frothiness to it. And like some, yeah. Oh, so speaking of like processed food and whatnot, you brought up to me before the show, like that McDonald's was coming back with happy meals, but. For adults. For adults. Different, yeah. For adults. That's true. Yeah, kind of brilliant, right? Because I believe it was the 80s. So small. It was the 80s when the McDonald's toys thing became a thing, right? I believe. Sure, it made a big impact on us growing up. Right. And it's less popular now with kids. Not that the kids don't love it still, but it's not something like, not like, that was a big deal when we were kids. I bet that's what the toys did. Immediately. That's what I want to know. Oh, it's the characters. It's like Grimace. It's the burglar, the hamburger. It's, I don't know. What other do we get adult toys? No. Yeah. So I would, I actually think they're going to go that round. I think you might see. Adult toys? Well, no, no, no, no, no. I think they'll revisit like, okay, a garfee. Super happy meal. Or characters that were popular when, because obviously you know that happy meals weren't just the characters from McDonald's, right? You know that, right? Oh, I know that. Okay. Yeah.  I mean, I could see it like doing things that vibrating Grimace. Following the same trend it did when we, what does it say?  Let's be honest. That's why Grimace set up for that. He's very angry. Yeah. It has a cool, odd looking figurine inside. And I think it's one of these characters from McDonald's. It's actually not called a happy meal. It's called a cactus plant flea market box. Why would they call it something weird? Well, because happy meals attach to children. It's based on the fashion brand collaborating with McDonald's. Oh, who's the brand? I guess cactus plant flea market. I don't know. It's, I have to double check it. Yeah, that makes that even more interesting. It's called cactus plant flea market. You can check them out. It's weird. Are you pulling them up, Andrew? I didn't even know that. I'm so out of the loop. I know. I just remember, so Jack in the Box was one of the first sort of fast food companies that started to target stoners. I have no idea. I was figuring this was going to be another one of those sort of late night try to like get the stoner. The stoner box. The happy meal. Yeah, stoner box. That would crush. Right? So that's the brand. Okay. Well, look, I think this is going to crush because I think there's enough nostalgia in our age group of people who are like, I haven't eaten in McDonald's a long time. Are you guys familiar? It's true. This has been popular in street wear for a long time, but that's, you see it more and more. You saw Super Bowl commercials a few back where you start to see like, I believe it was like Mountain Dew and like Lay's chips did a commercial together. It's really smart marketing and you see it happening more and more. Are you familiar with that too, Doug? Like, have you seen that with brands where they? Doug's all into street wear. I'm sorry, I haven't seen it. It's just a really brilliant strategy to take two brands that actually have no real synergy as far as, you know, the same space, right? Like you're talking about a apparel brand and McDonald's. Like there's no conflict of interest of like, and they can only help each other when you think about it. Oh, I see. Co-branding or by doing a collaboration together like this is smart, really smart. I mean, we've done that with some of our brands. You know what they don't do anymore that I just, so there was a, someone did a post and it was about like the 90s, things that we wish came back from the 90s or something like that and stuff from the 90s. It was funny stuff in there like 90s car security and it was like the clothes. I saw that.  The CD player. Yeah, and all that stuff. But then there was one in there, I didn't realize that they don't put toys, like physical toys in cereal boxes anymore. Yeah. That's not really, they put like codes and stuff in there.  You know, but when we were kids. Yeah, physical is way more exciting. Bargains, I imagine, yeah, sure. Yeah, when I was a kid. Cost to produce it and then weight, everything. I'm sure like, I'm sure that's everything. Did you guys, see now it brought back memories.  And she'd come home and there was a toy in there. Yeah. Were you the one that would dig through it first? Yeah. You're like my brother.   Well, no, what I would do is I'd take the bag out of the box so I could see where it was, pull it out. You can never get the bag properly back in the box. Always look like this bulging weird thing. No, yeah. The cereal didn't work anymore. That was a dead giveaway. It's broken.  It's so mad. And the toys were always shitty. So, I mean, what's your, do you think this will be, let's speculate on the success of this we'll have for McDonald's? Does the stock rise? Does it do really well after this? Like, we're also heading into, I believe, isn't it coming up on monopoly time? I believe monopoly time is around that. So, I had a client that. There was a big controversy around that, right? Conspiracy? Oh, have you never seen the documentary? That's right, I did. Oh, so good. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was like a total hustle for the long time, like mob guys and stuff. But what she would do is every time, the same time of year, she would buy McDonald's stock and ride it and then sell it after the monopoly game would always drive so much more traffic to McDonald's that the stock price would always go on a little surge for, you know, I don't remember the exact period of time. And it was like a thing she did almost every single year and had a lot of success doing that. Yeah, this year from the 7th of September until October 18th is the monopoly period. Oh, it's already going on. It's going on right now. So, it's going on right now. Yeah, but I bet they're, everybody's tanking right now. So, I wonder, I don't think they've done well stock-wise. I haven't been opening up my stuff. Is it? I don't look. Don't add. Yeah, I stopped a while ago. I think my portfolio has gone down 70%. That's something like that. I really want you guys to watch the Eat the Rich thing, which is all about the whole GameStop. I'm really interested. Yeah, it's how they manipulated the... Not only that, but it really, I mean, they got into like the retail traders, retail buyers, whatever you would call just your average person and how Robinhood completely, you know, flipped that model on its head and however, but that's how you and what's so interesting to me about it is, and when you guys, when you guys watch this, this has really only happened over the last couple of years. And so, part of this crazy stock market run that we've seen in the last few years has been driven by these retail buyers did not exist in the space, which just makes me think like, wow, how much more volatile is that because of that, right? It was already, it's already a gamble and risk a little bit. You add in millions of people that aren't, you know... So I don't think it's more volatile. I think the volatility has more to do with the monetary... So why wouldn't you think it's more volatile? I don't think it's more volatile. I think it's more that the big players don't like it because it's harder for them to predict what's going on. They can't do those. But I don't think it's more volatile in terms of like up and down and going crazy. That's more of just economic policy and predicting. I mean, it's simple math. If you were to take, let's just say, there was only a million people that were trading before and now three million people are trading, the swings are going to be higher. There's math. So how would that not equal more volatility unless they're all evenly balanced traders that trade the same way as hedge funds? I guess if you define volatility, is it's going to be less predictable based off of pasts? Not just less predictable, but also bigger swings. Yeah, bigger ups and downs. Maybe in individual stocks. I don't know if that would work out generally, but that's a good question actually. I got to think about that. Yeah, that's why I want you to watch it so we can all kind of... Because it does, that's what came up for me was just like, wow, how volatile is this thing? Is it way more than we've ever seen before? I just think these big players don't like it. They don't like it because they can't predict what they could predict before. And they had less... Now, because so if I'm a big mover, I could influence the market by making one or two big moves. And one or two other investors couldn't touch me unless they also were big movers. But now you've got the ability for them to organize, come together like they did on the Reddit forums. And now they're coming against me, but because they have numbers. So they can't beat me one-on-one, but now because they have numbers, now they can mess with... And that's what they did in some of these cases.  And they said, you know what? We see that they should have this stock let's blow it up.  I mean, this is a basic strategy for a hedge fund is to look at a company that they have a 99% chance are going to fail. They know it's on its way out.   To protect themselves. It's just, it's smart. It's very, very... And what they did is they went in and said, hey, look at these guys shorting the stock. Yeah, let's...  It would be hilarious. And they, it went so bad. I mean, it was billions and billions of dollars. I mean, it completely...  I mean, they have machines that, well, that they'll basically program and they'll notice signals and they'll buy and sell so fast that the average trader has no way of competing. There's a lot of controversy around that. Hmm. So I want you... I really want you to watch this so we can have conversation around Robinhood because I was unfamiliar with exactly how Robinhood's model worked until I watched this documentary and I'm now super fascinated by... Because they're still in bed with a hedge fund, Citadel. So, and they really make... Their way they make money is off the consumer. So they have this bias because they basically pair up the... Well, the more that... The more someone trades, the more they make, right? That's right. Okay. That's the only... They get a commission or whatever. That's on the sense, the pinnings on the dollar for every transaction. So it's always in their best interest to try and to get people to make trades. Sell them by, sell them by. Yeah. And then they're getting funding from a hedge fund so they have a bias on how they do things. So, and they actually... You remember when Robinhood shut down GameStop? You couldn't buy it. A lot of controversy. A lot of controversy. So you got to watch it so we can talk about it. Because supposedly they were not influenced, right? Supposedly they were the ones supposed to allow the average person to go in and trade. But then they shut it down. They're like, oh, you guys are under the pressure. So I think they won their court case that they did. So I think they didn't... I think. I don't know. I don't... I haven't finished the doc where I'm at but I don't think they actually got nailed. I think at the end of the day.  It was going to be the next blockbuster. So you could pump the stock up all you want and... At some point. At some point, it's going to crash. And not only that, the higher we pump it up, the more all these... Because the people who were going to buy, who bought... So it went all the way up to like, I think it's 600 or 400 or 600 or 600 p... There was all these memes. Hold the line. Yeah, yeah. And so there was millions of people that bought it $200 and $300. And it is not a $300 stock. No, it's not a $300 stock. No matter how you look at it. Even if the company has a turnaround, it's not a $300 stock. And so the inevitable was having... So that was how Robinhood defended himself or the founder, I forget his name, defended himself on doing that was to protect their customers. And so you could sell it, but you couldn't buy it. So they restricted you from buying for that period of time. And of course, again, to your point, they got in trouble for manipulating and buys. But then after I heard that perspective, the fuck, that's kind of crazy, right? And they had the wisdom to know that we keep allowing this to... We keep letting people drive this up, knowing that the inevitable is going to happen and it's going to crash. They're all having a fun time sticking it to the man, but a lot of them are going to end up hurting themselves. And a lot of them are doing it because they're trying to make money off of it. Oh, yeah.  No one's going to sell. And then they'll end up hurting them. I mean, it's like, you guys see what's happened to the NFT market? Notice how it's fucking... I grow. You know me. I'm not done jazzing, right? You see, Adam's throwing like every meme. Yeah, dude, I'm just saying. We're all the influencers pushing those NFT projects right now. Didn't it go down? How's your invisible house doing? I think 97% of the volume. 97%. So it was what... And what that means is the trade volume, the amount of trade volume that was happening on NFT projects, just say six months ago or a year ago, was like in... I think it might have been the billions. If not, it was like... No, no, no, no. More than that. No, it was in the billions. Can you pull it up, Doug? Oh, and it's down into the... It's like 100s of millions now. No, it's less than that. It's even less than that. I don't think... I'm not sure if it was trading in the billions and then went down to just the single-digit millions or whatever. But I mean, it was a 97% drop of what it was. It basically fell off. Are you pulling it up right now? Yeah, 98% drop. From what to what? Oh, there's two different numbers. 97%, 98%. I'm trying to find the actual numbers. Yeah, what they're referencing is the trade volume, right? It was trading at so many millions or potentially to your point, billions of dollars. And now that's been reduced by like 98%. I mean, that's basically... So all my lethargic bonobo NFTs aren't going too well. No, lethargic bonobo. Dang. I'm so curious to how that's all going to play out after watching that. Did you guys all end up watching that? We did, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we talked about that a bit, like how crazy in-depth that whole went with the imagery. What's up, Doug? From 17 billion to 466 million. That's it. Wow. Yeah. You're right, it was in the billions. Yeah, that's... That is insane. That's what... Speaking of companies that crush, so I was at the gym the other morning. I totally forgot to tell you guys, and where I go, it was really nice to have a nice shower, steam room, whatever.  And the guy next to me is like, oh, pulls his out. So I love that company.  I'm like, did he listen to Mind Pump? I'm like, where'd you find that? And he goes, oh, my buddy's been telling me about it. Bro, that company's blowing up. Oh, wow. I'm now seeing people like all over the place start to use it. And I remember when they were a little bit more obscure, when they first started working with us. So caldera, Pianify, Viori. I'm trying to think of however many companies. So there's a handful of companies that we gave them the ability to use our likeness for their ads and marketing. Yeah. And so I've had a couple people who... Ned did too.  Caldera did. And I think Viori, I think are the ones that did. I've had people now reach out of like, oh, my God, you guys are famous. This brand, I was just like, we've been partnering with that brand for like four years. Yeah, forever. Yeah, yeah. They just happen to be pushing us out on a commercial and they're probably putting tens of thousands of dollars behind it. So it's like getting millions of eyes on it. So now I've got a new wave of people in my circle that are like messaging me like, oh, my God, you guys are famous. Like I've seen... Saw you on Viori. I'm like, first of all, we were the first company Viori ever advertised with. And that was like five years ago. I said that we've been working with them because they put some ads out on Facebook. Well, when I was talking to the dude, I'm like, where'd you hear about Caldera? And he's like, oh, my buddy or whatever uses it. I'm like, oh, so... And then I told him about the podcast and how we got sponsored. And I said, did you use face products before? And he goes, no. I'm like, me neither. I'm like, but now I use it all the time. He goes, I know me too. My wife tries to steal it from me. I'm like, dude, my wife too. So, yeah. I'm so curious about that. How do they classify this men's hygiene products? Because you know how women, it's beauty products. That's really how they classify anything with your skin or anything to give you some kind of youthful appearance. But there's a lot more men out there that are admitting, oh, yeah, I'm rubbing stuff on this. Yeah, I don't know. What would they call it? Beauty. You used to call it beauty. No. You're beautiful. Yeah. I just think there's been a movement in this direction for like the last decade of. Reading dudes. And I really think it started on the, you know, metrosexual side, right? First it was like, if you were a metrosexual guy, if you're paying your toenails, or you did things like that, right? I don't know. That's a little past metro. Yeah, but we know why you did it, dude. So that's a different thing. But I mean, that's been a thing for over a decade now. And what I think is happening more than anything else is that guys that would not consider themselves metrosexual are like, okay, wait a second. There's no shame in me taking care of my face. Girls want to look good. So do guys want to look good. Old guys don't like wrinkles. Just like, old girls don't like wrinkles. It's like, I could be a masculine guy and still use a product that is going to help that. Like, I think that's just. You call it what you want. I literally, my wife steals mine and uses it. So she likes it.  No, I'm super consistent with that. Are you guys, do you ever like look at Nextdoor that website? We use it all the time. Okay. So do you read like a lot of the different things?   And you know, they're just on there to complain and like all the stuff. But every now and then you'll get like some alarming things like trends of things in your community or like in the cities, close by and all the stuff. And so like Courtney always brings these things up to me and then I go in there and I read and it's like, oh wow, is this like a thing? And then you read all these other comments and follow-ups and things. And so I'm like, I'm like here for PSA dude. Like I need to like put this out there because there's stuff that people should know about. Like for instance, so we just got a target opened up. And you know, we're like stoked.  And so now we have like a nice target that's just open. But I guess there's been a lot of reports of like young women that go in and are getting followed around by like, you know, two dudes and then they're finding out that like they have a van outside. And what they do is they park it like right next so they scope, you know, young women and they like park it right next to it. So basically they can open it up and throw them in and kidnap them. Hold on, is there somebody got kidnapped? Somebody got kidnapped. Oh my God. And like apparently this is like a trend that Target even knows about. And like Walmart's know about. Like this is a thing that like, like a lot of sex travelers do.  Why target Walmart? Why is that? Because you're kind of like, I don't know, you're looking around like, especially if it's a grand opening or like a store. Well, women love Target. That's a fact. Well, yeah, that too. Women love Target. So you're gonna go where they go. So that makes sense. Yeah. But that's crazy. Crazy.    Right. I swear to God.  Oh, that makes my heart. I know. I love that spinning wheel kick that guy did. Oh, do you see that? I have. Where he's running with the purse, he's getting blasted.  Yeah. I'll start a van that pulls up the van. I don't know if you should though, Justin. You might go too far. Probably should. Don't go to jail for it. We need Batman. Hey, check this out. You're not what you eat. You're what you digest. Now you lose digestive enzymes as you age. So if you don't have enough enzymes, you might only be absorbing 40% of the protein you're eating. That's a super big waste. Well, there's a company called Mass Zymes. These are enzymes designed to break down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates so that you utilize them for recovery, strength, and improve your digestion. That's a big one. If you have bloating, constipation, diarrhea, Mass Zymes can make a huge difference. Go check this company out. Go to masszymes.com. That's M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com forward slash mind pump. And then you use the code MindPump10 for 10% off any order. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. First question is from Patrick RunsLiftsEats. Thoughts on drop sets as a finisher? Okay. So first off, when someone says finish, what they mean is at the end of a workout. And I'm going to take that out of the question and really just talk about the value or non-value of a drop set because then we can talk about where you'd want to put it, the value of putting it at the end of the beginning of a workout. So essentially a drop set is when you do a set with an exercise until it gets real intense and then you drop the weight and then you do more reps. So it's like if I'm doing laterals and I'm using, let's say, 20 pound dumbbells and I do 10 reps and I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can get another rep and I drop them and then I grab 15 pound dumbbells and then I do maybe four or five more and then I can't anymore and I put those down and I go 10 pounds and so on.  They're high intensity builders. They're very intense. You get a good pump, easily abused. In other words, if you do these more than every once in a while, I think you'll over train. But I do like them as interrupters. I do like them as ways to kind of interrupt. They're an awful stimulus that you can use to really just shake things up. I mean, I can't imagine doing those for very long is going to produce that great result and gains. It's just too intense. They got really popular in the bodybuilding community. In fact, that's where this term comes from. It's like the finisher exercise where you can get in trouble or where I speak from experience, where I could get into trouble when I was training, kind of like this, is if I looked at my total, like let's say chest day and then the last exercise I love to do finisher would be cable flies and I would do things like this drop set and pump them out like crazy.  It's like I was actually spending almost a third of the time of my workout doing these finisher type exercises because the pump feels so amazing. And then I had to ask myself, like as far as building quality muscle, am I better off doing that 10 minutes of that finisher exercise, you know, pumping sets on this cable fly or would I have gotten more value from adding one to two more sets of the incline barbell press and the dumbbell press? And so I think that where you got to be careful is you start doing a lot of these finisher type exercises in your routine and you what it does is you just miss out on some of the bigger bang for your buck type of movements. And the other side is what you said too is that you tend to over tax. It's like you didn't need to, you know, it's like you already had a good solid six to eight sets already of this chest exercise that it's not necessary. If anything, you are just going to prolong the recovery of that and you should be hitting that muscle again in two or three days. And now when that's third day because you had to, you overdid it with this finisher, you now are going to go into that work less effective. You know what I like the drop sets for when I'm really limited on time? Yes. And I have like, I can only do one or two sets and then I'll make them real intense. I'll do it that way. I mean, and I love that because they remain novel for me because it doesn't happen that often where I'm like so confined, I only have a 20 minute workout or something like that. Obviously that's what I'm running right now but I'm saying in the past, you know, where I would only have 20 minutes and it's like, okay, this makes sense right now.  Like I never train that way. Here's a great time because I'm limited on time. That's how I like to do stuff like that. I mean, to me it's very similar to like just structuring something like a hundred rep exercise. Like I'm just trying to get through like maybe two or three exercises to do a hundred reps of. And it's just like, okay, that shakes it up. But that's not something I'm going to apply all the time. Yeah. And I will say that exercises that tend that lend themselves better to drop sets tend to be single joint. Doing a drop set with a compound lift. Ooh, that really is going to fry your body. And some exercises I would never, I don't want to say never, almost never do a drop set would be like a dead lift. A barbell squat even would be iffy. You can do presses with drop sets. But I like the isolation exercises for drop sets because they're so fatigue based that when your form. Your joints much better. Yeah. And your form starts to break down a little bit and compound lifts when your form breaks down a little bit the risk of injury goes up a lot. Whereas with the single joint exercise, if I'm swinging a little bit or my form goes off a little bit, it's not nearly as risky. So I don't necessarily like drop sets for compound lifts. See, I agree with that. But the problem, that's what ends up happening is what I was saying. Like, so you end up doing the tricep push down or cable curls. You're doing these kind of like, and it's like, and then I, when I look at maybe a week of training, it's like I've had all these. The junk volume. Yeah, exactly. I have all the, I have all these finisher exercises that I've done in the week. And it's like, and when I look at them, and I know the value of those in comparison to an overhead press, a barbell squat, it's like, man, would I have gained more or would I have gotten more value in the pursuit of building muscle, burning body fat, sculpting my physique, which is what I was in the business of, would I have gotten more value from doing a couple more sets of overhead press or deadlift and with that same time? And I think the answer is yes. Eight out of 10 times, yes. Right? There's a couple of times when the drop sets are good in novel, but I agree with you 100%, which is why I rarely ever program them in clients' workouts, rarely. And if I did, it was for the novelty effect, maybe to build a little stamina. Or the time thing. Or time. To me, time thing is, it makes the most sense. It's like, that's a great, it's a great tool. You can get great results from it. You know, use it when it applies. I'll do one, I'll probably do a drop set once a month. And it's usually with laterals. And it's usually when I have to do shoulders and I have like 10 minutes. That's it. Okay. So there's one more thing that we should add then, because this matters too, and we talk about this a lot. You know, it's novel, it's different, it's fun. So if there's this part of like, I want to shake my workout up. Yeah. You know, and do that. But the reason why it's important that we answer it the way we did at the beginning is just like, you're not getting more, in my opinion, or it's not more valuable then, or, and it could be better to do something potentially else. That doesn't mean that, you know, hey, it's fun to be creative with the workout sometimes and shift your mindset. You know who should look into drop sets? If you've already built a great physique and you've been working out for a long time consistently. But everybody else, the people who tend to be attracted to drop sets are the ones that are like, I'm trying to get in shape. I'm trying to get my body shape. I read this article. They're the ones that shouldn't be doing this. Yeah, or I saw this guy. Yeah. Next question is from N.M. Moose, 1992. What is your opinion of the decline bench? I have never added it to my programming. Am I missing out on something, or is it just a pointless movement if I'm doing flat and inclined bench presses? I feel this. Yeah. I think, I mean, all exercise, I guess have some value depending on how you're applying them. But the decline is an exercise. It's probably one of the least programmed exercises in the workouts I've ever designed. Yeah. I just, I think dips, if I'm going to do a movement where I'm pressing in that angle, I like body weight dips. I think they're superior. Yeah. A decline bench press.  Because it's easier. I think people like decline pressing because they can throw weight on the bar. That's a fact. I went through a period of my life for almost two years where I did decline bench. And it was the only period of my time or period of my life where I did that. And the sole reason why I like doing it was because I could put three plates on. I couldn't put three plates on at that point on a regular bench press, but I could do it on a decline. And so it was just to be able to lift more weight. And when I look back at like the results I got from it, the value they came just, I would, dips are way superior. Yeah. You could do a weighted dip. So you could load that plenty fine too. So you could do a weighted body weight dip. And the range of motion that you get in that in comparison to a decline bench, just you'll get all the same benefits as the decline bench press and more. And it's just funky. I've ever like, because the gym I used to work out at had your flat bench, had your incline, then had the decline kind of all. And so you just, you thought you had to hit it, you know, one, then the next, then the next. And I remember just working out like that forever.  And really, I just never really felt like I was getting a whole lot out of the decline at all. Like it just felt like a weird exercise. And I'm like, you know, like getting blood rushing to my head and then started to focus more on depths. And I had a lot more development as a result. It's one of the worst exercises too to fail at a lift. You know, if you fail at a bench press and it's sitting on your chest, that could be a little scary unless you know how to. Oh my God. Yeah, that coming down to your neck. Oh yeah, dude. Like I've seen people, I had to run over and help somebody once because it was like rolling up and down towards his neck.  Yeah, if I'm trying to target that part of my chest, I'm doing a cable fly or I'm doing dips. I just think that you get way more value. Plus, I mean, a regular bench press with good form is going to hit the lower chest already pretty well. So from an aesthetic standpoint, I don't see a huge value. Next question is from lift4carbs. How do you know if you've reached your natural potential for hypertrophy? Don't we have a calculator for this? Yeah, there are calculators and it's based off of like top natural lifters and all that stuff. But there's still estimates. Yeah, I mean, it gives you a pretty good idea. It's like the argument of the body fat test and all these things. It's like, okay, it's not perfect. So they're talking about muscle size? Yeah, for building. Okay, so the reason why I picked this question is I think it's a silly question. Because you're... That's why you picked it. Yes, because here's why it's silly. I want to tell you it's silly. Well, you know, because I used to think about this. I used to think about this all time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like once I understood genetics and I understood like, oh, I'm never going to look like Arnold. I would think like, what's my natural potential for hypertrophy? Yeah. Okay, so here's the deal. You have a natural potential for maximum muscle growth, but then you also have a potential for optimal muscle growth for health. And if you work out long enough and you know how to put your supplements and your food intake and optimize everything towards muscle growth, at some point, you can get to the point where you build more muscle than is optimal for muscle growth. So I know we talk all the time about how building muscle is healthy and it is. And for the average person, build as much muscle as you can. But if you're obsessed about it like I am, I've gotten to points where I've built, Pat, I've gotten to the point where I've hit my natural potential and realized I'm just too big for my body. I'm realizing that right now. Like when my body gets above 200, 205 at, you know, like 70% body fat. So I'm really very lean, but when I get above 205 at this body fat, it just doesn't feel good. I snore. I don't feel as mobile. My body feels, it just doesn't feel as good. So you have your natural max, but do you really want to get there and stay there? I don't know. Is that ours, Doug? That is ours. Yes. We have a steroid guy for a muscular potential calculator. We can blame the marketing team for that one. I can say it's like the muscular potential calculator. That dude doesn't look natural to me at all. Hey, Doug, can you scroll down? Nothing natural. It allows you to input your height, your weight, your. So, okay. An enist ankle body fat. An even more generic answer for this person that I can't see is, you probably haven't reached it, bro. I mean, the likelihood, and even if you've reached it, you probably not at it at this moment. Like I just feel like I've been doing this for over 20-something years, pretty damn consistent at pretty high levels. And I still see improvement in areas. So there's just. But you've reached that too, though, that point that I said, right? Where you can, you'll hit that potential and just realize it's just not best for your frame. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, that's where we're similar. In fact, I think it was me who was really pointing that out to you earlier on was just that I, my body does not want to be a certain weight.  And even if it's good mass, even if it's all muscle, it doesn't matter just that it feels unnatural for my skeletal structure. And my frame is not designed to walk around at 240. It just isn't. Whether it's 240 and fat or 240 and ripped, it don't really matter. It matters. It's a difference, right? But it's still not ideal. What were the measurements on there, Doug, that it's asking for on the calculator? Yeah, it's a height, wrist, ankle, body fat. So what you do is you go on this. And what's the site? You just search map fitness products and muscular potential calculator. So you go like mine pump, muscular potential calculator. Yeah, so you enter those in and it's based off of a formula that was based off of some of the top natural bodybuilders and strength athletes. And so it's going to give you this general number. Doesn't mean you'll be able to hit it because this means you'd be doing everything perfect and the context of everything is ideal. But it does give you. And I think it's relatively accurate. I don't remember what mine was. I don't remember mine yet, but I do remember when I did it. It didn't seem way off. Exactly. It seemed like, oh, okay. I could see that about right. So it seems. Have you ever done one before, Justin? No. Yeah, you don't really care. Justin's potential is 320. Justin has no idea. Justin's like, I didn't even know we had that. He's like, I don't care. He's that gorgeous man up there. Where's our PR? Next question is from fitwitry. What's the best way to deal with social situations where you're more fitness, nutrition focused than other people in your circle and they may demonize you for how you go about your way of living? Oh, God. Just don't let it affect you. Look, here's a deal. I'm going to quote someone else right now, but in a world gone wrong, doing, you know, speaking the truth or doing things the right way means you'll necessarily trigger people around you. So if you eat healthy and you exercise regularly, the odds are if you're in a group of people because the average person doesn't do that, you're going to be the weirdo. So you got to be okay with it. Don't let it bother you. This was, I went through this a lot with my family as a kid in which by the way, strengthened me to where to the point where, because if you can deal with your family, then you go in social circles and I don't care.  No, I'm not going to do that. Yes, I need more of this meat. No, I'm going to go work out for two hours. Like my whole family thought I was crazy. My mom thought I was, you know, you're going to go to hospital, what's going to happen here. But, and I had to just constantly push it and fight it. So you just got to be confident in what you're doing and accept the fact that you're going to hang out. Most people you hang out with aren't going to get it. It's just the way it is.  Like they pull their six pack bags out on the, you know, the restaurant table and, you know, could I get someone to microwave this? And then, I never went that far. So I think that there's, I think there's the other side of this too.  Yeah, a little self-righteous about it. And I think that's also why, so why I'm bringing this up to this person is I, for me, I'm always like, I know where you're going. I see where you're going. I'm always going to look at myself first and like, you know, are the things that I can do to make them feel more comfortable, right?  But then I'm always trying to think like, you know, does it come off that way? Like that I'm like, oh, I'm better than you, or look how fit I am because I do these things and you guys don't have the discipline to say no to that. And so I'm really careful about that. Like, and can I do this in a discreet way where I don't make them feel uncomfortable I don't draw any more attention to myself and then I still get to live my life the way I want to live my life and make the food choices I want to make. So that's first and foremost that I would ask myself that. And then the other thing is like, if I'm not competing, which I haven't been for a very long time, these are the times when I actually break bread with them.  So I could eat at almost any restaurant and find pretty healthy choices on the menu It's the difference between them people saying, Hey, you guys want to go eat pizza? And then you reply and you go, No, no, no, thanks.  Yeah. He doesn't even make everybody else feel right. I see what you're saying. Yeah, it's all about the language. And I think that's too, when you're around family, friends that, you know, are going through it. And I think that's really what it is, is like, Oh, that food's not like, that's not going to work for me. You know, that's not good.  I can't have this or, you know, I can't because I'm on such a great path right now. You know, and they just did. That's a good point. It's really about how you present yourself. I mean, it comes out to me. I, you know, I want to say that I feel like I, that's why I understand some of the people that you'd all, you know, mean about it and make you feel guilty about it because it's exactly, that's a reflection of how you're- But there are cases where- What they are, they're 100% there is the other, because listen, I was that. I went through this, okay? I went through this for years, consistently where I had to bring Tupperware to every family barbecue and event. Right. And I remember this process of, you know, not giving a fuck, I'm going to bring my six pack back, I'm going to do it. And then getting to the point where like, Oh, that just draws way too much attention to me. I don't like that. And I don't want to turn it into like making me feel, you feel guilty. And then it turned into what you were saying, Sal, which is I just like, Oh, no, I'm fine. No, thank you. And the only way they would even know I brought my food is if they continued to push and be like, Why aren't you eating? And I'd be like, I brought my own food. It's no big deal. You know, like, and downplay it like that. Versus again, you know, throwing it in their face, making them feel guilty. I had one, I had one time, I'll never forget this. And I kind of regret how I reacted, kind of part of me is like, man, he deserved it. But I had this, this, one of my cousins married this guy. So he's cousin through marriage. And we were at a family function.  And he kept rousing me about it. What's the big deal, bro? You can just have one's not going to mess you up. Come on, have a beer.  He said, come on, your abs aren't going to disappear after one time or whatever. Anyway, finally I got mad and I walked over and I lifted a shirt and slapped them in the belly. And I said, this is why. And he was silent. Now I feel kind of bad about it. But he was on me all night long about the whole thing.   I mean, that's just kind of how that goes. So slap your friends in the belly. Yeah. I mean, it kind of reminds me a little bit of the like, when you have that friend who's like, they just got saved by Jesus. And now they're like, they're Bible Thumper everywhere they go. And it's just like, it can become obnoxious. So again, if I'm this person asking this question, I'm always thinking about myself and the things I can't control. Well, if you really want to convert people to eating healthier, the best way to do it. Just model it, man. Yeah. It did be comfortable with it. Confident and comfortable with it. I was like, I'm just doing this for me. Yeah. Like that's, that's it. Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have slapped him in the belly. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal and they cost nothing at all. Again, it's mindpumpfree.com. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. This one's really important. And that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did a bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps, but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of, let's say, 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets, at the end of that year, you're going to see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out. And less injury. That's another thing. You'll see less injury as well.