If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump. Mind pump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, for the first 45 minutes, we do our introductory. Or maybe 55. Conversation. Yeah, I dug it right down. A little bit longer. We talk about my training experiment. Over the weekend, I may have uncovered the holy grail of games.  You have to listen to the episode to find out. Yeah, one of those two. All day training. We talk about Justin's tree house. It's a new TV show for children. Starring, no, he's actually building a tree house in the backyard. I want a cool theme song. Yeah, he's winning the Dad of the Year Award. I need to start doing better. Then we talk about the, there's a lot of controversy over this weekend. CrossFit is letting transgender athletes compete in the gender that they identify with. Wow. This is a big deal. CrossFit with the CrossFit news, man, the last couple of weeks. Yeah, let's say, we give our opinions on that. Sure, we'll rub some people the wrong way. But we'll see what happens there. Then we talk about Adam's protein supplementation regime. He does have a regime. And he does like to use Organifi protein powder. Now Organifi makes organic supplements. One of them is a protein powder that's plant-based that has no artificial sweeteners or colors in it. Just all the good stuff. That's right. You go to organifi.com forward slash mind pump and enter the code mind pump.  Then we get into the questions. The first question was, what is a good approach for fat loss after you've done a reverse diet? Afterwards. After reverse cowgirl. The second question, another question Justin had a lot of input on. Yeah, I love these questions. How do you create a better relationship with food and stop binging or constantly thinking about food? I wine and dye in my food. That's it. The third question was, can we talk about oral health and its connection to overall health?  We explain why. Yes, be careful what you put in your mouth. That's it, Adam. And the final question, do we feel it's necessary to follow a non-compete contract when you quit one place to train at another? Justin shares his story and you figure you end up finding out why his nickname is Dr. Integrity. He's got lots of integrity. Hey. That's right. Also, this month, MAPS Performance, this is our functional athletic-based fitness program. This one's great.  Adam's looking at me wondering what the hell I'm talking about. An ancient athlete, look at the old carvings of the Greek statues, these Greek gods, they looked balanced, they looked muscular, they looked like they could jump, run, swim, and lift, and wrestle. They were not wearing screams. Do you think they really looked like that or do you think like sculptures are like Instagram now today? Maybe. Photoshopped and Valencian up. Maybe. That's a valid point. Maybe. Valencian up. Definitely Valencian. That's my favorite filter. Nonetheless, MAPS Performance, MAPS Performance is designed to get to those types of goals. It's a long program. I think it's one of our longest programs. There's four phases in it if you're advanced. It's pretty awesome. It's half off, 50% off the normal price. I don't think we've ever done a MAPS Performance 50% off sale. We have not, nope. Here's what you gotta do though, you gotta go to mindpumpmedia.com and you have to use the discount code green50, that's all one word and it's 50, the number 50. So it's green, number 50. Also on that site, you can find all of our bundles like our Super Bundle, which is a year of exercise program. It's a whole year planned out for you. So you can find all of our bundles and the 50% off MAPS Performance with the discount code green50 at mindpumpmedia.com. T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time. Oh yeah. Give us some shirts. We had 21 reviews. Okay, okay. And we're giving out six shirts. Hey, you know what? Are these the reviews that would have came in after all of our Bishop Baron people? No. Okay, so it'd be the next one. No, next round, I'm sure. Let's up to see what those are. Yeah, I know, that's what I'm curious to know. Great information. Oh my God, I had to put earmuffs on though. Yeah. So the six winners are MJFD79, Ella Bagouli, 22, the Real Dog, KMGOG, T1734, and Sharpen the Sword. All of you are winners, send the name I just read and your shirt size and address to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com and we'll get that shirt right out to ya. I've told you guys that I've been kind of, I've been maintaining like a weight, right? I really haven't. Yeah.  You know, it's like, we're on this challenge, we're on this. You don't see the scale change? Yeah. Yeah, I hate that.  Yeah, I'm right there. And so I had this, you know, I was, oh man, should I just cut hard for a few days or a week or like that? Like wanting to, wanting to see some good movement on the scale and in the mirror, like a big difference. It's crazy how long I've been doing this for and how many times I've got shredded and like how many times I have to do the self talk. And luckily yesterday I was lifting and I haven't lifted with my belt in a little while.  Yeah, there was a significant difference in my belt and I was like, oh, I have changed it. Yeah, I know. Oh, thank God. You know what I'm saying? Like you don't do tape measurements when you monitor it, it's all pictures. Yeah, I just, I just look and you know, like that just the tape measure thing. Well, I mean, if I hadn't set up in my bathroom, maybe I'll do that. I know Doug was saying that he did that. I'm totally not against that. I think that's a great, a great tool to do that. Yeah, I had kind of a moment with that because I was getting a little frustrated with my strength gains, you know, like just cutting down and like losing weight and all that. I started doing body weight exercises downstairs with my kids and I was starting to do stuff with the rings again that I couldn't do, you know, for a long time because like just my joints hurt and my elbows and my shoulders hurt.  For sure. That's 100% the reason. But yeah, now I was like going through all the old stuff that I used to do like it was fucking. Oh, my God, I felt great. You feel good.  Really? Yeah, you're welcome. My DMs are already hard to keep up with. Like, and I apologize for those that I finally got back to that I think we're sitting in my, some of them are sitting there for at least five, six days. People giving you advice on how to cure your bald. No, no, no, actually, a lot of people were interested in what it was, you know. What was that? What was the, what was the brand or what was that thing or what were you using? And so I had an extra probably 50 DMs this last week of just straight about balding against the walking infomercial. It's all right, we all have one bad trait. I mean, if we combined each other, we'd be terrible, right? Fat bald and you know, whatever, you'd have a bad one. Anyway, dude, this weekend. Ugly, I'll say. We didn't get yours there, you go. I mean, real quick to point out. Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Makes something up, you know. It's pretty tough because. I glossed over the fat. Yeah, it's so awesome. Fat bald and handsome, you know what I mean. Too bad. Did you do this weekend? I did my training experiment. Tell us, please. I was so excited to hear this. Bro, so for the listeners who didn't listen to the last episode where I kind of broke down what I was doing. So I did this with Jessica and we have a garage gym, so it works out well for us. But what we did is we, every hour starting at, now it was gonna start at 7 a.m., but we ended up starting a little later. I started at 9 a.m. Because I wanted to go into this with really good sleep. And I wanted to control all the factors so that really the only thing that I could, I could, you know, I guess, judge was the workout itself. I don't want to go into it not sleeping that well or having a diet. Exactly, I wanted to test it out. And you know, so it was perfect. So we started at 9 a.m.  So 9 a.m., 11 a.m., basically every other hour I did the same workout. And what I did was is I picked three exercises and I did five reps of three sets of every exercise. And the weight that I picked was, I guess, moderate intensity. Yeah, well, tell us what exercises and what weight you picked. So what I did was I tried, because I figured that would be the hardest part would be picking the weight because you want it to be easy enough to be able to do this all day, but you don't want it to be too easy and you don't want it to be too hard because you want to be able to, I wanted to be able to maintain the same throughout the, because I want to walk the next day. Yeah, well, not only that, my idea behind this was that I was be training my central nervous system the entire time. It's the same movement, same weight each time and do observe what the effects were. So I did, I picked squats, bench press and barbell rows. I didn't do deadlifts because I didn't want to squat in deadlift and in the same dirt all day. And because deadlifts in my experience and, you know, maybe you guys feel the same way, it's one of the most difficult exercises to do a shit ton of volume of frequency and it tends to break your body down more than any other exercise. So I did squats, barbell row and bench press and the weights that I picked was I did 225 for squats. So I tried to pick a weight that I thought would be challenging to do, you know, 13, 14 reps for each exercise and I would pick like, you know, something to do five with, right? So I did barbell squats, 225. I did 185 for bench press and I did 185 for barbell row. How much are you wrapping all three of those? I'm only doing five reps, three sets. Now in hindsight, I should have gone heavier with my bench and definitely with my row, but that's okay. It was a first time squat I think was about right. So what I thought would happen was that I would go into the day, do my first workout.  Hone in on me. Were you right or no? And then towards the end of the day, I thought I would get fatigued and whatever. Exactly what happened. It was so weird. I have the notes that I wrote for the workout that I wrote down, but so I started. So I'll tell you kind of the first thing. So first thing I did was I ate four egg yolks, some bacon and some gluten-free cereal. So what the goal was, I want some cholesterol in my blood.  And the other part of this was I wanted to fuel my body the entire time because I figured I may be really sending a loud anabolic signal and I want to maximize it. And cholesterol is used quite a bit to repair and rebuild. So throughout the day, that's kind of the theme was cholesterol, some carbs and some protein. Now did you eat the same meal throughout the day? No, I changed it. So the first workout I wrote down, I felt tight and I picked the weights I felt would be challenging enough. Then I did workout two. Mobility much better, felt stronger on all lifts. Workout three, felt even stronger.  By the time I got to workout three, I'd get under the bar and I just whoop, whoop, whoop. And it felt like I'd taken no joke, 15, 20 pounds off the bar. It was really trippy by the third workout. Fourth workout, I still felt pretty strong, but I could tell I was starting to get a little bit tight, a little bit tighter. I wasn't as good as a third workout. That's when I had some chicken, some broccoli, I had some cherries. Then, oh, and then I threw in some egg yolks with the protein shake. And then Jessica and I, you know, we had, in between these sessions, we were doing work, like business type work. And I was writing, and one thing that I noticed is it really sparked incredible creativity and focus. I was eight, because I was active and then I'd sit down and write, it was like taking breaks and then when I'd come back, I was really sharp. So this is another strategy is, you know, if you ever have a day of just working, it may be a good time to combine the two because you get a lot done. So I wrote a 2,500 word guide that we'll end up, you know, putting together and it'll be available for free soon. But it was a really good guide and I wrote it like faster and more, I guess more, what's the word, focus than I- Insight. Yeah, it was really, really good. So that was interesting. Then we did a hike in between workout four and workout five. That might have been a mistake. Might have been a mistake to do the hike because we did a 45 minute hike. It was hot. I'd been working out all day. I started to feel my joints start to get a little inflamed and my left knee started bothering me a little bit. And now, this is before I did this workout, my left knee got a little bit inflamed and it has to do with my ankle because my left ankle- Did you go like hike a place? Like we just go up here. Oh yeah. Dude, you're supposed to just take a stroll. Yeah, well- That's all I wanted you to do. Well, you know why? Because I was feeling so good.  You know what I mean? And that's a learning lesson, right? Yeah, that's typical. So we did the hike. We came back. Then we did the fifth workout. Jessica chose dead lifts, which I thought might not be the best exercise. I was right. She started to feel her back a little tweaked. So she couldn't do anymore after she did like one or two sets and she's like, I'm done. I'm not gonna do the third one. I was doing my workout and I was feeling stiff. Like I started feeling stiff. Then I laid down to take a nap, took a nap, woke up, start feeling really stiff, did some stretches and decided to stop at five. So five was for me for that day. I only did five. I had planned about six or seven, but I stopped at five, which is a total of, let's see, five times three. So it's 15 sets of every exercise throughout the day, same way. And you did three. So you did 45 sets. Total, total. And I've never done 15 sets of squats in one day. I've never done that before. I've just squats, right? Or I've just rows or I've just- So I thought to myself, like this is gonna be interesting to see what happened. Now, here's the other part that's weird. Throughout the day, I started feeling like more pumped. Like my muscles were feeling kind of fuller and bigger. And I thought, you know, maybe I'm imagining things and see what happens tomorrow. Wake up the next day for sure, dude. I go put on my sweats. They feel a little tighter. My legs are rubbing together a little bit. I grew. I grew a little bit of muscle. I don't think it's inflammation because my soreness is remarkably lower than I thought. That's the other shocking thing that I was wrong on. I thought I'd be hammered the next day, but no, I wasn't hammered at all. Now, here's the crazy thing. Imagine if I had done the same workout, but all together. Imagine I did 15 sets of squats, 15 bench and 15 sets of rows all in two or three hours. Lots of damage.  But because I spread it out the way I did, it's a way of- It's a way of increasing your volume right there without like in one workout and spreading it out so you can actually recover and do it again. Yes, because- Because I thought this might be like a once a month thing, but you could potentially maybe do this once a week. You know what? I'm maybe, you're right. That's something I'm gonna start playing. I mean, it's a lot of commitment, right? Like that's- It's like a whole day around that. So that's tough for most people. After you did it, I thought this would be cool to do this and start doing this at least once a month, commit myself to doing something similar. I really like it. The only thing I think I would do different is I would walk, you know. Like light stroll. Yeah, like a real light stroll after that. Maybe we should do that as part of our practice one of the days, you know what I mean? We podcast, then we go work out, then we do business work, then we work out, and we do like a whole day like that. Dude, why not? That would be cool to do- Right? Scheduled whole day together. Just for us to do that. Yeah, and I'm telling you guys- I would love it. It is a total, it is an absolute trip on how you feel and I thought I'd be slammed. And here's the thing, when you're trying to build muscle, what are you always negotiating? What are you always balancing? Damage with the muscle building signal. It's always, it's like a, you know, it's always a- Inverse relationship. Yeah, and it's just something you have to contend with.  But you always have to balance it to- That's where the anabolic steroids come in. Exactly.  Today, I go, so yesterday I took off, so yesterday I didn't work out at all and we just went to the beach and relaxed and laid out all day long. I figured the sun would be good for recovery. Did you go to refuge? No, we actually just went to a Capitola and just laid out- You opened my area and you didn't hit me up? No, no, we wanted to be alone. I got a little too much sun though, dude. I got a little, believe it or not, a little burn. No sunscreen, bro, four or five hours in the sun. Look at that, Justin. That's what you look like after 10 minutes. I don't know, yeah. I get really red though. I'm lobstered out. But yeah, it's pretty trippy and I think this may be an effective way to dramatically increase volume and frequency and signal while modifying or mitigating damage is just doing this, you know, spreading out the whole day. So, I don't know, man, it's interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. You know what, did you happen to total up? Cause you would be great to see like the total volume. Cause another thing you did also do that you have to take into consideration is you significantly lowered the weight from what you would do five reps normal. Cause if you were lifting like a normal workout, I know you would do more than 225 for five squats. Like that's just, I know you can do more than that. Same thing probably with bench and then with row. So that's, so figuring out what the total volume is. See what that looks like. And see what that looks like. Now I think, now here's the other thing. If I did 15 sets straight of all those exercises with that weight for five reps, oh, I think I would have started failing at the end. Even though it's light, imagine doing 15 sets of squats, five reps, 225, 15 sets of whatever, right? It would have been challenging. No, no, that's extremely challenging. One of the things I used to always do when I get back to training, like first leg day was literally 10 sets a 10 of 135 of squats. Yeah, exactly. And that's more brutal than you think it is. Like, if you haven't lifted it in a while, like it would just be me being off for a few weeks or a month. And then going back to legs, like doing 135, 10 for 10, 10 sets of 10 is brutal. So there's two variations of this that I'm gonna do next. One variation is I'm gonna do singles. So I'm gonna pick a heavy weight that I can do for moderate intensity for a single where I'm gonna feel it, but not, it's not my max. So that's the next thing I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this all day long with singles. My opinion is my theory is that I'll be able to do more workouts that way because it's just less reps, right? Then the second variation is I'm gonna pick auxiliary type bodybuilding, like pumping type movements and then do the same thing and then keep the reps in the 12 rep range. So go and do like, you know, like flies for chest and really get a good pump and pick like maybe four exercises and do a higher volume bodybuilding type of thing. Yeah, I wonder if you did that, like the singles, if you would get closer to your PR and then even exceed your PR just because of being so like consistently driving that signal and then like towards, you know, the middle of the day you did a few workouts in like, I bet you could lift a substantial amount, right?   So I did the workout and it only took me 25 to 30 minutes to do the workout just enough time to change the bar, whatever.  Then I'd have an hour and a half of nothing. So I'm just sitting there writing. You would think that I'd have to get under the bar, kind of warm up like I did the first time I did it because I always prime and I was like, no man, get under the bar, boom. And it was like, whoa, this is weird. Like this is really, and it got better and better. And then it started declining after about the fourth one. So kind of interesting, right? It's really interesting. I think it'd be kind of, I think I love Justin's idea of us like scheduling that. I think that'd be cool to schedule all of this. We'd be productive as hell. Yeah. That part I liked, you know? How long did it take you then to knock out the guy? Bro, like I said, did it in like an hour and a half. Oh wow. Yeah, like, and it was an hour and a half on fire. It wasn't like, I went back and read it and I was like, oh, this is, this is really good. I was very concise. Jessica too, she did a bunch of stuff for some stuff that she's doing. And she was like, I feel very focused. And it's cause you're moving. And what does Paul check always say in between sets, do something creative in between sets to get the, you know, parasympathetic, sympathetic at the brain to, you know, go into the creative. Right. Left brain, yeah. Yeah, so I don't know. It's pretty interesting. So when you started at nine, where did you, so what time did you finally finish? What is it? I did nine, 11, one, three and five. Okay. So five o'clock. So nine to five. Full days of work. Yeah. Basically. Yeah, no, that's cool. Basically. Yeah, it's, I think that would be a reasonable thing for us to do as a work day once a month easily because then it's like a nine to five and then all day long we just do it. You know, I think it could be a thing I really do. I know there's a lot of people listening right now that are hardcore. Tell you what, if I was, you know, 18 year old, 19 year old kid listening to a podcast.  Exactly. Like how cool would it be to break up your studying with these little short workouts if you have access to it? You know what I would have done?  So productive. Become so productive. Then you lose your wifi password. You know what I mean? You gotta log in once. Exactly. Hey, what happened? You shot down your idea, bam. Is that true that at coffee shops, you can only log in once? Yeah.  They time you out. Well, a lot of them do. I didn't know that. Maybe some of them do.  I go all the time. Yeah, that's why I like, I make sure, like I don't like, I try to do everything offline as long as I can. Cause sometimes I'll stay there for a long time. Even if you say something to them, they'll still tell you, oh, I'm sure. If you get, if you talk to them, I'm just saying they get times out. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Dude, tell us about your, you were telling me this morning, then you stopped about your, the work you're doing on the tree house. Yeah. So this weekend, I had started, I started the work on the tree house. So I went and got all the lumber and everything and put some of the skeleton of it and the framing of it and worked on that. And so I got both boys involved and they were like super excited about it. But like the thing was they really wanted to help. So I was like trying my best. Like I'm really not good at slowing down when I'm in work mode. And I've been really trying to work on this because I remember as a kid, like I always wanted to help my dad. Like if he was working on something or like doing something with the car, like I'm like, Hey, teach me like, like all this stuff. And so I just decided, I'm like, you know what? This is like a very impressionable time. And this is for them. So I'm going to really try and include them in the process. And so I'm like unloading everything. And I could do it like four or five of these, you know, pieces of wood at a time and throw it over my shoulder and get it up there and like get it done. But I just decided that like my youngest, he's five years old and he's like, I want to help dad, I want to help. I'm like, all right, let me figure this out. So I would just grab one plank at a time and like he holds the front of it.  And he's like, and we're going up the stairs together and he's just like, yeah. Literally you did that with every single piece of, he wasn't complaining. He was going out and getting out. No, yeah, he went with me every single time. It took about 25 minutes to unload my truck. But you know, he felt so good about it. He's like, yeah, like I helped you dad. I'm like, yeah, you did, bud. Dude, you know what that's going to do, right? When, you know, because he's going to have tree houses in the back and anytime you give something to a kid, you like to see them take pride in it and take care of it because he feels like he's helped you. I bet he'll take better pride and care. Ownership of it. Yeah, like, hey, don't write on my tree house. I helped build that one, you know what I mean? When his buddies come over and stuff. Yeah, exactly, dude. Yeah, so I have it all like, I got all the blueprints. I spent time with my dad really drawing it up. So I'm just, I'm getting better too about like tackling like parts of things at a time and not just being like my normal self where I have like this like elaborate design of everything.  I'm like, no, I'm just building the platform first. That's it, you know? It's a Millennium Falcon. Oh man. Replica.   Oh, this is a place to hide so you can fire. Exactly, dude. I'm like, I can make it way more fun by doing this. And so, and my brother already has, he had like, I found out, I thought he built a tree house.  I found out he paid for some guys to build it.  I thought for a second, it like got my ego.  So. That's what I would do. I just hire someone. Am I hiring Justin? Absolutely. No way, I'm not for hire at all.  And when I sold my house and moved in with her, like I got rid of, I totally purged and got rid of so much of my stuff, including any sort of tools or anything I had around the house when I moved in with her. So, and I'm like, I openly admit, I'm not Mr. Handy. Like we joke about this all the time. I can't screw in a light bulb. But I mean, I've also been a bachelor since I was 17 years old and lived my own for a long time. So very capable of doing all these things, right? I just don't like to openly admit that.  And my dad worked construction. So when my dad worked construction many summers, I worked with him. So I know how to use all those tools, right? So now we're in our own place. And I'm like, and it's just her and I and we got a new thing and we're setting everything all up. So I swung by and picked up like all these tools. She comes home and she sees me like working on the house. She's like, where's this? Where did this come from? Who's this guy? I didn't even know you knew how to do that. Like, whatever, dude.  Yeah, exactly. You're wearing a tool belt. She's like, oh my God. Women love that, you know what I mean? They love it when you fix stuff. Dude, that is the move.  How's it going? What are you doing in there? To hang a picture.  To go hang a picture. You walk away quickly. It's this big. You don't even do anything. What? No, to hang a picture. I can't eat by 10 pictures on the wall.  Either that or a cowboy hat, one or two. Yeah, I put together something from, what's that? Ikea. That's what I did the other day. Awesome. Ikea is an even required tool.  They're so flimsy and shitty. Maybe the little Elinridge, that's about it, right? Yeah, the little Elinridge, which I save for some reason. I don't know why I always save those. Those Elinridge. Yeah, there was more.  Hey, did you guys see the CrossFit news? Yeah, yeah, you sent that over. That was very interesting. So they're allowing.  They're allowing transgender athletes to compete in the category that they identify with. So if you're a biological male, but you identify as a female, you can now qualify for, or you can compete in the female category, and vice versa. I would love to see all the description in the, like, everything they have to outline. Yeah, what constitutes identify with? Right, exactly. Do you have to look? Exactly, could Justin sign up and be like, I identify as a woman? Like, no, I feel like a girl, so I'm going to compete against the girls. Yeah, I don't know, dude. I'm not quite sure of what the, you know, maybe Doug can read this article and look it up for us while we're talking, but it's. Can you still have a thing? Yeah, that's what I mean. No, I don't think you have to have a sex change. I don't think you have to be, yeah, I don't think that's the case. But we should look it up just to double it. Here's a thing. Are you starting to see now? Very interesting. You mentioned this to us over the weekend. I haven't, like, dug into it and looked at, like, is there going to be, is there a blowback from other athletes right now? I mean, if I'm a chick, I'm pissed right now. I mean, I would imagine, right? If I've been competing in CrossFit for the last three or four years as a female, and a born female, right?  Yeah, here's, I think CrossFit is, okay, because what just happened? What just happened before this? I think they should be able to compete, but you just competed what you were born in. How would it is? Sorry. Look at what just happened. You just had athletes banned for four years. Okay, what's her name? Got banned for four years for having a minuscule. Yeah, the slightest amount. Microscopic amount of a. Sarm or peptide. Of a secretogog, peptide or something in her blood, right?  In the same week, they now say, hey, you can take testosterone or whatever, or natural genetics that we're gonna make you probably stronger, and we'll let you compete. I don't understand this. Yeah, how are they gonna manage and monitor that? Well, look, here's the bottom line. Because a female that is now identifying as a male, I guess that wouldn't matter as much, right? So it's, we're, You're not gonna see any of them, and you're not gonna see them.  They're not gonna, no. Yeah, but. Hey, look, here's a deal, okay? Because I know people are getting mad right now, okay?  We've lost our minds. It's okay to be logical. It's okay to be objective. For sure, every single human being, every person, every individual should be treated with a level of respect, and should be judged on their actions, for sure, okay? But there's a reason why in sports, there's a male and female category. Otherwise, erase it. They're biologically different. Erase it, have everybody compete together. But there's a reason, some of it has to do with testosterone, but some of it has to do with the fact that males have a different genes, and that also makes us bigger and stronger. So not just testosterone, it just isn't. If you took a guy and took him off testosterone, look, Adam's testosterone levels were zero for a while when he went off steroids, still stronger than the average woman. Still much stronger than the average woman, even with zero testosterone.  This is the case with, because what you're gonna see that happens is you're gonna see men who would have never ranked in competition as men who are gonna move over and going through all the hormone therapy and whatever, and shutting down, fine, you're off testosterone, you're on Nestrogen, whatever, they're gonna go in this female category and you're gonna start seeing them kick ass at this thing, just because genetically speaking, men are, you know, we're bigger and stronger, and it's not just testosterone. There's genes that- There's money on the line, there's sponsorship. I don't know, it's just gets, it's so gray. Like, I'm just so curious to see if they decided to do this, right? But like, how do you handle all the impending questions? Like, what's the right amount that you're gonna tolerate as far as adding hormones and like, where's the line? It's just interesting because now, all of a sudden, that line is so obscure. Like, I don't know how you're gonna be able to manage that. I think there's gonna be a little bit of blowback. I don't know if this is necessary. I know that the Olympics have their own policy now. You know, that's similar to this. And I mean, look, CrossFit's a private organization, they can do whatever they want. So they can say anybody, and I'm okay with that. I'm not saying we should make laws or whatever. No, I can. Do whatever you, yeah, for sure. I just think it's a silly move. I do, I don't know. I think there's, I mean, it would make sense to me if there was like a third category, right? Like, you could compete if you were like transgender and you could compete against other transgender. Yeah, because you do have real advantages.   You know, but if you take the 1,000 most strongest women in the world and the 1,000 most strongest men in the world, there's no competition, because at that level, when you go to the extreme ends of the spectrum, you know, we just have these genetic advantages. Now, if you go in the middle, yeah, of course, I could take the top female crossfit competitor. Look, we just did some film with a female strongman competitor in our facility, what's her last name? Kristen, I can't remember her last name. Graham? Graham. She's stronger than most men, for sure. The girl can deadlift 425, but if you compare her against strong men who are at her level, there's no close, not even close. So it's gonna be, here's the thing, I'm surprised women haven't been up in arms about this, because if I was a female competing, I'd be... Maybe that's because there's not a lot of men that are changing into women that are wanting to compete in crossfit. Maybe it's more likely the other way around. I think you're gonna see it. I think you'll see more. Do you think so? I absolutely do. Well, I wouldn't bet against you on that, because I mean, we know what athletes that want to be the best, right? That wanna win a gold, that wanna be considered the fittest in the world as a crossfitter, we know what they're willing to sacrifice in order to be that. So that being said, I know people that would potentially change their sex just a little bit. It's interesting because you've already seen, we've mentioned the MMA fighter that did this, but also there's that powerlifter down in Australia, I believe. Yeah, it was like smashing all the records that previous women had before, but it's just like, it's just, come on, man. It used to be like, not just a guy, like a huge burly guy changing into a female. Well, if it doesn't... Why wouldn't we just keep a separate category? Because it's political correctness run awry. It's literally... So crazy. We wanna be so, it's virtue signaling. We wanna be so inclusive that what we're gonna do is we're gonna do things that are illogical. It just, look, here's the deal. If it's logical, show me all the transgender women that are dominating incompetent. You're not, like I'm talking about, excuse me, transgender men, right? Like women who were born biological women, then who go and compete against men. Show me that category and show me how they're gonna dominate. They won't. You're gonna see a lot of women go over to competition, maybe compete as men, because they're gonna transition.  Now on the flip, you're gonna see lots of... And you're talking about at the competitive level. That's what I mean.  Yeah, and so I just, I don't... And then again, same week, they're taking athletes who had small amounts of not even anabolics, but of like gray market type substances, and they're banned for four years. Well, that's a huge point. I mean, what do they say to that? Like, has anybody criticized them on that yet?  Somebody coming in with a huge competitive advantage. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know. We'll see what the market says.  What do you do, because this had to have happened from pressures, right, of transgenders wanting to compete and feeling that they... Well, I believe there's a lawsuit beforehand with this girl that's in the picture. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember seeing that a while back. Oh, did you know that, Sal? No. That there was a lawsuit? Oh, there was a transgender athlete. Yeah, I remember me. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I do remember her. And she wanted to compete. She wanted to compete. They wouldn't let her compete as a female, so I think that, yeah, maybe it was social pressures in the state today, you know, where they probably just were like, okay. So this is a picture of a formerly male... Yes. Okay, and then she's just... And she's now, I feel so...   I don't wanna get murdered by everybody. I think just transgender female. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's a transgender female. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, and she sued? She sued CrossFit before? I believe so, yes. I did not know that. Well, we'll double-check on that, but... We'll check on it. I'm pretty sure, yeah, I remember it. Yeah, I... So then they'd be getting price, so great. So what do you do? You're Gray Glassman, you're getting sued because you don't have a place for them right now. So... You know what's funny? Here's what's funny, okay? Imagine if Gray Glassman is like, hey, you know what? Let's say he took it to the 50th degree, right? And he said, you know what? You're right, gender shouldn't matter. From now on, there's no male or female category. Everybody competes against each other. I'm doing the right thing, aren't I? Imagine the outcry. Imagine if he did that. Everyone's like, yeah, that's not fair. So instead, they're doing this, which is... Less fair. Yeah, if you wanna go that route, then just open it. It's just not fair, I mean. Right, there's a best person. Can we admit that? Yeah, just open it. The best athlete, and that's all we're gonna do. It doesn't matter if you're male, female, transgender, I don't care. Everybody compete against each other. Yeah, we'll just open another class. We'll get another open for that. Imagine if you're Emily Abbott right now, who, you know, I listened to that episode where she got interviewed, where she talked about how her boyfriend did the substance under his... Can we talk about that for a second? Yeah. Can we talk? I wanna hear your guys' opinion on this, because I listened to it also. Yeah. And I know there's a lot of people that are out there supporting her, but I'm just gonna say something that's gonna piss a lot of people off that I... Let's hear your theory, because I agreed with it when you said it. This is the feeling that I have, okay? It sounds like to me that I've got a boyfriend who's taking these psalms that tells me, okay, as the cross for them. Yeah, they're not gonna test you for this. They're not gonna test you for this. Try this out. It's working great for me. I like it. Tries it out. It gets popped. And the reason why I say that is when you listen to her, the animosity that she has towards him still. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can't blame the guy if he's... He completely blames him. She says it's, oh, she feels like she's resentful because he was taking it and didn't tell her. Right.  Which, that to me too. You're married, okay? And not engaged. Engaged, right?  So you're taking something on a daily basis and you don't know what he's taking.  But that's possible. There's a possibility that they have a relationship where they don't communicate very well and they don't share those types of things with each other. I mean, I most certainly never would have tried to hide any of my steroids or anything from Katrina. She's known everything that I've ever taken. So I already think that's kind of bullshit, but maybe it is. But then the animosity towards him, I mean, that's an accident. Like you're kissing and stuff like that. Like if he doesn't know any better, if that's the case. Yeah, it really does feel like he's closed her on this idea and then it didn't work out for her. And then, oh no. Yeah, cause who would have thought that they would have tested for that? Right. You know what I mean? Cause it's one of those, you know, weird gray market types. Gray market things. Yeah, so.  I do too. I do too. So that being said, is it possible that there could have been some cross-contamination from him having it in his mouth? She kisses him and it gets in her bloodstream. Yes, it's possible. Is it likely? No, extremely unlikely, extreme. That being said, the amount that she tested positive for, she's making the case now. I don't see, I don't know what the blood results say. So this is at her mouth. Right. But she says it was, and I forgot the amount. Miniscule. But it was a small. Yeah, it was very small. It was like .002 nano. It was like, it feels like she went off of it and tried to see if it would get out of her system. That's what it feels like, yeah. But that being said, here you are.  You've been competing in CrossFit for a while. You've been a great spokesperson. One of the more popular athletes, you know, working hard, whatever. And you get caught with a minuscule amount of a gray market drug that you think or you say you didn't take on purpose or maybe did whatever.  You're never gonna compete in CrossFit. Yeah, four years to be out of a sport like that. And a week later, a week later, they're like, hey, if you identify as this gender, you could take testosterone, all you want. You know what I mean? Or you could take this, whatever. It's like, I'd be furious. Like, what are you guys talking about? Like, what's going on? Yeah, so I was right. So it was Chloe Johnson sued for 2.5 million for not letting her compete as a female. Did she win? I don't know, does it say? Yeah, I don't know. How do you, maybe that was part of the, I don't know, like part of the deal. Here's my, here's- Oh, she's from you, bro. She's from Santa Cruz. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Here's my opinion on this, okay? It's a private organization.  It's just like it's a private organization, okay? So that's the thing.  In my opinion, that's silly. Just go compete somewhere else or complain publicly, make a big deal about it, whatever, obviously the pressure work now, you know, CrossFit now is doing this. Do you, here's the real question. Do you guys think this is gonna hurt or help the CrossFit brand? What they're doing right now? I think it's gonna hurt. I think it's gonna hurt, yeah. I think it's gonna cause more controversy within it. And I think that that- I think it- It's politicized it for sure. Yeah, I don't know. And I never think that that's a good idea in sports. I think what's gonna really hurt it, what can hurt it is if the women start to speak out. They're afraid to speak out. Cause I've talked to women on the side who, I haven't met a single woman who said that's totally fair. Everyone I've talked to who competes has said, yeah, it's not fair. I don't really like it. But they're afraid to speak out. And I think it's because of the backlash, the potential backlash that they could get, you know? So I don't know, man, we'll see. I'm with you though, Adam.  And you're gonna see other women who would have won now, second, third and fourth. And then that's when you're gonna start to see maybe the backlash. You gotta think as glassy, you gotta be hoping that this doesn't happen, right? If you're him, you're hoping that there's a handful that want to, this is the right thing for me to do is to open it up this way.  There's people that are like that out there. Well, I mean, if people, I mean, we talk about this on the show multiple times. Well, that's a very valid thing. I know people might get offended, but that's quite valid. No, of course, if people said that they would die five years after they win a gold medal, like if people have come out openly and said, listen, I would have died, I would have taken any means necessary. By any means necessary, it meant that much to me. And if you don't, you know what I'm saying? Like if you don't fully identify with your sex currently already, like, why not? They've caught people in the Olympics, I believe, before, so it's happened. Yeah, we'll see what happens. I think this is a turning point for them. They've done two big things in one week. One is their drug testing. The other one is this one. We could potentially see CrossFit start to hurt, you know, hurt their ratings and stuff because of this, but we'll see what happens. We'll see if anybody really speaks out or gets pissed off or what ends up happening, but you know our opinion. Yeah, no, no, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens. Do you guys listen to that whole Emily episode? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't agree. Yeah, no. No. I don't. No, I think she's done it. I know a lot of people sided with her afterwards though. A lot of people did. A lot of people took her side and, you know. Well, four years, I mean, that's tough. I mean, that's her career. I don't think she should be banned for four years. Yeah, that was a bit extreme. Yeah, that's pretty hardcore. No, I agree, especially when you turn around and come out with news like this. I definitely agree with you.  Just don't test. Come compete, don't test. But then you go the way of bodybuilding. We're bodybuilding, it's got so silly that nobody even wants to do it. Well, I feel like just like bodybuilding, there's a market for both categories. A tested and non-tested category. Do you want to be a part of the group that says, fucking, let's do it. Let's take whatever, do whatever. And people will definitely want to watch that group. And then are you a part of the group that, hey, I still want to say I'm the fittest, all natural person in the world? Like, why not? Why not have both categories? I mean, the sport's growing fast enough, big enough that you got to be able to have like a little division of each, right? No, is that not? Well, you know, it's funny to me because the way we view anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs, like why do we view them the way we do?   Sumo wrestlers, you know when sumo wrestlers turn, people in general do a lot that hurts their body. Well, let's talk about athletes though.  Look what they do to their body. Look at, you know, football players and the danger that they have, look at boxers, look at fighters, like look at what they do to their bodies anyway. Why do we, like really, because they're taking antibiotics, we're gonna, you know, no, it's because there's still this thought that they're, they have something over the, the next competitor. Not if everybody can use it. Well, no, exactly. You know, let everybody use it. But that's the thing, if you opened it up, it would be like equal playing ground. Maybe because people are afraid it's gonna influence the kids. I think that's a big, that's a big factor. Yeah, I get that, but. That's already happening, dude. Exactly. Kids are not, when I was a kid, which I know it's gotta be just like everything else, accelerated, when I was a kid, there was kids on the football team that were taking steroids. I know I found that out later, it was crazy.  Yeah, I don't think, I don't think, I think it's better if we just promote this idea that people own their body. This is what I tell my kids, look, everybody owns their own body. If they're not hurting anybody, then I don't think they should get in trouble by the law. That doesn't mean they won't have consequences for what they're doing. Because the things you do always have an effect. And if you hurt yourself, you're the one that has to pay the consequence. But I think that's what you tell your kids. Like, oh yeah, these are professional athletes and they're definitely sacrificing, first of all, they're sacrificing their bodies anyway. Whether they take steroids or not.  Don't take steroids, but go ahead and go play football, it's totally safe. Tell them, look, here's the deal.  It's your body, it's your choice, but know that there's some consequence. I think you teach your kids that anyway, no matter what, right? So at that level, at that pro level, I think they should just not test anymore. Here you go. Trust me, there's a limiter, there's a rev limiter there. They'll push it and then they'll start dying and then they'll bring it back. No, it's true, that's exactly what'll happen. That's why I say you let it off, you let it go. You'll get crazy and then yeah, it'll regulate itself. That's what happened with bodybuilding. Pro bodybuilding got crazy in the 90s. Guys were using crazy diuretics and growth- And look at what the market did. The market opened up men's physique because of that. Because they got to a point where, and I remember being one of these kids, the reason why I wasn't into bodybuilding that much was because I saw it right away, I'm like, I can't obtain that, nor do I want to take the amount of anabolic to even try to obtain that, no thanks. And I know I'm not alone with that and so what ends up happening in a category like men's physique opens up and so I think you see the same thing too. People will be like, this is like getting freakishly gross, I'm not into it, I can't relate to it because I don't want to take all those steroids and do that. I'm more interested in this group. And they're not gonna try and get, I don't think they'll ever do what bodybuilders do because bodybuilders are completely, what they're focused on entirely is how big and horrific they can get. How massive they can get. You have to- Get to perform still. Yeah, there's a limit there, there's still a limit. Right. Okay, so here's a good comparison. Pride Fighting Championships was a mixed martial arts organization in Japan that was notorious for not drug testing. Awesome. And then you had UFC who did drug testing. Now did the pride fighters look different than the UFC guys? Yeah, they were all much bigger and muscular.  Yeah, and they didn't look like bodybuilders. Like could you still have that limit that you have to perform?   That put you up to weight classes. That's right. And a guy who's naturally that size ended up whooping a lot of asses. Yeah, and- There was exceptions to the rule and stuff like that, but I mean for the most part. And is it- See, I'm not familiar. Does CrossFit has weight classes, right? Or no? No, I don't think so. It's just open. Yeah, it's open women. It's age. Oh, it's age-wise. Yeah, they do- They have age, men and women, and then age. Yeah, but there's so many- There's a lot of things in CrossFit that include body weight.  No, no, you're exactly. Yeah, no, you wouldn't want to take a lot. I mean, you want to take enough to speed up your recovery and aid in some strength, but you wouldn't want to take something that's called de-ball.  Your performance will decrease. Yeah, and inflammation would be up and then your mobility would decrease. Like, yeah, no, you wouldn't want to take anything crazy. I just want to be clear, you know, too, because I know it's a touchy subject, which I find interesting. I don't know why it's touchy. It's pretty objective. If you step outside of the political sphere and just look at things like a rational human being, it's not, but I do want to be very clear here. I 100% think people need to be treated all individuals. With respect. Yeah, with respect, and people own their bodies.  You should be allowed to, and I'm not going to judge you. That's what you were born in. It's your meat wagon, right? You get to do whatever you want to. It's like it was your car. But at the same, and I think private organization have a right, because CrossFit's right, go for it. But again, my opinion is based on what I think objectively, and I think the market, we'll see what the market says. We'll see if people, how it responds and what this does for the brand of CrossFit. Yeah, I know, I agree. Hey, have you, Justin, have you watched The Last Chance To You yet or what? I have watched it. Did you get caught up more? No, I just had two episodes in. Damn, bro, come on, I want to talk to you about it. It's fire, dude.  They did a thing at the end of it that went back and revisited the first two seasons. Oh, they did. And where all the kids are at now.   Okay, okay, I'm gonna get on that. That's excellent, excellent. Adam, are you still taking a lot of protein powder or are you doing more food again? So I've been good. Like today, if I'm prepped, like a day that I'm prepped, I don't take it. Like so the goal, and the goal always is not to. Like I mean, even though we're sponsored by a company like Organify and it's our job to talk about using their supplements, I'm very transparent with people about the goal is always for me to get whole natural foods. But I absolutely, if I'm low, like I used it yesterday, but I didn't use it the day before, you know. How much do you normally miss by and then how much do you have to supplement? Well, I mean, so I will only do it if I feel like I'm like below once. So right now I'm 175 pounds of lean body mass. Now my goal is to get like one to one body weight in protein, which is, you know, I'm 215. So somewhere between 200 and 215 is kind of where my goal is. If I'm sub 170 in protein from whole foods. Oh, so that's the minimum. That's just me. That's the number that I've chosen or lower. So if I'm 170 or if I'm lower than 170, I'll take a shake. That's just for sure I'll take a shake to push me at 190 or so. And then I'll just whatever. I'm not worried that I'm a little bit under 200. It's not a big deal. And so that tends to happen, you know, like today the plan is it for not to happen, but I also I'm behind already today. So I didn't, I was normal breakfast, staple breakfast for me is my bacon and eggs and sourdough toast and I didn't get it today. So I will, and that's just how my brain works. I know I'm going to be playing catch up all day. Again, the strategy still will be to not use a shake if I don't need to use one of the organized shakes, but I will if I at the end of the night, that's normally where I drink it. Do you feel different? So I know you've done whey protein like consistently forever, but then you've been using the Organifi protein, plant-based protein, like as far as like on your gut and like how you feel. I do, you know what, like so I do go back and forth still because I, you know, I still don't think there's anything that tastes as good as whey. So there's certain shakes like that I like. So when I have like a savory one, so I make like a peanut butter and banana one. I make like this Nutella coffee one. So when I do like those kind of like savory or sweet flavored shakes, I like the whey protein. But if I'm just like, I just need the protein, I just need the 20 something grams of protein to push me up and I'm just mixing with water or almond milk and that's all and I'm shaking it up, almost always Organifi, because I can tell the Organifi just sits well with me. Does it really? Oh yeah, no, just it just sits better. And I don't have any, I'm not like you, I'm not sensitive where it like bothers me, but I just feel better after. Yeah, yeah, I just, it feels like it, my body feels like it digested easier. Super easy to digest, because over the weekend when I was doing that workout, one of the shakes that I did was the Organifi protein and I'd put three egg yolks in it for the cholesterol and just mix it up. Oh yeah, I've been doing egg yolks myself actually, like it has made a difference in my strength. Right, so how many are you, what are you doing? I'll do like four egg yolks in the morning and then I'll work out in the middle of the day and it's been fantastic.  It's a short. That on top of all the steaks. Yeah, you bump up your dietary cholesterol, but I was doing that over the weekend to try and recover. I just throw the egg yolks in the. How's it taste in the shake like that? Fine, it's fine. Yeah, you don't taste the egg really. Do you do it raw? So yeah, okay. I don't recommend anybody doing it raw because there's always that risk of salmonella, although the risk is actually quite small. But yeah, I just, I separate the white out because the egg whites will bother me a little bit if I have them, especially raw. I don't know if you guys knew this, but whites have antibodies in them because they're designed to protect the yolk and some people will get it, a lot of people get a reaction. So people who have food intolerance issues will typically, egg whites is one of the top five. Egg yolks is usually not up there. So people who have food intolerance issues. Which is actually the opposite of what most people think. Yeah, so a lot of people who have issues with eggs try eating just the yolk and see if it's still have an issue. You may find that the yolk is no problem whatsoever. It's just the white they have an issue with, but yeah. Do you like that? I used to like to put, this was back when I was using the egg whites all the time like that. I used to put egg whites in my protein shake to boost the protein up. I actually used to like the way it tasted it. It gave it kind of this frothy or taste to the shake. It does that a little bit, but it doesn't really taste, you can't really taste it. You just taste mainly the shake, especially if you use something like almond or coconut milk, which is what I'll do. Then you really can't tell, so. I'm actually gonna steal that from you because that's the one thing I, what really sucks is if I'm like at 130 or 120 grams of protein and like even the Organifi shake is only what 25 or 28, it's less than 30. So that's an easy way to bump up the protein too, isn't it? Yep, yep. I'll try that out. Do it. This Quas brought to you by Organifi. For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition, Organifi fills the gap with laboratory tested certified organic superfoods to help give your health and performance the added edge. Try Organifi, totally risk free for 60 days by going to Organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com and use a coupon code MINEPOMP for 20% off at checkout. First question is from Tony Lo, yo, yo, yo. What's a good approach for fat loss after a reverse diet?  Cause your metabolism adjusts and adapts to your food intake but it also adapts to your activity level. So the goal of the reverse diet is get a faster metabolism. Here's the wonderful thing.  One thing that really impressed me about this approach was Adam, when you were doing, what's her name's? Oh, Melissa. Melissa, when you did her first comp prep, you started her way out, but you didn't even cut her.  So when we cut you, what did you? I pushed her all the way up to 2,600 calories.  Yeah, yeah, she hit stage at 112. So she's tiny. She has a 112 pound competitor eating 2,600 calories. And that's what you worked her up to slowly before you started the cut. Right, right. She's two weeks out from her next show right now and she'll occasionally check in and tell me where she's at, like just to, hey, what do you think? This is where I'm at. And the last time she checked in with me, she was at 1,800 calories. Two weeks out? Yeah. No, I bet you no woman, no female competitor in her class at the moment. No, especially her size. Especially her size. They're like 1,000. Oh yeah, I had other competitors that I've trained and clients that I know that are in 150, 160 range that aren't even eating that many calories. I mean, I bring up Jessica on this show all the time, the other girl that has competed before that I'm always trying to help. And she's the opposite. She's always wanting to hurry up and start cutting and I'm constantly telling her, like you just haven't done the due diligence of ramping your metabolism up. She's only at 1,800 calories and she's 170 pounds. And she wants to start cutting right now. And I'm like, man, you were, no, you're nowhere near. You start right now, where are we gonna be in like four weeks? You'll be nowhere near the weight you really wanna be and you'll be starving already. Like it's just not gonna happen. So yeah, she cruises right in because of that. I shouldn't say cruise, because if you talk to her, she'd be like, she feels like she's starving. That's why it's so, it's all relative, right? It's really funny.  Right, so what people don't understand because they hear that and they're like, oh, they're so jealous. Like, oh, I wish I could be, the funny part is it's just as hard for her as it is for the other person who's starving themselves, just healthier for her. She's, her body will respond better, her skin will look better, her hair will look better, her face looks better, like- She has more muscle. Yeah, she holds on to more muscle. Like she's taking care of her body and her metabolism. And that's where the sport is okay in my opinion. Like when you do it correctly, you really don't, it's really not that dangerous or stressful on the body.  That's what she does. She walks and she's ramped up now to 20,000 steps. So I've taught her to, once prep starts, she starts at 10,000 steps, then goes to 12 and to 14, then to 16, then to 18, then to 20,000 steps. And so she's walking at 20,000 steps, she's doing hit cardio after her post workout right now. That's the most we're doing right now. There's no hour bout of sitting on the treadmill or blasting on the treadmill to burn it. What a contrast from her and her peers. Cause literally somebody in her category, right, just 112 pounds or 110 pounds or whatever, someone in her category is walking into the contest a week before or whatever, or walking into the contest. Eating under 1100 calories, that's the average that I see consistently, doing two hours of cardio or more a day and weights, that's what they're going into the contest with. She's eating 1800 calories and she's doing 15 minutes a hit and just being active all day.  That's part of the reason she doesn't look like she's dead when she's on stage. And here's the other thing, when you do it the wrong way, bye bye hormones, your hormones are fucked. You have a tough time recovering from something like that. And so what we do, so the goal in the reverse diet for me and whenever I teach it to anybody is I wanna push your keep slowly creeping your calories up until you look back at me and go like, Adam, this is a lot of food I gotta eat.  It's like, and that's kind of like the very, yeah the very first time that I did this with Melissa, the very first show, you know, I would, I kept, she kept asking me like, how high are we gonna go? And I'm like, let's just keep going. Like, are you having okay eating? She's like, yeah, no, I'm enjoying this.  And that's where it was. When we got about 2,600 calories, she's just like, it's hard, Adam, for me to make sure I get enough of these calories. I get to a lot, I'm like, okay, perfect. Now let's go the other way. And it was, I just took her down a few hundred. So I went for my 2,600 and told her to hover around 2,300 to 2,400.  Yeah, just started, she started to lean out nice and slow and controlled. Then we dropped another 2,300 calories. And then lean, and the way I would do it is every time I would wanna just drop it and then stay there as long as we could until we stopped seeing results.  And then once I start getting to like the 2,000 calorie range where I think is a healthy place for her body and her size to be at, then I go, okay, let's keep your calories now the same. Now let's start adding the hit cardio. Okay, let's add a hit in there three days out of the week. And then mind you too, I grazed over real quick was the adding the steps. So every week in the cut, we're ramping up about 2,000 steps every week, which is not a lot. 2,000 more steps is a half hour stroll that you walk for the day or you're just aware of it or you may actually naturally get it just throughout your day. So every week, she's also adding 2,000 steps. So I know she's burning a little bit more. I'm reducing by 2 to 300 calories every week. And we keep doing that until we hit about 2,000 calories.  Okay, now let's stretch it and push it a little bit. Let's start to add some hit. And again, it's already proven to show it's one of the better places to do cardio when you want fat loss and hanging on to as much muscle as possible. It's the long bouts of cardio that send that signal to the body to adapt and to get rid of muscle that's not advantageous for a long distance runner to have. Which a lot of competitors and bodybuilders don't realize this, I think it's so funny that they go right to these cardio bouts. It's like you're sending your body a mixed signal by building and lifting and trying to be strong and massive and huge and lots of muscle and then getting on a treadmill and running. It's a conflicting message. And so to think that your body's not gonna stall out, I think is really silly. That's the last place I wanna go.  Because I know that inevitably if we start running for an hour or pushing the body for an hour cardio-wise, it's inevitable and more than likely we're gonna lose a little bit of muscle. Yeah, we might lose fat and we might lean out and drop some weight on the scale. So yeah. And here's the thing too, pro bodybuilders, they love doing cardio that way. They'll get on a treadmill and walk for like an hour. But you're also talking about a 280 pound person who 15 minutes a hit would probably give him a heart attack. And they're on so many anabolics that it overrides the signal to lose muscle. You know what I mean? So they're kind of burning extra calories. Right, right. You know, I wonder if you could, you could technically use this strategy of reverse diet cut, reverse diet cut and get yourself to a point where you're shredded if you do the cycle over and over again and you're smart about it. I bet you could use this cycle and get yourself to a point where you're shredded with a very fast metabolism. You hear what I'm saying? Oh, 100%. Let's say you're, let's say you like Melissa, right? Like she's at 2,600 calories. She gets, she slowly gets herself to let's say 2,000 calories because she's not, forget the competing part. Get super lean at 2,000 calories. Now she's slowly reverse diets. You know, she'll gain a little bit of body fat, but once the, you know, maybe a couple pounds and she gets her calories up and then she starts to reverse again. You could, or starts to cut again. Theoretically you could, if you do this over a long period of time of this kind of staggered approach, get to the point where you're lean and you're eating, you know, a high amount of calories. I mean, part of why I think she's having a lot of success. You know, she's heading into worlds, right? So she's going after the WBFF, you know, world's championship right now. And I think she's going to do great. I think she's going to, for sure. I believe she'll place top five. I think, I don't know what the politics are like in that, in that federation or not, but I think she could win. I see the two other girls that won it last year and I think she's got a better physique and I think she's coming in better. But she's done this now enough times that, I mean, and I don't, you know, for personal reasons, I don't like the way her or those physiques look like when they're, where they're at now. Like it's just, to me, it's not, it's too emaciated and shredded looking. Yeah, I think she looks great now, like when she's off, like when she's not like dieting hard or with that, cause she comfortably can be around that 22 to 2400 calories and training like consistently and not having to do a crazy amount of calories as long as she's focused on her movement and keeping an incredibly lean body. She never goes way, never blows up like a lot of competitors do after a show.  Six. Six times. You, typically what happens with people when they compete a lot is you'll, it'll get harder and harder for them. They start to say their body stops respond.  Oh God, dude. So the lowest I ever got was 2200 calories, was the lowest I ever let myself get down to. And that was, what show was that? I believe that was USA's. And part of that was actually because I had built up enough muscle that my critiques were not, you weren't muscular. You were trying to get diced. Yeah.  And everyone told me at the national and amateur level that I was kind of too big. I had already a pro physique when I was, so I went in, I cut that hard knowing that I would probably lose some muscle because I hit, I hit stage at 201 as a, at nationals and that was the lowest calorie intake I ever did at 22. But when I went pro, I was hitting stage at 215. And when I was hitting stage at, I was calories were like 3,000. That was your pre-contest. Yeah, bro. I would diet like low, like a low day because sometimes I'd run like two or three load. Low day would be like 27, 2,800 calories. That's hilarious. Yeah, no. With a contrast. Oh, totally. And then to see where I'm at now, like because of the falling off and then remember I told you when I wasn't moving, right, because the Achilles, I wasn't doing more than 2,000 steps a day. I wasn't lifting that much. So I was losing muscle mass. So I was down to eating one to two meals. So I'm still in this process of like right now. You're reversing right now. And that's been like, of course we fell right in the middle of this challenge. So I'm like kind of flirting with both sides here.  Which would be, I know if I would all of a sudden drop to 1,800 calories, of course I would start to lean out really fast. But that's not a healthy place to be. It's not a place I want to be either. I don't know where you can end up with that. Right. And so I'm hovering around 3000 calories or so right now, which is cool. Like I'm okay, but it's not, I'm not like before that would be leaning out. I mean at 3000 calories, I would be watching myself lean out almost every single day consistently at that calorie intake, where now it's not, it's kind of sustained. I'm actually building right now on that. So you can tell that my metabolism is still nowhere near. It's funny. Once you understand how the metabolism adapts, you can use it to your advantage, whether you want to gain or lose weight. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. In the context of modern life, most people will benefit from having a faster metabolism. You just, there's food accessible everywhere. We're too sedentary. Well, there's two camps right now, right? And I think I brought this up before and I might have threw somebody on the bus that actually really hadn't came out and said that, so I apologize when I talked about this before where but I know there's two camps of like people that are out there that are talking about that you know, it's more ideal to learn to eat as little as possible to live off of that versus to be over consuming and inflaming the body all the time. And I get that, like I can subscribe to that. I can make sense to me that. Of course. That you know, the, I mean, the digestive system is just like every other system on the body. Any other system on the body can be overworked.  Right. No. Of course not. You want a nice thrifty one that's going to keep. Right. Yeah, so. But I think you bring up the point that I think is so great, which is the important one is we live in a different time now. Totally. And so. Fast metabolism is great insurance. Yeah. For modern life. It's a great insurance.  You know what I'm saying? You don't have pizza. You don't have design. The context has totally changed. Modern life is sedentary as hell, period, end of story, naturally. If you want to be active, you have to go out of your way to be active. And your food is very palatable and it's accessible. All food is accessible. I could go to the grocery store and I can get fruits and vegetables 20, all year long. Doesn't make any sense, right? Well, we've created the system now. We have lost food. Fast metabolism will protect you a little bit. Next question is from Jojohnson35. How do you create a better relationship with food and stop binging or constantly thinking about food? Well. Who picked these questions today? It's like nutrition hour. Nutrition, nutrition.  These are fired. You know, here's the thing with food relationships. This is a difficult one to tackle because your relationship with food was started to get molded from day one from being born. And we're constantly fed all the time. We never go without food. I mean, I'm pretty sure most people listening right now have never in their entire lives except for maybe when they were very ill have gone without food for a full day, right?  And so here's the thing. The way we judge what we eat is based on a couple things. The taste, how good it tastes and the emotional connection we have to food. And that's pretty much it. We haven't really connected anything else to food and we haven't connected with the natural signal of hunger. We think when we think we're hungry what we're really having is a craving. Hunger doesn't really kick in until probably 48 to 72 hours of not being in food or if you're in a really, really low calorie deficit you may start to feel some hunger. But usually it's cravings. And I'm really hungry right now. Doesn't really mean you're hungry. So your connections all over the place now.  We wrote a guide for this. The intuitive guide talks about this very well. We literally wrote a guide exactly for this because we knew that this is not easy. And it's not something that as simple as like a couple pieces of advice that all three of us could give real quick over a podcast. It is. It's gonna take time and there are some steps and we lay all those out in the intuitive eating guide. And I think you just gotta know that it's gonna take some time. That or entrust your partner to put a shock collar on you and every time you're about to go do something like that then give them the freedom. Sometimes you have a safe word. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get crazy with that. Yeah, so fasting is a great way to understand hunger and separate your emotions from food. So what do you mean by that? It's if you do a 48 or 72 hour fast or longer, which you know, make sure you're healthy and get clearance to do first. But if you do do that, here's what'll end up happening.  You're gonna have some stress. You're gonna have some anxiety.  You're not gonna have food there. It literally is one of the best ways to break yourself from the chains of food as far as being like, I have, this is a ritual. This is something like you just fall into like hanging out with people and eating. A lot of times it's like mindless and to be able to go through that process and understand that like, oh wow, I really don't need as much food to fuel me to do activities, to do whatever it is. Like it's not necessarily that important. You can live pretty much without like an excess of food. It's literally the exact same thing that somebody who's trying to get off of drugs goes through. The exact same thing. And this question is exactly, and the answer, there's not a specific or the one way to do this because there's two camps in either. That could be one strategy. There's two camps in the drug world, right? If someone's addicted to drugs, some people have a lot of success by cutting cold turkey, ripping it all from you, locking you up in a room for 30 days and then flushing it out. Sweating it out, being miserable, whatever. And then from there, staying disciplined not to go back, right? And then there's other people and I tend to kind of side more with this camp, which is kind of like that reminds me of what doctor was it that we had on the show way back when who has the Peak Brain Institute and all that. What's his name? Can I remember his name right now? Dr. Andrew Hill. Dr. Andrew Hill, thank you. So where they actually don't do that.  At the end of the day, you have to, you first have to accept that your body has become addicted to a lot of these things, both physically and then behaviorally.    And here I am, 36 going on 37, barely breaking through these change. This never happened, right here to my right is a box of Mike and Ike candy, which is one of my favorite candies that Jackie brought me now. I think it's been a month and a half, two months and she's been there. Never in my life would something have lasted that long. Maybe I would justify it for a week or two because I'm in a challenge or something like that, but never in my life. And that's just because I've broke those chains. I've broke that. I don't want it. I don't need it. I don't think about it all the time. It's not a big deal to me to let go of it because I've done such a good job of connecting all the dots to how I feel when I feed my body optimally. Well, that's an important, that's a very important point right there because like I was saying before, when we make judgments on food, it's based off of taste and how it makes us feel in the terms of the emotion and context and with my friends, but we don't connect food to all these other factors which if you become aware of them, if you become aware of how your food, and this is the other side of it. So you do it fast first. When you come out of the fast, start eating again, but now start journaling. How do you feel before the meal, during the meal and after the meal? And then how do you feel later in the day? And just journal. And what you'll start to notice is foods, different foods affect you in different ways. Something they may affect your digestion. They may affect your mood. They may affect your skin. They may affect your sleep. But as you become aware of all these things that food affects, now your judgment, your natural subconscious judgment will be based off of all of those things, not just the taste. And what ends up happening is you'll sit down, because trust me, when I sit down in front of a piece of cake or a cupcake or candy or a pizza, for sure acknowledge that that's gonna taste amazing. Like it's not like I look at it and go, oh, it's not gonna taste good. I acknowledge it's gonna taste good, but I've also become so aware of the other ways it makes me feel that I weigh them out. And guess what happens a lot of times? Well, I think too, like when you mentioned before about cravings versus actually being hungry, I think that it is so important to understand the difference between the two because a lot of times like we're like, even myself when I went through the process and why we've mentioned the fast, why I think it's important, you know, it's because like you have any actually like understood like, okay, like this is actually a craving. I'm not necessarily hungry right now. Like I can go without that. There's this panic around it. There's this panic that I have to shovel in food because I've been like a stretch of like five hours. Oh my God, I need food. And then you make bad decisions. Bro, it's a state of unawareness. You know, I had a client once who, she was trying to avoid sugar and we were having this conversation one day while I was training her and she's like, you know, we're talking and she's like, oh, cause at my studio used to be next to a grocery store. She's like, oh, I just bought dinner or whatever. And we were talking about what she picked for dinner.  And I looked at her and I'm like, how often does that happen when you go grocery shopping?  And I'm like, that's weird that you don't count that in your actual food. And then she realized that she was literally unaware. Like she's literally making herself, consciously making herself unaware. Now this is what happens when people binge. While people are binging, if they were to make a practice where they stop, you know, one fourth of the way through, stop, don't eat, what am I doing? Let me take some notes. Or at the bare minimum. Write it down afterwards. That's right. And look at it. Because that's why I'm so big on the tracking thing is like, I'm not even telling you to break your habits yet. We're not even there yet.  You know, built in your own accountability that way. Yes. Just like you said, because most people are just so unaware of it.  And I'd say, okay, well, let's talk. First off, don't judge yourself because that only judging and hating yourself will fuel the opposite of what you want. So just observe, okay? You're just being aware. So, okay, I ate four cupcakes yesterday.   Okay, what were you thinking after the first cupcake? After you ate the first cupcake, why did you go to the second one? And what were you thinking after the second cupcake and what were you thinking after the third cupcake? And the same answer always comes out. Like they always say to me like, well, I wasn't. I just kept going. I wasn't thinking exactly. It was, you are literally consciously making yourself unaware of what you're doing so that you can do what your cravings or whatever are telling you to do. So when you take and write things down and write down how you feel, at first it becomes painful because nobody wants, by the way, when I tell someone who binges, hey, during your binge, stop halfway through and write down what you're doing, nobody wants to do it. I don't want to do it. Why don't they want to do it? They don't want to face the reality of what they're doing. Nobody wants to stop halfway through hurting themselves and recognize that they're hurting themselves. This is the hard part. That's the hard part. The hard part is being brave enough to face your demon.  So you have to be brave enough to stop halfway through. Maybe you keep binging afterwards. That's fine. Just write it down, write down what you're doing, how you're feeling.  I feel panicked. I'm anxious. I've already eaten this many donuts. Now I want to eat this. If you want to keep eating afterwards, that's fine, but just become aware of it, but be brave enough to face it because it'll stop you every single time from progressing is that willful unawareness that we tend to do. And that's why journaling and fasting are so effective. The neat part is you do this long enough.  So it's not a short journey to get here, especially if you've for a long time. It's work, man. It is, it is absolute. But it's now to this point and I still kind of test this because I'm fascinated by this change that I have felt in my body where I've told you guys before, like for years, I literally had like a pint of ice cream every single night before bed.   I haven't had some Ben and Jerry's in a long time. I'm gonna go ahead and let myself have some tonight.  I totally think that's totally fine. But what I know what'll happen and it's that this has already happened because I've tested this multiple times is I get through halfway and I'm like, ooh, I can feel it. I can feel right away because I've now been able to break those chains of disconnected from it for long enough, long enough of a time. I've fed myself really, really good foods. I actually now crave like vegetables and fruits, which I had no desire for in the past. In the past, vegetables couldn't taste more like cardboard to me and fruit was bland and boring to me. Where now those things are very rich. And so if you're somebody who still eats fruit and eats vegetables because you think you're supposed to eat it and not because your body craves it or wants it, that's because you still have not broken the chains completely from all these other artificially hijacked super, super palatable sugary foods. Once you get rid of all that for long enough, all of a sudden you start noticing when you bite into a strawberry or an apple or a peach, it tastes that same reward that you got for the McCandy and the ice cream and the things that you would normally chips or whatever you would binge on, you start to get from those foods.  I can't wait till Justin has vegetables again because he's gonna experience. Unless you've already have, have you started having any? Not yet. See, I can't wait to see what you feel because you haven't had them for so long.  No, I'm really looking forward to it, man. Cause like it's funny. I told you my whole experience of Brussels sprouts, like they came out of nowhere. I'm like, what is this?  It's just like, you know, going through that process again with all the vegetables can be great. Next question is from Nick Husky. Can you talk about oral health and his connection to overall health? So... A whole lot of oral. Yeah. So, so here's a, here's a good way to put it. And I've put the, I've put it this way for people and it's really resonated with them.    When things go in those areas, they're not inside your body. So it's important to understand that. It's literally like a donut. The middle of the donut, there's space in the donut. If I put a pencil in there, that pencil's not inside the donut. I have to actually poke in the donut to get the pencil inside there. So when things are in your... You're turning me on right now.  Right, right. That's the reason why you can eat a quarter and pass it. That's right. And this is true for your mouth as well. Now, if you have bad oral health and your gums bleed, you are literally exposing your blood, your body to things on the outside that you probably shouldn't.  What do you think's gonna happen to that scab when you do that over and over again?  That's right, or, and, your body starts to develop antibodies. Antibodies, yeah, they're gonna find it. And you're gonna have, you can develop gut issues and autoimmune issues as a result. They've connected poor oral health to poor health, period. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Mental health and poor gut health. And this is something that I didn't really understand for a long time. Now, on that note, because I'm curious to what you think too because I think that you can over scrub, over clean, because there's healthy bacteria that are in there too, because there's two kind of two camps in the, Oh, the whole listerine every five seconds. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.  No, I think the most effective thing you can do, the most important thing besides brushing your teeth is flossing. Have you guys, have you oil pulled before? I have. I have too. Yeah, what did you think?  My buddy does it like every other day. Takes too much time. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like a whole process to do it. And it's really annoying to keep it in your mouth. Your mouth feels amazing though afterwards. I mean, it really does. It feels great.  It has this feeling of the gum, you can feel this like coat, like this kind of slimy coat all over your mouth. But it does, it feels it in a clean way. It's pretty wild. Yeah, I think with the, I know there's loric acid and coconut oil, that's good for its antibacteria. But then also I think what happens with the fats that you're swirling around your mouth, it's supposed to do it for like 30 minutes. They start to break down fat soluble type compounds that tend to be hard to remove.  You can't just pull it off, right? So I think that's part of what it does. You know what I do? So flossing is super important because that's where people will bleed in their gums is in between.  And once you kind of pull the gum away from the tooth up in the middle, that's where you start to bleed. So flossing is important. But I, would you guys use anything particular to brush your teeth or just toothpaste? Just my toms. Just regular. You ever sprinkle baking soda on it? No, but you can brush your teeth. The water that you had the one time. Yeah, you can brush your teeth. Baking soda. I love using baking soda. Those shoes that you're looking at right there that are like three years old were cleaned by baking soda. What, what do you do? Yeah, it's my brother-in-law who's put me onto the game, dude. Look at those things.  He cleaned them with baking soda. Just water baking soda on cloth. Water baking soda on like a toothpaste or a toothbrush or a rag. What always baffled me like the irony of most toothpaste have a ton of sugar in them. And it's like, dude, we're going through and we're just adding sugar in between all the cracks of your teeth and like, what the fuck? Like just cause we want it to taste good, you know, like it just seems so counterproductive. They also put detergent in them to make it foam. So people love foamy toothpaste because they think that makes the means. Oh, it works better.  It's just people like it. And they also will put some of them used, I don't know if they do it anymore, but they used to put trickle sand, which is an antibacterial.   That's what I'm saying. That's what people, some people do that. That's gotta be terrible for your mouth. Well, not just for your mouth, but you know, if you gums do bleed and now you're rubbing trickle sand in there, that can't be good for you, right? No, and if you actually swallow it and all that stuff. No, yeah, I would go with a natural, an all natural toothpaste. Baking soda's good, although I've had dentist clients of mine in the past say it's a little abrasive for the teeth, but I don't know. Have you guys ever had, I've never had a cavity. Have you guys? You neither? Oh yeah, I've had cavities. You've had cavities? Yeah, a couple of times. I think that has a lot to do with the pH of the mouth. I will say this though, there was a time, and this also why I think that the dentist game is such a hustle. When I was a kid, my parents took me to the dentist and I had seven cavities. And I didn't feel, I didn't have, I didn't have pain. Complain to me that that just, it was like the semi, we didn't go annually, we couldn't afford to go annually, but we would go every few years when we could. My mom took us down there and I think at this time I'm like 12 or 13. And they tell me I have seven cavities.  So, well, we just didn't do anything about it. And I just continued brushing my teeth. And nothing. And then the next time, like which was a couple more years later, I didn't have any. I didn't have any. And so I was like, oh. Interesting. This is kind of interesting to me. So yeah, no, I might have got hustled. Cause like, yeah, they put on, you know, they did the fillers and everything else, you know, to make sure they drilled and fill it with like, so I've both my back teeth have like these fillings in them. So I did see a dentist later on when I was, this is when I'm older. This was in my mid twenties. One of the ladies that used to go to my boot camp was a dentist and she looked at my teeth one time and she, cause she was concerned.  That's, yeah, that's no good. And it was, it was starting to eat away at the top. At the enamel? Yes. And when I stopped, it completely stopped. It was crazy what a difference that made. It healed itself. Yeah. You can actually heal. That's the thing. You can actually reverse cavities. It's funny, yeah. Cause when I was getting my teeth done, like he was raving about how healthy my gums were and everything and I was like that.  And I granted, you know, they didn't look that great, you know, cause I've been grinding them for all of these years and everything, but like, like consistently would brush my, like I would never miss a brushing teeth session, you know?  Yeah. Another thing too is grain heavy diets have been, have been shown and some, some people have shown that that will contribute to poor dental health. And they think it has to do with the phytic acid that's in grains and some seeds and in legumes that are mineral blockers. They tend to prevent the absorption of minerals. By the way, this is one of the reasons why brown rice isn't consumed that often in a lot of these third world countries that they find if they eat a lot of brown rice, they start to get mineral deficiency. So they remove the husk or whatever, which has got the phytic acid. Why do we even have brown rice? Well, brown rice is rice in its natural form. That's crazy. Oh, I didn't know that. White rice is more processed. Oh, that's interesting. But it's one of the things. Here's the thing with grains. Grains, you have to process some, you have to do some processing to be able to consume them because grains in their natural forms, you can't eat wheat off the stock. That's been a lifelong myth for me was that brown rice was superior to white rice. It's not true. No, no, no. I mean, if you measure it, yeah, it's got more, some more nutrients. I bet you somebody is still preaching that in the fitness community. There is people that do still. Yeah, absolutely. I've had people that have told me, oh, I do this and I have my brown rice and I'm like, why do you have brown rice? No, there's anti-nutrients in that. And if you consume lots of phytic acid, for example, you can actually cause nutrient deficiency. So for people who have teeth, tooth issues, here's the thing, when people have bad, when they get lots of cavities, sometimes you can say, oh, it's your, you have bad, you know, oral cleaning habits.  I floss after every meal. I do everything right. Why am I getting all these calories? Look at your diet.  And one of the things you can do is increase your fat intake, increase your fat-soluble vitamins, reduce your grains, and if you can tolerate dairy, eat raw dairy-type foods, so you have that calcium, and then see what happens and you may actually start to reverse all those problems. Next question is from Jamie Crisis. Do you feel it's necessary to follow a non-compete contract when you quit one place to train to go to another? Is there anybody that makes you sign a non-compete contract? I feel like didn't, didn't we have that when we were at 24? I'm not sure, but like I know that it was there, like the fear. Well, okay, so when companies like that, you can't moonlight. Like, so if you work for a place like 24-hour fitness, or a UFC gym, or golds, or any of these big chains, most of them, there's some, there's exceptions to rules. I know some companies that don't care. Like, club one doesn't care. But most of your big, big chains are like, no, you can't go and work for a company that competes with that. Do they say you can't private train either? Yeah, you can't do any, like when we were at 24, at fitness, you can't private train, you can't run boot camps, you can't do anything that's not involving them. And I get it, they spend 20-something million dollars a year for advertising to drive leads through the store and like, is that fair for a trainer to take leads from there and potentially pivot? And so I have always understood that. Even when I was moonlighting myself, I made it a point to not get leads from the facility. Right, yeah, I was like. Yeah, when I left, I mean, that was a big thing for me just integrity-wise.  I mean, granted, like, old clients are gonna find me at some point.  Which I think, I actually think from, forget the non-compete and should you follow it, is it allowed or not allowed? I think it's important that you do that to prove to yourself that you can build a business.  No, you didn't. And that's hard for trainers to swallow that. Like, well, I'm the great trainer and I'm the one that reassigned them, they would never train if it wasn't for me, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you would have never got the lead had you not been in that facility. So for me, if I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna build a successful business, I need to know that I don't need that company to provide leads from anymore. So I wanna prove to myself that I could do that.  I just wanna prove that I can build a business.   So I didn't have to have this conversation. So Justin, when you left, you went from, you went from working for 24 to private training, you had clients that had been with you for a long time. What did you say to them then? I gave them a heads up, man. I was very honest with each one of my clients, like, you know, I was trying to go into management for a while and that was a direction I was going, but you know what, I didn't feel like it was a good fit and I think that I'm just gonna branch off and see if I can do this elsewhere in another gym. And what I did right away was start asking them questions about other trainers in the gym, who they see that might be a fit for them and then I started conversations with other trainers and then- So you tried to set them up? I tried to set them up and pair them off with somebody that really made sense for them because I know a couple other trainers that did that that I actually got clients from, which I really appreciated, you know, and we built relationships, but at the same time I was like, you know, this is happening, like this is happening, like I'm gonna be leaving and so this is an option for you and then I think I even, you know, kind of brought that to Adam. So I dealt, yeah, I dealt with this a lot obviously, you know, training or leading trainers for, you know, eight years at 24 and I was different with every trainers. I actually have, I've had it falling out with some of my trainers that I had really close relationships with because I got rid of them. I fired them because of the way they did it and I just didn't like it. I just didn't think it was professional. I didn't think it was fair. I didn't think it was right. And I disagreed with it and they had a really hard time with it because then they'd seen how I let someone like Justin, like who, if you were a trainer and you worked for me and you came to me and you straight up said, hey, Adam, I'm gonna be moving on to a private facility. I'm gonna do this myself. And you know, this is my plan, whatever. I would respect that and I would allow you to hang around and still work at 24 to finish contracts off and to potentially hand some clients over or whatever. And I would allow trainers to do that. Now that's like a big no-no there. We were taught like if- Once you know that- Like cut them. Yeah, cut them. All business. Right, all there. They treat them like investment bankers. Yeah.   It's like dead man walking. Yeah, no, that's, so I know I had that power always to do that if I wanted to do that, but I also had built good relationships with a lot of my trainers like Justin and wasn't trying to hurt them and sabotage them heading over, but at the same time too, they have to recognize that they're potentially hurting me. Right.   So I had trainers that like, for example, Ronnie was also another really good trainer mind that I allowed this flexibility. And we kind of like made this deal like, hey, I want you to drive new revenue all month long. Like I want you to take more fits than you've taken in a long time. Drum up new revenue. Pass them on.  And he did, he had a huge month for me before he left and we remain having a good relationship because of how he parted. I allowed him to finish off contracts and even allowed, and of course the company would, if they knew this, the company would be pissed at me for allowing him to take anybody. But that's just not how I did business. It's like, I believe that I got out of him more than anybody else would have and by firing him, it would have hurt us more by just cutting him, cutting losses. But then I had other trainers who just completely would shut down at work would be talking- They already left. Yeah, they were talking negative about the company. And trying to persuade all the people to come. They wanted to finish the contracts out so it was an easy transition. And then they wanted me to be okay with all that. And I would be like, nah. And I would wait. I would wait to see how they would, I would look at their character. Like, okay, this is all about you.  No one cares about me, but yet you want me to go against company policy and allow you to finish. So I would cut them, I would. I would say, hey, I know you put your one month notice in, but thank you for your service today's your last day.  I love training with you. You know, what other trainers in here are you interested in? I'm gonna set you up with whatever. Inevitably some of them are probably gonna say to you, I just wanna go, where are you going? I don't care, I really just wanna come with you. Yeah, which happened. Did that happen to you? Yes, it did happen to me. How did you handle that? I tried to pump their brakes a little bit and say, hey, give it a chance. You know, give this other trainer a chance, like go through and you know, I was really just focused on myself and like trying to market myself and like make an impression in, cause I transferred over to Gold's and then was trying to like get the culture there. Understand. Which was private, by the way. It was private, yeah. So I was like trying to like figure out everything about how I could market myself. I could like get new business. And so I was just like camping myself there. And I really wasn't taking a whole lot of appointments. But you know, after a couple of months, like there were some persistent clients that just would, you know, like they would show up and they would talk to me and they're, and so. So eventually some of them called. I couldn't help it, I needed business. So there was a few of them that did find me and were lifers, you know, mainly the lifers, like the two or three, you know, lifers that were like, were always gonna follow me everywhere I went. But yeah, I just wasn't trying to be sharky about it. I wasn't trying to be sneaky. Well that's your integrity. Well that's also the reason why he was successful is because, you know, Justin went over there and proved that he could do that. I think it's a very, very common thing to deal with. I dealt with this a lot. Where, you know, trainers get to a point where they start doing well.  Within a big corporate machine model. Right. And then they. Super easy in that environment.  I have to wear my name tag. Oh, I have to show up at this time. Oh, I have to come to this meeting. Isn't that funny?  Oh, and then they start to just, they start to hang on all the things that they just think is so shitty about this place that they worked that has provided this, you know, 70 to $100,000 income for them. And they think they can go off and go do it on their own.  Sure they can go off and do it, but most of them, I know a ton of them still out there trying to be trainers. And I'll tell you right now, I know how busy they are. They were making more money when they were working for somebody else, man. They just, they don't understand the business well enough because they didn't, they didn't recognize. If you're too naive to see it while you're working there, you're too naive to go start your own business. You're just not ready for it yet because there's a part of that that nobody talks about where, oh shit, when I go start this private thing, I didn't realize that I wasn't gonna see a thousand to 2,000 workouts every single day inside this facility. And no one would be helping me put leads in front of me every day. And how much of that is important to your business? Because they all see like, oh, I have 20 clients and they all tell me, they'll follow me wherever. I'm so good, they'll follow me wherever. And they think that's as far as they think. And they go, oh cool, so they can. They do the math, right? 20 clients paying this much per session. Yeah, so they can go over to another private place, they start to ensure they're fine for the first six months, maybe even a year, maybe in a year and a half, they even last up. But eventually, even the people that we call lifers and those clients you think. Yeah, some of them drop off. Some of them drop off, some of them get sick, some of them move, some of them get lose their job. Shit happens.  Yeah, yeah.  Do you think you would have been as? Yeah. Cause I feel like if I worked in a company and I just hated the place and the people, I might have more of a tendency to be like, okay, well. I mean, the temptation would be there, right?  I'm sure some trainers are in that situation where, you know, they can take advantage of that.  So I don't know, I think I would have been tempted, you know. I don't think you would have done it. I don't think you would have, because it's still at the end of the day.   Like Mark Mastrop didn't do anything to Justin. Right. You know what I'm saying? Great opportunity for me. The man who created this opportunity for him, who has provided this place for him, did no ill-welcome. Unfortunately for Mark Mastrop, there's 50 people between him and Justin as far as leadership roles.  But for you, again, more being naive.   That's a reflection of poor leadership there, which internally, okay, can be a reflection of the company, but that's not Mark Mastrop. It's the guy who created all of it.  You know what I'm saying? So you've got to be somebody who- Well, people think they own that. You know what I mean? These are my clients. They're actually not. Contracts are not yours. The money's not yours unless you train the session. You're an employee, so it's just not yours. And I think when you get employed, you do sign something that says that, which here's the bottom line. If you say something, then follow through.   And that's up to them. And that's up to them, and they will follow you. And the great part about it is you ain't gotta really say much or do much.  And it's a really easy transition for the rest.  You should see how 20 million times harder.   And you have to be very careful with how you talk to your clients about it. And that's how the gym business is like that. I just ran my operation differently. So again, there was a lot of things that I did. I'm like you, I think if people respect me, I have way better odds of them handling things with integrity than if they don't, even if I check on everything or put every safeguard in the world in place. I've always been too. I don't wanna ever burn bridges. I've made that mistake. I think once when I was young and I was working for a restaurant, and I just wasn't able to get to work on time cause I like my hours at school and I would hit traffic and I was always like making stupid excuses.  Then I tried to get a job at that same restaurant that was closer. I'm like, oh, this would be more convenient for me. Guess what? Not hired.   I remember. That's a great point too though. Wasn't there a non, no compete contract that Mastroff had to do when he left for our business? I can't wait to talk to him about it too. Woo!  It was a five year non-compete. He couldn't touch any other gyms around the any of these other 24s. And I do believe it was pretty damn close to the day. I can't wait till we get him on the show this month and to talk to him about it because I know that it wasn't, it was long after that. Did I see him on TV with the announcement with Dana White, here in California?  So awesome. So check this out, mindpumpfree.com. We have free guides that will help you and this free information will help you depending on your goals, right? We have one for your legs. We have a guide on how to train your arms, your midsection, a guide on how to do high intensity interval training, fat loss. There's like eight or nine guides on there that are absolutely free. Just go to mindpumpfree.com. You can download one of them or you can download all of them. Also, you can find us all on social media and you can contact us on social media. It's on Instagram. My page is mindpumpsal, Adam is mindpumpadam and Justin is, everybody wanna take a guess? M-m-m-mindpump Justin. That's it. The number one. Thank you for listening to Mindpump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mindpump to your friends and family. 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