Mark Bell's Power Project - Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, BJJ, and Life - Maddy Forberg || MBPP Ep. 889

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Maddy Forberg, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about  how Maddy has been able to balance competing in Wellness Bodybuilding, Jiu Jitsu and her work life.   Follow Maddy on IG: https://www.instagram.com/maddyforberg/ New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #MaddyForberg  #PowerProject #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

I would never. Do that. I'll fuck up this whole podcast. Test me. Test me. I'm not going to do it. Yeah, that's right. Maybe we should start the podcast out with that clip of you ragdolling him yesterday.

You know what? I'll see you on a Friday. Okay. I'll see you on a Friday. What does that mean? I mean, we could technically do it tomorrow morning if you're down. I don't wake up that early, dog. Not on Thursdays.

This guy likes to roll at like five in the morning. I can't believe he beat you up, man. Don't, please, guys. Don't do it. Matty, don't test me today. Don't f***ing test me today. Damn, dude. Andrew is very violent, though.

I'm going to retire after that. Just to say I got in SEMA in somewhat of side control once. I'm just going to... After after he after he stopped it but you know whatever it was the only footage that i received so that's the only thing i could have posted the only footage you received all right guys if you're wondering about this bullshit just go to the project ig page and look at uh this post of andrew on top of me so you can have fun with that. The only difference between you two though I heard though is steroids. Steroids.

That's the only reason why I was able to get him down. That makes sense. That's right. You are on some testosterone. Oh yeah, you had Nikki on the podcast. Did you see that yeah yeah that shit was funny how are you liking jujitsu by the way i love it it's so awesome it was one of those things before i was like man people who do jujitsu like won't shut the

fuck up about it and i'm one of those people now i won't shut the fuck up about it how long you been doing it um well i started a year ago and then we moved, had some time off. So I've been doing it about like six or seven months now, back again. Did you have to take time off because you got beat up? Like, was it tough? I had started during COVID. And so it was just a really weird. You started jujitsu during COVID?

I started like the month before. Okay. And then I was trying to go, but we were wearing masks and doing it. And like the instructor was so far away from us and wasn't coming around. Just a really strange learning environment. Not their fault, but for a new sport. I couldn't breathe anyway. I was coming from powerlifting and trying to roll with somebody with a mask on was just kind of brutal.

So it took some time from that. Yeah. What's the conditioning like? In jujitsu? Well, back then I had no idea of like pace or like people would be like, oh, a light roll, go 30%. There was no gauge there. It was zero to 100. But now it's a lot better.

I can kind of – I've had my ass handed to me many times now. So I can kind of pull it back when I need to. Are there other girls to roll with or you just roll with whoever is around? Yeah, I'm really fortunate. So where we're at, we're in, it's called Champions where we live over there. We have a really good group of girls and we actually have girl specific classes now because we felt like it was a really good way to get people in the door. If you're intimidated, you don't want to roll with guys, you're really new, come to the girls' class. So that is usually on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

We're bringing more of those classes in. And it's just our professor and then eight or so girls. There's a handful of us that are always going, and then we have some people that come in here and there. But I'll roll with really whoever at this point. But it is nice to have the girls classes cause they're a bit more technical. Um, depending on if our professor wants to kill us that day. So like what, what spurred you wanting to get into that? Because like you've

done power lifting at a high level, you've been killing it in wellness and then you, you start grappling and I'm wondering to the extent of how you're juggling these things, but like what made you want to do that specifically? I loved powerlifting because I loved feeling capable. I loved being able to feel strong at a time in my life where I really needed that. And then switching to bodybuilding was a really fun goal that I'm not done with. But there is so much of an element of having to look at yourself and look a certain way that getting into the offseason, intentionally being bigger as something that I haven't done in a long time,

I wanted to do something where it didn't matter how I looked. So I go to jiu-jitsu and I put a gi on, and nobody knows what I look like. It doesn't matter. And I also, I'm not really Maddie Forberg when I'm there. Not that I think I'm this celebrity or something, but it's a place where I can just be totally fresh and new, and I can have no expectations other than just trying something different.

So it just felt really good to learn a skill, do this like contact sport, something I've never done, and not have to focus on how I look like to be able to do well in it. Is it nice to be a newbie at something? Oh, it's so good. It's so good. It's so good for the ego too to just to just really suck at something and be okay with it. I roll with this girl who is getting ready for a fight. She does boxing. She's amazing.

She's a no-gi champion. So she beats me up every time. And every time I'm like, okay, I'm going to do a little bit better. But she usually just kicks my ass anyway. And it's like that moment of like, okay, it's totally fine to not be good at this. You don't have to like, nobody's expecting you to, it's not your job. You're not getting paid for this. Um, so it's been really interesting and I've been wanting to hear your experience with it. Cause I didn't realize that you were a brown belt. Like I, I know that you had started it, but from like powerlifting, bodybuilding, I wasn't sure when you started

doing that. Yeah. It's been seven years. We talk about it so much. So it's been really cool. It's been really awesome progressing at it. Especially you're going through this point right now where everyone's kicking your ass and you are a physical specimen. But I would bet that you didn't think that you could be ragdolled so easily. No. And Andrew was just talking about side control, a position I feel really strong and I can hunker easily. No. And like, you know, Andrew was just talking about side control, a position I feel really strong and I can like hunker down in that. And there's some areas where I can use my strength and I've got big legs. So everybody's like, yeah, triangle. But people are flipping me upside down. I'm like inverted. Like I didn't know my body could move this way. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. Are you also at this point, because I think you just came off of a wellness season, so are you still like, do you have shows planned and are you doing jujitsu while you're doing your training for wellness with the goal of still getting bigger? So in 2023, it's a big goal of mine to win a pro card and compete in jujitsu, something that I really want to accomplish this year. a pro card and compete in jujitsu. Um, something that I really want to accomplish this year. So I have been in the off season. Um, but my, my blood work has not been great. It's something that we've been really bringing up. So I'm kind of at the best that I could be right now. Um, and it's been good to focus on jujitsu and kind of take a step back in the gym.

But I recently hired a new coach, excuse me. And in talking to him and in talking into like other coaches, I said, jujitsu is a really big priority to me. And I want to be able to work with a coach who will allow me to do both. I know that I cannot be the absolute best bodybuilder maybe by having these two goals. Maybe I'm kind of half-assing both of them. I'm not giving my full potential to each of them, but it's important to me that I have this. And I would rather sacrifice whatever percentage of success in a certain sport to be able to do both. I think it's really good for me to have that. So my coach right now, he's fantastic and he's helping me kind of work through that scheduling.

And I think we'll probably start a prep in the next month or so. And when we do that, I'll probably incorporate more private sessions with my professor so that I can kind of have, um, it's not so random, our training sessions in the gym, if we're just doing like a full open class. Hope you guys are enjoying this episode. We continue to produce this content for free. And if the podcast has brought value to your life, it would mean a lot to us. If you can go to your favorite podcast platform, whether that's iTunes or Spotify, and give us a star rating. It'll help the podcast grow and it won't take you much time. Enjoy the episode. Do you and Luke just randomly hop into sparring when you guys are

with each other? Yes. You both do it? Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things. I'll come home from the gym or I'll have like a girls class or something. And I'm like, can I show you this thing? And we get on the carpet and like we're in weird positions I think it's like a jujitsu couple necessary thing you have to do yeah um you've been working with Merrick Health and then recently you told me that your cortisol levels were through the roof uh what happened there were you just maybe over trained or something like that yeah um I don't think that I've ever been really good at stress management and I've talked about it a little bit the last time that we podcast. I overdosed when I was a teenager as a suicide attempt. And I never really took a look at what

that did to my liver. I was just kind of like, well, I'm working on my mental health. Everything should be pretty okay. I'm not dead, right? So the way that my body handled stress I think was kind of really clipped by what happened from that overdose. So I haven't really ever prioritized stress management. I kind of looked at that like if I have my coping skills and I can meditate and journal, that's stress management. That's all it is. stress management. That's all it is. But when you're training like the way a lot of us do and like kind of burying ourselves into the ground with the training style, our body gets a hit as a result. So yeah, I mean, you can relate. Cortisol, like that takes a big toll on you. It's

not something that you can just kind of brush under the rug and expect to get better. And then what are you doing to try to like mitigate that or change that? And then what are you doing to try to like mitigate that or change that? My coach is so much smarter than me, so he'd give you a way better response. But we're even adapting my training style for the last few months to kind of make those like liver sessions. So kind of looking at how my body is processing something in a training session to make things stronger. But also in my program, I have that I have to wake up at least by 630, go for a walk before the sunrise and journal or do something that makes me feel grateful because we know like that's a hypothalamic response and being grateful

is just like good for your body. It's a lot of the things that my body is kind of missing right now. So we're kind of covering a lot of different bases to help my health. And I'm going to be getting another cortisol test probably next week to see where we're at because over the last like year or so, it had almost tripled. It was just really crazy. But I didn't realize the effects of high cortisol to be so bad. Like I was- Did you feel that or- Yeah, I felt terrible. But it was one of those things where the way that it had manifested, we had talked about it earlier, I felt like I was lazy. I didn't have desire for anything. I couldn't get myself going. I wasn't motivated for work.

I wasn't even motivated for training. And to me, that was a really big red flag because I've always been somebody who loved going to the gym. That was never really a problem. Even when I was depressed or struggling with something, I never felt like, I just don't want to go to the gym today. My body just wanted to sleep. So yeah, the cortisol thing was really interesting. I physically felt pretty okay. I wasn't really getting good sleep. My appetite was just gone.

So at the time you weren't sleeping as much as you usually have been. Right, right. And so in my head I figured that this was like a mental health thing. Like, oh, well, I just need to kind of bring out some coping mechanisms or like read self-help books. But it felt totally different. Like it wasn't something that I could have a good self-care day and feel better about. Is that something that like, you know, you mentioned that you had that suicide attempt. I've seen your post about like your rebirth day. Is that something that you believe is always going to be there? Like, do you,

as far as like, I guess, some of the issues that you've had in the past, is that something that you believe has like a resolution or is it something that you feel like you're always going to be dealing with? I think that's a great question. I think it will always be something I deal with to a degree. Right now, approaching my health in a different way is solving a lot of things for me. I think depression and mental health, things like that, will always be something that I am managing and getting better at. I don't think that the last time I was depressed will be the last time I've ever experienced that, whether that's situational or not. But I think this approach to my health is making things better all around as

a person. Like I've been able to start incorporating habits that make me feel better, even just from like a house standpoint. Like I feel healthy enough to get better at cleaning my house. Like I'm now a person that I clean our sheets every Wednesday, that kind of thing, which is such a small, small thing that doesn't seem like it matters, but it does. Like being able to care about your surroundings and not just like feeling good and doing things like that is really big for your health. Why do you think there's such a rise in suicide, especially amongst young girls? I think that's something that's been spiked quite a bit here in the

United States. I think social media definitely plays a role in that. Like our access to other people is so crazy. And we think that we get just full access to people. Like, you know, people ask you probably questions that are really personal where you're like, in a different world, you wouldn't be able to just ask me questions about this thing, but here you are. Um, yeah, I think, I think social media plays a big role. Um, and I, you know, I can't like hate the social media cause it's a huge part of what we do, but I don't think that, um, it's moderated enough for, for kids. And I think it's just distilled in us that, um, there's just a lot of really negative habits or comparisons. You look at kids on TikTok right now and you're like, I didn't look like that when I was 13.

These kids look so grown up, which is just unbelievable. Hey, Paparazzi family, shut your f***ing mouth. No, not really, but kind of. You should keep your mouth shut when you're asleep. Now, on the podcast, we've been talking about the importance of nasal breathing for years. And we've been talking about using mouth tape during your sleep for years, as it's going to help your sleep quality because you're going to be breathing through your nose. We had James Nestor, author of Why We Sleep. Actually, that was Matthew Walker. But James Nestor, author of Breathe. We had Patch McEwen. We've had so many people talk about the importance of taping your mouth and breathing through your

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Shut your mouth. And with like, you know, you're in the sport of wellness it's a bodybuilding is a sport where you are focused on the way you look perpetually you're always like you go to the judges you figure out what you need to bring up and then you're hyper focused on that in your training so my curiosity is like doing that do you feel any type of like any type of uh what's the word i'm looking for? Is it difficult in any way for you? Just because like you come from a sport where you're focusing on performance, jujitsu, now you're focusing on performance again, but you're still doing the sport where you're hyper-focused on

the physical way you look at all times. I wonder, does that bother you at all? Or? Yeah, it, it, it, in the beginning when I started bodybuilding, I kind of felt like a hypocrite because I had come from powerlifting where my big message was focusing on what my body could do, not what it looked like. I'd come from an eating disorder. And so a lot of people questioned when I was starting to do bodybuilding, like, don't you think this is kind of just another eating disorder? And I think it definitely can be. I think a lot of people can use it as a way to kind of mask an eating disorder or any of those kinds of behaviors. But for me, I wanted to use this as a challenge. Like if my end goal is to make my mental health so strong and to be able to cultivate these tools to help myself to grow, to feel secure,

how close can I get to the fire without getting burned kind of thing? Like how can I put myself in a room of beautiful women where I'm going to be compared to them and not let that affect like my self worth. Um, because it doesn't have to, like it doesn't have to be one in the same. It can be a, a sport and a goal where I do try my best,

but it also doesn't like make me feel less them. Um, has it affected your self worth at all? Not, not really. It's, it's really grown. I think I used to – not I think.

I used to be really insecure with women or comparisons or I would never say that I would do bodybuilding because I didn't want just that whole being compared. So I used to be nervous with like male partners or whatever of them, like looking at other women and whatever. But now I've been able to get to a space where I will show Luke, like a girl who has a great ass and say, that's a trap. I'm like, look at her glutes. They look like she looks amazing.

And I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. Sam does the same thing to me. Just waiting. She's not, not, not, what do you think?

No, cause she, she, she like, why are you drool waiting? She's not, not, not. What do you think? Nah, because she, she, she, But then they're like, why are you drooling? You're like, I,

I don't, anything you say is going to be used against you at that point. You're in a lot of trouble. Nah, she competes too. So she's like, look at this girl's glutes. I'm like,

okay, cool. They're nice. Let's continue. But I can do that now without feeling like shit about myself. Like I can do that without making it this like self-worth competition. It's just a sport. If I'm going to compete in it, I've got to like either be okay with that or not

because that's what bodybuilding is. You're comparing to other people to the standard. So I have been really using that opportunity to build that. And in any moment where I'm kind of letting it dictate how i feel about myself or any insecurities or how i think my partner is feeling about me i know that that's the time to like pause like this is not a sport that i am the best at i'm not making millions off of doing bodybuilding right now it's just a hobby that i'm like working really hard for that's me from where to where like what are the years in that um a year

dang i did not do good at that show in the blue the one in the red was my first show and that was my third one and these were your like so how long ago were these shows and were these the first ever shows you've done like you've never done shows before wellness yep that was the first ever show i did in the red um that was in 2021 and then in the blue was 2022 what is a wellness show wellness is a division based on having a big lower body horse legs yeah i think they should introduce men's wellness for our power lifter guys who have really big legs. Get those guys out of those board shorts, right? Yeah.

Men's wellness. Yeah. No, Sam says that a wellness woman have like legs like horses. Yeah. Because she said she loves to do wellness. She says building those legs is... Speaking of...

Jesus. When I first saw this, I thought this was Photoshopped. I didn't seriously but i was like jesus that's a that's a wild transformation thank you there's a lot of weight between those photos but yeah i've really changed my training style it's so funny if you would have asked maddie that was on this podcast years ago that could you believe that you're doing like training sessions to just have a bigger butt?

I would probably smack you. And, but I go into the gym now and that's what my focus is, which is just so funny. Um, but yeah, I've learned a lot and I'm sure that you learned a lot when you did bodybuilding too, just about that kind of motivation and what you need to kind of succeed with that. It's, it's different in every sport, but I'm sure you learn a lot of kind of the same lesson of how to get it done. Bodybuilding is weird because it's 24-7. I know if you want to be good at anything, it's going to kind of turn into that. You get into jiu-jitsu or running or lifting and you start to think about it more and more and more. But with bodybuilding, you don't even have a choice.

It has to be part of pretty much all day, every day, because the food is such a huge part of it. For some people, cardio is a big part of it, depending on the athlete, depending on where they are. But there's a lot of time devoted to training in the gym, maybe an hour of lifting, maybe two hours of lifting, maybe two hours of lifting, maybe 60 to 90 minutes of cardio, again, depending on where the athlete is. Like, that's a lot of time devoted to that. That's a lot of trips back and forth to the gym. Then you got your meal prep and X amount of meals per day. I don't really know if there's another sport that's like it in those terms of the time commitment that has to be made in like a 12-week. I guess maybe you compare it to like MMA because MMA is wild, the different things that you need to know. You need to know stand-up and you need to know jujitsu and wrestling and there's

a lot that goes into that prep. But bodybuilding is kind of like almost all day, every day. Yeah. Do you enjoy that aspect of running now where like you can go in the morning and you're kind of done for the day for that goal? Yeah, I think running, because I'm new to it, it's just, this is getting to be a little bit different and this happens often

as you go down a rabbit hole, you end up in the same fucking spot you were in before. You're like, oh great, now it takes me a half an hour just to even go run because running becomes a thing. It's kind of like when I would lift heavy, you know, just randomly lift heavy. Like it's planned a week before and there's a lot of prep going into it. There's a lot of thought going into it.

A lot of preparation, even just like, you know, getting to the gym. What equipment am I going to use? What lift am I doing? What belt am like, you know, getting to the gym, what equipment am I going to use? What lift am I doing? What belt am I, you know, there's just so much thought surrounding it. And so running started as like, oh, let me just run. It doesn't matter if I'm in sandals or flip flops or barefoot shoes or, or what I'm in, I'm just going to go run. But now it's already turned into kind of a thing because we get to be a little loony tune about stuff. And you're like, well, if I'm going to do something, I might as well be the best I can be at it.

And I want to make improvements as quickly as possible. So I do love the fact that running is just I pretty much just need shoes and I can just like go. And I do like the simplicity of it. And I love the solitude of it. I can just go out and be with a friend like we of it. I can just go out and be with a friend like we ran today or I can just go out and be by myself. That's cool. I think it's awesome that that's just who you are as a person to kind of obsess in a way but to kind of get all of these resources to improve in every way that you can. I think that's just a testament to how you act as a human being.

Yeah, I've always liked to try to – it just makes me feel good. It makes me feel good to do the best I can. I'm competitive, but I'm also realistic. So if someone's moving a lot faster than me and I'm not lined up to do that, I won't do it. It'll be interesting to see how like jujitsu goes for me, which I'm planning on doing when I'm done with the Boston Marathon. Because I don't really, I don't,

I never minded something taking me a really long time. But maybe I will in jujitsu. Maybe I'll get frustrated and be like, man, I still suck. Like this sucks. I still suck. I hear these guys talk about it, how this can last for months and months and months and even years yeah yeah even years yeah even years uh that's a long time but i felt that way in powerlifting you know i uh i never got my squats right i mean i always sucked at them do you feel like for you

you have to have an end goal for something? Like with running, did that start off as something like, oh, I just want to do it? Or did it start as like, this is what I want to accomplish in this thing? I don't usually have a lot of goals. I think for me, I might have some things that I would like to accomplish or get to or get close to, but I don't set a lot of goals, especially in the beginning. In the beginning, it's like, let me have no expectations. And I found that no expectations leaves me feeling pretty happy about stuff afterwards. Because when I've had expectations going into something, I've expected myself to do something. It's cool to still have a standard, but an expectation is different because most of the time you'll be fairly disappointed with the way that you underperformed or the way you performed or with your body or whatever it is. So I do my best to, and I think that's a reason why I try can line up these five things, then I'm automatically going to do better than if I didn't line up those five things.

So if I line up these five things that are associated with me doing better in this activity, then I should do a little bit better. But I'm not going to expect the unexpected from myself when I'm not really in line to do, you know, seven minute mile for 20 miles. Do you think you'll keep running even after the Boston Marathon? Oh, yeah. Like as a daily habit? Yeah, I think I'll run forever. Yeah. I think I'll run till the day I keel over, which is when I was going to.

But let me ask you this. And both of you guys, because people do mention the idea of setting expectations too high and then failing at those expectations, but isn't it good to just build a skill of reframing those failures? I mean, like you can always course correct. So why not set some expectations? Curious about both of you guys' thoughts on that. I think for me, a lot of my expectations are mental. I think it has been something growing up where I have just expected the worst of myself that I couldn't accomplish something. So I would kind of just not do it as a reason to be like, well, I can't felt something if you don't do it. So my mental expectation is that I apply myself as much as I possibly can. that's not really a tangible thing because you can't really look at a gauge and say okay i did at least like 80 of my expectations mentally um but i i know that i can feel when i've really given myself to something like i run a business and i know when i'm being a good boss for that

day like that's not an on-paper expectation but there are certain things certain elements that i have to accomplish within that to meet that kind of expectation I suppose. Yeah I think for me I think the expectation thing I leave it kind of blurry a lot of times and so that's why it's good for me to not have too much of an expectation in something because I will for some reason, and you see this a lot with kids, with little kids.

Little kids think they're awesome at everything. And they don't notice. David Weck actually mentioned this to me recently where a friend of mine, he thought he was like the fastest kid. And then he remembers a day where he went to race somebody else and they beat his ass.

And then he recognized, not only is he not the fastest kid like in his neighborhood or his area, he's not even the fastest kid on his block because this kid just kicked his ass. And he started kind of recognizing like, oh, I'm not as good at this. I'm not as good at that.

So I think a lot of times people have a heightened view of what it is they're going to be able to accomplish, but it's not realistic because they're not actually really doing enough stuff in that particular category to actually be really good at it. So somebody might be really frustrated with the fact that they're not really getting better at running. And then you kind of ask them like how often you're running and they're like, well, I run

like two or three times a month. I went to run last month and then my knee hurt and then my back hurt and then I got back into it. And you kind of hear all this stuff and you're like, well, that just doesn't make any sense. So I agree with you. Like reframing the way that you think about it I think is probably the most important thing because if you define your goals a little bit – if you define your goals a lot, then you can start to kind of write out or picture or envision the seven or eight different things that are associated with you reaching that goal. And if you do those seven or eight different things, you should be able to get to that goal. Timing wise, it might take a little

longer than you may have expected, but you should be getting closer to that and you should be feeling better about that continuously. And I could be wrong about this, but I would assume, and Maddie, I'm curious about the same thing when it comes to you in wellness. Like you mentioned, you didn't set any goals when it comes to running. You're also new, but I'm assuming like, you know, towards the middle stages and towards maybe the end of your powerlifting career, both of you guys probably had set goals for numbers that you want to hit, career, both of you guys, probably had set goals for numbers that you wanted to hit whether you hit them or not.

Right? I've made this reference before but it reminds me of the Mario Brothers. When you're trying to get as many points as possible with Mario to get on that flag, you've got to jump at the right time.

If you don't make the jump at the right time. And if you don't make the jump at the right time, you get less, you only jump at the bottom of the flagpole and you only get like 100 points. And so I think you have to know when is your jump off point, when is your jumping off point. And you have to do a lot of work to even have the jumping off point. Her and I were talking about this in the car with finances. Maybe somebody, she does a lot of online coaching and things like that. Somebody that wants to get started with that, it would be a great idea for them to probably continue their personal training job, seeing people in person until they made enough to make the jump to being like,

now I only do stuff online because I don't want to take up the extra time with meeting people in person any longer. So that's kind of the way I view it. And same thing with powerlifting, with the numbers. You know, I'm not thinking about an 800 pound bench until I did something in the gym that was very clear where not only was I going to bench 800, but probably a lot more than that. So it was, you know, it's not like I'm barely going to get it especially the physical feat i don't want it to be barely i want it to be um same thing with like running of six minute miles a goal of mine but i i don't know when it's going to happen but it's like it's it's out of ways i can probably run like an eight minute mile right now but when i run a six minute mile i don't want to fucking hit the ground and feel like i'm going to just keel over and not be able to breathe i want to run a six minute mile, I don't want to fucking hit the ground and feel like I'm going to just keel over and not be able to breathe. I want to run the six minute mile

pretty efficiently and be like, I feel pretty good. You know what I mean? I want to be able to recover from it easily. And Seema, what's your kind of process then when it comes to setting a goal and creating expectations? I have no issue, I guess, having high expectations on things and failing at certain things. I don't look at necessarily not hitting a goal as bad because if I set those goals for myself, right, and I plan things out and I do what I need to do, but let's say I fall a little bit short, I can always analyze why I fell short. It's like there's, that's why I guess when it comes to things like this, it's like even at the beginning of something, right, where you don't necessarily know, like let's say jujitsu. So you have a goal of winning worlds as a white belt and

you just started. It seems like a dumb goal because you've never done jujitsu. You don't know aspects of the training, but okay, you set the goal and then you start with a kind of plan. But as you start with that plan, you course correct. You ask different people, what do you think about this goal? What do you think about what I'm doing? You fix things. Let's say that you don't get that goal. You don't win worlds as a white belt. But maybe let's say you podiumed.

You analyze and figure out, okay, what do I need to do to course correct for another goal? Because, yeah, you didn't hit that goal. You set your expectations a little bit too high. But at least you were moving in a direction. So and I understand. goal you set your expectations a little bit too high but at least you were moving in a direction right so and i i understand sometimes i think we know so little about stuff that we our expectations are crazy like oh yeah every little kid in the united states won't not every little kid a lot of little boys want to be professional football players uh-huh and then you start to kind of figure out like oh man like it's fucking really competitive it's unbelievable to be a pro football player and you just recognize over time it doesn't really like hurt you you just recognize over time like it's just not in the cards for me i'm just not designed to go and do that no matter

what efforts i put in or maybe you started your efforts too late towards that particular goal but i do understand what you're saying like you know with running as you get more experience just like as you got more experience with powerlifting you're able to and you too you're saying. Like, you know, with running, as you get more experienced, just like as you got more experience with powerlifting, you're able to, and you too, you're probably able to pinpoint things a little bit better because you have more experience. And we talk a lot about this when it comes to like losing weight. If someone's just starting a fat loss phase or just starting to go down that journey of getting healthier, they probably shouldn't say, I want to lose 30 pounds in the next year because they don't know anything about dieting or the habits and the things that they need to actually do. And it takes a while to implement that. And especially when it comes to that, people tend to beat themselves up when they haven't hit body goals. I think that's the key factor is how you feel. How do you feel afterwards? And then you can figure out how you are going to act moving forward. Because if your expectations are really high for yourself and you feel like shit because you didn't reach it, then maybe you have to act differently than the way that you're suggesting.

well, you know, maybe I should train in a different gym or maybe I – if you can't be like analytical about it, then maybe you should act differently. But if you can handle that, then I think what you're suggesting is great. I think failing is the most important thing you could do. I think it's something that I talk to my clients about or even the coaches who work for me. And failing is important. It's the only way that you get like really good raw data. They're like, why did I pay you? I failed miserably. Exactly. Like, exactly like oh you're gonna fail even more the more coaching you get from me

we're gonna make sure you really fail you're not in it to win that's your slogan the business of failing that is a thing though i mean to literally to fail fast right when you do get into something Thank you for it yeah well even with the jujitsu jujitsu references like when you make a mistake you learn the best because of that mistake like i can't even tell you how many times i like been in somebody's guard and i've stood up and i've been like yeah haha whatever and i'm like reaching to like grab a collar or something go for a choke and then triangle arm whatever and you don't learn that in practice. You learn that when somebody is kicking your ass or something embarrassing happens or you just didn't do what you wanted to do. That's how we create knowledge.

As a human being, you create knowledge through error correction. You mess up something and then you – that's how it always works. You mess up something. We only know the stuff from our experiences and from error correction over time. And then sometimes it's somebody else's error correction. That's why you hire somebody as a coach because they're like, I messed up every which way you can think of, but I'm going to help you have less failures, but you're still going to run into your own. So with your recent health issue that you had, what is like the error correction that you're

taking from that you or your team? Just try not to die. Try not to die. You know, that situation is, is interesting. The only thing I can say that I have learned from it at the moment, and maybe there'll be more stuff to know coming up, is just, I do have to stick to the plan. I was doing extra and in my head it works out like, well, I wasn't doing them, but I was doing extra and all of it is still new to me and I don't really have any business doing extra. I just was going by how I felt. And because I thought I had a good barometer of how I feel with lifting, I just thought, well, this is my body. I know what's going on with my body.

This feels really good. I'm going to go a little faster, or I'm going to go a little further. It says to go eight miles, but, man, this just feels awesome. To get back to my car, it's kind of like another three miles anyway. I'm just going to run the whole thing. Fuck it. I'll do 11 miles, you know? And when you do that day in and day out over a period of time, it's just, it has an accumulation. So I think that I do a good job with stress. I think that I do a good job with these things. And I, maybe I just have to be, maybe I don't do as good a job as I think. and I need to be a little bit more humble with that.

Was that something that you would end up doing a lot in powerlifting? Quite often. But with powerlifting, it was pretty – it got regulated on its own. it got regulated on its own, you know? It got regulated on its own because, especially the way I was taught with powerlifting conjugate system, it's your best effort for that day. And so you might only lift 85% of your max, but that's all you got for that day. And that's the way it is. So I also started getting very much in tune with what would hurt me. I remember specifically because in my squats, I would round over a lot. I started to learn how many rounded over squats I could do in a week or in a month. Your rounded squats threshold.

Yeah. Yeah. Like a squat turning into a good morning where I would get rounded over. I was like, I could do like one or two of those in a training session. I can handle maybe about three of those in like a month and anything more than that. I got hurt every time. But it's because I learned so much about powerlifting because I did it for so long. With running, I still literally have no idea what I'm doing. Interesting. With running, I still literally have no idea what I'm doing.

Interesting. You know, Maddie, I want to quickly rewind to something that you mentioned. I think you'll have a lot of insight and you'll be able to help people out with this. You mentioned that you did have a former eating disorder in the past and now you're doing bodybuilding. Because there are a lot of people who do bodybuilding and dealt with those types of things. But how do they know and what are some signs that themselves or other people around them can keep in mind so that they know that they're not falling back into those habits? The main reason I ask this is because I know a lot of people who will perpetually prep. They'll do a prep. They'll say, okay, I'm going to do an off-season.

It's not really an off-season. They gain a little bit of fat and they're like, okay, I'm going to prep again. I want to do an off season. It's not really an off season. They gain a little bit of fat and they're like, okay, I'm going to prep again. I want to do better this season. But it turns into a pattern. So what do people need to keep in mind so that they don't end up having that negative cycle? I think a really important thing is honesty within yourself and within the people around you. When I decided that I was going to do bodybuilding, I had a conversation with Luke and a conversation with my best friend. And I said, I want to do this thing, but my life and my sanity and my wellbeing, that's too much of a cost. So here are some things that you can see from me as a red flag. And it is my job to be honest with you

about how that feels. What are some of those things? Because I would assume that they parallel between other people. Definitely. So certain things like if you're like binging or something, some people have that issue or they maybe eat a little bit too much and then they have to go train extra the next day or they delay their first meal or they cut out carbs from another meal trying to make up for it where their like mental state is so fully bound within this like physical goal that they can't even separate it themselves

um i think that's a really big one or like i think body checking is a really really big thing um we are constantly like looking in the mirror and of course in a prep like you you are doing that um but there comes a point where you're not doing that in a really healthy or helpful way where if you're looking at yourself and not being positive or helpful or in the way that you speak about yourself or to other people of like I'm fat or whatever. All you're seeing is your chub. Yeah. You're like I just got extra chub on me. You're not noticing a delta to the triceps or anything good? Yeah, exactly. But I also think that finding a coach who is conscious of those things is really important, making that known that this has been an issue for you in the past.

Because for some people, they aren't far along enough in their recovery from an eating disorder to do something like this. An eating disorder is something that you kind of deal with your whole life. Like I personally can't look at like a banana and not know how many calories that is, or like what I'd have to do to kind of burn that off. From an eating disorder, I have a ton of mental math from foods. And that's not something that really, really ever leaves you. It's just something that you become more aware of. And you're not trying to use that in a harmful way for yourself. So I think just being honest with a coach and finding somebody who is aware of that kind of thing and will be honest with you

when it's time to do a prep and when it's not. Right now, I'm kind of the heaviest I've ever been outside of powerlifting. I'm a way different body composition. I'm uncomfortable, but I've had so many conversations with my coach where I'm like, I'm uncomfortable, but hey, we're doing this for a reason. Like if your end goal is to get better at bodybuilding, you cannot have a time period where you're just constantly prepping. That's not getting better, especially being so new at bodybuilding. I can keep evolving. I'm not, I haven't reached a point where I just need to keep doing shows because I'm not there yet. Like I, I'm not a pro. I've done a couple of shows. There's so much growing that I need to do, especially as a very new athlete. There's so much that I can take an advantage of as a new lifter in this sport. Um, and I think it's really

unhealthy. Like you're saying when people are doing these back-to-back preps and neglecting that like improvement season. So having a coach that can be honest with you about like, Hey, you know, you need to pump the brakes. Like we're not even competitive right now like you you didn't do well at your last show you can't do better at this next one without this time period how old are you 25 that sounded like a weird i just that wasn't i didn't want to acknowledge yeah that wasn't okay. I thought that came from me. No, I don't want to hear it. God damn it. That wasn't the view.

Keep going. We've got a lot of editing to do. Oh, that's staying in the podcast. Be sidetracked for a little while. We got a lot of editing to do. Oh, that's staying in the podcast. One day we'll grow up. Be sidetracked for a little while. I agree with him, by the way. You've made some amazing improvements. Thank you.

Like outstanding improvements. I know you mentioned that at one point you weighed 80 pounds. That is just so wild. And then when I first met you, I remember what you looked like versus what you weighed 80 pounds. That is just so wild. And then when I first met you, I remember what you looked like versus what you look like now. And you made such drastic improvements in your performance and what you're able to do in powerlifting. You were competing at a really high level, which that was awesome to see. Thank you. You mentioned to me that you first felt like a power lifter when you got slingshot knee sleeves.

Yeah. That was really awesome to hear. I think I have like a Snapchat saved – Snapchat like thing saved of like when I got my first like how much you bench like package. Oh, that's awesome. Like I feel like a power lifter now. Yeah. My eating disorder got so bad. I was like 80 pounds.

And in my last body – What was your eating disorder? Um, I was, I was very anorexic. Um, I just wasn't eating. And at that time I was using it. I can look back at it now for what it was and it was just a control thing. I had so much like chaos growing up. Um, I mentioned to you that I had a sexual assault when I was really young, and there was so much mentally that I needed to control that was taken away from me. And the only thing that I could control at that point was how much food I was consuming. Like, nobody else could really do that for me. So that was what I could do. I could take my body back by controlling its nutrients. But with bodybuilding, it's been really cool to kind of look at that as a blessing.

Like you can look at that as a way that you're really micromanaging and that's an eating disorder because you need to eat every three hours in this amount and you're weighing it. And I have looked at it as a way of like, I specifically know how to fuel this machine I have. I know now when I'm hungry,

I have, with the eating disorder, I had lost that ability to have an appetite. And now I know what that hunger cue is. I know how to fill that. I know that when like my body needs carbs, it's going to feel like this. If it needs fat, it's going to feel like this. And that feels really powerful to be able to give the machine what it wants instead of like looking at it as this very disordered, you know, you have to weigh every grain of rice. I just know every grain of rice that this body needs right now. The reason why I brought up your age was because we have a lot more time to reach some of our goals and to do the things that make us happy than we think. I mean, life can be short. Like, unfortunately, there's things that happen and we don't know how long we're all

designed to be here for but you got time and and sema does a great job of pointing out a lot of times with something like bodybuilding you know i've heard him say like oh that guy needs like another two three years and imagine being somebody young hearing that like i need a fucking two or three years. Why'd that guy tell me that? Like, it would be frustrating, you know. But sometimes for somebody who's overtrained, and I'm speaking about myself as well, when this marathon is over, I'm going to need to recognize I have just however long I want to run for. That's how much time I have to improve on it. Yeah.

It's going to be, it's a, it's a journey, right? And powerlifting took me a long time. I did it for 30 years. These things, they just take a long time. And for you with the different traumas that you had, and then also the result of your hormones being altered, your cortisol being high and things like that, it might take six months or it might take like four or five years, which kind of sucks, but it doesn't completely like imprison you. You still might be able to do a lot of fun things.

You still might be able to do jujitsu. You still might be able to, would you be okay with that? Like if you get into this prep and you kind of start, you know, Merrick and some of the, and your coach that you're working with, they kind of see, and they're like, Hey, you know, um, and you talk to your husband and he's like, I don't think you should, I think you should, would you, would you be okay with taking your time and, and, and not sacrificing your health. Yeah, absolutely. That's something that I really learned coming out of powerlifting is that if you're trying

to rush the process, I think it really cheapens the result, especially because the best people that we know in the sports we do are the ones that have done it for a really long time. That's not an accident. It's just how long it took. So I think that it is important that it takes time and it's actually like a really good reminder and like a very positive affirmation in my head that I, how lucky am I and these people around me that we can do something for so long, like that our bodies can withstand this kind of training if we feed it right and nurture it, that we could do something so long and we could get better over a period of

time. It would really suck to be like, like hey you've got a year in powerlifting you have to do the best you can ever in this time period like that's that's a shame to like not be able to enjoy that sport for so long um that's the kind of way that i've looked at it but i've also agreed you know with the people around me that now seeing how easy it is for my health to deteriorate in a, you know, a very specific way, I don't want to sacrifice that. Like, you know, Luke and I plan to have kids one day. I want to be able to do that. I know that there's so much more that I can accomplish within my career that's not so specific to being shredded and being the most jacked on stage to that standard. So I'm totally okay if it's not even in the cards

to do, you know, maybe this kind of best, um, success story that I'm looking at in bodybuilding. That's awesome. You know, one thing that I don't know, because there's a lot of new people that have probably followed you within the past few years and they see what you're doing on wellness and they maybe have a backend understanding of the high level you are at in powerlifting. But it's like you were at a super high level in powerlifting, you've built up all that volume and then you transition into a sport where you can now use all those things that you've built up to help you gain muscle relatively quickly. It's like, even though you've had this success in wellness so far and it has been pretty quick, success in wellness so far, and it has been pretty quick, it's based off of a back-end log of a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. I always had big legs as a kid. I was never like a scrawny kid

otherwise when I was sick, but I've always carried the weight in my legs. And I think people will, like you're saying, look at me and be like, well, she's done it in like two years. And that's totally not true at all. Like while I've had big legs, I've had like seven years of doing powerlifting and squats are my favorite. So I've squatted a lot in my life. So yeah, even though I'm really new in bodybuilding, having that tissue is not new. How's the body been holding up in comparison to like the powerlifting, uh, training versus now the bodybuilding training? Oops. Um, great

question. So I have only really dealt with one injury in bodybuilding, um, from powerlifting. I had, uh, some really nagging SI pain. Um, and I've recently had a hamstring injury. Um, so the hamstring injury had been going on for like the past year. I stopped training hamstrings in May. I was competing in July. So we took a couple months and I started training hamstrings again about two months ago after so much time off. And I think that was more so of a volume thing. I'd gone from squatting a couple times a week and deadlifting a couple times a week to,

okay, I'm doing legs like every other day and it's very direct training. So other than this hamstring injury, my body's felt really good injury-wise. Was there like a pull or something or just wear and tear? Just wear and tear. I really couldn't move my hamstring in the lengthened position, so doing any kind of lying hamstring curls was just not an option, or doing glute kickbacks. I wasn't able to do that on my left leg. And so when it would get really bad, it would just really hurt to walk. So it was something that was like, well, hamstrings aren't the thing that I need to improve the most in this season. So let's just kind of give them a bit of a break. It would hurt to walk. So you're like, what else can I train? Yeah. I can't really build my upper body. So in the interim of you being like in off season, like what's your diet like now?

I know you're going to switch it coming up because you've got prep coming up, right? So I was on, you know, it's pretty balanced. I'm having more carbs now, which is really great as we're trying to get my hamstring back in the mix. My hamstrings made me really hungry as we added this new training. And with jujitsu, I've gotten a lot hungrier, which has been really fun to kind of build my appetite because that was kind of gone. But right now, you know, I'm really heavy in protein.

Fats aren't super high. Carbs are pretty moderate. I'm enjoying a lot of cereal right now, which is fun. Cereal's in my diet. What kind of cereal we got? Man, you guys are going to think it's lame, but I really love some Raisin Bran Crunch. I knew it. Yes!

Oh, let's go. Are you a fan? I love Raisin Bran Crunch. I used to get that shit with my grandma growing up it's the best cereal i was like she's not gonna say raisin bran crunch but when she said you guys think it's gonna be lame i'm like up here we go sure enough have you talked about this on the podcast yeah i think we yeah you two and his grandmother are the only ones that love it. It's so good, though. It's so good. Keeping him in business.

The clusters, man. The clusters. Yes, the clusters. Good shit. That's a great choice of cereal, man. I'm so glad that you responded to that. You know what? The cereal is like the greatest pre-workout thing ever.

Yeah. I used to love that for powerlifting. Yeah. Cereal and like a Fairlife. Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've done that.

Sneaking that protein in there. Yeah, those little suckers have like 30 grams. I know. It's fantastic. Yeah. So my diet's really high in protein right now, but carbs are pretty moderate. We're going to be building those up, but then now we start a prep and I'll say goodbye to those. So I'm enjoying them right now.

Have you been able to get the cortisol levels to come down or have you noticed changes in your blood work oh yeah i am it's really interesting my coach is just he's got such a background in biology and can we say who he is oh yeah uh jake benson oh yeah we know jake we've had him on the podcast before yeah he's awesome really fucking smart he's so smart really. Yeah. He is an amazing person. Jacked legs too. Yes. Men's wellness for him. Very strong.

Yeah. He's a great dude. Extremely active. But like we even like will take my pole socks all the time in training. I've been calling it like my emotional support pole socks because I'll bring it with me. Those are very inexpensive. You can grab those off of Amazon. I think they're like 10 bucks or something. Super cheap. Yeah. But there are certain things that he's looking for.

Like if my heart rate and pulse is whatever, he'll send me a message and be like, well, you can't have epinephrine in your blood if your things are looking like this. So cortisol is definitely coming down if we're comparing it to how things were in the past. He sent me like a document about like what he thinks happened to me. Yeah, I was actually talking to him. He had asked me what happened to you and I was like, oh my gosh, Mark's a great friend. I don't know who he's working with right now, but anybody could learn from Jake. Yeah, absolutely. That's great. You're in good hands. And so you've been able to get the cortisol levels to come down? Yeah, I've been able to get those down. We're going to retest next week and see where things are at. But I know that things will look really positive. I feel so much better. I'm

sleeping better. Appetite's there. Hamstring feels good. So yeah, I'm excited to see what that looks like. Before we forget, I do not want to forget this while we're on the topic of talking about eating a little bit. You mentioned to me that you have a new poop story for us. you mentioned to me that you have a new poop story for us. Yes. Yeah. Are you still doing poop stories on the pod? We're starting them back up.

Yeah, not enough. Because I said that to you earlier, and I felt like I took you by surprise, and I was like, man, maybe they aren't doing the poop stories anymore. I was like, this chick's disgusting. Yeah. We do. I was like, there's no way Mark thinks I'm gross we're talking about poop. So let me set the scene for you.

I'm in Sweden. It's Worlds for powerlifting. IPF Worlds. They lost my luggage. I didn't have any of my training equipment. I didn't even have my contacts. They weren't going to make it. I'm cutting weight like crazy.

Really wanted my Team USA singlet. It was like the only time I'd be able have my contacts. They weren't going to make it. I'm cutting weight like crazy. Really wanted my Team USA singlet. It was like the only time I'd be able to wear that. Didn't have my squat shoes or knee sleeves or anything. So thankfully I was able to borrow everything from everyone. You know, Heather Connors, she gave me like her lifters and everybody was awesome. I was wearing Joe and Ada, her contacts, so I could see. Wow. It was a whole thing, right?

And the judging was really rough. But going through squats, I shit my singlet. But it wasn't even my singlet. So the singlet I was wearing, because at that time i was really tiny at cut weight i'm short i was basically wearing this child's team usa singlet oh no so i had to deal with it for the rest of the competition you know i went to the bathroom and like tried to clean it up a little bit it wasn't this whole disaster but you know what it's like to poop a singlet. Yeah. As you do. So when I finally got my luggage,

I just had to give her my new one. I was like, I can't give this child this pooped in singlet that she let me borrow. That'd be ridiculous. So there we go. What did you eat? Something just disagree or the weight? Swedish meatballs, you know?

Or the weight was too heavy. Yeah heavy yeah no the weight was fine um man that that meat was like the reason i stopped power lifting it was such a bad competition quick tip for everybody you can just carry a fanny pack and carry around wipes with you that's what i do these come with me everywhere that's smart this man poops a lot. Yes, he does. Baby wipes are critical. Huge. Yeah. That's my poop story. So are you guys going to give me yours now if we're restarting the poop stories on the pod?

I don't know if I have a new one. Oh, I have a poop story from just a couple days ago. Okay. I pooped a perfect ass. He did. Oh, do you want to show her? Would you like to see it you took a picture of course yeah i'll send it to andrew yeah just email that over it was um it's it's my best work it's the best thing i ever created oh perfect s it actually quite

literally it's like a super badass yeah i Superman S. It's impressive. It definitely gives that big poop a run for its money. I don't know if you guys remember that one. The mound? That was for a test. That was a lot of poop. That was like a pile. I did one that was like a big pile. Wow. Just came out of you.

And Sima pooped in the sauna, right? Yeah. That was your gi. You pooped your gi? Did I poop my gi? I think so. No, I didn't poop my gi. I did have an accident. I was at the train station.

I had an accident. Yeah, no, it was after training at Kyle Terra, and I was waiting for the train, and I thought I had to fart, and I didn't just have to fart. You can never trust it. train and i thought i had to fart and i i didn't just have to fart but luckily i was carrying wet wipes on me and a nice clean clean session so damn it is what it is for all the people that tuned out the 80 of people that are now gone sorry do people is it common to like squirt yourself a little bit when you're uh doing jujitsu um i've had partners. It's like all that pressure and stuff. I've had partners shit themselves before. And it's been, to me, it's kind of funny.

I've personally never done it. I mean, I imagine like you stack the other guy up, right? And you're on their neck and they're all compressed. I imagine your guts are going to fill. More neon belly is just going to like. There are positions that could force that of somebody. But yeah, y'all just got to make sure you're good there we go wow should we blur this on the youtube side of kind of blurred already it's just a snake in a bowl no we ain't gonna blur this shit all y'all gonna enjoy this i don't know how i made that happen but i'm perfect s did you like I like hula hooping while I was taking a dump.

Yo, dog. What the fuck, man? We lost all of our viewers. It's okay. No one was listening anyway, right? No, you're pretty much right about that. I don't think so. But okay, now we can get back.

Because I do have a question for you, Maddie. You coach people, right? And you have a team of coaches. And you also work with a coach right now. And one thing that I know that I've seen it quite a bit, especially on the NPC sector of things, is that there are coaches that will, let's say they have athletes that they work with. telling us that like, you know, have your, your coach should be looking out for you when you should be prepping and when you shouldn't be prepping. But there are some people that like to get people on stage because it's good for business. The more athletes you can get on stage, the more high placings you have, the more clients you're going to get in. And I see a lot of coaches like that. They prescribe a lot of stuff for their athletes to take. And then they just keep these

people in stage because these people are willing to do what the coach the the you know the authority figure tells them to do and it just seems like a really fucked cycle so how does somebody truly know if their coach is looking out for them because like a coach can say i just want the best for you i know you can do this show i know you can do well here and then boom once they don't they're like let's go for this next one i know you can do it you're looking up to this person. They're your coach. So people naturally just do what that person tells them to do. I think a really important thing, if people – so I kind of compare it to having interviews for like my coaches when I was hiring people.

I think more people should have that kind of same process when they're hiring a coach. Get resources. Talk to the coach. Ask the important questions that you want to know, ask about like, like you mentioned, a lot of coaches will over prescribe or things like that. If that's something you're concerned about, ask that coach directly. But I would also ask people that he has coached to people that he's no longer coaching or they're no longer coaching. When I was hiring a new coach, that was a really big thing I did. Like I asked around to people that I knew that he had worked with. I asked about their experience, especially people who are maybe no longer working with that person. Did you leave because you weren't happy? Because you got hurt? Because of what reason? Or was it

just time to leave? Did you just need to, you know, financially, whatever. Um, even just kind of having that autonomy in that process, maybe you don't know a lot about what your coach is giving you, but you can always look it up. There's a million and one resources online. You never have to do anything blindly. Um, and I think that was kind of something that was really important when I got into bodybuilding is understanding the training style. Um, I, you know, I went from powerlifting where it waslifting where I was doing the same thing all the time over and over. And even with my nutrition, that was so new. When I was powerlifting, I didn't really care about what I was eating. It was a great day if I had like

three meals that were okay. So going from that to very regimented eating or even like in a prep when certain things are getting decreased or having like a free meal or a cheat meal, like asking what are we trying to accomplish with this? Like what is this thing doing? Like even if my – the coach should be able to give you the reason and give you information. They should be open to you like asking. I think it's a huge red flag if your coach is like, we'll just do it because I said so, like stop asking questions. I'm the professional. Yeah. I would never work with somebody like that and I would never suggest anybody else do the same. You mentioned your body weight a couple of times now that we've been hanging out and on the podcast even. You said

that you weigh 140. I think you said when you were powerlifting, you were 140. How are you comfortable? Like you said, it's the heaviest you've been in a while and things like that. How are you comfortable with that? What allows you to be okay with it since you had troubles in the past? Something that I've kind of tried to say to myself in a couple different ways I cited on social media and people didn't really like it but I was doing an Instagram story with like without makeup on and whatever and I just said like normalize being ugly like normalize

not looking your best or not even caring about that and right now I weigh maybe the heaviest I've ever been that That's fine. Why, why can I feel differently about something that is just true? Like that's just the way that it is. And we had mentioned earlier, losing weight is not magic. There's, there's a lot of solutions. There's so many things that we can do to lose weight. I'm never going to be stuck at this weight. Like there are so many things that we can do to lose weight. Um, and that kind of currently not the part of the goal for you. Right. The most important thing right now was fixing my health. So I can't be the leanest

I've ever been and fix my health at the same time. Like something's got to give and eating more and focusing on sleep and not doing like so much cardio where I'm like depleting all my calories. That was really important. So reminding myself the goal at hand, and it's something that my coach and I talk a lot about, is like the purpose right now, even if you feel a little bit uncomfortable, is getting your labs better, getting your health better. We can't make you super tiny and lean

and accomplish that at the same time. That's just not really how it works. So I am uncomfortable in a lot of ways, but something that helped me was buying new clothes, getting rid of the clothes that I would wear in prep or like putting them in a box. Like I've got a container of just prep clothes that I wore or like it's leggings and t-shirts and stuff that are just way too small on me now. Because if I were to put those on right now, I'd feel really uncomfortable, like physically in my skin uncomfortable and feeling uncomfortable is

going to make me feel less confident. So why even try to fit into something that I already know is going to be a disaster? Like just, just buy new clothes. It doesn't really matter if it's a medium, a large, an extra small, like put on something that fits that you feel comfortable in. And just because I weigh the heaviest right now, it doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. It's for a purpose. Power Project family. If you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now.

And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now, the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they can have their own temperature settings. We all sleep hot here, and I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. Gross. That doesn't happen anymore because of the 8Sleep mattress, And I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro cover and the Eight Sleep mattress.

Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash power project and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, 8sleep.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. You did also mentioned when we were on a run that if you walked by yourself, you would be like, hey, like that chick works out. Yeah, exactly. I thought that was an interesting point of view. Yeah. Where you're recognizing like, okay, like you're heavier than normal,

but you look pretty fucking good. Thanks. I feel like we don't recognize how we look. Like if we saw somebody that was the exact copy of us walking down the street, we wouldn't recognize that that's us. And we probably would think that person looks awesome. And I do think that.

I follow a ton of wellness athletes and I've seen them in their off season. And not once have I looked at them and thought like, oh, my God, she looks a little bit fat. Like she looks gross or like she's gained too much weight. I've always looked at them and they're like, they look healthy. They look feminine. They look powerful. They've grown a lot. They look awesome.

Like they look like they're doing life right now. And you see a lot of people in prep. You see they look shredded, but man, they look tired. You know it goes into that. You know how exhausting that is. They're not somebody you look at where you really think they look their happiest. You're not really your happiest in prep. You're just working really hard. I do like to remind myself of, I would like that person walking down the street. I would probably say like, hey, your legs look awesome. Like that's really cool.

And so I think, yeah, it is important to remind yourself of what you actually have and not just what you wish you looked like. Yeah. You've been married for a while now. And how did you find Luke and how did you know he was like the one? Luke and how did you know he was like the one and with your your previous mental health issues were there things to like really try to communicate with him about since you were sexually assaulted I'd imagine that must play in there somewhere yeah I'm very grateful my partner is amazing Luke is just the best person I could ever ever or ask for as a husband, as a partner. We met because somebody was like teabagging me on the bench.

In a jokey way? This is the way. This happens all the time. Somebody was like spotting me. So I had flown out to Florida to do like an athlete event for a company I was working with. And I had to bench that day. I didn't really know anybody else at the gym. I knew another athlete that was part of this brand.

And I asked him to spot me. And this whole time he was like saying really inappropriate things to me and telling me that I was going to be like his baby mama. And he was just being really gross. But he was also spotting me like wide legs, just like balls on my face kind of thing. And I also didn't know anybody else so i was like oh my god i just need to get this set done where this is yeah yeah i'm like um this was at luke's

brother's uh previous gym so it was like the first public event that they were doing at the gym um and luke was kind of walking around making sure nobody was stealing stealing anything and uh he i guess knew that i was a power lifter and knew that that was not the way to spot somebody. So he kind of like was my white knight and called that guy over and was like, you know, cut it out. Um, so we went on a couple of dates and you know, the rest is history. We dated long distance for a while, but I was really upfront to him about what I had gone through. I had also just came out of a four-year relationship with somebody that was my previous coach in powerlifting. So I just knew that at that time, I just needed to be honest about what I was dealing with.

I've got a lot of baggage, so to speak, and that's not ever going to be something that's not with me. So I can either be honest with you about it or we can play this little mind game and then six months into the relationship i can do a big reveal which sounds like not a great time for anybody um and so being honest about that i think he just really respected that and because i'm working so hard to know what i need in a relationship and how my mental health is my responsibility. I can't like be a victim to it. Um, I told him like what I need from him in certain situations. And there's a lot of things that became a compromise. And we have, thankfully we've always been really good at communicating.

Luke and I will never fight in a really bad way and then just leave it. Like we will always like maybe snap at each other and then take a minute and we're like, okay, like I'm sorry that came out wrong. I didn't really mean for that to be like that, whatever. Um,

so we, we talk to each other a lot about those things and whether it's like the assault or the overdose or anything like that, it's my responsibility to be really honest about how I'm feeling. Like I recognize that he can't read my mind and I can't expect him to. And I also can't expect him to know everything about mental health to be able to help me. He's not a therapist.

He's just my partner. And while he wants the best for me, he can't replace a professional for mental health. So I think it was important that we both kind of agreed and we were both aware of the things I need and what he needs. So, yeah, we've grown a lot. It's a constant thing. Communication is always improving and the relationship is always changing, you know, especially going into bodybuilding where you're dieting and you're high stress and, you know, you're not the best person to be around.

Thankfully, Luke has like such a background in being around people like that because of his brother. But yeah, he is awesome. And just being really open about like mental health with him has been the biggest thing where I embraced that part of my life and that part of me and the possibility of that being an issue in the future instead of just being like, yeah, whatever, let's not talk about it ever again. I think a lot of times people don't recognize what a huge issue mental health can be. So sometimes somebody may mention something about depression or maybe somebody's acting depressed or anxious or whatever the case may be. And then I think people are like, let's surround this person with some love and some care and try to like cheer them up, which is probably not a bad idea at all. But a lot of times you need professional help because I don't think your average person knows a lot about depression and how to alleviate it.

Yeah. alleviate it. Yeah. There's also, like you said, surrounding somebody with love can be really helpful in the moment, but sometimes maybe it's not. Luke and I have like a couple of things that we do, whether either of us are going through a rough time. Personally, I know that I do have a hard time like voicing my concern or something that's going wrong. And I have an easier time texting him about it. For some reason, that just helps me. Even if he's in the same room as me, I'll say, you know what? I can't really talk with you about this. It's really hard. Can I just text you about this? Can I just go into the other room and take some time and think about what I want to say to

you and think about what I'm feeling? I'm just going to text you about it. He'll do the same for me or if he thinks that something's going on, he'll, he'll message me about it. We're in the, we both work from home. We're around each other all the time, but he'll message me and say like, Hey, it seems like you're kind of struggling. Like what's going on. Um, hold on a second. Yeah, exactly. No. And it helps. But, um, even if I'm going through a rough time, I will especially try to message him and say like, Hey, I'm kind of having a rough day from like today. This is what I need from you.

Like, I just need a little bit more patience from you. If I can ask that of you, that would be really awesome. Like, I just, I just need you to be a little bit slower with me today or like be a little bit softer with me today. Like he could say, no, he could just not do it. But I also could just say that and not expect him to like figure it out on his own. Have you always been that way or as being with him allowed you to feel comfortable enough to be

open in that way? Definitely being able to feel comfortable and safe with somebody is a big component of that. But I've had a lot of work on my mental health and I've been able to spend a lot of time kind of putting that under a microscope and understanding like when I need certain things. You and I talked earlier about kind of the best way to take a step forward in your mental health journey. And I think something that you can do that's free and you can do anywhere is spend honest, intentional time with yourself. Like if you're struggling with something,

sit down and have that conversation of like, what is this really saying to me? Like I'm in a bad mood, but what does that mean? What is it from? Did I see something on social media and I don't feel like I'm good enough or I didn't do another thing? Am I comparing?

Like what is the actual issue so then I can find the actual solution. With depression and things like that, it's not always that easy. But in moments where I'm feeling really down and I don't know why, I can at least ask my partner for some grace that day. Is it okay for it just to not make any sense? Like you can't find the root cause? Like, does that happen sometimes? Yeah. But it's like I said, like you don't always know, but I know that I can ask my partner for another hug or for him to be kind. Or can we watch this movie that I find really comforting today? Or like, can you, can you take the dog for a walk so I can have 10 minutes alone,

you know, just completely alone. Yeah. Now being that obviously you have a huge following, how is it that you look at social media so it doesn't negatively affect you? Because I've found that whether people have followings or not, just things on Instagram or things on TikTok can sometimes get to them, whether it's the comparison thing that you mentioned or other things. So do you do anything as far as moderating the way you look at and the way you use social media so it doesn't insert itself yeah uh part of the things that i was doing for 2023 is limiting my time on social media and being intentional with it so i i set like one of those timers on it so i can only be on instagram two

hours in the day which two hours really isn't a lot that adds up if you're like sitting on the toilet for 10 minutes each time um that's 10 times um so yeah trying to be like intentional with that uh the biggest problem i usually have with social media isn't so much comparison anymore as it is um effort like i i get really insecure in my ability to create content or am I doing enough or am I like working hard enough at this thing or being original or that kind of thing. And if I'm going to be on Instagram and my goal is to create better content, I do have to be, you know, original and whatever, but I can look at people as inspiration. Like I can reframe that, that like lens that I'm looking through. I can look at

it and be really jealous. I could say, well, Mark's making all these videos all the time and he's got these resources and I don't have that. Or I could reach out to my friend Mark and say, hey, how are you doing that? I'd really like to get better at this thing. Or I could be inspired by what you're doing. And that's on me. It's the same problem, but I can look at it two different ways. So trying to reframe some things with social media has been helpful. And setting that time limit has been really good. I try not to go on and compare myself to anyone. If I feel like I'm doing that, I just close the app. Because at the end of the day, it's a free app that's on my own phone, the property I own.

And I can just click the side button and I don't look at it anymore. It's that simple. So we choose happiness, but maybe we choose misery sometimes too. Yeah, it's really easy to do that. Just want to hang out there for some reason sometimes. Yeah, well you and I talked about it earlier, about like, oh, that person looks so happy and it's so easy that they look the way they do or their business is doing so well because they had a ledge up or whatever.

And you're like, you don't really know that either. Now, do you want to switch? Are you okay switching gears? Okay, so I am curious about this and be admiss if we didn't ask about this on this show, especially with YouTube. But you're working with Jake Benson and he's super fucking smart. I have seen and I know of coaches who work with athletes who have a lot of potential. So what they'll do is they will drive up the PEDs on these individuals to an unsafe amount because they know,

oh, if I can get this person to pro, it's going to be good. So first off, how can you know that the coach you're working with is going to be, especially if you're competing in the NPC, where that stuff's perfectly okay? How can you know that that coach is safe? How do you need to gauge that individual? And how has that experience been for you transitioning from powerlifting to NPC wellness? That's a good question. I think you can never really be totally confident in a coach that isn't a doctor and is prescribing something to you. If we're talking about like PEDs, unless you're working with a doctor or have a team like that.

That's why I always recommend Merrick because you can get your blood work checked. You can work with people like that. Jake, fortunately, is so advanced in his knowledge. He knows so much more than I do than most people do. But when we were looking into getting new coaches, Luke and I wanted to sit down and be like, hey, this is really important. Whether you're on PEDs or not, severely dieting, especially as a woman, can impact your fertility. Like you can lose your period and like that's not just a, well, I'm just low body weight. Like that's an issue.

So I think it is really hard to find safety and knowledge from anyone whether they do have an extensive background or not. Like I said, I do think it's really important to ask previous clients about what their experience was like. I've got a bunch of girlfriends that have worked with different coaches that said like, oh oh yeah, he trashed my liver. He just put me on a bunch of things. He put me on like a cookie cutter regiment. And that's not cool. You want to know that like the coaching that you're paying for is individualized. So I also think it's an important question to ask coaching load. Like how many clients do you have right now? Because I'm a coach and I know that you can't be coaching X amount of people and still be doing a good job. Like I have coaches that work for me and I know that at a certain point their work deteriorates. It's not as good anymore. So

asking just straight up questions about that and not being afraid to like be direct. Yeah. Now you did mention, cause like I know some women who like when they have lost their period on PrEP, they're like, Oh, this is great. Although there are health ramifications to that. So I'm curious, what are some red flags that you think women on PrEP need to be looking out for? Cause there's a lot if you're not on PEDs, but there is a few things probably extra that you need to pay attention to being on PEDs. Yeah. Losing losing losing your period is a big one um like hair loss is another big one like you know as a woman um there's something when you reach a really low body weight uh it's really common in eating disorders it's like lenugo i think it's called

like when your body starts to grow like like baby hair almost to like protect you and insulate you because you like no longer have like body fat, which is kind of going to be rare in bodybuilding. But for like these bikini competitors, maybe that's a factor. That sounds like the goal right there. Get real hairy. But yeah, like not denying like metabolic kind of things or thinking about like your libido. I think women neglect that a lot where they don't – I think that's an important factor. Maybe they aren't like these teed up like horndogs,

but it's still an important factor in your life like your libido is important. And of course when you're dieting severely, you're not going to be totally interested in that, but it's something to track as well with your happiness or your desire. Desire is a big thing. When we lose desire for a lot of things, whether that's sexually but also to get up and be a human for the day. Those are big things. And maybe that's an energy balance thing for the day. But over a long period of time, you should be tracking like how you're feeling generally speaking.

These are big factors to keep in mind. Like for example, my girlfriend works with Paul Revella and he, he's an amazing coach. So, but he does help her keep track of all these different things. Whereas I've seen the things that like other coaches have done and it's just very, it seems like it's kind of the wild west when it comes to working with the NPC, not just men, men and women. It's like some people are, if you could pipe this person on enough drugs and diet them long enough, we can do magic with almost anybody. Is that like a dangerous?

Is that like a speed thing? You think like they're trying to like rush somebody to like get better fast so they get results right away. It's like a new jujitsu school that's starting and they want to promote people very quickly. So they look like they have a lot of upper belts. So they will get a lot of people and just bag them on then you go out and compete at some point right and that's what happens with these athletes too right after the show what happens and a lot of times you'll see them gain 30 pounds or they have hormone regulation issues and things like that right then there's a ton of tools. Amanda, I know you guys had her on the podcast recently.

She posted something on her story that was like a voice pitch analyzer, which I had never seen before, which for people who are in any sport, especially women, if you're using PEDs and lots of factor like virilization, tracking your voice is like really interesting. I'd never seen that before. Amanda posted that, but there are so many resources and things that you can be accountable for to track like how your body is doing. Yeah.

What do you like to do for fun? What do I like to do? Cause like, I don't know. Jiu Jitsu is probably fun cause it's still pretty new, but like you and your hubby, you watch some shows, watch some shows watch some

netflix uh like to go on walks you got a dog like we've got a dog yeah we that's that's a really big part of our life um right now i'm actually really trying to prioritize play not in a sexual way but like playing like doing something fun i read some like articles recently about how important it is for adults to incorporate play in their daily life. Like act like a little kid every once in a while? Yes. I have never been like a gamer or anything but we bought a Switch recently and like man you gotta

like shut off. Like I'm a big reader and I used to only read books about business or lifting or whatever. I'm gonna get sick or something. I have to. I made this agreement with myself. If you want to read, which I love to do,

I've always loved to read. I love to read. I have to have a mix. I have to have an entertainment book and a self-care and a business. You have to at least have an entertainment book in there. Some trashy novel or something. Yeah, something really dumb. It's not going to make me better at anything. Great. That's what I need. So I read a lot, but I'm trying to do more play things and I'm trying to get Luke and I to do like more

social activities. Like you can go on Eventbrite or any of these like event apps and look up free things or like really cost effective things things in your area. Just go. Like who cares? Go do a painting class or whatever. Like maybe we're not going to be the best, you know, sip and paint people, but do something different. Are you guys generally like homebodies? Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah, we're big like Netflix and hang out with the dog kind of people. That's great. How are you balancing the games and stuff? Great. How are you balancing the games and stuff? I'm asking this because most people are on the complete other side where they're gaming way too much and not reading enough. So how are you doing it? I think my ADHD is helpful there. I'll play Zelda and then I'm like, okay, this is getting really hard

and I've been doing this for a while. I'm going to put it down and do something else. So I don't really have too much of a problem with just like being totally locked in. But I could see that being an issue for other people. I do have that with reading. I'll like tell myself I'm going to read for like an hour and then I'm like, holy shit, it's been three hours and I just finished the book that I started

and something like that. What do you do for fun? I like to just, I guess, like go to different towns or cities travel a little bit I like to try to do stuff individually with my kids as well as sometimes both of them together but yeah my wife and I we you know we like routine so we we're probably at home watching TV together or eating dinner with the family or just going out to eat. Nothing too crazy or nothing too new or different, but I do like the idea that you just mentioned where you go out and do things in the community. I found that I don't want to do that for some reason. And it would be in my best interest to do it.

Well, it's always good when you go. Yeah, right. And as an adult, there's the option you can always leave. My jiu-jitsu instructor will say that all the time. He's like, hey, I'd like for us to roll another round, but you're not in jail here. Like you can get up and leave when you want. If you're a quitter.

Yeah, exactly. If you don't want to get better. If you don't want to get better. There you go. Talk, tail, and run every time. Every time. Every time it gets hard, they leave. All right.

But like you can go to an event in the community and whatever. You can always just leave if it's lame or you're uncomfortable or you don't like it. But like we'll do axe throwing throwing or something random fun to do. We've moved so much in the last few years. It takes effort. It does. It takes some effort. And we're probably going to move again.

But it's cool to see the places where you're at. Even if you've lived there forever, there's always new businesses and things popping up. You're in Texas, right? I'm in Texas. I'm in Houston right now. Nice. You got anything else over there, Andrew? Why are you moving so much?

So we moved to, I moved to Florida after I finished my nursing degree. And that's where Luke was living at the time. And he finished his master's degree. And he got a job at Penn State. So we moved to Penn, Pennsylvania. And then COVID happened like a month later, which he wasn't able to – like he was working for the rugby team. He was coaching the rugby team, and you can't really play a team sport during COVID.

So we weren't able to continue that job, which was just really unfortunate. So then we moved to Texas. We didn't have a real job opportunity here. We just had a group of friends that we really enjoyed and my coach was living here and, um, just thought it'd be a nice change of pace. We're, we're so young and we don't have kids yet. So we're like, why not just see what other places are like? Yeah, that's cool. And then, so what has a jujitsu done for you mentally? Um, you know, considering some of the traumas you've been through. And so now with jujitsu, how has, what has that done for you? Jujitsu has, I hate to be like so cliche, but it really has been life changing for me. I feel so much more confident and prepared,

but I know now how to like slow down in a really stressful situation, which is something that I think a lot of people need to work on. It like that white belt mentality to like just go 100 and die and whatever but when you're able to like get into a position and you're you're kind of stuck being able to like take a breather and be like okay like how do i get back to what i was trying to accomplish or can i pivot and do something new and that's something that you're doing in your daily life all the time like you can't just constantly get stuck on the same thing like you have have to be adaptable. Um, and that's the biggest thing that jujitsu really is, is being adaptable to different situations that somebody is going to put you in. You can't really account for whatever's going to happen, but you can control what you do.

Um, so that's been big, um, as well as just the confidence in my body to, to do something different. Like I, there's so many positions that I'm in every day that I, when I do jujitsu or high stress situations that I didn't think that I'd be capable of doing. And now I like, I, I'm not good at jujitsu, but I'm a little bit better than when I started. And that feels really good. So, um, it's built a lot of confidence for me. You know, if there's a, because at a majority of jujitsu schools, the women in the class are the minority, right? So I know obviously you've, you and Luke do jujitsu. But what were you looking for specifically when you were looking for a school? Because I can see how that can be intimidating to just, let's say just one, one woman wants to go find a school and she goes and doesn't know what to look for. Let's say it's like 90 guys she doesn't even see another woman in the class what would you advise somebody looks out for so i actually started and then luke started after me so i reached out to a gracie gym by me um i had just known that uh chad wesley smith really loved jujitsu and he was like the closest person in my

life that i knew really loved it um so gracie seemed like a really good place to go to. So I saw a place that was about 10 minutes away from my house and I messaged the gym and the professor was like, yeah, come in, we'll give you a free week. Let's just check it out and come in and I'll show you around the gym. So Luke and I both went in and he's got some background working at American Top Team, so he knows kind of what a good environment is. So we went together and he's got some background, uh, working at American top team. So he knows kind of

what a good environment is. Um, so we went together and checked it out and he was just super awesome. My professor is just an incredible person. Um, but he has like this kind of rule with the women where like with the men, he can tell the guys you're going to roll with this person. You're going to roll with that person, whatever. I don't care what the women, he, he will say like, it's up to you. Like you could roll with this person. I'm not going to force you. Like it doesn't have to be this uncomfortable thing. Um, and my professor has no issue like telling somebody off or telling somebody they need to leave. Or there's nobody at my gym that has ever been like unprofessional or unkind or terrible. And we don't have a ton of women. Like

when I went, there wasn't, I wasn't even aware if there were going to be any women in the first class that I went to. Um, but there were, there were two women there and after the class I just went up to them and I was like, Hey, this was really awesome. Can I get your guys's number? I'd love to go when you're going. Like, it's really scary to like do that, but Hey, if I, if I want to roll with another woman and I want to do well in this and be consistent, I can at least get their information. So yeah, I think that's really good to talk with the professor about your concerns. Anytime you go anywhere, talking about your concerns is going to be important. And then if there are other women around, trying to just connect with them.

I don't think we covered like what were the actions that allowed you to get past your eating disorder or to get through it? I know you still maybe have to think about it here and there. But what are some things that got you away from being 80 pounds? So I simultaneously I was going through my eating disorder and in like the worst place depression wise. And that's when I attempted suicide. And before that, when you're a teenager, yeah, I was 17. Um, I had been going to mental health institutions for years before that. Like I had gone inpatient for my mental health about four times before I attempted. Um, some of that experience like? Did you,

I mean, that must've been uncomfortable. Yeah, it was, it was really hard. Did you think you were like crazy or? Yeah. Cause I didn't know anybody else that was experiencing that. And I was, I was really fortunate enough to be able to get that kind of help, but it also wasn't doing anything for me at the time because I didn't realize how important it would be. I was just kind of saying what they needed to hear. To me, it was like a punishment. Like when my mom would bring me there, I was being punished for this thing. And so I just needed to say the right thing and get the good grade and get out. So it was really isolating.

I missed a lot of school because of it because, you know, sometimes it would be in the summertime, but sometimes it would be during the school year. So it was really hard to make friends. And when my assault happened, a lot of the people in my town, I lived in a small town, they knew everything about it. It was on the news. It was really isolating. And so I was just so alone. And when I attempted, I was just so numb. But I was in the hospital after that attempt, and I was so sick. Um, but I was in the hospital after that attempt and I was so sick and vomiting and I just was terrible. Um, and my, my brother actually came into the hospital and my brother, we didn't have a good relationship then. Um, we were always kind of butting heads and he walked

into the room and was like, why would you do that? Like he wasn't kind to me, but I needed to hear that because like, why would I, why would I do that? Why, what am I trying to accomplish here? Because now I've lived with this and I can either take that as something to get better. Like, is that my rock bottom or is it going to get worse? Like, what do I want for myself? Because I can keep going to therapy and just saying the right things and getting nowhere, or I could actually give a shit about this thing. So at that point, I had to go impatient after the attempt. And I was like, well, let's see what could happen if I really try this time. and my brain. Like, let's just see what happens if we just try this, whatever. If I'm still depressed after that and it's just as bad as it was, that's a different story. But if we just, if we just give it a shot, like let's just apply ourselves to everything. We listen to what they say and let's be totally honest about how we feel and what we're struggling with. What could happen?

Like, I can't be any worse than where I'm sitting right now. Um, and that just, that just changed everything. Maybe they were saying the same things to me in therapy, but I was receptive to it for the first time ever. And that really helped. And of course, being inpatient, they were monitoring how much I was eating. So I was gaining weight regardless. I couldn't like go and exercise or restrict because they were there. So that helped a lot.

With an eating disorder, I really believe that that's something a professional needs to help you with. I don't really think that that's something that you can do on your own, but I was really fortunate to be able to have that. Is it helpful now to know, like you know so much about nutrition nowadays, does that help with your perspective of food? Yeah, and lifting has made the biggest impact because especially with bodybuilding, when I'm really low on nutrients and prep, I know what my body feels like to not be fueled.

Like it's at the bottom and I know what it feels like to be fueled properly. Like if I'm eating the exact right amount that my body needs, I know how good that feels. And so now I never really want to be in a position where I'm like actively working against that. Otherwise, you know, unless I'm in a prep, um, cause I can accomplish so much more when I'm fueled. Like my, my relationship's really good. I'm a good sister, friend, partner, dog mom. I can do fucking everything when I'm doing the right things for myself. And that's not something that I want to sacrifice anymore.

Awesome. Take us on home, Andrew. All right. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's conversation. Please drop those comments down below. Let us know what you guys think about today's episode and subscribe.

If you guys are not subscribed, hit that like button on the way out. For everything podcast related, hit up powerproject.live. Links in the description as well as podcast show notes. Follow the podcast at mb power project on instagram tiktok and twitter my instagram is at i am andrew z in sigma where you at those reviews have been making a difference guys thank you so uh if you've been enjoying the podcast head to apple spotify

wherever leave a review and see me any on instagram youtube and see me yin yang on tiktok and twitter and the discord is below maddie where can people find you my name is maddie forberg on instagram maddie m-a-d-d-y f-o-r-b-e-r-g my company is strong for life co if you're interested in getting stronger for life we've got you covered um i have a separate meme page now it's maddie fiveberg so if you're interested in i gotta find that about your podcast yeah yeah let's bring that shit up it's private damn it oh man okay we'll find it eventually i think you gave us a lot of advice gave us a lot of things to chew on in this one that was great thank you it was it's always a blast getting to talk to you mark and it was so fun to podcast with you too. And Seema, I'm glad that we connected over Raisin Bran Crunch.

That's probably the best part of the podcast. That's so funny. I think the advice for people to slow down as you're learning with jiu-jitsu, with the drills in the beginning, the only way you're going to be able to actually utilize them is to go slow at first until you get the hang of them, right? Yeah, definitely. Take a breather with everything you're doing. It doesn't have to be so fast-paced. I know we've got such a limited time on earth,

but that doesn't mean that it has to be so rash. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell. Catch you guys later. Bye.