Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2584: How to Cold Plunge the Right Way & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: How to cold plunge the RIGHT way. (2:05) The power of food. (21:05) Doug’s experience at the World Shakuhachi Festival. (27:38) Wearing the appropriate outfit for where you are. (33:40) Easter with The Di Stefano’s. (40:10) Introducing Mind Pump’s newest partner, Jolie. (47:44) Probiotics as performance-enhancing supplements. (51:36) #ListenerLive question #1 – Should I change anything about my training during this transition period, while I’m still between stress and not-so-ideal recovery? (54:31) #ListenerLive question #2 – Should I open a private training studio? (1:03:27) #ListenerLive question #3 – What is the best program for fat loss/building strength during menopause? (1:16:36) #ListenerLive question #4 – Any advice on getting started in the personal training space and being successful? (1:26:33) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order of their best products. ** Visit Jolie for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Try it out for yourself with FREE shipping. And if you don’t like it— you can return your Jolie for a full refund within 60 days, no questions asked. ** April Special: MAPS HIIT or Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** Study Finds Cold Plunges May Reduce Muscle Growth After Strength Training Workouts Cold plunges actually change your cells | ScienceDaily Texas A&M hosts World Shakuhachi Festival, inviting more to learn about instrument’s culture Impact of probiotic supplementation on exercise endurance among non-elite athletes: study protocol for a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, clinical trial Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** MP Holistic Health Online Personal Training Course | Mind Pump Fitness Coaching ** Approved provider by NASM/AFAA (1.9 CEUs)! Grow your business and succeed in 2025. ** Personal Trainer Growth Secrets | Powered by Mind Pump Mind Pump #2582: The Strange Signs & Symptoms of Perimenopause With Dr. Mary Claire Haver Mind Pump #2515: How to Become a Successful Trainer in 2025 Ask Mind Pump Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram Jake Heyen (@jakeheyen) Instagram Ben Bruno (@benbrunotraining) Instagram Mary Claire Haver, MD (@drmaryclaire) Instagram  

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We got to coach them on air. There's four of them, but this was after our intro. Today's intro was 51 minutes long. Now in the intro, we talk about fitness, strength training, fat loss, diet, talk about current events, family life. It's a good time. By the way, if you wanna be on an episode like this

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We also have a sale this month on some workout programs. Maps Hit and the Extreme Fitness Bundle are both 50% off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code April 50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. Cold plunging. Everybody does it wrong. Yes, there's studies that show that it reduces

muscle growth, but everybody's freaking out over that, and that's because they have no idea how to apply it properly. We're gonna talk about the right ways to use the cold plunge to improve your health and improve the quality of your life, and of course we'll cover the ways you shouldn't use the cold plunge. I like this one. You're doing it wrong.

I'm gonna start with some studies. So there's studies have been circulating showing that cold plunging reduces muscle protein synthesis. I have one here that shows after resistance training there was a 30% reduction in amino acid update and there was a blunted nutrient delivery that lasted for about three hours. So of course everybody's like stop cold plunging. Because we need. Losing the gains.

Yeah, we're losing our gains. And there's other studies that show that it reduces the muscle building signal if you cold plunge post workout. Well, I'm here to tell you, that's because people are using it wrong, you're using it wrong. There are tremendous values to using cold plunge if you use it right. By the way, there's lots of benefits to strength training too if you do it right. If you do it wrong, there are tremendous values to use in cold plunge if you use it right. By the way, there's lots of benefits to strength training too if you do it right.

If you do it wrong, there's terrible effects as well. Everything has to be used properly in order to gain its benefit. You just have to understand how it works, how to use it, and how not to use it. Otherwise you're either going to screw yourself or you're going to miss out on its benefits. So I'll start with the first benefit that's clear, that's shown in the data, using the cold plunge to boost immune system function. The data on that is pretty amazing.

It boosts white blood cell count and it strengthens the immune system and there's lots of studies, other studies that show even just population studies that show less colds, less infections, less flu, like literally makes people less prone to getting sick. That's one of the most pronounced effects, pronounced effect of cold plunging,

and the way to use it for that is about three, four days a week. Yeah, and that's like the holistic health approach. That's right. And so it's like, yeah, you wanna use, you wanna use it for performance. That's a whole other subject. But yeah, for just like obvious health reasons, it's definitely something you want to add

in to your routine. I know my personal story is, you know, anecdote, right? So people right away are going to say that. But if you guys remember, this was back when we were at the other studio when we first started. I do. And it was not, it wasn't as popular as it was now, right? Everybody wasn't talking about it. In fact, cryotherapy was probably the more popular thing at that time. That was easier. That was coming on the scene. And I started doing that, had access to it and it was really cool.

And the thing that I reported back to you guys that it blew me away was if I was consistent with that, meaning I was doing that two or three times a week, I was not getting sick. I get sick. I get sick. If I'm the guy who's in the room with two other people or three other people and one person's sick, I'm going to be the guy who gets the cold every time. That's just your history. I know that about you. Yes, and when I start, the biggest takeaway I had

from doing it consistently was that. More than anything else, and there's other cool benefits I know you're gonna go over, but that was the one that really sold me, and then any time I fall off, and I'm inconsistent, that's, I'll be sick. By the way, there's a long history of cold plunging in certain populations, where they've been using it for a long time, mainly Eastern bloc,

Eastern European nations have been using this for a long time, specifically for the reason of boosting the immune system. In fact, they do this with children. Yeah, they throw them outside in the snow and take their shirts off, right? And they just immerse themselves in it. You could watch videos of elementary schools in some of these Eastern European countries

where it's snow outside of snow. The kids go outside for recess. Yep. They put on bathing suits. They play in the snow and the teachers dump ice water on the kids. It's a part of their culture. My wife, at one point she traveled to Ukraine, she had some relatives that were over there,

and she said that the way that they bathe their babies is they finish all their baths with freezing cold water. And you ask, why are you doing that? And it makes their immune system stronger. So there's a long history of this, and there's data to support this. In fact, I just pulled up a study that was done from the University of Ottawa,

this was March 28, 2025. This is in Science News. The summary of the study, cold water immersion for seven days, that's a week, okay, significantly improves cellular resilience and autophagic function. In other words, cells are able to manage stress better through this process. So is that separate from, because I've never explained this right, when someone asked me the mechanism at which it's doing that, like I've never been able to articulate that really well. And so I thought it had more to do with your body, because most colds and some of that

happen in the winter time. That's when we normally spread a lot. And my thought was we are in this like controlled temperature environment all the time. You get out, you keep your AC at 70 degrees, you can get in your car, you're at 70 degrees. Like we never had this fluctuation of really hot, really cold. And the contrast of that.

The abrupt change. That abrupt change is stressful on somebody's body. So all of a sudden you go into winter and we're really, really cold. Your body hasn't, it's been nice temperature for the last six months. Now it's gonna hit sets, like now now you're vulnerable and so all it takes is someone with a cold nearby and you're susceptible. Now that you train that

because you do a cold punch, you are less susceptible. That's kind of how I've... I would agree with you Adam. Now what they would say is that there's less sunlight exposure, we're indoors with more people, but I agree with you. I think that's part of it because, look, I had this experience years ago. I lived in Palm Desert for a while. I had a gym down there. And I remember when I went there, it was over the summer. Now the summers in Palm Desert are.

Crazy. Oh, 120 plus. Oh, 7 a.m. it's 90 degrees. It would hit 120 routinely. It was so hot, it was unbearably hot. But I lived there for a while and I acclimated and I remember coming up here during the summer to visit my family and it was 90 degrees.

Everybody was complaining about how hot it was and I remember being like, it feels totally fine. I had this experience with a client as well. I had a client who came from Wisconsin. She literally worked on a farm. She came and it was here in San Jose, it was like 48 degrees, which for us is freezing cold. It never gets that cold except for here.

She was wearing shorts and short sleeve shirt. And I'm like, oh my God, aren't you cold? She's like, are you kidding me? I'm used to our winters over there. She's like, this is nice. And so your body's ability to acclimate to temperature is a muscle, and it gets weak because we're always in temper control environments.

And I think that that definitely, weakening that weakens lots of other systems of the body, strengthening it improves your resilience and again we have the data to support this 100%. And you lived in Chicago right? Did you have that same experience? It's a very similar story to that because I was exposed to like extreme,

it was like 30 below like because of the wind chill and my roommate was this big guy, he was like close to 400 pounds at the time And so he slept with the window open and like I would close it and then he'd open it You know and it would just I remember just nights where I was just Freezing until I finally acclimated to it and then coming back Went to like a football game to just like hang out with everybody. And I was in shorts, t-shirts, like nothing. And everybody's freezing, like bundled up in these like parkas.

And yeah, it's crazy how quickly, though it took me about a couple months and then I was like pretty adapted. Yeah, so is that, back to my original question to you, so is that independent to the cellular or is that one and the same? I think that's all part of it. I think it's your body's ability to,

so there's immune system boosting that we see in the data and then there's your body's ability to acclimate to stress and so it's a hormetic stress, right? And your body learn, and again, I think this is a stress that humans dealt with for a long time. For most of human history, if it was hot, you were hot. If it was cold, you were cold. I mean, we had fires and stuff, but it's not your house,

where your house is always 70 degrees. So it's just the muscle. And you know this, by the way, if you cold dip or use a sauna regularly, you get better at it. You get aclum, your body actually get better at it, and I think it's strengthening that ability. So yeah, for sure. Now the next way to use it well is to replace coffee.

So what's interesting about cold dipping is that, or cold plunging, is that it produces or releases these catecholamines that give you energy, not unlike what caffeine does. But here's the difference. You don't have this kind of- No crash. No, because caffeine, so, and here's a theory around it,

we see this with other studies as well. When you do something hard to get the catecholamine release, you don't get the same adaptation with the receptors down, regulating stuff like that. Like drinking coffee's easy. Well isn't it like endogenous versus exogenous in terms of like you're producing it because of the stressor of it versus the chemical

you're intaking with caffeine. Yeah, so like if you get a spike in feel-good chemicals because of something easy, your body acclimates and adapts and reduces its effect. If your spike comes from doing something hard, you tend to continue with that. So to give an example, if you get that like euphoric, you know, call it runner's high or whatever, we get when you train really

hard. Like you always get that when you train hard. It's not like caffeine or alcohol or something like that. You need more and more to continue to get that same effect and when they've examined this in the brain, that doing things that are hard to get this this good feeling, it just sticks around. So when you do a cold plunge in the morning, you get the effects of caffeine without the wear off and without the crash. And I feel like it carries on.

That's right. It's like a consistent high or how you feel where caffeine tends to have this kind of bell curve where it's like, you first drink it, it doesn't really hit, then it starts to hit and you're like, oh, this is peak at caffeine and then, oh, you get about an hour of that great feeling or two, and then it feels like you're crashing,

where this just kind of feels like it does this all day. I've noticed too, when I was experimenting with that, because I remember you guys had suggested that and I wanted to try it. And I originally was just doing it in my face, and it was great because it would like, I would get some of that initial spike in energy. But when I went all the way and immersed myself in it,

now I had a lot more endurance in my workout. Because my core temperature never really got too crazy. Yes, yes. Next is to use it for inflammation. It's actually remarkably powerful at reducing total body inflammation, which by the way, is why it also blunts the muscle building signal, okay?

But for some people, it's a good idea to reduce inflammation sometimes because they have a lot of inflammation. Now who would be somebody that would benefit from this? I'll give you an example. Yeah, hardcore training athletes. That's why it's been popular for so long. We've been doing this in the professional sport world

for a very long time. You've seen athletes use it to recover so they could go practice later on or get a game the next day. Double days of living died by it. Yes, or I mean, even to the point where you see this happening in game time now, like ballplayers, the guys when they sub out in the game,

literally wrap ice on their knees and they wrap, they got all these cold. Norma Tech boots. Yeah, right away. They're not even waiting till afterwards. They're kind of, and the whole idea is just to bring that inflammation down as fast as they can So it doesn't hinder their play and so that has been practiced for a very very long time

So this the science is very clear on the benefits of that It just gets convoluted when you start talking about hypertrophy You also have people with like autoimmune issues that just cause systemic inflammation and they have to take anti-inflammatories have to take Immune mod immunomodulating drugs to try to reduce this kind of inflammatory response. Digestive inflammation, you have osteoarthritis or joint type inflammation. There's lots of things that you can do to help that, but cold plunging is probably, I would say, is definitely a great way to reduce systemic inflammation. It can reduce inflammation in the brain, which is connected to things like depression and anxiety.

This is why cold plunging has been shown to reduce depression, in my opinion. So people with kind of chronic inflammation or chronic inflammatory type issues, cold plunging three days a week, four days a week, can be a natural medicine, something that you don't have to take in a drug to accomplish. And then lastly, it's what we just talked about, which is to increase workout capacity.

There is a class of people who workout. There's a category of people that workout regularly who could care less about the muscle building signal. What they're looking for is can I practice and train as much as possible to get good as possible at my sport? Performance. And that's athletes. Athletes don't practice football to get jacked. That's a side effect.

The more football they can play, the better they can get at playing football. The more basketball you can play, the better you can get at basketball. The limiting factor to how much basketball you can play is your body ability to recover. You have to at some point stop where you're just killing yourself. You're breaking things out. Well, what if there was a way to be able to add an extra practice and it was natural? Is that beneficial? You better believe it. Cold plunging post-workout. This is when they say don't do it right? For athletes

this is amazing. You mentioned double days. You're going hard in the morning and double days for football is brutal. You're going hard in the morning you going to come back in the afternoon cold plunging between. Now you can practice and practice and practice and you've increased your work capacity by 20, 30 percent, 50 percent. Is that going to make you a better athlete? Yes. In fact, oftentimes what differentiates great athletes from good athletes besides talent is just their body's ability to acclimate to that stress. They can just practice more than everybody. They don't get broken down.

Now leave it to the fitness industry to take something really, really good, find a way to bastardize it, and now there's tons of confusion around it. Yes. It's like we've known for a very long time all the benefits of this, okay, this isn't new science, but it got popular somewhere, and then everybody started a new science, but it got popular somewhere.

And then everybody started doing it. And then it became popular to counter it, why it's not good. And so now what happens, and this is a part of our space. This is a part of our space that frustrates the hell out of me because- Everybody's so confused. Yes, because you take something that is really good,

and then again, it gets bastardized. And then you get the guys that come on and use the counter-s gets bastardized. And then you get the guys that come on and use the counter-science to it. And then you get the average person who's trying to make a healthier lifestyle, do things that are good for them, and they're lost. Is it good, is it not good?

Because I don't know. I've been told that it's bad for building muscle. I've been told it's good for this, and so I don't know what to believe. And then they just stall out and don't do anything. I feel like we do this with so many things. Cold plunging is one of those things. We do this with diet. We do like everything in the fitness, in the marketing fitness space points to aesthetics. Okay, everything's about aesthetics. Everything makes you, if it looks,

makes you look good, it's good. If it doesn't make you look good, then it's bad. And if it's healthy for you but it has maybe a potential for improving aesthetics, that's what we're going to focus on. So like fasting is a great example. Fasting has tremendous benefits and applications, especially from a spiritual perspective. But of course, if you don't eat, lose weight. So what do they turn into? A diet, right? Which is a terrible diet. Fasting is a terrible diet. Well, this is what they did with cold plunging. So if your goal is muscle growth only, that's all you care about is building muscle and you're not going to add any more volume but when you add the cold

plunging then don't cold plunge post workout. Now if you cold plunge post workout so that you can train more often then you're okay. You'll actually balance out the fact that it reduces the muscle building signal because you're in the gym more often. If you're like look I only go to the gym three days a week, that's the most muscle building signal, because you're in the gym more often. But if you're like, look, I only go to the gym three days a week, that's the most I can do, I'm not gonna go anymore, my main goal is building muscle, all the other benefits you talked about, I'm not really interested in,

the only time I could cold plunge is post-workout, so I'm just not gonna do it, fine. Then that's totally right for you. Or do it and be okay with the fact that it doesn't give you the maximum amount of muscle building too. Cause that's the other side of this is that you use that scenario. Cause I've had someone tell me that before.

Like it's just really convenient for me Adam to plunge afterwards, you know, because that's just the time I have. It's at the gym I go to, but I've heard it's terrible for building. Yeah, it does, but it's not gonna stop you from building muscle. It's just, you're not optimizing it at the absolute peak level. But I mean, come on,

how many other things in your life could you probably get a little bit better that would make up for that? Make up for that ground. Get yourself another hour of sleep or hit your protein and take consistently for a little bit longer. All those things are gonna end up benefiting you in the muscle building. You know what the irony of this, Stu Adam Adam, is is that the people who are most obsessed about this are also ones that are most likely to be redlining with their workouts. Exactly.

Who will probably build more muscle from the- They've got more sleep and recovery. And not only that, but they'll probably build muscle from plunging. Totally. Because they could use a reduced inflammatory signal because they're always pushing it too hard. You know, it's pretty funny.

Next up, if you're just severely overstressed, right? You're lacking sleep, your hormones are off, you're not doing well at all, well, adding any additional stress on the body, which would include an intense workout, right, or cold plunging regularly, might not be a good idea. So you'll see functional medicine practitioners, when they'll look at someone's cortisol levels,

and they have the inverted you know the bad cortisol where it's low in the morning spikes at night and they have you know HP access dysfunction they'll typically tell those person that person hey let's back off on the cold plunging maybe once a week or none for a little while. Well I think it's important to know because Doug's not even that bad but Cabral told Doug he shouldn't. Right. It's just cortisol was high at night. Yeah and it wasn't like dangerously high, it was just higher, and the goal is to optimize his sleep

and get better at that. It's not making that any easier. It's not better. So it makes sense not to. That's right. Next up, when you're already sick, which I don't know what kind of psycho would want to jump in a cold plunge.

The last thing I would want to do is jump in a 40 degree. Oh, headache. While you're already sick. But there's somebody out there that might think this is a good idea, bad idea. You're already sick, you're just gonna stress yourself more. It'd be like working out when you're sick. I mean, I know people have done that for like a heat

and they'll go in the sauna, different animal, but like for cold, that just makes zero sense. Well what happens when your body is fighting an infection? What does it do? It gives you a fever. It raises you up. It raises you up because that can actually help the immune system, so sauna might make sense

unless you're already in an active fever. You could overdo it for sure. But the cold, no, don't go into cold dip, don't freeze yourself when you're already sick. And that same thing, I would say, just overly stressed period, right? Which you kind of said that with the last one. It's just you don't have to necessarily have the

cortisol inverted, although that might be correlated with that. It's like period, just knowing that, okay, I've got a lot going on in my life. That's another stress, probably not the best thing to do. Bro, talking, speaking about stress, so I gotta tell you guys, just, and I know this through training people, I know you guys know this as well

But experiencing myself always reminds me of the power of food. Okay, just are you gonna talk about your fat face now? So I feel so good today, I just want to point that out I feel like Adam level I think I'm not the fattest face today. I just want to say that so camera doesn't lie so take a look I think been squirreling away pretty sure he's got fat face today for the first time I feel a little skinny right now you know what I did so we we did we had Easter you know celebration my family and which we'll talk about I'll tell you guys all about that but I ate terribly like and I what mean terrible, I drank and I drank beer, which beer has gluten in it, which not good for me.

And I drank four beers, which is a lot for me. Then I ate gluten, then I ate dairy. Like these are things I'm tired of. No holds barred for you this week. No holds barred. And I ate the whole time, we went to a park, so it was a big family reunion at a park and I just ate.

And then I ate candy. Oh my God, you did it all. And then I got home, and then we got home, and here's what's funny about eating crappy food. Meanwhile too, you're recovering from an injury too. So this is where I'm gonna go. So I hurt my back on my hamstring like a week and a half ago,

and it's been getting better but it's still iffy right so anyway I'm eating terribly and here's what happens to when you eat terrible it's so funny you'll eat terrible and even though you feel like dog crap you'll crave more of it which is really weird so then I get home and I'm like babe I'm just gonna work cheeseburger so then I eat cheeseburger more gluten more dairy more garbage and I had then I have jelly beans so go to bed wake wake up, and my back, which was getting better, it's like the day after I got, I heard it.

It's terrible. You guys see me walking today? All that beautiful inflammation. It's just inflammation city. My whole body is super inflamed from it. Terrible, absolutely terrible. What is that that causes that, like you said? Immune response.

No, no, no, no, no, I know that. I'm talking more about the way that, you pointed something out that I think is such a true statement. Like you do something like that, you eat a bunch of bad food, it makes you feel worse, but that yet you still want. More insult to injury. Yeah. It's like sadistic.

Like what is it about us that's going on that causes you still to do that where... Some temporary reward. Weird. Is it that? That's part of it, to do that where... Some temporary reward. Weird. Is it that? You think it's that? That's part of it, but it's also drug-like effects. That's how I feel. I feel more like that.

Like a pull towards it. I shouldn't be pulled towards this. I know how it's making me feel, but man, it just sounds good right now. The best thing I could have done when I came home was fast for the rest of the day and just drink a bunch of water. But no, it's a drug-like effect.

It's like I start going through withdrawal. And I know what it is, I could feel it. And I'm like, why am I ordering this cheeseburger? Whatever, give into it, because I'm weak and I eat it. And then- Well, and you know that what you're saying is true because the reverse is true. If you've ever stayed away from all that stuff or so.

You stop craving it. You don't even crave it. You could be around it and be like, eh, it's okay. I don't have to pull to it. You guys remember Super Size Me, that documentary thing, dude? Yeah, yeah. Remember what he said?

At first he was kind of forcing himself. Yeah. And then he's like, I feel like garbage, but I crave it. I don't even like it, but I'm eating it anyway. And then he started to crave it. So yeah, I woke up at 3 a.m. and I'm like, oh man, I can feel my back. You know what it is, by the way?

Just a little more detail. It's my psoas muscle that I pulled when I was working out. So the psoas, it's actually a hip flexor, but it goes through the body, attaches at the spine. A lot of times people have psoas pain and they'll call it back pain, but it's the psoas muscle. The psoas. Pulling on the low back.

The psoas goes through the digestive system. So you inflame that too, then it's like, just double whammy. So what happens when your digestive system's inflamed, it bloats and it gets inflamed, and it changes the recruitment pattern of all your stabilizers for your lumbar spine, including the psoassoas which was already injured and now it's inflamed on top of it. So it's just working poorly plus inflammation.

The best irony of this is that you know it because you know this happens to people, clients all the time and they just don't know, they don't realize it. They don't realize like you know you just pulled your back, you know that you just inflamed all your digestive system, like that is just gonna exacerbate that whole situation. The irony is that you know damn well what's coming and then you still do it where the average person's like, this makes no sense, why is my low back hurting? Well most people don't know that your food

can have a pronounced effect on pain. Everybody thinks obese, you know, I gain fat, I lose fat, whatever. They think maybe cognitive performance, there's a lot of data to support that, that you know the way you eat will affect how you think. The way you eat will affect your mood. This is all backed by data and the way you eat will affect pain. I just had this conversation with my oldest because we were in Palm Desert. He actually is missing practice, you know, for the week. So we decided that we would look into going to this gym that was there already, like a gymnastic gym that was there. And they let him.

And so he came in, but like their equipment is different. And it's really like the floor for someone is really hard. And so he, you know, the first day was okay, but he's like, man, it's really stiff and my joints hurt and all this stuff. And was he doing, he's eating, you know, candy and all this stuff. And I'm like, this is not going to help you. Trust me, this is a horrible idea. Goes back the next day and he's just, oh my God, like, it just, you know, all kinds of pain and it totally was just inflammation. Bro, I had a client that was a doctor that I used to love to train because he was, I love him, he's funny,

but he was also like, he had that like, you know, like a whole attitude, right? Where he would always talk crap to me about something I'd say. He would say like, oh, what is that, that, you know, foo-foo science that you like to share? We would have debates like this, right? And one time we were talking and he's in pain, right?

And he just had told me about how much wine he had the night before, whatever. I said, what, probably it was your diet. He rolled his eyes so hard, like right, just to show me, he rolled his eyes. Oh, yeah, my diet's why my back's hurting, Sal. It's not because I have this thing. I'm like, no, no, your diet will affect how you feel.

We had this whole discussion for the whole session. And then he, I said, I tell you what, I did a challenge, I said, eat the way I tell you, and if you don't get significantly better, I'll give you 10 sessions free. Now, I charged a lot for 10 sessions. So he's like, I'll take that challenge. He came back, he's like, I actually wanna lie to you,

because I like the 10 sessions, because my pain is way better. And I looked it up, Sal, there's lots of data to support it. What's in your face, man? That's so funny. That's such a common doctor. Oh, we became such good friends. He used to talk so much crap to me.

We were all in different places. You were Palm Desert. Doug, where you go? I was in Texas. How was it? How was Texas? How was the event? Name what's the call?

How do you call it? What do you call it? It's the World Shokuhachi Festival. I have to have him say that. There's no way. Shokuhachi. Shokuhachi. Which means what?

It's a, well, the Shokuhachi is a Japanese flute. And so- It was the flute that's what it was for. Yes. For some reason I thought food. I don't know why I thought so. It's the flute that's in Cruddy Kid, right? Well, so maybe.

It's the one you've been learning how to play. Yes, so I went there, there was around 220 people from around the world. I mean, I met people from all over the world. That's a lot for that little. Yeah. How many? Like 220 people.

Oh, okay. And I would say about 25, 30% of them came in from Japan. And some of these were the top players in the world. How much, let me ask you a question, how much pleasure and joy do you get out of looking the way you do and then speaking Japanese, Japanese people? They must be like so excited. Well, so I would like to say that that was a great experience of mine, but there were some people there like white people that could speak Japanese way better than me.

Yeah, so I was not anything special at all. In that setting, it's not that cool. In other settings, it's probably way cooler. Like a restaurant when no one's ready for it. Yeah, exactly. At a party when no one's there. Let me order for you. But there, you probably-

I kind of wanted to give up, obviously, after hearing some of these guys. Well, they've lived like 20, 30 years in Japan, some of these people. Yeah, yeah. And so they speak Japanese very fluently. Did you buy any special flutes? I actually did buy a flute.

Did you jam with like a bunch of people? So there were a lot of workshops. Did you call jamming with flutes? They jam, I swear. It is a jam. So there are a lot of workshops I went to. And I'm pretty much a beginner. I started in August of last year,

and we have people there that were playing 20, 30, 40 years, right? And so some of these workshops are way over my head. A little discouraging to be honest. But when you talk about jamming, so every night they, well, they had many concerts during the day and then they had like big concerts at night in like a legit hall and they invited the local public to them as well. And it's just amazing what these people can do. Yeah. But they all kinds of genres of music. It's pretty remarkable. I mean- And is it common that like someone who plays this to be solo or are they part of a band? No, both. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of solo stuff. When you go- What's with that? Like a harp? Well, the shamisen, which's a lot of solo stuff when you go with that like a harp and Well the shamisen which is a Japanese basically stringed instrument. That's really long

Oh, I've seen that in kung fu movies Koto which is like a three string guitar. Why would you know that? Why would you know because I've just seen like compilations from for movies? Oh, yeah So that's oftentimes played with like traditional Japanese. I've seen kung fu movies too, where like, there are kung fu fighters who use it, but they'll like, use it as part of their fighting and stuff. Really? Yeah, dude, it's fun.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the really cool things that happened was, I was there till Sunday, the event actually ended Sunday evening, so I missed the last day. But the night before they took us to this little town outside of, uh, where we were in college station, where

Texas A&M is, it's called Round Top and it's like a little Western town and they have a really nice theater there. But after that concert, there was a dinner and they had a country Western band there. But a couple of these American flute players, they had the band back them up with some like blues, blues chords and things like that.

And they were just jamming. I mean, it was really cool. Yeah. You guys heard a band, Doug? I got to get a lot better before I do anything like that. Good place to meet chicks or no um oh He paused I paused I mean I put him on the spot

There's some attractive Japanese girls there, but you know I spoke to a couple of them Did you end up making friends with anybody? I mean obviously talking to people yeah, I bet Times you exchange your number. I really didn't exchange numbers I did I did meet this one guy on the bus on the last day, Japanese guy, he's kind of sitting there all alone and I started talking to him and he didn't really speak much English so that was great because I could speak Japanese to him and so I did get his information. Is there a type of person that's into this like there's like as far as like their career path or is it

just so diverse like there? It's super diverse. That was one of the questions I asked a lot of people is like, what drew you to this instrument? Because it's so obscure in my mind, especially if you're a Westerner, right? A lot of them were musicians and it was interesting that some of these people, like pro musicians, and they used to play stringed instruments and they said, I've stopped playing all my other instruments. Cause it's a super challenging instrument but there's so much you can do with it. It's just, yeah, it's a real fascinating trip. One of these days.

Not right now but. Yeah. We should have you open up one of the episodes. I just want to see Doug do that. You know what, Doug's so undercover. You said you're a beginner. I bet he's way better than you making a beginner. I bet he's way better than you making this thing. I bet he starts playing it and we're like, oh no.

No, I wish he would leave that way. He's only been going for less than a year. Yeah, but Doug, you know Doug, bro. He dives in so deep. We're all like that. We're all obsessive about whatever our thing is. It takes time to- I think I'm doing well for how long I've been doing it, but you know. You'll know when he's starting to feel calm about it He'll start carrying it to work and shit between podcasting. A little crack open the case. Did you play for those two girls that you talked to or they know you,

Jan? Trust me. I it's not like like a guitar, right? Pull it out in a girl's flock. You know, I don't think it's that kind of I always took that guitar smash. How was the spot? No, you stayed in a hotel or Airbnb? You know, I don't think it's that kind of instrument. I always took that guitar and smashed it. How was the spot in the hotel? Did you stay in a hotel or Airbnb?

You know, I stayed at a hotel. It was actually a nice hotel. It's part of the Valencia. Oh, the Valencia family. Like the one up in San Teno Road. Nice, dude, that's great. That's great, man. Justin, you were down in Palm Desert.

Yeah, I was down there and we were right there because Coachella's good at the same time. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, oh, man. Did you see any people from Coachella? I didn't think we were going to because, I mean, the airport was really busy. And then I got picked up.

Like, my wife and kids got there early, like a couple days before I did. And then we went there. When I did run into some Coachella people, though, so we one day went to the living zoo that's there. It's actually a pretty rad zoo. And this is the first time I've been where it's not like in the summer.

So it wasn't like unbearably hot and like all animals are hiding. And so we're having a great time. It was great weather and we're kind of walking around. And then we get into this one spot where they have like kangaroos and you can like, you know check them out, but you can't touch them or anything. But they're all open.

They're trying to to jump around you. And, uh, this too, these two girls in this guy, they're like, they must've just come from some rave or I don't know what must've been Coachella. It must've been Coachella cause they're like in mini skirts and like, like really high mini skirts where their cheeks were hanging out. Oh, wow. And yeah, exactly. And it was like I'm you know You're with your family with my two boys Yeah, my wife who were totally bummed about it and they were just they were just like stopped dead tracks

And I'm like they're gonna say something like please don't say anything I'm not trying to coach him like okay. Let's just let's talk about this later right now Like please don't say that you know know, it's like, oh my god And then Ethan's just like praying for like a breeze I'm like, oh, I remember, you know, he's a teenager. Of course at that age, you know, my god, but it was just like that Yeah, I bet you the whole weekend. That's what you reach is more than anything else. Yeah Exactly. I just I've never like edit like there's kids as a family. That would piss me off They literally look like strippers like just cheeked out. So where are you at at this moment? You're at like a restaurant

Where you at when you know, we're like in the zoo zoo Oh, like it's like families with yeah and stuff It's kind of a random and they have like high heels and they're like bending over and picking like they were like completely like Laze fair about a whole place. That's weird. That's weird. That would really annoy me. I was just like. There's kids and stuff. You don't want your kids. You know what I mean?

I mean, you have teenage boys. Even that would piss me off. I know. Imagine having little kids. You know? It's hard for me to explain. So weird to be at a zoo like that. It was so random, dude.

That is random. People are weird, dude. They did it on purpose. Yeah. They did it on purpose, bro. They want people to look at them. They're taking pictures. It was such like a influencer thing.

I think that they were like trying to get in front of an animal and be like, eee. Oh, that's just. You know, and I'm like, oh, why? Totally what that was. That's totally what that was. Let's go to places where kids are, you know? Go do your thing at Coachella's.

You know what that require, what that should happen there? It should be, not dads, because that can be intimidating. It should be moms going up to them and just chastising them. You know what I mean? Or just smacking them. Just go shame those girls. Go shame those girls, honey.

If my grandmother was alive. Put on some granny panties. Oh, my grandmother, if she was alive, she was there, she was there. I wonder what Katrina would say. I don't think Katrina would say anything. Oh, my grandmother says that. I'd have to ask her.

Would it be Courtney say anything, or would it be Courtney saying? She just kind of rolled her eyes and was just like trying to shield Yeah. What did the Courtney say anything? Or what did Courtney say? She just kind of rolled her eyes and was just like trying to shield the other, like the boys. I'm like, they're gonna watch. And of course they're like following. They're moving to the next station.

They're just like. Hey dad, let's go look at the bird area. Bird area, you guys wanna go to that? Oh my god, dude, I don't know what to do here. Oh my god. Did the boys bring it up later or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. We were happy. Yeah, we did the boys bring it up later or no. Yeah Dad did you see you lie about it?

I was talking I was looking at your mom Now do they Probably an opportunity for you to explain what Coachella is and that's probably what I mean Yeah, I mean, that's that's other kind of weird thing I was realizing too I was just reading that that's that's other kind of weird thing. I was realizing too I was just reading that a lot of people were kind of complaining about Coachella now because it's not like Necessarily a festival for just regular people. It's like no dude It's like such an expensive ticket to get in and then they have like all these like special exclusive packages It's literally people

Were like maxing out their credit cards to go there to do their whole Instagram and in like influencing Picture moments. I've always wanted to go nice to check it out at least one time. It looked fun Yeah, every time I'm about to just like it feels like so much effort This is We have to say, like, this is like a lot of work. Plus, you are an old man. They're going to think you're a narc or something. Yeah. It's that kind of a big cough, too.

Who lets this guy in, dude? I mean, I know there's a lot of people that are even our age that go. I can't wear those outfits, you know? But it is like a young kid. Bro, if you're in your mid-40s and you're partying at those places, like, hmm. I mean, I don't know.

I feel maybe the same way, too. But I haven't experienced it. So there's a part of me that's like, I wish I could experience so I could say that. So I go like, that's not for 40 year olds. You know that though, like, and I didn't bring this up last time on the podcast, I wanted to that they have like these new fitness events that are trying to model after like, Coachella and Burning Man and all that.

And it's like the ones called like Running Man. And so they have, it's like overnight stay and everybody camps and then they have like slip and slide. I brought that up. Remember when I talked about, I think I shot of this guy duplo running. Yes. Yes Yeah, well, they're starting to start this whole thing. Yeah, so I brought that up Uh, I was shouting i was shouting out that kid who does a lot of uh, and he was talking about how they're kind of combining Like these you know, they had cold plunges were out there had all yeah had all this stuff where they were it's like fitness Kind of cool.

It was cool. I mean, I thought it was cool. Diplo Run was the one that I was talking about. And they have a DJ, right? So they got a sick DJ that's spinning. There's a run, there's cold plunging. I can see value in that. And it's too, because it kind of takes a little bit of the air

out of like, ooh, competitive. People are just there to be hardcore. You can have fun and still do like the fitness and wellness festival don't pull it up well that's kind of cool it's interesting I think it's really cool I think it's a cool way to kind of merge you know have fun with it instead of like yeah be so that's the only way you would get me to do a run like that yeah like if you're like let's go let's go have a good time. We'll watch a concert, we'll party,

we'll have a festival and then we'll run. I would do something like that with you guys. I would too. We could walk in if you guys want. Well that's just it. There's less pressure around the run and what I'm trying to do time-wise. It's more about the whole event.

It's like, hey, why not burn all these calories off that we're gonna eat and drink, you know? Oh, that's great. Yeah, that great. Yeah that's cool. We did we did we did Easter at a park and we had like a family reunion because we have we have such a big family now that we stopped all getting together when I was at. Houses don't make sense anymore. It just doesn't fit you know when I was when I was at. You know your family's big or you're like yeah we can't use houses. Well yeah right around my alls right around the age of 13, 14,

we stopped all getting together for Christmas and birthdays and stuff like that, because it was just, we didn't fit. Do you have a memory of the last biggest one? Oh, you do? It was Christmas and we had the garage set up, the house was set up, it's in the winter, people still have to go outside, and there was a room of presents.

You open the door and you couldn't walk in, because people just had to throw outside and there was a room of presents like you open the door and you Couldn't walk in because the present people just had to throw presents in because there's so many people so we stopped doing it But we did we did Easter all together at a park. It was you guys I'll have them post up a picture I don't know how many people 100 something hundred maybe and there was a lot of people missing So there's tons and tons of people that were there. It was a good time and then also My church aired our testimony my wife and I's testimony at the whole thing. I heard from random people that messaged me about that. Yeah, you know what's weird is.

Did you watch it? So we attended, because we're gonna go, it's Easter, so I'm gonna go. That would feel weird to me. I know, like sitting in the church and then watching. Listen, I don't get. Do you have people like this? Yeah, well, you know what he did, That would feel weird to me. I know. So. Sitting in the church and then watching. Listen, I don't get. Do you have people like this?

Yeah. Well, you know what he did? So Tim Lundy is the pastor. He's really, really good. And he tied in the story of the disciples that left Jerusalem after Jesus died because they were so disappointed. And then Jesus shows up and he's walking with them. They don't even know it's him.

And they're talking with them and they're like, you don't know what happened? And they're telling him and he's quoting scripture. And then they go home, he's about to leave, and they're like, you know, why don't you come inside and eat with us? They bring him in, as soon as they eat, their eyes are open, they see who it is. And they're like, oh my God, you're back,

you were resurrected. So he tied our story into that and it was really cool. So he literally broke it up into three pieces. So the entire sermon, he was showing our testimony throughout the whole thing. Right? He's weaved all in. All of it. It was really really well done. My parents came. My dad, I've, I mean obviously I've known my dad my whole life. I've never seen my dad cry ever. My entire life. Never. I've never seen tears come down his face. Not when his dad died. Not when, never seen. I know he does but I've never seen tears come down his face. Not when his dad died, not when, never seen, I know he does, but I've never seen it.

Saw my dad cry, he actually tears. Did that get you hard or what? Oh, are you kidding me? Yeah, I've seen your dad cry. He kissed me on the cheek, and he, yeah, and it was. Big cry fest. Oh man. That was a big cry fest after that.

And we got really vulnerable, we told our whole story and how hard Jessica and I our marriage was on the rock Did you go up and do that? Oh, I would be honest with you. I would have preferred to speak to everybody interesting then watch it like that You know how weird it is to sit and watch yourself with everybody else watching. Yeah, I was anxious Oh, bro, my hands were sweating. I was uncomfortable. I'd rather be talking Oh, bro, my hands were sweating. I was just like, I'm uncomfortable. I'd rather be talking. Yeah So I want to go back to the the family thing anytime you talk about family stuff It's always intriguing to me because I feel like we have the reverse

You and Jessica are like the reverse of me me and Katrina like that So in a family situation like that where it's like it just because this is Katrina's her and so much of her family Like there isn't who cares? Let's just more people we can fit in them more family the bigger the better and I get it and I totally get it But there comes a point with me. I'm like, this is ridiculous Like, you know, you got grown-ass adults sleeping in twin beds and you got people stacked on the floor like logistics This just doesn't make sense. Yeah, it just starts to get ridiculous, right? And then it's like almost like uncomfortably. It's like, and yes, we're all together

and I get the love thing, but then it's like, so in your family, are there some of you that are like that or are in like that are pro keep who cares? We're just, as long as we're all together. And then there's others that are just like, okay, this is ridiculous. Like where's- Well, we stopped doing a lot of family.

Like who was the person who said like, okay, this is too much well everybody decided okay So yeah, because the matriarchs started getting older and the families the kids started having their own kids So we all started dividing up for the main Holidays and stuff we do this now. Maybe once a year as a family reunion, so we timed it on Easter So now how does that work too because I know this is this happens in Katrina's family Is that because you've done that for so long and then you start doing things like that,

there always ends up being somebody in the family that we didn't invite or didn't get left out. Oh, everybody got invited. So no, no, I mean after. Oh. Once you start separating, it's just like, oh yeah. Do you have that sometimes that happens

where it's like we have a party going on like that and we're like, oh what side of the family am I bringing? Well, so here's what happens. How much of my family do? Yeah. Yeah, so here's what happens. If I invite one of my aunts and I don't invite the others, you have to invite, so if I invite one aunt,

then I have to invite all the sisters and the brother. If I invite these cousins, then I probably should invite, otherwise people feel like that. I can't have my brother come over unless I'm inviting my sisters over as well, because otherwise people get their feelings. So this is like a good portion of planning. Obviously we just had a mom's 75th birthday

was this weekend. And so so much is like the planning and it's exactly like that. It's just like, I can't bring, if I bring this in, then we have to bring all of them, which means all of their kids and all this. And that's another 30 more people that we weren't planning on so we can't invite them.

And so, and moms, well I want this person or I want that person. It's like, dude, it's such an ordeal to like put an event on like that it's it's wild yeah so we had it was huge had a great time and then there was a moment where I took a lot I'll let the guys posted up Mike so I grew up with a bunch of cousins male cousins right around the same age and in the picture that I'll show you guys there's a couple that are missing there's a few actually but we all took a picture together and we're like all these

old dudes now, right? Taking a picture. And it just brought back so many memories, and I was telling my friends, because I said to my friends, like, oh, you guys grew up together? I'm like, we, when we used to get, we were all boys growing up.

Every family party we got together, and there were like at least, there were good, like 10 or 11 of us, boys that grew up together. We would get in fist fights every time. Like full on fist fights every time, then we're best friends afterwards. Up until we were like 14, then you know, they get too serious, people get hurt,

so then we kind of stopped. But up until we were 14, there was always a fist fight at a family party. And we're telling the stories, we're like, hey, remember we used to just eat the crap out of each other? And then of course the debates start, who beat who? And then I beat you, and no, you didn't, bro, I took you out, you know? We said just each other and then of course the debate star who beat

My uncle I gotta tell you guys my uncle was visiting from Chicago my you know my grandfather's generation Him and his love his brothers now have passed away, but I have a couple uncles left So one of his brothers came haven't seen him a while and as soon as he sees me He's like you always look you look so young. How are you you keep your skin? Whatever? So I told him caldera lab Deal this I use this oil on my face my company whatever Weird conversation I've had a few times Remember this is like this is my grandfather generation So as soon as I said this to us, you said no it's this oil I put on my face. He goes you put stuff on your face like a girl? It works! It works really well. It is so true. We are in this generational shift of men doing stuff for their face. We're like in the middle of it. You know I'm saying and so the generation coming up It's like widely accepted. Yeah, but for our generation or older. It's like they did they didn't tell anybody you do what yeah, yeah

Because I was talking about it he was making fun of me, but I'm like why you think my skin looks so good Hey, you know speaking of partners and, we are introducing a new one, right? And I'm like the one, I'm the late to the party here. I know I have it, but obviously we've been with the move and stuff like that. I just haven't got around to doing it, but I know Doug, you've, you've used it now, right? Totally. Yeah. So what it is, is a shower head that has a built-in filter. It's all you do is, all you do is remove your old shower head, which is easy. They actually

include a wrench. You take off that shower head, you wrap this tape around it, which they include, and you put it back on and there you go. And it filters out chlorine and heavy metals. But the chlorine is the big one. A lot of people, chlorine's in your water, it messes with your skin. So here's what happens with a lot of people that don't know this with chlorine. Chlorine kills bacteria. That's why it's in your water, right? That's how they clean our water. There's a little bit of chlorine in there.

Not necessarily a bad thing. However, constantly putting it on your face and on your body. Try it out. It disrupts your microbiome. Okay, so Sal, is that what makes it considered hard water versus? No, that's different.

That's mineral content. Oh, that's different. Mineral content. That's mineral content. Oh, that's different. Mineral content. Okay. So chlorine, constantly putting it on your face and your hair, it disrupts the microbiome. A lot of people don't realize this, but they get acne because of the chlorine.

Because when you kill all the bacteria, it allows the bad bacteria an opportunity to outgrow the good stuff. Because otherwise everything's in balance. So what you see with a lot of people, the reason why we're working with them, is when you read the reviews and you look at the data, there's people who are like, my skin issues are gone

since I started using this filtered shower head. I wonder if that had, that's so weird you just bring that up right now. Because I was off air just now, we're talking about face pimples. And I'm like, dude, I've had more face pimples. The audience has probably already noticed like in the last month.

Oh bro, they were like, don't you remember? Bro, I had two episodes where I had to keep a freaking piece of towel because it was like bleeding. It was like, I've never had that. It's like a 17 year old pimple face. Yeah, like so weird I got one right here. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding you. I've had like I've literally had like either why never I had like five so my point of bringing this up

Okay, not to go. I did see it was a big one. Yes, dude I want here and then here I want each side. You met your fat face earlier Yeah, so was there but it my point of bringing it up is that I now, for the first time since I was a kid, have a pool. And I've been swimming in it all the time. So I'm wondering the chlorine. Probably. To what you're saying right now.

Because it's so weird the amount of- The chlorine. Yeah. And that's the only, I was like, I haven't changed diet. I don't have like crazy stress going on. Are you breaking out anywhere else? Anywhere else you're breaking out? No, just my face really.

Your face, yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. I haven't changed diet. I don't have like crazy stress going on. Anywhere else you're breaking out? No, just my face really. Yeah. Weird. Yeah. When you take a shower, you wash your face with soap? I use Caldera. Oh, okay. I'm still a dude like that.

So that'll balance you out. I just lather up the bar and then do my face and my hair. So yeah, their products will balance out. One thing at all. So you know it's a good idea then, you use the Jolie Showerhead, right after you get out of the pool, wash yourself. It's a great combo. So this is why I'm bringing all this up,

is like we just not, you haven't been to the place yet, but we have an outdoor shower. Oh, so right when you get out. And we had remodels for that. Maybe what I'll do is I'll put it on that. Makes perfect sense. Yeah, so I didn't even think about that. You know what some people do with their pools now

is they have saltwater pools. So even, I will tell you this though, even saltwater, our jacuzzi up in Turkey's saltwater. Oh, I didn't even think about that. You know what some people do with their pools now is they have salt water pools. So even, I will tell you this though, even salt water, our jacuzzi up in Turkey's salt water. Oh, I don't know that. Yeah, yeah, so you still use a little bit of chlorine. Oh, you do. You just don't use as much. Oh, I don't know that.

Yeah, yeah, so even the salt water. It's definitely better on the skin. It makes a huge difference though. It does make a big difference. Everett's skin is like always an issue. Like he's just very sensitive with it. And so like, yeah, getting out of the pool, we have to like get him in the shot right away to like because otherwise he's gonna get rashes and all stuff like it just it happens almost

immediately yeah I gotta bring up a study on probiotics you know another one came out with athletic we're talking about you know bacteria let me pull this up did you guys know there's another study connecting probiotics to better athletic performance another Another one? Another one! Yeah dude, it's turning out to be, this is so funny, probiotics are gonna be like a performance supplement. If you turn into performance, that's, I mean, people like me will start paying attention. So they had 30 healthy male recreational athletes and they were randomized. This is a double blind placebo control trial. So they either received this probiotic or placebo for 30 days. So and then they did blood sampling after a 20 kilometer

cycle time trial. So they went hard for 20 kilometers and they looked for oxidative stress, performance mechanisms, you know, whatever. The findings improved time trial endurance performance ready for this? 21%. What? Come on. Double blind placebo control study. 30 healthy male recreational athletes. Okay that's not a bad study. I'd like and that by the way if this was the only study that showed improved athletic performance I'd be like let me see more. But there's a lot. 20 is what I'm trippin' about.

Because improved performance, okay, makes sense. Your gut's healthier, you're in a better situation, you're gonna perform a little bit better. I would expect that, but 20? 20%. This backs up other studies, though, which is why this is interesting. There was a 22% reduction

in intestinal fatty acid binding protein. This is a marker of Damage so that may be why it's because a lot of people realize like inflammatory process of exercise There's a lot of it that's systemic and it can also attack your gut In fact leaky gut syndrome is far more prevalent gets exacerbated Wait, I was just you know, it also makes this really interesting is that they just obviously they took a bunch of random people But I mean imagine the person who has really major issues It's the probably the difference is even bigger like that's that could be like life-changing getting that much percentage of in performance increase By taking care of that. Yeah. Wow

Is that new? Yeah, it's a recent study. So I'm I will predict that probiotics will be promoted as performance enhancing supplements probably five years from now. It'll be like a top, like take this to improve your athletic performance. Interesting, wow, that's really cool. Brain.fm, listen, you listen to their engineered music and sounds and they will induce different brain wave states. This is built by scientists, it actually works.

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try it for 30 days for free. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Darlene from California. What's up Darlene? Hi guys. First I just want to say thank you so much for selecting my question and most importantly thank you so much for all the content you all put out. I've been listening to you religiously for the last three years. And you've made my journey as a personal trainer just skyrocket. So thank you guys so much. That's great. Thank you. Awesome. I'll jump into my question. I'm going to read it if that's okay with you all, please. All right. So since

submitting my last question, I actually made One key change I started or I guess I should read the first one So my original message says Here you go I'm a personal trainer and have been dealing with persistent bloating and feel wider around my midsection for the past six months persistent bloating and feel wider around my midsection for the past six months. While there are occasional days I wake up feeling lean, most of the time my body just feels off. My weekday schedule is packed. I'm up at 430 a.m. and often only

manage a pint of bone broth and an almond milk latte before 11 a.m. due to early sessions and lack of meal prep. After my Tuesday, Thursday morning clients, I have a 30 to 40 gram protein breakfast. And then despite that solid meal, my sugar cravings have become intense. I've gone from being able to enjoy a few bites of something sweet to completely losing control, polishing off an entire pint of ice cream right after a full meal. Could this be because I'm not eating enough calories or carbs in the morning? Should I be increasing my total calorie intake? I'm hesitant to raise calories because my body feels so off,

but suspect that might be the solution. Since submitting that last question, I actually made one key change. I started eating a proper breakfast earlier in the day and it immediately helped bring that sugar craving way down They dropped from a 10 out of 10 to a 3 out of 10 in just a couple of days, which was wild So now I know under eating in the morning was definitely a part of the issue That said I still kind of feel off in my body like like a little inflamed or puffy, especially around my midsection. I've realized this might be more related to my

sleep quality waking up at 430 a.m. for early clients. And I live above a noisy intersection with a stop sign where people are constantly revving engines, blasting music, and I think it's been suddenly wrecking my recovery. I move into a quieter place May 1st, and I'm really curious to see if that helps me feel more like myself again. So now I'm wondering, should I change anything about my training during this transition period while I'm still kind of in this in-between of stress and less than ideal recovery. I'm currently running MAPS Anabolic. I'm in phase one, just finished week one last Friday and seeing good gains. I have access to MAPS Symmetry, Anabolic as I

mentioned, Aesthetic, Prime, Beginner, and Resistance. If there's something more recovery friendly, is there something more recovery friendly I should be doing? Should I scale back my volume intensity stick with my current program or pivot while my sleep is compromised? Maybe maps 15 until the sleep gets better. Are you still getting the bloating? Um, yes.

And my, like the sweet tooth cravings have gone down. I eat mostly home cooked meals. I hit my protein targets. So I am still feeling digestive, like inflamed maybe. Yeah. Okay. So you should probably get tested just to see if you have SIBO or Candida overgrowth. The solutions for that are actually not bad.

There's actually herbal treatments you can do now that have been shown in studies to be as effective as the pharmaceutical ones that people used to use. So there's a few products you can look at. One of them's called a Trantil. And then there's a few products you can look at. One of them is called a Trantil. And then there's another combo product, Fc-Cytil and Dysbiocide that they'll often use for SIBO.

But if you're getting bloating and if you notice it, especially after meals or at the end of the day, there may be something going on digestively, which by the way, poor sleep will contribute to. So poor sleep can definitely contribute to that. When are you moving, by the way? Is that happening now? May 1st. May 1st. Okay, okay that's good. So hopefully that helps. Are you getting like at least eight hours of sleep at night? Yeah, I literally go to bed at 830. Okay, all right good. At 435. Yeah, so I would look into SIBO to some gut

testing. You can also just try treating it without testing Which I don't necessarily recommend, but you could do that with some of the products that I mentioned You'll typically go through a few weeks of herxheimer effect where you get this die-off so you might feel worse before you feel better So you could you could try that out and then as far as workouts I think massive maps anabolic the two-day week version is great And then math 15 afterwards workouts, I think Maps and Abolic, the two day a week version is great, and then Maths 15 afterwards will be great as well. And then after that, depending on how your sleep is, you're probably fine moving into any of our other programs.

I think that will actually even, is the fact that you started eating like a real true full breakfast, made a 10 down to a three, I think the improved sleep will take it down to a zero, because that will contribute to the cravings. And I know too from first hand, those are the two big things for me.

If I am breakfast skipping and or bad sleep, that's the day I'm going to crush the ice cream. If I can tackle those two things, it keeps it in check. So I totally feel you on that. Do you train, uh, privately or do you work in a gym? Um, currently privately, I just transitioned, uh, full time, like out of a gym in August. Wow. So August till now. So, so since August you've been doing this privately?

Um, well kind of, I was a contract worker since 2022. Okay. How's the, how's the course been for you? How the what? How's the course been for you? How's the what? How's the course been for you? Because I know you're in our course. Yeah, it's been really helpful. Luckily, I had a really good mentor when I was like training clients out of a gym previously and he helped me a lot with the financial parts of it, talking about leads and stuff. But going through your course, I wish I would have learned that back when I was doing Nazm,

because it would have just set me up a lot better. That being said, a lot of the content is super helpful and I'm glad I'm in there. Awesome. Well good. Good to hear. Good, I'm glad to hear. So yeah, get back to us, so we'll send you Maths 15 if you don't have it,

and then I'll make sure when Doug sends that to you in the email, he writes down the name of those products that help treat things like Candida, Cebo, CFO, which if you have one of those, they should help. Okay, thank you so much. And I actually did have Candida before and went to a gut specialist to get that treated. I have been having feelings that it might be flaring up again

and that could be the issue. I was just really hoping it's not, but you're saying that there's a medication I can take now instead? It's over the counter. They actually did a study a while ago where they compared herbal antimicrobials to the antibiotic style ones that were previously used

and they were as effective. They were just as effective. In fact, I would say they're more effective. Like antibiotics kills bacteria but it can cause fungal overgrowth. The antimicrobials that are natural do all of it. So the functional medicine practitioners that I know, they work with the herbal ones first. And the ones I mentioned were the best ones that I've seen. Awesome. I'll

definitely look into that. Last time I had it, I had to do like 90 days of like only eating five things basically. So hopefully this will help. Yeah. Yeah. So check it out. Cool. Yeah, get back to us. Let us know how it goes. All right, darling. Will do. Thank you. Bye. That's so, I'm so glad that she's doing well. She had a good mentor, which is huge. And then she's in our course, which helps a lot as well. But yeah, bloating is, there's gut stuff going on there. It's typically, you know, there's something

that you need to look at. Yeah, and that's not normal. Like you should not. I think a lot of people. Especially when she's got the other stuff in check. Like the diet's got it back in check and then she's still suffering from that a little bit. Yeah, and you shouldn't, you shouldn't,

like a lot of people, they think that, oh, this is just what happens. They just get bloated after meals. Like you shouldn't, you shouldn't feel that way. Our next caller is Afton from California. Afton, what's happening? How you doing? How you guys doing?

I know everybody says the same thing. You guys are the best and you guys have helped us so much. And so I'll pass all that on. I'll save all that because you guys hear it all the time and it's so true. I always agree with all the callers. It's OK. It never gets old.

It's good for Sal's ego. You can totally tell me all that. He needs to hear it. Oh yeah. I know. I love, oh my God, you guys are always so funny too. I laugh out loud. Okay. So you tell me when you want me to start my question. Go ahead. Go ahead. Just read it to us. Okay. I'm going to read it because they said I have to, I can't like go off and I always go off. So I'll just stick to the point here.

So, okay. So I'm a pretty successful trainer here in Huntington Beach California. I got a good following, I got a good clientele but recently the gym I was training at for 12 years closed and I've tried a few other gyms. We already know where I'm going with this right? And I just can't find one that I'm sold on. So I go back and forth. I'm like, oh, maybe I should open my own space. Now all my clients are like, open your own space.

But you know, shoot, I've been in the gym business so long. I know that, I already know like the gym owners aren't making that much more money for as much more work that they're putting on. So I have a really good lifestyle. I got a work, a great work-life balance. And I'm married. I have two kids. I have a nine-year-old, a six-year-old. My husband supports me. He's like, open up because you talk so much crap on everybody else's gym. Let me see you do it better. I'm like, but he also says to, he's like, you should just stop all in-person training, just go all online.

I'm like, I don't want to do that either. So the question is, should I open my own private studio, even though I got a great work-life balance right now, but I'm not super happy with the gyms I'm training at. So I want to hear your answer. I already know your guys' answer, but I need to hear it. I'm going to throw you a curveball. Okay. Because I do normally tell everybody don't do this horrible idea. You're an exception to the rule and I'll tell you why.

You mission one you suddenly have an incredibly supportive husband and family who's like go get it, babe. I don't care if we... That's a big factor. That's huge. That's huge. Like, you know, because you you don't have a lot of pressure of oh my god I got to make this much to survive and pay the bills. So you have that. So that's a huge advantage. You've got a lot of experience. You've been doing this for a long time already. Sounds like you're already really successful. So to me, those are like the, those are big qualifiers for me before I would tell someone to go do something like that. Hey, you one, you need to have proven to me that you were already really successful for a long time already, which you've done that already. It's awesome you

have somebody who can help support you while you do that. You're a bit of the exception, the rule of somebody I'd say, hey, maybe you do open your own studio. I will say this though, and I'm assuming you don't have our course because you probably would have mentioned that. The trainer course would be incredible for you because not only do we talk about starting a studio or doing those things in there and the steps that we go about it, I do think having your online business complement your in-person would be a superpower. I mean, that's kind of one of the things that we talk about this. I'm going to reveal a little more than I have publicly right now, but one of the things we're doing is we're building this massive online coaching business right now underneath Mindpump.

We've got six trainers working for us already. We've been behind the scenes developing that, and our kind of strategy is going to be we're going to build a very successful online business, and then eventually do the thing that I tell everybody not to do, go open a gym. But guess what? When we open that gym, we already have consistent revenue virtually that will fund that gym And it doesn't need to be profitable Which gives me all this leverage to take my time and scale it correctly and be super successful in person and so I think you sound like you have that kind of working for you and you could kind of use that same blueprint of you have that kind of working for you and you could kind of use that same blueprint of let's go you let's go build a big virtual business then maybe we start in a small kind

of warehouse small footprint type of gym and make it profitable and then grow from there if you want to or enjoy the work life balance because you're the owner and operator. Yeah. Right. How long have you been training people? 12 years. Oh man it's it's I think I'm already, I think I'm going on almost, uh, 20, 20 years. I, you know, and when I moved to California,

I'm originally from Wyoming. I didn't have a client. I didn't know anybody and I built my business and I'm like, you know, I know I can do that. I get, a lot of my clients are just referrals now and I do a little bit of online too, but I enjoy going in. I enjoy, you guys get it, you guys talk. I mean, I like what I do. I truly do. And I also know if I open my own business, is it, do I enjoy that as much anymore? Is it become more of like, now I'm a boss, now I imagine having to get some trainers in there, you know, to help me. It's like, dude, does it take the fun out of it is where I'm at.

That's the question I was gonna ask you. I can see why you're successful by the way. You have a magnetic personality. So, okay, so do you want people to work for you? Do you want employees or do you want to just train them? Well, I think I would have to, especially the amount of rent that's here in Huntington. I mean, I go back in the industry.

I've already done all the research on the, you know, the numbers have to make sense. And right now they're just not making sense here in Huntington Beach. You don't have to. Here's my point, you don't have to. But if you want employees, you gotta find a space and do the whole deal.

If you don't, so I know very successful, because you're in a great area. Huntington Beach is a great place for personal training. Have you thought about doing it out of your garage? Your clients will probably cut. Oh my gosh. Everyone says that about doing it out of your garage? Your clients will probably cut it. Oh my gosh. Everyone says that, do it out of your garage. And my husband, he's got it dialed in there

and he's got his truck, his truck's on. Yeah, I've thought about it. I just don't know if I want somebody out of my house at like 5 a.m., 6 a.m. I mean, it makes sense though, because I have young kids and my husband's a fireman, so when he goes, I mean. That's the only way I would do it.

If I were you, and you don't want employees, because opening a studio means you got overhead, you gotta buy equipment, now you're paying rent, that means you're gonna have to have trainers that you're gonna manage, you're not just training your clients, it sounds to me like you truly enjoy just being a trainer, and having your own space to do it is the only thing that makes sense for me, for you.

It would be doing it out of your house, out of your garage, or a space like that, or finding a space like, there are places, and I don't know how easy it would be for you to find, but there are places like chiropractic offices or healthcare places that have a gym that then you can rent and be the only trainer in there, would be the other way.

But the other, it's like do it out of your garage. I've met now several trainers who are very successful, who have incredible clientele, like you, your client's probably been with you forever, they're probably gonna stay with you forever. And they do it out of their garage. They do it right out of their garage, and that's that. We just got done, one of the most,

Ben Bruno's one of the most successful. I follow him, I know, and he does it all out of his garage. Out of his garage, and he's got probably the biggest A-list clientele I've ever heard of for you. They love it, and you don't need a lot of equipment. You know that, you get your squat rack, adjustable bench, some dumbbells, maybe a cable, maybe not. And your clients would love coming in.

You have no overhead, it's in your home, you can write off your garage as a business expense. Actually, it will save you money. And all you gotta do is make sure you maintain that wall. It's business and then this is my home life. And that's it. I think that's the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, go rent, go pay another gym

to train your clients or go work at another place. But it doesn't make sense for me, for you, to open a studio and employ people because it's not what you want to do. And that'll make this very different. I also, I want to see you in our course with our, we have a community of over a thousand personal trainers that are all over the country.

You know what she would do well with us. You know what, and I want to, and I'm not supposed to veer off this question, but I got to, I'm in that growth, personal, whatever or something that's with you guys. And I asked a question in there a while back and I know Doug killed me for going off the question, but I have to ask now. I said, do you guys, I've had clients that have been with me for like 10 years, like

they stay with me, they're lifers, right? I'm like, do I raise their, do I raise their, and everybody in there's like, you don't raise your, you know, your, you grandfather and a man, well, here's the problem. I have so many clients that have stayed with me, it's like, now my, it's, so do you raise your old client, like the clients that have been with you forever, do you raise their prices?

Yeah. That's a good question. It is a good question, and it's a case-by-case situation. Right okay. I know I went off and you don't have to but yeah but it's okay but everyone said no. Listen listen how these feed into each other really well like what a great way to transition into raising my clients. I'm going to be moving my gym into my garage. I'm going to spend some money to be doing this. I now have to have operating costs for a business because I'm no

longer working at a gym. I've got to move my clients up a little bit. I just wanted to give you the heads up that when we go to re-sign next time, I'm going to boost most people this much. I'm only going to do it this much on you because you've been with me for so long. But I just wanted to give you the heads up that I've got to move in that direction. I hope that you're okay with that. And like, I think you could present it like that. This is the change you're going through. This is what most people you're okay with that. And like, I think you could present it like that. This is the change you're going through. This is what most people you're gonna charge, give them a deal.

So going forward, new clients will be this premium. You've been a long time client of mine, so I just need to bump you a little bit to cover overhead stuff, and that's how I would do something like that. Yeah, well, let's get into the numbers a little bit. Were you paying rent at another gym? Is that how you were working at another gym?

And I was at a Chiropractic place for 12 years and that's, yes I was. And I was paying like about 1500. I just got found another gym. I do a flat rate and it's of 800 bucks. So I'm like loving the rent there but at the same time I don't love the space. Okay, so you were paying 1500 for 12 years.

Now you're paying 800 but that's closing. So doing it out of your, you know? So. Okay, so you were paying 1,500 for 12 years, now you're paying 800, but that's closing. So doing it out of your garage, you automatically pay zero. And then what are you charging with the, if you, do you mind me asking, what is your per session rate with these long-term clients? Oh my gosh, you guys are gonna kill me. I'm about 80, 80 right now, but any new person coming in is 100,

and I heard your guys's, I already heard, I'm like, and somebody just said, after you you need to be hired you need to go way higher you could go you can tell those clients that you could bump on $10 they won't blink yeah they're not gonna blink it hey look I haven't changed your prices in 10 years but I got to do this and I'm gonna be moving my gym we're gonna it's gonna go up to it's gonna go up ten bucks a session that's they're not gonna blink at that but then you're not gonna pay no overhead with your garage either. I think I think that's a win-win right there if you if you ask I was I was for sure you guys are like no

I wasn't expecting that I already told all my clients today. I move clients around. I'm like they're gonna tell me no You're the exception of the rule you really are But I'm gonna keep pushing the I want you in the course because we haven't even touched on this because it's a whole nother hour talk with you, is the CRM that we're doing now too. So that would be a massive, and by the way, a massive easy way because of how sophisticated it is and all the new things you're going to be able to do with it with what we're providing you.

That's an easy way too to start to bump them up is now that you have this great software that'll provide them workouts when they travel and all this great stuff like so I have a whole presentation for you on how I would Present to these clients where your prices are going and why they're going there, but I got to get you in the community We're in there. We're in there helping coaches and trainers like that and working through this and so get your butt in there Okay. All right, you guys. Thank you so much Have a good day. You too. Bye bye. Yeah, so you see why she does well,

she's got a great, yeah, she's a trained person. I always tell people, on the first one, it'd be like don't, don't, don't. Huntington Beach, for people who are like 80 bucks, that's a lot, for Huntington Beach. No, it's not, it's Beaches. No, no, that's cheap, yeah, yeah, probably a good trainer, an experienced good trainer,

is about 110, 120 at least. At least. At least, but yeah dude, she doesn't want to have employees. But yeah dude, in your garage, if you have clients have been with you for that long, they'd love coming to your garage. Well not only that, but it's also a really good step in the direction of maybe getting your own place. So let's first run it out the garage, let's see how that, and then, but I get her concern too, like I wouldn't want people coming to my house, just how I am too, like I got a family this now, I don't want them coming to my house just just how I am to like a family this now I don't want them coming

to my house. I mean too I again we didn't get into like her square footage or what she has option wise. Your warehouse. Dude yeah exactly there's there's shed options that are pretty cheap and then you can just you know house like equipment in there so it's CrossFit already built this model for you. It'll be more than 800 bucks a month is what she was paying. Well yeah but I mean she's been up to 1,500. You bump every one of those 80 clients to 110, 120, you could easily see your being there. But anyways, the Garage ID is a great transition to,

let's see if this is something I want to do, and whatever. But also wanting her in the community, because I know we have trainers down in Huntington Beach and so on, so who knows, maybe she meets somebody who they can partner up and do something together or they should somebody else is like I have a gym come work for me I would love for you to be in my place. So I hope she gets in there. Our next caller is Colleen from Illinois. Hi Colleen. Hello. Hi how are you guys? We're good how are you? Great. Good. So I just wanted to thank you as a woman who has three sons. I have six brothers and

I work in a male dominated field. So I'm around a lot of men. I appreciate the way you speak about the women in your lives and how respectful you are discussing women's health issues. So I just wanted to thank you for that. Thank you. That's awesome compliment. Yeah, your podcast has been such a blessing. Anyway, let me get to my question, give you some details. So I'm 53 years old. I lost about 75 pounds about seven years ago and it took a couple of years to come off and I started with a personal trainer about five years ago and that's when I started strength training.

So I worked with him for two years and now strength training is my go-to. I love it and I can lift some weight, but this last year I've been having difficulty with continuing to lose additional body fat and pounds. So struggling with like 10 pounds off and on. And I'm wondering now if it's because I'm officially in menopause. Um, the past couple of months, I did make some changes after listening to you guys. I did reduce some gym time and I go to the gym about three times a week. I walk eight to 10,000 steps a day, but I do have a full-time desk job.

I eat about 140 to 150 grams of protein a day, 1900 calories. And I would previously eat these 1900 and drop weight. That's not happening now. I'm five foot eight, about two oh five and I'd like to get to 175. I like my body, but I'd like to see more muscles and to be honest, look a little jacked. Um, so even though I do feel healthier physically, mentally than ever, I am still hyper focused on the scale, especially this year with no progress. And I was working out way too much.

I was constantly sore and completely felt the effects of overtraining. So I'm not sure if I should cut or I should bulk and what program would be best. I hesitated cutting calories because I did not want to mess up my metabolism or even lose any muscle. So that's my questions. Great. No, that's great. Great question. So that's my question. Great, no that's great. Great question and you're doing good right now. So you said you haven't progressed in a year,

but let's talk about that for a second. Have we seen any changes otherwise, or aside from the scale, not changing? So in other words, have you seen any strength gains, any performance changes? Strength gains for sure. Okay, so you have progressed this year. Yeah.

And the reason why I want to point that out to you is because we can get so focused on one metric that we ignore the progress in the other areas. And if you've gotten stronger this year, you are moving in the right direction, and eventually the body fat percentage will start to reflect that. And sometimes we pause,

I remember where you were seven years ago, 75 pounds heavier than you are now. And you started strength training recently. I think the picture you sent us was the same weight, but before you started, and then after you started listening or started lifting weights, I should say, you looked different. You're saying, you should have the same weight.

No, no, no, there was more than one picture. Yeah. There's no weight change in those pictures? No, there was one picture. Wow. Yes. Wow. Yeah, you look way different. You're doing great. That's incredible. You're doing great. Here's what I would say, by the way, menopause or no menopause, does menopause affect how your body reacts and responds and feel? Yes, it does. But the same rules apply whether you're in menopause or out of menopause, meaning calorie deficit helps with fat loss, surplus helps with gain. But you're at 1900 calories. I wouldn't want to cut you at 1900 calories. I'd want to do a slow reverse diet and try to maintain the same weight and try to build some more strength before we cut back down. So maybe slow reverse diet till you get to about 2500 calories500 calories and then bring it back down to 1,900

and we should see some fat loss. We have an incredible, what's the doctor's name that we just had on the podcast and we're dropping that? Mary Claire Haver. Yeah, she talked about Paramedopause. When's that going live? In a week or so. Okay, so in a week we have an incredible episode

that you'll love that we talked, everything about Paramedopause and menopause is the whole conversation so it's a great conversation. Do you have somebody right now who is regulating your hormones? Are you taking anything? Are you, are you, have you, tell me a little bit about that. So I just listened to your hormone broadcast. It's, do you, anyway so I'm going next Friday, a week from Friday and having my hormones tested So I am doing that is just to see where my levels are. Okay. Are you gonna? Is this with a general practitioner or is this a hormone specialist?

It's a hormone specialist. Okay, good good And I know salad is right like it the same rules still apply with somebody who's in menopause. But the hardest time I ever had with clients, the most difficult ones were my clients that were going through menopause. And it was because, yes, all the same rules apply, reverse dieting, building muscle, slowly losing body fat, but boy, it just moves really, really slow for somebody who is struggling with their hormones going up and down and fluctuating like they do when you're in menopause like that. And so having somebody regulate that can make, can be a life changing difference. So I'm excited you're going to do that.

Hormone replacement therapy can make a big difference. Huge difference. Huge, huge difference. The, the clients that, that, uh, we were doing all the right things, but they weren't doing that and they didn't do that. It was like night and day difference for them. But nonetheless, I mean, the picture you sent us with the five pound different,

there is a much bigger difference in body fat and muscle that doesn't show up on that scale. And if you've gotten stronger this last year, you're doing everything right. And so I would slowly reverse diet. Add 150 calories at a time, stay there till things stabilize continue to get stronger stronger once you get to 2,500 calories and you feel comfortable there and you stay there for a while cut back down and we should see some fat loss what program do you

recommend because I have three of your programs now what do you so I have muscle my I muscle mommy I have maps 15 and then I've anabolic what are you doing right now those are great programs Anabolic. What are you doing right now? Those are great programs for you. Which one are you doing right now? So here's my problem and I need to do better. I try to do the 15, but then I was going in and doing more. So now I'm working on Muscle Mommy,

and I'm just going in on three days a week. Okay, finish Muscle Mommy, finish Anabolic, finish 15. All three of those programs are great for you. But do them as they're laid out, okay? So it's like, imagine getting a recipe for like a particular type of cake, and then you add your own ingredients on top of it. It's not gonna be good, that's what happens.

That's what happens with workout programming. So when you add stuff to what we write in there, you've just messed up the whole thing. Trust the process, trust the process. Okay, and then the only question I have is to go from 19 to 2,500, like how much time should I do in between those? So I like bump 150 calories,

wait three weeks or so, see how things feel. Strength wise, if everything's stable, you're not gaining weight, you're not, but you're getting stronger, then try it again. Yeah the reason why that's such a hard question to ask for the individual is because like some clients I'm able to go like 150 and then we didn't move on the scale at all, I can go another 150 the next week, they still have a move scale, I can go 150 and then others we move 150 and then we see a little bit of increase in the scale, we got to kind

of hold there for a week or two or three, and then they start to see they're a little dip or leveling up and then I can do it again. So really fill it out. What you don't want to see is any major swings. And if you see weight stay the same or go down, that's your green light to definitely keep adding calories. And I would keep doing that every time you can maintain weight with adding calories. You should try and add again after that.

Okay. Okay. Well, that's good. Okay. And then I had, let me, let me have Doug put you in our private form too so as you're going through this reverse diet process if you have any more questions you can just message us there. Okay, awesome. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You got it. Hold on real quick. So this is off-air. Colleen, do you want

somebody to help you reverse diet, coach you through the process? We have coaches that can do that. Yeah, I might be interested in that only because like just to have, because the trainer I was using, he's not training anymore, right? So just to have someone talk me off the ledge, right? It would be nice to have someone to reach out to. I know the process works but it would be nice especially with something to reach out to. Yeah, because I do. I know the process works, but it would be nice, especially with reverse dieting. That's why I've hesitated doing it. Yeah, reverse dieting can be very individual. So like, so, so this part's not on air, but I'll have somebody reach out to you

and they'll coach you through and work with you through the reverse dieting process. Okay, great. I appreciate it. Thank you. Awesome, Colleen. And you guys are the best. Seriously, you are. I share your program with everybody and my teenagers. Love you. I've got them, thank you. And you guys are the best, seriously, you are. I share your program with everybody, and my teenagers, love you, I've got them listening to you, so just thank you very much, I do appreciate it. Awesome.

Thank you for the compliment, Roy. I appreciate it. All right, Colin, we'll be in touch. Have a good one. All right, bye. Yeah, that's, I love when people send pictures where the weight is almost the same, and you could just see.

Dude, like radical. Yes, very visible. And I did wanna make a point, you know, when people say I've had no progress, no progress means no progress. It doesn't just mean no change in the scale. So she got stronger, she's progressing, she's still doing very well. Yeah, I mean that's why it's so deceiving. Because with-

So deceiving. And I tell you, the clients that I had the hardest time were my clients that were going through menopause. If your hormones are- 100%. the clients that I had the hardest time were my clients that were going through menopause. If your hormones are at a balance, it is really tough to build muscle. It's really tough to burn body fat. And so even if you're doing all the right things, it just, it slows down the process even more. And then you add like what you just pointed out was just like, she actually is seeing progress, but because it's not

dramatic or she didn't see this major screen, it makes it feel like she's not doing the right thing. So I look forward to her going to get those checked and then balanced out too. Our next caller is Greg from Colorado. What's up, Greg? Hey, how's it going guys? How you doing, man? How can we help you?

Just want to let you know, appreciate everything you guys do. I've been listening to you guys for a year now and you definitely helped with my imposter syndrome of trying to become a trainer, um, with all the knowledge you guys put out there. So, um, just want to let you guys know that. That's great. Um, quick question. Let me just get to my email. Um, now I heads up since I've sent this a few things have changed. Um, but you know, we'll go over that after I asked the question. So a few years ago, made a big physical transformation from 245 to 183 after bodybuilding for two years. After that, I realized how amazing I felt how clear my brain worked afterwards. Didn't know how out of shape I was until I looked back at all the pictures.

In the last year I decided I wanted to do this for other people so I decided to start my own nutritional coaching company. I've coached a few people that I work with currently, haven't really gotten much traction with kind of strangers yet. Just trying to get my get my company out there. Currently, I'm a residential electrician. I've been doing this for over three years now. But if you don't kind of burnt out, don't really have any passion left in it. I've been listening to you guys for a year, like I said, and you guys been mentioning a lot of times

about how working in a big box gym just to get started, whether you're doing online coaching or anything is a great idea. I figured I'd just kind of get your guys's insight on that. Currently, I'm certified in ISSA for nutrition, nutritionist, strength and conditioning. And currently I did start my CPT through ISSA as well. So I'm kind of making that transition to jump into that personal training at a box gym. Big concern starting that was really just kind of financial obligations, making sure seeing if that's possible with obviously bills and stuff like that. So obviously I want to follow my passion and do something

I'm passionate about it just kind of get some advice from you guys some what what you think about that Hopefully working in a big box gym can contribute to my my online company and getting that started Yeah, definitely and you said some things have changed since you asked this? Yeah. What are they? So financial obligation wise, I ended up moving up to my inlaws ranch property that they've owned since the 1800s. We're currently in the process of selling our house now. So all that money from that I can use to kind of just mitigate all my bills, pay everything off. So I'm not going to have as much overhead bills wise.

Still kind of obviously personal training, the income can vary depending on whichever gym you're working with, what they decide to pay you hourly and how much per training session. So maybe just kind of talk to you guys about what that might look like, some advice on getting myself started and, you know, getting, being successful in that. So I don't really have to stress too much about the financial. Oh, that's good. Do you have any dependents? I do. I just had a baby in June June so she's nine months now.

Oh good for you. So you got a baby but you've cut down your financial obligations. Let's talk about the big box gyms that are around you. Which ones have you looked at? So I talked to a branch manager at a 24-hour fitness. That seemed pretty promising working with them but, but I haven't talked to too many gyms yet, but there's lifetime, any time fitness, 24 hour fitness. They kind of got a big mix of different gyms in the area. Oh, you're good. Lifetime and 24 are probably the best two. Lifetime will pay a little bit more. 24, depending

on their size and their location will get comparable traffic but the two of them will be high traffic. Offer benefits full-time the whole deal. Yep so both both those would be great either one of those would be a great option. I mean I bet you're probably making pretty good money doing the career path you have now so it's probably gonna take you a minute to to catch up to that just being realistic but it sounds like you're already planning for that with what you're doing. So I think that's a great strategy. You definitely should be in our course, okay, because that's

literally what we take you through and the mentoring that we give you and a thousand other trainers that are going through that with us and so and it's not just the course what you learn from that it's also the fact that you're now. The tools that are in there. Yeah, it's ongoing mentorship from us, and I think that's where the value really, so as you're going through this and you come up with challenges, hopefully we're there to help support you and work through those.

If you do a good job in a big box gym, okay, if you step foot in a big box gym and you apply yourself and follow the things that we teach in our course, for example, and really apply yourself. You could, realistically, you could be full time within a few months. Like full time with clients.

So you can figure your payout there. How much they pay per session, what does that look like full time with benefits. You'd be there if you applied yourself, followed kind of what we taught, probably within 90 days. Really talented people within 30 days. But most trainers, when I get them under my wing within 90 days, we're doing well.

Yeah, I'd say 90. I'd say 90's a good goal. 90's a good goal. Could take as long as six months, depending how fast. But if you apply yourself, it's very realistic to be working full-time within 90 days. And then from there, you just crush, you do a good job, build your business in there.

And then from there, there's lots of different potential opportunities, both lifetime and 24 hour fitness offer great, they have a great corporate ladder. You can move up, up to fitness manager, fitness manager, general manager. Now you're doing really well. Or you could take that, build upon there and go private. But I honestly think that your odds are high so long as you have, like I said, you follow what we teach you and you go in that big box, you get the leads, you're gonna be in a busy jam, really it's just a matter

of just applying yourself and doing the right things. Yeah, if I was mentoring you, the goals would look like this, is that go through the course, learn everything we teach about building your business, getting leads, selling, all that stuff. Your first 90 days, the goal is just get your schedule loaded up. I think it's a very realistic goal. Then after that, from that point to the end of the year or beyond is go become the best trainer in that gym. Can I prove to be the top dog? And that means asking a lot of questions, shadowing the other trainers, continuing to pursue education and learning, and just burying yourself into that.

And that's what you have your sights on is, can I learn enough, shadow enough, get enough, acquire enough practice and knowledge to become the best guy or girl in this gym? And that's my next big goal. And then once you do that, that really opens the doors of do I wanna stick in this career

and get promoted within this company? Do I wanna go off and open my own thing? Do I wanna branch out and do semi-private plus online? The doors really open after that as far as this career and what it has to offer you. Yeah, yeah, but just so you know, first off, you have a good story because of the weight loss. That automatically is going to give you an advantage with connecting with people.

But when you go in a big box, the hardest thing, period, end of story for trainers is getting enough potential leads or potential clients. That problem is pretty much solved when you're in a big box gym. If you get hired, which that's another process, but I don't think it's an issue with your passion, present yourself well, you already got the certifications, they'll hire you. It's, you'll walk in, you just say,

hey, fitness manager, can I please have a list of all the new members over the last 30 days? I'd like to call them. Like, instant leads. Like you don't get that as a trainer doing things on your own, and that's very difficult to get otherwise. So, I mean, it'll happen happen if you want to do it'll happen yeah and I I knew you guys obviously I knew I've watched enough of this I knew

you guys were gonna recommend that that trainer course which I fully plan on doing that as soon as my house sells and you know kind of got some some extra cash that was an automatic thing for me um You know obvious right now. Like I said residential electrician Most of my job is lit Sales, you know I show up obviously I have to do a lot of technical work and stuff But I I do have to talk to the customer. I'm inside their house. They're vulnerable

You know, I understand How that might feel and I got to speak to the customer I'm inside their house, they're vulnerable. You know, I understand how that might feel. And I got to speak to people to kind of not exactly convince them, but just to inform them on why this is necessary for them. Unfortunately, in this field, it's like, I'm a, I'm a, I'm there because I they have to be because something's broken, where I think carrying that communication skills and the sales skills over to fitness is going to be super beneficial because very much so.

You know, they're there to better themselves, you know, so I just got to reassure them. Yeah, this was a good move, right? Like this is why you want to do this. But yeah, I mean, after making my I've pretty much been lifting since I was 19 years old, I'm about to turn 32. Mostly bodybuilding stuff. I think the biggest concern now in my head because I, I've always made like, real, not real quick, but never been scared to make that leap of change. You know, I took an $8 pay cut to become an electrician, you know, a lot of different things.

So I'm not worried about jumping into it anymore financially. It's more about that imposter syndrome, right? Now you're fine. I don't, I want to be a fake. I don't want to. Greg, you're fine. You're fine, Greg. You're going to be good, bro.

Shut it down right there. You're fine. By the way, what you, you know, what you said about your experience talking to people and the sales skills, make sure you say that in your interview. Hired. If you said that to me, hired.

Yeah, yeah, because that translates so well to what, and no different than probably how you handle it right now when you are doing an electrical job and somebody asks you a question that's out of your scope, you probably just tell them that. It's no different than training. And the trainers make this mistake of being afraid to say that.

Like, you just saying like, you know what, I don't know the answer to that, but I'll definitely find out for you. Like, I haven't had a client yet that's had that issue, or I haven't done that, but don't worry, that's my job is to solve that for you. And then you go learn. And to be clear, Greg,

especially in a big box gym, 90 plus percent of your clients, you're not gonna apply even a tenth of your knowledge. You're gonna do like a leg exercise and like a shoulder exercise and here's how you use this machine properly and here's what a squat looks like. Oh, you can't squat, we'll start with this. That's 90 plus percent in big box gyms. Now if you were working in a rehab facility,

I'd be like, okay, that's a whole other story. But you're fine. You're impossible. Yeah, get rid of that right away. You've got, you're totally fine. Yep. Yeah, I think it was mainly because I was been one track with bodybuilding. So like implementing a lot of mobility and like, kind of hit training and, you know, mixing things up based off of who the customer is, what they want was really kind of just more something that I just got to look into. Greg, you also, you also have at the tip of your fingers, ask mind pump.com,

and use, use that AI tool. I mean, this is how, this is how we're able to hire customer service teams that don't have trainer backgrounds and still yet support people is our team is trained. I mean, this is how we're able to hire customer service teams that don't have trainer backgrounds and still yet support people is our team is trained. When you get a question that's above you or you don't understand, askminepump.com and then it comes out and then you get to see an episode where we talk in depth about that.

You see the AI spit off exactly how we would recommend it. So just use it. Use that tool to help support you when you run into those situations. But the vast majority of what you're gonna do with your clients is traditional strength training, which you know, and it's just the appropriate exercises, that's all.

So yeah, it's in a big box gym, you're totally fine. Yeah. Okay. If you guys got time, can I ask one more aspect for me, fitness-wise? Yeah, yeah. Tarek. So since I moved up to the ranch, uh, been a lot of ranch work, you know, cutting down trees, stuff like that. Um,

I haven't really actually been in the gym or lifted in like two months because I've been so busy with between that work. And, um, I do also train jujitsu go first thing in the morning before work most of the time, about two to three times a week. Obviously getting back into lifting, resistance training would be the best bet, but most of my week almost every other day, maybe every day in the evening or on the weekends, I'm chopping wood for hours straight because we got to cut down like 40 trees on the property. Um, what would kind of be a good idea and like programming, cause I know you guys talk a lot

about overtraining, not, not pushing it too hard, but to mix that stuff together, I'm, I'm finding myself ever since I hit 30 years old, I keep, I've never had an injury. And then 30, I had a major ankle injury. And since then I'm just getting weird shoulder tweaks and knee tweaks that just put me out of training jujitsu or, you know, kind of squatting or anything like that. Training jujitsu two days a week, three days a week, and you're chopping wood every day. All you gotta do is correctional exercise.

Supplement it. Yeah. One, one day a week of working out four exercises is more than enough. More than enough. More than enough. And even if you don't do that, just do correctional exercise. Yeah, you technically could not do that and be fine.

Totally. Or like a MAPS 15 type of protocol, just one or two movements throughout the week. That's it. But yeah, you're already doing a lot that is gonna require strength, require mobility, require endurance, and you're gonna, by the that is going to require strength, require mobility, require endurance. By the way, this is a great story to tell your clients. I was in a place in my life where even as a personal trainer, I wasn't lifting weights. Why? I was doing jiu-jitsu three times a week.

I was chopping wood. I was staying healthy, fit, strong. All those things require those things. It wasn't the right time in my life to be lifting weights. And then I've been a bodybuilder where I was training six, seven days a week to be a bodybuilder. So it's a great story, a great example to give your clients and teach them that you don't necessarily have to be lifting weights in the gym six days a week to be healthy and fit. So scale way back. One day a week of training or less or like two exercises like for mass 15, that type of style is what you need right now. Okay. And then once that obviously the chopping woods gonna go away eventually, maybe drop

into something like anabolic. I have maps 15. I just I started it and then ran into all this work on the ranch. So I had to stop it. But you know, obviously with jujitsu two to three times a week, maybe something like Anabolic or like maps 15 would be a good either one route to go to but even though even anabolic one or two days That's it. If you're doing you got to think your your jiu-jitsu is like a hardcore lifting session. Think of it like that So if you're already hardcore lifting two to three times

You can really only afford to do maybe one maybe two on a good week when you feel amazing well rested and so you your training would be one day of anabolic maybe two on a day where you that's right don't make the mistake of even doing three days of that three days of your strength training with two to three days of jujitsu is a lot too much yeah that's something I definitely had to learn after listening to you guys because beforehand I was I was still trying to train like a bodybuilder and Yeah. Okay. That's something I definitely had to learn after listening to you guys. Cause beforehand I was, I was still trying to train like a bodybuilder and do jiu-jitsu two to three

times a week. It was, and that probably explains why I got these injuries. For sure. Common mistake, bro. Very, very common. Okay. Awesome. Well, I appreciate it guys. It's awesome. Um, another quick fact, I know you guys have talked about your faith before. I just wanted to throw it in there. hearing you guys talk about your stories amongst a lot of other people. Recently in the past like two weeks, I I found God and it has already changed my life for

wow. So I love hearing your guys's story. And you know, I didn't now I get to experience the same That's awesome. That's amazing. That's your brother for you, man All right. Well, I appreciate it guys. Keep up the good work and thanks for everything you do. You got a great. Thank you Yeah, it seems like a no-brainer. He's already got rid of his overhead. He's got a big box right there Those skills carry over to him. Those skills, when he said that, like right away as he was talking about that,

if I was interviewing, I'd be like, oh yeah, yeah. He knows how to work hard, like done deal. He'll do fine. He's a champion in that setting and he's all gonna fall for it. I gave him 90 days, because that's what I would see with average trainers

that applied themselves. Good ones, great ones, a month they would crush. He'll do well. Yep. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano. Adam's at Mind Pump.

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