Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1510: Four Things Women in Their 40's Need to Know About Fitness
Episode Date: March 15, 2021In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover four things that women need to focus on during their 40's and beyond to optimize their level of fitness. Why are women more receptive to seek out help? (2:50)... The common misconceptions about women in their 40’s. (8:07) Four Things Women in Their 40’s Need to Know About Fitness. (13:48) #1 – Train your body to burn calories on its own through traditional resistance training. (18:55) #2 – Focus on mobility. (30:11) #3 – Mold your programming for your schedule. (36:08) #4 – Improve your relationship with food. (41:22) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Bundle: Fabulous 40's Bundle 1/2 off! - Promo code “FAB50” at checkout Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout Why Resistance Training is a Great Form of Exercise for Women – Mind Pump Blog Osteopenia: When you have weak bones, but not osteoporosis The Importance of Exercise to Help Treat Osteopenia and Osteoporosis Cardio Sucks for Fat Loss – Mind Pump Blog Why Mobility Is So Important For Being Healthy – Mind Pump Blog What is the First Step to Better Mobility? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump TV - YouTube Rubberbanditz Resistance Band Set Mind Pump #1380: The 10 Best Resistance Band Exercises Mind Pump #1460: How To Lose Fat Without Dieting Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
You are listening to the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast.
This is Mind Pump.
Okay, in today's episode, we're talking about a demographic that we trained a lot
when we were personal trainers for the last couple decades
Women in their 40s. This was a huge
Consumer base for personal training for many reasons one is that you know women tend to be a little smarter than men
So they ask for help
number two
Little expendable income and three they're ready to get their fitness going. And we learned a lot of things training
this particular demographic.
So today's episode is all about that.
The things, if you're a woman in your 40s,
the challenges that you need to overcome
and the things that you should focus on
with your workouts and nutrition,
that will get you the best results.
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So I have a topic that I think would be good
for us to talk about.
I think we've mentioned this topic like in like,
quaz, but I don't think we've done a full dedicated episode
to the demographic that I think we train the most of.
So when I think back to all the clients that I've trained,
I would say most of them, so North of 50, 60% fell
in this category, and that is kind of like the 35
to 55 female that wants to get in shape.
Normally wants to lose some body fat, probably had a kid or two,
or maybe trying to have a kid,
maybe even like a single woman that's working,
like in that age group with those types of goals,
I would say is was my biggest problem.
That was the most common client for sure.
Absolutely.
Women in their 40s,
well, first off, women in general
were larger consumers of personal training. And then in their 40s, Well, first off, women in general were larger consumers of personal training.
And then in their 40s, once in the age group,
that was probably the largest.
So I would agree with you, Adam,
I would say probably made up 65% of my clientele
over the course of the, you know,
decades to two decades that I trained.
Now, why do you guys think that is?
Why do you think that if we're all,
we all train to different facilities.
And we're, you know, but yet we all got the same percentage probably of this clientele.
What do you think about it?
Well, in general, and I'll just, this is just a, just an observation.
In general, women are more likely to ask more receptive for seeking out help.
Yes.
Yes.
They're more open for professional assistance, whereas men, you know, you know, we can be sometimes,
right?
We don't want to ask for directions. We don't want to look at the directions when we're building something.
Yeah.
And so men tend to be less likely to ask a trainer, hey, can you help me design a routine?
And then in terms of the age group, I think once you get to a certain point,
you, uh, you don't have time to waste. So you're like, look, I, I, you know, if I've been my 20s and I got all this expendable time,
whatever, I'll go figure it out.
But look, I don't got a lot of time.
I wanna do this the right way.
And then they have expendable income.
They're probably working more successful.
And so it makes sense to hire somebody
to figure it out, to do it the right way.
Well, it's interesting too.
I wonder if we could go back and look at the statistics
of when you get that five starter pack,
when you're selling like, memberships at the gym,
like who actually was receptive to using those?
Because I know I'm, I remember I used to open up
and try and walk the floors and convince a lot of the guys
and a lot of other people to, you know,
take advantage of that, but not a lot would,
but I would be able to convince.
Oh, I could give you an idea that.
I don't remember the exact percentage of that,
but it was very rare that,
so what Justin's talking about,
back in the days, we used to sell these memberships
that they wrapped five personal training sessions within it.
So it would be, you know, they would sell,
it was a prepaid membership,
so you'd keep fit plus.
Yeah, there you go.
It was a key fit plus what they called it.
And it was, you know, it ranged from, I think I've ever seen as low as maybe $600, $700
to as high as like $1,400.
And you were prepaying three years and then you had an annual renewal.
And then what the business did, what my 24th fitness did was they wrapped, you know,
about $300 worth of personal training within that price point.
And so, and the idea and the thought behind that,
when the company knew, it was so brilliant,
was the life expectancy of a client,
as far as their business, right, returning.
If somebody who actually met with a personal trainer,
they saw a personal trainer,
they were more likely to continue on beyond three years.
Far more likely.
Yes, and if they did not see a personal trainer,
it was much more likely they would fall off within months.
And so they got really smart and said,
hey, let's give this great membership deal away.
Let's include personal training
to encourage them to do it.
Now, because the consumer saw it as free,
because it came with the membership,
they didn't realize they were really paying for it.
That's the way they structured it.
There were many people that didn't take advantage of this.
They had $300, $400 with a personal training,
but then they never even used it.
And I'll tell you, Justin, since a lot of my job
was centered around that and trying to get these people in
and getting my trainers scheduled full,
almost all of them were men.
It was very rare that it was a woman that fell
in this category that we're talking about.
They almost always took advantage of it for all the reasons that I think South brought up
I think that at all of us men and men and women by that age
You know north of 35 getting in your 40s or in your 40s much more self-aware
Your life your lifestyle has changed, you know
You're probably at a place where you've either had kids or you have a job or you're sedentary a lot of time
You're not as physically active as it used to be. So the and you've maybe even have tried
Diting several times or different things on your own and it probably failed or maybe had a little bit of success
And then it came back on and so you got to point your life because maybe you have some income like you said
Sal and you're like, okay
I'm at a place in my life now where I want to seek out professional health and women are just more likely to do that.
Right, investing in a trainer
or getting some good instruction,
it's a tremendous amount of value.
I mean, I would say it's for every dollar invested,
you probably get back $5 and benefits in both health
and how you learn how to work out and train yourself.
And I think you don't realize that
till you're a little bit older, maybe a little bit wiser.
Now, I mean, to be clear,
there's a lot of misconceptions, too,
about people in their 40s.
One of the misconceptions is that,
because you're in your 40s,
you know, what do they say, 40s over the hill, right?
That's the old joke.
You buy those birthday cards.
I remember when I turned 40,
people bought those for me.
Like, it was a lot bigger deal.
I felt like, you know, when we were younger,
like when somebody turned 40 that you get this like
this crazy party that that was like all over the hill all doom and gloom and no and this and this is the truth now 100%
now I did train women in their 20s and 30s
I of course more in their 40s and older the most fit women I ever trained
more in their 40s and older, the most fit women I ever trained, or the ones who got the best results were in their 40s.
That's just the fact.
If I got a woman in a 25-years-old, and a woman who's 45, more often than not, the 45-year-old
was consistent, would take the advice, and was very serious about the workouts.
And I can't tell you how many women I trained in their 40s, who after working out for a
certain period of time
would say that to me.
They'd say, I've never been this fit in my entire life.
Never. This is the most fit I've ever been.
Now, I have a theory to why that is though.
Like, I think that of all the demographics of people
that are interested in personal training
or exercise and fitness,
they are marketed to the most
and they've had the most bullshit fed to them.
As far as how they should train, how they should diet, what they should look like.
And just wrong.
Yeah, just all of it wrong.
Starting with the image of what someone fit look like 20 years ago.
Right.
You cover magazines where these anorexic looking girls.
So already this skinny anorexic image was what was promoted just 20 years ago.
Then you add in the idea of...
Oh, a robotic training.
Yeah, a robot classes in this group high intensity.
Don't lift weights, I don't make it as bulky.
Yeah, there was nothing but videos.
I remember that was a big part of it, right?
The aerobic videos, it just kind of took the landscape by storm.
And so you get a lot of,
that was the conception of training
was basically doing all these
calisthenics and aerobic type workouts.
And this is why I think,
or at least I had a lot of success
with this age group in this sex,
was because I think they had been told so much bullshit
that once I got ahold of someone like this,
it was like, oh my God, I have so much to teach you
and help you with.
You know what I'm saying?
Like there's so many things that you've been told
that is not true, that I'm gonna be able to help you out with
that will really make a difference.
And again, there's a lot of misconceptions
that your body, all of a sudden,
because your 40 is just gonna respond terribly to exercise.
And the reality is this, it's not that big of a difference
from when you were 30.
It really is.
There's a difference, but it's small.
And it pales in comparison to the difference
that happens from proper training,
proper sleep, proper exercise, and discipline.
Which, in my experience, women in their 40s
crush compared to women who are much younger,
probably because, again, they don't have time to waste,
they've been marketed a bunch of bullshit.
And by the way, this is why women make up
the, they're the consumer base for most products.
Most products, they are the consumers for most things,
including the most households of the health ambassador.
Right, for most, for fitness and health,
women are the big consumers.
Jim's figured out this a long time ago.
Jim's used to make no money,
and then they figured out,
if we wanna make money, we gotta sell to this consumer base,
and then they came out of those bullshit
to enli's that they would sell to women.
This is why women get marketed so heavily too,
and also why there's a lot of bullshit
that gets sold to them,
and I think you're right Adam,
when they come to, when they're ready to work out
in their 40s, they've gone through all the other crap already.
And they're at the point now where they're like,
all right, I'm done with all that.
And what really works.
I'm consistent, my kids are a little bit older now,
they're going to school, I got some time,
or I don't have a lot of time to waste,
but the time I am in the dedicate,
I'm gonna be serious about this.
And the results tend to blow, and like I said,
this was one of my most successful categories of clients.
Well, I think you need to go a little bit deeper
into the statement you just make,
because there's 100%.
I know the horse definitely, a handful,
if not lots of women that just heard what you said
and said, fuck you, it is much harder for me at 40 something
than it was at 30 and 20 something.
So, and we've all felt this before.
I feel this today, it feels hard, but what I'm aware of
is that it has less
to do with my age and it has more to do with my behaviors.
Stabbers patterns.
Yeah, at 40 years old versus my behaviors at 20 years old.
Right. Like, let me put it this way. So, if I, just to give you an example, I'm going
to use, obviously, general, like, if I had a client who was a woman in her 20s versus
one who was in her 40s, the one in the 20s feels like they can get away
with a lot more, they're not, usually not as nearly
as serious or disciplined.
Unless they're a hardcore athlete, it was pretty rare.
So they're less consistent, they're less open
to the right kind of advice.
And what I mean by that is the right kind of advice
means it's gonna take work, it's gonna take
a little bit of time.
Typically people in the 20s don't wanna hear that.
They're like, oh, really it's gonna take me that long
or I gotta be all, no, I don't wanna take this diet pill,
I heard about this, whatever.
Person in their 40s tends to be like, yeah, I know,
I heard all that bullshit before, you're right.
I'm gonna do what you're telling me.
So when you compare the difference physiologically
and how your body responds in your 40s to 20s,
and you compare that to discipline, exercise, diet, sleep.
Guess which one makes the biggest difference, by far, right?
It's all those things that I just talked about.
It's not the age.
And again, this is why, going to any gym in America,
going to a gold gym, going to a world gym,
going to a 24-hour fitness, the most fit women
tend to be, this is true, in their 40s.
And would you guys agree?
No, no, I agree for all the other reasons we talked about,
but this leads me to where I really wanna go
with this episode, which is I wanna talk about,
in particular, there's four big things,
that big rocks that come to mind.
On specific challenges, I would say.
Yes, specific challenges that would normally occur
with this demographic that I would have to overcome
or help or we'd fix, right?
Because I know again, there's a lot of ladies
that are listening to this right now
that are in that age group that hear you say that
and no matter how many times you try
and explain the science to them, they're going,
I know it's harder, it feels harder.
I can tell how much harder it is right now for me,
but there's, I think there's an explanation
for why that is. There is. Now, I now for me, but I think there's an explanation for why that is.
There is, and I do wanna say this,
because I think it's good to give people some context,
or some parameters of what,
because I would get clients that would come to me
and they'd say, I wanna be fit, I wanna look healthy,
but they don't know specifically what that means.
They know if they see it, but they don't know what that means.
Like, what does that mean?
Body fat percentage wise.
What does that mean with my body?
Oftentimes, I'll have a weight goal.
So, yeah, I think I need to weigh 130.
But I mean, gosh, you could weigh a certain weight and be,
I mean, I weigh about 200 and I don't know, 215 pounds.
I could be obese at 215 with a lot of body fat
or I could be very lean with a lot of muscle.
Both look very, very different, right?
So, I think it's important to kind of paint that picture.
Most women, in my experience, are very satisfied
with the way they look, with a range of body fat
that's anywhere between 18, which is very lean,
to even as high as maybe 26, 27% body fat,
which isn't super high, but it's up there,
but it's also lean-ish and you got some good curves here.
So there's your range and most people are happy,
most women I would say are happy within that,
but with the following, strength, muscle,
good posture and good movement.
When you add that to that body fat percentage range,
most women are very, very satisfied in my experience.
And to back to your point, the reason why this matters
is because a woman at 145
and 18% body fat looks a lot different
than a woman that is 130 and 26% body fat.
Or 30% or whatever, right?
So you need to understand that the scale and the what you weigh
because you're right, a lot of these clients
that I would get would be, oh, I want to get back to this weight.
You know, they have a weight that they reme-
They have this image of themselves at a point in their life,
whether it was when they were teenage or 20s or 30s,
whenever they know that like, I want to get to that weight.
And so I'd always have to be overcoming that.
Listen, I can keep your weight right where you're at right now
and build you the best body you've ever had.
So weight doesn't matter so much.
No, I had, I've told this story before.
I love this story.
It was actually one of the more effective sales techniques
that I had as a gym manager.
So one of my jobs as a gym manager was to get people
into my club and convince them to obviously sign up
for a membership and get personal training.
I knew the value of personal training.
I was a trainer for years and years and years.
And that's not necessarily an easy task.
There's a lot of myths and stuff that I have to,
and I also had integrity.
I'm not gonna lie to people.
Like a lot of the fitness industry does
by telling them crazy numbers of weight and whatever.
And so I had this amazing, just this technique that I had,
where someone would come in, woman,
and we would talk about her goals. oftentimes she would say something like, you know
Oh, I want to lose weight and I'd say how much and then I'd say what does that put your body weight at and they'd say okay
That's very interesting. Give me one second and then I would on my intercom
I would page. I had a female trainer that worked for me out. I'm thinking of one in particular
I'd page her to my office she'd walk in and this young lady who worked for me was about five
She's about five two and she looked phenomenal, very fit, right?
Very, very strong, very, very fit.
And I'd ever come in and then I'd ask the potential member
and I'd say, how much do you think she weighs?
Be totally honest that she's totally fine
with whatever number you put out there.
And they'd say something like, oh, she looks like she weighs 105 pounds
or like 110 pounds.
I'd say, okay, man, I had a scale in my office
to sit and I'd check this out. And I'd have her stand on the scale. And she'd weigh, I think, it was like 135 like 110 pounds. It's okay. I had a scale in my office to say now check this out and I'd have her stand on the scale and she way
I think was like 135 or 140 pounds and it was my way of showing them that lean
You know dense muscle looks phenomenal and looks very light. She weighs a good 20 30 pounds heavier than you thought and yet
She looks like she weighs what you think so So what's important is the body fat percentage,
what's important is the building's strong physique.
For more than just looks by the way,
not only do you look amazing,
but you also are now having much faster metabolism,
because then I would also ask this question
to my trainer, my female trainer.
What did you eat for lunch today?
And she would usually say something like,
I had a super burrito, or I had half a pound of steak
with two cups of rice or whatever.
But she eats like a lot of men do,
but she burns it because she's got all that muscle.
Well, it also supports just daily function.
It supports activity.
It helps to eliminate a lot of pain and aches
and things like that.
When you replace this bifat with muscle tissue, that's something that actually promotes
a lot better type of abilities down the road.
Well, so you just mentioned what I think is the first hurdle that I'd had to come over,
which is the metabolism.
Yes.
So, and I think there's multiple reasons for this, but this would be the first thing that
I'd have to address.
Yeah, can we get your body, or which we can, let's get your body to burn more calories
on its own versus what you probably think you need to do, which is burn more calories
yourself through exercise, which is a losing strategy.
This is a fact, by the way, trying to burn calories through exercise as a way to get leaner is a losing failing strategy
We know this studies have proven it. I've seen it in the years of manage gyms
This is not an effective strategy. Here's why I'll just give you an easy way to explain it an hour of intense exercise
May burn you anywhere between 400 to 500 calories and I'm being generous here, okay About 400 or 500 calories. It takes the average person 10 minutes to eat that many calories,
you know, 400 or 500 calories. So it's a lot of work to burn that many calories, very
easy to eat those calories. And in order to burn those calories, you got to do an hour
hard working out every single day or more, sometimes twice a day, why don't we instead
train your body to burn more calories
on its own.
So you don't have to do tons of work to burn these extra calories.
And the best way to do that is to build strength and build muscle.
Well, part of this hurdle too is this.
So never did this ever happen.
Did I ever have a client that came to me, female client in this age group that wanted to lose fat, never
did I ever have someone come in and go and I assess their diet and they're eating McDonald's
three times a day and Oreo cookies for dinner and ice cream and they're consuming four,
five thousand calories a day and they go, Adam, help me out.
That never happened.
In fact, what actually normally happens almost always is I get them and they're like,
they show me what they're eating and they're only eating 1,300, 1,800, maybe 2,000 calories.
30 grams of protein for the whole day.
Yet very low calorie, but yet carrying 30, 40, 50 pounds of body fat on them that they
want to get rid of, and they're just at a place in their life where they're like, I
don't understand, Adam, I'm at this place where, you, and in their defense, they don't eat bad, right?
They don't eat what quote unquote bad looks like
for our issue, they're not eating fast food,
they're not cramming ice cream,
they're not drinking like crazy,
they're not big sweet eaters,
they're just in a place right now in their life
where their metabolism has slowed down so much
that anything outside of the chicken salad that they were eating a day would end up piling body fat. And that's normally how they feel. I'd always ask them that.
Do you feel like you eat really good
and then every once in a while you enjoy yourself
and you feel like it sticks to your body right away?
And they'd be like, yes, yes, that's exactly me.
And that's caused from excessive yo-yo dieting
for so many years.
It just sucks because there's two methods of operation
that are promoted so much.
And that's the only way to-yo dieting for so many years. It just sucks because there's two methods of operation
that are promoted so much.
And I get this all the time with cut calories.
To lose body fat, we just gotta keep cutting calories
and keep going down that path.
And then if that's not working,
now we gotta ramp up the cardiovascular
and burn more calories that way.
These two together have just been promoted so long
and with ladies that I trained,
it was always such a hurdle to tackle right away.
The loss of muscle mass is a big deal.
Look, okay, this is the truth now.
When you look at women and you look at women
over the age of 40, osteopenia, which is bone mass loss.
This is what happens before you have osteoporosis. Your bones start to weaken. over the age of 40, osteopenia, which is bone mass loss.
This is what happens before you have osteoporosis. Your bones start to weaken.
It's actually quite common.
By the way, osteopenia is connected to loss of muscle.
If your muscles are weak and you don't have much,
they anchor and hold onto bone, your bones get weak.
One of the best ways to reverse that in your bone
is to build muscle.
In fact, it's the best way.
If you wanna strengthen your bones,
just get stronger muscles.
So there's your clue.
This is what's happening to you.
So you're 40, you've had, or you're in your 40s,
you've now had, I don't know, a decade or so,
or longer of a lot of inactivity.
Maybe you work at a desk, you probably work at a desk.
You don't really do a lot of physical, heavy lifting
in your day- day life, you're
busy, but sedative.
Your body is a desk by reducing muscle.
Well, or that, or you've also done a lot on the wagon off the wagon.
Yes.
You've done a lot of, like, because you might hear someone might be listening right now
going like, no, it's sound not lazy.
That also.
Right.
I've definitely trained hard, or I love this orange theory class, or I've done these things,
but what they end up doing is the classic yo-yo and where they are on the wagon low calorie
Extreme working out for months at a time then fall off the way look at look at the studies of women who do lots of cardio and
Look at them in the osteophenium. Here's what you'll find. Let's say you're a runner
You did lots a lots a lot of running because you found that that you read that that burns a lot of calories
The bone mass in your lower body will improve a little bit.
The bone mass everywhere else doesn't, okay?
Cardiovascular activity is not,
it's better than nothing,
but it's not a great way to strengthen bone,
and it's also not a great way to strengthen muscle.
Endurance type training requires little muscle
that is efficient with calories.
So over the years, if you've done either your sedative
like I said earlier, or you do lots of cardio and cut your calories,
both of which result in loss of muscle mass.
Again, they have studies on this that show that men and women,
both when they diet and do cardio and they lose,
let's say, 20 pounds, more than half of the weight that they lose is muscle mass.
The body literally is adapting to slow down its own metabolism.
So one of the biggest problems that you're probably encountering,
if you are a woman in your 40s,
looking to get in better shape,
is reversing the loss of muscle that has happened.
What is the best way to do that?
Liff weights, traditional resistance training,
straight sets, compound lifts.
I had so many times I would get a female client
in her 40s who's worked out in the past, right?
Then all the cardio done the aerobics classes,
dieted this and that, and then I have them in,
working with me and I'm like,
here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna squat,
we're gonna deadlift, we're gonna bench press,
we're gonna row, and they're like,
I don't wanna, I'm hiring you,
but I don't want you to make me look like a bodybuilder
and say, look, here's a deal.
I promise you won't wake up tomorrow,
looking like a bodybuilder.
If you get to the point where you look in the mirror
and you're like, I don't want any more muscle,
you just tell me, you just tell me when you're done with that.
And here's what happened, never would that happen.
Instead, here's what would happen to me.
I can't believe how good I'm feeling.
Why am I getting leaner?
I feel like I'm eating more, and I'd be like,
you're already more, you just have a fast metabolism.
My god, my butt looks really good.
My, I feel so confident in my body.
And I'm like, you're stronger and you have more.
Fast metabolism, stronger.
Also, like the hormone issue.
Like when you're in that state for so long,
think about what that does to your hormones
and disrupts all that and out of balance and out of whack.
I mean, we go through the list of like sleep, you know, nutrition and also like exercising.
Those are major, major factors to getting you, tilting you off axis of your hormones.
Yes.
So, if I were to categorize the more popular forms of exercise, if we were to look at cardiovascular
activity and compare to resistance training, cardiovascular activity is anti-tissue.
Okay. So cardiovascular burns lots of calories while you're doing it. You're staying in the form of a catabolic. Right. to resistance training, cardiovascular activity is anti-tissue.
Cardiovascular burns lots of calories while you're doing it.
You're stands for catabolic.
It burns lots of calories while you're doing it.
It teaches your body, or at least the adaptation of your body
tries to move towards from it, is to become more efficient with calories,
which is loss of muscle mass.
Lots of lots of cardio over time, with nothing else,
especially with the reduction in calories, results in lots of muscle mass, okay.
Resistance training is pro tissue, pro tissue, pro active tissue.
The main adaptation from resistance training is building muscle.
What is required to build muscle?
Not just calories, and yes, you'll be able to eat more, so you have a fastened metabolism,
but what's also required is balanced hormones.
Your body, through the process of telling it to build muscle,
in man, you see a boost in testosterone,
in women you see the balancing of estrogen and progesterone.
In the other category of overdone cardio,
what a wonderful way to get your hormones out of whack.
In fact, the muscle women I've trained and worked with
who also concurrently worked with a functional medicine
doctor at hormone issues,
oftentimes one of the reasons why the hormones were at a whack
was the abuse of the wrong form of exercise.
And this is how we've been labeled, okay,
as anti-cardioguy.
Sure.
We've been labeled at that from this podcast
because we've been touting this for a very long time now.
And this is the reason why.
So if you've been listening in,
it's the abuse of cardio.
And it's this is because this is the majority of people we help.
We're all three of us, different gyms, different careers.
Yet we all agree that this is the masses.
This is the most common things we saw.
That's right, this is the majority of people
that are seeking help,
that are trying to better themselves,
that are in the gyms, working out,
that are listening to podcasts like this,
that are seeking out this information, and that's why we talk about this all the time.
It's not because we think cardio is bad, it's not because we think that we don't understand
the benefits of it.
It's because we know that 90% of the majority of people that we train, it's not ideal
for them for the situation they're currently in.
Yes, so cardio-astro-art TV does have some health benefits, but if you're the, like, most
the clients we worked with,
and let's say you were a woman in your 40s,
and you want to improve your health and fitness, get leaner,
focus on building muscle.
By the way, I said it was pro tissue.
The side effect of the pro tissue is the anti-fat aspect of it,
because as you build muscle, as we said earlier,
the metabolism speeds up, and the hormones move in a direction
that reduces body fat.
How?
You get more insulin sensitive.
Women's estrogen and progesterone balance.
Women's testosterone levels start to regulate.
Yes, women do have testosterone and it is important in women as well for things like libido
confidence and drive.
All those things start to balance out to make you a better muscle building fat burning
machine.
So, the way the cornerstone of your routine
should be traditional resistance training.
And this was always the very first thing
that I would start with with a woman in her 40s.
Now there's another part that we need to talk about,
which is mobility, lots of mobility.
Now before you go to mobility,
there's still another part of the weight training that is.
Because there is a percentage of these clients that I would get that
We're weight training, okay, that weren't just cardio bunnies
They they understood the benefits of weights, but they still have been marketed to the wrong way
They've been still pushed in this direction of either circuit training or high reps because low-weight cardio with weights
Yes, basically exactly exactly there'd been they've been pushed in this, hit training direction,
or don't do heavy waste,
because that's gonna make you big and bulky.
So there is another portion to the loss of muscle here,
or the not building muscle is for that reason.
Just because you're holding a dumbbell,
or a barbell, or a resistance band,
does not mean you're doing resistance training
the way that we're talking about.
Because you could use a dumbbell in a way that makes it cardio. Because you could use a dumbbell in a way that makes it cardio.
You could actually use a dumbbell in the way that makes it yoga.
There is a specific way to apply resistance to build muscle, speed up the metabolism, sculpt
the body and balance hormones.
So workout programming is very, very important when it comes to resistance training.
It's not just using weights, it's using weights in a specific way to accomplish what we had just talked about. Now to the point that I was talking
about with mobility. Mobility issues are a bigger problem with people in their 40s and as they get
older, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s becomes a bigger issue, but it's not necessarily because the body is aging,
but rather because you've had longer time on this planet to develop more movement
patterns, right?
So you've been sitting for longer.
You've been sort of locked in your ways.
Yes.
And this is what we've noticed.
And this is something I'm always fighting.
Like, oh, I feel old.
I've grown just to like tie my shoes anymore.
But honestly, it's just because of the daily things that I'm always doing.
Always doing things in front of me.
And if I'm not aware of that,
and I'm not going through types of mobility drills
or things to help my joints inevitably,
my body's gonna form into those positions,
and it's gonna make it more efficient
the way that I do things.
Yeah, and it's just you have a longer time on earth
to injure yourself,
or to deal with these types of things, right?
So, longer time to be wearing heels,, cause movement patterns that can cause problems,
longer time that you've been sitting at a desk that can cause certain issues.
Now why is it important to focus on mobility?
Okay, well besides the prevention of injury, which is definitely important because nothing
will stop you in your tracks like hurting yourself.
You hurt yourself that's that you're done, you can't go to the gym.
Which by the way, statistically, this is what is most common
that happens if somebody that joins a gym.
So one of the main reasons why someone falls off
besides hitting a plateau is within that first four
to six weeks they get hurt.
So that's number one of course, but there's more than that.
So let's say you're somebody's like,
look, I'm not gonna hurt myself, I'm careful.
I don't need to work on mobility.
Well, here's why mobility is still important.
Your lack of mobility or your lack of optimal mobility,
prevents you from maximizing or getting the most
out of the most effective exercises.
So I named a few earlier, right?
Like a deadlift, a squat, or an overhead press.
If your mobility prevents you from getting all the maximum
benefits of that exercise, you're just not
going to progress as fast.
And oftentimes, people in their 40s or women in their 40s, this is the reason why they
can't do some of these amazing exercises.
It wasn't because the exercise was, oh, we're not doing that exercise.
It was because I would take them through an assessment, we'd do a deadlift and say,
you know what, we need to focus on your mobility before we can have a lot of limitations
in front of that.
Yeah, I can't have you really deadlift in a way that's effective yet
because we need to improve our mobility.
Or I can't have you do these overhead presses
and really push them yet
because we have to work on mobility.
So mobility is very, very important
because it becomes something that can prevent you
from maximizing that little bit of time
that you have that you can spend in the gym.
I feel like this one of all the points is the least sexist.
I think it carries over to men.
Equally the same.
It's more, this is more to do with age and time, right?
Just the longer that we neglect this,
when we're in our 20s, all of us, even trainers,
as sitting here right now,
are guilty of this.
I'm guilty of training in my 20s
and not addressing any of this stuff
because it wasn't loud enough to stop me, right?
And I was too stubborn to put any sort of energy
or effort in this direction
because I was so focused on the way I looked.
That's what I cared about.
And then when you get into your 40s,
I don't care, male or female,
this is no longer an option to ignore anymore.
Your body is talking to you by this time.
Yeah, now you have pain from cumulative injuries
that you've dealt with from the 20s and 30s.
Like I hurt my back twice and now it kind of bothers me.
Or like I said earlier, I sit down a lot.
You know, in my 20s, I didn't sit down as long.
But now that I'm 40, I've been sitting down for 20 years
at my desk.
That's a huge problem.
That's a huge point.
I think people don't realize.
Like, you know, earlier, like when I'm in my 20s
or like I'm going through school,
there's a lot more opportunities for me to get up
and get involved in some type of movement
or be involved in a sport or just something
like extracurricular where every day I'm going to be doing
something with my body and expressing a lot of these muscles.
There's not a lot of opportunities for that as you get older.
And when you're training, one of the worst things
that you can do is because you have shoulder
issues, low back issues, hip issues, wrist issues, is avoid specific exercises because of
that, because it is only going to make that problem worse.
Yes.
I was literally just, Justin, you just did a wrist mobility thing the other day.
And it was such great timing because I have a client, my female client, I'm on the falls
in the demographic that I was helping, right? And I know she's got all this risk.
She's had surgery on her wrist,
and a lot of times that she doesn't like the deadlift
and stuff because it bothers her wrist,
and she wants to avoid certain exercises.
And I'm constantly harping on her, like,
listen, you've got to do this,
because you cannot avoid these mobility exercises
because it bothers you.
You lose it.
And what you gotta understand is you eliminating these exercises, which are such important,
good exercises for us to be doing because it bothers your wrist is not the answer.
The answer is when you do a dress, the lack of mobility that you have in your wrist, you
need to do the work before you see it.
Where is a ripple effect to that?
Yes.
So now, yeah, you limit that.
It goes up the kinetic chain.
Now, it limits like a lot more movements in the future.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, to use an extreme example,
I remember working with people in a much older age
categories, 60s, 70s, and 80s.
And I had a physical therapist in my facility
and we would work very closely.
And I remember the therapist made a point about this.
She said, look, she would tell these people
because we would work both work with them together.
I'd be the trainer.
She'd be the therapist.
And she'd say stuff like, okay, I know your doctor's telling you
that maybe you should start using a walker,
but she goes, I wanna prevent you from using a walker
as long as possible,
because the second you use a walker,
your posture's gonna get worse
and your body's gonna shape and form to it,
and you're gonna lose the ability to walk without it very quickly.
And so that's what we're talking about.
If you avoid fundamental movements like a squat
because it bothers you and you're not doing anything
to get yourself to squat, then the further along you go
that way, the more likely you are to never be able to squat.
Right? So mobility is very important.
So resistance training should be the cornerstone of your
routine to build that muscle, booster metabolism,
but a piece of that should be to maintain
and improve your mobility so you can maximize the effects
of the resistance training and prevent those injuries.
Now, the next hurdle that I think is common, and again, this one I think is both men and
women, but for sure I feel like I dealt with this the most with my female clients, especially
the ones that are running a household too, maybe have kids also working and trying to
juggle all this.
And I feel like my moms and the women I train always put everybody else before themselves.
Women you're just born with this empathetic soul already,
where they take care of the family so well.
Oh, those studies actually show that
even when there's a husband and wife that worked,
the wife still does statistically far more of the stuff at home.
When they would come to me and tell me,
and when I was an early trainer, I was a young trainer,
I didn't take this very seriously.
I didn't take it seriously until I had kids myself
and I could see the struggle or whatever,
but they'd say things like, I don't have a lot of time.
I don't have a lot of time to come into the gym
and work out all the time.
And then I would do the whole spiel that you do
when you're an inexperienced, stupid trainer,
like, oh, time, we all have 24 hours,
you've got to prioritize your time,
if you get fit, it makes everything else easier, blah, blah, blah.
Totally not empathetic or understanding
of what they were going through.
Later on, I figured out, oh yeah, this is a big issue.
This is actually the realist issue,
I'd say the biggest challenge.
The other stuff that we're talking about
is not nearly as challenging as the time issue.
And so then I said, okay, the goal is to make your workout
as effective as possible and to give you flexibility
with your workout so you can be consistent
when you can't make it to the gym,
to make it consistent when you are traveling
for whatever reason.
Make it as easy as possible to stay consistent
and maximize the time that you are working out
so that this doesn't end up becoming
a huge roadblock for you.
This is the exact same disservice that I did to this community.
It's the same thing.
And I feel guilty of it because in my 20s, I was just as naive.
I would do the exact same spill.
It was always, it was about, you need to make time for yourself.
And then I make a good case, but I mean, there's truth to that.
Yeah, I would sell it really well.
So I'd sell it really well that, you know, if you take care of yourself,
all these other people and things you're doing,
you'll only improve on that.
Instead of being more empathetic about, okay,
how do we, how do we juggle this a little bit?
How do I,
be a little more understanding that,
no matter how much I sell her on this idea,
I'm never going to get this mom to put herself
above her children or her husband.
And then some six days a week or five.
Right, yeah, exactly.
And come to the gym, those things are never,
so how, and I wish I would have done this earlier on.
Later on, I learned to mold my programming
where it wasn't required that she came into the gym all the time.
Yes, I would have a foundation of,
this is what I'd like you to do,
but then I was also very realistic that there's gonna be times
when maybe I'll only get 30 minutes,
or maybe I, I don't have a lot of equipment
and I have to give her something
that she doesn't stop working on herself,
but she has something that she could do
when her kid's napping for an hour
or when she's got a 30 minute break.
The most effective strategy I had for this
was giving my clients, my female clients in this category,
workouts to do plan B workouts when you can't make it to the gym,
because here's the reality, driving to the gym,
that's time right there, changing at the gym,
there's time right there, then you get your workout,
you've already killed 15, 20 minutes,
maybe even 30 minutes before you start your workout,
and now you're somewhere else, you're not at home,
where you need to find somebody to watch the kids,
maybe you can put them in the kids club,
but that's not open all the time,
so what I would do is I would give them workouts
that they could do anywhere at any time, right?
Here's some exercise, here's some routines,
here's band movements, bands are really, really convenient
because you could travel with them.
They take up almost no space.
And I'd give them great workouts.
And then if they're like, look man, today was crazy.
Or the sitter canceled, I can't go to the gym, that doesn't mean I don't have to,
I don't work out, I can work out right here,
I can work out at home, such an effective strategy
and it dramatically increased the consistency
that these clients had with their workouts.
And it's very important, here's one of the things
about working out and being consistent.
It's like a snowball going down a hill.
What, if you're consistent with your workouts,
consistent, consistent, it's easier to stay consistent when you're consistent. It's hard a snowball going down a hill. If you're consistent with your workouts, consistent, consistent, it's easier to stay consistent
when you're consistent.
It's hard to stay consistent when you stop for a second.
It's like the momentum has been broken.
Well, a lot of it too.
We overcomplicate the entire process.
And I know there's a lot of trainers out there guilty of that too, and promoting that within
their clientele.
We've got to accomplish all these different movements, all these different things, you know, and wrap it all in the workout ends up taking like an hour,
two hours long, where, you know, you get in a predicament
like this, they need to know that there are just a few simple,
like biggest bang for your buck type movements and things
that you can do pretty much anywhere.
And that's still going to keep the momentum going
in the right direction.
That's definitely our fault and our ego's, our camps,
you know, that's like one of the worst parts of all.
Well, you think everybody's a fitness fanatic
like you are when you're a trainer
and they have all the time, they're working a gym
like you do, which is just not true.
So this is a very important one.
Okay, so if you're listening right now, understand,
you probably already know this, that your time is precious
and it's challenging to get lots of time just to yourself.
Have plan B workouts that you can do anywhere
and make them convenient.
Usually bands are one of the best things you could do
and these kinds of workouts because like I said,
I could store a full set of bands in a small duffle bag
or in the corner of my closet
and they usually come with attachments
that you could have indoors and stuff
and there you go, you have your resistance
and you could do your workout.
Now the last hurdle, I kind of alluded to it
when we were talking about the slower metabolism
because I think they do go hand in hand.
I talked about yo-yo diet.
This is for sure the most common.
I brought up the fact that I don't think
I've ever had somebody that was a female client
in their 40s that was trying to lose weight
that was eating 3,000, 4,000 calories.
They were always much lower than where I would like them to be.
And so that is one of the,
I think we talk about all the challenges.
This is the most difficult because it takes time.
It does.
It takes time.
They've probably gone through a few diets themselves
by this point, whether they be extreme diets,
whether they're cutting out entire food groups
or even crazier diets.
I've actually had people come to me who've done HCG diets,
and if you've ever heard of these, but they inject HCG and they go,
and they eat 500 calories a day for a certain period of time,
or whatever.
So then they come to me, and now what we're doing
is we're working on, okay, how can we change
a relationship to food?
Because here's a deal with nutrition,
and this is a big point here.
Your nutrition, your diet, should not feel like another stress.
So if you're trying to eat in a way to get leaner,
to improve your health and your fitness,
it should not be an additional stress,
because I promise you, if it feels that way,
you will not be able to continue.
If you're doing something to make yourself feel better,
but it makes you feel worse, you're not going to continue it.
So your nutrition cannot be another stress.
This is where I start
to work with people on things like intuitive eating, where we start to talk about how do
foods make you feel? How are you using food? Are you finding that you're eating in a way
to distract yourself? Are you eating because you're stressed? Can we create barriers between
you and these behaviors? For example, I'll give you a great example. I had a client once
who she chocolate was her thing.
She was like a chocolate fanatic.
And she's like, man, it's so hard for me.
If I have it in the house, I'm gonna eat it.
So I said, okay, let's do this.
Not having the house.
I'm like, I already tried that, but then I end up,
I want it around.
I said, no, no, no.
I've not said you can't eat it.
I'm saying don't have it in the house.
If you want it bad enough, you get in the car
and drive yourself to the store and buy it.
Make that deal with yourself.
And all we did was we created a barrier between her
and that, you know, impulsive behavior.
And here's what happened.
She would get up and drive to the store
and buy some chocolates sometimes.
But sometimes, because of the process of stopping,
getting in the car or whatever,
it gave her enough time to pause and be like,
okay, this is a bit impulsive.
I don't think I'm gonna eat it this time.
And it was a great way to get her to eat
and more healthy and intuitive way.
When you do this through this process,
nutrition isn't as stressful.
Think of it this way.
If you're eating healthy because it feels good to you,
because you enjoy it, because you're taking care of your body,
then it's not hard.
And I don't mean hard in the sense
that it doesn't require planning.
I mean, it's not hard in the sense it doesn't hard in the sense that it doesn't require planning.
I mean, it's not hard in the sense
it doesn't feel like a stress.
Well, what's hard is that this is a slower process.
Yes.
It's a slower process.
And what's really difficult is the client
is coming to you at this point, right?
They just hired you.
And they're willing to pay you money
to help them get this weight off.
And that's what they wanna hear.
They wanna hear.
Tell me what to eat.
Tell me what to eat.
How long until I can lose this 30 pounds or whatever. And the truth is
the what you need to do with them is completely change their relationship with food. And part
of that process is actually not worrying about their weight. It's not worrying about it if
it goes up a couple of pounds at this point because we need to get to a place where we're
fed more. You're already so low calorie. And here's the other thing too. We mentioned already the first and most important thing
was for you to build muscle.
You can't build muscle on 800 calories.
It's just, you can't build it in a cut.
You need the building blocks, you need the calories,
you need the protein, in order to build the muscle,
to build the faster metabolism.
So you're fighting an uphill battle for somebody
who's weight training, strength training to build muscle,
but they're eating in a way to cut and lose.
What you're dealing with is your own psychology.
That's the challenge when it comes to nutrition.
The challenge isn't the mechanisms of nutrition, but rather your own psychology.
So here's an easy tip.
This is an easy one.
Rather than restricting yourself, which what tends to happen when you restrict, when you
cut things out, is you end up in this restrict binge behavior, where you're cutting foods out that you enjoy or
whatever, or maybe you're using because they're, they're, you know, they help you deal
with stress or anxiety or your board or whatever.
You cut these foods out that you enjoy for whatever reason.
And the way you're cutting it out is to sheer discipline.
I can't eat that.
And it's like you're telling yourself, you're not going to eat that anymore.
And you're like, okay, I'm not gonna do that anymore.
Eventually, you hate the way that feels
because nobody likes to be told what to do,
even if it's you.
And then you go in the opposite direction.
And it's usually not having a little bit of what
you didn't eat before.
It's like going crazy because you're rebelling,
almost like the behaviors of a teenager.
So instead of restricting, try this.
Try adding things to your diet.
This is a great, and this sounds crazy,
but it actually works. Take some things that are healthy, that you're adding things to your diet. This is a great, and this sounds crazy, but it actually works.
Take some things that are healthy,
that you're maybe lacking in your diet.
Usually this looks like vegetables, for some people,
for some people, it might be proteins,
and say to yourself, okay, here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm not gonna restrict, but I'm gonna make sure
a three servings of well-cooked vegetables.
Or I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna have a nice salad,
that's really really healthy every single day.
Or I'm gonna make sure I drink
at least a half a gallon of water a day.
So you're adding things rather than taking things away.
Psychologically, it feels totally different.
You're not restricting, you're adding.
And here's what ends up happening through this process.
Naturally, you start to cut things out
without even realizing.
This is one of my favorite things to watch.
Watch the transformation happen because it's subtle.
It's something that they're adding, like let's say it's a broccoli or some kind of vegetable
that maybe they're deficient in certain nutrients and they're diet.
It's just naturally their palate starts to change.
They start to crave different things and they start to finding themselves longing for
that feeling that they're getting from it, instead of hammering themselves for not, you know,
going towards these foods that they deem so unhealthy for them.
This is such a key strategy,
and it's tough if you don't have a trainer, right?
So you have to have the self-awareness
to do this yourself if you're listening to podcasts
and taking this advice.
But I love what you're saying, Sal,
because I loved not telling a client you can't,
you can't have, like sure you can have it.
But then what I made sure of is to have communication
around that.
So let's say that person went and crushed that chocolate bar.
I'm not gonna scold them as their trainer and say,
oh my God, you fucked up and now we're gonna get fat,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
No, what I am gonna do, they'll say,
how did you feel afterwards?
How did you sleep that night?
How was your skin? How was the that night? How was your skin?
How was the next day?
How was your mood?
It was a digestion.
How was your, all these things that food,
the stuff that you put inside you,
affects and help them connect it.
And then when they streak three days in a row
of doing exactly what you just,
you guys both suggested,
which is increasing their protein
or eating a salad a day
or three servings of vegetables,
cooked vegetables in the day,
then I would say things like, how did you feel?
How was your stool?
How did you sleep?
And then helping them make that connection of why they make
that choice that's not related to their scale,
the weight going up or down or how they look,
but more so, how their body felt, how their mood felt,
how their energy felt, helping them make that connection that,
wow, when I fuel my body with these choices
that are maybe less palatable,
may it might be less palatable,
boy, the benefits that I get
and the things that I feel from it are amazing.
And hey, you know what,
when I have that thing that's really palatable
and I enjoy that part of it,
boy, I tell you what,
it actually, it might satisfy me for that one minute
that I'm consuming it,
but the aftermath of how I feel,
and then on their own, they start to weigh that out themselves.
You start to crave things that make you feel good.
This is true, okay?
By the way, but advertising companies know this.
When they present a food on a commercial,
they're not just showing you the food,
they're showing you like a party in the background,
or it's really cool, or look how relaxed the person is,
they're trying to make associations
to make you want the food even more.
So when you make these good associations with certain foods,
let's say you notice when you eat three servings of vegetables
that you're no longer constipated
and your skin looks really good.
And you're paying attention to this by the way
because if you're not aware of it, it doesn't matter.
But you're paying attention.
You're like, you know what?
Man, when I eat three servings of vegetables,
my hair looks good, my skin looks good.
I got good digestion, I'm not constipated,
like I normally have, I feel really good.
And you start making those connections,
you will start to find that you'll actually crave
those vegetables.
Now, it might not be the same type of craving,
like I crave the taste of those vegetables,
but you'll want them just like you would
something that tastes good.
Yeah, but that's the problem for so long.
And then by the way, again,
this is back to the marketing and advertising side
of our world, right?
It's like everything is about how it tastes.
So we've been taught that way.
But that's the only thing you value.
Yeah, like it does it taste good.
You know, that's the first thing you know, you should try this.
Does it taste good?
But that's the very first thing.
Nobody goes like, why did it make you feel?
Right, right.
Nobody asked when someone suggests a restaurant or suggests food to you.
No one ever says, oh, did you shit?
Well, after a tour, how did you sleep that night?
That corn dog make me feel great. Right. Nobody thinks about that. It's always
about taste. But when you, when you're setting on a goal like this and we're trying to
change your life and your health and your behaviors, you have to start to think like this. You
have to start making these connections because 100% all that food affects them. And now
here's another point is that to identify some foods that bring you away from awareness.
That sounds very complicated, so I'm going to say a different way.
Start to identify foods that trigger impulsive behaviors.
These usually are in the category of heavily processed foods.
Now here's what the science says about heavily processed foods.
And by the way, heavily processed foods, typically are found in wrappers, in boxes.
They have lots of ingredients.
They're typically not single ingredient foods,
like a steak is not heavily processed,
but, or, or, you know,
just rice by itself is not heavily processed,
but rice chips, you know, that are, you know, ranch flavored
would be heavily processed, for example.
So heavily processed foods, when they do the science,
they show that when people are left to eat them
and they compare them to other groups, they eat on average five to six hundred more calories a day and they eat almost 40% faster while they're eating it.
It literally encourages these impulsive behaviors.
Identify that for yourself. It's usually heavily processed foods for most people. Now, why is this important?
Because it's making you aware that if I eat these kinds of foods, it brings me away from awareness.
I become more impulsive, I eat fast, I eat more,
and it's something that is hard to control.
Once you know that, then you can say to yourself,
I think I'm gonna stay away from that
because that makes me behave in this particular way.
Instead, I meet these whole natural foods,
and I'll tell you what right now, this is a true story.
I figured this out a long time into my career,
but when I did, it was a game changer.
I would tell clients, all right, here's just one thing.
Just do this.
Don't eat heavily processed foods, but he's much as you want.
I don't care.
I don't care what it is, if it's not heavily processed,
go ahead and eat until you're totally full.
You know what would happen?
Everybody would lose weight.
Everybody would lose weight because-
Really hard to overeat.
It is, you naturally start to, your body's systems of satiety
start to work the way that they're supposed to.
Heavily processed foods hijacked that.
So identify that.
They bring you away from awareness
and make you more impulsive with your behavior.
Along the lines of awareness,
I have to add something to that,
that I find myself saying today
that I wasn't saying 15, 20 years ago.
And I think that's just the time that we're in now.
And when you talk about awareness,
you also, so the hyper-palatable foods is one thing.
The other thing is just being purely distracted.
We live in this tech world where your phones
are an extension, it's like another limb for people
or the television, right, or a iPad
or whatever tool you have to consume this content, right?
If you're at a place where you're trying to learn this, you're
trying to learn your body's natural signals that it's talking to you and you have no clue
what we're talking about and you want to figure this out. Another piece of advice that
I'm going to give around awareness is do not allow yourself to bring your phone to the
table or do not eat in front of the television.
Sit down. Yes.
By yourself, eat quietly, chew your food, think about the food. Slow your heart right down. Yes. By yourself, eat quietly, chew your food, think about the food.
Slow your heart right down.
Be there with your food.
In fact, people who say, oh, I enjoy eating a lot.
It's actually a very unaware state of mind.
Think about the laugh you're listening right now.
Think about the last time you did something that resembled a binge.
Maybe you ate a bag of chips or a sleeve of Oreo cookies.
Typically the behavior looks like this.
You're not enjoying the cookie that's in your mouth.
You're eating the cookie in your mouth so fast
because all you can think about is the other one in your hand.
It isn't even about the food that's in your mouth.
It's about the food that isn't in your mouth.
This is literally a mental state of unawareness.
You're distracted.
It's impulsive.
Eating an awareness is I'm sitting down quietly,
no distractions, I'm eating and I'm chewing
and I'm there, I'm here with my food.
When people bring awareness to their eating,
they naturally eat less.
This is a fact, studies have shown,
in fact they've compared groups of people
who've done awareness practicing exercises
to people who follow macro and calorie targets.
And guess which one is more successful long term?
The awareness.
They don't even have to count anything.
They're just more wild.
I'll take this challenge all day long right here.
You're somebody listening right now and you need to lose weight and you only have two
rules.
I'm not going to put a diet together for you.
I'm not going to tell you you can't have this or that.
The only thing I want you to do is choose, like you said, whole foods and never eat in
front of a television or your phone. Watch what happens. I dare you to do is choose, like you said, whole foods and never eat in front of a television or your phone.
Watch what happens.
Dare you to try and get fat that way.
Ain't gonna happen.
It's just not gonna happen.
It's already hard enough to do it with the whole foods angle that you're talking about
with potatoes and steaks.
Potatoes and steak did not get people fat.
It's adding that.
It's the french fries that you added to that.
It's the dessert you added to that.
It's the soda that you drank down with that.
It's the highly processed, palatable, hyper palatable foods that you add to that. It's the dessert you added to that. It's the soda that you drank down with that. It's the highly processed, palatable foods
that you add in combination with these whole foods.
That is what's really screwing you.
So just you simply doing that
and not being distracted while you consume.
Most people, believe it or not,
are even people that have never trained themselves
to be aware of these signals, will feel these signals.
Absolutely.
And again, it took me a long time to figure that out,
but I loved it when I did because it was like, boom, magic. It's working. And it's working simple forever. So there
you have it. Okay. Focus on building muscle, getting stronger, work on mobility, make that a part of
your routine. Make sure you have a plan B with your workouts that you can do anywhere. And focus on
intuitive eating rather than following a diet. And you are going to be about 90% of the way there.
The other 10% is this you showing up.
Look, we have a lot of free guides you can find
and read that we've written about lots of topics
around fitness.
And we do this as a way to give back to our community.
You can find all of these at mindpumpfree.com.
And you can also find all of us on Instagram.
You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin.
You can find me at Mind Pump Sal
and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.
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