0:00:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
0:00:12.7 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?
0:00:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Just had an all-time lift, and my neurotransmitters are all firing on all cylinders and now, we’re here doing this podcast.
0:00:22.1 Jordan Syatt: You had an upper body push, right?
0:00:23.9 Mike Vacanti: Push day.
0:00:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Went well?
0:00:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it was a good workout. It was very intense, and got through it.
0:00:29.0 Jordan Syatt: There we go.
0:00:29.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:00:30.0 Jordan Syatt: It seemed like that was, what, 45 minutes?
0:00:32.3 Mike Vacanti: Relatively quick. Instead of doing a full upper today, I broke it out and then resting tomorrow. I did upper push today, upper pole tomorrow.
0:00:40.0 Jordan Syatt: Nice.
0:00:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:00:41.5 Jordan Syatt: There you go, had some protein right after, took some of my Legion Athletics?
0:00:45.0 Mike Vacanti: Always.
0:00:46.0 Jordan Syatt: There we go. [chuckle]
0:00:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Yup, yup, and here we are. How are you?
0:00:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Feeling good. Gonna preemptively apologize for the jackhammer outside of my apartment right now. If you can’t hear it while you’re listening, it’s because our podcast engineer, David, is just a genius at taking the noise out. I’m ready to get out of New York, I’m ready to leave.
0:01:04.1 Mike Vacanti: You’re very close.
0:01:05.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m so… Less than two weeks.
0:01:07.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:01:07.3 Jordan Syatt: Less than two weeks.
0:01:08.0 Mike Vacanti: Thirteen days.
0:01:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Ready to leave, so…
0:01:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I would imagine you can’t hear much of it, but we can. [chuckle]
0:01:17.0 Jordan Syatt: There’s, if you’ve seen any of my Instagram stories where I look out the window and it’s just honking and beeping or construction, there’s just intense construction going on outside my window right now with the jackhammer just…
[vocalization]
0:01:29.5 Mike Vacanti: And kind of always.
0:01:30.6 Jordan Syatt: Constant.
0:01:31.7 Mike Vacanti: Construction, fire trucks, and just non-stop beeping around rush hour and always.
0:01:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, it’s insane. It’s insane, so…
0:01:39.8 Mike Vacanti: New York City. Where should we start? We have a great episode lined up, we got a bunch of good questions. Here’s what I was thinking, this is something you mentioned to me a couple of months ago, but it hit me today lifting because of all of the writing we’ve been doing on our book, which we have our, a more firm deadline at the end of the month, but revisiting…
0:02:02.7 Jordan Syatt: Do we really? [chuckle]
0:02:04.1 Mike Vacanti: You know. [chuckle] Kind of. Another deadline.
0:02:08.5 Jordan Syatt: This deadline has been pushed back so many times. [laughter]
0:02:09.9 Mike Vacanti: We’ve missed a couple deadlines, but it’s… We’re getting real close, and we are thrilled about what we have written.
0:02:18.2 Jordan Syatt: The quality of the book is I’m very excited about, so screw the deadlines. The quality of the book is great.
0:02:24.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s done when it’s done. You can’t rush things like this.
0:02:25.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:02:27.5 Mike Vacanti: And we’ve been putting in, basically, daily sessions, and we’re getting there. But digging back into some of these concepts, specifically, the one that I was thinking about today was my NEAT, my non-exercise activity thermogenesis, because I have kinda played with calories recently. Actually, we should back up even further. I told you the other day, unfortunately, I had a funeral to go to, and I had to wear a suit that I hadn’t worn in a few years.
0:03:00.3 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] This was so good. This was so good.
0:03:00.6 Mike Vacanti: And when 15 minutes before I have to Uber out there, I start getting ready, and realized that my suit does not fit me. [laughter] And these things don’t happen, partly because of the type of clothes I wear, and partly because I’ve stayed in a relatively narrow range for a long time, but I was too fat for my suit, and I made it work, I hiked those pants up. And I didn’t make any sudden movements so not to rip anything, but immediately, I was like, “Okay, well, I should probably dial things in a little bit here.”
0:03:41.8 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] This was the first time it’s ever happened to you in your life?
0:03:44.4 Mike Vacanti: This was the first time since I was 18 years old, a freshman at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Langdon Dorms, and saw a picture on Facebook of someone like bent over, potentially throwing up. I don’t really remember, but someone in their boxers in the dormitory bathroom. And I was like, “Oh, like what was he doing? What was that?” And this… I didn’t think it was me, but it was me, and I looked big and…
0:04:14.7 Jordan Syatt: You were like, “Whoa! I look like that?” [laughter]
0:04:16.7 Mike Vacanti: And that was probably two or three months into freshman year, and that was when I dialed in nutrition and started working out more consistently, etcetera. But yes, this is the first time that’s happened since then, and so…
0:04:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Over 10 years ago.
0:04:29.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, 15 years ago.
0:04:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.
0:04:33.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and so I dialed things and I’ve been paying closer attention to nutrition, and my training has gotten better as a result. Doing the little things that you may skip out on, otherwise, and just thinking about NEAT levels and the ability to intentionally and deliberately have a higher calorie expenditure from random movements, from stairs versus elevator, from… Between sets today like stalking around the gym.
0:05:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Were you doing that, you’re walking around the gym?
0:05:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah, well, had some DMX going and just…
0:05:06.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, nice.
0:05:07.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, angry lift, angry high-quality lift. But you know, it all adds up. But I was applying that to what you said to me, which was it’s crazy how, in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the best coaches are continuing to refine their own game, and are continuing to roll, and are continuing to be extremely passionate about the martial art into their coaching career. Whereas, in fitness, it’s so common for trainers to peak in their interest in fitness, maybe before they even get into the industry, but once they are coaching people, more often than not, their own fitness takes…
0:05:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Takes a hit.
0:05:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:05:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:05:53.3 Mike Vacanti: It becomes less of a priority.
0:05:54.9 Jordan Syatt: Absolutely. Yeah, mine did, for sure.
0:05:57.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s interesting. Yeah.
0:05:58.9 Jordan Syatt: Especially in-person coaching, where it’s like when you’re on the floor, 10 hours a day…
0:06:03.3 Mike Vacanti: Exhausting.
0:06:04.0 Jordan Syatt: Just sometimes the last thing you wanna do is work out. But it’s been, yeah, it’s been really cool for me to see that with jiu-jitsu. I think there are a number of reasons for that with jiu-jitsu. I think most of which is… Jiu-jitsu is it’s so much more complicated than strength training, and I sort of tussled with this for a while, I was thinking “Maybe it’s not much more complicated, maybe I just don’t know as much about jiu-jitsu as I do about strength training.” And when I first got into strength training, I thought it was way more complicated than it is, and there was that learning curve of learning strength training and understanding the different aspects of it, but the thing about jiu-jitsu is it’s always evolving because it’s not… In strength training, it’s you versus the bar. The bar remains constant in terms of, maybe you can slightly improve your technique, but deadlift technique is deadlift technique, benchpress technique is benchpress technique.
0:07:05.1 Jordan Syatt: If the bar was changing shape as you were lifting, and if the bar was actively trying to do something to you, then it would be ever-evolving, but because jiu-jitsu, you’re going against another opponent and the other opponent is, maybe they have a different style than you, maybe they’re stronger than you, more conditioned than you, more flexible than you, whatever it is, it’s always evolving and it’s always changing, and there’s so many different ways to practice jiu-jitsu based on who you’re going against. You aren’t the only variable, your opponent is. So for me, I think that adds a separate, another component to jiu-jitsu that makes it almost easier to stay interested in because you never get to a point in which you feel like you get it, ’cause there’s always someone better and there’s always more room to improve. And there is an argument to say that in strength training there’s always more room to improve, but I think that’s been one of the exciting things for me with jiu-jitsu seeing like, I’m looking at black belts who’ve been doing this for 30 years, and they’re just as passionate and excited about it today as they were early on, so yeah.
0:08:08.1 Mike Vacanti: That makes total sense, and it’s seemingly, as an outsider, is more complicated, and it sounds like that’s your experience too. Do you think… Are you different as a coach and a content creator and someone who helps people in fitness when you are completely off of it versus when you’re in more of a routine? I think we talked once, because we do so little in-person grocery shopping here in Manhattan, that when we were kinda during COVID, you might have been in Boston.
0:08:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.
0:08:44.6 Mike Vacanti: I was in Florida, and walking through the grocery store and just remembering things that are like… Little food choices or things that you might not remember unless you’re applying those principles to yourself.
0:08:57.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, I remember walking to the grocery store… I may be going to a grocery store like once every quarter when I live in Manhattan, and it’s usually just because I’m walking by one and I’m like, “I’d like to get something from the hot bar,” not ’cause I actually need to go grocery shopping, just ’cause Amazon is just so much easier here. But yeah, when I would go to the grocery store and I was like, “Oh my God, look at all these different food items, look at all the different options here,” like my creative mind for content just started going again. Also, same thing when I was cutting weight for my jiu-jitsu competitions, ’cause that was the first time I really, not only had to but wanted to dial in my training and nutrition for the first time in years, just because I had a purpose and a reason to do it.
0:09:39.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s funny, when I did the Big Mac challenge, it was the same thing, it was because I had… It wasn’t a competition, but that whole month I was cutting, well with that added caveat of needing to get a Big Mac every day. So my desire to make content, my creative mind, if you wanna call it that, was much more excited because there was so much focus on it. But when I don’t have that focus on something that I’m doing for myself, it’s easier to just be like, “Ugh, what am I gonna post today. What I won’t need to post today” type of a thing.
0:10:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Got it, makes sense.
0:10:13.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:10:14.6 Mike Vacanti: Heard you saw a pretty good movie recently.
0:10:17.2 Jordan Syatt: The Last Samurai on your recommendation, which… If there was a bet like, “Hey, do you think you’ve seen this before?” I would have put money on me having seen it before.
0:10:27.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you told me you had.
0:10:28.3 Jordan Syatt: I was like, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that movie. It was great.” I literally thought that I’d seen the movie, and then within the first 20 seconds of watching the introduction, I was like, “I’ve never seen this movie in my life.” [chuckle] I was so confident that I’d seen the movie, and I think I had just seen the previews growing up for like the… When it was coming out in theaters. It was phenomenal. Absolutely loved it. So good, so yeah.
0:10:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Big recommendation. If you haven’t seen that. It’s Tom Cruise is playing an American General, I believe, if I remember right or retired American General.
0:11:05.1 Jordan Syatt: In 1876, I believe. I believe it was a hundred years after 1776. I remembered that point in the film when he was captured, and I was like he was given the date 1876.
0:11:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that makes sense. Given the weapons that they were going up against, etcetera. But it shows the Samurai, the Japanese Samurai way of life, that, we’ll just call it very different than the modern western way of life and something that in, at least some aspects of it, we have been yearning for applying concepts of it to our own life and… Just a great movie. Just very well done.
0:11:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I thought Tom Cruise played that role so well, and also really got me thinking about, I need to get out of New York. [chuckle] I need more nature.
0:12:02.1 Mike Vacanti: There’s a lot of space in nature.
0:12:05.3 Jordan Syatt: But it was funny, and this isn’t spoiling any of the movie, nothing we’ve said has spoiled it so far if you haven’t seen it, but when early on in the movie, he gets captured and this doesn’t spoil the movie at all, but as he’s noticing what the Samurai are doing, his description of their lifestyle and specifically, like I’ve never seen more discipline, just like every day is devoted to perfecting a certain practice. And it was just so good, I was like, “Man, I really… I need to get my life together.”
[laughter]
0:12:38.9 Mike Vacanti: I enjoyed hearing those journal entries that he was writing, analyzing their way of life and just how different it was even from his way of life back then.
0:12:47.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I also liked… This is a sort of like a sub-text of the movie, but there was at one point when they actually brought it into the vocalized conversation of when Tom Cruise was talking to the head samurai, I think his name is Matsumoto and…
0:13:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Either Katsumoto maybe.
0:13:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, Katsumoto. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Katsumoto. And Tom Cruise was basically just saying, “Your methods are barbaric. What you did is terrible.” And the samurai was like, “Our culture seems weird to you, and your culture seems weird to us.” And it was a subtext to the film, I think throughout the entirety of it. But I think it speaks a lot to today as well, how what might seem weird to you because of the culture that you’re in, it is totally normal to another culture. And it doesn’t mean it’s bad, it doesn’t mean it’s a negative thing. It just means that’s not your culture. So rather than judging it at face value, maybe take the time to learn about it and immerse yourself in it. Because I think it’s so easy… Especially, I think a lot of people are gonna get mad, especially as Americans are very quick to judge. America is huge, it’s massive. In Europe and in other countries, you can take the same size place and there are so many different countries and cultures within that same space. For me, it’s one of the benefits of traveling, and seeing different cultures and communities and different aspects and ways of living, because it’s so easy to judge another culture, another society or another way of living just based on what you’ve been brought up with. Yeah, I really like that part of the movie.
0:14:23.0 Mike Vacanti: And even the differences in culture within America.
0:14:27.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, that’s a good point. It’s massive.
0:14:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:14:28.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:14:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Great movie. Watch it if you haven’t. It’s worth it. Question number one. Jordan, pick a number, one, two, three or four.
0:14:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Four is my lucky number. So.
0:14:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Is it?
0:14:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, my lucky number.
0:14:43.8 Mike Vacanti: Why?
0:14:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Just the number I always picked when I was playing baseball growing up. Every year, I was four.
0:14:48.0 Mike Vacanti: Oh, that was your sports number?
0:14:49.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:14:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.
0:14:51.9 Jordan Syatt: What’s your lucky number?
0:14:53.6 Mike Vacanti: I never called it a lucky number, but my number was 22.
0:14:57.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, so it’s not lucky, it’s just your number?
0:15:00.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:15:00.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s gotta be lucky if that’s your number.
0:15:02.9 Mike Vacanti: Maybe.
0:15:03.9 Jordan Syatt: And you’re not picking it ’cause it’s unlucky.
[laughter]
0:15:09.1 Jordan Syatt: Why 22?
0:15:11.4 Mike Vacanti: I honestly don’t remember. I think it was because I watched Matt Duncan, who was several years older than me, in a Christmas tournament when he was a senior, Bloomington Jefferson against Edina. Or maybe they were playing against Eden Prairie, and it was at Braemar Ice Arena, and it was a high school hockey tournament that went… It was different rules than the normal tournament, because… Than the normal season because it was this tournament, and so it went to a shoot-out like NHL games do now.
0:15:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, nice. That’s fun.
0:15:43.9 Mike Vacanti: But I think they do now, at least, but he scored a goal in a shootout, wearing 22, to win the game.
0:15:50.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome.
0:15:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Like, this sick deke, five-hole. And I remember being in seventh grade maybe and being like, “I’m switching my number to 22.”
[laughter]
0:15:58.1 Jordan Syatt: I love that.
0:16:00.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Alright, number four.
0:16:01.0 Jordan Syatt: I hope he listens to this podcast, and hears that.
[laughter]
0:16:04.0 Mike Vacanti: Shout out Matt Duncan.
0:16:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Tips to minimize fat gain during a bulk phase. I’m gonna let you start with this one. I feel like this is your specialty.
0:16:17.3 Mike Vacanti: I have a few ideas here, and the biggest and most important one is just… It might seem basic to people listening, but have a target number of calories and actually track, right? So many people just dream bulk thinking that they need to eat an excessive amount of food to gain weight when really somewhere in the 300-ish plus calories per day surplus is about where you want to be on average. And measure your weight and measurements and adjust your intake as needed over time. But if you’re just eating everything in sight because you think that’s what you need to do to gain weight, and you gain 10 pounds a month for a few months, it’s like, congratulations, you gained 30 pounds and you gained four pounds of muscle and 26 pounds of fat.
[laughter]
0:17:09.3 Mike Vacanti: You got yourself in a predicament here. So actually, tracking is the first one. [chuckle]
0:17:15.1 Jordan Syatt: You got yourself in a predicament here, buddy.
[laughter]
0:17:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s not a place that most would wanna be. Two other things, the first one is… The first one’s actually more important, and it’s intentional meat. Or even, we’re just gonna use the formal words of the four components of metabolism, intentional exercise activity as well as non-exercise activity, meaning keep some cardio in your bulk. There’s been a little bit of research to support that some cardio can improve insulin sensitivity, which can improve calorie partitioning, which can mean you can gain slightly more muscle and slightly less fat, which over time adds up. And I have found that to be true anecdotally and not only with some cardio, but also with stairs versus elevator, with moving around, with making those little decisions that get you more activity throughout the day are going to allow you to gain muscle without gaining as much body fat.
0:18:24.6 Mike Vacanti: And then the very last one that always comes to mind for me is Carb versus fat ratio, and depends how intense you wanna be, right? Like eating 650 grams of carbs and keeping fat under 45 every single day is not fun, not fun digestively. I wouldn’t do that myself. I have in the past and it works physiologically, but with more of an emphasis on health and how I wanna feel, I wouldn’t do that these days, but… Just don’t go nuts. Don’t build your surplus on 200 grams of fat per day, keeping carbs at 80-100 grams, right? Do something like 70 grams of fat, 300 carbs, for example. So those are my three.
0:19:03.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I would say all of those. I think the funny one is the first one, which is just actually tracking.
0:19:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:19:11.2 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause I think everyone’s made the mistake when they’ve gone to their first bulk, like they finish a cut and they’re super excited to eat. And so they’re like, “Oh, nice bulk now,” and so they think they can eat so much and then four weeks in, they’re like, “Damn it.”
[chuckle]
0:19:24.3 Jordan Syatt: I put on way more fat than I was supposed to in this time frame. It’s funny, I see that the same mistake with people trying to bulk and also, oftentimes, in pregnancy and like, “I’m eating for two,” and then they eat way… They just eat way more. And if you listen to a lot of what doctors are talking about now, that’s like, “Listen, 300 calories, maybe 500 calories extra, at most, but you don’t need tons of extra food. You’re not eating for two people. It’s not like you’re actually doubling your calorie intake.” And for, actually, for the woman’s health and the health of the baby, you shouldn’t be doing that, ’cause by the end of the pregnancy, you could have added way more body fat than you needed. And oftentimes, in addition to that, if you continue to do that, it’ll be harder to actually get walking in and regular exercise, which would have negative effects down the road. So yeah, actually tracking and making sure. I would say treating your bulk like an extended cut, if you will. Not looking at them as separate things; more as just like if your cut’s gonna be 12 weeks, it’s not, you don’t end counting calories at 12 weeks. Count calories and, I don’t know, for 24 weeks. And consider that before you get into it.
0:20:34.0 Jordan Syatt: I would also say one of the bigger issues I see when people start bulking is the fear of gaining any body fat. I think this is one of the biggest ones where it’s like they’re so worried about putting on any body fat that they actually don’t even go into a surplus, so they’re not even bulking. They say they’re bulking, it’s really like people who say they’re cutting, but they’re not even in a calorie deficit like, “Well, I’m in a deficit, but I’m not losing any fat.” It’s like well, then you’re not in a deficit. It’s like the people who, they cut very successfully, but are now worried about gaining body fat. It’s like, “Hey, you know how to lose fat now.”
0:21:09.1 Mike Vacanti: I would argue that that’s almost everyone’s first bulk or a lot of people’s first bulk.
0:21:13.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, ’cause you know, you don’t want your progress to be ruined, right?
0:21:20.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:21:20.9 Jordan Syatt: But…
0:21:21.5 Mike Vacanti: Like you were just saying, you know how to cut.
0:21:24.2 Jordan Syatt: You did it, you know. I think that’s the most important concept to internalize, is you now know how to lose fat. So what’s the issue? If you want to lose fat again, then you just need to go back into a deficit. But the issue is they’re worried like… I think this can come with some body dysmorphia where it’s like you think that adding any amount of fat to your frame is just gonna make you look gross, when it’s like, number one, no, and number two is, that is actually gonna help you build more muscle simply by making sure you’re in a surplus, just a slight surplus. You don’t need to eat too much, but it’s gonna help you and it’s gonna help your results over time. And then when you decide to cut later on down the road, you’ll actually look even better, your physique will have improved as a result, your body composition will improve. So I think those are the biggest mistakes that I see.
0:22:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s a great one. I think part of that is also driven by checkout counter magazine fitness culture, and on the bulking side, especially the guys who have an FFMI of 32 and have all this lean mass and are 5% body fat and shredded, and if that’s someone’s goal physique when they’re starting a bulk, then they expect to add muscle without adding fat to end up looking like that.
0:22:36.4 Jordan Syatt: Right, right.
0:22:37.4 Mike Vacanti: And they don’t know what’s going on, and that adds a regiment to get him there.
0:22:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Or how long he’s been doing it, even like regardless of what’s been…
0:22:44.3 Mike Vacanti: All, all, yeah.
0:22:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. He’s been doing it for 12 years, lifting heavy, eating really well, it’s like, “Okay, this is your third month.” [chuckle]
0:22:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. How many rounds of bulking and cutting has…
0:22:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:22:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, even if we’re not talking like magazine freak, just like a in really good shape intermediate trainee, that person’s gone through many cycles of bulking and cutting. That’s, you’re not gonna get there on your first one.
0:23:08.4 Jordan Syatt: Agreed.
0:23:09.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, good stuff.
0:23:10.2 Jordan Syatt: That was a good question, that was a good question.
0:23:11.4 Mike Vacanti: It was a great question. Came from your Instagram account.
0:23:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, did it? Yeah, okay, nice.
0:23:16.4 Mike Vacanti: When we took a log of those. This is slightly off-topic. Did you hear, but it’s about beauty standards and expectations for how to look…
0:23:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, this will be good.
0:23:27.4 Mike Vacanti: Did you hear about this Khloe Kardashian thing?
0:23:30.2 Jordan Syatt: I heard about it, I saw some videos about it, but I didn’t consume all of the content on it, so I have a very… It’s like I… We’ll call it the previews. I had, I didn’t actually read the whole book and I didn’t see the whole movie on it, but I have some context to it.
0:23:47.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, we both just have the previews. I don’t even know if we should just sit here and speculate without really…
0:23:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Let’s do it. Why not? [chuckle]
0:23:53.1 Mike Vacanti: Here’s two guys who didn’t…
0:23:53.8 Jordan Syatt: Who just make stuff up. [chuckle]
0:23:55.1 Mike Vacanti: Didn’t really dig into this, but we’re just gonna spitball on it.
0:23:58.7 Jordan Syatt: I saw videos on it and I purposefully stopped watching ’cause I’m like this is the type of stuff that I have no interest in, in terms of like, “This is gonna make my day worse if I actually consume this content.” So I deliberately stopped watching, but let’s talk about it.
[laughter]
0:24:16.3 Mike Vacanti: It was along the lines of her being upset that a certain photo of her was published. And I don’t know who was publishing it or where it was coming from, but it didn’t have the proper edits and the proper filters and the proper like “make her look a certain way”. And from my unknowledgeable on the subject standpoint, it sounded like she was kind of playing the victim to…
0:24:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really?
0:24:43.4 Mike Vacanti: To society as such hard beauty standards and like, “This one picture of me gets leaked, that well, I don’t look perfect,” and it’s like…
0:24:52.4 Jordan Syatt: You’ve put those other pictures out.
0:24:54.4 Mike Vacanti: Well, not only that, but the Kardashians were the first ever to do the like… I made a video on Instagram in 2014, I think, or maybe 2015, about all of this fat redistribution, like getting fat pulled out of your stomach and injected into your butt.
0:25:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh man.
0:25:12.3 Mike Vacanti: And all of the surgeries like facial, and just all the stuff to look absurd, whatever, whatever that means, aesthetically, this new look that we see on the Internet. They started it.
0:25:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:25:26.4 Mike Vacanti: They were the first to do it. They popularized it.
0:25:28.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:25:28.6 Mike Vacanti: And now, it’s like beauty standards are just so hard. I don’t know.
0:25:32.9 Jordan Syatt: You contributed to that difficulty, it’s like…
0:25:36.3 Mike Vacanti: Created it.
0:25:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:25:38.3 Mike Vacanti: You know, maybe not…
0:25:39.4 Jordan Syatt: Massively influenced it.
0:25:40.4 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yeah.
0:25:41.4 Jordan Syatt: Massively influenced it. I mean, yeah. I didn’t know that she was upset about it, that’s interesting to me, so…
0:25:49.4 Mike Vacanti: Apparently, was trying to get the pictures taken down from online, so they were… [chuckle]
0:25:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Good luck! I’ve seen them all over the place. Not to mention, it’s like, I don’t know, I have no idea. I think it’s a little bit ridiculous that she’d be upset about it. If she was actually upset about it, it’s like, “I don’t know why you’re mad.” I saw, and the other what I saw was more people tearing her down. I hadn’t heard that part. I just, I heard, what I had seen was people being upset at her, but if it might change context now that I have the understanding that she was upset about it. If she was publicly upset about it, now, I can actually understand why people would have been upset with her, so that makes more sense. I thought people were just going after her because they found these pictures of her and they were like, “Oh, look, you’ve been lying all along, da, da, da, da, da.”
0:26:38.4 Mike Vacanti: No, I think that’s well-known and obvious to us.
0:26:40.5 Jordan Syatt: Correct, yeah. And for me, it… I forget the quote. You remember when you… Pat and I were reading the Bible a year ago now. There was a quote that, I don’t, I won’t remember the exact quote, but I’ll never forget this lesson that we got from it, which I loved, which is basically to the effect of: If you’re going to judge someone, you better be ready to be judged by those same standards. And I see so many people hating on people for using Photoshop or whatever it is, but I’m like, “I see you using filters in your pictures all the time. What in the hell is the difference?” You’re changing how you look to get a certain response, that’s it, yet it… Yes, using Photoshop to change your shape is a more intense version of that, but you’re just, you’re doing the same thing, slightly diluted. So don’t make yourself out to be so self-righteous because you use a lesser version of that evil, right?
0:27:42.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:27:42.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s like… And I use filters, too, it’s fine. But don’t go after someone when you’re doing the same thing.
0:27:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yup, yup, that’s a great…
0:27:51.7 Jordan Syatt: I think like you’re not going after people, period. Relax. Go after substance, not the individual. This is why I hate…
0:28:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, the idea, not the… Yeah. Not after the person, yeah.
0:28:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, go after the idea, don’t go after the person. I’m tired of that stuff.
0:28:04.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Great little side note…
0:28:07.4 Jordan Syatt: That was one of my favorite quotes from that time that we spent with Pat.
0:28:10.5 Mike Vacanti: I think that was in the Sermon on the Mountain in Matthew 5, but I don’t remember.
0:28:15.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t remember either.
0:28:16.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t… Yeah, yeah.
0:28:19.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:28:20.3 Mike Vacanti: Alright. Now, you gotta pick a number one through three.
0:28:22.9 Jordan Syatt: Two, half of my favorite number. [chuckle]
0:28:25.0 Mike Vacanti: The most annoying request you get.
0:28:28.6 Jordan Syatt: Oof! The most… Man, there’s a lot of annoying requests that I get.
0:28:39.8 Mike Vacanti: You can think for a second.
0:28:40.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, let me think. You go first.
0:28:41.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t really get any annoying requests because I don’t look at the places where they’re requesting…
0:28:45.0 Jordan Syatt: You probably do. Oh, I know what your most annoying request is.
0:28:48.8 Mike Vacanti: You know mine but you don’t know yours. [chuckle]
0:28:50.4 Jordan Syatt: I know yours ’cause you talk about it. [chuckle] It’s funny, people will send me the annoying request to share with you. [chuckle]
0:29:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, if they ask me why I’m not making content?
0:29:01.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. [laughter]
0:29:02.6 Mike Vacanti: That doesn’t annoy me anymore, though, because I don’t see it.
[laughter]
0:29:08.7 Jordan Syatt: But it does annoy you if you do see it.
0:29:10.7 Mike Vacanti: You know what? This is at, this, we just go deep on this podcast, it’s all we do. I think, to be honest, I think that sure, we’ll call that my number one, and I think it’s funny. But I think it annoyed me more because at the time, there was a part of me that felt like I should be making more content. I felt guilt about not making more content. I felt like it was something that I had to be doing all the time, always forever. And since that time, my mindset has just changed. I feel great about doing these near-weekly, we aim for weekly, we already do. But these podcasts, I love it. I love that we don’t promote them so that people that find them and continue to listen are either through referral of the awesome people sharing on their story, or people who just find it, who knew of us, and like it because they like what we’re putting out. We’re not pushing it. I like this more than… And I like this, we’ve talked about this, but I like this form of discussion, rather than other forms of content creation. It’s the one that I enjoy the most right now, especially with you, and so yeah, historically, that has got me a little worked up, but…
0:30:26.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s one of my favorite parts about this podcast is, and that we don’t promote it. You never see us promote this on social media. I think this podcast and the community of people who listen to it, this is the closest that we can get to a real community without actually being together, in terms of if you really start to promote it, you get a lot of other different types of people in there who… There can be people who are offended and people who are upset, and it’s like the people who stick with this podcast just because they happen to find it, maybe because we were geniuses with how we came up with the name for the podcast, and this SEOs super, super well. But the people who stick with this podcast, and it’s just a strong community of people. And I like that, that it’s a good example, as well, we could promote it, but we deliberately don’t, and it’s a good example of having a small number of people who really, really are in-line with you, is far better than a huge number of people who don’t really have any form of relationship with you, or very, or minimal, at best.
0:31:35.1 Mike Vacanti: Completely agree. We could also change what we talk about. Guess what? We could not talk about The Last Samurai, we could not talk about 300, we could not talk about these things that we, are important to us and enjoyable to us. And we could replace that with how to go from zero to 10k a month in two months. We could replace that with stuff that we know a lot of people really want to hear.
0:32:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:32:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Simply to get more downloads, get more listeners, get more ratings, get more money, whatever, but we don’t because…
0:32:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s not fun.
0:32:09.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s… Well, yeah, that’s the main reason.
0:32:11.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s killing souls. [chuckle]
0:32:13.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that really is it. If we wanna go deep, it’s like because I would sleep worse at night.
0:32:18.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.
0:32:20.4 Mike Vacanti: And because what do you… Yes, get enough money. There’s all the research everyone’s heard. Make X, and above that, your happiness doesn’t increase. And it was like 70,000 or something. It might have even been, I don’t remember. You know, it’s been a lot of inflation since then, and who knows? But it’s not a lot, yeah. [chuckle]
0:32:38.2 Jordan Syatt: Government’s printing a lot of dollars. [chuckle]
0:32:41.6 Mike Vacanti: Shut up, Bitcoin. But seriously, going from X savings, once you have enough and you feel good and you feel secure, and then you double it and you quadruple it, and you 8x it and whatever, all of that increasing it gives you less and less security and becomes more and more about ego. So it’s not worth it.
0:33:02.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, agreed.
0:33:03.8 Mike Vacanti: Like you said it more succinctly, it would kill our souls. What, but what, Jordan, what is the most, unless you have something else to say that…
0:33:10.2 Jordan Syatt: No, no, so there’s many really annoying things that people ask, and I’ll say two, they’re sort of unrelated. The first one is specifically like more fitness-related-ish. It’s when people message me and they’re like, “Do you have a video on this?” And literally, all they had to do was Google my name with that topic, and it would have come up immediately. This is like, I’m like I get so angry. I’m like, “I know you didn’t Google that. I know for a fact you didn’t Google that.”
0:33:46.6 Mike Vacanti: And they’ll DM you with that question?
0:33:47.8 Jordan Syatt: All, every day, every single day. Recently, the most common one has been people who will say, “Hey, whatever happened to your coffee experiment? I didn’t see it.” And I’m like, “Number one, you clearly didn’t check my YouTube because it’s like the second most recent video,” but yeah, so.
0:34:07.5 Mike Vacanti: Number two, Jordan Syatt coffee, it gets you.
0:34:10.0 Jordan Syatt: It will come right up. I think people don’t know how to use Google, is what I really think it is. I think a lot of people don’t know how to use Google.
0:34:19.0 Mike Vacanti: I find that near impossible to believe.
0:34:22.4 Jordan Syatt: There are times that when I tell people like, “Well, did you just Google that question?” And they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t think about that.” It’s like, “You know you could literally type that question into the Google machine, and the answer will come up.” And I think, I feel like people just don’t… There are people who don’t know how to use Google, which is infuriating.
[laughter]
0:34:42.7 Mike Vacanti: Is it that, or do they just want a response from you?
0:34:44.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s a good question.
0:34:44.7 Mike Vacanti: They just want to be seen by…
0:34:47.1 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t thought about the behavioral aspect of it, maybe.
0:34:49.7 Mike Vacanti: Which is the first time you have ever not thought about the behavioral aspect recently.
0:34:50.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, I just let my rage come out. [laughter] The other annoying thing, and this isn’t fitness-related, is when people, essentially, come into my DMs and demand that I post about something. And I’m like, “There are terrible things going on every single day all over the world, but for whatever reason, because this one thing comes across your desk, you’ve decided that every person you follow must post about it because it means something to you?” It’s like if… It blows me away, the intensity with which people demand me to post about certain things.
0:35:31.4 Mike Vacanti: An expectation, and it’s different for every person.
0:35:33.1 Jordan Syatt: Every single person.
0:35:34.7 Mike Vacanti: Ever imagine what’s important to this person, what’s a hot button news issue today for this person compared to this person. Yeah, yeah, that’s, unfortunately, seems to be part of whatever this weird shift in culture over the last few years, or…
0:35:52.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, the sharp cultural divide we’re going through right now.
0:35:54.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. I don’t have much to add on that, unfortunately. I feel like…
0:36:02.4 Jordan Syatt: You’re living right, you’re not on social media.
[laughter]
0:36:06.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m worse, right?
0:36:06.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m weaning my way off.
0:36:08.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m actually considering working, ’cause I’ve gotten my schedule pretty dialed over the last few weeks, not to jinx anything because sometimes, when I say things on the podcast, I jinx them. But I’ve been considering adding a little time slot in late in the day, kinda before I coach Gary. I’ve been doing two programs a day, which is I used to wait and let it build up, build up, build up, and then do most or all on Saturday and Sunday. And I’ve been doing two programs a day, which has been working really well. I’m more fresh, more excited for designing everyone.
0:36:45.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s good.
0:36:45.7 Mike Vacanti: But adding in a little time slot like that, which is 15 minutes of replying to DMs or like…
0:36:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Really?
0:36:53.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:36:54.3 Jordan Syatt: Nice. Specifically Instagram?
0:36:57.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, because I’m active on email, no one Snapchats me anything meaningful. It’s all just like trash. [chuckle] And yeah, so specifically, Instagram. I’ve also curated my Twitter pretty hard so that I have been consuming on Twitter, but it’s…
0:37:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Have you?
0:37:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s not fitness and stay off the news.
0:37:19.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, good. [chuckle]
0:37:21.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, good. What’s that? [chuckle] But more like crypto, finance, God stuff. But yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. But yes, I can’t…
0:37:33.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m not gonna say anything.
0:37:34.6 Mike Vacanti: I can’t relate on your level to the number of annoying requests that… I feel like there could be a list of every time you use the you staring picture, it’s like…
0:37:44.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.
[laughter]
0:37:47.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s like, “Come on.” Alright, one or three?
0:37:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Three.
0:37:53.9 Mike Vacanti: Number three. How long to stay at a calorie goal before re-assessing/making changes? You know what, I’m gonna give you the opportunity to audible because I feel like I didn’t pick these questions that intelligently. If you wanna talk about something more business or social media related in this moment ’cause the fourth one is about sleep.
0:38:20.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m good with talking about this.
0:38:21.5 Mike Vacanti: Sweet. Great.
0:38:21.9 Jordan Syatt: And then if we have time, we’ll go into something else. How long to stay at a calorie deficit before adjusting?
0:38:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes.
0:38:29.5 Jordan Syatt: There’s no definitive time frame; it really comes down to when your progress, when you’re no longer making progress. I would say if you’ve stalled… I think once you stall, that’s when the clock begins, right? And there are many caveats here. So for example, if you’re in a calorie deficit and your… Well, there’s so much to talk about. But let’s say, for example, you’re four weeks in, and you’re six pounds down in four weeks. That’s an average of more than one pound a week. So if you go for those… For your four weeks in, and then you don’t lose any more weight for the next two weeks, the countdown hasn’t started yet because you are still averaging more than one pound a week. The countdown will then start at six weeks because now, you’ve got no point. Okay, well, the average is now one pound a week, and if you’re still stalled, now the countdown begins when the average starts to get to a point in which it is below what you would want to expect, right? So if you get to four weeks in, you’re six pounds down, and you don’t lose weight for two more weeks, just ’cause you haven’t lost weight doesn’t mean you’ve stalled, it just means like your body’s catching up, and it doesn’t mean you’re not making progress.
0:39:46.0 Jordan Syatt: So for me, once the average of what you’re expecting is getting too low, that’s when you start tracking, that’s when you start, the clock begins. For me, I wouldn’t make changes for at least two weeks, oftentimes, up to four weeks of a true stall, usually, because more often than not, it’s a user error, not the calories not working. And by that, I mean they’re eating more than they think they are, they are not moving as much as they say that they’re moving. There’s issues going on that have nothing to do with the calories you’ve given them, and have much more to do with them not following instructions.
0:40:28.9 Jordan Syatt: So yeah, so I would say if everything is dialed, if everything is perfect, if you’ve accounted for calories, if you’ve accounted for steps, if you’ve accounted for sleep, if you’ve accounted for alcohol, for all of it, then I would say two to four weeks after the stall has begun, then you can consider either reducing calories or increasing activity. I think for a smaller, petite individual, because their calories are already gonna be so low, the best first step is to increase steps as opposed to decreasing calories. This is something I just don’t see a lot of people talk about very much. And this is where I see so much hate for the 1200 calorie number. I’m like, “If you really hate that number, you’ve never coached a small individual.” There are many people who are barely 5 ft or even slightly higher, 5’1″, 5’2″, who are small, very relatively lean.
0:41:22.5 Mike Vacanti: Coach a 40-year-old, 4’11”, 125-pound woman.
0:41:25.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yup. Yeah, exactly.
0:41:27.5 Mike Vacanti: Yup.
0:41:28.1 Jordan Syatt: And telling them they should be eating at least 1,800, like, “Get out of here. What is wrong with you?” It’s just not culturally-acceptable to say that right now, but it’s true.
0:41:38.2 Mike Vacanti: And the culture is driven by silliness, it’s not driven by that, in that regard.
0:41:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:41:44.7 Mike Vacanti: And driven by a lack of experience among… A lack of coaching experience from those individuals.
0:41:50.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so yeah.
0:41:51.8 Mike Vacanti: But yeah, I like that idea of moving more, rather than always just driving intake further down.
0:41:57.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so that’s what I would say.
0:42:00.5 Mike Vacanti: That’s a great answer. We’re very much on the same page. I think to truly call it a plateau, it has to be of a certain duration, and most importantly, you have to be very confident, either as a coach with what that person’s eating, or as an individual who’s struggling, that you are actually very close to your targets consistently. And consistently means every day. It doesn’t mean six days a week, you’re close to your 1700 calories, and then every Saturday, you have 4200 calories. And from being in that range, from being within 100 or 200 calories on a daily basis of your targets, then if the scale hasn’t moved and waist measurements have not moved to account for some recomposition, I usually say 14 to 17 days is what I’ve said historically, but pushing that to three weeks before making an adjustment.
0:43:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and for whatever it’s worth, as a coach, it can be very difficult if your client is consistently coming at you every day like, “It’s not working, I need a change, I need a change.” And I know from first-hand experience, in your mind, “I’m just gonna change their calories ’cause that’s what they want.” That’s a very poor way to go about coaching. You’re just changing the calories to appease your client. That’s just, that’s bad coaching. It’s just a bad… You’re changing what you know is right to make your client happy, as opposed to doing what you know is right because that’s the right thing to do.
0:43:42.6 Jordan Syatt: And it’s your responsibility as the coach… This is a part of coaching, this is one of the negative aspects of coaching, is sometimes, the personal interactions can be difficult, but that’s your job, that’s what you’ve signed up for by being a coach. So it’s your responsibility to say like, “Hey, listen, you’re allowed to be frustrated with this progress if you want to be, but this is normal, so just please understand that your frustration at something that’s as normal as the sky being blue is slightly ridiculous. So if you keep asking me to change your calories, we’re gonna have to have a separate discussion. So either you trust me to do the right thing or you don’t. And if you don’t trust me, then why are you working with me?” And that’s it.
0:44:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. “Why did you hire me in the first place if you wanna pick your own calorie intake?”
0:44:28.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct, exactly.
0:44:29.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I really like you reiterating that, especially because it’s not easy for a coach, especially a young coach or a new coach, to have those disagreeable moments and hold firm in what they know to be right in the midst of that conflict. And so just reinstilling that confidence, because it’s gonna hurt you and it’s gonna hurt your client in the long run.
0:44:55.0 Jordan Syatt: It can be even more difficult when you’re an early coach and you don’t have that many clients, and in your mind, you’re like, “If they cancel, then I’m not gonna be making this money anymore,” which is a valid fear. They might cancel, but for whatever it’s worth, from my experience, when you take control like that, they actually respect you more and they will stay on for longer. If you appease them and change their calories, you might buy yourself another month, but they’ll be gone. But if you actually stay consistent with what you believe and what you know is right, and they actually trust and respect you, that will buy you another… It could be a lifetime client. So it’s the harder choice. I wish I had someone saying this in my ear when I was a young coach starting out ’cause I made that mistake as a young coach.
0:45:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Same, yup.
0:45:42.5 Jordan Syatt: Over and over and over again because I was worried about the next paycheck or the next PayPal deposit. Yeah, I wish I had someone whispering this in my year growing up, like, “Hey, it’s okay, just hold firm. Do what’s right.”
0:45:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Tips for better sleep. Our final question of the day.
0:46:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Tips for better sleep.
0:46:05.5 Mike Vacanti: We can rattle them off. First of all, there have been books written on this that are gonna do a much better job than what we give you in this moment, but do the things you know that you’re supposed to be doing, get blackout curtains if you don’t have them, more pillows, comfortable bed.
0:46:23.0 Jordan Syatt: I need blackout curtains. I need those.
0:46:26.0 Mike Vacanti: I’ll send you a link.
0:46:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Thanks.
0:46:29.3 Mike Vacanti: And the link is gonna be… I’m gonna type in “Blackout curtains” on Amazon, I’m gonna pick the one with the highest rating and the most reviews, and I’m gonna send it to you.
[chuckle]
0:46:36.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s a game changer. Room temp between 60 and 68 Fahrenheit. If you’re drinking loads of caffeine, pay attention to your caffeine intake and pay attention to the timing of your caffeine intake, and this is if you’re having trouble sleeping and you wanna sleep better, and that’s quality or quantity. Put your phone down, get off social media, don’t be scrolling in bed, not only the act of scrolling, but also like this… It’s a stimulus, depending on what you’re looking at, maybe watching some relaxing funny show, great, but if you’re getting a barrage of cortisol spikes from reading political debates on Twitter at 11:16 laying in bed, what are you doing? Don’t.
0:47:23.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s the worst part about it. It’s like you could be getting tired, feeling bed coming on. “Oh, I’ll just check my Instagram one last time before bed,” you’re lying down and you just see this ridiculous post that infuriates you, it punches you in the nose and you’re just like, “What the… Is going?”
0:47:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Or someone leaves you a bad comment, right then.
0:47:44.7 Jordan Syatt: And then you get pissed, pacing around in your apartment, “What’s going on? I’m gonna lose my business. People hate me. This sucks. Screw this person. Should I block them? Maybe I should send them back an angry message.” Then you’re up for four more hours.
[chuckle]
0:48:00.3 Mike Vacanti: So finding a way to put the phone down, and if you’re gonna be on your phone, don’t be on social like that, but also have… I am pretty sure all phones have a blue light blocking feature on the phone that you can set to, it’s called night mode, and you can set the time for that, so two hours before you plan on falling asleep, at least put your phone on night mode. I actually have my phone on night mode 24 hours a day, so it’s a little yellow tint… I don’t really care, just I’m not… I get blue light from life, not from the screen. And I actually bought these glasses off Amazon for 10 bucks.
0:48:37.7 Jordan Syatt: Do you use them?
0:48:38.7 Mike Vacanti: I think they get delivered today, because I… Being back in the city, adjusting to new routine, I’m watching more TV at night, and the TV doesn’t have a…
0:48:50.2 Jordan Syatt: Blue light blocker.
0:48:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, so I’m gonna throw the glasses on and try that out.
0:48:56.6 Jordan Syatt: Nice. I have the glasses, but I never wear them.
0:49:01.1 Mike Vacanti: How are they?
0:49:02.0 Jordan Syatt: You know me, I’m not good with this stuff. We were talking about this the other day, I’m so unaware of how things affect me sometimes. If I ate something weird, for someone else, maybe they’re like, “Oh, my stomach feels bad,” and for me, I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t notice.” For whatever reason, I just don’t notice how I respond to certain things unless I actually pay attention. It’s different, when I’m in the gym or movement-based stuff, training, I’m hyperaware, but things like, “Oh, do these glasses help me sleep better?” It’s like, “I don’t know, if I wanna go to sleep, I’ll just close my eyes. I don’t know.” So I haven’t really noticed the difference with that. I’ve played with night mode on my phone and I didn’t really notice the difference. I didn’t really pay attention to it. The one thing I have is when I’ve had… Not even blackout curtains, but the apartment that I’m in now, the curtains don’t block light at all, they’re like… I don’t know, they come with the building. They’re like this mesh… I don’t know, it’s like there are holes in it, so they just… Sun blasts in my face every day. But when I would go to a hotel and they’d have curtains and I could close them, I’d sleep way better. It was amazing. So I know I need to get actual curtains.
0:50:18.1 Mike Vacanti: Dude, there’s a crazy… Gosh, I don’t remember which book this is from… It’s not the Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep, I think is the name of it? It’s Shawn Stevenson. Don’t quote me on that. I don’t remember, but it’s a sleep book that you… Google would show it to you. But that’s how the Google machine works.
[chuckle]
0:50:43.1 Mike Vacanti: But there was this crazy study that he referenced where they have someone all wired up and are doing a sleep tracking study, and they have the control in pitch black, and then they have another group that gets a dime-sized, the size of a dime, amount of blue light on their leg, on the back of their knee…
0:51:08.2 Jordan Syatt: No way.
0:51:08.7 Mike Vacanti: While they sleep.
0:51:10.9 Jordan Syatt: What?
0:51:11.2 Mike Vacanti: And there’s a drastic difference in sleep quality between the two groups. So it’s not even sun beaming in hitting your eyeballs and keeping you up, it’s literally that amount disrupts sleep.
0:51:21.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy. I know some people like the things that they put over their eyes, like the mask, I’ve never liked that.
0:51:30.1 Mike Vacanti: I find it claustrophobic.
0:51:32.7 Jordan Syatt: I get a… I always keep picking it up just to peek out from underneath it.
0:51:38.5 Mike Vacanti: You would. You would.
[chuckle]
0:51:41.2 Jordan Syatt: I can’t go to bed ’cause every minute I’m like, “Is someone there?” [laughter] I’m prime time putting myself in a situation where I’m just asking for something bad to happen. [laughter]
0:51:55.4 Mike Vacanti: He got murdered in his sleep, if only he wasn’t wearing those sleep masks.
0:51:58.5 Jordan Syatt: I feel like those masks are just… Yeah, it’s asking to be murdered or someone to play a prank on you. It’s just like, “Who’s there?” And I become hyperaware to all my sounds. So every creek, I’m like, “Who is that?” I pick it up, I pick it up and I pick it up.
0:52:11.9 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.
0:52:12.5 Jordan Syatt: I can’t have those masks. Yeah.
0:52:14.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, those are a few ideas on how to get better sleep and just put your phone down and close your eyes.
0:52:21.1 Jordan Syatt: If I wanted to murder somebody, then I would send them a mask, a sleep mask, as a gift.
0:52:27.8 Mike Vacanti: And that’s when you’d go get them?
0:52:29.3 Jordan Syatt: And then it’d be ready. That would be the ideal way. It’s the art of war. If you’ve never read that book, read The Art of War.
0:52:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Unless they were hyperaware of sounds like you are when…
0:52:39.3 Jordan Syatt: No, then I would probably try and buy some moccasins or something, so I’d be super, super quiet.
0:52:45.8 Mike Vacanti: Why are you trying to kill people, Jordan?
0:52:47.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m not, but I’m saying if I… Everyone has the… How would I do that? It’s like, I would send them a mask, a sleep mask and a really nice note. “Hey, get a nice night of sleep.”
[laughter]
0:53:00.4 Mike Vacanti: And with that, thank you very much for listening.
0:53:04.0 Jordan Syatt: And here’s some earplugs as well.
[laughter]
0:53:10.2 Mike Vacanti: We really do need to wrap up though because it’s 2:56.
0:53:14.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I have a call. Got it. Okay. Perfect. Sweet. This was great.
0:53:19.0 Mike Vacanti: Great episode, We got through all the questions. This was fun. If you would like to leave us a review and you haven’t yet we would really, really, really appreciate it. Written reviews help, five stars are the best, ones are the worst. Yeah. Thank you. That’s it. Have a good one. See you very soon, bye.
