In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions drawn from last Sunday’s Quah post on the @mindpumpmedia Instagram page. 
   Mind Pump Fit Tip: PAY ATTENTION! Progress from exercise often has nothing to do with fat loss, muscle gain, or physical performance. (1:57)
   Adam’s thoughtful gift. (18:07)
   What percentage of people try to cheat their taxes? (24:48)
   Sal’s evening at his parents' house. (29:41)
   Eight Sleep, the Rolls Royce of sleep cooling systems. (33:25)
   Speculating on progressing with less volume as you get older. (40:07)
   Fun Facts with Justin: The Water Beetle’s evolution of survival. (46:58)
   Mind Pump Recommends Oppenheimer. (49:46)
   Calories are not equal. (54:52)
   Get younger skin with Joovv. (59:37)
   Shout out to GetDynasty.com. (1:01:47)
   #Quah question #1 - What is the relationship between building muscle and testosterone levels, particularly in women? If a woman has already experienced issues with other hormonal imbalances, can building muscle cause an abnormal increase in testosterone levels? (1:03:49)
   #Quah question #2 - How do I know when I have enough muscle to cut, so I don’t end up looking skinny? (1:07:48)
   #Quah question #3 - Should you reverse diet if you're over 30% body fat? (1:12:26)
   #Quah question #4 - What is the best protein for a budget bulk? (1:16:02)
   Related Links/Products Mentioned
   Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! **Save $150 on the Pod Cover.**
   Visit Joovv for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners!
   August Promotion: MAPS Anabolic Advanced 50% off! **Code AUGUST50 at checkout**
    Mind Pump #1522: How To Stay Consistent With Your Diet & Workout
    Kris Jenner Founded A Church With A $1000 A Month Membership And Theorists Think It’s Secret Tax Haven
    Water beetles can live on after being eaten and excreted by a frog
   Oppenheimer (2023) - IMDb
   Visit Daily Dose Meals for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order, excluding subscriptions.**
    Mind Pump #2130: The Truth About Hair Loss With Jay Campbell & Nick Andrews
   Create a Living Trust for free - in minutes! Dynasty Trusts | GetDynasty
   Visit Joy Mode for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first order**
   Reverse Dieting: What Is It and Should YOU Try It?? | MIND PUMP
   Reverse Dieting 101 | MAPS Fitness Products
    Mind Pump #1860: Fourteen Of The Best Foods For An Amazing Physique
   Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!
   Mind Pump #1605: How To Get Jacked On A Budget
   Mind Pump Free Resources 
   Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube
   People Mentioned
   Michael Churnow (@michaelchernow) Instagram
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only 1 place to go.

With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews.

You just found the world's number 1 fitness, health, and entertainment podcast.

Today's episode, we answered listeners questions after a 62 minute introductory conversation.

This is where we talk about fitness, current events, our lives, scientific studies, and much more.

By the way, you can check the show notes for timestamps.

If you just want to skip around to your favorite parts.

Also, you want to ask a question that we can answer on an episode like this 1?

This episode is brought to you by some sponsors.

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Progress from exercise is not always fat loss, muscle gain, or enhancements in athletic performance.

There are things you can pay attention to that will show you that you're moving forward.

In fact, you should pay attention to all the signs that we can get a complete picture of what fitness can actually do for you.

This is 1 of my favorite tips that you've done in a while because 1 of the hardest challenges as a trainer and coach when you get a client is convincing them that they're actually doing really good when they're so stuck on a goal, like let's say lose 30 pounds.

Right, so that's like such a common, I wanna lose 30 pounds, I wanna lose 30 pounds, and it's all about the scale.

So you first as a coach have this like hurdle, big hurdle that you have to get over, which is explaining to them that, I know that you have this number in your head that you were and you felt better than what you were now, but that's not the main metric that we should focus on.

So that's already a big enough hurdle to even get over that.

And then getting them to really be able to see the other things that are improving in their life because they're still so...

Even when they think they've moved past the weight thing, like, okay, I agree with you, I get it, I get the science of explaining the muscle metabolism thing, okay, I get all that, but I still wanna be smaller in the back of their head.

And then they're seeing things like, they're sleeping better, and their sex drive is better, and their skin

And people are telling them, God, you look good, and stuff

And so they're like, I don't understand, I'm not seeing the results I want.

And so, man, I think this is such a good tip is for people to really start to learn to look at all the other things that exercise and eating good impacts.

Yeah, there's so many things, so many factors, and that really is like the biggest part of our job as personal trainers is to make sure that we highlight those things because it isn't obvious a lot of times.

And it's, again, a lot of these things kind of reveal themselves probably later on in the journey, but to be able to know that things are happening and the way, even my mental health, the way I'm looking at things like me personally, improving myself is going to translate to a lot of different things with relationships, with work and, just my overall drive to be a better person.

This is really about human behavior, to use an analogy.

Like if you look straight ahead, there are things within your vision that you see but you don't necessarily perceive because you're not focused on them.

Another example would be, and I'm just gonna make everybody annoyed, but you always see your nose when you're looking at something.

Your nose is always in your vision, but your brain ignores it because you're not focusing on

All right, so what does this have to do with what we're talking about?

It's like manually breathing, like, oh, now I gotta think about that.

It's because what we focus on is what we see and all the other stuff we tend to ignore.

So it's not that these people aren't necessarily getting these results or there's progress.

It's that they're ignoring it and they're focusing so heavily on something like the scale.

So what ends up happening is they have all these amazing metrics, which are going to happen.

Like if you go from inactive to active, you do it properly, you go from eating poorly to eating better, and you do it appropriately, you're going to feel better.

You're going to, you're gonna have a better sex drive.

You're gonna feel less pain, but you're not gonna notice those things if you're so hyper-focused on the 30 pound goal or the goal to hit a PR or whatever your goal

So what's interesting to me is when I figured this out, this is how I figured it out.

I would get, because when I first became a trainer, I'm sure you guys did the same thing.

And I'm not going to even pay attention to this stuff because I'm going to get you the goal that you paid me a thousand dollars a hire to get you to or whatever.

I remember at 1 point, my client was commenting on something.

I think it was something along the lines of like their sleep or something.

And I remember their sleep was so bad before.

She goes, Oh my God, I haven't been sleeping this good in years.

I mean, it definitely improves your sleep.

And I remember the shock coming from her voice that she just realized something that's been happening for the last week.

And then I remembered, oh, like I need to help these people focus on all these other things because what it does is it paints a complete picture.

Because here's the reality, you want to lose 30 pounds and you do lose the 30 pounds.

By the way, people who do this consistently for years and years and years eventually figure this out.

You ask anybody who's been consistent with exercise for 10 years.

You have to, because at 1 point, the other goal becomes so superficial and you've already proven to yourself you can do it.

It's so interesting that we went this direction

point, I love the point that Justin, that you made up because I literally just had this moment in the last week where, so at our house, I've told you guys before, our routine kind of is that I'm the 1 that kind of straightens up the house and keeps, because I like it like super, super clean, like nothing out anywhere, right?

So I'm the 1 who does that most of the time.

And I noticed, not only did I notice, Katrina even noticed because she said something to me about me like slipping on some of the stuff and I'm just like, ugh.

And of course, a part of me gets irritated is the initial reaction, then I realize, no, that is my part of what I do.

What I've already connected before is when I'm really consistent with my training, I come home with this different energy to keep my household in order and to do that stuff.

And I don't walk in the door like, plop in the couch, like, oh, long day today, or whatever like that, or go back on my phone or get on the computer, right?

I come home and I make my house in order, and I enjoy that, and I have the energy to do that, I have the motivation to do that.

When I don't, when I'm inconsistent with my training, that becomes inconsistent.

And so I've learned to tie my consistency around exercise into being a better husband and a better father and a better homekeeper or leader in my home.

And so, and because I've already proven to myself what I could do physically, body fat percentage wise, muscle wise, all that stuff like that, that doesn't motivate me anymore.

And it doesn't mean it's not that someone shouldn't have that at 1 point, or I don't think there's tons of value in getting ripped and doing it.

But eventually, that superficial goal, you don't care about anymore.

And so you have to find something that is deeper, that is more important than just the way you look.

And once you learn to really attach to those things, it's much easier to stay consistent for those reasons.

Now here's how we're gonna tie it together and sell it because the other half of this, the challenge with this, is trying to sell this to somebody who's just so focused on weight loss that they're like, that's nice, that sounds great, like I still just want to lose.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still got 100 pounds to go.

Yeah, so here's how I'm gonna tie it together and sell it, and this is true, so this is 100% accurate.

Can you, so I'll ask the question, can you lose 30 pounds and feel worse, get worse sleep, feel like shit, make your health worse?

Now, will you lose 30 pounds if you start to feel better, if you start to sleep better, if you start to get a better attitude, if you improve your mobility, if you improve your strength, if you improve your energy?

So in essence, what we're saying is the things that you should focus on, which actually give you the complete picture, are the ones that also lead you to that goal that you want.

That goal that you want, that you're so focused on, the aesthetic goal, the weight loss goal, whatever.

If you just focus on that, there's a very good chance you'll ignore everything else and you'll sacrifice everything else.

And then here's the kicker, not only will your health get worse and you'll feel worse, you won't even hit your goal.

You've actually thrown it all out the window.

And That ties it together and sells it because fine, you're just focused on weight loss.

Here's how you're gonna lose weight anyway.

But at the end of the day, this was such a paradigm shift for my clients.

This I would say, and there's a lot of things that play a role, but this is probably number 1 in getting my clients to find, or at least figuring out the path toward developing a lifelong relationship with exercise.

When I figured this piece out, This is when the door opened for my clients and I said, oh, this is exactly what I need to focus on.

And what happened was my success rate, my client's success rate went through the roof.

But when I didn't figure this out, it was terrible.

I wonder what I would classify someone who's got to this place.

Like, I mean, are you a black belt at this point?

Because this is something that I feel like to this day, like it's still an evolution and getting better and better.

Like that's a big step to get to that place, right?

Like I think there's a lot of steps before someone really truly can attach their...

Because you can say it all you want, but we're mostly driven by our insecurities, especially at the beginning when it comes to body composition change and working out and exercise and nutrition, all that stuff like that.

So don't be discouraged if you're someone listening right now and you know you need to lose 50 pounds or whatever, because you know it, your doctor's told it, you've been trying to do it.

And you also are not at a place yet where you're like, oh, I can connect it to keeping the house clean.

It doesn't make you a failure at all, but that's the place you wanna get to.

You wanna get to a place where the reflection in the mirror, the weight on the scale, the way you look, is not what is driving your decision.

It's all the other things that health and fitness and exercise and making good healthy choices does for you besides that.

Yeah, well, I think it's a good visual to look at it is almost like that White belt that's coming in like sure There may be some outliers that will get it right away and all of a sudden they just advance you know and they work their way up and you know, they get a black belt within like a year or 2 or something like ridiculous.

And, you know, there's some people, it takes quite, quite a lot longer.

They have to get through and stumble through a lot of these ideas on their own.

And really that's why this is such an individual journey.

And This is like, you know, as trainers, you're just, there's like sort of this, this Oracle, you're just there to kind of guide them wherever their mental state is like, okay, if you're here, like, let's focus on this.

And then like really try to just, you know, drive their attention towards these things that are more beneficial to focus on, but it's not just innate.

It's not something that you just get it right away.

I am so glad you guys used the belt ranking system as an analogy, because there's more to it than what you guys are saying.

You know what's, okay, so it's a beautiful analogy precisely because of the following.

The belt systems in martial arts were invented later.

They were invented later because people like to, they like a visual of their progress, but they were never meant to show somebody reaching a destination.

Martial arts is a pursuit, it's a journey.

It's not like a you're there, you're done.

Now the data and the statistics on this is fascinating.

If you look at the stick rate, or the quit rate, I should say, among white belts and yellow belts and green belts and purple belts, whatever, blue belts, purple belts, brown belts, black belts, as somebody gets better, the quit rate goes down, not up.

So as they get better, they realize more and more, this is not a destination.

This is just a, I'm going to, so black belts are far less likely to quit than a purple belt who is also far less likely to quit than a blue belt and so on.

There's a path towards improving yourself and becoming a better person, becoming healthier, improving your fitness.

There's also a path that takes you in the opposite and wrong direction.

What we're talking about is not, hey look, there's the destination, get there, you're done.

There is no you get there, you die at some point.

Now, what we're talking about is a flashlight.

Where you shine the flashlight is where you put your steps, that's all.

So if I'm putting my flashlight on how I feel, the other effects of exercise, my mood, my energy, I'm walking on the right path.

I'm walking on the path that continues to improve me.

If I take that flashlight and move it towards the path of just the mirror, just the scale, comparing myself to others, you know the rest, right?

So don't think of this as a, I'm going to get there 1 day.

No 1 in this room is ever going to get there.

Now, the exciting and motivating point to learning to put your flashlight on these things that we're talking about instead of the scale, the body fat, the mirror reflection, is that you can instantly start to win.

If you have a 50 pound goal, or I wanna look shredded, like, that's a long journey.

And there's a lot of actually setbacks on the way to that long journey.

But when you have goals, like, I want, like, when you're focused on my sleep, my energy, my attitude, making me a better father, a better husband, all these other things that...

When you focus on all those things, those things are like immediate.

You get a good workout in, you make a good choice of eating all day, your digestion will immediately start to feel better, your sleep will probably be better, your mood will start to increase, you'll probably have a better attitude, like your energy level, like dude, like right away you start compiling the wins.

And when you're focused on the wins, it's really motivating to keep it.

Oh, the scale went back a pound or 2 on my goal to

pounds, but man, I had the best sleep I ever had and I had the best sex I ever had the other day.

Like you're concentrated on those things.

You ain't tripping about the 1 or 2 pounds setbacks here and there on the big goal.

That is an incredible, I used to love that.

Yeah, it's like, oh my God, I can't believe this happened.

Like, well, you're moving in the right direction.

By the way, just to highlight how powerful this is, what we're saying, this used to happen all the time.

So someone might be listening, be like, well, how do you not recognize that you feel better?

How do you not recognize that you get better sleep?

I'll use an even louder signal that people would ignore all the time.

I would have to point out to clients that their back doesn't hurt anymore after 10 years of back pain

okay, we would do an exercise They would do it and be like John do you remember last week how much your back hurt?

That's how much unawareness we can have over things because we're focused

That's how crippling it can be to focus on the aesthetic thing mainly.

You're so crippled by that, you're so focused on the scale, weight, or how you look that you completely ignore these other things.

That if you were asked in a category of top 10 things you want to feel better, be better in your life, you would list.

Like those, I feel like a client coming in, don't even consider that a lot of times.

And it's like, again, yeah, you strengthen areas of your body, all of a sudden it just eliminates pain.

To me, that's where a lot of the hook starts to happen.

It starts to really form the idea that, oh, wow, this is so much more than just me trying to come in and lose weight and get shredded

Yeah, so awesome alright, so since we're having fun and getting emotional here.

I'm just gonna stay on this little train here So I got it.

I got it publicly say something nice about Adam this is a good sandwich.

don't talk about this, you're gonna make me emotional.

I got, so my grandfather passed away about 6 months ago and he's the patriarch of the family and we all love him.

And Adam and his wife gave us just an incredibly thoughtful gift.

And I don't even know if you realize just how thoughtful it was, because it was like the perfect gift.

Your family made me realize last night, which is what's gonna make me emotional.

Yeah, so they reserved or got, or paid for, I should say, a bench in a county park here in the Bay Area.

And it says on it, in honor of my grandfather, Giuseppe Visconti, you know, and in parentheses, no, no.

And now you have to wait 6 months for this to be made.

And also they told me when it first happened and I remember like wow and I thought okay I'm not gonna tell my family until it's done.

Well, they got it yesterday They sent me the picture of it and everything and I just so happened to be at my mom's house and I told my you know, my mom and my aunts I got them all on FaceTime and it was a It was really really touching moment.

And I just want to say, and here's why it was so thoughtful.

You didn't know my grandfather, but that would have been something that would have lit him up forever.

Okay, because he's the kind of person, if there's a bench with his name on it he'd probably go take a walk every other day look at it take a picture of it and show his you know show his friends and family so yeah it was a big deal that's

awesome katrina katrina and I were crying last night because the family not only did sallis family call me and FaceTime me and then individually go around and thank us and then they got emotional, but then all night long I kept getting text messages from the family members were telling me how impactful that it was.

See all Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth transcripts on Applepodcasts

2138: How Muscle Affects Testosterone Levels, the Best Low Cost Protein Sources, Reverse Dieting at a Higher Body Fat Percentage & More