Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 151 - The Cost of Working Hard

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

In the pursuit of being more bettereST, we easily forget the effect it may have on other aspects of life. We can't be everywhere all of the time, we have to be responsible and prioritize where we put ourselves and truly understand if its worth it. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

I think the phone will just explode at that point. If we're live and it rings at the same time? I think so. My fingers are too fat to make it work. There we go. I got chubby fingers, Andrew. Chubby finger syndrome? Mm-hmm.

Is there a cure for that? We got some freaking blue balls going on from lifting this morning, or from not lifting this morning. Big time. The worst. I was all ready to go. I was up since 2.30 a.m. Just prepping. Butts all wiped and everything.

Yeah. All cleaned up, all ready to go. I had my gym attire on. I had my regular office attire in my bag. I had eaten. I was fully digested, ready to go. Lunch packed up. And then I get a text saying pushing

it back to friday yeah my bro he called the audible from down in los angeles dang i know that's a big audible he uh called that hot route and so uh we're gonna deadlift on friday he's like i've been saving up my deadlifts for when i come up there and i was like all right well shit you know i know tomorrow we got some benching to do so we'll leave that the way it is and then we'll hit up those deadlifts with my bro uh when he's here that'll be cool yeah i think it works out for the better my lats and back is my upper back is pretty sore from working out alberto nunez we rarely take a day off we kind of just keep plowing through even though we're supposed to have scheduled days off but we

just keep going anyway anyway everybody welcome to mark bell's power project appreciate you guys tuning in i am a power lifter an inventor uh an entrepreneur all these other things right but the main thing that i am is i'm a dad i'm a husband i'm a dad of two children got my son jake who's 14 got my daughter quinn who's 11 we're getting fired up for christmas over here we got our tree we're all set we're all ready to go my birthday my 42nd birthday is coming up december 10th and we're dropping some gangster wraps on that day gangster knee wraps and gangster flex wrist wraps uh which are amazing the way that these things lock down is awesome. You'll lock

that wrist down on that bench so you're not doing the gay pterodactyl anymore. I'm definitely guilty of doing the gay pterodactyl. And Andrew and I have been running this podcast for the last about five months and we're reaching over 2 million downloads. So thank everyone out there. Really appreciate you guys for tuning in. downloads to thank everyone out there really appreciate you guys for tuning in and uh our topic for today we're just going to roll right into this bad boy is uh you know and this is something i kind of just heard in passing uh it wasn't necessarily me just kind of sitting down listening to something but i heard somebody talking about um how you should consider you know each move that you make and i thought wow, man, that really parallels lifting. It

parallels life in a lot of ways. One action causes another action or causes another reaction, right? One thing that you do causes something else to happen. And we see this time and time again, but we don't really ever talk about it. We don't really ever think about it that much. So here's what I want everyone to consider is that for everything that you go for, there may be something gained, right? Whatever you're chasing after, you may gain something, but you also may lose something. And what if you're chasing after something so hard that potentially you'll lose out on some other things? And you can think about this in terms of, let's say you're lifting. Well, if you want to go after that leg press with everything that you got, well, it may cost you

the next couple of days of not being able to get up and down the stairs. If you want to do your squats and follow your program and do your five to five, but at the end, for some stupid reason, you want to do some crazy drop set and do like 40 reps. That's going to cost you a lot. What does it cost you? It costs you the inability. You now have the, you now no longer have the ability to perform the workout the same way that you could have if you stuck to the program. What does it do for you in other ways though? So in one way, you're getting after it and you're going for it, right? Which is important. We need to do that in our lives, but we can't do it at the cost of the detriment of our own progress and our, of our own self. And so like, how do we figure these things

out? This is really hard shit to try to figure out. It's hard to, um, hard to make sense of, right? As you're trying to go through all this and as you're trying to figure all this out, it can be difficult because you're like, man, I just want to go for it. I just want to have the courage, have the strength to just go for it. I want to put everything I got into this and I want to just, but it's the same thing with whether you're trying to be a power lifter and you're neglecting your relationship or whether you're trying to be a business entrepreneur and you're neglecting your children. You see this time and time again in your life and you have to consider the moves that you make.

You have to be conscious of the moves that you make. But how do we be conscious of the moves that we make when all we wanna do is be better? And I think as we start to go down this rabbit hole and have some of those conversations with ourselves, you start to think about, you start to think about, you know, what are some things I can do to move myself forward? Well, a lot of the things that move you forward are, you know, you really paying attention to the things that you have goals towards, the things that you're excited about, the things that you want to do better at.

And those things can end up oftentimes leave you flat somewhere else. And so as we're reaching for stuff, you want to be a little bit cautious. And it's it's a tough thing to try to figure out. Somebody asked me on Instagram today, they said, how do I know when to throw away my, you know, throw, throw in a towel basically on my dreams? How do I know when to kind of just, I guess, give up in a way. And obviously you want to have that mentality of never give up, but what if it's to the detriment of your family? What if it's the detriment of other people around you that, that want you, that are, they're waiting for you. They're waiting for you to turn into a normal functioning human being. And here you are latching on to these hopes and dreams and you're not doing anything with

yourself. And so these are all the things that you at least have to consider. Now, I know you guys are thinking, okay, well, shit, you talked about trusting your gut instinct and just going for it. That is important. That first voice that you hear, it normally is right. But that first voice that you hear that tells you to do something, it's telling you to do it right then. It's not telling you to do it right then and then continue to do the same thing for the next 15 years and not make any progress. So you have to be making progress in the things that you're doing. In order to make

progress in the things that you're doing, we know that it takes time. And when you're trying to get into this thing that we call the work-life balance, you end up being unbalanced. But I think the important thing to understand with being unbalanced is you can get recalibrated. You can go in and you get yourself recalibrated. You can take back the parts of your life that you may have lost as you're going after something else. Somebody might say, I don't really have time to do that because it doesn't work well. You know, this particular thing doesn't work well. This particular job doesn't work well because I won't be able to see my significant other.

This particular, well, look, you know, we all have to make sacrifices towards certain things in our lives. You, let's say for the next 10 years, don't take a vacation because you, you want to pursue business. You want to be an entrepreneur. You want to own your own business. Well, you know, there's a bunch of different ways of doing it. Maybe you could reach the same exact goal by being smarter, by taking your time. And maybe you could, you know, figure out how to get there in five years. But meanwhile, you know, every year for summer, on the summertime, you go to Hawaii. You know, you could figure it out that way.

But what if you just don't want to figure it out that way? You want to do it your way and your way is to stay home for the next 10 years. And that's how you're going to become a millionaire, a billionaire, whatever it is that you have a, uh, a goal towards. The main thing to think about is that you can get it back. And so while you may be, uh, you may be spending a lot of time with somebody at the detriment of spending time with somebody else, or you may be spending time, uh, too much time at work. You may be too caught up in finances and you may be too caught up with, this is what I'm

doing for my family, but then you're never actually there, but that's okay. That's what you're supposed to do when you're pretty young. You know, we've got about 80 years on this planet is about what we get. Right. Um, some of that is developmental and you see, you don't even remember some of that. You got like five years that are just like kind of a wash. Right. Um, but we have about 40 years on this planet and you have, you know, you could look at like, I'm going into the third quarter is the way I like to look at it. There's going to be a third quarter, fourth quarter. And if I'm lucky enough, I'll get to play some OT and maybe I'll live to 90 or a hundred.

I don't know. But life expectancy is approximately around 80 years old, 80 issues years old, depending on, uh, what you look at. And so you want to think about how can I get to where I want to go the fastest. And so considering this, considering, you know, that I need to kind of at least halfway pay attention to what does it cost me to make these moves. It's important to at least have that in your head. But at the same time, it's like you better move. You better get moving. You get it. You better get moving on what it is you're trying to do because you ain't got a lot of time. You got to really just go for it. And if you were, if you were to kind of put this in a different context of,

uh, of what does it cost you? You think about like, Oh, like I, I really want to make a lot of money. Right? So you climb the ladder, you climb the corporate ladder of making more money, but then you really don't have a life. So it's like, what does that money even do for you at that point? Now, if you're conscious of these decisions and you're like, you know what? I'm going to put off my family.

I'm going to put off my friends. And this is my goal. This is what I'm doing for the next few years. And I'm going to explain that to everybody around me. And that's going to explain that to everybody around me and that's going to be an understanding that uh uncle andrew is going to be out podcasting all the time he doesn't have time to always show up at thanksgiving or christmas or these different things he's going to be doing photos and a b and c because this is what he loves to do and this is this is what he's

uh what he's here for but when andrew's 45, which is what, 10 years from now, basically? Yeah, essentially, yeah. Yeah, so like 10, 12 years from now, when Andrew's older, hopefully he'll be in a better position to where he can set his schedule a little bit more to where he can get to where he wants to be, right? And so that's really what we're trying to think about is that you might not be in the exact position that you wanna be right now.

And you might have to work like hell and you might have to make a lot of sacrifices and it may quote unquote cost you a lot. It may break your back. It may break your spirit. It may break you down emotionally. It may just totally jack you up. But at some point, hopefully what

you're working towards allows you the freedom to sit down and say, okay, now this is my life. Now I'm going to focus a little bit more on my children. Now I'm going to focus in a little bit more here. Or you can just take longer to do everything and you can spread yourself out right now. You can kind of pick and choose which route you want to go, but there's a price to pay for all of it. Yeah. I mean, and it's like, you can't do all of it all the time, but eventually like over time, you can kind of like,

like you say, do more, be more, right? But at this very moment, I can't do everything. I can't Michael Jordan everything. I can kind of Scotty Pippen it. I can get pretty close, but it's kind of Scotty Pippen it. I can get pretty close. But it's still not exactly where I want to be. Right, exactly. And no one ever is because you're never like, you know, think about this scenario.

Like I'm going to be 42. And think about when I'm 62. What will I want to do when I'm 62? Well, I spent all this time and spent invest all this, just everything. You invest everything that you possibly can into your children. What are people that are a little bit older do they like move away from their kids a lot of times and they spend time in like the Bahamas or some shit and they like get away from everybody. Like maybe Andy and I will do that. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll retire to Bodega Bay and like not be seen by anybody for a while,

you know, cause we just want to spend the rest of our lives together or whatever that scenario, uh, looks like. Cause maybe her and I at some point are like, look, man,

you know, slingshot has devoured both of us and chewed both of us up and spit out and spit each other out. And so let's, let's take some time together and just, this is what we're going to do for the next five years or 10 years. Right. So you can kind of, you can get some of these things back and you can switch into some different modes, but it's also important to kind of think in your head, like, man, if I do that, that is going to cost me a little bit. You don't want to be a puss about it, but you,

it is something that you, you should definitely consider, you know, they kind of say, be careful what you wish for. Right. And so you may, uh, let's just say you wish to have a bigger bench. Like it could be something so silly as that. Right. I just wish I bench more weight. Well, as you start to get into it, now your rotator cuff hurts, your elbow uh your your tear your pack like all these things like okay you want to bench more all right we'll see as these costs start to mount up uh that you

can't that you can't afford uh let's see if you still want it let's see how bad you really want it and it's going to take it also takes a lot of time which is you know time is a crucial element to this whole the whole piece of the pie time is money you know, time is a crucial element to this whole, the whole piece of the pie. Time is money. Money is time. They're intertwined with each other. Yeah.

Do you look at the, uh, the bigger picture to, to not feel guilty for missing whatever it might be, or, uh, just the feeling of, I'm not spending enough time at home or, you know, I just, you know what I mean? Yeah. Cause I just always try to get back on track and i try to make a mental note of it um and uh like i'm sure i'm screwing up in more places than i even make a mental note of right because uh you know not everyone's gonna always just tell you straight up where you're where you're falling flat right but like if i i'll

make a note kind of in my head about about my kids or about my wife, I might think like, man, it's been like three or four days since I've really had a meaningful conversation with Andy. And it's been a couple of days before I man, I haven't taken Jake to a movie in a long time. And he really loves I love going to movies with him like, you know, I should kick it. And so, like, I'll say, hey, man, what are you doing this weekend? You know, and I'll find out a lot of times him being 14. He wants to hang out with his friends a lot more than he wants to hang out with his pops. But we still enjoy hanging out with each other. So it's like I need to kind of figure out, you know, I need to take a note of it. But then I need to take action towards it.

And that's what ends up making it hard because that action towards it sometimes is not the easiest thing. I know, like, Jake, for example, he likes to, he likes to shoot guns and, uh, you know, and I, I've taken them a few times, but it's one of those things where it's taking them to the movies is easy, right? We just, we just go and we, and sometimes we eat first and then we go see a movie or whatever. Those things are easy to do. So it's like that's that low-hanging fruit. But sometimes in the back of my head, I'm like, man, I don't want him thinking like, man, all my dad ever did was take me to the movies. You know, I want him to have other fun experiences. And that's when a few years ago I made the decision of, you know what, anytime I travel for anything, I'm going to try to make it inclusive. time I travel for anything, uh, I'm going to try to make it inclusive. You know, I'm going to try to turn it into a family thing, which doesn't always really work that great, but it does work.

And it's ends up being really effective. Like, uh, they wanted to, somebody wanted to bring me up to Alaska and have me do like a seminar and do some of these different things. And I was like, yeah, you know, the only way that's going to happen is if like, that's a family vacation spot. And so let me, you know, talk to the family and let me get back to you. And it got to the point, you know, this guy wanted to pay for everything. He wanted to pay for our family to come up there and everything. And I just said, you know what, man, uh, uh, we're going to do it on our own dime and we're going to come up there and we ended up doing the seminar for free just because I'm like, this is a family thing and i don't want to be on the hook for anything so if that guy paid me five grand ten grand or whatever

um that would be cool that'd be great to have that dough it's nice to have that money but then now i own something and so i didn't want to owe him anything like what is what does it cost like that even cost you something to take money from somebody that's kind of an interesting thing but it does cost something it costs it gives the person a little bit of ownership over uh over your time it does yeah that's who you're purchasing i'm purchasing some of andrew's time every day you know yeah and then you have to deliver something yeah otherwise you move on right right yeah at that point you can't just back out or be like, ah, you know what? Sorry, not gonna be able to make it, but no, we paid you.

You have to be here. Yeah, that's what you're getting paid for. And so, yeah, it can be really hard to try to balance things out, but I think if you're just conscious of things, and that's what, when I'm sharing this message on here about do more, be more, when I'm talking about diet, when I'm talking about lifting and all these things,

that's really what I'm talking about is that you're just conscious. You should be conscious that you haven't exercised in a while. You should be conscious that you haven't eaten well in a while. You should be conscious anytime you're eating candy, anytime you're eating ice cream, anytime you're eating pizza, you should be paying attention. You don't have to beat yourself up over and be like, man, I'll never get back on my diet. Just think to yourself, okay, this is not part of the plan. And this is what we're doing. What we're doing is disruptive towards where we want to be. And this is the decision that you're making right now. You know, a decision is the decisions that you make. They end up making up kind of who you are. Right.

So you have to really kind of consider that and just just know it. It's OK. It's OK if you fall off here and there. But can you rationalize it? Can you make some sense of it? Can you can you say, OK, you know what? I actually I lifted really hard this week and I don't really care that much about what I eat.

I'm just going to let my defenses down for a couple of days. That's fine. I think that's normal, acceptable human behavior. And it's also very normal to want to reward yourself. It's a normal, it's a normal feeling, you know, um, when this set, when this, uh, time of year comes up every year, uh, with my, uh, with our business, you know, when we get into this, uh, this time of year, the business thrives really well. And we see the numbers jump up and my wife and I celebrate, you know, have some drinks here and

there. I mean, I, I, I don't drink that much anyway, but I probably double what I normally would drink. Um, because we're celebrating sales and celebrating different things and it's fun. Um, but even, even that is something to look at. Are you really having that much fun? Is it really helping anything? Is it really improving anything? You having a cheat day every week? Is it really helping anything? If it is then party on, you know, keep going. Like that's, that's the right way to do it. That makes sense. Uh, does it make sense? Uh, every fourth week for you to take a week off of lifting? Maybe it does. Maybe you feel great. Maybe you're like, wow, anytime I've ever done that, I come back way stronger and maybe, maybe that works great for you. So it's something to, it's hard because you're like, well, how does just being out of the gym help me? Like, oh man,

I'm going to get fat. Like, that's going to suck. How am I going to get back into lifting if I take a week off? Well, yeah, you will get fat. But I mean, as long as you're rational about it, right? Like you can't say like, oh man, I had a shitty day on Friday, but I had two cheap meals in a row and Monday I crushed it. So I'm going to do that every week. Right.

And then the next week you did okay. And then you did worse on Monday. Like, no, no, no, you don't understand. I absolutely go nuts in the gym when I have two cheat meals or two cheat days in a row. It's like, you kind of, you can't lie to yourself, but you also have to totally 100% believe in the fact that like taking that one day off does genuinely help you. The, uh, the, the one cheat meal does actually do something for you in the gym. Cause if you don't believe in it, then you're kind of screwing yourself both ways, you know? And then also the cost of that cheat meal, helping your bench, if it helps your bench, but then you mess up your shoulder by going too heavy, you know, that's just like what we were just saying like that, that's going to cost you something else yep it's so it does yeah so like how far in would you like zoom in i'll say

you know like uh you're gonna i'm gonna have this cheat meal it's gonna help my bench and then you do that and then you zoom in it's like okay but it did hurt my shoulder right right it's like but i hurt my shoulder so that gave me a rest day and then after the rest day i squatted better and then zoom in further like well shit now i have a knee problem you know what i mean like how far down the rabbit hole can you go and it's like i mean you want to you want to kind of like analyze just about everything that you're doing not not overdo it you know because you can have like analysis paralysis it's called yes yeah that's all you're ever looking at is like, and then you also never, you don't want to be looking at any negatives to, you know, you, you only want to kind of consider what

may happen later on. You don't really want to, um, and you don't always need to be in that mode. Um, but it is something to think about. Like if just, if you feel like you're starting to overdo something, then more than likely you probably are overdoing something. If you feel like there's neglect going on somewhere, then you probably are neglecting something. So, you know, maybe the reason your shoulder hurt on that day wasn't really just because you went heavier. Maybe it's because you've been neglecting doing some of the shoulder movements that you should be doing some of the mobility work that you should be doing. And, um, I think ultimately that's what,

that's what I'm really talking about is like these things end up costing you a lot, but what ends up costing you the most in life is neglect. When you, when you, uh, being present gives you a lot, but neglect, uh, neglect does more negative than being somewhere does positive. That makes any sense. Yeah. Like not being there for your children, uh, in some, in some, like not being there one time for them could really hurt their feelings really badly.

They could remember it forever. It's crazy, right? Yeah. And kids remember everything. Yeah, they remember everything. Um, and you know, obviously being there for birthdays and stuff, it matters, but you can't really, it doesn't really carry over. You can't say, I was there for your ninth birthday.

They're just going to remember that you're not there for their 10th, you know? They get credits, right? Yeah. I was there for the first nine. Roll over the minutes. Yeah, roll over minutes. We got to be able to, like, invent roll over minutes. Something.

For parents. Yeah, that would be nice. We got to be able to sell that shitllover minutes for parents. Yeah. That would, that'd be nice. We gotta be able to sell that shit. But remember the goal too. The goal is to have more good days than bad. And the goal is to have more things turn out good than they do bad. And so in order for things to turn out good,

like what's your definition of good? Well, your definition of good probably falls into something that, uh, makes you feel good. Not always really happy, but just makes you feel good. Well, your definition of good probably falls into something that, uh, makes you feel good. Not always really happy, but just makes you feel good. I actually heard this today and I thought this was really interesting. Things that cost you, uh, energy wise, make you feel good and things that don't make you feel bad typically. Right? Like, so things that cost you energy,

uh, in terms of like um uh just even just exercise you know exercise makes you feel good when you go when you go and do something it makes you want to do more stuff like it it's weird because it's an energy expenditure but it also makes you it makes you comfortable it makes you okay with the energy expenditure obviously like sleep makes you feel great. Um, but you're not like, you're not like sleeping and you're not like in the middle of sleep going, oh man, this feels great. And you really don't wake up and you're not like, oh, that felt great. Sometimes from a nap, I guess, but like, I don't know about you, but I don't wake up in the

morning. I'm like, man, that felt awesome. No, I don't know if I've ever woken up like that before. Yeah. Now it's a little different. Cause I wake up up and i'm like my back doesn't hurt as bad that's good you know but it's never i yeah because you can't reflect back and kind of take an archive on uh or a uh yeah and just see how much feedback you got from your sleep because it's gone guy in ig over here he said he's heading to the gym he can't handle it anymore. He got fired up. That a boy. And he just left. Adios, buddy.

Yeah. I know. This guy had no neck gang on YouTube. Said he took a 10-pound shit, and now he's hitting the pre-workout and going to hit squats. Oh, my God. I know. I'm proud of him. That pre-workout.

You know, I talked about on my Instagram today i talked about coffee uh making you take a dump and um our boy uh joel green he hit me with a text and said it pulls magnesium into your into your stool or something like that i was like oh my god really he said that's why it makes you take a shit dude okay well that makes a lot of sense i remember we talked to like a coffee scientist when we would drop our coffee and i'm like dude why does it why does this happen and you know i asked him about like mold in the coffee beans and blah blah he's like no no he's like the coffee beans get roasted so it doesn't matter like it's just the the caffeine and the like anxiety that you're getting from like the jump so okay

that makes sense but i'm gonna listen to joel green yeah yeah i wonder uh too like if it's just something hot too like i wonder if you just have like i mean it's probably partially placebo effect you're like at this point absolutely every time i have coffee i shit myself yeah and uh it just happens but man i i swear to god it's a few sips for me so So like if somebody, like even in Joel Green's scenario, it's like the smell of the coffee. And it's just the act of having something hot that kind of gets me. But also too, if I'm honest about it, one hour after I'm awake, then I always have to shit. If I'm awake for one hour, I got to poop. It doesn't matter how it works out.

Yeah, I keep trying to do the mind over matter. And I'm just like thinking like, okay, I don't like the second wave, especially I'm like, that's, that's just in my head. I don't actually have to poop again after I take a dump. But like this morning I woke up at, it was 2 AM and my stomach was cramping and I had to sprint to the bathroom and i'm like okay i was dead asleep there's no way that i imagined that i had to go to the bathroom were you holding your butt cheeks dude no i just i it was just one of the things like i i like i woke up and i'm like why am i oh i'm awake because of that and i just jumped out of bed and went straight to the bathroom and it wasn't a false alarm it wasn't like just gassy nope the floodgates from eating poke yesterday i woke up at 2 a.m one time two or three in the

morning and i just took the huge shit back to bed and it was so funny because i was just laying there and i was like that was weird man like what hit me i just and it was just a normal like you know normal check of the bathroom yeah it wasn't like it wasn't like diarrhea it wasn't sick or nothing it was just random like i just had to you know hit hit this giant poop get this get this thing out and i remember i texted everybody like in the company i was like hey just to let everybody know i took a giant shit and everyone's like you know everybody the next morning they're texting me they're like congratulations that's awesome man i don't know what the hell was going on that day but something happened something needed to get out of me yeah with the introduction of a couple of carbs here

and there now especially the dairy um i've just been blowing it up man oh man and stephanie's so sweet she never ever is like oh my gosh open up a window or do something like go hose yourself off outside i oh man it was bad even for myself i'm like oh my gosh you got to spray and stuff it's the worst of the worst and then i i go outside and i'm like i'm so sorry and she tried to play it off for a second and she's just like i'm gonna'm going to go to the other room. It's like, I'm sorry, babe. It was really bad. I don't know what's gotten into me. Man.

Your, your stomach problems, man. They're amazing. I know. I was taking a probiotic, but it's the one I have to keep in the fridge. So I keep forgetting to take it.

And I think that's making everything worse because I was on a good, uh, streak of taking it. Now I'm just leaving streaks everywhere. This guy said, what kind of sleep do you need to perform? And we usually tell people eight hours. That's what a lot of the research shows. But again, I would just say, and this is something I really believe in,

is just try to do better than you did yesterday. So if you normally sleep five hours, like just try to do better than you did yesterday so like if you normally sleep five hours and just try to get more than that yeah it's a great start yeah it's uh it's boring to say eight hours because that's just what everyone's always been told but it still holds true and for that guy he's got to understand that the eight hours the night before training is way more effective than the rest that you're going to get after you can't chase the sleep again you know once once it's done it's done so right for sure get it before the training session yeah there's a lot of people that say uh you know you can't really like catch up on sleep and i would i would agree with that i think if you're losing a lot of

sleep i think that makes sense i think if you're losing a lot of sleep, I think that makes sense. I think if you're losing a little bit of sleep, I think you can regain some of it. Like, um, I don't think it makes up for the lack of sleep that you may be getting, but I know for myself, like I can wake up at like 4am, you know, uh, each day pretty much and feel really good. And then if I just have one day where I wake up like six and I went to bed a little bit later, or if I have one day a week, uh, where I go to bed really early, it just, it, it gives me, it gives me enough. So like whatever the difference is between the two, it's probably just the difference of like not sleeping optimal. And just that one day I do sleep optimal. And then so it helps

with, uh, with the rest of the week or whatever. But, uh feels good i don't have time for naps anymore i wish i had time for those but um even those like sometimes they'll wreck you because you sleep too long you know yeah if they can feel pretty good you get like a half an hour an hour hour nap feels good yeah if i take a nap i don't know like what year it is or what country i woke up in like i i just i'm out There's no way. Yeah. I used to, I used to nap and then come back to the gym and, and, uh, and lift and it used to feel really good.

Yeah. It was like, uh, but it would take me a while though. It would take, it would take me some time. Like the whole thing would, you know, talk about costing me a lot. I mean, the whole process would take like three or four hours, which is a huge amount of time. Um, because I'd have to, first of all, I'd have to like drive home. And then secondly, I got to like, it doesn't, you can't just fall asleep out of nowhere.

So it takes a little bit to fall asleep and then you fall asleep and then you got to like re-wake yourself up again. Yeah. So I used to do that by either like going on a walk or hitting the shower or something because you're like, I need something to freaking get me back up. It's like you have two mornings yeah yeah and at that point i didn't want to drink coffee either because it was like we normally trained at like four so i didn't want to like you know train too late or you drink coffee too late so it was just kind of a it's kind of a pain in the ass figuring that out

yeah anyway getting back on track back to what we was talking about. And, uh, you know, just figuring out how to have more good days than bad is, is a great way to start when you're talking about trying to sleep, or we're talking about trying to get better with a diet, or you're talking about trying to just to be better than you were yesterday. Just make that the smallest, make it the smallest step that you can take the smallest step that you can think of. So you can actually do it. Because if you're going to sit there and talk about shit that you're never going to do, it's never going to get done.

You're not going to do it. You're not going to take that risk. This guy that asked a question about throwing a towel on a dream, how do you know when to throw in that towel? That's a tough thing, man. It's a tough thing to let go of a dream. But every once in a while you have to like all the hopes and dreams you had as a child. Those aren't the same things that you're still holding onto now. Um, when I was a little kid, I think I was like six or seven. I used to always talk about wanting to be a race car driver. I don't know.

It's like random. I was a little kid, so I didn't really know. And then as I got a little older, I wanted to play football and I held on to that football dream for a while. I played football, you know, from 12 to like 20 basically. Um, and I loved football, but at a certain point it's like, okay, this doesn't make sense for me anymore. I'm not, I'm not as good as I'd like to be. I'm not going to be able to continue to progress on this. And the progress is, is ultimately what makes things good. So you have to try to figure out if you can't make progress in it anymore, is it practical for you? Does it make sense? Does it make sense for you to continue to do it? And it probably doesn't. It probably doesn't. If you can't continue to get a little bit better at something, um, you know, satisfaction is a big part of our goals, getting, being satisfied with the things that we're doing. Um, if you're not satisfied, then, um, then the amount of money you make and there's different things that you make or do, uh, aren't going to be as significant. They're not going to be as important. And so you have to try to figure out how do I continue to make progress in something? And if you can't make progress anymore, that's probably the time where you might want to throw in a towel

on your dream and reconsider something else. Maybe you had a dream to be a, I don't know, maybe you had a dream to be a scientist when you were a kid and you wanted to study the stars and do all these different things. Well, at some point, like when, as you get older, you realize you're barely even interested in that. Um, that's an important thing. It's important thing. You have interest in what you're doing because otherwise you're not going to pursue it with everything that you got. There has to be an interest. There has to be a passion for it. You have to be excited about it. If you're not excited about it, you're not going to be able to hold on for long enough.

So these are all the things to consider. And all you're trying to do is you're just trying to have more good days than bad. And for each move that you make, you're going to have to consider that there could be some cost to every move that you make, whether it's accepting money, whether it's you trying to go for a PR squat out of nowhere when you're not prepped for it. Any of these things, they can cause a cascade of problems and they can end up costing you too much.

If you think about, you know, uh, a lot of us, you know, a lot of people who are like my age, if they think about their dad, their dad's like a real, like hard ass and all he ever did was go to work. You know, my dad was like that when I was a kid, he, he, he, he worked a lot, um, uh, at IBM. And, uh, you know, it was actually a good thing when he lost his job because he ended up being able to uh you know open up his own business he ended up being able to start to set his own schedule he ended up being able to be around a lot more and i didn't know this until years later but my mom uh i guess you know pulled my dad aside one day and said hey you know what

you're not here and he's like oh whoops like i thought i was supposed to just continue to uh continue to make more money you know i thought that was i thought that was our mission you know i thought that's what we agreed upon you're staying at home with the kids and and i'm going to keep working and she's like yeah but like we've got to raise the kids together and so he's like understood and they kind of moved on from there, but that kind of goes to show you that you can regain it. You can gain it back. You can gain back some of these things that maybe you, you know, maybe you feel you lost out or missed out on some things.

There's a lot of like pro football players and pro athletes. They might miss out on their kid being born and they might miss out on the first five, six, 10 years of their kid's life, unfortunately. But if you think about it, if you're a firefighter, if you're a cop, if you're someone that's really dedicated to your trade or your craft and you're not somebody who's famous, it's in the public eye, you might be in the same boat. You might be in the same boat.

Even just if you're just a construction worker, you're gone from freaking nine until uh or from actually they usually work a lot earlier gone from like 6 a.m until 7 p.m every day maybe you don't get to see your kids that much maybe you don't get that many days off maybe the only time you got together is like the weekend so it's just it's just something that something to think about as you're trying to maneuver your way around things and then just put some logic on it. Put a logical spin to it and say, okay, well, I'm going to go for this now and that won't be forever. My life won't look like that forever.

For me, with pro wrestling, how did I know to throw in a towel on that? Well, I did it for five years. That was the commitment level that I agreed to before I started it. Or not before I started, but once I started it, I was like, you know what? I'm going to do this for five years, and if I don't really make it to where I think

things are looking good, then I'm going to move on. Because pro wrestling is like a really good example of like a a lofty dream right it's a lofty dream to like you know wrestle on a pay-per-view or something like that right and and uh i gotta admit i did i don't think i knew enough about what i was even trying to do anyway i just was trying to do it and i didn't know i don't think i i don't think i really truly knew why or embraced why i wanted to do i just was trying to do it and I didn't know I don't think I I don't think I really truly knew why or embraced why I wanted to do I just was doing it and so I did it and I trained hard and I worked hard but I could have worked harder like I would have worked harder if I wanted to make it happen

but I think it was a part of me that maybe didn't want it to make it happen because I I think deep down I knew that wasn't my life i just was something i was trying to pursue at the time it's almost like it's almost like someone that goes to college like sometimes you just go to college like my college was pro wrestling sometimes you go to college because that's what other people do so for me i was just trying to pursue something so i had something to talk about i had something coming up i had something going on in my life. Hey, what are you trying to do? I'm trying to be a pro wrestler. You know, it's just, it gave me something to go for.

It also helped keep a lot of my goals intact with my diet and with my training. And so I liked some of those aspects of it, but I knew it was time to, uh, kind of give it up when I, before, like I said, when when i start when i just started out i thought to myself right away i was like i'm gonna do this for five years i want to see if i'm anywhere and if i'm not really anywhere then i'm not going to continue i wrestled in japan at that time i wrestled all over the country um and i did some fun things got to wrestle with the guy on the desk here not jesus christ but john cena and And I had a lot of fun with it. Made a lot of great friends.

But when I realized, like, hey, this is probably the end of the road, I evaluated it. I'm like, this doesn't make sense. It's not making my wife happy. There's no end in sight in terms of me being able to make any sort of real money with it. So I was like, I being able to make any sort of real money with it so i was like i just you know i just need to move on and it's a weird craft to like learn because you can't do anything else with it it's not like it's not like i knew a new uh learned how to build a car or learned how to like uh paint a house or build or anything i i learned

pro wrestling which at the time i was like wow that's a use oh what a waste of time that was but now what a waste of time that was but now what a waste of time it wasn't because of getting in front of these cameras and doing this kind of yeah that's what i was going to say no matter how like you put it lofty the dream is i think that just with the experience alone now you did it in a really smart way by putting like a time cap on it and you did it early on. Um, so that way it didn't lead to just a bigger waste of time, but it gave you life experience. It,

uh, it introduced you to a bunch of unique people. Yeah. And you made some crazy connections that later down the road, you know, amounted to something really cool. Yeah. But if you just said like, you know what, man, wrestling is a stupid idea.

There's no way I'm going to become, I'm just going to stay home and play video games. Right. You know, so like, I think it's cool if somebody does have like a weird outlandish dream, like pursue it because you never know where you're going to end up, you know? So it's like, yeah, like the experience that you're going to have along the way is going to help you eventually but just be smart about it yeah and i i wanted to i really wanted to try it you know my oldest brother was into it and uh mad dog and chris they were both way into wrestling we all loved it as kids and it was something i wanted to really uh try but i was i was smart

enough to trust my gut instinct to try it and to do it for a while. And then I would also say that I was smart enough to, you know, re-evaluate and like, you know, I had a newborn, my son was like, you know, brand spanking new at that point. And, uh, I was just like, this is not great. You know, this is not, this is not a way to, I'm not doing right by my family i guess is what it came down to and so that might be a good time to throw away a dream is when it's my wife wasn't like i want to make it clear to my wife wasn't my wife's always been supportive of everything so she wasn't um she wasn't like you're not going to wrestle anymore she wasn't

she's never been like that i would not be with somebody like that i don't understand how people are with people that are like that uh she was uh very supportive uh you know hey jesse burdick sacramento i just saw that um but she was very supportive the the entire time but at the same time she was like hey like you know what are you know what are we doing you, what are we doing? You know, what are we doing as a family? How are we, how are we going to improve? How are we going to get better? Uh, when you're sidetracked with this dream that look, you, you tried it for a long time. You made some progress, got to wrestle in Japan, which is a huge honor.

Got that sick Rivera steakhouse jacket. That's purple. It is amazing. I got to make some progress and I got to meet a lot of people, but I also was like, that's probably all I'm going to get from this. I can't squeeze anything more out of it. And if I continue to chase it, it's going to cost me too much. It could cost me my relationship. It could cost me, um, all kinds of things. I just would never make the progress that I needed. And I was, I was stuck basically. And so when you get stuck, that's time for a change, whether

you get stuck in your diet or stuck with your lifting, um, you get stuck in anything in life, it's time to figure out what the hell can I do next where I can make progress. And I think a lot of people have asked me coming off that bodybuilding show, like what's next, what's next. And I think they're hyped because they're like're like well you got to have something next because you got to continue to make progress and uh they're right i mean you do you you got to make up something you know and that's why michael hearn trains as weird as he does you had the pleasure of training with him as as did i and uh it was crazy to watch how every day he had some sort of little tinker or twist in there to where first of all he knew he's going to whoop your ass on everything he set it up like that way specifically every time

but he almost threw out a little challenge almost every day and there was maybe a day or two a couple times where he didn't where there wasn't it wasn't really that challenging and it was like just a huge bummer it's like a huge huge downer for the whole kind of group but like he could make anything fun because he made it hard he made it difficult yeah i think you said it best man life parallels training you know so whatever it is you're you're stuck with a certain weight you plateaued or whatever yeah you're stuck at your job you kind of you can do the accessory work you can do other whatever work, whatever you want to call it, and break through that plateau. Yeah.

Yeah, you start doing your tricep pushdowns and your tricep extensions and all these other exercises. And that, in the long run, will help build your bench, but it's boring. And it's like you don't immediately see the payback from that. And it's like, you don't immediately see the payback from that. Just like you might not immediately see the payback from going home from work and working more to work your way out of the job that you're in. Yeah. But there's a great saying, and it says that you should work harder on yourself than you do on your job. You know, something to really think about for people.

And that goes for anybody. I mean, that's my advice to you. And I employ you, right? But like the more valuable Andrew is as a person, the more valuable he is here anyway. So it doesn't do a disservice to me. I'm not going to be like, man, I hope like, you know, some huge magazine company doesn't come and buy him up for, you know, for his photos or something. But even if they did, that'd still be amazing. I'd be like, man, that guy started here. That's awesome.

Jason Kalipa's calling. Oh my gosh. He just blew it. Jason Kalipa just tried to ruin this podcast. He's getting jealous. You know, so you, you do want to work, you want to work on yourself and try to work on making yourself better. I don't, I'm not requiring Andrew to continue his education,

but you're learning more here anyway. And then you just, because you're fascinated by it, you're going to learn more about photography anyway, run into other people that do it, communicate with other people that do it. And then even just, if you're at home and something comes across your face,

that's got some, something to do with photography. I'm sure you're looking it up or reading it or whatever. Absolutely. Always trying to get better. Yeah, it's part of the game. And don't worry, if any magazine comes calling, I'm not going to pick up the phone. Don't worry. My magazines are pretty much dead, right?

That's exactly why. Yeah, not falling for that trap. Somebody said I have pretty eyes. Well, thank you. I think that's just your phone softening up your face, though. Oh, boy. Dreamy eyes? Yeah. You lost me.

I'm out of here. You lost all the live viewers. Yeah, there's going to be times in your life when you are doing something, you're slaving away at something, you're trying your hardest, you're doing your best and you don't know what the payout is going to be. But it's not really about the payout. It's about the development of yourself as you're going through the process. You hear everyone say, enjoy the journey, enjoy the journey.

Like, fuck you. I don't want to enjoy the journey. This journey sucks. enjoy the journey like fuck you i don't want to enjoy the journey this journey sucks you know my journey sucked when i one of my cars were breaking down and i was driving in a minivan that the horn would honk as i was going down the street without me touching the horn um you know you're gonna run through some uh rough times here and there that's just that's the way things go but there's going to be a sacrifice for the unknown you're going to be working for something that you don't even know is going to happen yet. You're working your way into success in some way.

You don't know when it's going to come. If you're in the gym and you're training your arms and you're trying to get your arms bigger because you know that that will help increase your bench well shit man that's a long that's a long ass process to try to increase your bench because it might take you might take you a year to get a half an inch on your arms if you're lucky like that's actually pretty fast progress um and then with that little bit of gain you got on your arm you're lucky if that yields 20 pounds of strength uh in that time frame you're lucky if you gain 10 pounds of strength. In that time frame, you're lucky if you gain 10, you know, 5 pounds. If you gain 5 pounds of muscle in a year, that's pretty damn good. Yeah.

So any of these things, you're fortunate that you even get them in the first place, but they're also not that visible, especially on a day-to-day basis. So when you're training and doing all these things and trying to build up your arms, it's going to be hard to recognize or realize, how in the hell is that going to help me? Because it's not doing anything for you at the moment. And you're like, man, like I, I don't know, man, I've been, they told me to train my arms really hard and I have been for the last three weeks. That's like, well, it takes a lot more than three weeks to do it. It's going to take nine weeks, 12 weeks. It's going to take a year.

It's going to take two years. It might take five years. It might take 10 years. Um, but it is also important to try to, you know, when you have a goal, you have a dream, you got something it's important to encapsulate it. I think with, uh, with some sort of timeframe, I think it makes sense. Like you had the goal of doing 300, uh, before the end of the year in the deadlift and you were, and you were able to do it, you know? So it's like, that helps a lot. Put, put pressure on yourself. You can even think about that with like the next goal would be like 225 in the bench.

Yeah. Yeah. The, the original goal was just two plates on the bench and three plates on the squat and deadlift. There we go. So I feel like the, the deadlift is there before the end of the year. Squat, maybe we'll change it to a box squat. Yeah, there you go.

And then bench, I think bench is there too. Yeah, I mean, the thing is that you're close. So, yeah, like we want to nail down these goals and we want to check these things off of our list yeah right but like and it matters it matters that it happens at the right time because that's that's the goal that you set um but if it's a few days off or a few weeks off who really gives a shit you know it it got you further along anyway got you further along faster uh regardless yeah but you know that's a huge thing too is is to make a checklist you should have a checklist you should kind of think

about one of the one of the great things about having a goal is being able to check that bitch off your list and if all you have is like really crazy hopes and dreams on your um you know on your, um, you know, on your list, well then maybe you don't really get to even check anything off. Um, and those are things that can be, that can really be like celebrated. Like I, like I did it, I did this thing. This is, this is freaking great. Um, there's somebody I listened to, his name's Art Williams. You can listen to him on YouTube. Uh, you guys should write that down. Really valuable. Art Williams is the man. But Art Williams said in like 1996, so Art Williams started an insurance company, AL Williams. And they rivaled Prudential and like any of the big dogs, he was able to rival all of them.

Made millions and millions of dollars. And people that worked for him made a lot of money money as well he was just he's an ass kicker great motivational speaker former football coach um you can go on uh youtube and uh just do it is the name is the name of one of his uh uh name of one of his like motivational speeches it's it's amazing it's amazing but this guy's a genius and he was a genius because he said that in 1996 it's just funny the way he talks got the southern twang to him he goes and he's like in 1996 he's like we we celebrated our first national championship and i was like oh wow i didn't realize like as a football coach he won a national championship like that's sick and uh and then he and i didn't realize it was after he retired he was talking about uh he was talking about his insurance company he's like we won our first

national championship he's like it was the first national championship of uh of uh our insurance company uh being the best in the country or something. And he goes, he goes, and you know what? We did it again in 97. We did it again in 98. And he goes, no,

we did. He's like, we let balloons come down from the ceiling. He's like, everybody in the office celebrates like a thousand employees celebrate. And everyone's all fired up. Everyone's all excited. He's like, you know what the other insurance company said?

He goes, they said, I didn't know they had a national championship he goes but in 1996 they did he's like in 1997 they did in 1998 they did we gotta have our own national championship oh it's great it's great imagine how much fun we'd have here it's like man like we should we should all we should all do that we should all have like a big take a big ass victory lap every once in a while get fired up about something what What are we going to call it? Slingshot National Championship?

I don't know. Super Training? I don't know. Yeah, we'll have to come up with a name. That's sick, though. I like that. Well, it could be the name of the actual company, which is Super Training Products LLC.

Yep, Super Training Products LLC National Championship. You're like, see that, SBD? Yeah. See that, Iron Rebel? Championship rings. Yeah, we crushed you. We crushed you. We'll bring in a basketball hoop and we'll cut the net down.

Yeah. That'd be dope. Yeah. Chop the net down. We'll have a bunch of nets from each year. Yeah. On the wall. Like, look, all the way back to 2010 when we first started.

You won a national championship in your first year? Yeah. Hell yeah, we did. That's right out the gate. Haven't looked back. Number one, wire to wire. Number one new show. Yeah.

That's right. The podcast national championship of 2018. I'm going to get that placard and put it up in here. AR asked a cool question. He needs help because he doesn't have a training partner. How does he stay motivated? What the hell? How do you not have a training partner?

He asked that on the YouTubes. Yeah. You know what? Sometimes it's kind of hard to have a training partner. I got to admit, it's not always easy. it's kind of hard to have a training partner. I got to admit, it's not always easy, but I do think that, uh, you know, number one is you should maybe, uh, you know, work on trying to find a training partner and it doesn't have to be someone of equal strength. It actually helps a lot if they are, if they're, if they're not really a lot like you, it actually, it's like a relationship

in some ways. It helps if they're not if they're not the same as you you know my wife is very similar to me in a lot of ways but man is she different than me in a ton of ways too and that that really helps us it's easier to hang out um like with andrew i can't really ever envision even getting in an argument with andrew because we're just different we're we're way different if we were the same if we were similar you know we'd probably be like heads but heads at least once in a while but like i you know he he and i don't we don't uh have you know any hang-ups in that way he and he's you're in the uh you're in uh you know your fitness journey where you're at in your life and i'm where i'm at in my life and they don't't clash. It's easy to be supportive of each other.

Whereas if we were the same age and we were similar body type and similar strength, yeah, okay, I want him to get better, but I don't want him to be better than me. I'll be like, ah, you know. Now, just the way things are on certain things, like he can kick my ass on like pull-ups. There's a couple of things every once in a while, Andrew gets me on something. And, uh, I, I feel good about it because another reason why I feel good about it is because I'm a little older and I've also been doing this for a long time. And I,

I feel comfortable with the things that I've done. So it doesn't, it doesn't, uh, I, again, I still want to be better, right, I still want to be better, right? I still want to be better for myself, but sometimes trying to find a training partner can be difficult, but I would still suggest that come out of your shell a little bit. If you're going to the gym with headphones on, take those bitches off, try to find a training partner. Um, if having a training partner is still not an option, you might want to try some different gyms and some different things like that. Um, you know, how to keep your motivation, uh, in those terms without having a training partner, then I would say, you know, try to search around for stuff that you find, uh,

that that's exciting to you in terms of lifting, you know, try to try to do some different exercises. Don't, don't just pin yourself down to bench squat deadlift. Don't just pin yourself down to doing boring stuff. You know how in lifting, they always say, you know, work on your weakness, work on your weakness. Well, you ain't got to always work on your weakness. Why not work on some of the stuff that you enjoy, work on some of the things you have fun with. For example, if you, if you just like the way a certain exercise feels, let's say that you like the cable crossover machine, but it's not normal to start the workout with a cable crossover. Normally people start out with the workout with a bench, something where they can handle heavier

weight. Do what you like to do and that'll keep you motivated. If you do the things that you enjoy, now you don't want to be lazy about it and like just trade out the squat for the leg extension. That might be a mistake, but, um, even, even in that case, you could start out the day with the leg extension, pre-exhaust your legs before you squat. It may be you hate squats, but the point is, is if you do a bunch of stuff that you don't really love to do, and that's a great way to be unmotivated. So try to find the things in the that you enjoy yeah or just do something different and i know this is going to sound kind of crazy but like how often are crossfit boxes like giving out like free like day passes or week passes or whatever like try to go to a crossfit gym and not having a training partner like you do the entire class together you're bound to meet somebody you'll'll meet a gym bro there. Yeah. And then who knows, maybe get them into powerlifting or whatever.

You just, I think just doing something different is key. Yeah. That's a great recommendation. Cause like go to Olympic lifting contests or go to a powerlifting meet. Like go, you know, go check out some of these, uh, contests that are local. Gotta go where the people are. You gotta go where the peeps are. Yeah.

Cause if not, then yeah. Uh, somebody is asking a question about our training are. Because if not, then, yeah. Somebody's asking a question about our training split. Oh, again? Mm-hmm. I know. People always ask. Our training split's pretty simple. We work out about five days a week right now.

We have a separate day for shoulders. And we got a day for chest and triceps, a day for back and biceps, and a day for legs. That's pretty much it. That's our split. Yeah. And what's our food like right now? Mm-hmm. Yep, we're eating food.

Lots of food. We're eating lots of it. I'm going to end this for one second, and I'll come right back. How dare you. Because it's going to end anyway. There you go. Boop. Our food is...

Wait for it. Yep. Wait for it. Okay. Hey now. Oh, facing the wrong way. Like, what are those wires doing? Oh no, you can't give away our secrets. Yeah.

Food-wise right now, I'm using a lot of fasting. I've been fasting every day, um, for the front portion of the day. And then once I get home, uh, then I, I eat. And yesterday actually was amazing. Yesterday I just ate and ate and ate. I had, I had some icon meals. My wife was cooking up some meatloaf and, uh, she was like, Oh, dinner probably be ready in about an hour. I was like, I ain't got time for that. And so I cooked up an icon meal and crushed it. Um, it was their Kobe burger. That, that thing's amazing. And, um, and then, you know, the, the meatloaf was just taking longer than we thought. And so I cooked up another one. So I had two icon meals. And then when the meatloaf came out, I ate the meatloaf and I ate leftovers from the night before. Wow. So man, I just, I crushed so much food. And then my wife and I are watching a movie and I'm like, I'm going to

make a protein shake. She's like, what's going on around here? And I was like, well, I, uh, you know, I've been fasting. And so she's like, like man you made up for like seven days of eating though she's like she's like i think that defeats the purpose yeah but that's what i've been doing right now i've been fasting every day or at least almost every day i'm really missing breakfast right now because i love eating eggs god damn i love eggs are still my favorite right now. Shit, I love eggs. Make them over medium. Damn it. So good. And then, so, like, cook it with the butter.

And then, so once you take the eggs out, then you throw spinach in where the butter is. You can throw, like, 10 pounds of spinach and it comes out to, like, a thimble. I know, it's so sad. Yeah, those of you that hate vegetables, too, try some cheese, too. Try a little cheese on some broccoli or a little bit of cheese on some, uh, you know,

cheese is kind of great. Butter is amazing, but cheese is really, is really great because at least there's some protein in there too. So you're kind of getting a little bit of both. You're also getting some good calcium in there, but the diet right now, um,

I, I, I reintroduced some carbohydrates, not a lot. I'm eating, allowing myself to have some beans here and there. Um, I, I, I reintroduced some carbohydrates, not a lot. I'm eating, allowing myself to have some beans here and there. Um, uh, vegetables, obviously those are kind of like always fair game on any, any of the diets and the vegetables I usually choose are just, uh, it's either like a salad or broccoli or spinach.

Um, other types of carbohydrates are rice, potatoes. Um, and that's about it. I might have a protein bar here and there. Like I might, you know, as I'm saying, I'm fasting. So I, I really want to kind of see what the fasting looks like. I'm not even on a ketogenic diet necessarily. Um, I have been messing around with ketones, the ketone esters and some different ketones and stuff. And I don't have like a great, I don't have, I'm not getting a lot of great feedback from it, but it's not doing anything negative to me either. Feels okay.

I'm not noticing a huge boost from it, but just some different things i'm tinkering with um what i'm hoping happens with the fasting i'm hoping that i'm able to do it for long enough uh that i'm hoping i'm able to do it for long enough to where i don't even recognize that it's fasting anymore i just recognize it as my way of eating somebody asked if i'm a sauce guy no i don't really use a lot of sauce, but if you are going to use some sauces, um, you know, just, just pay attention to what you're doing. You know, you know, you know what you're doing. So pay attention to what you're doing. Primal kitchen makes some pretty cool stuff. Uh, this stuff is pricey, unfortunately,

but there's some stuff that you can get in the grocery stores too, in terms of if you really dig ketchup, there's some ketchups that don't have any added sugar and some things like that. There's actually one company, I can't remember the name, but there's one that's pretty damn good. But it depends on how deep into this you are. If your goal is to like you want to get up on stage and you can't have condiments, there's no place for them. The only ones you could have maybe like mustard. That's about place for them. The only ones you could have maybe like mustard. That's about it. Yeah. That'd be, that'd be all you can get. And like, you can squeeze lemon and throw

some vinegar on stuff and that's about all you get. Yeah. But eventually you're, you'll change your mind and your mind will change. Yeah. Like when you're telling me about what I should be focused on, what I should be eating and you're like, but no fries. I'm like, dude, fries don't even phase me anymore. Like, yeah, I do. I still like fries. Like I like the idea of them, but right now where I'm at, I'm like, I, like, I don't even care. Like, I think the worst thing that you put in front of me right now would be pizza or I would have a hard time. You know, the other day there was donuts in the gym on Sunday. I was like, yeah, that looks pretty good, but I'm not too interested. But if those were like cases or boxes of pizza, I would have had a really hard time saying no to that. Pizza is tough.

Pizza is so good, though. Yeah. You know, it's a weird thing about, you know, some of these kind of addictions or cravings is that, you know, it's that fat salt combination or the sweetness and the salt combination or any combination of, of any of those things altogether that really gets you, you know, like Coca-Cola, you know, you think about some of the things that like that go on with, with a, with a bottle of, of Coke or Pepsi, there's a lot of sugar in there. We already, we already know that, right? Hopefully people know that. There's caffeine in there and there's also sodium. So the thing has like this weird, unique ability of making you pee, uh, because of the caffeine, but it also has

sodium in it, which kind of makes you get like almost like a cotton mouth kind of thing going on. in it, which kind of makes you get like almost like a cotton mouth kind of thing going on. And it makes you, it makes you want to drink more of it. Um, think about like how thirsty you get when you have a ice cream. Oh yeah. Get like crazy. You're like a gallon of water after a cone. Woo.

It's so good. Yeah. You just want to like douse yourself in water the whole time. Yeah. And a lot of that's just because of the way that our palate works. But a of the foods that are have been created a pizza's like been around forever but a lot of the foods have been created are are nailing all those kind of pleasure centers of our tongue hey now hey and uh and it really just gets to be kind of addicting because you're like man i'm still thirsty you drink it and it's giving you this it's giving you some pleasure but for whatever reason it's not like satisfying everything and you're like i need, I'm still thirsty. You drink it and it's given you this, it's given you some pleasure, but for whatever

reason, it's not like satisfying everything. And you're like, I need more of that. I need more of that. And it never, it never gets you the way that you want it to get you, which is a form of addiction because you never really get like the, you'll hear people say, uh, with a crystal meth or something. They'll say, you know, it's never the same, you know, the second time or third time, same thing with cocaine. And there you have to try's never the same, you know, the second time or third time. Same thing with cocaine.

And there you have to try to get that first, first time feeling again. They can't, they can't ever, ever figure it out again. Yeah. On Instagram's George Strength asks, how do you recommend he food preps for his first powerlifting meet?

Oh, let me write down food prep here for a second. Food prep. And let me finish up with what we're doing right now, food-wise. So, Andrew, I have Andrew doing something a little differently. I'm not, like, making him fast. I do want him to fast, like, here and there just because I want him to feel the way that it feels. But I don't think it's the most productive thing for him to do at the moment.

We added a little bit of carbohydrates back in. But in terms of, so I listed out the carbs. We added a little bit of carbohydrates back in. Um, but in terms of, so I listed out the carbs fruit is always, is always a welcome as well. Um, with Andrew, I introduced some dairy into his diet. He's got some cottage cheese going on some yogurt. Uh, he's always been eating a cheese. I think that's about it. Right. Yeah. And huge thanks to everyone on Instagram. Cause I just posted on my, on my IG story, like, how do you eat cottage cheese? And I just got a ton of responses. It was pretty cool because like I've never, like to me, it always looked weird. It looked like it was like spoiled milk or something because it's curdled. Yeah. But I just ate it with honey and it was really good. And what actually really motivated me to eat it was...

There was some pepper in there too. Yeah. Because you can do like the salty side and peppery side. Or like what I did is I just kind of made it just taste like oatmeal basically. Yeah. Cold oatmeal. But what really motivated me was I looked at the nutritional facts and seen how much protein was in each serving. Shitload of it. I was blown away. It's really good at night because it has casein protein, which is like really slow digesting.

And that's what our boy Alberto Nunez recommended the other day. Before bed, have some casein protein. So there you go. That's bro science. Like, well, fuck, dude. Just take it for what it is. Well, try it. If you don't like it, it sucks. I guess it sucks for you, right? Yeah. And so right now, having

yogurt a little earlier, my stomach's rumbling. I don't know if anybody's heard it on the podcast this far. Yeah. It's trying to get on the mic. Yeah. Yeah. That can happen. That can happen. And then, uh, so in terms of protein, like we're always just after, you know, valuable protein sources that are going to give us the, uh, vitamins and minerals, the enzymes, all the different things that we need for the day. So we're going to go after, you know, red meat and we're going to go after, you know, fish here and there, things like that. Chicken is fine. You can eat chicken, but it's just always, it's always good to understand it's really from chicken or from egg whites and those kinds of

things. The, uh, you're only getting just the value of, uh, there's really not a lot in them. That's what I'm trying to say. There's just, they're just protein sources, which is, which is not a bad thing. It just, uh, is it is what it be. Um, other protein sources. We got, uh, we got eggs and just, yeah, any form of meat that you can think of in terms of fats you got avocados you got olive oil mct oil coconut oil any of those kinds of things will uh suffice but you know the real thing with this with any of this diet stuff is to is to try to develop some kind of consistency and some sort of habit and mood feel i'm, but food prep becomes a huge part of that. Um, having your food prepped, uh, ahead of time can be a huge part of it. Um, somebody's asking

about protein recommendations. Yeah. One gram per pound. I mean, it's, it's pretty simple. You can try different things. Somebody asked about macros in general. And I said, you know, do a gram per pound of body weight of, uh, carbs and a protein and do about half of that fat. And then somebody else right after that said, uh, behind that, they're like, I've never heard anybody say that. So it's amazing. But yeah, basically around 200 grams of carbs, 200 grams of protein, and maybe about a hundred

grams of fat, a hundred grams of fat might be a little bit on the, might be a little high. You might want to adjust it. You might want to adjust the carbs around. You can kind of move around your fat and your carbs. But really, if you were to, with the general population, if you were to share one message with them, if you can only tell them like one thing and you couldn't explain like exercise and all these things, you would just have to say, eat more protein, just fucking eat more protein. Do that, you know, eat a gram, eat a gram per pound of body weight of protein. And that'll, that would actually help a lot of people because it helps with, uh, satiation and it helps with, um, it also doesn't have the same amount of caloric, um, has a caloric demand just to digest it. And so therefore it'd be really productive for a lot

of people just to eat more protein. If you already get a gram in, then, uh, you know, it could start to get excessive if you start to go too high. But, um, I know people that do two grams per pound of body weight, all kinds of different things. But most of our grandparents and most of our older people and most people that are just not used to dieting, they're just not eating any protein. They just eat carbs and they don't have a scheduled eating plan. Having a scheduled eating plan and meal prep will change your life forever in all aspects of your life.

It will change everything. I like what Alberto said about his brother trying to, oh, when he started to lose weight, all he did was just have a protein shake before every single meal. Right. And it drove him nuts because he couldn't like pound food because he was full. So, and that just is straight protein. Yeah. He's like, shit.

Yeah. He's all bummed out. Can't eat as many tacos. Yeah. That's funny. Like, you know, Olive Garden, they have a meal of just breadsticks and salad. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. And I've said it, I don't know how many times now, but the, like the kids menu at Spaghetti Factory, there's zero protein on there. There's just sauce and pasta and that's it. No protein kids. Zero. Yeah.

So anyway. Yeah. And I think i think you know that would be another good thing for people to do is to just not you know don't view things as food and don't view things as meals if they're not you know if it's it's okay to eat it but it's not real food you know um a snickers bar is not real food any sort of fast food is not real food. You just have to identify that that's not real food. And you need real food for survival. You need real food to be more optimal. And it really doesn't make sense to bombard yourself with a lot of that. If you're new to all this and it seems freaking overwhelming,

well, remember what I always try to preach here is to have more good days than bad. What if you just had more good meals than you did bad? You have three meals in a day. I'm asking you to eat two good meals. You got three meals in a day. I'm asking you just to have two good ones, you know? So these are, these are the kind of small things that can help you really make a lot of progress in terms of food prep for a power lifting meet, that's actually a great question. And actually, that would be a fantastic YouTube video. I just think that that food prep would look like any other food prep because you don't want to eat things that are foreign to you on game day. So you want to keep with your same foods.

Now, I see a lot of power lifters eating Oreos and they, they have their power thing meet be like this cheat, crazy cheat day. And, uh, I've done that back in the day. I've done that before eat hot dogs and different things. And you can go that route. And like, I've never had any repercussions cause I don't think, I don't think it matters that much. Uh, but I would say like, it would be a mistake to have your stomach jacked up when you're trying to deadlift, you're going to crap yourself. So I would just stick, if you're trying to be meticulous and you're trying to be calculated and you're trying to win and you're trying to kick some ass, then I would just stick

with the same foods that you normally eat. Um, you might want to try to bring with you some foods that are kind of portable and easy, uh, to bring around rather than just full on like cooked meals. Cause they might not, uh, be great. Like some of these things you're going to might have to recognize that you might not be able to microwave them. So that'll be some things to, to think about. You might want to, uh, uh, bring some like hard boiled eggs and some cheese and some

different things with you, uh, that could, that could be easily eaten and easily digested. PB&J is a big one at Powerlifting Meats that we see quite a bit of. Just whatever your body is used to, that's what you want to kind of stick with on game day. So don't throw anything in the mix supplement-wise. Don't change anything. Going into Power't mix, don't throw anything in the mix supplement wise. Don't throw, don't change anything. Going into powerlifting meet, don't change anything. Don't change anything ever because you don't want to change your knee sleeves. You don't want to change your knee wraps. You don't want to change your shoes. You don't want to change your wrist wraps. Do not change anything when it's game day. Make sure that you're used to everything from your food to the way you

drink, to the way you rest, everything. You want everything to be as similar as possible. Cool. Here's another protein question. Uh, does the average lifter need to worry about whey versus casein or just go away and don't worry about it? No, I don't think it matters too much. I think, uh, you know, you just, you, you want to, you want to find something that tastes good. You want to find something that you, you can enjoy and that you like. We have awesome protein here at Slingshot. We have Slingshot protein. It's a hydrolyzed whey protein. And then we also have our Keto Pro, which is a protein fat combination. But I mean, those are excellent choices. Those are things that I digest easily. And I've had trouble with other protein shakes in the past. That's why I used to blow up all the Starbucks bathrooms from here to kingdom come and back again.

But, uh, yeah, we have our own and you can check that out. But, um, you know, some people think that you need a slower digesting and a faster and this and that. And I think you just, uh, you know, go with, uh, go with what you enjoy, go with what, what Go with what tastes good and what fits into your diet. Yeah. All right, peeps. I think that's pretty much all the time we got. You got anything else over there, Andrew? That's all I got, man.

Oh, my God. Although my stomach is, I'm curious if anybody heard it. It was making some, it's like a cat. Yeah. It can get noisy. it can get noisy i think uh for some reason i think the dairy might might do that too you might make it a little noisy here and there i still think it's the poke pokey oh yeah yesterday combination of both you never know i just think once i switch it up from having basically zero well i've had cheese so i don't

know you know i don't i don't know man well had cheese so I don't know you know I don't I don't know man well cheese is like I don't know it's like fermented and it doesn't have uh doesn't have a lot of lactose in it has hardly any lactose maybe that's why it was funny I was eating a small block of cheese and Smokey's like oh he's like how could you do that he's like man I'd be blocked up for a week like yeah, yeah, but you eat ice cream every night. He just walks away. That's great. Smokey is still of the belief that fiber makes you poop.

He's still hanging onto that dream. Everything makes me poop. I know. It doesn't really make you poop. It just, it just, it's fiber. It does something else.

Anyway, that's, that's the podcast for today. If you like this podcast, share it with some other people, tell some other people. This is Mark Bell's Power Project. Appreciate all you guys tuning in. And, uh, the motivation behind today, what we talked about today was, uh, just for you to consider what each move that you make will cost you. It doesn't mean not to make the move. It just means to freaking pay attention.

And I hope that that's what everyone does that listens to this podcast. I just hope that you're more mindful. I never thought of myself as a big thinker. You guys know my story. I've told you many times. I went through a big part of my life thinking I was dumb. times I went through a big part of my life thinking I was dumb, but it's a really, it's a real game changer to use your mind on a daily basis towards all the decisions that you make. Pump the brakes here and there. Ask yourself, how does this hurt? How does this help? Ask yourself

that question over and over again. When I do this, how does this help? How does this hurt? When I make this rude post on Instagram, tearing down somebody else in their comments, how does that help? How does it hurt? Does that really help you? Does that help you with anything? When somebody tells you about a new diet that they're trying,

does it help you to knock them down? Now, if you're saying something that's real to them and you say, hey, man, that's real to them and you say, Hey man, you tried a lot of other diets. I don't think this is going to work. That might just be, that might be the truth. And that's, you know, sometimes it's okay to share the truth because sometimes the truth will fire somebody up and get them going. But I'd like everybody that listens to this podcast to start to understand that, you know, you just need to be mindful of what's going on, be mindful of what's going on. Be mindful

of what's going into your body. Be mindful of your thoughts. Be mindful of other people. Be kind to other people. You want to be successful in life? That's the number one tip, is to be kind, to be nice to people. Just, and if that's too hard for you, just don't be a dick. You know, that's, that's the simple stuff. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.