Episode 136: Mike’s Big Weekend, Diet Soda Science, Stupid Influencers Hating on Mobility, How NOT to Give in To Temptation, and More…

0:00:09.4 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:12.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s up Michael?

0:00:14.3 Mike Vacanti: You have a new schedule.

0:00:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Dude. Yeah, I’m a morning person now.

0:00:19.9 Mike Vacanti: How does it feel?

0:00:21.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s just a way of life. This is what I do.

0:00:25.5 Mike Vacanti: You wake up earlier now than you have been for a while.

0:00:29.0 Jordan Syatt: Years, years, years. Yeah, yes sir. You know the key? You know like the one thing that’s helped me tremendously?

0:00:37.8 Mike Vacanti: Go to bed earlier?

0:00:39.2 Jordan Syatt: Well… That’s for sure. That’s for sure. But… I’ll tell you, Michael. The main thing that’s really helped me is… I put my phone across the room. Because if I have it right next to my bed in the morning, the alarm goes off, I can just roll, turn it off and go back to sleep. But I have to get up to get my phone, which I know this sounds so simple and ridiculous, but by the time I’m up and standing and turn the alarm off, I’m like, I’m already up, I don’t wanna get back in bed. It’s done. That’s the key. You put your phone across the room and have a loud fuckin alarm. That’s it.

0:01:30.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s a good move. I like that a lot. Do you feel a sense of superiority? Like you’re better than all of the rest of us with your newfound wake up time?

0:01:41.5 Jordan Syatt: Listen. Yes. [laughter] No, but I do feel superior over my prior self.

0:01:51.8 Mike Vacanti: Wow. That’s awesome.

0:01:55.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I feel superior over who I was just a few weeks ago.

0:02:00.5 Mike Vacanti: You comparing yourself to your prior self instead of to others is… I like to hear that.

0:02:07.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I just know I’m better. I’m better than I was… Because… Because I wake up early.

[laughter]

0:02:18.6 Mike Vacanti: Sounds like Michael Scott, and I’ve watched maybe three episodes of that show. Nice, man.

0:02:25.1 Jordan Syatt: I was trying to get that type of comedic timing down. Listen… Yes. [laughter] He’s a genius. He’s a genius. Don’t get me on that. I know you hate that show.

0:02:38.7 Mike Vacanti: I am dead.

0:02:42.9 Jordan Syatt: Fortunately, you’re not actually dead, but you are still recovering from…

0:02:48.3 Mike Vacanti: Tired.

0:02:48.4 Jordan Syatt: The most worst hangover I’ve ever heard you go through. Ever.

0:02:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Just last week, I was on here talking about how it’s been years since I actually drank and yada yada.

[laughter]

0:03:01.1 Jordan Syatt: I forgot about that. [laughter]

0:03:03.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I had my annual golf weekend. We won.

0:03:06.6 Jordan Syatt: But you won, double champ.

0:03:09.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Back-to-back. Team Stick, defending champs. And then Saturday, I don’t know what happened, but… Lack of sleep, just did not feel good at all on Sunday, and then… Couple that with… I didn’t do any computer work Saturday or Sunday, so then Monday, Tuesday, just a lot of work, not a ton of sleep playing, catch up, and so. Here we are battling it out, making podcasts.

0:03:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude. Champ, champ. You won two years in a row. Golf tournament. Let’s hear the story of the alcohol. Let’s hear how much you drank.

0:03:52.6 Mike Vacanti: There’s not really a story…

0:03:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, there’s a story there.

0:03:53.1 Mike Vacanti: There’s not a story. I just don’t ever drink. And…

0:03:56.2 Jordan Syatt: How much did you drink?

0:03:57.5 Mike Vacanti: The Saturday afternoon rounds. Our team had it pretty much locked up, and so we started drinking…

0:04:03.8 Jordan Syatt: What time did you start drinking?

0:04:07.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t remember. We played 36 on Saturday. We teed off around noon and started… I don’t remember, a whole eight or nine, and then just carried on from then until… Night time?

0:04:22.4 Jordan Syatt: Like 2:00 PM?

0:04:23.6 Mike Vacanti: No. 10:00 PM.

0:04:25.3 Jordan Syatt: No, no. 2:00 PM start.

0:04:26.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, started? Sure, yeah, around there.

0:04:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, 2:00 to 10:00. Yeah. Did you have a lot of Trulys? What’d you have?

0:04:35.6 Mike Vacanti: You’re very interested in this alcohol thing. No, they had High Noons…

0:04:40.2 Jordan Syatt: You brought it up.

[laughter]

0:04:44.4 Mike Vacanti: They had High Noons, which are a Vodka cocktail and I will never touch for the rest of my existence.

0:04:53.6 Jordan Syatt: High Noons. Are they in a can?

0:04:55.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they market them like they’re a White Claw or Truly, but they’re not.

0:05:01.0 Jordan Syatt: And you had some Fireball? Get some Fireball?

0:05:04.5 Mike Vacanti: There was some Fireball on the back nine. There was… Look, I’m not proud.

0:05:10.0 Jordan Syatt: Sounds like a good song name. Fireball in the back nine. [laughter]

0:05:17.5 Mike Vacanti: We’re Rowling for the podcast.

0:05:20.1 Jordan Syatt: So… Are you never drinking again? Ever?

0:05:23.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m never drinking like that again.

0:05:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Ever?

0:05:26.8 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:05:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay. But you’ll have a drink occasionally.

0:05:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but… I don’t know. Five times a year?

0:05:34.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:35.0 Mike Vacanti: I just don’t like drinking.

0:05:37.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:38.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s actually, I’m very fortunate. I’m very fortunate that I don’t enjoy the experience that much, and I definitely don’t enjoy how I feel afterwards, and I don’t like the taste.

0:05:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Good. I’m glad you’re off the sauce. [laughter] Back off on that sauce.

0:05:58.7 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause you were on that sauce. I was on the sauce for an afternoon. And what’s funny is… I mentioned before, this was like… This would have been nothin when I was 22, or through my whole college career. So part of it’s probably aging, part of it’s probably I just don’t do it anymore, and part of it’s probably just being soft, lack of sleep, dehydration, all these things. Anyway, that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here because we have a laundry list of awesome questions, ideas, concepts, things to discuss. Jordan, I’m gonna let you start. I’m gonna let you lead us off.

0:06:36.3 Jordan Syatt: Alright. Is there anyone in particular you just want me to pick?

0:06:40.5 Mike Vacanti: Pick the best one to start with.

0:06:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay. We’ll start with this. I’ve been getting a lot of good feedback on my blood sugar experiment that we’ve got going on right now, and there are a number of questions that people have put in around it. So the first thing someone just asked, @janeclara27 said, “have you done the diet soda spike test?” Which is in reference to many people have always said that diet soda, so stupid, somehow tricks your… Anytime someone says trick, something tricks your body, you can immediately write them off as not knowing what the fuck they’re talking about. So people have said, diet soda tricks your body into thinking that it’s real sugar because of the sweetness. And then there’s one of two things they say. The first thing is, it spikes your blood sugar because it thinks that there’s sugar. The other thing people say is that, it doesn’t spike your blood sugar because it’s not real sugar, but your body thinks there’s sugar.

0:07:46.2 Jordan Syatt: So your pancreas will release insulin in response, so it spikes your insulin. Now, because I’m wearing a continuous glucose monitor, I can test this, and so I did yesterday, or not yesterday, Tuesday, we’re recording on Thursday. Thursday is our recording day, every Thursday. Thursday is like a no fly day for me. I don’t travel, nothing, it’s our recording days. So tested it and surprise, surprise, motherfuckers, diet soda does not spike blood sugar, nor does it spike insulin. And it was cool because if it spike blood sugar, you’d see my blood sugar going up in the CGM. If it didn’t spike blood sugar, but it did spike insulin, we’d see a drop in blood sugar because insulin is essentially what transports blood sugar into the cell. So a spike in insulin without a spike in blood sugar would just lead to often a hypoglycemic response. So you’d have a low blood sugar as a result of it. So.

0:08:50.3 Mike Vacanti: And you had the Diet Coke and your glucose levels remained consistent?

0:08:56.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, when I… The initial baseline was 93 milligrams per deciliter, and an hour later my blood sugar was at 96 milligrams per deciliter. So it was slightly elevated and I’ll discuss this in a second, and then an hour after that, so 2 hours later, my blood sugar was at 83 milligrams per, yeah, no, it’s 86 milligrams per deciliter. So and I was worried when I first posted it because I was like, some uneducated people are gonna say, well, look, it did go up and then it went down. But if you actually look at blood sugar, it’s any, especially if you’re not eating and not fasted for 24 hours, but if you’re not eating, it’s normal to have a blood sugar range really anywhere below 140 and you’re going to have fluctuations considerably. My blood sugar… I think one of the craziest things for me was my blood sugar spiked dramatically when I went really hard in Jiu-jitsu or when I did sprints, I had a blood sugar spike up to almost 160 milligrams per deciliter just from Jiu-jitsu. And…

0:10:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:10:01.1 Jordan Syatt: That was something I didn’t expect, but it does make logical sense because…

0:10:05.9 Mike Vacanti: Wait, fasted?

0:10:07.6 Jordan Syatt: Completely fasted.

0:10:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:10:09.3 Jordan Syatt: Completely fasted. And the reason is because if you’ve fasted, generally if you’ve fasted and you do lower intensity work, or even if you’re not doing, even if you’re not fasted, if you do low intensity exercise, then your body doesn’t need to have extra energy to feel that exercise. But when you’re doing higher intensity work, whether it’s live sparring or high intensity sprinting, whatever it is, even if you’re fasted, your liver will create, it’ll create and then release blood sugar into your bloodstream to fuel that exercise ’cause your body needs more energy. And so when I saw, I was like, man, this just goes against literally everything that all these blood sugar people say, that blood sugar’s evil, because a lot of them will also say, yeah, and do high intensity training to like blah blah, for all that stuff.

0:11:05.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m like, but you don’t understand that that also spikes your blood sugar. So obviously it’s not the spiking of the blood sugar, that’s the issue. So it’s been very cool for me to go through this. I’ve learned so much from this process of tracking it, analyzing it, just studying it. It’s been very very cool. So…

0:11:23.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome. And how’s the response been?

0:11:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Response has been overall good. I would say it’s not as bad as the initial response to the Big Mac Challenge.

0:11:36.7 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:11:37.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So I think, and I think the difference is the Big Mac Challenge was the first time anyone in our end of the industry had done anything like that. So there had been… Like the guy had done the Twinkie Diet before, but no one in our world, like in our relatively small niche.

0:11:56.9 Mike Vacanti: Documented it consistently. Yeah.

0:12:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And I think people were really surprised by it and people were very quick to jump to conclusions about it. You’re promoting this. And I had all the responses ready to go. Like, I’m not promoting this. I said it very clearly, I’m not. I don’t want people to do this. And I think people have sort of gotten it out of their systems by and large to say, this is inherently bad because now they’ve seen the end result of people doing these experiments and know what actually is gonna happen. Whereas before they had no idea. So they were really quick to jump and based on their emotions now, I would say 92% positive response. And then the remainder is a potentially negative response, like 8% people are, you’re harming people, you’re promoting this dah, dah, dah, dah. But overall it’s been been very good.

0:12:49.5 Mike Vacanti: Where… So you gave that range after the Diet Coke. Where is your blood sugar after 60 grams of sugar?

0:12:58.6 Jordan Syatt: You know, it’s really interesting. So… I need to actually test just table sugar. I’m going to test that.

0:13:07.6 Mike Vacanti: Sorry. I meant like 60 of any mostly simple carb. I saw you doing a Gummy something. Gummy Worms.

0:13:16.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So it’s actually really interesting. It depends on it really… It’s very individual and it also really depends on what I’m eating. So two days ago, my breakfast after an overnight fast was four slices of white bread, which was nearly 60 grams of sugar or 60 grams of carbs. Oh no, yeah, it was 60 grams of sugar. It was more, way more carbs than that I believe. I forget what the fuck it was, it depends.

0:13:47.7 Mike Vacanti: It depends on the bread. Some breads are.

0:13:48.6 Jordan Syatt: It depends. Anyway, it was a significant amount of carbs. It was just four slices of white bread. And white bread is actually the standard that they go by in order to determine glycemic index. But my blood sugar spiked more from a breakfast of an egg white omelet with oatmeal and fruit, had a higher peak spike than it did from four slices of white bread, which is wild. But generally speaking, oatmeal produces a big spike in blood sugar, which is interesting because has fiber in it. It’s a relatively, a little bit more of a slower digesting carbohydrate, whereas white bread is very very quickly digesting. So as I’ve been researching this and looking into it and experiencing it, it really is very dependent on what exactly it is you’re eating as well as you the individual. But if I can look and show you at my data, which is just… I think it’s really cool. So yesterday my blood sugar spiked up to 150 after the egg white omelet, oatmeal and fruit, whereas with the white bread, my blood sugar spiked… It’s so crazy. My blood sugar spiked only up to 133.

0:15:11.4 Mike Vacanti: And carbs were close to similar in those two meals.

0:15:14.6 Jordan Syatt: I would say. Yeah, they’re probably about similar. Yeah.

0:15:17.1 Mike Vacanti: That is interesting.

0:15:18.1 Jordan Syatt: Maybe even a little bit less, maybe even slightly less with the egg white omelet and all that, but.

0:15:22.2 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:15:23.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, maybe slight ’cause it wasn’t a big bowl of oatmeal, it was very small, but…

0:15:26.3 Mike Vacanti: It was interesting.

0:15:27.5 Jordan Syatt: It was like one of those like, yeah, it was very interesting. Very very interesting. So I’ve actually…

0:15:33.1 Mike Vacanti: And do you wanna give the punchline just for anyone who might not be following closely on social that’s like, okay and most of those comments are disingenuous, but you’re not promoting a eating one high sugar and sugar only meal per day. You’re saying that your blood sugar levels aren’t relevant to fat loss progress.

0:15:56.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes. That’s a definitely not… There’s a couple things and just like with the Big Mac Challenge I’ve learned, and I’ve added some things on as I’ve been going through it. So number one is the original intent was blood sugar spikes and sugar itself does not inherently prevent you from losing fat. That’s number one.

0:16:14.9 Jordan Syatt: Another main one was the CGM industry has exploded, everyone, people wearing continuous glucose monitors and all this stuff. And it’s actually very interesting ’cause I’ve been speaking with a lot of diabetics, like a lot of diabetics type one, type two, and parents of diabetics and the prices for them have skyrocketed because the demand has gone up. And now what’s what unfortunately has been happening is that a lot of them are having much more difficulty getting their CGMs to manage their blood sugar.

0:16:49.2 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:16:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, because they’re back-ordered, their, the prices are much higher. So one of the things I’ll be talking about in the final video will be like, we should not be using them if your doctor is not like, hey, if your blood sugar’s fine, like you shouldn’t be wearing it. We need to be making sure that the people who have it, who need it can have them. And ideally at a lower cost. I’ve been talking to people.

0:17:10.9 Mike Vacanti: How much do they cost?

0:17:12.8 Jordan Syatt: The one that I have now is 300 a month.

0:17:15.1 Mike Vacanti: 300 a month?

0:17:16.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:17:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Why do you have to pay monthly?

0:17:20.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s a service. I have the CGM and it connects to the app. And in order for it to process all the data and everything, it’s 300 a month.

0:17:29.9 Mike Vacanti: Sounds like an opportunity to get in there and make a $49 a month service and just blow the market out. [laughter]

0:17:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think you’re right.

0:17:40.4 Mike Vacanti: Someone do that.

0:17:43.0 Jordan Syatt: That’ll be another aspect of it. And then the other thing is the one thing that I wish I did with the Big Mac Challenge, I wish I had taken blood work beforehand. I wish I had looked at the before cholesterol, A1C, like looking at everything. And I did do that this time. I got a complete set of blood work done and I’m very excited to compare before and after because the blood sugar people are already pissed and I don’t know what’s gonna happen with my health. It like, who knows, maybe A1C goes up. The difference with A1C is it looks at over three months and this is only one month, so we might not even see a change, but if my health declines based on my blood work, I’ll talk about it and I’ll be very open about it.

0:18:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’ll be interesting. Yeah.

0:18:25.0 Jordan Syatt: It will be very interesting. If it stays the same or potentially even improves the blood sugar crowd is gonna go fucking wild. They’re gonna be livid.

0:18:35.1 Mike Vacanti: How much body fat do you expect to lose?

0:18:38.8 Jordan Syatt: So I’m down considerably already. I started at 152.6 and today it was 147.2.

0:18:46.5 Mike Vacanti: And what day?

0:18:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Today’s day 10. I think. It’s very quick.

0:18:52.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay, well, so you’re down five pounds in 10 days and probably like a pound or two of fat? Yeah. Two pounds of fat.

0:19:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Probably two pounds of fat. The rest water, glycogen, stomach content, all that.

0:19:07.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s like people really like to, for some reason say, “Oh, weight doesn’t matter, body fat doesn’t matter”. Like pretend that there’s no overlap with health and body fat, but when you look at something like this and you look over a fixed period of time and you have someone go lose 30 days isn’t a ton of time like you said, but… Generally when someone is sleeping enough, training consistently, getting some activity in and they lose body fat, assuming they’re not already underweight, their health markers improve.

0:19:45.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, exactly.

0:19:46.6 Mike Vacanti: So that’s what’s expected here. But yeah, I’m glad you’re getting that data too. That’ll be interesting.

0:19:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Let’s see, what else do we got? We got, oh, here’s one. You got excited about when I asked this question, when I read…

0:20:00.2 Mike Vacanti: All right, all right, let’s go.

0:20:01.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m not gonna read their handle, but they said, I definitely don’t wanna read their handle, because if their coach is listening, that’s not gonna be good. Someone said, “how to nicely break up with my new coach that tells me no fruit and to eat the exact same food for a month?”

0:20:18.7 Mike Vacanti: You’re not gonna like my answer. This person asking, I almost hope they don’t hear this because they’re really not gonna like this. But you don’t, like, you made a four month commitment, you made a three month commitment, you made whatever kind of commitment, you stick out with your commitment. In an era of like website articles going back years, Instagram posts, YouTube videos, like assuming this person is putting out content, how did you not know this was part of their philosophy when you signed on for coaching? Like, that’s just a complete lack of homework before signing up for coaching. Now, sure. If this person is promoting something public facing, more of a flexible dieting approach, and then you sign up with them and they’re like, six small meals at these times, these are the exact foods. No, you can’t have fruit, then you don’t have to do it politely. You can do it very bluntly and just cancel your billing and say, you know, sayonara. But otherwise, you know, you made your bed, you gotta lay in it.

0:21:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:21:25.0 Mike Vacanti: I wouldn’t follow the guidelines, assuming they’re relatively extreme like that, but Yeah.

0:21:32.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Like if you, if I think it’s an interesting point, like, if you’ve been following them and they’ve been saying that all along and then you signed on for them, but then you come across someone else’s content and they say you don’t like that, well, you can’t just go in and cancel just because someone else says that. Like you signed on knowing that that’s what you’re gonna do. There obviously is a line though, where even if you knew what you’re getting into, would you, is there some type of a line that you would say like, I don’t know, you’re supposed to eat at… Like you’re supposed to eat, like, yeah, what’s the line?

0:22:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Alright, if I sign up with one of the carnivore guys and I want their nutrition and training protocols, and they tell me I can only eat animal products, I’m not gonna cancel and say, man, this guy says I can only eat animal products. He’s a carnivore guy. Of course. That, like, that’s what I walked into. Now I’m not gonna do it, but I’m just a big, you know what Gary taught us early on? Like…

0:22:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:22:36.5 Mike Vacanti: You know…

0:22:38.2 Jordan Syatt: You have an agreement, you see your agreement through.

[overlapping conversation]

0:22:39.4 Mike Vacanti: Word is bond, you have an agreement, you see out your agreement. Yeah. Hopefully the training programming doesn’t suck, so you’re getting something out of it.

0:22:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Now, let’s say that this person, let’s say that the agreement that the time they agreed upon is already up, but she’s nervous to end the coaching. How would then you go about it?

0:23:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Complete personal preference. Like, I think most people go indirect in that situation, and that’s fine. Thanks so much. This was great. Highlight the two or three things that you enjoyed about the process, wishing you well.

0:23:16.1 Jordan Syatt: I had a business coach once who was not a good business coach, signed on for six months with this person, paid a significant amount of money, and it was supposed to be, we were supposed to have one phone call a month and a whole bunch of other things. And after the first, the first couple of calls, that’s all we had. And then there was no communication. It didn’t go the way that it was supposed to go. And when we were done with those six months, ’cause I paid up front for it. When we were done at those six months, I wanted to write a very honest email explaining how disappointed I was with the service and I held off and I’ve forever been glad that I held off.

0:24:03.3 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:24:04.1 Jordan Syatt: I’ve always been glad that I didn’t send it because, and not because this person and I are friends. We’re cordial. If we see each other, it’s fine. But there have been moments throughout the years where if I had sent that, I think it would’ve caused more harm than good. And I do think there’s a time and a place to be very honest and open and blunt with people. You just have to really weigh the risk versus the reward. And I think if it’s someone in your life who’s like, you’re really close to, family member, friend, something like where you have your relationship with them is incredibly important. I think it actually makes a lot of sense to be very honest with them, because it’s important for the relationship. You can’t harbor that resentment.

0:24:57.5 Jordan Syatt: But if it’s someone in your life who isn’t that important in your life, you might wanna think about, is it really necessary for me to say this? Because you might be burning a bridge and maybe you don’t care, but maybe later you will. So it’s, I think the people who, it’s really the most important, and I think most people go the opposite. They think like, oh, I don’t give a fuck about this person, so I’m gonna say it. But then it comes back to bite them in the ass. And then when it’s someone that they love and they’re really close to, they’re like, no, I don’t wanna say it. I don’t wanna hurt their feelings. But it’s like, no, that’s the person you really need to say it to. And obviously say it in a nice way, but those are the people who really deserve your full honesty. Whereas the people who are not as important parts of your life, I think you can sometimes just not necessarily send it.

0:25:46.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Especially if it’s, I don’t know. You’re just not happy about a certain thing or two about the service for whatever reason. Yeah. But I actually like, so that’s almost the equivalent of, fitness coach making X, Y, Z promises and then not delivering on the promises for the back half of the program.

0:26:14.3 Mike Vacanti: I’d almost be more likely to be honest. And even just like, hey, like candidly, you said new program every four to six weeks, but the last four months of coaching, I didn’t get any new workouts. Like that’s almost something that you can bring up, but.

0:26:29.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep.

0:26:31.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. If you, back to the original question, if you’re past your minimum commitment and you don’t wanna work with this person because they say that fruit makes you fat and you have to eat 17 small meals a day. Like, Hey, thanks so much. I appreciate XYZ and I’m gonna be done after this month.

0:26:47.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I like that. All right. Someone said, “how do you not give into temptation? Like the temptation of having two donuts instead of one?”

0:26:56.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh. Tell…

0:26:57.3 Jordan Syatt: Tell the story?

0:27:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Tell the story.

0:27:03.2 Jordan Syatt: All right. I’ll tell the story and then you tell your story.

0:27:04.5 Mike Vacanti: Sure.

0:27:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Cool. So for this blood sugar challenge, I was finding new ways to spike my blood sugar, one of the recommendations was a donut. So I went to Krispy Kreme and I’ve had Krispy Kreme donuts before, but I’ve never gone to Krispy Kreme before. So at first I try and walk in, then I realize it’s only a drive-through, so I have to get back in my car. I’m going through the drive-through and I’m recording the whole thing for Instagram and for YouTube and stuff. And the woman who’s speaking to me through the drive-through, she’s like, alright, what do you want? I tell her and she’s like, okay, cool. We also have hot ones coming off. Do you want the free hot one? Apparently they give you a free hot donut and just instinctually, I was just like, no, I’m good with just the one. Like, I don’t need more. So I didn’t say all this. I was like, no, I’m good. And people lost it. Like this person being like, how the fuck did you not get the free one? It’s like, it’s free. Why not eat it? It’s like, yeah, now you tell your story.

0:28:03.4 Mike Vacanti: Nothing is free. There’s an opportunity cost to everything. We had I don’t remember what year of university, or it was like an economics class, I don’t remember, but there was a free pizza dinner and everyone in the class could go later that night. But the pizza’s not free. You have the caloric difference between the pizza and what you would’ve otherwise eaten. You have the difference in progress between that meal and a different meal. You have the time you would’ve had to walk all the way to Grainger building to go get the pizza and then walk home versus have your home cooked meal and you save 40 minutes there and whatever your life hourly is like, there’s no such thing as free. And for whatever reason, and I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a dick or arrogant or I don’t know, but like normal people are obsessed with free.

0:29:02.0 Mike Vacanti: And free anything. It’s like, oh, give me that, free this. That’s why every time I go to GNC, they’re like, email like, or phone number. I’m like, no, I don’t have a phone number with you guys. They’re like, well, just give it to me. It’s free. And I assume that converts so well for them. They all say it every single time. I’m like, no, I don’t give you my phone number ’cause I don’t want you to call me. I don’t want you to send me emails about whatever, 5% off this supplement. The donut doesn’t cost any money, but it’s not free.

0:29:34.3 Jordan Syatt: I love that. I love that. It’s also…

0:29:37.1 Mike Vacanti: There’s a non-monetary cost to having it.

0:29:40.6 Jordan Syatt: You know what’s interesting is I love that perspective and it made me think of another cost, the cost of… So this person, I wanna read the question part. She said, “How do you not give into temptation? Like the temptation of having two?” So the cost here is this person believing another cost is them furthering the belief that they can’t say no, that they don’t have the willpower, they don’t have the discipline. So every time that you say yes, well just, yes, it’s not costing you money, but it’s costing you belief in yourself. If you just, oh, I just have to say yes. No, you don’t, you don’t have to say it. And every time you do, you’re paying more into that. You’re paying more for the idea that you don’t have that ability to say no, you don’t have that self-discipline. You don’t have that willpower. So I love that perspective and that view of it’s not free because you’re paying it, you’re paying with something.

0:30:41.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And that’s a great point too. That’s another cost. Instead of that second donut too, then you’re, when you would have had the fiber puffs or whatever they’re called, Bran Buds later on [laughter], it’s like, oh, nope, instead I had an extra Krispy Kreme. Like, I feel slightly worse. Yeah. There’s nothing in this world is free, unfortunately.

0:31:08.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. There’s also something to be said for when I am not in a cut, I might have had it. Like, but if I’m not in a phase in which I’m deliberately trying to do this to lose weight, I’m, yeah, you don’t, whatever, fine. But I’m very much, and I think most people are similar in that if you decide you’re gonna do something, that you actually have a better result if you have very clear guidelines, clear restrictions, like this is what I can do, this is what I can’t do. When there’s more ambiguity, it’s easier to give into temptations because you haven’t set rules for yourself. And so if I didn’t have rules, if I was just on my normal day-to-day and I wasn’t in a mini cut, yeah. There’s a real chance I would’ve gotten it unless like I just wasn’t hungry or I decided I didn’t want to, but because I was doing a mini cut, it’s like, no, this is gonna push me past my calories for the day. And that’s unacceptable for this mini cut. So the answer, it’s not even temptation. It’s like, no, that it wasn’t even a temptation. ‘Cause I had set myself, I’m just gonna have one from the very beginning.

0:32:27.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And if you’re not in a cut… Then sure. Have it if you’re hungry.

0:32:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:34.3 Mike Vacanti: Have it if you want it, have it if it makes sense for you. But if you’re only hungry for one. Yeah.

0:32:42.6 Jordan Syatt: I think it makes sense. Like in these situations, I call them bright lines, having a very clear like, what are you going to do before you get there? What’s your plan? You’re Like… Alright. You know, you’re going to Krispy Kreme like, are you on… What one are you gonna get? How many donuts are you gonna get… Just one. Cool. That’s it. So when they offer you a free one, oh no, no, I’ve decided I’m only getting one. I’ve made an agreement with myself. It’s whatever. And that could be with anything in life, when you make an agreement to do something, even if it’s with yourself.

0:33:12.8 Mike Vacanti: Even if it’s with a coach who tells you you can’t eat fruit.

[laughter]

0:33:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Keep the agreement. Let’s see. “Do you normally avoid candy/high sugar items?” Yes. I normally do avoid them. I’m not prioritizing them in my nutrition. I don’t demonize them, but I do avoid them on a consistent basis. It’s like, I don’t buy them regularly and have them in my house. I don’t deliberately ask my wife to get them at the grocery store. Like, “Hey, would you mind getting a box of Entenmann’s?” That’s like, not what I do. So yeah, I normally do avoid them because they’re not conducive to my goals and to what I want to be having on a consistent basis. But if I do want one and it fits with what I want in that point in time, then I’ll go have one guilt-free.

0:34:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Good answer.

0:34:15.4 Jordan Syatt: What about you, Mike? Do you normally avoid them?

0:34:18.5 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know what normally, like, I’m trying to think of what percentage of my total calorie is high sugar foods, makeup.

0:34:28.8 Jordan Syatt: Probably pretty small?

0:34:31.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Probably 3%-5%. So yeah, I mostly avoid them, but I’m not avoiding them. I’m just focused on eating other things.

0:34:40.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yes.

0:34:41.8 Mike Vacanti: If I’m getting 75 grams of carbs at dinner, it’s rice or sweet potatoes, it’s not like four packets of Gushers or fruit snacks.

0:34:49.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:34:49.9 Mike Vacanti: And it’s not because I’m avoiding the high sugar processed dessert type snack. It’s that, no, this food’s gonna make me feel better. This food’s gonna give me more fuel for longer. This food’s going to improve my health over the longer run, it’s just all of the benefits of the other option, not the… Yeah.

0:35:08.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s not a removal-based mindset. It’s an addition-based mindset. You’re adding the things that you want, not removing the things you don’t want.

0:35:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Correct. And if I’m still hungry after dinner and I have a little sweet tooth, a little ice cream, although I’ve been doing way less ice cream these days, or a rice Krispie treat or a packet of fruit snacks, like sure, I’ll do that. Or maybe I’ll have an apple or, or a peach or, you know.

0:35:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Nice.

0:35:35.0 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:35:36.3 Jordan Syatt: Nice. “Do you have any theories on why many fitness influencers are so against mobility training?”

0:35:45.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t have any theories. I didn’t know fitness influencers were against mobility training. I think…

0:35:53.8 Jordan Syatt: There are a few.

0:35:54.7 Mike Vacanti: I think I’ve been salty and direct enough in this episode, so I’m…

0:36:00.0 Jordan Syatt: No, no, not salt… Dude, you said you were gonna go in on this one. I wanna hear it.

0:36:05.9 Mike Vacanti: There should be a rule that you can only follow like five fitness people.

[laughter]

0:36:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Really, because when you get into this and I, part of me understands the excitement, especially early on, but if you’re following dozens or hundreds of fitness influencers, there’s gonna be a lot of conflicting theories and principles and beliefs, and you’re getting yourself in a worse position than if you, You know, pick a handful who seem reputable and you trust and like go with it and execute on that rather than, a little bit of paralysis by analysis when you’re following so many people and consuming so much information and not knowing what to do or where to take action. But, so my answer is don’t follow so many people, but.

[laughter]

0:37:01.1 Mike Vacanti: I didn’t even know that [laughter] or don’t consume so much short-form content that’s rotting your brain. But you know, what rots your brain more than short-form content though? High Noons. So I can’t really talk right now. [laughter]

0:37:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So anytime I get a question like this, I try and have a conversation because I feel like people, just… People ask these instead of… You should ask the person who’s against it. Like you should say like, “Hey, like why are you against this?” And I bet the majority of them would say, “I’m not against it, but X, Y, Z”. And what I would’ve, what I’ve seen from the people who hate on mobility training is usually their argument is, “Mobility training doesn’t actually make you more mobile.” There’s no… They say things like, “There’s no evidence to support it, da da da da, da”. And they have all their own sets of research studies to support their preconceived notion. So usually what they’re saying is that mobility, they say things like, “Mobility doesn’t reduce your risk of injury”.

0:38:18.0 Jordan Syatt: They say things like, “Mobility training doesn’t actually work.” All these things. And they have all their research studies to support it. One thing that’s important to understand now is everybody has research studies to support whichever theory they have. And I’ve played around with this on ChatGPT a fair amount. I could say, “Hey, give me a study saying this”, boom, sends me the link immediately. And then I could say, “Give me a study saying the opposite”. Boom, sends me the link. So it’s very easy now for anybody. And it was easy before, but it’s even easier now. I think that they say this because they actually believe it. They actually believe that mobility training does not help prevent injury. They actually believe that mobility training doesn’t really work and they’re wrong. [laughter]

0:39:05.9 Jordan Syatt: Like it doesn’t take a long time of coaching people or even just watching people, but especially coaching people to realize how important sufficient mobility really is. It doesn’t take a long time of coaching people to realize who’s the most likely to get injured on a consistent basis. Just looking at someone’s mobility levels or lack thereof. It doesn’t take a long time of watching people as they age to see who’s the most comfortable and who’s not, who can put the dishes in the cabinet overhead, who has enough mobility to do that, versus the person who doesn’t have that mobility and you try and watch them do it. That’s a big, like, that’s a big one.

0:39:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Watching someone with enough mobility when they’re older try and bend down and tie their shoe, watching someone who doesn’t have enough mobility, try and do that. Watching someone who has enough mobility and strength to sit down on a chair versus someone who doesn’t, it doesn’t take much of watching people just to realize how important it is. And we could differ day and night, all day about what’s right and what’s wrong for mobility training. And the reality is like, there are many different ways to train mobility, and they all have merit, just like there are many different ways to get stronger and they all have merit.

0:40:31.2 Jordan Syatt: I’ve generally found I would like to use a little bit of each and have a bigger toolbox than only use one method and have a smaller toolbox. Generally, because each method has pros and cons, and with every method there are gonna be some people that love it and some people that hate it. So you might as well have a little bit of all of it, so then you can use all of it. And if there’s one that you really don’t like, you can spend the least amount of time doing that one and more amount of time doing the things that you actually do like. But there are many different ways to improve mobility. We just have to be aware that the people who say it’s a waste of time one day will change their tune. I promise you that.

0:41:10.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay. “Proper Romanian deadlift technique. I feel like I feel it more in my arms and my back.”

0:41:26.4 Mike Vacanti: This person probably just has… Like a lot of women, stronger lower body relative to upper body. And so grip strength, upper back strength, shoulder strength, simply holding heavy dumbbells, is why she’s feeling it there more than in her glutes, and her hamstrings.

0:41:47.9 Jordan Syatt: I’ve also noticed that oftentimes when, especially with something like an RDL or really any type of lifting, especially if you’re new, you’ll be tensing. You’re like, you’re really tense. You’re doing a movement that you’re not sure of. You’re holding weight probably more than you have before. You’re a little bit nervous. And if you put your arm straight out in front of you, even with no weight and you tense, you tense your arms, what… You immediately feel your triceps, immediately. And I know that there are many people, especially women who when they do this, newer women to weightlifting, they’re gonna reach the bar or dumbbells out too far in front of them. And not because necessarily they’re always actually reaching, but because they’ve tensed their arms so much, like they’re a little bit nervous, and then the arms just go too far forward.

0:42:40.0 Jordan Syatt: And so the key with an RDL is actually keep your arms relaxed. And not to relax your whole body, but if you’re really feeling your arms, you’re probably tensing too much. So relax, keep a little bit more of a loose, try and be a little bit loosey goosey with your arms and with your hands. Just use your hands as hooks. You don’t need to be squeezing the bar super tight just enough to hold it there. Stand your butt back to the wall and you’re good.

0:43:04.5 Mike Vacanti: And keep that weight up against your body. If, like you’re saying, Jordan, with the tensed arms and even like trying to hold it out in front of you is gonna be more difficult to keep the weight in that position.

0:43:16.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:43:17.2 Mike Vacanti: More difficult on the upper traps, more difficult on your shoulders. So that’s something else that will help straps for grip strength on something like an RDL often makes sense.

0:43:29.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Someone just asked me this the other day. I think it was the Inner Circle. I only don’t recommend straps if you’re competing in power lifting, otherwise, go for it. Like if you, and even like, there are many different times where straps are totally fine. Really the only one I don’t is if someone’s power lifting or if their grip strength is just so, so, so, so bad relative to their leg strength, that it’s like, listen, we can’t be continuing to fix this with a bandaid. We’ve gotta get you to actually work on your grip. But most people… My wife has Versa Grips. She loves the Versa Grips. They’re super helpful, especially for dumbbell rows, RDLs, all that stuff.

0:44:12.6 Mike Vacanti: Very good. Hit some good questions here.

0:44:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That was a good one, man.

0:44:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely.

0:44:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Thank you so much for listening. We love you, we appreciate you. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star review, whichever platform you’re listening, iTunes, Spotify, whatever. If you want to join the online Fitness Business Mentorship, so we can help you grow your online fitness business, link is in the show notes.

0:44:40.2 Jordan Syatt: There will be big price changes coming soon. This is not a launch yet. Everyone who’s already in the mentorship, if you’re currently an active paying member in the mentorship, your price will stay the same. But if you are either an inactive member and want to rejoin or if you’ve never been a member and you want want to join, the price structure will be changing in the coming months. I strongly urge you to get in sooner rather than wait because the price is going up and it’s gonna actually be pretty significant. So all current active members, you’re good, your price will not change. So if you want to join now and have that active membership, you’re welcome to. The link is in the show notes. If not, we’d still love to have you. You’re just gonna end up paying us more. Alright, have a wonderful week. We’ll talk to you soon. Bye.