Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2227: How to Get in the Best Shape of Your Life in 2024

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

Seven Steps to Get in the Best Shape of Your Life in 2024. (1:41) #1 - Manage your algorithms. (2:32) #2 - Eat foods that encourage you to eat less. (12:20) #3 - Lift weights with a plan. (18:34) #4 - Walk a little bit 3 times a day (no distractions). (22:31) #5 - Set a water goal and hit it. (27:44) #6 - Train and eat to feel good, not look good. (31:42) #7 - Go to bed and wake up at the same time. (36:46) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: RGB Bundle 50% off! ** Code RGB50 at checkout ** Visit Stress Guardian by biOptimizers for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump # 1477: Is Social Media Killing Your Gains? Mind Pump # 1860: Fourteen Of The Best Foods For An Amazing Physique Mind Pump # 2160: Macro Counting Master Class Mind Pump # 2012: Building The Perfect Workout Program To Hit Your Goals Mind Pump # 1522: How To Stay Consistent With Your Diet & Workout Mind Pump # 1345: 6 Ways To Optimize Sleep For Faster Muscle Gain And Fat Loss Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

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on the same points bet app, the platform that gives you everything you need. You know what to do. Bed on it. Point Spets Sportsbook and Casino. Definitely no, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? Today's episode we talk about what you can do,

seven steps that you can take that will make 2024 the best shape of your life. By the way, in today's episode, we talk about following a structured, strength training program. We have something called the RGB bundle. This is three workout programs. You follow them in sequence and it's nine months planned out, nine months, literally reps,

sets, exercises, exercise demos. It's all in there. It's our most popular bundle of programs. Because of this episode, we made it 50% off. If you want this, right now, you go to mapsdicember.com and then use the coupon code RGB50 for the 50% off discount. This episode is also brought to you by one of our sponsors. This company has a product called stress guardian. This has 14 adaptive genic herbs that work together to help your body become better at adapting to stress. All right, what does that mean?

That means you don't feel as bad with stress. That means your body recovers faster that helps you with your workouts, can help with fat loss, with sleep, just give you a better sense of well-being. This product is pretty awesome. I've been using it myself now for the past month and I think I can definitely feel a difference.

So go check them out, go to stressguardian.com forward slash mind pump and on that link you'll get our discount. All right, here comes the show. All right, it's a new year, new you. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about all the different ways that you can improve your health and fitness for this new upcoming year. Here we go.

All right, let's talk about what people can do in 2024. I'm excited about this one because I think we chose to give tips that are less obvious. Yes. Right, I think that everybody knows that they need to make better food choices. Like, eat better, less ways. Yeah, I think that's the obvious stuff,

but I really like this list because I think they're, they're relatively easy things that people can tackle on a day to day basis and they really do start to add up and we'll send you in the right direction. Yeah, there's small steps that have big effects. And I like that, right? As trainers, that's one of the things we learn. It's like, okay, what are the small steps people can take that'll have big returns because

those are the ones that people will can take that'll have big returns because those are the ones that people will be able to do and then we're going to see them be able to move the needle versus big steps that you know give you a very little return that tends to get a hack into that human psychology to make those little behavioral changes little sticks. It also like having a list like this helps because there's going to be days where maybe you miss one or two things on there But then as long as you did some of the other ones in there You're always moving in the right direction of being a healthier version of yourself, right? So and I think that's important to teach clients this is that you know

Oh, we can have a day where we didn't eat the best or you know a vacation when you didn't get to the gym and work out the best or a vacation when you didn't get to the gym and work out. But there still are a lot of other things that we can do to move the needle in towards a healthier version of yourself. We need to celebrate those wins and continue to compile those up. I like that instead of it just being black or white. On my diet and I'm training and it's either I'm off or on. It's like, well, no, there's a lot of other things that we can do to improve your health. Yes, so the first one is to manage the algorithms on the media that you consume.

So this one, we've never really talked about before. I mean, we do episodes like this almost every year where we kind of give people tips. I don't think we've ever mentioned this before. This is a big one and the data now, we didn't have data really on how social media impacts people's behaviors. We all speculated.

We were concerned, but it wasn't super obvious with data. Yeah, but now we have data and a lot of speculations were correct. What you watch and consume most changes and shifts your perception of yourself and your perception of the world. Most obvious one being, if you're on social media scrolling and the people that you're looking at have unattainable bodies, or let's say that their bodies are the result

of unhealthy habits. Lots of people in the fitness space are like this, right? Body obsessed, over trained, over-diadied, lighting and Photoshop, and Photoshop. And nowadays, we have AI. And if that's what you're seeing in your media feed, subconsciously, this is very powerful now. And the data shows this.

Subconsciously, we compare ourselves to our environment. That becomes the world you live in. So it's not the world that you see outside, where you, I mean, walk around outside. Does anybody look like the people in many people's social media feeds? No, super rare. In fact, we manage gyms for a living. This is already a self-selection bias of fit people. How often in the gyms that we manage, did you see people with like ripped six pack abs, right? They used to be specific gyms. Yeah. And it's still part of my presentation. I used to actually, in the, in San

Intriser we had that little sales pit with the glass window and you could see into the workout floor. And I get people that were intimidated to come in in the gym and stuff like that. I used to stand them up and I used to have them look and say, show me, you know, what you would consider five, you know, perfect or great fit bodies. And you couldn't get, you couldn't even find five. You're in the gym And you couldn't find five.

You're in the gym and you couldn't find five super ripped people that you see on Instagram all day long through your feed, right? Like every other picture is for people that are into health and fitness tend to have that many people popping up. It's like that's such a rare percentage of people. It's super rare. The, in fact, the statistics show that it's more common to see

or meet somebody who's got a million dollars worth of wealth than to find someone with a six pack. That's how rare it is. But what happens when you look through your social media algorithm is that becomes the world that your brain perceives you to live in, you compare yourself to that, and now you think you're terrible or that that's impossible to attain, or I feel, you know, really bad about myself. I'm unattractive, look at all these incredible people.

And that can shift your behaviors in the negative. It can make you train in ways that are inappropriate, either training too hard or too often, or to punish yourself. It can also make you eat in ways that are inappropriate. And all of this leads to you eventually stopping, because at some point you're like, I don't wanna do this anymore, the sucks.

This is terrible. And I never look like that. And what I'm doing right now is I'm even working out that great. And I'm doing a lot in this sucks. And I'm gonna go back to what I was doing before. Another thing that you can do with your algorithm, because the brain seeks out a few different things.

One of them is like extreme beauty, sex appeal. It's also being alarmed and afraid. Our brains are wired to tune into scary news because we evolved in tribes and for the most part. And you want to hear about the lion that age George, right? Or you want to hear about- Sure, problem, I'm in a hyper-focus. Yeah, and you want to hear about the snake.

Going back, hey, there's a snake in that bit, you know, that bit someone. Like, your brains are wired to do that, but now in social media, so many things are alarming, and we're drawn to them. We click on them, we read them. Oh my God, you see this thing? Look what's happening.

And you have no control or no influence over these things. You have no, almost no influence over what's happening across the world or other things. And so what ends up happening is you create this stress and anxiety and hopelessness and helplessness within yourself, and that drives your behaviors as well. So managing algorithms to be more specific isn't just avoiding the things that I'm talking about. It's more like this consciously make the algorithm feed thing feed you in ways that are positive or that will move you in the right direction. So things that are encouraging positive and strengthening, connecting with other people in real ways, things that you can apply to yourself

that you can learn from, and be very conscious because when you scroll through social media, the apps track, not just what you click on and what you comment on and what you like, but also how long you pause on a picture of it. We're just to add to that because you mentioned all these stressful things that seem pretty normal in terms of,

I'm just consuming this regularly because it's on my phone and it's just like, I'm feeling like I'm getting in and dated with information that's useful or like I don't really see like a negative side to that as much until you start kind of really seeing how that's affecting your recovery, how that's affecting like recovery, how it's affecting

like your overall bucket of stress and like you're just carrying that with you and it rolls over into the next day and like you're never like really fully in that parasympathetic state when you're constantly inundating yourself with like this this this scroll of of news or you know I'm not good enough or whatever you're looking at. I think this is a little challenging for health and fitness conscious people because our space and by the way this is a lot to do with why we choose not to do this but our space is created this bubble of fitness people that feel the need that they have to advertise through showing their body off. So even some of your favorite health and fitness people that are giving good health and fitness advice potentially,

their feed is still 80% of them half naked or in fitness clothes or hitting PRs in the workout floor. And this is something that we chose not to do because we know that this idea of other people comparing to you is not an ideal way for you to pursue your fitness journey. And so I think for people that are getting to help the fitness, this is gonna be a little bit of a challenge for them is to be aware of that.

Whether you believe it or not, some consciously you are. If you constantly are seeing that person or them, those people that you follow say 40 of your favorite fitness people and those 40 people all put pictures of them, flexing and ripped and stuff like that, even if they're good people and they have good information,

you can't help it, but subconsciously your brain starts to go, oh, this is normal. And I'm not normal because I don't look this way. And so be mindful of that. And maybe choose to follow less of that. The other thing that I would add to this category with the algorithm is just total time. Is the iPhone now has the ability to track for you

your app time and usage. And be honest with yourself. And do, you know, be honest with yourself. And do I really need to be on Instagram for four hours of my day? You know, even if you have a business on Instagram, is it necessary to be on there for four hours? And how often is that time if you just waste mindlessly scrolling through stuff like that?

How often is it intentional? Right. And so, you know, I think part of not only setting the algorithm is also being intentional about your usage, your total usage of it and cutting back there. I think both will serve you if you start to pay attention. Now you have to do this consciously because they're so, they're smarter than you are, the people that make these apps and social media platforms.

That's why they're so popular. They're smarter than you are. So you have to be intentional. So when you go on there, say, I want to find information like this, click on it, like it, hover over it, click on it, like it, hover over it. Keep doing this to the algorithm, by the way, models itself very quickly. Within a day or two of doing this, your whole algorithm will change. And the reason why it has to be intentional is because if it's instinctual, you're going

to get caught up in, and you'll see this. I've seen this myself. My algorithm will start to shift back to the alarming stuff. I'm like, oh, I'm not really paying attention. By the way, I did this experiment recently, just on this topic, where my wife encouraged this where you literally turn your phone off for one hour a day. that's it. And here's what's wild, a little bit of panic sets in. And then I now I've noticed the freedom from it. I turn it off and I'm, oh my God, this kind of feels really good. Try that out, just test that on yourself

and see how you feel. You might be surprised that the emotional, kind of roller coaster puts you on and that's a sign right there that this is very powerful. So manage your algorithms to feed you in a way that's gonna help you move in the right direction when it comes to your health and fitness. The second thing is this with diet,

and of course diet's gonna be a part of this, but you wanna eat foods that encourage you to eat less, okay? So here's why that's so important. When you look at the data on sugar, on inflammatory fats, on certain components in food that have been shown to have negative effects, a lot of that gets erased when the calories are low. Okay, in fact, and I know I'm oversimplifying. Okay, so that's a fact, but it's, you even have people who purport that calories are everything, which they are not, but they're very important.

And they'll do something like, I'm going to eat all McDonald's diet and I'm going to show you improvements in my blood numbers, my blood lipids and my markers. I'm going to show you I'm going to lose weight. And they do. Now it's because they're carefully controlling their intake. All right, you don't want to live that way, right? And obviously, if you try to just eat McDonald's or processed foods. You can talk about their cravings that they create. You're going to eat, if you try to just eat McDonald's or processed foods. If you talk about their cravings at the crea,

you're gonna eat over eat. So try to eat foods that you know will make you want to eat less because that's the state you wanna be in long term and most of the time because it's gonna not feel like you're white knuckleing this entire process. All right, so what are those foods? Whole natural foods, high protein foods, period and disorder.

Yeah. Those, fiber, produce the most satiety and fiber. Thank you very much. So high protein, fiber, whole natural foods, those have been shown to hit that satiety button on you very quickly, meaning it's hard to overeat

in comparison to other ways of eating. When you're eating a diet that's high in fiber protein and only whole natural foods. Take ways of eating. When you're eating a diet that's high in fiber protein and only whole natural foods, take those things out and then you're stuck with this. I got a count calories. I got a watch what I'm eating. Oh my God, I overeat.

Oh, I have all these cravings. And you're just, you're fighting this constant feeling which that's torture. And that's not gonna last very long. You're gonna lose that battle. This thanksgiving my nephew who's a senior in high school is really getting into weightlifting and training now and he was asking me lots of diet questions, right? And I asked that one of the things I asked him was, you know, have you ever tracked your

protein intake and hit it every day for 30 days before? And he's like, oh, 30 day now. And I'm like, how often do you miss day? Oh, yeah, I said, I don't want you to do anything else. That's literally all I want you to do is hit your body weight in protein, your goal body weight where you want to be at, right? And just focus on that. I didn't even tell him to avoid processed foods.

I said, as long as you hit your protein intake, then I'll even start there. Yeah, just start there because what I know is going to end up happening in order to hit your protein intake through whole natural foods, you're going to get full. You got to allocate everything in that direction. Yeah, and I even said, I'm like, I tell you, can't enjoy that ice cream ever once a while or eat out with your buddies with that. Just make it a goal that you first hit your protein intake. And then you can do those other things.

And so that's our first thing, like nutritionally. And he's like, and he's asking me all these other questions about carbs and pre-workout and the antipolac window and all of a sudden I said, don't even worry about knowing that yet. Just do this, watch what, watch the change between that and your lifting weights because I know he's already training, he's following the programs. I'm like, I watch what I'm going gonna show you in the change in your body composition and your strength just from that and then we'll add to that other stuff later.

Now Adam's talking about is hitting your target body weight and we say target body weight because if you're overweight and you want to lose weight, you don't want to use the current body weight, you want to use where you want to be. Hit your target body weight in grams of protein. That's hard. I want everybody to understand this right now. It is not easy. I challenge you to do this for more than three days in a row.

Watch what happens. If you're a 130 pound female or you want to weigh 130 pounds, eat 130 grams of protein, day in and day out and I promise you what you're gonna end up feeling is full. You're gonna say, I can't eat this much food. Now, here's what's funny about that. You'll end up eating less calories also.

On a gram per gram calorie per calorie basis, protein produces the satiety of something like 20% or 30% more calories. So when people hit their targets, I mean, I see this with clients. This side, it's took me too long to figure out. I wish I'd figured this out early on. But when I'll tell clients it is, the struggle was not an early on in see this with clients. This is, it's took me too long to figure out. I wish I knew this. I figured this out early on. But when I would tell clients it is,

the struggle was not, early on in my career with clients, the struggle was how to get them to eat less. Ah, you ate over eight. Oh, you got too many cravings. Oh, I noticed really tough. You gotta just have the discipline. You gotta really, you know, you gotta be strong. You can do this.

Later, the argument or the discussion was, you missed your protein. You missed, you gotta eat protein. You gotta miss it. And they would always tell me, I can't. So, I'm your protein. You got to eat protein. You got to miss it. And they would always tell me, I can't. So I'm eating too. I can't do it. I just don't want to eat anymore.

And they would all get leaner as a result because it crushes, it completely crushes your appetite. The other thing that I love about that is, and because we've learned over all these years, of training people, the psychology around, not telling them they can't have something. Of course. And that's what I was doing with him was like,

listen, I'm gonna tell you, you can't have your mom's favorite apple-cobler pie or whatever. I'm not gonna tell you, I know we've switched you around these holidays, but what I'm gonna tell you is just do this first, and then I'll allow you to have those things, but what I know ends up happening is the point you're making. And the people that fail at this, what they do is they hear

that advise, you go, oh wow, he's saying I can't, I can do it, and then they end up inserting that food they want in the middle of the day. Before they hit the protein. Before they hit their protein intake, then they get full in it. And then they come back and say, I've been doing what you told me and I'm just not. And I'm like, it's because you're not listening all the way here. You have to first hit the protein intake. So if you have this food or this thing that you feel that you want, so bad,

wait till you hit your target. Yeah, just make that deal with yourself. I'm not going to, I'm going to eat it later today. After I hit my protein intake, then I'll allow myself to have that and just watch what happens. Psychologically failing because you couldn't restrict yourself, feels a lot worse than failing because you couldn't feed yourself more.

When you're trying to lose weight, that is a very, there's a very big difference psychologically. One of them feels like punishment, restriction. The other one feels like, oh my God, I gotta put more food in my mouth. This is really tough. And it's just a much better strategy. So eat in a way that'll make you naturally want to eat less.

Protein, fiber, whole natural foods, avoid heavily processed foods, because those definitely will make you want to overrate. All right, the next one, lift weights with a plan. So here's the thing, if you've listened to our show for longer than 15 minutes, you know that we strongly advocate for strength training. It's the most effective way, in a time for time basis, to change the way your body looks, improve your health, speed up your metabolism, and lose pure body fat. Okay, it encourages a faster metabolism. You lose more body fat with it

than other forms of exercise, and you don't need to spend as much time doing it to get those results. Most people two, three days a week, and they'll get exception results with proper strength training. Now, here's the downside, or maybe the perceived downside of strength training.

If somebody says they're gonna go run, they just go run. Someone says they're gonna cycle, they're just gonna go cycle. Someone says I'm gonna lift weights. What do I do? There's a thousand exercises. A thousand different ways. There's a thousand different ways to do each one. Not only that, what do the exercises do?

How do I do them right? How do I put them together? How do I put the days together? What are the reps? What about sets? How do I organize this micro cycle, and this this meso cycle and then this macro cycle? Like, what is this all? This is all very complex. So you can't just go to the gym necessarily just lift heavy things without a plan. Have a plan that you can follow. The difference between just lifting and lifting with a plan is massive. It's literally, it's like the difference between

walking and walking with a map. Like yeah, you're walking, but you ain't, you don't know if you're going the right way, the wrong way, you're going up, down, left, or right. If you have a plan and makes a huge difference and make sure you follow a plan that is well written and well programmed by people who actually do this for living, not a plan that looks like it's just flashy or it's designed to make you sweat or it's got some weird, you know,

title on it, like, you know, the one I always use, urban cowboy hip hop workout, whatever. Follow a very well structured, strange training plan and just stick to it. That's all people who write these things and create these things no more than you do. And then follow it, follow it. You have your plan. I'm ready. 2024. This is the one I'm going to follow. Of course, we have great programs. And do that. That's the way you should look for when you follow that particular stuff. I saw a great meme that just describes everything you just said, but it's like these guys that were like building a wall on a bricks. And it said me and my bro, like just, you know, doing our own programming versus like, and they had another wall that was like, you know, all pristine in terms of like

the spacing and everything with the brick wall. And it's like holds up. And the other one's just like all wonky and everywhere. But it's just, you can get what you want. In terms of like you going in and showing up and like putting in work is going to do something. But why not have like a deliberate, thoughtful plan going in so you're actually getting that much closer to your desired outcome? Well, I know for our audience that we've got, you know, I think seven unique good tips for people,

but literally two and three was all I gave my nephew. Yeah. I literally said, you just show me, first of all, the first step, 30 days of hitting your protein and take consistently, right? string it together, and just focus on that. I said, I'm going to set you up for the next nine months with a training, as far as programming, right? Like, I'm going to lay out the programs for you.

So you do the RGB? Yeah, that's it. Just our core three programs that I would run 90% of my clientele through, right, regarding they didn't have a specific goal, right, other than just getting stronger, fitter, right, body composition change. I would run, I'll run you through that. You just hit your protein intake and then we'll just, and I guarantee you, you'll be stronger than you've ever been. You'll be leaner than you've ever been. You'll be more muscular than you've ever been in your entire life just from those two things. And then, then we can get into all the other granular stuff and really start to turn the knobs, But if we haven't done that, if we haven't followed solid program, and by

the way, he was already training like five days a week and I'm like, you don't even need to do that much. I really want you to lift weights three days a week and hit the protein and take this is what it's going to look like and just trust that part. And then I guarantee you're going to be happy. And 100%. That's going gonna work. All right, the next one is really just about the health benefits of daily activity or really what it's really about are the health detriment of not being active every single day.

And that is to walk a little bit three times a day. So no structured cardio, not getting our treadmill and sweating my butt off. I'm not trying to ride a bike for five miles. Literally three times a day go on a seven to 10 minute walk. That's it. Seven to 10 minutes, three times a day. All right, what's that gonna do? All right, it's not gonna make you shredded, do all that stuff.

But what it will do is improve your health markers. It will improve your blood insulin and glucose levels, which helps with your behaviors. It's also a moment to be reflective. Do this without any distraction. And it has a profound effect on lots of other behaviors. When you divide your day up with a, like I said, literally a seven to ten minute walk. When you divide your day up that way, morning, afternoon, and evening, here's what ends up

happening. Here's what I end up finding with clients. When they do this, every time you do that walk, your behavior's a little bit better afterwards. And then it starts to kind of trend downwards, almost like it wears off. It's almost like you take a pill that gives you better behaviors, but the half-life is very short, a few hours, right? Then you get the next walk. Oh, here we go. I'm doing it again.

Nice, self-reflective walk, no distractions, or maybe listen to a good book. That's good too. But I like no distractions. And now it gets you up again. And then kind of viewers awful. And then do one more in the evening to finish off the day. Increases activity. That's true. But really what it does is it improves your behaviors and it helps with your overall health. And again, it's less to do about the walking and more to do with the fact that we lead such sedatory lifestyles that the little bit of activity is profoundly beneficial because of how unhealthy the fact is that we don't move at all.

And I love pairing them after meals, which we've talked about. And mainly the digestion in terms of like the improved digestion of for myself and my clients. I just feel like the majority of people have gut issues and that's just something I've noticed over the years is like so many people, whether they know it or not, have a lot of digestive issues that they could actually work on and improve through obviously better nutritional choices, but then to allowing their body this proper time to digest and to create that movement

and get all the systems working effectively. This is a great way to do that while also getting sun and getting fresh air. A lot of other benefits all kind of combined at once. Well, I think one of the worst habits that we ever created was the, you know, eat a big meal and then pop your feet up on the couch and watch a movie or TV and stuff. And I think that that's pretty common in not only in my own household, but in most households I've been in is like, that's kind of what happens. Like everybody sits around the dinner table or eats lunch. And then afterwards they put their feet up

and they watch a movie or relax. And it's like, man, you will see just, and then I love just taking somebody who's eight and done that for most of their life and just getting the walk to minutes, how much better they instantly feel. It's just your digestive system was not meant to lay down flat like that.

After getting a big meal That gravity works in your favor No, I'm standing up when you're ex when you're walking obviously the muscles of your lower body are contracting and then relaxing It's act like a sponge and they soak up they soak up the blood sugar that you have in your blood So now you have better blood sugar level petition everything you're insulin now because you you don't have insulin sensitivity issues because you're, like it's like a sponge. Think of a sponge, you put in water, you squeeze it, and then you open it, and it sucks

things up. That's what happens. The second thing you talk about digestion, hip flexor muscles and muscles that aid in local motion, right? Lower body movement. Some of these muscles go through the digestive system. I mean, almost. Like, you look at a so-as muscle, it's a hip flexor. It goes through the body and attaches at the

lumbar spine. Every time that shortens and contracts, it actually aids in the digestive process. It actually helps with food moving through. And gravity. And standing up. Yeah, just pull it down. That's a period. And it's so, I like this one because it's so easy. Yes. A seven to ten minute walk is like, for most people, it's down the street and back. So only finishing down that period. And it's so, I like this one because it's so easy. Yes. A seven to ten minute walk is like, for most people, it's down the street and back. So, oh, you finishing down the street? And for, I mean, I've been talking about this for quite some time now.

I think, and one of the best benefits is just the connection with your partner. So, I'm a big fan of, this is another time when you decide to put the phone away in any sort of distraction, and it's an opportunity for you to connect with a partner spouse, a child, whatever. Like this is just, we live in a time now

where we always have our phones in our hands or in our hip, like we're constantly attached to it. Rarely ever do you have two or three people in the same room, and then one of them not always grabbing on their phone. So here's an opportunity for you to connect with the people that you love by putting those away, walking for 10 minutes, improving digestion, moving a little bit, burning a little bit extra calories, and then also connecting with people because

I think it's an important part of health. Totally. All right. This next one is, I really like this one because this is one of those, like, like many of these where if you follow it, there's all these, like, kind of domino effects on other behaviors. And that's really what makes it so beneficial and that is to set a water goal and hit it so for most people most of the clients that trained I would have them Aimed for a half a gallon to a gallon of water every single day now the bigger the person

The more that they sweat the more protein that they consume the more water. I'd have them You know target but half a gallon to a gallon day. I like a gallon for most people because most people end up going just short of it because that's tough, right? And make sure it's spring water. You don't want anything distilled or without any minerals or anything like that in it. But only because a lot of water without those minerals can cause actual muscle cramping and stuff like that. But set a target. So what this looks like is get yourself a bottle that you could fill up with water and realize or notice

how many of those bottles are required to be, let's say your target is a gallon. So maybe it's four of those. So four of these thermos bottles equals a gallon and then track them throughout the day and try to hit those targets every single day. Here's what you'll find. You'll drink less of other calorie containing beverages.

That's the big one. Two, you'll have more energy, less pain, less pain, less inflammation, less less tightness. Your appetite actually is positively affected. That's a brain fog, less brain fog. This is especially if you're busy stress stressed out person I mean how many times if people how many times of you know you watching this right now? Have you said this to yourself? Oh, I forgot to drink today. Oh my god. I haven't drank any water today

It's already three o'clock literally. It's just set it set a goal Have that water with you throughout the day hit that water target watch what happens how you feel This is one of my favorite ones to hear you give as a tip because people that have been listening to the show long enough might remember back in the days, the guys used to tease me for carrying around a one gallon jug. And this was actually... Mark it off. And I actually used to teach my clients to do the same thing.

So it was kind of funny. I know what the guys were teasing about. They were making fun of the Jim Bro with his gallon of water and his 50 supplements. Well, it was a Barbie drug that you're really feeling. But this was my argument that I made back then. I said, no, I disagree with you guys. I actually think that it does have some validity to it. In fact, I used to tell my clients to do it

for this exact reason. Because if you tell someone to drink eight glasses of water, eight none of them track. None of them count. It's too many to keep track. Yeah, or they start counting, then they forget, and then they just write off. We're having that gallon with a line marked on it.

So let's say your three quarters of gallon or a full gallon, which is what I would give most of my clients as a goal, is they can visually see it. And they know if there's no question, there's no question, did I drink three of those yet, or two of those, I can't remember, was it the fourth one I did? No, it's like, there's your gallon,

you started this morning, it's only that far down. And then I'd have clients even mark because they started to learn over time, like where they needed to be by a certain time. And they would put a noon, they'd put a line where they need to be. And then four o'clock in the afternoon, where they need to see it.

Yeah, because you don't wanna be caught up the end of the day. No, you're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. And or you're not going to track it. And so I've always been a fan of this. And the things that I found, ironically, you get up and move and you get to pee more. So you get up and you get those little five-ton minute walks

naturally because you have to go to the rest of all time. When you're a lot of times when the signals that we have of cravings and hunger, a lot of times is triggered by dehydration over all time. When you're a lot of times, when the signals that we have of cravings and hunger, a lot of times is triggered by dehydration of our nuts having and going over and just having some liquid or fluid will help you. It also help you from overeating. So like if you have a good glass or you're drinking water between bites, you'll see that you don't over consume.

So there's a lot of benefits to doing that besides just the fact that we need to stay hydrated and that's a healthy thing for you. So it's one of my favorite easy hacks and tips. It's a simple one. Yes, very simple. All right, next is to train and eat to feel good, not to look good. All right, so why is this such an important one? Well, first off, there's nothing wrong with working out and eating to change how you look. But here's the problem with it, okay? It's not inherently bad or inherently wrong.

But when you're training and when, what's directing your workouts and your diet is the reflection of the mirror, you are far more likely to make decisions that are not good for you or not beneficial or appropriate versus when you're working out and eating to feel good. So, what do I mean by that? Well, if it's all about what the scale says and the mirror says,

which of course is very subjective. So, it's feeling is very subjective. But boy, can the mirror be quite evil subjective, you know, enemy? When you're doing it that way and all of a sudden you look at the mirror, oh, I don't, oh, am I puffy today? Am I a little heavy or I don't see that bicep vein or whatever. Then you're more likely to ignore the signs of your body. You feel bad. I'm going to the gym anyway. I'm supposed to have an easy workout today. I'm gonna beat myself up anyway. Or I'm going to force myself to eat this way because I hate the way I look type of deal.

And then you develop this kind of bad relationship with food, which eventually you rebel from versus how do I feel? Well, I feel energized. I'm gonna have a hard workout or I feel tired. You know what, I'm gonna go easy to do my workout or I'm stiff, you know what, today's a mobility day. I'm not gonna do the heavy lifting or diet. Hey, I know I'm supposed to eat this particular way to lose weight or to whatever, but my digestion's off.

So I really need to shift to these foods that help my digestion or these foods that help my energy or these foods that help my mood because I notice when I eat this other way I get moody. If you train and eat to feel good, and I mean the truest sense, to feel good, not just the impulsive, hedonistic feel good that will get temporarily, but the actual true feeling good, you are more likely to make the right decisions. And those decisions are more likely to make you look good. So the irony of what I'm saying is you'll look good, more likely to look good if you do this to feel good versus the other way around.

Yeah, the more in tune you are with your body's natural signals, the better you're going to recover and then adapt and move forward in your progress. And that's like a really hard concept for people because to Adam's point always it's like this, like it doesn't make sense in any other thing or pursuit that you do in terms of my work that I'm pursuing to be the best at or learning more than anybody else I put in like nothing but hard work

and then it pays off. And this is just one of those things that you have to really listen to your body's ability the more than anybody else I put in, like nothing but hard work and then it pays off. And this is just one of those things that you have to really listen to your body's ability to communicate with you as to whether or not I feel tight restricted, whether I feel like I have zero energy, whether I feel like I just, you know, maybe I can get after it and go a little more intense right now, like you got to really pick up on those signals and peer into that because that's really where it's not going to lead you astray. So to do that, a lot of times, if you're just looking at the mirror, you're just looking at this visual perception

of yourself, it's not going to tell you the whole story. A lot of times it's going to create this idea that I need to go harder and I'm going to train harder, which then you're going to interrupt your recovery, which then puts you in this sort of hamster. Along those lines, your body doesn't communicate to you through the mirror, nor the scale. Your body communicates to you by the way you feel. So if you want to listen to your body, basing it off of how you look is not listening to my. In fact, it's ignoring. It's actually encouraging to ignore what your body's telling you. Well, the reason why this is such a good tip is, and we actually just recently talked

about this, you, no matter what, you eventually have to move this way, right? You don't have to tell anybody who's just getting started on the journey, how to motivate them to want to look better. Most people come in the gym that way. Almost all of us were motivated because I want to look better. And that's why I'm here. Like that's easy. Most people feel that already. But if you want this to be sustainable long term

and you want to continue this as a lifestyle, you'll have to move away from just the way you look to learning all these other things, which is why we always teach our clients to start looking at these things. It's like, yes, I know you wanna lose a hundred pounds, yes, I know you wanna look like a certain way that you used to look before, whatever,

but I also want you to be connected to your sleep, your mood, your libido, your hair, your skin, your energy level, like all these other things you've gotta learn to be connected to, because those are the things that are after you get, you obtain this look that you want because those are the things that are after you get, you obtain this look that you want, like that's what's gonna sustain you long-term,

and you're better off learning to connect the foods and the way you eat to how those things make you feel better, because it's gonna be more sustainable. Also, if you're going into 2024, and you, I mean, if you had everything identical, two people identical, identical situations, one listened to how their body felt, the other one just looked at the mirror

and chased the look. At the end of that year, the person who chased the feeling good would look better. So it's also the faster, better way to get there. So that's the kicker. All right, the last one has to do with sleep. Obviously, sleep's important.

The data on sleep is, I mean, it's unequivocal. It's very, very important for health, behaviors, fat loss, muscle gain, hormones. But there's a lot of things we can do to improve our sleep or there's a lot of knobs we can turn to try to improve our sleep. But one of them, or many of them, have big effects. So there's have much smaller effects, right? Like smaller effect, blue light blocking glasses

before you go to bed. Everybody talks about that. What's the effect? You get an effect, but it's not this big profound one. Well, when you look at the data on sleep, it's now becoming quite clear that there's something that almost everybody does that has profoundly negative effects on the quality of your sleep.

And that's the following. They go to bed at the same time, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday night, they go to bed late, they try to sleep in Saturday, they go to to bed late, they try to sleep in Saturday, they go to bed late Saturday, they try to sleep in Sunday, they go to bed Sunday, now I got to wake up early again on Monday. And they're giving themselves jet lag every single week, every single week, every week, people circadian rhythms are forced to shift. The data on changing your circadian rhythm, on people that travel often,

on people that work swing shifts, is clear. It's terrible for health, terrible for hormones, terrible for muscle building, terrible for fat loss. It's not good for anything. So one of the best, most profound things you could do with the big impact when it comes to sleep is simply this, this right here. You don't have to do anything else but this

and you'll have a big impact. Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every day. If you adjusted that, most people would see incredible improvements in their sleep quality and the benefits that come along with that. This one hits home for me so much right now because more than ever have I hopped around time zones,

I think we were in four different time zones over the last month, right? Which I don't think that's ever happened to me. We're, I've been in four different time zones in one month, actually, it was in two and a half weeks. And I've had the hardest time getting back to my sleep routine and my training routine because of that.

I can't remember the last time that I struggled to like really get good nights rest consistently for two or three days and get my training back. And so this is, to me, it's just this is this microcosm of what happens to some people that are constantly traveling or stay up until two in the morning one time and then you go to bed at eight o'clock another time and then like up early and then up later. Like man, I can only imagine doing that and then also trying to bed at eight o'clock another time and then like up early than up later, like man, I can only imagine doing that and then also trying to be consistent with my nutrition and training

is I can feel what that feels like right now. And I'm like, God, that would be so difficult. So this is such a good tip because you don't realize how much more difficult you make it for yourself. It's not like you can't get shredded and fit and be inconsistent about your bedtime just that you make it a lot harder for yourself by doing that a lot harder

And this is why everybody hates Mondays is because they literally shifted their circadian rhythm over the weekend And then forced it to go back and their jet lag and they feel like I'm the case of the Mondays And they feel like absolute garbage. All right look Here's a deal. We talked about strength training with the plan That's the one thing we definitely can help you with. So we have something called the RGB bundle. This is three workout programs you follow in sequence. Maps and a ball, maps performance, maps aesthetic.

This is roughly nine months of planned out programming. Literally, you just follow the programs as they're laid out and you now have exceptional strength training programming that you can follow. And what we're doing because of this episode is we're making the RGB bundle 50% off. So it's half off right now because of this episode. So if you're interested, go to maps, disembr.com, and then use the coupon code RGB50

for that 50% off discount. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes

and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump. family. We thank you for your support and until next time this is Mindbomper.