TMGP Ep 34 with health coach, wellness consultant mindset expert Jeffrey Siegel part 2

oo another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral hi Gaines gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast Episode 34 I am your host Rosco and today we're welcoming Jeffrey seagull onto the show for part two of his two-part series Jeffrey seagull is a prominent health coach and an educator known for his integrative approach to Wellness particularly in the realm of men's health he is the founder and CEO of Jeff seagull Wellness where he empowers individuals especially men to regain energy confidence and balance in their lives his coaching philosophy emphasizes a holistic view of Health combining mindfulness movement and education to Foster transformative change in his clients lives seagull's journey into Health coaching was influenced by his personal battles with an eating disorder during his teenage years this experience led him to seek help and ultimately reshape his understanding of health and well-being he holds a masters in mind and brain education from Harvard University and a master's in Buddhist studies from Hong Kong University where he focused on integrating psychology and spirituality into Health practices as a certified personal trainer and dynamic eating psychologist seagull has developed a range of coaching Services aimed at enhancing physical and emotional well-being his work include Executive coaching for self-care and word life balance as well as teaching mind fulness and stress management techniques he also facilitates workshops on self-compassion and healthy relationships in November 2015 Jeffrey helped create a Ted Ed talk titled what makes muscles grow which has garnered millions of views in this presentation he discusses the biological mechanisms behind muscle growth emphasizing the importance of sleep nutrition and exercise he explains that effective muscle development requires intentional Challenge and Recovery highlighting how factors such as hormones and genetics play critical roles in this process seagull believes that many individuals are not adequately taught how to care for their bodies or maintain their health through his work he aims to provide the necessary resources and support for people to live healthier lives his approach is is characterized by a commitment to fostering communities that support individual growth and well-being in summary Jeffrey seagull is a dedicated health coach who combined personal experience with professional expertise to help others achieve sustainable Wellness through an integrative approach that encompasses both Mind and Body in today's episode we dive into a wide range of insights some of the topics include the importance of having goals the shadow side of Fitness insecurity feelings of not being enough life throwing curve balls how to mitigate hard things what makes muscles grow the Ted X talk with over 20 million views Challenge and rest and Recovery reason for exercise finding your why common blocks to exercise ignorance scared to start not knowing how arrogance incorrect info such as men's health emotional body dysmorphia comparison to others negative self-image options having a partner or trainer getting a home gym minimizing bares to entry such as the time to gym and the commute to workout making it social and easily accessible making it part of your routine and identity ego is the illusion that we can control everything in life importance of flexibility with routine making Jim accessible to women and children increasing exposure comparing yourself versus yourself scans pictures realistic progression social media not being reality comparisons of old I.E the 50 people in our tribe vers now against the H of social media a large portion of the world the body does a lot or the body doing a lot it keeps us breathing and Alive lots to be grateful for what is it capable of the relationship with mind and body auto regulating and listening to your body the Mind Body Connection the complexities of energy balance with regard to energy expenditure through exercise and so much more get ready for a truly informative episode if you're injured or in recovery visit the injury consultant.com and schedule a free consultation to explore how I can support your healing restoration and journey to thriving Health the injury consultant now offers specialized packages for fat loss muscle gain and Longevity interested book your free consult today a little disclaimer this show does not contain medical advice the views and opinions expressed by guests on the muscle growth podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs or The Stance of the podcast while we aim to provide valuable insights and information it's important to approach all topics with critical thinking I encourage you to do your own research consider multiple perspectives and form your own conclusions healthy discussion is always welcome and I'm happy to engage with listeners in the comments to continue the conversation lastly don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us at the muscle growth podcast and myself at reps with Rosco on that I think you mentioned one of the motivators um and for me I have goals so for example for squat for bench for deadlift for pull-ups um and they're very lofty goals and it's a it's a five-year plan to get to those goals um but I'm quite excited I'm making good progress so far so I'm very excited to hopefully attain all of those goals in the next 5 years that's that that is a a big goal and a big reason why I can be there um even when I don't really feel like being there have had a tough day at work or feeling tired but then that's why you got caffeine so it can nudge you along you know um you know so like the importance of setting goals yeah that's huge right and like any and again anybody's been in the gym knows this any trainer right is going to ask you what are your goals and we're going to start to set some targets um and I think these things are helpful right like having like you said I want to have some Squad goals I want to have some pull-up goals right this is why people sign up for competitions and for events right I want to want a marathon I want to do a bodybuilding comp right it's like I have these goals these Focus my energy and my effort very clearly now there structure right and then there's sort of a Finish Line right and then there's a sense of competition right there's so many helpful things around that you know and I always want to broaden people to like okay like what's the Finish Line after the Finish Line right it's like when you hit those goals then what you know like what comes next and I think that can be hard for a lot of people that have been training you know it's like you prep so hard for this event and then after the event or whatever you hit your goals and then there's sort of this void or this let down you know and and maybe you're not as satisfied or as happy as you thought you were going to be um which is why I think you know the importance of having a larger context for why are you even bothering with any of this at all right are you doing this from this place of you know curiosity around like what is my potential I want I want to experience my potential as a human as a man as having this body and I want to know what it's capable of so I'm gonna I want I'm going to push it to try to see and explore what's possible there I think that could be like a really beautiful way into doing all of these things right but then there's also a shadow side where like so much Fitness especially like the really hardcore pushing can be driven from these Shadows of feeling like you're not enough right being driven by insecurity by you know childhood things that happen that made you feel afraid and scared so we make up for it by armoring ourselves with tons of muscles so nobody's going to push us around and Bully us right so nobody can have power over us right to exert our in the world right and it's like we need to be really honest with ourselves around like what's driving us to achieve these goals exactly so I I want to give a quote that's what I was just uh typing now that um kind of encapsulates what you just said very very nicely and I don't know if it's a true quote because you can never know these days um because there's a lot of nonsense out there but it's a really beautiful quote nonetheless um no man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training it is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable and it's attributed to uh it's well on this one it says Socrates yeah yeah it's like choose choose your ancient Greek philosopher um I've heard that quote it's it's it's a tremendous right and and yeah and if it's true or not it doesn't really matter to cool quot it's a great quote you know it applies to men I think you know and applies to to women as well right and like any body who's interested in any sort of personal development yes right can you know personal development doesn't just happen up here in your head right it's like we need to embody these things and physical training is a huge part of developing that strength that resilience that Fitness right and like being fit isn't just about being able to deadlift a lot right but it's about being fit to lead is about being emotionally fit so when life throws you some some curve balls which which it will right it's going to throw some [ __ ] at you and make you upset and make you feel less than right it's like how do you navigate through that um and again training itself can be a really valuable tool because every day right you're you're getting your body into this stress state but it's done in this highly controlled and purposeful way right where you're pushing to your Edge and then you're recovering and you're pushing to your Edge right and you're testing and you're pulling back right so you're learning how to navigate hard things right and as you know another quote of like you know it's like why are squats so helpful right because when life is pushing you down right it's like you're training how to get back up um and so I you know this is why I love I love working out right and it's been such a foundational part of my life and I do it you know as as as much as my body allows me to right listening to when I need rest and you know these are things we can talk about too of like how to obviously modulate your training I know you you know on so many of your podcasts you get into the weeds right around training protocols and and what are like rest days look like and nutrition like and all that information is great um you know so everybody keep listening keep listening to Rosco keep listening to the muscle growth podcast thank you I appreciate that so much you make a great point there about stress and Stress Management I I don't want to go too much into it because we've chattered quite a lot about it in previous episodes but I just wanted to reiterate that a little bit of stress like you said like from muscle damage from having a good workout is not bad it's chronic stress that is bad you don't want to be chronically stressed but to have a little bit of stress is actually good and the muscles need a little bit of stress to grow and I think that Segways really nicely into how do muscles grow can you give us like your Ted Talk is one of the best like 4 minute Clips on the internet so can you kind of give us that four minutes you can you can you can recite that thing for basm if you want but can you please give us uh give us that that you know I I appreciate you saying that um if you don't know what Ros is talking about you know I I helped uh write a Ted Ed video called what makes muscles grow so just Google it Google Jeff seagull Ted Ed Jeff seagull what makes muscles grow uh you know watch the video so again you know it was interesting making this video okay yeah it was uh interesting making this video you know because they often say it's like you don't really understand something until you can explain it to like a kindergartener and your grandmother at the same time and have both of them understand right so finding the language right taking something that is so complex as muscle growth and boiling it down into simple language and then doing it in less than five minutes uh was really just an exercise for me because I had spent so many years right like from teenage years up until now of like exploring like what the heck makes Russel grow because like I want muscles I want to be strong I want to help other people strong um and so you know this was really just a project right to be clear like you know I didn't make any money making this video it's not there to like sell or promote any products um you know was really just like I want to be able to share some of these ideas um and I don't know how many years ago even you know it's it's maybe coming up close to a decade when I made that video so obviously you know the science is is evolved as it should right and like you know gain a little bit more understanding into some of the actual cellular and sort of immune system mechanism that come into play when you know muscle growth and you know looking at some of the the promoters of growth right and and like these conversations you know just pick and shoes online you can dig into any of them right like what's is it is it you know muscle damage is it the metabolic stimulus right is it the myokines that then promote the inflammation that then recruit the you know the stem cells to BL proliferate uh you know and it's like okay are we just looking at the muscle or are we also paying attention to the fascia and then the ligaments um and obviously you know like strength has a lot more to do than just muscle although it's correlated with muscle size right like strength has so much to do with your nervous system how well can you recruit all the muscle fibers that you have um and then obviously there's this big recovery piece right because like the exercise is the stimulus and the muscle growth is the response right and that response is predicated on having adequate protein and amino acids right the right mix of hormones which primarily is determined by how well you're sleeping and how well regulated your circadian rhythms are and then obviously your nutrition um and are you getting the you know not only the right macronutrients but the right micronutrients to support the cellular metabolism right so like there's a million things going on there I just say like go go watch the video but I think the important part at like the very end of that video I tried to highlight what you just said of like you know like meaningful growth requires right like some degree of challenge coupled with the right amount of rest and like recovery and it's like that that's it like you know in some ways it's pretty simple right like if you want to get fitter it's like you know the right amount of you know intensity in terms of training stimulus right coupled with adequate recovery which you know can mean a lot of things to different people but like that's going to lead to progress um you know and yet there's so many ways to mess that up um you know and I did for so many years I think for so many years I kind of overtrained or maybe you could argue that I wasn't overtraining but I was under recovered I wasn't eating enough calories to really support the training that I was doing where I wasn't eating enough you know carbs and things because you know for so long I had been you know in this sort of carb phobic fat phobic mind you know and and even today right like you know you get into ketogenic diets and how great those can be you know not only for physical but for mental health um and it's so difficult to sift through all of these pieces right but it comes back to well what are your goals you know and and ultimately like what what's going to make you happy like I think figuring that piece out right of like you know is this training making me happy and is it making me a better person and when I say a better person right I mean better to myself better to my relationships with people around me better even to the non-human world right like if you can say yes you know my training is making me a better person then I say great keep doing whatever doing you're on track right but if your training is not because it's coming from some insecurity inside of you or you never feel like you're good enough right and it's like causing you to be so hyperfocused on you know your tracking your Macros and you feel really guilty if you skip your gym session and then you blew it because you ate all this stuff right like that's not helping you build a better relationship with your body right if anything it's fueling this inner turmoil and so we need to go back and we need to we need to look at what the heck is going on there and clean off that on yo I think a lot of people are going to be doing some introspection after this episode I mean that's what you know I I hope right because again you know my so much of my work is like yeah we can get in the Weeds about you know the outer game of the training and like you know let's talk you know intensity and volume and Reps and training protocols but like if your inner game isn't aligns then all of that outer stuff either a is going to eventually crumble or B going to get to some great physique but you're still going to be unhappy and you're going to feel unfulfilled inside and the people around you are probably going to be looking at you being like dude I've been trying to tell you something for a long time and you're not listening right so it's like yeah we need to go back and we need to do some of that inner work too yo that's that's so true and I I I love the message can we Circle I know you've talked a little bit about some blocks um for example you mentioned that maybe people don't uh fully comprehend quite how important physical exercise and resistance training is what are some other common blocks that you see and then can we kind of give some ways to beat the blocks to get around the barriers that you can suggest that are quick and simple or maybe not quick and simple but for you to explain quick and simply so you know look in in coaching right we're always trying to identify like what is the limiting factor right when somebody says they want to do something and yet they're still not doing it which I think we've all had that experience right the question is like well what's holding them back um not sometimes it's just the lack of knowhow right of like like you know like they again and this can go back to our conversation about there they had no education there was no there was no you know uh class in school teaching them how to weight train they didn't have any adult Role Models or mentors you know to show them around the gym or to show them how to lift weights so sometimes it's just like I don't really know what I'm doing all right and therefore I'm not confident or I'm afraid I'm going to injure myself right and those are sort of the easiest fixes because you know it's like there's a million videos you can watch or you can go higher and you know work with the personal trainer right to kind of give you that guidance and that knowhow um you know uh on the other you know and especially for guys there's sort of that feeling of like well I can do it all on my own you know it's like I don't need anybody else like I'm going to figure it out on my own um you know and you can you know and for years I did that too you know and you kind of muddle your way through a little bit of this and you hop from this program to that program and you know I mean for me back in the day it was like just Men's Health Magazine right because there wasn't a million Instagram feeds around like but you know it's like each month there was a new men's health workout so I was like yeah I'm gonna do this one and then next month I'm gonna do that one but like you know we all know it's like that that sort of halfhazard training is fine like you're you're going to see some results but it's certainly not going to be as effective as having well thought out you know macro and mesocycles and having just some more structure to your training program um so that can become a block you know for some people um you know and then I think there are these other more emotional blocks that show up you know for for people gyms are can be unfriendly places right where either they walk in and they feel weak um and no guy wants to feel weak right so it's like if you're out of shape right and you know that you're deconditioned to walk into a weight training room and seeing all these guys lifting heavy stuff and grunting and you right it's like our minds inevitably get into social comparison mode and it's very hard to not fall into this you know trap of of kind of you know shame and and sort of you know self-depreciation and so I think that blocks a lot of guys um from sometimes you know getting in there now of course you know with covid we've opened up a whole window to online training and there's so much you can do at home you know you see behind me I got I got you know I I work out right back here all the time um so you know you don't necessarily need to be in that gym world uh but again that you know that goes back to like having there you know a workout buddy or a guide you know somebody to kind of help you feel safe in that environment to show you what is going on um you know and then there's other blocks too around people you know this goes into sort of the body dysmorphia piece right where it's like you know they look at themselves in the mirror and again I think we all probably have experienced some degree of this right to a certain extent and you just like you know like you wake up you know it's like you go to the gym and then you come home like you shower off or whatever and then you look at yourself in the mirror you're like damn like I look good right like sure you know maybe you got a little pump going on right you're a little more full right you sweat it out some of that subcutaneous water right it's like maybe you know it's like your physique is looking really good but it's like most of it is psychologically right you're looking through these eyes of somebody that again that just did something hard there's a sense of accomplishment right there's a sense of progress there's a sense of Pride right and all that then reflects back to you the man you see in the mirror is this strong proud accomplished man you're like hell yeah I like that right selfie boom all right but then you know the opposite is true like you wake up in the morning like you know you ate a bunch of crap you drank a bunch of crap right like you know you haven't worked out in a while you know and you look at yourself in the mirror and what do you see back right even if your body like even if the body composition is exactly the same right you're going to see a different man right a guy who's like you know feeling down on himself feeling like he's not maybe living in Integrity with what he wants to be doing or he's not fulfilling his potential he knows right you know that there's some part of you that isn't showing up the way you want right and so when you look in the mirror you see that reflected back to you um you know and so like that becomes a a block you know for some guys again they can motivate themselves out of it of like okay I'm going to start working out today um for other guys it's going to pull them deeper into this cycle right this sort of vicious cycle not taking care of themselves you keep pushing it off pushing it off pushing it off right so like there's you know there's all sorts of barriers and again just coming back to what is going to be that limiting factor for you and then what do you suggest to like help these people you mentioned um a partner or a trainer um what what are some other options for these people you also mentioned a home gym um what are some other uh options that you can just quickly fire off for for people that are struggling to get started yeah um I'm a huge fan of the home Jim I just want to reinforce that one or at least minimizing right the barrier to entry when it comes to work right like and there's so much evidence that like the longer you have to commute to your workout the more likely it's not going to happen you know um so stuff that you can do really easily at home or around your home or even just logging in online right and doing like a zoom class with other people right um so making it social and making it easily accessible is really two big powerful pieces I think when it comes to that but the bigger piece goes back to what you were saying rasco initially of like how it's just become part of your routine it's just part of who you are it is part of your identity so I think you know the people that have really made Fitness a staple in their life it's because it's just not part of who they are that's just like what you do you're like yeah I'm going to work out today because I like because of like again all the millions of reasons again choose your motivation but you're like it's just going to happen right and it's the same difference between somebody who says you know it's like I'm gonna cook dinner tonight because that's what I do I cook dinner you know versus some people say no like I never cook I hate cooking I'm always going to order out right um and some people say Hey you know I'm never going to work out or I only work out under these conditions right so it's like it had the shift has to happen at this larger place of identity of like who you see yourself are as you know and this goes to training it goes to eating um when you can start to shift that piece then the training you don't end up in this battle with yourself of like should I work out should I not work out um you know because that actually creates more cognitive dissonance and discrepancy internally because you're like wait a second like you know what's going on here like this is not like me right um you know so I think that is the level and again it's like there's no easy simple path I wish I could you know spell out like oh well this is how you change your identity to become somebody who works out all the time right um you know but I think it's like when you start to peel through all these levels right figuring out why is this important to me now in this very moment why is this important to me 10 years from now why is this important to my family to my work why is training physically important to my mental health right and we connect those dots together to recognize hey I'm actually doing this for my mood and for my brain and for my sanity all right and then how is doing this and connected to my social health where we then begin to bring in the other people right and maybe that's a workout buddy maybe that's group exercise um you know and then obviously working on Outdoors is tremendous too so we can add in that nature element right and start to see it as a connection with the non-human worlds you know you're going to just get that much more benefit out of it right and you know again muscles in service of something even larger wow that's fantastic I think uh yeah you must have been reading Atomic Habits by James Clear there are you familiar with the b i i familiar with that book for certain yeah you know I think there's a lot of good practical tips in there you know and again in you know in my world right I'm I'm trying to help people find sustainable ways to to change their behavior um but if you try to like fit a new Behavior into an already overcrowded lifestyle and identity then it's never really going to stick right you know so what do we need to do we need to expand our identity to make enough space for this new thing to then fit in and then this recalibration happens right again people live the life they live right you're either working out or not working out all right or you're either eating well or not eating well because it's serving you in some way you've reached a place of homeostasis with your routines all right biologically and psychologically these things are stable right and that's what we like right our our our brains and our bodies like that stability so anything you do to change that is going to inherently cause some instability which is going to create resistance then there is a push back of the system right you can willower your way through that for a short period of time especially if you have highly focused goals so if you have these clear training goals you're like I'm going to train for the next three months to do this thing right but then at some point the system is going to push back to try to go back to that initial place of homeostasis right unless you transform the system to then actually come to this new state right where it's like I'm not trying to go back to have the lifestyle I had before I'm actually trying to have an entirely new lifestyle that's going to help me become the person I want to become exactly no I think it's a it's a fabulous Outlook to have and I hope that a lot of people adopt it if if they didn't have it already obviously um Atomic habits mentions the like you said lower the B barrier to entry that's a big Point as well as make it a habit like make going to gym a habit make lower the barrier make it a habit and then add an accountability partner whether that's a coach or a friend or yeah but get someone to be accountable towards all yourself like if you can do it but if you haven't done it so far maybe it's a good idea to have someone else who's also looking to change their life around or maybe someone that already has because they're already doing it and then you just join them it's more simple lower the barrier and go from there you know I think all of those are useful those are definitely helpful approaches you know and I just want to I want to highlight the piece that you know what gets you going into the gym initially right is probably going to be different than what gets you coming back to the gym day after day week after week month after month right and I think we need to separate those two out because they're actually different scenarios right so go from of a sedentary life to an active one is very different than you know what sustains an active life year over year again there's going to be different motivations in there there's GNA be different pieces that come up with that um you know and and I think we you know I'm all about making habits but I think that that language often becomes too you know oversimplified right and we look at it in this sort of like scariano you know stimulus cleu response sort of way uh um but like you know we're too complex you know like for that our lives and our minds you know so I think building understanding like when flexibility is needed for a habit but also you know planning for it right like anticipating it right like recognizing is like yeah you know it's like life's going to do as many things as it going to do to try to like throw me off of this routine right so instead of trying to simplify and and Hyper contr control again you know our egos are really just this like illusion that we control everything in life um and we can start to really get over attached to things um and that can really lead us in in you know not so great places so being more flexible in our approach it it isn't easy but that I think ultimately is what makes these things so much more sustainable absolutely and I I love that you mentioned flexibility I think that's a huge thing that is not talked about nearly enough um it's super important to be flexible for example I've had a bit of a sore knee recently and because of that I had to change my program because I couldn't continue to do the exact same program that I did before the sore knee and now I'm slowly getting back to my regular program but I had to be flexible same thing in the gym if the one specific piece of equipment is being used you can change the order of your workout to then just do it slightly differently or use a different machine that one time is not going to be the difference rather just adapt and be flexible I think it's very important um to be flexible and I think a lot of people like you said habits maybe with the connotation of if you don't do it it's the end of the world that one time and you might as well just quit on the spot whereas I like what you said where you got to be flexible life happens we're very complex if there is a reason why you can't get to gym don't be demotivated and then never go back so I think it's very important that you bring up the flexibility aspect there and then also wanted to tou on the motivation like you said the motivation to start is probably not going to be the motivation to it might but it's probably like motivation or willpower of fleeting you need to develop the discipline um to to keep going and to to find your your why which I think is what you what you emphasize quite a lot and I love that you like to emphasize to people you need to have a reason for doing it and then when you found a strong enough reason then you will do it because you have that reason and if that reason changes that's fine but as long as you have that reason to keep going you will keep going yeah I mean flexibility right it allows you to keep progressing even when life changes right so we we need to stay open-minded and recognize right there's there's more than one way to build muscle there's more than one way to eat well there's more than one way to train in a way that's going to be helpful um so as you said I like you know use the word adapt that's That's essential right we need to be adaptable and what you were pointing out is another one of the barriers that comes up and I see this over and over and over again um especially around nutrition right which is this all or nothing thinking right that's very black and white right it's like either I like was on my game plan and like ate all you know like perfectly portioned macros today and nailed my calories and my protein right or totally fell off the wagon you know and then the moment we we cross that line you know people usually throw their hands up and say screw it right and then kind of open the floodgates and that sort of right that clear all or nothing thinking just leads to cycles of of binging and then restricting or OV exercising and then undere ex exercising it just you know you start flip-flopping back and forth between these extremes right and you never really find a sustainable balanced way so I'm always trying to help people move out of that into this more nuanced Gray Zone where we can begin to integrate those pieces together uh in a better way absolutely and you uh mention of the barriers to to entry uh where you mentioned about people feeling insecure uh in the gym that that reminds me of when I was young and just starting in the gym I was always very fit from playing lot of sport but very skinny and I was very um worried about um the I was scared of being humiliated in the way section because there's always those really big guys there who are actually quite nice and now that I've learn but back then they look very scary very intimidating and I absolutely refused in in school to go to the um public gym the weight section because I was like there's they barely even have weights that I can do so I'm not going to do that I'll rather just stick to the circuit and I think that probably put me back two or three years of muscle progression and growth not entirely obviously you can get some stimulus and whatnot but I think being scared to start was a big barrier for me and I'm very uh fortunate that I was able to overcome that and I'm now on a path to try and deadlift 300 kg so that's one of my big goals so shows you that you can go from literally refusing to lift the weight or even go into the section of the weights to hopefully one day they're lifting 300 kilograms and and I I love that man and thank you for sharing that story right and it goes back to you know starting at a young age like making physical training you know uh something that kids feel comfortable really like engaging with right like making the gym a friendly place for young boys and young girls uh you know again a whole different conversation around women and training and building muscle and um but it's like you know equally is important um and you know again if you're involved in athletics right like you know if if you were grew up playing sport I know you did you know a lot of the tennis and other things right like you probably got some degree of that exposure um but not everybody plays Sports um and even then you know sometimes that that exposure can be uh pretty unhealthy right when there's a hyperfocus on hitting a certain weight or looking a certain way right like depending on who the coach is right like it can it can start to get a little bit ugly there I've heard all sorts of stories um so you know again these there's opportunities that we're missing but we always need to really be thoughtful about how we're how we're going to implement that absolutely and the point you made about the man in the mirror that's also something that I resonate with on a spiritual level um in after a good session in the gym uh maybe after my SAA or something I look in the mirror also to be fair and a note to the audience I believe and I've had a lot of people agree with this mirrors and gyms are often not uh they're often curved in such a way to make you look bigger so I don't know if that's true for I don't know you got the South African Mir they definitely they definitely give you an illusion of looking bigger um which is really cool because then you're in the gym and you're looking really good that's why the gym selfies are always you know topnotch but anyway after the pump and whatever it also adds to it so I understand all that and then in the SAA you look after SAA you look really good the Water waste has gone like you said um and then I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror I'm like it doesn't even look like I work out and that to me is really sad I'm like I work out five times a week I eat pretty well I JY hard why is that but it's it's that body dysmorphia it's comparing yourself to those online which is not a fair comparison they show you their highlight reel they show you them pumped up ready to go with perfect lighting also editing photos and that nonsense um so it's not a fair comparison you got to compare yourself to yourself which is like I mentioned for myself looking at the the scans looking at pictures those kind of things and then you can see a realistic progression uh of you verse you instead of you verse influencer X which is not a fair comparison maybe their gym for their like that's their entire life they just JY and eat and they don't have to go to work and be stressed and have high cortisol and those kind of which is not fair but life's not fair and you've got to deal with the hand that you've been given and like you said you've got to become that person that goes to gym if that's what you want in your life which we you and I recommend putting as part of your life um just because we think it's cool and it's good for you objectively yeah well well said my friend well said all of those points are really important and and especially around the social media around the comparison um and again we can't we can't help it right that's just like we are social mammals right like we are designed to always is be you know thinking about ourselves relationally in terms of how do we Stack Up in terms of status and power and attractiveness right um and this is so woven into our DNA and our biology right and now we have these social media which has just sort of taken it and Amplified it in this in this way that's so evolutionarily awkward where like we never had to compare ourselves as you said some you know somebody who does this for a living with like the perfectly filtered training you know lights and everything you know it's like if anything like you know we compared ourselves to the 50 other people on our tribe you know um and and that's like a very different set right data set um so like those pieces I think are are really important that we reinforce that you know and and the one other piece that I come back to is really balancing this tension right between self-acceptance right and you know self-improvement all right so it's like on one hand like you know when you're when you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like man like it doesn't even look like I work out right it's like having that moment of self-compassion and just accepting you know like you know this is today's body right like your body is not there it's not trying to piss you off you know it's not trying to make you upset you know like it's it's doing what it has been doing for hundreds of thousands of years right again to maintain homeostatic stability to keep you breathing to keep all the bazillions of things that it does for you like if anything we should be extremely grateful right so like there's is like you know acceptance of our body and and also like how it looks right and just recognize like our weight is just some relationship to gravity and like you know not getting too hung up on that is really really important so I like to hold that in one hand right you put out your one hand and then in the other hand is this place of self-improvement as I said of like okay like well I want to know what is my body capable of you know and and I you know I would like it to maybe do some things that it can't do right now I would like it to maybe fit into some clothes that it can't fit into right now you know so like there are these things that I would like to work on um you know but and it's like I always try to help people shift from this idea of like working on your body to working with your body right and it's a subtle shift because we're caught up in this Paradigm of mind over matter where we think it's the job of our mind to control our body right going to dictate to it today oh today you're doing right 12 sets right of of deadlifts and you're going to eat you know 500 grams of it right like we dictate down right but like I want to shift that right and so instead of commanding to our body I want to collaborate with my body right it's a two-way Road here my body is always sending messages up all right what's going on right and is giving me valuable valuable feedback and when I begin to develop that better relationship of Mind and Body I actually unlock a whole lot of wisdom and intuition that my body can hold and I also make my training more sustainable because now I'm actually incorporating these feedback signals that can help me auto regulate what I'm doing with my training and in the gym and how I'm eating um as opposed to just dominating right I have this external plan it looks perfect on paper and I'm just going to push through it and make it happen right but like there's an extreme there's a cost to that a physical and a mental cost and again anybody who's trained really hard has probably experienced that right so it's always a matter of right it's like you know is is it is it worth it to you is the cost worth it to you um and if I'm helping people think about the long game we're looking again the longevity piece being able to do this for decades and decades you know and it's like are you happy with yourself and the relationship that you have with your body like that is so key you're exactly right there and I think um it's an interesting one the feedback you get from your body is very important and that mind body that connection is also integral to how you going to monitor your progress and how you going to see yourself so I think looking at your body and being able to listen to your body is is very important is there anything that you've had as a long held belief that you've since changed your mind on or something that you used to believe that now you you you've completely uh 180 and you don't don't think it's correct anymore yeah that's that's a great question um you know especially because I talk about the dangers right of like holding too dogmatically to any belief right like that just leads to rigidity in your thinking um so I think one of the biggest things that we all need to do right myself included is to like go back and and ask where am I making assumptions and and are these true and valid right and might I be jumping to conclusions that aren't um you know am I I'm actually really being honest with myself you know one of the things that I think I have really kind of probably 18 on is you know using exercise as a tool to you know manipulate and control calories all right so I think like if you are working out and like your main focus is just to burn 600 calories during today's workout like that is a Fool's errands and for a long time you know I think back when I was in a you know probably I had more disorder habits around eating and exercise right and you know trying to again control all these calories in calories out and I'm like well if I can go burn 600 calories in the gym you know then either I can eat 600 calories later or so on and so forth um you know and the greater you know the more I have both a come into my own body again developing that collaborative intimate relationship with my body and then B really looking into the science of metabolism and energy expenditure The more I've really begin to see that like that degree of control that calorie game is exactly that it's a game it's a farce um and you know it really can lead to some pretty disordered behaviors um there's a great paper that I read a couple years ago that was like so wonderful I'll have to pull it up for you um it was about the mystery of energy compensation right and it was basically asking this question of you know like okay like if you could if you know somebody's base metabolic rate you know um and then you you know you throw them on an exercise bike for 90 minutes right and you can kind of like pretty accurately measure okay they burn you know you know 500 calories during this time then you would assume that their total daily energy expenditure right would be their Bas of metabolic rate plus the energy expended from the exercise right but then when you go look at the actual data like that doesn't happen it never adds up that way right it's not so simple and and and so the question this paper's trying to figure out is like well how is the body compensating for the energy burn during exercise right by downregulating these other things right and and the truth is we still don't really know right we don't really have a very good understanding of how the body does this but we do know that the numbers don't add up very well right and there things like you know your basal metabolic rate can downshift we know that after a lot of really intense exercise right those the the period the hours after that you might be more sedentary right so you be less fidgety right less muscle contraction less movement so you're spending less energy um your body might actually divert resources away from certain organs you know it's like it's it could save calories by you know kind of you know turning down you know say your pancreas and say we're not going to produce as many digestive enzymes because we spent all of this energy over here riding this bike you know so we're going to recoup some calories here um I think the really interesting theory is a lot of this happens at the level of our mitochondria and uh you know the electron transport chain and how the mitochondria are producing energy and how efficiently they're doing that because your mitochondria can always either produce ADP or it can spit things off as heat and so you can regulate the heat energy production at the level of the mitochondria which then conserves calories your body is saying oh right I just blew all this energy working out I want to conserve calories here at the level of mitochondria like there's so many ways in which our bodies are going to have these counterregulatory energy expenditure mechanisms right because the you know because again evolutionarily we don't want to just blow calories because our body is evolved in this backdrop of scarcity where we didn't know where our next meal was going to come from right and you know wasting too much energy was a threat to our survival um and so you know all that goes to say is like don't get on the treadmill and obsess about how many calories you're burning and think that that number is some sort of magical thing that you can incorporate into your diet like that is um it's not going to help that's a really interesting uh piece there so thank you for sharing that um I think like you said it's so multifactorial it's so uh person specific that you can't possibly say that it's just going to the numbers are going to add up it actually doesn't make sense that they would so thank you for all those examples of why they're not um adding up and I think that that's a really important piece of advice for people I think a lot of people have that same belief that you used to have of if I um want to eat more then I can just burn it off with a 10-minute um walk and I'll cont track how many calories that burn and then Bob's your uncle and that sort it but I think you've given a really awesome uh piece of advice say that you can't do that it's a lot more complex than just a simple uh subtraction I guess um from your from your calories and your BMR so thank you for that and thank you for um everything you have shared today we really really appreciate your story and your journey and I was wondering um with all this work you've done spiritually and to do with wellness and health do you feel enlightened and if so is it a permanent thing or is it fleeting does it come and go how how how would you sound enlightened but how do you feel about your level of enlightened if that's even a thing I don't think I've ever been asked this question Direct rasco so I I uh you know I'm just GNA I'm going to take a moment and pause right go for and I think the way I'm going to answer this is that when we're talking about enlightened States Of Consciousness right even just framing them as States right makes them seem like this sort of transient thing like it comes and it goes right versus in being like a permanently enlightened state which we might call a trait um you know like this fully realized right self-actualized right like you know um you know Buddha which you know I think there there is no question that many people throughout the ages who have dedicated themselves to training their Consciousness through meditation and through other contemplative practices can reach incredibly high levels of this sort of realization um and perhaps some of these ultimate nonu States um and you know but like in The non-d Duality again subject object collapses the sense of self is not everything is one with everything else you know like so like you know like the the the truth is you know it's kind of the the Dow that cannot be spoken sort of question right like if I were really Enlighten like that question wouldn't even be a question um you know and and then and I would say don't trust anybody who says that they are enlightened um you know and I think that kind of goes back to one of my fundamental you know premises which is always check your assumptions try to see what you're missing um and you know I think we all can actually you know do some work on ourselves to just better understand the nature of our own mind absolutely and like you said don't trust anyone that says that they're enlightened and um it was interesting that you mentioned uh that you had uh men's Health uh in your background like the magazine uh it's a really cool full circle moment here on the podcast cuz in episode one we had a little rant about uh the the accuracy level of Men's Health Magazine and how it how it's got some really good information don't get me wrong it's got some top people Brad sh vaults in there so there is some Brilliance in it but a lot of it is is not the best advice to be following and unfortunately it's a really big magazine and it's really popular I don't know if it still is but it was at least a few years ago and there's a lot of not so great advice coming from it um that I myself uh took and it was not the correct thing but it also shows you that you need to vet where you getting your advice from and you need to maybe like you said don't make assumptions just because it's in a magazine doesn't mean that it is actually correct even if these people have cool titles next to their names um it's important to do your own research and that's something that we emphasize here on this show is that if someone says something doesn't mean it's true but we try our best to get cool guests like yourself so thank you so much for coming on and then my closing for all your closing thoughts rather what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own journey of muscle growth health and um wisdom I guess or uh what a better word for wisdom uh holistic kind of overall well-being well you know staying true with the theme of all the things that we've talked about um I say one is to you know pause and ask yourself this question of like why do muscles matter to me and be really honest with yourself right and then begin to peel back those layers right and take each one and put them in your pocket right so you say I want to be healthy I want the longevity because I want to look good because I want to perform well at some sport that I want to get really good at because I just want to be able to like play with my kids or you know like lift up my groceries like because I don't want to be on my meds again like so like broaden your identity to be able to hold all of these pieces as possible reasons why this matters to you um and don't get overly attached to anyone because it's going to change it's going to change dayto day it's going to change year over year as your life changes and your body changes and so I think that when you can begin to get this bigger picture of why this matters to you then it becomes easier for you to start to just integrate that into your daytoday and then it just becomes Again part of your life and who you are right and as as back to that quote right of like if you want to understand what your potential is and you've never taken the time to explore this there's so many benefits so many benefits of developing a good physical practice again whether that's with weights or something else but I'm all about just helping people kind of get you know out of this purely headyy intellectual world that we live in where we're so disconnected and so disembodied because of our technology and our lifestyle to just get back into your body and move right with your body in a way again that makes you happy right and that makes you a better person right that's going to enhance all of your relationships with yourself with others with nature um when you can do that then I think you've found a sustainable path wow thank you so much for reiterating the importance of not only physical health but how it combines with mental health and all kind of different facets of Health are so interl and you can't just focus on the one because then the others are going to suffer so having that holistic approach where it's it's not just one it's all of them you try and combine them find your why thank you so much for all of your efforts and for being a coach for helping people and for coming on to this podcast thank you rasco thank you for tuning in to the muscle growth podcast if you found value in today's episode we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a fstar rating and a quick review it helps us grow grow and reach more people just like you don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us atth muscle growth podcast and at reps with Rosco for more insights exclusive content and full episodes visit the musclegrowth podcast.com your support truly makes a difference so please like share comment and follow we're grateful for every bit of it until next time keep pushing your limits and staying focused on getting bigger stronger and better