2841: The #1 Reason You Keep Failing at Fitness (It's Not What You Think)

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One more time, it's maps PPL.com for the 40% off discount. Use the code PPL. All right, here comes the show. T-Shirt time! And it's t-shirt time. Ah, shit Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the week. Two winners this week, one for Apple Podcasts, the other for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winner is a Kitch. And for Facebook we have Jason Kenney, both of you are winners and the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com, include your shirt size and your shipping address. We'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com? I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it, enjoy the rest of the show. One of the most guaranteed ways to fail long term with your fitness success is by having the wrong motivation. By the way, this motivation I'm talking about also happens to be the most common one. It's the one value everybody focuses on, it's how you look. Don't make your fitness about how you look. It will make you fail almost every single time. God, it's so hard, it's so easy to say. I think that's so easy to say that, but it's so difficult I think for all of us. Not just our clients, I think it's tough to not, I mean, at least personally, it's taken most of my fitness journey to get to a place where I feel like that's not a focal point. I think that you look at yourself in the mirror every day, it's typically what motivated you to get your ass to the gym to make changes, that you saw something you didn't like and you know that making better food choices and going to the gym is going to fix that or change that. And so initially, most always, it's the main motivation that got you started, so hard to get somebody to move from that. 100%. In the world, and I say the world like media, social media, advertisers, this is the part that they focus on. Not just with fitness, but everything tells you that this is so valuable, that how you look is so important and so valuable and it's gonna give you all this success and happiness and that it's so much more important and all these other things. The way I like to communicate this is when I'm on podcasts, other shows, oftentimes this topic comes up. And when you're looking at something that you wanna do for the rest of your life, because ideally, if you're like, I wanna get in shape, you probably wanna stay in shape, right? Ideally, you would wanna be able to do this for the rest of your life. Well, that's a, for lack of a better term, that's a relationship with something. Anything you do forever or until you die is a relationship and it could be an unhealthy relationship or it could be a healthy one. And in order to have a healthy relationship with anything that's long-term, it has to be complete. It has to be a complete understanding of what this is doing for you and why you do it. So how you look is definitely a value. So what we're not saying is that working out to change your appearance has zero value. That's a real value, obviously. Like if you're fit, you look fit. And looking fit, there's some value to that. But it's not the only value. It's actually one small piece of the value that fitness brings you. And as you do it, the longer you do it, the more you realize it's actually a smaller value than many other values. And the example I'll use is like, let's say that you are consistent in your 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s. At some point, how you look is gonna not be as good as it used to be. I don't care how fit you are. If you're super fit in 65, you're not gonna look as good as you did when you were super fit in 35. So at some point, you're gonna have to face this reality of, uh-oh, how do I stop what's happening here? No matter what I do with my fitness, I'm looking older. And boy, can that go sideways. So you have to develop a complete relationship with fitness for this to be something that will take you through all the difficult times, all the times you feel sick, all the times you may be injured, maybe the times you can't work out hard because you've got a new baby or because you're stressed or you can't be consistent because of life, things that are going on. What's gonna take you through those times is not what the mirror says. It's a complete picture of all of the values that fitness brings you. And good trainers know this, and this is what I would focus on with my clients. I actually had to point these things out to my clients because if I didn't, it's like they totally missed them. Yeah, and I know it's extra hard too with younger clients to really express, you know, thinking about all these other metrics to focus on because they could kind of just rebound and they can get away with a lot more in terms of like sleep and energy and less responsibilities. But, you know, and I could pretty much communicate this to the older clients like eventually, they'd come in still very, very focused on how they look and that's what got them there. And so that's pretty common for anybody coming into the gym. That's like the number one selling point is really to like change and improve your overall aesthetic. But to get to that place where you start paying attention to all these other, you know, benefits that you're gonna receive from going through the process, like you just have to get in and experience it yourself. And then it's great to have a trainer to actually point these out because people are pretty oblivious. Oh, I think it's almost necessary because most of these people don't have a relationship yet to your point of like a healthy relationship with all these other metrics that a trainer helps you connect the dots to. I mean, I'd say half of my conversation with all clients daily was this was because they sign up to your point to lose 30 pounds or to look a certain way. That's everybody. And of course you want to let them know that that will get there and you never have a client if you try to tell them that's not the focus and like, you know, so you agree to that like, yeah, we'll definitely get you to lose 30 pounds in shape. And then from that point, it was my job to help them connect the dots to all the other things. But it wasn't like a one-time conversation. It was every single time we met because they're still fixated on the 30 pounds how they look in the mirror and you're going, well, how did you sleep yesterday? And, you know, how was your energy been at work this week and how's your mood been and how's that libido doing? So you're having to like, you know, constantly connect those dots for them. And it was again, it wasn't like just one time I'd say it and they'd be like, oh yeah, you know, I feel pretty good. And then it's like, oh, I never had to bring it up again. I was like, I had this every time, you know, oh, the scale didn't move. Yeah, but what about this? And how's this? What about your pain decreasing? Yeah. There's so many things too. I think people are just like waiting for that moment that they have a little bit less body fat. Yeah, it's crazy because I've brought this up at least a dozen time on the podcast. But by the way, what we're talking about is a feature of human psychology. It's very interesting. It's that you don't focus on, you actually don't see or notice. There's this video and maybe my editors can put it up and I'm going to give it away. So it's not going to work on you. The gorilla. This is something that if you take in any psychology class for the last 40 years, you've seen this video. And it's literally, there's people passing a basketball back and forth. I think there's like 12 people. And the professor in the beginning of the video says, count how many times the ball is getting passed back and forth. And so you count that, you keep going. One, two, three, four. And he says, at the end of it, he goes, I'm going to ask you how many times the ball was passed. So he comes out at the end and then he doesn't ask you that question. Instead he says, did you notice the gorilla? And you're like, what the heck are you talking about? They rewind the video and a guy in a gorilla suit walks through the group passing the basketball. Like stops and then he's walking. Yeah. Now a majority of people, I think it's like 80% of people don't notice a dude in a gorilla suit walking through because that's not what you're focusing on. So if you're focusing on appearance, you actually don't notice all these other incredible benefits. I got on a call with one of our coaches and their client relatively recently, which I love doing by the way. I love hopping on these calls. We have trainers that work with clients now and I forget how much I miss working with people. But I get on this call because this woman had hired one of our trainers for a year. And I would say our average client hires our trainers for nine months to a year, I would say. So I get on there and she'd been doing this for a year. And she had all these fitness goals. And she was frustrated because she hadn't really hit these fitness goals that she had. So I get on the call and we start talking. And it turns out over the last year, she had a surgery on her upper mid-back area. She's had some very stressful life things that had happened during that period of time. And so we're talking about all these difficult challenges that she's gone through over the last year. And then we talk about what it used to look like for her before she worked with a coach. And she's like, oh my God, every holiday season I would gain like 10 pounds. And every holiday season I would just be super sedentary and this and that. So as we're talking, and I know as a coach what I want to say, but I'm trying to help her kind of realize this. Help her come to conclusion herself. And so it turned out it's like, how do you think you would have done this year had you not worked with a coach? And her face was like, oh my God, like this would have been horrible. Had I had the surgery, gone through those stressful things without working with a coach, oh man, this would have been horrible. So I said sometimes progress looks like not going backwards. Or progress looks like, man, I'm going to the gym because this is just alleviating stress. I'm not, yeah, I'm not getting muscle right now because I'm going through this terrible thing, but it does make me feel better. And that's what this season is about with fitness. And when you start to view fitness in this more complete way, you won't stop. You won't stop because whatever happens in your life it makes things better. Versus I'm always trying to change how I look. I'm always trying to improve. By the way, if you're successful, I'll give you the flip side of this coin. If you're successful with hitting your fitness goals, then what? Because this is the other side of that coin. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes people are so disciplined and so like, no, I'm losing 30 pounds. I'm going to get shredded. I'm going to look amazing. Then they actually accomplish it. And then they're like, I don't have the motivation. Like I'm here, what do I do now? Yeah. And that's because you put all your eggs in that one basket and you're not really developing this real understanding of what it's doing for you. Well, yeah, you're so fixated on that. And then that doesn't fulfill this hole that you have. And you never gave yourself the opportunity to connect the dots to all the other things. So what is this all for? Yeah. I sacrificed this whole year to look like this, to be this. And it's not as good as I thought it would be. And I feel like I missed out on all these things. And so you're like, F this. And I mean, you see, I've seen a lot of people that's happened to where they end up going back because they're just like, why did I do all that if this wasn't as rewarding as I thought it was going to be? Totally. And then what happens, by the way, is when you do this the right way. And so what we're saying essentially, and I'll take a step back, is this should be a very high focus for you if this is something you want to be able to do forever. If you want to have a relationship with fitness where you're just a person that works out and you're just a person that values eating healthy in a real way, not an obsessive way, but in a real way, this what we're saying should be very high priority because this is how you do it. The way you don't do it is by looking at the scale, looking at the mirror, looking at the metrics like macros and calories and how much weight is on the bar. And that's all you focus on. That's not how you do it. I was training a friend of mine over the weekend and he's a very successful, hardworking guy, he's a doctor, ER doctor. And his approach to fitness has always been this kind of like, I go real hard, right? Typical high achiever type thing. And so we're working out and he's like, I didn't realize you could just feel good after working out. And I didn't realize I didn't have to beat the crap out of myself and I'm pointing things out to him because I've only trained him now three times. And we've added weight to the bar each time because that's what happens when you first start working out. And he wouldn't have picked up on it by the way, but I'm showing him like, you know you did five reps last week, today you just did 10 reps. He's like, oh my God, I'm not even getting sore. Like this is super wild. And he came to one of his workouts because he's a doctor so he'll lose sleep sometimes because of work and stuff. He came in, he was super tired and the workout looked very different. It was like correctional stuff, we're doing some belly breathing, some work on the TVA, we're doing quadruped. These are all like correctional exercise type stuff. And I'm like, how do you feel? How do you feel? I was like, man, I feel really good and I'm like killing myself. And I'm explaining this to him. I'm like, listen, I'm gonna get this for you. I'm gonna help you figure out or understand like this is something that you could do forever only if you understand how to use it properly and what it does for you. If you don't do that, you're always gonna struggle. Well, I think that's a sign that you've started to, because you might, someone might be listening and wondering like, have I connected those dots? Or you're workouts will start to shape and look different. Totally. I mean, I'm sure the audience has heard me say this many times, it took me a long time to get from this on or off. Either I'm like, my workouts- Otherwise it was a waste of time. Otherwise it was a waste of time. We're like simply, and I say that one of the big, pivotal moments in my personal journey was giving myself the permission to go to the gym and just do squats, three sets or four sets of squats and then be done with it. Or it's just an hour walk, or it's just a mobility. It's a 30 minute mobility session. It no longer became this like, either I'm heading towards a goal and I'm sore and pushing myself super hard through a workout or I'm not. It's like, oh, I've had two bad nights of sleep. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna do a machine workout and move at 50, 60% intensity and do that. Or I'm gonna do a 30 minute walk and then maybe I'll do a couple mobility drills. It once it switched, huge difference. So I think when you can switch the mindset away from being so driven and focused by the look and then becomes this thing that supports so many other things in your life, you quickly can go, oh wow, it should shape and look different. You know what the irony of that is that you're saying to Adam is that you'll end up looking better. No, well that's- Yeah, that's the thing. The best part about this is- End result's even better. Oh, the best part about this is that when I look back to say the last, say, five to six years, my worst shape in those five, six years is still better than what was like peak shape in my mid-20s trying to kill myself. Because this is more consistent. Yeah, just consistent. Yeah, I'm consistent. I'm consistently doing something. You know what I'm saying? Even though you'll hear me talk on the show of my training volume picking up or down or I'm kind of on it, getting everything, I'm never completely off of it. I'm doing something, you know what I'm saying? I'm walking, I'm doing something to, or I'm making good nutritional choices because I know that my training volume is down. And so your relationship with it just looks completely different if you've learned to connect those dots. I think that's a good tip. Yeah, I think too, another big step in the evolution of this whole process is like, because you go through and you do to the T like your workout, like your planned workout. If you're one of those where you actually have a program and you're following it and it's like, okay, I have to get through this. That mentality of having to get through the workout is something that's like step one. And then you'll show up some days and you'll be like, you know, this is where I'm at. I'm overstressed, I'm under-slept. Like I have all of these other factors going into this workout. And as I'm going in, I don't have the strength today. Like how do I tweak, adjust like those tweaking and adjustments and modifying to, you know, make it beneficial for you while you're there is a whole another step, which, you know, you're gonna learn that a lot from a trainer. You're gonna learn that from experience. And everybody has the ability to do that. And what's cool is we've been able to kind of help progress that process because we've now have options of like, oh, there's 15 minute versions. There's, you know, these other things that we're trying to introduce people to because that isn't like an overall thought people have going to the gym ever. Don't do anything that makes you hate working out. That's like, that's such an important thing to understand. Like if you're going to the gym and you're like, no, I'm gonna do this thing. I totally hate and you're strengthening that. And you're not gonna do it. You're gonna stop. So don't do anything like that. I find just thinking about when I started to first figure this out, cause that's why you were talking now is like, when did I start piecing this together? I remember when I started piecing this together because I remember feeling a little conflicted at first. So when I started thinking about this and I was like, okay, why am I having a challenge for the last eight years? Why is it that I can't figure out how to get people to do this for the rest of their life? Why is it that my fail rate is not, is terrible? Like, yeah, people are getting shaped with me, but then they stop. Yeah. Especially if they don't work with me anymore, then they totally stop. If I'm really trying to help these people, what's going on? And I remember initially it was like, ah, they lack discipline. They just need more discipline. But I'm like, wait a minute, I'm training executives. I'm training doctors. I'm training really successful discipline people. Maybe it's not them. Maybe I'm not a good coach. Maybe I had to figure out the way that I'm trying to guide these people. So I remember when I first started piecing this together, I'll get a client that would come in and they're just tired. And oh man, I had a rough night and whatever. And I'm like, this was like, I felt like I was going off on it, like I was walking out on a branch. And I was like, you know what, do you want to, let's just go for a walk. And they're like, okay, and we go on a walk. And in my mind, I'm thinking like, this person's going to think they're wasting their money. They're going to be like, why did I hire this guy? Just to go on a walk. Why did I, whatever? And then, you know, I saw another client, you know, a few days later or something, you know, and I'm like, hey, no, why don't we just stretch? And again, I'm thinking ahead like, oh man, this is a big experiment. Like I hope these people don't feel like I'm with, if they come to me and think they're wasting their money, I'm going to give them a free session. So I kept telling myself, next thing you know, I got clients calling me saying the craziest thing. I'd never heard this before as a trainer. They would call me and say, hey, I'm not feeling good today, really tired. I know we're not scheduled to work out, but can I come in? What? You don't feel great and you want to come in? That I'd never heard that before. And so as I started doing this, the consistency went through the roof. And then I developed, I helped develop people into lifelong fitness people. And it was incredible, but it was scary at first. Totally scary at first. I feel like we get a lot of flak. I still see it around like, all the mind pump guys are on this like low volume kick. And I see the comments and stuff. And I'm like, you know, it's so funny. People hate us. Well, it's always the person who's still trapped in that place of like. I also not talking to you. If you're like so disciplined, you never miss a day, your peace mode. Yeah, I'm not talking to you. What are you doing listening? I don't care. Like listen, if you're a coach, listen to us because we're going to teach you how to coach other people. But I'm not trying to motivate you, bro. You're already going to the gym all the time. You're the 5%. You're the 5%. The other 95% of the population. I'm talking to everybody else that needs help. Legitimately can handle it. You know, you know, you know, you know, 100%. I would not sit you down and talk to you about, you need to be more consistent. You're consistent homie. See you later, you won. I'm talking to everybody else right now. Do whatever you want. Increase your volume. I don't give a shit. Dude, I gotta tell you, I'll change the subject. I gotta tell you guys, this is just for parents out there. My three year old. So you have the terrible twos, right? Threes are oftentimes worse if you talk to other parents. And my daughter went from hard to harder, dude. My three year old? Oh my God, dude. Hey, she's so defiant. She just clapped back. Bro, hey, she just could kick you to break. How the hell, really this was a handful? She's a handful. He was a normal, like what you would expect from a kid, handful. Okay. My daughter is so defiant and nothing works. Nothing. Bro, I'm telling you, I'll be like, okay, sit right here. And she'll get up and she'll start throwing things off the table. And I'll be like, or she'll do, and I'll be like, and at some point you get mad so you threaten her. So I'm like, I'm gonna throw away your stuffy. She'll grab it and throw it away herself. Just do it, dad. I'm gonna do it. What is going on, dude? I got a call, I got a text from Jessica this morning. All it said was, I'll uppercase. I am furious. I'm like, uh-oh, what's going on? Your daughter just threw, I guess they're eating a pesto, a pesto and we'll put pecorino on it. If you got mad for some reason, took the whole thing and just threw it on the floor. And she's like, dude, I'm gonna lose my mind with this. I mean, my buddy talks about this with my goddaughter. Just she's like this. And he's like, he, bro, I do not wanna be a parent that's spanked. I have to spank. It's the only thing that works. That's what he's like. He's like, I can't, otherwise I cannot get her to listen or do it like she is just that defiant. And he's like, bro, I do not, I always pictured myself as a parent that would never do that. He's like, but I've been, it's the only thing that gets her attention. Otherwise she'll just do whatever the hell she wants and not afraid of any of the taking away stuff. Like just doesn't care. I know. And I'm like, please Lord, let this pee the phase and not when she's a teenager. Cause three years old, like I could deal with you throwing something like teenager that does that. Oh Lord. Well, now what they say, they typically say it's one or the other is what they say. I know. I don't know if that's true. That would be awesome if it was. I know. Cause I'd much rather deal with a toddler that just gives people hope. Yeah. I think so too. Look forward. Although I do love, cause I do have two, you know, big age gaps and I love, there's memes that you'll see with like, it's like a parent. It's like, when you're listening to someone say the toddler stage is the worst, but you have teenagers and they're like smiling and they're thinking. Like in their head. You just wait. There's other things. Do you see we did, we did soccer. We did soccer last week. I didn't see. Yeah, we had soccer. Yeah. How'd he go? Was he interested in all or is it just kind of? I mean, we went. Yeah. But did he play? Like what do you mean? I mean, so it was soccer camp, which was great because it was a perfect way to. Yeah, to introduce it. And the, and the coaches were great. I mean, shout out to that. I should give love to the company. I can't think of it off top of my head out of Morgan Hill, but it's a couple guys that were running this canther. There's like three of them probably in there, I'd say late twenties or something like that. Super great with the kids. I mean, it made a lot of games out of it. And so perfect for my son to like introduce it. Like I think putting him on a team and like going straight into full on practices would be, he would be like, hell, no, I don't want to do it. But we guys, he had three of his friends there and it was a camp. And so it was all a lot of play and teaching them some skills and stuff. But yeah, no, he's, and I found out afterwards that like, I mean, he finished the three days because his mother bribed him for a Lego to if he made it all three days. Yeah, yeah. But did he say he wants to do it again? I don't want to. He said no more. No, I mean, he didn't. He's like, you know, like, hey, how'd you like it? Yeah, it was all right, dad. Well, that's not bad. Yeah. At least he was like, I hate it. Yeah, you didn't say he hated it, but he also said he didn't care for it too. You know, I mean, he's like, he's like, well, you know, mom said I'd get a Lego if I made all three days. So I made all three days. How was he in the while he was there? You know, he's more interested in, you know, when it was going to be over. You know, say like how many, he was constantly like, how many more hours is left? How much longer is left? When's lunch? Ethan chasing bees. Oh, dude. Yeah. Yeah. He was like, yeah, the ball. I mean, there would be times where it would kick his way and he'd kind of make a jog towards it and then some other kid would, would bolt there really fast. And then he'd be like, I mean, kind of turn around. So yeah, man, just not, not that. The finest thing. Yeah. I mean, so we, we saw a good progression like day one. So we, we, we were going to not go at all. In fact, I had tried to convince Katrina to not be there at all because he does better when we're not there. And I, and so the, I got her to at least agree to being out of sight. So we dropped them off and he thought we were gone, but we weren't gone. We were, we were kind of watching from afar. And you could, and there was like, there was a couple of times where he went down and I saw that he, he started to like cry a little bit and stuff like that. I went off, but the coaches were so great. Got him up and like, come on, shake it off. You know, get him to like move and get going and not focus on like getting hit and stuff like that. And so it was really cool. I did get to see, you know, day one, that happened. Then to day two, none of that, day three, none of that, which was a progression. Yeah. So there was a progression and, um, but yeah, not a lot of interest and it was just like, well, I mean, they, you know, when they're young, it's interesting. Cause like, I really, I was telling you guys about my son, he, he'll run, but when the ball gets close to him, he runs away for some reason, but he'll run the whole time. Yeah. And he's trying to appear busy or something. I don't know. But by the, we're now, I don't know how many weeks we're in now, four, maybe four or five weeks. Now he goes after the ball. Yeah. Cause he gets it. Cause so they, they progress. Well, yeah. He was, he's, yeah. Remember, he's a year, year, what year and a half younger than Max's. And he's at an age where he's like, like he, your son's got all the energy and the athletic ability. He just needs it focused on, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. Like, I mean, when you're that young, when you first do it, you're just like, what's everyone doing? I was just running around. I'm really surprised that I talked to a lot of parents who, who have kids in high school who are like super athletes and like, oh, my kid didn't figure out to his 10. I mean, could you do this stuff? Katrina and I were that way. Both of us were. That's what gives me hope is that we were both late bloomers when it came to sports, although I did play soccer pretty young. Um, but I'd say like, I don't remember my desire for it until, until like, yeah, it's much older, like, like fifth, sixth grade, right? Um, so, you know, there's, there's, there's still time for it. All I can do is keep introducing him, but I know it means he's, he's, he's funny, man. He's just, he's different in so many different ways. I mean, I could, you guys know Bowser and Mario is like his favorite, his, you know, he's so into that stuff, right? Yeah. You guys watching new Mario? Well, so I'm driving like, Hey, check it time at the theater. I'm like, there's Mario's playing in the theater. You want to go and he's like, Oh, he's like, it's at the theater. Can we watch it at home? And I'm like, well, it's not at home. And if we want to watch it now, we go to theater, we get some popcorns, gummy bears for that. And he's like, I'll wait till it comes out at home. So I'm rather watching at home. Like, you know, that's you dude. I'm a homebody. You're so that we're at Jason's last night. We're at Jason's. That's all you. And we're all hanging out and stuff like that. And he's, you know, he comes up to him, sitting next to Jason, talking to him and his dad and stuff like that. And Max is like, dad, I'm ready to go home now. Right in front of Jason. All right. All right, dude. I said, give me like 10 minutes. And it's like, dude, he's just such a homebody, bro. He's, he is. Yeah. I mean, that's why I don't get mad. I mean, he's, he's, he's patient. He has good attitude about it. If I tell him, he's got great character. So it's like, you know what I'm saying? And he knows what he wants. And so, and he, yeah, he's not afraid to tell you like, yeah, no, dad, it's not. I don't care for it. That was, we were at a birthday. We were at not a birthday. It was like a party with a lot of our friends from church. And there's a lot of them have kids that are the same age as my five year old, but they're all girls. So they were in the jumpy house and just my son with literally like five, six girls his age and they're jumping and playing. And I'm watching this whole thing and the moms are coming over to the like, this can be interesting, but they get older like, yeah, dude, you know, the only guy that. Speaking of that, you know, it's funny. No, we were talking about this this week in a Larry's birthday party. I was talking to my sister-in-law about this and we were talking about Max and he's got, he was with his, this girl who's, he is one of his best friends. And she's like, she's like super tall and looks like she's like five years older than the same age. And she totally like grabs him by the hand and he just, he loves her. He'll do whatever she wants to do and like that. It's the cutest thing ever. And it's hilarious to watch my wife. It drives Katrina crazy. Katrina does not like when little girls boss her son around, which is ironic as shit to me. Cause every man she ever dated. Yes. I'm like the irony and she goes, the aren't of you not to care. You would never put up with that shit. I'm like, yeah, but he's, he's a six right now. It's cute. You know what I'm saying? Like it won't be cute when he's in high school. And I'm like, yeah, and I'll talk to him when he's in high school right now. It's okay. He's got this, but boy, she just, she sits him down. Like you don't let those girls tell you what to do. Oh, yes, she does. And she gets, and so her sister and I are talking about, I'm like, it's hilarious to me to watch your sister get so defensive with these little girls. She, that is her Katrina's biggest pet peeve with the kids is that is girls. If she does not like seeing little girls boss her son around. And so she is adamant about like sitting him down and being like, Hey, when she tells you to do this, you don't, you don't do that unless you want to. Yeah. And I'm like, let him, she's cute. And he likes, he likes hanging out with her and he gets along with him. And so it died. She'll figure that out. It happens eventually. I mean, I, so I, maybe that's because her, my sister-in-law was like, she's like, I'm surprised that that doesn't bother you. And I'm like, you know, I was kind of like that when I was young. I liked, it worked through that. Yeah. I hung out, I hung out with the chicks and I liked, I liked older girls and like they could totally get me to do whatever. I remember being like, yeah, I remember being in four, five, six grade and being on the bus and having the older girls talk to me and they could get me to do stuff because I was into that, you know, whatever. But then I grew up, you know, got older, different, you know what I'm saying? But so I look at him and I see that I'm like, it's okay right now. And so he's fine. He'll, yeah. It's like, Katrina's like, hell no. Yeah. I took, I went to a legal land last week. How'd you like it? It is, did it really just like it? For little kids, it's amazing. It's awesome. It's amazing. Perfect for his age. It's definitely though, if your standard is Disneyland, come on, you can't compare anything to Disneyland. It's like super J.C. More not very far. I think, I think it's a great, I think it's a perfect right before Disneyland. So like, I didn't want to take Max to Disneyland. It's better for little kids. I didn't want to take Max to Disneyland until he was able to ride all the ride. Like that was like a big discussion. Like we had friends that took their kids to Disneyland like at four. With the kid, he even ride everything. It's so expensive. It's like, why, why do that? Exactly. And so I was like, let's wait till Max is at an age where he's tall enough and can ride everything. And like, Legoland's perfect for when they're before that. Like there's a lot of stuff they can still do. It was, yeah. And the way you did every ride, you know, that he wanted, the park is perfect for little kids. And it's the first time it was just him and I. So it was nice father, son time. Yeah. Just having fun. Now, how was that? It was awesome. It was awesome. He kept telling me how awesome it was. He kept saying, this is the best time they've ever had. He'll remember that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is the ones that make a big impact. Oh, this is the best time. This is the best place. I love this. Let's not leave. He just kept telling me over and over again, we're having fun. I let him eat, you know, more treats than he normally, you know, have. We stayed up late right till nine, which is funny because he would tell people, I stayed up till nine crazy. But we had a great time, dude. And then before that, I took my 16 year old to down to look at some colleges down the LA area. And then the day after we went to Universal together, very different experience. Okay. So how did you do this? Did you fly down with your daughter and then fly back and then you get on my son? Oh, I think you drove down with him. I did two trips. Oh, you did two separate flights back in. Oh, wow. Okay. And I wanted to have a lone time with each of them. Yeah. And, you know, first off with your teenage kid, it's hard to get teenagers to kind of open up, especially, I don't know if this is more true or not, but it's, it's hard. Like if I, you know, hey, how's your day? What's going on? It's like, get one word answers. Plus she's busy. She's got sports. We don't have like all this time to sit and just let the space create that. So I'm like, let's get away. We're going to start looking at colleges soon anyway. And, uh, but it's funny because we were driving and, uh, I had, uh, AI print out. I printed out or not printed. I took 50 questions. You can ask your 16 year old daughter for connection. I actually asked it. I was going to have kept asking questions. Didn't work. No, there was a, do you remember what figure? Eagle, what, um, there was a, there was something he said. There's a way to engage your teenage kids. Yes. It's stuff like this. Like instead of saying how was your day at school? You would say something like if, if today, if today was a movie at school. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I tried all that. It doesn't work. No, she has to be in the mood, man. And so it was like pulling teeth to kind of get hurt. One thing that I can always do with my daughters have fun though. So we can always like together have fun. Yeah. But to have like those deep conversations, it's like, what ends up happening is I force it and it turns into a lecture and then she shuts down even more. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, oh, so I'm like trying to like to get her to kind of open up. Uh, and she kind of did a little bit the first day. Then we got a little argument by the end of the day because, uh, you know, there's like a certain colleges that I will pay for and anything outside of that, I won't. And so she, you know, the whole like, you're trying to control me. I'm like, well, yeah, I'm paying. If you pay, you can decide. Do you think part of that challenge is also, uh, cause you said something that reminds me of the, the challenge I had with my siblings. So I have, I'm, there's four of us and I'm the, the two youngest ones. There's a massive gap, 13 and 15 years. And, uh, so most of their life, I was just like in another parent. And what I've had a really hard time in, in our, in our thirties and forties now is, uh, just being a brother. Yeah. And I know that part of that's my fault. Like I don't even, and I, it took me, yeah, it took me a long time to realize even the way I talk, cause I would go into lecture mode. I didn't even mean to, you know what I'm saying? It's just natural that that's the way older brother. I have a lot more experience in wisdom, but I'm like, I'm trying to get out of that. And so do you feel like some of it is even you and how you communicate back to her? Right? Like for sure, because, uh, like practicing, she says something and you're like, Ooh, I want to do this, say this, but I need to practice. It's not even that. It's just getting to like start opening up. Like we'll just drive in the car and it'll be just quiet and she'll just listen to music. I'm like, okay, like I'm here to like connect with you. So then I got to do the whole like, Hey, put your phone down. Yeah. Hey, let's just talk for a second. Yeah. But what I, what I recognize, what I realized was that a lot of that was my fault because when they would, I would go right into lecture mode versus I, what I needed to learn to do was they're going to say something. And the inside of me, I have the answer. I think, but I just need to be a brother. Like, Oh, damn, that's so, it's more like this. Cause I know what that feeling. I have that with my siblings too. Uh, it's more like this. No one's talking. I'm asking a question to get a short answer. Nothing else. I'll give you, so then it's like, Hey, you know, there's, there's a few things that you want to look at, you know, when you meet a guy. And so I just, it's like, I'm trying to create conversation, but if she starts talking, I'll listen, uh, you know, I figured that part out, uh, with her, but we can have fun. So then the next day we went to universal and then we had a blast. Uh, and I said, so I get motion sickness. I don't like going on roller coasters, but I'm like, I'm going to do, and my daughter loves the scariest, most crazy rides. So I'm like, I'm going to do every ride. I don't care how crappy I feel, bro. By the end of it, it was this close to throwing out. I was so close to, but I did every ride. And then we were able to start kind of warming up and talking and stuff like that. But yeah, those tea cups for you though. No, we did, you know, which one almost got me. It was the Harry Potter freaking. Yeah, dude. Was it the first time you've been a universal? I've had a universal school now. I've been the beer. Huh? Did you try that butter? What is that? Oh yeah. I saw, but what is it? I got that. It's like, I'm really sweet, creamy, like root beer kind of stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah, should have got that. Yeah, it hurts really good. Yeah, I should have got that. No, I hadn't been there in a while. That place is massive. That's, that's fun with older kids for sure. Yeah. Not with the younger kids. The younger kids would have hated that. Yeah. But anyway, I mean, it turned out to be good, but it's just, I'm just going to try creating more of those opportunities to just be just the two of us because whether it's at home or getting away. I feel kind of bad just listening to your guys stories. Like we literally didn't do anything for the kids. I mean, I didn't do anything either, bro. We were sick. Bros. There's so much going on. And, uh, but we obviously, we took them to Palm Desert and it was fun. Like we went on some hikes and, uh, you know, I took them mini golf and there's this place there that's like so old school. It's like, it reminds me of, uh, uh, karate kid. You know, he goes to golf and stuff. Oh yeah. Like all like the, the go carts and stuff. So it was great. It was, um, I was, I was racing against Ethan and he's like super into racing as he thought he was awesome and all the stuff. And so the last lap, uh, I just, I cut him off and then got right in front and beat him. So I could flex on him forever. That's good bragging rights. Do you remind him that your weight heavier and you shouldn't have beat him? Yeah. Yeah. I'm basically like King Kong out there. You know, a little like Mario Donkey Kong. Exactly. But, uh, we, we actually purchased, uh, um, uh, an old BMW car for him. Oh, you got it. You got it. We got, yeah, it's a different one. Um, and it was a bummer because like we, for his birthday, we were trying to time it obviously close to his birthday, but, uh, the one that we're going to get felt through and the guy sold it to somebody else like right at the last second, right? Dude. Um, but this one was like still a manual stick shift. So I really wanted to make sure that was like a thing. That's a flex by the way for him. Like he's going to take girls out on that. They're going to triple. It's also a brilliant strategy on his part too. It's a, it's a nice smart way for a parent to keep your kid off a phone while he's driving totally without saying it. You just do it. I mean, like, cause. Yeah. And he's really into, uh, stock car racing and racing in general. And I'm like, if you want to be all in that world, you better know how to drive a stick shift. And so it started to kind of resonate. Uh, I'm like, if there's a learning curve, it's not easy. And so he, he took it around the parking lot and it was cool. Cause this younger guy who was selling it, uh, you know, he's like, Hey, I'll take him and like, you know, took him around and taught him some things without us, which was kind of cool to watch him, uh, you know, figure it out. You know, he did pretty well. He didn't like stall it out like completely at first. He did all right, you know, but then it, he's done motorcycles. Um, not really. Oh really? Okay. I mean, he's done like, like quads, like, so he knows how to use it. He knows how to use a clutch like somewhat, but not less. So different though. He's totally different. It is, but it's a concept. Cause I, I, yeah, sure, sure. Cause I learned on a, uh, what are they, what are they called the fifties? The little, uh, yeah. And I had a clutch. So when I first drove a stick shift, I got the concept of the clutch because otherwise you don't know concept of a clutch. Yeah. They're like, what do I do? All right. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot to learn there with RPMs and, you know, listening. And it was cool though, is you get really like attached to the vehicle. Like you understand the sounds. Oh, I missed it. Dude, next on my radar, I forgot. Like, and I was driving it a bit and it's funny cause it's, you just, it's a very visceral experience that way, as opposed to, you know, just like turning it on with a stupid button and then we're out of here. Like it's so automatic now. Um, but yeah, I love it. Cause it's, it's like no balls. Dude, it's, it was, uh, the other one we were looking at, it was like a V eight. This one's like a V like, like a four banger. Yeah. Oh yeah. So he didn't know that at all. It's like, and he picked it and I'm like, okay, cool. Like we're driving it on the fru. It was like 75. It was like, screaming to make it over this hill. I'm like, oh, but that's good. It's good news for us as parents. We're like, it's not gonna be racing. It starts modding it. Well, yeah. Cause he's got a job. Well, he's, he's a job before. You turbo that thing. Yeah. You know, you got, yeah. Exactly. That's what I would do. Yeah. Back of the day. That'll be cool. I got a, I got a friend of mine. I got to tell you guys about this success story from Crateen. She's a nurse and she does a lot of the swing shift crazy stuff that nurses will do. So now she started working out and stuff, but I talked to her about using Crateen for the mental health and cognitive benefits because she's like, cause you know, you know, it's Justin, cause Courtney used to work these crazy hours. Brutal. So brutal. And it just fries your brain. Yeah. So she's been taking Crateen and she's like, it is night and day. It's like my energy, my, I'm not foggy. She's like, I think way better. She's like, this stuff is incredible. Oh, anybody on these like graveyard or swing shifts, it should be like mandatory. That's a great call. And it's not like, it's not a stimulant like caffeine. It's not, it's like good for you. So she was just rave, rave reviews. It's, it's making, this is making its way into mainstream now. So I was at dinner last night with Jason and his family and his sister in law and his mom were talking about Crateen for the brain. And they're not like fitness people and stuff like that. Like, I mean, and the only reason why I came up in conversation, I was there. She obviously knows that I have the health podcast and everything like that. And we're asking questions. You know, I heard Crateen is really good for your brain. I'm like, Oh wow. So it's, it's made its way. When I start hearing it like that, it like a dinner party with like regular people that aren't like considered fitness people and knowing that, I was like, Oh, that's super interesting to me to hear. You know, Legion has capsules. Oh, they have capsules. You do Crateen, one of hydric capsules. Oh, I didn't know that. Yep. Yeah. That'll be a lot easier. Oh, I thought it was powder or gummies. I didn't know that. You just get the capsules, which makes it hell easy. And I think it's like five capsules. I think it's like five grams or whatever the dose is. Super easy and expensive. Just pure Crateen, Monohydrate capsules. Put them in. Of course. Smart. You did that. Yeah. Yeah. Very smart. Yeah. Super. Uh, I, I'm watch, I watch, I sent it to you guys, guaranteed you guys didn't watch it, but there's this documentary on prime called universe designed. Oh, you sent it to us to watch. I did. Off to check that. Bro, it is fire. So it's all about like the probability and odds that there isn't an intelligence behind the universe and all the stuff that we had Steven Meyer on the podcast, which that should be dropping soon. Right. Is that dropping soon, Doug? Well, before this episode goes up, I don't think so. Okay. Right after I think so anyway, so, you know, it's so, it's a great documentary. It talks about all the evidence, all the, and it's got all these scientists on there. And then of course there's apologists and philosophers. But, you know, when I was an atheist, had somebody come at me, uh, with, with this explanation, I definitely wouldn't have been a atheist anymore. Cause as they're breaking it down, it's like, whoa, this is the probability that everything's so finely tuned and so perfect. Like if any one of these, uh, slightly off, one of the forces is off by a little bit, nothing exists. There is, there is no planets. There is no, um, life. There is no water. Um, and then DNA, uh, and how it looks like a computer program. Um, and it just, it's just incredible. But they really break it down. It's so good. And so I was watching that and then that led me down a rabbit hole. And I didn't know this, by the way. I know you know this Justin, I'm pretty sure you guys know that they find seashell fossils on the tops of some of the tallest mountains in the world. Do you guys know that? Actual seashell fossils. Yeah. At one point, these massive mountains were covered in water. Yeah. Which, yeah. Evidence. Yeah. Which that's like, being an evidence, I sent you guys, well, since we had such a long car ride, it was like, uh, let's listen to the podcast. And like I've been getting into Sean Ryan's podcast, because of the guess he's been having on a really good, uh, I don't remember the name of this gentleman, but he was going through the exact case for the shroud of turn. Oh yeah, dude. I saw clips of that. It was so compelling, dude. I've, I've been a very big skeptic, you know, with like, I want to, that looks really cool and it looks like, you know, it'd be great. And it doesn't have to be true. And it doesn't have to be true. It doesn't have to be true, but, uh, I mean, they've gone back and forth with it over the years, uh, because they, you know, took a bit of the corner of it for evidence and, and then like carbon dated in, it didn't come back like the organic material they use. So I guess he debunked that because it's like, you know, the perimeter of it, they have to reinforce because it's like a, a shroud. So it like, it'll start disintegrating. So they have to like reinforce it with this cotton, uh, reinforcing. And so that's what they were picking up on. But, uh, the science that they've done, what they've done to analyze it is why insane, insane. Like there's, there's dimensions to this. Like, so it's like, I tried to recreate it like holographically, you could like, uh, expand it to where it looks like the features and everything. And, and, oh my God, there was a stat on there. I'm not going to remember it, but it was an insane stat of like the instant that light must have gone through like some kind of like a nuclear. Yeah. The intensity of it that didn't burn it. That left this image. Yeah. Yeah. All of it is like impossible. And I was pretty crazy. Impossible. They can't explain it. You know, speaking of shows and you guys are talking about stuff like that, I, I have a new one that I found, which is totally different than what we're talking about right now. It's called company retreat. Have you seen this? It's all in prime. You all will like this. This is one that I feel like all of us will like, especially we all like kind of like office humor and stuff. So imagine the office, uh, combined with a reality element to it, meaning that one of the employees is actually a real person, but has no idea that they are on a show at their, they think, bro, it is a brilliant concept. So it's like a prank. Is it like a Truman show? Kind of, but not like Truman. It's more like the office. Just imagine one of the office members really thinking they're showing up to a real job, but everybody else is, but everybody else is an actor and is in on the, the prank and they have everything written of how it's all going to go. So they, so they, it's so brilliantly done. Best with your head. So bro, you're losing your mind. Yeah. Is so good. And I was, I was like, so blown away by how good it was. I was, what's it on? So I think it's on prime. Look up if it's on prime. I think it is. Um, it actually, I didn't know this until after I found this, we watched Katrina and I benched the whole thing. Found out that they did an original one called the jury. And it was the same concept. It was, it was a staged like, like whole court hearing or that one person was, uh, was actually a real person. The rest were all actors and they put them through a whole like, dude, that'll mess with your dude. It was, it's so good. And it's hilarious cause it's very office type humor, but it's done in such a way where it's so believable that this is, this could happen. Everybody's in on it. But yes, like imagine that, like you show up to work and everybody's kind of off and doing weird things. And you start to lose your mind. When they interview, they interview, they interview this guy and they, and they, it's as an intern and the pitch is that it's going, they're, they're documenting the, this process on their retreat that they're doing. And are you okay being on camera because we're doing a little documentary on our whole thing. So he's aware that he's being filmed. And so he's, he's in on being filmed, but he thinks it's a documentary for the work and they're just, they're just documenting all of it. So I mean, the fact that there's camera, the cameras that are around, they, they hide a lot more cameras and there's a lot more to it that he doesn't know about, but he sees cameras. And so it's not like a big deal. Oh, it's so good. It's so funny. It is prime, by the way. It is prime, right? It is hilarious. Yeah. You guys will, you guys will, I can't believe I can't, we've never heard of it. I know. I just, we just came across it and I read what was going on. And I'm like, just reading. I was like, Oh, that's funny. I'm like, no way that's true. Okay. Is it one of these reality shows that is staged reality? And I went and did like research and I'm like, Oh no, this guy 100% had no idea all this. I'll watch this one. Yeah. Jessica, for sure. You guys will like it. Dude, somebody that, so I know, I won't say too much. So I want to talk about who they are, but someone, someone I know, uh, started using a seven, oh, H. Okay. So listen, been telling everybody this stuff, you guys, this is so, by the way, it's made illegal in California. Although apparently you can still buy it in some places, but it is illegal. I looked it up because when I was talking to this person, they're like, they made it illegal. So I'm like, okay, good. Seven, oh, H is so strong. It's like taking a prescription opiate. Yeah. But it's, you know, from a plant or whatever. Yeah. She had back pain. This person, I know had back pain. Friend of hers said, Hey, try this natural herbal painkiller. It's so strong, by the way, that we'll take this tablet and we'll break it up into fours. So you literally break up this little tablet into little corners and she's like, Oh man, my back pain went away. I felt so good. So I was using it for a month. She was just using it for a month. She tried to go off severe withdrawal. And she's like, I have to scale it down. That was a month, a month, just a month of using this stuff, which by the way, it's so they derive it from cratum and cratum is addictive. It can be very addictive. The concentrated version of it. But it's basically like the difference between cratum and seven, oh, H is the chemical inside of cratum that gives you the opiate feeling. It's like you took cratum, which is a leaf. Yeah. And they're like, how can we turn the hell out? We turn this into a straight up. What they did was they took the, the, the one main chemical of the leaf that concentrate and concentrated it into this pressed pill. So I, I forget when I looked up, because I looked up when I was, what's the equivalent? How strong was it? Oh, I want to say it's like 10, like 10 cratum pills, which would be like five grams of cratum is 10 would be like one tablet. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It might be more nice. If somebody's not, if somebody uses it for the first time and they took one tablet, they would get severely ill. They could. It depends on how, how like, are you the type of person that like it's, it's so that would be equivalent to basically taking like a double strength Vicodin. Yeah. Most people would vomit. Yeah. Some people like Katrina, we get sick from that. She's very sensitive things like that. Other people would not. Uh, I wonder if there's been overdoses on 708. There has to be. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Um, where's the most prevalent? Is it Florida or all over? Yeah. All over the US. Oh yeah, dude. Oh, the, so. You give them in smoke shops everywhere. So the gas stations too. So the feds, uh, was it the feds? Who does the controls, uh, drugs and stuff is the fed anyway. They're, um, like federally looking like FDA, right? They're trying to ban it everywhere because of its strength. What does it say there, Doug? I'm seeing if there's overdose history. Um, yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. We're present in fatal and non-fatal overdose cases. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it could be they were overdosing something else. You know what this reminds me of? Remember, remember when, um, they were like, this one back when weed was like super illegal and they were making like, like they were taking like THC, chemically altering it a little bit. Making your dabs. Making it until like, no, not dabs. They were like, there was like, uh, I was like, it's like weed, but it's legal. And people were going crazy. Oh, artificial salvia. No, it wasn't salvia. It was literally like they're, they're making synthetic cannabinoids. synthetic. Yeah. This is crazy with people. What, what they'll do. Yeah. I know. I've warned everybody. I know that to, to be careful because this stuff is like, bro, 30 days. She just used a little bit for 30 days. I mean, I'm like, what's the date? Where are we at? What's the date right now, though? Uh, the 13th. So November 11th, I think it was the date that I came off. Oh, everything. I literally have hit my first week of like feeling normal. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just hit it. I just up until brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Up until a week ago, I still had like jaw clenching and anxiety at night. And, uh, I've just recently and I still wouldn't say I'm great, but I, I feel the closest to normal that I have felt like now. And this has been the first week. So are you, so, you know, some people, um, who, some, some, most people can have some alcohol and not a big deal. And some people become alcoholics. And then when they stop, if they're able to stop, they're like, I will not have a single drink. Yeah. Is it like that for you? Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause you're like, I'm not even gonna touch it. Not even a little bit. I mean, I have it. I like everyone thought I was crazy cause I didn't even throw away all the pills. I got all of them. Just, I can, I like looking at it. It's a reminder. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. Then I was like, like, I don't, I wouldn't want, you couldn't convince me. So different though, right? Like, uh, cannabis alcohol. You went through. Yeah. Yeah. Like stuff like that. I could totally, oh yeah. I'll have a drink with you or oh yeah. I'll smoke with you. Like I would totally like, even though I told you guys that I've also, it's been that long since I've done cannabis. I'm not, I didn't announce that and say I wouldn't anymore. And I totally would if like the right situation called for it. I would not be worried about that. But I would, you couldn't, you couldn't pay me enough to indulge in one day of that. Wow. Oh yeah. No, because it, the fact that I still know that I, I have after effects from that, that, that long. And I also know how easily that, you know, a little bit turns into a little bit more. It's all about knowing yourself, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm very aware of, you know, and I knew because it has a pool on me too. Not like quite like that. Yeah. But, uh, but I will not, I won't go near it because I know it's got a pool. Yeah. The part that, so the part that makes me mad about that is I, I went through mad at myself is, and I played this game of it's an herb, right? Because I, I went through, you know, Vicodin stuff like a long time ago. And so I, and so I know better, I wouldn't touch that again. Like someone offered me one of those big no, you know, like, or if I needed one, no, I don't even if it was pain or surgery, I'd still not take it because I know my own relationship with that. So yet I allowed the Kratom thing, even though I know it works on the opiate receptor, but it was like this justification of it's this herbal leaf. And so, but to see what it put me through, it's like, it was, I mean, though that the, what I went through with the Kratom was worse withdrawals than I ever experienced with Vicodin. Now I didn't obviously take as much for as long as I did, which is, but that just throws in the face of the lie that it's, it's a better substitute. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a total. Yeah. Yeah. Bull crap. Oh yeah. I mean, there's a lot of, so I did a, I did a full interview with Doug Bobst on it. He did, he, um, he had me talk all about it. That's all we talked about. And I, I saw some of the people, uh, in the comments and there's a lot of people that are saying things and I get it because I had an uncle that was hooked on, on prescription medication and the Kratom helped him merge off of that. And so there, there was a, there was a handful of people I'd say that were commenting on my interview that were saying things like, well, not all of us. It's not bad for everybody that were defensive about it. You know? And so I'm like, yeah, no, I, I, I can understand that you could potentially use that as a way to, to, uh, merge off of, uh, you know, it, like a really strong OxyCotin or Vicodin and so it could be, it could be helpful for some people. And I know that the whole documentary that originally sold me on it, that's how it sold me. Yeah. You know, I saw a whole documentary on these. It was the names documentary. No, it was before his. Oh, really? Yeah. I was called the, um, something I think I want to say it was a magic leaf or was that, was that his, it was one before him that, uh, that, that I'd seen and that, that was what convinced me that, oh, this is like this. You know, they get pictures as herbal thing and it's all natural and it's, helps all these people that have opiate addiction and things like that. I was like, oh, wow, this sounds like a really, a really good thing. It's no different than tea or caffeine or something else. And it's like, yeah, that's the thing that trapped me into or led me down this like three years. But yeah, I know what are we, I don't know how many months. I tell you what though, um, uh, what's the name of troescription guy that we just had? Oh yeah. Yeah. Shit. Dr. Sharer. Um, yeah, look at what dog is, uh, um, are you his sleep stuff? Have all the stuff, the best sleep. Yes. I've never tried. So, so here's, here's the, bro, that'll make you sleep. Here's the move. Like period. You take, you, you dissolve, you dissolve one of the comms first. So I'll have, so I typically, my routine right now is, uh, I'll get ready. I'll, I'll make myself camomile tea. I'll kind of drink the camomile tea first while we're watching a show or someone that I'll throw one of those comms under my tongue, let it dissolve completely. By the time it dissolves, it's set in and I can already feel myself like, ooh, like totally chill out. And then I take the, what's the Z triple Z one? Yeah, that's a sleep one. Yeah. This, the sleep one, put that under and dissolve by tying that dissolves. I mean, my, my eyelids are getting heavy. And then I just, yeah. It's the most effective. Yeah. Dr. Scott share, I believe. Did episode go live yet or no? Um, let me see. Oh, so to have gone up. So awesome. Listen to that episode. So people, people, people have heard us talk about that. So yeah, you, you'll hear in the app, or you, hopefully you heard the episode. Him talk about a stack. I've been taking that since we met him and it's been incredible. Yeah. That's what I haven't done consistently that he told me to do also is take the methylene blue during the day. And so I really want to string like two or three days together where I do that, where I take the methylene blue in the, in the morning or in the afternoon or whatever, and then use those two consistently and see if I, cause he says that that'll help it. You know what else helps is the, the tromune, uh, which is an, it's a, a cordyceps extract and it's not, it doesn't make you sleepy, but it does increase REM stage. Oh really? So take that before bed and you'll get more REM stage. It's not a sleep supplement. It's, yeah, but I'm trying to improve REM. That's it. So REM and deep I'm trying. That's, that's, I mean, I'm on, you know, try, I've been tracking consistently and, uh, I'm still on the hunt. So I haven't yet to do back to back nineties. So that's like, uh, that's like the goal for me is, is trying to do that. But yeah, I know it's been, it's been cool. And now I got the, the sauna going. So I'm going to, so I'm going to have, I haven't had a, a, a get a nice little, which was the plan was this week that we just had off, but max got sick. I got sick. Everything got thrown out the window, but I was going to like really get my regimen together with like my training, my diet, the sleep staff. You hate that? Like you get a week off. Oh, I had this whole plan of like, we had this step that I had to take care of with the cars and so that and not all got pushed out and a headache. I'm still trying to figure, I told you guys that, uh, we had like a dead animal that we can't, we had to take, we had to take the rover in to get like taking a part. Oh, that's right. Did they find it? It's still there. If that for a week, if that for a week. And, and it was funny was he tells Katrina like four or five days, we have a connection over there and he calls her up and he goes, Hey, he goes, uh, we can't find anything. There's, there's, there's no, there's no dead animal. It's fine. It's in the car. It's fine. Or with that company up Katrina is like, no, it's not, there is trust me. And so he's telling her, they're kind of like arguing on the phone and they know each other since high school, right? And so she's like arguing with them. And so he's like, well, let me go. Hold on, I'll go check. So I guess the car that day had been sitting out in the sun and with everything sealed up and he comes back. He's like, okay, we're, we'll keep it. Come in, get a loaner. We'll get to the bottom of this. Cause he, I guess he, how weird. Yeah, we cannot figure out where, where it's coming from or where it's at, but it is disgusting and it smells like there's a dead animal somewhere in this car, which is so crazy. Like, if you know my cars, I keep everything like clean and tight and like you can't like you, like you would never think that there's this weird coming in. So they're having to take apart everything. So it's like a piece of fruit or a crab or somewhere. Yeah. I mean, if it is, it's, you, it's not where you've tore out the inside. Oh yeah. They've already taken, we already removed the seats, front seats, back seats of all year. Yeah. So it's got to be through the glove compartment, bro. Yeah. Bro in the carpet or up in the chassis or something like that because we're yeah, cannot get to the bottom. And he, and he was so certain that there's nothing we, we check, we pull the seats up with the whole thing. We can't find anything. And then he put it apart it out there and he's like, okay. Dude, mice can do anything. I'm right. Crazy. That's what we're afraid of is that it's like some little tiny little mouse that got trapped. Like any AC or something. Yeah. It's somewhere in the, in there and they can't figure out where it's at, but it's, there's something because it's, it's, it's rancid when you, when the car heats up. So yeah, I'm dealing with that right now. Supplement companies are known for not being very good. Oftentimes what the bottle says is not what's in the bottle. Third party testing often shows that the supplements you're taking are a waste of money. And maybe you're not backed by studies. This is not the case with Keon. Keon products are tested. They're clean. They're effective. They only use supplements that have data that backs them. Look, if you want the best supplements, this is a premiere supplement company. If you want the stuff that's the best for you, go check out Keon. Go to get Keon.com. That's G E T K I O N. Dot com forward slash mine pump. That link gets you one of the biggest discounts you'll get anywhere 20% off. Go check them out. Here comes the show. Our first caller is Mitchell from Ohio. What's up, man? How you doing, Mitchell? Hey guys, thanks for having me on. You got it. What's going on? Yeah. So, um, I give you a little bit of background and then, uh, thank you. My question there at the end. So I, uh, I've been lifting for about six years. I'm 24 years old. Um, I feel like I'm pretty strong, uh, for my size. I'm six foot three, about 185 pounds. Um, but I feel like, uh, I'm not building the physique that I want. Um, so a little bit more background. I started liftings when I was 18, um, plate college baseball. So that's when I kind of got started lifting. I was about 175 pounds when I started. Um, and then in that first year, I put on about 10 pounds, I'd say, um, and build some size and strength, those newbie gains. Uh, but since then I really haven't been able to put on the size that I want. Um, so I, I mean, I feel like, like I said, I'm strong for my size, like, but I, I still feel super skinny and I just, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing everything right. I'm running maps 15 advanced right now. I'm eating about 3,200 calories a day, um, about 190 grams of protein. I just, I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. So I just want to get your guys's advice on what I should be doing. Dan, you're strong. Yeah, you're strong. Very strong. What's your workout? Tell us what your workout looks like. Yeah. I mean, I'm running a 15 advanced right now. So, uh, so I go to the gym. I'm in there five days a week. I'll work out with the buddy. Uh, so I, I don't do the full six or seven days. I just kind of throw in the, the day six and put that in, uh, you know, scattered out throughout the week, uh, through those five days. Um, but, but through those, you know, I mean, I'm, I feel like I'm pushing myself and, and grinding. I just, I'm just not seeing the growth, the muscle growth that I feel like I should be, you should eat more. Are you, are you playing, uh, are you playing any ball? Are you doing any other activities outside? Cause these are your height, your numbers. Everything's very similar to like, kind of where I was at. And I just, I was active. I was an active guy. I played, pick up basketball all the time. I was lifting. I was wakeboarding. I was snowboarding. I was doing all this stuff. Do you do a lot? Are you pretty active guy or what? So my job, I'm pretty active in my job. I do carpet cleaning in a, in water damage restoration. So I'm, I get about 8,000 steps a day. Um, so I'm not like sitting down in an office all day, but I mean, I feel like I'm not, I don't, other than the gym, I don't go out and play ball or anything like that. So your age, your activity, the amount of strength training, doing your size, uh, your thousand plus. If you get 3,200 calories a day is going to keep you the way you're at. Yeah. And you're going to be fit and healthy and you'll be good. Uh, you want to gain some size. You got to get up, you got to get up to close to 4,000 calories at least. Yeah. You just got to eat more food, dude. And consistently cause I, if you've done this, like, cause I remember also being here, I could, I could do a couple of days where I was hitting 4,000 and then I'd go back down. It was just so hard to eat that much, which you can probably, you can relate to. And that's, that's really what it is. It's just, it's consistently being able to consider that. I talk a lot on the podcast, some of the big hacks for me. Uh, I had to get ahead of the calories. I was not a big calorie eater in the morning. And so starting with something, even if it was like low, low calorie, like early, early in the morning. So I was hungry by nine or 10 in the morning to eat a big breakfast. And then I have another meal and then I have lunch. And so if I got behind on calories, 4,000 just seemed impossible. If I was good about my mornings, I could do that. I don't know if that, if that resonates with you at all, but that was, that was my hurdle. Yeah. It definitely does. Cause I, I did struggle with that before I'm eating about a 600 calorie meal for breakfast before I go to the gym, uh, kind of on my way to the gym ish. Uh, so, so I've kind of got ahead of that a little bit. It's a little tough for me cause with my job, I'm on the road a lot. Yeah. Um, like bouncing between job sites. Uh, so I don't, just with that and, and keeping that in mind it. I mean, is there any like, I don't know, some types of hacks or anything like that for me. Yeah. Here's a deal. So here's the deal. The guy like you, um, it's, it's going to be a, it's going to be like an effort to put on size through eating and it is hard. Now, if you just keep eating what you're eating and do what you're doing, bro, you're crushing your, your, your way stronger than the average 24 year old. You're fit. You got good lean body mass. You're doing good. But if you want to gain another 10, 15 pounds of lean body mass, it's got to be a concentrated effort with food. And if you're on the go, this means you're going to, you're going to need to meal prep. And so what you do is you have these meals in your car, you keep them in a, in a cooler or something like that. And then when you're, you know, every few hours you go out there and you, you eat one and, and then you own 10 minutes and you go back to work. Get creative with, so if, um, and, and give me your obstacles. If you have them, like for example, I know sometimes guys that are working on jobs that they don't have access to like a microwave. So it's like, so make like a chicken pasta, cold salad type dishes. Or like, like, can you have dairy? Yeah. Yeah, I can. I actually drink a lot of milk actually. So full fat, full fat dairy cottage cheese is really good. You can throw some fruit in there, some granola. Yeah. Uh, the high protein yogurts are really good. Uh, you can add some peanut butter for some fat in there. Throw some cottage cheese with a scoop of vanilla whey protein in it and pineapple stirred up. Now you're talking about like a 50 gram high protein in the high fat one, like, like Sal saying, full dairy, full dairy cottage cheese. You can keep it cold in your cooler like that. It's easy so you can, you can get scrapped. Tuna fish. There's yeah, tuna and chicken, uh, like, uh, cold pasta casseroles I used to make. So I keep that cold. So you need, you need a prep. You got to have stuff like that prep for you while you're on the job site. And you just got your little four, four thousand calories consistently every day will not happen on accident. Yeah. Right. It's gotta be, I'm, I'm, again, I'm gonna say this again, you're doing great, bro. You look good. Yeah. You're fit. You're strong. So you don't have to do what we're saying. Uh, but if you'd psych, okay, I want to, I want to gain some muscle. I want to put on some size. It's going to be a concentrated effort every day for hitting four thousand calories a day. Yeah. And it's going to feel like that. You train you. So four, four thousand is the number I should be. Yeah. Yeah. Easily that number. Easily that number is what you need to be at. I know it's a lot. It's a lot. Here. Okay. And it helps, uh, cheat calories for someone like you, but cheat calories in the middle day, not allowed to do cheat calories at the end of the day. A lot of it. In other words, what I'd have to do was I'd set a goal of, I got to get my, you know, 200 grams of protein in through whole food, good sources. And then if I was still under on calories, I would enjoy a more, you know, satisfying type of dinner, a burrito, a burger and fries. You can get away with that. I hate your protein, but hit your protein through whole natural foods first through the, through like good meal prepping that you do. And then if you're still like only at 3,200 calories and you need more, then enjoy those French fries, enjoy the things that will push your calories up. That'll help you out, but make it a goal to get the other stuff first before you do that, what will, what will shoot you in the foot, which is what I did early, which is like, well, I need a game. So I'll eat whatever. And then at lunch I do a drive through fast food or I eat a burger. And then that fill, that would fill me up. I wouldn't get enough protein and then I wouldn't eat till four or five hours later. Just a bunch of fat and carbs. And then now, and then now I'm still not eating enough calories and I'm low on protein. That's where you'll get stuck in this kind of like you plateau. It's going to feel like another job. I'm just going to let, I'm just going to let you know, eating 4,000 calories a day, every day is going to feel like another job. So you have to prep, plan it, don't skip a meal, be consistent. And you'll probably gain, I mean, I, I would bet money that you're probably going to gain consistently. You'll prop with your calories. You'll probably get up six, seven pounds of lean body mass. Oh yeah. Doing that. Oh yeah. Especially how strong you are. You're just missing the calories, dude. That's it. You're already, you're lifting good weights right now. You, you stayed, you're on the right program. You're doing everything. And just to encourage you, it gets easier as a good older. So yeah, cause right now you're like, your metabolism fire, bro. When you get in your thirties, you'll be able to build muscle at lower calories than you are right now. I remember it was like at your age, it was like, I had to like feed myself. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I'm already thinking about like I'm meal prep with, I make like a breakfast hash for when I get home from work is like a first dinner thing. So I got like a bunch of things in the fridge just stacked up. So I'm trying to eat that like with a bunch of protein in it. But yeah, it's just hard to eat that much. And luckily my, my wife bought me a thermos so I can actually take like leftovers on the job now. I'm just eating the sandwich and stuff. So it's, it's helped. But yeah, it's just hard to eat, man. It's like, it is like a second job. Like you're wasting it. And things like like, uh, breads and some of that too, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll fill you up on some, that's a bunch of carbs and you need, you need high protein, high calorie, clean sources that your body burns through. And then you're ready to eat again. You know, it's a good bulking meal. That's not even bad. Cold is like ground, 80% ground beef rice. Uh, and then when you take it out of the cooler, you add some sour cream and some salsa on it, mix it up. And it's like a cold burrito bowl, but it's like high calorie, easy to digest. And I could eat that, man, I could eat that several times a day. No problem. Yeah, that's a good idea. Not too expensive either. Yeah. That's the other thing too. It's like eating all that food in the bank. Oh no, no, no, it's expensive to frozen. You gotta think bulk frozen vegetables, uh, rice, ground beef, rice, you know, shredded cheese on it, sour cream, caught a cheese, super cheap. Yeah. Very, very easy. Yeah. But you guys think, uh, you think 15 advances. All right. For me, we run. That's a great program for you, bro. Yeah. The 15 because I ran power lift probably when I hit those, numbers in the email, I was running power lift and that's when I saw the most strength game, but again, it wasn't like size, but I mean, I was missing the have you, have you ran, have you ran math 15 power lift yet? The 15 version? Yeah. No, I didn't even know that. Oh yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll send you the math 15 power lift version. So that's great. Cause I like you the amount of movement you have. You don't need the mistake that I made in my twenties was thinking I needed to be trained in the gym for an hour every single day. Like you're running the right program, uh, to build like running a 15 protocol like that, just trying to get strong. You feel your body with 4,000 calories. You follow math 15 power. Let's build you will, you, we will put five to 10 pounds of muscle on you. We will. Awesome. Yeah. So do that. Do that. I love for you to hear back from me. If you do it, stick to stick with it. It's all in the prep though, dude. Dedicate yourself to prep and be ready for it. Perfect. Yeah. I would love to love to keep you guys updated. So yeah. Well, thank you guys. I appreciate you. Everything you do. So right on. Let's have you back on in 60 days. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to send that over to you, Mitchell. Follow it. Sounds great. Thanks guys. You got to do it. Yeah. Dude, eating a fort, I know some people who are like, need to lose weight. Love to hear that. Like eating 4,000 calories every day. It's a chore. Grasses, grass is always greener than the other side. It's, but you know what, both are hard. It's hard. You know what I'm saying? Trying to lose 50 pounds and be lean and skinny is hard. Trying to build and be over 200 pounds when you're the skinny. It's hard. They're both, they're both hard. They both take the same. It's interesting because it's such a different struggle. And the other person on the other side always is like, oh, poor you. It'd be so, but it's like, it's just as hard for him to try. He's got to, he's got to do the same type of preparation. He's got to make it an effort on Sunday or whatever day to prep those meals. He's got to, he's got to resist the temptation to drive through the fast food restaurant and just do some quick and easy. And he's got to make the thing that he prepared in his, in his tupperware. It's such a, it's such a full time. It is like a full time job, bro. Eat that much food every day. And he'd be, if he does what he's doing now, he's fine. But he's like, I want to gain muscles. All right. This is where you got to force your body to gain it. I guess. Well, all that's it. But if he hits 4,000 consistently, he'll build some nice muscle. Yeah. He'll, he'll, he'll be a 200 pound, 200 pounds, like low body fat percentage. Jack, dude. Yeah. Our next caller is Kalea from Florida. Hi, Kalea. Hi guys. Wow. This is really surreal. I'm not going to lie. How can we help you? So, um, just so I don't miss anything or trip over any words, I actually wrote, it wrote everything down if that's okay. Yeah, let's go. Tara, yeah, Tara, let's do it. So growing up, I was always an overweight kid and I had a really bad relationship with food and looking back now, a lot of that was tied to using it as a coping mechanism. And it wasn't something that I was intentionally taught, but it was definitely something that got passed down to me and I carried that with me for a very long time. Into adulthood that put me in a cycle of yo-yo dieting and losing the same weight over and over again. I had tried everything from vegan, keto, fasting, whatever trend was out there. I probably did that too. And it got to a point where I was like, okay, I'm tired of looking on the internet. I, I want to know the truth. So back in 2019, I originally got my NASA certification. Originally just for myself, I didn't have any intentions of really becoming a coach or doing anything with it at that time. And over time, I started to find a lot more balance with food and training and my body. And then fast forward to 2022, I had my son. And during that pregnancy, I gained over 120 pounds. And there was a couple of times I got on the scale and I was damn near 300. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror anymore, but this time I knew it was different because I knew the things that I had to do. I just had to give it some time. So I focused on fueling my body, lifting consistently and intentionally and getting stronger. And I ended up losing a lot of the weight and building some muscle too. And that also led me to fall in love with powerlifting. And I've been competing now for the US APL for about two years. Fast forward to now. I got re certified in 2024 and built my coaching brand, Iron Fox Strength. And it's really centered around just helping people build strength for the long haul and not for his just aesthetics. I've also been working with a coach myself. He goes by muscle man Marcus on socials and he's helped me a ton with structure direction and has been a kind of a mentor figure for me as well. But I'll be honest, in the pursuit of chasing a coaching career, I've been doing things a little bit backwards. I've been in the restaurant industry for over a decade. I've done everything from dishwasher to management. And I've been trying to build a coaching business on the side while still working there. I had some clients here and there, but nothing has felt super consistent. And a lot of the times when I'm online, I feel like I'm just yelling into the void because there's so many other people doing the same thing. And recently the restaurant life just started to feel like it wasn't fitting me anymore, like I was wearing shoes that didn't fit. So I made a big shift. I left that job and I started working in a gym here in St. Augustine called Anastasia Fitness. I'm at the front desk right now, but they told me that any clients I bring in or get are mine. So I'm treating it like an opportunity to build something in person, build relationships with people and the members and grow from there. So my question is, if you were basically starting fresh as a coach in a gym environment, trying to build your first real consistent client base, what would you focus the most on? What works when it comes to building trust, getting those first clients and creating momentum for the in-person space? Because I have a really big vision for where I want to take this and my future. I just want to make sure that what I'm focusing on is the right things early on. Yeah, great. How many, how many workouts would you say happen in that gym a day? How many people you scan in a day? How many would you say? About 300 on average, I see on the headcount on the computer. Okay, that's not bad. That's a decent amount of people. I have a position right there. It's locally owned and operated too. So it's like a smaller one of the gyms in town. So I like the saying that you're in the learn phase of your career, not the earn phase of your career right now. And so what is more valuable than what price you should charge or how many clients can you get to buy from you is how many people can you get in front of you is more important. And the fact that you control the front desk and you're scanning people in, I would use that as an opportunity to get those people in front of you for a session of training and use that practice to build your skills, build, build your ability to convert them into clients and like really focus on that. And then the business will come if you really sit there and try and strategize on how do I get clients to pay and what price should I be and should do I build an online presence and sales funnels. It's like right now you have this great opportunity where you are meeting 300 potential leads. Those are some of the best leads. These are people that have already raised their hand and said, I am going to pay for a membership and show up to a gym because I need to change my life. So one in one form or another. Those are some of the best potential clients you could ever ask for. So getting them in front of you and getting them for a free personal training session or do free assessments with them or teach them a powerlifting move. Or I mean, I can think of a whole host of things that you can start doing for them. Is great practice and where I would start you first. Yeah, Kahlia, the, of all the places in the gym, the location that is the best by far to potentially get clients as the front desk. That's the best second best is the workout floor, but it's actually a distant second because the most difficult part of talking to people or getting them to maybe want to work out with you for a free workout. Is that initial ice breaking their attention and they're already coming in and say, how are you doing? Scanning man, boom, done. It's the best place. And this is why I trained all my trainers to work the front desk. Uh, so we talk about in our course that we have for coaches and trainers. So all you got to do is get people to work out with you for free. And then based, and then from there, uh, you'll get the clients. That's it. Just get them to work out. Hey, what are you working on today? You want to come back and focus on your deadlift or you want to build a better whatever, or let me take you, let me take you through a workout. I'm a competitive power lifter and then schedule them for a workout. And that's it. And you do a bunch of those, you'll get clients. No problem. Yeah. They'll want, if you, if you become, if you become the mayor of that gym by knowing all the people that get scanned in by first name, what they're working on, what they're working into. Before you know it, they're going to recommendations. Whoever, whoever's the owner of that gym is going to want you as the trainer trainer, because you're going to, I mean, that's the key. And that's the focus on that right now. Can I get to know all these people that are coming in by first name, what their goals are, what they're trying to do and help them in any way, in any capacity, whatsoever, will that be teaching them the technique of a deadlift or a squat, whether that be taking them through a full workout, whether that be taking them through your NSM squad assessment. I mean, those are all tools that you already have in your tool bag service. Like just pay attention to the quality that you're providing them. All of that is going to play the longterm so well. Like you're going to build that reputation in there. And then that's just going to keep like escalating in the snowball effect. I'll give you specific numbers. Call it, uh, Kalia, if you can, if you can schedule yourself 10 to 20 free workouts a week. Okay. So every week, if you can get yourself 10 to 20 free workouts within three months, you'll have a full roster of clients. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. So just do that. So can I get myself for next week? Can I book myself 15 workouts with people like 15 free one-on-ones? If you do that after three months, you'll have a, you'll have a full Ross. So an idea that comes to mind right away for me with someone like you with a powerlifting background. Um, I would literally pick a day, say 30, 45 days out from now. And I'm going to do a squat clinic for free. Yep. And I'm going to have a signup sheet on the front desk. And you say, I'm going to say hi to everybody and be like, Hey, would you like to improve your squat from somebody who's that one lift at a time? Yeah. And, and literally just get, try and get 30 people to show up to your squat clinic and teach all the mechanics of the squad, how to prep for the squat, how to make, like what it looks all, whatever. Yeah. And now all that idea. And now all those people that show up to that are, and they get something from you, I guarantee at least three to five of them will hang out after the hour of teaching them and one free workout. And those are now people that go, I tell you what, let's spend some more time. I'd love to spend some time with you one-on-one. Let's book something next week and you and I can dig more deep into your reason why your knee hurts or what? There's 40 in there. Yes. And I start hosting these free little clinics every other week where you try and get 10, 15, 30 people in for free and those people will turn into potential clients for sure. And it's something you already do. Simple. Yeah. I love that idea. And then you probably, and then you probably should get in our elite trainer academy since this is the type of stuff that we coach and talk about. I mean, that's. Yeah. I definitely had checked out that way. Can I just have them hold the trigger yet? Yeah. I mean, that's so just so you know, um, when we went out, when we pursued that and decided we were going to build that, we did not want to compete with NCSF, NASM, all the great national certs that out there. What we saw as a gap is exactly what you're calling about right now is a lot of these certs do a good job of giving you the fundamentals, but don't teach you how to go build a business from ground up. So literally our course is centered around that is like, how do you take your little bit of knowledge that you've gained as a personal trainer and then actually turn that into a business, whether that be in person, virtual, we cover all that stuff. This is, this is what that whole course is about. So that was really the, it's not another NASM or another NCSF. That's not what you're going to get from our course. You're going to get learning how to build your business and tactics, like what we're talking about right now. Yeah. I had always heard, you know, you think you're going to get certified and you're just going to coach people, but really it's just a lot of business stuff. And I'm just really learning that. And I'm just like, okay, let's figure it out. 100%. A hundred. I mean, this is why we thought this, what our cert was so valuable was because it's like, there's a ton of great national certs to learn, you know, biomechanics and human physiology and nutrition. And there's not, there's not, I don't think that, I think we have plenty of those. We don't have the, not enough of them talk about, okay, now what do I do with this damn thing? You know, I understand how to help somebody, but then how do I actually turn that into a legitimate business and a livelihood? But Kalia, the fact that you work the front desk and relatively busy, you're in a great position. That's like, that's, that's so much of this is just being able to put yourself in that position. You're already there. Yeah. So the rest is really just follow the steps. I, you'll, you'll, I don't know who the boss is who hired you and stuff like that, but you'll blow their mind if you all of a sudden start holding these squat and deadlift clinics and shit. Can you sign them up at the front desk? 30 people start showing up to it. Like I would so do this undercover and just do my thing and like, what, let them watch you and then watch what happens. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. I definitely think I'm going to do that for sure. All right. Cool. I don't know what happens. Yes. And hopefully we'll see you. Yeah, I will. 100%. Hopefully we'll see you inside of Elite Trainer Academy soon. All right. Sounds good. Thank you guys. Yep. I mean, you guys remember, we used to fight over the front desk. Oh yeah. It's, it's interesting that we bring this up now and a lot of trainers and people don't even know the power of just people coming in to greet you as they come in and how easy it is to schedule. Huge advantage. Oh God, the front desk is like, that's the place to be and she already works there. So if she just follows the steps, uh, and I was concerned, I think within a few months she'll have a nice climb. And I asked how many people that were working out there because that, that makes a big difference, right? If you're getting 300 leads a day, that's a lot of people. That's, that's plenty of people to build a business off of. Like, you know, it's different if she was working at some small box that saw 10 workouts in a day. It's like, it's still the place to be. Oh, you're right. That's the far left. Oh yeah. Just, but man, you get, you get 300 workouts a day. I got 20, 30 people showing up to my free squat class in four weeks. That's right. Easy. No problem. Easily. Our next caller is Catherine from South Carolina. Hi Catherine. Catherine. Hi. How can we help you? I'm excited to be here. Thanks for coming on. Just wanted to give a shout out to my sister. She listens to y'all every day. Um, so I'm kind of a fan through her to you. She's on one of your, um, muscle mommy programs with one of your coaches. Nice. Um, she encouraged me to reach out. Oh good. How can we help you? Well, um, first, I guess one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to y'all was because I have a son getting married in June. So it's very motivating for me to, um, be at my best. And I kind of have been weight training off and on for the last year, but really seriously for about eight months. And then I kicked it into high gear in January and I've shed about 14 pounds of fat and I think that's really, really, really good. I feel like I've kind of just stagnated now. Um, I've been in a slight calorie deficit of about 200 calories since January first, um, and it seemed to really be working well. I have plenty of energy. I recover well. Um, I'm sleeping great at night, but now I'm just kind of stopped. And I want to keep, I want to keep getting, I still have some body fat that I want to shed. So what do you suggest? Let's talk about your, uh, programming. What are you doing as far as your strength training? I am doing, um, four days a week, most weeks, uh, upper lower split. Okay. That's not bad. And are you feeling pretty strong? I am actually, there's a couple of lifts that I had to regress a little bit in. Um, and I was thinking that was probably maybe because I wasn't eating enough. And then I kind of got over the hump and I was getting stronger in those lifts again. So that's good. You said you're in a small deficit. What are your calories? 2000 between 2000 and 2100. Okay. That's not bad. So, so we, we run into a bit of an issue here. Um, you could go into a deficit, but now you're starting to dip into 1800, 17 hour calories. I don't want to do that. Yeah. I wouldn't, we don't want you either. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. So I see, I see you're doing 14,000 steps a day. So you're active. Yeah. You're not a, you're not a sedentary person. So it's a bit of, well, I do, I do a 45 minute to an hour walk every day. So that's where a lot of those steps are coming from. Yeah. That's okay. It's still a lot of stuff. That's still, it's still a lot of steps and four days a week of strength. Yeah. Yeah. You're an active person. Yeah. You're, you're better off building into, into getting leaner than you are trying to cut into getting. Yes. Okay. So if you were to gain some lean body mass and do it in a nice, slow, consistent way, your body fat percentage will go down. And what does that look like for me? 2300 to 2400 calories right now. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. My son listens to y'all too. And he was like, they're going to tell you to go into a calorie and my sister. And my sister said that too. Yes. I mean, that's what you're set up for. Cause the other option is what Sal said and you already agreed. We don't want to do and you're right. You don't want to do that. I don't want to take you to 1700 calories. That's such a low. You'll lose weight, but you'll lose muscle and you won't feel good. You'll, you'll, you'll feel better going up to about 2,300 to 2,400 calories and really just focus on getting strong. Don't worry about the scale. Cause you might see the scale go one or two pounds up. It's not fat. You didn't put fat on. You know what I'm saying? You're eating more calories. You're eating more carbs. You're going to have more water. It's just, don't worry about that. What should happen is you should probably see maybe the scale go up one or two pounds and then it'll level off and you'll feel really good. And then that is where we're at a good calorie place and really focus on getting strong. And then the next sign I'm list, I'm wanting to hear from you is that you're hungry cause then that probably means we build muscle. I have started getting hungry lately. Good. Like, um, at the, in January, it was really hard work. To eat 160 grams of protein a day and I was having to supplement with protein shakes and I just couldn't, it was like punishment, eating all that food. And now I'm eating that food and I'm a little bit hungry when I go. Oh, good sign. That's good news. Good sign. When's the wedding? How long, how long do we have? It's June 19th. Okay. So if you went up to 2,300 calories right now, uh, I think what would happen is you probably, you get stronger, you feel better and then you get leaner. I think if you just stayed there, you could actually even go up from there. You could eventually get up to 25, but I bet if you kept it around 23, 24 and just kept doing what you're doing, you would get the look that you're looking for by June. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just need to be fed more. You're hungry. You're hungry. You're hungry too. That's a good sign. Such a good sign. I mean, I would, I love to give you a program too. If we could set you up with one of our programs, not that there's anything wrong with what you're doing, but I think you would, it would do you well to switch over to something else. Well, that would be great. I'm getting a little weary of trying to figure out what to do every day. I mean, I think I have good knowledge, I think, but it gets old. Trying to figure it out. You work out in a gym. I do. I go to the gym. All right. We'll send you muscle mommy. Follow that program. Yeah. Okay. That's what my sister's on. Yeah. Yeah. You'll love it. Yeah. No, you'll do, you'll do great on this. Bunker Cal is 23, 24, stay there and give it some time. So just keep doing that to the wedding. Yep. I mean, yes. I also think though that you could potentially get hungry and she could probably still feed a little bit. Should we have enough time that she could get all the way up to 26, 2700 and then come back down to, if you want, look, Catherine, if you want specific, uh, cause this is where we, where we would want to adjust. We could have you coach too. Yeah. That's right. We would want to adjust you, uh, as we go, cause we would ask you questions, see how you're doing, whether or not we want to reverse a little more or whatever. Um, you could work with one of our coaches and then they could work with you up till the wedding and take you through the entire process and adjust calories, uh, essentially based on how you feel, your performance, that kind of stuff. So that would be another option. And the only, and the only reason why that, that's better than what we're saying right now is just because I, what I don't know is you, the feedback from you in three weeks. Like I, the first thing I would say is, boom, I'm going to take you up to 23, 2400 and then I'm going to check in with you and you're going to let me know. Like I feel this, I noticed this, this is going on. And then from there, I'll either say, cool, stay the course. We're right where I want you to be. Or I might go, wow, okay, you could eat, we could eat some more. Let's go up another hundred or 200. And then I might, so that's the only thing that's different is like, it's hard for us to predict how you'll be feeling, what you'll see in three, four weeks. Sal is right. You could probably hover right around there all the way through and you'll end up, you're going to see improvements all the way till there. I think we have enough runway room that if I was like, yeah, if I had you that whole time, I think I would really try and keep ramping the calories up till I, until I get about 26, 27, maybe even 2800. And then hopefully have a whole month before we cut. And then I cut for a month going down and I take you from like 28 all the way back down to 2000 to 22 and you just lean out right into the wedding. So that is kind of what I was hoping we could do something like that. Okay. So that, that's where the coach would help because knowing that you're going to respond exactly how I would think or want you to, I'm uncertain until we're going through that process. And there might be some adjustments along the way, but you have enough runway. You're in a, you're in a healthy, good place. Like that we could totally do something like that. But again, like I said, I would knowing that for sure, but you have both options. You can do the salway, which is like hover around those calories. What he's telling you, I think is the more conservative way where you'll be okay. He knows that he can give you that advice. You'll be better where you, than you are right now. I'm thinking more like, well, I got enough room. I could really push that metabolism and then I could really cut her. I could do more, but then I would want to be closer to you to see and know. So I don't send you on the wrong path. Well, I feel like I'm, I have the drive right now. I have good energy. I really want to keep moving this thing forward. Um, I'm not tired. I'm not too tired. I think going to the gym four times a week, um, is good. I'm not, but if there's something more I could do more concentrated to get to the finish line of June 19th, obviously it's not the finish line, but it's, you know, a good goal to work. You have a lot of fun with the coach because it's going to get much more specific. Uh, you're going to have a lot of fun with seeing how your body responds. I think you'd be surprised at how great your metabolism responds. Uh, the muscle, the leanness, uh, it's much more targeted that way. It's just, uh, we'd have to, we'd want somebody to be with you to know when to make those changes. Uh, so you can really, the cool part of going through with the coaches, you, you'll get the, you'll have these strategies to use forever. Yeah. Yeah. What you'll learn about your body and what they'll learn going through it with you is like how you respond to that. Everybody's different. You know, some people respond really well to the calorie surplus. Some don't so much. And I have no idea if that's going to present any sort of challenges mentally to, and that's all part of coaching is like listening to my client, tell me what they're going through, what they're feeling, what they're seeing, and then trying to coach them on what, what exactly, what they're, they're reading. Okay. So we can have someone, we'll have someone call you when we hang up right now. We'll have one of our coaches kind of lay out what that would look like for you. And hopefully we'll see you in there. All right. That's great. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks for calling in. Hey, Catherine. All right. Thanks. Bye. She's a good place. Yeah. I mean, you gave, you gave the best conservative, very conservative answer. That's right. Yeah. But if you want like focus targeted, like make it happen. Yeah. Yeah. I can't help it. I can't help it. Go like, no, I don't know how she's going to be informed. I got a lot of time. Yep. I got a lot of time. She's in a good place right now. I would like to ramp her up way more aggressively to like 2800 plus calories and then put her on kind of an aggressive cut for four weeks. And what, and by the way, aggressive cut will look where she's at, where she's at in calories now. That's right. She'll go back down where she's at. Yeah. But, but, but after we've spread that metabolism up, built, you know, five, six pounds of muscle on her, lift together, all her, all her lifts up and then just watch herself lean out, going into the wedding, you know. Our next caller is April from Wisconsin. Hey guys, glad to be back. I emailed, I think it was Doug or someone a couple of weeks ago. I just wanted to give you guys an update. Because under the last two times we spoke, you guys were hounding me to do power lift and I was too stubborn to listen. So. So what happened? I ran it and you guys were right. That's what you, that's weird. I know, I know. So I'll take, I'll take the loss on that one. So in October, after we spoke, I was like, okay, I'm going to try it. Ran the program and what is it? It's now end of March and I can happily say that I have visible muscle. Yeah. And it's pretty awesome to finally see the progress that I've made. After October, I actually stopped tracking my calories. I stopped weighing myself. I decided the only numbers I was going to focus on was the weights. I was adding to the bar, the dumbbells that I was grabbing. So no longer, you know, tied to the scale. Yes. So it's, it's been really cool. My husband told me that my legs look bigger. My butt got bigger and higher. I actually have arms. So like hearing that validation and seeing it myself is just like, it's awesome. So I'm really pumped to, to keep this going. So great job. That's exactly what you needed to do. I'm so glad you did it. I'm reading your email here. So let me know if this is still accurate. You went from 650 calories a day to about 2000 to 2100. Yeah. So 1650 to about 2100. Yeah. And your strength, it looks like you're squatting from 45 to 85 pounds. So you went up 40 pounds in your squat. Almost doubled it. Yeah. That's phenomenal. And you're actually kind of careful with that because you don't want to hurt yourself. It says in the email. Yeah. I have two back fractures from when I was in high school. It just never healed right. So I have to be really careful with squatting and deadlifting. No worries. And then you gained three to four pounds of muscle essentially per the comment of your husband with your legs and your butt and the strength. Yeah. I mean, when I, the last way and I did was October and I weighed at 100 and 126. I weighed myself last week. I weighed 127. So I definitely think I did a recomp. Yeah. Like just eating intuitively, which was really great. That's cool. Yeah. So I want, you want to hit the, I want to hit the question that I see coming, which is the, I have a trip coming up in a couple of weeks, but I want to get back to my plan to increase my calories and again, start maps aesthetic. I don't think maps aesthetic is the program for you. I do want you to increase calories though. I think you absolutely can keep going up in the calorie direction. Okay. I think maps aesthetic volume is unnecessary for what you're trying to accomplish and we're at calorie wise. That's my opinion. Bump your calories and follow maps muscle mommy. Okay. That'll get you what you want. Okay. That was actually my, the next thing I was going to suggest, if you guys had options, I was like muscle mommy was one that I was kind of on my radar. Yes. I did notice that like training with deadlifting and squatting. Um, like my, I just like, I got less flexible. Oh yeah. No, um, you know, doing something definitely, I mean, I have to be something different. I just feel like it's, uh, I just wanted its course. So I think muscle mommy will be a good fit. Um, when I know I have to ask this question. So don't kill me at him. But like, when do I do the cut? Cause like, I think I'm fine now. Like I'm like totally in the zone now. I do feel like I'm going to trip myself up once summer gets here and I'm walking around in shorts and tank tops. And I, I mean, I feel, I feel bigger now. I admit I feel fluffy. I feel big, but I'm still not freaking out. I just see myself getting to that point once the weather starts to turn here. So even though you only went three pounds up on the scale, husband says it's butt and legs, you still feel fluffy. I do. And I don't, I think it's like, I don't know if it's like, like, because I'm, I've increased my food and maybe I have some digestive issues, but I always feel bloated by the end of the day. It's kind of gross. You know what it is? You're tripping. Yeah, you're tripping. Yeah, you're tripping. So you're used to eating very little. Yeah. So eating all news, eating appropriately to you is too much. So adding more is going to be even more. It is. Well, I mean, what we're getting to is that. So we, we have, we've just had some recent callers where we talked about this too. Someone where you're coming from will be, would be far better off building into the physique than cutting to the physique you want. You with, you with, and I know it sounds crazy to say this, but 10 more pounds on the scale or 10 pounds on your body of muscle will look better than trying to cut you down five pounds. It will, you, you will have the, the roundness of the shoulders, even a rounder, but the shape that you want. The whole deal. You'll look, you'll look more amazing building into the body you want than trying to cut into the body you want. April, April, do you know what your body fat percentage sits at? I don't. Do you know how tall are you? What's your body weight? I weigh 127 and I'm five, six. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, honey, you're lean. Yeah. Especially with your strength and all that, you're lean. Yeah. We got to, yeah. I would go up to 2,300 calories, follow maps, muscle mommy and have a good time, have a great time letting your metabolism really just same. Same focus too. Don't, don't be, uh, don't focus on the scale. Focus on the strength of the gym. Those extra calories, if we do a good job, should fuel that strength. That's what we want to see. Just so you know, someone like you doing something, if I coached you, I would easily get you up to over time, like 27, 28,000 calories. No problem. No problem. Yeah. So even 2,300 is going to, is lower than what your body's capable of doing. And you're not going to get, you're not going to gain all this body fat. You're just going to get really sculpted is what's going to happen. Which is why I wouldn't want to cut you. I wouldn't, I wouldn't want, if you were my client and we were together long term, the goal would be to do what Sal said before I said, okay, we could probably cut and see what that looks like because you're tall enough, you're lean enough, you're lifting enough to get to a place where you should be able to easily eat over 25, 2600 calories and maintain the body and physique you want. And cutting you before that is just, I'm setting you up for, for failure down the road, you know, so that, okay. Um, I don't like eating a ton of food, um, because I mean, I eat whole, whole natural foods, right? So cooking all the time, all that stuff. Can I get those extra calories from like adding more olive oil or yes, butter. I would encourage you not to change much, especially if someone would feel like they're like adding, uh, I don't know what cuts of meat you eat right now, but have a little bit higher fat cuts of meat. I don't know how often you enjoy a rib eye or a tri tip or the high fat ground beef. Enjoy that. I'm picking up half a cow in two weeks. Oh, you are. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. So enjoy higher fat cuts, enjoy, enjoy those or add an olive oil when you're doing something like that, eat chicken thighs instead of chicken breast. Don't do the extra lean ground turkey. If you do do ground turkey, make it an olive oil, add a little bit of butter to your rice, like do things like that. That's not really radically changing the, the kind of way you eat, but just, you know, you're bumping a hundred, 200 calories through higher and the higher fat always does good with my females. My female clients always are better served, getting those good, healthy fats in their diet and avocado in there. Add stuff like that. I love that. Especially if you're hitting your protein already consistently. Okay. Yeah, I definitely do. Even though, even though I don't track, I tracked for so long, I definitely am getting my protein. I do think that digestive stuff probably is coming from trying to increase my carbs because my carbs generally sit on the low side. Um, I did hear you guys had a caller. I think she had very similar stats to me, but she said that she eats, you know, very high fat, low carb. And you guys said it was okay. That I'll still build muscle, even if I'm not chasing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, I mean, going zero, no carb, uh, some women have hormonal issues from that going lower carb, higher fat, perfectly fine. Yep. Okay. Yeah. I'm probably like 80 grams of carbs a day. That's what you're at now. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're fine. Yeah. You could, but yeah. And you could bump the fats a little bit. And if it's digestive, you could try adding psyllium husk to your meals. It's just the fiber that helps. Uh, yeah. So you could try that. Yep. Okay. Cool. Okay. Last question for you guys. Um, cause again, you had a recent, I listen to you guys every day, like seriously, um, you guys were amazing. Um, but you had a recent episode about creatine and how women should be taking it. Um, I have a heart condition and I cannot take it. It causes, um, palpitations. So if you could recommend a second in place, a supplement that a woman should add to their stack that's not creatine, do you guys have any suggestions of like what would be a good one? Yeah. No. And you've been recommended by your doctor not to take creatine. Yeah. My cardiologist recommended not to take it just because of my electrolytes have to be dialed in. Oh, I see. That makes perfect sense. Okay. Yeah. I mean, honestly, multi vitamin, vitamin D, uh, with K Omega threes. Um, you know, these are just health supplements. There's not a ton of supplements out that make a huge difference. You're hitting your protein target. If you weren't in your protein, it's a protein shake. Uh, but there's like not a lot of, I mean, you know, there's stuff that can help with inflammation, with sleep and, you know, but honestly, make sure you get your nutrients. So, you know, uh, like methylated B complex, some women do really well with that. Um, vitamin D with K two, uh, most, you know, man and women do well with that. Yeah. I'm assuming you're already doing like blood work and checking your hormones. And you know, you're all balanced on that side. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I also suffered from, from Graves disease two years ago. So I get that checked every six months. So if you're balancing your hormones out, you're hitting all your micro macronutrients. Even as great as creatine is, it's not like it's, it's not that big of a deal for you not to be, you're not missing out on some huge, I feel like I'm missing out. Yeah. I'm talking about it's like crap. Okay. No, no, you're not. You're not. In fact, you know what? I were an area that I think everybody can always be better at is, is sleep. And so if you put some effort and energy into getting really good nights, rest of consistent sleep, that'll serve you even more than even the best creatine in the world will like you like. Consistently scoring really high on sleep every single night. So having a good sleep routine, uh, whether that's, you know, and for me, it's like chamomile tea, my magnesium, like I have my little supplement stack that really helps me calm down, wind down and get a good night's rest. Teddy bear. Uh, if that, yeah, hold my teddy bear. Yeah. All those things. So if you don't, if you don't put a lot of effort into that, I think that would serve you as much or more than even creatine would. Yep. Okay. Yep. Okay. Cool. Okay. All right, guys. Thank you. All right. You're doing great. Um, I'll just say one last thing. Anybody, if you're women, especially if you're afraid to lift heavy, listen to them. It actually works. Thank you so much guys. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Bye. If I, if I recall, so I should give her love because if I recall, we did the call with her and she got off. I said, she ain't listening to us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We almost like took a bet on that. Yeah. I think, I think she, I think she was the one that I said that. So I got to give her love that I felt that energy. I got to say this too, with the digestive stuff, not that this isn't common because digestive issues can be common in people. Uh, but sometimes, oftentimes I find people who are afraid to eat more or who've constantly eaten, eaten too little or have restricted when they eat appropriately to them, it feels like they're bloated. Yeah. I'm dealing with a new thing. Yeah. And it's like, you're just not used to feeding yourself. You're used to being empty. I'm, that's a big part of it. I'm dealing with that right now. Yeah. That's what we're going through right now is that, you know, it's like, I, I know it's appropriate. Everybody else says it's a, but feels like it's too much. I'm bloated in my dash. That's just like, yeah, if you've trained yourself to eat so low a calorie, you're just used to being empty all the time. All the time. Yeah. It feels so different to you. If you like Mind Pump, confine us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes 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. 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